Time Past (22 page)

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

I turned around. Murdoch was staring at the ceiling.

“They think we did it.” I must have shouted, because he winced.

“What do you expect?” His voice sounded muffled, but audible.

“How could they think we’d involve the children?” My throat closed and I had to turn back to the window.

“It didn’t worry Levin.” Even half heard, Murdoch’s voice was harsh. He rose stiffly and came over to the window, leaned his arms against the sill. His eyes, bleak and stunned, roved over the scene below.

“I thought I’d seen a bit of the galaxy but...” He coughed and rested his forehead on the glass. “We’re not a nice species, are we? I never realized how...”

“Do you think he planned it all along?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. They might have had the stuff but couldn’t work out a way to get it in.” “How...” My voice gave out. “I dunno, okay? Some nanobug to eat through a covering. Doesn’t matter now.”

I looked out at the Invidi ships. “It’s time to go home, Bill.”

He followed my gaze. “Don’t be stupid.”

“It’s the only chance we’ll get. By now, Levin will be gone. We’re the only suspects they have. An Serat won’t help us. We can spend the rest of our lives rotting in a twenty-first-century jail or we can grab one of those yachts and run.”

Murdoch look at me in consternation. “Jeezus, you’re serious. For a start, you can’t use an Invidi ship.”

“How do you know? No human’s ever been allowed to try.”

“What about Grace? You’re going to leave her, just like that, without trying to explain, without trying to help them catch Levin?” He dropped his voice again, with a glance at the door. I had to strain to hear over the ringing.

“What can I do for Grace now? It’s my fault Will is dead. Do you think she’ll want to hear what I have to say?”

“It’s not... I hate the idea of running away. It’s like we’re abandoning her.” Misery lowered his voice.

“It’s either that or abandon our own time. Abandon everyone on the station. Because they’ll keep us locked up for life over this.”

“Not if we give them enough evidence to get Levin,” he said.

“Do you really think we can do that? Do you think Levin will hang around waiting?”

He leaned his forehead against the window and ran his hand over his head. The glass fogged with his breath. “If we don’t tell them about Levin, he’ll get off scot-free.”

“You don’t know that. There might be a way to trace him from the blast residue. Or something.” It sounded lame, even to me. I swallowed the sickness in my throat enough to get words past. “We have to go or stay. And I can’t spend the rest of my life in jail here.”

He stepped back from the window and looked at me. A gaze that seemed to go right through me. Then nodded once, decisively. “Let’s do it, then. Nowhere to go but forward. What’s your plan?”

“I, er.” My mind remained blank. “If I distract the guard by going to the toilet, you can get out and... sneak up behind him.”

The muscles of his face relaxed a little. “You need a refresher course in anti-terrorist contingencies.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

He thought for a moment. “Can’t you short the power to the lock from in here?”

I examined the walls and ceiling. The single light source was set into the ceiling behind a glass cover, and too high for me to reach by myself. The switch must be outside the room. No surveillance camera, unless it was hidden in the light. We had no tools to either unscrew the cover or rip up wall panels to find wiring. I could stand on Murdoch’s shoulders and try to smash it or pick at it with my fingertips...

“No time, even if I had the tools. They’re going to come back for us pretty soon.”

He nodded. “Only reason we’re still here is probably because they want to keep us away from the media. You go to the toilet, and when you come back, I’ll jump him.”

“How is that different from my plan?”

“Okay, okay. I’m not in a creative mood.” He retreated to the window and sat down on the floor. “I’m here, in an unthreatening position.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll stay there.”

“It’s a combat psychology thing. Trust me.”

“Hey!” I raised my voice. “Hey, open up! Hello?” I banged on the door a couple of times then retreated a few steps.

The door opened and the young soldier stood at the ready. He didn’t look much older than Vince, with the same lonely, underfed look.

“I need to use the toilet.”

He looked at me doubtfully, eyes flickering to Murdoch and back again.

“To pee,” I added. “You know.”

“They’ll be coming to get you soon,” he said. “Wait until then.”

“I’m busting. I can do it on the floor, but you’ll have to explain.”

