JULIE STONE CAME to with a start. Had she been sleeping? She turned her head. “Ik, you there?”
The answering “Hrah-h” was shaky. Ik was stirring in his couch.
Couch. Pod surrounding us. Everything felt different. “Where—” the hell are we? She gaped around, realizing that she was no longer on another world in the mists of deep-time; she was inside a pod, and visible in the windows was the inside of the ghoststream launch hangar. We never moved. We projected. Of course. “We’re back,” she murmured.
“Yes,” said Ik, and his voice sounded stronger this time.
And we were just in the presence of something that might have been the early Mindaru . . .
At that moment, light burst into the cockpit. The hatch had been opened on the right. She heard voices, and saw hands reaching in, and heads silhouetted. It was the launch crew that had strapped them in, a billion or two years ago. She wondered how long she had been out, and how much time had passed here.
Blinking into the light, she felt her head filled with images from that last planet. The Mindaru planet. Trembling with sudden emotion, she clamped her eyes tightly shut and pressed her head back. /Did we really do that? See all that?/ she asked her stones.
*Yes, we did,* her stones answered. *Take a moment to recover and focus. You are going to be answering a lot of questions. It will come back to you.*
/Easy for you to say./ Truthfully, though, she appreciated the reassurance.
The spidery-limbed crew chief—Enwin, was it?—leaned in over her, disengaging restraints and bio-support connections. In a breathy voice, Enwin asked if she was all right. “Yes,” Julie said. “But please tell me, how long were we gone?”
“You have been time traveling for eleven-point-four days, local,” Enwin said, as casually as if she had been reporting the weather.
“Really. Huh,” Julie said. It felt a lot longer to her. She fell silent and accepted Enwin’s help in climbing out of the pod. Many hands reached out to steady her. She was surprisingly wobbly; her legs felt like gelatin as she stepped down onto the hangar floor. She squinted against the light, and turned to Ik. He was right behind her, rubbing his temples. He moved stiffly. A billion years without stretching. That’ll do it to you, she thought.
Ik clacked his mouth and nodded firmly. “Hrah . . . we have survived the trip.”
Julie found her own voice. “We should be impressed. But which is more impressive—that we survived the time travel, or that we survived meeting the Mindaru?” She meant it as a question to lighten the moment, but as soon as she said it, she realized that to Ik it was a serious question.
He hrrm’d for a moment, and then tapped a long, blue-white finger to his forehead. “I am not certain,” he said at last. “Any encounter with the Mindaru that we survive is a triumph, I think.”
Within moments, they were surrounded by a cluster of technical and medical workers of various species. A reverberating metal voice clanged from somewhere to Julie’s right. She craned her neck, and then exclaimed at the sight of the blank-faced, stick-figure metal creature who had brought them here. “Rings!” she cried.
“Hello, do you remember me?” the Tintangle asked.
“How could I not? I’m glad to see you!” With her head so filled with images of the galactic core, seeing Rings made all of this feel real again.
“Good,” said Rings-at-Need. “We’ll get you right to the debriefing room. We are all eager to hear what you have learned.”
Her stomach growled. I hope you have food in this debriefing room.
***
Around them as they moved forward in a group was a symphony of voices, some sharp, some rasping, some almost musical, none of which made any sense to Julie. Then one clear, alto voice broke through—a voice she understood as though it were speaking in English. “Ik! Ik, over here!”
“Who’s that, Ik?” Julie searched for the voice’s owner, and spotted someone waving on the outside of the group. What was that? Was she seeing thing? Was that a woman—with long, dark hair, wearing a crimson outfit? What the—? Julie felt dizzy again.
Ik, though, cried out in joy. “Antares! Hrah, Antares!” He pushed forward through the startled launch crew.
As the crew members parted, Julie got a better view. She saw Ik greeting a stunning auburn-haired woman who sprang forward to throw her arms around him. Antares? Was this the Antares, the friend who was part of Ik’s company of travelers, including John Bandicut? Ik and the woman embraced for a moment, and then drew apart to arm’s length. Ik turned to guide Antares toward Julie. And there was a robot with her! Was that—? It looked like the robots on Triton! Was that Napoleon, the survey robot John had taken with him when he’d fled?
