Susan Ivanova (The One Who Might Be)
Of course Ivanova remembered when Ganya had almost drowned. The near death of a family member is not easily forgotten, and Susan had never felt the need to forget it.
He probably would have drowned if it were not for a stranger who had seen Ganya fall into the river and called the park rangers. Their family had gone camping several times before at that site but despite the river warnings that year, Ganya had been walking just beside the river just as any energetic thirteen year old boy would have done, and a cave of dirt had collapsed under him. Susan had been the only one who identified the woman who had notified the rescue team. Otherwise, her parents would never have been able to thank her for it.
And now the time had come for General Susan Ivanova, retired, to do just what she remembered happening so many years before. She'd had eight years to think it through.
Who could know if she had needed to wait this long? Perhaps it didn't matter which year she came from as long as she did what had been done, would be done, whatever.
She had realized some time ago that she had no pictures of her family. There were none in the St. Petersburg historical library.
Most of the Psi Corps records had been destroyed during the telepath war, which was one of the big contributors to the organization's loss of power and eventual collapse. There was simply no documentation of who was a telepath. Without the Corps to get them, there seemed to be many more telepaths than there were before the war. These were people like herself who had hidden out before but were no longer afraid to use their talent.
But this meant that there were also no surviving records of the sleeper division. No picture of her mother. She had looked in the school records going back to the twenty-second century. No pictures of any of them.
That was why, when Susan Ivanova packed for the trip to sector 14, she put a palm recorder in her pocket. She wouldn't be intruding on her family's privacy by taking a picture of them, would she?
Why must they drag us all out here to go back in time? Sector 14 was not the closest place to Earth. Still, Ivanova had been getting restless for space after living on Earth for several years now. She never much liked public transports though. Most of the bunk rooms were very tight, and smelled horrible.
She hadn't been on one for years, and she hadn't remembered how tight the spaces were. The hand rims of her wheelchair scraped the door frame as she entered her sleeping cabin.
The transport wasn't actually going to 4-Post. Its destination was a fairly large colony in Sector 12. Another person in on the operation was also coming to the dock that orbited that planet, and they would meet up there.
She put her bag on the small shelf near the bunk bed.
"And now I sit around for two days doing nothing," she said to herself.
"You can talk to me if you have nothing else to do." Ivanova hadn't noticed anyone else in the room until then. A young woman peered lazily down at her from the top bunk, her arm over the railing.
"Oh. I didn't see you. Hi."
"I'm Susan."
"Hey! So am I," answered Ivanova.
"Nice to meet you. Why're you coming out here? Have family?"
"Um, sort of. I guess you could put it that way."
The woman nodded, grinding her teeth as if she had chewing gum.
Ivanova pulled herself onto the lower bunk. The other Susan climbed down and began to walk around the small room, and Ivanova got a good look at her.
She was medium height, her hair was dark brown and cut short, and her eyes were also brown. Ivanova usually classified noses as pointing up or down, and this woman's pointed down.
"I've probably spent as much time on transports as I have on planets."
"You travel a lot?"
"Well, I wander around. It's quite hard for a mundane to get a good job these days. I work where I can."
Ivanova pretended to ignore that last remark.
"You travel?"
"I don't know. I'm getting old. I haven't been in space for a while now. But it seems to say to me 'Hey, what are you doing on Earth? Aren't I more exciting?'"
"That sounds like an adventurer," said Susan, "The kind of person who would join Earthforce."
"Really?" breathed Ivanova, amused.
"What?"
She stuck out her hand. "General Susan Ivanova. Earthforce."
"Oh that's embarrassing."
Ivanova arched her eyebrows.
How she envied Susan. She wasn't caught between being a mundane and a telepath. She didn't have to debate how much of her telepathy to use. She was one of the few real mundanes left after the slightly irresponsible intermarrying between normals and telepaths that earned the humans the status of 'mostly telepathic.' There was now an organization of mundanes where Psi Corps had once stood.
And Susan Ivanova had been caught in the middle of this sudden shift when the Psi Corps dissolved. Even when telepaths became the majority, coming out as one of them had been one of the hardest things she had ever done--right up there with keeping her command after she was paralyzed.
"I think I'll go look around the ship."
"You go. I've seen plenty of transports."
Ivanova transferred back into her wheelchair and squeezed out of the room.
She hadn't expected anything very exciting. A cafeteria. A small lounge. Maintenance rooms.
The lounge had a window, and she looked at the stars. She closed one eye and looked at them. She opened it again and saw their depth.
A pair of preteen Minbari twins walked up to the window together and looked out, glancing at each other now and then. One began to climb onto the large windowsill, only to be pulled down by his mother who caught him in the act and scolded him quietly.
At a table across the room a small gathering of men and women pulled out a scuffed deck of cards and organized an Uno game. Funny to see people like that playing Uno when one would definitely expect something a bit more, well, casino-oriented maybe? Like poker?
The main reason was that poker had lost its appeal now that most humans where telepaths. Uno was rarely played for money so people tended to be more honest. The preferred method of gamboling was random games.
There wasn't much else. Ivanova returned to her room. Susan was being flat on the bed again.
"What's a six letter word for 'irregular' first letter being a 'W'?" Susan sat up abruptly, a small book of crossword puzzles in her hand.
"Don't know. I don't do crosswords."
Ivanova studied the station map on the wall. If she was at gate 2 and Gates 1-10 were on level 1 and 11-20 were on level 2 and 21-20 were on level four, then what was level three for and if the main bays where here and the private bays where there on one of the spider arms, then where was she supposed to meet Rosanne Tellman? Any Earthforce person had some sense of direction on a ship or station, but this was outrageous.
She was sure she could recognize her. They'd talked several times in preparation for the mission. It was only a matter of finding her.
Ivanova found a comm station near her gate.
"Please select type of call."
She hit 'onstation page.'
"Rosanne Tellman," she told the computer. She added a message. She needed to identify herself. "This is Susan Ivanova. My transport came in at Gate 2. Ganya and Jeff." She told the computer to send.
They hadn't known ahead of time which gate for Ms. Tellman to meet her at. They had arranged to figure it out when Ivanova's transport arrived.
She scanned the crowd for Ms. Tellman. Elementary rule: The very person you're looking for is never in sight. Or maybe sometimes they are. Ivanova saw a woman she recognized.
"Rosanne Tellman?"
The woman noticed her.
"Susan Ivanova?"
Both of them nodded when they realized who the other was. Ivanova wanted to be sure though. In a world of telepaths you could never be too careful.
