Ripping Time ts-3

by Robert Robert

  Beyond that, however...

  Lachley smiled slowly to himself. Beyond that, the future beckoned, with this girl as the instrument by which he viewed it and Prince Albert Victor as the key to controlling it. John Lachley had searched for years, seeking a true mystic with such a gift. He'd read accounts in the ancient texts, written in as many languages as he had been able to master. His fondest dream had been to find such a gifted person somewhere in the sprawling metropolis that was capitol city to the greatest empire on earth, to bring them under his mesmeric control, to use their powers for his own purposes. In all his years of searching, he had found only charlatans, like himself, tricksters and knaves and a few pathetic old women mumbling over tea leaves and cut crystal spheres in the backs of Romany wagons. He had all but lost hope of finding a real talent, such as the ancient texts had described. Yet here she was, not only vibrantly alive, she'd quite literally run straight into his arms, begging his help.

  His smile deepened. Not such a bad beginning to the evening, after all. And by morning, Eddy's letters would be safely in his hands.

  Really, the evening was turning out to be most delightful, an adventure truly worthy of his skills and intellect. But before he quite dared celebrate, he had to make certain his prize did not succumb to shock and die before he could make use of her.

  Lachley's hands were all but trembling as he carried her through increasingly poorer streets, down wretched alleyways, until he emerged, finally, with many an uneasy glance over his shoulder, onto the broad thoroughfare of the Strand, where wealth once again flaunted its presence in the houses of the rich and the fine shops they patronized. He had no trouble, there, flagging down a hansom cab at last.

  "Cleveland Street," he ordered curtly. "The young lady's quite ill. I must get her to my surgery at once."

  "Right, guv," the cabbie nodded.

  The cab lurched forward at an acceptably rapid pace and Lachley settled himself to sound his prize's pulse and listen to the quality of her breathing. She was in deep shock, pulse fast and thready, skin clammy and chill. He cradled her head almost tenderly, wondering who the young man with her had been and who had attacked them. A Nichol footpad, most likely. They prowled the area near the Opera, targeting the wealthy gentlemen who frequented the neighborhood, so close to the slums of SoHo. That particular footpad's fatal loss, however, was his immense gain.

  The cab made excellent time, bringing him to his doorstep before she'd even regained consciousness from her dead faint. Charles answered the bell, since fumbling for his key was too awkward while carrying her. His manservant's calm facade cracked slightly at the sight of his unconscious prize. "Whatever has happened, sir?"

  "The young lady was attacked by footpads on the street. I must get her to the surgery at once."

  "Of course, sir. Your scheduled patient has arrived a little early. Mr. Maybrick is waiting in the study."

  "Very good, Charles," Lachley nodded, leaving the butler to close and lock the door. James Maybrick could jolly well wait a bit longer. He had to secure this girl, quickly. He carried her back through the house and set her gently onto the examining table, where he retrieved his stethoscope and sounded her heartbeat. Yes, shock, right enough. He found blankets, elevated her feet, covered her warmly, then managed to rouse the girl from her stupor by chafing her wrists and placing warm compresses along her neck. She stirred, moaned softly. Lachley smiled quietly, then poured out a draught of his potent aperitif. He was lifting the girl's head, trying to bring her round sufficiently to swallow it, when Charles appeared at the door to the surgery.

  "Dr. Lachley, I beg pardon, sir, but Mr. Maybrick is growing quite agitated. He insists on seeing you immediately, sir."

  Lachley tightened his hands around the vial of medicine and forcibly fought back an unreasoning wave of rage. Ill-timed bastard! I'll bloody well shoot him through the balls when this night's business is done! "Very well!" he snapped. "Tell him I'll be there directly."

  The girl was only half conscious, but more than awake enough to swallow the drug. He forced it past her teeth, then held her mouth closed when she struggled, weak and trembling in his grasp. A faint sound of terror escaped from between ashen lips before she swallowed involuntarily. He got more of the drug down her throat, then gave curt instructions to the waiting manservant. "Watch her, Charles. She's quite ill. The medicine should help her sleep."

  "Of course, sir."

  "Move her to the guest room as soon as the medicine takes hold. I'll check on her again after I've seen Mr. Maybrick."

