Kay Kenyon -The Seeds of Time

KAY KENYON

The Seeds of Time

Clio's eyes snapped up to look at Teeg, standing in the tent door, the perimeter lights glaring

behind him.

"Maybe we're gonna make our own rules from now on, " Teeg said. "We're a long way from

Vanda, Clio. Maybe I like it here. I was hoping you liked it too. "

"What are you talking about, Teeg?"

"You ever think about staying?"

"On Niang?" Clio's heart was sinking like an elevator with the cables cut. "No, I never did. "

"Maybe you should start. "

"Jesus, Teeg. You gotta be kidding. Get a grip. Nobody wants to give up Earth, give up home. "

"Posie does. Liu and Meng too. We've talked. "

Clio looked at him, scared for the first time. "You're crazy. Think they wouldn't come after us?"

"Think they'd find us?"

Then, from a distance, shouts and then gunfire. Teeg bolted through the tent flap, Clio behind

him. She ran for her gun in the crew tent.

Also by Kay Kenyon

leap point

Coming in Spring 1998 from Bantam

Spectra Books

Spectra bantam books TM

New York Toronto London Sydney Auckland

THE SEEDS OF TIME

A Bantam Spectra Book / June 1997

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,

Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and

destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book. "

ISBN 0-553-57681-X Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of

the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U. S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

RAD098765432

BOOK I—GREEN SHIFTING Dive to the Stars 3

Time Management 19

Beyond Eden 65

Metal Futures 159

BOOK II—THE TELLING OF THE TREES

Treasonous Seeds 239

Faster Than Life 285

A Niche in Time 327

So Shall You Reap 383

Stranger in Paradox 441

Epilogue: And Time Will Bloom 497

APPENDIX

The telling of this story is dedicated to my husband, Thomas D. Overcast, with love and gratitude. I am

especially indebted to my agent, Donald Maass, for his inspired ideas and confidence in me. My special

thanks to my editor, Anne Lesley Groell, for her sure footing in literary matters large and small, and to

Donald McQuinn and the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference for mentoring and belly laughs... and

again, to Thomas, for all the long discussions of time travel: maddening, elusive, and exhilarating.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak then to me.

—Macbeth, I. iii.

BOOK I – GREEN SHIFTING

DIVE TO THE STARS

Chapter 1

Clio Finn rested her face against the bulkhead of her cabin, listening to countdown over the intercom,

trying not to pass out. She felt a vein in her forehead throbbing against the cool metal of the ship. Minus

twelve minutes and counting, ship's voice said. Eleven. She had just popped the last of the pills, and already

she was shaking bad, but the ship was primed to go, her metal skin humming, deck throbbing, air charged

with static and the hot, sharp smell of engines stoked to burn.

Then the captain was calling her to the bridge, in tones that said, Now, Finn.

Clio yanked open the cabin door, jammed down the corridor, nearly colliding with Hillis, chief botanist.

He grabbed her arm, stopping her a moment.

"What's up, Clio? You OK?"

"Sure. " She flashed him a wide smile, then dropped it. "Maybe this Dive's got me spooked, " she said.

"Maybe I got a bad feeling about this one. "

He pulled her in close to him, looking into her eyes, and whispered, "Jesus, Clio, how many of those

things did you take?"

"Just two, " she lied, searching his face for some comfort.

He shook his head, released her.

Clio raced for the bridge, taking the ladder to the flight deck two rungs at a time. She emerged onto

Starhawk's bridge, now dim for pre-Dive countdown, readouts pulsing on every side. Captain Russo was

busy with command central on visual. She nodded at Clio. Clio -nodded back, slipped into her chair. Her

copilot, Harper Teeg, seated next to her, raised an eyebrow at her.

Clio faced him. "Had to take a pee, OK?"

"I thought you girls had iron bladders. "

"You haven't learned anything new about girls since seventh grade, Teeg. "

"Just waiting for the right teacher, Miss Finn. " His eyes lapped her up in the usual way. Didn't matter

they were about to Dive back four hundred thousand years, didn't matter she was sick as hell and the only

one on board that could steer this crate. Things like that didn't faze Harper Teeg.

Clio strapped herself in, clipped her headphones on, pushing them into her short, thick auburn hair. She

scanned the instrumentation, everything looking good, panels surging to go. Listened to the countdown

droning of command central, still coming in clear from Earth's largest space station, Vanda, though eleven

thousand kilometers distant from the ship.

On another channel, Captain Russo found time to say, "Lieutenant Finn, you don't leave the bridge

during countdown again, you copy?"

