Time Scout

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Margo felt free, absolutely and utterly free, for the first time in her life. Goldie Morran was a true savior. After a quick week up time learning to fly the latest ultralight craze, she'd returned to TT-86 with a load of very specialized equipment all paid for by Goldie. The currency expert had trusted her judgement, relied implicitly on her training, her skills. That alone had been worth all the heartache of the miserable, terrifying week alone in Rome.

Margo had put hours of planning into this, deciding what to take, how to tackle the problem of overland journey and return, selecting equipment; then came the marvelous moment when she stepped through the gate into the twilight of early evening. Two hired hands trailed after her, hauling equipment.

I did it! I'm doing it! I'm really scouting!

ATLS readings widened the grin on Margo's face. "Wow!" The first stars twinkling in the darkening sky allowed her to pinpoint their location. At thirty-two degrees east longitude and twenty-six degrees south latitude, Margo was standing on the southeastern coast of Mozambique in the year A.D. 1542.

The descending African night was soft, the breeze stiff from offshore. They were very near the coast. Margo easily identified a broad stretch of water nearby from geographical records: Delagoa Bay. Around the curving bay from their position huddled a tiny settlement of ramshackle board houses and a wooden fortress, ail surrounded by a wooden wall. Not a single light burned in the settlement Margo grinned. Like thieves in the night...

She signaled her two assistants to follow, moving down the curve of the bay until they were out of sight of the primitive little town of Lourengo Marques. Then they unpacked their load and got busy. Margo took charge of the Floating Wing. It was the largest commercially available, a high-tech balloon of transparent, gas-tight Filmar, shaped like a pennant flag laid flat Margo hadn't been able to bring enough helium to inflate it, but she'd studied how to crack hydrogen from water and discovered it was dead easy. She set up the portable generator to power the equipment and got busy.

While she worked on the balloon, her two assistants worked on the gondola. She wasn't sure she approved of Goldie's choices for these two. The big Afrikaner was all right, she supposed, although he was pushing fifty-six, but she was worried about that damned Welshman. He'd tried to disembowel Margo a few weeks ago, mistaking her for Joan of Arc. Now he worked quietly under the Afrikaner's directions, which consisted mostly of hand signals punctuated by grunts and the occasional word in English. Kynan Rhys Gower had learned a few words of English, thank God, since his arrival from Orleans, but his temperament hadn't improved all that much from a month working in the garbage pits while the ribs Kit had broken healed up.

When Margo had protested the choice, Goldie explained, "We don't want anyone blabbing our plans. The Welshman's perfect. He needs money and he can't talk."

"And your Afrikaner?" The Afrikaner could, in fact, speak English, but he usually muttered to himself in his own incomprehensible Afrikaans.

Goldie grinned. "He'll look down that Dutch Afrikaner nose of his, sniff, call you English, and do his job. I know Koot van Beek. He's exactly what you'll need."

"Huh. What kind of name is Koot, anyway?" Margo had muttered, drawing laughter from her dignified partner.

Still, Koot was remarkably cooperative for a close-lipped old man who'd insisted on choosing his own rifle for the journey. He'd even insisted she bring a rifle.

"But I don't intend to do any hunting," she'd countered, holding up the laser-guided blowgun she'd used in training. After what she'd witnessed in the Circus Maximus, Margo wasn't sure she wanted to hunt anything for her dinner. "The darts for these are dipped in strong anesthetic. I don't want to kill anything down time unless I absolutely have to."

Koot had muttered under his breath and insisted she bring a rifle, anyway. She'd stowed it away with gear she didn't plan to use unless an emergency threatened.

Koot worked quietly in the starlight, assembling the PVC gridwork that would serve as the platform of their gondola. While Kynan finished tightening connections, Koot attached the ducted fans which would provide propulsion and steering capability. The triangular lifting wing began to swell against the restraining cables as it filled with buoyant hydrogen gas.

The hydrogen was one reason Margo had chosen PVC for the platform. She didn't want metal fittings anywhere on her ultralight. Metal fittings might generate sparks. For the duration of their journey, they would be paranoid about fire prevention. She eyed the slowly filling gas bag and wished again they could have transported in enough helium to do the job, but wishing was pointless. They had what they had and Margo was darned proud of her ingenuity.

Their airship was finally ready. Kynan had covered the PVC gridwork with a "floor" of ripstop nylon to prevent things from falling through. Koot attached cables to the hydrogen wing, then helped Kynan load on their supplies. Margo shut down the generator and packed it in the wheeled crate it had come in, then returned it to the vicinity of the gate. Next time the gate cycled, Goldie would send some down timer through to retrieve it.

Margo ran through her checklist one last time. Food. Water purifying equipment. Picks and shovels. Her little M-1 carbine and ammunition for it. Blowgun and anesthesia darts. Extra batteries for the laser sight. Koot's .458 Winchester bolt-action rifle. Emergency medical kit. Lightweight sleeping bags and mosquito netting. Ballast they could dump later on when the gas bag inevitably leaked some of its buoyancy .....es, they had everything.

Margo had even made certain they were all inoculated against cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, meningitis and diphtheria. They'd begun anti-malarials well before departure. And even with the extremely good water filters she'd purchased, she wasn't taking any chances on contracting bilharzia -- she planned to boil all local source water for a minimum of ten minutes before using it. The idea of becoming infected with vicious parasitic worms in her bloodstream left Margo queasy. Malcolm and Kit had trained her too well to take stupid risks.

"Are we ready?" Margo asked brightly.

Koot van Beek turned from slinging his rifle across his back. He grunted in the moonlight. "Yes, English. We're ready."

