In Retrospect Read online

  The Marshall’s cool voice floated across the table. “I need an answer.”

  An answer. He needed an answer. But she had no answer. For two months she had lived in dread of this moment, unable to see beyond it. For two months she had gone through the motions, doing more or less as she was told, walking the once-familiar halls like a ghost, dragging her heels against the coming of this day. She was not ready to answer; to look past the moment into the future. And yet she could no longer avoid it.

  Or could she? At least, for another three days. Enough time, perhaps, to face it. To think it through.

  She picked up the envelope, her face as expressionless as any shield.

  “Yeah. Why not? It’ll be just like old times.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Eleven years earlier

  The sun bobbed in and out as cottonball clouds played tag across a lapis sky. On the ground beneath, half a dozen young men and women dressed in varying degrees of academic ineptitude sprawled upon a carpet of grass.

  The boy with the wavy yellow hair gave an argumentative snort. “But you haven’t addressed the question! Why can’t you change history?”

  “Because you just can’t. Trust me. I’ve been there.” Having settled that issue, Merit raised a paper cup to her lips. Damn, the Rasakans made good wine. She breathed in the sweet summer air and let her gaze roam across the rolling meadows of Bergama. It never ceased to amaze her. Though half the Earth had been destroyed eight hundred years ago by the insanity of their forebears; though the coasts had been redrawn and the climate changed, this land called by the ancients Anatolia, then Asia Minor, then Turkey, had survived, flourished, and—eventually—regained its plenitude. It was a fine day to be sitting on the grass beneath an almond tree drenched in blossoms, a fine day for shooting the metaphysical breeze with new colleagues over a bottle or two between seminars. A damned fine day to be alive.

  But the boy didn’t seem to have noticed that the debate was over. “That’s pretense, not proof,” he insisted.

  Merit’s attention snapped back into place. “I beg your pardon?” She peered more closely at his freckled face. It looked mighty stubborn, in a cheerful sort of way. “If somebody asks you why she can’t walk on water, don’t you simply roll your eyes and say, ‘Trust me, you just can’t’?”

  “No.” He shook his finger back and forth—shook it at her, Merit Rafi, graduate of the Oku Science Conservatory, officer of the Civil Protection Force with a full nineteen months’ experience, Select. “I tell her that water molecules are not cohesive enough to support the mass of a human body, nor is the surface tension high enough to resist the static shear—but that if she were a waterbug she could do it.”

  Merit fairly choked on her fine Rasakan wine. “You can’t compare four-dimensional isochronous physics to—”

  A plump girl with curly hair chucked an empty bottle into her satchel and scrambled to her feet. “I really gotta, uh. . . . Go. It’s been fascinating, really. Chronatomics . . . , chronomatrix. . . . Sorry to leave you.”

  Merit acknowledged the girl’s departure with the scantest of courtesies, then got back to the business at hand. “You can’t compare four-dimensional isochronous physics to three-dimensional fluid mechanics. That’s stupendously simplistic.”

  An athletic youth called after the plump girl. “Wait up! I’ll go with you!” He shot an apologetic grin at the argumentative boy. “See you tonight, Eric?”

  The boy Eric nodded, but did not take his eyes off Merit. “I’m not comparing anything. I’m just answering your question. I’m just trying to point out that if you view the problem from an alternative perspective, its attributes change. If the paradigm shifts, it’s statistically possible that there may be nothing to prevent you from altering the past. Theoretically speaking.”

  “And I’m telling you, practically speaking, you’re wrong.” She stretched out her legs and gestured with her cup. “There are rules about these things. I couldn’t leave the Vessel if I wanted to. Even if I entered synchronicity with a past time-frame, even if I managed to unlock the hatch, I still couldn’t get out without ripping the security net.”

  “Tch. These are rules imposed by the mandarins. The security net is junk tech stuck onto the Vessel to keep the Retrospector from remaining in a past time-frame. It’s immaterial to the flex.”

  “Oh really? Is that what you’ll tell me when I get immaterialized on the reflex and have to leave the Vessel in a dustpan?”

