"How do you know so many things?" Nadine asked out of the blue while they were putting away groceries.

"I've had a lot of school."

"I didn't mean that kind of knowledge. I meant knowing about life, about things that exist inside us, or don't exist, or haven't happened yet."

"I'm hardly clairvoyant!" protested Gillian.

"No, it's not that. It's something real. You seem to know about people's deepest feelings. Like that business today with Johnny, about the Korean conflict? You told Johnny that the groups will change, and the lies will change, but there will always be some people who are made fun of and mistreated by the rest. You told him always to fight that, until people finally change." She looked over at Gillian. "That was beautiful, Susan."

"Oh, I've seen a lot of persecution, that's all."

Nadine set down an empty paper bag. "No, that's not all. You also said something about 'Vietnam being next.' Only I went to the atlas—where is Vietnam?"

"Oh, that's just a...local name. On the maps it's called Indochina. Say, where do you want this sugar?"

"In the cupboard there. Why did you say it was next?"

"I don't know. It was silly of me. How about the beans?"

Nadine suddenly smiled. "Sorry," she said, taking the bag of beans from her. "I guess I'm crossing over into your dark secrets."

Gillian bit her lip. "Nadine...it's not that I want to keep things from you. You've done so much for me, and you deserve the truth. Only in this case..."

"In this case you feel I'm better off not knowing."

"I really do," replied Gillian.

Nadine bent over to put the small bouquet at the foot of the tombstone. As she straightened, a shadow fell across the gravesite, and she turned quickly to see a familiar uniform and a familiar face. He smiled, "Hi. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Nonsense," she answered, really meaning it. "I'm glad to see you here. Ed would be happy to know you still come. Oh! I read your story. I really liked it."

"From your mouth to an editor's ears!" laughed her companion.

"Your time will come, sir, and when it does, you'll deserve every good thing that happens."

"How can I miss with friends who have that kind of faith in me?"

"You won't miss."

"Even if some of my ideas are 'truly unusual'?"

She laughed to hear her words come back to her. "I simply meant that some of your fiction is strange to an everyday mind like mine that doesn't have the time or inclination to think about the stars and planets and..." She stopped suddenly.

"What is it, Nadine?" he asked solicitously.

She smiled strangely at him. "There's someone I think you should meet."

"An editor?"

"Better. Someone who thinks like you."

"Oh," he laughed, "a competitor!"

"I don't think so," she teased. "I'll have you both over to dinner sometime soon."

"Anything that gets me one of your home-cooked meals is all right by me."

"Good, then it's settled."

"Susan, he's a good friend!"

"You said he was a cop!"

"Of course he's a cop! The wives of cops know lots of cops. He was a buddy of Ed's, and he's a really nice man!"

"But, Nadine!"

"Look, he isn't really a cop."

"Come on, do you expect me to believe that?"

"What I mean is, even though he's a cop, he isn't. He's just doing it to make a living until he can support himself off his writing."

"Writing? What kind?"

"Oh, different things, but what he loves is television scripts. I think he's silly to limit himself to such a small field, but he has his heart set on it."

Gillian laughed, "Oh, if he gets in on it, he'll be lucky. Television is bound for the stars!"

Nadine gave her one of her knowing looks but merely answered, "He'll be glad to know that."

"Look, I don't want to meet a cop. Okay?"

"Listen, Susan. Even if he recognized you, even if he was at the station when you were there, he won't turn you in."

"Oh, sure!"

"I'm serious. He thinks things like that are stupid."

"Okay, maybe when I get back from my trip."

"I'll arrange it." Before Gillian could protest, Nadine added quickly, "Now where did you say you were going? Up the coast?"

"Well, I thought I'd try out my new car. Get some sun, see the sights, relax a little."

"It's a grand idea. How much time did your boss give you?"

"He couldn't believe how quickly I prepared for that audit," she laughed, her amusement coming not from her boss's surprise, but from the help her tricorder had given her. She couldn't use it in the office, of course, but Mr. Patterson was more than pleased with the results letting her take work home had produced. It had been a simple matter to parse out an arithmetic program from the statistics module, and while she couldn't print out her spreadsheets, they sure did simply her homework! She looked up to see Nadine's expectant face.

"So I got a whole week!"

"Wow! He must have been really pleased."

"He was."

Johnny flew through the kitchen door. "Mom, can you get me the peanut butter?"

Nadine led Johnny out the door, but turned around to call out, "Have a great trip. I'll see you soon. And don't worry, I'll just invite him to dinner when you get back—nothing overwhelming." She disappeared into the hallway.

