The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream Part 19

"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 s.h.i.+p, 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 scram- bled the entire crew of the Alice.

Joe stared aghast. They were all there-Cook, Guil- beau, Freedy, Rose . . . The Moorish prisoners scram- bled 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 in- sisted.

"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 s.h.i.+p.

Joe's historian half had been probing for several min- utes. 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 feed- ing 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.

For the time being no one was going to listen to him.

He would only make things worse by flapping around like a mother hen. Might as well climb to the top of the ridge and get a look around. If they really were in the Aegean there might be another island in sight.

He climbed slowly to the top of the ridge, acutely conscious by now that he should have gone back for his shoes. There was neither soil nor tree above the spring but the black volcanic rock had weathered so that the broken-bubble edges of its numerous small caves did not cut his feet.

After fifteen minutes of leisurely climb he topped the ridge and sat. The tiny horseshoe harbor and a miniature Alice were laid out below him like a scale drawing. While he watched, a faint gust rippled the harbor's narrow surface, the ripples breaking as they crossed the long painter stretching from the yawl's bow to the pinnacle. The Mediterranean, as he recalled, was not much for tides. That was one less worry. He looked about the cloudless horizon. A faint smudge to the northwest might be land but he wasn't sure.

Going down was harder than climbing up. His stubbed toes were bleeding by the time he reached the spring.

The fine edge of the Alice's collective appet.i.te was

dulled by now. They had emerged from their several nooks for a more leisurely debauch. The goat revolved over a small fire. The Alice's men, paired off with the blondes and single brunette, were guzzling wine.

Gorson reared up on one elbow to stare blearily at him. "Shay, Mr. Rate," he asked, "what year we in?"

There was sudden silence as every eye fixed on Joe.

d.a.m.n you, Gorson. Ishtar shrivel your gonadia! He had planned to break the news gently. Or had he in- tended to tell them at all? They stared, suspicious now and distrusting. He sighed and took the bull by the horns. "Last night," he said, "remember that b.u.mp when we stayed underwater so long and all at once Freedy got a different fathometer reading? It must've been working right after all." A bell was beginning to ring somewhere in Joe's head but he ignored it. "This time we came out at low tide or something. Anyhow, we weren't at sea level."

"What year is it?"

"I don't know. About 28 or 20 B.C."

"Before Christ?"

Joe started to explain about Augustus.

Gorson turned to the rest of the crew. "Know what I think," he said, "I think he done it on purpose. He's a history nut. He wants to go on back instead of getting us home!"