The transparent airship, a ghostly sight in the moonlight, strained against its cables. Margo grinned, then climbed onto the gondola platform and made sure everything was secure. She gestured the Welshman to a place near the front of the platform. He eyed the gas bag straining overhead with an uneasy glance, then muttered something entirely incomprehensible and took his seat. One hand strayed to the case which held his heavy longbow and quiver of arrows. Margo shrugged. They were the weapons he was most familiar with, so she hadn't begrudged him the privilege of bringing them along. How Goldie had weaseled them out of Bull Morgan was something Margo would like to have known.

"Okay, everyone, this show is about to hit the road!"

Margo signaled Koot, who loosened his tether at the same moment she loosened her own cable. The airship rose silently into the starlit African night. A strong offshore wind pushed them steadily into the interior. Margo waited until they were well out of sight of the little bayside community below, then fired up the ducted fan engines..

Their noise shattered the night. Kynan covered his ears and glanced over the edge of the platform. He lost all color in the silvered moonlight. The airship dipped and plunged in the air currents like a slow-motion roller coaster. Poor Kynan squeezed shut both eyes and swallowed rapidly several times. Margo grinned and handed him a scopolamine patch, showing him how to put it on, then steered a course northward around the edge of Delagoa Bay for the mouth of the legendary Limpopo River.

Margo thrilled as the dawn came up, spreading fingers of light across the heart of Africa. Beneath their floating platform the distant Drakensberg mountains snaked away southward along the rugged Wild Coast. Directly below, the Limpopo glinted in the early light, a treacherous ribbon of water navigable only during flood stage. According to her ATLS readings, they had emerged in early December, the beginning of the summer season in this part of sub-Saharan Africa. Far to the south, clouds boiled up over the mountains. Flickers of lightning split the predawn sky as the Drakensbergs roared with another of their legendary storms.

Fortunately, Margo's route lay to the north, following the Limpopo valley in its long, arcing curve through the Drakensberg foothills. With any luck, they'd avoid the worst of the summer storms. Margo peered over the side and grinned even while pulling her jacket tighter. The crystalline chill of the high air invigorated her. The river valley below was a vast carpet of green rising steadily into the foothills. Animals moved in the early sunlight. Vast herds rippled like brown rivers. She wondered what they were. She understood being hungry; but how could anyone hunt such beautiful animals for sport?

She glanced at Koot and wrinkled her nose. He hunted for sport and scuttlebutt had it he'd guide down-time safaris, too, but he probably knew what those herds were. She could ask, anyway. "Koot?"

The grizzled Afrikaner glanced back without speaking.

"What are those?" She pointed.

"Wildebeest," he said shortly, "and Cape Buffalo. Very nasty. Most dangerous animal in Africa, the Cape Buffalo. Crocs in that river. Hippos too. Good you decided against rubber rafts."

The sarcasm was heavy enough to weight down the airship. Margo trimmed their attitude by adjusting the amount of ordinary air contained in ballonets inside the hydrogen bag. Her argument with Koot on the subject of air versus water transport had been short, violent, and conclusive. He'd won. That was all right. Flying was more exciting, anyway.

Up in the "bow" the Welshman, too, stared at the tremendous herds. Then he glanced at the hydrogen bag and shivered. Margo felt a moment's pang of pity. What must it be like for him, coming into a time and place where everything he saw smacked of "witchcraft" and left him fighting to hide his fear? She wondered if Goldie had been right to include him. He needed the work, clearly; but he was having such a difficult time adjusting, Margo would have preferred to leave him on the station and hire someone a little more familiar with modern languages, machinery, and philosophical concepts.

Then she, thought about their ultimate destination and grinned. Soon she would fulfill a goal she'd set herself the day her mother had died. A few weeks from now, Margo was going to walk into that prison hospital in Minnesota and show her father just how incredibly wrong he'd been about her, her dreams, everything.

Sunlight flooded the landscape and streamed through the triangular lifting wing which carried them forward into adventure, burning away all trace of bitterness.

Today is the most beautiful, perfect day of my life! Margo consulted her compass, corrected the direction of the propulsion fans, and came about on the right heading.

She thrilled at the touch of the controls. This was her airship, her expedition, her success come to life.

At last, something she had planned was going exactly as it should!

Finding the Seta gravel deposits Goldie had identified was so easy Margo spent the next several days gloating over her success. They anchored the balloon, broke out digging equipment, and busied themselves excavating ore from the potholes along the Limpopo River bank.

When she encountered her first inch-wide sapphire, Margo whispered, "Oh, my God..."Then at the bottom of the pothole, they hit diamonds. "Oh, my Gad..."

Even the Welshman grinned ear-to-ear as he worked.

They removed yard after cubic yard of matrix, piling it carefully onto the gondola platform, and began hauling it upriver to the site Goldie had marked on her map. Margo had trouble finding that spot. She hovered over the Shashe River, studying the lay of the land, trying to correlate what she saw with Goldie's chart and navigational notations. She finally took an aerial snapshot with the digitizing camera that was part of her personal log, scanned in Goldie's map, and made the best correlation she could.

"There," she decided.

She took the airship down and they buried the first load. They made trip after trip, digging out pits on Goldie's future landholding, seeding them with diamondiferous matrix and returning for another load. It was slow work, because the matrix was heavy They couldn't lift much at one time. A week passed, blurred easily into two, then three. The January rains of summer hit, flooding their little camp and forcing them onto higher ground. The heat was stifling. Using filter straws which blocked out pathogens, they drank boiled water which had cooled enough to swallow, grinned like fools, and went back to work

Margo was thrilled her digitizing camera did double duty as a video camera. In her spare moments, she filmed vast herds of antelope, wildebeest, and zebra which stretched away across the grassy veldt Nearer the river, where trees and scrub grew up, they saw graceful giraffes browsing in the treetops. At night the grunting cough of hunting lions sent shivers through her. Hyenas' wild cackles mingled with the cries of water birds and the bass roar of hippos in the river.