He sighed. “Okay. You can’t go at the same time,” he said to Murdoch.

“I’ll wait.”

The soldier motioned me out the door with the muzzle of his gun, taking care to leave an open line of fire to Murdoch as well. The boy knew his job—it might be harder to get out of here than I’d thought. But infinitely easier from here than from wherever they intended to take us next.

The toilet was down a flight of concrete stairs and halfway down a ground floor corridor that seemed to run the length of the building. Green exit signs glowed at each end of the corridor. The soldier let me half shut the cubicle door.

“What’s your name?” I asked from inside.

“Can’t tell you that.”

“No personal communication with prisoners, eh?”

He said no more and we ascended the stairs in silence. The stair lights activated automatically as we passed. I couldn’t see any obvious surveillance cameras, but they might be built into the walls. Unreasonable to think there wouldn’t be any in an airport building.

The rush of adrenaline as we approached the door made my heart jump painfully. My breathing faltered suddenly like blocked pipes and I forgot everything else.

“Shit.” I dived for the door. My spare inhaler, the only thing they’d left us, was still in Murdoch’s pocket.

“Hey!” The guard was as surprised as I was.

“Asthma,” I wheezed, fingers scrabbling at the handle. “Medicine’s inside.”

It was a bad attack. As I slumped against the door frame and sucked for air that wouldn’t come I was conscious of the soldier unlocking it as fast as he could. Then it opened and I stumbled into the room. Something knocked violently against me and I fell.

Through a fuzzy roaring I could hear curses and sounds of a scuffle, but couldn’t do anything but fight for tiny gasps of air.

The inhaler attached itself to my nose and mouth, thrust down in Murdoch’s hand. One, two. Slowly, small breaths. One, two.

One, two figures on the floor. One still, one moving. I uncurled and sat up. The moving one was Murdoch. He groaned and rolled over, then began to search the soldier’s pockets. His nose dripped blood on the green and brown fatigues of the young man.

“Sorry. I wasn’t much help,” I said.

“You weren’t any help.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. He began to unlace the soldier’s boots. “Hope I haven’t broken his jaw.”

I peered at the soldier’s face. His eyes were closed peacefully but his lips were bloody and a red, swelling weal across his lower face matched the shape of the gun butt. Sorry, sorry. I wish this didn’t have to happen.

Murdoch tied the boy’s hands with the laces, removed the boots, utility belt, and slid a two-way radio out of his chest pocket. He wiped most of the blood off his own face and pulled me to my feet.

“Come on. Better go before they realize he’s out of it.” He left the boots and belt inside the door. The U.N. cap went on his head and the gun loosely under his arm. It might fool the cameras for a second or two.

We wanted to get out of the building and go toward the ocean end of the tarmac where the Invidi ships stood. Hopefully they’d expect us to head the other way, to the barrier gates. We reached the exit at the end of the building without incident.

“Keep going,” said Murdoch through gritted teeth behind me. We slipped outside.

Evening had closed in early and a thin rain fell from the dark gray sky. On our right, tendrils of steam stirred at the heat of the explosion site. Ahead, the tall, rounded shapes of the Invidi ships lay in shadow. Lights flooded the main area to the left and behind us, but fortunately this made our area darker. Beyond the faint hiss of rain rose the sound of voices and the rumble of engines. A sentry on the far corner of the building looked out at the lights. As we watched he talked into his collar, shook his head, and paced a little. The air had a wet, metallic smell.

Our shoes became soaked immediately and squelched on the wet asphalt. I looked back. The sentry had turned and was walking to the door. How long before the alarm sounded?

Five Invidi ships in all. Three lozenge-shaped shuttles, any of which we could probably manage, and two single-pilot yachts. The shuttles might not carry a jump drive, so the yachts were a better bet. The closest one towered at least twenty meters over us on the longer axis of its elongated, bulbous diamond shape.

We crouched in the shadow of one of the shuttles beside the yacht. Hope they don’t have proximity alarms.

“What are you going to do if they’re inside?” Murdoch murmured in my ear.

His body radiated warmth against my shoulder and hip, welcome after the cold rain.

