Eternity's Wheel

by Neil Gaiman

  “What?” I leaned down, so close I could feel her breath against my ear.

  “I’ll pay for the damages,” she murmured.

  “I’m gonna kill you,” I said, reaching out to touch her face.

  “Get in line,” said a voice from behind me, and I was summarily shoved aside as Avery knelt next to his sister, gathering her carefully into his arms.

  “Ugh,” she murmured, nose wrinkling in an expression I’d seen my own sister wear a thousand times, when looking at me. “Not you.”

  “Where in the abyss have you been, Cace?”

  “Everywhere. Couldn’t navigate. The stars were gone . . . they’re going . . . They’re . . .” She opened her eyes wide, sitting up in Avery’s arms and reaching out to grab the front of my shirt. “The stars are going,” she told me urgently, everything in her expression indicating this was of vital importance.

  “Going where?” I asked.

  “Dying,” she said. “They’re dying. FrostNight . . .”

  Her grip on my shirt loosened, and her eyes lost focus. She passed out immediately after, going limp against her brother.

  “Sir?” another voice said behind me, as I felt the air shift from Jai’s teleportation spell. Jai was sort of big on protocol, and he kept insisting he call me that as long as I was at the Old Man’s desk. Ordinarily it bothered me; right now, I was focused on Acacia.

  “Go ahead to the infirmary,” I told him. “Tell them we have our first patient, then get back to the engine room. I’ve got things here.”

  He spared a brief glance at Avery, then nodded. Avery got to his feet, cradling Acacia against him. He lifted her easily, paying no attention at all to Jai as he vanished. Now that they were both in the same place, the resemblance between them was more obvious—but even unconscious, Acacia had a fire to her that was different from her brother’s quiet intensity.

  “This way,” I said, and turned to leave. As I turned my back, I saw a hint of green in my peripheral vision. Instinct took over, and I whirled and grabbed for Avery. One hand closed around his forearm, the other going to Acacia’s shoulder. Damned if I was going to let her vanish again.

  “Let go, Harker.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she needs medical attention, and my people are better equipped to give it than yours.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, and I didn’t want to. I wanted Acacia to be okay, even if it meant going back to TimeWatch and away from me—and for that reason, I hated what I was about to say.

  “Your mission wasn’t to rescue your sister. It was to help us stop FrostNight, and Acacia has information about FrostNight. She needs to stay here until I get that information.”

  Avery was already standing rigid, but he managed to straighten up even more as he stared at me. His eyes narrowed, and I felt his arm flex where I had a grip on his wrist. If he hadn’t had Acacia in his arms, he might have tried to throw me off him.

  “Look,” I said, trying to pitch my voice to be reasonable, “I’m worried about her, too. But you said yourself that FrostNight would eradicate everything, including TimeWatch. You can take her back there now, but it won’t be safe. Nowhere will be safe until we stop it.”

  “And what information do you think she has?” Avery asked. His voice was cold and tightly controlled.

  “I don’t know, but any information is better than what we have. Just bring her to the infirmary, we can do what we can and find out whatever she knows, and then I’ll let you take her back. I swear.” I relaxed my grip on his wrist, then deliberately let go of him, dropping my arm to my side.

  He stared at me for an uncomfortable moment, and I was inches from losing my temper again when he finally turned and started walking. He didn’t say a word, didn’t give any indication of his agreement except the fact that he was doing as I’d asked, and not vanishing in a green glow. It was a miracle this guy hadn’t already gotten on my last nerve.

  The walk to the infirmary was short and silent, full of bare walls and long corridors. I was painfully aware of where the Wall had been; the hall seemed to stretch on forever, and the blank metal surrounding us was empty and accusing. I didn’t doubt the tradition of the Wall would start again. One of us would inevitably die, and it was more than likely that those who remembered would continue honoring the dead that way.

  It should be Josephine, I thought, unable to help myself. I should look through her backpack, find something she loved. . . .

  It was a nice thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet. Not when we might soon be nothing but memories.

  Avery didn’t leave Acacia’s side for the next several minutes until she woke. Once he was satisfied that our rudimentary technology would be adequate to help his sister, he stepped back and listened while Jianae (she’d been picked up with Joeb’s team, and was one of the few medically trained Walkers we had) asked Acacia questions about her breathing and whether or not she felt dizzy or faint. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was in a hospital back on my version of Earth.

  “She’s severely dehydrated and malnourished, but the supplement shots will help with that. The cuts will heal on their own, but I’ve given her booster pills to make sure they don’t get infected,” Jianae explained, speaking to both Avery and me. “I can treat the symptoms, but I’ve never seen this kind of sickness before.”

  “She’s timesick,” Avery said quietly. “You can’t fix it. TimeWatch can.”

  I spared him a single glance (Jianae was giving him a similar look as she strapped a pulse monitor to Acacia’s wrist), then sat down on the edge of Acacia’s bed.

  “Hey,” I said, not sure where else to start.

  She smiled vaguely at me, though her eyes didn’t quite focus. It was sort of like she was looking past me, or looking at where I’d been a moment ago. “Hey,” she responded, though she paused slightly longer than was normal.

