Chapter 5
She might have called it rustic. He might have called it primitive. But there was something soothing, peaceful and calming about popping corn over an open fire.
She seemed to have the hang of it, he thought, as she shook the long-handled box over the flames.
The scent was enough to make his mouth water as the kernels began to pop and batter the screened metal lid.
Though he could have explained scientifically how the hard seeds exploded into fluffy white pieces, it was more fun just to watch.
“We’d always make popcorn this way here,” she murmured, watching the flames. “Even in the summer, when we were sweltering, Mom or Dad would build a fire and we’d fight over who got to hold the popper.” Her lips curved at the memory.
“You were happy here.”
“Sure. I probably would have gone on being happy here, but I discovered the world. What do you think of the world, J.T.?”
“Which one?”
With a laugh, she gave the popper an extra shake. “I should have known better than to ask an astro-whatever. Your mind’s probably in space half the time.”
“At least.”
She sat cross-legged on the floor, the firelight glowing on her face and hair. That face, he thought, with its exquisite bones and angles, was perfectly relaxed. She was obviously taking the truce seriously, rambling on, as friendly as a longtime friend, about whatever came to mind.
He sipped his beer and listened, though he knew next to nothing about the movies and music she spoke of. Or the books. Some of the titles were vaguely familiar, but he had spent very little of his time reading fiction.
He’d touched on some twentieth-century entertainment in his research, but not enough to make him an expert in the areas Sunny seemed so well versed in.
“You don’t like movies?” she asked at length.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You haven’t seen any of the flicks I’ve mentioned that have been popular in the last eighteen months.”
He wondered what she’d say if he told her that the last video he’d seen had been produced in 2250. “It’s just that I’ve been busy in the lab for quite a while.”
She felt a tug of sympathy for him. Sunny didn’t mind working, and working hard, but she expected plenty of time for fun. “Don’t they ever give you a break?”
“Who?”
“The people you work for.” She switched hands and continued to shake the popper.
That made him smile a little, since for the past five years he had been in the position of calling his own shots and hiring his own people. “It’s more a matter of me being obsessed with the project I’ve been working on.”
“Which is?”
He waited a beat, then decided that the truth couldn’t hurt. In fact, he wanted to see her reaction. “Time travel.”
She laughed, but then she saw his face and cleared her throat. “You’re not joking.”
“No.” He glanced at the popper. “I think you’re burning it.”
“Oh.” She jerked it out of the flames and set it down on the hearth. “You really mean time travel, like H. G. Wells?”
“Not precisely.” He stretched out his legs so that the fire warmed the soles of his feet. “Time and space are relative—in simple terms. It’s a matter of finding the proper equations and implementing them.”
“Sure. E equals MC squared, but really, J.T., bopping around through time?” She shook her head, obviously amused. “Like Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the Wayback machine.”
“Who?”
“You obviously had a deprived childhood. It’s a cartoon, you know? And this dog scientist—”
He held up a hand, his eyes narrowed to green slits. “A dog was a scientist?”
“In the cartoon,” she said patiently. “And he had this boy, Sherman. Never mind,” she added when she saw his expression. “It’s just that they would set the dates on this big machine.”
“The Wayback.”
“Exactly. Then they would travel back, like to Nero’s Rome or Arthur’s Britain.”
“Fascinating.”
“Entertaining. It was a cartoon, J.T. You can’t really believe it.”
He sent her a slow, enigmatic smile. “Do you only believe what you can see?”
“No.” She frowned, using a hot pad to remove the lid from the popper. “I guess not.” Then she laughed and sampled the popcorn. “Maybe I do. I’m a realist. We really needed one in the family.”
“Even a realist has to accept certain possibilities.”
“I suppose.” She took another handful and decided to get into the spirit of things. “Okay. So, we’re in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback machine. Where would you go—or when, I suppose I should say? When would you go, if you really could?”
He looked at her, sitting in the firelight, laughter still in her eyes. “The possibilities are endless. What about you?”
“I wonder.” She held the beer loosely in her hand as she considered. “I imagine Libby would have a dozen places to go back to. The Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans. Dad would probably want to see Tombstone or Dodge City. And my mother . . . well, she’d go where my father went, to keep an eye on him.”
