“We have refined it,” Kay said flatly. “We have spent more time on this plan than the universe actually contains. We have done it forwards and sideways and ass-backwards. We cannot make it work.”

“There is a great distance between ‘cannot’ and ‘have not yet,’ ” the Nissa scientist insisted. Then it seemed as if Auruthmer was arguing with her. Next everyone was talking over everyone else, the hard-walled chamber ringing with a babel of discordant voices and languages.

The cold came first, and the walls glittered as frost flowered across them in intricate, interlocking patterns. Then Charen Volkovska exploded into being halfway across the room. Everyone except for Cam’s avatar quickly dropped back. She came in full regalia, a translucent, gleaming figure, crowned and robed and pale as death. Her eyes flashed and her face was set in an expression of regal displeasure. It stilled every voice.

“We have been here before,” Charen said. As if to emphasize the force of her words, her image fuzzed briefly in and out of focus. “I have seen this moment a dozen times. I have seen this woman shouted down, over and over.” A spectral hand singled out Kay. “We fail, each time. We die, each time. We are burning up our chances. Each new timeline starts closer to the inevitable end. Just try—try what she says. Try something new, because nothing else is working.”

She was fading again. The tides of connection were carrying her further away, along that axis on which the parallels were strung. Lee saw her lips moving, but her voice was gone, and then so was she.

“Fuck me.” Kay cleared frost from her eyebrows. “I guess that’s more proof that the Ediacaran is watching us now…seeing if it gets to add this idea to the mix tape. Murther?”

The Nissa scientist stared at the ground, then let out a huge breath. When she replied, even Lee could translate it as “Yes.”

And then Rove said, “No.”

He had his phone in his hand. And Lee wondered if Charen’s sudden vanishing had been something more than the vagaries of dimensional connections. Rove had seen Charen betray him before, after all, and who knew what safeguards he’d built into their relationship. Lee hadn’t pegged him as a trusting man.

“We can’t do this,” Rove said flatly. “Whatever would be left, even if this plan worked, wouldn’t resemble our world in any way. We can’t just hold open the doors and let the monsters walk in and out as they wish.” That his audience included several “monsters” didn’t seem to register. “The only point of this circus is to save what is valuable to us. What you’re proposing would destroy everything we are.”

“And…save everything that there is,” Kay responded uncertainly. “I mean, you understood that bit, didn’t you?”