The Gate to Futures Past (32 page)

T
HE HOVENY were frozen: in shock, or horror, didn't matter. There was no time to try and get sense from any of them, let alone demand they land the transport or take him down in anything smaller. Morgan tore through the hangar, searching for rope or cable, his mind already sending an urgent summons.
Barac!

Faced with what Sira had just done? He'd take the bet a Clan popping from thin air wouldn't be noticed. Not that he cared.

He had to get down there—

Barac appeared, stepping forward without hesitation to put a hand on Morgan's arm. No need to tell him where to go . . .

. . . Morgan sank to his knees in what had been a field, grateful it was no farther—the softened land could have sucked them both down. He squinted to see, coughing with Barac as dust filled their lungs. Heavy stuff, settling quickly.

Sira knelt between the pillars, her hands at her sides. Her hair hung straight and her eyes were shut and she was smothered in colorless dust.

The blue was gone. From her. From the pillars.

Not from the world.

As they struggled toward her, Morgan couldn't stop staring at what now filled the valley beyond. A building—a Hoveny
Concentrix building—stood touching the sky. Dust flowed down its curved sides like water. More boiled along the base.

The building dwarfed those in the tunnel. Dwarfed any he'd heard had been discovered in the Trade Pact. He'd watched with the rest, appalled as it thrust up through the ground, setting off quakes that stripped tiles from the town and toppled trees.

At rest, the structure was pristine, as though newly built.

Alive. That, too. Blue chased along edges and gleamed from windows. The uppermost openings shone with white light, hinting at inner chambers.

His boot stuck, and Barac helped pull him free. “Sira did that?” The Clansman's voice shook.

“And more.” The Human had been there as the report came in, the Hoveny relaying it close to hysteria. “There's another on the moon.”

Barac looked up, as if he could see it. “How?”

“The null-grid must connect them.” He'd ponder the implications of that later. No casualties here, unless some hearts had failed among those watching. The moon—there'd been construction workers, researchers. Didn't sound good.

Change. The
taste
of it boiled in his mind. This wasn't over.

They reached Sira to find the blue wasn't completely gone. It ran over the soil and caught on bits of dying plant in fits and flashes, impossible not to step on, so Morgan didn't try.

“Are you sure you should—”

Morgan ignored the rest. He put an arm around Sira's shoulders, the other behind her knees, and lifted, cradling her against him. Her head lolled back; unconscious, not that he'd needed to confirm it. Their link remained strong, but her mind—was elsewhere. He gazed down helplessly.

“Morgan!” When he looked up, the Clansman gentled his tone. “Jason. Where do you want to go?”

They'd no choice. “Emelen Dis.” Who “hadn't” known what to expect.

What other lies had he told?

Sira first. “Up there,” the Human said, staring up at the transport. “Where we can care for her.”

I
'D DONNED A SPACESUIT and gone outside the
Fox.
Where I was now felt similar: weightless, drifting, queasy.

A line, of sorts, kept me in place. Normally, I wouldn't have thought being tied to a stranger—more accurately, a face and perhaps arms—could be a good thing. Here, where nothing extended in all directions, and none?

Having come far enough
<>
to have shape and form of my own, I'd have held on to him if I'd hands.

I'd gained a torso and head, yes. With a neck and eyes, since I could bend the former to use the latter to see the rest. I supposed the head was a guess on my part.

<<
Pay attention.>>

<<
I'm trying to.>>
My voice! It sounded like his now. <<
What have you done to me?>>

<>

More here, I thought grimly, meant less there—assuming I'd a body left on Brightfall.

Morgan was not—NOT—going to be happy. His first stop: Emelen, getting answers—no, he'd be with me, the part of me still there. Worried.

Then he'd go after Emelen.

Unless I'd failed the test and this was the result. Being stuck here for good.

<<
Pay attention.>>

<>

His face appeared, hooked nose to mine. <<
Not to what I say. To AllThereIs!>>

Not “all there is” but one word: “AllThereIs.” A name? A state of mind? A—before he could say it again, I spoke, or voiced, or whatever this was that sent words flying into nothing. <
>

How? To what? Was it literal? I stared over his nose into his eyes, hunting details. Paying attention.

Lashes, long and dark. Spots on the eyelids. The eyes themselves, dark-pupiled, gray—no, green, a green brightening with notice. Myriad lines—wrinkles. From squinting, not so much age. He wasn't as old as I'd thought.

I drew back, or he did. Black hair, streaked with white. Bushy eyebrows. The high brow I'd seen before, narrow shoulders I hadn't. Behind those shoulders—

It was as if Morgan painted a scene while I watched, each stroke multicolored and textured. A wall took shape, then shelves. The shelves filled with containers, grew labels. Beside the shelves, draperies, dark blue, beside them a door, arched at the top.

