TWICE A HERO

by Susan Krinard

  "Listen," she said. "I'll spell it out as cogently as I can, but you're going to have to accept that it's not going to sound rational or reasonable."

  His lip curled. "Don't be concerned, Mac. I've become accustomed to your insanity."

  She winced. "Okay. I really did come to Tikal as a tourist, with a bunch of other tourists. I wasn't part of a group, though. I was exploring the ruins there when an Indian guide offered to show me something interesting. He cut me a path through the jungle to this place.

  "Right after I arrived, my guide disappeared. I decided to explore anyway, and went into the temple, where I found the tunnel. I'd been walking quite a few minutes when I hit the glyph wall, and found…" She caught her breath and slowed down again. She wasn't about to bring up the bones, or all the implications of that discovery. She wasn't ready to deal with it herself.

  "I, uh, ran into the wall and started feeling very dizzy, almost sick. I leaned against the wall, and—" A memory jumped into her mind—of holding her own pendant and Liam's in either hand, pressing her fists against the wall just before it disappeared. The flash of an idea teased her mind and then was gone. "A few seconds later the wall vanished. I was disoriented, and I couldn't find the wall again, so I just started the way I thought was out. And ran into you."

  Liam regarded her blankly. "Very interesting, but hardly enlightening."

  "Yeah," she said. "But that isn't the punch line. When I went into that tunnel, the date was August 15, 1997. And when I came out, as you told me, it was 1884." She faced him squarely. "In short, I walked through that tunnel and traveled from the future into the past. One hundred and thirteen years. From my time… into yours."

  His expression went through a series of transformations that were almost alarming. "Let me get this straight. You claim to have come from the next century?"

  "I know it sounds weird." She smiled crookedly and clasped her hands, hoping that she seemed both earnest and sane. "It's hard enough for me to accept. I don't blame you for, um, doubting me—"

  "Doubting you?" he said with elaborate sarcasm.

  "Not at all. But you do intrigue me. You actually traveled… through time?"

  "Yes."

  "Fascinating. 1997, you said? I'd be very interested in seeing this distant time of yours." He showed a flash of white teeth. "Now that we've become… comrades, I'm sure you won't object to taking me with you when you return."

  This was just as bad as she'd thought. His deep, rough voice was honeyed with mockery. No time to lose your temper, Mac…

  "But that's the problem," she said. "This all happened by accident—that is, I don't know how it happened. I can't reproduce whatever I did to… do it the first time. I can't go back through. It doesn't work. I tried."

  He arched a brow. "Then perhaps you can explain to me how this marvelous… passage through time functions, and how it came to be here in the middle of the jungle?"

  Oh, brother. This was the tricky part. Until now she'd been as sure as any other reasonable person that time travel didn't exist. She was by no means an expert on the theories, though Homer had known some physicists at Berkeley who'd been interested in the subject.

  She sifted through memory for examples that would make sense to a man from the 1880s. H.G. Wells's first serialization of The Time Machine wouldn't be published for four more years—from the "now" she was in. But she remembered reading somewhere that the notion of time travel had been popular even before Wells.

  "Harper's!" she said triumphantly. "In 1856 they published an article about time travel, about a guy going into the future. I don't remember much about it, but—"

  "Is that where you came up with these ideas?"

  Mac refused to be baited. "The concept isn't beyond you, I assume?"

  "Miss MacKenzie, you may try my patience, but not my intelligence."

  "That's a start." She chewed her lip. "Come to think of it, there are lots of examples from your time and before. Stories about people who went into the future through dreams or suspended animation or even sleeping too long. But that isn't what happened to me. I didn't just stay the same while the world changed. I… walked into the past."

