by S. L. Viehl
I looked around, and saw I was back at the Free-Clinic, suspended in a lukewarm solution filling one of the fluid tanks used to treat aquatics. I was also stark naked.
“Don’t move,” Reever said.
“I’m not exactly in the mood for a swim,” I said. “Would one of you mind telling me what’s happened?”
“The contagion has stopped spreading since your contact with the Core. No new cases.” Ana sighed. “The epidemic is over.”
The Core. I recalled everything now. “Not for long. I’ve got to get out of here.” I felt disoriented, my limbs rubbery. “Give me a hand, Duncan.”
“Try not to disturb the fluid,” he said as he leaned over. I saw how he averted his eyes as he reached for me. It was a little late for him to be worried about my modesty.
“Try not to drop me.”
Reever carefully lifted me out. Once I was standing, Ana helped me dry off while Reever sealed the tank.
Puzzled, I asked, “What are you doing that for?”
“To preserve the Core that are still alive. The tank will have to be transported and drained in the groves.”
Just as I thought I couldn’t take any more of the pain and suffocating spasms, my muscles slowly went lax. The heat took longer to dissipate, but in time that passed, too. I was so grateful for the relief that when the bones in my pelvis began shifting around, I hardly noticed.
My immune system had prevented me from giving birth to my daughter in the traditional fashion; after I miscarried Squilyp had transferred her tiny fetus to an embryonic chamber we had constructed. Now that I was in essence giving birth to myself, I wondered how any woman survived such pain.
The fluid began to seep away from me, and my body came to rest on the bottom of the tank as it emptied. I lay there on my side, my eyes closed, my heart thudding under a soft weight. I pressed my hand over it and felt the slope of my small breast.
“Cherijo.” As he had so long ago on K-2, Duncan lifted me out of the tank, and wrapped me in a soft, warm towel. He carried me to a table and gently placed me there. When he straightened, I held on to his arm.
I hadn’t opened my eyes yet. I was afraid to.
Don’t be, Duncan said in my thoughts. The compound worked. You are yourself again.
As Shon began to examine me, I opened one eye and took a quick peek. The female body had never looked quite so beautiful to me.
“Couldn’t you have made me taller?” I asked the oKiaf.
“For that I would have to use Jorenian DNA, and I do not think blue skin would suit you.” He helped me sit up and scanned my back. “You have significant muscle strain and a few tears, but they are already healing.” He infused me with an analgesic. “How do you feel?”
“Sleepy.” I climbed off the table and swayed on my feet, which felt crinkled around the instep. “Wrinkly.”
“I would keep you here, but I think you would be more comfortable in your quarters with Duncan.” Shon turned to my husband. “Signal me at once if her condition changes.”
“I can’t go to bed now,” I protested. “We have to find the shifter and Maggie and Jarn. Stop them”—a huge yawn split my face—“from going back.”
As we passed the immersion tank, I noticed Reever walking oddly, as if he was trying to block my view of it.
I stopped and looked up at him. “What are you doing?”
He forced a smile. “I am taking you to our quarters.”
“No, you’re not.” I tried to look around him, and he countered my move. “I’m not moving until you let me look at it.”
Slowly he stepped back, and I saw that Shon had sealed the open top of the tank, and covered the entire unit with a clear plas biohazard shroud.
The inside of the tank was covered in a thin, shimmering layer of black crystal.
I did go with Reever to our quarters, but only to cleanse and change into a fresh uniform. After seeing what Shon had removed from my body, I doubted I’d ever close my eyes again.
“Why didn’t I feel it?” I muttered as I yanked a brush through my damp, tangled hair. Reever came up behind me, pried the brush from my tight fingers, and began doing a much better job. “There had to be, what, ten kilos of that waste inside me?”
“Twelve point three.”
“Twelve. Jesus, that’s the same as having triplets.” I handed him a clip. “Why dump all that black crystal in me? He had to know it would have killed me—should have killed me—almost immediately.” And I still wasn’t sure why I was breathing.
