Future Past

by MCostello

Malone and Roxton travel through time trying to find answers to some of the Lost World's questions.

The Lost World
Future Past
By M. Costello


"Looks like we've found it, Malone!" John Roxton
called.

Below them lay a stand of very tall trees, enveloped in
a thick, almost opaque, gray-white fog. Since leaving the tree-
house two days beforehand, both men had begun to wonder if the
'Forest of Eternal Mists' actually existed. Neither man had
expressed his doubts to the other, but if questioned both would
have probably wondered aloud if they'd set off on some grand and
glorious, wild-goose-chase...

Malone nodded. "Veronica said the leaves we need are
just inside the forest boundary..."

"Dark green with a red mottling on them?"

"Yes..."

Roxton un-slung the canteen from his shoulder and took
a draw of water from it. The liquid was tepid, but slaked his
thirst a bit and gave him a few seconds pause to rest his tired
and aching feet.

"She said to make sure we take only the freshest
looking leaves; they're the ones with the highest level of the
chemical Challenger requires to make the medicene the Zanga
need," Malone continued.

It was Roxton's turn to nod. "I just hope he's right
about the incubation time. If he's off by just a little, the
plague could sweep through the entire village and kill everyone."

"You've seen something similar to this before?" Ned
Malone asked.

Roxton capped the canteen and re-hung it over his
shoulder.

"Yes, I have," he answered. "Ten years ago when I was
on safari in Africa when we came across a number of frantic
people, carrying everything they owned on their backs from a
nearby village. We stopped and asked several of them what the
matter was and they told us an 'evil spirit' had taken over their
lands..."

Both men were walking once more, down the hill towards
the tall trees.

"An 'evil spirit'?"

"We assumed they meant a disease of some kind, an
hypothesis that was soon bourne out. We took a scouting party
into the outskirts of the village -everyone there was dead. Or
nearly so..."

"Any idea what it was?"

Roxton glanced at him and shook his head. "I'd never
seen anything like this disease before. The villagers were
bleeding out, from every possible body orifice. The survivors
came back later and burned everything, after the disease had run
it's course. They seemed to recognize what it was, though no one
could really tell us how or from what it got started."

"And now the Zanga are facing a similar fate..."

"I don't believe in 'fate' Malone..."

"How about faith?"

Roxton offered him a thin smile. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Malone smiled in return. "Spoken like a true optimist!"

"If Veronica says these leaves can cure the plague the
Zanga are facing, then I believe her. I've seen far too many
strange things happen on this plateau, that she seemingly knows
all about!"

Malone chuckled. "True..."

Roxton motioned ahead. "Shall we?"

"How long do you figure until we get there?"

"Maybe a couple more hours," Roxton surmised. "That is,
if we don't have any further encounters with raptors along the
way!"

"Veronica did say the local wildlife stays away from
here..."

Roxton looked over his shoulder at Malone. "You ever
notice that when the local animals stay away from a place, it's
usually for a good reason?"

"I have noticed that," Ned Malone said.

"Good! I'm glad to see it isn't just me!"

****

The two hour walk was made mostly in silence as the
jumbled landscape around them became progressively harder to make
their way through. The canopy of the tree-tops offered little
respite from the heat of the day or the very strong sun;
Challenger had said the plateau was moving into the dry, hot
season and neither man had reason to disbelieve him.

At the edge of the 'Forest of Eternal Mists', Roxton
paused once more to take a drink of water.

"A cold martini would do nicely right now!" he offered,
to the forest at hand.

Malone smiled. "I'd settle for a walk in the winter
snows! Vermont maybe or New Hampshire..."

After a second drink of water, Roxton shook the
canteen. "How are you doing water-wise?"

Malone checked the canteen on his belt. "I should have
enough to make it back to that watering-hole we found yesterday."

"Good," Roxton said. Holding his tongue for a moment,
Roxton listened. Where once the land around them had been alive
with the calls of the various beasts, large and small, there was,
only now, silence.

"Quiet..." Malone said, under his breath.

"Isn't it though," Roxton agreed. "We've got about five
hours of daylight left. We'll find the trees Veronica spoke of
and make camp for the night. First thing tomorrow we'll gather
all the leaves we can and start back..."

****

The 'tree' Veronica had told them about turned out to
be little more than a bush, scarcely taller than a man. The
leaves were a glossy, deep-green, with red veins under the
surface, and reeked with a powerful, dung-like stench.

"Everyone at the tree-house should have no trouble
telling we're on our way back!" Ned Malone said, making a face.
"They'll smell us, long before we get there!"

John Roxton smiled. "Let's hope it acts as a repellant
for those raptors we were talking about earlier! Might make the
trip back a little easier!"

"Since we have a few hours before sunset, you want to
take a look around?" Ned Malone asked.

"I see Challenger's infected you with his undying
curiosity..."

"I'm a writer and a journalist; we're a curious breed!"

Roxton chuckled. "Very well, but if we run into
anything out of the ordinary, we grab all the leaves we can carry
and start back! We can't afford to waste time with so many lives
on the line, getting caught up in who knows what!"

"Agreed!" Malone said.

****

"I can hardly see the hand in front of my face!" John
Roxton said.

As they'd gone further into the shifting mists, it had
thickened until even the trees were only faint outlines, shadows
against the gray-white pall.

"I was in San Francisco once; this 'fog' makes the fog
there seem like a clear day by comparison," Malone answered.

Roxton glanced down at the coil of rope in his right
hand, then back at the length trailing off into the mists behind
them. "I think we should turn back..."

Malone started to reply, but bit back his words. Over
the sounds of their own breathing he thought he detected a slight
'buzzing' in the air. The buzzing was followed by a brief, loud
'pop' and the smell of ozone...

"Smell that?" Malone asked.

"Like an electrical discharge after a thunderstorm..."

"There's a sound too..."

"Like bees. A lot of bees."

Malone let go of the rope and fell in beside Roxton.
"Sounds like it's directly ahead of us."

"No, it sounds like it's coming towards us..." Roxton
slid the rifle off of his left shoulder and lowered the barrel to
face the possible threat.

The buzz increased in volume and the air seemed to
almost crackle with a static charge, around them.

"Grab hold of the rope and back out the way we came,"
Roxton said, keeping both eyes trained into the swirling fog in
front of them.

Malone didn't answer.

"Malone?" Roxton backed away from the source of the
buzzing noise, directly into Ned Malone.

"Malone, you all right?"

He was staring straight ahead, both eyes slightly wide.
"What is that?"

Roxton glanced forward again, felt his finger tighten
involuntarily on the trigger of the rifle. He had dealt with many
strange and sometimes wonderful things on this plateau, but what
moved towards them from the depths of the fog, froze him in his
tracks.

What moved towards them was a column of shifting light
nearly three meters tall and at least twice that in width. The
column of light spun with eddies of violet and electric blue and
pulsated with an almost inaudible sound that made the hairs on
the back of Roxton's neck stand up.

"You feel that?" Malone asked.

Roxton nodded. "Like one of Challengers Tesla coils..."

The column of light came to within two meters of them
and stopped.

"What's it waiting for?"

"Maybe for us to get out of it's way..."

As one, both men stepped sideways; the column of light
moved with them.

"Looks like that's not it," Roxton mused. "Back away
and see if it follows."

Standing shoulder to shoulder, both men took two steps
backwards; the column of light moved with them again, stopping
when they ceased movement.

"Okay. What now?"

Malone looked at him. "You're asking me?"

Roxton shrugged. "You're the curious one..."

"I thought you might bring that up!" Malone said. He
peered at the column of light, a slightly puzzled frown on his
face. "In places you can almost see through it, while in
others..."

"It's as murky as Marguerite's last dinner broth!"

Malone smiled. "I'm sure she'd be delighted with the
analogy!"

"I'll deny everything!" Roxton said.

Malone turned back to the column of light. "So what do
we do with you?" he called out to it.

The column of light seemed to burn with a bit more
brilliance with his question, something that didn't go un-noticed
by either man.

"Intelligent?" Malone gave voice to the question Roxton
was pondering.

"Just when I thought I'd seen everything..."

Malone stepped forward, only to be grasped by Roxton.

"What are you doing?"

"I was going to touch it."

"And be electrocuted?! I don't think so!"

"It hasn't made any overt threats..."

"Other than blocking our way forward and following us
the way we came. In certain situations, those could be considered
overt threats," Roxton warned.

"If only Challenger were here..."

"Yes, if only Challenger were here; we'd probably be up
to our eyeballs in trouble right about now!"

Unseen by the two men, a thin tendril of coruscating,
almost liquid, light disengaged itself from the main body and
slithered over Ned Malone's reaching hand. It covered that hand
in a cool plasma, changing colors from pale white to blue, as it
did so.

"What the..."

"Malone..."

He stared at his right hand for a long moment, then
held it up in front of his face. The tendril clung to his hand
and trailed back to the main body of the column of light, a
miasma of color and form.

"This is...interesting," Malone said.

"It's not hurting you?"

"Not at all. Where it touches my bare skin, it's cool,
almost like water from a spring house."

"Only it's not a spring house..."

Malone shook his head. "This is so strange. I feel like
I'm -like it's trying to show me something."

Roxton had to admit he was fascinated by the object in
front of them. Though an educated man, there were a great many
things he didn't understand in this world; he'd hardly expected
the education he'd gotten on this strange plateau the three years
he'd been stuck here and was quite certain no one would believe a
word of it when and if they ever got back to civilisation...

Lowering the rifle barrel, Roxton stepped forward.

"We'll have to leave it for later. Right now we've got
more important fish to fry, namely getting the leaves for
Challenger to make the antidote for the Zanga," he said.

Malone met his eyes for just a moment, disappointment
in his own. "You're right, of course. Whatever this is, it can
wait for awhile..."

Roxton reached for Malone's shoulder. As he did so, a
second tendril slid away from the column of light and touched his
hand. The coruscating plasma began to move up his arm, covering
it.

"Roxton..."

"I see it Malone!"

In an eye-blink, both men found themselves cocooned and
looking at the world through an ever-changing flow of color, of
light and dark...

Roxton tried to speak, but found he had no voice. The
cocoon of energy around him began to dance, the colors flowing
like the chalk drawings he'd seen on a Paris sidewalk some years
before, during a brief summer rain.

He felt as though he were falling, as though each and
every atom of his body were being pulled apart and reassembled.
He wanted to cry out, but no sound came...

John Roxton and Ned Malone winked out of existence.

****

"What the devil was that?" John Roxton asked when his
voice returned.

Ned Malone was standing beside him once more, as
puzzled as Roxton. "We were -in the 'Forest of Eternal Mists'.
Then, all of a sudden, we're -here..."

"Wherever 'here' is!"

"This all looks familiar..."

Roxton thought for a moment. "It does and it
doesn't..."

Malone glanced his way.

Roxton continued. "This looks like we're very near the
tree-house, but the trees are much older and even taller than
before."

Malone hadn't noticed and confirmed Roxton's
observation with one of his own. "And there's something else too;
the forest is as quiet as the one we just left..."

Roxton listened. "There is...it sounds like some kind
of machinery."

Far off in the distance a chorus of angry, mechanical
engines sounded, while under their feet the ground shuddered from
heavy impacts of something falling to earth.

"I don't understand this," Malone said.

"Almost feels like cannon blasts..."

"Without explosions?"

"Let's get back to the tree-house..."

Malone led the way, with Roxton directly behind.

"Did you feel anything, when whatever it was covered us
over?" Roxton asked.

"I felt as though I were falling..."

"There was something else, something before the falling
sensation. I felt as though I were being taken apart and put back
together!"

Malone nodded. "I was afraid, but it was like there was
something there telling me not to be..." Malone halted in his
tracks so quickly Roxton nearly bowled him over.

"Malone!"

"The tree..." Malone pointed.

Roxton followed the gesture, staring with disbelief at
the sight in front of him. Much of the second story of the tree-
house was gone, the thatch roof and walls lying on the ground at
the base of the tree. Items from the interior were strewn about
the forest floor...

"Looks like something pulled it down..."

"Pterodactyls maybe?"

"I'm not sure," Roxton said. Looking around, his eyes
picked out something lying in the nearby brush. He walked quickly
to it, bent down to one knee.

"Something?" Malone asked.

Roxton picked up a dirty, pearlescent colored hair
comb. "Recognize this?"

Ned Malone took it from him. "Veronica's. Her parent's
gave it to her as a little girl, for a birthday gift."

"It's been out here for awhile," Roxton said. "Look at
the other side of the comb; faded, weathered, like it's lain here
for years..."

"Veronica!" Malone stowed the comb in his pocket and
walked rapidly towards the tree-house. "Veronica!!"

"Malone!" Roxton called to him.

Malone ran to the tree-house. "Veronica!!!"

"So much for the element of surprise..." Roxton lowered
the rifle and went after him.

"Veronica!!" Malone went to the elevator and
disappeared inside.

