Time Shards--Tempus Fury

by Dana Fredsti

  “I apologize and am commencing a full sensor diagnostic now. I will keep you informed of any new developments.”

  Still fuming, Blake strode off to his quarters to grab one of the machine guns he had scrounged from the battlefield at Alexandria. Torn, he deliberated for a minute. He preferred the Sten gun, but found his stolen German Schmeisser the more reliable of the two, so he reluctantly chose that one instead. Mentally cursing the ship’s programming that forbade it from creating weapons or ammunition, he grabbed the last of his ammo clips and joined the others suiting up in the central corridor.

  His irritation faded somewhat when he saw the quality of the arctic gear provided by the ship, grabbing small items passed up by the others—a folding ice axe, a coil of ultra-light rappelling rope, flares. The rest of the group wasted no time bundling up— except Harcourt, who found it beneath his dignity.

  “No, thank you,” he sniffed. “I believe I will forbear from dressing up like a savage Esquimau.” Evidently determined to persevere by dint of his indomitable Victorian will alone, he dusted off his top hat and fixed it smartly on his head while everyone else was busy slipping on big overboots and long parka dusters with shaggy fleece-lined hoods.

  “I shall await you all at the station,” he pronounced. The ship opened the hatch and a sudden blast of frigid air struck him like a giant slap from the Abominable Snowman.

  “C-cl-close it!” he gasped, and the ship shut the door once again.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Nellie stamped a foot in exasperation. “We don’t have time for all your fuss and bother.” Blake couldn’t have agreed more.

  Harcourt hurriedly donned the arctic gear, but still refused to leave his beloved hat behind. Then the line of parka-clad travelers all plodded out like astronauts, down the ramp to the landing strip. Though it was the Antarctic summer, few of them had ever felt such bitter, pervasive cold.

  Encumbered by their thick polar wear, everyone marched along as carefully as they could. The tarmac was solid enough, and by some magic of twenty-third-century engineering it remained clear of snow, but here and there treacherous icy patches threatened. The group cautiously approached the glassy, flying fragments that continuously circled around and over the station.

  * * *

  Again Amber thought most of the swirling objects looked something like giant snowflakes, albeit chunky three-dimensional ones, or perhaps shattered bits of candied glass. Whatever they were, it was hard to tell if they were solid or not. All of them appeared to be unique variations on a cluster of crystalline shards, but the pieces that made up each one seemed to shift and move around in place—were they drifting through one another? It was difficult to tell.

  It also was tricky to focus on any one of the floating apparitions. Some undulated along, like heavily pixelated jellyfish. Others orbited like little sputniks, all glassy splinters and daggers in star shapes. The tiniest of all were little more than fireflies, diving and soaring off again. So many visual impressions—it was dizzying. Amber was mesmerized by the sight, in such a variety of sizes and shades of color, glittering in orbit between them and the station’s high metal dome.

  “Hypnotic, aren’t they?” she said.

  Leila nodded, and shivered. “But… what are they?”

  “No idea.” Amber shrugged, still staring in fascination. “I can’t even tell if they’re really there, or just some weird polar mirage.”

  “Me neither.” Leila reached out a hand.

  “Don’t touch them!” Nellie called out sharply.

  Leila jerked her hand back.

  “Could they be artificial?” Blake mused out loud. “Some kind of defense mechanism for the station?”

  Amber shook her head. “They seem too broken up for something man-made. It’s like an asteroid belt, made up of scattered broken bits. Everything between us and the station is one continuous—” Amber paused, struggling to come up with the right word. “—shatterfield.”

  Cam nodded. “It’s a good name, Shatterfield,” he said. “These flying ghostlights look like broken shards of frost borne aloft in a dance by winter spirits.” He closed his eyes for a moment and went silent. Amber knew him well enough to know he was praying to them in case they were spirits. Cam thought gods and spirits lurked in everything—and this time, she could see why.

  She leaned forward slightly and stared at the dancing shimmers of color.

