Becoming Renla'Ir'Zha
She knew she had a job to do, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the reflection of what she had become. What did it mean? Was this an accident, or was that what was on the data crystal? It must have been because Susan would never accept that Darya had helped her.
But now what would happen? If she was Sophie, then where was Darya? Sophie came back to 2298 with Susan, but Darya had also been hanging around as well. She had accepted long ago that she was doomed to change bodies, but she still had the questions.
She finally managed to leave the mirror. She glanced back a few times, but then she ran back out into the hall. How was she supposed to find the Time Tracker in this crowd? Think. God it was so long ago.
"Shuttles for Novgorod, Kiev, Jerusalem, Eritrea, Gaborone, and Cape Town leave in fifteen minutes."
"Where's the Novgorod gate?" she asked an information terminal.
The computer highlighted a small section of a map it produced, relative to a red dot which was where she was. She dashed in that direction.
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" She pushed through the crowds until finally she found the Novgorod gate area. Then she saw him. The Time Tracker.
He looked a bit like a Soul Hunter actually, except that he had a long trail of white hair on his head and a splash of white on his forehead. She walked casually next to him as if she didn't see him, and she doubted that he thought she could. He had a determined look on his face, and he was looking around.
Suddenly she turned on him.
"Pain!" she whispered. It was the only way she could fight someone invisible to most people. *Pain!* she said again, testing out the new flavor of someone else's telepathic abilities. Had she still been Darya, she could have given him a lobotomy, but she had to resort to other methods. Now he was kneeling on the floor staring at her. Suddenly with a strength a human couldn't have had under so much pain, he sprung up and knocked her clumsily to the side. She couldn't stop now, even if it meant fighting air.
She pried deeper into his mind with no direction, only with the intention of going so deep that it would kill him.
It was an evil mind. There were pits and cracks that you could fall into, things that would jump out of the shadows and grab you. There were places that were sticky. Some places were pitch black, some were of blindingly bright. She could hear a Shadow scream around every corner. Some places were of such a perfect light that it made one terribly uneasy. As she went deeper, the slopes became steeper and the light seemed to change colors. Then she saw a doorway at the end, and ran towards it, knowing that if she touched that door, she would win. She felt a hand reach out to grab her, to prevent her from reaching to door, and it shouted at her. Still she fought on.
The door grew larger, and she threw herself at it. She bounced off. He was dying. She ran to get out. Like a drowning woman she ran, not to be caught in the door as he died. She could feel more hands on her, but she ran. She felt one brush against her face, and she fell to the ground.
"Are you alright?" She was wrenched out of the Time Tracker's mind. She opened her eyes and her head spun. When in cleared, she found herself staring into the face of two station security personnel.
"Just lie there," one of them told her. "We're getting a doctor to find out what happened."
She was aware of a small crowd of people gathering around her.
"Excuse me!" the other one next to her said to the crowd. "She just had some kind of seizure; she's going to be alright."
Caroline didn't care if they looked on or not as long as Susan and Zathras weren't with them. She had gotten rid of the Tracker.
"Hi, I'm Elliot." The doctor ran a medical scanner over her. "Well whatever happened, it was pretty serious."
Caroline nodded drowsily.
"Do you have any kind of epilepsy, Centauri Kelsa, or another related disorder?"
She shook her head.
"Are you a telepath or could you possibly be one?"
She shook her head gravely.
"Alright. If at all possible I'd like to take you into the clinic for a full examination."
"I can't," she said. "I need to get somewhere."
"Are you sure it wouldn't be possible?
"I'm very sure."
She walked out of small clinic adjacent to the first aid center. She couldn't believe it. She had killed someone. It was for the universe, but she had killed someone. Susan had killed people--the ships she destroyed. Up until now Caroline herself had been clean. Not anymore. It all gave her a headache. Killing to save lives.
She would follow the same path that she knew Susan and Zathras had taken almost an hour ago. The next shuttle to Novgorod wasn't leaving for another hour, and the trains fromm Novgorod to St. Petersburg left frequently, so she didn't have much of a chance of running into them.
As she boarded the shuttle, having already worked out most of the details of what she was going to do, she began some of the lesser issues. It had been a long time since she had lived in St. Petersburg and she had to review her Russian.
