The Valteran Ascension (A Paradox of Time Book 1)

by Mara Amberly

  His main reason had been in case anyone saw the ship on the surface. Now if anyone was poking around, they wouldn’t find anything. He couldn’t move the ship again now that he had the power systems disconnected and he couldn’t mask it either. All he had was the comms, life support and the backup weapons system running off a connected secondary power supply.

  While he put every spare minute into repairing the ship, Cora took care of other things.

  She dived from the boat, enjoying the way the cool water flowed over her. As pleasant as it was, gathering up dead fish was a less enjoyable but nevertheless necessary task.

  If she’d left them long enough they’d float to the surface, but probably not while they were fresh, which was why she gathered them up now.

  The ship’s pulse wave only affected a small area in front of the ship, but a half dozen fish had been caught in its radius. Cora found them drifting side-on in the water, and scooped up each fish before surfacing for air, dropping them into the rowboat and returning to search for more. When she was sure she had them all, Cora climbed back into the boat, put the fish into a cloth bag and rowed to the shore, where she hid the boat among some trees.

  As she set the last branch in place, Cora heard distant voices. She heard a man calling out in a broad Scottish accent, though she couldn’t make out his words at a distance. Cora took a careful look around the largest tree. She saw the man she’d heard and two children running around, enjoying the sunny day. It wasn’t a piece of home exactly, but it was a reminder to her that life went on, and families in the current day and age weren’t all that different from her own.

  It seemed a good idea to slip away before she could be seen. Cora waded into the water with the bag of fish. She dived down, only surfacing a few times before she found the hatch and made her way back inside. She felt much safer and more secure entering the ship when Eric was inside and could help her if she ran into problems. He was waiting in the cargo bay for her.

  The bag was dripping water as she padded along the corridor, but then so was she.

  “It looks like you got a good haul of fish,” Eric said, smiling.

  “Enough to feed us for a few meals,” she replied, opening the bag to show him. “The poor fish didn’t stand a chance, but we’ve got to eat.”

  “If it wasn’t us, it would’ve been another fish or Nessy,” he said.

  Eric knew he’d changed the future for them and wondered if it might cause some kind of butterfly effect. He’d probably never know if it did.

  “I’m going to dry off,” Cora said. “How are the repairs progressing?”

  “It’s getting there,” he said. “Some of the components I have aren’t the best for the job, but we’ll have to make do. It’ll take a few more days, more than likely.”

  “I guess it will take as long as necessary,” she replied.

  There didn’t seem any reason to hurry, but there could be.

  Could the group who’d kidnapped them know about their presence here? Was it possible someone could come looking for them? The ship had gone seemingly unnoticed this long, so it stood to reason nothing should change in the next couple of days. After all, what were the odds?

  Chapter 11

  May 1846 – Aboard the Equinox, Loch Ness, Scotland

  “I don’t know where they came from,” Eric said. “What is this, the fishing event of the season? The great Nessy hunt? Some pagan holiday?”

  “I honestly can’t say but I don’t think they’re looking for us,” Cora replied.

  There had been people out on the loch since early in the day. Cora had ventured out, but quickly returned, likely reluctant to be seen in her shift. Eric knew she didn’t want to draw attention to their presence either.

  “Is it too much to believe that it was a perfectly beautiful day and they decided to make the most of it?”

  “Yes,” Eric replied.

  He could discern the grumpiness in his tone, but he saw no reason to correct it.

  “All it would take is a swimmer or an overly-enthusiastic fisherman dropping his line down too far and our secret might be revealed. This is not good, Cora. They can’t find out we’re here.”

  “Is there anything I can do about it?” she asked.

  “You can help me get this ship going, so it’ll cease to be a problem. It should be fixed but it just isn’t working. I know the power’s getting through but for some reason beyond me it isn’t working.”

  He strode back into Engineering and Cora followed him. She wore her dress from her home time frame today. She was sure it would look strange to the locals, but it was clean, dry and tidy.

  “What are the things your ship needs to run?” she asked him.

  She received a glance from Eric like she’d asked a foolish question, but she met his gaze unflinchingly. “Explain it to me.”

  “The ship doesn’t need fuel. It has the drive core, which produces endless clean energy. The drive core appears to be functioning, but the power isn’t getting through.”

  “You’re certain you can run the engines underwater?” she asked.

  The weeds had been cleared from the engines. She and Eric had tackled that task together before they’d moved the ship and before he’d dismantled the jury-rigged drive core system.

  “Were there any pieces left over?” she asked, which caused Eric to laugh.

  “Alright, obviously not that,” she said, folding her arms.

  “Could anything be preventing it from working?” she asked. “Some kind of technology or a side-effect of time travel?”

  Eric gave her a blank stare and then he glanced at the drive core. “You know, I didn’t think of that. There are pieces of technology I found when we were kidnapped, but I can’t see how they would interfere with it. Well, there was that odd one – I’m not sure what it was. I just know it was radioactive.”