  “Tch. Immaterial to the flex math.” He pulled a notebook from a rucksack stuffed with bound papers and smoothed its pages with his palms—a fastidious, loving gesture.

  Oh, the math, Merit mouthed, eyes twinkling. She rolled onto her side and leaned on an elbow, getting comfortable.

  “I’m talking about rules of physics,” he continued. “Look. This is the third curvilinear equation of Gellar’s metachronic function. Gellar believed it was a fragment of the original isochronous flexion parameters used to kindle the First Continuum in Ancient Canada way back in 2150.” His finger moved down a solid block of symbols three inches long. “Today it’s regarded as an unexplained anomaly attendant to the fourth-dimensional warp, or flex, representing the time quanta between synchronicity inside the Artifice and without, but. . . .”

  Merit’s once-again-wandering attention led to the discovery that she and the boy were alone. That was . . . pleasant. It gave her the opportunity to indulge in a perusal of his lanky frame and oblong face. She liked what she saw. His nose had a pleasing high kink in it, and his hands were slender but not effete. More importantly, his face was aflame with an eager intensity that attracted and excited her.

  “. . . Which supports the theory that, under certain—granted—highly specific and, okay, undefined instances, with low congruent but still viable potential, alternative past time-frames are possible.” He looked up triumphantly.

  Merit’s face was instantly attentive. “Right. Yes. Hmm. The thing is, I got the gig because of the requirement for diminutive size and rugged female metabolism, not my scholarly aptitude.” His eyes, a bright cornflower blue, registered no reaction. She tried again, without the attendant wit: “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Oh!” He pushed the hair off his high forehead. “Sorry. I thought—But you’re a Retrospector.”

  “Yep. But I’m not what you’d call the academic type. I do forensic retrospectography, not historic. No need for memorization. Flex. Collect observational evidence. Reflex. Throw the bad guy in the pokey. Easy.” She winced as she beheld his crestfallen face. “Not to shatter any illusions. . . .”

  “No, no, of course not!” He recovered his good nature with gratifying speed. “I just assumed, since you graduated from the Conservatory. . . .” He closed his notebook with a rueful smile. “Don’t mind me. I’d never even met an Okuchan until two days ago. What do I know?”

  “I am absolutely certain that you know plenty,” said Merit. “You wouldn’t be reading the paper that won the Kepler Award on the final day of the conference if you didn’t.”

  “Theory, sure. But practical matters?” He gave a woeful laugh, then glanced at the gray buildings behind them: imposing blocks of no-nonsense concrete that seemed incongruous on the expansive green lawn. “But honestly, changing past history is quite possible—theoretically—just very, very unlikely.”

  Merit shook her head. “Sorry. This isn’t new science. Retrospection was around for centuries before the Annihilation. And the Second Continuum has been burning for a hundred years. It’s a fact that any action taken outside the Vessel by a Retrospector during a flex will turn out to have already affected the time-line before she left. The time-line can’t be changed, no matter what metachronic tricks you try.”

  “But if the Retrospector, the second time through—”

  “There is no second time. Yeah, there are two of me when I’m in the past time-frame, but it’s me that makes the loop, not time.”

  “Fine, but has
anyone tried?”

  “Thought I’d explained that.”

  “Tch. Rules.” He heaved an impatient sigh. “Haven’t you wondered why they try so hard to keep you in the Vessel if there’s no danger of changing history?”

  “Wondered? I had to memorize the Retrospector’s Compendium when I was a Prospective. It has a lengthy section on why it is physically impossible—as in, against the laws of physics—to cause any change in the time-line. I’ll get you a copy one of these days.” She smiled beguilingly. “The unabridged version has extensive footnotes.”

  “Would you? I’d love to get my hands on that!” His face lit up and he was off again. “Have you read Xinan? He’s the guru of chronometric paradoxes, but—” Doubt swooped across his freckled face. “You do know what a paradox is, don’t you?”

  It was the innocence—that’s what she loved about the Rasakans. Everything was so new to them, so exciting. The Earth may have been savaged and scarred, its population decimated, but the slowly advancing Rasakan commonwealth of the twenty-fourth century saw only bright possibility. She nodded, deadpan. “A Rasakan who knows more about metachronics than an Okuchan.”

