Звезда Пандоры

“I was surprised, that’s all, and I didn’t know what level the image extended to. People have gotten themselves hurt in TSI, you know, man.”

“You were scared.” Orion flung his arms wide, laughing wildly at the canyon wall. “Hey, you scared Ozzie. Bad time machine.”

“This is not—” Ozzie got a grip, although he’d noticed the smell, too. He looked along the avenue, checking on the golden light from the other group. It was still there, unmoving. The ghost voices had come back, slipping sinuously through the air. “Damn, this place is weird.”

“Ozzie!” Orion gasped.

One of the jellyfish aliens was slipping past them, wrapped in its own little nimbus of daylight. Tochee pushed its icewhale fur blanket aside, rearing up on its locomotion ridges in shock as the seemingly solid apparition glided along.

WHAT WAS THAT.

Tochee’s eye patterns were shining so brightly Ozzie half expected Orion to see them. He shrugged—they certainly didn’t have anything like the vocabulary for time-traveling spooks. When he glanced around, the lone jelly alien had gone.

“I think we’d better get off the avenue. It’s only a few hours to dawn. We should try and get some rest.”

“Oh, Ozzie, this is wonderful. We might wind up finishing this journey before we started. I could go back to Silvergalde and stop my parents from ever leaving.”

“Look, man, I know you think a time machine is a groovy thing, but take it from me there are quantum fundamentals that prevent it from happening. Okay? I know what this looks like, but it isn’t real.”

Orion was about to answer when a small mechanical car appeared, with two jelly aliens sitting in the cab. Smoke and steam belched furiously from stumpy chimneys in its rear. The boy drew in a sharp breath and swayed backward. “I think maybe you’re right. We’ll get run over here.”

Ozzie was sorely tempted to just stand there and let one of the apparitions glide right through him. But they looked so damn real!

The three of them gathered up their packs and hurried away from the avenue. As soon as they were outside the line of trees the voices faded away, although they never fell completely quiet. Ozzie and Orion sat against a boulder, wrapping their sleeping bags around them. Every now and then opalescent light would burst out of the avenue, silhouetting the bottom of the trees as the long dead aliens walked their old road. After a while Ozzie stopped trying to figure it out, and closed his eyes.

“I’ve got a theory,” Orion said eagerly as they munched on their tasteless breakfast. “I think Sara walked down this canyon. That’s why she’s still alive after so long. The canyon brought her into the future.”

“It’s not a time machine,” Ozzie said for what must have been the tenth time. “Time cannot flow backward, you cannot move back through time. It is a one-way current. Period, dude.”

“She moved forward.”

“Okay, not so difficult. Even we can do that.”

“Can we?” Orion was fascinated.

“Well… in theory, yeah. The internal structure of a wormhole can be modified so its time frame is desynchronized. In other words, you go in at one end, and a week later you come out of the other. But, for you, only a second has elapsed. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s been happening on the Silfen paths. It certainly makes sense, especially when you think of people like Sara.”

“Have you done it with your wormholes?”

“No. It’s very complicated. We don’t have the technology to match the math yet.” He grunted in disapproval. “Maybe we will by the time you and I make it back.”

That morning they walked parallel to the avenue of trees, keeping a good three hundred yards distant. They kept noticing movement on the path. It was almost subliminal. Shadows that flickered between the trunks, vanishing when any attention was focused on them. The apparitions certainly weren’t as vivid during the day.

A couple of hours after they started, they realized they were finally catching up with the other travelers. The group had remained in the avenue. They now looked as if they were walking into a strong wind, leaning forward to push on doggedly, their cloaks streaming out behind them.

“They’re Silfen,” Orion said. “I’m sure they are.”

Ozzie zoomed in. The boy was right. “Another spike,” he muttered.

“Are we going to talk to them?”

“I dunno.” Ozzie was torn. They hadn’t seen any sentient creature since leaving the Ice Citadel world. On the other hand, the Silfen never made a lot of sense at the best of times. “Let’s see where they’re at when we catch up with them.”

As they hiked on, a big gap slowly became visible in the avenue up ahead. They could see the trees carry on on the other side, but for over a couple of miles the canyon floor was empty. “I can’t see any fallen trees,” Ozzie said as he scanned the ground. “Looks like the people who planted them wanted a break.”

“Is there anything built there?” Orion asked.

“Can’t see any ruins.”