"Dehni... wait!"

Burke swallowed a curse and stopped. He'd thought that the healer would be in better shape, but apparently she had spent most of her days behind the counter of her apothecary instead of wandering from village to village. He grabbed a low-hanging branch and drew a deep breath. No point cursing her - it wouldn't make her any faster.

And to be fair, he was out of breath, too, and dizzy, probably from the beating. His back was a mess - he hadn't been able to put on his shirt, and though these parts had shifted to a semblance of North African temperatures all summer, the air was chilly now. He didn't know if it had cooled down with the brewing storm overhead, or if he was shivering in reaction to the pain and the blood loss, and what the hell, it didn't matter. The apes wouldn't give him any slack one way or the other. And they wouldn't give them that promised atseht, either.

Laisa was struggling towards him, holding something in her apron. Since Sultok lay in the valley, all paths surrounding it led up some mountain slope or other, but if that was to their advantage or not, Burke hadn't yet decided. It was slowing them down, but it also made it easier to fight an enemy who was struggling upslope behind them.

In close combat, yes - but the damn monkeys had guns. And there wasn't enough foliage to provide cover. Oh, there were spots of evergreen vegetation - not the pines that Burke knew from his own time, but trees with thick, rubber-like leaves - but they were scattered across the landscape in patches, and the apes would enter those patches prepared for an ambush, and would probably shoot him and the healer before they'd ever reach them.

"Dehni, you can't go on like this." Laisa had finally reached him, not as out of breath as he'd expected. She hadn't fallen back because she couldn't keep up with him, Burke realized when she opened her apron. She had been picking flowers!

Well... not flowers. "What the hell are you doing? This isn't an afternoon stroll through the meadows!"

"You're losing too much blood!" Laisa held up a clump of wooly stuff. Moss, Burke saw now. "This will stop the flow, and it'll take just a moment, I just need to press it on the wounds."

And probably press a shitload of germs into them, too, but Burke had stopped caring about that a while ago. They wouldn't survive this hunt; it was just a question of how many monkeys he could take down before they got him. Not that he'd tell Laisa - he needed her to stay motivated. She could play bait again - he flinched involuntarily as the first clump of moss bit into his raw flesh - she could play bait, lead the monkeys where he could get close to them...

"It's working," he heard Laisa's relieved sigh, and watched idly as the first blood-soaked lump of moss dropped to the ground beside him. He could probably use it to lay a trail, too...

... while Laisa was working on his bloodied back, a plan began to form in Burke's mind.

"The storm is getting stronger," Laisa said quietly, and pressed another lump of moss into his lower back. "Sometimes, the storms get so strong that they uproot trees... sometimes people get killed by falling trees... actually, you shouldn't go into the woods in a weather like this..."

"'m all for trees falling on the damn monkeys," Burke muttered. "Gotta appreciate the irony."

"I was more worried a tree could fall on us," Laisa said. "There, all done. It'll break up and bleed again if you move too much, but I guess we won't have much of a choice there..."

"Nope." Burke turned around and gestured at the bloodied moss to their feet. "Put them back into your apron, I'll need them later."

Laisa made a face, but obeyed without asking for a reason. Burke was glad that she trusted him enough not to start a discussion about his every move. "Besides, the storm is helping us," he added, and bent down to help her gather up the moss. "It's shaking every branch, masking our movements, and it's also muffling the sounds we're making."

"But it's doing the same for the apes," Laisa objected.

"Yeah, but they're on horseback. They're way easier to spot for us than we're for them, and they're making more noise, too. And besides," he reached into her apron and held up a piece of bloodied moss to her with a smirk, "I'll know exactly where they'll be."

Laisa eyed it skeptically. "Yes, they'll be right behind us."

"Better than right before us, or jumping us from above." Burke threw the lump of moss back to the others. "You know, you could collect more of this stuff." He unsheathed his knife and began to scan the vegetation around them.