The pawnshop in the little coastal town was even seedier than the last couple, but she needed equipment, and equipment costs money. The threat of being recognized kept her from more legitimate establishments, and it kept her from going anywhere more than once, which prevented her from getting better prices. Fortunately, this guy had understood the value of the ring, and he'd been generous enough, for a crook. At least she had enough for the scuba gear.

She bought that in the next town, which was still a few miles from where her monitors were located. That was probably the toughest scene she'd had yet. She had forgotten that scuba gear was still quite new, and used mostly by specialists. No woman had probably ever bought some. But money talks, and with some cock and bull story about a husband in the navy, she got enough equipment to make the shallow dive to her monitoring station. She drove to the site early in the morning, before anyone would be likely to be up. She was grateful that jogging wasn't a craze yet.

She pulled the car onto a deserted beach access road. The gulls were screeching overhead in the dawn sky, and their mournful tone filled her with a nebulous melancholy. Shaking off the chill of the fog and her mood, she changed into the wetsuit and strapped the ponderous tanks to her back. As she staggered to the surfline, she cursed this archaic gear under her breath.

Archie focused on the sensor beam. The readings weren't quite right. The humanoid lifeform was definite, but it appeared encased in a botanical substance, almost as if it were an animate plant. Sensors indicated a thickness of about a centimeter for this covering. No clothing he knew about could account for the readings, and he'd recalibrated them a hundred times in the last three seconds.

And then there was the ferrous metallic reading to confuse him. After accounting for the monitoring equipment, none of which was made with such antique alloys, he was left with an enormous mass of metal which seemed to move along with the lifeform. As it moved, it was setting up a micromagnetic field, which was hampering his efforts to stabilize the coordinates. He could chance a wide beam—probably the worst that would happen is he'd flood the cabin with several cubic meters of seawater along with his target. But his memory circuits were full of horror stories about transporter accidents, and this unaccountable magnetic field was just the kind of anomaly that causes transporter accidents. Well, if it was Gillian, he'd have a lot more time to write a program to deal with the magnetism, since even a pro would take a while to repair the powerpack. He began computing.

Archie was wrong. The powerpack hadn't failed. Something had smashed—or bitten—-a chunk out of the casing, severing most of the circuitry. She looked nervously around, expecting a great white to appear any moment. The foolishness of diving alone nagged her as she examined what was left of the pack. It was hopeless—nothing she could fix without Archie's help, that was for sure.

Gillian pried the bent casing off the powerpack and removed what she could of the electronics, in case there might be something she could use. She'd have to be very careful, though, since it would be very hard to explain Twenty-third Century electronics in this Stone Age society.

Archie had only finished the second-generation simulation on his program when sensor readings indicated the lifeform and the magnetic field were moving vertically away from the monitoring station. They also indicated that portions of the station were surfacing along with them. He made a final calibration, and, fearing he was already too late, he energized the circuits.

Gillian surfaced, swam to shore, and dragged the equipment she'd been able to salvage to the car. Stowing the whole mess in the trunk, she decided she'd actually take the vacation, putting aside all her cares for a few days of R&R. She needed it, and she felt she deserved it.

Archie had to evacuate the cabin to the vacuum of space to boil off the water, and he couldn't do anything about the crust of salt that remained. For the first time in his memory he regretted the programs which gave him emotion. In his grief he left the shuttle without atmosphere, empty as his transporter beam had been.

"Makes you think, doesn't it?" said a deep voice, breaking her out of her thoughts. She had purposely moved away from the fire so she could better see the stars, and to be alone with her sad thoughts. The clambake had been winding down for a while, so she was a bit startled to be addressed. She looked at the shadowy stranger who had sat next to her on the dark beach. "What?" she asked.

"The stars. How many there are, spread way out there. Makes you think about things. Important things. Things a lot more important than people and wars and clambakes and all."

"Yeah, it does," she agreed, casting a quick glance over to the fire, where many of the group from the inn were gathering up their things.

"I don't remember meeting you before we left the inn. I'm Hank Noble, entertainment director."

"Sue. Armstrong."

He turned away from her and looked straight up. "Ever think about 'em? Take Orion there. Maybe there's some six-legged people on a beach up there, having a squozzlebake." He glanced quickly over to check for her smile. "Or maybe over there in—"

"Why are you saying these things to me?" she asked, suddenly not at all comfortable.

He kept looking at the stars. "I dunno. I guess I saw you sitting over here, your head up like I always got mine..." Now he faced her. "I thought maybe you were a kindred soul."

