The Shores Beyond Time Read online

  “Precisely.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “Unfortunately, I need to stay here and continue bringing my systems online. Is that all right?”

  “I guess.” Liam glances back toward his present, toward the control room. “Why aren’t you speaking to anyone else in this way?”

  “I am speaking to them in the only manner they can perceive; by making certain systems available to them. They could never see me like you do. Now, go see your family. I must return my full processing power to functionality for a few power cycles, but I will keep one scanning channel attuned to your frequency in case of any emergency.”

  “You mean you’ll keep an eye on me.”

  “Exactly.” Iris sounds as if she is smiling as she says it, and then she wrinkles out of sight.

  Liam turns and pushes along his timeline, drifting between the moments as if they are display cases at a museum, or perhaps enclosures, like the habitats at the Earth Preserve—alive, and not just around him, but part of him. He is each of these moments, after all, and the closer he looks at one, the more of it he can perceive, as if his point of view is expanding.

  He passes the skim drone, dead in space, sees himself struggling to wriggle out of his space suit before he and Phoebe freeze. He notices now that, as this is happening, a jagged piece of drone fighter shrapnel tumbles by, missing the cockpit canopy by mere millimeters. It could have torn it open, him and Phoebe freezing to death instantly; he actually glimpses them freezing in one of the alternate realities that fan out from this moment in time. There is another reality where he wastes time trying to patch the skim drone battery, only to freeze to death there as well. And many more beyond that. He can’t help glancing at them, but trying to focus on them makes him dizzy, tugs him off course—

  Focus! He keeps pushing, back through the firefight, back to where he was leaving the Scorpius hangar, Mina’s stasis pod beneath him, her sleeping face inside.

  This is the moment. As he first tried on the balcony on Mars, and as he has practiced with Iris, Liam stretches away from his past self, moving into space-time that he did not occupy when he was in this moment the first time. He feels that rubber-band sensation inside, and the wind beginning to blow through him.

  He leaves the cockpit of the skim drone and floats down to the floor of the Scorpius hangar, landing on the other side of the Cosmic Cruiser. Pushes more, feels his feet on the ground and the starliner air filling his lungs—and yet it is also like he is not quite there, like the center of his body, of his awareness, has become strangely hollow.

  He hears a rumble, feels it in his feet—the firefight outside between the starliners and the Telphons. He hears the hum of the skim drone, of him, flying away toward the airlock.

  Liam moves around the cruiser, and is surprised to see that Mina’s pod has opened. She’s climbing over the side—how did she wake up? Liam scans the area but doesn’t see anyone who could have awakened her.

  “Wait!” she shouts, watching him leave in the skim drone, the airlock rumbling shut. She stabs at the beacon around her neck.

  Liam checks his shirt, the impression of his own beacon beneath it, but of course it’s not blinking now; she’s trying to contact the past version of him, who just took off in the skim drone. She’d been awake, right there. I had no idea. The blinking of the beacon would have been hidden inside his space suit. Would that have changed things? Made him reconsider going after Phoebe? Probably not. Besides, the very timing of this supernova is a result of him getting to Dark Star, which makes it vital that all of that still happens the way it happened originally.

  From the shadow of the cruiser, Liam watches as Mina stumbles from her pod. How can he get her attention without freaking her out? She climbs the cruiser steps and he hears her voice inside. Talking to JEFF, it sounds like.

  Liam starts around the cruiser toward the entrance. As he does, his head aches, his insides feeling emptier, the stretching tighter. The sensation of his other self getting farther away from him. The Liam in the skim drone is already thousands of kilometers away. He feels the distance, that wind growing stronger—can’t be here much longer . . . or what? What would happen if he strayed too far from the life he’s lived? He doesn’t quite know, but the thought makes him shudder.

  He reaches the airlock steps and pauses, listening:

  “Okay . . . ,” he hears Mina say, “so Liam is flying after the ship that’s attacking us, in a skim drone? And there’s another supernova?”

  “Acknowledged,” JEFF replies. “Red Line for our safe departure is in twenty-five minutes.”

