Dance by the Light of the Moon (2 page)

Eyan
didn't appreciate being compared to a drillbot for the second time in as many
hours. "Not today."

He
tapped the folder on the table before him. "It appears I arrived before
you could finish your investigation."

Was
he apologizing?

"What
did you learn from the crew?" she said.

He'd
sent them to their quarters to await his decision. Eyan knew the idea of Xavier
committing suicide wouldn't go over well with any of them. He'd been well-liked
and did his job with no grumbling or complaining. He'd been known to put a
smile even on Douglas's face, and as for Rojas—

"They
all have one thing in common. No one has ever met Dr. Hammersmith."

Eyan
blinked—an autonomic response when she found it difficult to understand
matters. "Why should that have any bearing on this case?"

The
proximity scanner bleeped as real-time video appeared on one of the
wallscreens, captured by an external camera. A manned transport pod was on
approach, preparing to dock.

"UW
security detail," Cade said with a nod as if they'd been expected.
"Escorting that
impartial observer
you were promised." He
looked her in the eye.

Eyan
didn't blink. The situation had become clear in an instant.

She
lunged to her feet, drawing the prod from her holster and activating it as she
leapt onto the table with Cade in her sights. He rolled over backward, drawing
his blade from its scabbard and sweeping it through the air in a single fluid
movement.

Eyan's
prod clattered to the floor with her hand still gripping it, severed at the
wrist. There were no wires or sparking mechanical parts, as the old-timer
Douglas might have expected. There was no blood, either. The cut was clean, and
a clear, thick fluid bled out as Eyan crouched atop the table and held up her
forearm to survey the damage.

"We
are more alike than you know," Cade said, his blade hovering in midair at
the end of its arc.

"Tell
me who you are." She clenched her teeth. She felt no pain—only fury.

"This
module can be sealed off from the station and jettisoned in case of emergency,
correct?"

"You
already seem to know the answer." It was a failsafe measure to ensure
operations on the surface continued unimpeded despite any technical
difficulties on the station. The command module had been designed to operate
autonomously.

"Futuro
2, this is Transport Delta 7 requesting permission to dock. Please
respond." The UW detail would not remain patient for long.

"You
cannot hope to escape." Eyan glanced at Cade's weapon, recognizing it as
an antique katana from an extinct culture. She looked at her wrist. She'd been
careless, not realizing how fast he was. She would not make that mistake twice.
"You haven't thought this through."

Cade
stood erect as he sheathed his blade and gave the verbal command code for the
module to separate from Futuro 2. "You may want to strap in."

The
floor lurched, pitching Eyan off the table. She scrambled to her feet and
noticed the screens monitoring the drillbots on the surface—frozen like
statues—had begun to flicker wildly.

"Shall
we dance?" Cade had her by the arm and midsection before she knew it, and
he half-carried her to the main console where two bucket seats were bolted to
the floor. Dropping her into one of them, he landed in the other and buckled on
the safety harness.

Instead
of doing likewise, Eyan made a quick grab for his sword.

"I
will take this hand as well." He gripped her wrist. "If you force me
to."

"You
weren't interrogating the crew—not about Xavier's death. You were—"

"I
have all the passcodes I require now, thanks to their help."

"Not
willingly."

"My
blade holds certain powers of persuasion."

"You
threatened them."

"And
wiped the memory of it from their minds."

That
explained why each of the crew had looked a little lost when they'd exited
their one-on-one sessions with him.

"They
couldn't tell me how to find Dr. Hammersmith. But each of them seemed to think
you would know."

She
tugged her arm free of his grasp and buckled on her harness. The command module
shuddered free from Futuro 2 and drifted a safe distance before its thrusters
ignited and artificial gravity came back online.

"I
don't know where he is."

"You
are the only person on this station who is in communication with the man."

"I'm
his—"

"Daughter."

Her
eyes widened. She would have said
chief of security
.

"Futuro
2—what the
hell
is going on?" the UW pilot demanded. Seeing the
command module float away from the station had to be a disconcerting sight.

"Not
biologically, of course," Cade said. "He created you, and there is a
link between the creator and his creation in every world." He paused.
"In my reality, Dr. Hammersmith is my father."

Eyan
blinked. "You're insane."

"This
is your fifth lifetime. Do you know what that means?"

"My
upgrades—"

"When
the good doctor shuts you down, you carry no memory of your past lives after
you've been restarted."

"I'm
not a computer."

"We
are not machines, you and I, but there is no blood flowing through our
veins."

"I
am nothing like you."

"We
both were created by a genius. But his work didn't stop after bringing new
lifeforms into existence. Years ago, Dr. Hammersmith discovered a way to travel
into the past, inadvertently creating a myriad of parallel worlds where nothing
lies beyond his grasp."

Eyan
shrugged out of the safety harness and stood, glancing at where her prod lay on
the floor. Her stomach recoiled at the sight of her dismembered hand.

"Now
what?" She refused to give credence to any of his crazy talk.

"We
go to him." Cade stood up beside his chair.

"And
then?"

"You
help me kill him."

* * *

For
once, Eyan held his undivided attention.

"What's
going on over there?" Dr. Hammersmith stared at her from the wallscreen in
front of the two bucket seats. "I've received word the UW observer never
arrived on Futuro 2!"

