Although I cannot disclose the exact location of the experiment, it was to be in the southernmost region of the South American continent to eliminate any possibility of disrupting any form of human habitation which might have occurred at that time. We were to retrieve plant and animal specimens, and record our stay through constantly operating television cameras. We traveled with full space apparatus in tow, including protective clothing and oxygen equipment, as the atmospheric content at that time during the earth’s evolution is uncertain.

  The time module inside the fuselage of the Cassandra operates on a principle of vibrating molecules triggered by shock-sensitive equipment. The system, I must submit, has no backup to prevent the mechanism from malfunctioning in the event of sudden movement, such as an emergency crash landing. To install such a secondary system would have required several more months of refinement, and everyone on earth knows that the Russians have for the past two years…

  The rest of the line was scratched out. The log took up again on the next line, the handwriting more stable.

  That is inconsequential now. The worst has happened, and there is no call for complaint. All six of us volunteered for this mission, and all of us knew there were risks involved in accepting it.

  More than a week ago, on 8/11/32, as we were passing over the area of the Central American Republic, one of the turbines blew. My engineer, Metters, is still working to determine and correct the problem. The malfunction resulted in a severe loss of balance for the Cassandra, as she is made of Reardon metal, and lighter than aluminum. Although the Air Force has been utilizing craft constructed from Reardon for the past several years, no Reardon plane carrying the weight of our expedition has been used outside of tests.

  “The plane’s made of something called Reardon metal,” Lizzie said. “It’s lighter than aluminum.”

  “And never rusts,” Remo mused.

  “It doesn’t say, but I guess we can assume that.”

  We fell into a nosedive from which I could not pull out. When I felt certain that we would crash, I ordered the crew into the padded time module and set the computer to automatic, leaving it to either correct the malfunction or to land safely. Pilots, they say, are no longer necessary to aircraft except to oversee the running of electronic machinery.

  The computer was no better a pilot than I was. Cassandra crashed. Somehow, probably due to the resilience of the Reardon metal, the time module remained intact, although the craft was badly damaged and the video cameras utterly destroyed.

  The worst of it was that the time-traveling component, activated just after takeoff, was irreversible. Once the functioning of Cassandra is placed onto computer-operated automatic pilot, all systems lock. When we emerged from the time module, we found that we had landed in the year the time system had reached at the moment of the crash—3114 B.C.

  We landed in the middle of a settlement of some kind, destroying several dwellings and killing at least twelve civilians. I recognize that I face court-martial for this offense, and accept any punishment the government of the United States chooses to impose on me.

  The ruling body here, in this small city-state, has greeted us unexpectedly. Instead of hanging us, as they had every right to do, they have showered us with gifts and adoration, burying their dead without blame. They believe, I am certain, that we are deities from some far-off place.

  The mission is already an unqualified disaster. Our cardinal rule—not to disturb the history of mankind—has been broken, due to unforeseeable circumstances. Although my crew is taking pains to avoid contact with the people of this distant time, sleeping in our mylar tents in the immediate vicinity of the craft, eating from our rations, I cannot say how great an effect our arrival may cause here.

  The most important decision is one I have put off making. Every day we see, from our limited vantage point, the struggle of these ancient people with common problems—sanitation, disease, building, irrigation—which even a child coming from our civilization could solve. It is difficult to watch the farmers plant their seeds on hillside slopes, knowing that their crops will be washed away with the rain. It is harder still to see mothers carrying babies covered with leeches in an attempt to cure malaria, when Chinchona bark—a known cure for the disease—is readily available in the local forest.

  I do not know how long I can stand by, responsible as I am for the deaths of many of these people, without aiding them in some small way.

  The crew is spending the whole of every day working on Cassandra, attempting either to repair the time travel mechanism, or to get the craft into suitable condition to fly to a less inhabited location, where we could work on repairs without the constant fear of encroaching on this village. I do not know if either is possible.

  The entry was signed Colonel Kurt Cooligan, U.S. Air Force.

  “Guess there’s not much doubt where ’Kukulcan’ came from,” Remo said.

  Lizzie leafed through the pages absently. “Kurt Cooligan, the white god from the sky,” she whispered. “Poor guy.”

  “From what we’ve seen here, it looks like he made his decision,” Remo said. “Did he ever fix the time module?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she said, skimming the pages rapidly. “Here’s something about ’waves’…No, it’s ’war.’ His handwriting gets worse as he goes along.”

  “Must have been pretty hard on him.”

  “There’s a lot about war. Some kind of war he got involved in here.”

  “The king told us that. Cooligan drove off some other tribe or something. Probably used guns—wait a second.”

  “The magic spears of fire,” Lizzie remembered.

  “Lasers. You saw them in the temple. Cooligan must have stashed them in here someplace.” He set to searching the plane systematically as Lizzie read.

  11/17/2032

  There’s no more point in hoping. Metters keeps working on the time module like a man possessed, but it’s been three months. I don’t think we’ll ever get out of here alive.

  “That’s heartening,” Lizzie said, feeling her heart sink.

  “What?”

