The Principles of Teamwork
by Selma McCrory
copyright 1998
part 2

"The mechanism must be broken," Vanessa said. "I'll have to pry this thing open and see if I can get it fixed."

"But what if this isn't home?" Teague asked her. "I don't think you ever made a contingency plan for wormholes interfering with the function of the machine."

Vanessa nodded. "Could be," she said, and then grinned. "I'll just have to make some adjustments, then. Let's find a nice spot and get to it."

Teague nodded, and stood up as she did. "You guys coming, or what?" he asked.

Lucas looked over at Teresa. She shrugged. "Might as well, until we can find out what's up. I presume if they needed to stay in one spot to be tracked, they'd want to stay here."

The three of them followed the rapidly-disappearing Vanessa and Teague.

* * *

"A road. Must be some form of civilization here," Vanessa said. "But I haven't detected any electrical signals, so we might be a century or two back in time."

"Should we take the road?" Ian asked.

Vanessa and Teague almost simultaneously shook their heads. Vanessa spoke. "That's the one thing we *don't* want to do. History is a very fragile thing, and we don't want to run into anyone and wreck it. We're still living with the consequences of what happened when I accidentally sent my sister back in time."

"It's not our world, but it may be yours, or it may be someone else's," Teague replied, looking a bit haunted. "We just can't mess things up this time."

Loud, rapid hoofbeats echoed and interrupted any further revelations by the two Tomorrow People. "Cover!" he yelled. Teresa and Vanessa looked at each other for a moment. Then he fled for it himself, with Teresa right behind him. He looked at her expectantly.

"Vanessa and Ian are hiding over there," she motioned, "and Teague's on our other side. I just hope we have enough cover."

They watched the riders go by, some people in armor with blueish shields and standards. Lucas made a silent sigh of relief as the company disappeared out of sight. Gradually, the five of them came out. "Anybody good at history?"

"This is one of those times where I had my sister nearby," Vanessa replied, looking a bit pale. "She's the big history buff. She might be able to identify them."

Teague shot her a look that Lucas hoped was a telepathic comment. Either that, or he was very non-verbal. When Vanessa shot a look back, he knew that it was telepathy. He was so busy looking at the two of them that he didn't know anything else was wrong. Until he felt the spear in his back.

Lucas turned around to find a group of the blue-outfitted soldiers, armed with spears, arranging themselves around his group. The leader, wearing a helmet with horns, babbled something in what Lucas supposed was some form of Gaelic. Normally his powers would be kicking in and translating, but apparently they weren't working here.

The soldiers quickly wrested them down to the road and along it.

* * *

It seemed forever, even to him. The blue-outfitted soldiers had been marching them towards some unknown destination for a while now. This hadn't been in his plan for the day for sure. Still, they hadn't tied Teague or Vanessa up, and those two still had their toolkits with them.

He, Ian, and Teresa had been tied up after an abortive escape attempt. He was heartened to see that Teresa's fighting ability hadn't diminished. She'd obviously been practicing recently, probably with her father. They'd need it here, where she, he, and Ian were all equals without the power.

They couldn't understand their captors, but he did understand their actions: if he and the others didn't get out of captivity, they were probably going to be killed. Their captors seemed wary, so there must have been an enemy force somewhere around. He hoped that they wouldn't end up getting rescued by the other side. He didn't want to get stuck in endless provincial politics, plus if Teague and Vanessa were right, they were kind of mucking up history as it was.

But, on the other hand, the enemy force could be of use- as a distraction. He had three people who could teleport, if given half a chance, and if they could make it to some bushes, the group could teleport to where they started and find a safer place for Vanessa to poke at circuitry.

* * *

The attack finally came about a mile down the road. He saw Teague sigh in relief as the other warriors attacked. He grabbed him as best he could with his hands tied. "Teague! Cover! Bushes!"

Teague stumbled, probably in fear, and nodded. Suddenly, both Vanessa and Teresa knew the game plan, and he saw them running off. He and Ian weren't far behind. They crouched behind some scrub. "Everybody here?" he asked, mentally counting to confirm that they hadn't lost anybody.

Everybody was there, he noted with relief. "We gotta get out of here," Vanessa said, looking rather worried.

