IK KNEW THE instant he stepped through the portal that something had gone wrong. Moon and stars, where am I? It definitely wasn’t the place where he’d last seen his friends. But what in the names of the holies was it? For a long few seconds he hung in limbo, feeling not quite solid. Around him was nothing he recognized as Shipworld, but an infinite black space filled with tiny white symbols streaming around him at tremendous speed. The air was filled with a tang of electricity.
He heard an alarmed voice beside him: “What is this?” The human Julie Stone was floating beside him. That was some relief; at least he hadn’t lost both her and his friends.
“I’m not certain,” he began, but his words were interrupted by a snap like an electric arc. Suddenly they were standing—floating, really, just a few inches above the ground—on a ridge overlooking a series of green, tilled fields. Far across the field, bipedal figures moved about, working the land. Ik narrowed his gaze, trying to bring the figures into clearer focus. Snap. Darkness again, and streaming symbols. “Hrrm—?”
Julie grabbed his arm, physically caught off balance. “This—can’t be right!” she gasped.
“No.” He tried to think what might be happening. Something gone wrong with the transmission? He tried to read the symbols. They were moving much too fast, and were meaningless to him.
Snap.
Now they stood, almost touching the floor, on a balcony overlooking a busy arcade in a city . . . somewhere in Shipworld. Below them, a large concourse thronged with pedestrians of all sizes and shapes—except any that Ik recognized. The type of place was familiar, but he did not remember seeing it before. “Hrah!” he croaked softly.
Snap.
Now they were standing—walking, really—over a dark, glossy plane with enormous but finely etched concentric circles engraved on its surface. Ik was unsure whether he himself was solid. What was going on? Were they even still in Shipworld? He was becoming gravely worried. Shipworld was huge. Spread out over thousands of habitats, it was probably greater in extent than many planetary surfaces put together. The potential for becoming permanently separated from his friends, if the transport system were malfunctioning, was terrifying.
A glance at Julie confirmed that she had similar thoughts. “Surely there must be some reason . . . but . . .” Her voice trailed off. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
Ik didn’t answer at once. Perhaps there was a harmless explanation for this detour. Perhaps the system was delayed, and they were simply in a transport buffer, awaiting their eventual arrival back with his companions. At one time he’d felt reasonably competent at getting around Shipworld. But that was before two difficult missions and the loss of his voice-stones. His new stones did not seem to have all the knowledge of the old ones. Well, why should they? They had been on Julie’s journey, not his. If they had any idea of where Ik and Julie were right now, the stones were keeping it to themselves.
“I wish,” he murmured, thinking and speaking slowly, “that I had an iceline connection, to contact the others—and to ask the system what is happening.”
Julie cocked her head in a way that reminded him of John Bandicut. But then she looked past him. “What are those?”
“Hrrk-ing?” Ik turned around. A cloud of what looked like sparkling insects was moving through the air over the glassy surface. Moving toward them. The Maksu? Why were they here now?
Coming to talk to us?
The Maksu were a strange species, some form of multiplex consciousness. They were well regarded as traders of information. Beyond that, he knew little—except that without the Maksu, Ik and his companions would never have beaten the boojum.
But the Maksu didn’t generally just drop around to visit.
“Hraachee’an Ik . . . have we properly . . . identified you?” sang the Maksu swarm, flying around them in a wide circle. Julie, on his right, was herself turning in circles, watching them.
“I am Ik,” he answered. “Hrrr-kah! Have you come to explain what is going on? Did you find us through the iceline? Are you the Maksu who worked with me against the boojum?”
The Maksu buzzed with what seemed to him to be excitement. “The same, no . . . though we are familiar with your work. We pursued you through . . . transport system. You are beyond the reach of the iceline . . . at present . . . we cannot use iceline to communicate. We have come with a message . . .”
“A message? From John Bandicut? Or the others? Why are we out of the reach of the iceline?” Ik turned to Julie. “Can you hear them? They say they have a message.”
