She made her way slowly around the periphery of the Eye’s walkway, knowing that her father was up here somewhere. Walking past the now-defunct drone monitoring station she saw a shadow, slumped against the main fuse box; it seemed that her father was sitting on the floor. Through the darkness, his resigned-sounding voice reached her.
“Thought it might be you…”
In the low ambient light, she could now see his silhouette against the grey of the box behind him; he seemed to be defined by rounded shoulders and bowed head.
“I guess you’re angry,” she began.
She heard him snort slightly.
“Are you kiddin’?” he said without raising his tone, “Takes a real special kind o’ grit to betray your own family. I’m proud of you, Pumpkin.”
“What?” she stopped a few feet away from him.
“True power ain’t ever given…” he said, “an’ you took it like a stone-cold Archive bitch. Pittman future’s in great hands. All you needed was a little push.”
In the dim light, he held out his hand to her. For a second, she thought he might be asking for assistance to stand up, but then she saw what he was holding: a short-barrelled pistol. As she froze, he raised his other hand and held out his rabbit’s foot keyring.
“Clip this to your bag or whatever,” he jiggled it.
“What the hell -”
“Pumpkin…” he interrupted, extending the gun slightly, “Don’t make me ask nice twice.”
She took the keyring from him and, not taking her eyes off the gun, eventually succeeded in clipping it to a loop on her jeans.
“There now,” he said, “It’s your turn to carry it. Here’s the other bit.”
He turned the gun around and handed it to her, grip first, “It ain’t loaded now.”
“I’m not -” she began.
“We both know I’m going to the cells,” he cut in, “So, either somebody else finds it when I get searched… or, you keep my dad’s pocket protector safe in case you need it one day.”
“I’m not like you!” she flared at him.
He gave a half-hearted laugh and looked away from her.
“I told my dad the exact same thing.”
TIME AND DISTANCE
Miles’ simulation of a college lecture room hadn’t been drawn from one specific memory. Unlike the ISS central axis, one door away, it was an original creation; an eclectic collage of raked seating, workbenches and open floor space.
At one side of the room was a boxy, wooden-sided television on a chunky-wheeled metal stand; Fai’s audio-visual conduit in this version of reality. Nearby was an old overhead projector; its bulbous-looking lens magnifying the halogen-white presentation surface and projecting it onto the wall-mounted screen at the front of the room. It currently displayed the predicted trajectory of the Eridanus, alongside its Chronomagnetic M-Field descriptors.
“The important concept,” Fai’s voice came from the television speaker, “is that, in interstellar terms, the Eridanus did not need to achieve a high velocity. Although the journey from Earth took over seven million years, the Field surrounding it made the duration short for the occupants.”
“But would anything be left of Epsilon Eridani by the time they got there?”
“Undoubtedly,” she replied, “The main sequence star had a projected lifespan far in excess of their journey time.”
“And what about the planet orbiting Eridani?” said Miles, “After so much time, would it still be capable of supporting life?”
“Unknown. But the Eridanus cylinder was self-sufficient, they were not dependent on finding a habitable planet in order to survive. If the planet was not suitable, they would simply have selected a new destination.”
“And what? Travelled for another ten million years?” he suggested sarcastically.
“Twenty-one,” she replied, “Eventually they would find a star system capable of supporting human life.”
Immediately, Miles could see a limitation. If the Eridanus made multiple journeys, vast amounts of time would be lost. Unless their propulsion method could be improved.
A fact that must surely apply to the ISS too.
“Fai,” he began, “After we diverged from the Eridanus, did we continue at the same speed?”
“Initially yes.”
“Initially? So you’ve updated our propulsion along the way?”
“Yes,” she replied, “However, owing to our extremely limited resources, we are still subject to Newtonian restrictions. Our propulsion is achieved through two methods.”
She displayed a diagram on her television screen.
“The first is the direct fusion engine.”
Miles found that he recognised certain aspects of the design.
“This is like the original ISS fusion system, right?”
“Yes,” Fai then highlighted a section, “except it is not dependent on Helium-3, we may use any available matter.”
Although Fai’s impressive achievement was as understated as usual, Miles could see the issue: short of using the ISS itself as fuel, any fusible matter would need to be carried with them. As Fai had already stated, their resources were limited.
“So what’s the second part?”
“The stellar mass collector,” she cleared the screen and presented a second diagram, “The journey to the Eridanus Void Anomaly encountered many main sequence and red dwarf stars. Using electromagnetic shielding and containment, the collector harvested Hydrogen-2 directly from stars’ photospheres as we passed through them.”
Miles looked at the diagram.
“And that powers the direct fusion engine, which gives us thrust?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, “but only when our Chronomagnetic Field is inactive.”
“Of course,” he recalled one of her earlier lessons, “If a rocket is contained in an active Field, it can’t push against anything outside it.”
