Emily opened her eyes to skies clear of clouds, even the puffy white ones, but with a hint of green—alien green. Alien planet, evil overlord, little tiny Abram’s ball, explosion—
“Robert?” She jerked, half turned one direction, but hands held her in place.
“Robert will be fine.”
The cool voice matched the Morticia vibe. With some reluctance, Emily turned into the chill. Found it closing on Arctic. She’d be great to have around in August. She wasn’t close enough to be holding Emily down, though. Not sorry to look away from Ice Station Zebra eyes, Emily located the ER types working on her. The sight of the green scrubs was all it took to unleash her nerve endings, which began to send pain reports to her brain. Lots of them.
“Ouch.”
“You banged your brain box and have some cuts and contusions, but you will be all right,” one of her ER types said, with the cheer of someone not in pain. The other pumped the blood pressure cuff in manner not unlike the automaton trying to squeeze off her head. Only her lower arm was at risk.
“I’d like to get up,” Emily said, trying to see past the people to Robert, who seemed awfully still.
“You might have some internal injuries,” Robert’s sister said.
No hope in the voice, but Emily still felt she was conflicted about it. Seemed to be a tad protective of her little brother.
She is his little sister.
“Nod!” Emily felt a cautious wiggle in the center of her chest.
There was a virus. We had to go dormant. No question they felt shaken and stirred. And a lot scared. She would have hugged them, if she could have figured out how.
“Wynken!” I missed you. I missed you both!
“You have peeps—nanites.” Robert’s sister looked incredulous. She also looked older than Robert.
“They think my brain is interesting.” Emily felt apologetic, though she wasn’t sure why, or how Robert’s sister knew—
“What’s a wynken?” Fyn asked, without looking particularly curious.
“It’s a metaphor…” She felt the pain easing as the two unfurled some more, moving through her body like little pain erasers. That is smoking cool. She twisted free of the techs and crawled over to Robert, just as his lashes twitched, then lifted. There was dried blood on his temple, but the wound that expelled it was already gone.
We are in contact with Blynken! It is okay, too!
That’s great. She smiled at Robert. “Hi.”
They’d been through so much, it felt odd to suddenly feel shy, but then again, maybe not with his sister boring a hole in her back with just a look. Tough to be much of anything positive with Morticia chilling the air for twenty paces in any direction
“Are you,” he swallowed, “well?”
Well? “Sure.” Though now that she considered it, she did have one very large problem that needed addressing. Bad time to turn shy. Who knew it was catching? She fought back an urge to duck her chin and curl a strand of hair around a finger. She was so not going there and besides, last time she messed with her hair, she shed dirt.
Don’t suppose you could spiff up my outside.
It is beyond the limits of our abilities.
He eased into sitting position, with a little help from his ER type—a girl who seemed to have noticed his fine qualities despite the many layers of dirt. Emily gave her a look, maybe borrowed a little something from the sister, and she backed off. She turned back to Robert.
“I need to ask you a question.”
His brows rose. “A question? You?”
“I think it’s time.”
“Okay.” He might have braced a bit.
What did he think she was going to ask? “Do you know where the bathroom is in this place?”
He started to grin, but Morticia cut in. “I do.” The steely gaze swept up, then down again. “I can arrange a change of clothing, too.”
“As long as there are plenty of pockets—” She turned her grin toward Robert and ran into…kind of felt like a wall. Her grin faded, trickling all the way down and out her toes into the alien grass. Didn’t even feel a twinkle of delight about it being alien grass. The one question she wanted to ask, felt stuck in her throat. She’d faced automatons, evil overlords and evil zombie-making bugs today. Odd to feel kind of lost now.
“We’ll talk later.” Robert tried to smile.
She turned with his sister, even though it felt wrong. This was the happy ending moment, where the music rose into a crescendo that finished with a long, passionate kiss and declarations of undying love murmured between smaller kisses. No question she really needed to go, but she’d have crossed her legs for one more kiss.