*Gee you're supposed to be a native speaker.*
A thought occurred to her. Not only was she supposed to speak Russian better than English, she was supposed to be Susan's mother! It was a very depressing thought. Susan had died thinking that she had been reunited with her mother, when really it seemed, it was actually someone else. But there was nothing she could do except let Susan have the harmless untruth as fact. Caroline remembered how much Susan had wanted to believe that it was Sophie, how hard she had prayed that she wasn't being manipulated. Well she wouldn't let Susan down. She would let the truth die along with Susan if need be.
She dozed on the train to Gatchina. It wasn't a night's sleep, but it helped to get rid of the headache. *Leave all the hard stuff to your mother,* she thought. When she couldn't sleep anymore, she stared at her body. It was different than the one she had been in so long.
"The truth is subjective," she said to herself, remembering something that her father David had said to her long ago, quoting his own father.
Zathras and Susan inspected the bank of the river. Caroline hadn't seen her in ages, simply because she would not be a welcome sight. Now she couldn't let herself be seen until after the disaster. That was the right time, not now.
She sat in the fairy circle of a burnt out tree stump, gazing from a safe distance, her eyes fixed on Susan. Only once or twice did she look at the odd man who was with her. Caroline felt closer to home with her in sight, wherever home was. She longed to run down there right now. She knew she couldn't.
She spent the next hours waiting in the safety behind the tree wall, running through her mind what would be said when they met, because she knew.
She leaped up. She must have fallen into a light sleep when she heard someone scream. Cautiously, she climbed out of the fairy circle and padded down the easy slope, and as close as she dared get.
*Telepathy Susotchka!*
Susan got the idea. Caroline was ready for her. Fortunately, Susan didn't know how to direct, so she was sending the message Caroline's way as well as in the direction of the ranger station.
*I'll take it!*
She put a mental tennis racquet in back of the signal and slammed it towards the ranger station, and she followed it, hoping to keep resending the message at closer and closer ranges. It was amazing what a Zion-based telepathy course could do for a person's abilities.
It was agony waiting for Susan to finish up with the other Sophie, but at last she returned to Zathras with a strange report. She was near enough to hear Susan tell the animal-man about the strange thing that happened with her telepathy.
"You needed a boost, Susotchka," Caroline said quietly, trying out the Russian that she had used so many years before.
Susan turned her head and stared at her.
"Oh my god have I left you that long? That is you isn't it?" she cried. She wasn't saying it in the same context, but it was strangely truthful.
"Yah... how do you know me?" Susan breathed, "You were just back there--"
"That was me three years ago." Or was it four? Oh dear. She touched her hands to her face, trying to remember. "Oh god, I should have left you later but there was nothing left for me there."
"What's going on?"
"I came to this time a month ago. Long enough for the sleepers to wear off." Yea, just improvise. Actually, didn't Sophie say that? She thought so.
"Momma what are you talking about?" Susan asked again. Caroline could see her eyes praying for it to be real.
"You didn't notice? My self from this time scanned you back there. She knows you needed help in contacting the ranger station." How perfect.
"But... what? Who are you?"
"You never really saw me die did you? I'd be a bit concerned if you did. I'm the first human to time travel. You were just a child a month ago, to me." Andrei let Sophie's ashes be caught by the wind over the Gulf of Finland. She didn't have a burial place that Susan could have seen as a child.
"Is that really you Momma?"
"What else can I do to prove it?" She hadn't said yes exactly.
Caroline knelt down beside Susan. When they touched minds, Caroline didn't worry that Susan would see anything. The warmth and love were real to both of them. Caroline forgot the headache that she had gotten from all the telepathic strains of the day.
Sophie wouldn't know what Darya had done. "What happened to you?"
They sat on the ground together and Caroline felt closer to home than she had felt in years. With Susan she felt that she was still part of normal history to some degree, and not just a working observer. And she was with herself. She was both of them, and had been both of them when she had been Susan, and they would both be when this Susan was herself.
"Everything," she stated coldly.
"Oh... I wouldn't know..." She wouldn't have. "So much must have happened in your life. Your whole life that's happened in the month that I was here." (The years I was Darya...) "And I wasn't with you to watch you grow up." (I've missed you so much Susan. That's real.)
"I wish I could be ten years old again, and you could start again where you left off."
"Well, time is a strange thing, Susotchka, you never know."
