Short Book Review: Character-Driven Time Travel Romance

Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time Novel) by Kelley Armstrong (St Martins)

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth installment in  Kelley Armstrong's “Rip Through Time” time-travel novels that feature modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson, who has slipped 150 years into the past to Victorian Scotland. By now, three books later, she's developed meaningful relationships with the people around her and is using her training as an assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie. That’s all the backstory a reader needs, since Armstrong skillfully weaves in the relevant material as the plot unfolds. The important thing is that Duncan and Hugh, along with Hugh’s independent-minded sister, Isla, know Mallory’s true identity and trust her investigatory skills.

Now the four are off to a beautiful highland hunting lodge for the wedding of Hugh’s younger sister. All is not well, however. The new gamekeeper has been laying traps that threaten not only local wildlife but the poor folk accustomed to traveling freely over the estate. Soon, Mallory and her friends are caught up in a series of increasingly bizarre mysteries that culminate in the murder of one of the guests, for which the inexperienced young constable arrests the groom.

The combination of time travel and murder mystery would furnish an entertaining read, but Armstrong goes further. Her sensitivity to relationships, the vulnerability of women in the 1870s, especially those without rank or money, and Mallory’s compassion and quick insight all make for a deeper story. It’s not necessary to have read the preceding volumes to enjoy Death at a Highland Wedding, although you’ll likely want to gobble up as many of the adventures of Mallory and her friends as you can find.

Very Short Book Reviews: In the world of Tim Powers, things go seriously pear-shaped

After Many A Summer, by Tim Powers (Subterranean)

Tim Powers is a master of turning an already weird tale five ways on its head, upside down, and inside out until it begs for mercy in ancient Akkadian. His new short novel, After Many A Summer, is no exception. It begins, as do many of his books, with a semblance of normality: a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Conrad, accepts a too-good-to-be-true deal from a movie studio: they’ll produce his script for a fabulous sum if he drives a valise around LA, transferring it from one vehicle to another. What does he have to lose? He figures this is an elaborate scheme for delivering a ransom for a kidnapped heiress. He’s sort-of right and very, very wrong. The heiress is indeed being held captive, but the valise contains a centuries-old mummified skull that can talk, prophesize, and even alter the course of time itself, and is given to quoting the poet Tennyson. And that’s just the beginning of things going seriously pear-shaped.

I’ve loved the work of Tim Powers ever since I discovered The Anubis Gates in 1983, so I was prepared for superb storytelling and major revamping of reality. I was not disappointed on either count. The story, taking the reader further and further from expectations, requires a bit of patience, but the central character is sympathetic enough to act as a naïve if likeable guide. Highly enjoyable (and an object lesson).

Short Book Reviews: Another Time-Traveling Mystery Romance from Kelley Armstrong

A Twist of Fate, by Kelley Armstrong (Subterranean)

This time-traveling-mystery-romance, set in the world of A Stitch in Time, is every bit as charming. In the first book, a door through time allowed 21st Century Bronwyn and 19^th Century William to fall in love and build a life together. William’s best friend, August Courtenay, has suffered a double loss. First his sister, drowned in the pond on the family estate. And then his beautiful wife, Rosalind, who went riding along the ocean cliffs one night and never returned, leaving her husband to raise their infant son alone.

Rosalind did not perish, as everyone believes. On an impulse, she rode out to William and Bronwyn’s home and stumbled through the time portal. For the past four years, she’s been marooned in the present time, learning new skills while she desperately searches for a way to return.

Now she’s back.

Matters are not so simple as a happy reunion. First she has to explain her absence to her possessive husband. After the death of his sister, he’s likely to think she abandoned him. Has he remarried? Is he happy in a new life? Rosalind decides to investigate before showing up on his doorstep and through a twist of fate, ends up as her young son’s new governess. Not only that, but her son is one of the few people who can see the ghosts that haunt the mansion, a gift of his mother’s “Second Sight.” Who—or what—are the ghosts after?

