Marcus, defiant to the last, had submitted under protest to the drugged-interrogation method Benson felt necessary to get at the truth. Skeeter, as an uptimer, was safe from such tactics, but Marcus had no such protection, no rights to keep the needles out of his arms. He, too, repeated his story again and again, including his re-enslavement, his discovery of Skeeter amongst the caged men and beasts he was inventorying, then the rest of it, which matched Skeeter's so closely, that despite the grueling hours of interrogation, Skeeter knew Benson had not a shred of a discrepancy. When his final, drug-induced, mumble story ended, Marcus collapsed, boneless and silent, across the table, perhaps into a coma or a fetal withdrawal to escape this unexpected torture instead of the joyful celebration of homecoming they'd both longed for.

Skeeter managed through a slurred, furred tongue, to get out the question, "What now? Hot boiling g goddamned oil?" He would cheerfully have killed Benson if he'd been able to move. But he knew if he tried to stand up, he'd crash to the floor.

"Lookit him." Skeeter more or less nodded toward Marcus, who still lay collapsed across the interrogation table, oblivious to everything-including Skeeter's continued suffering.

"Gonna kill us both, Benson, to get your goddamned truth out of us? You'd like killing me, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you, Benson?"

An odd flicker ran through Mike Benson's exhausted eyes.

"Before this," he, too, gestured awkwardly toward Marcus' inert figure, "I ... I just dunno. You're a thieving rat. Put a lot of rats like you in jail, while I still wore a City badge. Nothin' but scum of the earth, those bastards." He sat and looked unblinkingly at Skeeter. "But this.. ." He gestured toward Marcus. "This changes the whole thing, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Skeeter asked, exhaustion causing his voice to quiver. "Aren't I still just a thieving rat, Benson? Can't have it both goddamned ways. Either I'm worthless scoundrel or I finally managed to do something decent-something you're ripping to fucking shreds."

Mike Benson scrubbed his face and eyes with both hands. "Not thinkin' straight," he muttered, to which Skeeter added a silent, snarled Amen, you stinking pig. Benson said through his hands, "Yeah. It does make a difference, Jackson. To me, anyway. Can't figure why you did it, what was in it for you, but your story's consistent and airtight with his." He nodded toward Marcus.

Benson sat back in his chair, letting both hands fall to his lap. "All right, Skeeter. You can go now. Your pal, too. I'll, uh, speak to Time Tours about the fines for crashing the gate, seeing as how it really was a mission of mercy."

Skeeter just looked at him. Benson's face flushed. He refused to meet Skeeter's eyes. "Can't promise anything, you realize; it's their gate and Granville Baxter ... well, Bax is under tremendous pressure during the holiday season and Time Tours has laid down some new rules he's going to have to enforce, despite the fact they're just not enforceable." He sighed, evidently gathering from Skeeter's closed, set expression that Skeeter didn't give a damn what Bax's management problems were.

"Anyway, Skeeter, I can be pretty persuasive. And so can Bull-and I expect he will be very persuasive when I make my report." Again, Skeeter simply blinked and looked at him. Does he honestly think this bullshit makes up for the last God-knows-how-many hours?

"Huh," was all he could find to say. Short, derisive, and abrasive.

Benson had the good grace to flush. He looked away and muttered, "Need help getting home?"

Skeeter desperately wanted to grab Benson's shirt collar and shout, "No, you stinking bully!" Pride alone demanded it. But his strength was shot and he knew it. And there was poor Marcus to consider. "Yeah," he finally muttered. "Yeah, I could use some help." He continued without a hint of a smile anywhere in him. "Don't think I could walk across this room on my own, thanks to your hospitality."

Benson flushed again, darker this time. He dropped his eyes to his own hands, knotted on his side of the tabletop.

"Marcus is gonna need help, too." Skeeter jerked a thumb at his friend then dropped his arm abruptly, shaking all over. "I could cheerfully murder you, Benson, over what you did to him. He sure as hell didn't deserve needles and drugs and hours of questioning."

Benson was staring at him oddly, as though he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing, then he finally nodded. "All right, Jackson. Some of my men will drive you. If," he added dully, "we can get a hummer in through that bunch of protesters out there."

Skeeter drew a blank. "Protesters?"

Benson said slowly, "Downtimers, all of 'em, organized in a sit-in protest. They're blocking the goddamned door twelve deep."

Skeeter didn't know what to think until Benson added, "His, uh, wife and kids are out there, center stage. If looks could kill, I'd be a stone statue right now.,,

A hollow emptiness in Skeeter's belly froze his breath into ice. A welcome home for Marcus. But not for me.

Never for the stinkin' rat of a thief. He tried to shrug it off, knowing what they must think of him after betraying their faith, as it were, by causing Marcus to step through that portal with Chuck Farley Skeeter wondered absently, thoughts drifting, what had become of that rat. Prob'ly never know.

Mike Benson prodded the still-unconscious Marcus' shoulder with astonishing gentleness, considering what he'd just put the young bartender through. Slowly, Marcus swam toward the surface, moving small bits of himself one at a time. He finally opened his eyes. The sight of Benson stooping over him brought a terrible flinch, both in body and eyes.

"It's all right, Marcus," Benson said quietly-and in pretty damned good Latin. "I believe your story. Both your stories. You can go home, now. I have a hummer and driver on the way to take you there. But I'd better warn you, just so the shock won't kill you, there's a bunch of downtimers outside, blocking the door, waiting for news, I guess, and what else, I can't guess. Your family's in the crowd, right near the door.

Marcus sat up straighter. "Ianira?" he choked out. "My daughters?"

Benson nodded. Marcus surged to his feet, swayed badly, shrugged off Benson's hand, which the Chief Security Officer had held out in an offering to help, then finally steadied. "I will go to my family, now. Thank you for my freedom," he said, irony heavy in his voice. Skeeter and Benson both knew who was genuinely responsible for that.

He made it to the door, then vanished into the corridor, back stiff, knees a bit unsteady.

Well, hell. If he can, l can. A straight back was agony to maintain, a fact he hid from Benson with a light, "Thanks for my freedom, too." Benson lobed uncomfortable. Then it was over and he finally managed to stand completely straight. The pain in his body was bearable. Maybe. Benson said nothing as Skeeter limped his way out, teary-eyed from a stab of knife-hot, pinched nerves down his sciatic channel.

The pain stabbed all the way to his left foot. But he made it to the door, too, moving woodenly. By the time he gained the outer door, he was gasping, gulping for breath. His vision kept going dark, fading in again to show him the way out, then straying dizzily back into darkness.

When he opened the door, he glimpsed Ianira and Marcus clutched together, their daughters holding tight to Marcus' unsteady legs. Neither of them even noticed him. Skeeter felt abruptly empty, defeated. All he had left were a few of the coins he'd scraped from the arena sands. Benson hadn't searched either of them, it being clear through the semitransparent Egyptian linen that neither of them carried anything. So it wasn't really Benson's fault, because he didn't know about Skeeter's injuries, but when he stumbled in a drugged haze against one of the downtimers fading back into whatever they called home or job, the jostle was too much. Overbalanced, Skeeter tried to compensate, but exhausted, bruised, fire stinging along his ribcage, and a pain like torn muscles down his side from that pole vault, rendered him abruptly helpless. Not a single, abused muscle in his back and legs obeyed is commands.