"Tomorrow, actually. At least, that's the first trip."
"At the beginning of the semester?"
"I'll be gone from the present time frame for less than a minute."
"Oh ... I forgot. This is time travel."
"You still don't believe me," said Rick.
Tom added some chopped onions to the oil and gently stirred them as he talked. "I made some inquiries this afternoon," he said. When he saw the alarm on Rick's face he quickly added, "Don't worry, I've been very dis-creet. I called up David Ross over in the physics depart-ment—said I needed information on time travel for a lecture—and he did a literature search. Rick, there's been almost no research in the area, except Eckmair's work in the thirties. He claimed to have demonstrated it on the subatomic level, but his findings are still in dispute. The rest of the papers were strictly speculative. Most physi-cists believe time only goes in one direction. Those that don't think it might reverse inside a black hole or some other exotic place in the universe, but certainly not inside a man-made machine."
"What if they're wrong?" replied Rick. "I've got some evidence, five grand and airfare."
"That's hardly evidence," answered Tom. "This doesn't make sense. A discovery like that doesn't appear out of nowhere. There should be research papers leading up to it. Green would get the Nobel Prize for something like that."
"There could be some reason why he hasn't published. Maybe he doesn't want the government involved. Maybe the government is involved."
"There's another thing," said Tom. "Who's this Peter Green? There are only two scientists by that name—one's a botanist and the other's a retired chemical engineer."
"Dammit, Tom!" said Rick irritably. "If your snooping spoils this for me, I'll never forgive you. You forget, I saw the pictures. I believe they're real. I'll risk being fooled over missing out. This is a dream come true."
"I'm sorry," said Tom. "It's just seems so improbable."
He browned some cubed beef among the onions and chil-ies, then began adding spices. Rick silently watched his brother cook, the smells bringing back memories of so many meals together. After a while, he broke his silence. "What's the point in fooling me?" he said. "If this were a hoax, why trick a college student? No one would believe me. You don't. What would they gain?"
"I have no idea," admitted Tom. "It just bothers me. Are you sure you'll be all right?"
"Of course."
"All the same, could you leave me your flight infor-mation and destination? I'd feel better." Rick decided not to tell Tom he didn't know his final destination. "Sure," he said, "I'll leave it in my room. If there's an emergency, you have the key."
Tom cut open a plastic pouch of tomatoes and another of beans, then added them to the meat. After some more stirring, he turned the heat down and covered the pot. "This can simmer for a while," he said, taking a beer from the fridge and heading out of the small kitchen to-ward the living room. He sat down on the couch, and Rick sat down in an armchair close by. "Okay," said Tom, "I'll stop being a party poop. Tell me about this trip."
Rick's eyes lit up with excitement. "The woman I talked to didn't seem to know a lot about the place we're going to, but she showed me two datacam disks, and I learned a lot from them. The images of the dinosaurs were definitely Upper Cretaceous— Triceratops and the like."
"Are we talking K-T boundary here?" teased Tom.
"Come on, they have more sense than that. With mil-lions of years' worth of sites to choose from, do you think they would open their resort at the time of the impact?"
"A resort!" exclaimed Tom incredulously. "Someone builds a time machine and the best thing he can do with it is open a resort?"
"If you saw the island, it wouldn't seem so far-fetched. It's beautiful. There hasn't been anyplace like it since the seas rose. Everything's pristine, unspoiled. They're get-ting a million Euros for a reservation." Tom whistled. "That's more than my department's budget. This Green sounds pretty mercenary." Rick shrugged. "He probably has a lot of expenses."
"Do you have any idea where this island's located?" asked Tom.
"They say it's in the Montana Sea."
"Never heard of it. Sounds more like advertising copy."
"Yeah," agreed Rick. "It's obviously the Interior Sea-way. The island's somewhere on the western side of the seaway, not too far from the coast. There's some moun-tains nearby."
"The seaway didn't extend as far north as Montana by the Upper Cretaceous," said Tom. "My guess is their 'Montana Isle' is in New Mexico or Colorado. Those mountains must be part of the Sevier Orogeny."
"They were big," said Rick. "The peaks had snow on them."
"Not much left of them now," mused Tom.
Talking about the ancient land drew Tom's imagina-tion toward it. As a paleontologist, he sometimes felt like he had spent his life trying to imagine a grand party by picking through its garbage. Now, Rick had an invitation to that party. Tom started to envy him, as his doubt paled before such a wondrous vision. "The weather should be nice," he said almost dreamily. "Not too hot. There'll be flowers, too ... and birds ..." Tom laughed. "... and poison ivy."
"And a sea full of plesiosaurs and a continent full of dinosaurs," continued Rick.
"With my baby brother acting as tour guide. Maybe I could come along to fluff the pillows." They both laughed at that idea. Tom picked up a large fossil shell from off a table and, as he turned it in his hands, he grew pensive. "Remember when you found this?"
"That's my first ammonite," replied Rick. "I must have been eleven."
"It was the first time I saw you happy after Mom and Dad's accident," said Tom, handing Rick the fossil. The rock brought back a flood of memories with its touch. "I slept with this fossil for years."
"Your stone teddy bear," mused Tom. "Grandma feared you'd grow up strange."
"I did," said Rick.
Tom chuckled, then grew serious. "When you gave it to me as a graduation present, I was really touched," he said. "It's hard to believe you'll soon be picking them up off the beach, brand-new. I wonder what colors they'll be."
Rick tapped into his brother's reflective mood. "All those summers, looking for fossils . .."
"I remember a few winter trips, too," said Tom. "We nearly froze our butts off."
"Yeah, but we found some great stuff," said Rick. "Those were good times, Tom, all of them. Good times."
While the chili simmered, the talk turned to past trips and past eras. As they spoke, the past wove in and out of their conversation, and the ancient sea flowed through it. They spoke of their visits to its dry, ossified shores and imagined the bones of its creatures clothed again in flesh. They ate dinner and remembered the camps in the desert, where the smoky taste in the food did not come from a bottle of seasoning. The evening wore on, and eventually it was time for Rick to go. Tom left the room momentarily and returned with something in his hand. He held it out to Rick. "You've had your eye on this ever since you were a kid. I think it's time you had it."
Rick looked down at the precious hunting knife in its weathered leather sheath, the thing he coveted most as a child, and a lump formed in his throat. "Tom... I... I..."
"Can't send my baby brother to the Cretaceous un-armed, can I?" said Tom with a false heartiness to mask his feelings. "I want you to have it."
"I don't know what to say."
"Say thanks. Then say good-bye, you've got a plane to catch tomorrow morning." Rick hugged his brother. "Thanks."
"Bring me back an ammonite," called out Tom, as Rick headed down the hall. Rick turned. "I'll try," he said. Then, with one last wave, he walked out of Tom's life forever. 4