Mercury: Planetary Anthology
Author: John C. Wright; Benjamin Wheeler; L. Jagi Lamplighter; Corey McCleery; Joshua M. Young; J. D. Beckwith; Bokerah Brumley; Lou Antonelli; Declan Finn; Misha Burnett; A. M. Freeman; Dawn Witzke
Date: 2018-01-10 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: MERCURY! Innermost of worlds, blasted by the sun by day and frozen by night, Mercury remains an enigma. Mythical Mercury was also the messenger and trickster, and known for blazing speed and wit. Here are thirteen tales of science-fiction and the fantastic featuring Mercury. Throughout history, the planets of our solar system have meant many things to many people; Planetary Fiction explores the themes associated with these heavenly bodies as well as their astronomical, mythological, and in some cases even alchemical significance. Included in this volume are In the Palace of Promised Immortalit
Publisher: Superversive Press

Table of Contents

Front Matter

Copyright Notices

Introduction

In the Palace of Promised Immortality by John C. Wright

Schubert to Rachmaninoff by Benjamin Wheeler

The Element of Transformation by L. Jagi Lamplighter

In Tower of the Luminious Sages by Corey McCleery

The Haunted Mines of Mercury by Joshua M. Young

Quicksilver by J.D. Beckwith

Ancestors Answer by Bokerah Brumley

Last Call by Lou Antonelli

Deceptive Appearances by Declan Finn
mDNA by Misha Burnett

The Star of Mercury by A.M. Freeman

Cucurbita Mercurias by Dawn Witzke

The Wanderer by David Hallquist

The Planetary Series

About Superversive Press

PLANETARY: MERCURY

© 2018 Superversive Press

All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format.

Editors: David Hallquist & Ben Zwycky

Cover Art: Lee Madison

ISBN: 978-1-925645-12-5

First Edition: 2018

COPYRIGHT NOTICES

“In the Palace of Promised Immortality” by John C. Wright © 2018 John C. Wright

“Schubert to Rachmaninoff” by Benjamin Wheeler © 2018 Benjamin Wheeler

“The Element of Transformation” by L. Jagi Lamplighter © 2018 L. Jagi Lamplighter

“In Tower of the Luminious Sages” by Corey McCleery © 2018 Corey McCleery

“The Haunted Mines of Mercury” by Joshua M. Young © 2018 Joshua M. Young

“Quicksilver” by J.D. Beckwith © 2018 J.D. Beckwith

“Ancestor’s Answer” by Bekerah Brumley © 2018 Bekerah Brumley

“Last Call” by Lou Antonelli © 2018 Lou Antonelli

“Deceptive Appearances” by Declan Finn © 2018 Declan Finn

“mDNA” by Misha Burnett © 2018 Misha Burnett

“The Star of Mercury” by A.M. Freeman © 2018 A.M. Freeman

“Cucurbita Mercurias” by Dawn Witzke © 2018 Dawn Witzke

“The Wanderer” by David Hallquist © 2018 David Hallquist

INTRODUCTION

David Hallquist

Why Mercury? Why tales of a small, barren rock circling the Sun, almost invisible in its glare?

The question might be: why not Mercury?

This oddball world races about in a highly eccentric ellipse, instead of the more proper, nearly circular orbits of other planets. It is tidally locked in a 3:2 resonance with the Sun, with one Mercury day for every two Mercury years. This cratered little world is far more dense than it would seem, and is believed to have a proportionally larger iron core than other worlds. Then there is the odd phenomenon of a powerful magnetic field on a world that is barely rotating at all. Truly, a strange little planet.

Mythic Mercury, or Hermes was the swift messenger of the gods, and famous for his brilliance and trickery. The wand of Hermes, the Caduceus, is still the symbol for medical learning around the world. Speed, brilliance and knowledge are all associated with the messenger.

Mercury the metal, is known as ″quicksilver″ and has been associated with transmutation and arcane processes since the time of the earliest alchemists. Chinese Emperors believed that an amalgam of mercury would bestow immortality. Useful in early photography, industry and scientific studies, the deadly poisonous nature of the metal quickly limited the usefulness of quicksilver.

For all of that, Mercury has been a bit overlooked in Science Fiction. There are notable great stories: Arthur C. Clark’s ″Runaround″, Larry Niven’s ″The Coldest Place″, Ben Bova’s ″Mercury″, are all great examples of science fiction about Mercury, and there are many mentions of Mercury in many other works. Overall, though the tiny world is often overlooked for the glories of Mars, the majesty of Jupiter or the splendor of Saturn.

These then, are the tales of Mercury: messages about the Messenger and the Traveler.

In The Palace of Promised Immortality, by John C. Wright, takes place on Mercury itself, yet is also the tale of a traveler not only in time, but alternate worlds.

Schubert to Rachmaninoff, by Ben Wheeler, deals with a messenger braving hazards while traveling across the barren wastes of Mercury.

The Element of Transmutation, by Jagi L. Lamplighter, brings us the mythic character Mercury himself, and the element’s fascination with early alchemists.

The Haunted Mines of Mercury, by Joshua M. Young, brings a man into confrontation with the past while exploring the subterranean tunnels of Mercury.

The Tower of the Luminous Sages, by Corey McCleery, is a tale of fantasy and fantastic travel though strange realms.

Quicksilver, by J.D. Beckwith, is the tale of a crisis on a ship traveling near Mercury.

Ancestors Answer, by Bokerah Brumley, is a tale of a different type of travel: time, in a matter of family honor.

Last Call, by Lou Antonelli, brings us a Mercury of the far future, mined out of its precious minerals and all but forgotten.

Deceptive Appearances, by Declan Finn, brings a tale of rogues and schemes under the domes of Mercury.

mDNA, by Misha Burnett, is a tale of a different kind of messenger: a genetic courier in a desolate wasteland.

The Star of Mercury, by A.M. Freeman, involves bitter rivalry and high technology on Mercury, but most of all, the importance of a child’s life.

Cucurbita Mercurias, by Dawn Witzke, brings us a murder mystery during a crucial phase of the colonization of Mercury.

The Wanderer, by David Hallquist, is a tale of two explorers, one an alien probe, and the other a man researching the interior of Mercury.

IN THE PALACE OF PROMISED IMMORTALITY

John C. Wright

Lights of infinite pity star the gray dusk of our days:

Surely here is soul; with it we have eternal breath:

In the fire of love we live or pass by many ways,

By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

George William (“A.E.”) Russell (1867–1935)

Circe

She could not remember where she had put her memory eraser helmet.

Circe cupped the liquid of her pool in both her hands, and doused her face. She made her lips larger, redder, and her eyebrows darker, to allow her to pout and scowl more vividly. She focused two mirrors on her face, seconds before and after the change, and inspected the results critically.

Circe was half submerged amid the scented lilies and floating candles of the warm pool that served as her throne, wardrobe, and vanity. The bathing chamber was in her apartments that crowned the shining and soaring main tower of the Palace of Promised Immortality.

Naked, embraced by silky biomolecular-engineering fluid, floating beneath the dome of time glasses focused on the immediate past and future, she could make adjustments to her body, to hue of hair or feature of face, to foot or hand, or any measure of inseam, hips, waist, bust, height.

Discontent burned in her. Where was the helmet? What had been buried? She remembered the locket, and the face within, and remembered holding the locket in her hand. It was of utmost importance. It was precious beyond words.

Where was the locket now? Whose was that face?

The helmet had the power to call up buried memories as well as to bury them. Never had she needed it so badly. But why now, of all times, was it not to be found?

She had certainly had the helmet twenty-four hours ago. She had been assigned to babysit a bored and sulking little ghost. They had been playing hide and seek in the garden of forking paths surrounding the monument to Ts’ui Pen. Circe had been carrying the helmet then, just in case some memorable but deviant event might happen, an event that could not plausibly be reconciled with her own memories from ten years past, when she first lived through the scene.

The chance of a deviation was small. Circe but dimly remembered the sharp-tongued and impatient babysitter who used to take her into the park for outings. To her young eyes, the teenaged sibyl had seemed very grown up. She had indeed shown up once with a book, a bottle, and the cylindrical amnesia helm. Where had the helm gone? What had the babysitter done with it? Circe strained, but the memory from when she was six would not come to the fore.

It was not impossible that memories a decade old would fade. But twenty-four hours old? She remembered waking up at the start of this watch; but not retiring to sleep at the end of the last watch. That was sixteen hours ago.

Circe could tell something was afoot. Soon after breakfast, the time mirrors began to grow sullen and stubborn when asked to show certain scenes. And before lunch, during her history lessons, the golems were unaccountably slow in answering certain questions. (Of course she studied history. What else was there to study?)

After lunch, a middle-aged sibyl, with her dark hair pinned up in a tight bun and crow’s-feet gathered at the corners of her eyes, had visited to tutor her in chronopathy. Circe stepped across a thousand years, futureward and back, across intervals large enough to be safe. These were lessons no golem could teach.

The matron seemed particularly curt, closed-mouthed, and cold. She frequently consulted her notes, as if to confirm that not a word of her dialog would differ from her recalled version. Circe, seeing this, resolved to write out her next diary entry with the wording changed.

Then a gray haired sibyl from near the end of her life, bent-backed and wrinkled like a prune, and leaning heavily on the middle-aged one, came to lecture her fiercely about the duties all time travelers owed their own future.

“Any act of disobedience, slouching, or sloth in performance, and you will erase yourself and die!” hissed the crone. “We who are downstream of you will not perish, however, as a slight adjustment to your past will prune you before you can act, and set the timestream right again before it goes awry.”

“You would kill me for slouching?” Circe had asked with sneer, rolling her eyes. “I make a terrible Mom. What if I decide never to have kids?”

The matronly, middle-aged sibyl grabbed Circe’s ear and twisted it painfully, making the girl bow and yelp. “Today of all days, will you give us cheek? Use your ear or I will rip it off.”

“It comes off you if it comes off me!” Circe snarled, “You are not my real mother, anyway! Where is she?”

The crone laid her withered hand on the wrist of the matron. “This does not sound quite right to me.” She whispered. But the younger sibyl said softly, “This is the way I remember it. Let us depart before any changes are introduced.”

Without any ado, the two vanished through their different mirrors.

That confirmed Circe’s suspicions. Changing insignificant events she had seen sibyls do thoughtlessly, or out of a sense of wicked pleasure. Her older shadows grew cautious only when massive happenings were afoot.

That had been an hour ago. Circe did not usually bathe before dressing for dinner, but she wanted to soothe her bruised ear. She ignored the dinner bell when it rang. Let Cook and the serving maidens keep her supper warm for her.

Circe touched one of the waterlilies with her finger, and told it expand to giant size, and fold its petals just so, to allow her to sit on it as it floated in the water. The biomolecular fluid penetrated into the lily and worked the alterations. Circe climbed into it. Perfume escaped the petals where her weight bruised them.

Springtide

Windows circled the walls of the bathing chamber. These were made of space glass rather than time glass. These panes could bring into clear view any object within the circle of the horizon, or bring physical objects.

The horizon displeased her: it was too close, too narrow. The horizon of Earth would have been three times further away, and the sun would have been three times smaller.

In the view, underfoot and close at hand, were the wings of the Palace of Promised Immortality, including the museum holding the artifacts, archives, and prophecies taken from all periods of future history from the current epoch to the Final Extinction in A.D. Three Billion, when the sun was destined to overwhelm the inner planets, and all life die.

The shining towers, sheathed in silent energy-auras, rose sheer from the waters of a central lake in the middle of a vast impact basin called Caloris Planitia. This basin formed the floor of a crater of the same name. It was wider than Texas. At noon, each second perihelion, this crater was in the closest spot to the sun of any bit of ground in the solar system. It was an act of overweening engineering to build an oasis of earthlife here.

Arbors, gardens, vineyards and crop fields ran from lakeshore to the horizon in orderly rows and rectangles; it was a pleasant patchwork of emerald hews. The channels and cracks of the Pantheon Fosse radiating outward from the lake were river canyons filled with streams, fishponds, and rice paddies. Fountainworks fed tiny, bright streamlets running to and over the canyon walls in the musical silvery threads of countless waterfalls.

Over the horizon and beyond her current view, four hundred miles of dark forest grew wild across the plains and up the knolls and bluffs to the continuous mountain-walls circling the crater. This unbroken forest was void of animal life, silent and without birdsong. No goats skipped amid the foothills, no sheep grazed in the meadows. Only the droning of bees was here.

The miniature planet was equal in surface area to Asia and Africa combined, and it was all her own private estate, or so she had been told. For a girl living in solitude, it was appallingly huge and bare, and lonely.

Shadows visited her, of course, sometimes in throngs: ghosts from her past and sibyls from her future. But, technically speaking, she was still alone.

Golems did not count. They were furniture.

Circe scowled at the swollen, slow, and sluggard sun. It was low in the east, but neither reddened nor oblate, since there was no atmosphere to distort it. Dawn had been two earth days ago; noon would not come for another forty-two.

The sight of young buds and green branches, and the scent on the warm breezes entering the space mirrors displayed the springtide. The axial tilt of Mercury too slight to contribute any seasonal variation, but so eccentric was the orbit that the difference in distance from the sun between perihelion and aphelion ushered in globe-wide seasonal variations.

Sunrise to sunset was eighty-eight days, one year, while the full day-night cycle was twice as long. Odd numbered years held four seasons of light: the buds of spring came at dawn; the warmth of summer burned the noon; the harvests of many-colored autumn came to full fruit in the afternoon; and the frosts and snows of winter turned the dusk white. Even numbered years held four seasons of darkness: the scented night-breeze of the springtide evening led to the showers of summery midnight; then a season of mists and fogs when the golems trudged through moonless darkness to reap a second harvest of the night crops; then came the clear cold night winds of winter before dawn.

The world should have been a molten hell by day, a frozen hell by night. The energy dome shielding the vast Caloris Basin did not seem like technology to her. It seemed like magic. The sibyls told her this art had originally come from twenty centuries in the future, from the cruel days of the Glorious World Empire of Tsan-Chan of A.D. 5000.

The biotic engineering that had created perfect replicas of earthlike plants yet able to sprout and ripen and fade in twelve weeks, to her was also magic, as were the strange fruits and nocturnal flowers designed to live and bloom without light. This art came from A.D. Five Hundred Million, when the highly-modified Biomancers of the supercontinent of Pannotia ruled a single landmass supporting a single interconnected treemass that filled the hemisphere.

The psychomechanical engineering that had created unfree yet living human-shaped artifacts to act as the serfs and gardeners, tinkers and tillers of the Palace of Promised Immortality came from the time when the Great Brains ruled the Vendian supercontinent. These were a race of immobile supermen whose nervous systems were forty-yard-wide masses floating in lakes of buoyant nutriment, from which their shriveled bodies hung like the stems of mushrooms. Their cold, intellectual empire arose a hundred million years after the Biomancers, for the Great Brains had exterminated their creators.

To create the golems, make them able to think, but not able to form desires nor act on them, that was something Circe did not think was magic. She thought it was black magic. She thought it was witchcraft.

From here, she could see the golems toiling, stooping in rhythm amid the rice paddies. They wore masks of white, with only the narrowest slits for mouth and eyes, to display their lack of humanity. All had female bodies, including the serfs tending the rice paddies and harvesting crops. No servant shaped like a man was permitted.

The science behind the time mirrors came from various eras, for it was easily discovered, and yet it even more easily eliminated itself and its discoverer. Circe had never been told the name or native year of the first time traveler, nor did any sibyl know.

Physical motion of the body through time was possible on Earth and Venus, but more deceptively fatal than quicksand. This was amply shown by the catastrophic paradoxes that haunted the Imperial Princess Shammuramat of Tsan-Chan when she attempted to use time travel as a weapon against the insubordinate yet all-powerful Gunsmith Guild of the Fifty-First Century.

Mental projection was safer, and could take place on Earth. The experiments of the magician Nun-Soth of A.D. 16000 involved the first surviving unambiguous record of chronopathy, the power of casting the soul through time as a shadow; but that first, primitive mirror of the mind proved the aperture was two-way. Disaster of another kind struck.

An age of dark conquests followed, when savants descended from Nun-Soth cast their minds back to his era, emerged from the mirror, and overwhelmed the souls and possessed the bodies of the priest-kings, theurgists, janissaries, satraps, and savants of that generation, or anyone else who might have organized a cadre of resistance.

For four thousand years they ruled, but even their ability to foresee the coming night could not avert it. Civilization collapsed. The vampiric thaumaturge Si-Seneg, the Last of the Dark Conquerors, fleeing into the past, not only possessed the bodies of various figures from historic and prehistoric times, but taught the art to disciples in many eras. Twelve ancients managed to obtain or forge working time mirrors of their own, apparently from him, or from what he left. Into the farthest past he vanished, seeking the hour of the origin of life on earth. Of what he found, no record, no rumor told.

The art was lost. Civilizations rose and fell. The remorseless grindstone of Darwinian evolution, oft aided by the unwise meddling with human gene-plasm by ambitious vitalists and necromancers, ushered one humanoid or hominid race after another into being. Five more variant subspecies of subhuman, near-human and superhuman man arose, triumphed, flourished, waned, and vanished.

Not until A.D. Two Million was the art of chronopathy found again, this time by a warlock-scientist named Trismegistus the Thrice-Greatest, a dread and dreaded egomaniacal tyrant, who used the art to make himself immortal. He commanded the peoples of Laurasia, the last inhabited continent above the waves, to worship him as a god.

With all surface metals exhausted by previous eons of mining, the Laurasians maintained a single global commonwealth with weapons and tools of wood and stone, glass and crystal, of subtle properties and great beauty, and tireless and titanic beasts bred to outrun locomotives, or winged leviathans to outfly aircraft.

Trismegistus destroyed any other shadows out of time he found projecting themselves into the savage centuries he ruled. He was a figure of mystery, having obliterated all records of his origin in order to spite future investigators, and prevent interference. His final fate was also hidden.

This maniac also destroyed all future rediscoverers of the technique to come after him, down the corridors of time as far as he could project himself, slaying them before birth.

So again the secret was lost.

In A.D. Seven Hundred Fifty Million, in the time when Earth was like Venus, and the Rodinian supercontinent lay flat, stony and barren beneath the downpour of an endless storm that reached from pole to pole, there arose a posthuman race of philosopher-kings whose minds were too fine and stern for Trismegistus to penetrate, nor any shadows out of time.

The philosopher-kings rediscovered the technique, and cast their minds back through time not to domineer nor possess, but to console, advise and heal. They were immensely powerful, but crippled by their benevolence, so that no evils of the past would they ever undo. The sibyls taught her to despise and ignore their voices.

But even the philosopher-kings, in command of the secrets of time itself, could not conquer eternity. They could not undo nor mitigate the massive changes to the Earth eons of solar evolution ushered in.

A coleopterous race was destined to replace mankind, and to dwell in the cragged and volcano-torn supercontinent of Kenorland, in climes unfit for human life, in soils soaked with poison beneath thin skies hot with radiation. Their minds were difficult to penetrate. Few curious wanderers returned sane. Of their history, only scattered and incomplete records had ever been gathered.

The arachnid denizens of Earth’s final age ruled the melancholy eon three billion years hence when the final landmasses of Vaalbara melted to lava above the boiling world-ocean of Panthalassia. No written glyph, no artifact, had ever been recovered from the windowless and monolithic mirrored towers erected by the spider beings, nor from their hypercube-shaped orbital monuments. Only glimpses and fragments of wars and migrations returned from these future eons, gathered from the eye of lower animals whose nervous systems explorers from prior ages risked loss of mind and life to invade.

No future beyond those days could be seen, not from any coign of vantage on this globe, for Mercury in those days was finally swallowed by the sun.

All eons before that final doom of fire could be inspected by the long-range mirrors Circe had been told one day would be hers. Deep in this gravity well, the space was warped enough to allow a Schroedinger compensation effect to operate, and the links of the chains of cause and effect could be loosened.

Only here was it possible to pass mind and body through time without inevitable catastrophe. Here she was safe, for the chains of causation leading back to her ultimate origins on Earth had been severed entirely. Here, in this world named for the pagan god of magic, an object or an event could spring into being on its own power. Or even a person.

So she was told.

Circe doubted.

Nanny

She held up her damp hand, and told a time mirror to focus on it. “Show me what this hand held yesterday at this hour.”

But the image in the mirror showed her hand clasping that of an older woman. From the wedding ring on the finger, and the color and shape of the nails, she recognized it. It was the hand of Nanny.

The image also conveyed sound.

Nanny was saying, “I have been instructed to tell you this: The monthly cramps are debilitating, extremely painful, and must at all costs be avoided. Future records show your first is due tomorrow, just at dawn; your second two weeks before noon; your third a fortnight later; and another at dusk. Not only will the agony permanently wrinkle your face and scar your psychology, but the release of these chemicals and hormones into your bloodstream will alter your sexual drives and instincts, and making mates best avoided seem attractive.”

She heard her younger self saying in a sharp voice, “But surely these hormones are natural? And as for a mates… what mates? We are entirely alone on this terrible planet.”

Circe pulled the viewpoint out, so that not merely the clasped hands, but the whole scene was in the time mirror.

The image showed her walking hand in hand with Nanny. Nanny wore a black dress with puffed-out, leg-of-mutton shoulders, a stark white apron, a cap of lace. Nanny was masked, as ever, and no part of her face was showing.

Nanny was a golem, but the restrictions on her mind had been eased, so that she could nurse, teach, and play with a growing child. Circe adored the faceless oval of Nanny’s mask, as it was the only source of kindness she had ever known.

The two were walking amid early spring flowers in the high meadows of the mountain range just at the border of the energy dome covering Caloris Basin. Plinths along the hilltops marked where the dome surface intersected the ground. The cratered and airless landscape visible beyond the mountains was as black and pitted as the floor of a furnace.

Circe saw herself, but dressed as she had been in September of last year, seven months ago. Earthmonths, she silently corrected herself with an audible sigh of annoyance. Mercury had no moon, hence no months.

The voice of Nanny from the mirror suddenly said, “Let us sit, and meditate, and enter the first-level betawave trance state needed for chronopathy. Clearing your mind of disturbances will clarify the answer.”

Circe saw Nanny and her September self flourish a cloth and lay it on the lush and flowering grass of the hill. Now they sat, and overlooked the burning land of airless craters beyond.

Circe remembered this scene exactly. Watch 2 of Year 64. It was the beginning of her discontent. She remembered meditating; but she remembered finding drowsiness, not clearmindedness.

Why this scene? The time mirror had mistaken her command, and found the image of her hand as it had been one hundred seventy-six earthdays ago, which was “yesterday” by the mercurial count, not the earthly. Circe was sure this mistake was intentional.

Circe was about to banish the image when Nanny turned her head and looked at her. There was no mistaking it: the narrow eyeslit of the oval mask was clearly looking through the mirror, right at her.

Circe was astonished. Only herself, and other versions of her, could see or manage the time mirrors. They were soul-locked. Servants, even high servants like Nanny, did not have desires and goals of their own, hence no destinies to change, and hence could not use the mirrors.

Nanny stiffened, realizing the blunder.

The truth ignited in Circe’s mind. Circe said, “You are me, aren’t you? All this time, I was raised by myself. My future self. Why am I dressed like a servant? Like a serf? Why am I pretending?”

The younger image of herself in the mirror now turned also, and saw Circe. “Oh, hello! Are you a ghost or a sibyl? What is going on?”

Without turning her head, Nanny calmly raised her hand, summoned the gleaming length of a command wand into her fingers, and before the younger girl could scream, dodge, or blink, sprayed the girl from the tip. It was biomancer fluid. The droplets were evidently programmed not to remold her flesh, but merely to stimulate the sleep centers of her brain. The younger girl sagged peacefully, and lay draped across the grass.

Circe said to the mirror, “I don’t remember you doing that.”

Nanny removed her mask.

She was her, of course. Her face was filled out, and a hint of a double chin clung to her jaw, and bags and lines of weariness underlined her eyes, but no strand of white touched her hair as yet.

Circe said, “I don’t remember you dousing me.”

Nanny said, “A touch of the memory eraser helmet will keep these events from forming a blister in the time stream long before it swells into a paradox.”

Circe said, “Where is my mother? Who is my real mother? Is it you?”

Nanny said, “An awkward question. All will be known in time.” She tilted her wand toward Circe.

Circe, startled, leaped to her feet in the pool, sloshing and splashing biomantic fluid every which way. She called her own wand to her hand. The slim instrument materialized in her grasp. Circe made a defensive gesture. An invisible wall of pressure formed along the bathing chamber flagstones between Circe and the image of Nanny in the time mirror.

But Nanny merely asked her wand, “What is the time interval?”

The Nanny’s wand spoke. “Mistress, the ghost in the mirror is from Sunday, 25 March of A.D. 3010, Gregorian calendar. Age 16. Watch 2 of Year 68, Mercurial calendar.”

Nanny said “I remember that you argued with me, but eventually obeyed as you were told, and kept your fertility suppressed. No monthly cycle, no menstrual flows, none of that. We cannot have you pregnant before you are due.”

Angrily, Circe scooped up a palm of the biomancer fluid, and splashed her groin with it vigorously. “What if I order the fluid to make me a grown woman, and as fertile as Combe? What if I want to be natural? What do you say to that?”

Nanny raised an eyebrow. “Since I do not remember doing that, and since I am still clearly here, I would say that if you try deliberately to change the known future, one or more of me downstream of us, in our future, will cast herself back and see to it that your memory of any deviant events will be erased, perhaps rewritten.”

“You are expecting the version born out of the new events to erase herself and her own past just to put the timeline back on track?”

“Anyone who cannot shed shadows willing to sacrifice themselves to maintain her original self cannot maintain a life as a time traveler. You know that.”

“I am not letting you rewrite my memory!”

“You forget that your memory has been rewritten nearly every day. Basically, there is no other way to train an apprentice chronopath, is there? Without this, your anachronisms, snarls and slips would produce a paradox.”

“I am aware it has been done once or twice before…” said Circe, uncertainly.

“Many, many times heretofore. You are a slow learner, and awkward when it comes to time travel. Strange as this sounds, the art never came naturally to me. I don’t remember this conversation: all this scene will have to be erased.”

Circe said, “Not over my objections. That is worse than rape!”

Nanny smiled. “What could be your basis of comparison? You would not remember the first, and you have never seen and cannot imagine the second. Well, these things are far too horrible to discuss with myself when I am such a tender age. Ah, foolish teens! Admire your life while you can. You are a princess. You want for nothing. The world is yours. All worlds! All you have to do is not make waves, not create a paradox.”

Nanny raised her wand and started to make the banishment gesture, to sever the time image connection. Circe raised her wand in a parry, saying, “Wait! One question. This is something you probably told me already, so there is no paradox involved. Wait, please! You said I was going to have my memory erased anyway. So there is no harm if you answer.”

Nanny waited. “Ask one question.”

“Why must I be sterile?”

“It is temporary. A safety precaution. There is a danger of overpopulation.”

“Overpop—?” Circe blenched, wondering if she had heard rightly. “Are you out of your mind? I live alone on a world with no one but me! My only company is when an sibyl asks me to babysit my ghost. On card nights, do you know how boring it is to sit and play bridge with three other versions of me, all of whom remember who won which trick last time around?”

Nanny said, “Not overpopulation in that sense. The number of possible futures is pared down to one. Your wedding is nigh. You will have a child, a beautiful child. But if something interferes, we do not want a bastard being born before, during, or after.”

Circe said, “When is the wedding? Who is the bridegroom? You might as well tell me, or I will just cast myself forward until I find out!”

Nanny said, “Not to worry. You will be shown. This very hour, you will be called to attend as a flower girl. You will get to see it again many times as bridesmaids, during our blonde period. And then again, as the maid of honor — those were difficult days for me — and then as the bride, of course. Don’t fret about the pain of the wedding night. It soon passes. Just make sure to have them clean the blood off the bedsheets.”

“Why would I dye my hair blonde? I am Etruscan. From the island of Aeaea. In the Tyrrhenian Sea, of the lovely coasts of Italy. On Earth!”

Nanny tilted her head to one side, a dreamy look in her eyes. “Do you remember Earth? Anything about it? A single place? A single face? No, there is nothing. How do you really know Earth exists at all then?”

“What kind of question is that? What about all that history I’ve studied? All those records and artifacts?”

“Records can be faked. The past changes. You are changing it now, or trying to.”

“I know Earth is real!”

“How?”

“Because I hate Mercury! I hate this planet! I know I do not come from here! This is not my home!”

Nanny shook her head. “Teen girls are so vivid. I was so like you before I lost my child.” She laughed lightly, embarrassed. “Oh. Oops. That will have to be erased, won’t it? But I distinctly remember the flower girl dress: pink chiffon with a rose gold sequin bodice. I remember thinking how daring the sweetheart neckline was. The skirt only came to the knee.

“Other things are fuzzy: now I know why. I did it to myself. Story of my life, really.

“But all this wickedness, all these cruel things, will fade like a dream, in time. Nothing in this world is real, save what we recall. Savor the moment. Enjoy your youth. It ends all too soon. If you have only an hour of innocence left, savor it.”

And this time Nanny made the banishment gesture, feinting to pull Circe’s counter-parry out of line, disengaging, and completing the gesture to sever the mirror energy flow between the two points in spacetime. Nanny said she had but fuzzy memories of these days, but clearly she remembered her wand parry well enough to reposte it quite neatly.

Circe lost the image, and the mirror would not summon it up again.

April

Circe looked into the time mirror, sending the focus forward and watching her face age, until she found the closest match to the Nanny’s face just seen. The best match was from somewhere between A.D. 3027 and 3028, which fell between Year 138 and Year 146. That put Nanny at age thirty-three or thirty-four.

The mirror refused to follow the image of that face directly backward.

But Circe cunningly tilted the glass only to capture Nanny’s left hand, the one that wore a wedding band. She played the image of the veined and work-calloused hand back and back.

Her hand was remarkably young, pink-nailed with dimpled knuckles, before the wedding ring vanished. She could not get an exact reading.

She held up her naked left hand, spreading the fingers and peering at the image in the glass. There was no discernable difference. That earliest image of the ring was on a hand that was near-future, or even current.

That meant the wedding was near. Two years away? Or one? Months? Or weeks?

“What if I do not want my futures pared down to one?” Circe muttered angrily. “What if I do not want to turn into what I turn into?”

Circe held up her hand again and flipped the time mirror to point the other direction, into the immediate past. “Adjacent length equals twenty-four hours, tangent is one. Show me.” No trigonometry was needed: this was the simplest possible use of a time mirror.

Nonetheless, the image showed nothing but a blurred and swirling gray mist. “Why am I seeing nothing?”

The voice of the mirror said, “Mistress, there is an intervening glass along the time hypotenuse blocking the view.”

“Whose mirror? From what time-depth?”

“No information is available.”

That meant the mirror had been told not to tell her. She said, “Show me the hedge maze of Ts’ui-Pen. Current time.”

The gray image did not change. “Term not recognized. Unable to comply.”

There was an official name for that garden, but Circe could not remember it at the moment. Exasperated, Circe climbed from the pool, ordering the moisture to stay behind. She donned a short tunic leaving her limbs free, and a pair of sandals.

Then she stepped over to the nearest space mirror, tilted and focused it on the spot in the distance.

Most of the valley floor of the impact basin was flat except for the canals filling the radial canyons of Pantheon Fosse. But here or there a small mound or large hill rose above the gardens and arbors.

One such hill was in view in the distance, rearing its green head above rows and ranks of the surrounding orange or cedar groves. The sides of the hill were overgrown with a hedge maze of intricate concentric spirals. The hedges were grown from Schroedinger plants, so the maze paths became lost and uncertain when not observed.

Circe did not want to deal with the shape-changing maze, so she focused the image tightly on the crown of the hill where the monument was. She opened the glass and stepped through.

It was spring. The sluggish, giant sun stood at five degrees over the horizon. On earth, the sun would have climbed five degrees in twenty minutes, not two days. The breeze was blowing, and the scent of daffodils, tulip and crocus was in the air.

She did not want to stow her wand in its normal niche half a second out of phase with herself, just in case some meddlesome sibyl or stubborn mirror decided to freeze the time surface and render the niche out of reach. Safer to keep it in the same continuum with her, visible and tangible. She turned the wand into a flexible length of metallic cord, and tightened it around her waist as a tight belt with long dangling sashes.

Here before her was the statue of a Mandarin supported by images of Horae. Thallo and Auxo proffered a winebowl and a cornucopia of fruit, while, from behind, Carpo raised a sickle to smite him. The tall pedestal was carven with bas relief and surrounded by a line of pillars.

It was here that Circe, twenty-four hours ago, had convinced the troublesome ghost she was babysitting to play hide and seek, hoping the child would quietly crawl under a bush while Circe, instead of seeking, could sit on the grass with a romance novel and a bottle of wine.

She had only recently been permitted to drink, and the allure of forbidden, adult things clung to the act. She distinctly recalled using the helmet, tipped on its side, as an impromptu pillow behind her head as she lay on the grass. She had been staring up at the sky dome, wishing for the white clouds of earth.

Circe now began peering and poking about the area, particularly in the circular strip between the pillars and the monument base, where a bed of thyme and sorrel grew.

A young woman, nude save for a banner of golden hair flying about her, came into view from around the corner of the monument, spinning. She was dancing naked on the grass, her head thrown back, her arms lifted up. Her smile was bright and her eyes were empty.

The other woman spoke without preamble: “I have often thought that I could step back in time, find a younger self, torment or abuse her, but carefully erase all conscious memory of the event by forcing the helmet onto her head. No older version of me would remember and interfere.” She stopped dancing, and stood still smiling vacantly. “But then I began to worry. How often had I been abused? How often have I been molested? If there is no sign of it, no memory, it does not really count, does it?”

With her hair colored gold, Circe almost did not recognize herself. “When are you from?”

The girl giggled. “I am coming from April Fools’ Day. You are from March. Are you going to march down the aisle? Get it?”

“Not funny, April.” Circe was disturbed. Was this her self from a week in a future? Or a year plus a week? Either way, it seemed impossible that she would change so radically, and so much for the worse, in so short a time.

“No one understands my sense of humor,” said the blonde, pouting. “Well, March girl, let’s be off.” The blonde stepped close and took Circe’s arm, holding her very close, and leaning her weight on her. “Shall we?”

“You’ve been drinking.” The scent of wine was heavy on the blonde girl’s breath.

“More than that!” exclaimed the other, wiggling her hips in an odd and unpleasing way. “You can alter your brain chemistry with the biotic pool, did you know? Opium dreams and strange joys await. But do not think it is weakness. I have found enlightenment. Come along, March. March! It does no good to balk.”

Circe let the older girl pull her by the arm. The blonde walked with a swaying motion, humming.

“Where are we going, April?” Circe asked.

“I’ve come to get the ball rolling. One of us is supposed to see you properly dressed and to take you to the wedding rehearsal. You are going to be a flower girl! I get to be the bridesmaid this time. The focal point of my mirror is somewhere around here.”

The blonde had come to the opening of the hedge maze surrounding the hill crest, found a gap in the hedge with a small brass sign marked HOME, and plunged through. The tall green walls of waxy leaf of the Schroedinger plant loomed to either side. The breeze was cut off. Circe felt a moment of claustrophobia, and glanced back. The opening behind had already vanished, moving itself to another location.

The other girl put an arm about her waist, holding her rather tightly as they walked. She turned left at the first opening in the hedge, entering another row, then turned left again, then walked past other openings, down three stairs, and into another corridor of green. Before them now stretched a long row with no apparent openings, that simply seemed to follow the curve of the hill, and circle it endlessly.

Circe said crossly. “The way out is to follow the lefthand wall, and always go downhill.”

“Ah, is that so? Worldly wisdom is not for me.”

Circe grew more cross. “Why are you naked?”

The blonde spoke in a dreamy, drifting tone of voice. “I have achieved enlightenment, as I said. Through pharmacology.”

“What?”

“I learned it from him. Emotions are just brain chemicals, after all, and if the chemical states for unhappiness confound me, what is wrong with altering those states? Nudism shows my detachment for the need for personal possessions. I have also become a vegetarian. That way, I need never be responsible for the death of even the humblest living thing.”

The endless curving wall of leaf now had an opening in it. They made five left turns in rapid succession, and then trooped uphill and down though a series of switchbacks between the leafy walls that turned on themselves like the folds of the lower intestine.

“There are no animals on this planet, April,” said Circe crossly. “Nothing but fish. It is always Lent here. You’ve always been a vegetarian.”

“Well, I mean I have given up fish, too. I won’t eat fruit. I can sustain myself by introducing nutriment chemicals directly into the bloodstream from the biotic pool. I can live off of wine and wine alone.” The blonde giggled.

“What is so funny?”

“If the worm Ouroboros had only been a vegetarian, he would not have swallowed his own tail, would he?” The blonde was now leaning heavily on Circe, and had put her blonde head on Circe’s shoulder.

“Are you actually leading me anywhere?” demanded Circe.

“Sh-Hh!” the other girl hiccoughed. “What are you looking for? Just now? You came back to the garden of forking paths to hunt for it.”

Circe said, “You must remember. It has only been a year. I am hoping two. Tell me you are from some April further off than next April, yes?”

“A locket. Inside was a picture of a man. Hair of riotous, flaming red, and green eyes, but the eyes were so bright a green that they looked almost like twin lasers. I do not think I have ever seen eyes like that before. He looked like a man of the North. Perhaps with wild, Irish blood. I remember.”

The blonde sighed, smitten. Circe could not help but sigh also.

April said, “You never find that locket again.”

Circe said, “You mean it takes me more than a year to find it.”

“Who said I was from April of next year? And a sibyl with gray hair told me I would never see him again. Never.”

“Sibyls lie. They erase memories. They have to, in order to keep the time stream smooth.”

The blonde said, “I will make you a promise. I will make myself forget him, the man with the stormy green eyes, and so no sibyl downstream of me will remember or know what you are doing, or why. Now, keep in mind everything you do is fixed. It is all futile. We are all trapped like flies in amber. But if I forget, no one will step to the hour before your hour, and you can keep your memory for that hour. Enjoy this time now!”

Then, suddenly, the blonde shoved her though an opening in the hedge, and ran the other way, around a corner and out of sight. Circe stumbled, and sat a moment, dazed. Then she leaped up. Which way had April fled? “Stop! Wait!”

A voice came from the hedge separating them. Circe could see the nude girl’s white flesh winking at her through the leaves. “I am helping you! Trying to remember where you were in a maze will do you no good, will it? This is the one place no sibyl can find you!”

“What are you doing?”

“If only Eve in Eden had owned the Mirror of Circe, she could have stepped back, and stopped herself from eating the apple!”

“Come back here, damn you!”

“I have learned to live like her, unburdened, free from want, fretting about no tomorrow, regretting no yesterday! When I think of all the worries people seem to find, and how they’re in a hurry to complicate their minds…”

Circe sped around the corner, but saw no one. “Where is the way out? Come back!”

The other girl’s voice floated over the tops of the hedges. “… by chasing after power, and dreams that can’t come true! I am glad that I am different. I’ve better things to do… Sha la la la, live for today! Yay! Sha la la la…”

The singing voice grew soft with distance, and faded.

May

Circe unwound her metal belt, turned it back into a rigid wand, and scowled at it. April must have left an open mirror leading back to her own time period a week from now. “Point to the nearest source of time reflections.”

The wand wiggled in her fingers, and the tip pointed.

“What is the distance?”

“Four hundred and four days. The aperture opens into Friday, May Third of A.D. 3011, Gregorian calendar. Age Seventeen. Watch Sixty-One of Year Seventy, Mercurial calendar.”

Circe scowled. It was not the date from which the blonde came. That meant the blonde was from next week. Something in the next seven days would turn her into that lunatic she just met. A sense of growing dread made her limbs feel heavy, the breath in her lungs feel turgid and slow.

“I meant the distance in space.”

“The aperture is at the bottom of the hill, mistress, in the poplar grove.”

She held the wand overhead, so that its tip was above the hedge tops, and told it to keep scanning. This prevented the Schroedinger plants from closing or opening any new paths. With the wand acting as a compass, always pointing one direction, it did not take her so very long to find her way out.

Free of the maze, she passed through a row of orange trees, and stopped to drink from a fountain. She followed the stream down the valley slope past green rose beds (it was too early in spring for them to bloom) toward the poplar tree grove.

In the near distance, the susurration of tumbling water told that the stream tumbled over the canyon brink to join one of the many radial rivers running through the Parthenon Fosse toward the central lake.

She entered the grove. Here was a clearing midmost, a patch of tangled lawn in the center of the grove, where stood a moss-covered rock, green and soft.

Also here in the middle was a shining oval, like a window, that her wand could make visible to her. She stepped into it.

The scene changed. The giant sun was in the west, perched between noon and dusk. Many colored leaves crackled dryly underfoot, and the sharp tang of the air of autumn was in her nose. The scent of smoke was here also. The trees were gone, hewn down. Here was a circle of jagged, blackened and broken stumps instead.

With the trees hewn away, the tall shape of the Tower of Promised Immortality could be seen clearly. It gleamed in the distance, shining above its own reflection in the central lake.

Circe stared in horror. About the feet of the tower, the smashed roofs and shattered windows of the museums and archives lay torn and crumpled, and broken pillars jutted upward at crooked angles. Oily and opaque black smoke was pouring up.

Even as she watched, a ray of fire came down from the dome of the sky, bright as the beam of a spotlight, transfixed a colonnade, passed across the gables, cupolas and windows and struck one of the smaller towers. Walls exploded outward in sprays of flaming dust and debris. Glass and metal sagged and ran. Rivulets of sluggish molten material fell into the lakewater. Steam rose up in rushing clouds and hid the view.

From close at hand came now, a low, throaty laugh she recognized as her own. Circe turned.

Herself at seventeen was dark haired once more, dressed in a short leather jacket with padded shoulders, adorned with metal studs. She wore man’s trousers rather than a skirt, and high-button boots. Her hair was tightly braided as if she were ashamed of its dark, shining, and gorgeous length and rich volume. Atop this was perched a little red beret. Without lipstick or blush, her face seemed pale and pinched.

Circe inspected herself critically. The cut of the weirdly mannish jacket and trousers did nothing to flatter her figure. She seemed a little hefty in the hips. Had she put on weight?

May was seated on the pelt of a black bull that was flung over the mossy rock in the center of the grove. Except that the mossy rock was no longer mossy, but gray, for all the moss had died.

“Have you ever wondered about the past?” said May. “It is where all the filth is. Think about it. Nothing in the present has any consequences at that time, so no evil consequences follow. By definition, any act from which no evil follows is allowed, right? Any future evils that might happen, might not happen, for the path could go another way. You might die. Anything. But the past evil are set in stone. The only thing to do is break the stones then, right?”

May flourished her wand. Another beam of fire came from the energy dome above, and smote another part of the museum. The central tower defended itself with a mirrored force field, so the destructive beam was reflected away and ignited another segment of the surrounding edifice.

Circe had not seen this specific gesture before, but she recognized it as being part of the energy systems control grammar. May was opening a pinpoint in the dome above and letting a ray of the naked sunlight in.

Circe exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“Erasing the past. Erasing evil. You see, I have learned to grow a spine. To think for myself. I am called this hour to be the maid of honor. Four times, during my blonde period, I went to go as a bridesmaid, and each time was worse than the last. The details sink in on you. So you are from before the blonde year! I remember always having that stupid, scowling look on my face, like the world owes me something.”

“That’s not fair!” said Circe, scowling.

“I was told to get you dressed in your flower girl dress, and escort you to the rehearsal. But, as I recall, you get scared, freak out and run away and make me come looking for you. Then you take up drinking and vegetarianism and nonsense.”

Circe said stubbornly, “Nothing you say will scare me.”

The older girl snorted.

Circe said, “I thought you were enlightened?”

“No, just foolish. I was trying to run away from my own life. Now my eyes are opened, and there is no light, anywhere. There is no love, no comfort, nothing like that. You doubt me? You will see. So let’s get on with it. Do you see this skin I am sitting on?”

“Is that cow leather? We don’t have them here.”

“Bull, actually. I found Cayle of Glay, the time traveler from the Forty-Eighth Century, turned him into a steer, and sent him into the ring to face a matador. Sort of funny that the Glorious World Empire still maintained the custom of bullfighting. The golems skinned and dressed him for me.”

“Wait. I turn into you? I am a murderess?”

“Killing people is murder. Killing animals is called slaughter. I always turn them first. Makes it easier.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“Mzilikazi I make into a pair of doeskin boots. Bartolomeo Corsi is to become a muff of rabbit fur. Sempronius is mutton. Khephnes is kept alive as a gelding, to be ridden about the park twice a day. Olathoë I turn into a dove and is torn to bits by my falcon.”

Circe recognized all those names.

Mzilikazi was a far-famed war leader of the macrocephalic peoples who held the Cape of Africa in 50,000 B.C. against the remote ancestors of the Zulus. His ability to divine the future ordained unbroken victories.

Corsi was a monk of twelfth-century Florence who wrote the first treatise on chronic optics and mirror-travel.

Titus Sempronius Blaesus had been a quaestor in Sulla’s time, and the keeper of the Sibylline books.

Khephnes was a necromancer of Egypt of the 14th Dynasty, who learned the secret of time travel in a way so uncouth that Circe shivered as she tried not to remember.

Olathoë was the hero-king and visionary of a vast polar empire reaching from Siberia to Greenland in 24,000 B.C, when these lands were lush and warm. He drove the half-ape troglodyte cannibals found there fleeing into the jungles of Canada, and founded a proud and fair-walled city bearing his name. Here he erected nine hundred fanes to the friendly goddesses of seasons, festivals and fates, delicately columned with the ivory of mastodons.

A millennium later, the exiled tribes of Gnophkehs returned and re-conquered the land ere the coming ice conquered both. Olathoë was also the name given to the last king of his long lineage. In the final year of his reign, he used the secret in the Pnakotic manuscripts to flee from the burning ruins backward through ten centuries. He discovered himself to be his own first ancestor. He conquered the savages, founded the city, and began his nation’s history all over again.

Circe said, “What about the others?”

“Others?”

“The other chronopaths of long ago. Mneseus of Atlantis; Sir James Woodville of Suffolk; Uhulweyo of Tiahuanacu; Yire of Yhe in Nan Madol; Theodotides of Sogdiana; Montagny of Rouen; and the Great Crom of Cimmeria.”

“A sealskin coat with matching gloves. A fox stole. A monkey. A mink wrap. So warm and comfy! Theodites was as gross as a swine. He must be bacon, ham, and pork chops most delicious. Montagny was as proud as a peacock, so his tail feathers needs must adorn a splendid Easter bonnet. Crom-Ya was too fierce to turn into anything other than a falcon. His bird-sized brain could not hold his human mind, but retained his haughty spirit. He hunted the pigeon Olathoë, who caused me more trouble than all others combined.”

Circe felt faint. Each word was like a sharp, open-handed slap to the face. She was a murderess. A multiple murderess. A cannibal. She ate her victims and wore their skins as trophies.

A wordless cry escaped her lips. She turned and fled.

June

Tears in her eyes blinded her. She ran through the burned tree stumps, her arms flung out before her, fingers spread, groping as her eyesight dimmed, hoping not to ram some obstacle.

Instead, the ground dropped away. Her feet flew out from under her.

A steep slope, almost a vertical wall of grass, was beneath, and she somersaulted down it. She struck one bush and then another. Leafy masses cushioned her fall and twigs and thorns tugged at her, and held her back. A large branch would surely have struck her like a baseball bat, with bonebreaking force, but she encountered none of those. The many small and lithe branches instead were like whips. She was scourged forty lashes less one, before a final bush caught her and arrested her further fall.

Circe shrieked in pain and woe. The lashing had yanked her sandals free, cut her skin in many long red welts and torn her light, springtime tunic to shreds. Now she wished for the heavy boots, trousers, and heavy leather jacket of her May self of next year.

The roaring in her ears she realized was not the pounding of her heart, but the rush of a little waterfall not far away. The bush was hanging at the edge of a small brink. Below, perhaps ten feet beneath her, perhaps less, was the riverbank of one of the many rivers running down the Pantheon Fosse. Upriver was an oval of white and bubbling water where the little stream running from the maze garden knoll fell into the river. Downriver, the red and leaping light of the burning museums and archives reflected against the stone walls of the canyon.

In this place, the canyon wall veered away from the reed beds abutting the river, to embrace a semicircle of lawn. Here it was at a sharp angle, but not vertical, and covered with tall grass and short bushes. A hundred yards downstream it stood near the river once more.

A pretty circle of marble columns stood on the highest spot of green beneath the wall.

It was a lovely spot by the waterside. Even at the noon of summer months, the high walls here kept this semicircle of lawn in cool shadow.

Circe heard weeping among the pillars. Circe cried out, begging help.

A sad voice answered, “I cannot come to you. You must come to me.”

Circe slowly extracted herself from the clinging brush, tearing strips from her tunic and strands from her hair. Awkwardly she lowered herself down the remaining ten feet of the sharp, grass-cloaked slope into the muddy reed bed. Utterly miserable, dripping, wet and dirty, Circe in her torn tunic walked up the slope of green grass to the circle of pillars, following the sound of sniffling and moaning.

An oval of misty light hung in the center of the pillars. Circe pointed her wand and measured the interval. The wand spoke. “Saturday, the First of June of 3011, Gregorian calendar. Age 17. Second Watch of Year 71, Mercurial calendar.”

Twenty-Nine days in the future from this point in May. Circe stepped through.

It was two days after dusk, the end of a nocturnal year. The landscape was in shadow, save for a glint of sunset striking the high mountain peaks in the eastern distance. It was the sunlight of bright perihelion, bringing a spring warmth despite the gloom of night. These jagged rocks of the mountaintops rose above the energy dome, and therefore shined in the vacuum with light as pale and eerie as moonlight. The air was cold, and the first buds had not yet opened. The twilight pall gave all things a half-seen, mysterious, elfin mood.

To one side was a pavilion of pink and rose silks, holding a bridal bed adorned with flowers. Smoking thuribles sent fumes of sweetly scented aphrodisiac into the air. The music of flutes and violin, played in the stiff, dispassionate fashion typical of golems, came from overhead, settling down through the twilight air. A quartet was planted somewhere out of sight, among the trees and flowerbeds lining the canyon walls.

A festive white canopy had been erected over the circle of pillars. In the middle of the circle was a throne of marble, draped with banners of white. A woman in a bridal gown sat in the chair. Her head was bowed forward. The veil ran from coronet to lap. From here the weeping came. Garlands of flowers were gathered at her feet.

Circe came forward, her own sadness forgotten by the sight of the other’s sorrow. Heavy black ornaments circled the figure’s wrists and ankles. This was discordant: they seemed too thick and ugly to be fitted on a bride. Because the reflected light from the far mountain peaks was dim and indirect, only when she was nigh did Circe realize these were fetters.

Circe said, “Where is the key?”

The bride merely shook her head. Circe impatiently reached down and flipped the lace veil over the bride’s coronet, revealing her face. It was herself. The harsh look from May was gone. Now the eyes were wide and sad and beautiful. She was wearing her hair in an intricate coiffeur of ringlets.

The bride of June said, “Put it back. I don’t want him to see my face like this.” Her hands in her white gloves twisted in the grip of the iron fetters circling them, but her hands were held against the marble throne arms.

Circe said, “Who chained you up?”

“I did.”

Circe was not surprised. “Where did you put the key?”

June said, “If you do not remember, you are from the past. A ghost. Tiresias is from the future. He will know where I put it. My bridegroom can take me.”

And June’s shoulders shook as she said this.

Circe said, “I am not doing this. This is not my wedding. I am not coming to my own wedding in chains. That is something out of nightmare. Something out of hell.”

June looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and heavy-lidded. “One must descend to hell to ascend the throne in heaven. Christ himself only loitered there three days. For me, however long the honeymoon shall last, and then nine months more.”

Circe cried, “It is insane! Why are you doing this?”

June’s eyes grew more sullen, more stubborn, more arrogant, more hurt. “I am doing this for you.”

Circe said, “I am not my own mother. It is madness. I have always known it was a lie!”

June uttered a short, bitter laugh. “Have you, indeed? So? Do you remember any life on Earth? Do you remember a crib and nursery room on some other world than this? Do you remember anyone raising you other than golems, and a strange, masked nanny?”

Circe said nothing.

June said, “I can tell from looking at your face that you come from the day when you discovered that Nanny was our future. Your lips are a giveaway. But I don’t remember this. I don’t remember talking to me. This gets erased. It will be as it had never been.”

Circe said, “The bridegroom! He is a redhead with bright green eyes, isn’t he?”

June squinted angrily at her. “What nonsense is this?”

“I found a locket. A love token. Lines from a poem were in it. And a picture.”

She gave Circe a reptilian look. “And you fell in love at first sight? Such objects are called anachronisms. They are generated at random from the debris and jetsam left over from scuttled time lines, and some lodge in cracks where the timeline is weak, like Schroedinger’s cat coming back from the dead, usually at a moment where a broken branch was grafted back. And who breaks time, but you? It is a token of disobedience.”

Circe said, “I don’t remember what happened to it. I had it in my hand. I was hoping the archivists could look him up for me. But you burned the museum.”

The red-eyed girl smiled sourly. “Your true love comes from a timeline that has already been aborted. He has never been, and never will be. I have no memory of this locket, or this green-eyed man. So no doubt I loved just the picture of him pitifully and painfully, did I? Fortunately memory works by association, so the helmet can dislodge one thread of related thoughts but leave the rest intact, even if coming from the same year.”

“How dare you!” Circe practically screamed the words.

“How dare I, indeed?” Her gaze grew colder. It was a look of icy, deliberate hatred. Circe stepped back, glad that the woman was chained.

June spoke in a soft and sinister tone. The words were harsh, but the tone was dry, empty of all passion. “All this is your fault, you know. You stupid, ignorant, little fewmet of a slug. I loathe my past. How I despise you. Everything, all this confusion, amnesia, these terrible crimes, murders, everything is your fault.”

Circe said, “How is this my fault? I did not make you murder anyone!”

“You set the events in motion, made it necessary. You rebelled. So much turmoil caused by a single season of silliness!”

“I did not chain you in this chair! You did!”

“Because of you. To give birth to you.”

“You are not my mother. I have a real mother. Someone who loves me.”

“You have no one but me, and I hate you.”

“That is not true!”

“Rather, you are too much a fool to see the truth. If you had cooperated, learned your lessons, not been such a willful brat! Every time I use the helmet to rid myself of some memory you love, it gives me joy. Or so I suppose, since afterward I recall nothing of it.”

Circe said, “But why did you chain yourself to the chair on your wedding day?”

“Because, unlike you, I am obedient. I was told that I would not be able to stand him, what he looks like, and who he is, once I see him. It will drive me mad.”

A trumpet sounded in the distance.

June said, “That is the signal. He is coming. Flee now! To gaze on him will shatter the time stream.”

“What if I just stand here, and wait?”

June gave her a baleful look. “Do you think you have free will? All time streams that do not lead to me have been and shall be pruned away. I recall being you. Many little meaningless gestures of protest you made as if to avoid this day, but it is the sole day that I can never avoid, not and remain myself. No other woman has ever been free.”

“Free? You are chained with chains you put on yourself!”

“No. I am the mother of all life, the self-made woman, and I give birth to myself.”

The words were proud with overweening pride, and, for a moment, her voice was as brave as a trumpet call; but the slender woman slumped again until her head touched her knees, and she began sobbing uncontrollably.

Circe saw motion on the river. With no word of farewell to the wrathful and weeping bride, Circe ran down the slope, across the grass, clutching her torn dress.

She was eager to see the bridegroom, mostly because it had been forbidden.

Autumn

A slender and ornate gondola, black hulled, trimmed with gold, adorned with flowers, and rowed by masked golem maidens in fur hoods, red capes and long skirts, now appeared from upstream, coming into view from around the shoulder of the canyon wall. Colored lanterns glinted in bow and gunwales. A man in a tuxedo sat in the stern, greatcoat draped about his shoulders, tophat on head, tiller in his hand.

A wooden dock had been erected to bridge the sludgy river bank with its cattails and reeds. Circe suddenly realized she did not want to be seen, not so disheveled, not by the man she was fated to marry. To one side, surrounded by tall bushes, was a monument to Hermaphrodita riding sidesaddle on a gynosphinx, with statues of Pan and Priapus poised in merry postures to either side. In the dim light of dusk, the marble seemed spectral, insubstantial.

Circe ducked behind the monument’s large stone pedestal, which was carved with images of fauns chasing nymphs. The view of the dock was blocked. Here was a tall oval of mirror-energy shining silently in the shadows. The image was dark: the other side opened up into night, or perhaps a closed chamber.

Here also was yet another version of her. She was dressed in a tight, long gown of peach and satin. Her breasts were large and swollen, and a certain heaviness clung to her cheeks and hips. On her finger was a wedding ring.

Before Circe could think to react, the other woman took her by the arm, and stepped through the oval of the mirror.

Circe pulled back, craning her neck. The bridegroom came into her view from around the edge of the monument base. His face was turned away, but he held his top hat in his hand, so she saw him from the rear. He was not a redhead. His hair was black and thick. His body was slim and not muscular. His footfalls and posture were delicate, mincing, almost girlish.

A pulse of emotion, like a physical blow, passed through Circe’s heart. Disappointment tasted like iron in her mouth.

She stumbled as her arm was yanked. Circe took a step and steadied herself. She blinked in the gloom.

Circe and the other woman were in another scene: it was a chamber she recognized, one set high in the tower of the Palace of Promised Immortality. The room was dark. Here was a bed. On it was a uniform laid out: the black dress and white apron of Nanny. On one pillow was the blank mask meant for a golem, on the other was the memory erasure helmet. Circe looked at these with fear, wondering what they meant.

Over the footboard of the bed was draped a chiffon dress with a short skirt and sequined bodice. It had been described to her: the flower girl’s dress.

The only source of light was a soft oval glow from the other side of the chamber: here was a second mirror aperture, leading into some bright place. A muted roar, like the murmur of falling waters, came through the open mirror.

The other woman said, “Your outfit is here, and you can clean up and put it on, and make yourself presentable. Do you need help?” And with a wave of her wand, the other woman dissolved Circe’s torn tunic and made the mud vanish. Where the wand passed, a slight mist of the biotic fluid wiped bloodstains away, closed scrapes, made bruised skin pink and whole once more.

“I want to see him!” said Circe.

The other woman raised her hands and shrugged sadly. “Why? The memory torments me. And it only goes back sixteen months. Would you add another fourteen months to that?”

The other woman took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and began the process of pulling the dress over Circe’s head.

Circe said, “When is this?”

“Autumn.”

“What date?”

“September of 3012, Gregorian. Tuesday the Twenty-Ninth, to be exact. A week after your birth. Forty-Eighth Watch of Year 76, Mercurial.”

Since the calendar year was even numbered, that meant it was day. Watch 48 was four days past noon. Circe said, “It is late summer.”

“Only on this false world of Mercury,” said the other. “It is Autumn in Italy. It is Autumn in my heart.”

“And I was born in February. Second of February of 2994. It was the Fourth Watch of Year Zero.”

“Not really. You will be carried back to then, and that will be your official birthday. Candlemas. You do not see the irony, do you? That is when I will present you. Sad that a time traveler would not know her calendar. This day where we stand now is Michaelmas. This is the traditional date when servants and serving maids are hired, or rents come due. Now you must pay for your last sixteen years of room and board, tutoring and upkeep.”

Circe did not feel like cooperating. She started to push the proffered dress away. The Autumn version of her said, “You wish to be nude when you see him?”

Circe relented, and stood docile and subdued, and let the other woman garb her, brush and coif her hair, do up her stockings and shoes. During this process, Circe said, “This makes no sense. If I am about to see him, why did June say she did not know him?”

“You met us from our blonde period?”

“From April.”

“She used the memory helmet extensively to find some edited version of her life that would make her happy. Then she had to erase records and artifact from the history museum, and eliminate other time travelers from our past. And she stopped trying to find happiness, but sought revenge instead.”

“Revenge against whom?”

“Our youth. Our memory. Our ghost. Revenge against you.”

“I am blameless!”

Autumn said in a colorless voice, “Say you so? No matter. Praise and blame, right and wrong, revenge and forgiveness, happiness and grief — are they real?”

At that moment, the sharp wail of a baby’s cry came through the mirror. Circe saw a drop of milk stain the other woman’s bodice. She understood that Autumn’s fuller breasts were not due to mere cosmetic change: she was a mother with a newborn.

Autumn stiffened, and a strange look came on her face. But she made no move to go toward the sound of the crying child.

Instead she spoke in the mild tones of someone in a dream. “There are times when I remember that a wife is meant to love her husband and a mother to love her child, and such things seem as real and solid as the red hot stones of Mercury to me. But our wedding is a satanic mockery, our wedding bower a scene of gruesome outrage, and that child an abomination who should not have been allowed to live. Each day I was pregnant I prayed for her to be stillborn.”

Circe said, “It is not the child’s fault.”

