Malarqi and Thyme
PREFACE: This is the first installment in a series of standalone stories featuring a group of time traveling scientists and adventurers. Hope you like it!
She knew something was wrong as soon as she set foot on the ground, though she could not have explained it. She looked at Saxis and understood from his puzzled expression that he must have felt it too.
“It’s warm,” he remarked.
That made her frown.
It was December, and it was snowing. But he was right. It was warm.
And yet... that was not it. At least, not all of it. There was something else.
She thought back to the warning she had received: Don’t let the red man get you! It didn’t mean anything, not anymore. It had become somewhat of a joke, but she hated it. Because it reminded her of where it came from—something few others remembered or even knew about. It had originated with her daughter, five years prior, when Lisile had experienced her first vision.
“Saxis to Dreamgirl! Hello! We need you back on Earth...”
She blinked and turned to face her friend as she realized he had been talking to her. She made a face. “Sorry, Sax. We should start. I’d rather we got back as soon as possible.”
“Agreed.”
Malarqi Dashanka—a tall and thin brunette with sparkling blue eyes—had joined the indexing team a couple of years ago. As indexers, their job was to take pictures and tag everything they could. Even when they returned to places they had already been, they still had their hands full, as there was always something more to catalog... and it would take longer than usual this time, as the ship’s other two indexers had caught some unknown virus during their previous assignment and were still quarantined at the medical bay.
She heard Saxis curse as he tripped and fell.
“You okay, buddy?”
He grumbled as he got back up, dusting himself. “I’m fine,” he said. “My foot got caught in something...”
She scanned the ground. Paused.
“What’s this?”
She knelt and grabbed a rock. Wiped the snow off its surface.
“I doubt that was it. More likely that root, there... Not that it matters. Shall we go on?”
He did not wait for her as he turned and started taking pictures again. But she remained where she was, staring at the stone. It was very smooth and oddly shaped, almost like a star. I bet Lisile would love this, she thought as she slid it into her pocket before standing and starting after Saxis.
***
Even in the snow, Greece was a beautiful place. They were in the North-West of the Peloponnese. The year was 373 B.C. and they’d only have twenty-four hours to collect their data before all hell broke loose... At least that’s what they’d been told. She was starting to wonder about that.
It took them about an hour to reach the city. Not that it was that far, but they were walking slowly so they could index everything they saw on the way.
Indexing a city was trickier, though, as it could draw unwanted attention if they walked too slowly and moved their heads around constantly. At least their work did not require any visible equipment, as everything was done through tiny sensors which they controlled with eye movements. Data was projected directly on their retinas. And the suits they wore made others see them the way they were expected to look. It was a convenient device... though not perfect.
There were stories of an incident, over a century ago, when an indexer in Caesar’s Rome had been approached by two women who started commenting on the quality of the man’s clothing... only to realize they were not seeing the same thing. Their memory of the encounter had needed to be wiped, something Cyrusians tried to avoid as it could have unexpected consequences—on many levels.
Messing with History was dangerous business.
The streets here were crowded, though, and no one was paying attention to them. But here, too, something was off. People seemed nervous. They both could sense it.
“What is it with this place?” asked Saxis, in a whisper.
Mal did not answer. Her eyes scanned the horizon and paused on the harbor where some ships were anchored. The sensors identified them as Spartan.
As she was going to comment on this, the earth beneath her feet shook. She grabbed Sax’s arm but let go when she realized no one else in the crowd was panicking, instead going on their business as if nothing unusual was happening. The tremors were light, though they went on for a while.
“Freaky...”
She wasn’t sure if he meant the quake itself or the lack of reaction from the people around them. Possibly both.
“Mal! Look...”
Saxis was pointing at a man across the square, his back turned to them. Her sensors went red.
“What the—”
“Try pulling info on him.”
She did. Only to get denied.
“Restricted? Well, that’s a first.”
“What do you think it means?”
“That we need to report this,” she muttered. “Like, right away.”
The communication was established almost immediately. When she described the event, Thosj asked her to share the feed. Which she did. He swore. She’d never heard him swear before.
“Do NOT engage. Stay clear. Djakka is dangerous. But if you can follow him without being spotted, do so. We need to know what he’s doing here. I will send you backup.”
The link was cut before she could say anything.
“Djakka?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Saxis, “Never heard the name.”
“Backup?”
“Well, he did say the guy’s dangerous...”
“But... how can we possibly know this guy? Have we already been here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe before our time.”
She suddenly wondered if this could be the ‘red man’ Lisile had warned her about, so many years ago.
