Time Scout

by Robert Asprin

  Gah ...Where had they distilled this stuff?

  "So ..." She sensed more than saw movement across the table. "You said you had a business out?"

  The voice emanating from the dark was about as warm as a Minneapolis January. "I might remind you, young lady, I'm taking time out of a busy schedule at the Neo Edo. l already have a business to run."

  This wasn't going well at all.

  I'm not going to give -up! Not that easily! Margo cleared her throat, thought about taking another sip of her drink, then thought better. No sense strangling again and cementing her doom. Her hands were trembling against the nearly invisible bourbon glass.

  She cleared her throat again, afraid her voice would come out a scared squeak. "I've been looking for you, Mr. Carson, because everyone agrees you're the very best time scout in the business."

  "I'm retired," he said dryly.

  She wished she could see his face and decided he'd chosen this spot deliberately to put her off balance. Cranky old ...

  "Yes, I know: I understand that. But..." Oh, God, l sound lake an idiot. She blurted it out before she could lose her nerve. "I want to become a time scout. I've come to you for training."

  A choked sound in the darkness hinted that she'd caught him mid-sip. He gave out a strangled wheeze, coughed once, then set his drink down with a sharp click. A match flared, revealing a thin, strong hand and a stubby candle in a glass holder. Carson lit the candle, fanned out the match, then just stared at her. His eyes in the golden candle glow were frankly disbelieving.

  "You what?"

  The question came out flat as a Minnesota wheatfield. He hadn't moved and didn't blink.

  "I want to be a time scout." She held his gaze steadily.

  "Uh-huh." He held her gaze until she blinked His eyes narrowed to slits, while his lips thinned to the merest white line under the bristly mustache. Oh, God, don't think about your father, you aren't facing him so just hang onto your nerve ....

  Abruptly he downed the rest of the bourbon in one gulp and bellowed, "Marcus! Bring me the whole damned bottle!"

  Marcus arrived hastily. "You are all right, Kit?"

  Kit, no less. The bartender was on first-name basis with the most famous time scout in the world and she was left feeling like a little girl begging her father for a candy bar.

  Kit flashed the young man that world-famous smile and said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just leave the bottle, would you? And get a glass of white wine for the lady. I think she damn near choked on that bourbon."

  Margo felt her cheeks grow hot. "I like bourbon."

  "Uh-huh." It was remarkable, how much meaning Kit Carson could work into that two-syllable catchphrase.

  "Well, I do! Look, I'm serious-"

  He held up a hand. "No. Not until I've had another drink."

  Margo narrowed her eyes. He wasn't an alcoholic; was he? She'd had enough of dealing with that for several lifetimes.

  The bartender returned with the requested bottle and a surprisingly elegant glass of wine. Kit poured for himself and sipped judiciously, then leaned back against worn leather upholstery. Margo ignored the wine. She hadn't ordered it and would neither drink it nor pay for it.

  "Now," Carson said. His face had closed into an unreadable mask. "You're serious about time scouting, are you? Who jilted you, little girl?"

  "Huh? What do you mean, who jilted me?" Her bewildered question opened the door to as scathing an insult as Margo had ever received.

  "Well, clearly you're bent on suicide."

  Margo opened her mouth several times, aghast that nothing suitable would come out in the way of a retort.

  Kit Carson grinned-nastily. "Honey, whoever he was-or she was-they weren't worth it. My advice is get over the broken heart, go back home, and get a safe little job as a finance banker or a construction worker or something. Forget time scouting."

  Margo knocked back the bourbon angrily. How dare he...

  She sucked air and coughed. Damn, damn, damn ...

  "I wasn't jilted by anybody," she gritted. "And I'm not suicidal."

  "Uh-huh. Then you're crazy. Or just plain stupid."

  Margo bit down on her temper. "Why? I know it's a dangerous profession. Wanting to scout doesn't make me a loon or a fool. Lots of people do it and I'm not the first woman to take on a dangerous job."

  Carson poured a refill for himself. "You're not drinking your wine."

  "No," she grated. "I'm not." She held out the empty bourbon glass. He held her gaze for a moment, then splashed liquid fire and waited until she'd choked it down.