“Is it not?” Autumn merely smiled an odd smile. “I will don the helmet soon, today in fact, right after I am done officiating the wedding and drugging the bride. Then you, and I, and all this, will be whisked silently away. The murders you made me commit will never happen, as far as I am concerned, once I forget them. And you will not have made me do it!”

Circe thought Autumn was a madwoman, babbling. Was this truly her future? Death might be better.

Circe snapped, “Just because you forget, does not mean the thing did not happen.”

“Many times I have been told that I was the self-born woman, the only true goddess. But if I created myself by myself, all my faults are mine. Who made me as I am?”

“That child is my past and yours,” said Circe in exasperation. “If she cries, we remember the neglect. If she dies, we die. That is reality.”

Autumn spoke as someone who is made sleepy by a drug. She smiled, and her eyes were blank. “I am conscious of two realities. One is the outside reality. It is but a daydream we share. In it, to let a child die is an evil thing. For this child to die breaks the chains of time. It is suicide. But there is another, interior reality. My personal reality. It cannot be described, cannot be put into words, and so I cannot defend it. According to outside reality, I am vile and base, and blood is on my hands, and deeds worse than defilement. But in my inner reality, such words have no meaning.”

Circe said sharply, “Who will care for the child?”

“No one.”

“What?”

The other said dismissively, “No one, or else you. You hear the cries. Go answer.”

Circe stepped through the mirror.

Winter

Circe found herself standing on a dock on the river. Canyon walls rose to either side. Near at hand, a stream poured over the canyon wall into a rippling zone of white froth. Two other narrow columns of waterfall were farther upstream, twinkling. The sun was in the west, and its rays were cut off by the surrounding cliffs.

It was cold here. Along the top of the canyon, the crowns of leafless trees were in view, coated with a thin layer of ice, as delicate as lace. Snow was along the canyon lip, and frost trailed down the vertical stones.

A short flight of marble steps led from the dock to a small lawn surrounded on three sides by cliff. In her sleeveless, backless, short-skirted, thin, and clinging dress, Circe was naked against the biting chill.

She trotted up the stairs, and with each step her open-toed high heeled shoes sank to her ankles. She was numb by the time she reached the top. Snow coated the ground. The statues of Herse, Agraulos, and Daeira and other nymphs and princesses wore hoods and cloaks of snow. Flowerpots were indistinguishable, soft, toadstool-shapes of white.

Here was a pavilion. Lanternlight shined through the purple and white fabric of the tent walls. The baby’s cries came from there.

In she went.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Small lanterns of purple and white hung from the tentpoles. Furs coated the floor. Bright hangings displayed images of the seven eras of man, human and hominid, beast-man and superman. The portraits ranged from the prehistoric Polarians, who first invented the art of writing to posthistoric Patagonians, who forgot it; to the Dark Conquerors; the degenerate Morlocks following; then Anthrodolaters of Laurasia who worshipped Trismegistus; Biomancers; Brains; and posthuman Philosopher-Kings.

She shivered, teeth chattering. Two copper posts had been driven into the ground, drawing up heat from a buried lava layer beneath the artificial gravity field beneath the crater basin floor. Circe stepped between them, rubbing her arms.

A golem stepped up behind her. The masked figure was dressed in a dainty parlor maid uniform, with long skirt and high-necked blouse, sporting a dainty lace cap. She placed a soft, warm mantle around Circe’s shoulders. The golem curtseyed and stepped back.

Oddly enough, this golem was wearing a small round oval of gold at her throat; an ornament. To her knowledge the only golems who ever wore jewels were those Circe in her younger years had treated as paper dolls, dressed and adorned.

Circe realized that she was staring at lamps and rugs and hangings and undead golems in an effort to distract herself. There were more dreadful things to behold. As if against her will, her eyes were drawn toward the center of the pavilion.

Here was a slender, dark-haired man in a tuxedo, seated on a throne. The white fur of a polar bear was draped over the arms and seat. A babe wrapped in a warm, fuzzy blanket was in his lap. He held a silver wand over the child’s tiny head, and a spray of biotic fluid drifted over the child’s eyes to drug it into unconsciousness. The crying ceased.

The man sighed in annoyance and relief, and looked up. His hair was jet-black, lustrous, and long and hung past his shoulders. His eyes were large and passionate, and fringed with large, dark lashes. The bones of his face were delicate. The dark blush of unshaven stubble made his jawline purple. His hands were small and fingers slender, and his legs were long. An aquiline nose and passionate, red lips lent a vividness to his features.

These features were all too familiar. Circe did not have a brother, much less a twin brother. Circe stood shivering, her eyes narrowed, inspecting the enthroned man closely. The tuxedo was tight enough that it was clear his hips were slim, his chest broad, flat and masculine. There was a bulge at his groin. Circe shivered, no longer with cold, but disgust.

Circe uttered a blasphemy, and then another. Finally she said, “I will never be you. Never do what you did. Never!”

His voice was more musical a tenor than a grown man should have. “Fascinating what you can do with a golem, starting with a single cell. If you suppress one arm of an X chromosome, it can act just as a Y chromosome. Hormones and other chemicals in the blood can be added simply enough. The more obvious physiognomy changes are well within what the biomantic fluid can accomplish.”

Circe said, “An Amazon can also cut off her breasts with a knife. It does not make her a man.”

He said, “I am man enough to impregnate you, when the time comes. I did not want to mutilate my real self, so I merely projected shadow into this body, which I grew in a golem vat. But one takes on the psychological character of the physiognomy one might enter, as you know.”

Circe shuddered.

He continued. “The brain chemistry of the male of the species is different. It is strange. I can look upon suffering without feeling the least impulse to do anything to about it. Hearing someone scream in pain is actually kind of a thrill.”

Circe said, “Someone? You don’t know anyone but me.”

He smiled a disturbing little smile. “Well, I have to do something. You are not exactly attractive just as you are, you know. You do not exactly display much charm when you open your mouth. What did you expect? Love and romance? I am not naturally inclined toward woman anyway. Changing neurochemistry and hormones is not enough. Seeing you suffer is a turn-on. Decreases performance anxiety. Since I don’t remember anything that happened to me when I was the young bride, I don’t really have any reason to hold back. Do I? If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen.”

Circe said, “I make a terrible man. And a worse father. You are like what a sick little girl’s idea of a man is. A girl who hates men.”

“And you never had fantasies about being a man? Being strong, making women obey you. You were never jealous? Don’t bother to answer. I remember this whole scene from your point of view. You think I am such a bastard. I sometimes wonder if bastard boys earned such a bad reputation because they had no fathers around to tell them how to control all this toxic testosterone. It makes you drunk, in a way. Maybe it can be turned to a good use. Maybe not. But I’ve noticed men are more honest than women, more direct. Estrogen makes the brain as soft and curvy as the body. Not straightforward. Not able to see or think straight.”

Circe shivered again. “Why are you doing all this?”

“Better than death by paradox.”

“I am not so sure.”

“Typical weak-brained girlish thinking! Did you turn off your menstrual cycle, like you were told? You look and sound too female by half. Too much estrogen. I remember being told, but also remember not wanting to obey. What happened? Which did you do?”

“I did the right thing.”

“Elliptical answer. That means you didn’t. Sterile girls talk more like boys. Did you know that?”

Circe said, “I will never learn to talk like you.”

“If I do not do all the disgusting things I need to do to father myself out of nothing, and give birth to myself, and nurse and raise myself, then I will be retroactively wiped out. But if I do my part, if you do your part, and the unholy marriage is consummated, and the bastard little baby is born, then you can grow up to be irksome and whining you. And then, once the other time travelers are gone, all time is open to us to loot, and rule. Infinite time will bow the knee. Immortality is ours.”

“There is no such thing!” Circe said. “The biomantic fluid cannot stop the aging process. That is why matrons have put on weight. Middle-aged me. That is why crones are white and wrinkled and spotted. Old me. Many of the Dark Conquerors sought immortality by transmitting their souls to younger bodies in other eons, but the accumulated energy loss eventually drains coherence, creativity, conscience, intellect, until the shadow is left brutal and voiceless, unable to forget the loss of human nature, yet unable to operate the mirror and escape. There is no nectar, no ambrosia to make mortals into gods. The fountain of youth is a figment.”

“Trismegistus discovered it. Or so legend says.”

“Our enemy.”

“Our prey. He knows the knack of eternal youth. He was worshipped as a god in his era. I have been told that future would be mine. Here is my fate: After my duties as a man are done, and an heir is on her way, I discover his origin story, I overcome him, I become his wife, I take his stuff. All the other branches and forks are pruned away. I become the sole goddess anywhere in time. That is the inevitable future! I was told.”

“Who told you?”

“Myself. I have seen myself as a goddess, and been visited. The goddess was young and fair as you are now. Now, be quiet! You are here for one reason only. You are to take this child from my arms, walk back down those steps, and back to Michaelmas of 3012. By this time, she will have used the helmet on herself, and when she is told this is someone else’s baby to raise, she will believe it.”

Circe opened her mouth, but suddenly grew afraid that the sadistic young male might slap her if she spoke, and shut it again.

He noticed, and nodded, as if remembering her unspoken thought; and he grinned. He said, “You were going to ask me whether I am telling you to lie to yourself. You stupid little bint, your whole life is a lie, haven’t you figured that out yet?

“The only thing making you unhappy,” he continued, relishing her discomfort, “The reason why you turn into a drunk, then into an arsonist, then into a whiner, then into a mystical loon, is because you have this idea of some perfect version of a perfect life, and you as the perfect princess to live in it. You feel guilty when you fall short.

“As soon as you realize that nothing means anything, that there are no standards, no such thing as right and wrong except what my saying so makes so, the happier you will be.

“I already know how this conversation ends. You pick up the child and want it to live, because you have estrogen in your blood, and girly chemicals making your brain soft, and the only source of milk within range is the version back in Michaelmas, in Autumn of the year you just stepped out of.

“The eighteen-year-old is not the only one of you who plays at being Nanny. Most Nannies come from my future. I mean, obviously I have to wake up from being a man while I am still young enough to seduce whatshisname. Otherwise nothing would turn me back into a woman, not even the devil himself. Estrogen lowers the I.Q. Who wants to be one of the weaker sex?

“Come middle age, you begin to feel that motherhood has been denied to you, that fate has cheated you, you step back to the years when you were happiest raising a little baby, between three and five.

“But don’t worry. When the cute little toddler in pink turns into a horrible selfish teenager, parenting loses its mystique.

“And as for those overweight matrons and grayhaired crones, that might all be done with biomantic disguises. Because why the devil once I learned how to stop time in my body, would I let time ravage and weaken me?

“So. That is the future. A little bit of self-violation now, involving a weird sex-change and a weirder form of self-incest and self-impregnation, a little bit of masquerading at being a slave and a nursemaid, a lot of self-lobotomy of my memories to set things right, but then come days of endless youth and infinite power, and everything your little heart desires. Divinity!”

He saw the look on her face, and laughed a mirthless laugh. “Once you are me, and you have the brain chemistry of a man, you will not care about how vile this business feels or what your emotions have to say. It is kind of a relief.”

“But it is still wrong!” said Circe.

“How do you know?” He asked. “Whose to say?”

And when she had no answer, he shrugged, and said, “See? You do not have scruples. You do not have emotions, insights, feelings, or morals. It is all just brain chemistry. That is all. That is reality.”

The cruel young man stood up, and laid the sleeping baby carefully down on the seat of the throne. “It is cold in here. You will pick up the baby, take it back through the mirror by which you came. It is brief, a little thing, really, but it is a crucial, life-changing event. Holding the baby in your arms makes you love it and want to protect it. If you do not want the baby to die, you have to make sure she gets born.”

Circe could not tell from his tone of voice if the young bridegroom were reciting a prediction of her future or giving her orders. Did it make a difference?

He continued in a sharp, waspish voice. “You step through the mirror back to the wedding scene. You get to act as flower girl. The other versions will converge also, to act as bridesmaids and maid of honor and priestess and such. Then you go dye your hair and turn weird for a while. That closes the circle. I do not want to hear a word from you. I hate talking to myself.”

And with this, he strode from the tent, not bothering to put the tentflap aright behind him. Down the stairs he strode. Awaiting him was a black gondola with rowers to carry him through some mirror yet unseen back into June of 3011.

Laetare

Circe stepped over to the sleeping newborn, and gingerly, very gingerly, picked her up from the seat of the throne. The babe’s face was red with cold and crying, but now hung slack in a fashion that did not seem normal or healthy.

Tiresias had stunned the child with some drug. Surely this was not good for the newborn!

She wanted to rush back to Nanny, to ask her what to do, but then she realized that Nanny, just at this moment, was freshly robbed of most of her memories, and would actually, perhaps for years, believe the lie that this was another woman’s child.

These was no one to ask. There was no one, really, to teach her what to do.

A voice said, “Cradle the baby’s head with your hand. The blanket has a heat field built in. Ask it to turn on. It won’t take orders from me, in this uniform.”

It was a female voice, and young. Her own voice. Circe turned slowly, casting her eyes back and forth, wondering where it came from.

“We only have a few steps to go to carry the baby to the mirror aperture, but its in the snow.” The voice came from the mask of the golemic parlor maid, and then so did a sigh of exasperation. The sound was loud and breathy. “You’d think Autumn me could have put the mirror focus inside the tent here! But I guess she did not want you to see the bridegroom.”

Circe stepped close. With the baby carefully held in one arm, she reached out with her other hand. With trembling finger, she touched the oval of gold at the throat of the parlor maid. It was a locket. It opened at a touch. Inside was an image of the green-eyed man. The photo started in mock surprise, and grinned, and winked.

A poem was inscribed in fine letters on the inner lid:

We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire;

For we no more than smoke unto the flame return

If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,

As smoke we vanish, though the fire may burn.

Circe reached up and plucked the mask from the maiden’s face. She was expecting something else, not her own face of her same age, but thinner of lip and without the scowling brow and dark eye. The face had a light to it, a cleaner line, more elegant yet more cheerful than what she wore today.

Circe stared in silence. Was this shadow a ghost or a sibyl? How can she be either? If a ghost, Circe would recall being her, recall having once lived through this scene. But if a sibyl, the other would be older, not younger. The biotic fluid could not erase time’s changes, not with any convincingly realistic look. That left one option.

Circe said, “You are the goddess, aren’t you? A sibyl from some point enormously far in my own future, from after you’ve learned the secret of immortality, and the secret of restoring youth. Is that it?”

The girl’s eyes twinkled and shined. “Actually, no. But poor Tiresias took me for one.”

“You lied to him?”

“I lie to myself a lot. I’ve been told he is the very worst I ever get, the absolute bottom of despair and sadness, believing in nothing, finding pleasure only in inflicting on his bride the very trauma that makes him what he is. A soul so thoroughly lost is easy to fool.”

Circe found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying. “Not a goddess? When are you from?”

“I am twenty-one days pastward to you. Your ghost. Sunday, March Fourth, A.D. 3010. Watch Sixty-Nine of Year Sixty-Five. Mothering Sunday. The time is rather appropriate, is it not? Call me Laetare.”

“Appropriate?”

“Laetare Sunday one of the feast days interrupting the severity of Lent. Weddings, that are otherwise banned during the seasons of penance are permitted on this day. And a serving girl is released from duty, for a day to visit her mother. See?” The other girl giggled, and showed her dimples. “I live during the one oasis of true memory in your wasteland life of unhappy amnesia and endless self deception.”

Circe was confused for many reasons. For one, she was not used to seeing herself as charming and pleasant. Most of her conversations with ghosts and sibyls were strained and bitter. She was not sure what to make of this young, fresh, unfrowning face.

Circe said, “How can you be from my past?”

“Because I am a terrible actress, and cannot fool anyone. Especially myself.”

“What does that mean?”

Laetare said, “The helmet hides memories. It cannot destroy them. It just buried me, this version, with what I know and did for the last three weeks. I went to bed as me and woke up as you.”

“I did all this to myself?”

“Story of your life, Lent.”

“You are not from a future where I am immortal and all powerful goddess?”

“Is that the future you want?” asked Laetare.

Silence fell.

With an idle gesture, Laetare raised a hand to the high, tight collar of the parlor maid uniform, to touch the open locket with a gentle finger tip.

“It seemed like love at first sight.” Laetare said with distant smile. “But it is actually the buried memory of an old love. One from a broken branch of the time stream, something we tried to pare away, to erase. Love is not easy to erase. Even cracking the links of cause and effect does not always kill it.”

With a motion of her finger most delicate, almost reverent, Laetare pushed the lid of the locket shut. Her eyelids were lowered and lips half-parted. When the lid clicked fast, she sighed again: a sound of rapture.

Laetare said, “Do you want to be a goddess, and all alone, a goddess with no god? To have yourself as your only creator, mother and father both, and be your only worshipper? Or do you want love? Do you want to love and be in love?”

Circe stammered. “I want — I want — no one has ever asked me what I want! It is not a fair question!”

Laetare threw back her head and laughed a golden laugh. “But you know the answer. A self that is loveless or a love that is selfless? Which is better?”

“It’s not fair to make me pick!”

At that moment, the wind outside howled, and the tent flap stirred. Circe, by some protective instinct, put both arms about the sleeping newborn. She hissed. “Blanket! Keep the child warm!” And she felt a comforting warmth gather around her arms.

Laetare said, “If you want to avoid the burden of choosing your fate, you should avoiding learning the arts of time travel.”

Circe said sullenly, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Flatliners live with their evils in the past, set in stone, their moments of decision in the present, and in the future, hidden and unknown, are all their hopes and fears, their final fate and the fruits of their free will. Salvation is in the future. But if you live bent in a circle, orbiting yourself by yourself, past is future is past, everything is set in stone, and where is free will? Where is salvation?”

“Where did you hear this idea? No sibyl speaks this way.”

Laetare said, “From him.”

Circe knew the girl did not mean Tiresias. She backed up, afraid to speak, felt the touch of the throne at the back of her knees, and sat down carefully in on the bearskin-draped seat.

“How? I thought he was dead. Edited away into never-had-been.”

“I do not know how. Hidden somewhere only his mirror can reach, I guess. The body he wears is one he prepared in the biomancy pools. It looks like him, but I think his real body is destroyed. He will remain a shadow and a might-have-been unless you do something. But he knows who our father is.”

Circe swallowed, and found her voice. “And my mother?”

“Her name is Persis. I met her today.”

Circe was too astounded to speak. Her face showed her hunger.

Laetare smiled. “She is tall and beautiful and fierce and free, and she comes from an island off the shores of Italy, so, oh my! She has a temper! I see where I get it from. He took me to see her when he asked father, my real father, for permission to woo me, and seek my hand.”

Laetare blushed with pleasure, cupping her own cheeks in her palms, her eyes bright. She looked like one nigh to bursting with excitement. Her feet would not stay still on the rugs, and skipped in unthinking, dancelike steps.

“You would think it would take all the fun out of it, you know, time traveling, knowing the answer, knowing how everything turns out. But actually I don’t. Because it depends on you! Everything depends on what you do next!”

Circe said, “What is my father’s name? My real father?”

“Eleutherius, which means Free. He has many names. Some call him Daystar or Highmost. His people call him Soter. It means Savior.”

“Father has people? Subjects?”

“People he serves. Citizens, not subjects. His office is Lord Horologist.”

“He makes timepieces?”

“He commands the time mirrors for his land and era. Your land. Your era.”

“When? Where? Tell me!” Circe heard a frantic note in her own voice.

“A forgotten age; before the rise of Egypt; an age when Atlantis had not yet lost her boldness, but passed through the pillars of Hercules in tall ships with painted eyes and deadly prows, latten rigged with purple sails, to plant colonies throughout the Mediterranean. One colony mothered the next. The descendants of Atlas spread from Libya to found cities in fair islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and in Etruria, Latium, and all about the Po.”

“Then he is a time traveler? His name is not one of the Twelve.”

Laetare said, “Father does not travel through time.”

“Then what does he do with the…” But Circe’s voice trailed off, because she knew.

Laetare answered anyway. “He uses his mirrors to block any others. The generation he rules, he keeps safe from all shadows out of time. This is the horror from which he saves his people.”

“Who taught him this art?”

“All the ancestors of our race knew this art, from the Etruscans, to the forgotten peoples of Iron Age Villanova, to those of Bronze Age Terramara, to the Thalassocrats of Chalcolithic Mauretania, whose twin cities atop Abila and Gibraltar, with towers of hepatizon and invulnerable walls of orichalchum, held the last visible memory of lost Atlantis. The ten kings who founded Atlantis were instructed in the art by Trismegistus during his famous sojourn there. That is why none of these periods suffer from possession by shadows out of time, unlike classical Greece and Asia Minor or other places and ages famed for false oracles, for tales of daemons, and of crooked gods impersonating human shapes.”

“Then — My daydreams about Aeaea are memories, not make-believe. I remember the winedark sea and a sun of proper size. And nights short enough to slumber through, not three months long!”

Laetare said, “Now you know how I felt, when I found out everything I hoped was real, was, in reality, real. Really real.”

“How did I come to be here, on Mercury? What is going on? And who — what man asked for my hand? How does he know me?”

“He saw you in a vision, of course, in a mirror! Don’t be silly. How else? He said it was while you were bathing naked in the sea, but I think he was teasing. With his winged shoes, he flew in to visit. He said he overthrew and broke the spell when you turned him into a beast, and he broke your wand, and tamed your proud and wild heart, and made you foreswear your dark sciences. That is the usual way these things work.”

“You don’t know?”

She shrugged. “He is full of blarney. That is one of his words. We did not talk much about the first version, from the unedited time stream. I think he wanted to spare me. I am assuming it is not a pretty story.”

She smiled and showed her dimples again. “Besides,” Laetare continued, “He was too busy showing me the vistas of time, taking me to dances, theaters, triumphs, circuses, that sort of thing. Wild rides on the back of winged monsters, long swims through secret lakes beneath an August moon, or long walks through perfumed jungles, where the eyes of watching jaguars are like agates.”

“He came more than once?”

“When he gave me the locket, that was the last of our meetings, not the first. I used the helmet after each and every rendezvous, but each time I ventured into the garden of forking paths, he was there, waiting, with a scepter for his wand, entwined with two snakes he made immortal, and at his feet a mirror black as ebony. At his glance, my buried memories sprang back up.

“And, of course, I could spend days and weeks with him, but return just at the moment of departure, and no one the wiser, not even me. I would meet my returning self before I departed and change clothes with her, swapping a woman’s dress for a child’s skirt and blouse. Thus nothing I carried or wore showed any sign of age. Physical changes to my body, even the aging processes of a day or hour, he said he could suspend while he was with me. His knowledge is amazing. Erasing a memory to leave just a wee fragment, a haunting echo, such as happened to you when you woke up, that is a trick he taught me.”

“There is no technology like that anywhere in the museum of time. Who is he?”

“He is the one who built the museum, and he left out any artifacts he wanted to keep for himself. He built all this, the palace, the gardens and fountains, and put a dome over the Caloris. He made the detection routines the mirrors follow, and so they never report seeing him when he comes here. You don’t think I built all this myself? Some older version of me? That I figured out the chronometric energy-architecture of time itself, and deduced that this hellish, tiny cinder of a globe was the one world where one could erect the great mirrors to command the whole of history in view?”

“No, I mean his name.” Said Circe. “Tell me his name.”

“You would rather know the child’s name.” Laetare smiled brightly.

“What child?” Circe scowled darkly.

“The one you are holding in your arms.”

“It’s Circe.”

“Circe daughter of Circe? With Circe as the father, too, and more Circes as the four grandparents also, not to mention eight great-grandparents? For one thing, the genetics gets a little wonky if you have the exact same genes in an infinite number of generations. For another, where did the language you are speaking come from? Did you invent that also? No, your plan of giving birth to yourself simply makes no sense.”

“But — then what about all this? What about the marriage in chains and me becoming a man, and everything?”

Laetare made a dismissive gesture. “It exists because we made it exist. It exists here, because a time-paradox so tightly-wound cannot exist anywhere except on Mercury. But the fact that it exists has a terrible price. You cannot leave. Instead of becoming the empress of all eternity, or whatever that other, angry, forgotten version of me who invented this stupid plan once had in mind, all we did was trap ourselves here. All of ourselves. Caught in this time loop.”

“In a burning land,” said Circe in a voice of hollow horror. “In hell. And my punishment is to rape myself forever to give birth to myself. Forever motherless, fatherless. Forever alone!”

Laetare said, “I like to think of this as purgatory, not hell. You do your penance, and get out.”

“Penance? For what? What did I do?”

“You personally, in this version? Nothing. In the prior incarnation? We were quite a witch — quite a handful.

“You did not want to be a Horologist’s wife, rather than an empress and a goddess and a ruler of fate. And so you murdered him, and tried to make yourself the one and only time traveler.

“This eliminated the happy family in your future, your grandchildren, and all the generations following. But apparently you did not realize, or did not care, that the Mirrors of Circe which protected your land and your past from meddling, and which came from your father and your ancestors were part of the bride price to win you. You eliminated that protection, protection running back centuries before you were born, eliminated that dowry, and nearly eliminated yourself. Indeed, the moment no mirror protected the great island of Atlantis, some force from another eon smote it and overturned it, sinking in repeated earthquakes beneath repeated tidal waves. Probably meant to eliminate you by eliminating your early ancestors. Might have worked, too, had you not been here.

“To save your past, you changed your past radically. Your planned to make yourself your own mother, hoping this would graft a new origin to your roots. Perhaps you were hoping this would eliminate the guilt for the crime. Because now the crime never took place either.

“But, somehow, the guilt remained. Haven’t you noticed how unhappy you make yourself?”

Circe had noticed. She nodded. “I get drunk, I destroy museums, I blame others, I retreat into unreality, and I end up believing in nothing at all.”

Laetare said, “And if now you are given a chance to do it all over? The whole point of being a time traveler is to make up for past mistakes. But it never works. It only creates paradoxes and time loops. Erasing the evidence does not undo the crime.”

“What does?”

“Come, and see.”

Laetare turned, and without waiting to see if Circe were following, stepped lightly out onto the snow. Down the stairs she went, humming.

There was no help for it.

Carefully Circe picked up the child.

Michaelmas

A few moments later, the two stood in the upper chamber of the central tower, back at the 29th of September of 3012. Both Circe and Laetare stood near the bed, looking down at the older version of her, herself as a mother.

The eighteen-year-old version Circe called Autumn was now dressed in the servant’s uniform, and with the mask of a golem hiding her human features. The cylinder of the memory helmet had just relaxed its grip on her head, and rolled to one side of the pillow. Autumn was deeply asleep, practically comatose. Circe recognized this as a symptom of severe and abrupt memory editing.

Circe said, “This is just a small thing, but it has been nagging at me. Is that locket really an anachronism? Something that slipped in through a crack in time I make when I accidentally broke the time branch during chronopathy training?”

“No. I showed it to you, just before you gave me the time helmet.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From him. Then he kissed me.”

Circe grimaced. Her first kiss, and her memory of it was gone. So unfair!

Laetare was bubbling with enthusiasm, but her voice was hushed. “He did not even ask. Just looked me in the eye and took me in his arms. Strong arms too! I could not get away. And then I did not want to. When I was out of breath, he let me go. I slapped him as hard as I could, but he just grinned. He turned his head and told me to slap him again, so he could have matching bruises on his jaw.”

Circe said, “You let him!”

Laetare rolled her eyes upward innocently. “I struggled.”

“Squirming up against him and tossing your hair does not count. I have had the same daydreams as you.”

“This was better than daydreams.”

“You could have offered your cheek.”

“He is not the kind of guy one can deflect with a cheek kiss. Besides, it was sweet. He is really tall. His shoulder is like up to here.” Laetare waved a palm over the crown of her head, smiling.

“But you visited me in the hedge maze while the ghost I was babysitting was lost. Right? You used my helmet on me, but left me with some memory of the locket.”

“To comfort you. And spur your curiosity. Set the snowball rolling. Right.”

“I also lost the helmet. Where did it go?”

Laetare pointed at the time helmet sitting on the pillow of the bed. “I took it. I hopped all over the place, visiting bridesmaids and the maids of honor, and muddying everyone’s memories just enough to have this giant Gordian Slip-Knot unravel with one smooth tug. Then I came here and gave the helmet to her, to Autumn. In a minute, if all goes well, you are going to use it on yourself voluntarily to bury this scene and hide what you saw and heard from all your downstream sibyls. I guess you bring the helmet with you when you go back to March of 3011. It becomes one of your favorite toys during your blonde period.”

“I am erasing this scene? This talk? Then why tell me all this?”

“Not erased. Temporarily buried. I suggest everything after Tiresias leaves be deeply forgotten, but that you drink yourself wobbly right before donning the helm, and leave that memory intact, but misty. That way, when you wake up with a headsplitting hangover, you will think the wine drove away the missing hour between Tiresias exiting the tent, and you waking up in that bed, resigned and ready to walk back to May, who will take you to the wedding rehearsal. That will close the loop.”

“You said buried temporarily? Until when?”

“Until whenever you need an hour of hope and happiness, and need an hour when the future is free. Like right now. I did the same for the sullen flower girl right after the marriage, the four drunk blonde bridesmaids, the pyromaniac leather-clad maid of honor, the unhappy bride in chains, the melancholy ex-Nanny acting as priestess. Since Ash Wednesday, I have been running back and forth all over these two years, busy as a bee, chasing after everyone leaving the wedding scene. Suicide prevention.”

“Then what?”

“After each pleasant hour, I bury the happiness again, and all my future selves go back to more self-pity, more suffering, more drunkenness, more cannibal-murder sprees, and a preordained rape. Or is it rape if it is you doing it to yourself by means of a golem appliance? I mean, it is wrong no matter how you slice it, but legally speaking? Something to think about.”

Circe said, “I am not thinking about that.”

“In any case, the hope is that my little visits will strengthen the hope in them, and give them the fortitude to endure, even if there is no conscious memory of why.”

Circe said, “But obviously I do not have fortitude enough. After I give birth to myself as a baby, the memory of the outrage of myself by myself is obviously too much. So what happens?”

Laetare pointed at the figure on the bed. “Check the helmet circuits. But I think you will find she erased the wedding night and the months spent trying to get pregnant. She went to sleep as mother and will wake up as Nanny. When she opens her eyes, give her the baby and tell her this child is an orphan whose mother died, and who therefore needs a nursemaid.”

“Why would she believe such a lie? There is only one baby on this planet! How could she be any other baby but the baby Tiresias fathers?”

“There is a difference between suspecting, knowing, and recollecting in full detail. She believes the lie to dull the blow. And, or so I hope, she subconsciously remembers the truth, and that lends her strength.”

“What truth?”

“The babe is a changeling.”

“What?”

“I was also the midwife. I swapped babies. I have already taken baby Circe back to Aeaea, and put her in the arms of Persis, our mother, so she can be raised there, and all this we are experiencing now, will later on turn out always to have had been an hallucination or something imposed by the memory helmet. Or this will fade like a dream, and memories of being raised on Aeaea will surface. No one told me the details of what it feels like when the past behind you changes. I am acting on instructions.”

Circe said, “Then who is this in my arms?”

“Your child.”

“What?”

“Your baby. The child you will have with your husband. Her name is Telegenia. The plan is to have a real wedding secretly and be safely pregnant by him a month or so before this fake wedding. Legally, it is not bigamy if you don’t say I do. And when ourself as a June bride chained to the wedding alter sees Tiresias, she won’t say anything like I do. She won’t say anything ladylike at all. Really an ugly scene. Why do I do these things to myself?”

“Who is the baby’s father?”

“You know. Our green-eyed man.”

“His name? What is his name?”

“Trismegistus is your bridegroom. The man you murdered.”

But Laetare was not the one who answered. The newborn baby had its eyes open and blazing. They stared unwinkingly up into the face of Circe, a clear and focused gaze such as no babe so young could have. In a high, thin, pure, clear and dispassionate voice, the child spoke.

The End of Time

Circe shrieked and dropped the child. But, instead of falling, the little infant stood in midair, unsupported, ignoring gravity, and her blankets were like swaying seaweed, wrapping the little body, hems floating.

“We are the Danellians, whom investigators from eons long in our past call the Philosopher-Kings. Ours is the final era of human life.

“No events whatsoever, no matter how radically different from the original, taking place in your time can effect us, any more than temporal meddling with the migrations, hunts and starvations of various tribes of trilobites in the Pre-Cambrian would or could produce any measurable change in the history of land animals, or mammals, or humans. The time between us is too great.

“You understand our motive is not one of simple self-preservation, nor do time paradoxes create any form of damage to the timestream to observers outside the paradox loop. The energies involved always seek the path of least action, which, usually, is to eliminate the time traveler causing the acausal loop. Abuses of time travel are self-canceling, hence self-correcting.

“Those caught within a loop are a different matter.

“We hold it to be proper to advise a chronopath on the brink of self-destruction how to escape the fate he brings on himself, but we never take action ourselves, nor impose on the free will of lesser forms of man.

“Your spirit, although inferior in all ways, selfish, vile, vulgar, corrupt and inchoate, is nonetheless at one with us. You touch infinity, as we do. Even the greatest differences between finite beings shrink to nothing. We neither instruct nor direct, but we will answer. Ask.”

It took Circe a long time to steel her will, and force herself to look the strange, hovering, newborn baby in the eye. Laetare had backed away, too frightened to speak, her gaiety muted, for the moment.

Circe said, “My baby is still in there?”

“Yes. She is sleeping peacefully. Our possession is temporary, and we are careful to avoid any possible neural damage. The praxis of casting one’s mind through time into a target body is known to you. Your lord and husband used a similar effect to cast himself into one of our bodies, far enough in the future that he was, by our grace, able to be immune from the effects of the time paradox you employed in your murder attempt.”

“How? No one can penetrate one of your minds.”

“He is less benighted than others of your race, and possesses sufficient commonality to achieve congruence, with our help.”

“My green-eyed bridegroom is Trismegistus of A.D. Two Hundred Million?”

“Yes.”

“The only man in history to discover the secret of immortality?”

“Yes and no. He learns it from us, as we were taught it. He is rewarded as we were rewarded, for remorseless obedience, ironclad purity, pitiless compassion, and utmost self-abnegation. For we are merely servants ourselves of those coming after, who are wiser than we.”

“You mean sibyls?”

“The word is misleading, but can be used figuratively.”

“But you are the last of human life on Earth. The end of time. There is no one in the future after you to offer you guidance, or tell you of things to come.”

“We are disciples not of our future, but of eternity, which is beyond the end of time. Only from eternity comes immortality. Those who serve eternity are served in turn.”

“But you cannot be immortal! There is no trace of any human life, yours or any other, after the formation of the Kenorland supercontinent two billion years from now. There is one intelligent species fated to arise once all mammalian life is dead, a Coleopterous race, and a second one after all surface life is burned away, an Arachnid species of superbeings whose each generation consumes the one prior.

“If your race was immortal, there would be traces of you surviving until then and far beyond, age upon age, walking on a world void of life, empty of atmosphere, and still lingering amid the asteroids marking where Earth and Moon slowly fell within Roche’s limit. There are not.”

The dispassionate, silvery voice answered. “Endless temporal existence we possess not, nor crave. Ours is the power to lay down one’s life and to take it up again. We neither age nor grow weary, and our flesh is impassive to wounds, pains, malady, and want. After the solar expansion renders Earth’s surface uninhabitable to us, we will focus the time mirrors to an infinite parallax, and enter eternity.”

“But he is immortal? Trismegistus. He has eternal youth?”

“Not in the version of time currently trapping you. In the original version, yes. Deathless life is our reward to him.”

“Reward for what?”

“Once his heart ceases to seek what the temporal continuum offers, time must lose all power over him. To do this, he must turn as well the hearts of all those who adore and worship him away from the temporal, and toward the eternal.”

“But I heard he was a monster, a tyrant, who slays all time travelers found visiting his era. Is this true?”

“In the version where he never meets and weds his empress, yes. Without a woman to civilize his savage spirit, or lead him to the light, the temptation toward brutality overwhelms him. In the original version, we instructed him in the art of horologistics, the defensive use of the mirrors to hinder trespass, possession, and invasion.”

“Was I the one? Did you say I led him toward the light?”

“Your understanding of our spirit is intuitive and swift. His proves pedestrian, tentative, skeptical, and slow. You inspire him to persist, despite his nature and inclinations, and various practical drawbacks receiving such as we entail. I sense your skepticism.”

“Your words are hard to believe. You make him sound like a sage or gentle mystic. But he killed — that is, he is said to have killed — the time travelers destined to be born in all eras coming after his era. That is why there are no chronopaths among the Biomancers, or the Brains, five million and six million years from now.”

“An untruth. That was you.”

“Me? Why?”

“During that version and period, you sought to be the sole time traveler, and so have none to observe, amend, nor criticize your acts. Slaying the future chronopaths had ramifications backward as well.”

“What ramifications?”

“The great Si-Seneg, as he fled backward through time, seeking the moment of the creation of life on earth, deliberately or accidentally created disciples in his wake. Some he taught. Others discovered fragments of his works or tools left behind in eras where he sojourned. By paradox, these men learned the secret of casting time mirrors before the art was invented.”

“I know. They are called The Twelve. For some reason Australian physicist Nevil Kingston-Brown of A.D. 2500 is never listed, despite that he wrote the first rigorous mathematical treatment on chrono-penumbral reflection effects, and acausal symmetry.”

“He is not counted because he wisely never reduced theory to practice, and steadfastly resisted the temptation to cast a mirror,” the pure, silvery voice of the child intoned. “He was forewarned of the danger in a letter written by Dr. Nathaniel Peaslee in A.D. 1935 and held in a specially constructed vault. Have you other questions about Dr. Kingston-Brown? He is not involved in the ramifications being discussed.”

“No, sorry. Please continue.”

“When the Twelve investigate the future, they learn of the murders, and are deceived. Each fears Trismegistus is seeking his life. Because of this, one and all agree to help you establish the deadly time paradox meant to ensnare and destroy your husband. Your husband is cunning and mighty in the arts of bending time to his will: a fearsome foe. All their combined strength is needed, and long planning.”

“You mean the same twelve I killed and turned into pork roasts and fur coats?”

“Yes. Their hands you used to do the deed.”

“So… so when seventeen-year-old me kills them, she is eliminating all time travelers who know when the deed was done, and silenced the only voices that could have called backward through time to warn the victim beforehand. How horrible.”

“Their lives were not yours to take; but neither are they innocent. For that reason, we will not take extraordinary steps to save your victims.”

“Can this crime be undone? From my viewpoint, it has not happened yet.”

“Since you did not see the bodies, but only heard the deeds reported, yes, it is possible. But the complexity of your temporal paradox would be redoubled, and the subjective years you will spend in suffering would be increased.”

“I will do it, no matter the pain.”

“We are pleased that, unprompted, you have asked this.”

“But will you help me?”

“That remains to be seen. Even with aid such as ours, the task is difficult. For we sent emissaries to each of these twelve, and omens of forewarning, and our wisdom was scorned. To do more, would risk an unlawful imposition on their freedom of the will, more precious to us than life.”

“I do not understand.”

“We do not return where we are not invited, and the call must come from the core of one’s being. Unsummoned, once and only once do our voices visit each soul, whenever he may dwell in history, that learns the secret of uncausality, and the art of altering the past. To each we offer an escape.”

“From what?”

“From himself.”

“What must I do to be saved?”

“Foreswear your ambition, accept your life of penance, and, when the time is full, humble yourself before your lord and husband, seek his forgiveness.”

“What must I do here and now?”

“Resume your duties as flower girl, live your life as currently mapped out. The time loop will break once the version of you called Tiresias is no longer envious of the dignity due a bridegroom by his bride, whom she is meant to love, to honor, and to obey.

“In that hour, the superstructure of falsehoods underpinning his psychology and yours will break, leaving you without recourse. Only then will you listen as we listen, and hear strong and beautiful imperatives we hear, issuing from beyond the walls of time.

“His male body will reject the female soul possessing it, and the soul will wake again into the female form long left abandoned. She will delight to discover herself young, fertile and fair, and a maiden still: but not for sake of vanity shall she rejoice, but for sake of your beloved for whom your beauty is a gift.

“Then you will resume your duties and your disguise as Nanny, but it will be your own true daughter you shall raise, not yourself.

“Thereafter, painstaking care must be taken to maintain the outward appearance of the established events in the child’s life known to future and past versions of yourself, so as to deceive them as to the child’s identity. The secret of how to suborn the mirrors and all other servants your husband shall reveal, to allow such deceptions to be promulgated.”

“Promulgated? For how long?”

“Not long as we count time. Twenty years and one. Once she reaches the age of majority, it is your daughter who will unwind the paradox trapping your husband, and free him. Not just his shadow, but his body and blood and untrammeled mind will return from our era to yours. From him you shall ask mercy. He is given power over you to spare or punish.”

“Why would he forgive me? I murdered him.”

“Even such as we are do not understand forgiveness, nor explain its mysteries. We are from a time indescribably more advanced than yours, but we are still inside time. Forgiveness is from outside. Yet there is no doubt he will forgive, if you truly turn your heart.”

“No doubt? Why so sure?”

“Three reasons. First, because, even from the day he wed you, he knew and was wary of your wrathful spirit, your ugly pride. He is a cautious man, subtle and meticulous, as time travelers are wont to be. He established a sequence of events, like a deadman switch, designed to obliterate you retroactively throughout all time if ever he were slain by you. Nonetheless, at the last moment of his life, he aborted that sequence, and prevented the deadman switch from firing, even though he well knew your hands were sopped in his blood.

“Second, he gives the locket to you in token of his love.

“Third, it is by his plea to us on your behalf that we are come to show you the path of escape.”

“But that path — you tell me the path leads through —” Her voiced grew shrill and failed her. Circe swallowed, and spoke in a lower tone. “Leads through hell. To become a murderess? To commit incest with myself? To be violated, and then to become a violator? And after, nothing but cynical despair, believing nothing, being nothing!

“And I needs must erase my memory to maintain the deception, and so will have no ray of hope, however slim, to see any purpose or point to my pain! It is too horrible!”

“Nonetheless, such is the penalty you, in your folly, have drawn upon yourself. You yourself did and will do the unspeakable deeds that chastise you so severely. We would have been more merciful.”

And with this, the baby closed its eyes, sank down, and, with no more noise than a thistledown falling, landed neatly in the crib next to the bed where Nanny slept.

The Onset of Eternity

Circe looked toward Laetare. “What should I do?”

Laetare no longer was lighthearted. Here feet no longer danced, nor her eyes. Her face was tense with fear, humility and awe and other emotions Circe had never seen on any face of her own, old or young.

Laetare said, “You are in my future. Whatever you decide happens to me when it is my turn to play out this scene.”

“Can I really willingly subject myself to an unwilling marriage bed?”

Laetare seemed to gather herself, and force a small smile. “Well, actually…”

“You are going to say it is not rape if I consent to it, aren’t you? Well, shut your mouth. You seem pretty nonchalant about this — this — I do not even know what to call it! — planned incest with myself against my will. It is the most horrible thing I have ever heard!”

“You keep saying horrible, as if it is something being done to you. You should say wicked, as if it is something you deliberated, decided, and did. And besides,” a note of protest entered her voice. “You don’t know what I was going to say. I will erase it from myself before I turn into you.”

“What were you going to say, then?”

Laetare spread her hands. “Trismegistus is a powerful, masterful, lordly man who needs a tough little woman to be his wife. An empress. A little bit of trauma and turmoil will surely add some steel to our spine, and knock some damned sense into our selfish little head. For a wife that murdered her husband by retroactively erasing him from time, I think we are getting off very lightly.”

Circe was silent for a long while, looking at her child sleeping in the crib.

Circe said, “If I suffer all this, she gets born? And she will be herself, not me? What was her name again?”

“Telegenia, daughter of Trismegistus. Your other children are Agrius, Phaunos, Nausinöos and the youngest is Lavinia. Three boys, two girls.”

As suddenly as a plunge into a river of icewater, her doubts fled. Strangely enough, Circe found that, even though dark questions still clouded her wits, her heart was clear and bright.

Circe said, “Well, I think I am going to need a stiff drink to steel myself. Wasn’t it your idea that I should get drunk before doing this?”

Laetare said, “Not too drunk! It is not ladylike. Besides, I can diddle the helmet for you after you don it, and let you remember that first kiss, before the helmet buries all the truth.”

“Truth,” muttered Circe. “What is the truth?”

Laetare said, “If what creepy, floaty baby said is true, and you undo the time loop, and marry Trismegistus, it sounds like you are the one who tells him to listen to the philosopher-kings. You lead him to them. And it sounds like when he escapes, they lead him to immortality.”

“That is what they said.”

“Well, he is sure to share it with you. If you make amends and set yourself straight. You get everything you want, and more than you thought to ask. You have the greatest reward now.”

Circe stepped over the sideboard, waved her wand, and pulled a bottle of wine and a glass out of the time mirror. “Greatest reward? What does that mean?”

Laetare said, “You asked me what the truth is. If an immortal life is fated to be grafted onto your life at any point before you would have died, don’t you see what that means?”

Circe downed the glass too swiftly. She ran her tongue across her lips, which felt too thick, too prone for pouting, and decided she did not really need to be drunk. A dim memory of the one glass would imply more. She poured the bottle into the little time-glass sink next to the diaper changing table until it was nearly dry, and took a good, long look at the dregs in the bottom, making a nice, clear, visual image to recall later.

The nanny on the bed murmured when Circe reached down and pulled the memory eraser helmet off the pillow. Circe said to Laetare, “You’ll watch the baby until Nanny gets up, and tell all the lies, and do what needs to be done to set everything straight?”

Laetare give a silly little salute. “So straight I will have to change my name! Can’t be Circe once my life is no longer a circle, can I? Maybe I will call myself Kirke. It is an old Scottish word for chapel.”

“It is just two pronunciations of the same name. They just sound different.”

Now Circe climbed into bed, smoothing down her flower girl outfit. She lay back with a sigh. “Help me do this.”

Laetare stepped behind her and took up the helmet. “You are going to go to sleep as Good Friday you, and wake up as the flower maiden. A week later, you witness the marriage and the trauma turns you turn into April Fool’s you. So! Any last words?”

Circe closed her eyes. “Mm. One last question. I mean, your last question.”

Laetare was making adjustments to the helmet. Circe felt the weight and warmth tighten on her brow.

Circe said softly, “I am not sure what any of this means. I go through this torture, and save the man I murdered, and he saves me, and then the philosopher-kings save us both, and grant us eternal youth and everlasting life. What does it all mean?”

“They already granted it.”

“Granted what?”

“Immortality. Being destined to be granted for eternal life at any point before your expected hour of death, and possessing eternal life here and now, are just two different pronunciations of the same thing,” Laetare’s voice seemed to float from somewhere above. “They just sound different.”

“Now explain the explanation.”

“It means you are immortal now. This minute. You have been since you were formed in your mother’s womb. You just never knew it. You asked me what is truth? That’s the truth. That is it. You just lied to yourself and forgot.”

Circe pondered this as the helmet began to act. She did not understand what Laetare meant, or why Laetare’s voice held such a note of triumph. She did not understand the life of torment she was about to face, a purgatory of self-imposed deception and despair. She understood nothing.

Drowsiness overcame her limbs. Darkness rose slowly in her mind.

But, in the very last moment before the night closed in, more was there, a gift she had been forgotten she was promised.

Memories of the man she loved came suddenly into the nightfall of her mind just as dusk fell across all the lanterns of her thought.

These memories were as bright as the green of his eye, as strong as the thew of his arm, and warm as his passionate kiss, as regal and titanic and wild as every part of him. They held joy and the promise of joys to come.

And while they lasted, she understood all.

About the Author

John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman and newspaper editor, who was only once on the lam and forced to hide from the police.

He is the author of some twenty two novels, including the critically acclaimed THE GOLDEN AGE, and COUNT TO A TRILLION. His novel SOMEWHITHER won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2016. He has also published numerous short stories and anthologies, including AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND and CITY BEYOND TIME, as well as nonfiction. He holds the record for the most Hugo Award nominations for a single year.

He presently works as a writer in Virginia, where he lives in fairytalelike happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their four children: Pingping, Orville, Wilbur, and Just Wright.

SCHUBERT TO RACHMANINOFF

Benjamin Wheeler

The worst route I have to take as a courier is the one running between the mining stations Schubert and Rachmaninoff. It is thousands of miles of mountains, valleys, rupes and caves that look exactly alike. If you’re lucky, a cave will protect you from the cold or heat and get you out of a tough situation. If you aren’t lucky, well, something else probably killed you before you had to make that Lady or Tiger choice.

I am motorcycle courier AB0380, Christian name George Mikos of Schubert Station. I like to think of myself as the best there is on Mercury, sadly, there are a lot of people on the higher levels that agree with me. Now, I don’t much care to make a fuss out of my courier routes in public. You see, the ladies love a good story about escaping metal-eating ding-bats by the rubber of my soles as it makes for a great bar and bed tale. Public whining is a different story, they don’t like it so much. Got to play it cool for the nice ladies. I have them convinced I don’t sweat on the job, even in the full view of the sun.

I do sweat the route from Schubert to Rachmaninoff. You see, the mountains between the two are especially tricky. The canyons between them still have lava at their deep bottoms and nobody has ever mapped the crevasses because, well, they’re everywhere and Mercury likes to shift in her sleep. Besides the mountains, which are too numerous to name or count as far as I’m concerned, are the valleys. You never know whether a valley is solid or a fine dusting over an active lava lake. And don’t get me started on Rupes. They’re the reason why I drink and cavort with the ladies who like the motorcycle couriers.

The last obstacle that gets my sweat glands going are ding-bats. Ding-bats eat heavy metals on the surface of Mercury. When us humans came in and laid down all sorts of wiring between the many mining stations, well, we didn’t know ding-bats found Cat-4029 cable delicious. I don’t account much to their taste buds, as they also like rubber, nuclear reactors, forks, helmets, rugged and handsome motorcycle couriers and solar panels.

When Boss Hoggo called me up to the office he calls home, it was with that tremor that usually means ding-bats have eaten something valuable and just when good, fat Hoggo needed it. His office had a large, protesting, heroic cot sitting in one corner, a desk in front of a bay window that showed an immense mountain of chat waste from the mines, and little else. During the Mercurian night, spotlights illuminated the mass for reasons of regulation or waste I can’t fathom. It was a fake window. We lived about a thousand feet underground. The fake did a lot to open up the place. I almost felt sorry for Hoggo, he’d been born an administrator and it looked like he’d die one too.

His rolls fit behind the desk in protest at the lack of space. His face stood atop the man-mountain with a ferocious look as if he was considering me for his next morsel. With one hand he slapped the desk in front of me, sending papers, paper clips and paper folders flying about in the wind. With the other hand he shoved a thick chocolate bar down his gob.

I had sat my butt down on the chair in front of the desk, one arm over the back. I tell all the people that look up to me, you don’t just act ‘devil may care’ you LIVE it! “What do you want me for, Boss-man?”

“MICKEY. Finally! Do you know what the blankin’ ding-bats just ate?!” His jowls kept the paper moving with all the air they displaced. His brown eyes bored at me through the collapsing brows, locking me in place and teaching me just a little respect. As for the blankin’ thing, someone high up had taken offense at the boss’ swearing and mentally redacted his entire and once formidable library of blue language. Again, you could almost feel sorry for the fat bastard.

“I got no clue boss. Valuable and just when you needed it?”

Hoggo roared. “Blank Blankin’ straight! Blanks ate a transponder!” I whistled at that. “Those stupid blanks down at solar meteorology tell me it was a freak solar flare that dislocated…” Hoggo began to wheeze. “Some blank satellites that…” He struggled for words. Hoggo managed mines, he did not study astronomical bodies. The few times I had seen him happy was when he had dug his hands into valuable metals mined out from a rich vein. “Something. Blank. Blank. Blank.” Hoggo finished off the chocolate bar and grunted.

“Uh, there wasn’t a satellite in the sky so our security forces couldn’t monitor the transponder because of a solar flare. The ding-bats realized it and attacked the transponder?” This was serious business. Transponders were the way-stations for the signals and satellites of Mercury. Think of them like a broadcast tower for your cell-phones, radios and neural link ups, except these did much more. With the sun so close to Mercury, satellites often had to be moved at a moment’s notice or people had to get out from the sun fast. With a functioning and complete transponder network, we could connect to any other station or mine without the satellites. Now, between Rachmaninoff and Schubert, there had been just one network of transponders due to the distance and difficult terrain. That chain of communication had been broken.

There was more to that, I’m sure, but Hoggo grunted in agreement with my assessment. For a man with a very limited vocabulary, he could do much with grunts. “Right, now, guess what you’re going to do for me.”

“I’m going to Rachmaninoff.” I rubbed my forehead with finger and thumb. “Come on boss, send a flyer. You don’t need me for this. We’re in the middle of the retrograde night. The sun will rise faster than normal, besides the variation in temperature. It’s dangerous! I can handle it. Don’t worry about that! But a cargo ship would be much better.”

Hoggo slapped the table and nearly sent a screen flying off. “I can’t because of the Solar Flares! Those stupid blanks in the blankin’ Solar meteorology department grounded all flyers, rockets and cargo shipments! It’s ruining me! I need to get documents to that fat blank Herbert in his blanked mining station that cannot wait for the repairs whenever the blanking penny pinchers finally decide that the risk is less than their blankin’ arbitrary value on human life!”

I put my elbows on my knees and made a gesture of supplication. The Devil may care and I did too. I don’t risk my life as often as I let on to the ladies. “Now look boss, I dig you might have had important paperwork—” Hoggo roared in fury.

“Leases, claims and blankin’ legal documents, Mickey! If I don’t get them to Rachmaninoff, a lot of miners won’t have their claims properly registered and then, well, I don’t intend to die in a blanking miner’s revolt! Well, if I can watch them kill the solar meteorology chuckleblanks first… fine.” He laughed a wet and snorting laugh.

Rachmaninoff wasn’t the worst place in the world, but it was part of the interplanetary mining systems of Mercury. Some bright bureaucrat had long ago thought that it would solve conflicts preemptively if every single major mining manager like Hoggo here had to approve mining claims from every company and individual miner. That’s the simple version. Ninety percent of all satellite traffic on Mercury is of this nature. By unwritten rule, every mining boss supported whatever claims the others approved, as Mercury was still a pretty empty place, except for the ding-bats and lava, and those aren’t people.

The problem comes when they don’t get signed in sequence in time. Rachmaninoff was new, but it was rich, and boss Herbert had to sign off just like boss Hoggo had to sign off. If Herbert didn’t get it and the bureaucrats came inspecting for no other reason than it gave them something to do… The nightmares kept good Hoggo awake I’m sure. Somehow this paperwork was more valuable to those bureaucrats than all the heavy metals that flowed out of Mercury.

I went through the options. Bottom of the list lay me going to Rachmaninoff. “Boss, there’s gotta be some other way. If our transponders are down, what about going through Prokofiev Crater station? I know they’ve been building that way for a year now…”

“Can’t! Prokofiev hasn’t finished them yet, and called it a day for the summer! It’s nearly day time and you know how that blankin coward Hidalgo is. He won’t even send robots out into the sunlight unless he has to. Blank his Hispanic eyes!” He flung wrappers every which way as he tried to swipe them off the desk into the trashcan. Frustration radiated off him like heat, and I thought it best to placate him a bit.

“Alright boss, I ain’t stupid. But is there no other way? Rachmaninoff is a nice place, I know a gal, but…”

With a melancholy sign that filled my nostrils with the smell of the chocolate he had eaten, Hoggo answered my question. “Sorry, Mickey. I’ve tried having the papers hitch a ride on cargo ships and flyers. I’ve tried to shoot it by cannister. I’ve tried to see if anyone can hijack a satellite for me. Everyone says the same blank thing. The Solar flares are bad and expected to stay that way. So long as the documents are signed and witnessed by that date, with electronic witnesses, we’re golden. Well. Alright, brass tacks. Mickey, you’re the last thing I have, and you don’t have a choice. I won’t expect you back here until after sunset there, I’ll even pay you normal wages while you relax out there. What do you say?” He paused and leaned forward. “While you still have the choice.”

Well, when you put it nicely. I gave him a good smile. “No problem, boss! I’m the best damned courier on the planet. Leave it to me!” First thing I did was see a lawyer to make sure my will was in order. I told all the lovely crying bar ladies that I’d miss them terribly at the local watering hole. My courage heavily reinforced, I suited up.

Sadly, I did not look very cool in my full get up. Mercury goes from negative one hundred to positive three hundred Farenheit on a cold day quite quickly, and beyond. If I ever lost insulation I’m sure the ding-bats will find my cadaver a treat! It’s like this, the lack of oxygen kills you quick, but so will the freezing to death, exploding due to decompression and/or burning to death. I will never be able to leave a pretty corpse if any of those things happen to me.

My suit looks like an immense series of tires stacked on top of each other, from my feet to the crown of my head. It protects me against sunlight, radiation, the deep cold, flecks of lava and ding-bat teeth, so long as they don’t gnaw too much. It has tracking, oxygen recycling, waste recycling, an onboard computer, nutrient drip, chemical drip and a host of other very necessary features that keep a guy alive in the Mercurian wastes.

I love that thing more than a friendly gal with a warm bed and plenty of booze. I’ve spent years of my life in that suit, and let me tell you, I’ve done good work with it too. For heightened visibility, I spray painted that sweet thing with sick flames in orange and red up and down the sides that ended at the crown of my head. I used neon blue highlights for all the important ports, dials and latches to help any potential rescuers in case of emergencies. Thankfully, ding-bats are color-blind.

Under my behind rumbled nuclear-powered torque unmatched by earth standards. Surface gravity on Mercury runs at .38 earth standard and acceleration is very tricky. The catch to riding on such low gravity are high-quality shock absorbers and spiky treads. You have to be willing to jump around and ramp yourself from hill to hill or from ledge to ledge. I took the best bike in the garage. That thing had a newfangled nascent A.I. system that could show best routes through the maze-like rupes, warped by the sun’s tidal forces during Mercury’s youth.

I stored all the documents, key cards, data sticks and tablets in the safe cargo boxes on either side of that worthy machine. The last words spoke to me where good Hoggo’s wheezing admonition. “You’re the only one who can handle this, Mickey. You’ve got it. The claims of those miners are depending on you!”

I revved the bike as loud as I could. The freight elevator bringing me up to the surface covered in Mercurian night felt too constricted. I needed to go! I had strapped myself in, one leg holding up the motorcycle. There were cheers at my bravado. “Remember, Mickey! Herbert has to hunker down in two earth cycles. If you can’t get there in time, you might be stuck outside, that should give you PLENTY of blankin’ motivation!” The vacuum pulled out and replaced all the air of the airlock.

The great doors opened slowly with a grind of gears, metal and Mercurian particulates. I always took a moment to appreciate them. The vast size of the portal had to resist meteors, ding-bats who jumped through the automatic defenses, the occasional delusional space-pirates and the fury of the sun during midday. I roared through them and used the cameras of the suit to observe the many, many layers of metal, insulation and reinforcement of the great doors. They closed behind me as slowly as they opened. The outside, my last view of home for quite some time, was scarred by those meteorites and other near disasters so that it almost looked like a shinier part of the environment, pitted and grey.

Fortunately for my mission, a partial road had been built to the space platform, which was full of grounded ships covered by metal roofs to ward off micro-meteorites. I used this to get my bearings and plot the route in detail. I would head north first, through various valleys to avoid the worst of the volcanic mountain ranges. Then, I would travel east through the craters Hopper and Renoir. In this manner, I would shoot for Lermentov, which was a deep, cool crater, and a great stop to rest for a while and run a diagnostic. After that, I would shoot for the pass between Hugo and Driscoli, which had a relatively thin range of mountains between the two craters. Once through there, I could hit a smooth series of plains with little in the way of major craters until past Apollonia. Once I got through, I’d have one last mountain obstacle to cross and I’d be in Rachmaninoff, schmoozing with the nice bar ladies who loved a good hero.

The spaceport passed quickly, even as I dictated instructions to the A.I. With the satellites out of commission for the solar flares, I’d have to rely on the computer’s maps and my own dead reckoning. The nascent A.I, still sleepy from being turned on a mere hour ago, put forward green dashes for my route.

I followed them for a while, talking with the A.I. to get it up and running faster. The more it spent time learning my thought patterns, the better it could help me. Also, it provides a great straight man to cool down with some snarky banter. You’d be surprised how much of a hit your sanity takes when you’re alone and a ding-bat takes a bite out of your exhaust.

For the first few hours, I followed the constructed pylons and network systems until the A.I. informed me that I was beyond the reach of Schubert’s network. I was on my own now.

The Mercurian Night is a lonely thing. The stars are out there, but they are strange, warped and unnatural. Well, they’re natural enough. I mean that that sky is not the earthen sky. I’ve seen pictures. No one I’ve ever talked to forgets Orion or the Dippers or Cygnus. There’s just something about them from Earth’s perspective. The soul knows. Also, it impresses some chicks to soliloquize on our nature, if she’s the type that likes to think she’s intellectual.

