“I told you-put up with him as long as you can,” her mother answered. “If he really gets to be a pain, we can always send you back to the home timeline and say you went away.”

“I suppose.” But Liz didn't want to go back. “That'd put a black mark on my record, wouldn't it?”

“Well, it wouldn't look good.” Mom brushed the plucked chicken with olive oil. That was also a local product, and surprisingly good. Unlike apples, olives did great here. She started spreading the ground cumin and some chopped cilantro leaves over the bird. “Part of the reason you come to the alternates is to learn how to deal with the people who live in them.”

“Yeah.”' Liz couldn't have sounded gloomier if she'd tried. “'That's what I figured. Maybe I just ought to hit him over the head with a rock.”

“If you think you can get away with it, and if people here don't talk about you afterwards, why not?” Mom thrust a long iron spit with a crank handle at one end through the chicken's carcass and set the bird above the fire. “You want to turn that for a while?”

“Okay.” You were your own rotisserie here. too. Before long, the chicken started to smell good. Cooking over wood gave more flavor than gas or electricity did in the home timeline, though it polluted more, too. The work didn't keep Liz distracted more than a minute or two. “He's a pain, Mom, nothing else but. I ought to wear an ugly mask. If I pulled out two of my front teeth, he'd forget I was alive.”

“Mm, maybe not,” her mother said, which wasn't what she wanted to hear at all. “By now, you know, he doesn't just think you're pretty. You've fascinated him with your mind, too. Look at the questions he asks you.”

“He's trying to trap me, you mean,” Liz said. “He can tell I'm not from here. My cover isn't good enough. I don't think the way these people do. He knows.”

“Well, turn the chicken anyhow, dear,” Mom said. Liz did, feeling foolish-her attention had lapsed. Her mother went on, “I just think he thinks you're weird and he thinks you're pretty and he thinks the combination is interesting.”

She'd put enough thinks in there to make Liz need a few seconds to realize what she meant. When Liz did, she shook her head. “I wish you were right, but it's more than that. I can tell.”

“In that ease, maybe you should go back to the home timeline,” Mom said. “Nobody here can do anything with the crosstime secret-we both know that. But the company sure wouldn't be happy if the locals worked it out.”

That took no time at all to understand. If Crosstime Traffic wasn't happy with you, you'd be stuck in the home timeline forever. If Crosstime Traffic really wasn't happy with you, they'd throw you out on your ear. And who'd ever want to hire you if you couldn't hack it with the biggest, most important company in the history of the world?

Washed up at eighteen, Liz thought. She knew she was being silly, to say nothing of melodramatic. Part of her did, anyhow. The rest… She'd broken up with a boyfriend the summer before. It wasn't the end of the world, even if they'd dated for most of a year. She'd known that, or most of her had. It wasn't, no, but it sure felt as if it were. And this felt the same way. If you lost one boyfriend or one job, how could you be sure you'd ever land another one? You couldn't.

“Turn the bird, sweetheart,” Mom said gently. “The secret won't come out. and Crosstime Traffic won t blackball you forever. Right?”

“Right.” Liz knew she sounded shaky. She thought she was entitled to. For one thing, she couldn't be sure the secret wouldn't slip out by accident. She couldn't be sure she wouldn't get in trouble. And, for another, what business did Mom have reading her mind like that?

“We all may have to go back to the home timeline, and it won't have thing one to do with you,” her mother said. “If the war heats up again, if the Westsiders try to come back, staying won't be safe.”

“We're lucky. We can get away,” Liz said. “Everybody who lives here is stuck in the middle.”

“Turn the chicken,” Mom said one more time.

Six

“Attention!” Captain Kevin shouted. Dan straightened and froze in place. Morning inspection. It came every day, and he hated it every time.

Captain Kevin didn't inspect the company in person. Sergeant Chuck prowled through the ranks. Whenever he found somebody with a dirty weapon or ungreased boots or a missing button, he let the unlucky soldier hear about it. Chuck cursed as well as anybody Dan had ever met. No-he cursed as well as anybody Dan had ever imagined, which covered a lot more ground.

Chuck stared at Dan with red-tracked eyes. Dan looked straight ahead and pretended the sergeant wasn't there. After what seemed like forever, Chuck went on to share his good cheer with the next soldier. Dan didn't let out a sigh of relief. That might have brought the sergeant back, which was the last thing he wanted.

After the inspection was over and punishment handed out to soldiers who'd fouled up, Captain Kevin said, “'And now we have some good news.”

Dan blinked. He didn't hear that every day. A buzz ran through the company. “Silence in the ranks!” Chuck yelled.

Somehow, though, he seemed less ferocious than usual. “You better listen up now!” he went on. “ Captain Kevin 's got something important to say.”

Anything the company commander said was important, just because he said it. So it seemed to Dan, anyhow. He couldn't imagine any common soldier wouldn't think the same.

Kevin strode out front and center. The sling he still wore somehow lent him extra authority-it showed he'd been through the worst war could do. “We aim to be a modern army,” he said. “We aim to have the best weapons we can get. Now we've captured a big Westside arsenal, and so our army gets to take their weapons. Only fair, since we won-right?”

“Yes, sir!” the soldiers chorused, Dan loud among them. Who would say no?

“Cool,” the company commander said. “Because of that, we get to retire fifteen bows and arrows in this company and replace 'em with matchlocks.” He gestured. Two ordnance sergeants wheeled up a cart that probably went back to the Old Time. On it gleamed the modern muskets and their gear. Kevin fished a scrap of paper from his tunic pocket. “The following soldiers will turn in their bows and arrows and become musketeers.” He began reading names.

Dan wanted to hear his. He didn't really expect to-he was very junior-but he wanted to. A matchlock of his own! That would be something. It might even impress Liz. A musketeer had to be a much more important person than a mere archer.

Soldiers came up to claim their muskets and powder horns and leather bullet boxes and ramrods and lengths of slowmatch- string soaked in water and gunpowder that burned at a set, reliable rate. One by one, they returned to the ranks, their faces glowing with pride. Each of them thought he was a much more important person than a mere archer.

Then Captain Kevin said, “ Dan!”

Dan jumped. He hadn't expected to hear his name. But here he was, getting a matchlock of his very own! He hadn't been so happy since… since forever, as far as he could tell.

Sergeant Chuck poked him in the ribs. “Go on, kid, get moving,” the sergeant stage-whispered. “You don't put your fanny in gear, he's liable to decide to give somebody else the gun.”

Kevin wouldn't do that… would he? Dan didn't want to find out. He hurried forward. One of the ordnance sergeants took his bow and bowstrings and his quiver full of arrows. Just for a second, he wondered what would happen to them. Maybe some gray-bearded home guard would get them. Or maybe they'd sit in the arsenal for years and years.

But then Dan forgot all about them, because the other ordnance sergeant handed him his matchlock and everything that went with it. “Take good care of your new stuff,” the sergeant growled.