  “Does Liam know that?”

  “He is aware of the danger, yes.” Liam almost laughs at hearing JEFF say this. Not even close.

  “But he’s going to get killed! You have to send someone after him!”

  “I am afraid that is not p-p-possible.” As JEFF continues, Liam climbs the steps, edging into the airlock. His heart pounds, nerves ringing, and all the while that sense of stretching increases, like his physical heart is somewhere far away, like he is tethered to it by a frayed rope barely holding together in a furious wind. Back in his mind, he sees himself dodging through the firefight in space, trying to get to Phoebe before it’s too late. Now. Or then. Both?

  “There has to be something you can do!” Mina shouts. She sounds distraught with worry. Liam sees her now, standing just inside the main cabin. He wants to run to her, but what will she think?

  “This is a difficult situation by any calculation,” JEFF says, “but it is my duty to act in the best interests of the human fleet as a whole. I will be back in touch shortly.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mina shouts, throwing up her hands, her eyes glistening with tears.

  Flash of pain in his head. Okay, now. It has to be now—

  “Mina,” Liam says.

  Mina halts, straightening, and turns. Her eyes widen when she sees him. Is it fear?

  “Liam?”

  He smiles. And then Mina is running toward him and throwing her arms around him. “You’re okay!”

  Relief courses through him—except she still feels far away, the touch of her arms and hair somewhere beyond that wind.

  She pulls back, eyeing him, like she senses the distance, too. “What’s going on?”

  What should he say? “I know it’s strange,” he tries. “I’m here, but I’m also not. I—I just came to let you know that I’m safe.”

  Mina takes a slight step away. “Came from where? Jeff says you tried to rescue Phoebe—”

  “I did . . . I mean I am doing that, where you are. But . . . a lot has happened since then.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Searing pain slices across Liam’s thoughts. Too far, he thinks. Getting too far away from himself, from his timeline. For a moment, the cabin and Mina become dim, like he’s losing track of them. He’s in the skim drone, getting farther away—

  Not yet.

  He pushes. Focusing. Stretching, just a little more . . . “Listen, I can’t stay much longer. I just didn’t want you to worry. Don’t want Mom and Dad to, either. . . .” He explains about using the supernova blast, how it is timed just right.

  Mina’s eyes narrow. A flash of that old look, when he knew he was driving her crazy, but this time it’s touched with worry. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “I know,” says Liam. “Just tell JEFF, okay? It will work. You’ll make it safely away. That’s all that matters right now.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll be all right. Trust me.” As he says it, the world lights up with white flashes. Can’t hold it. Can’t stay. And a fear: What would happen if he did, if he kept stretching until he snapped?

  “You’re not all right, Liam, I can tell.” Mina wipes at her eyes. “Why does it sound like I’m never going to see you again?”

  So much pain now . . . “You will,” he says, not sure at all. But he can be strong for his big sister, the way she has
so often been for him. “Someday. I hope. . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  OW! “I have to go. You have to go. Tell JEFF what I told you. And take care of Mom and Dad.”

  “Liam!” Mina shouts. “Don’t leave!”

  “I have to.”

  “Then tell me where you are! I’ll come get you.”

  “You can’t. There’s no way . . . just get yourself to safety, okay?”

  “No, I’m going to find you! You hear me?”

  “Mina, don’t.” She is fading, the moment is fading. Can’t . . . hold . . . it. . . . Even though his heart seems a mile away, he can feel it quake. “I, um, I love you. I’m going now. Bye.”

  Liam is yanked from the cruiser, as if into a current, the hangar a blur, back into space, dark with flashes of fire, and that boiling star that will now explode precisely when he needs it to. Past himself and Phoebe in the skim drone.

  Toward the doorway, the black, beckoning doorway, and even though he has already crossed it, the sight of it fills him with dread and once again he must feel its inky waters freeze his insides and consume him in darkness.

