Professor David Gold sipped a hot cup of black coffee in the descent room as he waited for the others to arrive. His apprehension about the impending expedition was, as always, balanced by an equal portion of excitement. He had been privileged to go on two others -- the founding of the United States and the rise of Hitler -- but this one would be the furthest he or anyone else had ever gone.
 
He and Scott had arrived early in order to get changed and to have time to mentally prepare before Dr. Shanty (his new boss, the dean of the Mythology department) and the always bustling technical crew arrived. He had finished dressing sooner than Scott and had left him in the dressing room.
 
The door opened and Professor Scott Chambers walked in, his outfit now matching David's -- a mid-length tunic tied about the middle. Scott's short, wavy dark hair, dark eyes, and trim dark beard were in sharp contrast with the white tunic. They also contrasted with David's shoulder length golden hair and gray eyes. David's light hair and eyes made him in his tunic almost seem like a solid pillar of white. Both men were rather well built, with David being a bit shorter than Scott's six feet, as well as being a few years younger. Each fancied himself looking rather classical in the ancient Greek garb.
 
David looked at Scott, extended his bottom lip, raised one eyebrow, and slowly nodded. "You wear it well," he said.

"I know," replied Scott with a grin.
 
David laughed a bit and, scrutinizing his own tunic, said, "No pockets."
 
"Who needs pockets?" replied Scott. "We've got a little money in a pouch, that's all we need." He took a deep breath. "Yep, this kind of work separates the men from the boys, as they used to say. No technology except the Lorien pod goes with us. We won't even take a pencil and paper, for crying out loud."
 
"You're right," agreed David. "Just two human beings armed with nothing but their minds, making observations and bringing them back to a waiting world."
 
They caught each other's eye and both snickered at how philosophical they had waxed. David took another sip of coffee.

"You, my friend," Scott said, "are going to live in ancient Greece for one month. I hope you can do without coffee for that long." He twisted open a bottle of mineral water. "Now this stuff, ahhh, I can get this pretty much anywhere and any time. In fact, the further in the past, the better, I imagine." He guzzled liquid from the green bottle.

"The ancient Greeks had some form of coffee, didn't they?" David asked, seeming a bit worried.

"It's our job to find out just what they had and what they didn't have," Scott replied. "Welcome to the Mythology department."

This was David's first expedition for Mythology. He had requested the transfer himself. He had been with the History department ever since he came to the University five years ago. He had certainly relished his work there, especially the expeditions. They were trips into well-documented history, and his job, and that of other travelers, was to scout for nuances that had been left out of the records. (It had proven quite interesting at times, especially on the Hitler expedition. Most of what was known about Hitler's rise was written by the Nazis themselves, who had left out quite a few significant, unflattering details.) But the trips, his and those of others in the department, had begun to take on, for him, an almost predictable quality. He had envied people like Scott, who worked every day with the unknown. The Mythology department's job was to gather data that separated myth from fact, legend from reality. Who could trust the reliability of the ancient writings? With Lorien's development of the time pod that bore his name, modern man could find out for himself what really took place in antiquity.

"Yeah, this is the place where the real research gets done, isn't it?" mused David.

"Don't kid yourself," chided Scott. "It's all important. What you did with History -- clearing up supposedly documented events -- that's the stuff that has real impact on us here and now in 2085. Everybody knows the ancient scrolls are three quarters bunk, but people accept as fact the more recently recorded history. Exposing the garbage in those writings -- that makes a difference." He took another gulp of mineral water and changed the subject. "So how's your ancient Greek?"

"I think I'd call myself fluent at this point," David said. "I guess I'd better be."

"There you go, kidding yourself again," Scott said, not looking at David. "You know what the worst part is about learning dead languages? It's that we don't know squat about how real people talked. We've studied textbook ancient Greek, gathered from all the scrolls we've found. But it'll take a little time to pick up conversational Greek, and we can only do that when we're back there." He moved as though he might drink again, but changed his mind. "Really, that kind of language data is one of the most valuable things we gather when we go back so far."

"Did you have that problem on the King Arthur expedition?" David asked.

"Oh yeah," Scott answered. "You can't imagine how different English was a thousand years ago. Professor Baermer and I were a little unprepared. She picked it up a little faster than I did, but I eventually got it." He laughed. "We nearly got ourselves killed. Our accents made some people think we were Saxons."