Roxton walked slowly through the remains of the tree-
house until he found a good sized panel, measuring about four
square meters. Holding the rifle in one hand, he reached for a
section of vine woven through the panel and gave it a hard tug;
the vine snapped in two with a puff of dust...

"Interesting..."

"The elevator's broken," Malone reappeared. "It looks
as though some kind of animal has been making it's home there for
awhile."

"That's not all," Roxton said. "Take a look at this."

Malone took the offered vine, a frown on his face.

"If I understood Veronica correctly, those vines are as
strong woven hemp; this one came apart with little real effort on
my part..."

"What are you saying Roxton?"

"I'm saying that the tree-house wasn't attacked by the
local fauna or any of the people we've made enemies of the last
several years. The tree-house fell apart of it's own accord
because it's been abandoned!"

"Abandoned?!" Malone questioned. "That doesn't make any
damned sense! We've been gone for two days and this much damage
would take far longer than two days!"

"I know. I don't understand it either..."

Under their feet the ground trembled; in the distance a
low roar filled the air. It echoed across the plateau, like a
sudden burst of summer's thunder, on a cloudless day.

"Explosion?" Malone asked.

"A large one, maybe a couple hundred pounds of ammonium
nitrate or dynamite..."

"Ammonium nitrate? Don't they use that for open-pit
mining?"

"That's one of it's uses," Roxton nodded.

"Malone?" a soft voice called.

Malone turned in the direction of the voice, a smile
starting to form on his lips. The smile froze mid-way.

"Assai?!"

The slight, gray haired woman smiled back, her dark
eyes alight with the fires of distant memories.

****

Ned Malone helped Assai to a nearby felled tree,
brushed away loose bark from it before allowing her to take a
seat.

"It is you, Assai?"

She offered him a serene smile, then nodded. "Yes..."

"But I -don't understand..."

"Neither do I," the Zanga woman said with a shake of
her head.

John Roxton knelt down on one knee, facing Assai.
"What's happened here Assai?" he asked.

The gray haired woman looked at him with blank eyes. "I
was hoping the two of you could tell me..."

"We're as much in the dark as you are," Roxton said.

"Maybe we should start from the beginning," Malone
said. "We obviously aren't in the same time frame as we were two
days ago."

Roxton glanced at him; the thought, though niggling at
the back of his mind, hadn't been completely realized as yet...

"No, you're not," Assai shook her head.

"When are we?"

Assai's dark eyes met his. "You will not believe me..."

"We'll give it the old college try!" Roxton said, using
a phrase he'd hear Malone once utter.

Assai took a long breath. "Very well. You left the
tree-house a little more than 41 years ago!"

Roxton and Malone exchanged looks.

"That's -not...not possible!" Malone said.

"I've learned to believe the impossible here on this
plateau, old boy!" Roxton added.

Malone turned back to Assai. "Do you remember what
happened?"

"I may be old Ned, but I haven't gotten forgetful.
Yet!"

He managed a smile. "Sorry..."

Assai waved the apology away. "The two of you left for
the Forest of Eternal Mists to retrieve the leaves of the kialoma
plant..."

"For the plague; we remember that much," Roxton said,
trying not to sound impatient.

Assai nodded once more. "When you did not return in the
five days the two of you set for yourselves, Veronica went in
search of you and for the leaves Challenger needed."

"Did she get the leaves to him in time?" Malone asked.

Assai looked away for just a moment. "She did.
Challenger synthesized enough of the antidote for everyone in the
village..."

"So why the glum look?" Roxton asked.

"The disease had changed. The antidote did not work as
effectively as hoped."

"A mutation?" Malone asked.

"That is the word Challenger used," Assai said. "The
youngest and oldest in the village, all died. The ones who didn't
die, were left weakened..."

"Where are the Zanga now, Assai?" Roxton asked.

"Here," she said, indicating herself.

Both men were speechless.

"Those who lived through the disease, were unable to
tend the fields or to hunt for food," Assai continued.
"Challenger, Marguerite, Veronica, and myself helped as best we
could, but in the end we could do little to save my people after
the plague had ravaged us so."

"They all...died?" Malone asked.

"In the weeks that followed. Challenger said their
'immune systems' were destroyed..."

"A pandemic, like the influenza outbreak in 1918,"
Roxton said.

"A simple cut or bruise; all proved deadly to my people
after a time."

"You..."

Assai faced Roxton. "I was one of the last to get sick.
I lay on my deathbed for days; everyone was astounded when I
recovered. But, my recovery was too late for what remained of the
Zanga people..."

"What about Challenger and the others?" Roxton asked.
"None of them developed..."

Assai shook her head. "Challenger could not understand
that part of it. He said your people must have had a built in
immunity to the disease, but he searched for months trying to
find it!"

Malone reached out and took Assai's hands in his. "I'm
sorry for the loss of your people..."

Assai managed a slight smile. "It was a long time ago
Malone, but I accept your sorrow."

"Assai, the others; where are they?"

"Gone. Three years after your disappearances, a team of
men from your lands arrived and took them home."

"'Disappearances?'"

"We searched for many months for the two of you, not
wanting to give up. After a year of finding no traces of you,
almost everyone accepted that you'd probably been killed by one
of the beasts here on the plateau."

"Veronica..."

Assai met Malone's eyes. "She never accepted the idea
that the two of you were dead. She searched long after the others
had given up, often to the point of exhausting herself!"

Malone closed his eyes and nodded.

"Did the others ever come back to the plateau?" Roxton
asked.

"Challenger did, several more times with larger
expeditions," Assai answered, her eyes far away. "If he had
stayed away..."

"What happened?" Malone asked.

"The expeditions took samples back to your world.
Challenger was a good man who tried to hold the location of this
place secret..."

"And secrets are tenuous at best," Roxton said.

"Yes," Assai agreed. "The location eventually became
known. Once it became known, the plateau could be exploited for
it's riches."

"The sounds of the machinery we heard earlier?" Malone
asked.

"Yes. Great, open mines, the trees cut and removed to
build homes in your world."

"And the animals?" Roxton asked.

"There are some remaining in 'zoological parks' in your
world, but none here."

"All wiped out?" Roxton asked, not wanting to believe
her words.

Assai nodded. "As I said, Challenger was a good man;
many of the others who came after him, were, unfortunately, not
as good!"

Malone met her eyes once more. "D did Veronica return
with..."

"No," Assai said. "When Challenger, Marguerite, and
Summerlee returned to your world, Veronica stayed behind..."

"Summerlee?!" Roxton asked, surprised.

"He returned almost a year to the day the two of you
disappeared."

"Veronica stayed..."

Assai smiled at Malone. "I think she believed the two
of you would one day walk out of the jungle, the same way
Summerlee did. She and I ventured forth on many occasions,
searching and re-searching, but never finding any sign of the two
of you!"

"Is -is she still..." Malone's voice faded with the
hope that Veronica was still in this place, no matter the number
of years that had passed.

"She is nearby. I can take you to her if you'd like,"
Assai offered.

"I'd like that very much, Assai!" Malone said.

"Could one of you help me to my feet? My old bones ache
if I sit on an un-cushioned place for too long!"

"Of course!" John Roxton helped the small woman to her
feet.

"This will all be gone one day," Assai said.

"That saddens me," Roxton said.

Assai glanced up at him. "This world lives on, as long
as we remember it..."

Roxton looked over head at what remained of the tree-
house. "Awful lot of fond memories there..."

"If they are in your heart, they are not forgotten!"
Assai beamed. "Come along Ned, I think Veronica would like to see
you!"

****

Assai led them to a small glade, over looking an
expanse of mountains stretching to the distant horizon.

"Pretty place," Roxton said.

"Veronica picked it as her final resting place..."

Malone suddenly stopped walking. "Assai?"

The slight woman turned to face him, her right hand
pointing towards a small strip of land near a single, brightly
colored tree.

"Go to her," Assai said. "She would like to see you."

Malone's eyes fell to a place at the base of the tree,
then back to Assai. "She -she's..."

"Last spring, in her sleep."

"And you didn't think to tell me this before we came
here!" Malone railed. "What kind of sick..."

Assai reached out and touched his arm. "She truly loved
you..."

Malone shook his head. "This can't be real, can't be
happening."

Assai took his hand in hers. "Feel the warmth of my
hand in yours, the sun shining on your face..."

"This..." he met Assai's dark eyes. "I never -never got
the chance to tell her..."

"She knew Malone. She knew and loved you every bit as
much!" the Zanga woman said. "Go. Roxton and I will wait here."

Malone forced his feet to move. As he neared the grave-
site, he felt his resolve crumble away; Malone wanted to turn and
run from this place, run back into the jungle and to the Forest
of Eternal Mists, to vanish into time once more.

Malone looked down. Zanga prayer stones formed a cross
in the center of Veronica's grave. For a moment he wasn't
certain, wasn't sure of what to do. He'd never lost anyone close
to him before and the ache in his heart seemed to override any
other feeling he might have had.

"Veronica," he at last spoke, his voice little more
than a whisper. "Assai -Assai brought me here. She said you'd
like to see me. I want to say something, but I'm not sure of
what--of what words to use..."

Malone thought in silence for a long moment. "Roxton
and I; I...don't quite know what happened to us. We -we went to
get the kialoma leaves and while we were there, this thing came
at us, out of the forest."

He glanced away. "You teased me once about picking up
some of Challenger's traits. I guess you were right, because when
this thing came at us, I didn't want to run, I wanted to find out
what it was."

Malone looked down at the cross made of stone. "It
touched me, then Roxton. A few moments later we were here, back
at the tree-house." Malone smiled. "Only it's not a few moments
later. Assai tells us it's more like 40 years. Is that right, can
that possibly be right?"

Malone shook his head. "Assai told us that you never
stopped looking for us, that you always believed we'd walk out of
the jungle one day like nothing had ever happened...

"Something did happen though, didn't it? We left and we
never came back. There was always that possibility whenever we
left the tree-house, but this one time that possibility became
real, became a fact. Became a fact to everyone but you that is,
because you know this crazy place and the things it's capable
of!"

Malone knelt. "I never got the chance to tell you how I
felt about you. All those times when I'd look at you and remember
Gladys back home and the fact that I was supposed to marry her.
Did you know, there were times I didn't care if we were ever
found? I didn't care because I knew I'd be here with you and I
knew that one day, I'd get the chance to tell you exactly how I
felt..."

He managed a trace of a smile. "I guess I'm getting
lost in the words again, aren't I? That was a Marguerite
aphorism, her way of telling me that my prose was a little too
flowery, something that would be lost on most of the people who'd
read my journals."

He pressed on. "We uh, we never could seem to admit our
true feelings to one another. I wanted to, but I could never seem
to gather up enough courage to do so. Face down a charging T-Rex
but too afraid to tell you that I -love you."

Malone closed his eyes. "I do love you Veronica. I was
never more sure of any one thing in my life! I -I just wish I'd
told you when I had the chance!!"

He opened his eyes, suddenly thought of the pearlescent
hair comb Roxton had found.

Malone pulled it out of his pocket, knelt looking at
the comb for a long moment. "I -I don't have a lot here with me,
but I know this was special to you. It's the comb your parents
gave you for your birthday, so long ago. I figure, you might like
to have it again."

Malone leaned over her grave and put the hair comb at
the head of the cross, between two stones so it wouldn't fly away
in the high winds that blew on occasion across the plateau. He
reached out and grasped one of the prayer stones.

"I love you Veronica! Maybe next time around, I'll get
it right!"

He said a brief prayer, then stood and walked back to
where Assai and Roxton stood...

"Ned, are you all right?" John Roxton asked, concerned.

Ned Malone couldn't meet his eyes. "I will be..."

Malone felt something cool and familiar, looked down at
his right hand; the tendril of light was back and spread rapidly
up his arm. Across from him, Roxton was slowly being enveloped by
it as well.

"Assai, move away!" Malone warned.

The Zanga woman stepped back from them, her dark eyes
wide. The multi-colored light encasing the two men glowed with a
shifting iridescence, that, as she watched, faded into
nothingness.

Assai frowned as air flowed in to fill the spaces Ned
Malone and John Roxton had just occupied.

"She understands, Malone," Assai said.

****

The two men materialised on a patch of green grass
between twin oak trees. Nearby could be heard the rumble of motor
vehicle traffic and soot and smoke of a unique odor filled the
air.

"Interesting way to travel," John Roxton mused as soon
as he was able to speak.

Ned Malone looked down and flexed his right hand.
"Before we -formed here, did you see anything?"

"Only darkness," Roxton shook his head. "You?"

"I'm not sure. For a moment, I thought I saw..."

"What?"

Malone thought better of it and shook his head.
"Nothing...where do you suppose we are this time?"

"I'm not certain. Looks like..." Roxton's voice trailed
off as the sound of a heavy, gonging bell began. Quickly reaching
for his vest pocket, he drew out a gold pocket watch and listened
intently as the bell sounded once, twice, then a third time.
Roxton smiled.

