“I’ll make them understand.” She heard the desperation in her own voice and fought to steady it. “If they know I’m happy, that I’m doing what I want to do, they’ll be satisfied with that.”

“Maybe. Yes, if they were sure. But I can’t take you, Libby.”

She made her hands drop away and stepped back. “No, of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I got caught up—”

“Damn it, don’t.” Grabbing her arms, he hauled her against him. “Don’t think I don’t want you, because I do. It’s not a choice of right or wrong, Libby. If I could be sure, if there were no risks involved, I might toss you on the damn ship whether you wanted to go with me or not.”

“Risks?” She’d stiffened at the word, and now she drew back. “What risks?”

“Nothing’s foolproof.”

“Don’t treat me like a fool. What risks?”

He let out a long breath. There was a calculation he hadn’t given her the night before. “The probability factor for a successful time warp is 76.4.”

“76.4,” she repeated. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that leaves 23.6 as the factor for failure. What happens if you fail?”

“I don’t know.” But he could make a good guess. Frying in the sun’s gravitational pull was one of the less painful possibilities. “And I won’t take chances with you, no matter how much I want you with me.”

She wasn’t going to panic, because panic wouldn’t help. Taking three deep breaths, she felt some balance return. “Caleb, if you gave yourself a little more time, do you think you could narrow the odds?”

“Maybe. Probably,” he conceded. “Libby, I’m running out of time. The ship’s already been in the open for two weeks. It was blind luck that we headed off the Rankins yesterday. What do you think would happen to me, to us, if it were found? If I were found?”

“The real season doesn’t start for weeks. We hardly get more than a dozen hikers in a year.”

“It only takes one.”

He was right, and she knew it. They’d been living on borrowed time right from the start. “I’ll never know, will I?” She traced a finger under the fading wound on his brow. “Whether you made it.”

“I’m a good pilot. Trust me.” He kissed her fingers. “And it’ll be easier for me to concentrate if I’m not worried about you.”

“It’s hard to argue with common sense.” She worked up a smile. “I know you said you had a few last details to see to at the ship. I’m just going to walk back to the cabin.”

“I won’t be long.”