Found at omni.media
Peridot, Arizona – Date Unknown
Travis woke up with a tremendous headache. The light was dim. He was laying on his back in what felt like a conventional bed.
Was he back home at the Project? He tried to get his eyes to focus. Dim light coming from his right. Shades pulled down over a window. He was in a bedroom but it wasn’t one at the base or for that matter, at his ranch.
He tried to sit up, but it didn’t work the first time. The headache suddenly increased behind his eyes. He lay back down a moment and then tried again. This time he managed to sit up. He could hear a dog barking outside.
Yes, it was a bed. Pillows, quilt, looked hand-made. Pictures on the wall of people he didn’t recognize. A cheap painting of some foothills. Wallpaper. Beat up wooden floor with throw rugs. He hadn’t seen one of those pull down shades since he was a kid (he liked to pull them down all the way, let go and watch them shoot up to the top). It gave the light coming through it a golden cast, as if the world were a sepia tone photograph.
He wasn’t far wrong.
A knock on the door, very soft.
“Come in.” His voice sounded dry and hoarse. Travis swung his legs around so he could face the door. That’s when he noticed his clothes had been changed into a t-shirt and jeans. He wasn’t dressed like a 10th century BCE middle-eastern trader anymore.
The door creaked when it opened and he saw a young woman peeking through. “Is it okay to come in? How are you feeling?”
“Headache. Confused. Where am I?”
She was speaking modern English, but given the appearance of the bedroom, that wasn’t a surprise.
“Our home.” She opened the door more and stepped inside. She was about six-months pregnant, looked like she couldn’t be over twenty years old, and she was native. Apache?
“I’m Mrs. Fox…Gloria.”
Travis froze. Gloria Fox was his grandmother, Chano’s wife. How long ago did she die?
“Travis Fox,” he regretted using his real last name the second he said it, but then, it was a pretty common last name so maybe she’d think it was a coincidence.
“My husband Chano just got back from the store.”
Travis could hear a screen door creak open and then the front door. “I’m back, Gloria.”
“In here, Chano. Our guest is awake.”
After a few moments, the bedroom door opened wider and…it was Chano. He remembered seeing old photos of him. He was young, as young as his wife. He didn’t hear any other children. If this was her first, she was pregnant with his uncle Wendell.
Travis managed to stand but he was still shaky. “Travis Fox,” he extended his hand.
“Chano Fox.” The men shook. “You look familiar. Are we cousins? I don’t remember meeting you before.”
Travis was trying to remember. As a young couple, Chano and Gloria lived on the res, San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. He didn’t recall the name of the town, or what Chano did at this point in his life.
“Not that I know of.”
“Gloria, go get Mr. Fox some water.”
“Of course.”
She left and Travis guessed Chano wasn’t as concerned with him being thirsty as he was about other things.
“What the hell were you doing all alone in the middle of a storm in the Superstitions?”
What? Wait. The Superstition Mountains? They couldn’t be more than a few hours from here. Come to think of it, what had he been doing in the mountains? The last thing he remembered was stepping through the gate running after Aiyana, Gordon, and Ross. Everything was a blank after that until now. Was it the link up between the two gates in the present? Some experiment. How the hell had he been sent forward untold centuries from Israel to Arizona?
“I don’t remember. How long have I been here? For that matter, where is here?”
Gloria returned with a glass. She gave it to Chano who gave it to Travis. The time traveler sat back on the edge of the bed.
“Peridot.” You from around here? What part of the res?”
“I’m sorry Chano, Mr. Fox. My memory is really hazy. Can you tell me what happened, how you found me?”
Travis couldn’t mistake the glare Gloria gave her husband. “I’ll be in the kitchen.” Then she looked at Travis and her expression softened a bit. “Dinner will be in about an hour.”
“Thanks.”
After that, Chano walked in further and closed the door behind him. He pulled up a chair that had been sitting against the wall.
“I go into the Superstitions when I can, mainly to get away, to summon the spirits of my ancestors, to commune with the thunder god. As you can tell, Gloria doesn’t approve.”
Travis remembered sitting on Chano’s knee and hearing stories about the Superstitions, the thunder god, and of gold.
“Isn’t there a…” Travis tried to clear his head. “Isn’t there a legend that the gateway to hell is somewhere in those mountains?”
