Timediver's Dawn

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Call me Sammis, Nerlis.”

  A gust of wind tugged at my sheets, and Nerlis slid the window almost shut as the rain began to pelt against the pane. She went back into the corridor, presumably to check on other windows.

  The rest of the cheese was still waiting, still stale. I could have eaten the chyst I had started, brown as it had become, if I’d been in the damps, but I picked up the pearapple instead and finished it in five bites. Then I took a deep swig of the Sustain, not because I liked the swill, but because I wanted out.

  After that, I picked up the notebook, the one with the theories on the Laws of Time in it, and began to read again.

  When the thunder and rain had died away, and the room was getting stuffy again, I tossed back the sheet and walked to the window, opening it wide. Then I went to the narrow wardrobe. Not a stitch of clothing.

  I laughed. I hadn’t been wearing anything when I had collapsed. I didn’t get back into the bed, but wrapped the robe around me and sat in the chair.

  Hatred. There was so much of it. Westron hated Eastron; the farmers and townies hated the gentry; the ConFeds hated the Secos; the gentry hated the Temple; and everyone hated the witches—and the Frost Giants. Mellorie was close to hating me because I refused to hate the people I had killed.

  The room began to darken, both from the clouds and the twilight, but I wasn’t cold. And I was tired of the bed, tired of lying around getting fattened up, tired of studying theories, no matter how valuable they might be.

  “Your friend was a little upset.” Nerlis carried a tray. “Can I just eat it here?” I stood up, put the notebooks in a pile on the floor, and wheeled the bed table over.

  Creeakkk.

  “Turn it the other way.” Nerlis set the wooden tray on the just-lowered table.

  At its lowest setting, the table was higher than I would have preferred. What surprised me was that I was, if not hungry, certainly able to eat the food before me—slices of cold roast, jellied rice, sprouts, greens, and a pair of biscuits with some flambard preserves.

  “Watching you eat just amazes me. You eat more than most guardsmen.”

  “It amazes me, too,” I muttered between mouthfuls. I wanted out of the place, and, if it took eating everything in sight, so be it.

  As I continued to munch, Nerlis left me with the diminishing pile of food and my thoughts.

  The breeze had died as the air cooled, and outside the clouds were breaking up. In the west, the clouds glistened a greenish pink, underlit by the setting sun.

  Terwhit . . . terwhit . . .

  Whatever bird called, the sound was better than the harshness of the grossjays, those scavengers that had fed so well on the looting and burning following the Frost Giant attacks.

  Terwhit . . . terwhit . . .

  After pushing the table back from the straight-backed, two-armed wooden chair I stood and made my way to the window. Studying the dimming southern sky, and trying to pick out stars between the scattered clouds, I wondered if I could go undertime and follow a straight line to each.

  The pinkness of the dying sunset faded into purple, then near-black.

  One bright point of light emerged from behind a cloud. More properly, the fast-moving cloud left it unobscured in the evening, glittering and untwinkling above the dark and lightless building housing the Far Travel Lab.

  Mithrada—the next planet inward from Query; host to the ill-fated planet-forming and metal-mining expedition that had brought on the Frost Giant attacks; evening or morning star to how many generations?

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. When swallowing didn’t help, I tried thinking. Except my thoughts skittered from crazy Mellorie to Allyson, and whether Mellorie could dive or not, I would have traded her for sweet, perceptive and intelligent Allyson without an instant’s hesitation.

  Those memories didn’t help the lump in my throat, either, especially recalling lying in the darkness with Allyson, holding her and being held. In addition to a heavy throat, I was having trouble seeing, and my cheeks were wet. Above it all, Mithrada glittered, like a heartless diamond in the sky.

  Terwhit . . . terwhit . . .

  Hearing the unknown bird helped, and I hoped he or she would call again, as I listened and the darkness deepened. In time, another cloud obscured Mithrada, and I turned back to my bed.

