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  Everything would be. He mentally followed their line of research. He’d received a lot of information from the Garradian databases during the download from Delilah. This was part of it.

  Constilinium is a substance somewhat like your uranium, Nod told him. But it is more.

  Based on the data they were presenting more was a massive understatement.

  And it is not natural to your galaxy but it is natural to Keltinar, Blynken chimed in. Current assessment is that it is too unstable for commercial use. Or any use.

  If it is Constilinium, Wynken finished.

  Keltinar? Robert frowned but before dots could connect, Emily’s voice broke into the nanite consultation.

  “Um, I think I found the problem.”

  With an exchange of wary glances, the two men edged into the small space where Emily crouched next to the engine.

  With a careful movement, she indicated a junction of cast iron pipes. What—then he saw it. The cast iron sections…rippled as if it were fabric touched by a breeze.

  We were about to mention it. There is much to process here.

  They sounded a bit sheepish. Could it have been caused by the impact with Carey’s wormhole? It seemed a reasonable hypothesis. This anomaly joined with the nanites thought train on Constilinium and Keltinar. How could a guy in the 1890’s get his hands on a substance from Keltinar—Robert’s thoughts cut off as he heard his sister’s voice inside his head.

  Freaking lying time creeps.

  His voice echoed around the room, but he still had a small hope he hadn’t said it out loud, a hope that died when he saw both their faces.

  * * * *

  He wasn’t a fan of vids that weren’t real, but watching his stream collections was reality television on steroids. The cameras were all old school and so was the machine he used to play the films. In the dark, the only light from the machine, with the flickering images on the screen, it was almost as good as studying the time stream itself.

  The train of snares moved like a circus train through the stream. It was hard to count them in the uncertain light from the old camera, but it looked to be a rich harvest. The figures appeared frozen, most unconscious but occasionally the camera caught eye movement from one as the train drifted past the automaton’s position. If a specimen managed to have an expression, it was always fear.

  Fear made for better theater.

  TEN

  The eddies near the fractures curled around her like incoming waves on a distant Earth shore. She knew the stream, knew how it should feel. This wasn’t it. Fissures in time sent shocks through the stream, the disturbances getting worse as Ashe turned right into the worst of it, setting course for the epicenter, kicking against the current, intent on reaching the place where time was wrong. It made transit rough. Can you barf in here?

  If Lurch had eyes, they would have twitched at that question. No one knew quite what the body became in the stream, just that you felt like you, saw some objects in their proper form—though how it all worked was still something Ashe didn’t understand. One couldn’t look out over the expanse of time and see people moving through it, so she kind of assumed that to anyone at any distance from her, she lacked form. Which didn’t wholly explain how she’d been able to follow Selnick. Did she see him because she knew he was there? Or because they both had Time Service tech? It was one of those thoughts patterns that could cause a time spiral, so she didn’t dwell on it.

  Like the ocean, the stream had cold and hot spots, eddies and cross currents that tried to throw her off course. Sights, sounds and smells. At first the trail was easy to follow, but then she hit the fracture zone, when time became less like an ocean and more like multiple, nasty, geologic events. Numerous fissures branched like jagged lightning strikes above a flat plain. This is where instinct took over, where transit slowed as she studied the branches, feeling her way through it as the turbulence, as time itself, tried to push her back along the fault line.

  Some of the fissures felt and looked connected to the main trail, but some—Ashe slowed to study one—looked and felt, and yes, smelled like diversions. She smelled other things and filed them away. If the trail became too obscured, sometimes all that was left was to smell her way, though she also didn’t know if that’s what really happened, or it just felt like that’s how it was. In a strange way, it felt like someone or something sensed her pursuit and threw obstacles in her path. It was bad for time, but if she found the source and healed time, it would be like it never happened. At least, that was the theory. Even the Time Service didn’t know how deep time could be healed or if it could be pushed past a point of no return—or if they did, they didn’t talk about it. There were theories, of course, lots of them, from past and the future—something that still made her time senses flinch when she thought about it.

