Time Scout by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

What about Kynan? And Koot? Had they survived the break-up of the raft? Or had Margo alone failed to drown in the stormy surf? One of the Portuguese, the man in the metal armor, spoke roughly to her. Margo had no idea what he’d said. The man stooped over her, spoke again, then backhanded her. She tried to get away and felt a tremendous blow connect. She didn’t feel anything at all for a long time after that. When Margo regained her senses, someone had stripped her naked. The traders had clustered around her, leering. They’d started to unfasten their clothes.

Margo whimpered.

When the first one shoved her knees apart, Margo squeezed shut her eyes.

Malcolm …

It took the bastards a long time to finish.

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The withered-sea landscape garden of sand and stones in the corner of Kit’s office had lost its ability to soothe. He slumped in his chair and shoved aside the mountain of government forms to be filled out, then stared at the raked sand and dry boulders. Eight weeks. It had felt more like eight years. Kit hadn’t believed it possible to miss someone so keenly after such a short time much of it spent arguing, at that. His apartment felt empty. The Down Time had lost its appeal. The Commons would have been utterly dead-flat boring if not for the occasional excitement of a crow-sized pterodactyl raiding lunch from shocked hands or momentarily unguarded plates.

After a while, even the giggle of watching tourists dive under lunch tables had worn off. All that was left was the intolerable weight of government paperwork and the long hours wondering where she’d gone. He’d gone up-time long enough to hire an investigative agency to locate her birthplace in Minnesota and discover her real name, as well as search other time terminals to see if she might have gone scouting at one of them. So far, the agency had drawn an absolute blank. As far as anyone could tell, Margo had dropped off the face of the earth.