Prologue

The blaze started in a wastebasket; a humble beginning for a fire that would soon be burning on the other side of the world.

On that humid summer night, the ribbon of smoke curling into the polluted sky went unnoticed. And by the time the first alarm sounded, the one-room office trailer was fully engulfed. Next to the trailer, in its lonely corner of a Louisiana refinery, a battered white pickup waited at the top of a gravel slope.

The trailer’s walls sagged and collapsed into the driverless vehicle’s cargo bed, jarring it into motion. With its steering locked, the truck rolled downhill, carrying burning debris into an open-ended Quonset hut. Inside, the flames spread and ignited a maze of pipes that fed aviation fuel into high-pressure manifolds. And from there …

- - - - -

Three hundred miles off the Australian coast, an explosion rocked a fourteen-passenger seaplane. Its fuel cap, mounted atop the fuselage between the wings, blew off and vented a stream of oily black smoke. The fire died quickly in the empty tanks, but the fuel-starved engines sputtered, and passengers screamed as the aircraft pitched toward the sea.

 

Chapter 1

Two Weeks Before Newton

“Oh, not this again,” Jack shouted.

He found himself near a familiar rocky cliff and slumped onto the cold stone. The recurring view was so maddening that he considered hurling himself off the ledge—again—just to see what would happen. Instead, he flicked a pebble into the nearby creek and leaned forward as the water tumbled it away. Far below, the stream twisted through a grassy field saddled between two mountain peaks.

“It’s time to go, Jack,” said the man standing beside him.

Jack didn’t look at the speaker; it was pointless. After all, he was only dreaming. But as it was the third time that week he’d had the dream, he said bitterly, “What would you do if I just sat here?”

The man replied, his words jumbled as if the answers he’d given in hundreds of dreams had melded together. It didn’t matter though, Jack already knew: he’d simply walk away and the dream would end.

For as long as he could remember, Jack Scatter had been having the same dream. From the bare rock he sat on, to the thin clouds in the sky above, to the song of a bird in a nearby bush, he knew what to expect from one moment to the next.

“I know we’re in the Spine.” He traced the peaks of a four-mile-tall, snow-capped mountain range. “But that”—he faced the neighboring plain—“shouldn’t be there.”

Crater lakes, common on Earth, couldn’t form naturally on a space station. Even one as big as Cirrus, one-hundred and eighty-six million miles from the inferno in Louisiana. Jack had searched maps of the artificial world that was his home and never found matching terrain: a round lake with a perfectly round island in its center, like a flattened lava dome. Yet the dream was so vivid, so detailed, it had to have grown from a memory. He couldn’t shake the feeling it was important, that it was a real place.

The anonymous man spoke again with a hundred voices that mingled to obscure all meaning.

Jack flung another stone into the abyss. “Why can’t you just once answer a question without sounding like you’re underwater?”

The man walked away and Jack got ready to run.

Through the years, repetition had taught him to dream lucidly, to know when he was asleep and to have partial control over his dreams. Most of them. He’d tried so many things to alter the flow, but this dream always ended in the same spot.

Not this time, he thought as he studied not the man walking away, but the surrounding forest. Run, but don’t think about running. If he moved his real limbs, he’d startle himself awake. He focused on the path that bordered the stream and recalled the knee-high, egg-shaped boulder beyond the meadow and imagined himself vaulting it, dry lichen flaking off as he brushed its top.

And then he was there, jogging through a field of pine saplings. “I did it! I skipped ahead!”

Years of frustration melted in an instant. He’d discovered something new and completely bypassed the uphill journey. He was already near the end of the hanging valley, where steep walls converged. Eagerly, he swerved through a cleft in a bus-sized boulder and—

The stranger stood below a natural dam, a moraine-like pile of fallen stone, exactly where he’d be if Jack had followed. He pointed to the top of the heap. “… answer.”

“Answer to what?” Jack shouted. What’s the question?

The man climbed, leaving Jack and the familiar disappointment at the base of the wall.

“That’s not fair. I beat you. Something should have changed.”

The climber didn’t respond, and Jack lingered until he was almost at the summit, wondering if it was worth the effort. Well, I changed part of the dream. Maybe I can change the ending.

Water seeping from a dozen fissures made the smooth rocks slippery, but he’d done this so many times that he knew all the best footholds. At the top, the man was waiting by the mouth of a cave formed by enormous blocks of fallen stone. He spoke again. “… inside.”

Last chance to walk away, Jack thought as he crouched beneath a slab of gray rock, knowing he had to surrender control to proceed. If he took the next step, he could not escape no matter what the dream showed. At least, that’s how it usually goes.

