It was a water world, peeping through the clouds. As the carapace population dwindled, evacuated, everyone eventually stole a moment, a quick turn, on the bridge. Staring. As the dot became a lit crescent. Hoping to see lights in the dimness, hoping to see land they recognized.
Mr. Crocker spent the most time… looking. Silently. Though Jake frequently called him to other parts of the ship for help.
~
“Far away as possible.”
Roxy, having hugged her friends, was alone. Not truly alone, perhaps, but with nothing to listen to but the creaks of the ship.
There was no way to tell when the ship would break up – or if it would. How, or if, it would start into a tumble in the atmosphere. The only certainty would be that it would be better for the ship to take more of the compressive shock of the atmosphere than her own body. There wasn’t even a guarantee Earth’s atmosphere would slow them enough – they could just bounce off it…
No.
There had to be something else to think of.
Dave. Where was he now? Both of him, presuming the time travel story was true. If the controls weren’t locked, it would be the perfect time to search for some sign of him on the ship.
Which shuttered again.
For all she knew, he was relaxing on the green sun side of things at the moment. Slipped through invisibly, during a break in the evacuation.
Spin. There as a spin. The Earth’s crescent had definitely started to wax – and list – in the window. That was good, right? Overtaking daylight. Caught in the pull of it’s little well of spacetime, as hoped.
She couldn’t stay here. The hangar? Most ways to get outside. Little parts to fly around – but places to hide from them. She ignored the blood spatter still on the wall – Jane or Jake had done something. That was all she needed to know.
As she searched for a hiding place, the temperature started to rise – automatic ventilation systems spun up loudly, but they couldn’t keep up. Roxy started counting. Things pitched faster – bits of machinery started to fall to the outer wall, then started jumping around as the ship started to push into the atmosphere. Roxy braced herself into a corner and counted.
~
5 minutes. The metal was hot to the touch. The room spun. She pressed into – flew into the wall.
10 minutes. She could hear wind – but not feel it. No relief came.
15 minutes. the air finally started to cool. She worked her way over to the button she had been most afraid of until now – the hangar floor release. And slammed it. Thankfully, the whole room started to shift with the hangar opening up from beneath. Roxy threaded her limbs around the edges of the hole, weaving them between two different realities. And flew. Out. Any direction but towards the ground.
~
She was immediately chilled to the bone. Something was exploding – she tried to keep it behind her. The wind whipped by her ears, bowing past her into the void –
And then it seemed to pause.
~
“Yo.”
It wasn’t easy to breathe – she could hardly move. The air felt like a wall against her skin.
“Sorry, it looked like you could use some time to look around.”
Roxy managed to turn her head – on one of the pieces of debris was… not a familiar figure, but a recognizable one.
“Dave…” she managed. She thought for a second. She could still feel the air behind her. She ducked into paradox space to grab a breath – and spied Jane and Jake, waiting anxiously.
“Are we done?” Jake had no way to sit on his hand floating in space.
“jus got a breather i dnt expec, – gemme a few”
Roxy pulled back out. The figure was facepalming.
“I got myself inta something. Didn’t I. Or is there some-“
“nah. p sure it’s yu. uh.” Roxy glanced around. Ah. That hangar door flying her way was a point of concern. She could just barely see it flipping end over end through almost frozen time. “actually, yu lookin for a pack of cards, per the chance? i got one fer yas earlier. sombody wrote plot device on them… i could jus…”
“Wait. No, no, no hand-offs, you’re still going down that way,” He peeked towards the ground, “A something like a million miles an hour and if I’m supposed to have a pack of cards, if just as soon get them myself.”
Roxy ducked back under for another breath, Noticing Jane flying closer to the hole. Roxy vigorously shook her head ‘no’ – so Jane held back trying to get an angle on when was talking at the other end, before flying back. “some blonde in Crocker reds-” she told Jake. “Can’t say I fault him for the color.”
“So you got everybody in there? And you’re… uh… keeping the door? With your arms and legs all…” Daves head tilted. He looked very much like he wanted to get a better look – but he was also in the middle of trying to make standing on a scrap of the ship in freefall look effortless.
“oh this? uh. no, no this isn’t they uesal contortion act. actually. you should come see it. on the ship. in the past.” Her look was an apologetic one.
“And here I thought I was just on an after-lunch walk to see the latest explosion.” He looked up at the ship disintegrating. “Ok… Ok. Anybody I should know about being up there?”
“is just jane and jake and daddy crocker – and a few of the guys. well, givem a few days, and they were there. if that means anything to you.”
“It does.”
Roxy dodged for another breath, “i got a stuid question for ya, mister time man. is recursion in timelines a thing?”
“I don’t think I’ve heard anything called that – could you…?” he spun a finger around, calling for elaboration.
“ah. maybe i didn’t get it from yu. uh. if weere in a scenario that could go differnt, and we try and make it differnt… its only the last loop that matters, right? not good intentions. not. what we hoped went differnt.”
