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  LEANING BACK IN SAM’S ARMS, MARINA STARED INTO HIS EYES—AND WHAT SHE SAW THERE MADE HER HEART SKIP A BEAT.

  It made no sense, but she wanted him to go on holding her. No, she wanted him to kiss her, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

  She couldn’t explain it, even to herself. The man with his arms around her was a stranger. Yet she felt she’d known him all her life—no, longer than that, forever….

  Did he want to know the touch of her lips as badly as she wanted to know his?

  She was playing with fire, she knew. She was falling in love with a man who wouldn’t be born until centuries after her own death. And she could not exist in his world, because the things she wanted most—love, a home, a family—were denied him and his people….

  ANN WILLIAMS

  Sam’s World

  For Marina Marie Buckner,

  my granddaughter

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  In the year 2393 A.D. life on planet Earth had taken an unprecedented turn. The Earth was once more filled with life and beauty. Animals lived free without fear of extinction, because hunting had been outlawed.

  The average life expectancy of a human being was one hundred years. Jobs, food, clothing, shelter and health care were all taken care of by the government without worry to any person. There was no hunger, no pollution and no war. There were no prisons, because there was no crime. Weapons were possessed only by law-enforcement agencies.

  Man had finally been freed from worry and the need to make choices concerning everyday life. He lived within the iron bars of the society forged by that desire to be totally free.

  And so he desperately sought a way to be freed from the shackles of that freedom—before it spread like a plague throughout history.

  Chapter 1

  Sammell placed the small pink vase in the center of the Recep and took his seat at the computer terminal. One last time he checked the equipment for signs of malfunction. Next he checked the electronic jamming device that would ensure against a government probe, seeking high levels of energy within the city sector. Everything looked good.

  Turning back to the monitor, he stared at the blank screen and white blinking cursor. Once he keyed in the formula, the transference would begin and nothing could stop it until the process was complete.

  His eyes swerved toward the chronometer. In two minutes it would be midnight. Flexing his fingers hovering over the keyboard, he felt a strange cold excitement begin to fill him. It was time. Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hands until the tips of his fingers touched the cold plastic keys and began to move with a will of their own.

  Mathematical equations filled the screen and a low humming began to vibrate the air around him. The letters and numbers typed into the computer were being transformed into electrical impulses and sent to MDAT—Molecular Displacement Activator and Transporter. Quicker than a fleeting thought, details of distance, time and space were being coordinated with energy and mass. And with this information, MDAT was able to adjust the level of power needed for this particular experiment.

  Sammell’s fingers flew and the screen became a rolling white blur. MDAT’s steady hum grew and leveled to a low-pitched roar, filling Sammell’s head with the sound of the ocean on a windy day.

  His breathing quickened. The ends of his hair felt electrified. The exposed skin of his face and neck, hands and arms tingled as though a million tiny insects invaded each pore. The level of static energy in the room grew to a never-before-equaled proportion.

  All at once a low-pitched beeping began as MDAT’s lens slowly opened. An instant later, a laser-thin jet of deep blue light shot toward the Recep. Flamelike excitement licked along Sammell’s veins. He swung eager eyes toward the grid and saw it begin to glow with a deep violet light.

  The beeping escalated until it became a high-pitched whine, bouncing off the walls and echoing inside his head. His heart bumped in unison with it, and a vein began to throb at his temple.

  The Recep’s glow intensified. Sammell’s breath became trapped in his chest as the metal frame began to waver like bands of heat over a hot pavement. There was a sudden flash of blue light. Sammell wrenched his head to one side—and the room was suddenly silent.

  Opening his eyes, he turned slowly toward the Recep. It no longer glowed. And the vase was gone!

  For a moment, he couldn’t seem to move. He sat staring at the spot where the vase had rested within the Recep’s confines only moments ago, half expecting to blink and find it had reappeared.

  His head swiveled toward the monitor. Transfer complete flashed across the screen and MDAT’s mechanical voice confirmed it.

  Success! The word flowed over and through him like an electric current. Releasing a pent-up breath, he allowed his shoulders to sag. The first half of the experiment was complete.

  Sitting back in his chair, Sammell turned once more to stare at the empty Recep, trying to envision the vase taking shape high atop a sharp mountain peak, or in some verdant sheltered valley miles from here. And then an uncomfortable thought gnawed at the edges of his mind. What would Lord Bartell, the director of the state lab where he worked, do if he knew what Sammell had just accomplished?

  He frowned. There was no question about it. He’d have Sammell arrested. It was only because of his brilliance in the field of physics and related sciences that he was even working on project Deliverance. And even that wouldn’t stop the inevitable if anyone learned about the information and equipment he’d been stealing from the government archives and lab over the past year.

  In the past week, there had been plenty of indication that someone in the lab was being investigated. There was nothing unusual about having government people snooping into everything, but Sammell had noticed a heavier concentration of gun-toting guards at all the doors in the building. And by listening to conversations not meant for his ears, he knew Bartell was discussing each small bit of progress made with a government adviser.