“He’s moving,” said Sax.
They followed him from a distance. The streets were crowded enough they could remain inconspicuous. But after a few minutes, they realized he was headed toward the outskirts of the city. If he left the busy streets, they would become easy to spot.
“We should put a marker on him,” she suggested.
“Too far for that, and we can’t risk getting any closer.”
“Have I ever told you I practiced archery when I was a kid? I was a good shot, too.” She grinned.
“At this distance? You can’t be serious...”
“Worth a try. Come on, let’s take cover behind that building in case he feels something and looks around.”
Saxis still seemed skeptical, but he followed her.
She brought out her stinger and placed the marker into the tube.
“You realize that’s nothing like a bow, right?”
The streets here were not as crowded, so she had a clear shot at Djakka’s back. She just had to make sure no one was looking in their direction when she did her thing. Her target was almost out of range now, though, so she wouldn’t have a second chance.
She took a quick look around. Aimed. Pressed the trigger.
The deed done, she did not wait to see if she hit her mark. She immediately pulled away, pushing into Saxis and away from the edge to make sure they could not be seen. Her heart was beating fast.
“Well?” asked Sax after a few seconds.
She rubbed her temples to activate the tracker. It was moving. Which meant it was on him and he had moved on.
Only then did she relax and look back where Djakka had been...
He was still there.
And staring straight at her.
***
“Which part of ‘do not engage’ did you not understand?”
Thosj was pissed, and rightfully so.
“It felt important that we not lose him,” she protested.
“And yet, you lost him anyway. Plus, now he knows we’re here and onto him.”
“Who is this guy, anyway?” she asked angrily. “If we’d known more, we might have done things differently.”
“Avrill should be with you soon. You are to come back to the ship immediately. We will then assess the situation.”
Hearing her husband’s name soothed her. She sighed. “Fine. We’ll do some more indexing on the way back. Might as well make the best of it.”
She cut off the communication and looked at Saxis.
“You and your stupid ideas,” he muttered.
“It could have worked. It should have worked.”
Djakka had stared at them for a long time, as if trying to memorize their faces, before turning back toward the trees and heading off, out of view.
“He must have felt the marker when it hit him, found it, then placed it on some animal... it all went so quick though it’s hard to accept.”
“Mal! Sax!” She turned her head toward the familiar voice. Avrill and two other enforcers were walking toward them. “I heard you made quite a mess...”
“You do realize there’s only one of him, right?” She asked a bit flippantly, looking at the three of them.
He smiled. “If you think it’s just us, you’re sorely mistaken. We’ve got men all around the city combing the surroundings even as we speak.”
She had not expected that.
“A bit over the top, no?”
“Come on, our orders are to take you two back to the ship.”
“Can’t we help with the search?”
“Afraid not.”
“Alright,” she relented. As they started walking, she added: “But you gotta tell me about this Djakka guy...”
“Sorry, but that’s classified, hon.”
She should have guessed he wouldn’t say anything in front of the others, so she fell quiet.
As they walked, she noticed that despite his joyful banter, Avrill stayed close to her and remained very vigilant, constantly scanning the surroundings.
When there was another tremor, she glanced at her husband with a worried look. “How sure are we on the timeframe?”
Her husband shrugged. “Above my pay grade, I’m afraid. They’ve never gotten it wrong so far, though.”
He had a point, so she did not press the issue, but she felt quite anxious.
As they walked, Saxis started indexing again. She decided to do the same and focused on her task.
***
Mal sat quietly in a corner of the room, watching as the others argued. It had been going on for an hour and she was fed up with it. She suddenly rose and walked out. She was pretty sure no one had even noticed.
They’d barely set foot back into the ship that they were taken to Thosj, who demanded a full report. They had complied, then started asking questions of their own. Questions that were met with frowns and stern warnings.
The most infuriating part of it all was the hierarchy’s refusal to share any information about Djakka. She had never seen anything like it. How were they supposed to do their job if they didn’t even know what they were up against? But after repeating the argument a dozen times and each time getting told she wasn’t ‘authorized,’ she had given up and sat down. Some might have said she was pouting... but not to her face.
Besides, she was not pouting. She was plotting.
As expected, the lab was empty. Most of the time it was just her and Saxis using it, and her partner was still at the meeting—if you could call it that!
She sat at her desk and brought up all the shots they’d taken. Figuring she might as well keep herself busy, she started sorting through the footage.