  “Oh . . .” I mumbled, barely keeping myself from jumping at the sight of someone in the chair. I glanced through the undertime to avoid the darkness.

  The woman in the chair was Wryan, and there were deep circles under her eyes. My food tray had been removed while I had thought and looked and looked and thought. I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Troubles?” I asked. “I’m sorry. Have you been here long?”

  “Not too long, and it was peaceful to sit here and watch you, and listen to the wind.” She paused. “There are always troubles, Sammis.” She took a breath that verged on a sigh before continuing. “I understand that you had a few of your own this afternoon.”

  “Did Nerlis call you?” My tone was snappish.

  “No. She told me when I came. It works better if I announce my arrival officially.” There was a trace of wryness in her tone.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. My legs were a little stiff from standing so long. Otherwise, I felt fine.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I couldn’t help grinning as she used the same words I had employed earlier. “Yes . . . and no.”

  Wryan sat there waiting.

  “Either Mellorie’s not quite sane, or I’m not quite sane, or maybe we’re both crazy.” I found that the table had been raised and moved back to its place beside the bed. I took a gulp of Sustain before saying another word. Verlyt, I wanted out.

  Wryan sat there, leaning forward, her left arm propped on the chair, her chin resting on her left hand, and her right arm loosely in her lap.

  “She came to apologise about not being able to help me. She has this . . . fear . . . about sickness. That didn’t bother me—except that I didn’t realise I owe you—but when I tried to tell her what happened, she didn’t hear me.”

  Wryan watched, waiting for me to go on.

  “It was easier for her to believe I was sick, and that she had let me down, than it was for her to hear how horribly those ConFeds died. All she said was that they deserved it. Every instant of agony. Because they raped her—or worse.” I shook my head. “I know she was hurt. I know her father was killed at Nepranza. But she’s alive. They’re not. Some of them were innocent.

  “Like the woman who blew her brains out with her dead lover’s gun. She didn’t rape Mellorie. Or the young soldier my age . . . or . . .” I slid off the bed and walked back to the open window. For some reason, I didn’t want to look at Wryan, perhaps because she was a woman.

  “Some of them deserved the gas. But every one of them died. Odin Thor knew they would. I should have, but I was too busy proving that I could do it to think about what it meant. When they were all dying, it was a little too late.”

  “Would you bring them back?” Wryan’s voice was soft.

  The clouds had passed clear of Mithrada again, and the planet shone diamond-like just above the horizon.

  “I said I didn’t know.”

  “You know.”

  “You’re right. I’d probably do it again, and I wouldn’t bring them back. That makes me worse than Mellorie. Doesn’t it?” I took my hands from the window frame and slowly turned to face Wryan. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. What would happen if you hadn’t killed them? How many people would die? And who would they be?” She had leaned back in the chair.

  “You’re saying that it’s all right to kill to stop more deaths? Hell! Why does there have to be so much hatred? So much killing?”

  Wryan didn’t have an answer. Neither did I.

  Terwhit . . . terwhit . . .

  I couldn’t help but smile momentarily. The bird had a point. You sing when you can, not when someone wants
you to. I glanced out the window, but, even looking into the undertime, couldn’t locate the bird.

  “Do you understand?” I asked Wryan.

  “Understand what? That you killed real people? That some of them were innocent? That you hate yourself for doing it? Or that you know this is just the beginning?”

  All of a sudden, with Wryan’s last words, the room was cold, as cold as I had ever experienced, even in that dream ice-storm that had launched me into time-diving. “Just the beginning . . . ?”

  I knew what she meant. The farmers weren’t farming as much. The Frost Giants were out there somewhere. No one except Odin Thor’s ConFeds had any way to hold things together. I stepped away from the breeze that ran through my robe and gave me a physical chill.

  “. . . just the beginning . . .” I sighed. “How bad is it?”

  “Worse than that.” She shook her head. “Odin Thor has his hands full with what amounts to two provinces of old Westron. Outside of that . . .” she shrugged. “Any place else, no one really farms . . . most of the crafters were killed with the gentry . . .”

