Chapter 30 #2
“Dad?” Lyle asked, his voice gentle in my ear.
I let out a breath and got into the aircar. The avatar folded itself into the other seat. The doors shut and the ovoid lifted into the air, silent and smooth. We faced the ocean, and I gestured toward the huge structure in the distance, curious despite myself. “What is that?”
“One of sixteen space elevators connected to the main axis of the Orbital Ring.”
“Space elevator,” I whispered. I’d read about the concept.
Engineers and pioneering architects proposed them as an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to rockets.
They were meant to transport materials and people back and forth between surface and space.
I remembered the counterarguments that they were impractical or even impossible.
“Does centripetal force hold it in place?”
“Yes, along with some of the same gravitational manipulation technology used in this vehicle.”
The crystal clear view through the curved sides of the ovoid swept around as the aircar angled away from the ocean, toward the city.
I let out a breath as the sun reflected in rainbow patterns from dozens of varied buildings and structures.
“This whole city was destroyed. Last time I saw it, I mean.”
“If the timeline proposed within the Recovered Word of the Traveler is correct, the last period you were in was the tail end of the First Interplanetary War.”
“‘Proposed’?” Lyle said in my ear. “‘If’?”
“‘Interplanetary’?” I asked. “Between what planets?”
“Officially, between the Solar Government based here on Earth and Mars Separatists.”
“War between Earth and Mars.”
“That is an accurate, if basic, summation.”
I looked at light gray clouds overhead. “There was a ship or something. In the sky above the city. It attacked me.”
“This would hold with extant historical records,” Raven said.
It mimicked my movement to look up at the clouds and lowered its head again.
The motion looked real enough but struck me as too deliberate.
Meant to make it seem more human. “By the time you arrived, the Solar Government had collapsed, but instead of leaving in victory as the Mars Separatists promised, their military high council decided to press the attack and attempted to seize Earth. The demoralized population of Earth was galvanized, and the new United Earth formed in Geneva. During the ensuing years, the United Earth military retook most of Earth. You were seeing the end of the war, when the Martian forces had only a small foothold left on Earth. Primarily here, on the coastline of what you would remember as North America.”
“The city was empty.”
“Civilians were evacuated from the primary battle areas once the war transitioned from Mars to Earth.”
“It was a Martian vessel that attacked me?”
“Yes. Most likely your movements were detected, and when you failed to return a Martian identifier signature, you were targeted for destruction. You were lucky to survive.”
“Understatement of the last millennium,” Lyle muttered.
The edges of my lips quirked up. This was, I realized, the most time I had spent with Lyle since this time travel business had started. Entire days together, even if only as a voice in my ear. It was a profoundly bittersweet feeling.
We flew into the city proper, flitting between the spiraling towers with hundreds of other aerial vehicles. The interior of the aircar was silent for a moment. The avatar regarded me. “It is truly remarkable you are here.”
“I guess so.” I felt like the least remarkable thing here.
“Even the combined Central Overmind intellect does not understand the mechanism behind how you are being transported through time. There were some doubts as to the veracity of the historical claims behind the appearance of the Traveler. Of you. Some theories postulated you were the product of an impressively sustained historical hoax. Yet here you are.”
“Here I am.” I spread my hands. “You, ah, you speak English very well.”
“There are sufficient records from your time and those immediately surrounding it that we have been able to piece together a great deal of history. Many of the technologies of your time are lost because they were never constructed to withstand the burdens of time and entropy. But enough was preserved that we have a solid understanding of your era. Or so we believe.”
“Um. Great.”
“We have arrived at our destination,” the avatar said.
We approached one of the many crystalline skyscrapers near the center of what I took to be downtown.
We swept lower, the ovoid gliding through lines of aerial traffic.
We settled on a landing pad situated on the side of the tower, perhaps a third of the way from the top.
The doors opened and the avatar unfolded its long limbs and stepped out.
I took a breath and got out as well. Brisk wind slapped into me. We were high up.
“Please, follow me, Scott Treder,” the avatar said, motioning toward a walkway leading into the tower.
I trailed behind it. An oval door irised open at our approach.
We moved along a brightly lit, curving corridor.
