Tales of the Time Scouts by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Author:Robert Asprin & Linda Evans [Asprin, Robert & Evans, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781625794727
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2015-11-16T05:00:00+00:00

Epilogue

Goldie Morran wandered into the Down Time and sank into a chair. Kit and Malcolm left their table and sat down at hers.

“What’s wrong, Goldie?” Kit asked.

The gems and currency expert sniffed autocratically. “It’s that stupid granddaughter of yours. She put the diamonds in the wrong place.”

“Oh?” Malcolm asked innocently.

“We dug up a square fifty yards on a side around the spot on that map. Nothing. Not a trace. My up-time rube has withdrawn his offer to buy the whole parcel. I can’t believe we went through all that and she didn’t get the right place. God knows where she put them.”

Kit had received his own confirmation from up-time sources that Goldie was, for once, telling God’s own truth.

Malcolm put in, “Well, Margo buried them—what? Four hundred fifty years ago? Anything could have happened. A flash flood might have washed the whole mess out. Or someone could have dug the stuff up years ago and quietly sold it off. Who could tell? It was a great idea, Goldie. Too bad it didn’t work.”

“Yeah,” she said glumly. “Too bad. Damn that girl… .

Kit consoled her by ordering Goldie’s favorite. She sipped disconsolately.

“How much money did you lose?” Kit asked quietly.

“Ten thousand dollars! I paid for that whole benighted expedition, not to mention that worthless piece of farmland! It’s so riddled with tsetse flies you can’t even run cattle on it!”

“I feel really terrible.” Kit said earnestly. “After all, I did train Margo. Her mistake is my mistake.”

Goldie sniffed again. “You always were too nice for your own good, Kit. Thanks anyway. I’m still out ten thousand.”

“Tell you what. I’m determined to drive home the lessons Margo’s learning from this fiasco. How about I make her pay you back?”

“Pay me back?” Goldie echoed. ‘Why?”

“To teach her the value of getting her geography right.”

Goldie sniffed once more, but her eyes had begun to gleam. “What did you have in mind?”

Gotcha! “Margo will be spending the next eight years or so in college. She’s agreed to pay back every penny of her education out of what she earns as a scout. I’d like to tack an extra ten thousand onto the price tag. How’s this? I’ll buy the land. Then, every vacation Margo has, I’ll go up time and make her fly, walk, and crawl every inch of that river valley until she learns how to do aerial mapping right.”

Goldie hesitated, a veteran angler playing her “fish” with seasoned skill. “I don’t know, Kit. That’s an awfully expensive lesson.”

Kit grunted. “Not half as expensive as losing your granddaughter. Which, I might add, I damn near did.”

“Not to mention my life and Kit’s,” Malcolm added. “And that Welshman almost died on the operating table. Koot van Beek did die.”

Goldie hurried to change the subject. “About this proposition of yours … are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Kit muttered darkly. “Margo isn’t setting foot across another gate until she’s learned every lesson I insist she master. Getting geography right is critical. If she’d done a better job of it, Koot van Beek might still be alive.

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