Time Scout

by Robert Asprin

  "People make their own luck," Margo said with surprising vehemence.

  He glanced into her eyes, then smiled "Well, yes. Maybe they do. You're here, after all. And I'd have bet money you'd never get this far."

  She flushed. "Thanks. I think."

  Malcolm laughed. "Well, considering the first thing you did in La-La Land was get lost in Residential ... Straighten the rudder, Margo. We're headed for the river bank again."

  She put out her tongue and steered for the central current again. It was a glorious day for a sail, perfect weather and perfect company, but as they neared the new port, river traffic grew much thicker. Malcolm took over and steered a course toward the far bank to get the best view possible when they neared what should be the spot for the new harbor facility.

  "There are a lot of boats coming up river," Margo commented.

  "Ostia's the grain port for Rome. Italian agriculture's in trouble, mostly for economic reasons. Almost all of Rome's food supply, grain in particular, is imported In fact, Rome imports far more than she exports. Take that, for instance." He pointed to a heavily laded corbita, a kind of heavy freighter, passing majestically on its way upriver. "Those amphorae probably contain wine or olive oil, I can't see the markings at this distance to be sure. Those bales are Egyptian cotton and imported luxury goods." A barge towed by scaphae followed Huddled on its decks were miserable, half-naked men and women in chains.

  Margo's eyes widened. "Those are slaves!"

  "Ostia is a trading port," Malcolm pointed out. "And slaves are big business. Rome has had a slave economy for centuries."

  She followed the barge's progress until it passed out of sight beyond a bend, then shivered. They rounded another curve in the river and the new port came into view. Ostia was just visible in the distance, more than two miles away across silty salt marsh. The new port rose from the marshes as though the gods themselves had set the giant stones in place.

  Margo breathed, "Wow!"

  For once, Malcolm shared her awe.

  Two curving breakwaters had been constructed across the entrance to an enormous excavation. The main harbor-some one-hundred-seventy acres of it had already been dug and flooded. Between the two breakwaters, Roman engineers had built an artificial island A tall tower rose toward the bright sky, incomplete as yet. An artificial channel connected the newly dug harbor with the river.

  Malcolm dragged over the bag containing his ATLS and log and slung it across his chest, bandolier style, then risked a quick scan with a digitizing camera which hooked into the log like an ordinary scanning mouse. He photographed the entire panorama, then steered for the middle of the Tiber. Now that he'd seen the whole layout, he was dying to get a closer look. Margo leaned over the prow like an excited kid.

  "What's that?" Margo asked, pointing to the tower. "A temple of some kind?"

  "No. Much more important."

  She glanced around, brow furrowed. "Like what?"

  He grinned. "A lighthouse.

  "A lighthouse?" Margo laughed. "I never thought about ancient people building practical things like lighthouses, but I guess they'd need one, wouldn't they? Especially to navigate around that island in the fog."

  "Yes. It's almost finished. Claudius will dedicate the new harbor this year, although construction will continue through A.D. 54 under Nero, after Claudius' death. Get your log. I want you to start recording your impressions. Just open the flap on your bag a little and press voice record."

  She did so, draping the bag around her own neck and shoulder much as he had.

  "Wow That's really something, Malcolm.- She began describing everything in sight, then started asking questions. "How long must it have taken to dig all that out? Months? Years? And look at those walls. What is that? Stone? Or concrete? And look at those piers. They're solid stone! How'd they get those blocks into place? Say, what's that?"

  Malcolm grinned. Watching Margo's mind come alive was almost as much fun as studying the new port to satisfy his own scholarly itch. They moved on downriver and spent the day in Ostia, prowling the wharves while merchants offloaded cargo for the river voyage up to Rome and manufactured goods arrived for export to the far-flung provinces. Ostia's harbor was so badly silted, the town was already showing the effects of lost business to overland routes. Eventually, even Claudius' fine new harbor would silt in and everything would come overland from Naples-until Trajan would finally build his non-silting, hexagonal-basin harbor. Almost sixty years from now, Ostia would come into her true glory as a port. But even now, Ostia was an impressive little city.

