Aurora awoke to bright sunlight. Her nose was pressed to the pillow, one eye in darkness. The sun had poked into her other eye, bringing her to awareness. It took a few seconds to realize that she had no idea where she was. She froze, listening with ears and other senses. Trisha was in the next bed, not five feet away, still in the deepest of deep sleeps. Her brother and Cloud were another room, sound asleep, though it was well past sun-up.
Still drowsy, she peered about. This was a bedroom, with pale blue paint, deeper blue drapes and half-open cerulean-tinted Venetian blinds, two single beds, dressers, and writing desks with cut-glass indirect reflector lamps. Each desk had its crystal-blue carafe of fresh-cut pencils, a stack of paper tablets, and a large gum eraser. Her sheets and blankets matched the color scheme for the room. The bedspread draped across the footboard bore a medieval map, an embroidered sea serpent and compass rose on exotic two-axis pattern being plainly visible. Her garb was stacked on a steamer trunk, while Trisha's, neatly folded so the comet showed, was on a dresser.
The sight of her garb where someone could see it brought her sharply awake. She sat up, rolled half out of bed, and found she was wearing not pajamas but corduroys and long-sleeve T-shirt. Someone had put her to bed, not undressing her the way mom would have ...
Memories flooded back. The Eye of Mars. The Tunnels of Time. Trisha and the Guardian, Trisha enforcing the Guardian's over-casual promise to the letter. Now they were almost home. Something was keeping them from going home, something Eclipse had promised to explain in the morning. Eclipse? Here? Yes, once Aurora focused her perception on it, there was the faintest trace of Eclipse's mind, Eclipse being asleep a floor up. The trace was really faint. Eclipse's shields, even when she was asleep, were locked tight. Without the recollection of where Eclipse had gone to bed, she'd have been unfindable. Eclipse being here was too strange. Eclipse never slept where anyone could find her. Surely she'd never slept under one roof with Cloud and Star.
How had she gotten here, Aurora asked herself? They were on the West Coast, in someone's house. Someone had carried her to bed. Someone whose mind felt almost like daddy's in her not-quite-asleep memories. She'd woken up again, Trisha in terrible danger; Eclipse made a rescue. Trisha? She probed the deeps of her sister's mind. Trisha was all healed, but out cold. She didn't seem to be drugged, just very tired.
Fine. Let Trisha sleep. Let Cloud and Star sleep. Eclipse always took care of herself -- and everyone else, too. Meanwhile, she had peace. She had quiet. They weren't going anywhere until Trisha woke up; well, mayhaps not. She could always wake Eclipse. Memories of how Eclipse had felt last night, after carrying her to outer space, ruled out waking Eclipse. Eclipse would help if asked, but it would be perfectly beastly not to let her sleep. Eclipse had half-way died last night. Let her sleep. There was finally time to catch up with her diary.
Aurora slid out of bed and pulled a plastic envelope from her trouser pockets, withdrawing a few sheets of folded paper. She tiptoed to the writing desk and began to read.
``Dear Diary,
``We're going home now. Cloud said we had to stop the sky octopusses. Before they show up in Boston. I saw them over Sao Paulo. It's bright daylight; I still get the creeps. They ate the Brazilian Emperor's Persona League - gross. I saw it. Inner eye, but I saw.
``Nothing works against sky octopusses. You can't hit them. They don't fry. They don't have minds, not where I can reach. Comet had the idea. Ask the Eye! Of course, she made sure Cloud thinks it's his idea. Boys are a nuisance. Dumb as posts, every single one. Everyone knows that. Ask any girl in school; she'll tell you. The Eye of Mars owed Comet a big favor. That's weird by itself. The Eye is a god, well, he knows literally absolutely everything. That's what Trisha says. But he isn't very smart. After all, the Eye's a boy. What do you expect? Brains? So we went to Mars and asked. Neat flight. Comet carried me. We met Eclipse. Cloud knew it wasn't an accident. He couldn't say anything. Not and be polite. Comet and me had told Eclipse. This was a hard problem, and Eclipse is good at hard problems. Hard problems that need thinking. Hard problems that need breaking things. She's very good at hard problems. She never talks about her parents, but they must have taught her.
``Trisha asked the Eye. She told Cloud she had to ask, because it's her favor. She was afraid he'd ask a stupid question and she was only owed one. Sort of. Can't tell him that. He'd get heated. The Eye said `Go through the Tunnels of Time'. Right! Like they're next door, when they're across the whole universe. The Eye gave Trisha a StarCompass. It points to the answer on the way out. It points home on the way back. We're back, practically, so it was pointing home. That means we have the answer. I guess.
