Meet Myself There: Edge To Center, #2

By Brenda W. Clough

What good is time travel anyway? For Col. Ben Ming, head of Jalanesia's armed forces and husband of President Calla Ang, it's nothing but a headache. Time Traveler Jack Wragsland transported Calla to this space/time. So it wouldn't be fair to simply shoot him, when Jack's enemies attack him through Calla. But boy, is it a temptation. If Ben is going to save Calla he's going to have to save Jack as well, even if it makes him crazy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda W. Clough
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781611387698

Brenda W. Clough

Brenda W. Clough is the first female Asian-American SF writer, first appearing in print in 1984. Her novella ‘May Be Some Time’ was a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and became the novel Revise the World. Her latest time travel trilogy is Edge to Center, available at Book View Café. Marian Halcombe, a series of eleven neo-Victorian thrillers appeared in 2021.  Her complete bibliography is up on her web page, brendaclough.net

Book preview

J3

Chapter 1

Afterwards, every detail of the worst day of his life played over and over in Colonel Bencasilat Ming’s mind.

Seylat lay on the rug on his stomach, drawing a picture of a tank, and Sala the nanny was combing a tangle out of Lilias’s long hair before restoring a pink barrette. His wife was on the sofa, feet up as instructed by the obstetrician, but defying orders by pecking out a staff memo on her tablet. Ben had recently had an exercise bar installed high in the doorway to the hall, and was on the second of three sets of 20 one-handed pull-ups. The sudden sound that broke into this domestic evening tableau was not one his soldier’s trained ear recognized, not a mortar or a missile. There was a buzzing mechanical quality to it, rather than an explosion.

Before Ben could do more than drop to his feet the back wall of the sitting room fell away, taking a good chunk of the high ceiling with it. Yet the cloud of dust and debris hung clear of a neat dark sphere, which enclosed a tall blonde woman. Only later did the oddity of her long black gown strike him, a bizarre combat attire. At that moment he only saw the strange weapon in her hand. Ben snatched up his own M9 from where it lay with his jacket on the back of the sofa.

Jack! the invader called. Jack, come out! Or else —

Calla rolled off the sofa. Fanny?

In that same moment the invader fired. A blizzard of silver blasted out of the bell-shaped muzzle of her weapon. Shielding the toddler in her arms, Sala caught the full impact. The energy or missile passed right through her back and through the child as well, dissolving them both into red meat. Red spattered Seylat and then Calla as well.

Calla’s personal bodyguard Mr. Lia burst through the cracked glass of the doors from the terrace, firing as he came. The bullets bounced off the sphere, whirling in a strange way out of sight. Ben racked his heavier piece but held back because Calla was clawing herself up into the line of fire. He’s not here, she screamed. I married Ben. Ben!