  "Through a Maya temple." Liam stood abruptly. "I'm returning to my camp. It'll be dark soon, and I don't intend to spend the night here. I haven't got time to search for your people—whoever they are. I'll look again in the morning, and then I'm heading for the coast." His mouth twisted as though he'd tasted something along the lines of an underripe lemon. "As for your 'theories'—"

  Mac heaved to her feet, swaying at the weakness that clutched at her body. She batted away his offered support. "All right," she snapped. "I get it. No more theories. You want proof." Ignoring her dizziness, she swooped down for her pack and dug for her flashlight, which she'd dumped inside after her fruitless attempt at getting back through the tunnel. She waved the flashlight at him triumphantly. "You wanted to know about this? This is something from the future. No one's going to invent it until the turn of the century. Or batteries this small." She dumped the AA batteries into her palm and tossed one at him. He caught it, glancing from her to the battery.

  "Let's see what else I've got in here," she muttered. She rummaged deeper into her pack. Even before the trip she hadn't completely cleaned it out, and it was full of forgotten odds and ends. Travel toothbrush, maybe—and the first-aid kit in its plastic box. That would be good; no one was using plastic this way yet.

  She smoothed out a piece of the mosquito netting and began to lay objects out on it. Old Kleenex, a piece of ancient hard candy, an empty can of Dr Pepper, the bottle of muscle relaxant she'd had prescribed when her shoulder was wrenched while moving boxes, a melted lipstick she'd tried once before giving up all notions of using makeup.

  Safety pins—no, he'd know about those. Two battered ballpoint pens; maybe. Tour book; that would be a good way to prove how different things were in her time from the overgrown Tikal he'd shown her. Map, ditto. Wallet—that would have modern money, and credit cards, and her driver's license with the renewal date printed right on it. Pocket calculator—pocket calculator! Now that was going to be way beyond his ken. And her watch as well, with its digital face and waterproof plastic wristband. She unbuckled it and laid it on the netting with the rest.

  He had already crouched again and was fingering the items with deliberation. Let him look; it might do some good. She started to unzip the pack's smaller pocket when the obvious occurred to her. The backpack itself was made out of nylon, which she was damned sure hadn't been around in 1884. And the zipper… ha!

  She held the backpack in front of her, running the zipper back and forth until Liam was following her motions with fascination.

  "Bet you haven't seen that before," she said. "It's called a zipper, and it's not going to be invented until—um—the 1890s. Now do you think I'm so crazy?"

  He grabbed the backpack from her hand and worked the zipper himself. Then he set it down and picked up the calculator. Mac obliged him by turning it on, and had the satisfaction of watching him jerk, however slightly, at the appearance of the digital readout.

  "I'll be damned," he whispered. He punched at the numbers randomly, watching the display.

  "It's for calculating," she supplied. "Addition, multiplication, even algebraic equations."

  He said nothing, but some of his natural cockiness seemed to have deserted him. He put the calculator back and studied the ballpoint pens, packet of Kleenex, and first-aid kit in turn, saving her watch for last. His sunstreaked hair fell into his eyes, and he slapped it away with all the preoccupation of a little boy examining a particularly interesting bug.

  "How did you get all this?" he demanded.

  "From my time, where these things are common. I'd like to take credit for being the genius responsible for inventing it all, but…"

  He was at a loss. She'd never really doubted his intelligence, and she could see it working now as he considered and discarded every easy explanation for objects he had never seen be
fore.

  Join the club, my arrogant friend. Now you know how I felt when I realized what had happened. And something tells me you're not the kind of guy who takes well to being at a disadvantage.

  "The others with you before," he said. "Did they have these things as well?"

  "The other tourists?"

  "Challenger, Quartermain—"

  Mac had the good grace to wince. "Um—that was a joke. I did come here alone. When I first met you, I thought you were the crazy one. I didn't realize I'd… left my own time."

  He only stared at her, bouncing her watch in his hand.

  "You still don't believe me, do you?" Mac grabbed the tour book and flipped through the pages until she found a schematic layout of Tikal and its various temples, palaces, plazas, hotels, concessions, and roads. "Take a look at this."

  He shifted position to look at the open book, frowning. The legend under the map clearly indicated the name of the place.

