You damn near are, Kit groused to himself, impressed with her tenacity and appalled that she was so determined to die. Kit sat back in his chair and ran one hand through his greying hair. “Look, Margo, I admire your determination. Really, I do.”
The look in her eyes, sudden and unexpected, disturbed Kit. Good God, is she going to cry? Kit cleared his throat.
”But I won’t be a party to your death, which is likely to be messy and very painful. Did you bother to read any of the scouting reports in this?” He held up the Gazette. “Or the obituaries section?”
Time-scouts’ obituaries took up a whole page of the Shangri-la Gazette. The details were often gruesome.
She shrugged. “People die all the time.”
”Yes, they do. So do time scouts. Let me tell you how time scouts die, kid. Sam One-Eagle over at TT-37 was killed by the Inquisition. They burned him alive, Margo, after taking all the skin off his back with whips and breaking all his major bones on the rack. His partner crawled back through with burns over most of his body from trying to rescue him. David lived for a month. The nurses said he spent most of it screaming.”
Margo had blanched. But her chin came up. “So what? I could get run over by a bus, too, and plane crash victims get toasted just as thoroughly.”
Kit tossed his hands heavenward. “Good God, Margo. The Inquisition is nothing to be flippant about. You haven’t seen one of their torture rooms. I have. And I have the scars to prove it. Would you like to see them?”
Slim jaw muscles tightened. She didn’t say a word.