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  Almost as soon as we stepped through the entrance, I saw it: a Hypersphere, floating just millimetres above a three-legged cradle and identical in every respect to the one back in the Crag – except, of course, it was entirely unblemished.

  Even without the headset, I could have picked it out immediately. It was half a metre in diameter, its surface a mottled patchwork of bronze, silver and gold that swirled and moved like a time-lapse film of clouds seen from space. I had never seen the surface of the damaged Hypersphere back in the Crag move in such a fashion: in fact, it was quite ethereally beautiful in a way that other one had never been.

  No wonder the Pathfinders had picked it for a backdrop to their group photograph, little suspecting the device could take them to any alternate they desired, instantly.

  ‘Can you find out if it’s working?’ asked Borodin, sounding breathless.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ I said, stepping closer to the Hypersphere.

  As soon as I did, virtual signposts in the language of the Syllogikos appeared all around the device, warning me not to come any closer to it without prior authorization: ‘Keep Out’ signs, in essence.

  ‘Well?’ Borodin demanded.

  I ignored him, circling the artefact and studying it from all sides. Like the one back in the Crag, a Syllogikos-designed computer interface had been laid over the original, nearly incomprehensible, command system. It was indeed quite perfect, its skin flawless. But was it fully functional?

  I stepped a little closer and another message appeared, flashing red. I selected it with a glance and it expanded to reveal a more detailed warning: native defence systems had been set to guard the device – with lethal measures, if necessary. Any attempt to interfere with the Hypersphere, in any way, carried the risk of triggering those measures.

  But as to what those lethal measures might be, I had no idea. I hesitated to get any closer to it until I knew more.

  ‘Hey!’ a voice shouted, from the depths of the shed.

  I quickly snatched the headset from above my ear and hid it in my fist. Rozalia came stamping towards us, her face twisted up in an angry scowl. ‘Goddammit, what the hell are you people doing wandering off like that?’

  Borodin tensed, his hand moving towards his rear pocket. I wondered if he had a knife or some other weapon hidden there.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, moving quickly to stand between them. ‘It’s just that we couldn’t resist taking more of a look around and . . .’

  ‘And we got lost,’ said Borodin, affecting a smile that even I found far from convincing. He let his empty hand flop to his side, and I realized I had been holding my breath. ‘I must apologize. It was my fault, really.’

  Rozalia just stared at us. ‘Well, I don’t know what the hell you were doing all the way over here, but I need you back with the rest of our group. Please don’t ever do something like that again.’ She looked past Borodin, at the Hypersphere. ‘I see you found the Beachball, huh?’

  I blinked, unsure what she meant. ‘The what?’

  ‘That thing,’ she said, nodding at the Hypersphere, then let a small grin twist up one side of her face. ‘Catches the eye, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘This way,’ said Rozalia, gesturing back into the shadows. She waited as we made our way past her before following behind – careful, I noticed, never to turn her back on us once.

  SIX

  After that, we returned to the island. I retrieved my jacket from the locker I had been assigned, along with the box of beads I had found, taking the utmost care to make sure no one saw me tuck it deep inside a pocket. Then I followed the Soviets outside, where they sat on the grass close by the hangar, talking animatedly about everything they had seen. I wandered past them, towards a raised mound of land from where I could see the ocean.

  I heard footsteps come up after me. I didn’t turn around: all I wanted to do was stare out at that wild blue nothingness and let my mind empty of all thoughts. Instead it was filled with visions of a little girl dancing through a field by a cottage.

  ‘You’ve done well today,’ Borodin said from behind me. ‘We still have to find a way to retrieve the Hypersphere, of course, but one step at a time. First, however, we need to get hold of the coordinates for Delta Twenty-Five so we can return for the Hypersphere.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be hard for you,’ I said, still gazing at the ocean. ‘You got us this far, after all.’

  ‘As you said yourself,’ he said, ‘it’s not that simple.’

  I turned at last to look at him. I could see the Soviets past his shoulder, sprawled on the grass. ‘You do realize that the Authority may be on the verge of finding out what caused the Syllogikos to disappear? We never found so much as a hint, but they have those bodies. They’re right to think they’re close to an answer.’

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is not relevant to our mission. You still have the headset?’

  I dropped the headset into his outstretched palm and shook my head with ill-concealed irritation. ‘Did it never occur to you,’ I asked, ‘to wonder why they disappeared? It is the single greatest mystery surrounding them. Yet by the looks of it, those dead Syllogikos deliberately stranded themselves in a place where they had zero chance of surviving.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So maybe if we can find out what caused them to disappear,’ I continued, stunned by his obstinacy, ‘we might be able to prevent the same thing happening to the Novaya Empire. Those bodies might be the proof we need that the Syllogikos were overwhelmed by some kind of outside force. What if we were to run into that same force, while exploring new alternates? Shouldn’t we be prepared for that eventuality?’

  ‘Focus on your mission, and your mission alone,’ he said. ‘Nothing else should concern you. Is that understood?’

