He double-checked the big chronometer board. The next departure was set for three days hence, London. Denver followed that by twelve hours and Edo a day after that. One of the quarterly departures to twelfth century Mongolia would be leaving in six days. He shook his head. Mongolia was out of the question. None of that incoming group looked hardy enough for three months in deadly country inhabited by even deadlier people.
Gate Five didn’t get much traffic, even when it was open.
He eyed the inbound crowd. London, Denver, or ancient Tokyo …Most of the tourists to Edo were Japanese businessmen. They tended to stick with Japanese tour guides. The only time Malcolm had been to sixteenth-century Edo had been on a scheduled tour for his old company and he’d been in heavy disguise The Tokugawa shoguns had developed a nasty habit of executing any gaijin unfortunate enough even to be shipwrecked on Japanese shores. After that first visit, Malcolm had firmly decided he’d acquired a good knowledge of sixteenth-century Japanese, Portuguese, and Dutch for nothing.
London or Denver, then…He’d have three days, minimum, to work on a client. His gaze rested on a likely-looking prospect, a middle-aged woman who had paused to gape in open confusion while the three small children clustered at her side shoved fists into their mouths and clutched luggage covered with Cowboys and Indians. The smallest boy wore a plastic ten-gallon hat and a toy six-gun rig. Mom glanced from side to side, up and down, stared at the chronometer, and appeared ready to burst into tears.