TUCKER BURST FROM THE FOREST ONTO A TRAIL. His Medicant-enhanced legs propelled him at a tremendous pace, but not fast enough to lose the maggot. He rounded a bend and saw someone standing on the trail. A woman, her head shaven, carrying an ax. Before Tucker could veer away, the woman leaped into the air, straight toward him. Tucker ducked, lost his footing, and rolled. The woman flew over him and landed between Tucker and the maggot. She jabbed the handle of her ax into the maggot’s gaping mouth. The maggot came to a sloshing, jiggling halt.

“This is the Terminus,” said the woman. “You have no business here.”

The maggot shuddered. Its mouth slowly contracted around the ax handle, then puckered and began to roll inward. Tucker, gasping for breath, watched, fascinated, as little by little the maggot swallowed itself, gathering into a pink ball on the end of the handle. When it had reduced itself to the size of a basketball — it looked to Tucker like a giant pink cake pop — the woman withdrew the ax and the maggot winked out of existence. The woman sniffed the ax handle, wrinkled her nose, then looked at Tucker.

“I assume you did not wish to visit a Boggsian crèche?” she said.

“No . . . thank you.” He heard footsteps pounding up the trail, and turned to see Lia running toward them. She stopped a few feet away, breathing heavily.

“Tucker Feye,” Lia said between breaths. “I have been looking for you.”

Tucker put his hands on Lia’s narrow shoulders and pulled her to him. She stiffened, then relaxed. The embrace lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to make their reunion real, and it held the promise of more.

Lia said, “Please do not go away again.”

“I won’t,” Tucker promised. “Only it wasn’t me that got kidnapped and swapped for a pitchfork.”

Lia smiled. “I had little choice.”

“The Yar Lia tells me you wish to return to your time,” the woman said.

“Awn says she can help us,” Lia added.

“Awn?” Tucker peered closely at the woman. She looked nothing like Awn. For one thing, she was young. No, not so much young — more like she was new. Her face was smooth and mannequin-like, as if she had just been pressed from a mold. Could this really be Awn?

“You don’t look like the Awn I know,” he said.

“I am not.” Awn’s mouth curved into an unpracticed smile. “Though perhaps I will become so. Your answer, therefore, is yes, and no.”

“Okay, you’re definitely Awn,” Tucker said.

“Told you,” Lia said.

Tucker noticed the disko hovering over the trail. “Does that disko go to Hopewell?”

“That is a local,” said Awn. “The disko you need is in the old city, atop the pyramid.”

“The same one we came out of? It’s gone.”

“It has returned.”

“Won’t it just take us back to Harmony?”

“It will take you to where you need to be,” Awn said. “But you must go soon. Outside forces are meddling with the diskos. The creature you just observed, for example.”

“The maggot,” Tucker said. “You once told me they were made by Boggsians for something called the Gnomon.”

Awn thought for a moment, then said, “The Gnomon are a conservative faction of the Klaatu. It is no surprise that they will object to the diskos. Already their future actions echo back through the timestreams.”

“What does that mean?” Tucker asked.

“Intent and the ability to perform a task is sufficient,” Awn said. “Consider your footfalls upon the earth. You intend to step forward. You have the capability to do so. Therefore, it is as if done. In this fashion, we both control the future and cause it to occur.”

“But suppose I intend to step forward and something stops me.”

“Then you did not have the capability in the first place.”

Tucker and Lia looked at each other.

“She can be very irritating,” Lia said in a low voice.

“Yes,” said Awn. She propped the ax on her shoulder. “Come. I will take you as far as my dwelling. From there you must proceed on your own.” She set off down the trail, walking swiftly.

Tucker and Lia followed. On the way, they told each other about what had happened while they were apart.

“That Boggsian, I think he’s the guy who built the diskos,” Tucker said as they climbed a slope toward the crest of a hill. “It’s like, as soon as I told him about the diskos, he decided he had to build one, and all of a sudden they’re popping up everywhere. Like what Awn said, as soon as he intended to do it, it was done.”

Awn turned to them and said, “It is more than intent. The means must also be at hand. The Boggsian had already developed the technology, but he had yet to apply it. Now, however . . .” she pointed her ax at a disko perched upon the top of the hill. Tucker could have sworn it had not been there a moment ago. “The diskos come.” She stepped off the trail and approached the disko. “This disko has a malevolent aspect.” She prodded its surface with the ax handle, then backed away. The disko spat out a handful of reddish dust.

“A genocide,” Awn said, rejoining Tucker and Lia. “And the death of any unfortunate creatures who should pass through it. The Klaatu have a taste for the macabre.” She continued along the path, speaking over her shoulder. “The Klaatu believe themselves to be superior creatures, and in many ways they are. However, they lost something of themselves when they transcended. One might say they worship the lives they left behind.”

“Like a religion?” Tucker asked.

“Not in the sense that you mean.”

“One of the Boggsians told me they have no religion, either,” Tucker said.

“The Boggsians cannot be trusted to say what is true,” Awn said. “They do not even trust themselves.”

“I once believed in the religion of the Lah Sept,” Lia said. She turned to Tucker. “I used to think you might be the prophet named Tuckerfeye. But now I am not so sure. According to The Book of September, Tuckerfeye saved the Lah Sept from the Digital Plague.”

“What is The Book of September?”

“The Book of September is the Holy Bible of the Lah Sept. It is like your Bible, but different. According to the teachings, it was written by Father September. Your father. According to the Book, Father September sacrificed his only son, and then the son rose from the dead and saved the Lah Sept from the Plague.”

Tucker said, “Wow.”

“Yes. Wow.”

“So that’s why my dad wanted to kill me?”

“Yes, to make The Book of September true. But you were not sacrificed. You escaped.”

“Does that mean we changed history?”

Awn stopped again and faced them. “History is what is written. We do not know whether the diskos are capable of changing that which may have happened, nor can we ever know, for were an event to be undone, it would never have occurred.”

Tucker said, “So if we change something that happened, it never happened?”

“One may experience only a single timeline, though it is possible that multiple timelines exist.”

“You mean there are other versions of me in other timelines?”

“This is a theory that may never be provable. Judging from their actions, the Gnomon believe that such timelines exist independently of one another, and that any entanglement could be catastrophic.”

“But we can change what happens?”

“Yes. No.”

The trail led into a meadow studded with tree stumps. On the far side of the meadow was a pile of logs, and what looked like the start of a log cabin.

“My home,” said Awn.

In the future, Tucker thought, this is where Awn will die.

Awn said, “As I stated, my ability to manipulate the diskos is limited; I cannot create them at will, nor guarantee their destination. The disko atop the Cydonian Pyramid will take you to your own time, though I cannot promise that you will arrive in Hopewell.”

“You mean it might take us to the top of Mount Everest?” Tucker said.

“A disko on Everest has yet to be conceived by the builder, so no, you need not fear that.”

“But we might end up someplace not in Hopewell?”

“Hopewell is a place of special interest to the designer. You are likely to find yourself near your home.”

“Who is this designer? Is that another word for God?”

“Only if your concept of God is very limited. The designer of the diskos, and my creator, calls herself Iyl Rayn. She is a Klaatu.”

“I have met her,” said Lia. “She is no god.”