Stomach knotting, he moved closer, felt cool air at the cave’s threshold, and smelled damp moss. It was all so real that he struggled with the knife-edge balance between dreaming and waking. And then the voices began.

Hundreds of indistinct murmurs swarmed from the darkness, and the daily anxiety Jack felt around crowds quickly overcame his self-control. He became a spectator again, watching helplessly as his hand reached out, sensing that the cave held something new. This time there was—FIRE!

His dream-self pulled back instinctively from the roar and the heat. It’s a dream. Just a dream, he thought, unable to intervene. A shrill alarm pulsed—not a fire alarm, but a warning tone. Ignore it. He focused on the cave and smelled gas and oily smoke as new sounds surged: a sputtering engine, distant screams, rushing wind. It’s so close. Just inside. The enfolding voices swelled as he leaned farther, reached into the darkness and—

Woke up. Every. Single. Time.

Jack let out an exasperated breath. He’d never been able to stay asleep, to continue dreaming and discover what waited in the cave or learn who the man was. Always, the answers hid from him like a lost word on the tip of his tongue.

Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he lay quietly in his bed. No sound came from within the house, but a passing drone overwhelmed the song of a nocturnal bird in the hedge below his window.

It’s huge, Jack thought. I haven’t heard a drone like that in … I’ve never heard one like that.

The machine thwupped more like a helicopter, and an ominous minor chord overlaid the familiar rhythm of spinning blades as it headed for the family workshop in the industrial park. It’s got a chipped rotor. I guess I’ll be replacing that first thing in the morning.

His tiny second-floor bedroom overlooked the fields, not the street, and was small enough for him to roll over and flip the curtain aside without getting out of bed. Huh? No landing lights.

As he leaned back, he spotted the dim numbers on the alarm clock and groaned. Dawn was still hours away, and he never could get back to sleep after one of those dreams. So he got up, dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt, and crept down the stairs. His mother was a light-sleeper and probably heard him, but she knew he sometimes went to the shop in the small hours, so his stealth was mostly for his father’s benefit.

Instead of using the street, Jack left the townhouse through the back door and descended to the unlit dirt path that bordered the fields. With his breath clouding the predawn air, he turned up his collar and tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, then hiked the empty mile to the workshop.

- - - - -

There was something unsettling in the way Danny Kou observed people. When Pieter Reynard, CEO of Armenau Industries, entered his top-floor Seattle office, Simon was already suffering under that gaze.

Simon, Pieter’s chief engineer, had once confided that he believed Danny was a Traveller: someone who could predict the future. Pieter had warned Simon against such idle speculation. After all, he knew Danny’s secret. The man was just a Hopper, and could foresee only half a second of his own future.

Pieter passed Simon without offering a greeting, knowing that it wasn’t scrutiny by his head of security that was making Simon nervous; the man had brought bad news. But he’d have to endure his misery a while longer—Pieter would not be rushed in his own office.

Hanging his bespoke suit jacket neatly on the coat stand, Pieter brushed a fleck of dust from its sleeve, then sat at his desk and tapped a walnut valet box. “Espresso.”

The lacquered box dispensed a silver coin inscribed with an elegant coffee cup icon. He dropped the coin into a clear mug, revealing a honeycomb of portal crystals on its other side, and took a moment to savor the aroma as steaming black coffee bubbled from the hexagonal array. Finally, the cup full, he motioned for the engineer to speak.

Simon handed Pieter a tablet with the results of the predawn test. “Thirty-seven aircraft were actively refueling on the ground, and one in-flight. It had to make an emergency landing near Lord Howe Island, but no one was hurt.” He wiped his sweaty palms on his lab coat.

Pieter had been scrolling through the data, and a tiny furrow appeared on his brow when he read the comment about the Australian floatplane, but he just said, “Continue.”

“They’re upset that their fuel supply was interrupted, obviously. But they haven’t made a formal complaint. Yet.”

Pieter said nothing. Simon would get to the point faster that way.

“What … what do we do if they check the old fuel modules before shipping them back? They’ll see that the crystals are damaged. How do we—”

“Stop.” Pieter’s family had been in the transportation business for generations, and he understood why the tour company had not acted. “They’re not going to complain. If you were to check, you’d find that plane has at least two more seats than it was designed for. They’re legally required to carry enough reserve fuel to reach the nearest airport, but a full-tank reduces cargo weight and thereby the number of paying passengers. It will be fine.”

Simon nodded and took two deep breaths. “The pumping station in Louisiana was destroyed, as planned, but—” He shuffled half a step back from the desk. “But the roof collapsed and tore the fuel manifold apart before the final phase. That was unexpected, and it briefly exposed the wormholes, which led to small fires in several other cities.”

