Wages of Sin

CHAPTER TWELVE

Marcus was on duty in the Down Time Bar & Grill when he strolled in, casual and cool as a general surveying newly levied troops on the Campus Martius. A glass slipped from nerveless fingers and shattered on the floor behind the bar. He glanced Marcus' way, noted him briefly with a flick of disinterested gaze, then took a seat near the back as though Marcus didn't exist.

Fear and anger both ripped through him, piercing as the shockwaves of an unstable gate. The years he'd spent on TT-86 had changed him more than he'd realized, had eased the harshness of certain memories with the fair treatment he'd received here, where men like Kit Carson and Skeeter Jackson saw him as a man, not a possession. He'd come to realize over the years that he was free, that no one had the right to call him slave, but in that single, blinding instant when his onetime master's eyes had slid dismissively away from his, the memory of his slavery had crashed down around him like a cage of steel bars.

Marcus stood rooted to the floor, unable to believe he had actually forgotten that terrifying, familiar, casual dismissal of his very humanity. What it felt like in his soul to be reminded

"Hey, Marcus, clean up that mess!"

The manager, frowning at him.

Hands shaking uncontrollably, Marcus knelt and swept up broken shards of the bar glass. When the job was done and the pieces dumped into the trash bin, Marcus washed and dried hands that refused to hold steady. He drew a deep breath for courage. He didn't want to cross that short distance of space, but knew it had to be done. He still owed a terrible sum of money to this man whose name he'd never actually known, merely calling him Domus, same as any other slave would address a master. He recalled all too clearly the cold humor in the man's eyes when he'd first laid eyes on Marcus in that stinking slave pen.

He left the relative safety of the space behind the bar and approached the dim table near the back. His glance flicked up again, studied Marcus with brutal appraisal, a herdsman judging the health of prize stock. Marcus' insides flinched.

"Your order?" he whispered, all voice control gone.

His one-time master had not changed much during the intervening years. A little leaner, a little greyer. But the eyes were the same, dark and glittering and triumphant.

"Beer. Whiskey chaser."

Marcus brought the drinks as ordered, trying desperately to still the jittering of glassware on his small, round tray. Quick eyes noted the dance and smiled.

"Very good," he purred. "That will be all."

Marcus bowed and departed. He felt the dark touch of the man's gaze on him through the next hour, watching him work as he served drinks, collected bar tabs and tips, made up sandwiches and snacks for the ebb and flow of customers, and prayed to all the gods to get him through this ordeal. Why has he come? pounded behind his eyelids. Why has he not spoken to me again? I have the gold to repay the debt of my purchase price. I have it ...

And above all other questions, again and again, Why does he not speak? He just sits and watches. The man finally finished his beer and left money on the table, departing without a backward glance. Marcus had to brace himself against the bar to keep his feet.

"Marcus?"

He jumped so badly he nearly went to the floor. The manager braced him with a hasty arm.

"You feeling okay? You look sick."

I am sick! Marcus wanted to cry out. "I-do not feel well, I am sorry..."

"Hey, you got plenty of sick time coming. Go on home and take some aspirin, get some rest. I'll call Molly, she could use some overtime pay. If you don't feel better by tomorrow, call Medical."

Marcus nodded, numb to his bones. "Thank you." Very carefully, he wiped his hands on a bar towel. He hung it up with great deliberation, then crept out of the Down Time Bar & Grill into the brilliance of the Commons. His former master was nowhere to be seen. What was he to do? The man had said nothing, left no instructions to meet him, made no arrangements to turn over the notes Marcus had so carefully compiled over the years. He didn't know what to do. He didn't even know the man's name, to check the hotel registries. Perhaps he meant to save the meeting for the privacy of Marcus' little apartment?

To return to the apartment, he would have to pass Ianira's booth in Little Agora. What could he tell her, when he knew nothing, himself? Marcus half hoped he could slip past her without being seen, but Ianira spotted him straight away. Her lovely eyes widened. The next instant she'd left a customer and a whole retinue of devotees gaping after her. She flew to his side like an arrow into his heart.

"What is it? You're ill ..." She laid a hand against his cheek.

Marcus, aware that his former master might be anywhere, watching and assessing and planning, felt himself unbearably torn between the desire to crush Ianira to him and draw comfort from her strength versus the even fiercer desire to protect her and their children.

