The Collectors Read online

  “Jena Noi.” Jeihaz greeted her with none of her counterpart’s warmth. “Though not the one I know. The outfit’s boring, but I like the hair.”

  “Thanks, Jeihaz. I like the, um, height.”

  The hologram gestured at the two humans. “I take it you and your associates here are connected with this incursion?”

  “That’s right. These are Agents Lucsly and Dulmur of the Department of Temporal Investigations, six-six-seven local years before present.”

  Lucsly nodded up at the hologram, offering a matter-of-fact “Ma’am.” Dulmur was too busy trying not to stare.

  “It was my mistake that brought them and the artifact here,” Noi continued. “And as mistakes go, it was a big one.”

  “That’s fairly evident. Couldn’t you have at least landed the thing in a more secure location? The chronergy it’s radiating is a beacon for time scavengers and raiders. You’re lucky nobody was final-killed.”

  “This is a secure location in my timeline. Agency headquarters should be right here.”

  The white ovals representing Jeihaz’s eyes narrowed. “So you deleted the Na’kuhl bombing? Or averted it?”

  Noi frowned, gazing around her at the plaza and getting a better sense of what the central statue was meant to commemorate. “The Na’kuhl did this?” There was no way it could have been a contemporary attack; the faction of militant temporal interventionists led by Vosk in the twenty-ninth century had been so extreme in their methods that they’d swiftly alienated supporters in their own society and had been short-lived in real-time terms, regardless of how far they’d been able to extend their reach into the past and future. She doubted things would have gone much differently in any other version of history. So the attack must have been parachronistic, a strike from two centuries downtime. “How did they get past the temporal grid?”

  Jeihaz tilted her head. “The what?”

  “Oh, no.” Noi’s heart sank. Without the galaxywide temporal defense grid in place to regulate time travel, different temporal factions would be free to attack one another directly instead of waging a cold war through proxies in the pre-grid past. Between the earlier Certoss raid and this new information, it seemed that was just what had occurred in this history.

  “Don’t worry, we made sure the damn Na’kuhl paid for their crime. But we left the event itself unaltered to remind us of what we’re fighting for.”

  Jeihaz’s casual implication that leaving history unaltered was atypical for her agency filled Noi with alarm. Next to her, Dulmur appeared equally disturbed and brimming with questions. Lucsly had his head down, trying to avoid paying attention, but Noi knew him well enough to read the depth of his own dismay.

  Noi turned back to the hologram. “Jeihaz, the bombing should never have happened at all. If you consult your shielded archives, you’ll find this is an adulterated timeline.”

  Jeihaz crossed her arms over her simulated barrel chest. “Is that so?”

  “I’m not sure yet how it happened. But I need your agency’s help in identifying the cause of the alteration and the best strategy for repair.” She nodded toward the obelisk that only she and her fellow blacksuits could currently see. “That artifact’s the trigger, so we’ll need to follow its travel curve back to the divergence point. But it’s got a default retrieval link to far uptime, and I don’t know how to override it.”

  The towering agent considered her words, her simulated face revealing nothing of the mental processing taking place in the holoemitter at her center of mass. “If what you’re saying is true, we need to take it up with senior staff. We were preparing the artifact for transport to HQ. You and the humans should accompany us.”

  “Sounds good. Where is HQ here, by the way?”

  “Tandar Prime.” She looked around. “But catch-up can wait. We’ve registered Aegis transporter signatures on Earth. They may be trying to get an agent in range.”

  “You’re not allies with the Aegis?”

  “We have an understanding. But this is just the sort of thing that would override that.” She nodded to a Gorn underling, who deactivated the cordon field before Noi. “You three come inside. We’re getting ready to beam out.”

  Noi led the DTI duo through the cordon, following after Jeihaz. “I wouldn’t recommend beaming the obelisk. Its fields are delicately balanced.”

  “We have it in stasis.”

