Starlight's Edge (15 page)

Her vision cleared as her eyes began to function again. She was lying on her back on smooth warm paving stones, and the silhouette bending over her was tugging at her shoulder bag. Instinctively, she clamped her arms around it. The man continued to tug, jerking Zee off the stones. Standing, she saw that she was taller than he was, and younger. With a final, strong pull, she wrenched herself free. The shoulder bag came with her, but the closure opened and her cube tumbled out with a clatter. She lunged for it, but the man kicked it away, then grabbed her wrists and held her.

“Let me go!” Zee cried. Her translator chip must be working, she realized, because the man tightened his hold in response and shouted to a companion she hadn't seen.

“Arrius! Fetch that!”

A young boy wearing a worn tunic, rough sandals, and the metal collar of a slave darted to retrieve the cube.

They were standing in a street, a busy one, with pedestrians and carts flowing around them. The air smelled of bread and garlic and food frying somewhere close by. From the tunics, togas, and sandals people wore, Zee decided she was in the right place, or close to it. A woman went by in a palanquin carried by four men, with two more men dashing in front to push people out of the way. Its orange silk curtains, held back with yellow cords, fluttered in the breeze, and the woman riding inside looked wealthy. She wore a tunic of pale turquoise and had gold bracelets on both arms. Her lips were painted, and her hair was woven into an elaborate fan-shaped structure on top of her head.

“Help me!” Zee cried as they went by, sure that the woman would order one of her men to free her. Yet the palanquin flew by without even a glance from the woman.

The crowd was so dense and noisy that no one seemed to notice Zee, or care that she was being roughly held against her will. One man did slow his steps, but only to smile broadly at the man who held her and say, “You've caught a pretty one this time, Secundus! Send for me when she goes on auction!” Then he too disappeared into the crowd.

“A slave!” the man called Secundus said, appraising her and tightening his grasp. “Now, there's a profit I hadn't thought of.”

Anger flooded Zee's body, and she lashed out. Her foot struck Secundus's shin with such unexpected force that he let go of her, yelping in pain.

“My father the senator will hear of this!” she cried, meeting his eye with what she hoped was a look of highborn fury.

For a split second, the man's pupils widened with fear. Then, with a curse flung back over his shoulder—“May you die in ash and flames!”—he fled down a shadowy alley, the boy and her cube along with him.

“Come back!” Zee cried. “Please, Secundus, that thing's no use to you!” But she knew her words were futile, her voice drowned out by the noise of the street before it could travel far.

Brushing the dust from her clothes, she backed up just in time to avoid a mule cart piled high with earthenware vases. The street was busy to the point of being dangerous. Carts collided, goods spilled, people shouted at one another without slowing down. Was it like this all the time? There was a jangle in the air. Not a noise but an agitated vibration in the crowd. It was the same vibration she used to feel working as an empath in the hospital on Friday nights, the night things were most likely to go haywire.

Zee walked along the crowded sidewalk until she found a deserted alleyway. Leaning against a wall, she opened her shoulder bag and took inventory. She'd left New Earth without even thinking of what she'd do when she got here, or what she might need. She still had her computer, lip gloss and some eye shadow, toothpaste tablets, nanomints, and two glowsticks. That was all. And since there were no shops that had scanners to read her fingertips or retina, she had no money and no identity.

And, without the cube, no way of finding David. Her chip tracer was resident in the cube's memory. She and David had entered their codes in each other's cubes, one hundred characters each, long alphanumeric strings that were purposely impossible to remember. No one at Time Fleet would be looking for David, she reasoned, so he probably hadn't had Mia take his chip offline. She'd counted on using the cube to find him. But now Secundus and the boy Arrius had the cube. Of course there was always the possibility that David wasn't here at all, that Mia had changed the coordinates and sent her to some other town or some other time. But Mia had had the chance to get rid of her completely, without a trace. Wouldn't she have done that instead?

That was one bright spot, Zee supposed. Mia was looking less and less likely to have a hand in the things that had gone wrong on New Earth. Which left just Mr. Sutton and Paul as suspects. And it was Paul, she realized, that she'd suspected all along. Which made finding David all the more urgent. If David was here. If time hadn't folded unexpectedly and landed her in a different place.

Clearly, she needed a plan.

“No money,” she said aloud to the empty alley.

But she did have currency, she suddenly realized. Something she could barter. Ever since the day she'd met Melisande weeping in the park and turned her life around with one of Mrs. Hart's diamonds, Zee had taken even more care never to leave the diamonds behind. She touched the cord around her neck to make sure they were still there, safe beneath her clothes. She'd never heard of a society that didn't value diamonds. If she could find Secundus and Arrius, she could trade to get the cube back.

There were hours of daylight left, hours to search for them and for David. She'd need some clothes to blend in with the crowd, and something to eat. And, if she didn't find David by sunset, she'd need a place to sleep. She was already time-lagged, and doubted being out after dark was safe.

She walked until she found a woman selling clothing and cheap adornments from a market stall.

“I have no coins, but I have this to trade. Paint for the face,” Zee said, opening her palm to reveal the eye shadow. The woman shrugged, unimpressed. “Face paint is cheap,” she said, indicating a row of small earthenware pots. “I already have plenty.”

Zee pulled out the lip gloss and showed the woman how to apply it.

This time, the look on the woman's face was blissful. “Ah,” she said, smiling and running her tongue over her lips. “Feels so good. So soft.”

The woman held up a dress of fine cloth, two large squares of fabric sewn together at the sides almost to the top. Each square reached from neck to feet, and the idea was to pull it over the head, pin the tops of the squares together at the shoulders, and rope in the fabric with a belt at the waist. But the item the woman was showing her was too fine and bright. Zee didn't want to look wealthy enough to attract robbers. She sorted through the items for sale and picked a coarser fabric in dull beige, along with a simple belt and plain brass pins.

