But why would her future self even try to kill their mutual past self? Was there something waiting in Susan's future that would make that necessary? Or did she have to try in her future simply because she now saw her future self trying, even though she might know by the time she became that future self that it would not work?
That sort of thinking intensified her headache. She simply couldn't continue to think about it. For now, all she could do was push those thoughts down, and fight to maintain consciousness.
Clawing her way up the other's body, Susan reached for the gun. She caught her duplicate's wrist just as that other brought the weapon's barrel to bear on Susan's head. With all her strength, she wrenched its aim away, and it went off, a searing lance of green light that burned a hole into the overhead.
Just then, the hatch beyond the flames creaked fully open.
Simultaneously, both Susan and her future self turned their attention toward the sound. Dressed in Fleet red with commander's stripes sewn on her sleeves, their past self stood framed in the open hatch. The newcomer stared wide-eyed at the impossible scene in front of her.
And suddenly Susan knew what had caused her amnesia ten years ago. She had opened the hatch into Engineering's berthing compartment to witness two duplicates of herself battling each other. It was no wonder she had flushed everything surrounding that observance from her memory.
She felt the pistol move under her hand-the way she had been forcing it, away from herself. The momentum she gave it was working to the other's advantage now. The pistol's aim slid toward the open hatch, centering on her past self standing framed in it.
Instantly Susan knew what she must do. She let go of the hand holding the pistol and reached to the pendant at her future self's throat. Without thought, she pulled.
The chain's soft silver links parted as it slipped from the other's neck, then she vanished from Susan's grasp.
Susan stood as still as a stone, staring at that past self across the compartment. That other still stood in the open hatchway, watching with wide, glazed eyes, her face expressionless. She was in shock.
Susan, too, was having trouble focusing her mind, and somehow her body refused to function. What had just occurred bordered on the impossible. She had killed a future self, while a past self-a duplicate common to both Susan's and that future self's past-looked on.
If she had been told what would happen even a day ago, she would not have believed it. Yet, it had happened. She had lived the occurrences leading up to that climactic moment a few seconds ago. As improbable as they seemed, she knew they were true.
Her head throbbed. Not only did she have to contend with the headache caused by this strange time jumping, but now there was another pain, centered more to the back of her head. Although it was less intense than that other headache, somehow it possessed a sharp fierceness all its own. Her duplicate from a future time had struck her with the blaster, and she was positive that had caused a concussion.
But she didn't have time to worry about that now. An earlier version of herself stood on the far side of the compartment, staring blankly in her direction. That other needed Susan's help.
Ten years ago Susan had had help from a future self in saving as much of her crew as possible. At her court-martial it had been said more than once that she seemed to be in several places at once, doing more than humanly possible for her crew. She knew now that, in fact, she had been in more than one place at a time.
Again that circular thinking. It increased the pain in her head when she thought like that. She pushed those thoughts from her mind and slipped her vanished duplicate's pendant into a pouch at her waist. Then she put her arms up in front of her face to protect her eyes from the flames, and took a step toward her past self.
The heat was so intense it burned the sleeves of her uniform. She stepped back and looked down at her prosthetic arms. The specially formulated plastic had melted away, exposing their metal skeleton and electronics.
Again she looked at the wall of fire. The heat was too intense. Her prosthetic arms would not survive if she stepped through those flames.
As she watched, her past self moved. Still without life in her expression, that other brought her arms up before her own eyes, then stepped toward Susan, through the wall of flame.
Chapter Twenty-eight
This jump was the worst she had yet experienced. She made half a dozen attempts before she finally left Defiant, and arrived back in her proper time. The resulting physical effects were nearly dehabilatating.
She stood trembling in the corridor outside Hyatt's office, the headache pulsing behind her eyes. Her uniform was soiled, stained, torn, and burned, and her hair and eyebrows were singed. Beneath dirty rag bandages, the plastic covering her prosthetic arms and hands was melted away, exposing their complicated electronics and mechanics. The first thing she had done, after bringing her past self somewhat out of shock, was to bandage them, so neither her past self nor Defiant's crew would see them. She didn't want that crew any more panicked than it already was.
The previous forty-eight hours had been horrible. For two straight days she had helped her past self battle fires, dress wounds, and comfort the dying. She was exhausted-both physically and mentally.
Somewhere in all that, someone had bandaged her head, although she could remember neither who nor when. But the pain in her head did not come from the crack her future self had given her with the blaster butt. This headache had been caused by a multitude of jumps through time.
Then the snowflake pattern appeared in her mind, and she began mouthing the mantra. It did still less good this time than it had the times before-more of the headache remained when she was finished reciting the chant than had the last time.
Susan stepped to the door and it irised open. The outer office was empty. She went through to the door to the inner office, and it opened as she approached. Within, the future Hyatt sat behind the desk, going through a stack of computer printouts. The blaster pistol rested on the desk within quick reach.
"So, you are back," he said, looking up from the stack of papers. His hand went to the pistol, rested on it, but he did not pick it up.
Susan took what she hoped was a casual step toward the desk and nodded. If she could bluff him into thinking she was the other Susan, her future self…
Hyatt picked up the pistol and pointed it at her. "It won't work," he said. "Step back." He waved the pistol in her direction.
"How did you know?" she asked as she stepped away from the desk. "How could you tell?"
He smiled. "I wasn't really expecting the other Susan back. That's the way it had to be."
"Had to be? You mean, my duplicate actually knew she wouldn't succeed?"
Hyatt nodded. "Of course she knew."
"Then why even try?"
"Because she had to, because she had watched herself try five years ago, in your place. Remember, she already experienced everything you just went through." Again, that circular thinking.
"But if she had succeeded-if she had killed our past self-she would have died, too."
"Not necessarily. Only if she had lost her pendant after she'd killed that past self. And she would have taken your pendant as soon as she'd killed that other. At that point, you would have ceased to exist."
"That's what I mean," Susan said. "She was taking the same chance. She was putting herself in jeopardy, as well."