Love Beyond Time

By

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Copyright © 1994, by Flora Speer

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New Mexico

October, 1992

“Has anyone ever told you that you are
crazy?”

“All the time. But I never pay any attention,
because I know I’m right.” Henry Adelbert Marsh regarded his
visitor with cool arrogance. The man facing him was of average
height, with dark hair and nondescript features except for the
startling blue eyes that lifted his appearance far out of the
ordinary. Hank Marsh wasn’t one to be unduly impressed by a
person’s looks – he wasn’t all that handsome himself – but he was
annoyed with this man, and he was curious. He met the blue gaze
with open defiance. “What I want to know is how you found me. I
covered my tracks pretty damned well.”

“You did. I’ll give you that much. I lost you
for a long time. It took me months of searching and a lot of
trouble to discover just where you were hiding.” Ignoring the woman
who was the third person in the room, Bradford Michael Bailey moved
a little farther into the back bedroom of the house, his eyes on
the computer that filled the better part of the space. There could
be absolutely no doubt that he had found his quarry at last, and
Hank was up to his old tricks again. “As it happens, I am something
of a detective. An historical detective, since I’m an
archaeologist. I enjoy the challenge of a difficult search. And I
was given a few clues to help me find you. Do you remember Mark
Brant? Or India Baldwin?”

“India sent you after me?” Hank’s arrogant
mask slipped a bit. “I never thought she’d talk. She was so adamant
about forgetting what happened last Christmastime.”

“You mean about you accidentally sending her
far back in time? How could anyone ever forget living through such
an experience? No, India didn’t talk. My friend, Mark, figured out
what had happened. He’s the one who sent me after you.”

“I knew that guy was trouble the first time I
saw him,” Hank muttered. “O.K., now you’ve found me. What do you
want with me, Bailey?”

“The name’s Mike. I’ve learned enough about
you during the last ten months to put us on a first-name basis. I
assume this is your latest machine.” Mike took a couple of steps
toward the computer, noting the additional components and the power
enhancers. He was no stranger to computers. Archaeologists found
them remarkably useful. “You have made some interesting changes to
this thing, haven’t you? Are you hoping to prove some wild new
theory, or are you still working on the old one?”

At this point, the young woman who had let
Mike into her house when he claimed to be Hank’s friend inserted
herself between Mike and the computer. From his investigations into
Hank’s whereabouts, Mike knew her name was Alice. She was small and
thin, with dark hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. She wore
no makeup and her expression was grimly intense. It occurred to
Mike that she would be a lot prettier if she would lighten up a
little. But perhaps her interest in Hank was more scientific than
romantic. It certainly seemed that way.

“Leave Hank alone,” Alice ordered. “And you
stay away from his computer, too. Our theories and what we are
doing are none of your business. You don’t have any right to
intrude on our privacy.”

“Did you know your friend here is a thief?”
Mike said to her. When Alice glanced toward Hank, Mike took another
step in the direction of the computer. “Hank has stolen the
property of this India Baldwin we’ve just mentioned. I have been
sent to collect and return that property.”

“Hank is no thief,” Alice protested. “He’s a
great and misunderstood scientist.”

“He broke into India Baldwin’s house and took
two floppy disks and a notebook that belonged to her. Then Hank
left town with those disks and the notebook. If that’s not
stealing, I don’t know what is. But if he’ll return her property,
India has promised she won’t press charges against him.”

“You can’t interfere with important
scientific work,” Alice cried, apparently oblivious to the legal
implications of what Hank had done. Mike decided he wasn’t going to
get anywhere with her. Alice was on Hank’s side, and she probably
wouldn’t budge from her position without a good scare.

“Hand over the disks, Hank. And the
notebook.” Mike put out his hand, waiting. “If you give them to me,
I won’t call the police. Refuse, and you are going to be prosecuted
for possession of stolen property and for trying to recreate a
dangerous accident. That is what you are trying to do here, isn’t
it? You want to repeat the accident that happened to India. You
intend to try to send someone else back to the eighth century. Are
you going to use your friend Alice as the guinea pig, or are you
planning to go yourself this time?”

“He knows, Hank.” Suddenly, Alice looked
frightened. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

“Shut up, Alice,” Hank ordered. “He doesn’t
know anything. He’s bluffing.”

“Wrong,” Mike informed him. “I know
everything about your theories and your experiments. Now, ask
yourself where I got the money to trail you across the country for
all these months. Does it begin to dawn on you that I’m not acting
solely on my own initiative? There are some very important people
who are determined to stop what you are trying to do, Hank. After I
leave here, you may have some other visitors, whom I don’t think
will be as pleasant as I am, or as patient with you. Now, come on,
hand over the evidence and you’ll be in the clear when other people
come searching.”

“Are you saying the federal government is
after him?” Alice squeaked, backing away from Hank. “I didn’t ask
for this kind of trouble.”

“Last chance, Hank. Hand over the disks.”
Mike paused for a moment, watching Hank, who stood unmoving and
glaring at him. “All right, time’s up. If you aren’t going to give
me the disks, then I’ll just have to take them. Here’s one. I guess
the other’s in the machine, isn’t it? Now, where have you hidden
the notebook?” As he spoke, Mike picked up one floppy disk from the
shelf beside the computer and pocketed it. He reached toward the
computer to remove the second disk.

