Time Scout

Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

CHAPTER FOUR

      The klaxon marking the re-opening of Primary sounded just as Kit settled down for breakfast in Frontier Town's Bronco Billy Café. He smiled to himself, wishing a mental bon voyage to the redheaded Margo of No Last Name. The computerized register of incoming tourists had shown only "Margo Smith" who held a transfer ID stamp from New York. In New York City anyone could get any sort of credentials, could have any fake name tacked onto one's mandatory medical records, which had to match a person's retinal scans and fingerprints to get past ATF Security.
      After the orbital blowup which had created the time strings that made temporal travel possible, so many records had been damaged and destroyed, New York's underworld had cleaned up issuing new identities. Scuttlebutt had it that new ID's were cheaper than down-time tickets to a temporal station.
      If Smith were Margo's real last name, Kit would eat his shoes.
      He hadn't seen her since her arrival-thank God-although he'd heard from several people she was asking everywhere for a teacher. So far as he knew, everyone had turned her down flat. Now she'd be departing for home where she belonged. It was with a sense of profound relief that Kit banished all thought of Margo "Smith." He smiled at the waitress, clad primly in a high-collared dress with a striped, floor-length skirt.
      "Morning, Kit," she dimpled. "The usual?"
      "Good morning, Bertie. Yes, please, with a side of hash browns."
      Bertie poured coffee and produced a copy of this morning's Shangrila Gazette. Kit was halfway through the "Scout Reports" section-which comprised at least a third of the small newspaper-when the klaxon announcing the closure of Primary sounded. Kit grinned. "Bye, Margo. Have a nice, safe life." He settled deeper into his chair, sipped coffee, and continued reading the latest reports from young time scouts who were busy continuing his work into all manner of unlikely places and times.
      "Well, what do you know about that?" Some lucky scout over at TT73 had pushed a gate into the middle of the Russian palace built by Catherine the Great and had inadvertently caught her in flagrante delicto with one of those infamous Russian boars. . . .
      Kit chuckled, then raised a brow at the purported offers generated in a bidding war between uptime porno outfits. The clever scout had brought back a videotape. Another scout, over at TT13, had returned from a hair-raising trip into the European Wurm glaciation with an anthropologist's ransom in documentation on Cro-Magnon lifestyles.
      Sometimes, Kit really missed his old life.
      Bertie returned with his breakfast and a smile. She glanced at the open newspaper. "I see you found the story on Catherine's palace."
      Kit chuckled. "Yep. Lucky mutt."
      Bertie rolled her eyes. "Personally, I think it's disgusting what the porno outfits are offering him. And who'd want to sleep with a giant hog? Now, the scout who took the video is another matter." She winked. "Any lonely time scout needs a room for the night. . . ."
      Kit grinned, knowing Bertie's offer was only a tease, at least where he was concerned. Kit had a far-flung reputation as the world's straightest-laced time scout. It made most of the women on TT86 treat him like a favorite uncle or a third grandfather. That had its advantages, but sometimes . . .
      He sighed and pushed away thoughts of Sarah. Ancient history, Kit. But he still couldn't help wondering sometimes if he might have found a way to make it work. Yeah. Right. You weren't good enough for her, Georgia Boy. Despite the years, their last fight still had the power to hurt him. And when he'd gone looking for her, what her father and uncle had said . . .
      Kit gave a deliberate mental shrug. She'd made her choices and he'd made his. He'd been through every conceivable argument over the years, trying to figure a way it might have gone differently, and he'd never found one. So Kit picked up his fork, carefully not allowing himself to wonder what had become of Sarah-or if she ever thought about him when she read the newspapers or watched the idiotic docudramas. . . .
      Really, Kit told himself sourly, after all this time, there is no point crying about it. He smoothed the paper, turned to a fresh page, and dug into the heaping plate of Denver-style steak and eggs, with a bird's-nest side of golden-brown hashed potatoes drenched with melted cheese and liberally mixed with fried onions and green-pepper chunks. Ahh . . . Bronco Billy's knew how to make breakfast.
      Kit was halfway through the steak, cooked rare just the way he liked it, when a shadow fell across his table. He glanced up-and nearly choked on a bite of half-swallowed beef.
