The Gate to Futures Past Read online

  The Finest in DAW Science Fiction and Fantasy by JULIE E. CZERNEDA:

  THE CLAN CHRONICLES:

  Stratification:

  REAP THE WILD WIND (#1)

  RIDERS OF THE STORM (#2)

  RIFT IN THE SKY (#3)

  The Trade Pact:

  A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER (#1)

  TIES OF POWER (#2)

  TO TRADE THE STARS (#3)

  Reunification:

  THIS GULF OF TIME AND STARS (#1)

  THE GATE TO FUTURES PAST (#2)

  TO GUARD AGAINST THE DARK (#3)*

  NIGHT’S EDGE:

  A TURN OF LIGHT (#1)

  A PLAY OF SHADOW (#2)

  SPECIES IMPERATIVE:

  SURVIVAL (#1)

  MIGRATION (#2)

  REGENERATION (#3)

  WEB SHIFTERS:

  BEHOLDER’S EYE (#1)

  CHANGING VISION (#2)

  HIDDEN IN SIGHT (#3)

  IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Copyright © 2016 by Julie E. Czerneda.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Jacket art by Matt Stawicki.

  Jacket designed by G-Force Design.

  Jacket photograph by Roger Czerneda.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1732.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Also by Julie E. Czerneda

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Previously, in the Clan Chronicles

  Part One: Subspace

  Prelude

  Chapter 1

  Interlude

  Chapter 2

  Interlude

  Chapter 3

  Interlude

  Chapter 4

  Interlude

  Chapter 5

  Interlude

  Chapter 6

  Interlude

  Chapter 7

  Interlude

  Chapter 8

  Interlude

  Chapter 9

  Interlude

  Chapter 10

  Interlude

  Chapter 11

  Interlude

  Chapter 12

  Interlude

  Chapter 13

  Interlude

  Part Two: Brightfall

  Prelude

  Chapter 14

  Interlude

  Chapter 15

  Interlude

  Chapter 16

  Interlude

  Chapter 17

  Interlude

  Chapter 18

  Interlude

  Chapter 19

  Interlude

  Chapter 20

  Interlude

  Chapter 21

  Interlude

  Chapter 22

  Interlude

  Chapter 23

  Interlude

  Chapter 24

  Interlude

  Chapter 25

  Interlude

  Chapter 26

  Interlude

  Chapter 27

  Interlude

  Chapter 28

  Interlude

  Chapter 29

  Interlude

  Chapter 30

  Interlude

  Chapter 31

  Interlude

  Chapter 32

  Interlude

  Chapter 33

  Interlude

  Chapter 34

  Interlude

  Chapter 35

  Interlude

  Chapter 36

  Morgan

  Interlude

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  To Lili Pasternak, Mentor, Friend, and Colleague, and to the Biology Department of the University of Waterloo.

  Looking back, my career’s been shaped most by tiny dynamos. While I’m hardly tall, and may have been compared to a power generator myself, each time I’ve been with any of these three women? In the company of giants, plain and simple. I’ve talked about my fiction editor-dear and publisher, Sheila Gilbert of DAW. In the final book of this trilogy, I’ll introduce you to my non-fiction editor and publisher. Today?

  It’s time you learned of Lili Pasternak. (Unless you attended the University of Waterloo in the almost thirty years she was there.) To me, Lili was the face and voice of biology. Literally. I walked into my first lab, breathless with excitement and some trepidation—after all, this was UNIVERSITY—to be confronted by rows of television screens, each filled the image of a dapper, dark-haired woman in an immaculate lab coat.

  Busy staring, I tripped over a stool. Understand, this was 1973. Not even science fiction had prepared me for a virtual teacher.

  Lili was far more than that. Yes, her videos introduced every lab, from procedure to her expectations, but I grew convinced she lived in the hall where the labs were taking place, ever-available, ever-ready to help. I’d spot her approaching—didn’t matter that her students were taller—and feel awe. That glorious white lab coat. That efficient calm.

  Here was Science.

  As Lili’s husband Jack will tell you (Dr. Jack Pasternak, Professor Emeritus), of course Lili didn’t live in Biology II; she simply was there when her students needed her. Later, when I came back to U. of W. as staff (stepping into Lili’s shoes, in fact, though I never dared the videos), we became great friends. Lili hosted a baby shower for our first child. She even helped arrange the Octoberfest reunion with staff for our “Bunch” of graduates.

  As for my career? Lili showed me the joy that is teaching science and was responsible for my first work as a non-fiction author: I revised and updated the lab manuals. The ones from which she’d originally taught me, a privilege indeed.

  I’d like to thank the University of Waterloo and all who’ve shared and share their love of science and learning there. You let me romp in what I love best, under the guidance of extraordinary professors such as Drs. Hynes, Morton, Thompson, and Hawthorn, to name but a few. Bonus? You’ve given me friends for life, including that chemistry partner I married, Roger.

  And you gave me, and so many, Lili Pasternak.

  Missed, but never forgotten.