"I'd say aim for the place where we started," Lucas said. "We'll all meet there, and figure out where else to go so that Vanessa can work on her thing without interference. Everybody got a good picture in their mind? Good. Ian, go with Teague. I'll go with Teresa."

Teresa took his hand, Teague took Ian's, and the world flashed white.

* * *

They were exactly where they started. With one difference. One very possibly dangerous difference.

Lucas took in the flying thing with the red outfit first, followed by the four people staring at them. Behind him, he could hear Vanessa cursing mildly. He didn't blame her. "Anyone got any ideas?" he asked.

Meanwhile, the lone female of the four babbled something in her own language to her fellows. Lucas was waiting for suggestions from his own group. Normally, if they were teleporting somewhere, it was to go into battle, but Lucas didn't want to fight these people. He studied them. Two guys, dressed in similar clothing that suggested that they were at least from the same region, a fellow who didn't look like he did, and the one woman, whose costume he had a hard time identifying. The woman had some sort of crossbow out, but that just probably meant that she was alarmed. He'd be.

The lightest-haired of the men, obviously the leader, came up to him and babbled something formally in the same toungue at him. Lucas looked around in the forelorn hope that somebody in his group understood what the man was saying.

Nobody did, although Vanessa had a comment. "Something in the Gaelic language family, probably a form of old Irish," she said. "Can't understand it, though."

The leader of the other group was obviously in the same fix. The woman came up and tried something else. "Germanic, probably one of the languages that became English," Vanessa quietly added.

The darkest-skinned one, darker than Vanessa, came up and tried one more language. "I think that's related to Arabic, I'm not sure," Vanessa said when he looked at her.

The leader talked to the being in red. It- she- twittered back at him, obviously answering a question. She flew up to them. "What are you doing here?" the being asked.

"I wish we knew," Lucas answered her truthfully. "We're trying to get home, but..."

"I could see your problem," she replied. She then flew over to the other group.

"What *was* that?" Ian asked.

"Probably some form of telepathy," Vanessa replied. "She hooked into the language centers of our brains and pulled a knowledge of English, or at least enough to speak to us."

Two of the other group were arguing, the leader and the woman, with the other two putting in an occasional comment. It seemed to be over where to take them, as Lucas didn't put too much hope in them being let go. He wondered what bad luck had brought that bunch to where they had appeared.

Finally, there was an end to the argument, with the leader of the group winning. He said a few words to the being, and she flew back to the group. "He asked if you would accompany them to the the stones."

"Why?" Lucas asked.

"Why, 'tis may be a way to find what you seek. They are going there, as well."

Lucas looked at the others. "Any opinions?"

"Stones sound good. If they're man-made, then I can use one as a surface and see if I could fix the problem," Vanessa said.

"Any objections?"

The others shook their heads. It seemed that the course offered was the best way to go.

* * *

As it happened, the stones weren't *that* far away, if you were fresh. Unfortunately, none of them were overly fresh, and so the group was forced to camp and stay the night in the wilderness.

"Vanessa. Any luck?" he asked. The young woman had disassembled her recall device.

"Not yet," Vanessa said. "I can't find anything wrong with it. I'll try boosting the power when I have a chance, but our captors got my spare components. Good thing they missed my tools."

"They missed this as well," Lucas replied, holding the two parts of his morpher up.

"What is that, by the way?" Vanessa asked, curiously. "I'm not familiar with it."

"I can't tell you," Lucas said, and was not overly surprised when Vanessa nodded. If she was like most Tomorrow People on his world, she knew a thing or two about secrets.

"Lucas, I'd like to ask you something that may be uncomfortable to answer, but I'd kinda like to know, if you're willing to answer."

"What?" Lucas asked, feeling a bit surprised.

"What were you arguing about? I caught the word 'undefended', but things got a bit busy after that."

Lucas felt a lump in his stomach. She'd heard parts of his and Teresa's argument. He didn't need her disapproval right now. "You're right, I don't feel comfortable talking about it."

"Do something for me?" Vanessa asked. He turned around to see her concerned face.

"What?"

"Talk to Ian about it, or someone, before it tears the two of you apart."

(end of part 2)