Eternity's Wheel (6 page)

“But I thought we were in the future.”

I paused.
Oh, boy. This is about to get complicated
. “We are. But InterWorld operates on a broad spectrum of locations.
Not just back and forth”—I moved my hand from side to side—“but forward and backward. There are thousands of different dimensions programmed into the soliton array engines, but only three basic Earths. The ship moves—or moved—forward and backward in time over a certain period, as well as sideways into different dimensions on those three Earths. Even though the ship
can
move further into the future, we tend to stay in prehistoric times and move sideways. Less chance of startling the locals that way.”

She was glaring at me. “Did you actually answer my question, or did you just spout a bunch of bull—”

“Sorry, sorry. I got carried away. Basically,
we
are not in the future. We're in the past, because that was the last place this InterWorld docked. But
this
InterWorld came here, to the past of this world, from the future.”

She frowned, considering. “But . . . we went into the future. Sort of. I mean, that's what it felt like. It was like taking a giant step forward, when your bubble thing—”

“Hue.”

“—was wrapped around us.”

“Yes, but we went forward into InterWorld's future, which took us to the past,” I explained. “So the ship is from the future, but the planet is in the past. Make sense?”

She hesitated, looking like she had a question that she thought might be considered stupid. After a moment, she asked, “Are there dinosaurs here?”

I didn't laugh. I kind of wanted to, but I understood why she was asking. I mean, wouldn't you have? I know
I
would have. “I honestly don't know,” I told her, and she glanced around as though she might see one. “On some planets, yes, there are. And, yes,” I said, unable to help a grin, “I've seen them. But I don't know if it's this one. I don't know which planet we parked on.”

“Okay,” she said, still looking up at the sky, which was brightening to a blinding blue. It was chilly out here in the early morning, but we both had our sweatshirts on, and the sun was warm where it was rising over the horizon. “So what now?”

“Now I teach you to Walk,” I said, gesturing for her to follow me. “You want to be away from everything for your first try. It's really difficult to Walk into something that's already there, but it's not impossible.”

“You mean, I could get stuck in a rock, or something . . . ?”

“Like I said, it's unlikely, but it
is
possible. We've basically got built-in subliminal algorithms for that kind of thing, like an instinctive navigational system. Reflex, kinda. But when you're first learning, it's better not to take any chances.”

“Okay,” she said, watching me closely. She had a familiar look of determination on her face; familiar, because she looked so much like me. “Teach me.”

I spent the better part of the afternoon teaching her how to Walk, and discovered that not only was she a fantastic
student, she had a particular ability for it. Not that it came easier to her than to any of the rest of us (in fact, it took her the better part of an hour to follow my instructions correctly), but once she learned it, she slipped through the dimensions like a cat burglar on an easy heist. I even lost her once, which was a frightening moment, considering she was my only recruit. I wound up having to sidestep through four different dimensions and cast my senses about for her every time, which was more than a little tiring.

“And you've never Walked before?” I asked once I'd found her, sitting in the middle of the field, blowing tufts of dandelions into the wind.

“Never before today,” she said, looking pleased with herself. “Why?”

“Well, you're pretty good at it,” I said, readjusting the brace strapped around my wrist. I'd had an itch there I'd been trying to ignore for the past fifteen minutes.

“I thought it was taking me a while to learn.”

“It took you a while to get it, maybe, but once you did . . . You're almost undetectable, you know that?”

“Yeah?” she asked, looking up at me. She didn't look guarded anymore or angry or like she was about to run. She looked happy, the way I remembered my sister looking when she was having nice dreams. Content. Peaceful.

“Yeah. It's like when you step into the water, you don't make any ripples. You just sort of slip in.”

She smiled and shrugged, though I could tell she was pleased to be good at something in particular. I know I would have been.

“Will that be helpful?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her honestly, offering my noninjured left hand. She took it, allowing me to pull her to her feet. “If you do the Walking, we'll be able to gather up the others without being detected. Gives us a lot more breathing room. Why don't you give it a try now? Walk back to the world we parked on.”

