by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Meddling in history may involve special dangers, but it does offer some unique opportunities.

oOo

My family has always gone down to the Sea in ships. I am told that the first Dunbar shipped out of Norway on a leaky Viking longship. Probably a stowaway. First of many. For some reason, Dunbars like being stowaways. The thrill of danger, perhaps, or obsessive curiosity or arrested development.

 Not that I'm denigrating my ancestors. I'm no exception. I, too, hitch unauthorized rides on tall ships. The only difference between me and the other Dunbar riff-raff is that I get paid for it. That is, I have a grant, which amounts to the same thing.

 I am not, and never have been a good student. I have gotten this far in my post-doctoral by the skin of my Celtic teeth. I do produce results. I do well at peer reviews. But I have this penchant for—shall we say—becoming involved with my subject matter. Really involved.

 Case in point: My most recent project. Regency England. Commerce as a Tool of Imperialism. A broad area of study. Too broad, I thought, and narrowed it down to the British East India Company. Then I narrowed it down a little further to a ship named Essex.

 Now the Essex was of particular interest for a number of reasons. One is that she was reputed to have carried more sails than any ship ever rigged—sixty-three in all. She also may have seen the first use of camouflage, having one side painted differently than the other so as to confuse privateers and French sea captains. Then there was her Master, Captain Charles Dunbar—"Black Charley" Dunbar to the general public, many times great grampa Charley to me.

 When I arrived in London, it was winter 2115. A crisp, chill, unutterably beautiful, travel poster day. I longed to spend time on the piers inhaling brine, but my Shift-eye (aka Human Observer) was not in the mood to freeze his tush off while I pined for the days when ships sailed in water instead of over it and wind power was the puissance du jour. He hustled me and my Temporal Grid Enclosure (TeGrEn) quickly through check out.

 QuestLabs advises Time Travelers not to carry unnecessary baggage. In my humble opinion, that's as good a description of a Shift-eye as you're likely to find. Their function is ostensibly to assist in transporting and setting up equipment, monitor the Shift and the Traveler's vitals, and pull him or her back in case something goes wrong. In the thirty-five years since QuestLabs began licensing the Temporal Shift Technology, so little has gone wrong that the Shift-eye rarely does more than sit around drinking coffee and watching reruns of Dr. Who on SF-Net.

 I'd shuttled my Grid to London, air freight, cleverly disguised as a shipping crate of the type used by the East India Company circa 1800. Brought it to the docks in an aero-lorry.

That was actually cheaper than making a Trans-Atlantic Retrotemporal Shift and I was trying to show a few Full Fellows that I could be frugal with QuestLab's resources.

 I Shifted at mid-day so as not to discomfit my Shift-Eye. I discomfited myself instead, arriving on the London docks (again) at midnight. It was late spring, 1805. The war with France was in full swing. Nelson was already a hero and was closing on immortality. The sea lanes were a shooting gallery. It was a dangerous time to be at sea on a British East Indiaman, which, I suppose, is why I wanted to be there. Call it a death-wish—I suspected my ancestor had similar cravings.

 The TeGrEn's spatial interference detector (SID) correctly determined that I could not occupy the same surface coordinates as those real crates stacked right where I'd been (or would be) three-hundred-some-odd years hence. It faded itself, myself and my Crate gently into being about a yard from the spot. There was no one around, according to SID, to see the apparition. Unless you happened to count the insensate gentleman two crates to my right.

 I cautiously exited the TeGrEn and slid it up against its neighbors on silent Grav-Ex coasters. Then I went, as they say, for a little "rec'y."

 The best laid plans of Arthur Dunbar ne'er gang a'gley—or at least they so rarely do that it doesn't count. The crates my TeGrEn nestled against belonged to that magnificent, towering vision just across the pier, and that vision was the Essex.

 She rocked gently, bow sprit thrust over the planking like a questing arm, masts sequoia-tall, tickling the unseen stars through their blanket of thick, archetypal fog. She murmured in her sleep, too, musically; she did not snore like the sodden gentleman behind me. I listened to her croon a while—absorbing the polyrhythm of wave-lap and rope-tap, the close violin harmonies of light breezes through ratlines—then returned to my time machine, feeling like a certain H.G. Wells hero as I slipped in, swung the door into place and settled down to wait.

 I slept. I wasn't supposed to sleep. That was one of the reasons for Shifting at mid-day Gridtime. But I had chosen the comfort of my bunk over the uprightness of my console chair and I could hear Essex's silken cooing through the external monitor and it lulled me completely. I dreamed I was already aboard her, rocked like a baby in a warm, close cradle, the scent of tar and brine and pine pitch caressing my dozing senses.

 I woke suddenly, aware of a braying sound, and was surprised to find that the rocking was no dream and that the braying was laughter. That faded, the rocking continued ceaselessly. I was aboard the Essex, I realized, and had obviously slept right through the loading of my Crate. Just as well, really. It made for less time with nothing to do but study history and make useless log entries.

 I checked the external monitor. It was dark as the inside of the idiomatic hat. I assumed that the hatch was closed and that the crew, from the sound of it, was in full swing up on deck. I palmed the door release, thinking I would take a quick look around by disclite. The damn thing clicked, hummed and stayed perfectly shut. I tried again. Same result. I could see it now—banner headline: Post-graduate Student Found Mummified in Time Machine.

 Muttering veiled obscenities, I pushed against the door with the flat of my hand. When that didn't work I panned the external monitor. Uniform blackness met my eyes. Next I ordered SID to perform a sweep of the immediate area. As I suspected, the TeGrEn and I were neatly hemmed in on all sides by immovable, solid objects. I should have foreseen that, of course, but hadn't. It meant another Shift (my Eye would be having fits) and disarranging the Essex's neatly packed cargo hold. Always supposing that there was even a place large enough for me to Shift to.

 I put SID on it. He (you will pardon my anthropomorphizing, but when you travel alone in a crate no bigger than a small horse box, it comes naturally) came back with a barely big enough spot just below the forward hatch. I fed the data through the Plotter and in a moment's time had skipped back an hour, Shifted sideways about four yards and come up in SID's targeted location.

 The din of falling crates was like a convention of rock drummers, all soloing madly and cranked to eleven. Inside my safe-haven, I cringed comfortably and waited. The hold was crawling with sailors in the wink of an eye. I adjusted the external monitor and was rewarded with a striped view of a gaggle of ancient and not-so-ancient mariners swarming down the central aisle.

 "Aye! Here't be!" announced one gnarled specimen. "Holy Mother, will ye look a' tha'! O'Hara, I thought you scum packed this tight."

 "Did, Mr. Piggott, sir." The wiry O'Hara bounced as if he was on a spring. "Tom Farley and Matthew will attest to that."

 "Aye? Well, it ain't tight now, Cargomaster. Get your boys on't now or we'll be late t'sail. The Master'd not take kind t'tha."

 "No, the Master would not take at all kind to that."

 The voice was big and it came from directly above me. As I scrambled to orient myself to that fact, two booted legs appeared in my striated "portal" and I realized the TeGrEn was tucked in under the forward ladder. The man descending the ladder was twice the size of his voice. He effectively blocked my view of the other men.

 I sucked air and held it. Black Charley.

 "Who's responsible for this mess?" he asked, his voice smooth and soft as the velvet coat that covered his broad shoulders.

 Well dressed, I thought. Somehow I hadn't expected that, though I knew that Charles Dunbar, like a good many East India shipmasters was a fairly wealthy man. A goodly amount of the stowage in this hold might very well belong to him, personally.

 "Well?" the voice roared. I could almost see the sailors cringing into their cargo.

 "It were secure, Cap'n," stated a wheeze-whine voice—Piggott's, I thought. "Absolute, sir."

 "Well, it isn't secure now. See to it. And whoever's responsible...watch your step. Those're my personal goods."

 He swung about then, and I got a glimpse of his face. It was long, square-jawed—chiseled, as they say—with high cheek bones and aquiline nose. Dark brows, beard and hair and pale frost-bit eyes sharpened the focus dramatically. He was my ancestor, no doubt about it.

 We left the docks in about three hours time. I tried to concentrate on period history, noting what I could or could not know, say or do. But Essex was making it hard to keep my mind on that pursuit. I could feel the water gliding beneath the keel, could hear the symphony of creaks and rustles and gurgles as she made her stately way down the Thames to the Channel.

 It was safer in the box. I knew that. Especially since I'd been forced to call attention to the hold. I was not supposed to be found until we cleared the mouth of the Channel. But I had to—absolutely had—to see what was happening topside. I slipped out quietly—as if I could really be heard by anybody but the ship's cat—and shined my disclite surreptitiously about. The forward hatch would not be an ideal place to peer from, so I made my way aft, seeking a ventilation shaft I recalled seeing in a decking plan.

 Finding it was easy enough (I gave my memory a pat on the back), but reaching it was something else again. There was a pile of burlap bags between me and it, all packed to the seams with something. Peat, I realized as I began my climb.

 I reached the top of the heap without too much difficulty and poked my head up into the shaft above it. The view was not terrific, but it beat the inside of the TeGrEn all to pieces.

Iron bars cris-crossed a sweeping panorama of satiny decking, coils of rope, the butt of a nearby cannon and the juncture between deck and mainmast. I could also just see the starboard rail and feet—lots of feet.

 It was fairly quiet outbound and I'd hoped to be around for her approach to Bombay where I had read there would be a thirteen gun salute and an honor guard waiting to see her in. Here, there would be people lining the docks, watching—but they would be concerned merchants, wives, children, urchins longing to be on the outbound tide.

 I sighed.

 "So ye like the sights hereabouts, do ye?" The voice shocked me out of my daydream about half a second before a strong pair of hands grasped the tail of my coat and the seat of my britches and hauled me down off the peat pile.

 I tumbled all the way to the bottom and came out upside down against a ploughshare, staring cross-eyed into the black silhouette of Mr. Piggott.

