This time, instead of being covered in soot, she clutched a handful of green leaves that rustled between her fingers. Her hand popped open and the leaves fluttered to the ground.
She stared between her hand, the leaves, and the empty piece of air. She breathed hard and her heart raced.
Codon shook his head.
Nova snatched the mirror from him and stared at her face but it had returned to normal and her skin stayed in place.
Codon waved his hand through the air where Nova's had been. Nothing happened. He tried again, but still nothing.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Where did those leaves come from?"
"I don't know."
"What did they do to you?"
"They—they shot me with something they called a time vortex," she said. "I saw the whole universe fly past me. Then things started happening. I don't know what it means."
"A time vortex?" Codon said. "That doesn't make any sense."
"That's what they had. It was in a gun and he shot me. And now this." Nova waved her hand at the scattering of leaves.
"It's impossible."
"I know."
"It did something to you," Codon said with certainty. "Somehow it's opened up all of time to you. Think what we could do with that technology!"
His eyes were bright and smile wide. He sprung from foot to foot as he stared down at Nova.
"Even if it were true," she said. "I can't control it, so it's no good."
"You have to learn to control it. With that kind of power we may actually have a chance of getting off this rock. We just have to work out how you did it."
"I was trying to punch you."
"What about before, when you were covered in soot?"
"I was trying to hit the door," she said, thinking back.
"Okay, so hitting things makes it happen?" Codon said. He leaned against the control panels and scratched his chin.
"Not always," she said. "I hit the door a few times before that."
"Alright, so it's something linked. Emotions maybe? What were you feeling at the time?"
"Angry."
"Anger. So when you're angry, you can somehow reach through time." Codon stared at her and licked his lips.
"Maybe," she mumbled. Her brain ached and the last thing she felt like doing was puzzling over the greater mysteries of the universe. The thought of being able to reach through time was just too much for her to process.
"But don't you see?" Codon said. "This is fantastic. With your ability, we might be able to stop these bastards."
"How?"
"I don't know. Reach forward and pull back some kind of super-technology?"
"I can't control it. I can't just think of what I want and expect to get it."
"How do you know?" he asked, "You haven't tried."
"Well I certainly wasn't thinking about soot or leaves the last two times."
"So if you don't direct it, it takes you wherever."
"You're just theorizing."
"It's a damn sight better than whatever you're doing. If we're going to survive this thing, you need to get it under control. Concentrate really hard on something. Best to start with something simple, and then grab it."
Nova's bones ached and her eyes kept drooping shut, threatening to take her off into sleep. Her brain worked at a quarter of its normal speed, every thought coming only with a huge effort, like pushing a boulder uphill.
She wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep. That wasn't too much to ask was it? To rest, just for a little while.
"Come on, we have no idea how much time we have left."
She looked up at Codon. He gave no sign of pity or sympathy, just hard determination and rampant curiosity. He looked down at her, his hands on his hips. She couldn't face arguing with him, so she did the only thing she could; she stepped forward with a groan.
"Okay, something simple," Codon said.
"A leaf," she replied.
"No, that's no good. It has to be something else. We don't know if the leaf was a default or something."
"Um." She tried to push her brain, but it just kept circling to leaf. Of all the objects in the entire universe, she couldn't think of anything other than a stupid, green leaf.
"How about a handful of sand?" Codon said. "This planet is covered with it so it shouldn't be too hard to find some."
Nova nodded. She closed her eyes and thought about sand. She saw individual grains in her mind's eye. She pictured their many-faceted surfaces, the way each grain had its own color. She thought about how every grain was made of atoms that had once been part of the big bang. She'd witnessed matter coming together and forming neutrons, protons, electrons. She'd seen these join together and make atoms and then molecules, until finally they culminated into a grain of sand, an insignificant and yet vitally important grain of sand.
She imagined how the sand would feel between her fingers, clenched inside her fist. She could even taste it on the tip of her tongue; the rough grains filled her mouth with salt.
She lifted her hand, it shook. She stretched her arm out and imagined it disappearing. She moved her hand from side to side, scanning the new world for any trace of sand. She couldn't feel anything; even the rubbery leaves were gone.
The ground!
Nova cursed herself; of course the sand was going to be on the ground of the planet, not floating around in mid-air. She lowered herself onto her knees and leaned forward. Her hand stretched down and patted around the ground. It felt strange; cold and smooth, not like sand. She tried to close her hand around it, to take a sample, but she couldn't.
It felt like metal.
"What the hell are you doing?" Codon' s voice shattered Nova's visualizations.
Her eyes popped open. She was on her hands and knees on the floor of the ship. Her hand opened and closed on the smooth metal floor. Codon stood over her, his boots beside her hand.
She looked up; her eyes followed his legs, all the way to his face. He glared down at her, face redder than usual and dominated by a deep frown.
"I was looking for sand," she said.
"It would defeat the purpose if you found it right where I'm standing!" Codon said. His nostrils flared.