"You can't be thinking you'll stand a chance with your knife," Laisa commented, and gestured at his ANSA knife. "That trick you used earlier on them won't work a second time."

Burke smiled at her. "Ah, baby, I can do so much more with a knife than just stick it into an ape. Do you really think I only know one trick?"

"Sometimes I worry about you, Dehni," Laisa murmured, and he laughed.

They continued to crawl up the mountain, Laisa collecting fresh moss and dropping the blood-soaked pieces where he told her, Burke hacking a branch into pieces as long as his hand and sharpening the ends to a point.

The trickiest part of his plan was to find a suitable sapling. Although his knife had a serrated side, it wasn't suited for felling trees or sawing wood. He'd have to uproot a small tree, which meant he had to find one whose roots didn't dig deeply into the ground, and although Burke knew how the trap he had in mind was constructed, he had never needed to actually make one - and as he had told Virdon time and again, he had grown up in the urban jungle, not the natural one.

It was Laisa who found the right sapling for him, and it was also Laisa who found a kind of vine choking some tree that he used to tie the parts together, and finally, it was Laisa who sacrificed her underskirt so that he could cut it up and fashion the tripwire from it.

"We make a good team, you an' I," Burke remarked while he carefully set up the trigger.

Laisa followed the thread with her eyes. "So when the horse's hoof snatches at the cord..."

"... it'll spring the trap, and that bent sapling will swing around and skewer the motherfucker of a rider," Burke gleefully completed the sentence. Laisa shuddered.

"I know they're out to kill us," she murmured, "but this is... nasty."

"Yeah, damn right it is," Burke agreed happily. "C'mon, we need to dig a few holes before they catch up with us."

Laisa followed him deeper into the thicket. The thorny shrubs would force the riders to follow the path, without any opportunity to evade Burke's little gifts along the way. "You can't dig a hole big enough to catch a horse," she muttered. "Not in the little time we have."

"Don't have to catch a whole horse," Burke said over his shoulder. "Jus' break its leg."

He half expected her to plead for the horse, but she kept silent, and even helped him to dig a hole in the path and cover it up with twigs and leaves.

"How many do you think are after us?" she asked while she sprinkled leaves over the twigs. She studiously kept her gaze on her work, refusing to meet his eyes.

Burke shrugged. "'Bout half a dozen? Doesn't really matter, I jus' need to get my hand on one of them, take his gun. Then our odds will be a lot better." He waved his arm, indicating the hidden booby traps on the path behind them. "All this stuff is jus' for making them nervous, slowing them down, taking out one or two... give me a chance to get close enough to cut a throat." He drew his lip through his teeth, wondering if he should tell her the truth...

Laisa suddenly looked up. "I know we're going to die, Dehni. So why are we going to all this trouble?"

Burke sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "Why should we make it easy for them? Gonna take as much of them with us as we can."

Laisa shook her head. "What would that prove?"

He rose and dragged her to her feet. "That we're not fucking sheep, maybe. C'mon, I need a better vantage point-"

A yell erupted farther down the path, followed by another, and another, sounds of pain mixed with pleas for help. "Seems they found my welcoming message," Burke muttered. "But damn, they're moving fast." He hadn't heard them breaking through the underbrush - the damn storm had masked their approach a lot better than he had expected. He didn't have much time.

He grabbed Laisa's hand and dragged her deeper into the thicket. The shrubs had shed their leaves, and didn't really provide good cover, but that wouldn't matter if his plan worked. Burke had her crawl under a fallen log and circled back to where they had dug the hole in the path.

He didn't dare to climb up a tree and try to jump a rider from above. Their pursuers were apes - much more prone to taking the third dimension into account than humans. Chances were slim that he'd stay unnoticed up in that crown; he'd just make a better target.

So he just waited until he could hear the heavy breathing of the first horse beyond the thicket, waited until it seemed to be almost above him; then he broke from the underbrush and raced down the path through the thickets.

