Time Shards - Shatter War E-Book

Dana Fredsti

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Time shatters into shards of the past, present, and future. A group of survivors dodges threats from across history to locate the source and repair the damage before it's too late.WAR ACROSS THE TIMESCAPEEarth's past, present, and future have shattered in "the Event," yielding a terrifying new world of prehistoric monsters, lost cultures, strange technologies, and displaced armies. Coming from different points throughout history, a desperate band of survivors join "Merlin," a mysterious figure who may be their only hope to save the world—if he can be trusted.When their twenty-third-century ship the Vanuatu is sabotaged by an unknown enemy and thrown far off its course, the team must discover who is responsible, even as they are split apart and fight to survive in the war-torn Shard world...

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also available from Titan Books by Dana Fredsti and David Fitzgerald

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Also available from Titan Books by Dana Fredsti and David Fitzgerald

The Time Shards Novels:

Time Shards

Shatter War

ShatterField (forthcoming in 2020)

Also by Dana Fredsti

The Lilith Novels:

The Spawn of Lilith

Blood Ink

The Ashley Parker Novels:

Plague Town

Plague Nation

Plague World

A Man’s Gotta Eat What a Man’s Gotta Eat

TITAN BOOKS

SHATTER WAR

Print edition ISBN: 9781785654541

Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785654558

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 2019

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2019 Dana Fredsti and David Fitzgerald. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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Imagine time seen as a continuum—an infinite line containing everything that was and everything that will be…

Time perhaps as a tangible object. One that can be touched, like a mural on a wall that stretches infinitely in both directions. Portraying everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. In one direction is the future unfolding. In the other direction the past, much of it forgotten, back to the beginning of time itself.

Imagine time as a stained-glass window. The story of everything laid out in a glittering mosaic of trillions upon trillions of moments, from the big bang to the fiery death of the universe.

Finally, imagine the fragility of such a window.

1

Advanced Transpatial Physics Lab, AntarcticaFebruary 2, 2219One hour before the Event

This is the day the universe changes.

The realization hit him just as he awoke. Future generations of students would be taught about this morning the way he learned about Archimedes leaping from his bath to run naked through the streets of ancient Syracuse yelling “Eureka!” Or Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in a lightning storm, or the day the apple fell on Newton’s head.

The day Meta launched humanity on the path to the stars…

Dr. Jonathan Meta slipped out of the covers and sat up. The clock in his cerebral implant advised him it was 6:45am, New Zealand Standard Time. He spoke quietly to the window blinds. They obediently polarized out of existence, and his quarters filled with pure Antarctic sunlight.

The dazzling tableau outside his window revealed unrelenting whiteness and a crystal-sharp blue sky. The inescapable sun hadn’t dipped below the horizon for five months, and wouldn’t until the end of March. To better preserve their sanity, many of the station’s personnel had opted to change their window displays to more festive holographic options, such as a vintage view from pre-Warming Hawaii, or a live-feed of the scintillating nightlife on the canals of New York.

Dr. Meta kept his window unadorned and his quarters austere. He found that the polar seasonal alterations between stark brightness and near-endless darkness suited him. For five years, he had been the director and the leading researcher of the Omnia Astra Project—the search for faster-than-light interstellar travel. A monk-like existence with a minimum of distractions helped him focus on the lab’s mission—which finally was coming to fruition.

Rather than risk the media circus waiting to ambush him in the lab commissary, he had the room whip up a quick breakfast of hot chai and a plate of mandazi, fried doughnuts flavored with cardamom and coconut. Kenyan cuisine was all the rage this season.

After a quick shower he dried off with a freshly-fabricated towel, still warm, and called up a mirror in the shape of a holographic half-shell. It shimmered into existence and he examined his face. Meta had no sense of vanity, but he knew that today of all days it would be important to look good for the cameras. His fox-like brown eyes had a strong Asian cast to them, though like most of the population, his bronze skin and blend of features no longer fit neatly into the largely obsolete categories like Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid.

There was no need to shave, since his facial hair would only grow if he gave it permission. His somewhat longer-than-normal hair was his only indulgence—it gave him a professorial air to let it grow down to his collar. Among his straight-laced and close-shorn colleagues, a striking mane of silver provided a heraldic sui generis touch.

Meta tossed the towel into the fabricator. With a soft hum, it swiftly disassembled the fabric while he dressed, choosing shades of charcoal and black to reflect the gravity of the day. He stepped into his shoes as the fabricator finished reweaving the towel into a fresh new lab coat. After one final check in the mirror, he told it to go away.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of his quarters.

