Time Past

by Maxine McArthur

  I peered in the doorway of the sleeping quarters and was surprised to see my other possessions: a red, gold, and orange scrap quilt, folded on the bed beside a small pile of nonregulation clothing, including a pair of battered running shoes. Someone had also laid out my paper books, a couple of small ornaments, and a red lacquer box inside a clear case. The lacquer box contained medal ribbons, a couple of old coins, a magnetic stud from my first construction job, and an old locker key.

  Nice of Murdoch to try to make me feel more at home. But like the unfamiliar faces in the corridors, it merely heightened my feeling of being out of place. Part of me wanted to linger in the past. It had only been a couple of hours, for goodness’ sake. Less than a day since Will died. Less than a day since I’d been a hundred years away. Less than a day since I’d been so desperate to get back here, where I’d imagined I belonged.

  I paced from desk to wall, around the comfortable chairs and the convenient low table. On twenty-first century Earth they called the disturbance in people’s diurnal rhythm when they traveled from one time zone to another “jet lag.” So what was I experiencing now? “Time lag”?

  The photoimage on the desk caught my eye and I stopped to look at it properly. Speaking of the past...

  It was a monotone, 2-D photograph; the only thing my great-grandmother left me. The paper inside the clear casing was in its original form, faded and tattered around the edges.

  Five women stood together on dusty ground beside a great fig tree, in front of a rough concrete wall. My great-grandmother, tall and scowling at the camera. Marlena Alvarez, plump and calm. Three others who had risked everything to say to the militia and the police and the gangs, enough is enough.

  Five women beside a tree. In a town that had nothing. During the last decade of Earth’s purely human history. In seven years the Invidi would arrive and everything would change.

  The photoimage was as familiar as the reflection of my own face. I’d looked at those figures all through the blockade and drawn comfort from them. But then I went to their century and saw the world behind the image. Instead of a window into another world, the photoimage was now a facade covering a world not so very different from our own.

  Alvarez seemed to look directly at me, a frown creasing her heavy brows. If our world is like yours, she seemed to say, what are you going to do about it?

  It’s all right for you, I thought. You never had any problem with the difficult choices. You never did anything and wondered later if you’ve screwed up completely.

  In the out-town, Jocasta’s neutrality problems had seemed a long way away. Now they loomed immediate and complex. So what? a voice inside me scoffed. Like Stone said, you’re not head of station anymore. You should have known they’d find out about Calypso II, the voice persisted, and relieve you of duty, but you went ahead with it anyway.

  I went ahead with it because getting the jump drive to the Nine is important. In the long run. I wondered if Alvarez would have seen the logic behind trying to keep hold of the Invidi ship. I didn’t want to look at her photoimage. She wasn’t the person I’d imagined, and even then I couldn’t live up to her.

  I turned to the bed and picked up each item of clothing, the books, the box. My hand shook as I held it and the things inside rattled. Things that were memoirs of a time when it was all right for me to be just an engineer.

  Maybe it’s not Alvarez who isn’t the person I thought she was.

  We couldn’t have stayed in 2023 and explained to Grace, could we? It wouldn’t have worked. An Serat knew what I’d do because I’d already done it. The whole thing, the whole stupid loop was a setup. That’s what Invidi do— they let you act, and it turns out to be for them. No use thinking if I hadn’t entered the competition, if I hadn’t trusted Levin, if I hadn’t salvaged Calypso, if we’d stayed...

  A brief vision of what it might have been like flashed through my mind. What if we could have helped the police catch Levin? We could have helped Grace cope. The many-colored kaleidoscope of possibilities opened, then shut, leaving the gray present shutting tighter around me.

  With a spasm of anger I hefted the box, ready to throw. Anger at An Serat, at the Confederacy, at myself... I didn’t know what, but dammit, I wanted to smash something.

  We had to choose—go or stay. We had to choose—clean up that mess or deal with the mess in our own time. And how I was going to do that, I didn’t know.

