Wryan sat there, leaning forward, her left arm propped on the chair, her chin resting on her left hand, and her right arm loosely in her lap.
“She came to apologize about not being able to help me. She has this … fear … about sickness. That didn’t bother me—except that I didn’t realize I owe you—but when I tried to tell her what happened, she didn’t hear me.”
Wryan watched, waiting for me to go on.
“It was easier for her to believe I was sick, and that she had let me down, than it was for her to hear how horribly those ConFeds died. All she said was that they deserved it. Every instant of agony. Because they raped her—or worse.” I shook my head. “I know she was hurt. I know her father was killed at Nepranza. But she’s alive. They’re not. Some of them were innocent.
“Like the woman who blew her brains out with her dead lover’s gun. She didn’t rape Mellorie. Or the young soldier my age … or …” I slid
off the bed and walked back to the open window. For some reason, I didn’t want to look at Wryan, perhaps because she was a woman.
“Some of them deserved the gas. But every one of them died. Odin Thor knew they would. I should have, but I was too busy proving that I could do it to think about what it meant. When they were all dying, it was a little too late.”
“Would you bring them back?” Wryan’s voice was soft.
The clouds had passed clear of Mithrada again, and the planet shone diamondlike just above the horizon.
“I said I didn’t know.”
“You know.”
“You’re right. I’d probably do it again, and I wouldn’t bring them back. That makes me worse than Mellorie. Doesn’t it?” I took my hands from the window frame and slowly turned to face Wryan. “Doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. What would happen if you hadn’t killed them? How many people would die? And who would they be?” She had leaned back in the chair.
“You’re saying that it’s all right to kill to stop more deaths? Hell! Why does there have to be so much hatred? So much killing?”
Wryan didn’t have an answer. Neither did I.
Terwhit … terwhit …
I couldn’t help but smile momentarily. The bird had a point. You sing when you can, not when someone wants you to. I glanced out the window, but, even looking into the undertime, couldn’t locate the bird.
“Do you understand?” I asked Wryan.
“Understand what? That you killed real people? That some of them were innocent? That you hate yourself for doing it? Or that you know this is just the beginning?”
All of a sudden, with Wryan’s last words, the room was cold, as cold as I had ever experienced, even in that dream ice-storm that had launched me into time-diving. “Just the beginning … ?”
I knew what she meant. The farmers weren’t farming as much. The Frost Giants were out there somewhere. No one except Odin Thor’s ConFeds had any way to hold things together. I stepped away from the breeze that ran through my robe and gave me a physical chill.
“ … just the beginning …” I sighed. “How bad is it?”
“Worse than that.” She shook her head. “Odin Thor has his hands full with what amounts to two provinces of old Westron. Outside of that …” she shrugged. “Any place else, no one really farms … most of the crafters were killed with the gentry …”
The silence and the darkness stretched out between us.
Terwhit … terwhit … terwhit …
I smiled at the cheerfulness of the call. The bird was definitely right. “So we do what we can.”
She was smiling also, though more faintly. “I suppose. What other choice is there?” Her quiet voice was firm.
The sound brought back another memory. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m not sure. But I did.”
Her tone told me not to pursue that question. I didn’t. “You kept visiting me when I couldn’t even think, when nobody thought I would live?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
I grinned. “That’s not good enough, Doctor.”
“Because you gave me back part of myself.”
That wasn’t all, but it was enough. “You need some sleep.” I took a step toward her, then stopped.
“I know.”
“So … why don’t you go get some? And have pleasant dreams?”
She stood up, looking ghostlike in the light-colored tunic and trousers. “I will.”
“Thank you …” I wanted to say more, but couldn’t say what … or why. Besides, she was probably a good century older than me. So I didn’t.
“Good night, Sammis.”
Click, click, click … .
Her boots sounded lonely as she walked out, and I stood there for a long time. When I looked out the window, before climbing into the hospital bed, Mithrada had dropped below the horizon.
NERLIS AND DR. DYRELL officially discharged me two days after Mellorie and I “became friends.” They also required all divers to come in for checkups every ten-day.
Gerloc, Amenda, and Arlean were all on the verge of starvation. So were several others I didn’t know. One of the newest divers, a recruit ConFed named Jerlyk, was barely above the minimums. That led to a
divers’ nutrition chart, which ended up posted in the dining area.
