Time Scout

by Robert Asprin

  Kit tracked down Ripley Sneed at the Down Time Bar & Grill. Malcolm, to his surprise, followed doggedly. Kit ordered a Kirin, offered to buy one for Malcolm, then shrugged and settled into an empty chair at Ripley's table.

  "Mind if we join you?"

  "Sure," the scout said with a smile. "What have you been up to, Kit?"

  "Oh, this and that. I hear you've been exploring unknown gates."

  "Sure have," Ripley grinned. His dark hair needed washing. He smelled bad, like month-old gym socks left to soak in mare's sweat. The regulars at the Down Time had taken tables upwind of him.

  Doesn't this jerk ever bathe?

  "So, I hear you checked out a gate in Phil Jones' place."

  Ripley took a long pull of his own beer. "Yep."

  "Odd place for a gate to open up. Of course, they've opened in stranger places." Kit smiled politely.

  "You're telling me. How come you're interested in gates again? Thought you'd retired?"

  "Oh, just curious. I like to keep up with the business."

  Ripley laughed. "You're not fooling anybody, Kit. You want to know about that gate worse than I want to get rich. It'll cost you." His eyes glinted.

  "Really?" Kit leaned back and folded his hands across his belly. "You'd charge a man for information on a worthless gate? Hell, l'll just wait until it cycles again and take a look, myself."

  Ripley chuckled. -Nope. You're too cautious. You've been through too damned many gates, Kit Carson. You want to step through that bad, it'll really cost you to find out whether or not you'll go `pool' before you hit the other side."

  Kit restrained the urge to throttle him.

  Malcolm leaned forward on his elbows. "You're an unpleasant louse for someone who just spent a week in some poor schmuck's harem, getting his wives pregnant while he was off fighting the Christians."

  Ripley laughed, unoffended. "I can afford to be unpleasant. You can't." He belched. "okay, Kit, I'll tell you about the gate if I see a thousand up front."

  "A hundred, tops."

  They fell to serious haggling. Kit finally agreed to pay Ripley five hundred. The scout dug out his log and downloaded a file, then passed the disk over. "There it is. Enjoy."

  "Thanks," Kit said dryly, passing back a check for five hundred.

  "Better not bounce," Ripley said, tacking on a grin at the last moment.

  "Watch your mouth," Malcolm growled.

  "It's all right, Malcolm. Ripley can't help being abrasive any more than a monkey can help having fleas. Come on, let's see if I got my money's worth."

  They left Ripley chuckling as he folded up Kit's check and stuffed it into his wallet.

  The file contained very little information. Ripley had gone through the gate and logged for location and time: thirty-two degrees east longitude by twenty-six degrees south latitude, late September of 1542. "There's a small Portuguese trading settlement about two miles north of the gate on Delagoa Bay, Mozambique. A number of native tribal groups in the region are split between Swazi and Shona dialects.

  "I see some Moslem influence from contact with Islamic traders, but not much. Relations between the indigenous peoples and the Portuguese is hostile at best. There is absolutely nothing of value to be found in this settlement. Delagoa Bay is merely a stopover to take on fresh water and food supplies for Portuguese ships headed to India. From what I've been able to gather, the Jesuits didn't even leave a mission here when Francis Xavier stopped in 1541. My conclusion is that this is an utterly worthless string not warranting further exploration."

  The file ended.

  "Well," Kit said heavily. "What do you make of that?" "Five hundred is a lot of money to demand for that information. Something's going on here."

  Kit called up a map of Mozambique and replaced the video scenes on his office wall with the chart of southern Africa. "Mozambique..." he mused. "That's hell and gone from anything useful. And in 1542 there wouldn't have been any European exploration of the interior. Nothing out there but Shona and Bantu on the high veldt and San nomads in the Kalahari."

  "And the Venda-Lemba Semitic groups of the eastern Transvaal,- Malcolm added. "They were isolated until 1898 for God's sake.'

  "So why would Ripley demand so much money for this information?" Kit glanced up. "I wonder what Phil Jones has been up to lately?"

  "I think we ought to find out."

  "Agreed. You want to tackle him or shall I?"

