Time Scout

by Robert Asprin

  Achilles broke out wine and cups, pouring for them, then handed over parcels of what looked astonishingly like fried peas. Margo tried them. Not bad....

  While they ate lunch, yet another chariot race began, but this time when the lightweight chariots swept down the track, Margo burst out laughing. There were no drivers. No human ones, anyway. Trained monkeys steered the horses around the turning posts in a ridiculous parody of the earlier races. Laughter rippled through the stands. When the leading monkey's team swept across the finish line for the final lap, slaves ran onto the track and caught the horses. Margo dissolved into helpless laughter when one of the slaves carried the victorious "charioteer" up the ramp and steps to collect his reward: a piece of fruit and a monkey-sized victory crown.

  The little victor actually drove a victory lap, grinning in a simian fashion that brought roars of laughter from the crowd.

  Once the final chariot had been escorted from the track, a hush fell over the vast stands. Margo wondered what was up. Slaves appeared from street-level entrances, carrying potted trees and bushes. They turned the Circus into a miniature forest, with screens of shrubbery, groves of potted trees, even tubs of flowers. When the preparations were complete, the slaves beat a hasty retreat to the other side of the podium wall. Margo noticed that all ramps across the moat had been withdrawn.

  Then she heard the unmistakable grunting roar of lions. A prickle ran straight up her back. Other wild screams reached her. The crowd leaned forward. The stink of sweat and anticipation hung on the bright air. The familiar snapping sound of the opening gates cracked through the arena. Margo peered toward the starting stalls.

  A dozen frantic zebras broke into a gallop, veering to avoid the trees, leaping miniature walls of shrubbery, braying and bucking as they entered the arena. Behind them came a dozen ostriches, their black and white plumage bobbing gracefully as they ran down the long course of the track, weaving between the potted trees in visible confusion. Tiny beautiful antelopes darted into the sunlight and milled about in a frightened herd near the finish line.

  Down at the starting gates, slaves had closed the big doors again, resetting the bars which held them shut. Once the job was done, they scrambled up ladders which were hastily pulled up after them. Margo leaned forward, watching in morbid fascination as the racing official who'd presided over the morning's races once again lifted his white cloth as a signal. The cloth fluttered toward the ground. The gates slammed open. A defiant roar shook through the arena.

  Enormous cats lunged into the sunlight. Maned lions snarled at one another and drew blood. Sleek, deadly lionesses shot past the quarrelling males, homing in on the terrified game animals already released. The striking pattern of leopard skin flashed past the starting gates as half-a-dozen more big cats were released into the Circus. Margo tried to count Six leopards, twenty lionesses, at least twenty more heavy male lions ...

  A scream of pain rose from the arena floor. A zebra had gone down, kicking and struggling. Lions closed in, ripping and tearing at its belly. Margo screamed and hid her eyes. More frantic cries and screeches rose on the air. Whenever she dared look, she found big cats swarming across helpless antelopes ... leopards running down ostriches and slamming them into the sand ... zebras torn apart while still alive ...

  She hid her eyes until it was over.

  Trumpets sang out, a sound of madness in the bright April sunlight. Margo looked up. Then went cold Men were entering the arena. Men with nets and trident-pointed spears, men with swords and helmets, men on foot and on horseback. Lions snarled and backed away or stood their ground over reeking kills. The hunters advanced slowly. A few hung back near the moat, terrified. Then a lion roared a challenge and charge

  It wasn't sport.

  It was murder.

  Of the fifty men who entered the arena, only six left it alive. They were the only living things still walking on the sand when it was over. Even the horses had been killed, pulled down by murderous cats. The crowd thundered approval of their "victor" as they limped off the sand, bleeding and stumbling. Margo sat frozen in place, shocked to her core. She'd understood at one level what a bestiary was. But to actually watch men ripped to pieces by ravenous hunting cats ...

  She wanted desperately to find someplace quiet where she could be sick. Instead she stayed in her seat and watched while slaves removed the carcasses. The sun journeyed across the sky, leaving Margo light-headed She wished she hadn't eaten lunch. Down on the sand, another parade began. This time, the participants were gladiators. Some rode horses, some carried nets and tridents like the bestiary hunters. Some wore odd helmets with fish on top. A few rode chariots-the drivers, all but naked, were tattooed in blue over most of their bodies.