Clio turned her head around to her, acknowledging. "Yessir. Sorry, sir. " Russo wasn't half bad, Clio

thought. Just stiff as hell, a lifer with Biotime. No grey in mat short black hair, though. If Russo felt the

pressures of command, she buried it deep in her stocky body.

Countdown was looking good, going smooth. Until Ellison Brisher patched in from Vanda Station, his

puffy face filling screen number two.

"You got a problem, Ellison?" Russo asked, her voice even, her face scowling at this last-second

interference from the company.

"Not at all. You are on track, Captain. Little jumpy aren't we?" He popped a small candy in his mouth,

moving his jaw sideways, as though chewing cud.

"Yeah, I'm always jumpy when I take a little trip like this. "

Brisher smiled. "Just wondering how Clio's doing. "

Russo shook her head. "She's on task, Ellison. You want to talk to her?"

Brisher looked surprised. "No. Not necessary, just backing you up, Captain. Anything you need, just

ask. "

"Thanks, Biotime, we are ready to fly. No problems. " In a tone that said, And keep your goddamn nose

off the bridge.

Clio listened to this exchange, her stomach clenching up, a trickle of sweat starting to cut a path down

her hairline. Ellison Brisher was out to get her, she figured; whether he had anything on her or not was a

question. Didn't want to think about what Biotime's chief operations officer could do to her if he chose.

Screen two blanked out as station systems separated from the ship, leaving them in communications

blackout as Starhawk gathered speed, reaching for Dive velocity, reaching for their destination, Crippen's

Planet.

Clio gripped the chair arms, preparing for Dive. Except there wasn't any way to prepare for Dive.

Other Dive pilots had their rituals, customs, superstitions. Clio just dove, letting the time stream take her,

fighting the fear, the hallucinations, riding the sheer joy of it. Every other poor bastard on the ship in

dreamland, unconscious, depending on her, a Dive pilot with a dozen too many missions, and now with the

shakes to prove it.

Russo's voice: "Approaching Dive. Thirty seconds. Finn, you ready?"

"Ready, sir. "

Teeg flashed a grin at her. "Night all. Wake me with a kiss, this once, Finn. "

"Kiss my ass, Teeg. "

"Baby, I been dreaming on it. "

Russo again: "Cut the chatter, we're heading into Dive. Helm to you, Finn. "

"Yessir. " Clio throttled the main engines up to 100 percent, felt the ship lurch and reach for transition

speed, threw the pair of switches controlling the time coils. Sensed, then felt, the field envelope the ship, hit

the flight deck, take her reeling into the hidden underbelly of the space-time continuum.

And she was Diving. Was Diving down, leaving the common universe, felt her consciousness floating

just in front of her forehead, but her thought process, her coordination, they remained normal if she

remembered to engage them. The ship lights pulsed way down, cranking up the stars to laser intensity as

Clio watched through the viewport. Teeg's head slumped to the side, he was out, they were all out.

Starhawk was changing dimensions, from space to time, sweeping her up in a slow, rolling wave that for

some obscure reason left only a select few conscious and able to fly. And Clio Finn was one. Used to be,

she thought. Now I gotta have a little help.

The dimension change triggered a nasty ripple in space-time. Clio almost thought she could see the

ripple fen outward from the ship, but well clear of Earth, got to stay well clear. Ripple or no ripple, you

want to avoid your own historical past—avoid changing it, changing yourself. No matter how much you'd

like to redo it. No second chances. Just fly by the book, girl.

She leaned forward, cradling her stomach, felt that old warm brick forming there, saw the lights haloed

around the control panel, and the air on the bridge turned thick as water at thirty fathoms. Gotta ride this

pony. Going to be fine. Dive fifty-five, going to be fine.

Clio's eyes flicked over to the comm screen, all static now, picking up only the electromagnetic impulses

of the galaxy. The static ebbed and surged, creating patterns if she watched long enough—sometimes

faces, a fleeting Rorschach test. Clio yanked her attention back to the control board, trying hard to stay

tuned, get the job done.

The right-side controls in front of her were for aerospace, the left for Dive. She jockeyed both sides.

The Dive pilot rode the controls through Dive, and, coming up on real space, flew the ship like a normal

pilot.

The contrails of the stars striped across the viewport, tracing the bright orbits of their endless paths, as

the Milky Way rotated around its center. Starhawk was picking up time speed, the past rushing by. Time

before she was born, before Mom and Elsie and Petya. Time before the good old U. S. of A. Time before

time.

