by JoAnn Ross
It had been the fuel of choice for interstellar travel for over a century. A chunk of it was currently stored in his pocket accelerator.
“Antimatter.” Although Nate didn’t slow his pace, Sebastian didn’t have to read his mind to know that he was more than a little interested.
“There’s been a lot of work done to create antihydrogen,” Nate allowed. “But no one’s been able to force an antielectron into orbit around the antiproton.”
“It’s difficult getting the electrons to fall into stable orbits around atomic nuclei,” Sebastian agreed. “However, if one were to draw significant energy from the particles before they are combined—”
“The system would work.” Nate continued striding through the snow, but now his steps were less deliberate, his pace definitely slowed as his mind clicked through the possibilities. “But it would still be difficult to store.”
Sebastian had already decided that if he was to return to Logosia in the proper time, he would need help working out whatever glitch had sent him through the time warp. Such help would be beyond the understanding of most Earthlings.
Most. But not this man.
He was just human enough to appreciate fate. And fate, he believed, had brought him to this place. At this point in time.
“Not if it were stored in the form of antihydrogen.”
That did it. Nate stopped and stared at him. “At what temperature would it remain stable?”
“Two degrees above absolute zero,” Sebastian answered what was common knowledge to any second-level Logosian. “Held in a container made of ordinary matter at the same temperature, the ice would not explode.”
The excitement of scientific discovery held Nate absolutely still. “And its atoms would annihilate at such a gradual rate that it could be safely stored to last for a very long time,” Kirby’s brother said softly, working out the problem with an alacrity of mind that even Sebastian had not fully expected. “It could even be used for interstellar travel.”
He stood there, looking out into the distance, quietly thoughtful. “All those sightings,” he murmured. “All those crazy, hysterical reports about little green men.”
He turned toward Sebastian. “They were true.”
As dangerous as it might turn out to be, Sebastian decided to trust this man. “Not exactly.”
“No.” A faint smile curved Nate’s lips. “You are far from little. And not the slightest bit green from what I can tell. Of course, if you’d eaten Kirby’s pot roast, things might be a little different in that regard.” He shook his head. “I have so many questions.”
“I thought you might.”
“But I haven’t the faintest idea where to begin.” He rubbed a gloved hand over his cheek. “Where are you from?”
“Logosia. It’s not in your galaxy,” he elaborated at Nate’s blank look. He went on to explain, as well as he could without a star chart, the location of his home planet.
“Logosia. Amazing. Where’s your ship, or vehicle, or whatever you call it?”
“I don’t have one.”
Nate’s shoulders sagged, his disappointment obvious. “I should have known,” he muttered. “You’re just another crackpot.”
Sebastian decided not to take umbrage at the definition the translator supplied. He wasn’t certain that, under the same circumstances, he wouldn’t have come to the same conclusion.
“Actually, there are those on my planet who would agree wholeheartedly with you,” he admitted. “Especially whenever I attempted to explain my theory of quantum jump physics being a superior means of intergalactic travel.”
“Quantum physics?” Nate asked with studied casualness.
“I theorized that the component atoms that make up life could be taken apart, transported through space utilizing the theory of quantum electrodynamics, then be put back together when they’d reached their destination.”
“Anyone who’s watched Star Trek, which would be just about everyone on the planet, would know the concept.”
“Not just your planet,” Sebastian said. “Mr. Spock is quite revered on Logosia. Many consider his Vulcan character to be based on our own values, which prize intellect and an emotionally detached, logical perspective toward life.”
“Good answer,” Nate allowed. “But it doesn’t prove anything. How do I know that you haven’t gotten your hands on a copy of my work in progress?”
“But I have,” Sebastian agreed cheerfully. “Your textbook on quantum jump time travel is where I got the idea in the first place.”
“I haven’t written a book on time travel.”
“Not yet. But you will. In fact, it’s required reading at the science institute. Along with your work on solar flares, of course.”
“Solar flares? Never mind,” Nate said quickly. “We can get to that later.”
He rubbed his chin again with his gloved fingers. “Okay. Let’s go through this one step at a time. You allege to be from the planet Logosia. Perhaps you ought to fill me in on the year.”
“Years are calculated differently on Logosia,” Sebastian said. “But from what Kirby told me, I seem to have gone back in time on my journey here.”
“Kirby knows about this?”
“No,” Sebastian assured him quickly. “She only knows that she found me, near freezing, on the road yesterday.” He frowned. “Although I am extremely grateful, I am not certain it was very wise of her to take a stranger into her home.”
“Kirby’s always been too open for her own good,” Nate said. “When she was a kid, she was always rescuing strays. The house was constantly overrun with animals. It used to drive my parents crazy, but I have to admit, she invariably managed to find homes for all those mangy dogs and cats she dragged home.”
Sebastian, who wasn’t exactly pleased to be compared to a stray dog or cat, remained silent.
“Like that damn anti-Christ of a feline she’s got living with her now,” Nate said. “I remember the day she found it when she was patrolling the waterfront. It was filthy and its fur was matted, but she took it home, gave it a bath, got it shots, and now you couldn’t get the damn animal out of her house with a hand grenade.”
