Tears trembled on thick, black lashes.
Bull Morgan swore silently and steeled himself. "Ianira, there is nothing I would like more than to find Marcus. Please believe that. But I can't." The tears spilled over, even as her mouth tightened into a thin line of anger. "Let me try to explain. First of all, Marcus went downtime with him willingly. Second, you and Marcus are downtimers. The uptime government can't make up its mind what to do about people like you, so it's a confused mess as to what I can and can't do. Besides, this Farley bastard was smooth. There really isn't anything I can pin on him."
"So you will do nothing to find Marcus!"
"I can't," he said quietly. "I have a very small security staff. We're not authorized to go downtime to rescue people who are from downtime."
"But you have told us we cannot go back, even if we wanted to, to live downtime in the places of our births! How can you permit Marcus to return permanently to Rome, when your own law says he cannot?"
Bull groaned inwardly. "That's station policy, yes. I'm doing my best to interpret the law. Downtimers can work as porters through the gates, so long as they return. But, Ianira, there just isn't anyway I can enforce that." Even as he said it, he knew it would have terrible repercussions in the downtimer underground community he knew existed on his station. "If I could," he said as gently as possible, "the next time the gate cycles I'd send in a division of Marines to find him. But the reality is, I can't even send down one security man. Our budget is so tight, I can't afford to lose the man-hours of even one security guard for two entire weeks-with no guarantee he or she could even find Marcus."
More tears spilled over, silently. But her head remained high and her eyes flashed dangerous defiance. "So I am just supposed to sit and wait to see if I must put on widow's weeds and weep the death of my children's father aloud?"
Bull shook his head slowly. "The only thing I can do is talk to some of the guides, some of the scouts. They like Marcus. If I can persuade some of them to go downtime to Rome, I can get the necessary paperwork approved quickly. It's the best I can do, and I can't promise that another man will do as I ask."
To Bull's surprise, Ianira nodded slowly. "No one can ever speak for the behavior of another. Only for one's self can you speak, and even then, do we not lie to ourselves far more often than we lie to others?"
"You'd make a damn fine psychological therapist, Ianira. You should talk to Rachel therapist, about training with her."
Ianira's laugh was brittle as shale. "I am a Priestess of Artemis, trained at the great Temple of Ephesus where my mother's sister was High Priestess. I do not need more training!"
Without another word, Ianira Cassondra gathered up her beautiful little girls, both of whom looked scared, and swept out of his office like a primal force, siphoning away every erg of his willpower to continue going through the motions of his job.
It was a long, long time before Bull Morgan answered his phone or moved a single sheet of paper on his desk from the "to do" to the "done" stack.
If he'd been able, he'd have gone downtime himself. But he'd told her nothing except the naked, brutal truth. Manager of the time terminal he might be, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to help her, except call a few guides and scouts who were currently in and ask them for a favor they wouldn't be too wild about granting.
Bull sighed mightily, dislodging several sheets of paper from the "to do" stack, which landed on the floor beside his massive desk. He ignored them completely and reached for the telephone. If he were going to make those calls, he'd better start making them, before Ianira did something stupidly desperate.
As the phone rang on the other end of the line, Ianira Cassondra's ancient, bottomless eyes haunted him like a whiff of perfume diffused through his entire awareness, inescapable and unutterably damning.
"Yeah?" a surly voice on the other end of the line said.
Bull sighed again, dislodging more papers, and said, "Bull Morgan here. I've got a favor to ask..."
Malcolm nudged his fiancée. "Margo, that young woman over there. By the exit ramp?"
They were waiting, along with half Shangri-La station for the cycling of the Porta Romae. After Skeeter and Marcus had both disappeared downtime, Malcolm had canceled their reservations for the Wild West Gate, to wait and see if a rescue would need to be mounted.
"Yes," Margo stood on tiptoe to see over taller heads. "Isn't that the woman you introduced me to at the Delight? The Enchantress?"
"Yes. Ianira Cassondra. She'll be waiting to see."
He didn't have to tell Margo what-or rather who-Ianira was waiting to see. News of Marcus' disappearance downtime with a con man so slick he'd fooled even Goldie Morran was still the talk of the station-particularly since Skeeter Jackson had crashed the gate going after the young bartender.
"I think perhaps," Malcolm murmured, "we ought to get a little closer. Just in case."
Margo glanced up, swallowed once, then just nodded. She'd grown up a very great deal in the past few months. Her hand closed tightly around his, tacit admission that she understood just how close she'd come to losing him forever.
Several downtimers were standing close to Ianira but gave way with surprise when Malcolm edged through, his hand still tightly gripping Margo's.
"Hello, Ianira," he said quietly.
She flashed a stricken look into his eyes. "Hello, Malcolm. And Margo. It is good of you to wait with me."
He tried to smile reassuringly "What else are friends for?"
Just then the klaxon sounded, drowning out further conversation as the Gate departure was announced from blaring loudspeakers the length of Commons. The message repeated in three other languages. The line of tourists stirred expectantly, while porters gathered up baggage, fathers snagged unruly sons they'd paid a ransom in extra fare to take downtime, and mothers gripped daughters' hands tightly, admonishing them to be quiet and behave. Elegantly gowned women whose appearance and carriage would have screamed money in any society sipped at the last of their wine and tossed paper cups into trash cans in the fenced-off waiting area.
Always the same, Malcolm mused, the rich ones who've been before, the families who've scraped and saved for the family vacation of a lifetime, the millionaires out for a sightseeing jaunt, the zipper jockeys ready to go brothel hopping. Always the same, yet always different, with new wrinkles and near-disasters each time.
Then the gate dilated slowly, causing a painful sensation in the bones of his skull as the sound that was not a sound resonated harshly at subsonic level through the station. Gate Six rumbled open, then disgorged the inevitable staggering, pallid tourists, exhausted guides, chattering women comparing their shopping sprees in the bazaars and markets of Rome, and the teenaged kids who'd drunk too much and were that peculiar shade unique to a boy about to puke.
But there was no Marcus. And no Skeeter. Ianira scanned the departing tourists frantically, but they simply weren't there. She did hiss at one point. "Him!" she said viciously. "That's him!"
"You're sure?" Malcolm asked quietly.
The man Ianira pointed toward looked nothing like the man who'd gone downtime as Chuck Farley. Lightly bearded, beard and hair a different color from Farley's, even his eyes were a different shade. Contact lenses, no doubt. Malcolm wondered just how many pairs he owned, as well as how many bottles of hair dye and glue-on beards to match?