Time and Again

admire her style when he'd read over what she'd done. There was no doubt in his mind that the scientists of his time would find Libby's report both concise and fascinating. The rest was largely technical, and though he knew she couldn't understand the calculations he was feeding her, she typed them out.
    They'd spent hours over it, refining, perfecting, taking long periods when she would question him on the social, the political, the cultural climate of his time. She made him think about things he had taken for granted, about others he had casually ignored.
    Yes, there was still poverty, but shelters and programs provided the very poor with a roof and a meal.
    There was still conflict, but all-out war had been avoided for more than 120 years. Politics were still argued over, babies were still cuddled. People complained that the skyways were too crowded. As far as Cal remembered there had been four, or it might have been five, women who had held the office of president.
    The more questions he answered, the more she thought of. They fell asleep tangled together in bed in the middle of one of his answers.
    They finished the time capsule late the next morning, filling the airtight steel box Libby had bought in town with what seemed most pertinent. One copy of the report was wrapped in plastic before they set it inside. Libby added one of her mother's woven mats and a clay bowl her father had made when she'd been a baby. They added a newspaper, a popular weekly magazine and, at Cal's insistence, a wooden spoon from the kitchen drawer. She added one of the two pictures she'd taken of his ship.
    "We need more," Libby muttered.
    "I wanted this." He held up a tube of toothpaste. "And I was hoping for some of your underwear."
    "Yes to the first, no to the second."
    "It's for science," he reminded her.
    "Not a chance. We need a tool. We're always very pleased when we find a tool on a dig." She rummaged through a drawer and came up with a screwdriver, a small ball peen hammer and a pipe wrench. "Take your pick."
    He took the wrench. "How about a book?"
    "Terrific." She dashed into the living room and began combing the shelves. "I want popular fiction, something written in this era. Ah- Stephen King."
    "I've read him. Terrifying."
    "Horror transcends time, as well." She brought it into the kitchen and placed it in the box. "If they do any tests, they'll be able to date all of this material. It will back up your story. Come on outside, we'll take some pictures."
    Because he got to the camera before her, Cal claimed his right to take the first shots. He snapped the cabin, Libby and the cabin, Libby beside the Land Rover, in the Land Rover. Libby laughing at him. And yelling at him.
    "Do you know how much film you've used?" Blowing out a breath, she ripped open another pack. "This stuff averages a dollar a shot. Anthropology's a fascinating field, but the pay's lousy."
    "Sorry." He moved to the front of the cabin when she waved with the back of her hand. "I never thought to ask. What's your credit rating?"
    "I have no idea." She took a shot of him standing, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his borrowed jeans.
    "We don't do things that way now. At least I think credit rating means something else. Now it's a matter of what you're worth, or what you make. Annual salary and that sort of thing." She was enough her parents' child that she rarely gave it much thought. "Why don't you unstrap your cycle and sit on it in front of the cabin? A now-and-then sort of thing."
    He obliged. "Libby, I don't have any way to pay you back, in your currency, for all of this."
    "Don't be silly. It was only a joke."
    "There's a great deal more I can't pay you back for."
    "There's nothing to pay back." She lowered the camera and weighed each word carefully. "Don't think of it as an obligation. Please. And don't look at me like that. I'm not ready to be serious."
    "We don't have much time left."
    "I know." She hadn't understood everything he'd dictated to her the night before, but she knew he would be gone before the sun rose the next day. "Let's not spoil what we have." She looked away to give herself a moment to regain her balance. "It's a shame this model doesn't have a timer. It would be nice to get a couple of pictures with both of us in them."
    "Hold on." He walked around the side of the building, returning a few moments later with a garden hoe.
    "Sit on the steps," he told her, then proceeded to strap the camera to the seat of his cycle. He leaned