Time and Again

silence with. If he had a choice-But he had no choice.
    He was lying across the bed fully dressed. Now he rose. He had nothing to take with him, and nothing to leave behind. Moving quietly downstairs, he slipped out of the house.
    The Land Rover was parked near the porch steps, where she had left it the night she'd brought him home. He crossed to it, casting a final glance at Libby's window. He hated to leave her stranded. Later he'd break into a radio frequency and broadcast her location. Someone would come for her.
    She'd be mad. The idea made him smile a little as he climbed into the driver's seat. She would curse him, hate him. And she wouldn't forget him.
    Cal took a moment to be charmed by the old-fashioned instruments and controls. The birds were singing as he tested the steering wheel and pumped the gas pedal curiously.
    There was a lever between the seats marked with numbers running from one to four in an H pattern.
    Gears clanked when he shoved the lever forward. Confident he had the skill to operate such a simple vehicle, he turned knobs. When he got no response he jiggled the gearshift while depressing the floor pedals. Through trial and error, he found the clutch and shifted smoothly into first gear.
    A beginning, he decided, and wondered where the hell the designer had put the ignition.
    "You're going to have a hard time starting it without this." Libby stood on the porch, one hand in a fist on her hip, the other aloft, with the ignition key dangling from her fingers. She was mad, all right, Cal thought.
    But he didn't feel like smiling. "I was just- thinking about taking a ride."
    "Were you?" She tugged her hastily donned sweater farther over her hips before she walked down the steps. "It's your bad luck I didn't leave the keys in the car."
    So it took a key. He should have known. "Did I wake you?"
    She jabbed a fist hard at his shoulder. "You've got nerve, Hornblower. Feeding me all that garbage last night so I'd feel sorry for you, then trying to steal my car. What were you going to do, hot-wire it and leave me stranded? I'd have thought a hotshot pilot like you would be able to do it faster, and quieter."
    "I was just borrowing it," he said, though he doubted the difference would matter to her. "I thought you'd be better off if I drove out to where I wrecked by myself."
    She'd trusted him, she thought, calling herself ten kinds of a fool. She'd felt sorry for him. She'd wanted to help him. Betrayal and fury had her clenching her fist until the key bit into her palm. She'd help him, all right.
    "Well, you can stop thinking. Move over."
    "I'm sorry?"
    "I said move over. You want to go to the wreck, I'll take you to the wreck."
    "Libby-"
    "Move over, Hornblower, or that hole in your head's going to have company."
    "Fine." Giving up, he eased himself over the gearshift and dropped into the passenger seat. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
    "To think I was feeling sorry for you."
    He watched, intrigued, as she pushed the key into a slot and turned. The engine roared to life. The radio blared, the windshield wipers swished, and the heater blasted.
    "You really are a case," she muttered, switching knobs.
    Before he could comment, she popped the clutch, rammed down on the gas and sent them speeding onto the narrow dirt road.
    "Libby." He cleared his throat, then pitched his voice above the noise of the engine. "I was doing what I thought was best for you. I didn't want to involve you any more than I already have."
    "That's swell." She yanked the gearshift back and sent stones flying. "Just who do you work for, Hornblower?"
    "I'm an independent."
    "Oh, I see." Her mouth tightened into a grim line. "You sell to the highest bidder?"
    The renewed anger in her tone puzzled him. "Sure. Doesn't everyone?"
    "Some people don't put a price on their loyalty to their country."
    Cal pressed his fingers to his eyes. He hadn't realized they were back to that. "Libby, I am not a spy. I don't work for the CAI-"
    "CIA."
    "Whatever. I'm a pilot. I run supplies, people, equipment. I deliver to spaceports, colonies, labs."
    "So you're playing that tune again." She gritted her teeth as she sent the Land Rover over a sloping bank and across a stream. Water gushed up the sides. "What are you claiming to be this time-an inter-galactic truck driver?"
    He lifted his hands, then let them fall. "Close enough."
    "I'm not buying it anymore, Cal. I don't think you're crazy. I don't think you're deluded. So cut it"
    "Cut what?" When she only