"Do you mind if I take a look at your identicard?" she requested. Ms. Tellman held it out for her to look at.
"Alright. I'm convinced you are who you are."
"The shuttle's in private bay 10."
They both looked around.
"I'm assuming you know how to get back there."
"Of course," said Ms. Tellman nervously, "If the map is correct, it's... this way." She gestured with a slightly disoriented look on her face and walked through the crowds, and Ivanova just followed her.
"What are you going to do? Are you coming on the mission or staying at 4-Post?" Ivanova asked as the other woman stopped to examine a station map once again.
"I'm staying. But really, the Great Machine isn't going to open the time anomaly in sector 14. Draal has to open it closer to Earth."
Ivanova rested her hands on the rims of her wheelchair.
"What? Oh. Of course. The Earth border in 2237 didn't reach this far-- "
"I think we need to go this way," mused Ms. Tellman.
"So you're saying they just dragged us out here just because that's where all the other time jumps took place?"
"No one checks sector 14 anymore. Anyone gathering in any other place might attract attention."
"Whatever you say..."
Susan Ivanova had traveled in the time anomaly many years before. She had been on the White Star when Babylon 4 traveled back in time to fulfill the Valen prophecy. That was the last time she had seen Jeff Sinclair. He had left forever, he had become Valen. At the time she had been jealous of him. He really had a destiny, but where was her life going to go?
She knew now. She seemed to be as important as Jeff in the scheme of things. Why had she been jealous of him? Here, now, she was scared to death of her mission. Would she come back? Or would she be forced to stay in the past, even live out the Earth-Minbari war again?
"You'll return to this time," Ms. Tellman reassured her.
"Am I broadcasting my thoughts that loud?" Ivanova asked. They were in the shuttle en route to 4-Post.
"Your worries are ringing in my ears. If you don't mind, could you try to think a little more softly? I can't pilot a shuttle... nnn." Her voice trailed off as she got a serious concentration look on her face flying the shuttle.
...with you yacking away in my head. Ivanova heard it even though Ms. Tellman had thought better before saying it. She couldn't let chat be the reason for anything to happen to their shuttle.
Susan Cranston raised her hands up above her head, then touched her palms to the floor. She sat down on the cabin floor and sitting straddle, touched her head down.
It was then that she noticed something. It was a data crystal. She picked it up. It must have fallen out of Susan Ivanova's bag before she got off the transport. There was only one way to be sure though. She hopped up and slipped the crystal into the console on the wall.
"Identify owner," she said.
"Susan Ivanova."
"What is it?"
"Earthforce ship and personal logs dating 2262 through 2266."
Susan couldn't resist. She didn't mean to intrude, but really, if you carry your logs around, someone's bound to get a hold of them.
"Play," she said.
"Zathras has been training little sister in Great Machine work to take place of Zathras after Zathras die. But Zathras remember you. Zathras serve the One."
"The One?" asked Ivanova a bit stupidly as they flew from 4-Post. "Me?"
"The One who might have been, but you do this so you are the One who is and--"
"I get the point."
4-Post would reflect the signal from Epsilon 3 farther towards Earth when the shuttle got to its coordinates, which were far into the area that was Earth space years before.
If all want well she would see her parents and Ganya again. (If all went well? It had to!) She would be going back to a time before her mother committed suicide, and before the general population of Earth had even heard of the Minbari race. She didn't want to go back knowing what would happen to the Humans just a few years after that. She didn't want to see her family, even if only as a stranger to them. She didn't think her parents would even suspect in the slightest that a near seventy year old woman was their seven year old daughter. But the point was she had finally learned to live her life without them, and all that might be lost if she saw them again. And her mother had worked so hard to keep her away from Psi Corps. She had said never to let anyone know she was a telepath. Now everyone knew. Susan Ivanova used her abilities like any other sensible person of the 2290's who could.
Zathras was looking at her curiously.
"What?"
"Your hair is different color from last time I see you."
"Oh. Yea that happens to Humans as we get older. Our hair goes grey."
Zathras breathed gutturally as he understood.
"That not happen to Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or-"
"I get the point!" Susan Ivanova had limited patience for Zathras.
"Or Draal."
Ivanova laughed at that. Yes, it was true that Draal probably didn't have any grey hair, but really. Draal didn't have any hair at all.
"Wait a minute. Have we met before?"
"Of course. You come down and ask Zathras for power from Great Machine to broadcast news reports."
"So that was you, not one of your brothers."
"Yes that was Zathras."
There was a pause.
"Have you ever considered applying pronouns to yourself?"
"What?"
"Well, in most languages, if you use 'I' and 'me' instead of your name then it's clear that you mean yourself and not one of your brothers, for example."
"Zathras not understand."
"Like that. Instead of saying 'Zathras not understand,' you could have said 'I do not understand.'"
"What does word 'me' mean?"
"Well, you know the word 'you.' Point to me and say 'you.'"
"Why do that?"
"Just do it."
"You."
"Now point to yourself and say 'me.' It's a way of referring to yourself."
Zathras pointed to himself. "Me."
"Do you understand now?"
"Zathras understand."
"I understand," she corrected.
"I understand," he managed. "I understand."
"You've got it."
"Why you teach Zathras this?"
"Why you teach me this," she growled.
"Oh, sorry. Why you teach me this?"
"Because I was getting really sick of figuring out who you meant by Zathras."
"Oh. Za- I try to speak like that now."
They were quiet for the rest of the trip. Ivanova figured Zathras was meditating on 'I' and 'me.'
"Well, here we are," she announced. "Contacting 4-Post."
The time anomaly post reflected the signal from Epsilon 3 to the present location of Ivanova and Zathras's shuttle.
Zathras opened the case that he had with him.
"Oh yes, time stabilizers," said Ivanova. Less cheerfully she noted that Sheridan's had been damaged in the last time jump she had made.
"That was first one to break. Draal disassemble all but three after mission was complete. Third one break when Patras not careful."
"Patras. Your sister?"
"She help the One Who Must Be in last time jump."
"Who's the One who must be?"
"G'Kem Sheridan. He make sure you live long enough to do this."
"How?" What did G'Kem have to do with this? He obviously knew all about this mission. He had been the one who had told her what she needed to do in the first place. But Zathras was making it sound like G'Kem had done some time jumping himself.
"When did G'Kem time jump?"
"G'Kem go back to 2261--to you. He give you extra life energy to live long enough to do this. You see, Marcus naturally live only 59 years. You live on Marcus life energy then and you live on G'Kem these past eight years."