A trio of sleek black spheres, each slightly more than twice the size of a billiard ball, hung perfectly still, suspended in the air. They had been waiting for him with unfailing patience.

Don’t look at the cameras, he reminded himself.

The rover drones were for the documentary. Instead of using a neural link to record through his eyes, the producers had chosen to do a holo, preferring a more retro look to give the footage a timeless quality. Meta did his best to ignore the drones as he proceeded down the corridor. Moments later he encountered the first of the station personnel.

“Good luck, Dr. Meta,” the man said earnestly.

More colleagues, technicians, and research assistants smiled and offered words of encouragement as he and his floating entourage continued on their way. The excitement in the air was palpable, and beneath his normally calm exterior even he found himself struggling to tamp down a growing sense of exhilaration.

Reaching the intersection that would take him to the station commons, Meta stopped, listening to the press conference commencing inside. After a brief internal debate, he retreated. Better to face the reporters after the morning’s experiment was a success. He’d take the long way around, past the labs and conference rooms.

He had nearly navigated the entire labyrinth when the first of the rovers, seeking a long tracking shot, sailed past an automatic door. As it slid open, muffled voices came from inside.

Meta paused. Something wasn’t right.

Without warning, a plump little Adélie penguin—its head barely reached his knee—nonchalantly waddled into the hallway. The bird peered up at him for a moment before toddling off back through the doorway.

Meta stared after the bold little bird.

Did the film crew stage this? If so, he wasn’t sure how he felt about the artistic choice.

“Dr. Meta!” a voice called out from the open door. Before he could hurry past, a generically handsome man stuck his head out into the corridor.

Gifford, the resident biologist.

Meta couldn’t stand him.

“Didn’t think we’d see you down here,” Gifford exclaimed, voice filled with artificial bonhomie. He seemed oblivious to his colleague’s frown. “I thought you’d be in the commons with the paparazzi. This is a lucky surprise!”

“Yes, well…” Meta smiled weakly. “If you’ll excuse me, I—”

“Come meet my students.”

“Well, I—”

Gifford grabbed Meta’s arm before he could refuse, pulling him into the classroom where a dozen or so eager young faces turned toward their professor.

“Here’s Dr. Meta, the man of the hour.” At once, the students turned their attention to the startled director and gathered around him. Gifford beamed, adding, “These are the grad students visiting us from University of New Fiji.”

Meta tried to mask his irritation with the unctuous biologist. No sense in taking it out on these chipper young innocents. Besides, he was genuinely happy to encourage future scientists in his field.

“You’re all doing Transpatial Physics?” he said. “That’s splendid!”

“Actually,” Gifford said, cutting in again, “this batch is with the anthropology dept.”

“Anthropology?” Meta replied, surprised. “The Tierra del Fuegians are quite a ways off. Or are they here to study Antarctic physics researchers?” He smiled. “That’s an isolated test group, if ever there was one.” As the students laughed, Meta wondered which of the attractive young grads Gifford had his eye on. At least three appeared to fall within his chosen target demographic.

As if on cue, the biologist sidled up to Meta like the bosom chums they weren’t, putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning in conspiratorially.

“It’s a special academic field trip I helped arrange,” he said, then he straightened. “So Meta, I promised this bunch you’d take time out from the celebration tonight, and join us for a less stuffy party on their expedition craft. You have to see it—it’s an Avialae StratoYacht. Absolutely top of the line—delta-field, multi-pterophase energy wings, just a gorgeous piece of aerodynamics.”

“We’ll just have to see how it goes,” he replied noncommittally.

“Of course, of course—you have to make your appearances,” Gifford said with a wink. “Anyway, we already have you down as our very special guest of honor. I know you won’t let us down.” Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the grad students. “We’d better let Dr. Meta get back to making history. But we’ll all be celebrating with him tonight.” The knot of well-wishers erupted in cheers.

Meta tried for a smile, failed, and gave a weak wave.

I’ll get you for this, you conniving weasel, he thought.

“After today you’re going to be the world’s biggest rock star—at least until the first interstellar starship captain comes along!” Gifford laughed a bit too loudly and clapped Meta on the back just a bit too hard. The director gritted his teeth and tried to exit gracefully.

“Alright then,” he said, nodding to them. “I really must head out. Wonderful to meet you all, and good luck with your studies.” Before he could make his escape, Gifford intercepted him, seizing him by the shoulders and pinning him with a terribly serious gaze.

