Wagers of Sin: Time Scout II (30 page)

Somewhere in the dispersing crowd, Kit Carson's famous laugh rang out. "Not only my permission, Kynan, I'll make up all lost wages from your sweeping job."

Goldie just glowered.

Ianira smiled grimly ."Thank you, kyrie Hendrickson. We downtimers have few friends. It is good to know there are honest people here who will champion our cause." She gave Kynan Rhys Gower a swift smile of thanks, then vanished into the dispersing crowd.

Kynan grinned at Goldie, eyes alight with savage mirth.

She said something profoundly unladylike and stalked out of the library. Kynan followed at his ease, winking at Brian on the way out. Brian suppressed a grin of smug satisfaction. With Kynan on the job, Goldie'd stay honest for the next two weeks. She wouldn't have a choice. And if Brian were any judge of solidarity in the downtimer underground community, more than Kynan's pair of eyes would be watching that purplehaired harpy through the days to come.

He allowed himself a soft, wicked chuckle, then waved off the rest of the crowd and got back to work.

After seeing Hendrickson, Ianira went to the top.

Bull Morgan saw himself as a fair man. Tough, God alone knew he had to be, to do this job-but fair. So when Ianira Cassondra walked into his office with her two daughters, he knew he was in serious trouble. There was only one thing she could possibly want from him. He wasn't wrong.

"Mr. Morgan," Ianira said in her beautiful, oddly accented English, which was neither quite Greek nor quite Turkish, but something far more ancient, "I appeal to you for help. Please. The father of my daughters has been taken away. The man who took him has broken the law before, by bringing him here, and now he breaks it again by taking him away. Please, is there nothing you can do to help me find the father of my children?"

Tears trembled on thick, black lashes.

Bull Morgan swore silently and steeled himself. "Ianira, there is nothing I would like more than to find Marcus. Please believe that. But I can't." The tears spilled over, even as her mouth tightened into a thin line of anger. "Let me try to explain. First of all, Marcus went downtime with him willingly. Second, you and Marcus are downtimers. The uptime government can't make up its mind what to do about people like you, so it's a confused mess as to what I can and can't do. Besides, this Farley bastard was smooth. There really isn't anything I can pin on him."

"So you will do nothing to find Marcus!"

"I can't," he said quietly. "I have a very small security staff. We're not authorized to go downtime to rescue people who are from downtime."

"But you have told us we cannot go back, even if we wanted to, to live downtime in the places of our births! How can you permit Marcus to return permanently to Rome, when your own law says he cannot?"

Bull groaned inwardly. "That's station policy, yes. I'm doing my best to interpret the law. Downtimers can work as porters through the gates, so long as they return. But, Ianira, there just isn't anyway I can enforce that." Even as he said it, he knew it would have terrible repercussions in the downtimer underground community he knew existed on his station. "If I could," he said as gently as possible, "the next time the gate cycles I'd send in a division of Marines to find him. But the reality is, I can't even send down one security man. Our budget is so tight, I can't afford to lose the man-hours of even one security guard for two entire weeks-with no guarantee he or she could even find Marcus."

More tears spilled over, silently. But her head remained high and her eyes flashed dangerous defiance. "So I am just supposed to sit and wait to see if I must put on widow's weeds and weep the death of my children's father aloud?"

Bull shook his head slowly. "The only thing I can do is talk to some of the guides, some of the scouts. They like Marcus. If I can persuade some of them to go downtime to Rome, I can get the necessary paperwork approved quickly. It's the best I can do, and I can't promise that another man will do as I ask."

To Bull's surprise, Ianira nodded slowly. "No one can ever speak for the behavior of another. Only for one's self can you speak, and even then, do we not lie to ourselves far more often than we lie to others?"

"You'd make a damn fine psychological therapist, Ianira. You should talk to Rachel therapist, about training with her."

Ianira's laugh was brittle as shale. "I am a Priestess of Artemis, trained at the great Temple of Ephesus where my mother's sister was High Priestess. I do not need more training!"

Without another word, Ianira Cassondra gathered up her beautiful little girls, both of whom looked scared, and swept out of his office like a primal force, siphoning away every erg of his willpower to continue going through the motions of his job.