Clio focused her eyes on the chronometer, watched the numbers scroll up, six thousand years, going on

seven thousand, now crawling to eight thousand. She scanned the readouts for chunks of matter the galaxy

might throw at the ship, hurtling along faster than mere humans were meant to travel. Gotta stay awake,

stay awake.

Teeg was radiating colors everywhere his skin was exposed. His face had become fuzzy, as though the

surface of his skin wasn't always in exactly the same place. His handsome, squarish face had lost its

perpetual leer, looking lost and serene. Trusting to wake up in the right time and right place, like a child

committing himself to sleep, to the night.

If I should die before I wake...

Clio snapped back in a hurry. You were getting a little mesmerized there, old girl. Was not. Were too.

Ran a systems check. What the hell time was it anyway? She laughed out loud at that; heard a voice,

high and bell-like. God, was that her laugh? Damn well better be. Don't get spooked now, girl. You got a

job to do.

The numbers slipped by the face of the chronometer, counting the years, the thousands, the hundreds of

thousands, until time was meaningless, too enormous to matter, to count. There in the blackness of

interstellar space, moving back in time meant less about time than it did about space. The solar system, the

whole galaxy, was rushing headlong through the universe, while at the same time the galaxy was rotating

around its own center. Going back in time, you found yourself surrounded by the stars that had preceded

Sol on its swing through the galaxy. Travel to the stars achieved without faster-than-light speed, a simple

backdoor approach called time travel. Humanity's only bridge across the monstrous distances of space. A

limited bridge, but better than nothing. Vandarthanan's mathematical vision of the mechanics of time had

opened up space travel without the need for the speed—or near speed—of light.

A Dive ship was needed. Both a spacecraft and a time-travel device. Send it out far from Earth to

avoid paradox risks. Send it back in time, not forward in time—at least not past the Future Ceiling, that

current date you left on Vanda. But back in time, in search of an Earthlike planet, one that had once swung

by on its immense sweep along the Orion arm of the galaxy. Sometimes Clio thought of it as a

merry-go-round, where those rearing horses, nostrils flaring, plunged ahead of her, but only a moment

before occupied the very point on the circle, the very point where she and her red-saddled mare now

thundered by. Space was like that, a little. Galaxy, solar systems, planets, all thundering by in a headlong,

circling rush to nowhere. And with Dive, humanity could hold on and ride...

With only a few flaws.

Like the Future Ceiling, forbidding all trespass. Like Dive pilot burnout, where you push a Dive pilot

past certain tolerances and neurons burn out, flaring incandescent, leaving your highly trained pilot a few

bricks short of a full load. Took twenty-five to thirty Dives, or thereabouts. Then the companies brought in

your replacement. Hey, show the fellow around, will you?

She leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply, remembering where she was: Starhawk, Starhawk,

hawk of the stars, circling, circling, watching for its prey....

Clio jerked up in her chair. She had dozed off. Gods! She had lost it this time, gone over the edge, gone

under with the rest of the crew. Jolted awake by the dimension swing. They were stopped dead in space,

the chronometer reading steady.

Jesus, how long had they been sitting here, everybody blacked out, no one in charge... She punched in

visual, scanning the telemetry: and there was a planet—no, a moon. Crippen's moon, by God. Practically a

bull's-eye in Dive terms and damn lucky they didn't hit it. Even considering their hopes to get close on the

reasonably short Dive, this one was definitely snug on the mark.

Then a shattering Klaxon alarm sounded as a massive object loomed into view, headed directly toward

Starhawk.

An asteroid, caught in the moon's faint gravity, same as the ship herself. They were about to get

acquainted, real fast Clio hit the thrusters, swinging the ship around, and punched up the engines to full,

moving Starhawk out of the path, but not before the blast from the ship's jets hit the icy asteroid surface

and kicked up a rushing plume of water vapor. The eruption hit the ship, sending a shudder through the

cabin. She heard the wrenching of metal down amidships, and then they were plunging toward the large

moon itself.

As Clio struggled to bring the ship under control, she heard a groan from Captain Russo, always the

first to recover from Dive, men her angry command, "Bring the helm over to Teeg!"

"Teeg's still out, Captain. I'm working his tumble—" Starhawk was tumbling headlong toward Crippen's

moon, five rotations a second. Clio fought the controls, her hands flying over the board, slowing the tumble,

but still they were headed dead-on for the moon, out of control. Voices were screaming over the comm, but

Clio rode the ship, shutting them out. Gotta ride this pony, goddamn it, gotta ride it...

