Jeremy put on his own pack. Like the others, it was full of wind-up pocket watches almost the size of a fist, mirrors in gilt-metal frames, straight razors, Swiss army knives, and other examples of what would have been thoroughly outdated technology in his world. Here, though, no one could match it. No one could come close. Traders from Crosstime Traffic got wonderful prices.

If they'd been limited to what they could carry on their backs, they would have lost a lot of business. But they weren't. Another transposition chamber brought more trade goods to a subbasement under the house they used in Polisso. People hardly ever traveled through that one. If strangers appeared in Polisso from nowhere, the locals would wonder how they got there. Walking in and out through the west gate was a different story. Anybody could understand that.

Dad was checking the monitors to make sure nobody could see the family when they came out of the cave. Jeremy went over to look at the screens, too. They showed grassy hillsides. Motion and an infrared blip drew Jeremy's eye. It was only a rabbit hopping along. He relaxed. The Roman military highway arrowed off toward the west, as scornful of the landscape it crossed as any American interstate.

“Looks good,” Jeremy said.

Dad nodded. “Yes, I think so, too.” He raised his voice a little. “Come here, Melissa. See anything you don't like?”

Mom took a long, careful look at the monitors. She shook her head. “No, everything looks fine.”

“Let's go, then,” Dad said.

The mouth of the cave wasn't wide enough to let anyone in or out. A camouflaged trapdoor nearby took care of that. Jeremy and Amanda hurried down the hillside to the highway. When Jeremy got to it, the soles of his sandals slapped against the paving stones. That road had been there for two thousand years. It wasn't heavily traveled, but still… How many others had walked it before him?