"Gillian! Gillian! Aren't you awake yet?"

"Huh? Oh...Archie! Did we make it? And is my head really split open with my brains spilling out?"

"Your head is fine. I am not sure about the brains."

"Thanks, Archie. So..." She moved her head gingerly to look around. Well, at least everything was in one piece. Archie had the main screen on, and it was showing a shot of Earth. "We made it!" she cried.

"You're surprised?"

"No. Oh, Archie, I could kiss you!"

"Not that I'd mind, but Scotty didn't provide any interface for that."

"Oh, look! Isn't it beautiful? It really is good to be home."

"Gillian," said Archie worriedly, "This is Earth. Same place we left."

"But it's...Oh, never mind. I can't explain it."

"By the way, I've scanned the planet, and we're not being detected by any sensing devices."

"Radar?" she asked, rubbing her temples in an effort to dispel the monstrous headache, which fortunately seemed finally to have peaked in intensity.

"There is some, but none monitoring out here."

"We're probably too far in orbit. I really don't know what the capabilities were...are. So, when do you think we are?"

"Second half of the Twentieth Century is what I guaranteed."

"Can you be more specific, Archie?"

"I don't know, but I bet you can. Here, I'll sample their electromagnetic emissions." The screen went blank, then came on with a black and white image of a living room, several people gathered there talking. A moment later the audio came on, blasting Gillian's' ears with the loud canned laughter.

"That's an old Lucy rerun!" she said with a smile. "Try another station."

"Station?"

"Switch frequencies."

"Okay...here!" Again the scene was in black and white, a youthful Walter Cronkite reading the news behind an impossibly large microphone. The audio came on, "...President Eisenhower said today that the developments in Eastern Europe are the largest threat to world peace in—"

"Archie!" she interrupted, and the computer cut the audio. "I hope this is a documentary or something. Scan for something in color—with full spectrum images."

"Scanning...Nothing...no, wait...nope. I can try boosting through the—"

"Never mind," she said, her heart full of foreboding. "Look, I need a newspaper."

"A what?"

Johnny Brent was in trouble, as usual. He was late for his paper route, and Mr. Marvin had said if he was late again, he'd be out of the job. Not that it would bother Johnny much, but his mom would skin him alive. And the other night he'd heard her talking on the phone to Uncle Bob, saying how she didn't know if they were going to be able to pay the bills, and the next morning her eyes were all red and weepy, so he had to keep this job! He broke into a run and rounded the corner by the newsstand just as Mr. Marvin was hefting the last bundle off the tailgate of the truck. The other kids were gone already. Johnny grabbed it, and still huffing, panted out, "I'll get it, Mr. Marvin!"

"So you made it?" grumped the old man. "You remember, kid, this ain't no charity operation here! You mess up, you're out! Understand?"

"Yes, sir," mumbled Johnny as he pried open the bundle and began folding the papers and stuffing them into his sack. Mr. Marvin snorted and walked back to the stand, and Johnny turned his head to stick out his tongue at the man's back. When he looked back to his pile of papers, all he saw was a momentary glimmer of light. The newspapers were all gone.

Gillian put the paper down and sighed. "Well?" asked Archie expectantly.

"Well, you made it by three years."

"Explain."

"We're three years into the second half of the Twentieth Century. It's 1953."

"There you go!" said Archie proudly.

"Where do I go? There isn't anything here! No whale research, no women PhD's, no... Lucy isn't even reruns! What am I going to do?"

"I'm sorry, Gillian, I don't understand," said Archie, "but I thought you said you came here to administer that antiviral. Why can't you do that?"

"Oh, Archie, that isn't the problem. It's just that I have to live out the rest of my life here, and I found the eighties pretty old-fashioned for my tastes. But the fifties?"

"It'll soon be the sixties," he offered lamely.

"Yeah, right...Hey, Arch! Can't we just jump ahead twenty years or so?"

"Gillian! I explained to you how inexact this business is. And it takes an enormous amount of power, not to mention the strain on the ship...Anyway, we could easily wind up after you left the first time."

"Then I would miss George and Gracie. But this...this is before I was born!"

"Good," said Archie emphatically.

"Why's that?"

"I was worried about how you were going to handle being around yourself."

"I never thought of that! I'd have to avoid meeting myself. I couldn't live in my own home, assume my own identity...You did the right thing in bringing us early."

"I wish I could take credit. Maybe it's all due to that omniscient Continuum you're always talking about."