Usually, when teaching a new Walker how to get back to base, they're taught a formula. It's an address, an equation that tells us exactly how to get home, wherever home happened to be. It tells us that no matter where the base is, we are connected to it, and we can find it anywhere.

This future InterWorld—InterWorld Beta, as I'd come to think of it—might or might not have the same address, when it was powered on. Since it wasn't currently on, I had no way of knowing; I just knew that the address
I
knew, the one for what would be InterWorld Alpha, was a dead end. Maybe it wouldn't be if the ship ever stopped, or if it turned out the address could be used for InterWorld Beta when the ship powered up again. Either way, it was useless; there was no reason to teach it to her now.

Josephine kept hold of my hand, closing her eyes and focusing. I kept mine open; it was easier to Walk when you
weren't watching your surroundings change around you, but I was just along for the ride this time.

The scenery shifted; we were standing in shadows one moment, then again in sunlight.

A flock of birds passed above our heads. . . .

The ground trembled beneath us for a moment, as though a herd of something large was stampeding nearby. . . .

The brief, salty scent of the ocean and the cry of a seagull from over the mountains . . .

And then InterWorld Beta rested in front of us, sad and majestic, like a ship run aground. An abandoned city lost to time.

Josephine kept hold of my hand this time, as the world settled back around us. It was lonely, somehow. It was our salvation and our hope; it was part of what let us witness the extraordinary things we'd seen and experience the amazing things we'd done. It was the wind in our hair and the travel dust on our boots, and it wasn't right for it to be stuck here, dead and lifeless.

She looked at me, subdued and determined, and let go of my hand. We had an understanding, then, and I think she finally knew why I was willing to risk everything. I think she was willing to, as well.

It was a small comfort, at least.

W
E RAIDED THE STOREROOM,
gathering anything and everything that might be helpful. We brought cleaning supplies as well as thick gloves and kneepads into the hallways, and we spent the rest of the morning clearing out the debris and making sure there were easy paths to get to the main places we needed to go.

From the control room to the storeroom, down to the lower decks where we could get out onto our temporary home planet, to the living quarters, the mess hall, and back up to the control room. It took until well into the afternoon, and we were starving despite the few snacks and energy bars we'd taken from our backpacks.

The mess hall hadn't yielded much in the way of food, not even the protein packs or MREs I was used to. The only thing I found of any use was a few gallons of water stored away in still-sealed containers, which were admittedly
very
useful. We poured several of them into the septic filtration system, which was completely empty. I didn't know if any remaining liquid had simply dried up, or if it had been emptied on purpose. For all I knew, this could have been a base-wide evacuation.

“I can Walk somewhere and get food,” Josephine suggested, as we were sorting through a stack of discarded electronics in an attempt to find anything helpful. I hesitated. On the one hand, she had already demonstrated her ability to Walk without causing so much as a ripple and would most likely be able to go get us supplies without incident.

On the other hand, she was all I had.

“I'm not sure that's a good idea,” I said, and was rewarded with a disgusted look.

“What are we going to eat, then?”

“I can go get something,” I said, but she shook her head.

“You've gotta start trusting me sometime,” she said. “I can't be the only one taking leaps of faith here.”

“It's not about trust,” I protested. “You're my first and only recruit. You're my responsibility. I can't let you run off to do something potentially dangerous, and beyond that, where are you even going to go? We're on a prehistoric Earth, remember? It's not like you can just Walk to the corner store and buy us some milk.”

Now it was her turn to hesitate, though it was for an admirably short moment. “There are other ways to get food.
I'm sure there are fruit trees, right? And fish?”

“I don't think there are fish trees,” I said, and she threw a coil of copper wire at me. I'd gotten her to laugh, though. Sort of. “Although, that's not a bad idea. Fishing, I mean.”

“No, it's not. I don't even have to Walk anywhere, I can just go off ship. Okay? Send your bubble thing to find me if I'm taking too long.”

“His name is Hue,” I reminded her, though I refrained from pointing out that I wasn't sure I could really
send
Hue anywhere. He wasn't exactly at my beck and call.

“Whatever. Gimme one of those satchels and I'll go get us some fruit, okay? It's better than nothing, which is what we've got.”

