Dance by the Light of the Moon (3 page)

"Only
to bring death." She watched him. "Do I even exist in your
world?"

"Yes."

She
blinked. "Do we know each other there?"

"We
are like brother and sister."

She
couldn't imagine that. "In other worlds you've destroyed, do alternate
versions of you exist?"

"Dr.
Hammersmith created me for the sole purpose of restoring the Prime Reality to
its fullest strength. I came into being years after he realized the
abnormalities his trips through time had wrought."

"You're
one of a kind."

He
nodded without conceit. If anything, for the first time there appeared to be sadness
in his eyes.

* * *

With
dogged determination, the pilot of the transport pod brought his vessel within
meters to couple with the command module's port side.

"By
the authority of the United World government, you are hereby ordered to comply.
Prepare to be boarded!"

Cade
shut off the comm and increased the module's velocity.

"It
wasn't intended for this." Eyan gripped the console before her as the hull
quaked and rattled. "So much for your crusade if you kill us both."

Something
hit the port side—a solid impact followed by another violent thump.

"Grapplers,"
Eyan said. "They've tethered the pod to our airlock." She watched the
scene as it unfolded on her display. "They're reeling themselves in."

Cade's
sword was already in his hand.

"Time
to welcome our guests." He turned to the door that had opened onto the
corridor while attached to Futuro 2; but now, with the module floating free, it
was the room's single airlock. "You might want that." He nodded at
her hand on the floor.

Keeping
a wary eye on his weapon, she crouched to retrieve the prod and slipped her
severed hand—cold to the touch, which sent an unexpected shiver down the back
of her neck—into one of the zip-pockets on her uniform where it bulged unnaturally.

"I
won't let you hurt them," she said. "They've done nothing
wrong."

"We
will let them decide. They are the authorities."

"You're
outnumbered."

"I
have been many times before."

The
module rumbled as the transport pod docked. A loud hiss of pneumatics followed,
and the makeshift airlock kicked in, conjoining the two spaceworthy vessels and
equalizing the air pressure between them. Eyan glanced at her console. Less
than thirty minutes remained before they would reach Dr. Hammersmith's
coordinates. She'd never known where his base of operations was located and
often assumed he moved from station to station. Her upgrades had always been
performed remotely, as if she were a puppet dangling at the end of a string.
Like poor Xavier, tethered to Futuro 2, freezing solid before he'd even reached
the surface of the moon.

Had
that been his intent? To kill himself?

Eyan
blinked, facing the door, glancing at Cade. If she lost an arm or even her
head, so be it. She wouldn't let him hurt these people. Time travel? Alternate
worlds? The ravings of a lunatic.

Lunatic
. Meaning
moon-struck
—from the Latin,
luna
.

Eyan
blinked, focusing on the moment. Her muscles tensed, the prod charged and ready
in its holster. She would be the first person the envoy saw when the airlock
door slid aside. Then they'd see Cade, and there'd come the inevitable moment
of confusion at the sight of a sword-wielding monk.

The
door opened. Two large men in uniform filled the frame with hands on their
holstered sidearms. A smaller man stood behind them, garbed in a formless
pressure suit and carrying a digital slate. Noticing Cade, both security
officers drew their guns, and the UW official stumbled backward in surprise.

"Put
down your weapon! Identify yourself!"

"You
are here to solve a murder." Cade's steady gaze seemed unaffected by the
two guns aimed at him.

"Drop
it!" The first officer inside eyed the sword in disbelief.

"I
have done your work for you. You will find everything filed here." Cade
nodded toward the console beside him. "All I ask is that you allow me to
take your transport pod and be on my way."

The
officer smirked, half-turning to his partner. "Disarm him. I'll cover
you."

Hesitating
a moment, the second officer approached Cade and gripped his weapon with both
hands extended out in front of him.

Eyan
should have warned him.

Blood
gushed in a thick spray. The man screamed, staring at his wrists, severed clean
through flesh and bone. His gun and both of his hands lay on the floor.

The
officer at the door cursed and fired his sidearm, sending a barrage of pulse
rounds at Cade. But as Eyan had seen before, he was far too fast, whipping his
blade side to side now, deflecting every round that came his way and sending
them into the walls and ceiling to spark and fizzle into black burns.