"He came into the Down Time today," Marcus said a little unsteadily. "The my old master." Ianira's luminous dark eyes widened; her lips, exactly the shape of Artemis' divine silver bow fully drawn to strike, parted in shock. Before she could speak, Marcus added, "Can you-can we afford it if you close up the booth?"

Worry furrowed Ianira's brow. "Why?"

Marcus had to draw an unsteady breath before he could speak. "I want you to take Artemisia and Gelasia and go someplace safe until I know what he wants. He said nothing, Ianira, just came in, watched me for an hour, and left without a word. I was once his slave, Ianira! He still thinks ... will act as though ... if I cannot protect you and our children, what kind of man can I be?"

The look in her eyes wounded him. He forced himself to continue. "And no downtimer has real rights in this world. I am afraid for you. He could so easily do terrible harm, make trouble with the uptimers whose laws bind us, maybe even try to take you for his own-by force!"

His hand on hers trembled. He would die to protect her and their children. He was just afraid his onetime owner would move on Ianira before Marcus could take proper precautions.

Ianira's glance darted around the brightly lit Common as though searching for their unseen enemy. Tourists, oblivious of their terror, sauntered past, laughing and chatting about upcoming adventures downtime. Her retinue of idiotic followers had left the booth and half surrounded them. Ianira, glancing at that follow-her-come-what-may crowd, compressed soft, sensuous lips until nothing remained but a hard, white line.

"You are right to fear," she whispered, her voice so low even Marcus had a hard time catching the words. "I feel that someone watches, someone besides these people," she waved a negligent hand toward her awestruck devotees, "but I cannot find him. There are so many minds in this place, it confuses the senses. But he is here, I know it." Marcus knew she had innate gifts he could barely understand, plus training in ancient ways and rites no man could ever comprehend. Her glance into his eyes was frightened. "I will stay with friends in The Found Ones until we know. You are wise, beloved. Take great care." Then the look in her eyes shifted, hardened. "I loathe him," she whispered fiercely. "For putting that look in your eyes I hate him as much as I hate my pig of a husband!"

Her lips crushed his, all too fleetingly, then she whirled and left him. The "costume" she wore-no different from the ordinary chitons she'd worn on the other side of the Philosophers' Gate-swirled in a flutter of soft draperies and folds. Astonishingly, downtimers from all parts of the Commons, summoned only the gods knew how, appeared from nowhere and surrounded her, most forming an impenetrable barricade to keep her acolytes from following. Others formed a guard and unless Marcus were greatly mistaken, theirs was an armed guard-to protect the Speaker of the Seven and her offspring. He knew they would be taking a swift, back-corridor route to the station's School and Day Care Center to pick up the girls. Then she vanished around a corner in Residential and was gone.

Marcus stayed where he was, making sure she was not followed. A few of the acolytes tried to, but that living wall managed to discourage them-forcefully for one or two insistent, insolent vidcam operators, then they, too, were gone around the same corner.

With The Found Ones, Ianira and their children ought to be safe from the monster who'd brought him here, who had then left him uptime with nothing but instructions that made no sense. That "master" had then blithely joined the line to depart TT-86, leaving Marcus-who was deep in shock from everything he heard and saw-to fend for himself. He recalled nearly every detail of that nightmare of a day. No one here had seemed to speak his native tongue.

Instead, he'd heard smatters of barbaric tongues, so many and spoken so fast he felt dizzy. He'd recognized none of them. Haphazard stairs that went nowhere had eventually led him into the arms of the "gods" who ruled this place. Eventually, he'd met the man named Buddy and after that, a group of men and women in more or less his same position, who took him in and helped him adjust through the worst of the transition.

Marcus was startled from his painful memories by a downtimer named Kynan Rhys Gower. Marcus knew this man to be a close friend of Kit Carson's. He was casually closing up Ianira's booth, setting items on the counter inside and locking the sides down, and fending off Ianira's followers with a helpless gesture and a convoluted sentence in Welsh that only the gods could probably decipher. He escaped the crowd, which settled itself around the booth as though they meant to wait forever. Kynan pushed his wheeled waste bin past Marcus' chosen place of vigil.

"Your woman and children are safe, friend," the Welshman murmured, pausing to pick up some bit of trash near Marcus' feet. He deposited the waste in his bin and moved on. Marcus closed his eyes, thanking all the gods for that miracle. Then, straightening his shoulders and drawing in a deep breath, Marcus headed resolutely for their apartment. His old master would doubtless seek him there and reveal his orders. What he would do when Marcus repaid him the price of his purchase and asked him to please take the records Marcus had compiled and never return ...