As she sifted through all the material, she found she was having trouble focusing as her mind kept wandering back to the mysterious man who had stared right into her eyes. It had been a chilling experience. She had maintained eye contact, refusing to back down, because she would be damned before she let some stranger intimidate her.
One of the images blurred as she filed it into the wrong folder. She cursed.
“Hey now! Watch your language.”
Mal spun around, startled. She hadn’t heard Sax come in.
“Back already?” she snickered.
“You’re one to talk!”
She turned back to her screen with a groan. “Couldn’t take it anymore. Damn fools. It’s easy to blame us when they won’t even give us the information we need to do things properly.”
Her fellow indexer sat at his desk, across from her. Turning his own screen on, he keyed in some instructions.
“Well,” he said, “that just means they’ll have to figure it all out on their own. Their loss.”
Mal shrugged. She didn’t care anymore. She could just as well stay here until the end of the mission. If they wanted more samples collected, they could just send someone else.
She paused on a picture and stared.
“Sax...”
“What?”
She frowned as she quickly browsed through images.
“What is it?” Sax asked again.
“Your footage... can you check if you see any animals?”
The other indexer peered at her curiously. “I don’t remember noticing any. Does it matter?”
“Could you just double-check?”
“Sure.”
A few minutes passed as both indexers worked on their consoles.
“No,” said Sax slowly. “Didn’t catch any. Must be a coincidence.”
Mal threw him a look. “Seriously? No animals on both feeds... that’s a coincidence?”
“Well... it could be.” He didn’t sound so sure about it.
She stood and circled to his desk, leaned over, and started flipping through his footage.
“Hey now! What are you doing?”
Ignoring him, she set the screen up to display fifty video streams simultaneously.
“Now watch. Carefully.”
He did. “What am I looking at?”
She crossed her arms. “No animals... For the sake of argument, let’s say that’s a coincidence. But... where are the insects?”
***
The day had been long and exhausting. When Malarqi finally came home, she found her precocious twelve-year-old girl waiting for her with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. The mother could tell she was about to get scolded by her own daughter and it made her laugh... inside. She knew better than to let it show. She loved that Lisile had so much strength in her and felt she would need it, considering the reputation she was starting to have of a crazy person with crazy visions.
“Have you seen the time?” the girl asked.
“Sorry, hon. You know how I can get when I’m at work.”
“Well, I don’t like it!”
“I’ll try my best next time...”
“You always say that,” remarked Lisile.
Mal let herself fall on the couch. Her daughter had a point. But this time, she had a secret weapon.
“Would you forgive me if I gave you a present?”
The girl squinted at her suspiciously. “A present?”
Opening the pouch at her belt, she pulled out the star-shaped stone and placed it on her palm for her daughter to see.
Lisile’s mouth gaped open, eyes sparkling with delight.
“What is that?” she finally asked in admiration.
“A rock I found outside.”
“It’s beautiful! Can I keep it?”
Just as the girl was about to grab it, Mal closed her fingers around it.
“Am I forgiven?” she asked mischievously.
Lisile’s eyes went wide. “Oh please, mommy! Yes! I forgive you! Can I have it now?”
Mal grinned as she handed the rock to her daughter. “Here you go. It’s yours.”
The girl took it and turned it in her hands a few times, then leaned over and gave her mother a big hug. “Thank you!”
“My pleasure.”
Lisile ran off to her room to play with her new toy.
The indexer stretched, then stood and headed into the kitchen to prepare some food for dinner.
An hour later, as she was bringing the last touches to a complicated dish, a call came in on her vircell. With a blink of her eyes, she accepted the connection.
“That looks delicious,” commented Thosj.
“I’m kind of busy, boss. As you can see.”
“Smells good, too,” he added, as vircells could also carry scents.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not calling to invite yourself over. What do you want?” she asked dryly.
“You bailed out on us, earlier.”
“It didn’t seem like you needed me.”
“Well, if you had stayed, you would know why I’m calling. We need you to finish indexing the city.”
“No,” she replied. She was tempted to just hang up, but she resisted the urge.
“Excuse me?”
“Which part of ‘no’ did you not understand?” She rather enjoyed throwing her boss’s words back at him. He did not.
“Last time I checked, I was giving the orders, and you were following them.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t do my work properly under the current conditions. So I suggest you find someone else to do it.”
“Are you joking?”
“Nope. And you’ll find Sax shares my sentiment on this matter.”
It was her boss’s turn to swear.
“Who will do the job, if not the two of you?”
“It’s not like we’re the only ones...”
“You know the others are sick, damn it!”
