Time and precognition is a tricky matter for me.  It is dangerously simple to hit either the wall of “infinite possible futures” or strict Calvinist Determinism. I try to negotiate my way with people being embedded in time, where God is not, but people also sharing in the small-d doctrine of co-creation.

So, as we’ve seen before, Aurie on odd occasions gets a tiny glimpse of the future. The public ceremony of her taking the reins of the imperium being the most recent. While here and in the next installment, her husband attempts a work-around, I think for Aurie it has created a sense of fatalism.

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After a long three hours, Aurie gave a huge sigh as she stepped into the oversized bathtub and curled up close to her husband, Jimmy Burns.  At sixty-six, he kept himself in good shape and, once they discovered his wife could only have three children, threw himself into raising them before working on some of the imperium’s projects on the moon and Earth’s orbit, drawing upon his skills as a rocketry tech before a certain girl dropped out of the sky and demanded he marry her.

“You know I had to play politics and stand there and smile,” he said, reaching for a bar of soap for her back, “but by and large I didn’t notice any huge problems.”

“Mmm, huge,” she muttered, backing up closer to him.

“Aurie!  I know you’ve been a bit on edge for the last few days.  I know we’re past the ‘keeping secrets’ part, so, before, the only times I’ve seen you like this,” he paused to rinse off her back, “is when you see the future.”

“My very rare procog moments, as you know, can be a blessing and a curse,” she purred, leaning back into him, happy his arms went about her.  “A blessing when I saw an image of us, in your house in Canso, Nova Scotia.  A curse…”

“Like when you retargeted the fusion warhead used in St. Louis?”

“Mmm.”

“So.  What did you see, oh great and powerful empress?” he pushed.

“Some of our, well, my, now, subjects, shall be disaffected by the succession.”

Not a politician, but married into the Hartmann family for just shy of forty years, Jimmy knew an evasion when he heard one.  It hurt him.

“You mean open rebellion or just side-long looks?” he demanded.

“Why are you being like this?  Now?” she breathed.

“Because,” he pushed her up and turned her around, “when someone lies…”

“They murder a part of the world,” she completed the quote with her head down.  “And that’s the problem.”

“The lie or the murd – ” he began.

“Tomorrow at the public ceremony, a small IED, perhaps a suicide vest, will be detonated,” she whispered.  “I saw it.”

“Cancel it,” Burns said instantly.  “You caught a cold from being around too many people today.  You’re too sick to attend, so it’s pushed back a day or two.  Enough to find the bomb and who did it.”

“You know I can’t do that.” He saw she was barely crying.  “Time is time.  I am granted these things from God’s Unbounded Now.  There is nothing any of us can do to stop it.”

He thought about letting the water out but concluded that they may as well be miserable in a tub together than sitting in their bed.  Jimmy ran more hot water.