The sister waited until they were out of earshot to say, “You and Robert seem to have covered a lot of ground in, what, five hours?”
Emily blinked. Felt more like square one.
FORTY-FIVE
“Other than the missing hill,” Hel flicked a glance at Delilah, “the outpost seems to be returning to normal operation. There are a few systems close to the containment area that we’ve kept down until we can assess the risk, but all key systems are back.”
“Do we know why the virus failed to spread?” the general asked, almost relaxing in his chair.
In the same room as Hel. Robert blinked. No bromance but progress.
Bromance? You got that from Em.
Robert couldn’t deny it, though he rather hoped the new neutrality would never get that far. A well-matched couple, the general and Hel were not.
“I was able to warn the nanites to not try to contain the virus. They went dormant, which kept it from spreading. When we blew up the source of the contagion, they came back online.”
It was also possible that the virus ended when Faustus died, the effect ripping forward through time and then back again. The bug Robert had taken from the fake Dr. Smith was nowhere to be found, though Robert might have dropped it in the tussle. The airships, the automatons and even the pins had vanished, too. There was no way to know which actions had ended or undone what elements of the attack. They’d been left with many questions—and some moral dilemmas to resolve. Such as should they continue the research into time travel? If they didn’t, what impact would that have on their time line? And could they stop the future time base from happening?
Time is persistent.
How much control did they really have? Had they saved the day or had time given Faustus the smack down? All these questions couldn’t keep Robert from worrying at his core concern, now that time appeared to be saved. Em. She’d said she loved him, but had she meant it? Could she mean it when she found out about who and what he was? About his past—or lack of one. Delilah hadn’t said anything, but he’d felt her concern and when he’d realized only five hours and fourteen minutes and twenty-three seconds had passed—according to his watch—from first meeting to now, he started to share it.
Against those doubts, all he had was a certainty that when he’d kissed her, she’d felt what he felt, but what did that mean? How could he know anything when she was the first girl he’d ever kissed? Delilah had her marriage with Hel and that had given him hope, that and the peeps, but then they’d gone.
You kept it together when I had to go dormant.
I had no choice.
Yes, you did, Robert. You chose to be strong.
Someone out there had targeted the nanites from the future. Who was to say they wouldn’t try again? That they wouldn’t succeed? He couldn’t function without them, so how did he ask Emily to share that?
If you don’t ask, you will lose her.
His head ached. Or it was the memory of it he felt. For sure his chest ached at the thought. Across it, across the pain, the briefing continued.
“What about the Keltinarians?” Delilah asked, an edge to her voice she always got when they came up.
Robert studied his sister, who seemed unchanged, though her peeps had gone dormant, too. But she’d been strong before them, no surprise she’d held it tog
ether.
As did you.
Halliwell rubbed his head, his giveaway move when the subject strayed into the mind bending. He didn’t remember Shan, since technically, he’d never been to the outpost.
“We have dispatched a research team to their galaxy to assess their space capability,” Hel said. “They are under orders not to make contact, just to observe and report. If Shan exists in our time, and they’re making any progress with Constilinium, well, we should know by next season.”
He shouldn’t remember Shan either, but he’d been in that alternate reality when he ceased to exist in this one. Perhaps that had protected those memories.
You have felt many things, Robert, expressed many worries, but we sense there is something more that troubles you.
He’d seen Em’s face, seen the flash of uncertainty, before she hid it. He did not know how to read a woman, how to meet her needs. He was barely a man in his experience level, which had stopped at sixteen.
You covered much ground today.
What if I hurt her because of what I don’t know?
So instead, you will hurt her with what you do know? If you love her and you leave, you don’t believe that will damage her?
How deep could she feel for him in five hours? She seemed to take things in her stride. What if she didn’t feel that much for him? How could she feel that much for him?
