by A. C. Ellis
She panned her helmet lamp back and forth over the smooth, undisturbed layer of dust. Hyatt’s body was gone, too.
On impulse, she again keyed the chronometer in her helmet with her tongue. It read 0814—exactly what it should have read, and not at all what she had expected.
If only I had my LIN/C, she thought. With it, she could at least verify the sequence of events. Perhaps she hadn’t jumped back in time outside the curio shop on Fleet Base, as she had started to suspect. Maybe she was going insane.
She forced those thoughts down. They were dangerous; they could actually cause insanity.
Besides, she didn’t have time for them now. She had to think about getting back to Luna City. She would get into her crawler and away from here as quickly as possible.
Turning, she shuffled to the airlock, stepped into and through it, and out onto the lunar surface. Sweeping her helmet’s lamp in wide arcs, she searched for the crawlers that should have been there—both her own and Hyatt’s. And perhaps a third crawler she had not seen before: the one belonging to the man who had killed Hyatt.
The crawlers were not there. Not even her own.
Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. She had almost been expecting it.
She stood unmoving, trying to decide what to do. She couldn’t wait for someone to come out for her. The only one who might do that was Clayton, and by the time he missed her, then pieced together where she had gone, her suit’s air tanks would be exhausted and she would be long dead. Her only hope lay in starting for Luna City on foot.
Of course, she didn’t expect to make it; it was much too great a distance. The walk back would take a full ten or twelve hours, and she had less than half a tank of air now. Still, if she could get near a well-traveled lane, she might be spotted by a passing floater. It was a slim chance, but all she had.
She thought she remembered the way her guide had come. They had approached the camp from the north. She tapped the appropriate switch with her tongue, took a bearing, then started walking.
Although she knew it would drain her suit’s batteries, eventually disabling the cooling system, she left the helmet lamp on. Unlike during the crawler drive out from Luna City, she now wanted to be seen. Her life depended on someone spotting her.
She trudged through the lunar landscape, over small rises and down into impact craters. The scenery that had seemed so tranquil and beautiful only three days before, on the floater trip out from Fleet Base, was now horribly monotonous.
Soon a fog of non-thought settled down around her mind.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In less than an hour her joints ached and her legs felt as if they were made of lead. Her breath rasped in her helmet. She shouldn’t have been this exhausted so soon.
Then, suddenly, she knew what was wrong. Her suit was overheating, just as she had known it eventually would.
She toggled the suit monitor on with her tongue and squinted at the display projected on the inside of the helmet visor: 46 degrees celsius! No wonder she was sweating like a pig! And the cooling unit was operating at full capacity! When it finally quit, after the headlamp had totally drained the suit’s battery, the temperature would climb faster still.
She toggled the lamp off with her tongue—she shouldn’t have left it on. It really wouldn’t do her any good until she was nearer the traffic lanes. She had only wasted precious battery power.
But it really didn’t matter; she wouldn’t last much longer anyway. At the rate she was tiring, it would be less than half an hour. She was burning too many calories far too quickly, but if she stopped she would be dead. Her only chance lay in getting to one of the traffic lanes between the mining camp and Luna City.
She plodded on, mechanically placing one foot before the other. After a while, the fact that she was literally cooking inside her suit no longer mattered.
She had been watching the floater for a long time before its presence actually registered in her mind. By the time she realized what she was seeing, she was in a shallow valley between low hillocks, and the horizontal pattern of green running lights was no longer visible. She clambered up the hill, losing almost as much ground as she gained with each step. She had to be visible to the floater’s passengers and crew.
As she crested the hillock, she saw the floater in the distance. Now she could actually make out its outline as it glided silently toward her over the lunar surface. It would pass near—perhaps within range of her suit’s radio.
But even if they couldn’t receive her transmission, they would surely see her. She was in the open now, on high ground.
Suddenly, she realized her helmet lamp was off. She had turned it off some time ago to conserve the batteries.
She tongued it on, but the beam was too weak. The suit’s cooling unit had drained the batteries.
She waved her arms frantically over her head, but she knew that would do little good. She shook her head from side to side, hoping at least one of the floater’s passengers was looking in her direction and would see the weak helmet beam. That was her only chance.
Tonguing the radio on, she screamed into the helmet. “Here! Over here! I need help!” But batteries that no longer held enough charge to produce a strong beam from the helmet lamp could not drive the radio with sufficient power to raise the floater.
A high frequency beep started in her helmet speaker, and for an instant she thought it was the floater signaling her. Then she realized it was the suit overheat warning, and instantly digits painted on her helmet visor. The temperature was climbing past 66 degrees.
She didn’t care. They would see her—they had to see her. Soon she would be safe onboard the floater, headed back to Luna City.
The floater came silently on.
They must have seen her by now, she thought. Someone onboard that floater had to be looking at his viewscreen…
A sudden chill slithered up Susan’s spine as she tapped the chronometer switch with her tongue: 0912. She tapped it again to display the date on her helmet visor: Oct. 4, 2187.
