Unbidden, Dora found herself remembering the look on her brother's face as she slid a length of cold steel between his ribs. There had been a moment of disconnection, as if something inside her crumbled or broke away. She saw again his eyes widening in shock, the thin trickle of blood snaking from his parted lips, the weight of him pulling the sword downwards as his legs crumpled beneath him.
The vision was vivid and encompassing and Dora felt breathless and dizzy for a moment before the rise of bile in her throat pushed her back to reality.
'You argue semantics,5 she said. 'You decided to kill an unarmed man, you acted on that decision, and you believed yourself successful. That he survived is no thanks to you. Do not think his continued existence absolves you of anything.5
Sweetclover looked deep into Dora's eyes; an unwavering gaze that made her uncomfortable, even as she held it.
'I see you know what it means to kill a man,' he said.
Dora held his gaze, impassive.
'My wife has explained the reality of her life to me, the inflexibility of time,' he said. 'She called it predestination. She does not believe that anything she does matters, she believes that it contains no moral dimension whatsoever. Anybody she kills in her past, she says, is already dead, so what does it signify? She is simply an instrument of fate, destiny, God - whatever you wish to call the force that guides our lives. But I believed I had killed Mountfort in my own time, within my own life. That action cannot be ascribed to fate or time. I was not fulfilling some preordained plan. I acted freely. And now I live within my own future. My wife inhabits her own past and her actions do not matter, morality has no hold on her until she returns to the moment she left. I have no such protection from God's wrath.'
Dora's mouth was hanging open in amazement, and she closed it quickly, aware that she had temporarily let her mask of cool detachment slip.
That's what she told you?' she asked. 'That's what she thinks?'
Sweetclover nodded. 'Of course. I hope, now that you understand, that you will see my wife for who she really is. You think her actions evil, but they are nothing of the sort. She only acts in the manner time requires of her. She is an instrument of fate, that is all. When she returns to her own time, when her plans reach fruition, then you will see the real woman. The woman I know. The woman I love.'
'I saw her when she slaughtered those soldiers at Sweetclover Hall,' said Dora slowly. 'She was gleeful. She enjoyed it. Even if I believed that any time traveller living in the time before they were born is robbed of all free will and becomes merely fate's puppet - and I most emphatically do not - that would not explain or excuse the delight she takes in the death she brings to those around her. You, my lord, are in denial. You need to look at her with clearer eyes. She is quite, quite mad.'
Sweetclover clenched his jaw. 'What do either of us know of her world?' he said. 'Of the suffering she endured? How can we even imagine the wrongs she seeks to right in her own time? Had either of us seen the wonders of this time ten years ago, we would have screamed, proclaimed them magic, run in terror. Sometimes I find this future world so confusing, so dense with meaning, that I feel the urge to hide. I do not understand their clothing, their language, their entertainment. I cannot judge their morality, for it is shaped by a world I barely comprehend. It is beyond you and me, Dora, to sit in judgement on a woman as removed from our world as my wife. We must either trust or distrust her, that is all we can do. I look into her eyes and see goodness. You see madness. One of us is wrong, and I say, with respect, that it is not I.'
Dora did not know how to respond to this assertion. But she withdrew her sword. 'And Peyvand? I mean, Kaz's mother? How do you justify her death?'
'As I explained, her particular condition dictates that the rules of society do not apply to my wife,' said Sweetclover. 'The woman was destined to die; my wife only influenced the manner of her death, that is all.'
Dora considered this. 'So when she returns to her own time, when she regains her free will, Quil will no longer kill?'
'She has given me her word that the rules of war will apply,' replied Sweetclover. 'Civilians, such as Kaz's mother, will not be harmed.'
Dora could see that Sweetclover was sincere. He truly believed Quil would begin to act in a more civilised manner when she reached her own time again. Dora doubted it.
'So what happens now, Miss Predennick?' asked Sweetclover. 'Kill me? Capture me?'
Dora stood, sheathed her sword and walked away without a word.
