Time Past by Maxine McArthur

Author:Maxine McArthur [MCARTHUR, MAXINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446556491
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty-two

It was about 0800 hours when I walked back through the Bubble to the nearest spoke. The uplift there would take me straight to the part of the center that housed the enclosed areas in which ships from our EarthFleet squadrons used to dock for maintenance, before they were decimated by the Seouras. Sasaki said she’d put the ship in there, probably for several reasons: it would be well protected against curious stares and isolated enough to be easily guarded; if ConFleet tried to locate the ship, the proximity of many other ships and the opsys core might confuse their sensors, and the docks offered easy maintenance access.

She’d also said the cruiser had done nothing unusual after sending the scout through the jump point, merely continued on its normal patrol pattern. I would gain a little time, too, because at this time of year, the orbit of Jocasta’s planet took us farther away from the Central jump point’s flatspace coordinates. It wouldn’t take long for a ConFleet ship to cover the distance, but I’d be glad of even one extra hour in which to examine the ship.

This part of Jocasta was a pleasant open area between the Alpha ring section containing central admin and the hospital. Around me, low vegetation lined the double walkways. People in uniform or civilian suits sat on benches or walked between offices. The huge pillar of the uplift spoke blocked the path ahead, otherwise it would have continued curving up. The mirrors that lined the top of Alpha ring brightened the “sky” to pale gold above, almost too strong to look straight up. If you could look straight up, you would see the cylindrical center of the station, the hub connected by the lines of the spokes, and beyond it the curve of the rings on the far side.

Veatch’s words echoed in my head. We were used to thinking of Jocasta as being on the periphery, as being unimportant. Hard to consider it wasn’t necessarily so. The jump point was close to the station’s orbit because, during the Tor-Invidi war, this had been a place of conflict and the Invidi ships, or Bendarl, perhaps, had to have had a way to get here. And how did the Tor get here? Through their own jump system, presumably. All we knew about the Tor was that they had possessed jump technology. When the gray ships arrived we first thought they’d come through an unknown Tor jump point.

I wondered if we’d find a Tor jump point somewhere out there, close to where the gray ships first appeared. Would it open for an Invidi ship? Would it open for a hybrid Tor-Invidi ship?

I stopped dead, trying to grasp all the implications of that idea. Had An Serat’s ship been a project to infiltrate the Tor jump network? But if that was the case, why did An Serat attempt to keep it, and his subsequent assistance to Calypso, a secret from the other Invidi?

Voices and other footsteps echoed ahead. A mixed group of humans and aliens moved toward me, heading for the Bubble.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.