"Maybe..." She picked up the folded paper that had been on top of the pile and stared at it. "Arch? Was this paper like this when you took the pile?"

"Like what? I didn't do anything to them."

"Where'd you get it from?"

"How do I know? I set the sensors for that ink you described, and I found a concentration of it in and around a little booth of some kind."

"Were there any people around?"

"I didn't think to look. Is it important?"

"What if people saw you transport the papers?"

"So what?"

"Archie, transporters aren't going to be invented for over two hundred years! Look, was there a kid near these papers?"

"A kid?"

"A child, Archie."

"Oh. Them. I don't know. Why?"

"I think you stole some kid's papers. They deliver them for money."

"Oh, an extortion racket."

"No!" she laughed. "It's to earn a little. Look, we've got to take them back."

"Easy enough. I've got the original coordinates."

"And I'm going. But first I have to get changed."

"Why?"

"Because in 1953 women didn't dress like this. Do you have that program chip I gave you?"

"Yes. I transposed it for the food synthesizer. Where'd you get it anyway?"

"From Jim Kirk's emergency wardrobe."

"Ask a dumb question," mumbled the computer as Gillian punched instructions into the synthesizer.

A few minutes later she was wearing a tight-waisted, fully flared dress, with shiny high-heeled shoes. "Ugh," she groaned. "I remember my Great Aunt Sharon wearing things like this! Ready, Archie?"

"Got your communicator? Okay, sit on the pad, and don't forget the papers."

"Are you sure you don't want some more milk, Johnny?" asked Gillian, standing in front of the icebox with the bottle in her hand.

"Nah...Hey! Hi, Mom!"

"Hi, Johnny, how's...oh, hello."

"Hello, Mrs. Brent. My name is Gillian Taylor."

"Uh, hello. Nadine Brent." She shot a questioning look at her son, who grinned and explained, "Miss Taylor helped me deliver my papers, and when I fell down old man Keeton's step, she carried me home!"

"Oh, don't exaggerate, Johnny!" protested Gillian. "He just twisted his ankle, and I helped him limp on home. I stayed to fix him a snack. I..." As she met the women's stare the hardness there suddenly melted, and Gillian smiled and finished, "I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all," she replied slowly. "Thank you for your consideration, Miss... Taylor."

"Yes." She could imagine what she was thinking. A thirty-year-old "Miss," no place to be on a weekday afternoon, lets herself into someone else's house. She probably couldn't wait to get this weirdo out of her home. But then she surprised her.

"A beautiful single woman like you must have more interesting things to do than running a small boy's paper route."

She averted her eyes and replied, "I found it fascinating. You have a wonderful son."

"I invited Miss Taylor to stay for dinner, Mom."

"And a presumptuous one," Gillian added quickly. "But don't worry. Now that Johnny's ankle is better, and you're home, I'll be on my way."

"No," she demurred, "We...we'd love to have you stay."

Something in the woman's tone alerted Gillian, and she asked kindly, "Is there something wrong, Mrs. Brent?"

"Why did you help Johnny?" she almost demanded.

"He was crying..." she started slowly, but Johnny blurted out, "I lost my papers, Mom, all of 'em! And Miss Taylor helped me find 'em, and then she—"

"You lost your papers? How in the world did—"

"I'm afraid it may be my fault," said Gillian, quickly trying to formulate a believable story. "You see, that crotchety gentleman who runs the paper stand, Mr...?"

"Marvin," supplied Mrs. Brent.

"Yes, Marvin. I arranged to get a stack of papers from him for my...church group? But there must have been a miscommunication, and I picked up the papers, only they were Johnny's I guess...well, anyway, it's all taken care of now."

The woman's face became stern. "This is the last straw! That Mr. Marvin cannot go on taking advantage of my son, just because I don't have a husband to—" She stopped, the shame obvious in her face. "Oh, my husband—"

"Johnny told me," Gillian hastened to say, sparing the woman the grief of recounting her husband's death. Inwardly, she shook her head in disgust that in this time a woman had to be embarrassed that someone might think she was divorced, or a single mother. "I'm so sorry."

"You're sorry!" yelled Mrs. Brent, then she dropped into a kitchen chair and put her head in her hands. "Oh, please forgive me!" she cried.

Gillian put a hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing to forgive. Can I do anything?"

She shook her head. Johnny limped over to her and hugged her. "Please don't cry any more, Mom. I got all the papers delivered, and none of 'em were late! Miss Taylor even showed me how to throw 'em so they always land right on the porch. Except old man Keeton's, that is."