  Charles nodded and stepped aside to let him pass. Lachley stormed past, vowing to take a suitable vengeance for the interruption. Then he drew multiple calming breaths, fixed in place a freezing smile, and steeled himself to suffer the slings and arrows of a fortune so outrageous, even the bloody Bard would've been driven to murder, taking up arms against it. One day, he promised himself, I shall laugh about this.

  Preferably, on the day James Maybrick dropped off a gallows.

  Meanwhile...

  He opened the door briskly and greeted the madman waiting beyond. "My dear Mr. Maybrick! So delighted to see you, sir! Now, then, what seems to be the trouble this evening..."

  Beyond James Maybrick's pasty features, beyond the windows and their heavy drapes and thick panes of wavy glass, lightning flickered, promising another storm to match the one in Lachley's infuriated soul.

  * * *

  Kit Carson knew he was a hopelessly doting grandfather when, twenty-four hours after Margo's departure for London, he was seriously considering going through the Britannia the next time it opened, just to be near her. He missed the exasperating little minx more than he'd have believed possible. The apartment they shared was echoingly empty. Dinner was a depressingly silent affair. And not even the endless paperwork waiting for him at the Neo Edo's office could distract him from his gloom. Worse, they'd found no trace of Ianira Cassondra, her husband Marcus, or the cassondra's beautiful children, despite the largest manhunt in station history. Station security hadn't been any more successful finding the two people who'd shot three men on station, either, despite their being described in detail by a full two-dozen eyewitnesses.

  By the next day, when the Wild West Gate cycled into Denver's, summer of 1885, tempers amongst the security squads were running ragged. Ianira's up-time acolytes—many of them injured during the rioting—were staging protests that threatened to bring commerce in Little Agora to a screeching halt. And Kit Carson—who'd spent a fair percentage of his night working with search teams, combing the rocky bowels of the station for some trace of the missing down-timers—needed a drink as badly as a dehydrated cactus needed a desert rainstorm in the spring.

  Unshaven and tired, with a lonely ache in his chest, Kit found himself wandering into Frontier Town during the pre-gate ruckus, looking for company and something wet to drown his sorrows. He couldn't even rely on Malcolm to jolly him out of his mood—Malcolm was down the Britannia with Margo, lucky stiff. A sardonic smile twisted Kit's mouth. Why he'd ever thought retirement would be any fun was beyond him. Nothing but massive doses of boredom mingled with thieving tourists who stripped the Neo Edo's rooms of everything from towels to plumbing fixtures, and endless gossip about who was doing what, with or to whom, and why. Maybe I ought to start guiding, just for something to do? Something that didn't involve filling out the endless government paperwork required for running a time-terminal hotel...

  "Hey, Kit!" a familiar voice jolted him out of his gloomy maunderings. "You look sorrier than a wet cat that's just lost a dogfight."

  Robert Li, station antiquarian and good friend, was seated at a cafe table outside Bronco Billy's, next to the Arabian Nights contruction crew foreman. Li's dark eyes glinted with sympathetic good humor as he waved Kit over.

  "Nah," Kit shook his head, angling over to grab one of the empty chairs at Robert's table, "didn't lose a dogfight. Just missing an Imp."

  "Ah," Robert nodded sagely, trying to look his inscrutable best. A
maternal Scandinavian heritage had given the antiquarian his fair-skinned coloring, but a paternal Hong Kong Chinese grandfather had bequeathed Li his name, the slight almond shape of his eyes, and the self-ascribed duty to go inscrutable on command. "The nest empties and the father bird chirps woefully."

  Kit smiled, despite himself. "Robert?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Save it for the tourists, huh?"

  The antiquarian grinned, unrepentant, and introduced him to the foreman.

  "Kit, meet Ammar Kalil Ben Mahir Riyad, foreman of the Arabian Nights construction team. We've just been discussing pre-Islamic Arabian artwork. He's worried about the Arabian Nights tourists, because they're going to try smuggling antiquities out through the gate and he wanted to know if I could help spot the thefts."