Cade
watched the bleeding man drop to his knees and pass out. Then he turned his
gaze to the officer hastily reloading his weapon. Cursing and sweating, the man
fumbled with his pulse rounds, glancing at Cade's white robe—now covered in a
wild blood spatter pattern.

"Kill
him!" the UW official shrilled.

Eyan
drew her prod and came up beside the security officer. Without a word, she
jammed the prongs into his abdominal wall. Jerking and barking gibberish, he
collapsed to the floor.

"Don't
come in here." She stared down the UW official who hugged his slate to his
chest like it was a small shield and remained rooted on his side of the
airlock.

"I
will not hurt you." Cade sheathed his sword and beckoned to the man.
"You will want to see this."

Turning
his back on both Eyan and the official, Cade activated the wallscreen.
Instantly, monochrome video footage appeared showing two naked figures in a
narrow shower stall.

"What
is this?" Eyan demanded. The prod sizzled in her grip.

"The
truth," Cade said.

Frowning
pensively, the UW official came to the doorway but proceeded no farther, his
eyes riveted to the screen as Cade swiped the display and broke the footage
into quadrants, each showing a different scene, taken from what was obviously
surveillance footage. The young Xavier appeared in each frame—showering,
writhing in bed, arguing, but never alone. Eyan was right there with him.

"What
have you done?" She nearly choked.

"It
took some work to assemble everything from the crew's eyecams, but now the sum
is greater than its parts. Your relationship was a secret to no one aboard
Futuro 2."

The
screen showed Eyan coming upon Xavier and Rojas kissing, and in a single move,
Eyan had whipped out her prod and jammed it against the woman's throat.

"This
never happened—none of it's real. I don't know how you've manage to fabricate
this footage—"

"Of
course you would not remember any of it." Cade's tone remained even.
"It occurred during your fourth lifetime."

"You
said it was suicide, that Xavier—" She frowned at that. Of course he would
have lied to her.

"I
will leave this evidence for you." Cade drew his sword slowly and beckoned
again to the UW official. "Please. I must be on my way now."

Glancing
from Cade to Eyan with uncertainty, the man stepped lightly over the unconscious
bodies of his security personnel and hung back against the wall, clutching his
slate.

"Are
you armed?" Cade strode to the airlock.

The
man shook his head quickly.

"You
may want to borrow that." With the tip of his blade, Cade pointed out the
gun on the floor with the two severed hands attached. "I am leaving you
here with a killer, after all."

The
man blinked and stooped to retrieve the weapon with a look of horrified
disgust.

"You
have no proof." Eyan pointed at the screen as it ran the looped footage.
"There's nothing here that shows I killed Xavier!"

Cade
lingered at the airlock. "In this world, all that is required is a
reasonable doubt." He shrugged slightly. "But I would not worry. Your
time here is about to end."

With
that, he stepped outside and shut the door. The airlock sealed itself
automatically, and it wasn't long before Cade had uncoupled the transport pod
from the command module and doubled its speed toward Dr. Hammersmith's
coordinates.

"Who
was that guy?" the official's hushed voice broke the silence. He held the
bloody pulse pistol aimed at Eyan but there was nothing committal about his
posture. His gaze hadn't left the two men on the floor.

She
gripped onto her console and disabled the thrusters—and with them, the
artificial gravity. The official cursed as his slate and borrowed weapon
suddenly drifted beyond his grasp, his limbs flailing spastically as he rose
into the air. She watched him, feeling her insides rebel, demanding to drift
free.

But
she remained standing.

Not
floating curled into a fetal position, hoping for another lifetime to come even
as the command module of the Futuro 2 Drilling Station rotated end over end
through the black in a slow dance by the light of the moon.

Eyan
faced the future on her feet.

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About the Author

Milo James Fowler
is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by
night. When he's not grading papers, he's imagining what the world might be
like in a dozen alternate realities. He's an active SFWA member, and his short
fiction has appeared in
AE SciFi
,
Cosmos
,
Daily Science
Fiction
,
Nature
, and
Shimmer
. His novel
Captain
Bartholomew Quasar and the Space-Time Displacement Conundrum
is forthcoming
from Every Day Publishing.

www.milojamesfowler.com

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