But Mom nods toward a nearby console. “Handle Earth communications. You should be able to manage it.”
Oh, crap. I go to the console and poke experimentally at the interface. To my surprise, this actually looks fairly simple. Like figuring out how a tPhone works—you go from clueless to proficient within a few minutes. It only takes a few strokes of my fingers to send the right calls to engineering, to ops, to commander_astraeus (a. k. a. Mom). Having a task to perform makes me feel stronger.
As Mom continues to work, she says, “I have to ask you something.”
Is this really a great time for a mother-daughter chat? “Uh, sure.”
“Yesterday, when you were in the venting apparatus—did you do this?”
My gut sinks. “I don’t remember doing it,” I say honestly. “But I think I must have.”
“Marguerite.” I’ve never heard her say my name like that, so pained and so lost.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should never have been here.” I should have figured out how to stop Triad by now. If I had, your world wouldn’t be in danger. This space station would be safe. But I messed everything up. Oh, God, Mom, I’m so sorry.
Sirens continue blaring. My mother continues typing. After a couple of seconds, she answers, “You told us you needed to be watched. You tried to warn us that you weren’t well. You’re not to blame.”
Hearing Mom take the responsibility for Wicked’s plotting and my mistakes is too much. I want to argue with her, but this is when the gravity goes out.
In the movies it always looks like this magical moment straight out of Disney’s Peter Pan—you can fly, you can fly! Astronauts grin and do somersaults like being in zero-G is the most fun humanly possible. To me, it feels like I’ve just been thrown from a spinning swing—queasy, disoriented, too dizzy to function. Only the dark ceiling with its red flashing lights remains as any hint of what “up” might be. My stomach rebels, sending fresh waves of nausea through my gut.
Mom’s feet are now floating above her head, but she just grabs a cable from her belt, hooks it onto one of those brackets on the wall, and keeps typing. Does my jumpsuit belt have one of those? Yes, and now I’m reminded that the small brackets are everywhere. I clip on and continue working with my screen, routing the communications from Earth as fast as I can.
Then my screen blinks with a new message, one I haven’t seen before: Mission Control General Admin to Astraeus Comms. If comms means communications, this call must actually be for me. I double-tap the screen, which seems to be the way to answer—
—and my busy computer screen is replaced with the image of Wyatt Conley’s face.
This is who we’re relying on to save us? We’re all dead.
Conley says, “Comms, this is Mission Control. We haven’t been able to raise Kovalenka. Was she injured in the original malfunction? Over.”
“She’s kind of busy right now! We have a crisis going on, in case you hadn’t noticed. Uh, over.”
Conley’s sigh of frustration is audible in outer space. “We need an official report.”
“No, you need a working space station and astronauts who are alive!”
My answer is half bluff, but it actually gets through to him. “Can you patch any system controls back down to Houston? We could lift some of the load from you guys.”
I have no idea whether or not that would work. But apparently my mother can hear him. Over her shoulder she calls, “I’ll reroute atmospheric controls. If they can keep those stabilized while I seal off the vents, we have a chance.”
“Did you hear that?” I say to the Conley on my screen, and he nods.
This Wyatt Conley isn’t the enemy. He’s using his genius in a better way here. At least, I have to hope so.
The scene within the Astraeus’s corridors has turned into a Salvador Dali canvas. Drops of dark fluid, probably coffee, float in perfect spheres. A sneaker drifts along close to the floor, laces trailing behind. My hair coils and bobs around me like I’m wearing my own personal storm cloud. Voices shouting in alarm rise in pitch, and I instinctively tense even before I hear my mother swear in Russian.
What happens next feels and looks like the station gets shoved out from under us. I hit the far wall; Mom’s face mashes against her screen. A low vibration ripples through the very framework of the Astraeus, and if we’re going to die, it will happen any second.