  “What are you looking for?” Leila asked curiously.

  “I thought I saw something…” Her voice trailed off. “Wait! There—can you see it?” She pointed, and Leila nodded.

  The closest one drifting by seemed to have tantalizing images playing on the surfaces of its many facets—hints of hazy, ephemeral landscapes, like television screens tuned in to impressionist art.

  Hypatia frowned at the flittering images. “Let us take care. Could there be something sinister lurking in them? Might they mean to draw us in to our doom, like siren songs for the eyes?” Kha-Hotep seemed disturbed by the idea, quickly touching his forehead, eyes, and heart.

  “Stay close, everyone,” Nellie cautioned. “I don’t like these… what did you call them, Cam? Ghostlights. So let’s not disturb them, eh?” No one objected to that.

  “Well, whatever we are going to do, let’s jolly well proceed with it, shall we?” Harcourt groused, his teeth chattering as he tried to conceal his shivering.

  “Right.” Blake stepped up and unslung his firearm. “I’ll take point, then.” Giving the strange lights a healthy berth, he entered the Shatterfield.

  * * *

  The others followed, single file. Though they tried to stay together, avoiding the passing ghostlights quickly had them spread out. The floating traffic made it difficult to keep the person ahead in sight. From the air the distance from landing strip to the station doors didn’t look very far. Somehow entering the field had changed that, as though it were bigger on the inside than the outside.

  At first, the only sounds were their own frosted exhalations, the soft crunch of their boots on the landing pad, and their heartbeats. Then came snatches of haunting, piping music, like the hint of some moaning phantom.

  That cannot be real, Nellie thought. A trick of the mind, or of the Antarctic wind. It wasn’t coming from the lights themselves— they moved in eerie silence, circling like sharks. She pulled back the hood on her parka to improve her peripheral vision. Immediately the cold bit into her ears, and she gasped with pain. Concerned, Hypatia turned to check in on her. They paused as a trio of lights floated by, then quickly slipped forward again.

  * * *

  Cam stuck close to Amber. They weaved their way past the deceptively placid carousel of flickering shapes, a constantly moving, confusing jumble that made it difficult to keep sight of the others.

  A large, irregularly shaped ghostlight passed uncomfortably close, its surface boiling with movement. Amber would have sworn this time there really was something in there, watercolor suggestions of lava flowing over some volcanic tableau. They let it pass by and slipped through the gap.

  Her sense of direction felt off.

  “Cam? Are we still headed the right—”

  * * *

  Harcourt doffed his hat as a particularly fast-moving spikey star-shape dipped past his head and swooped up and away again. One of the more placid lights slowly drifted up toward Leila. She flinched with a little yelp, startled by the closeness.

  “Are you alright?” Kha-Hotep said, coming to her side.

  “No, it’s okay,” she replied, embarrassed. “It’s just…” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Are they following us? I almost think—”

  She vanished.

  “Leila!” Kha-Hotep shouted, lunging forward to grab for her, but she was already gone.

  Then he was gone, too.

  25

  Blake wheeled at the sound of Kha’s shout.

  Nellie and Hypatia turned as well.

  “You two keep going!” he said as he passed them. “I’ll see w
hat’s wrong!” He ducked around the nonstop parade of moving obstacles and ran up to where Cam and Amber stood with Harcourt.

  “What happened?” he asked. Amber turned to him, her face pale. Speechless, she pointed in horror to the interior of the ghostlight. In its hazy depths, he could make out the panicked figures of Leila and Kha-Hotep, tumbling away in slow motion as if falling horizontally through a long nightmare tunnel. In a matter of moments, their struggling shapes dwindled away into the dark, and disappeared from sight.

  “What the devil?” Blake murmured, fighting to rein in his own fear. “Did anybody see what happened?” The others shook their heads.

  “How on earth could they have got in there?” Harcourt exclaimed in disbelief.

  “We have to save them!” Cam said. “Quick, break it open with the axe!” “No!” Amber cried out. “How do we know that won’t just kill them?”

