"Yes," Ianira nodded. "The Wild West Gate opens tomorrow."
"And that new tour gate they're ripping half the station apart over, adding to the Commons."
"At least, there won't be any tourists coming through for it, yet," Ianira smiled.
"No. For now, it's the Britannia tours, packing in the loons. In record numbers." He shook his head. "Between your acolytes and all those crazies coming in for the Ripper Season, this place is turning into the biggest nuthouse ever built under one roof. And those Scheherazade Gate construction workers... eergh!" He gave a mock shudder. "What slimy boulder did they turn over, hiring that bunch of thugs?"
As Ianira fell into step alongside Skeeter's push cart, she glanced up with a reproachful glint in her eyes. "You must not be so irritated by the construction workers, Skeeter. Most of them are very good men. And surely you, of all up-timers on station, must understand their beliefs and customs are different? As a down-timer, I understand this very well."
"Oh, I understand, all right. But some of the guys on the Scheherazade Gate crew are throwbacks to the dark ages. Or maybe the Stone Ages. Honestly, Ianira, everybody on station's had trouble with some of them."
She sighed. "Yes, I know. We do have a problem, Skeeter. The Council of Seven has met about them, already. But you, Skeeter," she changed the subject as they navigated a goldfish pond with its ornate bridge and carefully manicured shrubbery, "you are ready for the Britannia? There are only seven hours left. Your case is packed? And you will not be late?"
Skeeter let go the heavy handle of his push cart with one hand and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Yes, I'm packed and ready. I still can't believe you pulled off something like that." About seven hours from now, the first official Ripper Watch tour of the season was scheduled to arrive in London, on the very evening of the first murder officially attributed to Jack the Ripper. And thanks to Ianira, Skeeter would spend the next eight days in London, courtesy of Time Tours, working the gate as a baggage porter. Hauling suitcases wasn't the world's greatest job either; but carrying rich tourists' luggage beat hell out of scrubbing La-La Land's bathrooms for a living. He'd been doing that for weeks, now. And Ripper Watch Tour tickets were selling for five-digit figures on the black market, when they could be found at all. Every one of the Ripper tours had been sold out for over a year.
Skeeter rubbed his nose and smiled wryly. "Time Tours baggage porter. Who'd've believed that, huh? They never would've trusted me, if you hadn't offered to replace anything that went missing on my watch."
"They will learn," she said firmly, giving him a much-needed boost of confidence. Ianira rested a hand on his arm. "You will do well, Skeeter. But will you try to go with the scholars? To see who is this terrible man, the Ripper?"
Skeeter shook his head. "No way. The videotapes will be bad enough."
"Yes," Ianira said quietly. "I do not wish to see any of them."
"Huh. Better avoid Victoria Station, then," Skeeter muttered as he bumped his cart across the division between Edo Castletown and Victoria Station, the portion of Commons which served the Britannia Gate. Bottles of cleaning solution rattled and boxes of toilet paper rolls, feminine supplies, and condoms (latex, spray-on, and natural for those going to appropriate down-time destinations) bounced and jiggled as he shoved the cart across the cobblestones. Mop handles sticking out the top like pungee stakes threatened tourists too slow to dodge—and on every side, pure-bred lunatics threatened everything in sight, including Skeeter and his awkward cart.
"God help us," Skeeter muttered, "Ripper Watch Season is really in full swing."
Ripperoons had come crawling out of the woodwork like swarming termites. So had the crazies preying on them. Saviors of the Gates, convinced the Savior would appear through one of the temporal gates... the Shifters, who drifted from station to station seeking Eternal Truth from the manifestations of unstable gates... Hell's Minions, whose up-time leader had convinced his disciples to carry out Satan's work with as many unsuspecting tourists and down-timers as possible... and, of course, the Ripper Cults.
Those were visible everywhere, holding hand-scrawled signs, peddling cheap literature and ratty flowers, hawking cheap trinkets in the shape of bloody knives. Most of them carried as sacred talismans the authentic surgical knives Goldie Morran was selling out of her shop, and all of them were talking incessantly in a roar of excited conversation about the one topic on everyone's mind.
"Do you suppose they'll catch him?"
"—listen, my brothers, I tell you, Jack is Lord, traveling to this world from another dimension to show us the error of our sins! Repent and join with Jack to condemn evil, for He cannot die and He knows the lust in your hearts—"
"No, how can they catch him, no one in 1888 ever discovered who he was."
"—I don't care if you do have a ticket for the Britannia, you can't take that surgical knife with you, it's against BATF rules—"
"—let the Sons of Jack show you the way to salvation! Condemn all whores and loose women! A whore is the downfall of righteousness, the destruction of civilization. Follow the example of Jack and rid our great society of the stain of all sexual activity—"
"Yes, but they're putting video cameras at all the murder sites, so maybe we'll find out who he was, at least!"
"—somebody ought to confiscate all those goddamned knives Goldie's selling, before these loons start cutting one another up like Christmas turkeys—"
"—a donation, please, for Brother Jack! He will come to Shangri-La to lead us into the paths of truth. Support his good works with your spare change—"
"A hundred bucks says it's that crazy cotton merchant from Liverpool, what's-his-name, Maybrick."
"Go back up time, you sick lunatics! What kind of idiots are you? Jack the Ripper, an alien from another planet—?"
"Hah! Shows what you know! A hundred-fifty says it was the Queen's personal physician, Sir William Gull, hushing up the scandal over Victoria's grandson and his secret marriage, you know, the Catholic wife and daughter!"
"—you want me to what? I'm not following Brother Jack or anybody else in a crusade against evil. My God, mister, I'm an actress! Are you trying to put me out of work?"
"—help us, please, Save Our Sisters! S.O.S. is determined to rescue the Ripper's victims before he can strike, they're so unimportant, surely we can change history just this once—"
"Oh, don't tell me you bought that Royal Conspiracy garbage? There's absolutely no evidence to support that cockamamie story! I tell you, it's James Maybrick, the arsenic addict who hated his unfaithful American wife!"
"—all right, dump that garbage into the trash bin, nobody wants to read your pamphlets, anyway, and station maintenance is tired of sweeping them up. We've got parents complaining about the language in your brochures, left lying around where any school kid can find them—"
"No, you're both wrong, it's the gay lover of the Duke of Clarence, the queen's grandson, the tutor with the head injury who went crazy!"
Skeeter shook his head. La-La Land, gone totally insane. Everyone was trying to outguess and out-bet one another as to who the real Ripper would turn out to be. Speculation was flying wild, from genuine Scotland Yard detectives to school kids to TT-86's shop owners, restauranteurs, and resident call girls. Scholars had been pouring into the station for weeks, heading down time to cover the biggest murder mystery of the last couple of centuries. The final members of the official Ripper Watch team had assembled three days ago, when Primary had last cycled, bringing in a couple of dandified reporters who'd refused to go down time any sooner than absolutely necessary and a criminal sociologist who'd just come back from another down-time research trip. They'd arrived barely in time to make the first Ripper murder in London. And today, of course, the first hoard of tourists permitted tickets for the Ripper Season tours would be arriving, cheeks flushed, bankrolls clutched in avaricious hands, panting to be in at the kill and ready to descend on the station's outfitters to buy everything they'd need for eight days in London of 1888.