A World Too Near by Kay Kenyon

days.”
    Three hundred days or so, then. Sydney was still young. He hadn’t allowed himself to worry about the chaotic relation of time between here and home. Or so he thought. A long breath shuddered out of him.
    Benhu was prattling on. “You can be sure I haven’t had the time to be waiting thirty arcs. No, we figured out you’d be here about now, and I came as my duties allowed.”
    “ We? You and the lord figured it out?” The godman’s boasts were ludicrous.
    “Oh, time correlations are all very complicated, and the lord and I couldn’t define it more than we did.”
    Quinn leaned forward, putting an edge in his voice. “How did you know even that much? How did you know when I’d want to come, be able to come?”
    Benhu looked affronted. “Well. The lord discerns when your side begins its probes—the tests that herald your crossing. Then he alerts me, and setting aside my many obligations—”
    “I don’t like you, Benhu. You stretch the truth. Why should I trust you?”
    “My lord wants what you want,” Benhu muttered.
    “And what do I want?”
    “Oh, to stop the engine, of course.” He grinned. “Don’t be surprised. The lord knows why you’re here. Did you think it a secret? Well, it is a secret, between the three of us, I assure you.”
    It should have been a secret. Sharing it with this tattered godman, much less a Tarig lord, stung Quinn with dismay.
    Benhu drew a pipe out of his pocket and loaded it with a gray weed. A candle gave his punk a flame and he puffed out a noxious stream of smoke. “You’ll stop the engine, the lord says. For the sake of converse. He says that your world and mine should work together, not crosswise. It makes sense, but against the vows, of course. The lord will persuade the other lords; don’t worry about that. Inevitable, the lord says, because as for going to and from, once it starts, you can’t stop it.”
    “Get to the point, Benhu.” Quinn wondered how the godman knew his mission. How Oventroe knew it.
    “So, the lord says peace is better than war, and converse better than everyone pretending no one else exists.” Benhu gestured with his pipe as he talked, punctuating his main points. “This Ahnenhoon thing, this engine, the lord’s against all that. Just like you are. You’re here to tear it down, of course.” He squinted through a haze of orange smoke. “How do you plan to do that, by the way?”
    “If the lord’s against this Ahnenhoon thing, why doesn’t he take it down himself?”
    Recognizing the word Ahnenhoon , Helice tried to sit up, pushing herself up on one elbow. Gently but firmly, Benhu pushed her down again.
    Noting that Helice was paying attention, Quinn took stock of the fact that she might be not only an inconvenience, but an enemy. He put nothing past her. He murmured, “We will not speak the lord’s name around her. She is not to know.”
    Benhu nodded, eyes wide at the thought that his lord’s name might have been overheard by one whom not even Titus Quinn trusted.
    Quinn continued, “So why doesn’t your master get rid of the engine himself?”
    The godman resumed sucking on his pipe. “Maybe he’s testing you. And think of this: How could a Tarig walk in there and not have a retinue, and not attract notice?”
    “You’re guessing.”
    Helice was growing more agitated and tried to sit up, slapping Benhu’s hands away. She managed to drag herself to the chamber wall, where she propped herself up. She looked like a monstrous gnome: small, hairless, her skin livid and bleeding. “Can’t you talk in English?”
    Quinn turned on her with incredulity. “He doesn’t speak it. That’s your main problem here, Helice. You don’t know Lucent. Did you think about that before you planned this maneuver? Did Lamar think of it, or Stefan?” No wonder Lamar was acting so guilty. The son-of-a-bitch had caved in, never warning him.
    “I’m smart; I can learn,” she whispered.
    “No Helice, you’re dumb. This stunt