Myra sat awkwardly on the single chair in the room, and pulled at her fingers. Its not just a lull. This is a kind of terminus, for me. You needed me to get my mother here, to Mars. Fine, I did that. But now Ive crashed into a wall.

He rolled over and faced her. Im sorry you feel like that. I think youre being too hard on yourself. Youre a good person. Ive seen that. You love your mother, and you support her, even when it hurts you. Thats a pretty good place to be. Anyhow, he said, Im not one to give you counseling. Im spying on my father. How dys-functional is that?

He turned back to the wall.

She sat with him a while longer. When he began to snore, she crept out of the room and closed the door.

30: CHILIARCH.

Grove and Abdi brought Bisesa to a smaller chamber, an office set out with couches and tables. This temple seemed to be full of offices, Emeline observed; she learned it was a center of administration for various cults and government departments as well as a place of worship.

Grove sat Bisesa down and wrapped her in a blanket. Grove shouted at various parties about tea, until a servant brought Bisesa a bowl of some hot, milky drink, which she sipped gratefully.

Two solid-looking Macedonian guards were posted at the door. They carried the long, brutal-looking pikes they called sarissae. Bisesas return had caused a ferment, it seemed, though whether the guards were protecting the people from Bisesa or vice versa Emeline didnt know.

Emeline sat, and quietly studied Bisesa Dutt.

She looked older than Emeline, but not much more, fifty perhaps. She was just as Josh had described hereven sketched her in some of his journals. Her face was handsome and well proportioned, if not beautiful, her nose strong and her jaw square. Her eyes were clear, her cut-short hair grayed. Though she seemed drained and disoriented, she had a strength about her, Emeline sensed, a dogged enduring strength.

Bisesa, reviving, looked around cautiously. So, she said. Here we are.

Here you are, Grove said. Youve been back home, have you? I mean back to England. Your England.

Yes, Captain. I was brought back to the time of the Discontinuity, in my future. Precisely, to within a day. Even though I had spent five years on Mir.

Grove shook his head. I ought to get used to the way time flows so strangely here. I dont suppose I ever will.

Now Im back. But when am I? Emeline said, Madam, its well known here that you left Mir in the year five of the new calendar established by the Babylonian astronomers. This is year thirty-two... Twenty-seven years, then. Bisesa looked at her curiously. Youre an American. Im from Chicago. Of course. The Soyuz spotted you, clear of the North American ice sheet. Emeline said, I am from the year 1894. She had got used to repeating this strange detail. Nine years after Captain Groves time slicethat was 1885. Yes. Bisesa turned to Abdikadir, who had said little since Bisesa had been retrieved. And you are so like your father.

Wide-eyed, Abdi was nervous, curious, perhaps eager to impress. I am an astronomer. I work here in the Templethere is an observatory on the roof She smiled at him. Your father must be proud.

He isnt here, Abdi blurted. And he told her how Abdikadir Omar had gone south into Africa, following his own quest; if Mir was populated by a sampling of hominids from all mankinds long evolutionary history, Abdikadir had wanted to find the very earliest, the first divergence from the other lines of apes. But he did not return. This was some years ago.

Bisesa nodded, absorbing that news. And Casey? What of him?

Casey Othic, the third crew member of the Little Bird, was no longer here either. He had died of complications from an old injury he had suffered on Discontinuity day itself. But, Captain Grove said, not before he had left quite a legacy behind. A School of Othic. Engineers to whom Casey became a god, literally! Youll see, Bisesa.

Bisesa listened to this. And the three Soyuz crew were all killed, ultimately. So there are no moderns hereI mean, nobody from my own time. That feels strange. What about Josh?

Captain Grove coughed into his fist, awkward, almost comically British. Well, he survived your departure, Bisesa.

He came with me halfway, Bisesa said enigmatically. But they sent him back.

With you gone, there was nothing to keep him here in Babylon. Grove glanced uncomfortably at Emeline. He went to find his own people.

Chicago.

Yes. It took a few years before Alexanders people, with Caseys help, put together a sailing ship capable of taking on the Atlantic. But Josh was on the first boat.

I was his wife, Emeline said.

Ah, Bisesa said. Was?

And Emeline told her something of Joshs life, and how he died, and the legacy he left behind, his sons.

Bisesa listened gravely. I dont know if youd want to hear this, she said. Back home, I looked up Josh. I asked AristotleI mean, I consulted the archives. And I found Joshs place in history.

The copy of Josh left behind on Earth had lived on past 1885. That Josh had fallen in love: aged thirty-five he married a Boston Catholic, who gave him two sonsjust as Emeline gave him sons on Mir. But Josh was cut down in his fifties, dying in the blood-sodden mud of Passchendaele, a correspondent covering yet another war, a great world war Emeline had never heard of.

Emeline listened to this reluctantly. It was somehow a diminishing of her Josh to hear this tale of an alternate version of him.

They talked on for a while, of disrupted histories, of the deteriorating climate of Mir, of a new Troy and a global empire. Grove asked Bisesa if she had found Myra, her daughter. Bisesa said she had, and in fact she now had a granddaughter too. But her mood seemed wistful, complicated. It seemed not much of this had made her happy.

