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“You’re very pale,” the girl said, her tone deep in the snotty zone.

“You’re very purple.” Doc knew how to do snotty, too.

The girl looked at her hand, then at Doc. “You have skin color issues?”

Hel’s hand was on hers before she could pull something. “No more than you have pale skin issues.”

I like it.

Color me shocked
, she shot back at Hel, but couldn’t hold back a grin as her glance met his. He accepted her smile as his due, and then turned his on the girl. Did not matter what galaxy guys hailed from, they were still guys. He liked it that the twit liked him.

“I would ask how this hue came to be, but I don’t suppose it would be wise to tell us.” Hel’s tone was light and lightly amused, his diplomatic best.

“No.” She softened the curt response with a small smile that might have been a bit on the shy side, then added, “It did involve an alliance mating.”

Doc slanted a look at her alliance mate. “They are so much trouble, I’m surprised the Gadi kept up the practice.”

The look she got from this remark melted her to her toenails.

“But they are so worth the trouble.”

That remark added her toenails to the melted list. Doc almost laughed, but the curiosity in the girl’s face kept it to a chuckle. Doc didn’t like curiosity, particularly from time creeps, no matter what blood ran in their veins. She was pretty enough, but it was hard to connect this girl to them—

She’s not that wild about you either.
The humor in the peep that was going to call himself Lurch, didn’t do a lot of improve Doc’s mood.

I figured that out all by myself.

I find her charming.

Of course Hel found her charming. It was clear a future daughter would wrap him around her finger, too. Longing hit her to get the kid started and she almost put her hand on her tummy, but managed to resist. She didn’t do giveaway moves, particularly around a time creep. Every snippet of information Lurch squeezed out of Doc felt like giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

You are like two panthrics trying to occupy the same space. If you can’t trust her, then trust me.

Doc looked at Hel, caught once more by the heat of his gaze. None of her people understood what she saw in him, but he didn’t let them see what she saw. He had the same problem with his people, of course. They didn’t get her. His mother had tried to take her on—Doc’s quick smile might have been a bit evil at that memory—now she kept her distance. Hel’s boys, well, she’d had to make up ground lost in the alternate time line, but the Wii and
Mario Kart
were great bridge builders.

That probably wouldn’t work here.

The girl had been silent for an impressive period of reflection. Doc didn’t twitch or stir, because she was the Chameleon, but she might be a bit impressed with the girl’s self control.

She takes after you.

Doc shot Hel another glance, but again lost annoyed in the heat lurking in his eyes. She might have felt played, but she knew he meant it. He was as hot for her—and as dumbfounded by it—as she was for him.

The girl with Hel eyes telegraphed ‘get a room,’ though she probably didn’t know those exact words.
Five hundred years
. It was a bit mind boggling and Doc didn’t boggle easily.

“You believe that Smith seeks the machine, the bug, because he hopes to use the,” no surprise the girl paused before trying to say, “Individual Discovery Velocipediator to find the Chameleon?”

Doc felt Hel’s hesitation, before he said, “We believe the one behind Smith seeks it for that purpose.”

In her memory, Doc heard Olivia say with her calm, and old fashioned, conviction, “Smith isn’t the big bug.”

“He’s more the henchman type,” Doc added, watching her closely for her reaction.

The girl didn’t blink, just nodded. So she knew that Smith wasn’t the big bug, the evil genius behind it all, too.

“Do you know who is running Smith?” Doc kept the bark from her tone, but it wasn’t easy.

“We, Lurch and I,” the girl’s look went well into the provocative range, but words were a slow leak out her almost purple lips “fear that a member of the Time Council is manipulating time, but at this point, we do not know who.”

She hated this sharing as much as Doc did. It was a bond of a sort.

“What can you tell me about this council?” Doc asked the question with care, following the girl’s short lecture on paradox tremors.

Her mouth opened, followed by an impressive color drain. Doc thought she might pass out, but she steadied after a moment. “Not much.” A wry, almost charming grin followed this. She released, “There are five members now,” like they were explosive, braced for a few seconds then relaxed.