But I keep breathing. After a few endless seconds, the vibration stops. My mother stares at her interface, then sighs heavily in both relief and remorse. “We lost the primary solar generator. But we preserved atmospheric systems and backup power. That gives us a chance to fully evacuate and potentially salvage.” She turns to me, her eyes red with unshed tears. “Patch Houston through. I must personally report the loss of the Astraeus.”
We’re not lost! I want to protest. Okay, it’s broken, but you can probably fix it eventually, and everybody lived. That ought to be a victory.
Then I realize—Mom has to report that her own deeply unstable daughter sabotaged the station.
Numbly I work the screen as best I can. After only a blink, Conley appears on her screen. I push myself down the hallway, far enough that I don’t have to listen.
This world’s Marguerite is going to pay a terrible price for what has happened here. Will she be institutionalized? Medicated? Whatever treatment she’ll be given will be wrong, because there’s nothing the matter with her. She just had the bad luck to be hijacked by Wicked, and then by me. Of course, she’ll remember the truth, but after everything that’s happened, will anyone believe her if she starts talking about having been possessed by a traveler from another universe?
Maybe Paul will save her dimension. Maybe I saved her life in the literal sense. But in every other sense—everything else that makes up a good life, a reason to live—I may have destroyed her.
Within a few hours, gravity has been restored and more orderly evacuations have begun. People trudge past carrying duffel bags of their stuff as they prepare to return to Earth months or years before they ever wanted to. Some of them whisper to each other as they go: The commander’s daughter had some kind of breakdown. Makes no sense. She had her whole family in orbit with her. If that’s not enough to help you, what is?
Meanwhile I sit in a small room within the medical area that apparently doubles as a holding cell for the criminal and dangerous. I’m grateful for the return of gravity, not least because I’m so upset I might throw up, and the last thing I need is vomit floating around.
This room does have a window, which I force myself to look through. The view reveals the damage to the station; the area Wicked sabotaged is crumpled and asymmetrical, an ugly blight amid the silvery arcs of the rest of the Astraeus. It might as well have been crushed in the fist of an angry giant. Whatever incredibly critical thing it does for the space station—well, it’s not doing that anymore.
The door makes sounds that must mean it’s being unlocked. I stand up, ready for the space police or whoever it is who’s going to take me into custody. When I see Paul instead, hope bubbles up inside me.
Yet his expression remains as rigid as stone.
“I have to be quick.” He steps in with me, not quite closing the door behind him. The red-violet beginnings of a black eye have begun to draw semicircles around his eye. “Nobody told me I couldn’t be in here, but I would guess this is against the rules.”
“You’re okay.” I want to touch his arm and reassure myself that he’s still here—but do I even have the right to do that anymore? Are we together or not? I don’t know. It shouldn’t matter, maybe, what with everything else that’s happening. But it does. I close my eyes. “Was anyone killed?”
“No. But several were injured by a plasma leak in the solar power core. Some of them seriously.”
“You say that like that’s no big deal.” I bear some responsibility for those injuries. No, I wasn’t the saboteur, but I should’ve realized Wicked would have a backup plan. Traps within traps: That’s her gam
e. Angry with myself for not seeing it, angry with Paul for being so cold and callous, I hug myself and refuse to meet his eyes.
Paul’s only reaction is to look away. His rejection stings until I realize he isn’t ignoring me, he’s working with Dr. Singh’s computer.
“She didn’t have time to sign out,” he mutters as he searches through the files. One sharp keypunch brings up a screen that looks like a seismograph reading—jagged lines up and down, packed densely together. The name at the bottom reads CAINE, MARGUERITE K. “This is your brainwave function?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“What did she use to take these readings? Is there an MRI, or—”
“They keep it simpler here.” I realize, now, what Paul wants—and why, to him, this would be his top priority. Which drawer did Dr. Singh pull that headband-sensor from? When I find it, I hand the silvery semicircle over.
Connecting the sensor to the computer turns out to be as simple as connecting a Bluetooth headset and a phone. Paul settles back onto the medical bed, I hit the control, and—
Oh, my God.
