The Spindles of Spacetime
Volume 3
Inflexion Point - I
The day after the books are brought back to San Francisco, Orobelle gathers her entourage once again in her rented chambers.
“Allies,” she declares, “I bring pleasing news. I have studied the texts you brought to me, and they have revealed to us a much shorter route back to the Queendom.”
The room begins to buzz with questioning noises, though they die down when she begins speaking again.
“If the old scholar is to be believed, a Tunnel extends from Hong Yi’s world to mine, bypassing the three worlds between. This still means that there will be three more transits yet, but we shall revise our travel strategy. Most settlements in Artur’s world decidedly do not befit an overnight stay. So, Honourless,” she nods at the woman, who is already stretching her shoulder muscles, “will take us in pairs, three hops at a time, and collect us in Hong Yi’s world one day at a time. Questions?”
A mutter of assent sweeps the room. Then Vesper says, “When's this all meant to begin?”
The duchess turns. “Honourless, when is the soonest you can go?”
Honourless stretches her arms like a cat and yawns before drawling, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tomorrow afternoon!” Orobelle repeats. “Now see to it that you are ready to go by then.”
*
“To think Orobelle is actually asking Honourless’ opinion now,” Hong Yi murmurs as he and Marcia stroll up the hall and back to their rooms. “I'll admit I'm kind of impressed.”
“Or perhaps she has realised that pressing for haste can often slow us down.”
He chuckles. “How was New York, by the way?”
“Unlike anything I have ever seen.” Marcia's eyes lift to the ceiling. “Tall, crowded, and full of moving machines.” She tosses her head, and he watches appreciatively as her dark hair lofts down on her shoulder.
“Wait till you see the same city in my world,” he replies. “And any progress with Vesper?”
“She…does not appear to comprehend my advances,” Marcia sighs.
“Yeah, I'm starting to think she is imagination-straining levels of dense. You probably have to be totally direct about how you feel.”
She sticks out her lower lip in a pout. “But that is…unromantic. And besides, I do fear she truly has no interest in me.”
“There's no way,” Hong Yi mutters, coming to a halt. “Once she wises up, there's no way she wouldn't at least consider it.”
She eyes him. “Do you think so?”
He laughs. “I mean, look at yourself. You're completely gorgeous. I've met many beautiful people in my lifetime, and you would sit among their upper echelons.”
Marcia smirks at him. “Fine gentleman, are you sure you aren't the one who wants to bed me?”
Hong Yi takes a second to pause at the suggestion, to register the teasing in her smile. Then, out of the surprise emerges intrigue. “I could be tempted,” he says. Then he clears his throat and holds up his index finger. “Except, I refuse to get in Vesper's way. She's a good friend, and that's my priority, 'kay?”
Marcia laughs, taking him by the elbow. “No one ever has to get in the way of anyone else.”
“Oh! We see things similarly, then.” He swallows as her fingers tighten. He can tell from her grip that she means it.
Her smirk grows to a grin. “Good, because I've been quite curious about you myself.”
Normally, Hong Yi would come back with a quip, but this time, his heart is hammering in his throat. “So…we have half a day before we have to go. What are you doing this evening?”
“You tell me.” They have come to a stop in front of the women's room. Marcia knocks on the door: no answer. She unlocks it and shoulders it open, waving Hong Yi inside. “Come on, you must be starving.”
“And you know how that feels, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
Now incapable of resisting, Hong Yi follows Marcia inside, locking the door behind them.
In the dining hall two floors below, Vesper pulls a chair at an empty table, balancing a loaded buffet plate in her hands. It's a motley assortment of food—bacon, chicken pie, beans, salad, and a pain au chocolat—but this is a Michelin starred spread compared to army rations.
She is about halfway through her rather agreeable pie when someone clears their throat opposite her. “May we join you?”
The flash of Adelaide’s sleeve across the table is followed by her recognition of Felix's voice, and she looks up to find the pair standing across the table from her.