“Now?”

“There used to be three. I don’t know why they added two more, just that they come from different times, the future and the past. They operate in slow time when they are on the base. They guard their identities, or try to.” She made a face. “They are bureaucrats, or so they appear. One of them must not be what he seems. They all appear stupid enough to be played by someone else, so that is possible, too.”

If she weren’t a time creep, Doc might be impressed. The side of Hel’s mouth twitched. Doc almost asked about the bureaucrat choices, but didn’t. It made a sort of sense to put ordinary in there. Someone too smart or too dumb…

“Lurch is assessing the data you provided on the—”

“We call it the IDV. It’s easier,” Doc offered, a bit surprised she had.

A nod, possibly respectful, certainly relieved, before she continued, “IDV. If I understand it correctly, anyone can don the apparatus, activate the machine and concentrate on a memory of a person? And, in theory, the machine will go to that person by following the brain wave trail?”

Doc nodded. Whether it worked or didn’t, Smith—or his evil overlord—believed it would. If Robert was in the bug, that put him in Smith’s sights. The plan had been to find and secure the bug, and then attempt to trap Smith with it. Not a surprise the plan was already off track, and none of this helped her find her brother. If they could find the bug, could she use it to find Robert? Olivia claimed that the stronger the emotional connection to the person, the easier it was for the IDV to track.

“Just a person, not a place?”

The girl’s words pulled Doc back to the present, and reality. “Our source says no. Personally, I don’t believe it’s possible to do any of it, but she says she had successfully tested it twice, right before she misplaced it.”

“The collision you spoke of.” The girl looked thoughtful—and as if she had a separate conversation going on with her peep. “That sent it through time.”

Doc nodded, wishing the peeps would tell her what the girl wasn’t saying. And that it didn’t take so long to get a message from Earth. According to the girl, Ric, Fyn and Carey had remained in the museum when the bug flashed out. They had Intel she needed to know and she had Intel they needed to know. All she could do was hope that Carey didn’t activate his recall device before her Intel reached him. She did not need him to go missing, too. Carey belonged to General Halliwell. Doc was quite fond of the General—but didn’t want him stomping around in her op. His boots were so big. And he was never reasonable when Hel was involved.

“For it to traverse space and time, it would require more power than could be supplied by a primitive steam engine, even before the impact.”

“Our source says the professor didn’t tell her what his power source was.” Her brain followed logically to the next question. “You said you were tracking an energy trail when you happened onto Smith and the machine.”

A half nod. “It is not a substance available now, or when you say the machine was built.”

Doc frowned. “If someone is messing with time, when it should be available is moot, don’t you think?”

A conversational hesitation, then a nod. “It is called Constilinium, though the particular trail I followed had been altered from the type more familiar to me.”

“Altered?” This time Hel asked the question.

“Our data on the mineral is limited, but we wondered if it was a commercial adjustment, to make it more stable, but none of the other trails showed this alteration. Now we wonder if it was caused by the collision with the transport trail, though Lurch fears—”

“—that alternation might make it less stable again,” Doc finished.

The girl’s nod was patently reluctant. “From what we know of the substance, considerable kinetic force would be required for such a substantial change as we observed. Based on your information, travel through time
and
space becomes statistically possible for the machine, according to the limited theoretical data on hand. Though if I had not seen it flash out, I too would find it difficult to believe that any of it worked. It looked like something out of an old Earth vid.”

Now she sounds like a politician
. Hel’s chuckle could only be heard in her head.

She takes after me a little.
And in the wake of this came a wave of assurance.
Robert is stronger than either you or he realizes.

Doc responded by giving his hand a squeeze, while her thoughts moved on to more questions.

“You were interested, you followed the trail, because this stuff isn’t native to Earth, right?”

The girl nodded again, her mien that of someone moving through a minefield, which she kind of was. It softened Doc’s annoyance some to realize this.

