In the past thirty minutes, Sunny had gone from believing her sister had a wicked case of sunstroke to wondering if she herself had gone quietly mad without noticing it. The twenty-third century. Black holes. Spaceships. Sunny had finally lapsed into silence as Libby had recounted a story about a mission to Mars—dear Lord, Mars—and Cal’s fateful encounter with an uncharted black hole, which, through a combination of luck, skill and the mysterious hand of destiny, had shot him backward from the middle of the twenty-third century to the spring of last year. The confused Cal, an intergalactic cargo pilot with an affection for flying and poetry, had become a time traveler. Time travel. Oh, God, she thought. Time travel. She remembered clearly the faint smile on Jacob’s face when he had told her of his current experiments. But that didn’t mean— No. She took a steadying breath, determined to control her wandering imagination.