“Be my guest,” she replies, waving at the chairs opposite her. As they sit, she mulls over the contents of their plates—one loaded with only a steak and salads, the other with a selection more eclectic than her own. “Well, we're one day out from departure. Are you resting well?”
The pair glance at each other, and just as quickly look away. “Quite,” Felix replies, picking up a string bean with his fork. “That stab wound was becoming a bother, but Addie put me right, just like that.”
“Oh, impressive,” Vesper says, turning to Adelaide, but she is watching Felix. “Addie. May I call you that?”
Adelaide turns abruptly, her smile half down, though she quickly puts it back on. “Yes, that's fine.”
“You're from this same city but in the future, aren't you? Farther in the future than Hong Yi?”
“Yes.” “Yes!” Both answer in unison, and again their eyes meet, and again they busy themselves with their food, Adelaide cramming a hashbrown into her mouth.
Vesper can’t help the curious sense that something isn’t right at the table, though she isn’t sure what that is. “Is it much different in this world, then? Sorry, you're eating.”
Adelaide shakes her head and starts talking with her mouth half full. “Yes, it's easier to list the things that have stayed the same,” she replies. “The Golden Gate Bridge was built across the strait in the Year 1933—it would be visible from the third floor lounge if it existed. It's very strange not seeing it there.” She stops to swallow.
“Ah! Yes, the famous bridge, it was all in the news when I was a child,” Vesper says. “I never did see much of the world myself, but it made for good dreaming.”
“Not much of a traveller?” Felix replies.
She shrugs. “Well, I saw my grandparents in Barcelona once a year…or thereabouts. Back and forth across the Channel by train ferry. But before the army, it was just Barcelona, London, and home.”
Adelaide’s face lights up at this. “Oh! Do you know any Spanish?”
Vesper shrugs with a smile, just a touch abashed at her excitement. “Only as much as I need to talk to my second uncles.”
“That’s amazing,” she breathes. “In my San Francisco, lots of people speak Spanish as their first language, and most of the place names are in Spanish, too. I actually started learning it in school—”
“Addie!” Moments from slapping her fork across the table, Felix catches Adelaide’s wrist with one hand and the utensil with the other. Her mouth clams shut, and when he doesn't immediately let go, she inevitably freezes again.
They sit in a tableau of ineffable awkwardness for all of five seconds. Then Felix drops Adelaide's arm like a hot plate, a smile plastering itself over his face. Adelaide snatches up the almost-escaped fork, then fails thrice to stab a sausage.
“Now, where were we?” Felix declares—and it is certainly a declaration. “I am quite curious about how it is to live on both sides of the Channel, seeing as I mostly ever saw the English side, with the occasional sojourn to France…”
For the rest of the conversation, genial as it is, Adelaide is completely silent. After such a brief but eager outpouring, it hits jarringly, and from then Vesper can no longer shake off the feeling that something is amiss.
Artur blinks his eyes open. The sitting room is gently lamplit, the colours blurred together by the last dregs of his slumber. Somewhere in the hallway, a lamp burner clicks. His head is slumped to one side against the inner curve of the armchair, a crick developing in his neck, and his shirt is now damp with sweat.
He mutters a curse, swiping his brow with the back of his hand.
Then he sees someone watching from the neighbouring couch. A tall, scarred someone in clothes that hardly look at home amid all this upholstery leather and carved wood.
“Ah, you,” he mutters, and then watches her produce a pencil from her pocket to write.
She plucks her magical translation glass from the other pocket and hands him the whole assemblage—notebook, pencil, and glass.
Don't let me interrupt your quiet. I like this spot too, that is all. The words show in Russian, faintly fluttering beneath the lens.
Just as he has seen Vesper do, he starts writing back, the Cyrillic letters wobbly from disuse: No, I don't mind.
The conversation proceeds like so, in perfect silence. How have you fared since leaving home? asks Honourless.
