The Seeds of Time Read Free Page A

nodded, mock-bowing at Clio, and raking her with those hungry eyes, before swinging himself down the ladder.
    “Captain, what’s the situation with
Babyhawk?”
Clio was buckling in, noting the approach of the lander, moving in on
Starhawk
.
    “An explosion. An hour out toward Crippen. We don’t know for sure, but we think there was a leak in a fuel transport line. Got touched off by an electrical spark. Three wounded, sounds like critically. And the bay door is still jammed half open.”
    The nightmare continued, everything going wrong. Then there was Shaw,
Babyhawk’s
pilot, on comm, moving into docking range.
    “Hold your position,
Babyhawk,”
Clio told Shaw, “we have a little delay here.”
    Russo was on the comm, getting tech reports; growling at bad news, barking something about the teleoperator maneuvering system, in case they needed to work on the ship surface. Which techs were saying wasn’t needed.
    Shaw’s voice came crackling into Clio’s ears. “You just get your little delay greased up and dumped out, Lieutenant, I got casualties here, and they’re getting real quiet. You copy?”
    “Roger. We are jumping on it, Commander. We’re gonna bring you in.”
    The earphones crackled again. “You’re going to bring us in? That’s real good news,
Starhawk
, now I can sleep. What’s the goddamn problem out there, Finn? Over.”
    The captain nodded at her, and Clio answered, “The bay doors won’t respond,
Babyhawk
. We’re working it. Another five minutes and I’m going out there and rip the damn things open with a crowbar.”
    Faintly,
Babyhawk
responded. “My God.” Then: “I got a man dying here,
Starhawk
. Cut the damn doors off, if you have to.”
    Clio looked to Russo, got a slow shake of the head.
    “Negative,
Babyhawk
, that’s last resort. We’re working this. Stand by.”
    Nothing then from Shaw. Clio felt the silence like a fist in her gut.
    An hour later they cut the door off after all, with crew hating to use torches, suited up as they were in the unpressurized landing bay. Then
Babyhawk
locked on, and they hauled out the casualties. One man dead, Lieutenant Runnel printed on the breast pocket: a helpful clue since most of his face was blackened with burns. Two biotechs burned real bad, one of them with blisters for eyes, both unconscious. Posie took charge of them, looking like a man in way over his head.
    Hillis was there, too. Leaned close to Clio, whispered, “I dumped the blood. It’s gone.”
    Heading home, Clio got
Starhawk
well into Dive, then sat by the two wounded men in medlab. She was patched inby remote to bridge control, listening for any alarms, half hoping for some.
    Clio watched the life leak out of her two crewmates. In Dive, you saw things like that. Life exiting like spilled water.
    If you die on a Space Recon Dive, deep in the past, the event doesn’t set up a paradox. No one in the present is affected. Your children, for instance, don’t disappear. Of course, Diving in inhabited space could produce dangerous paradoxes. Anything that you changed would set other changes in motion, in geometric progression, ultimately threatening the very future from which you came. But in the wilderness of space, the Dive was ninety-nine percent safe from encountering human history, from creating paradoxes. So the theory went.
    Clio kept her deathwatch. When her crewmates’ faces were dim as the pallets they lay on, Clio knew they were dead.

TIME
MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 2

    They docked on station deep into Clio’s sleep period. She heard the ship whine down into position, the metal on metal of docking, the comm system come alive throughout the ship, footsteps as the crew got ready to off-load.
    She grabbed her duffel, already packed, and moved through the airlock behind Teeg. Once in the station corridor, he turned around, blinking against the glaring lights of day period.
    “Hey Clio. We’re going to have a drink. How about a drink?” Teeg looked tired, but he looked