Margo's eyes were beginning to take on a glazed look.
"Careful as the precautions are," Kit added grimly, "there are still accidents, even with the tourists. Time scouts have to be paranoid about it For instance, I could only visit TT-17 if I went up time and stayed for at least a year. TT-17's always twelve months and six hours behind this one, same geographical zone, about a thousand miles north of here. If I went through TT-17's Primary without letting it "catch up" and pass by my last exit from TT-86, I'd never live to see the other side."
Malcolm said, "There have even been organized-crime murders committed that way, particularly yakuza killings. They select a victim, get them to take out a huge insurance policy naming a gang member as beneficiary, treat them to an Edo Castletown tour out of Shangri-la on a false ID, then some other gang member takes them to Terminal 56 on their own ID, so they shadow themselves in front of witnesses. Instant profit."
Margo shivered. "Okay. I think I get it."
"Now that you've been here, you'll have the same problem. The longer you stay, the greater the chance of overlap. The more gates you step through, the more complicated the whole mess becomes. That's why the log is essential."
Margo rested her elbows on the table. "Okay, point taken. We have to be careful. But I still say you can get run over by a bus, not paying attention. What's the other thing for?"
Kit sat back in his chair. Was she being flippant to hide fear? Or was she just that silly? Or that stubborn? He wondered how often she'd gotten what she wanted just by smiling that enchanting smile or by coming back with a wisecrack that set people to chuckling. Just what sort of life had Margo known before hunting him up? Given her prickly defenses and that over-sharp tongue; Kit wasn't too sure he wanted an answer.
"It's an ATLS. Absolute Time Locator System. That `gizmo' you mentioned reading about. It works on a combination of geo-magnetic sensors and star-charting systems. The ATLS places you more or less exactly in time and geographic location, relative to absolute Greenwich time."
"More or less?" Margo echoed. "Isn't it precise?"
"Scouts always fudge by at least twenty-four hours in both directions when using the ATLS, just to be sure. Most of us build an even larger safety margin in, because as good as the ATLS is, it isn't absolutely precise. It can't be. Our lives are riding on how closely we cut it. Without it-and the personal log-we couldn't function at all. Even time touring would be impossible, because the tour companies need scouts to push new tour routes. The ATLSs casing gives it the same kind of protection your personal log has."
Margo was frowning at the ATLS. "If it's so dangerous to step through, why not just put the ATLS on a long pole and shove that through, then let it do its thing?
That way nobody'd ever have to risk going `poof'."
Kit shook his head. "It isn't that simple. For one, you have only a fifty-fifty chance of a gate opening at night. If it opens during the day, you can't take a star fix, so the long pole idea would be useless. Or it might be a cloudy night no stars. We could roboticize the whole thing, I suppose, and send it through to take the proper magnetic and star-fix readings, but it would cost a ton of money for each robot and there are thousands of unexplored gates with new ones opening all the time. Anything could still go wrong and recovering the robot might prove impossible. Frankly, human scouts are cheaper, more reliable, and have the advantage of being able to gather detailed social data no robot could. That's important particularly when scholarly research or potential time touring is involved.
"We," he tapped his breast bone, "are expendable. We're independent businessmen, on nobody's payroll. No insurance company in the world will touch us, not even Lloyd's of London. That's another downside to scouting. No health coverage, no life insurance, no disability policies. You sign on for this job, you take your chances. There is a guild, if you care to pay the dues, but the treasury's almost always empty. Time scouts tend to suffer catastrophic illnesses and injuries with depressing frequency. I hope," he added grimly, "that you have a high pain threshold and don't faint at the sight of blood-yours or anyone else's."
Margo didn't answer. But her chin came up a stubborn notch, despite sudden pallor beneath already fair skin.
Kit sat back. "Huh. I'll give you credit for guts, girl. All right, let me show you how these operate."
He and Malcolm took her step by step through the operation of both machines, although they couldn't shoot a star-fix from inside La-La Land The personal log she caught onto fairly quickly. The ATLS' geo-magnetic sensors gave her trouble.
"No, you're plotting that reading backwards, Margo. You've just put yourself half a continent off target, which means you've Just calculated the time zone completely wrong, as well. Run it again."
"I hate math!" Margo snapped "How was I supposed to know I'd need all this crap?"
Malcolm visibly suppressed a wince. Very gently, Kit took the ATLS from her. "All right. We'll begin by having you hone up on basic skills. I'll schedule study times for you in the library. And not just for remedial math. You'll need language skills, historical studies, costuming and customs, sociological structures..."
Margo was looking at him in wide-eyed horror.
"Let me guess," Kit said drolly. "You thought time scouting was a way to avoid college?"
She didn't answer, but he could read it in her eyes.
"Kid, if you want to be a time scout, the first thing you have to become is a scholar. Scouts are a rough and ready bunch-we have to be-but most of us started life as historians or classics professors or philosophers or anthropologists. We're the best-educated bunch of roughnecks this side of eternity."
Malcolm laughed. "I have a Ph.D. in Roman antiquities."
Margo sat back and crossed her arms. "This is maddening. If I'd wanted a Ph.D., I've have gone to school. All I want to do is explore neat places!"
Kit started to say something that would have been entirely too heartfelt, but Malcolm beat him to the punch.
"Fame and fortune and adventure?" he asked in a voice dry as fine wine.
She flushed
Kit felt like cheering. "That's fine," he told her. "But you have to pay the dues. And we have an agreement, Margo. You do what I tell you, when I tell you, or you don't set that first pretty pink toe across the threshold of a gate."
She pouted at the ATLS. Then sighed "All right. I'll go to the library. Isn't there anything to this job besides studying?"
"Sure. Kit sat back. "Plenty, in fact. How much martial arts training have you had?"
She shrugged. "High school stuff: I have a belt."
"What kind, which discipline?"
"Brown belt, Tai Kwan Do."
Kit grunted. All flying kicks and damn near no full contact sparring, not compared to what she'd need. Tai Kwan Do spent too much time "pulling" its punches short to give a student a taste of what it was like to hit-or be hit. He saw the chance for an object lesson that might just sink home.
"All right. Let's go."
"Go? Go where?"
Kit returned the log and ATLS to their leather satchel. "We're going to the gym. I want to test how much you know-"
"You ...now?"
Kit grinned. "Yep. What's the matter, Margo? Afraid an old man will whip you?"
Slim jaw muscles took on a marble hardness. She came to her feet and planted hands on hips. "No. I'm not afraid of anybody or anything. Where's the damned gym?"
"Watch your language," he said mildly. "The gym is in the basement, next to the weapons ranges."
Her eyes widened. "Weapons ranges?" Her expression hovered somewhere between excitement and dismay. "You mean, like guns and stuff?"
Kit exchanged glances with Malcolm, who rolled his eyes. Kit forcibly held back a sigh. "Yes, Margo. I mean exactly like guns and stuff. If it can be shot, slashed with, or jabbed into someone, you're going to learn how to use it."