The Gate to Futures Past (20 page)

T
HEY'D MADE A BRAVE START, but with breakfast done, however long they'd stretched out the meal and how many hot beverages they'd consumed afterward, the Clan grew restless. There were no tasks left, nothing to focus on but one another and it wouldn't, Morgan judged, be long until their eager hope cracked to admit worry. Dread and despondency would follow, and those at risk fail first.

Wouldn't happen, he told himself, the faint
taste
of change for once a reassurance. Barac felt it, too. They'd exchanged looks, but that was enough. The elegant Clansman—his friend and heart-kin—could be trusted to use what he carried.

In return, Barac and Ruti put their trust in him.

Good thing the rest remained unaware how fragile this ship—and their futures—were, and that they might die at the hands of a Human after all.

Morgan squatted beside the column, tracing—but not touching—the path of a dot of blue light with a fingertip. It moved along straight lines, turning at right angles, its glow intense enough to leave a pattern behind closed eyelids. “This is new.”

Sira squatted nearby, carefully distant; she knew what rode in his lower left pocket. “Do we like ‘new?'”

“Depends on what it means.” He glanced at her. She'd been subdued since joining him on the dais. Whatever Aryl'd had to say, it hadn't been good. “Please,” he said firmly, “don't ask if I know.”

Her lips pressed together to prove her restraint, then curved. She continued to study the dot, most likely not seeing it at all.
Aryl
saw
Enris. In—in his box.

Gods.
No wonder Aryl had reacted as she had.
Is she all right?

“She” is right here, Human.
With a reassuring
snap.
Aryl's mind voice gentled.
Thank you for your concern.

Sira, tight and private:
For a moment, she sensed
him
, as if their link was restored.

Through the null-grid. The M'hir. Was that truly the Clan resting place, newly revealed, or was there a simpler, more concrete explanation?

Alien minds. He'd been so sure he'd known what he was doing. What if he'd missed a sign they were slipping—even Aryl?

Was he the only one aboard still sane?

Finished?
From the mind forever part of his, with
incredulity
.

Under other circumstances, he'd have laughed.

“Definitely.” The Human checked his scanner; no change from the last time. As plays went, this was extreme, even for him. Ridiculous to believe they'd get a warning the ship was activating its self-destruct—even more to think they'd get that warning in time to set a charge, 'port to safety, and blow up the interface, which, to tip the scales further toward hilarity, he'd no way to know could change the outcome one iota.

However satisfying.

Shrugging off his pack, Morgan turned to sit with his shoulders against the Maker, and stretched out his feet.

Sira stood, staring down at him. “That's
—
What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable. Join me?” He offered his hand. Not that Sira, ever-graceful, needed his help—

But he loved the feel of her hand in his, treasured each moment and sensation, now more than ever, when they could be the last.

She accepted the invitation, studiously ignoring dismayed
looks from those who noticed—no others would willingly come close to the Maker, let alone touch it—and sat next to him. “Nothing new from
Sona.
” Sira left her hand in his; through their link, she shared
warmth
with him, her
belief
.

Human poets could keep their versions of love and understanding. Since their Joining, he was whole as he'd never imagined being. How could he regret anything that had brought them together?

He couldn't, even if it ended, today.

A dimple appeared in one cheek and her glorious hair stirred over her shoulders, catching the light. “Such deep thoughts.”

You inspire.

The smile he'd been waiting for lit her eyes as she reclaimed her fingers, then disappeared. Sira drew her knees to her chest and hugged them close. “Destin's asking what you're up to. In not very kind terms.”

Morgan looked for the former First Scout. Her scarred face was set in hard lines and her stare was openly hostile. Not someone to fool. “Tell her the truth,” he said, surprising himself.

Tasted
change, stronger than before. Rising.

“I thought we were—” Sira gave the pocket where he kept his noteplas a meaningful tap.

Stronger still. He chose another pocket, the blastglobe filling the curve of palm and fingers, and stood.

Sira rose with him, rested her hand on his arm. Destin started to walk toward them. Heads turned. Silence spread.

“Tell them all—” Morgan tried to say.

CHANGE!

