"Just one?"

She nodded. "I must keep one." She put one in the pouch at her waist, then held the other out to the old man. She felt the weight of the pendant in the pouch disappear as he took the one she offered.

"I'm afraid I can't give you much for it," he said. "Where is it from?"

"The Crab Nebula, from a planet circling its star of origin."

He nodded. "What is it?"

"Just a pendant. Jewelry."

He shrugged. "Like I said, I can't give you much."

"That's fine. I just want to sell it."

"I could give you a bit more for both." Susan shook her head, and he shrugged again. "Follow me," he said.

She followed him to the back of the shop. The same green terminal sat atop the desk as had in her time. She almost pulled her LIN/C from its pouch, then noticed there was no slot to receive it in the terminal. Now, more than thirty years before she had first met this man, the LIN/C hadn't yet been developed.

"Didn't there used to be a boutique here?" she asked as the old man sat and began typing at the terminal.

"Yes." He worked at the keyboard as if unaccustomed to using it. "They went out of business, and I took this spot over three weeks ago. I haven't even had time to change the sign outside. By the way, how did you know I was here?"

"A friend told me," she lied.

Again he nodded. "I don't know what to call this place when I finally get around to having a sign made."

"What's your name?" Of course, she knew what it was.

"Sims," he said. "Roger Sims."

Her heart stopped beating. His name was wrong. It had to be Eddie. She thought fast.

"I don't think that will look good on the sign."

"Why not?"

"Somehow, it just doesn't sound right."

She was quiet for a few seconds, thinking. Where had Eddie come from?

"What's your middle name?"

"Edward." And she breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"How about using that in the sign. Maybe Eddie's Out-System Curios?"

The old man repeated the name. Then was quiet for a few seconds. Finally, he said, "It does sound good. I just might use it."

He handed Susan two and a half credits, and she put the money in the pouch that only a few seconds before had held the other pendant. "Thanks," she said as she turned and walked to the door.

The old man followed. On her way down the aisle Susan heard him drop the pendant on a shelf. The door irised open.

"Come again," he said as she stepped out into the corridor.

"I will," she responded without looking back. She didn't tell him it would be thirty-six years in the future.

Photon, she thought as she stepped out into the corridor. The ship would be her next destination. To Photon, and her own time.

Yet, she didn't know where that ship was located. It had been moved from its hangar, somewhere out onto Luna's surface. But to where?

Hyatt's private launch site-wherever that was.

Perhaps she didn't have to know exactly where it was. She had just jumped to a time she had not been sure of. Maybe she could do the same with space.

Of course she could; she had done precisely that the last time she had jumped to Photon. The ship had been in deep space then, and there was absolutely no way she could have known where in space it was located.

The headache pounded behind her eyes, scattering her thoughts. She needed all the concentration she could gather in order to do what she knew she must; she would have to center her entire attention on getting to Photon if the process was going to stand even the slightest chance of working.

Clearing her thoughts, she drew in a deep breath, then formed the vague thought of the time she wanted, planting it as firmly in her mind as possible. Finally, she visualized the ship.

Instantly, the corridor around her vanished…

…to be replaced by Photon's no-nonsense interior.

She let her breath out in a burst.

Rounded corners. Light blue colored cabin. Acceleration webbing. A sparse simplicity that seemed absolutely ridiculous. This was the ship-it was Photon.

But was she in the right time?

There was only one way to know for certain. She shuffled to the webbing and strapped in, then pulled her LIN/C from its pouch at her waist. Positioning it above the slot in the control panel, she hesitated.

She didn't know what she should expect. The familiarization session Hyatt had promised had never materialized-there hadn't been time-and she didn't have the slightest idea how she would go about piloting this ship.

How could she possibly hope to control it? she wondered. How could she hope to get into deep space, as she knew she must?

Hyatt had said the familiarization session would be nothing more than a formality. He had indicated that when she plugged her LIN/C into the ship's console, she would quite literally become the ship.

But with her mind on the verge of going over the edge, and with the headache pounding like a jack hammer behind her eyes…?

The snowflake pattern formed in her mind and she mouthed the mantra. As she had expected, they did no good. The pain continued to burn like fire in her mind, making the mere act of thinking a nearly impossible chore. And she knew that whatever she did, she would have to accomplish it in spite of that pain.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her LIN/C into the slot.

From extremely low frequencies, through broadcast, microwave, infrared, visible and ultraviolet, into X-rays and gama, and beyond, Susan's thoughts were suddenly bombarded by myriad inputs, collected by Photon's sensors, channeled through its computer, and fed into her mind through her LIN/C. The sensation she felt was one of drowning in a turbulent, chaotic sea of electromagnetic stimuli.

Her mind screamed out against the inputs-a long, ragged cry of mental agony-and instantly they became diminished. Yet still there were far too many of them for her to handle. They continued to rasp harshly in her thoughts. Yet she knew now that she could control them. With a thought, she cut the stimuli further, narrowing them to only those wavelengths within the visual range, and instantly the inputs became manageable.

Luna's peaceful surface stretched out in her mind, bathed in harsh light from the Sun. The stars shown bright and clear-like chips of ice in a black velvet sky. Near the horizon, to the north, sat the domed city.

Movement between her vantage point and Luna City caught her attention. She shifted a sensor's field of view, then increased magnification.

It was a line of three open crawlers. Behind the wheel of each sat a suited figure. She boosted magnification further, but could see nothing beyond the suits' helmet visors.

"Captain Susan Tanner," came a voice in her thoughts, and she instantly knew the ship's radio was feeding it directly into her mind. "This is Clayton. Do you copy?"

So, Clayton had finally found her. He drove one of those crawlers. But now he was probably after her because he thought she had killed Krueger. And Hyatt as well.

She didn't answer. Clayton might not know for certain whether or not she was aboard. And right now, she needed time to think. And to become accustomed to the ship.

Searching with her mind through the ship's computer, she encountered the control points for its many complicated systems. Life-support, hydraulics, electronics-they were all open to her probing tendrils of thought.

She located the control points for the hyperspace drive and the engine and issued the command thought that should have brought Photon's engine on line. Nothing happened.