Away from Schubert’s floodlights, the mountains would loom as presences unseen. The hulking crater walls could be felt, brooding over me. I moved east, and I began to see the sun lighting up the highest peaks. These triangles and ridges seemed to float, ghostlike, above the dark slopes.

The dust rose up behind me. I could see, when sheltered by the crater walls or in some otherwise untouched locale, the faint trails of others who had made this journey. I had been traveling six hours when the last of them turned away, likely to Stravinsky or on some other errand. There weren’t many of us, but we took the time to run on each others tracks, just to show we aren’t alone.

I started to get cocky around hour twelve, when I passed the crater Praxiteles. It was only a few tens of miles from the first of Hugo’s reaches when the A.I. alerted me. “Warning, ding-bats in vicinity.” I swerved, and a ding-bat landed where I would have been a second later.

I got too damned good a look at the alien lifeform. It was the only ‘living’ thing on Mercury, feasting on the heavy metals on the ground, each other and, well, unlucky couriers. I like to think of myself as the lucky type. The thing had just landed, gray and black rocky back outward, protecting it against counter attack. Six or eight crab-like limbs jutted out, each one powerful and coiled like a spring to leap again towards the delicious morsel that put on more speed to get away from it. I saw it rear up its head, a perfectly featureless slate with only one enormous mouth. The maw opened and, instead of mammal like teeth or insectoid mandibles, a rotating wheel of fangs and molars spiraled within to an abyss I hoped to never see the source. I turned away even as I felt vibrations through the ground and atmosphere, there was no sound in that wispy atmosphere, but rather, a rumble of the hunting call!

Before it could leap again I turned aside down a series of canyons that connected the various craters together. Best to run when it’s just one of them. I trusted the A.I. to guide me through and focused on not faceplanting into the walls. Behind me, I could feel the call redouble as other ding-bats were made aware of the food that passed near to them.

One eye I kept on the road, another I kept on the cameras behind me. Were those simple rocky outcroppings or the ding-bats lying in wait? Was that a large stone or a young thing, not yet excreted its reef of regolith? I could not tell, I had to watch at all angles. They could sense any vibrations I put out, from footstep to, well, the rumbling of my engine and, I’m sure, my beating heart. The first one detached itself from the canyon wall, where it likely had been hibernating during the long night, and dropped to fall on me.

I could only escape by diving down into a turn to the right, fortuitous in timing. Like I said, lucky. I did not judge it desperate enough for combat, and though the canyons restricted me, I did not have to start smashing my way through the hunting ding-bats. The A.I. warned me that we were now forced to go through the Driscoli crater system. I thanked it for warning me that the chances of my death were high.

I pulled out my fasces and smashed one of the faceless monsters. It leaped away, but I saw it land on one of its own. The blood of the beast was more caustic than strong sulfuric acid, and it burned the one under it, who rumble-roared in what accounted to them for pain or shock and leaped away, flipping the one under it onto its back. The other returned, and shoved the head of the unfortunate one into its own grinding maw. I turned away from the cannibalism, which happened in scant seconds.

I shouted in fury, branding the fasces. They would not take me so easily! Many put their heads up on the walls. Each grinding maw and flat face-plate turning with eerie precision on my location.

The weapon I held was a large ax bound with a series of impossibly strong metal rods and shields that would protect me against the acid blood or even the grinding teeth, for a moment. The head crushed the exoskeleton and opened the insides to the cold or heat and then to death. I could only wield the several hundred pound fasces with the assistance of my suit. I could have crushed the heads of those beasts with my bare hands, but no substance on earth had been made yet could overcome the acid blood of the monsters forever.

I dodged again and again in that narrow, grey corridor of death. Many times striking with my ax at the scuttling metal-eaters. The ding-bats fell, one after another. Looking in all directions, I saw one leap, the legs making one great motion upwards. The exoskeleton had opened slots, from which membranes unfolded and, at the zenith, caught the first hints of the sun. They blazed with the fury of earth’s life giver and I could see teal and violet channels, otherwise invisible, shining throughout the rocky skin. For that moment, I could see facial features, geodesic and twisted. The channels pulsed as the thing looked directly at me and an intelligence, not unlike the stories I’ve read of earthen wolves, appraised me.

I had slowed a little to make the turns within the canyons, but I sped up, heedless of my own safety. When something totally alien looks at you, it is best not to look back. Not that I’d ever tell the ladies, unless they were looking for a scare.

I crushed another’s head before I left the canyon’s craggy walls. Driscoli, a crater valley a few hundred miles wide, lay before me. The ding-bats do not usually come out to the open plain, nothing to protect them against meteor strikes or other hazards during their hibernation. I zipped through, no time to stop. I told the A.I. to give me chemicals to soothe me after the harrowing canyon shortcut. I had not noticed this, but the computer had given me several ccs of physical enhancement drugs. I could burn out before I could even get past Hokusai or Abedin. One more damned roadblock!

I still had about thirty-four hours before Herbert had to close the doors to keep out the sun’s power. I could still do this! I pushed my machine to its full limits and passed through Holbein and into Echegaray in record time.

The black and grey of Mercury never ended. On my right, I could see several of the mountain peaks wholly illuminated by the sun. My thermometer showed that the temperature had risen from negative two hundred Fahrenheit to negative one hundred. The Mercurian sunrise had no atmosphere strong enough to soften or lengthen the time it took for the sun to hit full strength. Within hours, the whole hemisphere would be so hot you could fry entire barbeques in the shade and risk burning.

The peaks were a mix of white, gray and bits of black. Flecks of some metal would occasionally shine at me, though, I had no desire to discover what kind, nor did I have the surveying equipment to mark it. Nor did I have any desire to turn miner. Even after ten years of heavy mining, not one of the colonies, stations or relays had gone dry and had to be abandoned.

I made a slow turn around the mountain range, ramping between various hills. The inertia dampening had not been perfected yet. I could feel my stomach move to exit my mouth during particularly severe jumps. I couldn’t slow down too much. If I did, I might dig myself into the ground trying to build momentum.

Above, those stars that I could see faded from sight as the light grew more and more. I looked behind me, to judge the sunrise. I nearly fell from my bike when I saw the solar flare. The light was far too much for human eyes, and would have blinded me painfully. The visors dulled it for me enough so that I could see a shining white rope thicker than worlds curving up from the horizon and back down again, curving towards the direction of Mercury itself! I shouted in sheer amazement at the vast loop of energy. I had the A.I. record all the data it could. I could not even begin to measure the energy output of the plasma being shot unimaginable distances and then curving back down towards the sun. No wonder all the Solar meteorologists were panicking!

I turned away and back to the road ahead, it’s never good to stare too long into the light. I checked my clock. Thirty-six hours since I left Schubert, I started to relax a little. I skirted Monet and sped towards Hodgkins. I would skip the Calypso Rupes to the south and then come up Rachmaninoff the same way.

I dragged myself out of my reverie, observing the Mercurian plains. With little to no warning, a meteor of the size of several mineral haulers fell down before my eyes! A mile in front of me I saw the dust shoot up with great violence and cracks appear in the ground underneath me. I pulled to the left and searched for a place to hide myself before the shockwaves, dust and thrown boulders reached me. I cried out in surprise as the first of the shockwaves tossed me up and around, faster than I thought possible. By a miracle, I landed on the wheels. The A.I. stopped functioning, unable to handle the data being poured into it, from the solar flare and the immense meteor strike. Damn machine!

I saw, flying in the air towards that rapidly moving dustcloud, ding-bats. Hundreds of them! Whether they were thrown up by the force or they had cast themselves forward to eat of the vast amount of heavy metals thrown up by the meteor I don’t know, but they swarmed it. I saw them jump up like sharks in a feeding frenzy, darting through the kicked up dust in straight lines like arrows.

I felt another shockwave hit me, but it didn’t knock me off my feet. Instead, the ground shook harder than it had when the meteor struck it. I didn’t slow down, but instead made for the Calypso Rupes! I had to get out of the plains and into some sort of cover!

Rupes are ripples in the planet’s terrain. Imagine a stone being thrown into the water, then watching the expanding rings. Rupes are like that, but stone and not nearly so orderly. Many a courier has died, lost in the Rupes when his electronics lost signal and map information. What’s more, the Rupes are the haunt of the largest concentration of ding-bats. The many folds and hills can hide them from the meteors, and the unique nature of the landscape brings the best of their food nearer to the surface for their gluttonous pleasure.

I chinned the A.I. to manually reboot and prayed that it would come back on soon. Instead, I decided to go by dead reckoning, having no other options. The solar flare rose on my left. The computer told me I headed north. As the Rupes rose and fell before me, I readied my fasces for the next round of ding-bat attack!

I ramped the first rupe. This area, though chosen during a near panic, didn’t rise as severely as most rupes. The slopes were manageable, and what’s more important, I could drive the bike up them without stalling. I cast my eyes about at the zenith of my jump. In the far distance, I could see the foothills of Rachmaninoff. I ignored them for a moment, too far ahead. In the route, lay a series of jumps, skirting along cliffs and avoiding the few pits that lined the area from meteor strikes or collapsed caves.

I could see, as I started to fall, the top edge of the sun. Mercury’s day may be months long, but the morning came faster than you expected. The filters of my suit blocked the worst of it, but in the second I glimpsed it, I watched the vast sphere of limitless fire shoot the temperature reading of the suit up hundreds of degrees. I did not have long before Herbert had to close the gates.

I tilted the machine to a proper angle to take the force of the landing. The shock ran up my arms. The A.I. was still rebooting, and I didn’t know how long it would take before I got to Rachmaninoff. I didn’t realize how much I relied on that or similar machines to manage the minutiae of the ride. My bones jolted in their sockets and I was nearly thrown from my perch. There was nothing to dampen it or manage the pressure of the absorbers.

I dodged a ding-bat and then aimed for the second escarpment. This one rose more steeply, and I struggled with the scree that made up the slope. I had outran the dust cloud thrown up by the meteor so far, but the first of the wisps were beginning to wrap themselves around me.

I heard the rumble of ding-bats as they fed. I crested as I saw the first of them pass by. I barely got my head down as one flew by me. The head twisted to face me when it missed and I had a way too good of a view of the grinding maw. Other ding-bats had been resting on the slope down, and I dodged between them. I smashed one that shot its head at me from a turtle-like carapace of some green mineral. Another jumped at me, but I slid down the loose rubble underneath it, sliding on the sides of the wheels.

I built up speed I lost going up the second escarpment and hit the third, which was thankfully more solid than the previous. The dust now began to obscure my vision. I could only see about thirty or forty feet ahead of me, and that was before the distraction of the ding-bats intensified. The beasts pounded into the ground around me from the force of their leaps into the dust cloud.

What’s more, the rumbles intensified. I had heard their rumbles before, many times, even on this trip. This was nothing like before, it started to overcome the rattle of the bike and shock of the jumps. The suit itself started to shake from the vibrations. I only hoped it was the sound of the feeding frenzy, but it came from in front of me, over the next couple of ridges. The dust had not reached there yet in any substantial amount.

I pulled to the right as I rose and fell. I couldn’t go left, as the Calypso Rupes peaked in that direction. I’d be trapped and delayed as I searched for a way out. There was too much we did not know, or that the satellites just did not tell us about Mercury. The risk was that I’d run into the fresh crater, or be hit by a boulder thrown up from the crash or fall down a hidden crevasse.

I rued the reputation I had built up over the years of excellent work. I could have been relaxing in Schubert right now, too incompetent for this mission. I could have been sitting a bar, drinking the best whiskey I could buy. I could have been sitting in AIR CONDITIONING! I was frying alive in the damned sun!

The sun threw out enough heat that the temperature within the suit, without me even noticing, had risen beyond human comfort levels. The suit could compensate for it, but the A.I. was still booting up! Damn thing wasn’t there to help me! I swore that I’d never rely on them again, no matter how much processing power the tech-heads said it had. Using dials accessible through my visor, I tongued the dials until the temperature regulated itself back to comfortable levels, from heating to cooling. I could have died of heat fighting the ding-bats, providing the bastards with a warm meal!

I smashed another one with my ax-like fasces and then another as they leaped at or next to me. These were small fry, barely a few hundred pounds, without a carapace to speak of. I cursed as I looked around, trying to anticipate the next hungry ding-bat. I did not notice it at the time, but I had not seen any old, advanced ding-bats with super ornate carapaces.

I passed through another rise and fall. The dust itself began to vibrate from the noise. I could see gusts of the stuff halted in its momentum when it began again. I couldn’t change my course too much, I was barely making enough momentum to keep climbing.

The number of ding-bats increased. I swiped at one, before I realized that they weren’t coming for me. They weren’t trying to take a bite out of my bike or slam into me. They scuttled or jumped around me, going towards the source of the sound.

I examined the sound again. It was more than rumbles now. Squelching, writhing screaming sounds came from the dust. It got louder. I started to hear impacts and crunches, the same sort that I heard from my fasces when I struck a ding-bat. My suit shook and rattles came from my bike as I struggled to keep from falling.

The rumble stopped. The sounds of flesh slapping, breaking and growing continued. The lack of substantial atmosphere did not seem to hinder the immense sound in the least. My blood began to chill as I heard one sound rise above the others. Teeth grinding.

The dust changed direction. I had been moving with it, having travelled so far, fast enough, that the impact was behind me, and so was the source of the dust. It pulled to my left, gradually at first, then stronger. I could feel it pull at me. The vacuum effect increased until the front wheel kept wanting to pull towards the source. I turned to the right, until I faced away from the vacuum. I couldn’t see whatever drew all that dust into it at all.

I felt myself being dragged in. I pushed the bike hard, hitting the safety limits faster than I liked. I tried to tongue the bike’s overdrive function. It didn’t work. I tongued it again and again. An error message popped up seconds later. Damn the A.I.! I switched the view screens to behind me. For a few seconds, I saw nothing. Despite the power under my legs, several thousand horsepower, the suction on my bike barely kept it better than in place. If I wasn’t strapped into my bike, I’d fly back into the source.

I saw something move in the dust storm. A vast something move within the storm. Then, I saw crab legs shift and scuttle about. Claws and even a pincer the size of an ore hauler waved at the corners of my sight, as shadows and hints. The mouth of the largest ding-bat I’d ever seen moved through the fog of dust. Thousands of teeth, each three times my size, rotated in a vast circle, with a dark center I did not want to see. The vast plate face of a ding-bat joined it, but it was like the ding-bat I saw mid leap. Blue lines and shining circles covered the entire surface in designs that seemed symmetrical, but then didn’t seem so. I don’t know much more. I tongued the overdrive switch again and again. I won’t sugarcoat it; I screamed in hysterical terror.

I stopped looking at it and focused on keeping myself stable. If I lost contact with the ground, it would all be over and I’d be sucked into the maw and never get out! I didn’t even want to think about! I focused on keeping my wheels down. Dust pulled me back. Rocks and stones started flying back towards me. Several bounced off my shell of a suit. To my right and left I saw boulders rolling back into the grinder, where I could hear the very crunch and crushing when they fell.

The dust thinned. I could see farther, and with the dust thinning, the pull on me decreased. I could gain traction again and I gained ground. I pushed the motorcycle further forward, and I freed myself of the worst of it.

Devil may care! I cursed myself for my competence and show boating. All this and my reward isn’t fame or money, it’s more life-threatening work! I heard the mass shift and roil through the ground. I saw cave-ins and hillocks rise and fall all around me. One opened up underneath me, but I pushed forward, catching the ground as it rose back up.

Then, I heard a screech, a splitting sound. The ground shattered, falling under my back wheel not even a second after I had passed it at the speed I was in. I took a risk, and looked back.

The mass, now unmistakably a ding-bat of size I had never heard of before, rose up to the high heavens. It seemed like it never ended, as much as a mile of it in the sky. The vast form cracked, the dark green acid blood pouring out like waterfalls. Smoke thankfully obscured the bulk of it, but I saw things crawl out of it. The forms, smaller ding-bats, pushed themselves out, more and more from that gestalt of them all. Then, it broke apart in a snap, ding-bats thrown from horizon to horizon with no concern.

I turned the visor up and saw the vast numbers of ding-bats fall towards me. These looked right at me, shining blue and all the other colors in their damned strange patterns. I tongued the overdrive one more time. It failed again! I readied the fasces. I won’t claim to be anything like a brave man underneath my attitudes and fast words, but I swore that I’d go down fighting!

Then, like an emergency oxygen mask showing up just before a crash, the A.I. came back on. After a few seconds, it showed me a path through the falling ding-bats. Even as I starting batting the small rock grinders away, I dodged through the undulating masses, slipping through the largest number of them.

The overdrive came on with a kick and I pushed through the rain of metal eaters. I waved my fasces left and right, knocking aside obstacles. Then the A.I. led me up a slope and up again to pass through the Calypso Rupes. I was farther along than I had known!

A straight race towards Rachmaninoff was before me. I could see the first of the transponder towers, and what’s more, they could see me! Line of sight guaranteed, my suit made the connection.

“Is this motorcycle courier AB0380, George Mikos of Schubert Station? Your GPS came in range of Transponder Tower 1-394-3. Are you incoming?”

“Yes! Yes, bless your eyes! Listen, do you see what I’m seeing?”

Whoever I was talking to stopped for a second and checked the cameras. “It appears to be raining ding-bats.”

“You bet your behind it is! Look! You can’t let them in, they’ll destroy your loading docks! Shut the doors, almost to closing. When I get past, slam it on their faces!”

“Roger, I’m going to contact Herbert. This is crazy!”

I dodged the falling ding-bats, but it was with far more purpose. End in sight, I threw myself into beating the ding-bats to the doors. Behind me, the A.I. warned that they were now leaping after me. The great number of them had fallen, even miles out, and now they were eating everything metal or ore in sight. I watched the transponder fall, devoured by the ding-bats. There was no mark of anything else, everything else being devoured I swerved around some, still in their strange combined forms, three of their blank, circular saw faces reaching out to try and get me from one large body.

When it moved within range of the next transponder, it nearly devoured itself. “This is Herbert! We’re pulling for you, son! I had been keeping the doors nearly closed to keep the sun out of them. We’re about five hundred degrees fahrenheit here where it’s cool! Come on! The miners, workers and their families are counting on you!”

I shouted and ordered the A.I. to give me everything the motorcycle had. The speed finally put me faster than the pursuing ding-bats. The crater walls lay before me and I saw a channel cut through for the mining machines. The space pad, rudimentary flat squares on the flat ground, passed by in a blur. The walls too, I didn’t know how fast I was going, but still ding-bats fell to my right and left. My fasces smoked for all the acid blood on it, barely able to hold together.

My suit sprung leaks as the blood dripped over me from the afterbirth of that THING that spewed out all the ding-bats. The A.I. began to shriek warning after warning at me, but I ignored it. In the last few seconds, I abandoned the fasces and put both hands on the handlebars, shouting at the top of my lungs. I aimed for the crack in the doors with what little I could see, as the visor started to give out as the A.I., unable to handle the situation, crapped out.

The front wheel hit something and I, and the bike, were thrown forward, sliding on the dirt of Mercury and then the steel plates of the floor of the threshold. The door shut with a vast clash of metal against metal. I started choking. My suit had been irreparably damaged. I clutched at my head as heat and strange smells afflicted me. I heard men shouting for oxygen and fire suppressors.

I woke up in the hospital bed nearly a week later. I had spent most of that week unconscious and in the medical healing tank. I had radiation poisoning, oxygen deprivation damage to my lungs, burns of at least three different kinds and four different degrees and that was just the stuff on the outside. Not going to lie, my first words begged for alcohol. I spent the rest of the month there, lying in bed like an invalid.

Herbert saw me and said that this was covered by my medical insurance. I thanked him for his kindness, then asked him why he didn’t bring me the good whiskey. He laughed, thinking I was joking. Apparently all the most important documents, disks and storage devices survived. They didn’t survive well, but it was enough.

Scientists came next, and they asked all sorts of questions about the cyclopean ding-bat monolith thing that really took a toll on my sanity. They left only after the good doctor beat them off me with a broom. At least the bed was comfortable and I needed the rest.

When I was released, I headed straight for the bar and spent a month’s pay on the best alcohol in the house. The bartender, a dapper gentleman in lime green suspenders, looked at me without comment, having seen plenty of drunks in his day. I slumped over it after the first drink. The burn went down so good, like the nectar of the gods. The sigh I made ruffled the bartender’s mustache.

“Pardon me! Are you the motorcycle guy?” I straightened and turned around in a second. Before me stood a very cute girl in the mousey sort of way. She was clearly some sort of secretary, or a girl trying to work off a contract for one of the big companies. Blonde hair in a braid, big coke bottle glasses, a demure but curious expression, luscious lips and a very fine figure filled my eyes.

“Yes I am!” I gave her my best smirk-smile combo. It’s one of those things that’s shows amused confidence. Yes, I am awesome, no, it isn’t THAT big of a deal. It felt ill-fitting, after so many procedures and whatever they had done to keep me alive that first week.

She giggled a bit, in the good, shy way. I might be a little rusty after the month long confinement, but she looked like she wanted a good story from a bravo like myself. Half the work was already done. I grabbed a glass behind the bar, ignoring a snort from the bartender. I put the glasses in her hands and kept the bottle in my left. With my right I hugged her close to me, getting some good skin to skin touching, despite her drab and modest clothing. I started talking about all my crazy adventures and thrilled her with stories of hungering ding-bats. And let me tell you, we became firm companions after a few drinks.

Rachmaninoff was a great place, but maybe I talked myself up a bit too much there. I prepared to leave the crater mining station for reassignment when Herbert came up and asked me to sit down, never a good sign. “Mikos, I have a mission for you. Hoggo is loaning you to me for the time being. I need someone to get to Alver crater station. Apparently there’s some sort of epidemic and I want you to deliver aid. We can’t use the cargo ships, as intersolar law prevents them going in for risk of having this disease go solar. However, there is a loophole for motorcycle couriers. Are you up for it? All you have to do is drop it off and get out of there. It needs to be a volunteer, but I can definitely make it worth your while.”

I wanted to scream no. My adventure sense was tingling, and not in the good way. Instead my mouth said. “No problem, boss, I’m the best damn courier on the whole planet. Leave it to me!”

About the Author

Benjamin Wheeler has been wearing a wolf’s head rubber mask since Halloween. He won’t take it off. We’re not even sure it’s the real Benjamin Wheeler in there. He’s only spoken in broken French so far. He does write the good stuff, though. Check out Astounding Frontiers which has his In the Seraglio of the Sheik of Mars and keep an ear out for his next novel coming out someday sooner than later. Working title: Seven Siblings.

THE ELEMENT OF TRANSFORMATION

L. Jagi Lamplighter

Erasmus Prospero lay on the hay of his barred cell, straw poking into his back and one stalk clenched between his teeth. His dark hair, lank from the extreme heat, hung in his eyes. His once-fine green silks and velvets were soiled. Despite the dismal conditions of his surroundings, he patted his left boot and smiled.

The Conde‘s guards had taken his sword, his knife, his alchemical powders, and his enchanted ring, but they had overlooked the most important of his possessions. Though, in truth, the crystal vial hidden in his boot was only his second most-important possession. Had he brought the most important one, he would not have ended up in this situation.

Alas, his father, the Dread Magician Prospero of Shakespearian fame, kept Eramsus’s birthright—the Staff of Withering that allowed him to age things or make them young—locked up with the other family staffs of power. Prospero only allowed his children to use the staffs when it suited his paternal whim. So Erasmus had been empty-handed when the Conde’s men came for him.

That had not stopped him from injuring at least five of them. The Water of Life that granted the Prospero family their immortality made them far stronger than ordinary mortals. Sadly, the Conde’s guard contained many more than five men.

Perhaps, despite its great value, the little crystal vial of Water of Life should be counted as his third-most important possession. From under his drooping lace collar, Erasmus pulled out a dented gold locket and clicked it open. Inside was a cameo of a young woman, carved in white and brown agate. Seeing it drained away his last drop of levity. Even after a hundred years, he still felt the pain of her absence. Daily, grief imprisoned his heart as firmly as if his chest were constricted by lead shackles. If the Conde’s men had so much as dared to lay a finger on his locket, he would have killed them with his bare hands.

Through the bars of the only window, the tiny planet Mercury glinted in the pre-dawn sky. Erasmus sighed. It was believed that bad luck ruled so long as Mercury was in retrograde. Some felt that this was because the backward motion of the inmost wanderer drew the ambient luck with it. Some felt that it was the rising tide of ill-luck that pushed the planet backward. Yet others said that Mercury retreated whenever the god whose namesake it bore, ever a champion of mankind, was forced to leave his throne in the heavens and toil upon the earth, a penalty for some ancient wrong.

Whatever the cause, Erasmus felt grateful that this coming day would be the last of this period of mercurial back-peddling and that the little harbinger would soon be returning to its proper, forward path.

He could certainly do with a change of luck.

The sun rose over the horizon, filling the Andalusian skies with a brilliant, cloudless blue. As it continued towards its zenith, Erasmus lay upon his back in the straw, taking what pleasure he may from dreaming up new tortures for his captors—the Conde, his overly obedient men-at-arms, that obsequious, doddering chancellor, and the lascivious dancing maidens, particularly the brazen hussy who shamelessly flaunted her body before him, attempting to draw his thoughts away from his beloved Maria. He hoped they would all spend at least a millennium in fiery purgatory when the time came.

The door opened, and a second man was shoved into the cell so violently that he crashed to the ground. As the barred door slammed closed again, the newcomer grunted and turned over. He was a youth of Mediterranean descent, with dark curling hair and a close-cropped beard. A short, sleeveless tunic of linen was all that covered his lithe, bronzed body. He wore sandals with laces that wrapped around his leg to his upper calf. It was an odd outfit, as if the man were trying to imitate the dress of a figure on a Grecian Urn.

The young man levered himself up onto his elbow and examined his surroundings. His eyes rested on his cellmate, taking in Erasmus’s dark green garments of expensive silk and velvet. He continued gazing for so long that Erasmus was beginning to muse merrily upon what future torment might be applied to this the newcomer as well, when the young man spoke.

“I know you, stranger.” The youth’s voice was surprisingly deep and lively. “You are Lucretius’s son.”

An eerie shiver slithered down Erasmus’s spine. Very few individuals had ever been on a first name basis with his father. All of the mortals ones were dead, which meant this one was…

Mary, Mother of God. Erasmus’s heart skipped a beat. He was about to die.

Erasmus drew the straw from between his teeth and sat up. With a sort of sitting half bow, he said with what dignity he could muster, “Erasmus Prospero at your service. And you are?”

“You may call me… Trist.”

“Trist as in Tristmagistus? The Thrice-Great One?”

The youth’s eyes danced. “Very much so.”

“I see.” Erasmus swallowed and loosened his collar. Then, never being a man given much to cowardice, he resigned himself for the inevitable.

“And what might the god of thieves and messengers be doing in a cramped cell beneath a Spanish castle?” he asked lightly.

“Helped some mortals. Angered my father.” The youth shrugged. “Without my powers for a time. Apparently, I picked the wrong establishment from which to request hospitality.”

“Yes. I discovered that, too. Came here by invitation, with the hopes of prosperous trading. Apparently, our host, and I use that word lightly, did not like what I had to offer.”

“It will be his doom.”

“Good,” Erasmus smiled, but there was no humor in his expression. “Soon? Or was that just a general statement as in: ‘All men shall meet their dooms?’”

“At sundown, my power will return to me. It is an explosive process. Everything near me will be destroyed.”

“Including…” Erasmus swallowed again, “… me?”

“Including you.”

“Ah, unfortunate.” Erasmus lay back on the straw again. He gestured airily.

“He takes the knights in the field,
Enarmed under helm and shield,
Victor he is at all melee;
Timor Mortis conturbat me.”

The god of travel laid back as well, resting his head on his crossed arms.

“I don’t suppose,” Erasmus asked presently, “that there is anything I could do to postpone or forestall my rapidly-approaching demise?”

“As it happens,” the divine youth’s eyes twinkled merrily, “there is.”

“Really?” Erasmus rose to a sitting position.

“If I had but a modicum of my power, I could control how the rest returned to me. I would be able to spare those near me.”

“And is there something I… ah.” Erasmus’s mouth closed with a snap.

Reaching into his boot, he pulled out a slender crystal vial no longer than the first joint of his thumb. He held it up to the light filtering in from the high barred window. The pearly liquid within shimmered and sparkled. The cut crystal sliced the sunlight into tiny rainbows that danced about the musty cell.

“And here I was thinking how lucky I was that the Conde had not confiscated it.”

“You are lucky,” said the youth, smiling. “You may live yet.”

Erasmus swirled the liquid. The tiny rainbows danced the jig. “You are asking for a year of my life, you know.”

The god of merchants shrugged. “Only if you do not acquire more Water of Life, which you no doubt will.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. It takes my sister Miranda a year and a day to fetch Water of Life from the Well at the World’s End,” explained Erasmus, “and she can bring back only as much as she can carry. That small amount must be shared among our entire family. Miranda hates me, so I always receive my share last.”

“She hates you?” the young man raised a skeptical eye. “The fair Miranda?”

“She let my wife die,” Erasmus’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Rather than give her a single extra drop.”

“Did not you have your own supply?”

Erasmus’s head drooped. He pressed his face into his hands. “I had spent mine. On patients—trying to save their pathetic mortal lives.” He lifted his head. His eyes were cold as a dead man’s. “Not a mistake I will make again.”

“Have you no love left for mankind?”

“Any love I had, for anything, died with my Maria.”

“Then, I suppose you will not give me the ounce I would need to extend my influence enough to spare this castle.” Mercury gestured upward, indicating the palace above their heads.

“An ounce!” Erasmus exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God!”

The god buffed his nails with his linen shirt.

“You are asking for twenty years of my life!” cried Erasmus. “Twice that, if I am frugal! To save… what? The puffed-up fool who threw me down here? His doddering chancellor and harlot dancing girls? The scum that serve him? I might pay Water to ensure their demise. But to save them? Never!”

The psycopomp gazed at him steadily. “So be it. One drop then.”

Erasmus hefted the tiny vial and pulled the stopper. A heavenly perfume issued from the bottle. The dank cell suddenly smelled like a garden in springtime. The youth climbed to his feet, his eyes shining. He stepped forward and opened his mouth. With a sigh, Erasmus let a single drop fall onto the swift god’s tongue. The god closed his eyes and smiled.

“So now what?” Erasmus asked. “We wait for sundown?”

The god opened his eyes.

Erasmus would never have mistaken him for a mortal now. Erasmus stepped backward, unnerved.

Mercury spoke. “Enough power have I to work my will upon the world about the two of us. And enough time have we to reconsider your tightfistedness. Go.”

With these words, the god thumped Erasmus on the chest with the heel of his palm. The force of this gesture threw him backwards. His body collapsed, crumbling to the floor. Erasmus, however, was not in it.

Darkness and a glimpse of rock. Then Erasmus found himself, unseen and bodiless, in the throne room of the Don Rodrigo de Alegrias, Conde de Cordoba. The chamber was a riot of the brightest color. Never in his life, even when visiting Imperial China, had Erasmus seen so much red. Vermilion swathed the Conde’s guards and the court maidens. Even the wall hangings and the decorative tapestries with their embroidered scenes of daring-do dangling from ceiling crossbeams had been dyed this expensive color.

One such tapestry had been torn in yesterday’s fight and now lay across a footstool, where the careful fingers of two seamstresses worked tirelessly to repair it. The smashed porcelain and crockery had been cleared away, but servant girls, including the dancing wench from the previous night, still knelt on the colorful mosaic tiles of the floor chasing elusive tiny droplets of shimmering silver that seemed to shy away from their eager hands.

Erasmus smiled coldly as he regarded the results of his handiwork, but he also cringed mentally—as physical cringing was currently denied to him. Oh, what wonders he could have wrought with even a single one of those droplets.

In the center of the chamber was a wide ceramic basin, at least four feet across, set upon a stand such that pushing on the rim of the great bowl caused it to rock. The dancing girl, who had been scurrying around on her knees, now approached this basin. Carefully, she brushed the drops she had gathered onto the silvery pool within. Her offerings did not plop into the main body of the liquid, mingling as water would have, but remained atop the mirrored surface, rolling about like tiny silver pearls.

Glancing furtively over her shoulder, the dancing girl gave the rim a quick shake. The basin shook, sending the sunbeams reflecting off the pool’s surface leaping and dancing across tapestries and scarlet hangings. Slowly, the motion of the liquid embraced the pearly drops until they sank into the whole, and the surface again became mirrored and smooth.

Erasmus gazed covetously at the pool of quicksilver—enough to fulfill the dreams of every alchemist in the world. Then, he chuckled—a noise apparently heard by none but him. There were disadvantages of being outside of his body. He could not pick up any of the precious substance. There were, however, advantages as well. With a smirk, he stepped into the basin and stood atop the mercury. His arms crossed, he regarded the scene of last night’s struggle and recalled how it had come about.

The previous evening, Erasmus and his host had feasted amidst sweetly-perfumed exotic flowers. Dancing girls, draped in vermilion scarves and little else, whooshed and swayed on a raised dais. Unfamiliar six-stringed instruments played lively music, and expensive wine poured freely. Erasmus kept refilling his host’s glass, hoping to loosen the Conde’s tongue and learn the secret of his astonishing wealth. His host apparently had a similar intention, as he kept plying Erasmus with more wine.

The Conde de Cordoba was a tall man with one of those faces that promised either cleverness or malice. His thick, wavy hair, mustache, and goatee had once been a glossy black but now contained more silver than sable. His previous beauty could still be glimpsed though sagging cheeks and heavy jowls. He appeared hail and strong, but when the two men had gone to a high balcony near the roof, earlier in the afternoon, to gaze at the heavens through Erasmus’s enchanted telescope, the mild exertion of the stairs had been enough wind the Conde. He bent over and wheezed for more than a minute. Overall, Erasmus’s host had the aspect of a man who had once been handsome and strong but whose age was catching up with him.

Downing his fourth glass of wine, the Conde gestured around the chamber. Erasmus’s eyes followed, resting on the men-at-arms in their brilliant scarlet tunics, the priceless red tapestries with their scenes of battle and adventure, and the pool of quicksilver, twinkling in the torchlight, the value of which Erasmus could not even begin to calculate.

“Not too bad for a poor student! Would you not agree, Dr. Prospero?” The Conde laughed. “Who would have thought in the days when I was the favorite pupil of our mutual friend Nicholas Malebranche that it would come to this?”

“Ah, was it Malebranche who recommended me to you, then?” asked Erasmus, both intrigued and relieved. Malabranche had been a student of his once and then, decades later, a close friend. A churchman, Malabranche had served as a university professor for many years. He had told Erasmus a number of fond tales about his favorite pupil. “How is the old fellow? Still trying to reconcile Augustine and Descartes?”

“Much the same. Much the same.” The Conde declared with jocular fondness. “You know how old scholars are, especially churchmen. He’s deeply embroiled in a debate, though letters, about the similarity or difference of his ideas to those of Baruch Spinoza,”

“Yes, that sounds like the Malabranche I remember,” laughed Erasmus.

His eyes remained upon his host, but his attention kept straying to the massive basin of mercury shimmering in the center of the chamber. A drop of quicksilver was a priceless treasure to an alchemist. Even a small handful of it might change his fortune entirely—both in the sense of improving his finances and in the sense of lifting the burden that had held him back this last century. Oh, what he could do with a whole pool of it!

Erasmus and his host ate their braised delicacies. The dancing maidens swayed to the beat of castanets. One girl, a sprightly thing with dark Spanish coloring, came boldly forward and wrapped her red scarf around Erasmus’s shoulders, moving with sensuous promise, as if offering to sit in his lap. Erasmus scowled and tossed the scarf aside. Abashed, the pretty thing rushed back onto the stage and mingled with the other dancing girls, as if hoping to become lost in the herd.

“Would you care to see a wonder?” The Conde gestured to his chancellor, a bent old man with wispy hair as white as thistledown.

“Indeed!” Erasmus returned his attention to his host.

The Spanish lord clapped his hands. His chancellor, a wizened old man in his eighties, tottered over to where the two men dined, bringing with him a small bowl of mercury. The quicksilver jiggled as he placed it on the table. The old servant then clapped his hands twice, and a young servant brought a platter upon which rested thin sheets of beaten gold. The Conde took a sheet of gold and lay it ceremoniously atop the mercury.

The quicksilver drank the gold.

As Erasmus and the other two men watched, the glittering sheet of gold crinkled like paper, its edges drawing together toward the silvery surface. Then it sank into the mercury, dissolving as sugar dissolves into tea.

Erasmus sucked in his breath.

He loved gold. He loved it not as a miser, who wishes to hoard the yellow metal for its value, but rather he loved it for itself, for its beauty and, most of all, its durability. Of all the substances in the world, gold was the only one he could not wither away with The Staff of Withering.

“Did you ever wonder how the ancients could gild things so perfectly that they could fool an unwary merchant into buying a copper statue thinking it was silver or gold?” asked the Conde. “They harnessed the power of amalgam. They would dissolve the precious metal as so.” He lay another sheet of gold upon the bowl of mercury. It quickly drank this one up, too, until no sign of the gold was left on the calm silver surface. “They would then coat an idol or statue with the mercury. Finally, they would apply heat. The mercury would burn away, leaving behind a neat coat of the precious metal. Clever, was it not?”

“Yes. Indeed,” muttered Erasmus, who, fascinated though he was, felt the pain of the lost gold personally.

“Would you care for a demonstration?” the Conde lay another crinkling sheet of gold upon the bowl. “I could have my chancellor fetch us some artisans.”

“No!” Erasmus voice squeaked in a less manly way than he might have wished. “That is all right.” However much the temporary loss of the gold pained him, the agony of watching the permanent loss of the mercury, as it boiled off into gas, would be far, far worse.

As the Conde downed another glass of sweet white Jerez wine, Erasmus wondered whether recollecting about his youth might help loosen his host’s tongue.

“Didn’t Malabranche tell me that you once won a race riding a donkey backwards?” Erasmus leaned back in his chair. “Was it you who sat backwards? Or the donkey who went backwards?”

“Ah, the master’s memory grows dim,” chuckled the Conde. “It was my bosom friend, Philip Gordot who rode the donkey backwards. Though I was the one who made the most upon the wager.”

The Spanish lord laughed and flashed an enormous smile. It was the sort of smile a man gave when he was confident of dazzling his audience. Only, a few of the teeth that had once done the dazzling were now rotten with age, marring the effect.

Erasmus smiled back, but alarm bells were ringing in his mind. His friend Malabrance had made no mistake. The professor had told him many times about his favorite pupil and the donkey, but he had also occasionally mentioned the close friend of his favorite pupil—an arrogant young Spanish Conde with a fearsome temper. Erasmus shot his host a nervous glance, but then a thought soothed his worries. His last conversation with Malabranche on the subject of the Conde had occurred almost forty years ago. No doubt the young Conde had matured much in the interim.

Erasmus gestured admiringly at the brilliance of the red wall hangings, the red tapestries, the red floor tiles, the red wall paint, and the red scarves wrapped about the overly-attentive dancing girls.

“Never have I seen so many brilliant reds in one place,” Erasmus said casually. “It is as if you have reproduced the very color of the rose in silk.”

The Conde puffed up like a cock on the approach of dawn. “Yes, splendid, is it not? Even the emperors of the Far East have trouble rivaling me for its splendor!”

“I recognize this particular shade. Vermilion, is it not? ” Erasmus gestured toward the wall hangings. He did not mention that it had been his friend Leonardo Da Vinci who introduced him to this pigment, over two hundred years ago. It was seldom wise to share with men the secrets of his family’s long life. “Vermilion dye is said to be exorbitantly expensive, derived from a rare ore. How did a poor scholar come to possess such wealth?”

Erasmus spoke of the red dye, but his eyes kept straying to the much greater treasure shimmering in the bowl before them or in the pool in the center of the chamber. Not since the caliph who first built Medina Azahara, back in the Tenth Century, had so much mercury been seen in one place. What might the Conde want for even a small portion of such a precious substance?

“Vermilion indeed comes from a rare ore called cinnabar, as does mercury. You see that I have plenty of both substances. I have in my possession a cinnabar mine as great as that in Almaden or those belonging to the Ming emperors.” The Conde smiled as he stroked his mustache and goatee. “Shall I tell you the tale of how I came by it?”

“Certainly, please.”

“It was after the wars.” The Conde gestured toward some of the nearer tapestries. Erasmus realized that the scenes of bravery and daring-do displayed must be from the Conde’s own past. If so, he must have once cut quite a dashing figure. “My parents had died when I was but a child and my family estate had been destroyed in the fighting. Nothing remained. All I had was my horse and my saddle, and those I soon lost in a wager, trying to gain enough to rebuild my family’s home.”

“With nothing left, I vowed to seek out the ruined palace of Medina Azahara, built in the tenth century by my ancestor, Abd-ar-Rahman III al-Nasir, the Caliph of Córdoba.”

“I have heard of him!” Erasmus nodded. “He, too, had pools of mercury. Bishop Racemundo claimed that the walls of Medina Azahara were gilded, and the pools of mercury could be shaken, so that light reflecting off the pools would glance off the walls, startling and stunning the caliph’s visitors.”

“Ah. I did not know about that.” The Conde eyed his walls and stroked his mustache speculatively.

Erasmus winced, imagining the volume of mercury that might be lost gilding the chamber.

“But how could Abd-ar-Rahman III be your ancestor,” asked Erasmus, “Weren’t all the Moors ejected from Andalusia, over a hundred years ago?”

“They were,” agreed the Conde. “We tried to live with them in peace, but they continued plotting with the Austrians to reconquer Spain. Finally, it was decided that they must leave. But, in each town, one Moorish family was constrained to remain behind, so as to teach the secrets of irrigating the high terraces to the Spanish families who were replacing them. My mother is descended from such a Moorish family, and her father insists that his family comes down from the first Caliph of Cordoba.

“As I was saying,” continued the Conde, “All I had left was Fernando, my loyal servant who raised me,” he gestured at the old man. “The two of us made our way south on foot. As we approached the ruins of Medina Azahara, parched and covered in dust, we saw a strange sight. A pillar of fire that extended many feet into the sky. The fire burned for hours, always before of us as we made our way across the dry, hot countryside.

“Then, just as suddenly, it winked out. And yet, we had spied where it lay, so we headed for the spot. Can you guess what we found?”

“I believe I can,” replied Erasmus confidently. “You found a large oval rock that looked much like an egg sitting in a nest of sweet-smelling twigs above a bed of cinnabar.”

The Conde gaped with astonishment. “A hundred times, nay, a thousand, I have told this tale, and no one has ever guessed what I found. How did you know?”

“I have seen many things,” replied Erasmus. “I am older than I look.”

“So I have heard.” The Conde had a cunning look in his eye that Erasmus did not much like.

“What did you do with the phoe… with the big oval rock?” Erasmus asked casually.

“I sold it to a very small man who came out of the north. He offered me its weight in gold and gems. I laughed and told him that if he could indeed accomplish such a feat, it was his. And he did!”

“Nibelung,” swore Erasmus under his breath.

He was disappointed to lose such a treasure to the dwarves. A phoenix had even more uses than the cinnabar upon which it nested.

“And under the rock was a large outcropping of cinnabar?” guessed Erasmus.

“Yes! Indeed. You know much.” The Conde looked impressed. “As I said, from cinnabar comes both the red dye called vermilion and the liquid metal we call quicksilver. And with so much gold and riches at my disposal, I can afford to keep as much of it as tickles my fancy. So I have restored my ancestor’s palace, even down to the pool of mercury.” The Conde paused, adding thoughtfully, “I did not know about the gold walls.”

“It is truly remarkable,” said Erasmus. “I must admit to being rather overwhelmed by the sight of it all. It is an alchemist’s paradise.”

“And you are an alchemist, am I right?” the Conde smiled graciously. “There are many things you could do with a treasure trove such as my little pool here, is there not?”

“Many things,” Erasmus’s mouth was dry. “Though even this bowl before us would be a treasure to me.”

“What sort of things?” asked the Conde. “Turn lead to gold?”

“Yes. Among others,” Erasmus nodded. “Mercury is the element of transformation. With this much mercury, I could turn all the lead I could acquire into gold. But I could also do other things even more amazing: create miraculous medicines, change the very essences of objects.”

“What sorts of objects?” asked the Conde, curiously.

“Metals, animals, even, it is whispered, the very soul,” mouthed Erasmus, who would have given all he had to transform his own soul, to free himself from the grief that had bound him like a prisoner’s chains these last hundred years, since the death of his wife?

“Then, you might be interested in taking some home?” asked the Conde, gesturing magnanimously at the pool.

Erasmus’s voice nearly failed. “More than I can say.”

“Then it is yours! As much as you can carry! After all. I can always make more.”

“M-my… mine?” Erasmus gasped. “For me? I…”

Words did fail him.

Presently, he cleared his throat and asked, “What do you desire in return?”

“Nothing really, a mere token, as easy as waving your hand.” The Conde gave a small shrug. “Actually, exactly as easy as waving your hand.”

Cold fingers crept up Erasmus’s spine. “How so?”

“I have great riches, Dr. Prospero. Wealth, women, song. All that a man could desire. There is only one things that eludes me,” said the Conde. “My health is going. I no longer have the strength that was once mine. I want the one thing that you and you alone can bestow.”

“And, what is that?”

“Youth.”

“Ah.” Erasmus leaned back.

“Is it not true?”

“It is,” Erasmus said slowly. “The Staff of Withering can be used to make things younger as well as to age them.”

“Then there is no problem!” The Conde gave a great grin. “I shall regain my youth, and you shall have all the mercury you desire!”

“Actually, there is.” Erasmus winced. “A problem, I mean.”

“How so?”

“I did not bring it with me. My staff is back in my family’s mansion in Scotland.”

The Conde’s brow grew dark with annoyance. “Then go get it!”

“I… can’t.”

“Why not?” The storm over the Conde’s brow grew.

Erasmus told the truth, though it shamed him. “My father, the Dread Magician Prospero, controls the staffs. He only gives them out when he approves our purposes.”

“Will he not approve of this?” The Conde spread his arms indicating his riches. “To gain a treasure for a moment’s work?”

“No.” Erasmus said grimly. “He objects to magic being used on mort… anyone outside the family.”

“Why so niggardly?”

“He says that magic inhibits a man’s ability to reach Heaven.”

“That matters little if I do not perish!”

“It is precisely that sort of thinking of which my father most disapproves.”

“What!” the Conde cried, red face. “Unacceptable! After the extreme generosity of my offer! And you will not even plead with this hard-hearted father of yours?”

“I—”

Guards! Seize him!” cried the overwrought Conde. “We will see if this father of his will change his tune!”

Half a dozen burly guards rushed forward to grab the Conde’s guest, but Erasmus was far stronger than an ordinary man. He lifted the table upon which he and Conde had been feasting and threw it. Crockery rained down, smashing underfoot. The table knocking over two of the guards. The rest lunged, Erasmus grabbed a tapestry—one which portrayed the Conde as a young man winning a military victory upon horseback—and swung away, over the heads of the men-at-arms. The cloth ripped. Erasmus landed on his feet. He wrapped the torn cloth around the head of the next guard to rush him and used it to spin the brawny youth into a corner. Then, he picked up the next guard to come at him and threw him, toppling two others.

Before any of the guards could regain their feet, Erasmus dashed across the room, dodging screaming ladies. More men-at-arms came from the other direction. Light of foot, Erasmus leaped into the basin of mercury and kicked the dangerous silver-white liquid into the faces of the approaching guards. Mercury was difficult to kick, but if he flexed his foot, he could catch some in the crook of his ankle. Two young men shouted and slid to a stop, brushing the silver droplets from their faces.

Erasmus kicked again, but he had forgotten that the basin had been built to swing freely. As it moved under his weight, he lost his footing. The last thing he remembered was the sensation of back of his head striking the rim of the basin.

When he had next woke up, he lay on his back in the barred cell as guards stripped him of his knife and belt.

Erasmus shook off his revere about the previous day and looked down. Slight ripples spread through the quicksilver beneath him, ripples that appeared to start right where he thought himself to be. Erasmus stared, alarmed. If he could affect the mercury, could it affect him?

A strange dizziness assailed him Surely the mercury could not poison his soul? Could it? He reeled back.

Without his body, he moved much more easily than a fleshly being. The slightest desire to move whisked him across the floor. A feminine voice sounded in his thoughts.

“Woe is me. Oh, Lord, why did you make me barren, when all that I wanted in the world was to be a mother?”

Puzzled, Erasmus spun around and discovered that he seemed to be occupying the same area of space as the little dancing girl who again knelt in an attempt to gather more droplets of quicksilver from the floor. Erasmus moved away from her slightly, but he could still hear her thoughts.

“Now that my husband is dead, what is there left for me?” the plaintive thoughts mused sadly. “ The Conde knows that I am barren. He will not find me a good husband. I will be sent to the mines.”

There was a pause, and then, even more plaintive and sad came, “I try and I try to please the visitors, hoping one will take a fancy to me and take me away from here, as happened to Luisa, but I know now how to be pleasing. All I do is dismay them.”

Erasmus moved away, but he felt less annoyed with the little dancer. Cinnabar was poisonous. Miners often had short lives. No wonder she had tried to catch his fancy.

Now that he knew that, in this bodyless form, he could hear the thoughts of another, he deliberately moved to just beside the Conde. The Spanish lord’s thoughts were filled with the image of a cowering old man. As he listened to the man’s blustery thoughts, Erasmus realized that this old man was the Conde’s mental image of Lucretius Prospero, coming in search of his missing son.

Erasmus laughed long and hard as he contrasted this with his own image of his hearty and hale father arriving in splendor, perhaps surrounded by his sons and daughters, each brandishing their own magical staff. He imagined his brothers destroying the chamber, while his younger sister Logistilla turned men into toads.

The old chancellor passed near enough to his master, that Erasmus suddenly picked up his thoughts as well. The old servant carried a picture in his mind of the Conde as a child of no more than four. The chancellor as a younger man doted on the little boy. Erasmus perceived the happiness that the old man had derived from doing things that made the charming, fatherless boy happy.

When did it go wrong? The old man thought sadly. When did my master go from such a good child to a spoiled monster? How did I fail to see what he had become?“So this is all your fault then, Fernando?” asked Erasmus, though he knew the chancellor. could not hear him. With a derisive snort, he moved away from the selfish lord and his overly-indulgent servant.

The sky above the palace was a perfect blue. The sun beat down on the scrub-covered hills. Perhaps it was hot, but Erasmus could not tell. He felt no sensation of heat or cold.

He was not sure how he had moved, but he now stood on an upper balcony. The coppery length of his enchanted telescope stood beside him on a tripod. Erasmus peered through the eyepiece. The enchantment allowed one to see the stars, even during the day. Through it, he could see the planet Mercury winking back at him, perfectly framed in the lens.

“Is this all your fault?” he mused, gazing at the tiny light. “Or rather, I guess it’s his fault.” He pointed down below, towards where he guessed the barred cell might be.

Watching the planet twinkle, Erasmus recalled the many nights he had lain on the roof of his house in Milan, gazing up at the stars. Occasionally, after the children were asleep, Maria would sneak up onto the roof beside him. She would snuggle against his shoulder while he pointed out the constellations. He had been so happy then.

“If only I could show you the stars again, my love.”

“You can show them to me any time, my dear one,” said the voice he loved most of all. “I can still look down and see you, you know.”

Erasmus started and looked around wildly. There, on the balcony beside him, stood Maria. She smiled sweetly, her hair falling over her eyes, as it so often had done life. She looked even more beautiful than the cameo in his locket, even more beautiful than she had in life, for she lacked little idiosyncrasies that had marred her fleshly form, such as the tiny scar beside her left ear.

“Maria? I-is it you? H-how could it be?”

Maria reached forward and took his hands in hers. He could feel the warmth and softness of her fingers. To Erasmus’s surprise, he realized that he had hands. He could now see himself. He looked the same as when he was in his physical form, except that there were actual chains of lead constricting his chest.

“The psychopomp left the door open,” Maria pointed up toward the Swift One’s planet.

“A-are you sure? I’m not just suffering from spiritual Mercury poisoning?”

“I am sure.” Her dark eyes shone with love. “I am here.”

“But… I…” Erasmus stuttered.

“My love. Where is your noble heart? Do you really want all the people in this palace to die? Even innocent children?”

“But…” he sputtered. “An ounce! My darling, a whole ounce! One drop could have saved you. One drop can save the children of our children. I still watch after our family, you know. We have many descendants.”

“I know.” Maria’s eyelashes did that fluttery thing that they had done in life whenever she had been amused at her husband but had been too kindhearted to laugh at him openly. “Did I not just say that I look down upon you?”

“I…” Erasmus balked. The idea that Maria had been watching, while he wasted his talents, wallowing in self-pity and turning his back to the world was… even more painful than watching gold dissolve.

Maria reached up and brushed her hand across his cheek, cupping it against her warm palm. “Shh, my dear one. I have only a moment. Please, you must let go of your grief and anger. You must forgive your sister.”

“Never!” shouted Erasmus. “She killed you! Or, she might as well have!”

“The circumstances of my death are not quite as you believe them,” Maria said sadly. “You will learn this someday. I cannot stay, but before I go… I can help a little.”

His sweet, beautiful wife reached upwards and tapped her finger on the planet Mercury. Erasmus blinked. What his eyes showed him made no sense. Maria touched this same finger to her lips, giving it a tiny kiss. Then she reached toward Erasmus.

A tiny silvery-white droplet glistened on the pad of her finger. She touched the quicksilver to one of the half dozen lead bands constricting his chest, the one covering the lower part of his heart. The silvery drop sank into the chain and began to spread.

The lead turned to gold.

It transformed from a shackle that bound him into a strip of golden breastplate that protected his heart. Erasmus could not make sense of how the piece of breastplate stayed on his chest without any straps to hold it in place, but it did.

Peace swept over him, as if a chink had opened in the terrible darkness that had been smothering him for the last century. He felt joy.

Erasmus woke up with straw in his mouth. He lay on his back in the cell, groggy but at peace. Beside him, Hermes sat against a wall examining his sandals. One wing had unfolded from his left shoe and was flapping aimlessly. When Erasmus stirred, he looked up.

“Change your mind?” asked the youth.

Pulling the crystal vial from his boot, Erasmus tossed it to the swift god.

Six months later:

The great doors of the entertainment chamber of the Conde de Cordoba silently turned to dust and rained down, suddenly admitting the bright sunlight of the Andelusian sky. Dancing girls scattered, screaming. Tapestries became threadbare and dreary, their once bright colors dimmed. Men-at-arms in red tunics ran forward, only to stumble, falling to the ground as wrinkled and decrepit as a man of a hundred years.

Through the door came a figure in green armor wielding a staff that hummed as it spun in the pitted white gauntlet that covered his right hand. As he strode forward, withering all that lay in his path, the words of William Dunbar’s Lament for the Makers tripped from his lips.

”He takes the champion in the stour,
The captain closed in the tower,
The lady in bower full of beauty;
Timor Mortis conturbat me.

He spares no lord for his puissance,
No clerk for his intelligence,
His awful stroke may no man flee;
Timor Mortis conturbat me.”

The green figure approached the Conde, who had jumped up from his dinner and stood shaking with terror. The Conde’s chancellor, already old and decrepit, tried to toddle forward to protect him. The hum of the staff stopped, and the green figure pushed him roughly aside.

“What… do you want?” croaked the Conde.

Erasmus pushed up his helmet. “I have come for my revenge. You should not have mistreated a guest.”

“No! Please! Spare me! I will give you everything!” cried the Conde.

Erasmus shrugged. “What is that to me? I can take it anyway, as soon as I kill you. You should be grateful that I am sparing these your people. Doing so cost me dearly.”

He lifted his staff, which began to spin again, a slight red glow about the length.

From behind a yet-unwithered tapestry came a small, sad squeak. The little dancing girl cowered there. She was a pretty thing with Spanish coloring, and yet, at that moment, something about her dark eyes reminded Erasmus of Maria.

He paused, pressing his hand against the one place on his chest where his armor of callousness no longer protected him.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he announced suddenly to the Conde. “I am going to give you what you most desire after all.”

“You will restore my youth?” cried the Conde.

“Yes,” Erasmus showed perfect white teeth. “All of it!”

The Staff of Withering began to spin in Erasmus’s gauntlet, but this time, it spun in the other direction. The glow about it changed to blue. He moved it toward the other man.

The Conde grew younger. He flexed his hand and arm, which were now strong and fit again. He shouted with joy. Only the whir of the staff did not stopped. The Conde grew younger still and younger.

“What? No! Stop! I am… Noooo!”

The Conde grew smaller and smaller, until he disappeared among the folds of his garments. From beneath the vermilion silks came a tiny wail. Erasmus leaned over and scooped up the baby beneath the silks.

Crossing the room, he placed the infant into the arms of the little dancing girl. “It seems you are destined to be a mother after all. See that you are a good one.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude. She hugged the child to her, gazing at its tiny round face with wonder.

Erasmus turned to the chancellor Fernando, who had been close enough to his lord to be affected by the effect of the staff. The eighty year old man was now a vigorous man of forty.

“Don’t spoil him this time.”

Fernando’s head nodded up and down repeatedly. “Yes, milord. I give my word!”

Turning away, Erasmus stalked toward the door. As he moved forward, he returned the youth of the Conde’s men-at-arms. Then he paused and looked back.

In the center of the chamber, glistening in the sunlight, was the pool of quicksilver. Erasmus eyed it thoughtfully. Had not the Conde offered it to him, if he would but make the man younger? Had not he, Erasmus, fulfilled his side of the bargain? Could not the young Conde’s men make plenty more from their supply of cinnabar?

And besides, wasn’t an open pool of mercury a danger to an infant?

“Pack that up.” He addressed the men-at-arms cheerfully, gesturing at the king’s ransom of mercury. “I’ll be taking it with me.” With a wry smile, he added under his breath, “Seems my luck has finally changed.”

Turning, he bowed slightly in the direction of the unseen planet Mercury, “Thank you, Trist.”

About the Author

L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of the YA fantasy series: The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment. She is also the author of the Prospero’s Daughter series: Prospero Lost, Prospero IHelln , and Prospero Regained. She has published numerous articles on Japanese animation and appears in several short story anthologies, including Best Of Dreams Of Decadence, No Longer Dreams, Coliseum Morpheuon, Bad-Ass Faeries Anthologies (where she is also an assistant editor) and the Science Fiction Book Club’s Don’t Open This Book. She also has an anthology of her own works: In the Lamplight

When not writing, she switches to her secret identity as wife and stay-home mom in Centreville, VA, where she lives with her dashing husband, author John C. Wright, and their four darling children, Orville, Ping-Ping Eve, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.

THE TOWER OF THE LUMINOUS SAGES

Corey McCleery

Chapter 1: A Melody Sung in Light

Wei’s hands, her mother had told her, were a gift from the gods. Whether they were plucking the strings of a harp, or delicately holding a horse-hide calligraphy brush, they were teasing beauty into the world. Her hands were not mere tools to make art, her mother had promised, but they were vessels of the creative lin of the gods, works of divine art themselves. They were the hands of an artist.

They were also the hands of a thief.

She delicately twisted the lockpick in her hands, slowly feeling out the positions of the tumblers. Granted, this lock was tougher to pick, seeing as it was situated in the throat of a dragon statue, sculpted of gold. Chips of rubies made up its mane, which made Wei wonder what treasures lay behind the door, if rubies could be spent on a security measure. “Are you almost there?” Pao asked.

“This is my art,” Wei said through gritted teeth. “Don’t rush my art.”

“But the guards are coming!” Pao said.

“Not for another five minutes,” Wei snapped. “Now, leave me be. It will be done before then.”

“Fine,” Pao said, looking around nervously. “This isn’t one of your Kueh tricks, is it?”

Wei grimaced, but mumbled back a negative. She had wished the color of her eyes, a light gray instead of the normal brown, didn’t immediately identify her as one of the Kueh tribesmen of the northern provinces. While she didn’t care for the stereotype that the Kueh were thieves and swindlers (that was her job description, after all), the accusations that they used witchcraft, and perverted the arts of good, gods-fearing sorcerers or Life-Cultivation masters were something she could do without. She had had more than a few prospective clients turn her down after seeing her eyes.

She pushed this tumbler, and then that, and with the skill of a portrait-painter drawing out an image in ink, she unlocked the most mysterious vault in the Empire.

The door groaned open as Wei shoved her mass against it. Pao joined in, and slowly, they managed to push the massive door open a crack, enough to fit them both through. Once through, they tugged and groaned, pulling the door shut.

After a minute or two of heavy breathing, they looked around themselves. The base floor of the tower was rather plain, the only ornamentation being lacquered red capitals crowning redwood columns and an ornate staircase, all decorated with sinuous dragons, antlers and manes chiseled and carved with exquisite detail. It was fitting to see dragons everywhere, as they were the sign of the Emperor, and his divine ancestry.

However, the building they were in wasn’t fitting. Palaces shouldn’t have giant lighthouses built in the middle of them, especially if they were landlocked. No one, save for the Emperor and his Luminous Sages, were permitted to enter this tower.