The Maksu swarm suddenly changed; it flowed closer to them and then stretched up and over, forming a dome over them. Their firefly lights began to flicker like tiny embers in a breeze. They sped up their movement, until the swarm became a blur, and then began to form an image out of its rapidly changing points of light. Or possibly multiple shadowy images, like figures moving jerkily in a fog. The figures were unrecognizable to Ik, but were eerily hypnotic, moving in a peculiar rhythm, speeding and slowing, and periodically bursting forth with streaming beads of light, as though they were about to break through from some other realm.
A voice deeper than the Maksu’s welled out of the swarm. “We have need of your services.”
Ik tried to respond, but by now the hypnotic movement had put him nearly into a trance. “Our—services? What services? Who are you?” The words came out in a whisper, flat.
“We speak for some . . . you may call . . . masters of Shipworld. Urgent need. We all have need.”
Ik felt a barking laugh erupt from his chest.
“Is that sound . . . amusement?” asked the voice from the Maksu.
Ik’s words came out thickly. “Yes. I’m sorry. But you see—hrrrl, I have heard that phrase, urgent need, so many times before.”
The Maksu whirled a little faster. “Some feel . . . what is urgent is relative. Would you feel . . . influx of hostile entities into the galaxy . . . urgent?” The Maksu altered the pattern of their movement, forming new images. Soon Ik recognized the shape of the galaxy.
“Hrah, perhaps so,” said Ik. “Say more?”
“Not for us to say. Will you come with us . . . to a representative?”
Ik winced. Representative? That could mean anything. But it wouldn’t get them back to his friends. “Hrrm, do you offer a choice? Can you bring our other companions to this meeting? You must know who I mean.”
Whirl. “They are presently beyond . . . contact range.”
“Excuse me,” Julie Stone interrupted, and she sounded annoyed. “Am I being excluded from this conversation? I’ve come a long way to this place, and I urgently want to see my countryman, my fellow human, John Bandicut. Since you seem able to move us around at will, surely you can find a way to reach him.”
“Hrah, exactly—”
“That is impossible . . . at this time.” Bzzzz.
“Why is it impossible?” Julie snapped.
“Doors and channels . . . closed. Contacts no longer . . . available.”
Julie’s brow was furrowed in a way Ik had often seen on Bandicut. “Then what about my other friend, the translator?”
Bzzzzzzzzz. The Maksu’s agitation grew. “That is . . . outside our domain.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“We do not . . . ssss. But others . . . might.”
Julie gave a sound that Ik recognized as a sigh of disgust. He forced down his own annoyance and tried to offer some reassurance. “I feel the same frustration, Julie Stone. And anger. The way things are done here sometimes—” he shook his head in quick jerks “—defies understanding. There are times when you can only—”
Ik’s words were interrupted by another sudden shift. The Maksu fell away from them, and the black surface vanished. Ik felt a moment of dizziness, before intricate branching structures appeared, surrounding them . . .
***
Julie’s breath went out in a gasp as the Maksu sent them spinning into a new place, a strange medium with colored glow-lights and branches angled like a tree. They flew through it in a blur. It reminded Julie weirdly of Christmas trees from childhood; but the Maksu were throwing out words like map and location. Here was where Julie had entered Shipworld. There was where Ik and his company had returned from a mission. Here was a split that divided where that company was and where Julie and Ik were. Then it was all behind them, and new branches appeared.
A receding voice said, “Sss-connections . . . are broken-n. Will be repaired . . . perhaps-ss in time.”
And then the branches began blurring.
Blink.
And just like that, they were standing in a wood-paneled room, its walls illumined by a warm glow coming from concealed spaces above what looked like wall-to-wall bookcases. Julie turned around in amazement. “What is this? It looks like a library. A human library.” She sniffed and thought she smelled wood-polishing oil.
