I jimmied the door lock and thanked our lucky stars that house alarms hadn’t been a thing in this decade, then slipped inside, dragging a dehydrated Rafe after me.

  Sitting him down in the kitchen, I opened cupboard after cupboard, placing a glass of water in front of him and telling him to, “Don’t drink that too quickly.” Then I started grabbing water bottles and foodstuffs that could replenish the Orion.

  I had several Singapore dollars on me I could leave behind, but really, Time could bite my arse on this.

  Time and my conscience.

  Rafe sat back in his chair at the dining table and sighed.

  “Fuck that,” he said. “Six months on an Orion sucks.”

  I spun slowly to face him.

  “Six months?”

  He blinked at me.

  “The water recycler broke a week ago,” he said softly. “I tried to fix it, but the water made me sick, so I stopped.”

  Bloody hell.

  I sat down at the table with him. For a moment, all I could do was stare at my friend.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” I said.

  He snorted. “Me too.”

  He cocked his head and studied me, then took a large gulp of his water.

  “So, we’re in Singapore again?” he finally asked.

  “Yes. 1967. Again.”

  “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  I shook my head, opening up a packet of crackers and handing then to Rafe. He nibbled on one but had enough sense not to shove them one after the other into his mouth. If he’d recently been sick, I guessed he’d learned his lesson well.

  “Sergei was after Luna 14’s plans and specs,” I said. “He managed to trace it down to a secret information exchange between the Russians and Chinese here, but we arrived just in time to stop that.”

  “Luna 14? Didn’t that crash on the moon in 1967?”

  “No, that was 1969 and Luna 15. But that’s not what you should be asking.”

  “Forgive me, Jack. But if you’re gonna test me on my knowledge of history, please bear in mind that I’ve been wearing the same clothes for six months, haven’t eaten anything more than a crumb for the past week, and don’t fucking care.”

  I stared at him for a moment, but he didn’t look in the least apologetic.

  “Rider’s going to love dealing with you in the medbay when we get back,” I finally said.

  Rafe grinned at me. “When has he not lamented a Surgeon messing up his precious medbay?”

  “You’re not a Surgeon yet, Dr Hoffman.”

  Rafe waved an insouciant hand at me and ate a cracker.

  “So,” he said, mouth full, “what’s Luna to Ivanov?”

  “Now, that is the right question, Rafe,” I said. “There was a CIA agent here.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Stole the Luna plans and specs, and if I’m not mistaken, even tinkered with the Luna itself, and then handed that information off to a high ranking military official.”

  “A high ranking military official who has ties to NASA?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Fuck. You mean we have the Russians to thank for our Orions?”

  I smiled, helped myself to a cracker, and said, “Da.”

  Rafe snorted. “Well, bet Crawford’s gonna love telling the Prime Minister this.” Then he blinked at me. “Hang on. Where’s your Orion?”

  It was amazing what fresh water and crackers could do for a person’s intelligence.

  “Gone, I suspect.”

  “You don’t know? How many Orions are you going to lose?”

  “Careful, Doctor.”

  Rafe just smirked.

  “I called it to me and got you instead.”

  Rafe put his glass of water down. “Damn. Does that mean they’ve gone missing? Was Mimi onboard? No,” he said holding up a hand, “you wouldn’t be this calm if Mimi were onboard. Did she get grounded again?”

  “It’s more of an extension to the original grounding really, plus we don’t have enough Orions at present.”

  “Still not got them back, huh?”

  “No. Which means we have to try at least to get your Orion back to RATS.”

  “Not sure I like that plan, Jack.”

  “I can understand that. We’ll stock up.” I indicated the hoard of foodstuffs I’d cobbled together. The poor residents of this house were going to come home to an empty kitchen.

  “Loo paper,” Rafe said. “Ran out of that two months ago.”

  “The recycler?”

  “That kicked the bucket month three.”

  “I gather you’ll have a list of improvements for the Technical Department on your return to RATS.”

  “Already written the memo.”

