Stars Across Time (31 page)

“Some is from the New Indies—we do still have global trade; it’s just slower than it was in your time—and some is from greenhouses here on the peninsula. The seas are dangerous with lots of piracy, so we try to be self-sufficient whenever possible. Coffee wasn’t something people were willing to give up. Chocolate, either. Oh, and marijuana. I understand that’s the least finicky crop to grow up here.”

“Well, as long as you have the important things, it wouldn’t be so bad to live here.”

She smiled at him.

“Oh?” He scrubbed at a skillet thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “Maybe I shouldn’t speak prematurely, but I left a note for General Morimoto last night. After the debriefing. He’d already left the office, so... Oh, let me admit it. I was too cowardly to ask in person, so the note seemed easier.”

“About me?” Andie guessed.

“Yes. I asked if you could stay a few months, if you want to. So we could spend more time together.” He met her eyes, his expression solemn. “I don’t want you to go back, Andie. I know you have to, but for you to come into my life and then leave after only a few days. It just seems like we should get more time together.”

Andie didn’t know what to say. If she could always return to the same time as she had left, no matter how long she remained here, then what would staying a few more months hurt? What did she have to get home to, anyway? An empty apartment? Homework? Tests? Here... She remembered Theron’s promise that she could be in the space program if she remained here. And then there was the fact that she could have
him
. That was better than some relationship she was apparently going to have back home eventually, one that would give her a son. That future was so hard to grasp now.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Andie said. “Especially if you spoil me by doing the dishes every morning and making me coffee.”

“That could happen.” Theron leaned over and kissed her, not putting his soapy hands on her, though she wouldn’t have minded. He placed the skillet in the rack beside the sink and wiped his hands on a dishrag. “Are you ready to check on the others?”

Andie licked her lips. He had his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the ropy muscles of his forearms spattered with droplets of water, and she thought about tackling him for another round of lovemaking before they left the house. But they had already slept in—or rather, they had woken early but not left bed until much later—and Andie worried Min-ji would feel abandoned.

The rescued women had been set up in an empty section of a barracks, where they were surely more comfortable than they had been in that cramped cage in the ship, but Andie did feel guilty about staying in Theron’s house. Theron had offered to have Min-ji stay with them, but she had become some kind of leader among the women in those few days of captivity, and she hadn’t wanted to leave her team behind. Andie never would have picked her young friend as a born leader, so it was interesting to speculate on what had happened and how that had come about. Min-ji hadn’t spoken much about the days they had been apart, a haunted expression entering her eyes when Andie had asked about them. Maybe she would talk about it later, once they were home. Andie would hate for Min-ji to have permanent emotional scars over these events and hoped she would recover.

“I’m ready.” She offered him her hand.

Theron took it and led the way out of the kitchen.

They walked through the fort, soldiers in uniform busily jogging here and there, with many of them pausing to glance—or gawk—at Theron. He wasn’t in uniform, but everyone clearly knew him. The gawks, she assumed, were because of her. He didn’t seem to mind, because he didn’t release her hand, not until they reached the barracks where the women were staying.

He paused at the door. “Do you want me to wait outside? I know the doctor is coming back to check on them this morning, but I’m not sure if he’s been here already or not.”

“Are you worried you’ll walk in on naked women in the middle of examinations?”

“No,” he blurted. “Not... much, anyway. But when I was in that cell with them, I didn’t get the impression that any of them wanted me there. I was glad Min-ji came up and spoke to me. And got me out of those cuffs.”

“I hear they think more highly of you now. Something about you being paraded across a stage naked and being groped instead of them.” Andie smirked. It had been interesting compiling the details of what had happened the night before. Theron hadn’t been that forthcoming about how he had ended up naked with an iron ball chained to his ankle, but rumors had spread.

“I wasn’t groped. I was tortured.”

“There’s a difference?”

“I thought you liked my groping.”

“I suppose yours is quite nice.” She swatted him, then grabbed his hand. “Come on. I’ll protect you.”