  “Serel, listen. I thought I had it under control, and that’s a mistake that cost me. We need to take extra care here. This is far beyond us.”

  Jeihaz considered briefly. “Understood. I’m calling for a ship.” Her eyes fixed on Noi’s. “Just hope nobody attacks us while we wait.”

  The holographic agent moved off to ready her team, and Dulmur sidled up to Noi. “You mean we were going to beam to Tandar Prime instead of using a ship? That’s fifty-five light-years!”

  “Dulmur,” Lucsly cautioned.

  “It’s okay, Lucsly,” Noi said. “You guys have already had subspace transporters for decades, remember? You just haven’t figured out how to make them safe or practical to use. This is nothing you couldn’t have guessed would happen.”

  “If you can beam so far,” Dulmur went on, “I’m surprised you still even use ships.”

  Noi shrugged. “Even today, a lot of planets are still uncharted, uninhabitable, or unfriendly. Not the kind of places you just beam into.” Not to mention intergalactic travel, she thought, which I won’t.

  There was a bang of displaced air. Noi and the DTI men looked up to see a sleek white transport ship hovering overhead, not too different from those of her timeline’s Galfleet, but more heavily armed. It descended to the plaza, opening its rear hatch so the obelisk could be moved inside. Jeihaz came up to Noi again. “Stand by to board,” she said. “We should be at TIA headquarters within twenty minutes.”

  Noi looked up at the towering hologram. “TIA?”

  Jeihaz nodded. “Temporal Intervention Agency. Why, what’s yours called?”

  Noi, Lucsly, and Dulmur exchanged a disturbed look.

  Federation Temporal Intervention Agency Headquarters, Tandar Prime

  Roughly half of the twenty-minute trip to the Tandar headquarters was spent arranging clearance for landing and debarkation at the high-security facility. It made sense to Noi; in the absence of a galaxywide grid to secure against unauthorized entry from other times or timelines, a temporal security agency would need a robust local defense. And the Tandarans had spent centuries researching temporal defense methods following their decade-long harassment by the Suliban Cabal back in the twenty-second-century front of the Temporal Cold War. At least they’d done so before the grid had made it unnecessary. It stood to reason that in a grid-free timeline, they would have continued their defense research and the Federation’s temporal defenders would have availed themselves of it.

  But wait, thought Noi. The only reason the Cold War started at all is because the grid precluded direct attacks like we’re seeing here. Isn’t it? Perhaps, she reflected, her assumptions about Tandaran history had been in error. Perhaps they would have been predisposed to temporal research anyway. And perhaps the twenty-eighth-century Order of Omega would always have been predisposed to augment the twenty-second-century Suliban and attack the Tandarans by proxy as part of their experiments in species modification. Even in adulterated histories, the worldlines of individuals and species had a tendency to correct toward their most probable paths. Every event had a constellation of contributing causes, most of them far from obvious, so altering a few causative factors would often just change the details of an event rather than preventing it altogether. Not to mention that, on a more basic level, people had a way of using external circumstances as excuses for doing what came naturally to them anyway.

  While Noi had decades of direct experience with altered and parallel timelines to guide her thoughts, she knew that Lucsly and Dulmur w
ere limited mostly to abstract theory and secondhand reports. She could tell Dulmur was struggling to sort things out, though Lucsly, as usual, played his cards closer to the vest. “I remember what you told us about the grid,” Dulmur said to her as they sat in the transport’s cargo bay, shepherding the obelisk as TIA guards stood vigil over both it and them. “Some kind of network that protects known space from temporal incursions. Created by unknown entities at an uncertain time, so nobody could figure out where to go back to prevent its creation.” Noi gave an uneasy nod. Even telling them that much had been a severe breach of protocol, but she had been left with no choice when the two DTI agents had become caught up in a potentially cataclysmic battle of the Temporal Cold War—two and a quarter years ago for them, less than one for her—and had been the only neutral mediators capable of negotiating a settlement. Still, she’d kept them in the dark about the details as much as possible—which was easy enough, since the details were nearly as obscure to her.

