Free After the Storm by Susan Sizemore Page A

brought on the murderous headaches. He could keep going for a while yet. Bastien pushed his friend's hand away. "Let's get back to camp." He wanted to lie down in the darkness of his hut, to be alone and free from thought and movement. "There's a feast of king's deer waiting for us," he added as they set off along the nearly invisible forest trail. "To celebrate your homecoming."
    She was restless. Far too restless to just sit and stare at a bank of blank screens.
    The power pack was working, but the remote monitors were still dead. She was alone in a small, cramped building, but she complained out loud anyway. "It's very difficult to do psychological assessments of barbarian hordes when you can't see them. I thought somebody was supposed to come and fix this thing. It's been hours. Somebody ought to tell the new wonderkid in the physics department that his latest toy isn't working," she added as she lifted the entrance flap.
    She walked outside to get some fresh air and turned to look back at the structure she'd just left. On the outside it looked like any other yurt, a round tent made of white felt squatting on the rolling grass plain. On the inside it looked exactly like what it really was, a high-tech observation post set up by Time Search. Libby found the dualism of the lonely structure fascinating. On the outside it blended Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm
    perfectly into its ancient setting but held the secrets of the future hidden in its heart.
    "Amazing, isn't it?" she murmured. "And totally weird."
    "Yes."
    She turned toward the sound of the agreeing voice — and found Bastien of Bale looking coolly at her from a few feet away. He was shirtless, leaning casually on his staff, his thick dark hair whipped away from his spare-boned face by the relentless wind .
    "Oh," she said. "It's you."
    "I've come to fix the monitor."
    She eyed the outlaw skeptically. "What are you going to do, poke it with a stick?"
    He shrugged. On him the simple gesture was a poetic play of skin and muscle.
    He looked her over with the most insolent expression she'd ever seen on anyone's face. It sent a rush of heat through her. A pleasant rush — until he put his hand on his dagger hilt and said, "Well, if that doesn't work …"
    And terror drove her from sleep.
    Libby woke up clutching the suddenly throbbing cut on her throat and biting hard on a scream. A whimper came out of the surrounding darkness, sounding over the wild pounding of her heart. Then something warm and wet scraped across her cheek.
    It was just the dogs.
    And it had just been a dream, she realized as the comforting presence of the animals on either side of her air mattress registered on her senses. It was just a dream, she reminded herself firmly, as her breathing calmed and the pain that was more imagined than real faded. A rather pleasant dream, actually, she Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm
    decided. Until the outlaw showed up and spoiled—
    She smiled into the darkness and scratched and patted the anxious dogs. "It's okay, Luke, Leia. I'm fine. And it wasn't a dream. It was a dream, but it was also another memory. I remember when the sensors broke down—only it wasn't Bastien that showed up, of course." The outlaw's sudden appearance had definitely been her subconscious's way of trotting out yesterday's traumatic events for examination. "So it was partially a dream. I remember the yurt and the sensor failure and that someone was supposed to show up to fix it." And why did she keep remembering things that happened to her in Mongolia?
    She pushed off the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag and got to her feet, not with any help from Luke and Leia. In fact, it took a great deal of effort not to trip over the big, affectionate animals as she struggled into a pair of canvas shoes and pulled a long sweatshirt on over the underdress she'd slept in. She hadn't brought the deerhounds with her from Passfair; following her the few miles to Lilydrake had been their idea. They seemed