She knew she had a job to do, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the reflection of what she had become. What did it mean? Was this an accident, or was that what was on the data crystal? It must have been because Susan would never accept that Darya had helped her.
But now what would happen? If she was Sophie, then where was Darya? Sophie came back to 2298 with Susan, but Darya had also been hanging around as well. She had accepted long ago that she was doomed to change bodies, but she still had the questions.
She finally managed to leave the mirror. She glanced back a few times, but then she ran back out into the hall. How was she supposed to find the Time Tracker in this crowd? Think. God it was so long ago.
"Shuttles for Novgorod, Kiev, Jerusalem, Eritrea, Gaborone, and Cape Town leave in fifteen minutes."
"Where's the Novgorod gate?" she asked an information terminal.
The computer highlighted a small section of a map it produced, relative to a red dot which was where she was. She dashed in that direction.
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" She pushed through the crowds until finally she found the Novgorod gate area. Then she saw him. The Time Tracker.
He looked a bit like a Soul Hunter actually, except that he had a long trail of white hair on his head and a splash of white on his forehead. She walked casually next to him as if she didn't see him, and she doubted that he thought she could. He had a determined look on his face, and he was looking around.
Suddenly she turned on him.
"Pain!" she whispered. It was the only way she could fight someone invisible to most people. *Pain!* she said again, testing out the new flavor of someone else's telepathic abilities. Had she still been Darya, she could have given him a lobotomy, but she had to resort to other methods. Now he was kneeling on the floor staring at her. Suddenly with a strength a human couldn't have had under so much pain, he sprung up and knocked her clumsily to the side. She couldn't stop now, even if it meant fighting air.
She pried deeper into his mind with no direction, only with the intention of going so deep that it would kill him.
It was an evil mind. There were pits and cracks that you could fall into, things that would jump out of the shadows and grab you. There were places that were sticky. Some places were pitch black, some were of blindingly bright. She could hear a Shadow scream around every corner. Some places were of such a perfect light that it made one terribly uneasy. As she went deeper, the slopes became steeper and the light seemed to change colors. Then she saw a doorway at the end, and ran towards it, knowing that if she touched that door, she would win. She felt a hand reach out to grab her, to prevent her from reaching to door, and it shouted at her. Still she fought on.
The door grew larger, and she threw herself at it. She bounced off. He was dying. She ran to get out. Like a drowning woman she ran, not to be caught in the door as he died. She could feel more hands on her, but she ran. She felt one brush against her face, and she fell to the ground.
"Are you alright?" She was wrenched out of the Time Tracker's mind. She opened her eyes and her head spun. When in cleared, she found herself staring into the face of two station security personnel.
"Just lie there," one of them told her. "We're getting a doctor to find out what happened."
She was aware of a small crowd of people gathering around her.
"Excuse me!" the other one next to her said to the crowd. "She just had some kind of seizure; she's going to be alright."
Caroline didn't care if they looked on or not as long as Susan and Zathras weren't with them. She had gotten rid of the Tracker.
"Hi, I'm Elliot." The doctor ran a medical scanner over her. "Well whatever happened, it was pretty serious."
Caroline nodded drowsily.
"Do you have any kind of epilepsy, Centauri Kelsa, or another related disorder?"
She shook her head.
"Are you a telepath or could you possibly be one?"
She shook her head gravely.
"Alright. If at all possible I'd like to take you into the clinic for a full examination."
"I can't," she said. "I need to get somewhere."
"Are you sure it wouldn't be possible?
"I'm very sure."
She walked out of small clinic adjacent to the first aid center. She couldn't believe it. She had killed someone. It was for the universe, but she had killed someone. Susan had killed people--the ships she destroyed. Up until now Caroline herself had been clean. Not anymore. It all gave her a headache. Killing to save lives.
She would follow the same path that she knew Susan and Zathras had taken almost an hour ago. The next shuttle to Novgorod wasn't leaving for another hour, and the trains fromm Novgorod to St. Petersburg left frequently, so she didn't have much of a chance of running into them.
As she boarded the shuttle, having already worked out most of the details of what she was going to do, she began some of the lesser issues. It had been a long time since she had lived in St. Petersburg and she had to review her Russian.