  The procession wound its way between trees and shrubbery walls, circling the entire arena. Margo tried to count the number of combatants and arrived at the figure of a hundred pairs. The number horrified her. The procession ended. Trumpets blared. The gladiators saluted the emperor, who lifted his hand. Then they broke ranks and began a slow-motion exhibition across the sands, without trying to draw blood. Each gladiator demonstrated the techniques of his unique weaponry while the crowd thundered approval. Then most of them retired from the track. Ten pairs remained. Other men appeared, carrying whips and red-hot prods. Trumpets sang out again. Margo held her breath ....

  The first pair closed. A fighter tossed his net and missed. He drew it back with a string looped around his wrist while holding off his opponent with a wicked trident. Another pair drove at one another in chariots, looping in and out between potted trees while they slashed with long swords, trying to gain advantage. The audience was shouting strange words, repeating them again and again.

  Instructions, she realized suddenly. The shouts were timed to the practiced swing and thrust of the swords and tridents. A couple of men hung back, clearly terrified. Men with whips and branding irons moved in. Margo screamed when the gladiators were herded forward with furious lashes and burns across the backs of their legs.

  The first gladiator went down, badly injured by a sword cut across the thigh. He lay flat, helpless under his opponent's long trident. The fallen man lifted his left arm in supplication. The crowd turned all eyes to the emperor. Claudius was looking at the fallen man, then lifted his head to the crowd. The audience broke into factions, some gesturing "thumbs up" and others "thumbs down." More of them seemed to be calling "thumbs up."

  The emperor turned his attention back to the fallen gladiator, then lifted his thumb in a sharp gesture toward his breast. Margo started to relax

  The gladiator with the trident stabbed the weapon straight through the other man's throat.

  NO...!

  Margo sat transfixed. She didn't understand. Then a whisper of memory came to her in Malcolm's voice. "Study the body language, it's different here ..."

  Somehow over time the thumbs-up/thumbs-down gestures had become reversed

  It was symbolic of the whirling mess her life was in.

  Margo found herself stumbling out of the stands, shoving past shocked spectators. She had to get away, had to get out of this madhouse of sudden death and inexplicable cruelty ... . She finally gained the street.

  Quintus Flaminius and. Achilles had followed. Her host took her arm, asking questions she didn't understand and didn't want to answer. Margo stood panting heavily for several minutes. Her knees shook. She still felt as though she'd be ill any moment All she wanted to do was find the Time Tours inn and hide until the gate reopened.

  She didn't get the chance. Flaminius' slaves, dismissed to wait outside the Circus for their master, reappeared with the sedan chairs. Margo found herself stuffed into a seat, lifted, and carried away from the Circus before she could find the wit to argue. She slumped in the chair. Great. Now what?

  She found herself back in her room, alone with Achilles, whose eyes were wide with concern as she sank onto her hated bed. He fussed over her until she wanted to scream at him, but that wasn't fair, so she just held silen
t and let him fuss. Poor kid....

  What would become of him once she left? If she left ...

  The situation was so maddening it was very nearly comical. Trapped in time because her host was overprotective. Margo hadn't realized how deadly serious the Romans were about rules of hospitality. Well, she told herself with a sigh, looks like you'll have to engineer a jailbreak tonight. Over the garden wall...

  And hope the watchdogs didn't sound an alert.

  Naturally, she fell asleep.

  Quintus Flaminius' idea of dinner was a twelve-course banquet with little desserts in between and bucketsful of wine. When she woke up, the room was pitch dark. Margo blinked. Then, Ohmigod ... What time is it? She groped, found her ATLS bag, dragged out her log. The chronometer's glow revealed a terrifying set of numbers. She had less than ten minutes to make the cycling of Porta Romae.

  In the middle of the night on dangerous, unfamiliar streets ...