She looked up and wiped her eyes. To Gillian she said, "You know how to throw newspapers?"

Gillian smiled at her. "It's not very hard. A woman can do almost anything she has to...isn't that right, Nadine?"

The smile that came to the distraught woman had a look of unused awkwardness, and it was diluted by tears, but Gillian could tell that for the first time in a long time, the woman felt a glimmer of hope in her heart. "How could you possibly understand, Miss—"

"Gillian, please."

"Gillian? I mean, we've just met, but you seem to know so much about me."

"I do. I know Johnny, and he's a wonderful boy, so his mom must be wonderful, too."

She did stay for supper, and late into the evening. By the time she picked up the ghastly purse Jim's program had provided her with, they were talking like old friends, and Johnny was long asleep on the sofa. Nadine was afraid to let her go out alone, but Gillian assured her that she had a friend she could call to pick her up, at which point Nadine apologized that she didn't have a phone. "That's all right," assured Gillian. "I saw a payphone on the corner. It's not far. And Archie will get me right away once I call."

"Gillian?"

"Yes, Archie?" she replied, looking up from the screen where Kirk's "exploits" were scrolling by.

"I'll have the data you need on ocean currents in another few minutes, and we'll be ready for the first antiviral drop."

"Great. Do you need any help?"

"No, thanks."

"Say, Arch? Can you give me a hardcopy of this stuff?"

"Sure. Want it now?"

"Whenever you get a chance."

"Where'd you say you were going this afternoon?"

"To Johnny's school. He's in a Little Red Riding Hood. He plays the wolf."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

She laughed, "No, I guess not."

"Gillian?" he said, using the tone she'd come to associate with his most human-like, most patronizing, most protective moments. She wondered if one of his programmers had been a grandmother.

"Yes, Archie?" she answered sugary sweetly.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to get involved with that...kid?"

"Archie! The boy is a sad sack. He's got no father, a mother who works day and night at some cruddy job to make ends meet. He's alone and scared and he needs somebody to look after him. Time is one thing I've got plenty of right now, so it doesn't hurt to give him some, and I need to establish an identity here. Being the friend of a nice family like that can go a long way toward that end. Look, don't you have that data yet?"

"Coming up on the screen, as soon as I get rid of this junk from Quack's stories."

"It's Kirk," she corrected automatically, shaking her head.

When the shuttle was directly over the mid-Pacific point Archie's calculations had indicated, she opened the first canister of antiviral, measured some into a beaker, and set it on the transporter pad. "Can you bring back the beaker?" she asked.

"I can do even better. I'll just beam down the liquid and keep the glass here."

"Super!"

Archie then zoomed over to the Mediterranean site, and they repeated the process. The third drop had to wait until the next morning, so she asked Archie to take them back to geosynchronous orbit above Los Angeles, where she had set up the underwater monitors she'd pilfered from the Hawking. She was afraid to have Archie orbit around the earth, in case she needed him when she was on the farside. He'd laughed and said that with his subspace electronics he could monitor and transport her from anywhere on the globe, but she still felt better knowing he was directly overhead.

While she was getting ready for the play, she suddenly remembered something. "Archie! Do you have that phone book I gave you scanned yet?"

"Sure, all memorized and ready to go."

"And how about the phone patch you were going to hook up?"

"Sorry, Gillian. Everything's cables—there isn't an open transmission anywhere."

"That's right! There aren't any communications satellites yet."

"There aren't any orbiting devices at all that I can pick up," said Archie disgustedly.

"Don't worry, there will be soon enough. Well, at least you can look something up. Try to find me a pawn broker."

"Okay. What are you up to?"

She lifted a dull metal bar out of her sack. "I need money, Archie. How much does this hunk of platinum weigh?" She set it on his sensor pad.

"Three point nine one kilos."

She grinned. Standard lab supplies from the Twenty-third Century sure could make life simpler in the Twentieth. "I need to cut off a few small pieces. Any ideas?"

"Scotty has a bunch of tools in that third cabinet on the left..."

"Al, did you place that ad yet?"

"Just this morning, Bill, but we probably won't hear anything for a few of days. In the meantime we've got to try to convince the chairman to fund our project, or we won't have any money to pay an assistant."

"He has to fund it! It's the only reasonable project in the whole damn department! Did you hear what Higgins wants to do? He thinks the Navy can use seals to patrol the coastline. He's trying to train them to recognize Russian subs!"