“I think one or the other yacht will be empty. We know An Serat was the leader of the expedition. He should have his own ship. And he’s probably still over at the main building.”

“And if he’s not?”

“We can ask him to come out and talk to us, then run past him. We can threaten him with the gun...”

“This,”—he shook the weapon—“is not going to frighten him.”

“All right, so we ask him to come out and talk. But I still think they’re empty.”

Murdoch’s voice hardened. “Let’s get on with it. Which one?”

I pointed to the closer one.

He shrugged and took up a position farther down the shuttle’s side, from which he would be able to see anybody coming from the buildings.

No lights glowed on the ship, either outside or inside. I stubbed my toe without injury on spongy material that spread in a doughnut shape around the base. I would have to clamber onto it to get close to the ship. Where was the entry hatch? Which part presented to an airlock?

Cold rain spattered against my face. The outer hull of the ship felt cool to the touch, but not as cold as a metal surface would have been, nor was it smooth. It was scored with myriad tiny trails.

I edged quickly all the way around the ship, running my hands up and down as I went. No levers, switches, handles, or even joins, other than the strange pattern. I was soaked and shivering and my hands were so numb I probably couldn’t have opened a hatch anyway.

“What’s wrong?” Murdoch loomed out of the dark.

“W... won’t open,” I said, teeth chattering. “Nothing on the surface.”

“Bloody hell.” His voice sounded as if he was looking the other way.

I looked back too, and saw more light than before streaming around and under the Invidi shuttles. Floodlights around the building now, not just on the tarmac. The sound of engines and shouting. They’d found out we were gone.

I ran to the other yacht, tripping over the spongy base and nearly falling flat. Murdoch followed more carefully.

Again I felt the surface of this next yacht, the tiny trails in a material that felt more like stone than metal. But this one had a different texture, harder. Or perhaps it was my numb fingers.

Not far away, a shrill whistle blew and dogs barked. I pounded on the ship’s hull, not caring now if there was an Invidi inside or not. The men who set the bomb that killed Will and the men pursuing us with guns seemed far more alien.

“Let us in! Please.”

The hull shuddered under my palms. Surely I didn’t have the strength to shift it? Its surface crawled—all the patterns moved, as though a trillion threadlike worms wriggled against my hands. I jerked back.

“What is it?” Murdoch’s voice by my ear.

“It moved. Like...”

My voice trailed away. Above us yawned a round, dark break in the hull surface. I reached up and felt the lower rim, level with the top of my head. The edge was smooth. I couldn’t feel anything in the space beyond, although the air seemed warmer.

“Give me a leg up.” I stuck one heel back at Murdoch.

Nothing for a moment, then his warm, firm grip closed on my ankle. He put his shoulder under my knee and heaved. Behind us the growl of engines grew louder. Jeeps.

I levered myself into the Invidi ship and rolled over onto a hard surface that sloped slightly downward. It was warm inside, and dry. The surface was faintly warm under my hand. Then a dim golden light grew, seeming to come from within the walls, floor, and ceiling of a small cabin. It gave me a curious feeling of being exposed.

The Invidi owner couldn’t have been comfortable in here, there was barely five meters breadth or height.

Murdoch’s head appeared suddenly as he jumped, then hung with his elbows over the rim inside. “You okay?”

“There’s nobody here. Get in.”

His head disappeared, his knuckles on the rim whitened with strain, then he shot upward and his upper body wriggled into the cabin. I heaved the back of his trousers and he swung his legs inside.

The only thing that looked faintly familiar was a chest-high band of indentations and lines on one wall. Otherwise, all the surfaces were the same rubbery, slightly porous material as the base outside, but warm to the touch. A welcome warmth, after the cold and wet.

“There’s nothing here,” panted Murdoch. He looked around the narrow space.

There was a shout outside, too close.

“Halley, they’re nearly here.”

I turned quickly to the band of indentations. I laid my palm on one after the other, searching for initialization confirmation. At the third try, the lighted surfaces pulsed slowly. Brighter patches and flecks flickered over the walls and ledges. At the edges of hearing, a hum began. The place where my hand had just been glowed in the shape of my palm. I touched it again and snatched my hand away with a cry.