  Ashe kicked back into the current, pushing back against the obstructions. The suit helped reduce friction as she slid around small eddies and currents that tried to pull her off true, it protected somewhat against time shocks, but the occasional zing got through. Time stream travel would be too painful to endure without nanites—sentient or not. She closed on the breach—the stream exploded in her face, or maybe it turned into a vortex, a whirlpool. She wasn’t sure. On an Earth Richter magnitude scale it would be at least a nine. Whether she had a physical body or not became moot because it felt like she went top over tail—

  ELEVEN

  The need to ask almost choked Emily, but if ever there was a time to be careful what you ask, this had to be it. She couldn’t think of any answer that would be good when trying to understand the amazing appearance of the 1890’s transmogrification machine, fluid cast iron, a big red energy ball, and freaking lying time creeps.

  They’d retreated back to the “parlor” of the machine to discuss options—like they had any. The Emergency Absquatulation Device buzzed in her pocket, so she took it out, set it on the tea table, and then wished she hadn’t, because if it was what brought the machine, then it was the key to keeping what was hers. She sat down, a bit primly because the chair and the parlor demanded prim, and it helped her feel more in control, an illusion she was happy to promote as long as it worked for her, despite the EAD vibrating against the tea tray.

  “Is there a way to bypass the affected sections and cut off the flow of energy?” Ric not-Jones asked the question, his gaze hitting Robert, then passing to her with enough reluctance to be obvious.

  Robert ruffled his hair in a nervous gesture that was new. He’d been so contained, so careful up to this point, as if he knew every move he made said something about who and what he was. This movement seemed more natural and upped the whole geek vibe he had going. Upping the geek vibe upped the hot factor by some number or other. Like a big one.

  Freaking lying time creeps. Ric not-Jones knew what it meant. He’d been horrified but not surprised. Figured that the cutest guy to walk into her life in forever would be crazier than she was unless—could crazy be drawn to crazy? For a guy that geeky-cool, a girl could overlook a lot, especially when she had more than a few crazy skeletons in her closet. She didn’t want to think it, but sometimes a girl had to think what a girl had to think.

  Oh my darling.

  It seemed it took more than twice to get that out of the system.

  Robert looked at her. “What do you think? Can it be bypassed?”

  He thought she could fix it? Or help? Oh my darling. Maybe she didn’t want to get that out of her system. Okay, he’s not yours, so focus on the question.

  She frowned, considering what she’d seen in her external survey. “None of the specs for the machine were found after Uncle E’s disappearance. Still, on the surface it’s a fairly standard steam engine, a miniature cross-drum type of water-tube boiler. I can fix it, but the red ball, and the…”

  “The spatial anomaly.”

  “Yeah, that.” How had that happened? Did she want to know? Jury still out. She fingered a few of the dyed strands of hair. She needed to see more of the m
achine’s innards before she started cutting off power. “I don’t do anomalies.”

  “The location has to be the key to the way the gauges are behaving,” Robert agreed, as if she’d been wise and possibly wonderful. And his eyes hadn’t glazed over yet.

  He might be the perfect guy—for her. Maybe two times crazy would be zero? If crazy was the same as zero. She thought for a minute and ended up not sure.

  “Or misbehaving,” Emily tacked on with a grin, hoping he’d smile again. He released them like a miser, but they were worth the wait. She stood up, partly because the chair was freaking uncomfortable, and so she could take a gander at the gauges again. The variations were getting smaller, which could mean it would sync and activate again. She propped a shoulder against the hatch opening. “I think we’re running out of time. We might have to work this out where you found it before.”

  It wasn’t a question, though there might have been a query at its heart.

  Ric not-Jones jerked.

  Carey, still on the museum floor, but participating by leaning into the opening, frowned. “There should be at least twelve hours before it does anything.”