I
FLINCHED at the blaze of searing orange light—no, yellow—

—blood-red. It splashed over faces, mouths open as if shouting, but with the red came a shrieking pulse of SOUND louder than any voice—

While
inside
, a scream of another kind:
>TO THE DREAM CHAMBER! TO THE DREAM CHAMBER! TO THE DREAM CHAMBER!<

Some vanished. Most hesitated, startled or distrustful or simply afraid.

GO!!!
I sent, blasting through shields and hesitation.
TO THE CORE AND SAFETY!
Not that I knew it was, but I'd lived on a starship. You didn't ignore an alarm.

The Clan couldn't ignore mine. Within a heartbeat, Morgan and I were alone in the galley. As though satisfied, the lights returned to normal and the shrieking pulse ended, leaving a loud echo in my ears.

Morgan stood with the innocent-looking ball in both hands.

I saw his grip shift.

Knew the instant he began to twist.

I put my hand on top, held his gaze with mine. “One more try.” Sona,
have you received confirmation?

>
KEEPER AND NOT-RIGHT KIND TO THE DREAM CHAMBER!<

Which wasn't at all helpful, though I was touched it cared.

Morgan's remarkable blue eyes darkened with emotion. We have to do this, they said, as clearly as words.

And it has to be now.

Nodding, I removed my hand, ready to 'port us to the Core at his signal.

My Human spun on a heel, hands twisting—

Only to stop. “Look!”

The pillar glowed from within, its green overtaken by a network of glowing blue circuitry along which streaked a multitude of dots, faster than my eyes could follow.

Was the ship signaling?

The bright dots stopped moving, all of them at once, and the circuitry faded away, leaving an afterimage of yellow when I blinked.

The pillar was again dark green and lifeless.

“
Sona
?” I said it aloud, unashamed of the quiver in my voice. “What just happened? What's going on?” sending at the same time.

>
Keeper.<
Did I imagine something gentle in its tone? Something almost wistful?
>I have received my instructions. You and the not-Right Kind must go to the Dream Chamber now.<

I sagged. “
Sona
's received instructions, Morgan. It wants us in the Core.”

His hands twisted—the other way, I noticed with relief, a relief lasting only until I saw the resignation in his face. “We won't make it,” my Human said dryly and pointed.

The pillar was—it was melting! Not only the pillar, I saw in horror, but the walls were softening, oozing—

Drips began falling from the ceiling like obscene rain—

The dais softened beneath my feet—

Morgan, the ball nowhere in sight, opened his arms with an inexpressibly tender smile.
Ship's done, Witchling. So are we.

I stepped forward, ready to die together, as we should—

COME!! Hurry!
from Barac, from everyone! Sendings so full of
anticipation
I saw it light Morgan's face—

As I concentrated with desperate hope . . .

. . . arriving in what had been the Dream Chamber, become the Core, and was now—I gasped—something else again.

“Ship's been busy,” Morgan commented.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were solid—for how long was anyone's guess—but the beds had vanished, replaced by rows of large bowls of the same green metal as the Maker.

They had a pleasing resemblance to the bizarre vehicles of the Drapsk. Sona,
what are these?

>
Conveyances. Keeper, please instruct there can be only one person per conveyance.<

“Conveyance” was, I decided, my new favorite word. “Everyone,” the ship picking up my voice “these are—”

Lifepods,
my Chosen suggested helpfully.

An even better word! “—lifepods. One person each. Get in and hurry!” I added, hoping it was my imagination that my feet were beginning to sink.

Though
dismay
filled my inner sense, everyone moved, sorting themselves quickly. Perhaps the alarm
Sona
broadcast had been to this end as well: so its passengers act with urgency.

It wasn't only that, I thought. My people accepted this latest, possibly greatest, challenge with a courage no less profound for being quiet obedience. I sent
reassurance
to them all, and my
pride
.

I followed Morgan to the pair that would be ours. He looked inside. “Not much room. No padding. Wait. There,” pointing to a series of grates on the burnished inner surface. “Could be an extrusion point. Maybe a gel—”

I went on tiptoe to kiss his nose
.
“Just get in.”

“You first.” He swept me up in his arms, depositing me gently inside the bowl, then leaned in. “Don't go exploring without me. Here.”

His pack arrived.

