When he arrived, some of his team was already there, setting up tents and equipment. Looking around, he was relieved not to see any of the fanatics. His eyes were drawn back to the beam of light that emerged from the ground. It was as impressive as he remembered it.

“Prof. Roche!”

Halden turned to look at the woman who was hurrying toward him, waving. She, like the others, was wearing a special suit the visor had had designed for them. But still he recognized the dark red hair and fiery attitude.

“You shouldn’t get any closer,” she went on. “Not dressed like that. Come over here.” She pointed to an isolated tent a few feet to the side. “That’s where we stock all the suits, and a few other things.”

He nodded as he followed her.

“How are things going here, Nimida?”

She glanced toward the column.

“I’d never seen anything like it. It’s incredible! How can we harness something so powerful?”

Halden wasn’t going to discuss that now. They would go into it at their first meeting—as soon as he had his suit on.

“Was there anyone on site when you arrived?”

They entered the tent and she moved to the back, lifting a container’s lid as she responded.

“You’d have to ask Corey and Hesch. They got here first but didn’t mention anything unusual. Here, try this one.”

Halden saw her pull a suit out of the box and hand it to him.

“No strange occurrences either?” he asked as he grabbed it.

She gave him a look while he started to put on his new garb.

“You mean stranger than a beam of light shooting from the depths of the earth?”

He chuckled as he finished dressing up.

“I guess that answers my question. Alright. Let’s go join the others.”

They stepped out of the tent and walked toward the rest of the team.

“I know you asked my brother to join us,” the woman said, “but he’s been delayed. Family emergency.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“His wife is giving birth even as we speak.”

“Oh. Isn’t that his fourth?”

“Fifth.”

“Maybe I should ask for someone else. His family is going to need him.”

“Please don’t do that. He’d be devastated. Besides, you have no idea how crazy things can get at home for him with all those kids. The vacation will do him good.”

“Vacation?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

She chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

Halden wasn’t sure the man would find this mission as peaceful as he expected, but he said nothing.

They reached the others as they finished setting up the command tent. He would spend most of his time here in the coming weeks, possibly months. It really was more of a large shed than a tent. It had flexible selite walls and a flat glass roof equipped with solar panels. The latter would provide enough power for all of their equipment.

He shook hands with everyone, counting as he went. Four people were missing.

“You must all have many questions,” he said. “Let’s go inside. I’ll give you a brief and some answers. I’d have waited for everyone to be here, but time is of the essence. So you’ll just have to update them as they arrive.”

The structure had been designed to accommodate large staffs. It had a workstation where they would place their laboratory and measuring equipment, a meeting room, a couple of offices, and a resting area.

Nimida Taar led them to the meeting room, which still was mostly empty. They grabbed some folding chairs on the way and used them to settle in a semi-circle facing the professor.

He then told them about everything. The first time he’d been here, his encounter with the fanatics and what they had said about the Fault, how one of them had pushed him into the beam, and what he had experienced inside. The only things he left out were the bits about Lucy—those were too personal.

When he was done, he read disbelief on their faces.

“Time travel?” said Jeshin Kunden. “You realize there have been many attempts to pull that off in past centuries, and they always failed.”

The dark-haired man had worked at the IAS longer than any of them. He was an authority in the history of science... but more importantly, he had a Cartesian mind that always questioned everything. That was something Halden needed to keep him rooted—especially here when dealing with such an alien phenomenon.

“I am well aware. But all those attempts were made by humans. This...” He looked up through the glass roof at the column of light that rose in the sky above their heads. “This is something else entirely. It’s not even a machine. It is thilium in its rawest form. We’ve never dealt with such a large amount before.”

“So we’re not here to harness its energy?” asked Taar.

“We are. But it’s only a small part of our mission. We need to understand the Fault’s nature and see if we can use it to our advantage.”

“To build a time machine?”

Halden blinked as he looked at the man who had spoken. Wayland Hesch was the youngest on his team, and possibly the brightest.

“I hadn’t considered that possibility, but I suppose it is an option.”

“Then what did you have in mind?”

“You can’t be thinking of going back in,” said Taar with some apprehension.

“It might take years to study this thing, let alone control it—assuming we ever can.” Halden sighed. “The aliens are here, my friends. They have already killed billions of citizens. We cannot afford to linger. We must act. Now.”

“From what you told us, you experienced random scenes. How do you know you’ll get anything useful from going back in?”

Padan Sadash nodded. “To be honest, professor, what you’re proposing feels like grasping at straws in the dark.”

Sadash was born on a rimworld to a poor family. Early on, his mind had set him apart and had allowed him to rise from the muck. An Imperial colonel stationed nearby had noticed the boy’s intelligence and had helped him get an education—which in turn had led him to the IAS.

“Which is why you’re all here. You are going to help me control this thing.”

“You said it yourself, it could take years to achieve that!”

Halden grinned. “I had a different type of control in mind. It’s not so much about controlling that...” He pointed to the sky without looking up. “But rather about controlling me.”

“What?”

The two women and three of the four men looked confused. Hesch did not. He chuckled.

“You mean for us to pull you out whenever you need it. We’d be controlling your movements.”

The professor nodded.

“You’d still see random things,” remarked Cara Corey.

Hesch’s blonde companion was tall, mischievous, and especially good with numbers.

Her friend made a dismissive gesture. “We could pull him out and toss him back in within a minute. We could keep doing so until something useful came up.”

“I don’t know about tossing,” said Halden with a cough, “but that’s the general idea.”

“It’s undignified,” muttered Omar Bellem.

With his graying hair and beard and the wrinkles on his face, this man was the oldest among them. Though he’d joined the IAS only recently, he had built things since he was a child, in secrecy, making life easier for everyone around him.

Halden sighed. “What we need now is not dignity but results. And this is the fastest way to get them. Now, how about we get to work?”