Page 16 of Hot Zone

“Tessa of Marconi, Your Highness.”

“From whence do you come?”

“My home is a year’s journey or more to the north and west of here, far into the unconquered lands of the barbarians.”

“And how is it you speak our tongue, then?”

She obviously couldn’t tell the queen that, in setting up a time jump, Professor Carswell managed to infuse the process with what she called “Intent,” resulting in the time traveler absorbing details of the location, including language, customs and culture, even knowledge of common plants and animals.

She looked up. Artemisia had turned away from the mirror a servant held up for her, and was staring at her expectantly. Tessa answered hastily, “Is not the Persian Empire the greatest in all the world? Even in the untamed lands, we have heard of you and study your ways.”

Artemesia nodded, as if the fact was self-evident. She turned to one of her maids and snapped, “Where is my pearl brooch? If you lost it, you clumsy girl, I shall have you whipped.”

The servant paled, trembling. Tessa closed her eyes quickly. Pearls. A brooch. Warm emanations of water, with a bit of metal undertone. It ought to be immediately evident where the piece was. Yet, she had to struggle to get even the fuzziest of readings on it. What in the world was going on with her powers?

“Ten lashes—”

Tessa interrupted the queen quickly. “Perhaps if she looks under those cushions in the corner, your maid will find the brooch.”

Artemesia’s brows flew together thunderously. But she waved a hand, gesturing for the maid to do as Tessa had suggested. Quickly, the panicked girl fell upon the pile of pillows, digging through it frantically. “Here it is!” she cried, holding up a large, round pin encrusted with pearls of various colors, creating a flower motif.

“How did you do that?” Artemesia demanded of Tessa.

Crap. Crap, crap, crap. “Just a lucky guess,” she replied meekly.

The queen eyed her entirely too speculatively for Tessa’s taste. “Why are you here? Do you seek to capture the eye of the emperor?”

“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed.

Artemesia looked her up and down. “Properly garbed and appointed, you could catch his eye, mayhap. You are certainly strange and beautiful enough. Yet you answered without hesitation that you seek this not. So I ask again. Why are you here?”

Because a group of scientists from twenty-five hundred years in the future is trying to find the pieces of a puzzle that will earn mankind entry into the galactic community and gain us protection against the Centaurian Federation, which is apparently deeply unfriendly to Earth.“I am lost, Your Highness. Shipwrecked by a great storm.”

“The same storm that sank so many of our ships, no doubt,” Artemesia said bitterly. “I told them to build vessels that were less top-heavy, but would they listen to me, the fools? Not one of my own ships sank.”

“You are wise, Your Highness.”

“’Tis no feat to appear brilliant when you are surrounded by idiots.”

“Or by men,” Tessa quipped without thinking.

Artemesia glanced over at her, startled. Then toward the man snoring in her bed. And then burst out laughing, loudly enough to make him stir in his sleep. “Walk with me.” The queen rose, her bearing regal.

Tessa berated herself fiercely. She had to corral her tongue and think before she spoke, or she was going to get herself into serious trouble!

Relieved to have dodged disaster so far, she followed Artemesia out into a garden. The sound of the army was louder here, but the sweet scent of jasmine hung thick in the air and a breeze cooled them under the shade trees.

They walked for nearly an hour, while servitors read letters to the queen and passed along various requests and problems for her to deal with. A new sail was needed for one of her ships. Drunken soldiers from Halicarnassus had gotten into a fight with some other satrap’s soldiers and were duly fined. Lengths of cloth had arrived from a merchant in Jerusalem and were in need of distribution to various servitors. Offerings for a temple had to be chosen. And tax income was reported. Lots of that.

Artemesia handled it all with careless efficiency. Her management style was rather more autocratic than Tessa’s, but two millenia and the democratic form of government separated them. The queen completely ignored her while conducting her business.

Tessa wasn’t quite sure why she was out here trekking around and around the walled garden in the woman’s wake, but had no idea how to take her leave without offending the queen.

“How do you plan to proceed from here?” Artemesia asked her suddenly.

Tessa started. She’d been absently watching a bee fly from blossom to blossom on a vine while she tried with no luck to sense the medallion. “I suppose I shall seek a caravan headed toward my home.”

“No caravans pass by here. All who can flee before the army of Xerxes do so, for it is worse than any swarm of locusts, stripping everything in its path bare to feed itself.”

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