It was a long, long time before Bull Morgan answered his phone or moved a single sheet of paper on his desk from the "to do" to the "done" stack.

If he'd been able, he'd have gone downtime himself. But he'd told her nothing except the naked, brutal truth. Manager of the time terminal he might be, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to help her, except call a few guides and scouts who were currently in and ask them for a favor they wouldn't be too wild about granting.

Bull sighed mightily, dislodging several sheets of paper from the "to do" stack, which landed on the floor beside his massive desk. He ignored them completely and reached for the telephone. If he were going to make those calls, he'd better start making them, before Ianira did something stupidly desperate.

As the phone rang on the other end of the line, Ianira Cassondra's ancient, bottomless eyes haunted him like a whiff of perfume diffused through his entire awareness, inescapable and unutterably damning.

"Yeah?" a surly voice on the other end of the line said.

Bull sighed again, dislodging more papers, and said, "Bull Morgan here. I've got a favor to ask..."

Malcolm nudged his fiancée. "Margo, that young woman over there. By the exit ramp?"

They were waiting, along with half Shangri-La station for the cycling of the Porta Romae. After Skeeter and Marcus had both disappeared downtime, Malcolm had canceled their reservations for the Wild West Gate, to wait and see if a rescue would need to be mounted.

"Yes," Margo stood on tiptoe to see over taller heads. "Isn't that the woman you introduced me to at the Delight? The Enchantress?"

"Yes. Ianira Cassondra. She'll be waiting to see."

He didn't have to tell Margo what-or rather who-Ianira was waiting to see. News of Marcus' disappearance downtime with a con man so slick he'd fooled even Goldie Morran was still the talk of the station-particularly since Skeeter Jackson had crashed the gate going after the young bartender.

"I think perhaps," Malcolm murmured, "we ought to get a little closer. Just in case."

Margo glanced up, swallowed once, then just nodded. She'd grown up a very great deal in the past few months. Her hand closed tightly around his, tacit admission that she understood just how close she'd come to losing him forever.

Several downtimers were standing close to Ianira but gave way with surprise when Malcolm edged through, his hand still tightly gripping Margo's.

"Hello, Ianira," he said quietly.

She flashed a stricken look into his eyes. "Hello, Malcolm. And Margo. It is good of you to wait with me."

He tried to smile reassuringly "What else are friends for?"

Just then the klaxon sounded, drowning out further conversation as the Gate departure was announced from blaring loudspeakers the length of Commons. The message repeated in three other languages. The line of tourists stirred expectantly, while porters gathered up baggage, fathers snagged unruly sons they'd paid a ransom in extra fare to take downtime, and mothers gripped daughters' hands tightly, admonishing them to be quiet and behave. Elegantly gowned women whose appearance and carriage would have screamed money in any society sipped at the last of their wine and tossed paper cups into trash cans in the fenced-off waiting area.

Always the same, Malcolm mused, the rich ones who've been before, the families who've scraped and saved for the family vacation of a lifetime, the millionaires out for a sightseeing jaunt, the zipper jockeys ready to go brothel hopping. Always the same, yet always different, with new wrinkles and near-disasters each time.

Then the gate dilated slowly, causing a painful sensation in the bones of his skull as the sound that was not a sound resonated harshly at subsonic level through the station. Gate Six rumbled open, then disgorged the inevitable staggering, pallid tourists, exhausted guides, chattering women comparing their shopping sprees in the bazaars and markets of Rome, and the teenaged kids who'd drunk too much and were that peculiar shade unique to a boy about to puke.

But there was no Marcus. And no Skeeter. Ianira scanned the departing tourists frantically, but they simply weren't there. She did hiss at one point. "Him!" she said viciously. "That's him!"

"You're sure?" Malcolm asked quietly.

The man Ianira pointed toward looked nothing like the man who'd gone downtime as Chuck Farley. Lightly bearded, beard and hair a different color from Farley's, even his eyes were a different shade. Contact lenses, no doubt. Malcolm wondered just how many pairs he owned, as well as how many bottles of hair dye and glue-on beards to match?

"I swear it by Artemis! That is the man who took Marcus to Rome with him. Now I know why his face has always remained hidden to me: he changes his face every few weeks!"