He dipped into the popcorn. “I asked about you.”
“I’d go forward. I’d want to see what was coming.”
He didn’t speak, only stared into the fire.
“A hundred, maybe two hundred, years in the future. After all, you can read history books and get a pretty good idea of what things were like before. But after . . . It seems to me it would be much more exciting to see just what we’ve made out of things.
” The idea made her laugh up at him. “Do they actually pay you to work on stuff like that? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to figure out how to travel across town in, say, Manhattan in under forty minutes during rush hour? ”
“I’m free to choose my own projects.”
“Must be nice.” She was mellow now, relaxed and happy enough with his company. “It seems I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I’m a terrible employee,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s something about rules and authority. I’m argumentative.”
“Really?”
She didn’t mind his grin. “Really. But I’m so often right, you see, that it’s really hard to admit when I’m wrong. Sometimes I wish I was more . . . flexible.”
“Why? The world’s full of people who give in.”
“Maybe they’re happier,” she murmured. “It’s a shame the word compromise is so hard to swallow. You don’t like to be wrong, either.”
“I make sure I’m not.”
She laughed and stretched out on the rug. “Maybe I do like you. We’re going to have to tend this fire all night unless we want to freeze. We’ll take shifts.” She yawned and pillowed her head over her hands. “Wake me up in a couple of hours and I’ll take over.”
When he was certain she was asleep, Jacob covered her with the colorful blanket, then left her by the fire.
Upstairs, it took him less than ten minutes to make some adjustments to the desktop computer and tie it in so that it would run off his mini unit.
The mini didn’t have the memory banks of his ship model, but it would be enough to make his report and answer the few questions he had.
“Engage, computer.”
A quiet, neutral voice answered him. Engaged.
“Report. Hornblower, Jacob. Current date is January 20th. A winter storm has caused me to remain in the cabin. The structure runs off electric power, typically unreliable in this era. Apparently the power is transmitted through overhead lines that are vulnerable during storms. At approximately 1800 hours, the power was cut off. Estimated time of repair?”
Working . . . Incomplete data.
“I was afraid of that.” He paused for a moment, thinking.
“Sunbeam Stone is resourceful. Candles—wax candles—are used for light. Wood is burned for heat. It is, of course, insufficient, and only accommodates a small area. It is, however . . .” He searched for a word.
“. . . pleasant. It creates a certain soothing ambiance.” Annoyed, he cut himself off.
He didn’t want to think of the way she had looked in the firelight.
“As reported earlier, Stone is a difficult and aggressive female, prone to bursts of temper. She is also disarmingly generous, sporadically friendly and—” The word desirable was on the tip of his tongue.
Jacob bit it. “Intriguing,” he decided. “Further study is necessary. However, I do not believe she is an average woman of this time.” He paused again, drumming his fingers on the desk.
“Computer, what are the typical attitudes of women toward mating in this era?”
Working.
As soon as he had asked, Jacob opened his mouth to disengage. But the computer was quick.
Most typically physical attraction, sometimes referred to as chemistry, is required.
Emotional attachment, ranging from affection to love is preferred by 97.
6 percent of females. Single encounters, often called one-night stands, were no longer fashionable in this part of the twentieth century.
Subjects preferred commitment from sexual partners.
Romance was widely accepted and desired.
“Define ‘romance.’”
Working . . . To influence by personal attention, flattery or gifts. Also synonymous with love, love affair, an attachment between male and female. Typified by the atmosphere of dim lighting, quiet music, flowers. Accepted romantic gestures include—
“That’s enough.” Jacob rubbed his hands over his face and wondered if he was going crazy. He had no business wasting time asking the computer such unscientific questions. He had less business contemplating a totally unscientific relationship with Sunny Stone.
He had only two purposes for being where he was. The first and most important was to find his brother. The second was to gather as much data as possible about this era. Sunny Stone was data, and she couldn’t be anything else.
But he wanted her. It was unscientific, but it was very real.
It was also illogical. How could he want to be with a woman who annoyed him as much as she amused him?
Why should he care about a woman he had so little in common with?
Centuries separated them. Her world, while fascinating in a clinical sense, frustrated the hell out of him. She frustrated the hell out of him.