``Even Trisha can't fly across the universe in ten minutes. We had to rig things. I asked Eclipse what to do. Don't tell Cloud. He'd have a fit, maybe even appleplexy, if he learns I asked Eclipse. Eclipse said: say we're going camping. Rig a kidnapping. That way way Mom and Dad won't wonder where we are. Sign a name, someone who always takes ransom and never hurts anyone. Eclipse knew a name.
``We crossed the universe. It took hours and hours, even for Comet. Eclipse said thirty billion light years to the Tunnels. There was the Guardian. There was something chasing us. Eclipse promised she'd block the Tunnel, give us time to talk to the Guardian. Star didn't say he'd help Eclipse. Brian's like that. He doesn't think how he can help another persona. He just says what he'll do by himself. His idea of a team is us standing there bragging him up, while he breaks things. No matter if breaking is smart or not. Boys! Cloud and Trisha spoke to the Guardian. I didn't hear it. I was looking at the walls. Very chill paintings. The Guardian made a promise. He didn't mean it. That's what he said when Trisha made him keep it. I don't know how we used the Tunnels; we didn't go any place.
``I checked on Eclipse. I knew she'd be GR. She wasn't. She was fighting, I won't write down who. Not even here. I promised. She was almost holding her own. That I don't believe! Not against who she was facing. That's impossible. She turned and ran. She told me we had a minute, she'd hold the inner tunnel that long, and that was all she could do. She was telling the truth. She was really wrecked up. She'd literally have died if she kept fighting. She didn't say that, but I could tell. Except if we'd needed more time, she wouldn't have quit. She'd have died, facing what she was facing, Brian no lifting a finger,, but she'd have done it.
``Cloud was mad. Eclipse had promised him she'd stop the thing. She didn't. She wouldn't say why. She made me promise I wouldn't tell who was chasing us. She said telling Cloud that name would be begging an excuse. She doesn't beg. She didn't want me begging for her. She said girls shouldn't beg boys for anything. She's right. But it wasn't begging, only saying common-sense truth. So I didn't tell, even though Cloud would have forgiven Eclipse if I'd told him. I mean, no one can fight Her!
``The Guardian let us go. I don't understand. We didn't find an answer against sky octopusses. He let us leave. We had to wait, the four of us and Eclipse, so I got to write this. Yours, Janie.''
Her memory brought her forward, flying across the shining sea, clusters and grand clusters of galaxies reduced to flickering clouds, finally to reach Earth. Aurora pulled a pencil from the carafe and began to write.
``Dear Diary,
``We flew across the universe again, the StarCompass still pointing. Pointing home, since we're home now. Almost. We got home, we must have the answer. If we were looking for the answer, the compass would be taking us there, not home. We came home, so we must have the answer. Mayhaps Brian found it, and isn't telling, so he can brag himself up more. Mayhaps you can't tell you have it. Mayhaps we have it, and don't know, like the pearl-loined letter.
``Eclipse said she'd help fly us. But Trisha and I could tell. Eclipse was hurt bad in her fight. Not bleeding, but hurt inside. And when she said before, she was GR from the Maze, so it was GR for her to come along, she was fibbing then too. Polite, but fibbing. I can tell. You don't get well from the Lesser Maze, not in a couple weeks, not with how bad she got hurt there, broken ribs and bone bruises and things inside bleeding. Brian and Cloud didn't care. They just complained about her quitting in the Tunnels.
``We got here. Trisha fell asleep. All at once. In mid-air. She's never done that before. I started falling. All I could do is put up a wall, hope it was strong enough to protect her and me and Brian. Cloud grabbed us. Eclipse grabbed, too. We hit the water not too hard. It was cold as ice. Body field or no, you could still tell how cold it was. Trisha woke up, enough to push us to shore. If she flies across the Universe again, she should rest more along the way.
``So this real chill guy with a very frigid house had us for dinner. All five of us. He even gave us real cocoa, not caring we're not grownups. That's a stupid rule. Why should grownups keep chocolate for themselves? No one dies of chocolate poisoning. It's always `kids don't need it'. Anyway, he doesn't know who Eclipse is! Strange!
He's nice inside. Almost as nice as daddy or mommy. He's terribly sad about something. I didn't look to see what he's sad about. Not polite! I wish I could help him. And I fell asleep at dinner. Rude! That's what Daddy does when Uncle Jim shows slides.
``I woke up. Trisha called me. She went someplace, and got hurt bad. Eclipse rescued her, and I healed her. We went back to bed. I don't understand. Comet went to Washington, and the FedCore ummh FedCorpse ummh FedCorps shot her. I don't get it. We'll get that right. They really like her. Then we'll catch whoever renamed RTI. That was mean!