I glowered; he grinned. “You've more room.” Morgan's face softened and he reached in, his fingers meeting a curl of my hair. “See you planetside, chit.”

He disappeared from sight, but not my inner sense.

Nor was I alone in my bowl.
Aryl?

It seems we fall together, Great-granddaughter,
with good humor.
Wish for a soft landing.

I've done this before—
once, and we'd landed upside-down in a jungle, but those were details she didn't need.
It's safe.

Although landing under power, with a qualified pilot—ideally Morgan—at the controls, was by far my preference.

We get what we get,
from my Chosen.
Watch the sides.

I'd been trying not to watch the bowl's rim expand in a distressingly fluid manner as though to engulf me, thank you, but reminded, I squinted up in time to catch the sides meeting—merging—in the middle.

A middle that provided a soft illumination, similar to that of the ship's.

I hugged Morgan's lumpy pack, clung to my sense of him and Aryl, and waited.

And waited.

Just when I felt about to burst,
Sona
entered my thoughts.

>
Keeper, I connect the null-grid—<

Silence.

No, I realized. Absence. “Good-bye,
Sona,
” I whispered.

And was plunged into the
seething dark
of the M'hir.

I
N ALLTHEREIS, what had been
substance,
bleeding Power to feed those who'd discovered it,
vanished . . .

While in normal space, what had been a starship became a moving cloud, momentum working with gravity to smear its droplets in a long, brilliant trail.

In AllThereIs, the Watcher who remained saw the feeders scatter, chased by odd, tiny streaks of
vitality.

While on the surface of Brightfall, there were those who marveled at the brilliant trail arching across their sky.

And those who
prepared.

K
EEPER EMELEN DIS pressed his palms together as he took a deep, centering breath, striving for calm. Outward appearance was everything this morning; worth the extra
slas
to smooth the tassels of his vestment and properly school his face. A flaw could betray him—betray them all—and there were those to be gathered in secrecy and haste. This was his sacred charge, passed down generations, given urgent reality with that first transmission from the Heavens: “Confirmation request. Identification: Cersi-So.”

“‘Cersi-So.'” Words to swell the heart of any believer, core of the Invocations to welcome each day and praise the night: Cersi-Vy. Cersi-Ray. Cersi-So. Cersi-Gro. Cersi-Ne. Cersi-Tua. Cersi-Ye. Cersi-Pa. Cersi-Am. Cersi-Nor. Cersi-Xro. Cersi-Fa. One for each digit the godly stretched toward the Heavens.

Once again, to finish with reverence, for in such were the Prime held: Cersi-Vy.

Being alone, Emelen indulged himself, saying aloud: “‘Confirmation request. Identification: Cersi-So.'”

A mere
orlas
ago, his helper, bless the youngling, had run four flights of stairs to wake him, handing him what shone with its own inner light. Had stood watching, disheveled and panting, eyes bulging with wonder, as Emelen had taken the silken piece, stretched it out with trembling fingers, and read the holy script.

And if Emelen had leaped from bed, not bothering with clothes, to race back down to the Sanctum Access, feet hitting each familiar step in the dark, so that the youngling, reliant on her lamp, fell behind—

And if he'd cursed her diligent resealing of the door under his breath, she hadn't heard—

And if he'd entered the Sanctum, buried deep in rock smoothed by the grace of those before, and fallen to his knees so ardently the skin had torn and he'd bled on stone that rose from the heart of the world and wept—

Any would forgive him, for as foretold, as so long awaited and by so many disbelieved, the simple pillar that was the access portal had come to life, its glorious light bathing him, waves of shining silk tumbled at its base.

And if this were true, then so was it all, and he lifted his eyes to the walls, glittering with inset crystal, in awe. Could he not—surely he could—feel the benevolent regard of the Ancestors? Dusted by generations of apprentices, ignored by the rest, awaiting the Rebirth they'd promised.

When Gerasim Su caught up, she'd gone to her knees beside him, but there was, he'd realized, no time to waste in worship. Composing himself, he'd set her to removing her unseemly belongings and grass mat, reserving to himself the privilege of collecting the waves and curls of holy script.

At his summons, the Sect of the Rebirth would gather on the Sanctum roof.