  "Okay," Carson said, in the manner of a history teacher warming to a lecture, "for the moment, let's rule out stupid. After all, you did have the sense to look for an experienced teacher."

  Margo was sure she was being subtly put down, but couldn't nail down why. Something in the glint of those cynical eyes ...

  "So.. . that leaves us with crazy, which is a word that clearly sets your pearly white teeth on edge."

  "Well, wouldn't you be insulted?"

  That world-famous grin came and went, like an evil jack-o'-lantern in the dim candle glow, "In your situation? No. But clearly you are, so an explanation is in order. You want to know why you are crazy? Fine. Because you've got about as much chance of time scouting as Marcus, there, has of becoming an astronaut. Kid, you're flogging a dead horse."

  She turned involuntarily and found the gorgeous young Marcus near the front of the bar: Smiling and waiting on new customers, he looked like a perfectly ordinary college-age guy in jeans and a T-shirt. Margo glared at the retired time scout. "That's a pretty big insult, don't you think? It's clear he's a friend of yours." Then she twigged to the name, the not-quite-Italian accent, the curious bow he'd given Kit. Marcus was still a popular modern name, but it had been a popular name in ancient Rome, too. "Oh. Down timer?"

  Carson nodded. "Roman Gate. Some asshole tourist decided it would be fun to buy a slave and brought him through to La-La Land, then dumped him and vanished up time before the ATF could arrest him. Not only does Marcus have no legal standing whatever, he literally could never overcome the handicap he's carrying in terms of education, ingrained superstitions, what have you. He's an ancient Roman slave. And if you don't know what that means, not only here," he tapped his temple, "but also here," he tapped his heart, "then you have no business even trying to become a time scout."

  "I'm not an uneducated slave dumped up time to cope with alien technology,- Margo countered. "It's a helluva lot easier to understand ancient superstitions than it is to comprehend physics and math. And I got brilliant grades in dramatics, even had a chance to work off-Broadway." The half-truth sounded convincing enough; at least her voice had held steady. "I came here, instead. Frankly, I don't see how your argument holds water."

  Carson sighed "Look. First of all, there is no way I'm going to shepherd some greenhorn scout, regardless of who they are or how brilliant at dramatics they think they are, through the toughest training you've ever imagined, any more than I'm going to try to hammer some sense into that empty little head of yours."

  She bristled silently.

  "Second, you're a woman."

  Congratulations, she fumed silently. An MCP, on top of everything else. You and my father should start a club. "I know all the arguments-"

  "Do you?" Brown ayes narrowed into an intricate ladder of lines and gullies put there by too much sun and too many years of hard living. "Then you should've had the sense not to waste my time. Women can't be time scouts."

  Margo's temper flared. "You're supposed to be the best there is! Why don't you stop quoting all the doomsayers and find a way! From what I've gathered, you had to retire but didn't much like it. Think what a challenge it'd be, training the first woman time scout in the business."

  His eyes glinted briefly Interest? Or acknowledgement of spunk? impossible to tell .... He knocked back his bourbon and gave her a long, clear-eyed stare. Margo, determined to match him, knocked back her own. This was getting easier. E
ither that or her throat was numb. The edges of Carson's face had begun to waver a bit, though. Bad sign. Definitely should've had lunch.

  Carson, evidently sober as a stone, tipped more bourbon into his tumbler. Gamely she held out her glass. Very gently, he closed his hand around it and pushed it to the table.

  "Point one: you're drunk and don't have the sense to quit. I will not ride herd on a greenhorn trying to prove a point to the whole world." Margo flushed. "Point two: the role of women down time, just about anywhere or anywhen you might land, is ...less than what we'd consider socially respected. And women's mobility in many societies was severely limited. Then there's the problem of fashion."

  Margo had thought all this through and had a counter argument ready, but Carson wasn't slowing down long enough to voice it. She sat and listened helplessly while the man whose accomplishments had given her the courage to keep going nailed down the coffin lid on her dreams.