  “A lot of help you are,” she said. “Suppose you did find the lasers. Do you think you can blast our way out of here?”

  “Very funny. Do me a favor and mind your own business, okay?”

  2/21/2033

  I have given penicillin bread mold and Chinchona bark to the local healer, an old woman who delivers babies and makes herb teas for the dying. Communication was tough, but I think I got it across that one cures infections and the other malaria. She acted like they all do around me, as if I just blew in from Mars. I can’t say I blame them, especially after the shoot-out we had with those crazy spearchuckers over the hill. Apparently the Olmec have been terrorizing this place for decades, raping and killing whoever got in their way. Unfortunately for all concerned, my plane and crew were the Olmec’s target the last time. They haven’t been back.

  I don’t like being a god, but they seem to have made me one. The king—an old timer who’s as progressive as they come—just unveiled some ridiculous statue of Kukulcan (that’s me) wearing my helmet. It took about thirty men to carry the thing over to the Cassandra.

  I try not to interfere but, damn it, this is the best thing I’ve ever done. All the farms are planted in steps now, and the harvest these people get is unbelievable, what with the heavy rain and year-long summer. This mad king has even opened up trade with other villages down the road. Said road, incidentally, was designed by Major Bolam, botanist, copilot, and now civil engineer.

  To hell with not interfering. We make a difference here, a big difference.

  Sometimes I even manage to forget about Sandy and Michael.

  “Sandy and Michael?” Lizzie said aloud.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Did you find your guns?”

  “Nope. What’s Cooligan say?”

  “He seems—happy.”

  “Terrific. Is he, by chance, happy because he discovered a way back to the twenty-first century?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Some captain,” Remo said in disgust, going over to the control panels.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to see if I can get this heap to work.”

  “Just like that? Don’t you even need the flashlight?”

  “No. My eyes adjust.” He lifted off the lightweight metal panel and explored around the thousands of wires beneath it.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Lizzie asked, amazed.

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “Then why did you act like you needed light before?”

  “So that you wouldn’t ask me the kind of dumb questions you’re asking me now,” Remo said.

  She dug back into the log.

  7/2/2033

  It’s getting so hard to write. The headaches are happening almost every day now, and my vision is beginning to blur. It’s no surprise. The doctor said this would happen. Glasses would help, for a while at least, but then glasses haven’t been invented yet. Hah hah.

  It’s funny—now that my eyes are going, Sandy and Michael are clearer to me than ever. I guess the important things are what you see with your heart. That’s pretty sloppy sentiment for a captain’s log, but what the hell. Nobody’s ever going to read this anyway.

  Since I’ve been here these past fourteen months, watching the crew’s hopes turn into bad jokes, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to fate. The king—he’s got a name a yard long, like everyone else in this place—says that our crash landing here was part of some prophecy. Like it was our destiny to blow out of the sky so we could build roads and invent mortar and teach these folks what zero is.

  Bolam, our Renaissance man, is now supervising the construction of an observatory to read the stars with. I thought it was pretty crazy, but then, why not? What’s a botanist got to do around a wrecked plane except go nuts? Metters, too. Sometimes I swear he’s in love with the time module. He talks to it like a woman. He’s already taken it apart and put it back together four times. He thinks he’s getting close.

  Let him play, too. We know our destiny, the king and I.

  By the way, I’ve learned some of the language here. As the captain, I’m the official spokesman, but of course Bolam has picked it up, too. There’s a guy who never should have enlisted. He’s a born teacher, a real intellectual. Military life really held him back, I think.

  I must admit I’m a lot freer myself than I used to be, but then I didn’t want to be free before. If the truth be told, the U.S. Air Force was all that kept me from jumping off that bridge where Sandy and the baby crashed into the guardrail.

  A blowout. A turbine malfunction. It’s all the same, isn’t it? You’re going along, not doing too much of anything, and then fate steps in and gives you the finger. It’s sure waving in my face now, 6,000 years away from home. But Sandy got worse than that.

  I should never have let her drive that old clunker. Money was so tight then, but I should have made them take the bus. Or driven them myself. Then maybe she wouldn’t have had the blowout and maybe she wouldn’t have skidded into the guardrail, and maybe the car wouldn’t have blown up and burned my baby son to death.

  The military kept me together then. The rules, the routine, the other guys.

  But I know I should have been in that car with them.

  We’ve moved. After more than a year of sleeping in tents and foraging in the jungle like monkeys for food, I let the guys move into the rooms that the king set aside for us since we got here. It’s in the royal palace, no less, with dancing girls and the works. Yesterday we played a game of baseball out on the grounds. We started out with teams of three, but all the local guys wanted to join in, and by the fourth inning there were more than twenty players on each team. I suppose baseball will turn into a national institution here, too. Then, afterward, the whole town got plastered on this brew made from fermented woodpeckers or something. Bolam, the botanist, was the worst of the lot. He has really changed. I didn’t touch the stuff myself. Booze has the wrong effect on me. It makes me remember.

  And now the headaches are starting, just like the good, discrete, private doctor said they would, and I made the mission, and the mission fizzled, and I’m going blind in a place where nobody can help me.

