Time Scout by Robert Asprin

Author:Robert Asprin [Asprin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Time Travel - Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Historical, General, Time Travel
ISBN: 9780671876982
Google: WiijAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0671578677
Publisher: Baen
Published: 1995-11-01T21:40:36+00:00

* * *

Jenna woke to the sensation of movement and the deep shock that she was still alive to waken at all. For a moment, the only thing in her mind was euphoria that she was still among the breathing. Then the pain hit, sharp and throbbing all along the side of her skull, and the nausea struck an instant later. She moaned and clenched her teeth against the pain—which only tightened the muscles of her scalp and sent the pain mushrooming off the scale. Jenna choked down bile, felt herself swoop and fall . . .

Then she lay propped across something hard, while she was thoroughly sick onto the street. Someone was holding her up, kept her from falling while she vomited. Memory struck hard, of the gun aimed at her face, of the roar and gout of flame, the agony of the gunshot striking her. She struggled, convinced she was in the hands of that madman, that he’d carried her off to finish her or interrogate her . . .

“Easy, there.”

Whoever held her was far stronger than Jenna; hard hands kept her from moving away. Jenna shuddered and got the heaves under control, then gulped down terror and slowly raised her gaze from the filthy cobblestones. She lay propped across someone’s thigh, resting against rough woolen cloth and a slim torso. Then she met the eyes of a woman whose face was shadowed by a broad-brimmed bonnet which nearly obscured her face in the darkness. Through the nausea and pain and terror, Jenna realized the woman was exceedingly poor. Her dress and coat were raggedy, patched things, the bonnet bedraggled by the night’s rain. Gaslight from a nearby street lamp caught a glint of the woman’s eyes, then she spoke, in a voice that sounded as poor and ragged as she was.

“Cor, luv,” the woman said softly, “if you ain’t just a sight, now. I’ve ‘ad me quite a jolly time, so I ‘ave, tryin’ t’ foller you all the way ‘ere, an’ you bent on getting yourself that lost and killed.”

Jenna stared, wondering whether or not the woman had lost her mind, or if perhaps Jenna might be losing hers. Mad, merry eyes twinkled in the gaslight as a sharp wind picked up and pelted them with debris from the street. The shabby woman glanced at the clouds, where lightning flared, threatening more rain, then frowned. “Goin’ t’catch yer death, wivout no coat on, and I gots t’find a bloody surgeon what can see to that head of yours. It’s bled a fright, but in’t as bad as it seems or likely feels. Just a scrape along above the ear. Bloody lucky, you are, bloody lucky.” When Jenna stared at her, torn by nausea and pain and the conviction that she was in the hands of yet another down-time lunatic, the madwoman leaned closer still and said in a totally different voice, “Good God, kid, you really don’t know me, do you?”

Jenna’s mouth fell open. “Noah?”

The detective’s low chuckle shocked her.

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