  I nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Now, about that Pathfinder,’ he continued. ‘Jerry Beche. You said he had the coordinates for Delta Twenty-Five in his notebook?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘For the moment I’ll assume Beche is our best hope for acquiring them.’ He gave me an arch look. ‘I had the sense he was deliberately seeking out your company today. Would you say he was . . . interested in you?’

  I looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If he has some kind of romantic interest in you, we might be able to exploit it. If you could get close enough to him to gain his confidence – seduce him, if necessary – you might be able to steal his notebook, or at least copy the necessary coordinates.’

  I felt a sudden rush of loathing and had to struggle not to show my contempt. ‘I had to watch as you murdered the only man I ever loved, and now you expect me to whore for you?’

  ‘I expect you to do whatever I tell you to.’

  ‘You’re assuming he’s even interested,’ I said, fighting down my anger. ‘He might just be keeping an eye on us. That woman Rozalia clearly didn’t believe our story for one moment. Did you see how carefully she’s been watching us ever since? She might have told the rest of them all about how she found us pawing over the Hypersphere.’

  ‘That was a necessary risk. And if Beche isn’t interested in you, then you’d better find a way to make him interested if it means you can get those coordinates. Remember, Katya, it’s not only your life that’s at stake. There’s your father, not to mention your fellow exiles.’

  I couldn’t take any more and turned away from him. ‘Please,’ I hissed, ‘go now, I beg you.’

  I stared back out at the ocean, a blood-red tide of anger and hatred roiling in my veins. When I heard him finally move away, I let out a shuddering breath.

  I had been holding myself so rigid that my ribs ached. I stayed where I was for another minute before I rejoined the Soviets, having waited until I felt sure they would not be able to see the anger and bitterness still burning within me.

  When I walked back over, none of them paid me any particular attention, or gave any sign they were aware
I might be upset. All except Rozalia, who gave me a long, speculative look from where she stood chatting with a worker in overalls by the hangar entrance.

  After that, we piled into several jeeps and went home. I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. I sat on the edge of the toilet seat before taking out the wooden box and balancing it on my knees. My hands trembled as I opened its lid. I took a long, deep breath and picked out the grey bead that had conjured such rich and powerful images when I first held it.

  Once again, and through some unnamed man’s eyes, I watched a little girl run through a field. Perhaps, I thought, he was her father, in which case the woman who stood watching by his side could well be the girl’s mother. Perhaps they had lived in the stone cottage I could see at the edge of the field.

  Something about the sight of her filled me with a terrible sadness. Once she faded, I let the tiny grey bead drop back into the box, then reached for the second, black bead – the only other one I had managed to snatch up from the dust before Jerry interrupted us.

  There was nothing idyllic about what I next experienced.

  Once again, I was in someone else’s skin. I wore a long dark coat that flapped around my thighs as I ran, my feet echoing damply against stone. I hurtled down an arched passageway towards sunlight at the far end.

  I emerged into the open to see I was surrounded by ancient stone buildings rising all around. Strange, futuristic-looking vehicles stood all along the street. Everywhere I looked, there were people standing pointing or staring upwards, all of them dressed in exotically weird clothes.

  I – or rather, the person whose point of view I was sharing – glanced up to see a hole had somehow been ripped in the sky kilometres overhead. Beyond lay a starless void. From the way the clouds contorted as they passed before the hole, I guessed that a vacuum must lie beyond the hole, and that the atmosphere was rushing into it.

  I noticed this only peripherally, however, given that most of my attention was instead taken up by the enormous thing at that moment passing out of this void and descending towards the ground. It was black and faceted, in shape not unlike an octahedral diamond. Dotted here and there on its hull – assuming it was indeed some form of craft – were hundreds of tiny points of brilliant light.

  My viewpoint came back down to earth as whoever owned the eyes I was watching through ran towards a nearby vehicle with mirror-smooth skin. I caught a glimpse of a broad, bearded chin, the mouth wide open in panic . . .

  . . . and there the memory, if that indeed was what it was, came to an end.

  I dropped to my knees on the floor, turned, and vomited into the toilet. I had been able to feel the man’s terror, somehow leaking through from the bead. I realized, then, that the sadness I had felt at the sight of the little girl was not my own – it had somehow been transmitted through the medium of the bead.

  I flushed the toilet and washed my face, then quickly reached again for the wooden box, which had slipped from my fingers. The two grey and black beads had spilled out onto the floor. I hesitated at picking them up with my bare fingers, and grabbed a wad of toilet paper and used that instead. Once I had them secure, I sat on the edge of the bath and waited for my jangled nerves to settle.

  Could they be real memories? If they were, what to make of that thing I had seen, tumbling through a hole apparently torn in reality . . . how could something like that have any kind of objective, solid existence?

  But if it was real . . . then how did it connect to a desolate cavern filled with the bodies of people who had, to all appearances, deliberately starved themselves to death in the freezing dark? Was that what they had been fleeing?

  Just thinking about the implications sent a terrible chill through me. However much I loathed him – indeed, however much I feared him – I had to tell Borodin about this as soon as possible. But he was in the next house eating with the engineers, and after that we were expected to join the Pathfinders in town for a social event.