  Malcolm took her to the barracks of the vigiles and explained the function of the special cohort.

  "Firemen?" Margo echoed. "I thought Benjamin Franklin invented fire departments."

  "Say, you have been doing that American history reading, haven't you? Very good. In a manner of speaking, he did. But the Romans had a special fire-fighting brigade to protect the grain port and there was even a private company in Rome. Of course, its main job was to arrive at a fire and convince the owner to sell out cheap before putting out the blaze ... ."

  "That's awful!"

  "Free enterprise in action," Malcolm grinned. "The owner got filthy rich."

  Margo huffed Malcolm's gut response disturbed him to his core. C'mon, Malcolm, she's your student. But he couldn't help the fact that Margo was doing seriously troubling things to his bodily chemistry.

  "Come on, I'll show you the Mithraeum and the Temple of Vulcan."

  Margo giggled. "The guy with the ears?"

  Malcolm gave her his best disapproving scholar's glare, which reduced her to fits of laughter.

  "I'm sorry," she laughed, "but it always tickles me. And you look so funny when you're irritated."

  He sighed, feeling suddenly old. Was a man old at thirty-six? Old enough for a bubbly eighteen-year-old to consider funny ...

  It was just as well. He needed complications in his life the way a flock of turkeys needed Thanksgiving. Malcolm adjusted the fit of his slave's collar and gestured to his "master."

  "This way, if you please. The buildings you see here are the collegia of the boatmen, professional guilds with considerable clout in Ostia. Down that way are the warehouses and if we look off to the southeast, we can just see the roof of Ostia's Temple of Cybele ...."

  Margo waited until Malcolm had fallen asleep, then quietly dressed in the darkness and slipped out of their rented room. She wanted to get away by herself to think. What with lessons and down-time adventures, she hadn't really found five whole minutes to just think about the enormity of what she was doing. She knew she was taking a risk, going out at night, but Ostia wasn't Rome. Besides, I need to prove I'm ready to solo.

  Margo gained the dark street without raising an alarm. She leaned against the wall and let go her breath, then grinned. So far so good. When her eyes adjusted, Margo caught her breath. The sky ... Clearer even than a Minnesota winter night, the sky was so filled with stars Margo lost whole minutes just gazing upward.

  Everybody should see a sky like this, just once be for they die .... Margo had met folks who'd never seen anything but the murky yellow glow that passed for night in places like New York. Maybe if they saw a sky like that they wouldn't feel so ... so self-important.

  Feeling keenly her own insignificance, Margo found her way to the docks. Wooden hulls creaked in the night Wind flapped in loose sails, sang through slack rigging. Where ships rode quietly at anchor, a few braziers burned on high stern decks, marking the presence of night watchmen. Margo found a stone archway near the entrance to one long pier and settled in the shadows. Far away, drifting on the spring wind, she could hear a magical chorus of frogs and insects from vast salt marshes. Margo sighed. I'm really sitting on a dock two thousand years before I was born.

  She'd planned this moment all her life. So why wasn't she happy? Malcolm Moore's smile flitted into her awareness, causing her pulse to dance like mating butterflies. Malcolm Moore was more than a good teacher. He was becoming a good
friend, maybe the best friend she'd ever found. She was grateful for that, but...

  But what?

  But deep down, you're afraid of him, that's what. And she wasn't sure she wanted to be, which scared her even worse.

  Starlight silvered the rolling breakers. In her own time, the sea had wiped out some of the world's greatest cities. Margo didn't understand all the science and stuff that had caused The Accident. All she knew, was a burning need to grasp the opportunity before her. And she would grasp it. Come hell, high water ... or Malcolm Moore. How much time was left? She counted backwards in her head. Three months. Margo bit her lip. Was she being foolish, rushing her training just to prove him wrong?

  "I have to! I just have to ..."