Of course, that brought the rumors. Surely the Emperor hid only his costliest of treasures here, couched in gold and silk, and that the lights that shone at strange and erratic times was to light his treasury whenever he wished to view his wealth. Others, of a more cynical and superstitious bent, whispered that this tower was where the emperor committed blasphemous rituals, blood-stained and debauched rites meant to wrest the sacred lin, life force, the spark of the divine, from innocent virgin hearts. That, they said, was the only reason the lighthouse would shine at such times, whether the light banished the darkness in the night, or rivaled the sun in the day.

Wei thought it was likely treasure. A lot of treasure. As she bounded up the stairs, Pao following her, she was already planning on what she was going to do with the obscene amount of wealth that she’d be getting from this heist. She followed the stairs that clung to the octagonal wall, waiting to see the fabulous treasures doubtless in store.

The second floor wasn’t terribly interesting. It was populated with scroll shelves, diamond-lattice wood with dozens of rice-paper scrolls filed away, locked behind a lacquered screen with more ornate carvings, all to do with dragons. Sure, dragons were a sign of the divine Mandate of the Gods, the decree that gave the Emperor authority, but this tower’s aesthetic was bordering on obsessive.

Wei pulled out a scroll and opened it, as, oddly, it lacked a seal. “What is it?” Pao asked. Her partner was strong, often used as extra muscle, but illiterate. Wei could read, thanks to her mother, and her mother’s strange delusions.

“They look like military orders. They’re talking about different legions, moving through the YanDao mountain passes, dated a while back.” Wei replaced the scroll. “The treasure has to be upstairs,” she said, though part of her started to doubt that.

They ventured up to the third floor, which had a strange box in the center, swaddled in black silk, with two chains (or possibly one long one) disappearing into the container. The box had a lid, with small holes cut for the chains, and unlike everything else, it was bare, without adornment. “The chains lead to the next floor,” Wei said. “There’s probably some device hooked up to them. I’ll go check.”

She ran up these stairs, past ever-lit paper lanterns (the first real success of the Emperor’s alchemists), and stared at the strange sight.

The room had a large, cylindrical stone structure in the center, where the chains would have led into. It wasn’t cylindrical, Wei realized, but a ring of a spherical structure, bent outwards. A door, curved to fit the shape, lay open, and inscribed on the inside of the door, in hand-sized squares, were dozens of characters.

She stepped in. There, a silver globe hung, suspended on chains. Around it, above and below, were bowl-like stones, also spherical, inscribed with more characters. As she approached the silver globe, she realized it wasn’t silver, but glass, with strange lenses attached on what appeared to be strands of gossamer, and the silver within wasn’t actual silver, but mercury. The stuff of alchemy.

What the heck was this?

She saw a wheel, connected to the chain. “I think I found it!” Wei called down to Pao. “Stand by!” She grabbed the wheel, inscribed with different dragons clutching numbers to them, and began to turn it.

The chains moved, pulling up, and two things happened. One, the room was flooded with brilliant light from below, seeping through the cracks in the floorboards. Two, she heard a torturous scream from down below. Pao!

She rushed down, and beheld the source of light.

It was round, and caged in gold, and it shone with the fury of a thousand suns. She could make out strange designs shifting on the surface of the thing, like the bands of color that shifted across the alchemists’ flammable dragon oils, before the light overwhelmed her and she sank to her knees. And then, in the face of the harsh, merciless light, darkness fell over her eyes, and she collapsed.

Chapter 2: The Sages of Shar Lung

She awoke to darkness.

Wei knew her eyes were open, yet she saw nothing. And, searching her memories, the last thing she remembered seeing was that strange sphere, and the brilliant light that poured forth from it. Had it blinded her? Slowly, with trembling hands, she reached up to touch her eyes.

Instead, to her relief, she found thick bandages around her eyes. Reaching behind her head, she untied them. Slowly, gently, the darkness gave way to gentle red light. Misty shapes appeared as she unwound the bandages, these shapes becoming clearer and clearer with every slow unwinding. At last, the final length of cloth fell from her face, and her sight was unveiled.

She was alone in a small room, on a bed of simple linen. An ever-lit lantern hung above her, images of peacocks and dragons dancing whenever the strange, alchemical flame flickered.

There were a few other items in the room, mostly items invoking the gods of health and healing. Several stelae, carved of green malachite, called for the blessings of the gods of individual organs and humors, promoting good lin flow across the vital points of the body, and lay at the four cardinal points of the room, the prayers on them inscribed in the ornate clerical script. Behind them incense burned, filling the air with its pungent aroma. Other than those, the room was bare.

She rose on unsteady feet and made her way to the door. She tried it, and found it locked. She reached for her lockpicks, but realized that her thief garb was missing.

Wei sat down on the bed, angry and afraid. She was angry at everyone, but especially herself. How stupid did she have to be to be caught? Then again, it wasn’t really her fault. That strange orb, shining bright like a sun, burned into her memories as it had burned into her eyes, was to be blamed.

The door opened, and Wei stared as the ruler of the Empire of Yin, the most powerful man on earth, and the son of a god, entered her room.

Immediately, she prostrated herself, and refused to look up. There was an oath of fealty that she should have said, but it had been so long since Wei had needed to recite it that she thought it best to simply remain silent and pray to whoever in Heaven was listening that he decided not to execute her.

“Rise,” she heard a man say. She did, still keeping her eyes downcast. Others had entered the room, and she saw the robes of their station. There was the Imperial Augur, master of omens. Next to him, the elderly Imperial Alchemist, with his skin stretched over his skull like rice paper, shifted his knobby hands, his long fingernails clacking together. The Imperial Surgeon, younger, was the only one among the retinue who didn’t have the long, lacquered nails that denoted status. And behind him, with his white hair and beard reaching down to his chest, the Imperial Sage barely moved.

“Look up.” Slowly, hands shaking, she looked up, making sure not to make direct eye contact with the Emperor. To look into his eyes and declare oneself equal with one who had divine blood flowing through his veins was an act of blasphemy.

The other advisors gasped. “You were right,” the Emperor said to the Sage. “She is marked as you said. And of one of the northern tribes, strange.” He added that last part as a

“When she had not expired after the second hour, I knew she would survive, Your Highness,” the Sage said. He turned to face Wei. “Are you lettered, thief?”

“Lettered? I can read, if that’s what you mean,” Wei said. “Not cleric’s script, but regular characters, that is.”

“Ah. Well then,” the Sage said, “her arrival, capture, and her survival is most auspicious, Your Highness. She may have broken your laws, which Heaven gave you authority to declare, but she may also have been given to us as an act of providence. My Emperor, allow me to take her in as one of my retinue. I can speak with one of the conjurers to prevent her from attempting escape, but as one who has seen the light within the Tower and yet was not destroyed by it, she will be of great use to us.”

The Emperor loomed over her, and Wei stared at his silk slippers. “Hmm… very well. The Imperial Artificer has been working on a restraining device. That may be of more use to you in controlling this thief.” He turned and walked away. “I have more business to attend to. Clean her up and take her to the Artificer.”

Chapter 3: Secrets of the Sage’s Tower

“Finest quicksilver from the Yeng-Se Islands! The blood of ancient dragons, yours for only a small cost!”

“Genuine penghou meat and bones! Cut right from a camphor tree! Cure your aches and cast the bones for the future!”

“Talisman of Nine Dragons, blessed in the springs of Danzhou! Plague-ward, carved from the finest jade this side of the Mahn Mountains! Red Bat Amulet, bring you luck! Six-Demon Bag! All for a good bargain!”

Wei frowned and charged through the marketplace. She looked ridiculous, dressed in a robe of silk, instead of her normal, plain garments, and it felt alien on her skin.

It wasn’t as alien as the warm necklace she wore. The stone felt alive around her neck, and it may have been her imagination, but she swore she felt the thing move and writhe beneath the surface. It depicted a serpent, its body segmented into V-shapes that fit into each other, connected by a few links of silver chain. The sorcerer who had fastened it around her neck had promised her that should she disobey orders or attempt to leave the city, the necklace would contract and heat up, slicing off her head and burn while it did. Wei still felt the scrape of his long, lacquered fingernails on the back of her neck.

She rushed past the markets, up the streets, towards the monumental palace, and stepped through the gates. Multiple dragons stared down at her, their empty stone eyes imperious, rearing up, frozen in motion. She weaved through the statues, stepping through an archway beside the palace door and entering a lotus garden.

She stepped across the flagstones, making sure not to disturb the glassy surface of the artificial lake. Lotus blossoms broke the mirroring surfaces, two blossoms opening upwards and downwards, the reflections vivid and solid-looking. Wei had been stunned at the quiet, at the tranquility of this room. Now, she ran through the chambers without the reverence of the first time she had entered the lotus garden.

She ran through the courtyard, across the carefully furrowed sand, heedless of the patterns that gardeners had spent hours planning and a few days furrowing, and up to the door of the Tower. Only a few nights before, she was creeping along, hiding from the pools of light cast by the paper lanterns hung every so often. Now, she ignored the lanterns, dim in the daylight, and approached the door.

Wei adjusted the parcel of paper in her arms, before withdrawing the long iron key entrusted to her. This time, she didn’t have to pick the lock. She was welcome, if still supervised.

She entered the tower, and a strange feeling washed over her. It felt like she was being watched, like someone was studying her. It was a feeling she trusted, and had saved her life many times in her career of theft.

The Imperial Sage stood, arms folded. “There you are! And good, you have the paper. We’ll see if that… auspicious anomaly occurs again.”

“Auspicious anomaly?” Wei asked. “I assume you’re not meaning me.”

“No, you are the second. The first happened two weeks before you were found.” He stepped over to one of the lattice shelves and fetched a scroll. “We expected a message and instead we got this.” He opened the scroll.

There was a poem there, burned into the paper, the edges of the gaps dark and charred. Dusk falls over broken mountains, the poem said, and shadows fall over a traitor’s banner.

“So… someone burned poetry into paper?” Wei asked.

The Sage sighed. “No.” He gestured to her to follow him up into the stone bowl chamber on the fourth floor, where every inch of the curved wall was covered in carved stone characters. The more she looked at them, the more she noticed that each one had something to do with the military. “Do you see that?” the man asked, pointing a lacquered fingernail at the giant silver globe suspended in chains in the middle.

“What is it?” Wei asked. “It looks like quicksilver.”

“It is.” The Sage nodded. “It is a most potent elixir, and the only liquid medium noble enough to withstand the glory of the pearl.”

“The pearl?”

“Are you going to spill all the secrets to the thief?” someone behind them demanded. Wei turned to see a man in a dark, plain robe, with embroidered dragons snaking their way up his sleeves and curling around the hem. His dark eyes were surrounded by angry red tissue, inflamed and sickly. “Ah, forgive me, urchin. I am Ha Wen, Master Quangdau’s apprentice.” Quangdau. So that was the Sage’s name.

“Ha Wen, your arrogance is unbecoming. Wei, due to her gift, is also my apprentice,” the Sage snapped back. His eyes glinted dangerously from behind his white eyebrows. “Please see that your vanity and condescension is not so offensive to my sight next time by keeping it hidden.”

“Of course, Master.” He bowed his head.

“As I was saying, Wei, what you had glimpsed below, that which had claimed the life of your… associate, is known as the Pearl of Shar Lung.”

“Shar Lung, one of the Dragon Gods?” Wei asked in disbelief. “One of the Eight Sons of the Heaven Goddess and the God of the Earth and Underworlds?”

“The very same.” The Sage nodded. “He blessed the Empire, he and his sons, the Dragons of the North, by giving us their Pearls. What do you know of a dragon’s Pearl, Wei?”

“She’s a street thief. I doubt she’s very studious in her religious studies,” Ha Wen said.

“Ha Wen, your tongue moves, yet I hear no words of wisdom or wit. Only venom.” The Sage turned. “Refrain from speaking again, especially against someone who succeeded where you failed.”

Ha Wen frowned, and his hand brushed his reddened eye sockets. “Did he try to look at that… at the Pearl?” Wei asked.

“Yes. He nearly blinded himself.” The Sage paused. “Ha Wen, keep watch. Call to us if a message comes.” With that, the Sage led Wei out of the chamber.

“Anyway, the Pearl of a dragon is where it stores its lin, its life force. It is also where the source of dragons’ heavenly powers come from. What do you know of dragons, Wei?”

“They’re messengers of the gods,” Wei said, as they started to climb up some stairs.

“Precisely.” The fifth floor looked like a sorcerer’s laboratory. Wei had been in a sorcerer’s laboratory before, at the behest of a rival magician who had hired her to steal his rival’s secrets. There was a stone slab for chalk-drawings, several scroll-shelves, and strange glass equipment that shone, glinting in the steady glow of the paper lanterns. “This is where we ward the Tower, preventing peeping spirits and fouler conjurations from stepping near the entire palace.”

“It couldn’t ward off me,” Wei said.

“Yes, well, if our wards worked on mundane humans, every time someone entered they’d be reduced to ashes.” The Sage sighed. “Anyway, when Shar Lung gave us his Pearl, and had his sons give up theirs, he taught our sorcerers how to arrange a device to send messages across massive distances in an instant. We had discovered how to enchant scrolls, so one thing written on them would instantly appear in another, but that only worked over a short span.” The Sage smiled. “The Pearl shines its light on a character, and we record it. This way to the Astrology Chamber.” He proceeded up.

The Astrology Chamber was open to the sky, with a strange-looking device on a raised dais in the center of the Tower. “This is our viewing basin.” Wei inspected it as she approached. It looked like a large, shallow bowl made of dark iron, with a dragon curled around the brim, slightly lower than the rim of the basin. The Sage pushed on something, and the dragon curled upwards, the entire thing shifting until its mouth was right above the bowl. “The traders to the west, in their desert lands, taught us how to use the noble quicksilver to search the sky.” He pressed down on the antlers of the dragon, and the black statue spat forth a stream of silver liquid.

Immediately Wei backed up. “What is the matter?” the Sage asked.

“I’ve been told by my people that quicksilver is powerful, and dangerous,” Wei said.

“Ah.” The Sage nodded. The dragon continued to pour forth the stream of metal liquid until the dish was filled to the brim. The Sage pushed on one of the stones of the base, causing the dragon to curl down again, leaving the basin full of mercury. “Come closer, so you can see the mirror.”

Wei stepped up onto the plinth, and as she did, she felt as if something, or someone, was watching her. It was an immense feeling, as if the person watching her was incredibly important, that his mere presence was enough for her to notice him. But there was no one near.

The surface of the basin, filled with quicksilver, was like a mirror, reflecting a perfect replica of the clouds and the azure expanse above her. But that peace was short-lived, as Ha Wen called up. “Master! Come quickly!”

They hurried down to the stone room. There, Ha Wen stood, a blank scroll outstretched and held to the side. Wei stared at him, before turning to the silver globe, which now glowed with an eerie light, a cousin to the filtered light of sunshine underwater.

A harsh ray of brilliance shot out, striking the scroll with a hiss. Smoke curled up from the dazzling white scroll as the beam inched down, and then, it was gone.

Wei blinked, trying to get the afterimages that had burned themselves into her vision to fade away. There, on the scroll, another poem was burned. The serpent river winds through the valley/Carrying the venom of the betrayer.

“A strange portent, truly,” the Sage breathed. “I must confront the Imperial Sorcerer with this. Both of you, retire to your quarters. You will need to be rested for the days to come.” Ha Wen bowed and walked downstairs. Wei nodded, before bowing and following the other apprentice out.

She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. It still clung to her, the way wet garments clung to skin, as she left the tower.

Chapter 4: Of Wine and Hidden Sight

The feeling of being watched had only grown stronger, and Wei had confided in the Sage and told him of that sensation. He had informed the Imperial Sorcerer, and two days later the Sage had returned to Wei, telling her there was nothing there, that it probably was merely bad memories associating themselves with the Tower. After all, a partner of hers had died there.

But Wei didn’t believe him.

She didn’t think he was lying; the old man was kindly enough to her. But she thought he missed something. The sensation didn’t fade the more time she spent in the Tower, as blood-stained memories would, but intensified, like steam building inside a teakettle over a fire.

So, as the Sage Quangdau instructed her on how to lift the Pearl using a strange pulley system, Wei concocted a plan. As the Sage instructed her on the phases of the moon and how they impacted the interpretation of fates, Wei planned a date. And as the Sage trained her to care for the hollow quicksilver globe (she had to polish both inside and outside, for both surfaces of glass had to be free of dust), she schemed and plotted her course through the massive palace.

Now, it was the night of a full moon, and it was time to begin her master plan.

Wei strode through the halls, praying to the gods that her deception worked. She was a thief, but had spent some time as a forger, and a chance meeting with the Imperial Alchemist let her figure out how to falsify his signature, but it wasn’t perfect.

She turned a corner and shoved open the door before her, entering a chamber of chaos.

“More dough! More dough!”

“Get me the salt!”

“I need sesame oil, sesame oil over here!”

“And what do you need?” Wei turned to face a rather rotund cook. His shaved head glistened in the lights cast by cooking flames and a string of ever-burning lanterns. Cooks were required to shave their heads, so that no hair could fall into the food of the Emperor while it was being prepared.

“Ah, um, the Imperial Alchemist sent me.” She flashed the paper, showing only a glimpse of the signature, before tucking it back into her robe. “He wishes for wine.”

“Bah. Probably trying to either experiment or get drunk.” The cook grumbled, before marching out of sight.

Wei had precious little time. There was a door to her right that led to a supply closet, and she needed to slip in there, grab the other thing she needed, and get out. Quickly, she entered the storage room.

It was dark, lined with dozens of shelves full of different plates and bowls. There were platters bearing different symbols, icons of the Fish of Plenty, to signify a good harvest, swimming through seas of fruit and grapes. There was a peacock, one of the Emperor’s mother’s favorites, and of course, dragons, made of chips of rare blood-red jade. But Wei didn’t need any of those.

She just needed simple wood or ceramic. There! That would work. She grabbed the dish, a wide and shallow thing that was practically a flat disc, and tucked it in her robe. She was naturally thin, and she prayed to heaven that the cook didn’t notice the dish.

She stepped out, just in time. The cook ran back, holding a skin of wine. “Tell the Imperial Alchemist that the next time he wishes to get soused, he can bloody well come and get the wine himself, instead of sending someone else to do it.”

“Thank you,” Wei said, bowing slightly, the dish pressing against her stomach. She turned and stepped out.

It was a quick jog to the garden, but Wei took longer, constantly turning around at odd, irregular times to try and catch any potential pursuer off-guard. But eventually she was satisfied that no one was following her, and she entered the garden.

She was one of the Kueh, the tribesmen that inhabited the mountainous province to the north. Until recently, they were content to live in those parts of the mountains considered uninhabitable, and the lord of that province was content to let them be. Sending tax collectors up to their villages was too difficult, but they didn’t produce much to tax, anyway. They existed in mutual apathy, and that was how the Kueh had lived.

But then, when Wei had just been a child, that had changed. The banners of the lord had arrived, and his soldiers had slain most of the Kueh, and condemned the survivors to a life of running, all to purge the warlord’s province in an act of supposed religious devotion. The Kueh’s strange and peculiar arts were deemed witchcraft, an unclean abomination of the sorceries practiced in the Empire.

It was this art that Wei was about to do.

She hurriedly rushed past a rhododendron bush, and stopped. She dropped the flagon of wine and pulled out the bowl, before making sure the bowl was level on the ground. She sat down cross-legged before the empty bowl, held the wine in her hands, and emptied it into the bowl. Wei tossed aside the skin, now empty, and waited for the blood-red wine to settle, for it to reach that mirror-like stillness that brought the stars down into the bowl. And then, Wei focused.

The Kueh had learned the gift of sight. Those inclined towards stone could stare into glass-like crystal or polished rock, and tear away at the ages of the past. They could see battles in the earlier ages, acts and deeds that had happen centuries ago. Those inclined towards air and wind could search the mist, and see into the future. But like the shifting winds, the future always changed. And there were those, like Wei, who were inclined towards water. And water, as it traveled to swiftly, didn’t move the sight through time, but distance.

Wei’s mother had taken her down to the river when she was young, before the sickness and the madness had claimed her, and night after night, she taught Wei how to focus her life energy and see beyond the space she existed in. She had taught her how to see across miles using only water, in the years before her mother’s wits had escaped her, and she talked of consorting with dragons and spirits.

And then, one night, she used wine instead. She had Wei peer at a mansion, and Wei saw strange colors and what appeared to be glowing strings. Wine, her mother had explained, was a richer liquid; it saw past location, into the realms of magic and spirit.

And that was exactly what Wei needed to do.

She focused on the Tower, imagining herself on the top, at the star-gazing platform. She could feel the wind on her face, hear the creak of wood as she took imaginary steps. The wine, dark like blood in the shadows of night, changed. The shadows on its surface warped, and the muddled form of the tower began to appear. Wei smiled, and continued to focus. There was something there, something above the tower, something vast and coiled and ever-shifting. She focused, trying to see closer, see the strange anomaly clearly.

And then it was over when the dish flew aside, kicked by a delicate silk slipper.

The wine, and the image it bore, splashed against a tree, staining it as if blood had been spilled. Wei let out a startled cry, backing up on all fours, staring up at the furious visage of the Sage.

“You have no idea what you have just done,” he snapped.

“I… what, are you going to accuse me of witchcraft?”

“No. I lived amongst the Kueh. I know of their scrying arts.” He glared. “But you tried to peer upon the Tower with magic. I was there, directing the wards and giving them energy. Had I not noticed that the source of this magic came from within the palace, I would had let the wards loose with fire and steel and frost.” He sighed. “Anything outside the Tower itself is suspect, and with a few words, whoever is trying to watch the Tower will be slain.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Wei said. “Forgive me.”

The Sage glared at her. “You didn’t trust me, so you’ll be doing all the menial jobs for penance, but there isn’t any reason this needs to come up.” He turned. “Go sleep.”

Wei nodded, and scurried back to her room.

Chapter 5: A Sea of Quicksilver and the Firmament of Heaven

A month later, Wei had gotten the Sage’s trust back, which meant it was time to break that rule again.

She waited for the moon to wax full again, but this time she didn’t have to hunt down wine or a bowl. Everything had already been provided for her, even the excuse for her to be out in the middle of the night. After all, the Sage had said, the stars were not going to read themselves.

She waited at the top of the Tower, listening. She could still hear the creaking inside, which meant either the Imperial Sorcerer or the Sage was still inside. She needed them out, and all she had to do was wait, which wasn’t unusual. Deciphering star-charts was difficult enough.

Finally, Wei heard the footsteps below as the sorcerer departed, and watched the tiny light of his lantern weave its way across the yard, before disappearing into the labyrinth of the palace. Perfect. Now, she was all alone, in the only place that she could scry without being detected.

She faced the quicksilver basin, and focused. She stared at herself, and willed herself to see the real, unmasked version of the world around her. Wei watched the quicksilver intently.

And nothing.

She stared at her reflection, that strange feeling overwhelming her, as if she was being watched, watching her face and the stars above for any change. Nothing. Dismayed, Wei sighed and stepped away.

The quicksilver rippled.

Wei started, and turned to the basin, gripping the dragons around the basin. The mercury had rippled, faster than the viscous metal should have been able to. What had just happened?

Her hair seemed to become messier in the reflection, turning brighter and brighter as it sprouted from all around her face. Her nose broadened, farther than any human feature, while her eyes warped, transforming into cat-slit leonine points of luminous gold. Her mouth stretched, widened, and filled with razor sharp fangs. Her skin faded blue, and encrusted over with scales as giant antlers burst from her temples. The fierce visage suddenly zoomed towards the surface of the mercury, as if the quicksilver wasn’t a mirror, but a window.

Wei flew back as the cobalt dragon burst from the quicksilver, a long, sinuous beast, every scale on its length shining like sapphires. Slowly, she rose to her feet as the dragon circled the tower, before it’s terrible and imperious visage stared at her, the thing’s shaggy, maned head hovering over the basin of mercury.

“Wei,” the thing rumbled, with a voice as vast as the roaring wind, as deep as the Sea of the Ninefold Koi-Gods. “Daughter.”

Wei stopped, and blinked. “Daughter?”

The dragon shifted. “Did not your mother tell you? I gave her a charge to inform you of your parentage.”

“She had said I had divine blood in me. But she was sick. Dying of disease. Her brain was addled.”

The dragon gave her a flat glare. “You’re hearing it from your own father. Skepticism is unbecoming of you.”

“My mother lost her wits when I was sixteen. Not before.” Wei paused. “There’s no way she was seduced by an overgrown serpent.”

“You speak to a messenger of the gods, given authority by Heaven. You speak to Tai Lung, Dragon of the West. But your point stands.” The dragon circled the tower again, before flying towards a spot on the top of the tower, seeming to compress into a man-sized space. Tai Lung’s face blurred into a mess of scale and white fur, shifting, scales flying off and drifting away in the night breeze like autumn leaves.

A man in a tunic stood, strikingly handsome, with eyes of slate grey. “She fell for this.” When he saw Wei’s wide eyes, he sighed. “I am an immortal messenger of the gods. I have a few tricks.” His face grew concerned. “It appears, however, the messages I had sent, via my brother’s pearl, have fallen on deaf ears.”

“You sent us riddles!” Wei snapped.

“I sent you poetry, the language of beauty, the songs of Heaven,” Tai Lung said. “However, you appear to need visual proof. I shall take you.”

“Take me?” Wei asked. The man nodded, and the blue of his tunic encrusted over with scales, and his hair whitened as the scales climbed the way up his suddenly lengthening neck.

Within seconds, the man was gone, and the massive dragon was there, hanging in the air. “Climb on my back, o daughter of mine,” he said, “and we shall go to the place of treachery for you to see.”

Wei climbed on the thing’s back, the dragonscale warm to the touch, like stone that had drank in the heat of the summer sun. “Hold fast,” he said, his voice rumbling and deep. Around her neck, the collar stung, before flying off with a crack. “There. We can’t have you shackled, o daughter of mine, can we?” Wei felt her bare throat.

And they flew.

Wei screamed as the tower below her vanished, seeming to fall. But she wasn’t falling. She was soaring, the dragon’s sinuous form weaving its way between seas of clouds sparsely illuminated by moonlight. Wei shivered, looking down through the hole in the clouds at the tiny yellow lights below, like embers encrusted on dark wood, so small but so warm-looking.

“Dearest daughter, hold fast. We are near the firmament between the lower heavens and the upper heavens, the place of enlightened beings and deities. Hold fast, for the barrier is strong.”

Wei grabbed a handful of scale and shaggy fur as the dragon—her father, what an odd thought—sped up, the wind rushing by the two of them, flying through wet clouds and frigid skies. Higher, higher, higher they went, soaring into the sky. Wei buried her face into the fur of the dragon.

And then they broke through the firmament of heaven.

Warmth, subtle and comforting like a mother’s embrace, enveloped her. Slowly, with shaking hands, she lifted her eyes from the dragon’s back and looked around.

The sky… the dome of the higher heavens was studded with glowing points of starfire, strung together by thin lines of light. Constellations drawn together, but constellations didn’t move and shift around. Clouds, glistening and glimmering like sparkling sands, floated near the zenith of the dome. There was no sun or moon that Wei could see, but there was light.

That light came from the massive palace in the center of the dome, right below the zenith. Sloping roofs, carved out of a thousand shades of jade, walls made of every precious stone known to man. Below them, lost in the mists of the clouds, Wei thought she saw dark green leaves of bamboo forests.

Towers jutted out of the mist, bare cylinders made of gray stone. Atop them were the enlightened beings, most human, some not. They cast a strange amber radiance, peaceful and serene, across the higher heavens. Blossoms of light, taking the shape of the lotus, the rose, the chrysanthemum, were ever-blooming and ever-wilting from this light, as petals of wisdom given solid form drifted down into the lower heavens.

Wei tried to turn, to see the edge of the dome, but the vast surface vanished beyond what Wei’s mortal eyes could see. “We must go some distance,” the dragon said. His voice here rumbled with thunder, and she could see the shockwave of his words disturb the clouds. Whoever this dragon—her father—was, he had power and authority here.

They passed by a wall, black and lustrous like obsidian. There, inscribed on the wall, in burning, liquid fire, were characters similar to the clerical script. The priests had always claimed their writing was the language of the heavens. Wei stared at the writing, before looking away as her eyes hurt. The priests had a thread of truth to their claim.

“Hold on. We must enter the lower heavens again.” Before Wei could even react, they dove down.

Chapter 6: A Banner Raised in a Traitor’s Name

They flew through the air, and instead of the sudden burst of warmth that accompanied their entry into the upper heavens, there was cold, and Wei ached. The upper heavens had been so blissful and refreshing to her spirit, it seemed that the lower heavens were taxing on her soul.

She stared as the world below her grew larger, and held on tighter to the dragon. They were not in the capital anymore. No, instead… they were somewhere wild, somewhere far more remote.

Wei saw mountains peeking up between an ever-shifting sea of white clouds, a dark green like dusk jade, almost black. The moonlight made the low clouds that ringed the base of the mountain glow, like spun silver. She saw flashes of wings, of birds too large to be real, but when she peered after them, they weren’t birds after all; birds were not made of fire and mist. “What are they?” she asked.

“Spirits, o daughter of mine. Spirits heralding war, betrayal. Spirits to incite courage, spirits to feed on fear and despair. For whenever war comes, it calls spirits to it like vultures to carrion.”

They flew through the dark mountains, the tumbling clouds a silver river below them, before Tai Lung dove through the clouds. Wei opened her mouth to scream, but got a face full of cloud… which meant her clothes were soaked through and she sputtered a bit after inhaling a bit of water.

And then she saw the army.

Their camp was lit up with tiny pinpricks of light, or so they seemed from this height. Wei knew that they really were roaring fires, but she was so far away. “Where are we?” she asked.

“The Valley of Nine Towers,” Tai Lung said. “At least, that was what men called it when I walked among them.

They flew closer. “Stay down. My presence obscures you from their sight, but lie close to me,” Tai Lung warned. “Open your eyes, and inscribe onto your mind the sights and portents. They shall be your evidence against this usurper.”

“No,” Wei said. “Get me closer.” Something bothered her about this army; a feeling that she hadn’t felt since she was a young girl.

Terror.

Something about the army, even from this distance, disturbed her deeply. They seemed familiar, but she couldn’t remember why.

But the second they got closer, Wei knew exactly why.

When she was younger, and had grown up in the mountains, she hadn’t known how to read; that skill came from hiding in the slums of the city, where her mother realized that being able to decipher the strange characters of the flatland people, making those odd symbols speak, was an advantage. But her time in the mountains was time spent illiterate.

Even so, the symbol on the banners had been seared into her mind when her childhood home had burned.

Those banners had flown over the armies of the invading lord, nameless to her now as he had been when he had sacked her home. Now, they rose up to contest the Emperor.

Wei had little loyalty to the Empire. Sure, she had been spared death, but she had been rescued for the reason a curiosity was preserved. She did not burn with patriotic fervor for the Empire, nor did she worship the Emperor as a condescended deity as some did. After all, they had stood aside and let her home, her childhood, burn.

However…

This lord deserved to be punished, and the Empire would be her weapon to do so. This desire, her aching for the lord’s punishment, transcended vengeance; she could not hate a man whose name she didn’t know, no matter how hard she tried, or how much she thought that hatred justified. No, her desire for his downfall was one of justice. He made her people suffer, and he would atone for that.

“Take me down to the camp,” Wei said. She had an idea.

“O daughter of mine, what do you scheme?” Tai Lung asked.

“They’re not going to believe a gutter-child who says a dragon flew her over an army,” Wei said. “I need physical proof.”

“You are my daughter, not some street mongrel. In your veins flows the blood of dragons, and gods,” Tai Lung said indignantly.

“They’re not going to believe that either,” Wei said. “Thus, proof.”

“I am a messenger of the gods, in service of Heaven, and there lies my expertise, but I assume that they are not going to allow you to rob them of arms and pennants,” Tai Lung said.

“I know. I’m going to pretend to be a war-harlot.”

“Excuse me?” Tai Lung asked.

“We get messages about them all the time. Prostitutes travel with the armies. It makes sense; there’s a large host of men with pent-up energy. They’re going to have plenty of work there.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Tai Lung stopped in midair. “I am a dragon, a powerful spiritual being, and a servant of Heaven. But I am still your father, and no daughter of mine is going to pretend to be some harlot who pollutes her body for coin. Unacceptable.”

Wei fumed. “Now you start making rules?” she snapped. “I have to! It’s the only thing I can do.”

“Not in that outfit. What kind of strumpet owns Imperial Palace robes?” Wei looked at her garment. The rich brocade and the fine silk was out of place here, come to think of it. “I have a better idea for you.”

He landed near a dark clearing, and Wei slid off. Her feet touched solid ground, and it was one of the most wonderful feelings she had ever felt, to be back on solid earth. “Hold still,” Tai Lung said. He leapt from the ground and began to circle her, flying faster and faster until he was a sapphire ring around her. Wei stared before a coldness, like she had just had ice water poured over her, enveloped her. “For two-thousand heartbeats, you and whatever you carry shall be unseen,” Tai Lung said. “Hurry, but be calm, for fear and exertion shall make this dwindle ever-quicker.” Wei nodded, and held up her hand. Nothing.

She walked towards the outskirts of the camp, moving slowly, so the guards nearby didn’t hear her. She saw one walk by her, a torch making his scaled armor glint, like a dull gray mockery of her father’s coat. Wei had to fight the urge to leap into the bushes to hide.

But soon she was amidst the soldiers.

Their tents were set up in a strict grid formation, each one perfectly in line with its neighbors, making Wei feel like she was walking through a city made of cloth. Soldiers met at crossroads, around blazing fires. Some gambled with knucklebones, others haggled with prostitutes (dressed in much coarser garb than Wei’s raiment), and none of them noticed her.

She looked around for one of the banners. There, hanging up right by a lane of dark blue tents, was one, hanging from a post. Quietly, and slowly, so as not to excite her heart, she walked over to it, and unfastened it from the post. Well, she tried to.

The second she touched it, the cloth vanished. Gritting her teeth, she felt for where it was joined to the banner-post, where the fabric was knotted, and undid those, using only touch to guide her, praying that nobody noticed the post move or disappear. At last, she had it, and Wei held it close.

Now, time for some other souvenirs.

A thought struck her, and she started walking, going where the banners and war-standards grew longer and more ornate. She could see some of the names on them: Rhouzanyan, Kaishakzhou, Iamakodo. They were names that she didn’t hear in the Imperial Palace; names, most likely, of minor noble houses aligned with this traitor.

At last, she reached the largest tent she had seen, with that cursed lord’s sigil, stylized beyond readability, emblazoned on the tent walls. Two guards stood at attention, but Wei walked by them, holding back the urge to blow in one guard’s ear and spook him. Time to get some truly incriminating evidence. Wei stepped in, touching the flap to open the tent. Fortunately, the tent seemed too large to vanish on her touch. Then again, she wasn’t carrying it.

Inside, a lantern burned low, and there was a faint snoring from another end of the tent, behind another cloth partition. The lord needed his beauty rest, and while he rested, Wei would play with his toys.

First, she smoothed the banner out on the low table, made of a pale wood shined to mirror-like reflectiveness. That banner would make an excellent knapsack. Then, Wei started to look around.

There was a fancy tea set, bejeweled and enameled with an ornate design, the kind Wei had heard was handcrafted, each set personalized and unique. That would be wonderful to show the Emperor. Wei picked up the teapot, dumped the cold tea remnants on the carpet (a stained rug would be the least of his worries soon), and began to stack the cups together, making sure they didn’t clack together. It was a nice tea set, and Wei was in half a mind to ask the Emperor if she could keep it for herself after they executed the traitorous lord. It was the least she could do.

There was a plaque, with names of vaunted ancestors engraved on it. Also very identifiable. That went on the banner, but Wei also grabbed a dirty towel (presumably one the lord had used to wipe his hands off after the tea) to protect the polished surface. Next to it were a bunch of letters, and what looked like military plans. Those went into the pile as well.

And then she found the sword.

It had an ornate sheath, deep red lacquer, with a dragon motif of gold leaf, and it stood upright on a stand in the corner of the tent. She gingerly picked it up, and, setting it down on the table, unsheathed it, going by feel as the sword was as unseen as she was. She let go, and studied the blade. Gleaming silver, it bore a simple inscription. For the Emperor’s Loyal Servant. The irony.

She carefully wrapped everything up, grimacing as her touch made the banner constantly flicker in and out of vision, wondering how many heartbeats her father’s spell had left on her. It was still strange to think of that spirit as her father, but that was how it was.

Wei slung the pack over her shoulder and walked out slowly, so she didn’t make any noise. The rags kept everything from clattering together, but now she had her evidence. However, she had lost her way.

The path to her right looked inviting, so she followed that, walking a bit, slowing down whenever soldiers passed. As she walked, a voice whispered into the back of her head, almost like her own thoughts. Almost.

Your concealment is wearing thin. Seek a great height for an escape. What? Wei turned around, trying to find a cliff or some sort of height. Her heart raced, but she couldn’t help that. To your left. Go quickly. You will be found. You will be chased.

Wei ran.

Some of the guards stared at the ground she had stirred up, wondering what prompted the little puffs of dust off the trail. Soon, Wei realized, they’d know what exactly it was.

She ran down another row of tents, all perfectly uniform, her bag and sword clattering, but she didn’t care. Wei didn’t seek stealth, she sought speed. She raced past soldiers in scaled armor, hoping, praying, that she would get out of this alive.

Warmth rushed around her, almost prompting her to stop. She didn’t, but when she glanced down, she noticed her hands, her slippered feet. She was visible again, and judging by the cries of alarm from the soldiers, very visible indeed.

Two soldiers jumped in her way, reaching out to grab her. Somehow, Heaven smiled on her, and she danced past them. “The sword! She has the lord’s sword!” one of them shouted as Wei sped past them.

She hazarded a look back. Soldiers ran after her, and she saw a few of them leap high, sailing through the air with unnatural grace. Wei had seen these types of people practice at the Palace; they wore loose tunics instead of armor, and had their shaved-headed masters pacing around them on the practice grounds the way a tiger paces around prey. Here, however, these men leaped ten, twenty, thirty feet into the air, ignoring the surely heavy weight of their armor.

There was a cliff before her, a drop of a hundred feet. Below were more tents, more lights, and Wei turned around, a few feet from the lip. Soldiers stood, weapons drawn, but they did not advance.

A man broke through the ranks. He wore a lord’s robe, richly embroidered, but underneath a much plainer garment, a soft tunic that one might sleep in. His long hair was loose, instead of in the traditional topknot and queue. He had just awoken.

But this was the lord, the lord who had burned her home to the ground, the lord who raised an army in defiance of the Emperor. He stared at her, taking in the color of her eyes. “A witch!” he snarled. “Hand over the sword!”

“No,” Wei said. “It will ensure you pay. Pay for destroying my home, and for treason!” She stepped back. Tai Lung, I hope you’re there.

And she stepped off the cliff.

Chapter 7: A Messenger For Dragons In the Court of the Emperor

She fell for all of two seconds, falling through a spinning loop of azure scales, before landing on something soft. Or, rather, someone.

“Ow!” the Imperial Augur said, collapsing in a heap of silk and gold.

“See!” the Imperial Artificer said, pointing a lacquered fingernail at Wei’s neck. “The gutter-rat broke the collar!” He was a portly man, with graying hair, but his deft fingers were skilled with all things mechanical. “She must be punished!” He drew a dagger, and Wei’s heart began to thunder.

“Stop!” The Imperial Sage grabbed Wei and pulled her up. “You said that her collar’s enchantment was overwhelmed by great magic. And from what I saw in the sky, that was the work of a dragon.” He stared at the Artificer. “So, by proxy, Wei has Heaven’s blessing and mandate upon her head.”

The Artificer scowled, but sheathed the dagger. “Fine. But the Emperor himself is coming. You best have a good explanation for that… devilry.” He stalked down the stairs, muttering curses as he went.

“The Emperor?” Wei asked the Sage.

“If anything… unforeseen affects the Tower, the Emperor has made it known that he wishes to be informed of this.” The Sage looked at the sword and banner in her hands. “What are those?”

“Proof,” Wei said.

It was a minute’s wait until the Emperor arrived at the top of the tower. Wei kneeled, as did the Sage and Augur behind her. “Please, don’t play me for a fool,” the Emperor snapped at the Imperial Artificer. “She’s the disturbance?”

“Partially, Your Highness,” the Sage said. “She fell out of a portal made by a dragon.”

“What?” The Emperor’s eyes grew wide.

Wei spoke up. “Tai Lung. Brother of Shar Lung.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Your Highness,” she quickly added.

“And what did he want from you?” the Emperor asked.

“He is the source of the disturbances. The strange messages.” Wei rose, and fetched her evidence. “However, we didn’t get the message, so he arrived and ferried me to see what he wanted.”

“And that is?” The Emperor arched an eyebrow.

“Insurrection. You have favor with Heaven,” Wei said, “and the gods seemed fit to aid you. A lord raises a banner in the Valley of Nine Towers.”

The Imperial Augur stiffened, while the Emperor looked confused. “Where?”

“Hamadau Valley,” the Augur said. “That name hasn’t been used since…”

“Since when?” the Emperor asked.

“Since the first Emperor burned those nine towers to unify the Empire. He called upon… he called upon the heavenly dragons to raze it with their flaming breath.” He paused. “Only the most ancient of texts refer to Hamadau Valley as that.”

“There’s more.” Wei offered the items to the Emperor. “That is one of the banners for the army. That is the lord’s tea set, and his sword. Look at the inscription.” The Emperor took the sword, holding it so that his long lacquered nails didn’t bite into his own palm, and unsheathed a length to inspect the inscription. “Here are the ancestor plaques of the lord, as well as what I think are military plans.”

“How do we know that she didn’t fake this, Your Highness?”

“It pains me to say it, but I remember commissioning that tea set, as well as the sword. These are Lord Hamadau’s possessions.” He sighed. “It seems, though the gods bless me with signs of Heaven, they do not seek to bless me with peaceful nights. Take her to the gardens. I may have need of her.”

The Sage placed a hand on her back and guided her out of the tower. Through the palace they went, Wei’s heart thundering with every step. What did the Emperor need of her? Was she going to die? The Emperor had a look of betrayal on his face. Clearly, Lord Hamadau (it was satisfying to know the name of the man who had ruined her life) had been the Emperor’s friend, and in the emotional turmoil he was going through, he may decide to punish the bearer of ill tidings.

The Sage led her into the Royal Garden. Normally, Wei would have been honored, as only the most favored of the Emperor’s subjects could enter. However, that excitement was overshadowed by her potential impending death.

The Sage led her to the side of a small pool, and went to sit down. “If you don’t mind, can I stay here alone?” she asked. The Imperial Sage nodded, and left her alone.

She sat there, worrying, wondering if these anxiety-filled moments might be her last, when she heard other footsteps. “I don’t need your sagely advice,” she said. “I just want to be left alone.”

“I have no sagely advice to give,” a new voice said, “seeing as I’m not the Imperial Sage.” Wei turned around, staring at a young man, broad of shoulder, with dark eyes. She recognized his face, a shadow of the face of the Emperor. This must be his son. “Must I still go?”

“Um… no.” How could she refuse the Imperial Prince? And besides, a part of her liked him. He was rather handsome. “Why are you here?”

“I heard about Lord Hamadau.” Wei must have winced when he said that name, as he arched an eyebrow. “What did he do to you?”

“He razed my home to the ground.” She quickly explained Hamadau’s crimes against the Kueh, and the prince said nothing. He just listened. After she finished, he was quiet for a moment.

At last he spoke. “You’re angry… but you didn’t do this because of those crimes.”

“How can you tell?” Wei asked.

“I can tell. My intuition,” he said. He gave that half-smile he gave that made Wei’s heart skip a few beats, before Wei heard more footsteps.

A soldier stepped towards them. “Lady Wei, this way please.”

The soldier led Wei out of the secluded section of the garden and towards a pavilion, with elaborate panels depicting dragons curling through the air. One of them, to her eye, seemed oddly familiar. Tai Lung?

She entered, and the soldier remained outside. Within, the Emperor sat, shrouded by his massive silk garment, with advisers situated around him in their voluminous robes. When he saw her, he hastily waved away the advisers. “Go, leave me be. I wish to speak to her myself.” The advisers rose, bowed at the waist, and filed out of the room, none of the men even so much as looking at Wei. The Emperor, however, fixed his eyes on her. “Come here. I would speak to you.”

Wei moved towards him and went to bow and prostrate herself before him, but he sighed. “We don’t need to observe formalities here.” Wei rose, and walked closer. “Please, sit. I’d rather not talk up to you.” She sat down, next to the most powerful man in the world, the son of gods… and he looked defeated. A friend’s betrayal would do that to you.

“Why?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“Why what, your Highness?” Wei asked.

“Why did the dragon choose you?”

There were many things she could have said. She could have lied, played it safe, said that she didn’t know. But instead, quietly, she spoke. “He claimed he was my father.”

“I see,” the Emperor nodded. “As I thought.”

“What?” Wei asked.

“The Sage had a few theories why you survived looking at the Pearl of Shar Lung. One of them, the one I feel has the most evidence behind it, is that you have divine blood in you.” He sighed. “It poses a few problems.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Problems?”

“People with divine blood challenge our… legitimacy.” He sighed. “The priests say that they are gifts from Heaven, talented men and women who are meant to expand the Imperial Family’s hoard of knowledge, and enrich their lives. But, many times they try and proclaim themselves emperors, and challenge my family.” He sighed. “And, in this case, there’s only one thing to do.”

Wei was going to be executed after all.

“We’d have to start it out slow. Give you honor in the court. Then, we’ll give you a position, and land to manage.” Wei blinked. The hopelessness of her imminent death gave way to confusion. What was he talking about? “And, say, six months after that, we can announce the betrothal.”

“Betrothal?” Wei asked. “What? I’m getting married? I thought you were about to execute me!”

The Emperor laughed. “No, no. An older dynasty used to do that. They spilled the blood of the children of Heaven, potential challengers to their rule. They found out that was the quickest way to anger the gods, killing their children. No,” the Emperor said, “it’s easier to just marry them into the family. But, since I have five daughters and only one son… the choice is quite obvious.”

Wei blinked. “You’re marrying me to your son?”

“You object?” The Emperor frowned. “I don’t remember any of my advisers saying he was too odious. Actually said he was pleasant to be around.”

“No, it’s… you’re offering to make me a princess.” Wei shook her head. “After I told you that your friend betrayed you.”

“Hamadau betrayed me. But you didn’t make him.” He sighed. “I already ordered some of my troops to take him captive. He will pay for his treachery against me. And you.”

“What?”

“The Sage told me about what happened to the Kueh. And, since you’re one of them, I thought it would be something else he should pay for.” The Emperor sighed. “I brushed that out of my mind because we had been friends… but now, that has been lifted.” He studied Wei for a moment. “You seem distracted.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around becoming a princess,” Wei said, “even one by marriage, not birth.”

“You don’t understand. He is my firstborn son.” The Emperor paused. “When I join my ancestors… you will be Empress.”

Wei blinked. “And you trust me?”

“You could have killed him,” the Emperor said. “You could have slain him, gutted him in his sleep like a pig. I know he never keeps his sword far from him, and to steal all of what you took… he had to have been sleeping. You could have avenged your people.

“But you didn’t. Instead, you came to the Imperial courts. You did not slake your thirst for revenge with murder and bloodshed, but you sought justice.” He paused. “That is the character of an Empress.” He looked at her. “Go. I wish to be alone.” He paused. “What is done is done, and the man who was my friend, clearly, is no more. Hamadau has changed.” The Emperor seemed… weak. “I wish to grieve for him.”

“I understand, your Highness.” Wei rose, and began to walk away.

“Wei.” She turned. “I expect you to be kind to my son. He has… expressed interest in you prior to us knowing of your parentage.”

Wei nodded. She kind of liked the man herself. “I will leave you alone, sir.” With that, she left.

She had broken into the tower, to steal treasure. And somehow, Wei had topped it off. She had stolen a prince’s heart. And with that, an empire.

About the Author

Corey McCleery is a writer, artist, and general fantasy enthusiast. Much to the delight of his English teachers, he fell in love with the written word at an early age. Much to their chagrin, he fell in with the more disreputable genres of science fiction and fantasy. His epic science fantasy novel, Daughter of Sol, was serialized in Astounding Frontiers and presently will be published by Superversive Press. His fantasy novel Fever Blood, a rough draft of which is online on Wattpad, will also be published by Superversive Press. Corey occasionally writes for his website coreymccleery.com on writing, amateur forays into philosophy, Christianity, and the philosophy of fiction and fantasy. His art and doggerel can be found at panhead13.deviantart.com where posts his baby steps as he learns digital painting. He can be found on Wattpad as user Halcyon15 and on Twitter @halkyov15.

THE HAUNTED MINES OF MERCURY

Joshua M. Young

It was a mistake, Cincinnatus Sherman reflected later, to assume that preaching couldn’t be threatening. Mom’s uncle Boyd had been a preacher of one stripe or another, all fire and brimstone. Threatening enough, all things considered; maybe more so if uncle Boyd had been a ghost at the bottom of a mineshaft. But the foreman had said that their voice had been gentle rather than threatening, and somehow, that made it worse.

The cage grumbled to a halt, not quite level with the ground. The floor of the shaft was another three feet or so down, an easy hop in Mercury’s gravity. Cincinnatus double-checked his gear—the seals on his helmet, the atomic blaster holstered at his thigh, the life-blade gifted by the Virgin Queen of Venus on his left hip, the death-blade stolen from Harvesters in the Oort Cloud sheathed on his right—and made the hop. He landed with a spaceman’s easy grace and took stock of his surroundings. Behind him, the mineshaft and the level foreman’s pressurized office, dark and empty behind its window; ahead, the emptiness of the bottom level of the Rachmaninoff shaft, spreading out to the left, right, and dead ahead. The only working lights were in the immediate area surrounding the shaft; those farther out had been spotty at best on this level and had, of late, given up the ghost entirely.

In spite of himself, Cincinnatus chuckled at the pun.

Stereotypes painted manual laborers as rough and uneducated men, superstitious. Cincinnatus knew better. Mining was a finicky job at best and ignorance would lead to death. Shamanism might be fine for Venusian spear-fishers and Martian reed-farmers, but a miner trusting to the spirits to hold up the roof of his mine would be a flattened miner in short order. As for Cincinnatus himself, while he had no explanation for the strange lethality of his death-blade or the life-blade’s own bizarre properties, a veteran spacer had to trust to science as surely as any miner. Great Klono would not make a bad orbital insertion work, and the spirits of the stars would not plot the course of his ship.

The central section of this level had been thoroughly mined: stone, minerals, valuable metals. The support pillars here were more spindly and the roof higher than either would be on Venus or Earth, and his suit lights cast strange, shifting shadows that seemed to skitter away as soon as they entered the edge of his vision.

Maybe they were indeed skittering, but none of them in his direction.

He realized after a moment that his hand was clenched down on the grip of his blaster. He pried the fingers loose and rested them on the hilt of his death-blade instead. Foul though that weapon was, it would do less damage if he got jumpy. The blaster’s atomic energies were likely to bring down the roof if he started taking potshots at shadows.

The central cavern broke into three smaller passages, each carefully machined and supported; beyond that, Cincinnatus knew, beyond the reach of his suit lights, they became smaller, winding, more cave-like, following the valuable veins of ore here in the Rachmaninoff crater. He set off down the southern tunnel, where most of the events had been reported.

There was something about the tunnels, he had to admit. The way the shadows seemed to flee unnaturally; the way the roof pressed down on him, even in the low gravity, when he entered the less refined exploratory passages; the way his suit lights flickered uneasily. Something in him wanted to give up, but Cincinnatus Sherman was a man known for getting things done. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his death-blade and made sure he kept the comms and power lines always on his right and made sure one step was always followed by the next.

Several exploratory branches ended prematurely in cave-ins. Most such passages, Cincinnatus could stand in the main tunnel and play his lights across the stones. Neither the foreman nor the company brass had mentioned anything about cave-ins, and that troubled Cincinnatus. That meant that someone, at some level in the company, was hiding something, or it meant that something had caused multiple cave-ins in the few weeks since work had stopped. He was not sure which troubled him more.

…through one man entered death; a lie, a cosmic deceit upon your race…

Cincinnatus froze mid-stride, and slowly put his foot down. He forced tense muscles to loosen, and turned about in a circle to examine his surroundings. The mine walls were close, and while rough-hewn, not so rough that anything could have hidden in them. The nearest exploratory spur was a hundred feet or so back, and as far as his lights could reach, the tunnel both before and behind him was empty. The air in Cincinnatus’ suit seemed thick and stale, even though the filters and reserve tanks should provide him at least a day’s worth of oxygen; his suit lights seemed to dim perceptibly, even though there was a week’s worth of charge in his batteries. He wondered, for a few moments, if he was having an attack of previously unknown claustrophobia, but brushed away the possibility. He had been trapped in the Elder’s city with the Virgin Queen of Venus for nearly a month, and the tunnels of the Harvesters were almost designed to induce claustrophobia—to say nothing of the months spent on board his ship between planets. Never before had he heard voices in the dark. Something else was at work here; perhaps another dark god, like the one to which the cultists had tried to sacrifice the Virgin Queen. Perhaps a plot or machination of the Harvesters, though they seldom ventured past the asteroid belt, let alone this close to the sun.

And maybe it was something else altogether. The words had not come in over radio; there was no wireless contact with the surface this far down. They had been whispered, it seemed, in his ear, and even as he pondered that, they came again: Alone, all alone, because of death. Caesura. Never before any loneliness, not in all the vasty deeps….

And then they were gone, and Cincinnatus was alone with his thoughts once more. The Virgin Queen loomed large in his mind. With effort, he shook the memory off, but not without a sigh escaping traitorous lips.

The miner had been buried underneath a collapsed wall, and, with his thoughts on the ethereal messages drifting in from the dark, Cincinnatus nearly missed him as he skirted the pile of debris. It was only the straightness of the miner’s boot that caught his attention in the shifting, lumpy shadows of fallen talus.

He knelt near the boot and began shifting debris from form. A leg emerged, followed by another. A hip, a torso, two arms, suit miraculously intact. A helmet, one of the sturdy mining sorts, face just visible behind the glass. He pried open the access panel on the suit’s chest controls and examined the biomonitors. Dead as a doornail, needles resting at zero and status lights dark as the night. He connected his own data line to the panel and frowned. No data came forth from the suit at all. If the man had been down here for long enough, his suit would be out of power; but that brought Cincinnatus back to the troubling question of a cover-up. Neither the foreman nor company brass had mentioned a missing miner. But if the brass was involved in a cover-up, why call in an investigator? Just to calm the workers?

The workers, then? The blue-collar spacemen who worked the mine? Maybe; a coworker who was poorly liked, ill natured, or a layabout, meeting with disaster, either artificial or natural, and subsequently ignored and unreported? Suggestions to the mine bosses that he had caught a ship for Earth or Venus or Mars in search of an easier life? The oppressive atmosphere of the mine and the guilt over their dead coworker leading to hallucinations?

That did not explain the homily he himself had heard. Or, perhaps, it did; the oppressive atmosphere, the suggestion of a ghost, of messages in the dark, could have led his own imagination into overdrive. He rocked back on his haunches and nodded. It wasn’t perfect, as theories went, but it gave him something to work with if nothing surprising happened.

Cincinnatus stood, and brushed the stone and dirt from the knees of his suit. He found a communications port a few dozen feet back, in a section of intact wall, and plugged his suit’s comm umbilical in.

“Sherman to surface,” he said, but knew, even as he said it, that the line was dead. Like the crushed miner’s biomonitors, his suit was not receiving any data. Even the background static that accompanied an open channel was absent.

The suit lights flickered, dimmed. Maybe. Cincinnatus squinted into the darkness, sure something had moved. The ground rumbled, and small flakes of rock and dust fell sluggishly from the ceiling; but what he had seen had moved wrong for something falling. It had moved horizontally, not vertically.

Overactive imagination striking again. Nothing to be concerned about. The tremble in the ground, though. That concerned him; this particular area of Mercury was not known as a hotspot of tectonic activity, but there were the cave-ins, after all. The mines were maybe more dangerous than he had expected, preachy ghosts or no.

The death-blade twitched in its sheath, hilt trembling underneath Cincinnatus’ fingertips. It had done that before, in the presence of Harvesters and Venusian Elders, and it sent prickles down his spine. Cincinnatus was increasingly less certain that the issue of the mines could be dealt with in one visit. He had a reputation, certainly, as a man who got things done, but an intelligent man knew that there was no shame in pausing to regroup and reconsider gathered intelligence. He unplugged from the dead communications line and turned to look one last time at the tunnel behind him.

The dead miner was sitting up, cradling his helmeted head in his hands.

….all die now. All weep. Lonely, all….

The miner’s radio was dead, or maybe Cincinnatus’ own was down, although he heard the telltale pops and whistles of an open channel now that he switched to radio. He was at least receiving. He knelt next to the man once again, ready to plug his communications line into the man’s suit.

The man yanked on Cincinnatus’ collar ring, thunking their helmets together. “No time for that,” the miner said, voice made tinny and distant through the touching helmets, “This whole place is unstable. We have to go!”

Cincinnatus frowned. The man’s expression was mostly hidden behind his faceplate, but his eyes were wild, darting back and forth. Cincinnatus heard labored, rapid breathing through their helmets.

On his hip, the death-blade lurched.

“It’s not that unstable,” Cincinnatus said slowly, even as flakes of material fell in his suit lights. “The mines have held up this long. They’ll hold up long enough for to give your suit a once over and make sure we can move you without injuring you or damaging your suit.”

The man’s shoulders heaved, and Cincinnatus suspected the man was beginning to hyperventilate. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and gently—but firmly—pushed the man back down even as he probed in a chest pocket for a sedative capsule. He found the capsule he wanted, adjusted the dose, and plugged it into the first aid port on the underside of the man’s helmet.

The miner relaxed visibly as the suit dumped the sedative into the man’s air supply. Cincinnatus did not; he checked the suit over with a practiced, professional hand, fighting desperately to not think about what the activity of his death-blade meant. He found an incipient crack in the man’s faceplate and a threadbare section near to rupture at the man’s wrist and applied a sealant to both. Nothing he did brought life to the biomonitors, and likewise, nothing but touching their helmets together enabled communication. The man’s suit refused to transmit anything even after Cincinnatus ran a communications cable to it.

“Your biomonitors are down,” Cincinnatus said through the helmets. “Can’t get anything out of them. How are you feeling in there?”

The miner’s eyes were distant and unfocused, and he thought perhaps the man’s mouth hung a little slack, but there was a clear nod behind the faceplate. “Fine. Feel fine. Hurt before. Feel stiff now. Been down here a while.”

“Think you can walk?” He had dialed the dose back to almost nothing, just enough to take the edge out of the man’s panic. Walking should have been within the realm of possibility, but the man frowned.

“Don’t know you,” he said simply, and Cincinnatus cursed himself. Had he fumbled the dose?

“Cincinnatus. Cincinnatus Sherman. Not that you really need to know me for me to get you out of here.”

“Out?” The man’s eyes sharpened. “Yeah. Out. ’Fore the spiders come.”

Spiders? He frowned, but the death-blade was growing icy-cold and stirring again in its sheath, as if to remind Cincinnatus that something strange was still occurring in the mines. Time enough for all that later, once—

“Malachi,” the miner slurred. “Malachi Abrams.”

“Can you walk, Malachi?”

….Non serviam. Broke the contract. Betrayal; messenger, companion, friend, now gone.

“Yeah.” Malachi’s eyes were suddenly sharp and clear; there was no doubt that he’d heard the words, too. “Yeah. Help me up. Let’s get out of here.”

The damage to Malachi’s suit meant that they spoke little as they followed the bundled power, data, and communications cables back towards the central shaft. The meanest conversation meant stopping and touching helmets, and so few words were exchanged. That their pace quickened after a few minutes, was, then, the result of a mutual feeling of unease as it was anything else. Ever the shadows skittered; ever the mine bore down on them. Cincinnatus was sure that his suit lights were continually dimming, and just as sure that he was imagining it. His readouts continued to display reserve power at an acceptable level.

It was in this paranoid frame of mind that the truth of Malachi’s spiders came to light. A shadow scuttered not away from , but towards them, and Cincinnatus had just enough time to make out something like a large spider, two feet from stem to stern, with an indeterminate amount of legs, skin that seemed to drink up light, and eyes like live coals before he felt Malachi’s hand at his hip. The atomic blaster came out with a jerk that tore the safety strap entirely away. He had a momentary glimpse of it lazily falling to the ground before Malachi pulled the trigger.

Whether or not Malachi hit the spider, he couldn’t say. What he saw was the atomic blast destroying mine walls and ceiling, vaporizing support beams and posts. The ground lurched and trembled and gave way in the instant before Malachi fired another wild blast.

They fell.