That was good enough for Malcolm. Several of the downtimers near Ianira began to mutter, most of the mutters having to do with violent, slow deaths in the bowels of the terminal.

"No," he said aloud, cutting across bloodthirsty plans. "Let me take care of him. I understand how creatures like him think."

"Yeah, leave it to us," Margo said darkly, watching the man who'd once been Charles Farley slide a time card through the reader and step off the ramp. She wondered just how many timecards, under how many names, the snake owned. "We'll take care of him, all right." Her eyes flashed that Irish-alleycat glare that did such deadly things to Malcolm's insides.

Malcolm drew a quick, steadying breath. "Everyone spread out, discreetly mind, and follow him. When we've established where he's staying, we'll watch him, day and night. Ianira, you can identify him better than the rest of us, even through the disguises. How long can you hold up, watching?"

Her eyes met his. "As long as it takes."

He didn't pretend to know the ways of her ancient training. She might be able to stay awake for days, for all he knew. The fakirs of the Far East could do some amazing things. And if Farley's next destination were somewhere beyond the Philosophers' Gate? Malcolm was a good guide through Athens, but Ianira had spent the bulk of her young life in the fabled city of Ephesus, across the Aegean Sea on the once beautiful coast that the Balkan Wars had pounded into rubble over the decades. He wasn't even sure if the archeological ruins still existed.

Ephesus ...

Malcolm really would have to get away on a little vacation of his own, to satisfy his scholarly itch. Purchase a ticket to Athens, arrange downtime transportation on a sailing vessel, and then ... Ephesus, in all her ancient tragedy and glory. See the city of Artemis, whose magnificent temple, finally pulled down by Christian zealots. Its magnificent porphyry pillars had been transported away to be built into the Haghia Sophia.

He shook himself slightly, to find a faintly puzzled line between Ianira's dark brows. "You point him out and we'll take our vengeance, never you fear that, Ianira. I am not fond of people who sell my friends into slavery"

She nodded and strode away purposefully in the wake of Charles Farley.

Malcolm found Margo looking up at him with a glow in her eyes akin to hero-worship. He quite suddenly felt eleven feet tall and more than capable of taking on the dragon, St. George, and his horse. "Let's go," he said a bit gruffly.

Margo, clearly as moved by what they'd just witnessed as Malcolm, simply nodded.

As it turned out, following Farley was easier than either of them had expected. He took a modest room in the Time Tripper, then went downstairs to breakfast in the hotel restaurant. This new version of Farley was far quieter than the last. Once he returned to his room, he didn't leave it again, ordering tickets (Margo batted eyelashes and smiled at the Time Tours clerks until she got his new alias and destination) over the phone, eating only through room service-delivered by a downtimer--doing only God knew what up there by himself until the Wild West Gate departure was announced.

Malcolm and Margo repurchased tickets through Malcolm's computer, then scrambled into their "Wild West" duds well in advance of departure. Although the tour was full, Bull Morgan had pulled some strings at Time Tours to let Malcolm and Margo be added to the group. A few hours later, dandied up for what was to have been a celebratory vacation for their engagement, Margo and Malcolm found themselves appointed as the posse, stepping through the Wild West portal, along with the group of predust-coated paleontologists carrying their assorted arsenal (they'd delayed departure to get in more practice with their firearms, one of them had explained diffidently to Margo) in correct period holsters ... and Chuck Farley, still with blond hair and beard.

Once through the portal, the trick was not to be spotted following him. Denver of 1885 spread out in all its nouveau riche splendor against the backdrop of snow-capped Rockies. The better streets were bricked; many were dirt. Chuck hired a horse at the livery stable, hired a second as pack animal, and tied his baggage to it, trotting away with a clatter, not even bothering to glance back.

Cocksure bastard, Malcolm thought darkly as he paid for hacks for himself and Margo. Spreading out her riding skirt gracefully across the leathers, she gathered up the reins, gave a curt nod, and sent her mount down the street at a brisk trot, riding sidesaddle as though she'd been born in one. Malcolm followed, his heart soaring at the sight of her-and positively burning with fierce, primitive joy when he caught sight of Chuck Farley and his pack animal ahead.