Чарли Андерс - Six Months, Three Days, Five Others

“That’s a stupid rule.”

Jemima shrugged. “It’s a science that won’t exist for hundreds of years. Like I said: causal torsions. Think of causality as a weave that holds all of us fast, and occasionally gaps appear that you can slip through.”

“So how are we going to escape before they put us on that rocket?”

“First things first.” Jemima came and stood in front of Ythna, so she was silhouetted by the setting sun through the small window, and put her right hand out, palm up and at an angle. “I really do want to help. So far, all I’ve done is make things worse for you. If you’ll let me, I’ll do whatever I can. You’re a smart person and you care about other people. You deserve better. And the Gaven Empire could use a million more like you.”

“How does the Empire end?” Ythna said.

“It dies,” Jemima said. “Everything dies eventually. You were born in the Golden Century, which was a relatively stable era. After that, there was a twenty-year fall into decadence and social decay, followed by the Glorious Restoration, which you saw. That lasted about fifty-seven years, and was followed by the Perfect Culmination, the most exact implementation of the ideal of Dja-Thun on Earth. Which lasted about as long as you’d expect. After that, there were about 150 years of slow decline, until the whole thing fell apart and your people begged the off-world colonists to come and save them. That’s the executive summary, anyway.”

“Okay,” Ythna said, taking Jemima’s hand in both of hers. “I want to make a difference. Give me a new identity, and put me where I can make a difference.”

“Very well,” Jemima said. “Done.”

Jemima searched through what seemed to be a million hidden pockets sewn into the lining of her giant coat until she found a device, perhaps twice the size of your fingernail. With this gadget, she opened the lock on their cage, and then she used her tiny stun gun on the two guards in the hallway outside, who were already half asleep in any case.

“Now what?” Ythna said. “Do we wait for that man in the helmet to arrive and murder someone else?”

“He’s long gone, whoever he was,” Jemima said. “But we don’t need him to kill anybody. The Dauntless is launching tomorrow, which means I know what day this is. And someone very famous is going to die, all on his own, in the next couple days. Come on.” She unlocked the front door of the holding facility with her lockpick. “We’ve got a lot of distance to cover. And first, we have to break out of a maximum security launch site.”

Beldame Thakrra’s grave wasn’t nearly as fancy as the Tomb of the Unknown Emperor. They had built her a big stone sphere with a metal spike sticking through it, befitting the rank she’d attained in the moment just before she died. And there was a bust in front, with a close enough likeness of her face, except that she looked placid and sleepy, instead of keen and on the verge of asking another question. The sphere was a little taller than Ythna, and the spike soared over her head. The tomb was surrounded by other, grander memorials, as far as Ythna could see.

The sphere and the bust of Thakrra were both covered with a thick layer of grime. Nobody had visited the Beldame’s tomb for decades. Maybe never. Ythna pulled a cloth out of her new, sharp-creased black uniform trousers and started to wipe the tomb so it looked fresh and clean, the way the Beldame had always kept her house. “It’s good to see you again,” she whispered.

Jemima came up behind Ythna while she was still wiping. “Here.” She handed Ythna a stack of official-looking cards. “It’s all correct. You’re a Vice Officiator named Dhar. That’s your name from now on. You were part of a secret mission for the Vice Emperor Htap, and everybody else who knew about that mission is dead now. Such things were common in the final days of the Perfect Culmination, sad to say. In any case, you can present these anywhere and if they need a new Vice Officiator, they’ll take you on.”

“Thank you,” Ythna said. “But I can’t go anywhere until I finish the ritual of mourning for the Beldame. I’ve waited much too long as it is.”

“There’s no rush whatsoever,” Jemima said. “In fact, if I were you, I would lay low for a few more weeks before trying to travel. Oh, and if anybody asks you about the past hundred years of history, just pretend you have a head injury from that secret mission.”

“What about you?” Ythna said. “Are you going to risk traveling right now?”

“Can’t hang about,” Jemima said. “This is the furthest forward in time I’ve reached in forever. And there’s a death next week that I’m hopeful will send me even further ahead.” She looked out at the rows of ziggurats, spheres, and statues, stretching out past the misty horizon. “I’ve jumped through time twenty-nine times. Twenty-nine times, and each time I find myself stuck in the Gaven Empire. There’s something I’m doing wrong, and I can’t figure out what it is.”

“Maybe if you find that man with the helmet,” Ythna said, “you can ask him.”

“If I find that man again,” Jemima said, “I shall have to kill him. Goodbye, Ythna. Have a great life. For me.”

They embraced. Ythna watched Jemima walk away across the rows of memorials and reliquaries, the rulers and saints of the Empire resting in glory. Jemima’s long black coat swished as she strode, jauntily, like someone who knew just what she was about. One arm swung back and forth, as if she had an invisible cane swatting aside the ghosts of this place. Ythna stared until all she could see was Jemima’s red curls and black hat amidst the big gray shapes. Then she turned back toward the Beldame, whose stone face still looked much too complacent. Ythna wiped the bust down one more time, then sank to her knees and began the slow, mournful chant of indelible grief.

The man who can see the future has a date with the woman who can see many possible futures.

Judy is nervous but excited, keeps looking at things she’s spotted out of the corner of her eye. She’s wearing a floral Laura Ashley style dress with an Ankh necklace and her legs are rambunctious, her calves moving under the table. It’s distracting because Doug knows that in two and a half weeks, those cucumber-smooth ankles will be hooked on his shoulders, and that curly reddish-brown hair will spill everywhere onto her lemon-floral pillows; this image of their future coitus has been in Doug’s head for years, with varying degrees of clarity, and now it’s almost here. The knowledge makes Doug almost giggle at the wrong moment, but then it hits him: she’s seen this future too—or she may have, anyway.

Doug has his sandy hair cut in a neat fringe that was almost fashionable a couple years ago. You might think he cuts his own hair, but Judy knows he doesn’t, because he’ll tell her otherwise in a few weeks. He’s much, much better looking than she thought he would be, and this comes as a huge relief. He has rude, pouty lips and an upper lip that darkens no matter how often he shaves it, with Elvis Costello glasses. And he’s almost a foot taller than her, six foot four. Now that Judy’s seen Doug for real, she’s re-imagining all the conversations they might be having in the coming weeks and months, all of the drama and all of the sweetness. The fact that Judy can be attracted to him, knowing everything that could lay ahead, consoles her tremendously.

Judy is nattering about some Chinese novelist she’s been reading in translation, one of those cruel satirists from the days after the May Fourth Movement, from back when writers were so conflicted they had to rename themselves things like “Contra Diction.” Doug is just staring at her, not saying anything, until it creeps her out a little.