"Linda Evans - Time Scout 4 - The House That Jack Built" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

Chapter One

Chapter One

Skeeter Jackson wasn't in jail.

And that was so overwhelming a shock, he wasn't entirely sure what to
do with himself. The one thing he didn't want to do was hang around the
infirmary, where Bergitta lay in the recovery room after emergency
surgery and where Senator John Caddrick sat bellowing like a wounded
musk-ox, threatening to shut down the station around their ears. So he
ducked past crowds of shaken tourists, wounded in the riot at Primary,
slithered past news crews and the irate, fuming senator -- who was
still taking up a valuable medical technician's time to wash tear gas
out of his eyes -- and headed out into the vast crowds thronging the
Commons.

He didn't really know where he was going or what he intended to do,
once he got there. He didn't have a job any longer, and wasn't likely
to find a soul on station to hire him, particularly not with the kind
of trouble Time Terminal Eighty-Six had brewing. Skeeter threaded his
way through the jostling crowds, ignoring the shocked gossip flying
loose through Commons, and wondered for perhaps the fifteen millionth
time what had become of his friends, young Julius, who'd been born in
ancient Rome, and -- far more devastatingly -- down-time refugees
Ianira and Marcus and both their little girls. Ianira was the leader of
the entire community of down-timers stranded on the time terminal,
Speaker for the Found Ones' Council, and the inspiration for the
fastest-growing up-time religion in the world.

Not only major VIPs in anybody's book, but very nearly the only friends
Skeeter possessed. They'd all disappeared in the middle of a riot, the
first of many to hit Shangri-La Station during the past week, and
despite massive searches, not a trace of them had been found. Either
they'd managed to escape down one of the open time-touring gates or
they'd been kidnapped and smuggled out. Or -- and he had to swallow
hard, at the thought -- somebody'd cut them into small pieces and
dropped them down an unstable gate. Like the Bermuda Triangle, maybe .
..

"Skeeter!"

He looked around, startled, and found Kit Carson homing in.

Panic struck.

"Don't bolt!" The retired time scout held up a hand as he hurried
through the crowd. "I just want to talk."

Skeeter paused, gauging the expression in Kit's eyes -- a surprisingly