  I laughed. It hadn’t really hit me until that second; Rafe was truly, really alive.

  I blinked and looked out of the window. The sun was getting low in the sky.

  “We have to go,” I said. “The homeowners will be home soon, and I’d rather not have them find us in their kitchen, or in their garden for that matter.”

  “Right. Can I just take a quick pee? Which reminds me. You might want to find a bucket. Head blocked up a week ago. That thing can hold a hell of a lot, did know that?”

  “No,” I said, grimacing. “And I’m not sure I needed to know it either.”

  “Always happy to educate you, Jack,” Rafe said, heading off down a hall in search of a toilet.

  I gathered up the supplies and marched them out to the Orion. It took several trips, and one very extensive search of the house to come up with an alternate solution to the lavatory situation, but by the time Rafe had freshened up - even having gone so far as showering and pinching clean clothes - the Orion was as well stocked as it could be. Including its water tank courtesy of the garden hose.

  “All things going according to plan,” I said, “this will be an unnecessary precaution.”

  “Direct flight back to RATS,” Rafe agreed.

  I pulled out a few Singapore dollars, hardly enough to cover what we’d taken, but the best I could do, and placed them on the kitchen counter. I felt bad for not leaving a note, but the currency had been minted back in the sixties, and the note would have been a part of me left behind, even if only words.

  It was best not to piss Time off more than it already was.

  Rafe and I stood in front of Orion 6a, staring into the open hatch. His hesitation was entirely due to spending six months in the damn thing. Mine was because I didn’t want to smell six-month-old unwashed Rafe in there.

  And perhaps because I really wasn’t sure this machine would get us back to RATS.

  But we had to try. We had so few Vehicles now. RATS needed this module, and we needed to get back.

  “All aboard,” I said quietly.

  Rafe shot me a glance and said, “Don’t drag your feet, Jack” then climbed aboard.

  Considering I’d watched him wink out of sight within a few feet of me once already, I was right behind him stepping into the module. Nothing happened. It did smell a little rank, but most Orions did to some degree. I purged the systems. Re-oxygenated the tanks. And checked the latest diagnostic Rafe had run.

  Wincing at the figures, I closed the hatch. Rafe sat very quietly in his Intern’s chair.

  “Where were you?” I asked as I entered the coordinates for RATS in our century.

  “I did touch down a couple of times, but I didn’t bother to exit the Vehicle,” he said, staring blankly at the main screen. “The more stops I made, the clearer it was that you wouldn’t be able to find me if the Orion abandoned me there. So, after a while, I didn’t even check the coordinates. I just made sure I was still a plane apart and waited for the next joy ride to commence.”

  “The hatch,” I said, rechecking the coordinates for RATS. The hatch had been open when Rafe had disappeared. I’d never heard of an Orion being able to fly like that, and I couldn’t imagine it was safe for any passengers.

  “It shut on its own. Didn’t seal, but it was enough for me to survive and make it to the hatch and seal it properly.”

  “Time is certainly doing strange things.”

  “Time has a decidedly nasty sense of humour.”

  I glanced at my colleague; my friend.

  “You survived,” I said. “And you’re heading home.”

  “Jack,” Rafe said sounding bemused, “you’re not the most positive person at the best of times. Even you doubt this thing will make it.”

  “And yet here I am, sitting beside you.” I handed him the coordinates to check.

  “Yeah, ‘cause Mimi’s back at RATS, and God knows what sort of trouble she’s got herself into by now.”

  I started to laugh, even though it wasn’t in the slightest funny. If anything, it was accurate. Mimi would be getting herself in trouble. There was no doubt about that.

  But doubt about this Orion making it back to RATS?

  Yeah, I had some. I had a lot.

  “Coordinates check, sir,” Rafe said, handing me them back.

  “One day,” I murmured, swiping the tablet, so the coordinates transferred to the dash without incident, “you’re going to say sir and mean it.”

  Rafe smiled. He looked like he’d aged ten years. He’d certainly aged six months.