They fished to supplement their supplies. Kynan Rhys Gower and Koot van Beek dined on grilled antelope which Koot brought down. Kynan even joined the hunt, grinning as he transfixed a silver and black gemsbok with a cloth-yard shaft. He cut the long black horns for souvenirs. That night he and the Afrikaner gorged on roast gemsbok. Margo wouldn't touch anything but the fish and her own supplies. Watching them butcher their kills only reminded her of the Roman arena -- and that killed her appetite and curiosity at one fell swoop.

"No, thank you," she said primly when offered a morsel.

Koot just rolled his eyes heavenward, muttered, "English," and kept eating.

Elephants appeared in glorious great herds, coming down to the river to drink. Monkeys screamed and chattered in the trees and darted in to try thieving their supplies. Margo laughed and chased them away. In the hay-colored grass of the high veldt, she could even see cantankerous rhinos and long-snouted, suspicious baboons. Those she steered clear of, having no desire to tangle with a horned tank locked on permanent bad temper or an intelligent primate that lived in structured tribal groups, ate a diet that included meat, and sported fangs long as her fingers. But everything else was fair game, both for Margo's camera and her unbounded delight.

They'd nearly finished their work when Margo learned her first valuable lesson about scouting. She and Kynan had left the river, Kynan to hunt his dinner and Margo to stretch her legs and sightsee a little, leaving Koot to guard the camp. Margo carried the carbine slung over her shoulder, but only because Koot always pitched a fit if she didn't. Game was so plentiful Kynan never had to go far and Margo was usually thrilled by whatever they found within a few dozen yards of the campsite. Margo was creeping through tall grass with her digital camera, edging toward a herd of springbok, when it happened. She heard a snort and glanced around to see a massive Cape Buffalo. The bull stood solitary against the skyline.

Oh... What a gorgeous animal!

He stared at her through dark eyes, not more than seventy-five yards away. His nostrils flared. He thrust one foreleg out, stiff-legged, as though posing. She lifted the digital camera and snapped a shot. Ooh, perfect ... The bull snorted and lowered his head The horns were enormous, sharp-tipped, beautiful.

Kynan touched her arm. She glanced around. "What?"

He high-signed her, pointing urgently toward camp. She noticed he'd notched an arrow to his longbow while backing away. "There's no danger," she told. "He's fifty yards away." Margo clicked the camera from snapshot to video and began filming again, motion footage this time. The Cape Buffalo bull lowered his head even more and snorted again, cutting the turf with a sharp hoof.

Then he charged

Oh, shit...

Margo fumbled for her laser-guided blowgun, then realized she'd left it at camp. Then she knew she was in serious danger. That animal's as big as a earl And he was running straight toward her, bellowing like a runaway freight train. Terror took hold Margo fumbled awkwardly for the carbine and brought it around. The whole barrel shook, describing wild circles with the muzzle, but she managed to center the bull. She didn't know where to aim. She squeezed her eyes shut and fired The carbine slapped her shoulder. The crack of the report sounded above the thunder of hooves.

The bull bellowed and kept coming.

WHACK!

A yard-long arrow sprouted from the bull's chest.

The buffalo bellowed furiously-and kept coming.

"Run!" Margo spun and pelted toward camp. Kynan was right behind her. The thunder of hooves bearing down told Margo they'd never make it.

"Its too far!" Margo cried. She turned and fired again, emptying the magazine into the charging buffalo.

Kynan notched another arrow and let fly. It caught the bull full in the chest The crazed buffalo faltered only one stride then picked up speed again. Two more arrows followed, pincushioning the enraged animal. Margo fumbled for another magazine to reload the carbine. She was still fumbling with the ammunition when

KA-RUMP!

The bull went down as though pole-axed. It snorted, screamed, and staggered back to its feet Then charged again.

KA-RUMP! The thunder of Koot's big rifle barked again.

The buffalo crumpled and slid to a stop. Margo stood where she was, shaking like a leaf. Kynan, poised between her and the maddened bull, slowly relaxed his bow. The bull had skidded to a stop less than four feet from his toes.

"You stupid English!" Koot van Beek muttered, rising from the grass behind them. "You cannot stop a Cape Buffalo with children's toys." He raised the Winchester Model 70 African Special he'd brought along. "This is why I brought my own rifle, English."

Margo gulped. "I-I see. Yes. I- Thank you."

Koot grunted once then jerked a thumb back toward camp. "I have fish for supper." The scathing way he said it made Margo wish she could crawl into a hole and pull it in after her. Maybe hunting did have its place...

The Welshman slowly, carefully, replaced his arrow in the quiver at his side.

"You were very brave," Margo told him, wondering if he knew enough English to understand her.

Kynan turned to face her. Margo gulped. His whole face was pasty white. He glanced at his bow, stared for a moment at the dead Cape Buffalo, then looked past her to Koot. He said in broken English, "Koot? You show gun?"

Koot grinned. "Sure. Come to camp. I will teach you to shoot."

The look in the Welshman's eyes was one of vast relief

Wordlessly, Margo followed the men back to camp. Next time, she promised, to bring a gun powerful enough to stop anything I'm likely to encounter: She'd made a mistake. A bad one. Fortunately, it hadn't proven fatal. This time, she'd been lucky.

Margo's second mistake was far more serious than not choosing a powerful enough rifle. Watching the falling fuel gauges-and searching the inhospitable terrain below for nonexistent landing sites--did nothing to slow the alarming rate at which they burned fuel. Far sooner than they should have, the ducted engine fans sputtered and went silent. Terror choked Margo into equally profound silence. We're out of fuel. Dear God, we're out of fuel ... .