Then she got the nose of the ship up, and they were skimming across the horizon of Crippen's moon,

tugged at by the thin gravity, but breaking away in a mad rush for space.

Clio moved them well off from the asteroid, scanned the visual display one more time, saw that they

were well clear and safe. Then she leaned into her sick bag and threw up.

"Helm to you, Teeg, " the captain was saying as Clio passed out.

In her dreams she could hear the hull resound: metal scraping on metal. Maybe she wasn't dreaming,

just delirious, if there was a difference.

She woke up to see Doc Posie leaning over her, taking a blood-pressure reading. Posie was only an

RN, but the crew called him Doc; a real doctor wouldn't fuss over a blacked-out Dive pilot.

Clio felt the ship shudder. She pushed up on both elbows. "What's going on, Doc?" Then, putting the

situation together, swung off the bed, trying to find the floor with her feet.

Posie pushed her back down. "Just calm yourself, Clio. "

"Calm myself? I'm so calm I'm barely breathing. Is that the lander separating? They going ahead with

the mission?"

Posie nodded.

"Jesus. "

"You don't need to swear. "

"I didn't swear, goddamn it. " Posie was so squeaky clean, in thought, word, and deed. "How long have

I been out?"

"About ten hours. "

She swung her feet around again, ran into Posie's thick hands gripping her shoulders, shoving her back

onto the pallet.

"You're not going anywhere, so lie still, " Posie said. He grabbed her arm harshly, pressing the

blood-pressure band against her skin.

"Who says? I'm copilot on this ship, and I'm going to the bridge. "

Posie's face zoomed down to fix her with a stare. "Captain says, Finn. So lie still or I'll trank you good.

" Posie's hands were shaking, his face redder than usual.

"OK, don't have a coronary. " She lay back down, deciding to try charm instead of push. "What's the

damage, Doc? I gotta know. I feel awful. " She worked her face into a knot of anxiety.

Posie sniffed, turned to put the pressure band in a drawer, drawing out the moment. "As much as I've

heard, we've got a crunch starboard side as big as a bathtub. No cracks or leaks, but they're still checking.

""Still checking! Jesus Doc, we just launched the lander, and we don't know the full damage to the ship

yet? Has Russo lost her mind?"

Posie grabbed his clipboard, stalked to the medlab door. "You stay here and rest or the captain'll chew

you up for dinner, you copy

Finn? She doesn't want a pilot with the wobbles on the bridge. "

"Goddamn it Posie, you all wobble big time every freeping Dive!"

Posie glared at her and left, slamming the door.

Clio put her head in her hands, smelling her rank uniform, dunking what a mess, an unholy mess she'd

made of the mission. A crew out in Babyhawk, and Starhawk crumpled up amidships, with maybe a lethal

crack or systems damage. She heard the final separation of the lander, as it eased out of its position, where

it had been nestled into the side of Starhawk, its shipside forming a seal against the launch bay opening.

Then a rumble as the ship's bay doors closed the gap left by Babyhawk.

God, I passed out, passed out in Dive. Rivulets of sweat ran down her sides as she let the thought

sink in. God, oh God. Biotime would jerk her back so fast it'd make her head swim. She'd get her

retirement real fast, the whole ex-Diver package, a lump sum and maybe a slot as a tech on Vanda Station,

so she could hang out near the spacers and shoot the shit with the other old Divers. An unwelcome voice in

her head summed it up: It's 2019, you're twenty-seven years old, and you 're finished, sister.

Or if they weren't feeling generous, she'd go Earthside, and she didn't want to think about that, oh no.

Then she noticed the bandage strip on her arm. Jesus, a blood draw. They'd taken her blood while

she was passed out, a kind of medical rape. Anger stirred, propelling her off the pallet.

She combed every square inch of the medlab cold hatches. No blood sample. She started to go through

the hatches a third time, stopped herself, sat on the bunk, holding herself and trying to stop shaking.

She punched up Hillis' cabin on intercom. "Hill. I'm in medlab. I'm lonely. " In a tone of voice that said,

I'm horny. You never knew who might be listening, so give them an earful, let them imagine Hillis and her

together like a couple of rabbits. She had, many times.

Hillis answered, "You OK?"

"Come find out. "

"On my way. "

A few minutes later he swung into medlab, leaned against the door. He watched her, a half smile

edging the side of his mouth. Hillis was lean without being thin, honed by a high-strung temperament. He

was good-looking if you liked high foreheads, sharp features. Clio did. Built for speed was how she thought

of Hillis. His wiry, light brown hair was cropped close, like all the crew's, but still it was wavy, or maybe

coiled. Bright blue eyes watching Clio with sardonic patience.

