The Stars Blue Yonder (13 page)

CHAPTER NINE

When Jodenny woke the next morning, she kept her eyes closed for several long moments. The warmness beneath her, the smell of river water, the shape of a man. Her husband, returned to her. But if she opened her eyes and saw someone else, that would be proof positive that she'd gone batshit crazy. And it wasn't as if the possibility were that remote—she'd felt crazy for months, crazy with grief and loneliness—but psychosis would be a whole new trick to add to her repertoire. If Myell wasn't the one she was lying against, she'd have to scream.

She cracked open one eye and saw her Terry. He was battered and thin, his hair dried in crazy directions, but he was there, tangible and irrefutable.

Jodenny reached up, planning to kiss him awake, but he jerked awake at that very moment, and his chin knocked into her forehead.

“Ouch,” he said.

“Ow,” she said.

After they sorted out that nothing was bleeding, they settled into a proper kiss. But then Myell, his hand against her belly, made a surprised sound.

“What's that?” he asked.

Jodenny said, “junior's got hiccups.”

His face broke open with wonder. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Enough. It's perfectly normal.”

He patted junior's bump with gentle fingers, then looked up for the kids.

And blanched.

“Where is everyone?” he demanded.

The other blankets were all empty. Jodenny's gib was gone as well. But the bag Myell had brought from her house was still there.

“They must be outside, checking on the weather,” she said.

Myell eased out from under her and scooted toward the cave mouth. She wasn't worried about Osherman. He was far more stable than most people gave him credit for. Even her. Jodenny drank some water from her canteen, eased more healing cream on her knee and hip, and stiffly followed Myell into the brightness of day.

The weather was still wet, the sky filled with gray, fast-moving clouds. The wind swept branches back and forth vigorously enough to drop twigs and leaves on the forest floor. The river was running high under the footbridge, and the water churned a dark angry color. But there was no sign of Osherman or the kids, and Myell had a worried expression on his face.

“Where would they go?” he asked.

“Maybe they just took a walk to get some fresh air.”

He valiantly stood guard while she relieved herself several meters from the cave mouth. After that she settled onto a large flat rock, glad for the fresh air.

“How's your knee and hip?” he asked.

She flexed her whole leg. “Not bad at all.”

He nodded, distracted. Still worried about the kids. She asked, “Where did you get them?”

Myell gave her a puzzled look.

“In the future, sure. How far?” she asked.

“Forty years,” he said.

Easy math, that, and the result made her wrinkle her nose. “I'm a little old lady?”

“Sure,” he said, eyes on the valley.

Jodenny grabbed his hand and waited for him to look at her. Maybe talking about the future was the wrong conversation to have. He didn't seem comfortable about it. But she hadn't been comfortable either, these past months, grieving over his death. She thought of him cast back and forth through the decades, never able to stay in one place. Adrift and lost.

Goosebumps rose across her shoulders and climbed up her scalp. “You said you weren't leaving. But Twig says you can't control it. Tell me the truth.”

Dismay crossed his face, quickly shuttered.

“You can't,” she squeaked out. She stood up, both hands supporting her back. “You have to stay.”

His shoulders tensed. He was looking down the valley still, unhappiness radiating out of him.

“Look me in the eye.” She grasped his arm. “Tell me you're here for good. Because if you're not, if you think you're going anywhere, you better think again, mister. I'll tie you to a goddamned tree. I'll sit on you. Me and your baby here.”

He turned from the valley to face her full on. His mouth was a downward slash and his hands were cold on her shoulders.

“I can't do anything about it,” he admitted.

Jodenny felt numb through and through, so numb she wasn't even sure her legs were still supporting her. Junior twisted around inside her, the only sign her body was still working.

“I don't believe you,” she said, and brushed his hands away.

Before she could even pick a good destination, she was heading down the slope to the footbridge. Home, she decided. Her little house and little bedroom, where she would lock the door forever. Because if there was a thing worse than being widowed it was having your husband
come back from wherever he'd been, past or present or future be dammed, and announcing he wasn't staying.