“Jonathan,” the biologist said intently, loud enough for the drones to pick up his words. “I just want you to know… I’m behind you. No—the world is behind you as you change the course of human history. Now go, my friend, and show us the way to the stars.” The more sentimental students sighed at this touching display. Meta gave a silent, tight-lipped nod, gently but firmly extricating himself from the man’s grasp. He walked across to the door, but paused before exiting and turned back.

“Gifford?”

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“Someone let a penguin out. Make sure you take care of that, will you?” Meta left before the man could respond.

The Kuruman Hills, Northern Cape Province, South AfricaApproximately 1.5 Million Years B.C.Twenty-two minutes before the Event

The brothers’ hunt has been successful. The pair had stolen the haunch of a leopard’s freshly killed gazelle, chasing the big cat away with shouts and thrown stones. Returning to the cave, they kneel by the warmth of the fire and begin to eat, messily tearing apart the raw flesh. Their younger brother watches them, his mouth watering, hoping to snag a scrap.

The two older males ferociously quarrel over a choice piece, each trying to wrest it from the other’s grasp. Slick with blood, the morsel suddenly shoots away, landing into the heart of the fire with a puff of ash and sparks.

Enraged at their loss, they turn on each other—howling with rage, snarling and clawing at each other. Their younger brother pays no attention and stares in dismay at the meat in the fire, sizzling and popping on the red-hot coals. The smell is tantalizing.

His gaze falls on a piece of antler, left from an earlier kill.

Licking his lips, he braves the flames, quickly spearing the blackening chunk and then rushing to a darkened corner with his prize. The meat is hot, burning his lips when he tries to bite it, but soon cools enough for him to quickly devour it.

So delicious.

2

The Vanuatu40,000 feet over the African continentMorning – Six days after the Event

“Help me, Amber…”

He stood in front of her, a tall man in a spectral black shroud, dwarfed by the massive stone paws of the Great Sphinx. Beckoning to her, staring at her with blue-violet eyes, pinpoints of light dancing there like a cascade of stars falling down an endless well…

* * *

Amber woke with a start, hands in a death-grip on the sheets, bedclothes plastered to her sweat-soaked body. Her heart pounded so rapidly, it felt as if it might burst out of her chest. Screwing her eyes shut again, she concentrated on deep, even breaths until her pulse slowed to something close to normal, and she could relax back into the bed.

The mattress beneath her was firm, the pillow and bedding soft and comforting. Eyes still shut, Amber could almost imagine that she was back at her aunt’s house in Romford, getting ready for another day of the science fiction convention. The very thought, however, reminded her of the harsh reality.

Neither Romford nor her aunt’s house existed any longer.

Slamming the door on that horrifying thought, Amber turned her attention to the dream—yet another one about their host, Dr. Meta. Somehow, she’d dreamt about the man even before she’d met him, and even afterward the strange visions had continued. When she told him about them, Meta had no explanation, yet without a doubt they were about him. The eerie blue-violet eyes and the pinpricks of light that seemed to move through them, as if passing through a tunnel.

Only Merlin—as she called him—had those.

Giving up on sleep she sat up and rubbed her fingertips over her face, trying to shake off the surreal images. In the dream he looked like the Grim Reaper, but why was he in Egypt? What did he want from her?

“Help me, Amber…”

“What the hell does it mean?” she said out loud.

“Can I assist you, Ms. Richardson?“

At the sound of the electronic voice, she jumped. The disembodied voice of the ship, gentle as it was, took her by surprise. She’d forgotten it could talk.

“Ahhh… good morning,” Amber replied—and how weird was it to be talking to thin air? Feeling as if she should give the ship something to do, she added, “Um, could you open a porthole for me?”

The Vanuatu’s artificial intelligence obliged. Next to her bed a window appeared like an iris in the cabin walls. She had no idea what material the ship was made of, but it reminded her of an amoeba made of Silly Putty, able to alter its shape and texture. The rising sun flooded bright morning light into her cabin.

“Thank you,” she said, shielding her eyes.

“You’re welcome, Ms. Richardson. Please let me know of any items you might need to have cleaned, repaired, recycled, or created. Each cabin has a nanofabricator for your personal use.”

“Created?”

That was new. Then again, they hadn’t had time for a full introduction to the ship’s capabilities.

“Yes, and for larger items beyond the scope of your personal unit, there is a larger nanofabricator available, as well. Would you like to see it?”

“Ah, no thank you,” Amber said. Her mind boggled at the possibilities, but it was too much to process at the moment. “Maybe later.”