Burke could hear the horse taking up speed, its breathing becoming more rapid, the hooves pounding the ground behind him. He didn't dare to look behind him; his hunter sounded much too close. Burke's back started to burn as all the welts broke open again, and he could feel fresh blood running down and into the hem of his pants.

A shot cracked just as he rounded the bend in the path; his sudden change of direction saved his life, but Burke still imagined he'd felt the heat of the barely-missing bullet racing past his neck. The hole in the path had to be right ahead of him... but he couldn't see it. Laisa had heaped a generous amount of leaves on the twigs covering it, and now it was perfectly concealed, even for him.

Where was it? If he stepped into it himself, it'd be game over, and wouldn't that be the most embarrassing way to die? Caught in his own trap? Burke strained his eyes to catch any disruption of the patterns of leaves on the ground, a discoloration, a faint outline...

He almost saw it too late; had to make an awkward long stride that broke his rhythm and made him stumble. Behind him, the ape was reloading - maybe he thought his prey was breaking down from exhaustion.

Burke did feel light-headed, whether from hypothermia, or blood loss, or simply from exertion, he couldn't say. But he forced his legs to run faster, to find the rhythm again, because the damn horse had to step into the hole any moment now, please, please don't miss the damn hole by some fucking streak of dumb luck...

A crash behind him, and then the ear-piercing scream of the horse. Burke skidded to a stop and whirled around.

The horse lay thrashing on the ground, its rider half-buried under it, silent and unmoving. Maybe the beast had crashed its chest, or the monkey had broken his neck. Didn't matter. The important thing was that he wouldn't need his gun anymore.

Burke had made one step towards the screaming horse when another rider turned the bend. The ape didn't hesitate for a second, yanked the gun up to his shoulder and fired. Burke dove head-first into the brambles; the bullet grazed his neck and ripped out a chunk of skin, and maybe a bit of muscle, but he was still conscious, he could feel the thorns of the thicket slicing through his skin as he hastily dug deeper into the underbrush, trying to get as much distance and cover between himself and the hunter before the ape could reload. Already he could hear the ratcheting sound as the Kobavasa worked the lever of his gun.

Shit, shit, shit...

That had been his only chance to get his hands on a gun.

They were done for. Game over.

Amazingly, the ape didn't shoot. He also didn't follow Burke through the thicket - maybe he was wary of being caught in another booby trap. Too bad that there hadn't been enough time to make more of them. Burke knew that the Kobavasa's caution wouldn't buy him more than a few moments. Maybe he could use them to lure the monkeys away from where Laisa was hiding-

He almost yelled when she suddenly stumbled into him; he caught himself in time to swallow his outburst, and hoped that the stifled grunt wouldn't give away their position to the apes. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed, and grabbed her arms. "That was a good hiding spot!"

"You didn't get the gun, did you?" Laisa whispered.

Burke exhaled. "No," he admitted. "His buddy was right behind him, almost blew my head off."

"Then it doesn't matter if I stayed under that log." Laisa sneaked her hand into his and squeezed it. "And I didn't want us to die alone..."

Burke closed his eyes for a moment. "'m sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be. You fought well... we won't die as sheep." She huddled down at the foot of a tree - one of those strange ones with big rubbery leaves - and drew him down to her side.

For a moment, neither of them said a word. Above them, the storm was howling in the crowns of the trees.

Laisa laid her head against his shoulder. "I hope they'll shoot us," she murmured, "and don't torture us to death..."

"I still have my knife," Burke reminded her. "If they don't shoot, I'll... it'll be quick."

"Thank you," Laisa whispered.

Some of the creaking and rustling around them had to be Kobavasa, Burke suspected, not the storm.

"How did that story end, by the way? - About those wizards in the mountain," he added, when Laisa raised her head to frown at him.

"Like I told you - they live there to this day, doing their magic," Laisa murmured, and rested her head on his shoulder again. "The legend says that sometimes they come into the valleys to help the people there - when there's a drought, or a fever. But they always demand a child in return, and those children are never seen again."