  "Women's fashions change radically from locale to locale, often from year to year. What happens if you go scouting through an unknown gate and show up a couple of centuries off in clothing style? Or maybe a whole continent off? Any idea how ridiculous you'd look in 200 B.C. China, wearing an eighteenth-century British ball gown? You'd stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Maybe-probably, even you'd end up dead. Quite a few societies weren't real tolerant of witches."

  "But-"

  "At best, you'd end up in prison for life. Or even more fun, in some asshole's private harem. Just how fond of rape are you, Margo?"

  She felt like he'd punched her. Painful memory threatened to break her control. Margo was shaking down to her fingertips and Carson, damn him, wasn't done yet. In fact, the look in his eyes was one of growing satisfaction as he noticed the tremor in her hand.

  He leaned forward, closing in on the kill. "Point three: I will not train a nice kid and turn her over to the likes of some of the brutes I've encountered. Even the nicest down-time men often had a nasty habit of beating their favorite women for cardinal sins like talking too much. Whatever your reasons, Margo, forget 'em. Go home."

  The interview was clearly over.

  Kit Carson didn't quite condescend to pat her head on the way out. He left her sitting in the candlelit booth, fighting tears of rage-and worse, of crushing disappointment. Margo downed a big glass of bourbon and vowed, One day, you're gonna eat those words. Cold and raw, you'll eat 'em. She couldn't bear to glance in the direction of his friends. Margo flinched inwardly at the spate of laughter from a crowded table across the room. She closed her hand around the bourbon bottle, gripping until her fingers ached. She was not a quitter. She intended to become the world's first woman time scout. She didn't care what it took.

  The bill, when Marcus the displaced slave presented it, represented a third of everything Margo possessed in the world. The bill would've been higher, but the glass of white wine didn't appear on it. She was being charged only for the bottle of bourbon. Margo groaned inwardly and dug into her belt pouch for money. How she was going to pay for a room now ...

  "Well," she told herself, "time to put Plan B into operation."

  Find a job and settle in for a long, hard battle to find someone willing to train her. If Kit Carson wouldn't do it, maybe someone else would. Malcolm Moore, maybe. Freelance time guide wasn't what she had in mind, but it was a start. If, of course, he could be convinced to help train his own competition ...

  Margo poured another shot of bourbon. As long as she was paying for it...

  Clearly, this would be a long, long day.

  Chapter Four

  THE KLAXON MARKING the re-opening of Primary sounded just as Kit settled down for breakfast in Frontier Town's Bronco Billy Cafe. He smiled to himself, wishing a mental bon voyage to the redheaded Margo of No Last Name. The computerized register of incoming tourists had shown only "Margo Smith" who held a transfer ID stamp from New York. In New York City anyone could get any sort of credentials, could have any fake name tacked onto one's mandatory medical records, which had to match a person's retinal scans and fingerprints to get past ATF Security.

  After the orbital blowup which had created the time strings that made temporal travel possible, so many records had been damaged and destroyed, New York's underworld had cleaned up issuing new identities. Scuttlebutt had it that new ID's were cheaper than downtime tickets to a temporal station.

  If Smith were Margo's real last name, Kit would eat his shoes.

  He hadn't seen her since her arrival-thank God although he'd heard from several people she was asking everywhere for a teacher. So far as he knew, everyone had turned her down flat. Now she'd be departing for home where she belonged. It was with a sense of profound relief that Kit banished all thought of Margo "Smith." He smiled at the waitress, clad primly in a high collared dress with a striped, floor-length skirt.

  "Morning, Kit," she dimpled "The usual?"

  "Good morning, Bettie. Yes, please, with a side of hash browns."

  Bettie poured coffee and produced a copy of this morning's Shangri-la Gazette. Kit was halfway through the "Scout Reports" section-which comprised at least a third of the small newspaper-when the klaxon announcing the closure of Primary sounded. Kit grinned "Bye, Margo. Have a nice, safe life." He settled deeper into his chair, sipped coffee, and continued reading the latest reports from young time scouts who were busy continuing his work into all manner of unlikely places and times.

  "Well, what do you know about that?" Some lucky scout over at TT-73 had pushed a gate into the middle of the Russian palace built by Catherine the Great and had inadvertently caught her in flagrant delicto with one of those infamous Russian boars ....