Actually she wasn't surprised that G'Kem had been the stranger who had taken over what Marcus had been so willing to do. Indeed, she hadn't been a stranger to him at all. It must have been strange for him. She hadn't known him. She wondered what he had thought of her. Young. When G'Kem had first met her, she had been near that age, mid thirties, but he had been eight years old and your judgment of age isn't as developed then.
She suspected he had seen her anyway, other than when she was lying in medlab. She seemed to remember spotting someone peeking around the corner when she had been talking to Marcus. Oh maybe not. It had probably just been one of the medlab staff. Ivanova had wanted every moment she had with Marcus (How ironic given how annoying he had always been.) and she hadn't tried to catch the stranger and ask him why he had done it. She would have to talk to G'Kem when she got back.
"Alright lets get going." Ivanova initiated the time count sequence.
Space was space. Space had ships. Space now had old fashioned ships. The ship the two of them were on was an old design. Any technology from races not encountered in 2237 had been taken out. The meant no artificial gravity from the Minbari.
Ivanova wondered what the date was and how much time they had.
"Setting course for Earth."
She was still debating in her mind whether she ought to take it easy or not. She still remembered the river incident clearly--it wasn't being overridden by any alternate universes yet. At least she wasn't too late. But how much time did they have exactly? How could they time notifying the rescue team at the campsite?
"We have to find out the date," she asserted to herself. She wondered how to achieve that. It was the old movie plot problem. Ask the date and year and you sound incredibly crazy.
After they had arrived at Earth and docked at one of the orbital stations, they were at the mercy of public transportation to the surface.
Ivanova couldn't remember if there was a shuttle that went directly to St. Petersburg, or only to Moscow. There was one in 2298, but this wasn't 2298.
There had to be. St. Petersburg was a huge city, Ivanova thought as she waited in the ticket line. Zathras was looking at a 3D map of Earth across the room.
"What city?" the ticket salesman asked. Ivanova looked up at him.
"Is there a shuttle to St. Petersburg? The one in Russia, I mean."
"The surface station was flooded in those rains they've been having lately. They won't have it back open until next week at best. I can give you Novgorod though."
"I guess it'll have to do. Two for Novgorod. I'll have to find some other means to get to St. Petersburg."
"Identicard." He reached over the counter.
Ivanova handed her identicard to the man.
"That's four credits."
Ivanova nodded.
Cheap. She was still thinking 90's. Actually it didn't matter. A credit is a credit no matter what decade you spend it in.
"And what's name of the other person in your party?"
"Zathras."
"Alright."
The tickets had what she had hoped they would have on them. The date. It was July 20, 2237, 4:36 pm EST.
With the tickets in her mouth she called "Zathras," to the animal- person engrossed in calculating something on the map across the room.
Suddenly she looked over her shoulder. The stranger was still there. Someone was following them.
Another time, another place.
"Play ship or personal logs?" asked the computer.
"Ship logs are boring. Personal," said Susan Cranston. She really didn't feel much guilt in reading peoples' diaries. If General Ivanova didn't want anyone listening to them she should have encrypted them.
Zathras leaned over to listen to her as they were in the hallway to the shuttles. "Zathras, I think someone's following us," she said through her teeth, "I don't know who or why--here, hold the tickets." She took them out of her mouth. "I don't know who he is or why he's following us, but I can tell he isn't just going the same way as us."
"Can't you scan mind of follower?"
"I don't want to risk that. He could be a telepath."
Zathras looked around and spotted the man that Ivanova seemed to be talking about. "This not good."
"Or, maybe it's not so bad as I think."
"No. This not good. We must get to crowded place. Hurry."
"What--" But Zathras was off like a shot, darting clumsily around other people.
"Zathras!" She looked behind her. The man was padding along quietly, getting closer. She chased after Zathras.
The main shuttle terminal was crowded.
"Hey I need to get through! Excuse me!" She would never know what they were running away from if she couldn't catch up with Zathras.
Suddenly Zathras turned around and called to Ivanova over the racket in the room. He started pushing through the crowns towards her.
"We safe for now. Here."
"What happened?!" she shouted as they met each other.
"He is Time Tracker. Work for alternate universe. Can only be seen by target."
"You mean there's someone right behind us who's trying to jeopardize this mission?"
"Crowded place better. More chance Tracker accidentally touch someone."
"What?"
"People wonder why they feel something. Usually, you see what you feel. If Time Tracker invisible, it confuse people. People get scared, and they think Tracker is ghost. Not good for Tracker."
Ivanova suddenly realized something. If the Time Tracker ever attacked either of them physically, what would the public think of them fighting back at nothing?
She had to get this straightened out. "You're saying they this Tracker will do almost anything to create the alternate universe?"
"Not anything. Cannot harm natural residents of time. Only us."
"What if he decides to sabotage the Novgorod shuttle? Are we just dead then? I mean do you know anything about their tactics? Are they..." she pulled a word out, "drastic? Will the Tracker try to kill us or just hold us until it's too late?"
"Zathras not know." Ivanova looked around. The Tracker had been lost on the fringes of the crowds for the moment.
"Shuttles for Novgorod, Kiev, Jerusalem, Eritrea, Gaborone, and Cape Town leave in fifteen minutes." The message was repeated in the official language of each country-consortium in which each of the cities were. It was also repeated in Centauri and two other alien languages.
"That's us. We can't let the Tracker let us miss it. Come on."
The Novgorod shuttle was already boarding by the time they got there.
"We're trying to get to St. Petersburg," explained Ivanova at the gate, "Is there anything that goes there from Novgorod? I mean if the shuttle station in St. Petersburg is closed is there something on the ground directly from Novgorod?"
The gate manager was only filling in for the regular and didn't know much.
"Alright, thanks anyway."
Zathras and Ivanova boarded the shuttle paranoidly. They had hardly lost the Time Tracker--he only seemed to be trying to get around the crowds.
Ivanova stayed at the doorway. If the Tracker tried to board, he would be in for a big surprise. Zathras, who had claimed territory closest to where Ivanova sat, watched apprehensively.
A flight attendant walked up to Ivanova.
"Ma'am, we're almost ready to leave. There's a wheelchair floor clamp in the seating cabin."
"So everyone's on?" asked Ivanova tensely.
"Yes."
"Then what the hell are you waiting for?" exclaimed Ivanova, a bit too enthusiastically, "Close the shuttle doors! My brother's going to die! In other words, we are trying to save Earth from being conquered by the Minbari, not to mention the Shadows, thank you very much!" Actually, she didn't say that last part. She glared up at the flight attendant.