  Her father's voice, angry and slurred, slapped her from out of the past. "You'll turn out same's her! Filthy, stinking whore-"

  My mother was not a whore

  All those years ago, Margo had wanted to shout it back at him. Not shouting it had probably saved her life. But not saying it then or now-didn't change facts. Everyone else had said it: the cops, the news people, the foster parents who took her out of a hospital bed and gave her a home in another town. Even the judge who'd eventually passed sentence on her father had said it: Margo, trying to rebuild her life, had turned a dry-eyed mask to the world to hide the pain.

  Leaning against a cold stone pier, Margo thought she finally understood what had driven her mother to prostitution. Since leaving Minnesota, there'd been a moment or two when Margo's hunger and desperation had made any source of money seem attractive. How much worse must it have been for her mother, with a young child to raise, mortgage payments, groceries, medical bills ...

  And a husband who drank whatever money he got his hands on including any he could beat out of her..

  In that moment, it became doubly critical for Margo to succeed. Not only did she have to prove to her father she could do this ... I'll make you proud, Mom. And I'll pay him back for what he did to us. l hate him! I'm glad he's dying, he deserves it... But she wanted him to live just long enough. The only way Margo could find to strike back at him, to really prove she wasn't everything he'd ever called her, was to do something no other woman had ever been able to do.

  And she had only three months left in which to do it Three months to convince Kit she was ready to scout, to tackle an unknown gate, to come back with proof of her success. Three months. From where she sat, it seemed as impossible as telling Kit the truth about his only child.

  Malcolm Moore's smile, flickering at the edges of memory, seemed nearly as great a threat to Margo's plans as the ticking dock. Men were nothing but trouble. They used you if they could, hurt you when they pleased, shattered your dreams if you didn't run faster than they could punch you to the ground ...

  Malcolm Moore isn't like Billy Pandropolous. Or my father. But it didn't matter. She didn't have time for love. At least Malcolm Moore was too much a gentleman to hurt her the way Billy Pandropolous had That was very little comfort when Margo crawled back to their rented room in the wee hours and huddled under her cold blanket for the remainder of the night.

  Margo tried to keep up a brave front when they returned to Rome. Malcolm, suspecting none of the turmoil inside her every time his wide mouth curved into a smile, showed her the Campus Martius, where the secular games were held in the Circus Flaminius. The area also boasted gardens where young men could exercise and play, the Villa Publica where Romans assembled for the census and to levy troops for the legions, the Septa where people came to vote, splendid shops where the wealthy purchased luxury items imported from around the empire, even a place along the Tiber where Romans could swim and splash in the shallows.

  They toured the Forum Romanum, with its Comitium, the Forum's political center; the religious Regia with the real Temple of Vesta, the House of the Vestals, and the seat of the Pontifex Maximus; and the Forum proper, a marketplace, center of civic activities, public functions, and ceremonies. The Forum's famous rostrum or speaker's platform was where a man could address his fellow citizens while running for office or just pass along juicy tidbits of news. Decorated with the prows of ships taken in battle, it was impressive, with its backdrop of the Temple of the Divine Julius (on the spot where his body had been cremated), marble-faced basilicas or law courts and other public buildings. Margo was surprised to find women lawyers arguing cases in the basilicas.

  "Yes, women lawyers were increasingly common from the late Republic on," Malcolm explained. "Women in Imperial Rome weren't confined to the home as they were in early times and other cultures."

  Margo liked that. The water clocks used to time the lawyers' speeches fascinated her. Some dripped water from a tank into a bowl, lifting a float with an attached rod whose cogs turned the hour hand. Another kind used water pressure to blow a tiny trumpet every hour.

  "An alarm clock,' Margo marveled. "They use an alarm clock!"

  Malcolm only smiled, which left her insides in turmoil.

  They followed the course of the aqueducts through the city, while Malcolm explained how the public fountains worked and how the aqueducts fed the great public baths as well as private homes. He even hired a boat and took her into the immense Cloaca Maxima which drained the city's swampy valleys.

  He took her down the fullers' street, showing her how "dry cleaning" was done by slaves who stomped soiled garments into damp fuller's earth. The absorptive clay then dried and was beaten out of the cloth, taking with it oils and dirt. Then he let her watch Roman glass production, following that with a trip to a mosaic artist's the best of 'em." He hoisted the wineskin with a chuckle. "Come on, let's find something to eat."