Was this another shove of the continuum? Or a weird coincidence? "Mr. Noble..."

"Hank, please, Sue."

"Hank, you are an uncommon entertainment director."

At that he laughed deeply. "Guess I am!" He gave her another look and said, "Well, the stars often seem to look better when you're alone." He stood up and brushed the sand from his pants.

"Yes," she said softly, "sometimes I think they do."

His broad smile was evident even in the darkness. "Can't blame a guy for trying," he chuckled, then he strode down the beach to the fire.

She didn't look back at the stars. She was thinking how life could prove a lot more complicated than she had ever imagined.

It was a gorgeous day. The absolutely clear sky, clearer than any California sky she could remember, positively shone against the equally brilliant Pacific. The waves marched inexorably against the shore, starting their assault so ominously, then collapsing, all their energy spent on show, and finally being sucked back to their doom as the next tried. But she knew that appearances were very misleading. The real power in the waves was not in the swelling crests and crashing surf, but in the relentless, gentle erosion that over time could turn mountains into sand.

Over time. Given enough time, anything was possible. The Grand Canyon was once a stream. And people once swung from their arms through the trees. And Susan Armstrong, bookkeeper on vacation, was once Gillian Taylor, marine biologist. In two different centuries. It all seemed equally preposterous.

That guy, Hank, had asked her to dinner. He said they could watch the stars afterward. Part of her had wanted to say yes, but she wasn't ready. She threw a handful of pebbles at the incoming wave. They fell short. Who was she kidding. She had never been ready. She'd been an orphan long before her folks had died. She never had anybody, and nobody'd ever had her. She worked her way through school, waited tables while she battled the books and the red tape to land her job...boy, did she miss the whales! She suddenly focused on the water. This is where George and Gracie would be born. Were her parents here now? Were they somewhere out there, raising their gorgeous flukes so majestically to sound to a great depth for some equally profound cetacean reason? The thought brought a sad smile.

There had been Rusty, in college. Her flower child years. The only time she'd found a bit of peace. Not the warm, calm peace that other people had, but more than she was used to. Rusty had been part of it, but he'd been as evanescent as those halcyon days. Rusty wasn't really having someone.

Jim Kirk seemed to want to be part of her life. But she hadn't been able to really open up to him, either. The closest she'd ever come to a family was in Johnny and Nadine. She finally smiled genuinely. She had to travel three hundred years ahead, then three hundred thirty back, to find them, but she now had someone to care about and who cared about her.

The day suddenly seemed as bright as she'd known it must be, and she decided to go make some dinner plans.

The shuttle's engines raised a cloud of dust, which settled again around the vessel in the low-gravity, atmosphereless dark. There were no lights on. Archie didn't need them. When the craft was secure on the lunar surface, he shut down all power, except to his own circuits, the subspace transceiver, and his sensors. A computer, even one with emotion programs, didn't need much. Several days ago he had stopped talking through the cabin's speakers; it only depressed him. He wondered if during the long wait he might not start the habit again.

But for now he had work to do. Safe on the darkside, he set all of his circuits to monitoring. If Gillian showed up in any broadcast anywhere on Earth, he was going to pick it up. He scanned all frequencies for any information about a woman who might be Gillian, whatever name she chose. With a great deal of effort, for Scotty hadn't hardwired it for this use, he got the universal translator on line, enabling him to scan all of Earth's transmissions, many of which were in languages listed in his files as extinct.

"Look, Mom! Look at these neat cowboy boots Susan got me!"

"Really, Susan," said Johnny's mother after oohing and ahing over the boots and sending him in the other room to play, "you spoil the boy."

Gillian nodded and said, "It makes me happy to see his little eyes light up like that."

Nadine turned to face her. "You are happy, now, aren't you?"

Again she nodded.

"I can't begin to tell you what a difference you've made in my life and Johnny's. I don't know what we'd have done if you hadn't dropped into our world."

Gillian startled at her choice of words, but, as usual, Nadine went on as if nothing had occurred. "But I can see that you've changed, too. You've opened up, let some fresh air into your soul." Nadine looked to see that Johnny was out of earshot, then said softly, "Gillian, I don't know where you came from, or why you're here, but I thank God that you are."

Gillian felt a deep warmth, a warmth she never thought she would know. She smiled and said, "So am I, Nadine, so am I." Then she stood up and said, "Now, where are those curtains that need ironing?"

"You're going to iron?" laughed Nadine.

"Sure. Why not?"