She shrugged. “Not my problem. Train new indexers, for all I care.”
They both knew this would take months and was most definitely not an option.
“What do you want?” he grudgingly asked.
“What do you mean, what do I want? You know exactly what I want.”
He stared at her angrily, then hung up.
She grinned as she placed the food on the table.
***
That night, lying in bed, it was her husband’s turn to scold her.
“You shouldn’t have talked to him like that...”
She shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Thosj had authorized Avrill to tell her what she wanted to know. She probably could have obtained the information regardless, but she preferred it this way. Her husband would certainly feel better about it, and that at least made it worth it.
Running a finger across his bare chest, she looked at him thoughtfully. “I think he’s the red man.”
Avrill turned his head to look at her. “Thosj?”
She laughed. “No. Djakka, silly.”
“Ah.” He pondered this for a moment. “I don’t know. I read your report. He wasn’t wearing anything red. What would make you think that?”
“My eye was blinking red every time I looked at him.”
“That was just the alarm system going off. Could happen in a lot of different scenarios.”
“But that’s just it. It never has. I never even knew we had something like that in place.”
“Still feels more like a gut feeling than actual evidence.”
“That’s just the cop in you talking,” she teased.
“Always!”
“On the other hand,” she remarked, “from everything you’ve told me, it seems Djakka is extremely dangerous. Doesn’t that fit the profile of the red man?”
“Why do you worry so much about a dream Lisile had ages ago?”
She sighed. “You’re right. I worry too much. It’s just... people have been using that image so much it kinda stuck in my head. It’s hard to shake off.”
“Maybe I can help,” he grinned as he rolled on top of her and pressed his lips against hers.
She let herself melt into the kiss.
***
Though Lisile was also in bed, she was not sleeping. She had pulled the cover over her head with the star-shaped rock resting on her pillow. Lying on her stomach, head propped up in her hands, she smiled at the stone.
“You are very pretty,” she said.
She hadn’t bothered to use a glower, because the rock was emitting its own light. It was faint, but sufficient.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The little star brightened for a second, but it made no sound.
Lisile giggled. “You’re funny. Where do you come from?”
She fell quiet, her gaze attentive, as if listening to someone.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I don’t know that I can do that. It wouldn’t be proper. I most certainly would get into trouble.”
The stone’s light flickered and Lisile felt bathed in a soothing warmth.
“No,” she said drowsily, “I’m not mad at you, Thyme. It’s just... we have rules here. I...” She yawned. “I think I need to sleep.”
She rolled over on her back, with her head resting next to the glowing stone.
“What?” she asked as she closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe. I...”
Lisile fell asleep before she could finish her thought.
***
As they headed back into the city, Mal told Saxis what she’d found out about Djakka.
“So he used to be one of us?” asked her fellow indexer. “That’s hard to believe. How is that even possible? I mean, if he left, shouldn’t he be stuck in whatever time we were in back then? And how come we hadn’t heard about this before?”
“Must have happened a long time ago.”
“He didn’t look much older than us...”
Even as he said the words, Sax realized how stupid his statement was. For all they knew, it could have been just a few days for Djakka since he’d left them. Time couldn’t possibly have flowed at the same rate for them all.
“Never mind,” he said. “But why did he leave?”
“No one seems to know.”
Sax grunted.
“What?”
“It just seems to me like we don’t know much more than we did before. We don’t know how he left, or when, or why... Just his name, that he was formerly a crew member of the Cyrus, and that he’s a criminal.”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Avrill who was walking a few feet behind them.
He and three other enforcers had tagged along as a backup team. Mal knew there were more of them spread out through the countryside.
“I guess it’s a moot point anyway,” said Sax, “if that’s all the info we have.”
Their mission for today was to gather testimonies from the population. Which they started doing as soon as they reached Helike.
After a couple of hours, they felt even more uneasy than the previous day. People talked of animals fleeing, of sudden columns of fire, of insects vanishing. The earthquakes had also increased in both frequency and intensity.
It wasn’t anything they hadn’t expected, knowing what was to come, but it was a stressful experience nonetheless. They had gone through other similar ordeals in the past, but it never got any easier. The most terrifying part of their job was knowing they couldn’t do anything to help these people.
Mal sensed a sudden buzz of activity behind her. When she looked over her shoulder, Avrill was making large motions with his arms and talking quickly on his vircell.
“Av! Be careful. You’re gonna draw attention... What’s going on?”