"Alright," she said, a bit startled but calmly, "That's what I was about to do."
Another time, another place. Susan Cranston had obviously missed something very important. Who was Marcus?
Ivanova had lived in this time. It was a startling thought, and she realized how old she had let herself get. Seventy at the turn of the century.
And a thought hit her. It overwhelmed her and scared her. She did want to see her family again. More than anything she had ever wanted. More than anything in the universe. She thought she would give up everything she ever had to see them again for five minutes.
But she didn't have to do that. She was going to see them. Her father, Ganya, her mother. She couldn't comprehend or dare to believe it.
They wouldn't even know her. Her seven-year-old self wouldn't even recognize her. No one would say, "Susan, we've missed you!" and she certainly couldn't say that to them.
They landed in Novgorod. Ivanova still didn't know if they'd lost the Time Tracker. Something told her that he wouldn't give up that easily.
There was a train station near the shuttle port, fortunately (Though Ivanova was certain it wasn't an accident that there was a station there).
The camp site was two or three miles out of the city of Gatchina (near St. Petersburg) on the Luga River. With these slow 30's trains, it took them 40 minutes to get there.
At the road to the campgrounds Ivanova told Zathras, "There's nothing that runs between here and the campsites. We'll have to walk the distance."
"Zathras not mind. Zathras walk farther."
Ivanova had given up on being a grammar teacher. "Well, let's get going. There's nothing we can do until afternoon but let's see what we can do to prevent Ganya from falling in in the first place." Silently, Ivanova knew that wouldn't happen. The rescue team had been called because Ganya had fallen in. That memory was still hers. She wondered, after what seemed like an eternity, what would prevent them from keeping Ganya out of the water.
It was almost pitch black. The sun hadn't risen yet and there were no stars. Her family had taken the break in the rain as an opportunity to go camping, but it was still foggy. A night bird chirped. It sounded like jingling bells. The noise echoed, bouncing around all corners of the night.
"Do you have a flashlight Zathras, I can't see anything."
"Zathras can see in dark like Earth owl."
Suddenly Ivanova saw Zathras's shadow pounce on something.
"You hungry? Zathras catch snail."
Ivanova had always been appalled by what Zathras considered tasty. She grimaced when she heard something go crunch between his teeth.
"Ew," muttered Ivanova.
"Good protein."
"Everything to you is good protein."
Zathras examined the riverbank.
"Pocket," he announced. He pulled several large rocks out and dug apart the small overhang. He walked cautiously a few more meters, his eyes locked on the bank.
"Large one." He preformed the same operation as before. Ivanova couldn't imagine doing what on Epsilon 3 could have made him so strong. But she was still doubtful that changing the riverbank would do anything.
Ganya and Susan walked along the riverbank. The pine needles cracked under their feet. A squirrel scuttled up a nearby tree.
"Lemme see if I can stab a caterpillar," said Ganya, wielding a pointy stick and showing off to his little sister. He jabbed at the ground a couple of times. He stomped at something.
"Hey, you splashed me!" accused Susan.
"What?" demanded Ganya.
"Zathras!" hissed Ivanova, "It's too late! Run! God! Run as fast as you can! Get the rescue team! It's not that far if you climb up to the road! We missed a pocket!"
"Zathras not speak Russian."
"Damn!" screamed Ivanova as loud as she dared, "Well gag and point to the river or something! What good are you?"
She realized what she had to do. But she could never send a message that far, could she? She had to try. She closed her eyes and saw the ranger station. If only she could send a thought. She pushed her mind to the limits. She tried to ignore the fact that a borderline P3 will never be a P10 no matter what.
And suddenly she felt as if someone had picked up her thought, boosted her abilities far enough.
Young Susan screamed in surprise as Ganya slipped off the wet bank. But it was done. Something told the rescue team to get to the river.
It was as if a weight holding back Ivanova's telepathy had been momentarily removed.
Young Susan ran to the edge of the bank as her brother struggled in the icy water. Then she felt gentle arms on her, trying to comfort her.
"Everything's going to be fine. There's no need to cry." Susan looked around and saw, through vision blurred by frightened tears, a woman. She had never felt safe with a stranger like this before, but she did. She used a wheelchair, and Susan leaned against it. She wondered, as the team caught Ganya in the rescue net, if she had found a guardian angel. At that moment, her parents ran over to where Ganya sat shivering in a blanket. She saw her parents hug and scold him at the same time. Susan ran over to them. They all huddled together. Then Susan pointed to her older self and said "She told me everything would be okay."
Her mother sprang up. "You got the rescue team, didn't you? How can we thank you enough?" Even when she was excited, Sophie mumbled a bit.
"Well, if you don't mind, could I get a picture of you guys?"
"Well I suppose it'll be in the newspapers anyway, don't you think Andrei?"
Her father pulled Ganya to his feet and the family stood together.
"That's all I want," said Ivanova, trying to keep her voice even. "I have to go."
"Oh you're welcome to come back to the campsite and visit us for a while."
As tempting as it was, Ivanova had to refuse. "I have to go."
"Alright. But thank you so much again. Thank you. Thank you."
Ivanova returned to Zathras.
"Something really strange happened when I was trying to get through to the ranger station. It was as if my telepathic abilities suddenly skyrocketed. I suppose it was just desperation."
"You needed a boost, Susotchka."
Ivanova stared in the direction of the person who had said that.
"Oh my god have I left you that long? That is you, isn't it?"
"Yah... how do you know me?" asked Ivanova, "You were just back there- -"
"That was me three years ago. Oh god, I should have left you later but there was nothing left for me there." She put her hands on her face in self-hatred.
"What's going on?"
"I came to this time a month ago. Long enough for the sleepers to wear off."
"Momma what are you talking about?"
"You didn't notice? My self from this time scanned you back there. She knows you needed help in contacting the ranger station."
"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."
"Is that really you Momma?"
"What else can I do to prove it?"
Sophie knelt down beside her daughter, who did something she never expected to do ever again. They touched minds. Zathras grinned insanely but remained silent.
It was strange to see. Forty-five-year-old Sophie and her sixty-eight- year-old daughter. There was true life in their eyes again, after so much time. As they held onto each other, Sophie, concerned, sat down on the ground with Susan in her lap.
"What happened to you?"
"Everything."
"Oh... I wouldn't know... So much must have happened in your life. Your whole life that's happened in the month that I was here. And I wasn't with you to watch you grow up."