  That’s fate.

  Sandy, I’m glad it’s finally my turn.

  Lizzie closed the book. “Remo, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Really? I hadn’t thought about it,” Remo said sarcastically. He looked up from the tangled mass of wires to see Lizzie’s face glistening with tears. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

  She told him Cooligan’s story. “He must have loved her so much,” she said. “He was going blind, and all he could think about was his wife.”

  Oh, Dick. I’ve never even told you I loved you.

  “Please try, Remo. I want to go home.”

  “I’m doing what I can,” Remo said, winding two wires together. To his surprise, a hum began, low and erratic.

  “You’ve done it,” Lizzie gasped. “You fixed it!”

  “Now cool it. I haven’t done anything, except start a hum.”

  “That’s a motor. That Metters guy must have fixed the module, after all. They all escaped!” she cried jubilantly. “And we know where the switch is. We can make this thing take us back.”

  “How?” Remo asked.

  “That’s up to you. I’ll get the others.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “QUICK, WE’RE LEAVING,” Lizzie shouted, interrupting Chiun’s 450th stanza of an Ung poem about a bee lighting on a flower.

  The court musicians playing behind him stopped abruptly. The king snorted out of deep slumber. In the corner of the king’s throne room, where Po and Nata-Ah were playing dice, the spotted snakebones twirled in the air and landed in the silence with a dead thump.

  “You have ruined my recital,” Chiun said, clenching his jaws. “Now I will have to begin from the beginning.”

  “No, we have to leave now,” Lizzie insisted. “Remo’s got the mechanism working. Let’s go.”

  Chiun stared at her acidly, deciding that the next time he came across a woman buried in stone he would leave her to rot. He made his apologies to the king through Po.

  As Nata-Ah listened to the boy’s explanation, tears filled her eyes. The boy turned to speak to her, but she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room.

  “Come on, come on. There’s no time for this nonsense,” Lizzie said, pushing the boy out.

  In the temple, Lizzie gathered up all the priceless artifacts she could carry, plus the captain’s log, and led the way into the pod.

  “That is stealing,” Chiun said coldly.

  “This is archaeology,” she retorted. “We need this as evidence that we’ve really been here. Besides, this temple was built for us, wasn’t it?”

  Remo looked up from the dials of the console. “No, it wasn’t,” he said softly. “It was built for some Irish pilot who played baseball and made medicine and then went blind. And he didn’t take anything from here.”

  “We don’t know that,” she snapped. “For all we know, he took everything he could get his hands on. That old king’s too old to know if anything’s missing, anyway. Hurry up.”

  Remo shook his head and continued to work at the controls. The hum was getting louder.

  As Po was walking reluctantly into the pod, the king and Nata-Ah appeared in the darkened doorway of the Cassandra. The boy started to move toward them, but Lizzie snatched him back.

  “I’m sorry,” Remo said. The king seemed to understand. He bowed to Chiun, then stood erect, his hand clasping the young girl’s.

  “If it does work, God only knows where we’ll end up next. We might walk out of this thing and see a bunch of cavemen or futuristic mutants,” Remo complained.

  “Just set the dials right,” Lizzie ordered.

  Remo held his temper and set the dials. He pulled the broken switch. “I guess that’s it,” he said.

  “Get in here,” Lizzie shouted from inside the pod.

  Ignoring her, Remo bowed to the king. The old man and his granddaughter both returned the bow. Then Remo climbed into the pod and closed the door to await the weird, syrupy sensations that would take him home.

  “You interrupted my Ung poem for this?” Chiun said after several minutes.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Lizzie said.

  Remo stood up. “I told you all I started was a hum.”

  “You must have done something wrong!” Lizzie yelled, kicking open the door.

  Outside, the king and Nata-Ah were still waiting. At the sight of the visitors, their faces lit up. The king began to sink to his knees, but Chiun held him up.

  “No bowing,” he said. “Those of our age bend to no man.” Po translated, and the king led them back to the throne room.

  “You have blessed me and my people by returning,” the king said. “It is the time when we most need your services. You knew of our need and came back to us.”

  “What need?” Remo said.

  “With Quintanodan returned to his tribe, the Olmec will be making ready to do battle against you.”

  “The Olmec are going to fight us?”

  “But they will not win,” the king assured him. “They cannot. For I have preserved something of Kukulcan’s magic to aid you.”

  He led them behind a gold filigree screen, where a five-foot-tall jar of finest jade glowed. Lizzie’s eyes popped at the sight. He bade Remo to remove the heavy lid of the jar and tip the vessel over. From its green mouth spilled six weapons made of greenish metal.

  “The lasers,” Remo said, picking one up. The light metal was strong as iron.

  “The magic spears of fire,” the king said, smiling. “For these ten years I have hidden them from all eyes, saving them for the return of our beloved Kukulcan. I had almost despaired of ever seeing the god again. But he has remembered my people. He has sent you in his place. These now, I know, belong to you.” He started to bow, then straightened up with a smile to Chiun.