  He’d left it in a nearby drawer, along with the transceiver he’d found.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised her.

  Eric took both items with him. He reasoned that the airlock was the farthest point on board from Engineering, but he decided to set them down in the cargo bay. The airlock was frequently flooded with water, and he didn’t want to ruin them. He put them into an open storage crate, closed the lid and returned.

  She was still in Engineering when he got back.

  “I doubt it will change anything but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

  Once he had the systems up and running, the sensors should be able to make heads or tails of the mysterious object.

  Eric fired up the system… and the lights sprang to life on the drive console.

  “You’re shitting me!” He said.

  “Pardon?” Cora asked as she glanced between the drive core and Eric.

  “It worked?” she asked with delight. “Oh my goodness, it worked?”

  “Yeah it worked,” he replied, laughing.

  “So the device stopped it?”

  “It must be absorbing energy; potentially an awful lot of energy. That or it created dissonance in the energy relays.”

  Eric waited for the system to fully load and focused the sensors on the crate where he’d stowed the devices retrieved from their kidnappers. The sensors seemed to slide past the unknown item with only limited readings. The nature of those readings left him uneasy.

  “I think it might be dangerous, Cora. If I’m right about what I’m seeing, this device should never have found its way to Earth. We’re going to have to dispose of it – somewhere else.”

  “Do you mean on another world?” Cora asked, barely containing her sense of adventure, even after finding out the object could be dangerous.

  “Another world and another time,” Eric replied. “Or maybe somewhere like an asteroid field. That way we won’t risk harming a viable planet or a planet that might one day become viable.”

  “What’s an asteroid field?” Cora asked, with a subtle hint of a smile.

  “Rocks that fly through space, uhh –
gravity holds them together.”

  “Amazing!” she gasped, then turned her attention back to the object. “How powerful do you think it is?”

  “So powerful its energy storage is practically limitless until it releases that energy, and we don’t know when or how it will do that. I think the sooner it’s gone, the safer we and a lot of other people will be.”

  “It could be useful though?” she asked.

  “It’s not worth the risk. This device could be a planet killer. Would you want to risk that falling into the wrong hands?”

  “I guess not,” she replied.

  “When do you want to go?” Cora asked.

  “Well, the engines are working. I want to run a few diagnostics to make sure they won’t give out on us at a very bad time and place. We could leave Earth around nightfall? You’re going to love it,” he promised her.

  “Are you strapped in and ready?” Eric asked as he flipped the lever beside his pilot’s seat, causing the ship to surface.

  “Strapped in, yes. I’m not sure about ready,” Cora replied, grinning.

  “The airlock’s empty and sealed?” He checked, and Cora nodded.

  “All fish have been eaten, Nessy is not in the cargo bay, and the thing you told me about dried my clothes.”

  “It’s good for that,” he said.

  “You’re sure the food in the dispensers is going to be fresh? This ship’s been here an awfully long time.”

  “Yes, it’s no problem; I tested it today,” he said. “The ingredients are kept in a time stasis field and they’d keep forever.”

  “Your world is truly full of wonders.”

  “Not just wonders though,” Eric replied. “Those with power don’t always use it wisely. My people are sadly one of the vainest examples of that. You’ll see, eventually.”

  It was hard to tell what Cora was thinking. In her time, with such resources and powers at his disposal, Eric could’ve done anything. Instead, she looked at him as though he were a lost soul. He was a man of many facets, and he knew Cora had only seen some of them, good and bad. He wasn’t proud of some darker aspects of his nature, but he knew he’d had the decency to act when so many of his people were unwilling to challenge the status quo to save themselves and each other.

  Eric was ready. The thrusters fired, and the ship rose above the darkened loch. Eric knew the lights would be visible, so he engaged the main engines and took the ship up into the atmosphere as quickly as he could. There wouldn’t be any satellites to worry about; at this time there was nothing but the sky above and space after that. It was one thing he particularly liked about Earth. It wouldn’t be the same later in human history.

  The inertial dampeners were flawlessly effective and Cora seemed excited yet worried as the active view screen showed their rapid ascent. In the cockpit, it seemed smooth, and they hardly felt the force of the ship’s movement, though the roar of the engines was loud.

  “We’re leaving the upper atmosphere now. Say goodbye to Earth.”

  Cora reached out a hand toward the view screen but lowered it when she reached the limit of her seat’s straps. “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  Once they cleared the atmosphere, Eric brought the ship into the fifth dimension. There was no way in advance for him to know if it would work other than to try it. There was a bright flash outside the window, which caused Cora to huddle into her seat, and then the roar of the engines diminished.

  “You can undo the straps now. You won’t need them for a while,” he said.

  Eric unclicked the straps on his own seat, though he stayed where he was.

  “What was that bright flash?” Cora asked, fascinated but also worried. She could tell that Eric seemed unbothered by it, and so that gave her confidence that she probably didn’t have anything to worry about.

  “That was our entry into fifth-dimensional space.”