``I woke up again. The second time it was Eclipse. She had a nightmare, worse than Trisha or Brian or I ever get. Lots worse. She dreamed she was back in the Maze. S She dreamed she lost a fight and this guy killed her. Slowly. She woke up and we talked and she was all right. I think. If she's ever all right, all alone inside her mind, when she knows the whole world wants to kill her.
``It's next morning. Trisha and Brian and Cloud and Eclipse are asleep. Alex Pickering''
She strained, looking mentally. He was hard to find, but he was reading in his library.
``is wide awake. Mayhaps I can have breakfast, even if I should be polite and wait for the sleepyheads to get up. (No, that's not fair to Trisha or Eclipse. They're both very tired.) Bye. Janie.''
* * * * *
The same sunlight, brighter now, awakened Comet. At first she felt the bed besides her for Harold. Nothing. Her favorite stuffed frog was not where she expected it to be. Her eyes popped open, noticing in half an instant an unfamiliar bedroom, a second slept-in bed, her garb sitting neatly folded on a dresser, and the clothing she was wearing. She was more than half-dressed; socks, her own corduroys, and -- what was the top? It was way too big, almost a tent, with sleeves double-folded to match the length of her arms. A safety pin coupled the neck, taking in the collar so it wouldn't fall off. The fabric was cotton, a mix of harrow brilliant green and blue and yellow pinstripes on a white background. It was a lovely fabric, a pattern like nothing she'd ever seen in her life. She absolutely had to remember it; the pattern would be great for a blouse.
``Janie?'' she whispered. No, she thought, garb's sitting in the open; we must be in persona. ``Star? Cloud?'' Silence answered her. She remembered Mars, sky pink as cotton candy, clouds like streaks of marshmallow, the Temple of the Eye a vast pile of stairs and porches and pillars filling an entire face of Mons Olympus. The Temple was like the Treasury at Petra, all outside ornament with almost nothing behind it, best seen from a distance, except the very center where waited the Eye. She remembered her flight to the Tunnels. For all that she'd done interstellar before, only intergalactic flight matched Tennyson's immortal line. They were here now., wherever here was. That explained the shirt. Her own T-shirt had been shot to pieces.
This isn't home, she thought to herself. This whole world isn't home. I brought Brian and Janie and Cloud and even Eclipse here, wherever we are, and I blew it. Completely. I went to the Eye. I asked the question, instead of letting Cloud do the talking. I dragged everyone to the Tunnels, and I could have gone by myself, if I weren't such a complete scaredy-cat. I got a real StarCompass, and they're foolproof. I took us home. Except it's not home. I don't know where we are, but it's not home. The StarCompass is foolproof, but not Cometproof, so it's all my fault.
Now Cloud will say he should have asked the Eye. Now Brian will say you can never trust a girl to do anything right, not even talking. Janie trusted me, her big sister, and won't say a word that sounds like complaining, no matter how much she'll cry when she knows I'm not watching her. Eclipse won't lose her frigidkeit, but she never forgives herself her own mistakes. She won't say she blames me, but she won't forgive me, any more than she ever forgives herself. Comet pressed her face to the pillow.
Her eyes stayed dry. She couldn't find tears. She had to face brother and sister and Cloud and Eclipse, and confess. She'd made the mistake, so she had to undo it, no matter what it cost her.
She stood, muscles protesting. She felt worse than she had after her hike with Uncle Jim, the hike to the top of Mount Washington. Being a persona helped a bit, but being a persona really only helped much on things related to your gifts. A shower, slipping into her persona garb, and carefully making both beds improved her mood.
Downstairs? No, she had something to do first, even if her stomach did keep telling her how hungry she was, even if she wanted to talk to Janie and Eclipse until she was no longer completely zeroed out. At corridor's end was a small second-floor porch. The view was north, looking downhill across a formal garden into banks of budding trees. Beyond were woods rising into low mountains; her vision picked out the rising column of hot air that suggested a small village. She stepped outside, the door closing firmly behind her. Earlier she had been disconsolate. Now, refreshed, she could put back her shoulders, square her jaw, and tell herself she had a task that matched her gifts, and hers alone.