Instead, she looked out the portal at the vista beyond. The airship’s wings amazed her. They weren’t flat, fixed metal like twenty-first century airplanes. These were made of artful, almost fluid projections of solid light, each iridescent panel of energy looking like a feather in the craft’s bird-like wings.

Wrapping her arms around her knees she leaned her head against the window, collecting her thoughts as she tried to catch glimpses of the landscape visible between the passing clouds below.

The days and hours since the Event had been the most tumultuous of her life. Over the past few days, she’d been hunted by dire wolves, nearly burned at the stake by Cromwell’s Roundheads, battled with giant sea scorpions… and worse. A twinge of sadness stabbed at her as she remembered everyone she’d left behind in England. Yet she was still alive, and relatively unscathed. As Merlin had explained, there really wasn’t a future or past anymore. Time had become a jumbled mishmash of shards—different shapes, different sizes, and different times—extending as far as millions of years into the past to nearly two centuries in the future.

If she could buy that, then accepting the sci-fi tech that surrounded her was a piece of cake.

Cake…

Amber’s stomach rumbled at the thought of food, and with it came the siren call of coffee.

“Ship, is it possible to get a cup of coffee in my room?”

“Certainly, Ms. Richardson,” the ship replied. “You can have breakfast in here if you’d like.”

“No, thank you.” The thought was tempting, but she thought she’d rather eat with her fellow survivors. “Just coffee.”

“Would you like cream or sugar?“

“Both, please.”

Without a sound, a blob of ship-stuff protruded from the wall and opened up, revealing a plain white mug, steam rising from the top. The liquid was a rich medium brown, with swirls of cream still dissolving into it, and the fragrance… Amber took a sip and smiled in a moment of pure bliss. She’d never thought to have coffee this good again.

It reminded her of the cafeteria in Star Trek—where the replicator provided whatever its passengers desired. She wondered if the ingredients were synthetic, then decided she didn’t care.

Dad would love this.

Then she shoved that thought away.

Her father, along with her mom, brother, and sister—all of her friends… The odds were so small that any of them had survived the Event that it hurt her to hope.

Her glance fell on a burgundy backpack leaning against the cabin wall. That backpack and its contents were pretty much the only remnants she had from her old life. She didn’t know whether to smile or cry. Instead, she looked out the window again.

Once she’d finished her coffee, Amber picked up her newly cleaned and mended clothes—courtesy of the ship. Breeches and soft leather boots she’d stolen from a Roundhead soldier, a white corset-style top from her Codex cosplay, and the Han Solo jacket her date had been wearing when the world went to hell.

She refused to let herself linger on that memory, either.

Instead, she turned her thoughts to Cam, a first-century British Celt who’d also lost his home and family. He’d defended her and fought at her side since they’d met, and he’d nearly died before they’d gained the safety of the Vanuatu. Suddenly all she wanted was to see him. Breakfast could wait until after that.

Digging into her backpack she pulled out a brush, ran it through her long red hair, and left her cabin.

With the help of the AI, Amber navigated her way toward the medical lab. As she walked down the main corridor, she expected to see lots of chrome, bank after bank of computer screens, and Enterprise-style instrument panels. Yet this felt surprisingly retro.

Cozy, she thought. It reminded her of an Amsterdam houseboat, but roomy enough not to feel cramped. Simple cream-colored walls were warm and inviting, like a library.

Reaching the med-lab, she crossed the glowing sterile field in the doorway and went inside, glad she’d taken care to be quiet.

Cam was sound asleep.

Having seen him very nearly beaten to death, she was amazed to see what Merlin’s medical nanites had accomplished. Like magic, the army of surgical robots—each one no bigger than a blood cell—had performed a medical miracle.

Hours earlier a blotched, torn landscape of cuts and contusions covered his swollen flesh. Before her eyes, where bruises and wounds had darkened his body’s topography, the nanites had laid down delicate links of tiny silver hexagons that made a new map, crisscrossing the fading remnants of his injuries. Then, as now, the transformation fascinated her.

She traced her index finger along the almost invisible strands that stitched his collar bone together. Unable to resist, she ran her hand down across Cam’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. Its strong rhythm comforted her. If she leaned over and stood very still, she could even feel the gentle pressure of his breath tickling the skin of her cheek.

Cam’s body twitched.

3

Advanced Transpatial Physics Lab, AntarcticaFebruary 2, 2219Twelve minutes before the Event

Heading toward A level, Meta continued the final leg of his back route, down several levels through the cavernous engineering and computational wings of the complex. As he walked, he activated his neural comlink to the project control room, letting them know he was foregoing the press conference and would be initiating the morning’s test run. Against the rules, he glanced up at the closest rover keeping pace just over his shoulder, and spoke directly to the camera.