Ben steadied the M9 on his muscular forearm, aiming at the invader’s head. Mr. Lia dashed up just as she fired again. In the instant of her firing the sphere blinked out to let the charge or missile pass. At the short range it took Lia square in the chest. He seemed to disassemble into arms, legs and head with no torso to connect the pieces. But Ben fired in that same moment, two aimed shots in the space of three seconds, and the blonde head shattered like a rotten vegetable. The sphere didn’t blink back, and the darkness lingered for only another instant before everything cleared away. He was left in the smoking wreckage of his home with his wailing wife clutching the corpse of his daughter.

~~~

When he arrived in Jalanesia, Jack Wragsland stepped into the short cab line at the Generalissimo Chengan Seylat Ang International Airport and touched his neck. Action, he murmured. Where’s Calla? He paid no attention to the Ponpet city address the phone poured into his ear, but when he got into his cab he slipped the device off from under his shirt collar and tapped it onto the pad mounted on the seat back in front of him.

The cab driver glanced at the address coming up on his dashboard screen. You’re in town for the funerals, sir?

Yes. He put the Action back around his neck and took the tablet from the left inside pocket of his jacket. Closing out the text of The Divine Comedy, which he was picking his way through in the original Italian, he glanced at the latest headlines. Her text to him had comprised links to the coverage, and two words only: She’s back. He had read it all during the flight: Three dead in shocking terrorist attack on the presidential palace. An attempt by unknown perpetrators to assassinate President Calla Ang. The president and seven-year-old Seylat injured but not critically, daughter Lilias dead along with devoted nanny and valiant bodyguard. Investigation continuing, the capital on lockdown. There had been no new developments in the last hour, and he put the tablet away again.

His name was on the permanent safe list at the airport and in all the internal security systems, so the checkpoints would automatically identify him as the passenger and pass the cab through. The phone tap also shared a number of minor details with the cabdriver — for instance, his list of favorite musicians.

Courteously the driver pulled a Shirley Bassey number up on the vehicle’s sound system. Her smoke-and-brass voice, so exotic to a time-traveling Victorian ear, was Jack’s current favorite. And she was British! He had thought he knew all her work, but this tune was unfamiliar, a live performance. His trained memory would retain the lyrics. But he murmured the title, Where Am I Going, into his Action so that he could seek the download out later, and upped the driver’s tip. A time traveler’s cultural literacy was necessarily spotty, but one of the grandest things about the 21st century was the incredible quantity of music. All music of past and present ever recorded was instantly available to him at the murmur of a name or title. For some time Jack had simply bypassed the arts, busy adapting to the future in more fundamental ways. But now after ten years he was gradually taking sips from the fire hose. Today Shirley Bassey, tomorrow perhaps Kings of Leon, or a clang band like Fuzion Swiss.

The security didn’t tighten until the cab pulled up at the funeral home. There he had to pass through a metal detector and leave his bag out in the lobby. Tall, lean, clean-shaven and Caucasian, he stood out in almost every way among this Asian crowd. His strongly-boned face and crisply curled dark-red hair were as alien as Jabba the Hutt, and about as popular. Experience had made him excruciatingly wary of her security apparatus. Any visit to her that didn’t involve a strip search was a good one. Finally he was there, at the very last place he wanted to be: an enormous room, packed with people and pungent with hundreds of wreaths and floral tributes. A pathetic small white coffin was set in the window bay. Entirely without volition his glance flew to meet hers, out of all the eyes in the room.

Jack!

The slight black-clad figure sped across the room into his arms, and he held her as if he had never let her go. He closed his eyes and tucked her head under his chin, his heart too full for more than a whisper of her name at first. The past decade fell away as she wept into his shirt front and he stroked her long black hair. Emotional time travel was as dangerous as every other kind, but resisting her misery was impossible. He found he was murmuring, Oh my dear, my dear. I can fix it . . .

His red head was bent over her black one, close enough for him to clearly catch her husband’s voice coming through her Action: Calla. There are cameras.

Her poise was perfect. There was no start of dismay or betraying sudden jerk. She let him go, saying, You came straight from the airport, Jack. How very kind of you — you must be tired.

I caught the earliest flight I could. And you, how are you? He surveyed her quickly — baby bump under the black dress, adhesive bandages covering half a dozen small wounds on her hands and face. Her only ornament was the small gold cross on the chain around her neck, below her phone.