Most had mouthed the words, their piety suspect, for they'd never truly believed.

Emelen allowed himself the smallest of smiles. “Cersi-So.”

All would, today.

Lights were flashing. Yellow. Some blue. Requests from other ComPrimes: for updates, for permissions, for answers. Traffic blinked ceaselessly: orbital, interplanetary, busy clots of tiny mining ships within the asteroid fields, enormous freighters on their
programmed courses. This was the Hub, where SysComPrime, Director Lemuel Dis, managed the information flow of the inhabited portions of System Cooperative and the lights were the stars in
nes
sky.

Whenever
ne
felt poetical.

Not how ne felt at the moment. Someone silenced the alarm. Lemuel raised nes left magboot from the path of the Cleaner Oud, ignoring the creature as it slurped the remnants of nes midmorning
cafen
from the deck. Regrettable, dropping nes cup.

It proved even ne had a pulse, something nes staff likely doubted. “Could it be a hoax?” Lemuel was relieved nes tone was properly calm and expression-free, less so when no one answered. Ne repeated the question.

Nes second-in-command started and turned, his face pale. “No, Director. We've confirmed. The signal originated outside the System.”

Hence the alarm. Hence the unease of the most disciplined, capable staff in the system. Heads shifted, those with eyes staring at
ner
, not their boards. No one else appeared to breathe.

Predictably, the Tikitik stirred first, unfolding from its bored squat. Sexless, but so was Lemuel, neuter being commonplace among Hoveny. Nameless in any way that mattered to non-Tikitik. Among themselves, they used symbols for rank and, it was supposed, told one another apart using their exquisite chemoreception. A Tikitik's mouth cilia remained the foremost analytical “device” known. Relying on what a Tikitik claimed to taste/smell?

To someone in ner position, in charge of cross-species data flow, what couldn't be verified by equipment was, at best, slippery, at worst, fraught with potentially dangerous confusion. Ne'd rather interpret the babble of a Minded Oud.

Lemuel's eyes flicked back to the sprawling display that filled the Hub's longest wall, finding Tikitna, stained green. One world was all the Tikitik claimed, home to their Makers and mothers and young. No visitors were welcome closer than far orbit, lest they taint its atmosphere or some such cultural nonsense, though individual Tikitik, like the one presently staring at Lemuel with all four eyes, had no issue with leaving it to bother their neighbors.

It hadn't always been their world. Latecomers here, the Tikitik, arriving in the system just as the Hoveny were stretching their reach well beyond it. They'd been uninterested in contact or sharing technology, intent on treasure of another kind: the Oud. Barely sentient. An impediment to construction, with their tunnels and mounds, and had the Hoveny System not contained three other inhabitable worlds—Hilip, Yont, and ringed Oger—and had the galaxy beyond not been so full of wealth, the Oud world would have been urbanized and its “people” reduced, like other wild things, to a curiosity in a preserve.

Enter the Tikitik. They landed among the Oud and, admiring what they called the species' rare plasticity, their Makers offered the Oud another future.

Or ruined them, for no living Oud resembled their original kind, but Oud kept no history and Tikitik viewed things—differently. The Oud agreed, giving away their world and themselves. Or were overrun. A moot point. The Hoveny, preoccupied with the myriad worlds and species of its growing Concentrix, cared for neither so long as their home system remained at peace.

After the Fall, when the home system was all that remained, Tikitna and its modified inhabitants were waiting.

Today's civilization, Lemuel mused glumly, couldn't run without them. There were Oud on every station and space-capable vessel. Oud living throughout the five worlds and every civilized moon of the System Cooperative. The majority were mindless workers, like the Cleaners, engineered by the Tikitik Makers to fulfill specific tasks. There were Minded Oud, some quite brilliant, but they were rarely involved in the doings of their kin, other than to arrange a sufficiency of raw material for the Tikitiks' tinkering.

The Tikitik eying Lemuel wasn't a Maker. It was, as far as ne was concerned, worse, being a Thought Traveler and so officially charged with poking its cilia into the business of others. It gestured languidly with a claw-tipped hand, the jeweled bells depended from its wristlet set tinkling. No doubt its intention; the thing knew ne didn't care for ostentation. Or bells. “Why is this significant, Director?”

