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Her eyes, still wet from her shocked weeping, reflected a fear of not being taken seriously. "Well, Captain, you see... They've set the equipment for this region, right here in Scotland."
"This region?" Stirling echoed. Uneasiness stirred, worse than before, in the pit of his stomach. "Granted, Scotland's been the site of a number of historic battles, but major enough to upset all history? What could McEgan possibly be after, here, that would benefit Northern Ireland?"
Indrani's lips worked. The answer came out as a ragged whisper. "King Arthur."
The unreality of it tried to crash down across him. Sleep-deprived, off balance, badly shaken by the possibilities for mass murder, that was the last answer he'd expected to hear. "King Arthur?" It came out flat, disbelieving. "Dux Bellorum Artorius? Sixth-century Briton war chieftain, fighting Saxons?"
"And Picts," Indrani whispered. "And Irish invaders. A very large number of Irish invaders, in fact. She's gone to the year 500 A.D. The height of Artorius' power. If the Irish were to kill him before his resounding victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, the Irish clans could drive the Britons and the Saxons straight into the sea."
The whisper of air conditioning from the laboratory's vents raised a chill along Stirling's neck. Go back to the very begi
It was exactly what he would expect of a Cuma
Cedric Ba
"I see." It came out ragged. "Very clearly, in fact. Which makes it absolutely imperative that I be the one to transfer after them."
"But—"
"I speak Welsh and Gaelic, Dr. Bhaskar."
"But do you speak Latin and Brythonic?"
"Latin, no. Brythonic, that's early Welsh, isn't it?"
"Yes. And as much like modern Welsh as the Old English of Beowulf is like the language you and I are speaking now!"
"Nevertheless, I'm still the best-qualified agent you have. I majored in military history at Edinburgh University. Cut my milk teeth on both my grandfathers' stories about the glorious King Arthur, and I'm familiar with all the legendary sites, in Scotland, England, and Wales. And I'm a trained counterterrorist officer. Frankly, you haven't got a better agent to send after them, not anywhere in Britain." He resolutely refused to think about the consequences to any mistakes he might make, that far back in history. He could easily destroy the future he was trying to protect, with one ill-timed blunder. He refused to consider it, because he'd spoken the simple, stark truth. There wasn't anyone better qualified to go. God help them all...
And a whole year to screw it up.
"I want an outside phone line," he said through clenched teeth.
"To phone the police?"
"No. To phone my commanding officer." Colonel Ogilvie was going to spit nails, when he heard, which certainly wouldn't do Stirling's own career much good. What the Home Office would do, once Ogilvie finished notifying the Minister, he genuinely did not want to contemplate. Pity was the overriding emotion he felt for the scientists left to face the authorities.
His conversation with Ogilvie was brutally short. "Stirling here. Beg leave to report full infiltration, sir, with casualties. Initiating pursuit, within the quarter hour."
"Geographical?" Ogilvie asked carefully, his voice a rasp through the telephone wires.
"No, sir."
"I see."
"Better run a complete security check on Bre
"Bloody hell. Home Office won't like that."
"No, sir. They'll like what Dr. Mylonas has to say even less. Better get a full team up here, sir. I daren't say more over the telephone. I'll leave a complete situation report for you, before I go after them. Time is far more critical than you think."
An understatement, if ever he'd made one.
"Do what you must, Stirling."
"Yes, sir."
He was on his own. With all of history waiting.
Bre
Her final, fragmented memory was awareness of the electrical leads taped to her skin and a wavery image of his face, smiling merrily into her foggy eyes, the paisley scarf looking jaunty at his throat—a sick in-joke the other scientists had dismally failed to comprehend.
"Hello, love," he'd said with a laugh that froze her blood. "You've my undying gratitude for providing the perfect scapegoat. And don't worry, I'll be joining you shortly. Catch me if you can."
He'd thrown a switch—and her reality had shattered.
Leaving her... where? Or—more chilling—when? She was lying down, or at least her borrowed body was. When she struggled to focus her awareness, she felt a fluttering at the back of her mind, the frantic beating of a terrified bird trapped on the wrong side of a window glass. Thoughts not quite her own flickered like heat lightning, as though she had become someone else with a very different set of memories. The presence howling through her awareness was thinking in a language Bre
At first, she thought Ba
She was unsure whether to feel relief or deeper alarm.
Gradually, meaning began to seep through the confused blur of unfamiliar words in her mind, giving her clues to the language, at least. The owner of her borrowed body was terrified nearly witless—but not completely so. She sensed a keen intelligence filtering through to her own mind, with overtones of religious—or perhaps superstitious—awe, triggered by the incomprehensible event which had befallen them. Bre