Her breath caught in her lungs. The fourth was three days ago. That was the day she had left Fleet Base for Luna City—on a floater!
She remembered a dim light atop a low hill. Of course she was being seen from that floater. At least one person onboard was watching her. And that passenger would do absolutely nothing.
Tears welled up in her eyes, stinging hot as they coursed down her cheeks. The floater would not stop. Three days ago, she hadn’t reported the spot of light she had thought she’d seen.
She walked slowly down the hillock. The floater passed its closest point of approach and she turned off her helmet lamp, then followed after it.
She walked for hours, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other. Occasionally, she wondered why she was walking. There was no one out on the lunar surface to find her. No one knew she had gone to the mining camp. She hadn’t—not yet. There was another Susan Tanner in Luna City, being briefed by a nervous lieutenant this very minute. A Susan totally unaware of what awaited her.
Or was there? Did Susan’s existence out on the surface somehow negate that other’s existence in Luna City?
Somehow, she didn’t think so. It just didn’t feel right. That other Susan belonged in this time. She had a right to exist here—now. She was the one out of place, out of time.
Besides, she had existed then, so that other Susan existed now.
But what would happen if she somehow returned to Luna City and encountered that other? Could it even happen? And if not, might that mean she could not return to Luna City, that she was doomed to a slow death on the lunar surface?
She didn’t know. She didn’t really want to know.
Again she blanked her mind, and walked on.
Gradually, she realized she was having trouble breathing. Willing her diaphragm to work, she took a deep breath. It did no good. She tried again, attempting to force air into her lungs. Then again. Suddenly, she was hyperventilating.
She togg
led the air supply display on with her tongue. The suit’s tanks were empty. She was suffocating.
Staggering a few more steps, she fell. In spite of Luna’s one-sixth standard gravity, she hit with jarring impact. She bounced once, then lay on her face, struggling to catch her breath.
She was dying, and she could do nothing about it. She wished she hadn’t gone out to the mining camp. She wished…
She wished air into her lungs, then mercifully passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Susan gasped, a sharp inhalation that burned deep in her lungs. The dizziness was present, and the headache pounded behind her eyes.
But it was the fact that air could hurt in her lungs, and that she was capable of experiencing the headache and dizziness at all, that was so amazing. She was alive! Somehow, she had survived.
The snowflake pattern and the mantra came, but this time a hint of the headache remained.
She opened her eyes. A blurred face swam into her vision, its features coming slowly into focus. After a few seconds she recognized Clayton. He sat in a chair beside her bed.
“Welcome back among the living,” he said, smiling down at her.
Susan tried to speak, but produced only a hoarse croak. Her throat burned as if on fire.
“Your doctor said your throat will be sore for several days,” Clayton said, “the price paid for fighting suffocation with such fierce determination.”
Again Susan tried to speak, but could not.
“I know, you have questions. I’ll answer them, but you have to promise you won’t try to talk.”
She nodded.
“Good. But first things first.” He reached to the low, wheeled tray beside the bed and picked up a squeeze bulb of water, brought it to Susan’s lips. “You’re supposed to have plenty of liquids,” he said.
She drank—the water felt good going down. When she’d had enough she nodded, and Clayton put the bulb back on the tray, then leaned back in his chair.
“Now, you want to know why you’re still alive, right?”
Again she nodded her response.
He paused for a moment, then began: “I learned your ship had been moved from its hangar, out onto the surface, and figured that meant you would be leaving Luna soon—perhaps sooner than you had led me to believe.” He raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Susan nodded.
“I thought so. I tried to get in touch with you, and in the process stumbled across information about the technician—the one murdered while working on your LIN/C.”
She winced.
“You were observed being escorted through the Survey Service compound,” Clayton said, “and a bit of money across the proper palms bought the information that you were taken to Hyatt’s office. I even learned about the airlock there. Of course, you were being taken out to the ship.”
Again she tried to speak. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she hadn’t been going to the ship. She wanted to tell him about what had happened at the strangely deserted mining camp, about Hyatt’s body and the man who had tried to kill her, but still she could not talk.
And then she realized that even if she could talk, even if she told him everything that had happened to her since she had left Luna City, he would not believe it. He couldn’t. Here, in this world, the mining camp had been deserted for years. Clayton would remember it that way; there was no other way he could remember it.
“I knew you didn’t have your LIN/C,” he continued, “so I used the Fleet computer’s infrared locator to find you on the surface. The first pass, it missed you entirely, so I ran the program again.” Susan hadn’t yet arrived back in his world—in this time. “The second pass it picked you up, and I got a crawler and went out for you. It’s a lucky thing I got to you when I did. A few more minutes and you would have been dead.”
