Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach

by Kelly Robson

  “TERN will,” he said. “And so will I.”

  -9-

  THE NEW STARS BROUGHT trouble. Reports of monsters and spirits cropped up whenever Shulgi’s people were nervous about the future, but these were real omens. Three swans plunged from the sky and impaled themselves on a grape trellis. At the same time, an amber egg appeared in a barley field north of Asnear, and whatever hatched from within murdered six soldiers and flew away before it could be confronted.

  When Shulgi’s falconers talked to the field workers who had witnessed everything, they reported four monsters. Accompanying them were flying spirits: silver stones with single red eyes, gray slabs edged with hornet stripes, and a head-sized black burr that turned soldiers into unblemished corpses.

  * * *

  On the upskip to Surgut, Kiki searched for data on Fabian. He was from a CEERD family line, the child of a senior economist who’d spent the past two decades seconded to the World Economic Council. Fabian had qualifications in history and linguistics. He’d been with TERN since his undergrad degree.

  “If he thinks he can boss me around, he’ll learn different pretty quick,” Hamid said as they waited in Surgut. “I’ve been riding two-year-old colts my whole life. They all think they’re number one on the track.”

  “All those advanced degrees,” said Kiki. “It’s pretty intimidating.”

  “The degrees mean nothing.” Minh felt the mattress of one of the Surgut bunks, wondering if it was as uncomfortable as it looked. She hoisted herself up and reclined. The plastic mattress cover squeaked. “Fabian’s showing how superior he is, like everyone associated with CEERD.”

  Kiki shrugged. “He’s not worse than you, Minh.”

  Minh lurched up and gaped at her.

  “I was so scared of you my first year at ESSA,” Kiki continued mildly, as if she hadn’t just kicked Minh in the gut. “All business, so forbidding. You didn’t need my help, not with anything. I couldn’t buy a kind word, not even from your fake.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “It’s okay,” Kiki interrupted, smiling. “I figured it out. You’ve seen it all before. Your life is optimized. You don’t need random variables. When we first met, I was nobody. Another admin. No better than a fake.”

  Minh jumped out of the bunk. “Kiki—”

  “But for me it was different. I was so excited to get the job at ESSA. I thought if I worked hard and proved myself, you’d give me opportunities to learn and grow. I never minded being stuck in admin—running meetings, editing docs, managing the company message queue, doing everything for everyone. I knew someday I’d do important work.”

  Kiki’s grin became luminous. “And I was right. We’re going to time travel.”

  She fired the award notice into the middle of the cell. A flashing alert showed the Bank of Calgary was already reviewing the contract.

  Whispers poured in from partners, friends, and colleagues, congratulating Minh on the win. When the skip arrived to take them to Iceland, Minh was so busy juggling multiple streams, Kiki had to herd her across the pad and into her seat. Her queue filled with interview requests, not only from hab media but from all over the world—even a big Bangladesh feed. Minh set her fake on them all.

  Back in Calgary, when the bank offered her a choice of new studios, she had her fake brush them off, too. Minh had more important things to do than play nice with media or move into a new space.

  She had a long list of urgent and important tasks. David needed prep to take over her ongoing projects before they fell too far behind. But first, she needed to finalize the project inventory so the equipment would arrive on time. Technically, she couldn’t do that before revising the time travel work plan, but the revision would take days and the equipment had to be ordered immediately. Cart before the horse—equipment before work plan. She sped through the inventory as quickly as she could, making educated guesses and pulling numbers out of thin air. Kiki and Hamid handled the procurement and logistics, ordering sampling tech from Calgary, satellites from Iceland, and cameras from Cusco while she fine-tuned the work plan according to notes forwarded by TERN.

  A week later, Minh, Hamid, and Kiki were the only passengers on a direct skip to TERN, billable from the moment they strapped into their seats. They downskipped into a high alpine valley, the mountains furred over with invasive scrub. Minh couldn’t tell the exact location. TERN had required them to accept a block on their geopositioning before leaving Calgary. Western Alps, she guessed.