  The silence and the darkness stretched out between us.

  Terwhit . . . terwhit . . . terwhit . . .

  I smiled at the cheerfulness of the call. The bird was definitely right. “So we do what we can.”

  She was smiling also, though more faintly. “I suppose. What other choice is there?” Her quiet voice was firm.

  The sound brought back another memory. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’m not sure. But I did.”

  Her tone told me not to pursue that question. I didn’t. “You kept visiting me when I couldn’t even think, when nobody thought I would live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  I grinned. “That’s not good enough, Doctor.”

  “Because you gave me back part of myself.”

  That wasn’t all, but it was enough. “You need some sleep.” I took a step toward her, then stopped.

  “I know.”

  “So . . . why don’t you go get some? And have pleasant dreams?” She stood up, looking ghostlike in the light-coloured tunic and trousers. “I will.”

  “Thank you . . .” I wanted to say more, but couldn’t say what . . . or why. Besides, she was probably a good century older than me. So I didn’t.

  “Good night, Sammis.”

  Click, click, click. . . . Her boots sounded lonely as she walked out, and I stood there for a long time. When I looked out the window, before climbing into the hospital bed, Mithrada had dropped below the horizon.

  XXXVI

  NERLIS AND DR. DYRELL officially discharged me two days after Mellorie and I “became friends.” They also required all divers to come in for checkups every ten-day.

  Gerloc, Amenda, and Arlean were all on the verge of starvation. So were several others I didn’t know. One of the newest divers, a recruit ConFed named Jerlyk, was barely above the minimums. That led to a divers’ nutrition chart, which ended up posted in the dining area.

  In the meantime, between my efforts in the hospital and my efforts while on “light duty,” I had finished all the background material on diving. At the end of the next ten-day, I was cleared to dive again.

  “I have a loose end or two to follow,” I told Wryan, after squeezing in to see her before Odin Thor arrived. He was already pacing down the hallway toward the main lab. “What I find out could be helpful.”

  “Such as?”

  “Even though we can’t break out on Query, except in real time, I could see backtime at least several days when I scouted the ConFed fort. I’d like to see what the limits are.”

  “Take it easy. We’ll call it extended reconnaissance research for now.” She smiled, almost sadly. “Good luck.”

  “Good luck to you. Odin Thor’s almost here.” I ducked out just as the colonel-general arrived. I avoided saluting him and was around the corner before he reacted.

  “Trooper!”

  I ignored the call, smiling, since I was out of sight. It was bad enough that circumstances required I do Odin Thor’s dirty work without making him into a tin god. Besides, I had more important things to do.

  After stopping by the snack table—another innovation of Wryan’s—at the dining area and picking up cheese, hard biscuits, and fruit, I headed back to my room—by foot.

  I had also gone back into conditioning, running and doing exercises. I didn’t like them, but diving was clearly a strenuous business, and I was going to be in top condition. That was why Jerlyk and I met on the grassy square behind the quarters before every breakfast. After a few days, Gerloc and Amenda joined us, though neither could match us.

  Grabbing some snack foods, I headed back to my room, which was fine with me. The next few subjective hours would be tough enough without any distractions.

  Once inside, I eased the window wide open, trying to coax a breeze inside. For early fall, the weather was warm, almost hot. Entering the undertime too warm would make the entire dive uncomfortable.

  After I opened the window and laid out my mid-morning snack, I sat before the desk and forced myself to eat all the elements of the semi-meal slowly, following it with a watered-down and tastier version of Sustain.

  Then I stood up and walked around, trying to figure out what route I would take, but merely thinking about it didn’t offer much insight.

  Where and when I wanted to view was clear, although why was another question I didn’t really want to address. Still . . . I had promised myself that I would try, and a promise was a promise, even to me.

  After a last gulp of the Sustain, I stopped pacing and dropped through the now and into the undertime.

