by Kelly Robson
No, everything’s professional. Lurk if you want.
“What are you concerned about, Fabian?”
He fired up the high-level work plan and the project setup workflows bloomed in the air.
“We won’t have power when we land. But you can stay in your sarcophagus until the satellites begin providing ambient power.”
“No, I’m not going to hide.”
“When was the last time your legs were depowered?”
She scowled. “TERN’s medical department can give you the details of every depowering over the last thirty years. You can also get a chart of my bowel movements, if you want.”
Professional, Kiki whispered. Why are you baiting him?
It was a joke.
He didn’t laugh.
If Fabian doesn’t have a sense of humor, it’s not my fault.
“I need to know how you’re going to react when your legs yanked are out from under you,” he said.
“Did you ask Kiki the same question?”
“I’m not worried about Kiki. She’s easygoing. But you have a short fuse, and every time I try to handle you, you blow up. Are all plague babies like that? If so, life in the habs must be pretty ugly.”
Kiki laughed. Minh had to struggle to keep from laughing along with her.
“I take it you’re not worried about being without power,” said Fabian.
Minh pinned him with a level, unblinking stare.
“Okay. You win.” He put up his hands in mock surrender.
Give him a chance, Minh. He’s only trying to do his job.
Maybe he could figure out how to do it without getting up my nose.
Fabian fell silent. He paced along beside her, seemingly lost in thought.
“I have a lot of respect for the habs and the work you do,” he said when they reached the end of the curve. “When this project came up, I did a little research. I never understood the role of rivers on the surface of the planet before. They’re like the human circulatory system.”
“Not quite, but it’s a useful metaphor,” Minh said. “Rivers are the easy part of my work. Water flows downhill. Everything else is hard, and the worst part is getting people to work together.”
“People are the hardest part of my job, too,” he said. “So, can you do it?”
“Do what? Restore the Tigris and the Euphrates?” She chewed her lip. “Maybe, eventually. The habs have the people, the tech, and the experience, plus whole cohorts of fat babies itching for specialist training and real jobs. We’d love to put them to work.”
“I know a little of your history. The habs were planning on population growth from immigration. When it didn’t happen, you created the crèches.”
“We were optimistic. We forgot most humans don’t think on the long-term scale, and bankers certainly don’t. They live in a fantasyland. But the habs were doing okay until ten years ago, when all of a sudden everyone decided TERN could magic all the world’s problems away.”
Stop baiting him, Kiki whispered. He’s trying to make friends.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Fabian said, “but banker fantasies are a problem for TERN, too.”
“They’re a problem for the whole world.”
He nodded. “When CEERD created TERN, they wanted to fix problems in the present by rewriting the past. For an economist, hindsight is a powerful tool. The world economic collapse, the extinction events, all the plagues and wars could be avoided if the right fix was applied at the right time, and we’d come out the other end with a healthy economic system and an intact population.”
“With CEERD in charge, I suppose?”
Fabian stuffed his hands in his pockets. “CEERD had us doing backflips trying to find ways to force changes through the temporal barrier. Then they lost faith and cut their losses. Opened us up to commercial use.”
“That’s why you focus on tourism?”
He nodded. “You’ve probably noticed our hell is bare-bones. No luxuries, no aesthetics. We don’t waste resources, because when we want to run our own time travel research projects or upgrade our equipment, we have to pay for it. CEERD won’t float us anymore. They’re strangling us with our internal trade deficit.”
Fabian reached down and banged on the curve with his fist.
“Luckily, the tech is solid. And we know there’s so much more we can do with it than taking tourists to ogle people in different clothes.”
“Like Mesopotamian past-state assessments.”
“We’re historians. We love history. But you know what else gets us excited?”
Minh shrugged.
“Doing important work,” he said. “Same as you. And what’s more important than restoring ecosystems on the surface of the planet?”
Minh’s eyebrows rose, surprised. “CEERD has never been interested in the habs.”
“TERN isn’t CEERD. We want out from under their thumb. Maybe this is the way.”
