"She's overdue," Malcolm said quietly. "Isn't she?"
Goldie glanced up. "Well, yes. She is."
Kit tightened his hands on the edge of Goldie's shop counter. "How overdue?"
"A couple of weeks."
"A couple of weeks?" Kit exploded. "My God! Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew you'd blow up just like this!" Goldie snapped. "They took plenty of protective gear with them. They'll be fine! They're just a little overdue."
Kit studied her, controlling an ice-cold rage that demanded physical action. She wasn't telling them everything. For someone waiting on a shipment of first quality South African diamonds, Goldie was remarkably untroubled about Margo's fate.
"What's your scam, Goldie?"
She widened her eyes at him. "Scam? Why, Margo. was just going to dig out some of the Seta deposits and come back, that's all."
Kit leaned over the counter. "You are full of it, Goldie Morran. If Margo was supposed to bring back a shipment of diamonds, you'd have been crawling all over this station looking for someone to go after her when she was two weeks overdue. What kind of scam are you running?"
Goldie pursed her lips like someone who's tasted poison. "You are a royal pain, Kit Carson. She isn't bringing them back. Koot van Beek and I jointly invested in a little piece of property up north of Francistown, in Botswana. No one has ever found the motherlode source of the Seta alluvial deposits. So Margo's going to dig up a couple of potholes' worth of matrix and fly the ore up to our property on the Shashe River. I have a rube up time who's biting at the bait. All I have to do is confirm that Margo's seeded the land and Koot and I will `discover' samples that match the Seta deposits. This fool will buy the land at a huge profit and we'll make a fortune. We don't even have to smuggle the diamonds past ATF this way. It's all nice and legal."
It was a nice scam. A very nice one. Neat, slick, possibly even legal, leaving out the minor problem of minerals fraud. And given the current state of government in the southern African republics, any fool crazy enough to buy the land would probably end up eating his losses.
Kit said quietly, "You had better pray real hard that nothing has happened to my grandchild, Goldie. Show me this gate."
Kit and Malcolm both scanned the gate in Phil Jones' shop during its next scheduled opening. Malcolm double-checked his readings in rising dismay. His heart sprang straight into his throat. "Uh, Kit, are you getting the same readings I am?"
Kit nodded grimly. "It's disintegrating. Rapidly. How often does it open and how long has it existed?"
Phil Jones, a nervous little weasel of a man, cleared his throat. Totem poles loomed on every side, grotesque shapes beyond the shimmering edges of the gate. "Opens every five days, stays open about ten minutes. First saw it about ten weeks ago."
"Have you kept an exact log of its openings?"
Phil exchanged glances with Goldie. -Uh ... should I have done that?"
Malcolm was afraid Kit might strangle the shop keeper:
"Yes, you blithering idiot! You should have!"
The gate shrank, expanded briefly, then vanished
"Five days," Kit muttered, noting the exact times of its appearance and departure. "I have five days to get ready."
"You're not going through?" Phil gasped. "But I thought-wouldn't it be dangerous for you to-"
One look from Kit was all it took. He gulped and shut up.
Malcolm followed Kit out of Phil's odd little shop. "Have you checked your personal log yet?"
"I have."
"And?"
"It's risky. Damned risky. There's a twenty percent chance I'll shadow myself on stepping through. And if I stay longer than a week, if I have to wait through two cycles, a ninety percent chance I'll shadow myself before getting back through. If the gate doesn't collapse permanently before then."
"But you're going?"
Kit's eyes were haunted "Hell yes, I'm going. Goldie admitted Margo should've been back to the gate two weeks ago. What would you do?"
"Go with you," Malcolm said quietly
Kit swung around. He blinked; then tightened his jaw muscles. -Malcolm, I can't ask you to risk this. You said yourself you weren't cut out for scouting."
"You're not asking and neither am I. I'm going. It's my fault Margo pulled this stunt, say what you will. I'm going."
They locked gazes for a long moment. Then a suspicious film moistened Kit's eyes.
"All right. You're going. The Portuguese aren't real cheerful about strangers in their African outposts."
No. Those "traders are likely to kill any European they find sneaking around their settlement."
"Yeah." Malcolm wasn't thinking about himself. He was picturing Margo in their hands.
"Jesuits," Kit said finally. "You speak Portuguese?"
"Some. I studied it for Edo, back when I was with Time Ho! My Basque is better, though."
"Good. I speak Portuguese very well. You'll be a Basque Jesuit, I'll play your superior in the Society. Let's find Connie. This is going to be one helluva rush order."
Five days.
Malcolm just prayed the gate hadn't already disintegrated so badly that it never opened again.
CHAPTER NINTEEN
They emerged onto a rain-lashed beach. When Kit didn't vanish like a shimmer of heat over Kalahari sands, Malcolm started breathing again. The pallor in Kit's cheeks told its own story. Now all we have to do is try to find margo -- and beat ninety-percent odds if we don't do it in a week.
With the entire southern tip of Africa to search, Malcolm wasn't terribly sanguine about their chances.
He finished his ATLS readings and log update a hair sooner than Kit. The retired time scout was out of practice. They hid their equipment deep in camouflaged bags beneath vestments, censers and other priestly paraphernalia. Among their personal "effects" were hand bound copies of not only the Bible in Latin but also of the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises written by Ignatius Loyola, the Basque founder of the Society of Jesus. Connie Logan had outdone herself on this one.
Malcolm closed his bag and turned his attention to their surroundings. In the short minutes they'd stood on the storm-lashed shore of Delagoa Bay, their long, heavy habits were already soaked. Wind whipped sodden wool around their ankles. They had decided to approach the Portuguese first, to find out if Margo had, in fact, made it back this far or if they would have to mount an expedition into the heart of the interior to search for her.
"This storm will work in our favor!" Kit shouted above the crash of thunder. "I've been worrying about how to explain our sudden appearance. Claiming we've been shipwrecked is more credible in the middle of a storm!"
Malcolm nodded. "The Wild Coast is notorious for shipwrecks, particularly when summer storms hit the Drakensbergs. And as Jesuits, we ought to be welcomed."
They both carried bladed weapons just in case they weren't.
Lightning flares cut through the gloom of early evening, revealing the miserable little fort and ramshackle houses of Lourengo Marques huddled on the bay. A stout kraal wall enclosed the whole community. Kit marked the spot where the time gate had closed by piling stones into a small cairn, then he and Malcolm slogged down the rainswept beach toward the trading settlement and prayed for the best. They passed grain fields where straggling wheat lay flat under the onslaught of the storm.
Vegetable gardens sprawled in patchwork confusion beyond an unguarded kraal gate. Wet chickens hid under the houses. Pens for hogs stank and leaked filth into the mud streets. Thin, forlorn cows huddled against the rain and a few sheep and goats milled uncertainly in a high-walled pen. A horse neighed once, answered by others in the distance.