Authors: Nora Roberts
Times Change
Nora Roberts
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Dance Upon the Air
Heaven and Earth
Face the Fire
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Tempting Fate
All the Possibilities
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For Now, Forever
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Best Laid Plans
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The Name of the Game
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Time Was
Times Change
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Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb
Remember When
J. D. Robb
Naked in Death
Glory in Death
Immortal in Death
Rapture in Death
Ceremony in Death
Vengeance in Death
Holiday in Death
Conspiracy in Death
Loyalty in Death
Witness in Death
Judgment in Death
Betrayal in Death
Seduction in Death
Reunion in Death
Purity in Death
Portrait in Death
Imitation in Death
Divided in Death
Visions in Death
Survivor in Death
Origin in Death
Memory in Death
Born in Death
Innocent in Death
Creation in Death
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Dead of Night
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In Death
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The Unquiet
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Also
available
. . .
The Official Nora Roberts Companion
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)
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TIMES CHANGE
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Harlequin Books edition / September 2001
InterMix eBook edition / December 2012
Copyright © 1989 by Nora Roberts.
Excerpt from
Calculated in Death
copyright © 2013 by Nora Roberts.
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All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 978-1-101-56931-3
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
For Isabel, who’s always been ahead of her time
Chapter 1
He knew the risks. He was a man who was willing to take them. One misstep, one bad call, and it would all be over, essentially before it had begun. But he had always considered life a gamble. Often—perhaps too often—he had allowed his impulses to rule and plunged recklessly into potentially dangerous situations. In this case, he had figured the odds painstakingly.
Two years of his life had been spent calculating, simulating, constructing. The most minute details had been considered, computed and analyzed. He was a very patient man—when it came to his work. He knew what
could
happen. Now it was time to discover what would.
More than a few of his associates believed he had crossed the line between genius and madness. Even those who were enthusiastic about his theories worried that he’d gone too far. Popular opinion didn’t concern him. Results did. And results of this, the greatest experience of his life, would be personal. Very personal.
Seated behind the wide curve of the control panel, he looked more like a buccaneer at the helm of a ship than a scientist on the verge of discovery. But science was his life, and that made him as true an explorer as the ancient Columbus and Magellan.
He believed in chance, in the purest sense of the word—the unpredictable possibility of existence.
He was here now to prove it. In addition to his calculations, the technology at his command, his knowledge and his computations, he needed one element that any explorer required for success.
Luck.
He was alone now in the vast, silent sea of space, beyond the traffic patterns, beyond the last charted quadrant. There was an intimacy here between man and his dreams that could never be achieved in a laboratory. For the first time since his voyage had begun, he smiled. He had been in his laboratory too long.
The solitude was soothing, even tempting. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be truly alone, with only his own thoughts for company. If he’d chosen, he could have cruised along, easing back on the throttle and taking the aloneness to heart for as long as it suited him.
Up here, at the edge of man’s domain, with his own planet a bright ball shrinking in the distance, he had time. And time was the key.
Resisting temptation, he logged his coordinates—speed, trajectory, distance—all meticulously calculated. His long, agile fingers moved over dials and switches. The control panel glowed green, casting a mystic aura over his sharp-featured face.
It was concentration rather than fear that narrowed his eyes and firmed his lips as he hurtled toward the sun. He knew exactly what the results would be if his calculations were off by even the slightest margin. The bright star’s gravity would suck him in. It would take only a heartbeat for his ship and its occupant to be vaporized.
The ultimate failure, he thought as he stared at the luminous star that filled his viewing screen. Or the ultimate achievement. It was a gorgeous sight, this glowing, swirling light that filled the cabin and dazzled his eyes. Even at this distance, the sun held the power of life and death. Like a hot, hungry woman, it bewitched.
Deliberately he lowered the shield on the viewing screen. He pushed for more speed, watching the dials as he neared the maximum the ship could handle. A check of gauges showed him that the outside temperature was rising dramatically. He waited, knowing that beyond the protective screen the intensity of light would have seared his corneas. A man shooting toward the sun risked blindness and destruction—risked never achieving his destiny.
He waited while the first warning bell sounded, waited as the ship bucked and danced under the demands of velocity and gravity. The calm voice of the computer droned on, giving him speed, position and, most important, time.
