Well, this was it – time to go.

Hoshi had gone some ten minutes earlier, the shawl wrapped for decency's sake around a dress that frankly had imprinted itself on Travis's retinas until he'd dragged his eyes away with a physical effort. When she got around to removing the fancy shawl, he'd absolutely guarantee she'd hold the unbroken attention of anything red-blooded and male. Part of him had wanted to plead with her to choose something even a little less provocative, but he'd known that it would be wasted effort. She was doing this to buy him time, and she was spending the highest coin she had. He could only hope and pray that it wouldn't wind up costing her far more than she wanted to pay.

He was back to not being able to speak a word of the language. Fortunately the queen now understood this, and was giving specific instructions to one of the young twins from earlier, who stood staring at him like he was only waiting for the word to leap forward and tear her limb from limb.

Having finished, Vaharaish turned from the girl and touched his shoulder lightly. Naturally he couldn't understand the words, but he knew the tone that meant 'Good luck', even if he wished he didn't also pick up the unspoken rider 'You'll need it'.

The other of the twins stepped to check that the coast was clear. Dumbly she looked back and nodded; it was safe.

Travis took a deep breath. There was no turning back now.

The palace was very quiet. The red light of evening filled the airy spaces of the corridor as the two of them walked quickly and quietly down it.

Once again he had reason to be thankful he had a guide. The place was worse than a warren, and all the junctions led off into passageways that looked exactly the same. He'd have been lost within the first five minutes.

Several times the girl stopped, freezing into place against a wall while someone spoke inside a room they were passing. He stopped too, perforce, wondering what the heck was being said; wondering with sick anger what it was like to be a slave who can die for hearing the wrong thing.

But it appeared that the hour of rest was pretty broadly observed. They met no-one. At last the girl stopped and pointed fearfully towards a door set in one corner of a corridor that was oddly void of ornament.

"Thank you," he said pointlessly, hoping she'd get the message anyway. "You can go back now. Shoo."

Evidently she got some of it. She bit her lip and shook her head, pantomiming 'ten' with her spread fingers and then walking away and coming back repeatedly.

He frowned. Either she had to come back for him ten times, or she'd come back every ten … whatever their units of time were.

Well, in one way it was a relief. His chances of finding his way back to the Queen's Rooms unaided were … well, even his natural optimism was strained to consider them good, but he'd realized from the start that asking anyone to stay with him was to put them in extreme danger. And to do this to a slave, who had no choice, was unthinkable.

It seemed that Vaharaish had felt no such qualms. The girl had received her orders, and wouldn't dare even think of disobeying them. Barring accidents, his escape route was secured.

In a place like this, of course, accidents were the sort of thing you could practically guarantee would happen. But there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it right now, and the sooner he got inside and got a hold of that 'magic ball', the sooner he'd be able to get his task over and done with. Half an hour, Hoshi had estimated; he just hoped she'd gotten a good look at the markings, and hadn't overestimated his skill with a paintbrush. He took a fresh, nervous grip of the woven case of writing implements in his hands. He'd had a couple of hours' practice and was better at it than he'd been when he started, but that was about the best he could say.

As his guide flitted back along the corridor as soundlessly as a moth, he walked to the door and pushed it cautiously. If it was locked…

It wasn't. The carved wood gave to his push without a sound, opening on a room that was smaller than he'd expected, and dimly lit.

Such illumination as there was came from perfumed wax lights arranged in a semi-circle around the foot of a tall statue at the end of the room – presumably that of the local deity. Travis didn't spare the figure more than a glance, because his interest was seized at once by what was standing against the wall almost opposite it, appearing quite astonishingly anachronistic among what were quite plainly the trappings of this world's religion.

It wasn't that big, perhaps the size of a gambling machine in a casino. A metal structure of this design and finish, however, was completely beyond the capability of this civilization. The wavering light gleamed on satiny smoothness, and the reflections of the flames danced in presently-unlit display panels. It was at least as sophisticated as the machinery aboard Enterprise, and Travis's heart sank as he recognized the four projecting domes. The mystery of how he and Hoshi had gotten here was now well on the way to being explained.

How it had come to be here was a mystery for which he'd probably never find an explanation. How it had come to be suddenly switched on after it had been plastered into the wall of a tomb for a couple of thousand years was another puzzle, but the answer to that one probably lay in the orb that rested in the ornate wooden box in front of it. Hoshi had explained to him everything she'd managed to find out so far. The woman whose body she was now inhabiting must have been tampering with it, probably in the effort to improve her standing with the zarhs and the oo'oacu. Presumably she'd been experimenting, trying to find what the various buttons did when they were pressed. This time, it seemed, she'd gotten rather more than she'd bargained for.

He'd gleaned already that the priestess – or whatever she was – had been a little more than friendly with his own 'host'. Presumably he was close enough to be within range when the accident happened; perhaps they'd even been in here, snatching a little sneaky canoodling under cover of the 'experiment'. His own proximity to Hoshi back in the tomb in their own time had been enough to involve him in what had happened; it was more than likely that the yamyne had been similarly snatched into an event utterly beyond his control.

