Prologue:

Earth,  Boston Metropolitan Area, 2065 AD (Serenity Year 
-927, 2816 Years after the founding of Rome, Juraian Year 
22229, Federal Year -1919)



       "I see a bad moon rising.  I see trouble on the ground..."  
The radio played on in the background as Dr. Henry J. Wise, 
Professor of Physics and Magic at MIT looked at the clock on 
his desk and suddenly realized that he had forgotten to drop 
his latest paper in the mail and that the mail went out in five 
minutes.  Given it was already two weeks later than he had 
promised it to the New England Journal of Magic, he couldn't 
afford to make it even later than it was, especially since 
Monday was Columbus Day and no mail would be delivered 
or picked up.  

       He grabbed the envelope and ran like a mad dog through 
the halls of the Fogg Center, then down the stairs because the 
elevator was broken.  Again.  This time, it needed an 
exorcism, but the Bishop already had a full slate and no one in 
the department was qualified.  In the last few years, the 
number of evil spirit problems had risen dramatically, and no 
one knew why.

       No one except Henry J. Wise, who knew everything, at 
least in his own mind.  His latest paper was in fact a study of 
this phenomenon, utilizing the latest advances in divination 
techniques.  With the help of a woman at Tokyo University, 
Dr. Mei'ou Setsuna, the leading figure in the field of temporal 
divinations, he had successfully tracked the likely cause of this 
rise in evil spirit manifestations.  

         It was quite simple, really.  The mana level was rising.  
Ever since the event in 2034 that was still referred to simply as 
The Miracle, the level of magic in the world had begun to rise 
sharply.  Ancient arts which had long yielded no results had 
begun to flourish once more.  By the mid 2050s, most 
universities had established departments of magic, following 
the lead of Tokyo University, which had established its 
department, the first in the world, in 2043 AD.  

        Of course, anyone who wasn't blind could tell the mana 
level was rising, and the Tomoe/Mei'ou/Udaigaku experiment 
of the late 2050s had set the standard understanding of the 
process.  Yet the causes of the actual shift was unknown.  
Why had it begun with a moment of magic of a level of 
intensity not seen since then?  How long would it last?  Where 
would it peak?

        Henry J. Wise had the answers.  His researches had 
enabled him to create what he called the 'Time Sphere',  a 
powerful focus for temporal divinations, and with it, he 
believed he had found the basis for both a mathematical and 
metaphysical understanding of this process.

       What had hampered understanding of the process was the 
failure to understand that the revival of magical energies had 
begun BEFORE the miracle.  The Sailor Senshi were the key.  
Most people believed that the Senshi had been a myth before 
the Miracle and that the energies released had actually created 
them from raw belief, the same way in which such entities as 
'John Bull', 'Uncle Sam', 'Justice', and 'Br'er Rabbit' were
now sometimes encountered in the material world.  

        A combination of detective work and magic, however, 
had uncovered enough proof for Henry J. Wise to conclude 
that the Senshi had in fact been real, which meant that the 
magical energies had not simply begun with a bang, but that 
they had been rising for longer than anyone thought.  

        Reaching the ground floor, he sprinted across campus to 
the campus post office.  You'd think a leading figure in 
temporal magic would be able to be on time for once, he 
thought.  Already he was getting tired, his breath coming far 
faster than was comfortable.  I should have studied magic to 
slow my aging, he thought.  Maybe I should try the Atlas 
Magical Exercise program.  He shook his head.  That was a 
petty use of power, unworthy of a true scholar.  You 
shouldn't get a better body just by having someone zap you.  
You had to earn it.  Magic always carried a price, anyway.  

        Lost in thought, he collided with someone he had not 
expected to see running across the MIT campus.  Her name 
was Tomoe Hotaru, and she was the daughter of two of the 
most respected figures in his own field, Drs. Tomoe and 
Mei'ou.  At least he thought she was their daughter.  He 
suspected Dr. Mei'ou might only be Hotaru's step-mother, 
and her brother didn't look anything like her.  At least he 
thought the blond fellow he had met when he attended the last 
International Temporal Magical Studies Conference in Japan 
was her brother.  The envelope he was clutching flew into the 
air and somehow popped open, even though he thought he 
had sealed it.  Sheets of paper began to fly everywhere, and 
they both scrambled to their feet and started trying to grab 
them before the breeze could take them.  Embarrassedly, 
Hotaru said, "I'm sorry, Dr. Wise.  I'm glad I found you, 
though!  I need your help!"

       He smiled.  "I'll be happy to help you, Tomoe-san, as 
soon as I get this paper mailed.  I'm running out of time!"

       She giggled slightly.  "Can't you just speed up time for 
us, then?  That'll give us plenty of time."

       He took a moment to bang his head into a tree.  He had 
begun his career as a theoretical physicist, and he spent far 
more time studying how magic worked than actually using it 
as a result.  Pulling the time orb, a shimmering ball that 
seemed to have tiny stars living inside it, out of his pocket, he 
chanted a few words and all of the world but him and Hotaru 
slowed to a crawl.  Without the orb, he would have had to 
spend days gathering this much power, but with the time orb, 
it was easy.  Too easy, he thought.  There were rumors, 
rumors of creatures who hunted those who tampered with time 
too much.  He didn't want to learn the truth of the rumors.  
There was no other way to get the paper submitted today, 
though.

        They could take their time, now.  He laughed a little.  As 
he grabbed each paper, nearly frozen in place due to the time 
differential, it slipped into sync with him.  He said to Hotaru, 
"What is the problem you need my help with?"

        Hotaru took a deep breath as she continued collecting 
papers.  "Are you familiar with the Cronus project?"

        "You mean that goofy Chronos project at Yale which is 
trying to summon up the God of Time or some such crock?"  
The fools don't understand that they'll only create a being 
which conforms to their own preconceptions, Henry thought.  
And if there was a God of Time, I doubt he'd want to explain 
the mysteries of the universe to a bunch of college professors.

        She laughed.  "No, no, not that silly thing.  The Cronus 
project, here at MIT, in the High Energy Magic Building."  
Her voice turned serious as she grabbed the last paper.  "The 
one that is allegedly building a particle accelerator that uses 
magic so that you can power it with a D cell."  She laughed in 
a strangely bitter manner this time.

        "Yes.  It seems to work quite well, except that the spells 
still have to be renewed far too often.  Dr. Weissman gave me 
a tour a few weeks ago.  It has a lot of potential."  Janet 
Weissman is quite a brilliant scientist, he thought.  I'm not 
surprised she's risen so fast in our profession.  I certainly 
wouldn't have been heading any projects like that at that age.  
She's only...28?  He tried to remember.

        They began heading for the post office.  Hotaru said, 
"The Cronus project is an effort to creating living magical 
weapons.  It may look like a particle accelerator, but it's 
actually used to weaken dimensional barriers and bind various 
kinds of spirits into people to try to turn them into superhuman 
beings like the Sailor Senshi."

         She must have been mindwiped by a conspiracy nut, 
Henry thought.  "Do you have any proof of this?" he asked as 
they reached the post office.  He sealed the envelope with a 
small spell and stuffed the letter, which was pre-stamped, into 
the slot.  

         She handed him a file of papers.  He began to page 
through them.  They were a mixture of memos, letters on 
government stationary, printed out emails, faxes, and other 
forms of paper trail.  If they weren't fake, it was clear that the 
US Army was sponsoring this experiment.  "Well, these look 
real, but...why here?  I mean, if you're going to do something 
top secret like that, you don't do it in the middle of a 
university.  Not unless you're stupid."

        "This is a MAGICAL experiment.  You can't just do 
magic anywhere you want.  Even with your Time Orb, you'd 
have a lot harder time doing what you've done," she pointed 
around at the still seemingly 'slowed' world, "outside of a 
major ley line nexus point.  That's why Tokyo, Rome, 
Boston, Canton, Lhasa and New Delhi are magical research 
centers, while places like New York or London are not.  They 
could do the simpler stuff anywhere, but for what they've got 
planned next..." She shuddered.  "It could only be done in a 
handful of powerful nexi, thank the heavens."

        He broke the spell speeding up his and Hotaru's time, 
and nodded quietly as he put away the orb.  "I suppose you're 
right.  I don't truck with summoning spirits.  Too dangerous, 
unreliable, and unpredictable.  I don't see how you think I 
can stop this, though.  I'm a theoretician, not a superhero.  I 
know a few simple combat spells for dealing with muggers 
and the like, but unless you need me to predict the likely level 
of magic in the area at a certain time..."  He headed out of the 
post office, speaking quietly and leaving the postal woman 
looking confused as to where he and Hotaru had come from.  
"I really don't want to interfere with my own government, 
either.  I mean, what they're doing is dangerous, and stupid, 
but it's not illegal, and the subjects are all volunteers according 
to this."

        "They plan to try to bind the..."  She paused and took 
another deep breath. "Binding small spirits isn't enough.  
They plan to bind the Saturn Force to someone."  Her voice 
grew cold.  "I will die before I allow that.  They are meddling 
with powers that should NOT be tampered with."

        "The Saturn Force?"

         "I cannot say for sure if it would be exactly the same 
thing, or only something similar."   She looked around, and 
muttered something to herself in Japanese, then began 
speaking in English again.  "It seeks the destruction of all life.  
Perhaps one person in a million could survive being bound to 
it without instantly becoming a rampaging beast.  Most of 
those who survived would soon be mastered by it, and 
become a nexus of destruction.  Perhaps a few hundred of 
those who walk upon this world could hold out for a few 
decades.  A tiny handful could last their natural lives...if they 
never used it.  If they succeed in this experiment, this city will 
die, this entire world if their victim is not stopped soon 
enough and is strong enough to survive the binding.  Even 
here, this node is only strong enough at certain times.  I need 
you to predict when the node will be ready for them to use it, 
for that is when I must strike."

        He stared at her.  "How are you going to stop it by 
yourself?"  What she said sounded ludicrous, even to a mage 
such as himself, but he knew that Tomoe Hotaru was not a 
loon.  Her father was a genius of dimensional and 
transportation magic.  Her mother was one of the five most 
important figures in magical studies.  She was close friends 
with Dr. Mizuno Ami, probably the most respected and 
famous doctor on Earth.  Hotaru herself was a noted magical 
healer, among her many talents.  But how did she expect to 
stop this by herself?

         "It is my duty.  I have resources of which I may not 
speak."  She looked pleadingly at him.  "Will you help me?"

         He sighed and gazed across the campus at the building.  
I can't believe I'm doing this, he thought.  "Yes, I'll help 
you."  I must be going mad in my old age, he thought.  I'm 
going to end up in jail for treason or something.  Maybe she's 
using magic to make me believe her.  He couldn't really 
believe that.

                  ****************

       He didn't end up in jail.  Five days later, he woke up tied 
to a table inside a long curving hallway he recognized as the 
acclerator chamber.  Three robed figures stood around him.  
This has to be a nightmare, he thought, then he realized 
Hotaru was tied to the table next to him.  She looked like she 
had been beaten.  Her face was a mass of bruises.  She 
mumbled something incoherent.

         He looked at the robed figures.  "WHAT is the meaning 
of this?"

        "I'm sorry, Dr. Wise," said one of the figures, a purple 
clad woman who he was now sure was Dr. Weissman.  "You 
were the only person she had told about this, and we can't 
afford to let anyone know.  Also, we needed sacrifices for 
this, so your death will not be a complete waste."

         "You won't get away with this!"  he shouted 
instinctively, though he knew they were doomed.  

        Hotaru woke up at that and looked at Henry, her face a 
mask of horror.  "I'm sorry.  I managed to resist 
interrogation, but then they just used cybertechnology to 
download my mind and scanned through it for the info."  Her 
voice dipped a bit.  "I'd forgotten how much science has 
advanced as well as magic since the Miracle."

       The Time Orb, he thought.  Where is it?  He couldn't 
sense it near him.  "What have you done with the Time Orb?"

        A second robed figure, this one dressed in green, spoke 
with a male voice.  "We've stashed it for later study.  Quite a 
powerful item.  I wouldn't have thought you capable of it."  It 
was Dr. Watts, one of Henry's old enemies.  I never would 
have thought he'd stoop to human sacrifice, though, Henry 
thought.  

        "Certainly better than the tacky dime store trinkets you 
brought to the last conference, Alfred.  I suppose you'll try to 
pass it off as your own now.  I hope it malfunctions and sends 
your head to the future without you."   Henry stared at the 
third figure, trying to deduce who it was.  Whoever they 
were, they were quite tall, and wearing orange.