Julie’s head was buzzing now. As they came closer, Julie saw that Antares was not, in fact, human. There were differences in the structure of the face and the eyes, and her hair seemed to grow halfway down the center of her back—literally a mane—and her figure was a little different from a human’s. She was wearing a crimson pantsuit that flowed over her breasts, medium by human standards. But wait, directly beneath her breasts were two more, a little smaller. Four breasts? Well, why not? Julie thought dizzily. Antares’ eyes were almost catlike; they glinted gold. Antares met Julie’s gaze for an instant, and then she said something to Ik.
She’s John’s friend. That’s all you need to know right now. Julie tried to acknowledge her inner voice, but somewhere in her chest a tiny knot was tightening.
“A moment,” Ik said. He gripped the arm of one of the staff and spoke in a low but adamant tone, gesturing toward Julie, and toward Antares. Finally the staffer redirected them toward a little alcove formed by a work station, and then shooed the other crew members back to give them room.
As soon as they had enough privacy to speak, Ik drew his companions into a tight circle. “My friends,” he said, his voice trembling with excitement. “I wish you to meet at last! Julie Stone, human of Earth. Antares, Thespi Third Female. Both of you dear friends of Bandie John Bandicut! And this robot, Julie, is from your world, is he not? His name is Napoleon.”
“I, uh—” Julie choked, barely breathing.
Napoleon rose taller and clicked in greeting. “I am most pleased to see you again, Lady Julie Stone.”
“Glad to see you, too, Napoleon,” Julie whispered. Lady?
Ik continued to Antares, “How did you find us? Hrah, I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you! Where are the others? There is so much to tell! Julie has been my companion in a most astounding journey.” Antares seemed to want to answer, but Ik was spilling over with excitement. Julie had never seen him so emotional.
“Uuhhll, Ik, you have new knowing-stones!” Antares said, reaching up to touch the sides of his head. Julie suddenly realized that Antares had translator-stones, as well, glinting in the hollow of her throat. Had Ik told her about that? Julie felt as if she were swimming in this woman’s, this Thespi’s, emotions. She wasn’t just aware of Antares’ emotions; she felt them, as clearly as her own. Antares was astonished and frightened and relieved and uncertain—and regarding Julie herself, Antares was nearly dumbstruck. How could they be meeting like this, here on Shipworld? This was extraordinary! And one more fleeting emotion, and then gone. Was Antares worried about the presence of this human woman?
But Antares was still speaking. “Julie Stone? Julie Stone? I had not thought ever to meet you!” Her voice grew husky, and Julie could not quite identify the tone as Antares said, “John Bandicut has told me so much. I am pleased and grateful. I would very much like to hear the story of how you arrived here.”
This all spilled out in a jumble of words and expressions. Julie had a powerful feeling that Antares was not merely astonished, but flabbergasted. She had not expected Julie to still be alive!
***
Their moment of privacy was quickly over, as the mission team hustled them all out of the hangar area and into a nearby briefing center. Two halos were present, as well as half a dozen other sentient species. Antares listened in terrified awe, as Ik and Julie reported on their journey eons back in time, and to the center of the galaxy. It all seemed completely impossible. What were these strange things, ghoststream and quantum entanglement?
As Ik and Julie spoke, Antares found her attention wandering in and out, focusing more on their emotions than on the details they reported. The anticipation and bewilderment at the journey itself: spinning back through the millennia and eons, their physical presence here forgotten, as they searched for that one world out of thousands, not just in space but in time. The alarm at passing living entities in the ghoststream, and again, flying past them on the suspected Mindaru homeworld. The Mindaru homeworld! The idea set her mind on fire.
“How certain are you that what you found was connected to the Mindaru?”
“How certain could we be? There was a cybernetic presence on that cliff, and it was reaching and probing. It felt malicious . . .”
At times Antares was barely aware of who was speaking: Ik, Julie, team members asking questions, halos chiming. There was a thrill in the discovery, and a dread in the possibility that the Mindaru were really back there, plotting and evolving, and hell-bent on the future. When they spoke of the cybernetic activity beneath the surface of the rock, Antares felt the chill of fear that Ik felt. Her own memories of Mindaru contact on the Starmaker mission—the malice in the infection that had crippled Ik’s knowing-stones—returned with a sickening rush.
