Time and Again

really meant to come out to Caleb. During the entire trip she'd told herself she would go back to the cabin and get to work. Yet here she was, letting herself be pulled back. At least there was something she could do for herself.
    On impulse, she grabbed the new Polaroid from the shopping bag. After unboxing it, she skimmed over the directions, then loaded it with the first of the packs of film she'd bought. As an afterthought, she grabbed the bag of chunky oatmeal cookies.
    From the top of the slope she studied the ship. It lay huge and silent on the rocks and the downed trees, like some strange sleeping animal. Deliberately she blocked out thoughts of the man inside and concentrated on the ship itself.
    The sixteen-wheeler of the future, she decided, carefully framing it. The Greyhound bus or power van.
    All aboard for Mars, Mercury and Venus. Express trips to Pluto and Orion available. With what was more a sigh than a snicker, she took two pictures. Sitting on the edge of the slope, she watched them develop. Fifty years ago, she mused, the idea of instant pictures had been science fiction. She glanced back at the ship. Man worked fast. Very fast.
    Wanting a few more moments to herself, she ripped open the bag of cookies and began to nibble.
    Of course, she'd never be able to show the picture that was already taking shape in her hand to anyone.
    One was for the capsule, but the other was for her personal files. She wanted to believe it was the scientist who had taken it, who would label and file it along with other pictures she would take and the hard copy of the report she was writing on this isolated experience.
    But it had nothing to do with science, and everything to do with the heart. She didn't want to rely on her memory.
    She slipped the pictures into her pocket, swung the camera over her shoulder and started down.
    When she reached the hatch, she lifted her fist, then started to laugh. Did one knock on the door of a spacecraft? Feeling foolish with the ship looming over her, she rapped twice. A chipmunk scurried over the ground, scrambled onto the trunk of a fallen tree and stared at her.
    "I know it's odd," Libby told him. "Just remember to keep it under your hat." She tossed half a cookie in his direction, then turned back to knock again. "All right, Hornblower, open up. I feel like an idiot out here."
    She tried knocking, pounding, shouting. Once she gave in to temper and slammed the hull with a good kick. Favoring her sore toes, she stepped back. Furious with him, she'd nearly decided to turn back when it occurred to her he might not be able to hear her.
    Stepping closer, she began to search for the device he had used to open the hatch. It took her ten minutes. When the hatch opened, she stormed inside, ready for a fight.
    "Listen, Hornblower, I-"
    He wasn't on the bridge. Frustrated, Libby dragged back her hair. Couldn't he even make himself available when she wanted to yell at him?
    The shield was up. She hadn't been able to see in from the outside, but now she had a stunning panoramic view. Drawn, she crossed over to the controls. How would it feel, she wondered as she sat in his chair, to pilot something so huge, so powerful? She scanned the buttons and switches spread out before her. Was it any wonder he loved it? Even a woman who had always been firmly rooted to the ground could imagine the wild, limitless freedom of traveling through space. There would be planets, balls of color and light. The glimmer of distant stars, the glow of orbiting moons.
    She liked to think of him that way, weaving through the stars the way he had woven through the trees with her on the cycle.
    Libby took a last scan of the controls, then studied the computer. A little ill at ease, she glanced around the empty bridge before she leaned forward. "Computer?" Working.
    She jolted, then swallowed a nervous laugh. There were two questions she wanted to ask, but only one she truly wanted the answer to. Because she believed in facing facts, Libby inhaled, exhaled, then plunged. "Computer, what is the status on the calculations for the return journey to the twenty-third century?"
    Calculations complete. Probability index formulated. Risk factors, trajectory, thrust, degree of orbit, velocity and success factors locked in. Is report desired? "No."
    So he was finished. She'd known it, even when she'd tried to tell herself she had a few more days with him. He hadn't told her, but she thought she understood why. Cal wouldn't want to