      Margo.
      She was dressed conservatively enough in jeans and a semi-see-through sweater, but wore a look of determined sweetness that didn't fit the tilt of her chin. "Hello, Mr. Carson. May I join you?"
      Kit coughed, still half-choked on the bite in his throat. He grabbed the coffee cup and gulped, scalding the roof of his mouth and his tongue. Kit burned the back of his throat, too; but the steaming liquid dislodged the bite of steak. He wheezed, swallowing while he blinked involuntary tears. He finally sat back and glared at her. This was the second time she'd nearly strangled him, catching him off-guard like that. Christ, I'm losing my touch if a half-grown kid can damn near kill me twice in two days.
      "Still here, I see," he growled, still sounding half strangled. "I was hoping you'd gone home."
      Margo's smile was chilly. "I told you, Mr. Carson. I have no intention of going home. I'm going to be a time scout and I don't care what it takes."
      He thought about Catherine the Great and her Russian boar and wondered what this green kid would've done in that situation. Gone all schoolgirl incensed, or burst in protesting cruelty to animals?
      "Uh-huh. Just how much money have you got, kid?"
      Her face flushed unbecomingly. "Enough. And I've applied for a job."
      "Doing what?" Kit blurted. "Serving drinks in that damned leather miniskirt of yours?"
      Margo's eyes narrowed. "Listen, Mr. Carson, I will stay on this terminal, no matter how long it takes or who I have to find to teach me. But I'm going to be a time scout. I was hoping I could persuade you to change your mind. I'm not stupid and I have some pretty good ideas about overcoming the handicap of my gender. But I'm not going to stand here and be insulted like some truant schoolkid, because I am not a child."
      You damn near are, Kit groused to himself, impressed with her tenacity and appalled that she was so determined to die. Kit sat back in his chair and ran one hand through his greying hair. "Look, Margo, I admire your determination. Really, I do."
      The look in her eyes, sudden and unexpected, disturbed Kit. Good God, is she going to cry? Kit cleared his throat.
      "But I won't be a party to your death, which is likely to be messy and very painful. Did you bother to read any of the scouting reports in this?" He held up the Gazette. "Or the obituaries section?"
      Time-scouts' obituaries took up a whole page of the Shangrila Gazette. The details were often gruesome.
      She shrugged. "People die all the time."
      "Yes, they do. So do time scouts. Let me tell you how time scouts die, kid. Sam One-Eagle over at TT37 was killed by the Inquisition. They burned him alive, Margo, after taking all the skin off his back with whips and breaking all his major bones on the rack. His partner crawled back through with burns over most of his body from trying to rescue him. David lived for a month. The nurses said he spent most of it screaming."
      Margo had blanched. But her chin came up. "So what? I could get run over by a bus, too, and plane crash victims get toasted just as thoroughly."
      Kit tossed his hands heavenward. "Good God, Margo. The Inquisition is nothing to be flippant about. You haven't seen one of their torture rooms. I have. And I have the scars to prove it. Would you like to see them?"
      Slim jaw muscles tightened. She didn't say a word.
      "And do you have any idea, kid, what gave me away? What got me arrested by those bastards?"
      She shook her head.
      "A mispronounced word, Margo. That was all. A mispronounced word. And I speak fluent medieval Spanish."
      She swallowed; but she had a comeback. "You lived through it."
      Kit sighed and pushed his plate away. He wasn't hungry any longer. "Fine. You want to get killed, feel free. Just don't ask me to help you do it. Now scram, before I lose my temper."
      Margo didn't say another word. She just stalked out of Bronco Billy's and vanished into the bustle of Frontier Town. Kit muttered under his breath and glared at the passing crowds. Just what was it about this kid that needled him so thoroughly? She was every damned bit as stubborn as Sarah and made him very nearly as crazy.
      Maybe it was genetic. He never had been able to resist petite women with heart-shaped faces and freckles.
      "Huh. Women."
      He shook out his newspaper irritably and folded it over to a new section.
      "Mr. Carson?"
      "What?" he snapped, glaring up at a middle-aged man he'd never laid eyes on. Good God, can't a man eat his breakfast in peace?
