by Ann Williams
Sammell heard Marina moan in ecstasy—a sound he hadn’t heard at the time of their lovemaking—and he shook all over with the knowledge that he had been the one to wring such a cry of pleasure from her sweet lips.
He had done that—no, the man inside with her now had done that. He became confused. He was the man inside, yet at this moment he was an onlooker in their play of passion, and suddenly he felt a black rage at the thought of another man—even if that other man was himself—making love to Marina.
None of it made any sense, but he wanted to rip the tent to shreds with his bare hands and do the same to the man inside it with Marina. He had to keep reminding himself that the man with her was himself.
And then, still feeling that he was listening to two different people—and not himself—Sammell heard the man tell Marina their lovemaking just now had changed nothing. Shame filled him at the cold brutality of it. He wanted to run away from the pain in her voice when she responded to his words, but his feet would not move.
And then, finally, he was running. His feet took him to the bathing pool, because he knew no one would be there at that time of night to witness his self-condemnation.
That’s where he spotted Larkin. He almost blundered into the man. At first there was no one there, and then suddenly Larkin appeared. He’d been right! Larkin had come for Marina!
Seeing the weapon in his hands, Sammell quickly took cover behind a large rock set back in the trees and waited, hoping the other man had not spotted him, too. It wasn’t until his lungs cried out for air and his mind became fuzzy that Sammell realized he was holding his breath. Releasing it, he gasped, drawing in large drafts of air until his heart settled down and his breathing became normal.
He chanced a look toward where he’d seen Larkin, and his heart stopped beating altogether. Marina was standing at the water’s edge, and while he watched she dropped her sarong and stepped naked into the water.
Sammell tore his glance from her lithe figure and searched for Larkin. The thought of the man seeing her naked was a bitter taste on his tongue. Almost as painful as the thought of his kidnapping her.
He had to stop Larkin from carrying out his plan! But how?
And then he looked back at Marina and saw her grow rigid an instant before Larkin stepped into view. What was his plan? Was kidnapping all the man had on his mind, Sammell wondered as he watched the other man stare at the woman he loved.
At the back of his mind, he heard the conversation taking place between Marina and Larkin, but he was busily trying to figure out how to save her. Anger flamed through him when he saw Larkin refuse to turn away while Marina dressed. Biting his lip to keep silent, he saw Larkin motion her to go ahead of him. And then he saw Marina stop as though she’d come up against an invisible wall. She couldn’t seem to get free.
All at once Sammell knew what was happening. A Recep! She was caught in the Recep’s force field—and the same thing would happen to Larkin in a moment! That would be his chance. Larkin would be vulnerable for a few moments, and then he would be out of Sammell’s reach altogether. He had to stop the man while he was entangled in the force field if he was going to save Marina.
Larkin stuck the weapon in the waistband of his breeches and took a deep breath before raising his hands to push his way through the force field.
“I should warn you to take a deep breath,” he called to Marina. “When the transference begins, travel is at such a high rate of speed that there is no time to breathe until you land.”
Marina looked at him sourly. “I’ll be sure and remember that for the next time.”
Larkin laughed and began to ease his way into the Recep. Sammell waited a beat longer. Then, when Larkin was completely helpless, he made his move.
Darting from behind the rocks and through the trees, his hands spread out in front of him, he rushed toward Larkin. He had to get hold of him before he passed into the Recep.
Sammell didn’t have time to look at Marina, who had spotted him the instant his figure had emerged from the trees. And then his fingers touched Larkin’s jerkin and he was using all his strength to pull the man free.
For a man who did not like violence, Sammell was quick with his fists. The instant he was free, Larkin went for the weapon at his waist. Sammell was there first, jerking the weapon free with one hand and shoving Larkin away with the other.
Leveling the weapon at the man, Sammell forced a hand through the Recep’s force field and offered it to Marina. She held on tight with both hands while he pulled her through. In a moment she was standing at his side.
For an instant Sammell’s attention was off Larkin and focused on the woman. Larkin took advantage of it. Grabbing a handful of dirt, he threw it into Sammell’s face and, while he was blinded, reached for the weapon.
But Sammell didn’t give it up easily. The two men struggled for the weapon with Marina an anxious spectator. They tripped each other and rolled on the ground, Sammell taking several blows from Larkin’s fists before returning them in kind.
They rolled across the ground and into the water. Larkin sank below the surface. Sammell had the advantage. He held Larkin down until he felt the man relax his hold on his arms, then he was pulling him to the surface. Bending him facedown over a rock, he forced the water from the man’s lungs.
Larkin lay on the ground panting, looking up at Sammell, anger in his dark eyes. “What are you going to do now?”
“Where is your time machine?” Sammell asked.
Larkin grinned. “I do not think it is in my best interests to tell you.”
Sammell took the weapon from Marina, who had picked it up from the ground where they had dropped it during their struggle. He pointed it at Larkin’s forehead.
“You and I both know, thanks to your lord and master, Bartell, what this can do to a man.”