“There are a lot of legends about those mountains, Mr. Fox. When I saw you, I was ready to believe you came out of that hole, especially the way you were dressed. What was all that about, anyway?”
“I was dressed for…someplace else. Where are those clothes anyway?”
“Gloria hung them up to dry once the rain stopped. They’re at the foot of the bed.”
Travis looked over and his ancient middle eastern clothing was neatly folded on the floor by the bed. He could still feel the communication’s earpiece and throat mike on him so they hadn’t been discovered while Chano put him in more conventional apparel.
“Thanks.”
“You’re not going to tell me how you got out there, are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m another mystery spat out by the Superstitions.”
“I found you out there looking like you were half-dead, Fox. I could have dumped you off at the Sheriff’s or with the Tribal police but I brought you home instead. Maybe you should start telling me more of the truth and quit playing games.”
“You commune with the spirits of our ancestors, Chano. You believe in the old ways, the stories of our people. There are mysteries that we were not given to understand. Right now, I’m asking you to believe that I am involved in one of those mysteries.”
Travis realized he was still holding onto the glass of water Chano had given him. He took a long drink and then set it on the night stand.
His grandfather took a deep breath. Travis guessed he was trying to decide whether or not to accept his explanation, such as it was. After all, he could hardly tell Chano that he was a time traveler.
Near Hebron – 10th Century BCE
To Aiyana, the voice seemed to be coming from far away.
“Rachel. Rachel. I brought some water. Try to drink.”
She opened her eyes. “Tovi. I thought I was dreaming. How did I get here?”
“Abiyah found you in the pasture this morning, almost exactly where Aviram found you before, except you are dressed reasonably this time. We just got home two days ago. We thought you lost in Jerusalem. We met your kinsman, Assa.”
“Yes, I…” Aiyana tried to sit up. She managed to pull herself more upright in bed with Tovi’s help and took the cup of water to drink.
“If you feel strong enough, I’ll bring you some broth.”
“Yes, that would be good, Tovi.”
The other woman started to turn to leave but then looked back at Aiyana.
“You couldn’t have been lying out in the pasture for two days. What happened? Do you remember?”
Jerusalem in the time of King Solomon – found at keyway.ca
She did remember but only a little. She had leapt through the temporal field, she experienced the usual effects, but then…but then…two days. She must have traveled forward in time, but only two days and with no spacial displacement back to the Project.
“My kinsmen. There were three. Has anyone seen them?”
“No, Rachel. You mean to say you were with them?”
“Yes, something happened. We were together one moment and then we became separated.”
“We only found a donkey. Maybe it belonged to them.”
“What? Where?” Aiyana tried to jump out of bed and was abruptly reminded of how weak she was.
“Now, now. The animal is safe in the stable. Aviram took the pack off to rest the beast but has not looked inside.”
At least that part was good. No doubt there would be artifacts packed away that would at best seem incomprehensible to Tovi and her family and at worst would cause them to believe she was involved in the occult, which carried a death sentence in this place and time.
“I will get your broth, Rachel. Rest. We will see if we can find out what happened to your kinsmen.”
Tovi left and Aiyana felt a cold chill inside. If they hadn’t followed her through the gate, they’d still be here. If they did follow her, then were they back home, or did something go wrong with the gate link up in the present? If it did, then where and when were they?
The Present – Project Retrograde
“So you’re saying the gates do and don’t work, Dr. Barnes. Do you agree with this Dr. Duskin?”
“It will do you no good to play us one against another, Colonel. Antoine and I are in total agreement.”
“Yes, Dr. Duskin and I believe, however strange it may sound, that all of our time gates…”
“And the Russian gates mind you,” added Vasnev Romanovich.
“…are all active. Stepping through any one of them at any time will send the person or object to some unknown point, most likely in the past.”
“But Dr. Barnes…” Colonel Kelgarries noticed that while Duskin referred to Barnes by his first name, Barnes did not reciprocate. Barnes had always maintained a strict formality, at least at public and official functions, but it seemed obvious that Duskin wanted to have a personal friend close to his level of knowledge and achievement.
“I know, I know. The power is shut off and the gates appear inert. Nevertheless, Ms. Huỳnh has had more than one conversation with Dr. Ashe who, as far as we can tell, is in Egypt in 1922.”
“At the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. What a place for an archeologist lost in time,” Kelgarries mused. “But what’s causing it and how do we find the rest of our people and get them back? Is this because of the damned gate link between us and the one in Israel?”