  Malcolm managed the first smile Kit had seen out of him in weeks. "You're too conspicuous, Kit. Everybody knows you're looking for traces of Margo. l'll follow that little weasel, see what he's up to, who he's hanging out with these days."

  Kit nodded. "Sounds good. I'll give Bull a call. He's trying to find out who else might be missing."

  Malcolm left while Kit dialed the phone.

  The station manager apologized when he came on the line. "I've been meaning to call you this morning, except that Pteranodon sternbergi of Sue's got sick, then we had an emergency with the water filters and ... Oh, hell, you're not interested in my problems. Only a couple of people I can't account for, but they're interesting.'

  "Oh?"

  "One of 'em's that Welshman you tangled with."

  "Kynan? The guy from Orleans?"

  "The same. He and his longbow have gone missing."

  A chill chased down Kit's back. "Go on."

  "Frankly, I was afraid of foul play until I noticed who else is missing. Remember that big Afrikaner who came in a few years back when South Africa went to hell?"

  "Yeah, I remember him." South Africa had suffered desperate damage from earthquakes, tidal waves, even volcanic eruptions in the aftermath of The Accident. The government had collapsed and thousands of people had fled the ensuing riots, massacres, starvation, and rampant plagues. "Koot van something," Kit said "Big guy about my age, if I remember right, maybe a little younger."

  "Koot van Beek. Took up time guiding. Drifts from station to station, wherever there's work."

  "So he's back?"

  "Back and missing."

  Kit gazed at the map on his video screens and tried to figure out why a freelance drifter like Koot van Beek, a displaced Welsh bowman, and Margo would have hooked up in connection with a gate that led to sixteenth century Mozambique.

  "Thanks, Bull. That's very interesting news. I'll let you know if I come up with anything solid."

  Kit pulled out the itemized library bill and studied Margo's recent research. Lift capacity and fuel consumption for a helium-filled ultralight-but with variable equations for hydrogen as an alternative lifting source. Endemic diseases of southern Africa and recommended inoculations or medical treatments where no inoculations were available. Geographical charts of Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana. Even-he grimaced-recommended medications to suppress menstrual flow.

  "What the hell is that little idiot up to?"

  Unless Kit were wide of the mark, Margo planned a lengthy air expedition into the heart of southern Africa, where Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa met along the Limpopo River.

  "But why?" There wasn't anything out there except crocodiles, wildebeest, and fatal diseases.

  The phone rang. "Yeah?"

  "Kit," Malcolm said in his ear, "this is really interesting: Phil just left Goldie Morran's. I asked around and people said he's been spending a lot of time with her. A lot of time."

  Kit narrowed his eyes. -Goldie? Why would Phil Jones be spending time with an expert on currency, precious metals, and..."

  It hit him. Kit widened his eyes and stared at the map. "My God..."

  "What?" Malcolm asked sharply.

  "Hang on. Hell, get back here. I have to pull a couple of files off the mainframe."

  He hung up and swung around, accessing the library's mainframe in a fever of impatience. He sped through several files, correlating data against a search of known mineral sites-and hit paydirt. Kit whistled softly and sat back in his chair.

  His office door crashed back. Malcolm was pantin
g. "What?"

  Kit swung his chair around. "Diamonds. That stupid little featherbrain has gone after a diamond source deBeers doesn't control."

  "Diamonds?" Malcolm stared at the chart. "But Kit ... the nearest diamond fields must be, what, five or six hundred miles from Delagoa Bay?"

  "Five hundred miles along the Limpopo River valley," Kit said grimly, punching up the chart from the file he'd accessed, "would put you right there."

  A geologic map flashed up.

  "What's up there? I thought the South African diamond sites were farther south in the Kimberley region or much farther west in the Kalahari?"

  Kit strode around his desk and stabbed a finger toward a spot on the Limpopo just east of the confluence with the Shashe River coming down from the Botswana-Zimbabwe border. "That, my friend, is the site of the Seta Mine. Alluvial deposits in potholes along the Limpopo, gravel matrix rich in all kinds of goodies. Garnets, jade, corundum, gold, diamonds ... That idiot grandkid of mine has vanished into the heart of Africa on a harebrained scheme to bring back diamonds. Bet you the Neo Edo on it. And I can tell you exactly who put her up to it."

