"Linda Evans - Time Scout 1 - Time Scout" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

Time Scout




CHAPTER ONE
It wasn't difficult to tell visitors from 'eighty-sixers. Visitors were the
ones with the round mouths and rounder eyes and steadily decreasing bankrolls.
Like refugees from Grandma's attic, they were decked out in whatever the
Outfitters had decreed the current "look of the century." Invariable struggles
with unfamiliar bits of clothing, awkward baggage arrangements, and foreign
money marked them even faster than an up tilted head on a New York City
sidewalk.
'Eighty-sixers, by contrast, stood out by virtue of omission. They neither
gawked nor engaged in that most offensive of tourist behaviors, the
"I-know-it-all-and-will-share-it with-you" bravado that masks someone who
wouldn't know a drachma from a sesterce, even if his life depended on it!
Which, in TT-86, it might.
Nope, the 'eighty-sixers were the ones who hauled luggage, snagged stray
children back from the brink of disaster, and calmed flaring tempers in three
different languages in as many minutes, all without loosening a fold of those
impossible-to-wrap Roman togas or bumping into a single person with those
equally impossible-to-manage Victorian bustles.
'Eighty-sixers were right at home in La-La Land.
Frankly, Malcolm Moore couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
Which was why he was currently threading his way through the Commons of
Shangri-la Station, decked out in his most threadbare woolen tunic (the one
with
the artistic wine and dung stains), his dirtiest cheap sandals, and his very
finest bronze collar (the one that read MALCOLUM SERVUS).
The blank spot waited for the name of any person offering him a job. Adding
the customer's name would take only seconds with his battery-powered engraver,
and he had a grinder in his room to smooth out the name again for the next
trip.
The metal was currently as shiny as his hopes and as empty as his belly.
Occasionally, Malcolm felt the pun inherent in his name had become a
harbinger of plain bad luck.
"Well, my luck's gotta change sometime," he muttered, girding metaphorical
loins for battle.
His destination, of course, was Gate Six. Tourists were already beginning
to
converge on its waiting area, milling about in animated groups and smiling
clusters. Hangers-on thronged the vast Commons just to watch the show. A
departure at Gate Six was an Event, worth watching even for those not making
the
trip. Tables at little cafes and bars, especially those in the "Roman City"
section of the terminal, were filling up fast.
In "Urbs Romae" hot-dog stands took the form of ancient
sausage-and-wine-vendor shops visible on the streets of ancient Rome, complete
with vats of hot oil in which the hot dogs sizzled. Countersunk amphorae in