  “I don’t understand what that is,” Cora replied. “Can you explain it to me simply?”

  “I can try,” Eric said. “The truth is ‘simply’ is probably the best I can manage. I’m an engineer, not a physicist. You’re used to three dimensions around you – the length of things, the width of things and the height of things. The whole world is made up of those three dimensions. After that, you add a fourth, which is time. You have the whole world – most of the universe, actually – moving through time. Well actually time is also moving through the universe, but I don’t want to overcomplicate things. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I think I do; a little.”

  “The fifth dimension adds the flexibility of the universe. It can bend in on itself or outward. Think of the time rifts I create. We don’t just move through time but from one place to another. That’s because we’re using the fifth dimension to push two points together, and we walk between them. That’s what the ship’s doing now. We’re travelling between two very distant points in space and the distance between them for us will be far shorter.”

  Cora grinned. “Oh my goodness, that actually makes sense. Thank you. I’m not saying I understand how it works but I understand your meaning. It’s incredible that your people found a way to accomplish that and that it’s actually possible.”

  “It is though the discovery is shared with several alien races.”

  “Do you know if the time creatures we encountered exist here in the fifth dimension? If we walked through it, then it stands to reason they might.”

  Eric knew they existed in some places, and that would include the fifth dimension, but whether they could in space was another matter entirely. Still, it pleased him to see her inquisitiveness showing.

  “I don’t know if they’re here. I mean out there in space. Do they exist in the fifth dimension? Yes, but in places where an animal might live. Not much can live in the vacuum of space.”

  “A vacuum?” she asked.

  Of course, she didn’t know. “There’s no air out there, Cora. No oxygen to breathe. Anyone out there unprotected would die.”

  He could tell from her expression that it came as a surprise to her and he knew he should’ve realised that.

  “The ship can protect us though,” she said.

  “That’s the idea.” Eric gave her a reassuring smile. “For the most part, space is an empty place. Hmm, maybe I should show you the database. It’s like a very large book that you use by searching for terms and phrases. You can read up on the time creatures in there too. They have another name, Chronopods, but I call them time creatures because it’s simpler.”

  “I would but I can’t read much,” Cora said. “Most of the women I know can’t read. There are many words I know, but some I don’t.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realise,” Eric replied. He tilted his head as he considered the possibilities of fast-tracking her learning.

  “You forget that I’m a woman,” she said, some slight annoyance in her tone.

  “I’m fairly sure I didn’t, Cora. However, I think I have just the solution.”

  “You mean you’re going to teach me?” she asked, as her expression brightened. “I know it would take a long time.”

  “I could give you that knowledge sooner, but it would mean putting it right into your brain,” he said, tapping her right between the eyes.

  She recoiled, then moved back into place, eyeing him with confusion.

  “It wouldn’t hurt – much, but it couldn’t be undone. I would ask for your agreement first and a promise.”

  “What promise?” she asked, with a tone of uncertainty.

  “That you’ll respect the knowledge you learn and treat everything related to me and my people with the utmost secrecy.”

  It wasn’t what she wanted, he knew. She wanted to learn how things worked and take that knowledge back to her time. It was likely to help people but at the cost of disrupting the timeline. Of course, not returning Cora to her time would have similar consequences.

  “It would enable you to understand my language,” he promised.

  Eric kne
w that with that, she could learn almost anything given time and opportunity enough.

  “I have some questions of my own,” she said, not wanting to offend him. “First of all, I’m human and from a different world to you. Are you sure it would be safe for a human woman?”

  “The technology works in a similar way to hypnosis and isn’t invasive at all, so I would say yes. It should be entirely safe for you or any other entity.”

  “If that is so, could you teach a fish to understand English?” she asked.

  He laughed. “What? No. The capacity to learn has to be there already. As a human you have it. A fish probably doesn’t.”

  “I’m sorry to ask it, but how can you be sure it’s safe when your ship’s been underwater for hundreds of years and was broken until not long ago?”

  He scratched his head. “I don’t know. I could run a diagnostic to check the skill records are intact but I suppose there’s no way to know for sure. I could ask myself to leave a note in this time frame in a specific location if it works out badly, and then we’ll know not to do it?”

  Cora’s eyebrows rose. “If it’s all the same, I think I’d like to learn the traditional way. I know some words already. Do you have any books that might help me?”

  Eric sighed, but the choice was Cora’s to make. If she didn’t want to put herself on the line to fast-track her language skills, she didn’t have to.

  “There are some learning programs on the computer. I can show them to you later.”

  “Thank you,” Cora replied. “I know you’d prefer me to have these skills immediately, but I wouldn’t respect my skills unless I learned them myself.”

  Eric nodded. “I think I understand you.”

  He wouldn’t have made the same choice, but for someone with so much time, and ability to manipulate time, he didn’t like hanging about.

  “Let’s deal with this alien artefact first. We should only be a few minutes away from the exit hub now. We need to get ready.”