Rosalind’s first-person voice is engaging and emotionally urgent. I loved all the ways she had adapted to modern life and then took those skills and empowerment back to the past. Her fierce, unwavering devotion to her son was pitch perfect. On the minus side, I had trouble with how much she dithered about telling August who she was under her convincing disguise. Like other readers who are not primarily romance fans, I find the misunderstandings created by the lack of a simple, direct conversation frustrating, although they are common to the genre. To Rosalind’s credit, she is in many other ways a resourceful character. One of the high points of the story came near the very end, when she confronts her husband with his pathological abandonment issues and informs him that he will have to work through them.

If you, like me, loved Bronwyn and William’s story, you’ll want to grab this one, too!

Short Book Reviews: A Time-Twisting Murder Mystery

The Paradox Hotel, by Rob Hart (Ballantine)

If we ever managed to figure out time travel, who would control it? How would we prevent time tourists from messing with the past—and would that warp the present, as in the grandfather paradox? In Rob Hart’s latest novel, The Paradox Hotel, the US government has been policing time tourism and historical research expeditions, only now they’ve run out of funds and the franchise is about to go to auction.

January Cole works security at the Paradox Hotel, which hosts time travelers awaiting their scheduled “flights to the past” at the nearby Einstein Institute. She’s a seasoned time traveler herself, having made many trips as part of the policing agency. As a result of spending too much time in the past, she’s become Unstuck, with the result that she often sees events and people from prior times. The best of these incidents allow her to be with her sweet, loving girlfriend, now dead. But January’s condition is worsening, and she’s not only seeing the past but the future. That future includes a corpse in Room 526.

With trillionaires arriving for the auction, baby velociraptors on the loose, and January’s grip on the present moment growing ever less reliable, it’s inevitable that more things will go wrong…starting with a series of “accidents” befalling the powerful, ultra-wealthy bidders. Clocks run backward, time seems to stutter, the treatment for being Unstuck no longer works, and January’s running out of time to stop the murder.

I loved the convolutions of time, January’s wrestling with grief and guilt, the dips into the past, and of course, the baby velociraptors that grow much too fast, all with the fast pacing of a thriller. In short, Hart’s time-twisting murder mystery satisfies on many counts.

 

 

Very Short Book Reviews: A time-travel supernatural mystery thriller

The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall, by Jessica Thorne (Bookouture)

Two very different women separated by sixty years of history – garden designer Megan in 2019 and heiress Ellie in 1939 – meet in a moonlit hedge maze. After the usual suspicions are allayed, they discover how much they have in common. The legendary Green Lady, who may or may not be Arthur’s Guinevere. Two stern women with the surname Seaborne, one an archaeologist in Megan’s time, the other a wartime secret service agent in the employ of Ellie’s father – or is it the same person? When Megan starts researching Ellie’s home, Foxfield Hall, she discovers that Ellie disappeared without a trace. Then it’s a race against the countdown to the date of that disappearance, for both women to discover the link between the supernatural feminine figures called Vala, the tunnel through time, and the fate not only of Ellie but of Megan herself.

A highly readable time-travel supernatural mystery thriller, The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall hits all the notes perfectly with smooth prose, evocative details, compelling characters, and a superbly revealed mystery.

Two Book Reviews Demonstrate the Future is not What We Expect

The Apocalypse Seven, by Gene Doucette (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

My introduction to Gene Doucette’s witty style was his previous novel, The Spaceship Next Door, reviewed here. This newest adventure has all the charm, warmth, and thoughtfulness I’d come to expect.

One morning, a small and disparate group of people – college students, a hermit preacher, an astrophysicist, for example – wake up to find the world changed. Each seems to be utterly alone. Familiar buildings are more or less intact, but wildlife and vegetation has taken over the university town of Cambridge. There’s no electricity, and all the batteries are dead. The astrophysicist notices the stars are in subtly wrong positions. As the group makes contact with one another, gathering at the university, they support one another when they aren’t arguing, for each has a different understanding of what has happened. Touré, a twenty-ish Cambridge coder, calls it the whateverpocalypse. Just as they learn they are not the only humans alive and suspect around a century has elapsed while they were unconscious, they begin to suspect they are not the only intelligent species on the planet, but it’s anyone’s guess whether the ghosts or aliens or whatevertheyare mean the human survivors well or ill.