"We're back in London!" Roxton said, a smile forming on
his lips. "That's Big Ben! We're home!"

Malone glanced away, surveying the landscape around
them. "This looks like Hyde Park..."

"I think you're right..."

"But are we in London before we left for the plateau
or..."

"I'm not certain," Roxton shook his head. He took a
deep breath, offered Malone a slight smile. "I'd say we're in
London, after the expedition left. The air smells different like
coal smoke and diesel engine fumes."

"Afterwards? How long afterwards?"

Roxton thought that one over for a moment. "Now I'm
beginning to wish Challenger were here!"

"So what do we do?"

Roxton looked his way. "A pint in a local pub would be
nice!"

Malone smiled for the first time since finding out
about Veronica. "I'm not much of a drinker..."

"Stick with me Malone, I'll make a pub crawler out of
you in no time!"

"Shall we?" Malone gestured.

The two men began to walk, winding their way through
the park land on a wide, crushed-river-stone walkway. Rounding a
bend in the walk, a woman pushing a baby's pram stared curiously
at them as they approached her.

"What is she staring at?" Roxton asked, so only Malone
could hear.

"I imagine we must be a sight, walking through Hyde
Park on a warm, sunny day armed to the teeth and looking like
we've just fallen out of a nearby works project."

Roxton contemplated that as the woman with the pram
drew opposite of them.

"Good afternoon madam. Lovely day, isn't it?" he
inquired.

"Lovely," she agreed and continued on, somewhat
hurriedly Roxton thought.

Roxton glanced back at her as they passed. "Scandalous,
Malone! Did you see that dress she was wearing?! You could see
her shins and ankles and the bodice was so tight it left nothing
to the imagination!"

"I didn't notice..." Malone said, beginning to slow his
pace.

"Well I certainly did!" Roxton said with a toothy
smile. He was talking, trying to bring Malone out of the
doldrums. The young man was obviously feeling the loss of
Veronica and he didn't quite know what to say to brighten
Malone's mood.

"Roxton?"

"Yes?"

Malone stopped walking. "I don't have the slightest
idea where we're going!"

John Roxton laughed. "If we cut through here, we'll
come out a short walk from this magnificent drinking
establishment..."

"You're the leader of this expedition; I'll follow
you!" Malone said.

At the next junction both men turned left onto a
narrower walk. They followed it for a couple of hundred meters,
until they came out at a large pond, surrounded by droopy boughed
willow trees.

"I don't remember this..."

As though they were being drawn to the pond, Malone and
Roxton turned and headed towards it.

"I swear the last time I was here, this wasn't," Roxton
said.

"We seem to be the only ones...there's someone over
there."

Roxton followed Ned Malone's nod. Beside the pond, a
wheelchair bound man sat, feeding a number of fussy ducks from a
brown paper bag of bread crumbs. For just a moment Roxton thought
there was something recognizable about the man...

"I don't believe it!" Malone broke away from him and
hurried to the seated man.

"Malone!" John Roxton called after him.

At the mention of the name 'Malone' the man in the
wheelchair turned. There was a hint of instant recognition on his
lined, well tanned face as he saw the two men.

"Challenger?!" Malone called out as he ran to the man.

"My word, it is!" Roxton said. He hurried to join
Malone...

"Challenger!!" Malone had dropped to one knee and
physically embraced the older man.

"Malone?" Challenger asked, eyes focused on the younger
man.

"Professor! Roxton, it's..."

Roxton joined them, extended a hand to the seated
Challenger. "George!" he said.

Challenger beamed as he shook hands heartedly with
Roxton. "The two people I never thought to see again!"

"So we've heard!" Roxton mused.

George Challenger met his eyes for a moment. "What are
you talking about?"

"We were back on the plateau. Assai told us we'd gone
missing," Roxton said.

"For over forty years!"

"Forty years?!" Challenger queried. "I know time seemed
to occasionally act strange there, but it hasn't been forty
years!"

Malone exchanged a quick look with Roxton. "Assai
said..she was very old Challenger. She showed us
Veronica's grave..."

"Edward Malone, Veronica is every bit as alive as you
are at this moment!" Challenger scolded.

"George, we were back there. The tree-house was falling
apart and mining operations were going on, on the plateau. The
dinosaurs were all gone, hunted to extinction or carted off to
zoos all over the world," Roxton said. "It wasn't a dream or
hallucination, I assure you!"

Challenger gave them a puzzled look. "If this were
forty years later, I wouldn't be here."

That stopped Roxton. "But we -were there..."

"Perhaps you could tell me what happened when the two
of you disappeared. The answer might lie there!" Challenger said.

****

Challenger listened patiently as Malone and Roxton told
him their story, from beginning to end. After finishing, he sat
for several minutes in silence, digesting what they'd just
related.

"This 'column of light' as you called it," he began.
"You said it enveloped you in some type of cocoon..."

Malone nodded. "Yes Professor. It was like being
immersed in water, a kind of 'liquid light'. The cocoon was
almost fluid, but once it had enveloped you, you couldn't get out
of it."

"Until you arrived at where it was taking you."

Roxton gave Challenger a look. "'Taking us'?"

"I'd say yes, taking you," George Challenger said. "You
found the column of light, it 'enveloped' you and then you found
yourself back at the tree-house forty years after you'd
disappeared."

"When it first touched me, I felt like..." Malone let
the thought trail away.

"What Malone?" Challenger pressed.

"I felt like it was trying to tell me something."

"Did you feel it too, John?"

"No Professor," Roxton shook his head.

"Malone, did you get a sense of 'intelligence' from the
thing?"

"I'm not certain," Malone shrugged. "I felt it was
trying to communicate with me, so that means it has to be
intelligent. Right?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Challenger said.

Another long silence stretched between them as
Challenger mulled over what Malone had just said. "What I'm about
to say is going to sound a bit far-fetched..."

"After living on that plateau, far-fetched is beginning
to sound highly probable!" Roxton offered.

Challenger smiled. "There were several instances on the
plateau where things involving time, appeared to 'short circuit'.
The family from the 21st century in the 'heli-copter' and the
village where Roxton and Marguerite were nearly hanged for being
a highwayman and her consort, come immediately to mind."

"As I remember it, the family in the heli-copter came
through after a particularly powerful electrical storm and the
village where Marguerite and I were almost hanged was on the
other side of tunnel, near a crystal mountain," Roxton said.

"Correct, but both instances had similar things in
common. In the first instance it was the power of an electrical
storm, while in the second it was this 'crystal mountain' acting
as a locus..."

"You mean electrical energy was the key to both?"
Roxton asked.

"Either that or supernatural powers were at work and
I've spent far too long as a scientist to believe in such utter
balderdash!"

Roxton smiled. "This thing that Malone and I
encountered; are you saying it's some type of doorway?"

"Good for you, John!" Challenger laughed. "You did pay
attention to the things I told you."

"I tried Professor!"

Malone looked at Challenger. "This doorway; first we
were forty years in the future, now we're...when are we exactly?"

"The year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty-
eight!"

"So we're still in the future, only not as far as
before," Malone said.

George Challenger nodded. "Correct."

"It sounds like you're saying we've become 'unstuck' in
time," Roxton offered.

"That is precisely what I'm saying," Challenger nodded
again. "This 'doorway' the two of you have found has moved the
both of you through time and space, two separate times..."

"Why?"

"And the larger question still; how do we get back to
our own time?" Roxton asked.

"I wish I had an answer for you on both counts..."

"Are you saying we might not be able to get back to
where we came from, Professor?" Malone asked.

Challenger took a deep breath. "There is that
possibility, but I think...my word, I wish I had read that paper
a bit more thoroughly!"

"What 'paper' George?" Roxton asked.

"A physicist by the name of Einstein has postulated
that time is like a rubber band..."

"A rubber band?" Malone asked.

"Yes. If you grasp a rubber band between the fingers of
two hands and stretch it out, the rubber band lengthens,
correct?"

"Yes..."

"No, it doesn't lengthen; the rubber band is the same
size it always was but the space between the atoms of the rubber
band, expands. You pull it and it stretches, but it's the same
rubber band."

"You mean it always returns to it's previous shape,"
John Roxton said, feeling just a bit lost.

"Precisely! Putting it simply, Einstein said in that
paper that time and space would always return to where it began.
Using the same rubber band analogy, if you pull it on one side
and suddenly let go, it returns to that previous shape and size.
His theory is that time and space will one day do the same, that
eventually the universe will start to reverse back upon itself
and end all that we know. Entropy is the word I believe. Or, if
you need an example here in this world--we've all seen the old
style moviolas, have we not, where you pay your money to see a
hand cranked series of sequential photographs..."

"Yes..."

"Suppose time is like a moviola in that, when the
series of photographs you're looking at is finished, it returns
to where it started," Challenger said.

"This is all getting a little beyond me George," Roxton
said, giving voice to his doubts.

"Not entirely so. What I'm trying to say is that time
has a beginning, a middle, and an end, the same as each and every
day..."

"If that's the case, we should be able to find our way
back..."

"It's possible, but I think it's going to be a rather
difficult proposition," Challenger said.

Roxton frowned. "How so?"

"Imagine time as a room, a room with one hundred doors
in it. Now, imagine that each time you open one of those doors,
you find another room with one hundred doors in it. Each time you
open another door, you find the same thing..."

"So it's both possible and impossible at the same
time," Roxton said.

Challenger stared silently at Roxton for a moment.
"That's a very interesting premise..."

"It is?"

"Yes. You've said you were forty years in the future;
now you're back here, which, in that time frame would be the
past. The interesting part is, what if each one of those
hypothetical doors we were talking about contained not only an
alternate time frame, but an alternate reality as well!"
Challenger enthused.

"Like looking in a mirror," Malone said.

"Of a sort," Challenger agreed. "A very large and
infinite, looking-glass covering all of time and space itself..."

"And we're only two small people on this cosmic canvas
you've just painted," John Roxton said. "How the hell do we get
back?"

"The rubber band effect Einstein was talking about.
You'll go as far as you can, all the while expending energy,
which is never in infinite supply, until, you eventually snap
back to where you came from!"

"That could take -forever!" Malone said.

Challenger laughed. "Traveling through time as you are,
'forever' is a very relative term, Ned. Look at us, standing and
sitting here in Hyde Park on this beautiful day. You and Roxton
look the same as the day you disappeared, while I -I'm stuck more
often than not in this damnable chair!"

Roxton looked at him. "Why the chair George?"

"I fell and broke my hip last month and the blasted
thing doesn't want to heal properly!"

"I notice you haven't let the hip or your age slow you
down very much!" Roxton grinned.

"My wife and nurses doing! My wife makes the nurse
bring me here every afternoon, when the weather isn't foul. She
says the sunlight will do me a world of good, but I think the
real reason is that it gets me out of her hair for awhile!"

Both Roxton and Malone laughed.

"What are things like here Challenger?" Malone asked.

"Not very much changed I'm afraid. Men are still men,
governments still go to war over land and beliefs that do not
jibe with their own. Damn fools all of them!!"

"War, George?" Roxton asked.

Challenger nodded. "On the continent now. Fascism, led
by men wearing broken crosses on their black shirts. It'll come
here soon enough, by terrible air machines, raining death down
upon the city."

"They wouldn't dare attack London!" Ned Malone said.

"They would and they will," Challenger reiterated.

"But war, so soon after the last one?" Roxton asked.
"The 'War to End All Wars' they called it."

Challenger gave a derisive laugh. "If there were only
two men left standing upon the face of a decimated Earth, I'm
sure they would find some disagreement over which to fight. It's
the nature of the beast, I'm afraid."

"Do you think they'll stop it?" Malone asked.

"Eventually, as they do all wars. Millions of innocents
will die, whole cities will perish in fire, but this one will end
when the participants can't stomach it any longer!"

"You're sounding like a pacifist, George!" Roxton
teased.

The older man smiled. "I have simply seen too many
beautiful things in my years and can't for the life of me
understand why we must keep killing one another over petty
rivalries and territorial claims. I sometimes wonder if mankind
as a species will survive long enough to live up to his
potential!" Challenger shook his head, looked away. "Summerlee
and I have had this argument dozens of times..."

"Summerlee?! You mean he's here? In London?"

"Where else would he be, Malone!" Challenger laughed.

"The truly unbelievable part is they sit and have
civilised discussions with one another!" Roxton said.

"No one said a word about civilised, John!" Challenger
hurrumped.

Roxton laughed. "Assai said he just walked out of the
forest one day. Did he ever say from where?"

"Other than something about a blasted green house, he
never said where he ended up after going over the falls..."

"Perhaps he found another one of those doors you were
talking about!" Roxton mused.

"Perhaps so," Challenger nodded. "You said in the
future line you visited, everything was changed on the
plateau..."