        Hotaru stared at them.  She laughed weakly.  "The Fates.  
How quaint.  They don't like to be mocked, you know."

        "The so-called Fates are nothing more than shapings 
formed by untrained mages' collective imaginations.  They 
have no power we have not given them."  Purple Robes said.  
"If we mock them, they cannot stop us."

        Hotaru muttered, "Those whom the Gods would destroy, 
they first make mad."

        Green Robes laughed.  "We haven't made you go mad 
yet, although you were mad to think you could stop us, just as 
those fools in the government were mad to think the weapons 
we have made will serve them.  Still, their money is quite 
useful."

        "You have submitted yourself to your own process,"  
Hotaru said.  It was not a question.

       Henry gazed at them.  She was right.  At least, he could 
tell they were enchanted.  He lacked much talent for analyzing 
auras without a lot of help from magical devices and manuals.  

        "Yes,"  Green Robes said.  

        Purple Robes said, "It is time."  The other two began to 
walk off down the angular hallways, while Purple Robes 
pulled the Time Orb out of a pocket.  "I must thank you for 
your contribution, Dr. Wise.  This will greatly strengthen the 
power of our experiment by giving us far more time in which 
to conduct it."  She got out a cellular phone.  "Is the subject 
ready?"  She listened to an answer only she could hear.  

        Dr. Wise looked at the lines on the floor.  Painted lines 
ran across it.  During his tour, he had been told they marked the lines
of the magnetic fields to guide the particles, but he recognized them for
what they were.  The accelerator was a giant hermetic circle, with a
summoning chamber in the middle.  Inside the double lines, those
performing the rite would be safe as long as nothing broke the line.  

        Purple Robes put away the cellular and began to chant.  
They could hear the two others chanting, and Hotaru and 
Henry could both feel the magical energies coursing through 
the hallway.  For a moment, Hotaru suddenly went taut, then 
relaxed, a grim expression on her face.  "Dr. Wise, are you 
familiar with the DeGrund experiment?"

        Why is she asking me about that right now?  He thought 
a moment.  "The one where they demonstrated how to seal off 
part of a person's memory so that nothing can find it?"

        "And it returns on a time delay or at a preset time."

         He nodded.

         "Well, now I know it works."  Suddenly, she snapped 
the ropes binding her.  Purple Robes, still holding up the Time 
Orb, stared at her.  "I only wish I'd done it AFTER I brought 
you into this, so they couldn't have found you in my head."  

          Purple Robes kept chanting;  the hallway was starting to 
darken as all the light in it was sucked into the Orb.  There 
was nothing she could do to stop her captives, for in a ritual 
such as this, any disruption would be disastrous.

        She didn't have to stop.  A few seconds later, some of 
the darkness formed itself into a human shape.  "I will stop 
her!"  It announced with a whiny voice.  It grabbed Hotaru 
before she could move any further, wrapping cords of 
darkness around her.  "Any last words, child?"

        "Yes."  Hotaru said.  "SATURN ETERNAL POWER!"  
Everyone except Purple Robes froze and stared at her as 
purple energy swirled around her, transforming her into 
Eternal Sailor Saturn.  As her wings formed, they shattered 
the black cords.  The Silence Glaive appeared in her hands, 
and she brought it down on the shadowman's head.  He 
quietly passed out.

         The glow that surrounded her and the glow from the 
Time Orb were the only lights left in the room.  Henry J. Wise 
stared in shock.  Mei'ou-san will die when she finds out about 
this, Henry thought.  The Silence Glaive swung around, 
slicing the ropes that bound Henry, then moving up to strike at 
the Orb in one fluid motion.

         The time spent untying Henry was just enough time for 
Purple Robes to dodge backwards, pressing up against the 
wall of the central chamber.  She finished her chant, and an 
unearthly scream cut through the chamber from the room just 
beyond the wall.  Howls and gibbering filled the air and the 
walls began to bulge outward.

        Purple Robes stared.  "What is this?"

        "You fool!  You have not summoned A spirit!  You've 
opened a HIGHWAY for them!"  Saturn's face was livid with 
rage.  "You thought you could use the powers of darkness, 
but those who truck with the powers that hunger for souls all 
eventualy feed that hunger!"

        Purple Robes tried to leap back into the protective ring, 
but she couldn't get through the inner circle, which stopped 
her as surely as a solid barrier.  The wall burst open and 
darkness swallowed up Purple Robes.  Saturn swore loudly 
and grabbed Henry J. Wise.  He shouted, "No!  My time 
orb!"

        "You wouldn't last two seconds against that thing!"

        The blackness surged and ebbed, trying to find a 
weakness in the Hermetic circle.  There were no weaknesses.  
Saturn said, "I've never studied these things...how long can 
this circle hold it?"

         "Theoretically, forever, but all it would take is a tiny 
dollop of paint to damage the circle and let it out.  Plus, if it is 
actually a gateway..."  He trailed off.

        "Go on?"

        "I don't want to give it any ideas.  The barrier doesn't 
stop sound."

        The voice echoed in their heads.  It sounded almost 
artificial, like a demonic speak and spell.  I WILL SCOURGE 
THIS WORLD.  YOU CANNOT STOP ME.

       "You won't get out!"  Saturn shouted.  "I'll guard this 
place until eternity passes away if I have to!"

        THAT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY.  The following 
laughter was strangely metallic and triumphant.

        "I will do what I have to!"

         DID YOU THINK THIS WAS THE ONLY PLACE 
WHERE FOOLS TRIED THIS EXPERIMENT?  I THINK 
THIS TIME...I'LL TRY AN ICE AGE.  OH, DR. WISE.  
THANKS FOR THE ORB.  MY CHILD WILL MAKE 
GOOD USE OF IT.  

         The Indian Summer of that age of Mankind came to an 
end.  It was time for Fall, and with Fall comes Winter, a 
winter that lasted nigh upon a thousand years.  But Winter is 
not the end of all things, for with Spring, the year, and life, 
are born anew. 

***********************

Black Moon Rising

Chapter 1:  Up from the wreckage

by John Biles

***********************

Earth, Ruins of Crystal Tokyo, SY 1532 (4524 AD, 5276 
Years after the founding of Rome, Juraian Year 24688, 
Federal Year 538)

        Arcadia N'goya walked down the street, which was 
thankfully clean of shards of crystal, unlike much of the ruins 
of the once great city of Crystal Tokyo.  It had been destroyed 
before she was born, for she was only sixteen and Crystal 
Tokyo had been laid waste by the last of the Usurpers, the so 
called 'Emperor Demand II', who had claimed to be the child 
of the legendary Queen Serenity I, and the equally legendary 
Emperor Demand of Earth.  Well, they weren't entirely 
legendary, but the stories that surrounded both of them were a 
complete crock, in Arcadia's opinion.  Ending an ice age in a 
single day.  Healing thousands with a word.  Inaugurating an 
age of peace and plenty in which none went hungry or sick.  
Demand as Serenity's secret lover.  Them falling out.  
Demand dueling Serenity to the death and swearing he would 
one day return to bring her down.  His followers taking him 
away to Avalon to be healed.  Yeah, right.  

         Arcadia had grown up rich, but she hadn't grown up in 
an ivory tower.  Even on Sirius, a rather wealthy world, you 
hadn't had to go very far from her neighborhood to find 
poverty and hunger.  She had studied history, and it was a 
trail of backstabbings and betrayals, murder, hatred and death.  
It didn't matter if you studied the history of the now collapsed 
Solar or Juraiian empires or the history of her homeland, the 
Federal League.  Lust, wealth, and power were what  drove 
human history.  It made her sick.

        She tossed her head, and long shoulder-length purple 
hair whipped about.  Arcadia was proud of her hair, but in the 
heat of summer, it got to be an annoyance at times, trapping 
heat and getting into her eyes.  Realizing she was falling 
behind, she sprinted ahead, being glad she was wearing pants 
and a shirt rather than the dresses that her mother constantly had 
tried to force on her.  She was an excellent runner, and both of 
the people she was following looked like they would have had 
trouble outrunning a dying cow.

        One of them, a tall portly man with an ugly, honest face 
turned and smiled at her.  "I hope you stay long enough for 
the Fall Races, Arcadia.  I think you'd win easily."  His name 
was  Makoto Gelbenwald, and he was Earth's greatest trader, 
although you wouldn't have guessed it from his rough wool 
clothing or the fact that he, his wife, and Arcadia were 
walking a mile and a half from the space port to the old 
Imperial Palace of the Solar Empire.  Once, the inhabitants of 
this palace had ruled one of the three greatest empires in the 
Galaxy.  Now, it was home to a cooperative of farmers, 
scholars, and traders.  It wasn't even the capital of Earth, to 
the extent that Earth had a capital.  That honor had fallen to the 
city of Sanctus Rei, in the middle of the continent once known 
as 'North America', but now commonly called simply the 
Granary.  It had been spared the damages of the Wars of 
Succession because it supplied 60% of the planet's food 
supply, and if that was devastated, the planet would have 
become uninhabitable.  

         Makoto's wife wasn't much prettier than he was, with a 
nose like a pig, and legs like tree trunks.  All in all, Arcadia 
thought she looked rather like a male body-builder without 
body hair.  She had the most beautiful hair that Arcadia had 
ever seen, though.  It was long and white, going down to just 
above her buttocks, and seemed to sparkle, as if it was made 
of crystal.  Rita didn't bother with makeup, but she lavished 
attention on her hair, and Arcadia would have almost given her 
right arm to learn how she made it sparkle like that.  Rita was 
carrying all their luggage, except for one bag that Makoto was 
hauling.  Arcadia had tried to carry her own, but Rita had 
insisted on it.  She was the strongest woman Arcadia had ever 
met.  Magically strong.  That was her talent.  All the people of 
Earth seemed to have some sort of innate magical ability now.  
Arcadia had briefly studied this phenomenon in her magical 
theory class.  Some worlds, like Earth, Juraii, Telmar, and 
Finis Astra were locuses of magical energy on the Galactic 
scale.  These worlds produced the strongest wielders of 
magic.  Those historians who accepted the old legends about 
the Crystal Millennium claimed this was the explanation for the 
wonders claimed about that period, but Arcadia couldn't buy 
it.  Rita and Makoto are rich, she thought, but they live worse 
off than many poor people on my homeworld.  They'd be rich 
if people on this world could pull the kind of stunts that people 
did all the time according to those legends.

       Rita smiled at Arcadia.  "I bet she'll win the Great 
Tournament as well.  You remember what happened to those 
people who tried to rob her on Barnard III, right?"

       Makoto laughed.  "They don't let you fight dirty in the 
Great Tournament, Rita.  That's why you've never won."  He 
jumped out of arm's reach, even though she had both arms 
full, so Arcadia slugged him instead.

       Makoto fell down, laughing.  "See?  She'll crush them."  
He turned to Arcadia as he got up.  "How did you learn to 
fight so well?"

       "I've always been a scrapper, and Dad had me trained 
after some people tried to hold my older brother for ransom.  I 
made black belt before I left home."  Arcadia was proud of her 
fighting skills too.  She could beat any two of her brothers and 
sisters at once, and they'd all been trained by the Sensei her 
father had hired.  I wonder if I'll ever see them again, she 
thought, and sighed.

       "What's wrong?"  Rita asked, her voice softer than its 
usual boisterous level.  "Missing your folks?"

       Arcadia jumped.  Sometimes she thought those two were 
psychic.  "Yeah.  But until I get those maniacs off my trail, I 
can't even think about going back."  Damn Black Moon 
Cultists, ranting about how I bear the mark of Serenity and 
have to be destroyed.  One day, I'll make them pay, she 
thought.

               *          *          *

         It had started on her sixteenth birthday.  She had gone to 
bed with dark black hair and woken up with purple hair.  
She'd grown to like it, despite the trouble it had brought her, 
but at the time, it had been a shock.  It had to be Sammy's 
fault, she had thought, so she kicked his ass before he finally 
managed to get out of his mouth that he didn't know what was 
going on.  He had shaved her head once, when they were both 
much younger after she had spray-painted his dog green, but 
that was only retaliation for him and his friends doing a 
dramatic performance of segments of her diary at her tenth 
birthday party.  Sammy was two years older than her, but he 
acted like he was half her age most of the time.   