It wasn’t much of a home. My real home no longer exists on the world map. My neighbours, if I could be so generous as to call them that, would rather have had me dead.
Honourless pauses on those words before writing back.
Humans are a nasty lot, aren’t they?
He grins as he reads this. Most of them. But there are a few who are, despite it all, worth the time.
I’d have lost my mind if not for those people.
They continue to sit in silence while more lamps are lit behind them, Artur’s eyelids drooping shut while Honourless is writing her reply. She does not interrupt his drowsiness, only leans back and watches the lights glimmer along the streets through the window.
Eventually, Artur does rouse himself long enough to read her words. You've had it rough. It is alright if you need to be alone. I know the value of it.
Then she rises to her feet with a yawn, offering a word that he can only assume is a goodbye, and vanishes into the space beyond.
When Vesper returns to the women’s room, it is Hong Yi who steps out from inside. He halts with a hand on the knob. “Oh, hey. What’s up?”
“Hong Yi,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper. “I have a question, and I don’t know if you know the answer. Is something the matter with Felix and Adelaide? Their actions at dinner were incomprehensible to me…and a little worrying.”
“Um, incomprehensible how?”
“They seemed fretful. Kept hitting snags in the conversation. Adelaide went quiet after a bit. I would've thought they had been in an fight, but they weren't avoiding each other.”
“Oh. Well…” He grimaces. “I’m not saying anything I don’t have the permission to say.”
“But you’re saying something is afoot.”
“Maybe. Neither confirming nor denying.” He sighs. “But all that aside, sleep well tonight, okay?”
She claps him on the shoulder as he passes, grinning. “Good night to you too.”
When Vesper slips into the room, she finds Marcia tidying her blanket, though she quite promptly drops it. “Hello, Evening Star,” she murmurs, and Vesper laughs as she passes; the nickname tickles her in a strange, unplaceable way—only Marcia ever calls her that.
“How are you? You were talking with Hong Yi?”
“You could say so,” she chuckles. “He kept mentioning you, though. He must hold you in high regard.”
“Is that so?” She sits down on the couch by the windows, leaning back into the cushions. “To be fair, he seems to care about everyone.”
“That is true, but I know when someone truly cares for another,” Marcia says. She drops into the sofa beside Vesper, shoulder pressing up against hers. There is a crack of static between their arms, but Marcia does not react. “Are you comfortable?”
“Quite,” Vesper replies, and when all Marcia does for half a minute is gaze sleepily at her, she murmurs, “Cat got your tongue?”
“Sorry, I'm simply,” Marcia’s voice takes on a cajoling quality, “so pleased to see you. I always am. And I'm even more pleased that we can converse properly now.”
“Likewise.” Vesper cannot deny that there is something pleasant about Marcia’s attention—she could get used to being complimented so freely. “So…how may I help you?”
“Help me? Sit there and let me look at you. Your face alone could feed me for days.”
Vesper laughs, just like every time before. “Do you really mean it when you say that? Or are you simply being polite?”
“There's nothing polite about the way I mean it.” Vesper feels Marcia’s fingers twirl through her hair, and her shoulders relax at the unusual sensation. For years, perhaps even decades, everyone has treated her the way they would a live wire—unsafe to touch.
“No one else talks to me in this way, 's all. I'm only one of two things to most: terrifying or…well, terrifying, but in a good way.”
“You are quite imposing,” Marcia says. “And I can see it in your bearing that you are accustomed to being seen that way. But you are terrified, too, aren't you? Of yourself?”
Vesper smiles. “You're good at this.”
“Can't keep secrets from me,” Marcia murmurs, lips curving. “Your turn. What do you think of my true self? The one no one else gets to see?”
“You know I'm no good at reading people,” she sighs. “But I think you are very smart and resourceful, and a survivor. Nothing's ever come easy for you. And you are hiding many secrets from everyone else. But I am too much of a fool to know what those secrets might be.”
