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alongside.
    A short time later three Russians ducked through the hatchway. Without a word the ship's steward handed out the dark Russian tea they all favored, in the little glass cups held in wire frames.
    The Russians, two men and a woman, sat down, and Ashe took over to run again through the familiar drill. Too familiar. Ross knew he should pay attention. This launch through the biggest time-gate ever made—stretched between two ships— was a first for both the Russians and Americans. There were too many firsts here, but none of them concerned Ross. Stavros and Konstantin, who would remain aboard their craft, would masquerade as Kallistan sailors. They were actually in charge of the time-gates. Ross couldn't do anything about that, so he scowled down at his coffee. The mission wasn't really real yet, in a sense. Wouldn't be until he and Eveleen went to their cabin for the last time, and pulled on those costumes waiting there.
    And she put on those earrings, one of which was lost for over three thousand years.
    ——————————
    EVELEEN STOOD WITH her feet apart, rolling unconsciously with the ship, as she stared down at the earrings in her hand. She had never been much of a philosophic type. Action was what she liked and understood. But you can't help picking up ideas as you go through life, and she remembered someone or other talking once about the single flap of a butterfly's wings causing a forest halfway around the world to fall a hundred years later.
    How can one ever know for certain which of our movements causes disaster? Well, she wasn't about to test that theory now. She knew that one of these earrings would, somehow, end up on that island. Where its mate would go— where she would go—was what she had to discover.
    But she wouldn't risk doing damage to history by leaving those earrings behind. Or leaving one behind, and tossing the other one onto a road in Akrotiri on their arrival.
    She sighed and put the earrings in her ears, then turned around to find Ross watching her. His gray eyes were wide, and wary, but he didn't say anything other than "Let's get it over with."
    Together they exited the cabin, leaving behind all their obvious twenty-first-century trappings: watches, rings, running shoes, machine-stitched synthetic fabrics. Their equipment had all been cleverly disguised.
    Eveleen wore a flouncy three-tiered skirt and a short jacket with embroidery along the outer arms and down the sides. Under it she wore a thin cotton garment. Ross wore a brightly colored kilt of mostly red and black cloth, his skin dyed a deep brown with a long-term sunscreen worked into the chemical makeup of the dye. His black hair, which he had been growing, had been crimped and permed into tight curls, which he held back from his face with a thin gold headband. Both of them wore sandals that tied up their calves.
    They met Ashe and Linnea Edel down in the hold. Eveleen was startled to see how different they both looked. Of course Ashe was good at taking on attributes of whatever culture he chose to adopt, and now he appeared to be a trader, his blue eyes hidden behind brown contact lenses.
    Linnea Edel, however, had loosened her curly hair, and dressed in the flowing garments of a Kallistan. She looked so like a Greek woman she could have stepped from one of the beautiful painted pots or wall frescoes.
    Their two Greek agents, Stavros and Konstantin, had donned the plain linen kilts and sandals of sailors of the time. Konstantin looked like a Greek pirate. Stavros, though superficially resembling Konstantin in his brown skin, dark eyes, and curling hair, was thinner, wirier, and he wore the indefinable air of the engineer.
    Both of them were waiting beside the beautifully crafted little boat that would be their trading vessel. Its simple lines concealed an amazing concentration of equipment, including, fastened along the bottom, a small undersea sled for scuba exploration.
    "Everyone in," Ashe said, waving his