Daughter of Time 1: Reader (14 page)

“Gardeners? Like we are their plantings?”

“Exactly, Ambra. I’m glad you seem to understand. Yes, we are the young saplings the Gardeners planted as seeds a long time ago in the little incubators we call solar systems.”

My head was swimming. “Thel, what does all this mean?”

“It means the galaxy and the Dram are small things in a much greater Universe, and this should give us hope.” Thel paused, and then continued in the smiling tone I had come to recognize. “But you are tired, and have had enough for today. We’ll take this and other things up tomorrow.”

21

Imagination is more important than knowledge. 
—Albert Einstein

Nothing good ever lasts, someone once said.

I would add that even something that is okay is bound to get snatched away, too. I’m sorry to be such a cynic. I’ve just seen too much.

My time on the Xixian ship was not pleasant, was not what I wanted, but it was a time to heal, a time during which I learned much, when deep seeds were planted that would soon grow. It also turned out to be a short time, after which decency was once again shattered and evil stamped its ugly print upon everything in its path.

The attack came just as we were preparing for our next hyperjump. I sat in one of the navpods, helmet in place, getting ready to guide the ship as we approached an Orb in orbit around a star system with thirty-three planets, if you can believe that. It was mostly a computer-controlled run through the system of mostly dead worlds, each surrounded by automated mining equipment extracting materials for shipment to systems that supported life. We were maybe ten minutes from close approach to the Orb. I closed my eyes for the moment, resting my mind.

I had been making some progress in my studies the last week. More and more, I was allowing myself to face the visions of the future that lay just in front of my awareness. Mostly, it had been nibbling at the edges, predicting highly controlled events in the context of their measuring devices. But recently I had begun to reach beyond this. Seeing the future has much in common with seeing the past, but the past is not relived. When you see the future of your surroundings, and then watch it play out in front of you, it is at first extremely unsettling. In fact, if you glance just on the edge of the Now, you can recapture the ability to see the world around you, even in blindness. Almost in phase with the Now, it was useful for me. The further from the current moment I glanced, the more out of phase my vision was with what was happening, and yet the future would quickly become the Now. Like beats of sound when the tuning between two strings is just slightly off, my consciousness was battered by the rhythm of events – seen first in my mind, experienced next in my present. It is hard to explain, but it was fun to play with as I got the hang of it.

Just this day I had found myself creeping even farther forward, discovering events several minutes before they happened. I noted it to Thel, wondering if my knowing could lead me to alter the events I’d seen, and then wondering what I would see when I gazed ahead again.

“Paradox is only evident in a simplistic view of time, a linear view of time. Space-time is decidedly non-linear, recursive in manners your scientists have yet to appreciate. Your visions themselves propagate waves through space-time, Ambra, which themselves alter what you see, like your swimming in the water changes the shape of the water in which you swim.”

The memory of it prompted my mind forward again. Part of me was tired from it, like using a muscle unaccustomed to exercise. But I was also a little bit drunk on the wonder of the experience, and this thirst for the experience pushed me past the fatigue. I extended my awareness around us, even outside the ship and forward into the future.

My screams brought several Xix running to me.

“Thel. Where is
Thel
?” I called out, my breathing heavy.

“Ambra, Thel is not in the control center. We may send a message if you wish. What is wrong?”

I could barely speak, the shock of my vision like a blow to the stomach. “Oh God…Danger. Something…coming. The ship…attack!
Thel
…”

“The ship is in danger of attack?” repeated one.

Suddenly, alarms erupted around the control room, the bright lights of the room went dim as emergency defenses were activated. A Xixian pilot called from one of its stations.

“Dram warship. Armed and closing.” The Xix switched to their own alien language for more rapid communication. I still didn’t know much about their technology. I assumed that they had some sort of defense shield or the like. But really, as so often in my journey from Earth, I was ignorant and helpless. All I could do was wait.

One of the Xix came up to me. “Ambra, we are trying to make a run for the Orb. Please be ready to make the jump. The Dram ship is firing on us, and we may not make it.”

“Firing? I don’t feel anything.”

“You will not unless our defenses fail. We are absorbing tremendous energy from a determined attack of a fully armed Dram battle cruiser. There is only little hope. Please be ready.”

I nodded and slipped the helmet on securely. The ship was dashing madly, flying dangerously through this obstacle course of planets and asteroids, heading directly to the growing presence of the Orb. The String we needed was clearly visible, and it would be easy to guide the ship, even at this speed, into its path. It would only be a few minutes at this rate. I was sure we would make it.

I felt the ship lurch horribly, artificial gravity failing, circuits exploding around us as power surges ran through the system. Our course maintained, however. Only moments to the String.

A Xixian voice spoke through my navpod. “Ambra, it is no use. They have hit the Time Turbines. We have normal mobility, but we cannot make the hyperspace jump.”

My heart was stuck in my throat.
The Dram!
What would they do? “Will they destroy us here?”

“No. They hit us there to prevent escape. They could have destroyed us. Now, we are trapped in this system and cannot evade them. They want us alive, Ambra. They will board us.”