Flight field cut on, tightening to light-folding dark, then through a mirror finish to nothingness. Invisible to all but the most careful of observers, she floated off the decking. An overflight of the village found nothing out of the ordinary. To all appearances, she was above a small American town. Except this was a small town where no one was a persona, no one had ever heard of personas, no one thought there could be personas. A huge slice of American life was missing. From what Pickering had told her, in the post-midnight hours when she was too hysterical to sleep, the past was gone. There was no hidden Lemuria, no shining Marik whose parades shook the earth, no colonists setting sail to AutumnLost. Here history was something you studied in books, every statement a proven true fact instead of being fable and epic like it was supposed to be.
She focused her will on her gifts. Her course arced skyward, faster and faster, clouds and earth falling away. The heavens made their swift change from sky blue through luminous grey to flat black. In a few moments she was so high that even Star or Cloud could have seen the stars. She rolled her course north, still climbing, the curve of the earth clearly visible below her.
Where was Mars? The moon was where it should be, her phase more advanced than when they left home two days ago. Her vision swept across the constellations. There were the planets, all in an arc, Uranus and Neptune and all the rest. A ruddy star that showed a disc and detailed features without looking carefully: that was Mars. Well, she told herself, it showed a disc if she looked, others wanting a telescope. The flight field that trapped light until she was invisible enhanced her vision, revealing glories of the heavens unsuspected by the ungifted.
There it was. Invisibility fell away, her flight field flaring its gaudy tangerine orange as she reached for the depth of her gifts. She accelerated towards Mars, travelling faster and faster in every instant. A minute's effort flattened local geodesics; she had passed solar escape velocity. The stars trembled. Her speed soared as she passed from mere tens of miles per second through the speed of light. FedCorps kept telling her she was a child who should go home and stay there until she learned to use her gifts better. None of them, not even Starstreak, could match her speed when she set her mind to it. Mars was now minutes away.
A landing spiral brought her to the Martian northern hemisphere. She knew where she was going. The Eye of Mars had promised: if she willed, she could return in triumph. She repeated to herself the argument she was about to use on the Eye. Returning in triumph was impossible if you couldn't return at all.
Mons Olympus rose across the horizon. The solar system's largest mountain was a volcano whose northern face had been sculpted by unknown visitors into the Temple of the Eye, a huge array of buildings honoring its omniscient resident. She swooped around the volcano, lining up for the polite approach that so gratified the Eye's substnatial vanity.
At the sight of the northern face of Mons Olympus, great falls of lava manifestly untouched by rational hands, she lost all control of her flight, spinning wildly through the sky into a dramatic tooth-jarring landing. She didn't often hurt herself by flying into something. The boil of sand reminded her that she was decidedly not indestructible.
For a time she walked across the gravel, boots sending up puffs of slow-falling dust, each step bringing her infinitesimally closer to the impossibility glowering before her. The sky was its familiar pink. This was Mars, its lower gravity transforming steps into graceful leaps, its near-vacuum of an atmosphere warping the sound of gravel crunching under her boots. The eastern and western slopes of Mons Olympus, areas not sculpted into the Temple of the Eye, looked no different than before. Where was the Eye? Where was His temple?
A hop, a skip, and she went into flight again, her destination the north face of the volcano. The bulges of rock did loosely resemble the Temple; its vast approaches once covered tens of miles. Of course, she considered, those rocks might have been the starting point for the builders. The builders had removed rock, so where there were stairs or porches in the Temple, there had to have been natural rock formations before they started sculpting. Where was the Temple now? Had they travelled back in time, back so far that the Eye was not yet in residence? That was hundreds of millions of years ago, back so far that there were no human beings, let alone American cities that were almost-copies of Washington and San Francisco. The rock looked natural; a good hard kick convinced her that the stone was as solid as it appeared.
She shook her head. It didn't make sense. It couldn't make sense. Nothing made sense. Nothing at all. This was beyond her. Mayhaps Eclipse could puzzle it out. The rest of the gang would try. She for sure couldn't herself. She squeezed eyes shut. Another bursting of the waterworks wasn't going to help. She wiped her face, stray tears boiling violently when they passed outside her body field.
At least she could bring Pickering a present. He'd been so nice to them all, so wonderfully kind to her last night. His library had a stock of rock paperweights, souvenirs of his various trips and expeditions. He certainly couldn't have any Mars rocks. She hoped he liked her choices.
* * * * *
Comet found Cloud and Eclipse in Pickering's library, staring at a world map. At some world's map, she told herself, certainly not hers. Manjukuo, Tibet, and half of Mongolia had vanished into Canton -- China, they called it. From the presence of city names the Sea of Glass now hosted a country. Details were wrong everywhere else, with way too many nations in Eastern Europe, way too few in Asia. Pickering leaned back in a winged arm chair, legs propped on a hassock, letting his guests talk.
