by Ann Williams
Had she brought a new strain of virus into his world? Did that explain these alien sensations attacking his body?
Sammell’s gaze roamed the woman’s figure. She looked healthy enough now that the paleness, possibly caused from lack of nourishment, had disappeared.
His glance lingered on her upper torso, where the outline of full breasts pressed against the tunic she wore. He felt a sudden dryness at the back of his throat. The fingers of his right hand tingled. He recalled having touched one of those breasts and how soft it had felt.
Tearing his gaze from the woman, he moved away from the wall. This was getting him nowhere. And he knew better than to think he was suffering from an illness. His immune system could fight off anything that wasn’t carrying a laser-blaster or a cylinder of meltanium ready to explode.
The woman had been fed and given water. He had switched on EWS immediately on returning to his cell after gathering food for her and the squirrel. She would do well for the night.
Stalking to his sleep chamber, he threw himself onto the bed. Rest—that was what he needed. He’d had little sleep since he’d decided to do a test run with MDAT. And now, with the unexpected arrival of the two in the lab, he’d managed even less. It was no doubt the lack of sleep affecting his thought processes and causing his present physical disturbances. A few hours of unconsciousness would put things back into perspective.
But sleep no longer came easily. Normally a few moments of silence were all he required to fall into a heavy doze. But now nothing worked, not even his determination to put the woman and the trouble she caused out of his head. Thoughts of her drifted like wispy clouds through his mind, and once again Sammell felt that strange gnawing in his middle.
He remembered the woman clutching at her own abdomen, when she’d complained of hunger. Was this troublesome feeling hunger? He’d never experienced it before—and didn’t much like it.
Since his mind refused to be switched off, he let his thinking process have its way. In a few moments he would check on the woman one last time before properly retiring for the night.
He considered the problem of MDAT. He’d discovered a blown circuit when he had examined it earlier that night, while the woman had slept. MDAT would need some repair before he could send his guests back to their own time.
Apparently it was the unaccounted mass of woman and squirrel that had caused the problem. It had overloaded the system, causing a short in the computer’s memory board. That meant another unauthorized trip to the storage room at Government House to steal supplies for the repair. With the way things were turning out, he’d probably get caught….
Marina finished her meal and drank the water. Her hunger appeased, now she was bored and restless. She’d been cooped up in this room without sunlight and fresh air for—she didn’t know how long. She didn’t have a watch, so she couldn’t be certain of the exact time she’d spent here, but it felt like days.
And she didn’t know any more about how she’d got here, or why she’d been brought here, than when she’d first awakened. If her elusive host was to be believed, she’d traveled through nearly half a millennium in a matter of—what? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
Everyone knew that time travel was an illusion, a notion science-fiction writers used to play around with history. She was not a science-fiction fan. And if her host believed what he’d told her, then he needed to see a doctor.
If she could get out of this room and get a good look at the topography of the area, something about it might give her a clue about her location. And that was important. She needed to know where she was almost more than she needed to know why she was here.
She was coming to realize that there was no feeling as mind-numbing as being lost, truly lost, without a clue to your location. It made her feel as though she’d lost her identity as a person.
All kinds of outrageous thoughts had been running through her mind. She’d read about people being used by the government, without their permission, as guinea pigs in all kinds of research experiments. She’d wondered at first if this is what was happening to her.
But she’d also seen a few documentaries about people who’d supposedly been picked up by alien spacecraft. And after having met the man holding her prisoner, she was more willing to believe in the alien theory than his explanation of traveling through time.
She wanted out! Unable to sit still, she rose and moved toward the edge of light. Peering into the darkness, she realized that it wasn’t as all-encompassing as it appeared. The light where she stood made the relative darkness of the rest of the room seem total, when in fact it was not.
Curiosity sent her hurrying away from the place she’d come to think of as a haven of safety and into the darkness. There she discovered small regions of lighted space at intervals around the room. The nearest one was centered over what looked like a very compact computer.
She was familiar with notebook computers. She’d even owned one for a short time, though nothing, not even a college computer class, had helped her fully understand how they functioned. This one was half the size of a laptop computer and the monitor about eight inches in diameter.
Peering close, she looked for a brand name, hoping it would be one she recognized. She didn’t know how that would help her present situation, but seeing something familiar would at least reinforce her theory that everything she’d been told by her host was utter nonsense.
But there was nothing to see. Except for the numbers and letters on the keyboard, there was no other writing. She wondered if he’d removed the brand name to foster her feeling of disorientation, thinking she’d be more willing to go along with whatever he wanted because he was the only human contact she’d be allowed.
That made her angry. She’d heard about the bond formed between a kidnap victim and his captor, forged by the victim’s need to relate to someone familiar. That wasn’t going to happen to her! Somehow she was going to get away.
The thought of finding a telephone popped into her mind, giving her new direction. The chance that he’d leave one lying around where she could get to it was slim but not completely outside the realm of possibility.