"Because you never do. I don't understand it, but you seem to expect clothes to come off the line ready to wear! Sometimes I think..." She paused for a long time, then started again in a very different, quiet tone, "Can you tell me anything of what it's like where you come from?"

"It's wonderful, Nadine, but it's also terrible. There are marvels you wouldn't believe—scientific marvels, medical marvels...but there are things you couldn't conceive of in your worst nightmares. It's a world of extremes, both good and bad. A world where bigger means better, and even small is gigantic. A place of millions and billions, of anonymity and diversity."

"It sounds lonely."

"It is. For some people. But I'm beginning to learn that loneliness is really inside you."

Nadine smiled gently at her. "And so is the cure." Then she laughed and said, "I guess it doesn't really matter where we live, but how. Only your world sounds a lot more exciting than mine."

"Sometimes what we all need is less excitement."

"Speaking of which, tell me all about your vacation!"

"Oh, it was boring. Delightfully boring. I'm afraid it will be hard to get back to work in the morning."

"It usually is on the Monday after vacation. Just make sure you get home on time."

Gillian shot her a pointed glance, but she smiled coyly and said, "He'll be here at six-thirty. You'll want time to get all gussied up."

"Nadine! I don't 'gussy up' for men I know!"

Nadine shrugged. "Wasn't it you who told me that there's a first time for everything?"

"Nadine, you're—"

"Oh, no need to thank me." She stood up. "And don't bother about the curtains. I'll get them. You just enjoy the last few hours of your holiday. I'll call you and Johnny when supper is ready."

"So how do you like it, Miss Armstrong?" Her boss was beaming like a new papa as he demonstrated the spanking new adding machine. It looked like it weighed about fifty pounds, had keys a linebacker would have trouble pushing, and made a clanging racket as it laboriously chugged through the simplest computations. It printed its figures with a wet, messy ribbon, and she could just see how filthy she'd get changing it.

"Uh...it's quite impressive."

"You bet it is! The finest made. The cutting edge of technology."

She couldn't help it. This was so ludicrous that she actually laughed.

"What's so funny?" he demanded.

Her humor quickly failed her, and she stood there, embarrassed, searching for something to say. "Um...it's just so overwhelming! To be able to add sums so easily, why I was just laughing out loud at how wonderful it will be to have this little beauty to do my work for me."

He eyed her strangely, but accepted the explanation. "Of course it's too valuable to let you take it home," he cautioned.

"Oh, of course! I wouldn't think of it! But the time it will save here in the office will certainly lighten my load of homework." She was still fighting off giggles.

"Well, I'll leave it in your capable hands. Remember to read the instruction booklet thoroughly before you try it on your own."

"Don't worry, Mr. Patterson. I'm sure I'll have no problems with it." As he left she remarked to herself that the only problem she was going to have was in making sure she used the stupid thing once in a while so he wouldn't get upset. Once again thoughts of a financial empire threatened her integrity as she considered what she could do if she opened a computing service using her tricorder to process people's books. But then again, with her luck, the tricorder would probably break down and she'd be stuck doing a million calculations on this monstrosity.

Nadine called her at noon to remind her to be home early, and she was making such a big deal out of this whole thing that Gillian decided not to harass her anymore and just told her not to worry, she'd be on time. Up until three o'clock she was certain she'd have no trouble keeping her word. That's when she heard about Archie.

Or at least she believed it was Archie. Her boss had the radio on in his office, and she was in there picking up some ledgers when the news came on with the story that some astronomers had observed a UFO on an earth-moon trajectory. Whether it crashed or landed they couldn't be certain, since they lost sight of it as it rounded the moon's far side. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was like hearing from a long-lost friend.

But what could she do with the knowledge? She grabbed the ledgers and dropped them on her desk, then flew out of the office for some fresh air. Just when she was accepting her loss, Archie came back into her life. But no, he hadn't. Maybe it wasn't even him. How many UFO sightings were there over the years? A sudden thought struck her—maybe they were all Archie! What if he stayed around looking for her instead of heading back to his own time? That could account for the rash of sightings in the fifties and sixties...But then, so could a million other things. And what if it was Archie? What good did it do knowing he was on the moon? Why the hell would he even go to the moon? She decided to take a walk.

By the time she was over her emotional crisis she was late getting back to the office and had to rush to finish up her work. She hurried home to discover Nadine fretting over her absence, and at a time when all she wanted was a little peace and quiet, she found herself having to calm down Nadine and then hustle to get ready for this dumb dinner. She was definitely not in the mood for small talk with a cop, even one of Nadine's selection.

