“Don’t you need your crystal for that?”
“I can borrow it from my earlier self.”
“You—of course you can.”
The chronologist seemed to smile. “This is not my first . . . how do you say it . . .”
“Rodeo?” offered JEFF from the seat.
“What’s that?” said Liam.
“Anyway, good luck,” said the chronologist. He turned and descended the cargo ramp.
“I thought you didn’t believe in luck?”
“It was a joke.”
“HA-HA-HA,” said JEFF.
“Everybody wants to be funny,” said Liam. “Will we see you again?”
The chronologist paused at the base of the ramp. “I wish I knew.” He swept off around the nearest cruiser.
Phoebe finished zipping up her bulky suit and held out the pulsing crystal in her palm. “Just you and me and some weird alien technology. Like old times.”
“Yeah.” Liam climbed into the skim drone.
“Still cozy,” Phoebe said, shoulders bumping as they squeezed onto the seat meant for one person. She held JEFF in her lap, their two helmets shoved in the footwell beneath her.
Liam grinned as he closed the canopy. He leaned as far as he could against the side of the cockpit to make space, and yet it was also nice to feel Phoebe beside him again.
He activated the thrusters. His fingers tingling, his mouth dry, his pulse racing, and yet maybe this nervous energy was more like excitement. Tapping the controls, inching the skim drone off the floor. . . . Finally, they were back on their own, just the two of them, on an adventure. Even though what they were attempting was possibly risky, and probably irresponsible, Liam felt better right here, right now, than he had since they’d arrived.
He edged the little craft forward in gentle nudges until it was clear of the Styrlax cargo hold, then increased forward thrust and glided toward the airlock. Glancing behind them, he saw the two guards watching the skim drone and speaking into their links.
“This is going to be a really short trip if we can’t pair with the airlock controls,” said Liam. But after a moment of searching, the skim drone’s link identified the airlock protocol, and its controls flashed on the navigation screen. Liam initiated the sequence, and the inner door began to slide open. They moved into the space between the two doors, the inner sliding shut.
Almost immediately, their link lit up. “This is Artemis command. Identify yourselves and your ship destination.”
“Kyla, it’s Liam. I’m with Phoebe, and we’re, um, just going to take a look around.”
“Negative, Liam. We are supposed to be keeping all personnel accounted for to minimize safety concerns in preparation to transit the portal.”
Liam tried to initiate the airlock again, but the outer door didn’t move. “They must be overriding my request. JEFF, are you still in touch with the Artemis?”
“Acknowledged.”
“Can you override their override?”
“I could. But I feel that I should point out that I agree with the lieutenant’s assessment.”
“I know you’re coded to follow protocols,” said Liam, “but you’re also our friend. Remember all those decades we spent in space together? How about one more adventure?”
“If my memory packets are accurate, you left me alone for the majority of those decades.”
“Well, sure, but . . . please?”
JEFF’s eyes flickered for a long moment. Yellow lights flashed and the outer airlock door began to slide open with a violent release of air.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Liam—” said Kyla.
“Don’t worry, we won’t be long.”
“That’s not really the point—”
“Phoebe’s leaving soon,” Liam added. “We’ll be right back.” He muted the channel.
“Let’s do this,” said Phoebe with a devilish grin.
Liam edged the skim drone forward, but then the airlock door paused and began to reverse.
“I fear they are overriding my override of their override,” said JEFF.
“That’s okay, I’ve got this.” Liam sized up the narrow gap. Just like the Fingers back on Mars. If he could fly through those . . . He burned the thrusters, his fingers dancing over the lateral controls, putting the skim drone into a gentle roll as it hurtled forward. They slipped sideways through the gap and shot out into space.
“Whoo!” said Phoebe. “Where’d you learn that trick?”
“Not bad, right?” said Liam, and yet he felt a pang of guilt. Iris had helped him learn that move, and now he was avoiding her. . . .