  Malcolm groaned and said something profoundly ugly.

  Kit ran a hand through his hair. "We were in Goldie's shop when I told Margo she was through as a trainee scout. And that avaricious, conniving, greedy old..." He couldn't even finish the tirade. "When I get through with Goldie Morran, she's going to wish she'd never laid eyes on Margo."

  Kit stormed out of his office. Malcolm Moore trailed hastily behind.

  Goldie Morran's smile disintegrated the moment Kit slammed open her door.

  "Why, Kit. Hello. What can I do for you?"

  "You can tell me why the hell you sent my granddaughter into the high veldt after your goddamned diamonds!"

  Goldie Morran actually lost color. "Kit, I don't know what you're-"

  "Cut the crap!" Kit stalked over to the counter and slammed both fists down. "You're not talking to a goddamned tourist!"

  Goldie adjusted the high-necked collar of her oldfashioned dress. "No, I'm aware of that, Kit. Calm down. I'm not really hiding anything."

  "The hell you're not."

  "Kit Carson, either control your temper or get out of my shop!"

  Kit swallowed the retort on his tongue. Then forcibly relaxed his fists. "Okay, Goldie. I'll be a good boy and refrain from taking your shop apart. Start talking."

  She drew over a high stool and settled on it as though taking a throne. "You're aware, then, of Phil Jones' gate?"

  "Yes. And where and when it leads."

  "Fortunately for me, Ripley Sneed is an idiot. He didn't even think about the diamonds just lying around the interior waiting for someone to pick them up. Phil and I knew exactly where the most accessible deposits were, but we couldn't get there ourselves. Neither of us is a scout."

  "You mean neither of you is crazy enough to risk your own hide. So you conned Margo into doing it for you."

  Goldie's eyes flashed angrily. "Margo is an adult, Kit Carson, perfectly capable of making her own decisions. And, I might add, you've treated her very shabbily. She was only too happy to accept my offer."

  "Margo is a half-trained child-a seventeen-year-old child." Goldie lost a little more color. "She thinks she knows enough to succeed All she knows is enough to get herself killed. When's she due back?"

  Goldie fidgeted and glanced away.

  "Goldie.. ."

  The severe-faced woman who always reminded Kit of a duchess he'd once known cleared her throat delicately. "Well, as to that, now.. ."

  "She's overdue," Malcolm said quietly. "Isn't she?"

  Goldie glanced up. "Well, yes. She is."

  Kit tightened his hands on the edge of Goldie's shop counter. "How overdue?"

  "A couple of weeks."

  "A couple of weeks?" Kit exploded. "My God! Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

  "Because I knew you'd blow up just like this!" Goldie snapped. "They took plenty of protective gear with them. They'll be fine! They're just a little overdue."

  Kit studied her, controlling an ice-cold rage that demanded physical action. She wasn't telling them everything. For someone waiting on a shipment of first quality South African diamonds, Goldie was remarkably untroubled about Margo's fate.

  "What's your scam, Goldie?"

  She widened her eyes at him. "Scam? Why, Margo. was just going to dig out some of the Seta deposits and come back, that's all."

  Kit leaned over the counter. "You are full of it, Goldie Morran. If Margo was supposed to bring back a shipment of diamonds, you'd have been crawling all over this station looking for someone to go after her when she was two weeks overdue. What kind of scam are you running?"

  Goldie pursed her lips like someone who's tasted poison. "You are a royal pain, Kit Carson. She isn't bringing them back. Koot van Beek and I jointly invested in a little piece of property up north of Francistown, in Botswana. No one has ever found the motherlode source of the Seta alluvial deposits. So Margo's going to dig up a couple of potholes' worth of matrix and fly the ore up to our property on the Shashe River. I have a rube up time who's biting at the bait. All I have to do is confirm that Margo's seeded the land and Koot and I will `discover' samples that match the Seta deposits. This fool will buy the land at a huge profit and we'll make a fortune. We don't even have to smuggle the diamonds past ATF this way. It's all nice and legal."

  It was a nice scam. A very nice one. Neat, slick, possibly even legal, leaving out the minor problem of minerals fraud. And given the current state of government in the southern African republics, any fool crazy enough to buy the land would probably end up eating his losses.