“Does it?” Ik asked. “Hrrm, to me it looks like a Hraachee’an library.” He waved a hand in a sweep across the room. As he did so, the air seemed to billow open momentarily, like a curtain opening to reveal a glimpse of a different view—with taller shelves, narrower, containing tall, slender objects that might have been books.
“This is the Outerberk library,” said a thin, metallic voice. Julie and Ik looked around, but no one seemed to be here. “It is a sanctuary for study and thought. But it is also a place where important guests may pause and relax. Thank you for coming.”
Ik rumbled and pointed to a glimmer of light behind a desk that looked as if were made of golden oak. “Hrrm,” he said. “Is that you speaking, over there? Are you afraid to show yourself?”
The light flickered and brightened. “One moment, please, while I join you,” said the voice. A shape began to emerge from the glow, a flat, round cutout whirling just at the edge of visibility, like a huge lollipop spinning on its stick. Finally the shape slowed and came nearly to rest, though still twitching a little. It looked like a copper-gold metal disk, the blank face of a mannequin stamped out of sheet metal. If it was a face, Julie thought, not at all sure. But the figure had two flexible spindles for arms that ended in paddle-shaped hands. The paddles waved like wind-chimes in a breeze. Standing, or maybe floating, behind the desk, it looked like something from a phantasmagorical dream. Was it alive? she wondered.
“What sort of a—what are you?” she asked, simultaneously fascinated and alarmed. Of all the odd creatures she’d encountered so far on Shipworld, this one, with its cartoon flatness, was definitely the oddest.
The disk-face began to sparkle in three spots on its surface, roughly approximating two eyes and a mouth. “Is this better?” it asked. “Can you see me now? Can you hear me?”
Julie nodded hesitantly. “I guess so.”
“I needed to find the proper rotation. Good. I am glad you have come. We have much to discussss.” Its voice took on the shivering quality of a gently stroked cymbal. The spots faded and vanished, leaving once more a blank disk.
“Hrah,” said Ik. “You know who we are, apparently. But we don’t know who you are.”
“You may call me—” The creature gave a metallic twang, ending in a bird chirp. Julie’s translator-stones rasped for a moment, and then she heard, “Rings-at-Need.”
“What?” she asked, even though she’d heard the stones clearly.
“Rings-at-Need.” The being’s head twirled once, twice. “I am a Tintangle. I live in two primary dimensions, which I believe you can see, plus several others, which you may not. You may think of me as a male of my species, if it helps. Perhaps on another occasion, I can tell you more. However, just now—”
“Rrrmm. You remind me of the shadow-people,” Ik interrupted, angling his head as he looked at the creature.
Rings-at-Need twanged again. “Distant cousins.”
Julie tried to wrap her mind around all this without losing track of what was most on her mind. “But if—”
“There are important people eager to speak with you,” the creature said, waving its paddle hands in the air.
“So we were told,” said Ik. “Do you represent the Shipworld masters?”
Rings-at-Need’s paddles fluttered this way and that, and its head rocked in quick movements from side to side. “I speak for a team that . . . represents certain of the Shipworld masters, yes. This team has urgent interest in matters . . .” Its—or, rather, his—hands fluttered again.
“Matters—?” Ik prompted.
“ . . . related to your recent mission.”
“Hrah, you know about our mission, then.”
“Of course. Ssss. It is why we have brought you here.”
“Hrrm,” Ik said, going suddenly quite still, his gaze focused on the Tintangle.
“Can we meet them, then?” Julie asked. “The Shipworld masters?”
Rings shivered, making a rustling cymbal sound. “Not . . . no. I would not know how to make that happen. But I can take you to meet . . . the team. The mission team.”
Julie shook her head. “If you won’t take us to see the masters, then how about John Bandicut? Do you know him? He was part of that mission. Yes?” She glanced to Ik for confirmation. As she spoke, Rings’ shivering sound increased. She felt her pulse pounding in her head. “He is my . . . countryman, and friend. I have not seen him in a long time. I very much want to see him.” Longing and frustration were building inside her like water behind a dam.