“You said that Maggie used you as a vessel for the last of the infinity crystal,” my husband said. “Perhaps Joseph hoped to preserve some of the black crystal in the same manner.”
“Go back in time to keep it from being created, but put some in your clone first for safekeeping. Sure, that makes sense.”
As soon as he clipped the braid he had woven in my hair to the back of my head, I stood and went to the viewport. Joren was gone, and we were moving toward another solar system.
“Xonea is pursuing the Odnallak craft,” Reever said, answering my next question before I could ask it.
I turned around. “He thinks they have me.”
“He saw the security vids; we were not sure we could convince him otherwise,” Reever said. “Cherijo, while you were in the tank, we received a signal from TssVar. Some of his commanders have taken their ships and left Varallan.”
“What?” I had been so sure we could count on the Hsktskt to help protect Joren and oKia, the last two uninfected worlds, at least long enough to give us time to find a solution. “Why?”
“The commanders of the League fleet are not responding to any signals or League base command. They have left Sol Quadrant, and their trajectory indicates that they are en route to Varallan.”
“The Hsktskt wouldn’t run from that.”
“Long-range scans indicate that ships from other worlds have joined them.” He hesitated, and then added, “The fleet now has over ten thousand ships.”
While the Hsktskt barely had two thousand. No wonder the commanders had deserted. “Do you think the black crystal is controlling the League fleet?”
“That, or the League commanders have decided to invade Joren and oKia in order to escape it.” He stopped me from heading to the door panel. “You have been through an extraordinary ordeal, Cherijo. You have to rest sometime.”
“I can sleep when I’m dead.” I frowned as I remembered how I’d felt when I’d faced the prospect of being awake for all eternity. “Did Shon detect any crystal in my bloodstream?”
“He scanned you several times while you were in the tank. You shed all of the black crystal in your system, and he did not detect anything else.” He studied my expression. “What is it?”
“I took those blood samples when I was infected with the infinity crystal. They should have contained traces of it.” And now that the retroviral compound had altered my DNA, it should have also deposited the infinity crystal in my bloodstream, but when I performed a quick scan of myself, I found no trace of it. “Well, at least my bones won’t crystallize before the League comes and starts a new war.”
Reever and I went to Command, where my presence seemed to stun the flight officers. The captain overcame his shock soon enough; he called for security and ordered Reever away from me.
“I’m not a shifter, Xonea,” I snapped. “If you don’t believe it’s me, signal Medical. Shon has all the scans to prove it.”
Xonea did just that, but even after the oKiaf assured him of my identity, he seemed unconvinced. “I saw you abducted by the Odnallak.”
“No, you saw a nurse who was alterformed to look like me.” Given my ClanBrother’s dislike of Jarn, I decided not to elaborate further. “Have you been able to locate the Odnallak craft?”
“We will intercept them within the hour.” He lowered the pulse rifle he had trained on me. “Why did you not signal me before this?”
“In the shape I was, you wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me,” I a
ssured him.
One of the com officers handed Xonea a datapad, which he read and passed back. “The Ruling Council has ordered me to return to Joren.”
“We can’t go back yet,” I said. “We have to stop the Odnallak from creating another rift.”
“The council has received an ultimatum from the commander of the League fleet. Our people and the refugees we are harboring must leave Joren, or they will attack.”
“It’s the black crystal. It knows it can’t invade the planet by itself or by using infected refugees,” I explained. “So now it’s trying to get the people to leave so it can attack them in space. I bet the League made the same threat to oKia.”
“They signaled them after contacting the council,” Xonea confirmed. “What will it do if we do not leave our homeworld?”
“It has ten thousand ships under its control,” I reminded him. “With that kind of firepower, they could bombard the planet from orbit. Joren wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The captain’s expression grew thoughtful. “Do you believe this Odnallak can put an end to the black crystal invasion?”
