Barkworth woke to find himself bathed in one of the most brilliant sunshine dawns he had ever seen.

         As the two women stirred, Barkworth carefully stood up so he could take the opportunity to look around before they came fully awake.

         And he was very glad he did. The Aotea had apparently entered a very large bay, with low ranges of hills separated by a broad valley or river directly astern. Purplish through the slight dawn haze, the hills looked rather parched and scrubby, with few trees.

         Barkworth suspected the Aotea had found its way back into warmer climes, perhaps even the tropics.

         But then, a segment of what appeared to be huge disk-shaped object began to pass over the wall directly above the engine gallery.

         “Holy heaven..!” he shouted involuntarily.

         Carol's eyes blinked open, and she actually looked at him in annoyance.

         He simply pointed at the object.

         “Christ..!” she shouted, transfixed. She quickly got up. “Estelle..! Wake up..!” She shook the older woman's arm. “Something's happening!”

         And indeed it was. What was now fully visible as a bright silvery disk, perhaps 30 meters across, was already beginning to pick up speed as it moved out towards the valley between the mountains.

         It was a Flying Platform of a design Barkworth had never seen before. The disk itself had a shallow bulge below it extending half-way across its diameter. Three much smaller hemispheres, a little more than a meter across, were spaced out equilaterally round the join between the disk and its central bulge. These were certainly big enough to house Taurnal Field generators which he suspected propelled the craft and held it aloft. But while most flying platforms were silent, this one emitted a faint hollow grating sound, like a block of pumice being ground along a slab of granite.

         “Oh my God! That's a flying saucer..!” Carol screamed. “So that's where they came from. Bloody Atlantis..!”

         She looked at Barkworth and Estelle in turn. Barkworth had seldom seen anybody this excited. She'd obviously completely forgotten that Atlantis was, to use her favorite word, `bullshit'.

         And just as well, he thought to himself, after yesterday's events.

         “Come on, you two oldies..!” Carol shouted back to them as she launched herself into the air. “This is something I want to know about.”

         Barkworth and Estelle looked at each other wryly as she got up, then they launched themselves into the air just in time to see Carol gliding over the wall towards the engine gallery's roof.

         “Look at this..!” she shouted unnecessarily as Barkworth and Estelle joined her and were already gazing in astonishment at the sight before them.

         The barrel-vaulted roof of the engine gallery had been altered so that its transparent panels could slide down past each other inside the upper wall; it was now open to the air.  A new floor had been added a few meters below the retracted roof panels; that vast empty space above the engines was now a long narrow gently curved flight hanger.

         And it was filled with `flying saucers', as Carol had described them. There must have been a dozen of them in a range of sizes, all sharing the same design. The one they had seen was apparently the smallest, the biggest was at least three times its size, and there were four of those. They all had a single transparent dome extending across half their width, with no other protrusions. Inside the dome of the larger saucers two seats were visible at what Barkworth took to be the front, a row of four seats behind this, and the rest of the floor behind was empty apart from a ramp leading to the deck below.

         And the hanger was busy, as well it might be considering that the Aotea now had a means of contacting the outside world without risk of going aground.

         “Do lead the way, Carol,” Barkworth laughed, knowing she would need no second bidding.

         He and Estelle quickly joined her on the deck as she approached the biggest of the saucers, currently unattended. He could see now that they were suspended off the deck by three narrow splayed stilts that came down from the disk between the Taurnal hemispheres.

         Carol immediately went up the ramp, completely forgetting that she might instead have just walked through it. Barkworth followed her up into the interior, but could see little more than he had from above. There was no front panel, only Otindas held up in front of the two front seats by what looked like flexible stalks. The cabin wall below the dome was made up of what looked like concertina panels, which he assumed led to stowage, though there had to be some room for the lotsus or whatever powered the craft, and any navigational gear - which he realized would have to be unusual, since the only possible reference points were the stars and the Aotea itself.

         Since there were no openings in the dome, Barkworth wondered if the saucer was Space-capable. Unfortunately there was no way of telling from what he could see.

         They heard a noise from the saucer next to theirs and saw crew taking their seats within it, with three `passengers' sitting behind them so far as Barkworth could see. Bags of some sort were also being loaded into the free space either side of the ramp.