  It would not be easy, surrounded by so many others, but perhaps tonight I would have an opportunity to discuss my discovery with him. Despite his warning to focus on the mission, he would surely change his mind once he held the beads in his own hands.

  I sat there for a long time, thinking of that little girl, and what might have become of her, until Vissarion angrily knocked at the door and told me to hurry up so he could use the toilet.

  Later that evening I changed into dark slacks and a blouse and joined the rest of the Soviets on a short walk to the centre of town, where we were to meet with the rest of the Pathfinders. Rozalia, who had come to fetch us, led the way.

  I caught Borodin’s eye, and drew him aside while we walked.

  ‘I discovered something important,’ I told him. ‘Those beads I found – they’re much more than just beads. They’re memory-encoding devices of considerable power and sophistication.’

  I quickly outlined what had happened when I touched them. ‘They must,’ I reasoned, ‘have belonged to one of the dead Syllogikos. There are more beads back there, but we were interrupted before I could grab up any more.’

  He sighed. ‘As fascinating as this undoubtedly is, Katya, you are once again failing to focus on our mission. Did my words fall on deaf ears?’

  I felt a numbing pressure building in the back of my skull. ‘I didn’t forget what you said. But this is still enormously important. What if the rest of those beads back there contain information about the Hypersphere? If those people travelled to those caverns from Delta Twenty-Five then surely it stands to reason that they may have come into contact with the Hypersphere. All I ask is that you touch the beads I brought back. I am convinced they are hugely important.’

  Up ahead, Elena glanced back at us. We were trailing behind the rest of the Soviets. Rozalia was walking by Elena’s side, and the two of them had been deep in conversation. Borodin raised his hand in greeting to Elena and we made to catch up.

  ‘Later tonight, perhaps,’ he muttered, ‘if there’s an opportunity. But not before.’

  Our destination turned out to be a whitewashed two-storey building close to the centre of the town, its exterior festooned with coloured lights that blinked in the dimming evening light. It was evidently a former hotel bar. I could see a pool area around the back, with seats and tables scattered around, although the water turned out to be filthy when I took a closer look. The bar itself, however, proved to be well-stocked with beer, wine and spirits – much of it home-made, judging by the still occupying a corner and the carefully hand-labelled plastic kegs lining the shelves behind the counter. The air was full of loud, abrasive, guitar-driven music that set my teeth on edge.

  As promised, all the Pathfinders were present. I chatted briefly, glass in hand, with a ponytailed Asian American named Yuichi Ho, and he explained the circumstances by which he had come to be the last man alive on his Earth.

  I then had essentially the same conversation with a woman named Winifred, as well as a slightly disreputable-looking pair named Randall and Oskar, the latter of whom had quite the most enormous hound curled up at his feet. All of their stories, I soon came to realize, shared essentially the same broad outlines: each had survived some catastrophic event that left them alone in a hostile world, before experiencing a miraculous rescue by the Authority.

  I found myself drawn towards a series of framed photographs that hung together in a darkened corner. At first, they appeared to be identical pictures of a skyscraper, albeit taken from slightly different angles.

  It was only when I began to study the pictures more closely that I perceived certain surprising differences. In one picture, the building had crumbled away on one side, while in another it was coated in dense vegetation. In the next picture, the entire upper half of the building had been demolished, as had much of the city behind it.

  ‘I took one of these,’ said a voice at my shoulder. I turned to see Jerry Beche standing by my side.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Here.’ He tapped his glass against the
last of the framed pictures. ‘I also visited it once as a kid, back on my own alternate.’

  ‘Visited what?’

  ‘The Empire State Building.’ He frowned at my lack of comprehension. ‘In New York?’

  ‘Oh.’ The name was unfamiliar to me.

  ‘See how bright and steady the stars are in the sky? We visited that alternate today – the one with no atmosphere.’

  ‘I remember. You said when the air froze, it fell like snow.’

  He nodded. ‘There are other pictures taken from other alternates, but these ones are the best of the bunch, I think.’

  ‘And do you do this every time you visit an alternate?’ I asked. ‘Take photographs of ruined cities?’

  He grinned. ‘Not every time, no. See that guy over there?’ He indicated an Asiatic-looking fellow manning the bar. ‘That’s Tony Nuyakpuk. He helps run this place. He and his brother started taking the pictures, then the rest of us sort of got in on the action.’

  ‘But why is it always alternates that underwent some form of extinction event?’ I asked, thinking of holes torn in the sky, strange dark shapes plummeting towards the ground. ‘Why were the Syll— the Stage-Builders so fascinated by them?’

  I cursed inwardly at my near-slip; I had nearly said Syllogikos.

  ‘Maybe they weren’t,’ Beche replied. ‘The first time the Authority sent people through the first transfer gate they found, it brought them right here to this island. Apart from a couple more transfer stages, they found nothing but a bunch of smashed-up computers left behind by the Stage-Builders. Now, it’s true we have a list of stage coordinates that runs into the high thousands – but that’s just one tiny piece of data recovered from a single computer that wasn’t quite as badly damaged as the rest. There’s no reason to assume that list is remotely representative of all the alternate universes the Stage-Builders visited – it’s just what we happened to find.’