"Bill. First of all, they're sea lions. Second, the scary part is that his idea might work. Did you ever think what might happen if we get funding and the military gets hold of our stuff?"

"How would they?"

"Don't be naive, Bill! Once we publish what we're doing with porpoises, someone's bound to figure out the military applications of our research."

"I hadn't thought of that! What are we going to do?"

"Nothing. It'll happen anyway. At least we can try to get our work done, and do everything we can to keep the government out of it."

"Well, it's time for my meeting with Kilgore. Wanna come?"

"No, thanks. I'll take round two. Have fun."

Gillian materialized behind a pile of trash in a crowded alley. "Thanks, Archie," she whispered into her communicator before pocketing it. She peeked out of the alley and spotted the pawnshop right across the street and entered the shop, jingling the bell suspended on the door.

"Yeah, lady?" asked the proprietor, wending his way past dusty piles of junk to the rickety display counter.

"I'd like cash for some platinum," said Gillian, displaying her rehearsed bravado.

"Wouldn't we all!" grumped the man, holding out his hand.

She took the handkerchief-wrapped lump out of her purse and handed it to him. "It's high grade platinum."

"I'll be the judge of that," he scoffed, pulling out a jeweler's loop. "And where would a pretty young thing like you be getting a hunk of metal like this, not that I'm asking."

"It's a family heirloom," she said, continuing her script.

"Usually is...hmm...looks real enough I guess."

"How much can you give me for it?"

"Fifty bucks."

"What? It's worth many times that."

"Probably. But then, I'm not asking any questions, and questions can get expensive. Know what I mean?" He winked at her.

"I need at least a hundred." She reached for the metal.

He grabbed the lump before she could get it. "Hold on, lady. You got any more of this stuff?"

She hesitated. "Yes."

"Tell you what. I'll give you seventy-five for this piece. I'll have it tested, see if it's genuine. If it is, you come back in a few days, we'll make a better deal. Okay?"

Gillian applauded wildly with the rest of the audience, tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. The play had been funny enough, but when Johnny's tail fell off and he picked it up and held it to his backside for the rest of the scene, the crowd had gone wild, and now here he was, making his second curtain call, his tail held triumphantly high above his head. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nadine Brent hurry into the auditorium and join the clapping. When the curtain closed for the final time, she worked her way over to her.

Gillian said, "Johnny was superb!"

"I wish I'd made it in time, but my boss made me finish a load of typing before I could leave. Whatever happened to his tail?"

By the time Gillian had related the story, Johnny had shed his wolfsuit and run up the aisle to give his mother a hug. "Did you see it, Mom?"

"I'm afraid not. But Miss Taylor says you were great!"

"I was! Hey, let's go for ice cream!"

"Why not? Gillian? Can you join us?"

"Uh..."

"Oh, please, Miss Taylor," begged Johnny, brimming over with that youthful exuberance which is diminished when it can't be fully shared.

"I'd love to, on one condition. It's my treat."

"Oh, we couldn't—"

"I'm sorry, Nadine. This is a celebration for Johnny's wonderful performance." She looked into her thankful eyes and added, "I really want to do it."

They found a booth away from the jukebox, and Nadine told the waitress she and Johnny would share a dish of ice cream, but Gillian interrupted and ordered them both a banana split and a malted for herself. By the time she was going places as a youth, fast food places had replaced the neighborhood malt shop, and she'd always wanted to have a malted in a place like in all the rerun sitcoms she used to watch. Still, even given these little pleasures, it was going to be tough being a senior citizen when she finally got to the eighties again.

"Archie? What's the antiviral index up to in the eastern Pacific?" she asked as she worked on the tricorder with the damaged transmitter.

"All along the coast it's point eight eight or better. Replication is proceeding slightly ahead of expected rates. If we make about six more drops, we'll be set."

"Fantastic! Anything interesting from the underwater monitors?"

"There's nothing at all from them. I'm afraid maybe that power pack did go bad."

"Damn! I need that data to make sure about the Humpback migration."

"Well, you could go and try to fix it."

"Can't you just beam it up?"

"If I do, the circuits will dry out, and we'll have to recalibrate all the sensor links."

"Ugh," she groaned, remembering how hard it was to get them calibrated originally. She sighed resignedly. "I may have to get some gear and dive down to them. I need that information on the whales. Do you realize how many of them there must still be?" She frowned suddenly. "And how many whalers? Maybe I should try monkey-wrenching the industry."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I won't have time for at least a few years, especially if this dolphin project gets going."