"They took a sample. While I was asleep, goddamn it. "

"What do you want me to do?'

"Find it. It's not in here. I looked. "

He nodded. "OK, I'll look around. Should be easy in all the confusion out there. "

"What confusion?"

"One of the launch bay doors is jammed. "

Stomach beginning to shred, awash in acid. "Jammed?"

"Dented from the collision, they figure. " Her face must have been easy to read. "Don't worry, they'll

fix it. "

Clio was shaking hard by now. He drew her into his arms. "Those pills are poison, Clio. "

"It's not the pills. Just scared to freeping death. "

"I'll find the sample. Don't worry. "

She called up a fairly steady smile. "Who'll worry if I don't?"

"Nobody. Nobody does it better than you. " He turned to go.

"I love you Hillis. "

He paused at the door. "I love you too. I'd hate to see you kill yourself with that shit."

"I'm going to quit. "

Hillis looked at her a few moments. "We're both outlaws, you know. "

"We're only doing what we have to. I need Recon, Hill. I haven't got anything else. "

"Those pills aren't going to pull you through. Nobody lasts this long, Clio. Nobody lasts fifty-five Dives.

""Shit. You're counting too. Maybe I'm the exception, Hill, maybe I'll last. " She flashed him a grin.

He shrugged. "Maybe you will. " Then he was gone.

Clio forced some food down and tried to sleep some more. She ended up lying on her bunk, eyes wide

open, wondering how much trouble she was in and how to lie her way out.

Before her watch—way before—came a sharp command over the intercom: "Lieutenant Finn to the

bridge, ASAP. "

Clio's boots hit the deck. She tore out of her cabin, ran down the corridor, shaking the cobwebs out of

her head, her heart pounding.

The captain and Teeg were intent on the monitors, the bluish light from the panels making their faces

look sickly.

Russo's voice was raspy. "Babyhawk's turned around, Lieutenant. Aborting mission; we got

casualties. "

Casualties. God. Clio slid into her chair.

"Helm to you, Finn. Teeg, get off the bridge. You're too damn tired. "

He nodded, mock-bowing at Clio, and raking her with those hungry eyes, before swinging himself down

the ladder.

"Captain, what's the situation with Babyhawk?" Clio was buckling in, noting the approach of the

lander, moving in on Starhawk.

"An explosion. An hour out toward Crippen. We don't know for sure, but we think there was a leak in a

fuel transport line. Got touched off by an electrical spark. Three wounded, sounds like critically. And the

bay door is still jammed half open. "

The nightmare continued, everything going wrong. Then there was Shaw, Babyhawk's pilot, on comm,

moving into docking range.

"Hold your position, Babyhawk, " Clio told Shaw, "we have a little delay here. "

Russo was on the comm, getting tech reports; growling at bad news, barking something about the

teleoperator maneuvering system, in case they needed to work on the ship surface. Which techs were

saying wasn't needed.

Shaw's voice came crackling into Clio's ears. "You just get your little delay greased up and dumped

out, Lieutenant, I got casualties here, and they're getting real quiet. You copy?"

"Roger. We are jumping on it, Commander. We're gonna bring you in. "

The earphones crackled again. "You're going to bring us in? That's real good news, Starhawk, now I

can sleep. What's the goddamn problem out there, Finn? Over. "

The captain nodded at her, and Clio answered, "The bay doors won't respond, Babyhawk. We're

working it. Another five minutes and I'm going out there and rip the damn things open with a crowbar. "

Faintly, Babyhawk responded. "My God. " Then: "I got a man dying here, Starhawk. Cut the damn

doors off, if you have to. "

Clio looked to Russo, got a slow shake of the head.

"Negative, Babyhawk, that's last resort. We're working this. Stand by. "

Nothing then from Shaw. Clio felt the silence like a fist in her gut.

An hour later they cut the door off after all, with crew hating to use torches, suited up as they were in

the unpressurized landing bay. Then Babyhawk locked on, and they hauled out the casualties. One man

dead, Lieutenant Runnel printed on the breast pocket: a helpful clue since most of his face was blackened

with burns. Two biotechs burned real bad, one of them with blisters for eyes, both unconscious. Posie took

charge of them, looking like a man in way over his head.

Hillis was there, too. Leaned close to Clio, whispered, "I dumped the blood. It's gone. "

Heading home, Clio got Starhawk well into Dive, then sat by the two wounded men in medlab. She was

patched in by remote to bridge control, listening for any alarms, half hoping for some.