He found that he could visualise the rocket-clad ISS hopping between distant suns as it made its way through open space. Presumably there must now be a long line of suns behind them.
“How far from Earth is the Eridanus Void Anomaly?”
“Six point four billion light years.”
Miles stopped to confirm the number.
“As in, it would take light over six billion years to travel that distance?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Miles seemed to remember from his school days that Earth itself was only estimated to be around four billion years old. In six billion years, a collection of rocks orbiting a sun, could evolve into a space-faring species.
A further thought occurred and he found himself scouring their propulsion statistics. The ISS was not, of course, travelling at anything approaching the speed of light. At best it had managed only forty percent of this speed. The physical journey time from Earth to the EVA would be significantly longer than six billion years.
“Fai, how far have we come?”
“We have covered approximately eighty-two percent of the distance. Using external time as a reference, we should arrive at the EVA in under two point nine billion years.”
The numbers were now so large that he found he was no longer shocked.
Time within the ISS M-Field would pass more quickly, of course, but it hardly seemed to matter. By the time they reached the EVA, the universe itself would be unimaginably old. The stars themselves could have grown cold.
It was this last thought that now troubled him. When there were no more stars, the only source of fuel would be the ISS itself.
WINDOW
~
Looking out through the window of Samphire Hoe cottage, Douglas again cast his eye over the timelines. Since their lunar intervention countless millennia ago, they’d altered and tweaked the resulting timelines several times, spawning yet further knotted masses of continuity.
He was looking at the end result of consequence.
As a child he’d been driven by a simple wish to s
pend more time with his father. Although this original intention had faded, the consequence had been the creation of the Chronomagnetic Field. But even this was only a stepping stone for someone he considered to be far greater.
He could see the point where Anna Bergstrom’s timeline had ended: happy and surrounded by those who loved her. There was a small part of him that envied her and the simplicity of a linear life. Mostly though he felt an unresolved sense of guilt. Anna had risked everything to return to Earth, convinced that she would find him and Kate aboard the Node. All that she’d found was news of their deaths.
He’d discussed the matter countless times with Monica and Kate, wanting to find some way to provide Anna with a sense of closure. But each time, they’d reached the same conclusion: the risk was too great.
Anna’s pain had been a powerful impetus for development.
After the manifold inflection event outside the Node, she’d thrown herself into her research. Her drive and determination had produced significant scientific advances. He knew that any intervention, even a kind word of solace, risked deleting a temporal branch that contained mankind’s greatest legacy: reaching the stars.
He heard the cottage door open and close, then Monica walked into the living room.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“I think I might be onto something.”
“Go on,” she joined him at the window.
“You remember Kate and I were talking about the Pi-Hydrogen correlation?”
“Of course,” she nodded.
“OK,” he pointed through the window, “the flattened spiral patterns that -”
Suddenly, an entire branch of a timeline flickered and vanished.
“What the hell was that!?” he yelled, running in the direction of the front door, Monica hot on his heels.
EXODUS
2nd January 7142
With Gail and Marshall by her side, Cassidy followed Atka back to his campfire. He lit a wooden torch and guided them away from the Node. Cassidy could hear Roy and Scott behind her, attempting to keep order among the others who were just now emerging, but she tried to focus on the way ahead.
In 2013, the bridge off the Node’s island had been destroyed. The fact that Atka was here at all meant that the bridge had been repaired. It was possible that everything had changed. The temperature certainly had.
“I don’t get it,” she turned to Gail, “Why’s it so warm?”
“Remember what I told you about obliquity?” she reminded her, “When we were up in the Observatory?”
“The Earth axis angle thing?” Cassidy tried to picture a globe leaning at a more extreme angle.
“Yeah, well it’s happened much sooner than I predicted,” she pointed up at the stars, “We’ve entered a period where the axial tilt is hyper-accentuated.”
“Meaning?”
“This latitude is now part of a much more temperate zone,” said Gail, “Look at the vegetation.”
Gail was right, she thought, the trees and plants were flourishing in an area that used to be under arctic conditions.
Atka brought them to a halt at the bridge crossing and, for the first time, they could see what lay beyond the trees on their island.
Looking very much like a rope bridge, a thin wood and vine construction stretched across the dark water to the far shore. A large group of people were gathered there; a sea of faces, illuminated by orange, fire-light torches. Beyond the silhouetted trees behind them, suspended in the dark-blue sky, were scintillating arcs of lunar debris; each piece like cut diamond, reflecting distant sunlight.
“It’s beautiful,” Cassidy found herself whispering in awe.
When she looked around at the others she could see that they were similarly transfixed.
