Starlight's Edge (10 page)

Piper looked at the group. For a moment, the impatience of the old Piper flashed in her eyes. “Am I the only one who sees a pattern here? Meli and Marc worked this week. They worked legally, at jobs no one can take away because no one on New Earth has their skills. Officially, their jobs don't exist. But that doesn't mean they
can't
exist. Each of us worked in our home zones, didn't we? And yes, we have to learn all the ways of New Earth. But maybe we have something to give, too, and instead of trying to hide who we are, we should look for ways to make our skills marketable.”

A young woman Zee's age with a pale white-blond braid that reached nearly to her knees stood up. “I've never spoken before,” she began shyly. “My name is Gudrun, and my home zone is the twelfth century. I don't speak because you were all born after me, so new, so much
younger
than I am.”

A soft giggle swept the room. Regardless of age, it was hard to break the habit of thinking of anyone born after you as younger. Their laughter seemed to relax the young woman.

“I lived in the far north of Norway and learned only household arts. Churning butter, preserving meats, weaving. Even if people wanted real butter and cloth, I could not do that, because everyone is impatient, and no one wants clothes stitched by hand.”

“Can you make cheese?” Marc asked, but Meli stepped in front of him.

“You can count, can't you?”

“Of course,” Gudrun replied with a spark of confidence. “Counting is everything in weaving. If you lose count of the rows, you spoil the pattern.”

“It's the same in lace making!” Meli exclaimed. “It's a kind of weaving too, done by wrapping threads around one another. It's difficult, because you must count carefully. You must count carefully and not lose track, or you will spend as much time undoing your work as doing it.”

Gudrun nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. Do you think I could try to learn?”

“I will teach you myself.” Meli smiled. “Well, I guess I'd have to—there's no one else, is there?”

Everyone in the room looked at Meli and realized they were looking at the only person on New Earth who knew the secrets of lace making. It was as if they saw, for the first time, that they too were special and valuable, and could become more than outsiders.

“What about me?” a young man in a jerkin, jeans, and suede boots asked. “I lived on the American frontier, just after the Revolution. I hunted, I scraped and tanned the hides and made my own clothes. Who wants that now?”

“Can you use a knife?” Marc asked.

“Blindfolded,” the young man answered.

“Then come work for me tonight. Chopping, peeling, cutting up a chicken, cleaning a fish. Half of cooking is knives.”

Meli was surveying the group. “Miyako, didn't you say you knew how to do a traditional Japanese tea ceremony? That might be popular. And, Bartello, what about that sport you were so good at?”

“Tennis?”

“If there's one thing New Earth needs,” someone muttered, “it's to lighten up a little. They could use some fun and games here.”

“But who's going to know about us?” Bartello asked, looking at the entire group. “Meli and Marc found work through strokes of luck. We could starve waiting for lightning to strike again.”

“Maybe we could start our own employment agency,” Piper suggested. “We could make a point of supplying special skills and producing unique goods and experience. We could call it—”

“Lost Arts,” Zee said.

“Perfect!”

“Maybe we could start a list of everyone's skills,” Meli suggested.

“And figure out what to charge,” Piper said. “It has to be expensive, or people won't think we're selling anything special. It has to be more than most people can afford, at least until we're established.”

Meli smiled. As a formerly pampered princess, she knew exactly what Piper meant.

Zee watched it all unfold around her. For a moment, she thought how nice it would be to join them, to learn to make lace or bake pastries and fall into a nice, cozy niche. But even as she watched Piper and Meli and the others make plans, she knew she wouldn't join them. Her path had to be different. Even without Piper as an ally, the plan that had been forming in her mind leapt up bright and clear, pointing the way.

