Authors: Maxine McArthur
Will pulled my arm. Most of the others had left. He looked curiously at the Invidi, but obviously wanted to go and see the ships more. “Come on, Maria. We’ll miss the best part.”
The Invidi swayed and the surface of his suit rippled as the tentacles beneath it moved.
“We talk,” he said.
I turned to DeLucca. “Alone. Please.”
He glared. “Impossible. We don’t know...”
“This is correct. This ones only. We talk,” An Serat interrupted. DeLucca went into a huddle with his earpiece, then nodded to the other attendants, who backed slowly away from me.
“Maria...” Will was nearly crying with frustration.
“You can ride with me.” DeLucca patted his shoulder. “In the front jeep.”
Murdoch smiled at Will. “Go on, mate, we’ll catch up with you later.”
Will shot me a look of puzzled anger, or pleading, I couldn’t tell which. Then they left, followed by the second Invidi and the attendants. Only An Serat, Murdoch, and myself remained.
“
D
o you know who we are?” I said
“I... we find your ship,” the Invidi replied. “I recognize you. I do not recognize you.” An Serat somehow looked at me, then Murdoch, without making any movement.
“I came later,” said Murdoch dryly. “Your future self sent me.”
Murdoch’s details weren’t in
Calypso II,
so this Serat didn’t know him.
“Then you know we are stuck here, out of our own time,” I said. “Because our ship’s jump drive is disabled. We’d like to ask for your help to repair it and get back to our own time.”
An Serat shifted a little. “Your ship carries elements familiar to me. Tell me more about
Calypso.
”
For a moment I was astonished, then realized he must have seen the specs of
Calypso II,
which included where we got the engine.
“We used the engine from
Calypso.
You sent…will send it to Jocasta.”
“That’s...” began Murdoch helpfully, but Serat interrupted.
“I know. Who are the Sleepers?”
Murdoch sidled closer to me. “Is it okay to tell him all this?” he muttered.
“He’s seen the record,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. I raised my voice again to talk to Serat. “The Sleepers are the people you help to get away from Earth in three years’ time. You use their ship
Calypso
to get a jump drive to us in the future.”
“I know about ship.” Serat’s voicebox carried an impatient tone I didn’t remember. “I cannot see far. Paths are much clouded.”
“What if all your people here tried to see?” I said. “Maybe you can see that we have to get back.”
His tentacles curled and uncurled, a sign of agitation. “Unnecessary. Alone I am enough.”
I felt impatient, myself. “Will you help us get back? I don’t have the tools to fix my engines, you do. We must get back. There are things we need to do.”
“I understand the means but not...” Serat’s words made no sense. I had the feeling he was talking to himself.
Murdoch caught my eye and made a helpless gesture.
“Tell me of the Serat in your path,” said An Serat normally. “Am I always the keeper of the travel paths?” “I don’t understand,” I said. “What your records call the network.” Murdoch frowned. “But you’re not...” I cleared my throat to interrupt him. “An Serat, is it possible to make jumps off the network?”
“It is not Invidi way.”
“But we got here, so you must have created a jump somehow.”
“The action is yet un-pathed. I cannot say.”
This was no good. We didn’t know what he wanted, how much we should tell him. Why, for example, did he seem to want to keep the other Invidi out?
“We would greatly appreciate some help in getting back to where we came from,” I said. “Seeing that you—I mean, your future self—is responsible for our getting here in the first place.”
“I wish to know more,” said An Serat.
I looked at Murdoch. We hadn’t expected this. The Invidi normally did not pry or demand things. I wasn’t sure of my temporal physics, but common sense suggested the less we told An Serat about the future, the better.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said.
“Do all of you feel that way?” said Murdoch. “Can we talk to the others?”
“I lead this group,” said Serat. “Alone I talk.”
That was clear, at any rate.
“Others should not know,” he added, as if trying to make it clear.
We’d seen conflict between An Serat and other Invidi back on the station. An Serat was regarded as something of a maverick in the future. Perhaps he had always been a problem for them. I wished I knew more of the background to the conflict between Serat and An Barik, who seemed to represent the rest of the Invidi.