  There was another pause, during which I became acutely aware that the last time I’d seen her we’d been inches away from . . . well, I hoped it had been about to be a kiss, but there was honestly no way of knowing. I knew she intrigued me, I knew I liked her, and it seemed like she felt the same way. Beyond that . . . it was hard to devote much thought to wondering if I might have a shot with a girl I barely knew when I was supposed to be finding out if the world was about to end.

  I sighed. Then I said, “What did you say about FrostNight and the stars dying?”

  “I was worried about you,” she said.

  “I was worried about you, too,” I admitted. “What happened to you?”

  She looked briefly irritated. Then she bit her lip and her expression shifted, becoming sad and worried, and—I was surprised to see—scared. “We didn’t stop it, Joe.”

  “I know.” I impulsively reached out to take her hand. She didn’t react.

  “Lord Dogknife . . . threw me out of time,” she said, glancing in Avery’s direction. “He broke my navigation and shoved me through the dimensions. Through the Nowhere. There was this . . . spider creature. . . .”

  I leaned forward, squeezing her hand. Only then did she react, glancing down and giving a faint smile. “Lady Indigo?” I asked. I assumed that was who she meant, but . . .

  “You know?’

  “I . . .” I started to answer, then paused. I knew what?

  “Who?” she asked.

  I stared at her. It was starting to sound like we weren’t having the same conversation, especially since she wasn’t quite making eye contact.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you get hit in the head or something?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Well, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “What, what?” she asked, beginning to look irritated.

  I continued to stare at her, at a loss. “What?”

  There was the sudden sound of laughter from behind me, though it was a laugh I didn’t recognize. I turned, surprised to
find that was Avery. He was laughing at both of us, his resemblance to Acacia even more obvious in his amusement.

  “I really should just let you two talk,” he said, still laughing. “But I suppose it would be best if I translate. And, yes,” he said, looking at Acacia. “It is.”

  “What do you mean, translate?”

  “Shut up, Avery,” Acacia said. “It’s not funny.”

  He grinned at me. I looked between him and Acacia, then blinked. “Did you just . . . ?”

  “Respond to her before she spoke? Yes, though not from her point of view. She’s timesick,” he repeated, some of his good humor fading as he explained. “A side effect of which is time lag. The leader of HEX threw her out of time, as she said. She is not swimming in the same stream, as it were.”

  “You mean, she’s . . . lagging?” I looked back to Acacia, who was glancing between us—but as Avery spoke, she was looking at me.

  “Not exactly. She is responding in what she perceives as real time, but her present is not aligned with our present.”

  “Oh. How can you tell?”

  “I’m a Time Agent,” he said. “I am trained to see these things.”

  I fought off a wave of irritation. “I see. So, she was . . .”

  “Responding to things you had said a moment before.” He grinned at me again. “If the situation weren’t so dire, I really would have let it go on. I imagine it would have gotten even funnier.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” I glanced back to Acacia, who was looking at Avery. “She wasn’t like this when she first showed up, though, was she?”

  “It . . . was just starting,” Avery explained hesitantly. I guessed this was more supersecret TimeWatch stuff. “If left unattended, she will continue to slip further out of this timestream.”

  “Is that bad?”

  He hesitated again. “It is . . . inconvenient. It’s dangerous if allowed to continue for an extended time—months, or years.”

  I nodded. All that mattered was that it could be fixed, really. I waited until Acacia was looking at me again (and made sure not to move too much, so she could track me) before I spoke. “So if I just . . . go slow, it should be fine . . . ?”

  “Yes, if tedious.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing the fate of the Multiverse isn’t urgent or anything,” I snapped. I couldn’t help it.

  Avery smiled, unruffled. “Yet you were the one who insisted you question her as she is.”

  I sighed. I waited until Acacia had given her brother a reproachful glance and was looking at me again, then started over.

  “Acacia, can you tell me about the stars dying?”

  There was another long pause, then her eyes closed and her hand tightened around mine. “The stars and the planets,” she said. “FrostNight is moving. It’s been moving this whole time . . . but it’s not like they meant it to be. It won’t sustain itself. It’ll die out.”

  I felt relief go through me so suddenly and strongly that I felt dizzy. Still, I made myself pause before asking, “It won’t sustain itself?”

  The allotted time went by before she answered; I was counting roughly six seconds of lag between our exchanges, though I couldn’t be sure of how long it took her to process what I was saying and choose her words. “No. I could already feel it dying, but . . . but it’s still restarting worlds. I don’t know how many already, but it’s moving along in a projected arc. . . . Your enemies have already won some new bases,” she said, looking away from me. “FrostNight has made empty worlds they can use however they wish.”

  I squeezed her hand, counted to six, then said, “But this is good, right? We can let it die, concentrate on tracking down that HEX ship and getting it off InterWorld’s trail. Right?”

  She still wasn’t looking at me, even after I counted silently to six. “Acacia? Do you know where it’ll end?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The last projected world is Earth F epsilon ninety-eight to the seventh.”