Zbigniew Cecka had been a soldier his entire adult life, but he had seen very little combat. He had fired his weapon in anger only twice, both times warning shots, aimed over the heads of his attackers. He gave thanks every day that on both occasions they had taken the hint and turned tail. In some ways it seemed unnatural to him that he was a soldier who had never even tried to take a life, but he was proud of it.
He had, though, seen more death than anybody should ever see. Mass graves, burial pits, villages filled with smoking ruins and smouldering flesh, machete wounds, severed limbs, death by hanging, stabbing, fire, drowning, starvation even, once, crucifixion. Being a peacekeeper might mean never having to kill, but it also meant confronting the aftermath of every imaginable kind of human evil. He knew that it had changed him.
He looked around the foyer of the hospital - at all the parents crying over their children, the children crying over their parents, the doctors and nurses running from one person
to another performing triage, sorting the wounded into dead, dying, saveable with luck, injured but not immediately threatened - and he remained immune to both the panic and the professionalism. To him this was a familiar setting, and he knew the best thing he could do was wait his turn.
He sat in the corner of the foyer, out of everybody's way, with fourteen-year-old Kaz lying across his lap. His son's wounds were mostly superficial, but there was a gash in his leg that would need stitches. Zbigniew had come prepared, knowing what the day would bring. A syringe of sedative, some basic field dressings and antiseptic. After the explosion, immediately he had rounded the corner into the next street, he had turned to Kaz - hysterical, crying, confused, terrified, lost - sedated him, dressed his leg and then, ignoring the sirens and the chaos, carried his senseless child two miles to the hospital.
Zbigniew had not escaped unscathed either. He could feel a bruise blossoming on his left thigh and there was a piece of metal sticking out of his upper left arm. He knew not to pull it out; as long as it remained in place until removed by a professional, he would be fine. He was worried about shock, but was doing his best to keep it at bay with concentration and focus.
The worst part was not knowing what had happened to his wife. As instructed, he had not looked back once she had broken away from him and Kaz, so he had no idea whether she had made it to safety. He had no reason to think otherwise, but he had seen enough plans go wrong at the last moment due to random circumstances that he was unable to take anything for granted.
He sat and stroked his son's hair. Even with his face streaked with blood and oil, Kaz was the most beautiful thing Zbigniew had ever seen. His son should have had a sibling or two, that had always been the plan, but somewhere along the way life had got away from him and Peyvand and now it was too late. He took comfort in knowing that circumstances dictated he would have Kaz with him, even if he knew they would spend most of the next few years at each other's throats.
Wondering who his boy would grow into had obsessed Zbigniew for years. Artist, soldier, bureaucrat, politician, teacher, builder, sportsman - there wasn't a life that Zbigniew hadn't imagined for his son. Except time traveller. That hadn't been on the list.
'Dad?'
Zbigniew looked up in surprise to see his son - the older version - standing over him. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both of which looked brand new. Something in his face made Zbigniew uneasy, and he knew all was not well.
'What went wrong?' he asked urgently.
Older Kaz sank down on to
his haunches and looked his father in the eye.
'Quil got to her somehow,' he said. 'I guess she tried to make her betray us, lead her to Jana perhaps. Mum just stood there. I don't know what she was thinking. Maybe she was going to try and warn the people in the market, maybe she was sacrificing herself. Maybe she froze. I tried to get to her, touch her, take her to safety . . .'
As Kaz trailed off into silence, Zbigniew felt a pit open in his stomach.
'Did you . . .' he tried to formulate a question, but he was too scared of the answer to put it into words.
'I don't know,' said Kaz. 'Maybe. I don't remember. I was caught in the explosion. I woke up somewhere else. Alone. The last few moments before the explosion are gone. I remember running towards her, but that is all.'
Zbigniew was distracted as young Kaz stirred briefly, rolling over on to his back and groaning in his sleep. He moved his son's head into a more comfortable position before looking up into an older version of the eyes that lay closed in his lap.
'If she was not with you when you woke, does that not mean you failed?' he said slowly, thinking it through as he spoke.
