Free Time's Eye by Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter Page A

can’t exist any more, you could cause a huge catastrophe.”
    “I don’t understand,” Josh confessed.
    “Suppose I told you where my great-great-great-grandmother lives, right now, in 1885. Then you go out, find her, and shoot her.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Never mind! But if you did, I would never be born—and so I could never come back to tell you about my grandmother—and you’d never shoot her. In which case—”
    “It’s a paradox of logic,” Ruddy breathed. “How delightful! But if we promise not to molest your grandmother, can you tell us
nothing
of ourselves?”
    Josh scoffed. “How would she ever have heard of
us
, Ruddy?”
    Ruddy looked thoughtful. “I have the feeling that she
has
, you know—heard of
me
at any rate. A chap knows when he’s been recognized!”
    But Bisesa would say no more.
    As the last daylight seeped away, and the stars receded to infinity above them, the little party grew closer together, the soldiers’ bantering talk subdued, their lanterns held high. They were walking into strangeness, thought Josh. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t know
who
lay out there, or
where
they were going. They couldn’t even be sure
when
they would find themselves . . . He thought they all seemed relieved when they passed a low hill and the rising Moon, a quarter full, shed a cold light on the rocky plain. But the air was strange, turbulent, and the Moon’s face an odd yellow-orange.
    “Here,” said Bisesa suddenly. She had stopped before a scraping in the ground. Stepping closer, Josh saw that the earth was fresh and moist, as if recently dug.
    “It’s a foxhole,” Ruddy said. He hopped down into the hole, and brandished a length of pipe, like a bit of drainpipe. “And is this the fearsome weapon that shot you out of the sky?”
    “That’s the RPG launcher, yes.” She peered east. “There was a village just over there. A hundred meters, no more.” The soldiers held up their lanterns. There was no village to be seen, nothing but the rocky plain that seemed to stretch to the horizon. “Perhaps there is a boundary near here,” Bisesa breathed. “A boundary in time. What a strange thought. What is happening to us? . . .” She lifted her face to the Moon. “Oh. Clavius is gone.”
    Josh was at her side. “Clavius?”
    “Clavius Base.” She pointed. “Built into a big old crater in the southern highlands.”
    Josh stared. “You have cities
on the Moon
?”
    She smiled. “I wouldn’t call it a city. But you can see its light, like a captured star, the only one in the circle of the crescent Moon. Now it’s gone. That isn’t even my
Moon.
There is a crew on Mars, and a second on the way—or there was. I wonder what’s become of them . . .”
    There was a grunt of disgust. One of the soldiers had been rooting at the bottom of the foxhole, and now emerged with what looked like a piece of meat, still dripping blood. The stink was sharp.
    “A human arm,” Ruddy said flatly. He turned away and vomited.
    Josh said, “It looks to me like the work of a great cat . . . It seems that whoever attacked you did not live long to enjoy his triumph.”
    “I suppose he was as lost as I am.”
    “Yes. I apologize for Ruddy. He doesn’t have a very strong stomach for such sights.”
    “No. And he never will.”
    Josh looked at her; her eyes were full of moonlight, her expression empty. “What do you mean?”
    “He was right. I do know who he is. You’re Rudyard Kipling, aren’t you? Rudyard bloody Kipling. My God, what a day.”
    Ruddy didn’t respond. He was hunched over, still retching, and bile stained his chin.
    At that moment the ground trembled, hard enough to raise little clouds of dust everywhere, like invisible footfalls. And rain began to fall, from thick black clouds that came racing across the Moon’s empty face.

PART 2
    CASTAWAYS IN TIME

10: GEOMETRY
    For Bisesa the first morning was the worst.
    She suspected that some combination of adrenaline and shock