  Quite unexpectedly, Margo realized she was having a good time. She relaxed. Maybe a little dissipation would be fun. She'd certainly worked hard enough to earn a party. And if you have to say goodbye to this man someday soon, maybe you should enjoy him while you still have the chance. So Margo ate sausages that had been cooked in deep vats of olive oil, tried fresh-baked bread hot from the oven and wonderful little cakes made with honey and sesame seeds, and washed it all down with sweet red wine that left her giddy.

  Greatly daring, she did a dance, not caring when people laughed and called her provincialis, rusticus, and other probably less flattering names. Malcolm roared with laughter, then cut in line behind her. His hands came to rest on her hips, leaving her flushed from scalp to toes. They snaked their way through crowded streets in a wild line dance that ended in front of a tall marble temple. When the dance broke up, Margo staggered dizzily, then fell laughing against Malcolm. He caught her and set her back on her feet. His face was flushed.

  Her heart gave a traitorous thump.

  "Where are we?" she asked breathlessly. Over there was the long side of the Circus and over that way was the river, but she didn't know what this temple was.

  "That's the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera." It came out oddly husky. His eyes were fever bright.

  "Who?"

  "Ceres, Goddess of Grain and Agriculture. Liber Pater and Libera, very ancient Italian god and goddess. She and Liber Pater celebrate a sacred marriage."

  Margo found herself swallowing hard. "Really?"

  "Why join during the Ludi Ceriales. That's about twenty-two days from now."

  The whole city beyond Malcolm's bright eyes was spinning in her awareness. "Do Roman gods do anything besides make love?"

  "Not in the spring." He was very close to her. His smile-and that answer-did wicked things to Margo's insides. The way the corners of his eyes crinkled, the way his hair, fell across his forehead in an unruly curl, the way he took her questions seriously even when laughter made his eyes sparkle-even the sharp masculine scent of him-

  Everything about Malcolm Moore set her blood pounding. l don't care if this is all there is, I don't care about scouting, I don't care about anything, oh God, let him kiss me ... . As though he'd heard her silent prayer, Malcolm bent toward her. April sunlight turned the dark sheen of his hair to the gloss of a ra
ven's wing. Then his mouth covered hers, warm and demanding and gentle all at the same time. Her senses reeled. She found herself clutching the front of his tunic. Margo had never been kissed like this, as though her mouth were a precious jewel which must be handled with exquisite care. Then his hand slipped from her face and touched the side of her breast

  The kiss exploded into a mindless clutching at one another in the bright April sunlight. Afterward Margo was hardly cognizant of stumbling through the streets with his hand on her waist. Was hardly aware of the change when he plunged into a rustling grove of trees and sought a remote, unoccupied corner. Peripherally she noticed low hanging branches that dipped to screen a tiny glen. A natural spring bubbled up from a rocky basin and poured away through the trees.

  Then she was in his arms again and his hands were on her bare skin and the only thing in her awareness was the pounding of his heart against hers as they went to the sweet scented earth in the tangle of their clothing.

  Only afterward did the full enormity of what she'd done sink in. Margo lay in the crook of Malcolms arm, his body pressed warmly against hers, his breath shuddering against her ear. The fire of their joining still lingered in deep tremors inside her.

  Then, like ice water through her veins:

  I slept with him.

  Dear God, I slept with him.

  Panic smote her so hard Malcolm stirred. "Margo? What's wrong?"

  She couldn't answer. Couldn't put into words the myriad terrors ripping her apart. Dad was right. I'm nothing but a two-bit whore, I'll never be anything, never amount to anything, I can't even say no when I know it's the wrong thing to do, l could be pregnant ....

  Oh, God. She could be.

  She'd destroyed everything she'd worked for, would never be able to face down that bastard who'd murdered her mother, could never tell him he'd been wrong

  And Kit Carson ...

  If she couldn't even be trusted not to fall into bed with the first man who took her down time ...

  She began to cry. When the dam burst, she couldn't control the flood. Malcolm touched her shoulder.