By far, the sneak star of the book is Norman, the coywolf (coyote-wolf hybrid) tamed by the blind character, Carol.

 

Tiny Time Machine, by John E Stith (Amazing Select from Amazing Stories)

I’ll read anything by John E. Stith, but somehow I missed this charming short novel. The description says it’s “for young adults,” but I disagree. While teens are going to love it, and it’s a novel featuring young characters, it’s so full of buoyancy and hope that adults will gobble it up, too. Meg describes herself as the daughter of an angry scientist dad, so angry that he in fact turns a smartphone into a time machine that not only peeks into a not-too-distant future but allows people to jump into it. Alas, it’s not a future anyone would want to live in. The planet is dying, and humanity along with it. The oceans have turned into a stiff jelly, reminiscent of ice-9 in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Meg and her new friend Josh embark upon a quest to stop a billionaire technologist whose well-meaning attempts to clean up the ocean’s plastic garbage will lead to this bleak future. Soon they’re on the run from the police, as well.

One of the things I enjoy about Young Adult novels is how teens can have agency, not only in their own lives but in the world. Typically, parents are therefore absent or dead (in Meg’s case, both of them, her father recently so), and that frees the characters from supervision. In this story, not having a parent deprives Meg and Josh of the perspective and resources an adult ally could offer. They have internal challenges of growing up and learning to work together, deal with jealousy, and so forth, all within the limitations that minors face. This is while figuring out what happens in the future and how to stop it.

As a bonus, the book contains a piece of short fiction, “Redshift Runaway,” set in the same world as Redshift Rendezvous. When a sentient alien pet runs wild on a starship traveling a significant fraction of the speed of light, where the laws of ordinary physics no longer apply, chaos ensues, but also understanding. Nobody writes relativity-based science fiction better than Stith.

 

Short Book Reviews: Kelley Armstrong's Time-travel-Victorian-haunted-house-mystery-romance

A Stitch in Time, by Kelley Armstrong (Subterranean Press)

The author describes A Stitch in Time as a “time-travel-Victorian-haunted-house-mystery-romance,” and it hits all the right notes. History professor Bronwyn inherits the Gothic manor where she lived as a child, and as a summer project embarks upon its renovation. As a child, she was able to step into the manor’s past, where she befriended William, the next heir, until present-day adults decided she was mentally ill and locked her up. So her return is fraught with memories – was William real? – and ghosts that seem to be attempting to communicate with her. Although she’s reluctant to accept it, the time “stitch” keeps returning her to William’s time. So many years have now gone by, and yet the old affection quickly blossoms into something more. Or would, if the ghosts weren’t increasingly importunate. Someone was murdered in William’s time – but who was the victim? And who did it? The more deeply Bronwyn searches, the more dangerous the secrets she uncovers.

All these elements are handled with such superb skill and pacing that I kept turning the pages long after I should have turned out my light. I’m a sucker for a good love story, but when it comes packaged with tantalizing mystery and the wisdom of older-and-wiser characters, the result was a highly satisfying time-travel-and-so-forth adventure.

Guest Interview: Heather Albano, Author of the Keeping Time Trilogy

Welcome Heather Albano, author of the wonderful steampunk time-travel novel, Timepiece, and its sequels. I reviewed it here. She's graciously agreed to give us a peek behind the scenes.

What inspired your novel?

(I love telling this story.) It started when afriend of mine told me about a dream she’d had, in which a package arrived in the mail for her then-infant son. Inside the package addressed to him was a package addressed to me (how odd, she thought) and inside that was a velvet bag containing a pocket watch. Opening the pocket watch, my friend discovered the period casing contained a futuristic-looking screen cycling through images of different historical times and places. “I think I had your dream, Heather.”

I tried to write a story about her son and me and the pocket watch, including a reason for the nested packages, but I couldn’t get it to gel. A pocket watch seemed to belong to an older era anyway…so maybe this wanted to be a Victorian time travel story. Maybe steampunk—huge mechanical monsters stomping down a gaslit street? Yeah. Stomping after what? What would mechanical Victorian monsters hunt? Something natural run amuck, of course. The Victorians would totally build monstrous scientific artificial things to constrain monstrous natural things.