A ringing rose from the Tintangle, like the extended vibration of a gong. “Nng, nng, nnggggg . . . These things are not possible. Did not the Maksu explain that to you? You are in different jurisdictions. There is no way, right now, to reunite you.” The Tintangle’s eyes reemerged and sparkled emerald against the coppery-gold disk of its face. “Did the Maksu not explain, also, that your friends have been given a new assignment?”
Ik stiffened. “Hrrk-kr-gang. How can that be? I was with him a short time ago! Besides, hrrrr, we work together.”
“Things have happened quickly,” Rings-at-Need said, turning his head slightly out of the plane, then back. “There was our urgent need, and—someone else—had another idea.”
“And you separated us?” Ik snapped. “Why did you do that?”
Vibrating cymbal sound, fading slowly. “I am afraid that was done, yes. Because they needed you. Because it was better to have some of you than none of you. And because you two have both fought . . . these things before.”
Julie’s blood chilled. Fought these things? Did Rings mean the thing that had threatened Earth? Did someone want her to go against more of those? No!
Ik’s mouth clacked open and closed. His breath hissed out.
Julie wondered if he was thinking something similar. “Ik?” she asked softly. “Didn’t you say you and John fought something really terrible on your last mission?”
“Hrah, yes, we did,” Ik said, tightening his long-fingered hands into fists, and then releasing. “Terrible.”
Rings clanged loudly. “Yes! That is why this is so urgent! Please listen to me!”
Julie balled her fists, a protest welling inside her.
“Your friends accepted an assignment because it seemed critical to them. It is related to the thing we wish to speak to you of.” Rings made a huffing noise. “Will you let me show you? Words take so long! Will you not?”
Ik eyed the being with a stony gaze.
“All right,” Julie said.
Ik looked surprised, but after a moment he inclined his bony head and said, “Hrah. Very well.”
Rings cymbal-crashed, then pointed, his two paddle-hands pressed together. As Julie and Ik turned to look, the room darkened. “I wish to show you a danger that may affect every species represented in Shipworld. We must start by looking at a region of space not far from Julie’s homeworld, Earth.” She stiffened, as Rings continued, “And we must look at a location known as Karellia.”
“Li-Jared’s world!” Ik muttered.
“In both places, we will see elements of peril to the galaxy. But, perhaps, peril we can do something about.”
Julie stirred as one whole side of the library became a glowing display of the Milky Way.
***
Julie struggled to absorb all that Rings-at-Need had told them. She had taken in much of it nonverbally, which was the only reason she could manage the revelations at all. She thought she had the essence: A plague of malicious machine-intelligences from a billion years in the past was threatening to come forward in time, perhaps was already coming forward in time. And they on Shipworld, along with all organic life in the galaxy, were—however indirectly—descendants of the civilizations that had nearly eradicated the machines. “Beware,” the voice was saying. “If these dreadful things come forward, they will threaten everything we know.”
Yes, yes, Julie thought, remembering the tiny but terrifying Adversary that had virtually destroyed her spacecraft and threatened to destroy Earth itself. That would be inconceivably bad.
“But,” Rings was saying, “if we could travel into the past, and prevent them from ever coming to us in the present?”
Julie could only gaze in fear and wonder at the Tintangle.
“We may have an opportunity for action. But we do not know with certainty what is possible and what is not.”
“Hrrrrl . . .” Ik growled. “Why are you telling us? What can we do about it?”
In the near dark, Rings-at-Need looked like a poster made of foil, fluttering and glinting as he turned and gestured. “You have both proved yourselves capable in a crisis. You have both faced these Mindaru, or powers related to them. Who could better lead an expedition?”
“Expedition?” Julie whispered.
“To travel back through space-time. To find the enemy in its nest. To see if it can be contained in its own time, before it can threaten us in ours.”
Julie was so stunned by this suggestion that she failed to notice at first that Ik, too, was speechless. He seemed to be staring at a point somewhere beyond Rings, as though the Tintangle’s words had sent him off on a mental journey. Julie’s voice cracked as she said, “Did I understand you properly? Did you really mean, travel back in time?”
