Ianira laughed softly. "Would you have her any other way?

Malcolm said without hesitation, "No."

Ianira glanced over to Margo. "I will ask the Lady's blessing on your practice."

"Hear, hear," Malcolm agreed. "After lunch, you go play with guns. I'll come down later and see how you're doing, get in a little practice, myself. Then well get clean, eat in, and try on that," he nudged the half-opened package, "before bedtime. Well before bedtime."

Margo smiled her best, heart-stopping smile. One elderly gentleman well, he was hardly a gentleman at finding himself the focus of that smile, had literally collapse on the street, leaving strangers to hunt his pockets for the nitroglycerin and to call the ambulance. After that experience, Margo was careful just how far she turned on that particular smile-and then realized with a jolt that she and Ianira weren't so different, after all. It startled her into meeting the other woman's gaze.

Ianira knew. Somehow, she knew exactly what Margo had just discovered. Moreover, she approved, eyes twinkling merrily. Margo swallowed hard as the silent invitation passed over Malcolm's bent head. Someday, Margo attempted to convey with eyes and tiny gestures. Someday I will seek you out for training. I have the funniest feeling I'm supposed to study with you, that I am going to need to learn what you teach me.

Iamra merely nodded and smiled again, a mysterious little smile full of knowledge and agreement. Margo smiled back her acceptance.

Malcolm the Ever-Vigilant (missing the exchange entirely) glanced up from his menu and smiled at them both. "Well, then, what shall we order for lunch?"

CHAPTER TEN

One look at the firing line and Margo's gut muscles tightened in dismay.

Please, anyone but that bunch!

Maybe they were just finishing up their session?

Margo's nostrils pinched tight, causing her upper lip to curl in a completely unconscious expression of disgust. The group of five intent paleontologists she'd met at the uptime station in New York, where Shangri-La's Primary opened, were just beginning to unpack a luggage cart, laying out their sundry gun cases for a private lesson.

Aw, rats. Some of Ann's lessons took hours to complete.

She didn't dislike the paleontologists, exactly. Well, not the woman, anyway. But three of the four men had spent their entire time in Primary's uptime waiting lounge all but drooling while they stared directly at her. Or, rather, at her chest. It was a reaction she was more than accustomed to, but she still didn't like it.

Chalk up another change, Margo. You don't like being stared at anymore.

Already, the group had noticed her and the renewed stares made her feel like a sleazy 42nd Street hooker. Margo began to consider-seriously-buying some of the uglier but more fully concealing peasant clothing in Connie Logan's Clothes & Stuff.

Paleontologists, hah!

The only truly interesting thing Margo had discovered about them was where and when, exactly, they were heading. Cope and Marsh had fought over a huge chunk of territory. She shook her head slightly.

The damned fools were deliberately walking right into the middle of the fight, hoping to rescue one of the new-species fossil skeletons that one side or the other had smashed up into tiny, useless fragments, so that it had been lost to science forever. The girl, one of three graduate students selected for this trip, had explained; at least, she'd mentioned somethin about a diary one of their professors had stumble on in a used bookstore, written by one of the actual field agents charged with bringing back as many intact new specimens as possible.

Using that diary as a guide, they'd plotted out this madcap adventure and actually expected not only to find and rescue one or more of the smashed skeletons, but to get the bones back through the Wild West Gate and uptime to the museum affiliated with their university.

Margo was glad they'd had enough sense to take her advice an get some good instruction on how to use whatever they'd brought along, but that did not mean she wanted to practice with them.

Come on, Margo, bear up l Maybe if I take that farthest lane? If it's not reserved already, it ought to do. The lanes were sometimes reserved in advance for a scout who was planning to push an unexplored gate and wanted to learn to use a nice, little hideout gun. It was a practice Kit disapproved of-and a habit he had very carefully made certain she never picked up, but scouts were independent agents, so to speak, so each made his own decisions on what to take downtime. Kit had warned her there were a few really marginal scouts who routinely broke what he considered to be the sacred rules of scouting.

Carrying a gun downtime into an unknown time and place, where any gun might be an anachronism, wasn't stupid. It was suicidal.

She didn't spot anyone else on the range, though, which bolstered her hopes. The paleontologists were talking excitedly while dumping gun cases onto Ann's benches. Lots of gun cases. Margo winced at the way they just casually bounced the stuff around, allowing them to slide to the floor, banging them together, using the muzzle end of a thin leather case to shove a larger, much heavier case farther down the bench to make room for the rifle with its now-possibly-ruined front sight. They'd be learning about sighting in and zeroing rifles, or Margo didn't know Ann Vinh Mulhaney.

When Ann noticed that only one of her five students was opening the gun cases for inspection, while four of the group had their attention directed elsewhere, she glanced around. Then smiled so brightly Margo's eyes misted a little.

"Oh, it's you," Ann laughed. "I thought maybe Marilyn Monro's ghost had jiggled in or something."

That statement caused several reddened faces and sudden diligence with as-yet-unloaded gear. Margo's face had gone terribly hot. Marilyn Monroe, the twentieth-century sex goddess? That, Margo would never be, but she enjoyed the compliment just the same. Ann nodded her over. Margo would have loved a long heart-to-heart with Ann-but now was not the time.

Oh, well, she thought as she headed resolutely toward them, at least I'll finally get to see what firearms these `learned' idiots brought along. Making the best of it, Margo covered the intervening space with a cheery, "Hi, Ann! Hope things have been fantastic."

Ann laughed and gave her a swift-hard-hug, then stepped back. She had to look up a fair ways to find Margo's eyes-and Margo was not even remotely tall. Ann was just tiny.

"Yes, they have been. Utterly and completely fantastic. I'm going to have another kid in about seven months." She patted her belly gently. "So no wrestling," she chuckled. "Anyway, that's Sven's forte, not mine." Her eyes crinkled in a fond smile as she studied Margo. "Just look at you, girl. You're still growing! I thought so, earlier, but the way Malcolm was mauling you, it was hard to tell."

Margo's cheeks flushed again, hotter than before. The ring on her finger tugged downward, it was so heavy. She knew Ann had noticed it the moment she'd walked into the range.

"Good!" Ann decided, hands planted on hips in her usual stance. "You look better with some meat on those bones and some color in your cheeks, you scrawny little Irish alley cat. One thing's for sure, that baleful green glare hasn't changed. Not a bit."

Margo grinned. "How're the wagers going"

Ann blinked. "Wagers?"

"About how soon I'll be in your condition."

"Oh, that wager." Ann's eyes crinkled again. "Hot and heavy betting, both for and against. Everyone knows how determined you are about your profession, but everyone also knows that Malcolm Moore is a very, um, how to put it intense individual when it comes to getting what he wants."