*   *   *

In her old life, Zee's favorite time of day had been arriving at work. The energy of the hospital, the excitement of the shift ahead, and the anticipation of helping sick and damaged bodies heal had always been special to her. On New Earth her favorite time was evenings, when she and David would tell each other about the day they'd had, or curl up together and watch a holo. They didn't go out much—they were trying to live on David's Time Fleet salary, which wasn't really meant for two people. Neither wanted to accept money from David's parents, and when Zee told him about Mrs. Hart's diamonds, both agreed that they weren't meant for day-to-day expenses. But Zee didn't mind. She barely noticed the lack of money. What she craved most had nothing to do with money.

Ever since the night of the cab accident, she'd felt vulnerable. A sense of foreboding had settled in like a fog that would not disperse. First had come the accident the night of the party, then the cab—was it truly a coincidence? She felt helpless, as if she and David were walking around with boulders above their heads, boulders that could crush them at any moment. Maybe it wasn't surprising, given the two narrow escapes they'd had. But Zee had never felt so helpless in her life. She was tired of looking for a job that never materialized and tired of waiting for the next bad thing to happen. She had a plan, and it was time to put it into action.

*   *   *

David was sitting on the couch with a tablet in his hand when Zee sat down beside him. She could see the screen well enough to notice the Time Fleet emblem and a list of upcoming missions.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, taking the tablet from his hand and holding it. “About this.”

“I'm not signing up, Zee. Just looking. I've got two months of work left on the stuff I brought back already.” He brushed back a strand of Zee's curling auburn hair. “Besides, I told you, I'll go on shorter hops. I'm not leaving you alone anytime soon.”

“That's not what I meant. What I meant was—” She paused and took a deep breath. “What I mean is, I want to come with you. I want to join Time Fleet.”

She'd expected an instant reaction, a burst of approval or surprise. What she hadn't expected was silence.

“I want to join Time Fleet,” she repeated. “I've done some research and found out I can. In fact, they've started a program to keep couples together.”

It was a bit of a stretch to say she'd done the research. Actually, her computer had. Despite David's warnings about silicon life and computers with hidden agendas, hers was just the opposite—hers had been nothing but helpful. When Zee began searching to see what qualifications were needed to enter Time Fleet training, her computer discovered a policy change that gave partners of Fleet members priority consideration.

“I know about the program,” David said.

“You do? But you never mentioned it.” For the first time, it occurred to Zee that he might not want her with him, that time travel might be a part of his life he wanted to keep separate. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I should have talked to you first.”

“I didn't mention it because I didn't want you to feel pressured.” He looked at her and traced her cheekbone with his fingertips. “Are you sure this is something you really want to do?”

She nodded. “I'm sure.”

“Because I meant what I said about taking shorter assignments and staying home more, you know.”

“I know. But I've thought about this a lot, and it's about more than just being together. I need to use my skills, David. I need to be an empath again, and to keep studying divining, but I've been here long enough to see I can't do that here. There are no hospitals, and maybe there's a kind of empathy that could help with things like depression, but the truth is, New Earth speaks a different kind of emotional language.” She paused, thinking of how Paul's touch had thrown her for a loop, but how easily she'd discerned Meli's mood. “I don't read New Earthers right and can't connect the way I do with other time immigrants. And besides, there are no patients to work with, even if I could connect. But I'm sure I could be useful going with you into the past, and I want to try.”

“In that case,” he said, pulling her into the circle of his arms, “I can't think of anything I'd like better.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

AND FOUND

Within a month, Zee had completed the required physical and psychological testing and was accepted into Time Fleet training.

“I feel like a soldier now,” she said, showing David the acceptance with its Alliance of World Democracies seal.

“Sure thing, Private McAdams.” He grinned and raised an eyebrow. “We're not really that military, you know. Time Fleet is part of the military for practical reasons.”

“I don't understand.”

“When a way to time travel was discovered, the government knew it had to be kept under control. Otherwise, there'd be all sorts of smuggling, not to mention illegal exporting and importing.”

