Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  “Oh, I understand, all right. But some of the guys on the Scheherazade Gate crew are throwbacks to the dark ages. Or maybe the Stone Ages. Honestly, Ianira, everybody on station’s had trouble with some of them.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I know. We do have a problem, Skeeter. The Council of Seven has met about them, already. But you, Skeeter,” she changed the subject as they navigated a goldfish pond with its ornate bridge and carefully manicured shrubbery, “you are ready for the Britannia? There are only seven hours left. Your case is packed? And you will not be late?”

  Skeeter let go the heavy handle of his push cart with one hand and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Yes, I’m packed and ready. I still can’t believe you pulled off something like that.” About seven hours from now, the first official Ripper Watch tour of the season was scheduled to arrive in London, on the very evening of the first murder officially attributed to Jack the Ripper. And thanks to Ianira, Skeeter would spend the next eight days in London, courtesy of Time Tours, working the gate as a baggage porter. Hauling suitcases wasn’t the world’s greatest job either; but carrying rich tourists’ luggage beat hell out of scrubbing La-La Land’s bathrooms for a living. He’d been doing that for weeks, now. And Ripper Watch Tour tickets were selling for five-digit figures on the black market, when they could be found at all. Every one of the Ripper tours had been sold out for over a year.

  Skeeter rubbed his nose and smiled wryly. “Time Tours baggage porter. Who’d’ve believed that, huh? They never would’ve trusted me, if you hadn’t offered to replace anything that went missing on my watch.”

  “They will learn,” she said firmly, giving him a much-needed boost of confidence. Ianira rested a hand on his arm. “You will do well, Skeeter. But will you try to go with the scholars? To see who is this terrible man, the Ripper?”

  Skeeter shook his head. “No way. The videotapes will be bad enough.”

  “Yes,” Ianira said quietly. “I do not wish to see any of them.”

  “Huh. Better avoid Victoria Station, then,” Skeeter muttered as he bumped his cart across the division between Edo Castletown and Victoria Station, the portion of Commons which served the Britannia Gate. Bottles of cleaning solution rattled and boxes of toilet paper rolls, feminine supplies, and condoms (latex, spray-on, and natural for those going to appropriate down-time destinations) bounced and jiggled as he shoved the cart across the cobblestones. Mop handles sticking out the top like pungee stakes threatened tourists too slow to dodge—and on every side, pure-bred lunatics threatened everything in sight, including Skeeter and his awkward cart.

  “God help us,” Skeeter muttered, “Ripper Watch Season is really in full swing.”

  Ripperoons had come crawling out of the woodwork like swarming termites. So had the crazies preying on them. Saviors of the Gates, convinced the Savior would appear through one of the temporal gates . . . the Shifters, who drifted from station to station seeking Eternal Truth from the manifestations of unstable gates . . . Hell’s Minions, whose up-time leader had convinced his disciples to carry out Satan’s work with as many unsuspecting tourists and down-timers as possible . . . and, of course, the Ripper Cults.

  Those were visible everywhere, holding hand-scrawled signs, peddling cheap literature and ratty flowers, hawking cheap trinkets in the shape of bloody knives. Most of them carried as sacred talismans the authentic surgical knives Goldie Morran was selling out of her shop, and all of them were talking incessantly in a roar of excited conversation about the one topic on everyone’s mind.

  “Do you suppose they’ll catch him?”

  “—listen, my brothers, I tell you, Jack is Lord, traveling to this world from another dimension to show us the error of our sins! Repent and join with Jack to condemn evil, for He cannot die and He knows the lust in your hearts—“

  “No, how can they catch him, no one in 1888 ever discovered who he was.”

  “—I don’t care if you do have a ticket for the Britannia, you can’t take that surgical knife with you, it’s against BATF rules—“

  “—let the Sons of Jack show you the way to salvation! Condemn all whores and loose women! A whore is the downfall of righteousness, the destruction of civilization. Follow the example of Jack and rid our great society of the stain of all sexual activity—“

  “Yes, but they’re putting video cameras at all the murder sites, so maybe we’ll find out who he was, at least!”