My brain scan looked like up-and-down lines packed closely together, twice as dense as they should’ve been, apparently, but otherwise normal. Paul’s scan is chaos. Lines radiate in every direction at once, as though someone had smashed his fist into the center of the screen and shattered the glass. The borders of the screen turn red; a small box in one corner says CHECK INSTRUMENT FOR MALFUNCTION.
It’s not malfunctioning. This chaos is what’s happening inside Paul’s head. This is what his splintering has done to him.
Paul and I stare at the computer screen in silence for what feels like a very long time. Finally I venture, “Maybe it’s not forever.”
“Maybe it is.” He sits up, takes off the sensor, and places it carefully in the drawer where it belongs.
Paul gets to his feet and, for the first time in days, looks me steadily in the eyes. The desolation I see there is terrible. “Do you understand why I can’t be with you?”
No. No no no.
“I’m not fully in control of myself right now. I don’t know if I ever will be again. At any second, I could—break. Don’t you remember how I acted when I got to the Egyptverse? I was so close to hurting you, even without knowing for sure whether you were Wicked or yourself.” Paul’s voice wavers, but only for a moment. “Please, Marguerite. I have to live with the memories of my other selves hurting you. Don’t endanger yourself again. Let me go.”
I want to argue. But the cobweb pattern on the still-glowing medical screen tells me this isn’t only Paul’s fatalism at work. What happened to him, the consequences of it: This is very, very real.
One time, Josie told me something important: “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” If a guy tells you, I have trouble trusting women, you don’t assume he’s just had bad experiences and you can fix things by being the nicest, best woman of all time. You go, Thanks for the warning. Good luck with that. Nice knowing you. Then you walk away without ever looking back. And if someone says they’re going to hurt you? Don’t stick around and wait for them to prove it.
Paul is telling me he’s dangerous. It’s not his fault, and maybe it won’t be forever, but I have to believe him. I have to trust him, precisely because he can’t trust himself.
Even though it’s the last thing in the world I want, I have to let Paul go.
“Okay,” I whisper, stepping away from him. He blinks, surprised. He must have expected more of a fight. Those first seconds of silence echo with all the memories we’ve shared, all the moments we should’ve gone on to experience together. The multiverse just divided again, creating a future where Paul and I aren’t together . . . and this is the one I have to live in.
Paul takes a deep breath and shifts back into science mode. Maybe that’s easier for him to handle. “We should concentrate on the quantum realities that need our protection. Leap out of here the first second possible. I’m going to remain here long enough to test the stabilization function of the Firebird. If that works, I’ll track back to the Londonverse and Egyptverse, and then I’ll catch up to you.”
“Thank you for saving them first. For keeping your word.”
“Marguerite . . . I would never break a promise to you.” Our eyes meet, and I see all the pain he’s trying to hold back. “Never. Not even if it means my life.”
For a few fragile instants, we are connected again. I feel it as surely as I feel my own heart beating inside my chest. He brings his hand to my face, and I close my eyes as his fingers brush my cheek. When he steps closer, I hold my breath, hoping for an embrace, a kiss, whatever goodbye I can have.
Paul brushes his lips against my forehead, a touch so tender it breaks my heart. I lift my face to his, hoping for a farewell kiss, but already he’s moving backward, away from me.
Whether Paul believes it yet or not, we have something left to save. If he can overcome the splintering, the two of us still have a chance.
He turns away from me as he takes out his Firebird, no doubt beginning the process of figuring out how to build a stabilizer to pair with it. Hoping to restore that temporary connection, I confide, “When Mom asked me if I’d done this, I confessed because I knew this Marguerite had to be watched in case Wicked came back. But . . . did I just ruin her whole life?”
“You did what you had to do.” Paul’s gaze is again remote; the gray of his eyes turns to ice. “You can make hard choices, Marguerite. You can even be ruthless. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“I’m not ruthless—”
“The potential’s inside you. It has to be. Otherwise, Wicked would never exist.”
