“So they get what they want.”
“For now.” Doctor Quickly makes a few more minor adjustments to the shape of the gravitizer and I assist. After we run out of things to fiddle with, a pair of Eternals comes to claim the gravitizer and Doctor Quickly. With no one else left in the room, my guards abandon me. I’m left alone in the semi-darkness with only my other self for company.
“You still there?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
The wall illuminates with the view out the front of the ship again, showing me the path we’re taking toward the comet Borisov C/2014 Q3. The tail of the comet is spitting colored gases and showering the space behind it with debris.
“We’ve been in some tight spots before. But I’m not sure how we’re going to get out of this one.” I say.
“You’re still alive. That’s something. And we still have Mym.”
I settle onto the floor, suddenly very tired. I pry myself out of the remnants of my spacesuit and discard the now useless pieces. When I’ve shimmied out of the pants section of the suit, I ball up the legs and use them as a cushion. From my seated position I watch the ship navigate its way toward the pod attached to the back of the comet. As we blast our way through the ice and debris of the tail to get to it, the pod begins to open like the petals of a flower to receive us.
The ship hurtles forward, the meta camera view shaking occasionally from impacts from larger chunks of debris, but progressing steadily toward its target. I keep my hands on the floor beside me, stabilizing myself. I can feel the vibrations of the ship running through my arms even over the force of the artificial gravity. The ship lines up on an approach path directly behind the pod’s open doors. Now we’re in a zone of less danger from debris, and move more directly toward the target.
The Starfire Epiphany pulls into the pod and docks with an arm that will keep it anchored safely. All around the ship, the pod doors are now closing us off from space. From our inside perspective it looks like giant fingers slowly blocking out the stars. The fingers close around us and plunge the exterior of the ship into total darkness.
Inside my cell of a room, little wisps of light still flicker around the corners and tumble across the floor. One impacts my hand and seems to linger there, making my skin glow with a thousand brilliant colors. A little touch of eternity. On the far side of my mind, I can feel the connection through my other self. He’s feeling it even more than I am. One step closer to the beyond. I pull my hand away from the wisp of light and let it tumble on its way.
Not ready for that now.
I don’t want eternity. I know where my home is.
She still needs me.
Chapter 22
“Why are we so egotistical as to think we are the only ones experiencing the present? Yesterday and tomorrow have always been just as real as today. Every time I see someone smiling in a photograph from the distant past, I smile too, because I know their secret. We are all alive together. Time may keep us apart, but it keeps us. It will never let us go.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, February 2, 2015
The Neverwhere
My self in the real world has gotten drowsy. I don’t really blame him. The subtle vibration of the ship combined with the sheer stress of this situation must be wreaking havoc on his body. I can now feel the aches and pains he’s experiencing though I don’t have the memories of where they are all from. The trip aboard the ship has been harrowing enough. Harrowing, but worth it.
I was able to see her again. That was something.
I have a hard time telling how long the ship has been shrouded in darkness. We have been left alone in this room for what feels like hours. The other me has permitted me to stay at least. He no longer seems to fear that I might take over his mind. He’s merely waiting. Hoping to see if some resolution to our situation presents itself.
I am not that patient.
He may be me, but he doesn’t understand what it’s like in the Neverwhere. He doesn’t understand the closeness to eternity here. He’s felt it, but he hasn’t understood it. And the longer I stay here the harder it is getting to ignore.
As he drowses, I’ve been going over what the Magi said about Zurvan. Adarvan. They’re going to try to restore him. I don’t know what method they plan to use, but I need to know. I need a way out.
Riding shotgun in my own mind has been better than the alternative, better than drifting off into the ether, but it’s not living. Not truly.
Perhaps three hours into our captivity, the door to the room is opened again and Melchior is returned to us. My other self rouses himself slowly from his position on the floor. “How is it going out there? Is Mym okay?”
“She is doing admirably under the circumstances,” Melchior replies. “How are you doing?”
“Ugh. Tired. Angry.” He wipes a hand across our brow. “Worried.”
Melchior is considering me thoughtfully. “How are you doing?”
My other self falters. “Um, just that. Mostly the tired and the—”
“No,” Melchior replies. “I wasn’t speaking to you. I was speaking to you.” He stabs a finger toward me, aimed directly at my left eye. “How are you doing?”
My living self stays quiet this time and I stammer a response. “I’m . . . I’m not doing that great, honestly. I’m dead.”
Melchior narrows his eyes. “Hardly dead anymore. Trapped. But not dead.”
I can feel my other self squirm under his gaze. He’s uncomfortable, but curious as well.
“How did you know I was in here?” I ask.
Melchior straightens up and turns away. “When you are as old as I am, and have seen as much as I have, you know a few things.” He tucks his arms back into his sleeves. “I’ve been a Magi for hundreds of years. I think I know a split consciousness when I see one.”
“What do we do?” my other self asks. “How do we fix it? Is there a way?”
He’s holding his breath. It makes me realize how desperate he feels about having me stuck inside his head.