A Roman's reaction, Marcus could have judged without giving the matter a second thought. But Marcus' one-time master was not Roman. He was an uptimer with unknown motives, unknown ways of thinking. He had set Marcus a very specific-if mystifying-task. Would he be willing to give up a source of information placed so well to gather the details he clearly wanted very badly? What would he do? What would he say? Marcus could always appeal to Bull Morgan for help-if it came to such desperate straits. The Station manager would protect him, if no one else would. The thought of his one-time master facing down Bull Morgan and a squad of Station Security helped soothe the tremors ripping through his insides.

But he was still deeply afraid.

"Mr. Farley?"

The man who'd emerged from the Down Time Bar & Grill glanced around, surprise evident in his dark eyes. "Yes?"

Skeeter Jackson gave him a brilliant smile and a fake business card. "Skeeter Jackson, freelance time guide. I heard you were looking for a downtime adventure, checking out the gates we have here at Shangri-La Station."

Farley glanced at his card, then studied him. "I'm gathering information," he allowed cautiously.

Skeeter, maintaining that smile at all cost, wondered if Chuck Farley had witnessed Skeeter's panic-stricken flight from that double-damned gladiator-or the newscast which had followed. "If you wouldn't mind a friendly piece of advice..."

Farley nodded for him to continue.

"Time Tours offers some nice packages, but frankly, they'll gouge you for every extra service they can conjure up. The small outfits that rent the government-owned gates are a better deal, although the gates don't lead to quite as interesting time periods. Your best bet is to hire a freelancer. Then, if you decide on a non-Time-Tours gate, all you do is pay the government's gate fee plus your guide's fees, plus downtime lodging, meals, that kind of thing. Much cheaper than a package tour. Of course, it depends on what you want, doesn't it?"

Farley's eyes were cool and unpleasantly alert. "Yes."

"If you do settle on a Time Tours package, you might still consider a private guide." Drawing on the patter he'd heard Malcolm Moore use so frequently, he added, "There are some extraordinary experiences the package deals simply skip over, because they can't herd that many people around and not be noticed. Hiring a freelancer to go along with you lets you break away from the main tour group whenever you want. You could," he dredged up an example he'd researched on the computers, "go down towards Ostia, for instance, and look at the big Claudian harbor under construction. Magnificent sight, that harbor, but it isn't on the package tour."

He smiled again, winningly.

Farley merely pocketed his card. "Thanks for the advice. I'll consider it."

Without another word, he simply turned and walked off.

Skeeter stood rooted, silly grin still pasted on his face. His insides seethed. Goddammit, I'm losing my touch, Just when I need it most, too. What's with people this month?

He had to get access to that guy's money belt.

Skeeter headed for the library and started checking hotel registries on one of the computer terminals. Farley had to be staying somewhere. He started with the less expensive hostelries and worked his way up to the luxury hotels before he found the entry he sought: Farley, Chuck. Room 3027 Neo Edo. Skeeter just groaned and leaned his brow against the cool monitor screen. The Neo Edo. It figured. Kit Carson's hotel.

Well, he hadn't run out of disguises yet.

If he could get into the hotel without being recognized, he could get into Farley's room. And if he could get into the man's room, he could steal anything in it. If he were lucky, he'd catch the guy during a shower and simply make off quietly with the money belt around his own waist. He still couldn't quite believe the guy had turned him down as a freelance guide.

Swearing softly under his breath, Skeeter headed home to try out one of his disguises on the employees of the Neo Edo Hotel.

Goldie Morran found Chuck Farley seated at a table in Wild Bill's, a saloon-style bar in Frontier Town. He was reading the latest copy of the Shangri-La Gazette with apparent interest.

"Mind if a lady joins you?" she purred.

He glanced up, blinked, then set the paper aside. "Suit yourself"

The measuring look he gave her and the coolness of his greeting didn't bode well, but he did signal for a waitress. The rinky-tink jingle of the upright piano at the back of the room, its player costumed with gartered shirtsleeves and a battered beaver hat, rose above the sound of laughter, conversation, and the clink of glasses. The waitress, a saucy downtimer who, if rumor were correct-had earned more gold flirting with miners than the miners themselves had earned over an average year's digging, winked at Goldie, one hustler to another, friendly-like. Goldie smiled.