Okay, so where did the run-amuck natural things come from? And when? It would have to be long enough before the Victorian era for the organic monsters to become a problem, for a solution to be generated, and for the solution to become its own problem. Seventy to eighty years, say? The “Victorian era” spanned a long time, of course, but I meant the Sherlock Holmes / Jack the Ripper / Dracula / H.G. Wells part of it—so call it 1880 to 1895. What was going on in England seventy to eighty years before, say, 1885?

Five seconds later, I was scrambling for Wikipedia to look up the dates of the Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo. Five seconds after that, I knew exactly what the story was about.



What was your favorite part of writing the Keeping Time trilogy?

My favorite type of reading experience is the one in which I suddenly realize the story I thought I was reading is not the story I am actually reading—the moment when the addition of a perspective or a backstory changes the context entirely. So it’s not entirely true that I wrote the first two books just so I could rewrite the scenes from a different character’s perspective in the third…but it was my favorite part of writing the third. Other people were in the middle of their lives when Elizabeth’s exuberant bildungsroman intersected with them, after all, and their stories have a different shape than hers…

Short Book Reviews: Jane Austen Heroine, Time Travel, and Frankenstein's Monsters Win the Battle of Waterloo

Timepiece (Book 1 of the Keeping Time Trilogy) by Heather Albano (Stillpoint Digital Press Prometheus)

The concept: Jane Austen-style characters travel through time to keep Frankenstein’s monsters from saving the Battle of Waterloo and transforming Victorian London into a nightmare of pollution and Orwellian robots.

The execution: Deft prose, careful characterization, and meticulous historical research brought the story alive from the opening pages; On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, Wellington’s position is dire. The French have inflicted massive losses on his forces and he fears with good reason that his lines cannot hold another determined assault. The Prussians, whom he had counted on for relief and reinforcement, have been delayed, despite promises of imminent arrival. His only hope: the “special battalion” troops, descendents of the monsters created by “the Genevese” student (presumably a historical Dr. Frankenstein) a generation ago. He makes a choice and sends for them. That’s the set-up.

Across the Channel in England, a young woman, straight of the pages of Jane Austen and very much an homage to Elizabeth Bennett, aptly named Elizabeth, befriends William, a disabled veteran of those same Napoleonic wars. A mysterious gift, a watch-like device with multiple dials whose purposes are unfathomable, catapults the two to London half a century later, where the city has become an inferno-esque nightmare of pollution, poverty, child labor, and an Orwellian spy state, enforced by gigantic robots. The robots, it turns out, were developed against the “monsters,” who did not simply go away after Waterloo but were used as slaves in hazardous occupations like mining, rebelled, and were driven to Scotland behind “Moore’s Line” (shades of Hadrian, anyone?) Here they meet enigmatic Maxwell, possessor of a second time-travel watch, whose goal has been to prevent the current catastrophe by changing history. His multiple attempts – convince the Genevese to not create a monster, prevent Wellington from using the “special batallion,” etc., have all been unsuccessful. Now our stalwart team, aided by a few sundry folks from 1885 and a few more allies they make upon the way, embark upon the same mission. Needless to say, the following adventures are vastly entertaining, full of poignant moments, character development, and perspectives on the cultural shifts between 1815 and 1885, particularly for women. When they finally return to 1885, the initial signs are good: clear skies, fresh air, streets bustling with normal commerce…except they have inadvertently broken history. And obviously must go on to fix it in the second volume.

Short Book Reviews: D B Jackson Ventures into Time-Traveling Fantasy

Time's Children, by D B Jackson (Angry Robot)

I loved D B Jackson’s “Thieftaker” Chronicles, set in pre-Revolutionary Boston, with an appealingly flawed hero and a system of magic that extorts a dreadful toll. The plots moved right along, part police procedural, part magical battle, part romance. My interest never wavered, and at the end, I counted many of the characters as friends or at least recognizable enemies I must never trust. So I dove happily into this fantasy with its intriguing premise of magic wielders who can not only cross distances but time itself. I assumed the setting would be vivid, the characters compelling, and the magic itself carefully thought through and integral to the world and the plot.

