He’d managed to stir a variety of feelings in her, Cal thought as he pushed himself up in bed. Concern, fear, humor, desire. And she had stirred him. Even through his confusion he’d felt a strong, healthy response, a man-woman response.

He dropped his head into his hands as the room spun. His system might be churning for Libby Stone, but he was far from ready to do anything about it. More than a little disgusted, he settled back on the pillows. A little more rest, he decided. A day or two of letting his body heal should snap his mind and his memory back. He knew who he was and where he was. The rest would come.

A book on the table beside the bed caught his eye. He’d always liked to read, almost as much as he’d liked to fly. He preferred the written word to tapes or disks. That was another good and solid memory. Pleased with it, Cal picked up the book.

The title puzzled him. Journey to Andromeda seemed a particularly foolish name for a book, especially when it was touted as science fiction. Anyone with a free weekend could journey to Andromeda—if he liked being bored into a coma. With a small frown, he started to leaf through the book. Then his eyes fell on the copyright page.

That was wrong. The clammy sweat was back. That was ridiculous. The book he was holding was new. The back hadn’t been broken, and the pages looked as though they’d never been turned. Some stupid clerical error, he told himself, but his mouth was bone-dry. It had to be an error. How else could he be holding a book that had been published nearly three centuries ago?

***

Absorbed in her work, Libby ignored the small circle of pain at the center of her back. She knew very well that posture was important when she was writing for several hours at a stretch, but once she lost herself in ancient or primitive civilizations she always forgot everything else.

She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the tea she’d carried up with her was stone-cold. Her notes and reference books were scattered everywhere, along with clothes she hadn’t yet put away and the stack of newspapers she’d picked up at the store. She’d toed off her shoes and had her stockinged feet curled around the legs of her chair. Occasionally she stopped hammering at the keyboard to push her round, black framed glasses back on her nose.

It cannot be argued that the addition of modern implements has a strong and not always positive effect on an isolated culture such as the Kolbari. The islanders have remained, in the latter years of the twentieth century, at a folk level and do not, as has been implied in the human relations area files, seek integration with the modern industrial societies. What may be seen by certain factions as offering the convenience of progress, medically, industrially, educationally, is most often—