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Description:  (3-part serial) Feb 1965 New Tenderfoot Rodney Carver ("A Negro") joins the patrol. Tucker and Brains reluctantly tell him about the time machine. For a school contest he needs Emperor Maximilian's autograph, so they plan to go to Mexico City, 1866. But first they go to Mexico City, modern day, to get their friend Manuel they met last Easter to go back and translate for those who don't have the ESP pills (They're surprisingly quick to want to let Manuel in on the time machine secret). But, once they're in Mexico City 1965, a mysterious woman appears, they first mistake her for a ghost, but she seems to be from 1866. She already knows where the time machine is and has filled it with fireworks when they weren't looking. So they take her back to 1866 too. Rodney and Manuel are, understandably, excited about time travel. Rodney accidentally damages the machine. Brains gets out to talk to the Emperor. La Malinche, the mystery woman, gets in, angry that they're not in the time of Cortez. She pulls the lever and they wind up in 1847, in the midst of the "Spanish War", (The Mexican-American War, 1846-1848, wikipedia, with the time machine broken, and Brains Baines, the only one who can fix it, still in 1866! Mar 1965 In 1847, they think the time machine is broken so it can only go backwards. Bob Tucker and Rodney Carver go to the American forces to try to find some wire. Manuel is bewitched by La Malinche, and joins the Mexican forces during the Battle of Chapultepec. He's injured, and Bob and Rodney pull him back to the machine - where La Malinche knocks them out, taking command of the time machine! Apr 1965 La Malinche figures out how to get the time machine back to the time of Cortez, 1519. She delivers the fireworks to him. Tucker, Rod, and Manuel go back a week, and through the Viewer find Baines back in 1866, where he's whitewashed a message on the wall for them to fix the machine with silver wiring. They meet La Malinche before she ever met them the first time. She gets silver wire from Cortez, they fix the machine, and drop her off in 1866 the day before she first met them (so she'll get the fireworks and meet them the next day). They rescue Baine and head back to 1965 with the autographs! Dropping Manuel off on a park bench in Mexico City, and hoping he'll think it's all a dream. Rod Carver is ready for more time machine adventures! Dion and Kai don't appear in this story at all. There's a note at the end about the book MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE now being out. This may be the first time the Polaris Patrol is mentioned by name.