The description was promising: Fifteen year-old Tobias Doljan, a Walker trained to travel through time, is called to serve at the court of Daerjen. The sovereign, Mearlan IV, wants him to Walk back fourteen years, to prevent a devastating war which will destroy all of Islevale. Even though the journey will double Tobias' age, he agrees. But he arrives to discover Mearlan has already been assassinated, and his court destroyed. The only survivor is the infant princess, Sofya. Still a boy inside his newly adult body, Tobias must find a way to protect the princess from assassins, and build himself a future... in the past.

As I read, I found my expectations were not amiss: the world was complex and interesting, and the characters, particularly the demons, got me curious. I loved the system of magic. An auspicious beginning, I thought. But as page after page went by, each one piling up more secondary characters that seemed to serve no purpose but to be left behind in an unending prequel to the plot promised by the description, I found myself looking around for something else to read. Add to that, the descriptions went on and on…and on, Robert Jordan style. As I’m not a fan of Jordan except as a cure for insomnia, this didn’t work for me.

Jaydium, Chapter 19

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 19

 

The living quarters were the most boring Eril had ever laid eyes on. If this was a hotel, I=d turn around and check out now. How can these creatures make buildings that are so beautiful on the outside and so dull inside?

The four windowless rooms opened to a spacious central area furnished with a table, benches and a large shallow pool of water, constantly circulating through pipes at either end. The table was more birdbath than eating surface, its water replenished like that of the pool. The sleeping cubicles were empty except for an unadorned couch and a shallow ceramic fixture set in the floor, with perforated openings at one end and a large drainage hole at the other, like an awkward cross between a urinal and a bidet. Everything from the walls to the benches was the same neutral, indirectly-lit gray.

Kithri threw herself down on one of the beds, her back to the others. Brianna darted about, examining everything from the pool to the table to the cubicles with great enthusiasm. Lennart slouched on a bench, encouraging her until Eril wanted to scream at both of them to shut up. When Bhevon returned and indicated that Eril was to return to the laboratory, he went cheerfully.

What followed was the strangest examination Eril had ever undergone, and he=d passed some sadistically inventive Qualifiers at the Academy. The chair, again sculpted to his own dimensions, was superlatively comfortable, yet now he felt penned-in, cornered. Another of Raerquel=s many assistants, Possiv, had drawn six-foot high panels out of the bare walls and surrounded him with them. The panels were close enough for Eril to touch. They completely cut off his view of the laboratory.

Apparently all he was expected to do in this test was watch the patterns of light that flashed across the screens. Ripples of the subtlest shades of gray, barely distinguishable from one another, alternated with loops and squiggles of brilliant white and black. Occasionally they broke into stark geometrical patterns like aerial views of a psychopathically conceived labyrinth.

Eril couldn=t decide if it was the brightness that made his eyes water and ache, or it was the rapidly changing patterns. His leg muscles twitched and his hands curled unconsciously into fists. Something grated on his nerves, as if he were about to fly smack into an ambush. He couldn=t put his finger on what made him feel so jumpy. Whatever it was, it was getting worse by the moment. His vision blurred and the blood vessels behind his eyeballs began to throb.

Jaydium, Chapter 18

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 18

 

In another part of the laboratory complex, Eril wrestled with an entirely different set of problems. Opposite him, just beyond arm=s reach, sat the gastropoid Bhevon, Raerquel=s assistant and clan-inferior, patiently going over its questions one more time. As he formed his answers, Eril tried to analyze each one critically and to keep his own curiosity under control.

Yet his eyes sometimes strayed to the glass instruments lining the walls and he couldn=t shake the feeling of relaxed well-being, as if there had been some euphoric drug in the healing gel. All traces of the pirates= handling, even the pain from his fractured ribs, had vanished completely.

To make matters worse, his chair, which had been sculpted to his individual dimensions, was so comfortable, it presented a constant temptation to relax. That was a luxury he could scarcely afford, now of all times. How he handled these questions was crucial, even if the gastropoids seemed friendly enough to begin with. 

It wasn=t just his own impression that was at stake, but that of the whole human race.