“This is like skipping out on the last day of school all over again,” said Phoebe. “See, I’m not the only one who likes to break the rules.”
Liam couldn’t help smiling. They cleared the underside of the front section of the Artemis and he adjusted the thrusters, angling them toward the shimmering doorway.
“You don’t think they’ll come after us, do you?” Phoebe asked, twisting to look back at the starliner.
“Nah,” said Liam. “We’re just being dumb kids. They won’t waste the resources.”
Phoebe patted JEFF’s head. “How you doing, rule breaker?”
“I believe I am developing a new human attribute routine to go along with humor,” he said. “This one is guilt.”
Liam selected the new portal on the navigation screen. It was 4.3 kilometers away, out near the end of one of the arms. He burned thrusters again. The jolt made him grit his teeth and made his smile grow. Flying again, finally, in total control, speeding along. With Phoebe.
“I’m so glad to be away from them,” she said, nearly reading his mind.
“Me too,” Liam agreed, though he did have to swallow his own feeling of guilt. Why was it that what he wanted and what his parents wanted always had to be so different? Well, whatever: Mom and Dad were so busy on new Earth, Liam and Phoebe would be back before they knew it.
He glanced at the crystal in her hands. It continued to pulse mellow orange. He checked the battery level: eighty-four percent. So far so good.
Ahead: the doorway looming larger, under three kilometers.
Below: the silent structures of one of the Dark Star arms. The buildings made of that smoky dark, glassy material like the rest of the station.
“Don’t you think this looks like a place someone used to live?” said Phoebe, peering out her side of the cockpit canopy.
“Kinda.” Liam noticed now that there were panels here and there that appeared completely transparent, like they were windows. In the gaps between buildings, he spied tubelike structures that might have been walkways.
“No, I mean, like, really lived. It looks like a city. If this was just a place that these Architects stayed while they were waiting to go somewhere else, would they have made it so . . . elaborate?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Think about the starliners: they’re a lot simpler than the Mars colonies. But this place looks even more like a home than the colonies did. It’s like a Telos city, or pictures I’ve seen of your stuff on Earth. More permanent, you know?”
“I guess.” Liam saw that they were speeding over a wide, open area, like a city plaza. At its center, there seemed to be some kind of statue: a pedestal with a figure standing on top of it. They were past it in an instant. “The starliners have common areas, though.”
“I know they do. It’s just . . . this place feels more than empty; it feels dead. Like, not a place that people would choose to leave. But they’re gone anyway. So what happened to them?”
“I don’t know,” said Liam. She was right, it did feel vacant in an unsettling way. Not unlike this entire starless universe.
The portal loomed ahead now, less than a kilometer away, its iridescent light bathing their faces.
“Okay, here we go,” said Liam.
The lines of silver circuitry on the portal’s frame pulsed at an increasing rate, as if it sensed the
ir approach. The cool green of its middle glowed brighter.
“Now that it’s too late, I wonder if this is a good idea,” said Phoebe.
“Yeah.” Liam flexed his fingers on the controls. That same old fear was creeping in: even more than the doubt over whether this was a good or safe idea . . . the doubt that he could do it at all. He breathed deep, thinking of the gauntlet back on Mars. He’d been scared there, too, and yet he’d been able to do it. Even slipping through that airlock a minute ago had been more complicated than this, and he’d done that. So what was it? His eyes flashed to the blinking orange crystal. Was it that he felt guilty about keeping this from Iris? And yet wasn’t there far more that she was keeping from him? It was okay to do this. They had the right to make their own decisions. After all, doing just that had possibly saved the human and Telphon races. So be quiet! he wanted to shout at his worries. He was tired of their, well, worry.
The navigation screen flashed: five hundred meters. Three hundred—
And then they were upon it, no turning back. The portal rippled and the skim drone burst into the sheen of light.
