“The dimensional rift is enormous,” said Faraday. “And it’s constantly fluctuating, so if you go through it, there’s no telling what part of the universe you’ll end up in. The wormhole is an artificially generated vortex that keeps the rift, or at least one tiny part of it, pointing to a single location—in this case, Earth. But it takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep that connection open, and the government wants to use that power for . . . other things.”
I’d read enough military sci-fi novels to imagine just how ugly those “other things” might be. “So once the wormhole’s gone, the rift won’t be stable anymore.”
He gave a sober nod. “And then we’ll have lost all contact with your world.”
“But we still have time, right?” I said. “As long as you send us back right away, then—”
The rest of the sentence died on my tongue, obliterated by a new and painful thought. If Tori and I returned to Sudbury together, that would prove to everyone that I hadn’t killed her. It might even be enough to prove I wasn’t crazy. I’d be able to go home to my family, my music, my life. . . .
But I’d never see Faraday again.
“That’s what Mathis and I were discussing,” Faraday began, but the younger man interrupted.
“There is nothing to discuss,” he said in English, his accent so heavy it made my knees ache. “All of you will remain here.”
“Oh, really?” said Tori, hefting her tool kit, but Mathis was unmoved.
“There is no point in threatening me,” he said. “There is nothing I can do.”
“What do you mean?” Tori demanded.
“I mean,” Mathis said, “that the wormhole is already closed.”
My heart thudded into my diaphragm. “What? But we just came through it—”
Then it hit me. The flood of sensations that had overwhelmed me when the relay disintegrated Tori, and again right after Faraday and I came to this place . . . they hadn’t happened by accident. The first time it had taken me weeks to recover, but this time I’d felt better almost immediately, and now I knew why.
Because it was exposure to the wormhole that had been affecting my synesthesia. And right after Faraday and I arrived, Mathis had shut the wormhole down.
“But you can open it again, right?” Tori asked Mathis. She looked at Faraday, then at me. “Can’t he?”
I remembered what Faraday had just told us about the rift, and how it kept fluctuating. I remembered the empty rooms and neglected workstations we’d passed on the way here. And most of all, I remembered the flavor of Mathis’s voice as he’d told us, in English, that nothing we could do to him would make any difference.
“No,” I said slowly. “I don’t think he can.”
. . .
First Tori had paced around and raged; then she’d dropped back into her chair and burst into tears. I’d tried to comfort her, but she’d pushed me away. Finally she’d grabbed her tool kit and fled, the gray bubbles of her sobs trailing behind her. There’d been an awful moment of silence while Faraday, Mathis, and I looked at each other, and then the young scientist had gotten up and walked back to his console.
I knew I ought to cry too, but right now I was too numb to feel anything. I just sat there, staring at the floor, until Faraday edged closer and took my hand. “I’m so sorry, Alison,” he said, his voice pitched low so Mathis couldn’t hear. “This must be a terrible shock for you.”
I gave a shaky laugh. “You mean being trapped in a place I never wanted to be, unable to go home, at the mercy of someone who wants to analyze every detail of my existence but has no interest in me as a person? Actually no, it feels pretty familiar.”
Faraday was silent. Then he said, “I can’t speak for Mathis, but you’re wrong about Dr. Minta. He may be a little clumsy at showing it, but he does care. Did you know that his first wife was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and committed suicide after going off her medication?”
I was taken aback. “No.”
“Then let me tell you something else you probably don’t know,” said Faraday. “When he was eight years old, Kirk set a fire in the basement of his mother’s house, while she and her boyfriend—a drug runner for a motorcycle gang, who had been abusing Kirk physically and sexually for months—were sleeping upstairs. They both died of smoke inhalation, but Kirk doesn’t remember it. Sometimes he still talks as though they’re alive.”
His words stabbed me with an empathy I’d never expected to feel. Had the fire been an accident, or had Kirk set it on purpose? Did even he know the answer anymore? “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
“Everybody has a story, Alison,” he said. “Everybody has things they need to hide—sometimes even from themselves. Mathis and I were friends once, but he’s changed, and I need to know what happened to make him this way. Maybe then I’ll be able to get through to him, convince him to let you and Tori go free. If we all work together, we might even find a way to open the wormhole again.”
So there was still a chance of getting home? I wanted to believe it, but I was afraid to let myself hope. “And if you can’t get through to him?”
“Then we’ll have to try something else. But I have to put Mathis at ease, if I want him to open up to me. That’s why I’m asking you to let me talk to him alone, and not interrupt us. Will you do that?” Reluctantly, I nodded, and Faraday’s eyes softened. “Thank you, Alison.”
I clutched his hand. “Be careful. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to,” said Faraday. “Just try to trust me.” He squeezed my fingers, then let me go and walked over to Mathis. The younger scientist looked apprehensive at first, but when Faraday spoke to him in their own language, he relaxed and answered in kind. They exchanged a few sentences, and then Mathis motioned to the console beside him, and Faraday sat down.
It seemed like a natural time for me to leave, so I got up from my chair and walked toward the exit. All the while Mathis’s eyes followed me, but Faraday kept talking to him, in that rich, mellifluous voice that made even the harshest syllables beautiful. And then something he said made Mathis smile.
