Page 59 of Hot Zone

Fourteen

Tessa took a horrified step back from him. Another. “Who are you? What are you?”

Glaring, he growled, “I’m a traveler. I got stranded in this place by accident, just like you.”

No. Not just like her. She was a time traveler. He couldn’t possibly be…or could he? She was familiar with all the Project Anasazi time travelers—even the lost twelve. And they were the first ever to master time travel. Could he be from a future earth sometime beyond the twenty-first century? Possible but unlikely. He should have seen her face in files of previous time travelers, or at a minimum, known her by her coloring and modern name. Which meant…

She swore under her breath.

“You’re not from here, are you?” she demanded.

“I already told you—”

She interrupted him. Time to cut to the chase. “You’re not from this planet, are you?”

He stared. “How do you know what a planet is? Only a few astronomers understand the concept.”

Rage began to build, roiling upward in her gut. “But you understand it, don’t you, Rustam? You understand a great deal about the galaxy. Now that I think about it, you didn’t even bat an eyelash when I used that term last night, did you?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut.

She took off pacing, circling him this time. “Oh, it all makes sense now. Your crazy psychic abilities. Your uncanny knowledge of what happened—what’s going to happen—at Thermopylae. I suppose it even explains your ability to talk to horses!”

While she ranted and raved, he stalked over to the nearest boulder and sat down on it, his arms crossed over his chest. His alert gaze followed her every movement.

“So. Are you some alien observer who’s been sent here to watch us stupid humans evolve? Or maybe you’re one of those extraterrestrials who came to Earth to mess us up?”

He lurched, and she pounced in response. “You are an alien, aren’t you?”

He said nothing, but his jaw muscles rippled visibly.

She was too agitated to press him for an answer just yet. “Or maybe you’re just some exceedingly unlucky galactic schmuck who happened to crash-land here. But either way, let me be the first to officially welcome you to Earth, you alien bastard.”

“Are you done?” he bit out.

It was her turn to cross her arms defensively.

“Sit down, Tessa. We need to talk.”

“No, you need to talk.”

“Sit.”

The whiplash command in his voice was hard to resist. But resist she did.

He sighed. And said more politely, “This is going to take a while. I think you’ll be more comfortable if you sit down. Please.”

Dammit, she hated logical requests when she was this mad. Reluctantly, she did as he suggested. “Start talking,” she said truculently.

“You are right. I come from the stars. The reasons for my arriving here are not important. But my craft malfunctioned and I crash-landed as I said I did, on the shores of Halicarnassus. My ship was not repairable, so I dragged it out to sea and sank it. Eventually, my people will figure out that I’ve gone missing and come looking for me, I hope. The emergency signal I got out before I went down will take a few more years to reach them. But until then, I’m stuck here.”

To hear him confirm what she’d already surmised was still a severe shock to her system. She stared at him in disbelief. She was sitting in front of a no-kidding, one-each alien. All the science fiction stories were true. Mankind was not alone in the universe.

Someday, if she didn’t screw this mission up any more and found that blasted Karanovo medallion piece, humans might, indeed, take their place among the peoples who traveled the stars. All of the stuff Athena Carswell had theorized about was true.

Her entire existence shifted on its axis as that truth sank in. Too agitated to sit, she jumped up and paced yet again, her mind racing. To his credit, Rustam said nothing, giving her time to absorb the immensity of it.

Finally, she stopped, staring intently at him. He’d almost managed to distract her completely from the question of what he’d done to get them off that cliff alive.

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