  That guy knew a lot he was leaking out in dribs and drabs. Ric not-Jones didn’t leak, though he did look a lot, which added up to leaking of a sort. And he jerked more than he should if he wanted to keep secrets. Fyn still seemed unimpressed by any of it. It did make a girl wonder, but not enough to ask, not until she could be sure it was an answer she wanted to hear. That hadn’t happened for years.

  “It would be better if we could secure it here and now,” Robert said, with geek-like care.

  It was really cute. And possibly impossible.

  “Can we try?” he added.

  When he asked like that and looked like that? Emily gave a shrug that might have a nod in it.

  “We’ll need Uncle E’s tools.” Her big stuff wasn’t readily accessible and they needed to hurry. Besides, no way was she leaving this thing. Her bug was not disappearing into plausible deniability if she could stop it.

  Carey and Fyn turned to comply without comment, or obvious urging from Ric not-Jones. It should have pained her to have them disassemble the exhibit with careless disregard, but no one had cared what it looked like since her grandma died and it could be reassembled later. This was about more than an exhibit. She didn’t have to ask to know that they’d arrived driven by more than curiosity. They’d known things, but none of those things included the big red ball or the anomaly. So what was more interesting than those two things? What was more interesting than the ability to hurl this huge metal bug across the country?

  She touched the EAD with the tip of a finger. “Might be that all you need is this to keep it here. Or get it somewhere else.”

  He frowned with geeky ferocity. Even that was cute. How fair was that?

  “It is a concern.”

  A concern? That should be the good news, shouldn’t it?

  “Are you saying that whoever has that can summon the machine wherever they want?” Ric not-Jones sounded not happy when he should have been delighted. He exchanged worried looks with Carey. Seemed he didn’t do delighted—unless they weren’t the only ones after her bug. The plot wasn’t just thickening, it was turning solid.

  “Not just anywhere,” Emily pointed out. “There have to be physical limits—” The looks on all the faces but Fyn’s stopped her. Where did they believe this thing had come from? No, the question was where did they know it had come from? They’d been shocked to see the bug arrive, but not surprised by the reality of the bug. They hadn’t known the EAD device could summon it. So what did they know? It was getting hard not to ask. This would be a good time to do so.

  She shrugged out of her jacket—it was hot in the engine room, though the heat had followed her out, so it could be because of Robert and not the engine—and tossed it on the chair. Four sudden and loud inhaled male-type breaths paused her progress. She looked at the four men, caught them looking at her corset and bare midriff. She wasn’t surprised. She got the same reaction from the geeks at ComicCon. Bare skin trumped crazy every time. What did surprise her was how much she liked Robert eyeing her bare tummy. It seemed her feminist inclinations didn’t go as deep as she thought they did. Of course some of her friends thought the corset negated her feminist creds, so they might be in the shallow side anyway. In her opinion, making guys swallow their tongues was way more fun than burning a bra and it didn’t bring gravity to bare on the girls.

  She gathered up a few of the tools and headed for steam zero. Robert followed, also bearing tools. Inside, she pulled on her goggles and turned on the heat sensing function. She’d built the goggles, using some high tech binoculars she got online. She’d been offered piles of money for them at their last steampunk convention and was working on some to sell at the next one. They came in useful when dealing with a hot engine. And they made everything look totally cool.

  Robert stood quietly at her side, though she got the impression he looked at her, not the machine. If he looked, did he only see the corset and skin? Could he see more? Something to like? She didn’t check. Suck to be wrong and find out she had an overactive imagination. This way she could believe what she wanted.

