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doubt about that. But even they could not defy the ice. On a shifting, dangerous world there was plenty
of empty space to explore. Plenty of room for a creature with potential. And there was no particular
reason why that potential had to be realized exactly as it had been before. There was room on Mir for
something different. Something better, perhaps.
Grasper hefted the heavy stone in her hand, and dimly imagined what might be done with it. She was
quite without fear. Now she was master of the world, and she was not quite sure what to do next.
But she would think of something.
47: RETURN
Bisesa gasped, staggered. She was standing.
Music was playing.
She stared at a wall, which showed the magnified image of an impossibly beautiful young man crooning
into an old-fashioned microphone. Impossible, yes; he was a synth star, a distillation of the inchoate
longings of pre-teen girls. My God, he looks like Alexander the Great. Bisesa could barely take her
eyes off the wall s moving colors, its brightness. She had never realized how drab and dun-colored Mir
had been.
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The softwall said, Good morning, Bisesa. This is your regular alarm call. Breakfast is waiting
downstairs. The news headlines today are
Shut up. Her voice was a dusty desert croak.
Of course. The synthetic boy sang on softly.
She glanced around. This was her bedroom, in her London apartment. It seemed small, cluttered. The
bed was big, soft, not slept in.
She walked to the window. Her military-issue boots were heavy on the carpet, and left footprints of
crimson dust. The sky was gray, on the cusp of sunrise, and the skyline of London was emerging from
the flatness of silhouette.
Wall.
Bisesa?
What s the date?
Tuesday.
Thedate.
Ah. The ninth of June, 2037.
The day after the chopper crash. I should be in Afghanistan.
The softwall coughed. I ve grown used to your sudden changes of plans, Bisesa. I remember once
Mum?
The voice was small, sleepy. Bisesa turned.
She was barefoot, her tummy stuck out, fist rubbing at one eye, hair tousled, a barely awake
eight-year-old. She was wearing her favorite pajamas, the ones across which cartoon characters
gamboled, even though they were now about two sizes too small for her. You didn t say you were
coming home.
Something broke inside Bisesa. She reached out. Oh, Myra
Myra recoiled. Yousmellfunny.
Shocked, Bisesa glanced down at herself. In her orange jumpsuit, scuffed and torn and coated with
sweat-soaked sand, she was as out of place in this twenty-first-century flat as if she had been wearing a
spacesuit.
She forced a smile. I guess I need a shower. Then we ll have breakfast, and I ll tell you all about it . . .
The light changed, subtly. She turned to the window. There was an Eye over the city, floating like a
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barrage balloon. She couldn t tell how far away it was, or how big.
And over the rooftops of London, a baleful sun was rising.
Time s Eye is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author s
imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey®Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the
United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.delreydigital.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request from the publisher.
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eISBN 0-345-45249-6
v1.0
Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time s eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.
Rudyard Kipling
TIME S EYE
AUTHORS NOTE
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This book, and the series that it opens, neither follows nor precedes the books of the earlierOdyssey,
but is at right angles to them: not a sequel or prequel, but an orthoquel, taking similar premises in a
different direction.
The quotation from Rudyard Kipling s Cities and Thrones and Powers, fromPuck of Pook s Hill
(1906), is used by kind permission of AP Watt Ltd., on behalf of the National Trust for Places of
Historical Interest or Natural Beauty.
TIME S EYE
A TIME ODYSSEY: 1
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
AND STEPHEN BAXTER
PART 1
DISCONTINUITY
PART 2
CASTAWAYS IN TIME
PART THREE
ENCOUNTERS AND ALLIANCES
PART 4
THE CONFLUENCE OF HISTORY
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PART 5
MIR
PART 6
TIME S EYE
IMPRINT LOGO
TITLE PAGE
EPIGRAPH
HALF TITLE
AUTHOR S NOTE
PART 1: DISCONTINUITY
1: SEEKER
2: LITTLE BIRD
3: EVIL EYE
4: RPG
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