  "Of course," Kit nodded, shaking hands across the table and greeting him in Arabic, of which he knew only a few words. The foreman smiled and returned the greeting, then his eyes turned serious. "I will stay only a moment longer, Mr. Carson, our work shift begins again soon." He hesitated, then said, "I wish to apologize for the problems some of my workers have caused. I was not given any choice in the men I brought into TT-86. Others did the hiring. Most of us are Suni, we have no quarrel with anyone, and even most up-time Shi'ia do not agree with this terrible Brotherhood. I did not know some of the men were members, or I would have refused to take them. If I could afford to send away those who started the fighting, I would. But it is not in my power to fire them and we are already behind schedule. I have docked their wages and written letters of protest to my superiors, which I will send through Primary when it opens. I have asked for them to be replaced with reliable workers who will not start riots. Perhaps," he hesitated again, looking very worried, "you could speak with your station manager? If the station deports them, I cannot be held responsible and my superiors will have to send reliable men to replace them, men who are not in the Ansar Majlis."

  "I'll talk to Bull Morgan," Kit promised.

  Relief touched his dark eyes. "Thank you, Mr. Carson. Your word means a great deal." He glanced at Robert and a hint of his smile returned. "I enjoyed very much discussing my country's ancient art with you, Mr. Li."

  "The pleasure was mine," Robert smiled. "Let's meet again, when you have more time."

  They shook hands, then the foreman took his leave and disappeared into the crowds thronging Frontier Town. Robert said, "Riyad's a good man. This trouble's really got him upset."

  "Believe me, I'll take it up with Bull. If we don't stop this trouble, there won't be a station left for Riyad to finish working on."

  Robert nodded, expression grim, then waved over a barmaid. "Name your poison, Kit. You look like you could use a dose. I know I could."

  "Firewater," Kit told the barmaid. "A double, would you?"

  "Sure, Kit." She winked. "One double firewater, coming right up. And another scotch?" she added, glancing at Robert's half-empty glass.

  "No, make mine a firewater, too."

  Distilled on station from God alone knew what, firewater was a favorite with residents. Tourists who'd made the mistake of indulging had occasionally been known to need resuscitation in the station infirmary. As they waited for their drinks to arrive, a slender young man in black, sporting a badly stained, red silk bandana, reeled toward them in what appeared to be the terminal stages of inebriation. His deeply roweled silver spurs jangled unevenly as he staggered along and his Mexican sombrero lay canted crookedly down over his face, adding to his air of disconsolate drunkenness.

  "I'd say that kid's been tippling a little too much firewater, himself," Li chuckled.

  The kid in question promptly staggered against their table. Robert's drink toppled and sloshed across the table. A lit candle dumped melted wax into Robert's plate and silverware scattered all over the concrete floor. The caballero rebounded in a reeling jig-step that barely kept him on his feet, and kept going, trailing a stench of whiskey and garlic that set both Kit and Robert Li coughing. A baggage porter, bent nearly double under a load of luggage, trailed gamely after him, trying to keep his own course reasonably straight despite his employer's drunken meanderings through the crowd.

  "Good God," Kit muttered, picking up scattered silverware as Robert mopped up the spill on the table, "is that idiot still drunk?"

  "Still?" Robert Li asked as the waitress brought their drinks and whisked away the mess on the table.

  "Yeah," Kit said, sipping gingerly at his firewater, "we saw him yesterday. Kid was bragging about winning some shooting competition down the Wild West Gate."

  "Oh, that." Robert nodded as the drunken tourist attempted to navigate thick crowds around the Denver Gate's departures lounge. He stumbled into more people than he avoided, leaving a trail of profanity in his wake and more than a few ladies who made gagging noises when he passed too close. "Yes, there's a group of black-powder enthusiasts from up time going through this trip, mostly college kids, some veteran shooters. Plan to spend several weeks at one of the old mined-out ghost towns. They're running a horseback, black-powder competition, one that's not bound by Single Action Shooting Society rules and regulations. Paula Booker, of all people, came in the other day, told me all about it. She's taking a vacation, believe it or not, plans to compete for the trophy. Bax told the tour organizers they had to take a surgeon with ‘em, in case of accidents, so Paula made a deal to trade her skills in exchange for the entry fee and a free gate ticket."