  He grinned so broadly that his eyes disappeared into lovely crinkly creases. “Xinan hypothesizes in his author’s apology that there is a trigger that allows for the possibility of historical change by introducing a paradox. My studies show that the trigger might be something like locating a small item—a centime or a pencil—in the past, and then switching it with the same item you brought from the future.”

  “A centime.”

  “In physics, the smallest causalities have the biggest impact. If I could show you what I’ve discovered. . . .” He snuck a guilty glance at her. “Well, trust me, the math is clear. It’s just . . . incomplete in terms of how to make it a reality. But it won’t always be.”

  Merit gazed at the distant Aeolian hills, glinting like gold in the sun. It was such a fine day. And she was pretty certain it was going to get even finer before it was over. An irrepressible desire for fun arose within her. His earnest eagerness was just so tempting. She fingered the black pendant that dangled at her throat.

  “That’s what your paper is about, isn’t it. Temporal paradoxes.” It was a safe guess.

  “How did you know?”

  “With no security net to get in the way, right?”

  His eyes blinked rapidly. “It’s only theory.”

  “Of course. No real-life application.”

  He raised his chin a little defiantly. “If I wanted to, if I had the opportunity for proper experimentation, I could do a lot of weird things with metachronic flexion. Well, not me myself. Obviously I’m too big and my basal metabolism is too high. But you could.”

  “Hm.” Merit glanced around cautiously, then pulled herself to the boy’s side. “Can I trust you?”

  His face grew wonderfully attentive. “I’d be honored.”

  Merit gazed deeper into his eyes. They were very bright blue. “I’m not really here. Well, of course I am here, but I’m also at the Prospectives School in Oku City, assisting the Prioress with new-girl orientation. You see I couldn’t free up the time to come to Bergama until yesterday. That’s my yesterday of course; for you it’ll be about a week from now. So, anyway, I kind of, y’know, borrowed the use of the Conservatory Vessel. . . .”

  A look of forbidden delight swept across his face. “Really?”

  “Yep. Which reminds me, I should warn you—tonight I’ll have to steal the paper you’re gonna present and mail it to my past self so I can use your data to unlace the security net.”

  A look of horror replaced the delight, and he placed a hand on top of his head.

  She smiled at him. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Uh. . . .”

  “Oh don’t worry!” She pulled herself even closer, fairly whispering in his ear. “I brought your paper back with me and I’m gonna return the future version right after I steal the past version, so you’ll have it for tomorrow.” She started and gave him a guilty glance. “I hope I remembered to bring the appendices. . . .”

  His horrified gaze streaked to the bound papers in his rucksack.

  Merit collapsed onto the grass, hooting with laughter.

  Awakened to her deceit, he scowled and thrust his notebook back into his rucksack in high dudgeon. But his peeved attitude did not last long, and by the time she had recovered and begged his forgiveness, he was chuckling at his own gullibility and more than ready to let her make it up to him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  Saturday, 15 April 3324, 10:55 a.m.

  “Merit?” The voice was smooth to the point of metallic.

  She slipped the pillbox back into her pocket before turning away from the Locutory window. Her throat tightened, as it always did at the sound of his voice; at the sight of him: Gabriel Castor, psychotherapist, a small, barrel-chested man in black and gray wearing the red half-shield of Authority Medical.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  Castor half sat on the oblong table. “Why are you still here?” He glanced around the empty Locutory. “Isn’t the new man giving a briefing in the Caseroom?”

  “I was just—the Tulipa praestans they planted by the motor pool are blooming.” Merit pointed out the window. “See? Pretty.”

  “Oh, yes. Very nice.” He clasped his hands over his round stomach. “I don’t mean to intrude, Merit. I was just concerned that you might be experiencing mixed feelings.”

  Her pulse quickened unpleasantly. “Not really. As you know, I don’t have feelings about much of anything these days.” Could he see on her face the signs of battle that raged within? Her gaze slid off his shield to his thick lips and round chin. “Anyway, I’ve flexed plenty of times. It’s not a big deal.”