  When they landed, Fabian waited by the side of the pad, hands in the pockets of his gray coverall. Minh’s dislike of him hadn’t abated—his beady eyes, his nose sharp as a beak, his air of superiority—but she swallowed it. Considered dispassionately, she was happy to have him on the team. It meant she didn’t have to think about basic project logistics.

  She forced herself to be sincere, look him in the eyes, smile.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “Your team was my first choice. I’m glad the client agreed.”

  He led them to an elevator. “You’ll stay in medical for the two-day prep phase, then join me in pre-launch. While you’re in medical, you’ll need to review the project protocol. It’s a bit tedious, but TERN’s project control standards support successful project outcomes.” Fabian looked abstracted, eyes glazed.

  “That sounds like a mission statement,” Minh said.

  “It is.” Fabian’s focus snapped back. “Sorry. I’m running multiple streams. Listen, Minh, you have an ambitious work plan but you know how to keep your team on top of it. Hamid, you’re a cowboy. You need a loose rein and that’s fine. But you—” He pinned Kiki with an intense glare. “You’re the future. This project is for you. Make the most of it.”

  What a diva, Minh whispered to Kiki.

  He’s not wrong. Kiki grinned. Aren’t you excited?

  I’ll let you know when I see something to get excited about.

  Minh expected the roughhewn corridors to become more polished as they descended under the mountain, but it never happened. The hell was utilitarian, with low ceilings, temporary shelving, sparse lighting, and flimsy, ill-fitting grill flooring. No effort spent on aesthetics.

  Medical hit them with a barrage of tests and preventative interventions. Teeth, gums, gut flora, connective tissues, and endocrine and organ systems. Minh hated it, but she gritted her teeth and let the techs prod her.

  Months back, Minh’s medtech had bookmarked a twitchy heart valve. Minh had procrastinated, and now she had no choice but to let TERN take care of it. The twenty-minute procedure was supervised by a CEERD senior surgeon resident in Tuktoyaktuk. He was oversolicitous. Minh’s fake fielded all his questions while Minh lurked, scowling so hard her jaw hurt.

  She wasn’t the only one the techs got their hands on. Kiki upgraded to full-size prostheses. Hamid had a procedure, too.

  “It’s private,” he told Kiki when she asked about it. “As far as you know, I’m immortal.”

  Kiki showed off her new prostheses. “I wanted six legs like Minh, but turns out you can’t add four additional limbs and expect to be able to control them right away. So, two legs for now.”

  She’d chosen an ungulate model, strong, adaptable, and sturdy. The sheaths matched Kiki’s brown complexion, and the split-toe hooves were glossy black. Kiki flexed, crouched low, and then stretched high to slap the ceiling with her palms. At full extension, Kiki was even taller than before, and alarmingly clumsy.

  “Most people who go with this design choose to cover it in fur,” she said. “But that’s for aesthetics.”

  “You’ll spend a few days thinking about nothing else, but soon they’ll be familiar as your arms,” Minh said.

  “A human ankle-knee-hip model would be easier to adapt to, but this joint design is superior for speed and stability.”

  Minh nodded. “Why be human when you can be more?”

  Kiki backed against the wall, gripped one hoof in her hand, and examined the sole.

  “The legs coll
apse for storage, like yours, but the hooves are solid. The split-toe design is pure goat. Hard hoof wall, soft sole, and dewclaw. Rock climbers like this model.” She eyed the rough wall supporting the medical department mezzanine level. “I could probably climb this cavern if I wanted to.” Then she dropped her hoof and nearly fell over. She laughed. “Maybe not for a while.”

  Minh dove into project-management mode. She wanted to skim through TERN’s project protocol information and then focus on further refining her work plan using whatever historical information she could get access to. But the project protocol docs were tedious, with hour upon hour of real-time content. Summarizing and scanning ahead were disabled. Worse, at the end of each doc they were forced to complete tests before moving to the next.

  When Fabian claimed them from medical, Minh was furious.

  “I can’t believe you made us do comprehension testing,” Minh said. “Who do you usually travel with? Toddler crechies?”