       By the time school was over, she'd gotten over her anger.  
Most of her friends had actually liked the color, although it 
was so bright that it looked strange in contrast to her dark 
brown skin.  Almost everyone on Sirius had dark skin, dark 
hair, and dark eyes, so many dyed their hair or wore colored 
contacts simply to stand out, especially if they thought they 
were being rebellious.  

        Her birthday party had been when everything went to 
pieces.  Her boyfriend, Tony Pacarri had been in a bad mood, 
and she had been trying to get him to stop moping around and 
wrecking the party when there had been an explosion at the 
front gate and a skimmer full of people with black crescent 
moons on their foreheads had driven into the middle of the 
party and started to mow down all her friends and the family's 
servants.  Sammy had been cut in half by a monofilament 
whip.  Her aunt Traci had simply been run over.  Her parents 
had just gone into the house to get her presents or they would 
have died as well.  Tony died, throwing himself in front of a 
blast to save her.  

        That had been the final straw, along with seeing a second 
skimmer full of maniacs coming through the gate.  She had 
lost it completely, screaming so loudly that she was surprised 
her own eardrums hadn't burst.  Her screaming had been 
followed by an explosion that had flipped over the second 
skimmer and vaporized the first one.  She didn't know what 
had caused it, but the inhabitants of the second skimmer had 
come after her, and she had run, and run, and run.  

         The Black Moon cultists had seemed to have infinite 
resources and an uncanny knack for finding her.  She had fled 
world to world, spending her parent's money like water.  That 
was part of the problem.  Every time she made a credit 
transaction, she fired off a signal to anyone monitoring her 
family's accounts, but she had no other way to get money.  
The fact that money was still there was reassuring.  Accounts 
got closed if you died, which meant that at least one of her 
parents was alive.  

       Finally, on Altair II, she had successfully stowed away 
on a ship, Makoto and Rita's ship.  They had been 
sympathetic, and offered to hire her, so she could earn some 
money and stop having to send up financial 'kill me here' 
signals everywhere.  She had accepted.  They might be setting 
her up for something, but she was tired of running, tired of 
suspecting everyone would betray her, desperate to find 
somewhere to call home for a while.

                 *         *          *

       Makoto nodded.  "Well, they'll never find you here."  He 
shook his head.  "I'd always thought those people had all been 
killed after Demand was defeated.  I suppose we should have 
known they wouldn't all live on one planet to make it easy to 
find them."

        Rita sighed.  "Well, causing their sun to go nova wasn't 
exactly a good idea either."  She shuddered.  "No wonder they 
called Serenity XVIII the mad queen."

        Arcadia began to hear faint music coming from 
somewhere ahead.  "Is there a concert going on?  I hear really 
loud music."

        Rita smiled.  "The Imperial Palace sings at this hour, 
though not as beautifully as it once did.  It's some ancient 
spell, or maybe a property of the crystal it's made from."  She 
shrugged.  "Isn't it beautiful?"

        Arcadia listened to the music, closing her eyes as she 
walked.  It called her onwards, made her want to dance and 
sing, to become part of the music.  Words began to drift 
through her mind, a song she had never heard, but always 
known.  Her fingers worked, as if she was playing a 
keyboard, another of her talents.  Her oldest brother had been 
the really talented one, but she had enjoyed it greatly.  She 
tried to fix the notes in her mind.  

          Footsteps broke her reverie, and then the sound of 
luggage falling.  She panicked and moved immediately into a 
combat position.  I'm not safe, even hiding on one of 
humanity's pimples, she thought.  

       She was wrong.  A tall skinny woman with short white 
hair cut like a boy's was hugging Rita, who was blathering 
incoherently about strangling people who made her drop 
things.  Her hair sparkled like Rita's in the sun, and her skin 
was pale, far paler than Arcadia was used to.  She released her 
embrace  of Rita, then hugged Makoto, who laughed.  
"Marcus, you're getting to be as strong as your mother."

         Marcus, Arcadia thought.  Why would anyone give a 
girl a boy's name?  Marcus grinned at Makoto and said, with a 
boy's voice, "Mom will still boot me into the atmosphere 
when we get home, though."  Marcus stepped away from 
Makoto and Arcadia finally got a good look at him.  Marcus 
was clearly male, or else a rather skillful cross-dresser.  For 
one thing, he had facial hair, namely a rather feeble attempt at 
a mustache.  Still, with a little work, he probably could have 
passed as female.  He saw Arcadia, and his eyes widened like 
a viper had bitten him.  Or as if he had been handed a million 
Sirian Gorchmarks.  Or both.  "Uh...hi."  he said.

        Rita laughed loudly.  "Arcadia, this is my son, Marcus 
Gelbenwald.  Marcus, this is Arcadia Ritsalia Trebendal 
N'goya.  She is your father's new apprentice."

        Marcus cocked his head at his father, who nodded and 
winked.  Marcus blushed and babbled, "N...nice to 
beat..meet.  Meet you."

        Arcadia laughed.  Maybe he's smitten with my beauty.  
Tossing her hair for effect, she stepped forward and shook his 
hand.  He's not bad looking himself, she thought, even 
though he looks like he's been bathing in bleach.  He had 
orange eyes, she noticed, when she got close to him.  "Nice to 
meet you.  I promise I'll only beat you if you deserve it."

        Rita laughed, her usual loud guffaw that Arcadia kept 
expecting to cause some of the surrounding buildings to 
shatter.  They were worse damaged here than near the 
spaceport.  "I wouldn't be so sure.  Marcus won the Great 
Tournament in his age bracket last year.  He's flimsy as a 
stick, but he fights well."  She and Marcus finished picking up 
the dropped luggage and they started on their way.

         Arcadia listened quietly as they caught up on what had 
happened in their absence and discussed people she had never 
heard of.  Mostly, she just followed them and listened to the 
beautiful music.  She felt like she was melting, as if all the 
defenses she had built for herself were being destroyed by the 
notes, striking the barriers in her soul one by one.  

        They topped a rise and entered a huge plaza.  Unlike the 
rest of the city, the plaza had clearly been repaired, for it was 
undamaged in the midst of devastation.  It was perhaps a 
quarter mile in diameter, with five equally spaced broad 
boulevards leading away from it, and in the center of it stood a 
huge palace of crystal, reaching to the sky.  It too bore signs 
of clumsy repairs, for while the tallest towers were blackened 
and destroyed, the lower levels seemed far too intact, given 
that it had been carpetbombed along with the rest of the city 
during the last days of the Solar Empire. 

        For a moment, she could see it as it once had been, the 
seventh wonder of the Galaxy, a building that had reached 
thousands of feet into the sky, literally grown from crystal by 
magics of surpassing might.  She'd never really believed that, 
but seeing it, she knew it had to be true.  Either that, or it had 
somehow been carved from one giant hunk of crystal and 
transported there, which would have required carving out the 
heart of a mountain and moving it.  

        Her imagination restored the surrounding buildings to 
their splendor and filled them with people.  Vehicles, 
animals, humans, and aliens bustled through the streets.  And 
through it all was the beautiful music, the song that was the 
soul of Crystal Tokyo.  Sweet scents filled the air with the 
memory of her mother's perfume, of ripe fruit, of the 
fragrances she had worn on her first date with Tony.  That 
memory shattered her imaginings.  Tony had died.  She 
couldn't afford to love anyone.  It would only be a death 
sentence.  

         The world returned to her senses.  "I can hardly believe 
everyone in the city lives in the palace."

        "Everyone who lives in Crystal Tokyo proper is part of 
the Crystal Tokyo Combine, and the Palace is the most 
habitable part of the city.  Now, there's thousands of people 
living in what were once Crystal Tokyo's suburbs, but they 
never come into the Old City.  It's too spooky, I guess.  Plus, 
you have to wear these boots everywhere."  Makoto pointed at 
his feet, covered with thick leather boots.  "Too many crystal 
fragments everywhere outside the palace, and we hardly have 
time to sweep the entire city."

        Rita laughed.  "You know Hitomi would make us do it if 
she could."

       Marcus said, "While you were gone, she did send out 
some people to start clearing more of the streets of rubble.  
They were grumbling pretty loudly."  He grinned.  "Luckily, I 
was busy helping Professor Anderson, so I got out of it."

        "Professor Anderson?"  Arcadia asked.

       "She's the head of the research branch of the combine,"  
Makoto explained.  "I'm our chief trader, She's the chief 
researcher, Brian Bjornen is head of Security, and Hitomi 
Antwi is head of support services.  She keeps us fed, clean, 
and not in danger of running out of stuff we need."

         "So what exactly IS the Crystal Tokyo Combine, 
anyway?"  Arcadia asked.  Every time she asked, it seemed to 
do something else.  

        "We're sort of like a combined university, trading 
company, library, farm, and academy for the arts."  Marcus 
said.  "We started out when the capital moved to Sanctus Rei, 
and some traders saw the chance to basically scavenge Crystal 
Tokyo for goods, trinkets, historical items, etc, so they paid a 
ridiculous amount of money to the new Republic of Earth 
government to get a sort of 'palantine' control of the city.  
There wasn't much left worth stealing except the library and 
the old imperial records, so they rapidly sold out to a group of 
scholars, who formed the Combine.  We sell 'authentic Earth 
food' on other planets, print books of historical research, 
produce 'historical' films, and a lot of other things.  I think 
you'll like it here."

        The music began to fade now.  Makoto said, "Must be 
nearly three.  I need to remember to reset my watch."

        Arcadia said, "So what exactly am I going to be doing?"

        "Well, the first thing will be to test you for your magical 
aptitude.  After that, you're going to get to learn the arts and 
sciences of trading.  You're done CAR, haven't you?"  CAR 
was computer assisted research, one of the first things you 
learned in school how to do, right after you learned to read 
and type.  

        Arcadia laughed.  "I'm a bit older than five, you know."

        "Well, Marcus stinks at it.  He can play a flute to make a 
woman's heart break, but he seems to be allergic to 
computers."  Rita said.

       Marcus fumed slightly.  "I'm not that bad.  I only crashed 
the mainframe once."

        "Anyway, he didn't inherit my knack for making 
machines do my bidding,"  Makoto said.  "I'm looking at 
expanding into the Bismollian market.  I know they'll eat 
anything, but I need a good market report.  So that will be 
your first task."

        Arcadia was stunned.  This was the sort of thing you 
normally went to college before you started doing.  He met me 
twenty days ago and he's going to trust me to do this?  Maybe 
he's dumber than he looks.  Of course, he can trust me to do 
my best, she thought, but he has no way of knowing that.  
"I...I'll do my best."  She paused.  "My magical aptitude is 
earth, by the way, but I'm not very good at magic.  I was 
hoping to be a professional athlete, anyway, and they banned 
magic use in that."  Not many Sirians were good at magic.  
Sirius was a low-mana world, and most Sirians couldn't do 
much more than make small palm flames or move a wrench 
across the shop to their hand.  The height of Arcadia's abilities 
had been to shatter bricks, and she knew some of that was 
actually her martial arts abilities.  

        Rita smiled at her.  "I'm sure you will.  You seem like 
the sort of person who throws her all into whatever she does." 

        Arcadia nodded.  Everyone was meant to do something, 
and you had to give that something your all.  She had no clue 
what she was meant to do, though.

                   *         *          *
 
       A month later, Arcadia had gained a higher appreciation of 
the difference between a low-mana and high-mana world.  On 
Sirus, she couldn't break anything larger than a brick.  On 
Earth, she could shatter boulders and mold rock like clay.  A 
crude unicorn sat on her desk, a reminder that being able to 
mold marble didn't mean you actually had the skill to make 
something that looked very good.  She didn't care, for she had 
always loved unicorns.  

        Right now, she wasn't using any magic, although she 
was studying it.  Her computer's holo-projector was 
displaying the Solar arm of the Milky Way galaxy, overlaid 
with data from F'ekre'FDID'i's Survey of Planetary ley lines.  
Dozens of them intersected at Earth.  Using the surviving past 
editions of the survey, she ran the galaxy backwards through 
time.  It was easy with the sophisticated computers they had 
here.  She wondered again how the Combine, which wasn't 
too rich as far as she could tell, had managed to get such 
powerful computers.  

          Some of the leylines moved, while others did not.  
Certain planets seemed linked in a stable fashion, while others 
crept through space.  Five hundred years ago, 200 hundred 
leylines connected to Earth.  She stared at the floating stars 
and purple lines connecting them or weaving between them.  
There wasn't a world in the galaxy with 200 leylines now.  