“Know what?” said Murdoch. “You are going to tell the others about us, aren’t you?”
“You go now.”
“What?” My voice rose. “You can’t just send us away like that. We don’t belong here.”
“You’re kidding,” said Murdoch. His eyes on Serat were cold. “You send me back a century and then leave me here? No way.”
The door burst open. An officer in a blue U.N. hat stood in the entry, flanked by two soldiers holding guns. For a moment, I thought An Serat had sent them a signal and they were responding.
The armed men immediately checked all angles of the room. Satisfied we were the only occupants, they stood still, the weapons covering us.
Another soldier walked in behind them, carrying a box with sensor equipment on top.
“Excuse us,” said the officer with no hint of apology. He bowed fractionally to An Serat. “Someone is sending an unauthorized electronic signal from within this building.”
I chafed at the interruption. “There’s nobody here but us.”
“Won’t take a minute, ma’am.”
The soldier with the sensor advanced farther, until he stood in front of me. A quiet, tanned face. He nodded at the officer, who said, “I’m going to have to ask you to step outside, ma’am.”
“Why?” I looked at him, at the projectile weapons on either side of us, cold tubes of menace.
“Our equipment indicates you are the source of the signal. You understand we have to be cautious. If there is some mistake, we apologize, but for the moment you’ll have to come with us.”
I met Murdoch’s eye and he shook his head slightly.
We left An Serat standing there. One of the soldiers stepped in ahead of me and one followed behind Murdoch. What “signal” could it be? The transponder was gone, the Seouras implant was safe—had Levin’s ID set off another, unknown security system?
The sky had clouded over while we were talking to An Serat, and it was cooler. The other Invidi stood outside with a third soldier. I could see small figures grouped around vehicles at the checkpoint onto the far runway. The children’s tour was about to begin.
“What kind of signal is it?” I asked the sensor operator. He glanced at the officer and didn’t reply.
“Empty your pockets,” was the next order.
We did the same thing we’d done at the gate. Wrist timer, ID, comb, bus passes. The officer passed each item to be checked by a different set of sensors.
“This one, sir.” The soldier held up my ID. “Don’t know how it got past the main detectors. Might be a time-delay trigger.”
“What’s the signal for?” The officer asked me politely enough, but his eyes were hard, his young face tight.
“I don’t know anything about a signal. As far as I know, that’s an ordinary ID.”
“She’s telling the truth,” said Murdoch. “We only came here to meet the aliens.”
“What kind of signal is it?” I asked again.
The officer finally nodded approval for the soldier to answer. “Some kind of activation sequence.”
The officer spoke into his head mike. “Go to alert. We have a possible situation Tiger.” His fingers dug into my arm. “Activation sequence for what? A bomb? An attack?”
“I tell you, I don’t know. Bill?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
Levin must have done something to the IDs so we’d be caught. The lousy bastard.
“Did you lend your ID to anyone recently? Did it leave your sight?” He rushed through the words, obviously not believing our innocence. He spoke into his collar again. “Did anyone else come with them?”
“We...” I began to tell him about Levin, when something clicked in my skull. Something about gifts and packing your own luggage.
I stared at Murdoch. “Activation. Presents. Bill, Levin gave Will a cap.”
“Yes, but...” The initial skepticism faded swiftly from Murdoch’s face.
“They have to get rid of it.”
Murdoch turned to the officer and he was no longer a casual visitor—like spoke to like. “Listen to me. We didn’t plan this, but we think there may be a bomb or similar device with the child who came with us. Tell them to isolate his cap and take cover.”
“His cap?”
“It’s got a metal badge. We think the device is in there.”
The officer glanced at the sensor operator, who nodded.
“It’s possible.”
“Block the signal. Jam it,” I said.
The officer spoke to his HQ and we waited for an endless moment before the signal operator frowned.
“Still going. It’s a...” I grabbed the ID from the officer’s grasp and flung it on the ground. “Shoot the damn thing.”
He stared at me, then drew out his pistol, aimed, and fired. The card shattered at the second shot. The operator shook his head. “It’s stopped, but there’s some reaction at the other end.”