  “—somebody ought to confiscate all those goddamned knives Goldie’s selling, before these loons start cutting one another up like Christmas turkeys—“

  “—a donation, please, for Brother Jack! He will come to Shangri-La to lead us into the paths of truth. Support his good works with your spare change—“

  “A hundred bucks says it’s that crazy cotton merchant from Liverpool, what’s-his-name, Maybrick.”

  “Go back up time, you sick lunatics! What kind of idiots are you? Jack the Ripper, an alien from another planet—?”

  “Hah! Shows what you know! A hundred-fifty says it was the Queen’s personal physician, Sir William Gull, hushing up the scandal over Victoria’s grandson and his secret marriage, you know, the Catholic wife and daughter!”

  “—you want me to what? I’m not following Brother Jack or anybody else in a crusade against evil. My God, mister, I’m an actress! Are you trying to put me out of work?”

  “—help us, please, Save Our Sisters! S.O.S. is determined to rescue the Ripper’s victims before he can strike, they’re so unimportant, surely we can change history just this once—“

  “Oh, don’t tell me you bought that Royal Conspiracy garbage? There’s absolutely no evidence to support that cockamamie story! I tell you, it’s James Maybrick, the arsenic addict who hated his unfaithful American wife!”

  “—all right, dump that garbage into the trash bin, nobody wants to read your pamphlets, anyway, and station maintenance is tired of sweeping them up. We’ve got parents complaining about the language in your brochures, left lying around where any school kid can find them—“

  “No, you’re both wrong, it’s the gay lover of the Duke of Clarence, the queen’s grandson, the tutor with the head injury who went crazy!”

  Skeeter shook his head. La-La Land, gone totally insane. Everyone was trying to outguess and out-bet one another as to who the real Ripper would turn out to be. Speculation was flying wild, from genuine Scotland Yard detectives to school kids to TT-86’s shop owners, restauranteurs, and resident call girls. Scholars had been pouring into the station for weeks, heading down time to cover the biggest murder mystery of the last couple of centuries. The final members of the official Ripper Watch team had assembled three days ago, when Primary had last cycled, bringing in a couple of dandified reporters who’d refused to go down time any sooner than absolutely necessary and a criminal sociologist who’d just come back from another down-time research trip. They’d arrived barely in time to make the first Ripper murder in London. And today, of course, the first hoard of tourists permitted tickets for the Ripper Season tours would be arriving, cheeks flushed, bankrolls clutched in avaricious hands, panting to be in at the kill and ready to descend on the station’s outfitters to buy everything they’d need for eight days in London of 1888.

  “Who do you think it is?” Ianira asked, having to shout over the roar.

  Skeeter snorted. “It’s probably some schmuck nobody’s ever heard of before. A sick puppy who just snapped one day and decided to kill a bunch of penniless prostitutes. Jack the Ripper wasn’t the only madman who ripped up women with a knife, after all. The way those Ripperologists have been talking, there were hundreds of so-called ‘rippers’ during the 1880s and 1890s. Jack was just better with his PR, sending those horrible letters to the press.”

  Ianira shuddered, echoing Skeeter’s own feelings on the subject.

  If Skeeter had still been a betting man, he might have laid a few wagers, himself. But Skeeter Jackson had learned a very harsh lesson about making wagers. He’d
very nearly lost his home, his life, and his only friends, thanks to that last ill-considered, ruinous wager he’d made with Goldie Morran. He’d finally realized, very nearly too late, that his life of petty crime hurt a lot more people than just the rich, obnoxious tourists he’d made a living ripping off. For Skeeter, at any rate, ripping time was over. For good.

  Unfortunately, for the rest of La-La Land, it was just getting started.

  As though on cue, the station’s PA system crackled to life as Primary cycled open. The station announcer blared out instructions for the newly arriving tourists—and at Skeeter’s side, Ianira Cassondra faltered. Her eyes glazed in sudden pain and a violent tremble struck her, so hard she stumbled against him and nearly fell.

  “Ianira!” He caught and held her up, horrified by the tremors ripping through her. All color had drained from her face. Ianira squeezed shut her eyes for a long, terrifying moment. Then whatever was wrong passed. She sagged against him.

  “Forgive me . . .” Her voice came out whispery, weak.