  Fabian ticked the answers off on his fingers as he led them into the elevator.

  “Tourists. Collectors. Artists and artisans. Doc teams. Forensic economists from CEERD. Tactical teams. And historians, of course. Mostly TERN’s strategic historians, but outsiders tag along if they have the funding. Usually, they have to attach themselves to an entertainment doc production team. They never complain about comprehension testing. They’re grateful to get the chance to do real historical research.”

  Grateful, Minh whispered. TERN destroyed an entire academic discipline, and he thinks historians should thank them for it.

  I’m grateful, Kiki whispered. I feel lucky to get this chance.

  Hamid smirked as the elevator descended. Go ahead, Minh. Give Fabian a piece of your mind. Get it over with.

  Fabian leaned against the elevator’s mesh walls, arms crossed, watching her closely. For a moment, Minh considered giving in to her worst impulses, let him have the full diva treatment. But no.

  Get him out of my face before I tell him what he should be grateful for.

  “Fabian, did the medical department contact you?” Kiki asked. “They bookmarked a pending issue.”

  Fabian scrubbed the back of his hand over his lips as he checked his queue. “They say you’re refusing to transfer medical authority. That’s a problem. Project protocol gives me access to all your bioms.”

  “It’s a smart policy,” Kiki said. “But protocol also says when there’s a medical professional on the team, authority goes to them. And we have one.”

  “Veterinarians don’t count.”

  “I’m a large mammal specialist,” said Hamid. “Humans are large mammals.”

  Fabian threw his hands up. “I can’t argue with that.”

  Kiki continued chatting as he led them through TERN’s corridors.

  “What’s your specialty, Fabian?” asked Kiki. “Are you a strategic historian?”

  “No. TERN’s history operations are divided into two divisions—strategic and tactical. Strategic historians do research and planning. Tactical historians get the work done. That’s me.”

  “I bet those two divisions fight like cats,” said Hamid.

  “Would a strategic historian make us waste time going through all those basic docs?” asked Minh.

  Fabian spread his hands wide. “We have to spend three weeks together, Minh. Don’t hold the project protocol against me.”

  “It’s not personal,” Minh said.

  “You built Tuktoyaktuk, right? I was there for a CEERD conference a few months ago. It’s nice. Tuk-U must have been a great little school.”

  Minh’s blood pressure blasted into the red.

  “I hope CEERD likes it. You have a long lease. But remember, aboveground, you’re all simply tourists trying to remember what it’s like to be human.”

  Fabian gave her a feral smile, teeth gleaming. “Are you sure it’s not personal?”

  The elevator doors opened and they all stepped out into a crowded hallway. Fabian led the way single file, talking over his shoulder at Minh. She avoided his eyes, seething.

  “I know the docs are dull,” he said. “But you’re not the only one who’s bored. I’ve been running package tours for weeks. Yesterday was twelve hours at Carnac. I’ve made that trip more than forty times.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous, bringing tourists to the past?” asked Kiki.

  “We only send package tours to established baselines, where we have decision support to cover every contingency.”

  “Sounds boring,” said Hamid.

  “The food is good. We bring along a chef,” Fabian said. “But this is no package tour you’re going on. Nobody has ever landed in 2024 BCE, not even me.”

  “Will you take tourists there, eventually?” asked Kiki.

  “Maybe. If conditions are right. Not package tours, though, not right away. Private excursions first.”

  “You can repeat the trips over and over, and every time you leave, the timeline collapses,” Kiki said. “But how do you know for sure?”

  “TERN’s physicists say so,” Fabian said mildly. “I’ll take their word for it.”

  Minh’s blood pressure was still in the red. She dialed herself down, and a cool breeze washed over her as the blood drained from her skin.

  Shit, she whispered to Kiki. I promised myself I wouldn’t argue with him. Why didn’t you stop me?

  It was fun to watch. But you didn’t really let go. You gave the banker worse.

  They stepped out of the corridor onto a ledge overlooking a vast cavern. Below, a battery of machinery and status panels clung to a gleaming metal tube that disappeared into dark tunnels on either side.