         She punched a button and sent it five hundred years 
further back, to the middle of the Crystal Millennium.  Leylines 
flickered in and out of existence as time 'passed'.  Many of the 
older copies of the survey were damaged.  Earth was 
surrounded by an almost solid purple region of space.  A 
keyboard stroke brought up the number of leylines.  Five 
hundred.  

         Her jaw dropped.  That was impossible.  Dozens of 
them, as many as were now connected to Earth in the present, 
ran off towards Juraiian space, far off in the next spiral arm.  
More keystrokes ran the hologram further backwards in time.  
A river of leylines stretching to the galactic core grew into 
existence.  Six hundred leylines.  Seven hundred.  Eight 
hundred.  The region of practically purple space grew, 
engulfing the stars closest to Earth.  Nine hundred.  If I can 
blow up a boulder with 48 leylines, she thought, I could blow 
up a mountain with nine hundred feeding power into this 
planet.  And I'm no hot stuff as magic goes.  The picture froze 
in the year 100 SY, the year of the first edition of the Guide.  
1000 leylines.

         Why didn't they teach us this in school?, she wondered.  
What could have caused this?  Maybe they did destroy an 
entire moon in Serenity's wars.  She shuddered.  The potential 
for destruction with that much magic was almost limitless.  
We're better off without that much power, she thought.  "I 
can't believe anyone hasn't figured this out," she muttered to 
herself.  Maybe I could write up a paper and publish it.  I bet 
I'd make quite a name for myself.

        "Most historians consider the editions before around 
1100 SY when the Finis Astra Encyclopedia Company took 
over publishing the Guide to be unreliable,"  Marcus said from 
the doorway.  He was carrying a bouquet of white roses in 
one hand, and something tiny he was clutching tightly in the 
other hand.  Walking over to Arcadia, he continued, "Most 
historians argue from Duke Rossi's correspondence that he 
faked the records before 856 SY after the Great Fire destroyed 
a quarter of the Imperial library."

        "But you don't believe that,"  she said.  She had learned 
that when Marcus said, 'most historians', it usually meant he 
was about to assert they were all smoking Ilya leaves.  If he 
actually agreed, they became 'reputable historians'.

        Marcus laughed.  "I think you're as psychic as my 
parents."  He popped the flowers into an empty vase sitting on 
the side table by Arcadia's bed.  "These are for you.  I got 
hauled out to some of the farms, today, and I thought you'd 
like these."

        She smiled, and sighed mentally.  He likes me, she 
thought, and I like him, but I can't afford to get too close to 
anyone.  Not with those nuts still hunting me.  Maybe in a few 
years when they give up.  "If that's a wedding ring in your 
other hand, I'll throw you out the window again."  

        Marcus laughed and held it out to her.  It was a small, 
ornate, fluted golden key, hanging from a red ribbon.  
"Someone turned this up with a shovel.  I thought you might 
like it."  It had to be incredibly old.  Even beggars could do 
better than a mechanical lock.  

        She took it and felt a faint thrill.  It was magical, she 
realized.  "I think it's enchanted."

        "Don't let any of the researchers see it, then.  It'll never 
be heard from again."  Marcus laughed and looked at the 
hologram of the stars.  "Anyway, Dr. Anderson argues that 
Duke Rossi actually played down the number of leylines in 
this arm of the galaxy in the earlier years of the Crystal 
Millennium."

        Arcadia's head swam.  DOWNPLAYED?  There couldn't 
have possibly been more.  "..."

       He laughed.  "I did that too.  Apparently, they found 
someone's research on Barnard III, dating from SY 220, and 
there were over a thousand leylines leading to the 20 light year 
sphere around Earth at that time, where Rossi only identifies 
856.  The reason it survived was that the guy who did it went 
on to found a university there and they preserved his papers.  
Anyway, this world was once so fat with magical energy that 
people probably cast spells in their sleep."  He sat down on 
the corner of the desk and whipped out his flute from 
wherever he hid it.  His main magical aptitude was water, but 
he also had a knack for pulling his flute out of nowhere.  "And 
Crystal Tokyo was one of the seven most powerful nodes of 
magic upon the world.  Sanctus Rei sits on another one of 
them, but I can't ever remember the other five.  Would you 
like some music to research by?"

       Arcadia laughed.  "If I said no, you wouldn't go away, 
anyway."

       "M'lady is indeed wise in the ways of the world."  He 
began to play the same haunting tune the building itself played 
from two to three in the afternoon.  Arcadia closed her eyes 
and listened.  He didn't play for an hour, though.

                *           *            *

      That night, Arcadia was woken up by two clumsy people 
trying to sneak into her room. She instinctively rolled out of 
bed to the floor, even though she thought it was probably just 
Peter playing another prank, like the time he had put frogs in 
her bed.  Peter was another one of the teenagers, the son of 
Dr. Anderson.  

      When her bed got two holes punched through it by energy 
beams, she discarded that theory.  Her pants were on the floor 
where she had landed, and she grabbed them.  She was only 
wearing a shirt and panties, and she didn't want to run for her 
life like that.  Good thing I was too cold to sleep naked 
tonight, she thought.  Poking her head around the corner, she 
called upon her magical talent to crush the rods they were 
carrying, then jump kicked one of them, hit the floor, rolled, 
leapt to her feet and ran.  There were more of them in the 
hallway, but they weren't very alert.  She sent two of them 
flying with well placed kicks and fled around the corner, still 
carrying her pants.  

        The other reason for taking them was the flash grenade in 
her pocket, which she had picked up on Dilber XI.  She 
tossed it behind herself and ducked into another hallway, 
quickly pulling on her pants.  Turning, she came face to face 
with five more of the maniacs.  How did so many of these 
fruitcakes get in here?  She heard explosions and shouts 
elsewhere in the building. All five of the cultists were women 
with dark green hair tied back in a pony-tail, though their faces 
were quite different.  One of them was holding a NS whip.  A 
single touch would scramble your nervous system, inducing 
paralysis, agony, or death.  "Give us the key, and we'll let 
you live."

        "Like you let my brother live?  I'd rather die!"  She 
couldn't fight them, but at least she would die defiantly.  "I 
don't know why you maniacs have been chasing me or why 
you killed everyone at my birthday party, but I..."

       The whip-carrier cocked her head.  "What in the Nine 
Worlds are you talking about?  I don't even know what your 
name is, but this...," she said as she held up a small conical 
energy scanner, "indicates you either have the Time Key or 
you yourself are a temporal vortex.  Given that you should be 
rapidly aging or youthening, or SOMETHING if the latter was 
the case, you must have the key."

       She thought for a moment.  They don't know who I am?  
Is this why they've been chasing me or...She remembered the 
key that Marcus had given her.  It glittered in the light as she 
pulled it out and stared at it.  All of the Time Keys had 
supposedly been destroyed by Sailor Pluto...if they had ever 
really existed.  "What, this thing?  It was under a stump in 
someone's wheatfield."

        The woman's eyes glittered.  "Yes!  With this, we can 
travel to the past and save Nemesis from destruction!  We can 
bring down our enemies!  Five decades of searching have 
finally paid off.  Give it to us."  She raised the whip.  "Now."

       There was no way it could be a time key, but she couldn't 
let them have it, no matter how suicidal trying to fight them all 
was.  Time to see if I'm still ready to champion the track team, 
she thought.  She spun without bothering to answer and 
started to run.

       Sadly, Arcadia had not been aware that a NS whip can 
extend up to a hundred feet.  She only got back to the main 
hallway before the most excruciating agony of her entire life 
turned her muscles to jello and sent her toppling to the floor.  
Her visual nerves fired as well, and the world became a 
psychedelic sea of swirling colors.  She tasted sulphur and 
sugar mixed into a not very tasty 'treat'.  A cacophony of 
sound assaulted her ears.  Her sense of balance went haywire, 
and as she fell, her last conscious thought was that it was 
taking far too long to fall a few feet to the ground.

                     ********************

        She woke up, her stomach churning.  The Time Key, if 
that was what it was, was clutched in her hand.  Two men and 
two women were talking to each other in oddly accented Solar 
Standard.  "Anyway, so then the Empress hugged him so 
tightly he nearly had a heart attack and started babbling about 
cute kitties.  You'd think the Kzinti Empress wouldn't be such 
a fluffhead about cats when she is one, but..."  That was a 
woman's voice.

       "Well, humans act the same about monkeys and gorillas 
and orangutans and the like sometimes.  You remember all 
those goofy movies like 'Going Ape' don't you?"  One of the 
men said.  

         The second man made gagging noises.  "It took a 
thousand years, but I had forgotten that.  Now you had to 
remind me."

         The second woman laughed, her voice soft and pleasant.  
"I believe we found a copy of that which survived the..."

         The second man howled.  "NO!!!!!"

          Arcadia contemplated opening her eyes, but was afraid 
of a return to psychedelia.  Her stomach was churning, and 
the ground was rocking.  She heard slapping noises, like 
something striking water.  We're in a rowboat?  How do these 
people expect to escape with me in a rowboat?  The Combine 
has three motorboats, for one thing.  Unless they sabotaged 
them.  She feigned unconsciousness so she could try to learn 
their plans.

        The first woman laughed.  "Please tell me you're 
joking."

        The second woman said, "I kid you not.  Somebody 
buried some really BAD movies in a time capsule that was 
found in the ruins of Chicago.  It had 'Bring me the Head of 
Charlie Brown', 'Fried Green Potatoes', and 'Highlander 2', 
among other things."

        Everyone except the second woman let out a yelp of pain.

        Arcadia wondered if she had been kidnapped by escaped 
lunatics.  The Black Moon cult breaks into my home, kidnaps 
me and this key, then I get given to four people who are 
discussing bad movies and seem to have decided to try to 
escape by rowing across the Sea of Peace.  Maybe this is all a 
nightmare, or Peter drugged me for a joke and I'm imagining 
this.

        "I bet that if the Queen tried to purify those tapes, they'd 
evaporate away into nothingness."  The first man said.

        "I bet even the Silver Crystal couldn't help them."  The 
first woman said, laughing.  

        The Silver Crystal?  Another legend, Arcadia thought.  
It's been missing since a little after SY 1000 and no one had 
used it in hundreds of years, assuming it had ever possessed 
any powers.  Who were these whackos?

       "I think our guest has woken up,"  the second man said.  
"Hello, Arcadia.  Don't worry.  Even with Minako rowing, 
we probably won't sink."

        She heard a loud thwap.  "Hey!"  The first woman, who 
seemed to be named Minako said, "I have never sunk a boat!"

        "That you didn't get on,"  the second man said, laughing.  

        Arcadia opened her eyes.  A dark haired man wearing a 
nice black suit with a blue tie was sitting on the aft bench with 
a blonde haired woman in a yellow dress that kept trying to 
slide off her shoulders.  She was very wet and had hair down 
to her mid-back. Her arms were well-muscled, and she was 
rowing slowly.   The fore bench held a man who was rowing 
faster than her, though he looked fairly flimsy in comparison.  
His hair was short and black, his eyes dark.  A woman with 
equally short, but differently styled blue-black hair sat next to 
him.  She was wearing a blue blouse and dark blue denim 
jeans, while he was wearing a green t-shirt with some 
unintelligible logo on it and light blue denim jeans.  Arcadia 
took a moment to wonder why one pair was dressed for a 
formal ball and the other pair looked ready to play soccer or 
something like that.  

         The taller dark-haired man spoke again.  "I'm Steven, 
Arcadia, and this is my wife, Minako."  He pointed to the 
rowing woman, who nodded and smiled.  He pointed at the 
other couple.  "This is Ryo and Ami."  He paused.  "Hmm.  
You look seasick."

        She felt seasick.  For some reason, she could drive a 
skimmer at 200 MPH and feel fine, but boats made her sick up 
in seconds.  She sat up and promptly threw up over the side.  
"Bleah. So you people DO know who I am."  Sitting back 
down, she said, "Bunch of liars."

        Ami blinked.  "When did we say we didn't know who 
you were?"

        Arcadia said, "Not you four.  The pony-tail brigade with 
the NS whip."  She winced.  No wonder my seasickness is 
worse than usual.  Her whole body ached as if she had been 
exercising for many days without stopping.  

         The four people looked at each other confused.  Finally, 
Ami said, "Pony-tail brigade with what kind of whip?"