* * * *
It was an alien shower, spraying alien water, which was, you know, very cool, and should have been the cherry on the top of the major rad day.
The chemical composition is very similar to Earth water, Nod told her. He and Wynken where still inside her, though all three felt as if they popped in and out using alien Wi-Fi or something. Does the composition of the water not please you? Does it feel different?
No, it feels fine. Emily rubbed up the alien shampoo, her sigh cut short by a worrisome thought. You can’t see me, can you? Were they girls or guys and even if they leaned girl, she didn’t share her shower with other girls, not since high school gym anyway.
We are not watching. We have no desire to see you shower.
Oh. Emily wasn’t sure if she should feel insulted or relieved, so she went with relieved. It was also a distraction from feeling uneasy, a little blue, maybe even homesick? Been a strange, fast-forward kind of day. She’d been shocked when the sister—Emily couldn’t bring herself to call her by her name, even inside her own head, it just felt impertinent—told her it had been five hours. Five hours. She’d have gone drama queen about it, asked how it was possible, but this was time travel and stuff, so of course it was possible. They’d ran into the girls in the hall and neither one had recognized her, though Robert’s sister seemed to like the “girls” appellation. If she could like anything. At least her husband, Helfron Giddioni—wasn’t that a mouthful of alien name—hadn’t been offended when she said Glarmere was so lame, he’d built a mansion there. He’d just laughed, called it a “masterly description” and kissed her hand. I had my hand kissed by ET.
I believe you are ET in this place.
Wynken had a point, one she didn’t mind. Kind of cool to be ET. To realize she’d traveled to the past, the future, an alternate reality and a distant galaxy today. She’d outsmarted an automaton, which to be honest wasn’t exactly a badge of honor since he’d been dumb as, well an automaton, and she’d seen her dead uncle explode. She’d faced down the creepy evil overlord and helped foil his evil plan and she’d blown up a gazebo. She’d done way more than six impossible things, things so impossible that part of her still expected to wake up from the dream. Okay, so most of her was glad she hadn’t woke up, if it was a dream, despite the tinge of homesick roiling her tummy. A longing for her museum, maybe her bowling lanes, and even her brother. He might even be worried. Okay, so he was pretty clueless, but it could happen.
She finished rinsing and shut off the water. No fun lingering in alien water when, well, no reason. That’s all. She wrapped the alien towel around her, tucked in the edges. Fit a bit like an Earth towel, thought the texture was a tiny bit different. Guys were such punks. Here she was on an alien planet, using alien stuff and did she love it? No, she didn’t because some guy couldn’t stay committed for five whole hours.
She’d seen the way his sister looked when Robert said she was the one with the museum. Relationships born in the heat of stress couldn’t last. Everyone who’d seen Speed knew that.
She rubbed on alien lotion, at least she hoped it was lotion. Couldn’t read the label, but it looked, felt, smelled like lotion, then examined the clothing options someone had left. Lots of military drab with a couple of colorful items. Missed her things. Her poor corset was hammered, her coat shredded. Boots looked okay. She picked out some skivs that looked like they’d fit, pulled on a pair of combat pants. Comfortable, the pockets were a plus, she filled them with her tools, pausing when she found the Emergency Absquatulation Device. Didn’t feel as guilty about grabbing it now. She tucked it in a pocket, then picked out a piece of scarlet from the drab and held it up, studied it. Kind of in the same family as her corset, though didn’t cover as much. She pulled on a tee shirt—because the corset thing was a bit on the scant side—then wriggled the sort of corset over that and trimmed the excess, because she didn’t have her belly button pierced to hide it under olive drab. Air felt a bit cool, so she dug out a combat jacket and shrugged it on, padded to the mirror and ran her fingers into her wet hair, half-heartedly tweaking it, then found her lipstick and traced her mouth with a hint of defiance. Even without a blow dryer, she looked better, though she’d have had to die and turn into a zombie to look worse than she had before the shower. Was that why Robert backed off? Because she had a bad hair/body/everything five hours?