  "Remember when I said I didn't recognize Tikal?" Mac asked. "This"—she pointed at one of the hotels near the entrance to the park—"is the hotel I was staying in. And this is what the ruins look like in my time; a lot of it is cleared, restored, and opened for tourists."

  He said nothing. Mac opened the book to the first page. She tapped at the copyright date with a blunt fingernail. "See? 1996. Date the book was published."

  She couldn't read his face. Beneath the tough, handsome exterior, his emotions were hidden like the proverbial currents under still water. Was he in shock, or simply refusing to acknowledge any of the evidence she was presenting?

  "I understand," she said awkwardly, "how difficult this must be for you to accept. I had the same problem. I guess I… trust myself enough, even if—"

  "Prophesy for me, Miss MacKenzie," he demanded suddenly. "If you're from the future, tell me what will happen."

  "Well, I… I don't know where to start. It's very different from your—this—time. There are ships that fly in the air, even some that go into space. We have ways of sending signals through the air just as your telegraphs do code, but without the wire—"

  "No," he interrupted. Though he moved no closer, she felt his focused energy like an unanticipated touch. His eyes had gone from metallic coldness to silvery heat. "You said I'm in your history books. Tell me of my future."

  Chapter Five

  If you can look into the

  seeds of time,

  And say which grain will grow

  and which will not,

  Speak.

  —William Shakespeare

  OF COURSE, OF course she should have expected this. If he did believe her, it was a natural question. If he didn't, it was a kind of test. And it was the one question she didn't dare answer.

  Well, you see, Mr. O'Shea, sometime in the next little while you're going to die and end up a pile of moldering bones in that tunnel over there…

  She caught her breath. The image was grotesque. He was here, alive—powerfully alive and compelling as she'd never thought a man could be. The idea that he might, would die, and possibly at the hands of her own ancestor—today, tomorrow, a week from now—was incomprehensible. More incomprehensible than her walk into the past.

  Unthinkable, impossible—and undeniable.

  With shock she remembered his reaction to the photograph, his demands about Perry and her knowledge of him.

  "Our quarrel was a terrible one," Perry's letter had said. "I left him in the jungle. …" Left him how? Dead? Yet Perry wasn't here, and Liam was still alive.

  Oh, boy. What have I wandered into?

  Not only what, but why. Why she had come back to this time and place. Why she was here with Liam O'Shea hours or days before he was destined to die.

  She had no way of knowing the answers. Not yet. And until she did, she had to buy time.

  "Well, oh Prophetess?" Liam prodded.

  "I can't tell you your future."

  "Why not?"

  "Because… because I can't risk changing the future."

  Of course. That was the answer. It wasn't merely an excuse, but the truth. And hard on the heels of that realization came another. She'd been so focused on proving to Liam that she wasn't crazy that she'd totally overlooked the possible consequences of each word out of her mouth and every modern gadget she'd revealed.

  She'd just finished showing Liam things that wouldn't be invented until well into the next century. She knew very little about him, yet Homer had said he was a self-made man who'd worked his way up from poverty. Just the kind of man who might take an unknown and potentially useful object apart to see if it could be reproduced…

  If he survived.

  "So you won't predict my fate," he said. She looked up to see him on his feet again, arms crossed. "I must be very important in this future of yours if you're afraid my knowledge of my own destiny will change it." He leaned over her. "Well, Mac? Am I a great man in your history books?"

  She swallowed, hastily gathering up the things she'd laid out on the mosquito netting and shoving them back into her pack.

  "I'm not much good at this time-travel business" she said. "I don't know what would happen if I interfered with the way things were—are supposed to go. I shouldn't be here."

  Babbling, Mac. But she forgot the clumsiness of her rationalizations when she realized her watch wasn't where she'd left it. She felt around, scooting in a circle.

  "You promised me the flashlight, but I prefer a different souvenir."

  She jumped up. Liam held the watch quite brazenly in one large hand. He was visibly pleased… and triumphant and infuriating.