“But you will not use it,” Larkin replied confidently. “You forget that I know you, Sammell. You do not believe in violence.”
“You are right. I do not.” Sammell backed up until he was standing beside Marina. Keeping the weapon trained on the other man, he reached out and took one of Marina’s hands and closed it around the handle of the weapon.
“You have met Marina,” he said. “She is a visitor from our rough and violent past. The use of weapons is quite common in her time.
“Do you know how to fire a weapon?” he asked Marina, keeping his eyes trained on Larkin’s uneasy expression.
“Yes,” she answered. “My brothers taught me when I was about eight years old.”
“The use of this one is not difficult. You simply put the red light on the spot you wish to hit and depress this button.”
“I can do that,” Marina said clearly.
Larkin looked from Marina to Sammell. “You are trying to fool me,” he said. “You will not terminate me. You want my machine—”
“Correct me if I am wrong,” Sammell said across his protest. “Bartell knows nothing about a second time machine—other than mine. That means yours is well hidden. And as long as no one knows where it is—as long as Bartell does not know where it is—I am satisfied. Shoot him.”
Marina gave Sammell a quick glance, lifted the weapon and pointed it at Larkin’s forehead. “Now?”
“Now—”
“No! I will tell you! I will tell you where the machine is hidden!” Larkin threw his hands up before his face and cowered away from them.
“Keep the weapon on him,” Sammell told Marina. “Where is the machine?” he asked Larkin.
“Not far from here. I will take you there.”
Sammell gazed at the chronometer around his neck. He had one hour before his own time frame came to an end and the force field of his own machine would close and leave him stranded here. They would have to be quick.
“How long before your time frame ends?”
“A few more minutes at the most,” Larkin responded.
Hauling him to his feet, Sammell shoved him toward the invisible wall of the Recep. “We wil
l go in this. It will be quicker.”
“Wait!” Marina called urgently. “Why didn’t you just do this in the first place? You could have simply stepped inside the Recep and traveled to wherever it is hidden.”
“Because I do not trust Larkin not to have set a trap for me,” Sammell replied.
Once he and the other man were inside the Recep, Sammell instructed Marina to find Darryn. “Tell him all that has happened here. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Marina took a step toward them in protest. “Are you sure you’re safe with him? Take the weapon.”
“No. I will be fine. Go quickly and find Darryn.”
Before she could make any further protests, the men began to waver before her eyes. Sammell yelled something, but she couldn’t make it out. It sounded as though he were speaking down the end of a long hollow tube. And then they were gone.
“What are you planning to do with me?” Larkin asked as they stood before the time machine he’d duplicated from Sammell’s blueprints. As Sammell had guessed, the machine had been wired with a vapor bomb.
“I plan to place you where you will do no one, including yourself, any harm,” Sammell replied.
“And where is that?”
“You wanted to go into the past for Bartell. How would you like to take a trip there now?”
“You are going to send me into the past?”
Sammell noted that he didn’t seem at all worried at the prospect. “Yes. I think that is where you belong.”
“I look forward to it,” Larkin replied. “Rest assured, you have not seen the last of me.
“You cannot wipe my thoughts from my mind and everything I have ever seen, heard, or read, I remember. I will build another machine and return. Then I will rule the world.”
Sammell half believed him. But if he set the time far enough into the past, where the elements needed to build MDAT were not readily available, there was little chance of his building such a machine in his lifetime.
He decided to send Larkin to a country where the language spoken was not English. In their world, all languages except English were dead by King Wyndom’s decree.
Sammell knew it wouldn’t take Larkin long to learn another language, but it was another of the things that would slow him down. He chose France. The year he chose at random, the numbers being a one, a five, a zero and a three.
He set the coordinates, keyed in the formula and MDAT began to power up. Larkin stood watching him, laughing. “You are a fool! Do you think you can get rid of me so easily?
“Think of me, Sammell, think of me often when you are with your woman of the past, because I will be thinking of you. You have not heard the last of me! History has not heard the last of me!”
The lens on the time machine began to open, drowning out some of what Larkin said, but he lifted his voice above the noise and continued his tirade. “I will follow you into the future—mark my words, Sammell! The whole world shall hear of me—my name shall be on everyone’s lips. You cannot stop me! I will live forever!”
“Goodbye, Larkin,” Sammell said softly. “I wish you the best.”
There was a flash of blue light. Sammell covered his eyes, and when he looked back Larkin was gone. He felt sadness for the man’s passing from this time to a place where he knew nothing about the life lived there, but reflected that Marina had been a time traveler forced to adapt to another time and she had done well.
He took heart in the knowledge that he’d accomplished the man’s silence without violence. Larkin would now live elsewhere—but he would live out his life.
Now all Sammell had to do was to destroy the machine. He glanced down at the chronometer and saw that he had less than twenty minutes left before he lost his own time frame. He had to get back. There was already one Sammell in this period of time, there wouldn’t be room for two. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he got trapped here, but a vision of his suddenly disappearing flashed through his mind and he worked quickly.