The heavy tread of my boots on the floor sounded awkward and graceless compared to the soft, even step of the avatar.
Raven passed several doors, each bearing symbols—we were in an apartment building or hotel of some kind—before stopping.
I expected the avatar to knock, but instead it was still for a moment, and the door beeped and swung inward.
A man stood inside. At least I thought it was a man.
He had a lithe human frame covered in a skintight outfit.
But his eyes were too large, entirely green, and the pupils were black vertical slits.
His hair was long and gathered into a ponytail.
There was a layer of soft fur running from his cheeks down his neck.
The man moved his cat eyes to Raven, then back to me. I waited. Tried not to fidget.
“Ahem,” Raven said. “High Scholar Vorsch, please meet Scott Treder. Scott Treder, please meet High Scholar Calif Vorsch.” Raven paused a heartbeat.
“Scholar Vorsch, Scott Treder lacks neural implants, so your handshake will continue to go unanswered. Scott Treder is not being willfully rude, I assure you.”
The cat-man opened his mouth, showing rows of sharp teeth. “Treder. The Traveler. Yes, of course. My mistake. The Traveler would not have implants, of course. Foolish of me, a mistake of long habit.” He stepped to one side. “Please, welcome to my home.”
Raven inclined its head and motioned for me to enter. I looked at it for a heartbeat, frowning, and walked inside, passing within inches of Vorsch.
“The text was accurate?” Vorsch asked Raven.
“Indeed.”
“Astonishing.”
“Of course it was plowing accurate,” Lyle said in my ear.
I stood with my back to a ceramic or porcelain wall—warm to the touch—and let Vorsch walk by me after he shut the door. “Please, come in,” he said. He moved with quiet, restrained energy, like a house cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse or, equally, flee up the nearest tree.
“This is bizarre,” Lyle said. “Does he have a great big litter box instead of a bathroom back there?”
I let out a breath, swallowing hard to stop half-hysterical laughter, and followed Vorsch to a sunken living room.
One wall was all window, looking out over the city.
The center of the room held plush pieces of furniture, arranged with care.
Vorsch waved toward the furniture. “Please, have a seat, both of you. I will bring the tea.” He bounded out of the room.
It seemed even in the far future, humans still reflexively provided hot beverages to their guests.
I took another breath and picked the most normal-looking chair.
I sank into the cushions. It was soft even through the survival suit.
Raven perched itself on the edge of a thinly cushioned bench. The bench looked like something from ancient Rome, the kind where pampered senators would recline and be fed grapes by nubile youths. The purple avatar managed to make the position look comfortable. “He is excited.”
“About what?”
“Meeting you. The Traveler. High Scholar Vorsch is a pre–Autonomous War historian, one of the finest on the continent, perhaps the world.”
“But don’t let him hear you say it,” Vorsch said as he came back into the room, bearing a tray with three steaming mugs. “It may well go straight to his head, and there is enough hot air in there already.” He held the tray to me with a smile rendered rather less friendly by the fangs.
I took one of the mugs. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” He held the tray out to Raven, who accepted a mug, and Vorsch put the tray on a crystal table.
“You speak English,” I said. Anjari and the other historians of her time had spoken English, as well—or, rather, “Norte.” This was over two thousand years after Anjari’s time, but Vorsch was obviously fluent.
“As the finest pre–Autonomous War historian on the continent, I would be terribly remiss not to speak the languages of the period I study.”
“Languages? You speak more than English?”
“Of course. Old English, Germanic, Spanish-adept, proto-Chinese, pre-and post-diaspora Japanese, a few others.”
“That’s … impressive.”
“Augmented brain function and genetically calibrated intellect help a lot.”
“Oh.”
“Master Treder has come a long way,” Raven said. “No doubt much of what he sees is strange. I brought him here to communicate with a fellow human, to aid his adjustment to our time.”
“Of course, of course, everything must be terribly confusing and alien. But I don’t know if bringing him to me was the best way to calm his nerves. I doubt he has ever seen a post-human, let alone a feline adapt.”
Raven looked at me with what could have been contrition. “High Scholar Vorsch is correct. I am terribly sorry. I failed to consider that element. You must be feeling extraordinary amounts of temporal and cultural dissonance.”