Malone nodded. "When we were there, large machines were
working the earth, stripping away the raw materials. The animals
were dead and Assai seemed to know she was looking at the end of
her homeland."

"But still she stayed..."

"Where else would she go?" Malone faced him. "Her
people died there, the woman she called and loved as a sister
stayed behind when everyone else left..."

"Did Assai say..."

"She said some of the expeditions that came later, were
not there strictly for scientific studies."

Challenger closed his eyes, gave a brief nod. "I feared
as much. When we returned here, I did my best to keep the
plateaus location secret, but all it takes is one person talking
out of turn..."

"No one's blaming you George, least of all Assai,"
Roxton said.

"No, but perhaps she should have!"

All three men fell silent as Challenger continued to
feed the assorted water fowl circling lazily in front of him.

"Have you heard anything from Marguerite?" Roxton
asked, trying to be casual about it.

Challenger glanced up at him and smiled. "I was
wondering when you'd get around to that..."

"Just curious, George!"

Malone looked away, trying to hide a grin.

"She was here in London until four no, five years ago.
I'd see her every now and then at society functions..."

"I imagine she fit right in!" Roxton said.

"She did more than fit in, John!" Challenger related.
"Marguerite came back with enough treasures to sit her up quite
handsomely!"

"Sounds like Marguerite all right!" Roxton shook his
head. "So, how many people did it take to carry all of her booty
off the plateau?"

"Only four!"

Roxton laughed. "And I imagine she watched every bauble
like a hawk too!"

Challenger smiled. "It was an amazing thing to watch
actually. She knew every stone, ever article of jewelry..."

"So where is she now?"

"The last I heard, she was in Paris. It's difficult to
tell with Marguerite, because she's not exactly the kind of
person who stays put in one place for too long."

"With good reason, most of the time!"

"Roxton..."

"Yes Malone?"

"The -it's back."

Roxton glanced down at Malone's right hand. The multi-
colored tendril covered it and was spreading up his arm.

"I think it's time for us to go, George," Roxton said.

Challenger watched, fascinated as both men moved away
from him. In seconds, their bodies were covered by separate
columns of changing hued light.

Inside one of the columns Ned Malone managed to raise
his right hand. Challenger thought he saw a wave as both men
winked out, leaving only brief puffs of air behind in their
places.

"Damn lucky, those two!" George Challenger said.

He shook his head, then turned back to the fussy ducks,
wishing he'd been twenty years younger so he could've gone with
them. The one thing he couldn't figure out was how in the world
he was going to tell Arthur Summerlee about what he'd seen that
day in Hyde Park, without being locked away in an insane asylum
for the rest of his life.

George Challenger laughed and threw a handful of day-
old bread crumbs to the ducks.

****

Ned Malone lost his balance and nearly fell as they
materialised once more; John Roxton caught him by the shirt
collar and held him upright until the brief spell of dizziness
had passed.

"You feeling all right?" Roxton asked.

Malone nodded. "Roxton, this is strange..."

"I'll grant you that..."

"No...I mean yes, this is strange too..."

"What are you trying to say Ned?"

"Just before we materialised, I was somewhere else..."

Roxton thought for a long moment. "I remember now...we
were in a large glass and steel room, then we were here."

"Wherever 'here'..." Malone took a long look at their
surroundings; heavy block walls, cold stone floors, and, a few
feet away, iron-barred doors leading into a corridor beyond.
There was a second door at the top of a short flight of stairs,
on the other side of the room. "This looks like a jail."

"Marvelous!" Roxton said. "For someone who's led a life
reasonably unsullied by crime, I sure do seem to find myself in
enough of these places!"

"This doesn't look like a cell. More like the jailers
office..."

"I think you may be right."

"But why a jailers office?" Malone wanted to know.

"To make up for past sins?" Roxton said.

Malone smiled. "Let's take a look around and see what
we find!"

The two men spent almost fifteen minutes going through
the office, trying to come up with something that would explain
their inexplicable deposit there.

John Roxton removed a clipboard from a hook behind a
rather rickety looking desk and glanced at the top sheet. "I'm at
a loss thus far!"

Malone walked to the barred door. Grasping it with one
hand and pulling, he was amazed to see it start to open. "Not a
very secure lock up..."

Roxton smiled, flipped to the next page on the
clipboard. "As I remember it, we've broken out of a few in
our..." His voice faded to silence in mid-sentence.

"Roxton?" Malone noticed and turned back to him.
"Roxton, what is it?"

"Well, I'll be damned!"

Malone frowned. "What did you just find?"

"Have a look for yourself," Roxton crossed the room and
handed the clipboard to Malone. "Three lines down from the
top..."

"I don't read German."

"You don't need to know German. The name should be very
familiar to you..."

Malone found the line and read it aloud. "Marguerite
Krux? Our Marguerite?!"

"Oh, judging from the state of the accommodations, I'd
say it's her!" Roxton nodded affirmatively.

"Marguerite? Here?" Malone asked. "What do these words
in parentheses beside her name say?"

"I think it refers to a prisoner transfer order to
something called the 'Gestapo'. My German isn't the best."

"'Gestapo'?"

"Don't ask me!" Roxton shrugged. "Looks like
Marguerite's up to her old tricks..."

"Only this time she got caught," Malone said.

"You'd have thought she'd have perfected her technique
a little better by now," Roxton said with a shake of his head.

"We can't just leave her here..."

Roxton sighed. "No, but every time she gets into a mess
like this, we always have to get her out of it..."

"Job security, old boy!" Malone grinned.

"I suppose. I just wish..."

Voices suddenly sounded from outside the door, at the
top of the stairs.

"Quick Malone, find a place to hide!" Roxton hissed.

Each made themselves as small as possible as they took
up positions to either side of the stairs. The door opened and
two men entered. One was an older man dressed in a dove-gray
colored uniform that appeared to be an officers, while the other
wore darker gray, battle-field dress with corporals chevrons on
his sleeve. The officer wore a sidearm in a black leather holster
while the corporal carried an ominous looking short rifle with a
long magazine in the front end, slung over one shoulder.

The officer entered the room first, conversing with the
corporal as they descended the stairs. Once at the bottom, he
stood for a moment, clearly perplexed as to why the room was
empty.

The corporal glanced at the taller, older man, a frown
on his face...

John Roxton slid out from his hiding place, motioned
for Ned Malone to do the same. Both men closed on the officer and
corporal...

Roxton reached out and tapped the officer on the
shoulder. The man started to turn, but Roxton sent him to the
floor with a single roundhouse punch.

Malone dispatched the corporal with a blow to the back
of the head with his .45.

"You're quite good with that," Roxton offered to Malone
as he gathered the officer's unconscious body into his arms.

"I'm happy for once, not to be the one getting knocked
in the head!" Malone said.

Roxton laughed. "Come on, we've got some work to do."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Maybe we can get Marguerite out of this after-all,"
Roxton mused. "You up for a little game of dress up?!"

****

John Roxton used his fingers to smooth down his hair,
then pulled the high-peaked cap over it. Across from him Ned
Malone was struggling into the corporal's jacket.

"How do I look, Malone?"

Malone finally got the top button closed. "I just hope
this works..."

"If it doesn't we'll know about it soon enough!"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were
enjoying this!"

Roxton smiled. "I'll never let Marguerite live down the
fact that I rescued her..."

"But it won't even have occurred, if we get back to
where we're supposed to be," Malone answered.

"But the memory will always be in here!" Roxton tapped
his head. "I hope..."

Malone nodded, then looked down at the dark gray
corporal's uniform. "So what are we?"

"German, for certain. The uniform I'm wearing appears
to belong to a Colonel. The rest of the marking's I'm unfamiliar
with..."

Malone glanced at a small pin on one collar of the
corporal's jacket. "Didn't Challenger say something about the
people who started the war wearing 'broken crosses on their black
shirts'? This pin looks like a broken cross to me."

John Roxton nodded. "The German's again though? The
Versailles Treaty forbid them to re-arm at the end of the war..."

"Treaties are only as good as the ideals they set
forth. If you don't believe in something, it's rather easy to
discount it," Malone answered.

Roxton took a deep breath. "I suppose. Are you ready?"

Malone slid a cap over his own head. "What are we going
to do?"

"Play it by ear. I'd be willing to bet that if
Marguerite's being transferred out of here, they'd send along a
Colonel to do it!"

"And a platoon of men with him, if they're wise!"
Malone said.

Roxton walked to the barred door. He opened it.

"Roxton?"

"Hmm?" he was peering down the corridor, trying to see
what was there.

"How good is your German?"

"It's been awhile but we might get by..."

"And if they ask me something?"

Roxton looked at him. "Just look self important and
like you can't be bothered with their questions! It seemed to
work well enough for the biplane pilot on the plateau that time!"


****

Ahead of them, three uniformed men were gathered around
a table, talking animatedly amongst themselves. One of the three
men let out a 'whoop' and Roxton could see cards and money on the
table.

A plan began to form in his mind. He motioned for Ned
Malone to follow as he slid in beside one of the men around the
table. The soldier who'd let out the 'whoop' was raking in a
rather large pot and was in mid laugh when he saw the officers
uniform. The smile went away instantly and he flew to attention.

"Attention!!" the soldier bellowed.

His two comrades stood up so quickly that one hit the
table and nearly sent it over on it's side. Roxton smiled,
inwardly.

"Colonel, I can explain!"

Roxton thought his words through carefully. "Explain
why you are away from your post, leaving the way down this
corridor unguarded?!"

The soldier swallowed nervously. "Yes sir!"

Roxton did a slow walk around the three men, looking
each of them up and down.

He stopped in front of the soldier he'd addressed
previously and stared at him.

"Colonel, do you want an explanation?"

"Did I ask for one?!"

"No sir!"

"Private..."

"It's Corporal, sir. Corporal Joachim Richter..."

"Corporal?" Roxton offered him an icy smile.
"Perhaps..."

Richter swallowed again. "Yes Colonel!"

"Is the prisoner ready to go?" Roxton asked.

"Prisoner sir?"

"The Krux woman, you imbecile!!"

"Yes Colonel!" one of the others piped in. "She's ready
to go!"

"Then perhaps one of you could go get her for me, while
the day is young?"

"I'll need to see the transfer orders, sir!"

Roxton moved in on him. "What was that?"

"The--the transfer orders..."

"After what I've seen here, you ask me for the transfer
orders!"

"Y -yes sir!"

Roxton stared into the corporal's blue eyes. "And if I
refuse to let you see those orders..."

"I -I will have to report you to my superiors, sir!"

"And what do you think your superiors would say about
your little 'game' here?" Roxton asked. He could see Malone
fidgeting behind him, searching inside the gray jacket.

"They would be...very unhappy, Colonel!"

"Who am I, private?"

"Sir?"

"The question is simple enough; who am I?"

"Gestapo, Colonel!"

"And the Krux woman is being transferred to whom?"

"The Gestapo, Colonel!"

Malone pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket
and passed them to Roxton. Roxton glanced at them long enough to
see that they were the transfer orders; disappointed, he passed
them to the red faced corporal.

"Very good Corporal; maybe I will forget this little
'incident'?"

"Yes Colonel!" the Corporal Richter fired off a brisk
salute and turned to his two comrades without looking at the
transfer orders. "What are the two of you waiting for GO GET
HER!!"

Both men rushed off.

'So far so good!' Roxton thought as a smile played
across his lips.

"Something Colonel?" the corporal asked, seeing it.

"This is rather boring duty, isn't it?" Roxton asked,
casually.

"We do what the Fuhrer commands, Colonel..."

"Yes Corporal, we do..."

Behind the corporal Roxton saw movement. The two guards
who had gone off were returning with a third person between them,
a person in disheveled clothes and with a black cloth hood
covering their head and face. For the entire length of the
corridor the person between the two guards kicked and pulled and
did their level best to make the guard's task as difficult as
possible.

Roxton smiled. "Marguerite all right!" he muttered
under his breath.

The two guards arrived with their struggling prisoner.

"Corporal, what is the meaning of this hood?" Roxton
asked.

"We keep her face covered sir because twice before,
while being moved, she used objects around her against her
guards. Two men were injured."

"And the reason for the gag in her mouth?" Roxton asked
as Marguerite protested under the hood.

"Her teeth sir. She bites!"

Roxton had to work hard to suppress a smile. "Uncover
this she-demon and let me see her face."

"You heard the Colonel -quickly!!" Corporal Richter
ordered.

One of the guards pulled the mask back from her face,
revealing an older, though still stunning Marguerite Krux.
Marguerite squinted into the light, trying to see who was
standing in front of her.

Roxton reached out and roughly cupped her chin with his
right hand. "My, my! Such spirit!"

Marguerite's eyes blazed and for a moment Roxton
thought she was about to haul off and kick him. Marguerite's eyes
fixed on him for a brief second and sudden recognition filled
those same eyes.

"And she's said nothing?" Roxton asked.

