Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Universe 9 (1979), edited by Terry Carr, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2015. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year #9 (1980), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included in the collections In Alien Flesh (1986) and The Best of Gregory Benford (2015).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

IT'S CALLED "THE EVENT," AN UNIMAGINABLE CATACLYSM THAT SHATTERS 600 MILLION YEARS OF THE EARTH'S TIMELINE.

Our world is gone, instantly replaced by a new one made of scattered remnants of the past, present, and future, dropped alongside one another in a patchwork of "shards". Monsters from Jurassic prehistory, ancient armies, and high-tech robots all coexist in this deadly post-apocalyptic landscape.

A desperate group of survivors sets out to locate the source of the disaster. They include 21st century Californian Amber Richardson, Cam, a young Celtic warrior from Roman Britannia, Alex Brice, a policewoman from 1985, and Blake, a British soldier from World War II. With other refugees from across time, they must learn the truth behind the Event, if they are to survive.

WAR ACROSS THE TIMESCAPE

Earth's past, present, and future have shattered in "the Event," yielding a terrifying new world of prehistoric monsters, lost cultures, strange technologies, and displaced armies. Coming from different points throughout history, a desperate band of survivors join "Merlin," a mysterious figure who may be their only hope to save the world--if he can be trusted.

When their twenty-third-century ship the Vanuatu is sabotaged by an unknown enemy and thrown far off its course, the team must discover who is responsible, even as they are split apart and fight to survive in the war-torn Shard world...

They call it "the Event"--an unimaginable cataclysm that renders 600 million years of the world's timeline into jumbled fragments. Our Earth is gone, instantly replaced by a new one made of fractured remnants of the past, present, and future. All exist alongside one another in a nightmare patchwork of "time shards"--some hundreds of miles long, and others no more than a few feet across.

With surprising help from throughout history, an American girl and her companions first must save ancient Alexandria, the last bastion of civilization, from a panzer tank invasion. Then they will face the ultimate challenge at the end of the world... the shatterfield.

Crossing it sends them on a final quest spanning time, space, and dimensions. Only then will they learn if their mission will save their world--or destroy it.