Lemuel tensed. Because signals didn't come from outside the System. Not anymore. Not since the Fall. The System Cooperative was all there was—

Ne composed nerself. A Thought Traveler qualified to be in the Hub would know, making its feigned ignorance a provocation, either to amuse or incite a reaction. Ne walked over to nes second to gaze calmly over his shoulder at the board. The Hub was more than traffic and information. Nes task, to protect those who shared this sun.

The incoming signal was narrow; credit to nes staff and quality of the Hub's sensor sweeps that they'd spotted it. Incoming—to where, ne wondered. “Target?” ne murmured.

The tech's arm lifted, finger pointing to the wall, indicating a pale blue dot near the bottom of the display. “Brightfall.”

“Your place of origin,” the Tikitik commented, having followed ner, and if it meant the Hoveny species or simply nerself, both were correct.

And neither mattered. Brightfall was nothing but empty ruins and dust, inhabited by those who cared for the past, and those stuck in it. “Fine-tune it,” ordered Lemuel.

Another tech stood. “There's been a response, Director!”

“Isolate and prevent any more. I assume we now have the location.”

“Yes, Director.” Numbers appeared on the screen.

Lemuel raised a brow to summon nes personal aide. “I'm going down. Make the—what are you doing?”

The paired back eyes swiveled into their cones to meet nes stare. The front pair remained riveted on the Cleaner Oud the Tikitik had swept up in both hands. Its little black appendages flailed in midair, but there was no escape as Thought Traveler brought the Oud to its mouth, thick gray mouth cilia patting and probing. Done, it tossed the creature aside. Righting itself, the Oud scurried under the nearest stool.

All eyes fixed on Lemuel. “How disappointing,” the Tikitik declared in its smooth, not-quite-but-so-close to patronizing tone. “You haven't used the supplements I brought you, Director. Given the high-stress position you hold here, they would be—”

“In my position,” ne interrupted, matching its tone precisely, “I'm prohibited from unsolicited additions to my diet, however much I personally appreciate the gesture.” Lemuel bowed nes head, slightly, then turned back to nes aide. “I want to leave at once.”

“As do I,” Thought Traveler Tikitik's head thrust forward. “Unless you don't appreciate my accompanying you, Director. Personally.”

Being a nuisance was its right. Lemuel Dis allowed nerself a tight little smile. “Suit yourself.”

Maybe the thing could be useful—if not, ne would have it shipped home.

Controlling information was the first and foremost goal. They'd approached swiftly, landing on the emergency platform even as nes staff shut down all access, in or out, including theoretically private feeds. Enough? Lemuel Dis doubted it. A bonded mind's
haisin
was the unknown and there were those heart-kin able to transcend distance. The only reliable measure of that mental connection was to bring in an Oud-Key and have it sniff, or whatever it did.

Ouds able to think for themselves refused work on airless moons, including this one, Brightfall's industrialized Raynthe. As for reliable? Ne'd be further ahead to toss purple
wirill
stems in the air like the choosing rhyme chanted by planet-born younglings. What would dismay ner staff most, ne thought with amusement: having the SysComPrime bring foreign plant material onstation, or that ne, so many cycles their elder, remembered the rhyme?

You left your world, ne could have told them. It never left you.

“How much longer will this take?” Sorina Din's only concession to being summoned below the surface had been to toss back the hood of her vacsuit and remove her gloves. She eyed the Tikitik, then ignored it. “I've crews in locked accesses, Director, and materials I need stuck in orbit. My schedule's behind
arns
already. Can't you just destroy the artifact?”

Lemuel gazed at Sorina Din until the other closed her thin lips, conceding authority. If up to ner, the engineer would have been locked in with her crews. By her designation, “din,” the present Head of Reclamation topped nes list of those liable to spread rumors, sharing haisin with at least three heart-kin, not uncommon in someone who managed others and had no secrets.

Some days it felt nes head was stuffed with them. While neuters bonded to heart-kin, too—be they lovers, confidants or both—Lemuel had no regrets; choosing the “dis” of a life-long solitary mind protected the Cooperative: five worlds, twenty—soon to be twenty-one—settled moons, and the great stations orbiting each.