      "I'm sorry to interrupt . . ." The man's voice trailed off. "Er, I, that is- Excuse me. I'll come back later."
      He was already in the process of stepping away from the table. Kit focused on the slim portfolio he carried, the carefully pressed suit, the expensive shoes . . .
      "Don't run away," Kit said with a lingering growl in his voice. "Sorry I snapped at you. I just finished a very unpleasant conversation, is all. Please, sit down."
      And if you're a reporter, mister, you'll end up wearing what's left of my breakfast. . . .
      "My name is Fisk, Harry Fisk." He offered a business card, which gave Kit no real clues other than his office was in Miami. "I represent the management of TT27, located in the Caribbean Basin. We're looking for a consultant . . ."
      Kit heard him out. The job sounded intriguing. A lucrative, full-time consultantship, unlimited trips to a time he was pretty sure he'd never visited, as primary consultant to the Time Tours agent looking to develop a new gate destination, paid apartments at TT27's finest luxury hotel . . .
      It was a magnificent chance to escape Neo Edo's paperwork and the endless stream of raucous, thieving tourists. Kit scratched his chin and thought about it. Leaving TT86 meant leaving friends. And he did owe it to Jimmy and the other retired time scouts in his employment to look after them. He wouldn't sell out to just anyone.
      "No," he decided, "I don't think so, Mr. Fisk. I have a hotel to run."
      "We would be more than happy to install a full-time manager for the duration of your consultantship, Mr. Carson. Time Tours wants the best for this project."
      Huh. Now there was a fat offer. Paradise for as long as he wanted to live in it and he kept his steady income, too. And somebody else did the paperwork. The image of Margo, her face pinched and white as she stood over his table staring him down, flashed through his mind.
      Dammit, kid, stay out of my head.
      Kit toyed with his cold eggs, scooting them back and forth on the plate with the tines of his fork. He'd been waiting for something like this for a long time.
      "No," he found himself saying. "I appreciate the offer, really; but not just now."
      Mr. Fisk's face fell-ludicrously. "I really wish you would reconsider, Mr. Carson."
      Kit shrugged. "Ask me again in a week or so. We time scouts are a changeable lot."
      Fisk tightened his lips imperceptibly. "Yes, so I've discovered. Well, you have my card, but my employers are most anxious to press ahead with this project and there are other retired time scouts on my list."
      Kit nodded. "I expect there are. And I'm sure most of them need the job more than I do." He held out his hand. Fisk shook it, betraying grudging respect in his eyes.
      "If you reconsider your position in the next two days, please let me know."
      He had until Primary cycled to change his mind.
      Kit didn't foresee that happening.
      Mr. Fisk left him with his cold eggs.
      "Huh. It was probably a scam, anyway," Kit muttered. "Too good to be true equals dubious in my book. Besides, who wants to live in the Bermuda Triangle?" He could do that by jumping down LaLa Land's unstable gate. He shoved Fisk's business card into his pocket and tackled his cold breakfast, telling himself his decision had nothing to do with keeping track of that stupid little imp, Margo.
      Sure it doesn't, Kit. And toadie frogs got wings.
      He muttered into his scraggly mustache and finished his morning paper, determined not to think about Margo or her suicide mission. Why was it, Kit mourned silently, that all the real trouble in his life inevitably came skipping in on the coattails of some irresistibly pretty girl?
      If word of this got around . . .
      Well, he'd just take his lumps and deal with the snickers. What Kit Carson did, or didn't do, was his own damned business. Yeah. Mine and the rest of LaLa Land's. He signalled Bertie for a fresh cup of coffee and promptly fell to worrying about where Margo was going to find someone reputable enough to trust with her life. Maybe he could talk to Sergei or Leon or . . .
      No, he told himself, if you won't teach her yourself, do not try and line up somebody else for the job. Frankly, he couldn't think of a single time scout who'd be willing to try it, anyway.
      Vastly relieved by that observation, Kit put Margo firmly out of mind.
      Why, Margo wailed silently, does he have to be so beastly? She'd found a quiet spot under a vine-covered portico in Urbs Romae where she could sit with knees tucked under chin and indulge in a good, long cry.
      Mom warned me . . .