Roy was the first to look away from the sight. He walked the few paces to be with Gail who was still holding their son. He looked into her eyes and, although he hadn’t uttered a word, she nodded. He slowly lifted the Biomag chain from around their son’s neck, passing it cleanly over his head. Without a second glance at the Biomag, he tossed it into the nearby greenery, where it fell completely out of sight. Wrapping his arms around them, he squeezed them both tightly. Cassidy couldn’t hear the words he was whispering but, from the tears in Gail’s eyes, she understood: they were free.
“You did it Cass,” Marshall joined her, taking off his Biomag.
She smiled back at him, then looked around at the others, “We all did it.”
She was about to remove the chain from around her neck, when she saw Atka’s puzzled expression. He was still clutching his Biomag casing and its metallic resonator coil. Judging from the ceremonial way that he’d greeted her, the collection of parts obviously had a significance to him. He probably found the thought of discarding a Biomag abhorrent.
She left her Biomag where it was. For the time being she could treat it as an inert piece of costume jewellery that accessorised the random collection of clothes she was already wearing. She smiled at Atka and saw that it appeared to put him at ease. He beckoned her to follow him and walked out onto the bridge, holding his flaming torch high to light the way for her. She knew that she would want to use both hands for what lay ahead. Putting her stick lantern into the wide pocket of her foil jacket, she let her eyes adjust to Atka’s warm light.
Steadying herself for her first crossing, she placed a foot on the bridge and felt an electric chill ripple down her spine. She looked back at Marshall who was giving her an encouraging nod. He pointed at his T-shirt then at hers.
“No Fear,” she smiled.
She lifted her other foot from the ground and set it on the bridge.
Marshall was right, now was not the time for fear. Always forwards Cassy, she could almost hear Danny’s advice guiding her.
She placed her hands on the thick vines and began walking across the vine-tied wooden branches that made up the bridge’s floor. At first, each footstep seemed to be a small negotiation between her trust and the amount of flex in the supporting branches, but soon she reached an equilibrium with the natural materials; moving from branch to branch with relative ease.
In places, she could see through to the water far beneath her. A dark and rippling mirror, broken by jagged pieces of long-rusted metalwork. A five-thousand-year-old relic of the former bridge and other metallic debris.
On a few occasions Atka stopped to tuck thin twigs back into place, all the time making sure that her path was kept clear. Clearly he knew the bridge well enough to know which areas might prove a challenge to the uninitiated.
With each footstep, the end of the bridge drew ever-nearer and the general hubbub from the gathered crowd grew gradually louder. Presumably, they could now see the strange looking visitors who were about to arrive on their shore. Their words, though incomprehensible to her, were hushed and apprehensive.
Now obviously under greater scrutiny, she tried to keep her movements and facial expressions calm. She didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise Atka leading her to the structures she’d seen on the stone map.
In the darkness, the sounds of uncertainty began to multiply and a single torch departed from the group. It was followed quickly by two more. Then the lights began to move away in larger numbers and at greater speed, until only a few people remained; those who had overcome their fear or were frozen because of it.
As she neared the end of the bridge, she could see their clothes more easily; similar in style to Atka’s, they too were adorned with patches of fabric.
“Najo!” Atka greeted a young woman with a smile then closed the distance between them.
Making sure to keep the burning torch to one side, he placed his arm around her and she returned his smile, placing a hand on his chest. Although the woman seemed pleased to see him, she kept a wary eye on Cassidy; clearly unsure what to expect.
Cassidy reached solid ground and walked a few paces towards them both. She could feel the ground move slightly as the others began to arrive behind her.
“Najo,” Atka looked at the woman then turned to face Cassidy and the others, “Vay Gahdians.”
The young woman looked at her, clearly hoping for some form of response but Cassidy had no idea what to say. Atka had used a word to get the woman’s attention, then used it again when he’d turned to address them. Cassidy couldn’t be sure, but she guessed this was some form of introduction. Presumably Najo was a name. Hoping that she wasn’t about to offend someone, she drew on what she remembered from her first meeting with Atka.
“Exordi Nova, Najo,” she touched her forehead.
Najo grinned and touched her forehead before another flurry of conversation began between her and Atka.
Cassidy turned to see Marshall by her side.
“I think you just made a friend, Cass.”
She took hold of his hand, “I hope so.”
Atka and Najo quickly reached some sort of consensus and, holding their torches high, guided them away from the bridge and towards a line of trees.
The forest was more dense than on the island but there was a clear dirt path through it. The walk was long and from time to time they encountered clearings where the path branched off in different directions. At these places, embedded in the ground, were small circles of stone. Each circle appeared to feature a larger stone within its circumference. Cassidy’s first thought had been that these were simply larger scale versions of the forehead markings, but she quickly realised there was another element to it: the position of the dot seemed to indicate the direction that she’d come from. As quickly as the thought arrived, she knew this wasn’t strictly true: from the perspective of Atka and Najo, the dots indicated the way towards the Node. It seemed that Atka’s people had been visiting the Node for quite some considerable time.
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