  Though Sammell had no tangible reason to think he was the one under investigation, he’d been especially careful to appear as mindlessly subservient as everyone else. He knew that given the government’s paranoid perspective, a complaint lodged against him for any reason could spell disaster, not only for his unauthorized work at home, but on a personal level, as well.

  It was a well-known fact that enemies of the state disappeared without a trace. His own parents had disappeared that way when he was a young boy. That’s why Sammell didn’t want the government to—

  MDAT began to hum. The message on the screen now read Inversion begun. And again, the metallic voice echoed the words.

  The vase was returning.

  Sammell had set the chronometer for only a short span of time for this first attempt at matter transfer. All he wanted was to verify that his new formula worked.

  In the state lab they’d had a problem with returning objects losing their uniformity. And until that problem was solved, only inanimate material could be transported, bringing the project to a virtual standstill.

  Because he’d been working on the idea of matter transfer for most of his adult life, Sammell had a theory about what they were doing wrong. He’d been carefully directing the project scientists working with him away from the area he thought to be in error. Now, in a few moments, he’d know whether h
e’d been right.

  MDAT’s hum grew to a low-pitched roar and the warning beep began to sound as the lens started to open, but this time, there was no beam of light. Now the machine acted as a gigantic magnet, attracting the ionized particles into which it had earlier transformed the vase.

  Sammell felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck as the warning beep grew louder. His eyes flew to the Recep’s luminous frame.

  The vase arrived without ceremony, simply materializing as he watched. Transfer complete, MDAT verbalized softly once again. With a nod of satisfaction, Sammell rose and started toward the Recep.

  The machine at his back faltered. He hesitated, threw a puzzled glance over his shoulder, checked the monitor for signs of a problem and, finding none, swung back toward the Recep.

  Though there was no indication of a malfunction, he hesitated. MDAT leveled out and he relaxed and continued across the floor. He was reaching for the vase when it exploded.

  Diving to the floor, he held his hands up over his head just as a blast of hot wind roared over him. The sound of breaking glass and tumbling equipment was all around him.

  In moments it was over. Sammell raised his head warily and looked toward the Recep. The vase was gone. Not so much as a granule of it remained. It had completely vaporized.

  He glanced around the room. Except for some broken glass, no doubt from shattered equipment, the unchanneled flow of energy had done little obvious damage. Getting stiffly to his feet, he stepped around the debris and stopped before the monitor. To his relief the screen was undamaged.

  Hurrying to MDAT, he checked the lens. It, too, appeared to have come through the explosion without harm.

  Seating himself at the console, Sammell asked the computer for an explanation. All at once the screen flashed Overload! Overload! and MDAT’s metallic voice quickly echoed the words.

  Sammell switched off voice communications and attempted to ask for more pertinent information. But the only response he received was Overload!

  In growing disgust, he turned away from the computer. Failure. The word was as bitter on his tongue as some of the fruit he occasionally stole from the public gardens. After all the work he’d put into it, all the chances he’d taken by stealing the necessary components to build MDAT and the Recep, this was the result.

  Getting wearily to his feet, he threw a regretful glance toward the Recep and—froze.

  While he watched, a small creature with reddish brown fur along its back, grayish white fur along its underside and a long tail was taking shape where the vase had stood only moments before. Sammell moved closer. He recognized the creature as a mammal of the Rodentia order, family Scuiridae. Or what had been commonly known as a squirrel.

  Squatting, he observed it for a long moment, moved around behind the Recep and observed it from the opposite side. It didn’t appear to be a hologram.

  Holding his breath, he reached toward it, still wondering if his fingers might pass right through it. They didn’t. He was touching a three-dimensional animal. Pushing his fingers through the soft fur, he felt for a heartbeat. It was alive!

  Once again excitement laced through him as he sat back on his heels and continued to visually examine the animal. On closer inspection, it appeared to be without deformity.

  Did he dare to hope the experiment wasn’t a complete failure, after all?

  Taking his place before the computer, he studied the information he’d typed into it earlier. What had gone wrong? Why had the vase disintegrated?

  Could it be because of the squirrel—something to do with both of them trying to occupy the same space at the same time? He’d tried to prevent this. He’d studied maps he’d taken from the Government Archives and chosen an unpopulated area on the North American continent called Arizona as the safest destination for the vase. But he hadn’t counted on an animal wandering into the Recep’s periphery and getting caught in its force field.

  Or could the problem stem from their different molecular structures?

  He was greatly concerned about the destruction of the vase, but the appearance of the animal intrigued him. If it survived until morning, he’d know if his new theory was correct. If not, then he had to start all over again, and time was growing short. He couldn’t continue to sabotage MDAT’s twin in the state lab without someone’s eventually realizing what he was doing.