Clayton paused for a moment. Finally he said, “But that’s enough for now. You need rest. And don’t worry, they can’t get at you here. I have a guard posted outside your door.” He stood, then smiled down at her. After a few seconds he turned and went to the door. It irised open and he stepped into the corridor. The door irised closed.
In less than thirty seconds the room’s sensors determined the lights were no longer needed, and they went out. Susan was left in the dark with her thoughts.
Again, as she had so often since that first attack, she felt horribly alone. No one would believe what was happening to her; no one could believe it. She wouldn’t believe it herself, if it wasn’t happening to her. It all seemed too unnatural, too unreal.
But what did it all mean?
Finally, some of it was beginning to make sense. Somehow those who were after her had the ability to jump through time. It seemed the pendants had something to do with it. Hers had saved her twice by displacing her in time.
No, three times. As she lay unconscious on the lunar surface, her air tanks depleted, the pendant had done it again. It had jumped her forward in time to a point where Clayton would be looking for her, to a time shortly after she had left Luna City for the mining camp.
But it seemed the pendant did more than simply juggle time; it worked with space as well, with the very fabric of reality. Somehow, it had transported her to a different place—to a place where the mining camp was no longer inhabited, where the power satellite still functioned in geostationary orbit. It had dropped her into an entirely different world, where Bill Darcy was the mayor of Luna City and his brother Sam was dead.
Susan put her hand to her throat. Sudden panic filled her thoughts. The pendant wasn’t there.
Where was it? Where could they have put it when they undressed her? She had to have it. It was the only weapon that seemed to work against those who wanted her dead.
It was probably in the closet across the room. It no doubt rested in the pocket of her Fleet uniform there. In a moment she would get up and find it, put it around her neck.
But before she could act, the door to her room irised open. A figure stood silhouetted in the light from the corridor, a shaft of light reflecting off a blaster he held in his left hand—trained on her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“So, I have finally located you,” the man in the corridor said. Susan recognized his voice immediately. It was Lieutenant Philip Krueger, Admiral Renford’s secretary.
“That—” she started as he stepped into the room and the lights flared on, but it came out a hoarse croak.
Krueger nodded, a vicious smile playing on his lips. “It was me at the mining camp. But I didn’t know you had a pendant.” He wasn’t wearing one. “Where did you get it?”
When Susan did not answer, he said, “No matter,” and motioned with the pistol. “Get up.”
Susan stood, clutching the blanket to her breast. Strange, she thought. She had never been the least bit modest, but now, with Krueger watching—holding the blaster on her—she felt suddenly self-conscious.
“Drop the blanket,” he said. She did not respond. “I said, drop it.” Krueger’s voice was heavy with menace.
Susan complied, and Krueger’s gaze raked her nude body. His expression reminded Susan of the assailant in her quarters on Fleet Base. He wasn’t interested in what he saw, but in what he didn’t see. He was looking for the pendant.
Then she remembered the man who had held a blaster on her outside the curio shop. His face had been hidden in shadows, and he had worn Base Security black, but he’d been about Krueger’s height. Had that attacker been Krueger as well?
If only she had gone to the closet immediately, and searched for the pendant when she’d first thought of it…
Krueger’s presence in her hospital room could mean only one thing. The man responsible for the attacks, the one who wanted her dead, was Admiral James Renford.
Suddenly, silently, a duplicate of herself appeared behind Krueger. She was dressed in a red Fleet captain’s uniform, and a pendant dangled from its chain around her neck. A cut over her right eye dripped crimson blood onto the gray floor tiles.
> With an effort, Susan eased all emotion from her face. She hoped the shock hadn’t shown when her duplicate appeared; she didn’t want Krueger to know what she suddenly realized would happen.
She had to keep him from noticing, had to buy time for her duplicate. She forced air through her strained vocal cords.
“What…” she started, then stopped. She tried again, and this time the question came out a barely discernible exhalation of breath: “What are you doing here?”
Amazement washed over his features. “You mean, you really don’t know?”
Susan didn’t answer. How could she? She didn’t know.
Krueger shrugged then said, “I guess it doesn’t make much difference now. After all, I am going to kill you anyway. You might as well know what this is all about before you die.”
At that instant, the other Susan stepped up close behind Krueger and gave him a quick karate chop behind the left ear. He pitched forward, the arm holding the pistol flailing out, the barrel catching Susan a glancing blow over her right eye. She staggered back a step as Krueger crumbled to the floor at her feet.
Her fully dressed duplicate looked at the man stretched out in front of her, then gave her a knowing glance and stepped to the door. It irised open, and she went through without a word, dabbing at the cut above her eye with the back of her hand.
Susan stood unmoving, gazing down at the unconscious Krueger. What had just happened was beyond belief. Yet, it had happened.
Why had her duplicate hit Krueger just as he was about to tell her what was happening? Had she done it for some specific reason? And if so, what was that reason?
Just now, she didn’t have time to work that out. For the first time since all this had begun, she knew precisely what she must do.