“I don’t like TERN,” Minh said.
You’re such a tough customer, Minh, Kiki whispered.
“But I want to work with you,” Minh continued. “If our project proves out, every restoration project could begin with a past-state assessment. It would mean more robust restorations, and it would definitely shorten project timelines. Quicker completion means we could do more projects.”
“Cheaper projects get funded,” Fabian said.
“No, profitable projects get funded,” she corrected. “And more human habitat means more people, and more people means more profit. I’ve spent enough time arguing with bankers to know what gets them panting.”
“So have I. My father’s an economic theorist, but he’s a banker at heart. Nothing makes him happier than a column of numbers.”
“Does he ever admit they’re completely imaginary?”
“Never. Not in a million years.”
“Bankers,” Minh said, and they exchanged a smile.
-11-
SHULGI’S SPIES SAID THE moon temple was thrown into turmoil by Susa’s change in behavior. Usually energetic and exacting, she’d receded into herself—talking to god, she claimed, though she never said which god. When she emerged from her prayers, she made bizarre demands.
She ordered the temple evacuated for an entire day, windows unshuttered, rooms and courtyards emptied of people and left for the wind to blow through. The surrounding streets milled with confused weavers, displaced potters, frightened pledges, angry managers, horrified cooks. Kilns full of vessels were ruined, vats of cloth corroded and stained, ovens cold, altars abandoned, gardens dry, lamps empty. Susa gave no explanation.
Over the next few days, she ordered her people to blindfold themselves and recite every song, story, prayer, and fable they knew—not only in the language of the temples but in every tongue.
Susa had gone mad.
* * *
TERN’s project protocol simulations hadn’t prepared Minh for landing in 2024 BCE. Swaddled in a felt coverall, her face layered with a thick gel mask, she expected to feel trapped, even stifled. Instead she felt naked, flayed. Her eyes were glued shut with mucus. Her muscles shivered. Her skin stung as if stretched.
Joints creaking, Minh pulled herself over the edge of her sarcophagus. Her legs were locked protectively against her crotch, six coils stiff as fists against the soft flesh. She slipped her hands out of her sleeves and felt her neck. The goiter clung like a leech, twitching. Her diaphragm cycled inert gas from the mask’s bubble mouthpiece to her lungs while the goiter fed oxygen into her trachea and flushed carbon dioxide from her blood. The mask’s noise-canceling tech buzzed white noise in her ears.
She pulled at the goiter. It detached from her throat and hung, swinging against her collarbone by the last few strands buried in her neck.
Minh eased her fingernails under the edges of the mask and pried it away from her temples. The side pieces released first, sliding out of her ears with a slurp. A faint breeze caressed her wet skin. More white noise now, ocean surf and wind.
> Using her fingernails, she tried to pry the mask from under her chin, but it barely lifted. She stuck out her tongue to force the gel away from her lips. The piece snaking down her gullet gave slightly—enough to trigger her gag reflex. Bile prickled her throat.
Minh wanted to launch the first satellite. The mask would peel off in a minute or two and then she’d be able to see, but she wasn’t going to wait.
She felt around until her fingertips brushed the satellite launcher case. She flipped the safety catches and pulled the arming tabs. They gave way with satisfying pops, and the ignition primed with a faint buzz. She pulled the launcher close to her chest, tucked the barrel behind her ear, and clicked the triggers.
It didn’t fire. Something overhead was blocking the sights. Likely a tree. She needed a better position.
Minh slid out of the sarcophagus, flopping onto her belly. Cool sand cradled her torso. She wiggled, dragging the launcher behind her with one hand. Then she dug the butt of the housing in the sand, braced it between her elbow and gut, and hit the triggers again.
Warmth bloomed against her stomach. The launcher buzzed and heaved.
The mask peeled from her eyelids. She convulsed—violent, lung-bruising coughs. The mask peeled out of her throat and plopped between her elbows. Eyelashes were embedded in eye sockets. The goiter landed beside it, wiggling. She raked sand over it with the blade of her hand.