Try as she might, Margo spotted nothing that looked remotely like a survivable landing sight for miles in any direction. The fuel gauges read empty--and Margo knew the spare fuel canisters were just as empty as the main tanks. They started to drift rapidly off course.

It's not fair! ! was so careful! I figured our exact fuel needs. I got it right for the inland flight! For all those maddening trips upriver My calculations should've been right for the return to the coast, too. Dammit, I put in every variable I could think of to balance weight against lift-even looked-up, how heavy that diamond-bearing soil would be! It's just not fair!

But-as Kit and Sven had been so fond of saying, the Universe didn't give beans for "fair." It simply was. You got it right or paid the price. And Margo, for all her cautious calculations, had forgotten one simple, critical factor: the wind

Year round, the wind blew off the coast of Madagascar across the Drakensberg ranges, flowed around the foothills of the Limpopo valley and blasted inland, carrying moisture that kept the eastern half of Africa's tip from baking into desert like the Kalahari and Skeleton Coast farther west. That wind never shifted direction. In all her careful planning, Margo had forgotten to calculate the effect of bucking headwinds all the way back along five hundred miles of river valley while summer storms drenched them and threatened to blow their little airship off course.

It wasn't fair; it just was.

And now the fuel was gone.

"English!" Koot called urgently. "Fill the fuel tanks!"

Oh, God, l have to tell him...

"Uh ... I can't! We're, uh, out of fuel ... ."

The hydrogen wing bucked in the wind and dropped sickeningly, then spun lazily at the mercy of rising storm winds. From across the PVC gondola, Koot stared at her, then gave the silent ducted fans a single disgusted glare.

"English."

Margo clung to the gondola with her heart in her throat She had no choice but to take them down. If they could get down. The terrain below was absolutely treacherous: broken rocks and a snaking river bordered by tangles of brush and tall trees. But if they waited much longer, the wind would push them even deeper into the interior, stranding them miles from the Limpopo with no way out but to walk.

"We're taking her down, Koot!" Margo called. "Let's go!"

He gave her a cold glare, but didn't argue. Clearly even he could see the need for getting down now. With all three of them fighting the steering controls and hanging on for dear life in the gusting winds, Margo managed to open valves on the lifting wing, draining out buoyant gas. The little ship descended treacherously, canting at wild angles, spinning out of control in gusting winds. Kynan tied down gear that slid and threatened to fall, off, then had to grab for a cable to keep from sliding off the edge himself.

"Rope in!" Margo yelled, kicking herself for not thinking of it sooner. One of them might have been flung out. Of course, the way the ground rushed at them ...

Koot tied himself to the gondola. Kynan and Margo did the same. She trimmed the ballonets, trying to slow their rate of descent. Then dumped ballast overboard. Their wild plunge toward the ground slowed. The flying wing sheered around, flinging Margo against the tiller, then righted itself and continued to descend.

She had no control over where they might land. She searched the ground frantically. If they landed there, they'd break up on the rocks. There and they'd crash through trees and die messily another way. The river was in flood stage, but jagged boulders stuck out of the water like teeth and massive debris including whole trees washed down the raging torrent. They couldn't land in the water. By chance, a freak wind blew them toward a bend where floods had washed out trees and brush, leaving a tiny, muddy clearing. She wasn't sure it was big enough. But if she waited, another gust would blow them past it. Margo released hydrogen with a vengeance. The gondola dropped so fast even Koot yelled.

Please ... just a little farther ... .

Margo cut loose half their supplies and kicked the bundles overboard-they landed with a splat in the mud The gondola slowed, settled toward the ground. Wind blew them sideways toward a snarl of broken trees. Margo yelled and yanked on the valve. Hydrogen hissed out of the balloon. The PVC gridwork thunked wetly into the mud with enough force to jolt her whole spine. Oww ... everything ached.

But they were down. Down, alive, and in one piece.

Margo just shut her eyes and shook.

When she opened them again, she found Koot and Kynan staring disconsolately at their wild surroundings. Koot, at least, was busy making them fast with cables and pegs while he stared at the tangle of brush and flooded river. Margo flushed. Some leader I turn out to be. Stranded two hundred fifty miles from the sea ...

She wanted to cover her face and cry. But this was her expedition and it was her mistake that had put them all in jeopardy.

"Koot? What do you know about the Limpopo?"

He studied the swollen river. "It is navigable at flood stage. That I know. It will be very dangerous if we try to raft it."

Raft it? "With what?"

Koot just looked at her. "Don't you English learn to think? Our gondola will float. It is PVC plastic. All we need to do is cut up the balloon to waterproof the floor and we can raft on it."

Raft a raging river filled with rocks and whole trees and God knew what else? Beats walking .....Yes, you're right. That's a good idea."

He snorted. "Of course it is, English. I thought of it."

Margo flushed again, but said nothing. He might be arrogant, but he was right, as usual. Through the effort of gestures and halting explanations, they told Kynan what had to be done. They opened every release valve on the gas bag and deflated it slowly then trod on the ballonets to help deflate them as well. Kynan used his knife to carefully slice open the Filmar wing. Then they unloaded the gondola and covered the rip-stop nylon with a layer of tough, transparent Filmar. Once that was done, they lashed it securely down with the cables which had held the gas bag attached to the gondola. The engines they abandoned by sinking them in the river.

Reloading the raft was tricky as they struggled not to puncture the layer of Filmar. Once the job was done, Kynan and Koot set to work cutting poles and rough paddles from tree branches. "There will be many dangers," Koot said glumly. "Crocodiles. Hippos. Rapids. We are low on food. We may all die."

Great pep talk. "We're not dead yet!" she flashed back. "And I'm not giving up. Let's push'er into the water."

Working together, they hauled the raft to the river and shoved off. Margo scrambled aboard and used her pole to help push them into deeper water. They picked up speed as the swollen current caught them and swept them downstream. She crossed her fingers, said a tiny prayer, and clutched her paddle.