Twenty minutes later she had to revise that thought. She’d looked through every cabinet and drawer, picked up anything that half resembled what she knew as a telephone—even the sometimes ridiculously cutesy ones like footballs and shoes—and found nothing. It seemed he’d outsmarted her.
Her frustration level growing, Marina plopped down on the chair near the computer and angrily contemplated the floor. It looked as if she was stuck here unless she could find a way to outsmart him.
Sometimes she was able to work out a solution to a problem while she slept. But not this time. She’d already spent several hours in sleep and was now wide-awake. Her thoughts came back to the question of how long she’d been imprisoned. Surely it had been long enough for friends and co-workers to miss her.
But not long enough for her family to have become concerned. They lived in the Midwest and were conditioned to go for weeks at a time without hearing from her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love and miss them, it was just that their lives had taken separate roads.
Sighing, she straightened. This was getting her nowhere. She was tired of waiting. If she waited for him to come to her, she might still be waiting this time next year.
She wanted out! So far, she’d been what she called fairly civilized about this damned charade. But her patience had evaporated.
Jumping to her feet, Marina began to pound her fists on the table before her. Picking up the nearest object, examining it to make certain it wasn’t something that would explode in her hand, she began to beat it against the table, yelling at the top of her voice.
Sammell awakened abruptly, still caught up in the threads of a disturbing dream that placed him in the time machine with the woman. They were hurtling down through history out of control and he couldn’t stop them.
A second later, he realized he was in his own bed and something had wakene
d him. Cocking his head, he realized immediately that it was the woman, creating a racket that could endanger both their lives. If the people living around him were alerted to her presence in his cell, a squad of police would be at his door in moments.
Vaulting from the bed, he hastened down the hallway to the two-way mirror in the wall of the lab. “Silence!” Sammell called loudly. “Silence! Do you want to awaken everyone?”
She must have heard him over the clamor she was making, because she suddenly stopped. For a moment she sat perfectly still before turning to search the room.
“What do you want?” he demanded. “I have given you water and food. What more do you require?”
“Oh, no you don’t, buster,” she replied angrily. “I want to talk to you face-to-face.”
Buster? “I need rest,” he said irritably.
“Oh, is that right? You mean you haven’t figured a way to do without that, too?”
“No. I require eight hours of sleep in a twenty-four-hour period. But for several days now, I have not been getting more than two or three hours each rest period. I am very tired,” he added on a deeper note.
She was a prisoner! Was she supposed to feel sorry for him because he’d lost sleep making her one?
“Well, that’s just too bad. If you don’t let me out of here, I’m going to continue making this racket—in fact I’ll make one even louder,” she promised. “I’ll make so much noise I’ll wake up this whole damned town. And then let’s see you explain to the police about how you kidnapped me and are keeping me a prisoner against my will!”
For a while there was complete silence. Marina felt like crying, but she wouldn’t because she didn’t want to give her jailer the satisfaction of knowing he’d brought her to tears.
“I’m losing my patience!” she yelled threateningly, swallowing a dry sob.
“And so am I,” Sammell muttered. In fact, he’d never felt like this in all his life. His insides were coiled in a tight knot, and his breath came only with difficulty. He glanced down at his clenched hands, unfolded them, and stared at the small pink indentations the nails had made in the skin of his palms. He felt as though something inside was trying to force its way out.
Breathing heavily, shaking all over, Sammell almost lunged toward the control panel beneath the identa panel on the wall. An instant later, the lab lay in total darkness.
Again there was absolute silence in the cell. It fluttered against Sammell’s ears with gentle wings. He took a deep breath, let it out, swallowed and forced himself to keep taking slow even breaths. The tightness coiled in his middle began to disappear.
Tomorrow he had to find a way to get into the storage room at work without anyone’s seeing him and get the circuit he needed to repair the computer. His safety, and that of the woman, would only be ensured if he could get her back where she belonged.
He didn’t like leaving her loose in his lab, but knew she was far too upset to listen to reason. And he didn’t know what she was capable of, so he didn’t want to take a chance by going into the lab and having her get loose inside the cell.
Maybe, if he gave her some time, she’d fall asleep. Then he could go into the lab and secure her in the Recep. As for the police, he could only wait and hope that the noise hadn’t penetrated to the nearby cells. He’d know for certain within the next few minutes.
After a while, when it looked as though they were safe for the moment, he gave one last quick glance into the darkened room and moved away from the mirror toward his sleep chamber. The morning would again come too soon for him.
A few minutes later Sammell was lying peacefully on his side when the racket began all over again.
Chapter 4
The lights flashed on and a door opened in the wall. Marina looked up to see the man responsible for her nightmare enter the room.
“Where were you?” she demanded angrily.
“In my sleep chamber.” He came a few steps into the room and stopped near the door.
“I suppose you were lying on a nice soft bed,” she rebuked him, arms folded across her chest, “while I lay on the cold hard floor.”
