"Then you think there's a fire," Ashe said, looking across at her.
"I think that there are times when we feel the heat of it and see things reflected from the light of it," she said, even more slowly than before. "Don't you?"
Ashe sat there, staring out at the open sea. "I didn't, when I was young, but now, after years of seeing strange things, unexplainable things, I can only safely admit to my own ignorance."
Eveleen said, "Well, those Kayu knew there was something there. And so did that priestess. We found out too late to make our own investigations."
"And who knows if we would have found anything? We might still be too ignorant: all our tools are the wrong tools, our questions the wrong questions, because we so often have, if unconsciously, preformed conclusions," Linnea said. "It seems to be the curse of our modern times: we think we know enough to strip the meaning from all the past paradigms, without replacing it with anything."
"And without really comprehending the underlying meaning that made those paradigms work in the first place," Ashe put in. "Well, it ought to be interesting, the future. The Kayu and Baldies both know not only where we are but when we are."
"Do you think they will show up here, then?" Linnea asked.
Ashe shrugged. "It wouldn't surprise me."
"But we don't really know that they are from our own future. It could be that they cannot go forward, only backward," Kosta stated.
Stavros pursed his lips. If he had thoughts about time travel and aliens, he wasn't speaking.
Ross sighed. "Back to the speculation."
"Ah, but we're so good at it," Ashe said, smiling. "Why not indulge ourselves?"
"Because to me it's running in circles. Give me a clear goal and the tools to take action, and let me at it. I hate palaver that can't go anywhere," Ross said. "If that puts me in the ignorant camp, I think I can live with it."
Linnea smiled over her coffee cup at him. "It puts you in the camp of those who act. I am in the camp of those who react. There is, I believe, a place for both."
Ashe turned to her. "Does that mean you want to stick with the Project, then? Despite a fairly harrowing first trip?"
"Oh, yes," Linnea said. "Oh, at first I thought that I would never even be able to look back, and then I started looking back, and then I thought I would only stay on to consult on others' experience—Milliard specifically invited me to do that—but these past few days, I find myself thinking of things I would do differently next time. And that means I want there to be a next time."
Eveleen grinned. "So you got bitten, too, eh?"
Linnea turned to her. "Yes. So I told the bosses that I'll go home, revisit my children, as I promised myself, but I'm going to design my life differently, I think. Even the briefest glimpses of our past are treasures, and I want to be the treasure hunter."
"She's bitten," Ashe said.
They all laughed, and presently they got up and separated, all to various tasks.
——————————
THE SHIP WOULD dock in two days, the bosses having decided that they had enough preliminary material and that the agents were rested, had no mystery viruses or diseases, and were due some extended leave time.
Stavros headed straight back down to the labs, where all the instruments on the boat that hadn't been broken in those last few desperate hours were being evaluated. Kosta was up on the bridge. Gordon and Linnea went off to talk to some of the archaeologists that the Project had on staff.
Ross lingered longest, standing at the rail, trying not to think, but thinking anyway. When he finished his coffee, he went down below, and sure enough, there was Eveleen, in the midst of a workout.
He waited until she was done, then said, "We did talk about what to do when we got out, but we didn't decide. Or don't you want to think about the future yet?"
Eveleen gave him a too-innocent grin. "Oh, I think we should visit Hawaii—and go tour the big volcano!"
He chased her halfway around the ship before he caught her.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
THE BESTSELLING NOVELS of Andre Norton, "one of the most distinguished living SF and fantasy writers"(Booklist), have earned her a unique place in the hearts and minds of millions of readers worldwide. She has been honored with a Life Achievement award by the World Fantasy Convention and with the Grand Master Nebula award by her peers in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Works set in her fabled Witch World as well as others, such as The Elvenbane (with Mercedes Lackey) and the Beast Master series with Lyn McConchie, have made her "one of the most popular authors of our time"(Publishers Weekly). She lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she presides over High Hallack, a writers' resource and retreat. Her Web site is:
www.andre_norton.org.
Sherwood Smith is the author of twenty-five novels, including Crown Duel, Wren to the Rescue, and two other Wren adventures. She is also the coauthor, with Dave Trowbridge, of the Exordium series of adventures. She also recently published Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict —Augur's Teacher.
Together, Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith have written two Solar Queen novels, Derelict for Trade and A Mind for Trade, and a previous collaboration in the Time Traders series, Echoes in Time. Sherwood Smith lives in California.
Andre Norton, Atlantis Endgame
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