All at once, I was out of nothing and into a room as real as any I'd ever seen.

Nor was I alone. A Hoveny male, with a now-familiar face, sat at ease in a well-stuffed chair, his legs crossed. He put aside what looked like a clipboard, as if I'd disturbed him in the midst of work.

He gazed around the room, smiling. “Better than I'd expected, Sira. Well done.”

I staggered back, having grown legs and feet, and dropped, more than sat, into a chair like his. “Who are you?”

His smile disappeared. “The first to make a terrible mistake.” He bent his head. “I am the Founder.”

“So you're one of them.” I was too disappointed to be tactful. “Dead.”

The smile came back. “Not exactly.”

I felt it important to establish some rules. “I know I'm dreaming.”

The Founder finished pouring a dark steamy liquid into two cups and handed me one. “In a sense, so am I.” He took a sip, looking around the room. “I haven't brought myself here for a very long time.”

I'd never been here, making the concept of dreaming slippery at best. “Why now?”

His eyes rested on me. “A Watcher thought you'd listen. Is that true?”

A Watcher. So I'd finally met one in the—what wasn't flesh. It—she had named herself Taisal, Aryl's mother, my great-great-grandmother.

Aryl?! She hadn't come here with me, I realized, feeling bereft. Wherever here was. No, she hadn't been
pulled
here by the Founder. “Between,” he'd called it. Feeling clever, I asked, “We're in the M'hir, aren't we?”

Then knew I wasn't, for as I spoke, the room was consumed by that familiar
roiling darkness,
and to my horror, I felt myself
dissolving
—

<>

The room. The Founder. As if he were a locate, I concentrated . . .

. . . and was back. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

The Founder seemed unperturbed. “Those of NothingReal who can
touch
Between have their names for it. M'hir isn't one I've heard. A gift. Thank you. Now. Will you listen?”

“Yes.” I took a sip, only to find nothing in my mouth.

“Pay attention,” he suggested, drinking his with pleasure.

I stared into the cup. The color was right for sombay. If it were sombay, it would—I could smell that heady aroma. After a cautious sniff, I lifted the cup and sipped again.

My mouth filled with my favorite morning drink, at the temperature I liked best, with the hint of sweet I'd sneak in as an indulgence. I swallowed eagerly and took another mouthful before the stuff could change.

The Founder raised his cup, tasted. His eyebrows shot up. “I like this. What do you call it?”

Dream rules, I told myself. “Sombay.”

He nodded as though committing the name to memory. “Another gift, for which I thank you.” The cup vanished. “Your time here, like this, is limited, Sira. The Watcher who brought you expends her strength to make it possible. That—” he pointed to my arm, “—will warn us when you must go.”

I looked down. For some reason, I was wearing my spacer coveralls, their blue faded but at least clean. On my wrist was a band of white light. Small flecks of dark green were floating up to its surface; those that met, merged, dimming the light. “How—?” Didn't matter. “I'm listening.”

“It isn't me you must hear. This will be difficult for you. Those who leave NothingReal and come Between—”

“Who die,” I interrupted, determined to be clear on that point. As for his calling my reality, “NothingReal?” That name fit here much better, but I'd no inclination to argue.

“If you wish. Those who die there, arrive here. But you, Sira, are an anomaly. You remain in NothingReal. You visit here. You can pass no farther on your own. I've agreed to guide you, on one condition.”

“That I listen.” I looked him in the eyes. “I promise.”

All at once, I wasn't sitting with a cup, but standing with the Founder, his hand in mine.

And we weren't in a room.

But in space.

Space. I use the word, but this isn't part of any universe I know, or only now I see it.

Stars burn and planets spin around them, matter dances and energy
swirls, moving the fabric of everything—of AllThereIs—in a song defining existence itself.

There are singers both infinitesimal and infinite. Themes. I hear some: Love. Imagination. Hope. Remembrance. Laughter. Others are mysterious and fascinate. All are part of the song; all create it. To pay attention to any strand is to add my voice—

I have none, here.

I hear my silence spread like grief, silencing others. Protectors notice, slip toward me through the fabric like gathering clouds. They howl instead of sing, howls growing loud and louder till they deafen all else. Howls I've heard before, but didn't hear at all.

For they aren't names, but they were.

And it isn't rage, but triumph.

I listen. I listen and I understand at last the dreadful truth and wonderful the Watchers tried to tell us. Tell me.

Changespice.

We don't dissolve in the M'hir. We step
Between,
guided by the howls of the Watchers, to be welcomed, here.

For we are the Stolen.

And this is our
home.