  Not that I went all that far back, or even that far geographically-less than a year and less than two hundred kays—just back to Bremarlyn. Back to the evening of a freak snowstorm and the morning afterwards.

  I could have tried to watch a scared youngster wearing a heavy uniform cloak slip down a snow-filled gully and disappear to avoid being shot. But I didn’t.

  Slipping further toward the dawn, I fought to see through the hazy barrier between the then and the undertime, as well as to see through the fat swirling flakes of the untimely snow.

  As the indirect light of a dawn greyed by clouds waxed on that stately house I had not seen intact since then, I watched, trying to shift my view toward whatever had happened.

  Did I really want to know?

  I watched from outside the house. I could have drifted inside, looking at the Davniads, watching Allyson, but I would have felt somehow unclean, like a voyeur, or . . . a ConFed. So I watched from outside.

  First, a puff of smoke fluffed from the chimney. I let myself drift further foretime, when the snowflakes had stopped and the light was brighter. Not yet mid-morning, but no longer early morning.

  A figure—Jerz Davniads—opened the doors to the steamer locker. His breath trailed above him like a smoke plume.

  Allyson appeared, moving quickly, with several bags, which she dropped by the steamer. Her father said something, but she did not even turn as she hurried back across the courtyard to the house to return with yet another pair of bags. Jerz waited until she had returned with the second set.

  This time Allyson gestured at the bags and motioned toward the steamer. Jerz shook his head and walked back across the courtyard with her. They brought back four more bags, and Germania Davniads followed with two large baskets, which she put in the rear seat of the steamer. Allyson handed her father the bags as he placed five of them in the rear storage trunk.

  As he lashed down the remaining bag on the storage rack, Germania slipped into the driver’s seat and began the lightoff. Allyson stood by the locker door, but Jerz motioned her into the steamer. Then Allyson’s mother backed the steamer out of the locker, set the brakes, and slid into the passenger seat. Jerz closed the locker before climbing stolidly into the driver’
s seat.

  The steamer eased down the long drive, trailing a thin plume of white. At the road, the vehicle lurched slightly on some ice, but Jerz smoothly corrected and turned downhill toward the highway. He slowed as he approached the sweeping ninety degree turn above where our drive joined the road.

  A single ConFed stood by the drive as the steamer slipped past. The marine turned and lifted his projectile gun.

  Either Jerz Davniads did not see the weapon, or he ignored it, believing that no ConFed would turn a weapon upon a member of the gentry. The steamer continued on untouched, but the ConFed turned and sprinted up the drive.

  I followed the steamer, now almost careening, as if the Davniadses had realised the danger.

  Undertime, I could only watch, asking whether I wanted to know what had happened, hoping that they would, or had, escaped, and doubting as I watched.

  Two military steamers waited at the spot where the road met the highway, and I could see another civilian steamer had been stopped. Some of the ConFeds were dragging one of the passengers out, a woman, and from the picture I got, I did not watch further, especially since there was nothing I could do.

  I slipped time again, to the instant where the heavy Davniadses steamer plunged down the road. For an instant, the woman being assaulted by the ConFeds broke free, and tried to run toward the oncoming steamer. Her tunic had been mostly ripped away, and blood streaked across her uncovered shoulder and partly bared breast. Two ConFeds caught her and forced her down.

  Jerz Davniads throttled up the steamer and aimed the heavy vehicle at the narrow shoulder of the road that offered the only chance of passage.

  I refused to move closer in the undertime or to look at either Allyson or Germania, still hoping that the former steamer racer could bring them through.

  The Davniadses’ steamer edged the outside military vehicle and the bag lashed to the trunk ripped off. But the steamer was clear, skidding around the corner and onto the Eastern Highway, headed east, away from Inequital.

  Then, I hoped—until a ConFed slammed a heavy black weapon onto a swivel and rammed it around, levelling it at the back of the steamer.