Clio watched the life leak out of her two crewmates. In Dive, you saw things like that. Life exiting like

spilled water.

If you die on a Space Recon Dive, deep in the past, the event doesn't set up a paradox. No one in the

present is affected. Your children, for instance, don't disappear. Of course, Diving in inhabited space could

produce dangerous paradoxes. Anything that you changed would set other changes in motion, in geometric

progression, ultimately threatening the very future from which you came. But in the wilderness of space,

the Dive was ninety-nine percent safe from encountering human history, from creating paradoxes. So the

theory went.

Clio kept her deathwatch. When her crewmates' faces were dim as the pallets they lay on, Clio knew

they were dead.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Chapter 2

They docked on station deep into Clio's sleep period. She heard the ship whine down into position, the

metal on metal of docking, the comm system come alive throughout the ship, footsteps as the crew got

ready to off-load.

She grabbed her duffel, already packed, and moved through the airlock behind Teeg. Once in the

station corridor, he turned around, blinking against the glaring lights of day period.

"Hey Clio. We're going to have a drink. How about a drink?" Teeg looked tired, but he looked fine,

damn if he didn't. Big brown puppy eyes, a sculpted face saved from drop-dead beauty by a nose broken

once too often. Still, a handsome dog, and always ready to jump her.

"I'm going to bed, Teeg. See you tomorrow. "

"Need any company?"

"I meant sleep. Going to get some sleep. " She threw him a big smile, enough to cushion the refusal.

Teeg was thin-skinned. She headed down to quarters, feeling Teeg's eyes pull her clothes off as she

walked. Truth was, she might like some company. Just not Harper Teeg.

Then she noticed someone waiting for her. Shit Timeco crew. The competition. Called himself Starfish

Void in the quirky way of Divers.

"Hi, Void, " Clio said, pumping up a smile.

"Hey, Finn. " He scuttled to catch up with her as she strode down the corridor. "Heard you had a bad

Dive. " He looked up at her, watching for a reaction. "Heard you lost crew. That right?"

"That what you heard?" Clio shook her head, keeping the smile pasted on.

"Heard you got five or six dead, that right?"

"We might have had some trouble. Can't say for sure. " She looked at him pointedly. "Wasn't my shift.

"Starfish looked hurt. "Don't have to bite my head off, Finn. It's all over station, anyhow. "

Clio looked down at him, a full head shorter than she, fidgeting under her gaze. "Sorry, Void. I know

you're just worried about me. "

"That's right. I was worried. So you're OK, then, huh? Dive fifty-six and still going strong I guess?"

"Dive fifty-six already? Gee, I lost count. You keeping count, Void? Not nervous, are you? You're up

to what, thirty or so Dives?"

"Thirty-two. "

Clio peeled off to a connecting corridor, turned to wave him off. "You shouldn't keep count, Starfish.

It's bad luck. " She turned on her heel and left him standing there, looking confused.

Clio unclenched her teeth. Could have told him some juicy details, girl. Could have given him more than

a brush-off. Might need a friend or two, come the hearing.

Vandarthanan Station opened up before her as she walked, its giant circle containing a web of inner

circles, connecting corridors—and a honeycomb of offices, labs, and crew quarters.

Vanda Station was the new generation of station, catering to ultratech employees, used to the

amenities. A scoured refuge from the Sickness gripping Earth. Clean air, a few green pockets, gyms, video

centers, and for senior techs, family quarters. You could have sex with a coworker without a scratch test,

that was how good the Vanda screening process was. You could drop in on VandaPet to visit the

communal pets. Stroke a cat, release tension, lower blood pressure. If you got sick, even a cold, you went

into Retreat with full sick leave, and if you recovered you went back to work, no stigma at all.

But what Clio needed right now was a bed. She passed a cluster of space pilots in HQ Section, a great

crossroad where a big

spoke to the station's inner rings joined the main corridor. The group, mostly men, stared at her as she

passed.

Clio knew what they were thinking: Not a real pilot. But paid three times what a space pilot gets. Even

the young ones get premium pay. Eighteen-year-olds, some of them, paid like royalty. Then there's Clio

Finn. Thinks she's the Queen of Sheba. Biotime thinks so too. Maybe the Crippen Dive will change all that.

Clio smiled at them, at their guarded faces, pale above their green Recon uniforms. Be good, Clio, she

told herself. Don't power up the rivalry. And watch your backside.

