Margo gained the dark street without raising an alarm. She leaned against the wall and let go her breath, then grinned. So far so good. When her eyes adjusted, Margo caught her breath. The sky ... Clearer even than a Minnesota winter night, the sky was so filled with stars Margo lost whole minutes just gazing upward.

Everybody should see a sky like this, just once be for they die .... Margo had met folks who'd never seen anything but the murky yellow glow that passed for night in places like New York. Maybe if they saw a sky like that they wouldn't feel so ... so self-important.

Feeling keenly her own insignificance, Margo found her way to the docks. Wooden hulls creaked in the night Wind flapped in loose sails, sang through slack rigging. Where ships rode quietly at anchor, a few braziers burned on high stern decks, marking the presence of night watchmen. Margo found a stone archway near the entrance to one long pier and settled in the shadows. Far away, drifting on the spring wind, she could hear a magical chorus of frogs and insects from vast salt marshes. Margo sighed. I'm really sitting on a dock two thousand years before I was born.

She'd planned this moment all her life. So why wasn't she happy? Malcolm Moore's smile flitted into her awareness, causing her pulse to dance like mating butterflies. Malcolm Moore was more than a good teacher. He was becoming a good friend, maybe the best friend she'd ever found. She was grateful for that, but...

But what?

But deep down, you're afraid of him, that's what. And she wasn't sure she wanted to be, which scared her even worse.

Starlight silvered the rolling breakers. In her own time, the sea had wiped out some of the world's greatest cities. Margo didn't understand all the science and stuff that had caused The Accident. All she knew, was a burning need to grasp the opportunity before her. And she would grasp it. Come hell, high water ... or Malcolm Moore. How much time was left? She counted backwards in her head. Three months. Margo bit her lip. Was she being foolish, rushing her training just to prove him wrong?

"I have to! I just have to ..."

Her father's voice, angry and slurred, slapped her from out of the past. "You'll turn out same's her! Filthy, stinking whore-"

My mother was not a whore

All those years ago, Margo had wanted to shout it back at him. Not shouting it had probably saved her life. But not saying it then or now-didn't change facts. Everyone else had said it: the cops, the news people, the foster parents who took her out of a hospital bed and gave her a home in another town. Even the judge who'd eventually passed sentence on her father had said it: Margo, trying to rebuild her life, had turned a dry-eyed mask to the world to hide the pain.

Leaning against a cold stone pier, Margo thought she finally understood what had driven her mother to prostitution. Since leaving Minnesota, there'd been a moment or two when Margo's hunger and desperation had made any source of money seem attractive. How much worse must it have been for her mother, with a young child to raise, mortgage payments, groceries, medical bills ...

And a husband who drank whatever money he got his hands on including any he could beat out of her..

In that moment, it became doubly critical for Margo to succeed. Not only did she have to prove to her father she could do this ... I'll make you proud, Mom. And I'll pay him back for what he did to us. l hate him! I'm glad he's dying, he deserves it... But she wanted him to live just long enough. The only way Margo could find to strike back at him, to really prove she wasn't everything he'd ever called her, was to do something no other woman had ever been able to do.

And she had only three months left in which to do it Three months to convince Kit she was ready to scout, to tackle an unknown gate, to come back with proof of her success. Three months. From where she sat, it seemed as impossible as telling Kit the truth about his only child.

Malcolm Moore's smile, flickering at the edges of memory, seemed nearly as great a threat to Margo's plans as the ticking dock. Men were nothing but trouble. They used you if they could, hurt you when they pleased, shattered your dreams if you didn't run faster than they could punch you to the ground ...

Malcolm Moore isn't like Billy Pandropolous. Or my father. But it didn't matter. She didn't have time for love. At least Malcolm Moore was too much a gentleman to hurt her the way Billy Pandropolous had That was very little comfort when Margo crawled back to their rented room in the wee hours and huddled under her cold blanket for the remainder of the night.

Margo tried to keep up a brave front when they returned to Rome. Malcolm, suspecting none of the turmoil inside her every time his wide mouth curved into a smile, showed her the Campus Martius, where the secular games were held in the Circus Flaminius. The area also boasted gardens where young men could exercise and play, the Villa Publica where Romans assembled for the census and to levy troops for the legions, the Septa where people came to vote, splendid shops where the wealthy purchased luxury items imported from around the empire, even a place along the Tiber where Romans could swim and splash in the shallows.

They toured the Forum Romanum, with its Comitium, the Forum's political center; the religious Regia with the real Temple of Vesta, the House of the Vestals, and the seat of the Pontifex Maximus; and the Forum proper, a marketplace, center of civic activities, public functions, and ceremonies. The Forum's famous rostrum or speaker's platform was where a man could address his fellow citizens while running for office or just pass along juicy tidbits of news. Decorated with the prows of ships taken in battle, it was impressive, with its backdrop of the Temple of the Divine Julius (on the spot where his body had been cremated), marble-faced basilicas or law courts and other public buildings. Margo was surprised to find women lawyers arguing cases in the basilicas.

"Yes, women lawyers were increasingly common from the late Republic on," Malcolm explained. "Women in Imperial Rome weren't confined to the home as they were in early times and other cultures."

Margo liked that. The water clocks used to time the lawyers' speeches fascinated her. Some dripped water from a tank into a bowl, lifting a float with an attached rod whose cogs turned the hour hand. Another kind used water pressure to blow a tiny trumpet every hour.

"An alarm clock,' Margo marveled. "They use an alarm clock!"

Malcolm only smiled, which left her insides in turmoil.

They followed the course of the aqueducts through the city, while Malcolm explained how the public fountains worked and how the aqueducts fed the great public baths as well as private homes. He even hired a boat and took her into the immense Cloaca Maxima which drained the city's swampy valleys.

He took her down the fullers' street, showing her how "dry cleaning" was done by slaves who stomped soiled garments into damp fuller's earth. The absorptive clay then dried and was beaten out of the cloth, taking with it oils and dirt. Then he let her watch Roman glass production, following that with a trip to a mosaic artist's the best of 'em." He hoisted the wineskin with a chuckle. "Come on, let's find something to eat."

Quite unexpectedly, Margo realized she was having a good time. She relaxed. Maybe a little dissipation would be fun. She'd certainly worked hard enough to earn a party. And if you have to say goodbye to this man someday soon, maybe you should enjoy him while you still have the chance. So Margo ate sausages that had been cooked in deep vats of olive oil, tried fresh-baked bread hot from the oven and wonderful little cakes made with honey and sesame seeds, and washed it all down with sweet red wine that left her giddy.