Malcolm just stared. "You? For Pete's sake, why?"
Kit laughed. "Let's wet our throats someplace and talk business.-
"Well, sure," Malcolm agreed readily. "Anytime you want to pick up the tab, Kit, you just holler."
The Prince Albert Pub was the handiest place to sit down and cool their thirst. The interior was a good bit cleaner than most genuine Victorian-era pubs, the prices were moderate for La-La Land, and the place was virtually empty in the post-lunch-hour vacuum. They found a table near the front windows and sat down.
"Have you eaten yet?" Kit asked, glancing at the menu. "I worked through lunch." Then he grinned sheepishly. "You're a good excuse. I'm playing hooky from paperwork day."
"Oh, ho," Malcolm chuckled; picking up his own menu. "Better not let Big Brother find out."
Kit grimaced. "Paperwork sucks," he said eloquently; half quoting Margo. "Hmm ...I haven't had kippers in years.
"Never could abide them."
"A Victorian time guide and a born Brit and you can't abide kippers? What's the world coming to?"
"A better sense of what's edible, hopefully."
Kit laughed. "Then for God's sake, don't order lunch in medieval Edo."
Malcolm shuddered. "Once was enough to convince me, thank you. I'll stick to steak and kidneys, any day of the week."
"Beats some of what I've eaten," Kit agreed. He set his menu down and flagged a waitress. They ordered lunch and started emptying glasses of dark ale.
"So, what's on your mind?" Malcolm asked.
"Margo. What else?"
The younger man just grinned. "Anything in particular or everything in general? Or both?"
"Both, actually," Kit admitted, "but her lack of progress in her studies, particularly."
Malcolm's smile vanished. "She isn't stupid, Kit. What's the problem?"
"Sven thinks she's too hyped on going down time to concentrate."
The time guide sat back and fiddled with his ale glass, leaving a series of wet rings on the wooden tabletop. "He could be right," Malcolm said slowly. `That probably isn't all of it, but he could have something, there. Going down time is all she talks about."
"How much time are you spending with her?"
Malcolm flushed. "Not enough to warrant that tone, Kit. But I worry about her. I figure if she's with me, she's not falling prey to someone like Skeeter. And you know we get sharks through here every time Primary opens."
Kit knew. He relaxed. "Yeah, don't we just? Any feel for how she's coming with her lessons? Ann and Sven are underwhelmed."
Malcolm shook his head. "No, we don't talk much about her studies, not the bookwork part of them. Mostly she asks questions about my experiences down time or what I know about yours. She's ..." He hesitated.
"She's what?"
"I don't know. Guarded, I guess. She doesn't let the thorns down long, if you catch my drift."
"Tell me about it. She sleeps on my couch, eats my food, showers in my bathroom, and about the only thing I can get her to relax and talk about is how much fun it is living in La-La Land. Do you have any idea how many obscure television celebrities that girl knows by sight?"
Malcolm chuckled. "Really? Well, she did want to be an actress. But then, what little girl didn't at some point in life? As I recall, my sisters went through the `I'll die if I'm not an actress' phase shortly after the "I'll die if I don't have a horse' phase and the `I'll die if I'm not an Olympic figure skater' phase."
Kit grinned. "I didn't have any sisters. Sounds like I missed out on all the fun. But seriously, Margo and I have had only one real heart-to-heart since she's been here and what I found out then ..." He shook his head. "She's so full of hurt, she doesn't want to talk about any of the million or so silly little details I'd give the Neo Edo to know"
Malcolm sighed. "I figured as much. What are-" He paused, visible startlement passing over his mobile features, then pressed a hand to the back of his ear. "There's no gate due to cycle-is there?"
Kit felt it too: that subharmonic sensation which heralded a gate opening nearby. Whatever it was, it was out of phase-and from the feel of it, this was one big gate.
"New gate!"
"Right.
They scrambled for the door and all but collided with the Prince Albert's owner. "Where is it?" Peg Ames demanded breathlessly. She was holding her head. "Mother Bear, that's going to be a big gate. That hurts."
It did, too, much worse than the Porta Romae -- which was La-La Land's biggest active gate. 'Eighty-sixers converged on the Commons at a dead run from storefronts, even from residential corridors. Several carried scanners designed to search for the unstable fields that heralded a gate's arrival in the temporal spatial continuum. Tourists looked bewildered. They huddled in groups, holding their ears. A klaxon's strident SKRONNK! echoed off girders and concrete walls in a mad rhythm. Someone had sounded the special alert siren activated only during station emergencies. Last time that siren had sounded, the semi-permanent unstable gate under the Shermans' coffee shop had endangered the lives of more than a dozen rescue workers.
Station Security converged from various points around the Commons. Several men and women in innocuous grey uniforms arrived in their wake, carrying everything from capture nets to tranquilizer rifles and riot shotguns. Discreet black lettering across grey uniform pockets read Pest Control. Their stalwart corps had risen considerably in status ever since an outbreak of Black Death on TT-13-and that wooly rhinoceros fiasco on TT-51-had been traced to station managers' refusals to pay for adequate pest control services. Nobody argued now with anything a Pest Control officer requisitioned.
Bull Morgan, a stocky man who wore his suit like a casino pit boss wore a scowl, shouldered his way through the crowd, a fireplug on legs. Worry had creased his brow above a nose broken in one too many fist fights. Mike Benson, head of La-La Land's security, followed in the Station Manager's wake, blue eyes narrowed as he scanned the air for the first telltale sign of the new gate's location: He spoke urgently into a walkie-talkie.
Bull high-signed someone with a scanner. "Has anybody-?"
"Oh, shit!
A dozen scanners were pointed straight upward.
Then the ceiling opened up. A chronometer board vanished into blackness. The air dopplered through the whole visible spectrum in a chaotic display. Kit clamped hands over his ears in reflex action, even though the gesture did nothing to damp out the sound that wasn't a sound. Everyone tourists and 'eighty-sixers alike, backed away from the area, leaving wrought-iron benches empty near the center of Victoria Station. The gate widened, ragged and pulsating unsteadily near the edges It shrank visibly, then expanded with a rush like an oncoming freight train, only to collapse back toward its center again just as fast.
It didn't take a sophisticated scanner to determine this gate's condition. It was visible to the naked eye.
"Unstable!" Malcolm shouted.
Kit just nodded and hoped to hell nothing fell through it from a height of five stories. Even the floor pulsed angrily in the backlash of subharmonics. The gate widened savagely once more. Blackness swallowed more and more of the ceiling, crept outward and engulfed the upper level of the nearest wall, taking catwalks with it. Biggest damned gate I've ever seen ....
Ragged light flared: lightning bolts against a backdrop of black storm clouds, seen in miniature through the gate's distortion. For a split second, Kit glimpsed what looked for all the world like a rain-lashed seacoast. Then driving rain spilled into TT-86. Tourists broke and ran for cover under the nearest storefronts. Kit narrowed his eyes against the sudden deluge. Another wild gust of rain burst through, soaking them to the skin. He lifted a hand to protect his eyes ---