  7

  TIME TO DARK STAR FUNCTIONALITY: 15H:16M

  A blur and he was back. Snapping into the moment, in Dark Star, standing by Phoebe, awash in the eerie green-and-purple nebula light through the clear dome. There was Captain Barrie, pointing to the map that floated overhead. Jordy at his controls, Kyla with the rifle trained on the chronologist.

  “Six . . . ,” Jordy was saying, counting down to the missile launch. “Five . . .”

  Vision swimming, stomach listing, head splitting with pain. It was all he could do to remain standing. “Hey.” Phoebe’s hand on Liam’s arm. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Liam croaked.

  “You look sick.”

  “Nah, I’m good. I, um . . . just still off from before.”

  “Why is the link blinking crazy all of a sudden?”

  Liam checked his wrist. The link was alive with yellow and red flashing. Liam tapped the screen and saw the messages: internal clock discrepancy, date field error, overlapping time code. “Just being weird again.” He shut it off but made note of the time: 8:26.

  Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “I know when someone’s keeping secrets.”

  “I—”

  Before he could answer, Jordy spoke up. “Wait, hold on a sec.” He peered at the map floating in front of him.

  “What is it?” said Barrie.

  “Yeah, okay, um, it looks like the system just changed.”

  “Changed how?” said Barrie.

  As Phoebe’s attention turned back to Jordy, Liam stealthily pushed up his sleeve and glanced at the atomic watch. It read 8:49. Twenty-three minutes. Call it a half hour. He’d have to remember to note that on his arm. As he pushed his sleeve back down, he saw that the chronologist was watching him.

  “The portal is realigning ever so slightly,” said Jordy. “A point-zero-one-four space-time coordinate change.”

  “A different future has become most probable,” the chronologist reported. “All living beings in the vicinity of Centauri A will now survive the space-time rifting.”

  “Come again?” said Barrie, his brow knotting. “She’s never made an adjustment before.” He glanced at Liam. “Sounds like your family is going to be all right after all.”

  “I guess so,” said Liam.

  “Strange how that just happened,” Phoebe said under her breath, and Liam could feel her eyeing him.

  A bright light flashed outside the dome, then a series of brilliant streaks: the protomatter missiles. One after another, the twelve fiery objects hurtled toward the portal. It lit up iridescent green as they streaked through.

  Good luck, Liam thought to Mina, steeling himself against a fresh wave of sadness as he imagined the starliners speeding to safety . . . and far away from here.

  “What do the sensors say?” Barrie asked Kyla. “Did we locate the portal mechanism?”

  Kyla held the rifle in one hand and pulled a small tablet from the side pocket of her pants. “The signals are triangulating. . . . It’s at the base of that arm, deck fourteen.”

  “Did you hear that, team?” Barrie said into his link.

  “Copy that, Captain—we’re on our way.”

  “And . . .” Jordy made a gun shape and aimed it at the dot on the map overhead that indicated Centauri A. “Boom.” The dot blinked from yellow to red. “So long, Centauri.”

  “Just like that?” Phoebe asked, biting her lip.

  “Your people will be all right, too,” said Liam, still with a lump in his throat.

  Phoebe shrugged, gazing up at the map. “But it doesn’t mean we’ll ever see them again.”

  The floor rumbled. The portal’s silver circuitry sparked.

  “She’s realigning for the fuel run,” said Jordy.

  There was a series of bright bursts of light, and rows of ships began to rise from Dark Star, from the racks Liam had seen earlier. Each one was long and sleek like an oily teardrop, with no sign of a cockpit. They fired toward the portal in waves, maybe fifty in all, winking through the bright green.

  “You want us to run a salvage sweep this time?” Jordy said to Barrie.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary. Besides, I need you here.” He motioned to Kyla. “You two escort the chronologist to one of those holding cells on deck twenty-nine, while I fill in our guests on the rest of what we know. Jordy, before you go, can you put up the full map view?”

  “Sure.” Jordy waved his hands, shrinking the map he’d been reading. The large version above their heads winked out. He pushed around the spheres hovering before him and selected a new one. Now, a ring of wobbling bubble shapes appeared, each a meter across, hovering at waist height and circling slowly in the center of the room.