Emeline had little to say. She tried to gauge the mood of the people around her as they talked, adjusting to this new strangeness. Abdi and Ben, born after the Discontinuity, were curious, wide-eyed with wonder. But Grove and Emeline herself, and perhaps Bisesa, were fundamentally fearful. The youngsters didnt understand, as did the older folk who had lived through the Discontinuity, that nothing in the world was permanent, not if time could be torn apart and knitted back together again at a whim. If you lived through such an event you never got over it.

There was a commotion at the door.

Abdikadir, attuned to life at Alexanders court, got to his feet quickly.

A man walked briskly into the room, accompanied by two lesser-looking attendants. Abdikadir prostrated himself before this man; he threw himself to the floor, arms outstretched, head down.

Wearing a flowing robe of some expensive purple-dyed fabric the newcomer was shorter than anybody else in the room, but he had a manner of command. He was bald save for a frosting of silver hair. He might have been seventy, Emeline thought, but his lined skin glistened, well treated with oils.

Bisesas eyes widened. Secretary Eumenes.

The man smiled, his expression cold, calculated. My title is now chiliarch, and has been for twenty years or more. His English was fluent but stilted, and tinged with a British accent.

Bisesa said, Chiliarch. Which was Hephaistions position, once. You have risen higher than any man save the King, Eumenes of Cardia.

Not bad for a foreigner. I suppose I should have expected you, Bisesa said. You of all people. As I have always expected you.

From his prone position on the floor, Abdikadir stammered, Lord Chiliarch. I summoned you, I sent runners the moment it happenedthe Eyethe return of Bisesa Duttit was just as you orderedif there were delays I apologize, and Oh, be quiet, boy. And stand up. I came when I was ready. Believe it or not there are matters in this worldwide empire of ours even more pressing than enigmatic spheres and mysterious revenants. Now. Why are you here, Bisesa Dutt?

It was a direct question none of the others had asked her. Bisesa said, Because of a new Firstborn threat.

In a few words she sketched a storm on the sun, and how mankind in a future century had labored to survive it. And she spoke of a new weapon, called the Q-bomb, which was gliding through space toward EarthBisesas Earth.

I myself traveled between planets, in search of answers to this challenge. And then I was broughthere.

Why? Who by?

I dont know. Perhaps the same agency who took me home in the first place. The Firstborn, or not the Firstborn. Perhaps some agency who defies them.

The King knows of your return.

Grove asked, How do you know that?

Eumenes smiled. Alexander knows everything I knowand generally before me. At least, that is the safest assumption to make. I will speak to you later, Bisesa Dutt, in the palace. The King may attend.

Its a date.

Eumenes grimaced. I had forgotten your irreverence. It is interesting to have you back, Bisesa Dutt. He turned on his heel and walked out, to more bowing and scraping from Abdikadir.

Bisesa glanced at Emeline and Grove. So you know why Im here. A bomb in the solar system, an Eye on Mars. Why are you here?

Because, Abdikadir said, I summoned them when your telephone rang. Bisesa stared at him. My phone?

They hurried back to the Eye chamber.

Abdikadir extracted the phone from its shrine, and handed it to Bisesa reverently.

It lay in her palm, scuffed, familiar. She couldnt believe it; her eyes misted over. She tried to explain to Abdikadir. Its just a phone. I was given it when I was twelve years old. Every child on Earth got a phone at that age. A communications and education program by the old United Nations. Well, it came here with me through the Discontinuity, and it was a great helpa true companion. But then its power failed.

Abdikadir listened to this rambling, his face expressionless. It rang. Chirp, chirp.

It will respond to an incoming call, but thats all. When the power went I had no way of recharging it. Still havent, in fact. Wait She turned to her spacesuit, which still lay splayed open on the floor. Nobody had dared touch it. Suit Five?

Its voice, from the helmet speakers, was very small. I have always strived to serve your needs during your extravehicular activity.

Can you give me one of your power packs?

It seemed to think that over. Then a compartment on the suits belt flipped open to reveal a compact slab of plastic, bright green like the rest of the suit. Bisesa pulled this out of its socket.

Is there anything else I can do for you today, Bisesa? No. Thank you.

I will need refurbishment before I can serve you again. Ill see you get it. She feared that was a lie. Rest now. The suit fell silent with a kind of sigh.

She took the battery pack, flipped open the phones interface panel, and jammed the phone onto the cells docking port. Male and female connectors joined smoothly. What was it Alexei said? Thank Sol for universal docking protocols.

The phone lit up and spoke hesitantly. Bisesa? Its me. You took your time.

31: OPERATION ORDER.

A new draft operation order was transmitted to Liberator from Bellas office in Washington. Were to shadow the Q-bomb, Edna said, scanning the order. How far? John Metternes asked. All the way to Earth, if we have to.

Christ on a bike, that might be twenty months!

Libby, can we do it?

The AI said, We will be coasting, like the bomb. So propellant and reaction mass wont be a problem. If the recycling efficiency stays nominal the life shell will be able to sustain crew functions.

