Chicken Bones

“Are you some sort of prophet?” she asked skeptically.

He shivered, but he answered calmly, “No.  I am a Timer, and to us is given the gift to scent down many timelines. To some this seems like prophecy, but it is not.  And in me the gift is very strong, and I have been trained in its use.  Someday your people may share in these gifts, but not yet.  If all goes as it should, humans and Timers will have many years of sharing together.”

He seemed unaware that his last statement was indistinguishable from prophecy, and he would say no more about it.  Nor would he explain what he meant by “scenting down the timelines.” Instead he asked, almost plaintively, “Will you come with me?  There is a task before me, and I need your help.”

Zora hesitated.  “Where are you going?  And when would I be back?  My husband is waiting and I don’t want him to worry.”

“When my task is complete, I assure you, I will return you to this place and time.” He gestured, and she turned to watch herself (her future self? her past self? her alternate self?) disappearing back down the trail toward her home.

Somehow reassured by that sight, she nodded, and followed him.  The trees closed around them like a bubble, and suddenly she was inside a structure.  There was a soft, warm light that had no obvious source, yet illuminated the interior clearly.  Comfortable-looking furnishings were built into the curved walls that also housed devices that were clearly control panels of some sort.  Zora looked around curiously.  So this is an alien spaceship, she thought.  A timeship, no less.  No detectable commands passed from Nick Carr, but she sensed that the ship was in motion.  Perhaps he controlled it organically, as if he had only to think where he wished to go and the ship went there.  Or was it the other way around?

“I would’ve thought it would be smaller in here,” she said aloud, “given the size of your people.”

A smile crossed his lips.  “We often have dealings with larger species,” he answered.  “And no, we have had no dealings with humans before, though we have had some in the future.”

“Stop!” she laughed.  “I can’t manage twisted tenses!  So, where are we going?  And what do you need me to do when we get there?”

“We are going to a day a few months from now, to a place called California, I think you call it.  Do you know anything about auto racing?”

“Harry follows it, I don’t.  I do know there’s a woman who’s doing very well in open-wheel racing, what’s her name?”

“Marti Hansen.”

“You know about her?” she asked in surprise. 

“A little.  You see, Zora, Marti Hansen is another focal point. In the timeline that was meant to be, she does not enter this race, and so she lives.  For some reason that I don’t yet understand, her living means that the madness does not spread beyond Earth, or is greatly diminished.  I don’t yet know the link between your song and a race driver, but in any timeline where she drives in this race, she dies.  So somehow I must prevent her from racing.”

“But she goes on living?  Even though she doesn’t race?”

“Yes,” he said, as if that were obvious, but then he paused.  That hadn’t occurred to him.

“So obviously, you can’t just kill her,” Zora said baldly.