Here goes nothing.

At least she wasn't hiding back home in Minnesota, waiting for life to pass her by the way it had passed by nearly everyone else in that godforsaken little town. If she was going to die out here, she'd die trying! That, Margo supposed as she dug her paddle into the racing current, was something worthy of an epitaph.

She hoped that thought didn't turn into prophecy.

The trip back down the Limpopo was an exhausting, nerve-racking blur of incidents which haunted her at night when she didn't sleep:

"Push off!" Koot screamed. "Now! Now!"

Margo thrust her improvised paddle against a jagged rock higher than her head. The shock of wood on stone all but dislocated her shoulder. Margo went to her knees as the raft spun away from the rock. One kneecap punched through the Filmar floor. Margo dropped her paddle to rig a hasty patch across the spurting hole. Then had to grab wildly for the paddle again as another rock towered in their path. The shock of contact spread white-hot fire through her damaged shoulder. But she held onto the paddle and kept lookout for more boulders. On the other side of the gondola, Kynan hung grimly to a long pole while Koot van Beek clung to his own paddle, trying to steer a course through the flood.

Another day, Margo wasn't sure which one, storm rains lashed them. The river rose swiftly, flinging them from one muddy crest to another. Then ahead, just visible through slashing rain, a sight that brought a cry of terror: wildebeest. A whole herd was trying to cross the Limpopo, thousands--tens of thousands--of animals at a time. The river ahead was a solid carpet of swimming, drowning wildebeest.

"KOOT!"

He came to his feet, swearing. "Try to reach the bank!"

They fought the flood, cracking heavily against a submerged rock. PVC burst along one side of the raft. Then they spun off and bounded downstream again, headed slightly outward toward the far bank. Margo dug in her paddle until her back screamed for mercy -- and kept paddling. If we hit that herd, we're dead .....loser, closer, they were going to make it...

The bank was infested with crocodiles.

"Keep going!" Koot lunged to his feet, rifle in hand, and braced with his legs wide apart.

KA-RUMP!

The rifle barked again and again. Crocodiles died or thrashed, wounded--on the muddy banks. Others flung themselves into the rain-lashed water or tore into wounded animals for a feast The bank neared, spun out of Margo's view, came back around closer than before. They were going to make it ... They would miss ....

The raft grounded, flinging Margo to her chest Koot leaped ashore, straining to hold the raft by one cable. Kynan jumped out beside him and snatched another slippery cable. Margo screamed "Look out!"

Koot let go, whirling and bringing up his heavy rifle. He fired once at the croc lunging toward Kynan. It slithered into the roaring whitewater and vanished.

Margo scrambled onto the muddy bank, snatching at the cable Koot had dropped. The raft fought for its freedom. She dug in heels and pulled. Rain slashed at her face, making breathing difficult. Lightning flared, but the roar of the river drowned out any thunder.

Koot yanked at another cable. The raft lifted an inch at a time. Margo worked backwards and maintained a steady pull, fearing her back would crack. The raft finally came clear of the river's maddened embrace and slid messily onto the mud. Only a dozen yards distant, crocodiles tore into other crocs brought down by Koot's rifle. Rain washed most of the blood away. Koot shot the nearest crocs then levered them into the water, creating a carcass-free perimeter around their position.

Margo panted, turning her shoulders to the driving rain to regain her breath, then found her M-1 carbine. Kynan Rhys Gower tied the raft down and set about repairing visible damage as best he could. Margo shook so hard- she could barely keep her grip on the rifle, but at least she was still alive to shake. Thirty yards downstream, wildebeest struggled in the water and screamed like terrified children while they died. She shut her eyes to the carnage. They'd come so close to plowing straight into that ....

More animals died during the next few hours than had died during the entire Ludi Megalenses. Possibly more than had died during the whole previous years at Rome. The death of the wildebeest herd didn't change the bloody savagery she'd witnessed in the Roman Circus, but it put life and death in much clearer perspective. Nature wasn't any nobler or gentler than human beings. It was just as deadly and just as cruel and just as savagely "unfair" to the weak ....

Maybe more so.

They had to wait hours past the end of the storm before the river was clear enough to risk rafting again.

That night they took turns once again standing watch.

They stayed on the river each night if no rapids threatened, trying to gain time, but dragged the raft onto the banks until dawn if the river was too rough to navigate in the dark. Tonight they'd come ashore rather than risk a treacherous stretch of white water visible just ahead in the fading twilight. That night, Margo spent a lot of time whimpering deep in her throat, glad the roar of white water drowned out the sound of her terror.

So call me Katherine Hepburn and marry me of to Humphrey Bogart ....

Margo would have settled for Malcolm Moore's strong arms in a flash. She missed him desperately, particularly at night like this when the screams of hunting leopards and dying animals drifted on the wind like clouds of enveloping mosquitoes. Every time she heard another wild scream on the night air she wanted to grab her rifle, but tonight Margo was so tired she could scarcely pick up the M-1 carbine.

I'm sorry, Malcolm, she found herself thinking again and again, I was rotten and selfish and I didn't mean it ....

Another drenching summer storm broke over them near midnight, jolting Margo from fitful sleep. Kynan stood watch, a ghostly figure in the flash and flare of African lightning. Koot van Beek, bedded down in his sleeping bag, stirred briefly then went back to sleep.

How could anyone sleep through this?

Lightning screamed through the clouds, slashed downward into trees and the river, dancing and splashing insanely across jagged, arc-lit boulders. Margo was too tired to flinch every time it struck, but fear jolted her with every bolt, nonetheless. Don't let it strike us ....

Then the rain struck, a solid mass of black, stinging water. Margo coughed and rolled onto her tummy, pulling the sleeping bag right over her head. Water roared louder than ever down the swollen Limpopo.