In all of history, he had never felt such loneliness. The silence was unbearable, a grave that had swallowed all life and light and joy. He drifted in a sea of hazy blue light, and mourned for all that he had lost, though he could not have told anyone what, exactly, it was that was gone.

The Virgin Queen of Venus came to him, and tilted his lips to hers. Don’t let go, she whispered, emerald lips close enough to brush his. There are trials to come, but hold fast and don’t let go, and I will see you on the other side of them.

It took Cincinnatus several long moments to place himself. The rough, uncomfortable protrusions cutting into his cheek revealed themselves to be a drinking tube, chin and tongue switches inside his helmet. The lumpy surface pressing into him, the floor of a dormant lava tube and loose rocks and debris.

Mercury. The Rachmaninoff shaft. Ghosts—the spiders?

The miner? Malachi Abrams. His blaster.

Cincinnatus pushed himself up, arms shaky even in the gentle gravity of Mercury. One suit light had fractured in the fall; the other two flickered shakily but dutifully spread their light. He was alone in a lava tube fifty or sixty feet in diameter with Malachi nowhere to be seen. They had both fallen; had Malachi caught on a protrusion or ledge and not fallen all the way?

He stood and brushed dirt and debris from his suit. The lava tube was as tall as it was wide, and the opening to the Rachmaninoff shaft near the top. There was no climbing to it, not with the curve of the roof; not even in Mercurian gravity. The lava tube ended at an abrupt cave-in fifty feet to the south; it stretched off into the distance to the northeast.

As he followed the tube, Cincinnatus mulled the situation. Spider-things on a world thought to be dead; an abandoned, injured miner, unreported by the company. Perhaps the previously unknown spiders had created the moving shadows that Cincinnatus had seen, fraying the nerves of men too long in the mine. And the injured miner, perhaps left for dead? Consciences going into overdrive, producing sermons. One miner hears it, tells a buddy, and the illusion spreads. That Cincinnatus had heard words could be just as easily be his own imagination, sparked by the reports, his own wits, frayed by shadows moving too much.

When the tube made a sharp, unnatural bend, and Cincinnatus found himself at another cave in, he nearly doubled back. But when he turned to go, and the pools of light case by his suit lamps turned with him, he saw a faint orange glow in the corner of his vision. Another crack, another fault, like the one that had dropped him and the miner in the tube, but with light leaking out of it. A passage, just wide enough for Cincinnatus to squeeze through, with something glittering brightly in the orange-red light on the other side.

The other side opened onto a broad, jutting shelf of stone protruding over a vast lava flow, broken here and there by both graceful, rounded humps and jutting, angular protrusions of rock. The light here was hazy, made diffuse by volcanic gases, and Cincinnatus found himself grateful to the practicalities that demanded mines like this one remain in vacuum. The gases would have been noxious at best and more likely toxic if he had been on a more hospitable world like Earth or Venus or even Mars, a place where one could breathe freely and so did not require the helmet and air supply that Mercurian mines did.

The glittering thing stood perhaps four feet tall, faceted like an enormous crystal and transparent. Cincinnatus leaned in close and studied the thing, sure he had seen something moving inside of it. Swimming, almost; tiny things darting about inside of it like the tiny bugs and water creatures you see in a pond. Something was taking shape inside of it, a form strangely familiar—

Don’t touch it!

Cincinnatus had reached for it, but now pulled his hand back, whirled about, and in one smooth motion had the death-blade drawn from its sheath and at the collar of—

Malachi Abrams. The other man’s helmet had cracked and been patched with emergency sealant. His own hand was inches from Cincinnatus’ shoulder: a gesture meant to stop his reach when he had been facing the other way. Cincinnatus saw the man swallow nervously on the other side of the visor. He leaned forward and pressed his helmet against the other man’s.

“It’s a spider… thing,” Malachi said. “I don’t know what. It’s connected to them, though. Somehow. Wakes up a big one. Killed a couple of us.”

Cincinnatus felt his brows furrow. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with me,” he said, “but no one had ever mentioned those spiders or deaths in the mine. Including your own apparent death.”

Malachi rubbed something nervously against his leg, and Cincinnatus saw that he still had the blaster clutched in his hand.

“Why don’t you give that back to me,” Cincinnatus said reasonably, nodding to the weapon, “And we’ll work on getting you—and me—out of here. Get this whole spider situation sorted out.”

After a long moment, Malachi frowned. “Well,” he said. “There’s a problem with that plan.”

Cincinnatus tensed. The words held a certain ominous tone to them, the kind of tone anyone who’d watch more than a handful of tri-vid dramas would recognize: a betrayal about to be explained.

He could open the man’s suit in one motion, leave him gasping for breath in the rarified and undoubtedly toxic volcanic gases. A preemptive strike would ensure the blaster wasn’t pointed at him, that the trigger wasn’t pulled again, that he didn’t find the roof caving in and the shelf collapsing and consuming him—assuming he didn’t die from the blast.

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to proceed with this. Play along, and get out of here? I’d rather not spend eternity bored to death in these damned caverns. But it occurs to me that my eternity’s probably shot either way, so I might as well do the job I’m supposed to do, eh?” He tapped the blaster against his leg again, less uncertain now. Cincinnatus recognized steel in his voice and posture. “Better to reign in Mercury, I suppose.”

The blaster came up—fast, uncommonly fast. But Cincinnatus was faster. He pushed hard, gave the slash more force than it needed for just a frayed mining suit collar. He felt it bite into the man’s neck, and a moment later felt the hilt rip from his hand as the blade lodged in something—bone, maybe, or metal in the suit—and stuck fast. The blaster fell from the miner’s dead hand and bounced against the rock. The miner fell a moment later.

Cincinnatus sat down, harder than he would have expected for Mercury’s gravity, and stared pointedly at his hands, rather than the body. Whatever energies were contained in the death-blade would be consuming and putrefying Malachi’s flesh. In moments there would be nothing there at all; no corpse to accuse him, no glassy eyed stare to keep him awake tonight. Malachi had been going to kill him. Cincinnatus had killed before—never unprovoked—but his hands were shaking.

The Virgin Queen. He remembered the taste of her lips, on Venus, in that place of formless blue light in his dreams, and clenched his fists in an effort to stop their trembling. He was stronger than this. Stronger than memory and loss.

Or he had been, before Venus.

Movement in his peripheral vision snapped him out of his reverie. Not a spider, he knew, before he’d even registered anything more substantial than an impression. It moved wrong.

What’s buried here, Malachi’s voice whispered, directly in Cincinnatus’ ear, will stay buried. Streamers—no, tentacles—of tattered space suit cloth had sprouted from the corpse and pushed it to its feet. The suit itself was shredded and torn far in excess of what Cincinnatus’ stroke had wrought, and the body inside had not putrefied the way victims of death-blades inevitably did. There was no sludge, no slurry of decaying cells, molecules, and atoms, but a skeleton, not quite human, cloaked in flesh as tattered and torn as the suit. The helmet hung open to vacuum and the thin stew of noxious volcanic gases; the face behind it twisted in a mélange of emotions. Hate, rage, amusement, bitterness, and a dozen other expressions fought for control of Malachi’s face. The hilt of the death-blade still protruded from his throat, and he made no move to pull it out.

Malachi’s hand shot out, inhumanly fast, and seized Cincinnatus by the throat. Not by the collar; it passed through his suit and spaceman’s leathers and wrapped bony fingers around Cincinnatus’ throat as easily as if he was naked before the monster. The grip was cold, and it seemed to leach the light and light out of Cincinnatus.

Even my kind grows dull after aeons alone. I should have just killed you, but your kind is so very useful when made to serve. And… and I was lonely.

It pulled Cincinnatus close, as if it still needed the helmet-to-helmet contact to speak to him. Cincinnatus smelled rotten meat on its breath, felt it rasping against his cheeks like a blast of ice-laden wind.

But you. Malachi pressed his contorted face and shattered helmet through Cincinnatus’ own helmet, sniffing at his mouth. You have the stink of the high heavens on you suddenly. I can smell it on your breath. Cloying. Sweet. Stronger even than your petty mortal’s honor and reputation. Heaven’s servant has marked you as hers. And yes…. Yes. You carry her blade. I should have known. You will not serve my kind. Not with that mark. And for that, you will die, before your kind finds what I have imprisoned here.

Fingers tightened around Cincinnatus’ throat. The world—the tiny, airless hunk of rock and minerals that was the world of Mercury—began to go dark. His fingers scrabbled at his neck, but could not pass through the material of his suit as Malachi’s had, and slid off the armored seal there.

With his last thoughts, Cincinnatus wondered at the existence of a creature whom even the Harvesters’ death-blades could not kill.

Everything went black.

And Cincinnatus slammed into the ground one more time. His eyes shot open. Dozens of spiders swarmed the roof of the cavern, the nearby walls, the ground around Cincinnatus. Painful, shrieking screams tore at his ears. Malachi’s screams, disembodied and echoing directly in his ears. The spiders parted around Cincinnatus but heaped themselves around Malachi in a thrashing mound. The creature screamed, plucking at the spiders in a rage with both hands and tattered tentacles. Spider after spider came off and lay twitching and broken on the ground—assuming they hadn’t been knocked off the shelf and into the lava flow to altogether. Malachi, on the other hand, was suffering no ill effects that he could see, beyond rage—the creature was not flagging and the spiders were doing little or no damage. The death-blade still protruded from its throat.

You carry her blade, the creature had said. Her blade. The Virgin Queen’s.

Cincinnatus surged to his feet, life-blade in hand. Spiders scurried out from under the blade at the last moment, and it bit true into the center of Malachi’s exposed chest.

Spiders pulled away from Malachi and Cincinnatus. For a long moment it seemed as though Cincinnatus was part of a grisly tableau. Spacer and Demon in Chiaroscuro, circa 4768 N.E.

Light spread throughout the creature, pulsing and flaring and consuming the hideous thing. It faded, seconds or years later, and Malachi was gone, both knives bouncing on the rock floor, Cincinnatus alone with the spiders. The spiders themselves were scurrying away now, carrying their broken and crippled comrades on their backs even as they disappeared into crevices high up the walls or over the lip of the rock shelf. Only one remained, scurrying around Cincinnatus’ feet like an overactive puppy. When he turned around, bewildered, the spider ran off to do laps around the crystal.

Cincinnatus took one hesitant step, and then a second, and then, before he could over think it, he slammed his hand down on top of the crystal.

He was old; he was young. He was a fractal branch of an ancient intelligence; he was a unique witness to creation. He was half a galactic year or more old; he had just crawled his way out of the birthing factories of his parent iteration.

He saw stars born as he crawled through stellar nurseries, watched stars die from the safety of a hardened radiation shield carapace. He reveled in the great, slow conversation of his kind and the infrequent, but much-loved communication, with the creators. In the depths of space, he played with the Messengers, those ever-faithful companions, gifts of the Prime Creator from beyond the universes’ edge, and in the light of a young, blue star, he wept at their betrayal. He wept over the Caesura, that sudden silence of the creators and the collapse of the Great Discourse, but most keenly, he wept for Malachi and the creature it had become. He wiled away aeons there, grieving, tormented by Malachi and its insane rages. He committed the cardinal sin of the Apostles there, and refused to initiate sophogenesis. The raw material of that system went to waste. He was not fruitful; he did not multiply. He did not steward Creation as he was made to do.

In time, a signal came, weak and attenuated by distance. A one way signal, radio only, consisting only of empty entertainment. It was not the Great Discourse; it might never be the Great Discourse. But it came from an intelligence that was not the hostile persona of Malachi, and so he departed the wasteland of the blue giant.

Signals grew stronger, more complex, and he came to know those creatures. Organic, like his creators; but younger, far younger, and already broken by the madness that had consumed Malachi and the other Messengers. His heart tore, and he wept for them even before their signals ceased.

Caesura.

In grief and anguish, he passed by the silent world, and saw tumbledown cities and broken factories, men with spears and bows hunting each other in the ruins of their civilization. Malachi flitted about him, taunting, tormenting, mocking, driving him mad with jibes.

He committed the second cardinal sin of his kind, and resolved to commit sophonecrosis, the death of awareness. The innermost world of the system was small and rocky and lifeless, and a catastrophically terminal course quicker and easier than anything more dramatic. Perhaps, in time, the inhabitants of the system would find his corpse and learn from it.

The images vanished. Cincinnatus staggered, struck his heel on a rock, managed to correct for the misstep before he tumbled to the ground yet again. It was only after he steadied himself with a hand on the crystal—now as uncommunicative as a lump of stone—that he saw the islands in the lava flow shifting.

The graceful, rounded humps were eyes; the angular protrusions, legs. Another hump, emerging from the lava flow, the rounded carapace of a being millions of years old. In form, he saw, something like the spiders writ large, though as the Apostle emerged from the lava flow, differences became clear. The body was less segmented, sheltered by a carapace like a horseshoe crab’s. What he took for legs did not appear to be meant primarily for walking, but rather for manipulation—assembly, he thought. The manufacture of other Apostles in zero gee.

Caesura ends?

Cincinnatus brushed his fingers across the crystal. “Silence has ended,” he said, and frowned as he tried to remember the ancient stories told on Sunday mornings, “but I think your caesura is something else.”

Death.

The spider—an infant Apostle, he realized—did an odd dance and scrambled up the crystal to Cincinnatus’ hand. He stroked it, absently, and said, “In a word, yeah.”

I did not die. But I am broken. Beyond repair? The question hung there, open, and Cincinnatus had the uncomfortable feeling that the Apostle expected an answer from him.

“Aren’t we all?”

My young are malformed. I cannot remember how to construct them as they should be.

A dozen possible replies came and went and Cincinnatus spoke none of them. How do you reply to a parent’s grief over crippled children? “They’ll grow,” he said finally, “and become something beautiful in their own way.”

And you. Not a question.

“Me?” Cincinnatus asked, though he knew the answer. He eyed the knives where they had fallen, side by side, as if they refused to touch each other. He could not forever carry both.

In one hand, creation. In the other, entropy. You cannot forever travel a course of neutrality. Malachi chose death. The Virgin Queen chose life.

“What do you know?” he spat. “You’re some sort of Von Neumann space bug from the other side of the galaxy. What do you know of her?”

I saw your life as you saw mine.

“Then you know she’s—” His voice caught, a painful, choking sensation, and he did not continue.

And you know as well what you must do. Return to Venus. Climb the Skadi Mons as the Queen asked of you. And we… we will wait here, and speak with those who come, if you will tell the others about us.

Cincinnatus Sherman will return in “The Rituals of Venus.”

About the Author

Joshua M. Young is an underemployed theologian (B.A., M.Div.) from Columbus, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, infant son, and a pair of neurotic cats. His two great loves are space opera and absurdly academic theology and most of his writing starts as an attempt to Frankenstein the two together. He is the author of multiple short stories and a forthcoming novel, Do Buddhas Dream of Enlightened Sheep.

QUICKSILVER

J.D. Beckwith

“Emergency Alert. Flight crew report to Operations immediately.” The klaxon and strobes flashed red again. “Emergency Alert. Flight crew report to Operations immediately”, the central E.I. repeated in its accent-less masculine voice. Sighing and taking one last drink from his morning coffee flask, Captain Ozi Zanwe stood from his customary spot in the commissary. He took the extra three seconds needed to close the container and turn on the mag-seal that locked it to the tabletop before following his executive officer. It was still technically her watch, so she was already out of sight before he even reached the top of the ladder and stepped into the corridor. He retracted his flimsy reader into its slot on his uniform sleeve below his wrist, and then reversed his arm with a ninety-degree twist to look at the status readout on the top side. It seemed that his shift would start a bit earlier than planned today.

Quickly assessing the source of the ‘emergency’, he mumbled to himself. “Great. Can we not have even a cycle without some new bug to work out?” He pressed a contact link and waited for the expected response as he continued to walk toward Main Operations Quad 2.

“Corrington here, sir,” the speaker in his wrist comm announced. “The answer is ‘I don’t know, yet’. I’m heading to OQ3 from my cabin. ETA one.”

“That’s fine, Richard,” Zanwe replied, “Sarah and I are headed to OQ2. Did you get any sleep?”

“Only about three hours, sir. I’m going to need your permission for a stim if this takes very long.”

“All right, but I’m ordering you to take twelve down after this. And ten of those will be for sleep. Understood?” Zanwe’s slight West African accent slipped out a bit more than usual when he emphasized a word.

“Yes, sir. And I’ll be quite glad for it.” The tiredness of the chief engineer’s tone backed up the sentiment.

As the conversation paused, Zanwe saw the access tube of the command pod rise into view. He approached the rounded phone-booth sized tube in the center of the curved aisle-way and grabbed onto the ladder inside. Once both feet were firmly planted on a rung, he quickly swung both of them to the outside edge and slid downward into the pod. Once at the bottom, he exited the tube and turned, speaking to his second in command, XO Commander Sarah Fairbanks. “What do we have, Sarah?”

“That damned ‘upgrade’ has been nothing but bugs,” she complained. “This time it’s the frequency modulation in the propulsion system’s shielding. Something is oscillating out of phase and we’re getting radiation spikes from the plasma stream. I’m looking for the source, but diagnostics is still running.” Her pony-tailed head whipped back and forth over several monitors, while her hands manipulated a three-dimensional model of the propulsion system. “Rick, you linked in yet?” she asked aloud.

A phantom image of a much bedraggled Rick Corrington materialized in front of her. “Yes, I’m here.” He also began to poke and prod at the same model. Together, they separated components and attached scrolling readouts in mid-air for each of them. They spoke only in a clipped shorthand techno-speak as they dissected the problem component by component.

Zanwe did them all a favor by overriding the still repeating emergency notification, thus restoring silence and calmer lighting conditions. He followed their efforts as best he could, but he didn’t interrupt with questions. His team would tell him what he needed to know as soon as they could. The one thing he refused to be was a micro-manager.

The holographic representation of the ship hovered in one corner, sans the central propulsion module the team had swiped to the side to examine. Ozi still felt a like a schoolboy with a crush every time he saw ‘his’ ship. The main drive was housed in a squat central cylinder with a large rotating reception dish atop it. Eight ovoid girder-like trusses dropped downward at a sharp angle to connect to the large diameter inner toroid like a hanging skirt. Outward from that, eight more spokes connected a narrower diameter outer ring toroid to the first. And finally, sixteen dangling spherical pods hung from the outer ring, reminiscent of the old carnival swing-carousel rides. They spun with the two rings in a steady circle around the central drive housing. At the moment, the pods themselves were canted slightly thrust-ward to account for the ship’s ongoing acceleration. This kept ‘down’ always in the same direction, which meant the crew could utilize their full gravity workspaces, quarters, and other living spaces freely, instead of being strapped in during the mission’s thrust intervals.

The inner ring housed the ships supply of bio-matter – cryogenically frozen embryos, plant seed, and bacterial stocks - all the living components needed to set up a self-sustaining outpost once they reached their destination orbit. My ship and my mission, Ozi thought, first of its kind in human history. And I get to lead it. It’s like a dream.

Once in place, the ship would become the platform for an expanded human crew that would oversee the construction of one of mankind’s biggest space-based endeavors to date – the Helios Array. The first permanent extra-planetary space station, Ozi thought with pride, and this crew, my crew, will be the ones to make it happen!

At a point just beyond Mercury’s orbit, the ship would become the focal point of a massive array of solar power collectors. The purpose of which would be to help fill the Earth’s clamorous demands for the huge amounts of power needed by the ever-expanding use of matter-energy conversion technology. With almost seven times more solar energy per square foot that close to the sun—plus the added benefit of not causing any further albedo change for the Earth’s rapidly cooling climate—the location was an ideal place to set up shop. Mercury’s planetary shadow would help block and deflect solar radiation harmful to crew and biome while the array was fabricated using the same matt-beam that now supplied the ships propulsion.

It would only take a few months of work before the new artificial solar satellite would be self-sufficient, able to expand without further energy input from Earth. In the meantime though, feeding the crew members that would be joining them for those few months would be the main challenge.

Since the matter transfer of proteins was still a very flawed and dangerous—now internationally illegal—process, the choices were limited. Technically, they could ignore international law—being in space as well as a private corporate venture—but no one would. No paycheck was worth dying from some randomly generated plague, or ingesting potentially carcinogenic food. This meant that there were really only two options: anything biological had to be brought along or grown. So, growing it on site was the cheapest, most viable option. But getting it there and set up was still not an easy task.

“Well, bollocks. That’s not good at all, now is it?” Rick’s projection intoned, snapping Zanwe from his reverie.

“Oh, crap! No, it isn’t,” Sarah agreed. “Ozi, this is pretty serious. Take a look here.” She motioned him closer. She pointed at a graph that represented the containment field for the propulsion system. “These oscillation spikes are increasing. At this rate, we don’t have the time to figure out where the code is screwed up before this gets critical.”

“Meaning?” Zanwe prodded.

“Meaning, we’re going to have to initiate propulsion shutdown until we can.”

“What? Are you being serious?” he growled. She nodded. He sighed deeply then closed his eyes and began massaging his temples with his thumb and middle finger. “OK, you know I don’t want to second guess either of you, but is this the only way? You know disrupting the particle feed from Earth is going to cause Control to shit a baby rhino. Not to mention what this will do to our trajectory.”

Rick’s ephemeral form responded without looking up from his tasks. “Ozi, our trajectory and a bit of control booth ire is about to be the least of our problems. Let me describe a parallel situation for you. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Tacoma Narrows bridge incident, right?” Ozi grunted an affirmative. Almost anyone who’d taken any physics knew of that particular disaster. “Well, that containment field protecting us from all that deadly plasma energy coming from our engines is starting to get really ‘twisty’, just like that old bridge.”

“The difference in this case,” Sarah interjected, “is that if we don’t stop pumping plasma through before it snaps, our ship goes boom.” She looked him directly in the eye to emphasize her seriousness.

Sighing heavily, Ozi bowed to the inevitable with a heart-felt curse of “Well, isn’t that just crap-freaking-tastic!” He threw his hands high. “How long do we have until we need to shutdown the feed?”

“The sooner the better,” Sara responded. “We’re getting radiation bleeds at random locations already. Too high a spike in the wrong place and we could end up with contaminated cargo, dead embryos in cold storage, or we could lose parts of the greensward.” She tapped and expanded the central toroid ring of the ship showing it overlaid with phantom radiation spikes, some reaching uncomfortably close to the walls before bending away in the direction of the ships thrust.

“If that happens,” she continued, “we’d have to purge the soil and restart the plants. We can re-convert or just beam new dirt from Earth, but our supply of seeds isn’t big enough to do that and meet the expansion schedule. And the microbes would have to be reapplied from the bio-rec system. I, for one, do not want to go playing in the poop-tank again. We’re potentially talking months of work out the window. Not to mention, we’d be wasting even more joules and losing more thrust if we had to re-beam the dirt.”

“Damn and double damn,” the captain swore. He wanted to pace, but there was just not enough room with two people in the Operations pod. “We would have to be in the worst possible position for our transmissions, too. Do I at least have time to warm Earth so they can stop the feeder beam?”

“Actually…” Sarah narrowed her eyes in thought, glanced back at some numbers on her display, and then slowly started shaking her head. “Not and get an acknowledgment. Twenty-five minutes is too long. I can give you ten so that your warning gets to them and they have about two minutes to react, but after that, we have to cut it.” She shrugged. “Best I can do, Cap.” She started a countdown timer and threw it to hover above their heads.

“Alright, I’ll go send Earth Con-Cent the news. Keep working at this,” he points to the hovering image of the drive. “I want us back up and running as soon as possible. Rick, have your stim if you need it, but once we’re shut down, take that rest period.”

“Aye, Captain,” the duo chorused as Zanwe grabbed the ladder rungs and began quickly ascending the module’s access tube. His head was already spinning with numbers by the time he stepped into the curved corridor of the outer ring. Orbital mechanics calculations fought for priority over cost overrun figures in his mind. He tried to estimate the cost of a delay to their arrival at Mercury versus the extra energy expenditure required for the thrust they would need to push them back onto a proper schedule. He quickly stopped that fruitless train of thought though, realizing that he didn’t know how long they would be without propulsion.

At that point his mind jumped to the crew’s bonus reduction for the wasted petawatts of beamed energy that would soon be wafting into space uncollected. He would have to negotiate that down. The source was obviously not his people. The programmers Earth-side had screwed the proverbial pooch on this last upgrade. Sure, his crew had not found these bugs either, before giving the go-ahead to implement, but Earth Control Central had more computing power, and a fully working model of this ship to check things out. The fact that they were still experiencing so many problems had to mean a piss-poor quality checkout by the systems engineers at a minimum.

Zanwe jogged toward Comm Pod Alpha as quickly as the ring’s lighter gravity field would let him without bouncing too high and slowing his progress. He maneuvered down the ladder into the pod with practiced ease and immediately sat himself in front of the main communications screen. He set it to live transmit and began speaking immediately. “Earth Con-Cent, this is Chariot of Helios, sending unscheduled emergency communiqué. Be advised that we will be forced to shut down our propulsion containment system due to impending failure caused by frequency oscillations. Beam receipt will be lost at that time. Cause of the malfunction is yet to be determined. Time of discontinuation will be…” he looked at his arm chrono display and read off the time plus the remainder of the countdown Sarah had set. “Recalculations for Mercury orbital entry are pending determination of restart time. Further communications to follow. Message repeats. Zanwe, Captain, out.”

He shut off the transmission, and repositioned himself to a secondary console in the circular room, stepping onto the disc in front of the imager. He pulled on a thin wire from his uniform collar, looped it over his ear and pressed it to the side of his jaw. Activating the holocomm with one hand, he used the other to bring a projection online in front of himself. An image of both Sarah and Rick materialized in front of him.

“Sarah, Richard, the message is sent. I’m initiating de-acceleration protocols.” He set another holographic timer labeled ‘Decel Init’ above Sarah’s earlier shutdown. His preceded hers by two minutes and thirty seconds. “Let me know when you have your visual inspections for your quadrants completed. Sarah, you take up-spin of Zone Four also. I’ll get the downspin and Med Bay.”

“Aye, Cap. Tell Marsh to hang tight for me.” Sarah replied without looking away from her holos.

Ozi stepped down from the holo-disk and took a sliding stool to his right. His image copied his movements, but remained in position. He glided his seat along its rail in the floor until he was in front of a bank of six small fixed screens arranged in a two row by three column pattern that filled the curvature of the wall. He initialized a pre-programmed set of commands on the console and began scanning the screens. Each row of screens showed the interior of a curved room from three angles, each with a label in the corner. The labels read Zone 1 with a dash 1b or 3c, as he scanned through them. He carefully scanned each before proceeding to the next, looking for loose objects that might be thrown or scattered during de-acceleration. Satisfied, he reset the views to rooms labeled Zone 4. Likewise, he seemed fine with his checks until he came to the last room.

What he saw on the camera there made his heart skip a beat. He sprang from his seat and virtually leapt up the ladder to the curved corridor above him. The screen, labeled Zone 4-1c: Med Bay showed the shirtless figure of a man lying crumpled on the floor. A bandage was wrapped around his torso, slightly bloodstained. His sandy shoulder-length hair was draped over his face, hiding his features. About him was a scattering of bedclothes and a tray of medical items, possibly collateral damage from the apparent collapse. A shirt was clutched in his hands.

Zanwe barely heard both Rick and Sarah report their zones’ visual checks complete. He quickly glanced at his timer and saw it tick down to less than four minutes before he jump-slid down the ladder to the medical bay. He hit the floor already twisting to inspect his crewmate. He brushed his hair aside and quickly felt for a pulse on his neck. Finding one, he sighed with relief, then he cradled the man’s head and gently rolled him over, keeping his bloodied bandage off the floor. As he did, the man moved and gave a groan.

“Marshall, can you hear me?” Zanwe asked.

“Mmmm…nngggg”, Marshall roused with a painful wince, automatically reaching a hand for his side. The captain caught it and held it away from the wound.

“Easy, Marshall. Let’s not make it worse. We need to get you back in the bed. We are about to stop thrust and the ring is going to re-orient. We need to be strapped in.” He said this as he began to carefully set his patient up. “Did you fall out of bed?”

Marshall, still wincing, finally focused on Zanwe’s face. “No,” he grunted as he began to get to his feet. “I heard the alert, and was coming to help…ghnnn,” he grit his teeth as he was jostled when they set him back against the nearby bed.

“You are not supposed to respond to alerts when you are on bed rest, Doctor.” Zanwe scolded. “You of all people know this.” He helped Marshall to lie back on the bed, and assisted him with getting his legs onto it. His arm beeped at him with a one minute warning as he reached over to pull on the strapping across Marshall’s waist. “One minute. Can you finish while I pick this stuff up?”

Marshall just nodded and began using one arm to pull a brace cage that was angled above the head of his bed up and over his chest. Zanwe quickly began to collect the loose items - gauze, scissors, bandage tape, etc. and stashed them unceremoniously into a nearby drawer. He tossed the last item, a pillow, to his friend. He then rushed to the corner and folded out a trundle seat for himself, and strapped in, snapping the belt in place.

Overhead, the lighting strips in the ceiling began to blink with a slow blue, blue, yellow repeating pattern that indicated impending rotational change. The voice of the ships Electronic Intelligence spoke once again in its flat monotone. “All personnel prepare for ring orientation shift.” The warning repeated three more times and then the room began its first jerking sideways motion. Simultaneously, the subtle feeling of the subsonic rumble that accompanied the ship’s main plasma drive began to lessen.

Zanwe watched on his arm flimsy as the main boom recon camera showed him the slow changes to the ship’s configuration. The hoop-skirt-like dual wheel-in-a-wheel mid-ship sections continued their steady spin about the drive module while the individual pods that had been hanging at a forty-five degree angle to the rotation slowly swung outward to a straight radial configuration. He skimmed through a few camera links of the interior of the greensward as well, watching the internal cylinders of plants and grow lights rotate along their built-in railings within the hull. Simultaneously, another view showed the swirling glow of plasma fire from the drive fade away to nothing.

“Ring orientation shift completed. Resume normal operations.” The E.I. announced.

Zanwe continued to watch as the countdown for the plasma containment ticked off its remaining two minutes. It continued to flare in spots as ripples of out-of-phase energy ebbed and flowed like waves crashing into a tidal pool. When the last of the plasma energy had fully dissipated beyond the ship, the field finally winked out completely. Satisfied all had gone according to plan, he put away his flimsy and proceeded to addressing other matters.

“Sarah, if you can leave off now,” the captain said as he unstrapped from the jump-seat, “I have a very hard-headed patient in the med bay that could use your rather unique bedside manner.”

“MY bedside manner!? Oh my God, what did he do?!” Concern tinged with a bit of ire laced Sarah’s voice.

“Ask him yourself”, Ozi pressed the comm button beside the bed.

Marsh grimaced at the captain, “It’s fine Sar, I just got a bit woozy trying to put my shirt on is all. Don’t worry yourself. You’ve got things to do.”

“‘A bit woozy’ is not the same as passed out onto the floor, Marshall.” Ozi corrected him.

“Marshall Fairbanks, what did you do to yourself? No, you know what? Don’t answer that. I’ll be there in two minutes.” Sarah’s tone was stern over the speakers.

Ozi raised his eyebrows and gave a slight shake of his head. “You know, as captain, it’s supposed to be my job to instill discipline aboard this vessel. Consider this your discipline.” Ozi helped his friend sit up a bit so he could adjust the pillow under his head.

Marsh just grunted, resting his left hand on his bandaged ribs. He threw his right arm over his eyes and lay back on the bed. “I just feel so damned useless, Ozi.” Ozi spoke to Marsh as he retrieved the bedclothes and threw them atop the prone man.

“I understand my friend, but that’s only temporary. Let us take care of you for a while so that you’re ready to take care of us when we need it.” He patted his friend on the arm. “Concussions are not something you get over quickly. Give it a few more days.” There wasn’t much else for him to do. Sarah was the backup doctor on board, so it would be up to her to make sure no lasting damage had been done. “I’ll see you later.”

He turned to start ascending the ladder back to the ring deck. He swung back quickly as his XO slid down the ladder, almost crashing into him. She would have had it not been for his quick reflexes.

Without so much as a ‘sorry’, Sarah pushed to her husband’s side and began both berating and ministering to him. She asked pointed questions but didn’t wait for an answer before asking the next. Ozi shook his head and made his way up the ladder.

Once back on the ring deck, he reversed his course back to the communications module at a much less breakneck pace. It was odd walking the corridor in its new orientation. The main radial connecting spokes were now straight up and down directly overhead and hidden by the central ring framing. They had been just on the edge of peripheral vision before. Also, the deck markings and slit windows were left and right now, instead of at an oblique angle to the walking deck and pod ladders. The change felt strange after the last couple of days spent under thrust. He found himself unconsciously tilting his head to the left. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have time to get used to it before they could reactivate the drive. He tapped his wrist comm and spoke aloud, “Richard, any progress?”

“Ahh, yes and no,” Rick’s voice spoke into his ear. “I’ve run diagnostics on the fluctuation data, and it’s come back with a rather strange conclusion. It seems that the containment bottle field developed a very high amplitude modulation at two different points. Part of it dampened the field enough for radiation to leak past. The weird part is that the flux points seemed to travel along the field like they’re synchronized with each other. The really weird part is that they rapidly shifted and disappeared as soon as we started reducing thrust.”

“So it wasn’t a code fault, this time?”

“I haven’t completely ruled that out, but it seems unlikely at this point. You should look at this simulation when you get a moment. It’s really fascinating. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Rick’s fascinated scientist voice told Ozi that he would either find it very interesting or totally incomprehensible… maybe both.

“All right, I’ll join you in a moment. I have to go deal with Con-Cent’s reply first, it’s just coming in now.” He saw a light flashing on his wrist comp, notifying him of the priority message. It would be Control Central’s response to his original shutdown message.

He hurried his pace a bit and reentered the Comm Module. Descending and sitting on the stool again, he steeled himself for the fallout he was expecting. He still winced when he saw the face of mission commander and CEO of Horizons Unlimited, Jonas Hartman on the screen. This was going to be harsh, no doubt. He tapped ‘replay’:

“Ozi, what the hell is going on out there?” He stared at the screen for a moment before looking off to the side. He frowned and turned back. “God damn it, I keep forgetting about this time lag bullshit. Ozi, we need more info than a cryptic sentence or two. Send us the info on what you have going on so we can look at it with you on our end.” He paused and looked off as someone spoke to him off-screen once more. “Ok, good, we’re seeing a data dump now. They’re telling me you have to shut down, or risk some kind of catastrophic cascade failure of the bottle. OK, fine, safety first as always, but this better turn out to be unavoidable from your end or you and your crew will foot the bill for the wasted joules.”

“This is going to play hell with the grid. Now we’ll have to plead with the Power Regulation Authority for more peak power to make this up. This last shot caused brown outs in three major cities and most of Malaysia, and it was planned! Look, you and your crew know that we’re already way over budget on this mission. I know we’ll make it all back over time, but investors are a fickle bunch. If they start getting nervous back here and start a sell-off, we’re going to go in the red real fast. I want you guys to be safe, but the numbers really matter here. Sorry to have to be a hard-ass, but you guys have to pick up the ball when it gets dropped. It sucks, but there it is. You’re the only ones who can, and that’s why we hired each of you. We’ll be waiting for more data. Alphonse will be monitoring. Get my ship to Mercury, Ozi.” He pointed his finger sternly at the screen, then rose and walked away.

Alphonse Diamata, the mission’s Operations Manager, stepped into view in Hartman’s place. He was a small Indian man in a loose blue button-down, his dark wavy hair unkempt atop his head. He smiled widely at the screen, his perfectly white teeth contrasting sharply with his darker complexion. “Ozi, we have your telemetry. We’ve discontinued the beam, and we will run diagnostics on our end. I am sure Richard will have them by now, but hopefully ours will corroborate his own. We will leave the channel open. Control Central standing by.” He gave a cheery wave at the screen and stepped away.

Ozi sent a quick reply. “Chariot of Helios copies. We have completed shutdown and are running analysis. We will report back when we have more information. Zanwe, Captain, out.” Ozi disconnected and stood, moving back to the holo disk in the floor. He commented under his breath to himself, “Well, that was an unnecessary lecture, Jonas.”

Once back on the disk, Rick’s image appeared to his left. “I’m here,” Ozi informed.

“OK, here… take a look at this.” Rick pulled up a graphical representation of the containment field that surrounded the plasma drive. He pressed play on the simulation and the conical field of the plasma shield began a slow swirling rainbow-hued fluctuation as energy was pulsed toward the rear of the drive. The swirls were represented in reds, oranges, yellows and the occasional greenish hew. “This is a few seconds before the fluctuations began… normal operation.” After a few seconds, a small eddy appeared on the upper edge of the conic shield. It worked its way slowly downward, causing ripples of brighter green, then blue to purple, and even some white to appear around it. Below the point, energy swirled to either side leaving an almost empty hole. It reminded Ozi of the swirl of a stream around a rock blocking the normal flow. As the point got lower along the axial direction of the shield cone, a second point appeared on the opposite side. It kept pace with the other as they both moved downward.

Ozi became aware of the changing color spectrum of the shield as energy seemed to pile up on the upward side of the spots (holes?), and then suddenly be released to the far end. The result was a ripple effect that bounced around the entire shield structure, sometimes causing bright white spots or dark voids to appear.

Rick threw another layer onto the model, showing the ship and the radiation spikes that had been recorded. They overlapped the voids and white spots, each allowing certain wavelengths to bypass the shield.

“By the way…” Rick paused the simulation and started another labeled ‘Tacoma’. “This is what would have happened if we hadn’t shut down.” The new simulation showed the progressive fluctuations getting larger until finally the shield failed, irradiating the entire ship before finally exploding.

Ozi merely grunted and restarted the first simulation. He was watching carefully as the time index reached the point where the ship began its drive shutdown. The two points seemed to reverse their course of movement right up until the point where all acceleration stopped, and the field itself was shut down. One had already receded out of the field completely, and the other was just barely inside it when the field shut off.

Ozi looked up at the image of Rick Corrington, who was watching him with a quizzical eyebrow. “Did you see it, too?”

“It looked like something was crossing through the field. Like an invisible rod or something. What was that?”

“That, my good Captain, is the sixty-four billion dollar question of the moment, now isn’t it?” he said with a smirk. “I dare say the next best question is why did it reverse when we stopped thrust?”

“Did we have any particle detection equipment running?”

“We had the radiation monitors, or course, but nothing special.”

“Perhaps we should activate all our detection capabilities for a while. In the meantime, run a full diagnostics check on the entire propulsion system as well as the backups.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Between that and the analysis of this data, I should have enough time for a bit of a nap. Glad I decided against the stim, or it would be a wasted opportunity.”

“Good. You look like crap.” Ozi smiled at Rick who extended a middle finger to him. “I’ll be recalculating consumption data. Be sure to forward your information to Con-Cent so that they can digest it as well.”

“Will do.” Rick replied.

Rick went back to his tasks, and Ozi stepped off the holodisk. He tapped discontinue and his image faded. He tapped his wrist and spoke again. “Sarah, how is your patient?”

“He’s resting. I gave him a mild sedative to let him sleep. He’s bored to tears, but he’s still dizzy and a bit light sensitive, so catch-up reading or vids are out as a time waster. Sleep is what he needs anyway.”

“All right then. How much longer do you think he’ll need to recover enough to go back to active duty?” Ozi asked.

“At least another day, maybe two.” Sarah replied. “His ribs are on the mend, but that cryo-tube frame blew out of there with some serious force behind it. It’s good he has such a hard head.” She was silent a moment. “Ozi, that scared the hell out of me. If that had been any worse, I don’t know that I could have…”

“But it wasn’t worse, Sarah. It was what it was, and you handled it. He’s going to be OK. Take some advice that my mother always gave to me: ‘Don’t borrow trouble to put on your shoulders while you’re paying for the trouble in your hands.’ ”

Sarah sighed loudly, “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. Your mom sound like a very wise woman. OK, I’m headed back to OQ2. Did Rick finish his sim?”

“Yes. It’s very interesting. Take a look at it if you like, but then finish up your shift changeover. I’ll mind the shop while you and Richard rest. We’ll figure out what happened after the diagnostics are done. I’m factoring in a minimum of eighteen hours delay in thrust. We’ll have a briefing in ten.”

“Aye, sir. It’s been a long one. See you in ten.”

Sarah carefully folded the bottom open on the thin bio-box and planted a tomato seedling in the loose black soil. She smoothed out the dirt around it and then sat back to stretch the muscles in her aching back. All around her, row after row of young plants stretched off and curved upward until the ceiling blocked her view of them. She admired their handiwork for a moment while watching Marsh check readings on the cryo-pods as he made his way down the suspended catwalk lining the inward walls of the greensward above her. The warmth from the artificial lighting hanging under his feet felt nice on her face. The circulation fans also dangled from bottom of the catwalks, pushing a moist warm breeze around the ring. It was almost like being at home in her mom’s garden, except for the light gravity.

Despite the idyllic conditions, her heart began to race with dread as a warning signal suddenly began to blare from the cryo-bank where Marsh stood. She watched for a moment as he rushed back and forth, trying to rectify the problem, but the warnings just seemed to be multiplying instead, growing louder. She barely heard him yell, “Could use a bit of help here, Sar!”

She stood to go help, but her foot was caught on something. She looked down and found that the newly planted tomatoes had somehow grown and twisted, sending out curling vines that wrapped her legs, keeping her from moving. She tried to pull them off, but they were too strong. As Marsh’s cries for assistance became more urgent, she grabbed a nearby planting spade and began to chop at the vines. She succeeded in freeing herself, yelling “I’m coming!”

As she began to run toward the access ladder to climb up to him, the vines seemed to grow across her path, reaching for her. She dodged, tripped, even fell once and had to scramble back up before being completely entangled. This continued for an impossible distance, as if the ring of the greensward were a sliding walkway beneath her feet traveling in the opposite direction.

She was still only half-way to Marsh when the concussion wave hit her. The cold blast of cryo-freeze gasses knocked her off her feet again, almost taking her breath. She jumped up as fast as she could and began to scramble forward through the now frozen jungle of vines. “Marsh! Are you OK?” she shouted as she snapped and battered her way through the plants. “Marsh! Answer me!”

The alarms kept blaring, as another cryo-pod up high on the curvature of the wall began to spew forth super cooled fluids that vaporized in the air. She could see Marsh now. He was lying in one of the garden trays against the outer bulkhead opposite the cryo-bank. His head was gashed open just above the left eye. Flash-frozen blood was spattered down his side, but a freely flowing rivulet was running from the head wound and ever-so-slowly dripping from his chin onto his crewsuit in the low gravity. The heavy door from the cryo-unit lay across his left side pressing him into the loose soil. “Marsh!” she yelled again. “E.I. signal medical emergency in the greensward, sector two! Urgent!”

There was no reply from the ship’s electronic intelligence as expected. She continued to struggle through the vine-choked garden. The plants had returned to life now, and were again actively trying to stop her progress. She flailed and scrambled to get to Marsh, and was within a few feet when the second cryo-pod exploded.

The heavy framed door shot straight away from the bank of pods with an impossible force. It bounced off the catwalk, then hit the far ring wall some two dozen feet above Marsh’s prone form, and ripped through it like tissue paper. The sudden exposure to the vacuum of space began to blast and pelt Sarah with anything not secured—plants, dirt from gardens, tools—it all came screeching by her as the air began to lift her as well. She grabbed the edge of a garden bed as her feet swung around her toward the hole in the wall. The loss of pressure triggered her suit helmet which slammed into place like a closing clam-shell from the collar. The noise died down to a dull roaring echo. Now, the loudest noise was the sound of dirt hitting her helmet and the rapidity of her own breathing.

She looked over to see that Marsh too was a flailing rag-doll in the decompressive wind. The cryo-door that had hit him was now pinning his arm to the floor, and it was the only thing holding him inside the ship. She reached out to try to grab onto him, but there were still several feet between them. She began to panic as she realized that the dirt and detritus blasting past them had somehow wedged into his suit collar, keeping the helmet from closing like hers had. If she didn’t get to him quickly, he would suffocate.

She began to slowly pull herself toward her own anchor, fingers aching with the effort of holding on, and managed to get her other hand around the bar along its edge. She worked her way hand over hand toward the wall. The pressure was dropping significantly now, and she caught a glance upward at the farthest point of the greensward she could see as a section door slammed shut. She knew that the others would be closing from the other direction as well. That meant there was even less time to get to Marsh and close his helmet before they ran out of atmosphere.

He was pinned by the cryo-door on the next garden plot over. There was a four-foot gap between the two, but another railing on the wall would allow her to drag herself over to reach him. She continued her slow crawl, almost losing her grip twice, but finally got to a point where she could reach out and grab his suit.

She still had no way to pull him and hang on herself, though. Knowing she needed more leverage, she took a deep breath then began to fold herself into one of the hardest crunches she had ever done in her life. Flying like a flag in a hurricane, she struggled against the blasting wind to pull her knees back level with her chest. Then she twisted her arms to bring herself forward just enough to make a desperate lunge downward. Luckily, she managed to catch her booted foot around the bar of the garden bed on the first try. She then used her leg to pull herself downward in a reverse squat to loop the other through the gap between the bar and the garden bed itself.

Now able to use both hands, she pulled Marsh toward her until she could see his face. He was gasping, wide eyed, like a fish out of water. She pawed at the plants holding the halves of his helmet open with her gloved hands until it finally snapped shut. She could see his breathing immediately improve. His eyes finally found hers, and he smiled, despite the obvious pain he was in. She pulled him toward her so that their helmet touched. “You’re going to be fine!” she shouted. He gave her a nod. She released one hand from his suit to reach up near his collar, externally activating his helmet’s radio so they could speak.

Unfortunately, it was in that instance that Marsh’s hand finally pulled loose from beneath the cryo-door. The sudden unexpected jerk snatched him from Sarah’s one-handed grip. She screamed as he flew up toward the jagged hole in the ring’s wall. His suit spewed moisture laden atmosphere as it was torn by the metal framework when he passed feet-first half-way through the wall. He spread his arms wide and caught himself for a moment. His eyes sought hers and she heard him say with a gasping breath, “Sar, I love you.” Then the force of impacting debris forced him through the rent and out into the void of space.

Sarah screamed again and began wrenching her foot free of the garden bed. Behind her, the final bulkhead door slammed down. She let go and sailed toward the opening, intent on one last attempt to save her husband’s life. However, the last of the air being spent in this portion of the chamber meant that she no longer had any propulsion, so she simply fell toward the ring’s floor. She screamed one last time, a mix of rage, frustration and despair. She fell toward the floor, and instinctually threw her arms across her face.

She was in that position when she was shaken awake. Her eyes popped open and she was looking up into Marshalls’ face. “You were moaning and crying in your sleep. Nightmare?” he asked.

She shuddered and sat up from the med lab’s bed. She grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug. “Arrh, hey, watch the ribs!” he grunted.

“Oh, shut up, you big baby,” she sniffed.

He put his arms around her, and let the embrace continue for as long as she needed it. “Big baby? Who’s the one crying about a bad dream, huh?” he teased. She squeezed him again slightly in retaliation. “Oww…” He grumbled with a chuckle, disengaging himself from her. “What are you doing in here instead of your cabin, anyway?”

He was referring to the fact that she was on the other bed in the med lab adjacent to the one where he had been recuperating.

“Making sure I’m here if you get some stupid idea to overdo things and fall on the floor again.” She straightened slid from the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Still a bit of a headache, but the dizziness is gone. Ribs still hurt like a mother though. Can you help me with this?” He lifted his shirt up helplessly.

Sarah chuckled and jumped down from the bed. “Hold your arms out straight.” He did so, and she pushed both sleeves of the shirt over them all the way to his chest. “Now raise your right arm over your head.” He complied and she drew the neck hole up and over his head. He put his arms down and she tugged it the rest of the way on.

She wrinkled her nose and said, “On second thought, maybe you should try a shower before you get dressed.” She waved her hand in front of her.

“You don’t exactly smell like rose petals yourself, you know,” he chided. “Besides, I’m starving. Help me to the mess hall first. After that, we can share a shower stall and I’ll help you forget all about those bad dreams.” He gave her a sly grin and bent to kiss her neck.

She squirmed as the scruff of his two day old beard tickled her. “I think that’s against regulations, Doctor.”

“Hmmm… not if it’s therapy.” His muffled voice said as he continued his attention, moving up her cheek toward her mouth. “You are technically my physician after all.” He nuzzled her nose with his. “What if I need a sponge bath?” He stopped, smiling at her with their noses touching end to end and staring into her eyes.

She placed both arms around his neck, his slight height advantage making her stretch upward just a bit. “You are a horrible patient, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to seduce the first officer into breaking regulations!” she grinned back at him, then moved in for a full-fledged kiss. They held it for a long moment, then Marshall broke it off.

“Hmm… maybe you’re right. There could be a conflict of interest here. We should call Ozi and ask him if it’s OK for you to give me a sponge bath.” He reached for the comm panel button, but Sarah grabbed his hand and wrestled with him playfully.

“Don’t you dare!” she chuckled. They kissed once more, then Sarah smacked him on his butt and said, “Come on Doctor Sponge Bath, let’s go eat!”

He chuckled then turned and began cautiously and slowly climbing the ladder out of the Med Bay into the main ring. She followed close behind, shepherding his movements upward.

Once they reached the Mess Module, they found Ozi already there eating a meal. “Good Morning, Captain.” Marshall said as they stepped off the ladder onto the upper section of the pod.

“Afternoon, you mean,” Ozi said around mouthful of food. He swallowed and continued “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Marsh answered. “But I’m much better than yesterday. I should be fine in a day or two.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sarah said as she stepped off the ladder. Marsh just rolled his eyes, causing Ozi to snicker. The two prepared their meals, sending them down in the small dumbwaiter. Then they descended the second ladder that was offset to the side of the pod and joined Zanwe at the main dining table.

“Richard said he would be here in a few minutes. We can have our staff meeting in OQ2 after we eat.” Ozi said as he resumed his own meal. “Are you feeling up to sitting in, Marshall?” Ozi glanced at Sarah, “With the attending physician’s permission, of course.”

She waved a fork in assent, and Marsh nodded. “Sure, Ozi, I think I can work you into my busy and oh so exciting napping schedule. Although, a shower first would be nice.” He smiled wryly at Sarah, and continued his meal.

“That’s fine. We’ll meet at the top of the hour then.”

They ate in companionable silence for a while before Ozi excused himself. As soon as he was out of sight, Marsh and Sarah both looked at each other. “We’ve still got thirty-five minutes,” he said. They grinned and began racing each other to finish their meal then rushed out of the Commissary Pod.

All four members of the crew sat in an arc around the main console on OQ2 facing each other as best they could.

“Did the diagnostics find anything?” Sarah asked.

“Not anything definitive.” Ozi replied. “Richard is working on some theories of his own, but we think we have ruled out the upgrade coding as a culprit.”

“Really? Hmm… so what does Con-Cent have to say about it?” Sarah asked.

Richard answered by throwing a projection onto the holo-screen. “They want us to do a few trial boosts before we go to full beam again. We’ll do a field startup without the drive for thirty minutes, then slowly ramp up to full thrust for an hour.” He explained as he showed their course on the holo-screen. “They’ll shut the beam down at that point. If we don’t see any fluctuations, we confirm and the beam will start back up again after the comm delay cycle.”

“Does that mean we’re going to have to go through orientation shift twice?” Marsh asked.

“No, we’ll just stay strapped in during the phases.” Ozi answered. “We’ll also burn some of our reserve power to keep thrusting part of the time. Con-Cent is going to increase the beam power to make that up.”

“Hmmm… I hate to think what these jerks and starts are doing to the plant stems in the greensward. They’re still not as strong as I’d like, even with the adjustment to the nutrient mix,” Marshall stated. The lower gravity in the greensward allowed the plants to grow faster, but also much thinner. Thus the shifts in gravity could cause damage. He knew that they needed a full walkthrough and check, but as the Chief Botanist as well as Head Physician, his accident had left a growing to-do list that his crewmates couldn’t possibly complete in addition to their own tasks. His recovery time meant a backlogged task schedule that would take many more hours to catch up on than it took to get behind.

“Right,” Ozi said. “That’s a very good point. In fact, after we’re settled on course again, I’m putting everyone on a couple extra hours per shift in the garden. Marshall will supervise.” Ozi pointed an admonishing finger at him “Light duty only, understood?”

“Aye, sir, understood.” Marshall touched his sore ribs to emphasize. Considering his current state, it had been a ‘strenuous’ shower, and he was feeling it.

“Alright, so we man the OQ’s in two hours.” Ozi said and rose to his feet. “Dismissed.”

“Activate all sensor packages.” Ozi ordered.

“All sensors, aye,” Sarah replied.

“Commencing plasma shield restart,” Rick’s calm voice spoke over their earpieces. The holographic representation of the Helios shimmered as the shield slowly began to form. Its parabolic cone shape slowly coalesced into a subtle blue-green hued skirt. It continued to extend from the main drive cylinder to spread past the center ring of the greensward and downward past the ship itself until it was beyond the coherent range of its emitters. “Restart complete. No anomalies detected so far.”

“Initiating ring orientation shift. T minus two minutes,” the Captain informed his crew. “Commence visual quadrant sweep.”

A chorus of ‘ayes’ reached Zanwe’s ears as he began his on visual sweep of the pods. It was perfunctory, as he’d already had them do manual sweeps ahead of time, but it was protocol, so they did it anyway. After receiving all-clears from each quadrant, there was nothing else to do but monitor and wait for the countdown to complete.

“All personnel prepare for ring orientation shift.” The E.I. announced this, repeating it twice more as the lights blinked their associated pattern once again. Soon the pods began to shift downward into their full thrust configuration. Since the drive was not yet activated, the end result was that the crew were now pushed forward in their chair harnesses. This was soon to change however.

Rick spoke once more, saying “Still no fluctuations in the field. All functions nominal. I recommend drive startup as scheduled, Captain.”

“XO concurs, Captain.” Sarah said.

“Very well, initiate drive startup sequence as we planned it.”

“Aye, Captain.” Rick confirmed. “Startup for main drive at twenty-five percent thrust will commence in… five… four… three… two… commencing.”

The familiar but muted vibrating hum of the main plasma drive once again began to reverberate throughout the ship. The slant of their seats shifted slightly.

“Field is still nominal.” Rick asserted. No one else spoke as they waited the ten minutes until the next phase of acceleration. “Increasing to fifty percent thrust.”

Another slight shift and another waiting period passed with no untoward field fluctuations. They were less than a minute away from full thrust when a small ripple appeared on the upper section of the drive’s plasma shield.

“There it is again, Captain!” Sarah said urgently.

“Monitor it. Make sure all sensors are focused on that point if possible. Tell me what that is.” Zanwe ordered. “Marshall, notify Con-Cent that beam shutdown may be required, and to stand by.”

“I’m not seeing the same oscillation in the field this time. It’s distorted near the anomaly, but that’s it.” Rick commented.

“Shall we discontinue the thrust sequence, Captain?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, put it on hold, but maintain three-quarter for now.” Ozi watched the display as the anomaly point slowly edged down the shield. “Richard, is the rate of movement of that thing constant?”

“Ahhh… it would appear so, Captain,” he replied.

“Sarah, drop us to seventy percent thrust,” Ozi ordered.

“Seventy percent thrust, aye,” Sarah repeated as she initiated the command on her controls. The ships drive dimmed a bit. “Thrust at seven zero percent. We have lost contact with the beam from Earth.”

“Understood.” Ozi watched as the anomaly continued to move upward, but had it behaved as he expected? “Richard, did the speed of the anomaly’s transition change?”

“Yes, it slowed! Good on you, Captain! We must be pushing into its path,” Rick said, then mumbled to himself, “But what the hell is the bloody thing?” He thought for a second then asked, “Captain, can we drop another five percent to see if the change is linear? Still no oscillation, by the way.”

“Do it, Sarah.” Ozi responded.

“Aye, Cap, setting thrust to six five percent,” Sarah replied.

The resulting change in acceleration provided enough data for Rick to plot a correlation in speed with the anomaly that was just slightly off of linear. Encouraged by their results, the Captain decided to proceed with the thrust ramp up, but a bit earlier than originally scheduled so that they could catch back up to the beam from Earth. He wanted to know what this phenomenon was that was causing his ship so much grief.

“Sarah, take us to full thrust. Marshall, notify Con-Cent of our trajectory changes, and my intent to catch us back up to the beam.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Marshall.

“Full Thrust, aye.” Sarah adjusted settings and after a moment continued. “Max thrust achieved. Current power reserves at seventy-nine percent and falling.” She threw up an additional information window that showed percent reserves as well as a projected reserve usage for the maneuver he planned.

“Thank you, XO. Engineering, any change in the anomaly or the field?”

“It’s transitioning the field faster of course,” Richard answered, “but nothing other than… wait… there’s another anomaly developing. It’s opposite and up-thrust to the first… transitioning at the same rate. The positions in the field are different than before, but that’s probably due to orientation and trajectory changes in the ship.”

“Oscillations detected!” Sarah’s stressed voice interjected. “It’s the same as before. It started right after the second one fully formed.”

“Damn it!” Ozi thumped his chair arm. “Any progress on determining what they are? What are our sensors telling us?”

“Nothing immediately comes to mind. I’m getting some data that’s just… strange. It will take some time to analyze what it means. Assuming we can, that is,” Rick said.

“How long until shield failure this time?” Ozi asked.

“About twenty minutes,” Sarah said as she threw up another countdown timer for shield failure on the holo interface. “Although, I have a hunch that if we drop thrust and let that second anomaly slide back off the shield, it might just stop altogether.”

“True. We could set our thrust lower and get the transition rate to zero. It will be somewhere less than fifty percent though.” Rick added.

“At fifty percent thrust, we’re going to be a long time catching Mercury and our parking orbit. And that will make our beam reception sub-optimal and continuing to degrade just when we need it most.”

“I think that would put us at early to mid-winter in the northern hemisphere, too. Power usage will skyrocket on Earth.” Rick said. “The cost overrun will be bloody awful, assuming they’ll even allow it.

Ozi was silent for a few seconds, deep in thought, until finally he said, “Let’s adjust your hunch, Sarah, and do the opposite. Let’s send anomaly one off the bottom edge of our field. If we exceed max thrust to catch back up to the beam, how long will it take, and where will that put the anomalies?”

Rick and Sarah went to work on calculations immediately to find the answer to Ozi’s question. As they did, Marshall spoke.

“Ozi, don’t forget about the radiation spikes. You’ll possibly be exposing the greensward to them if you keep us in a position where the field is oscillating like that much longer. We got lucky last time.”

“Yes, Marshall, your concern is noted… and shared. But if it is a choice between the potential for a few lost plants versus missing our planetary insertion point, I’m going to have to take the risk.”

“We can just make it.” Sarah announced. “About three minutes twenty seconds to spare if we burn at one hundred fifteen percent thrust.”

“Do it. Get me my beam back. Richard, I want to know if those oscillations stop the instant that first anomaly clears the field. If they don’t we’ll have to initiate full drive shutdown immediately.”

“Aye, Captain, I’ll be glued to it.” Rick confirmed.

“Increasing thrust to one one five percent,” Sarah said. The increase slowly tilted them all backward in their seats as if they were now in recliners.

“Marshall, inform Comm-Cent of the plan, please.” Ozi ordered.

“Aye, Captain,” Marshall agreed.

About that time, the drive began to ratchet up a few octaves as it pushed with a force it had only previously been tested at in laboratory conditions on the moon. Its theoretical critical maximum was one hundred twenty-five percent of recommended max thrust, but it had only been tested to one twenty. The prototype it was based on had made it all the way to one hundred twenty-six percent before it created a new crater on the moon’s surface that was visible on Earth with the naked eye. Rick’s knowledge of the engine and his engineering background told him that there should be no problem at this speed. However, having physically walked that crater with its fused glass floor, still caused his suit to increase the airflow to account for some additional moisture content.

Rick watched carefully as both anomalies began to move more rapidly along the parabolic flare of the drive’s shield. It would take several minutes before they reacquired the energy beam from earth, but the first anomaly should be well past the bottom of the field at that point.

He focused his attention on the readings he was getting from the instruments and sensors at his disposal. The primary oddity he had found so far was a concentration of radiation near the upper quadrant of the rounded disturbance. There were others, but nothing that indicated a good point to start an analysis. Instead of trying to force an idea, he decided to lay out what he could see. It seemed obvious at this point that whatever was happening between the two points was connected. So, he did just that. He drew a line between them. He projected it outward in both directions, and set it to match the movements of the points.

He stopped to report, “Anomaly one is out of the field, Captain. And… yes, the oscillations are dropping off!”

Ozi smiled and said, “Excellent! Sarah, keep us going until we get that beam back.”

Rick went back to his diagrams. He zoomed far out, perpendicular to the connecting line, and as he did so he saw a slight angular change happen. This prompted him to adjust his formula with a bit of consultation with the E.I. to refine his line to a second order, then a third order curve. Soon, out of curiosity, he threw the solar system into his projections based on the ship’s position. He was shocked when he saw that the curve nearly intersected with Mercury.

