Remo pulled a screaming man from beneath a slab of rock. "If an earthquake's all it took, then why didn't Cooligan get out during one?"
"Because while Cooligan was here, there wasn't an earthquake. Not one is mentioned in the log. He never had the chance, but we do. Come on," she said, pulling at his arm. "Get the others. It has to be now."
Remo straightened up. He swept his arm over the scene around him. The entire city was a wreckage. White plaster and dust covered the faces of the dead on the street. Hundreds of small fires burned everywhere. "We can't go, Lizzie. People's lives are still in danger. In a few minutes, when the earthquake's subsided, maybe—"
"We can't wait for it to subside! This is the only chance we're going to get, and you know it. If the pod hasn't already been damaged, that is. A few more minutes, and the temple holding the Cassandra might be destroyed."
"We've just got to wait," Remo said stubbornly.
"I don't have to do any such thing," she screamed. "This is my last shot to get out of here, and by God, I'm going to take it!"
"All by yourself? What if the mechanism won't work again?"
"That's your problem," Lizzie said.
Remo shook his head. "Guess I was wrong about you, old girl. Still looking out for number one, aren't you?"
"Can you blame me?"
Remo looked closely at her, and then at the ruin of the city. "No, I can't. I'm the same way myself. No strings, no responsibilities. He travels fastest who travels alone."
Lizzie regarded him suspiciously. "Then why aren't you coming?" she asked.
Remo looked out over the far horizon, shimmering in the wake of the city's flames. "Because I'm tired of hating myself," he said.
Her eyes hardened. "If you think that this is going to make me—"
"I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about me."
Struggling to keep her face impassive, she stood watching him for a moment. Then she turned and strode away.
"Well, that's that for the moment," Remo said.
Most of the rubble had been cleared away from the square. Miraculously, only six lives had been lost. The bodies of the dead lay wrapped in makeshift shrouds near the city's walls. Someone had unobtrusively taken care of the survivors, since the streets were clear of the wandering homeless.
It was nearly twilight. Remo and Chiun had worked with the Mayans for nearly eighteen hours salvaging what they could of the city. Several of the men had collapsed from exhaustion. Po, the improvised bandages on his legs blackened from soot, slept in the open courtyard as Nata-Ah rummaged through the vacant buildings for a new dressing for his wound.
"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."