Wages of Sin

Marcus' shift ended shortly after the cycling of the Porta Romae, which left him rubbing shoulders with crowds of men and women dressed as wealthy Romans. Although he knew them to be impostors, he could not overcome the ingrained need, beaten into him over years, to scurry deferentially out of their way, to the extreme of hugging the wall with his back flat against the concrete when necessary to avoid offending any single one of them. Most were decent enough and a few even smiled at him-mostly women or young girls, or swaggering little boys full of themselves and willing to share their excitement with any passerby.

Several young men, however, had been seriously ill-a common enough occurrence for returning tourists. Downtimers like himself, hired as cleaning staff for the time terminal, were busy mopping up the mess. Marcus nodded to one he knew passingly well, a Welshman from Brita

When Marcus nodded to Kynan Rhys Gower, he received a return grimace and half-hearted smile. "Stupid boys," Kynan Rhys Gower said carefully in the English everyone here used-or tried to. "They drink much, yes? Make stink and mess."

Marcus nodded Roman fashion, tipping his head back slightly. "Yes. Many tourists come back sick from Rome. Especially boys who think they are men."

Kynan's sun-lined face twisted expressively as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Yes. And Kynan Rhys Gower washes it."

Marcus clapped his shoulder. "I have done worse work, my friend."

The stranded Welshman-who had no hope at all of ever returning home, having stumbled into La-La Land through an unstable gate that had not opened again-met his gaze squarely. "Yes. Worse work. In Rome?"

Marcus didn't bother to hold in the shiver that caught his back. He couldn't have, had he tried. "Yes, in Rome." He was just about to speak again when a man dressed in an expensive tunic, wearing a gladius belted to his waist, stepped out from behind a vined portico and shot a tentative glance both ways before heading past them. Marcus blinked. He knew that face. Didn't he? He stared at the man's retreating back. Surely he was wrong. The face in his memory, the face that man wore, didn't belong to a tourist-it was someone he'd seen in Rome long ago, before his latest master had brought him to Time Terminal Eighty-Six then vanished uptime on his ever-mysterious business.

"Marcus?" Kynan asked quietly. "Something is wrong?"

"I-I'm not sure. I-" He shook his head. "No. It could not be. It is only a man who looked like someone I once saw. But that is impossible. All tourists look alike, anyway," he added with a feeble attempt at a grin.

Kynan laughed dourly. "Aye. Ugly and rude. I finish, yes? Then maybe you come to my room, we eat together?"

Marcus smiled. "I would like that. Yes. Call me on the telephone."

Kynan just groaned. Marcus laughed. Kynan Rhys Gower still called the telephone "Satan's trumpet-but he'd learned to use it and was begi

Whoever this "Satan" was, Kynan feared him mightily. Marcus admired the courage it took the Welshman to use the telephone. He was hoping time would cement the tentative friendship growing between them. Marcus had many who called him "friend" but very few he could truly call on as friend when trouble struck.

"I will call," Kynan agreed, "when I wash this. And myself" His grimace was all too expressive. Kynan's disgust of tourists ran far deeper than Marcus', who found most of their baffling antics amusing more than maddening.

"Good." Marcus gave him a cheery smile, then headed in the direction of his own rooms in Residential to shower and change clothing and see what he might contribute to the joint meal out of the family's meager supplies-riches, compared to what Kynan Rhys Gower would have at his place, though. He wondered if Ianira might have left one of her famous cheesecakes in the refrigerator. He gri

Arley had paid her enough money that she'd been able to open that little stall he'd made for her in the Little Agora section of Commons, near the Philosophers' Gate, which was owned by the uptime government. Even Time Tours, the biggest company in the business, had to pay to send its tour groups through Philosophers' Gate. Tickets to ancient Athens were expensive. Several touring companies had even approached Ianira about guiding, for a fabulous salary and benefits. She'd turned them down in language they'd found shocking, but which Marcus understood in his bones.

He would not have set foot through the Porta Romae again for anything less than rescuing his family.

He was strolling toward her booth, to ask if she might like to join him at Kynan's place for di

Finding that peculiar, Marcus paused. Was the man on Co

And there was still that odd tingle of near-recognition chilling his spine. It couldn't be ... could it? He decided to wait, settling down beside a shallow pond stocked with colorful fish, and watched the door. Brian Hendrickson strolled by, deep in conversation with a guide. They were speaking Latin. From the sound of it, Brian was in the middle of a language lesson, stressing the finer points of conversational Latin to the relatively new guide. Across the way, Co

For an instant, his gaze locked with the other man's.

A dark flush stained weathered cheeks. The man Marcus was positive he'd seen before ducked back into Co

Concealed weapons were against station rules. Openly carried weapons were fine. But only when stepping through a gate was one permitted to conceal one's personal weapons. Those were the rules and Marcus was careful to live by them. But he also knew it wasn't always a good idea to mix one's affairs with those of a stranger. Well, he could always report the fellow anonymously to Mike Benson or one of his security men through a message on one of the library computers.

Or he could simply ignore the whole thing and go take that shower. He had just about decided on the latter course of action when the stranger turned to glance back at him. Something in the movement, the set of the mouth and the dark light in those eyes, clicked in Marcus' memory. Shock washed through him like icy water. He gripped his seat until his hands ached. It wasn't possible ... yet he was certain. As certain as he had ever been about anything in his life. Sweat started under his shirt and dripped down his armpits.