  He held her up as carefully as he would’ve held a priceless Ming vase. “What’s wrong, Ianira, what happened?”

  “A vision,” she choked out. “A warning. Such power . . . I have never Seen with such power, never have I felt such fear . . . something terrible is to happen . . . is happening now, I think . . .”

  Skeeter’s blood ran cold. He didn’t pretend to understand everything this seemingly fragile woman he braced so carefully was capable of. Trained in the ancient arts of the Temple of Ephesus as a child, some twenty-five hundred years before Skeeter’s birth, Ianira occasionally said and did things that raised the hair on the back of Skeeter’s neck. Ianira’s acolytes, who followed her everywhere, pressed closer, exclaiming in worry. Those farther back, unable to see clearly, demanded to know what was wrong.

  “Dammit, get back!” Skeeter turned on the whole lot of them. “Can’t you see she needs air?”

  Shocked faces gawped at him like so many fish, but they backed away a few paces. Ianira sagged against him, trembling violently. He guided her toward a bench, but she shook her head. “No, Skeeter. I am fine, now.” To prove it, she straightened and took a step under her own power, wobbly, but determined.

  Worried acolytes formed a corridor for her. Skeeter glared silently at them, guiding her by the elbow, determined not to allow her to fall. Speaking as quietly as possible, in the probably vain hope their vid-cams and tape recorders wouldn’t pick up the question, he murmured, “What kind of vision was it, Ianira?”

  She shivered again. “A warning,” she whispered. “A warning of dark anger. The darkest I have ever touched. Violence, terrible fear . . .”

  “Sounds like everyday life, up time.” He tried to make light of it, hoping to make her smile.

  Ianira, the gifted Cassondra of Ephesus, did not smile. She shuddered. Then choked out, “It is from up time the danger comes.”

  He stared down at her. Then a prickle ran up his back. It occurred to him that Primary had just cycled. Skeeter narrowed his eyes, gazing off toward the end of Commons where Primary precinct would be filled with tourists shoving their way into the station. Screw the bathroom floors. I’m not letting her out of my sight.

  They reached the junction between five of the terminal’s major zones, a no-man’s land where the corners of Urbs Romae and Victoria Station ran into El Dorado, Little Agora, and Valhalla, not too far from the new construction site where the Arabian Nights sector was going up. It was there in that no-man’s land, with Ianira’s acolytes making it impossible to see for any distance, that Skeeter heard the first rumbles. An angry swell of voices heralded the approach of trouble. Skeeter glanced swiftly around, trying to pin down the source. It sounded like it was coming from two directions at once—and was apparently triangulating straight toward them.

  “Ianira . . .”

  Four things occurred simultaneously.

  Tourists screamed and broke into a dead run. A full-blown riot engulfed them, led by enraged construction workers shouting in Arabic. A wild-eyed young kid burst through the crowd and yelled something that sounded like, “No! Aahh!”—then pointed an enormous black-powder pistol right at Skeeter and Ianira. Gunfire erupted just as someone else lunged out of the crowd and swept Ianira sideways in a flying tackle. The blow slammed her against Skeeter, knocked them both sideways. They crashed to the floor. The maintenance cart toppled, spilling ammonia bottles, mop handles, and toilet paper rolls underfoot. Screams and alarm klaxons deafened him. Skeeter rolled awkwardly under running feet and came to his hands and knees, searching wildly for Ianira. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Couldn’t see anything but fleeing tourists and spilled cleaning supplies and embattled construction workers. They were locked in hand-to-hand combat with Ianira’s howling acolytes.

  “Ianira!”

  He gained his feet, was rocked sideways by a body blow as a cursing construction worker smashed into him. They both went down. Skeeter’s skull connected with El Dorado’s gold-tinted paving stones. He saw stars, cursed furiously. Before he could roll to his hands and knees again, security killed the station lights. The entire Commons plunged into utter blackness. Shrieking riot faded to an uncertain roar. Somebody stumbled over Skeeter in the darkness, tripped and went down, even as Skeeter clawed his way back to his feet.

  “Ianira!”