What was his species? Terran human, technically Homo sapiens. He hoped the translator panel would make something coherent of the archaic terminology.

His individual name? Eril Jermaine Trionan. Colonel, Fifth Federation Space Service.

His phylogenic ancestry? Primates, and before that, mammals, and before that, some kind of reptile, he supposed, and before that... Well, certainly, they were all vertebrates, clear back to whenever animals developed internal skeletons.

By what means had he appeared in World-of-Home? That was a hard one. Some sort of time-space disequilibrium must have transported them. No, not across space, they were still on the same planet, except it was different. Either they=d gone back in time, or history had taken a different direction, or both. If the gastropoid thought this a preposterous explanation, it gave no indication.

How did his species differ from other animals? Why did they consider themselves human? At least, that was the word Brianna=s translator came up with.

What were they doing here? Who sent them?

Jaydium, Chapter 17

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 17

 

Even before Kithri stepped through the doorway, she recognized Brianna=s voice.

"--positive evidence it=s the same. I=ve spent a whole year studying this site and--"

Lennart spotted Kithri and jumped to his feet. He and Brianna had been sitting on a low bench in a large, light-filled room. Kithri caught a glimpse of his unbruised face before he enveloped her in a hug.

"They swore that magic ointment would fix you..." Lennart ran one hand over Kithri=s face, touching the lip that had been cut.

If it had been me with Red-hair instead of Brianna, Kithri thought, he would have tried just as hard to stop him. She flinched and took a step backwards.

Brianna stood up. She too wore a belted one-piece tunic with a translator panel across her chest, but on her figure it looked alluringly feminine. There were no traces of the hollows around her eyes or the patchy texture to her skin that had appeared with her first capture by the pirates.

Kithri looked away. She didn=t want to be reminded of how willing she=d been to let Brianna suffer. "You=re all right, too."

"As you can see," Brianna said stiffly.

Kithri=s eyes darted around the room, the low broad bench, the two blank walls and third wall of shallow built-in shelving covered with mysterious-looking glass objects. Raerquel had disappeared, along with any trace of the door. "Where=s Eril?"

"Still recuperating, is my best guess," said Lennart.

Kithri caught the undertones of worry in his voice. Acid filled her mouth and a throb of pain shot through her temples. Even though her physical injuries were healed, some part of her was still back with the pirates, still holding on...

"Did you recognize the city when you were outside?" Brianna asked suddenly.

"It looks just like yours, except for the color," Kithri said.

"Come here, look at this." Brianna grabbed Kithri=s hand and pulled her to the far wall, where rows of clear glass artifacts lined the shallow shelves. She picked up a crystal tube, colorless and unmarked, and handed it to Kithri. It felt warm and very slightly supple, not like ordinary glass.

Kithri wondered if it would shatter it she hurled it against the opposite wall.

Jaydium, Chapter 16

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 16

 

No light, no taste. Silence. Anesthetic numbness filmed her skin. Her mouth--surely she should have a mouth below her sightless eyes. Her mouth--open or closed, she could not tell. Teeth and tongue, lips--were they wet or dry or coated with a thick gel?

Kithri struggled to pull herself upright, but there was no sensation of muscles contracting or joints flexing, no tug of gravity to orient herself in space. No change to prove she had actually moved.

I must be dead, then, she thought, and fled back into unconsciousness.

oOo

Some time later, she woke again. Her skin was slick and icy, her first reaction one of relief to be feeling something again, even if it was unpleasant. After a few moments, she noticed the feathery swish of air through her lungs. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Something flat pressed against her back, firm but not hard.

If she could feel her body, then she was still alive. And if she was not dead at the hands of the pirates, then what she had seen before she blacked out must be real and not an hallucination born of dying brain cells.

An image flashed unbidden across Kithri's mind.

Man-high and twice as long, the rounded body had tapered upwards, like a mound of silver jelly drawn erect at one end. Four plate-like discs covered the highest tip. Below them, boneless appendages uncurled and lengthened, reaching for her--

No, don't think about that!

--and there had been a voice, she remembered, two voices, deep and resonant.

"Ah! Your recovery is proceeding well."

