The Escape by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
TRANSPORT Station. The grease from decades of travel was rub bing off on his bright blue tunic. He didn't care. The thing was a disguise anyway. Better to look lik " e a bureaucrat heading for work in Period 18 than to wear leisure clothes from Period 899. He hated this Period, probably because it was his home Period. It offered no room for growth or change, and he needed both. He needed adventure.
The Seconds-Watchers in Control had no idea what adventure was. To them adventure occurred whenever a shuttle took off. But he had been to a hundred Periods before they took his travel license away and he had used up opportunities in every one of them. What he really wanted to do was see something other than this planet. He had heard of PlanetHoppers before and 54 had thought of them often, especially when he traveled to dark times and stared at the stars above, were all those worlds different from his own? Did they have warm and cool periods, ice ages, and forested ages, creatures that developed through time, and creatures that disappeared as the millennium passed? Or were they just like this place, the same yet different depending on where in the time line a traveler landed?
He would have loved to have asked the.
PlanetHoppers that Control had picked up, but those three odd-looking people were doomed. They had been doomed the moment they tried to make a break for it.
They didn't seem to understand that making a straight run for it was the wrong way to avoid the orange suits. Causing a Time Alarm was a sure way to get executed real quick. He sighed. At least they were having an adventure. He was just observing.
Then he stood up as an idea hit him.
Their bad luck just might have been his good luck.
He'd been planning to take a shuttle, even though his license was gone. He had just needed a destination not guarded by the Watchmen. He had been lurking in this Transport Station for two days, trying to discover a place that he could disappear into, one that no other Time-Jumper had tried before. Then these PlanetHoppers had shown up.
Three hundred thousand years, the pretty woman with the ridged forehead had said. They had a ship, a planet-hopping ship, in orbit. After the room was totally clear of the orange suits, he moved slowly toward the door they had entered. 55 This would be a perfect escape. He had managed to avoid Control so far. All they had managed was to rescind his license. They hadn't found him, just traces of him. His usual contacts could no longer help. He had stolen too much merchandise and brought it to the wrong Period. He was wanted, not just for the thefts, but also for hijacking a control ship and jumping within a Period. That had turned out unpleasant, but at least it had provided him with a quick escape. He had jumped a few years away, and then allowed the Control ship to return. Control had thought he stayed in the past, never thinking he would return to his own Real Time present. It had seemed like a good idea then.
Two Real Time weeks later, the idea seemed a little lamebrained. Without help, he had had nowhere to go.
Until now.
He ambled through the door onto the warm concrete of the field and glanced around. It took him a moment before he spotted the PlanetHoppers" shuttle.
The shuttle seemed much older than the rest. It looked so bad that he was surprised it had been able to make the jump.
The shuttle sat on a pad that belonged to a different shuttle. When that shuttle returned, the automatic homing device of the old ship would take it back to the future, to the time of the PlanetHoppers' Vacuum Ship. And if his plan worked, it would soon be his Vacuuin Ship.
Torres clenched her fists and held them at her side, battle-ready, as she stepped into the transporter. The dislocating change-something she would never completely get used to-occurred in a split second. One moment she was in the big transporter hall, the next she was in a room dug out of solid rock.
Neelix appeared beside her, eyes
The Seconds-Watchers in Control had no idea what adventure was. To them adventure occurred whenever a shuttle took off. But he had been to a hundred Periods before they took his travel license away and he had used up opportunities in every one of them. What he really wanted to do was see something other than this planet. He had heard of PlanetHoppers before and 54 had thought of them often, especially when he traveled to dark times and stared at the stars above, were all those worlds different from his own? Did they have warm and cool periods, ice ages, and forested ages, creatures that developed through time, and creatures that disappeared as the millennium passed? Or were they just like this place, the same yet different depending on where in the time line a traveler landed?
He would have loved to have asked the.
PlanetHoppers that Control had picked up, but those three odd-looking people were doomed. They had been doomed the moment they tried to make a break for it.
They didn't seem to understand that making a straight run for it was the wrong way to avoid the orange suits. Causing a Time Alarm was a sure way to get executed real quick. He sighed. At least they were having an adventure. He was just observing.
Then he stood up as an idea hit him.
Their bad luck just might have been his good luck.
He'd been planning to take a shuttle, even though his license was gone. He had just needed a destination not guarded by the Watchmen. He had been lurking in this Transport Station for two days, trying to discover a place that he could disappear into, one that no other Time-Jumper had tried before. Then these PlanetHoppers had shown up.
Three hundred thousand years, the pretty woman with the ridged forehead had said. They had a ship, a planet-hopping ship, in orbit. After the room was totally clear of the orange suits, he moved slowly toward the door they had entered. 55 This would be a perfect escape. He had managed to avoid Control so far. All they had managed was to rescind his license. They hadn't found him, just traces of him. His usual contacts could no longer help. He had stolen too much merchandise and brought it to the wrong Period. He was wanted, not just for the thefts, but also for hijacking a control ship and jumping within a Period. That had turned out unpleasant, but at least it had provided him with a quick escape. He had jumped a few years away, and then allowed the Control ship to return. Control had thought he stayed in the past, never thinking he would return to his own Real Time present. It had seemed like a good idea then.
Two Real Time weeks later, the idea seemed a little lamebrained. Without help, he had had nowhere to go.
Until now.
He ambled through the door onto the warm concrete of the field and glanced around. It took him a moment before he spotted the PlanetHoppers" shuttle.
The shuttle seemed much older than the rest. It looked so bad that he was surprised it had been able to make the jump.
The shuttle sat on a pad that belonged to a different shuttle. When that shuttle returned, the automatic homing device of the old ship would take it back to the future, to the time of the PlanetHoppers' Vacuum Ship. And if his plan worked, it would soon be his Vacuuin Ship.
Torres clenched her fists and held them at her side, battle-ready, as she stepped into the transporter. The dislocating change-something she would never completely get used to-occurred in a split second. One moment she was in the big transporter hall, the next she was in a room dug out of solid rock.
Neelix appeared beside her, eyes
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