“That may be the case, but we dare not attempt to disassemble the gate in Israel for examination. It is still charged with chronotons and we can’t depower it. Any attempt to do so would result in a catastrophic explosion.” Barnes steepled his fingertips, which in his case, was more a sign of anxiety than arrogance.
“On top of that it would appear,” Duskin began, “that every time the Project initiates an incursion, there are unanticipated effects. In this case, there is a self-sustaining temporal field impinging in our universe using the gates as interfaces, and they are not within our control, at least at present. This has resulted in the gates gaining the ability to send and receive objects to and from random temporal and geographic coordinates.”
“But why can’t we see the temporal field or detect it with our instruments?”
Barnes fielded this question, “Because the fields are not precisely time synchronized with us. They exist several nano-seconds out of phase. This also, as Dr. Duskin has said, allows a field to send or receive an object to and from any number of times and locations.”
“So if I step through a gate, I could end up in Honolulu on the morning of December 7, 1941, but if you step through just a few seconds later, you might wind up in Saigon on April 30, 1975.”
“Yes, exactly, Colonel.”
“So if Ashe is in Egypt in 1922, where are Aiyana, Ross, and Travis, Barnes?”
“We are working on that, Colonel.”
“I think we are forgetting that America is not the only nation to have time gates, Colonel.”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing, Vasnev. My primary responsibility at this moment is to find a way to retrieve our lost team and return them to the present.”
“Too true, Colonel. But we need to consider two other factors here. The first is that at any moment, someone could either step through a Russian gate in the present and be translated into the past or someone in the past could be unexpectedly whisked into the present. In fact this might already have occurred.”
“That’s as true for us as the Russians, Vasnev. And you second point?”
“Any one or all of Dr. Ashe’s team might be recovered by the Russians instead of us.”
“Do you have any reason to believe this could occur with a probability higher than chance, Major?”
“I believe my friend Vasnev is right, Colonel. All active gates seem to be dipping into a common well, as it were. I can run the numbers again, however there is a low but statistically significant likelihood that both the Russian and American gates might lead to the same places and times. In fact, they could possibly become cross connected just as we have linked the gate here with a counterpart in modern Israel.”
“What do you suggest Dr. Duskin…Major Romanovich.”
“We have Mr Lucius, Ms. Huỳnh, and the rest of the time gate technicians and engineers running various programs, Dr. Duskin and I have devised in an attempt to narrow down these commonalities. The advantage we have over the Russians is the time map we received from the Blue Forerunners on Europa. It has been growing in complexity since it was returned to Earth, and we have high hopes the map will reveal our missing time travelers…and anyone else in the time stream.”
“Dr. Barnes, that last bit begs for an explanation.”
“Of course, Colonel.” It was Vasnev who picked up the proverbial ball. “If my countrymen have either purposely or accidentally sent people through their gates and they too are lost, we should be able to find them as well.”
“And send them home, Barnes?”
“I would suppose,” Vasnev continued, “that would depend on their intent. You brought me back to the table, so to speak, for my national and military expertise in this crisis. With the uneasy truce between this Project and its Russian counterpart now at an end, what do you suppose they will be after now?”
“More Forerunner technology.”
“Very good, Colonel. They know we have a functional spaceship. My government is no doubt as terrified of what that means as your government would be if the Russians possessed the only Forerunner faster-than-light vessel.”
“We won’t initiate any aggression…”
“Forgive me, Colonel. The Russians don’t trust the Americans anymore than the Americans trust the Russians.”
Kelgarries was willing to believe the Vasnev deliberately allowed a double-meaning to that last sentence, but then again, it would be helpful if Romanovich either declared his intentions to return to Mother Russia or to defect to the good ol’ U.S.A.
Under the Ice of Europa – the Distant Past
Ross Murdock found himself, not in a room, but an indistinct and vacant space, but he was not alone. There was a Blue Forerunner with him. The Forerunner, as far as Murdock could tell, neither male nor female, wasn’t holding a telepathic device, and yet he could understand the alien.
“You are Ross Murdock. You and your people have benefited from the left behind technology of my race, both in terms of what you call time gates, and by use of a space vehicle. I have never been this close to a human before, at least not one who was untamed.”
“Where the hell are we? What do you mean ‘untamed?’ How can I understand you, and what are your intentions toward me?”
