by Andre Norton
"You two going below?" Ashe asked. Eveleen couldn't quite get used to his gaze, suddenly so dark. Even though she knew that the effect was just caused by lenses, they still gave him a faintly sinister air.
Ross shook his head once. "Want to see."
There was no enjoyment in his tone. Eveleen knew that Ross, in fact, hated the translation between one time and another as much as she did. It was too easy, when one saw that glaring light, and smelled the energy-tortured air, to believe that humans were never meant to endure that wrench.
But endure it they would. The Russians had lost an entire base in the Baltic through a misunderstanding of how the big portals worked. They insisted they had mastered it, and supposedly here was the proof.
Eveleen thought, as the cargo bay doors began to widen, that if anything went awry, hopefully they would never know what hit them.
"Sit toward the center," Stavros said in heavily accented English.
"Speak Ancient Greek," Ashe corrected, using the Greek of Linear B, so painfully decoded just within the past twenty-five years.
Why is he being dogmatic?Eveleen thought, looking Gordon's way. Then she thought back to the hasty training, the many sessions prefaced with "As you've already learned," and "As you well know ..."
They did know. That is, all of them except Linnea. Just the day before Kelgarries had taken Ross and Eveleen aside and said, "Your archaeological expert is a first-class academic, and you can rely on her for information. But she only sat through training tapes. There wasn't time for anything else. Watch out for her."
Eveleen sighed. Of course they would watch out for one another. And, so Linnea Edel hadn't had the full course of training? Neither had Ross, once upon a time. And Linnea seemed a lot more sensible than a very young Ross probably had been.
At the inward image of a very young, and impetuous, Ross, she grinned. Stavros flashed her a smile, raised a hand, and then restated in the language they'd all been drilling as hard as they could, day and night: "Sit along the keel."
Ashe, Eveleen and Ross settled along the benches running down the middle of the narrow deck, under a very plain awning. The great engines of the cargo ship thrummed through the wood of the boat, making Eveleen's bones thrum in vibration.
The boat slid, at first slowly, then faster and faster down a ramp, until it shot out onto the choppy waters of the Aegean, reflecting lights from the three ships now steaming in an exact parallel.
Water sprayed up, cooling their faces with shocking suddenness. The boat shuddered and wallowed, and Eveleen clasped her hands tightly together, determined to show no nervousness. She so much preferred to be taking action herself, but this was not part of her job: she could do nothing.
As she forced herself into the steady breathing she'd made second nature during her long studies in martial arts, the boat settled into the rhythm of the waves. Stavros and Konstantin efficiently deployed the single sail, and then sheeted it home.
Now the little boat came alive, lifting the prow up and over the waves. The wind was little more than a gentle breeze, but these shallow craft had been designed for the trickish zephyrs of the Mediterranean climate, and the cargo ship fell away with surprising speed behind them, until it was just running lights against the black horizon.
Eveleen tipped her head back and looked up at the full moon, the Pleiades stretched across the sky like a broken necklace.
The two Russian ships ahead on either side were black silhouettes against a sky barely lit by a gibbous moon. Then a sheath of blue light flickered over their hulls. The air seemed to tighten, and Eveleen thought she heard, deep below the range of human hearing, a vast bell toll, rolling like an irresistible tide through her body. Ahead the sea glowed, a line of bluish light drawn through the chop between the two ships. She heard the slap of flying fish on either side of their small craft as sea life fled the sudden tension in the fabric of the world. Now light billowed up from the sea, diaphanous waves of mist, like a sea-level aurora.
The ship surged forward as a wind began to blow toward the gates, and as the glowing mist surrounded them, Eveleen's skin prickled, but not from the power being deployed around them to wrench a 3,600-year-deep hole in the universe. There were shapes in the mist, wraiths moving, reaching, supplicating, fleeing her direct glance and seen only in the corner of her vision. No one spoke, but everyone was alert and scarcely breathing.
