Eternity's Wheel (InterWorld 3)

“Oh. How can you tell?”

“I’m a Time Agent,” he said. “I am trained to see these things.”

I fought off a wave of irritation. “I see. So, she was . . .”

“Responding to things you had said a moment before.” He grinned at me again. “If the situation weren’t so dire, I really would have let it go on. I imagine it would have gotten even funnier.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I glanced back to Acacia, who was looking at Avery. “She wasn’t like this when she first showed up, though, was she?”

“It . . . was just starting,” Avery explained hesitantly. I guessed this was more supersecret TimeWatch stuff. “If left unattended, she will continue to slip further out of this timestream.”

“Is that bad?”

He hesitated again. “It is . . . inconvenient. It’s dangerous if allowed to continue for an extended time—months, or years.”

I nodded. All that mattered was that it could be fixed, really. I waited until Acacia was looking at me again (and made sure not to move too much, so she could track me) before I spoke. “So if I just . . . go slow, it should be fine . . . ?”

“Yes, if tedious.”

“Well, it’s a good thing the fate of the Multiverse isn’t urgent or anything,” I snapped. I couldn’t help it.

Avery smiled, unruffled. “Yet you were the one who insisted you question her as she is.”

I sighed. I waited until Acacia had given her brother a reproachful glance and was looking at me again, then started over.

“Acacia, can you tell me about the stars dying?”

There was another long pause, then her eyes closed and her hand tightened around mine. “The stars and the planets,” she said. “FrostNight is moving. It’s been moving this whole time . . . but it’s not like they meant it to be. It won’t sustain itself. It’ll die out.”

I felt relief go through me so suddenly and strongly that I felt dizzy. Still, I made myself pause before asking, “It won’t sustain itself?”

The allotted time went by before she answered; I was counting roughly six seconds of lag between our exchanges, though I couldn’t be sure of how long it took her to process what I was saying and choose her words. “No. I could already feel it dying, but . . . but it’s still restarting worlds. I don’t know how many already, but it’s moving along in a projected arc. . . . Your enemies have already won some new bases,” she said, looking away from me. “FrostNight has made empty worlds they can use however they wish.”

I squeezed her hand, counted to six, then said, “But this is good, right? We can let it die, concentrate on tracking down that HEX ship and getting it off InterWorld’s trail. Right?”

She still wasn’t looking at me, even after I counted silently to six. “Acacia? Do you know where it’ll end?”

“Yes,” she said. “The last projected world is Earth F epsilon ninety-eight to the seventh.”

I didn’t have to count the six seconds before responding this time. The blood froze in my veins and time actually seemed to slow as I repeated the classification silently to myself. Earth F epsilon ninety-eight to the seventh. FrostNight had begun on Earth F delta ninety-eight to the sixth. The classification of Earths was confusing at best, since there had to be some leeway and margin for error; new Earths were being created all the time and old ones destroyed. The particular subset of Earths in the alpha through zeta category were those in the middle of the arc, the ones not inclined strongly toward magic or science. Like mine.

The classification number of my Earth was something I hadn’t learned until I’d been on InterWorld for a while; they didn’t want to encourage us to be homesick or tempted to go visit. I’d looked up the number on my own, out of curiosity, and I’d always remembered it: Earth FS314. Earth F epsilon three to the fourteenth.

One of those worlds was mine.

“Joe,” Acacia warned, a second before I stood up. Timesick or not, she apparently hadn’t had any trouble reading me. “I know,” she said, even as I started to speak.

“That means my world will be—” I cut myself off, since she was already nodding.

“I will,” Avery said.

“Avery,” Acacia said urgently. “You have to tell him.”

I looked over at Acacia’s brother, picking up on their off-pattern conversation. “Tell me what?”

“That you can’t leave,” he said.

Screw that. I started for the door.