He’s right. It’s Paul and Theo’s turn to judge me by my worst self. To judge my darkness. Because whatever else Wicked is, she is me.
Paul’s too good to rub it in, make it worse. Instead, he drops his Firebird back under the collar of his jumpsuit. “I have to go. Get out if you can, and don’t stop trying. Because when you’re taken into official custody, you’ll be searched, and they could find the Firebird.”
“Okay,” I say in a small voice.
Paul nods before he steps out of the room and locks the door behind him without a single word of goodbye. He thinks that makes him seem strong and resolute. It only reveals that this parting hurts him as much as it hurts me, maybe even more.
I’m sorry, I tell this world’s Marguerite. She’ll remember everything that happened while I was within her—yet another of the things that’s different for a perfect traveler. We leave a trail of memories for our hosts to follow. But will Dr. Singh’s readouts be enough to prove she’s telling the truth about what really happened?
At least the Spaceverse Marguerite will know it was for a good reason. She’ll know her freedom has been sacrificed for the safety of her entire dimension. I have to believe she’ll think that was worth it.
I put my hand on my Firebird for the next of my many futile attempts to move into the next universe, thinking to my host, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—believing that this is only the first of many times I’ll repeat those words inside her head. But this time the Firebird snatches me away in an instant.
Should’ve finished my apology first.
11
ABOUT TWO FEET IN FRONT OF MY EYES LIES ADAM, COMPLETELY naked.
The Biblical Adam, I mean. The serpent coiled around the nearby tree tells me that much. This picture has been painted skillfully—incredibly so, with color both vivid and expertly shaded, vital composition that draws my eye to Adam’s outstretched hand reaching up toward God, and enough subtlety that the expression in Adam’s eyes carries as much emotion as any human’s could. He’s thinking: I’m scared, but I want this.
If I were looking at this in a gallery, I’d assume it had been painted in one of the workshops of the Old Masters at the height of the Renaissance. Just two problems with that scenario—first, this work is so new I can still smell the fresh paint.
Second, not only am I
not in a gallery, but I seem to be lying on wooden scaffolding. While I’m flat on my back, the painting looms above me, so broad I can’t see the edges.
What’s the mortal danger here? I can’t see anything. Is the scaffolding rickety, about to collapse? Feels steady enough to me. The air doesn’t smell of smoke. My body feels absolutely fine, not injured or punctured in any way.
Carefully I roll over, taking note of the clothing I wear—rough-woven cloth dyed the color of rust, bad shoes, some kind of scarf tied over my hair—
—and look down to see that I’m roughly forty feet above the marble floor.
Once I was nervous about heights, but after dangling from a helicopter and being in Earth orbit, a mere forty feet feels like a relief. Was Wicked hoping I’d roll over too quickly and plunge to my death? She can do better than that . . .
“Do you not see the heresy?” calls a proud, authoritative voice. Her words echo in this space, which must be large, even if I can only get glimpses of it around the scaffolding. “How can you excuse your mistress now?”
I shift farther along the platform until I can see who is speaking to me from below. A small group gathers down there beside enormous columns holding up a vast arch. Most of the people wear long dresses or robes obviously more luxurious than my own. Their garments are bright with the shine of silk or the sheen of velvet. A few wear the deep red cassock and cap I know belong to cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. There’s no doubt who the speaker is, though—that has to be the woman wearing a tall, peaked hat and white robes richly embroidered with golden thread that glints in the light.
Although we’ve never met before, I know who this is: Her Holiness Pope Martha III.
I tell myself, Welcome back to the Romeverse.
“Do you refuse to answer?” she shouts. Even at this height, I can see her frown lines deepening. “Do you endorse your mistress’s heretical work?”
I know enough world history to be sure I do not want a pope to be angry with me. Is that Wicked’s plan? To feed me to the Inquisition? “No, ma’am—Your Holiness!”