"Huh," Burke muttered. "Maybe they'll turn them into wizards."

"It's just a story, Dehni," Laisa said softly. "It's not true."

"Yeah, I know, but... it's nice that people can still dream about humans defying apes an' getting away with it."

Laisa said nothing, but he felt her tense beside him; she had noticed the Kobavasa now, too, spread out evenly, surrounding them from all sides. They still didn't shoot; nobody was in a hurry anymore.

One of them finally spurred on his horse to make a few steps through the brambles, so that they could see him in all his freakish glory. Burke stared into the muzzle of his gun as he slowly took aim, then raised his eyes to stare into the empty sockets of the human skull the Kobavasa was wearing.

I'm not afraid of you, monkey. I'm not afraid of dying, either. I jus' regret that I didn't get you first.

Laisa was squeezing his hand so strongly that Burke thought he could feel the bones in it scraping against each other. She had turned her head to bury her face in his neck.

That was the other thing he regretted. If only his death had bought her escape...

He heard a sharp crack, and wondered about it. At this short distance, he should've been dead before he'd hear-

The Kobavasa dropped his gun as he was yanked sideways. Burke stared as he fell to the ground like a wet sack.

Another shot ripped through the rubbery leaves and took out a Kobavasa Burke hadn't even noticed before.

Another shot. And another.

Burke finally unfroze and rolled on top of Laisa to shield her from stray bullets. All around him, the Kobavasa stirred from their stunned immobility; he heard wood splinter as they tried to escape... or dive for cover, he couldn't really see what was going on. Somewhere in the thickets, the mystery shooter was still pelting the greenery with lead, and Burke thought it best to keep his head down.

"Pete! Are you alright? Have you been hit?"

The shots had died down, and so had all sounds of escape, but Burke didn't move. Pete?

Then someone grabbed his arm and hauled him up and around, and he stared into Virdon's pale face, drawn from worry and-

Burke made a fist and struck out.

Virdon hit the ground and lay there for a moment before he rolled around and came up on all fours. Behind him, Galen broke through the underbrush gripping his gun, brows raised and mouth slightly agape at the sight before him.

Virdon dazedly shook his head, then flinched with a moan and clutched his face. "I guess I deserved that." His voice sounded muffled. When he staggered to his feet, Burke could see blood oozing through his fingers.

"Damn right," he growled, "you do."

Virdon let his hand drop. "Wanna take another swing? You've every right to be mad at me."

Burke clenched his fists. "Maybe later."

He bent down to offer Laisa his hand. She looked up at him with a worried expression, but took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Burke gently pushed her towards Virdon. "There's your reason for coming here." He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Virdon tried to wipe off the blood that was running from his nose, without success. "Both of you were the reason I came. Both of you."

"I thought we agreed that you coming out here would be a bad idea," Burke muttered. "Was the reason you sent me after her in the first place, remember? What made you change your mind?"

"Voltis decided to crack down on the Kobavasa and get his son back," Virdon mumbled, still wiping at his face. "He took his entire town guard with him. Gal... we were worried that you'd get caught in the middle of that conflict."

"That's why there were so few of them after us," Laisa realized. "The rest were fighting against the chief!"

"Yeah, but that puny rest would've killed us all the same," Burke muttered. If Galen and Virdon hadn't turned up with their guns...

He was getting tired of getting his ass saved by the colonel again and again. Yeah, it was nice to have survived - again - but damn, if his trap had worked... but it had worked, that hadn't been the problem...

"Not on my watch," Virdon said firmly. "I don't allow anyone to harm my friends..." He wiped his chin again, looking insecure all of a sudden. "If... I'm still allowed to call you that."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Why're you here, too?" Burke finally asked Galen, then waved the ape off when he opened his mouth. "Doesn't matter. Maybe you can patch me up before we ride back, so I can put on a shirt. It's chilly today."

He turned away without waiting for an answer, stumbling downslope, and after a moment, heard the others following him.