"What'll it be?" She rested hands on well-curved hips, while her breasts all but spilled out of her tight-laced costume. If Chuck Farley were affected by the sight, it didn't show in anyway Goldie could see. Maybe he preferred men? Goldie didn't care who he slept with, or why, so long as she obtained possession of his money.

"A drink for the lady. I presume," he added sardonically, "that she's buying, since I didn't invite her."

Goldie managed to keep smiling, although she'd vastly have preferred slapping him. "Whiskey Rebecca. Thank you. And yes," she added smoothly, "I am buying. I did not come here to steal a drink or two off an unwary tourist."

Some hint of mirth stirred far back in his eyes. "Very well, what did you come here for?"

As Rebecca threaded her way back through the crowded bar to fill Goldie's order, Goldie leaned back in her chair. "I am given to understand you're looking for something besides the usual tours."

Farley's smile was thin. "News certainly moves around fast in this place."

Goldie laughed. "That is too true. Which is why I wanted to talk to you before someone disreputable tried to swindle you." She handed over her card. "I have a shop on the Commons. Money-changing, rare coinage, gems, that sort of thing. My expertise is considerable."

Farley's thin smile came again, although it didn't touch his dark, watchful eyes. "I've heard of you, yes. Your reputation precedes you."

How he meant that, Goldie wasn't quite sure. Nor was she at all sure she liked the way he continued to watch her, like a waiting lizard.

"Not knowing what you had in mind, of course," she said, accepting the whiskey glass Rebecca brought and pointedly dropping money onto the table to pay for it, "I thought we might chat for a few minutes. Since you didn't seem interested in any specific tours, I thought perhaps you'd come to Shangri-La with something else in mind."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Such as?"

"Oh, there are all sorts of reasons people come here," Goldie laughed. "Some people come just to eat at the Epicurean Delight. Then there's that Greek prophetess all those wacky uptime bimbos follow around like she was Christ on Earth." She smiled at the memory of Ianira's hordes. Goldie had made more than a little profit from them.

"But I didn't come here to talk about oracles and the fools who believe them. Occasionally we're visited by the shrewd individual or two who understands the investment potentials a place like Shangri-La has to offer."

The corners of Farley's lips twitched. "Really? What sort of investments?"

Goldie sipped her whiskey. Farley was cool, all right. Too cool by half. "Well, there are any number of lucrative ventures a man with wit and capital could turn to his advantage. There are, for instance, the shops that supply the tourists, restaurants-even the small ones turn a fabulous profit. Captive audience, you know." She laughed lightly. Chuck Farley allowed a small smile to touch his lips. "When there are businesses like mine. Capital invested in rare coins obtained by downtime agents could increase nine, ten times the initial investment."

Again, that small, sardonic smile. "I thought the first law of time travel was, `There will be no profiteering from time.' The ATF has copies of it posted everywhere, you know."

Somehow, Goldie received the impression from the mirth far back in those dark eyes that Chuck Farley didn't give a damn about the first law of time travel.

"True," she smiled. "But money exchanged from downtime purchases which is then invested right here in Shangri-La isn't covered by that law. You're only in violation if you try to take your profit uptime,

"So, the possibilities for shrewd investment are limitless for a man with capital and imagination." She sipped at her whiskey again, still watching him over the rim of the glass. "Best of all, the money you invest in, say, a business here on Shangri-La is taxed only at the rate it would be uptime. Frankly, you can make a killing without ever breaking a single law."

She smiled politely while he leaned back in his chair and studied her face. The corners of his lips moved slightly. "You interest me, Goldie Morran. I like your style. Gutsy, polished, sincere. I'll be in touch later, perhaps."

He tossed some coins onto the table to pay for his own drink, gathered up his copy of the Gazette, and left her sitting there, seething. She knocked back the remaining whiskey and followed him out, but he'd vanished into the mob milling around the Commons.

People gawking at the stores, the ramps, the chronometers, the gates, the waiting areas, the prehistoric beasts picked up from that absurd, unstable gate into the age of the dinosaurs-that was all she could see every direction she turned. She compressed her lips, furious that he'd turned her down and then simply vanished.

Just what the devil was Farley after, anyway?

Disgruntled in the extreme, Goldie set out for her shop. She'd gone only a few strides when she noticed Skeeter Jackson deep in conversation with a tourist. Drat the man! She was seriously of a mind to march over and tell that luckless tourist what a cheating fake he was, to spoil whatever profit he expected to pick up. Why she had ever agreed to this idiotic bet-

Goldie blinked. Someone was stalking Skeeter. A reddish-haired man in Western-style clothing that somehow didn't match the way he moved... Her eyes widened as recognition hit home: the downtimer who'd chased Skeeter before. Then she noticed the truly wicked blade he was silently drawing from beneath a set of leather chaps. Goldie drew in her breath sharply.

