Time and Again

rode the cycle."
    "No, I mean-" What did she mean? "I was standing at the door. I heard you take off. I even saw, just a glimpse, but I saw the ship in the sky."
    "I sent it back. The computer's at the helm."
    "You sent it back," she repeated slowly. "Oh, my God, Caleb, why?"
    "Only an idiot would have to ask."
    Her eyes filled and spilled over. "No, not for me. I can't bear it. Your family-"
    "I left a disk for them. I told them everything, a great deal more than what's in the report I left on board.
    Where I was, why I had to stay. If the ship makes it back, and it has as good a chance without me as it did with me, they'll understand."
    "I can't ask you to do this."
    "You didn't." He took her hand before she could turn away again. "You would have gone with me, wouldn't you, Libby?"
    "Yes."
    "I might have taken you up on that if I'd been sure we would have lived through it. Listen to me." He drew her to her feet. "I'd started countdown. I'd convinced myself that my life was back there where I'd left it. There were a dozen logical reasons why I had to go. And there was one, only one, reason I had to stay. I love you. My life is here." He tightened his grip, brought her close. "I came through time for you, Libby. Don't ever, ever think I made a mistake."
    She shook her head. "I'm afraid you'll think so."
    "'Time is- Time was- Time is past'," he murmured. "My time is in the past, Libby. With you."
    Her eyes filmed over again. "I love you so much, Caleb. I'll make you happy."
    "I'm counting on it." He picked her up, pausing to capture her mouth in a long, long kiss. "You need sleep," he told her. "Real sleep."
    "No, I don't."
    He laughed, and the last vestige of tension fled. He was exactly where he belonged. "We'll see. Later we'll talk about how we're going to handle the rest of this."
    "Rest?"
    "The marriage-and-family part I can handle."
    "You haven't asked me yet."
    "I'll get around to it. Anyway, I'm going to need new ID. Then I've got to get a job. Something with a-an annual salary, right?"
    "Something you enjoy," she corrected. "That's more important than salary and group hospitalization."
    "Group what?"
    "Don't worry about it." She nuzzled into his neck. "I suppose Dad could give you some kind of position until you figure it all out."
    "I don't think I want to make tea." Suddenly inspired, he stopped by the side of the bed. "Tell me, how do you go about getting a pilot's license around here?"

 
     
     
    Times Change

CHAPTER 1
    He knew the risks. He was a man who was willing to take them. One misstep, one bad call, and it would all be over, essentially before it had begun. But he had always considered life a gamble. Often-perhaps too often-he had allowed his impulses to rule and plunged recklessly into potentially dangerous situations.
    In this case, he had figured the odds painstakingly.
    Two years of his life had been spent calculating, simulating, constructing. The most minute details had been considered, computed and analyzed. He was a very patient man-when it came to his work. He knew what could happen. Now it was time to discover what would.
    More than a few of his associates believed he had crossed the line between genius and madness. Even those who were enthusiastic about his theories worried that he'd gone too far. Popular opinion didn't concern him. Results did. And results of this, the greatest experience of his life, would be personal. Very personal.
    Seated behind the wide curve of the control panel, he looked more like a buccaneer at the helm of a ship than a scientist on the verge of discovery. But science was his life, and that made him as true an explorer as the ancient Columbus and Magellan.
    He believed in chance, in the purest sense of the word-the unpredictable possibility of existence.
    He was here now to prove it. In addition to his calculations, the technology at his command, his knowledge and his computations, he needed one element that any explorer required for success.
    Luck.
    He was alone now in the vast, silent sea of space, beyond the traffic patterns, beyond the last charted quadrant. There was an intimacy here between man and his dreams that could never be achieved in a laboratory. For the first time since his voyage had begun, he smiled. He had been in his laboratory too long.
    The solitude was soothing, even tempting. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to be truly alone, with only his own thoughts for company. If he'd chosen, he could have cruised along, easing back on