  “I do mean it, Jack,” he said. “Today more so than ever.”

  Because I was here and he was no longer alone.

  “Let’s drop the sirs when it’s just us,” I said.

  Rafe stared at me and then slowly nodded his head.

  “Would you care to do the honours?” I indicated the launch button.

  “My luck’s not been so good, Jack,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s changed.”

  He shrugged and then hit the launch button quickly; hoping, I think, that I wouldn’t notice the trembling in his hands.

  Stars formed, a nebula surrounded, and then the roar of rocket engines as they ignited. The Orion jolted, then g-forces pressed in. Silence engulfed us as space flight was reached. And then screeches and a cacophony of bangs sounded out as the Orion landed.

  I checked the screens.

  Then let out a string of expletives.

  “Not RATS then?” Rafe asked.

  No, it was RATS. It was just a RATS that had been destroyed.

  38

  Not A Word, Novitiate

  Mimi

  The alarm sounded, making me blink awake from a disturbing dream that was entirely unrelated to prophesy. I shook away the images of Carrie and me swimming at Piha beach in Auckland. At the sensation of panic as the rip had taken us both further and further out to sea. At the knowledge that we were about to drown if someone didn’t save us and quickly.

  It had been a near miss. Carrie is a stronger swimmer than me, and I think she could have made it back to shore if she’d left me. But Carrie, being Carrie, wouldn’t leave me.

  We’d been eighteen. Thought ourselves so grown up. Driving Mum’s car out to the beach to meet up with some boys. We never went back to Piha again, despite the exemplary skills of the lifeguards there.

  Almost drowning once was quite enough.

  I rubbed my face and stared at my room. Bryan Fawkes was being buried today. Jack and his crew were still missing, as was Rafe and Orion 6a. Not to mention the rest of our Orion fleet, my parents and Carrie.

  Was it any wonder I was dreaming of drowning?

  I stood up and entered the bathroom, staring at the pale face in the mirror that greeted me. Dirty blonde hair, dishevelled and rising up in tangles on one side of my head. A crease from the pillow marring my right cheek. Blue eyes, a little too startled to be called pretty.

  I rubbed my chest and did my bathroom thing, pulling on the only dress I owned in this time. A grey shift with tiny pink roses scattered across it. Sally had given it to me. I’m taller than Sal, so the shift ended above my knees. But thankfully it didn’t pull too tightly across my boobs. Squashed boobs at a funeral would just be effing fantastic, wouldn’t it?

  I sighed and opened my door. It took a second for me to realise that Palmer, my constant shadow, was not there. I kept expecting to see him, but he’d been stood down from Mimi Watch for a while now. I shook my head to clear it and walked past a couple of doors to reach Sally’s room, then knocked. A muffled sound that may or may not have been “come in” caught my ears.

  I opened the door and peered into the gloom, spotting Sally under the bed covers.

  Ah, not “come in” but “go away”. My chest ached. I blinked my eyes rapidly.

  Sucking in a breath, I said, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” crossing to her window and pulling the curtains back.

  It was overcast and would no doubt rain later. Probably right when we were lowering Fawkes’ coffin into the ground. I turned and pasted a bright smile on my face and then thought, who am I kidding? And sank down on the side of Sally’s bed instead.

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t attend,” I said softly.

  She said nothing.

  “You don’t have to say or do anything, just be there,” I tried.

  Still nothing.

  “I’ll be right there with you, all the way.”

  Sally rolled over and blinked up at me. Red rimmed her eyes and her normally smooth skin was blotchy.

  “Have you got a dress picked out?” I asked, squeezing her hand and then getting up to check out her wardrobe.

  It was cowardly, but I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t acknowledge that this broken shadow of a woman was my friend.

  “What about this one?” I said, pulling out a plain black one.

  “No,” she said, sitting up. We were making progress. “Not that one. The green one.”

  She slipped her legs out of bed and then staggered to the bathroom. I pushed jeans and jackets aside and finally found the only green dress Sally owned.