         “Let's get aboard that one..!” Carol shouted as she rushed back down the ramp.

         But they were too late, the ramp to the second saucer's interior had already lifted into place. The hollow grinding began, and the saucer quivered a little before beginning to lift.

        "We could try following it,” Estelle suggested. “Since it's a part of the Aotere, the `laws' which confine us to the raft may also extend to its components, however far they might travel.”

         “Brilliant idea, Estelle..!” Carol shouted with joy. “The view from its outside should be better than from the inside anyway. If it works...”

         Barkworth was only too happy to go along with the idea.

 
         It took only a few moments for the saucer to pass beyond the limits Carol had discovered for herself the day earlier – or twenty years earlier, if the Change had brought them that far. Barkworth took a quick look back at the raft. Little appeared to have changed except that some of the bigger buildings on its innermost `city' section now sported telescope domes and radio-telescope dishes.

         Carol again laughed with joy as it quickly became apparent that they had indeed passed through the barrier and were on their way to wherever the saucer was now taking them. He wondered how far they would be able to stray from it if it landed, or what might happen if it actually crashed for some reason.

         But those thoughts were quickly swamped by what he saw next. The `valley' between the mountains was indeed a river; the open sea appeared to be passing over some sort of barrier into it. Then, just a short distance beyond, he saw something that totally caught his breath: what could be nothing else but the Rock of Gibraltar.

         “Barkworth, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?” Estelle asked him.

          “It wouldseem so,” he replied, even though it was now clear they wouldn't be going near it. “Seems we're headed for Spain though - or what in our day will become Spain.”

          As they crossed its coast it quickly became apparent the flying saucer was heading for the south of the region.

          “Guess we're seeing the country in it's raw state, before humans colonized it – though there's obviously someone there,” Barkworth said as he saw a couple of fires burning and a few semi-naked figures sitting round them. Apparently they hadn't noticed the passing saucer.

          “I wonder if they've any idea...” Carol laughed.

           “Don't be so smug, Carol.” Barkworth said to her. “If we're actually in the era I think we're in, we would see more advanced towns and cities at the other end of the Med.”

           “You mean – pyramids..?” she asked.

           “Maybe,” he replied. “If  these flying saucers have the range to get that far. Perhaps we can catch one going that way later on.  I'd also really like to see the ziggurats the first Sumerians built....”

           He remembered the ones on the World of Solciessa that he had visited with Quincey so long ago. And that wonderful airship...

           The journey of the saucer they were following was clearly about to end. It slowed as it began a gradual descent, then it finally settled itself down just below the top of a hill. Barkworth had just managed to catch a quick glimpse of what appeared to be a tiny settlement of some sort on its other side before the three of them set themselves down alongside it.

           There was very little else but dry scrub around. Barkworth suspected from the visible shimmer in the air that the temperature was in the near forties, though of course he could feel no more hot than cold.

          “This should be interesting...” Estelle said as the ramp of the vessel came down. After a few moments the first of its passengers carefully stepped down onto the hard sand-etched surface.

           The only thing that looked Aotean about him was his face, which looked like a mix of  Polynesian and Oriental. He wore only a pair of pants plus a backpack; both were made of a very coarse sack-like material which lent them an almost ragged appearance. He was soon joined by his four similarly-attired companions, though two of them also had what appeared to be compact holsters under their arms.

          “Not exactly little green men,” Carol grinned. “I guess they're dressed something like the locals - if there are any.”

          One of the men pulled out a small hand-held device from somewhere, tapped it a few times, and the saucer began to lift off. A few meters up it appeared to dissolve into the sky.

           “Neat trick!” Carol said. “How would they have done that?”

           “It's probably covered in electroluminescent plastic of some sort,” Barkworth suggested. “Hit a button and – zapp! Empty sky.”

           The five Aoteans then trotted off in what looked like a military manner.

           “Where are they going..?” Carol wondered aloud.

           “There's a small village on the other side of the hill,” Barkworth said. “Saw it just before we landed. - I hope our limits are attached to the men and not the ship,” he added, “else we'll be lucky to watch proceedings from the top of the hill if we're lucky.”