        "An NS whip."  They looked at her as if she had claimed 
someone had assaulted her with cellophane.  "Don't tell me 
you don't know what one is."

        "Okay, I won't,"  Minako said.  "So what's a NS whip?"

        "It makes every nerve in your body fire at once.  Or 
something like that.  Hurts like hell."  She suddenly realized 
they hadn't even bothered to restrain her.  Looking around the 
boat, open sea surrounded her on three sides, but to the west, 
she saw a beautiful city of crystal, with mountains rising 
beyond it.  One of them was a huge mountain of red crystal.  
She knew that mountain.  That's Crystal Tokyo, she thought.  
But it's not a ruin.  What's going on?  "Where am I?"

         "Just off shore of  Crystal Tokyo.  You plummeted from 
the sky, and Minako caught you,"  Steven said.  "I take it you 
didn't exactly plan this trip?"

         "I what?"

          "I'll tell you what happened,"  Minako said.

           *                 *              *

Earth,  Crystal Tokyo, SY 68 (3060 AD, 3811 Years after the 
founding of Rome, Juraian Year 23224, Federal Year -926)


       Minako and her husband were sharing a quiet moment in 
the gardens that day.  To be more precise, they were kissing 
under a tall tree with golden leaves, while sitting on a marble 
bench.  The air was sweet with the fragrance of flowers, 
thousands of which ran in beds alongside the crystal paths 
through the royal gardens.  They had just gotten back from a 
diplomatic mission to the Kzinti empire, which had been a 
grand triumph for Minako.  She had always loved cats, and 
they loved her.  Bringing along Artemis had been the real key, 
though, she had to admit.  Not only had his usual antics kept 
the Kzinti Emperor in a good mood, having a being similar to 
themselves among the delegation to their world had made them 
more open to her proposals.  Artemis was off with Luna 
somewhere, probably getting in a fight about why he didn't 
call her more often during the mission.  Minako giggled, 
which got her tongue accidentally bitten by Steven.  

        "Sorry about that, dear," he said.  He pulled the 
shoulders of her dress back up.  The dress was really too wide 
and kept trying to slide off her shoulders.  He suspected that 
might be the idea, though.  

        "We've been so busy, we haven't gotten to do anything 
romantic for months,"  she said.  "Let's go boating."  She 
stood up, as did he, taking her hand as they walked across the 
gardens together.  

        They got all the way across town to the docks without 
anything bad happening to them.  Urawa and Ami were there, 
having apparently gotten the same idea.  Urawa said, "I got a 
boat for four."

       Steven laughed.  "I think I'm going to have you plan our 
next vacation.  That way, nothing unexpected would happen."

        Urawa was a powerful precognitive, able to see a few 
seconds into the future all the time, and subject to periodic 
visions further into the future, which he could not control.  
Oddly, his visions were usually more reliable than his future 
sight.  The Elder Pluto simply smiled when asked why, and 
the Junior Pluto was utterly clueless as to why this was the 
case, since their own powers worked opposite to this.  His eyes 
suddenly widened and he shouted, "HEADS UP!"  Grabbing 
Ami, he jumped away from the edge of the dock, just as a 
scream ripped through the air from above.  "Catch her, Mina-
chan!"

         Steven looked up, and Minako was already in 
movement, leaping high into the air to catch the purple haired 
girl who was falling from the sky and shouting as if she was 
being tortured to death.  Her name was Arcadia N'goya, he 
realized.  Where Urawa saw the future, Steven saw the 
present.  He saw things as they really were and knew them.  If 
he looked at the dock long enough, he could have told you its 
chemical composition and found every flaw in its 
construction.  The girl had a lot of magical potential, he could 
tell, far stronger than himself.  Other than his special talent and 
divination magic, he could only manage minor feats of magic 
despite years of study with highly adept magi like the Sailor 
Senshi.  

       He also saw something that Minako hadn't thought about.  
The arc of her current movement was going to dump her 
several hundred feet out into the ocean.  "Let me guess.  You 
saw she was going to land in the ocean, but you knew it was 
inevitable."

       Urawa laughed.  "You know me too well."

        Ami sighed.  "Is she going to need help?"  She asked her 
husband.

       He stared off at Minako, who was now screaming herself 
as she plummeted.  "No, she'll be fine, but she's going to 
kick my butt."  Most people would have run, but Urawa knew 
it was destiny, and he couldn't escape it.

        Steven wasn't so sure of that.  After all, if the future 
couldn't be changed, what would have happened if Urawa had 
just kept quiet after his vision?  Minako wouldn't have reacted 
fast enough to catch the girl.  He wasn't going to argue, 
though, because Urawa was stubborn as stone on this issue.

        Ami ran to the end of the dock, with Urawa following 
more slowly and Steven half-jogging.  "You okay, Mina-
chan?"  he asked.

        She was bedraggled, and her dress was now on the verge 
of sliding off her body completely, but she had a firm grip on 
the unconscious girl as she reached the edge of the dock.  
Steven and Ami pulled her up.  Ami said, "She doesn't look 
hurt."

       Steven gave her a hard look.  "No physical damage except 
a few bruises, but her nervous system is going haywire for no 
particular reason."

        "Organic problem or artificial?"  Ami asked.  Steven 
could tell you what was wrong, but she was the one who 
knew how to fix it afterwards.  

       "Artificial.  Pretty much, all of her senses are firing at 
once like crazy.  Including her pain sense.  I think she finally 
clonked out simply because it was the only way to deal with 
it."  He reached over and pulled up Minako's dress onto her 
shoulders again.  
  
       Ami pulled out her computer and ran a quick scan.  "The 
effects are already fading.  She should be fine in a few 
minutes.  "I wonder if she likes boating."

       Minako glanced over at Steven, who frowned.  "You 
know I don't like to do that without people's permission.  It's 
rude."  He could find out almost anything that existed as a 
state in the present about someone, given enough time, but he 
almost never did it unless he had to.  It made him intensely 
uncomfortable, and he didn't think probing someone like that 
was moral.  He had done it a few times, anyway, but certainly 
never for anything this petty.  Minako didn't seem to quite 
understand that.

       She shrugged.  "Everyone likes boating.  We can just take 
her with us."

                *                 *              *

        Arcadia felt her stomach prepare to empty itself again.  "I 
hate boating.  Excuse me while I throw up again."

        Ami reached into a pocket and pulled out a small bottle 
and passed Arcadia a pill.  "Take this."

        Arcadia swallowed it, and her stomach instantly settled.  
She blinked.  "What was that?"

        "Snake oil."  Steven said.  Minako bopped him on the 
head.  

        "Seasickness antidote.  I get seasick too, so I invented 
those."  Ami smiled.  

       "But...it was so fast!"

        Ami nodded.  "You don't want to throw up first, THEN 
get better."

       It didn't really answer her question, but it made sense.  
"So what year is this?"  This must be some kind of trick, she 
thought, but why would they bother?  Unless maybe this is a 
Sim, and my real body is lying somewhere being 
experimented on.  She decided to not pursue that option, since 
she couldn't do anything about it.

      Ami blinked.  "Juraiian Year 23224 or Serenity Year 68, 
depending on which calendar you use.  3,811 years after the 
founding of Rome.  Atomic year 1115.  Let's see, by the 
Kzinti calendar, it would be..."

       Urawa said, "I don't think she uses the Kzinti calendar, 
Ami-chan."

       Arcadia did the math in her head.  She had travelled 1464 
or so years through time if they weren't insane or lying.  
Surely, if this was a trick, they'd choose something plausible.  
She stared at the key in her hand.  Unless this is real.

        Minako visibly jumped and her dress started to slide 
down again.  "Pluto gave you a Time Key?"

       Ami said quietly, with a compassionate voice.  "Did a 
woman with dark green hair give you that?  Are you from 
another time?"

       "Marcus gave it to me."  I hope he's okay, she thought.  
"He has sparkly white hair, and he's not female."  She 
pocketed it.  "This can't be SY 68!  It's not possible!"  Maybe 
I've gone insane, she thought.  

       "What year should it be?"  Minako asked, continuing to 
row with a steady rythym as Steven pulled her dress up again.  
Ryo kept rowing, while Ami got out her computer and started 
typing.  A visor appeared on her head with a tiny screen that 
she periodically looked at.  

       "Serenity Year 1532.  I was in what was left of Crystal 
Tokyo, but..."  She trailed off.  This can't be real.  I'm going 
to start dreaming about meeting Saint Rei or something.  

        All four of them frowned in unison.  Minako said, "What 
happened to Crystal Tokyo?"

        "Demand the II bombed it to tiny bits a little over fifty 
years ago.  Serenity XVIII somehow escaped and managed to 
tow a N5 bomb into his home system and caused its sun to go 
nova, wiping him out and most of the Black Moon Cult.  Two 
days later, her head exploded for reasons 'never clearly 
explained' as Dr. Anderson would put it.  The last remnants of 
the Solar Empire collapsed or joined the Federal League after 
that.  Serenity XIX tried to take the throne, but the new Solar 
Republic government exiled her to Deimos.  I think she's still 
there.  She may actually be of Serenity's bloodline.  They all 
live a long time, I've heard.  Twenty years ago, Earth joined the 
Federal League and just about all of the worlds that had held 
out thirty years earlier joined us."  She stared at the city.  You're 
supposed to be a ruins!  "Enough history."  A faint tune began 
to drift out from the city, echoing across the waters.  The 
palace was singing.  She shivered.  "It's two o'clock?"

       Ryo nodded.  "Yeah.  The palace always sings from two 
to three."  He paused.  "So it still sings over a thousand years 
from now?"

       Arcadia listened.  The tune was exactly the same.  The 
pain in her body faded away in seconds, as if it had never 
been.  Her worries diminished, replaced by a sense of hope.  
The song always did this for her, but never this powerfully 
before.  She could sense the power it bore.  It was magic.  For 
the first time since her arrival, she smiled.  "Well, I suppose I 
should be getting home.  My fam...my friends will be 
wondering what happened to me.  Not that it isn't nice 
meeting you, but I don't belong here."

       "I doubt it will be that easy,"  Ryo said.  "Pluto doesn't 
just hand those things out for fun.  She probably will want 
you to do something before you go home."

        Arcadia frowned.  All the stories about Pluto agreed only 
on one thing.  She would use anyone and anything to 
accomplish her purposes, and you never knew for sure what 
those were.  "I didn't ask to come here."

        Ami said, "I will take you to see Pluto.  If she won't 
help, I will do my best to return you to your own time."  She 
paused.  "To use the Time Key, you just hold it up and tell it 
where you want to go.  You could try that right now.  It might 
work."
       
        Ryo shook his head no, but no one noticed but Arcadia.  
She held up the Key and concentrated.  For a moment, she felt 
energies building up, but then nothing happened.  The 
energies drained away.  "I think the battery's gone dead."  She 
looked at Ryo.  "Why were you shaking your head?"

       "I knew it wouldn't work."

       "You could have told me and saved some time."

       "You would have ignored me and tried anyway.  Better to 
let you try and save my breath."  He shrugged.  "Should I 
start steering for shore so you can take her to see Pluto, Ami-
chan?"

        "How do you know Pluto, anyway?  Isn't she like one of 
the rulers of the city?"  I wanted to ask why two of them had 
gone boating in formal clothing, too.

       Minako grinned.  "We break legs for the Yakuza.  She's 
got HEAVY gambling debts and..."

       Steven lightly rapped her skull.  "Let's not fill her head 
with one of your silly stories, dear."

       "She's Sailor Venus and I'm Sailor Mercury, Arcadia-
chan."  Ami said.

       No way, Arcadia thought.  This has to be a dream.  
Minako's husband is gonna announce he's the Easter Bunny 
and Ryo will be the Hogfather, next.  "You don't ...look like 
all powerful warriors."

       "I wouldn't say we're all powerful."  Ami said.

       "Pluto does a good job of seeming to be all-present, 
though,"  Minako said.  "Or maybe just all-obnoxious."

       "Actually, she's been very nice lately," Ami said.  "And 
she was never obnoxious.  She just never told us anything."

        Arcadia couldn't believe anyone sane would talk about 
the legendary Pluto like that.  Maybe the stories were 
exaggerated, she thought.  "Well, let's go.  I have to get back 
and find out what was going on when I came here."

