Kit grinned. "I'll take a rain check, then. Don't forget to order pizza or something."
"Scout's honor." Connie melted another few inches down the bench while Kit finished her feet, then sighed and stood up. She wriggled cotton-clad toes against the concrete. "Blessings on your soul, Kit. I may be able to limp back, now."
"Mind if I ask a stupid question?"
"Shoot."
"How come you tortured yourself into walking halfway down the Commons in those things?"
Connie grinned. "I paced it out beforehand,-to the exact distance of the harlots' processions through Yoshiwara. If I can go the distance in those infernal shoes, anyone can."
Connie Logan wasn't exactly sickly, but she was fragile. Kit scratched the side of his jaw. "Well, I guess you have a point. Still seems a helluva way to design costumes."
Connie laughed. "This, from the man who pioneered masochism into a new art form. Just why did you become a time scout?"
"I cannot tell a lie." He leaned closer and whispered, "Because it's fun."
"There you have it. l get to play dress-up, every day." She stooped for the hideous shoes, then gave him a quick hug full of pins. "Thanks, hon. Gotta go. Oh ...I saw that kid the other day,. with Skeeter Jackson."
Kit groaned.
Connie's brows twitched down. "Good grief, Kit, she really got to you, didn't she? You ought to say something to her. She worships you, and Skeeter's going to get her killed. You wouldn't believe what he had her wearing."
"Great. Since when did I get promoted to greenhorn daddy?"
Connie flashed him a grin. "You don't fool me, Kenneth Carson. You care. It's why we like you. Gotta run."
Kit was still grumbling under his breath long after Connie had vanished back toward her outfitters' shop. "Sometimes," he groused, "this Mr. Nice-Guy rep is more trouble than it's worth." He sighed. "Well, hell." He really couldn't countenance allowing Skeeter Jackson to pass himself off as an instructor of time scouts.
Normally residents didn't interfere in other residents' business dealings. But there was a difference between fleecing obnoxious tourists out of a few dollars and perpetrating negligent homicide. Skeeter, never having been a scout-having rarely even been down time, probably didn't realize just how deadly his current scam was. Kit swore under his breath. He probably wouldn't earn any thanks, but he had to try.
Kit dropped by the Neo Edo just long enough to put away his cue case and be sure Jimmy had the business well in hand, then started asking around for Skeeter. Typically, nobody recalled seeing him. Kit knew some of his favorite haunts, but the rascal wasn't in any of them. Skeeter generally avoided Castletown, since even he didn't care to risk fleecing the wrong person and end up someplace really nasty, minus several fingers. Kit checked all of Skeeter's favorite watering holes in Frontier Town, then hit the pubs in Victoria Station. Nothing. Skeeter Jackson was making himself mighty scarce.
"Well, he's got to be someplace."
With no gates currently open, Shangri-la Station was closed up tight. The only exits were hermetically sealed airlocks leading-if the main chronometers and Kit's own equipment were correct into the heart of the Tibetan Himalayas, circa late April of 1910. The only reason those airlocks would ever be opened would be to escape a catastrophic station fire. And since halon systems had been built into every cranny of La-La Land...
Skeeter hadn't left the station, not unless he'd fallen through an unstable gate somewhere.
"We should be so lucky Kit muttered "Well, genius, now what?" He planted hands on hips and surveyed the breadth of Victoria Station, which wound from one side of Commons to the other in a maze of pseudo-cobbled streets, wrought-iron "street lamps," park-like waiting areas, picturesque shop fronts, and the inevitable cobwebbing of catwalks and ramps which led up to the Britannia Gate near the ceiling.
A tourist in a garish bar-girl costume left the Prince Albert Pub and fumbled in a small purse that would have been more appropriate for an American frontier matron. Slim white shoulders rose above a shocking neckline. Kit couldn't see her face. A drooping bunch of black feathers from a hat that should have been paired with a tea gown hid her features. The hemline of her dress was cut rakishly high enough to reveal shoes that were completely out of period.
"Huh. She went to a lousy outfitter."
The tourist closed her purse, then turned on an emphatic stilt heel. Kit groaned. It figured.
Margo ...
"Well, Connie did warn me." He squared metaphorical shoulders and moved to intercept her, stepping out from behind a "street lamp" into her path. "Hi."
Margo glanced up, badly startled, and teetered on high heels. Kit let her regain her balance.
"Oh. It's you." Belatedly, she said, "Hi." Then her chin came up. "I found a teacher."
"Yes, I know. That's why I want to talk to you."
Margo's eyes widened. "You do?" Almost instantly, suspicion flared. "Why?"
Kit sighed. "Look, can we just declare a truce for about fifteen minutes?"
She eyed him narrowly, then shrugged. "Sure." She tossed her head slightly to bounce feathers out of her eyes.
Kit started to say, "That hat's on backwards," then bit his tongue. He didn't want to antagonize her. He wanted to save her life. So he suggested, "Let's go over to the library. It's quiet. We shouldn't be interrupted."
Margo eyed him curiously. "Why are you taking the trouble? I thought you hated me."
"Hated you? I don't hate anybody, Margo. Time scouts can't afford the luxury of hate."
Or love ...
Margo's eyes had gone curiously wide and vulnerable. "Oh. Well, I'm glad."
Kit recalled what Connie had said-"she worships you" and sighed. He wasn't cut out to be anybody's personal hero.
"Come on, Margo. The sooner I get this said, the sooner you can tell me where to jump off, then we can both call it quits." He eyed her unhappily. "And contrary to what you clearly believe, I don't enjoy hurting people's feelings."
For once, she didn't come back with a sharp remark. She just followed him wordlessly toward the library.
Margo knew time terminals had libraries. Tourists, guides, and time scouts all used them, to one degree or another. Her original legwork had revealed that time terminal libraries were among the most sophisticated research facilities in the world. But Skeeter Jackson hadn't suggested they go there and she hadn't given it much thought. Margo had never been fond of books. She preferred direct, dramatic action and firsthand experience. Poring through dusty, musty pages nobody had cracked open in fifty years only made her crazy. Besides, all those experts disagreed anyway, and a time scout's job was to go places and find out what the truth was.
Still ...
La-La Land's library overawed.
Margo repressed a delicate shudder and didn't even try to calculate the number of books contained in this ...the word "room" seemed inadequate. And computer terminals, too, with recognizable CD-ROM and video drives, all voice-activated. Judging from the snippets of soft-voiced commands she heard from a dozen busy users, they were programmed for multiple-language recognition. The computers drew Margo's attention more thoroughly than any of the books.
Mr. Carson-she had trouble thinking of him as "Kit"-spoke briefly with a slim, dark-skinned man in his mid-thirties, then steered her toward the back.
Several private cubicles had been built into the back wall, complete with computer and sound-board hookups.
"What are these for?"
"Language labs," Carson said quietly. "I take it you haven't been here yet?"
Margo detected no particular edge to his voice, but the question irritated her. "No. Skeeter has me busy doing important things." Like earning a living to pay for the equipment I'm going to need.
"Uh-huh. This one's empty." He pushed open a door and held it for her.