In the meantime, between my efforts in the hospital and my efforts while on “light duty,” I had finished all the background material on diving. At the end of the next ten-day, I was cleared to dive again.
“I have a loose end or two to follow,” I told Wryan, after squeezing in to see her before Odin Thor arrived. He was already pacing down the hallway toward the main lab. “What I find out could be helpful.”
“Such as?”
“Even though we can’t break out on Query, except in real time, I could see backtime at least several days when I scouted the ConFed fort. I’d like to see what the limits are.”
“Take it easy. We’ll call it extended reconnaissance research for now.” She smiled, almost sadly. “Good luck.”
“Good luck to you. Odin Thor’s almost here.” I ducked out just as the colonel-general arrived. I avoided saluting him and was around the corner before he reacted.
“Trooper!”
I ignored the call, smiling, since I was out of sight. It was bad enough that circumstances required I do Odin Thor’s dirty work without making him into a tin god. Besides, I had more important things to do.
After stopping by the snack table—another innovation of Wryan’s—at the dining area and picking up cheese, hard biscuits, and fruit, I headed back to my room—by foot.
I had also gone back into conditioning, running and doing exercises. I didn’t like them, but diving was clearly a strenuous business, and I was going to be in top condition. That was why Jerlyk and I met on the grassy square behind the quarters before every breakfast. After a few days, Gerloc and Amenda joined us, though neither could match us.
Grabbing some snack foods, I headed back to my room, which was fine with me. The next few subjective hours would be tough enough without any distractions.
Once inside, I eased the window wide open, trying to coax a breeze inside. For early fall, the weather was warm, almost hot. Entering the undertime too warm would make the entire dive uncomfortable.
After I opened the window and laid out my mid-morning snack, I sat before the desk and forced myself to eat all the elements of the semi-meal slowly, following it with a watered-down and tastier version of Sustain.
Then I stood up and walked around, trying to figure out what route I would take, but merely thinking about it didn’t offer much insight.
Where and when I wanted to view was clear, although why was another question I didn’t really want to address. Still … I had promised
myself that I would try, and a promise was a promise, even to me.
After a last gulp of the Sustain, I stopped pacing and dropped through the now and into the undertime.
Not that I went all that far back, or even that far geographically—less than a year and less than two hundred kays—just back to Bremarlyn. Back to the evening of a freak snowstorm and the morning afterwards.
I could have tried to watch a scared youngster wearing a heavy uniform cloak slip down a snow-filled gully and disappear to avoid being shot. But I didn’t.
Slipping further toward the dawn, I fought to see through the hazy barrier between the then and the undertime, as well as to see through the fat swirling flakes of the untimely snow.
As the indirect light of a dawn grayed by clouds waxed on that stately house I had not seen intact since then, I watched, trying to shift my view toward whatever had happened.
Did I really want to know?
I watched from outside the house. I could have drifted inside, looking at the Davniads, watching Allyson, but I would have felt somehow unclean, like a voyeur, or … a ConFed. So I watched from outside.
First, a puff of smoke fluffed from the chimney. I let myself drift further foretime, when the snowflakes had stopped and the light was brighter. Not yet mid-morning, but no longer early morning.
A figure—Jerz Davniads—opened the doors to the steamer locker. His breath trailed above him like a smoke plume.
Allyson appeared, moving quickly, with several bags, which she dropped by the steamer. Her father said something, but she did not even turn as she hurried back across the courtyard to the house to return with yet another pair of bags. Jerz waited until she had returned with the second set.
This time Allyson gestured at the bags and motioned toward the steamer. Jerz shook his head and walked back across the courtyard with her. They brought back four more bags, and Germania Davniads followed with two large baskets, which she put in the rear seat of the steamer. Allyson handed her father the bags as he placed five of them in the rear storage trunk.
As he lashed down the remaining bag on the storage rack, Germania slipped into the driver’s seat and began the lightoff. Allyson stood by the locker door, but Jerz motioned her into the steamer. Then Allyson’s mother backed the steamer out of the locker, set the brakes, and slid into the passenger seat. Jerz closed the locker before climbing stolidly into the driver’s seat.
The steamer eased down the long drive, trailing a thin plume of
white. At the road, the vehicle lurched slightly on some ice, but Jerz smoothly corrected and turned downhill toward the highway. He slowed as he approached the sweeping ninety degree turn above where our drive joined the road.