One of the women nodded to her, a gesture of sisterhood. Don't snub Clio Finn in front of the men. But

Clio knew if she met that pilot in the station bar, she'd stare right past Clio, no mistake.

She passed Quarantine Section, with its heavy doors, windowless walls. You could guess what lay

within Quarantine Section: giant, exotic growths, the baobabs of other worlds; or delicate

what-passed-for-ferns, or the merest alien fuzz in a petri dish. The universe produced plant life in

abundance. Some of it was Earthlike, variations on the themes of leaf and chlorophyll, pistil and stamen.

Some of it was a lethal variation. These died a quiet death in Quarantine. And even these were mourned,

having traveled down the aeons, down the tracts of space to replenish the greying Earth. You dove for

pearls. And some of them you threw back.

She passed the Leery Room, in Free Section. Inside, Clio knew, was housed the biggest catch in Space

Recon's twelve-year history. The room itself had become a habitat, with dirt paths winding through a

lowland rain forest, both familiar and strange. It was green; it had things that might be called trees, a few

soaring almost to the thirty-meter-high ceiling. There were groundcovers, vines and flowers. The flowers

were the strangest, their stalks kaleidoscope tubes of color, their tips sprays of leaves.

The haul was from Leery, a planet that had been discovered three years ago, just ten years after Sri

Sarvepalli Vandarthanan had

described the mechanics of time travel. Leery was the haul they had dreamed of; when it emerged from

quarantine on Vanda Station the previous year, the crew doubled their bonus. Up until Leery, Recon found

minor caches on minor planets; this was the jackpot. Leery's planet had passed this way three million years

before Earth, and now the vast rotation of the galaxy brought Earth into the vicinity Leery had once known.

A ship went back and got the haul. And the crew retired on that bonus— except for the Dive pilot, who

couldn't, by contract, retire.

No matter. He burned out two Dives later anyway, in the manner of Dive pilots, brief creatures that

they were.

Clio found her assigned cubicle in crew quarters and hit the bed, still dressed. She cut the lights, waited

for sleep to take her.

After a few minutes she jabbed at the console, opened the viewport, and watched the stars on

nightside. The port window clouded dark as her cabin turned toward the sun, then cleared again to display

the nightside stars. Count the cycles, the rotations, lose count, cycle off to sleep.

She lay watching the stars, watching for shooting stars, though none existed here, watching like a child

on her back in the grass. Summer nights in North Dakota, when Mom and Elsie finally went to bed and all

the house lights were out, you could see those stars plummet down, sometimes in a long swift drive like

your best shooter marble racing into the playing circle.

She woke with a start. Ellison Brisher was sitting on the bunk next to hers. Ellison Brisher. Christ.

"Know how to knock?" She struggled up onto an elbow, turned on the light.

"Always a pleasure to see you, Clio. Even when you're in a bad mood. " Brisher was wearing a

one-piece grey jumpsuit, lending him an elephantine look. He peered at her from tiny eyes.

Clio sat up. "What time is it?"

"Nine. Breakfast is over. You hungry?"

"No. Thanks. "

His eyes flicked to the zipper on her togs, where it was pulled down from her throat. She zipped up.

Cocked her head at him. Get to the point.

"This Crippen affair is a bad business, Clio, bad business. The Bureau's called a hearing. You're the

main witness, I'm afraid. Chocolate fizz?" He pointed a roll of fizzes at her.

"I'm the main witness? What about Russo?"

He shrugged, popped a fizz in his mouth. "Ah yes, Captain Russo. We'll question her too. Good idea.

You're grounded, by the way. " He leaned closer, thrusting out the fizzes. "Sure?"

She stared at his round, tranquil face. "You can't ground me, Ellison. You need me. "

"Well, we all have our fantasies, Clio. About being needed, et cetera. " He stood slowly, squeezing out

a long breath. "I gave up on that fantasy a long time ago. That's why I'm in charge and you're not. "

Clio kept her face neutral. "That all?"

"No. We've got a new man on crew. Want you to meet him. Name's Peter van der Zee. Goes by Zee.

Astrophysicist. Replacing Ahrens. "

"Too bad. I liked Ahrens. "

"And you'll like van der Zee. Zee. He's young, and quite brilliant. A prodigy, in fact. Youngest

astrophysics graduate ever out of Princeton. " Brisher looked down at her a long time, perhaps waiting for

her to squirm. She didn't. "Try to watch out for this kid, would you do that?" he said. "The crew likes you,

they'll follow your lead. He's young, maybe a bit of a hotshot. Take him under your wing, can you do that?"