  “Okay, come on,” said Kyla, motioning to the chronologist with the rifle. “Please?”

  The chronologist blinked and stepped off the raised area.

  “Do you eat? Drink? Anything like that?” Barrie asked. “We don’t want you to feel like a prisoner.”

  “I do not think there is another way that I could feel, given this treatment,” said the chronologist.

  “Fair enough.” Kyla escorted him toward the corridor, Jordy behind them. As they left, the chronologist eyed Liam again.

  He knows that I’m talking to Dark Star, Liam thought with a nervous twinge. He wondered what else the chronologist might perceive about this place.

  “Now . . .” Barrie stepped into the center of the slowly spinning ring of bubbles, holding out his hands so that his fingers sifted through the lights as they orbited around him. “It’s not easy for everyone to comprehend what I’m about to show you, but with all that you two have experienced, you’re probably as ready as you could be. I remember being your age, and having my eyes opened to the true wonders of the galaxy. But in my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined what we’ve discovered here. It’s hard to hold two ideas in your mind, but I have come to believe that while yes, this place has put humanity in danger of extinction, it is also a gift.”

  “A gift?” said Phoebe. “Are you serious?”

  Barrie smiled. “Again, there are two truths. There is what Dark Star has done, but also what it is going to do, its true purpose: here is at least part of the answer.”

  He whipped his arms and the bubbles around him exploded outward, making a great ring that filled the entire domed space overhead. And yet that ring of bubbles was only the beginning; there seemed to be many more layers beyond these, almost as if they extended past the clear wall of the dome, on and on out of sight. The bubbles varied in size from maybe a meter to perhaps ten meters across, and of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, the three largest ones in the original ring were by far the clearest and brightest, while the more distant ones went from dim to little more than smudges. These brightest bubbles were each filled with millions, billions of dots—galaxies and clusters of galaxies, all co
nnected by a gridwork of lines, and all moving in great spirals and flows within their rippling borders.

  “Is it the universe?” asked Liam.

  “Not just one. Many universes. Each of them generated by Dark Star.” Barrie pointed to the one above and in front of him, one of the three brightest ones. “And that one is ours.”

  “You’re saying this place makes universes?” said Liam. “It made us?”

  “Indeed. Humanity’s second-oldest question: Where did we come from? Here is the answer: a machine that can coalesce matter into an infinitely dense singularity using an artificial black hole, and BANG! Create a universe.”

  “How many are there?” said Phoebe, gazing upward, the amber light of all the swirling starscapes on her face.

  “Technically only these three active ones,” said Barrie. “The Dark Star logs refer to these as iterations 87 through 89.”

  “You mean this place has made eighty-nine entire universes?” Liam repeated.

  “In this sequence. There were prior sequences, too,” said Barrie. “I have not been able to ascertain exactly how many. But according to the logs, earlier universes are continually harvested to make new ones. Of these current three universes, ours is the youngest.”

  Harvested? “How could our entire world be made by a machine?” asked Liam. He thought about pushing back from this moment and trying to ask Iris, but he still felt stretched, unsteady, after visiting Mina.

  “Is it really that hard to imagine?” said Barrie. He ran his hand through the membrane of the closest universe above him, the light playing over his fingers. “Something had to cause the singularity that exploded, creating our universe. The explanations that it was all just chance, or that there was literally nothing before it, have never been completely satisfying. Why do you think theories of some kind of intelligent design have always persisted? There had to be something that caused the spark . . . and this is it.”

  “But if Dark Star made us . . . ,” said Phoebe. “Then who made Dark Star? There were seats in that ship we flew over in. These controls and maps are for someone.”

  “It’s true,” said Barrie. “Someone did build this place. That ship and the metal maintenance suit seemed to be created for beings at least somewhat similar to us. Given the age of this place, I imagine that our creators were a far more ancient race, with vast intelligence and millions, if not billions, of years of technological evolution and scientific advancement. I have taken to calling them Architects.”