“You may need to reexamine your theories, if you expected that nothing would be aware of our presence. Several times we felt that something back there sensed us.”
“Like a—” translation difficulty “—ghost?”
“Like a ghost, I suppose, yes.”
Antares shivered, sensing that this wasn’t just about the probable finding of the Mindaru, but also about uncertainty in the question of what actions they could safely take.
“We dare not risk changing the timestream . . .” “We dare not risk inaction . . .”
There was already rumbling among the mission team members as to how to proceed next, and Julie and Ik had not even completed telling their story yet. Passions ran deep in this crowd. The leader of the meeting was a creature named Cromus, with stalk eyes and a huge body carapace and clacking pincers. He spoke with a ponderous groan and in a string of words without pause. “Lisssten to what they sa-a-ay was this sense telepa-a-athic-c?”
A laugh like a clear bell from Julie. “How would we know? This whole experience was telepathic . . .”
Some relief came in the story of the endearing creatures found in the sea. At least until they came under attack . . .
Antares found herself watching Julie as the human answered questions—the way she shrugged at questions she didn’t know the answer to, the pursing of her lips in thought, the way she ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation. How similar some of her mannerisms and habits were to John’s! Were these things Antares would see in any human? Or were they a reflection of Julie’s closeness to John?
She found it hard to observe Julie dispassionately, and that frustrated her. Have you wandered so far from your roots as a Thespi Third? You can do this! Her training was all about understanding others, and helping others to bridge differences and be joined in intimacy. Surely she could observe Julie Stone and understand her nature. Understand, even, how Julie had once shared intimacy with John Bandicut. It wasn’t as if she, Antares, hadn’t known about it. She had even shared glimpses of John’s memories of it. But she hadn’t expected Julie to be here. Julie was supposed to be in the past, long departed from the living.
But she is here now, expected or not. Drop your uncertainty and observe her. Understand her, and listen to what she’s saying.
Julie was speaking now of her belief that they needed to be extremely cautious in their next steps, because, among other things, it was not clear to her that their theories about time travel were altogether correct. Her voice had dropped low, and she was leaning over the narrow table that separated her from the listeners, both of her hands wrapped around a large cup of whatever they gave her for coffee here. There was a light of determination in her gaze. Antares wasn’t sure what constituted an attractive human woman in a human man’s eyes, but Julie seemed to Antares to be attractive. Those blue eyes were bright and piercing, and shone with intelligence. And not just intelligence: warmth. Both with and without the empathic touch, Antares could sense that.
Moon and stars, no wonder John Bandicut had chosen her, and loved her.
Antares rocked back in her seat, so suddenly that Napoleon, beside her, clicked softly and whispered a question: Are you well? Is something wrong? and she whispered back that everything was fine; there was no problem.
Antares tried to recall all she had learned from John about human feelings. It was a lot, was it not? Or was it? In truth, what she had learned about was one human, John. How would this other human, Julie Stone, feel? How was she feeling right now, when her gaze met Antares’? Did she see a rival? Or a potential friend?
And is that important now, when she has news to convey that could affect the whole galaxy?
Antares tried to clear her thoughts and listen.
Ik was speaking again, describing the powerful impression that they had met something alien, dangerous, possibly Mindaru. There was strong emotion in his voice. As he responded to questions from the mission team, Antares shivered to realize just how alarmed Ik was by what they had seen. “We thought we should withdraw before there was risk of contact. I have felt the Mindaru in my mind before—and I do not wish to repeat that experience. Ever.” Ik paused for a moment. “If you have read my reports of the Starmaker mission, you know that.”
The reminder of that episode brought back to Antares the memory of a crushing pain. She had gone deep into Ik’s emotions to pull him back after that Mindaru touch. She had barely managed to help him to safety—but at the cost of his stones, and deep distress.
Cromus clicked his pincers to silence the murmur that rose up. “That-t-t we know-w-w and appreciat-t-e clearly someon-n-ne must go back again perhaps-s-s another-r.”