                *              *           *

       Arcadia let out a yell of pure pleasure as they zoomed over 
the streets of Crystal Tokyo.  She liked flying even more than 
she liked running or driving at ridiculous speeds.  Everyone 
except her and Minako, who had somehow browbeaten the 
others into letting her drive the skimmer, was screaming at the 
top of their lungs.  Well, Arcadia was screaming too, but it 
was because she enjoyed it, while she was fairly certain the 
others were simply scared.  What surprised her was that the 
skimmer looked much like the ones used in her own time.  I 
suppose there's only so many improvements you can make in 
something as simple as a skimmer.  Skimmers usually 
couldn't fly this high, however.  They were traveling about a 
hundred feet over the rooftops, and most skimmers couldn't 
get more than thirty to fifty feet off the ground.  "So how fast 
does this thing go?"

        Steven shouted, "No!  Don't ask her that!"

        Minako grinned.  "I don't know.  Let's find out."

        Ami simply hid her face in Ryo's chest.  Arcadia could 
hear them both praying.  Steven started pulling his hair.  The 
skimmer accelerated, faster and faster.  The Palace, which had 
been miles away, was now closing in at high speed.  Minako 
cackled and the skimmer dodged to one side, arcing around 
the palace like a space ship slingshoting itself through a 
gravity well.  The entire palace chimed a series of notes that 
echoed across the city, as many of the buildings picked up the 
tune and rang faintly.  "One of these days, I'm going to figure 
out how to play some songs I know by doing that," Minako 
sagely announced.  

        "One of these days, I'm going to convince the Queen to 
forbid you to ever drive again,"  Steven moaned.  

       In the time it had taken to say that, they were halfway 
across the city.  Arcadia said, "I thought we were going to the 
palace."

        "I have to slow down before we can land, and I don't 
want to slow down until we see how fast this thing is,"  
Minako said.  They were still speeding up.  Rice fields blurred 
by under them as they zoomed across open countryside.  
Arcadia looked at the speedometer.  800 KPH.  

       "We're going 800 KPH?  In a SKIMMER?"

        Minako laughed.  "Not bad, eh?  I guess I ought to turn 
around before we end up running out of land and plummet 
into the ocean."

        "You could say that."  Ryo mumbled.

       She roared around in a vast arc and headed back.  The 
fields seemed remarkably empty of people, Arcadia noticed.  
Dozens of miles of rice paddies, and only ten or twenty people 
that she had seen.  Most of them were chasing their hats from 
the first pass.  "Why are there so few people in the fields?  Is 
today a holiday?"  She would have guessed they were farms 
operated largely by robots, but there weren't any robots, 
either.

        Ami finally dared to look up.  "An average farm family of 
five can meet the needs of a hundred square kilometers of farm 
with about two hours of labor a day.  What you're seeing right 
now are the people who either didn't feel like getting up early, 
or had things to do in the morning.  Or they may have an 
exceptionally large farm and actually need to work on the farm 
longer than two hours.  And some people are perfectionists, of 
course."

        Arcadia boggled.  "Two hours a DAY?"  Even with the 
best equipment, unless you had robots to do the work for you, 
farmers had to work a lot longer than that a day for a farm that 
big.  For that matter, most people didn't HAVE farms that big 
except for corporate farms.  

       "The less adept farmers might take three to four hours, 
but most people don't do farming if they don't have a natural 
aptitude for it."  Ami said.  

       If you only have to work two hours a day as a farmer, 
I'm surprised everyone doesn't go into farming, she thought.  
"So how long does everyone else work?"

       Ami said, "It depends on how you define work.  Most 
people can meet their basic needs for the day in about two 
hours, but the average person usually spends longer than that 
in some sort of productive activity, whether it be making 
luxury items, research, practicing song, dance, or art, writing, 
or whatever.  That's very variable.  Some people might spend 
ten hours or more at that, while others might only spend a few 
hours at it."

       Arcadia boggled some more.  Meet your needs in two 
hours?  No way.  It wasn't possible, and if it was, people 
would just laze around all day, goofing off.  Sort of like what 
these four were doing when she met them.  Maybe that was it.  
If everyone lived like nobles, they'd all have to be as lazy as 
most nobles were.

       They zoomed into the city's airspace again.  Two dark 
blue skimmers with a yellow crescent moon painted on the 
sides rose out of the streets and closed in on them.   Steven 
laughed.  "So how close to losing your driver's license are 
you, Mina-chan?"

       Minako grumbled.  "I was just trying to show Arcadia 
how fast this could go."

       The two blue skimmers, each manned by a man and a 
woman in dark blue uniforms with white hats emblazoned 
with the same yellow crescent moon as the skimmer, pulled up 
alongside the group's skimmer.  The one on Minako's side 
was being driven by a woman.  Her male partner said, "We 
clocked you going more than FIVE TIMES the speed limit 
inside the city, and only God knows how fast you were going 
over the countryside."  He was holding a clipboard with what 
Arcadia recognized as almost certainly a traffic ticket.

       He paused, staring at Minako.  "You look familiar."

       Minako said, "Maybe you've seen me on Holovision."  
She pulled out a small card, which projected a tiny rotating 
picture of herself in somewhat more casual garb, and handed it 
to the officer.  "I'm Mina Harker."

       One of the officers in the other vehicle said, "Hey, I went 
to your last concert!  It was great!"  

       They all started babbling about how wonderful a singer 
she was, and Minako clearly drank it all in like a child eats 
candy.  She signed autographs for all of them.  Finally, the 
officer with the clipboard said, "Your fine is 2000 Marks, due 
in one month."  Minako's jaw dropped.

       Arcadia whispered to Ami, "Um, how much money is 
that?"

      Ami whispered back, "Minako makes more than that for 
just showing up at one of her concerts, but the average person 
can earn 2-5 marks an hour through work, depending on what 
they're doing.  One common way to pay fines is through 
public service of some kind, which is paid at 4 Marks an hour.  
The average speeding ticket is more like 20-50 Marks, 
though."

       "But...but...I wasn't going that fast!"  Minako whined.

       The female officer in the vehicle on the right side of the 
skimmer punched a few keys on the keyboard in her skimmer.  
"Actually, you've broken the previous record for worst 
speeding.  However, the K'kklith ambassador had diplomatic 
immunity, so he got off easy."  

       Minako sighed and signed the ticket.  Arcadia was rather 
surprised.  No one in Sirius' government ever paid speeding 
tickets.  One of her hometown's city councilmen had 12,000 
Sirian Dollars in unpaid tickets when he left office.  "Go in 
peace, officers," she sighed, then slowly began to drive 
towards the palace again.  The two patrol skimmers dropped 
down to street level and zoomed off. 

       "You're actually going to pay that?"  Arcadia asked 
dubiously.  "Or is this going to file 13?"

        "No one is above the law,"  Minako grumbled.  "Even if 
they were just trying to be helpful.  This never happens to 
Haruka.  Hmph."  

        They're probably just saying that to look good, Arcadia 
thought.  I mean, even Councilman Estevan never publicly 
proclaimed he didn't pay his tickets.  Rulers always put 
themselves above the law.  Power corrupts, yatta yatta yatta.  
"So is your name Minako or Mina?"

       "Mina Harker is my stage name, and the name I use when 
I don't want to be recognized as Sailor Venus,"  she said.  
"She's starting to become as much of a celebrity as Sailor 
Venus is, though, so I may have to come up with another 
one."

       Steven lightly noogied Minako.  "Becoming an idol singer 
kinda does that, you know."

       Minako curved around the palace more slowly this time, 
settling down in a large paved square full of skimmers on the 
north side of the Palace.  Her parking space had the sign of 
Venus embossed on it in gold.  For that matter, the parking lot 
was paved with marble, which surprised Arcadia.  They 
hopped out of the skimmer and Arcadia looked around.  The 
palace was roughly shaped like a five pointed star, and the 
parking lot rested in one of the angles between the points.  
Arcadia vaguely recognized it.  It wasn't marble in her time, 
but it was still a parking lot.  

        The palace itself looked familiar, but different.  For one 
thing, the tops of all the towers weren't blasted to rubble.  It 
reached high into the sky, towering over the rest of the city.  A 
mixture of pleasant scents filled the air, and she could hear 
faint music drifting down from a window in one of the nearest 
towers.  A marble path, each slab embossed with the symbol 
of one of the planets, lead to one of the main doors into the 
palace, where two footmen stood, dressed in white and 
yellow, each carrying a long white staff tipped with a crescent 
moon.

       They both snapped to attention when the group 
approached, crossing their staves over the door.  Everyone but 
Arcadia saluted them, and they saluted back.  "All hail the 
Lady Venus, Lady Mercury, and their consorts."  One 
bellowed.

        The other bellowed, "Peace be with you," at a volume 
more suited for announcing a fire in the house than a greeting.

        Arcadia laughed a little.  "Do they do that every time you 
walk in?"

        Minako nodded.  "I've seen those two do that when I 
came dragging in at three o'clock in the morning.  They're 
both veterans of the Liberation War and the Kzinti war.  They 
could retire if they wanted to, but they'll probably still be there 
when they're old and grey."

       "So why are they stuck on door duty?"

       "They requested it.  Nothing could please Stanley and 
Oliver more, as far as I can tell, except maybe another war, 
and that's not too likely to happen.  Especially now that we've 
finally established peaceful relations with the Kzinti."   

       The halls of the palace were decorated with enough 
artworks for a thousand museums.  Virtually none of them 
had survived to Arcadia's time, except for a huge wall mural 
that had been carved and painted into one of the walls.  It 
showed the Sailor Senshi doing battle in the sky with the 
Winter Queen and her warriors over a red crystal mountain.  
Some things were subtly different.  In Arcadia's time, the 
senshi in the wall mural all wore green uniforms with only a 
single stripe of a different color at the bottom of their skirts, 
while in this, they all wore a variety of colors and subtly 
different styles.  The hair colors were different as well, and 
the Winter Queen was now an albino instead of a pitch black 
nightmare with mauve hair and red eyes.  Yet, the picture and 
carving was exactly the same except for color schemes.  Some 
really bad restorer must have tried to fix it later.  

        Ami looked over.  "You like it?"  She smiled.

       "We still have this in my time, but someone repainted 
everything wrong."

       "I guess a lot has changed in a thousand five hundred 
years,"  Ryo said casually.

       "Just about everything I've seen in this place has either 
been stolen, destroyed, or is packed away in the vaults in my 
time.  Or Doctor Anderson has stashed it in the library."

       Ami coughed loudly, then said, "So you've visited the 
palace in your time?"

       "What's left of it.  Heck, I've lived there for a month."  
She wondered if telling people about the future was a good 
idea, then dismissed the worry.  Like telling them about events 
1500 years in their future was going to make any kind of 
difference.  "Okay, it all started on my sixteenth birthday..."

         *                      *              *

       By the time that Arcadia finished, they had reached 
Pluto's quarters.  Ami said, "She probably will be here, 
expecting you.  If not, I'll take you to the Museum of 
Unnatural History.  If she's not there...we'll go see if Usagi 
knows where to find her."

       The door was plain brown wood, unpainted, but with the 
symbol of Pluto embossed in gold on it.  It had a simple door 
knob without a lock.  Ami rapped on the door, and a white 
haired man answered it.  Arcadia wasn't sure what age he 
was.  He had no wrinkles on his face and moved like a much 
younger man than his hair indicated.  She had met young 
people with white hair, Marcus for example, but his hair 
looked white from age, not from being normally that color.  
There was a difference.  It didn't sparkle, either, not that she'd 
met many people with sparkling white hair.  He was wearing 
glasses, which surprised her.  Glasses were only found in 
museums in her era.  A ten year old could almost fix 
someone's sight.  Surely he had the resources to get his vision 
corrected.

        "Hello," he said.  "Come on in."

        He stepped out of the way.  Minako said, "I think I'm 
going to go change my clothing and make sure I don't forget 
to pay that ticket."  She grumbled for a moment, then grabbed 
Steven.  "You can help me pick something out."

       "Oh joy," he said.  "Bye, Arcadia.  Good luck on getting 
back home!"

       She waved bye as Minako dragged her husband away, 
then headed into Pluto's quarters.  The parlour was plush, 
with nice padded chairs, and a purple and green color scheme.  
There was a low table in the middle of the room with various 
magazines and a pair of small crystal cubes scattered across it.  
A plate of chocolate chip cookies, six glasses,  six small 
matching plates, and a pitcher of some liquid sat on one end of 
the table.  A little boy, about five years old, stood by them, 
looking like he was barely controlling himself from eating 
them all.  He had short black hair and was wearing blue jeans 
and a purple t-shirt with green letters, "Crystal Tokyo 
Spirals".  There was a small logo on the shirt of someone 
kicking a soccer ball under the words.  "Daddy, I'm gonna 
'splode if I don't get a cookie soon!"