"We're supposed to blend into the woodwork," David half-jokingly accused.

"We eventually did." Scott paused to see David's concerned expression. "Don't worry, Dave, nothing's been changed. You're still here, aren't you?"

"Yeah," David chuckled, "but should I be?"

The theoretical discussion was never continued, for both men became aware of the sound of approaching voices down the hall.

"Stand tall, young man," Scott said in a pompous voice. "Dr. Shanty apprrroacheth!"

"Along with the techies," David added. "I guess this is it."

"Looking forward to the T.I.?" Scott asked with a smile.

"Yeah, I can't wait," David answered with deadpan sarcasm.

Scott referred to the sensation which had been given the deceptively innocuous label of Temporal Inertia. Any traveler would insist that T.I. really stood for Terror Inside. In contrast to the mild sickness felt in an accelerating space shuttle as one's internal organs are left behind a bit, in a Lorien pod, during backward acceleration in time, a traveler actually pre-dates his own internal organs by a few seconds, producing the distinct feeling that he has none. A few daredevil types claimed to enjoy it, but no-one who had ever experienced it believed them.

The door opened. Dr. Shanty walked in first. "David, Scott, you both look great!" she exclaimed as she eyed their outfits.

"Good morning, Denise," said Scott. "Thank you. We think so, too."

David chuckled at Scott's quip. Dr. Shanty's seriousness about her work yet informal attitude toward personal interaction was a dichotomy that he found endearing.

The dean now turned toward David. "Well, are you ready to join the ranks of Mythological Investigators, trekking into the unknown?" she asked with a feigned air of mystery in her voice.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he answered with a smile.

The technicians began to file in. There were five of them. It took two to carry the pod. A Lorien time pod looked very much like a twentieth century police body bag, about seven feet long, and wide enough for two adults to fit inside. It was manufactured for one trip and the return. The destination was hard-coded into internal circuitry.

While they were setting up, the dean took the time for a last minute briefing. She directed her remarks primarily to Scott. "Remember, now, the main things you're going to observe: myths regarding the 'gods', and the legends of the Great Warrior Woman."

"Xena," muttered David.

"You've been doing your homework," Dr. Shanty noted. "Yes, as near as we can make out, that's what the scrolls call her. There are conflicts, of course. Some writings depict her as a merciless warlord, others as a heroic champion of the weak. Is it all just stories? Is it two different women? We don't know. That's your job to find out, if you land in that vicinity."

That was a big "if". Landing in one's chosen time was hardly an issue when traveling back one or two hundred years. A traveler could usually land within an hour or two of his destination. However, as the descents had gotten longer, it became clear that the accuracy of the pod decreased as the length of descent increased. When Baermer and Chambers went to investigate the King Arthur legends, they landed twenty years from the time they had anticipated. New calculations had projected the margin of error for the current expedition at two to three hundred years.
 
Presently, the technicians announced that they were ready for descent. The pod lay open, resting on its stand, which resembled a sofa with its end lifted forty-five degrees off the ground.

"I guess this is it," David said flatly, trying to conceal nervousness. He and Scott climbed into the pod and reclined side by side. It was close quarters, but these things were unbelievably expensive to manufacture already. There was no way they would make them larger simply so travelers would have room to stretch.

"Above all, remember to just blend in," Dr. Shanty said. She grew more serious. "Don't affect anything. You understand how important that is. It becomes even more important the further back you go."

Scott's reply matched her tone. "We understand, Denise."

She continued. "The pod is designed, as usual, to search for an area of dense forest. It's unlikely that anyone will be around to see you materialise." Her voice relaxed now. "Good luck, guys. See you in a month."

A technician zipped the pod shut, hiding the two travelers from view. A loud buzzing noise grew as the equipment was brought to life. The buzz crescendoed as the pod took on a glow, then faded from view, leaving behind a shimmering ghost, which itself soon disappeared.

The dean of Mythology brushed back her bangs and stared at the empty stand for a moment, then watched as the technicians put the equipment into stand-by mode. An abandoned cup of coffee and bottle of mineral water sat on the nearby table. The technology developed fifteen years earlier by one Robert Lorien now sped two University of Chicago faculty members on the longest thrill ride ever.