  Margo shot out of the sick room as though the villa had caught fire. She jumped over the sleeping Achilles and hit the atrium running. The door was barred. The night watchman had dozed off. Margo flung aside the heavy wooden beam which held the door closed and heard the watchman's startled cry. She jerked open the door and pelted into the street. Panic gave her speed she hadn't thought herself capable of. She remembered the way to the Circus. And from the Circus, she could find the Time Tours wine shop where the gate would be cycling any minute. In the darkness she took several wrong turns and backtracked frantically.

  A distant cry caused her to glance back. A bobbing light followed several blocks back. Margo swore under her breath and kept running. She took another wrong turn and sped back the way she'd come. The light had drawn closer: Achilles, carrying a lantern. He called out, "Domine! Domine!"

  She didn't have time ...

  The boy caught up to her, gasping for breath, and followed when she homed in on the hulling silhouette of the Circus. The glances he shot her told Margo he thought his young master had completely flipped, but he was sticking by her. Damn, damn, damn... She finally found the Via Appia. Margo raced around the end of the Circus and skidded around the corner. There ...

  What time is it?

  She didn't have time to check her log. She just ran for the counter and hoped for the best. Too late, she saw a familiar figure detach itself from the counter and move toward her in the darkness.

  Malcolm.

  Guilt and fear and relief hit her simultaneously.

  As she closed the distance between them, Margo found that she had no idea what to say to him. Hi, I really screwed up, aren't you happy you went to bed with a dolt and by the way, how do I get rid of this poor slave I seem to have acquired? stuck somehow in her throat. So she screwed her courage to the sticking place and decided to brazen it out.

  She would apologize and eat crow once they were through the gate.

  Malcolm hadn't slept in days. Time Tours employees had begun steering clear of him whenever he returned to the inn. He functioned on adrenaline and hope and the hope was waning fast. He'd never lost a customer. Never mind someone as precious as Margo. What Kit would say, what Kit would do ...

  He'd already decided to remain behind when the tour left Rome. He had to find her. Or find out how she'd died. One or the other. Night closed in on their final few hours. Nine days ... He'd searched from dawn until well past dark every day, asking strangers if they'd seen a young man in Palmyrene dress, searching the slave markets with sinking horror in his gut, losing hope with every additional hour that passed.

  The agony of guilt was very nearly more than he could endure.

  As the chronometer on his personal log ticked past eleven-thirty and crept toward midnight, Malcolm found a corner behind the deserted wine shop's front counter and waited. He had given up hope; but he would wait, anyway, until the last possible moment Then he'd tell the Time Tours guides to return without him. The big touring company had lost tourists on occasion-it was an industry secret closely guarded with massive bribes to grieving families-but the harsh reality of a tourist's disappearance shook everyone.

  The guides and even the other tourists were subdued as they made their way into the wine shop for the return trip. Malcolm huddled in his corner, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. Ten minutes until midnight Five minutes. A ghost of white appeared in his peripheral vision. He jerked around

  And swore under his breath. Just a white carthorse pulling a load of hay. The familiar ache of a gate preparing to open thrummed against the bones of his skull. The cart rumbled past. The placid carthorse tossed its head and squealed a complaint its driver echoed. The man held his ears, muttered loudly enough for Malcolm to hear, "Absit omen..." and shook out his whip. The carthorse broke into a shambling run.

  Inside the wine shop, the Porta Romae had dilated open. A Time Tours guide stepped outside.

  "Malcolm? Departures are through. Newcomers are arriving. You don't have any more time."

  "I'm–"

  A figure in white ran into view down the block. Malcolm's heart leaped into his mouth. Then he noticed the slave following behind with a lamp. Crushing disappointment blasted brief hope. Then Malcolm did a double-take. The running figure was wearing a Parthian style tunic and trousers. Slender, just about the right height, same fragile, heart-shaped face ...

  He came out of his corner like a gunshot and shoved the Time Tours guide aside. Please ...

  When Margo ran up to the wine counter, bedraggled as a street rat and glaring defiance, he wanted to grab her by both arms and shake her until something snapped A bewildered boy of about thirteen skidded to a halt behind her, gasping for breath.

