"Well, what do you know about that?" Some lucky scout over at TT-73 had pushed a gate into the middle of the Russian palace built by Catherine the Great and had inadvertently caught her in flagrant delicto with one of those infamous Russian boars ....
Kit chuckled, then raised a brow at the purported offers generated in a bidding war between up-time porno outfits. The clever scout had brought back a videotape.
Another scout, over at TT-13, 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 afar-flung reputation as the world's straightest-laced time scout. It made most of the women on TT-86 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 meted 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 school kid, 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 Shangri-la 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 TT-37 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 TT-27, located in the Caribbean Basin. We're looking for a consultant..."