Atlantis Endgame by Andre Norton, Sherwood Smith Page A

breathtakingly graceful. A golden glow from oil lamps made the colors seem real.
    Linnea had had to blink away tears. She had known what to expect, yet still she had not been really prepared for the effect of such free, bright, and generous beauty, and the corresponding claw of loss.
    So she put her question about marriage to Ashe when she emerged, and he glanced at her, looking amused, and said, "No."
    Just that word seemed bald, ungracious. She knew she had trespassed, even though she had taken care to use the Ancient Greek, not just to protect them, though no one paid them the least attention, but because its wording was necessarily quaint and distant from their habitual English, and so it created its own borders of finesse.
    Then he added, as though he realized that he had sounded ungracious, "Though it was not an easy choice. But it seemed the best one. My absences would put a burden on a family."
    She nodded. She had a brother in the military, and she knew what his wife had suffered when he would be gone one year, two, often without any communication. For twenty years she had spent holidays alone with their children, and birthdays, except for last-minute surprises; he had almost missed their daughter's wedding.
    "You did not think to marry within the Project?"
    "In the very early days there were few women. And I am, unfortunately, a member of the last generation. A wife with me would take my mind from the work to her, to protecting her. Though I know it's not fair, or right. But instinct is hard to argue with."
    Linnea nodded. "Ross and Eveleen have managed."
    "Many of the younger agents have paired off successfully, though not all the marriages last. They did not find it easy to adjust. Though they are much alike, and I believe they have an excellent chance of going the distance."
    "Adventurers," Linnea said, the noun she chose calling to mind Homer and his tales.
    They had emerged from one building and had tried another, but it was all fallen in, destroyed so badly that no one had even excavated the rubble yet. Either that or it had fallen relatively recently.
    On to the next one, much smaller, roofed with woven mats. They peered in windows, watching people come and go. Though they could not examine every room, at least they could watch for anomalies.
    The noon sun beat down, the air breathlessly hot, drifting with faint ash-fall. One of the tremors froze everyone for a moment into a tableau, a still life backlit by garish sun, while hissings of little stones sifted down from cracks in the walls.
    Then songs rose again, donkeys brayed, children laughed, adults' voices exclaimed in question, concern, annoyance, worry, with many glances skyward up the mountain.
    Linnea had just looked over to say something when the communicator Ashe wore next to his skin pulsed just once.
    It was from the boat.
    "An attack?" she spoke without thinking, but at least she'd used Ancient Greek.
    He said nothing, of course, but nodded his head upward when they reached one of the narrow intersections. They toiled up a steep street, with a cliff to one side, looking down at roofs, some with withered gardens. Behind them were more buildings. As he left it to Linnea to peer in the windows and go into what buildings she could, he found a tiny join where one wall did not quite meet another, shaded by a very straggly wild palm. Trusting to its protection, Ashe raised to his eyes a slim pair of field glasses, shading them by his palm.
    Linnea, seeing what he was about, backed out of his field of vision, instead watching the occasional passerby to draw attention away from Ashe if necessary.
    She waited until his hand lowered.
    "Baldies on the beach," he murmured.
    Linnea felt her heart lurch.
    They eased into a crowd moving down toward the shoreline, where the early morning fishers were just arriving in with fresh catch.
    Linnea peered up along the sand, which seemed to shimmer in the heat. A thunderstorm was on the way, she realized, though judging