“I don’t know. But if anyone can, it would be him or Maggie.” I sighed. “If he is successful in returning to the past, he intends to destroy the Jxin. If he does that, then the black crystal won’t be created. Neither will any other species in our time.”
Xonea summoned his com officer. “Signal the homeworld. Inform the Ruling Council that at this time I respectfully decline to follow their orders.”
Seventeen
Reever and I went back to Medical and joined Shon, who had been scanning the minerals my body had shed in the tank.
“It is black crystal,” he confirmed, “but it is inert.”
“It’s just taking a nap,” I said. “I suggest we blow it out an air lock before it wakes up and attacks the crew.”
“I do not believe it will.” He handed me the scanner he’d been using on the tank. “See for yourself.”
I checked the display, and saw the usual readings for the mineral’s atomic structure, element content, and energy levels. “Unknown, unknown, and what the hell is this?” I glanced up. “It’s turned into rock?”
“As I indicated—the crystal does not contain any energy, and it is no longer generating it.”
“It’s dead.”
He shrugged. “For want of a better word.”
“It’s a trick.” I saw Reever by the tank. “Duncan, don’t you even think about it.”
He placed a hand on the side of the tank. “I feel nothing.” Before Shon and I could stop him, he thrust his hand through the infuser port. Hunks of black crystal fell to the bottom of the tank as he pulled one of the formations free and drew it out.
“Do you have a death wish? Shon, seal the room.” I looked around frantically for a specimen container.
“It is harmless now.” Reever brought it over and offered it to me.
Without thinking, I swiped it from him. “It eats planets, Reever, so I hardly . . . think . . .” I looked down at the eight-sided crystal shaft, which sat in my hand like a pretty, harmless bauble. “Shon.”
“It is as he says.” The oKiaf took the crystal from me and held it up to the light. “It refracts the light as any prism would. I can feel nothing from it.” He gave me a direct look. “You neutralized it.”
“Wait a minute, I didn’t do anything,” I argued.
“The shifter placed the black crystal in your body because he must have known you would survive being infected with it,” Reever said. “Just as you survived carrying the infinity crystal.”
“My immune system is great, but it’s not that great.” I turned to Shon. “The blood samples you used to alterform me had to contain infinity crystal; I took them when I was infected with it. That’s what must have happened.”
He shook his head. “I found traces of three-sided crystal embedded among the black formations. Also in an inert, harmless state.”
I refused to believe I had anything to do with this. “Maybe they neutralized each other.”
“Or your body did. There is something else I discovered from the readings I took during the alterformation process,” Shon said. “Something the shifter brought out of dormancy when he separated you into two beings. I confirmed it when I compared your sequences to Maggie’s.”
“I know I have Odnallak DNA,” I told him. “Don’t remind me.”
“You were created with Odnallak DNA, and bioengineered with Terran DNA to appear human,” he agreed. “But you also have chromosomes that are identical to the Jxin’s. Approximately twenty-three.”
“What does that mean?” Reever asked.
“It means that Joseph cloned me from his cells,” I said slowly. “But Maggie added some of her DNA.” I met his gaze. “It means Maggie is my mother.”
A warning signal came over the com, and I went over to answer it. “Medical Bay.”
“Cherijo, we have intercepted the Odnallak craft,” Xonea said. “The shifter is not responding to our signals. Readings indicate that the craft is on a direct course for an unidentified, newly formed anomaly.”
“He has also created a new rift,” Shon said.
“Cherijo, we can pursue the Odnallak, but not before he reaches the anomaly,” Xonea told me.
I knew what he was saying. The crew of the Sunlace had barely survived the first passage we had made through the derelict’s rift, and our ship was still in desperate need of repairs. But if the shifter escaped into the past and destroyed the Jxin, we would wink out of existence, and none of this would matter.
I exchanged a long look with my friend and my husband. “Under the circumstances, ClanBrother, the only thing I can advise is that we follow them in”
“Agreed,” he said. “Prepare for time transition.”