Moving quickly and quietly, he opened the box and lifted the sphere from inside it. To get the best light available he carried the device over to the foot of the statue, placed it on the polished marble and spread out his parchment in front of it, moving the wax lights in their pots to both anchor it and illuminate the text he needed to copy. His hours of practicing with the fine brush pen had made him reasonably deft, and as he placed the pot of ink carefully at a convenient distance where it couldn't be accidentally knocked over, he wasn't feeling too worried that he wouldn't be able to do a good job. His worries were all for Hoshi, who was playing a dangerous game with dangerous men.

Still, she'd taken the risk to buy him time, and he wasn't going to waste it. He moved the nearest pot closer, so that its gently wavering flame reflected directly in the burnished surface of the sphere, right over the angular markings engraved beside the first of the four buttons. And then he set to work.

=/\=

He'd been working for perhaps fifteen minutes by his estimate, and was all but finished, when he suddenly became aware that the silence was no longer complete.

The small sound had been going on for some time in the background of his consciousness before he actually became aware of it. Probably most of his failure to react to it sooner was due to the fact that since the day of his birth he'd lived in an environment maintained by machinery. The faint hum of electricity was simply something he almost never noticed, and he almost certainly wouldn't have noticed it now but for the fact that his brain picked up the irksome irregularities in the sound. He actually caught himself thinking 'Something around here sure needs fixing' before the realization hit him: the damn time machine was working again.

Well, at least he didn't seem to be inside the danger zone this time. He turned around, eyeing it warily.

It didn't seem to be working too well. There went that buzzing again, off and on, off and on, like someone was manipulating a current…

He and Paul had occasionally been confined to their respective quarters, back on the Horizon, usually for some boisterous boyish infraction. They were technically forbidden to talk to one another, and Mom would have picked up comm traffic. However, their cabins were close enough for vibration to carry along the air vents if the grille was tapped with something like a fork or a knife; and though voices might carry to ears in other cabins whose denizens might feel duty-bound to report their activities, Morse Code had enabled them to carry on illicit conversations on many occasions.

And however senseless it might seem, this broken buzzing was starting to sound mightily like Morse.

It had been years since the days of confinement aboard Horizon, and almost as long since he'd given a single thought to that particular means of communication. To say his skills at it were rusty was probably the understatement of the century. But he listened hard, his heart suddenly pounding.

-E-R-something-R-I-something-E…

Enterprise!

He had to reply, had to get the attention of whoever … but how?

He moved to the wall alongside the machine and inched closer, dreading at every moment to pitch into blackness but not daring to stop in case that transmission stopped, never to start again. "Keep going, guys, please," he pleaded in a whisper, knowing it was senseless; how could they possibly hear his voice over however many centuries of time?

But it seemed that fate favored him. By the time he'd finally slid up to the side of the machine, one of the lamps gripped in his left hand, the summons was still repeating itself.

There were plenty of buttons and dials on the front, insofar as he could see by peering very warily around at it – the last thing he needed was to come within range of those domes. But he didn't know what any of them did.

So maybe the inside of the machine might just possibly offer him more possibilities.

It stood to reason that every machine must have some point for people to access it, to carry out servicing or repairs. And however remarkable its abilities were, this was just a machine.

Okay, so he wasn't the ship's Chief Engineer – Trip would have come in mighty handy in this situation. But he'd still gotten his qualifications, and serving aboard Enterprise had meant he'd come in for plenty of on-the-spot experience. He could tell one end of a circuit from the other, if whoever had built this thing had put it together in anything like a recognizable way.

His free right hand fluttered lightly up the back edge of the side panel. It wouldn't make sense to put an access point at the back of something if it was designed to rest against a wall; although it was possible that it was designed to be free-standing, and if that was the case he was out of luck, because this thing was solid, and there was no way he could move it on his own….

Nothing.

"Oh, man," he moaned softly. It had to be on the other side. Or on the back.

He'd walked past the thing safely enough when he'd come in, though he'd given it quite a wide berth. But then, it hadn't been plainly working.

How far away was far enough?

He tried to recreate the scene in the tomb, how close Hoshi had been to the wall when that – that effect started. Close enough to touch, he thought. And after that, he himself had been the next closest. Whether he'd have been snatched if he hadn't moved, there was no saying; he had moved. He hadn't had any choice about that when the image of her had started to … well, blur, like she was going out of focus, dissolving away into nothing.

With a shudder, he shook the memory away.

Well. He had no choice. He'd have to take the chance. It would have helped if the room had been bigger, but although it was quite long it was pretty narrow; it wouldn't offer him more than about three meters' clearance, even if he flattened himself against the opposite wall.

With a sigh of resignation he moved slowly and cautiously across the room, veering a little to his left to allow extra space before he reached the other side. At a guess, he wouldn't get any warning; Hoshi hadn't seemed to know anything about it before she was seized.

Right. He was at the wall. Now he had to go sideways, and pray that the distance would be enough if that damn thing over there was operating.