"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."
Of course Ivanova remembered when Ganya had almost drowned. The near death of a family member is not easily forgotten, and Susan had never felt the need to forget it.
He probably would have drowned if it were not for a stranger who had seen Ganya fall into the river and called the park rangers. Their family had gone camping several times before at that site but despite the river warnings that year, Ganya had been walking just beside the river just as any energetic thirteen year old boy would have done, and a cave of dirt had collapsed under him. Susan had been the only one who identified the woman who had notified the rescue team. Otherwise, her parents would never have been able to thank her for it.
And now the time had come for General Susan Ivanova, retired, to do just what she remembered happening so many years before. She'd had eight years to think it through.
Who could know if she had needed to wait this long? Perhaps it didn't matter which year she came from as long as she did what had been done, would be done, whatever.
She had realized some time ago that she had no pictures of her family. There were none in the St. Petersburg historical library.
Most of the Psi Corps records had been destroyed during the telepath war, which was one of the big contributors to the organization's loss of power and eventual collapse. There was simply no documentation of who was a telepath. Without the Corps to get them, there seemed to be many more telepaths than there were before the war. These were people like herself who had hidden out before but were no longer afraid to use their talent.
But this meant that there were also no surviving records of the sleeper division. No picture of her mother. She had looked in the school records going back to the twenty-second century. No pictures of any of them.
That was why, when Susan Ivanova packed for the trip to sector 14, she put a palm recorder in her pocket. She wouldn't be intruding on her family's privacy by taking a picture of them, would she?
Why must they drag us all out here to go back in time? Sector 14 was not the closest place to Earth. Still, Ivanova had been getting restless for space after living on Earth for several years now. She never much liked public transports though. Most of the bunk rooms were very tight, and smelled horrible.
She hadn't been on one for years, and she hadn't remembered how tight the spaces were. The hand rims of her wheelchair scraped the door frame as she entered her sleeping cabin.
The transport wasn't actually going to 4-Post. Its destination was a fairly large colony in Sector 12. Another person in on the operation was also coming to the dock that orbited that planet, and they would meet up there.
She put her bag on the small shelf near the bunk bed.
"And now I sit around for two days doing nothing," she said to herself.
"You can talk to me if you have nothing else to do." Ivanova hadn't noticed anyone else in the room until then. A young woman peered lazily down at her from the top bunk, her arm over the railing.
"Oh. I didn't see you. Hi."
"I'm Susan."
"Hey! So am I," answered Ivanova.
"Nice to meet you. Why're you coming out here? Have family?"
"Um, sort of. I guess you could put it that way."
The woman nodded, grinding her teeth as if she had chewing gum.
Ivanova pulled herself onto the lower bunk. The other Susan climbed down and began to walk around the small room, and Ivanova got a good look at her.
She was medium height, her hair was dark brown and cut short, and her eyes were also brown. Ivanova usually classified noses as pointing up or down, and this woman's pointed down.
"I've probably spent as much time on transports as I have on planets."
"You travel a lot?"
"Well, I wander around. It's quite hard for a mundane to get a good job these days. I work where I can."
Ivanova pretended to ignore that last remark.
"You travel?"
"I don't know. I'm getting old. I haven't been in space for a while now. But it seems to say to me 'Hey, what are you doing on Earth? Aren't I more exciting?'"
"That sounds like an adventurer," said Susan, "The kind of person who would join Earthforce."
"Really?" breathed Ivanova, amused.
"What?"
She stuck out her hand. "General Susan Ivanova. Earthforce."
"Oh that's embarrassing."
Ivanova arched her eyebrows.
How she envied Susan. She wasn't caught between being a mundane and a telepath. She didn't have to debate how much of her telepathy to use. She was one of the few real mundanes left after the slightly irresponsible intermarrying between normals and telepaths that earned the humans the status of 'mostly telepathic.' There was now an organization of mundanes where Psi Corps had once stood.
And Susan Ivanova had been caught in the middle of this sudden shift when the Psi Corps dissolved. Even when telepaths became the majority, coming out as one of them had been one of the hardest things she had ever done--right up there with keeping her command after she was paralyzed.
"I think I'll go look around the ship."
"You go. I've seen plenty of transports."
Ivanova transferred back into her wheelchair and squeezed out of the room.
She hadn't expected anything very exciting. A cafeteria. A small lounge. Maintenance rooms.
The lounge had a window, and she looked at the stars. She closed one eye and looked at them. She opened it again and saw their depth.
A pair of preteen Minbari twins walked up to the window together and looked out, glancing at each other now and then. One began to climb onto the large windowsill, only to be pulled down by his mother who caught him in the act and scolded him quietly.
At a table across the room a small gathering of men and women pulled out a scuffed deck of cards and organized an Uno game. Funny to see people like that playing Uno when one would definitely expect something a bit more, well, casino-oriented maybe? Like poker?
The main reason was that poker had lost its appeal now that most humans where telepaths. Uno was rarely played for money so people tended to be more honest. The preferred method of gamboling was random games.
There wasn't much else. Ivanova returned to her room. Susan was being flat on the bed again.
"What's a six letter word for 'irregular' first letter being a 'W'?" Susan sat up abruptly, a small book of crossword puzzles in her hand.
"Don't know. I don't do crosswords."
Ivanova studied the station map on the wall. If she was at gate 2 and Gates 1-10 were on level 1 and 11-20 were on level 2 and 21-20 were on level four, then what was level three for and if the main bays where here and the private bays where there on one of the spider arms, then where was she supposed to meet Rosanne Tellman? Any Earthforce person had some sense of direction on a ship or station, but this was outrageous.
She was sure she could recognize her. They'd talked several times in preparation for the mission. It was only a matter of finding her.
Ivanova found a comm station near her gate.
"Please select type of call."
She hit 'onstation page.'
"Rosanne Tellman," she told the computer. She added a message. She needed to identify herself. "This is Susan Ivanova. My transport came in at Gate 2. Ganya and Jeff." She told the computer to send.
They hadn't known ahead of time which gate for Ms. Tellman to meet her at. They had arranged to figure it out when Ivanova's transport arrived.
She scanned the crowd for Ms. Tellman. Elementary rule: The very person you're looking for is never in sight. Or maybe sometimes they are. Ivanova saw a woman she recognized.
"Rosanne Tellman?"
The woman noticed her.
"Susan Ivanova?"
Both of them nodded when they realized who the other was. Ivanova wanted to be sure though. In a world of telepaths you could never be too careful.