“Timelines can fork – but from time travel? There’s no place for that lost history. It is what it is.”
Roxy bowed her head, took a deep breath. “den. would yu let me know – after you see the show, cus i know yr wonderin – dirkie. he can’t be here. hes gonna… i dunno. we gotta stop him from hurting anybody.”
She wanted to start crying again. “i do.”
“Hey, hey. Whatever happened – it was as much my fault for bein’ here.” Dave sighed, wring his hands, wanting to put a hand on her shoulder but knowing he couldn’t, “I guess I’ll just. Be on my way up there until I find my way in. Obviously if you saw me I made it in safely.” He bent over stiffly, like he was stretching for a run.
“mebbe we can all have a bite when yu get back?”
Dave smiled. “Time will tell. Ok – one last breath?”
Roxy dodged in breathing deeply, “here we gooooo”
And the wind was back. She corkscrewed sideways, barely managing to avoid the hangar door now flying past.
~
Roxy awoke to Jake screaming at her. She ached all over. Dazed she opened her eyes to an orange sky, through the door of a tent of some sort.
“Jane! Jane! She woke up!”
“Of course she woke up. I told you she was going to be fine,” Jane wandered over, gently propped up Roxy’s head head looked into into her eyes, “Right mind, no guarantees. Did you mean to ring palm tree from orbit?”
“izzat what it was? i was sorta running out of air at the end ther.”
Jake leaned in toward Jane, “Is… it this another pussy joke?”
“OUT.”
Jake cleared the tent.
“Seriously, I know death is a joke and all that, but did it have to be that stupid?”
“whay did yu see?”
“Just a palm tree popping through our only exit, spinning like it was thrown around the stake at a game of horseshoes. Dad cut it down with an axe in his wallet. Which,” Jane bowed her head, “Just makes me wish we could deal with stuff like normal wallets once in a while.”
“huh. hav we figgerd wher-?”
“Jake thinks he’ll be able to use his ‘reckoning’ of the stars to figure out where we are in a bit. It’s an island, a tropical one, for all we know so far. I suppose the better question is… is this your Earth?”
~
With his survivalist ‘credentials’, as Jane was wont to call it, Jake did eventually determine that they were staring up at the summer hemisphere at nights. Possibly – possibly – at what had once been Australia. There were bigger landmasses beyond – though no clear sign of most the the battleship’s wreckage.
There were fish. There was some coral nearby. The land supported some plants. This might be as good a place as any else.
~
It took a few weeks to set up the basics of a cloning lab, even with the resources alchemy made available. Jane finally started the process of emptying her halo of souls – newly cloned carapaces, unsure of just what to think, started rebuilding their own society with the grist available, slowly organizing themselves as numbers grew.
Sleepers were pulled, one by one, from paradox space. Some were quite confused. This wasn’t Prospit, Derse, or Skaia. Some knew of the trip they had made. Many were content to carve a niche into this new world for themselves… to do exactly what they have been doing before.
In an attempt to force the carapaces into autonomy, there was an attempt at an election. No carapace won a majority for mayor. Dad Crocker won a write-in campaign for ‘king’ – there had been no such position on the ballot. He reluctantly accepted the position.
Roxy waited for Dave to show up for dinner.
Paradox space was emptied of it’s sleepers. Not over months, but over years. Each awakening raised the same question again; When was Meenah’s turn? Roxy pleaded, Jane always put her off. There was no reason to release the troll just to release her – she still didn’t want her getting in the way.
Jake set of on longer and longer trips as he got his bearings, first by his own flight, and then by sail, as carapace industry geared up to build him a water-borne ship. He assembled a crew of those who hadn’t quite found their niche, and went on trips to map the world.
Roxy waited for Dave to show up for dinner.
Meenah was finally awoken when Jane was convinced there were no more excuses. In her slumber, the girl had grown – no longer a 4 sweep old. but somewhere on the cusp of teenage-hood – again, displaced to a new setting, where she had to struggle to relearn her place and the world around her. Jane kept her one a tight leash – metaphorically, not literally. No business to study, she turned to baking – eyeing the diminishing grist reserves, she was able to awaken an appetite in the carapaces for ‘actual’ food – eventually creating enough demand that farming started.
Roxy was left to the role of ‘cool aunt’ in this endeavor. The girl would still join her in stretching sessions every so often, but it wasn’t the troll’s obsession. And that? That was fine.
On one of Jake’s restocks between voyages. Roxy came aboard. The carapace crew stood at attention, Jake himself welcomed her with open arms… and just a bit too tight of a squeeze.
“i need to go to old new york.”
The Roxy of yesteryear was still recognizable, but… girl was no longer the word, “It’s the other side of the world, hun.”
“i got… fambly out there? the remnants of a home? i need to know. i need…”
Leave a Reply