Stavros reached down, pushing on something in one of the storage chests on either side of the keel. The water around their craft suddenly boiled without heat as the series of portal rods carefully spaced along both sides of the ship pulled power from the field now building between the Russian ships. A faint, keening note of power leashed to an extreme degree made Eveleen grit her teeth as the mist began to flow inward toward a bright point of light. It was not a vortex, but straight lines converging on an infinity that flowed hungrily forward to engulf the boat, as though her blind spot was expanding to fill her vision. She saw the prow vanish, wrenched away in a direction her eyes couldn't follow; then nothingness slid forward toward the group huddled in the middle of the boat. There was now no sense of motion, only a sense of a physical violation so great it made nausea seem pleasure by comparison. It seemed endless—
But only for a moment. Her blind spot filled the world and dwindled behind her, giving her for a moment the feeling of eyes in the back of her head, and they were through, sailing into ancient waters.
CHAPTER 5
THE FIRST THING to hit Ross was the acrid odor. No smoggy New York day smelled as bad as this. His hindbrain gibbered with warning at that invidious, pervasive whiff of smoke and the stench of brimstone.
There was no fire, of course. But on previous missions, when Ross transferred into human prehistory, one of the first things he noted was how the stars in the night sky were astonishingly bright: clearer, much clearer, than the clearest night in his own time. This time they were just as faint as the stars over New York City, but there was no kilo-wattage of civilization to blame.
The haze was volcanic ash.
When are we, exactly? he thought. And then shrugged. Useless to think in terms of exact correlation between dates. When they returned up-time, they'd emerge from the gates whenever they were next energized—probably only moments after they'd entered, no matter how long they spent here. What mattered was when they were in relation to the day of the eruption. That had been the computer jockeys' job. If they hadn't done it right, if there wasn't enough time to make sure the volcanic explosion happened, there'd be no second chance, for a kind of exclusion principle governed time travel: their presence here excluded their earlier presence. Research, and bitter experience, had shown that only inanimate objects could bilocate, like Eveleen's earring. Sentient beings could not. If they tried to jump up-time and then back here again to gain more time to figure things out, the boat would arrive intact but empty of life, like the Marie Celeste, the famous half-brig that'd run afoul of the natural time-fold in the Bermuda Triangle. Seventy years later, that story, and others like it, had inspired the research that led to time travel. Had led to Ross and Eveleen, and the other agents, being here, days? weeks? away from an explosion of unimaginable magnitude. He wondered briefly what happened to that crew, then dismissed the thought. If they didn't succeed here, there'd never be a Marie Celeste, and . . . No time for that. He wrenched his thoughts away before he got a headache, feeling a grin twitch at his lips at the inadvertent double meaning of "time."
Almost at once Ross turned his head from the silent stars to the hatch to the below-deck area, where golden light glowed.
Stavros had jumped down as soon as they were through. He popped up now. "We came through fine," he said, in the Ancient Greek they must all speak now.
Ross felt Eveleen relax beside him. He said nothing, of course. She'd hate him noticing. He also saw Ashe's grim profile ease slightly.
"Good," Ashe said, as though aware of attention turning his way. "It is night in both worlds. Much to do on the morrow.
Let's get some sleep while we can."
They nodded, and trooped below, ducking under the narrow roof. Hammocks woven of net had been provided, and they had all practiced sleeping in them. Ross climbed into his, aware of the breathing of the others, and the balmy air that was just this side of being stuffy and too warm. The day would be blistering, unfortunately. No help for that. Air conditioning was now three thousand years in the future.
The steady lap-lap of the water along the sides, and the gentle rocking, sent him into a deep sleep that only broke when he heard voices.
It wasn't just the voices of his team, either, he realized. Bright sunlight shafted down into the crowded hold, golden rays that fired thousands of dust motes.
On deck was comparative silence; the voices came from beyond the ship. Ross looked around, realized he was alone.