  "Give it back," she demanded.

  "I don't think so, Mac. This seems more appropriate. I'll keep it as… proof of your little story."

  "Then you believe me?"

  He didn't answer but pocketed the watch, easily avoiding her swipe at his hand.

  "Damn it, you can't keep that!"

  "How do you propose to get it back?"

  She eyed his pocket. There was little chance of distracting him, and none of overpowering him. And he knew it.

  "Don't worry," he said. "I won't change your history. My future is very clear to me."

  Oh, yeah. She'd never been one for crying, but she felt absurdly like bursting into tears. Just great. "You don't know what you're talking about," she snapped.

  All at once he was directly in front of her. "Then we do have something in common."

  Mac contemplated the pulse beating at the base of his throat, noted the way the crisp curling hairs of his chest nestled in the open neck of his sweat-darkened shirt. He didn't smell the way she'd expect a man in his condition to smell. He smelled… nice. No, that was definitely the wrong word. "Nice" implied something tame. This was not a tame smell, or a tame kind of man. Her own heartbeat picked up speed, and she took a quick step backward.

  "I doubt it," she said. For a moment she thought he'd say or do something she wasn't going to like, but he only barked a laugh, turned on his heel, and began to walk away.

  She grabbed her pack, snatched up Liam's mosquito netting, and followed. Now what? He had her watch, and she should make an effort to retrieve it. She should try to go back through the tunnel to her own time, but she'd already done that; it emphatically hadn't worked. She was just beginning to realize the full, and frightening, implications of what she had done.

  Just by somehow coming back to the past I may have changed the future already. How can I possibly be sure? The longer I'm here, the more risk that I'll mess something up. No one knows the consequences of something like this, and Liam O'Shea definitely isn't the one to share the burden with.

  Oh, hell.

  "Are you coming?" Liam called. He'd stopped at the opposite border of the ruins, where the real jungle began. Hands on hips, he glared at her as if he'd like nothing better than to charge off without her. He certainly hadn't issued her a formal invitation to accompany him back to his camp. But he was waiting, and it was nearly dusk, and he had her watch, and she didn't kno
w what else to do…

  "I think I'd rather stay here," she blurted.

  He gave an eloquent shrug. "Suit yourself. I don't doubt that you can repel scorpions, poisonous serpents, jaguars, and hostile guerrillas bare-handed." He tossed his sack over his shoulder and turned on his heel, disappearing among the trees and heavy foliage.

  Oh, that was bright, Mac. Reject the only connection you have to reality. And your only protection in this jungle.

  She scowled at the cowardly thought. Protection, my foot. I'm not some sheltered little Victorian female who can't take care of herself. I don't need him. She threw the mosquito net in a heap beside the temple wall and flung herself down on it, slapping at bugs with more energy than accuracy. Her repellant had decided to give up the ghost.

  And it was definitely getting darker. The sun had all but vanished behind the horizon of trees. She looked skyward, listening to the voice of the wilderness. The monkeys and birds were setting up their daily dusk symphony of screeches, howls, and roars. They weren't dangerous, but there were the scorpions, snakes, and jaguars Liam had mentioned. None, in all probability, as much of a threat as the man himself.

  What was she thinking? He wasn't a threat. If there was a threat, it wasn't to her. It was to Liam himself. She wasn't even sure when it was, or where, or how it would happen. Only that he was going to die, and she was sitting here feeling sorry for herself.

  Mac dropped her head into her hands. If Homer'd been right and Great-great-grandfather Sinclair had murdered his partner, and she was here where it happened, shouldn't she be doing something about it?

  Like what, Mac? Play bodyguard? Wait around until Perry shows up, if he does show up, and fling myself between them? Change history completely without understanding the consequences—if I could do it at all?

  Or let it all occur the way it was supposed to, knowing she could have prevented an act of murder.

  Her head had begun to ache in earnest. This must be some kind of cosmic joke. Was Homer somewhere up there masterminding the whole thing?