The walk back to Sultok was tense and silent; Burke wavered between relief and rage, and found it best not to say anything until he had decided which one it should be, and the others had probably picked up on his dangerous mood. Laisa had sneaked her arm around Virdon's waist, and Virdon's arm was around her shoulders, pulling her closer against him with every step.

"I should've hit you harder," Burke muttered when they reached the edge of the forest.

"Your voucher for that second strike is still valid." Virdon didn't look at him.

Don't tempt me. "What's the expiration date?"

"Don't push it," Virdon tried to joke.

"I got every right to push it, an' then some," Burke snapped, and Virdon closed his mouth and looked away.

"I'm afraid I don't have my doctor's bag with me," Galen finally spoke up, "but we'll let the horses go at a walk, and give you a blanket... Who beat you up so thoroughly?"

"One of Aelia's Kobavasa friends," Burke muttered, not in the mood to discuss the events of this day yet, or to be distracted from his rage at Virdon. So now he admitted that he remembered them all! Why now, all of a sudden? But he was still too enraged to ask.

He'd have to wait a little longer, until his back was healed up enough that he could wear a shirt again.

And then he'd go find Katlin.


The tea was cooling forgotten in its mug as Virdon held up another faded map and squinted at it. Ape script was all whirls and dots - what Burke still derisively called 'paw prints' - and if an ape was sloppy, or in a great hurry, it tended to dissolve into something that looked as if he had dropped the quill and scattered ink all over his scroll. The ancient map, its ink faded with age, was almost indecipherable. But the younger the maps, the bigger the blank spaces got - territory that no ape had mapped anymore. Going by the most recent maps, all inland territory was one huge Forbidden Zone.

Trying to cobble together a viable map from the scraps of lore the apes had preserved, as well as his own memory of the geographic features of the former United States, had filled Virdon's days ever since he had returned with Galen and Burke from Sultok. Burke had taken up residence with Laisa as inhouse patient, which was justified by the sorry state of his back, but had refused to let him visit; and after his return to the townhouse that Galen had inherited from his predecessor, he had found ways to avoid Virdon whenever possible.

Virdon dropped the map on the table, and rubbed his tired eyes. The sun was still setting too early for his taste; they were nearing midwinter - Christmas, but he wrenched his awareness away from that fact whenever it surfaced in his mind. He would honor the day when it came, but he would be glad when it was over, and all the memories of family celebrations had passed with it. Maybe Burke would've celebrated it with him, even if he didn't acknowledge its spiritual significance, but they way things were looking right now, that was probably not going to happen anymore.

With a sigh, Virdon reached for the map again. Better to focus on the things he could do, instead of moping over chances he had already wasted...

"Still chasing that pipe dream?"

Surprised, Virdon turned around to see Burke standing in the door as if summoned by his brooding. "I'm trying to come up with a usable map from all these old scrolls, yes." He gestured at the overflowing desk.

Burke slowly came over to his window, and stared at the stacks of scrolls with a slight shake of his head. "You know as well as I that it's just a story people tell their children, Al. Why are you wasting your time with this stuff?"

Virdon carefully rolled up the brittle scroll and eased it back into its sheath. "Let's agree to disagree about that," he just said. For a moment, he had hoped... but it seemed that Burke was simply looking for a fight, and he wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

But Burke wasn't finished yet. "Even if you can draw up a map that won't lead you to Canada, doesn't mean you can actually cross the continent. Didn't you listen to Galen? Everything west of here is a desert. It's a death-trap!"

"I grew up in a desert climate," Virdon murmured, and reached for another scroll.

"Yeah, I'm not talking about Texan-desert kind of death-trap," Burke growled. "More like Atacama-desert kind of trap. Or Mercury on a nice, sunny day."

Virdon looked up with a sigh. "Gee, one could almost think you're worried for my health, Pete."