*Gee you're supposed to be a native speaker.*
A thought occurred to her. Not only was she supposed to speak Russian better than English, she was supposed to be Susan's mother! It was a very depressing thought. Susan had died thinking that she had been reunited with her mother, when really it seemed, it was actually someone else. But there was nothing she could do except let Susan have the harmless untruth as fact. Caroline remembered how much Susan had wanted to believe that it was Sophie, how hard she had prayed that she wasn't being manipulated. Well she wouldn't let Susan down. She would let the truth die along with Susan if need be.
She dozed on the train to Gatchina. It wasn't a night's sleep, but it helped to get rid of the headache. *Leave all the hard stuff to your mother,* she thought. When she couldn't sleep anymore, she stared at her body. It was different than the one she had been in so long.
"The truth is subjective," she said to herself, remembering something that her father David had said to her long ago, quoting his own father.
Zathras and Susan inspected the bank of the river. Caroline hadn't seen her in ages, simply because she would not be a welcome sight. Now she couldn't let herself be seen until after the disaster. That was the right time, not now.
She sat in the fairy circle of a burnt out tree stump, gazing from a safe distance, her eyes fixed on Susan. Only once or twice did she look at the odd man who was with her. Caroline felt closer to home with her in sight, wherever home was. She longed to run down there right now. She knew she couldn't.
She spent the next hours waiting in the safety behind the tree wall, running through her mind what would be said when they met, because she knew.
She leaped up. She must have fallen into a light sleep when she heard someone scream. Cautiously, she climbed out of the fairy circle and padded down the easy slope, and as close as she dared get.
*Telepathy Susotchka!*
Susan got the idea. Caroline was ready for her. Fortunately, Susan didn't know how to direct, so she was sending the message Caroline's way as well as in the direction of the ranger station.
*I'll take it!*
She put a mental tennis racquet in back of the signal and slammed it towards the ranger station, and she followed it, hoping to keep resending the message at closer and closer ranges. It was amazing what a Zion-based telepathy course could do for a person's abilities.
It was agony waiting for Susan to finish up with the other Sophie, but at last she returned to Zathras with a strange report. She was near enough to hear Susan tell the animal-man about the strange thing that happened with her telepathy.
"You needed a boost, Susotchka," Caroline said quietly, trying out the Russian that she had used so many years before.
Susan turned her head and stared at her.
"Oh my god have I left you that long? That is you isn't it?" she cried. She wasn't saying it in the same context, but it was strangely truthful.
"Yah... how do you know me?" Susan breathed, "You were just back there--"
"That was me three years ago." Or was it four? Oh dear. She touched her hands to her face, trying to remember. "Oh god, I should have left you later but there was nothing left for me there."
"What's going on?"
"I came to this time a month ago. Long enough for the sleepers to wear off." Yea, just improvise. Actually, didn't Sophie say that? She thought so.
"Momma what are you talking about?" Susan asked again. Caroline could see her eyes praying for it to be real.
"You didn't notice? My self from this time scanned you back there. She knows you needed help in contacting the ranger station." How perfect.
"But... what? Who are you?"
"You never really saw me die did you? I'd be a bit concerned if you did. I'm the first human to time travel. You were just a child a month ago, to me." Andrei let Sophie's ashes be caught by the wind over the Gulf of Finland. She didn't have a burial place that Susan could have seen as a child.
"Is that really you Momma?"
"What else can I do to prove it?" She hadn't said yes exactly.
Caroline knelt down beside Susan. When they touched minds, Caroline didn't worry that Susan would see anything. The warmth and love were real to both of them. Caroline forgot the headache that she had gotten from all the telepathic strains of the day.
Sophie wouldn't know what Darya had done. "What happened to you?"
They sat on the ground together and Caroline felt closer to home than she had felt in years. With Susan she felt that she was still part of normal history to some degree, and not just a working observer. And she was with herself. She was both of them, and had been both of them when she had been Susan, and they would both be when this Susan was herself.
"Everything," she stated coldly.
"Oh... I wouldn't know..." She wouldn't have. "So much must have happened in your life. Your whole life that's happened in the month that I was here." (The years I was Darya...) "And I wasn't with you to watch you grow up." (I've missed you so much Susan. That's real.)
"I wish I could be ten years old again, and you could start again where you left off."
"Well, time is a strange thing, Susotchka, you never know."