  “That’s good. But I meant . . . mixed feelings about the murder. I don’t think Marshall Frey fully appreciates the complexity of the situation.”

  Merit gave him a puzzled smile. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “You fought under Zane’s command. You idolized him. Before Abydos.”

  “Oh, right.” She frowned in concentration. What was the right thing to say to get him to leave her alone? “He was a very important symbol of peace for the people. It’s a shame he’s dead.”

  “Yes. A great shame.” He nodded, his lips pursed thought-fully. Then he relaxed and eased his buttocks off the table. “Well, I won’t keep you. I’ve got a patient at—” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Oops. Right now. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Right. Uh. Oh-nine-hundred.”

  The psychotherapist nodded again, but made no move to leave. “I can up your meds, if the pressure—”

  “No, I’m fine. But you’re right, I gotta go.” She backed toward the door to the Locutory. The idea of watching Eric Torre presiding over a meeting of her crew was suddenly preferable to lingering even a moment longer. “Don’t want to keep ’em waiting.”

  From his vantage point at the top of the Caseroom, Eric Torre regarded the faces of the six men and women lounging before him. This sullen group of misfits dressed in rumpled sage—this was the illustrious Retrospection Unit, the jewel of the former Okuchan Civil Protection Force? Behind them, dusty sunlight painted streaks of gray and yellow across a junkyard of sagging cardboard boxes filled with water-stained papers.

  He swung his briefcase onto a dilapidated desk and pulled out a large binder emblazoned with the Authority insignia.

  “According to the Documentation Team’s report,” he began, lifting several sheets of paper from the binder, “there were eight JCP sentries guarding the perimeter of the Conservatory Wood, four at the south gate and four at the west. They report that no one went in or came out of the Wood between eight and eleven last night.” He scooted his chair forward and almost fell as one of the legs gave way. When he had righted himself, he continued:

  “The Priory is located a kilometer to the east of the place where the Conservatory stood. It was guar
ded by two more sentries. They report no disturbances, no trespassers. Questions?” He raised his shielded face.

  An elderly man with the wiry frame picked at the frayed sleeves of his jumpsuit. A young woman, distinguished by masses of auburn hair, sat with her face turned to the wall. A stout, moonfaced woman and an even stouter, redheaded youth watched a line of ants troop across the floor, up the wall, and into a large crack. But the large-nosed kid with the straggly hair stuck up a hand.

  “The sentries,” he asked, “Oku or Ratsky?”

  “Half and half.” The silver shield hid Eric’s frown, but not the irritation in his voice. “Okay. There are about eighty people squatting on the ruins of the Conservatory. Last night they built a bonfire and gathered in the old Forum for, uh”—he bent his shield over the paper—“fellowship. They went to bed around ten. No reports of suspicious activity, or any activity at all, after that.”

  “ ‘No reports’ don’t mean nothin’!” scoffed the kid. “And, by the way, thinking that eight sentries can secure a twenty-klik perimeter is loco. Anybody can scale a wall. Merit knows that area like the back of her hand. She could tell—”

  “I’m just giving you what’s in the report,” said Eric. “I’m not a criminologist.”

  “Okay, well, see, I am, nearly, and I don’t think you can rule out—”

  “Molt,” rebuked Merit. She sat to one side, hands clasped behind her head, chair balanced on its hind legs, face glazed with an expression of terminal boredom.

  The kid clamped his mouth shut and wrapped his arms around his chest. His sage jumpsuit was three sizes too big for him, and the JCP patch on his upper arm hung by a thread.

  Eric smoothed the page with his palms, a brusque, no-nonsense gesture. “To continue. There were only three people at the Priory, which is apparently closed up except for the east wing. The three were the new Prioress, Omari Zane, and Zane’s Steward, Ben Lazar. Lazar’s an ex–history teacher who has been with General Zane since the first year of the war. There’s a day staff of two—a cook and a gardener—but they never went upstairs, as the principal residents served themselves and did their own cleaning.”