Jaydium, Chapter 15

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 15

 

Red-hair gripped Kithri's elbow as she led them past archways of splintered topaz and amber. Sunlight fractured against the ruined lacework and spilled ribbons of color over the pirates' pale skins. They made no comment as they marched along, grinding the shards under their heavy space boots.

She guided them around another corner, three turns and then back down the long avenue where free-standing walls made a maze of light and shadow. The tension in Red-hair's hands increased as they went along, the group bunching closer together. Spacebred, they relied heavily on their navigational instruments, while Kithri's years in the brush had developed both her directional sense and a keen memory for landmarks. Now she prayed to all the powers of luck and space they were truly as disoriented as they seemed.

I must pretend I've been here before.

Kithri kept her features impassive as she identified her goal, a truncated green pyramid located diagonally across a plaza bordered by hedges of intricate braided crystals. She squelched any temptation to pause and stare at its perfect balance and grace.

She stepped through the doorway and into the spacious central chamber. The opaque, mint-colored threshold muffled the tread of the men's boots.

The interior was surprisingly bright, considering the thickness of the deep-hued emerald walls and the absence of windows. A shallow, unrailed balcony ringed the central chamber. Kithri's eyes raced across the shadowed doorways as she searched for the entrance Brianna had described.

I've been here before, I know where I'm going...

Jaydium, Chapter 14

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 14

 

"Stand away from her, both!" The voice repeated in the same staccato bark. "With respect to the blaster I hold, unless you desire to become imitation of city dust!"

Kithri raised her hands and slowly got to her feet, her back to the voice. From the corner of her vision, she saw Lennart do the same. What a dustbug idiot she'd been, so sure of herself. Now the three of them were in the pirates' clutches, with no one left free to plan a real rescue, and it was her own damned fault.

She wondered fleetingly if she could snatch the stungun from her belt, whirl around, and aim it before the pirate could fire his blaster.

Talk about idiotic ideas!

"Fellows! Turn slowly around."

Kithri obeyed. It was the bald head, Teeg, a glistening black egg on stilts. In one fist he held a wide-muzzled pistol of dull orange metal. A squirrelly looking pirate in blue knelt over the one she=d stunned. Behind them moved a shadow of a man of their height but thinner and red-haired. 

He carried Eril's force whip, tucked through his wide leather belt. Kithri saw his eyes and swallowed hard, struggling to keep her face impassive.

"No fellow, this. Female!" The squirrelly one grinned in Kithri's direction. She decided he must be Quick, Teeg's second.

Red-hair slipped forward and proceeded to search both prisoners with ruthless efficiency. When her turn came, Kithri tried not to flinch from the soft, intrusive patting of his hands. He tugged the stungun free from her belt and tossed it to his leader. Quick bent once more over the inert pirate. Kithri heard the click of a metallic instrument, and then groans as the two stunned man regained consciousness.

Without speaking, Quick and Red-hair hauled the other pirates to their feet. Kithri found the silence between them almost as unnerving as Red-hair's lingering touch as he tied her wrists behind her back and pushed her forward. Quick slung Brianna's body across his shoulders and followed.

Jaydium, Chapter 13

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 13

 

Kithri stood at the entrance to the dome and scanned the surrounding brush for any signs of discovery. Behind her, Brianna alternated between cursing under her breath and choking back sobs as she and Lennart sorted through the wreckage. Kithri kept her eyes away from the interior of the laboratory. The waste--the vicious, wanton waste--was more than she could bear. The central room, once filled with marvels of technology, was little better than a junkyard. Some equipment had been carried off, but what had not had been systematically rendered useless. Splintered glass and twisted metal housings lay everywhere, mingled with record books in sodden reagent-soaked lumps. Acids still smoked from the rubble that had been the main computer.

Kithri could understand disabling the communications gear, but to deliberately destroy scientific instruments... She remembered when her father would have given all he had for such treasure, now smashed past any hope of salvage.

The pirates hadn't overlooked much of value, although Brianna's sonic tuner was still functional and Lennart had found some short lengths of monofilament rope. The emergency medical kit was gone, along with the water purification supplies and the best of the survival clothing. They'd also taken the tangle, Brianna's only effective weapon, and irreparably disabled her surface transport. There was no way Brianna could have gone searching for Kithri across the forest-covered Plain.