The air smelled like biofiltration mats from the bowels of Calgary’s water recirculation system, with a whiff of something rotten, like a dirty extruder nozzle, so oxygen-thick it seemed like the air might catch fire from any spark.
Fabian bent over his sarcophagus, his face red and blotched.
“Who got the first satellite up?” he asked. “Bet it was Minh.”
“Of course it was Minh,” said Hamid. He staggered over to Kiki’s sarcophagus, flipped it open, and reached in with both arms.
“I’m okay.” Kiki’s voice was muffled. “Really dizzy, though. I don’t know which way is up. And this thing is still wiggling.”
Kiki’s hand appeared. She flipped her goiter into the air. When it rolled to Fabian’s feet, he kicked sand over it.
“Are you going to get number two and three up, Minh?” he asked.
“Already on it.” Minh slammed a new cartridge into the launcher and dug its butt into the sand.
“When you’re done, give it a rest. You’ve just time traveled. Stop trying to do it all and enjoy the view.”
She primed the ignition, braced the barrel, and thumbed the triggers again. The launcher’s tip glowed orange and burped a fist-sized ball of fire into the sky. Minh watched it fade and disappear overhead. Then she repeated the process with a third satellite.
“Ambient power in ninety minutes,” Fabian said. “LAN in a hundred. Drink some water. You can launch the rest of the satellites in a minute.”
He pushed a bottle into her hand. She guzzled it. Then, finally, she looked around.
Cobalt ocean and pale beach curved in a lazy arc toward rocky headlands. White rollers licked the shore. Pink clouds scudded across the horizon, and a faint green band marked the point where sky kissed water. Behind her, slender palm trees arced over the black carbon-fiber wireframe encasing their equipment. Gears on mechanical timers had released the sarcophaguses onto the sand like swollen petals.
“Welcome to Home Beach.” Fabian scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars. “This is where we begin every new baseline. We’re in the remote South Pacific. No settlements within a thousand kilometers, but I’m checking to be sure. Past population members do tend to wander.”
He lowered the binoculars and cast a worried glance at Kiki’s sarcophagus. The only part of Kiki visible was her fist gripping Hamid’s hand.
“How you doing in there, Kiki?” Fabian asked.
“Good now. Hamid gave me an anti-nauseant.” She sat up and looked around. “Wow, this is gorgeous.”
“I’m going to check the other side of the island,” Fabian said. “Stay out of the water. The jellyfish are deadly.”
“This is weird,” Kiki said. “No stream, no whispers, no message queue, nothing to ping. I’m used to juggling a dozen feeds and conversations, but now I can’t even see my biom.” She thrust her arms out in a wide circle. “And no people. We’re alone.”
“If we want to gossip about each other, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Hamid said.
He took Kiki’s wrist between his fingers and counted her pulse, beating his foot on the sand to judge the rhythm. When a huge bird splashed across the water not a hundred meters offshore, he dropped her hand and jumped to his feet.
“A frigatebird,” he said. “Where’s Fabian? I need those binoculars.”
Minh dragged herself over to the wireframe and heaved a lever. A storage compartment slid open. She dug out a slender telescope and flipped it to Hamid.
He lifted the scope and tracked the bird as it circled the beach.
“A frigatebird,” he repeated. “Wow. I’m never going home.”
* * *
Hamid identified five more bird species before ambient power hit. Minh’s biom bloomed in the bottom left of her eye—all green, no alerts. Her legs unfurled, and the instant she was mobile, she scooted down to the shore to dangle a toe in the warm water. Thumb-sized jellyfish clustered in the shallows, their threadlike tentacles translucent against the creamy sand, their bodies and arms a delicate apricot. Kiki skipped down the beach to join Minh and then ran along the water’s edge, laughing, leaving a trail of chevron-shaped hoofprints in the wet sand.