  I didn’t have to count the six seconds before responding this time. The blood froze in my veins and time actually seemed to slow as I repeated the classification silently to myself. Earth F epsilon ninety-eight to the seventh. FrostNight had begun on Earth F delta ninety-eight to the sixth. The classification of Earths was confusing at best, since there had to be some leeway and margin for error; new Earths were being created all the time and old ones destroyed. The particular subset of Earths in the alpha through zeta category were those in the middle of the arc, the ones not inclined strongly toward magic or science. Like mine.

  The classification number of my Earth was something I hadn’t learned until I’d been on InterWorld for a while; they didn’t want to encourage us to be homesick or tempted to go visit. I’d looked up the number on my own, out of curiosity, and I’d always remembered it: Earth FΣ314. Earth F epsilon three to the fourteenth.

  One of those worlds was mine.

  “Joe,” Acacia warned, a second before I stood up. Timesick or not, she apparently hadn’t had any trouble reading me. “I know,” she said, even as I started to speak.

  “That means my world will be—” I cut myself off, since she was already nodding.

  “I will,” Avery said.

  “Avery,” Acacia said urgently. “You have to tell him.”

  I looked over at Acacia’s brother, picking up on their off-pattern conversation. “Tell me what?”

  “That you can’t leave,” he said.

  Screw that. I started for the door.

  Avery stepped in front of me, hands held out in front of him. “You must stay here, Harker. There is nothing—”

  “Nothing I can do? Screw that,” I said, stopping long enough to glare at him. “I can get my family to safety, at the very least.”

  “And bring them where? Here? To live on InterWorld with you, the only Walker here to have their loved ones? What of the other Walkers? Some of them may have worlds in the Wave’s path, too. Will you give them the same warning?”

  “It’s only right,” I began, but he cut me off.

  “And you will all run off into the Multiverse to bring your loved ones into a war they cannot possibly fight. So they will languish on this ship and wait for you—the ones they love—to come back from your missions, which some of you inevitably won’t.”

  I glared at him and he matched it, neither of us giving an inch. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he demanded.

  “You’re not. You’re not wrong, but what am I supposed to do? Just let my world be destroyed?”

  “Worlds die and begin anew every day, Harker, every hour. Yours is nothing special.”

  I started to push past him, but Acacia (who had probably said this a few seconds ago, according to her) called out “Listen to him, Joe! TimeWatch can help!”

  I stopped, looking at Avery. “How can TimeWatch help?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s referring to, as it is not our right to interfere with the course of time.”

  “This has nothing to do with time! It’s outside of it, outside of everything, you said so yourself—damn it, you don’t have any protocol for this!”

  “You’re right,” he said. “We don’t. Which is likely the argument my sister intends to use.”

  “I don’t know,” Acacia said, answering my question from a moment ago. “But I can try. And I have to go back anyway. Please, Joe, let me try before you go running off!”

  “I will take her back to TimeWatch, get her the care she needs, and discuss this with the council,” Avery said. “It will be done as fast as we can possibly make it.”

  “You’re a Time Agent,” I shouted, finally losing my temper. All I could think of was the necklace I always wore, the one my mother had made for me the night I’d left home, and how I’d told her I was leaving to protect them. “Time means nothing to you!”

  For the first time, I saw him get truly angry. His hand snapped out to clutch my shirt, and I found myself shoved a few steps back.

  “Time means everything to me,�
� he said, still pressing me backward. “Don’t you dare think that because I feel it differently I feel it less.”

  “Is that how you fell in love with Josephine after only five minutes?”

  It may have been a cheap shot, but I was pissed off and worried, and I’d been wondering what the hell was up with the two of them ever since he’d called her “Josie.”

  For a second I thought I was going to get punched, but he let go of me. “Sit down, Acacia,” he said, though she hadn’t moved yet. Then, to me—“Time flows differently across the worlds, Harker. What was five minutes to you could have been five days to us, or five years. Besides,” he finished, a smirk tilting at the corner of his mouth, “where do you think she learned to use a grav-board like that? You certainly didn’t teach her.”

  Acacia was getting to her feet anyway, trying to detach all the various wires and monitors she was hooked up to. Jianae was hovering around uncertainly, alternating between helping her unhook herself and telling her she should really stay put.

  “Avery, stop,” Acacia protested. “Let’s just go. Please.”

  I turned my back on him, going to Acacia. I was seething, furious at Avery and upset by the knowledge that my world was going to die. “Please come back soon, Cay,” I told her, and then I reached out to take her face in my hands. “I know this isn’t happening for you yet,” I said. “But I hope you don’t mind when it does.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

  Avery put a hand on Acacia’s shoulder, looking disapprovingly at me. “No, I won’t tell him,” he said, and then they both began to glow green. Acacia smiled at me before they vanished, leaving me to wonder what it was she wanted said.

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  “SIR?”

  It took me a moment to realize Jianae was addressing me. I was so unused to being addressed like that, like I was in charge, like I was someone who knew what I was doing. Like I was a leader.