We barely had enough time to alert the medical staff before the Sunlace reached the rift. As Xonea issued orders for the crew to brace for impact, Reever and Shon and I left the immersion room and joined my staff. I didn’t mind Reever pulling me into his arms as the first of the rift’s lights appeared around us.
If we didn’t make it this time, there was no place I would rather have been.
The passage was just as cold and frightening as it had been the first time, but it didn’t seem to last as long. When we emerged from the blinding light, we were on the deck but uninjured. This time everyone regained consciousness almost immediately.
“Something’s already changed,” I said, spreading my hand over an odd lightness in my abdomen. “Do you feel that?”
Shon touched his chest. “Yes.” He opened the front of his tunic, and revealed the touch- healer marks in his fur. Now there were three: one golden, one black, and a new silver mark between them. “What does it mean, Cherijo?”
“I don’t know.” I looked at Reever, who was studying his hands. “What is it?”
“My scars.” He showed me the smooth backs of his hands. “They have disappeared.”
“Our coming here may have already altered our timeline.” I didn’t feel changed in any way, however, and my memories were still intact. So were Reever’s and Shon’s, or they wouldn’t have noticed the subtle changes. I went to the nearest console and signaled Command. “Xonea, where are we?”
“We are in orbit above Jxinok,” he said. “The Odnallak has just entered the upper atmosphere and is preparing to land.”
I looked at the men. “Notify launch bay. We’re going after them.”
The jaunt from the ship to the surface gave me time to think, although I still didn’t know what we could do to stop the shifter. Nor did I know what power he would have with the infinity crystal in his possession. The only hope I had was what my body had done to the crystal in the immersion tank. Maggie had told me over and over that both crystals couldn’t be destroyed. I knew from my encounters with the black crystal that it was impervious to everything. How had I managed to neutralize them?
The Jxin use the infinity crystal to create life. The Odnallak cre
ated the black crystal, which destroys it. What am I missing?
We landed a few minutes after the Odnallak touched down, near a small Jxin settlement. We found the shifter’s craft, but it was empty.
“They have gone to the village,” Shon said, pointing to two sets of footprints in the dirt, and a third set of elongated marks between them.
Reever knelt and touched the soil. “She must be unconscious. They dragged her.”
I hadn’t thought of how this must be for him. “We’ll get her back, Duncan.” And then I’d be gracious and let him go to her. Somehow.
The settlement appeared to be much more primitive, with dwellings built close to the ground out of crafted wood and quarried stone. The people we saw as we walked into the settlement were also different—dressed in handmade garments, and using hand-tooled implements. I saw the faces of children, young adults, and elderly people among the settlers, and caught a glimpse of a cleared field beyond the tree line, and planted crops.
“Just how far back did we come?” I murmured to Reever as the Jxin settlers noticed us and began walking toward us.
“It appears we are in the time before their first industrial age.” Reever stepped forward and held out his hands in a peaceful gesture. After some hesitancy, one of the older men came and took his hands.
My husband closed his eyes as he absorbed the Jxin’s language. Then he spoke to him and the settler replied at length.
“They saw them pass through the settlement,” Duncan told us. “They were headed for the quarry.” He exchanged a few more words with the settler, who nodded. To us he said, “This male will guide us there.”
Another man called out something in a loud, unpleasant voice. Most of the other settlers gave him some placid looks but didn’t respond. After a few moments he stalked off in disgust, followed by three other scowling settlers.
“Let me guess,” I said, watching them go. “Those are the undesirables.”
The friendly settler gestured for us to follow him, and led us along a winding trail with deep ruts into the forest. We emerged from the trees onto a rocky plain, the center of which had been dug out in tiers that descended out of view. I noticed the sunlight glittering on some of the stones, and bent to pick up a small pebble near the edge of the pit. It was studded with tiny golden crystals.