"The boy served us well," Chiun said.
"Yeah, he worked out okay after that stunt in the palace. I guess I won't spank the little bugger."
Chiun surveyed the area with his alert hazel eyes. "The damage is not so great as I feared."
Remo shrugged. "Nothing a good team of masons couldn't fix in a decade or two." He laughed. He was bone-tired, but he knew he couldn't rest until he had delivered the bad news he'd put off for most of the day.
"I might as well tell you, Lizzie's gone," he blurted.
"That is too much to hope for," Chiun said.
"It's true. She took off in the time module. I don't think we'll see her again."
"I do," Chiun said disgustedly. "That woman is like misfortune. She always turns up when you need her least."
"Well, she's not going to turn up now."
Chiun pointed, his face forming an expression of distaste. "Think again, o brilliant one."
Walking from the crumbled city wall, her shirt torn at the shoulder, her hair turned gray-black from dirt and plaster dust, Lizzie ambled over to them and sat down in the dust without a word.
"Where'd you come from?" Remo asked.
"Outside the city. I've been finding temporary homes for the villagers. It's no bed of roses out there, either, but the damage isn't as bad as it is here." Resting on her elbows, she closed her eyes and threw her head back in fatigue.
"So that's where the villagers went," Remo said.
"She helped?" Chiun asked incredulously.
"I know it's not my style," Lizzie said, a bitter smile playing around her mouth.
"What about the pod? Did you try it?"
"Oh, yes. It worked. I sent a vase up in it as an experiment. Turned the switch, presto. Vase gone." She looked into the distance. "I put a note in it. I thought maybe Dick Diehl would come exploring the temple some day and find it."
"Hey, wait a minute. A vase? What about you? I thought you were going home."
She chuckled, a half-laugh born of deep exhaustion. "Yeah, I did, too. And then I started to think about you here, and about all these slobs in trouble, and about Cooligan and how he felt good even though he knew he was going to die here.... Oh, I don't know," she said, getting wearily to her feet. "It was a hell of a time to develop a conscience."
Remo took her hand. "Thanks for sticking around," he said.
"Think nothing—" Her hands flailed in the air and she fell, sprawling. "What was that?"
The earth moved again. "Another tremor," Chiun said. "Milder. This time will be easier."
The boy scrambled to his feet along with the sleepy Mayans, who blinked in astonishment at the new rumblings.
"Another chance," Lizzie said, almost in a whisper. "I can't believe it. I never thought..." Her words drifted off as her eyes met Remo's. "Do you want to stay? I'll stay if you do."
"I don't think we have to this time," Remo said, watching her eyes flood with relief. "Will the time module work?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," she said, running for the Temple of Magic. "I sent the vase into the future, and then set the controls back, but the vase didn't return."
Remo stopped in his tracks. "It didn't?"
"No," Lizzie said quietly.
"Something's wrong. I don't know if we ought to risk it."
"It is time to risk something," Chiun said, his hand on Po's shoulder. "I have spent quite enough time in this place, and I wish to return. I will go."
"If you go, I'll go," Remo said.
"Well, nobody's going without me," Lizzie laughed as she tried to keep her balance on the shifting earth.
"Okay, everybody in," Remo commanded, when they reached the temple. "Might as well give this thing another try." He helped Lizzie into the pod. Imperiously, Chiun followed her in.
"You too, squirt," Remo said to the boy.
Po looked over his shoulder. Footsteps were approaching. Nata-Ah appeared, holding a length of cotton bandage in her hands. Her face fell at the sight of the new gods preparing to depart.
"I cannot go," the boy said awkwardly. "Someone must remain to rebuild the city—"
"For God's sake, that'll take years," Remo said.
"I have years," the boy said quietly. "I have my whole life."
"Now, I can't let you—"
"Please," Po said. "I belong here now, as I never belonged in my own time. I have come to the end of my journey. As my father predicted, I have walked with the gods, and spoken for them. Now it is time for the gods to go. Let them leave behind their voice."
He limped to the doorway of the time module and bowed to Chiun. Nata-Ah was behind him.
Chiun rose, walked over to the two children, and whispered something in Po's ear. The boy nodded. Then they both bowed to Chiun and to Remo and to Lizzie with the cool authority of born rulers.
"Please enter," the boy said to Remo in a voice that sounded more like a man's than a boy's.
Remo went in.
With another bow, Po closed the door and threw the switch. "Good-bye, my friends," he called.
?Chapter Sixteen
Lizzie came to in despair. "The log," she moaned. "I forgot the damned captain's log."
"Not so fast. We may still be there," Remo said. He opened the door.
The Temple of Magic was in ruins. Outside the door to the pod lay a freshly broken vase. "Look here," Remo said, picking up the pieces. "It must have rolled out of the pod. I think we made it."
Among the shards of pottery was a small scrap of parchment, grown as fragile as an insect's wings with the years. On it was a faint message: "I love you, Dick."
Remo handed the parchment to Lizzie. "Is this all you were going to tell him?"
She smiled. "In the end, that was all there was to say."
In the outer chamber, Remo found the ancient laser weapon he had saved to take to Smith. "Everything's just the way we left it."
"Is it?" Chiun said, beckoning them back to the wreckage of the plane. In the chamber reserved for the gods' flaming chariot was a blank space. The Cassandra and everything in her was gone.
"But— we just came from there," Remo said.
Chiun held up a precautionary finger. "You forget, we left five thousand years ago. And five thousand years ago was this machine destroyed."
"Who did it?" Lizzie demanded hotly. "Who would have done such a thing?"
"The only sensible one among you. The boy. It was my last request to him before we left."
Remo stared at him in astonishment. "Do you know what you did? What's been lost?"
"What has been lost? The opportunity for others to walk yet again in the footsteps of Kukulcan, bringing their modern ways to an ancient world? Oh, they would come with good intentions, these others, just as we did. And like ourselves, they would bring confusion and violence to their land. No, Remo. It is a mistake to inflict our time on another. We have left Po as our ambassador. Trust him."
They walked outside. The overgrown jungle was back to replace the village square of Yaxbenhaltun.
You will be as dust in the wind of the sea, Remo remembered. Quintanodan's prophecy had come true; the splendor of the Maya was no more. "Do you think the Olmec won, after all? Are they still around, calling themselves the Lost Tribes?"
"We'll never know," Lizzie said. She tramped through the high grass to the east of the temple. "There's no volcano," she said. "Bocatan's gone." Something on the ground fixed her attention. "Remo, look here."
A mound of blackened, moss-covered rock protruded from the earth beside her. "This wasn't here before."
"It's just a rock."
"No," she said excitedly, scratching at the moss with her fingernails. "That's stone. Cut stone. This was built." Her eyes flashed. "Another temple, maybe. Or, better yet, a tomb. Maybe the city was reorganized after the earthquake. Oh, God, I've got to get a team together."