 He let out a wheeze of laughter. "Ain't ye just a wee bit auld for these shenanigans, son?"

 oOo

 Captain Charles Dunbar eyed me with what I took as suspicion. I stood trembling in his cabin waiting for the worst case scenario to be played out: I am killed and thrown overboard or let off politely quay-side while my Temporal Grid sails blithely to Bombay without me. Of course, it would never make Bombay.

After two months sans time traveler, its recall mechanism would do one last all-out search for my vitals and, not finding them, Shift back to its original coordinates in London-future where QuestLabs and Oslovsky U. would decide if I was worth rescuing. I would be either dead or stranded in 1805 regardless. Right now, it was all I could do to keep my head up and my eyes level with the Captain's, praying the name "Black Charley" was a comment on his startling coloring and not his personality.

 He strode right up to me—not quite towering above me, but seeming to—and put his nose nearly against mine. "Est-ce que vous êtes Francais, monsieur?"

 "Oh, no, sir," I replied immediately. "I'm Am- uh, English."

 "Ah! Mais vous comprenez le langue, non?"

 "Vous comprenez Francais, aussi, monsieur. Etes vous Francais?"

 I had him there. He could hardly accuse me—in French, no less—of being a French spy on the grounds that I spoke the language. He scratched the corner of his mouth. It was threatening to curl into a smile. I felt a tingle of hope.

 "Are you sure you're not a French spy, boy?"

 "No, sir. I don't think so, sir. I was born in York." (Okay, so I was born in New York—close.)

 "York?"

 "Yes sir."

 He glanced aside at his First Mate, Reardon by name, who stood silently aside, watching.

 "Not Paris?" ("Pah-ree", he said, quite properly.)

 "Not Paris." I stressed the "s" at the end of the word.

 "Have you been to Paris?"

 "No sir, I have not."

 "Yet you speak the language."

 "Preparing for the worst, sir," I said before I could stop myself. I cringed.

He stared. He sent his mate a wide-eyed look. Then he threw back his head and roared. "Not a spy at all. A jokester."

 I nodded, relaxing.

 "Then what the bloody blazes are you doing aboard my ship, scurrying beneath-decks like a damned bilge rat?"

 I had never heard anyone seriously use the term "bilge rat" before and it completely up-ended me. I laughed. "I'm sorry," I apologized to his scowl. "I've been called a lot of things, but never that. I'm a-a student, sir. And my family have an eye to a career in medicine. But I..." I paused and gazed around, my eyes going to the windows of the transom. "I've always loved the Sea."

 Well, I couldn't have said better. The Cap's frosty gray eyes lit up and went into pinwheels like a McCaffrey dragon's, though other than that, his expression remained unchanged.

 "Know your way around a vessel, do you?" he asked.

 "I think so, sir."

 He nodded, then put his fist in front of my nose and beckoned me to follow him. He led me from his cabin and up on deck, the silent First Mate bringing up the rear. In the open hatchway, he pointed forward. "What's that, then?"

 I followed his finger. "The mainmast, sir. Any fool knows that."

 He crossed his arms over his chest. "Name me the sails on her. Bottom-most up."

 I grinned. Among her suite of sixty-three sails, the Essex carried several not found on other ships. Black Charley evidently expected me not to know that. "Yes sir!" I said and recited, "Mainsail, lower topsail, upper topsail, topgallant, royal, skysail..." I paused just long enough to see a slow smile tug at the corners of his mouth. "Cloudscraper, moonraker, stargazer," I finished in a rush and was gratified to see a glint of surprise in the Master's eyes.

 "You know the Essex, then?"

 "I do indeed, sir," I said with only half-feigned eagerness.

"She's the finest ship afloat."

 "You're small, soft, and too glib for your own good," Black Charley informed me. "Can you think of any reason I shouldn't throw you overboard or send you home on a channel barge?"

 Actually, I couldn't.

 The First Mate cleared his throat. The sound so close behind me nearly induced heart failure. "The young man did say he'd studied medicine, Cap'n."

 "So he did." Charley's grappling hook eyes caught me by the throat. "Do you know aught of medicine, boy?"

 "Well, I-I've only had two years, but-"

 "We've no doctor on this voyage. Old one died at sea and the new man's been held up it seems. Little matter of a wedding, I hear. Your two years bests any man aboard...Doctor..." He wrinkled a black brow—just one, like Mr. Spock. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. What's your name, young man?"

 For a split second, I courted the idea of saying "Dr. McCoy," but no one would get the joke for another hundred and fifty-eight years. In another second I was wondering what he'd do if I told him the truth—that I was just as much a Dunbar as he was. No, I thought, he's superstitious—might take it as a bad omen and chuck me over-sides. I took a page from the book of another time traveler. "Foreman," said I. "Arthur Foreman."

 I'd hesitated too long and his eye noted it with a head-to-toe sweep. "You've no need to prevaricate with me, boy. I'll not squawk to your family."

 "No, sir. Of course not, sir," I murmured.

 "Ah, well, keep your secret, then." He turned his attention to Mr. Reardon. "Set him up in the Doctor's quarters if you would, Jimmy. We'll be under sail in another hour." He turned and strode off, then, leaving me in the First Mate's able hands.

I was shown a cabin and told that if I had any belongings in the hold, I'd best get them up before the crew found them. I brought up only items that a nineteenth century stowaway might be expected to carry—a pocket watch, a diary, some clothing, a few books. One had a flat-screen monitor in the back cover that went with the touch-sensitive ultra-thin keyboard worked into the front cover. Without coded voice activation (the magic words: open sesame), it would stolidly remain a book through all prodding and prying.

 As I was ferrying my goods topsides, I recalled the disclite, which I'd pocketed just before I was discovered. I certainly didn't want to be caught with that. I reached into my pants pocket and felt empty air. The light was gone.

 Adrenaline pumping, I stowed my gear, then returned to the hold to make a careful search of the area around where I'd fallen into the arms of the inestimable Mr. Piggott. Nothing turned up.

Exasperated, I tried to think where else I might have dropped the thing. Really, it was stupid of me to have taken it outside the Crate. Unless I found it, it was quite literally history.

 A scraping sound sent me a foot straight up into the hold's dim, turgid air. I spun just in time to see a tall, narrow shadow melt into the general gloom to the port side of the ladder. If that was a rat, I was in trouble. If it wasn't a rat, I was in trouble. I made my way quickly to the main deck.

 We were nearing the mouth of the Thames and the air changed noticeably, taking on a fresh, tangy perfume that the city's pollution had muted to a stale, briny smack. The crew began to scramble now, like rats in the rigging, preparing to unfurl the sails. I gazed up at the neatly collected stargazer and wondered if it had ever seen duty. On deck, the Captain ordered men to the capstan.

 The activity was at its height and our tug cast off when the Mate called down from the helm. "Lighter approaching, sir! Off the port beam."

 Captain Dunbar turned, frowned at his First Officer, then ordered his crew to stand down from the capstan. He took the view from the port rail, then waved down at the approaching boat before ordering a ladder thrown over-side.

 On his way to the poopdeck, he glanced my way. "Well, Arthur Foreman, I think you'd best clear your quarters and think of a reason I oughtn't send you home on that lighter. We've got us a real doctor now."

 A real doctor was not all we had. We had a real doctor's wife.

 Mary MacCormac was stunning as a starry night. Hair the color of a sailor's delight sunset (a yard of it, at least), creamy, white-cap skin, sea green eyes. Here, I could hear every man aboard thinking, is a proper woman for a mariner. She had a sweet, graceful manner as well—shy, warm smile that could turn quickly saucy; fey glint in the eyes. She was mesmerizing.

 Her husband, on the other hand, seemed hardly worthy of her. Ian MacCormac was a dark, curly-haired, faun-like man. A colorless man — unremittingly gray and black. Odd, I thought, how a man so like Black Charley in coloring could seem so drab in comparison—so insignificant. But then he would look colorless next to Mary, and because of Mary we did not like him.

 I had already begun to think of myself as a member of Essex's crew, but I was not that, and her master quickly reminded me of the fact.

 "Well, Mr. Foreman," he said when the MacCormacs had been ushered below. "Have you thought well about what will induce me not to send you back to town in that lighter?"

 I hadn't thought of it at all, actually. I had been thinking of Mary MacCormac. I could only comfort myself that he was probably toying with me. If he really wanted to throw me off the ship, we wouldn't be standing here discussing it. "I don't know, sir," I murmured.

 "Well, have you any special talents? Do you sing or dance or play the pipes or fiddle?"

 I am, as Providence would have it, a most untalented individual. I could think of nothing except- "I am possessed of a certain...clairvoyance, sir."

 Charley laughed. "A fortuneteller?"

 I shrugged. "I see things."

 "Do you now? And what do you see about me, eh? What's in the future of Charley Dunbar?"

 I looked thoughtful for a moment. "A record-breaking voyage. The ownership of three of your own vessels. Retirement as a wealthy man to a large estate in..." I rubbed my temples. "Hampshire."

 He blinked. "I've always fancied Hampshire. But you no doubt could've guessed that or taken it from Reardon. Tell me something else or..." His eyes wandered to the rail where the pilot of the lighter was hobnobbing with the Bosun and cargo master.

 I could see the situation called for more imagination on my part. What could I tell him without breaking some unwritten Law of Time Travel?

 "Well?"

 "Today is the twentieth of June," I said. "Tomorrow the East Indiaman Warren Hastings will be taken by a French vessel. A...a frigate... The Piémontaise."

 Charley goggled at me. "The Hastings ships forty-four cannon and possesses one of the finest crews in the Fleet—you ask me to believe she can be taken by a single frigate?"

 I nodded. "And towed to port in record time."

 His eyes narrowed and he waggled a finger at me. "Clever boy. You've told me a tale I'll not be able to verify 'til we make our first port o' call."

 I smiled affably.

 "Very well, then, Arthur Foreman. I'll let you ship on the Essex...maybe...if you tell me one more thing—your real name."

 I ran down the list of possibilities and came up with only one I was willing to live with. "Dunbar, sir," I told him. "Arthur Dunbar."

 His pale eyes widened. "And will you now claim to be my illegitimate get, or some such?"

 "No, sir. I know both my parents quite well. My father is Curtis Dunbar—a doctor out of York." (Queens, actually. And he was a particle physicist. Close enough, though. He'd doctored a lot of quantum theories in his day.)

 "I've people in York. You figure we're related?"

 "I really couldn't say, sir." I really couldn't. That would be breaking a Law.

 He eyed me up one side and down the other, then made an explosive sound between his lips. "Ah, you've tweaked my curious bone, boy. But if you're to have passage on this vessel, you either pay or earn your way. I suppose you've no coin?"

 "I do, sir, but I don't want to be a passenger. I want to serve the Essex."

 "How well do you think you can handle the lines?" He nodded at Essex's towering masts.

 "I've sailed small boats, sir. Nothing bigger than a large fishing yawl."

 "I'll teach you then. Piggott'll teach you. For now, you start at bottom. Consider yourself my cabin boy. Get your things into that wee cabin next to mine."

 I nodded vigorously and thanked him, but he was already off, calling the hands to stations, yelling at the lighter to cast off. As I went below, the fore capstan had begun to turn and Essex's fore course to blossom.

 oOo

 Our first two weeks at sea were remarkably uneventful. There was no sign of the French and the Captain teased me daily about my prophetic utterance, at the same time prodding me for further predictions. I demurred, saying with affected grief that I couldn't make prognostications in the face of such skepticism.

 I spent a lot of my free time (when Charley didn't have me dancing the hornpipe) searching the forward hold for my disclite. No luck. I began to pray that it had been eaten by a large and desperate rat, but knew there was little hope of that.

 I also managed to spend some time with the incredible Mary MacCormac. Everybody managed to spend time with her, from the youngest swabbie to the hoariest tar. There was an absolute rash of minor ailments and injuries aboard the Essex; ailments and injuries the doctor would patiently check before sending the suffering to his inestimable wife for liniment or bandage or sympathy. And while good Mary worked on the poor, wounded souls, they would gaze up into her great ocean eyes and smile and dream of mermaids.

 I was not nearly so clumsy. I simply frequented the MacCormac's province as a matter of friendliness and courtesy.

And so did Captain Charley. He dined with them every evening, placing them before any of the rather wealthy passengers at his table. I was also included in the select "head-of-the-table" grouping, I suspected, so that Ian MacCormac would have someone to talk to while Charley monopolized his wife.

 She was bright as well as beautiful and charming, and I wondered how the young doctor had been so lucky as to catch the eye of such a girl. So, apparently did Charley, for he made a point one evening of asking her how they met.

 Mary dimpled splendidly, then flashed her quiet husband a brilliant smile. "Well, I must own, it was all due to my clumsiness."

 Ian MacCormac colored. "Nonsense, darling," he murmured. "You are not capable of clumsiness. It was that idiot horse of yours." His eyes worshipped her and I liked him a little more for that.

 Mary laughed and continued with her story. "I was riding in the park when my gelding took exception to a feathered hat. I agree with him that it was in the most dreadful taste, but I'd not have bolted at the sight of it. Strawberry, however, found it quite alarming and took off at a dead run. He shied again at a gaggle of white geese—I can only assume because they were also wearing feathers—and off I came. Ian-" —and she covered his hand with hers— "was out for a stroll and witnessed my unseating. He very kindly bundled me up and took me home and looked after my poor concussed head. He looked in on me every day for a week and by the time I was right again..." She blinded us with another smile which, ultimately, ended up caressing the enviable Ian.

He smiled in return and I grudgingly admitted he was not completely without charm, grace or beauty.

 Obviously, I thought, this is the sort of patient-doctor attraction one finds in psychology texts.

 "You're a lucky man," I told MacCormac as we strolled the deck after dinner. We had caught the Trade winds and were now heading into the Horse Latitudes; the weather was mild and pleasant.

 He followed my gaze to where, up on the poop deck, Captain Charley allowed Mary to handle the wheel.

"I'm well aware," he said. "Well aware. Although, I must admit, I sometimes wish my dear wife was a bit more homely. I'd love her regardless and other men might not be so attentive." He laughed and shook his head. "Oh, I'm wrong about that, I know. She could have the face of a cow and still be Beauty incarnate. You know what I mean," he added, seemingly embarrassed.

 "I do," I assured him.

 He laughed again. "I sometimes have this irrational fear that one of her many admirers will try to eliminate me."

"Nobody would be as stupid as that," I said. "That would hurt her. She obviously adores you."

"Yes, she does. Incredible, that. And you're quite right. No one would hurt Mary. I haven't to worry."

 I had to worry. There was no sign of my disclite and I was haunted by the suspicion that someone was watching me as I searched for it. I considered telling the Captain I'd lost an odd family heirloom and hope someone would come forward with it.

But I didn't have to. Someone came forward anyway.

I was returning from one of my clandestine visits to the hold when a tall, very solid shadow blocked the companionway just outside my cabin door. It was Reardon.

 "A word with you," was all he said, then followed me into my cabin.

 It seemed exceptionally crowded in the cubby suddenly. I offered him a seat on my bunk. He declined, so I sat there, waiting for him to speak.

 "May I ask," he said finally, "why you have told the Captain your name is Dunbar?"

 "Because it is."

 "You said Foreman."

 "I lied...a little. Foreman is my mother's family name. (Also a lie.) You see, I knew the Captain's name was Dunbar and I didn't want him to think...well, you understand."

 His brow puckered. "I suppose. Now may I ask what you find of such interest in our forward hold?"

 I saw no reason to dodge. "I lost something. A very rare family heirloom."

 "Oh? What, then, a pocket watch? A ring?"

 "A...belt clip. It's a disc about so big-" I made a circle with thumb and forefinger. "It...well it's luminescent."

 "Ah," he said, nodding. "You mean, like this." He held out his hand. The disclite sat in its palm.

 "Yes! That's it!" I reached for it. His fingers denied me access.

 "Can you explain by what principle it works, Mr. Dunbar?"

 I scratched my head. How many people could explain the principle behind any contemporary piece of technology, even one they used every day? Windmills were probably a mystery to all but the miller. "Not really," I said. "I believe my uncle said it had something to do with, um, phosphorous and the absorption of sunlight."

 "Your uncle?"

 "An inventor," I lied glibly and smiled. "He makes less money than Aunt would like, but enough to finance his projects."

I gestured at the disc. "This one was supposed to help miners see what they were digging up."

 "I should say it works quite well—better than I would expect from a light-absorbing phosphorous. I find it rather astounding that your uncle makes such a modest living. Common wisdom has it that everything of value has already been invented—that all we may hope for is further refinement of what we already possess. Something like this..." —he flipped the little medallion in his hand— "would revolutionize the mining industry...and stun the patent office."

 He was not buying this. Next he would tell me he was raised on the moors and knew all about phosphor-producing plants.

 "I was raised on the moors, Mr. Dunbar. And I've never seen such a light as this." He thumbed the thing on and hit me in the face with a splash of yellow light.

 I blinked. "My uncle has quite a few new tricks up his sleeve, I guess."

 "Someone does," he said and pocketed the disc.

 My eyes followed it. "That means a great deal to me," I said. He could have no idea now much. If QuestLabs found out I had lost a techno-gadget like that in Regency England... "Please, sir, may I have it back?" 

The Oliver Twist gambit failed miserably. "Don't whimper, man," he ordered me. "You are a sailor...at least for the time being."

 "But what will you do with it?" My eyes never left his pocket.

 "I don't know. Perhaps the Captain will find it of interest," he said, and left me where I stood.

 oOo

I was a passable cabin boy, according to Captain Charley. I was quick and thorough and showed good humor. Meaning I put up with his moods, his autocratic style and his hazing. We came to an understanding when I began to return his pranks with stunts of my own. Replacing his moustache wax with boot-blacking was my grand finale. I was not prompted to give an encore.  Charley also liked the way I handled the passengers. There were seven on this trip—two couples and, between them, three children. I entertained them, which meant Charley didn't have to. Instead, he could spend supper gazing soulfully at the Doctor's wife.

 "She's a powerful woman, isn't she, Arthur?" he asked after supper one evening. We were seated in the bows on a couple of empty crates; he, smoking a pipe, I, attempting to whittle something. The night was exceptionally balmy and Essex ghosted under flying jib and reefed foretopsail.

 I knew who he meant, of course, but pretended not to. "Who?"

 "M-Mrs. MacCormac." His tongue stumbled over the title, straining toward her first name.

 "Mary?" I grinned, realizing that, I, a lowly cabin boy, had been allowed a privilege of which he but dreamed. "Yes, she is exceptional."

 He leaned toward me, elbows on knees, his pipe stem pointed at my nose. "Powerful, boy. She pulls a man. Pulls him like the Sea." He raised his head and gazed over-sides at phosphor kittens playing pounce with dark troughs. He seemed bemused. "I've never known woman like her, Arthur. So quiet and deep one moment, playful the next."

 He might have been describing the Sea and I said as much.

 He nodded, looking sage, and drew on his pipe. "A man might be able to trade the Sea herself for a woman like that. She's Ocean's daughter—has her mother's eyes. I sometimes feel as if she was sent." There was a long moment of silence while he ruminated over his smoke. "She's wasted on a man like MacCormac."

 Something in his tone made my teeth itch and my arm hairs stand at attention. I laughed wanly and whittled too big a chunk out of my wooden whale's fluke. It would make a fine dolphin.

"Oh," I said, "he's not such a bad sort once you get to know him. He's seaworthy, I'd say. Says he can't take being land-locked. He loves her madly, of course. And she, him."

 My last observation sent the Captain's pipe overboard. He swore and stalked off to his cabin, face black as a rain-filled thunderhead.

 For some reason, after that, I began to watch Black Charley very carefully. My mother always said I was fey and right now my teeth and arm hairs were whispering of dark deeds yet undone.

And Charley, increasingly companionable, pushed the whisper to a five bell alarm.

 "Arthur," he said one morning as I cleared our breakfast dishes, "tell me the future."

 "Sir?" I clutched the plates tighter as the deck tilted sharply.

 "I'm in the mood for some soothsaying. Tell me what the future holds."

 "The abolition of slavery," I said, hoping it might shock him into forgetting what I knew he really wanted to hear.

 He was thoughtful, but unsurprised. "Aye. Ungodly system, that. I've no doubt men of intelligence will soon put and end to it on English soil. But, say on. I want to know-"

 "A Queen," I said quickly, as if inspired.

 "A what?"

 "A Queen will end slavery in Britain. A Queen named Victoria."

 His eyes grew wide. "Indeed? Imagine that."

 "Women will vote in elections soon, too," I continued. "And the first country to grant the right will be..." I closed my eyes as if concentrating. "New Zealand in...1893."

 I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. "Well," he said, after a moment, "if all women were like our dear Mary, then they should have the vote already."

Damn, I thought.

"I'd in mind something a wee bit closer to home." He smiled.

I made a sorrowful face and looked away from him out the mullioned panes of his cabin windows.

"What?" He rocked forward in his chair. "What is it, boy? What have you seen?"

"The Prime Minister...the Prime Minister will die next year...in November."

He blinked. "Pitt? Ah, well, he's that old. He'll be sore missed, of course...by some."

I glared at him. "You don't believe me! You don't believe a word I've said. You're making sport of me."

He came to his feet as the ship, in the teeth of a fresh squall, pitched into a trough. He seemed not to notice it. I was nearly dashed off my feet—would have been, if he hadn't grabbed my arms to steady me.

"Arthur, lad! I'm not sporting, believe me. I can't say as I believe all you've told me, but then I can't say I don't. I find it fascinating's all. And I credit it could happen as you say. But it's not Pitt or slavery or some unheard of Queen I care about, you see. I want to hear about me. My life. Tell me, boy. Do you see me wed...to her?"

"No, sir," I said, then bit the pill and told him what I did know. "You will marry, but your wife's name will be Maureen. Maureen Llewellyn."

He let go of me then, and the little fever-light in his eyes died. "Ah, it's all superstition, anyway," he said, and went up on deck.

 oOo

The storm worsened. By mid-day the decks were awash and the passengers had completely disappeared. I could imagine them, cruelly, moaning in their berths, ready to repent of everything and meet the Reaper. I, of course, have never been seasick in my life, but this storm challenged even my constitution. The waves were twenty-footers and the rain drove horizontally across the slippery decking.

 I was helping batten down a loose cannon when I heard a shriek that was not the wind. I turned from my lashing job, peering through the chaotic, colorless whirl toward the poop deck.

Beneath the wildly swinging spanker boom, my eyes locked on a tumble of activity. It took me a moment to realize that someone had fallen from the mizzen mast.

 The cannon forgotten, I launched myself aft. The deck writhed under my feet like an angry whale. I'd just reached the steps below the poopdeck when Captain Charley came sliding down

them and virtually into my face.

He grabbed me, shouting, "The Doctor! Get the Doctor! We've a man down!"

I did as ordered, nearly falling into the aft companionway.

I brought back, not only the Doctor, but the Doctor's wife as well. Mary MacCormac was determined to aid her husband and she was not, I discovered, a woman to be argued with.

"You can't come," I had told her as she struggled into her oilskin sou'wester.

"Ah, but I will come," she said, not even pausing to look at me.

"It's dangerous! Tell her, Doctor. Tell her how dangerous-"

He afforded me a grim smile and dashed out, bag in hand.

Mary continued to ignore me, fastening her hat securely over her braids and making a beeline for the door. I stepped in front of her. She put both hands on my chest and pushed. She was stronger than she looked.

I followed her up on deck, reaching the poop just in time to see Dr. Mac (as the crew was pleased to call him) kneeling over the fallen sailor. It was Tommy Rodgers, a boy of about seventeen. White-faced and trembling, he clutched his right arm.

It was obviously broken—a jag of bone could be seen amid cloth and blood.

I wanted to be sick, but a weak-kneed salt was an oxymoron and I wouldn't let Charley see me puke. The only one here with an excuse for that sort of behavior was poor Tom.

The Doctor was at work over the wound, and his missus was at work as well, keeping the boy's mind off his pain and fear and his eyes on her angelic face. They made a great team, did the MacCormacs. Dr. Mac set the forearm before Tommy realized it.

The boy let out another great shriek and swooned.

He'll dream of Mary, I thought, and stood by, ready to help lift him below.

Charley, clutching a thick rope for support, looked on from the mizzen stepping. "Is that it then, Dr. Mac?" he shouted.

“Is the arm set?"

"Aye!" MacCormac shouted back, and nodded vigorously for emphasis. He straightened, clutching his bag. "We've got to get him below!"

 "The boys'll take care of that. Never you mind. Piggott! Carew! See to him!"

Those two able-bodies jumped to it and MacCormac and I backed away—I toward the wheel, he toward the port rail. At that point, everything seemed to happen at once; I glanced at the helmsman and saw a sudden terror leap in his eyes; I heard Charley roar a warning and Mary MacCormac scream. I spun back toward the bows. A blur of movement to my left drew me instinctively right, toward where the Doctor stood like a post, waiting for a huge, free-swinging block to dash his brains out.

I dove at his feet.

The block and its thick twist of hemp whizzed overhead as we sprawled toward the rail. Mary came right after us, crying incoherently into the gale. She was knocked from her feet by Essex's sudden starboard lurch and schooned along the deck on a wash of sea water, her legs tangled in her long skirts. She was headed straight for the rail.

 MacCormac shrieked and struggled sharply in my grasp. There was nothing we could do, but Charley, in some super-human effort, slid after her and, as she flung over the edge, caught her water-logged skirts and hauled her back into his arms.

They stared at each other for a long, pregnant moment, Charley gaping like a sea bass. Then, the young lady threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him so hard I swear she wrung water out of him. Before he could do more than open and close his mouth once, Mary MacCormac had disentangled herself and scrambled to where her husband lay, soaked and stunned.

The hug she gave him was even more prodigious than the one she'd given Charley. That done, she reached down, rent her skirt from hem to waist to disentangle her legs, then hauled her husband to his feet and supported him down the steps to the main deck.

Dazed, I rose and followed, my gaze straying aloft, wondering where in hell that block had come from.

 oOo

"I do believe it was on the mizzen mast," said Mary sometime later when we were once again dry and sane and steeping in the normalcy of hot tea.

We were in the Captain's salon (Captain's mess suited it better at this juncture)—Black Charley, Dr. Mac, Mary and I—seated around the sturdy table, clutching our mugs as if they might fly away. There was no real danger of that. The Sea had calmed significantly and Essex rolled rather than pitched.

"The spanker gaff was whipping about and so was the boom. It's no wonder that block came free." Her sweet voice sounded so calm, so certain.

We men merely nodded.

"Well," said MacCormac at last, "I daresay 'thank yous' are in order all around. To you, Arthur, for saving my life and to you, Captain for doing the same. If my dear Mary had gone overboard, I might just as well have followed her."

"You just about preceded her," I said and shivered at the memory of those two very close calls.

"Then I'd have followed him," said Mary firmly and covered her husband's hand with her own.

I glanced at Charley. His eyes, narrow and over-bright in his pale face, were locked on their entwined fingers.

"That," I said, "would have been a horrible tragedy." I got Charley to meet my eyes and wasn't sure I liked what I saw there.

"Well, no harm done," said Mary. "Tommy will be fine, the block hit no one, I did not—thanks to our brave Captain Charley—go overboard. We are all as we should be—safe and sound."

Charley shook his head. "I'm not brave, my dear. I was scared as a schoolboy up there. If anything had happened to you..."

Now Mary's hand moved to the Captain's as he worried the handle of his mug. "Nothing did and nothing will. You see, I have a guardian angel." Her eyes sparkled like playful tropical seas. "Always have had. And my angel always makes certain there is someone or something about to preserve me when I get in dire straits. That's how Ian and I met, if you'll recall. He's one of my angels, too."

"Madam," said Charley most soberly, "I pray you will always consider me your angel." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

I glanced at Ian. His gray eyes were blandly neutral. If any of this disturbed him, it didn't show.

 oOo

Captain Charley was unspeakably cheerful the next day. I labored under the misapprehension that it was because we were to make port that evening in the Canaries until he swatted me on the back and said, "You're a blackguard, Arthur—you with your fortune-telling. I think I half believed you 'til last night."

"Believed me?"

"That malarkey about me wedding some bit o' muslin named Maureen. It's clear as can be, boy. It's Mary I'll wed or none at all."

It was not a bitter pronouncement of unrequited love; the man acted as if he was all but ready to go out and publish the bans.

"Charley," I said, forgetting my station of servitude. "She's married already. Seemingly quite happily so."

"Ah, but do you not see what's happened? He was her guardian angel, now I am. And what's a guardian angel, if not a hero? He's a mamby-pamby little boy, needing young Arthur to save his unworthy skin, but I—I saved her. What woman will not fall in love with the man who saves her life? It's only a matter of time."

I shook my head. "Maureen," I repeated. "I'm positive your wife's name will be Maureen."

He pointed a finger at my nose. "You're a cabin boy. No, worse yet, a stowaway and a liar and probably a thief as well. Who in his right mind would listen to the likes of you?"

No one, I thought. And especially not a man so enamored of a Scottish sweet that his accent was beginning to sprout heather.

 oOo

Santa Cruz de Tenerife. I had never seen it before. It sparkled under its veil of storm detritus like a platter of jewels. Essex stood in under a full press of sail in a stiff breeze and I wished I could be in two places at once so I could stand on shore and see the great, white cloud come on.

I gave a moment's thought to using the Grid to do just that, but knew, if I did, that my Shift-Eye would have my tail feathers for the unauthorized expense. So I stood in the bows and watched the billowing mass of canvas above me. I must've looked like the biggest tourist this side of Casablanca. I could hear the crew chuckling at me. I was getting ready to slink off to a less obvious vantage point when Mr. Piggott sidled over.

"Aye, take a good long look, lad. She's the Queen of Ships, she is. Every time Essex puts on her show, I fall for her all o'er again." He winked at me. "I reckon that's her way of keepin' her crew. Sure ain't her master's sweet temper."

Essex's show was over soon enough, her sails furling as we entered the port—but it had served to draw a crowd to the quay to see her in. She stood off at anchor, the small cargo for this port o' call going off in a lighter; a return cargo arriving the same way. The passengers went ashore—the crew would have their turn later—and I watched with interest as Black Charley conducted his private business with a local merchant. Before they had shaken hands, the merchant had made it worth Charley's while to land some Indian goods here on the return trip.

Our Captain was smiling contentedly, no doubt counting his earnings, when Mr. Reardon put in an anxious appearance.

"I've just heard the most confounded news, sir," he told the Captain. "The French have taken the Warren Hastings."

 oOo

 Charley was miserable. And he was avoiding me. In two seconds I had gone from amusing companion to unwelcome Sibyl. I rededicated myself to my project (the reason I was here, after all) and used the Warren Hastings affair as study in historical veracity.

History, in case you hadn't noticed, is rather like the old schoolroom game of Telephone. An event takes place and all witnesses concoct their version of it with or without comparing notes. They then disperse to disseminate the information to one or more others who go on to retell the tale to their own select group of listeners. Only eventually, unless one of the original witnesses thought, "Gosh, I'd better grab a piece of slate and scratch this down for posterity," the tale is set to bark, slab or paper and passed down further via copious copyings from one written source to another. There may even be a plethora of originals.

Take the fall of the Roman Empire for example. Most twentieth and twenty-first century histories making reference to that series of events tend to lift material from Gibbon, who, unless he possessed a time machine of his own, was not among the eyewitnesses. Until QuestLabs began dabbling with the Temporal Spectrum, Gibbon was our eye on the Roman Empire, yet a mere link in the great Telephone Tree of Time. No offense to that illustrious gentleman, but, as in a game of Telephone, things inevitably get lost (or at least amended) in the translation.

The text book version of the Warren Hastings capture was pretty detailed and made a great sea story. A forty-four gun British East Indiaman with full complement goes up against a French frigate. The frigate is seriously outgunned. Somehow the frigate in question, Piémontaise, according to history, blows the rigging off the bigger ship, then tows her to port at seven-and-a-half knots under three single-reefed topsails, foresail and mizzen staysail. One helluva frigate.

What history fails to mention is that the Piémontaise was not alone. She was accompanied by a ship-of-the-line—a battle wagon named Bonaparte—who handled most of the actual fighting. The Piémontaise then struggled to port at about three knots, flying everything but the master's sheets and damn near springing her main mast in the process. Well, at least according to our Canary Island contacts.

On the social scene, since I was denied Charley's company, I took up with the MacCormacs. Exposed to him more often, I found I liked Dr. Mac. We had a lot in common. Not interests exactly—I mean, after all, we did have what amounted to a monumental generation gap between us—but we shared attitudes about things. And I have to admit seeing him with Mary, I had to forgive him for being married to her. (As if it could make any possible difference to me.)

"Doesn't it bother you," I asked him one day as we plied the waters off Africa, "the way men react to your wife? I mean, she's such a striking woman, a fellow is hard put not to court her almost without meaning to."

"Aye, well," he said, smiling ruefully, "it's just like that, you see. There's not much either of us can do about it but adjust. It's not as if it's anything she does. It's just who she is. She's as true as can be. I've no lack of faith that she loves me as much as I love her. But the men, now..." He chuckled and made a nervous gesture. "Sometimes I look in Captain Dunbar's eyes and I swear I...I can almost hear him condemning me for daring to be married to her. Makes me feel downright unworthy and well..." He ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar. "...a little uncomfortable. That's a powerful man, that," he added.

It was true, I realized as I watched Black Charley watch Mary MacCormac, that if she were my wife, I'd find the look in Charley's eye more than a little discomfiting. Oh, not when he looked at her, of course. If ever a woman was worthy of that worshipful gaze, it was Mary Mac. But when the Captain's eyes fell on her poor husband, even I took a chill. There was jealousy in that look, and soul-rending sorrow, and what I hoped to God was not murder.

Charley Dunbar was a man who, though master of his own ship and, he'd have said, his own fate, was to be denied something he had begun to want very much indeed. And I, Sibyl, bearer of that bad news, was now the object of his taciturn ire.

I tried reasoning with him. Usually during his stints at the wheel when he couldn't escape me. "Charley," I'd say, and he'd glare at me out of the tail of his eye. "Captain Dunbar, then—if Mary MacCormac's your standard of female excellence then surely this woman you're to wed will be just as excellent. Maybe even more so. Just think of it. To win you she'd have to outshine the Doctor's wife, wouldn't she?"

If he ever considered that argument at all, I never saw a sign of it. He'd just stand there, silent, craggy, inflexible, while I sweated and stared at his profile.

Then something happened that changed all that. I had no idea what it was. I only knew that just as we were approaching the Cape of Good Hope, Charley called me to his cabin for breakfast and behaved as if nothing had ever come between us.

"Tell me, Arthur, lad," he said over coffee. "Have you any more prognostications for me?"

I looked at him squarely, then. That was when I saw the gleam of—God knows what—in his eye. "W-what sort of prognostications, sir?"

"So, I'm to marry a woman named Maureen, not Mary, eh? Maureen Llewellyn. You're certain of that, are you?"

"Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."

He nodded and sighed greatly. "I can no longer claim not to believe you, boy. You foretold the Hastings matter with complete clarity. You have the Sight, no doubt about it. I must trust what you say. In what year will I marry?"

"Well, sir, that's debatable. I mean, uh, I can't really see that very clearly." Actually, not only was the year of his marriage a matter of dispute, but there was even some doubt that he actually married at all. There has always been some question about the legitimacy of the branch of the family tree for which Charley is responsible. However, that wasn't something I could tell Charley.

"What do you see?" he prodded.

I picked at a crumb on my plate, then looked up with this Saint-having-a-revelation look on my face. "Britain will win the war!" I exclaimed.

He waved that aside. "A foregone conclusion-"

"In 1814, the war will end...or at least, it will seem to end. But not before Napoleon takes Vienna and Berlin."

He stared at me. "The devil-! Are you serious?"

I had distracted him. Relieved, I nodded vigorously. "This year, Napoleon will take Vienna; next year he will take Berlin. But Lord Admiral Nelson will rout the French in a sea battle at Trafalgar. The forces of a British led Coalition will take Paris in the last days of March 1814 and Napoleon..." I wrinkled my brow. "He'll be exiled to-to and island. But, beware!" I warned dramatically. "Napoleon is clever. Out of sight is not out of power."

Charley was nodding thoughtfully. "Wise words, boy. Now, about my future..."

I nearly groaned. The stubborn so-and-so. "Three children. A grand home in the country. Horses. You've always fancied fine driving stock."

He sat back in his chair, beaming. "Aye," he said. "I have, at that."

 oOo

We put into Cape Town to offload some metals, farm implements and foodstuffs and take on ivory. One of our families left us there and the crew was permitted a brief shore leave. The MacCormacs invited me to go with them to see what sights there were and to visit what Dr. Mac called "native physicians." A less broadminded soul would have called them "witch doctors."

We traveled by carriage to a place of mud huts and naked children and there met a colorful gentleman our interpreter introduced as "King Isaac." From him, Dr. Mac got a sampling of native cures, while Mary carefully transcribed the directions for their use into a notebook.

We spent the better part of the morning in that pursuit before returning to Cape Town in the afternoon. We were crossing the road to the wharfs when the wild clatter of horse hooves and wagon frame caught my ear. I saw the thing out of the corner of my eye—a huge freight wagon, bearing down on us from uphill to our right.

Mary was already on the raised planking of the dock, waiting for us and watching the ships riding at anchor in the harbor; Dr. Mac was behind me in the road. Mary was in no danger, but Doctor and I faced imminent doom. In the split second I glanced at the rig, the driver gave the reins a last savage jerk and dove over-sides. The team veered toward the center of the road, putting Ian MacCormac obliviously in their path. I spun back, grabbed his lapels and tugged. We both sprawled in the African dust, the freight rumbling harmlessly by at our feet.

Belatedly, Mary screamed. Her first concern when she joined us in the middle of the road, was for her husband's safety. His was for the safety of his native cures. Mine was for the vanished driver of the murderous rig.

I wasn't certain if the man was an unwilling participant in an accident or a willing participant in something far more sinister. From where I stood, his last tug at the reins looked like a deliberate effort to aim the rig right at Ian. And from where I stood, I could see only one person who truly wanted Ian MacCormac dead.

 oOo

"And you were unable to locate the driver?" First Mate Reardon's brows all but disappeared in the furrows of his expansive forehead.

I shook my head, glancing at Captain Charley's impassive face. "I found the rig, but it was loaded with empty crates. No two were from the same vessel."

"So, you've no idea who might have arranged this accident," said Charley, frowning very slightly. "If, indeed, it was arranged."

"Is it common for people to be run down in the streets of Cape Town by anonymous freight wagons whose drivers disappear after the fact?" I gasped for air.

Charley shrugged. "These things occur, although I suppose I could investigate."

Right. Putting the rat in charge of the cheese.

"We're leaving port tonight," said Reardon. "The would-be murderer-"

"Is probably aboard this ship," I finished testily. "The only reason I can think anyone would want to kill Ian is to get to Mary. And the only people who know Mary are aboard Essex."

I ignored Reardon's dark expression and glared at Charley. The way he was acting, you'd hardly think he cared that he'd nearly caused another human being to be flattened by that wagon. That a relative of mine—my own very, very great grandfather, in fact-

The Very, Very Great grasped my arm urgently. "My dear boy, surely you're not thinking that someone aboard this vessel would cause Dr. Mac harm. Why it'd be suicidal to be at sea without a Doctor. I'm sure it was something to do with those visits he made today." He screwed up his eyes expressively and put his finger alongside his nose. "The Hoodoo, you know."

"A c-curse?" I stammered. "You're suggesting Ian MacCormac is suffering from black magic?"

"There was that other time," said Reardon quietly. "That was well before he'd met any witch-doctors."

"What?" asked Charley. "You can't mean that block falling from the gaff! Why that was a simple accident! A fluke of the storm. Dr. Mac was no man's target that day." He turned then, as if to dismiss the whole affair and strolled away 'cross deck, humming.

I glanced back at Reardon and saw that he was turning something over and over in his fingers. A closer look revealed it to be my disclite. I blanched, looking consumingly guilty or petrified or both.

"Do you wish to tell me anything, Mr. Dunbar?" he asked me solemnly.

My imagination saw the gleam of Calvinist fervor in his eyes.

“If you expect me to confess to witchcraft, sir, I will not do it. As God is my witness, I am no witch."

Reardon quirked a brow. "I never supposed you were."

"You didn't?"

"Sir, we are civilized men. I believe we can abandon this talk of witches. This-" —he held up the disc— "has nothing to do with witchcraft. Science, perhaps. Am I right?"

"Yes, but I told you as much."

"Ah, yes." He nodded. "Your uncle the inventor." He smiled and pocketed the light while I drooled hungrily after it. "When you are ready, Arthur," he said and left me.

 oOo

I watched Charley carefully after that—watched him from as close to Ian MacCormac as I could get, firmly convinced that he was the target of Black Charley's jealousy. All my fault, too. I'd been such a convincing Oracle that Charley now apparently saw no option but to take Fate into his own hands and throttle it. If Fate would not give him Mary MacCormac, he'd simply take her.

In the week that followed the Cape Town incident, I saved Ian MacCormac from a falling crate (left mysteriously balanced on the roof of a deckhouse), a flying capstan pole, and a loose cannon. By the end of the week, Ian was thoroughly spooked and I was ready to throw him and Mary into the TeGrEn and whisk them back to London.

"It's quite obvious," I told Charley one morning, "that someone wants Ian dead."

He glanced at me obliquely, spearing a sausage with his knife. "Ian, now, is it? Are you developing a fondness for our ill-fated Doctor? That might not be wise."

"I'd like to keep him alive. And so would you if really cared for Mary. She loves him, you know. If he dies, she'll be devastated."

"For a time. But with the loving attentions of close and caring friends, I'm sure she will survive—even prosper." He grinned at me wickedly, then said, "Dr. Mac seems to have drawn a guardian angel of his own. That's unfortunate. I'd hate to see one of the Almighty's agents sent back to Him prematurely."

I blanched. "I'm no angel," I said. "I'm not anything you'd understand, but neither am I a helpless medical student."

"Ah! You lied about that, did you? Reardon thought as much. And you're now claiming powers beyond clairvoyance, is that it? You hurl lightning bolts or some such?"

"Let's just say I have resources you can't even begin to imagine." I rose and left the cabin then, hoping I'd at least given him something to think about.

 oOo

The storm struck without warning when we were two days out of Mauritius. It wasn't much of a storm—a lot of noise and bright lightning for the most part—but to Ian it was the Apocalypse. A sense of horrible foreboding seemed to have taken him, though all the while his wife tried nobly to cheer him up.

When that failed, she donned trousers, shirt and coat and proposed to take his place among the seasick passengers. He protested the clothing almost as much as he did the precaution, but she and I outvoted him and convinced him to stay in their cabin with me as guardian whatever.

He made a last weak protest as she left, his black bag in hand, looking very dashing in his pants and coat. "Dear girl, whatever will Lord and Lady Branden think of that get up?"

"Why should I care? My petticoats and dresses are dangerous in heavy weather as I know only too well. I'll not be such a fool for fashion as to die for it." And she left, green eyes fierce.

Ian was silent for a long while, staring miserably at the gyrations of the lantern that hung above their cabin table. "Ah, Arthur," he said at last, "I've become such a hopeless coward, letting that dear girl take my duties over like that. But I swear I've this certainty that I'll not survive the night. Someone or Something wants me dead and I've no clue as to how I can fight it. The worst of it is—dammit—the worst of it is that I've dragged poor Maureen along to witness my doom."

"Ian, nothing is-" I stopped and gaped at him, heart turning to stone. I'd misheard him. I must have. "Maureen?" I croaked.

He made a dismissive gesture. "Her given name. Mary is a pet name her father gave her that has stuck like glue. I prefer Maureen, myself. She's so much more a Maureen, don't you think?"

I licked my suddenly Saharan lips. "Ian, may I ask a frightfully inane question?"

He shrugged, not caring, I'm sure if I stood on my head and whistled the Marseillaise.

"Was your wife's maiden name Llewellyn, by any chance?"

He nodded.

"And her father was Llewellyn, Lord Eachan?"

He nodded again, then waited patiently for me to come back from the Twilight Zone. Maureen Llewellyn. Here. Now. On this ship. Charley Dunbar wasn't trying to fight destiny, he was just trying to speed it up a little.

"Dammit, Charley," I muttered, "why do you have to be in such a hurry?"

"Pardon?" said Ian.

"Nothing," I assured him. "Say some prayers for both of us. I've got to think."

What did I do now? If Charley and Mary-Maureen were fated, should I just stand aside and let events take Charley's natural course? Was Ian MacCormac supposed to die or had my presence created a situation in which he had to die? Had I saved him already from a fate he was supposed to have earned or...what?

I glanced at Ian. He really was praying, his eyes no doubt seeing invisible hosts, his lips painting silent litanies for their merciful pleasure.

Dammit, I liked the man. He was honest, open-minded, intelligent, good company and he loved Mary. I couldn't just stand by and let someone—even a damned ancestor—take her away from him over his dead body. There had to be a way to get my two progenitors together without taking Ian apart.

"Ian," I said, rising from the bunk I'd been sitting on, "stay here and don't open the door for anyone but me or Mary."

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To do a little research." I started for the cabin door.

"You're a true friend, Arthur," he told me. "I promise you that the first son Mary and I have will be named after you."

Startled, I could only blink at him and smile wanly. Then I hustled off the forward hold.

 oOo

The database told me no more than I already knew about Charley and Maureen Dunbar. Some sources said they were married, though one indicated there was some scandal about the timing of the birth of their first child, others said she was his mistress and the child, Arthur Llewellyn Dunbar, was born out of wedlock.

I had difficulty seeing Mary MacCormac as anyone's mistress.

About Dr. Ian MacCormac the data was no less ambiguous. There was a record of him on the Essex up until Bombay, 1805, then he disappeared. Jumped ship, according to the ship's log.

 Okay, I thought, that was another possibility. Ian didn't die; he abandoned Mary out of fear for his own life.

Right. And dragons fly daily out of LAX. Who was I kidding? Ian would never leave Mary. Not while there was still life left in him.

Ultimately, as I sat huddled before my Grid comp, bathed in the colored backwash from its uninformative display, I could see only one way to assure both Ian's existence and my own and I was sitting on it.

 oOo

"Captain," I said, "we need to talk."

The Essex rolled into a long trough and wallowed there momentarily, challenging my sea legs. He hesitated with her, then turned from the helmsman to face me.

"Ah! If it isn't the guardian angel."

"I'm not an angel, Charley, and I'm about to prove it."

He eyed me suspiciously. "What are you about, lad?"

I sighed. "I wish I knew. Come below with me a moment. We need to talk."

He glanced at the helmsman, who squinted dispassionately ahead, clutching the wheel in gnarled hands. Essex charged up another long wave and teetered at its top.

What the passengers don't know, I thought, would definitely make them sicker.

"I belong on deck in heavy weather, boy. But, here..." He moved to the fore side of the mizzen mast and beckoned me to follow him.

I didn't see any errant blocks dangling about, so I did. Then I went on the offensive. "You're trying to kill Dr. Mac," I accused him.

He gazed at me steadily. "You think that of me, boy?"

"I know that of you. It's got to stop."

"Oh, has it? And can you thwart destiny, then? Is that within your powers?"

"Charley, look. If you and Mary—Maureen—are destined, then you don't need to be doing this to Ian."

"She is currently a married woman, Arthur. I can't wed a married woman and her husband shows no inclination toward abandonment. In fact, he's a most loyal and responsible fellow. Under other circumstances, I'd find him quite likable."

"There are alternatives, Charley."

He nodded. "Aye. I suppose he might sicken and die when we reach Bombay or suffer amnesia in a fall from bed. But why should I wait? What difference how he dies?"

"The difference is, if he dies from natural causes, my an—er...you won't go down in history as a murderer or at least a suspected one. More to the point, you won't be a murderer."

"But I've already murdered Ian MacCormac in my heart several times over, lad." He shrugged. "Damage is done."

"Look, if you could rewrite history as you wanted, what would you have happen?"

He frowned. "You mean history...between me and Mary?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'd meet her before he could. Sweep her off her feet. Marry her and carry her off to sea before young Dr. Mac even figured in the story."

"Then Ian wouldn't have to die and you wouldn't be a cold-blooded murderer."

"No, I suppose not. And I'd never be a cold-blooded murderer." He grinned wickedly.

I took a deep breath. "What if I told you you could do that —go back in time and meet her first?"

"I'd say you were tetchy from all the pitching."

"The Warren Hastings," I said. "Maureen Llewellyn. Need I say more?"

"I believe you can see the future, lad. I don't believe you can travel to the past."

"I can. I'll prove it."

"Right and well. Show me a sign. Make the lightning strike the ship and knock me dead."

"Don't tempt me," I growled. "Come below with me. I've got something to show you."

"What? More little flashing baubles invented by your uncle? A whole trunk full of 'em?"

I chilled. Reardon had told him. No, I realized as his hand slid surreptitiously to his coat pocket, Reardon had given it to him. I smiled. Two birds, one stone.

"Something much bigger and better than that," I said. "Come down and take a look."

"Ah, so you can rap my melon and throw me overboard?"

"Gee-zoo, Charley! What an imagination! I wouldn't harm a hair of your moustache. Not with a shipful of loyal crewmen to tear me limb from limb. That'd be about the stupidest thing I could do. I just want to show you something to convince you I can travel in time."

"Show me here."

"Charley-"

As Providence would have it, we received, at that very moment, a lurid manifestation of that phenomenon known as Saint Elmo's fire. I could not, in my wildest sea-dreams have conjured up anything so perfect. The helmsman called out above the hiss and rattle of wind and rigging and pointed aloft, looking incredibly archetypal. Every man on deck looked up into the darkening sky and smiled. Their patron Saint had blessed them—Bombay, look out.

Charley looked at me suspiciously. "It's beyond the powers of men to bring on Elmo's fire."

"Yes, it is," I agreed cheerfully. "Or travel in time, either, I suppose. Or foretell the future."

"All right. Show me your miracle in the hold, Arthur Dunbar. But it had better convince."

We went down into the Essex's forward hold via the aftmost hatch. I had no intention of making my way down an open rolling, deck with Black Charley Dunbar on my heels. I sent him down the stairs first and directed him all the way to the forward hatch through O'Hara's carefully ordered cargo.

Halfway to our goal I told him to take out the "bauble" he had in his pocket and use it to light our way. That rattled him a little and I felt a moment of giddy power.

"I don't know how it works," he complained.

I heard him fumbling for it and removed it from his possession, then unleashed a flood of soft pink-white light on our surroundings. Shadows loomed and crouched. A few scuttled. They were small enough to ignore, so I did...assiduously.

Behind the forward steps we came face to blank face with my Crate. Charley stopped.

"It's a shipping crate," he informed me.

"Is it?" I felt for the palm plate (a crudely stenciled palm tree, no less). It recognized my imprint and activated the door. "After you," I said.

He peered at me intently in the skewed light, then hesitantly slipped into the big box. "Blessed saints and angels!" he muttered as the lights, dimmed in my absence, came full on.

The interior of the Crate carried no semblance of crate-ness; it was an ergonomically designed, state of the art piece of machinery with all the attendant frills and furbelows of same—blinking indicators showing time and space coordinates, temperature, barometric pressure, life support readings, oxygen mixture adjustments for the additional passenger and, of course, the onboard computer console and tactical display. The actual muscle of the thing—the Temporal Grid itself—was tucked out of sight under the flooring. All very impressive, I'm sure, to a man whose idea of hi-tech was a particularly well-oiled capstan and a few extra sails.

"This is-is... What is this?" he stammered, making an all-inclusive gesture.

I tried not to let the growing sense of power go to my head. "This is my time machine."

He gazed around the tiny chamber, his eyes lighting on the lettering on the face plate of the Field Generator. "TeGrEn? Sounds like some sort of mythological beast."

"Temporal Grid Enclosure. Time machine to you. Do you believe me now?"

"Where are you from? Are you an angel or a devil?"

"Neither. I'm an historian."

"Ah. A little of both, then."

I ignored the quip. "Do you believe me?"

"How does it work?"

I sighed. "Reader's Digest version: We call it Shifting the Spectrum. It takes advantage of the fact that light behaves both as a wave and as a particle."

He stared at me blankly.

"Look, that branch of physics hasn't been discovered yet. Let's skip the explanations."

"What's Reader's Digest?"

"Look, do you believe me? Come on, Charley. Do you want to marry Mary without resorting to murder, or not?"

"How will it work? How can I meet Mary before he does?"

"By making sure you're in the right place at the right time. Are you ready to try it?"

He glanced around again, then nodded uncertainly.

"All right. Now, they met five months ago yesterday morning in Manley Park, right?" I settled in over the Grid comp.

"Aye. She fell from her horse."

"All right. Where were you that morning?"

"In town at...at an hotel, as it were."

"And you spent the night there?"

"Aye."

"I need an address."

"Very well. Four Dunne's Cottage."

I repeated the address to the computer and was rewarded with a map of the area, its houses and businesses marked as accurately as possible.

“Spatial coordinates drawn from Four Dunne's Cottage," I ordered. "Temporal Coordinates: April 10, 1805—twenty three hundred hours."

"It was the eleventh," said Charley. "They met on the eleventh."

"I want to have a head start. You're so bull-headed it'll probably take you all night to convince yourself to go along with you."

"Beg pardon?"

"I'll explain later. Sit down." I pointed him to a spot on the floor.

"I can see this contraption wasn't made for comfort."

I ignored him, crossed my fingers and began a pre-Shift systems check. It was completed in seconds. I sent an emergency-Shift blip to my Shift-Eye and engaged the Field Generator.

It hummed. Charley looked concerned. 

"Close your eyes," I warned him. "Otherwise you might embarrass yourself."

First-timers often neglected to do that out of a desire to see the pretty colors generated as their physical reality responds to the Spectral Field. They also often lose the contents of their stomachs. For some reason, I've never done that, but then I'm of particularly hardy stock.

 Charley closed his eyes and did not lose his lunch, but he was surprised as hell when I asked him to open them again bare moments later.

"That's it?" he asked. "We're back in London? Back in time?"

"Yes, sir. We are." I scanned our immediate surroundings. Not pretty. We were a couple of inches deep in water of an unhealthy hue and surrounded by general refuse—broken boxes, stove-in barrels, splintered carriage wheels. We blended nicely into the contents of the alley next to Four Dunne's Cottage.

I wrinkled my nose in anticipation. "Not a good neighborhood. Geez, Charley, can't you afford better than this?"

"I don't need to afford better than this."

I rose and cautiously opened the door. The alley was empty...of humans, at any rate. I will not bother you with what it smelled like.

Together, Charley and I leapt the ankle-deep flood and made our way to the street. I looked up at Four Dunne's Cottage, then turned to my very great grand-scoundrel.

"This isn't a hotel, Charley. It's a brothel."

 oOo

I convinced him that he had to be the one to go in and bring himself out. He knew his own habits, I argued. Knew which lady he favored. Besides which, what could be more convincing to him than meeting himself face to face?

"If I came to you and told you this wild story, you'd think I was crazy, wouldn't you? But if you appear and tell, well—him-"

"I'd think I was crazy." But he was nodding. "All right, Arthur. Your point is well taken. Are you sure there will be no deleterious effects?"

"Hollywood stuff," I promised. "No one has ever expired upon seeing their own past. It's not recommended, but hardly deadly."

He gazed at me, brow furrowed, then squared his shoulders and marched purposefully to the front door of the house.

"Don't get lost in there," I called.

He emerged only ten minutes later with himself in tow. Thank God, I thought, they're wearing different clothes. At least I'd be able to tell them apart.

They were arguing—I should be surprised—and gesticulating wildly, almost in unison. It was like watching a synchronized mime team. I shook my head and trotted over to meet them at the bottom of the front steps.

"Here, this is Arthur," said Charley-Is. "He can explain about the time box, if you really care so much to know. The important thing, Charley Dunbar, is the woman. You—I—we—must meet Maureen Llewellyn before that upstart MacCormac."

"But I don't want to marry," argued Charley-Was. "I treasure my freedom, thank you, and I've no intention of chaining myself to one woman."

"This is no ordinary woman, dammit. This is Mary."

"I've yet to meet a woman-"

"If you come with us, you will meet her. The very woman. Dammit, man, you have to meet her. Meet her before she's wed to someone else."

Charley-Was smiled crookedly. "I'd say that's the perfect time to meet any woman—after she's married someone else. Married women make the finest mistresses...I'm told," he added, glancing at me uncertainly.

"Charley Dunbar, you mutton-brain!" Charley-Is exploded. "This woman should be no man's mistress! She's an angel! Incomparable! Divine! I near sold my soul to get her. Truth is, I'm not sure I haven't done that anyway. But, to the point—she's married to some spineless Doctor, a man completely unworthy of her. She-"

Charley-Was looked at me blandly. "He do go on, don't he?"

Charley-Is threw up his hands in exasperation. "Mule stubborn! Arthur, you talk to him!"

I was finding it difficult to maintain my composure. "Me? He's you—you ought to be able to handle him. You know how he thinks."

"Aye, like a mule-stubborn mutton-brain!"

A movement at one of the facing windows above us caught my eye. "Look people are staring at us. Let's go someplace a little more private."

"Aye, let's show him the box," suggested Charley-Is.

We returned to the alley, but I seriously doubted a crateful of incomprehensible technology was going to make Charley-Was willingly meet his match. None-the-less, I showed him the Box, as Charley called it, and even demonstrated the disclite. He was impressed, but not enough to give up the life of a happy seafaring bachelor. He had less trouble accepting time travel than he did the idea of changing his lifestyle to exclude Four Dunne's Cottage.

"Did I mention," I said as he examined the disclite, flicking its vari-colored beam on and off against the grimy alley wall, "that Miss Maureen Llewellyn's papa is Llewellyn, Lord Eachan? Or that after marrying her you acquire your own ships and an estate in Hampshire?"

He looked at me with new interest. "No, you didn't mention that. A grave oversight under the circumstances." He glanced at his "twin." "You trust that prediction, do you?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Charley-Was gave the matter a long, hard thought. "All right," he agreed. "Show me this paragon of female virtue. I've always fancied Hampshire."

"Philistine," muttered Charley-Is.

 oOo

We were forced to take a room in a seedy inn since returning to Essex was out of the question. We explained the Charleys away as twins, but assigning them names proved problematic.

"You can't both be Charley," I observed. "Nobody names both twin boys Charley. What's your middle name?"

They looked at the grimy sidewalk and scuffed in unison—precision pouters.

"It's..." began Charley-Is, glancing obliquely at his second.

"It's Charles."

"Charles Charles Dunbar? I think not."

"Charles is my middle name," said Charley-Was. "My first name is..." He glanced at Other Charley.

"It's Percival," Is admitted.

"P-percival?" I repeated with as straight a face as possible. I could see why he'd gone by Charley; "Black Percy Dunbar" didn't quite fit the image of a hard-driving East India captain.

"Fine," I said, pointing at Charley-Is. "You're Charley. You're Percival." I thumbed at Charley-Was.

"No I'm not," he objected. "I am not Percival. I have never been Percival. I will never be Percival."

"Well, you can't be Charley, because I'm Charley," argued Is.

"I'm as much Charley as you are and you know it! Fact, I'm more Charley, because I'm Charley first."

"Well, I've been Charley longer!"

"Cut it out," I said. They ignored me, resorting to battering each other with childish epithets. "Belay that!" I shrieked finally.

They stopped yammering and stared at me.

I felt like the mouse that roared. "All right, fine. Nobody has to be Percival. You're Charley and you're...Farley. Parents might do that to twin boys."

Charley-Is was livid. "But I should be Charley! Why should he be Charley? After all I've been through-"

I gritted my teeth. "You want the girl? Let him be Charley." His mouth popped open to protest. "End of discussion," I said, quoting my mother. Farley glared at me and went off to sulk while Charley and I registered with the faded concierge.

 oOo

Bright and early the morning of the eleventh we were at the fated park. Dew sparkled in grass that was just awakening from winter. The breeze was crisp and chill—vigorous, I guess you'd say—and Charleys were frisky.

So, as it turned out was Miss Llewellyn's mount. It was, appropriately, a red, red roan. A Strawberry, indeed, on which she in her vivid green habit, was the stem. They came toward us along the bridle trail, Mary nodding to passing acquaintances, Strawberry doing the same. When they were about one hundred yards off, the horse, just as Mary had said, took violent exception to another lady's plumed hat and exploded into a wild gallop.

I glanced around quickly and saw, behind us, the ill-omened gaggle of white geese and, coming down a garden path to our left, Dr. Ian MacCormac. His eyes were glued to a thick leather-bound volume he carried in both hands, while an umbrella dangled from one arm, his medical bag from the other. He reminded me, oddly, of my father—the books were different, but the posture was the same.

How archetypal of him, I thought and nudged Charley-Was. "Get after her, Charley, or you'll lose her to the Doctor all over again."

Both Charleys glanced around and spotted their rival, both made sneering faces, both lunged toward the oncoming runaway.

I snagged Charley-Farley by the coat tails. "Wait your turn, fella."

We watched as Charley-Was raced to the bridle trail, stepped manfully into the path of the on-rushing Strawberry and masterfully manhandled the poor beast into speedy submission. He literally dragged it to a stop—one thick hand on its nose, cutting off its air, the other bracing the rosy-cheeked young lady in her side-saddle. That done, he had only to help her dismount and stand by to receive her commendations.

"I cannot thank you enough, sir," she said breathlessly, gazing up into his dark, bearded face. "This silly creature has an untoward manner of expressing fashion sense." She indicated the bobbing crests of the now distant hat.

Charley-Was looked after it, then threw back his shaggy head and laughed. "But sense, it has, miss, for all it near got you killed. That hat is atrocious! Are you all right or shall I call a Doctor to see you?"

"Doctor? Good God, sir! Do you take me for a China doll? What I need is a harness-maker to sew me up a set of blinkers for this beast." She rattled the horse's bit and gave it an affectionate pat on the neck.

Charley-Was stood mutely, the most besotted smile I have ever seen creeping from beneath his moustache. Even from here I could tell he was hooked; my future was assured and Ian MacCormac would live. Charley-Is, however, did not look happy. In fact, he looked like a man about to fly into a white-faced rage.

"That mutton-headed scum! How dare he ogle her that way?"

"Don't you mean, how dare you ogle her that way?"

He spluttered futilely for a moment about hand-kissers and randy old sea-dogs, then subsided as the young lady favored his former self with a brilliant smile.

"Such gallantry shouldn't go unrewarded," she told him. "My father will most certainly wish to meet you and hear how you saved his daughter's silly neck. Won't you please come to tea?"

"No reward is necessary, dear girl, but your assurance that you are as fit as you look."

"I am quite fit," she assured him, promenading in a small circle. "But I should like some help getting this over-excited animal home. By then, it should be just about tea-time."

The over-excited animal in question yawned exaggeratedly but was soundly ignored. Mary-Maureen Llewellyn and Charles Percival Dunbar, smitten beyond hope, walked off arm in arm, trailing the docile Strawberry.

Charley-Is gazed after them, his black heart in his eyes. "Will I remember?" he asked me. "When we get back to Essex will I remember the months I'll have had with her?"

"Eventually," I said. "But you've been out of your time stream. Everything has to...settle into a new pattern."

He gave me a blank stare, then looked after the retreating lovers.

"Come on," I said. "We're finished here. Besides, the faster we get back-"

That got his attention. He grinned at me, then took off in the direction of our distant alley. I followed with a last glance around the park. Early morning London wasn't too bad, really. In the dewy freshness before stoked coal fires filled the air with smaze, it was really quite pretty.

As I turned to go I saw Ian again. He was sitting on a low wall, umbrella at his feet, medical bag in his lap, book flopped open across its handles, the pages rippling, unread, in the breeze. He was a forlorn figure—not at all the good-spirited man I remembered from the Essex. As I watched, he sighed so deeply, I could see his shoulders heave. The breeze gusted black, ill-mannered curls into eyes that were fixed on a distant point—the point where Charley and his Lady had disappeared.

I had a sudden conviction, as Ian MacCormac rose and slunk away, that this was not the first time he had taken an early morning stroll across this particular bridle path.

 oOo

By the time we'd Shifted back to the forward hold of the Essex, Charley Dunbar was nearly beside himself (no pun intended). But somehow, the close, cold, creosote-soaked atmosphere of the Essex's belly had a sobering effect on him. He took the steps topside with measured stride, only the clenching and unclenching of his fists betraying any nervousness.

We found Mary-Maureen on the poop deck, gazing out over the stern. The same brisk wind that snapped the sails and plucked the shrouds, whipped bright streamers of hair about her face and fanned her cheeks to rose flame. She was beautifully animated, in the throes of lively conversation with her companion.

I felt as if my feet had frozen to the deck. The man she sparkled so for was Ian MacCormac.

Beside me, Charley uttered a low growl that turned my blood to ice. "Damn you, Arthur Dunbar. You promised me. You promised me. And here she is with her Doctor husband. I shall kill you, Arthur, and feed you to the fishes."

Mary turned just then and saw us; Charley, beet red, me, shade pale. Her eyes fastened on Charley and across her face spread the most radiant dawn of a smile I have ever seen.

"Darling!" she exclaimed and I knew profound relief that Charley would not have to kill me after all. She crossed the deck in quick, graceful steps and threw herself into the Captain's outstretched arms. "You disappeared for so long, I thought you must have fallen overboard. If dear Dr. Mac hadn't been so gallantly occupying my time, I'd have worried myself sick about you, what with this past week's goings on."

She pulled away a little and gazed up at him, framing his face with her hands. "Dear man, I think that between Arthur and I, we shall have to watch over you day and night until we reach Bombay. We won't let anything happen to him, will we, Arthur?"

I nodded absently. It was obvious that Charley hadn't heard a word she said. He was too busily worshipping her with that ludicrously beatific grin that just seemed to wriggle into a man's lips when Mary Llewellyn turned her green eyes on him. And for that reason, he also failed to notice the look on Ian MacCormac's face. It was also an expression I had learned to associate with the young lady. It said there was rat poison in the Captain's brandy, sand on the hold steps, and at least one loose cannon aboard the Essex.

That was two days ago. Since then, Mary and Charley have watched each other, Ian MacCormac has watched Mary and Charley, I have watched Ian MacCormac and, so I don't feel at all neglected, Mr. Reardon has watched me. I check the historical lines daily by computer; every day they tell me the same thing: that something important will happen in Bombay and that my ancestry is even more dubious than I previously suspected.

As I see it now, I have several options. I can stick around and keep Black Charley Dunbar under close observation for the next several years or so...at least until he produces a male heir and names him Arthur. Or I can make him return to the Park, put things back the way they were, and let Fate take its course—which probably means that Ian will die and Charley will have his Maureen and she will give birth (suspiciously soon) to a son that is probably not Charley's after all. In which case, she will name him Arthur because it's what Ian would have wanted and...

Then again, I could just wash my hands of the whole affair, hightail it back to 2115 in my ersatz shipping crate and pray that someone will produce a son named Arthur, who may or may not be a Dunbar. 

I am confused.

And I'm in trouble. There is the matter of that unauthorized Shift back to April and I seriously doubt my "emergency" would hold up to any serious scrutiny. After all, I was supposed to be observing history, not creating it.

But, looking on the bright side, I'm also in a unique situation: I am probably the only person in history given the opportunity to choose his ancestors.

As I said, the best laid plans of Arthur Dunbar ne'er gang a'gley—or at least they so rarely do that it doesn't count.

Not really.

THE END