I'll hear that sound in my grave, Margo moaned Why'd we have to arrive in the rainy season? Then, because she was no longer able to hide from her own folly and its cost, Good thing it is or we'd really be in a jam. Rafting out two-hundred-fifty miles still beat walking it. Which they'd have had to do, lugging gear every step of the way, if this had been the dry season.

Oh, Malcolm, I really screwed up .... She had to get back, not just to prove she could scout and survive it, but to apologize to Malcolm for the cruel thing she'd done to him. It was too late to pursue what might have been the most wonderful relationship in her life, but she could at least apologize.

When, at some later, miserable point in the night, water lapped against Margo's cheek, Margo thought groggily the rain must've seeped into her sleeping bag. Then Kynan Rhys Gower appeared in a strobe-flash of lightning, drenched and white-faced. "Margo!" he cried, -pointing toward the nearest edge of the raft. "River!"

The raft was bobbing madly against its moorings.

Huh?

She wriggled free of her sodden sleeping bag. The river had risen swiftly-and rose visibly higher over the next few lightning flashes.

"Koot! Koot, wake up!"

He reacted sluggishly, fighting his way toward consciousness while she shook him. One good look at the rising river brought him to his feet, swearing in Afrikaans.

"Drag her higher!" Margo shouted

"No use! Look!" He pointed inland.

Lightning revealed a tangle of impenetrable forest. At the rate the water was rising, the whole tangle would be multiple feet deep in flood waters at least five hundred yards inland from where they floated, probably within another hour.

"Can we ride this out where we are?" Margo called above the sound of river, rain, and thunder.

"Don't know. Rapids downstream looked bad!

A terrifying crack nearly on top of them jolted the raft. Margo screamed. One whole end of the raft disappeared underwater. Kynan scrambled across the tilted deck, knife in hand. The raft jerked, thrashed under the tug of something monstrous. Lightning showed them why: one of their anchor trees had come down.

"Cut the cable! Cut it!" Koot van Beek screamed.

Kynan was already sawing at the taut cable where it vanished underwater. It parted strand by strand, then snapped. The raft lurched and spun sideways. Kynan went overboard with a hoarse yell. Margo lunged forward. Lightning revealed him clinging to a broken PVC pipe with one hand.

"Koot!"

The Afrikaner didn't answer. Margo wrapped both hands around Kynan's wrist. He flailed and caught her arm with his other hand. She lost him in the darkness between flashes, aware of him only through the tenuous contact of hand on wrist. Margo pulled, but her upper body strength was a pitiful match for the tug of the river.

"KOOT!"

The raft slammed around into something hard. Kynan yelled and barely hung onto her arm. Margo sobbed for breath and used toes to dig for the severed cable behind her. She found it and scooted one knee forward until the broken end was under her cheek.

"Kynan! Hold on!"

She drew a breath for courage -then let go with one hand and snatched the cable. Kynan yelled

Margo flung the cable around him.

He grabbed for it as his grip on the raft broke loose.

Margo hung onto one end and Kynan clung to the other. Please... Margo sobbed under her breath. She rolled over and scooted backwards, hauling with the leverage of arms and legs this time. Kynan's arms appeared over the edge. Then his head and back appeared. He slithered forward, clutching at the cable, the PVC, anything he could grasp Margo pulled until Kynan had wriggled completely onto the raft. Then she fell backwards, panting.

Grimly, Margo tied herself to a lifeline and tied one around the gasping Welshman. Koot was fighting to secure the raft to another tree, braced on one foot and one knee while he struggled with coiled cable and vicious wind and current.

"KOOT! TIE A LIFELINE!"

Before he could respond, another tree went CRACK! The raft lurched underfoot. Margo fell flat. She caught a glimpse of Koot in a strobe-flare of lightning. He was sawing frantically at the other cable with his own knife. Then they spun free. The river sucked them downstream. Margo whimpered, but forced herself to crawl forward.

"Get a lifeline on!" she shouted at him.

Koot, looking numb and shaken, fumbled for a rope.

Then lightning flared and Margo caught sight of the rapids.

"Oh, God ... Oh, GOD..."

Margo groped blindly for a paddle, a pole, anything she could use to shove off those looming rocks. The river spat them at those rapids like a watermelon seed in a millrace. Margo found breath to scream just once. Then she was fighting for survival in the strobe-lit night. Every time lightning flared, she shoved the paddle at anything that looked dark. Usually the paddle connected sickeningly with solid stone, jarring her whole body with bruising force. The raft spun, lurched, plunged through the darkness. Spray and rain battered them. Margo couldn't hear anything but the roar of water. If anyone yelled for help, she'd never hear them.

Another shock shook them. A rock nobody'd seen. The whole raft shuddered, bounced off, rocked sideways over a lip of water, dropped sickeningly. The impact jarred her breath out, then they plunged on. She had no idea half the time if she faced upriver or down. Another jolt shook the raft It can't take much more of this, it'll come apart on us ...

The raft lurched-then either it or Margo was abruptly airborne. Margo screamed. She came down in the water. The muddy Limpopo closed over her head. Margo fought to find her lifeline. The current was savage. She couldn't move against it She swallowed water, strangled, knew that if she hit a submerged rock, she would die.

Her face broke the surface. She was moving...

Kynan Rhys Gower grabbed her hair and pulled. Margo groped for his arm, his waist. She slithered forward into his lap. The raft rocked violently, spun in a new direction ...

Then quieted.

They still raced through the darkness like a cork over Niagara Falls, but they'd made it alive through the rapids.

Margo quietly threw up in Kynan's lap, disgorging the water she'd swallowed. He pounded her back, helping her cough it out. Then he helped her sit up and made sure she'd suffered no broken bones. Margo winced a few times, but the worst she'd endured was bruises. Koot watched silently.