RON MILLER/STOCKTREK IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
“Please be calm, Ross Murdock. We mean you no harm. You surprised us when you came through our gate. We are analyzing the cause as we speak. As for our intentions, they are benign. We only want to protect what is ours.”
“Like you did when you destroyed a Soviet base, two Soviet bases in two different times periods on our planet?”
“The subset of beings you call Soviets or Russians, had they discovered our navigational equipment on the captured ship, would have made their way to this base, and their intentions were anything but benign.”
“What makes you think my subset is any more friendly?”
“Because of how you have behaved. When prompted by our adversary, the one you call an Orange, you did not permanently disable our gate nor did you carry out the mission of destroying one of our bases on your world, though we understand you were deceived into making that attempt. One other item. You have made no attempt to interfere with the lifeforms that dwell in the water outside this structure, though you couldn’t help but be aware of them.”
“So you trust us but not them, the Russians I mean.”
“Not precisely. There are as many hostile intentions among the hierarchy of your subset as among the Russians, but you Ross Murdock, as well as your companions, Gordon Ashe, Aiyana Zheutlin, and Lynn Huỳnh are not like them. You seek to learn, to grow, to understand what you call time and space and the humans and others you encounter. We do too, although our mission is much more specific.”
“You haven’t told me where we are and how I can understand you.”
“We are where you believe we are, in the chamber containing the time gate in our base under the ice of the Jovian moon Europa. I am using a telepathic device to communicate with you, and through it, I have created this virtual environment in the hopes that it makes our transaction more…fluid.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“If we are successful, send you home with a message.”
“The Orange gave us a message. It wasn’t pleasant, though we didn’t know it at the time.”
“This one won’t be pleasant or unpleasant, Ross Murdock.”
“What about being tamed? If I’m wild, what have you done to tame other humans? Where are they and do they work for you like the ones I saw at Atlantis working for the Oranges?”
“Ross Murdock, by the time you return home, you will begin to understand. Speaking of which, I believe we are ready.”
“For what? You can send me back to Earth in the present? What about Ashe, Zheutlin, and Fox? Are they home because they aren’t here?”
“Pleasant dreams, Ross Murdock.”
“No! Wait! I’m not finished with you.”
Ross realized that the Forerunners were finished with him as he passed out.
Sunday, August 30, 1953 – Peridot, Arizona
“I love the mornings here.”
Travis and Chano were walking outside of town. He hoped if he could get his grandfather away from his pregnant grandmother, he’d get him to open up about where Chano found him. He might even get a clue as to where the time gate was and if, even beyond all hope, it was still active.
Travis still couldn’t figure out how he got from Israel to Arizona without a linked gate, but he wouldn’t have arrived here at all without an active temporal field having formed here.
Chano was hoping for similar revelations from the stranger though so far, he was not forthcoming. Both of them were stubborn, waiting for the other to give in.
“Hey Injun!”
They both looked up to see a pickup truck bearing down on them. Reflexively, Travis grabbed Chano and dived off of the road. As they picked themselves out of the dirt, they heard the truck’s brakes squealing behind them.
“Look at those yellow Injuns. Did we scare you boys?”
Travis looked. The truck had stopped in the middle of the road. The driver and passenger got out of the cab and two others jumped out of the bed, all white men, but he didn’t need to look at their faces to tell that, probably from a nearby ranch off the res.
“Maybe you boys need to get off the res and back where you belong. This is our place.”
Chano stood up and took a defiant stance, his fists tightly balled.
“Maybe you should make us, Injun. There’s four of us and two of you, so who’s going to be calling the shots?”
“Hey look. We didn’t come looking for trouble. Why don’t you just let us be.” Travis remember Chano saying he had a terrible temper as a young man. If he wasn’t careful, he’d get them into a fight. Even if the two of them beat the odds, it would look like two natives attacked four whites. The consequences could affect the whole town.
“At least your friend there has more guts than you do, Injun. You just want to roll over and play dead and I promise we won’t kick your ass too bad.”
The driver was also the leader of these thugs. Travis wanted to beat his face into bloody hamburger. He’d endured insults from whites his whole life and he was tired of taking it. Ironically, it was old Chano who taught Travis how to peacefully respond to ignorance and racism.
From the direction of town, they heard a distant engine rapidly getting closer. Out of a cloud of dust on the road, another truck was coming. One of the boys who had been riding in the truck bed saw who it was first. “Tribal police. Clarence, we’d better clear out.”