He tumbled out of his hammock and ran up the short ladder to find Eveleen, Ashe, and Linnea gathered under the awning, eating some bread from the stores Stavros and Konstantin had stashed below. Stavros worked as helmsman with a great paddled tiller; Konstantin tended the sail.
The air was hot, still, and hazy with faint smoke. It made the brightness into a fierce glare. Ross squinted against the fierce light, shading his hand against the splashes of fiery sun on the harbor waters.
They had reached Akrotiri, he realized. They were in the midst of what seemed to be hundreds of craft, all more or less like theirs: high of prow, low aft, narrow, and built for speed over relatively mild waters. The main characteristic of one set of boats was the single square sail on a mast. Some of those sails were made of what looked like rough-woven linen, others of matting; the masts varied from single pieces rough-cawed from trees to poles lashed together. These little boats would never last an hour in an Atlantic storm, but they were fast to make and easy to sail in the Mediterranean and Aegean waters.
Most of those with the masts were hauling their wind, drifting southward and away.
Eveleen gasped. "Have we arrived just at the departure of the fleet?" she murmured, staring.
Ross heard Linnea respond in a low voice, "Departure of a fleet, perhaps. I do not believe the entire island vacated overnight."
The other boats, the ones remaining in the harbor, were an astonishing variety. Some were long and narrow, with twenty and more rowers on each side. A few were so low that the rowers sat, visible, working with the sun broiling their dark heads and bronzed necks. Others had the galley slaves hidden below, in decks probably hot and noisome but at least out of the sun.
Most of the craft had no sails; they were local transportation. And a great many of them were spectacularly painted along the sides, with figures of birds, dolphins, even lions, and the awnings above the passengers were decorated with crocuses and lilies.
At first no one from these bravely decorated boats gave their own plain, modest craft a second glance.
The crowd of voices resolved into individuals. Ross, listening closely, was somewhat relieved to hear a mix of languages: there was Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek as well as one that was incomprehensible. People seemed to switch back and forth between tongues, calling greetings, complaining about the heat, demanding space to unload goods, starting in on trade negotiations. Requesting news of friends and relations since the "rock rain." Exchanging gossip. Human relations, in short, exactly like those of their unknown descendants thousands of years up the time-line.
"Rock rain," Linnea Edel repeated, staring out intently. Ross watched the woman continually turning her head, scanning, listening, and figured she probably would give an arm or a leg for a tape recorder, if not a video cam.
Rock rain: one of the falls of pumice that the scientists had talked about, resulting from a preliminary eruption. Ross felt a pang of trepidation inside. The science brains had guessed pretty close, then.
Eveleen sat on the railing, earrings swinging, as she watched a low-lying fishing smack ease up to the beach. No one looked her way as she observed the crew splash overboard, anchoring the ship with net-bound rocks on either side and then beginning unloading.
Ross looked about. The crew of the fishing boat seemed to be mostly comprised of men, but not completely. Lithe young girls in their teens and maybe a bit older scrambled about in some of the fishing boats, obviously experienced at their work.
"Yah!" An insistent shout, followed by a quick stream of words, brought all their attention around.
Eveleen exchanged looks with Linnea Edel, who leaned forward, as if to take notes.
Damn it anyway, were they already to be exposed?
Ross turned, to see a man about his own age standing with one foot propped on the side of his boat, calling through cupped hands. An official of some sort, something they couldn't plan for?
But before Ross could say anything, the man switched to Ancient Egyptian of his own accord, and cried, "You there. What arc you carrying?" His accent was strange, not at all like that of Jonathan and his team. Slurry, too quick. But Ross had encountered that syndrome before: language was always slower and more tentative in the lab. Here, it was real, living communication.
He mentally framed his response, then said: "Marble and a few other items."
"Then why are you here, where the foods are landed and brought to market?"
"It is our first journey to Kalliste."
"Ah. I thought you were Kemtiu. "Kemtiu —the word the Egyptians used for themselves.
"Yes."