"How is that new job working out?"

She laughed. "Al and Bill act like I'm an alien or something. They've never met a woman who knew more biology than them, which is not much of a claim to fame, since most of the latest developments in the field were out of date by the time I got to high school. Can you imagine? They think I'm a genius because I was able to explain the details of Watson and Crick's model to them. I'm not sure they even understood it completely, but they were amazed that I did.

"Anyway, they've good as made me a member of the faculty, which they can't officially do, of course. When I suggested that we study the possibility of ultrasonic communication in cetaceans, at first they acted like I was a lunatic, but after they talked to some guy working with bats, they decided I might have something. They set me up with a lab of my own, but the acoustic hardware! It's positively fossilized! Archie, this place has no solid state electronics!"

"Solid state? Oh, you mean those antique circuits that used electrical impulses instead of optics and lasers."

This tit for tat set her laughing as she realized that she was more a dinosaur to Archie than her bosses were to her. "Look, in a couple of weeks the staff is taking a long weekend for the Fourth of July. I'll have time then and can get to that power pack. How's that sound?"

"Sure, Gillian. Say, how're the Brents?"

She smiled. Archie took after "the Scotsman" whom he insulted so often—despite all his gruffness, he was really a softy. "They're doing real fine. I convinced Nadine to tell her boss off. No job is worth the shit she has to put up with, and for peanuts, too!"

"So what happened?"

"Would you believe it? He offered her a promotion! He said any woman with that kind of moxey was an asset to the firm. I bet she's the first female office manager in the place by next year. She's changed her whole lifestyle, gotten more outgoing. She always knew that she wasn't inferior just because she was a woman, but she didn't know she could assert herself. You should have seen the grief she gave them at the phone company when they told her they needed her late husband's references to give her a phone! They were so shocked they couldn't talk, and the phone was installed the next morning. And Johnny's doing great. He loves that job at the grocer, and with his quick mind, I bet he'll be in the office by the time he's a teenager. Who knows? Maybe he'll own a chain of supermarkets...if they ever invent them."

"Gillian?"

"Yes, Arch?"

"You know best...but you told me all about the continuum business...I mean, do you think you're risking things by interfering with what's going on?"

She put down the tricorder and sighed. "I don't know. Probably. But I have to live here. Back in the eighties I was trying my damnedest to make a mark on history; I'm going to have to do that here. If Mr. Spock is right..." She paused, thinking about all she had given up. The people she'd never see. The wonders she'd never share. Well, what is, is, her mother always used to say. "If he's right, the continuum will just have to mold itself around whatever I do...or don't do."

She picked up the tricorder and said, "Is there any hope for this thing?"

"I doubt it. We need a double-faceted transtator, and there isn't a spare one in the whole ship."

"Then why did you have me take it apart?" she complained.

"It's a trick I learned from the Scotsman. He always has his greenies do that so they learn how things work. Thought it couldn't hurt for you to know how your equipment functions."

"Thanks a lot, teacher," she laughed.

Gillian noticed the guy's stare immediately, but she didn't make any response to it. Instead she began searching the shelves for the journal issues she wanted. He slimed his way over and said out of the corner of his mouth. "You don't see many babes in this part of the library. Ain't any cookbooks in here, honey."

Her first thought was to ignore him, but she reconsidered. "One doesn't usually see many idiots in here either. You have to be able to read to use these books. I'm afraid the university libraries don't have picture book sections."

"Ooooh! I do like a feisty woman!" he cackled.

Gillian rolled her eyes and moved down the stack. Unfortunately, so did he. "Look, fellow, why don't you just...Hey! Look what they've got!" She grabbed a tattered journal, which looked terribly out of place among all the bound issues, and pulled it out. As she was scanning the table of contents, he looked over her shoulder.

"Hey, what is that, Chinese?"

"It's Russian, stupid. And I'm trying to read it. Do you mind?"

"You read Russky?" he asked, putting some welcomed distance between them.

"Yes," she answered absent-mindedly, moving to a table, where she sat down to read the article on Humpback migration she had found. She didn't even notice when he left.

A half-hour later she was packing up her notes when the policeman came up to her and said, "Uh, Miss? Would you please come with me? I'd like to ask you a few questions."