“Sorry,” he said as he stopped gesturing. “Trying to gather the troops. We need to move. Djakka was spotted on the north-eastern edge of town. Orders are to take him down.”
***
They found him standing in some bushes, near a pillar-like device. He did not seem surprised to see them.
“Are you all here?” he asked.
There were about twenty of them, Mal guessed.
“What kind of a question is that?” asked Sax.
“Do you still have people in town?” he insisted.
“None of your damn business,” said Avrill, with his blaster pointed at the criminal’s head.
Djakka did not seem phased by this. “Fine. Don’t come crying to me later.” He turned to a keypad on the device’s side and started tapping.
“Hey! What are you doing? Stop that.”
“No can do.”
“Do you not see our weapons?”
“Don’t care.”
He kept typing as all the blasters were aimed at him. The enforcers stared at each other, wondering what they were supposed to do next. The orders had been to bring him in. Alive.
Avrill lowered his aim and shot at Djakka’s leg.
The ray never hit its target. There was a flash of blue light as it was absorbed by a force field.
“Damn,” he muttered.
Djakka finished doing whatever he was doing, then closed a lid over the keypad.
“Done.” He turned to look at the group, examining each of them. He paused on Mal. “I recognize you.”
She blushed as she remembered her blunder.
“What were you doing with that thing?” she asked, motioning toward the device.
He stared at her for a moment, then pointed behind her, toward the city.
They all turned and saw a translucent dome had formed above Helike.
“What the—” started Avrill.
“It should be enough to protect it from destruction.”
Mal stared at the man in disbelief. “I thought you were a criminal?”
Djakka snorted. “You are the criminals. I am trying to undo your mistakes.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Sax.
“This city is not supposed to be destroyed. Your very presence here has altered time. I am trying to compensate for that.”
“That’s preposterous! We only watch and collect information, we don’t change anything.”
“And you should know,” added Mal, “as you once were one of us.”
“That’s irrelevant. What you normally do or don’t has no consequence here. Only your actions in this timeline matter.”
While Djakka was talking, Avrill leaned over to whisper in his wife’s ear: “Keep him distracted, I’m gonna try something.”
“We have done nothing differently,” said Mal after a quick nod to her husband.
“You obviously have. Or the animals would still be here.”
Mal threw her hands in the air in desperation.
“You’re mad! You know that? The animals have been fleeing for days. We’ve been here for, what?” She checked the timer on her wrist. “Twenty-three hours.”
As she said this, she realized they only had an hour left before things went very, very wrong...
“Time works in mysterious ways,” he persisted.
Mal started pacing back and forth. “Let me see if I got this right. Your theory is we did something here that changed the flow of time. That change will lead to the destruction of Helike. Meanwhile, your machine is intended to keep the city safe... Correct so far?”
Djakka squinted at her. “Yes.”
“And you can’t see the many flaws in your logic? Forget that we arrived after the symptoms started. How about the fact that Helike was destroyed, that it’s a known historical event? Or that this thing,” she pointed at the dome behind her, “is clearly visible, meaning the population, if it survives, will have witnessed something unnatural for this era. None of that gives you pause?”
She wasn’t just trying to keep the madman busy, she was also increasingly flabbergasted by the absurdity of the situation.
But Djakka was not impressed. He shrugged. “Your premise is flawed.”
“Oh, is it now? How so, pray tell?”
“Having changed the time flow, the future has changed for you as well. The future I remember does not have a destroyed Helike. As for the dome, it is not visible from the inside. Simple.”
Mal was speechless. She stared at the man. Could he be right? No, of course not! How could she even consider that any of his nonsense could be anything but?
“You’re delusional,” she finally said.
Djakka was about to reply when the earth shook. At the same time, five blasters shot at the base of the device.
Like the man, the machine itself was shielded... but the ground underneath was not. Under the coordinated blasts, a cavity formed under the pillar. With added help from the earthquake, it became unstable and toppled.
Djakka swore and stepped back just in time to avoid getting crushed by the falling device. As it hit the still quaking earth, there was a loud thud. The zone with the keypad lit up with sparks.
“You’ll have thousands of deaths on your conscience!” yelled Djakka. “Monsters!”
He turned and ran off into the forest.
Some of the enforcers tried to follow him, but they were thrown off their feet by new tremors.
When the quake finally subsided, Mal looked toward the city. It was still there, but the dome was gone.
***
The world was going mad.
The tremors had only stopped for a few minutes before starting up again, even more intense. Mal noticed the snow had melted and the heat had become almost unbearable.