“There are ways,” Melchior replies. “Though normally they take a great deal of training and practice. How long has this been happening? When did the two of you split?”
“Weeks ago.”
“Today,” I reply.
Melchior doesn’t seem surprised by the dual response. He merely nods. “It’s good that it hasn’t been a long time. You still share the majority of your memories. There wouldn’t be too much information to absorb from one another. If it was longer, years perhaps, it may not be possible to ever realign.”
“So we can do it?” I ask.
“What do you mean, realign?” my other self replies.
Melchior studies my face again. “The two of you could conceivably return to being the same person, a single mind instead of two. You would have to be able to reconcile the memories that you’ve made separately, and that can be difficult. But not impossible. A strong mind can handle the disparity and learn to comprehend it.”
“What do we need to do?” I ask.
“You need to be of the same mind,” Melchior replies. The statement is simple, but aggravating in its simplicity.
“Yeah, but how do we do that?” I say. “Aren’t we already?”
“It would seem not,” Melchior replies. “Or you would have already solved this puzzle.” Both my other self and I stay quiet at this, and after a few moments of silence, Melchior continues. “When people suffer a split, it’s usually because one mind is seeking to control the other. Or both are seeking control over different outside circumstances. It never works. A mind that has been suppressed by another is not the same as being single-minded. It may appear normal enough to the outside world. Some can hide it for a long time, but eventually, there are always cracks.”
“I’ve seen that,” my living self replies. “This woman I met, Sonia, was split by the Eternals.”
“I’ve seen it, too,” I say. “In Zurvan’s memories. A woman who lost a fight with her younger mind. Annie.”
“This is what you would need to avoid,” Melchior replies. “Normally I would have given you years of meditation practice before you were ever even in danger of this occurring. It is important to know yourself—recognize your own weaknesses in the present—before you can ever take on the knowledge of your future. I would have had you listen to your dreams first. You would have learned to navigate them, separate your mind from time there and wander inside your own consciousness. It is a much safer place in which to explore one’s future and past.”
“We’ve had that,” my other self replies. “We’ve spoken in my dreams.”
“You have come far beyond that, however. You have dreamed while awake,” Melchior says. “You are now beyond dreams altogether. You are close, but you are speaking to one another as individuals, and that can be dangerous. If you hope to become single-minded, you’ll need to find the common threads that bind you together and keep them safe. Strengthen those thoughts until all else is inconsequential. Stop fighting for control and start working together as a cohesive unit.”
A crack of light appears overhead. The meta imagery is still reflecting the outside of the ship. The pod doors are opening.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“The Quicklys were successful in infusing our captors with gravitites. We’ve already made the jumps,” Melchior replies. “The ship has moved.”
“How far?”
“The path of this comet takes 151 years to complete. They haven’t had the patience to make the trip out to the Oort cloud to select a different comet, so we are some multiple of that interval into the past that would get us in range of Adarvan. I don’t recall when this docking pod was first installed on the comet, but it was a long time ago. Thousands of years.”
“How did it survive?”
“The outer shell is partially biological. It grows and heals itself in places when damaged. It can survive in these conditions for eons if need be. Longer than the comet itself would ever last.”
The pod has split into five sections now and I have a view of the tail out the rear of the ship. The gas and ice trail glows in the light of the sun beyond it. When the ship detaches from its anchor post, we hurl backward and away from Borisov C/2014 Q3. The comet is massive now, at least ten times the size it was when we attached. The sublimation of ice from its repeated trips around the sun has yet to occur to reduce its size.
The ship peels away from the tail of the comet to avoid damage and plunges us back toward the Earth. Our velocity is incredible and I can actually see the tiny distant planet beginning to grow.
“We’ll be in a much different world here,” Melchior says. “Have you visited any of Earth’s ancient civilizations before?”
“I saw the sphinx when it was still young. Didn’t get to stay long, though.”
“Ancient Persia is a grand spectacle all its own—if you ever have a chance to visit under more pleasant circumstances. I regret that I’m unable to show you its wonders.”
“Are we going to Iran?” I ask, suddenly concerned. “I’ve seen a place here. A desert in Zurvan’s memories. Benny said it was Iraq or Iran.”
“If we are going to find Adarvan, it will be neither place in the present age. The Absheron Peninsula is in Azerbaijan in your time. It has been a part of the Persian Empire over the centuries, but this far into the past, we will find it very different from modern times. Authentic Azerbaijan has always been, and shall always be, the land of fire.”
The door to our room opens and the Eternals return, along with Doctor Quickly. I recede into the background again, not especially interested in disclosing my split personality with anyone other than Melchior.
As the Eternals prepare the group for the return to Earth, I get a growing sense of unease about the entire situation. We are separated by guards and unable to talk, and I haven’t seen Mym return yet. Her timestream signature has been vital for them in navigating their way back to this timeline, but now that they have found it, what will they do with her? What will they do with any of us?
The apprehension is not relegated solely to us prisoners. The Eternals are edgy too. Despite all of their preparations and success in commandeering the ship, they are now thousands of years from home, the same as we are. They’ll have contacts here, members of their group bred from their messages relayed back through time, but they are stepping into a world just as foreign to them as it is to us.