There was a flash and Liam felt as if his arms and legs were gone, as if everything were missing except his thoughts. And yet he could see himself in all directions, many versions like he was surrounded by mirrors, all his moments, older and younger, each one refracting on and on away from him into infinite possibilities. He felt weightless in time, wanted to see every option—and it seemed almost like he could—yet the light was already dimming, the sensation fading. And then he was back within himself, in the skim drone, on the other side of the portal.
Stars all around. To their left, the bright safe yellow glow of a sun like he’d never known it. And in front of them, the great blue curve of the Earth in all its majesty. Its deep blues and ethereal whites, its folds of land, its watery atmosphere—
But an orange light blinked urgently on the console.
And something hit him in the arm.
He turned and saw Phoebe writhing, clutching her head, face contorted in pain.
Screaming.
15
TIME TO DARK STAR FUNCTIONALITY: 00H:42M
“Phoebe, what is it?”
Liam tapped the rapidly flashing light on the console with one hand and with the other reached for her. Her eyes were shut tight, tears streaming from them. She thrashed and knocked his hand away, and let out a high-pitched cry like he’d never heard before. Finally she inhaled. “It hurts it hurts!”
“What hurts?”
Liam’s eyes darted from Phoebe to the navigation screen and the warning still blinking there. One of the thruster circuits had shorted out. He tapped it to bypass but a new message appeared: Bypass unavailable. Probably a circuit that had been fried by the EMP blast back at Centauri, or—
“INCOMPATIBILITY DETECTED!” JEFF shouted from Phoebe’s lap. “REGION UNKNOWN!”
Another warning message appeared. Critical Impact Angle. Out the cockpit window, Liam saw they were diving straight toward Earth’s atmosphere. The wide curving blue with its curling wisps of clouds—now suddenly a danger to them. It was still thousands of kilometers away, but gravity would increase the closer they came, requiring more thrust and battery power to escape. And at their current trajectory, they’d burn up on impact.
He fired the rear thrusters. Slowing—another orange light on the console now. Another short somewhere in the skim drone’s circuitry.
“Oww!” Phoebe’s scream died down to a wincing groan. Her eyes flashed open for a moment, wide and terrified, and then snapped closed. “Liam? Where are you? There’s nothing! I can’t see anything!”
“JEFF! Can you tell what’s wrong with Phoebe?” But JEFF’s eyes were flickering faster than he’d ever seen, as if his processors were running at maximum.
“Liam . . . ,” Phoebe whispered, terrified. “What is it?” She pinned herself back against the seat, arms and legs flexed, eyes still closed. “What’s all that light?”
“It’s just the sun, and the planet—”
“No, the blue light!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nnnnn!” Her legs thrashed. She grabbed a handle beneath the canopy, her knuckles turning white. “Where are we?” she shouted.
“We’re right above the new Earth! We’re in the skim drone—”
“It’s all light. Wait, no, there are mountains, and water, but it’s all scattering owww . . .”
A drop of blood trickled from her nose.
“Okay, Phoebe, just hold on! I’ll get you back.”
“Liam, don’t leave me here! It hurts!”
“I’m not leaving you, I’m right here! Hang on!”
Liam jammed the stick and punched the thrusters. He slammed the skim drone into as tight a turn as he could, straining against the seat belt they shared. Earth rotated out of view—for a moment there was only a vast expanse of uncountable stars—and there was the portal again. Liam lined it up and burned at full power.
All at once, multiple console systems lit up. WARNING! Electrical systems failure—
Everything shut down. Lights off, air and heat systems cycling down. Engines out.
Silence.
“Oh, come on!” Liam tried the power button. Nothing. “JEFF, I could really use your help right now!”
JEFF’s eyes continued to flicker.
The skim drone floated through space. Liam pressed the start-up button, jabbed other buttons on the console, and finally slammed it with his fist.
“Are those stars?” Phoebe moaned, but her eyes were still closed, tears leaking out. “So many blue stars. . . .”