Distant voices were Star and Aurora, someplace else in the house, undoubtedly locked in combat over the chess board. Comet used used the barest trace of lift to lighten her steps, tiptoeing so gently that her feet barely pressed against the parquet. Pickering still anticipated her entrance, so that he faced the doorway when she entered the room.
``Comet! You're awake!'' Eclipse's enthusiastic greeting cut through the conversation. From the sun-angle, it must be nearly noon outside. Comet smiled bashfully.
``And in better spirits than last night, I trust?'' added Pickering warmly. Comet's answer was cut off by a flurry of greetings and hugs, a newly-arrived Aurora and Star pressing close around her. ``Is lunch -- that's breakfast for you -- finally in order?'' asked Pickering. He led an enthusiastic group of children through the Great Hall to his kitchen. Comet, too numb to reply, allowed herself to be dragged along.
She found herself seated firmly at one end of the breakfast room table, denied the chance to apologize for her mistakes while successive mugs of orange juice, milk, and hot chocolate were placed in her hands. A few shuffles left Pickering in command of the kitchen, Eclipse deftly relieving him of most real work.
The others told their tales. Aurora had been awake since dawn, to be joined first by the boys and then by Eclipse. As Comet juggled a piece of toast, she recognized that Alex had not slept at all. He had dutifully fed the first three arisers and accepted Eclipse's insistence that she would wait for Comet before eating.
``It really wouldn't be polite to the cook,'' Eclipse explained to Comet, ``People having breakfast at five different times. So I waited.'' She continued to cook, not yet having had a bite to eat herself. A smooth gesture and rapid-fire tracery of cerise lines reduced a dozen cleaned onions and potatoes and two pounds of roast beef to neatly minced eighth-inch cubes. The gentlest shimmer of light raised the saucepan from dead-cold to onion- browning temperature, olive oil sizzling as microdrops of water came to a sudden boil.
Cloud and Star looked guiltily at each other, then stared at Aurora. After all, Aurora hadn't waited for them. Why should they have waited for Eclipse? They'd been hungry. Comet nodded her agreement at their unspoken thoughts. Not saying a word, the two boys rose, marched over to Eclipse, and pointed meaningfully, first at her and then at the orange juice and cocoa already on the table. Eclipse protested feebly, but let the boys assume her role as chef.
Star took the cook's role, Cloud passing him ingredients. Shredded onions, floating half-an-inch under Cloud's open palm, made their way to the oversize pan; a sizzle and whistle bespoke the bottommost onions touching the hot oil. Pickering took a half-a-step closer to the stove to raise the gas, then realized that the stove remained unlit. Star's hand was sheathed in a golden mesh of light; hand passes over the pan brought a crackling sound and the familiar scent of rapidly browning onions. He paused once and again to stir.
``Usually I do this Saturdays,'' Star explained. ``Dad and Mom go to work and I make breakfast. Course, can't tell Mom why I cook so much better when she's not watching. Dad likes the hash, so he says not to look.'' The children burst into laughter at a joke they'd heard many times before. Salt, pepper, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce followed; sage and oregano were carefully palmed. ``Besides, Dad knows he taught me how to cook. Corned beef?'' Cloud levitated the meat. The window over the stove was open. Pickering noted that the rising smoke from the oil made an unnatural beeline for the window, a beeline only interrupted while Cloud was moving additional foodstuffs to the pan.
Pickering had meanwhile been preparing the cream sauce, stirring beef gravy into cornstarch, adding crushed garlic, and heating, pausing once and again to check the oven, where two loaves of fresh bread were rapidly approaching readiness. His guests were very well behaved; someone had done a magnificent job of parenting. He could remember cooking when he was Star's age, though to his recollection never a beef hash. Expecting small children to do a proper job of folding a powder into gravy without lumping it was a bit much.
* * * * *
Lunch had been excellent, at least from Pickering's point of view. His guests had relaxed, talking quietly with each other. The boys argued baseball and the forthcoming season. Pickering hadn't had the heart to note that Boston had not recently fielded two major-league teams, and assuredly neither team had ever been the Brahmins. The girls gossiped about friends at school, Aurora doing most of the talking. Comet seemed withdrawn. If Pickering hadn't known about Eclipse's home life, or rather the lack thereof, Eclipse might have seemed too quiet.
Aurora cleared the dishes, just as though she were back at home. Pickering broke out a box of molasses raisin cookies, whose long wait in his pantry had now come to an end.
``I think I'd better start this,'' announced Comet. She looked out the window, at the ceiling, anywhere except her friends and siblings. ``Alex? I brought back some presents for you, for being so good to all of us.'' She fumbled through her pockets, finally depositing a collection of stones on the table. ``I picked up these on the Moon. And the red-pink ones, they're from Mars.''