"I told you I can't control it!"
The voices were back. They muttered just at the edge of her hearing. Sometimes she caught words or phrases but mostly it was a continuous buzz of conversation. She looked over her shoulder to try and see where it was coming from. What did grains of sand matter when she could hear voices?
"You're falling apart," he said. "You need me to keep you together and I need you to focus."
She nodded at his words.
"I have something that might help. Then you can relax and we can work it out together."
Codon's smooth voice flowed over Nova's crazed thoughts and soothed them. He was right; if she was left on her own she'd likely shoot herself just to be rid of the voices.
"Here you go." He handed her a small white pill. She clutched it and tossed it to the back of her throat without a second thought. She pinched her eyes shut, hoping that the voices and shadows would disappear.
"There's a design flaw," she whispered as she waited for the drug to take effect.
"What do you mean?"
"Their helmets. There's something wrong with them. They don't seal properly so if you shoot them right, they pop off." It was an effort to talk but at least the words made sense. Talking helped her keep a grip on her sanity.
"A design flaw."
"Yes."
"Are you serious?" Codon said.
"Yes." Her reply was less sure, barely audible.
"You expect me to believe that the secret to destroying an ancient alien race is a design flaw in their helmets? I'm just supposed to take the word of an insane hunter?"
"I didn't ask for this!" Nova yelled, getting to her feet. Her own anger and frustration boiled to the surface. "I'd be just as happy if you'd been the one zapped w
ith a time vortex. Then you'd be trying not to go mad while a thousand voices whispered in your head."
Her hands clenched into fists. Codon had no idea what she was going through. It was hard enough to concentrate on something as simple as a grain of sand in the best of conditions, let alone with people moving and talking all around you. Worse still was the embarrassment. She thought of how ridiculous she must have looked, crawling around on the floor of the ship with her eyes closed.
"Try again," he said.
"I can't. What if using it makes it worse? I'm sure they're getting louder." She shivered. "We have to find another way."
"I am not going out there to face an entire horde of ancient aliens, armed only with a plasma pistol," Codon said. "Now get yourself under control and try again. I gave you medicine so you can focus, don't make me regret it."
Nova's blood boiled. How could he make her so mad?
She slashed her hand directly for the doctor's face. A part of her hoped that she could reach past him, ideally into a pile of sand. Another part of her didn't really care, because if it didn't work, at least she'd get to punch him in the face and have a semi-reasonable excuse.
Codon flinched and ducked out of the way.
Her hand disappeared.
Nova's eyes flickered wide but she forced herself not to pull back. She scrounged around, moving her hand left and right.
Heat surrounded her hand as if she held it above a fire. A new panic rose in her throat. What would happen if she thrust her hand into the heart of a sun? Or into some poisonous plant?
She couldn't control it and her hand could end up anywhere. It could be deadly.
She snatched her hand back to her chest with viper-like speed. There didn't seem to be any damage and the heat was gone. Still, she couldn't help wondering; what if?
"Well? Did you get it?" Codon asked. He'd taken a few seconds to recover from her fist slamming toward his face.
She let the fingers of her right hand uncurl. There was nothing in her palm.
"What the hell, hunter?" Codon said.
"It was hot," she replied.
"Well of course it was damned hot, it's a desert!" Codon gestured to the outside of the ship.
Nova flinched. She should have thought of that but her brain refused to think straight. It was so hard to focus with noises hammering at her eardrums. On any other day, she would have realized in an instant. A desert.
"Do it again."
"I really don't think I can," Nova said. The roller-coaster of emotions and the struggle to cling to her sanity was all taking a toll on her body. Now all she could think about was curling into a ball on the floor and sleeping for the rest of her life.
"I don't think you've got much of a choice," Codon said, nodding to the screen behind her head.
She turned to look, not really caring what she saw, and came face to face with a monstrous armored Ancient with glowing yellow eyes. It stepped out of the tomb and surveyed the other Ancients spread out around it. They turned to face the new-comer and each of them bowed their heads.
"Do you think that's their leader?" Codon asked.
"I've seen him before."
"Well that's dandy. You were down there for a damn long time."
"No, in a dream."
"You saw a giant yellow-eyed alien in a dream?" Codon said. "Whatever crazed hallucinations you've had, I really don't think they're going to help us now. Look at that thing, I bet he's armed to the teeth."
"You don't understand," she said, clenching her jaw. How could she explain that the dream she'd had wasn't really a dream? That somehow her dream had led her out of the maze and that she'd watched this alien enter the tomb centuries before?
"Back in time," she whispered, finishing off her line of thought.
"What?"
"I saw when they were first locked in there."
"How?"
She shrugged. "How can I reach through space and pull back leaves? But I saw him. There was another one. They were talking about a plague, something was threatening them."
"So they hid away here until what? Until we happened to find them?"
"I think it was meant to be a time capsule," Nova said. "In case the rest of their species died out there would always be this group, waiting until someone freed them."
"Bastards."