“Pretty good, for a fool,” Marcia says, head dropping against Vesper’s shoulder. “Well, I will tell you one of those secrets. I never knew my family—the one that birthed me. I was raised by people who also held me by a chain. I simply kept moving, all my life, and I have never truly felt at home.”
“That sounds…difficult.”
“I will tell you about it…someday…”
“You'll drop the answer in my lap? You know I would love to solve the mystery of you, but that hardly seems…”
But Marcia's eyes have sunk shut, her cheek still pressed against Vesper’s shoulder.
For a quarter of an hour, she stays put. Marcia’s sleeping visage is one of beguiling peace, so very different from the poised, incisive woman she is when awake. Vesper cannot help thinking that she would turn many heads in her army platoon, should they ever meet her.
Presently, that life seems almost to belong to a different self, a different her. Years of living camp to camp, being feared while herself fearing each day would be her last—and now it feels odd to simply linger with someone else’s warmth. Odd but welcome. Edged with the thrill of the taboo.
She listens to that quiet breathing with a smile. Marcia’s hand rests on her lap, as if she forgot to retract it. Vesper falteringly reaches out to touch the back of her palm, but withdraws just as soon.
Half an hour, an hour later—she isn't sure—the door creaks open. It is Honourless who pokes her head inside. She meets Vesper’s eye once, then glances at Marcia and wordlessly pulls it shut again.
By then, Marcia is still out cold. “Busy day ahead, let's get you some proper rest,” Vesper mutters. She shifts her grip and picks Marcia up off the couch, cradling her to her bed.
By the time Hong Yi returns to his room, still a little hazy from the enjoyment, Artur is already fast asleep. “Yeah…you have the right idea,” he mumbles, staggering to his bed. “Maybe I should shower. Or…” He has drifted off before he can finish that thought.
The next thing he knows is that Artur is shaking him awake, and his faint silhouette impinges on his dreams in stops and starts. “Hong Yi. Wow, are you a log or what? Orobelle will be angry if you don't wake.”
“Yeah, yeah…” he mumbles. “When is she not angry?” He rubs his eyes and blinks them open, only to find Artur already showered and dressed with a new leather backpack slung over one shoulder. “Whoa, where'd you get that from?”
“That? This?” He rotates so Hong Yi can see the bag. “The Englishman bought it yesterday after I complained I had none.”
“Look at you! Socialising and getting gifts and everything.”
Artur snorts. “Man is rich. It was just peanuts for him.”
“Still, a kindness.”
“Yes. But bathe and pack now. Seriously.”
To accentuate his point, a chorus of sharp knocks cuts them off, and then a shrill cry of, “We don't have time for your dallying!”
That is just about enough to propel Hong Yi out of bed and into the shower.
As planned, Artur and Hong Yi bring their luggage to Orobelle in the hotel sitting area. Dorian and Honourless are both seated awaiting them, and when they arrive, the Duchess wordlessly gestures for her protector, who rises with a stack of bills in his hand.
“You two are going first,” she declares, pacing back and forth before them. Dorian hands them each a stack of United States bills with an impassive nod. “And you, Hong Yi, will take care of the task of selecting our city and our lodging.”
“Okay, what's our budget?”
“Look in your hands. You, Artur, and Honourless will stay four nights; the next pair stay for three; and so on. So mind your own lodgings first. We shall reserve ours as we arrive.”
Artur turns to Hong Yi. “You do the math.”
He offers a thumbs-up. “Anyway, question number two. Where exactly is this Tunnel you mentioned?”
“That is the next order of business. I understand that the Tunnel was first discovered by a child by the name of Alice Liddell, on whose account a book was loosely based.”
“Wait, Alice in Wonderland?” He freezes for a little too long as one realization leads to another. “Oh, the cards! The Duchess of Diamonds—wow, I don’t know how that’s the first time it’s occurred to me.”
“You know of the book then?”
“Well, yeah. There's a Queen of Hearts?”
