Ripping Time by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

“Are you all right?” Shahdi asked in a low voice.

Margo gave the scholar a bright smile. “Sure. Just a little weirded out, I guess. Serial killers are creepy.”

“They are,” Shahdi Feroz said softly, “the most terrifying creation the human race has ever produced. It is why I study them. In the probably vain hope we can avoid creating more of them.”

“That,” Margo said with a shiver, “is probably the most impossible quest I’ve ever heard of. Good luck. I mean that, too.”

“What d’you mean, Miss Smith?” a British voice said in her ear. “Good luck with what?”

Margo yelped and came straight up off the floor, at least two inches airborne; then stood glaring at Guy Pendergast and berating herself for not paying better attention. Some time scout trainee you are! Stay this unfocused and some East End blagger’s going to shove a knife through your ribcage. . . . “Mr. Pendergast. I didn’t see you arrive. And Miss Nosette. You’ve checked in? Good. All right, everybody’s here. We’ve got—“ she craned her head to look at the overhead chronometers “—eleven minutes to departure if you want to make any last-minute purchases, exchange money, buy a cup of coffee. You’ve all got your timecards? Great. Any questions?” Please don’t have any questions . . .

Guy Pendergast gave her a friendly grin. “Is it true, then?”

She blinked warily at him. “Is what true?”

“Are you really bent on suicide, trying to become a time scout?”

Margo lifted her chin a notch, a defiant cricket trying to impress a maestro musician with its musicality. “There’s nothing suicidal about it! Scouting may be a dangerous profession, but so are a lot of other jobs. Police work or down-time journalism, for instance.”