“Can we please, please edit out that business with Gifford from the final cut?”

He descended past the gloomy, almost infernal industrial decks of the station’s pipes, machinery, and inner workings, then through the cybernetics wing, past tall banks of computer hardware that seemed almost cathedral-like by contrast. And then through one final door that brought him back to the main corridor.

Meta peered to his right down the long arc of the hallway, wary of stray reporters. It appeared he had managed to give them the slip. Relieved, he let the drones get back into formation and headed around the bend to the left. The entrance to the reactor chamber lay just ahead and, like a sentry, a somber man stood there waiting for him, hands sunk in his lab coat pockets, grim resolve on his long face. Though younger than Meta, Iskandar Khan was already starting to lose his hair, and carried a weight of great seriousness on his shoulders.

Meta’s jaw tightened.

He’d been afraid this encounter might occur.

“I can’t let you do it, Doctor.” Khan’s voice was unmenacing, but deadly serious.

“Dr. Khan—Iskandar—you know we can’t afford any more delays.”

“You know this is a bad idea.”

“Nonsense,” Meta replied briskly. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. “You’ve seen the modeling, you’ve run the quantum simulations yourself.”

“The anomalies in the chronocrystalline topology,” Khan responded, as cracks appeared in his calm, “the irregularities in the quasienergy analysis—”

“All perfectly accounted for,” Meta said. “Nonlocal correlations encoded in the wave-function of the system allows for fault tolerance against any perturbations, and relativistic quantum states will stabilize against the decoherence effects. We’ve been through all this. We both know the mathematics check out. I’m telling you, we can do this, Iskandar.”

“I’m not arguing the mathematics!” Khan shouted.

Meta took a small step backward, stunned at the outburst. Khan had never raised his voice in anger before. The younger physicist caught himself and took a deep breath to regain his composure.

“There’s no doubt that we can accomplish the space-time warping,” Khan said. “What I’m saying is that we don’t know what else may occur when we do.”

Meta raised a hand. “Listen to me, Iskandar. I understand your concern. I do. I’m grateful for it—”

“But not enough to postpone the trial run.”

“Do you have any idea of the restraints we’re working against?” Meta’s own impatience crept back to the fore. “We’ve delayed the test too long as it is.”

“We’re not ready!” Khan insisted. “We have to understand the anomalies before we proceed.” He pulled his hands from his pockets. They were shaking, balled into tight fists.

“We could speculate to the end of time,” Meta said, “but we’re never going to unearth the answers you seek—not until we take the first step. The time is now.”

“There’s no changing your mind, then?”

“It is a mathematical impossibility.”

Khan laughed, a clipped, ugly sound. “You know, I thought I could reason with you, Jonathan. I should have brought a gun with me.”

Meta stared at his friend in disbelief. “Do you realize you just said that on camera, Khan?”

“You think I’m worried about going to prison?” Khan said, matching his stare with a frightening intensity. “Or dying?”

“You can’t stop this, Iskandar.”

“We’ll see about that.” He pushed past Meta and stormed off down the corridor.

“You can’t stop this!” Meta yelled after him. As Khan vanished around the corner, the director wasted no time activating his neural comlink. “Security, this is Meta. Dr. Khan is in the central hub outside the Primary Chamber. Restrain him immediately.”

4

Shangyu district, Kuaiji, Jiang Nan region, ChinaYear of the Earth Dragon, 3485 (848 A.D.)Eight Minutes Before the Event

Wu the Alchemist sits in his garden and consults his copy of the Five-fold Synopsis of the Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of True Formulation, carefully reviewing the thirty-five common mistakes made in the preparation of immortality elixirs.

Safeguarding longevity had proved unfortunate for a recent series of Tang dynasty emperors—and for the alchemists who had prepared their medicines. All died—the rulers by poisoning, the alchemists by beheading… or worse.

Wu dearly hopes to avoid the fate of his colleagues. Returning to his laboratory, he meticulously weighs out his ingredients. One and a half liang of saltpeter to begin, with three qians of charcoal and two of sulfur, and finally, following his instincts, a pinch of crushed red realgar crystals to balance the yin and yang.

Grinding them thoroughly in a jade mortar, he pours the mixture into a small earthenware cauldron and stirs in a dollop of honey to bind it before bringing it to a low heat.

* * *

The explosion brings the neighboring peasants rushing to Wu’s burning house. They find the alchemist outside, his hands and face blackened with soot, his long white beard and hair singed, like his robe. His house is engulfed in flames and yet he laughs and scampers around like a madman.

