Inevitably-this time about three quarters of the way through the departure--someone fumbled a load of poorly tied baggage. Parcels scattered across the catwalk, creating a major hitch in the traffic flow. Three separate guides, glancing wildly at the overhead chronometer, converged on the mess and snatched up baggage willy nilly. A fourth guide all but shoved the remaining tourists through the open gate. The edges of the gate had begun to shrink slowly back toward the center.
Malcolm shook his head. With years of experience behind them, Time Tours really ought to manage better than that. He grunted aloud. That's what comes of exploiting stranded down-timers to haul baggage. Somebody really should do something about the poor souls who wandered in through open gates and found themselves lost in an alien world. His old outfit had never used them as grunt labor.
Of course, his old outfit had quietly gone bankrupt, too.
The guides who'd snatched up the spilled parcels lunged through and vanished. Moments later, Gate Six winked closed for another two weeks. Malcolm sighed and turned his attention to Primary. He checked the chronometer and swore under his breath. He just had time, if he hustled. He left Urbs Romae behind and half jogged through Frontier Town, with its saloons and strolling "cowboys," then picked up speed through Victoria Station's "cobbled" streets, lined with shops whose windows boasted graceful Victorian gowns and masculine deerstalkers. The klaxon sounded, an earsplitting noise that caused Malcolm to swear under his breath.
"Your attention, please. Gate One is due to open in two minutes. All departures, be advised that if you have not cleared Station Medical, you will not be permitted to pass Primary. Please have your baggage ready for customs..."
Malcolm cut across one edge of Edo Castletown, with its extraordinary gardens, sixteenth-century Japanese architecture, and swaggering tourists dressed as samurai warriors. He jogged past the Neo Edo Hotel, skirting a group of kimono-clad women who had paused to admire the mural inside the lobby. The desk clerk grinned and waved as he shot past.
Primary, less than a hundred feet beyond the farthest edge of Castletown, consisted of an imposing set of barriers, armed guards, ramps, fences, metal detectors, and X-ray equipment, plus dual medical stations, all clustered at the bottom of a broad ramp that led fifteen feet into thin air then simply stopped. Malcolm had once wondered why the station hadn't simply been constructed so that the floor was dead-level even with Gate One, or Primary, as everyone in residence called it.
Upon subsequent interaction with officials from the Bureau of Access Time Functions, Malcolm had decided ATF must have insisted on the arrangement for its unsettling psychological impact. Montgomery Wilkes, inspecting everything like a prowling leopard, stood out simply by the sweating hush which followed his rounds.
Malcolm found a good vantage point and leaned his shoulder against the station wall, extremely glad he didn't work for the ATF agent. He glanced at the nearest chronometer and sighed. Whew ...Seconds to spare. The line of returning tourists and businessmen had already formed, snaking past Malcolm's position through a series of roped-off switchbacks. Customs agents were rubbing metaphorical hands in anticipation.
Malcolm's skull bones warned him moments before the main gate into Shangri-la dilated open. Then up-timers streamed through the open portal into the terminal, while departures cleared customs in the usual inefficient dribble. New arrivals stopped at the medical station set up on the inbound side of the gate to have their medical records checked, logged, and mass-scanned into TT-86's medical database. The usual clusters of wide-eyed tourists, grey-suited business types, liveried tour guides, and uniformed government officials-including TT 86's up-time postman with the usual load of letters, laser disks, and parcels -edged clear of Medical and entered the controlled chaos of La-La Land.
"Okay," Malcolm muttered, "let's see what Father Christmas brought us this time." Once a time-guide, always a time-guide. The occupation was addictive.
He double-checked the big chronometer board. The next departure was set for three days hence, London. Denver followed that by twelve hours and Edo a day after that. One of the quarterly departures to twelfth century Mongolia would be leaving in six days. He shook his head. Mongolia was out of the question. None of that incoming group looked hardy enough for three months in deadly country inhabited by even deadlier people.
Gate Five didn't get much traffic, even when it was open.
He eyed the inbound crowd. London, Denver, or ancient Tokyo ...Most of the tourists to Edo were Japanese businessmen. They tended to stick with Japanese tour guides. The only time Malcolm had been to sixteenth-century Edo had been on a scheduled tour for his old company and he'd been in heavy disguise The Tokugawa shoguns had developed a nasty habit of executing any gaijin unfortunate enough even to be shipwrecked on Japanese shores. After that first visit, Malcolm had firmly decided he'd acquired a good knowledge of sixteenth-century Japanese, Portuguese, and Dutch for nothing.
London or Denver, then...He'd have three days, minimum, to work on a client. His gaze rested on a likely-looking prospect, a middle-aged woman who had paused to gape in open confusion while the three small children clustered at her side shoved fists into their mouths and clutched luggage covered with Cowboys and Indians. The smallest boy wore a plastic ten-gallon hat and a toy six-gun rig. Mom glanced from side to side, up and down, stared at the chronometer, and appeared ready to burst into tears.
"Bingo." Tourist in need of help.
He hadn't taken more than three steps, however, when a redheaded gamine clad in a black leather miniskirt, black stretch-lace body suit, and black thigh-high leather boots, hauling a compact suitcase that looked like it weighed as much as she did, bore down on him with the apparent homing instinct of a striking hawk: "Hi! I'm looking for Kit Carson-any idea where I might find him?"
"Uh..." Malcolm said intelligently as every drop of blood in his brain transmuted instantaneously to the nether regions of his anatomy. Not only did Malcolm have no idea where the retired time scout might be lurking this time of day ...
God ...It ought to be illegal to look like that!
Clearly, it'd been far too long since Malcolm had
He gave himself an irritable mental kick. Just where might she find Kit? He probably wasn't at his hotel, not this late in the morning; but it was a little early for drinking. Of course, he enjoyed watching departures as much as any other 'eighty-sixer.
The delightful little minx who'd accosted him was tapping one leather-clad foot in an excess of energy. With her short auburn hair, freckles, and clear green eyes, she gave the impression of an Irish alleycat, intent on her own business and impatient with anything that got in her way. She was the darned cutest thing Malcolm had seen come through Primary in months. He kept his gaze on her face with studied care.
"Try the Down Time Bar and Grill. If anyone knows, the regulars there might. Or you could..."
He trailed off. She was already gone, like a bullet from the barrel of a smoking gun. That damned leather miniskirt did evil things to Malcolm's breath control.
"Well." He rested hands on hips. "If that doesn't ..." He couldn't imagine why a girl that age-and in a tearing hurry, besides-would be looking for Kit Carson of all people. "Huh:" He tried to put her out of his mind and turned to find his bewildered tourist with the cute kids. He needed a job worse than he needed a mystery.