Clarence glared back at Chano and Travis. “I’ll be back for you two, don’t you worry.”
“Come on, Clarence,” said the guy who had been in the passenger seat.
The four ran back to their truck, gunned the engine, made a hasty u-turn, and went back the way they’d come. Presently, the other truck stopped with two men inside. The one in the passenger seat leaned out the open window. “Those boys giving you trouble, Chano?”
“Nothing I couldn’t have handled, Dennis.”
“I don’t like those bastards anymore than you, but we want to just chase them off. Nothing more.”
“I’m sick of…”
Travis put his hand on Chano’s shoulder as a gesture of calm, but the younger man shook it off.”
“Take it easy, Chano. It’s over. Go home.”
“Yeah, Dennis. Sure.”
“You and your friend need a lift?”
“Nah. We’ll walk.”
Dennis and the unnamed driver gave Travis a hard look. “Thought I knew everyone around here. What’s your name?”
“Travis. I’m visiting.”
“From where?”
“Never you mind, Dennis,” Chano blurted. “He’s a cousin. Just visiting, like he said.”
“Yeah,” Dennis chuckled. “I’ve got plenty of cousins I don’t know too well either. Anyway, be safe.”
“Sure, Dennis.”
The police truck took off the same way the other truck did, but not nearly as fast.
After they were gone, “What’s that all about?”
“I beat up a couple of white boys a few months back. Started some trouble in town and a bunch more white boys came back onto the res to get even. Tribal police and Bureau people stopped them, but…”
“You got a reputation?”
“You might say that, Travis. When you gonna tell me who you really are and where you’re from?”
“How about you take me back to the exact place in the Superstitions where you found me and I show you?”
“Now you’re talking.”
Travis had no intention of actually showing his grandfather anything related to time travel, but if there was any hope of him returning home, it was in the Superstitions.
Saturday, December 2, 1922 – Valley of the Kings – Egypt
“I won’t breathe a word of this to another living soul and I’ve convinced Lord Carnarvon that we shan’t make any mention of you at all in our official records.”
“Your unofficial records as well, Howard. I’m sure as an archeologist you realize that any personal journals or similar documents will become the property of historians in the decades to come.”
“You still won’t give me any details will you, Mr. Ashe?”
“The less you know, the better.”
Over the past several days, Howard Carter, one of the principle discoverers of the Tomb of King Tutankhamen had given him periodic and private access to the area where Gordon had originally been found right in front of the burial sled of the god Anubis. It was on those occasions when communications with Lynn Huỳnh and Project Retrograde had been re-established and refined, particularly to the point of them sending Ashe a sensor device.
It wouldn’t have been possible, according to Lynn, except for a particularly strong temporal lock they were able to establish on his end. There was something in the burial sled that was emitting a chronoton signature, the same signature that his friend Tarek Sayed Tawfik had first detected from the same sled in the Cairo Museum in late 2016.
“It’s here and I think I can use it.”
“What, dear boy? Something in Anubis itself?”
“The secret to sending me home, Howard.”
“Assuming you can go, that you’ll vanish just as mysteriously as you appeared, you expect me not to investigate the burial sled after your departure? I find your suggestion bordering on madness.”
“If you do anything of the sort, I cannot promise that the years will unfold as they should, Howard.”
Gordon wished it hadn’t been necessary to take Howard Carter into his confidence, even in a limited fashion, but without his cooperation, he wouldn’t have gotten access to the tomb and without that access, he hadn’t a prayer of returning to 2017.
“I’ll reserve judgment on that for the time being, Gordon. Meanwhile, what are you doing with that curious instrument?”
“I’m afraid my explanation would seem just as baffling to you as everything else about me, Howard.”
A representation of the interior of King Tut’s tomb.
Lynn had told him there was some sort of discontinuity in the temporal field’s phase lock between his time and the present. Unless he worked on this side of the gate to locate the required phase, stepping through could send him anywhere and anywhen. If he and Lynn could coordinate their readings on either side, they could boost the bridge between where he was and the Project.
“Gordon…*static*…you receiv…*static*…I think I’ve got…How about you?”
“Hang on, Lynn. The readings are changing. Yes. I think you’re right. The phase lock is synching.”
“Getting it Gor…*static*…st a few more seconds.”