"What am I supposed to do, make sure he gets naps?"

Brisher's face grew tight around his eyes. "Whatever it takes. "

"If the hearing doesn't go well, guess you'll have to find someone else to baby-sit Zee, huh?"

"You worried Clio? You have a reason to worry?"

"Not if I get justice, Ellison. I had nothing to do with those deaths. "

He swayed gently from one foot to the other, thinking. "Ah yes. Justice. I'm sure you'll get your share.

"After the door closed Clio lay back on her pillow, drenched in sweat. Brisher would enjoy handing her

over to DSDE if the hearing could prove she used illegal meds. He admired DSDE. The Department of

Social and Drug Enforcement was cleaning up the country. Queers and drugs are destroying our youth,

spreading the epidemic. He'd see her in that light.

They had been clearing the dinner table, she and Mom and Elsie, when it happened. It was

Clio's turn to help. Petya was in the living room already back at work on the clock he'd taken apart.

Her younger brother liked to fix things. And he could fix anything. Retarded in most ways but that

one.Elsie lit a cigarette and started running water in the dishpan. She always smoked when she did

the dishes. And then Mom was standing stock-still. She hissed a warning, and they listened for what

she heard, but Clio never knew what it was. Mother swung around, grabbed Clio's elbow, pushing

her to the stairs. "Run!" she cried, her face wild, and then at Petya, "Petya, now!" And then she ran

for the door and threw the bolt, yanked Petya to his feet, and then there were footsteps on the porch

and Clio was already in the spare room upstairs, inside the closet and fumbling at the window.

They always left the window open far enough to get your fingers under it to raise it. A large

empty spool of thread kept it open, the sash long since broken, and despite the bitter cold winters

they always left it open that far. Clio heard the front door smash, and still she waited for Petya. But

finally he was beside her, and she held the window for him and he got onto the roof, all six feet two

inches of him, and then into the big blue spruce tree, just like they'd practiced a thousand times.

Now on free time, Clio went hunting for Hillis in his usual hangout, Observation and Mapping,

Biological Survey Section. Here, Vanda's great science deck was shared by dozens of science teams and

staffed around the clock by clusters of serious, white-shirted analysts seeking knowledge and fodder for

their next publication. Monitors hugged the curved outer wall, scrolling and blinking in a hypnotic visual

array.

Clio walked through the astronomy section, where screens showed not stars but numbers, a desiccated

version of what she saw on every mission. A few techs looked at her, then through her, turning back to

their work. Clio put a strut into her walk. Go ahead, stare.

Up ahead, Hillis wasn't alone at his computer station. She'd have to share him today. As she walked up

to them, the young man turned and saw her, poked at Hillis, who was bent over the screen. Must be Zee,

she guessed. He was tall and slender, as though grown in too little light. Hillis glanced up, waved Clio over,

then went back to his keyboard.

"You're Clio. I can tell, " the young stranger said.

"How can you tell?"

He pursed his lips. "Subtle clues. " And he smiled. A nice smile, helping to soften the impression of his

colorless face and ears a little too big. Clio liked him instantly, despite Brisher, despite Ahrens. But she

always made up her mind about people instantly, it did no good to analyze, either way you were bound to be

wrong half the time.

She smiled back. "Well, they said you were smart. "

"Now I can see why they call you the Red Queen. " He was looking at her in frank dazzlement.

This time Clio didn't wince at the title, found herself genuinely smiling. Felt good, a real smile. "And

you're Golden Boy. Zee, of Princeton. " She held out her hand.

He grasped it, released it hurriedly. Clio suppressed a hoot. My God, too hot to handle! The kid's

sweet, real sweet.

Hillis looked up at them, taking it all in, looking pointedly at Clio with a knowing smile. Means what,

Clio wondered. Jealous? Maybe. But of who?

"They say you're going to prove that Dive pilots don't have to burn out, " Zee said. "You're going to be

the first. "

Clio's mood crashed in a hurry. "Why burn out when you can burn up, I always say. Live fast, Zee.

Didn't they teach you anything worthwhile at Princeton?" She took the seat next to Hillis. "How's old Gaia

doin'?"

"One day at a time... " Hillis was punching the keyboard, shifting the colors on the map screen, deep

into the Hillis crusade.

"What's Hillis up to today, Zee? You got it figured out, or is all you care about protons and stuff?"

"Well, technically, most everything has protons, so I like to think of myself as a generalist. But to

Kay Kenyon -The Seeds of Time

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: