“I told you you wouldn’t like it.”
“You want me to believe you’re a Martian.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She dropped her hand into her lap. “I’m ridiculous? You sit there and try to feed me some story about coming from Mars andI’mridiculous?” For lack of anything better to do, she tossed a pillow across the room, then rose and began to pace. “Look, it’s not as though I’m prying into your personal life, or even that I expect some kind of humble gratitude for dragging you in out of that storm, but I think some mutual respect is in order here. You’re in my home, Hornblower, and I deserve the truth.”
“Yes, I think you do. I’m trying to give it to you.”
“Fine.” Temper wasn’t going to help, she thought. She dropped back on the bed and spread her arms. “So you’re from Mars.”
“No, I’m from Philadelphia.”
“Ah.” She let out a long, relieved breath. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You were on your way to Los Angeles when you crashed your plane.”
“My ship.”
Her face remained calm and impassive. “That would be your spaceship.”
“You’d call it that.” He leaned forward. “I had to reroute because of a meteor shower. I was off course... farther, I realize, than I had first thought, because my instruments were unstable. I ran into a black hole, an uncharted one.”
“A black hole.” She no longer felt like laughing. His eyes were absolutely sincere. He believed it, she realized as she folded her hands tightly in her lap. His concussion was obviously much more serious than she had originally thought.
“That’s a compressed star. Very dense, very powerful. Its gravity sucks up everything—stellar dust, gas, even light.”
“Yes, I know what a black hole is.” She had to keep him calm, Libby reasoned. She would humor him, express a friendly interest in his story, then get him back into bed. “So you were flying your spaceship, ran into a black hole and crashed.”
“In simple terms. I’m not sure exactly what happened. That’s why I hooked my wrist unit up to your computer. I need more information before I can calculate how to get back.”
“To Mars?”
“No, damn it. To the twenty-third century.”
The small, polite smile froze on her face. “I see.”
“No, you don’t.” He rose to prowl the room. Patience, he told himself. He could hardly expect her to accept in a moment what he still had trouble believing himself. “There have been theories about time travel for centuries. It’s generally accepted that if a ship could get up the needed speed and slingshot around the sun it could pass through time. It’s only theory at this point, because no one’s sure how to keep the ship from being sucked into the sun’s gravity and frying. The same holds true for a black hole. If I’d been pulled in, the power and radiation would have ripped the ship apart. It had to be blind luck, but somehow I hit on the right trajectory—the precise speed, distance, angle. Instead of being pulled in, I bounced off.” He flicked the curtain aside to look out at the darkening sky. “And landed here, over two and a half centuries back in the past.”
Libby rose to lay a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “You should lie down.”
He didn’t look back at her, didn’t need to. “You don’t believe me.”
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “You believe it.”
He turned then. There was sympathy in her eyes, the warm golden glow of it. “How would you explain it?” He reached in his pocket for his unit. “How would you explain this?”
“There’s no need for explanations now. I’m sorry I pressured you, Caleb. You’re tired.”
“You have no explanation. For this—” he dropped the unit in his pocket again “—or for me.”
“All right. My theory is that you’re part of an intelligence operation, perhaps some elite section of the CIA. You were probably burned out—stress, tension, overwork. When you crashed, the shock and trauma of your head injury pushed you over the edge. You don’t want to be a part of what you were, so you’ve chosen to give yourself a different time, a different history.”
“So you think I’m crazy.”
“No.” The compassion was back, in her eyes, in her voice. She touched her hand to the side of his face in a comforting gesture. “I think you’re confused and you need rest and attention.”
He started to swear, but he caught himself. If he continued to insist, he would only frighten her. He’d already caused her a great deal of trouble that she didn’t deserve.
“You’re probably right. I’m still shaky from the crash. I should get some rest.”