“Don’t touch that thing!” Hank yelled. “It’s
all set up and ready to go.”

“Then turn it off and give me the disk,” Mike
demanded. “The notebook, too.”

“No way!” Hank shoved at Mike, trying to get
him away from the computer, but Mike caught his arm in a tight
grip.

“Knock it off. Hank. I don’t want to hurt
you. Just hand over the disk and I’ll leave.” Knowing he was the
stronger man, Mike released the furious scientist. Doing so was a
mistake.

“You aren’t going to stop me,” Hank declared.
“Not you or anyone else, including the government. I can just
imagine what the Feds would do with my material. Damn it, I’m sick
and tired of uninformed idiots trying to interfere with my work!”
With that, he clenched his fist and took a wild swing at Mike, who
ducked. Hank was not a fighting man. The punch missed Mike’s chin
with plenty of room to spare, and Hank’s fist slammed into the
computer.

“Ow!” Hank cried, nursing his aching hand.
“Get out of here. Just leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that.” When Mike did not move,
Hank and Alice came at him at the same time, but from different
directions. Mike was concentrating on what Hank might do, so he
wasn’t expecting Alice’s attack, and he didn’t want to hit a woman.
He tried to sidestep Alice while at the same time fending off Hank.
As a result of his misplaced chivalry, he was pushed backward until
he was up against the computer. He put out a hand to steady
himself.

His hand went through the computer screen,
vanishing into the solid surface. The computer screen appeared to
be undamaged, but Mike could no longer see his own hand and
arm.

“Hey! Come back here. You’re not the one
who’s supposed to go,” Hank shouted.

But Bradford Michael Bailey was beyond
stopping what was happening. He could not
believe
what was
happening, so at first he did nothing to help himself. Within half
a second it was impossible for him to do anything anyway, because
his own body would not follow his commands. Incredibly, he was
being pulled into the computer. He saw an orange blur first, then
an odd blackness with bright-colored numbers whizzing through it.
His head ached and his ears popped as if he were falling fast.
Which he was.

He came out of the blackness into empty air.
Then he was tumbling downward through tree branches. He grabbed at
them to try to stop his precipitous fall, but some of the branches
broke and his hands slipped off others as he plummeted toward the
ground.

He knew he was going to die. Oddly, his life
did not pass before his eyes. All he saw was tree leaves and
branches, a few rocks below awaiting him, and the too-solid earth
on which those rocks were resting.

He hit the ground hard, knocking all the air
out of his lungs. His head cracked against one of the waiting
rocks. Unable to move or breathe, Mike fell into blackness again, a
different kind of blackness this time, a sucking, greedy darkness
that engulfed him in an instant, snuffing out his
consciousness.

Francia,Spring, A.D. 779

At first Danise thought the man was dead. He
lay perfectly still, prone on a pile of leaves and branches, and
when she turned him over she saw that his face was swollen beyond
recognition.

Not that she would have recognized him if he
had been in the best of health. She had never seen anyone wearing
such strange clothing. His breeches, made of the common dark blue
fabric woven in Nimes, had been worn and washed until they were
threadbare and faded to near whiteness in places. The knees were
torn and bloodstained. She would have thought him a peasant save
for the stitching. Danise, no mean needle woman herself, had never
encountered stitches so even or so close together – two rows of
them at each seam – and there were little pouches set into the
garment near the waist, perhaps to hold the man’s personal
belongings. His upper body was covered by a short tunic of matching
fabric, open down the front. Beneath it he wore a round-necked blue
shirt of some soft material. His hair was black and straight. All
this she saw in a moment, before her servant Clothilde spoke.

“Is he breathing?” Clothilde knelt in the
leaves beside her mistress and pressed a hand against the man’s
chest. “His heart is beating. He is warm.”

“Poor man.” Danise let her fingers touch his
face softly, so as not to hurt him further. She could see that his
nose had been bleeding, but the blood had stopped. In addition to
his scraped knees he had scratches on his face and hands and a
nasty lump on the left side of his head. Danise could find no open
wounds to require immediate stanching of blood. If he had any more
serious injuries, they must be internal.

“How could a stranger come so close to the
royal camp and not be stopped by Charles’s guards?” asked
Clothilde.

“I don’t know,” Danise said, “but he fell
from a tree. Those are fresh spring leaves he’s lying on, on top of
the old leaves from last autumn. Look up, Clothilde. You can see
from the broken branches up there the path by which he came to this
spot.”

“He was in the treetop, spying on us?”
Clothilde gasped. “We must alert the guards at once.”

“No.” Danise spoke sharply. “We don’t know
that he was spying. He may have thought
we
would do
him
harm. We can’t call the guards. They would think as you
do, and be rough with him. He looks too badly hurt to endure such
treatment. Clothilde, I think by the fine seams on his clothing
that he must be a nobleman. Look at them. No peasant woman could
make stitches so small or so straight. I believe he has been
traveling for a long time, if such sturdy fabric is so badly worn.
Therefore, until he can tell us who he is, we would be wise to
treat him as a visiting noble.

“I will stay here to watch over him,” Danise
went on. “You must find my father or Guntram, who will know where
my father is. We will need a litter to take him back to the
camp.”