She frowned at this interruption but agreed. When she did, she figured they'd step outside the library and talk where they could do so without disturbing anyone. But he had something different in mind. Another officer joined them outside and the two of them bustled her into a squad car and drove her to the station. She began protesting about her civil rights, but neither of them seemed to know what she meant, and the part that scared her the most was that she was quite sure their innocence was not due to dissembling. Fear was beginning to replace her anger by the time they reached the precinct. There a policewoman searched her, took away her purse and papers, then finally ushered her into an interrogation room where a fat cop sat smoking a smelly cigar.

He scowled at her and said, "You're an interesting woman, Miss Taylor. Is that short for Taylorsky?"

Suddenly all those boring hours in American History class came back to her, and she realized what this must be all about. She also knew she'd have to be awfully careful. "I don't understand," she said placidly.

"What's this?" he demanded, shoving one of her pages of notes under her nose.

She examined it very carefully. "It's a description of Humpback whale migration in the northern Pacific."

"How come I can't read it?"

She raised her brows, "Perhaps you're illiterate?" She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't resist; he was asking for it.

"I am when it comes to commie writing!" he bellowed.

She shook her head sadly and tried to fix things up with logic and reason. "I find it easier to jot down notes in Russian when I'm reading a Russian scientific article. It saves time. You'll notice that all the rest of my notes, on English articles, are in English."

Only logic and reason were lost on this man, whom she could just picture standing before the press, taking bows for this pinko spy he uncovered and turned in. He leered at her and said, "But you forgot yourself when you found something from good old Mother Russia, eh?"

"Sergeant," she began.

"It's lieutenant, lady!"

"And it's Miss Taylor, man!"

Clearly shocked, the lieutenant turned to the other office present and said, "Bring in the device. Carefully!"

He went away and returned with her communicator, which he was holding as if it might blow up at any second. She wished it would. "What's this?" demanded the lieutenant.

"Um...I'm not sure. May I see it more closely?"

"Ahah!" he chortled, snatching it back. "So it is a spy phone! Well, you aren't going to call for help from your commie friends this time."

"Officer...Lieutenant. If that object is from my purse, it is not a 'spy phone' or anything else of the sort. It is my new compact. If you give it to me, I can open it and show you the powder inside. Really, you are getting carried away just because as a scientist I have studied Russian."

"Scientist, huh? Who ever heard of a lady scientist reading Russian?"

"I know several," said Gillian.

"Ahah! Grimes! We've uncovered a whole ring of them!"

"Oh my, Lieutenant! You are jumping to erroneous conclusions by the bushel here. Please, let me demonstrate my little make-up kit. You can have it right back."

"No way, lady. Grimes, take this to the boys in the lab and have them check it out."

"No!" she yelled, then, getting hold of herself, she smiled and said, "Why don't you just let me show you how it works? Even if it were a spy phone, how could anyone get to me in here?" She smiled sillily at him. "And besides, Captain..."

"Lieutenant," he corrected reluctantly.

"Ah, yes! Lieutenant, if you send that to the boys in the lab, and they find out it's just a lady's compact, how is that going to look? Huh?"

Clearly not completely convinced, but obviously swayed by this direct hit on his ego, he slowly slid the communicator over to her. She grinned, picked it up, and flipped it open. The two policemen jumped back at the beep. She quickly bent over to make sure she had clearance and said, still smiling stupidly at the two cops, "Archie, beam me up immediately, please!"

She tightened her grip on the device and didn't relax it until she rematerialized on the shuttle, at which point she flung it across the cabin and began yelling. "Of all the backward, bigoted, bumbling..."

"Bastards?" offered Archie.

"Yes! Bastards!" she agreed, unfolding herself from the transporter pad. "Archie, they arrested me as a Russian spy!"

"Are you?"

"Archie!"

"I guess not. Is that good or bad?"

"Never mind! Listen, I'm in big trouble here. I can't go back to my job—they'll trace me from the library for sure. I'll have to assume a new identity. Why the hell did this have to happen? What am I going to do?"

"First you've got to calm down."

"I can't! No, of course I can. Let me see, I need something to take me out of things, maybe I'll just go fix that monitor...No! I've got to talk to Nadine. And I might have to stay with her for a while. I can't be beaming up every evening—it's too risky. Give me some time to put some stuff together. Why don't you warm up the synthesizer...oh! Do you have my hard copy of Jim's book yet?"

"It's in the chute. I even used real paper, so if anybody sees it they won't think anything of it."