But what frightened her most was when she looked toward the city and saw the sea’s water had receded.
Shit! she thought.
Then, aloud, she yelled: “Everyone! Back to the ship! Run! As quick as you can.”
She didn’t even wait to see if they had listened, though she did grab Avrill’s arm and pulled him as she ran toward the Cyrus.
Running while the ground around you is shaking can be quite a challenge. But the human body is capable of incredible feats of prowess when it has no other choice. And, right then, it most definitely had none. If they made it back to the ship, they’d be sore and exhausted... but they’d be alive.
They all ran like their lives depended on it—because, they did—trying best they could to ignore burning trees, to jump over large cracks splintering the earth, and to duck chunks of rock falling from the sky.
Mal resisted looking back. They couldn’t afford to waste a single second. She knew how quickly a tsunami could strike once the water had started to recede. They were running out of time.
The ship was not much further, but she worried they wouldn’t make it. She allowed herself a glance at the timer, as she could do this while running. There were only two minutes left. Her heart was beating fast, with sweat running down her face, her arms, her legs... she’d never felt more alive. She was hoping the sensation would last.
Finally, they saw the ship ahead of them. Just as a very loud rumble rose from behind. She swallowed hard and tried to run even faster. She could feel the moisture in the air... and were those drops of water?
Shit, shit, shit...
She wanted to scream but her throat was parched. She wanted to stop running and let herself fall to the ground, but her feet kept running. Her body wanted to die, but her mind wanted to live.
It started raining as they reached the ship. Though she knew it wasn’t rain, it just felt like it. It also made it easier to process than the truth. What she knew for certain was that this was a rain they could not afford to stay under for more than a second. Not if they were to survive.
They jumped aboard the Cyrus and collapsed to the floor as the door closed shut behind them. There was a giant shake, with a loud clunk... and then silence.
***
Later, from the safety of the control center, they watched as the tsunami hit Helike at the same time as the quakes liquefied the earth under the city. The entire event had been filmed by the ship’s drones.
The double catastrophe created an unprecedented chain reaction that made the entire town sink to the sea. Mal knew from the history files there had been no survivors, despite rescue attempts from nearby cities.
***
Mal spent the rest of the day in bed, recovering from the stress and exhaustion of that final sprint. She had bruises and wounds all over her body. She hadn’t felt a thing at the time, so focused was she on her survival. In retrospect, she did have blurry memories of jutting rocks scraping her legs, flying debris hitting her head and her back, thorns scratching her skin... likely there had been other incidents she did not remember. Nor did she care to.
She realized her daughter was standing in the doorway, staring at her.
“Hey there, sweetie...”
Lisile approached her hesitantly. “Are you okay, mommy?”
“I will be. I just need to rest.”
“Oh.”
Mal laughed, which woke some pains in her flank. “I didn’t mean right this instant. I’ll always have time for you, honey. Did you want to talk?”
“Well... it’s about Thyme.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been waiting so long.”
The girl looked confused at first, then giggled. “Oh! No, I mean, Thyme. That’s his name.”
“Whose name?”
“My friend. You brought him to me yesterday.”
It took a moment for Mal to connect the dots. “You mean the rock?”
“Yes. Except, he’s not a rock.”
“He?”
“Yes. Thyme. That’s his name,” she reminded her mother.
Mal, who had been lying down, sat up in her bed.
“Wait. Back up a minute.” She frowned. “Why did you give the rock a name?”
Lisile placed her hands on her hips and angrily said: “He’s not a rock!”
“Alright, alright. How about you start at the beginning?”
“Well,” said her daughter, “he spoke to me last night...”
“That’s impossible,” Mal interrupted.
“You never believe me!”
The little girl stormed out of the room.
“Lisile!”
Mal sighed as she lay back down.
First the visions, now voices. Her daughter’s imagination was getting out of control.
Then she remembered Djakka’s words, and she felt a knot in her stomach. Could he have been right? They were not supposed to change anything. But if that stone was sentient... hadn’t she changed something by bringing it onboard the ship? Could this have been sufficient to cause a disaster that was not supposed to happen?
She shook her head, as if to shake the thought away.
No... it was her husband who was right. She worried too much.
There was no red man, Djakka was mad, and the rock was just a rock.
How could it be any other way?
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Text (c) 2022 by Alex S. Garcia.
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Even if that rock was just a rock, Mal made a huge mistake taking it home with her. It’s like trying to tempt the butterfly effect into action.
Good story. Chilling that the indexers possibly murdered a city of people unnecessarily.
Thank you.