For an instant, spite and malice held her silent. Spite, malice, and greed. If Skeeter were dead, all bets were off and she could stay in La-La land with no one to fault her. The man crept closer. Goldie's stomach churned at the look of hatred in the stranger's eyes, etched into his attentive, absorbed face. Skeeter was Goldie's rival and a scoundrel and probably deserved what he was about to get more than anyone she knew. But in that instant, she realized she didn't want to watch him die.

Not particularly because she cared what happened to Skeeter, but murder was messy. And bad-very bad-for business. And for a fleeting instant, she also realized victory by default over a dead man would be about as sweet as vinegar on her tongue. So she found herself moving across the Commons faster than she'd moved in years.

Skeeter and his target were deeply engrossed in conversation near the waiting area for the Wild West Gate. The man creeping up on him sidestepped around an ornamental horse trough filled with colorful fish and tensed, ready for the final lunge. Goldie glanced around, wondering if she could find a weapon, or someone from Security, even something to use as a diversion.

Overhead, ten leathery, crow-sized pterodactyls perched in the girders, eyeing the fish in the horse trough. Skeeter talked on, oblivious to the closeness of impending death. Ah-ha! Goldie darted over to a vending cart which sold hats, T-shirts, and other trinkets, and said, "Sorry, gotta borrow this," to the startled cart owner.

She snatched up a toy bow and arrow set and nocked the arrow, pulled back expertly, then let fly. The arrow whizzed true to its mark: the rubber tip smacked right into the flock of startled pterodactyls. The whole lot of them took wing with ear-bending screeches and dove straight down. Goldie ducked under the cart. Skeeter jerked his gaze up and around, and saw the man with the long knife. His eyes widened.

Then he took off faster than Goldie had ever seen him run.

The man with the knife swore in what had to be Latin and bolted after him. Angry pterodactyls swarmed in his way, screaming like maddened crows mobbing a jaybird. Leathery wings buffeted the man's face. Claws raked his hair. He yelled something furious and tried to cut at them with his long knife. Skeeter's tourist, a pretty redhead, screamed and took refuge behind the horse trough. Other tourists scattered while those at a safer distance started to point.

Someone shouted for Security. Someone else yelled for Pest Control. The man fighting off the pterodactyls abruptly realized he was attracting attention to himself. He swore again and took off in the opposite direction Skeeter had taken-none too soon, as Security arrived hard on his heels.

"What's going on?"

The shaken tourist Skeeter had been trying to swindle crawled out from behind the trough. "A man with a huge knife! He tried to attack the guy I was talking to-then those things-"she pointed at the pterodactyls still flitting angrily above their heads "-started diving everywhere and-and I don't know where he went. I just hid behind this."

Security officers took the man's description from the shaken tourist while Goldie slipped quietly away in the confusion. The vendor she'd borrowed the bow and arrow from just gaped after her. Goldie returned cautiously to her shop, making sure no one from Security had followed, then locked the door and sat down to do some very serious thinking. Skeeter Jackson had picked up a lethal enemy somewhere. Or somewhen. He had changed an enormous sum of money after that last trip of his through the Porta Romae. Goldie would've bet the very gold in her teeth that Skeeter's attacker had been swindled downtime and had somehow come through the gate looking for revenge.

She shivered slightly behind her glass cases filled with coins, gems, and other precious items brought uptime by various gullible tourists. Wager or not, she was glad she'd acted. But there was one thing she intended to find out, or her name was not Goldie Morran, and that was the identity of the man who'd come so close to killing Skeeter.

Yes, finding out who he was and why he was after that wretched little con artist might just come in very handy. She might not want to see Skeeter murdered, but she had no qualms at all about seeing him arrested. Tapping her fingers thoughtfully against the cool glass countertop, Goldie wondered who to contact about the mystery man's identity. She had all sorts of agents spotted about the station, willing to do a little spying for her as well as the odd downtime courier job. Goldie sniffed autocratically and picked up the phone.

Time was running, but she would find out.

There were, after all, only so many places in La-La Land a man could hide. Someone would know. And once she knew, the man chasing him would know. And when he knew, Skeeter Jackson's days on Shangri-La would be over for good. She started calling her paid agents all over the station.