Burke huffed at that, and turned away. He was still moving stiffly, the lashes on his back only freshly healed, but Virdon thought that it wasn't pain that was freezing his posture into angry rigidity now.

Or maybe not physical pain.

They hadn't talked about Etissa. Burke hadn't asked, and Virdon was happy to leave that subject well alone. He no longer subscribed to the theory that 'talking things through' was really helpful, and even felt guilty for having tried to bully Burke into talking about his time in Urko's dungeon once. If there was one thing he wanted to bury for all eternity, it was the memory of Ramor and his business. And his own part in that business.

But looking at Burke's retreating figure, Virdon suddenly realized that if he wanted to save this friendship, he needed to give Burke... something. Some way to understand.

He needed to give him the truth, even if he wanted to flee from the room at the mere thought of it.

Virdon carefully put down the scroll he was holding. He wasn't sure he wouldn't tear it apart without noticing otherwise.

"I didn't lie about my memory at first. I really didn't remember a thing."

Burke stopped and turned around halfway. "So when did you remember?"

Virdon drew a deep breath and stared out of the window. The light outside was a deep blue, interspersed with the golden globes of lamps in the windows of the neighbouring houses. "Bits and pieces floated up from time to time, but I... batted them away. I didn't know what they meant then, but they made me feel... on edge."

He stepped closer to the window and leaned his head against the glass. Apes had managed the art of making glass, but their window panes were small and thick, distorting the view. It was like looking through a fishbowl.

"I only remembered... everything... the night I spent with Laisa."

"Yeah, that was like a replay of... well." For a moment, Burke sounded uncomfortable. Then his voice grew hard. "An' then you lied to all of us."

Virdon squeezed his eyes shut. "I heard you talk with Laisa the morning after... after. And I realized that Galen had told you what had happened in Etissa. And I... I... I just couldn't face you, knowing that you knew... of my disgrace."

There was a moment of stunned silence. "Your what?" Burke sounded incredulous. "So what, you know what Urko did to me, I didn't run away, did I?"

"That's... you can't compare that," Virdon murmured, his skin hot against the cool glass. "You were tortured... violated."

"So...?" Burke still sounded confused. "So were you."

"No, I wasn't." Virdon struggled to get the words out. "I... participated."

"Hell, I saw the rope marks on your arms and legs!" Burke's voice was now equal parts angry and incredulous. "They had to tie you up for it, and Galen says you were drugged with Blaze! Doesn't look like consent to me!"

Virdon turned around. This was his confession now, his disgrace, and he wouldn't hide from it - he'd face Burke while he told him. "But I still... did it. Performed..."

He couldn't do it; he turned away again, unable to face his friend any longer. "I hadn't been with a woman since Sally, and I, I just gave in to my base urges..."

"Jesus Christ!" He heard quick, angry footsteps, and then Burke grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around. His face was flushed with anger. "Al, you know as well as I that the damn thing has a mind of its own. Guys come too soon, too late, not at all..." he threw up his hands in exasperation, "... or get a hard-on when it's really, really inconvenient...

"Your dick isn't a divining rod of consent! Stimulus an' response, did you sleep through biology class? An' did you really believe I'd think badly of you because you got fucked over by the damn monkeys? It's what they do!" He took a step back, still staring at Virdon.

And Virdon saw it in his eyes - Burke didn't pity him; and he was pissed at Ramor, or at all apes in general sans Zana, but not at him.

Virdon inhaled slowly, his chest inexplicably light all of a sudden.

"I still can't believe it happened... to me," he said in a low voice. Burke huffed a laugh and raked his hand through his hair.

"Yeah..." he muttered. "Can't see myself telling the story of 'how I got buggered by a gorilla once', either. But you jus' gotta move on."

Virdon tried to smile. "And how is that 'moving on' working out for you?"

Burke's gaze dropped to the scrolls on the desk. "Still on it."

"I'm sorry I made you mad, Pete." He tried to put all his sincerity, all his regret into his voice. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted to... I wanted to erase what happened. I thought I couldn't face anyone who knew about it."