  Lime green.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I murmured.

  I pulled the dress out anyway and lay it on the bed and then in an effort to tone down all that greenness, I searched her drawers for a nice black cardigan.

  Sally came out of the shower a few minutes later; hair wet, face pale, eyes too big for her head. She looked at the cardie and snorted.

  “Bryan kissed me in that dress,” she said, pulling on underwear.

  I let out a slow breath of air, my throat constricting. “Don’t do this to yourself, Sal,” I said, playing with the hem of the dress, and pretending I couldn’t see my best friend crumbling.

  “It seems fitting,” she said, turning around and picking up the dress. She held it to her chest for a moment - a moment that was full of memories - and then pulled it on, doing up the side zip.

  She looked like a little lost waif in a fairy dress. A sprite wandered too far from the fey forest. It hurt; seeing her like this. It hurt but she was hurting more than me.

  “Cardie?” I said. It would be cold outside; a good excuse to cover up all that green.

  Sally took it but didn’t put it on. I gathered, then, that she’d kissed Fawkes in summer and not autumn; when cardigans weren’t needed and green dresses could be worn. I wasn’t going to push her. If Sally wanted to wear a bright green dress to Fawkes’ funeral, then she’d wear a bright green dress to Fawkes’ funeral.

  I knew the man himself would be smiling if he could see her.

  She applied some makeup, slipped on some shoes, and with an indrawn breath that spoke volumes, headed for the door.

  “Let’s do this,” she said, sounding like she was walking to her death.

  In a way, I supposed it was. It was the death of her dreams and wishes. Of a hope she’d had that one day they could mean more to each other. One kiss was not so much to get hung up over, but they’d worked together; in the same Orion for weeks before Fawkes transferred Sally to Jack’s. Dangerous situations. Exciting locations. Flying an Orion through Time’s waves. I knew how easy it was to fall for someone in those circumstances. I knew exactly how easy it was to love someone you’d only just met.

  The rest of RATS had already gathered on the lawn by the time we got there; minus our missing people, of course. So many Interns lost. Jessop dead. Fawkes gone. Rafe missing. And now Jack. When would this end? When would Sergei stop?

  I was no closer to getting my sister and parents out of his clutches than when I’d arrived here. I hadn’t seen Carrie in days; she’d not been in Singapore and I’d not been flying since. It felt like my life, my previous life, was getting further and further away.

  This reality I was in was frightening. Filled with grief.

  I could feel the water covering my head.

  Everyone looked at Sally in her bright green dress as we approached the graveyard. Mikaela sniggered. Her followers joined in. I threw them a glare and stood shoulder to shoulder with my friend; Dean came up to stand on her other side. We flanked her. I only wished we could have protected her from the heartache. Dr Crawford frowned at the dress or Sally or hell, it could have been at life in general, and then he started to talk.

  Someone said something about Fawkes and peanuts. Someone mentioned airboats and the Everglades. Someone said he had been a fine Surgeon and would be greatly missed.

  Sally said nothing. And when it was over, she turned on her heel, that damn cardigan still clutched in her hands, goosebumps covering all of her naked skin, and walked back into RATS.

  Dean and I followed behind her, silently moving through her green wake. I noticed there wasn’t much talking going on behind us either, though. Sally’s grief touched on everyone that way. Today, RATS drowned in it.

  As we crossed the main foyer, heading towards the stairs and no doubt the library where I’d stashed three clean glasses and a full bottle of scotch last night, the siren went off. I jumped. Dean sucked in a breath. But Sally was a ghost walking and didn’t even acknowledge it.

  And of course, the siren went off. Of course, it did. We were mourning. We had no more Orions. But Time didn’t give a rat’s arse that RATS was mourning; that it was already half dead.

  I looked at Dean. He shrugged. Sally just kept walking toward the stairs, as if she couldn’t hear the klaxon and didn’t care that if it was a rip we couldn’t fix it. Nothing reached her. I was worried that we couldn’t reach her; that we were losing my friend.