Tourists on the floor exclaimed, then laughed in nervous delight as a man dressed as a Roman slave, but moving with the purpose and authority of a Time Tours organizer, stepped through. He rushed at them like a hurled baseball, growing in apparent height from a few inches to full size in the blink of an eyelash, then calmly stepped through onto the metal grating. He landed barking orders.
Tourists, some looking dazed and ill, others talking animatedly, all of them visibly tired, spilled through the open gate onto the catwalk and down the ramp. Most clutched souvenirs. Some clutched each other. Guides had to remind most of them to slide credit-card-sized Timecards through the encoder at the bottom of the ramp. Malcolm grinned again. The ritual never varied. The ones who remembered to “clock out” of Porta Romae were experienced temporal travelers. The ones clutching each other had discovered a deep-seated, unexpected fear of temporal travel, either because it was too dirty and violent for their taste or because they’d spent the trip terrified of making a mistake the guides couldn’t fix.
The ones that looked dazed and ill either hadn’t enjoyed the gladiatorial games as much as they’d thought or were still attempting to overcome the effects of too much boozing and not enough attention to proper diet and rest. Malcolms clients never returned up time looking like they needed the nearest hospital bed. Of course, people with the sense to hire a private guide, even for a package deal like Time Tours offered, rarely had the poor judgment to get hung over after a two-week-long binge on lead-laced Roman wine.