“From in this galaxy?” Hel stiffened at her question. If Smith was from around here, it made a kind of sense. Heaven knew he had made a few enemies who’d happily try to mess him over in any time. This time she shook her head. Doc had the tightening sensation of instincts kicking on the after burners, but she wanted to hear it said. Out loud. She fixed the girl with her basilisk stare. No one held out against it.

The kid was tough, but not that tough. “Keltinar. It is only found on Keltinar.”

Doc leaned back. “I knew it.
Conan
.”

Hel frowned now. “How does his presence here have anything to do with that? He has not mentioned power sources, only women.”

The girl straightened, leaned toward Doc. “Your intersection problem is someone from Keltinar?”

Doc nodded, but her brain was already running scenarios, asking questions and maybe finding answers. Her brain exploded with possibilities. Thank goodness she had the peeps to help her manage the flow. “What if he is in the right place, but the wrong time?”

The girl’s gaze slammed into Doc’s and for the first time she saw herself in her.

“I think I need to meet this intersection.”

Doc knew her smile was pure evil. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

TWENTY-THREE

What struck Emily first was the wrongness of it—not because the interior of the warehouse wasn’t warehouse-like, because it was. The dampness, the rotting timbers, the sagging crates were all right on the money. It was the half-hidden huddle of what might be called people who were all wrong. Though she had to admit that wrong in this place might be right. Only Robert felt right in a right way.

It is difficult to assign a value to any feature in a place such as this
, Nod chipped in with palpable concern.
But I trust Robert-oh-my-darling.

In Emily’s experience, her dreams were often embarrassing, but color stung her cheeks, nevertheless. Nod felt so real.
Let’s just call him Robert
.

I will try, but he is a darling
. Nod sounded less oppressed and he’d uncurled a bit from the almost fetal bundle she’d sensed when he started talking to her. Perhaps the information exchange had helped. Now it felt more like a puppy gazing around with cautious interest, though Emily sensed he kept a wary distance from her surface. It was an odd series of thoughts, but they also seemed to go with the wrongness around her. She never tried to find meaning in her dreams, but this storyline was fairly freaky, even by dream standards.

Their not-Colonial guide shifted like the ground beneath him was hot. “They want to see your necks, too.”

Now that she’d seen two examples of the neck scars—Robert had checked the man decked by not-Colonial guy—she got their paranoia. She presented neck and heard a shuffle of footsteps approaching. Robert tensed next to her. He looked kind of sweet and almost innocent, but there was this lethal core that was very reassuring, even if he was a dream guy. Like Nod, she trusted him, and was relieved to have him on her side and at her side. She could not have picked a better companion for this unreal adventure.

When the footsteps shuffled back enough to indicate the neck looking was over, Emily turned in synch with Robert.

“We want to see your necks now.” Robert’s tone was neutral, reasonable, but somehow not either of those things. Tough guy trumping geek by necessity, or merging with geek, because smart was as important as tough.

With a flurry of exchanged looks, the odd huddle presented their necks. Emily would have let Robert do the honors, but he had her hand and took her with him. Their necks looked fine, if a bit grubby, though Emily wasn’t sure what that meant in dream world, which tended toward random changes. Robert drew them back a few paces and the group reformed into a messy, still wary circle.

To her right was their guide, not-Colonial, with the wrong accent. Okay, so she didn’t know what a colonial guy should sound like, other than how they sounded in movies. Not her era, but she did know what her era—in general—sounded like. He fit better there, despite the clothes, though even that was a bit off, too.

To his right was Miss seriously-draggled Southern belle. No assessment on accent or lack of until she spoke, but her manner, the way she stood, conveyed something less than belle-like.

To her right was fifties-gang-guy, complete with tight jeans and leather jacket, but without the tough guy stance. In fact, he huddled like a total wimp against a support beam. Robert exuded more everything than this guy and if asked to choose, Emily would back Robert in any physical, or mental, contest. Nod indicated agreement with another oh my darling.