She blew her nose on a handkerchief. All right. The baby’s still cooking along, and the cuts are superficial. The doctors say that Seylat’s sight won’t be affected. She gave him one glance, and he knew they would talk later.

Obediently he drifted off in the direction of the small group of Caucasians in the crowd, mostly local Action personnel. It seemed rude to slide into technical talk, yet there was otherwise very little to say except platitudes. He spoke no Jalanese, and so could not commiserate with the horde of relatives and friends surging in and out of the room. Now that old Madame Ang was gone Calla was the last of the storied Ang family, but she had married into Ben’s powerful and numerous clan. Over in a corner he saw young Seylat, bandaged around the forehead but apparently in good heart, in the charge of a pack of doting aunts. As he approached, Jordan Macateer, head of Asian operations for Action, gave him a nod of greeting. Hey, Jack.

Jor, how are you.

Jack was one of the tall thin geeks. Apparently it was a law of nature that the only other size was short and wide. Macateer was one of the latter sort, a balding man built like the fullback for a junior-sized football team. He said, Lousy to meet up like this. Four years old. My daughter went to Lilias’s birthday party in March.

A terrible thing. I hope they catch the perpetrators. It occurred to Jack that this was of some significance; Calla herself had nearly died at the age of four. He murmured Action and the go word, Query, four years old, to remind himself to consider it later.

Action etiquette meant that anything tagged as a go word could be ignored in conversation. Macateer continued, I didn’t realize there was so much substance behind the Ponpet scuttlebutt.

Eh?

About you and the President.

Jack could feel the heat coming up into his face, and the peltier function on his Action kicked in, cooling the back of his neck. Just a youthful fling. No future, so it ended by mutual consent.

Macateer raised an eyebrow, smirking. In the local mythology you’re the international man of mystery who wooed and nearly won the princess, until she was rescued by the boy next door. Macateer nodded at the other side of the room, where Calla stood now beside her splendidly uniformed husband. Ben was one of those big competent men, bulking impressively with his height and muscled shoulders over his exquisite wife. They looked like the cliché of a third-world military dictator and his arm-candy wife, an irony that made Jack smile in spite of himself. Macateer, clearly seeing something quite different, returned his grin with glee. Since we all know you’re one of the California geeks, I had it pegged as nothing but fantasy. But wow — you’re actually James Bond.

Jack gathered that James Bond, whoever he was, was also an Englishman. Protest would simply make the banter worse. A waiter came by with little handleless cups of tea, and Jack was able to take one and turn the conversation naturally. Okay with you if I set up camp at our building?

Sure. But we booked you a suite at the Mandarin Hotel.

I’d prefer an interactive environment.

No problemo. The shorter man beamed with pride. We have a pool app up on the roof, so you can swim.

Oh, excellent. Those are great fun.

A little while later someone tapped Jack’s arm. Colonel Ming, he said, turning. Ben. I’m so sorry for your loss. He held out his hand, only too late recalling previous experience. Ben’s huge hand wrung Jack’s lean one with agonizing power. Jack fell back on the Englishman’s stoicism, smiling blandly as if he felt nothing.

Jack. In the formal white dress uniform, with a chestful of medals and the diagonal red sash, Ben seemed armored in his rank, immune to the grief that oppressed his wife. The visitation’s going to be over in half an hour. Do you want to go to the morgue now, or leave it till tomorrow?

The funeral is tomorrow — it’s going to be a busy day. Let’s go now, if they’re open.

For me, they’re always open.

As they made their way out Ben was stopped time and again by friends or family with a condoling word. Jack hung back a little, not really necessary since he didn’t understand a word of the language, but because it seemed courteous. A stout older lady grabbed Ben’s sleeve, pouring out a flood of emotional Jalanese. Her husband, a thin dry gray-haired man also decked out in uniform, medals and sash, politely addressed Jack in English. So good of you to travel in for the funeral, Mr. Wragsland.

Alas, everyone knew his name here. Not at all, Jack said. I beg your pardon. I haven’t been to Ponpet in some years — you are?

I am Colonel Harlen Jie — my wife is a cousin of the late Madame Ang.

I see. Everyone in the upper classes was related in Jalanesia — it was what made politics so fraught. A wonderful old lady, sorely missed.

Indeed. The last of her kind. But you know the President well.

A long time ago. If Jack had known all this old scandal would be kicked up by one passionate hug he could have — what? Held her off at arm’s length?

This assassination attempt has shocked the nation. She must have bitter enemies.

A terrible thing, I agree. But Ben was moving on and with a nod to Jie Jack followed.