Though he could hear his own blood pounding in his ears, his hand was steady as it urged more speed from the laboring engines.
He streaked toward the sun, faster than any man had ever been known to fly. Jaw clenched, he shoved a lever home. His ship shuddered, rocked, then tilted. End over end it tumbled—once, twice, a third time—before he could right it. His fingers gripped the controls as the force slapped him back in the chair. The cabin exploded with sound and light as he fought to hold his course.
For an instant his vision grayed and he thought fatalistically that instead of being burned up in the sun’s heat he would simply be crushed by her gravity. Then his ship sprang free, like an arrow from a bow. Fighting for breath, he adjusted the controls and hurtled toward his fate.
***
What impressed Jacob most about the Northwest was the space. As far as he could see in any direction, there was rock and wood and sky. It was quiet, not silent but quiet, with small animals rustling in the underbrush and birds calling as they wheeled overhead. Tracks dimpling the blanket of snow around his ship told him that larger animals roamed here. More importantly, the snow itself told him that his calculations were off by at least a matter of months.
For the moment, he had to be satisfied with being approximately where he wanted to be. And with being alive.
Always meticulous, he returned to his ship to record the facts and his impressions. He had seen pictures and videos of this place and time. For the past year he had studied every scrap of information he could find on the late twentieth century. Clothes, language, sociopolitical atmosphere. As a scientist he’d been fascinated. As a man he’d been appalled and amused by turns. And baffled when he’d remembered that his brother had chosen to live here, in this primitive time and place. Because of a woman.
Jacob opened a compartment and took out a picture. An example of twentieth-century technology, he mused, as he turned the Polaroid snapshot over in his hand. He studied his brother first. Caleb’s easy grin was in place. And he looked comfortable sitting on the steps of a small wooden structure, dressed in baggy jeans and a sweater. He had his arm around a woman. The woman called Libby, Jacob thought now. She was unquestionably attractive, as females went. Not as flashy as Cal’s usual type, but certainly inoffensive.
Just what was there about her that had made Cal give up his home, his family and his freedom?
Because he was prepared to dislike her, Jacob tossed the picture back in its compartment. He would see this Libby for himself. Judge for himself. Then he would give Cal a swift kick and take him home.
First there were some precautions to take.
Moving from the flight deck to his personal quarters, Jacob stripped off his flight suit. The denim jeans and cotton sweater that had cost him more than he cared to remember were still in their plastic holder. Excellent reproductions, he thought as he tugged the jeans over his long legs. And, to give the devil his due, extremely comfortable.
When he was dressed, he studied himself in the mirror. If he ran into any inhabitants during his stay—a brief one, he hoped—he wanted to blend in. He had neither the time nor the inclination to attempt to explain himself to a people who were most assuredly slow-witted. Nor did he want any of the media coverage that was so popular in this time.
Though he hated to admit it, the gray sweater and the blue jeans suited him. The fit was excellent, and the material was smooth against his skin. Most importantly, in them he looked like a twentieth century man.
His dark hair nearly skimmed his shoulders. It was thick, and it was always disheveled, as he paid more attention to his work than to hairstyles. Still, it was an excellent frame for his angular face. His brows were often drawn together over dark green eyes, and his mouth, usually grim when he was poring over calculations, had an unexpected and powerful charm when he relaxed enough to smile.
He wasn’t smiling now. He slung his bag over his shoulder and left the ship.
Depending on the slant of the sun rather than on his watch, Jacob decided it was just past noon. The sky was miraculously empty. It was incredible to stand under the hard blue cup and see only the faint white trail of what he assumed was the vapor trail from an old continental transport. They called them planes, he remembered, watching the stream lengthen.
How patient they must be, he mused, to sit cheerfully, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people, hanging in the sky for hours just to get from one coast to another or from New York to Paris.
Then again, they didn’t know any better.
Switching his gaze from sky to earth, he began to walk.
It was fortunate that the sun was bright. His preparations hadn’t included a coat or any heavy outerwear. The snow beneath his boots was soft, but there was just enough of a wind to make the air uncomfortable until the hike warmed his muscles.
He was a scientist by vocation, and he could lose himself for hours, even days, in equations and experiments. But it wouldn’t have occurred to him to neglect his body, either—it was as well toned and as disciplined as his mind.
