Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(104)

“Well, look at you.” She smirked as she dumped her pack on the ground and approached the fire. “All you need is an apron and we’ll be ready to play house.”

As usual, her twenty-first-century quips went right over his head as he met her comedic genius with a deadpan stare. “I have food. The rations I found out of your daily pack, and I was able to capture the protein—”

“Uh-uh.” She held her hands up. “I don’t want to know if I’m eating a rodent. I’m just going to pretend it’s all chicken.” She looked behind him. “Where did you park the collie? I thought we could just camp in there tonight.”

“There’s not enough level ground to park it. I sent it down the mountain.” He paused. “Would you like me to call it up?”

Elise studied the lone tent on the ground and then James, a wicked smile growing on her face. “I guess we can shack up.” She sat next to him and powered off her atmos. She bent forward and inhaled over the pot. “Smells good.”

The biting wind immediately soaked through her clothing and into her bones. She shivered and leaned into him. His body stiffened as she huddled close, and she felt his unsure hands drape around her shoulders. It was almost cute, but really, she was getting tired of having to do all the work.

“Do you think you will be ready to leave at first light?” he asked. “I don’t like being exposed like this. There are still people looking for us.”

“We haven’t heard from your ChronoCom folks since we joined with the tribe. They could have given up already.”

“They won’t stop looking for us, ever.” James paused. “Listen, Elise, there’s something you need to know. There’s more to what happened on Nutris than what I’ve told you.”

Elise felt his hands shake and pulled away from his shoulder. He avoided her gaze and stared intently at a small rock at his feet. His usual stoic facade was cracking as she saw anguish twist his face.

“What is it, James?” she asked.

He exhaled. “I found out who was responsible for the Nutris Platform’s destruction. It was a megacorporation from the present named Valta. ChronoCom was complicit in the disaster as well.”

The words didn’t register in her mind at first. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, responsible?”

“Valta arranged to have Nutris destroyed so they could obtain the technology on the platform. ChronoCom carried out the job.”

“You?” she gasped.

“No,” he pleaded. “It was another chronman. I had nothing to do with them planting the explosive. I was only sent back for the retrieval.”

“You told me that it was a natural disaster! Now you’re saying it’s your people who did it?”

“I didn’t find out about the sabotage until afterward,” he said.

Something about that sentence niggled at Elise. “Wait, when did you find out about this?”

He hesitated again. “I won’t lie to you. I found out that night you told the Elfreth you were from the past. I was waiting for a good time to tell you.”

A hundred images of her friends on Nutris ran through her head. Thinking they died in an accident was vastly different from knowing they were murdered. Murdered by people in this very time she was trying to save. By James’s former colleagues, in fact.

Elise didn’t know what to think. She did know she had to decide whether she could trust him. If she did, then she had to believe that he had nothing to do with Nutris’s sabotage. If she didn’t believe him, then this should be the last time she ever saw him again. She could send him away from the tribe then. He would do so if told. Maybe that was for the best. But she already knew her answer.

Elise clutched his hands. “You promise me you had nothing to do with it?”

“I swear it upon my sister and mother,” he replied in a whisper.

“You promise me you’ll find whoever is responsible and make them pay?”

“I’ll give you that justice. I didn’t…”

“Good, now hush. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Stoke the fire, will you? It’s getting cold out here.”

For the rest of the night, neither said much. Mostly, they both stared at the fire. Elise’s mind raced as she clung to the memories of her past life, of friends and places that she would never see again. She couldn’t help but compare it with the world she now lived in, and think about how much she had lost.

To be honest, she surprised herself. The first few days she was here, she didn’t think she would last. After all, she had lost everything and was now trapped in what was essentially a completely foreign world. Yet, here she was, still trying to be that scientist and still trying to do good.

She looked up at James sitting just a meter away. She owed it all to him. Though he wasn’t aware of it, she knew how much he had sacrificed for her. Qawol and Grace had told her not so much about his past, but what his people were. She’d had to go to them because James wouldn’t volunteer any information.

Once she realized what he had given up, she was touched. Grateful as well, but more touched, because in the end, she knew where his feelings came from. Sure, he was awful at showing his emotions, but that’s just the way he was.

Elise moved close to him and nestled into the crook of his arm. “It’s cold.”