“Jodenny!” he called out, following her. It wasn't as if she could set a land-speed record, not with her extra weight and the remaining twinge in her knee. But she stormed ahead of him anyway, the wet forest floor slippery beneath her sandals.

“Wait!” he said, very close behind her.

“No,” she snapped. “I don't want to hear excuses. You can't control it? You find a way. You figure out how you're going to stay, because you're not going anywhere, and if you think you can just leave me here—”

Myell said, “You don't need me. You marry him. You marry Osherman.”

She'd reached the footbridge, and her hand closed so tightly around the railing that her knuckles cracked. Jodenny stopped fleeing and turned. “I wouldn't.”

He spread his hands wide. “You do. You're happy together. You make a life here without me.”

Her heart skipped. “So this is revenge or something? You're not staying now because you've seen the future and I marry someone else?”

“Not seen it.” His chin lifted, and a mulish look came into his eyes. “Been there. At your wedding. And later.”

Jodenny abruptly had to sit. And for that there was either the muddy bank or the cold grates of the bridge, with the water rushing beneath. She sat on the grates with her back against a pole, breathing deeply through her nose.

“Easy,” he said, touching her arm. He sat down beside her.

She swatted his hand away. “I won't. Now that you've told me. I'll never marry him, just to spite you.”

“That's not how it works.” He leaned his head against the railing, as if holding up his head was too much work anymore. His feet dangled over the rushing water. “You won't remember me after I'm gone. No matter what I do, nothing ever changes. This eddy—this moment of time—will just fix itself. Time heals all wounds, I guess.”

“You don't know for sure,” Jodenny said. “I mean, yes, from your perspective, maybe. But time could be changing in other places, or other
ways. What's going to happen if you take Kyle and Twig home? Will they meet themselves?”

“I don't know if I can. It wasn't something I planned. Homer says they're just copies, that the real ones never left home. He says that I have to leave them behind, or we'll all end up drowning in space and time.”

Jodenny's stomach twisted at the thought of that. “Could that be true?”

“I don't know. But if I leave them, that means they'll just evaporate when this eddy dissolves. Either way, I've doomed them.”

Despite her earlier anger, she wanted to find a way to comfort him. To ease the tight lines between his eyes and somehow make everything all better. Instead she found herself saying, “So take them. And take me. I'm willing to risk the chance. Wherever we go next, we'll face it together. And we'll find a way to stop all this.”

“He can't take you,” said a voice from behind them. A Roon stood at the end of the bridge, a silver ouroboros spinning around its boots. “Go with him and your baby will die.”

CHAPTER TEN

Jodenny surged to her feet. Myell rose just as fast beside her, shielding her as best he could. Though she was glad for Junior's sake, the gesture irritated her. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. Usually.

Then again, she had no weapons or means of defense.

Neither did Myell.

The Roon said, “I told you that you the network was ours, Teren Myell. Every corner and every whirl. Take her with you and your child will die.”

“It can talk,” Jodenny murmured. None of the aliens she remembered from Burringurrah had been able to speak English.

“You lie,” Myell said. “If you control the network, why haven't you stopped me? Why haven't you just killed me?”

It was silent for a moment. Jodenny wondered if it was surprised at Myell's impertinence. Thunder rolled through the sky as dark clouds moved in over the hill. Myell glanced upward, a small awareness flickering across his face.

“She protects you,” it finally said. “She encourages you. But we have our own gods, and to you they'll show no mercy.”

“Who protects me?” Myell asked. “Kultana?”

The silver ouroboros sped up.

“Step out of that,” Myell dared it. “If you can.”

The Roon made no move. “You persist,” it said, “but you will fail. Again and again you will fail. And we will meet again until you are nothing.”

The ouroboros vanished, taking the Roon with it.