“She said the cat owns her.”
“Yeah. That’s why, if I weren’t too busy to take care of one, I’d rather have a dog. And although she’s smart as a whip, Kirby’s too softhearted for her own good. She even went to law school, after graduating college, because she had this wide-eyed optimistic goal about helping the underprivileged,” he divulged.
“Kirby was an attorney?” Sebastian tried to picture Kirby Pendleton wearing the stark black robes and grim expressions favored by the barristers on Logosia and couldn’t.
“For a short time. Unfortunately, the system moved too slowly for her, so she decided she could help people more by putting the bad guys behind bars, where they couldn’t hurt anyone. Even after all those years as a cop, dealing with all those criminals, she still manages to see good in almost everything. And everyone.” He shook his head with a mixture of admiration and fraternal worry.
“She believes I have amnesia.”
“Although my sister is twenty-nine years old, she still suffers from a romanticized view of life and people. I used to think she’d grow out of her naïveté, but I’ve come to the conclusion that she’ll probably never entirely throw away her rose-colored glasses. For the record, while she might buy that excuse, I didn’t believe you for a minute.”
“I know. That is one more reason why I decided to trust you with the truth,” Sebastian allowed. “Because I knew that you would discover it on your own, anyway.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“I cannot pass up the opportunity to work with a man whose name is legendary in the scientific community.”
“Legendary?”
Sebastian could tell Nathaniel Pendleton liked that idea. “The name Pendleton ranks right up there along with Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and Pournelle.”
“Po
urnelle?”
“He’s still a few decades in the future.”
“Oh.” Nate considered that. “Speaking of which, you still haven’t told me what kind of time lag we’re talking about here.”
“One hundred and eighty-three of your Earth years. Which is the most important reason I decided to tell you the truth. Even in my era, you have no peers when it comes to your knowledge of time travel. I need your help to build a terran-based transporter. And to work out the coordinates through subspace that will allow me to arrive home in my proper time.”
“Now you’re talking science fiction.”
“Science, yes. But it is not fiction.”
Nate took a long time to consider the request. “You’ve no idea how badly I want to believe you. And I honestly don’t want to insult you, but you have to remember, I’m a scientist. I deal with facts and figures and theorems. I need proof. More than your word about all this,” he said apologetically.
“I thought you might.” Without so much as a blink of his eye, Sebastian disappeared. The only sign of his former presence was the footprints in the snow. Footprints that abruptly, mysteriously, stopped beside Nate’s.
“Sebastian?” Nate looked around at the silent woods. “Where the hell are you?”
“Right here.”
Nate spun around on his heel and viewed Sebastian leaning against a tree. An instant later, he was beside him again.
“Well?”
Nate threw back his head and laughed, a bold, hearty laugh that caused the birds on the branches overhead to take flight with a flurry of wings.
“Hot damn,” he said. “Beam us up, Scotty, we’ve got to get to work and figure out a way to send this man home!”
“Then you’ll help?”
“I’d like to see you try and stop me.” Nate’s gaze immediately sobered. “There’s one more thing you should probably know about me. Something you won’t find in any book.”
Engrossed in already planning his return to Logosia, Sebastian failed to hear the warning edge to Nate’s tone. “What’s that?” he asked absently.
“When Kirby was sixteen years old, she began dating the son of a local lobsterman.”
Strange how all it took was the woman’s name to garner his absolute attention, Sebastian mused. “You didn’t approve.”
“Not because of his family,” Nate insisted. “For the record, I’m not an intellectual, or any other kind, of snob. What I objected to was the kid’s reputation.”
“Which was?”
“He was the hometown stud, infamous for scoring with a new girl every Friday night.”
“And you didn’t want your sister to be one more conquest?”
“Exactly. And I made certain that she wasn’t.”
“By threatening him?”
“It wasn’t a threat. I merely told the horny kid that if he laid one grubby paw on my sister, I would personally saw him into little pieces and use him for bait in his own lobster traps.”
“That sounds eminently reasonable,” Sebastian agreed. “Under the circumstances.”
Nate couldn’t conceal his surprise. “This planet you come from, this Logosia—”
“Is perfectly peaceful,” Sebastian assured him. “We haven’t experienced armed conflict for centuries. But I, myself, have an unmarried sister who, coincidentally, is the same age as yours. One I care about very deeply. And if it eases your concerns, you should know that I was, until recently, betrothed to one of my own people.”
“That’s not entirely reassuring,” Nate argued. “Having split up with your fiancée, you’re an ideal candidate for a rebound romance.”
“The rift is only temporary.” Sebastian frowned as he recalled his former bondmate’s cold, final-sounding words. “Zorana resented the undue attention my work had attracted, but once I return to Logosia with proof that my theories are valid, I know she will put aside her objections.”
“Oh.” Mollified, Nate’s lips curved into a faint smile. “Then we understand one another?”
Against all reason, thoughts of Kirby flooded Sebastian’s mind. Kirby of the soft, fragrant skin, enticing breasts, and sparkling eyes. He remembered the way she’d felt in his arms. The way her smile could send a glow of bright sunshine streaming through his veins.