Rings-at-Need gonged softly. The Milky Way zoomed in slowly, and the galaxy rotated backward like a spiral trying to unwind. As the galactic core grew in the view, it broke into a spangle of bright nebulas and star clusters. Rings said, “This is a region which we believe may be the focal point of the danger. However, we do not know the exact location—even in the present, much less the past.”
“So then—” Julie blinked a moment, parsing Rings’ words. “So this view we’re looking at is—how you think it looked in the past?”
Rings gonged again.
And now it was starting to sink in. Time travel. Really? Should it be any more astonishing than her trip from her own sun to this crazy place at the edge of the galaxy?
As an exoarchaeologist, she should be thrilled by the prospect of time travel. A chance to view the past in person. Not just view it, but live it.
Yeah.
It sounded good—until you remembered what Rings said she’d find in the past. Not old artifacts, safely removed by millions of years, but a terrible foe. Perhaps the creators of the deadly nano-monsters she had already fought—the Adversary that had devoured her spaceship in its attempt to get at the Earth.
Finally she realized that Ik was watching her, his small eyes, set deep in his bony face, seeming to gaze right into her thoughts. Was he thinking of similar memories? His words left that question unanswered. “It sounds, hrah, extremely dangerous.”
Rings made a rippling sound.
Julie groaned and drew herself a little straighter. “You told us John Bandicut—and others?—are being sent on an assignment. Is their assignment related to this?”
“Yes. They have met with other . . . representatives of the governing circle.” Rings seemed to vibrate, then wind down, as though pondering, or perhaps accepting something he did not wholly approve of. “They accepted an assignment that may be . . . complementary to this one.”
“Hrrrl. Complementary how?” asked Ik.
Rings waved his paddles vaguely. “A different approach—to a different aspect of this same problem. Not back in time. They are going to—” Rings seemed to strain to decide how much to tell them “—Karellia.”
“Without me?” Ik boomed.
Rings vibrated wildly. “I am truly, truly sorry. But if the mission I offer you does not succeed, theirs will likely fail, also. Because it is there that these . . . Survivors, these Mindaru . . . are expected to emerge!”
“Hrahhh!” Ik cried mournfully.
Julie felt a reflexive jerk of anger, and defiance. “Tell me something, Rings-at-Need. Why do you think you can just out of the blue grab us and demand that we do this? I don’t even know y—” She stopped, a twisting feeling inside her chest reminding her how she had felt when the translator had once asked her to do something equally insane, back in the solar system. Was she going to have to do it all over again? Had that earlier fight for her life just been a warm-up? It’s never over.
“Continue?” asked Rings-at-Need, spinning out of view for an instant, then reappearing.
Julie raised her hands and then dropped them. “This is too much for me to absorb just like that. I need time to think. I need to speak to someone I can trust.”
Cymbal sound: Shhhhh. “I would help if I could. But I have explained about John Bandicut.”
Julie’s chin suddenly came up. “I want to see the translator. The thing that came to Shipworld with me. You must know what it is. Is it still alive? No one has told me! If it is, I want to talk to it.”
Shhhhhhhh.
“Yes, I really mean this. If you won’t take me to John Bandicut, I insist you take me to the translator!” She glanced at Ik for support. “I don’t know you, and I have no reason to trust you. But I trust the translator. Take me to it.” She shut her mouth. Ik nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I—that is—” Rings began, and then stopped. After a moment, he vibrated again. “It is the translator—that recommended you for the mission. It said—we needed to find Julie Stone.”
Julie, stunned, stared at the Tintangle in silence. The translator . . . did that? She choked, forced words out. They came as an almost inaudible whisper. “If that’s true, I still need to speak to it.”
Rings-at-Need spun in and out of visibility for several long seconds, then steadied back into view. “It is . . . not well. But I will see if this can be arranged.”