"Better if we had sunlight," the barber complained.

"Lamplight will do," Skeeter said shortly. "Marcus, explain what I want."

"My patron wishes you to shave his head."

The barber's eyes widened. "Shave it? All of it?"

Skeeter nodded solemnly. "And Marcus' hair must come off, as well."

Behind the barber, Marcus' eyes widened and he put involuntary hands to his longish brown hair.

"But why?" the barber stammered.

"Vermin picked up accidentally."

Marcus, picking up on the cue, added, "I believe we have found most of them and their filthy egg sacs, but to be safe, the patron wants you to shave our heads."

The barber nodded, then, in perfect understanding. "Let me get my things."

In a very short time, neither of them recognized themselves in the polished bronze mirror the barber held up. Nearly bald, the barber having carefully scraped away most of the stubble left over, Skeeter nodded and paid the man. The barber bowed, murmured, "I thank you for the business," then left the room.

"Unless I miss my guess," Skeeter said quietly, while unconsciously running one hand across his bare pate, "we have about half an hour to reach the gate. Here." He tossed a couple of parcels to Marcus, who caught them with a numb, clumsy motion.

Skeeter ripped open his own, glanced up, and said impatiently, "Come on. We haven't much time."

Marcus opened the packages slowly, then gasped. "Skeeter! This ... this must have cost you thousands. How could you pay for such things?" He shucked out of his rough tunic and freedman's cap and slipped on the exquisite robe.

"Lifted a couple of heavy purses. And don't give me that look. Our goddamned lives are at stake."

Marcus only shook his head, regretfully. He slipped on the collar and glittering rings, set with precious gems. Skeeter was already dressed in similar getup when he finished.

"Ready?" Skeeter asked with a grin for the way they looked.

Marcus managed a snort of laughter. "No. But I will come with you, anyway. I want to be rid of Rome forever."

Skeeter nodded and opened the door.

Stepping through it was harder, this time, with his head bare and vulnerable, and wearing enough jewelry to look like a New York drag queen. Marcus closed the door softly behind them, then caught up at the bottom of the staircase. "Let's go," he said roughly.

Skeeter nodded sharply, and led the way to the Via Appia, eyes alert for any sign of Lupus Mortiferus in shadowed streets no bigger than alleyways, in the dark. interiors of wine shops, in the crowd pushing its way past the vast facade of the great Circus. He repressed a shiver, and found the Time Tours wine shop. Men, women, and a fair number of children converged slowly on the shop. Street urchins, their faces filthy, their hollow eyes screaming their hunger, lined both sides of the great road, begging for a few small copper coins from Romans and rich Greeks and Egyptians and others Skeeter didn't recognize. A rich litter carried by sweating slaves approached from the side away from the Circus.

Skeeter narrowed his eyes; then smiled, a chilled, savage smile that caused Marcus, standing courageously straight and alert at his side, to shiver.

"What is it?" Marcus asked in Latin.

Skeeter shook his head, the movement feeling strange without hair to shift about around his ears. "We wait. It is almost time."

The street urchins continued begging in pitiful tones. Some had lost limbs, or were or pretended to be crippled, to increase the sense of pity in those who might give them coins. Skeeter averted his face, judging the timing of the approaching litter. Just as it neared the wine shop, the familiar sound-that-was-not-a-sound began buzzing inside his bald skull.

Now!

Skeeter tossed an entire handful of glittering, gold coins into the center of the street. Begging children scrambled for them, creating a mass of limbs that was impassable. The slaves bearing the litter were caught dead in the center of the miniature storm. The litter swayed dangerously. One slave lost his footing and the litter crashed to the street, accompanied by a high, feminine scream.

"Move!" Skeeter snarled. He dodged around the confusion, Marcus at his heels, and dove into the Time Tours wine shop. He cold-cocked the guard at the sound-proofed door, then yanked it open and ran inside, a juggernaut that no one in the room could stop. He was aware of Marcus at his heels. New arrivals were already pushing their way into the shop, creating confusion, but Skeeter plowed right through them, as well. Cries of protest rose behind him, some of. them from Time Tours guides, then he glanced around, making sure of Marcus, grabbed him by the arm just to be sure, and dove headfirst through the gate. The sensation of falling was genuine: the moment his body hurtled through the portal, he fell flat on the steel grid and rolled violently into the solid railing with leftover momentum.

Marcus slammed into him in much the same manner.

Sirens were already sounding. Skeeter didn't care.

"we did it!"

Then he gulped. He'd have an awful fine to pay, crashing the monumentally expensive Porta Romae twice, plus Marcus' fine, which Skeeter had already decided was his own responsibility to pay for having let him down so badly earlier.

"C'mon," Skeeter said more quietly. "Might as well go down and confess to Mike Benson and take our punishment, 'fore they come and slap us in handcuffs."

Marcus' eyes showed fear for just a moment fear, Skeeter realized, that was focused on him, not for his own sake-then he nodded and pushed himself painfully up while Skeeter grabbed for the railing and hauled himself to his own feet. In the crowd below, Mike Benson stood out like an angry beacon. Security men were converging on all the ramps. Skeeter sighed, then started down the one closest to Benson. Marcus followed silently.

The return of Marcus and Skeeter was a nine-day wonder, even for TT-86, which always had something exotically strange to gossip about. But their return, together-that was something unheard of in the station's annals. An uptimer crashing a gate, remaining missing for a whole month, then crashing the gate again, with the missing downtimer? It was a thing to twist and turn and talk and argue over endlessly, late into the station's night and on into the early morning hours, the passage of time hardly noticed under the eternal glow of the Commons' lights. Everyone wondered-and laid bets on how long Marcus and Skeeter would be quarantined in one of Mike Benson's unpleasant cells.

Many another wager was laid on how soon Benson would kick Skeeter's backside through Primary into the waiting arms of prison guards.

The 'eighty-sixers waited, laid their bets, and talked the subject to death with one theory after another to explain the inexplicable why.

And just outside Benson's office door, a gathering of silent downtimers, including Ianira Cassondra and her beautiful little daughters, sat blocking the door, waiting for news or sitting in protest, nobody was quite certain. Many an 'eighty-sixer had been shocked that the downtimers, previously regarded as nonentities, had managed to organize themselves enough to hold a silent but well-orchestrated "sit-in" vigil that Gandhi himself would've been proud to claim.

More than a few bets were wagered on that, alone.

Inside Benson's interrogation room, an exhausted, pain-riddled Skeeter Jackson went through the whole story again, aching from the cut in his side, bruises sustained in the arena and their flight from the Circus, even from rough scrapes and tiny, stinging nicks along his scalp. Bronze razors were not particularly kind to the skin. Skeeter was so tired, he wasn't even certain how many times Benson had forced him to repeat his story. A bunch, anyway. Hours and hours of it. His body cried out for sleep: healing, heavenly sleep. How long he'd been here, he didn't know, but Skeeter's bleary vision spotted the strain in Benson's bloodshot eyes, on his sagging cheek muscles. He, too, was clearly fighting sleep.