Pickering reached for the first, then snatched back his hand. A curl of fog off the sides of the lunar stones suggested a somewhat lower temperature than his skin would tolerate. Gingerly, he grasped one in the sugar tongs. ``Fascinating,'' he said. ``Absolutely fascinating. The Martian rocks are absolutely lovely. That ruddy orange is wonderful. You must have worked very hard to find ones so colorful.''
Comet blushed. ``Mars is like that.''
``They're all lovely, and merit a special place on my desk,'' he answered. ``Though my desk lacks your pockets' insulation.''
``Pockets?'' asked Comet. ``Oh, my body field, that's all.''
``You went to Mars again?'' asked Star. ``Neat! You could've asked us along.''
``Sure,'' said Cloud. ``Go to Mars. Meet the Eye. Find out what he wants for answering my question.''
Comet stared at her hands. She could tell; this was going to be absolutely horrible. They didn't understand and weren't going to let her tell them. They were going to keep talking. The longer they talked, the worse her truths would sound. She stared helplessly at Eclipse, who'd saved her life twice in two days and never thought there was any debt to be repaid
``Guys,'' intruded Eclipse. ``Mayhaps you could let Comet tell about her trip? I think it's ...important.'' Cloud stared at Eclipse and received a firm nod. He shrugged affably. Eclipse backing Comet had to be one girl backing another because they were both girls. It wasn't worth starting another argument. Not yet.
``I, oh, I don't even know where to start,'' began Comet. ``It's all such a tangle, and it's all my fault. If I hadn't been such a scaredy cat, I would've gone to Mars and the Tunnels by myself and you all would've been safe, not here.''
``Don't worry, Trisha,'' whispered Aurora, ``We're with you. Tell us. Then we go home.''
``Yeah,'' agreed Star. ``I mean, we've gotta have our stories together when we go home this afternoon. Can't let Dad or Mom figure out we weren't kidnapped.''
``That's just it!'' answered Comet. ``We can't go home! It's, I mean, we're, oh, I don't know! Eclipse? You're so much smarter than me. Can't you tell them? I can't! I don't even understand.''
``Can't go home,'' asked Aurora. ``Why not? Just because someone renamed RTI, we can't go home?''
Eclipse held her silence. ``Alex told me,'' said Cloud, ``but you saw it, Eclipse. Why don't you tell?''
``Mom? Dad?'' interrupted Star. ``Are they okay? Did something happen to them?''
``We can't go home.'' Comet's voice was the winter wind off a glacier. ``We can't.'' Her words brought the others to dead silence. ``It's gone.''
``Not there?'' cried Aurora. ``Daddy and Mommy? Are they hurt?''
``We're lost,'' answered Comet. ``Completely lost, and it's all my fault, all because I took you guys along, when I could've gone alone, if I weren't afraid of my own shadow, and I don't even know what I did wrong, except it had to be me, because I carried the Starcompass, so I guided us, and if I'd gone I'd be missing, but you'd all be safe and could find me. And now the Starcompass doesn't even work; I keep looking for it to point home and half the time it points right here to this house, when home isn't here at all, and half the time it points someplace else, a different place each time I look.'' Comet's confessional came so quickly that no one dared interrupt her.
``Where's Mommy and Daddy?'' wailed Aurora. `` Why can't we just fly to Arlington?''
``Yeah, why not?'' chimed in Star.
``Guys? Be colder?'' said Cloud. ``I mean, let's not uncover our private personas with a stranger,'' he smiled abashedly at Pickering ``-- sorry, Alex -- sitting right here.'' Aurora and Star looked crestfallen.
*Comet?* Eclipse's words, warmly supportive, were heard only by their intended recipient. *I'd've gone with you. Even if it was only you and me. Even if it was for sure a one way trip.''
``It's GR, Cloud,'' said Comet. ``There's no one for Alex to tell.'' In low, even tones, she described her flight of the previous evening. Eclipse followed. Only Comet recognized that Eclipse was pruning her tale, neglecting to mention which gifts she actually called.
``This morning,'' said Comet, ``I went to the Eye of Mars, to tell him he broke his promise to me, and he wasn't there at all. His whole Temple is gone, so Olympus is a big volcano covered with lava flows; now everything is gone: home, RTI, personas, the Eye, the sky octopusses, everything to do with gifts and our trip is gone. Except us.''
``Hey,'' said Cloud, ``Look at the bright side. I took us to Mars. To save the world from octopi! No octopi! I saved the world. So I did it. Sort of.'' He was rewarded with dirty looks.