She finally met Kynan's gaze. "Thank you."

The Welshman pointed to himself then the river, then pointed to her and the river.

"Yes," she shivered. "We're even now. Thank you, anyway."

He spread his hands and shrugged, then busied himself checking for damage. Koot watched her without speaking.

"Are you all right?" she called over the storm.

"Yes. You?"

"I'll live. Maybe," she qualified it.

He grunted. "You're damn lucky, English. I'm going to sleep."

Without another word, he collapsed, not even bothering to crawl into his sleeping bag. Margo glanced at Kynan. He gestured for her to rest.

"My watch," he said in his careful English.

Margo just nodded, knowing she'd have found the strength to stand watch if she'd had to, but thanking God and every angel in the heavens she didn't have to. If another emergency threatened, Kynan would wake them. She fell asleep before her cheek even hit the sodden sleeping bag.

Five days into their wretched journey, they ran out of food-and Koot van Beek fell seriously ill. He woke with a high fever and terrible chills.

"Malaria," he chattered between clenched teeth.

"But we took anti-malarials!"

"Not ... not a sure-fire prevention. G-get the quinine tablets."

Margo dug out the medical kit with trembling hands. She read the instructions again to be sure, then dosed him with four tablets of chloroquine and covered him with one of their sleeping bags. They had no food left to help him regain his strength. The river banks were barren of anything that could be shot and fetched back as food.

Where are all those stupid animals when we need them? I'm hungry-and Koot may be dying!

She'd have shot anything that remotely resembled food in a heartbeat. She'd even have cooked one of those lousy drowned carcasses, if she could've gotten close enough to one to snag it. She bit her lips and tried to cope with an overwhelming sense of failure. When they stopped for the night, pulling the raft onto the flood-ravaged bank, Margo sat in her miserable corner of the raft and held her head in her hands and started admitting the hardest truths she had ever had to face.

I am not smart. Or particularly clever. Or honest, not even with myself. Kit and Malcolm, everyone was right. I was crazy to think I was ready to scout.-...

Proving herself to her father seemed utterly pointless now. What had she expected him to do? Take her in his arms and weep on her neck? Tell her the three words she'd wanted to hear all her life? Fat chance.

Sitting there in the darkness, Margo had ample time to review every mistake she'd made, every selfish word she'd uttered, every lamebrained, dangerous risk she'd run because she hadn't learned enough: She'd nearly let a Cape Buffalo kill her because she was too busy thinking how picturesque it was to realize her danger. Koot had warned her and she'd chosen to ignore him. What was it Kit had told her? Don't put wild animals on some moral pedestal bearing no resemblance to reality?

And she'd nearly killed Malcolm in St. Giles. And in Rome, completely on her own ... Margo had come to realize she'd come close to being killed in Rome, too, without ever realizing it. She could've stumbled into far less scrupulous hands than Quintus Flaminius' -- and his care of her could easily have soured. That lancet they'd used to bleed her could've infected her with something awful, or they might literally have bled her to death, or ...

Margo's whole experience as a time scout was one unmitigated disaster after another, with some impatient guardian angel finally throwing hands in the air in disgust and going back to whatever heaven guardian angels come from.

All of which left her utterly alone with no supplies on a flooded river miles from help, with a dying man and a scared down-timer on her hands. The only thing that kept her going was her sense of responsibility. She hadn't left Achilles completely without resources and she wouldn't give up on Koot and Kynan, either. Somehow, she'd get them out of this mess she'd made.

Six hours later she woke Koot and dosed him with two more tablets. He complained of a raging headache and fell asleep again. Margo dug out her information on malaria and a flashlight. When she read the list of potential symptoms, Margo felt a chill of terror. The Plasmodium falciparum strain of malaria, which included among its symptoms severe headaches, could be quickly fatal Not treated properly . They were several hundred years as well as a hundred or so miles from the nearest medical clinic.

Kynan crouched down at her side and gestured to Koot.

"He die?"

Margo shook her head. "I don't know."

The Welshman's dark gaze flicked to the river. "Bad Place."

"Yes. Very bad." She drew a ragged breath. "We have to keep going." She pantomimed paddling and pointed down the river.

Kynan nodded. His expression was as grim as Margo's fading hopes. Somewhere deep inside her, Margo found the courage to keep going. At dawn, they shoved off again. The Welshman wordlessly picked up Koot's heavy Winchester rifle and checked it as he'd been taught, then took up a guard stance in the bow. Someone had to watch for hippos while the other one steered. Margo didn't feel like arguing over which job she was best suited for. She took up position in the stern and did her best to keep them on course.

Margo was three-quarters asleep under a starry sky when their raft eddied down the last few miles of the Limpopo. Kynan Rhys Gower shook her gently and pointed. Margo blinked and rose awkwardly. She ached everywhere, making movement difficult, and the hunger gnawing at her had left her muzzy-headed. She stared down the moonlit river for several moments before realizing why it looked so wide.

They had come within sight of the sea.

"Oh, thank God!"

Then another frightening thought hit her.

The mouth of the Limpopo was nearly a hundred miles up the coast from Delagoa Bay and the gate. A hundred miles on a raft on the open sea with no real way to steer and no food or water?

"Kynan! We have to get to the bank!"

Kynan puzzled out her meaning, then nodded and began to paddle. Margo dug her paddle into the current until her shoulders and back were on fire. They moved slowly nearer the bank-but not fast enough. The current was sweeping them inexorably out to sea. Maybe they could swim for it ....

Koot couldn't swim. And when she looked closely, Margo saw the gleam of crocodile eyes in the water. Terror choked her breath off. We'll drift into the Indian. Ocean. My God, we could end up anywhere ... At the last moment, she thought to fill water cans with river water. Then they were wallowing in rolling swells. The current carried them farther from land.