Pieter had already read the section covering the secondary fires and considered for only a moment. “It’s unlikely anyone will link the events. Our official position is unchanged: the fire forced us to cut the fuel supply as a precaution. Pass information requests directly to me and prepare for the next round of tests.”

Simon glanced at Danny and retreated another half step. Danny, like Simon himself, was of average height, but muscled like an Olympic gymnast. That and his unrelenting glare made him more intimidating than Pieter, who was broad-shouldered and stood six inches taller.

“There was a second problem. Our instruments recorded every crystal shattering as expected, but not until the pressure rose slightly higher than projected.”

Pieter understood the principles but left the details to the engineers. “What caused that?”

“It may just be an instrumentation error, except … well … except that the extra pressure works out to be precisely what it would be if there were two more crystals.”

“Another active pair?” Pieter’s voice was controlled but menacing. “Where?”

“Now that they’ve been destroyed, there’s … there’s no way to tell.” This time it was a full step backward. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer.”

Pieter dismissed the engineer but called him back before he reached the door. “Wait. The floatplane. It says here they’re grounded until they get the new fuel module.”

“That’s right. The courier has already delivered the upgrade package to their hangar on the mainland. They’re just waiting for one of their other aircraft to become available.”

“As a courtesy, have our helicopter in Sydney fly their mechanic out to the island. Tell the pilot to collect the old modules while they’re finishing the repair.”

Simon smiled, unable to hide his surprise. “That … that’s very generous. I’m certain that’ll go a long way to smoothing things over.” He was still smiling when he left the room.

Pieter waited for the door to close. “Make sure that airplane never makes it to the mainland.”

Danny nodded and began typing on his phone, exposing scarred knuckles and the dark lines of a tattoo under his cuff. A whiff of oily smoke drifted from his clothes.

Pieter picked up a gleaming sphere of white quartz from a wooden pedestal on his desk, then spun his chair to face the window. Despite the persistent haze, he’d have a fine view of Lake Washington from the ninety-sixth floor when the sun came up—few buildings in the city were equal to or taller than his own. Except for the conference room, his office and other private spaces took up the entire floor, and the view from this corner was his favorite. Even his overbearing father would have been impressed.

He raised the sphere to examine it more closely. “The extra crystals. Can you track them?”

Danny lowered his phone, and his smooth voice was in stark contrast to his fearsome looks. “If there are records, I’ll find them. Do I have your approval?”

Approval. The meaning between them was clear. For Danny, making a plane disappear was trivial—the waters were deep enough off the coast. But when he asked for approval it meant he expected to hire external contractors through multiple layers of secrecy. The operation would be expensive.

“Just clean up loose ends. We can’t afford delays.”

Danny nodded again and left the office without a word, moving silently over the polished hardwood floor. Only the soft click of the door latch marked his passage.

Pieter shifted the tennis ball-sized stone between hands, weighed both it and his options. He’d already come so far on a difficult journey, liquidated many of his most treasured assets, and trimmed thousands of jobs. He hadn’t made that decision lightly—it had taken a decade to replace those assets.

“Call Simon,” he instructed the office AI.

As he waited for the connection, Pieter rolled the stone, feeling carved dimples that mapped locations of mine shafts and pumping stations. Such a simple thing.

The stone wasn’t just any rock, but a scale model of the icy planetoid in the Oort Cloud that was the source of his wealth. Enough fresh water to last a thousand years.

Simon, still in the elevator, answered his phone seconds later.

“Move the resonance test up to the thirteenth,” Pieter said.

“That’s not … that’s less than two weeks.”

Pieter tossed the stone and spread his fingers as it fell. With only a thought, he made it stop and hover inches above his hand. “Is that a problem?”

“We can’t … I had planned for a lot more time to prepare.”

Pieter was used to gambling. He’d risked his billion-dollar inheritance on an unproven concept and parlayed that success into a business empire that now controlled vast resources on Cirrus—the world-sized space station that produced a quarter of Earth’s food. And he’d done it despite the contempt of the thousands of Cirrus-investors who claimed to have built their own fortunes from the ground up.

“Will it work?” He twirled his fingers. The hovering stone began to spin.

“Yes, but …”

“But what?” The stone spun faster.

“It’s a big step.”

Bigger than you can possibly guess. Armenau’s earnings were still firmly grounded in portal-based water delivery. Giving up that stability was a huge risk, but it was too late to stop. “I’m ready.”

Pieter clenched his fist.

The stone shattered.