When the LAN came up, Minh’s feeds and bookmarks stacked into their usual positions on the bottom right of her visual field. Minh booted a seer and put it on the upper left. It began identifying species right away. Minh dismissed the taxonomy and set the interface to supply the most relevant indigenous names. The palm trees were thangithake, mostly, with a few unidentified species. She’d take a closer look later.
She grabbed a camera and sent it spinning overhead. From a ten-meter elevation she could survey the whole island. Home Beach was the right size for a three-week ecological assessment. A hundred thousand square kilometers was ridiculous. The sheer enormity of the project loomed overhead. What had she been thinking? This was going to be a disaster.
Minh took a deep breath. She always got vertigo at the start of every big project. It would all work out fine. One task at a time.
“Satellites are streaming,” Fabian called out. He fired the feed across the horizon.
Home Beach was at the far eastern edge of a widespread archipelago. The feed was dotted with population markers and estimates of human biomass, but nothing within five hundred kilometers. Markers tracked a flotilla all alone in the wide ocean, far from land.
Kiki zoomed in. People were clustered in the open boats like seeds in tiny pods. She magnified the feed until the people were fuzzy splotches.
“I wish we could see their faces,” Kiki said.
Minh collapsed the feed and replaced it with the day’s work breakdown.
“It’s time to start ticking boxes,” she said.
While Kiki fabbed construction elements, Minh and Hamid assembled their pocket hab—a temporary dome with sleep cubbies, nutrition, and hygiene support. Fabian began assembling the skip and its pad. Floats did the heavy work, shuttling components from the wireframe and moving newly fabbed pieces to the assembly sites.
Kiki hadn’t exaggerated her fabbing skills; she knew how to optimize the output and keep the tech from choking. When Minh lurked on Kiki’s feed, the spinning workflows looked nearly as complex as a climate stats array. Kiki was watching the satellite feed, too, zooming in on villages as she monitored the fab.
The pocket hab was basic, a tiny, two-level dome with a negative-pressure system to keep the bugs out. Furniture was minimal—benches around a communal table downstairs, and four sleep cubbies above.
Kiki had added a green leaf pattern to the dome’s skin, echoing the
shades and shape of the thangithake palms. Viewed from the beach, the hab blended into the landscape. It was an illusion, though. Their footprint was already on the ecosystem, heavier than Minh liked. Water recirculation took gray water from shower to toilet, and sewage went straight into a tank with no treatment, just a hose to exhaust the gas away from camp. Their routes between fab, hab, skip, and beach were already cutting through the ground cover. Minh was keeping an eye on a purarata growing near one of the trails, not for the shrub itself, though its deep red flower and elongated pistils were impressive, but for the unidentifiable clusters of mold growing on its stalk. She’d have to take a sample home, for curiosity’s sake.
Minh prepped the maintenance bot while Hamid assembled the nutritional extruder and bolted it to the table. As lunch was priming, he unpacked a carton of floating cameras, waking them one by one and letting them float into the air from his palm. Then he filled his bowl and trotted down to the shore, cameras following behind.
Fabian sent the skip on its test burn and joined Minh and Kiki in the hab. They watched the egg-shaped amber skip slowly follow its invisible power beam and disappear into the sky.
“How do you keep tourists occupied during setup?” Kiki asked as she scooped lunch into her bowl. “They’d get bored with all this fabbing and start wandering off.”
“We keep tourists under wraps until everything’s ready,” Fabian said. “On day trips, we only support nutrition and hygiene. Since we’re always dropping into the same baseline, we don’t have to worry about surprises from weather or past populations. We’ve seen it all before.”
“Today is new, though.” Kiki was half-buried in the local satellite feed, tracking population markers, zooming in on a large island village where individuals moved like ants across the beach. “New to you, I mean. You’ve never lived through today before.”
He smiled patiently. “I haven’t lived through it yet. Anything could happen. This is uncharted territory.”
“It’s getting less uncharted all the time,” Minh said.
She copied Kiki’s feed and collapsed it to a globe. Half the planet was dark, the poles were grayed out, and large weather systems blotted the sphere with milky pinwheels, but most of the satellites were in position, lighting up the continents with data.