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By Micheal Collier

Dedicated to Rebecca Levene for help, understanding and generosity in a Mêlée Confidetial

Prologue

Nineteen years ago

Then time crashes through, like a roaring wave of pale water over the far-off spindly trees, ageing them and pushing up new saplings in the blink of an eye.

'Run,' he says, but it's instinct, not a practical suggestion.

Taaln runs the wrong way, spins round as the crackling wave breaks on him.

Vost is caught, on a narrow strip that's safe, an eye in the storm -

***

Vost watched him die for hours.

The eyes staring back into his own were dry and wrinkled. Gradually they atrophied until there was only a steady stream of dust pouring from the empty sockets.

That alone must have taken a good half-hour.

Flakes of skin broke away from the face like tiny petals and fluttered gently to the parched earth below. He counted them as they fell in the silence.

Vost hadn't known Taaln long, but he'd seen how full of life the man had been, all that careless optimism. He'd had the best attitude, Vost decided.

Take what you can when you can - there's little enough on offer after all.

And you never knew when the payback would come.

***

'There're millions of futures down here, aren't there?'Vost said idly as he watched Taaln carefully connect his black box to the now secure device.

True,' nodded Taaln, straightening up, 'but they're all borrowed, aren't they? That's no use. The only real future's the one you make for yourself, isn't it?'

Vost frowned as the younger man's face suddenly crumpled in fear.

'It's not a safe reading.'

'But the remote sensors -'

"They must have got it wrong!'

"Then what do we -'

'I don't know! The readings were safe before. Pick-up's not for seven hours!'

Vost tried to breathe slowly and deeply to fight back the panic. 'Well, it doesn't mean this chunk's going up, does it? It could just be rumblings. We could have days of safe time yet.'

He looked about him, nervously. It was almost perfect here, untouched. He could picture his own people starting again in this bright ghetto, safe from outside, the way they always wanted to be. Ignored. Isolated.

***

Little by little Taaln's features were losing their individuality. Eventually, they would lack any trace of humanity at all. Yost's mind felt numbed. It had to be some kind of side effect of this place. Ever since they'd landed here he'd felt... well, each memory was so vivid. It was as if his mind was a sponge soaking up every second that passed as he waited the long hours until the pick-up.

***

'I'd feel safer if we were further from the barrier,' muttered Vost.

'Can't wait to be desk-bound, can you?' laughed Taaln. 'I don't see why I'm needed down here anyway.' 'You've been recruited from the best of the best, Monitor-to-be, sir!' announced Taaln with a cheerful bow."They think it's a good idea you experience first hand what you'll be looking at on a screen for the rest of your life. Besides, not many people know about this place yet, and until our numbers swell -' he ballooned out his cheeks - 'all hands to the chronal assessor!'

'I suppose it's useful to have some first-hand knowledge of what I'll be looking over,' said Vost, grudgingly. 'Although God knows what I'm meant to do if anything goes wrong. Is it all like this?'

Taaln shook his head. 'There's a good third of the planet that's fit for nothing. The time instability's too great.'

Vost stared around at the sandy landscape stretching out flatly into the horizon. A few spindly trees swaying in the slight breeze. It was a little like home used to be, before the relentless homogenising of the Outer Planets began.

The red sky stretched angrily over them, a fat, burning orange disc framed in its centre.

'Is that really the sun, or just some historical record of it?'

Taaln's voice floated through the dry air as he bent to unpack some more sensor equipment. 'Hard to say. The distortion effect stretches some way beyond the planet surface, so the image of that sun