“Look! Flying fire!” Wu cries. “I have discovered the hidden essence of fire in earth!”

Med-Lab of the VanuatuSix days after the Event

Gods of my father…

Vicious memories of pain, raw and red—blows from heavy wooden clubs, kicks from tough hobnailed boots, each impact a thundering lightning strike to his face and skull, his ribs and groin. Looking up from the ground, his vision half-blinded by blood and swirling dizziness, his enemies surrounding him. Each black silhouette like the finger of grasping hands closing in on him…

* * *

Cam opened his eyes.

His people the Trinovantes feared many things—sorcery, curses, sickness, starvation, loss of the gods’ favor, loss of cattle—even the loss of honor—but they did not fear death. That was simply the passage to their next life, to be reborn as man or beast, or—if the gods willed it—sail west to their eternal reward in the Isles of the Blest, Éber Donn, Hy-Brasil, and Tír Annún.

Still… had he died?

Where was he now?

Cam lay on a curiously soft table, unclothed but covered by a simple sheet of cloth. The windowless chamber shone with an unearthly white-silver radiance, bright as sunlight on new-fallen snow. There was but a single doorway, an eldritch blue glow swirling within it as if the way was barred by powerful wards. Had he awakened in a palace of the Otherworld, then? Were the Sídhe waiting to take him across the sea to the undying lands?

Something touched his collarbone—he wasn’t alone. The sensation moved gently to his chest to rest above his heart. He opened his eyes and looked up at the figure who was watching over him. Not a Sídhe princess clad in some gown of glittering samite, but Amber, her torn, filthy clothes exchanged for new finery, the smudges of dirt and dried blood washed from her face.

He had never seen a more beautiful sight.

* * *

Startled, Amber snatched her hand away and hastily straightened. Cam peered up at her and, after a moment, smiled.

“Amber…”

Elated, she reached out and hugged him tight, while he tried his best to return the favor, though the effort was awkward. They remained like that forever, one of those moments that crystalized in time, until she lifted herself up just high enough to bring them face to face. Her lips parted ever so slightly. She leaned in…

“Let’s see how our patient looks this—” Merlin breezed through the blue haze of the med-lab’s sterile field, talking to himself. He halted in mid-stride as Amber sat up and Cam’s arms fell back to his side.

“My apologies, Amber,” Merlin said, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t realize Cam had a visitor.”

“No worries.” Amber spoke quickly, feeling her face flush with equal parts mortification and irritation. She tried to keep both out of her voice as she added, “It’s just so good to see him awake… and alive.”

“That it is,” Merlin agreed. The scientist had traded his black robe for a seamless gray dress shirt and slacks. Amber found it almost disconcerting to see him in modern clothing.

He turned to Cam. “Drog yew ginev, Camtargarus.” Without waiting for an answer, Merlin pulled up Cam’s holographic display. It floated above his prone body, a ghostly blue-green holographic doppelganger displaying his internal organs. All the flashing red warnings from before had vanished.

“It looks as if he’s well on his way to a full recovery,” Merlin said, pleased. “We’ll leave the nanites in there a little longer until we’re sure there’s no long-term cerebral trauma, but I’d say his prognosis is excellent.” Amber exhaled in relief and listened while Merlin spoke to Cam for a few minutes in his own language. She loved the sound of the ancient Celtic tribal dialect.

While the two continued what looked to be a lively discussion, Amber discreetly took notice of Merlin’s own recovery. The scientist had himself been critically wounded in their fight with the Roundheads, yet he had risked his own life, undergoing a transfusion and donating his own nanites to Cam. She could still see the latticework of silver honeycomb binding his head wound, but it was fading. Beneath it there was almost no trace of his injury.

“You’re healing up really quickly, too,” she said to him. He placed a hand on his sternum, absent-mindedly touching the site of his chest wound, then reached up to his forehead.

“Thank you, Amber. I’d almost forgotten about that one.” With a flick of his fingers, he called a mirrored disk into being. It floated in midair while he examined his reflection. “I think the stitches will be completely reabsorbed in an hour or two.” Another flick and the plate-sized disk shrank down to the size of a dime, and then disappeared altogether.

Merlin nodded toward Cam. “I told him that the ship’s surgeon could fix that cut across his cheek, but you’d think I’d asked him to cut off his own ears. He refused to allow anyone to steal his precious battle-scar.”

“I kind of like it,” Amber admitted. “It suits him.”