"Do you mind if I take a look at your identicard?" she requested. Ms. Tellman held it out for her to look at.
"Alright. I'm convinced you are who you are."
"The shuttle's in private bay 10."
They both looked around.
"I'm assuming you know how to get back there."
"Of course," said Ms. Tellman nervously, "If the map is correct, it's... this way." She gestured with a slightly disoriented look on her face and walked through the crowds, and Ivanova just followed her.
"What are you going to do? Are you coming on the mission or staying at 4-Post?" Ivanova asked as the other woman stopped to examine a station map once again.
"I'm staying. But really, the Great Machine isn't going to open the time anomaly in sector 14. Draal has to open it closer to Earth."
Ivanova rested her hands on the rims of her wheelchair.
"What? Oh. Of course. The Earth border in 2237 didn't reach this far-- "
"I think we need to go this way," mused Ms. Tellman.
"So you're saying they just dragged us out here just because that's where all the other time jumps took place?"
"No one checks sector 14 anymore. Anyone gathering in any other place might attract attention."
"Whatever you say..."
Susan Ivanova had traveled in the time anomaly many years before. She had been on the White Star when Babylon 4 traveled back in time to fulfill the Valen prophecy. That was the last time she had seen Jeff Sinclair. He had left forever, he had become Valen. At the time she had been jealous of him. He really had a destiny, but where was her life going to go?
She knew now. She seemed to be as important as Jeff in the scheme of things. Why had she been jealous of him? Here, now, she was scared to death of her mission. Would she come back? Or would she be forced to stay in the past, even live out the Earth-Minbari war again?
"You'll return to this time," Ms. Tellman reassured her.
"Am I broadcasting my thoughts that loud?" Ivanova asked. They were in the shuttle en route to 4-Post.
"Your worries are ringing in my ears. If you don't mind, could you try to think a little more softly? I can't pilot a shuttle... nnn." Her voice trailed off as she got a serious concentration look on her face flying the shuttle.
...with you yacking away in my head. Ivanova heard it even though Ms. Tellman had thought better before saying it. She couldn't let chat be the reason for anything to happen to their shuttle.
Susan Cranston raised her hands up above her head, then touched her palms to the floor. She sat down on the cabin floor and sitting straddle, touched her head down.
It was then that she noticed something. It was a data crystal. She picked it up. It must have fallen out of Susan Ivanova's bag before she got off the transport. There was only one way to be sure though. She hopped up and slipped the crystal into the console on the wall.
"Identify owner," she said.
"Susan Ivanova."
"What is it?"
"Earthforce ship and personal logs dating 2262 through 2266."
Susan couldn't resist. She didn't mean to intrude, but really, if you carry your logs around, someone's bound to get a hold of them.
"Play," she said.
"Zathras has been training little sister in Great Machine work to take place of Zathras after Zathras die. But Zathras remember you. Zathras serve the One."
"The One?" asked Ivanova a bit stupidly as they flew from 4-Post. "Me?"
"The One who might have been, but you do this so you are the One who is and--"
"I get the point."
4-Post would reflect the signal from Epsilon 3 farther towards Earth when the shuttle got to its coordinates, which were far into the area that was Earth space years before.
If all want well she would see her parents and Ganya again. (If all went well? It had to!) She would be going back to a time before her mother committed suicide, and before the general population of Earth had even heard of the Minbari race. She didn't want to go back knowing what would happen to the Humans just a few years after that. She didn't want to see her family, even if only as a stranger to them. She didn't think her parents would even suspect in the slightest that a near seventy year old woman was their seven year old daughter. But the point was she had finally learned to live her life without them, and all that might be lost if she saw them again. And her mother had worked so hard to keep her away from Psi Corps. She had said never to let anyone know she was a telepath. Now everyone knew. Susan Ivanova used her abilities like any other sensible person of the 2290's who could.
Zathras was looking at her curiously.
"What?"
"Your hair is different color from last time I see you."
"Oh. Yea that happens to Humans as we get older. Our hair goes grey."
Zathras breathed gutturally as he understood.
"That not happen to Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or-"
"I get the point!" Susan Ivanova had limited patience for Zathras.
"Or Draal."
Ivanova laughed at that. Yes, it was true that Draal probably didn't have any grey hair, but really. Draal didn't have any hair at all.
"Wait a minute. Have we met before?"
"Of course. You come down and ask Zathras for power from Great Machine to broadcast news reports."
"So that was you, not one of your brothers."
"Yes that was Zathras."
There was a pause.
"Have you ever considered applying pronouns to yourself?"
"What?"
"Well, in most languages, if you use 'I' and 'me' instead of your name then it's clear that you mean yourself and not one of your brothers, for example."
"Zathras not understand."
"Like that. Instead of saying 'Zathras not understand,' you could have said 'I do not understand.'"
"What does word 'me' mean?"
"Well, you know the word 'you.' Point to me and say 'you.'"
"Why do that?"
"Just do it."
"You."
"Now point to yourself and say 'me.' It's a way of referring to yourself."
Zathras pointed to himself. "Me."
"Do you understand now?"
"Zathras understand."
"I understand," she corrected.
"I understand," he managed. "I understand."
"You've got it."
"Why you teach Zathras this?"
"Why you teach me this," she growled.
"Oh, sorry. Why you teach me this?"
"Because I was getting really sick of figuring out who you meant by Zathras."
"Oh. Za- I try to speak like that now."
They were quiet for the rest of the trip. Ivanova figured Zathras was meditating on 'I' and 'me.'
"Well, here we are," she announced. "Contacting 4-Post."
The time anomaly post reflected the signal from Epsilon 3 to the present location of Ivanova and Zathras's shuttle.
Zathras opened the case that he had with him.
"Oh yes, time stabilizers," said Ivanova. Less cheerfully she noted that Sheridan's had been damaged in the last time jump she had made.
"That was first one to break. Draal disassemble all but three after mission was complete. Third one break when Patras not careful."
"Patras. Your sister?"
"She help the One Who Must Be in last time jump."
"Who's the One who must be?"
"G'Kem Sheridan. He make sure you live long enough to do this."
"How?" What did G'Kem have to do with this? He obviously knew all about this mission. He had been the one who had told her what she needed to do in the first place. But Zathras was making it sound like G'Kem had done some time jumping himself.
"When did G'Kem time jump?"
"G'Kem go back to 2261--to you. He give you extra life energy to live long enough to do this. You see, Marcus naturally live only 59 years. You live on Marcus life energy then and you live on G'Kem these past eight years."
