Time Scout

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Margo felt free, absolutely and utterly free, for the first time in her life. Goldie Morran was a true savior. After a quick week up time learning to fly the latest ultralight craze, she'd returned to TT-86 with a load of very specialized equipment all paid for by Goldie. The currency expert had trusted her judgement, relied implicitly on her training, her skills. That alone had been worth all the heartache of the miserable, terrifying week alone in Rome.

Margo had put hours of pla

I did it! I'm doing it! I'm really scouting!

ATLS readings widened the grin on Margo's face. "Wow!" The first stars twinkling in the darkening sky allowed her to pinpoint their location. At thirty-two degrees east longitude and twenty-six degrees south latitude, Margo was standing on the southeastern coast of Mozambique in the year A.D. 1542.

The descending African night was soft, the breeze stiff from offshore. They were very near the coast. Margo easily identified a broad stretch of water nearby from geographical records: Delagoa Bay. Around the curving bay from their position huddled a tiny settlement of ramshackle board houses and a wooden fortress, ail surrounded by a wooden wall. Not a single light burned in the settlement Margo gri

She signaled her two assistants to follow, moving down the curve of the bay until they were out of sight of the primitive little town of Lourengo Marques. Then they unpacked their load and got busy. Margo took charge of the Floating Wing. It was the largest commercially available, a high-tech balloon of transparent, gas-tight Filmar, shaped like a pe

While she worked on the balloon, her two assistants worked on the gondola. She wasn't sure she approved of Goldie's choices for these two. The big Afrikaner was all right, she supposed, although he was pushing fifty-six, but she was worried about that damned Welshman. He'd tried to disembowel Margo a few weeks ago, mistaking her for Joan of Arc. Now he worked quietly under the Afrikaner's directions, which consisted mostly of hand signals punctuated by grunts and the occasional word in English. Kynan Rhys Gower had learned a few words of English, thank God, since his arrival from Orleans, but his temperament hadn't improved all that much from a month working in the garbage pits while the ribs Kit had broken healed up.

When Margo had protested the choice, Goldie explained, "We don't want anyone blabbing our plans. The Welshman's perfect. He needs money and he can't talk."

"And your Afrikaner?" The Afrikaner could, in fact, speak English, but he usually muttered to himself in his own incomprehensible Afrikaans.

Goldie gri

"Huh. What kind of name is Koot, anyway?" Margo had muttered, drawing laughter from her dignified partner.

Still, Koot was remarkably cooperative for a close-lipped old man who'd insisted on choosing his own rifle for the journey. He'd even insisted she bring a rifle.

"But I don't intend to do any hunting," she'd countered, holding up the laser-guided blowgun she'd used in training. After what she'd witnessed in the Circus Maximus, Margo wasn't sure she wanted to hunt anything for her di

Koot had muttered under his breath and insisted she bring a rifle, anyway. She'd stowed it away with gear she didn't plan to use unless an emergency threatened.

Koot worked quietly in the starlight, assembling the PVC gridwork that would serve as the platform of their gondola. While Kynan finished tightening co

The hydrogen was one reason Margo had chosen PVC for the platform. She didn't want metal fittings anywhere on her ultralight. Metal fittings might generate sparks. For the duration of their journey, they would be paranoid about fire prevention. She eyed the slowly filling gas bag and wished again they could have transported in enough helium to do the job, but wishing was pointless. They had what they had and Margo was darned proud of her ingenuity.

Their airship was finally ready. Kynan had covered the PVC gridwork with a "floor" of ripstop nylon to prevent things from falling through. Koot attached cables to the hydrogen wing, then helped Kynan load on their supplies. Margo shut down the generator and packed it in the wheeled crate it had come in, then returned it to the vicinity of the gate. Next time the gate cycled, Goldie would send some down timer through to retrieve it.

Margo ran through her checklist one last time. Food. Water purifying equipment. Picks and shovels. Her little M-1 carbine and ammunition for it. Blowgun and anesthesia darts. Extra batteries for the laser sight. Koot's .458 Winchester bolt-action rifle. Emergency medical kit. Lightweight sleeping bags and mosquito netting. Ballast they could dump later on when the gas bag inevitably leaked some of its buoyancy .....es, they had everything.

Margo had even made certain they were all inoculated against cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, meningitis and diphtheria. They'd begun anti-malarials well before departure. And even with the extremely good water filters she'd purchased, she wasn't taking any chances on contracting bilharzia -- she pla

"Are we ready?" Margo asked brightly.

Koot van Beek turned from slinging his rifle across his back. He grunted in the moonlight. "Yes, English. We're ready."

The transparent airship, a ghostly sight in the moonlight, strained against its cables. Margo gri

"Okay, everyone, this show is about to hit the road!"

Margo signaled Koot, who loosened his tether at the same moment she loosened her own cable. The airship rose silently into the starlit African night. A strong offshore wind pushed them steadily into the interior. Margo waited until they were well out of sight of the little bayside community below, then fired up the ducted fan engines..

Their noise shattered the night. Kynan covered his ears and glanced over the edge of the platform. He lost all color in the silvered moonlight. The airship dipped and plunged in the air currents like a slow-motion roller coaster. Poor Kynan squeezed shut both eyes and swallowed rapidly several times. Margo gri