  Blake grabbed the young Celt before he could hurl himself after them.

  “Hold up!” Blake barked. “All of you, step back!” Pulling a flare from his belt, he lit it with a quick twist, and tossed it underhand at the crystalline shape. The flare vanished on contact, but then they could see it deep inside, its brilliant red beacon still shining like a star. As it spun away from them, the view made it seem as though he was looking downward, watching it fall into a deep limestone cavern.

  Or a monstrous throat.

  As if pleased by this offering, the ghostlight abruptly changed its shape and color. It seemed to twist and fold in on itself, unfolding again in a different arrangement of glassy projections. At the same time it underwent a rapid shift through the spectrum of jewel tones, fluttering from a dark, bruised shade of blue-black to a ruby-toned red to verdant tourmaline to citrine.

  “Ghastly… simply ghastly.” Harcourt shuddered. “To be lost forever in such a way.”

  “We don’t know that!” Amber snapped.

  “What’s happening back there?” Nellie shouted from far ahead of them. “Is everything alright?”

  “Stay there!” Amber yelled back. “Keep away from the lights!” She turned to Blake. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “What do you think we can do?” he shouted.

  She glared at him, but then softened her tone.

  “We’re not going to just leave them in there.”

  He scowled and swiped his chin, trying to think.

  “Give me your rope,” Cam said. “I’ll go in there after them.”

  “No!” Blake and Amber said simultaneously. Then Blake gave a sharp nod.

  “Right. We’ll do this, but we’re going to do it the right way.” He unsnapped the rope from off his belt and quickly knotted one end. “Come here, Cam,” he said. “You’ll be the anchor. You too, Harcourt.” He wrapped the loop around Cam’s waist, then commandeered the unenthusiastic professor into service, hitching him up as well. That done, he snapped open his ice axe and tied off the other end to the ring on its handle. Hope this rope reaches all the way down to the end, he thought. If there is an end.

  “Alright then, you two hold tight. Amber, you watch out for any more of these things and give a shout if they come too close. Now give me some room.”

  Here goes nothing. Gently cradling the remaining coil of the rope in his left hand, he let slip a few feet of the axe end. Then, like a cowboy with a lasso, he swung the axe around a few times to build a little centrifugal force, and then, with careful timing, released the rope at just the right moment to send the axe flying straight through the heart of the ghostlight.

  All three men vanished instantly.

  Amber screamed as the three plunged away down the tunnel.

  * * *

  “Amber!” Nellie’s voice came from somewhere unseen. “Stay where you are! We’re coming to get you!”

  Amber looked around, but she no longer knew which way to go—every direction was a dizzying, kaleidoscopic swarm of the ever-shifting lights. Wiping her eyes, she pulled herself up, just in time to sidestep what might be certain death.

  “Nellie? Where are you?” she cried out. “Stay where you are!” She didn’t want to get them killed. “Nellie?” she called out again. “Hypatia?” No answer. A growing dread clutched her.

  “We see you!” Hypatia’s voice rang out. “Stay where you are!”

  She turned toward where she thought the voice came from, spotting Nellie and Hypatia. They had doubled back to get her. The wave of relief was so intense Amber thought she might faint.

  They stood, poised for the next break through a gap. Hypatia grabbed Nellie’s arm, pulling her to the side as a pack of hand-sized ghostlights rained down on them from above before swinging back up and away again. Ducking, the two women ran for a few more feet before straightening up again.

  “I see you two,” Amber called. “It’s too dangerous— Stay there, and I’ll come to you!”

  They waved in agreement. Amber looked both ways, then sprinted to make sure her path was clear before jogging toward them. She stopped short when she saw the big ghostlight slipping behind them at an angle.

  “Look out!”

  Nellie took a step back.

  “No!” Amber screamed. “The other way!”

  Neither Nellie nor Hypatia saw the blue-tinged shape come up behind them. Amber watched in horror as they vanished into the rippling surface.