  Kit said quietly, "You had better pray real hard that nothing has happened to my grandchild, Goldie. Show me this gate."

  Kit and Malcolm both scanned the gate in Phil Jones' shop during its next scheduled opening. Malcolm double-checked his readings in rising dismay. His heart sprang straight into his throat. "Uh, Kit, are you getting the same readings I am?"

  Kit nodded grimly. "It's disintegrating. Rapidly. How often does it open and how long has it existed?"

  Phil Jones, a nervous little weasel of a man, cleared his throat. Totem poles loomed on every side, grotesque shapes beyond the shimmering edges of the gate. "Opens every five days, stays open about ten minutes. First saw it about ten weeks ago."

  "Have you kept an exact log of its openings?"

  Phil exchanged glances with Goldie. -Uh ... should I have done that?"

  Malcolm was afraid Kit might strangle the shop keeper:

  "Yes, you blithering idiot! You should have!"

  The gate shrank, expanded briefly, then vanished

  "Five days," Kit muttered, noting the exact times of its appearance and departure. "I have five days to get ready."

  "You're not going through?" Phil gasped. "But I thought-wouldn't it be dangerous for you to-"

  One look from Kit was all it took. He gulped and shut up.

  Malcolm followed Kit out of Phil's odd little shop. "Have you checked your personal log yet?"

  "I have."

  "And?"

  "It's risky. Damned risky. There's a twenty percent chance I'll shadow myself on stepping through. And if I stay longer than a week, if I have to wait through two cycles, a ninety percent chance I'll shadow myself before getting back through. If the gate doesn't collapse permanently before then."

  "But you're going?"

  Kit's eyes were haunted "Hell yes, I'm going. Goldie admitted Margo should've been back to the gate two weeks ago. What would you do?"

  "Go with you," Malcolm said quietly

  Kit swung around. He blinked; then tightened his jaw muscles. -Malcolm, I can't ask you to risk this. You said yourself you weren't cut out for scouting."

  "You're not asking and neither am I. I'm going. It's my fault Margo pulled this stunt, say what you will. I'm going."

  They locked gazes for a long moment. Then a suspicious film moistened Kit's eyes.

>   "All right. You're going. The Portuguese aren't real cheerful about strangers in their African outposts."

  No. Those "traders are likely to kill any European they find sneaking around their settlement."

  "Yeah." Malcolm wasn't thinking about himself. He was picturing Margo in their hands.

  "Jesuits," Kit said finally. "You speak Portuguese?"

  "Some. I studied it for Edo, back when I was with Time Ho! My Basque is better, though."

  "Good. I speak Portuguese very well. You'll be a Basque Jesuit, I'll play your superior in the Society. Let's find Connie. This is going to be one helluva rush order."

  Five days.

  Malcolm just prayed the gate hadn't already disintegrated so badly that it never opened again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THEY EMERGED ONTO a rain-lashed beach. When Kit didn't vanish like a shimmer of heat over Kalahari sands, Malcolm started breathing again. The pallor in Kit's cheeks told its own story. Now all we have to do is try to find margo – and beat ninety-percent odds if we don't do it in a week.

  With the entire southern tip of Africa to search, Malcolm wasn't terribly sanguine about their chances.

  He finished his ATLS readings and log update a hair sooner than Kit. The retired time scout was out of practice. They hid their equipment deep in camouflaged bags beneath vestments, censers and other priestly paraphernalia. Among their personal "effects" were hand bound copies of not only the Bible in Latin but also of the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises written by Ignatius Loyola, the Basque founder of the Society of Jesus. Connie Logan had outdone herself on this one.

  Malcolm closed his bag and turned his attention to their surroundings. In the short minutes they'd stood on the storm-lashed shore of Delagoa Bay, their long, heavy habits were already soaked. Wind whipped sodden wool around their ankles. They had decided to approach the Portuguese first, to find out if Margo had, in fact, made it back this far or if they would have to mount an expedition into the heart of the interior to search for her.

  "This storm will work in our favor!" Kit shouted above the crash of thunder. "I've been worrying about how to explain our sudden appearance. Claiming we've been shipwrecked is more credible in the middle of a storm!"