Nicely put, John said sourly. Youre the engineer, Edna snapped. Do you think shes right? I guess. But whats the point, Captain? Our weapons are useless.

Best to have somebody on point than nobody. Something might turn up. John, Libby, start drawing up a schedule. Ill go through the draft order, and if were sure its feasible from a resources point of view well send our revision back to Earth.

Bonza trip this is going to be, Metternes muttered.

Edna glanced at her softscreen. There was the bomb, silent, gliding ever deeper into the solar system, visible only by the stars it reflected. Edna tried to work out what she was going to say to Theahow to explain she wasnt coming home any time soon.

32: ALEXANDER.

Bisesa was given a room of her own in Nebuchadnezzars palace, which Alexander had, inevitably, taken over. Eumeness staff provided clothes in the elaborate Persian style that had been adopted by the Macedonian court.

And Emeline called in and gave her some toiletries: a comb, creams for her face and hands, a tiny bottle of perfume, even some archaic-looking sanitary towels. They were a selection from the travel kit of a nineteenth-century lady. You looked as if you didnt arrive with much, she said.

The gesture, of one woman far from home to another, made Bisesa feel like crying.

She slept a while. She was weighed down by the sudden return to Earth gravity, three times that of Mars. And her body clock was all over the place; as before, this new Discontinuity, her own personal time slip, left her with a kind of jet lag.

And then she did cry, for herself, the shock of it all, and for the loss of Myra. But these last few extraordinary weeks in which they had been traveling together across space had probably been as long as she had spent alone with Myra since the days of the sunstorm. That was some consolation, she told herself, even though it seemed they had hardly spoken, hardly got to know each other.

She longed to know more about Charlie. She hadnt even seen a photo of her granddaughter. She tried to sleep again.

She was woken by a diffident serving girl, maybe a slave. It was early evening. Time for her reception with Eumenes, and perhaps Alexander.

She bathed and dressed; she had worn Babylonian robes before, but she still felt ridiculous dressed up like this.

The grand chamber to which she was led was a pocket of obscene wealth, plastered with tapestries and fine carpets and exquisite furniture. Even the pewter mug a servant gave her for her wine was studded with precious stones. But there were guards everywhere, at the doorways, moving through the hall, armed with long sarissa pikes and short stabbing-swords. They wore no solid armor, but had helmets of what looked like ox-hide, corselets of linen, leather boots. They looked like the infantry soldiers Bisesa remembered from her earlier time here.

Amid the soldiers iron and the silver and gilt of the decorations, courtiers walked, chatting, dismissive.

They wore exotic clothes, predominantly purple and white. Their faces were painted so heavily, men and women, it was hard to tell how old they were. They noticed Bisesa and they were curious, but they were far more interested in each other and their own web of rivalries.

And moving through the crowd were Neanderthals. Bisesa recognized them from distant ice-fringe glimpses during her last time on Mir. Now here they were in court. Mostly very young, they walked with their great heads bowed, their eyes empty, their powerful farmers hands carrying delicate trays. They wore purple robes every bit as fine as the courtiers, as if for a joke.

Bisesa stood before one extraordinary tapestry. Covering a whole wall, it was a map of the world, but inverted, with south at the top. A great swath of southern Europe, North Africa, and central Asia reaching down into India was colored red and bordered in gold.

Yeh-lu Chu-tsai, said Captain Grove.

Accompanying Emeline, he wore his British army uniform, and she a sensible-looking white blouse and long skirt with black shoes. They both looked solidly nineteenth-century amid all the gaudiness of Alexanders court.

I envy you your outfit, Bisesa said to Emeline, self-conscious in her Babylonian gear. I carry my own steam iron, Emeline said primly. Grove asked Bisesa, How was my pronunciation? I wouldnt know, Bisesa confessed. Yeh-lu?...

Grove sipped his wine, lifting his mustache out of the way. Perhaps you never met him. He was Genghis Khans most senior advisor, before Alexanders Mongol War. A Chinese prisoner-of-war made good. After the waryoull recall Genghis was assassinatedhis star waned. But he came here, to Babylon, to work with Alexanders scholars. The result was maps like that. He indicated the giant tapestry. All a bit unnecessarily expensive, of course, but pretty accurate as far as we could see. Helped Alexander no end in planning his campaigns of conquestand in marking its extent later.

Alexanders campaigns were remarkable, Bisesaan astounding feat of logistics and motivation. He built a whole fleet in the great harbor here at Babylon, and then had to engineer the whole length of the Euphrates to make the river navigable. He had his fleet circumnavigate Africa, raiding the shore to survive. Meanwhile from Babylon his troops drove east and west, laying rail tracks and military roads, and planting cities everywhere. Took him five years to make ready, then another ten years of campaigning before he had taken it all, from Spain to India. Of course he drained the strength of his people in the process...

Emeline touched Bisesas arm. Where is your telephone?

Bisesa sighed. It insisted on being taken back to the temple so that Abdi could download as much of his astronomy observations as possible. It is curious.

Emeline frowned. I admit I struggle to follow your words. What is strangest of all is the obvious affection you feel for this phone. But it is a machine. A thing!