  * * *

  This can’t be happening, Amber thought. I want to wake up. After all the destruction, all the madness, she’d kept her sanity because she’d had companions she trusted. Now, though… If any chance remained to save the world, she was the only one who could do it.

  Without warning, a shape reminiscent of a gently spinning buzz saw glided past, so dangerously close she had to instantly jerk her elbow to avoid its surface. She screamed, flinching away so suddenly she nearly pushed herself into another ghostlight behind her. Tension ratcheted through her until it felt as if her nerves were on fire.

  Get it together, she ordered herself. Hug the ground and inch your body the whole way if you have to. Just get to the other side. She hunkered down and tried to get her bearings. If she could just spot the station’s dome…

  There it was, but still so far away.

  Facing the right direction, she bided her time, waiting for a break in the closest line to move a little closer. Slowly, inexorably, she continued forward. Just three, maybe four more layers of them and she would be home free. Once she reached the station she could figure out what came next…

  I have no idea what comes next.

  She pushed the thought away. That was the future, this was the present. Standing again, she moved as quickly as she could in her bulky parka and boots, slipping between two more undulating lava lamp clumps of flowing crystals. Then she sidestepped the next, but missed a different one angling up in her peripheral vision.

  At the last possible instant, she turned to see the tiniest of fairy lights come softly spirally down to land on her cheek like a butterfly.

  She was swallowed without a sound.

  26

  Blake lifted his head off the ground and touched his cheek, picking off a crushed piece of fern. Pushing his body up, he found himself on the damp carpet of a forest floor.

  “Bugger me,” he muttered. What just happened? He was on the tarmac in Antarctica, and then… falling? Felt more like being pulled like taffy through… what? He stood and brushed himself off, automatically taking stock of the situation. No sign of the rope or ice axe or—Goddamnit!—the Schmeisser he had slung over his shoulder. God only knew where any of them were now.

  So much for that.

  Cam and Harcourt lay dazed among the undergrowth a few feet away. Both were alive.

  “Kych-an-broc,” Cam groaned, holding his forehead. Blake raised an eyebrow as his linguistic implant translated the Celtic phrase.

  “Do what now?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s just something we say.”

  Blake and Cam peeled off their parkas and overshoes. The professor stayed sprawl
ed on his back, eyelids gently fluttering. Like a faithful dog, his top hat lay where it fell, close to his head amid the ferns and bracken.

  “Did you see where we came through?” Blake asked.

  Cam shook his head.

  “I only remember tumbling to the ground, through no doorway but the air.” Warily he walked a few steps, peering here and there, looking for the invisible portal. Patches of mist hung in the air—nothing but the maples and oaks ringed their little clearing.

  “Amber!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Amber, where are you?”

  No response. Blake stood and walked over to the professor, nudging the prone figure with his boot. Harcourt groaned, putting a hand over his eyes.

  “Leave me alone, you contemptible blackguard,” he whined. “I’ve been transmogrified.”

  “No time for whining,” Blake retorted. “We need to locate the Egyptian and the girl, and then find a way to get back to the others.” He peered around the clearing again. Assuming we can get back.

  “Kha-Hotep!” he called out, his shout echoing off of the trees. “Leila!” The growth was thick, the trees tall and old.

  Cam and Harcourt joined in as well, but the only answer was the booming hunting call of some oversized carnivore. Blake smacked a tree trunk with his palm.

  “Damn it, how far could they have gone in just a couple of minutes?” He swore quietly to himself. “Right. Come here, you two. See if my machine gun landed around here somewhere.” The trio took a minute to scour the little clearing, without any luck. Then, kneeling down near their abandoned coats, Cam pulled something from the leaves and undergrowth.

  “Blake,” he said quietly. He lifted the burnt-out flare. The little tube was pitted and degraded, and covered in lichen. Beneath where it had been lying, woodlice scurried in the bare patch. The three men stared at the crumbled relic in silence.

  “We can’t worry about that now,” Blake said firmly. “Let’s find those two, and bring them back here on the double.”