Zee tried to imagine someone showing up in the middle of the twelfth century with shock bombs for sale to the highest bidder. Or even someone with good intentions who wanted to save something precious from the coming disaster. What would happen if someone went right back to Leonardo da Vinci's workshop and bought the
Mona Lisa
to transport back to New Earth?

Humans had cells that could be copied, and somewhere in those cells the things that made the person a unique, expressive individual resided, so duplication worked. And tools could be duplicated because objects weren't expressive individuals. But works of art, she thought, were somewhere in the middle. As she'd seen with reconstructed nano art, you could have all the right molecules and still end up with nothing special. What if you destroyed the original
Mona Lisa
and discovered, too late, that the copy lacked the elusive thing that had made the original a masterpiece? And even if the copy was perfect, was taking it to the future for safekeeping the right thing to do? She thought of all the millions of people who'd seen the
Mona Lisa
and been inspired by it, and how it made the world a richer, better place. Was it fair to take it away from all those people? To strip the past of every beautiful thing?

“I see what you mean,” she told David, her mind reeling back to the present.

David nodded. “The result would be chaos. Some of our physicists have even suggested that the impact could unravel time itself. So Time Fleet became a branch of the military. This way, we can restrict access to transport bases and maintain them under military security.”

That night, when Zee woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep, she tried to imagine all the things that could happen if time travel weren't controlled. It was beyond imagination, and in the end she agreed with the physicists—time really
might
start to come undone.

*   *   *

Zee loved getting up to a day filled with purpose again, and the caught-by-surprise look on David's father's face when they told his parents made her stifle a smile. She could have sworn she heard Mrs. Hart's voice saying,
That's what I meant, Zee. Play big.

Though Zee and David were in different units, they both reported to the base at Reykjavik, and walking to the vactrain together each morning gave them extra time together. With most traffic removed to the skyways above, London streets had become quieter and prettier. Wide streets had turned into narrow lanes bordered with trees and flowers. Zee often felt she'd gone back in time instead of into the future, especially on foggy mornings that hid the skyways, or dusky evenings when the traffic above the buildings glowed like fireflies.

At the coast they transferred to the ghost, a ride long enough to pick up their conversation or read the news articles that flashed on pop-up screens. One day a headline caught Zee's eye—
Newest Thing in London Is Old-Time Luxury.
It was all about the Lost Arts Employment Agency and how there were long waiting lists for dinners and parties catered by Chef Marc Charoy and gowns and laces designed by Melisande de Rambures. There was a long interview with Piper, who listed other services the agency offered—handmade cabinetry, boat building (Viking dragon ships were in high demand), formal garden design, handmade quilts, and lessons in everything from the Japanese tea ceremony and flower arranging to Baroque dances. Zee couldn't believe the prices quoted, or the number of seamstresses and lacemakers Meli now had working for her. A few days later, Zee saw an ad that said,
Don't just encrypt your family history, illuminate it! Our calligraphers and illustrators use the finest hand-ground pigments and gold leaf for your favorite documents. Contact the Lost Arts Employment Agency.

Well, Zee thought, that was one way to bring back the past, and studying the past was what most of her classes were about. Whether her friends at Lost Arts knew it or not, they were helping New Earth fill in the blanks of their communal heritage. In the dark centuries after the meteors, the past had gotten lost, jumbled, spun around, and forgotten by those who had survival on their minds. Digital books and records decomposed without anyone noticing. Antique volumes, printed on paper, were burned for fuel. Paintings were favorite heat sources, because canvases, with their weave of fabric and layers of oil paint, burned hot and bright.

The mission of the Time Fleet was to return as much of that history as possible, to reconstruct and put in order not only the big events but the small ones. That was why David had been knocked on the head by an old-fashioned book and brought to Zee's hospital in the year 2218. He was copying Nancy Drew mysteries, a heroine unknown on New Earth. Zee had thought it was funny at first, but now she understood. History required all the bits and pieces—the Nancy Drews and macaroons and handwoven lace.