The Escape by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online

guard. "But you can't travel within the same Period.
    That's how you avoid paradox. This is fascinating." "I wish I could study it in my room. In my bathtub," Neelix. said. "Under sudsy hot water. Steaming, sudsy hot water-was Kim jabbed Neelix and Neelix stopped talking.
    Torres took the man's arm. His orange suit felt crinkly, like fresh paper. "Listen, we didn't purposefully break your laws. Your ship brought us here. We're willing to go back. In fact, we want to go back. The more you drag us around this Period, the more we could affect something." "That may very well be," the man said. "Control will sort it out." He stopped in front of a booth and punched in a code. Then he swept a hand forward, indicating that Torres should step through. She shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I think we'd better remain with the ship we arrived in. We have to get back into the future and-was "Not without permission," the man in orange said, almost a touch of panic in his voice. "You have already time-jumped inside a Period without permission and that is a very serious offense." Torres glanced around at the small, curious crowd that was now starting to form. And the comman's accusations about time-jumping without permission sent an uneasy stir through the crowd.
    "That was an accident," Torres said. "Your shuttle kidnapped us, not the other way around." "That will be for Mean Time Control to figure out.
    Now, please." Again, he moved his hand in that curious, courtly gesture, as if he were trying to sweep Torres onto a dance floor.
    She glanced at Kim and then at Neelix.
    What was she supposed to do? Leave the place and the ship that brought them from the future and put her hands in some unknown "Control"? A Mean Control? As Neelix said, it didn't sound promising.
    She nodded to Kim and then turned to the man in orange. "I think we'll just go back to the shuttle that we came in. If you want to talk to us, we will be there. We have a spaceship in orbit around this planet three hundred thousand years in the future and our only goal is to return to it. We have no desire to cause problems. Understood?" The man in orange just stood there staring at them with a panicked look.
    "Let's go," Torres said. With more confidence than she felt, she started back across the huge room, Kim on her left and Neelix on her right, his short legs pumping hard to keep up with her stride.
    "Halt now before I have to send a Time Breach alarm," the man in orange said forcefully. His words sent out a gasp through the large crowd that had now formed to watch the show.
    66 Phasers on stun," Torres said softly to Kim while not slowing down. "Make it back to that ship and hold it secure. Understood?" "Understood," he said.
    "Now!" Torres said and broke into a run for the door, her phaser in her hand. People scattered out of their way as a soft chiming echoed through the huge room.
    She burst through the door and was immediately surrounded by a hundred orange-suited people, who were apparently expecting them. They held long-barreled weapons with the ends trained on her. Kim was surrounded by another large group, and so was Neelix.
    "I thought you said intraperiod travel is forbidden," she said. "You committed a Time Breach," the initial guard responded from behind her. Torres stopped and slowly raised her hands, letting 52 her phaser drop to the ground. Kim did the same beside her. "That was fast," Neelix said.
    "I doubt we ever had a real chance," Torres said. Once these people had known Torres's plan, they had traveled back just far enough in time to prevent her and her team from getting to the shuttle. Behind them their original guard said, "Now would you please come with me? You are in a great deal of trouble." "Obviously," Neelix said.
    Slowly Torres lowered her hands and followed the guard back across the room to the transporter booth.
    Her chances of seeing Voyager again had just gotten much, much worse.
    KjANDER'S LEANED AGAINST THE WALL IN THE