        Arcadia laughed.  Little kids never change, I guess.  

       The man turned to Arcadia, "I'm Professor Tomoe.  Nice 
to meet you.  Please sit down.  Would you like a cookie?"  He 
started pouring drinks and putting cookies on plates, making 
sure that the little kid got his cookies first.  "And this is my 
son Ian."  He looked around.  "His sister Barbara is around 
here, somewhere.  Probably hiding again."

       "I'm Arcadia N'goya.  Nice to meet you."  She paused.  
"Are you Pluto's husband?"  She sat down in one of the 
chairs, which molded itself to her form.  It was soft and 
within seconds, she didn't want to ever have to get out of it in 
her life.  

       Professor Tomoe nodded.  "Setsuna and I have been 
married for a very long time.  She should be here soon.  She 
called and told me to prepare some snacks, since we'd be 
having company."

        Ami laughed a little.  "I wish Ryo always foresaw when 
we were going to have guests."

        He laughed.  "Maybe I do, but I don't tell you when I 
foresee you're not going to be ready for them."

        She made a face at him.  Arcadia relaxed in the 
wonderfully comfortable chair and munched on cookies as if 
they were going out of style.  I'm so hungry, she thought.  
Must be because I lost everything in my stomach.  She 
yawned loudly.  I'm so sleepy, she thought.  Adrenalin and 
other excitement had kept her going, but now, she started to 
slip off to sleep.  

         That came to an abrupt halt when the little boy climbed 
up into her lap and started tugging on her hair.  "I wanna play 
pony!"

         She started awake.  "What?"

         "Play pony!  I wanna play pony!"

         Professor Tomoe started to get up.  "Let her rest, Ian.  
I'll play pony with you later.  Go find your sister."

         Ian hopped off Arcadia's lap and ran off into the depths 
of the suite.  "Barbie!  Where are you?"

        "I'm sorry about that,"  Professor Tomoe said.  "Ian is a 
very lively little boy.  When he was very little, he once 
screamed for 10 hours straight, except when he was eating."

       The door opened and a beautiful woman in her late thirties 
with reddish eyes and long greenish-black hair walked in.  
She was dressed in a flowered wrap-around outfit which ran 
from neck to near her ankles, tied at the waist with a green belt 
tied in the back with a bow.  It looked incredibly archaic to 
Arcadia.  She walked over to Professor Tomoe, who got up, 
and they kissed briefly, then she turned and said, "Hello, 
Ami.  Hello, Ryo."  She turned to Arcadia, and for a moment, 
she looked intensely surprised.  In fact, Arcadia had never 
seen someone so surprised in her entire life.  A few seconds 
later, the look was replaced with a pleasant smile.  "Nice to 
meet you.  I'm Mei'ou Setsuna, and you are?"

         Ami and Ryo gave each other a confused look, and 
Professor Tomoe said, "This is Arcadia N'goya, Setsuna-
chan."  She nodded and sat down, grabbing a cookie and 
pouring herself a glass of lemonade.  

       "So where are you from, Arcadia?"  Setsuna asked.  "Are 
you studying with Ami-chan?"

        Arcadia frowned and held up the Time Key.  "Did you 
arrange for this to come into my possession or not?  More 
importantly, can you send me home, with or without it?"

        Setsuna's eyes widened for a moment.  Her voice was a 
little too casual.  "How did you get it?"

        "Someone dug it up, Marcus found it, and he gave it to 
me."  Is she trying to trick me, or does she really not know 
what's going on?  She has to know, Arcadia thought.  If she's 
really Pluto, Pluto sees the future and travels through time and 
stuff.  Unless this is an evil duplicate or...let's not get into 
that, she thought.

      Professor Tomoe looked a little uncomfortable, and Ami 
was staring alternately at the key and at Setsuna, who said 
quietly, "I did not arrange for you to get that key.  Nor can I 
easily send you home."

       Arcadia boggled again.  This was starting to become a 
habit.  "WHAT?   Then HOW did I get here?"

        "I can think of three possibilities.  One, that for some 
reason that key was charged by me or the Junior Pluto and left 
lying around where it was dug up by chance.  I find this 
unlikely.  Two, that at some point in the future, we will do 
this as part of some plan that hasn't been made yet.  This is 
possible, but doesn't explain certain things.  Thirdly..."  She 
paused.  "What year are you from?"

         "1532 SY."  Arcadia said quietly.

        "Ahh, that explains it.  You're from after I die.  You're in 
the junior Pluto's jurisdiction.  You'll have to see if she 
knows why you are here."  Setsuna sat back, visibly relaxed, 
and ate a cookie.

        "Junior Pluto?"  Arcadia prayed this was not the little girl 
who was hiding somewhere in the house.

        "Each of the Senshi eventually trains an apprentice, who 
is known as the junior or younger 'whatever' during that 
Senshi's lifetime,"  Ami said.  

        Setsuna cocked her head for a moment.  "Can you see 
her in your future sight, Ryo?"

       "Yes."  He said.

       Setsuna started on her second cookie.  "Interesting."  

      Arcadia looked over at Ryo, who said, "Hey, I didn't 
bring you here, Arcadia.  I'm sure Hime-chan will help you, 
though."

       There was a knock at the door.  Setsuna said, "Come in, 
Hime-chan."

       The door opened and the junior Pluto walked in.  Arcadia 
recognized her outfit as that worn by Sailor Pluto, but she was 
blonde with short hair and was carrying a time staff tipped 
with an amethyst.  The stories didn't mention any such Pluto.  
The next one was supposed to have long blue-black hair and 
didn't show up for...well, a while after this.  If she 
remembered correctly.  And there was only ONE time staff, 
just like only one Silver Crystal.  "Hmph.  Spoil my grand 
entrance, will you?"

       "Kind of hard to surprise a room with two people who 
see the future, Hime-chan,"  Ryo said.  

       Professor Tomoe got up and pulled over another chair to 
the circle around the table.  "Would you like some cookies?"

       "Sure!"  She walked over to the plate of cookies and 
grabbed half of what was left, then sat down, leaning her staff 
against the chair.  "If The Unternehmen calls about another 
temporal anomaly, I'm going to kill them."

        Ami said, "They found ANOTHER one?  That 
makes...six this year?"

        "And it's only May,"  Pluto said.  "I gave the Queen a 
report."  She turned to Arcadia.  "Oh, hi!  You must be 
Arcadia."

        Arcadia gave a sigh of relief.  "Please tell me you can 
send me back to the future."

        "I can send you back to the future,"  the junior Pluto said 
with a mischievous smile.

        Arcadia gave a bigger sigh of relief.  "How soon can I 
go?"

        "Actually, I only said that because you asked me to."  
Himeko laughed, as did Ami. 

       With effort, Arcadia resisted the urge to scream at Sailor 
Pluto.  "Did you bring me here?"

       "No, but I know who did."  Sailor Pluto said, her voice 
becoming serious.  "Ami, scan that time key."

        Ami blinked.  She pulled out her computer, and Arcadia 
suddenly realized she had no clue where Ami was keeping that 
computer when she wasn't using it.  The visor appeared on 
her head again and she looked at the key, then started typing.  
A few seconds later, she gasped.  "It's full of...the Saturn 
power?  But Sailor Saturn can't control time travel..."  She 
typed a little more.  "It's programmed to go off again a week 
from now.  I can't tell what it's going to do, though.  Maybe 
with more study..."

        Arcadia REALLY didn't want to have to meet Saturn.  
There were stories of the first Saturn destroying entire fleets 
by herself.  She had the power to lay entire planets waste.  But 
if it was the only way...assuming this wasn't some kind of 
trick to keep her here.  They might be lying so they can keep 
me here for some reason.  Her stomach churned and she 
frowned.  "So what does this mean?"

        Professor Tomoe said, "Are you sure it's specifically the 
Saturn power and not some other kind of dark energy?"

       "Dark energy?"  Arcadia asked.  "Is that like dark matter?"  
She had heard the term, but wasn't quite sure what it meant.  I 
guess dark energy would be non-visible.

       "Dark energy is what is used in ?black magic', to put it 
loosely,"  Ami said.  "There is no such thing as truly ?neutral' 
magic.  That is the realm of natural law.  That is why the 
sorcerors of tale and legend tend to be painted in tones of 
black and white.  To truly perform magic, you must make a 
moral choice of one kind or another.  Those who walk the line 
never achieve the level of power of those who fully choose 
good."  She paused.  "Or evil."  She sighed.  "Now, not 
every magical act is infused with vast moral significance, but 
ultimately, the attempt to draw on both kinds of power is 
highly dangerous and tends to be destructive of sanity in the 
long run."

        "But the world isn't all about ?GOOD' and ?EVIL',"  
Arcadia said.  "It's full of shades of grey.  Most people aren't 
tremendously good or evil."

        "And even in this age of high magic, most people will 
never wield strong magical power,"  Setsuna replied.  "Magic 
destroys those who can't make up their minds, or they become 
reforged and reshaped by the power they weild to a form more 
apt for it.  There is a price for power.  You use the power, but 
it also uses you.  If you wield dark forces, they will slowly 
consume you.  If you wield the light, it will bear you up, but it 
also makes demands as well.  You can preserve your freedom 
of action only at the cost of impotence, in the sphere of 
magic."

         Arcadia frowned.  That was nothing like what they 
taught in her magical theory class.  On the other hand, if these 
were really the Sailor Senshi, and this was really Crystal 
Tokyo in 68 SY and even half the stories were true...  "Wait, 
you said it had Saturn power in it?  Isn't Saturn one of you 
people?"

         Setsuna sighed and stared at the floor.  Professor Tomoe 
shifted uncomfortably, as did the younger Pluto.  Ryo started 
to say something, then fell silent after the first syllable.  Ami 
said quietly, "She was the victim of an attempt to defy that 
law.  With her life, she contains the Saturn force.  The Saturn 
force is...almost alive.  It seeks to destroy all life.  
Everything.  She has vast power, power enough to match the 
Queen blow for blow, but she can't use it at that level without 
being consumed by the darkness."

        "Why can't you just send it back where it came from?"  
Arcadia asked.

       "We don't know how.  Even the Silver Crystal couldn't 
kill it, although it did go dormant for a while, but the Queen 
nearly died,"  Ami said quietly.  "When she dies, it will move 
on to the next Saturn, whoever that poor soul is."

        That really stinks, Arcadia said.  No one deserves to be 
constantly in risk of being eaten alive by their own magic like 
that.  "There's got to be SOMETHING that can be done,"  
Arcadia said, her voice rising.  "That's just so unfair!"

        Professor Tomoe said, "I know.  Poor Hotaru-chan.  I 
would give anything to help her."  His voice was strained.  
"Anything, to set her free."

        "Hotaru, Sailor Saturn, is Professor Tomoe's daughter,"  
Ryo said quietly.  Ami began typing again, checking her visor 
periodically.

        "Are you a Senshi too, Professor Tomoe?"  Arcadia 
asked.

         Everyone laughed a little.  Professor Tomoe smiled and 
said, "I think I wouldn't look very good in a skirt.  No, I'm 
just a professional mad scientist."  He winked, and spoke with 
a falsetto voice.  "Want to be a guinea pig for one of my 
experiments?"  

       Arcadia laughed, and everyone else laughed raucously.  
The laughter stopped when Ami said, "It IS the Saturn Force.  
But it's not from Hotaru."  She paused.  "I think it's from 
whoever is the Sailor Saturn of your time, Arcadia."

       "There isn't one.  The majority of them died during the 
bombing of Crystal Tokyo, and the rest died helping Serenity 
XVIII blow up Nemesis or died soon after.  There hadn't been 
a Sailor Saturn worthy of the legend in centuries, anyway.  
Really, they were just ceremonial bodyguards for the most 
part, although the last Sailor Uranus and the last Sailor 
Mercury were reputed to be the two most deadly combatants 
of the fifteenth century.  I've seen a holo of that Mercury 
fighting.  She killed twenty assasin robots by herself."  
Arcadia thought for a moment.  "She had an ice blade that 
could cut through just about anything.  Anyway, the Sailor 
Senshi are gone.  Toast.  Game over."