  Acknowledgments

  How about that cover? Matt Stawicki, you are a genius! Thank you. My thanks also to the fine folks at DAW. Josh, you never cease to amaze with your dedication to quality and how you find ways to answer my authorly whims. Sheila, we’ll be down to celebrate.

  Drumroll, please, dear readers. It worked!

  I refer to This Gulf of Time and Stars, my return to the story of Sira and Morgan begu
n so long ago, I’ve decided to call it “then.” Then, I’d no idea where it would go or that anyone else would read it. Now? Oh now, I do know, and you’ve come along with me. Thank you.

  Especially those who dared be first to blurb, for this was a great deal to ask. Hey, read my novel, it’s about stuff you haven’t seen before or if you have, it was . . . “then!” My heartfelt gratitude to these fantastic authors whose work I love, for reading mine for me: Doranna Durgin, Kari Sperring, Violette Malan, Vonda McIntyre (who read Gulf while packing to be the Worldcon GOH!), Stephen Leigh, Marie Bilodeau, Ursula Pflug, Kristi Charish, Catherine Asaro, Tobias Buckell, and Rhondi Salsitz (as Jenna Rhodes). And, because time travel works in here, I’m able to thank Karina Sumner-Smith for crying (twice) over Gate. When you can do that to your friends? Life is good.

  When a blog tour works, why not triple it? (Ask me one day.) I was hosted around the world online for the 21 days of my #TimeAndStarsTour and, while I’ve no room to name all of my wonderful blog hosts here, please know how very much I appreciate your hard work, enthusiasm, and skill. We rocked the internet! I’m grateful to DAW Books, particularly Katie Hoffman, Sarah Guan, and Nita Basu, for prizes and support, as well as Audible books for theirs. Allyson Johnson? Fun, wasn’t it? Thanks!

  There’s one host I must acknowledge. For years, SF Signal has been The Place to celebrate—and think—about genre work. You’ve been a mainstay for myself and so many. John, Kristin, and Paul, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It’s been a honor. And Paul? What you’ve said about my work has inspired me and I won’t forget.

  There’ve been adventures in the real world too. Thanks, Coldwater Steampunk, for hosting me, and to Nicola and Saskatoon’s Word on the Street for making me part of your excellent festival. The University of Saskatchewan Biology Department welcomed me back with open arms, giving me memories to treasure. Thank you all, especially Interim Dean Peta Bonham-Smith, Professor Jeanette Lynes, and Biology Department Head Ken Wilson. Thanks also to Betsy Rosenwald for publicity and Dot Clemens-Brown, who took excellent care of me. When I dedicated Gulf to Jan, I never imagined returning to USask or that we’d sit together at Timmies to talk about him again. My deepest thanks to Jean Smith and her family for their welcome.

  As if 2015 wasn’t great enough, (and it was, trust me) I’d SFContario and Canvention. Thank you, readers, for surprising me so utterly with the Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel (for A Play of Shadow) that I cried out, “WHaaaAT?!” Eloquent, that. (Thanks, Chris, for the after party and all else.)

  The winner of the DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund) auction, Alex Lindsay, generously gave me his family to tuck into this book as characters. Hi Family! Surprise! Alison (Alisi Di), Paul the navy guy (Pauvan Di), and Emily (Milly Su). I hope you enjoy what I’ve done to you. Other character-namers continued into this book and I’d like to acknowledge them as well: Holly (Holl) and Lee (Leesems), as well as Ruth and Tim (Ruti). It’s been a ride and I’m thrilled you were part of it. Those who know me will guess the brothers-three now become planets (Yont, Hilip, and Oger). Welcome, Susan Bound and Lee Datzell (Susibou Di/Susi di Annk and Lee di Annk). Susan, thank you for so generously sharing your memories of Andre Norton with me. And my hearty congratulations to Agatha and Brad, fans of Sira and Morgan. Clear skies!

  To our beloved Kate, Kevin, Josh, and Alfie. Here’s to summer barbeques, gardens, wildlife, and the Bills. The path between’s a bit longer now; it’ll always be open.

  To my family, wherever you may be when reading this. Stop and pinch yourselves every so often, because isn’t life amazing? (By all means, say “WHaaaAT?” too.)

  Last and never least, thank you, dear readers.

  To quote Roger?

  “Let the adventure begin!”

  Previously, in the Clan Chronicles

  Sira di Sarc could pass for Human. She isn’t. She’s one of the humanoid Clan, aliens who live, scattered, on Human worlds. The Clan have an innate ability to move their thoughts—and bodies—through the dimensionless M’hir, an ability they use to manipulate Humans vulnerable to mental suggestion and to keep their true nature secret.

  Sira is the most powerful of her kind yet born, and a Chooser, a female ready to Join for life and Commence, her body becoming reproductively mature. To the dismay of her kind, no unChosen is a match for her strength in the M’hir; should they try, she can’t help but kill them. Deliberate breeding for greater strength has brought the Clan to this, and Sira knows she’s only the first. Within a generation no Joinings will be possible. The Clan faces extinction.

