"Just Sven, far as I know, but I don't mind company if somebody wants a chair."

"Good, good. The more the merrier," Arley laughed. "Wine? Appetizers?"

Kit glanced at Margo, who was clearly tired but still on edge. "Is this Special of yours poultry, fish, pork, or beef? Or something else altogether?"

Arley winked. "Seafood. Mostly."

"All right, why don't we start with a half-carafe of Piesporter Michelsburg and some fresh fruit and bread and I'll let you choose the wine for the main course?"

Arley flashed a delighted smile. "Mead. Egyptian mead. I'll send Julie out with the appetizers," Arley promised. He smiled warmly again at Margo, then threaded his way through the Delight, pausing now and again to speak with other clients. Sven Bailey arrived.

"So this is the one, huh?" he said without preamble. His long, shuttered stare brought an uncomfortable flood of color to Margo's cheeks-and a glitter of irritation to her eyes.

"I'm the one what?" she asked coldly.

Sven just grunted and ignored her. He plopped into a chair. "You're sure about this?"

Kit shrugged. "Yep."

Margo glanced from Sven to Kit, then back. She clearly wanted to ask a question and just as clearly wasn't sure she wanted to risk the answer yet. Kit took pity on her.

"Margo, this is Sven Bailey, acknowledged far and wide as the most dangerous man on TT-86."

Margo's eyes widened Sven just snorted. "Damned right I am. Last man who tried to prove otherwise ended up dead." He guffawed, leaving Margo to stare uneasily anywhere but at him. Kit didn't bother to explain that the gentleman in question had been a mad tourist who'd insisted on using the Biddle style of formal knife-fighting, despite Sven's solemn warnings that it would get him killed (which it had, in some filthy little Soho alley, where he'd found out that "knife fencing" and street fighting were not the same animal, after all).

Sven high-signed Julie, who beamed in their direction while balancing a wine carafe and glasses on a silver tray. "Hi, guys," she said brightly, setting down glasses and a perfectly chilled carafe of Piesporter, along with tumblers of ice water. "What'll your poison be, Sven?"

He sniffed at the wine. "Not that. How about a Sam Adams?"

"Any thoughts on dinner? We have a wonderful seafood special tonight, a new dish from ancient Egypt..."

"Hell, no. Let Arley experiment on somebody else. You still doing that beef thing you had in here last week?"

Julie dimpled "We sure are. Rare?"

"Make it moo."

Margo looked like she was about to lose her appetite or worse.

Kit grinned. "What's wrong, kid? No stomach for blood?"

Margo compressed her lips. "I'm fine."

Sven eyed her. "You sure act squeamish for a kid about to try time scouting."

She fidgeted in her chair, but refrained from comment:

"Speaking of time scouting," Kit said, rubbing the side of his nose, "any thoughts about the answer to that question I posed?"

Margo glanced at Sven. She looked suddenly very young and uncertain. Then her chin came up. "Well ...A time scout's job is to find out where a gate leads."

Kit shook his head. "I didn't ask what a scout's job was, I asked what a scout's goals are. That's a little different proposition."

For a second, she looked so tired and hungry and miserable and confused, Kit thought she might cry. He prompted, "Just tell me what pops into your head What's a scout's primary goal?"

"To make money."

Sven let loose an astonishing guffaw that startled diners in a circle three tables deep, then pounded Margo's back with friendly affection. She nearly came adrift from her chair, but managed a sheepish smile. Kit grinned. "Money, eh? Well, yes, if you're lucky. If the gate you push doesn't lead to the Russian steppes in the middle of the last ice age. A few scientists might want a peek, but there's not much commercial potential in a mile-high glacier. What else?"

"To stay alive," she said, with a tiny toss of her short hair.

"Absolutely," Kit agreed.

"You're gettin' there, girl. What else?" Sven asked, taking the burden of grilling her off Kit's hands.

She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Learn stuff about where you are, of course. Do you take a camera?"

Kit thought about Catherine the Great and her Russian boar and winked at Sven. He'd clearly read the same article, judging by the sudden twinkle in his eyes. "Sometimes. Usually not. Cameras aren't essential equipment."

"What else ought to be my goal, then?"

Kit nodded. "Good. You're asking questions." He leaned forward. "Point number one: the kind of karate you've learned in high school might be great for a soldier attacking someone else, but soldiering-fighting battles-isn't the primary goal of a scout."

"Hell, no," Sven muttered. "You want a battle, go live in Serbia or anywhere from Istanbul down to Cairo. Last I heard, Israel was threatening to pop a nuke or two if the Moslem states didn't stop recruiting jihad fighters from down time and I can't say as I blame either side. Gad, what a mess."

Even Margo had the sense to shiver. What the time strings had done to the incendiary Middle East didn't bear thinking about. A coalition of Moslem and Jewish women had come together to try and stop the fighting, but so far neither side was listening to the voice of sanity. The whole region had been declared off limits after TT-66 had been bombed into oblivion. Kit, like most 'eighty-sixers, had lost good friends during the death of the station.

Kit cleared his throat and defused the sudden chill by pouring wine for Margo and himself. "All right, then," Kit said, "a scout's goal isn't to engage in battle. It's to go someplace, to learn whatever he can, then. get away clean, doing the least amount of damage to the local environment including the denizens of that environment."

"Especially the denizens," Sven said, by way of emphasis. "Anything else is borrowing trouble. Big trouble. If you piss off somebody who can't be killed and you end in a life-or-death situation with them, you'll be the one kissing your backside goodbye."

"Wait a second," Margo said with a frown. "What do you mean, somebody who can't be killed? Anybody can be killed."

"Not exactly" Kit said quietly. "If someone's death would alter history, then that person can't be killed. At least, not by an up-timer. Paradox will not happen. History won't change. People have tried. It never works.

Never. Let's say you try to assassinate somebody famous, like George Washington. Your gun will jam or misfire, or you'll trip at the last second so the knife doesn't hit a vital spot. Something will happen to prevent you from changing anything critical. The tricky part here is, it can happen when you least expect it."

"Like if you get into a fatal fight with somebody who seems unimportant," Sven said quietly. "If their death would affect history, then they won't die. That doesn't mean you won't."

For once, Margo looked worried instead of flippant. She glanced at Sven, then back to Kit. "Okay." It came out surprisingly subdued. "What else?"

"Another point to remember is that we're the outsiders, down time. Even if somebody is unimportant enough that their death wouldn't matter to history, we don't have a moral right to go barging in with a macho attitude that we'll just smash anything that puts us in danger, without taking precautions to avoid problems in the first place."

"The best way to win a fight," Sven put in, "is to avoid fighting in the first place. The real kicker, of course, is learning how to avoid the fight."

Margo chewed one thumbnail. "And if you can't? I mean, what if some psychopathic kook jumps you?"

His cruel comments about Jack the Ripper had clearly made an impression. Kit refilled her wineglass. "That's always possible, of course, and sometimes there may be nothing for it but to break a neck or shatter a kneecap, but most of the time your goal is to be invisible. If you can't be, then your goal is to keep someone from breaking your neck or shattering your kneecap. And, of course, to get the hell back to the terminal in one piece. When it comes to scouts, heroes are just people who confuse cowardice with common sense."