I couldn’t see the figures beyond the checkpoint, a good hundred meters away along the runway.
“Full alert,” said the officer into his collar. Sirens wailed across the water. “Situation Tiger confirmed. All mobile liaison units return to base. Unit Random Two, report.”
Murdoch turned to the Invidi. “I advise your people to take precautions.” The alien spoke, with a different timbre to An Serat. “Your advice understood.” “You can see what’s going to happen.” I rounded on the Invidi. “Whatever it is, stop it.”
The silver suit twitched all over.
“They can’t contact Random Two—that’s the jeep your child is in,” said the operator. “We’re sending a ground unit...”
His words faded, because in the next moment I was running through the gate and up the runway, without conscious thought. Behind me, Murdoch’s shout whipped away in the wind.
“She’s not armed!”
Hard asphalt, burning lungs. Gray sky wheeling overhead. I was never a sprinter, but I swear it took less than ten seconds to the next gate.
“Can’t go through here.” A firm voice, arm barring my way. I kicked out without thinking, somebody cursed. Squeezed through a narrow opening, the tarmac spread before me. Four jeeps reached a low building. A fifth, still in the middle of the runway, turned and started to follow the others. Another, carrying crash-suited soldiers, drove toward the lone jeep from a different building.
I ran on, waving frantically. Can’t they hear the siren? Throw it away, Will. Throw it...
The bomb exploded.
One moment the jeep was there. The next, a small flash of unbearable light. The approaching jeep leaped into the air and something smacked me hard.
A single high note, far away. It distracted me from trying to get somewhere, do something.
Bumping sensation—someone’s hands on my shoulders, shaking. Pain burned across my cheek as it scraped on the ground. Eyes, open your eyes.
I was sitting on the tarmac. Murdoch’s face came into focus in front of me. His mouth moved but I couldn’t hear any words. My fingers tingled and the shadows at the corners of my vision were edged with strange colors. The same high note over it all.
I pointed at my ears and shook my head. “Can’t hear.”
Murdoch mouthed, “You okay?”
I nodded. He sat down wearily beside me and put his head in his hands.
A round, glassy scar smoked where the tarmac had been seconds before. A sunken area in the center, leaking seawater, was echoed by another sunken ring around the edge of the blast zone. It seemed impossibly small for such a powerful explosion, until I realized that the Invidi must have detected and contained the blast, or perhaps deflected it upward. I’d been close to the edge of the containment and must have felt the beginning of the shock wave. The airport and everyone on it had been saved.
Except for the two closest jeeps.
Murdoch’s shoulder jolted against mine. He wept with his face buried between his raised knees. I wanted to hold him but my arms wouldn’t move. We sat there in numb silence until the soldiers came.
T
hey put us in a small, bare room one floor above the ground, in one of the buildings overlooking the tarmac. We tried to explain, but nobody had the time to listen.
Murdoch sat on the floor against the wall and closed his eyes.
I looked out the window and tried to gather my thoughts, which dashed around in meaningless circles. Like the people and vehicles below, busy around the edges of the blast site, but not yet venturing onto it because it was still too hot.
Grace must know by now.
At that thought, everything else caved in. We’d brought Will here and now he was dead. Nothing else mattered.
I felt myself begin to shake. Murdoch looked up as I stumbled around. He said something I couldn’t hear properly. I needed to be sick but there was no privy in the room, not even a basin.
I held both hands over my mouth and leaned against the cool glass of the window, which wouldn’t open.
The sky had darkened further and soldiers were setting up lights around the blast site. On the far side of the burn mark, the other terminal building sat undamaged. Beyond the building moved the gray sea, and beyond that, lights and thronging vehicles and people on the shore. Copters flew over them, a swarm of black gnats clustering on the edge of the no-fly zone. The undamaged tarmac stretched back to where the Invidi ships waited.
I tried to concentrate on the shape of the ships, the size, which ranged from baby runabouts through shuttle-sized yachts to one larger vehicle I’d never seen before. Perhaps they’d stopped using them in the intervening hundred years, or maybe we were too far out at Jocasta for that kind of ship to…