Keeping his back pressed against the smooth plaster as though he was trying to force himself into it, he edged to his left, watching the machine as though fearing it would suddenly leap across the room and attack him.

Nothing happened.

He was just over halfway back on the other side when the Morse stopped.

With a wail of despair, he threw himself the rest of the way. The candle flame in the lamp he carried blew sideways and almost went out, but steadied as he reached the right side of the machine and began feeling frantically for anything that felt like a catch…

And found one. He got a fingertip into a little shallow niche that concealed a tiny lever. This gave easily, and the whole side of the machine released, allowing him to pry it open.

Working electronics greeted his gaze. Most of them were unfamiliar of course, but as his eyes ran desperately over the conformation he picked out a few things that looked as though they might perform the sort of function he needed.

What choice did he have? If he and Hoshi stayed here, it was all but a certainty they'd very shortly end up dead.

He picked a circuit almost at random. Deftly he took hold of a connector that was clipped, not soldered – he could put it back into place afterwards. Then he took a deep breath, and pulled.

Lights blinked at him in apparent concern. He pushed the connector back in and started work. Dot, dot, dot – dash, dash, dash – dot, dot, dot…. Keep it short, to get their attention. SOS, SOS, SOS – Man, there had to be someone still listening – there had to be!

After sending the signal three times, he stopped. There was no sound but the faint hum of the machine and the beating of his own palpitating heart.

Then, after an eternity:

C-O-N-F-I-R-M

"Yes!" He almost sobbed with relief. He had to tell them who he was. What the hell was Morse for 'T'? 'Mayweather' would take too long, and as for 'Ensign', well that was taking formality a way step too far.

…Idiot! A single dash. How the heck could he have forgotten that?

With fingers that were suddenly trembling, he manipulated the connector again to tap out the six letters. He even remembered 'S' after a moment's thought.

For good measure, he added D-A-N-G-E-R and H-O-S-H-I. Weird and wonderful, how the letters came back once you started using them again. I-D-E-N-T-I-F-Y, he went on, somewhat belatedly and mostly just for reassurance; who else was likely to be trying to contact him using the word ENTERPRISE?

R-E-E-D / T-U-C-K-E-R

T-R-Y-I-N-G / R-E-S-C-U-E

A-D-V-I-S-E / D-A-N-G-E-R

Now, how the heck was he to respond to that? How to convey the complexity of their situation with a few taps on a machine? He could imagine all too clearly the two officers at the other end, waiting desperately, helplessly, for a response.

Basically, he couldn't even try to explain right now.

N-E-E-D / E-S-C-A-P-E, he tapped out. U-R-G-E-N-T

T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R-?

The question he'd been dreading.

N-O. / S-O-O-N

A terrible little pause.

H-O-S-H-I / S-A-F-E-?

Now, how was he to answer that?

H-O-P-E / S-O. / B-U-Y-I-N-G / T-I-M-E

T-R-U-S-T / Y-O-U

The terse reply brought a lump to his throat. He was still far from sure he'd done the right thing, allowing his fellow-ensign to take the risk she had, but so far it had paid off. The relief of having some contact, any contact, with his senior officers was like suddenly getting oxygen when you were suffocating.

C-O-N-T-A-C-T / W-H-E-N / T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, the tapping went on. T-R-Y / R-E-S-C-U-E. Then, after another ominous pause, R-I-S-K-Y

Travis shrugged, forgetting that they couldn't see him. S-T-A-Y / F-A-T-A-L, he replied. T-A-K-E / C-H-A-N-C-E

It dawned on him then that time was passing, and he must have very little of it left in which to finish the painting. G-O-T / T-O / G-O

W-A-I-T-I-N-G.

The tapping stopped. He reconnected the terminal, and hurried across the room to where he'd left the globe and the parchment.

There were only a couple more dashes to record. He inked them down carefully, then carried the globe back and put it in its box. He secured the side panel again; nobody now would ever know it or the machine had been touched.

It took only a moment to rearrange all the candle lamps and pick up the parchment. He hadn't had time to check his work; he'd have preferred to do so, but what he'd done instead was infinitely more important.

He wasn't wearing a chronometer, but his sense of time passing was starting to bear heavily on him. He'd been here longer than he'd expected to be, probably more than half an hour. Still, no alarm had been raised. Now he only had to find Hoshi and get her back to this room. He could only pray that when he got back to the Queen's Rooms he'd find her there, safe and sound, and none the worse for her risky escapade.

He opened the door a crack, listened, and heard nothing. Peering out might look suspicious if anyone was passing. It would be safer for him to act confident, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary in him exiting a room that probably most of the people in the Palace wouldn't dare even set foot in.

He opened the door wider and stepped out into the corridor, where he turned left, hoping to see the slave girl waiting for him. Instead, he saw the smiling face of a man who was far too damn like Commander Tucker.

There was a sudden shocking pain in the back of his head, and the floor came rushing up at him.

And then the world went black.

All reviews received with gratitude!