“I suppose it does,” Merlin agreed. “On a related subject, the rest of our group has been outfitted with language implants. I thought the two of you might want to get yours now. It doesn’t take long at all, and it’s safe and entirely painless.”

“How does it work?” she asked dubiously.

He laughed. “It’s much easier to explain to Cam. I simply told him I had a magic spell that would give him the power of understanding other tongues.” He made another subtle gesture, and a flight of a dozen small, smooth objects—each about the size and shape of a guitar pick—emerged from the wall and floated in a slowly rotating ring, awaiting his orders. “To be slightly more precise, this array implants a meta-organic nanostorage unit that your brain’s speech and comprehension centers can access.”

“So it works like a Babel Fish?”

“Like a what?”

“You know, a universal translator—like in Star Trek.”

“Oh yes… Babel Fish, Star Trek, universal translator…” he repeated, giving Amber the distinct impression he was running some kind of mental Google search. “Sadly, it isn’t quite as good as all that. I’m afraid there are hundreds of extinct South American dialects missing, for example. Even so, it will give you a working knowledge of several different languages.”

“That’s awesome,” Amber exclaimed. “How many do we actually get?”

“Well, I took the liberty of selecting a hundred and twenty of what I thought could be the most useful, culled from the last five thousand years or so. You can add more as needed.”

“Works for me,” Amber said, her mind reeling with the possibilities.

“I’m glad you think so,” Merlin replied with a wry smile. “Cam is very disappointed. He wants to know why I can’t give him the speech of birds, fish, animals, and insects.”

“Tough customer.”

“Let’s see if a quick English lesson doesn’t cheer him up.” He turned to the Celt and asked him a question. Cam glanced at Amber with a shy smile, and nodded.

Merlin’s squadron flew down and took up position at various points around Cam’s head. They came to life with a bright glow for a few seconds before flying off again. Cam’s eyes dilated, fluttered, rolled back to show just the whites, then returned to normal—albeit wide with surprise. Amber held her breath, and then leaned in closer.

“Hi,” she said shyly.

He stared at her in silence for a few beats, then gave her a warm smile.

“Hi.”

5

Advanced Transpatial Physics Lab, AntarcticaFebruary 2, 2219Three minutes before the Event

Standing at the entrance of the primary chamber, Meta paused for a long moment, wrestling with his thoughts and the unexpected flare-up with Dr. Khan. Taking a deep breath, he grasped the thick antique steel lever with both hands and pulled down. The great round aperture irised open to allow him in, then closed behind him again.

This was the very heart of the station, a vast open sphere deep underground, large enough to house a sports stadium. Almost two centuries ago, it had been constructed as a colossal neutrino observatory, originally holding more than one hundred thousand tonnes of ultra-pure, demineralized, de-ionized water. The interior surface of the sphere was still covered with hectares of gleaming golden hemispheres arranged in immaculate lines—hundreds of thousands of them, each one made of hand-blown glass and housing sophisticated photomultiplier devices.

The bright points of their light suffused the space with a surreal, breathtaking glow.

A more recent construction, a free-standing catwalk, extended from the entrance and ended at a round platform in the very center of the sphere. The trio of drone cameras shot across the open space in their pre-programmed eagerness to get in position for dramatic long shots as Dr. Meta strode down the precarious walkway.

Reaching the midpoint, he stood perfectly still. Except for an unobtrusive safety rail, the platform had only a small metal stand containing the manual override switches. Even that was unusual when an energy field, hologram, or neural network would do the job, but safety concerns required multiple redundancies and a host of backup safety measures against the unlikely case of a catastrophic systems failure.

From where Meta stood the sphere’s subterranean interior glittered like an unusually well-regimented star field. The morning’s unwelcome surprises were banished from his thoughts as he focused on the task at hand, mentally running through the pre-trial checklists. Five levels above him, in the main control room, all the technicians, engineers, and monitors checked in via their neural comlinks and awaited his signal.

All systems were go.

He took a moment to center himself.

If he was going to say anything for posterity, now was the moment. He had resisted the urge to come up with a speech ahead of time, and now he struggled for words that would convey the appropriate degree of gravitas. Nothing came to mind.

So be it.

He would keep it simple.

Here we go.

Meta raised his arms like a symphony conductor, and the air around him suddenly sprang to life, filled with a panorama of shifting, shimmering, multicolored holographic shapes—bar graphs and indicator lights showing power allocations and operation thresholds, elegant twisting Calabi–Yau manifolds, an electric gridline model of local space in all eleven dimensions, all nestled together in an elegant Fibonacci sequence.