'Not necessarily,' replied Kaz. 'Dora pulled away from Jana and me during a time trip once and she arrived somewhere else. But yes, it's possible. That's why I came back here. To tell you that, and to search the bodies. She might be here.'
Zbigniew pointed to a corridor that ran off the foyer. 'They're bringing everyone here, even the dead,' he said. 'They're laying them out in a ward down there.'
As he and Kaz looked down the corridor, a steady stream of trolleys passed that way.
'OK, you stay with, um, me,' said Kaz. 'I'll go check.'
Zbigniew reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID.
'Flash this at the door quickly and say you need to check for a UN staffer who may have been in the explosion,' he said. 'They're unlikely to look at it too closely.'
Kaz took the ID, his face pale.
Zbigniew reached out and squeezed his son's arm. 'You don't have to. You shouldn't have to.'
Kaz looked down at him, solemn. 'Yes, I do,' he said, then he rose and walked away.
Zbigniew watched him go, his chest swelling with pride, his stomach hollow with guilt and fear, his head swimming with delayed shock.
He stroked the hair of his sleeping son with his good arm and waited.
Kaz never returned.
Kaz expected to land in the filing cupboard again, but this time he rejoined the flow of time standing in the undercroft of Sweetclover Hall, directly beneath the timebomb's frozen explosion. His friends and the professor were all huddled around the conference-room table and saw him arrive. He expected them to begin bombarding him with questions, and Dora and Kairos had opened their mouths and begun forming queries, but they both stopped themselves when Jana ran to Kaz and hugged him tightly, without a word. They glowed red as they embraced.
Kaz hugged her back, slightly surprised by her display of emotion. After a moment she let go and stepped back.
'I saw you run into the explosion,5 said Jana, teary-eyed.
'You're alone,' said Dora.
Kaz was still holding Jana's gaze, amazed by her tears, when Dora made this observation, and he saw realisation dawn in her eyes - Jana hadn't even thought about his mother, she had just been glad to see him. He knew deep down that
he shouldn't be angered by this but he was, even though he couldn't have articulated why.
He looked across at Dora and Kairos.
'I wasn't quick enough,' he said. 'I jumped into time when the bomb went off. It was instinctive, I didn't control it. The last thing I remember is my fingers touching her shoulder, but Mum didn't travel with me.'
'Do you think she . . .' Jana didn't need to finish the sentence.
'I checked the hospital afterwards,' said Kaz. 'There was no sign of her body. I think she jumped into time like you did, Dora, in 1645. My touch must have been enough to begin her journey but I have no way of knowing where or when she was thrown to. Or if she was alive or dead when she got there.'
Kairos spoke up then. 'I shall create an algorithm to search all known historical records for any indication of her at any point in time,' he said eagerly, obviously more motivated by the puzzle he was going to try to solve than the prospect of rescuing Kaz's mother.
'I already did that,' said Kaz, angry now at Kairos too. 'I hired someone. There's no trace of her anywhere. She's just . . . gone.'
After a moment of solemn silence Jana whispered, 'Oh Kaz, I'm so sorry.'
'Wait a minute,' said Dora. 'You hired someone? We came straight back here after Beirut and we've only been back about ten minutes. How long have you been away?'
'About a month,' said Kaz, refusing to be defensive. 'I needed to clear my head. I wasn't even sure I was going to come back here, but I thought I owed you a goodbye.'
'Goodbye?' said Jana, her surprise mixed with a touch of anger. 'What do you mean, goodbye?'
Kaz found his resentment bubbling over. 'What do you mean, what do I mean?' he shouted. 'What do you think I mean? I mean, I'm done. We tried to change history and it didn't work.'
'Actually, we do not know that for certain,' said Kairos. 'It is possible that—'
'Who cares?' shouted Kaz. 'We tried to save my mum and now she's lost, probably dead. There's no way at all of knowing if we changed things or not. Maybe this is how it always happened. Except now . . . now I know for certain that it's my fault. Before, I may have felt guilty but at least I knew I wasn't, not really. The only thing we've changed, as far as I can tell, is that we proved I killed my mother. So yes, I'm done. I have to go and make things right with my father. At least I haven't managed to kill him yet.'