  “So how can we be in a timeline where it doesn’t exist?” Dulmur went on. “How could our trip through time have triggered this divergence? Could the obelisk have—”

  “Dulmur,” Lucsly said sharply.

  Noi put a hand on the sandy-haired agent’s arm. “Lucsly’s right. The less any of us knows about the origins of the grid, the better. If we’re ever going to get me home, and keep me there, those secrets need to stay secret.”

  Dulmur looked into her eyes, understanding dawning in his own—along with compassion almost matching what she read in Lucsly’s silent gaze. “I’m sorry, Jena. I didn’t think . . . this must be painful for you. This is—it’s your time, but your world is gone and you don’t know . . .”

  She smiled. “I appreciate it, Dulmur, but it’s not my first time dealing with something like this. And I know my reality’s still out there somewhere.”

  “But there’s no guarantee it won’t converge with this history and—” He ducked his head. “Sorry, I’m doing a lousy job being reassuring.”

  “You’re trying to work the problem. So am I. Right now our focus should be on gathering intelligence.” She turned to the older agent. “And that means I need you both in the game, Lucsly. Observe everything you can. Yes, you’re seeing the future, but it’s the wrong future.”

  “One that’s still largely recognizable to you,” Lucsly replied. She gave him a pointed look, and after a moment he sat up and took a breath, visibly coming out of his introverted state—as far as he ever did, at any rate. “Very well. We’re at your disposal.”

  She looked back and forth between them. “You won’t resent it if I take the lead on this one?”

  Dulmur almost blushed. “We only have a problem with you butting into our territory.”

  “And subjectively recent events should demonstrate why,” Lucsly added.

  His partner hushed him, then turned back to Noi. “But this is your jurisdiction, in more ways than one. And let’s face it: We’re way out of our depth. We’ll help if we can, but it’s your show, Agent.”

  “I appreciate that. Really.” To be honest, there were dozens of more experienced temporal operatives she would far rather have assisting her in this situation. But if she had to be stuck with a pair of twenty-fourth-century DTI agents as her only backup, she was glad it was this pair. They could be a pain sometimes, with their bureaucratic rigidity and their parochial, puritanical attitudes toward time travel, but they were as stable and dependable as any time agents she knew.

  Although, in the grand scheme of things, their recorded impact on history after 2382 or so had been relatively minor. So she couldn’t understand how removing them from 2384 could have prevented the defense grid’s creation, particularly since it didn’t come into being until well after they were both dead. Perhaps Dulmur was right, and it had been the study of the obelisk that had somehow contributed something vital to the grid’s origins. But records showed that an uptime agent had taken the obelisk exactly when she had done so. Then again, many records had been forged to protect the grid’s secrets. Had this particular forgery accidentally had the opposite effect?

  If so, this might be a Spock loop: a paracausal Möbius strip in which learning of this alternate history would somehow lead her to take actions necessary to create her own history. That was encouraging, for it suggested there was a way out of this mess.

  Or maybe it will lead Lucsly or Dulmur to take some action that— She stopped herself. No, Jena. Do not think about it. Just don’t.

  The forward hatch opened, and Jeihaz entered, having shrunk her holographic body to fit more easily into the transport. “We’ll be landing momentarily,” she told Noi as the guards fell in alongside her. “Stand by to disembark—and bring your guests with you.”

  Once they exited the transport, they found themselves in the receiving area of a large hangar. Looking around, Noi spotted a variety of timeships more heavily armed and armored than those she was used to. Indeed, her FTA made little use of timeships, since quantum temporal transporters made them largely redundant in much the same way that subspace transporters did starships. Their presence here was a disturbing sign that the TIA’s methods were more aggressive.

  She also noted that several additional guards awaited her and the DTI agents. “What are they for?” she asked Jeihaz, who was growing back to her full size.