Actually she wasn't surprised that G'Kem had been the stranger who had taken over what Marcus had been so willing to do. Indeed, she hadn't been a stranger to him at all. It must have been strange for him. She hadn't known him. She wondered what he had thought of her. Young. When G'Kem had first met her, she had been near that age, mid thirties, but he had been eight years old and your judgment of age isn't as developed then.
She suspected he had seen her anyway, other than when she was lying in medlab. She seemed to remember spotting someone peeking around the corner when she had been talking to Marcus. Oh maybe not. It had probably just been one of the medlab staff. Ivanova had wanted every moment she had with Marcus (How ironic given how annoying he had always been.) and she hadn't tried to catch the stranger and ask him why he had done it. She would have to talk to G'Kem when she got back.
"Alright lets get going." Ivanova initiated the time count sequence.
Space was space. Space had ships. Space now had old fashioned ships. The ship the two of them were on was an old design. Any technology from races not encountered in 2237 had been taken out. The meant no artificial gravity from the Minbari.
Ivanova wondered what the date was and how much time they had.
"Setting course for Earth."
She was still debating in her mind whether she ought to take it easy or not. She still remembered the river incident clearly--it wasn't being overridden by any alternate universes yet. At least she wasn't too late. But how much time did they have exactly? How could they time notifying the rescue team at the campsite?
"We have to find out the date," she asserted to herself. She wondered how to achieve that. It was the old movie plot problem. Ask the date and year and you sound incredibly crazy.
After they had arrived at Earth and docked at one of the orbital stations, they were at the mercy of public transportation to the surface.
Ivanova couldn't remember if there was a shuttle that went directly to St. Petersburg, or only to Moscow. There was one in 2298, but this wasn't 2298.
There had to be. St. Petersburg was a huge city, Ivanova thought as she waited in the ticket line. Zathras was looking at a 3D map of Earth across the room.
"What city?" the ticket salesman asked. Ivanova looked up at him.
"Is there a shuttle to St. Petersburg? The one in Russia, I mean."
"The surface station was flooded in those rains they've been having lately. They won't have it back open until next week at best. I can give you Novgorod though."
"I guess it'll have to do. Two for Novgorod. I'll have to find some other means to get to St. Petersburg."
"Identicard." He reached over the counter.
Ivanova handed her identicard to the man.
"That's four credits."
Ivanova nodded.
Cheap. She was still thinking 90's. Actually it didn't matter. A credit is a credit no matter what decade you spend it in.
"And what's name of the other person in your party?"
"Zathras."
"Alright."
The tickets had what she had hoped they would have on them. The date. It was July 20, 2237, 4:36 pm EST.
With the tickets in her mouth she called "Zathras," to the animal- person engrossed in calculating something on the map across the room.
Suddenly she looked over her shoulder. The stranger was still there. Someone was following them.
Another time, another place.
"Play ship or personal logs?" asked the computer.
"Ship logs are boring. Personal," said Susan Cranston. She really didn't feel much guilt in reading peoples' diaries. If General Ivanova didn't want anyone listening to them she should have encrypted them.
Zathras leaned over to listen to her as they were in the hallway to the shuttles. "Zathras, I think someone's following us," she said through her teeth, "I don't know who or why--here, hold the tickets." She took them out of her mouth. "I don't know who he is or why he's following us, but I can tell he isn't just going the same way as us."
"Can't you scan mind of follower?"
"I don't want to risk that. He could be a telepath."
Zathras looked around and spotted the man that Ivanova seemed to be talking about. "This not good."
"Or, maybe it's not so bad as I think."
"No. This not good. We must get to crowded place. Hurry."
"What--" But Zathras was off like a shot, darting clumsily around other people.
"Zathras!" She looked behind her. The man was padding along quietly, getting closer. She chased after Zathras.
The main shuttle terminal was crowded.
"Hey I need to get through! Excuse me!" She would never know what they were running away from if she couldn't catch up with Zathras.
Suddenly Zathras turned around and called to Ivanova over the racket in the room. He started pushing through the crowns towards her.
"We safe for now. Here."
"What happened?!" she shouted as they met each other.
"He is Time Tracker. Work for alternate universe. Can only be seen by target."
"You mean there's someone right behind us who's trying to jeopardize this mission?"
"Crowded place better. More chance Tracker accidentally touch someone."
"What?"
"People wonder why they feel something. Usually, you see what you feel. If Time Tracker invisible, it confuse people. People get scared, and they think Tracker is ghost. Not good for Tracker."
Ivanova suddenly realized something. If the Time Tracker ever attacked either of them physically, what would the public think of them fighting back at nothing?
She had to get this straightened out. "You're saying they this Tracker will do almost anything to create the alternate universe?"
"Not anything. Cannot harm natural residents of time. Only us."
"What if he decides to sabotage the Novgorod shuttle? Are we just dead then? I mean do you know anything about their tactics? Are they..." she pulled a word out, "drastic? Will the Tracker try to kill us or just hold us until it's too late?"
"Zathras not know." Ivanova looked around. The Tracker had been lost on the fringes of the crowds for the moment.
"Shuttles for Novgorod, Kiev, Jerusalem, Eritrea, Gaborone, and Cape Town leave in fifteen minutes." The message was repeated in the official language of each country-consortium in which each of the cities were. It was also repeated in Centauri and two other alien languages.
"That's us. We can't let the Tracker let us miss it. Come on."
The Novgorod shuttle was already boarding by the time they got there.
"We're trying to get to St. Petersburg," explained Ivanova at the gate, "Is there anything that goes there from Novgorod? I mean if the shuttle station in St. Petersburg is closed is there something on the ground directly from Novgorod?"
The gate manager was only filling in for the regular and didn't know much.
"Alright, thanks anyway."
Zathras and Ivanova boarded the shuttle paranoidly. They had hardly lost the Time Tracker--he only seemed to be trying to get around the crowds.
Ivanova stayed at the doorway. If the Tracker tried to board, he would be in for a big surprise. Zathras, who had claimed territory closest to where Ivanova sat, watched apprehensively.
A flight attendant walked up to Ivanova.
"Ma'am, we're almost ready to leave. There's a wheelchair floor clamp in the seating cabin."
"So everyone's on?" asked Ivanova tensely.
"Yes."
"Then what the hell are you waiting for?" exclaimed Ivanova, a bit too enthusiastically, "Close the shuttle doors! My brother's going to die! In other words, we are trying to save Earth from being conquered by the Minbari, not to mention the Shadows, thank you very much!" Actually, she didn't say that last part. She glared up at the flight attendant.
