Times Change

“Not precisely.” He stretched out his legs so that the fire warmed the soles of his feet. “Time and space are relative—in simple terms. It’s a matter of finding the proper equations and implementing them.”

“Sure. E equals MC squared, but really, J.T., bopping around through time?” She shook her head, obviously amused. “Like Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the Wayback machine.”

“Who?”

“You obviously had a deprived childhood. It’s a cartoon, you know? And this dog scientist—”

He held up a hand, his eyes narrowed to green slits. “A dog was a scientist?”

“In the cartoon,” she said patiently. “And he had this boy, Sherman. Never mind,” she added when she saw his expression. “It’s just that they would set the dates on this big machine.”

“The Wayback.”

“Exactly. Then they would travel back, like to Nero’s Rome or Arthur’s Britain.”

“Fascinating.”

“Entertaining. It was a cartoon, J.T. You can’t really believe it.”

He sent her a slow, enigmatic smile. “Do you only believe what you can see?”

“No.” She frowned, using a hot pad to remove the lid from the popper. “I guess not.” Then she laughed and sampled the popcorn. “Maybe I do. I’m a realist. We really needed one in the family.”

“Even a realist has to accept certain possibilities.”

“I suppose.” She took another handful and decided to get into the spirit of things. “Okay. So, we’re in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback machine. Where would you go—or when, I suppose I should say? When would you go, if you really could?”

He looked at her, sitting in the firelight, laughter still in her eyes. “The possibilities are endless. What about you?”

“I wonder.” She held the beer loosely in her hand as she considered. “I imagine Libby would have a dozen places to go back to. The Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans. Dad would probably want to see Tombstone or Dodge City. And my mother . . . well, she’d go where my father went, to keep an eye on him.”

He dipped into the popcorn. “I asked about you.”

“I’d go forward. I’d want to see what was coming.”

He didn’t speak, only stared into the fire.

“A hundred, maybe two hundred, years in the future. After all, you can read history books and get a pretty good idea of what things were like before. But after . . . It seems to me it would be much more exciting to see just what we’ve made out of things.” The idea made her laugh up at him. “Do they actually pay you to work on stuff like that? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to figure out how to travel across town in, say, Manhattan in under forty minutes during rush hour?”

“I’m free to choose my own projects.”

“Must be nice.” She was mellow now, relaxed and happy enough with his company. “It seems I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I’m a terrible employee,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s something about rules and authority. I’m argumentative.”

“Really?”

She didn’t mind his grin. “Really. But I’m so often right, you see, that it’s really hard to admit when I’m wrong. Sometimes I wish I was more . . . flexible.”

“Why? The world’s full of people who give in.”

“Maybe they’re happier,” she murmured. “It’s a shame the word compromise is so hard to swallow. You don’t like to be wrong, either.”

“I make sure I’m not.”

She laughed and stretched out on the rug. “Maybe I do like you. We’re going to have to tend this fire all night unless we want to freeze. We’ll take shifts.” She yawned and pillowed her head over her hands. “Wake me up in a couple of hours and I’ll take over.”

When he was certain she was asleep, Jacob covered her with the colorful blanket, then left her by the fire. Upstairs, it took him less than ten minutes to make some adjustments to the desktop computer and tie it in so that it would run off his mini unit. The mini didn’t have the memory banks of his ship model, but it would be enough to make his report and answer the few questions he had.

“Engage, computer.”

A quiet, neutral voice answered him. Engaged.

“Report. Hornblower, Jacob. Current date is January 20th. A winter storm has caused me to remain in the cabin. The structure runs off electric power, typically unreliable in this era. Apparently the power is transmitted through overhead lines that are vulnerable during storms. At approximately 1800 hours, the power was cut off. Estimated time of repair?”

Working . . . Incomplete data.

“I was afraid of that.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Sunbeam Stone is resourceful. Candles—wax candles—are used for light. Wood is burned for heat. It is, of course, insufficient, and only accommodates a small area. It is, however . . .” He searched for a word. “. . . pleasant. It creates a certain soothing ambiance.” Annoyed, he cut himself off. He didn’t want to think of the way she had looked in the firelight. “As reported earlier, Stone is a difficult and aggressive female, prone to bursts of temper. She is also disarmingly generous, sporadically friendly and—” The word desirable was on the tip of his tongue. Jacob bit it. “Intriguing,” he decided. “Further study is necessary. However, I do not believe she is an average woman of this time.” He paused again, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Computer, what are the typical attitudes of women toward mating in this era?”

Working.

As soon as he had asked, Jacob opened his mouth to disengage. But the computer was quick.

Most typically physical attraction, sometimes referred to as chemistry, is required. Emotional attachment, ranging from affection to love is preferred by 97.6 percent of females. Single encounters, often called one-night stands, were no longer fashionable in this part of the twentieth century. Subjects preferred commitment from sexual partners. Romance was widely accepted and desired.

“Define ‘romance.’”

Working . . . To influence by personal attention, flattery or gifts. Also synonymous with love, love affair, an attachment between male and female. Typified by the atmosphere of dim lighting, quiet music, flowers. Accepted romantic gestures include—

“That’s enough.” Jacob rubbed his hands over his face and wondered if he was going crazy. He had no business wasting time asking the computer such unscientific questions. He had less business contemplating a totally unscientific relationship with Sunny Stone.

He had only two purposes for being where he was. The first and most important was to find his brother. The second was to gather as much data as possible about this era. Sunny Stone was data, and she couldn’t be anything else.

But he wanted her. It was unscientific, but it was very real. It was also illogical. How could he want to be with a woman who annoyed him as much as she amused him? Why should he care about a woman he had so little in common with? Centuries separated them. Her world, while fascinating in a clinical sense, frustrated the hell out of him. She frustrated the hell out of him.

The best thing to do was to get back to his ship, program his computers and go home. If it weren’t for Cal, he would do so. He wanted to think it was only Cal that stopped him.

Meticulously, he disengaged the computer and pocketed his mini. When he returned downstairs, she was still sleeping. Moving quietly, he put another log on the fire, then sat on the floor beside her.

Hours passed, but he didn’t bother to wake her. He was used to functioning on little or no sleep. For more than a year his average workday had run eighteen hours. The closer he had come to the final equations for time travel, the more he had pushed. And he had succeeded, he thought as he watched the flames eat the wood. He was here. Of course, even with his meticulous computations, he had come several months too late.

Cal was married, of all things. And if Sunny was to be believed, he was happy and settled. It would be that much more difficult for Jacob to make him see reason. But he would make him see it.

He had to see it, Jacob told himself. It was as clear as glass. A man belonged in his own time. There were reasons, purposes. Beyond what science could do, there was a pattern. If a man chose to break that pattern, the