"I've been expecting you," the other said.
"Have you?" Susan didn't know what else to say.
"Of course I have. Think it through."
But Susan couldn't think it through. The headache pounded behind her eyes, draining both her strength and her will. Then the snowflake pattern formed in her thoughts and she mumbled the mantra. The headache became less intense, but did not disappear, and the residual pain was more than it had been last time.
But at least now she could think. And suddenly she knew her duplicate was right. She would be expected. After all, this other had done in her past exactly what Susan was doing now. Her duplicate had the advantage of knowing what would happen, because everything that would happen to Susan had already happened to her. She had come through, solved all the problems. The proof was that she was here, in free-fall, onboard Photon.
Susan kicked off the bulkhead and glided to the webbing. Grabbing it, she steadied herself beside her duplicate.
She couldn't remember ever being so tired. And it wasn't simply physical tiredness-it was a mental exhaustion as well. More had happened to her in the past week that she simply could not comprehend than had occurred in her entire previous life.
Her duplicate seemed to know what she was thinking. "Don't give up now," the other said.
Of course her duplicate knew what she was thinking. After all, this other had once been in the same position Susan was in now. She had thought the same thoughts Susan was thinking.
"Then it will all work out?" Susan asked.
The other shook her head. "I didn't say that. At this very instant, you and I are inhabiting a possible future, but it is only that. Its existence is by no means assured-much might still go wrong."
"What you're saying is, I still might not come through this alive."
"That's right."
Susan fell silent for a few seconds, as did her possible-future self. Finally, she asked, "What do I have to do to make it come out right?"
"I can't tell you that. If I say too much, it won't come out like this."
Susan nodded. She was beginning to understand-some of it.
"What can you tell me?" she asked.
"Only what I was told when I was in your place. Simply this: Part of the answer lies in your past."
"What do you mean?"
"I can say no more."
"But I don't understand…"
"I know." The other smiled. "You'll have to learn to trust yourself, rely on your own instincts. You are the only true ally you have. Remember that. But also remember that you can be your own worst enemy as well."
Again riddles. "Would you just tell me what you mean-what I should do?"
"I can't. I wasn't told, so you can't be. And I felt the same confusion you're feeling now."
Suddenly, Susan knew this other was as trapped by her past as Susan herself was. After all, she was Susan.
Trapped in my past…, she thought, and instantly she knew what she must do. She had just thought it-she was trapped by her past.
The nightmare. The missing occurrences from ten years before. Her duplicate had said the answers were in her past.
Could she jump that far into her past? And could she possibly jump to another star system?
She did not know. She didn't even know if she dared return to that past. If she changed it in any way, everything could be upset. She might conceivably alter her own future.
But she had no choice. As dangerous as it might be, she had to jump back ten years-to Aldebaran, and that fearful time that had produced her nightmares.
Her duplicate smiled knowingly. She knew Susan had hit on the solution. As much as she feared it, it was the only way.
Susan cleared her mind of all thought beyond returning to a time ten years in her past, to a star system sixty light-years distant in space. She felt the dizziness, and the world around her vanished.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chaos and confusion exploded around her as she materialized in the Engineering berthing compartment onboard Defiant. The compartment was on fire. Young men and women in Fleet red scurried about, beating at sheets of flame with blankets, clothing, and anything else they could lay their hands on, in a vain attempt to reach the compartment's closed hatch. A wall of fire blazed between them and that hatch; they could not get near it.
The pain pounded behind Susan's eyes. The snowflake pattern and the mantra came, but did nothing to relieve it. When the pattern cleared, the pain still burned in her head like radiation from a supernova.
But she did not have time to worry about it now. First, she had a job to perform.
She nearly coughed as she drew in a shallow breath of smoke and fumes, but stopped herself just in time. If she got started coughing, she would not be able to stop. The stiflingly hot air was barely breathable in short pants. If she took in the deep breaths a coughing jag would cause, it would all be over.
Then she saw her, barely discernable through dense smoke. To her left, in the far corner, she made out a tall form with long dark hair. The other also wore Fleet red, captain's stripes sewn on at her sleeves.
It was her past self.
But there was something wrong. Ten years ago, in Aldebaran system, Susan had been a commander, not a captain. Yet the stripes on that other's sleeves were those of a captain.
She noticed the pendant hanging from its silver chain around the other's neck, and knew what was happening. This was not her past self at all. She, too, was an interloper in this time. And she held a blaster pistol in her right hand.
That other paid no attention to the frantic crowd around her. Instead, she held the pistol aimed at the closed hatch beyond the flames. She watched that hatch calmly, yet intently.
Hyatt's words floated to the surface of her mind: "You two are so very much alike."
Now Susan knew what he had meant. This other, the woman across the room who appeared to be her exact duplicate, was in fact her counterpart from another time-from her future. She had to be from Susan's future, because Susan did not remember doing what that other now did. For some reason, her future self had jumped back in time, just as she had. But that future Susan had come to kill her past self!
A sound from beyond the wall of flame caught Susan's attention, scattering her thoughts-the scraping of metal on metal.
Instantly she knew what it was. It was her past self. Beyond the flames, on the other side of that sealed hatch, she worked at the dogs. And where ten years ago it had seemed to take a lifetime to get the hatch open, it now felt like mere seconds.
As she watched, the hatch began to inch open.
She didn't think-she didn't have time to think. Lowering her head, she charged her future counterpart.
Susan's shoulder caught the other in the side, driving her against the bulkhead. Air was forced from that other's lungs in a loud grunt, as she brought the gun's butt down hard on the back of Susan's head. The pain behind Susan's eyes intensified.
A sudden thought flashed through Susan's mind: Would this other, with whom she fought, kill her past self? Could she? After all, that other was here, onboard Defiant, in her own past. Didn't her very existence here and now assure that she could not kill her past self?
Not necessarily. If what Hyatt-that future Hyatt-had said was true, the Susan beyond that hatch could be killed without affecting either of the two future Susans. The pendants took them both out of the time stream, allowing them to somehow operate independently of its normal flow, while permitting them to interact with it. That was why the future Hyatt existed in spite of the fact that his past self was dead.