Time Past (18 page)

Such a wondrous thing, the jump points—on Jocasta we could share time with places so far away that the human mind cannot comprehend the distance. We were lucky to be on the jump network. Nobody knew why the Invidi didn’t increase the number of points. Some speculation had it that our contemporary Invidi cannot create new jump points anymore, and that the network is merely a technological legacy from past ages. But that didn’t make sense, because the latest addition to the Confederacy was the Neronderon, who joined only five years ago. Which led to another question that had never been satisfactorily answered—how do the Invidi know at which point in a species’ history to open a jump point? What if they’d made a mistake and appeared in Earth’s Middle Ages? I didn’t like the idea that the privilege of being part of the jump network might depend on an arbitrary Invidi decision. Playing God, that’s what it was.

So where did that leave us? Seeing it was likely we’d brought the Invidi here when the jump point from Jocasta opened. And how did An Serat send
Calypso
to Jocasta? Through jump points not on the network, obviously, but this was the first time it had happened. Nobody suspected jump points could exist off the network. If the Invidi could create jump points at will, why hadn’t they done it before? And why did the jump point have a ninety-five-year correspondence when
Calypso
traveled to Jocasta, but ninety-nine years when
Calypso II
and Murdoch’s ship traveled to Earth?

Too many questions. Why do I get the feeling I’m never going to get any answers?

Four days after the landing proper we had gone to see the site again, hoping for inspiration. The expedition had involved leaving before dawn to catch the early bus, and much walking up and down the beach, from which we could see the east-west runway.

Those four days I had fiddled with scavenged and borrowed radios in attempts to send a message to the Invidi, with no result. I’d taken Murdoch’s locator to pieces with inadequate tools and given myself severe eyestrain in the hope of being able to use its components to boost the signal somehow. And we’d brainstormed ways to quickly earn large quantities of money in order to buy at least one of us an ID. All of the methods were illegal, and all of them carried too much risk of arrest to be worth trying.

The Invidi “embassy” sat on the runway behind two fences drawn across the tarmac from north to south. The fences were separated by three or four meters and stood about three meters high. Electric current ran through both, and they had jagged wire on the top. Small boxes at intervals were probably visual surveillance pickups. A similar fence had been set around the perimeter of the east-west runway, although it was lower. Hastily erected guardhouses and offices stood on the terminal side of the fence.

Murdoch pointed out to me the snipers on the roofs of the main tarmac buildings, the missile launch trucks at points around the perimeter, and the long, low warships in the bay beyond the runway. His considered opinion was that we didn’t have a hope in hell of getting in by any route but the gate. “They’ve tightened up security,” he said. “That first day, nobody knew what was going on. Now they’re sure who they want in there and who they don’t.”

I sat down on the sand with a thud. There were plenty of other watchers, some of them obviously locals; others had come with beach umbrellas and food to make a day of it. Four or five boys about Will’s age rumbled up and down the footpath on skateboards.

“What do you suggest?”

He sat beside me, knee joints cracking. “Anything but trying to sneak past those perimeters. I’m too old to even think about it.”

“We could think simple,” I said. “Walk up to the gate. Say we have to see An Serat, that we’ve got a message from the future and we can prove it.”

Murdoch looked at me pityingly. “You’ve seen some of those alien hunters on televid, haven’t you? No security officer with half a mind is going to let you in.”

I drew concentric circles in the sand with a twig until they all overlapped. “I never thought we’d get stuck at this point.”

“Nor me.”

His voice was tired, but sympathetic. He was staring out past the runway with eyes narrowed against the glare, arms gathered loosely around his knees. We hadn’t spoken about either our interrupted kiss on the night of the fire or my unintended come-on in the street on the day of the Invidi arrival. Since then we’d hardly been alone together, anyway, and when we were, we talked about the Invidi. We were too absorbed in getting past this problem.

He’d responded, of that I was sure. And so had Henoit. I didn’t want to feel Henoit instead of Murdoch. At the moment I didn’t want to feel either of them.