       Everyone looked dismal at that pronouncement except the 
younger Pluto, who stood up.  "The proper word is 
'underground'.  If this is correct, then I have clearly missed 
something, however.  I must go."  She started to raise the 
Time Staff.

       "Wait!  Can't you take me home if you're going that 
way?"

       "Someone wanted you to come here, and they have the 
Sailor Saturn of your time working for them.  Given that I 
believed she had NOT been reborn in your time...It would be 
very dangerous for you to return until we know what is going 
on, and only you and I can travel freely to that time.  There are 
other senshi who could help once we arrived, but...It is up to 
you.  I urge you to stay,"  the younger Pluto said.  "You 
would be sticking your head into the lion's mouth in the dark 
if you return."

       "But...what about my friends?  I have to warn them about 
this!  I have to warn..."  Marcus, she thought.  He found the 
key.  "I have to warn Marcus.  He found the key.  He could 
be in danger too!"

       "I will warn him and make sure he gets to safety,"  the 
younger Pluto said.  "I don't know how I let this all slip by 
me."  She sounded a little angry.  "Someone let Daichi know 
I'm going to miss dinner, okay?"

       Ryo said, "We will."

        "Tell him that..."  Arcadia trailed off.  "Tell him to make 
sure that his dad gets the report I did for him.  The one on the 
Rigellian grain futures."

       Professor Tomoe and the junior Pluto gave Arcadia an 
odd look in unison.  Setsuna simply smiled, as did Ami.  Ryo 
muttered something incoherent.  "I will do as you requested.  I 
will let your parents know you are alive as well.  I'm sure they 
must be worried about you."

        "They're both alive?  The Black Moon Cult left them 
alone?"  Arcadia's heart jumped with joy.

        The junior Pluto vanished in a spray of purple light 
before she could answer.  A few seconds later, the door 
opened and a short woman with short black hair, about the 
same length as Ami's, but differently cut, wearing a purple 
wrap-around that went down to about halfway along her 
calves with a blue belt and black tights walked in.  She wore a 
golden necklace with a ringed planet in silver hanging from it.  
"Hi, dad!  Hi, mom!  I'm here to babysit the kids."  She 
paused.  "It is tonight that you're going out?"  She turned and 
saw the others.  "Hi, Ami-chan!  Hi, Ryo-kun.  How's the 
research for the new display at the Window of the Past coming 
along?"  Turning further, she saw Arcadia.  "Hi!  Nice to meet 
you!  I'm Hotaru."  Her eyes suddenly locked on the key in 
Arcadia's hands, and for a moment, she froze in place.  Her 
lips moved silently, then she said, her voice choked with fear, 
"What...what is that?"  She gulped.  "Are you...to be my 
apprentice?"

       Arcadia blinked.  "Me, a Sailor Senshi?  I can barely blow 
up a brick off of Earth...I'm a little better here, but I...me, 
Sailor Saturn?  I'm a stick of dynamite where you're a N5 
bomb."  She paused.  "Not to say you're a weapon of 
destruction or anything...umm..."

        Setsuna was staring at the floor again.  Everyone else 
focused on Hotaru as she said, "Where.  Did.  That.  THING.  
Come.  From?"

        "Uh...someone dug it up in a field in the year 1532 and it 
may have been made by the Sailor Saturn of my time?"  
Arcadia hadn't been this scared since her 16th birthday 
party/massacre.  

       "It has to be DESTROYED!"  Hotaru shouted, her face 
red with swelling anger.

        "If you just smash it, you'll unleash the Saturn force 
within it."  Ami said.  "We'd best seal it in the vault until I can 
figure out the best way to dispose of it."

        Arcadia dropped it.  "Take it.  I don't want to be 
anywhere near..."  She looked at Saturn.  "I can't use it 
anyway.  I already tried.  I don't even know why it brought 
me here."

        The rage suddenly ran out of Hotaru, replaced by 
confusion.  "Wait...it brought you through TIME?"

         "I'm from the year 1532.  My name is Arcadia N'goya, 
and I was born on Sirius.  Nice to meet you."  She shrank 
back in her seat, just in case Saturn started to lose it again.

       Hotaru took a deep breath.  "Nice to meet you, Arcadia.  
I'm sorry I yelled at you."  She turned to Ami.  "Work fast, 
Ami.  The Saturn Force is not easily contained."  She stared at 
the floor.  "Although at least it can't steal a chunk of metal's 
soul."  

       Ian and Barbara, a cute little girl with blue eyes and 
greenish-black hair like her mother's, but cut short like 
Hotaru, ran out of the back and hugged Hotaru's legs.  "Hi, 
big sister Hotaru!"  Barbara shouted.  "You want a cookie?"

        Hotaru picked up Barbara and hugged her silently.  "Hi, 
little sister Barbara."

        "Her name is Barbie!"  Ian shouted.

        "Is not!"

        Hotaru knelt down and patted Ian's head.  "Hi, little 
brother.  Have you been making sure Barbara doesn't get 
lost?"

        He handed her a cookie from the table.  "Here you go!  
Yeah, she can't hide from me!  I'm gonna be a famous 
detective like Sheerluck Homes one day!"

        "I'm sure you will,"  Hotaru said, ruffling his hair.

        Arcadia stared in surprise.  How could anyone swing in 
moods so fast?  Why wasn't anyone else scared of her?  Or 
were they just used to it?  "So...how long am I going to be 
staying here?"

        "You can stay with us until we figure out what is going 
on and it's safe for you to go home,"  Ami said.  

        Ryo said, "We need someone to babysit Ami-chan, 
anyway."  He winked.  "She runs poor Hermes ragged."

      "Hermes?"  Arcadia asked.

       "Hermes is a Mercurian Hound.  Basically, imagine a 
Collie the size of a housecat.  He babysits Ami-chan for us, 
and tutors her, but he's getting old, and she has enough 
energy for ten thousand small children.  We could probably 
power a star cruiser if we put her on a treadmill."  Ami said.  
"We've got plenty of space, and Ryo-kun could show you 
around Crystal Tokyo."

        "Okay."  She seems nice, Arcadia thought.  I bet she and 
Professor Anderson would get along great.  They're both 
smart AND nice.  I guess I'm going to find out if all those 
legends are true.  "I'm gonna need some clothing."

       "I'm sure that Minako or Makoto would love to take you 
shopping for clothes and teach you how to use a Wardrobe.  I 
always end up dressed as Julius Caesar or Napoleon or 
something,"  Ryo said.  "I'd be happy to show you around the 
city myself, though.  I promise I won't go 800 KPH like 
Minako did."

       "Actually, I thought that was really cool.  I LIKE speed."  
Arcadia said.  "I guess that's why I like to run and race.  
Movement is just...the faster the better.  That's why I was 
captain of our Track Team, and I was just a sophmore."  She 
yawned.  "I think I need some serious sleep.  I only had about 
three hours of it before I came here.

        Arcadia slept for a very long time, but not as long as Rip 
Van Winkle.

                      ******************

Earth,  Albert's Needle, 2066 AD (Serenity Year -926, 2815 
Years after the founding of Rome, Juraian Year 22230, 
Federal Year -1918)

       Albert's Needle was colloquially known as the pimple on 
the butt of the Outback to most people who had ever heard of 
it, even by the locals.  It had a population of 257 and one dog.  
The dog belonged to the barkeeper/general store owner/mayor, 
Jimmy Wilkinson.  The only reason everyone didn't leave was 
that you could graze sheep during the wet season and no one 
could afford to leave.  

        Everyone had been surprised when Dr. Angelica Ransom 
showed up and started poking around the old caves in the 
area.  The only person in Albert's Needle who had ever seen a 
college professor in the flesh was Crazy Old Man Hodge, who 
had been ten years old back in the thirties when some 
expedition from Mouskateer University, or some such place, 
had come through town on their way looking for something or 
another in the deep, deep Outback.  It was something different 
every time Hodge told the story, ranging from a ruins 
inhabited by invisible wind-monsters to an ancient Elephant 
burial ground to a underground world inhabited primarily by 
giant Koalas and Elvis.  He kept following Dr. Ransom 
everywhere, asking her when she was going to come back 
ranting insanely about cone-shaped aliens and little green men, 
until finally Jimmy Wilkinson and Angie Smith (who had 
rented a room in her house to Dr. Ransom)  locked Crazy Old 
Man Hodge (No one ever called him by anything shorter, and 
no one remembered his first name anymore, except maybe the 
postman.  Even his mail usually said either 'resident' or 
'Crazy Old Man Hodge'.  So did his checks.)  in the storage 
room of the bar/general store, where he promptly ate all the 
beef jerky as revenge.  

       Dr. Ransom claimed to be an archaeologist.  She was, but 
that wasn't why she was here.  She was also a mage of some 
repute, incredibly skillful at reading impressions of the past of 
objects and finding archeological sites.  It was her second 
talent, which she hated, which led her here.  The Archetypes, 
as many magi called them, sought her out.  They were the 
spirits which incarnated highly powerful ideas, such as Truth, 
Justice, Hate, Death, and other abstractions, such as Gaia, 
Uncle Sam, or in Dr. Ransom's case, "Australia".  You saw 
them as you expected them to appear.  Australia had appeared 
to her as a woman garbed like Britannia, but armed with a 
boomerang, instead of a spear, and wearing a wide-brimmed 
hat.  

        Her first reaction had been to laugh so long she fell out of 
her chair in the office at the University of Sydney where she 
doing some research during a sabbatical.  Her second reaction 
was, "Umm...I'm not even Australian.  Why did you come to 
me?"

       Australia sighed and sat down on a throne that suddenly 
appeared, destroying the filing cabinets in the office Dr. 
Ransom had wheedled from the University of Sydney.  "You 
are the one who can reawaken my heart.  Without you, I will 
die soon.  I beg you to help me."  Dr. Ransom had been 
pestered by dozens of Archetypes over the years, but she had 
never heard one so desperate.  Normally, nothing could phase 
them.

       "Die?  Is a meteor going to squash the entire continent or 
something?"  And how could I stop this?

       "Death has been giving us all funny looks and smiling a 
lot."  Australia shuddered.  "And Destiny has been crying 
continuously since  about a year ago."

        That convinced Dr. Ransom.  Destiny was the coldest, 
most heartless of the Archetypes.  Normally, he/she/it did 
nothing but show up at crucial events and watch impassively.  
If Destiny was actually crying..."All right.  I'll go."

        She had found the place.  The needle itself was the key.  
It was a huge rock pillar, about four feet across, that rose 
nearly a hundred feet into the sky, with a roughly circular hole 
in the top.  How she was supposed to awaken it, she had no 
idea.  She hadn't studied much magical theory, and Australia 
wasn't much help.  Yet, Australia insisted that Dr. Ransom 
was the one.  No one else could do it.  She'd somehow 
wheedled that much from Destiny and his three children.  

        At least the sun isn't too bad, she thought.  It was 
unusually cool for December in Australia this year, but she 
didn't mind.  That night, the news reported that contact had 
been lost with several research stations in Antarctica.  She paid 
it no mind.  

        When it was fifty degrees farenheit at noon the next day, she 
started to wonder what was going on.  She was staring at the 
needle again.  It was warmer close to the needle, warmer by a 
good twenty degrees within a hundred feet.  This isn't natural, 
she thought.  

       At lunch, the news announced that the worst blizzard in 
recorded history was drowning Canada and northern Russia in 
snow.  More worrisome was that the glaciers were on the 
move south.  They had moved ten miles south since the last 
measurement.  "It's the Fimbulwinter!" Crazy Old Man 
Hodges started shouting.  "The Damn Frost Giants are 
invading!  Santa Claus was just a front man for them!  He 
wears red!  The Devil is red!"  Someone bounced a beer can 
off his head, and he shut up.

        The door opened and two people Dr. Ransom didn't 
expect to see walked in.  One was her husband, Phineas, who 
had been in Jordan negotiating a business deal when he called 
her the previous night.  The other was a woman with long 
green-black hair and reddish eyes who was wearing a very 
expensive looking business suit.  "Is that her?"  She asked 
Phineas.

       Phineas ran over to Angelica.  "What is going on?  This 
woman yanked me out of bed, but I'm not even sure why."

       The woman that Angelica didn't know smiled.  "Let me 
explain everything."

       She had to repeat herself three times before they even 
began to think about believing her.

*************************