Burke shrugged. "You could've tried to half-drown me in the damn river. Heard that works wonders for the brain."

Virdon dared to smile at that. "Are we good?"

Burke said nothing for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Is that voucher still valid?"

"Yes," Virdon said, bracing himself for another of Burke's mean hooks.

Burke nodded. "Good." Then he grinned, noticing Virdon's stance. "I'll redeem it when you need your stupid head set straight again. Somehow, I jus' know it'll happen."

Virdon released his breath with a laugh. "So you'll come with me?" He gestured at the heap of scrolls.

Burke blew his breath out in what was not quite a sigh. "Al, it's just a damn story. Get your head around it, will ya - there is no White City On The Mountain."

"These people lost their script, Pete," Virdon insisted. "Stories are their only way to preserve their knowledge now. This so-called magic sounds a lot like memories of our technology - wireless communication, electricity... Maybe a pocket of our civilization still exists, hidden away somewhere in the Rockies."

Burke laughed. "Yeah, somewhere in the Rockies. Do you remember how big the Rockies are? They go all the way from New Mexico to Canada! We'll be searching for that damn fantasy city of yours for all eternity!"

"No we won't!" Virdon held up the data disc that Galen had brought back from his meeting with Voltis - who had told him that Laisa had cut it off while Virdon had still been unconscious, and given it to Doctor Ropal - together with new ownership papers for him and Burke, this time with Voltis' seal on them.

Burke had made a face at these 'gifts', and truth be told, Virdon still didn't know how to feel about getting the disc back - losing it had be hard, but had also brought a sense of completion, of unambiguity. Now, everything was possible again. And the responsibility to find a way to fulfil his promise was back, too - but somehow, it weighed heavier on his soul than before.

But the duty was not just to his family, and he'd fulfil it, no matter how he felt. "Pete, that second ship is real! You and I saw it with our own eyes - and considering that ANSA had hurled it across a millenium, ten years is a really narrow miss. They had data to guide them, and this is the only way they could've gotten it. We will find that city, trust me."

Burke eyed the disc with disdain. "So we'll find your mythic city, an' you'll send them the data, knowing full well that it'll crash their ship ten years before ours in the jungle, only to be found by Urko, who'll bash the crew's heads in? That your idea of getting home?"

"I don't presume to know more about temporal mechanics than you, Pete, but by the looks of it, I already did it, or we wouldn't have found the wreckage. I have no idea what I'd upset if I suddenly veered off course and didn't send the data, but I don't want to find out." Virdon stared at the disc in his hand. "Maybe there's a way to add a warning..." he murmured. "In any case, ANSA needs to know what happened... and what will happen to Earth." He looked up to meet Burke's gaze in the darkening room. "Maybe we can prevent it from happening at all."

Burke said nothing for a moment; he reached up to light the lamp hanging over the table. "Stop the monkeys from taking over?" he muttered as golden light bloomed up in the glass. "I'm all for it..." He flicked Virdon a sideways glance as he closed the glass and pulled the lamp back up towards the ceiling. "But we'd kill Zana, too... and what about your girl? Laisa?"

Virdon rubbed his neck, feeling profoundly uncomfortable. "You can't kill what's never been born. And I'm sure Laisa's soul will still be born, just into a different life. A better life than this."

"What about Zana?"

"I'm sure her soul will be born, too, and Galen's... just not in the body of an ape..." Virdon shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, Pete, I'm not a pastor. But I know I can't just ignore this story. It's the first real lead we've got since we crashed here."

Burke heaved a deep sigh. "Okay. I'll come with you. Under one condition."

Virdon narrowed his eyes, instantly wary. "What condition?"

Burke placed his hands flat on the table and leaned forward. "Once we reach the Rockies, you have one year to find that damn city. After that year, you'll give me the data disc, an' I'll hurl the damn thing into a fucking canyon, an' we call it a day."

Virdon blinked. "And then?"

