Time Out for Redheads

By MIRIAM ALLEN deFORD

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories Summer 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

His name was Mikel Skot. He was thirty-four, five-feet-ten and lean, with decent features and all his hair and quite nice brown eyes. But somehow he always seemed to give the impression of being of indeterminate age, and slightly dusty. He lived alone, he gravitated between his job and his lodgings, and since the age of fourteen he had never known a girl well enough to call her by her first name.

For twelve years, ever since 2827, he had sold tickets at one of the windows of Time Travel Tours, Unlimited. If raises hadn't been automatic, he would never have had one, though he was punctual, faithful, honest, quick and accurate. Even the other ticket-sellers still called him Citizen Skot.

He had never budged from his cozy era—even though, as an employee, he was entitled to take any tour he wished, on his semi-annual vacation, at no cost to him beyond the planetary sales tax—nor had he ever left his native city, let alone his native planet. He was too shy even to realize he was lonely.

This morning there was the usual rush. Staggered vacations meant that any time of the year was the busy season for TTT. Skillfully Mikel Skot arranged tours and calculated rates.

"Two weeks in Rome, 45 B.C.? That will be creds 850, Citizen. You get your costume and equipment in Room 104, right off the Teleport. Yes, I'm sure they'll have a Latin language-transformer you can hire." "England in 1600, one month, reservation in the name of Chas Rusl. Yes, I have it right here. That will be creds 500, please." "You mean you want a ticket for here in Los, for a week six years ago in February? Why, yes, it's a little unusual, but—oh, certainly, I understand—a second honeymoon. Congrats, Citizen—not many couples stay together that long! Just a min, while I look up the rate for two."

The queue seemed endless, and crowds of travelers who already had their tickets were pushing their way through the doors back of the ticket-office to the Teleport itself, together with the friends who were seeing them off. If Mikel had had a moment to spare, which he hadn't, he might have wondered, as so often before, at the numbers of people everybody except himself seemed to know.

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