tome on Norse mythology had several pieces of paper stuck in it marking various pages, while beside it lay something titled Great Teen Detectives of the Twentieth Century. She was almost afraid to ask what writing project Dad had embarked on now.
'Maybe Mom has it?' Megan suggested. 'I just hope Sean hasn't picked it up. It's his turn to cook next week.'
Ordinarily, she'd help her father search for the escaped book, but one look at the clock just now had stopped her from volunteering. Tonight was the night that she, David, Leif, and P. J. were entering Latvinia for the first time.
Alan had okayed the idea of Megan going in with her friends, so long as they submitted character profiles just like everyone else. She'd spent a day filling in the long form that had appeared in her virtmail box, answering questions about her interests and abilities. David had almost pulled out again, but she and Leif had nagged him back into line.
More annoying had been Alan's insistence on keeping the results of those forms secret.
'You'll discover your character when you go in,' he told her. 'Everybody gets a full background as they get started. This isn't some commercial sim where you can pick and choose your character. I've got a kingdom to run here, and I won't be able to do it if everybody starts pestering me about changes.'
Pestering Alan to tell her more hadn't worked, either. He'd kept her so busy in fencing class she scarcely had breath to ask questions.
So, as she settled into the computer-link couch in her room, Megan still had no idea what she was getting into. When she appeared in Latvinia, she could be a countess-or a scullery maid.
No sense worrying about it now, she told herself as the couch receptors began to synch in with her implanted circuits. She closed her eyes, thinking about the pile of dishes she'd helped clean after dinner tonight. She hoped she wouldn't be doing the same job in veeyar.
I'll never live it down with the guys if this blows up in my face, Megan thought.
She opened her eyes-and a loud explosion almost sent her tumbling to the floor!
Chapter 3
Megan's eyes shot open as she was nearly flung from the seat of an old-fashioned vehicle that looked more like a boat than an automobile. She grabbed hold of the steering wheel as she took in the scenery-stark gray mountains surrounding a winding dirt road.
'Mind being a little more careful with the starting switch so that doesn't happen again?' Leif's annoyed voice came from the front of the car.
Megan glanced over the hood of the car-and blinked. Leif had changed. He looked several years older and sported a blazing red, close-cropped beard. He also wore a sturdy cap made of something like canvas, and a matching coat-a motoring coat. The name seemed to pop into her mind. A pair of leather and glass goggles was pushed up on his forehead.
Leif scowled down at something below the car's radiator as he wiped sweat off his face. 'That backfire threw the starter handle back against my cranking.' He rubbed his arm, giving her a dubious look. 'I could have broken something. You do know how to drive one of these things?'
'Of course,' Megan snapped, looking over the dials and contraptions around the driver's seat. That's the starter, a little voice seemed to whisper in her ear as her eyes landed on a fluted brass button down on the floor.
Her hands moved as if they had a mind of their own to a metal gizmo in the center of the mahogany steering wheel. They made a minute adjustment on a metal lever. Meanwhile, Leif put his back into turning the crank- again, and yet again. A low rumble sounded from deep in the car, followed by a sputter from the engine as Megan hit the ignition. She worked the throttle, giving the engine some gas. The whole car shook as the engine roared. Another quick adjustment, and the noise changed to a mechanical purr.
'Good.' Leif disengaged the crank and climbed up into the car.
A little belatedly Megan realized that she was sitting in what she would consider the passenger seat of a modern car-but the wheel was on her side.
'I still think we should have taken horses,' P. J. Far- ris's voice came from the backseat.
Megan looked back as she shifted to the passenger's seat, and Leif got behind the wheel. P. J. also looked older and deeply tanned. He wore a motoring coat and a wide-brimmed Stetson sombrero. Beside him, sitting bolt upright with his arms folded, was David. He wore a similar coat-and a turban. A close-trimmed goatee framed his lips.
Even as she looked at them, a surge of information seemed to flood Megan's brain. It was almost like double vision, seeing her friends grown and strange- with different names and histories. P. J., for instance, was Bronco Jack Farris, of the Bear Creek Farrises, a rich ranching family. His parents had sent him on a tour of Europe to pick up a little old-world polish.
David was Menelik of Gondar, a prince of Abyssinia. Megan knew that was the old-time name for Ethiopia. In 1880 Abyssinia had successfully repelled an invasion aimed at turning the country into an Italian colony. Menelik was traveling to discover the benefits of European technology-and to assess the dangers of imperialist hostility.
Megan glanced over at Leif-but now he was also Albrecht von Hengist, a Scandinavian noblemen. A down- on-his-luck nobleman, Megan suspected, if he had to make a living escorting such an odd gathering of tourists.
And she herself was Marguerite O'Malley, of the New York O'Malleys. Her father had been a Union general in the Civil War, and her family had prospered in the postwar boom times. She was the second generation of the family to enjoy wealth and power, even if the big Society families didn't accept them. After four years in a girl's college, she'd gotten the chance to travel… a chance for adventure.
Oh, she knew she was really Megan O'Malley, whose parents were freelance writers, and that her real home was back in Washington, D. C., in 2025. But she also 'knew' that here it was the spring of 1903, and that she and her fellow travelers were at the border of the small kingdom of Latvinia.
Alan certainly managed to pump a lot of information into his simulation-and into the role-players' heads. She glanced over at Leif/Albrecht, who continued to scowl as he steered the touring car.
'Cantankerous hunk of junk,' he muttered. 'Does a sim have to be this historical?'
David, on the other hand, patted the varnished coach- work fondly. 'This, my friend, is a 1901 Mercedes Simplex-named after Mercedes, the daughter of Emil Jellinek, the man who pushed through the design of the car.
'A historical junk-pile,' Leif grumbled.
'Get a horse!' P. J. cried.
'You'd need forty of them to match the output of this engine,' David continued to defend their vehicle. 'Given the era, this is something of a speed machine.'
'Not on these roads,' Leif said as they bounced over ruts in the hard dirt.
'Oh, look!' Megan pointed to a peak overlooking the road. Three horsemen seemed almost to be posing against the afternoon sky. They were dressed in brightly colored woolen jackets-and each had a long-barreled rifle strapped across his shoulder.
'The first Graustark novel had a couple of guys like that,' David said. 'A bit of local color. Although they looked like bandits, they were actually border guards.'
The Mercedes chugged upward around the side of the mountain, then swung downward into a dip in the road- and a welcome patch of shade cast by tall bushes.
But the road ahead was now blocked by the three picturesque 'border guards,' who were unlimbering their rifles, while more characters in colorful local dress came out of the bushes, waving clubs.
'Looks like this sim is different from the old books,' Megan said. 'They really are bandits!'
'Out of the car!' Leif ordered as he pulled the car over. 'Otherwise, we'll be sitting ducks. Er-Jack-' He stumbled over P. J.'s player name. 'Deal with those fellows on horseback blocking our way. David, er, Mene- lik, you cover him. I'll protect Miss O'Malley.'