Tightly garnering the reins of mental control once again, Sebastian reminded himself that he had been bonded to Zorana since childhood. Their marriage had always been a foregone conclusion, and Sebastian had not a single doubt that once he regained his lofty position in society, she would honor her betrothal promise.
And even if he weren’t planning to marry Zorana, Kirby Pendleton was a terran. She was also the sister of a man who had become, in only a few minutes, not only his lifeline but also his friend.
Forcing down uncharacteristically ambivalent feelings toward Nathaniel Pendleton’s twin, Sebastian answered, “Absolutely.”
11
Kirby sensed the difference in the two men the minute they returned to the kitchen. Her brother was as excited as she’d ever seen him. Sebastian was excited, too, she determined, but he was better at concealing it.
She greeted them with a smile and two mugs of steaming coffee. “I was about to send out the Saint Bernards.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said as he cupped his hands around the warmth of the mug and took a drink. “Your police department was very fortunate to have you willing to make such excellent coffee for them.”
“You made coffee for the police?” Nate asked.
“It’s a long story.” Kirby waved off his question. “I was getting concerned that Sebastian may have had a relapse.”
“We were just talking,” Nate said. “Sebastian remembered he’s an astrophysicist.”
“Really?” Kirby and Whitney asked in unison.
Kirby’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully while the other woman smiled at Sebastian.
“That’s quite a coincidence,” Whitney said.
“It also might explain what you’re doing here,” Kirby said. “Perhaps you were looking for Nate, after all.”
“He was. But Sebastian’s not a recruiter,” Nate said before Sebastian had a chance to respond. “It turns out that he’s the new man I hired to join my project.”
“Oh?” Kirby’s gaze moved from her brother to Sebastian to Nate again. “I don’t recall you saying anything about a new man.”
Nate shrugged. “I probably forgot to mention it. You know how absentminded I get when I’m engrossed in work.”
That much was true. She’d heard the same excuse countless times. But there was something else. Something neither man was prepared to tell her.
“I am much the same way,” Sebastian jumped in. “Even without my amnesia.”
“Yet another thing you remember,” she said dryly. They were already working well as a tag team. “Funny how retrograde amnesia works, isn’t it?”
Realizing that she was being stonewalled by two scientists whose individual IQs undoubtedly exceeded the combined numbers of most of the citizens of Rum Runner Island, she decided there was no point in pressing them any further.
But surrendering that hill didn’t stop her from being annoyed at the way Whitney was looking at Sebastian the same way Darcy looked at a bowl of fresh cream. She was surprised the woman wasn’t licking those red, red lips.
“Well, it’s nice that the mystery of why you’re here on the island is cleared up,” she said briskly. “Or will be once Nate unearths your records. Now all we have to do is find out what happened to all your things and what you were doing out in the middle of the snowstorm.”
“He undoubtedly got mugged,” Whitney offered.
“That’s probably it,” Nate agreed.
“I agree that it’s the most likely answer,” Kirby said. “But it’s also a rather disturbing thought. Since we never have muggings on Rum Runner Island.”
“There’s always a first time,” Nate said cheerfully. Too cheerfully, Kirby considered.
“It’s still
strange,” she said.
Sebastian watched Kirby’s eyes narrow. Since arriving back from his talk with her brother in the woods, he could actually see her as a police detective. It was apparent she didn’t take anything at face value.
Seeming to put her suspicions aside for now, she took a brown ring from the slots, spread it thickly with cream cheese, and handed it to Sebastian, who took a tentative bite.
This bagel was hot and chewy, the cheese smooth and cool. The textures and tastes exploded on his tongue. “It’s delicious,” he declared after he’d finished chewing. “Even better than the coffee.”
“Unfortunately, it’s also horribly fattening,” Whitney said. She nibbled daintily at her own ungarnished bagel. “You know what they say,” she said silkily, “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”
Her languid yet pointed gaze slid to Kirby, whose bagel, like Sebastian’s, was spread thickly with cream cheese. “You’ve no idea how I envy you, Kirby. Not many women would permit themselves such a calorie-laden indulgence.”
“If you think this is an indulgence, stick around,” Kirby said. “I was planning to bring home a pepperoni pizza for dinner.”
Whitney shook her head. “You really should take better care of yourself, dear. Even if you don’t worry about your dress size, I shudder to think what all that fat and cholesterol is doing to your heart.”
Sebastian watched the fire flare in Kirby’s blue eyes, and when, strangely, he felt that same anger begin to flow through him, as well, he studied the other woman more closely.
She was severely dressed in black from her head to her feet. Her hair was black, as well, and hung over her shoulders in a shiny curtain. Her dark eyes were lined with a black pencil, a decided contrast to her complexion, which was as pale as the snow on the pine trees outside the window.
Whitney Reynolds could have been a genetically designed Logosian, he mused, as his gaze took in her ascetically slender frame clad in the black tunic and trousers. Her breasts were almost nonexistent, and her hips were as slender as a boy’s. She could have been Zorana’s twin.