Kithri's fingers ached from gripping the handle of her stungun. The camp and the surrounding bushes still looked peaceful, but it was only a matter of time before the escape was discovered, and every passing moment increased the chances of their being tracked here. She took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't jump out of her skin at the first sign of trouble.

Lennart emerged from the laboratory and finished packing the rope lengths, along with some clothes and empty water containers. Brianna rummaged in a disorderly heap of papers.

"What are you bothering with those for?" Kithri scowled. "I said to take only what we need--"

"Ah!" Brianna slid a thin sheaf into her pack along with the other gear. "My field maps!"

Kithri held her breath practically the whole distance to the city. As they darted from one clump of brush to the next, she felt entirely too exposed. She wanted solid walls around her while they planned their strategy.

Too damned much time spent down jaydium tunnels. It's better to see the enemy coming.

Jaydium, Chapter 12

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 12

 

Three days after she=d left Brianna=s camp, Kithri sat alone on a hillside at the western border of the forest, watching color slowly saturate the sky. Without dust to burnish it to eye-searing gold, the dawn glowed with a gentle, lingering light. Below her, the bushes covering the scrubjet looked soft, like brushed velvet.

She could not stay hidden long, she knew. Brianna would have metal detection scanners and any search would pick up the scrubjet. But first they=d have to know what area to fly over and she was a long way from the Manitous. She had time before they came after her...if they did. Time to think, time to decide. Time, but not much food or water.

Kithri jerked her hand away from her mouth before she could chew off another fingernail. It=s time to make up your mind. Do you want to be on your own again, maybe forever alone, or are you going back to deal with Eril?

No, the problem wasn=t Eril, although thinking about him sometimes left her feeling she=d gotten caught in a coriolis storm. He hadn=t dumped her on Stayman to rot. In fact, he=d offered her a decent way out and she=d been too ratshit scared to take it. What did she expect, that he wouldn=t be thrilled by the discoveries they=d made?

The problem isn=t Eril, Kithri repeated to herself. It=s me. Here I am with the same wonders in front of me, but all I can see is dust.

She brushed away a tear with the back of one hand, remembering the first joyous shock of the flower field and how quickly its sweetness had gone rancid. It had been easy to cry these last few days, without anyone to judge her weakness. Her eyelids burned as if they=d been scoured raw.

Albion is dead. I can never go back, and I=ve let that poison everything I touch.

oOo

She set the scrubjet down near the site of their original camp beneath a clump of umbrella trees that crowded between the crystalline city and the spaceport. The city looked exactly as she=d left it, but the vast cream-colored field was no longer vacant.

Jaydium, Chapter 11

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 11

 

Kithri followed Eril and Brianna through the shadowed parkland, Lennart at her side. The short grass cushioned her step and gave off a tangy smell. She glanced up at the stars but they were blotted out across half the sky. In the other direction, one moon burned stark and white through a rift in the clouds. The first cool drops of rain spattered her face.

Rain! Memories flooded up in her that last evening on Albion, walking in the pastel twilight through a field of tall, waving skyflowers. She=d stayed out until the rain had washed away her tears and she was soaked to the skin. Her father hadn=t said a word.

"Hurry!" called Brianna. She=d been heading toward the city, but now she veered off into a clump of low trees. Dense foliage blocked all but a gentle mist and the faintest dappling of moonlight. Low branches pressed in on both sides, forcing them to go single file.

Kithri walked slowly, feeling her way through the near darkness. Her moment of astonished joy at the rainfall had vanished. It was difficult to hurry and think at the same time, especially when a chorus of contradictory voices took up residence in her skull. 

How do I know this Dominion isn=t just as bad as the Fifth Fed? one part of her said. I=ll probably end up stranded on some backdust world that=s even worse than Stayman.

 

I should=ve insisted on staying behind with 'Wacker, another part grumbled. Who knows what might happen to it out there?

And yet, to see the Dominion woman=s camp, to ride in her ships, maybe to reach those stars that were so like the ones she=d dreamed of...