Forever Magazine Issue 9 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Williams, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, novelette, novella, science fiction, science fiction magazine, short stories, short story
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2015-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

<Third Account: Conclusion>

We left Trelayne staring contemplatively at the thick bunch of cables connecting his workstation to the clocks scattered all across the Structure.

Cotton didn’t speak, for all that I tried to engage her. She had barely said a word through the last half of our interrogation of Trelayne. I had been the one asking questions, guiding the old man through his rambling mix of recollections and speculations. She had withdrawn into herself, and I resisted the impulse to remonstrate with her that this was the culmination of her life’s work. She had said herself that it would complete her, and therefore her disengagement seemed counterproductive.

A moment’s thought would have revealed to me what was going through her mind. But I had my own problems to work through—first and foremost how to convey to you, Master Catterson, all that we had learned. Weapon, accident, or trap? The nature of the mine was no closer to my understanding, even having met Trelayne and listened to all he said.

Of more immediate importance was the revelation that our time-loops were the sole things protecting us from the Structure’s causality-repairing censorship. Once my loop was closed, by putting Cotton in place in Gevira for my former self to examine, what was to stop my being wiped out of existence? Nothing. Cotton, by killing herself and expecting me to finish the job, was effectively killing me too.

That I was distracted at the crucial junction is regrettable but I hope forgivable.

I do not dare believe that events would have unfolded any other way than as they did, as they were always going to, in the end.

When we arrived at Uvaya, a sole Terminus agent was waiting for us.

“Finish it,” he said, removing his pressure mask and tossing it to me.

I caught the mask automatically, struck by how much like a Guildsman this man looked—except for his eyes, which had the far-horizons look of someone who had spent too long deep in the mines.

I had expected Osred Guyonnet.

Instead, he was me.

I felt the Structure flex around me, and I wondered how many timelines were being truncated as we stood in each other’s presence. Who was paying the cost of this strange encounter? Who must have died in order that we might meet?

It was over in a second. Without another word, he turned and walked away. A transcendent shaft opened its portals for him. He stepped inside and was gone.

Cotton gasped and folded awkwardly to the floor.

I was at her side, all thoughts of my self and this strange new development forgotten.

“Cotton, what’s wrong?”

Her pupils were pinpricks and her skin had turned a deathly shade of gray. There was no strength in her hands as they reached for me.

I knew the answer to my question even as I pleaded with her to respond. She must have started the process in the shaft for it to be so advanced now.

“E. C., talk to me!”

“Always going to end here, Donnie Boy.”

“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

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