They sat glumly in the back of Ben’s chauffeured staff car as the vehicle plowed through rush hour traffic. The toot of car horns was nearly continuous, an obbligato to all doings in the roadways — Jalanesians were notorious for using their horns too much. The city looks to be thriving, Jack remarked. Every time he came Ponpet was visibly more advanced. On his first visit it had been a third-world backwater; now the city hummed with life. The street beggars and smell of sewage were gone. The people on the sidewalks looked prosperous, and there were palm trees newly planted along the gleaming main avenues. Over the years dirt roads had become asphalt and asphalt roads had acquired curbs, gutters, crosswalks, bike lanes, and traffic signals. Ponpet was now a regional hub and a tech powerhouse — a tribute to Calla’s excellent governance.

Yes, the economy’s booming. She hopes to get a new ring road built, to alleviate city congestion. Tie it into that monument going up for the old lady.

When he and Ben conversed, ‘she’ only ever meant one person. Madame Ang would have liked that, Jack said.

The crunch and tinkle of breaking glass and crumpling metal interrupted him. Ahead and in the lane to the right, one car had sideswiped another. The hooting of vehicle horns redoubled, and the car passengers boiled out to argue in blistering Jalanese.

See that? Ben said. Now we got all the problems that go with growth. Traffic fatalities are zooming — a couple thousand Jalanesians bite the dust every year. Everybody in Ponpet drives like an idiot. She’s thinking of mandatory lessons tied to license renewal.

Their official car edged slowly past the tumult, and the blasting horns fell away behind them. When they picked up speed again Jack said, Where we’re going — do you wish me to . . . I don’t know, claim the body?

I need you to identify it. Calla can’t go through such a stress.

No indeed, of course not.

The remains will be kept for the investigation. Unless you have specific wishes about afterwards —

Not in the slightest. I’m happy to leave everything to you.

They pulled around to the back premises of the familiar sprawling police headquarters block. It was not Jack’s first or even his second visit, but he was older now. He had no words for what had happened to him here, at least not English ones — there were Latin terms. His brutal incarceration could be measured in hours. Was it the part of a man, to let such a brief interlude cast such a long shadow? Worse things happened at sea. He was aware that Ben was keeping an eye on him, but his physical reactions — the chilling skin, the increased heart rate, the quiver of queasiness — were probably invisible. Again Jack schooled himself to show nothing. Clinical analysis would divert the mind.

When he last had been incarcerated here, the place had been set afire in an attempt to smoke him out. He looked for the old damage. But everything had been repaired and painted — it was ten years ago, after all. It was the past. It was over.

Officers saluted Ben and ushered them down linoleum hallways to the morgue. Harsh fluorescent lights glared down as a morgue worker pulled a long refrigerated drawer out and released a powerful chilly smell of disinfectant and chemicals. A white plastic body bag lay on the perforated tray. Ben jerked a thumb and everyone filed out, leaving them alone. When he made no further motion it was borne in upon Jack that he was going to have to unzip the bag. The zipper slide was so cold it seemed to burn his fingers as he gingerly teased it down just far enough to reveal the head. He could tell that further down the body was naked. The hair was strawberry blonde, matted with black blood and greasy brain matter, and the face was considerably disfigured.

But he recognized it. Yes, I identify her. This is my sister. Frances Allen-Forstyth was the name she used, last I heard. His voice did not sound like his own.

Sign this, then. Ben passed him a tablet and he scrawled his full name, Josiah Garamond Wragsland, in the indicated space on a form which he could not read.

Jack stood and stared down at the gruesome pallid face without seeing it, thinking so hard that it was a complete surprise when Ben grabbed him by the shirt front. His hands were the size of frisbees and as strong as steel clamps. He slammed Jack back hard against the morgue drawers. The crash of metal was tremendous, but nobody came in.

This is all your fault, Ben snarled into his face, barely above a whisper. You fucking egghead bastard. You have lived too long, dragging my kids, my wife into your blood-soaked time travel feuds. Lilias’s blood is on your hands, you know that? I could kill you now without leaving a mark, just twist your neck like a chicken’s. I have the doctors here by the balls — they’ll tell her that you had a heart attack at the sight of your sister’s body. We could shovel you into the next drawer right here.

Over six feet tall, Jack was only a little taller than the other man and far less strong, perhaps thirty pounds lighter. This was chillingly reminiscent of his previous ugly experiences in this building. But he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was not in the least afraid. A moment’s thought told him why. If you really intend to break my neck, you’re not so foolish as to give me warning.