  “Standard procedure for anachronistic visitors. You’ll accompany us to the examination section.”

  “What kind of examination?” Dulmur challenged.

  “The kind you have no say in.”

  “Serel, please,” Noi interposed.

  The holographic giantess glanced her way, her posture relaxing slightly. “Medical examination, quantum analysis, interrogation. It’s routine, Noi, but it’s mandatory. You come with me. Tell the humans to follow their guards.”

  “Lucsly and Dulmur stay with me. I’m responsible for them.”

  “Until you submit to examination, you have no voice here.”

  “I’m not gonna let you scan my gear. I may have tech you don’t.”

  “That seems unlikely,” came a new voice.

  Noi turned to see a familiar human male, an inoffensive-looking, narrow-faced man with blue-gray eyes and a high forehead. This version of the man had a more severe, militaristic cut to his brown hair than the one she knew, and his bearing and attitude seemed to match. The pointless frippery adorning his uniform and the deference Jeihaz and the others showed him suggested that this version of her colleague was in charge around here.

  Dulmur and Lucsly traded a look. “Agent Daniels,” Dulmur said. “I wondered if he’d show up.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  Noi reminded herself that the DTI men knew Timot Danlen only by the alias he had used in his interactions with Captain Jonathan Archer in the 2150s. By habit, she declined to fill the gap in their knowledge.

  Danlen went on: “We exploit all the most advanced temporal technologies available to us, collected from many eras. I doubt there’s anything your timeline has to offer that ours lacks.”

  “Nonetheless—Director?” At Danlen’s nod, she continued: “I have my own procedures to follow, sir. I’m not going to submit my tech to inspection by an unfamiliar agency, even an alternate of my own. And I’m not going to let you separate me from my friends.” Dulmur looked surprised. Granted, “friends” was a strong word for their relationship, but it served her purposes at the moment—and felt somewhat comforting.

  “I respect your regard for procedure, Agent Noi,” Danlen said. “But let’s face the facts: If you wish to understand what’s happened, or get back to your own reality, you need our help. And you need the results of our analysis.” He gave a reassuring smile that Noi found no more convincing than that of her own Danlen, whom she had always considered something of a con artist. “So we’ll simply have to trust one another.”

  “That implies reciprocal concessions,�
�� she told him, brows raised pointedly.

  “Your gear will be returned to you postexamination, rather than confiscated. That’s the best I can offer.”

  She turned to the DTI men, reminding herself that they should at least be consulted. “So what do you think?”

  “I think we’re wasting time,” Lucsly said. “For once, Agent Noi, try to respect someone else’s procedures.” Dulmur gave her a sheepish look of agreement.

  Noi sighed. “Fine. But let’s get it over with. We need to talk, Director.”

  Danlen stepped closer, using his superior height to intimidate her in a way her own Danlen never had. “Oh, we will talk, Agent Noi. At length. And you will tell me everything you know about that obelisk.”

  Even Lucsly now looked worried as the guards led him and Dulmur away.

  V

  * * *

  May 3, 2384

  Eris

  Ranjea sighed as he and Garcia worked their way through Aisle J, still searching for devices that could let them find Lucsly and Dulmur without unraveling the universe. “Just before I applied to the DTI,” he said, “I was on a case involving an ancient Deltan time viewer employing quantum wormholes. A technology lost by our ancestors when they turned to more spiritual pursuits.”

  Garcia perked up. “That sounds like just what we need!”

  “Unfortunately, I failed to prevent the Na’kuhl from stealing it and taking it uptime. Well, the Carreon stole it first, and the Na’kuhl stole it from them before we caught up with them.”

  The younger agent stared at her partner. “So you lost the time machine—twice—and they still let you join the Department?” She shook her head. “Pff. A pretty face and a cute ass will let you get away with anything.”

  “I’ve found it doesn’t hurt.” There was a beatific smile on his face when she glared at him.