“Phoebe, stay with me!” The portal was drawing closer. It looked like their last burn had put them on course to get through . . . but they were coming at it on an angle, and what would happen when they got to the other side? Liam would have no way to contact anyone on the Artemis, and there was no indication that the skim drone would come back online. This angle could send them crashing into the Dark Star arm on the other side, or sailing off into open space. Liam glanced at the floor. He’d brought a booster pack along when he’d rescued Phoebe back at Centauri, but it wasn’t here now.
“Ow ow ow . . . ,” Phoebe whimpered.
“We’re almost there.”
The portal rippled. Liam tensed—the wall of bright green light enveloped them again. Another blinding flash, the sense of many selves stretching in all directions—
And then they were through. There was Dark Star, the Artemis.
“Guh!” Phoebe’s eyes snapped open. She looked around, blinking fast, chest heaving. “We made it, we—” Her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped in her seat.
Liam shook off the dizziness and got his bearings—and then froze. The skim drone was still dead, and their angle was indeed taking them right toward the Dark Star arm below the portal. The buildings grew before them; they were heading for a pyramid-like structure, would slam into it in moments, and there was nothing Liam could do to slow them or change their flight path.
His link was still working, though flashing numerous error messages. He stabbed at it, looking for the connection screen. They’d probably reappeared on the Artemis’s sensors by now. If he could contact Kyla—but he looked up and knew there wasn’t time. They were going to crash.
“Phoebe, hang on!” The ejection system was fully manual, a series of compressed air charges all connected by physical cables, that would both blow the canopy top and launch their seat free. No electric circuits to fail. Eject and hope that in the zero gravity, the thrust of their launch would be enough to help them clear that pyramid.
After that? He had no idea.
Liam grabbed Phoebe’s helmet from the floor. She moaned faintly as he slid it over her head, clipped it in place, and did the same with his own. The side of the pyramid building was getting closer, closer. He hauled JEFF’s head into his lap, then reached beneath the seat, his gloved hand finding the thick plastic handle there.
&nbs
p; Three, two, one . . . Now! Liam wrenched the handle.
The canopy blew off with a series of hissing pops and the seat shot free into silent space. But the back of the skim drone just clipped Liam’s foot, sending them tumbling end over end. Liam held on as the world spiraled around him—a spin that, in the weightless vacuum of space, could continue indefinitely. And while the force of the ejection had allowed them to barely clear the top of the pyramid building, they were now angling away from the surface of Dark Star, toward the dead space beyond.
A flash in Liam’s spinning view: the skim drone silently crashing into the side of the pyramid.
Liam saw the blur of lights from the Artemis and the Dark Star core—the core maybe a kilometer away, the Artemis a few beyond that—but he couldn’t tell in which direction. Dizzy, and with a hopeless fear rising inside him. Would anyone know they’d ejected and survived the crash? Maybe, if he could get his link to work. Liam tried to focus on his wrist, to get his other hand there. . . .
Too much spin. His vision slid, stomach lurched. He shut his eyes against the nauseating whirl. Was there some way he could go back in time, get a booster pack for the skim drone? Or talk himself out of this stupid idea? But he couldn’t focus, his body all out of sorts.
Someone find us, please. . . .
All at once, he felt a pull. A sense of weight. Liam opened his eyes. The spinning had slowed, and their angle was changing. They were no longer floating away from Dark Star; instead, their trajectory had flattened out, and now they were arcing toward the surface of the arm beneath them. Not falling, but gently lowering, as if gravity was slowly increasing. They passed over buildings, and now that wide plaza area they’d flown over before. The angle of their descent grew steeper, and faster, until they were mere meters above the surface, which seemed to be made of stone tiles. Nearly falling now—
The skim drone’s chair slammed against the ground and they tumbled. Liam’s shoulder crunched, then his helmet. He heard a vicious crack as they rolled over once, twice, and ended up lying on their backs, still strapped to the chair.
The Shores Beyond Time Page 22