The big hands at his throat were immovable as brown granite, and the metal handle of a morgue drawer dug painfully into his shoulder blade. But he kept his voice level. I apologize for that hug — it must have been a severe trial to you, and in front of your entire family, too. But I couldn’t stop her, you know. She was beside herself.

Damn you. Ben let him go. She has never gotten over you, he added bitterly. If only she’d lived with you a while, you would have driven her nuts, and then it would have died a natural death.

She’s a smart girl, Jack pointed out. She dumped me for you. Automatically he touched his device to be sure it was undamaged. And I’m entirely at peace with that. Remember my wife? Marilee sends you both her condolences, but she has a project deadline in Dubai that wouldn’t shift. Calla was upset, and meant nothing by it.

It would be such a pleasure, Ben said longingly, to kill you like a dog.

Mmm, you might want to reconsider that. Are you aware that this is probably not the only Fanny Allen-Forstyth?

Ben gasped. What’s that you say?

My sister was looking for me, Jack said, thoughtfully. But the one lying here can’t be the only one. This one was sent in as a probe — to smoke me out. A first attempt. A little judicious time travel, and there are as many multiples of you as you like, to do things with. I did that purely accidentally, but someone — somewhere, in some timeline — was clever enough to learn from my mistakes. That is a person that you will need my help to fix.

Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ. How can you know that?

It’s the sensible thing to do, Jack said, if only you are totally devoid of scruple. And to judge from events, someone out there in space and time is indeed pitiless. Yes, I know I’m in some sense to blame, Ben. Please — let me help to fix it.

The last thing I want is your help. Ben’s face was strong and wide — in age he would become jowly. Now it was like iron. It’s my job to take care of her, not yours. You are no good for her. You have been nothing but misery for her from the first moment she laid eyes on you. I do not want you in her life.

The truth of this hit sharply home. But Jack was well familiar with guilt and shame, and recognized it now in Ben’s face. If a man fails his daughter, he has truly failed. Yet here I am, he replied, mildly. She needs my help. I’m no rival, Ben. Think of me as your tech consultant, in from out of town to track down a nasty bug in your systems. There’s no shame in subcontracting out the pest control to an expert. I’ll recalibrate your interactives, juice up the virus shields, and then I’m out of here. He was acutely aware that if he foolishly mentioned that the situation was utterly beyond Ben, or pointed out that the decision lay solely with Calla, he might indeed wind up in the next morgue drawer with a broken neck.

Ben drew in a breath so deep that the gold embossed buttons on his white uniform jacket strained in their buttonholes. All right, he growled. "You’re a consultant. A temporary consultant. Radiating an almost visible reluctance, he went on, Tomorrow after the funeral there’ll be a gigantic family gathering. But the day after tomorrow, I’ll send a car in the morning for you. She — we have to talk."

Jack nodded. I am at her disposal. Carefully he zipped the body bag shut again, and Ben helped him push the drawer in.

Chapter 2

The sprawling military base at Dazan Harbor represented everything Jack found uncongenial about Jalanesia — the militarism, the walls topped with triple rolls of razor wire. Carefully he did not focus on the swarming uniformed men, heavily armed and empowered to demand his papers, his devices, even his clothing. And there was that frisson from another time line, a nuclear Jalanesia 2, where this base had been a smoking radioactive ruin. Hiding her here was a sort of defeat, a falling-back that he knew she would despise. At the Commandant’s mansion he said to Ben, I hope you plan to rebuild Orchid House.

I’d prefer a much more protected residence.

It can be done. Jack cast a deploring glance at the spartan hallway they were passing through. You have no idea how well it can be done. I’ll have Marilee call Calla.

However, the main sitting room was comfortable enough in the local style, with the usual high ceilings and view of the outdoors. There was no garden, only what seemed to be a drill ground. Calla sat on a sofa with her feet up staring out at the hot dry graveled enclosure. The customary large low table stood before her, and a second sofa was set at right angles to the first.

Don’t get up, he said. He crossed over quickly to take her hand, the one with the ruby solitaire and wedding band. He omitted the allowed kiss of greeting; their rule was only in public. Besides, Ben was directly behind him, and his back felt rather vulnerable.

She took this in, but that she didn’t call him on it showed how stricken she still was. Look at you, Jack. With her other hand she touched his dark-red hair. You’re starting on some gray.

I may hope for some dignity yet. And how are you, Calla?

I feel like a sponge, weepy all the time. I’ve always been a crier, but this is getting old.

He noted that she was still dressed in black. Grief is natural at this point.

Vengeance is better, Ben said. His dark gaze was ferociously cold.