Ashe turned to Howard. “If I’m right, I should be leaving rather quickly. I do appreciate this opportunity to meet you and please, please honor my wishes, if not for my sake, for history’s.”
“Gord…you’ve got to…ome back right…”
The field suddenly flashed, filling the room with light. For an instant, Gordon thought he could see figures forming in the energy discharge.
“…*static*…Now..ump now…now”
Gordon Ashe took the biggest leap of faith in his life and jumped through the energized field just as someone else was beginning to form. The arms of the mysterious other grabbed him and they fell.
Near Hebron – 10th Century BCE
It had taken over a week for the routine at Aviram’s and Tovi’s home to return to normal after Aiyana was rediscovered in their pasture.
Aviram had sent out messages to the surrounding towns and homes searching for any word of Rachel’s vanished kinsmen. There was nothing, and if Aiyana was right, she didn’t expect any.
She did finally get private access to the donkey Ashe and the others brought with them. It’s cargo was set to one side and as Tovi had promised, was unmolested. It was evening after dinner and chores and the woman from the future managed to get away undetected.
She was looking through what the time travelers had brought back with them. For the most part, it was what you would expect to find 10th century BCE people taking with them on a long trip, but there were a few extra items.
Aiyana found a earpiece and throat mike fully charged. She put them on. They were almost invisible to the unaided eye and she hoped if she got near enough to a live temporal field, she’d be able to communicate with base.
She also found the detector, the one Ross said they’d used in their attempt to find her. This, more than anything, would help her find the gate again and tell her when (or if) it was active. She’d wait until just before dawn, which Gordon had told her was the scheduled time for the Project to power up the field. If they were still looking for her, she’d do her best to be easy to find.
Aiyana didn’t sleep well that night. She kept dreaming of the Temple, not the dedication or the feast or Sukkot, which were all magnificent, particularly the singing and music of the Priests, but of something more private. She dreamed of giving an offering. She couldn’t see what kind but he was there, the Kohen. He looked at her with those piercing eyes, as if Hashem had given him a prophetic spirit to see her as she truly was, to see the future.
Was he disappointed at the unobservant Jew? Her mother had so wanted her to sit in the sukkah in their backyard. Papa had built it, the local Rabbi and a few other men from the synagogue helped. They did it every Sukkot. Aiyana felt it a mercy when she finally left for university.
How ironic that the first time she ate and prayed in a sukkah was with Aviram’s family in ancient Jerusalem in the shadow of Solomon’s Temple.
Aiyana had to hurry. The herdsmen were at the other side of the pasture, but if it became too light, she could be seen. She went to where she thought the gate had been. She turned on the sensor and started probing. She was getting a reading but it was very strange, almost as if the temporal field was and wasn’t there.
“Hello? Retrograde base? This is Aiyana Zheutlin. Can you read me, over?”
She thought she was getting something from her earpiece.
“Aiy…ohmig…*static*…Lynn, Aiyana. Wait a sec…*static*…readings…Try to coordin…”
It sounded like Lynn but she could barely hear her over the interference. The readings on her device were modulating. She realized she was supposed to coordinate her settings with those of the gate. Somehow, they were out of phase.
She was concentrating for several minutes or more and didn’t hear Aviram approach from behind.
“What sort of witchcraft are you practicing, Rachel bat Ester?”
Startled, she turned suddenly.
Momentarily forgetting modesty in his anger, he grabbed her arm and she dropped the sensor device. Aiyana looked down. The readings were almost in synch. This might be her only chance to get back home.
Aviram were calling over some of the other men.
“You know the penalty for practicing divination, Rachel. We must take you to the Priests.”
She knew it all too well. What was worse than being an exile destined to live out your life in the past? Dying in the past by stoning.
Advertisements Share this:The time incursion has sent each member of Gordon Ashe’s team to different locations in space and time with only a slight hope of ever being found and returned to the present. Yet where and when they’ve been sent may not be entirely random as this and the prior story hints at. What is the secret of where and when the time agents have been sent to?
In my homage to the works of the late Andre Norton (Alice Mary Norton), this book is being called “Key Out of Time,” and the chapters thus far are:
Prologue: Key Out of Time Threshold Incursion Interlude: What Lies in the Deep Restoration The Lost and the Found Falling Down the Rabbit Hole Diverting Armageddon. Eye of the Storm Scattered Thou Across the Ages The next chapter is Time is the Longest Distance.