As soon as I saw that, it was like a key had turned in my head, unlocking a box of knowledge I hadn’t even known I possessed. Suddenly I could smell triumph all over Mathis, the satisfied air of a man who had finally persuaded a fool to see reason. “I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible about this,” he said—
Only he wasn’t speaking English. And yet the message came through to me just the same: pleasure—confidence—trust, with subtle undertones of other emotions that left me in no doubt of what his words meant. I nearly tripped over my own feet, but I managed to catch myself in time. Stepping carefully out of the observatory, I eased the door mostly shut behind me, then crouched and listened through the crack as Mathis went on:
“After all that nonsense about sending them back through the wormhole, I was beginning to wonder if I could rely on you. That Earth girl’s quite devoted to you, isn’t she? What are you going to do with her? Keep her as a pet?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” said Faraday, but the reproach was mild. “I owe her a great deal for helping me find the relay again. I’d like to see her treated well.”
“Ah, yes. The relay.” The amusement in Mathis’s voice faded. “When your transmitter stopped working, I thought you were dead. I scanned for days, trying to find the signal again, but there was no trace of you. If I’d known it was just a malfunction . . .”
He was lying, and for a moment I wondered why. Then realization inched up my brain stem, and my skin began to crawl with horror.
“No need to explain,” said Faraday. “It’s all in the past. I’m more interested in what you were doing with Tori. It can’t have been easy convincing the others to go along with your idea of sending her to Earth, after what had happened to me.”
But the other scientists hadn’t known what had happened to Faraday. He had just disappeared, and Mathis had pretended he knew nothing about it. I wanted to fling the door open and shout at
Faraday to get out of there, but I’d promised not to interrupt, and he’d asked me to trust him. I could only hope that Mathis wasn’t carrying a weapon underneath that tailored uniform.
“It wasn’t easy,” Mathis said. “But eventually they came around. Still, we’d only been observing her progress for a few years when we got the order to suspend the Earth project. The other scientists were prepared to give up on Tori’s part of the experiment, since she was still a child and we didn’t know if she’d survive to maturity. If I hadn’t come up with the idea of accelerating the mouth of the wormhole . . .”
Faraday drew in a sharp breath. “So that’s what happened. You increased the time differential between the two relays, and collected years’ worth of information in—what? A matter of weeks?”
“Exactly. I’d meant to continue my observations until she reached adulthood. But when the readings spiked and I realized she’d been injured, I had to activate the relay and retrieve her a little earlier than planned. Still, she’s close enough to maturity that it hardly matters. I think it’s safe to declare the experiment a success.”
“I should think so,” said Faraday, with a dryness so subtle that even I nearly missed it. “So now you’ve got Tori, what’s going to happen to her?”
“Well, the war’s going to make it difficult to do much with her right away,” said Mathis. “But obviously we’ll want to examine her and do a few interviews, and put her through a number of medical and psychological tests.”
“And after that?”
“Who knows? It’s not my decision. But her conception was unlicensed, she’s mixed-class, and she’s had no proper education. And with that feisty attitude of hers, I doubt the Meritocracy will think it’s a good idea to release her—she’s likely to just go off and join the uprising. So once we’ve got all the information we need from her, I imagine she’ll just be terminated.”
My stomach knotted. I clutched the edge of the door, clenching my teeth against the impulse to cry out. If Mathis realized that I’d not only been eavesdropping, but that I’d actually understood what he said, Tori and I would be in even more danger than we were already.
“That seems a little excessive, doesn’t it?” asked Faraday.
“Maybe,” said Mathis. “But why waste time fretting over things that can’t be changed, especially when you have such a great future ahead of you? Think of it, Astin—you’re the first scientist ever to visit another planet. Not only did you make contact with the natives and live among them for years, you brought one back for us to study. If I didn’t have Tori, I might envy you.” He chuckled, and for a moment he reminded me of Kirk. “We’re both about to become very famous men, my friend. So why don’t we forget these unnecessary details, and go and have a drink to celebrate?”
The taste his words left in my mouth was so thick and foul I wanted to vomit. Don’t go, I pleaded silently with Faraday. Don’t trust him. . . .
“I should probably see how Alison and Tori are doing first,” said Faraday.
“Why?” asked Mathis. “It’s not as though they can go anywhere.”
“True,” Faraday replied. “All right, then.”
My legs felt shaky, and my head swam with nausea. I was afraid to let go of the door, in case it made a sound when it closed. But when I risked a glance through the porthole the two of them were already rising from their seats, and I had no more time for caution. I held my breath, slipped my fingers out of the crack, and ran.
. . .
I found Tori in the storage hold, standing on top of Faraday’s pile of crates and looking up at the relay with appraising eyes. She seemed to have calmed down, but when she picked up one of her tools and started poking at the relay, I gasped.
“Don’t worry,” she said without looking at me, “I won’t break it.”
“I was more afraid you’d beam yourself into space.”
Tori snorted derisively. “Accidentally on purpose? Thanks, but I can think of better ways to go.”