I’d taken my ovulation suppressants regularly on the station, but always on a two-hundred-day course. I wasn’t sure when my last dose was, things having been a little confused on the station before I left. The obvious result had occurred and I was feeling lousy. It was a sobering thought, that if we got stuck in this time I’d have to go through this once a month for another ten years or so. My female ancestors were tougher than I knew.

I started drawing lines with the twigs. This line for
Calypso.
This one for
Calypso II.
Linear thinking, that was our problem. We had to stop it.

Neither of us said much on the bus trip back to the out-town. Grace and Levin weren’t home and we collapsed gratefully on the sofa. Soon Will would be home from school.

Scraps of wire, soldering irons, pieces of solder, and smears of flux lay on Grace’s kitchen table. I’d borrowed the tools from Le’s electronics shop for the purpose of fixing Eric’s shortwave radio. The Invidi arrival had stimulated a revival of interest in this hobby and I could see why. Far more interesting to try to tune in to alien communications than be spoon-fed telnet reports of whatever the authorities wanted you to hear. The radio gave me a lot of trouble—one of those times I laughed at my assumption that because I could fine-tune twenty-second-century technology, I could do the same for that from the twentieth.

“You going to tidy that up?” Murdoch poured us both a drink of water. “Wasn’t successful, eh?”

“I need a bit more time,” I said shortly, sweeping the locator into a cardboard box with the radio tools.

Murdoch sighed. “Maybe you’re right. We should just walk up and say we need to talk. We could use your implant as proof we’re telling the truth.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “It might still take weeks for them to test and process us. If they don’t detain us first.”

“And you say we don’t even know if we can get back to our own time? That the jump point correspondence might have altered?” He blew out in the same frustration that twisted my stomach.

I dropped the box heavily on the floor beside the televid and kicked it in beside the wall. “I want to talk to them
now.
”

“I didn’t know you were a VIP,” said a mocking voice. I spun around.

Levin slouched in the doorway. “Why should the benevolent and all-powerful, wonderful aliens want to speak to you?”

“None of your business.”

“It’ll take you a lifetime. You know there’s a waiting list of years even for scientists? How is your meeting the aliens going to benefit humanity?”

More than you can ever guess, I wanted to say.

“Grace and I will be going out tonight,” Levin said. He padded across the room and peered into the refrigerator. Wrinkled his nose at its emptiness. “Buy some beer for when we get back, will you?” He pulled a handful of coins and small-denomination notes from his pocket and left the pile on the bench.

“Who do you think you are?” I said under my breath.

Murdoch watched, arms folded, from the other side of the room.

I wanted to ask Levin about the fire, as I’d wanted to ask him for days now. When he came back the day after the Invidi arrived, he’d said merely, “What a pity about the office.” But I couldn’t exactly say,
tell me if you helped the gangs riot and told them where to find the telescope.
Not when we were staying in his house.

“And a couple for yourself, if you like.” He left, humming.

As the front door slammed I turned to Murdoch. “Bill, I think it’s time we got rid of my backup transponder.”

He stared at me. “Why can’t you leave it in?”

“Because we might need to get into a place with security detectors in a hurry.”

“Are you planning something?” he said suspiciously.

“No, but I think we should be prepared.” I had nothing particular in mind. Only that I couldn’t sit here thinking about the Invidi without doing something.

I pulled Grace’s medkit from the top cupboard, dusted off cobwebs, and carried it over to the table.

“You mean, cut it out?” Murdoch stared askance at the small, flat blade I proffered. “I thought it was easy to remove.”

“It would be if we were at home.” Twenty-secondcentury medical technology could suck the transponder out through my skin or simply dissolve it in there. “The other one was below the right shoulder blade.”

“I can’t cut every bump on your skin,” he protested.

I placed a bottle of disinfectant and a piece of clean rag next to the medkit, sat cross-legged, and drew my shirt up under my arms, trying to keep the front of it covering my breasts. My left hand found the fine, raised line of scar tissue where Grace had taken out the first transponder. My fingers felt cold. “That’s where the first one was. Where do you think they’d put a backup?”

“On the other side?” Murdoch’s warmer fingers traced around my shoulder blade.

I wriggled. “That tickles. You can press a bit harder, you know.”