He appeared uncertain, but he allowed her to lead him inside.

When they walked in, Andie found most of the women lying on their bunks, some talking to each other, but others curled up and ignoring the world. She grimaced, once again thinking about what they must have gone through, especially the ones who had been delivered to the ship days or weeks earlier than her group. It was strange to think that by being shot and nearly drowned, she might have had a better ordeal than the others.

Min-ji, fortunately, was not among the listless ones ignoring the world. She did have her arms hugged around her abdomen in a defensive posture, but she was standing at the end of one of the bunk beds, talking to an officer in a crisp, green uniform while a white-haired doctor with a clipboard, glasses, and a bulbous nose walked through the bay, making inquiries.

“General Morimoto wants the time machine destroyed after you’re all sent back,” Lieutenant Davies was saying to Min-ji. “I’m hoping he’ll allow me to examine it thoroughly as part of the deconstruction process. I, too, am fascinated about the power requirements and how they’re satisfied. Like you, everything I’ve read suggests—” He broke off because Min-ji was leaning around him and waving to Andie.

“Is that conversation as exciting as it sounds?” Andie asked, managing not to make the comment sarcastic. Min-ji was probably enjoying herself.

“It
is
,” Min-ji said. “Gideon and I have been discussing Physicist Kip Thorne’s hypotheses on time travel and interstellar travel through wormholes.”

“And does Gideon—” Andie glanced at the lieutenant, wondering if he would mind her using his first name, but he was too busy gazing raptly at Min-ji to notice. “Does Gideon find it interesting?”

“Oh yes,” he said before Min-ji responded.

“You should probably keep in touch with him, then.”

Gideon flushed. Min-ji’s brow crinkled in confusion. Andie would have to explain it to her later. Or perhaps not. It wasn’t as if dating across the centuries was feasible.

She sighed and looked back at Theron. He had stopped in the doorway to talk to someone else who had come in. General Morimoto.

Andie didn’t know whether to go see the other women—she wanted to check on Barbara, Ruth Marie, and Marisa specifically—or eavesdrop on the conversation. From the way the general frowned and looked in her direction, it had something to do with her. Or the note Theron had left.

She crept closer, putting her eavesdropping plan into action, but the short conversation was already ending. All she caught was, “...leaving tomorrow, Theron. All of them. Keeping anyone here is asking for trouble.”

Morimoto growled and stalked out of the building.

Theron’s jaw was clenched. He jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Sorry,” he said when Andie touched his arm. “I shouldn’t have said anything to you. Shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up.” He grunted. “Or maybe they were my hopes.”

“No,” Andie said quietly. “I shared them.”

He slid his arm around her waist and leaned his forehead against hers. Min-ji and Gideon were talking again, but Andie barely heard it. She would check on the others, but then she wanted to spend the day with Theron. Her
last
day with him.

• • • • •

Theron stepped out of the underground train, into the secret station far under Mount Olympus. He had only been here once, and most soldiers knew nothing about it, so it seemed strange that a group of twenty-odd civilians walked into the large cement chamber after him. General Morimoto had traveled out with them, too, along with Gideon, who would operate the time machine. A soldier reading a book behind a desk set it aside and snapped to his feet at the approach of the officers. That had to be the most boring duty post in the Alliance.

“This way, please,” Gideon said, waving the women forward and pointing to a gray corridor.

He threw an electrical switch as he walked past, and though nothing changed in the chamber, Theron imagined a current flowing to the time machine. It was at the end of the corridor, he had been told, in a vault with a heavy door securing it.

“Theron,” Andie said quietly, stopping to take his hand instead of following the other women.

He forced a smile, though his heart wasn’t in it. They’d had two days together—and two wonderful nights—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her to say that she had changed her mind, that she didn’t want to lose him and that she would stay here, but they both knew that could not happen.

“Andie?” he responded softly.

“What if you came with me?”

He blinked. “To the past?”

“Since I apparently can’t stay here, what if you came to my time?”