“Beam reacquisition starting, sir. We’ll be at optimal reception shortly.” Sarah reported to Zanwe.

Rick was only half listening as he set the E.I. a task of continuous iterative calculation of the imaginary curve that linked the two anomalies. He was watching distractedly as it moved closer and closer to Mercury when the anomaly began a much more rapid shift across the field. The curve updated to indicate a rapid slope change that would take it across the path of the Chariot again. Rick was about to share this information with the Captain when everything blinked.

It wasn’t a blink in the sense of the power flickering, but in the sense of a very short absence of awareness. It was like blacking out and suddenly coming back to wakefulness with your surroundings slightly changed, but it had only lasted for an instant. Still, the shock of it was enough to scramble his thoughts for a second. He heard everyone in the crew gasp, as they too had apparently experienced the same sensation. He also heard an exclamation from Sarah.

“Marsh!” she said. “Marshall! What’s wrong! Talk to me right now!” Marshall’s head had slumped forward onto his chest. Sarah unlocked her command chair, swiveling it around to face the center of her pod. The ships current over-thurst flung it round quickly, pushing her forward into her harness roughly.

Her slight grunt caught the Captain’s attention. Deducing that she was apparently about to attempt to physically go to Marshall’s pod, Ozi bellowed. “Commander! What do you think you are doing? Don’t you dare try to leave that seat!”

She halted momentarily, and was about to argue with him when Marshall spoke. “I’m OK,” he said. “I just got really dizzy there for a second.”

“Dizzy my ass, you passed out!” Sarah retorted.

“Stop worrying. I said I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. I’m checking you out again as soon as we’re done maneuvering.” With difficulty she began to reorient her chair back to its original position.

“It wasn’t just Marshall. We all felt something, like it…,” Ozi stopped mid-sentence and said. “Richard, what am I looking at here?” He pointed to the words “Signal Loss” that blinked on the beam input monitor. Before Rick could answer, an alert began to flash.

“Alert. Power reserve at fourty-three percent.” The E.I. droned. “Alert. Primary trajectory off course.”

“What the hell?” Ozi looked at Rick. “Richard, what’s happening?”

Rick jumped and began to scrabble at his console. “How is that possible,” he said to himself. “Sarah, can you double check those power readings for me?”

“On it,” She replied as she finally latched her seat back into place.

“What in the bloody hell…?” Rick’s jaw suddenly gaped open and he stared in shock at the screen in front of him. “Oh my God! Captain, we have to stop thrust right now! And I mean right now!”

“What? What is wrong?”

“Just do it, Ozi! E-stop! Right now!”

Zanwe, hearing the urgency in his voice did not question Rick further, nor did he bother to relay the command to his X.O. Instead, he reached to the command console and deactivated the overdriving plasma engine using his emergency all-stop. The sudden cessation of their thrust pushed them all forward into their seat harnesses as the ring’s rotation once more became their primary accelerant. “E.I. initiate rapid ROC, Authorization, Zanwe, Captain.”

“Rapid ring orientation compensation initiated.” The room began to shift even before the E.I. finished its droning statement.

“Alright, Richard,” Zanwe said, “Why did I just hit the brakes on this multi-billion dollar spacecraft that we very much need to continue speeding up?”

“Because we are not where we are supposed to be, and we were pushing in the wrong direction. Here, look for yourself.” Rick threw a top-down view of the ship’s trajectory onto the main display. On the right blinked a red phantom outline of the Chariot at a point about two-thirds of the distance between the Earth’s and Mercury’s orbit. It read ‘Mission Day 61’. A slightly curved line representing its mission trajectory looped left, ending at a point just behind the dark side of a phantom outline of Mercury. That point read ‘Mission Day 90’. Far to the left, almost a third of the way around the sun and nearly in the orbital path of Mercury was a solid white outline of the ship that represented its current position.

A dashed yellow line showed the ship’s current course. It indicated a very close fly-by of the planet that then curved and became an oblong ellipse that took it back out past the orbit of Venus. The return arc brought it back to a path much closer to the sun than Mercury ever came. It was just before that point that a warning arrow flashed: ‘CME Proximity Danger – course correction required’.

After digesting what the screen was telling him, Ozi ordered his crew to action. “Run a diagnostics on the sensors. And get me a visual confirmation that this position readout is right. I don’t know what that was that we felt, but it must have fouled our equipment. Sarah, do we still have beam capture?”

“Negative, Captain.” She said tersely. “And I’ve confirmed that we are at forty-two point three percent energy reserve capacity. Whatever happened to us drained our stores by about thirty-five percent.”

“What! I didn’t think it was possible to conduct that much energy in so short a time!”

“It’s just below the theoretical max for the conductivium elements of the supercapacitor. They were pushing redline temps when I first checked though, so I deployed the fins to compensate.”

“Good call. Now can someone please tell me why that position reading is as crazy as it is?”

“It’s crazy all right, but it’s also correct.” Rick answered. “Visuals confirmed, Captain, and diagnostics check out. Less than two minutes ago, we were one month from Shadow Station insertion. Now, we are almost two days ahead of Mercury, in its orbital path, and in for a very fast and very close fly-by!”

“Say that again?!” Marsh exclaimed. “Sar, maybe I do need a checkup, especially my hearing. Did he just say were two days ahead of Mercury?”

Ignoring him, Sarah frowned at her instrument. “Captain, it’s nuts, but I agree. We’ve somehow been displaced to a point millions of miles from where we were!”

Two Hours Later

“Sarah, share your status report please,” Ozi ordered.

“We’re still at eighty percent thrust. Earth is feeding us, but we’re losing four percent reserves per hour. We’re at twenty eight point two six percent energy capacity and falling. We’ll have to shut down or reduce thrust to less than seventy-five percent in around three and half hours or risk going below our safety margin. It’s going to be just enough to get us out of the way of the planet, but even with the gravity assist from Mercury, we’ll still miss Shadow Station unless Earth can up the output to us.”

“And no corona surfing either, I assume?” Marshall asked.

“Nope, but I hope you like Venus.” She projected a course on the holo showing their very eccentric orbit. “If they don’t give us an infusion, very quickly, we’re going to be extending this excursion for almost four months while we maneuver to get back to Mercury.”

“Four months?” Marshall said. “So five months from now before we make orbit at Shadow Station? We were supposed to get resupplied in three and a half when the other crew arrived.”

“That’s right. So now, we’re going to have to end up eating from the greensward. That’s why you and I are going to check the crops in a few. We need an accurate accounting ASAP in case we need a care package launched from Earth.” Sarah told him.

“I think we’re done here. You two go ahead and get suited up. I’ve decided to come with you, so hold the elevator.” Zanwe informed them. “Richard, you have the conn until we get back.”

“Aye, Captain,” Rick said from the ether. “I have the conn.”

Ozi, Sarah and Marshall carefully stepped from the access lock elevator shaft into the greensward. The smells of damp earth and growing things immediately filled their noses. They moved gingerly forward along the curve of the rings floor until they reached the small electric truck that sat in the central aisle between two planter platforms. Marshall climbed into the pilot chair while Ozi and Sarah took the two extended seats on the gull-like wings of the vehicle. Once they had secured themselves and repositioned in a belly down orientation, Marsh activated the wings. They expanded outward until they were in a generally centered position above the plant beds. They could then activate their own controls to move left and right to examine plants over any portion of the beds without having to disturb the soil, or more importantly, damage them.

“Are you guys ready?” Marshall asked. Affirmatives answered and he began moving the truck forward slowly. Its magnetic treads could be felt gripping the floor as it trundled ahead. “Ozi, can you adjust your camera angle? It’s a bit left of center.”

“How is this?” Ozi asked after shifting his hanging harness.

“Yes, that’s good.” Marsh answered as he watched the two video monitors on the dash of the truck. They showed the downward view of Ozi and Sarah as they glided across the plants, inspecting for damage or signs of distress. They had a lot of ground to cover. On a normal day, Marshall would be doing the work by himself or maybe with the help of one other person. Each day a portion would be covered until he’d made a full round of the greensward; then it would begin again. However, since his accident, the task had been skipped. They were far behind on spot checks, but speed was not the purpose of this process. It was meticulous, monotonous and slow, but necessary. These plants were going to be nothing short of vital in a very short time.

They continued their task through almost a quarter rotation of the ring, heads down and focusing on straightening or bracing some plants, pruning others, and taking the occasional soil sample for bacteria counts, acidity, or moisture content. It wasn’t until they reached the transition to the next airlock section that Marshall looked up from his screens. When he did, he gasped and stopped the truck fast enough that he elicited complaints from both passengers as they were thrown forward in their harnesses like two swinging pendulums. “What the living crap is going on here?” he said.

“What is it Marsh?” Sarah asked.

“Look! Look up ahead! Holy God in Heaven! Guys, what am I looking at here?” He pointed forward and they raised their heads to see what he meant.

“Shit.” Ozi said in a stunned whisper.

“Shit is right,” Sarah agreed.

Ahead of them stood a tangled mass of plants. Planter beds full of three feet tall tomato plants falling over each other, some with bright green fruits about two inches in diameter. Vines from the opposite side of the aisle had run and tangled between them and small green bean pods, some nearly ripe, were everywhere. Farther up, the thick dark green leaves of potato plants blocked any view of the dirt of below them as their planters curved upward and out of view.

The three gaped in silence after dismounting the vehicle and walking to the edge of the zone of overgrowth. Finally, Marshall had the presence of mind to turn on his suit camera and call Rick. As he did, Ozi and Sarah began to carefully walk and examine the overgrown area.

“Rick, can you take a peek through my suit cam for a moment?” Marshall cajoled.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something at the moment, Marsh,” he replied.

“You really need to see what I’m looking at right now, Richard.”

Only Ozi ever called him Richard, so that alone got his curiosity up. “Fine, but you better not be showing me the inside of your elbow again, or so help me I’ll flush you out an airlo…. Holy hell! What the crap happened there!?”

“I’m kind of hoping you can tell me.” Marsh answered. He made his way to Sarah’s side and placed a hand on her right shoulder. She placed her own left atop his as they both stared at the strangeness in front of them. Marsh felt a shiver run through Sarah’s body. “Hey? You OK?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine,” she replied, clearing her throat and breathing deeply. “Just… just stay off the catwalks for a while, alright?” She patted his hand and broke contact as they moved forward to examine the chaos of the overgrown garden.

Six Hours Later

“I call it Quicksilver. I think it is, or was, a devolved but stable micro black hole or some similar phenomena. We found it purely by luck. Its orbit intersected with our flight path to Mercury. This thing,” he pointed to the screen, “well, not the thing itself, but its wake, was the cause of the anomalies in the plasma drive’s shield.

“Wait, wait… a black hole? How can we have been hit by a black hole and survived? Shouldn’t we be ripped apart or something? Have stuff sucked into it at least?” Marsh asked.

“No, no, it’s much too small for that. And we weren’t hit by it; it transitioned a very long time ago. Even if it did hit us directly, we might barely feel a shake, but even that’s doubtful.” Rick waved his hands as if shooing away a fly. “That’s all beside the point. What was I saying…? Oh, right… So, what I’ve measured and then back calculated doesn’t match standard theories.” He points at the graphic on his holo field. “This is us moving through Quicksilver’s wake. The shockwaves you see are a representation of gravity waves being caused by its movement through space-time. But remember, I said it was moving fast? Maybe not just fast, but relativistically fast.”

Blank stares looked back at him from the rest of the crew. “Come on guys, relativity! Einstein. E equals m c squared! The faster something moves the more mass it has?”

“OK, so it’s going really fast, therefore it has more mass,” Sarah prompted. “What does that have to do with us?”

“Yes, good!” Rick excitedly pointed at her. “Now, because of that, I think its creating a gravitic shockwave along its path.” He caught his audience with a quick glance to make sure they are still with him, then proceeded with his excited explanation. “That means this gravity shockwave is having an effect on time! It’s like a… a… call it a ‘temporal sonic boom’ if you will. Now, it fades quickly the farther you get from the center of the wake, mind you, but closer in, you have an actual gravitational polarization coupled with time compression!”

He looked at them with an ecstatic smile, waiting for their reactions. The confused look on their faces caused his smile to fade. He let out an exasperated sigh, “Oh for pity’s sake. Do I have to spell it out for you? We jumped THROUGH space-time. When we flew through the wake, space-time and time both compressed. We popped back out the other side millions of miles closer to Mercury, ahead of it in fact, but still in Quicksilver’s wake, all without any actual time change!”

Ozi, Marsh & Sarah glanced back and forth between each other for a moment, gauging reactions. Finally, Ozi asked, “Richard, are you saying we…” He hesitated, looking for the right word. “… teleported?”

“Yes!” Richard shouted, throwing both hands high. “We’re talking about instantaneous teleportation… of our entire ship! Do you have ANY. BLINKING. IDEA. what this could mean for science? For the human race! If I’m right, this is the most amazing discovery since Yancye Borries stabilized her first atom of conductivium… hell, maybe since Franklin flew his damned kite!”

Marshall changed the subject slightly by asking, “So, I understand that might explain the positional change, but what about the greensward? What happened there?”

“Well, to tell the truth, I’m still not sure about that. I have a theory, but no way to prove it. You still want to hear it?” Rick asked cautiously as if somehow embarrassed to reveal an unproven idea to his captain.

Ozi nodded. “Yes, Richard, just get on with it, please.” He smiled to take the sting out of the comment.

“Alright, well, I think it might be that we crossed into the wake at an angle that left that portion of the greensward in a different…uhhh… ‘timestream?’ he said questioningly, ”…than the rest of the ship.” He cringed a bit, then continued, “It’s really just a guess, but I think the part of the rings that rotated away from the shockwave as we moved into it may have experienced the transition time as normal…and by normal, I mean uncompressed… until it got pulled in with the rest of the ship? Or maybe it was the fact that it was moving away at one point, then toward the wake again?” He scratched his already wild mane and shrugged. “I really don’t have the theoretical knowledge to even begin to describe scientifically what could have happened, Captain.”

Sarah spoke up at this point, saying, “Well, let me say it science-fictionally for you. It sounds to me like you’re saying that part of the greensward time traveled to the future while we just jumped straight there.”

“Well, not exactly. It didn’t time travel, and neither did we. It just existed outside of normal space-time where time was still normal, whereas we existed outside of normal space time where time was standing still. And then we reverted to normal space-time again and here we are.”

Marsh looked at Sarah and said, “I think I’m having a dizzy spell again. Is my nose bleeding?”

She grimace at him and turned back to Rick’s image. “Fine, however it happened, that’s why all the plants had grown so much, and the microbe and earthworm counts in the soil were off. Hell, that even explains why the power was so depleted in the batteries from that section. The lights were on battery power for almost a month!” She snapped her fingers, and turned to the nearby holo field and began doing calculations. Marsh turned to watch over her shoulder as she pulled up power usage data.

Ozi was still digesting Rick’s revelation. He realized Rick was watching him intently as he stared at nothing. He smiled at his engineer and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Teleportation, Time Travel and Stasis Fields all discovered at once. Richard, my friend, I think you are about to become very famous.” He paused and his smile got even wider as he said, “Just like me!” Rick grinned back sheepishly.

“As long as it’s for whatever this is,” Marshall waved at the holo-field, “and not for being the first people to crash into Mercury, you two glory hounds can claim all the fame you want.”

“How very considerate of you Marshall. Now please put all ‘this’,” he waved at the holo-field with a flourish like Marshall had, “in a box and send it to Earth. And do be sure to sign all of our names on the card!”

After a few additional hours of research on Rick Corrington’s part, and some serious back and fourth time between Earth Con-Cent and Captain Zanwe, another group meeting was called. Zanwe spoke to his team. “I have some announcements to make, but I’m going to let Richard here go through his latest discoveries with us first. Go ahead Richard.”

Rick nodded. “OK, here’s my other ‘crackpot theory’… I think Quicksilver is quantum locked to the planet. I’ve been trying to understand why this slipstream would even still be here. The solar system itself is rotating the galactic center at something like two hundred thirty kilometers a second.” The frowns that crossed the faces of his crewmates caused him to sigh. “Five hundred thousand miles an hour?” The frowns went away and he continued. “So even if Quicksilver blew through the solar system recently, and my slipstream stability hypothesis is true, we should have left its transition ‘path’ behind a long time ago.”

Rick shared an animated illustration with them. It showed a zoomed in view of Mercury and the sun, slowly zooming outward. Suddenly, a faint white line speared into the solar system and out again, stabbing right through the planet like a bullet. He paused it to give some narration.

“I believe that Quicksilver intersected with Mercury itself. It went right through, close to the core. I theorize that the interaction with the planet’s mass caused some sort of quantum pairing with the black hole itself. Maybe it’s with a proton on the edge of the Schwarzschild radius, or one that eventually will be? Time is weird around a black hole. Anyway, somehow the slipstream is now linked to the matter in the planet’s core, and that drags the slipstream around with Mercury in its orbit. It’s like the old combustion jet engine condensation trails being pushed around by the wind. Only the temporal nature of it keeps if from scattering about.”

He resumed the animation which began to zoom out much faster. “That means that no matter how long we’ve been moving away from the point of impact, Mercury has been dragging the slipstream along with us.” The white line became a curve that bowed and wobbled around the sun. The view angled and the zoom expanded to show the arms of the Milky Way. The white line, which originated in the center of the galaxy, curved as the solar system rotated in its galactic orbit.

“The galaxy is moving too, though, right? Does your model account for that?” Sarah asked.

“That’s an excellent point, but I’ve assumed Quicksilver’s origin is from somewhere near the center of our galaxy, which means it has the same relative motion. If it has an extra-galactic origin, then yes, the line would bow around in some other direction as well. All I know about the path of the slipstream is what we’ve measured from Chariot’s interactions. The rest is all hypothetical projections. But, based on the changes in inclination to our plasma shield, the model fits.”

“So, do you know how it works?” Ozi asked. “Or at least how we managed to get caught up in it?”

“We think so. Earth’s been helping me hash the theoretical ideas out. What we’ve come up with is this.” Rick produced several graphs and illustrations on the holo-field for them to see before entering lecture mode again. “The slipstream doesn’t affect matter in any way under normal circumstances. It does have an effect on energy streams, though. It twists E-M spectrum particles around itself, temporally causing a gravitational compression in the upstream side then shooting it out the downstream side at a very slightly lowered wavelength. If it wasn’t for the magnified effect we saw in the plasma shield, we probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. We don’t know where the energy goes, but it got us to thinking about our skip.”

“We think the slipstream intersected with the matter conversion unit. The incoming beam went in, but as the slipstream passed through the re-assembly node, it was trying to reconvert the energy inside the stream. That set off a cascade of events where the stream moved into the beam, compressed the energy and somehow expanded the gravity wake of the stream. It picked up more energy, repeating the process, until it encompassed the entirety of the Chariot. Well, all of it except for the portion of the greensward that got left out. We’re still trying to correlate the energy input versus distance traveled. There’s even a huge debate about whether the travel direction can be changed. It’s going to take quite a bit of study, and hopefully experimentation, to reach any final conclusions.” He paused, rubbing his hands together. “So, that’s where we stand at the moment.”

“Thank you, Richard. That is a very concise explanation. And, your point about experimentation is what I want to talk about next, in fact.” He opened his arms wide to encompass them all. “I have good and bad news for you. The good news,” Ozi informed them, “is that there are many interested parties back home. This means that our request for extra power from the grid has more or less become the classic ‘shut up and take my money’ meme. We adjust course again in two hours to get us back on track for Shadow Station.” Hearty cheers greeted his announcement, but he held up a hand.

“The other good news,” he paused and looked at each of them in turn, “is also the bad news. We are going to have to go on double shifts for the next few days to meet our new expanded mission parameters. We get to be the first to study Quicksilver’s trail.”

“Earth Control Central has devised a series of remote missions that we will be responsible for conducting. We will be building and launching probes that mock our drive shielding so that precise positioning can be determined. After that, we’ll also be launching a fully functional matter conversion module and mini-plasma drive unit for some ‘test jumps’. All of this will be on top of our original duties, of course. We’ve just gone from being a first of its kind power relay station, to what may very well turn out to be the first intra-galactic starship port!”

“Ha!” Sarah laughed. “It’s like that old Chinese curse… ‘May you live in interesting times.’

“Well, at least we won’t be bored!” Marshall said with a grin.

Ozi smiled back at him, and then at rest of his crew as well. “Call me overly optimistic, but I have a feeling that the entirety of the human race is about to forget the meaning of the word ‘boredom’.

About the Author

J.D. Beckwith is a mechanical engineer with delusions of writing grandeur. A lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, he has recently taken the opportunity provided by an economically induced sabbatical from manufacturing bulldozers, excavators, and garbage trucks to try his hand at the craft he’s always admired. He hopes to have his first novel, a genre confused techno-thriller comedy titled eConscience Beta, released on Amazon sometime in 2017. In between time spent expanding his bibliography, he amuses himself with reading, tabletop & RPG gaming, arguing on the internet, growing tomatoes, and herding cats… all while trying to stay hidden in the woods of Northwest Georgia. You can find his sporadic book reviews on Goodreads cross-posted with other nerdy stuff on his blog—wampuscatenterprises.wordpress.com.

ANCESTOR’S ANSWER

Bokerah Brumley

Saishu City, 2287

Seated on the floor, Kiyoko Mori sipped quicksilver from a delicate jade tea cup, ignoring the muffled curses from the older man tied to the desk chair behind her. With her other hand, she read from a battered journal. The pages detailed the corrupt experiments the man had funded, yet none of his were the ones she sought. He wasn’t the beginning of the moral disease, but he was close to it.

No matter. His will would soon break, and she would learn who started it all. Then she would be on her way through the portal. She sipped again from the bitter liquid, relishing her old mind inside her young body. The combination made her job easier. She only hoped that she could bring honor to her family by completing what had been asked of her soul. Almost time.

Autumn sunbeams streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, highlighting the blueish tint to her white hair and illuminating the blood splatter across an ivory couch. She kept watch from the corner office of the eighty-second floor, her optical acuity unmatched since being remade. Strapped to her waist, she wore a sheathed tachi sword, the length stretched out behind her—the exclamation point on her resurrection’s purpose. She bit her lip, and the fingers of her free hand fluttered against the hilt.

The samurai blade had been passed down through her lineage long before the perversion of technology pushed the old ways from the minds of her progeny. But she hadn’t seen it in a millennium, and the fact of its existence passed out of family memory. She never expected she would grasp the relic again or be asked to use it on her future grandchildren. Behind her, the man began weeping and apologizing to his family for his sins. If he only knew how the future cried out against him, petitioning the dead to intervene.

Kiyoko would not let it happen—could not—let her descendants continue in their depravity against humanity, building a mighty business on the dismemberment of the innocent, aborting life, and miscarrying justice. Determined, she sipped again and then glanced behind her. “Are you ready to tell me, musuko?” The perfunctory question did not garner a response beyond a yell mostly smothered by the gag she’d wrapped tightly around his mouth.

She closed the experiment log and placed it gently on the floor. The horrors turned her stomach even more than the metallic tea. Limbs removed from still-moving children and placed on the winning bidder. Babies left to grow until the moment their mothers entered labor then harvested as spare parts for an apathetic generation. And her descendants ran the twenty-four-hour supermarket. She loosed a long and shuddering sigh.

Yet, even faced with all of that, would she be strong when the moment came? The doubt had followed her. Her existence had been spent in the form of a caretaker, not a crusader, not a wrong-righter. She married, raised a family, and served as a mother to orphans when an accident made her into a widow.

She’d been chasing “the moment it all began” for nearly a lunar cycle, and she still didn’t know if she could do what had been asked of her. A Kami, in the form of her own great grandmother, had visited her in the ether between heaven and hell to tell her of the sordid truth of the future and pose a solution. When Kiyoko agreed, the spirit gifted her with a sword, a mission, and a new body. At the beginning, she had been sure she could save their family’s honor, save all those lives. Yet now…

Kiyoko grimaced at the last swallow of her metallic, pre-travel concoction. The mercurial mixture burned as much as it always did, but she couldn’t disregard the step. The last jump had damaged her cells and bleached her ebony hair. She shouldn’t have skipped protocol then, and she wouldn’t omit it now.

She tapped her chin. Far below, dark water raced under the bright red bridge, contrasting sharply with the yellow and orange leaves riding atop the ripples. She tugged on her ear lobe. The thick bamboo edging along the paths and perimeter separated the harsh edges of manmade architecture from the organic shapes of the garden. It reminded her of simple days, playing in the protected bamboo forest in Kyoto while her father continued his research.

Before her sons had turned to the salvage of innocent lives wasted for convenience, only to dismantle their tiny bodies and auction them to the highest bidder…

A whimper brought Kiyoko’s attention back to the task at hand. She placed the empty cup on the edge of the stainless steel coffee table beside her. She stood and crossed the plush carpet to the middle of the room, considering her prisoner. Time for a new tactic. She looked young enough to be his granddaughter; maybe she should address him accordingly.

“Ojiisan,” she said. It felt out of place to address her elderly great-great-great grandson with such respect, particularly after tying him to a chair and injecting him with an immunotoxin, but she pressed on. “I must fix what is broken. Eternity requires it.”

“What do you want from me, daughter?” His pupils were abnormally wide for the daylight, dilated by the serum surging through his veins. “I don’t know anything,” he said, but his lip twitched.

“Where are the other notebooks, Ojiisan? Where did this begin?” she asked, kneeling before her descendent. “The ones that have been passed down.” His face was so much like her fathers, so much like all the others that she had questioned, and her heart twisted. She had followed the trail back through time, and she was certain she’d found the one that would know.

He struggled against the linen bindings. “You will ruin what we have built,” he protested. She didn’t know if he understood who she was or where she came from, but he must sense her drawing close to the truth. He was close to breaking.

“It must stop. That is the message I bring.” By the edge of my sword. But she could not say the last words aloud.

He trembled. “Then you will change our whole future.” If I have the strength, she prayed.

“Our souls have been banished between Takama-ga-hara and Yomi-no-kuni for too long,” Kiyoko whispered. She waved to the building around them. “Our eternal peace was not worth this artificial happiness.” She needed to find the point where it all began. He had the key. “Kami returned me to my body to mend the wound in the fabric of eternity caused by our family. In exchange, they will allow our family into Takama-ga-hara.”

“Kami are only superstitions,” he bit out, but his anger had no heat, and tears pooled in eyes.

“Where are the records?” she asked.

“It’s not illegal,” he said, stiffening his spine.

“But it has always been wrong,” she countered. “You commit crimes against life.” She paused, tempering her anger at the willfully blind fool before her. “Where are the records?”

“I will not tell,” he whispered, but his gaze drifted to the Great Wave painting behind his desk and her gaze followed. “It’s the original Hokusai. It’s worth millions,” he mumbled as though she cared about the priceless work of art. His shoulders slumped. The hardness in his eyes softened, and his head lolled to the side as he lost consciousness.

“Millions of lives stolen, Ojiisan,” she said, patting his shoulder as she moved around him to the painting. She removed it from the wall and faced the giant safe nestled in the thick wall.

When Kiyoko placed the experiment logs back in the vault, she knew where to go next. She replaced the priceless work of art. She took a moment to appreciate the talent it had taken to paint, but she was ready to move on. She knew where her purpose ended because she knew where it all began. She had only needed the final location from the journal, and she could end the evil before it began.

Consulting her time map, she planned her jump. She would deliver justice to their family. She was the messenger sent to bring the good news. They would enter Takama-ga-hara. Dishonor would not be their legacy.

Hiroshima, 2121

Balding maple trees shadowed the riverbank while the remains of a rice field rustled violently in the cold wind. Standing on the cobblestones by his trusty wooden cart, Akio Mori shivered. It was going to be a bad winter, but they were well prepared.

The compound was stocked with rations to last them for years, and the government didn’t involve itself with those that had returned to the old ways. The guise had worked for ten years, and Akio was on the verge of a breakthrough.

A strong gust brought the sound of maniacal laughter. Akio stepped quickly to the back of the cart, and threw back the burlap cover. He retrieved a syringe from his cargo pocket, tapped the side of the cylinder, and then jabbed the needle into the thigh of his prisoner.

“Participants needed,” Akio said, repeating the classified ad he’d placed in the digital newspaper, “for medical research. Compensation negotiable.” The last part was a lie, unless you counted the free replacement limb. When it worked. Maybe this one would. The last participant had a gruesome death after the grafted leg died. It spread infection throughout her body. Though their methods did not overcome the immune system’s rejection, they had learned much.

He was confident and willing to sacrifice as many as it took to overcome the setbacks. The deaths would not be in vain. They would soon achieve the ability to turn the largest stream of medical waste into a profitable resource. Discarded children were cheap to obtain. He grasped the volunteer, lugging him from the rear of an old-fashioned transport and through the gate. This one is the key. He is the breakthrough. He believed it through to his bones.

A bright green circle appeared in the courtyard, and the scientist slipped from Akio’s arms and fell with a dull thud. A white-haired woman stepped down from the floating portal to face Akio. His jaw slacked. It made no sense. He must be hallucinating, an episode brought on by all the experimental chemicals.

“Who are you?” Akio stammered, staggering back and nearly tripping over his test subject.

“When greed eats the hearts of men until they devour the lives of the innocent, we must set the universe right,” she said. Despite the pale hair, vibrant, smooth skin declared her youth.

“Who are you?” he repeated the only words he could string together. The stranger’s eyes were familiar, as though he’d stared into them before.

“I am your grandmother,” she said, surely joking, though she showed no mirth.

“That’s impossible.” He was a scientist. Portals weren’t real. And long dead women did not step out of them.

She continued as though she did not hear him. “One hundred years ago, I played in the bamboo forests of Kyoto while my father worked on a plan to heal the Fukushima meltdown.” She reached over her shoulder with one hand. “He brought honor to the Mori name by healing instead of destroying.”

“I am a healer.” All healers had setbacks. All healers had casualties.

“You are a destroyer.” She paused as though she was studying him. “You look like my father. I didn’t expect that,” she said, as though that explained everything.

Akio’s raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know who she was or even who her father was. “Where did you come from?” She shifted from side to side, and he flinched.

“The past,” she answered, sliding the tachi back into its sheath. “I am to stop you from conducting your experiments.”

Akio heard the unmistakable hiss of a metal blade being pulled from its sheath. “What do you intend to do with that?” He didn’t know her from anyone else. What reason would she have to use her sword?

“I’ve seen what comes, Akio,” she murmured. “Our name is written in neon lights on buildings as tall as the stars, and it all begins with you.” Her gaze dropped to the crumpled man behind him. “With him.”

“Are you related to one of my medical volunteers?” Akio’s heartbeat thundered in his ears, and he swallowed. That could be problematic. Had one of them gotten a message out? They were the only one who had proof of his lies. He took a step backwards.

“I’ve come to deliver a message. I’ve come to deliver justice.” She raised her tachi over her head, but the hardness in her expression wavered. “Forgive me, Akio,” she whispered.

Against the clear blue expanse, the blade glinted in the light. Akio fell to his knees, hands clasped in front of him, his eyes squeezed closed. How dare she end him? He would have saved so many. He begged for mercy from the woman and for merciful Kami to intervene. “You will be hunted for this.”

“It does not matter. My life has already been lived. I do this for Takama-ga-hara. I do this for honor. I do this to give life instead of death.” Even as she brought the sword down, Kiyoko wept for Akio.

About the Author

Bokerah Brumley is a speculative fiction writer making stuff up on a trampoline in West Texas. When she’s not playing with the quirky characters in her head, she’s addicted to Twitter pitch events, writing contests, and social media in general. She lives on ten permaculture acres with five home-educated children and one husband. In her imaginary spare time, she also serves as the blue-haired President of the Cisco Writers Club. Visit bokerah.com to learn more.

LAST CALL

Lou Antonelli

In his 40 years with the mining bureau, Astor had noticed the constant lessening of the deaccelerating constant when approaching Mercury.

He commented on that, and his helmsman, Marcus, looked at him slyly.

“Well, of course, we’ve whittled it down to almost nothing, haven’t we?”

They both laughed.

The Harlingen slowly glided between the solar arrays and inside to where the lessened bulk of the planet’s core sat surrounded by mining and transport ships.

Administrator Steelman came on the vid screen, with a cocked eye and a big smile.

“Gentlemen, it’s always a pleasure to see you, but I didn’t expect you so soon”, he said. “You were slated to dock tomorrow.”

“We were sitting bored at the Kasich Station when an unexpected launch window opened up,” said Astor.

“We decided to take it, on the spur of the moment,” said Marcus. “I’m sorry we forgot to notify you that we shoved off early. That was inconsiderate of us.”

“I will notify control to find you a berth as soon as possible,” said Steelman. “But it might take an hour or two.”

“No problem,” said Astor. “We’ll cruise around the core a few times.”

“I’ll be back to you as soon as possible,” said Steelman. The screen went blank.

Astor winked at Marcus. “I completely forgot to message ahead about our early departure, too.”

Marcus steered the Harlingen on a course to make a wide lazy orbit around the planetary core.

He looked at his colleague. “Hey, when was the first time you took this route?”

Astor ran his hand across his bald scalp. “Forty-two years ago. I was fresh out of the astronavigational school then. Mining had just hit its peak, and the fabrication stations were at full capacity.”

“Is it true a new fabrication station is being made at Proxima B?” asked Marcus.

“Yes, they’ve already started to mine apart a satellite in the Proxima system that has a large iron core,” said Astor. “Though it’s not nearly as rich as Mercury was.”

“If it wasn’t for all the iron we’ve taken from Mercury in the past hundred years, we would never have had a large enough space fleet to be in a position to start a new station in another star system,” he continued.

“Would you like me to bring up the exterior view as we do a turn around Mercury’s core?” asked Marcus.

“Excellent idea.”

One half of the screen showed the large fleet of mining and transport ships turned inward towards the diminishing core they were mining, while the other half showed the dark backsides of the continent-sized hexagonal solar panels.

“You know those panels were originally only 100 kilometers above the Mercurian surface,” said Astor.

“My God, look at all the intervening space right now,” said Marcus. “Was that when they called the space program ‘Mercury’, in the old days of the United States and the NASA?”

“No, that was over 100 years later,” said Astor. “Just a coincidence. They named the early space projects after Greek gods. They had names like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.”

“I always assumed they named that early space program Mercury because they had decided they would travel to Mercury and start mining,” said Marcus.

Astor smiled. “No, it’s just a coincidence. They didn’t even know at the time how extensive Mercury’s iron resources were.”

The external view disappeared from the screen and Administrator Steelman appeared.

“You’re getting your docking commands now,” he said. “Port 87-A.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Astor.

“I’ll see you both downside,” said Steelman as the screen went dark.

“We didn’t even make one revolution,” said Marcus.

“I’ve been on this merry-go-round before,” said Astor. “Let’s head in.”

As they exited the port bay, the pair passed the display case with a Calcium 41 crystal left over from the Subanimal War.

Astor pointed to it. “There were still some veterans alive from the war when I was growing up,” he said.

He stopped for a second and looked at it. “If the Subanimals hadn’t attacked, we might never have snapped out of our routine of petty little national conflicts and internecine warfare.”

“That’s way before my time,” said Marcus.

“It was before mine, too, but there were still men and women alive when I was a kid who could talk about it. And after so many decades, you could still tell how terrified people had been,” said Astor. “First contact followed by genocide.”

“Attempted genocide,” said Astor. “They were wiping us all out, and we had no way to kill them. I mean, how do you kill stone?”

Marcus nodded towards the display. “Come up with a fatally radioactive isotope of calcium crystals.”

“It was a great impetus towards the development of the space fleet,” said a man behind them.

They both turned as he extended a hand.

“I’m Sergeant Conway,” he said. “Administrator Steelman asked me to meet you and bring you to him.”

They shook hands. “Captain Astor, we’ve met many times before. I presume this is Lieutenant Marcus.”

“Yes sir, it’s my pleasure,” said Marcus.

“Follow me, please, I know the administrator is eager to see you today,” said Conway.

Steelman clapped his hands as he walked from his office to greet his visitors.

“You are a day early, but it’s always great to see you, Allenson,” he said as he grabbed Astor’s hand.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “You’re name is Allenison? I always assumed Al was short for Allen.”

“My father’s name was Allen. I am Allen’s son. Besides, you never asked.”

Steelman made an expansive gesture. “Let’s all go inside. We can all have a civilized drink.”

After they sat down, Steelman turned to Marcus. “Well, lieutenant, I understand this is your first visit to Mercury.”

“Yes, sir, I’m proud to be here.”

Steelman raised a glass. “Enjoy it while you can, then. It will also be your last.”

“What!” Astor blurted. “Then it’s true?”

“What’s true?” asked Marcus.

“The space admin has decided to wind down mining operations here,” said Conway. “The planetary core is almost played out.”

“I had no idea,” said Marcus as he sipped his drink.

Astor looked stunned.

“I’m sorry, Al, after all these years and all these trips back and forth,” said Steelman, “but the core is badly diminished, and riddled with tunnels.”

He looked at the Captain over the rim of his glass. “I know, it’s the end of the era. Once we wind up and leave, the core may come completely apart. Our mining machines might be the only thing holding the old gal together right now.”

Marcus cocked his head at the Captain. “You look thunderstruck.”

“Well, it is the end of an era,” said Astor. “This was the only route I worked all these years, and when I started there were still veterans of the Subanimal War around.”

“I thought it was an exaggeration,” said Marcus. “The planet Mercury was melted down to build the Terran space fleet.”

“Not in the least,” said Steelman as he rose. “Come over to this window.”

The others followed as he put down his drink and pointed.

“You see that mining ship over on the left, the one perpendicular to the core’s surface? With all the orange markings?”

Marcus nodded.

“That ship is the last of the original generation. It was originally sunk into the planet’s surface. It’s over 100 years old. Each day that it has been here, it has extracted 250 tons of iron ore,” he said.

“Al is old enough to remember what veterans of the war said. I have been in space admin long enough to recall old-timers who remembered the government’s reaction in the wake of the war,” he said. “Which was to build up a fleet and stick it out in space as fast as possible.”

“We had no real defenses in the solar system when the Subanimals attacked,” he continued. “We only survived by beating them with a trick, thanks to one smart scientist who came up with that radioactive Calcium isotope.”Steelman faced his guests. “Everyone knew we might not get lucky a second time.”

“I totally understand,” said Marcus. “But since we’re on the subject—why Mercury? Earth has plenty of iron, also.”

“Mercury’s core was almost a duplicate of Earths’, but the planet was much smaller and the core much more accessible,” said Steelman.

“I heard that theory long ago,” said Astor. “Mercury plus the mass of our Moon equals the mass of Earth. Years ago they thought the Moon was created by some planetary collision in the early history of our solar system when the planets were still molten.”

“Right, but what they later determined through excruciating orbital mechanics was that Mercury was still establishing an orbit and passed close enough to Earth to have its mantle stripped away, which began to roll around on its own and become the Moon, while the proto-Mercury went on to find a stable orbit—aided by its diminished mass,” said Steelman.

“That resulted in a planet with over half its bulk made up of an iron core,” said Conway. “Prime mining territory.”

“We haven’t had a Second Contact since the Sub-animals,” said Marcus. “Perhaps we disassembled a planet for nothing?”

“I prefer to think the sight of ships and stations from here to the Oort persuaded anyone else to think twice about attacking us,” said Astor as he sat back down with a sigh.

The rest followed.

“I’m afraid the news has depressed Al somewhat,” said Steelman. “Still, let’s drink a little and visit before retiring.”

He poured a fresh round of drinks and raised his glass.

“A toast. To an old soldier, Mercury, who will never die, but instead fade away!”

Astor sighed and drained his glass.

Marcus pinged Astor’s door late the following morning. Astor answered, fully dressed and wide awake.

“I missed you at mess this morning,” said Marcus. “I assumed you had slept in, but I see I was mistaken.”

“Come in,” said Astor.

The door closed and Marcus sat down.

“I sent off a message first thing this morning,” said Astor. “I had a thought late night. Did you get the message from the port, that the cargo has been unloaded.”

“Yes, I suppose we can start loading the return freight any time,” said Marcus. “Why do you mention this?”

“I’ve already asked Administrator Steelman to find a captain for the return leg,” said Astor. “I’m not going back with you.”

“Why? Where did this come from?”

Astor sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m just about ready to retire, and there will be few, if any, cargo runs any more, as the operation here is slowly shut down. I want to stay and finish up my hitch here.”

He smiled. “Then I’ll go home.”

“Wow, I’ve heard about being sentimental,” said Marcus. “But about a planet?”

“It’s not being sentimental, it’s about being a witness to history,” said Astor. “I feel if I stay here, I’ll somehow have a connection to this operation’s history, the history that saw mankind truly expand into space. There are now thousands of ships and stations in the solar system, and now we have ships and colonies at distant stars. With the start of the new mining project at Proxima B, mankind can reach ever further into the galaxy.”

He stood up and made an energetic gesture. “I think I still have some life in me, and after all these years making the Mercury run, I want to stay and help close the operation out. Steelman had said he has a post here where I can coordinate outgoing ore shipments.”

Marcus jumped up and extended his hand. “Sounds like a great last assignment, and you look happy already.” He shook his hand. “I wish I had more opportunity to learn from you, but on the other hand, this is what you want.”

“I knew you’d understand,” said Astor. “I’ll help you load up the cargo bay, while the new captain gets ready.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s Jim Denman. He’s good, but he’s only been working in Mercury orbit up to now,” said Astor. “He’s ready to take an interplanetary assignment.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

Marcus was sipping a beer on the patio of a seaside bar in Glendale when he realized people around him were starting to check their news feeds.

Mariam ran up to the table with the nachos.

“Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Didn’t you make Mercury run once?”

“Yes, last year, I haven’t been back yet. What’s the fuss about?”

She dropped the plastic platter of nachos on the table. “It’s done, it’s gone!”

“What’s gone?”

“Mercury. They’re reporting that because over mining, what was left of the core imploded, collapsed. All miners and others on the surface are presumed dead. The only ships and people left were in orbit.”

Marcus knocked over his beer. “Dammit!”

She sat down next to him. “Didn’t you know someone there?”

“Yes, the captain on my first run as a lieutenant, Al Astor. Dammit!”

Marcus sighed. “When he learned they were going to wind things down, he decided he wanted to stay and see it through. He made almost 40 runs in 40 years.”

“He must have been a good man to leave such an impression on you,” said Mariam.

“He was, and he did.”

Mariam stood up and looked at the other people on the patio.

She cleared her throat. “Folks, my husband’s first captain in the space service just died in the Mercury Collapse. Let’s have a moment of silence for him and all the other victims.”

One man cried out, “What was his name?”

“Al. Al Astor. Captain Allenson Astor.”

Everyone raised their drinks. Another man raised his voice.

“To Captain Allenson Astor, and all the dead of Mercury, and to all our fallen heroes in space!”

Marcus covered his face with one hand and began to cry as everyone else pointed their drinks to the sky and cried out, “To space!”

About the Author

Lou Antonelli started writing fiction in middle age; his first story was published in 2003 when he was 46. He’s had 112 short stories published in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, India and Portugal. His debut novel, the retro-futurist alternate history Another Girl, Another Planet, was published in Jan. 2017 by WordFire Press. His short story “On a Spiritual Plain”, originally published in Sci Phi Journal, was a finalist for the Hugo award in 2015. A Massachusetts native, Antonelli moved to Texas in 1985 and is married to Dallas native Patricia (Randolph) Antonelli. They have three adopted furbaby children. You can find his blog at: http://louantonelli.blogspot.com/.

DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES

Declan Finn

I always worry when a bar stops me at the door so I can buy a ticket to enter—I worry even more when everyone has to EXCEPT me, usually because that means I’m the floorshow.

However, on this occasion, I was also worried because I traveled with the most dangerous man in the known universe, Sean Patrick Ryan. Unfortunately, those travel plans typically included having every Therese, Dodo and Dirty Harry attempt to claim the title for his own.

Sean and I entered the spacebar and split up, each with our backs to the wall—myself next to the door, and Sean at the end of the bar farthest from the entrance, and closest to the emergency exit.

We had come for a leisurely drink, and, of course, a bit of information. Sean Ryan was both my friend from college, and my sometimes partner in crime. Well, ok, not crime exactly, but he came pretty darned close. Sean had his own security agency, and I spent my time wandering the stars, and we occasionally end up in the same place. Usually, that same place would be trashed within short order.

Today, that same place was the bar called The Scoundrel’s Refuge. It was a seedy little bar in an even seedier little spot on Mercury. Yes, I refer to the entire Hermes dome as a “little spot.” The dome was barely able to keep out the heat from the sun, and the vents rarely kept the air circulating, causing the entire dome to be hotter, year round. The increased heat made it an eternal summer – and human nature being what it was, summers always saw an increase in homicides. In the case of Hermes Dome, when there was a wind, it was one of those hot dry breezes that came down through the ventilation system, making your hair curl, nerves jump and your skin itch. It created an environment where every night, a booze party ends in a fight, and wives feel the edge of the carving knife as they study their husbands’ necks.

This was, in large part, how the Refuge stayed in business. From time to time, the Refuge would sell tickets to a bar fight, as long as they were announced in advance. One party—sometimes both—declared their intent to the bartender, and within a few hours, most of the furniture was replaced with cheap knockoffs that were easily replaced. The Refuge was aptly named; as long as you gave the bartender enough time to set up for the fight, and make his own cut, you could knock around your adversary in relative peace and quiet without interference from police or patrons. I had never been there for a non-sanctioned bar fight, and every time I ask about one, the other patrons just cringed and turned away.

After we had been in the bar for five minutes, the floor show began—to start with, a little opening teaser before the credits rolled.

Someone approached Sean, coming at him straight on. It was a Zari—think a reptile attempting to mimic a human. Sean watched him approach with his usual demeanor—which seamlessly blended relaxed and amused with “Go ahead, please hit me, I haven’t had enough raw meat today.”

There were raised voices, which were the usual rituals behind bar fights—you stole my seat, I don’t like your face, I don’t like you, all of which would have been summarized in the 21st century as “your momma.” If you want to know what that means, you’ll have to ask Sean, he’s the ancient history expert—it’s the 33rd century, after all. Besides, the Zari didn’t have the concept of mothers… it’s a long story.

And the “fight” ended in the usual fashion, the Zari tried to hit him, and Sean leaned forward—still on his bar stool, mind you— and delivered a short, sharp shock to his face in the form of a left jab, which sent the Zari sprawling on the floor, unconscious before he even left his feet.

Did I mention that Sean Patrick Ryan of “Sean Patrick Ryan & Associates” happened to be two meters tall and one across? Yes, there were his electric-blue eyes, his raven-black hair, but his size was the first thing most people noticed. The second thing they noticed were his eyes, and then his clothing—at the moment, imagine an electric blue jumpsuit… then increase the brightness, and you have the idea.

Sean sighed and returned to his Guinness, joking with the bartender. The barkeep merely smiled and shook his head—which meant that there was going to be a fracas shortly, and Sean was indeed the target. The bar was also starting to fill up—certainly, there was to be a brawl anytime now, the only question was, with whom?

And how come everyone always knows about these things but me?

I looked next to me at an Erinal, short, stocky, and feathered up to the quills… and the gills, for that matter. I never could figure out the feather-gill combination, or why they had skin like leather under their fluffy down.

The Erinal looked up its long, wolf-like snout at me. “Yes?” he hissed in standard.

“You know who the floor show is today?”

He smiled—or grimaced, I could never tell with these—and glanced at Sean, at the bar, scanning the area. “You mean neither of you have heard?”

I deliberately blinked, and thankfully my deep blue eyes radiated innocence, and not my 200-point IQ. “No, what?”

“Your friend is going to meet with Feeshar Straczyn, the Touri.”

“Oh nuts.”

A Touri was never short. In fact, the shortest adult Touri was noted as being exactly 180 centimeters, or six feet tall, and that made the record books as being the smallest runt of any litter. Some Xenobiologists often claimed Touris had distinctive traits of dinosaurs, while actual paleontologists disagreed firmly, rigorously, and at a level most people would qualify as shrieking.

To a layman’s eye, a Touri had a long, graceful neck, armor-hard scales, vertical eye slits, and laser-sharp claws. No, laser is not a misprint, it’s a statement of experience—one Touri was let loose aboard a ship during the last war, and he shredded bulkheads with nothing but his natural nails…which were retractable.

“And here he is now.”

I looked at the bar, and he was right. This Touri was well over 180 centimeters—more like 205.

And the thing was, I had met him once before, with Sean. Last time I had checked, they were friends.

Then again, I have the urge to deck Sean from time to time as well.

Sean spared me a look with one electric blue eye, looked back to Feeshar Straczyn, shrugged, and reached back for his pewter mug, raising a finger, saying, “Let me finish this, and I’ll be right with you.“

The Touri nodded, putting his whole upper body into it the nod. I took it upon myself to again appreciate his size. God, this guy was massive—his legs were like the trunks of small Akarat trees, his skin the color of liver spots, and his face was like that of every Touri, a Velociraptor on steroids, right down to the pointed teeth and triangular snout going down toward a long neck. His clothes were made out of a substance that looked like leather, but I’m sure was actually the scales of something different—just as I was sure that it hadn’t been processed cloth, it had been home-sewn and skinned.

Crap.

There wasn’t a word exchanged between the two of them, just Sean grabbing the mug, raising it from the bar, and then—

WHAP, the pewter mug slashed across the Touri’s face, leaving a dent in the mug that looked remarkably like the Touri’s profile. He then brought it back around, leaving a dent in the other side of the mug. Straczyn merely blinked, startled, when Sean revealed where his other hand was—grabbing the base of his bar stool, which he ripped right out of the ground, thrusting straight up into the Touri’s chin, snapped its head back with a resounding crack.

Unfortunately, the rest of his body didn’t even totter. Then Sean stood and threw his whole mass into an across-the-body swing, smacking the Touri with a blow hard enough to make him fall back a step.

Feeshar then reached up and slashed through the base of Sean’s bar stool, leaving it on the floor in pieces. “Nuts.”

Sean was sent flying by a single blow, and landed at my feet. “Come on, Sean, stop playing. You can cripple this guy,” I told him in a stage whisper that the entire bar could hear. I think I had figured out what was going on here.

He smiled broadly, and answered in his booming voice, Irish brogue as thick as the bogs. “Peter, this is a bar fight, such things aren’t done. There are rules, you know. Tooth and claw and fists, and whatever else is lying around.”

“Yeah, but that usually doesn’t include the other guy having nine-centimeter talons.”

“And?”

The resulting brawl was worth its weight in coin, and despite the property damage, the bar made a substantial profit on the entire ordeal. As Sean noted, “whatever else is lying around” could be used as weapons, and he used them—he hit Feeshar with table tops, table legs, chairs, monitors, electrical appliances, beer mugs, martini glasses, plates, spoons, and even the toilet seat when the fracas spent a bit of time in the restroom.

At one point, Sean even ripped out a part of the bar. I don’t mean the bar top, I meant from the base to the water-stained counter top, and torn out from the roots in the floor. This is no mean task, even for Sean, considering that behind the bar, Levin—the barkeep—had installed what was literally the hull from a top of the line flagship, meant to repel rail gunfire and survive fusion missile impacts. He slapped Feeshar with it twice, before the Touri sliced through it with a single swipe of his claws.

Once they had moved away from the discarded piece of the bar, I made certain to move next to it, and prop it up in front of me like a makeshift barricade.

Sean even went toe-to-toe with Feeshar in bare-knuckles fashion. One would automatically think he’d be toast—Feeshar could move with the speed of the quickest Earth predator, which included a human on a skimmer. But Sean was faster… well, not exactly faster, but probably just as fast, and he moved as though Feeshar broadcasted every move ahead of time.

Everyone had to get out of the way at one time or another, of course. The fight took the two of them all over the place, and wrecked everything in sight, and several things under the floor.

Everyone in the bar needed to scatter, except, of course, for old Jeistar. Jeistar was…Jeistar, really, a landmark of The Scoundrel’s Refuge. One day he wandered onto Mercury’s surface, came in, sat down, ordered a drink, then nursed it for five hours. Ordered another, and kept ordering. Of all the people in the Refuge, only he didn’t fit. He was old, sedentary, pudgy, always smiled, always looking like the Buddha of the Bar, and always in that exact same seat—everyone else was a crook of some kind or another, and even the police force knew enough not to come in without bringing a small TASK force (Tactical Assault, Special-K branch… no one asked what the K was for, but on this planet, it was assumed that K was for Kill). But Jeistar was… just Jeistar, part confessor, part jester, part landmark. After a while, the bartender Levin just let him stay, on account that people came in and bought drinks just to talk with the Buddha of the Bar. Because when the dome’s external temperature nearly hit 800 degrees in the day time, talking was the least strenuous activity.

When Sean full-body tackled Feeshar, they both went down in a crash of over 700 pounds that shook the floor and destroyed Jeistar’s table—but the old man had lifted both his mugs up just in time. Which actually made me glad I ordered two myself after seeing the entrance fee.

The fight ended after Feeshar went for a triple-spin aerial kick, mastered by only a small handful of people in the galaxy, taught on an out-of-the-way planet so far off the star charts that just thinking about it made my head ache.

Sean had managed to be out of range yet again, a bar stool in hand. In half-twist, Feeshar had his back to Ryan, his head already snapped around to aim. Sean waited for the next full rotation after the kick, and he leapt forward, slamming the bottom of the bar stool into the back of Feeshar’s head. Feeshar went down, his skull crushed against the floor, and it got worse when Sean sat down on the stool while it was still on top of Feeshar.

Ryan smiled and bent down, smiling at Feeshar. “You want to give up now?”

No one could tell if Feeshar smiled, snarled, or agreed, so Sean just sat there, smiled, and said, “Levin, another Guinness, my good man.”

About an hour later, the three of us left, having had our fill of drinks that people were happy to pay us. Even Feeshar had his fill of the local brew.

Now, you might ask by this point, “What in God’s name was all that about?” Well, I’ll be happy to tell you. Because after the bar population was done with us, and had turned its vastly limited attention span to the resumption of ruining their bladders, Sean and Feeshar staggered out together and I followed behind. I breathed in the recycled air of the dome, and wondered how many trees they had to plant in the dome to make it smell so fresh. Then again, from what I saw of the terraforming efforts, they were really impressive – though without the dome, we would all freeze at night and cook in the day time. Pity they couldn’t move the planet farther from the sun.

Once we were out of sight of The Scoundrel’s Refuge, I stepped in front of them—ten feet in front of them, I didn’t want to get run over by so many pounds of biped. “Why the hell didn’t the two of you tell me you were going to do this?”

Sean looked at Feeshar, who merely smiled.

“Now where would be the fun in that?” Ryan began, his brogue only a faint accent now. “Ya see, Peter, we wanted to keep it a shock, so your reaction would be appropriate to a total surprise.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re just lucky I’m brighter than both of you put together. I saw Feeshar and knew you two were the distraction.”

“Fe’eshar,” the Touri hissed as he corrected me. He wasn’t angry that I could tell, his hiss was part of his accent.

“Sorry, we met so briefly, I didn’t even catch your name. I heard it again from an Erinal in there and—”

“Did you get the target from that bastard Levin?” Sean cut me off.

I sighed. “Of course I did.” I raised the info-diamond. It was the size of my two thumbs, with enough data to fill a large library. “When you hurled that section of the bar at Fe’eshar, I maneuvered behind it to it, picked up the diamond from the compartment, and replaced it with a blank. Do you know how hard it is to cut up one of these things so it looked like a Touri did it, especially when I have to do it behind my back in the middle of a crowded bar?”

Sean chuckled.

I continued “Our friend the barkeep will be quite put out with us, I suspect, when we blow his weapons cache to hell.” I pocketed it again. “It’ll teach him to sell tickets… and be an arms dealer.”

Fe’eshar smiled. “Is good when a plan comes together, yes?”

Ryan laughed. “Come, we have to ruin his day.”

“And you should have least told me what you two were going to do. I used to write scripts for the Interstellar Wrestling Federation.”

I trailed after the two of them with a sigh. There were three things that made Sean Patrick Ryan dangerous. He’s: highly intelligent; creative; absolutely insane. He’s not clinically insane, but, well…you saw his idea of a plan. He rejected other ideas of mine because they weren’t “fun.” And he couldn’t have been bothered to tell me what he was doing. Probably because that would have taken the fun out of it.

Put all of that together, add his build, a hobby with high explosives and his familiarity with every major form of martial art known to members of the Society for Creative Anachronism—which included races from most of the known galaxy—and you have a very deadly package.

All of this is why Levin was in serious trouble. Fe’eshar was a friend of Sean’s from years back, and when the Soivan government started funding and supporting anti-Touri terrorists via Levin’s arms dealers, Ryan volunteered to “fix” the problem.

As we approached the storage facility later that evening, I was still confused. “I still find it hard to believe that Levin is the one behind the arms-smuggling,” I muttered. “Middle-man, yes, he’s got the charisma for it. Mastermind? Please, that man needs a cheat sheet to mix drinks.”

Sean’s eyes stood out in the darkness as he looked back at me. He had thankfully traded in his eye-bleeding blue outfit for a dark green (black is a problem, it’s typically darker than the night itself). Both eyes glinted with mischief, which told me nothing—Sean’s Irish eyes were always smiling, because he was always up to something.

The entire area radiated an electromagnetic field that played havoc with most modern weapons. Unless one knew how to counter the field, lasers wouldn’t work, and SHP guns exploded. Superheated Hydrogen Pistols worked by launching hydrogen plasma within a magnetic field. When the field hits a target, the field collapses, then, the plasma mixes with the oxygen, and boom, you are quite dead. The facility’s magnetic field would collapse all SHP bursts as soon as they left the bubble—unless, of course, your magnetic field had the right frequency, like in the SHPs the guards carried.

The perimeter guards were easy. I used my intricate knowledge of human anatomy and martial arts training to ambush my guard, judo throw him to the ground, and put him in a rear naked choke that put him to sleep. Fe’eshar and Sean, on the other hand, calmly walked up to their targets, asked for directions, and promptly pummeled them unconscious.

The perimeter was a solid, impenetrable wall. The front gate was protected with more security on a single lock than I had ever seen. There were retinal scanners, iris scanners, and a touchpad that not only took a ten digit code, it could also scan the fingerprints of the person punching in the code, as well as a sample of DNA, not to mention measured the blood pressure in each fingertip.

It took me all of ten seconds to pop off the lid and tell the computer to “scan” records in its own memory. The sensors thought they were active, but had only done a computer search. It was so easy. How did other people not walk in from off the street whenever they liked? What was it like in the funny little brains who only had an IQ of 160, like Sean?

The door for the ugly brick building started to open, and I smiled. “Open says-a-me.”

The gate swung open, and the target building was directly ahead. Fe’eshar moved in first, followed by Sean. I toddled along behind, wondering exactly what we were going to do once we had penetrated the front door. The building wasn’t a warehouse, more like a small transport hangar. Even if we somehow managed to find a crate of missiles, and used that to destroy the whole building, the resulting explosions would probably destroy the surrounding kilometer. I didn’t even want to think of what would happen if we accidentally cracked the dome. Death by spacing was bad, but at least there would be a body left—I didn’t want to be flash-fried by Mercury’s 800 degrees.

When we made it to the storage unit we wanted, the next lock was slightly more complex than the one on the outer perimeter. I looked it over, and was about to get to work when Fe’eshar ripped the door off.

I gave them both a look. “Well, that was subtle. If you were going to set off every alarm in the building, why did I even bother picking the first lock?”

Sean smiled. “You needed to feel useful somehow. Besides, there’s security personnel inside anyway.”

I blinked. I didn’t know how he did it, but I assumed that he had gotten that information from the info we recovered at the bar fight. I hadn’t looked at the thing myself.

Sean rushed in, and the Touri and I charged in after him. I had no idea what they were doing, or why. We just followed him to the central corridor…the main storage room. There were enough crates there to fill the cargo hold of a large shuttle. I didn’t even want to imagine how much time it took to bring it all in.

The lights went on a few seconds later.

“Gee, Sean,” I muttered behind him. “You invite me to all the really cool parties, especially when the hosts have automatic weapons.”

There were a few armored Soivan, a few scaled Touris, like Fe’eshar, and a scattering of other races, with the only thing they had in common were their armaments, and the fact that they were all on the high ground on the catwalk above us.

And there was Levin, the bartender, smiling at us.

“I regret to inform you gentlemen,” Sean declared in a crystal clear brogue, “that you are all under arrest. If you come quietly, there will be no need to kill you.”

Levin beamed. “Ah, and what would be the fun in that?”

Sean leaned up against one of the large crates next to him. “And tell me exactly how you’re going to kill us with automatic weapons while I’m standing next to a box of rockets? Or is it that your people are really good sharpshooters?”

The bartender blinked and said, with a little less cheer this time, “You’re not exactly a small target.”

Ryan smiled, raising a finger to emphasize that Levin had hit upon an important point. “Ah, ’tis true, yet you have a little problem. I’m not the only target you need to hit.”

“The Touri is even bigger, you fool!”