Burke lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. "Make a life for ourselves here. You go back to Laisa - she's nice, she'll be good for you, assuming she waits around for your stupid ass - and I'll go find Katlin, kick some monkey butt." He smiled. "Good times."

Virdon thought to himself that Burke had just outlined how he intended to commit suicide, but decided to deal with that problem later; right now, he was simply glad that Burke was willing to go with him. "I'd still prefer going home, but... alright. It's a deal. One year."

His friend raised his brows, apparently surprised at his lack of resistance, then eyed him contemplatively. "You're getting tired of this, too, right, Al?"

Virdon shook his head. "I promised Chris that whatever happens, I'd find a way back home. And I know he took my word for it."

"Al, in our line of work we can't make these promises, and I'm sure Sally has explained that to Chris at some point," Burke said softly. "It's just a fact you have to live with when you grow up in a military family - mom, or dad, or your favorite cousin one day come back in a coffin - or not at all, an' nobody knows what happened to them. It's hard, yeah, but Chris isn't the only one to have to deal with that kind of situation. I'm sure he got... well, not over it, but got on with his life. He still had his mom, after all, an' his baby sister."

Virdon nodded, suddenly too choked up for words. When he was reasonably sure that he wouldn't embarrass himself, he admitted, "I'm not getting tired of it, but... I'm not sure I can keep up the search for the rest of my life. The longer I'm here, the more... unreal my old life becomes."

Burke nodded. "As if it happened to another man. Yeah, I know what you mean."

Silence descended between them, but it was no longer fraught with tension. Burke was studying his face, looking thoughtful. "Do you think we'd ever fit in again?" he asked after a moment. "If we did get home somehow?"

"I don't kn... not at first, no," Virdon admitted. Maybe never. But I'll take that risk, if only I get to see Sally again. And Chris. He forced a smile on his face. "But we'd have coffee. Think about that."

Burke grinned, a lopsided smile that said that he perfectly understood what Virdon wasn't saying. "Can you imagine the debriefing? The conversations with the counselors? God!" He picked up a scroll, held it awkwardly for a moment as if unsure what to do with it, then threw it back onto the pile on the table. Several scrolls slid to the floor, but he ignored them. "I dunno if coffee'd be worth having to recount... all that shit."

"I won't tell if you don't," Virdon murmured.

"They're trained for this stuff, Al," Burke muttered. "I don't think we could hide it from them."

"It wouldn't matter anyway." Virdon bent down to scoop up the dropped scrolls. He'd still need them later, and Zatis wouldn't be too pleased if he returned them crumpled or torn. "Since this timeline wouldn't come into existence."

"Yeah, but wouldn't that be a paradox?" he heard Burke's voice beyond the tabletop. "If we hadn't been here, we couldn't warn them, but since we warn them, this timeline won't exist, so we won't have experienced the stuff we warned them of, so we'd have nothing to warn them of, an' then they wouldn't have a reason to do anything to prevent it, which means it would happen, an'... damn, I can't wrap my head around it!"

Virdon resurfaced and dropped the scrolls back on the table. "Neither can I," he said. "It's beyond human understanding."

"So how are you gonna avoid creating a paradox?" Burke sounded genuinely curious.

"I... don't know yet," Virdon admitted. "I'm praying for guidance, and... try not to take the second step before the first. We have to find that city before we need to worry about temporal mechanics."

"So you an' the Big Guy are on speaking terms again?"

Virdon smiled sheepishly. "He was the whole time. It was me who thought I couldn't face Him, after..."

Burke was still grinning. "Heh, good thing he didn't clock you one, too."

The memory of his many bruises from his fall into the river flashed up in Virdon's mind. "Yes, I'm lucky He's quicker to forgive than... uh..."

"Careful, Al," Burke muttered. He grabbed Virdon's sketchy map and peered down at it. Then he snatched up a quill and started scribbling.

"Okay... there's gotta be a place called 'here there be dragons'..."