“Even trade?” she asked, and the woman nodded. She gathered her purchases and at the last minute pulled out the packet of nanomints and offered the woman one.

The woman popped the mint in her mouth and understood at once. “Ahhh, breath cold,” she said. “How much?”

Zee hesitated. How much? She had no idea what to ask, or how much anything she needed would cost. “Enough to buy food and a night's lodging,” she said at last. “I'll give you the face paint too, and these clothes I'm wearing.”

The woman motioned to a screen Zee could change behind, and when she emerged, the woman placed a few coins in her hand in exchange.

Zee went away satisfied. Now that she had money, she wouldn't have to use any of the diamonds for food. She knew it was against the rules to leave material objects in another time zone, but everything she'd left would be consumed or destroyed long before the archaeologists got around to excavating the city. Besides, if Time Fleet Command found out that she'd traveled to the past unauthorized, she'd be in so much trouble anyway that a few mints and some makeup would hardly matter. For the first time, she considered the consequences of what she was doing. If discovered, she'd be deported to another era. Not a happy era, either. She remembered their interview at the Reykjavik base when they arrived, and David agreed that he would be personally responsible for Zee. She had to find him and get them both home before anyone but Mia missed them.

*   *   *

She'd been searching for David, Secundus, and Arrius for over an hour when the paving stones suddenly shook under her feet. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to make her stumble. An arm came out of the crowd to keep her from falling. Zee found herself looking into the eyes of a man who, she guessed from his cream-colored toga bordered with scarlet, was one of the city's important citizens.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Just Neptune rattling his trident.”

“Neptune?”

“Neptune, god of the sea, god of horses, god of earthquakes. He's been rumbling for days now, so much so that some are fleeing his wrath. But we are his children, and Neptune never stays mad at us for long.”

Earthquakes? That would certainly explain the nervous energy in the air. But—
earthquakes
? Didn't they sometimes signal volcanic activity? And wasn't it supposed to be at least two years before the explosion? Wasn't that around when Paul had been aiming for?

“Good sir, I am a stranger to your town. Could you please tell me what month this is?” Zee hoped she seemed appropriately respectful, rather than someone so ignorant that she didn't even know what month it was.

“It is the third week of August.”

“And the year, sir?”

“Eight hundred and forty.”

Zee gasped. “
Eight hundred and forty?
”

“Of course, child. It's been eight hundred and forty years since the founding of the empire.”

Zee felt a surge of relief, recalling that the Roman empire came long before modern year numbering began. The ground shivered again, and her relief came to an abrupt end. She thanked the man and hurried off, her need to find David more urgent than ever.

*   *   *

Zee searched until the last slivers of light melted into the shadows of the street, and firelight from torches and small oil lamps began to light the shops. It was useless to continue searching tonight. The darkness, with its stabs of torchlight, created harsh shadows that made it impossible to see anything clearly, and she was hungry and so tired she could barely put one foot in front of the other. She bought bread from a bakery and a small grilled fish whose oil she licked greedily from her fingers. Then she found a lodging house and paid for a night's rest with more coins.

*   *   *

She ate the last of the bread in her room. It was coarse and heavy, and it took a lot of water to wash down, but still she preferred it to the nano bread of New Earth. Tomorrow, she would have to sell one of the glowsticks if she was to eat, but the coins it would fetch should last for a few days. Which, if her suspicions about the volcano were true, might be all the time she had left. She lay down on the bed and opened the computer beside her. When it hummed to life, she touched the voice activate dial. She was much too tired to use the keyboard.

“I have questions,” she said.

“Please ask.”

Briefly, she explained what had happened and where they were. It felt good to talk to someone, even a computer.

“I need to find David, and my chip tracer was in my cube. Can you locate him?”

“I have no chip tracing capacities.”

It was the answer Zee expected, but that did not ease her disappointment. She closed her eyes and thought, but it was the computer who spoke first.

“Would he have his computer with him?”

“I think so.” It was hard for Zee to imagine David leaving it behind.

“Do you know his password?”

“Yes.”

“Ask me to log on to a remote network, then enter his name and password. You'll have to keystroke them in. Voice can't activate password clearance.”

Zee followed the instructions and waited for what seemed like an eternity. At last she had her answer.

“That computer is offline.”

“Does that mean it's turned off?” Zee asked.

“It means the computer has been compromised and is no longer operational. It's on, but its identity has been wiped and overwritten. It won't accept the password you gave me, and there's a flyeye firewall.”

“What's a flyeye firewall?”

“A firewall that doesn't just block, it sends back. It generates meaningless data that can fill a network. That is why it took me so long to retrieve the answer to your question. There was much useless data to overcome.”

Zee felt utterly defeated. She lay on the low bed, staring at the ceiling. I'll never find him, she thought. Not in time. I'll never see him again unless I can find Secundus and that cube.

You don't need the cube. You have everything you need, dear. You have your heart and your art. That's all it takes.

It was Mrs. Hart's voice. But what did she mean about heart and art? Zee felt she had nothing. Nothing that would help her find David, anyway.

Zee couldn't bring herself to close down the computer. The glow of the screen was comforting, and she didn't want to be alone in the darkness. She stretched out her hand to touch the keys with her fingertips.

“May I speak?” the machine asked.

“Of course.”

“I think you are overlooking the good news.”

“What's that?”

“Even though the computer was wiped, we were able to touch it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that computer is not back on New Earth. I do not have the power to reach that far. The computer is somewhere close to us in time and space.”

“How close?”

“Impossible to calculate exactly. I retrieved no coordinates. Based on the signal strength, I would give a high probability to this time and very near in distance.”