She didn’t move, but for a moment she looked quite different, the pretty flower-pale face so dangerous that his hand twitched back from hers as if from hot iron. That’s right, Ben, she said, in an entirely colder tone. That cow. I thought she was dead, Jack. But Ben says you have another idea.

He sat on the other sofa, where he could see her. Her fragile beauty was so exquisite it was easy to forget that she was an Ang, the daughter and granddaughter of stone-cold killers. Whoever was responsible for Lilias’s murder was as good as dead; the only question was what date to carve on the tombstone. No one in Calla’s family had ever forgotten or forgiven a wrong. It was the most foreign thing about her.

Tell me then, he said. Everything that happened, from the beginning. You were in the sitting room, at Orchid House?

The entire invasion had only taken a few minutes, so there was not much to tell. Military training made Ben a good observer, and Calla had not lost her former skill in giving him a satisfactory account of strange happenings.

What I don’t understand, he mused, is Fan’s violence. Why the murder and destruction? That’s why there has to be someone else behind her. If she had just popped in and asked for a cup of tea and my address, you would have obliged her and had a comfortable coze about my doings. A ladylike afternoon call would have been so much less wasteful and inefficient. Minimalism is always better.

We can find out, Ben said. Just find me a culprit, and my guys can turn their head inside out.

Ben has her stuff, Jack. Everything that came with Fanny.

Jack nodded. I should like to see that.

Ben spoke into his Action and then looked at her. Calla, do you want to take a nap?

No. I want to see everything.

Neither man said anything more as a military aide came in and set two large cardboard boxes onto the long campaign table at one side of the room. Jack knew perfectly well that a reference to her pregnancy would simply make Calla stubborn, and it was good to see that her husband knew it too.

Ben lifted the lid of one box and then shut it again. Her clothing. Messy.

What about her weapon? You said it was strange.

We couldn’t find it. I had a squad sift the rubble, even.

Jack frowned. That’s very bad. You saw it, both of you. In use. Can you sketch it, perhaps?

Calla shook her head. I’m sorry, Jack. I never got a good look. There were . . . other people in the way.

Ben rubbed his forehead with thumb and forefinger. Let me try.

He sat down at the table with a pad and pencil. Meanwhile Jack lifted the lid of the other box. It was full of plastic storage bags, zipped shut. He lifted one out and unzipped it. Inside was metal confetti, slips of bright thin metal each about a centimeter square. They could have been a party decoration, except that many of them were dirty. A brownish stain. These were sifted out of the wreckage?

There were nearly three bushels, all alike. Only part of them are here, the ones my guys sifted out at Orchid House. The ones from — from the autopsies are part of the medical evidence.

Oh. Calla choked back a sob. Lilias . . .

She wept silently, without a sound. Jack focused on the bag in his hands. He hunched over a little, fighting back the urge to tell Ben to drop the sketch and go over and comfort her. Doing that would surely touch off the other man’s reflexive jealousy again, and that would be both unkind and imprudent when so much needed to be fixed. But it was very difficult indeed to concentrate when she was unhappy.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to endure long. Ben flung down the pencil and went over. Jack spent a good five minutes examining the sketch, not looking at the sofa, giving her a chance to recover.

Ben had drawn it like the illustrations in ballistics manuals, a side view: a simple pistol grip and a wide funnel-shaped muzzle. It did not look like any gun Jack had ever seen, even in a movie. There seemed to be no magazine, no way to store or propel several bushels of deadly metal confetti. A feeder hose, perhaps, from the grip to some canister out of view behind the long skirts and the strange darkness?

It was a surprise, when he did glance up, to see Ben on his knees by the sofa with his big arms around his wife’s waist. The two black heads were bowed together in misery. It was too easy to forget that here was a bereaved father as well as a grieving mother; Ben was as good as repressing emotion as any Englishman. Although Jack knew he could probably hack their internal Action systems, it was more polite to physically get up and grab an orderly passing in the hall outside, and demand tea in the President’s name.

The tea helped. Jack sat on the other side of the low table in front of the sofa, sipping and listening. Their brainstorming was clearly restorative but somewhat hair-raising. It was like listening to two predators mulling their next hunt: a little tigress and a big bear.

She’ll be back, Ben said in low passionate tones. She’s looking for him. Suppose we keep him someplace, not here at Dazan but someplace we set up in advance. Up north with Jie at Forstaga Base, maybe. As bait.

If she’s going to come back, I want him safe, Calla objected. Jie is a snake, too pushy for his own good. Dazan is better because we have manpower. The First Brigade —

"Never, not with you here. It has to be far away, so that all the risk is on him. A trap. With him as the cheese. And one nice little