Unsurprisingly, Geneva had turned out to be the belle of the ball, which had done a lot to return her confidence. The moment she’d walked in her dance card had started filling with the names of visibly stunned bachelors. They’d all insisted she was the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen, which was probably no exaggeration, considering the lack of Victorian genetic engineering. Much bad poetry was composed on the spot in praise of her flawless face. She’d proved her acting chops with pretty blushes.
Alerio scanned the intricate pattern of dancers as they spun beneath the cavernous ballroom’s glittering crystal chandeliers. A four-piece string ensemble strove to be heard over the chattering, laughing crowd. The crowd won.
He blinked, noticing a trio of—to his eyes—underage debutantes staring at him, whispering behind their fans. Wondering what the hell they wanted, he gave them a polite nod. They burst into giggles and fled.
“It seems you have a fan club,” Dona observed over the mission’s com channel, probably just so she wouldn’t have to shout over the crowd. “If you spoke to them, they’d probably faint dead away.”
“Witless little femmes.” They reminded him of the Vardonese aristocrats back home: certain the universe revolved around them, on the grounds it wouldn’t dare do anything else.
And Alerio intended to make sure the universe didn’t prove them wrong. At least not tonight. He did another crowd scan, searching for anyone whose body contained molecular traces alien to nineteenth-century Earth. Like Borka Czigany, highwayman, would-be kidnapper, and hired assassin in the pay of the Crystal Fortress.
It had taken Alerio less than five minutes to crack the Xeran’s cheap neurocomp and use it to give Czigany an irresistible compulsion to confess his crimes. Which would have been a violation of his civil rights, had it not been for the fact that he was an enemy combatant caught trying to kidnap a temporal tourist on nineteenth-century Earth. Galactic Union’s courts took a very dim view of that kind of thing.
Especially since Czigany wasn’t exactly a blushing virgin. The bastard had done everything from stealing priceless temporal artifacts to assassinating the leader of the Xeran political underground. In fact, Alerio gathered that if a hornhead priest told Czigany to commit any crime against anybody, anytime, anywhere, he’d never think twice. Not exactly a man who suffered from an overactive conscience.
Firmly in the grip of the chief’s compulsion, Czigany had cheerfully admitted he and his Jump gang had decided to kidnap Geneva Kamil because they’d wanted to collect the bounty the priests were offering for captured temporal tourists: a quarter of a million galactors. Czigany had figured they could probably get half a million for Geneva, given her fame.
If the hornheads had realized Alerio would assign Enforcer escorts to the tours, they’d neglected to share that information with Czigany.
Half a million galactors, Alerio thought. Oh, sweet Goddess, we’re going to be ass-deep in these idiots.
“I owe you more than I can ever repay,” Julia Reginald told Dona and Alerio as they sipped mildly alcoholic punch from crystal glasses. Geneva and the two Enforcers were posing as Julia’s guests from a fictional Germanic principality; anyone who overheard them would hopefully think they were speaking a foreign language. Though come to think of it, a language didn’t get more foreign to nineteenth-century South Carolina than Galactic Standard. “If not for you, Jorge would have bled to death.”
Dona smiled; it was nice to be appreciated. “I’m just glad we made it to the infirmary in time. Dr. Chogan said if we’d been ninety seconds later, he wouldn’t have made it.”
“So she told me.” Punch in one hand, Julia waved her fan at her glistening face with the other. Too many sweating people dancing around a room without climate control was a lot less romantic than it sounded. “Jorge has worked for me for twenty years, and he’s become quite dear to me. More than I ever realized, in fact.”
“Close calls do have a way of making a lot of things clear,” Alerio observed absently, still eyeing the crowd like a professional bodyguard.
“And they don’t get much closer than the one we had today.” Julia shook her head and sipped her punch. “We’re all fortunate you decided to provide us with an escort, Chief Dyami. Otherwise I’d likely be dead, and Geneva . . . The gods know what they’d have done to her.”
“It’s better not to waste your energy imagining all the things that didn’t happen,” he said. “What matters is that you, Geneva, and Jorge are safe.”
“Very true.” Julia’s hazel eyes sharpened as she studied him. “But I’m curious, Chief Dyami. Why did you decide to escort us on this trip?”
Somehow Dona managed not to freeze. If he can’t divert Julia now, she’ll run to the media the minute she gets back. The cover-up will blow wide open, and we’ll all be fucked.
Alerio didn’t even look away from the crowd. “Geneva’s wealth is well-known, and she mentioned her plans to dance at a nineteenth-century ball on one of the Interstellar Data Hubs. I had a feeling the comment would attract the wrong kind of attention.” He shrugged those broad shoulders. “It seems I was right.”
Julia’s fan froze in mid-wave. “I told the little twit not to brag about this trip!”
Dona sipped her own punch and shrugged. “Yeah, we always give tourists that warning. And there’s always somebody who doesn’t listen.”
“Good thing we avoided such a tragedy today.” Julia studied Alerio over her fan, her gaze still a bit too sharp.
Dammit, Dona thought in disgust. Looks like she still hasn’t bought it.
“While you were questioning our would-be kidnapper, I ran into a friend of mine.” The guide’s fan waved a little faster, reminding Dona of the twitch of a cat’s tail. “Perhaps you know him—Kangse Wei? He’s a documentarian. Quite famous. Kangse told me he was assigned an escort, too. In fact, he said every tour going out this week will have Enforcer bodyguards.”
Alerio lifted a brow. “Do you often listen to rumor?”
“Not as a rule. But I’ve been a temporal guide for twenty-six years, and I have never known of an Outpost chief playing bodyguard.” She smiled sweetly. “Surely you’re not that shorthanded.”
“Of course not.” Alerio gave her one of those charming smiles he did so well, but Julia’s eyes didn’t even glaze. “I haven’t had field duty in so long, I worried I’d gotten rusty.” He returned his attention to the crowd as if barely interested in the conversation. “As for the other tours this week, I felt your fellow guides could use more experience in working with Enforcers. A little practice now will keep everybody alive in the event of crisis.”
“Yes, that does make sense.” Julia’s waving fan slowed. She’d probably hoped she’d uncovered a scandal she could parlay into free media advertising for her agency. “Actually, I’m surprised no one thought of it before now.”
“Oh, we did.” Alerio shrugged. “We just haven’t had a chance to implement the training before.” As the string quartet swooped into another waltz, he turned to Dona and gave her a credible bow. “May I have this dance?”
Good idea, get us the hell away from her before she thinks of another question. “Of course.”