  He strained for any sound of her voice, heard nothing but the sobs and cries of frantic tourists, maddened acolytes, and screaming, erstwhile combatants. Somebody ran past him, with such purpose and certainty it could only be security. They must be using that night-vision equipment Mike Benson had ordered before the start of Ripper Season. The riot helmets had their own infrared light-sources built in, for just this kind of station emergency. Then the lights came up and Skeeter discovered himself hemmed in by a solid wall of security officers, armed with night sticks and handcuffs. They waded in, cuffing more rioters, breaking up combatants with scant regard for who was attempting to throttle whom. “Break it up! Move it—“

  Skeeter peered wildly through the crowd, recognized the nearest officer. “Wally! Have you seen Ianira Cassondra?”

  Wally Klontz stared at him, visibly startled. “What?”

  “Ianira! Some crazy kid shot at us! Then somebody else knocked us both down and now she’s missing!”

  “Oh, Jeezus H., that’s all we need! Somebody taking pot-shots at the most important religious figure of the twenty-first century!” A brief query over Wally’s squawky produced a flat negative. Nobody from security had seen her, anywhere.

  Skeeter let loose a torrent of fluent Mongolian curses that would’ve impressed even Yesukai the Valiant. Wally Klontz frowned and spoke into the squawky again. “Station alert, Signal Eight-Delta, repeat, Signal Eight-Delta, missing person, Ianira Cassondra. Expedite, condition red.”

  The squawky crackled. “Oh, shit! Ten-four, that’s a Signal Eight-Delta, Ianira Cassondra. Condition red. Expediting.”

  More sirens hooted insanely overhead, a shrieking rhythm that drove Skeeter’s pulse rate into the stratosphere and left his head aching. But the pain in his head was nothing to the agony in his heart. Wally let him pass the security cordon around the riot zone, then he fought his way clear of the riot’s fringe, searching frantically for a flash of white Ephesian gown, the familiar gloss of her dark hair. But he couldn’t find her, not even a trace. Skeeter bit his lip, shaking and sick. He had allowed the unthinkable to happen. Someone wanted Ianira Cassondra dead. And whoever that someone was, they had snatched her right out of his grasp, in the middle of a riot. If they killed Ianira . . .

  They wouldn’t get out of Shangri-La Station alive.

  No one attacked the family of a Yakka Mongol and lived to boast of it.

  Skeeter Jackson, adopted by the Khan of all the Yakka Mongols, a displaced up-time kid who had been declared their living bogda, spirit of the upper air in human form, the child named honorary uncle to an infant who one day would terrorize the world as Genghis Khan, had just
declared blood feud.

  * * *

  Margo Smith glanced at her wristwatch for the tenth time in three minutes, fizzing like a can of soda shaken violently and popped open. Less than seven hours! Just seven more hours and she would step through the Britannia Gate into history. And, coincidentally, into her fiancé’s arms. She could hardly wait to see Malcolm Moore’s face when she showed up at the Time Tours gatehouse in London, guiding the final contingent of the Ripper Watch Team. Malcolm had been in London for a month, already, acclimating the other Ripper Watch Team members. Margo hadn’t lived through four longer, lonelier weeks since that gawdawful misadventure of hers in southern Africa, going after Goldie Morran’s ill-fated diamonds.

  But she’d learned her lessons—dozens of them, in fact—and after months of the hardest work she’d ever tackled, her gruelling efforts had finally paid off. Her grandfather was letting her go back down time again. And not through just any old gate, either. The Britannia! To study the most famous murder mystery since the disappearance of the Dauphin during the French Revolution. All that stood between her and the chance to earn herself a place in scholarly history—not to mention Malcolm Moore’s embrace—was seven hours and one shooting lesson.

  One she dreaded.

  The elite crowd gathered in the time terminal’s weapons range talked nonstop in a fashion unique to an assemblage of late-arriving wealthy tourists, world-class scholars, and self-important reporters—each hotly defending his or her own pet theories as to “whodunnit.” They ignored her utterly, even when she stuffed earmuffs and lexan-lensed safety glasses into their gesticulating, waving hands. Most of the students stationed along the firing line were tourists holding ordinary tickets, many of them for the Wild West tour set to leave tomorrow.