           “Soon find out,” Estelle looked brightly behind her as she began to jog off in the same manner and direction as the Aoteans. “Come on, if you can..!”  

         Barkworth did his best to keep up with her. Carol quickly passed him in a way that suggested she was fitter than she looked.

         They had no problem with soft-barriers as they followed the men into the crude little village at the center of several mines disappearing into the surrounding low hills. One of the five Aoterans went up to one of the miners coming out of one of those mines and greeted him as if they were old friends, even though their gestures at each other suggested they hadn't quite learned each other's languages yet.

         “This obviously isn't their first visit,” Estelle said. “Do you think we might have joined up with some sort of trading mission, Barkworth?”

          “Beginning to look that way...” he replied as the Aotean brought out samples of what appeared to be highly decorated craft-work from the bag he carried, most of it apparently intended for women; bangles, beads, combs, needles, plus several hand-mirrors that only dully reflected their images. Indeed all the items seemed artfully designed to look only slightly more technically advanced than those that might have been traded for in those times. Barkworth was fairly sure early Egyptians had similar such trinkets, perhaps the locals thought their visitors had come all this way from those lands.

         The local man raised his arm and shouted to a small boy who then ran off, presumably to fetch someone.

         “I hope this all works out,” Carol said. “If our friends get killed, then who's going to fly us home?”

        Barkworth laughed grimly. It was a thought.

        But he needn't have worried. Several men did appear, but they were all carrying small bags with what looked like heavy contents.

         As if this was a signal, all the Aoteans began systematically emptying their bags and  setting out their contents on the ground as if to display them at their best advantage. It all  looked uncannily like an Old Earth flea market. Women then began to appear, shyly at first, then became as numerous as the men. All, men and women alike, wore garments similar to the Aoteans, except that animal hides made an occasional appearance, even in what was obviously an extremely hot day. Many sweated freely; a few women tried to fan themselves as best they could with their bare hands.

         The bags were passed over, the Aoteans giving their contents little more than a cursory check, though one pulled out what looked like a lump of copper. A smile spread across his face as he thanked the lead merchant.

         “Thwatac...” the merchant said, smiling back.

        A quick nod in return saw some of the women rush off, to quickly return with crude-looking earthenware pots and bowls. A liquid of some identifiable kind was poured and passed to each man in turn, locals and Aoteans alike. They all remained standing as they drank, there appeared to be no inclination to sit down on the ground. Barkworth wondered if the drinking was more a matter of ceremony than refreshment.

         “Sarsparilla?” Carol laughed. “Tasted that when I went to Australia once. Yuk.”

         “Could be, for all we know,” Barkworth laughed. “I've no idea what people drank in this era. Might not even be alcoholic.”

        “Whatever it is, they're not staying for a second round,” Estelle observed as the Aoteans made preparations to leave with final goodbyes.

         It was only a few moments later that they began to trot back up the hill, though not at the same pace as they had come down it. Those backpacks were obviously heavy.

         As they began to pass around the hill, one of the men pulled out his remote control to call the saucer back down. But before he did so, he paused to look around to see if they were being followed.

         Not far behind them a small boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, had come up the trail behind them.

         Suddenly, what Barkworth took to be his mother's voice called out from the village. The Aotean smiled at the boy, feigned a stern look, and pointed vigorously down the hill. The boy looked uncertain for a moment, then finally decided his future lay with his parents after all.

         Barkworth took a quick opportunity to see if he could see the Aotea from this distance, and found he could, a brilliantly gleaming jewel set into an azure bay. Somebody was going to see that as a prize for the taking, but he had no idea if boats in this era were even capable of reaching it in spite of its relatively short distance from the coast.

         The Aotean quickly tapped the small screen built into his control a few times, and after a few moments the saucer finally reappeared a few meters above them. It's ramp began to descend even before it it set itself down.

         The men wasted no time getting aboard before the ramp began to close again and the machine began to lift off.

         “Quick - !” said Estelle. “In case they make it vanish again.”

         They followed it back up into the sky. As before it didn't gain much altitude or speed. It wouldn't be long before they would be back on the Aotere.

         However, just a few kilometers from the hanger – or one of the hangers, Barkworth counted six altogether around the perimeter gallery roof – Barkworth spotted another saucer beginning to lift away. It quickly became obvious that it was heading for  the Mediterranean Sea.