  Kit chuckled. "Paula always was a smart lady. Good for her. She hasn't taken a vacation in years."

  "She was all excited about the competiton. They can't use anything but single-action pistols in up-time sanctioned competitions any more, which kind of takes the variety out of a shooting match that's supposed to be based on actual historical fact."

  Kit snorted. "I'd say it would. Well, if that idiot," he nodded toward the wake of destruction the drunken tourist was leaving behind him, "would sober up, maybe he'd have a chance of hitting something. Like, say, the side of a building. But he's going to waste a ton of money if he keeps pouring down the whiskey."

  Li chuckled. "If he wants to waste his money, I guess it's his business. I feel sorry for his porter, though. Poor guy. His boss already needs a bath and they haven't even left yet."

  "Maybe," Kit said drily, "they'll dump him in the ghost town's gold-mining flume and scrub him off?"

  Robert Li lifted his glass in a salute. "Here's to a good dunking, which I'd say he deserves if any tourist ever did."

  Kit clinked his glass against his friend's and sipped, realizing as he did that he felt less lonely and out of sorts already. "Amen to that."

  Bronco Billy's cafe was popular during a cycling of the Wild West Gate because its "outdoor" tables stood close enough to the departures lounge, they commanded a grand view of any and all shenanigans at the gate. Which was why Robert Li had commandeered this particular table, the best of the lot available. They spotted Paula in the departures lounge and waved, then Kit noticed Skeeter Jackson working the crowd. "Now, there's a kid I feel for."

  Robert followed his gaze curiously. "Skeeter? For God's sake, why? Looks like he's up to his old tricks is all."

  Kit shook his head. "Look again. He's hunting, all right. For Ianira and Marcus and their kids."

  Robert glanced sidelong at Kit for a moment. "You may just be right about that."

  Skeeter was studying arrivals intently, peering from face to face, even the baggage handlers. The expression of intense concentration, of waning hope, of fear and determination, were visible even from this distance. Kit understood how Skeeter felt. He'd had friends go missing without a trace, before. Scouts, mostly, with whom the odds had finally caught up, who'd stepped through a gate and failed to return, or had failed to reach the other side, Shadowing themselves by inadvertently entering a time where they already existed. It must be worse for Skeeter, since no one expected resident down-timers to go missing in the middle of a crowded station.

  Kit sat back, wondering how
long Skeeter would push himself, like this, before giving up. Station security already had. The wannabe gunslinger approached the ticket counter to present his ticket and identification. He had to fish through several pockets to find it.

  "Joey Tyrolin!" he bellowed at a volume loud enough to carry clear across the babble of voices to their table. "Sharpshooter! Gonna win me tha' shootin' match. Git me that gold medal!"

  The unfortunate ticket agent flinched back, doubtless at the blast of garlic and whiskey fired point-blank into her face. Kit, who'd been able to read lips for several decades, made out the pained reply, spoken rapidly and to all appearances on one held breath: "Good-evening-Mr.-Tyrolin-let-me-check-you-in-sir-yes-this-seems-to-be-in-perfect-order-go-right-on-through-sir..."

  Kit had never seen any Time Tours employee check any tourist through any gate with such speed and efficiency, not in the history of Shangri-La Station. Across the table, Robert Li was sputtering with laughter. The infamous Mr. Tyrolin, weaving on his cowboy-booted feet, turned unsteadily and peered out from under his cockeyed sombrero. He hollered full blast at the unfortunate porter right behind him. "Hey! Henry or Sam or whoever y'are! Get m'luggage over here! Li'l gal here's gotta tag it or somethin'..."

  The poor baggage handler, dressed in a working man's dungarees and faded check shirt, staggered back under the blast, then ducked his head, coughing. His own hat had already slid down his brow, from walking bent double. The brim banged his nose, completely hiding his face as the unlucky porter staggered up to the counter and fumbled through pockets for his own identification. He presented it to the ticket agent along with Mr. Tyrolin's baggage tags and managed, in the process, to drop half his heavy load. Cases and leather bags scattered in a rain of destruction. Tourists in line behind him leaped out of the way, swearing loudly. The woman directly behind the hapless porter howled in outrage and hopped awkwardly on one foot.