"Nothing Colonel!" the Corporal replied. "I think the
Gestapo will get the information they need from her, will they
not Colonel?"

"Assuredly!" Roxton nodded. Marguerite's eyes were
fixed on him like she'd just seen a dead man. "Re-cover her
face."

"Will you need assistance with the prisoner, Colonel?"
one of the other guards asked.

Roxton faced Malone. "If she attempts anything, knock
her down and carry her."

Malone spoke the only words of German he knew. "Yes
sir!"

Roxton returned his gaze to the three guards. "I will
forget what's happened here today..."

"Yes Colonel!!"

Roxton seized Marguerite's right arm and started away
from the three guards.

"Colonel?!"

He took a deep breath, stopped and looked back. "Yes
Corporal?!"

"Heil Hitler!!"

Roxton watched the salute the three men gave him and
repeated it. Without another word, he turned and drew Marguerite
quickly down the corridor and through the door. Once inside the
jailer's office he pushed the door closed and let out a long, low
whistle.

"That went well!" Malone offered, picking up their gear
from behind the desk.

"Except for the fact that I was pissing bullets..."

"What now?"

"A hasty exit is called for!" Roxton said, accepting
his pack, guns and balled up clothes from Malone.

With Marguerite between them, Malone and Roxton went up
the short run of stairs, through the door and out into a second,
longer corridor.

"Which way?" Malone asked.

"Mmff phfft..." Marguerite said through the gag she
wore.

Roxton glanced around until he saw a chair sitting a
few feet away. He went to the chair, pushed it back to the door.
Tilting it back, he forced the top under the door release and
wedged it firmly into place.

"That ought to slow them down, just in case our little
ruse is found out!"

Marguerite suddenly let out a shrill cry and stamped
both feet onto the stone floor.

"I think she wants to say something," Malone said.

"I don't know I kind of like her like this!" Roxton
smiled.

Marguerite replied with a curse that Roxton would have
found an impossibility, but was quite understandable, even
through the gag.

He reached forward and pulled the hood from her head
and tossed it away.

"Hello Marguerite! If you promise to be a good girl,
I'll remove the gag!"

The look she gave him would've killed had it been a
weapon.

Roxton untied the gag and tossed it with the hood;
Marguerite opened and closed her mouth several times and spat
onto the floor.

"As ladylike as ever..."

"Roxton, Malone: what are you doing here?!"

"Rescuing you," Roxton advised.

"I haven't seen either one of you in -in...and now
you're here? How?" Marguerite asked.

"It's a little complicated..." Roxton said.

"That's an understatement!" Malone shook his head.

"What's going on? And where did you get those
uniforms?!"

"From a couple of very unhappy customers who are going
to be wanting them back if we don't get a move on!" Roxton
answered. "Do you know the way out of here?"

Marguerite made a face. "You've come to rescue me and
don't know where the front door is?"

"Marguerite..."

"To the right," Marguerite said. "There's another
checkpoint further on, then a long flight of stairs to the
outside."

"Good!" Roxton nodded. "Shall we!"

"Malone, walk behind me with the gun at my back.
Roxton, stay on my left and grasp my arm while we walk..."

Roxton and Malone did as Marguerite said and began to
walk along the corridor.

"I have to say, you two are the last people on this
Earth I ever expected to see," Marguerite said as they trudged
along.

"It was a bit surprising finding you here too,
Marguerite!" Roxton said.

She glanced at him, a frown on her face. "The two of
you hardly look changed..."

"That's because we're not," Malone answered.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, according to Challenger, Roxton and I are
'unstuck' in time!"

"You're what?" Marguerite asked.

"We're not exactly sure ourselves," Malone shrugged.
"We ran into something when we went to get the kialoma leaves and
we've been bouncing from one reality to the next, ever since!"

"I don't know why that doesn't surprise me," Marguerite
sighed. "I always said there was more going on there on that
plateau than met the eye!"

"I don't remember you saying that," Roxton shook his
head.

"That's because I said it to myself!"

John Roxton smiled. "So how did you end up here?" he
asked, almost casually.

"You say that as though I should be used to it by now!"

"If the shoe fits..."

"Roxton, Marguerite!" Malone hissed. "The guards!"

Ahead of them was another guard post with two very
efficient looking men manning it. Both men turned as one as they
approached.

"Good afternoon, Colonel," one of the men said.

"The prisoner, Marguerite Krux..."

The man nodded. "We will be glad to be rid of her! My
men will be happy to be free of the headaches she caused us!"

"She is the Gestapo's 'headache' now!" Roxton chuckled.

The man smiled, nodded at the packs and extra weapons
both Roxton and Malone carried. "Wherever did all this come
from?"

"Her gear," Roxton offered. "The weapons were captured
from various troops and will be added to my personal collection."

The man seemed satisfied with Roxton's answer and
nodded. "Heil Hitler!"

"Heil Hitler!" Roxton answered back, with a quick
salute.

Roxton, Malone, and Marguerite continued past the guard
station and up the longer flight of stairs to the outside. The
day was hot and dry, even in the shade. Roxton saw they were
surrounded by tall, pale-yellow, sandstone walls...

"Where are we?"

"You don't know?"

"I didn't exactly have time to ask, Marguerite!"

"The staff car," she nodded towards a tan coloured,
four wheeled vehicle and started towards it.

"We're taking this?" Malone asked.

"We're in the middle of the Libyan desert 100 miles
from the coast; we're taking this unless you want to walk..."
Marguerite informed them.

"Roxton, do you know how to drive?" Malone asked.

Roxton looked at him. "I was hoping you..."

"Oh for pity's sake!" Marguerite said. "Don't tell me
neither one of you can drive a car!"

"I was born and raised in the city!" Malone answered,
defensively. "I took the subway whenever I needed to go
anywhere!"

"We had a car on the estate but someone always drove
me," Roxton replied.

"I can't believe we've made it this far, only..."
Marguerite halted in mid-sentence. "Malone, I'll be needing that
uniform!"

"What?!"

"You want to get out of here alive?"

"Yes..."

"The uniform please..."

"Very well," Malone said.

Marguerite turned to face John Roxton. "I'll be needing
the handcuff keys..."

"'Keys'?"

"Yes," Marguerite nodded. She held his eyes for a
moment, frowned. "Please tell me you have key for these things."

"I -guess in all the excitement..."

Marguerite looked heavenwards. "This just keeps getting
better! Come on Lord Roxton, let's see if we can get these things
off while Ned get's out of the uniform."

****

"Marguerite, we keep messing about here the guards are
going to find us!" John Roxton said, trying to keep his voice
down.

Marguerite Krux looked at him all smiles. "Is that a
touch of alarm I hear in your voice, Lord Roxton?"

"Not alarm; common sense!"

Marguerite opened a door, ducked inside for a moment.
Roxton heard her fumble around, mutter a sharp curse under her
breath. When she came back out she carried a heavy looking, very
sharp, short axe.

"The key..." she said.

Roxton took the axe from her, hefted it in his right
hand. "This ought to be old hat to us by now!"

"It should! We escaped from enough of them, back on the
plateau!" Marguerite nodded. "You know, we'd all given you up for
dead..."

"So I've heard," Roxton said. He took a quick survey of
the area, then nodded at the stone wall a few feet away. "Drape
the chain across the sharpest edge of the stone and pull it tight
between both hands."

Marguerite did as asked. "When you didn't come back..."

"I've heard the story Marguerite! Now hold very
still..."

Roxton brought the axe back.

"Roxton?"

He stopped in mid-swing, made a face. "What?"

"It is nice seeing you again!"

"We can exchange pleasantries later," Roxton answered.
He lined up the chain with the axe blade and started to draw it
back again.

"Don't miss..."

"My aim is always true..."

The axe whacked against the chain with a din that
Roxton thought sure would draw every guard in the place down on
them, but the chain separated and no guards appeared.

Marguerite moved her arms back and forth several times,
then offered Roxton a smile. "I'd almost forgotten what it was
like to be unchained!"

Roxton started to say something, but thought better of
it. "You ready to get out of here now?"

"Not entirely..."

"What do you mean 'not entirely'..."

"I want to give the Nazis something to remember me by!"

"Nazis?"

"The regime in Germany that started this whole
thing..."

"Headed by someone named 'Hitler'?"

Marguerite nodded. "There's a fuel dump close by."

"And what do you suggest we do about this 'fuel dump'?"

"Why blow it up of course!"

"Marguerite..."

"This is one of the main re-fueling centers in this
zone. If we destroy what fuel there is here, it'll put a crimp in
the Nazis plans for at least several weeks!" Marguerite said.

"Why is nothing ever easy with you?" Roxton asked.

"Nothing good, is ever easy..."

"If we blow up this fuel dump, won't it kill the other
prisoners?"

"There are no other prisoners," Marguerite said. "When
I was captured, they brought me here until the Gestapo could
arrange for my transportation...there's only a minimum of troops
here and as you saw, most of them are dying of boredom!"

"An entire jail to yourself; I'm impressed!"

Marguerite smiled. "Let's grab Malone and see what kind
of fireworks display we can put on for my former captors!"

****

Fifty gallon barrels of gasoline and fuel oil were
stacked ten high and at least twenty rows deep. While Marguerite
worked on one side of the fuel dump, John Roxton removed the caps
from a half dozen barrels of gasoline and turned them over.
Nearby, Ned Malone watched for patrols, the 'submachine gun' at
the ready.

Marguerite rejoined Malone by the staff car, her long
dark hair stuffed under the Gestapo Corporal's cap.

"Roxton?! Roxton, come on!!"

"Keep your knickers..."

"We've got exactly three minutes to get clear!" she
said, trying to urge him to move faster.

"Three minutes?" he frowned. "Marguerite, what did you
just do?" Roxton appeared, two eleven gallon cans of gasoline in
hand.

She opened the door of the staff car and shoved the
seat forward so he could get in. "Three minutes is how long I set
the timer on the satchel charge for..."

"What's a 'satchel charge'?" Malone asked.

"Bad news!" Roxton answered. He had barely gotten the
gas cans inside the vehicle and seated when Marguerite had the
engine started and the staff car moving. He and Malone were
tossed about the vehicle as Marguerite drove them quickly through
the narrow streets inside the prison complex.

"The gate's just ahead!" she yelled back to Roxton and
Malone.

At the gate, sentries saw them coming and waved for the
car to slow down. Marguerite accelerated, aiming the car for the
center of the gate. Seeing that the car wasn't about to slow
down, the sentries dove for cover; the car burst through the gate
and out onto the road beyond.

Behind them the sentries had regained their feet and
were firing long bursts of automatic weapons fire after the staff
car. Marguerite ordered the two men in the back-seat down, slid
the car sideways into a four wheel drift as it fought for
traction on the hard packed, oil-sand road.

They felt the explosion before they heard it, even
through the staff cars suspension. Accelerating away from the
prison, Marguerite threw up her right hand and extended a single,
middle-finger, skywards.

John Roxton glanced at Ned Malone, eyes wide, and
stayed down.

****

The dark clouds of acrid, black-smoke from the
destroyed fuel dump could be seen from five miles away.
Marguerite Krux stared at the smoke, a smile on her lips. Behind
her, Roxton was shedding the Gestapo Colonel's uniform, while
Malone watched the smoke with her.

"That was enjoyable!" Malone offered.

Marguerite smiled. "Very!"

"Can I ask you a question Marguerite?"

"After all this time, why not?"

"Why were you in there?"

Marguerite faced him. "I got a little too close to
something I shouldn't have. When I was found, the German's wanted
to know what I was up to..."

"And what exactly were you 'up to' Marguerite?" Roxton
called from behind them.

"John Roxton, I'm appalled that you'd think..."

"You forget, I've known you for some time now!" Roxton
said. "What was it, a gold bullion shipment, maybe some priceless
work of art?"

"If you must know, I was doing it for England!"

"England?!" Roxton laughed. "You?!"

"This is war..."

"So it is, but the question remains: What's in it for
you?"

Marguerite looked back at him, a look of sudden hurt in
her deep eyes. She started to reply, thought better of
it...Marguerite turned and walked away.

Roxton realized he'd touched a nerve, let out a long
sigh. "Damn!" Sliding the vest over his shoulders, he walked past
a watching Malone.

"I'll fuel the car up while you talk to her," Malone
said.

Roxton nodded.

Marguerite had stopped a few meters in front of the
staff car and seemed to be in a world of her own as Roxton joined
her there.

"Marguerite, I'm sorry..."

She shook her head. "No reason to be."

"Sometimes I -I say things without thinking."

"You really don't have to apologise," she said. "My
motives haven't always been the purest, in the past. Hell, you,
Malone, and the others saw it quite frequently!"

"But that still doesn't give me the right to hurt you."

Marguerite turned to face him, a touch of a smile on
her lips. "I was counting on you being there, you know?"

"'Being there'?"