She laughed, despite her high emotion. "Oh, Archie! If anybody from this retarded civilization read that stuff, they'd die laughing at the impossibility of it." Her sudden mirth vanished in an instant. "No," she said seriously, "they'd probably try to hunt down the author so they could lynch him!"

"So, Dr. Eustis," said the policeman closing his notepad, "Can you tell us anything else about this woman?"

"There really is nothing more to tell. She is very strange, but brilliant. Sometimes she seems to know things she couldn't possibly know."

The policeman nodded importantly, but the biologist added, "No, I mean things no one could know, as if she had some sixth sense about scientific phenomena. I'm sure she is not a spy, officer."

Bill chimed in, "Of course she isn't! She was teaching us stuff! If she were after information, she'd hardly been giving it out."

The cop retorted, "Maybe she was just trying to gain your confidence. It appears she did."

"Oh, for the love of—"

"Perhaps," Al Eustis said quickly. "If we think of anything else, we'll give you a call."

After the policeman left, Bill turned on Al. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"What? You want to get closed down? Blacklisted? All we need is for someone to point to our project as a cover for some Communist activity! All we've worked so hard for would be down the drain in a second!"

"All that Gillian and we have worked for, Al!"

Al nodded gravely. "That's the tragedy of it. But she's finished. The best thing that can happen to us is if she stays lost. She hasn't contacted you, has she?"

"Not a peep from her since she went to the library, not that I'd tell that witch-hunting cop if there were."

"Well, then the best thing for you will be if she doesn't get in touch. Come on, at least we might be able to salvage some of this project if we can go through her notes before we burn them."

Bill stared at him in disbelief. "Her notes? You told the cops there weren't any."

"Correction: I said 'There aren't any notes here. She must have taken them with her or something'. Actually, it was or something. When Gillian didn't come back for lunch, I took her notes home to study. Emma was late making my sandwiches, so I had to rush to get back, and I forgot the notes. When the cops arrived, it was easy enough to demonstrate they weren't here."

"You son of a gun!" laughed Bill.

"Anything more on the newscasts?" asked Gillian, sipping her soup.

"Not since the day before yesterday. I guess you're not newsworthy any more."

"I will be if they spot me again. You're sure they never went to Nadine's?"

"I monitored every police broadcast since I beamed you up. Nobody was ever dispatched to her house."

"Good. And I can't believe she'd go to them, even if she recognized my description on the news. At least, I don't want to believe she would."

"So," asked Archie, "are you going down?"

"Might as well," she answered, standing up and reaching for the large suitcase she had synthesized, then filled with synthesized clothing and supplies. "I've got everything I need." She grimaced as she picked up the replacement purse she had had made. A different style, but still as hideous.

"Remember, I'll beam you up in a flash if you run into trouble."

"I know you won't fail me, Archie. That's why I love you."

"I bet you say that to all your computers."

"Yeah, right!" she laughed, crouching down onto the pad. "Energize, you sentimental slob!"

As soon as the shower of light faded, Archie's voice came over the speaker in the communicator, which still lay on the floor in the corner, where it had skidded several days before, "Gillian? Why do I still register your communicator frequency in the cabin here?"

After a pause, his voice came again, this time over the main cabin speakers. "Gillian, I think I'm afraid now."

"Mom! Come quick! It's Gillian!" yelled Johnny, closing the door behind her.

"Gillian! We were so worried. When you never came back, and I heard on...Johnny, don't you have homework?"

"Aw, mom!"

"Go on, young man! Gillian is staying for supper..." Her eyes fell on the suitcase, and she said, "And maybe longer. Now, run along and let us ladies talk! Gillian! What happened?"

Nadine shook her head and tut-tutted through the whole story, and when Gillian asked her if she could stay for a while, she said, "Of course, silly. As long as you like. You know I was trying to get you to move into our spare bedroom long before this whole stupid mess. The nerve of some people! You! A spy! It's absurd."

Gillian hesitated. Everything was all right now. Only it wasn't. She couldn't leave anything between her and this woman who had so much faith in her. "Nadine, I...I haven't been totally honest with you."

As usual, Nadine surprised her with her answer, "Of course you haven't! You've got problems of your own, and you've never wanted to burden me with them, and heaven knows, you're probably wise, considering how poorly I handled my own until you came along, but someday maybe you'll share them with me. In the meantime, you have your dark secrets, but I know none of them have anything to do with the Russians..." She stopped and stared into Gillian's eyes. "Or if they do, then everything they say about the Russians cannot be true." She broke the stare and ended, "Now follow me up to your room. We'll get you settled."