He brought up the containment field, which at this scale looked like a marble-sized ball of dazzling brightness. The actual staging area was a rough corral, no larger than a molecule of benzene, though the energy bound by the field was magnitudes hotter than the core of the sun. According to the readouts, the will-o’-the-wisp at his fingertips employed more power than the rest of the planet combined—twice over.

Next he actuated the quantum micro display. It appeared at eye level, an oval window on the subatomic world. The holographic device was the twenty-third-century descendant of the scanning tunneling electron microscope. With the patience of a watchmaker, Meta sought out and located a whirling pair of subatomic quarks.

“Targets acquired in the operating theater,” he said aloud for the sake of the cameras.

“Roger that,” Main Control acknowledged via the neural link.

“Advancing to stage two.”

“We read you,” Control replied. “Proceed with stage two.”

Meta glanced up to check the evolving shape of the Calabi–Yau display. When its manifold arrangement was optimal, he would give the order.

“Stand by to initiate on my mark.”

“Roger that. Standing by.”

“Approaching optimal…

“Steady… steady…

“Commence warp.”

“Engaging warp.”

Sarajevo, Bosnia-HerzegovinaJune 28, 1914Forty-five seconds before the Event

Along the Miljacka River crowds of spectators, some cheering, some only staring, watch the motorcade carrying the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. He looks regal in his gleaming white military uniform, sash, and plumed helmet. The onlookers struggle to catch a glimpse as his would-be parade races down the Appel Quay at high speed. The drivers are more concerned with bomb-throwers than well-wishers.

The lead automobile takes a turn down a side street and the rest follow, only to come to a halt.

Wrong way.

As the cars attempt to reverse, a skinny, dark-eyed Serbian teenager on the street senses an opportunity. He quickly steps up to the open-topped car, whips out a pistol and fires two shots at Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, killing both.

Advanced Transpatial Physics Lab, AntarcticaFebruary 2, 2219Thirty seconds before the Event

The two particles circled each other from opposite ends of Meta’s viewing screen. Then, as he watched in rapt attention, the space between them began shrinking…

Shrinking…

The two touched.

Meta stared in silence, trying to process the enormity of what he was witnessing. On his comlink, the entire crew in main control began to cheer, the sound beamed directly into the auditory center of his brain. His eyes suddenly teared up, and he began to shake.

He had accomplished the impossible. Today they had successfully sent the smallest thing in existence, an elementary particle, across the span of only a few nanometers—moving almost nothing, almost nowhere. But soon they would be able to send a starship the size of a small country clear across the galaxy—and further.

The voice of one of the supervisors rose over the joyous shouts.

“Quiet down, everybody. We have a situation. We need quiet here!”

Meta strained to make out the man’s words.

“Control, what’s going on up there?” he demanded.

“Primary Chamber, do you copy?” the man said. “We read multiple anomalies within the containment area. Please advise.”

Meta’s brow furrowed. The containment field’s integrity was holding—he knew that because the entire facility hadn’t melted away. Then, on his display viewscreen, the pair of waltzing particles was joined by another pair. Then another. And another.

Shocked, the director looked up at the holographic interfaces. The local Calabi–Yau space-time topology was a psychedelic, undulating wave turning into a three-dimensional Rorschach test, while the holographic gridlines of the eleven-dimensional modeling were tesseracting in a mind-wrecking origami trick.

His stomach lurched as a horrible realization struck him.

Khan was right.

“Shut it down!” he shouted. “Abort! Abort now!” Returning to the micro display viewer he saw that—at the subatomic level—something was happening to the containment field. It wasn’t losing integrity—it was being joined by other fields, and other particles. Yet where were they coming from? The screen began to glow with a deep violet intensity—some form of Cherenkov radiation? At the same time, a torrent of particles began streaming up toward him, rising like champagne bubbles in an endless cascade.

“Primary Chamber, controls are not responding to abort command. Repeat, there is no response to—”

The neural link cut out.

6

Aboard the VanuatuSix days after the Event

Given the choice, Amber would’ve stayed holed up with Cam all morning, but he was well enough to leave the med-lab. She left so Merlin could help him get dressed, and headed for breakfast in the common room.

“Amber.”

Even though she recognized the voice, the hand that fell on her shoulder caused Amber to squawk in surprise.

“Jeez, Blake!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “did I startle you?”

Blake’s BBC British accent almost managed to make the apology sound sincere, but Amber had been in his company enough to know he probably didn’t get why she’d screamed. Empathy wasn’t exactly his strong suit. Still, she responded like the accommodating middle child she’d always been.

“It’s okay.”

Even though it wasn’t.