         “ - Quick..!” He shouted. “Let's see if we can catch that saucer. Transfer into it's envelope from this one. We've only a moment. Wait... – go..!”

         And he did it, with Estelle appearing along side him with a smile on her face.

         Carol however was nowhere to be seen.

         “Heavens...” He turned himself around even as the new saucer quickly began to gather speed and altitude. He thought he could see a rapidly diminishing figure close to their previous saucer, but he couldn't be sure.

         He tried to fly out of the new saucer's envelope back towards the raft, but the `sponge-rubber' barrier prevented him.

         Estelle had already spun round to try too.

         “Good God.. - I'm sorry, Estelle...” was all Barkworth could say.

         “Oh gosh...” her voice quavered with a sadness he had never heard before. “Oh gosh – what can we do? After all she's been through...”

         He felt helpless to ease her pain. Even though they were now soaring high over the Mediterranean, with Italy and Greece now coming into view through the haze of distance, the magnificence of the spectacle was lost on him. Indeed, he felt as if they had been thrown into a sort of prison.

         “I can't understand how she could have missed it,” Barkworth said. “Whatever else she might be, she's young, nimble and smart. - Perhaps she intended to miss it for some reason,” the new thought crossed his mind.

         “No, Barkworth, I'm sorry, but I can't go along with that,” she looked at him. “We just have to accept it as an unfortunate accident. I just hope she will be alright until we can return.”

        They traveled on over that immense landscape below them in total silence.

        He knew he hadn't felt any more attached to Carol than she had to him – she had made that more than clear – but he couldn't help feel sad for Estelle. The bond between she and Carol had been so close, almost like mother and daughter. And from what Estelle had said about Carol's life on Earth before her arrival in Paradise, she had never been able to find any sort of happiness.

         And, on top of that, her version of Earth had been `destroyed' in 1968 – something even now Barkworth still found it hard to believe. It somehow seemed as `imaginary' as the world they were in now. But she was definitely as much apart of it as he and Estelle were, and apparently doomed to suffer as much in it as she had in her previous one Or, for that matter, Paradise itself.

 
        The saucer began to shed altitude and speed. Barkworth could see the Red Sea ahead and where the Suez Canal would be in millennia to come. It really did appear that they were heading for Egypt and its curse and lifeblood, the Ancient Nile.

        Again he wondered at the flying saucer's abilities, easily comparable to those of the flying platforms the Eonmern provided to those who needed them. It had taken them towards the edge of Space at what must have been several thousand kilometers an hour.  But what could `Space' be in this Simulated World? Could it travel to a simulated Moon? An entire simulated Solar System? Stars? Perhaps the `Earth' here was surrounded by a soft barrier that prevented any such travel. He doubted if he would ever get the chance to find out.

         There were several `pyramids', if one could call them that, that he could see from above as they came in to land,  though only one of any size. He wondered if the others were sort of `practise' pyramids until their builders had developed sufficient skills to build the big one.

         But even that was crude, being stepped rather than being of the classic `smooth' kind. He wondered if it was in fact one of the first pyramids the Egyptians ever built, perhaps even the 'Pyramid of Djosser' itself, constructed around the 27th Century BC.he remembered now.

         But then, he also knew, the people who first colonised the South Pacific did so only during the first mellenium BC, around the time Classical Greece was at the height of its power. So the eras didn't quite fit. He would have to research that when he eventually returned to Paradise. Which he somehow felt could be quite soon...

         Whatever its era, the topmost layer of the pyramid was still being built. It was being completed by the biggest construction crew he had ever seen. They hauled large blocks of stone up a ramp, itself made of stones but surfaced in sand, that rose up from the next level down. Another such ramp led down to the next level, he could see three more when he looked more carefully under that mass of workers, each ending near the beginning of the next. The stones themselves, crudely shaped into cubes perhaps a meter on a side, dragged up the ramps using webbed net-like slings. Each of these were attached to ropes hauled by lines of men and women wearing nothing more than simple dirt-stained loin-clothes. Huge men wearing what looked like very clean gold-fringed white shorts were stationed near these lines, their whips plainly ready for quick and painful use.