“That okay?”

“Mmm. Kind of like a massage.”

“We could do that, too.” His voice wasn’t quite joking.

I wondered what his hands would feel like on the rest of my back.

“Is that it?” he said.

I shook myself mentally, then reached up with my right hand and found a tiny bump, no more than five millimeters long. “That’s what the other one felt like.”

Something moved in the corner of my vision and unease shivered my skin. I turned sharply.

“Hey, careful,” protested Murdoch.

Levin stood in the doorway. When he knew I’d seen him, he stepped inside. “What are you two up to? I come back to get my keys and what do I find?”

I yanked down my shirt. “Nothing to do with you.”

He swaggered past the table, pausing to run his finger over the medkit lid. “Well? You aren’t the type for tattoos, Maria.”

I glanced back at Murdoch. He shrugged, the blade ready.

“It’s a... microchip under my skin. We’re trying to take it out.”

“A microchip?” Levin raised his eyebrows. “Never heard of them doing that to humans.”

“I was in jail,” I improvised wildly. “In South America. I told you I got away, didn’t I? They do it to all their political prisoners.”

“What did you do that made you a political prisoner?” said Levin.

“I formed an alliance with enemies of the state,” I snapped, thinking of the Abelar Treaty.

Murdoch smiled. “Don’t let us keep you.”

Levin turned on his heel.

I faced the other way again. Murdoch pushed my shirt up and the tips of his fingers felt for the point under my shoulder blade.

Levin’s footsteps had stopped. I glanced over my shoulder but Murdoch growled, “Keep still.” He leaned forward and said in a lower voice, “He’ll go if we ignore him.”

But I didn’t like the idea of Levin watching.

The disinfectant left a cold spot. A small, sharp pain overlaid the cold, followed by a warm trail that tickled down my back. A slight pressure.

“Got it,” said Murdoch.

A floorboard creaked. Maybe Levin hadn’t gone.

An opaque curtain seemed to fall over the room. I could see behind myself. A great dark shadow loomed there with something deadly in its grasp. For a fraction of a second I saw again the Q’Chn as it terrorized the throughways of Jocasta, a shimmering-winged killing machine. Blood spurting from a headless torso. Deck slippery underfoot in the dark. Screams. Henoit’s voice in my ear.
Look out.

I scrambled down and away from the table, stumbling in my panic to get away. Turned to face the thing behind me.

Levin stood beside Murdoch, craning over his shoulder at something on Murdoch’s bloody finger.

They both stared at me.

“What’s wrong?” said Murdoch.

“N... nothing.” I was breathing hard.

“Turn around, then.” He lifted the swab in his other hand.

I half turned, so I could keep an eye on Levin. Something cold wiped the tickle away with the sting of disinfectant; momentary tightness of skin pulled by a dressing. I’d done the same thing for Will many times.

“You’re shaking.” Murdoch’s voice low in my ear as he tugged my shirt down.

I shook my head. “Let’s see it.”

A pale sliver barely visible on the side of Murdoch’s finger.

“Amazing, isn’t it, what they can do with molecular technology these days?” said Levin.

“It won’t work anymore,” I said. “It’s designed to be effective only when it’s in place. So we couldn’t take them out and use them for other things.”

Levin’s hand reached out but Murdoch’s fist closed around the sliver first. They glared at each other.

Levin stood next to me and I felt nothing. He was the same as always. But the inner voice that made me see Q’Chn and which sent me scrambling off the table had definitely belonged to Henoit. It was as if I’d seen behind myself for a moment with his eyes, with H’digh senses. That I felt as he felt.

At breakfast the next morning, Will sat at the table and swirled brightly colored dehydrated lumps around a bowl of gray-white milk. Levin was barricaded behind a rustling square of newspaper. Grace stood over the hotplate. News blared from the televid screen.

I yawned and took two chipped ceramic cups from the rinse bucket, wiped them on a much mended cloth, and sat opposite Will with my back to the vidscreen. I’d spent most of the night alternately wheezing and dreaming up ever more bizarre means to communicate with the Invidi.

The televid voices became more excited. Will peered around me and slurped milk off his spoon.