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hand.
    They climbed in, Stavros and Konstantin going down into the hold where the electronics that would synchronize them with the time-gate were hidden.
    Linnea Edel looked around, ran her hands up her arms. With a pang of compassion, Eveleen saw that the skin along her arms was rough with goose bumps. She was frightened; that was easy enough to see.
    "I think I'll ride this one out below," Linnea said with a faint smile.
    Ashe nodded once, and the older woman vanished below as well, to seat herself among the carefully aged wooden barrels that would, if the mission were extraordinarily lucky, return full of volcanic test materials and various Theran goods—
    Kallistan goods, Eveleen thought, correcting herself. The island is now Kalliste.
    Kallistan goods for the scientific brains back home to happily pore over.
    "You two going below?" Ashe asked. Eveleen couldn't quite get used to his gaze, suddenly so dark. Even though she knew that the effect was just caused by lenses, they still gave him a faintly sinister air.
    Ross shook his head once. "Want to see."
    There was no enjoyment in his tone. Eveleen knew that Ross, in fact, hated the translation between one time and another as much as she did. It was too easy, when one saw that glaring light, and smelled the energy-tortured air, to believe that humans were never meant to endure that wrench.
    But endure it they would. The Russians had lost an entire base in the Baltic through a misunderstanding of how the big portals worked. They insisted they had mastered it, and supposedly here was the proof.
    Eveleen thought, as the cargo bay doors began to widen, that if anything went awry, hopefully they would never know what hit them.
    "Sit toward the center," Stavros said in heavily accented English.
    "Speak Ancient Greek," Ashe corrected, using the Greek of Linear B, so painfully decoded just within the past twenty-five years.
    Why is he being dogmatic? Eveleen thought, looking Gordon's way. Then she thought back to the hasty training, the many sessions prefaced with "As you've already learned," and "As you well know ..."
    They did know. That is, all of them except Linnea. Just the day before Kelgarries had taken Ross and Eveleen aside and said, "Your archaeological expert is a first-class academic, and you can rely on her for information. But she only sat through training tapes. There wasn't time for anything else. Watch out for her."
    Eveleen sighed. Of course they would watch out for one another. And, so Linnea Edel hadn't had the full course of training? Neither had Ross, once upon a time. And Linnea seemed a lot more sensible than a very young Ross probably had been.
    At the inward image of a very young, and impetuous, Ross, she grinned. Stavros flashed her a smile, raised a hand, and then restated in the language they'd all been drilling as hard as they could, day and night: "Sit along the keel."
    Ashe, Eveleen and Ross settled along the benches running down the middle of the narrow deck, under a very plain awning. The great engines of the cargo ship thrummed through the wood of the boat, making Eveleen's bones thrum in vibration.
    The boat slid, at first slowly, then faster and faster down a ramp, until it shot out onto the choppy waters of the Aegean, reflecting lights from the three ships now steaming in an exact parallel.
    Water sprayed up, cooling their faces with shocking suddenness. The boat shuddered and wallowed, and Eveleen clasped her hands tightly together, determined to show no nervousness. She so much preferred to be taking action herself, but this was not part of her job: she could do nothing.
    As she forced herself into the steady breathing she'd made second nature during her long studies in martial arts, the boat settled into the rhythm of the waves. Stavros and Konstantin efficiently deployed the single sail, and then sheeted it home.
    Now the little boat came alive, lifting the prow up and over the waves. The wind was little more than a gentle breeze, but