He used his wrist unit to give him the bearings. At least Cal’s report had been fairly specific as to where his ship had gone down and where the cabin he had stayed in when he had met this Libby was situated.
Nearly three hundred years in the future, Jacob had visited the spot and had excavated the time capsule that his brother and the woman had buried.
Jacob had left home in the year 2255. He had traveled through time and through space to find his brother. And to take him home.
As he walked he saw no signs of man, or of the posh resorts that would populate this area in another century or two. There was simply space, acres of it, untrampled and untouched. The sun cast blue shadows on the snow, and the trees towered, silent giants overhead.
Despite the logic of what he had done, the months of precise calculations, the careful working of theory into fact, he found himself chilled. The enormity of what he had achieved, where he had gone, struck him. He was standing on the ground, beneath the sky, of a planet that was more foreign to him than the moon. He was filling his lungs with air. He could watch it expel in white streams. He could feel the cold on his face and his ungloved hands. He could smell the pine and taste the crisp, clear air as it blew around him.
And he had yet to be born.
Had it been the same for his brother? No, Jacob thought, there would have been no elation, not at first. Cal had been lost, injured, confused. He hadn’t set out to come here, but had been a victim of fate and circumstance. Then, vulnerable and alone, he had been bewitched by a woman. Expression grim, Jacob continued to hike.
Pausing at the stream, he remembered. A little more than two years ago—and centuries in the future—he had stood here. It had been high summer, and though the stream had changed its course over time this spot had been very much the same.
There had been grass rather than snow under his feet. But the grass would grow again, year after year, summer after summer. He had proof of that. He
was
proof of that. The stream would run fast, where now it forced its way over rock and thick islands of ice.
A little dazed, he crouched down and took a handful of snow in his ungloved hand.
He had been alone then, too, though there had been the steady drone of air traffic overhead and a huddle of mountain hotels only a few kilometers to the east. When he had uncovered the box his brother had buried he had sat on the grass and wondered.
And now he stood and wondered. If he dug for it, he would come upon the same box. The box that he had left with his parents only days before. The box would exist here, beneath his feet, just as it existed in his own time. As he existed.
If he dug it up now and carried it back to his ship, it would not be there for him to find on that high summer day in the twenty-third century. And if that was true, how could he be here, in this time, to dig it up at all?
An interesting puzzle, Jacob mused. He left it to stew in his brain as he walked.
He saw the cabin and was fascinated. No matter how many pictures, how many films or simulations he had seen, this was real. There were patches of snow melting slowly on the roof. The wood was still dark, aged by mere decades. On the glass of the windows, sunlight sparkled as it streamed through the high trees. Smoke—he could see it, as well as smell it—puffed from the stone chimney and into the hard blue sky.
Amazing, he thought, and for the first time in many hours his lips curved. He felt like a child who had discovered a unique and wonderful present under the Christmas tree. It was his, for the moment, to explore, to analyze, to piece together and take apart until he understood it.
Shifting his bag, he walked up the snow-covered path to the steps. They creaked under his weight and turned his smile into a grin.
He didn’t bother to knock. Manners were easily lost in the haze of discovery. Pushing the door open, he stepped into the cabin.
“Incredible. Absolutely incredible.” His quiet voice hung in the air.
Wood, genuine and rich, gleamed around him. Stone, the kind that was chipped and dug out of the earth, merged with the wood in the form of a huge fireplace. There was a fire burning in it, crackling and hissing behind a mesh screen. The scent was wonderful. It was a small, cramped room, jammed with furniture, yet it was appealing in its cheeriness and its oddities.
Jacob could have spent hours in that room alone, examining every inch of it. But he wanted to see the rest. Muttering into his minirecorder, he started up the stairs.
***
Sunny yanked the wheel of the Land Rover and swore. How could she actually have believed she wanted to spend a couple of months in the cabin? Peace and quiet! Who needed it? She ground the gears as the Land Rover chugged up the hill. The idea that a few solitary weeks would give her the opportunity to sort out her life and finally decide what she wanted to do with it was ridiculous.
She knew what she wanted to do with it. Something big, something spectacular. Disgusted, she blew out a long breath that sent her blond bangs dancing. Just because she hadn’t decided exactly what that something was didn’t matter. She’d know it when she saw it.
Just as she always knew what it wasn’t when she saw it.