"When we got off the plateau," she answered. "I often
wondered, what would happen, once we got back to civilisation.
Would I go back to my old ways, would you become Lord John
Roxton, playboy of the British Empire all over again?"

Roxton managed a smile of his own. "With the right
incentive..."

Marguerite reached out and stroked his cheek. "I guess
we'll never get to know for certain, will we? So much time
gone..."

Roxton grasped her hand and brought her palm to his
lips. "You and I are a strange pair Marguerite...we care about
one another, but like Malone and Veronica, we could never seem to
find the words to tell each other how we felt..."

"It was always easier to hide behind the little asides
and the teasing. I think if we both ever admitted how we truly
felt, the tree-house would've fallen down around our ears!"

Roxton kissed the palm of her hand, looked up to meet
her eyes. "One of the places Malone and I have been was back to
the plateau, 40 years in the future. Everything's gone, the
animals, the forest is being sawn and removed, the ground
excavated for it's mineral wealth..."

Marguerite met and held his gaze.

"It was -I never thought I'd admit that I missed the
place, that I missed the good times you and I and the others had
there..."

"Veronica stayed behind when we..."

"Assai was the only one left," Roxton said. "She -she
took us to Veronica's grave..."

"Ned?"

"He regrets never telling her he loved her," Roxton
said. He moved closer to Marguerite, still holding her hand. "I
don't want to make the same mistake..."

"John..."

Roxton caught her lips with his own and slowly kissed
her. Marguerite melted against him, wanting to give in to the
heat of the rising passion the two shared. Trembling, she allowed
herself to be kissed, then returned it with a vigor, equal to his
own.

Marguerite broke the kiss to breathe.

"Marguerite..." Roxton started.

She silenced him with a second, longer kiss, one that
had him drawing away to catch a breath.

"Roxton!" Ned Malone called.

Roxton turned to face Malone; Malone was standing,
empty gas-can in hand, enveloped in the shifting miasma of
colored light.

"Oh my God, what is that?" Marguerite asked.

"A damned bloody inconvenience is what it is!" Roxton
said. "That's our ride, I'm afraid."

"But, I don't want you to go...not now!"

Roxton smiled. "The great thing about bouncing around
through time like this, is that this probably won't be the last
time I see you..."

"But for how long?" Marguerite asked.

"An eye-blink or two..."

Marguerite kissed him again, fiercely, a kiss meant to
make him want to stay with her, a kiss holding a thousand dreams
and a thousand promises of things to come.

Roxton felt the cool tendril of light on his skin and
reluctantly pulled away from her.

"Please, don't go..."

"I promise, I will see you again Marguerite!" Roxton
said.

Marguerite watched the iridescent light sweep over him.

"John, I..."

"I love you too, Marguerite!" he said, his voice dying
on the wind as both he and Ned Malone vanished.

Marguerite Krux stood in the middle of the silent
desert, staring into the empty spaces the two men had just
occupied.

"I love you, John Roxton," she said to the silence, a
single tear streaming down her left cheek.

****

Dust from rich red earth formed around his feet as
Edward Malone formed into existence in yet another time and
place. Letting out a breath, he leaned forward, resting both
hands upon his knees.

"Roxton, I'm suddenly very tired," he said. "I don't
know if it has something to do with all this time jumping or
what, but I feel like I could sleep for a week!"

There was no answer from his colleague and traveling
companion, through time.

"Roxton?" Malone called again. He turned first to his
left, then to his right; no one was there. "Roxton?"

Malone frowned. The three previous times they had
shifted in time, both men had materialised together. This time
however, Ned Malone appeared to be by himself.

"Roxton?" he called again, a little more loudly than
before.

Malone chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Where on
Earth..."

It was then that he heard the sound; mechanical, raspy,
and getting closer. Looking behind him, Malone found he was
standing in the middle of a road cut through a low, flat plain,
with waist-high, golden-colored grasses bordering it.

The noise was almost on top of him and he picked out
something billowing dust from behind it, approaching. In the
shimmering heat, it was difficult to see what it was until it was
within a quarter of a mile or less of where he stood. It was a
vehicle, a small truck of some kind, speeding along the narrow
dirt road directly towards him.

Malone stood hastily to one side, watched as the
vehicle began to slow. It drew near him, then pulled to a stop.

"Good afternoon!" a heavily accented voice called from
the truck.

"Afternoon," Malone answered back.

"You're Malone?" the voice asked.

"How did you..."

"It's all right mate!" the man called from inside the
truck. "We were told to expect you!"

Malone frowned again. "You were?"

"Yeah. The old man's been talking about you for a
week!"

"What 'old man'?"

"Lord Roxton of course!"

"Roxton?! I thought I'd lost him!" Malone said, a smile
cutting his features.

"Not yet, mate!" the truck driver laughed. "Come on,
get in and I'll take you to him!"

Malone fumbled with the mechanism for the truck's door,
not quite sure how to open it. Inside, the driver leaned across
the seat and opened it for him.

"There you go!"

"Thank you!" Malone climbed in, slamming the door
closed.

The driver shifted into gear and the truck began to
move, picking up speed very quickly.

"We'll be there in about fifteen minutes!" the driver
said over the engine noise.

"Can I ask a question that's going to sound just a
little bit ridiculous?" Malone faced him.

"Fire away, guv!"

"Where are we?!"

The driver laughed, gave him a quick shake of the head.
"We're in Rhodesia Mr. Malone..."

"Rhodesia? Isn't that in Africa?"

"Southern Africa, yes!" the driver said, with a hint of
pride in his voice.

"And you're taking me to John Roxton?!"

"Yep!"

Malone nodded, perplexed. The way the truck driver was
sounding, Roxton had been in Rhodesia for quite some time but
Malone had just been with him in Libya not more than...Malone
glanced at his watch.

"A little before three o'clock," he said aloud. "It
was -it was three when we were in London, seeing Challenger
too..."

Malone sat back, wondering how things had so utterly
changed.

****

The truck pulled to a stop in front of a single story
block home, with a thatched roof and a sweeping porch along the
front. Stone steps led up to the porch and to a single, large
double-door that stood open to the day.

"Here we are Mr. Malone!" the driver said. "Go right
inside; he's expecting you!"

Malone glanced at the driver. "I don't understand
this..."

"I found it a bit hard to believe when John told me the
first time myself!"

Malone nodded, climbed down out of the truck. As soon
as he'd closed the truck's door, the driver took off, leaving him
alone at the base of the steps leading up to the front porch of
the house.

Malone climbed the steps, stood for a moment at the
front door. He raised his hand to knock, held it.

"Hello? Anybody here?"

"Come in, Ned!" a voice (Roxton's) called from inside
the house.

Malone entered, squinting as he tried to see.

"Roxton?"

"Over here!" the man's voice called.

It took Malone's eyes a moment to adjust to the darker
interior of the house, but as they did, he picked out someone
seated in a chair across the room from the front door.

"Roxton!?"

The man stood from his chair, walked slowly over and
extended a hand to Malone. "Glad to see you could make it!"

Malone stared, open-mouthed at the man in front of him;
though clearly John Roxton, he was much older. Malone guessed the
Roxton who'd met him inside the house was at least in his early
to mid 60's, with snow white hair and skin burnished a rich
bronze by many years of intense sun.

"You can close your mouth Malone; it is me!" John
Roxton smiled.

"I don't -I don't believe it! We were just in -I
mean..."

Roxton met his eyes. "And I'll bet it only seemed a
moment or so ago, didn't it?"

Malone nodded.

"Where were we, just now?"

"Libya..."

Roxton chuckled. "Where we rescued Marguerite from the
clutches of the Nazis..."

Malone narrowed his gaze. "That's not all we did
there..."

"No, it's not! We also blew up a fuel depot, got shot
at by the sentries at the front gate and nearly got killed by
Marguerite's driving..."

"How did..."

"It is me, Ned. A little older and not nearly as spry,
but it is me!" Roxton said.

"But you were just with me. When I materialised here,
you were gone..."

"Actually, I was already here!" Roxton grinned. "Right
where I've been for the past 30 years!"

Malone shook his head. "I don't understand..."

"What do you remember after we left Marguerite in North
Africa?"

"Not much..."

"Do you remember being in London and talking to
Challenger?"

Malone nodded. "That was before Marguerite."

"I know. Remember he talked about doors?"

"Yes! He said something about imagining space and time
as like a room with one hundred doors in it. Each time you opened
one of those doors, you'd find another room with one hundred
doors in it..."

"This is my door!" Roxton said, simply.

"What are you..."

"Hundreds, thousands of doors, each with a different
reality!"

Malone stared at him for a long moment. "So this is...
real?"

"Of course it's real!"

Malone noticed Roxton's extended hand, reached out and
grasped it with his own. Roxton's handshake was strong, steady,
belying his age.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to shake
hands with me!" Roxton joked. "It's wonderful to see you again!"

Malone managed a smile. "How long..."

"The last time was twenty-two years ago, when I was
first setting up this research station."

"Research?"

Roxton nodded. "After I saw what had happened to the
plateau, I wanted to do something to try and prevent it from
happening anywhere else. At no small cost to me, I set up this
animal research station. It hasn't been easy, but I like to think
some of the things we've done here have made a difference!"

"This is a switch! When I first met you, you were an
avid hunter..."

"Oh, I still like a good hunt, but more often than not
it's tracking the poachers who kill elephants for their ivory,
the big cats for their skins, or the rhino for it's horn. It's a
lot more interesting, truth be known, tracking something that is
just as intelligent as you and is just as likely to shoot back;
I've gotten quite good at it too!"

"The driver who picked me up, said you were expecting
me..."

"Yes, I have been."

"Why have you been expecting me?"

Roxton looked away briefly. "I was hoping to get the
chance to say good-bye..."

Malone met his gaze. "Good bye?"

The older man smiled. "One of the troubles with jumping
through time the way we are -er, were, is that you tend to find
out certain things. Marriages, births..."

"Deaths?"

Roxton nodded. "Precisely. In one of our journeys, I
witnessed my own -'entropy' I think Challenger called it."

"I suppose that makes planning for events a little
easier..."

John Roxton let out a loud laugh. "It does indeed!"

Malone smiled. "You don't seem to mind knowing the date
of your demise all that much!"

"Why should I, Ned," Roxton said. "I've lived a long,
full life! I'm surrounded by friends, family, and colleagues and
one of the men I shared many adventures with has come to pay me a
last visit! My only regrets are that Summerlee, Challenger, and
Veronica aren't here as well..."

Malone looked away. "Veronica..."

Roxton reached out and clapped a hand on Malone's right
shoulder. "I know you probably don't have very much time here..."

"From what you've described, I have nothing but time,"
Malone said. "Backwards and forwards, again and again..."

"A choice you made when we parted all those years ago,
Ned," Roxton said.

Malone frowned. "I don't..."

"When I decided to stay here, I made the offer to you
to join me. You seemed quite content to venture through time and
space for a bit more, the 'ultimate adventure' you called it."

"But, I don't remember that..."

"In your present time frame, it probably hasn't
occurred as yet..."

Malone nodded. "Maybe the next time I pop in somewhere,
I should stop by a library and do a little reading on physics!"

Roxton laughed again. "It probably wouldn't hurt!"

"How did I know to come here?" Malone asked.

"I'm not entirely certain. I had a conversation with
Challenger once and he seemed to think time was like a river,
flowing with currents, ripples, things of that nature. The way he
put it to me was that certain events in the time stream are set
in stone and they draw you to them, time after time..."

"We're born, grow old, and die..."

"Precisely! Those dates don't change from time frame to
time frame. My death is imminent, so the time 'river' knew to
deposit you here, even though you haven't technically been here
before today in this time line!"

"This is as confusing as..."

"Excuse me, Grand-pa-pa?" a very soft, female voice
called.

Malone turned as Roxton looked past him. A young woman
of no more than ten was standing in the doorway, regarding them
with a curious look.

"I hope I am not interrupting anything..." the girl
said.

"Of course you aren't, Marguerite!" Roxton beamed. He
walked towards the girl, extended his arms out to her. "What is
it, sweetheart?"

"Heath said you had a visitor, someone he picked up
from the road..."

"Yes, I do indeed have a visitor!" Roxton said. "Ned
Malone, this is my grand-daughter Marguerite Hastings."

"Miss Hastings," Malone shook hands with her, watched
her blush. He looked up at Roxton, a touch of a smile on his
lips. "Marguerite?"

"The name seemed to fit since she has every bit of the
fire her grandmother has!"

"Grandfather!!"

"Grandmother?!" Malone exclaimed.

"And time didn't even stop when we married! How about
that?!"

"This is unbelievable!" Malone said.

"To tell you the honest truth," Roxton said under his
breath, "I was bloody surprised when she said 'yes' too!"

Malone laughed out loud. "Then I guess'congratulations'
are in order! Where is Marguerite?! I'd love to see her again!!"

"I wish you could," John Roxton said.

"She's not..."

