"So," he said severely, "your people have a sense of humor, do they?"
"Well, yes," she admitted, "but mine's a bit lower than most."
He rubbed an eyebrow thoughtfully, savoring the unexpected loveliness of her voice ... and her accent. He'd never heard one quite like it, and he would have bet he could identify the nationality of most English-speakers. But not hers. Her vowels came out with a peculiar, clipped emphasis, and she had a strange way of swallowing final consonants, like the "r" in "leader" and the "t" in "most." There was an odd rhythm to her speech, too, as if the adjectives and adverbs carried more weight than they did for the English-speakers with whom he was familiar... .
"Hello?" Her slightly plaintive voice startled him, and he blinked and snorted his way up out of his thoughts. She grinned at him, and he felt himself grinning back once more.
"Sorry. I'm not used to rescuing distressed spacewomen." He watched her carefully, but she only shrugged.
"You do it quite well for someone without experience," she said.
"Thanks," he said dryly. "My name's Aston, by the way. Richard Aston."
"Leonovna," she said, extending her right hand. "Ludmilla Leonovna-" he started to reach out, only to pause at the Russian name, but his surprise became astonishment as she continued "-Colonel, Terran Marines."
He gaped at her, and she sat patiently, hand extended. Colonel? This kid? Impossible! But then the rest of her introduction penetrated, and he cocked his head, an edge of suspicion creeping back into his thoughts.
"Did you say Terran Marines?" he asked slowly.
"I did." Her speech was even quicker and more clipped then he'd first noticed, he thought absently, concentrating on what she'd said.
"There isn't any such organization," he said flatly at last. "And if there were, I doubt they'd be enlisting Russians."
"I know there isn't-yet," she returned, equally flatly, still holding out her hand. "And I'm not a Russian. Or not in the way you're thinking, at any rate."
He shook his head doggedly, then blushed as he noticed the waiting hand. He reached out almost automatically, but instead of clasping his hand, she clasped his forearm and squeezed. He was a powerful man, but he had to hide a wince at the strength in her fingers. She was even stronger than he'd thought, but he managed to grip back with enough pressure to satisfy honor on both sides.
"Look," she said finally, releasing his arm, "I know this must sound confusing, but what year is this?"
"Year?" He blinked. "You've studied us thoroughly enough to learn our language, and you don't know what year it is?" She merely sat silently, waiting, and he shrugged. "Okay," he said, "I'll bite. It's 2007-why?"
"2007," she said thoughtfully, leaning back and absently tugging the sheet higher. "Prissy was right, then." She nodded to herself. "That makes sense of the wet-navy task force... ."
"Excuse me," he said firmly, "but could you possibly stop talking to yourself about things you already know and tell me just what the hell is going on here?" He'd thought he was exercising admirable control, but her expression told him differently.
"I apologize," she said contritely. "I'll try to explain, but first, could you tell me how I got here?" She waved around the small cabin.
"You fell out of the damned sky a hundred yards from my boat," he said bluntly, "and I fished you out." His face and voice softened. "I'm sorry there wasn't anything I could do for your friend."
"I guessed as much." She sighed sadly. "Poor Anwar. He came so far."
There was a moment of silence which he was loathe to break, but his curiosity was much too strong to be denied.
"Just how far did you come?" he asked. "Where are you from-and, please, don't hand me any more crap about the 'Terran Marines'!"
"It's not 'crap,' " she said. "Oh, I'm not from Terra myself. I'm from Midgard." She saw the mounting frustration in his eyes and explained kindly, "That's Sigma Draconis IV."
"Oh, great!" he snorted. "Parallel evolution's even better than the Terran Marines! Does everybody on Sigma Draconis look like you, or did they do plastic surgery before they dropped you on us?"
"'Plastic sur-?' Oh! Biosculpt!" She chuckled. "No, we're all like this, more or less ... though some of us are men," she added innocently.
"Listen-!" he started wrathfully, but she raised a placating hand as if to apologize for her flippancy.
"Sorry," she said contritely. "I couldn't resist." She smiled, but it was a more serious smile, and she leaned slightly forward. "I know it sounds confusing," she repeated, "but my people are as human as you are."
"Oh, sure! Blow a hole clear through me and I'll heal up overnight, too!"
"I said we're human, and we are," she said, and he blinked at her suddenly chill tone. She shook her head, as if angry with herself, and pressed her lips firmly together for a moment. Then she sighed.
"Please," she said. "Give me a tick, and I'll try to explain. All right?"
He nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak.
"Thank you. First of all, I am from Midgard, but Midgard was colonized from Earth." He started to protest the absurdity of her statement, then shut his mouth. It was hard, but he managed to keep it shut.
"Midgard," she continued with careful precision, "will be settled by humans in 2184." She met his eyes levelly. "That was about three hundred years ago ... for me."
He was trapped by her eyes. Her statement was patently insane, but so was what he'd seen the night he plucked her from the sea. So was her survival and the way she'd slept and eaten for the past four days. And her eyes were neither mad nor those of a liar, he thought slowly. Indeed, there was an edge of desperation under their calmness-and he sensed, somehow, that desperation was foreign to this girl.
"Are you telling me you're from the future?" he asked very carefully.
"Yes," she said simply.
"But ..." He shook his head again, more confused than ever, yet feeling as if understanding lurked just half a thought beyond his grasp. He drew a deep breath and fastened on an inconsequential as if for diversion.
"How does it happen you speak twenty-first-century English, then?"
"I don't," she said, and grinned faintly at his expression. "Not normally, I mean. Oh, mass literacy, printing, and audio recordings pretty much iced the language after the twentieth century, but it's actually a bit diff for me to match into your dialect. I'm a histortech by hobby, and that helps, but historical holodrama helps more." She laughed softly. "Not that they got it nickety, but they came close."
"'Nickety'?" he asked blankly.
"Sorry. It means, um, exactly correct. I'll have to be careful about my idioms." She smiled disarmingly. "I couldn't resist twisting you with that 'Take me to your leader' larkey, though. Some of the tainment dramas from your period are manic."
He felt suspicion sagging into acceptance. She was speaking English, all right, but the more she said, the more he realized that it wasn't quite his English. And as she relaxed, the differences became more pronounced. He was astonished to realize he actually believed her ... sort of.
"All right," he said. "But why are you here? What the hell is going on? Those were nukes you were throwing around up there, honey!"
"Yes," she said softly, her face suddenly serious once more. "Yes, they were." Her fingers pleated the edge of her sheet unhappily. "You see, Ster Aston, I'm not here for pleasure. I came-" she drew a deep breath and met his eyes again "-to prevent the destruction of the human race ... and I'm afraid I haven't quite done that yet."
Aston leaned back and closed his eyes, counting slowly to fifty behind his lowered lids. It was all preposterous of course, he thought almost distantly, and yet ... and yet... .
His mind went back to that night of terrible explosions, and he felt his doubt crumble. Not his confusion-that became worse, if anything-but the memory of those searing flashes and their thunder could not be rejected. Yet it was another memory which suggested just how desperate she was to accomplish whatever task had brought her here. He'd rerun his mental records of that fight again and again, and one point had become glaringly clear; she'd been terribly outnumbered, but she'd been the attacker. And, he reminded himself, she'd gotten all but one of her enemies.