Myell let out a shaky breath and turned to hug Jodenny tightly. She found herself shaking—not in fear, but in anger. “Who the hell was that?” she asked.

“It calls itself the Flying Doctor. I'll tell you everything, but let's get out of here first.”

They walked along the riverbank but kept the cave within sight. Myell kept a protective hold on Jodenny's elbow and supported her whenever the ground grew too slippery. She couldn't bear to look at him, and couldn't bear not to. Surely the Roon was a liar, but the thought of endangering Junior with a trip through the blue ring was a terrible pressure in her chest. She couldn't even consider the idea. But she also couldn't stand the idea of casting Myell back into the sea of time alone, with or without Twig or Kyle, on his mysterious heroic quest, while she would go on to find happiness with Osherman.

“Here's good enough,” Jodenny said, once they found some flat rocks to sit on. “Everything, please.”

He told her about waking on Garanwa's station, and traveling through the ring, and the first appearance of the Flying Doctor outside Lisa's house that night in Providence. “It was raining pretty hard,” he said. “And the next day, when it showed up again, there was more thunder. Like now. I don't think it's all just a coincidence.”

“You think Kultana is some kind of weather god?” she asked skeptically.

“There are some legends of Kultana as a goddess of rain, or a god from the Land of the Dead. Anything's possible.”

“Do you believe that Roon? That if I go with you, Junior will be in danger?”

Myell gazed past her to the river. “It doesn't matter. We can't risk it.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Jodenny said. “There's still equipment on the
Kamchatka
, up in orbit. If we could somehow capture your blue ring, maybe keep you from leaving—”

“We've tried,” he said. “Before. You and I, in the future. It doesn't work.”

“This time could be different.”

“It's never different. Homer says only the gods can change history.”

She hated the bleakness in his voice. Wanted to reach over and shake him by the shoulders, jar that helplessness loose. “Then we'll just have to find some, won't we? But don't get any funny ideas. No more sacrifices, no more turning into a god yourself.”

He stared at her.

“On Burringurrah,” she said. “You died, and transformed. Sort of. Into Jungali, one of the Nogomain.”

“That wasn't me,” he said slowly. “Or, if it was me, someone changed history so that it never happened. I'm certainly not a god now.”

“And you're not going to become one again,” Jodenny vowed. “We'll just have to find Kultana, or someone else, to help us. Obviously the chances are pretty good, otherwise the Roon wouldn't be trying to stop you.”

He didn't answer.

Twig's voice rang out over the hillside. “Uncle Terry!”

They turned their heads. The kids and Osherman had returned. Jodenny and Myell met them under a gum tree near the bridge. Twig's cheeks were bright, and Kyle seemed less grim than he had the night before. Osherman was uneasy, shuffling from foot to foot.

“Where have you been?” Myell asked.

“We went foraging,” Twig said. “See? Nuts and these berries and this wild plum, but it's still kind of sour.”

Kyle said, “I'm starving. Is there any real food left?”

Now that she thought of it, Jodenny was hungry too. Junior wanted
his breakfast.
Her
breakfast, Jodenny reminded herself. Her daughter. She wasn't used to that idea after all these months of imagining the fetus as a boy. Myell fetched the heat globe from the cave and set it out by the river. He warmed up oatmeal for everyone and made coffee for the adults. Osherman declined to eat or drink, and sat near the bridge with his arms folded over his chest.

“How long are we going to be here?” Kyle asked Myell. “It's already been twelve hours.”

Myell poked at his food with a spoon. “Maybe five more hours. Maybe four.”

Twig tugged on Jodenny's sleeve. “You should come with us when we leave. You're the nicest you we've met so far.”

“Oh, honey.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “You're the nicest granddaughter I've ever met, too.”

“That means no,” Kyle told Twig. The bitterness was back in his voice. “And next time we come back, she won't remember you at all.”

“Maybe.” Jodenny reached for her bottle of water and took two careful sips. “Maybe not. Tell me, how did you all end up traveling together?”