Antares was thinking hard now. Her job was to help Ik—if not to bring him back to their company, then at least to back him up in whatever he was doing. And if there was to be more time travel?
They could be endangering whatever John and Li-Jared are attempting. Or the other way around.
She pondered this while questions were asked and answered. When a break was announced, she hurried forward and bent close to speak to Ik and Julie. “About their sending someone back—have they told you what John and Li-Jared are doing?”
Ik’s deep-set eyes gleamed. “Hrah, that they have left on a mission to Karellia?”
“Uhhl, yes!” said Antares. “To try to stop the temporal disturbance at its source.”
Ik scratched at his temple with one long finger, rubbing his knowing stone there. “Is this not, hrrm, a good thing?”
“I hope so,” Antares said fervently. “But I fear what might happen if they change something there, while someone from here is in the past, trying to change something else!”
It took them both a few moments to parse that, and when Ik did he stood suddenly and called out, “Hrah! Rings! Cromus!”
That got the attention of most of the room. Cromus scuttled forward, and Rings floated, his body and head disks shining brassily. Antares eyed Rings uneasily; she had met him at the beginning of the meeting, and still wasn’t sure what she thought of him.
Ik wasted no time. “Hrrm, please tell me, what is the status of my friends’ mission to Karellia? And what is the risk of their work affecting this mission? Or us affecting them? Are you in contact with them?”
Cromus clacked and rasped and rattled. “We are not-t and do not-t-t know their stat-t-tus-s you need-d not concern yourselves-s-s.”
“Wait!” Julie responded. “How can you say that? If they’re doing things to the timestream, and we’re doing things in the timestream, I’m damn sure concerned!”
More rattling and clacking. “It is-s beyond-d my scope of authority-y.”
“But,” Rings clanged, “is it not a question that needs to be asked?”
Cromus did not, in that moment, have an answer.
Julie gestured to Ik to lean close. She waved Antares in as well. “I don’t know how much I trust these people,” she said quietly. “I think we’re just enlisted help to them. They don’t want us thinking too hard about the big picture.”
“Hrrm, I agree,” said Ik. “What do you believe we should do?”
Julie tapped her forehead with her fingertips. Was she trying to coax out the right answer? Finally she looked up and said, “All I can think is: Who do we trust? I trust the translator. I think we need to speak to the translator, don’t you?”
“Hrah. I do.” Ik bobbed his head decisively.
Julie shifted her gaze to Antares, who raised her palms. “Uhhl, I know of your translator, but I have never met it.”
“You’ll like it,” Julie said firmly. She took half a step out of their huddle so that she could wave for the attention of Rings and Cromus. “We need to speak to the translator,” she said, raising her voice enough to be clearly heard. “The yaantel. Can you arrange a meeting?”
Rings chimed once, but Cromus rattled and made a rustling sound inside his carapace. “That-t might-t be difficult-t.” He waved a large pincer. “The yaantel is-s far-r from here and we must-t make our deliberations-s and plan our next action-n.”
“Nonetheless,” Ik said, his voice flattened into a resolute tone that Antares recognized. He would not be dissuaded. “We must speak with the yaantel. We have questions about the other mission, and questions about what we might expect from ghoststream travel.”
Someone standing nearby muttered something to Cromus, who rasped disconcertingly. “We have man-n-y experts-s on time travel-l and you can speak-k with them-m.”
“We shall,” said Ik. “But we must also, hrrrk-k, speak with the yaantel. Must we not, Julie?”
“We must,” said Julie. “And if you wish our hel—for us to be able to help you—”
“Then you must do this,” said Ik. He glanced at Antares now, who murmured agreement. “And my friends Antares and Napoleon must come with us.”
Mutters of surprise rose from the gathered mission members. Surprise and a hint of disapproval, Antares thought. But before anyone could raise actual objections, Rings rang out with the arresting sound of a gong. “I think,” it said, as the echoes faded, “I can arrange this.”
Cromus snapped his pincers a couple of times in apparent displeasure. But his rattled answer was, “Very well-l when we are don-n-e here you must-t do it quickly-y.”