It took only a few moments to reset the vapor bomb and then he was on his way, running through the trees to the spot where his own Recep awaited him. As a sudden draft of fresh wind swept over him and the surrounding countryside, bending the tops of the tall trees almost to the ground, he stopped to look back over his shoulder. Larkin’s machine was gone.
He made the Recep with five minutes to spare. Soon he would be reunited with Marina.
She was waiting for him at the bathing pool. He stood watching her as she sat on the bank dangling her feet in the water. Forever would not be nearly long enough to have her at his side.
She was as he had first thought her…a woman like no other.
“You’re back,” Marina observed without turning.
“Yes.”
“Larkin?”
“Somewhere in a place you call France in the sixteenth century.”
“So you have your time machine, the bad guys have all been taken care of and it’s time for everyone to head home.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Bartell has not been stopped, only contained for a little while. And there is much here yet to do. In these mountains we will build a new world, where peace and freedom—and love—can grow.”
“Love?” Marina laughed, but it was a laugh without humor. “Aren’t you the same man who told me the other day that you knew nothing about love?”
“I know that it makes my knees go weak, my hands to shake and causes my insides to feel as though they are on fire. It turns me cold and hot all at the same time, it addles my brain…and makes me say imprudent things.”
Marina closed her eyes. What was he saying? Did he mean what she thought—prayed—he meant?
“Have I hurt you so badly?”
There were no more than a few feet separating them, but he felt as though a distance greater than the amount of time through which she had traveled to reach him stood between them.
He wanted to touch her, hold her against his chest and feel her heart pound in rhythm with his. He wanted to taste her sweet lips and know the fulfillment of making love with her. And he knew he might never know any of these things ever again…after the way he had treated her, she might now want to leave and return home.
“I am sorry,” he said huskily. “My heart aches for you. I would rip it from my chest and lay it bleeding at your feet, if that would erase the pain I have caused you.”
Marina made no response. He had spoken words of love to her before. How could she know if he meant them this time?
A bitter, cold despair welled up inside Sammell. He had lost her. This new life he had spoken of now held little meaning for him. When she left this place for her own time, with her would go his desire to go on living.
“I would go with you to your own world,” he said quickly, “if that would make you happy.”
Marina caught her breath and held it. He would go with her? What about his world and all the work there was yet to be done? He was needed here.
“When you are ready,” Sammell said bleakly, “come to me and I will send you home.”
He was in the trees, headed for camp, when she finally spoke. “Just like that? Come and you will send me home?”
Sammell halted abruptly. That is not what he wanted. Why was he giving up so easily?
“No!” he thundered, turning toward her. “I will not send you home. Come and I will love you with everything that is in me, until the day I die…and beyond. But if you beg me every day for the rest of your life—I will never let you go!”
Marina rose and faced him. “You won’t?”
“No. I love you.”
Marina smiled. He held out his arms and she ran to him. Swinging her up against him, he whirled around, his lips taking hers in a kiss that sent her stomach all the way to her toes.
Drawing back, he asked eagerly, “You will stay?”
“I will stay.”
“And you will join with me—no, that is not right.” He thought a moment, sear
ching quickly among the things she had told him for the right words. “Marry—you will marry with me?”
“Oh, Sammell, I love you so much.” She hugged and kissed him. “Yes, I will marry with you, just as soon as you like.”
“I like now.”
Still held in his arms with her feet off the ground, she threw her head back and laughed gaily. “So do I.”
“And babies?” he asked gravely. “You will have babies with me?”
“Just try to stop me. I want lots of babies—lots and lots of babies. And I want to teach them—I want to teach the baby Gissel is going to have and those Ameena will have, and all the others,” she added excitedly.
“But first we must stop Wyndom and Bartell,” Sammell said, sobering. “We must make this a world safe for our children.”
The joy was instantly wiped from her face. “Oh, Sammell, for a moment I had forgotten about all that.”
“We must not forget. Not until they are no longer a threat to our world. Then we will forget them and live in peace.”
“Yes.”
Setting her on her feet, he took her hand and they walked toward the encampment. “Let us find Darryn.”
“Yes.” Marina nodded, a bubble of joy rising in her heart.
Darryn and Gissel were not hard to find. A group of people all talking at once were gathered around them.
“What has happened?” Sammell asked, after greetings were exchanged and he had been congratulated on finding Marina and putting an end to Larkin’s mischief.
“Our spies report that an army far greater than our own is amassing in the city below,” Darryn said gravely.
Sammell and Marina looked at each other. This might be their last night together.
“We would like to be married,” Sammell announced suddenly.
“Married?” Gissel asked.
“Yes,” Marina said. “In my time, people go through a ceremony when they love someone and want to live with them and have children. Sammell and I want to do that.”
“You are staying!” Gissel said with a smile, forgetting for a moment the threat to their survival gathering in the city below. “I knew it!”
