Kit knew. He relaxed. "Yeah, don't we just? Any feel for how she's coming with her lessons? Ann and Sven are underwhelmed."

Malcolm shook his head. "No, we don't talk much about her studies, not the bookwork part of them. Mostly she asks questions about my experiences down time or what I know about yours. She's ..." He hesitated.

"She's what?"

"I don't know. Guarded, I guess. She doesn't let the thorns down long, if you catch my drift."

"Tell me about it. She sleeps on my couch, eats my food, showers in my bathroom, and about the only thing I can get her to relax and talk about is how much fun it is living in La-La Land. Do you have any idea how many obscure television celebrities that girl knows by sight?"

Malcolm chuckled. "Really? Well, she did want to be an actress. But then, what little girl didn't at some point in life? As I recall, my sisters went through the `I'll die if I'm not an actress' phase shortly after the "I'll die if I don't have a horse' phase and the `I'll die if I'm not an Olympic figure skater' phase."

Kit grinned. "I didn't have any sisters. Sounds like I missed out on all the fun. But seriously, Margo and I have had only one real heart-to-heart since she's been here and what I found out then ..." He shook his head. "She's so full of hurt, she doesn't want to talk about any of the million or so silly little details I'd give the Neo Edo to know"

Malcolm sighed. "I figured as much. What are-" He paused, visible startlement passing over his mobile features, then pressed a hand to the back of his ear. "There's no gate due to cycle-is there?"

Kit felt it too: that subharmonic sensation which heralded a gate opening nearby. Whatever it was, it was out of phase-and from the feel of it, this was one big gate.

"New gate!"

"Right.

They scrambled for the door and all but collided with the Prince Albert's owner. "Where is it?" Peg Ames demanded breathlessly. She was holding her head. "Mother Bear, that's going to be a big gate. That hurts."

It did, too, much worse than the Porta Romae -- which was La-La Land's biggest active gate. 'Eighty-sixers converged on the Commons at a dead run from storefronts, even from residential corridors. Several carried scanners designed to search for the unstable fields that heralded a gate's arrival in the temporal spatial continuum. Tourists looked bewildered. They huddled in groups, holding their ears. A klaxon's strident SKRONNK! echoed off girders and concrete walls in a mad rhythm. Someone had sounded the special alert siren activated only during station emergencies. Last time that siren had sounded, the semi-permanent unstable gate under the Shermans' coffee shop had endangered the lives of more than a dozen rescue workers.

Station Security converged from various points around the Commons. Several men and women in innocuous grey uniforms arrived in their wake, carrying everything from capture nets to tranquilizer rifles and riot shotguns. Discreet black lettering across grey uniform pockets read Pest Control. Their stalwart corps had risen considerably in status ever since an outbreak of Black Death on TT-13-and that wooly rhinoceros fiasco on TT-51-had been traced to station managers' refusals to pay for adequate pest control services. Nobody argued now with anything a Pest Control officer requisitioned.

Bull Morgan, a stocky man who wore his suit like a casino pit boss wore a scowl, shouldered his way through the crowd, a fireplug on legs. Worry had creased his brow above a nose broken in one too many fist fights. Mike Benson, head of La-La Land's security, followed in the Station Manager's wake, blue eyes narrowed as he scanned the air for the first telltale sign of the new gate's location: He spoke urgently into a walkie-talkie.

Bull high-signed someone with a scanner. "Has anybody-?"

"Oh, shit!

A dozen scanners were pointed straight upward.

Then the ceiling opened up. A chronometer board vanished into blackness. The air dopplered through the whole visible spectrum in a chaotic display. Kit clamped hands over his ears in reflex action, even though the gesture did nothing to damp out the sound that wasn't a sound. Everyone tourists and 'eighty-sixers alike, backed away from the area, leaving wrought-iron benches empty near the center of Victoria Station. The gate widened, ragged and pulsating unsteadily near the edges It shrank visibly, then expanded with a rush like an oncoming freight train, only to collapse back toward its center again just as fast.

It didn't take a sophisticated scanner to determine this gate's condition. It was visible to the naked eye.

"Unstable!" Malcolm shouted.

Kit just nodded and hoped to hell nothing fell through it from a height of five stories. Even the floor pulsed angrily in the backlash of subharmonics. The gate widened savagely once more. Blackness swallowed more and more of the ceiling, crept outward and engulfed the upper level of the nearest wall, taking catwalks with it. Biggest damned gate I've ever seen ....

Ragged light flared: lightning bolts against a backdrop of black storm clouds, seen in miniature through the gate's distortion. For a split second, Kit glimpsed what looked for all the world like a rain-lashed seacoast. Then driving rain spilled into TT-86. Tourists broke and ran for cover under the nearest storefronts. Kit narrowed his eyes against the sudden deluge. Another wild gust of rain burst through, soaking them to the skin. He lifted a hand to protect his eyes ---

Something enormous crashed through.

"LOOK OUT!"

Whatever it was, it let out a scream like a frightened schoolgirl then plunged five stories toward the floor. Kit threw himself backward as it dropped straight toward them. A long, sinuous body impacted messily less than three feet away.

A gout of blood and entrails spattered Malcolm. "Aw, bloody damn!"

Another drenching gust of rain blasted through the gate, washing spattered onlookers clean. A trail of gore and broken bone stretched twenty feet across cracked cobblestones and smashed benches. Before Kit could cast more than a cursory glance at it, another dark shape dove through. This one was winged.

"Holy-"

A defiant scream like bending metal echoed through the Commons. A smaller winged shape darted through the black madness, then another and another, until a whole seething flock of wildly gyrating winged things darted frantically amongst the girders. Lightning sizzled through and struck a catwalk near the fourth floor. Blue fire danced across steel gridwork. Thunder smashed through the station, shattering upper-level windows. Class tinkled in sharp slivers on the cobbles.

Then the gate collapsed.

It vanished, almost in the blink of a stunned eyelash. A final drizzle of rain drifted down in a bewildered sort of mist to settle into forlorn puddles. Silence---profound and complete reigned for a full heartbeat. Then someone pointed and someone else screamed. An enormous shape with leathery wings skimmed low above the crowd. Kit dove instinctively for the floor.

My God...

Its wingspan was nearly the size of a Learjet's. It snapped a long, sharp beak with a clacking sound like striking-two-by-fours and passed less than a foot above the nearest "streetlamp."

This time, 'eighty-sixers broke and ran. A silver underbelly caught the lights as it winged around toward the ceiling. Dark markings in black and grey mottled its back and wings. An enormous, broad vertical crest was patterned like a moth's wings, with huge eyespots and scarlet streaks. It snapped at a tourist on the third floor and narrowly missed her head. The woman screamed and hugged the catwalk. Pest Control tracked it with shotguns.

"DON'T SHOOT IT!" Bull yelled. `TAKE IT ALIVE!"

Half a dozen Pest Control officers swore, but dropped shotguns in favor of big capture nets. Kit scrambled up and grabbed the edge of the nearest net. Malcolm latched onto another section and lifted it in readiness for the beast's next pass.