"Alright," she said, a bit startled but calmly, "That's what I was about to do."
Another time, another place. Susan Cranston had obviously missed something very important. Who was Marcus?
Ivanova had lived in this time. It was a startling thought, and she realized how old she had let herself get. Seventy at the turn of the century.
And a thought hit her. It overwhelmed her and scared her. She did want to see her family again. More than anything she had ever wanted. More than anything in the universe. She thought she would give up everything she ever had to see them again for five minutes.
But she didn't have to do that. She was going to see them. Her father, Ganya, her mother. She couldn't comprehend or dare to believe it.
They wouldn't even know her. Her seven-year-old self wouldn't even recognize her. No one would say, "Susan, we've missed you!" and she certainly couldn't say that to them.
They landed in Novgorod. Ivanova still didn't know if they'd lost the Time Tracker. Something told her that he wouldn't give up that easily.
There was a train station near the shuttle port, fortunately (Though Ivanova was certain it wasn't an accident that there was a station there).
The camp site was two or three miles out of the city of Gatchina (near St. Petersburg) on the Luga River. With these slow 30's trains, it took them 40 minutes to get there.
At the road to the campgrounds Ivanova told Zathras, "There's nothing that runs between here and the campsites. We'll have to walk the distance."
"Zathras not mind. Zathras walk farther."
Ivanova had given up on being a grammar teacher. "Well, let's get going. There's nothing we can do until afternoon but let's see what we can do to prevent Ganya from falling in in the first place." Silently, Ivanova knew that wouldn't happen. The rescue team had been called because Ganya had fallen in. That memory was still hers. She wondered, after what seemed like an eternity, what would prevent them from keeping Ganya out of the water.
It was almost pitch black. The sun hadn't risen yet and there were no stars. Her family had taken the break in the rain as an opportunity to go camping, but it was still foggy. A night bird chirped. It sounded like jingling bells. The noise echoed, bouncing around all corners of the night.
"Do you have a flashlight Zathras, I can't see anything."
"Zathras can see in dark like Earth owl."
Suddenly Ivanova saw Zathras's shadow pounce on something.
"You hungry? Zathras catch snail."
Ivanova had always been appalled by what Zathras considered tasty. She grimaced when she heard something go crunch between his teeth.
"Ew," muttered Ivanova.
"Good protein."
"Everything to you is good protein."
Zathras examined the riverbank.
"Pocket," he announced. He pulled several large rocks out and dug apart the small overhang. He walked cautiously a few more meters, his eyes locked on the bank.
"Large one." He preformed the same operation as before. Ivanova couldn't imagine doing what on Epsilon 3 could have made him so strong. But she was still doubtful that changing the riverbank would do anything.
Ganya and Susan walked along the riverbank. The pine needles cracked under their feet. A squirrel scuttled up a nearby tree.
"Lemme see if I can stab a caterpillar," said Ganya, wielding a pointy stick and showing off to his little sister. He jabbed at the ground a couple of times. He stomped at something.
"Hey, you splashed me!" accused Susan.
"What?" demanded Ganya.
"Zathras!" hissed Ivanova, "It's too late! Run! God! Run as fast as you can! Get the rescue team! It's not that far if you climb up to the road! We missed a pocket!"
"Zathras not speak Russian."
"Damn!" screamed Ivanova as loud as she dared, "Well gag and point to the river or something! What good are you?"
She realized what she had to do. But she could never send a message that far, could she? She had to try. She closed her eyes and saw the ranger station. If only she could send a thought. She pushed her mind to the limits. She tried to ignore the fact that a borderline P3 will never be a P10 no matter what.
And suddenly she felt as if someone had picked up her thought, boosted her abilities far enough.
Young Susan screamed in surprise as Ganya slipped off the wet bank. But it was done. Something told the rescue team to get to the river.
It was as if a weight holding back Ivanova's telepathy had been momentarily removed.
Young Susan ran to the edge of the bank as her brother struggled in the icy water. Then she felt gentle arms on her, trying to comfort her.
"Everything's going to be fine. There's no need to cry." Susan looked around and saw, through vision blurred by frightened tears, a woman. She had never felt safe with a stranger like this before, but she did. She used a wheelchair, and Susan leaned against it. She wondered, as the team caught Ganya in the rescue net, if she had found a guardian angel. At that moment, her parents ran over to where Ganya sat shivering in a blanket. She saw her parents hug and scold him at the same time. Susan ran over to them. They all huddled together. Then Susan pointed to her older self and said "She told me everything would be okay."
Her mother sprang up. "You got the rescue team, didn't you? How can we thank you enough?" Even when she was excited, Sophie mumbled a bit.
"Well, if you don't mind, could I get a picture of you guys?"
"Well I suppose it'll be in the newspapers anyway, don't you think Andrei?"
Her father pulled Ganya to his feet and the family stood together.
"That's all I want," said Ivanova, trying to keep her voice even. "I have to go."
"Oh you're welcome to come back to the campsite and visit us for a while."
As tempting as it was, Ivanova had to refuse. "I have to go."
"Alright. But thank you so much again. Thank you. Thank you."
Ivanova returned to Zathras.
"Something really strange happened when I was trying to get through to the ranger station. It was as if my telepathic abilities suddenly skyrocketed. I suppose it was just desperation."
"You needed a boost, Susotchka."
Ivanova stared in the direction of the person who had said that.
"Oh my god have I left you that long? That is you, isn't it?"
"Yah... how do you know me?" asked Ivanova, "You were just back there- -"
"That was me three years ago. Oh god, I should have left you later but there was nothing left for me there." She put her hands on her face in self-hatred.
"What's going on?"
"I came to this time a month ago. Long enough for the sleepers to wear off."
"Momma what are you talking about?"
"You didn't notice? My self from this time scanned you back there. She knows you needed help in contacting the ranger station."
"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."
"Is that really you Momma?"
"What else can I do to prove it?"
Sophie knelt down beside her daughter, who did something she never expected to do ever again. They touched minds. Zathras grinned insanely but remained silent.
It was strange to see. Forty-five-year-old Sophie and her sixty-eight- year-old daughter. There was true life in their eyes again, after so much time. As they held onto each other, Sophie, concerned, sat down on the ground with Susan in her lap.
"What happened to you?"
"Everything."
"Oh... I wouldn't know... So much must have happened in your life. Your whole life that's happened in the month that I was here. And I wasn't with you to watch you grow up."
"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."