         “That's just so horrible,” Estelle breathed. “I can't believe such a thing could have happened. I'm sure the Aoteans would never have had to use whips.”

        Since Barkworth had never seen the Rolodon for that particular era, he had no idea whether or not any of the pyramids had been built that way. Just one more thing he was going to have to look at when he got back to Paradise. Along with so much else. 

        The saucer came in to land behind one of the larger buildings near one of the quarries at the edge of the complex; presumably its electroluminescent layer had been switched on to make it invisible. Two men came down its ramp, one an elegantly but simply dressed middle-aged Aotean, the other an elderly priest-like figure in a white robe fastened with a scarab-like clasp. They chatted amiably for several minutes, hugged each other, then the Aoterean walked back up the ramp, which then closed behind him.

         “Is that it..?” Estelle asked as the saucer began to lift, taking he and Estelle with it. “Is that all they've come all this way for?”

         “Apparently so,” Barkworth replied. “And horribly crude this entire scene might look, it's possible we've seen history made here today. Or at least a most wonderful myth. That priest, if that's what he was, may have been one of the few outsiders ever to have seen the Aotea and return to tell the tale. And if it did actually happen, that's how Plato might have heard about it. It was the Greeks after all who would come to call the Aotere Atlantis, after their god Atlas, along with the ocean containing it.”

         The saucer quickly began to pick up speed and height, Barkworth didn't doubt it was heading straight back to the Aotere.

 
        “Note the hanger it lands back in,” he suggested as they approached the Aotere at last after their return journey. “How many hangers from the one that Carol may be waiting for us in, if she's as clever as we'd like to think she is.”

         It hadn't really crossed his mind before, but the turbulent waters of the Strait may be what prevented the Aotere from entering the Mediterranean Sea. He wondered if it was where it was while its powers that be figured out a solution to the problem.

         Estelle didn't waste any time waiting for the saucer to land. Its hanger was right next to the one that their first saucer had left from, and she flew directly to it with Barkworth following.

         They found Carol huddled in one of its far corners. She appeared to be beyond tears. Barkworth decided to hang back as Estelle all but flung herself onto the girl to lift her up, hold her close and offer as much comfort as she could.

         Then what felt like a mild earthquake hit.

         Barkworth froze, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up. He vaguely remembered something about the `original' Atlantis having been ruptured by earthquakes until it finally sank beneath the waves.

         The two women stared up at him, terror on their faces.

         He looked around. There weren't many people in the hanger, mostly service technicians so far as he could see, but they had quickly grabbed hold of whatever handrail or other solid such item they could. What sounded like a series of announcements could be heard coming from hidden loudspeakers.

         Barkworth noticed they didn't appear unduly concerned.

         He looked again at the two women and shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I don't know what's happening, but I get the impression that everybody else round here does. Whether its some sort of emergency drill...”

         When the next quake came, it felt more like a lifting sensation than the mild shaking before. It ended in a slight tilt before the raft settled down again.

         Carol looked totally petrified as the sound of large hidden gears and a clanking sounded through the hanger. Barkworth noticed a creaking along the walls above them; the massive ceiling doors were beginning to lift. One by one, they slid past each other until the gallery was finally enclosed by its clear plastic roof.

         Then once again, Barkworth felt through his feet that lifting sensation begin again, only this time it continued until he began to wonder if the Aotere had lifted clear out of the water. 

        “It's flying..!” Estelle shouted at him, clutching an all but inert Carol. “This entire raft is flying..! What are these people going to achieve next...!”

        “I think I can guess,” he said, thinking of the turbulent waters at the entrance to the Straight. But then he noticed an unearthly light shining down on them.

        He looked up to see four intensely bright bluish points of light in a square formation begin to descend just as the Aotere continued its own gentle ascent.

         “Oh my god...” he shouted involuntarily as he realized what was about to happen. He had had a similar experience on Jarra when that ghastly flying morgue was lifted out of that terminal battle zone. 

         “Barkworth, what is it..!” Estelle shrieked at him.

         “I think you had better brace yourself for a major Change,” was all he could say as he now saw a bright square patch of sky between those four descending bright points.

         That bright shimmering sky grew larger and larger until it consumed them all...