  My eyes met those of Alvarez and I let the box drop back on the bed. “Well, what do you think I should do?” I said idiotically, and began to cry.

  Twenty

  From where I sat on the bed, the time indicator on the interface panel in the other room was a green blur. I wiped my eyes on the back of my ConFleet blue sleeve—dark navy, not EarthFleet sky blue. For years I’d resisted changing my Engineering corps maroon for this color, now I was stuck with it, for a while anyway.

  When I focused, the green numerals said 0800. That couldn’t be right. I’d only sat sniveling here for a few minutes.

  The door buzzed.

  “Door open,” I said, then hurriedly wiped the rest of my face.

  Murdoch peered inside, then came in. He carried a handcom and wore a nonregulation soft shirt over fatigues trousers, which made him look more like Bill McGrath of the out-town than Chief Murdoch of EarthFleet Security. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Right now I needed Chief Murdoch’s advice rather than Bill’s.

  He stood in the doorway of the sleeping room. “You still up? It’s 0300 here.”

  I peered at the timer again. The eight was indeed a three. “That would mean something if we knew how much time passed while we were in the Invidi ship.”

  “A hundred years or so, wasn’t it?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He looked at my red eyes, then dropped his own sympathetically. “Yeah. Felt like a couple of hours.”

  The pain in his voice was too close to how I’d been feeling. I looked away so I could blink back the tears without Murdoch seeing. A sharp-edged lump blocked my throat when I tried to swallow. Talk. Talk so the lump will have to go away.

  “Bill, why did Levin do it?”

  His mouth was tight, holding in emotion. “I told you, I don’t know. Could’ve been trying to see how strong the Invidi were. An attack on U.N. authority. A way to get rid of us…”

  Levin had used us and there was no way we could get back at him. We’d been made fools of by a dead man.

  “Is there anything in the files on him?” I said.

  “Nope, I already checked. Doesn’t mean he never did anything worse, though. Just that he never got found out. Or that the records were lost in the crashes of the thirties and forties, like a lot of that official stuff.”

  “But they didn’t catch him for the bomb?”

  “Like I said, we don’t know. The records aren’t good enough. We knew there’d been some kind of assassination attempt. But no details.” His voice roughened suddenly and he cleared his throat. “What are we going to do about this ship?” He put the handcom on the desk. “That’s an update on our situation with ConFleet, by the way.”

  He turned his back on the monitor and sank into one of the low chairs with a groan of tiredness. “Basically, if they come and get us, all we can do is file a complaint with the nearest EarthFleet rep from inside our Confederacy cells.”

  I left the sleeping room and sat in the chair opposite him. “What about you? Weren’t you transferred?” He grimaced. “Officially I’m still on leave. I’m hoping they’ll accept me bringing you back as proof that I’m a good lad and listen to my request for the transfer to be rescinded.”

  But if I have to be tried under Earth law back on Earth, I want you there, I nearly said.

  “You know, Halley.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped loosely between them. “You might be able to wriggle out of the Calypso II charges with only a fine. After all, there’s no proof now that it was a jump drive. And as for appearing
on that ship, I can say an Invidi lent it to us after setting it to arrive here. But if we hang on to it now, we’ve got no excuse.”

  “I know,” was all I could come out with. All my reasons and excuses had disappeared.

  “I reckon we’ve got twenty-four hours at most,” he said. “That’s how long it took them to respond when we had the Danadan warship here, and after you told them about the treaty.”

  “Bill, you know how important it is that the Nine gain access to the jump drive,” I finally managed. I glanced at the photoimage of Las Mujeres, but it was at an angle where I couldn’t see the front.

  “Yeah, I can see that. And I’m no fan of the Four.” He reached out and grasped my wrist. “But how important is it to the station? Stone was right in one way—how is this going to help the neutrality vote?”

