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and Linnea Edel, the latter with more care. All of them had field glasses. Ross pulled up his own pair and shaded the sun with one hand while he focused with the other.
    Thera, at this distance, even looked a little like Catalina. He envisioned yesterday's flyover: an island cluster looking like a half-submerged donut. The center, now a peaceful lagoon, with brilliant clear water and a couple of islands dotting it, was the sleeping caldera of the mighty volcano that had blasted fifty cubic miles of matter into the sky.
    Everyone studied it in silence as the cargo ship made its way in a slow circle all round the island cluster. Behind them, glimpsed earlier that morning, lay Crete, a long, thin blade of an island. Way off to the northwest, behind Thera, lay more of the Greek islands, and finally Greece itself. To the northeast lay what was once ancient Anatolia, Turkey now.
    Getting a basic familiarity with the island and its surroundings now would save them a lot of time when the beautiful little craft lying shrouded in the cargo vessel's hold was launched through the great time-gate two nights hence. They wouldn't, of course, limit themselves to seventeenth-century B.C.E. technology: the ship had a small, virtually silent engine concealed in its stern, but it was only for emergencies. And there'd certainly be no GPS satellites to lock onto, so they'd be navigating using techniques that differed very little from those of the mariners of that period. Best, as always, to go in with as much information as possible, even though there was no way of knowing just how much the surrounding sea and islands had been changed by the volcanic explosion.
    It was hard to imagine this peaceful, sunny scene vanishing under a fireball of steam and vaporized rock, then choking under a pall of volcanic ash as glowing volcanic rock fell like hellish hail. Ross shook his head. He knew the reality was the huge magma dome deep underneath the island, just welling up, shouldering aside the rock around it. ... Somehow going up against a volcano seemed tougher than facing aliens with laser weapons. You can't even pretend to negotiate with a volcano.
    He felt a nudge against his arm, and saw Eveleen at his shoulder, silently studying the biggest island. They were close enough to see striated rock, compressed levels of pumice and ash angling up, indicating tectonic activity no less powerful— only slower.
    "I don't care what that lady finds," Ross muttered, glancing over at Linnea Edel. "In and out."
    Eveleen grunted in agreement. "What bothers me is that they don't have dates for the Big Blow. It's educated guesswork, but still guesswork."
    "I don't mind being put in there a year in advance," Ross said. "I don't want to jet through the gate to find ourselves in the middle of the eruption."
    "No." Ashe appeared on Ross's other side, silent of step. "None of us does." He looked amused.
    Ross figured he'd complained enough, so he didn't respond. The truth was, he flat-out did not like this mission. There were too many variables. On the surface it looked easy: go in, see if the Baldies are around, and if they are, find out what they're up to. But in Ross's experience, the "easy ones" were the ones that always went screwy. Usually that just meant they had to use their wits, and maybe their fists. But how do you use either against a volcanic eruption?
    He said nothing, though, as the cargo ship angled round the western portion of the island and steamed north.
    When they had completed their circuit, the team descended aft to the wardroom, which had been made over into a command post. Maps had been pinned up against bulkheads, with labels in English and Cyrillic: the Russians in the other ship were due to come over for the last planning session, over dinner. Stavros and Konstantin were already there.
    Ross and Eveleen had just gotten fresh coffee and were sitting down when the ship gave a lurch and muffled clanks and metallic groans announced the skiff grappled