Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

“I have nothing to tell you,” Mika insisted.

This was largely true. Mika had landed in dozens of eras, met hundreds of people, glimpsed technological wonders she barely comprehended. But she always kept her head down and absorbed as little as possible.

It was better not to know. A future left unknown was, theoretically, still flexible.

Mika had seen the history book once, in her own time, but she had never read it. In the mid-sixth century, the book was for scholarly use only, and sections of general interest were copied out and taught in public classrooms. There were other eras in which access was even more restricted, and the book was confined to government use, whether that government was militant, religious, or, as in Petro’s time, guild hierarchical.

The book documented the curious tangled history of a city that knew what was coming. For centuries, fishermen and fisherwomen had washed up on the wrong shore, bringing with them tidbits of information from every known era. The book was the accumulation of their written memories, but there were many gaps and infamous inconsistencies. Did the course of history adjust as more information was added, or were some of the contributors misinformed? Theories abounded.

The gaps left room for forward planning, but every attempt to influence the timeline was ultimately futile. In 332, the subjects of Queen Mennias built a fifteen-foot wall around Maelstrom to repel an attack by the Frenian horde. As the day approached, the Queen went mad obsessing over the paradox, and when the horde arrived, they were pleasantly surprised to find the gates thrown open for them. They ruled for nearly a hundred years behind the strength of that wall.

Once the Frenians discovered the book, they were less inclined to respect the narrative. Warned of a coming attack from northern Candorrea in 422, they launched a campaign of oppression so brutal that the northern tribes joined forces and destroyed their regime in 414 instead.

Generations destined for conflict did their best to prepare—but by the time their enemies arrived, the population usually greeted them with resignation, if not pleasure. The history of Maelstrom included an impressive number of bloodless coups.

The book was only strange to first-generation immigrants, accustomed as they were to living in mystery. Their children took for granted that history extended in two directions.

Petro ran his finger down the open page of the history book, to the visible discomfort of the librarian. “We know this age of reason will end,” he said. “We will be sabotaged by unknown agents. Maelstrom will succumb to another age of warfare and then reemerge under the thumb of an oligarchy. Eight families with a stranglehold on trade, applying their will with brute military force. Merit and skill replaced by—by greed and nepotism!”

“I’m sorry,” Mika said. And she was.

Petro sniffed and turned another page. “According to Fisherwoman Gentle Carvier—lost in 1172, found in 690—the oligarchy is firmly established by the mid-ninth century. If this is true, the guild system will fall within the next seventy years. We need a more specific time frame. We need to know more about our attackers. Where do they come from? How do they prevail?”

Mika shook her head. “I don’t investigate the city when I land. I stock my boat and I set sail again.”

Incredulous, he demanded, “How can you touch the shores of the future and not want to know what will happen?”

“I don’t care,” Mika said faintly. “It means nothing to me.”

He ranted on about loyalty and civic duty and treason, and at last Mika lost her temper. She stabbed one finger toward the book and said, “Don’t you know by now? The more you try to alter your destiny, the more surely you will bring it on.”

“Oh?” Petro said. “And what is it you are trying to do?”

“I…” Mika faltered. With a mouth gone dry as dust, she said, “I’m not in there.”

Petro slammed his notebook shut. Coldly, he said, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

He gestured at the librarian to pack up and, lifting his nose imperiously in the air, lobbed his parting shot: “Your days in the timestream are over. You could have a good life here… if you tell us what we need to know.”

Mika held her breath till he’d gone. She stared at her hands, struggling to keep black thoughts at bay. A few minutes crawled by, and she realized the librarian was still there, dawdling over the history book wrappings and sneaking increasingly fervent looks in her direction.

“What?” she sked, resigned.

With a nervous glance at the door, he whispered, “Please, I have to know—are you Mika Sandrigal?”

She recoiled. “No,” she said, but too late; her hesitation had betrayed her.

“We—the other librarians and I—we’ve gone over the list of missing fisherwomen,” he said excitedly. “I admit, the changes to your boat threw us off, but your description is quite clear. Your children—”

“No!” she shouted, and his eyes widened at the force of it, at the sudden rage.

The librarian leaned back, his expression wounded now. “You only had to ask,” he said. “We do abide by the archives’ code of ethics, even if our bureaucrats don’t.” Plaintively, he added, “I didn’t tell him, did I?”

“That is my name,” Mika admitted desperately. “But please don’t tell me anything more.”

He grinned, and Mika’s heart sank. This was it, all of her precautions for nothing—but the librarian’s code prevailed. He whispered, “Sit tight. I’m going to get you out of here tonight. I’ll say nothing else, except: your journey doesn’t end here.”

He was good as his word, and by cover of darkness she fled to the beach. The librarian smuggled her off with a bag of food, first aid supplies, and a set of letters to deliver to the archives one day—only if she felt comfortable doing so, he hastened to add, and only if she came ashore before the year 717.

It was a relief to reach her boat. A relief to feel the spray on her face. But she couldn’t dislodge the stone from her gut, the weight of a thousand questions swallowed whole every time she landed.

To ask about the events of the late sixth century would be a betrayal, an admission that she might not see it for herself. Mika longed to know if Emry had been accepted to the school of letters; if Bowen was still smitten with woodland creatures; if Terrewyn had resolved to study navigation with Keira. But she wouldn’t go begging at the doors of the library to find out.

She would be there.

Mika took the first timestream she found, a forward-leaning current that landed her a full century later. She held back from the shore, unwilling to risk a tussle with the oligarchy Petro had so feared, and waited for an opportunity to sail free of it.

The ninth century was an odd time, transitional in nature. Much of the smog had cleared, and enormous machines were visible in the hills, reducing the last of the industrial age’s smokestacks to rubble. It was a busy time on the water, as well, as fleets of fisherwomen and researchers and merchants took advantage of the relatively stable political situation to pursue their trades.

Mika avoided them all, including a luxury boat of people she could only assume were tourists from inland, keen to experience all of Maelstrom’s oddities. At the sight of her comparatively quaint craft they shouted and waved their arms and excitedly tried to flag her down, but she fled for the horizon, trusting that their captain wouldn’t be reckless enough to stray too far from land.

For a week she subsisted only on her own catches and the curiously preserved fruits and meats packed by the librarian. The ocean was frustratingly calm, taunting her with nothing but the unremarkable scent of seaweed, until, at last, the weather conspired to grant her a bit of temporal uncertainty.