  I wished he hadn’t done that. The warmth of his touch triggered feelings that were inextricably linked with Henoit’s presence.

  “Stone is worried about the reputation of the station if we don’t do what the Confederacy wants us to,” I said. “But the Confederacy is the one that should be worried if they force their way in here.”

  “You mean, if they break the neutrality provision? It hasn’t been confirmed or ratified yet.”

  “I know. But if the Four, represented by ConFleet, were seen to be interfering before the whole Confederacy Council has considered the case, maybe it would get us sympathy votes.”

  He let go of my wrist and rubbed his face. “Not from Earth, it won’t.” His voice was muffled. “External Affairs is disgusted with having to leave us to even temporary neutrality. They see it as losing a colony.”

  “They should see it as gaining an ally.” The current Earth admin’s attitude had always been two-faced. They expected us to follow their directions but never pushed our interests with the Confederacy. They abandoned Jocasta to the Seouras blockade, then moaned about us losing faith in them.

  “So how does keeping the Invidi ship help the neutrality vote?” said Murdoch.

  “The Nine also vote. Maybe some of them will support us.”

  “I just don’t see...” He stopped, looked at me, then continued determinedly. “I understand why we need neutrality. We can’t risk the Confederacy leaving us to the wolves like last time and we can’t go back to being an Earth colony. Fine. But I don’t see how getting the jump drive to the Nine is going to help any of us here and now.”

  I thought of Alvarez, and was glad the photoimage was hidden from where I sat. I rubbed my eyes, and wished I hadn’t, because they were raw and stung.

  “I’m not sure I know either.” I’ve been chasing it so long, though, it’s hard to think I might be wrong.

  He said nothing, for which I was grateful.

  “I think it’s important we understand why An Serat was experimenting with Tor technology,” I said finally. “If it is possible to create jump points off the network, surely we don’t want the Invidi to have a monopoly on that information, too?”

  “I dunno.” Murdoch ran both hands over his head. “Is it any better for us or the H’digh or the Bendarl to have it?”

  “The Bendarl will get it anyway, if the Invidi have it,” I said sourly.

  “If it is Tor technology, how did Serat get it?”

  I’d thought about that. When Earth was connected to the jump network and we started learning about the rest of the galaxy, we found that the Tor-Invidi war had been going on for decades. That war must have continued from before the Invidi came to Earth, I now realized, if An Serat had used Tor technology in 2023, Earth time. The war never directly concerned humans and had always been part of the background of the Confederacy. When Jocasta was given to Earth, of course, it became a more personal matter, because we had to deactivate the Tor elements of the station, and they did not cooperate.

  The little we knew of the Tor was from their savagely active technology. What kind of species, we’d wondered, would create artificial intelligences whose prime directive seemed to be to take over any other kind of mechanism? The Invidi told us nothing. Any query about the Tor met with a dead end. In popular mythology they were variously represented as monsters, half machine half life form, and as gods. It was frustrating to have information kept from us, and, in the case of rebuilding Jocasta, it had proved fatal for many members of the engineering crews.

  “Maybe Serat salvaged something from the conflict, like I did with Calypso II, ” I said. “It could have been an official experiment to merge Tor and Invidi technology, but then why would Serat go to such trouble to make it an obviously Invidi ship on the outside?”

  Murdoch nodded. “There’s some secrecy there. Otherwise why has Serat been up against the rest of the Invidi for years?”

  “We’ve only Barik’s word for that.” At the end of the Seouras blockade, Barik had implied Serat’s helping Calypso had been without the knowledge of the other Invidi.

  “But the Sleepers said the same thing,” said Murdoch. “And Serat was definitely connected to the New Council. No respectable Invidi would work with those terrorists.”

  The New Council of Allied Worlds had tried to take the jump drive from Calypso because An Serat had told them about its existence.

  “Anyway,” I said, suddenly tired of speculation, “I think we should know as much as we can about the ship and what Serat’s been doing. The more we know, the more bargaining power we have.”

