September, 10 A.E.-Babylon, Kingdom of Kar-Duniash

October, 10 A.E.-Severn valley, Alba October, 10 A.E.-Walkeropohs, Kingdom of

Great Achaea October, 10 A.E.-Irondale, Alba

Dr. Justin Clemens-Captain, Republic of Nantucket Coast Guard (Medical Corps)-sipped at the thick sweet wine, mouth dry. It was never easy to tell someone about the Event. Much else about the Twentieth had faded, but that memory of terror remained far too fresh. He'd been a teenager then…

His fiancee picked a date from the bowl on the low table that stood between her and the Islander medic. He went on:

"… and then the glowing dome of light was gone, and our whole island of Nantucket was… here. Back in this age. More than three thousand years before our own time."

The platform beneath them was the terraced rooftop of a section of The House That Was The Marvel of Mankind, The Center of the Land, The Shining Residence, The Dwelling of Majesty-in short, the palace of King Kashtiliash son of Shagarakti-Shuriash. It sprawled around them as a city within the greater city of Babylon; crenellated outer walls where sentries paced with the late-summer sun bright on their steel and bronze, whitewashed adobe and colored brick and tile, courtyards, gardens, audience halls, workshops, storerooms, hareem, barracks, shrines, and archives, faint sounds of chanting, talk, feet, wheels, hooves, a whiff of cooking and a stale draft of canal-water…

The two doctors sat on cushions beneath an awning, amid potted plants and flowers and dwarf trees brought from all over these lands.

Justin watched the woman as she frowned and thought, noticing again how her face turned beautiful with the mind within, despite thinness, big hooked nose, receding chin, and incipient mustache. The huge dark eyes had depths to them. It made him painfully aware of his own round-faced near-plumpness, kept under control only by the necessities of campaigning and twelve-hour workdays.