"There is always place for Kemtiu," the man called, and he bent down to talk to someone below his deck, and then straightened up. "And marble. Just as long as you bear no fruits."
So this man was just nosing out the competition.
"Our only food is for here," Ross said, striking his stomach.
The man laughed, and Ross laughed with him, then said, "Where is the best warehouse for us to unload our goods?"
"You'll want to sail down to that warehouse there with the dolphins painted on the side. We only have two left standing. Temo here is cousin to the owner and says he is honest enough, and speaks Kemt."
"We shall do so. Thank you, and may the gods smile on you."
"And on you." The two boats parted.
The setup made sense: perishables would be unloaded closest to Akrotiri and the market. Other things could be brought by cart.
Stav and Kosta expertly turned the boat, angling parallel to the coast. They made their way through the tangle of craft, sailing parallel to the shore.
Ross and the others studied the buildings dotting the mountainside. And it was a mountain, too, he realized, squinting against the bright haze. Present-day Thera had high cliffs, but here those cliffs were a small part of a sizable mountain, the top of which was obscured in a grayish-brown cloud of smoke. Much of the lower slopes looked adrift with something resembling dirty snow.
"Looks quite threatening, doesn't it?" Linnea Edel murmured, staring up.
"But no one else seems to notice." Eveleen replied.
"It's business as usual for these particular Kallistans," Ashe said. "And so should it be for us as well," he added with meaning.
The rest took the hint, and began to busy themselves about the little ship as Stavros and Konstantin, at yard and tiller, respectively, angled the boat toward a bare patch of beach near great buildings with tiled roofs. One had sun-faded dolphins painted on one wall. Konstantin lowered the sail and vanished below, and then the two men let out the heavy anchors with a splash.
The water was quite shallow, but so were the boats. Ross jumped overboard, turning to extend a hand to Linnea. They waited for the slight surge of water to diminish, and then she jumped in, her hem getting wet. The water was warm, though, Ross noted as they waded ashore.
For a time they all remained busy, as Stav and Kosta negotiated with the warehouse owner for space, and then hired harbor laborers to unload the pieces of pink and salmon and golden marble that the science techs back home had determined would be appropriate trade items from Egypt. They also unloaded the linen b
olts that the women would use as trade samples in order to talk to any local merchants they might find.
Then they all oriented themselves, rioting where the boat was anchored with reference to the harbor. If necessary they had radio contact, but they wanted to use it as little as possible. The Kallistans would never notice, but what was sent out via EM might be intercepted by other high-tech listeners—like the Baldies.
Ashe was the last to step onto the pumice-spattered white sands. He opened his mouth to speak, but then paused, his brow puckered.
Ross realized the ground was still undulating beneath his feet. An effect of just getting off the water?
Before his mind could frame the question, other sensory details sparked his sense of danger: an explosion of swallows skyrocketing upward, scolding; the rumble of stone grating in walls and buildings of the city just half a mile away.
Earthquake!
The Time Agents all looked up, hands out. Ross realized he was safest right where he was, out in the open. Somewhere in the harbor city, just right of the great gates next to which sacred horns trembled, a sudden white cloud of dust shot upward: either a wall, or a building, had collapsed.
But the city did not change. Far too many of the great buildings, some three stories, had already fallen some time ago. The people who had not evacuated the city appeared to have moved into the smaller buildings, patching them in makeshift ways and carrying on with business as usual. The only damage that the Time Agents could see was bits of carvings falling to the streets below and smashing a row of hanging plants that had been set along a roof edge.
Before anyone could speak, the quake's rolling diminished to a shiver and then stopped.
Ross met Eveleen's eyes. She glanced toward the city, and he knew what she was thinking: their first task lay there, in those narrow streets, under stone buildings.
Linnea Edel had turned her eyes upward toward the portion of the volcano visible here. She licked her lips, then said, "I guess I'd better get busy looking for signs of nasty bald bad guys. The first order of business would be the local gossip center: AKA the oracle." She spoke in English, but no one corrected her.