”Huh?” She leveled an incredulous stare in Kit’s direction. Clearly, she hadn’t done enough research. Margo damned small-town libraries, high schools controlled by school boards opposed to things like “Evillution” and a father who’d drunk every penny she might have saved toward a computer to hook into the big information nets.
Malcolm nodded. “He’s right. Even guides have to be careful about that. Every station is built at least as far back as 1910, to get around the problem of people stepping into a time after they were born. That’s why up-time lobbies have warning signs. Surely you saw the one on the other side of our Primary? `IF YOU WERE BORN ON OR BEFORE APRIL 28, 1910, DO NOT STEP THROUGH THIS GATE. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU ATTEMPT TO ENTER THE TIME TERMINAL.’ The date on that sign changes every day, to match Shangri-las relative temporal location. They had to beef up security about ten years ago when a few desperate senior citizens committed suicide by stepping through, rather than face starvation or terminal cancer.”
”Well, I understand that danger,” Margo sniffed, “and I remember seeing TV shows about those poor old couple who killed themselves. But what’s this stuff about if you visit some other terminal or the wrong gate?”
”We’re not just trying to scare you off,” Kit said quietly. “The temporal position of any station, in its relation to absolute time, is different from any other station’s temporal position. Terminals 17 and 56 are absolutely deadly to anyone on Shangri-la. If I tried to visit TT-56, I’d accidentally emerge into last week, when I was very much present at Shangri-la Station, which is currently…”