``We went to save the world,'' said Eclipse. ``To see the universe. To sail the silver sea of suns. Not to destroy everything.''
``Yeah,'' Cloud answered.
``This is silly,'' said Star. ``We didn't do anything. Not a thing. Except fly in a big circle. No. Not a circle. The same line, back and forth. How could we change everything? We did nothing! Well, you had a little fight, Eclipse.''
``My opponent didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt, hardly. Where's the Eye?'' asked Eclipse.
``Personas? How can't there be personas?'' said Aurora. ``Even if someone changed the world completely, like when the Supreme Illusionist changed Harvard Square into the Piazza Leprecano, there was still a world. People still have houses, nice ones.'' She smiled at Pickering. ``They still have books and computers and videos and airplanes, 'cause I saw one this morning. So why can't they fly?'' She was answered with silence.
``It can't be true!'' Aurora continued. ``It can't.'' She concentrated, face a pinched frown. A grey cloud, swiftly replaced by a golden pyramid encasing a glowing eye, formed above the kitchen table. Pickering recoiled until he noted that the children took the apparition calmly. The pyramid became a flicker of lights, then a three-dimensional view of someplace else. Scenes swiftly alternated, an aerial perspective that collapsed downwards until all were staring at a single home. The field of view swept inside, scanning in a few moments through the rooms Comet had seen last night. Other scenes followed, one after the next so swiftly that Pickering could barely keep count. Those must, he concluded, be places that Aurora knows, or thought she knew. If the images were optical - by no means a certainty - Telzey would record them for later examination. ``All gone,'' she announced. ``Even FedCorps.'' She slumped against the table, eyes half-glazed, too stunned to say a word.
``Eclipse,'' asked Cloud, ``are you like absolutely sure no one's heard of personas? Could they just have a different name?''
``I looked, Cloud,'' the girl answered serenely. ``I looked with telepathy. Hard enough I could hear people's minds remembering how to breathe. But people flying, except airplanes and aeronefs and fixed ornithopters and, well, one guy had seen a really lousy rocket belt?'' Eclipse shook her head. ``I never saw anyone fly.''
``Assuredly,'' remarked Pickering, ``You are the only people I know who fly under their own power.''
``I know how you change it all overnight,'' said Eclipse. ``Time travel.''
``Like the chron, chronulator, chronuplicator? Except one that works?'' interjected Star.
Eclipse explained. ``Someone changed the past. Someone changed things so history is different. When we came back, history was changed. No one knows us. No one remembers personae because no personae were ever born.''
``Who?'' asked Star.
``Why?'' asked Comet. ``How'd they make the Eye disappear? And the sky octopusses?''
``If there were no personas,'' said Cloud, ``the League of Terran Justice could conquer the world. Mayhaps it did. That explains it. Someone prevented personas from ever happening, so they could conquer the world. But look at the world map. The world doesn't look conquered.''
``Mayhaps they're hiding,'' said Aurora. ``If no one knows they're conquered, they don't know they're supposed to start a revulsion, ummh, revolution. They just sit there controlled by the secret rulers of the world.''
``Secret masters,'' grumbled Pickering. ``Illuminatti. Trilateralists. Communists. The Insider Conspiracy. The Sun Cross. If you think someone secretly runs the world, there are lots of candidates.'' Most of which, he added to himself, would be hard-pressed to run registration at a modest science fiction convention.
``If I'd never been born,'' said Eclipse, ``if I didn't exist, I couldn't've grabbed the Namestone. So it'd still be safe in the Maze.'' *Aurora? Star? Ask me afterwards about the Eye? Frigid?* There was nodded agreement.
``Even safer than before,'' said Pickering. ``We've never heard of the Maze, let alone this Namestone widget.''
``So where is the Namestone now ?'' asked Eclipse. ``Buried in Atlantis?''
``It can't be,'' said Cloud. ``They've never heard of Atlantis. Unless it's under water, and they forgot.''
``But I dreamed about Atlantis, last night,'' said Comet. ``A huge marble building, burning, me standing inside.''
Eclipse cut her off. ``Guys? Concentrate on our here and now problem?'' *Comet! Ask me about your dream! Privately? Please!* Comet shrugged.
``Catch the guys who did it! Make them put the world back,'' said Aurora.
``Wait a minute,'' said Star. ``That chronuplicator gadget is just a fancy video projector, isn't it? I mean, no one can travel through time, right? No one can change the past.''
Eclipse looked deeply thoughtful. ``Are you sure you have to go to the past? To change it, I mean? Wouldn't telepathy be good enough?''
