G. Edmondson - The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream

“Are you?”

“Roumanu ego?” She gave a fluting laugh and slipped into some form of bastard Greek which Joe could follow only vaguely. He sighed and tried to keep his eyes on her face. Damn women! Maybe he’d stumbled into a Tenth Century nudist colony. When in Rome … His eyes strayed back to those firm, upward pointing—“Where are we?” he asked. “What is this island?”

It sounded like Phryxos and rang no bell with Joe.

“What’s she saying?” Gorson asked.

“I’m trying to find out where we are. Where’s Spain?

Hispania—Iberia. Lusitania?”

She shrugged and those pink tipped things jiggled.

“Where’s Africa?”

Understanding glinted in the blonde’s eyes. She pointed. Joe stared and did a double take. Unless the sun was crazy, this blonde was pointing due south.

“Where’s Rome?” he persisted. She pointed vaguely west. “Impossible,” Joe said. “We’re in the Atlantic.”

But a horrible suspicion was growing on him. That warm water—this balmy climate. And what was a volcanic island doing in this part of the Atlantic? “Quo modo appallatur hoc mare?” he asked—how is this sea named?

“Agaios”

“Aegean!” Joe shook his head. Even without a sextant he couldn’t be that far off. But another thought struck him. “What year is this?”

The girls stared.

“Are you Christian?”

No reaction.

“Moslem?” Still no reaction.

Joe knew damned well he’d been in the Atlantic last night. The last jump in space had also been a jump in time. Was this one? How was a history professor to know when people wouldn’t keep track of time? “Who is your god?” he asked.

The first girl had given up wriggling in the grass and came around the pool to join the other two. “Aphrodite,” she said.

“Venus,” the other girl corrected. “He speaks Latin.”

“It figures,” Joe muttered. He passed a hand over his eyes and tried again. “What,” he asked, “is Caesar’s name?”

“Gaius Octavius.”

Joe felt a thrill of recognition. That tied it down to, let’s see … He took over in 31 B.C. and died in 14 A.D.

But there were too damn many Gaii in Roman history.

“Is this Gaius the adopted son of Julius Caesar?” The girls nodded.

“What’re they saying?” Gorson asked.

“Later,” Joe said. By one felicitous stroke he had located them within forty-five years—but this, as he recalled, was a turbulent time, even though the Romans preferred to regard it as the Augustan Peace. Another thought came.

“Augustus?” he asked.

The girls looked blank.

“Is Gaius Octavius called Augustus?”

The girls were unsure.

“Is he young?”

They nodded.

And that tied it down: Gaius Octavius took over in 31 B.C. In 27 he assumed the title Augustus. Joe decided to quit while he was ahead.

“Is this a nudist colony?” Gorson asked. “Why aren’t they wearing clothes?”

“Forget to ask,” Joe parenthesized. “How many of you are there on this island?”

The girls preferred not to understand. “How many you?” one finally countered.

Joe decided it was his turn to avoid an answer.

Gorson was frantic. “What’re they saying?” he insisted.

“Getting information’s like pulling teeth,” Joe explained, “but I think—” He was about to say they’d gone back another thousand years, then—he didn’t quite know why—he decided not to.

“How many you?” the girl was insisting.

“Many,” Joe said. “Brave men, well armed. Where is your camp? Are you natives?” He was only talking to two girls now. He wondered when and where the others had disappeared. “We were on our way to Rome,” one girl explained.

“Where from?”

The name was meaningless to Joe. “Were you going to Rome or being taken there?” Again the girls opted not to understand. “Do you want to go Rome or back home?”

“Rome!” they clamored. “Rome, Rome! No home, Rome!”

“What’s all this about Rome?” Gorson asked.

“The girls want to go.”

“What was all that pointing awhile ago?”

“Trying to get my bearings,” Joe said hastily. “We’d better get back down before they start worrying.”

“But why no clothes?”

“A good question,” Joe decided. He asked.

The girls gave him an odd look. “Hot,” one finally said. “Same as you.” Again Joe was reminded that he and Gorson wore only gape-fronted skivvy drawers.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, “we’ll see you later. Got to get back to the ship, you know.”

“Stay,” the girls insisted. One grabbed Joe’s arm and rubbed against him.

“Really,” Joe said, “We must be going. We can, uh talk about it later.” He turned around. “Gorson! On your feet now, let’s go!” He caught the chiefs arm and dragged him off downhill.

There was a noise below them, a murmur of male voices, a tramping of feet. Joe felt a sudden shriveling.

Their only path back to the Alice was cut off.

Girls hove into sight again, skipping gaily up the path with the agility of the island’s goats. Behind them scrambled the entire crew of the Alice.

Joe stared aghast. They were all there—Cook, Guilbeau, Freedy, Rose … The Moorish prisoners scrambled along with the rest, all with eyes only for the naked blondes. Even Dr. Krom and the imam panted along in the rear of the pack, a highly unpaternal gleam in their ancient eyes.

“Whaddaya think of that?” Gorson marveled.

Joe didn’t know what to think. The girl was pulling on his arm, rubbing against him again. “Do you have anything to eat?” he finally asked.

The girl had been in business long enough to realize that some hungers were stronger than others. “Goat,” she said. “Snared one last night.”

The men of the Alice came momentarily to their senses at the sight of Joe and Gorson.

“Ain’t you ever seen a woman before?” Gorson growled.

“Not for several weeks,” Guilbeau answered.

“How many girls are there on this island?” Joe insisted.

“Enough to go around,” one of them answered.

“Any men?”

“Been some time since the men’ve had liberty sir,” Gorson suggested.

“There’ll be time enough for that later. We’ve got to get water aboard and try to catch some of these goats.

Here, now, all hands come back here!”

Guilbeau had caught a blonde and they collapsed in a giggling heap behind a rock. Several new girls had appeared, all wearing only anklets and bracelets. One, Joe noted, was not blonde. She was dark and looked like a slightly more voluptuous version of Raquel. She was squirting wine from a goatskin into Dr. Krom’s mouth.

And where was Raquel? She must have stayed alone aboard the Alice. He looked for Gorson but the chief had disappeared. So had the blonde who clung to him.

“All hands now, come on and stop this foolishness.

We’ve got to get to work!” The clearing was empty.

Joe walked away from the spring and stumbled into a hollow between two oaks. “Beat it!” Schwartz snapped.

“Go find your own girl.”

Joe wandered incredulously around the clearing. He’d lost complete control. Neptune curse all women! No wonder no captain in his right mind would have them aboard ship.

Joe’s historian half had been probing for several minutes. What was the name of the island where Circe turned Ulysses’ men into pigs?

Rounding another boulder, he came across the aged imam. A redhead with a half-sprouted figure was feeding him grapes. The grapes were very small and the corners of the imam’s beard dropped dark purple stains.

So what’s wrong with me? Joe wondered. After all, it is a good liberty port. He looked around but there were no unattached girls in sight. Oh well, he sour graped, at least he wouldn’t be on sick list nine days from now. He wondered what Raquel was doing back on the Alice. He ought to go back down and see if she was all right. But why go alone? In an hour or two he could pry the men loose and they could come back with a load of wood or water or something.