"He's
here, sir. With me." She stood at attention, clasping the wrist absent its
hand behind her back. "It's urgent that I see you. I've…suffered an
injury."

Hammersmith
frowned with genuine concern. "Oh?"

Hesitating
briefly, she showed him.

He
started forward in his seat. "What the hell happened?"

"I'll
need your coordinates, sir."

"You
didn't have to eject the entire command module, Eyan. I would've sent a shuttle
for you!"

"It's
better this way. You can check my systems in person and make sure everything is
in order." She forced herself not to glance at Cade off-camera, but she
could feel him watching her, his blade out of its scabbard and at the ready.
Calmly, he'd told her that her left arm would be the next to go, amputated at
the shoulder, if she failed to cooperate.

"Very
well." Hammersmith's frown remained on his brow as he typed in the
coordinates. The alphanumeric digits appeared at the bottom of the wallscreen.
"What about the situation with—" He snapped his fingers, failing to
remember the young man's name.

"Xavier,
sir."

"Right.
Any progress on that?"

Eyan
bit her lip before answering, "It's been ruled a suicide."

Dr.
Hammersmith's face wrinkled in disgust. "Really. Well, that's too bad.
We'll just have to do a better job of screening applicants from now on. That
psych-eval hasn't been updated in years, I suppose. Who knows what new
varieties of psychoses are running rampant these days!" He chuckled
without mirth. "How soon before we can get back online? Time's money,
kiddo, and right now those drillbots are collecting nothing but moondust."

"As
soon as we return the module, operations will be able to resume, sir."
Eyan's abdomen tightened. Any second, she expected him to see through Cade's
wild scheme.

Dr.
Hammersmith nodded, losing interest. He was a busy man, after all. His eyes
focused on one of the other dozen screens positioned around his desk.
"Then let's hurry things along, shall we?" The wallscreen went dark.

Cade
sheathed his katana. "Well done."

Eyan's
knees felt loose. "I will not help you murder him."

"You
would be surprised what you're capable of—when the tide turns and your back is
against the wall."

"Is
that what you're planning?"

Cade
noticed something on the proximity scanner as he entered Hammersmith's
coordinates into the navigation console. "We have company."

Eyan
brought up the display on a console across the room from him. Keeping her
distance from that sword of his seemed prudent. On the screen, she saw the UW
transport pod moving in an intercept course.

"I
don't suppose this module was outfitted with a weapons complement."

She
stared at him. "Have you no fear of the UW?"

"This
is not my world. I have very little to lose."

She
blinked at that.

"The
same neuro-gel runs through what passes for veins in both of us." He
approached her, leaving the auto-nav system to take them to Dr. Hammersmith's
location. "If you took a moment to focus, you too would notice the link we
share. Besides
this
, of course." He gestured at the subdermal Link
behind his left ear.

"Technology
in your world hasn't advanced beyond ours?" She smirked.

He
halted in the middle of the room. "Much is similar in our two worlds. I
cannot say the same for other realities."

"Why
kill him? What good does it do? If you think he somehow messed up time in the
past, why not go back and kill him
then
?" She couldn't believe she
was speaking such gibberish.

"Time
travel is quite impossible for the likes of us."

"And
hopping into parallel worlds isn't?"

He
watched her, his expression grim. "The space-between-space is dissolving.
The longer these parallel realities exist, the more strain is placed on the
fabric of space-time separating them. I know where the holes are."

"You
didn't answer my question. Why murder him here and now?"

Cade
nodded once. "It's the only way to collapse this reality and restore
space-time to its former strength."

She
narrowed her gaze. "You think Dr. Hammersmith's existence alone keeps this
world intact?"

"It
is a power no man should possess."

Eyan's
lips parted, but at first no sound came. "What about all the other
billions of lives in this world? Are you saying they're not real?"

"I
would not think to define human life. Some say a soul is required. But tell me,
do we have souls, you and I? Would anyone else in this world—if it exists only
because of one man's foolish trips through time?"

Eyan
shook her head. "How could one person create entire worlds?"

With
a twitch of one hand, Cade plucked a loose thread from his sleeve and held it
up for her to see. "You have heard of string theory."

Eyan
crossed her arms, tucking the quick-healing stump of her left wrist into her
armpit. Casually, she glanced at her console. The UW transport was matching
their course and speed.

Cade
ran his fingers along the thread. "There is no way to go back and forth
without it unraveling. Changes made to the past, no matter how slight, create
an alternate space-time for those changes to play out, so that instead of one
thread, we now have two, each thinner than the original—which still exists; nothing
can change that. Without it, the other two would never have been brought into
existence. Do you follow?"

"I'm
no physicist."

"Nor
am I. But Dr. Hammersmith is, and while not a perfect analogy, this made sense
to me when he explained it. I remember the string every time I delete an
alternate Hammersmith and collapse his world—as I twist the strands back
together to make my world stronger."

"Your
world."

Cade
nodded. "The one that matters. Alpha and omega—the first, and the
last."

"When
you end him here, then I will cease to exist as well."

"Yes."

"And
my lifetimes, everything I've done over the years—none of it will matter.
Because in your mind, I'm not real. Nor are the billions of lives in this
reality."

"It
is not my place to quantify life."