"Wow." Is the only thing Susan can say. Bogg is standing in front of her dressed in his old pirate's clothes.
"I look good, don't I?"
"Uh-huh."
"I've tried to keep in shape the past twenty years." He pats himself on the stomach. "Plus I haven't been able to eat much in the last couple of days so I lost a few pounds there too."
"And it's a very loose shirt, that also helps." It doesn't need to, she's surprised to find, except for the few gray hairs and the slight saggyness of the skin, he still looks as good as ever. "Why the change of costume?"
"I'm going in. Kate and Jeff have been gone for three days. Either something's wrong and they're not able to get back here. Or they're totally inconsiderate for my feelings of worry for them. In which case I'm going in to knock some sense into them."
"I agree."
"You do?"
"Well, except for the part where knock is something you actually physically do."
"I don't think it will be. They're in Sweden now. I just want to know why they're on the world tour. Will you help me so I can omni in close to their location?"
"Of course."
------
Jeffrey and Kate decide that they will first try to find out where the camp is and think of a follow up plan once they've found it and know how big it is and things like that. Thus they start making their way back through the woods, back to where they first saw the group of men swim. Suddenly they hear gun fire. Jeffrey immediately drops to the ground. He pulls Kate down aswell.
"Do you think they're firing at us?" Kate asks.
A bullet lodges into the tree just above Jeffrey's head.
"I know so," Jeffrey replies. They wait quietly. The shooting has stopped. "This is not good. They're probably reloading. Overthere is a dirt wall. We can hide behind that."
Jeffrey jumps up. Hunched over he runs in a zigzag towards the dirt wall and hides behind it. Kate follows his example. Another bullet is fired, but misses target.
"What do we do now?"
"Hmm. Having bullets fired at you makes that gnawing feeling a lot less annoying."
"Kate? Jeffrey?"
"They know our names?" Jeffrey gives Kate a surprised look.
"I don't think so."
They look over the dirt wall.
"Dad," Kate shouts. "Duck."
Bogg, who has just appeared, immediately drops to the ground. Just in time as bullets start flying over his head. He waits for a little lull in the shooting and makes his way over to the two youngsters behind the dirt wall. He is greeted with enthousiasm by them.
"What are you doing here?" Kate asks. Never having been to any teenage parties she's not used to being picked up by her dad at a quarter to twelve.
"I came to check on you. Why haven't you omnied home yet?"
"Home button doesn't work. Why haven't you homed us yet? You seem to want us to come back."
"Joseph decided we should give you the opportunity to show your good intentions and wait for you to come home on your own."
"Obviously Joseph didn't take failure of technology into his considerations."
"Who's Joseph?" Jeffrey asks.
"Joseph is one of the elders," Bogg replies.
"I thought Garth was the last of the elders."
"Well, Joseph is the latest of the elders."
Kate chuckles at her father's reply.
"I hope you brought your guidebook," she says.
"Always travel without one," Bogg replies with a smug look on his face. "Besides we don't need one, we have a Jeffrey."
"That one has a few pages missing. He doesn't know what's going on, or what should be going on."
"Heay, give me a break. I can't know every event that ever took place."
"Why not?" father and daughter ask in unison.
"You are both impossible." He turns to look over the dirt wall. "I think the shooting has stopped."
"Are the shooters still there?" Bogg asks.
"Probably."
"Then we stay put." Bogg checks his own omni. "1676 July 23, there is something familiar about that date. Give me a moment. It'll come to me." Kate and Jeffrey wait in quiet anticipation. "Loshult Raid." Bogg snaps his fingers.
"Never heard of it." Jeffrey makes a face.
"The Danish side attacked a train holding a Swedish war-chest and some personal belongings of the Swedish king."
Kate mimics 'will attack' for the past tense Bogg used.
"Stop that," Bogg tells her and continues, "it was a blow to the Swedes, but not as big a deal as the Danes made out of it." Bogg smiles, finally an event he knows more about than the kid. "There's still enough time if we work on this after dark. Which gives us some time to catch up. So, where have you all been?"
"You know very well where we've been," Kate replies.
"I don't particularly care for your tone, young lady."
"I don't particularly care for being held hostage in time."
"That wasn't my choice. If it was up to me I would have had you back in five minutes and grounded you for three months."
"I also don't care for being held hostage on the Island." Bogg and Kate engage into a staring match.
"What are you? Twelve?"
"I must be. You just suggested grounding me."
"Guys," Jeffrey interrupts. "Could you put you father-daughter moment on hold as long as there are people around who want to shoot us?" Grumpily both agree that would be the smart thing to do.
"It really is time you grow up, Kate. I never gave my parents this much trouble."
"You ran away from home at the age of fourteen or fifteen to embark on a pirateship."
"How do you know that?" Round two of the staring match.
"I read your dossier. There is nothing else to do on the Island than to read everything I could get my hands on."
"My dossier is not in the public library."
"I had to practice my lock picking skills somewhere."
"Did I say three months grounded, make that six months."
"It is heart warming how much you want me back."
"Why are you being so hostile towards me?"
"Because." Kate swallows. "Because you, you, everybody at Headquarters, you knew, you could have known, you should have known, that we went away with an omni that didn't have a functioning home button." Kate clenches her fists. She's fighting the tears in her eyes. "And you left us out here."
"We didn't know that." Bogg is shocked by what he hears.
"I took the omni that was labled Phineas Bogg."
"I didn't know that." Bogg shakes his head. His voice turns quieter. "I didn't know you took that one. They didn't tell me."
"They knew. They also knew the home button on that omni doesn't work. It's in your dossier. They left us ... We're lost in time, and they left us." Kate gives up the fight with her tears and lets them flow freely. Bogg throws his arms around his daughter and tries to console her. Kate buries her face in his shoulder.
"I didn't know that, Kate. Honestly, I didn't know that. When we get back to Headquarters, I'll have a thing or two to say about this to the Council."
Jeffrey feels sick. Kate never mentioned HQ knew for a fact that Bogg's old omni didn't work properly. She told him HQ would guess that after a while. Resentments and hostilities towards the Council engulf him. The Council knew they were lost in time and they just left them there. After he had just been lost for five years. He wants to throw up.
"Uhm, guys." Jeffrey taps Kate on her shoulder, staring down the barrel of a musket. Kate and Bogg look up from their embrace. They are surrounded. One of the musket holding men instructs them to get up.
"Right." Bogg stretches himself to full length. "Take me to your leader."
No response. He repeats his demand in a Scandinavian language. The men look at eachother. One of them nods to the others.
"Come," he says to his prisoners.
The Voyagers are taken to a small encampment a few miles further into the woods. Where Kate and Jeffrey are instructed to wait with two men guarding them. Bogg is taken to one of the tents. Kate and Jeffrey sit down on some tree logs and wait.