'But what about Mars?' said Dora.
'What about it?' spat Kaz.
'You promised,' said Jana quietly.
But he was already walking away.
'Let me talk to him,' said Jana, once Kaz had left the undercroft.
'I think he wants to be left alone,' said Kairos.
Jana flashed him a withering glance. How could such a clever man be so dumb? 'He can jump away whenever he wants,' she said. 'If he's staying, it's because he wants to talk, even if he won't admit it. Leave him to me.'
Kairos looked embarrassed and Dora shrugged as Jana turned away to follow Kaz.
She found him easily enough - he was throwing things around in one of the rooms below, smashing a metal chair against the wall over and over, bending its legs backwards and chipping concrete from the wall. She stood in the doorway until he dropped the chair, now a mangled tangle of metal tubes, and slumped to the floor with his arms round his knees.
'Leave me alone,' he said, refusing to make eye contact.
Jana walked in and sat beside him, careful to give him just enough space that he didn't feel crowded. It was hard to tell which emotion - anger, guilt or misery - was most in control of him, but whichever it was, Kaz was a mess.
'My family lost someone once, about ten years ago,' Jana said quietly. 'It was a stupid accident. No warning, just quick and pointless. A moment's carelessness, someone not paying attention, and bang. Dead. Just like that. And the funny thing is, I didn't really notice the effect it had on my parents. Not for a long time. It was only later, when I was older and I looked back, when I understood all the facts and could put them in context, that I realised how it had changed them.
'My father ... he was completely overcome with guilt. His whole personality changed. He didn't start drinking or bursting out crying or anything like that. It was subtler. He just didn't trust himself any more. Personally, I mean. He became all about his work. Long hours, weekends. We hardly saw him. I think it was too painful for him to be around us. He became a stranger.
'My mother, on the other hand, she just got angry. Angry at him, angry at me, angry at everything, all the time. Not shouting, y'know? No chair murders. Just a constant low-level anger that had nowhere to go. Every task was a problem, everyone was a parasite, every day was
one long battle against the hatefulness of everything. She became a monster, really.
'Grief just ate them both up, in different ways.'
Jana paused, uncomfortable with sharing so much of her family history. She hadn't confided so much in anyone, ever, and she felt bad that she was doing it now just so she could manipulate Kaz into sticking around. Not really, really bad, not bad enough that she was going to stop, but a little bit bad.
'I already grieved,' said Kaz after a long silence. 'I've been sad and angry for years. I'd learned to live with it. But going through it all again - it's . . .' he trailed off.
Jana leaned sideways towards him and put her hand on
his.
'I can imagine,' she said. And she could, but he would not have understood how or why, so she did not try to explain.
Jana felt him begin to shake so, ignoring the borealis glow that enfolded them, she hugged him tight as he sobbed. They sat there with their arms round one another for a long time until Kaz sat back, clenched his jaw, wiped his eyes, took a deep breath and very noticeably pulled himself together. Jana was always slightly amazed at how obvious boys always made it when they were getting a grip. Girls just got on and did it, but boys made such a song and dance of the whole thing.
Again she felt a nagging pang of guilt at her manipulation of him. She was only beginning to admit that she liked him in a way she'd never really liked a boy before. It was an unexpected development and she didn't really know what to do with it, so she filed it away as a problem for later. For now, her job was to get Kaz back on board the Mars express.
'Kaz,' she said softly as he gave the stoic smile that all boys seemed to give when they'd had a good cry, 'I don't presume to know what's best for you, but if I were in your shoes, I'd want revenge on the monster who got my mother killed.'
Ten minutes later she poured Kaz a cup of coffee with lots of sugar, how he liked it, and placed it on the conference table in front of him before nodding to Kairos to begin the She locked eyes with Dora, who nodded to signal
Second Lives Page 10