  Kit chuckled, then raised a brow at the purported offers generated in a bidding war between up-time porno outfits. The clever scout had brought back a videotape.

  Another scout, over at TT-13, had returned from a hair raising trip into the European Wurm glaciation with an anthropologist's ransom in documentation on Cro-Magnon lifestyles.

  Sometimes, Kit really missed his old life.

  Bertie returned with his breakfast and a smile. She glanced at the open newspaper. "I see you found the story on Catherine's palace."

  Kit chuckled. "Yep. Lucky mutt."

  Bertie rolled her eyes. "Personally, I think it's disgusting what the porno outfits are offering him. And who'd want to sleep with a giant hog? Now, the scout who took the video is another matter.–She winked. "Any lonely time scout needs a room for the night ...."

  Kit grinned, knowing Bertie's offer was only a tease, at least where he was concerned. Kit had afar-flung reputation as the world's straightest-laced time scout. It made most of the women on TT-86 treat him like a favorite uncle or a third grandfather. That had its advantages, but sometimes ...

  He sighed and pushed away thoughts of Sarah. Ancient history, Kit. But he still couldn't help wondering sometimes if he might have found a way to make it work. Yeah. Right. You weren't good enough for her, Georgia Boy. Despite the years, their last fight still had the power to hurt him. And when he'd gone looking for her, what her father and uncle had said ...

  Kit gave a deliberate mental shrug. She'd made her choices and he'd made his. He'd been through every conceivable argument over the years, trying to figure a way it might have gone differently, and he'd never found one. So Kit picked up his fork, carefully not allowing himself to wonder what had become of Sarah or if she ever thought about him when she read the newspapers or watched the idiotic docudramas ....

  Really, Kit told himself sourly, after all this time, there is no point crying about it. He smoothed the paper, turned to a fresh page, and dug into the heaping plate of Denver style steak and eggs, with a bird's-nest side of golden-brown hashed potatoes drenched with meted cheese and liberally mixed with fried onions and green pepper chunks. Ahh ...Bronco Billy's knew how to make breakfast.

  Kit was halfway through the steak, cooked rare just the way he liked it, when a shadow fell across his table. He glanced up-and nearly choked on a bi
te of half swallowed beef.

  Margo.

  She was dressed conservatively enough in jeans and a semi-see-through sweater, but wore a-look of determined sweetness that didn't fit the tilt of her chin. "Hello, Mr. Carson. May I join you?"

  Kit coughed, still half-choked on the bite in his throat. He grabbed the coffee cup and gulped, scalding the roof of his mouth and his tongue. Kit burned the back of his throat, too; but the steaming liquid dislodged the bite of steak. He wheezed, swallowing while he blinked involuntary tears. He finally sat back and glared at her. This was the second time she'd nearly strangled him, catching him off-guard like that. Christ, I'm losing my touch if a half-grown kid can damn near kill me twice in two days.

  "Still here, I see," he growled, still sounding half strangled. "I was hoping you'd gone home."

  Margo's smile was chilly. "I told you, Mr. Carson. I have no intention of going home. I'm going to be a time scout and I don't care what it takes."

  He thought about Catherine the Great and her Russian boar and wondered what this green kid would've done in that situation. Gone all schoolgirl incensed, or burst in protesting cruelty to animals?

  "Uh-huh. Just how much money have you got, kid?"

  Her face flushed unbecomingly. "Enough. And I've applied for a job."

  "Doing what?" Kit blurted. "Serving drinks in that damned leather miniskirt of yours?"

  Margo's eyes narrowed. "Listen, Mr. Carson, I will stay on this terminal, no matter how long it takes or who I have to find to teach me. But I'm going to be a time scout. I was hoping I could persuade you to change your mind. I'm not stupid and I have some pretty good ideas about overcoming the handicap of my gender. But I'm not going to stand here and be insulted like some truant school kid, because I am not a child."

  You damn near are, Kit groused to himself, impressed with her tenacity and appalled that she was so determined to die. Kit sat back in his chair and ran one hand through his greying hair. "Look, Margo, I admire your determination. Really, I do."