Time and Again

I'm going to find a way."
    "I'm counting on it." Libby blinked back tears as she handed him an envelope. "She asked me to give this to you, but to make you promise you won't open it until you get back to your own time."
    He reached out, but she pulled it back. "Your word. Cal tells me you take promises seriously."
    "I won't open it until I'm gone." He folded it carefully before slipping it in his pocket. He kissed her, one cheek, the other, then her mouth. "Keep well, sister."
    The first tear overflowed. "And you." She turned her face into Cal's shoulder as Jacob stepped through the hatch.
    "He'll be back, Libby." He lifted a hand in farewell, then let it fall. Smiling, he pressed a kiss to her hair as she wept. "It's only a matter of time."
    Inside, Jacob cleared his mind and went to work. The procedure for lift-off was basic, but he went through the routine as meticulously as a first-year pilot. He didn't want to think. Couldn't afford to.
    He had known it would hurt, but he had never imagined this kind of dull, gnawing pain. It made his fingers stiff on the switches.
    The lights hummed as he set the controls for ignition. Through the viewscreen he saw that Cal had moved Libby back out of harm's way. For the last time he searched the forest for signs of Sunny. There was nothing. He threw the last switch.
    The ship rose gently, almost silently. He knew he couldn't afford to linger, but he kept the speed down until his brother was only a speck in the sea of white and green. With an oath, he jammed the throttle and shot through the atmosphere.
    Space was soothing, the dark silence of it. He didn't want to be soothed. It would be best if he held on to his anger, his frustration. His jaw set, he engaged his computer.
    "Implement coordinates to sun." Coordinates implemented.
    Seen through the viewscreen, the world was only a pretty colored ball.
    Mechanically he navigated, compensating for a small shower of meteors. It was very simple, really, he thought. Now there was no traffic, commercial or private. No route patrol ships to communicate with.
    No checkpoints.
    He hit the switch and bulleted into hyperspace. As before, his eyes narrowed, his muscles tensed, as he hurtled toward the sun. He watched dispassionately as the gauges registered the increase in outside temperature. With the viewscreen lowered, he flew blind, expertly but without the passion that had fueled him on his last voyage.
    Working with the computer, he increased the speed, adjusted the angle. Meticulous and mechanical, his fingers moved over the command console. Though he was prepared, the g's slammed him back in his chair. Holding course, he swore, filling the cockpit with his anger and his hopelessness.
    Now, though his heart was thousands of miles below, there was no turning back.
    Like a bullet from a gun, he shot through space and time and away from his heart.
    He was breathless when the procedure was complete. A line of sweat rolled down his back. A glance at his gauges told him he had been successful.
    Successful, he thought miserably, rubbing his hands over his eyes. Raising the viewscreen, he looked out on his own time.
    It looked so similar, the stars, the planets, the inky darkness. There were more satellites, and in the distance he saw a blip of light he knew was a research lab. In less than thirty minutes he would join the traffic patterns. He would no longer be alone. Leaning back, he closed his eyes in quiet desperation.
    She was gone.
    Fate had brought him to her, then had torn him away. Fate, he thought, and his own intellect. He would use that intellect. If it took a lifetime, he would find a way to bring their lives together again.
    Perhaps he would suffer over the months or years it took him to complete the necessary tests that would take him back, safely, close to the time of his lift-off. But he would get back, and he would calculate so minutely that she would barely realize he'd ever been gone.
    Slowly he took the letter out of his pocket. It was all he had left of her. Some message, he thought. A few words of love and remembrance. It wouldn't be enough, he thought furiously, and ripped it open.
    There was only one word.
    Surprise.
    Baffled, he stared at it.
    Surprise? he thought. Just surprise. What kind of last message was that? So damn typical of her, he decided, balling the paper up in his fist. Then, relenting, willing to settle for even as little as this, he smoothed it out again.
    At a faint sound, he whirled in the