  Because he expected it, she directed most of her attention to the bug’s engine. It hadn’t changed from the last time she’d stared at it. It was hot, the red ball super hot. It should have fried their lungs to be this close, but it didn’t. Bad time to wish she had a Geiger counter. Hard to plan ahead for a need you didn’t know you’d have. Heat scored the seams of the machine, too—she paced around to the anomaly side—that didn’t show a heat signature. She extracted a screwdriver from a pocket of her overalls and eased it toward the anomaly. About six inches out the end disappeared. When she pulled it out, the end didn’t reappear. That was kind of terrifying. Another inch and she might have left the end of her thumb in there. Good thing she hadn’t used one of Uncle E’s tools to check it out. Bad form to probe anomalies with antique tools.

  She showed Robert the altered tool. Would have been nice if she could have added something witty to the demo, but her brain played dumb.

  Robert’s hand clasped hers as he examined the missing end, increasing her dumb factor by something big. The edge was as smooth as glass and it had a heat signature, though it cooled rapidly once out of the anomaly.

  “Interesting.”

  Emily realized he showed a heat signature, too. She was still wearing the goggles. Probably looked like a frog or something equally google-eyed. She yanked off the goggles and stared at Robert staring at the screwdriver. Despite her…uneasiness with the machine’s enhancements, a different kind of heat built in the small space, the guy-girl kind of heat, though it was more warm than heated at this point. A nice heat like a July day or a campfire on a cold night. A safe heat, though she had a feeling the unsafe kind simmered below her surface. She wasn’t sure what bubbled under his surface. But a girl could hope.

  “There’s a lot of heat moving through the machine,” she said, sounding a bit breathy. She looked around and realized the insides of the engine room showed signs of scorching. Streaks of black in random patterns, some top to bottom, a couple side to side. Was there a pattern in it? She rubbed one, picking up a little carbon in the process.

  “Heat?” He sounded a bit hoarse.

  She held out the goggles. “And look at the scorch marks on the walls.”

  He took them, his hand brushing against hers for too short a time. With a slight smile that had overtones of shy, he eased the goggles on, his movements a mix of assured and tentative, as if he found the experience both familiar and strange.

  “What…oh.” His chin moved, lifting and lowering as he found the hot spots. He pulled the goggles off, his cute frown back. “Why isn’t the anomaly hot?”

  Emily was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, since he was the geek, not her. She waited without speaking, watching the expressions pass across his face. There were a lot to see. He appeare
d to have a lot on his mind. Be nice if she were in the mix. She tipped her head. He’d be taken for a bit stern if she didn’t look at his eyes. They were kind of…innocent. She liked looking in his eyes, even if they weren’t looking at her. And then they were looking at her and she saw plenty of heat simmering below his surface, enough to run the bowling alley for a long time. She kept expecting him to lean in and make a play, because that’s what guys did when they looked like that, only he didn’t lean. He looked.

  And looked some more.

  Maybe he needed more encouragement. Or she needed to back off. She considered her options. At some point they were going to be at odds. She wanted the bug. He wanted the bug, but for now they were allied. And she wanted the kiss. She leaned. The flames went higher but he still didn’t match her lean. Okay, he was a geek, a cute geek, but still a geek. The basic lean might be too subtle of an approach, though the ones she’d met at steampunk conventions were well versed in the basic lean—so well versed they saw leaning when no leaning was involved. Maybe he needed an advanced lean. She tried it. Now his breath mingled with hers and she saw dark blue specks mix with the light blue in his abruptly widened eyes, the pupils dilating in a most satisfying manner.

  No question he was interested. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he didn’t know what to do. Or he needed encouragement on the level of skywriting. She didn’t have a plane or sky. She did have her lips. She leaned until the tiniest of gaps separated them. If instinct didn’t take over she couldn’t help him—

  His arms clamped around her. There might have been yanking. It happened fast, so it was hard to know all the little details when his lips pressed against hers with satisfying, if belated, enthusiasm. He’d moved with too much speed for her to get her arms around him and she didn’t want to discourage him by appearing to struggle against his hold, so she let her lips do the reciprocating, while her arms wished they were clamping, too. She might not get another chance. He’d move on to whatever it was he did and she’d found her world famous museum…