``Telepathy to the past? Telep to someone a hundred years ago? How?'' challenged Aurora. ``If someone could do it, wouldn't we know?''
``Now, wait here,'' intruded Pickering. ``Time travel sounds like, say, space travel. So it sounds reasonable. But it's not. After all, if you had a time machine, you could go back in time, and kill your grandparents before your parents were born. Then where would you be? You'd never have been born, so you couldn't have killed your grandparents, so they would have lived, so you would have been born after all. And now it's a paradox. Isn't it?''
The children looked at each other. ``No, it isn't,'' answered Cloud. ``You were born before you killed your grandparents. They died after you were born. I read it in a book. Einstein explained it. When he fixed his relationship theory. After Solara took him to AutumnLost.''
``Einstein? He had a theory of time travel? Who is Solara? Lost what?'' Pickering wished the children would limit themselves to one new concept per sentence.
``Einstein,'' said Cloud. `` 
Einstein? His old theory said you
couldn't go faster than sound, no, light. Or something silly like that.
Solara showed him he was wrong. She took him to AutumnLost.
It's a country. Like France and Lemuria.
It's in another galaxy, awake a day each decade. When Einstein came back,
he replaced `relativism' with `Transitivity' ''
``I see,'' said Pickering. ``Transitivity says there's faster than light? And time travel?'' Nods from Cloud. ``And if you go back, you can change history?'' Pickering was fiercely attentive.
``The book said so,'' answered Cloud. ``No one's done it. I think. Or no one noticed. After all, if you murder your grandparents, everyone would remember they got killed. And when you got back to the present, no one would know you, because no one remembers before the change.''
``That's us!'' A flash of recognition touched Aurora. ``No one remembers us. Not at all. Someone changed time. And missed us. We're trapped. No. We have to find him. Find whoever did it. Make him change it back.''
Eclipse pushed on the table, one fist clenched. ``Timewards is a direction, the way up or left is a direction. I should be able to teleport there.''
``It's a direction?'' asked a doubting Cloud. ``You can't point your finger from now to then. How can it be a direction?''
``Not a pointing direction,'' answered Eclipse firmly. ``A teleport direction. They're not the same. To go to Boston, the teleport direction isn't which way I'd point my hand, to point toward Boston. But I know which teleport direction Boston is. Just like I know which way to point, to say where Boston is if you want to walk there. And I can see which teleport direction timewards is.''
``Get off it, Eclipse,'' countered Star. ``Now you're saying you do time travel? Was that how you cheated at the Maze?''
Eclipse held her breath momentarily. ``I said I know which way timewards is.'' A faint violet tracery cut the air around her. Eclipse estimated the depth required. She shuddered. ``If it were real important. If it were real, real important, say, saving the universe? I think I could teleport timeward. Once. You'd have to give me an awfully awful good reason to do it. You'd be on your own when you got there.''
``As usual, not gonna do anything herself. You might work up a sweat, and want to take a bath,'' sneered Star. Cloud shook his head knowingly at the younger boy's perceptive comments.
``I'm sorry, Star,'' apologized Eclipse. ``I'm pretty sure my gifts won't work well after I die. That's why my time travel is once only. I'd burn doing it.''
``Die!'' squeaked Comet. ``You don't mean that, do you? Don't hurt yourself, Eclipse.''
``I said I'd need a very good reason before I tried,'' answered Eclipse. ``I'm not for sure positive it would kill me. Not absolutely positive. I could mayhaps do it with lots of time to rest first.''
``Let me get one thing right?'' intruded Pickering. ``Einstein, your Einstein? He explained flying faster than light? He said you could reset time? You can go back and change the present? You don't remember his theory, do you?''
``Yeah,'' answered Cloud. ``He said that. I read it in a book. You can change the past. And when you come back to the present you see you've changed it. It was a math theory. With equations. And three time directions. One that clocks use. One that time travellers use. One that keeps track of what caused what. That's how he explained it. With equations. And three clocks.'' Pickering nodded, forcing himself not to ask if Cloud thought there were other sorts of theories, ones without equations. However, Pickering told himself, if Einstein could work out such a theory, so can I. And then, if history may truly be changed, then that which was not to be will be made to have been, for I, the great von Pickering, will countenance no alternative. Not when Her soul is the stake.
A clamor of voices, all trying to be heard at one, intruded on his reverie. ``Maybe we should each try thinking,'' said Cloud, ``by ourselves. So we each get a plan. I need a plan. A good plan. I need to find who did this. Then we make him put the world back, the way it belongs. Let's go.'' No one argued.
* * * * *