“Oh.” Skeeter grinned. “Me owd china, is it? I’m honored, Molly.” She didn’t admit friendship to many, not even among the down-timers. He wondered what he’d done to earn her good opinion. Her next words gave him the answer.
“I come up ‘ere t’find Bergitta. Needs a place t’stay, is afraid o’ that blagger wot blacked ‘er face, livin’ alone an’ all, an’ I got room in me flat, so I ‘ave. It’d be cheaper, too, wiv two of us sharin’ the bills.”
Skeeter didn’t know what to say. He found himself swallowing hard.
“You ain’t seen ‘er, then?”
He shook his head. “No. I was heading for Primary, when that riot broke out.”
“Might come along, me own self,” Molly mused. “Got nuffink better to do, ‘til I finds Bergitta, anyway.”
Skeeter grinned. “I’d be honored to escort you, Molly.”
She fell into step beside him.
“I’ve never seen this many people at an opening of Primary.” Skeeter had to shout above the roar of voices. Using elbows and a few underhanded moves, Skeeter shoved his way through the mob until he found a good vantage point where he and Molly could settle themselves to wait.
Gaudy splashes of color marked long lines of departing tourists and the hundreds of spectators arriving just to watch the show. Montgomery Wilkes, ruling head of BATF on station, wasn’t in sight yet. Security officers were scarce, too, in the wake of the riot.
BATF carels, manned by tax-collection agents of the Bureau of Access Time Functions, carefully clad in dress-uniform red, lined the route into and out of Primary Precinct. Once past the BATF carels, inbound tourists and visitors arriving at TT-86 had to run a gauntlet of medical stations, a whole double row of them, which formed the entryway into the time terminal.