"I'm---"

A figure in white ran into view down the block. Malcolm's heart leaped into his mouth. Then he noticed the slave following behind with a lamp. Crushing disappointment blasted brief hope. Then Malcolm did a double-take. The running figure was wearing a Parthian style tunic and trousers. Slender, just about the right height, same fragile, heart-shaped face ...

He came out of his corner like a gunshot and shoved the Time Tours guide aside. Please ...

When Margo ran up to the wine counter, bedraggled as a street rat and glaring defiance, he wanted to grab her by both arms and shake her until something snapped A bewildered boy of about thirteen skidded to a halt behind her, gasping for breath.

"Hi! Did I make it in time? Malcolm, I've got this little problem, how do I free this kid? I, uh, sort of acquired a slave..."

Malcolm couldn't speak. Terror had transmuted into a rage so deep he was afraid to touch her. He held her gaze for another agonizing moment, then turned on his heel and strode through the rapidly shrinking Porta Romae. He didn't even look back to see if she'd followed Nine days he had burned out his guts worrying, and she'd been running around Rome buying slaves ....

His sandals slapped against the grid of the platform. Malcolm shoved aside Time Tours employees and left old friends gaping in his wake. When he hit the gym, he accomplished a lifetime first.

Malcolm Moore laid Sven Bailey flat in a sparring match.

Afterward, he took a cold shower that lasted forty solid minutes. The phone was ringing when he emerged.

He jerked it out of the wall and hurled it across the room. Then, very quietly, Malcolm got drunker than he'd ever been in his life.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kit Carson was waiting in the crowd when the Porta Romae opened. Neither Malcolm nor Margo put in appearances. He started to grow seriously alarmed when the Time Tours guides who emerged wouldn't look at him. The whole contingent of tourists, guides, and baggage handlers waiting in the Commons climbed the ramp and vanished through the portal and still there was no sign of his granddaughter or the man he'd trusted with her safety. Then, just as the portal began to shrink toward closure, Malcolm shot through. One look at his face sent Kit's viscera into a tailspin.

The normally unflappable time guide burst past Kit like a damned soul pursued by gleeful demons. He didn't even glance in Kit's direction. Kit shut his eyes, convinced of the worst Then he risked another look just as the gate shrank closed. Margo had come through. He started breathing again. But she hung back on the platform, looking defiant and sullen and scared all at the same time. She, too, watched Malcolm's stormy retreat down the Commons. Then she saw Kit standing in the crowd below.

She lifted her chin and descended the ramp

"Want to tell me what's going on?" he asked, falling into step.

"No," she said icily. "I don't."

With that, she, too, stormed off. Kit allowed his footsteps to slow to a halt. Just what had transpired between those two? Given Margo's temper, he was afraid of the answer. But he had to know. Kit highsigned one of the returning Time Tours guides.

"What gives?"

The woman gave him a guarded look. -Uh ... Hi, Kit. I think, maybe Malcolm ought to be the one to explain." She hurried away before he could ask another question.

Kit muttered under his breath and called Malcolm's number. The answering machine picked up. He swore and headed for the Down Time, but Malcolm hadn't put in an appearance. Then Robert Li, the station's antiquarian, skidded into the bar. He announced to the room at large, "You ain't gonna believe it! Malcolm Moore just wiped up the mat with Sven Bailey. I mean put him on the ground out cold. What's going on? I've never seen an expression like that on Malcolm's face."

Conversation exploded around Robert LI while Kit beat a hasty retreat. He headed straight for the gym and found Sven in his office, holding an ice pack to his head and groaning.

"Whadda you want?" Sven muttered

"I heard Malcolm knocked you out."

"You don't have to rub it in."

"Did he say anything?"

Sven peeled a swollen eyelid. "No. All he said was, `Let's spar.' Next thing I know, Ann Mulhaney's bending over me and someone's yelling to call Rachel. Only thing I saw after I woke up was his back on the way out the door. What's eating him, anyway?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Kit said grimly.

"Huh. Two weeks alone with Margo is my guess. She'd drive any man to violence."

"Great. You're some help, you know that, Sven?"

The weapons trainer just grunted and held the ice pack against his skull. Kit headed for home. Margo wasn't at the apartment. Clearly she'd been there: damp towels and dirty clothes littered the bathroom. Wet footprints crossed the carpet into the living room. But she had departed for destinations unknown well before Kit's arrival. He called Malcolms again. In the middle of the fifth ring, the connection went dead.

Kit stared at the receiver. "What the hell?"

Someone is going to give me some answers. And it had better be soon. But when he pounded on Malcolm's door, a breakable object of unknown origin crashed against the panel and shattered noisily.

"Go 'way!" He sounded drunk. The last time Kit had known Malcolm Moore to get drunk was the night the owner of Time Ho! had fired everyone in his employ, then quietly committed suicide rather than face his creditors.

"Malcolm! It's Kit! Let me in!"

"Go the hell away!"

He considered breaking down the door. Instead, he leaned on the buzzer until the noise drove the younger man to distraction. Malcolm finally snatched open the door. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes were bloodshot He looked like he hadn't slept in a week He gripped a whiskey bottle by the neck like he contemplated breaking it over Kit's head

"You are drunk."

"An' I'm gonna be drunker. I'm in no mood for a visit."

He slammed the door. Kit caught it before it could close all the way.

"Dammit, Malcolm, talk to me. What the hell happened down time?"

Malcolm glared at him, then dropped his gaze. All the fight leached out of him. "Ask Margo. Your granddaughter is a lunatic. An impulsive, dangerous lunatic. Worse than you, damn your eyes. And a goddamned, bloody liar-little bitch just turned seventeen, goddammit, not nineteen. Now get out and let me get soused."

Seventeen? Margo was only seventeen' Kit saw several shades of red. I'll kill her, I swear to God, I'll teach that girl if it's the last thing I ever do not to lie to people who trust her.

Malcolm was in the act of slamming the door when Kit caught it in one hand. "I, uh, owe you some money."

Malcolm's bitter laughter shocked Kit speechless. "Keep it I sure as hell didn't earn it."

The door slammed shut.

Kit stared at the reverberating panel. All right... He stalked down to the Commons on a hunt for his errant granddaughter. He found her at Goldie Morran's, exchanging her down-time currency for modern scrip. Goldie glanced up and smiled. The smile froze in place. Margo swung around and lost color.

Kit was out of patience. He backed Margo into a corner so she couldn't bolt and run. "just what the hell happened down time, young lady?"

"Nothing! I did fine! It's not my fault Malcolms an overbearing, overprotective, chauvinistic..."

She ranted on at length.

Kit finally figured it out.

"You left the tour?" he asked quietly, hardly able to believe his ears.

"Yes, I did! And I did fine! I'm in one piece, aren't I? I'm sick of being coddled, roped in, restricted, dammit, I proved I can handle myself this trip! I want a real scouting job!"

Kit couldn't believe it. She'd actually abandoned the tour, run off on her own ... No wonder Malcolm was downstairs getting drunk. Kit was tempted to put Margo straight over his knee and wallop her backside until she couldn't sit. But the fire in her glare told him it wouldn't do any good.