Longcase and Elgin are the only two who seem just as self-assured about their future. Longcase is positively strutting. I notice with annoyance that he’s now wearing Mym’s pendant chronometer. He has her ring on as well, awkwardly jammed over the first knuckle of his little finger. Elgin has taken Doctor Quickly’s chronometer. Mine hasn’t reappeared yet.
As the ship approaches Earth, I’m wowed by the raw beauty of the planet. The side in shadow is deeply dark. No electric cities glow on coastlines. There are no freeways spanning the continents. No farmland has been carved out in symmetrical shapes.
The ship cuts across the southern hemisphere, overflying South America, then northeast across the Atlantic. We’ve entered the atmosphere and the heat glows brightly around us as we tear through the sky. I can’t help but wonder what sorts of people are looking up from the surface of the Earth and pondering our significance. The Lost Star has returned.
We are moved out of the confines of the room we were in, to join the others near the main boarding ramp of the ship. I get a feeling of déjà vu. The center of the sphere holds the Alcubierre drive, a dense machine of complicated-looking gadgetry. It’s viewable from the main control room near the boarding ramp. It looks like the one on Zurvan’s ship, only this one doesn’t have all the colors of the universe leaking out.
The ship descends over North Africa and I see the first noticeable signs of civilization. Egypt. There are roads and established cities, but still no sign of pyramids.
The ship continues its journey, descending ever lower, until we’re aimed at the Caspian Sea. The Starfire has slowed immensely, firing thrusters forward from its extended wings. I can imagine that from the ground it must very much resemble the symbol I saw—a flaming sphere with wings of fire.
The ship finally stops its forward movement and descends vertically onto the desert plain of the Absheron Peninsula. As we approach the surface, the view is lost to clouds of dust and smoke. The ship settles to Earth amid the dust plumes and comes to rest smoothly atop a hill.
When the disrupted dust finally clears, the Eternals lower the access ramp to the ship. Mym is led from a room near the bow and my other self releases an audible sigh of relief upon seeing her. I still don’t get a chance to speak to her because all of us get our hands bound and are led down the ramp in intervals.
We’re met with warm air and a fading twilight over low brown hills. The ground is covered in a coarse sand that clumps up in dark patches here and there. There is a distinctive smell in the air. Something burning.
“Oh God. I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper to my other self.
“I don’t think any of us should.”
“No. I meant that I’ve been here before. I think I’ve seen this. Zurvan has definitely been here. It’s not safe.”
One of the Eternals jostles my shoulder. “Keep quiet.”
The sun has already set and darkness is creeping over the horizon. Trying to get a bearing on where we are, I spot figures approaching through the low hills. The procession is carrying torches. The torches are pinpricks of light against the sandy hills, but they aren’t the only source of light. There is a dull glow against the top of one of the nearby hillsides as well.
The Eternals close up the ship and we begin our own procession, headed toward the closest hilltop in the direction of the group approaching us. A few stars are beginning to shine over the horizon and I can make out at least one planet. But as I’m looking upward at the sky, the sun suddenly appears overhead, fiery and bright despite the twilight around us. I falter with confusion, bring us to a stop.
“
What is it?” my other self asks. The sun overhead vanishes again as fast as it appeared, leaving me once more in evening twilight.
“The sun . . .”
An Eternal shoves me forward and I stumble a few feet before regaining my normal stride. I’m vigilant for the next fifty yards of climb and, when we start getting closer to the other larger group, the sun reappears overhead again, a displaced apparition that lends no light to our surroundings. To the contrary, it seems to make the world around me seem even darker. This time I know what’s happening.
“He’s here.”
“Who is?” my other self whispers. He seems to be unable to see the sun.
“Zurvan. Here in the Neverwhere. He remembers this place in sunlight.” The view around the sun expands for me and suddenly I’m seeing all of the desert peninsula in daylight. I’m reentering Zurvan’s memory of this place layered over top of the real world space—a sunburnt world that smells of smoke and natural gas. I can still make out the figures of Doctor Quickly, Mym, and the rest of the Eternals ahead of me on the hillside, but for them it’s still night. I’m caught on the edge of reality and the Neverwhere. This brightness I’m currently bathed in is illuminating me alone. Zurvan is somewhere nearby, and he’s going to see me.
I begin to separate from my other self’s consciousness, distancing myself from reality. “I have to go.”
“Wait, how are we supposed to join our minds? We need to—”
“He’ll kill me. He’ll take my memories.”
“What happens if I lose track of you?”
“I don’t know.” I search the view of the now sunny hills with trepidation.
He’s here somewhere.
Waiting.
I feel caught between the desire to run and the need to stay near Mym. If it wasn’t for the danger she and Doctor Quickly are in, I’d prefer to bolt, open up a portal to some disused memory and hide. Now I realize that’s not an option. Whatever my earthly self is walking into, he carries my fate with him, and theirs too. He’s right. We are getting closer to one another. It’s gotten easier to meld our thoughts and feel like the same person.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 152