  “Break their monopoly on information?” Murdoch shook his head. “We can try, I suppose. But you’ll have to work fast. Because when ConFleet comes to get it, we’re going to have to give it to them pretty damn quick.”

  I nodded. He smiled, and reached out to touch my hair lightly. “You...” His voice trailed off.

  It felt good. Henoit’s presence touched the back of my mind as Murdoch’s fingers had touched my hair. I knew this was not the time or place, but it was hard to look away.

  We sat staring at each other across the little table with its EarthFleet logo: a rounded arrow shape against one large star, symbolizing Earth, and three smaller ones, symbolizing Mars and the colonies of Europa and Titan.

  This is ridiculous. We haven’t even kissed since that night in the out-town before the Invidi arrived. Keep your mind on business, Halley.

  “Bill, how can I investigate that ship if I’m under arrest?”

  He smiled wryly. “You haven’t technically been charged with possession of jump technology because there’s no solid proof. I mean, Calypso II isn’t here. After all those records disappeared, I reckon they’ll have trouble proving you did anything wrong at all.”

  “Maybe they’ll ‘find’ those records if they need them.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. But my report says you’re assisting us to answer questions regarding EarthFleet resources used in your research activities. The charge will probably be misappropriation of funds. We’ll refer the suspicion of possession—that’s for appearing here in an Invidi ship—to the Confederacy when we’ve finished here, like we do with any Confederacy offense.”

  “Possession has always been fully prosecuted. And Con-Fleet will court-martial me.”

  “I think you should talk to deVries about that.” He meant Lorna deVries, the chief magistrate.

  “Veatch said he’d talk to her. I’ll give him a bit longer, then call her.” I yawned hugely. “Sorry.”

  “I’m sorry about the quarters.” Murdoch waved his hand at the room.

  “It’s fine. Thanks for getting my things out. My old room is being used, I suppose.”

  “We had a big staff quarters rearrangement a few months ago,” he said. “I signed for your stuff, being executor and all, but Helen Sasaki took care of putting it in storage. Getting it out tonight was her idea.” He seemed about to say more, but stopped. There was a silence full of something.

  “I’m sorry you got dragged into this.” As I said it, it struck me that it should have been said sooner.

  He snorted. “If I’d been worried about that, I wouldn’
t have gone looking for you in the first place.”

  More silence. I looked at his hands again, then at the dark curve of his forearm. His closeness filled all my senses except for the sixth, within which Henoit’s presence stirred up and down my skin in a shivering wave.

  I stood up abruptly. “We’d better get some rest. I need to be fresh to look at that ship.”

  Murdoch stood up, too, and shoved the table to one side with his knee. “Are you really sleepy?”

  His arm slid up mine. I forgot Henoit and stepped into Murdoch’s embrace, my body pressed against his, our faces close in the first tentative nuzzles of a kiss. His tongue licked the edge of my jaw and I reached up impatiently to turn his mouth to mine.

  Déjà vu. We’d kissed like this in the out-town. The night before the Invidi arrived, the night of the fire. Will interrupted us. The pang of loss cut through pleasure. Murdoch felt the change and drew back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  As if in answer, the door buzzed.

  “Bloody hell,” said Murdoch and took his hands away from my waist.

  “Door open,” I said hoarsely.

  This time it was Veatch. He came in and stood, antennae drooping apologetically, just far enough inside the door for it to shut again.

  “Commander Halley, please excuse this intrusion. Chief Murdoch, I was hoping to confirm your availability at 1000 hours to discuss and process the filework for your investigation.”

  “Veatch, why didn’t you use your comm link?” I said.

  “I did not wish to disturb you if you had retired.”

  He could have asked the interface if my room was on rest cycle. He must have something on his mind that he couldn’t ask or say outright. The telltale signs of discomfort were there: antennae curled tighter than usual, shuffling four or five handcoms in front of him.