  "Hi! Did I make it in time? Malcolm, I've got this little problem, how do I free this kid? I, uh, sort of acquired a slave..."

  Malcolm couldn't speak. Terror had transmuted into a rage so deep he was afraid to touch her. He held her gaze for another agonizing moment, then turned on his heel and strode through the rapidly shrinking Porta Romae. He didn't even look back to see if she'd followed Nine days he had burned out his guts worrying, and she'd been running around Rome buying slaves ....

  His sandals slapped against the grid of the platform. Malcolm shoved aside Time Tours employees and left old friends gaping in his wake. When he hit the gym, he accomplished a lifetime first.

  Malcolm Moore laid Sven Bailey flat in a sparring match.

  Afterward, he took a cold shower that lasted forty solid minutes. The phone was ringing when he emerged.

  He jerked it out of the wall and hurled it across the room. Then, very quietly, Malcolm got drunker than he'd ever been in his life.

  Chapter Sixteen

  KIT CARSON WAS waiting in the crowd when the Porta Romae opened. Neither Malcolm nor Margo put in appearances. He started to grow seriously alarmed when the Time Tours guides who emerged wouldn't look at him. The whole contingent of tourists, guides, and baggage handlers waiting in the Commons climbed the ramp and vanished through the portal and still there was no sign of his granddaughter or the man he'd trusted with her safety. Then, just as the portal began to shrink toward closure, Malcolm shot through. One look at his face sent Kit's viscera into a tailspin.

  The normally unflappable time guide burst past Kit like a damned soul pursued by gleeful demons. He didn't even glance in Kit's direction. Kit shut his eyes, convinced of the worst Then he risked another look just as the gate shrank closed. Margo had come through. He started breathing again. But she hung back on the platform, looking defiant and sullen and scared all at the same time. She, too, watched Malcolm's stormy retreat down the Commons. Then she saw Kit standing in the crowd below.

  She lifted her chin and descended the ramp

  "Want to tell me what's going on?" he asked, falling into step.

  "No," she said icily. "I don't."

  With that, she, too, stormed off. Kit allowed his footsteps to slow to a halt. Just what had transpired between those two? Given Margo's temper, he was afraid of the answer. But he had to know. Kit highsigned one
of the returning Time Tours guides.

  "What gives?"

  The woman gave him a guarded look. -Uh ... Hi, Kit. I think, maybe Malcolm ought to be the one to explain." She hurried away before he could ask another question.

  Kit muttered under his breath and called Malcolm's number. The answering machine picked up. He swore and headed for the Down Time, but Malcolm hadn't put in an appearance. Then Robert Li, the station's antiquarian, skidded into the bar. He announced to the room at large, "You ain't gonna believe it! Malcolm Moore just wiped up the mat with Sven Bailey. I mean put him on the ground out cold. What's going on? I've never seen an expression like that on Malcolm's face."

  Conversation exploded around Robert LI while Kit beat a hasty retreat. He headed straight for the gym and found Sven in his office, holding an ice pack to his head and groaning.

  "Whadda you want?" Sven muttered

  "I heard Malcolm knocked you out."

  "You don't have to rub it in."

  "Did he say anything?"

  Sven peeled a swollen eyelid. "No. All he said was, `Let's spar.' Next thing I know, Ann Mulhaney's bending over me and someone's yelling to call Rachel. Only thing I saw after I woke up was his back on the way out the door. What's eating him, anyway?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me," Kit said grimly.

  "Huh. Two weeks alone with Margo is my guess. She'd drive any man to violence."

  "Great. You're some help, you know that, Sven?"

  The weapons trainer just grunted and held the ice pack against his skull. Kit headed for home. Margo wasn't at the apartment. Clearly she'd been there: damp towels and dirty clothes littered the bathroom. Wet footprints crossed the carpet into the living room. But she had departed for destinations unknown well before Kit's arrival. He called Malcolms again. In the middle of the fifth ring, the connection went dead.

  Kit stared at the receiver. "What the hell?"

  Someone is going to give me some answers. And it had better be soon. But when he pounded on Malcolm's door, a breakable object of unknown origin crashed against the panel and shattered noisily.