It’s not you, it’s him.
“Oh, you did not go there. That is such a line!” She spun around, but how did you confront something inside your own head? She still tried, though, spinning around again. “If he wants to skin off, he should say it to my face—” Her thoughts froze, words dried up as Nod and Wynken dumped images in her head, images of Robert in some kind of gnarly hospital room, all curled in a sad huddle. His story like a movie played in her head, right up to the day the nanites woke him, took him back from that place. “Where is he?”
Are you still angry?
She boiled out the door, churning with something. “Which way?” She looked right. She looked left. Stopped in shock. Carey, one of the guys from her museum, had one arm braced against the wall, smiled down at— “The comely assistant.” Emily heard the words, said them aloud and inside her head, but didn’t quite believe them.
The comely assistant looked at Emily, her elegant brows arching, well, elegantly. “I beg your pardon.”
Emily walked toward her in a daze. “You’re…you’re the comely assistant.” She swallowed the something clogging her throat. “Olivia Carstairs.”
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” The words were a bit in the haughty zone.
“This is Emily Babcock, Liv,” Carey said, grinning a bit sheepishly. “She’s the Prof’s—” He stopped, probably couldn’t count the greats.
“I’m his great—I’m his descendent.” So, she had trouble with the greats, too, especially after the bad…five hours. Hard to get her head around that figure when it felt longer. She stared at Olivia, trying to reconcile this woman in modern dress with the pictures from the old newspapers in the museum. She’d asked Robert a question, so technically all the questions bubbling up on her tongue could be asked. The ban was over and she’d wondered for most of her life what had happened to her uncle and Olivia. It was great to know, but it felt…less important until she talked to Robert. The need to see him overrode even this chance to end the family mystery, to finally get the right ending for her book.
“She managed the museum we went to check out,” Carey put in.
“Brae hasn’t had much time to,” she hesitated, “to update me on everything yet.” She flushed, giving Emily a pretty good
idea of what they had been doing.
“So you two, you’re like—”
“Snogging, yes.” Olivia smiled up at a slightly abashed Carey. “We hang, which is like stepping out, but with snogging.”
Emily grinned. “We can talk later, when you’ve finished snogging, or get caught up, because no one really finishes snogging, do they?” Carey grinned. “Then I want the full story. This is my family history, you know.”
Carey looked a bit alarmed, but Emily didn’t wait for him to feed her some need-to-know crap. She stalked off in the opposite direction. The list of things Robert needed to explain just got longer.
* * * *
With the endless briefing finally over, Robert, who had meant to find Em, found himself heading for the beach instead. He’d spent a lot of time in this spot, thinking, sorting, analyzing his experiences in this new life, trying to figure out where he fit in—and mostly failing. He’d fit with Em. Being with her, as crazy as it had all been, had felt right, right for the first time since he woke from his break. It felt wrong to not be with her.
It is wrong.
Is she all right? Delilah had shown her to a room, to a shower—probably shouldn’t contemplate Em in a shower. He needed to think, logically and sensibly—
Seriously? Do you think you can be logical or sensible about Em?
Blynken sounded incredulous and Robert couldn’t blame him, though he felt a need to defend the position. I love her. I need to do what is right for her, not what I want.
What if they are the same?
How can she know what she wants until she knows the truth, the whole truth about me? I’m freaking thirty-five!
Here is your chance to explain.
He spun around, looking up the slight rise from the beach, the waves swishing at his back. She stood at the top, looking down at him. The wind off the water lifted the edges of her jacket, pushing it back from her body. The camo pants hugged her hips, the strip of bare skin a pale cream between the pants and the scarlet top, worn over more camo. He wondered, a bit vaguely, where she’d found a tee shirt that small, but mostly he just enjoyed the view. The wind tousled her hair, as if it liked it, too, and she’d found her lipstick, too.
Steamrolled Page 44