“I...” There he went, being articulate again. “I’m not sure that would be allowed.”

Would it?

Theron looked thoughtfully over at General Morimoto, who was getting a report from that lone soldier. Could he sling a duffle bag over his shoulder, say goodbye to his comrades, and disappear into history for the rest of his life? Even if he hadn’t seen his men for a few weeks, it was hard to imagine leaving them to continue the fight without him, to defend their homeland and the life the CA had eked out. Even if he was running toward something—toward Andie—he would feel that he was running away. Here, he was needed. In the past, what would he be? A nobody. Would he even know enough to be able to survive in that world? The idea of living off Andie’s charity did not sit well with him. He might wear out his welcome if he did that, and where would they be then? He would be utterly alone in a strange, complex world that he did not understand. And he would have no way to come back, to visit his parents again, his friends, his colleagues. And then there was the space shuttle, the promise the general had given him that he could be a part of that mission, perhaps even be a part of the colonization if things went well. He loved being with Andie, and he might even love her, but was that enough? To sacrifice everything for?

But before Gideon had shared the results of his research, hadn’t Theron been thinking of asking Andie to do all of those things? To leave everything to join him?

“Sorry,” Andie said, “I didn’t mean to spring that on you so abruptly. It’s just that I’m... out of time.”

“No, it’s all right. And I know—I’ve been feeling the press of time a lot this week. I don’t know if what you ask would even be allowed, and I wouldn’t want my presence there changing what’s meant to be. You, ah, meeting someone and having a brilliant son.”

“Maybe you’re the one I meet and we have a son together.”

He snorted softly. There was some wishful thinking. “I’m sure Gideon would have mentioned that twist, if it were true.”

“Yeah.” She stared at his collarbone, her eyes filming with moisture.

Seeing her raw emotions made his eyes prick with tears too. He laid his palm on her smooth cheek. “I’ll think about it, all right? See if anything might be possible.”

“Sure,” she said softly, not meeting his eyes.

“The machine will be ready shortly,” Gideon called from the vault at the end of the corridor. The other women had already disappeared inside.

Andie stirred, but Theron reached out, catching her in a hug. He wasn’t ready to let her go, damn it. He lowered his lips to hers, praying he wasn’t kissing her for the final time but fearing he was. Tears trickled down her cheek, mingling with the ones running down his and washing their lips with salt and longing. And defeat.

Eventually, the general cleared his throat. Reluctantly, Theron pulled back, though he couldn’t quite let her go yet.

“Theron?” Andie asked. There was little of the tough pilot and soldier in her expression, only the vulnerability of a woman, a woman he had come to care about more than he would have thought possible in such a short time.

“Yes?” he whispered.

“I love you.”

She kissed him again, then walked away before he recovered from the stunned feeling that the words evoked in him. He wanted to shout after her that he loved her, too, but with the general watching, along with the private Theron didn’t even know, he couldn’t manage such open and honest words.

Before walking into the vault, Andie looked back, and he gave her a solemn nod, hoping she knew his heart too. She smiled, her eyes still full of moisture, then disappeared.

A
fter Tae Kwon Do practice, Andie walked up the stairs to her small apartment near campus, her uniform stuffed into a bag slung over her shoulder. Everything at the dojang seemed a game after she’d had to use her punches and kicks to fend off real attackers. Although, a month after her return to twenty-first-century Seattle, she sometimes wondered if she had dreamed all of that.

She and Min-ji and the other women had appeared near Mount Olympus, two weeks before they had left, meaning that everything that had happened at the campground had never happened. Andie’s car had been in a campus parking garage, and Barbara’s boyfriend had never been killed. The whole thing had been so confusing, Andie could have easily believed it all a dream, especially after they had found their way home and parted ways. The knot of scar tissue in the hollow of her shoulder—and the fact that she was still working to gain back full flexibility of that arm—indicated that it had all really happened, but it was strange how memories grew fuzzy over time, many of the details fading and disappearing from the mind.