In my mind the vision of the future I had glimpsed poured through my awareness. “Thel…”
No!
I shut my mind to the terrible visions. I couldn’t let them board us. I couldn’t let it happen. Thel said I could alter visions by my knowledge.
I would!

The multifaceted and layered glory of the Orb still approached. I stared at it, drawn by my fascination and my desperation. Thel had said that they were portals, that we used them only in a crude and clumsy way. Portals to be opened how? I probed the layers, focusing all my thought on the Orbs, the layers, the interlocking pieces, tunnels in space-time that mixed and dove and intertwined like some sort of multidimensional maze.

“A labyrinth…”

“What was that Ambra?” the voice asked through the communication system.

“Steer us into the Orb.”

“What? Ambra, that is impossible. It is certain death.”

“
Please
…trust me. I can see….
doors
in the Orb. There are paths through the labyrinth…”

“Ambra, no one has ever approached an Orb straight on and survived. You have great vision, but this…how can we know?”

“Please! If we don’t, many will die! It’s the Dram!”

There was a moment of silence. Then Thel’s voice spoke over the others. “Ambra, the Dram will have us in minutes. Are you sure about this?”

What could I say? Of course I wasn’t sure! I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I only knew I had to do something. I
had
seen
something
—structure in the Orbs, and paths. Only I did not know the end point. Could we be lost in a space-time maze forever?

“Thel – I see through the Orb. I can try to guide us through. Give me control of the ship. Let me try.”

“OK, Ambra. Better we die in the Orb than at the hands of the Dram. Or worse. I had hoped for more before death. If only to see Xix a last time.”

And then, like suddenly understanding a geometry problem for the first time, a light spread from my time-sense image of Thel to me, and from me, to the Orb. The light seemed to set a series of tumble locks in motion, one after the other falling into place.
And I saw!
Clear as a trail in the forest, I saw a way through the maze inside.

Right at that moment, I felt the ship’s control pass to me, and with a sudden burst, I plunged us directly into the Orb. The sphere seemed to brighten dramatically, as if some button had been pushed, activating it. And then, like the most insane roller coaster ride you could ever imagine, we hurtled through one space-time wormhole after another, darting through countless dimensions in directions that were impossible, perpendicular to everything, that could not exist in the human mind. Faster and faster, as if the Orb were infinitely deep within its finite spherical enclosure, the ship followed the path I directed, the path illuminated for me through means I did not understand. I could focus on nothing else, I could sense nothing around me, only the diving deeper and deeper into the bowels of light and space, bending around a circle yet finding ourselves somewhere new.

It may have lasted a second or a millennium, I could not tell, but there was a
before
and an
after
. Suddenly, the tunnel of light we followed opened not to another branch point but to a circle of darkness in which were embedded countless bright points of light. The ship erupted from an Orb behind us, the sphere glowing brightly as I have never seen the Orbs glow, and just like that, we were in normal space again. A green star shone before us, and very close, the outlines of a crescent of an orange planet.

I lay back in my navpod, sweat pouring down my face. My breathing was labored. This effort had exhausted me, but I knew I had done something never before believed possible. And I had saved us from the Dram.

“Ambra, are you all right?” The tones were Thel’s, not elated, but sober, almost still.

“Yeah. Hey, told you I could do it!”

“Ambra, you did.”

“Where are we?”

“You don’t know?”

“No…crazy, I brought us here, so I guess I should. But I don’t.”

“It’s Xix, Ambra. My home world. You listened to my last wish. Somehow, you heard it, saw its location. You brought me home.”

22

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. 
—Chief Isapo-Muxika ("Crowfoot")

Thel’s words made me smile, and I laughed as I lay back in my navpod. “Hey! How about that?
Home
. That is a good word. Safe at last.”

“No, Ambra, not safe.”

This caused me to open my eyes and sit up in my seat. “What do you mean?”

Thel sounded tired, almost sad. “We’ve finally figured out how the Dram found us. They’ve been tracking you since you left Earth, on the chip they embedded in you. Another blind spot for us Xix, the deviousness of the Dram. The Sortax must have warned them that you had been valued as exceptional on Earth. They didn’t believe it, I guess, but they told the Dram anyway, just in case. The Dram, never ones to lose an opportunity, yet unwilling to waste too much energy on a wild goose chase, did not place a standard branding chip within you. They placed a hyperspace tracker, able to send weak signals along the Strings, allowing them to go undetected yet always remain aware of your position. We have just deciphered the signal, as it resonated with the Dram warships.”

This didn’t make any sense. “But they let me be sold to those monsters! I could have died there! If they were curious about my value, they wouldn’t have risked wasting me like that!”

“You don’t understand the Dram yet, Ambra. Yes, they would have risked it. In their philosophy, their extreme religious beliefs, strength rises to the top, is manifest in survival. If you had died, it would have proved, to them, your lack of worth, however myopic that viewpoint clearly is. But as we thought ourselves clever in zigzagging our way through the String Tree, the chip was reporting our every jump, and soon it became apparent to the Dram that something highly unusual was going on. We were telegraphing ourselves as suspicious through our clever methods to remain hidden. Finally, they converged on us.”