I handed her one. Somewhat reluctantly, but I knew she was right; I had to start trusting her. We'd only been working together for a few hours, but this was fate-of-the-world stuff. I needed to let her stretch her legs, and it was best she do it now while we were still relatively safe.

Besides, this meant
I
could do a few things around the ship I was way more comfortable doing on my own.

First and foremost, once she left, I made my way down the cleared hallways to the living quarters. It may have been silly, but I wanted to find my own room—or what had been my room. If this InterWorld was thousands of years in the future, I'm sure I was long dead. It must belong to another Walker by now, but I just . . . wanted to see. I wanted
something to be familiar, anything at all.

Nothing was, of course. InterWorld didn't allow for much customization in the first place, and whoever had used this room before the base was evacuated (abandoned? Surrendered?) hadn't left any personal items. The most I found was an old T-shirt, so yellowed with age that it was impossible to tell whether it had ever had any kind of logo on it at all.

I set my backpack in there nevertheless, and swept out as much of the dust as I could. The shift shutters—made of the thick acrylic they use to make airplane windows—were down and wouldn't open until the ship was powered again. The sun had been up for a few hours now, and was currently directly overhead; the solar panels were soaking it in, and with any luck we would have enough power to run basic functions by the time Josephine got back. Then I could open the windows and air out the rooms, get the dust out of the ventilation systems, use the stove and ovens in the kitchen, and (I hoped) have enough hot water for a shower.

And maybe, if I could use the solar energy to charge a few of the power cores, I could get the Hazard Zone up and running. Then Josephine would have a chance to
really
stretch her legs.

She came back a few hours later, right as I was starting to worry. While she was gone, I'd managed to get two rooms as cleaned out as I could for us, and moved our stuff into both of them. I was staying in “my” room; hers was right
next door. I figured it'd be safe enough and far less awkward than trying to share. I was still pretty sure she didn't like me much. That was sort of par for the course with most of my para-incarnations, it seemed. (A small part of me wondered exactly what psychological implications it had that I never seemed to particularly like myself. The rest of me was just concerned with trying to keep everyone alive.)

I'd also managed to start up the ventilation system, and there'd been enough solar power to get the shift shutters open by the time Josephine got back. We'd still pretty much be inhaling centuries of dust for a while, but it wouldn't be as bad tomorrow.

“These apples are as big as your head,” Josephine said once she'd found me again, tossing one in my direction. I caught it reflexively, though it took both hands. She wasn't kidding.

“Good,” I said, taking a bite. “More for . . .” I paused, chewing slowly. “It doesn't taste like an apple.”

“Is it bad?” She eyed her own suspiciously.

“No, it just . . . doesn't taste like an apple. It's good, though.”

She took a bite. “It kind of tastes like an apple. Like . . . a weird apple.”

“The Evolution of Apples,” I said, putting a note of drama in my voice. It was supposed to be funny, but she paused and looked down at the giant red fruit in her hands.

“Y'know, we're probably eating something no one has eaten for thousands of years,” she said.

“Millions,” I corrected. “But, yeah. It's one of the perks of this job.” She tried not to look pleased, but I could tell she was. We ate our giant not-apples in silence.

“Okay, boss,” she said, once we were finished eating and had found homes in the kitchen for the various other fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries she'd brought back. “What now?”

“Now,” I said, glancing outside at the sky. “We take our much-deserved hot showers while we still have solar power, and go to sleep.”

As pleased as she looked at the notion of a hot shower, she looked equally disappointed that it was bedtime so soon. “Aren't you tired?” I asked, abruptly feeling like I was talking to a small child.

“No,” she said, looking like she meant it. “I want to learn more.”

“Well, I've been up since three this morning, and it hasn't exactly been a restful day. I'm falling over. You can entertain yourself if you want, but I would advise you to get some sleep. I'll likely be up between four and five again, and I'm waking you up with me.”

“Fine.” She shrugged. “Can I really entertain myself? Like . . . can I explore?”

“I'd prefer you didn't,” I said, warily. “But I won't tell you
not to. Just stay on the ship, okay?”

She hesitated, but nodded. “Okay.”

“Fine. I'm going to go enjoy my shower.”

“Where are they? I'll want one later.”

“You've got a small bathroom in your room. Let me show you where it is.”

I led her back to the rooms (she seemed pleased that I'd already moved her stuff in there, or possibly that we wouldn't be sharing), and showed her how to use all the facilities, as they were built to be compact and were more complicated than the turn of a knob. Despite her excitement at the idea of exploring the ship, I heard her puttering around in the adjacent room as I went about getting ready for sleep. I guess she was glad for the space, since she'd been living in an elevator. Not that our rooms were
that
much bigger, but still . . . bigger than an elevator, even a large corporate one.

All in all, the day hadn't gone too badly. I was still sore, hungry, exhausted, and terrified that the universe might end at any moment—but I had a ship, a recruit, and a plan. It was more than I'd had yesterday.

For the next three days, Josephine and I stuck to a specific routine. We would wake up at five, go for a jog around the ship (which was torture for my injuries at first, but slowly got easier), come in and eat breakfast, then clear out and organize until lunch. Then we would go out again, to a stream
about two miles away (we jogged), where I taught her to catch fish with her bare hands. I was glad once again for my InterWorld classes; though such happenings were rare, we had all gone through basic wilderness survival courses in case we ever ended up stranded on a primitive world.

As I stood knee-deep in the stream, showing her how the light bent in the water and made the fish seem slightly to the side of where they actually were, I remembered how much trouble J'r'ohoho had always had with this lesson. The centaur hadn't been able to bend over as far as the rest of us had and couldn't even reach the water without wading in deeper. His hooves kept slipping on the slick rocks, and he'd ended up soaking wet with only a single fish to show for it.

Josephine did well, catching her first fish on her fourth try. She lost it again as it wriggled out of her grasp, but was able to hold on to the second and third. She did better and better as the days went on, and I took to giving her a crash course in battlefield tactics while we brought the fish back to base. Learning how to anticipate the enemy was discussed while we got our catch cleaned and cooked; then, while we ate, I explained the basics of planar travel and the concept of
why
Walking worked.

After lunch, we'd go for another run around the base, then I'd give her combat training. She had a better chance against me than she thought she did, with all my injuries, but I still managed to teach her some basics without hurting
myself further. Then it was more cleaning out and hauling (specifically the other dorm rooms) and more combat tactics, specifically in regard to what she could expect from HEX and Binary. A final jog around the base, more fish for dinner, then an hour of leisure time before bed.

The first and second day, she used that extra hour to sleep. The third day, looking no less exhausted but even more determined, she asked me for another lesson in combat.

The fourth day, I decided it was time.

“Hue will bond with us again,” I explained, “and we'll go back to our proper timeline. Then, through Hue, I'll search for another Walker. I'll go with you on this first one, but eventually, you and I will be running separate extraction teams.”

“Meaning we'll both go after different versions of us.”

“Yes.”

For the first time in three days, she looked pensive. “How am I supposed to just . . . pull another one of me out of their life? It's not fair.”

“The same way I did it to you,” I told her.

She frowned. “You didn't give me a choice—you showed up and things started coming after me. . . .”

“Exactly. I didn't give you a choice.” It was harsh, but it was true. It had to be true. It was the only way we could win.

She glared down at her shoes for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” After a pause, her expression relaxed, though she still
didn't smile. “I'm sick of fish, anyway.”

“Me, too.” I put a note of sympathy in my voice, sort of as an apology for my tone a moment ago.

“Are we going now?” she asked.

“Now's as good a time as any,” I said, but the reality was that now was when Hue happened to be here (we hadn't seen him at all for the past three days), and I didn't want to chance his disappearing again for longer this time. She nodded.

“Hue?” I called, and the little mudluff perked up from where he'd been doing a passable impression of a floor mat. He rose slowly, like a balloon being filled with helium, and floated over. “Hey, buddy,” I said, reaching out to touch a hand to his side. He turned a pleased powder blue, exerting slight pressure against my palm. “You ready?” He shifted color again, this time to an affirmative bronze, and I reached out for Josephine's hand.

As before, Hue flowed over us both like weird, nonsticky honey, and I Walked.