      That only brought fresh misery and a new flood of angry tears. She wiped her cheek with the back of one fist and sniffed hugely. "I won't give up. Damn him, I won't. There just has to be someone else on this miserable station who'll teach me."
      So far, she had struck out with everyone she'd approached, even the freelance guides like Malcolm Moore. At least most of them had been nicer about it than Kit Carson. Even a brusque "Get lost, brat" was kinder than gruesome images of people being tortured to death.
      "I'll bet he doesn't have any lousy scars," she sniffed. "And Sam One-Eagle probably isn't any more real than these stupid fake columns. He doesn't want me to be a scout, is all, so he's trying to scare me."
      The thought of returning to Minnesota and the jeers . . .
      Never mind her father. . . .
      Margo shivered and hugged her knees more tightly.
      "Hell will freeze over first."
      "Hell will freeze over before what?"
      Margo jumped nearly out of her skin. The voice had spoken almost in her ear. She swung around and found a face peering at her through the vines. A male face. A gorgeous male face. Margo's personal-defense radar surged onto full-power alert. She'd had all she wanted of gorgeous men. But his winning smile was the friendliest thing she'd seen in two and a half days and after that miserable, gawdawful interview with Kit Carson . . .
      "Hey, what's wrong?" He'd noticed the tears. Whoever he was, he ducked under the vines and dug for a handkerchief. "Here, use mine."
      Margo eyed him suspiciously, then accepted the hanky. "Thanks." She dried her face and blew her nose, then wadded up the handkerchief and offered it back.
      "No, keep it. You look like you need it more than I do." He sat down cross-legged on the floor. "You're still a little drippy," he added with an attempt at a laugh.
      Margo grimaced and blotted her cheeks. "Sorry. I'm not normally so weepy. But it's been a bad week."
      "What's wrong? You look half starved."
      Margo sniffed. She was. "Well . . . it's been a couple of days since I ate."
      "A couple of days? Good grief, what happened? Some con artist steal all your money?"
      Margo laughed, surprising herself. "No. I didn't have much to steal in the first place. And what there was, I've used up. All I have left is my suitcase and a hotel bill I can't pay tonight."
      He tipped his head to one side. "Are you the girl everyone's talking about? The one who wants to become a time scout?"
      "Oh, God . . ." Insult on top of injury.
      "Hey, no, don't cry again. Honest, it's okay. I've been looking for you."
      Margo blinked and stared at him. "Why?"
      "I'm a scout. I've been looking for a partner."
      "Honest?" Her voice came out all watery and breathy. It couldn't be true-but oh, Lord, how she wanted it to be . . .
      He grinned. "Honest. My name's Jackson. Skeeter Jackson. I just got back from a quick run up time and heard you were looking for a teacher. I've been thinking I needed a partner for a while-that's why I was up time, actually-then I come back and what do I find? The challenge of a lifetime, right in my own back yard!" He grinned and held out a hand.
      Margo couldn't believe it. A week of her precious six months gone and all she'd had to show for it was a collection of insults, and now . . . maybe there was a God, after all. She'd be careful-Billy Pandropolous, who was enough heartbreak for any lifetime, had taught her nothing, if not that. But Skeeter Jackson didn't appear to be hustling her. At least, not yet. She shook his hand. "Mr. Jackson, if you're for real-well, you'll be a lifesaver. I mean it. And I promise, I will work as hard as I have to. I'll make you proud." She ventured a tentative smile, appealing directly to what men seemed to value most. "I'll even try to make you rich."
      Skeeter Jackson's eyes were warm, friendly. "I'm sure you will. Come on, let me buy you some breakfast."
      He gave her a hand up. Margo dried her cheeks again and gave him a brave smile. "Thanks. I'll pay you back. . . ."
      He laughed and gallantly offered his arm. "Don't mention it. I'll take it out of your wages."
      Margo found herself grinning as she took Mr. Jackson's arm. Maybe, finally, her luck had changed for the better. Just wait until Kit Carson heard about this! He'd choke on his eggs again. And after the way he'd treated her, he deserved it! Dreaming of thrills, adventure, and plates of heaped bacon and pancakes, Margo accompanied her new teacher out into the bright, busy Commons of Shangrila Station.