  “This is Launch and Retrieval,” said Fabian. “The components visible here are a standard particle-accelerator array. TERN’s proprietary technology is on the other side of the curve.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and tapped a knuckle. “Thirty kilometers away. That’s where the physicists work.”

  Okay, this is impressive, Minh whispered to Kiki. Even I’ll admit it.

  The cavern was crowded with people—so many that the porters and loaders were crawling to their destinations at only a few meters per minute. And scattered across the wide floor were antiquities. Minh pinged them and brought their visuals into close-up.

  Some were manikins draped with clothes from ancient cultures—wool and silk, every fiber harvested, dyed, spun, woven, cut, sewn, and embellished by hand. The human hours dedicated to their production were unimaginable. Some were religious icons, the wood more precious than the gold and silver. The metals might have been mass-produced from casts, but the wood was carved and painted by hand.

  Minh especially liked the grotesque wooden saint’s head, the top of its skull formed from glass displaying pieces of brown skull housed within. But best of all was the Minoan rhyton, a rock crystal vase laboriously reconstructed in the twentieth century from smashed fragments. Beside it was a second rhyton, identical but new and whole, direct from the artisan’s workbench.

  “Today is especially busy because we’re processing a series of six-hour day trips,” said Fabian. “Dhaka 1971, Victorian London, Heian Kyoto, the Ganga ghats. These are the shortest trips we offer. The waiting list is in the millions.”

  TERN staff in coveralls and boots wrangled groups of tourists. The crowd was dotted with people in historical costume—gowns, suits, hats, robes, wraps, and wigs. Tourists clustered around them.

  “The people in costume are all strategic historians,” Fabian said. “It’s a glamour job. The ones dressed like me are tactical.” Fabian nudged Hamid’s elbow. “You’re not wrong. Strategic and tactical do get in the occasional fight. And when they do, the best view is from right here.”

  -10-

  AFTER THE SWANS AND monsters, Shulgi’s falconers brought more disturbing reports. Red-eyed silver stones were spotted in every corner of the kingdom, floating high and low and dodging every missile thrown or launched at them. Fat, wingless hornets, too, by the thousands, comparatively easy to cat
ch. When cut or squashed, they spilled clear liquid and shriveled to a speck.

  In the moon temple, Susa spent another day arguing for Shulgi’s death, then lost interest in her campaign. She receded into prayer and contemplation.

  To Shulgi, Susa’s retreat was the most disturbing portent of all.

  * * *

  From the vantage point of the ledge, Minh and her team watched as the tourists and historians were sealed into individual life-support sarcophaguses, stacked into carbon-fiber wireframes, and loaded into the curve. When they left, Launch and Retrieval was deserted except for a few techs and a dozen hygiene bots.

  Fabian led them down into the main cavern and showed them their dedicated staging area. While Kiki and Hamid inventoried the equipment, Minh explored the accelerator array and its humming supplemental apparatus. A hygiene bot whirred across the floor, leaving a polished streak in its wake.

  A tech with a nest of messy brown hair padded up to the edge of the accelerator tube and examined a clutch of bots as they whirred over its shining surface. When the bots disappeared into the tunnel, he lurked at the tunnel’s entrance and sent a pair of cameras floating after them.

  Minh stroked the side of the tube. It quivered under her suckers. A hum sounded from deep within the structure. She tapped the side of the tube.

  “Can I climb on this?” she asked the tech. He looked tired, the skin under his eyes puffy and dark.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “The curve was built to last.”

  She snaked her legs up the side of the tube and dangled, belly against the cold metal, bracing herself with her hands. Once on top, she walked along a path of yellow safety treads bordered by grab bars. The treads were freshly painted, still slightly tacky under her toes.

  Fabian wheeled an access ladder over, climbed up, and fell into step beside her.

  “Do you have any questions about the project protocol?” he asked.

  She gave him an acid look. “Didn’t I pass my comprehension exams?”

  He winced. “Let it go, Minh.”

  Are you fighting again? Do you need me to rescue you? Kiki whispered.