"Oh no, Malone!" Roxton shook his head. "Marguerite's
gone to pick up a shipment of supplies on the coast. She'll be
back in a couple of days."

"Does she know..."

The older man shook his head. "No..."

"'Does she know' what, grandfather?" the girl asked.

"That Mr. Malone was coming to visit..."

"Lord John Roxton, I am not a little girl and you can
stop treating me as such!" the young Marguerite said.

Roxton laughed, looked back at Ned Malone. "See what I
mean?"

Malone chuckled. "Yes, I do!"

"Marguerite, could you excuse Mr. Malone and me for a
few minutes..."

"I was wondering if I -if I could go play with the lion
cubs..."

"Under one condition."

"Okay..."

"That you keep Heath or someone nearby. The cubs are
growing rapidly now and could hurt you by accident."

"They'd never hurt me!" Marguerite said.

"Nevertheless, I want someone there, just in case."

"Oh, all right!"

"Good. I tell you what; when Mr. Malone and I are done,
I'll come join you. How does that sound?"

"Really?!"

"Sure."

"Okay!" Marguerite Hastings beamed. "It's been a
pleasure meeting you Mr. Malone!"

"The pleasure has been all mine, Miss Hastings!" Malone
said.

The girl gave Roxton a brief, happy embrace, then left
them alone in the center room of the house, once again. Roxton
stared after her in silence for a long moment, shook his head.
"It's scary sometimes, looking at her!"

"Just don't let her go running off on an uncharted
expedition somewhere!" Malone urged.

"I couldn't stop her if I tried!"

Malone suddenly felt a coolness on his right hand once
more; he looked down to find the tendril of colored light sliding
inexorably up his arm.

"Time to go it looks like," Roxton said.

Malone stepped back, his gaze meeting John Roxton's.
"I'm glad to see I'm glad to see you got what you wanted!"

"So am I, Ned!"

The liquified light was almost to his shoulder. "Good
luck on your next journey, Roxton!"

"And you with yours!"

Malone slowly faded from view, stirring the air as he
vanished.

"Good bye, Ned."

John Roxton turned away from the empty room with a
slight smile and went to find his granddaughter.

****

A single column of multi-coloured light coalesced into
the form of Edward Malone. For a few seconds it held steady,
shifting from violet to blue, to a deeper indigo colour before
fading away, leaving Malone standing solidly in it's place.

Malone felt a brief disturbance of air beside him,
turned to watch as a second column formed into the recognizable
shape of John Roxton. The liquid light vanished after a moment
and Roxton took a step forward.

"That was...interesting..." Roxton said.

"You're alive!" Malone smiled.

Roxton padded his chest, offered Malone a confused
look. "Of course I'm alive!"

"It's just that where I was, you were..."

"What?" Roxton wanted to know.

Malone thought better of it, shook his head. "It
doesn't matter..."

"Where did you go anyway?" Roxton asked. "One minute
you were there, the next you weren't..."

Malone looked at his watch. "What time do you have?"

Roxton frowned. "You just looked at your watch..."

"Humour me..."

Roxton withdrew his pocket watch with a sigh and
flipped it open. "It's three o'clock."

"That's what I have too," Malone nodded. "When we were
in London, what time was it?"

"Three..." Roxton met his gaze. "We heard Big Ben; it
was three o'clock then too!"

"And where I just came from and more than likely Libya
with Marguerite, and, when we first entered 'The Forest of
Eternal Mists'. Everywhere we've gone, it's been the same time!"

"Like the moment's been frozen..."

"Precisely!" Malone agreed. "We've traveled through
time to several different eras, but always at the same moment,
the same exact tick of the clock."

Roxton nodded. "So where are we -now..."

They were standing on a pathway surrounded by trees,
stretching to a lattice-work roof of steel and glass. Outside the
glass, the sky glowed with an eerie, red-orange colour.

"This looks like a greenhouse or some kind of
arboretum..."

"The air is humid, so it's definitely self contained,"
Roxton supplied. "Have you ever been to a place like this
before?"

"The botanical gardens in New York," Malone answered
affirmatively. "This kind of reminds me of it, except for the sky
outside."

Roxton peered overhead. "It doesn't look like an
ordinary sunset type sky, does it?"

Malone shook his head. "There's something...Roxton, I
swear I've been here before!"

"After our little adventure today, nothing would
surprise me more!"

Malone pointed down the pathway in front of them. "I
think we're supposed to go that way..."

"I'm game if you are," Roxton nodded.

They began to walk, bending once or twice to duck under
boughs of trees hanging low over the path.

"Malone, do you know of a place called 'The Polo
Grounds'?"

"'The Polo Grounds?!"

"Yes. They called it that but I don't believe they
played polo there!"

Ned Malone laughed. "No, they don't play polo there.
They play a game called baseball..."

"'Baseball'?"

"Similar to, but not exactly like the English game of
cricket. In baseball, the game lasts nine 'innings'. You have
'batters' who try to get on one of three 'bases' stretching
around a diamond shaped 'infield'. The object is to get all the
way around to where you started from, 'home plate'; if you do
that you score what's called a 'run'. The team with the most
'runs' at the end of nine innings wins the game!" Malone
explained.

Roxton frowned. "That's almost as confusing as this
'unstuck in time' business!"

"Actually, it's an easy game to understand. If and when
we ever get back to where we're supposed to be in our own time,
I'd love to take you to a game sometime; it'll be far easier to
explain while we're there!"

"I must say, it sounds somewhat intriguing."

"Looks like there's a door ahead of us," Malone said,
indicating a break in the glass and steel wall.

"A door to where though?"

"Or what?"

Both men stopped at the door. It was made of frosted
glass and a heavy, dark-wood, so whatever was on the other side,
could not be seen.

"So what do we do now?" Malone wondered aloud.

"Knock?" Roxton suggested.

Malone thought about it for a moment.

"Why not?" He shrugged, knocked loudly on the door,
waited for an answer. As expected, none came.

"Again?"

Malone repeated the knock...

"Roxton, how did you know about the Polo Grounds?"

"I was there, talking to you just before we ended up
here."

"Talking to me?"

Roxton nodded. "You were covering the last game of the
team that plays there..."

"'The last game'?"

"According to what you said, the team was moving to
California."

"California?!Impossible! They'd never leave New York!!"

"Apparently they were doing just that!"

Malone turned back to the door. "No answer. Do we just
go in?"

"With guns drawn, just in case!"

"Agreed."

Malone pulled his .45 from it's holster and clicked the
hammer back. With his free hand he reached down and turned the
door knob. The mechanism turned effortlessly in his hand; with a
little push on his part, the door swung open, releasing a blast
of very warm, dry air from inside.

"Hello?" Malone called. "Anyone here?"

Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "Come into my
parlour..."

"...said the spider to the fly," Malone finished.

Malone went inside first, keeping low and to the left.
Roxton followed, one of his twin Webley .455's aiming straight
ahead and one to the right.

"Hot as hell in here!" Roxton said so only Malone could
hear.

Malone pointed to a nearby table. "Orchids!" he said.

Roxton gestured down the flagstone path they were on.
Malone began to move, walking slowly.

After a few feet, Malone began to hear what sounded
like a voice, humming contentedly.

"You hear that?" he asked Roxton.

"Yes..."

They walked on another five meters or so, both men
trying to make as little noise as possible, until they came upon
another wall. At that wall a gray-haired, small man worked at a
table, carefully tending to an orchid plant in a bed of black
soil. The man was humming an unrecognizable tune and seemed to be
lost in the work he was doing.

Malone looked at Roxton; Roxton shrugged.

"Excuse us!" Ned Malone called to the man. "Are you in
charge of this place?"

The man stiffened abruptly. "In charge here? Me?! Good
heavens no!" The man's voice was instantly recognizable, even
before he turned to face them.

"Summerlee!?" Malone called as the gray haired man
smiled.

"And who else would it be, young Mr. Malone?!" Arthur
Summerlee laughed. "Who else indeed??!!"

****

"Well I'll be damned!" John Roxton said aloud.

Arthur Summerlee offered him an ebullient smile. "Not
at all Lord Roxton..."

"Summerlee, I don't understand this..." Malone began.

"What don't you understand?"

"We were -we've been traveling a bit," Roxton said.

Summerlee nodded. "Yes, I know!"

"You know? How do you know, Arthur?"

"It told me..."

"'It'?"

"Yes, the thing you met in the forest this afternoon."

Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "So it is
intelligent..."

"Extraordinarily intelligent," Summerlee said. "More so
than Challenger and myself combined, though God forbid that I
should ever tell George as much!"

Malone stared at him, almost transfixed.

"You look as though you've just seen a ghost, young
man!" Summerlee teased, directing it to the still open mouthed
Ned Malone.

"I'm not certain of what I'm seeing at this point!"
Malone answered.

Summerlee continued to smile. "I don't quite know why
this startles you so; you've seen me here once before!"

"I have?"

"Think back to a few 'months' ago when I was trying to
make contact with everyone through their dreams..."

"Of course!" Malone exclaimed. "When I fell over the
dried up falls you'd gone over!"

"Precisely!" Summerlee said. "When the whirlwind had
you, we both caught sight of one another. I wanted so much to
talk to you and to tell you to be careful..."

"Careful?"

The older man nodded. "I'll explain it all in detail,
shortly. Would either of you care to join me for tea? It's a bit
early yet, but I have so few visitors here."

"Arthur, if it'll get us out of this hot-house of yours
for a few minutes, tea sounds wonderful!" John Roxton agreed.

****

The room was medium sized, carpeted in a deep burgundy
pile. Dark wood paneling covered three of the four walls; the
fourth was lined with shelves of leather bound books from floor
to ceiling, while over head, a skylight of the same metal and
glass lattice-work as in the greenhouse, revealed the reddish-
orange sky beyond.

"Very nice Arthur!" John Roxton called out to an unseen
Summerlee.

"Yes, I like it quite a lot, actually!" Summerlee
answered.

Roxton went to one of the bookshelves and traced a
finger along a line of several volumes. "Pretty impressive
collection..."

Summerlee reappeared with a silver tea-service tray in
hand. "I have plenty of free time to read, John. Most of my day
is spent tending to my orchids and other plants; when I'm not
there, I'm here."

Roxton nodded. "So where is 'here' exactly?"

Summerlee set the tea service on a small table. "You
still take it in a china cup, I believe?" he asked Roxton.

Roxton nodded. "Yes..."

Summerlee poured each of them a cup of tea, indicated
soft looking wing-back chairs. "Sit gentlemen, I know you have
many questions."

Roxton and Malone each sat. Roxton took a sip of the
steaming brew, gave an approving nod. "Umm...delicious!"

"A good cup of tea is so civil a thing," Summerlee
mused. "Now then, I believe Malone had asked the first
question..."

"Yes. You said when you were trying to make contact
with us, it was as an effort to warn us to be careful of
something..."

"Not some -'thing', some--'one'. Askquith."

"'Askquith'?! You knew about him?!" Roxton queried.

"Of course I did, John!" Summerlee said. "One of my
main reasons for trying to contact you was to warn of him. I'm
afraid the time dilation effect made that a bit difficult and I
came out looking and sounding something like a ghost."

"When I fell over the falls and the whirlwind had me;
you were trying to tell me about his imminent arrival, weren't
you?"

Summerlee nodded. "Yes, but due to the doorway not
being opened all the way, my words weren't clear enough for you
to understand. I'm sorry for the amount of trouble and pain he
put you all through."

Roxton looked at him. "This thing we met in the forest;
it had a hand in our survival, didn't it?"

"Oh, very much so! We interest it!"

"'Interest it' how?" Roxton wanted to know. "'Interest'
it as in curiosity or 'interest' it like a monkey in a cage at
the zoo..."

"I was uncertain of it's motives as well when I first
came here..."

"You didn't answer my question, Arthur," Roxton said.

Summerlee smiled. "It's exceedingly curious about us
and the things we do. It wants to learn more about us."

Ned Malone looked up from his teacup. "Is that what
this entire thing has been about? It's been sending Roxton and I
through time to see us do 'tricks'?"

"Not at all Ned," Summerlee said. "It's been evaluating
us, or, more precisely, the two of you under a set of
specifically designed, very stressful circumstances..."

"To what end?" Roxton interrupted.

"As an experiment."

"You mean we're it's lab rats," Roxton asserted.

Summerlee gave a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose if one
wanted to consider oneself as a lab rat..."

"Why?" Malone asked.

"A most excellent question, Ned!" Summerlee said. "The
reason it's sending you on these various 'voyages' of yours is to
see if we human beings can be trusted."

"'Trusted' with what?" Roxton asked.

"With the plateau's secrets," Summerlee answered. "This
'column of light' is the plateau's guardian."

"Guardian?"

"Yes! Guardian, protector, curator; whatever you wish
to call it, this plateau has existed outside the 'real' world for
quite a long time now..."

