Kit just groaned.

Goldie muttered, "Lovely, this is all we need. What could possibly be worse than a pack of militant feminists whose sole aim in life is to ram their religion down other people's throats at the point of a bayonet?"

Li let the bombshell drop just as Goldie lined up another shot. "You remember Senator John Caddrick, don't you? That nut who outlaws everything he doesn't agree with? The one who's been agitating about the dangers to modern society from time tourism? Well, it seems the Ansar Majlis have kidnapped his only kid. After killing his sister-in-law and about sixty other people in a New York restaurant. He's threatening to shut down every time terminal in the business unless his little girl's returned to him alive and well."

Goldie's shot went wild. So wild, in fact, the five ball jumped off the table and smacked into the floor with a thud. Goldie's curse peeled paint off the ceiling.

"Ooh, Goldie," Robert looked about as contrite as a well-fed cat, "sorry about that, Duchess."

The hated nickname which Skeeter Jackson had given La-La Land's most infamous money changer, combined with the ruin of her game, sent Goldie into a rage so profound, she couldn't even squeeze sound past the purple-hued knot of distended veins in her throat. She just stood there glaring at the antiquities dealer, cue in hand, sputtering like a dying sparkler.

Kit threw back his head and crowed. "Robert, you are a prince among men!" He snatched up his pool cue, replaced the five ball on the felt, and calmly ran the table while Goldie stood flexing the narrow end of her pool cue until Kit feared the wood would crack. When the final ball rattled into the far corner pocket, Kit bowed, sweeping his arm around in a courtly flourish. "Goldie, thank you for a lovely game."

He stuck out a hand to collect his winnings.

She paid up with a seething glare and stalked stiff-legged out of the pool room, a wounded battle destroyer running under the gun for home port. Her deflated reputation trailed after her like the tail of a broken kite. Kit pocketed Goldie's money with a broad grin, then danced a jig around the pool table, whooping for sheer joy. "I did it! Damn, I finally did it! I beat Goldie at pool!"

Robert chuckled. "Congratulations. How many decades have you been waiting to do that?"

Kit refused to be baited. "Noneya, pal. Buy you a drink?"

"Sure!"

They ambled out into the main room of the bar, where an astonishing amount of money was changing hands in the aftermath of Kit's unexpected victory. Excited laughter echoed through the Down Time Bar & Grill as ‘eighty-sixers celebrated, relishing the victory almost as much as Kit. La-La legend held that Goldie Morran had never lost a game of pool in the entire millennium or so she'd been on station.

As they fought their way through the crowd toward the bar, Kit had to raise his voice to be heard. "Listen, were you serious about Caddrick threatening to shut down the time terminals?"

Robert Li's smile vanished. "As a heart attack, unfortunately."

"Damn. That man is the most dangerous politician of this century. If he's declared war on us, we're all in trouble. Big trouble."

Li nodded. "Yeah, that's how I've got it figured. And the riots on station won't play in our favor, either. We're going to look like a war zone, with the whole station out of control. Every news crew on station sent video footage up time with couriers."

Kit scowled. "Once the newsies get done with us, Caddrick won't need to shut us down. The tourists will just stay home and do it for him."

Robert Li's worried gaze matched Kit's own. They both had too much to lose, to risk letting anyone shut down Shangri-La Station. Shangri-La was Robert's life as much as it was Kit's. For one thing, they both owned priceless objects which neither could take up time, not legally, anyway. And what was legal to take with them, would break them financially with the taxes BATF would impose. Never mind that Shangri-La was home, where they had built dreams and brought something good and beautiful to life, where Kit's only grandchild was building her own dreams and trying to build something good for herself.

"Molly," Kit muttered, sinking into a seat at the bar, "we need a drink. Make it a double. Two doubles. Apiece."

The down-timer barmaid, who had come into Shangri-La Station through the Britannia Gate, gave them a sympathetic smile and poured. Despite the impromptu party roaring all around them, somehow Molly knew they were no longer celebrating Kit's victory over Goldie Morran. Kit watched her pour the drinks with a sinking sensation inside his middle. If the station were closed, where Molly would go? Molly and the other down-timer residents? Kit didn't know. "Those idiots demanding human rights for the Ansar Majlis are defending the wrong down-timers. Doesn't anybody up time give a damn about folks like Molly and Kynan Rhys Gower?"

Robert Li muttered into his glass, "Not unless it makes for good press, no."

That was so depressingly true, Kit ordered another double.

And wondered when somebody would figure out that the down-timer problem facing every time terminal in the business would have to be solved one of these days. He just hoped Shangri-La Station was still open for business when it happened.

When Skeeter heard that Charlie Ryan had hired Bergitta to take his place on the station maintenance crew, his first thought was that maybe Ryan had a soul, after all. Then he wondered if maybe Kynan Rhys Gower hadn't paid him a little visit anyway? Whatever the case, Bergitta finally had a job that would give her enough income to pay for her closet-sized apartment and food and station taxes.

But when she learned that she'd been hired only because he'd been fired, she showed up on his doorstep in tears, vowing to quit.

"No," he insisted, "don't even think such a thing. It is not your fault I lost my job."

"But Skeeter..."

"Shh." He placed a fingertip across her lips. Her face was still bruised where that creep had hit her, but the swelling along her eye had gone down, at least. "No, I won't hear it. You need the job, Bergitta. I can get work doing anything. I only took the maintenance job because it was the first one they offered me."

Her stricken expression told Skeeter she knew full well it had been the only job anyone had offered him. What he was going to do to earn enough money to pay rent, buy food, keep the power turned on, and pay his own station taxes, Skeeter had no idea. But that wasn't important. Taking care of the few friends he had left was. So he locked up his dreary little apartment and placed Bergitta's hand through his arm. "Let's go someplace and celebrate your new job!"

Commons was still Skeeter's favorite place in the world, despite the loneliness of knowing that Marcus and Ianira weren't anywhere to be found on station. The bustle of excited tourists, the vibrant colors of costumes and bright lights and glittering merchandise from around the world and from Shangri-La's many down-time gates, the myriad, mouth-watering scents wafting out of restaurants and cafes and lunch stands, all washed across them like a tidal wave from heaven as soon as Bergitta and Skeeter emerged from Residential.

"How about sushi?" Skeeter asked teasingly, since Bergitta adored fish but could not comprehend the desire to eat it raw.

"Skeeter!"

"Okay," he laughed, "how about yakitori, instead?"

The little bamboo skewers of marinated chicken had become one of the Swedish girl's all-time favorite up-timer foods. "Yes! That would be a real celebration!"

So they headed up toward Edo Castletown, where the Japanese lunch stands were concentrated. Skeeter paused as they shouldered their way through Victoria Station and bought a single rose from a flower girl, another down-timer who had sewn her own street-vendor costume and grew her flowers in the station's lower levels. The Found Ones had set up hydroponics tanks to supplement their diets with fresh vegetables, and to grow flowers as a cash crop. They kept the crops healthy with special grow lights Ianira had purchased with money made at her kiosk.