through it. And discovered he was holding copies of the arrest reports
for each of the thirty-one crooks Skeeter had put out of business in
the last seven and a half days.
Skeeter had, during the past week, managed a feat even he hadn't
thought possible. He had stunned the entire 'eighty-sixer population of
Shangri-La Station virtually speechless. He'd only had to make
citizens' arrests of seventeen pickpockets, five grifters, eight con
artists, and a bait-and-switch vendor to do it, the latter peddling
fake copies of an inertial mapping system that kept track of a person's
movements away from a known point of origin, like a time-touring gate.
The real gizmos had saved lives. Substituting fake ones could kill an
unwary tourist, fast.
Once La-La Land had recovered the use of its stunned, multi-partite
tongue, of course, rumor had run wild. "It's a new scam," went the most
popular version, "he's up to something." And so he was. Just not what
the rumor-mongers thought he was up to. Skeeter had taken his new "job"
far more seriously than either of the ones he'd lost, thanks to his
frantic search for clues to Ianira's disappearance. To his own
surprise, Skeeter Jackson made a profoundly diligent undercover
detective.
Judging from the printouts Skeeter now held, that fact was not lost on
Kit Carson. He just didn't know what Kit had in mind to do about it.
Kit was grinning at him, though. He leaned forward, still smiling, and
tapped the printouts in Skeeter's hands. "Mike Benson, bless him, has
been glowering for days over this. If he hadn't been so busy
trying to keep this station from exploding into violence, I
expect he'd have called you in to explain by now."
Belatedly, Skeeter realized he'd made the head of Shangri-La security
look . . . Well, if not outright incompetent, downright foolish.
Thirty-one arrests in seven and a half days was a helluva haul, even
for TT-86. Kit was studying Skeeter intently, eyes glinting in the
indirect lighting. "I must confess to a considerable curiosity."
Skeeter sighed and set the reports down. "Not that I expect you to
believe me," he met Kit's gaze, "but with Ianira and her family gone .
. ." He blinked rapidly, told himself sternly that now was not the time
to sniffle. His reputation for playing on a rube's emotions was too
well known. "Well, dammit, somebody's got to make this place fit for
the down-timer kids to grow up in! I was thinking about Ianira's little
girls the other day, right about the time I saw a pickpocket snatch
that Chilean lady's wallet. It made me so flaming mad, I just walked
over and grabbed him. Maybe you haven't heard, but Artemisia and
Gelasia call me 'Uncle Skeeter.' The last time I was anybody's uncle .
. ."
He shut his mouth hastily, not wanting to talk about the deep feelings
he still harbored for little Temujin. He'd seen the child born nine
months after he'd fallen through an unstable gate, the one that had
dumped him at the feet of the khan of forty-thousand Yakka Mongol
yurts, or gers, as the Mongolians, themselves, called their felted
tents. Yesukai had named Skeeter his first-born son's honorary uncle,
effectively placing his heir under the protection of the bogdo, the