"A sail," Margo muttered, "we need a sail..." Malcolm had taught her how to sail. But not how to build a sailboat out of a PVC and Filmar raft. "Doesn't matter. Gotta have a sail."

Margo dug for the remains of their flying wing. Not much was left. It would have to do. Margo loosened one of the broken PVC pipes and rigged a mast, using cables to tie it in place, then tied the remaining Filmar in place as a rude sail. Wind bellied it out. The raft still wallowed-but in a new direction. For a time, they made little headway. Then they left behind the influence of the Limpopo's strong current and eddied slowly down the coastline, blown slightly shoreward by the wind hitting their sail.

Kynan poured river water through their filtration equipment and used the coleman stove to boil it. Margo was so thirsty she would cheerfully have drunk the ocean dry. He poured a cup and handed it to her. Margo sipped the hot water

And spat involuntarily.

Salty ...

She stared in rising horror at the cup. She'd scooped up river water .....ut she'd waited until they were almost in the mouth of the river to do it. The water she'd retrieved was brackish. And that water was all they had aboard.

She shut her eyes, wishing she could blot out the terrors closing in on her as easily as she did sight of the accusatory cup in her hand. Koot was dying, they were adrift at sea with no water and no food ...

"Margo?"

She opened her eyes. Kynan's brow had furrowed in the starlight "Water not good," she said shakily. "Salt"

He frowned and tasted it, then spat. The furrows in his brow deepened. Between them, Koot moaned. Margo checked him and bit her lips. He was extremely weak. When she tried to move him, he vomited over the side, then soiled himself with uncontrollable diarrhea. His skin burned under her hand. Margo poured sea water over him in an effort to bring down his temperature. He moaned and shivered, then subsided into delirium.

Gotta get him back to the gate. HOW?

The raft wallowed in the swells, ungainly as a beached whale. Kynan vomited over the side, too, then wiped his lips and looked embarrassed Margo dug out another scopolamine patch and stuck it behind his ear, then dosed herself against seasickness for good measure. She wasn't sure she ought to risk dosing Koot, then decided he was so close to death she might as well chance it. If she could keep him from vomiting, maybe he'd survive?

The coastline was a great deal more rugged from the ocean than it had looked from the air. Margo and Kynan took turns at the sail, steering their craft as best they could They hardly moved in relation to the coast. At Margo's best guess, it would take them days to make the gate. Then, icing on a ruined cake, a line of thunderclouds rolled in from the Madagascar Straits, blotting out moon and stars. Lightning flared wildly from clouds to sea and back again.

"oh, God, no, not now..."

The storm swept down on them.

The only silver lining visible in the clouds was their increased speed as the storm drove the little raft southward. Then it began to rain.

"Kynan! Fresh water!"

He'd tilted his head back, letting rain enter his mouth.

"KYNAN!"

He glanced around. Margo tried to explain what she wanted, mimicking the shape of a funnel, then simply tore up part of the flooring and used the plastic to rig a funnel over one of the cans. Kynan did the same, with a bigger sheet of plastic. They filled three cans before the sea grew so rough they had to hang onto the raft to keep from being thrown off the platform. They wallowed and spun around in the swells. Rain pelted down, a wall of solid water that left them blind and drenched. Margo clung to the raft, unable to let go long enough to steer.

Please, let us get out of this alive and I swear I'll do whatever Kit says, study anything Kit tells me ... .

They ran before the storm, helpless in its grip for hours. Margo couldn't get to her chronometer, nestled safely in the ATLS bag looped around her torso, but given the changes in the light she guessed the storm drove them down the curving coast for more than twenty hours. She tried to remember what the curve of the coast looked like, wondered if the storm would slam them into the beach or just sweep them on southward past the Cape of Good Hope several hundred miles farther south.

Cape of Good Hope. Hah! Cape of Disasters is more like it ....

She and Kynan drank water sparingly, giving Koot a little when he roused, but there was still no food. Maybe I could rig something to use for a fishing line and hook? When the storm breaks ....

They ran aground without warning in pitch blackness.

Margo was thrown violently clear of the raft. She screamed and landed in stinging salt water. Breakers slammed her into the beach. The force of her landing knocked her breath away and left her floundering in a savage backwash. She crawled forward like a crab scuttling away from the sea, blinded by rain and deafened by the crash of thunder and maddened surf. She finally collapsed above the high water line, drenched to the skin by pounding rain.

Koot ... Kynan ...

Malcolm ...

The last thing to impinge on her awareness was the knowledge that she was an utter failure.

She woke slowly, in pain. Margo heard male voices she didn't recognize, speaking loudly and angrily somewhere above her. She stirred and moaned. Everything hurt. Someone slapped her, shocking her more fully awake. Margo gasped and focused on dark-haired men with light, olive-toned skin. They were dressed outlandishly in dirty clothes that reminded her of paintings of Christopher Columbus. Many of them wore slashed velvet breeches and leather armor. One wore metal chest and backplates and carried a fancy wheel-lock handgun. Margo's heart began to pound. She'd been found by sixteenth-century Portuguese from that little settlement on Delagoa Bay.

What about Kynan? And Koot? Had they survived the break-up of the raft? Or had Margo alone failed to drown in the stormy surf? One of the Portuguese, the man in the metal armor, spoke roughly to her. Margo had no idea what he'd said. The man stooped over her, spoke again, then backhanded her. She tried to get away and felt a tremendous blow connect. She didn't feel anything at all for a long time after that. When Margo regained her senses, someone had stripped her naked. The traders had clustered around her, leering. They'd started to unfasten their clothes.

Margo whimpered.

When the first one shoved her knees apart, Margo squeezed shut her eyes.

Malcolm ...

It took the bastards a long time to finish.