Time Patrol stalwart Ross Murdock and the others who protect Earth's history have discovered evidence that someone has tampered with events in ancient Atlantis. Our heroes journey back to the ancient world disguised as seagoing traders with goods to sell to the Atlanteans.

They soon discover that other strangers are on Atlantis: the Baldies, aliens who have destroyed technological civilizations throughout the galaxy. The aliens are bent on changing our history to prevent the rise of technology, but exactly what are they trying to accomplish on the legendary island? As tremors of the volcano intensify and time runs out, will Ross, Gordon Ashe, and the other time travelers be able to stop the Baldies' plan?

"SURE WE HAVE the new software," Ross Murdock said, scrupulously unaware of his landlady peeping up at him over the tops of her spectacles as she drowned her potted plants for what was probably the fourth time that day. "It's a fine spreadsheet. Plenty of new features."

Gordon Ashe, following him up the stairs inside the hall, looked amused, but said nothing until Ross had shut the apartment door behind him and locked it.

"Nosy landlady, I take it?" Ashe commented.

"The tenants here are better than TV, she seems to think. At least from the gossip she rattles off to Eveleen when she can catch her."

Ashe and Ross both surveyed the plain living room with its garage-sale furnishings. Eveleen had done her best to add homey touches: a brightly colored braided rug on the floor, a few very hardy houseplants, and one or two ancient artifacts brought up from the past -- nothing to raise eyebrows, should anyone drop in who knew about such things. But Ross and Eveleen knew the real stories behind them -- sometimes even had known the person who had made them, thousands of years before.

Ashe shook his head. "Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, if you ask me. Project Star would be happy enough to issue you living quarters, and the ones married couples get are fairly plush. A lot nicer than this, if you want to know the truth."

"But underground. And it's still there, under their control. I've worked for the Project just about my entire adult life, and I respect everyone in it, but I want my own place. My own space. And so does Eveleen," Ross added.

Ashe opened a hand. "But what happens when you're gone on a mission? It's Project Star that handles your pay and banking, right?"

Ross nodded. "Yeah. They renew our yearly lease when it comes up. They cover the utilities. And they pay the cleaning service that comes through here once a week. Those guys dust and even water the plants." Ross gave the leaves of a spider plant a flick. "So, yeah. They hassle the details, but that's only when we're gone."

Ashe, amused, said, "I confess I don't see the difference. Plus you've got the added annoyance of a nosy landlady."

"But she's not our boss. Maybe it's the street kid in me, but I get itchy at the thought of living under the boss's roof, however benevolent." Ross shrugged, looking sardonic. "Makes no sense, does it?"

"Contrary," Ashe replied. To him, it didn't seem all that long ago when he was assigned the nervy, distrustful troublemaker Ross Murdock, straight from juvenile court. Ross had become one of the best agents in the ultrasecret Project Star in spite -- or maybe because -- of his readiness to apply action first, and palaver afterward, to unexpected problems.

Ashe dropped down onto one of the chairs, giving Ross a skewed smile. Did the landlady also see the signs of the street kid in him?

ROSS BROUGHT OUT a couple of mugs of coffee, giving his old partner an appraising glance. Why was Ashe so silent, staring through the coffee as if he were trying to scry his future in it? Gordon Ashe was a tough, lean man around middle age, sun browned and fit. His blue-eyed gaze was direct and intelligent, his dark hair worn short. His plain brown suit conveyed a semblance of bland city-civilization, but he looked and moved like someone who preferred being out of doors.

To break the lengthening silence, Ross said, "The landlady doesn't seem to believe I'm a computer software salesman."

Ashe blinked and looked up. "I take it you don't think I played a convincing buyer?" he asked, the corners of his mouth deepening.

"Well, neither of us looks much like the TV version of your standard computer geek. In any case, Mrs. Withan thinks I'm a no-account. It's Eveleen she keeps pestering. A 'real lady karate expert'!" His voice went squeaky on the last words, and he clasped his hands and looked skyward. "We can all sleep well of nights, knowing we have a real lady karate expert in the building!"

Ashe laughed, but it was a quick, absent laugh, and Ross sat down on the couch. Yep, something was wrong. Instinct had become conviction. "Well, you didn't come over to shoot the breeze. What's going on?"

Gordon Ashe hesitated, one hand absently touching his breast pocket, where Ross saw the edge of a folded piece of paper. Then Ashe shook his head. "I take it Eveleen is teaching a karate class?"

Ross nodded. "She likes to keep in shape, and it gives her a perfect cover job." He glanced at his watch. "She'll be back in a couple hours."

Ashe struck his hands on his knees and got to his feet again. "You asked what's wrong. There are so many possible levels of wrongness here I don't really know where to begin."

Ross whistled under his breath. I knew it. Their last mission -- to another planet and thousands of years into its past -- had been tough enough, but when Ashe first told them about it he'd been business-as-usual. What could be nasty enough to get the guy -- old Ice Veins, some of the younger Time Agents had nicknamed him -- this jittery?

"I have a meeting in an hour," Ashe said. "I'd hoped to find both of you here for a strategy powwow first, but maybe it's for the best, because there would be more questions than I could answer."

"All sufficiently mysterious," Ross said, now feeling that inward sense of tension ignite. Incipient action. He could almost smell it, like the ozone moments before a lightning strike.

Ashe paused with his hand out just before Ross opened the door. "Oh, a request," he said, smiling oddly. "When you two do come, would you ask Eveleen to wear those gold earrings of hers?"

"Sure." Ross snorted a laugh. "Going romantic at last?"

Ashe only shook his head again, so Ross opened his front door. There was Mrs. Withan, sweeping the hall stairs.

Ashe sent one of those ironic looks over his shoulder. But after years of playing an astonishing variety of roles, from a Folsom Culture trader to a garbage collector on a planet so far away there was no meaningful measure of distance, he was obviously capable of dealing with one nosy landlady.

"We'll get those statistical disks next round," he said, descending the stairs. "Remember to send me the new catalogues."

"In the mail tomorrow." Ross lifted a hand, watched the landlady's shadow on the opposite wall as she peeped out after Ashe, and then shut the door, laughing softly.

He moved into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Did all newlyweds develop their own codes, almost a private language? He reflected on that as he gathered together the fixings for chicken salad. What Eveleen had begun calling his Threat-o-Meter had gone into the red zone; he strongly suspected that the two of them would be called in early tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. Better get dinner going right away, or they might not get any.

As the meat sizzled in the broiler, he wandered into the bedroom and fired up the computer. Did an e-mail check. That, too, came coded, if it was from Project Star, sufficiently bland messages that even the cleverest hacker -- supposing one could actually slip past the Project firewalls -- couldn't make anything of. Of course, as to that putative hacker, Ross suspected anyone smart enough to do that had already been hired by Kelgarries.

Nothing on the e-mail.

His Threat-o-Meter ratcheted up another notch.