Sammell frowned. “I thought that is what you wanted. You did not say anything.”
“Well, I’m telling you now. And I want to know where I am, why you brought me here and what you intend doing with me.”
Sammell smoothed a hand over his tired face. “I told you where you are, but you do not believe me.”
“The year 2393 A.D., if I remember correctly,” she muttered contemptuously. “Come on, this joke has gone on long enough. I don’t know what your game is, but if you expect to get a lot of money for me, you’re in for a shock. I’m a schoolteacher. I don’t make big money. And my family are working people—not millionaires.”
Sammell shook his head and the light got caught up in the golden strands. “Millionaires?”
“All right,” Marina murmured with a sigh of resignation, “have it your way—you brought me here from the past. Why are you keeping me locked up?”
“For your safety.” All he wanted was a few hours of rest… “If I let you out and you were seen—like that—” he gestured to her person “—you would be arrested—”
“For what?”
“Just for being,” Sammell spluttered. She made him feel so… He didn’t have a word for the sensations she provoked in him.
“Just for being,” Marina repeated softly. “Well, that clears that up nicely.” Arms at her side, fists clenched, she took a step toward him. “I want out of here—now!”
“Can you not understand me, woman? They would take you to a government lab and experiment on you!”
He was shouting! Lowering his voice, he explained once more, “I keep you here for your own safety—nothing more.”
“All right,” she said in a deceptively calm voice, “if you brought me here, then why can’t you send me back?”
“Believe me, I wish I could,” he muttered. “I will,” he said in a louder voice, “but not yet.”
“Why not?”
“When you came through, something happened to MDAT.”
“MDAT?”
Sammell turned to the machine beside him. “This is MDAT.”
And this is my chance, Marina thought suddenly. He could be anything from an insane mass murderer to a white slaver, but she wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out. Picking up a mallet lying on the table beside her, she lunged at him, striking him on the side of the head.
The blow only stunned him, but it gave Marina her chance. Hurrying out the door, she found herself in an ultra-modern living room that looked as stark as the bathroom. She didn’t have time to give it more than a cursory glance. She was looking for the door.
She found it. But to her sad surprise, there didn’t appear to be a way to open it, not a handle or knob in sight. Sliding her fingers over the panels, she alternately felt and pounded it in frustration. The damned thing had to open somehow—
“I do not wish to hurt you,” Sammell said through clenched teeth from somewhere close behind, “so, please, come back to the lab.”
“I won’t!” Marina shouted angrily over her shoulder. He didn’t look all that strong, and a few years back, she’d been a real scrapper with her three older brothers.
“Yes,” he told her succinctly, edging closer, “you will.” His head hurt abominably and he was completely out of patience with this woman.
Marina took a long, deep look into the glittering brown eyes and she suddenly knew it was time to throw in the towel—for tonight, anyway.
“All right, I’ll come back to the lab—but only if you promise to tell me the truth. And don’t feed me any of that garbage about this being the twenty-fourth century.”
Sammell stayed out of her reach but managed to move her in the right direction. “If you do not wish to hear the truth, then I have nothing to say,” he said flatly, stationing himself between her and the door once she was safely inside.
“The truth,” Marina m
urmured thoughtfully. She could still feel his fingers like iron claws on her shoulders as he had turned her around a moment ago. “Whose truth—yours or mine?”
“Is there a difference?”
“All right,” she yielded momentarily, backing up to lean against a table, “tell me your truth.”
“My name is Sammell—”
“Sammell what?”
“Just…Sammell. I am a research scientist. I built a time machine in my lab and in my first attempt to break the time barrier I sent a vase into the twentieth century. When it returned, the squirrel—” he nodded at Monday, who had remained a silent watcher during Marina’s bid for freedom “—and you came with it.”
“Just like that?” Marina asked, motioning with her hands. “Poof, you send something into the past, and poof, we arrive?”
Sammell frowned. “I do not understand the term poof.” He gestured to the machine he’d called MDAT. “I sent the vase into the past with MDAT and it brought you here.”
Marina studied the machine in silence. It looked like a very short and narrow telescope, mounted on a mechanical arm attached to the wall. It didn’t look impressive enough to control centuries of time and space.
“If that’s true, then why don’t you send us back right now?” she asked, still studying the machine. “We’ll be out of your hair and you will not only have successfully sent a vase into the past and brought it back again, but you’ll have done the same with two living creatures,” she added in satisfaction.
“I cannot,” Sammell admitted reluctantly.
Marina’s head whipped in his direction. “What do you mean? If you brought us here, then you should be able to send us back.”
“I sent a very small object into the past in that first experiment. You and the squirrel returned with it. The machine was not equipped for mass transportation.
“Somehow it managed to accommodate both of you, but the added stress of your combined mass overloaded the circuits. I was surprised to see the squirrel come through all in one piece,” he added without thinking, “but as for you…”