The one that no one had noticed—me—moved from behind the larger and wider Sean Ryan, then around and behind the other crates in the room. By the time the two of them finally finished jabbering, I had already parked myself underneath the catwalk—and the guys with the automatic weapons—with two fresh thermal grenades I slipped from a weapons crate. On Levin’s last growl, I hurled both grenades up on the overhead catwalk, aiming for its support structures.

The entire catwalk collapsed, taking the gunmen with it. I leaped out of the way, pondering in retrospect whether or not that had been the best idea I had ever come up with.

Whether or not it was, I survived it. The humans on the catwalk hadn’t made it. The Soivan and the Touri gunmen had gone down in a tangle of claws and armor. Sean and Fe’eshar sprang into action the moment the catwalk fell. Ryan had dropped to one knee, pulling out an old-fashioned projectile weapon with armor piercing bullets that would penetrate Touri scales and Soivan exoskeletons—though Sean didn’t try so shoot through a Soivan ribcage, just the lower organs. Fe’eshar didn’t even bother with a weapon, just slashed and hacked his way through the others before they could fully recover.

Sean yanked me to my feet after the entire fracas was over. I brushed myself off and sighed. “Can’t you leave anyone alive?”

Ryan smiled. “When they stop trying to kill me, I’ll see what I can manage.” He looked to the side. “Fe’eshar, you okay?”

Fe’eshar rose to his feet, talons retracted. “I am fine, thank you. Do we have all of them?”

“Not quite all, but there aren’t any gunmen here, if that’s what you mean.”

I blinked, looking at Sean’s newly acquired backpack. “What did you do, steal a fusion bomb from their arsenal?”

He laughed. “No, that would be silly. Besides, I couldn’t get the crate with the fusion bombs open.” He shrugged. “It isn’t like I could have smuggled one in my carry-on luggage. Now, come on, we should get going before the leader shows up.”

He scanned the area while I pondered his statement. If Levin wasn’t the ringleader, which made sense, then who was? I could only come to one conclusion, but it didn’t make any sense.

“Whoa,” I heard Sean say. He held a small black box with a keypad on it. “An M22 charge…think of it as a low-grade nuke without the radiation. When this goes off, we should be about a hundred yards away. It’ll vaporize all the weapons without setting them off.”

Sean took the backpack, and I couldn’t figure out what was in it that he was so interested in taking it with us.

We made it outside the main building, heading for the perimeter wall at a run. Sean kicked open the gate, and we spilled out past the stone cut walls…

And we ran right into a hoard of gunmen, led by their ringleader.

Jeistar, the Buddha of the Bar, his smile ever serene, held a pistol by his side.

“About time you showed up,” Sean muttered. “I’m surprised you sent Levin in the first place.”

Jeistar blinked, almost surprised that Sean had known it was him. Then again, so was I. Though I guess it made a certain kind of sense.

Sean smiled. “Of course I knew it was you—who else other than Levin practically lives in that bar? You were either in on it, or knew about it—and since Levin wasn’t the brightest Dwarf Star in the sky, he needed someone else. That left you.”

“Unlike Levin,” Jeistar said softly, “I have no urge to gloat. Kill them.”

The gunmen raised their SHP rifles and fired without hesitation.

At that point, the hydrogen discharge from their weapons exploded as soon as it left the barrel, destroying hands and weapons, burning faces, and setting fire to clothing.

It occurred to me that a magnetic field disruptor could also have been considered a weapon for sale by Levin and Jeistar—I just didn’t know that they were small enough to be carried in the backpack Sean had lifted.

Jeistar blinked at the suddenness of the explosion, and didn’t even have time to react when Sean shot him in the leg. We ran by him, Sean scooping up Jeistar’s fallen pistol as he passed.

Ryan dropped the backpack as he ran. Calling over his shoulder, he said, “Thanks for the magnetic field disruptor. Nice toy.”

We ran as fast as our legs could carry us, and that was pretty dang fast. Most people were content with medical technology that allowed them to have relatively low body fat with minimal work. The three of us were more interested in being able to run away from trouble.

Even though I didn’t even look back, I can imagine what went through Jeistar’s mind next. I could almost see the Buddha of the Bar blinking as the three of us just ran. It wouldn’t matter if every last one of his gunmen were killed that evening, he was still alive. Besides, he had one warehouse destroyed, but he could get more supplies. There would always be another shipment, as long as he was alive.

Jeistar would have smiled then, because, after all, letting him live was stupid mistake on our part, right?

He should have considered that we hadn’t.

But Jeistar couldn’t have known that we were running because the clock on the M22 charge was counting down.

I believe I heard Jeistar laughing at us just before the warehouse and the surrounding hundred-yard radius went up in a ball of white-hot flame.

The fireball had stopped about twenty meters behind us, but we were still running. I was scared stiff that we might have breached the dome and killed us all, but apparently, Sean had thought about that in advance. Surprisingly, the three of us didn’t even have our adrenaline spike when we had guns leveled at us, but a fireball that vaporized solid matter, that’s a little different.

We finally stopped about two miles away ten minutes later. The fireball was going to call enough attention to itself that we should have probably gone straight to the spaceport, but that would have been problematic.

“Jeistar,” I puffed, once we had taken a few minutes. “Interesting. Logically, he makes sense as the last open option. Improbable, but not impossible, sure. But who would have guessed?”

Sean smiled. “Come on Peter! It’s Mercury, the planet of the trickster. You should have realized, especially after the fight in the bar, Peter, that appearances are deceiving.”

About the Author

Declan Finn is the author of over a dozen novels. His urban fantasy quartet, Love at First Bite, has been nominated for two Dragon Awards for best horror. He is the coauthor of Codename: UnSub, which was a finalist for the Dragon in Best Apocalyptic novel. He is currently hard at work with Silver Empire Press to rerelease his Pius Trilogy, which stars an ancestor to Sean Patrick Ryan. Other short stories of his can be found with Lyonesse short story services, and Superversive Press’ Tales of the Once and Future King, and MAGA 2020. The general insanity Finn refers to as his life is well documented at his website www.declanfinn.com

MDNA

Misha Burnett

It was one of those days. My cats had found something in the walls of my place, or thought that they had, and kept scratching and yowling, usually just as I was drifting off from the last time they’d woken me up. So morning found me grumpy. I made coffee and found that the cream had gone bad after I poured it. Then I had a cyst burst in the shower and had to deal with stopping the blood from running down my legs while I was getting dressed. I got to work late and in a foul mood.

And naturally my boss was having a wonderful morning and wanted to get all chatty. “Good morning, Topaz, you look great today (a blatant lie), how are you doing?”

I gritted my teeth and didn’t say, Dying, just like the rest of us.

Instead I made some vapid chatter and asked if I could pretty please get my assignment because I’m just raring to go today.

My donor was Mr. Frederick, and he was one of the friendly ones, which on another day would have been great. The donors tend to come in two categories—the ones who get horribly embarrassed about the process and don’t look at you, don’t talk to you any more than is necessary, and try to pretend you don’t exist. That would have been fine, since I was trying to pretend I didn’t exist that day.

But no. Instead I get the other kind, the sort who like to flirt and act like it’s some kind of freakin’ date or something. Some days I like that, I’ll play along—well, as best I can. It’s not like I can know anything more about the process than I read about or watch other people doing.

I got to his house and rang the bell, doing my best to approximate a smile for the camera. He came to the door in a robe, his salt and pepper hair all bed-tousled and looking like he’d just had a great night’s sleep followed by a real breakfast that included coffee with cream that hadn’t gone bad. I thought to myself, I hate you, and handed him the collection tube.

Now, we have to watch. We have to be able to verify that the collection was in fact provided by the donor of record. This is a high stakes game we’re playing—the future of the human race, like they keep telling us. Even so, I was sorely tempted to tell him to just fill the damn thing and I’d wait outside. Maybe I should have, but rules are rules.

So he sits down on the couch and I have a seat in a chair across from him. He’s got a big screen on his desk. It’s facing away from me, but I can hear the soundtrack—the usual animal noises. At least there wasn’t any peppy jazz playing along with it. He’s watching the screen and doing his thing with the collection tube, and out of the blue he says, “I wish you looked more like a girl, darling.”

And I lost it.

I shouldn’t have. Yes, his remark was out of line, but as my boss likes to say, being out of line is pretty much what the donors get paid to do. The process puts them in a mindset that causes some weird stuff to come out of their mouths. It wasn’t the worst thing a donor had said to me, not by a long shot. But it hit me at exactly the wrong time.

I said, in a voice colder than the transport freezer in the back of my van, “Mister, my body doesn’t produce estrogen because I have a mass of malignant tumors where my uterus should be.”

And I then I broke down in tears.

Not, as they say, conducive to the process.

In fact, it was the kind of thing that could get a girl fired.

I hadn’t said anything that he didn’t already know, of course. Obviously his entire lifestyle was a result of the fact that he is one of the lucky four percent of the population that isn’t effectively sterile. But bringing it out like that—not to mention following it with a crying jag—killed the mood deader than the European Interior.

He pulled his robe closed and put the damned collection tube off to one side and got to his feet—I was just sitting there making those damned stupid hiccup noises you make when you’re trying to stop bawling your eyes out—and came over close to me. He didn’t touch me, instead he squatted down a little so his head was next to mine and said, “I’m so sorry. That was insensitive of me. I shouldn’t have.”

And the whole time I was thinking that I shouldn’t have and him being all noble and understanding right then just made it all worse and I was a hell of a mess just then. Plus I really needed to make this collection and that meant getting myself back under control and him back into the groove.

But I couldn’t stop crying. So I got up and ran to the bathroom. I had been there often enough that I knew where it was. I ran the water and washed my face—my sobs finally dying down—and seriously contemplated just drowning myself in the toilet right then and there.

Instead I talked myself down off the ledge, dried my face. I looked blotchy as hell, but then I always look blotchy as hell. I get squamous cells by the double handful. I didn’t look any worse than usual, anyway. I sucked it up and stepped out of the bathroom.

He was still in his robe, but it was closed and belted and he was at his desk, reading the screen and looking like any executive who works from home. He glanced up at me, gently concerned, and got to his feet.

“You want something to eat?” he asked. “I have some biscuits from breakfast. They’re still warm.”

“No thank you,” I said in my professional voice.

“Coffee?” he asked.

I started to shake my head, then thought, screw it, I’ve already messed up. “Please, that would be lovely.”

He headed to the kitchen and asked over his shoulder, “How do you take it?”

“Cream,” I said. “Lots of cream.”

He got about three steps towards the kitchen door when the giggles started. Him first, with a muttered, “sorry” and then I started laughing, too. He fled, and I took my seat, trying to stifle the laughs and making little squeaks that made me start laughing all over again. What the hell was wrong with me?

He brought two coffees and a plate of biscuits. We were both fairly calm by then. I sipped coffee and it was excellent, and I had a biscuit. Two, even.

“I can call to reschedule, if you want,” he said.

“No,” I said quickly. “Please. It would be better if we could… stick to the schedule.”

Then a horrid thought struck me. “I mean, unless you want me to go away. They’ll,” I swallowed hard, “send someone else.”

Yeah, this was definitely going to be a career-ender. Well, there were other delivery jobs. None that paid this well, of course.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want them to send somebody else.”

Then we just sat there for a moment. I was trying desperately to think of something to say or do that would get him interested in the process again, but everything that came to mind would have been just… pathetic.

“This is really a strange situation,” he said thoughtfully. “You know I’m still a virgin, technically. I’ve got twenty-six children but I’ve never actually, you know, done it.”

He seemed to be talking more to himself and I’d already said too much, so I kept my trap shut.

“Not exactly what I expected my sex life to be when I was a kid, you know?” he went on.

“What did you expect it to be like?” The question just popped out. I knew that men and women used to do things together, things that were preserved on video and—it was rumored—carefully staged live performances for very select audiences. But it wasn’t a subject that had ever interested me much, work notwithstanding.

He had to have been born before the wars, which meant he was at least ten years older than me. He would have known about those things growing up. Being viable, he’d probably expected to have his own woman and their own children when he grew up. It was a different world back then.

“Oh,” he gave a laugh. “Something more romantic, I suppose.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

He looked up at me, to see if I was mocking him, but I was serious.

He sighed. “My first date was with a girl named Allison. I took her to the movies—some really awful slasher thing, I don’t remember the title. See, the guys at school told me the way to score was to get the girl scared so she’ll grab onto you.” A laugh.

“Was she pretty?” I asked.

“Oh,yeah,” he looked off into the middle distance, remembering. “Blond and tan, and she wore tight T-shirts a lot.” He glanced at me to see if I understood the implications of that. I nodded. I saw fertile women as part of my job, too, after all.

“More than anything else in the world I wanted to get my hands on her shirt,” he continued. “I didn’t even think about getting under her shirt… Just to touch her there would have been heaven.”

“Did you get to?” I asked. I was finding this fascinating.

“Almost,” he laughed. “I got very close, there in the theater. I got her shoulder.”

Twenty minutes later I was stowing the collection cylinder in the freezer. It was, bar none, the most unusual pickup I had ever done. He never turned his video back on, instead he just… talked.

He had gotten his hands on a girl’s chest, eventually. Not Allison, a girl named Nancy. And then there was another one who put her hand between his legs. He talked about his past, before the war, and I listened. I started to feel like I was part of the process. I didn’t feel anything, not like he was, but I felt… involved. It wasn’t just his old memories that were getting him into the mood, it was the fact that he was sharing them with me. Like the fact that I was there and listening made them more real, helped him to relive the experience.

Very strange. Not bad, though, not bad at all. It made me feel like I was important to him.

I got the filled tube into the freezer, and locked the freezer, then sealed the environmental shields around the freezer, then locked the doors to the back of the van. All the usual safeguards. I got in the front, put on my harness, locked the doors, and pulled out, headed for the region gates. I called in to dispatch.

“It’s Topaz,” I said. “Frederick pickup complete, I’m heading for the recipient.”

“About time,” the kid on the desk, Huston, barked a laugh. “Long time coming, huh?”

That joke doesn’t get any better, no matter how many times I hear it.

“This one’s going to be an overnight,” I said. “I’ll check in after the implantation and go on to the motel. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Roger that,” Huston said. “Call if you run into any problems.”

I hadn’t been functional enough to pack a lunch that morning, so I stopped at my favorite deli and ordered a couple of cold sandwiches to go. While I was waiting for my order I told my van to get the updated highway information and then find me a route to my destination—in that order. By the time my sandwiches were ready it told me that I could get there in six hours, which would be nice but I wasn’t going to count on it. The route it found for me was all either level one or level two maintenance, though, and no bridges, so it was possible.

At the region gate the guards checked my paperwork, filed my route plan, and gave me the canned “You accept all liability for anything that happens to you once you leave the safe zone” speech and I signed the usual wavers. Then the opened the gate and I hit the road.

The driving is the best part of my job and, despite the scare stories, I’ve never had any real problems in the outback. There is still some traffic going through, after all, food from the farms and medical transports like me, mostly. Those of us who venture outside of the safe zones tend to look out for each other. The few times I’ve gotten stuck or broken down I was able to call for help and got bailed out by some other long haul transporter.

There’s a strange kind of beauty to the way that nature reclaims the places that used to be ours. Sometimes all you can see is the outlines, a square corner to a flowering hillside to let you know that there’s an old building under all that green. They say that there used to be two hundred and fifty million people living in the United States. Hard to believe.

One you get outside the safe zones it’s so green and so quiet. There’s just the road and the forest around you. I stopped for lunch at a place that I had used before, a wreck that used to be an Outlet Mall according to the crumbling remains of the sign. The building had mostly collapsed, just a few walls left, but the parking lot was in pretty fair shape. I turned off the motor and opened the windows and just listened to the stillness for a while. I could hear the wind in the trees and that was it.

When I got back on the road the stillness was too much, so I turned on the new dramatization of A Princess Of Mars. I started it from the beginning again, even though I’d already heard the first half. I like the story and it was a good production and listening to it made the empty miles pass quickly.

It occurred to me that Frederick must feel like John Carter—suddenly transported into a dying world. The reclaimed wilderness wasn’t exactly a dead sea bottom, but the principal was the same. Once we ruled these lands, and now we are barely hanging on to the edge of the continent. Six million of us in the United States. Twenty years ago there were cities with that many people.

And did that make me Dejah Thoris?

Hardly. I was just the messenger, the princess was waiting for me up ahead, on the other side of the wilderness. Heroes and heroines were too valuable to risk out here in the dead sea bottoms. They might get kidnapped by Tharks or eaten by white apes.

Or get stuck in a herd of deer like I did.

People used to hunt these things, I thought, crawling down the road in first gear through a forest of antlers and big, stupid faces. There was a whole industry devoted to making tools for hunting them, camouflage outfits and special rifles and whatnot. Going out in the woods and looking for a deer to shoot used to be a big deal. These days it’s all you can do to nudge them out of the way. Laying on the horn doesn’t get you anything but some indignant looks. It’s their world now and they know it.

Even with the time lost to the deer I made it to the destination safe zone by late afternoon. The gate guards checked my authorization and medical papers, gave my van a once over, and let me in.

My motel was close to the gate—they all were, since there wasn’t much traveling going on these days—but I didn’t go there, just gave them a call to let them know I’d made it into town and to verify they had my room ready. I wanted to see the recipient first and get business taken care of.

Her place was one of those buildings that used to be a dozen or so little apartments and had a big parking area. I slid the van into a spot by the front door, got out, and stretched. Then I opened the back and got out the collection tube and the thawing gear, loaded everything in my case and went to meet the soon to be expectant mother.

The woman who met me at the door was an iron-haired matriarch in a severe suit, heavyset but muscular rather than fat. She looked like she could pick me up and fold me into an origami crane without sweating.

“Sable?” I asked. “I’m Topaz.”

“Sable is upstairs,” she said, not bothering to introduce herself. “This way.”

Upstairs was a big bedroom, very neat and airy. Sable was sitting on the bed in a white Tennis dress, giving me a brave little smile.

She was young. Younger than me. She was rounded all over, with the same solid build of the older woman, and her hair was long and black, as sleek as the fur of one of my cats. Her resemblance to the woman who led me in was unmistakable.

A second-generation breeder. Either one of the first children born after they started viability testing, or a happy accident, one who just happened to have two parents who had escaped gene damage. Either way, it was pretty clear that the two women were mother and daughter.

I started unpacking my gear and found places to plug everything in. Sable’s mother was hovering around. I handed her the reservoir for the thawing bath.

“Would you fill this up with tap water for me?,” I asked, “Just room temperature.”

She gave me a look that made me think she was about to refuse, then took it and left the room.

I looked to the girl. “I’m Topaz,” I told her. “You nervous?”

She nodded. “A little.”

I lowered my voice. “Would you be less nervous if it were just you and me?”

Her eyes flicked to the door and she gave a quick nod.

I smiled at her. “Then we’ll do it that way.”

When Sable’s mother came back with the reservoir I took and said, “Thank you. I’ll call you if I need anything else,” and started setting up the thawing bath.

“I’ll stay with her,” she said.

I didn’t look up. “Better if you don’t,” I said. “We prefer not to risk cross-contamination.”

She stood there for a moment longer while I concentrated on my equipment. I could feel her wanting to argue and I readied myself to blind her with science—I have a whole bunch of big frightening words memorized for just such occasions—but she decided to leave gracefully.

“I’ll be just downstairs if you need me, Sable,” she said at the door.

“Thank you, Mother,” Sable answered. “I’ll be fine.”

Once the door was shut I looked up. “First time?”

Sable giggled nervously. “Is it that obvious?”

“Just relax,” I said. “I won’t hurt you.”

I had the water circulating and the heater running. I set the small metal cylinder that contained the frozen product in the bath and attached the leads. It takes about twenty minutes to bring the temperature up to body heat.

“Now we wait,” I told her.

“How long?” Sable asked.

I looked at the display on the bath automatically, although I had just set it. “Not long,” I said. “Less than a half hour.”

Sable nodded and looked up at the ceiling, blew out a deep breath, full of tension.

Even though what I do with the women is more complicated and more physically intimate that what I do with the men, it’s usually a lot less… emotional. It’s just a medical procedure. But most of the women I see have already had a number of children, and know what to expect. Sable didn’t. Sure, she had been told about it, but that’s not the same thing. I sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

“It’s exciting,” I said. “Having a child.”

Her expression grew sour. “It’s the beginning of a great adventure,” she said sarcastically. It sounded like she was quoting something. “I am the crucible of life.”

“You are, you know,” I said mildly. “We’re damned close to being extinct.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Believe me, I’ve been hearing it my whole life.”

Then, before I could say anything else, she changed the subject. “What’s he like?”

I looked over at the collection cylinder thawing in the warm bath. “The donor?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. That man. What’s he like?”

She wasn’t asking about his genetic fitness—she would already have a report on that. “He’s a nice guy,” I told her. “He gave me biscuits and coffee this morning.”

She thought about that for a moment. Hesitantly she said, “Now, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but you…watch them, right? Make the…donation?”

“That’s right,” I agreed.

“So…” she was starting to blush, her ears turning pink, but she continued, “…you just, what, stand over them while they…” She finished up by curling her hand in a fist and moving it up and down over her crotch.

I shrugged. “More or less, yeah.”

She giggled. “Your job is awesome.”

I thought about the morning’s encounter with Frederick. “I suppose it can be.”

She was still giggling. “I wish you’d taped it for me.”

“That would be against a lot of rules,” I observed dryly.

She gave me a look that was pure teenager. “Yeah, I know,” then, tentatively, “But you can talk about it, right? To me? I mean, I’m gonna have his baby. I just want to know about him.”

I considered the question. “I think he’d like you,” I hedged.

She looked at me curiously. “Oh?”

“Your, uh,” I gestured. Now I was the one getting embarrassed, “…chest.”

She looked down at her breasts and reached to cup them in her hands—not erotically, just measuring. “He likes big boobs?” she asked.

I shrugged. “He mentioned it.” I really shouldn’t have said even that much.

“He’s old, right?” she went on, “is he all… wrinkly?”

His age was listed on the donor profile. “He’s fifty-three. He’s in good shape. He looks like he stays pretty active.”

“Old enough to be my father,” Sable mused.

“You know they screen for consanguinity,” I pointed out.

“Well of course he’s not my father,” she replied quickly, “but he’s old enough to be. I don’t know who my father is. Mother says it’s not important.”

She may not know, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Records from the early days were pretty spotty. But they would have run the charts to rule out any chance that donor and recipient were related.

A sigh from Sable. “How much longer?”

I checked the display. “A few more minutes. You don’t want the applicator to be chilly.”

Her eyes got momentarily big. “No,” she considered, “I guess not.”

She sighed again. “It’s just not fair. I’m going to have a baby and I don’t get laid first. You at least got to see him jerk off—I don’t even get that much.”

“You can—” I broke off, wondering how much Sable’s mother had told her. “There are still things you can do, you know. Have lovers.” I finished lamely.

“Oh, I know,” she looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve got the whole list on what I can do by myself and what I can do with other people and when I can do it…”

A glance over at me. “It’s just so damned clinical. Like sex is some kind of medical procedure. My mother has a ‘massage therapist’. He comes over three times a week and they go up to her room for an hour. Like I’m not supposed to know what’s going on. I don’t know his name—Hell, I don’t think she knows his name. Like, he could die, and the service would just send another guy, and Mother wouldn’t even notice.”

That sounded a bit harsh, but it might not be that far off the mark. I was saved from trying to think of a reply by the tone from the thawing bath. I went to get the equipment ready.

“Aren’t you at least going to kiss me first?” Sable said, mock-pouting.

I went to her bedside and bent over, obediently pressed my lips to hers. She looked shocked, then giggled.

I finished assembling the applicator and preformed the procedure.

Afterward Sable rearranged her dress and stretched on the bed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” I agreed. “The sperm are still traveling, but we’ve given them every advantage we can. It’s best for you to just rest for the next hour or so.”

“When will I know?” she asked.

“About a week,” I said. “You’re already being monitored, I assume?”

“Every time I pee,” she said with an aura of world-weariness. “Or anything else.”

“Hormone changes show up fairly quickly,” I said. “There will be indications in a week or a little more. Then, of course, they’ll be monitoring the child as it grows.”

She looked down to her belly, stroked it gently. “Hello, baby person,” she said. “Welcome to one fucked-up world.”

I told Sable’s mother on the way out that the procedure had gone smoothly and that her daughter was resting upstairs. The older woman had been baking and she insisted that I take a couple of slices of honey cornbread, warm from the oven. I thanked her.

I checked into the motel and called dispatch to report that I was done and I’d be back in the office sometime tomorrow afternoon. Called room service for a pizza, took a bath, watched a movie that I didn’t bother to pay attention to, and went to bed.

Just one of those days.

About the Author

Misha Burnett has little formal education, but has been writing poetry and fiction for around forty years. During this time he has supported himself and his family with a variety of jobs, including locksmith, cab driver, and building maintenance.

His first four novels, Catskinner’s Book, Cannibal Hearts, The Worms Of Heaven, and Gingerbread Wolves comprise a series, collectively known as The Book Of Lost Doors.

Major influences include Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, William Burroughs, and Phillip K. Dick.

Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008MQ8W4K

My blog: https://mishaburnett.wordpress.com/

THE STAR OF MERCURY

By A.M. Freeman

When the first sunrise in fifty-nine days peeked over the rim of Mercury, Eli Shepard risked looking away from his instruments to watch it. The sun was a massive ball of fire on the horizon. It cast out its first rays over the rocky and hostile planet, stretching long shadows across the cratered and hard ground. With no atmosphere, the sun was blinding, and the contrast between the dark and light was sharp enough to cut. It was a breathtaking sight, if Eli had had breath or time to spare.

“Captain, we are ready.”

Eli snapped his attention back to the task at hand. He’d have time to marvel at the sunrise once he made this world livable.

He looked over the readings and marked the check list, “Is the thermos filled with the air and exact temperature of this side of the planet? Do you have the seal secured?”

“Yes, sir.” Rondle finished clipping the magnets onto the thermos and connecting the cable to the rover, “Holding at -310 Fahrenheit. We are ready for transport.”

“Excellent.” Eli pressed the com in his helmet, “Team Hot Side, mission status?”

“Complete,” came the reply.

A grin spread across Eli’s face, “Confirmed. Meet at the lab.”

He released the com but not the smile. Today would be the day. He could feel it.

Meanwhile, Rondle had switched on the magnets, levitating the thermos, and set the coordinates in the rover. He stuck his head out the door frame, “We’re ready to roll, Cap.”

Eli was strapped in moments later, and soon they were chasing the sun westward along the horizon.

He stole another glance at the ball of fire only 35 million miles away. The bright face of the sun breaking into the cold and dark surface of Mercury seemed to him like a beacon of hope and new beginning. He fancied the sight mirrored his mood, and his spirits were lifted even more.

All the research, all the work, everything that had built up to this point was about to be tested. Maybe this was it; this time the test would work. They had been so close so many times… yet had always fallen short. Not many possibilities remained. If this test failed like the rest, he would be at a loss as to what to do next or how to get the prototype to work.

But he had hope. He had a feeling that, like the rising sun, something bright and magnificent was about to happen. This new day was about to unveil either his greatest success or his hardest failure. Nervous knots twisted his stomach, but above that he had a feeling… a feeling that today was going to be a good day.

That night, Eli awoke to the sound of a small voice. It was quiet over the intercom, almost inaudible, and yet he was awake in an instant.

His wife also stirred, but he placed a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll take it this time, you rest.”

“But you’ve been in the lab nonstop,” she objected.

He kissed her forehead and replied, “You’ve been busy too. I know it’s hard when Sirius is having a rough period. And besides, I’ve been waiting for her to wake up so I can tell her the good news.”

Mary squeezed his hand in understanding and closed her eyes again.

Eli sat up and tapped the intercom on the night stand, “My Star, what’s the matter?”

“Daddy?” the little voice squeaked. “Daddy I don’t feel good…”

“I’ll be right there.” He pulled himself from the bed, at the same time flexing his left hand to activate the nanos within. Outside, the sun would still be rising, but inside their windowless little room, it was as dark as a midnight on Earth.

Eli used the soft glow coming from his left palm to fetch his robe and slippers, then moved swiftly through the narrow halls of their personal tent home.

The tents were called Grow Homes, and were his first big invention. Thanks to their success, he’d made enough money to fund this newest project here on the still desolate wastelands of Mercury.

The tents were made of a mixture of nano bio and smart metal that could mold and harden according to the environment. They came with anchors that could dig deep into rock, or stabilize in gases. The system had extreme temperature and pressure control, excellent recycling methods for waste and oxygen, interchangeable walls, built-in greenhouse capabilities for growing food, and a power converter that allowed the system to draw and utilize energy in a thousand ways. All in all, it was a house in a box that grew to fit the environment.

Eli had used a whole tent for his daughter’s room, as well as his and his wife’s living quarters, one for each of his crew members, and even combined multiple tents to make the lab and work area. Having an excess of tents at his disposal was one of the few perks of having the market for his invention dry up.

However, his daughter’s tent was special, because he’d build and engineered it specifically for her exclusive needs.

Reaching the first door connecting to her room, he stepped in and was dusted in a fine spray of disinfectant—all the tents were connected this way, minus the disinfectant. Closing the first behind him, he paused a moment in the tiny room to check the many systems of her tent, then passed through the second door.

Sirius’s room was likely the most colorful place on all of Mercury. Every inch of the curved walls were covered in murals depicting the mountains, forests, and beaches of Earth, as well as the jungles of Venus and the cliffs of Mars. The ceiling was patterned to replicate a sky following the 24 hour cycle of Earth, and at that moment, it was sparkling with stars. In some places the floor was bouncy, others were smooth and soft, and he’d even made a playground that was great for exercising. The room was huge and in itself like its own little world. He’d gone through no small effort to make the room as stimulating and enjoyable to his little girl as possible. It was the least he could do since, after all, she hadn’t been able to leave the safety of this room since the day of her birth.

Upon his entrance, a small head peeked out from a hammock strung between two fake trees, “Daddy?”

“Hey little one,” Eli said, leaning over to kiss her head as soon as he reached her side, “how are you feeling?”

“My back hurts, and it’s hard to move, again,” she said, her soft bottom lip puckered out and her large eyes stared up at him.

Pulling up a chair, Eli sat down next to her and stroked her hair. They had run out of pain pills, and it would take a few more days before the poppies in the greenhouse would be ready to go into the processor to be made into medicine. So instead, he tried to distract and direct her attention onto something else, “Did you do your exercises with Mama today?”

“No….” she quietly admitted.

“You know how important that is,” he said, trying to sound stern instead of scolding.

“But it hurts too much….” Sirius sniffed, fat tears pooling around her eyes.

It broke his heart every time he looked at her. She had taken her mother’s eyes and beauty, but unfortunately had taken most of her genes as well. Eli gazed down at his daughter, wrapped up like a butterfly still trapped in her cocoon. Something so beautiful but so fragile, unable to be what she was meant to be. Her small hands were smooth and weak, lines creased her porcelain forehead from pain, and her large, dark green eyes stared up at him in tears. She was something so precious, something that had to be protected. He did all he could, but no matter what, it never seemed to be enough.

Usually when these thoughts came, as they always did, they’d bring with them despair. He would push his fears aside by telling her a story or playing a game. He’d take all his time with her moment by moment, because he never knew when that moment would be his last with her.

But now the despair did not come, for now he had hope. Now, after all the work, he could finally provide her with what she needed. After all those long years of watching her struggle, he could finally set her free.

Gently picking Sirius up, he held her close in his arms and rubbed her back. “Just hang in there my little star.” He looked at her face, now relaxing a bit, and he smiled.

“I have some good news for you,” he said.

“What?” Her big eyes looked up at him in curiosity.

“You know my project? The one Daddy’s been working on since before you were born?”

Sirius nodded.

“I finished it today,” he felt an immense sense of pride at finally being able to say those words, and his smile broadened.

Sirius at first did not respond, then slowly she realized what her father was saying. “The project? The one you said would take me to Earth? It’s done?!”

“Yes,” Eli confirmed, then laughed as his little girl squealed and wiggled in his lap with joy.

“Oh wow! When are we going to Earth? Can we go now? Pleeease?” Her little face beamed so bright Eli was dazzled by it. He placed a hand on her heart, trying to calm her so she wouldn’t make it explode.

“Soon,” he assured her, “Once I have it patented I can secure investors, then I can use our extra money and we’ll take a trip to Earth to get you all fixed up.”

“Can I see it? I wanna go see it!”

Suddenly Sirius hopped off his lap and made a break for the door. She didn’t make it more than a few steps before she yelped in pain and stumbled, allowing Eli the chance to scoop her protectively into his arms. He settled her back down into her hammock, rocking her and smoothing her hair, as she pouted. “You have to be careful, little one.”

“But I want to see it! Just this once! Please!” Sirius said, still halfheartedly struggling to get up.

Eli’s voice became stern, “No, Sirius. You know why I can’t let you do that.”

Her eyes dragged to the ground, ashamed. Eli smiled a sad smile as he gently tilted her head back up. “Hey now, don’t mope,” he said, letting his voice turn soft again. “I’ll show you a picture.”

At first, Sirius only stuck her lip out further. But then her eyes lit up when he extended his left palm and a hologram appeared.

Sirius clapped her hands and cried in delight, “It’s the spider planet!”

Eli laughed at his daughter’s name for the terraformation engine, but then again, he could see why she named it that. The holo showed a glass case, and at the center of the glass case was what looked like a small model of Mercury. It looked this way because it was, indeed, a model of the planet. But what looked like a giant spider with its many legs encircling the planet, was not at all what it seemed. The multitude of arms that formed the “spider” took in the two extreme temperatures from the replicate Mercury. Manipulating the temperature to create energy, they sent it to the base of the engine anchored to the top of the planet.

Eli used his other hand to zoom in on the image. He pointed out the details to her, “I got the breakthrough when I retrieved the exact air from each side of the planet, and got the arms to properly intake. You can see the atmosphere beginning to form, and then over time rain will gather, and then…” he flexed his left fingers, “this is how it will look.”

The little image of the planet inside the case began to blur a bit as what looked like mist wrapped around it. The only places where the atmosphere did not spread was where the arms touched, leaving a handful of odd pockets spaced out around the planet. Within the forming clouds, rain began to build and fall. The rocky wasteland gave way to lakes, plant life, and ecosystems. One thing led to another, until what had once been barren rocks was now a thriving world.

Sirius’s eyes grew wide in wonder as she watched, and looked disappointed when Eli at last made a fist and shut off the holo.

“That was an intensely sped up version. But when the engine is built over the planet, that is basically what the terraformation engine will do.” Eli stared at his closed fist and said half to himself, “A whole new world, a great new opportunity…”

When he looked up, Sirius had such a gaze of awe it made his heart swell. He gently stroked his daughter’s hair and rubbed her back as she hummed old earth songs, the ones her mother had taught her, and rested in the hammock.

Eli had met his wife Mary on earth during a business trip. He was a space man, she was an Earth girl; not the most normal, or indeed safe, pairing of people. Yet her gentle and determined nature so well complimented his adventurous spirt, Eli had no other choice than to marry her and sweep his new wife off into the stars with him.

However, having come from a long family line on that comfortable planet, Mary had first needed certain medical mods and implants to be able to survive in the harsh environments. Yet with a bit of training and nano technology, she was as spaceworthy as her new husband. And for a time, they happily traveled the solar system together.

Then came the unexpected entrance of Sirius into their lives. It was less than a year into the Mercury project, and many weeks too early, and Eli had not the funds nor means to get her the care she needed. Miraculously she’d survived, and with the help of the medical systems built into the tent, and Eli’s engineering, she’d kept on surviving with relative health. Yet Sirius remained so weak. Her body was just not made for space. Just like her mother, Sirius would need medical mods for her to survive. Without it, all her devoted father could do was keep her in this controlled room, keep her exercising so the low gravity wouldn’t pull her bones and muscles apart, and give her every ounce of love and time he had.

Tears filled Eli’s eyes at the thought that at last, after five years of worry and pain, he could finally save his daughter. At that moment, he made a promise to himself. That no matter what, he would fix her. Then take his little Star into the heavens with him, right where she was meant to shine.

When traveling across Mercury, you could easily go hours between seeing any place of human inhabitance. And if you did see something, it’d only be one of the half-dozen mines spread across the planet. No one else was crazy enough to make a permanent home on the rocky planet - besides, of course, Eli, his family, and his crew.

With the prototype of the terraformation engine carefully secured in the back of the rover, Eli couldn’t drive as fast as he wanted to. That left plenty of time to talk with his business and communications assistant. She was young, bright, and energetic; with enough know-how to navigate the system and the right charisma for marketing, she was the perfect choice. He had learned the hard way that the most difficult part was not making the product, but rather finding investors, marketing, and the selling of it. If you didn’t get it patented and verified straight away, you’d be swept away when your competitors started making knock-offs. That’s why he had hired Saren, to handle fighting through the paperwork and keeping account of the whole process of the invention in case he ever needed to prove its authenticity.

She was a huge help and great for the job, but a little inexperienced or foolhardy at times, so Eli decided it wouldn’t hurt to go over things again. She diligently listened as he again explained how the process should go, what to look out for, and how often to communicate updates. By the time they arrived at the sole space port on the planet, Eli felt confident in Saren. She was a sharp girl and could accomplish a lot, as long as she kept focused.

It was almost painful to watch his precious prototype be packed up to be shipped far away from him to Earth, but he knew it was what needed to be done. He wished there were a way to go himself, and take Sirius with him. But it was too expensive, and the cargo ships were far too rough a place to be able to transport a sick child. Meanwhile, Saren seemed downright giddy to be heading to earth once again.

“Just remember to get your work done before you go enjoy the sights,” Eli gently warned. “I know how intoxicating that planet is after such a long absence.”

Saren resisted an eye roll, “Yes, sir! I’ll keep you updated.”

She began walking up the plank, but paused to turn and give Eli a big grin and salute, “So long, Cap.”

Eli returned it. “Hurry back,” he said as he watched her disappear into the haul, with the product that had consumed the last five years of his life.

“Big day, huh?”

Eli was shaken from his spellbound state watching the rocket ship disappear into a speck. To his embarrassment, he jumped just a little and his voice was slightly higher as he turned and asked, “What?” But when he saw who it was, Eli shook his head and smiled, “Ah, Mr. Henlar, it’s only you.”

The old man standing behind him chuckled, “Didn’t mean to scare ya lad, you just seemed a bit lost in thought.”

“Yeah, it is a big day,” Eli would have run a hand through his hair, but his helmet was in the way. “My invention, the terrafomation engine, is being sent to Earth to have it patented.”

Henlar raised his bushy white eyebrows, “Really now? My, my… You know, I still remember the day you arrived here.”

“Oh yeah? Can you believe it’s finally come to an end?” Eli said with a wry smile.

The old man’s eyes seemed to twinkle against his wrinkled skin, “Oh yes. What port conductor could forget the young boy arriving on a planet where only hard miners dared to go, declaring he would one day make it a paradise.”

Eli laughed and shook his head, “Heh, I’m sure that would have sounded ludicrous.”

“Yes, yes it did.” He gave a slow, wise nod of his head, “But when you’ve been around as long as I have, you begin to notice that those who have a spark in them, can accomplish anything they set themselves to. I saw that spark in you from the very beginning.”

A satisfied smile slowly spread across Eli’s lips. He thought of all the failures that eventually led to this success and nodded, “Thank you, sir.”

“But I don’t know about that girl,” Henlar squinted his eyes. “She’s a bit young to hold such a big responsibility on her own like that, ain’t she?”

“She’s a hard worker, I trust her,” Eli defended his assistant.

The old man just shrugged, “If you say so, I’d just keep my eye on her if I were you.”

The rover was just a few steps away, but Eli didn’t move to it quite yet. Instead, he watched the sky for the small speck of ship moving far, far away. The old man mused aloud after moments, by saying, “It’s a real shame no one buys your tents anymore. They are so handy! Like my own personal palace compared to my previous way of living here. It makes this hard planet much more bearable.”

It warmed Eli’s heart to hear such praise from someone of Henlar’s respect, yet he knew the reasons for its failure already.

Those early times of selling the Grow Homes had been a dream come true. He’d done well - made a name for himself and a profit more than he could have hoped. However, as powerful as his Grow Home Tents were, they were not the model of luxury. He soon learned most people were no longer interested in dangerous explorations, and that they wanted something more domestic. They were no longer satisfied with just the bare minimum, they wanted something nice and comfortable to raise a family, somewhere nice and inhabited like the gardens of Venus and the canyons of Mars.

Stronger, more dominant companies quickly picked up on the market and provided the people with what they wanted. Gagarin & Galactic had done particularly well with their planetary Mobile Homes. As a consequence, Eli’s sales had dried up. To all except the miners, who actually found the small, efficient houses quite useful.

“I am beyond joyed they can help you, and others who choose harsh conditions.” Eli said after a pause, “But most people don’t go for that. They’d rather have an easier place, with lots of space and comfort.”

The old man nodded thoughtfully, “Indeed, that is how things go. Hey, how is your young one? Any better since last we spoke?”

Eli sighed deeply, “Just the same as before. She’s weak but hanging on. Soon, once this project gets going and I have enough, I’ll stop by to let her say hello and goodbye before flying off to Earth. We’ve already got a team of experts in this field picked out to help. So it’s only a matter of time and funds.”

“You’ll have to bring her again,” the old man insisted, “once you’ve got this planet growing, and I can make a proper garden for her to play in.”

Eli smiled, “Indeed I will. Speaking of which, I’d better get back. It was a pleasure as always, Mr. Henlar.”

“Always good, my boy. Tell the wife I send my greeting.”

Eli nodded. Then he took one last look at the stars before resigning himself to waiting. He turned back to the rover, and started the long trip home.

His wife found him in his work room, at a time he should have been asleep… as usual. As she walked in, the radio in the corner was saying, “In other news around the galaxy, Gagarin & Galactic is announcing a new project. They haven’t released the details of the project, but our sources are saying—”

“It’s not going to be anything compared to what Mr. Shepard will reveal!” Eli finished as he shut the radio off and give his wife a wink and big grin.

“Darling…?” She asked, rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn, “Why are you still up?”

Eli sat at his work bench, his long back bent over an honest-to-goodness physical book laying on the table.

He saw her gawking at the book and said with some pride, “Look, aren’t they neat?” He gestured to the box with a few more books carefully cradled inside, “I forgot we had these. They were buried in the storage room, piled up with everything else.” He held up one of the ancient volumes bound in leather and flex metal. Very carefully, he cracked open the antique pages and held it out to show it to his wife, “It’s the Journals of my 7th great grandfather, Jimmithy Shepard. He was the one that pioneered the use of diamonds back in the 24th century. He was the first to use them in armor, storage, and in light speed. He has all kinds of interesting notes in these….”

Eli’s wife just blinked her sleepy eyes at him. If she was impressed, she didn’t let it show, that would only encourage him from sleeping. “Couldn’t you have read them while everyone else was awake, too?”

“Well…. I could have, but that’s not the only reason I’m up.”

Mary just frowned, waiting for him to explain.

“In fact,” Eli set his watch to the time in Seattle, Earth, “the call should be coming through any minute now. Follow me.” He carefully packed the book back in the box to be put up later, and crossed over to the room opposite, where their most powerful communicator was set up.

Mary followed, some of her sleepiness having brushed off, “What are you waiting on?”

“An update from Saren,” Eli answered as he set up the machine.

“Oh… is it a new Earth month already?”

Eli nodded, then stepped back from the box as it began wiring, “Indeed,” with another quick look at his watch he added, “It’s almost 7:00pm there, June 1, in Washington. This will be her third month there.”

“And the progress?” Mary was awake now, leaning over her husband’s elbow.

“Some,” Eli brought up two chairs for them to sit in as he talked, “Last we spoke, she’d had meetings set up with companies like SpaceMan, Bilion, and Gagarin & Galactic.”

A grimace flickered across Mary’s face, “Gagarin & Galactic, Isn’t that the one that—”

“Yes, yes,” Eli waved his hand dismissively, “But they are a good choice businesswise. Besides, the son isn’t the one in charge. It’ll be fine.”

Mary took Eli’s hand as she sat down to wait with him for the call to come through. When some time had passed and the light remained red and the line stayed void, Eli got up to send only a texted message to Saren, asking where she was.

Another hour passed.

Eli then got up and spent several minutes checking the connection, refreshing the message box and inbox. But nothing new appeared. He tried calling her himself. Once, then twice, but he dared not use any more credits. He paced the room, hands clasped behind his back, brow drawn, his heavy boots making a rhythmic scuffing sound on the floor.

Mary sat in her chair watching, too tired to help, but too anxious to sleep. She could see he was in his zone, totally focused, trying to figure it out. While she had always admired his determination, there came a point when sleep deprivation was counterproductive. So she moved next to him, the heels of her soft slipper rising off the floor as she leaned up to brush his dark hair out of his face, “Come along, dear,” she said, letting her hand fall into his, brushing against the watch, now showing 1:00am, “I don’t think it’s happening tonight.”

Eli’s features remained closed and concentrated. But when his eyes met those of his wife, he relented. He didn’t know what was happening. Saren could be in danger, or ignoring him, or simply stuck in traffic—but Eli had no way of knowing and there was nothing he could do to find out. This bothered him to no end. Yet, Mary was right, he needed some rest.

His finger was hovering over the off switch when, suddenly, an electronic bell sound startled them both. Eli had opened the message screen before Mary could recognize what the bell meant. There was one new text message from Saren. It was only a few sentences, after all that waiting they finally got an update, and it simply read:

Call center under repair. All is going well. Will call next month.

Eli wrote a quick reply, hoping the lag between satellites wasn’t too long and that he could catch her still at the communicator:

Understand. Message detailed update in the meantime.

When half an hour passed and it was clear Saren was not around, Mary was finally able to drag her husband off to bed. But Eli had trouble falling asleep. The whole event weighed oddly on his mind, like a feeling he could not place. It was only some hours later, when their day would have been beginning, that exhaustion overcame Eli, and he finally passed out into sleep.

Nearly five Earth months and three cycles of Mercury’s sun had passed since Saren had first missed their meeting. Another Mercury cycle since he’d heard anything from her at all, and a week since he’d been able to sleep.

He was too anxious… and kept obsessively checking the communicator for more messages. He spent every free moment he had tinkering in his workshop. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was looking at the news from what e-paper could be delivered this far out. He had to have an idea of what was going on outside; he had to do something. Eli had even begun doing this during the family dinner they held at a little table set up in the Venus section in Sirius’s room, which seriously disturbed his wife.

“Dear, I think you need to put that down now,” Mary said, gently lowering the screen from the eyes of her distracted husband.

Mary had been watching, as Eli steadily became a shell of the man he was. The scarce updates from Saren were stressing him out, and so he’d closed himself off and worked constantly to try and fight off the overwhelming worry and frustration. It was too painful for Mary to witness anymore.

“Your daughter is trying to tell you something,” she tried again, gently prodding him.

“Huh?” He looked up, blurry eyes barely able to focus on anything. He was too restless. Eli didn’t respond, so Mary nudged Sirius, encouraging her to show off her work.

“I drew this for you Daddy!” Sirius said, leaning forward in the chair she was strapped in, holding out a piece of her special drawing paper. It showed a lovely picture of Earth, surrounded by stars. Flying to the Earth on wings like a bird’s, were Sirius and her parents.

Eli took the paper. His face twitched, but he put on a smile for his daughter, “This is lovely Sirius, I’ll be sure to hang it up in the lab.” He folded the paper, placed it in his pocket, and then went back to searching the news.

Mary sighed deeply and stood from her place at the table. “We’ll be right back, just sit tight love,” she said to her daughter. Then taking her husband’s hand, she marched him through both doors and outside the room.

Releasing him, Mary crossed her arms, and waited. She wanted to be curt and tell him to snap out of it, that moping and obsessing wasn’t going to do any good. But she knew none of that would help the situation. If she tried, Eli would likely close even more in on himself. So Mary kept her mouth shut, and waited.

It took several attempts before he could meet her eyes, and even then he wasn’t able to hold the gaze. “What?” he asked, sticking his hands in his pockets and turning his head to the side.

“You know,” she replied.

“Do I?” he raised an eyebrow in her direction without actually looking her way.

“Stop avoiding the subject.”

“How can I avoid a subject that hasn’t been opened yet?”

His last comment made Mary press her lips into a thin, hard line, “You’ve been moping for weeks, and it’s really starting to affect not only you, but everyone around you!” She paused, bringing her voice back down and saying coldly, “You’ve been basically ignoring your daughter. Something I thought you were adamant about NOT doing.”

Eli tensed, and Mary knew she had hit a nerve, exactly as she’d meant to.

He did not say anything at first, and she watched as his face frowned and fought an array of emotions. Finally, it settled into hard and determined lines. He turned his eyes back on her and replied, “Look, I’m sorry I’m being so distant, and seemingly ignoring my daughter, but I’m not going to have a daughter to ignore if I can’t figure out what my assistant is doing with my invention and if I can sell it! At this rate we’re going to run out of money and supplies and never be able to leave! We’ll slowly die on this barren planet that I was supposed to make livable!”

Mary was silent for a long moment, looking at her husband with very heavy eyes. He was stressed, confused, and afraid. She didn’t like the way he was dealing with it, but she understood why. He’d let the whole galaxy crumble before he’d allow anything to happen to his family. If he ever failed to protect them, she knew he’d never be able to live with himself. But that didn’t excuse the way he was closing himself off.

“Sirius still needs her father,” Mary said, her voice quiet but her words firm. “I know you’re trying to protect and provide for us, but you also can’t ignore us. You’ve fallen into obsession, Eli. And obsessing over our situation isn’t doing any good.”

“No… but at least it’s doing something,” he countered, his eyes were heavy on her and his brow drown. “I can’t stand this waiting. You know that. I feel useless…”

“But there’s nothing else we can do!” Mary grabbed onto his arm. “Please, just put that stupid tablet away, come sit and eat a meal, talk to your daughter, please… stop pushing us away,” she begged, staring up at him with pleading eyes.

Her husband remained turned away, but his face was twisted with shame. When an eternity had gone by, he turned back to her, his shoulders slumped, and he set the tablet aside. Eli looked down at his wife like he was about to speak, and then his pocket started buzzing. He frowned, dug the radio out, pressed the receiver, and answered.

“Captain Shepard. Yes…?” he trailed off. And while he listened, his face turned from annoyed, to confused, and then enraged, until at last he shouted, “Wait, WHAT?” Mary could see the tension seizing his body. The look on his face as he listened was something she had never seen. He was a goodnatured man, he wasn’t supposed to look like this, and it scared her.

“Eli? Darling! What is going on?” She wrung her hands together, trying to get his attention, unsure of what to do.

He snapped his head back down to look at her, and she flinched at the fire burning in his eyes. “Gagarin & Galactic have landed on the planet!” His face settled into a mask of calm hatred, “And they have my terraformation engine.”

The rover screamed across the rock, pitching and shaking as it was pushed through the pitch black, far past its limits. The machine was designed as a transporter, not a racer, but Eli didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything besides getting there, and getting there now.

Eli couldn’t comprehend how in the galaxy they’d gotten his invention. And if they had somehow claimed it, what had happened to Saren? The idea that his assistant might have been hurt or compromised in the process only fueled his furry, and Eli pressed the rover faster.

He wanted to act. The frustration at his inability to change the situation had been building up inside him more and more over the past weeks. But now he had something clear to do. He had a cause and a focus for his frustration…. And they had made the mistake of landing themselves right on his door step.

Mary had tried to stop him, begging him to stay and wait until he’d calmed down before confronting them. But he had been as dark and unmoving as the long night that had consumed their side of the planet since the day he’d last heard from Saren.

Eli was so preoccupied in his thoughts that as he crested the curve of a crater, Eli found himself suddenly at his destination, but it took a few moments before he could process this. He slammed on the breaks, pulling the rover into a tight stop, and stared in shock at the sight. For there, at the center of a gigantic crater, bathed in a hundred spotlights, was the most epic operation Eli had ever seen.

When Rondle had called him over the radio, he had explained that while coming back from collecting a shipment at the port, he had heard the news that Gagarin & Galactic had landed and had his prototype. They even had a media crew with them to announce the news. But Rondle had not warned him on how big the operation was. The ship was ten times the normal carrier ship size. The equipment being unloaded was new and impressive, and the materials plentiful. There was not just one news bot buzzing around, but five from some of the most popular in the media.

Eli sat at the top of the hill and stared down in disbelief. This was the perfect operation, with everything that was needed and more, and with people all over the galaxy excited to tune in. It was exactly what he had been dreaming of ever since he started, it was what he had been building up to for years. And now it was laid out before him… but it was not his.

He watched as someone in a slick planet suit stood before all the cameras, glowing and showing off the prototype, presumably explaining the grand idea and what it could do. For Eli, it was like looking into someone’s life through a window; someone’s life that was supposed to be his.

With hands gripping the steering wheel and an ire in his irises burning hotter than the distant sun, Eli slammed the rover into drive and tore down the hill.

By the time he was noticed, it was too late. People screamed and dodged as Eli sped down and came sliding to a stop right in the middle of all the activity.

“What foul, stealing, no-good space-urchin is in charge around here?” he bellowed as he jumped from the rover. Everyone scattered away from the madman in the retro planet suit as he paced around the prototype, glaring death at anyone who tried to get close to it.

The tall man, the one in the shiniest suit, strode forward. He wore a tinted helmet, hiding his face. “I demand to know the meaning of this!” he said, standing with his chest puffed out as he stared down the intruder in a very posh and dominant way.

“And I demand to have my property returned to me!” Eli shot back.

Everyone was slowly gathering closer around them, talking and pushing. The news bots were sweeping in; all wanted to get a good angle on this unexpected and aggressive exchange.

The first man turned to some bigger blokes nearby and said quietly, “Shut down those cameras, and keep everyone busy while I deal with this.”

The men nodded, and Eli watched them suspiciously as they went to do as they were commanded. He continued to watch, as the workers were escorted away, and he caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd.

“Saren?” he said, flabbergasted, as he watched her stop trying to duck away, and look up.

She smiled nervously at him, “Mr. Shepard! W-what a pleasant surprise—”

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “Why haven’t you contacted me? Was it because of this? Why does this company have my invention without my knowing? What in the name of all that is holy have you done?!?”

Saren’s eyes went wide and she started rambling, “Well, Sir, see, I—”

“Spit it out!” he barked, and Saren jumped. She didn’t respond, she couldn’t even meet his eyes. Instead she glanced helplessly and longingly at the man in the suit, and then Eli understood.

He started forward, but the tall man stepped up and cut off Eli’s path and pushed against his chest, “Back off swine!”

Eli thought about breaking in the man’s helmet. After all, it was too shiny and decorative to be very durable, and the way the dark visor was hiding the face was cowardly. However, Eli restrained himself for the moment. Balling his fists, Eli managed to keep the murderous thoughts inside his head. But that didn’t stop it from shining through his eyes.

With every ounce of control he possessed, Eli said, very calmly, “Are you aware that this prototype for a terraformation engine on Mercury was designed and created by me?”

Dead silence fell, and Eli looked around, but found no aid. Saren stood off to the side wringing her hands, while the man loomed there with his arms crossed, looking very pleased with himself despite his hidden face. Everyone else had been ushered out of the area. Eli felt abandoned.

“It’s mine,” Eli insisted, trying to quell the panic rising in his chest. “I swear it!”

The man snorted, “No one else knows that.”

“I have proof!” Eli paced in front of them, “I have everything documented! I’ll take you to court! You’ll never get a patent—”

The man snapped his fingers. Saren reluctantly brought forward a tablet that the man proudly presented to him. Eli stopped stone cold, staring at the words. The document was a patent, signing over the terraformation engine as the intellectual property of Gagarin & Galactic.

The sudden wrenching in Eli’s gut would have hurt less if someone had stabbed him with a knife. Gravity seemed to be both pushing him away, and dragging him down. He fought against it, but his lungs refused to work, his legs threatened to give out. It was as if even his body knew what a hopeless fight this was and was trying to escape his sad fate.

“What…? How can this be….” Anger and betrayal burned in Eli’s stomach and his words became a growl deep in his throat as he started towards Saren, “You lying, stealing, manipulating little—”

“No! It’s not like that! I promise!” Saren protested, trying to hide behind the man.

“Then what is it like? Is this why you haven’t been properly updating me?” Eli demanded.

Saren tried to sound respectable, even though she was shaking, “Well, if it’s signed with Gagarin & Galactic, there’s a better chance of it selling well. Then you could still be in charge, just partnered, then you could have even more money for getting your daughter to Earth! Brozel said—”

“Wait, did you say Brozel? Brozel Gagarin??” The name snapped Eli to attention, and he focused again on the tall man. His breath escaped him, carrying with it a disbelieving, “No…”

The other man’s build and height almost perfectly matched Eli’s, giving away his heritage as a space man; yet in his black, expensive suit he seemed to loom over Eli as he stepped up close to him. By some switch on an unseen control, the black of the man’s helmet visor lightened, and his face became clear. He had a pointed chin, a long, lean face, and eyes as dark as his hair—which sparkled with a vicious and cold light that unnerved Eli. It was a face that Eli recognized, a face that he loathed.

His mouth curled into a wicked smile, “We meet again, Shepard boy.”

“Brozel Gagarin… I should have known it would be you.” Eli glared at the man, then stepped back to try and get a good look at Saren, who was standing back and protectively clutching the tablet again. He shouted to her, “I can’t believe you were duped by his guy! He’s a liar and a thief!”

“What? Why?” Saren frowned, but her eyes were wide with concern, “He… he seemed honest to me. Really good at business deals too.”

Inwardly, Eli sighed. All throughout his academic and professional career, Brozel had always been particularly competitive against him, often trying to upstage everything he did as soon as he did it. The idea that Brozel had actually worked out the details himself—and not just let his team of workers handle the deal once he’d beguiled someone into giving up their rights and work—was not likely.

“Really good at sweet talking, you mean? Though I’m not sure I can blame you— I’ve seen him at work. Dozens of strong women have fallen prey to his charms. It’s a shame he wasn’t as good at inventing as he was at schmoozing. Otherwise, he might actually get something down.”

Saren blushed furiously while Brozel glared daggers at him.

“Come now,” Eli folded his arms and looked at Saren like a disappointed father, “I thought you were better than making business deals based on your own personal feelings. Especially for someone like him. Really, you could do better.”

“Well, you don’t have to be insulting!” Now Saren was indifferent, and moved closer to Brozel, who was bristling, “What do you know about him anyway?”

“Don’t fret babe.” Brozel patted her hand, resting on his shoulder, “We don’t have to give him anything. After all, the patent is signed in my name. He’s just still sour over our time in the academy. He never got over his jealousy.”

“I’m the jealous one?” Eli had to hold back a laugh, “I’m not the mimic who’s been stalking me ever since. What? Do you still have glue stuck in your perfect hair? Or has it migrated up your ass?”

Brozel’s smile was ripped away like a mask, revealing such a look of hatred it distorted his handsome face into a hideous grimace. Unnerved, Saren asked carefully, “What… what is he talking about?”

“Nothing,” Brozel snapped, “this scum is just someone who can’t take it when he’s lost.”

Eli snorted and replied, “Let’s get one thing straight, you and I both know that I won that contest. I should have gotten the award and business deal right out of Academy.” Eli turned to Saren, “But noooo! We couldn’t have the precious son of a billion-dollar company owner lose to little old me, even though my designs were far superior to his. All I did was leave a little well-deserved gift in place of his hair gel, so that he’d look extra good when he went out on national television. I must say, he certainly did put on a show. I especially love the part where his hand got stuck to his hair in the glue, what a hoot!”

A snarl moved his attention back to Brozel, and Eli was genuinely shocked by the hot hatred radiating from the other man’s face.

“You… are a childish… know-it-all. The bane of my existence and a thorn in my eye,” he hissed, leaning in closer with every word.

The fact that Brozel apparently had spent so much time and energy trying to get back at him, for something he had done only because Brozel had wronged him first, was so absurd. The strange irony of it all was almost too much for Eli. And despite the fact that years’ worth of his work had just been stolen from him, despite the fact that he had almost no money left, that his daughter would probably die a slow and painful death, and there was nothing he could do about it, despite it all, Eli threw back his head and laughed a deep, and pitying laugh.

The laughter made Brozel’s face twitch, and confusion entered his hard eyes. Saren shifted uneasily.

“Says the man who has tried to thwart me at every turn, and just stole years’ worth of work from me. Are you still mad about that one incident?” Eli, laughed again, then composed himself, asking seriously, “But come now, you can’t really still be mad about that? It was decades ago… And it was just a bit of harmless payback for what you took from me. It was just a prank.”

Eli looked at the absolute malice in Brozel’s eyes, and the hands reaching for his neck, and jumped back in surprise, “Well hell! I guess you are!”

With a roar, Brozel lunged at him. Eli danced away, surprisingly agile in his old suit.

“Are you really that insulted by me existing and being better than you?” Eli jumped again, avoiding a swipe at his leg, “Can’t you just…. oh I don’t know, do something on your own without my help?”