“Yes. And I hate her. Chances are, the Tunnel is where the child lived when the book was written.”
He scratches his chin. “I don’t know where off the top of my head, except that it's somewhere in England.”
“Then find out.”
Artur groans. “Fine. We go to England. And find you a hotel.”
“Tell Honourless the name of your destination. She will take you there. Research transportation while you're awaiting the rest. Now, get moving.”
Hong Yi’s familiarity with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland amounts to whatever managed to filter through into the Mandarin Chinese translation he read. If the book was written in a town in England, he reasons, then their safest bet is to set up in London where he can charge his phone for research, then make use of its transport connections elsewhere.
He spends a minute writing his instructions for Honourless. The place we are headed is a city called London on an island near the north of the world. It has a big clock. The clock is quite famous, actually. I can sing you the melody it chimes.
At this point, Honourless meets Hong Yi’s eye, and he hums the tune of the Westminster Quarters. She chuckles as she writes her answer: That sounds like enough to get me there.
Now, in Hong Yi's world, nods to Lewis Carroll’s classic are something of a bastion of symbolism in popular media, so he is just a tad shaken when he learns what he next does.
“Wait. You don’t have Alice in Wonderland? At all?”
“Huh? No, I don’t know what that is,” is all Artur says.
The notion of a universe where the book doesn’t exist takes more than a minute to compute. “Wow. So…no ‘off with her head’? No anthropomorphic cards? No Disney animated film?”
“‘This Knee’? What is this nonsense?” Artur mutters as they form a circle with Honourless.
That is perhaps the most perturbing thing Hong Yi has heard all day, but he is quickly distracted from it—and from all else—when the riptide pull of Honourless' Ghosting drags him kicking out of this reality.
*
One, two, three. They pop in and out of a series of realities, each stop punctuated by the chiming of bells, the flutter of pigeon wings, the flash of the sun off a crumbling snowscape.
They land on their knees on the opposite side of a wrought iron fence from an infantry of tourists shooting pictures through the bars. The city is all bright glass ensconced in stone, carvings and sheer facades rising up in terraces around them over the mutter of traffic and riverbanks.
They dash out of the enclosure and up in the direction of the bustle. Honourless sways on her feet in that autumn sun; Artur offers her his shoulder as they scout out their new lodgings.
The mild overcrowding thins across the bridge and under tracks, and it is soon enough when they come upon a modest hostel within earshot of the railway. A room for four is a hundred and fifty hundred pounds for four nights, a figure they easily meet by pooling their funds together.
While Honourless sleeps off the ghosting sickness, Artur and Hong Yi choose to while the evening away on the streets. Their restless feet carry them down pavements in the lamplight till they find a pub, where they drink themselves silly, cheering over a soccer game between teams they don't know.
For a man who rarely strings more than five words together, the Artur of tonight rambles heartily with the other guests about the players on the screen. One slings an arm over his shoulder and shouts, “That right winger is a Russian—just like you—and a right treasure!” Once or twice, Hong Yi looks over and grins to see his companion wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
They lean on each other as they stumble home with a burger and chips wrapped in paper. “Beautiful world you live in,” Artur says with a grin. “Alive.”
“It has its problems, but it's not half bad,” he replies.
Artur leaves the pack of food on Honourless’ side table. Lying on the top bunk with the rough blankets tangled around his legs, Hong Yi lets his phone charge, logging into the hostel WiFi. Reunited with its networks, it lights up again with push notifications and map indicators as he scrolls down Lewis Carroll's Wikipedia page.
“Ohhh, Oxford. Obviously. They all lived in Oxford.” He flops onto his back, and the bed creaks more loudly with the impact than he was anticipating. “Sorry!”
“No problem,” Artur answers sleepily from below.
Lying on his back, he begins to look up their options for quickly transporting a group of nine from London to Oxford, periodically switching apps to taking notes.