  Long into the night Sammell tested his equipment, went over his figures and charts and periodically studied the small animal. No matter how many times he recalculated, his equations appeared to be sound. Therefore, he had to conclude that his theory was correct and unplanned forces outside his realm of control had interfered with the experiment, causing the vase’s destruction.

  As the night drifted into early morning, Sammell’s eyelids grew heavy and his brain refused to function on a conscious level. He fell asleep at his workbench.

  Sometime later, he was wakened by an unidentifiable sound. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes with both hands and listened intently.

  He’d turned off all but the lights in his work area, and the room outside its limited periphery lay in deep shadow. The sound that had wakened him came again, and Sammell stiffened, momentarily uncertain of its source. And then he realized it was coming from the Recep.

  Jumping to his feet, he reached toward the light panel and illuminated the whole room. His little visitor was awake. Pleased at the prospect of being able to evaluate the animal’s physical responses now instead of having to wait until the end of the next workday, Sammell took an eager step in the animal’s direction, only to come to a dead stop.

  He looked closer. Nothing had changed. Stepping carefully, he crossed the floor, halting a short distance from the chattering squirrel—and the reclining form of the animal’s new companion.

  This was a creature Sammell had never seen, and chills of an unknown origin slipped up and down his spine. The squirrel was one thing, but this…

  Sammell’s eyes were drawn to the creature’s head. There was so much hair. It curled around its face and down across its shoulders, pooling on the floor in a fiery tangle.

  Fascinated despite himself, Sammell knelt, studying the springy hair. It looked coarse.

  One hand inched toward a curl lying near the toe of his boot. Taking it between finger and thumb, he rubbed it gently. To his surprise it had a soft resilience. It wasn’t only the hair itself that fascinated him. Until now, he’d never seen hair that looked as though firelight danced along its strands.

  His glance moved from the curl to the creature’s face, but the hair obscured most of it from view. Using two fingers, he smoothed it back. Now he could see the faint spots of light brown color across the creature’s nose, forehead and cheeks. He compared his own pale skin to that of his visitor’s. Very curious.

  He studied the wide-set eyes and thick curling lashes, a shade darker than the hair, lying against the rosy cheeks. Like the hair, the skin drew his touch. He wanted to see if it felt as smooth as it looked. Laying a tentative finger against one cheek, he trailed it slowly to the full red lips.

  Sammell was well attuned to the aesthetic quality of his own environment—the government reminded them daily of how they were wholly responsible for it. But he’d never seen anything as breathtaking as the creature, genus Homo sapiens: female of the species, lying at his feet.

  The woman stirred, stretching the garment covering her upper body tight across her chest. Sammell drew back, holding his breath, his eyes snared by the gentle swell of flesh visible at its open neck. With a soft sigh, the woman settled back into unconsciousness, and Sammell breathed again.

  He knew about breasts. A thorough study of the human anatomy was part of every child’s school curriculum. But he’d never seen any this size. He felt a sudden overwhelming desire to touch one.

  With one finger, he gently probed the nearest mound, jerking back with a quickly smothered cry of alarm when she moved in protest. His heart raced and he felt a curious, tingling shock. He’d never felt anything so
soft yet resilient. He was about to investigate the hard little bump he’d noticed, when the squirrel’s sudden chatter drew his attention.

  Unattended by Sammell, the animal had moved closer to the woman. It stood on its hind legs, studying him curiously. There was something almost protective about the smaller creature’s attitude, and Sammell drew away from the woman.

  Scooting back a few feet in a move to reassure the animal, Sammell resumed his study of the woman. Abandoning the allure of her upper body, he surveyed her narrow waist, flaring hips and rounded thighs. She was wearing short pants that stopped just below the curve of her hips.

  With a sudden sense of confusion, he realized that he was seeing more of this woman than he’d ever seen of anyone—including himself—in all his twenty-nine years. Sammell continued his visual examination, noting the thin straps of material between her toes and across the top of her feet and fastened to a flat sole.

  Her ankles were thin and shapely and—he leaned closer—her toenails were a deep bronze color. His glance swept up her frame to her hands, over the delicate wrists and long fingers to her fingernails. They matched her toenails. Did they grow that way?

  His nostrils flared in bewilderment. He noted a light delicate scent in the air and sniffed the air curiously. He leaned toward the woman. The scent emanated from her body—and the longer he smelled it, the stranger he felt.

  Surging to his feet a little unsteadily, he backed away, keeping his glance on her. What was he going to do about this unexpected turn of events?

  Backing against the chair near the computer, he sat down abruptly, his mind overrun with strange impressions. If she created this much pandemonium in him while unconscious, what was likely to happen when she awakened?

  And how was he to deal with her presence in his lab? He had no way of knowing what she required to exist in his world.

  Sammell turned to the monitor. As though nothing extraordinary had occurred, the white cursor blinked steadily at him. What was he to do?