At that instant Johnny barreled down the stairs, yelling, "All done, Mom! So, is Gillian staying with us?"

"Yes," answered Gillian, "but we're going to have to play a special game. We're going to pretend my name is Susan Armstrong, and we mustn't ever call me by my real name, even among ourselves. Can you play this game, Johnny?"

"Sure, Gil—I mean, Susan!"

"That's a boy. Now, here, help me carry this awful suitcase up to my room."

Once she was unpacked, and once Nadine was finally able to get Johnny in bed, Gillian was alone in her room. She decided to check in with Archie, since he had assured her that equipment able to detect their frequencies was decades away. She grabbed her purse and began rummaging in it. Somewhere during the third time through she suddenly stopped. In her mind she saw the communicator flying through the air, heard it clanging against the wall of the shuttle cabin. With a snap, she shut the purse. "Oh, shit!"

Gillian leaned back and let the grass tickle her through her clothes. She was actually getting used to these styles. Sure, what she wouldn't give for some pantyhose! She'd toss out that whole drawer of stockings in a second! And she'd kill for a decent pair of jeans, but if she didn't want to draw attention to herself—that was the last thing she needed. But is wasn't easy not drawing attention to herself. She'd thought it was difficult jumping three centuries into the future, but then all she had to do was act dumb, which she was! This, this was horrible. Every minute she had to be on her guard. The wrong reference, the wrong comment, the wrong observation, anything could give her away. Give her away? She could tell the whole damned truth, and no one would believe it. But they sure would react! But how? That was what she was afraid of.

A particularly large cloud momentarily blocked the sun, and she instinctively turned to see the source of the sudden darkness, then laughed at her silliness. What, did she expect to see the large disk and slender nacelles of Jim Kirk's beloved Enterprise? She closed her eyes and let the sounds of frolicking children lull her nerves. She was full of hot dogs and soda, Johnny and Nadine were trying out every swing in the park, and the fireworks were still a couple of hours away. Sometimes the slower pace here suited her well. She figured it had to.

The first day she'd been in shock, and she spent the next couple waiting stupidly for Archie to beam her up any minute. But then she realized he had no way of doing that, so she'd frantically tried everything from flare guns to ham radios in an attempt to get her coordinates to him. Somehow she simply had to get used to it: she was here to stay.

Life could be a lot worse. She had never had any real choice, as Archie had pointed out, but she had been counting on her contact with the Twenty-third Century through him and the shuttle to make up for the deficiencies of this time. She opened her eyes and glanced reflexively upward. What would Archie do? If he were able to find her, he would have by now. But how could he? Scan for a human in Los Angeles? She hoped he had given up and gone on home, but somehow the thought that he might still be up there was a little bit comforting. She was glad she didn't know for sure.

And what should she do? And how was she going to live? She couldn't keep draining the Brent's resources. Oh sure, she had the rings. Archie had come up with the idea of using Scotty's laser-lathe to make rings out of the platinum when she'd explained how worried she was about dealing in hunks of the metal. She had enough to keep her for quite a while. Nadine had already gotten her that bookkeeping job. Phew! What she wouldn't give for a ten-dollar calculator!

She sat up with a start. Texas Instruments. She remembered. She was in high school. They cost a fortune and had no features. And they were huge and lunky. The stock must have sold for a pittance. She laughed out loud. She had brought something of value from the eighties! With a little thought, she could soon be a wealthy woman. And wealth meant power. And power, in this stupid society, meant the ability to do things. Like pushing the space program when everyone thought it was ridiculous. Like...Like wrecking the time continuum.

She sighed in disgust. What if she changed things so that in her effort to bring to pass what she saw in the United Federation of Planets, Earth never joined? What if she did what that Keeler woman had done, destroying exactly what she most fervently believed in and fought for? What if a certain Iowa farmboy spent his years plowing fields instead of seeking out new civilizations? What if she changed things so that she never met Jim Kirk, and he never took her into the future, and... Wait a minute! If she'd done that, she wouldn't be here, right? So, nothing she'd done so far had changed things that much! But what about something she was going to do? Would she still be here? And if she did something to wreck up time, would she just disappear? Would she even know what happened? She shook her head. This was too much to consider, especially for a hot, lazy, Fourth of July evening. She got up, brushed off her skirt, and sauntered over to find Nadine and Johnny.

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