”Why does everyone keep saying scouting’s so dangerous?”
Malcolm lanced over. Kit just shrugged, leaving
Malcolm on lanced own-and Kit was sure any answer the guide provided would be more than effective.
”Well,” Malcolm said quietly, “because it is. My first time out, I beat the witch finders to the gate by about four minutes. One of them actually got through on sheer momentum and had to be tossed back through just as the gate was closing. If the gate hadn’t opened up, I’d have …Well, never mind. The second time, I missed
Shadowing myself by about half an hour. Promised myself I’d never set foot through an unknown gate again.”
Then he chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I did risk it just once more, when we rescued the folks who fell through that unstable gate in the floor, but I didn’t stop to think, then, I just jumped. I was lucky. Someone, thank God, had their log and ATLS with them, so at least I have a record of which gates we stumbled through trying to get home again.”
”Okay, so it’s dangerous. What’s this Shadowing stuff all about, exactly?”
Kit tapped the personal log absently with one fingernail. “It means you can’t cross your own shadow. Not and survive. If you step through a gate into, say, Rome on A.D. 100, March twenty-fourth, 2:00 P.m. sun time, you log into this machine exactly when and where you are. How you determine when and where you are, I’ll explain in a minute. The point is, you note down exactly when you arrived, where you arrived, how long you stayed, and when you left. You keep track of when and where you’ve been. Okay, let’s say somebody else pushes a gate into Meso-America, A.D. 100, March twenty-third. If you step through that gate, and stay past March twenty-fourth 2:00 P.m. Italian time, one of you disappears. The current you. The Roman you is alive in the past, but the real-time you just died. You cannot cross your own shadow. Paradox doesn’t happen, because you vanish completely, forever.”