  Desperate for a solution, willing to experiment only on herself, Sira blocks all memory of who and what she is, adding compulsions to seek out a Human telepath and attempt to Join with him. Clan find Humans repugnant, their vast numbers terrifying. Sira’s hope, however faint, is that being near one with a similar Power will trigger her body to Commence.

  Instead, she meets Jason Morgan, captain of the Silver Fox and learns how to love.

  Together, her mind and memory restored, Sira and Morgan fend off attempts by the Clan and others to seize Sira’s Power for themselves. In so doing, they learn the M’hir isn’t simply a dangerous void, but filled with its own version of life, including the Rugherans, who exist there and here. Sira assumes leadership of her people and, with the help of Enforcer Lydis Bowman, brings the Clan into the Trade Pact.

  Surely, with the expertise of thousands of other species, her own can be saved.

  But the Clan didn’t evolve in Human space. They arrived there, through the M’hir, having fled their original home. Their memories were left behind and most Clan believed their kind went through a stratification, into those able to use the M’hir and those who could not. All they have is a handful of tattered belongings and family names. To most Clan, including Sira, their past is unimportant.

  They are wrong.

  The Clan have forgotten they were once the Om’ray, sharing the planet Cersi with the sluglike Oud and the agile Tikitik. Oud and Tikitik managed separate Clans of Om’ray, each in their place, providing each the necessities of life.

  And ending that life when they chose.

  One of Sira’s ancestors was Aryl Sarc, also powerful. Aryl was the first Om’ray to detect the M’hir and to move through it. She was the first to meet and befriend a totally new sort of being, a Human named Marcus Bowman. For Cersi was a world of interest to those who traveled the stars, rumored to be possessed of singular treasure: relics of the Hoveny Concentrix, the greatest interstellar civilization ever known. Marcus and his people arrived first, to conduct research and observe.

  Others came to pillage.

  Already strained by the rise of new abilities in the Om’ray, the pirate incursion disrupted the Balance, the agreement between Cersi’s races. The Oud and Tikitik lashed out, Om’ray caught between. Marcus was captured by pirates and tortured. Aryl gathered her people, the M’hiray, to do the only thing they could: run. They believed without them, the Balance would be restored and the rest of the Om’ray be saved. Using a device to strip away their connection and memories of Cersi, Aryl and her people used Marcus’ final memory to decide where to go, for the M’hir has no markers or guide, only remembered places.

  Their great Passage brought the M’hiray into a part of the universe teeming with Humans and other strange aliens, adrift on a world full of technology they didn’t understand and faced with dangers they couldn’t have imagined. Desperate, Aryl and the others hunted for help only to find the wrong kind. Criminals tried to kill them for the Hoveny artifacts they’d brought, and they were forced to use their Power against Humans to survive. Afraid of the consequences, the M’hiray used their new wealth to buy seclusion and privacy. Calling themselves the Clan, they made secrecy their new way of life, protecting it with their abilities.

  But choices made generations ago create consequences of their own. When Sira exposes her people in order to find them a
future, she also exposes them to their waiting enemies. The Clan of the Trade Pact are decimated by attacks coordinated by those they’d once manipulated, carried out by the alien Assemblers. They flee back to Cersi. Sira, their leader still, carries new life within her, life created by parthenogenesis and filled with the stored consciousness of her ancestor Aryl. They find themselves in the Cloisters of Sona, but there’s no welcome waiting.

  Cersi’s Om’ray are on the brink of annihilation, for the Balance was never restored between Tikitik and Oud. The Oud are now in ascendance, their new Minded caste hunting Om’ray who can awaken the Hoveny technology they covet. The Om’ray are trapped where they live, dying as the Oud reshape their world. Only the Vyna Clan are safe, able to travel through the M’hir, but they use their ability to dreadful purpose: stealing children and resources from other clans.

  Morgan and the newly arrived M’hiray scientists uncover the truth: that Cersi was an experiment designed to test if Om’ray could become capable of using the M’hir. The giant Cloisters are starships, not buildings, built to maintain and monitor the participants. Although begun as a cooperative venture between Om’ray, Oud, and Tikitik, the experiment faltered, imprisoning them all until even the memory of why they’d come and who they’d been was lost.

  Until now. Sira is the culmination of those long-ago hopes, as are the other M’hiray, returned at last. Sona’s starship reveals they are the descendants of the Hoveny and heirs to that civilization’s technology. Guided by the starship’s memory, Sira and the others activate its great engines using the power of the M’hir. They lift from Cersi in time to escape the Oud. Trying to do the same, the Vyna are caught by the Rugherans.

  Sona’s starship travels through subspace, carrying the M’hiray who survived the Trade Pact, the Om’ray who survived Cersi, and one Human. Its course was set before the Trade Pact existed and its hapless passengers must wait to learn their destination.

  And if it is, at last, their home.

  Subspace

  Prelude

  DAMAGE . . .

  Though infinitesimal, the gashes bleed, drawing the ever-hungry.