Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

“Sort of,” Legroeder said, and described briefly what had happened. “Have you been observing anything like this?”

“We certainly have,” said Cantha. “Including the fact that you seem completely out of time synch with us. More importantly, we’ve mapped some movement in the quantum flux, and we have some ideas about what might be causing it.”

“Such as—?”

“We believe that we may be sitting on top of a very large flaw in the quantum structure of the Deep Flux. We suspect its influence is reverberating upward through the layers of the underflux. And by the way, at least three riggers on this ship have reported having dreams—all with a similar thread. Frightening dreams, mostly.”

“Dreams!” Legroeder barked, suddenly remembering the fears he’d felt trying to sleep the night before.

“Yes, have you—?”

“Hold a moment, Cantha.” Legroeder realized that Jamal and Poppy had swung to face him, the word dream on both of their lips. “Does this mean something to you?”

The two Impris riggers looked wide-eyed. Jamal was crouching slightly in his chair, a grimace on his face. “Something coming,” Jamal whispered. “I keep dreaming that it’s coming. Coming to get me. To get all of us.”

“What is? What’s coming to get you?”

Jamal shook his head. “Don’t know. Monstrous thing. It sounds crazy. But it’s like there’s a big serpent or something in the sky…”

Legroeder shifted his gaze. “You, too, Poppy?”

Poppy nodded, biting his lip. “For me, it’s like… the Gates of Hell or something,” he whispered. “Something real bad. I can’t sleep at all when I’ve been dreaming about it. Sully too. Sully’s had it, too.”

“Okay,” Legroeder said. “I want to know everything you can tell me about it. Cantha, did you hear that?”

“Yes, I did,” came the Narseil’s voice. “Get the details, please. We’ve got to piece it together quickly. Palagren thinks we need to get out of here before the instability gets uncontrollable.”

“Do you know yet what’s causing it?”

“We think it’s an entropic effect of the two overlapping flux-reactor fields, in the presence of the quantum fluctuations. There are signs it’s getting progressively worse.”

Legroeder felt faint. “Meaning, if we don’t get out soon, we won’t get out at all?”

“Precisely.”

“And have you come up with a way to do it? To get out?”

“Possibly. That confirmation of the dreams might be an important clue. If there is a deeper structure… and people, riggers, are somehow sensing it subconsciously…”

Legroeder frowned.

“Hold on a moment, Legroeder. Palagren wants to talk to you.”

Legroeder waited, drumming his fingers on the table. Finally he heard Palagren’s voice. “Are you there? Did Cantha tell you that we have to move fast?”

“Yes. But he didn’t say how we were going to do it.”

“We think we have a way. But we nee-e-e-d to-o-o ta-a-a-a-l-l-l-k-k…” Palagren’s answer suddenly stretched out into a long distortion of his voice, then faded away.

“Palagren? Palagren? ”

// We have lost the connection. //

(Can you get it back?)

// We are trying, but there is no longer a com-signal. //

“What is it, Legroeder?” Deutsch asked.

Legroeder gestured sharply. “See if you can raise the ship.”

Deutsch became very still, then shook his head.

Friedman reached for his own com-set. “Bridge! Has there been any change in the other ship?”

“Excuse me, sir?” came the answer.

“The other ship. Phoenix . Is there a change in its condition.”

There was a pause. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir. What other ship?”

“The ship that docked with us a few hours ago!” Friedman shouted.

“Sir?” said the voice on the bridge. “We haven’t had contact with another ship in at least a month. Is there… a problem, sir?”

“With me? No.” Friedman snapped off the com in frustration, then snapped it back on. “Bridge, give me a time and date check.”

“Certainly,” said the bridge officer, sounding relieved to have a question that could be answered. “It’s now 1730 hours. And we’re showing, let’s see, day six hundred fifty-two.”

Friedman stiffened. “Thank you.” He snapped off the com.

“What?” Legroeder said.

“The bridge is two days behind us. Your ship hasn’t arrived, as far as they’re concerned.” Friedman’s face was ashen. “This has never happened before. It’s definitely getting worse, isn’t it?”

Legroeder took a deep breath. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, it is.”

“I would like to suggest,” Deutsch said, “that we forget about what day it is, or whether our ship happens to be out there right now.”

“Excuse me?” said Jamal. “Are you aware of what’s happening here?” You Kyber, his eyes seemed to say.

“I do understand,” said Deutsch. “We must assume that, at some point, our ship will reappear. When that happens, we should be ready to move.”

“Agreed,” Legroeder said. He had been running through various scenarios in his head, and the one that scared him the most was the one where they waited too long and found they’d missed their opportunity to escape. “It’s clear Palagren has a plan for attempting to fly out.”

“Great. What good does that do, if we don’t know what it is?” Poppy muttered.

“But we should be ready to act when we do find out what it is. And—” Legroeder focused inward for a moment “—the first question is whether we should try to fly the two ships out together, which could be very difficult and dangerous, or instead just get everyone over to Phoenix .” He turned to Captain Friedman, whose eyes he’d been avoiding. “I’m sorry, Captain. We must consider the possibility.”

Friedman’s face had turned even whiter, if that was possible. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispered. “We have passengers who are hiding, crewmen disappearing and reappearing…” He shook his head, and appeared to regain strength as he drew a deep breath. “I don’t think we could ever be sure we had them all. And some people would never willingly leave the ship.”

Including you? Legroeder wondered.

“We cannot assume that everyone will be rational about it.”

“Well,” said Deutsch, “I think we would all prefer to bring Impris out, if we can do it safely. Our people very much want to study it.”

Jamal’s voice was a flat twang of skepticism. “I don’t know how we’re going to get one ship, let alone two, out of this—whatever you called it—fold in the underflux.” His nostrils flared. Prove it to me, his gleaming white eyes seemed to say.

Legroeder couldn’t; he could only guess what Palagren had been about to say. But it had something to do with the hidden structure in the Flux. “The Narseil seemed to think that those dreams of yours might be an important clue in how to get out.”

Jamal shuddered. “Man—if you are trying to reassure me, that’s not the way to do it.”

Legroeder persisted. “I think the dreams may be trying to tell us something about the Deep Flux. And the more you can tell us about them, the better.”

Jamal glanced at his crewmates, shrugged, and began talking.

“…I don’t always see the same thing , but it’s always the same feeling —you know what I’m saying? That there’s something out there.” Jamal’s voice fell to a murmur, straining. “Something that… devours .”