When Artur wakes the next morning, his sleep-blurred eyes rest on Honourless' empty bed, then drift to the desk in the corner. Her meal is gone, and so is she. “She works hard,” he mumbles. Casting an eye about, it does not take him long to hear a snore from above. Artur smiles to himself.
For several long minutes, he closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of this universe: the faint chatter of birds, the rustle of leaves against the half-raised windows. To be alone with these sounds is such a simple pleasure. The ghost of yesterday’s merriment fleets over him, and then an immense sadness when he thinks of Vladivostok in summer, and of his little sister rolling about in bed, trying to read. She wanted to be a vet. Then a librarian. Then a social worker.
Now there is no Evgenia here, only Hong Yi. But in such few weeks, he feels he could have been a younger brother in another life. You'd have loved to know him, Zhenya. And briefly the mental image is so real—of some hypothetical meeting in the imminent future where the two sit at the same table, chattering away about whatever it is that bookish types talk about—that he begins to picture where such an encounter would happen. In their dining room. Or at his favourite eatery.
Then he remembers that all that is left of it all—his home, his sister—is a cold, irradiated ruin. Tears prick at his eyes again.
For the rest of the morning, there isn't much for Artur to worry himself over for once. He finally rolls off the bed and routs through his new bag for a stuffy 1894 shirt, a pair of pants, and his towel—an instrument that had already achieved engineering perfection three centuries before his time.
There is a short stroll along an old ambulatory from the room to the showers. Though the establishment has laminated plastic signage all along the halls, the building itself well pre-dates it: the archways here are more like those of the last world than the flaking pillars that held up the underpass.
The leaves rustle over the courtyard, their speckled lights rippling across the lawn. His footsteps slow. He closes his eyes and inhales. It is not too warm here; Hong Yi said it was October. He could linger here for days if he pleased…
Thud. A chorus of groans and mutters snaps Artur’s eyes open again. Upon that once-empty lawn, Vesper and Marcia are crawling to their feet. Honourless stays glued to the ground, arms wrapped around her knees. While Marcia’s eyes scan the new vista, Vesper takes in the sight for all of five seconds before her eyes meet his.
“Artur,” she mumbles, shambling towards him. “We’re in the right place, wonderful.”
“Good, good. I am going to shower.”
“Which room are you in?”
“Ah…one-zero-five.”
From behind her appears Marcia, who taps on Vesper's shoulder. “Honourless says we should book a room without her.”
“Oh, will she be all right?”
“You know her. She says she will be well in a minute. It reminds me of someone.”
“Marcia, I don't…”
Before Artur can react, the pair have strolled off up the corridor in the direction he came. For a minute he stands watching Honourless, wondering if an offer of help will be welcome or rude for the likes of her. Then she finally crawls to her feet and ambles past him, swaying. She claps him on the shoulder with a woozy grin and mumbles something, nodding in the direction he was walking.
“Beregi sebya,” he calls back, then carries on towards the bathroom.
*
Hong Yi leaps off the top bunk the instant Marcia and Vesper show their faces in the room, landing light as a leaf. “If it isn't my two favourite stunners!” he shouts as he flies to join them, both arms looping around their backs.
“I think you meant your favourite ‘stunner,’ and also Vesper,” Vesper replies.
He lets go. “Whoa. Are you calling Marcia attractive?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “I am only stating a fact.”
“Yeah? Do you think she's wife material?”
She shrugs. “Well, whoever marries Marcia would be very lucky.”
“Cease,” Marcia breathes, fanning herself.
He chuckles to himself. “Well, how was the trip?”
“Horrid, as usual,” Vesper replies. “But I hadn't thought your world would look quite so similar to mine.”
Hong Yi’s eyes drift out the window. “I don't know, I think it's just London.” He eyes each of them briefly, before his face brightens. “Oh, I've got an idea—I’ll take you to the pub while we’re waiting. Me and Artur had a blast there. What do you say?”
The two women look at each other. “If Artur liked it,” says Vesper, “then it must be quite something.”