I watched her tease the relay open, prying apart its outer shell to reveal the workings within. “That’s what I thought,” she murmured, and then with a deft twist she detached the silvery ball from the ceiling and climbed back down with it in her hand.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked.
She looked at me bleakly. “I’m not sure. I guess I’m just not ready to give up yet. Everyone and everything that matters to me is back on Earth. There has to be a way to get the wormhole open again, no matter what Mathis says.”
I wanted to tell her what else Mathis had said, but the words stuck in my throat. What good would it do for her to know that she was probably going to die? It couldn’t make her any more determined than she already was, and if we couldn’t open the wormhole again she’d find out soon enough. “I hope you’re right,” I said. “This place . . . we don’t belong here.”
“You’re really pale,” said Tori. “Even for you, I mean. Are you okay? Where’s Sebastian?”
That name still felt so intimate to me, I could hardly speak it without blushing. Even knowing it wasn’t really his, it summed up everything I felt about him, all the things I wanted when he touched me but was afraid we’d never have the chance to share. How could she just throw it out like that, as though it had no significance at all? “He’s with Mathis,” I said. “They’re . . . talking.”
“Then why do you look so scared?”
I rubbed the back of my hand across my eyes. “It’s probably nothing. Faraday knows what he’s doing. But I don’t trust Mathis.”
“I don’t either,” said Tori. “Anybody who thinks it’s a good idea to stick a chip in a baby’s arm and beam her off to an alien planet, just to see if she survives? Not a nice person.” She peered into the relay for a few more seconds, then closed it up and dropped it into her bag. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Inventory,” she said cryptically, and off we went.
We spent the next half hour or so exploring the station, particularly the side that had been closed off to us before. Tori stopped to open every box and inspect every piece of equipment we came across, muttering to herself all the while. What this was supposed to achieve was a mystery to me, but at least it gave me something to do other than worry, and by the time we’d completed our circuit of the outer corridor and headed back up to the observatory, Tori was in better spirits.
“There’s still some good stuff left around here,” she said. “We should be able to do something with it. I just don’t know . . .” She stopped, frowning at my stiff body and unfocused eyes. “What?”
I could feel him coming up the passageway behind us, the air around him seething with bitterness and barely restrained anger. There was blood on his knuckles, sweat on his skin, and something metal in his hand.
“Something just happened.” My voice was tight. “Something very bad.”
“To who?”
“Faraday,” I whispered, and then he walked in.
“There you are.” Faraday sounded as affable as ever, but his eyes were dark. “Tori, may I borrow you for a moment? I need you to lock a door.”
“Which door?”
“The one Mathis is currently sleeping behind. You can have this back now,” he said, and tossed her the injector he’d been holding. The capsule plugged into its base was nearly empty.
“You drugged him?” I said.
“Seriously?” said Tori.
Faraday didn’t answer. He led us back to the outer corridor, where an open door led into a set of living quarters twice the size of any we’d seen before. Inside, Mathis was sprawled unconscious on the matting, his bronze hair in disarray and blood seeping out of his nose.
“I’m afraid I had to hit him first,” said Faraday.
Tori’s face lit up. She tugged the door shut, dumped out her tool kit and set to work, prying open the mechanism and shifting the beads into the locking pattern. “He’s not going to get out of there any time soon,” she said as she sna
pped the panel closed.
Faraday looked at me. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“I know why,” I said. “Because he’s a liar. He never really lost the signal from your transmitter. He left you on Earth on purpose, because you were smarter than he was and he was sick of working in your shadow. He tricked you into thinking he was your friend, and then he betrayed you, to serve his own ambition. And if you hadn’t stopped him, he would have done it again.”
We were all silent, looking at the closed door. “So,” said Tori at last, “now what?”
Faraday straightened up with a visible effort. “Now,” he said, “we go to the infirmary so I can get the transmitter out of your arm, and give Alison something to help with her withdrawal. Then we’ll see if we can’t find a way to open that worm-hole again, and get the two of you back home.”
EIGHTEEN (IS DETERMINED)
“I got the docking bay open,” said Tori proudly, carrying a large container into the observatory and dropping it onto the floor. “There was a bunch more equipment in there. I guess Mathis had been planning to bring it back to the planet with him.”
As she wiped the back of her hand across her brow, I could still see the mark on her arm; according to Faraday, it would take a few months before the transmitter dissolved completely. But it was deactivated now, as was his, and I’d never have to hear either of them make the Noise again.
“Excellent,” said Faraday, not turning around. He’d called up a blueprint of the station on the overhead screen—it looked like a wheel with two spokes and a bubble in the middle—and was studying it intently. “Fortunately, he hadn’t yet gotten around to dismantling the wormhole stabilizer, and I think we might be able to put together a quantum impulse generator from the components we have left.”
“So you can do it?” I asked, hope and dread warring inside me. “You really think you can open the wormhole again?”
“We may be able to open a wormhole,” corrected Faraday. “But the likelihood of getting the right one on the first try, or even the second or third, is infinitesimally small. I can calculate the right coordinates for the rift, but when it comes to finding Earth again—that’s going to be the tricky part.”