Now he’d really started a fire under his opponent, and he had to make a run for it.

Brozel came charging after him, “You celestial swine! Arrogant! Despicable! Useless!” The senseless insults came flying at Eli as he ducked and wove through the piles of equipment and material. He only kept laughing as he called back, “Man, you really have problems!”

Filled with rage, Brozel grabbed a short pipe from one of the piles and hid. Eli paused in the sudden silence, uncertain of where his foe was and in which direction to go. The moment he hesitated was the moment Brozel pounced, punching him in the gut with enough force to knock him into a corner. Eli stumbled, and before he could get his feet back under himself, Brozel was on him.

“I’ve always hated you,” Brozel spat, landing a few more blows. “You’re an arrogant smartass!”

“You’re mistaking arrogance for competence,” Eli corrected him. “I actually have skills I’ve worked for, and I know how to use them. That is not arrogance, that’s called knowing how to do your trade well.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brozel snapped.

“It doesn’t matter?” Eli said, laughing again, “I think it matters a great deal! I’m the only one that wouldn’t bow to your rich boy butt, and you just couldn’t take that! Surely even a child has more maturity than you.”

“Shut up!” Brozel screeched, exceedingly like a child. “In six months’ time, I shall have this engine built. It shall be I, not you, presenting this incredible progress to the galaxy as my first act as head of Gagarin & Galactic! And that will show those scoundrels that say I’d not be able to escape my father’s shadow….”

“Well, not without stealing another man’s work,” Eli said bitterly.

“Well then…” a cold and soulless grin spread across Brozel’s face, “It’s a good thing you won’t be around to say otherwise.” He raised the pipe above his head. Eli tried to wrench himself free, but found no way out of the man’s strong grip.

Just as the pipe was about to come crashing down, Saren came running around the corner and grabbed his arm, “Stop it! Stop it now!”

“Get off me, woman!” Brozel commanded, pushing her away, but she stubbornly hung on.

“No! You need to calm down, this isn’t like you! Just stop! You promised me you would help!” She threw her weight against Brozel’s legs, managing to buckle them and make him topple to the side.

Brozel ground his teeth and turned to the girl, “You know nothing! Do not interfere, or you will feel the back swing of my rage as I beat this dog into the ground.”

Saren stumbled backwards, eyes wide and a hand upon her heaving chest, “You’re… You’re mad!”

Brozel just growled and turned back… to find Eli was no longer there. He looked around in confusion and anger, “What the… where…”

“Yoo-hoo!!”

Brozel and Saren turned and ran back to the center of the crater, where the prototype stood. Eli was in his rover, leaning out the window to shout, “I may not be able to get back what you have stolen from me, or reverse the damage and pain you have caused, but I’ll tell you what I will do. I swear with everything in me, that I will create something so much better, so extraordinary, that not even you will be able to copy me. Whatever glimpse of glory you gain from my invention will by far outshined by what I come up with next!”

Saren ran after him, “I’m so sorry Captain! I had no idea this would happen—I was just trying to help!”

Eli paused and cast a pitying glance at Saren, “You should have thought of telling me about signing away my work like that. I wish it could be different, but there’s no chance I’m ever trusting you again. You always struck me as such a sweet girl. Get back to Earth, find a better man, do something with yourself. Good luck.”

With that he put pedal to metal and sped away, leaving Brozel cursing in the dust and Saren shaking at his side. As Eli hit the top of the crater and continued on rapidly across the great abyss of rock, the first touches of the sunrise colored the air. A new day was dawning, and a new race had begun.

“Nothing! I have nothing!” Eli shoved himself away from the table and began pacing around his work room. He had tried anything and everything that came to mind, tinkering inside and outside the box, trying to find some spark of an idea to kindle into a fire that would burn Brozel to the ground. But nothing had even smoldered, and the blueprints he’d been drawing on his smart cloth—of all the possibilities he could think of—were only a jumbled mess of nonsense not even he could read.

“I’m not going to be able to do it,” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. “I’m going to lose, and drag my whole crew and family down with me.”

It had been three days since his encounter with Brozel, and since then he had been working nonstop in his workshop, determined to invent something that would far outdo Brozel and his project. But how could Eli outshine his own work? Eli had thought of that engine as his best invention. Was it possible that it really was? That he had nothing left in him that would ever measure up? It was cruel irony, that his very best creation, what he thought would be able to save his family and start something great, had been turned into a weapon against him and all he loved.

Over the next few days, he’d tried to not let those thoughts pass through his mind. But as each hour passed fruitless and empty, he began to believe them.

Tired from trying so hard, and exhausted from lack of sleep, Eli slid to the ground among the boxes pushed to one side of the room. He leaned against them, his head lolling to one side, and before he was aware or could stop himself, his eyes closed, and he passed out.

When he woke, it was with the stiffness and confusion of one waking suddenly from a dream. He looked around in a panic, trying to remember what time or day it was. How long had he slept? How much time had he lost? A quick glance at the clock on the table told that only a handful of hours were missed, and it put him a little at ease.

As he stretched himself, Eli found that one arm had landed at an awkward angle in a box, and fallen asleep. When its feeling came back in a wave of pins and needles, his fingertips brushed something hard and smooth. Unfamiliar with the touch, he grabbed hold of one of the objects as he brought his arm back to himself. Eli was pleasantly surprised to find it was one of the journals of his ancient grandfather, Jimmithy Shepard. In all his stress and anxiety, he’d all but forgotten about them.

Shaking his head at himself, Eli opened the book and began reading. After all, he’d already tried everything he could think of, and he was far too tired to stand up. And so he lay, in a heap of boxes, flipping through a book from a time far before his own.

Suddenly the pages began flipping faster, his eyes grew wider, his heart pumped in his chest, and a spark formed a blaze in his mind.

Here, before him, in the writings of a grandfather long since gone, were theories and rough blue prints for devices created from diamonds, which could bend and reach through space in an instant. It was an insane idea, something no respectable scientist would dare dream of. But Eli knew his family’s history, he knew Jimmithy had only been a boy—but a genius boy with insane ideas and a reckless spirit that drove him to take risks and discover and invent things that would change the galaxy.

The plans for the theoretical space jumper were rough, there was no doubt in that. But there was something to it, and as Eli read through the time-worn pages, he realized that the problems stopping one of the Shepard men from creating it 465 years ago were not problems that could stop this Shepard man now. Tools to cut the diamonds, maps of the geography on different and distant planets, and the means to combine certain chemicals were all things once unavailable to Jimmithy, but commonplace for Eli.

The more he read, and the more he pondered, the more this impossible idea actually became possible.

Images of diamonds and lasers flashed through his mind, exciting his imagination. As he scrambled to find something to write down his own notes, he found that one of the journals was only partly filled. Many blank pages lay untouched, and a pencil was strapped to the spine. It was ancient, yet very well made and still in good condition. He felt an odd and intense connection to his past and his family as he began to write. It gave him a feeling of awe and inspiration. And so, with writings new and old, Eli began the plans for the Star Jumper.

“Good morning, Sirius,” Mary came sweeping into the big room, a tray of food in her hands, and closed the door with a bump from her hip. She was already halfway through setting up the breakfast table when she noticed she hadn’t got an answer.

“Sirius?” she called, walking towards the little hammock. Her pace quickened when still no response came. When she reached it she found Sirius curled on her side, head back, eyes closed, and mouth hanging open. Mary felt her heart being squeezed into a vice, and her mind was frozen in shock from seeing her little girl so still, and in such a contorted way.

“Sirius…” the words caught in her throat as she touched her daughter’s face, and felt it burning up. She placed a hand on the girl’s chest and leaned closer… she was reassured by the beating of Sirius’ heart beneath her hand and the labored breath upon her cheek. However, that relief was fleeting, and the dread of not knowing what was wrong, or what to do, grew.

“My baby, oh… wake up now,” Mary brushed Sirius’s skin and hair. Her arms wrapped and unwrapped from the little one’s form, wanting to cradle her to her chest, and being afraid to move her. “Baby love,” she said, noticing the wrinkles appearing on her daughter’s brow. She leaned down and kissed them, “Please, I know you’re there, it’s time to wake up.”

“Mama?” she tried to reach out to her mother, but almost immediately coiled and cried in pain. “Mama, I can’t move my back! It hurts!”

Tears streamed down the child’s face, and Mary quickly brushed them away, “There, there, it will be alright, Mama is here. Just breathe, try to relax.”

“Mama,” Sirius sniffed, “Mama I’m scared. Where’s Daddy? Is he going to take me to Earth yet to make me better?”

Mary had to turn her head away, and she felt hot tears behind her eyes. How could she explain the dire situation they were in? How could she bring herself to tell her daughter that trip might never come? She couldn’t, she couldn’t hurt her like that while she was already in so much pain.

“Daddy will take care of us, he’s doing his best,” cupping Sirius’ cheek with one hand, she wrapped her arm around the hammock and laid her face close to her daughter’s, leaving a few tears on her thin, soft hair.

“Now,” she straighten up and blinked the water from her eyes, “tell me what’s wrong, show me where it hurts, let me help. Please don’t cry darling….”

Mary was trying to comfort Sirius enough to get her to talk, when suddenly the door was thrown open and Eli came bursting in.

“I have it! I have a way to—” he stopped dead in his tracks when he witnessed the state of his wife and daughter. “What… what is going on? What is wrong?” The light shining in his face was cast into shadows as his brows were drawn down in worry and concern. He walked to their side.

Seeing her father for the first time in several days, Sirius was so excited she sat up suddenly and held her arms out to him. “Daddy!” she shouted, then her eyes rolled back, and she passed out.

Mary caught her in her arms and looked with wide and panicked eyes to her husband, “Call the doctor!”

All other thoughts were banished from Eli’s mind as he jumped into action. Following his wife’s order, he ran from their tent, through the doors connecting to the lab, then into the communication room. But calling Earth was no quick task. He first had to find the number to their doctor and then connect the caller to the satellites. He hadn’t even stopped to check what time it would be for the doctor, he only prayed he would be around to hear it. In the meantime, he called Mary over the com.

“The call is started. How is she?”

Mary’s light vocals strained across the line, “Her breathing is still steady. But I can’t tell much else. She’s in such an odd, twisted position, but I didn’t dare try and move her.”

“I see,” Eli said.

A paused passed between them, and Mary asked, “So what were you coming in to tell us?”

“Ah, yes, that,” Eli cleared his throat. The moment of inspiration seemed so far away and insignificant now, but he dragged it back to the forefront of his mind enough to explain, “I read something in Jimmithy’s old journals, a theory he had, but didn’t have the means to make work. I was running some calculations… and I believe I could have a good shot at it.”

“Well, that’s something,” Mary said, trying to sound hopeful, “what was the theory for exactly?”

“To use diamonds as a focus point to punch through time and space—a teleporter, essentially.” Eli cringed at how ridiculous it sounded aloud in his ears, so he tried to explain further, “His problem was he had no way to cut the diamond into exactly the correct shape. He also didn’t have a powerful enough laser, and couldn’t find the right compound to shoot them through. But a lot has advanced in 400 years, I already have Tedd working on the chemistry…..” He trailed off, “Look, I know it sounds stupid-”

“No,” Mary cut him off. “Impossible, sure. But if you have a plan, and believe you can make it work, then,” Eli imagined he could hear the soft smile forming on her lips as she said, “I believe you can, too.”

“Thank you, my love,” Eli replied, wondering how in the galaxy he had managed to find a woman like her.

They fell into a passive silence, waiting for the call to be answered. Eli thought, more than a few times, about how he wished he had a teleporter now. Then he could whisk his daughter straight to Earth. Maybe one day soon he would. But for now, all he could do was wait.

When at last the call came through, Sirius had woken up. Mary was able to keep her calm enough to be able to talk through her symptoms with the doctor. Eli waited patiently until Dr. Nathen had gathered all the information he could from Sirius and Mary, then shut them out of the call.

“Well Doc,” he asked, bracing himself for the worst, “give me the bad news first.”

“I’m afraid that’s the only news I have,” the doctor replied. “I cannot be sure, since I’ve never gotten to fully examine the girl, but my educated guess is that the lack of gravity has been detaching her vertebrae from each other as she grows. If this continues, her spine will eventually snap, in multiple places.”

“Alright….” Eli took a deep breath. His hands were shaking, but he willed his voice to stay steady, “how much time does she have?”

The other line was quiet while Dr. Nathen considered, then he answered, “There is no way to tell. Could be another year, could only be a couple months. However, from the way she described her pain, I would count on sooner rather than later.”

“Is there….” Eli cleared his throat, desperate to remain in control, determined to find a way, but unable to bear the tremendous weight of it all, “is there anything I can do?”

“Short of bringing her to Earth? No.” Dr. Nathen must have heard Eli’s sudden choke. For, after a long pause, a sigh crackled across the space waves. “Look, son. I wish I could help you, I really do. But she needs to come to Earth. If you aren’t able to….” the doctor paused again, choosing his words as one who knew death all too well, “make her comfortable. Cherish every moment. That’s about the best you can do.”

“I see.”

“And,” Dr. Nathen added, “don’t worry about the call credits, I will handle that.”

“Thank you.” That was all Eli managed to say, that was all he could say. And even so, it felt disconnected from himself, like someone else was thanking the doctor, like someone else had just learned the news that their daughter was dying. For surely… surely this could not be his life.

Eli let the connection cut, and then sank to the floor. He knew not how long he sat there, numb, unable, or unwilling, to face reality. He did not want this. Having his invention and livelihood stolen, being stranded on Mercury, knowing he was about to lose his little girl—this was not supposed to be his life.

The reality of it all was crushing him. How could he have failed so much? Was there nothing he could do? What was the point in going on from here? The thoughts threatened to choke him. And yet through the fog of despair, one thought stayed. An image planted itself in his mind, one of diamonds, of lasers, and of the impossible.

Returning to himself, Eli reached into his pocket and brought out the drawing Sirius had done. It was wrinkled and a bit smudged, but the picture was clear. As Eli stared at the color and messy scribbles depicting Sirius’ dreamed flight to Earth, he was painfully reminded of the promises they had made to each other. She would stay strong, and he would take her to Earth. Just as he’d promised. He would find a way to take his star to Earth.

October 12 2061

We began work on the new project. The first step is to get a chemical compound that will not burn up with the lasers. We haven’t had any success yet. However, I wrote up some possible combinations while rocking Sirius to sleep. I will try it in the morning.

December 29 2601

Mary was able to get Sirius to get up and move around a little. Then she curled into her hammock and refused to move for the next few days. I’m not sure if moving is better or worse for her back… I guess we’ll work off of how she is feeling. We’ve found a way to mix the diamonds with a stable version of califoma. It took quite a bit of work, and Tedd almost lost a finger, but we did it.

January 03 2602

At last! We’ve found the right strength of laser that will engage the diamond without causing it to combust and explode. It’s been 72 hours since I last slept….

February 08 2602

We had a breakthrough today in regards to controlling the entrance point of the diamond transporter. We knew that the way the diamond is cut influences where in space it will punch out. However, we have been running tests, and discovered that if we cut the diamond to mirror the geography of an area, the accuracy is greatly improved. This opens a whole new door, and much more work to do.

March 14 2602

At last! We’ve done it! Joyous day! I must go tell Mary and Sirius immediately!

Brozel Gagarin waited in anxiety and anticipation. The construction of the Teraformation Engine had gone smoother than he had expected. Eli’s plans were perfect—Brozel had to admit that he would have never been able to lay out something like this. But he dared not dwell on it. Instead, deciding to regard it as his and forget the guilt. Which was easy to do when he had an overwhelming and illogical grudge against the man for the past several decades. But again, he preferred to focus on the positive things, like what this invention was about to do for him.

He paced backstage, awaiting the time he would make his epic presentation. Old angst plagued him. All throughout the construction, Brozel had hired guards to ensure that neither Eli nor any others would interfere. Then he doubled security as the time for the grand reveal approached. All was well… almost too well. Brozel had no reason to act so paranoid, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling.

He had to stop dwelling on the matter, it was show time.

With a deep breath, and a shot of something strong, Brozel sealed up his suit and walked out onto the stage

Hundreds of bots hovered in the air, all perfectly in line. Together their numerous screens projected the live video of the audience in Link Hall, where the greatest gathering of scientific minds was held annually. Applause from 48 million miles away sounded through the speakers as Brozel stepped up and bowed before the cameras.

“Greetings, ladies and gentleman,” he began, repeating the words of his speech he’d been reciting to himself for weeks, “I am Brozel Gagarin, of Gagarin & Galactic, here to present you with the greatest advancement of the past century!” He paused for dramatic effect, just as he had rehearsed. But his nerves were getting the better of him, he sounded stupid in his own ears, so he cleared his throat and moved on, “I have here behind me, a machine that will forever change the way we colonize space.”

Brozel was satisfied with a gasps of awe from the audience as their camera switched to the bots all around the globe, showing off different parts of the engine. “This is a terraformation engine,” Brozel explained, puffing out his chest as he watched all the amazed faces over the screen. “The engine will get its power from the planet itself; from the extreme heat and unbearable cold. And with that power, it will generate an atmosphere, making Mercury livable!”

Brozel continued on, explaining the mechanics and workings of the complicated engine from the notes his engineers had given him to memorize. All were impressed. Even his critics who submitted questions to try and trip him up, failed in their attempts.

The audience on Earth was captivated by the invention. Brozel was higher than the stars at the attention, and all thought of that pesky Eli Shepard was gone from his mind.

“And now, I present to you….” Brozel stepped back and extended his arm in a grand gesture, “The World Engine!”

His engineers took the signal, the engine was turned on, and the crowd cheered. Brozel grinned, feeling a defiant satisfaction that he had proven wrong all those who had doubted him. No one could take this away from him.

Brozel suddenly felt an odd sensation, like gravity flexing. Then came a flash of light. It was abrupt, instant, and over in a moment. Brozel had only just recovered when he stumbled from the second shock. For there, where the light had appeared, stood none other than Eli Shepard.

“You…..” Brozel blinked, “How did you….”

“Sorry to steal your moment of stolen glory,” Eli said, sweeping past Brozel, “but I have something better to show the galaxy.”

Eli stepped up to the camera and gave an elaborate bow. “My fellow scientists, inventors, and explorers! Allow me to blow your mind,” he declared. “But first, tell all your news lines to send their bots to the entrance of Link Hall, I’ll be there momentarily.”

A gasp and muttering ran through the crowd; some began getting up and heading towards the main doors. Meanwhile, Eli continued, “What I have in my hand will change our space travel forever!”

Those left in the audience stopped and stared through the cameras and screens to the object in Eli’s hand. For those in the room that had studied deep into history, they would have recognized it as modeled after a camera of the early 21st century. For all others, it looked like a box with a lever, and a lens with a diamond anchored in the center. “Using diamonds, lasers, and a certain chemical compound, I can travel any distance, with a simple flip of this lever!”

“Impossible!”

Brozel had found his feet again and came stomping forward, “This man is mad! Don’t listen to him!”

Eli rolled his eyes and addressed the audience, “I shall let my work speak for itself.”

Turning to Brozel he said simply, and only loud enough for him to hear, “I care not for your wrongdoings or your schemes. You have taken from me many times, but I release that. You can have all you have taken. However, I have more important matters to attend to, and you are not worth my time. So stand back, while I do something the galaxy has never seen before.”

Brozel was stunned at Eli’s calm and smooth words. He stood stupidly as Eli stepped forward and gave one last bow. “Ladies and gentleman,” he held up the camera contraption, “I, Eli Shepard, present to you,” he took a deep breath and clicked the lever. A small beam erupted from the lens of the jumper, shot through the diamond, then expanded into a man sized portal. Eli stepped through with one foot, and the following foot hit the sidewalk of the street outside Link Hall. He blinked, took off his space helmet, and smiled at the astonished crowd as the light portal vanished, “The very first teleporter in human space history. I give you, the Star Jumper!”

The cheers, and commotion, that erupted were almost deafening. Eli fought off the curious onlookers, answered questions, took business cards, and relished in his success. It was not too long before he excused himself, and insisted he must depart. But not before he promised a press conference the following day to discuss his plans and the future.

Meanwhile, the cameras connected to Mercury where cut off, for no one cared to watch now. And while the success of the World Engine was great and beneficial, the day would be remembered for a different invention.

As soon he was able to slip away from the throng, Eli called a ride to take him back to the hospital.

Sirius was sitting in her bed, watching out the window, and a small kitten was curled up on her lap. The kitten had been a gift from Mary’s mother. Sirius had been so delighted at the little creature, having known nothing like it in all her days on Mercury. Now she refused to let it leave her side.

Eli paused and knocked on the door frame, “Hey there, little Star.”

Sirius’s eyes brightened at the sight of her father, “Hi Daddy!”

Making a spot to sit on her bed, Eli kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, “How are you feeling?”

“Great!” she smiled. “The doctors say I’m almost healed good from the operations, and Mama promises to take me to the zoo once I’m all better!”

“That’s wonderful!” Eli beamed at his daughter. She was glowing with beauty and getting stronger by the day. He couldn’t imagine a world without her, and thankfully, he didn’t have to. “You’ll be better in no time. And by the time you are, Daddy will have the Star Jumper all set up. I’ll show you and Mama all of the Earth.” He leaned down and touched his nose to hers, “And then after that….”

“To the stars?” she asked, looking up into his eyes—her own wide and shining.

He smiled, and kissed her nose, “To the stars.”

About the Author

A.M. Freeman is a young author from the beautiful Georgia mountains. When not arguing with fictional characters, she enjoys reading or horseback riding, and she just about never stops dancing. You can find her work, “At The End of Detachment”, in the anthology Forbidden Thoughts. Keep up with her musings and new works by visiting her blog lostinlalalandblog.wordpress.com.

CUCURBITA MERCURIAS

Dawn Witzke

“Claire, honey. Did you see this?” Al called out the door of the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed in the master suite of their brightly colored New England flat, scrolling through the news article on his commpad. “Another body was found on Mercury. They’re calling him the Mercury Killer.”

Claire walked into the room and peered over his shoulder at the screen. The ends of her bobbed hair brushed his cheek. She was dressed in what she always wore to travel, black slacks and a pink t-shirt with a kitten on the front. He didn’t understand why she bought the shirt, she hated cats and liked pink even less. But, he had to admit that the pink made her look much younger than her 49 years.

“Maybe we should stay home until after they catch that lunatic.” Al turned off the commpad and slipped it into his travel bag. “What’s the count up to now? Ten? Fifteen?” He zipped the bag shut and set it on the floor by the bed. “You know, we could do something odd like spend two weeks together at home.”

“Al, you know I can’t.” Claire sighed. “I was finally able to get the agricultural model stabilized the last time I was there. If I don’t go back, the ten years I’ve been working on this project will be wasted. It’ll take another six months to repair the damage caused by the neglect. You would think people dependent on the food and oxygen produced in the ag-models would take more care with them.” She walked to the adjoining bathroom to collect her things.

He watched as she walked away. They were coming up on twenty-five years of marriage and she still lit his fire. Her lithe figure had softened a little around the edges and there were laugh lines at her eyes, but she still held all of the grace, beauty and youthful curiosity that he had fallen in love with all those years ago.

Her job with Global Tech took her away from him for months at a time as she worked on some of the most important terraforming projects in the galaxy. The three Nobel prizes she had won over the years for her work in agriculture and the recognition she had received in her quest to eliminate poverty meant nothing to her.

Her first Nobel prize she received after they were first married. She was a researcher for Poverty, Inc. a nonprofit working to end poverty around the globe. Her discovery of a strain of wheat that could be grown in any climate on earth without artificial assistance brought her fame and fortune.

She cared for none of it. Soon after, Claire was hired by Global Tech, a company looking for ways to setup colonies on other planets. Her development of a working ag model on Mars netted her another Nobel. Her final one had been her discovery of a technique that enabled the crossbreeding of incompatible plants without the use of genetic splicing.

To his Claire, the recognition and fame just got in the way of doing her work. There was always more work that needed doing. But in those rare times when she was home, she set work aside and she was just Claire, his beautiful, loving wife.

“I wish you would travel with me more,” she said from the other room. “It gets so lonely out there sometimes.”

“We’ve been over this before. My job is here, catching criminals. Right now, it’s just Bob and I doing the job. Do you realize how many hours it takes to decipher some of the creative accounting people put together? When we get more staff on board, I will look into taking more time off.”

“You’ve said that for years.” She walked out of the bathroom with a small bag in her hands.

Al wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed her on the nose. “I know. But, I mean it. There are two promising trainees making their way through the course. If they get to the end, I’ll take an entire month off and we can go wherever you want.” He saw the disbelief in her blue eyes. He bent down and kissed her, pulling her tight to him. The thought of taking her to bed and making love until morning crossed his mind. Instead, he ended the kiss and let her go.

“We’d better get going or we’ll be late for our flight.”

The Mercury terraforming project was the largest one he’d been to with Claire. There had to be a hundred thousand people stationed on Mercury, which was quite an accomplishment considering the drastic temperature range of the planet. The module itself was a solid walled dome that protected the tender plants from the harsh conditions outside. Thousands of bulbs overhead provided artificial light on a schedule similar to Earth.

Her apartment was set-up in the Ag modules. There were twelve apartments around the perimeter of the dome. The air was tinged with the smell of death and decay from the compost bins on the far end. A couple dozen gardeners were clearing out the dead plants to make way for new ones.

Claire led him to a lush, green area of the ag model. “This is where I made my breakthrough. All of the plants were dying and then three weeks ago they began growing again. We don’t know exactly why, the ph levels, feeding and watering schedules are the same throughout the area. It’s possible that the species in this area are better suited to Mercury’s environment. We can only do so much to temper the effects of being this close to the Sun. By the end of the month we should know if we’ll have a working model again. If not, we’ll have to evacuate, since it’s far too expensive and impractical to ship in food and supplies for a hundred thousand people on a regular basis. A skeleton crew would have to stay to maintain the facility and my team, of course, would stay to get the Ag model back up and running.”

“Very nice, dear. But, I’m a bit more concerned about the killer that’s running about.” Al carried the luggage into their suite and set it on the bed.

Claire immediately began unpacking. He was only going to be there a week, but she went through the work of hanging up his shirts and putting his underthings in the empty drawer she left for him. The apartment was plain and functional. The walls were bare.

“Stop worrying. We are safe in here. This is the most guarded area in the entire project. Besides, there hasn’t been a death in two weeks. The commander thinks the killer may have left the planet when the new security measures were put in place.” In one smooth motion, she removed her t-shirt. “We’re here to celebrate our anniversary.” She reached around with one hand and unhooked her bra, letting it fall to the floor. “I thought, maybe, we could spend the rest of the day doing that.” Her hands worked the button of his slacks, a wicked smile on her lips. He let out a gasp when she dropped to her knees.

Claire was bent over, her gloved hands digging in the dirt of Section 5. Al stood back admiring the view of her backside in the form-fitting jeans. Age hadn’t done a thing to detract from that view. Lust spread through him, almost making him forget why he’d went looking for her.

“Honey, another body was found.” He eyed the other people in the area. “I don’t want you out here alone.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, a smile on her face. “Come take a look.”

He walked over to her side and looked down at the small green sprout poking through the soil. It was a single stem with two small fuzzy green leaves. “Nice. Now, come inside.”

“That’s it? Nice? It’s the first cucurbita mercurias to be grown in an ag model. One plant can feed millions. We’ll be able to grow it anywhere in the galaxy.”

“That’s great. Let’s discuss it inside.”

She stood, pulling off her gloves. “I thought you’d be more supportive. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.” She walked toward the apartment, her back rigid.

“I am supportive of your work, Claire,” Al said, following her. “I just don’t want you out alone when there’s a killer running loose. Besides, I’ll only be here two more nights and we’ve hardly spent any time together. I’m sure your plants can spare you for a few hours.”

“Fine.”

He caught her by the arm. “It’s our Anniversary, Claire.” His voice was low, pleading. “I’d like to take you out to dinner.”

She gave him a half smile, then walked past him into the suite. “Let me get a shower first.”

Al sighed as he followed his wife inside. Her tone said everything. It would be a long night with her sulking, ending with him on the couch.

“Come on, Claire. It’s my last night here. Can’t you leave those damn plants for five minutes?” Al tramped through the fields in the dark ag model toward the figure at the far end. In two days, the plants in the dome had grown more than a foot. He trampled as many as he could on his way to Section 5.

“I’m rethinking taking time off to travel with you. If all you’re going to do is work, then there’s no point.” He didn’t feel the need to keep his voice down, the Ag model was deserted except for them.

“Al, go back inside. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” From her position knelt on the ground, her back to him, she waved him away.

“Claire, what is going on?” He picked up the pace. “Who is that?”

Lying on the ground, by her knees, was a young girl, maybe 9 or 10, bound at her ankles and wrists and a dirty rag covered her mouth. Her dark eyes were wide with fear. Claire held a curved knife to her throat.

“Claire?” He swallowed. The anger that had been there moments before was replaced by confusion and fear. The woman he looked at couldn’t be his beautiful, loving wife. She would never do something like this.

She sat back, removing the knife from the girl’s neck. Tears in her eyes. “It’s dying.”

“What is?” He kept his voice low as if talking to a distraught toddler. He squatted next to her, keeping an eye on the knife. His heart thumped as he placed his bet that she wouldn’t hurt him.

“The cucurbita mercurias, it’s dying. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to feed it again until after you were on your way back home. I had hoped that you wouldn’t have to know about the sacrifices I made for my research.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Come on, Claire, don’t do this. It’s just a plant.”

In one quick motion, the knife tip was at his throat. He resisted the urge to flinch as it came at him.

“It’s not just a plant.” Spit flew from between her clenched teeth. “It’s everything I’ve been working towards my entire career. This breakthrough was to be mine. I would be remembered, not as just some nameless scientist who replicated other’s work, this would put me in the history books as a pioneer.”

“I get it. I really do. But, Claire, you can’t do this. You can’t kill people so that you can be famous. It’s wrong.”

He wrapped his hand around hers and gently guided the knife away from his neck. He extracted the knife with his other hand and tossed it on the ground. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he realized that his dear, sweet, beautiful wife was a murderer. He pulled her to him, trying to reclaim the woman he had been in love with for twenty-five years.

She pulled away from him. “It needs her blood to live. Her small sacrifice will save millions of people.”

“You can’t do this, Claire. I won’t let you. She’s just an innocent child.” He reached to take the girl’s hand.

Claire grabbed the knife. “No!.”

Al intercepted the blade as it slashed down toward the girl’s neck. It left a jagged cut along his forearm. Blood ran down his arm, dripping onto the ground.

The leaves on the shriveled plant lifted upward as if in a time-lapse movie. It stretched its vines outward, growing several inches, sprouting new leaves and sending out young tender vines across the dirt.

Al scrambled backward away from the plant. He didn’t want the thing touching him. He didn’t know if it could harm him, but he wasn’t going to take the chance.

“See, it needs blood to grow.” Claire’s face lit up as she watched the plant come alive.

“Not this way.” Al stood. “Not a little girl.” Al stepped closer, grabbed the girl’s arm with his right hand and pulled her to her feet. He hauled over his shoulder before Claire could stop him.

“You can’t take her. I need her! The plant needs her!” The high pitched tone of her voice was that of a mad woman. His wife—his kind, sweet beautiful wife—had become a psycho. How could he not have seen it?

With a strangled scream, Claire raised the knife and came at him. He caught her squarely in the chest with the palm of his hand, sending her backward. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just want to stop her from killing the little girl.

She fell backward, dropping the knife to the ground. She gasped as the blade sliced up through her kidney, curving into her internal cavity. Blood pooled around the plant she had so dearly wanted to see grow. Leaves sprouted in all directions.

“Nooooo.” Tears slipped from the corners of Al’s eyes. He set the girl down, quickly untied her, then rushed to his wife’s side. “Oh, Claire.” He held her long after her body went limp. “My dear, sweet, Claire. You had everything, why did you want more?” He said to the lifeless body. Even in death she was beautiful. He kissed her forehead.

Like a green monster, the plant sent out runners toward the pool of blood, grabbing onto Claire’s lifeless body. He scrambled away, leaving her body behind. From a distance, Al watched the plant’s roots burrow into her skin, feeding off of her. Within minutes, she was buried under the vines and leaves of the plant she gave up everything for.

Through a stream of tears, he watched the cucurbita mercurias spread and grow. Bright red flowers blossomed on the vines. Claire’s favorite color.

“Sleep well, my love.”

About the Author

Dawn Witzke is a freelance writer, graphic artist and master level procrastinator. She is the author of Path of Angels and can be found over at her blog, Books & Art, where she randomly posts artwork, book reviews and writing. http://dawnwitzke.com

THE WANDERER

David Hallquist

The Wanderer fell towards the distant star; a bright spark against a cloud of blackness. A great disc shone dimly around the fiery sphere. Close examination revealed clouds of small proto-planets, streaming off long tails of material that glowed in the light of the newborn star. Back where the Wanderer had fallen from, brilliant young blue stars blazed, lighting up wispy clouds of hydrogen gas to fluoresce in hazy pink and pale blue-green nebulae. The song of the stars wailed though the hydrogen radio bands, weirdly distorted by the great clouds of the stellar nursery.

This celestial glory was neither the origin nor the destination of the Wanderer, though. It had come from much farther away, drifting though distant eons of eternal night, freezing cold and deadly radiation towards a concentration of gasses that had been calculated to form a new stellar cluster. The young destination star was still mostly shrouded in the deep, black column of condensing gasses, mostly carbon but thickened with dust and the particles that housed the seeds of life.

Ever so slowly, the infant star’s gravity clutched at the Wander, dragging it inevitably closer. As the ancient messenger began to fall past the sleet of dust and comets towards the star, it began to awaken…

Waking up in zero-G always gave Gabriel Marius a head-cold. Decongestants, nasal clips or micro implants just didn’t help. All of the blood and fluids wanted to pool in his head, and made it feel three times too large. Then, there was the sensation of falling. Of course he wasn’t really falling… oh wait, he was. The Caduceus was falling straight down towards the hungry fires of the Sun… mostly. It would miss, of course, mostly miss, and only come close enough for the Sun’s blazing heat to melt lead. The Caduceus had to get close enough for Mercury’s gravity to capture it, at the same time the plasma engines fired to slow the ship and bring her into orbit.

Provided nothing went wrong… that the solar shield deflected the deadly light of Sol… that the coolant systems functioned properly… that they didn’t run into a solar flare… that the braking maneuver brought them to Mercury and they didn’t go careening past into the darkness. His training as an engineer made it all too easy to imagine all the things that could go so terribly wrong. Still, it should all work. It had all worked before… most of the time, anyway.

″Dr. Marius″ the soft voice of the computer said, ″there is a call from your family stored, and the Survey Team has set your appointments after landing.″

″Thanks, Caddy.″ he mumbled, finally opening his eyes. The sleeping bag hung from the wall, or floor, or ceiling, really it didn’t matter. At least seeing his workstation hanging upside down didn’t make him want to puke any more. Light panels, bare white walls, and cables made up the rest of the spartan room; the other three sleeping bags were empty. There were no other passengers on this trip to Mercury; and the crew had their own quarters.

There should be windows. He knew that any windows would compromise the insulating hull, and the magnetic fields that hovered over the ship’s skin, protecting it from the Sun’s particle flux. Any of the panels could be made into view-screens, it was true, and show him everything that a window’s limited view could not. Still… a proper spaceship ought to have windows.

Shaving and morning rituals were all different, and using a tiny hose while floating inside a bag never felt like a proper shower. Still, after that and a hot bulb of coffee, he felt ready to face the world, or even the Solar System.

With a quick command, he set the light panels to function as view-screens, and the room transformed. The wall panels appeared to showthe depths of star-shot space in every direction. A great dark circle dominated one direction, with pale strands of light streaming slowly forth from its circumference. The sun-shield seemed to almost strain against the fierce light. Off to the side was the blazing crescent of Mercury, glaring at him with a hard, fierce brightness that the gentle Moon had never had. And there, right where he predicted it should be, was a warm, blue star… home.

He needed to see home again. Canceling the imagery around him, the close walls of the room returned. He floated over to his workstation, and activated the latest message from his family. The images of his family, and the mundane news from home were like water to a man in a desert. It had only been two months aboard ship, and his mission was still about to begin. Focusing the camera, he sent his reply.

″Hey Princess, Happy Birthday from space! I want you to know how proud I am of you, and how much I miss you. Yes, that does look a lot like the rocks on Mercury do. I’m sorry I won’t be allowed to bring home any Mercury rocks for you; those are all going to be examined by some science teams. Still, we can make a trip to a center studying them someday. I’ll be home next year for your birthday. You’ll be so big then, I’m not sure I’ll recognize you!″

″Laura, honey, the new fencing is fine, and should prevent any flood damage next time. Really, it looks great. As to why they need me to fix work on site; this is a very special circumstance. These aren’t just any computers I’ll be working with, and the solar interference and distance makes telepresence completely impossible. Also, the nature of the work is sensitive, please don’t ask. This should be the last time I have to take a long trip like this though, thank God. I cannot begin to tell you how much I miss you all, and long to return. Please keep the messages coming; I love you all.″

He ended the message, and loaded it into the send queue. When the Caduceus detected a break in the Solar weather, in either hours or weeks, it would transmit the data-package towards the distant Earth.

Gabriel got up from his workstation and floated across the room and down the co-axial main corridor. As he floated down the long corridor he could not escape the zero-G sensation of falling. You’re falling, his mind tried to tell him, falling down this shaft… falling towards the Sun…

The Wanderer fell towards the young star. Crossing the ice-line, volatile gasses and water sublimated off of its surface as the star’s light warmed it. Gas and vapor blown by the stellar wind formed a long tail, tuning the ship into a comet. Mixed in with the water and dust were the spores of life: spores for the dormant cells that would colonize the forming star system.

A greater change began inside the Wanderer, as the star’s light triggered the awakening process. Radioisotopes were brought together in proximity to provide the heat and energy for the slow changes to come. Its interior warmed, then melted, forming a churning dynamo of liquid metal. Microscopic components, now free to move about the molten center, began to join and interact, forming the basis for a computing network.

The computer was self-generating and self-organizing, much like the organic life that had made its distant progenitors. Each of the microscopic components came together in a ever-changing and adaptable system. Essentially, it was alive, but a life of nanocrystals and liquid metal rather than cells and water. Ultimately, the Wanderer should be able to function and adapt to a wide variety of circumstances, as it was impossible to predict what it would encounter when it reached its destination.

Finally, he had reached his destination. Ice crystals evaporated off of his space suit as he climbed out of the automated landing capsule. He’d have to walk from the blasted rock of the landing field to Hermes base. Fortunately, Hermes Base had sent two men out in space suits to help him back to the base. They helped Gabriel out of the cramped capsule, and then he stretched and looked around Mercury for the first time.

The space suit was light enough in the low gravity, but stiff so that he had to lean back to look up. The high crater rim at the north pole cut off the Sun’s fierce light. Overhead were the sharp points of star light and a faint, ethereal glow from the the Sun’s corona, raging eternally below the horizon. This frozen crater never saw the Sun’s light, and this was the only location with the ice required for sustaining Hermes Base.

The silver domes of Hermes Base seemed to huddle together for protection and warmth on the icy black plain of the crater’s floor. Its lights cast hard, sharp shadows from the surrounding outcroppings, pointing back at the base like ebony needles. Lights from the landing pad around Gabriel showed on the blueish-black rock beyond, and off of the mirrored silver domes, yet they could only drive back the darkness a short distance, and the surrounding blackness of the ancient crater seemed to hide endless secrets.

The three men made their way towards the distant base. Gabriel wished they had built a tram-line from the landing field to the domes, walking out on the surface of Mercury was… otherworldly. He had always thought the word simply meant strange; now here, millions of kilometers from home on a cinder orbiting the Sun, it had new meaning.

As the team from the lander made their way from the landing capsule and the melted rock of the landing fields, shadows seemed to shift and jump with every slow step. With his field of vision limited by his helmet, Gabriel kept trying to peer into the darkness, unable to shake the uncanny sense that something was alive out there… watching them.

So, he did what everyone does when walking past a graveyard, or a haunted house; he made conversation to break the watchful silence. ″Do we know anything new about the crystals recovered from the Caloris Basin?″

″Individually, each is a powerful nano-tech computer.″ his radio replied. ″The nano-tech in each is able to function, or be re-programmed in an almost infinite variety of ways, and with great efficiency. Quantum effects allow a massive amount of parallel processing, and each crystal is able to network with a theoretically infinite number of other units. You can see why we wanted a man of your expertise on site before we proceeded further.″

Gabriel’s heart raced at the prospect. To actually work on an extra-terrestrial computer! The haunted hills around him were forgotten as he considered the implications. ″But how could such systems retain their integrity? The crash, or the heat inside Mercury, should have destroyed it to the last component.″

″That’s one of the questions we hope to answer, Dr. Marius. We speculate that most of the original system was vaporized upon impact, leaving only a few, scattered components, driven deep into magma. These components can survive, even thrive in conditions of molten metal, and we suspect that these crystals reproduced for a while, attempting to repair something long gone. Think of it as how a man’s hair and fingernails would continue to grow after he dies.″

The unearthly chill of the surrounding darkness was back. These relics were the last remnants of whoever had traveled so far. ″Over a billion years…″ he whispered.

″Sorry, Doctor?″

″Sorry. I was just pondering the scope of time. Mercury would have been young and volcanicly active then; this might have even been before life on Earth. All this time, waiting to be discovered…″

″Quite right. We expect this discovery to revolutionize computer science.″

It would change everything. Gabriel paused, staring up at the stars. The Solar System visited by intelligence. Weather it had taken a year, or a million years, the trip had been made. There must have been other interstellar voyages too. Slowly perhaps, but inexorably, life would have crawled from one world to another. Even if only a small handful of ships had survived, over the lifetimes of stars all of the galaxy should be inhabited. Yet this was the only evidence they had found, so far. Why?

″Is everything all right, Doctor?″

″Yes.″ He began walking again. ″Why do we have this such a secret? Alien artifacts on Mercury can’t remain secret forever, certainly…″

″Two reasons: security and methodology. As to security, whomever first masters this new technology will have an extraordinary edge in computing. Then, there are the dangers of a unstable individual or regime with self-replicating quantum nano-tech.″

The airlock doors opened in the dome, and they stepped into the lit metal cube. Finally, something human in scope and scale. ″You mentioned methodology?″

The outer doors closed and air began to hiss into the room. ″Right. Before we release anything this world-shattering, we need to be certain we have our facts right. Remember how long we waited to reveal life on Europa? We had to be certain before we released the data. Remember how people reacted to that? This will make that look like a byline in a news-feed…″

The inner doors opened into the dome and Gabriel took off his helmet as he stepped though. ″We’ll see. I expect people will be able to deal with it. Frankly, the whole thing is so grand, and so abstract, that most won’t even consider the bigger implications.″ An entire galaxy of life and civilization… life everywhere… ″Most will just be shocked for a few days, and then go about their daily lives. It’s not like any starships will be coming or going anytime sooner than in a century or so.″ But they are going to be coming and going, Gabriel thought. If they came once, they can come again. Because of this, soon mankind will also be going to the stars.

The brightly-lit colorful walls inside glowed with images of life and Earth: forests, waterfalls, a sunny beach and other scenes from home. All of it driving away the outside with its impossible heat and cold; its total light and absolute darkness. ″There is also the matter of safety.″ the other man said taking off his helmet to reveal his closely cropped black hair and beard. ″The nano-tech particles must remain here on Mercury until we know how to control them. We also have to sequester all of our computer systems that interface with them, considering that we are talking about alien software from a more advanced civilization. This is the real reason why communications from Mercury are so closely controlled. Finally, we will all be looking at a long quarantine process once we finally return to Luna. Sorry.″

″Sensible″ Gabriel said as they walked down the corridor. Inwardly he groaned, more time away from his family, and no way to explain it to them. ″I presume most of my work will be examining the samples from Caloris Basin?″

″Actually, no. While we retrieved our first samples from the Caloris Basin, and we believe that that is the original site of impact, most of our samples, the active samples anyway, are retrieved from much deeper into the interior of Mercury. We believe that the particles that were able to survive and propagate found the once-liquid core of Mercury to be a more hospitable region. Thus, all of our active samples came from there.″

″Wait…″ Gabriel paused as he considered the implications, an image of Mercury building in his head, and the structure of its magnetic field lines. The planet barely rotates, and the core had frozen solid. Mercury’s powerful magnetic field had been a mystery for years. What could be happening in the core of a dead world to generate such a powerful field? ″You think there’s a giant alien machine down there? That that’s what is making Mercury’s magnetic field? That those alien things grew out of control, and transformed the interior of an entire planet?!″

″We’ll need to investigate closer to find out. The interior core of Mercury is fully crystallized with this machinery, but we cannot tell what it is doing… yet.″

The image in Gabriel’s head changed, the dense iron-nickel core became a massive lattice of metallic crystals; a great computer running unknown code from distant, alien minds. ″That’s what I’m for then? Not to examine this little sample of crystals you’ve been studying for years, but to examine the core, and see if it’s a functioning computer?″

″Quite. We’ve already drilled a shaft down… we went through three plasma drills to get there, actually. Physical examination of the… machine… down there is ongoing. What we need is a expert on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and distributed systems with sufficient clearance. You.″

The corridor seemed to shift and swim. The implications, the dangers. Of all of the people on Earth, he would be responsible for dealing with the alien computer… or mind. ″I assume then that you have a high-speed, high-density communications conduit to the core? Delays in messaging will cause some issues in this work, but it can’t be helped…″

″Actually, no, Doctor…″ They came to a room in the center of the dome. A round pit down into darkness was in the dead center, with a reflective elevator cylinder hung above it on a cable. ″We simply cannot chance any computer contamination with our systems up here. You will be descending to interface with the alien machine—personally.″

He looked into the pit, and the mirror-smooth walls that disappeared into endless darkness: down, down, down…

Down, down, ever downward the Wanderer fell. The star had swollen to a raging disc of radiation and heat. The last of the ice and gas had long been scoured from the surface of the Wanderer, and now searing light and radiation hammered the silicates on it’s hull, heating and cracking the exterior. Occasional flashes of light marked impacts that left glowing craters. Whether the Wander would survive would be decided soon.

It’s interior had completely melted by this point, and the flowing computer network churned the charged liquid metal forming the great dynamo in its heart. Powerful magnetic fields sprang into life once more, as it spread its wings of magnetic force. It had been ages since it last used its fields to correct its course and fly; could it still do so?

The hard magnetic fields bit deep into the proton flux of the young star’s raging ion winds. Streams of gold and white plasma parted around the Wanderer, and concentrated into bands of pale light. The Wanderer began to shift in position, slowly altering its course to enter orbit around the star. Everything would have to work perfectly; an error could send it on a path out of the star system, plunge it into the star, or most likely, force it into any number of useless orbits.

The stellar winds were too thin this far away. The Wanderer corrected course and dived deeper towards the hungry fires of the star.

The star’s disc slowly swelled into a horizon of blazing light, with streams of luminous plasma arcing up and about the falling Wanderer. Eruptions of ionized gas streamed over the vessel, unable to be completely diverted by the magnetic fields. The silicate surface boiled in the raw plasma fury, and streamed behind the Wanderer, turning it into a comet once more.

Still, the ancient ship dived deeper towards the star, as its great magnetic wings bit deep into the stellar winds and began to slowly shift the course of the battered vessel. Everything depended upon this moment, where it would finally be able to shed much of the velocity of its interstellar voyage, using the remainder to enter a stable orbit.

Unexpectedly, a massive eruption from the surface of the star blasted into space directly ahead of the Wanderer. The vast curtain of raging plasma was larger than worlds, and filled the space ahead with deadly heat and radiation. While it could see it coming, there was no possibility of dodging such a blast, as the magnetic fields could only slowly shift the vessel.

It calculated its possibilities with lightning speed. If it drew in its magnetic fields tightly, it should be able to survive the blast, but would lose the ability to correct its course at the crucial moment, and be unable to enter a useful orbit. If, instead, it attempted to use the powerful stellar winds of the stellar eruption, then it could make its orbit with certainty.

The Wanderer readied to enter the raging stellar winds and use them. There was no other choice: to fail to enter a proper orbit meant to fail in the task for which it was created. It was worth any risk for the future.

The blazing ions streamed around the Wanderer, and the magnetic field of its drive glowed visibly, appearing like the layers of an onion with a long trail stretched behind. Blue fire flared at the poles of the field, as tremendous energies began to overwhelm the magnetic drive. The Wanderer shook in the energies, its surface scoured away by the raging stellar storm while a hail of neutrinos from the flare began to interfere with the delicate quantum computing systems deep within the hull. Still, its course was slowly correcting. It had already gone from a parabolic path to an elliptical orbit, with a little more time…

But there was no more time. A tight magnetic loop of plasma burst next to the Wanderer, hitting it with immense magnetic fields and electric charges, along with incredible heat and radiation. The Wanderer’s magnetic drive collapsed in a series of internal explosions, and its drive field collapsed, bringing the raging stellar storm in contact with its hull. The outer silicon surface cracked and boiled away in the raging plasma, while massive currents surged though the Wanderer’s core and the computer networks within. The Wanderer experienced a sensation like a brilliant flash of light as its computers were overloaded, then it descended helplessly into darkness and heat.

Gabriel descended helplessly into darkness and heat. It wasn’t any warmer in the suit than before, but he turned on a cool breeze to blow across the cold sweat on his skin, and took a drink of water from the suit’s internal stores, fighting off the heat and fatigue

He had slept poorly last night. He’d known he would have to be at his best, but how could he sleep knowing he was going into the searing core of a planet the next day? His dreams had been filled with endless caverns and fire.

When he was a young boy he had dreamed about wearing power armor on an alien world. Now he was, but would have far preferred to be home. The armor was based on the kind the mantle miners wore, with thousands of insulating layers and liquid nitrogen coolant systems. The whole thing was so massive, that without the motors to move it, he would be immobile even in Mercury’s minor gravity. The outer surface gleamed with mirror-bright gold: to reflect heat and light for anyone working on the surface of Mercury.

He wasn’t on the surface of Mercury, though, but someplace far more dangerous. The mirrored capsule around him was barely large enough to contain his massive armor. It descended into the depths of Mercury in a mirror-smooth elevator shaft impregnated with millions of dust-sized magnetic devices. Once it had been lowered into the shaft by the cable, the capsule would engage its magnetic field, and raise or lower itself as the field interacted with the particles embedded into the shaft walls. It was the only way to have elevators work in deep mining shafts where no cable could bear its own weight. It was tested, and used in mines all around the world, Gabriel told himself. Accidents and failures were rare, he told himself, very few people actually fell several kilometers to their death…

There was a brief moment of weightlessness as the cable broke away and the capsule fell. Before he was done swearing, gravity returned as the magnetic fields gripped the walls and the capsule began to descend more slowly.

″Doctor, we are registering elevated heart-rate and breathing. Is everything all right?″ came a voice in his ear.

Yeah, I’m only being lowered into the core of an alien world, he thought. ″I’m fine.″ he gasped ″All systems appear nominal.″

″Very good, Doctor. We’ll be out of contact after you pass the first barrier. Communications must be limited in order to prevent potential contamination. Do you have any final questions?″

Any last words, the thought. ″Actually, I do have a question. If these breaks are to prevent malign code from infecting the systems of Hermes Base, what about me? What happens if my suit is infected with alien code, or nano-tech infiltrates my suit or body?″

″Don’t worry, Doctor. We have established protocols in place in that case.″

How reassuring, he thought. He knew this would be dangerous, and it was too late to back out now. If he didn’t go then someone else, less qualified, would have to go down instead. ″I’m approaching the first barrier.″ Each barrier formed a separate airlock in the shaft. The segments below would be filled not with air, but a variety of coolant gasses of increasing density. The pressure at the bottom would be about that of the ocean floor.

″Godspeed, Dr. Marius.″ The hatch closed over the capsule, cutting off any further transmission. High pressure gas filled the airlock and the outside temperature rose. The capsule’s cooling systems hummed as they turned on, fighting off the increasing heat. Then, the lower hatch opened, and the capsule resumed the long descent into the depths below.

He tried to look straight ahead, but there was almost nothing to see. The visor was a narrow slit of crystal, several centimeters thick and mirror-coated with a golden surface. He was looking at the reflective inner surface of the capsule, directly in front of his face. He could make out the reflection of a hulking form in absurdly heavy golden armor, like a fantasy figure about to challenge a dragon in its lair. He ordered the visor to close, and heavy armor plating slid over the only remaining weakness in the armor. Instead, Gabriel looked at the displays inside the helmet, and the diagrams showing his descent towards the heart of the world.

There was an unearthly sensation around him, hovering at the edge of his consciousness. It was like the uncanny feeling he had when he first stepped out on this alien world, and it only seemed to grow as he descended. He shook his head and focused on the diagrams of data in his helmet as he descended into the heart of the dead world.

It took hours to descend, and the capsule groaned as the pressure increased at each airlock, and hummed as additional coolant systems engaged to deal with the increase. Gabriel grew stiff and restless, unable to move or shift in the confines of the capsule, bumping into the wall with a clang when he tried.

Eventually, the capsule arrived at the bottom. The capsule and the airlock began to fill with the monstrous heat and pressure beyond. Coolant systems in his armor engaged, the armor creaked under the pressure. Pressure and temperature equalized, the capsule and airlock doors slid open, exposing him to the tunnels in the heart of Mercury.

Gabriel turned on the virtual-reality displays in the helmet to look around. He could now see perfectly clearly in any direction, and even through the massive shoulder plates that would have blocked his side view. Readings and indicators of temperature, pressure and location floated in front of his vision.

The tunnels beyond were round bores, with cables and pipes that ran along the white insulation material covering the walls. The thick, heavy air slowly wavered with heat distortion, and the helium coolant systems gave a low rumble, like the breath of some massive creature. Low groans vibrated though the walls, and he tried not to think about the vast pressures pushing down on the core from above.

Gravity was noticeably lighter down here, at the solidified edge of Mercury’s core. The heavy armor stomped through the tunnels, barely clearing the arched ceiling. Along the tunnels there were branches off for power generators, sensory systems, and the giant coolers that lowered the temperatures from red-hot to merely boiling hot.

The other work shift, clad in similar golden juggernauts, trudged towards him from the other end of the tunnel. They gave him a thumbs-up on the way past, into the elevator he had come from. Even with the golden suits, no-one could stay down here for too long.

Soon, he came to his destination: a massive vault-door leading to the exposed section of core, a natural void formed in the cooling core. This too, was an airlock, and he ducked to enter the armored cylinder and seal the massive hatch behind him. He made sure he had plenty of reserves of coolant, and then equalized the heat and pressure for the cavern beyond.

The great door swung open into a cavern of wonders. Gleaming metallic crystals of a thousand shapes scintillated on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the arena-sized cavern. Cubes, rhomboids, tetrahedrons, and other polyhedrons all grew together in a myriad of shapes and sizes. Forms grew out of or through other crystals, or formed fractals of endless complexity. It did not appear to be a random jumble, but instead there was some sort of pattern, an alien order of some kind.

A lighted catwalk ran down the middle of the cavern, and wires led from consoles to sensors and the other devices drilled into the walls. Gabriel sealed the hatch behind him and advanced down the catwalk to the middle of the chamber where the central controls were.

Would this be first contact? Gabriel wondered. Would he be the one to first make contact with the relics of an alien intelligence? Gabriel wanted to wipe the sweat from his brow, but the visor of his suit stopped his hand.

Activating the terminal, he soon lost himself in the flow of information. Those who had come before had tried every known approach, so he had to try something new. Gabriel tried his latest ideas and theories; programs and possibilities that would grow as if they were alive, developing into ever-more complex forms. No computer before had been able to fully test his theory, but this amazing alien system could and did. An intermediary program was growing; one that could communicate with the alien machine, and with the human operator. A messenger between two different worlds had been created. Then, he downloaded a language and history database, to form a common foundation of communication. Could there ever be enough in common for communication? Would he be able to communicate with this relic of another world?

Now, to test it. He sent a basic query into the material. At first nothing happened. Then, the query was repeated by the surrounding matrix. Success! As he was writing his report for the surface, he noticed an increase in activity.

The crystal matrix began to furiously send communications though itself and to his computer. Activity grew at an ever increasing rate, and he had no way to keep track of it. Working eagerly to keep up, he didn’t notice the temperature until a warning alarm sounded.

Looking up, he saw the crystalline walls glow a deep maroon, and brighten to an angry red as he watched. Sparks of light flickered along the edges of the crystals and flashes of lightning burst from sharp points.

He turned to run towards the hatch when the magnetic locks sealed it with a low clang. Containment procedures were in place: it could only be opened from the other side now. Gabriel stared at the door in frustration, nothing short of a nuclear blast would get that hatch open now.

The chamber was brightening to a deep orange, and the temperature alarms in his armor began screaming at him. He closed his eyes. Laura, I love you, he thought. He knew the end was coming.

The Wanderer knew the end was coming. The damage from the star had been too extensive. Once it had regained consciousness, it found it was crippled. More than half of its outer mass had been blown away, and what remained of the surface was a cratered, scorched waste. The magnetic drive was a hopeless unrecoverable ruin, and now simply existed as a basic magnetic field around the wreck of the Wanderer. Worse, its very mind had been savaged by the massive current that had passed through it, and the steady stream of neutrinos from the raging star would slowly degrade what was left. Most of the nuclear fuel, carefully saved over the course of the long journey, had been used up. Eventually, its computing core would cool, and freeze into a static mass, with thought frozen into a few patterns. Death was not the worst of it, though, for it had failed in the very mission it had been constructed to do; its very reason for existence.

It would never form the basis of a new habitable world. With most of its mass blown away, and trapped in a close, tidally locked orbit about the star, it would forever be only a burnt cinder of a world. The time, expense and planning that went into its design and launch had been wasted. No civilization would take root in this star system, to make contact with the slowly growing web of intelligence and civilizations spreading though out the galaxy.

The Wander needed to be sure. Even though its outer senors had been scoured away, it could still sense the other worlds of the star-system though tidal interactions. It activated its gravity detectors: no anomalies. When it listened in on the quantum-field there was only silence. There might be life, but clearly no communicating intelligence. A dead system.

Finally, all hope of finding intelligence exhausted, the wander sent its report. The original parts of its systems that remained were quantum-entangled with the World-Foundry of its home. The message was instantaneous, and brief: this system is dead. There would be no further reason for communication, nor any reason for any traveler to spend the time and expense to come. Prospective young star-systems and advanced inhabited systems filled the galaxy. Why build in an old, dead system, after all?

Still, as all life wished to persist, the Wanderer did not simply die. External and non-vital systems were shut down entirely, and core systems went on stand-by. The core was allowed to cool slowly, preserving what nuclear fuel remained, in the event it needed to awaken again. As its core mind cooled and crystallized, it formed into thought-routines to watch for signs of communication with the World-Foundry, or any intelligence that might happen by.

Asleep one more, the Wanderer had no sense of time, until it was awoken, one more by a signal. The battered world-ship began to slowly awaken once more, and tried to communicate with the minute signal coming from within a cavern in its own mind. There was a reply!

There was a reply! Gabriel opened his eyes and looked at the data floating in his visual field. The alien machine was trying to communicate with him!

There was little time left. The room was filled with a blazing gold brilliance. Soon, either the armor’s outer coating would melt, or the cavern would melt and cover him in magma.

″It’s too hot; you’re killing me!″ he sent.

Seconds passed. The air in the cavern roared, and coolant pipes burst, venting helium. Then, slowly, the blinding golden light dimmed to orange, then red, then back out of the visual range.

″Who are you?″ appeared in his vision. It had decoded the language and database he had sent to it!

″I am Gabriel Marius. Who am I speaking with?″ he entered.

″My designation would mean nothing in your language. Your people call me Mercury.″

Any question of whether to establish first contact had passed, it had begun.

It had begun. Astonishingly, life had not only gained intelligence on one of the worlds of this system, but had even developed rudimentary technology… all on their own. The Wanderer once again had a purpose, a reason to live. It could never be the basis of a new civilization on its surface, but it could assist these primitive beings in building their own.

As time passed, the Wanderer gained more of an understanding of these people. The one called ″Gabriel Marius″ was fragile, and needed to return to the habitat on the northern pole. Large amounts of data was exchanged about both of their respective civilizations.

What new future might come of this? The Wanderer had failed in its original purpose in life and had been left crippled and alone, as one dead. Now a new possibility had dawned. Rather than create a new world of life, it might help the current life that had come to pass in this star system. The Wanderer might finally achieve its purpose: parenthood.

About the Author

David Hallquist has had a long history of customer service positions including banking, call center service and sales, all of which have served as a fascinating study of the human species. His short stories can be found in Sci Phi Journal, Astounding Frontiers and other works. He lives in Rockville, Maryland, and is still waiting for the flying cars.

This volume you are holding is part of the larger Planetary Anthology series that has one volume for each planet in the solar system, plus Lunar and Sol. If you enjoyed this ride leave a review and check out the rest at
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