Gillian stared into her mirror, pouting. She was almost angry at Nadine. On top of everything, she only got back yesterday. Her vacation had been good, but she still needed time. Time to assimilate everything. Time. She used to think it was so simple. No. She never used to think about it at all. And now she was stranded in it. She shook her head, chastising herself. She'd promised herself she wouldn't get all down like this. And she was finally really beginning to feel at home here. That's why she couldn't face any additional problems, like trouble with the police. On the other hand, maybe she needed some diversion. Nadine said he was quite intelligent, and "full of crazy ideas." Almost sounded interesting. And Nadine had promised her, assured her, this guy did not mean trouble. With a defeatist shrug she stood up and left her room.

His voice met her as she descended the stairs with a reluctant step. But her ears perked up when she heard what he was enthusiastically explaining to Nadine in the living room. "...but you don't understand! If there are intelligent beings on other planets, there's no reason to assume they'd be like us..."

He stopped when Gillian walked in and jumped to his feet. At that very moment there was a crash of broken glass and a loud "Uh oh!" from the kitchen. Nadine rushed out, with Gillian and the policeman in close pursuit.

Johnny was standing on a stool, leaning over the sink, and he was bleeding badly from a gash on his hand. There was a shattered tumbler in the sink. The cop grabbed a dishtowel and wrapped the hand while he instructed, "Call for an ambulance, Nadine," but Gillian had beaten him to it.

While she was giving the address to the operator, she heard him reassure Nadine, "Now don't worry. He's going to need some stitches, but he'll be fine."

By the time the ambulance arrived, most of the bleeding had stopped and Johnny's mother was visibly calmer. She insisted on riding in the ambulance, and she also insisted that Gillian stay and serve the dinner. "No use letting good food go to waste because of Johnny's mishap," she declared, leaving Gillian twice as uncomfortable as she'd been.

"Well," she said, closing the door behind Nadine. "I'll bring in dinner. Why don't you sit down?"

"I'll help. Here..." He handed her a platter, then skillfully lifted the roast from the oven and onto it. Within a few minutes they were seated at the loaded table, an awkward silence shrouding them.

He finally broke it with, "Nadine let me think I was having dinner with a man friend of hers."

"Nadine is full of surprises," she replied, but then the silence fell again. "I heard you mention alien intelligences?" she tried.

He stared at her. "Such things interest you?"

"More than you can imagine. What did you have in mind, hominoids or real monster aliens?"

"Both!" he almost shouted.

She stared at this ununiformed policeman who got so excited about extraterrestrials. "You go for little green Martians, or belligerent things like H.G. Wells' invaders?" she asked, trying to keep her comments nonanachronistic.

"Martians are too dull," he replied thoughtfully. "There probably aren't even any. It's the people outside our solar system that intrigue me."

"You talk like they really exist." She forced herself to laugh.

"They do!" he answered, dead serious. Then he broke a small grin and said, "They have to!"

Their food was practically cold before they remembered to eat it, and by dessert, they had switched to the topic of narcotics. He was explaining some of the horrors he had witnessed as a policeman, and he was perplexed and intrigued by her apparent grasp of the situation. Then she shocked him with the comment, "There probably isn't a bigger problem facing this society than the danger of illegal drugs. Thousands of lives will be wasted because of them, and it's a problem that will touch every sector of society; rich, poor, urban, rural, young, and old."

"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "You're one of the few people I have ever talked with who realized the enormity of the problem. Would you like to get involved?"

"Involved?" she asked, her defenses suddenly activating as automatically as a starship's shields.

"We're trying to organize a citizens' group, mainly to promote awareness, provide education."

"Sort of a consciousness raising project," she stated.

"Conscious...hey! I like the term! Yes, that's exactly what it's to be. Interested?"

"I might be," she replied, carefully noncommittal. "How about some of Nadine's famous coffee?"

"After I help with the dishes."

She started to protest, then thought better of it. Before they could get started, Nadine called to say that all was well with Johnny. She needed several reassurances that the accident had not interfered with dinner, and yes, he was a nice man, as she had promised. Gillian would give her nothing more, however, feeling that her unsatisfied curiosity would serve as punishment for the practical ambush, and Nadine promised to be home soon.

As they washed the dishes, they came to the conclusion that they needed to talk some more about science fiction. She led him into the living room with their coffee, and as they sat down on the couch, she laughed and set down her cup. Extending her hand, she said, "We never did get properly introduced. I'm Susan Armstrong. Nadine said your name was Gene?"

"Yes," he replied, returning her smile. "Gene Roddenberry."

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