"And this thing, this guardian makes the plateau's
existence outside the normal world possible?" Malone asked.

"Oh no, not that at all!" Arthur Summerlee shook his
head. "There are places on the Earth where magnetic and other
phenomena intersect. This plateau is one of those intersecting
points, a place where time and space don't behave the way they do
anywhere else. The guardian, or 'gate-keeper' as I call it,
oversees this particular realm."

"Why?"

"To keep it safe from those who would seek to destroy
it."

Roxton frowned. "Meaning us?"

Summerlee smiled. "Yes, of course!"

"The first trip Roxton and I took..."

"Was one possible outcome of our party's intrusion
here," Summerlee explained. "We returned to our world, let the
location of this place be known and it was exploited and
destroyed by mankind. Us in effect."

"If that were true, why didn't it stop us, why didn't
it just change the time-line and erase our ever having found this
place?" Roxton asked.

"Because John, the gate-keeper can't change the time-
line of it's own volition. It exists both in and outside of time,
so if it were to interfere with the natural progression of this
world, it would destroy itself and, more than likely, this world
as well."

"Then why have this 'gate-keeper' at all if it can do
nothing to prevent outside forces from destroying what it's
supposed to protect?"

"Believe me John, it has the power to do something. If
it were so inclined, it could fold this corner of the universe in
upon itself and give it non-existence! The gate-keeper doesn't do
that because it can't harm another species, even one that could
conceivably destroy it," Summerlee said.

"So where does it come from?" Malone wondered.

"I'm not certain even it knows the answer to that
particular question," Summerlee shrugged. "When I asked it once,
the gate-keeper told me it has always been here..."

"Summerlee?" Malone glanced at him. "Were these times
and places we visited, real?"

"In those realities they were quite real."

"Challenger's doors..."

Summerlee looked at Roxton. "What?"

"I'll explain it later Professor," Roxton said. "This
place of yours..."

"Not mine," Summerlee shook his head. "The gate-keeper
carved out this small space for me in it's reality. I'm the
'caretaker' for the caretaker you might say!"

Roxton smiled. "So where is this 'reality'?"

"The plateau..."

Roxton peered through the lattice-work over their
heads. "That's hardly a normal afternoon sky, Arthur!"

"For a time period five thousand years hence it is!"

Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "Five thousand..."

"Correct. The planet is only now becoming able to
support life once again."

"What are you talking about?"

"Extinction Malone. Ninety nine percent of all plant
and animal life perished in a natural disaster, some three
thousand years ago," Summerlee said.

"Extinction? How?"

"I've never been told the complete story, other than
that the disaster was so all encompassing that the human race
perished..."

"There must be -something left of mankind..."

"A few ruins of large cities. All that man was, his
art, his music, his genius, all of that has crumbled to dust and
blows in the shifting sands outside this tiny hint of what we
once were," Summerlee explained.

"How did you get here, Arthur?" Roxton asked.

"When I went over the falls, I was afraid I was dead.
I hit my head on something and when I awoke, I was here in this
place. The gate-keeper had brought me here."

"Why?"

"Companionship."

Roxton met his gaze. "Are you telling me it was
lonely?"

"It's an intelligent being," Summerlee nodded. "All
intelligent beings need conversation and interaction within their
world..."

"Do you like it here?" Malone asked.

"There are times when I would so love to return to the
plateau and be with all of you, but I am content with my life
here."

"What about us? Are we here for 'companionship' as
well?" Malone asked.

"No. The two of you are here because I asked to see
you," Summerlee said.

"Why did you ask to see us, Arthur?"

"I wanted to reassure you that you will be leaving this
place..."

"The plateau?"

"Yes."

"When? How?"

Arthur Summerlee smiled. "I'm not sure, other than to
say your leaving will be quite surprising in it's ease!"

Roxton offered him a frown. "Could you maybe give us a
hint or two?"

"I could but it would not really matter, for reasons
that I'll explain to you later..."

"Why, because the gate-keeper is afraid we'll change
this time-line?" Malone asked.

"But haven't we already affected the future by our
interactions with the people we've met in our little journeys
back and forth through time? Hasn't the gate-keeper affected time
itself by assisting us when Askquith appeared, offering his help
to us?" Roxton asked.

"Who's to say that those things weren't predestined to
happen in the first place, Ned!" Summerlee answered. He turned to
face Roxton. "As for Askquith, he was trapped inside a time-line
in which he originally died, but an electrical storm altered his
reality and forced it into conjunction with yours. All the gate-
keeper did was set right what had gone wrong! Since Askquith
tried to change his reality by forcing all of you into it to crew
the dirigible, the gate-keeper simply stepped in and set
everything right again. Askquith paid the price for his
foolishness--nonexistence--when the two time-lines finally caught
up with one another!"

"So what happens to us now, Arthur?" Roxton asked. "Do
we keep bouncing back and forth through time or stay here with
you?"

"Neither one," Summerlee shook his head. "You have a
job to do back on the plateau..."

"The plague..."

"Yes. The gate-keeper will take you back to where you
were at the beginning of this. The Zanga need the leaves of the
kialoma plant for their survival..."

"The first time shift -Assai said we were too late,
that the plague had mutated."

"Time is of the essence," Summerlee agreed.

Roxton nodded. "We'll see that Challenger gets what he
needs, in time enough to save the Zanga."

"There is one other thing gentlemen..."

"What would that be?" Malone asked.

"When you go back, you won't remember any of this."

Roxton frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Summerlee smiled. "This is what I was trying to tell
you before. The knowledge you have now could change the futures
of yourselves and the others. When you're taken back, it will be
before the gate-keeper appeared..."

"So none of what happened to Malone and I, will have
happened?"

Summerlee laughed. "Quite right, John!"

"A person could get a headache from all this!" Roxton
mused.

Arthur Summerlee stood.

"You sure I couldn't talk you into coming back with
us?" Roxton asked, taking the extended hand Summerlee offered.

"I believe I have a bit more to do here as of yet. The
offer is so very kind though!" Summerlee turned to face Ned
Malone. "Young Mr. Malone..."

"It looks like we at least get to say good-bye this
time around!" Malone said, taking Summerlee's right hand.

"Good-byes are only brief, Ned," Summerlee said. "I
will someday see all of you again!"

"We'll both be looking forward to that day, Arthur!"
John Roxton said.

Arthur Summerlee smiled once more as the two men faded
out, leaving him alone in the room.

"Still have to get used to that," he mused as he
gathered up their tea-cups, the service, and headed off to the
kitchen.

****

"I can hardly see the hand in front of my face," John
Roxton said.

"I was in San Francisco once; this fog makes the fog
there look like a clear day by comparison," Malone answered.

John Roxton nodded, glanced over his shoulder at the
younger man. "As much as I'd like to get a better look at this
place, maybe we ought to get what we came for and start back."

"I was just thinking the same thing. From what Veronica
was saying, this place has been here 'forever'. Maybe our waiting
a few days or weeks to explore it, won't hurt."

Roxton frowned; there was something, a thought nagging
at the back of his mind, something he wanted to remember. He
concentrated for a long moment, then shook his head.

"What is it Roxton?" Malone asked.

"Nothing," he answered. "Let's grab our stuff and get
back!"

****

Edward Malone was standing on the tree-house balcony
looking up at the full moon; the moon was doing it's best to
chase the darkness from the night sky and lit the plateau with
it's pale, gray-white glow. Behind him, he could hear Marguerite,
Roxton, and Veronica conversing in hushed tones.

It had been one week since their return from the
'Forest of Eternal Mists'. He and Roxton had most certainly
pressed their luck on the way back, traveling at night and taking
few if any breaks in their journey. The forced march had paid
off; they had returned to the tree-house nearly exhausted, but
with as many pounds of the kialoma leaves as they could carry in
leather bags hung about their shoulders.

Challenger then took over and worked throughout the
night to make enough of the medicene for the Zanga. A few days
after injecting each of the tribe members with the extract from
the kialoma leaves, the recoveries had begun. The Zanga had lost
a few very young and very old tribal members, but those with the
plague were soon growing stronger and were able to eat something
more than hot broth after a day or two.

Malone smiled as he gazed at the moon...

"Malone?" Veronica Layton said, interrupting his
reverie.

"You sounded like you were enjoying yourself just now,"
Malone mused.

Veronica moved in beside him. "I was telling Roxton and
Marguerite about Challengers little run in with one of the Zanga
women."

Malone glanced at her. "What Zanga woman?"

Veronica smiled. "A very single-in-need-of-a-husband-
Zanga-woman..."

"Uh-oh!"

"Uh-oh is right! I've seen very little completely
fluster Challenger, but she had him almost beside himself!"
Veronica chuckled.

Malone nodded, looked up at the moon once more.

"What's so fascinating up there tonight?" Veronica
asked, looking curiously at him. "You aren't figuring on turning
into a werewolf again, are you?"

Malone smiled. "No, not a werewolf..."

"So what is it?"

He looked at her. "You want to hear something that's
completely absurd?"

"Sure. I could use a few more absurdities in my life!"

"You see those darker areas on the moon's surface..."

Veronica nodded. "Yes..."

"In a few decades, a man is going to step out onto the
surface of that world."

"Really?"

Edward Malone nodded. "You want to know where?"

"Okay..."

Malone extended his right arm and pointed with his
index finger. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did, just as
sure as he was standing on the balcony on that moonlit night.
"Just a little to the left of the edge of that first dark area, a
place called the 'Sea of Tranquility'. He's going to step out
onto that ground and people all over the world are going to be
watching it!"

"How?" Veronica wanted to know.

"On some kind of little box, like a radio, only it
sends you pictures and sound."

Veronica studied him for a long moment, a dawning
realization that Ned Malone was filling her head with fanciful
stories once again, beginning to spread across her features.
"Someone's been reading Verne..."

Malone faced her. "You know he has it almost exactly
right? Everything Verne said in his book is almost word for word
the way those future men take off from the Earth and land on the
moon."

She smiled patiently, reached out to touch his
forehead.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making sure you don't have fever!" Veronica answered.

Malone smiled after a moment. "I guess I sounded a
little ridiculous, hunh?"

"Not at all, Malone," Veronica shook her head. "Why
don't you tell me more about these future explorers..."

****

"Would you look at those two!" Marguerite Krux
exclaimed. "Out there gazing up at the moon like two love-struck
kids on their first date!"

"I don't know," John Roxton said, looking up from
cleaning his Webley's. "Moonlight becomes some people,
Marguerite!"

"'Some people'?" Marguerite asked.

"Sure."

"Only some?"

He made a face. "It works best on those with romance in
their hearts..."

"And I don't have romance in my heart?"

"Only if it's attached to a six karat diamond
solitaire!"

Marguerite made a disapproving sound. "All this time
here, and you still haven't figured me out!"

Roxton glanced up at her. "Man can split the atom and
travel across the galaxy, but he'll never completely understand a
woman!"

"Why John Roxton, that's very poetic!"

He smiled. "Very true also..."

Roxton caught movement out of the corner of his eye. On
the balcony Ned Malone had taken Veronica in his arms and was
starting to kiss her. Roxton felt his eyebrows climb up his
forehead...

"Roxton, what are you..." Marguerite's voice trailed
off. "Oh my!"

"Marguerite, it's not polite to stare!" Roxton said, so
only she could hear.

"And you're not?!" she hissed back.

He wanted to look away, but couldn't. "Looks like
there's a little magic in the air tonight..."

"Well I think I better go throw some cold water on the
both of them before that 'magic' gets out of hand!" Marguerite
said.

"Don't you dare! It'll be nice to have -have..."

"What?"

"I don't know!" Roxton reddened perceptibly. "They're
young; let them enjoy being young!"

"Anymore enjoyment and I'll have to have 'the talk'
with Veronica!"

"Now that I'd pay real money to see!" Roxton grinned.
"When did Challenger say he'd be back?"

"One, maybe two more days," Marguerite said. "He seems
to think the plague will have run it's course by then..."

"So what do we do in the mean time?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed!"

"This early?! Marguerite, you haven't gone to bed this
early since we got here!" Roxton said.

"Well, how about a nice, romantic, moonlight stroll?"
she teased.

"Here?! We'd probably get eaten!"

The look Marguerite gave him spoke a thousand
words...John Roxton hurried to finish cleaning the Webley in his
hand.

****

Early the next morning, a single, multi-colored column
of light appeared within sight of the tree-house. The column of
light held steady for a moment before coalescing into the shape
of a small man, attired in tan, wearing a pith helmet on his
head.

The column of light faded, leaving the man in it's
place.

"Home," Arthur Summerlee said, a beatific smile on his
face. "So very much to do..."



(Disclaimer The above work is an original story based upon the
television series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World". All
characters contained herein are copyrighted by said show and are
used by this author in a non-commercial way. Any distribution of
the story "Future Past" without the expressed written consent of
the author on sites other than fanfiction.net is strictly
prohibited.)