"Yes, so all we have to do is find out what threatened them back then."
"And how are we supposed to do that? There aren't exactly any records from that time."
"No, but the other aliens, the ones that left, never came back for these. So that means they probably died out," Nova said.
"Makes sense."
"What if one of them was already infected? They were here on the planet's surface. The answer could be here."
"Where?"
"No," she replied. "When?"
"Look, I appreciate that you're trying," Codon said. "But that's a fool's mission."
Nova's spirits fell. Codon was right. There was no way she'd be able to sift through the entire history of the universe for a tiny bacterium. It couldn't be done. She sighed. "I guess we're back to my first plan. We shoot for their helmets and take them out that way."
"Look how many there are. We'd be dead before we had half a chance."
"Please, make a suggestion because I'm all out." Nova slouched into a nearby chair. It was soft and spun in a gentle circle.
Codon slumped into his own chair and they stared at separate parts of the ship. They were trapped here.
Nova tried to push herself to think, to come up with ideas, but it was no good. The very last bit of energy was gone from her mind. Her eyes flickered closed and she drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nova opened her eyes to pitch darkness. She sat up straight in her chair and her heart fluttered. She reached down and squeezed the soft ball she kept clipped to her belt.
The glowball emitted a dim yellow light that lit up the command center.
"Codon?" Nova stood, no reply.
She edged across the command center to the corridor she'd come in from. Rust coated the equipment and red chips flaked off and landed on the floor as Nova brushed past.
"Codon?" She kept her voice low; if the Ancients overheard her… She shivered.
She tiptoed through the darkness with one hand on the wall at her side. The glowball's light bounced off dented and broken walls. The stale air smelled of dust and decay. How could a new ship smell stale?
The glowball cast shadows on the walls and ceiling from the piles of debris.
The voices followed her.
… No more… I don't see why… I'm over here…
She jumped and turned, but only empty shadows followed her.
She made it all the way to the outer door without seeing Codon. The door hung open from its hinges, sand piled against it.
Nova frowned. She was sure she'd closed it. There was no reason for Codon to go out into the night without telling her, even he couldn't be that stupid.
She glanced behind her, but there was no sign of the doctor. She checked the gun at her belt and pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. She braced herself and stepped through the doorway, into the darkness beyond.
Sand slid away under her feet. There was a massive dune built up against the side of the ship, lit by the glow of a single lonely moon. Nova stared at the sand; it had already covered most of the ship's side. If that's what could happen in one day, then she couldn't imagine what might happen in a week, let alone a year. There would be no evidence that the Confederacy had even been here.
She looked away from the sand dune and stared toward the oasis, expecting to see lights and Ancients. Nothing.
The blue moon lit up the trees well enough; they looked bigger in the darkness than they had during the day, but there was no sign of the Ancients. A brief hope fluttered in her chest that somehow Codon had got rid of them.
Her heart beat faster and she jogged down the sand dune toward the trees. The other, smalle
r ships of the Confederacy fleet were gone, buried under sand, along with the bodies of the workers.
Nova tripped in the sand and fell. When she landed, the sand parted before her. It gaped open and drew her in, a sinkhole. Grains poured into her nose, mouth, ears, and scraped her eyes. She snatched for anything to hold on to but the loose sand gave way beneath her hand and cascaded down with her.
She kicked, tried to swim through the sand, but each movement dragged her deeper. She tried to take a deep breath but grains of sand caught in her throat and she choked. Her mind raced as she spluttered and gasped, there was something about sinking sand; you weren't supposed to struggle, but how could she not struggle when it threatened to drown her?
She sunk further until the sand reached her shoulders. She strained her neck back to keep her nose free but the sand pushed against her chest and constricted her lungs.
Her eyes stung with sand, which refused to fall out and her mind ran in circles; she couldn't face the thought of being suffocated by grit.
The sand reached her nose. Even though she fought with every ounce of strength, she couldn't keep her head up; she sank beneath the desert. Nova held her breath for as long as she could but it wasn't enough. Her mouth burst open and she breathed deeply.
She expected the dry crystals to fill her mouth, scrape her tongue, gums, and throat, and then gag her.
Instead she breathed air.
She opened her stinging eyes. She lay on top of the sand, covered in loose grains; they filled her hair and every crease of clothing. Crazed patterns marked the sand all around her; as though someone or something had thrashed about on the sand.
"Grishnak!" Nova cursed and slammed her hand down; another vision, a hallucination.
She laid her head on her forearm and sobbed. She hated to cry, but couldn't stop it. How could she trust anything she saw? It had all felt so real, and yet here she was with no sinkhole in sight.
She gasped and choked and tucked her legs in close to her chest. Strands of her hair had come loose and stuck to her sweaty face. She swiped them away and her sobs subsided until she glared at the sand with pure and utter hatred.
She'd faced worse things than the desert before, she just had to get herself under control. The Ancients were playing mind games with her, but that was fine—she could handle herself.
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