A single ConFed stood by the drive as the steamer slipped past. The marine turned and lifted his projectile gun.
Either Jerz Davniads did not see the weapon, or he ignored it, believing that no ConFed would turn a weapon upon a member of the gentry. The steamer continued on untouched, but the ConFed turned and sprinted up the drive.
I followed the steamer, now almost careening, as if the Davniadses had realized the danger.
Undertime, I could only watch, asking whether I wanted to know what had happened, hoping that they would, or had, escaped, and doubting as I watched.
Two military steamers waited at the spot where the road met the highway, and I could see another civilian steamer had been stopped. Some of the ConFeds were dragging one of the passengers out, a woman, and from the picture I got, I did not watch further, especially since there was nothing I could do.
I slipped time again, to the instant where the heavy Davniadses steamer plunged down the road. For an instant, the woman being assaulted by the ConFeds broke free, and tried to run toward the oncoming steamer. Her tunic had been mostly ripped away, and blood streaked across her uncovered shoulder and partly bared breast. Two ConFeds caught her and forced her down.
Jerz Davniads throttled up the steamer and aimed the heavy vehicle at the narrow shoulder of the road that offered the only chance of passage.
I refused to move closer in the undertime or to look at either Allyson or Germania, still hoping that the former steamer racer could bring them through.
The Davniadses’ steamer edged the outside military vehicle and the bag lashed to the trunk ripped off. But the steamer was clear, skidding around the corner and onto the Eastern Highway, headed east, away from Inequital.
Then, I hoped—until a ConFed slammed a heavy black weapon onto a swivel and rammed it around, levelling it at the back of the steamer.
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Laws or not, I slammed my mind against the barrier of the now. Once, twice, holding that scene suspended in stasis, trying, somehow, to stop what was going to happen.
… nooooo …
Try as I did, nothing happened. The ConFed stood there, ready to destroy Allyson and her family, and I could alter nothing. All I did was freeze myself in time to avoid seeing what would happen.
Another thrust at the undertime, and nothing changed, except I began to feel light-headed. Another jab, not nearly as forceful, and little flashing lights began to appear.
But the ConFed stood immobile with his shredder …
… and I finally watched …
I could almost feel the impact of the shredder on the steamer, and even through the undertime, the blast of flame from the ruptured cans of etheline was bright enough not to mistake.
Twisting forward in time, I skipped another blast of death and agony. Cowardly, but more death, more loss, I did not need. I had already lost Allyson twice. A third time, reliving the emotions of her death, I was not strong enough to undergo.
That was it. I watched just enough to see whether anyone else escaped. No one left the flaming mass that had been a heavy steamer.
Trying to swallow both a throat that felt swollen and tears that could not occur in the undertime, I moved forward to avoid watching more. That burned steamer I had seen before, on my trip to Mount Persnol, along with several others. I just hadn’t recognized it or realized that had represented my last contact with Allyson. Not that it changed anything.
I had proved that, even if I couldn’t emerge in the past, I could see some of it from the undertime. See more than I ever really wanted to see.
Releasing my hold on the undertime past, I let the time-paths carry me back to my room. Back to the sanitary facilities where I lost most of my mid-morning snack.
When the heaves stopped, I rinsed out my mouth with Sustain. The bitter taste served two purposes—restoring some minor measure of strength, and reminding me of—I didn’t know what—but it was reminding me of something.
Then I slumped onto the bed. Outside, the breeze had stopped, and, inside, as I sat stewing, the sweat beaded up on my forehead.
My stomach had gotten too sensitive. What had happened to the youngster who had eaten swamp roots and held them down? Who had seen an innocent student shredded in front of him?
But I might have loved Allyson, given time, given a better world.
I wiped my forehead and took another sip of Sustain, from a new bottle.
Mellorie. She had lost her self-respect, and her family, and she hated
the real ConFeds and wanted them all to die horribly. She couldn’t accept anyone who didn’t share that hatred.
And I didn’t. The ConFeds I had murdered died in more agony than Allyson, than my father, or than Mellorie’s family. Necessary as those ConFed deaths might have been, I did not have to share hatred. Responsibility … but not hatred.
I took another sip of warm Sustain. And another, wondering where the chain of hatred and death would end.