Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(17)
This was all Time Law 101. Smitt and James had attended the Academy together. Smitt had failed to make the jump to full-tiered status, and like many who washed out of training, he stayed on to become a handler, while James had become a chronman.
Every chronman at one point thought about changing the past. The allure of rewriting what had already happened was so great that ChronoCom created a separate division, the auditors, just to guard against chronmen making that mistake.
James lifted his head and stared blurry-eyed at Smitt. “So, let’s have our stupid meeting. Any ripples from my Nazi foray?”
Smitt shook his head. “A few small ones. One of the guards that died actually survived the war and had a son in 1952. However, the family line died by 1961 in a boating accident. The time line effectively healed by 1978.”
“Great, prevented a kid from being born. Same as killing him,” James muttered, throwing another glass of whiskey back. This time, instead of putting the glass down on the counter, it slipped out of his fingers and shattered on the floor. The bartender shook his head and signaled to Smitt by pointing at the exit.
James stood up abruptly and nearly fell, knocking his stool over. He pointed back at the bartender and raged, “I leave whenever the abyss I please, you f*cking ruck.”
“That’s our cue.” Smitt wrapped his arms around James’s shoulder and led him out of the bar. “Let’s get you to bed. We’ll be at Central for a few months; try not to pick too many fights with the locals. They could make life uncomfortable for us.”
A few minutes later, an exhausted James lay in bed squinting at Smitt leaving the room. He was so drunk he couldn’t see straight. He saw a silhouette of a nine-year-old girl standing by the door.
“Sasha,” he called out, reaching for her.
The figure turned around and spoke in a familiar voice. “Sorry, James, what did you say?”
“I didn’t mean to let you go. I tried to hold on to you,” James mumbled, before collapsing back into bed. “I’m sorry.”
Then darkness swept over him.
*
James woke up in a storage container filled with racks of dehydrated provisions. It took him a moment to remember why this placed looked familiar. Grace Priestly. This was the container he had stowed away on to sneak aboard the High Marker. He had first jumped back into 2212 on Eris hours before the ship had taken off on its ill-fated journey toward Earth. He had hidden in here as the supplies for the ship were being loaded. Was he on the High Marker or on Eris? He couldn’t tell.
James felt along the ridged edge of the container until he found the hatch to the opening. He put his ear to the wall and listened. Dead silence. He was about to pull the lever down when he noticed his uncovered arms. His bands were gone!
James patted both arms where the dozen bands should have been. He was completely naked! How could this have happened? For the first time in years, James felt panic rise up his throat. Without them, he was just a regular human, one who could be shot or burned or … James stared at the latch on the container panel. He didn’t have his atmos. If he was in a zero-atmospheric environment, opening the hatch would kill him in seconds. A dozen scenarios ran through his head. He sat back down in the container. What was he doing here anyway?
He couldn’t remember.
As if on cue, the lever turned and the hatch opened with a loud hollow echo. He watched warily as someone bent down and looked at him with an amused expression on her face.
“Are you staying in there forever, pet?” Grace Priestly asked.
James tilted his head at her. Somehow, the fact that she was standing there giving him that patronizing smile didn’t bother him in the slightest. She looked good for a ninety-three-year-old woman. Especially for one who was dead. She offered him a hand and pulled him up with much more strength than her thin frame should have possessed. He looked around the familiar cavernous room. He was standing in Bay 6 of the High Marker, the cargo hold in which he had originally stowed.
What was he doing here?
“Are you coming, pet?” Grace stood at the door, looking impatient. Women like her did not expect to be kept waiting.
Dutifully, James followed, letting Grace drape herself on his arm, though her demeanor allowed no mistaking who belonged to whom. The hallways of the High Marker were the same brightly lit cold corridors that he remembered, but now the ship was peaceful. Quiet, eerily so. James looked behind him. The hallways were deserted. Even the humming sound of the Tech Isolationists’ famed Titan engine was missing.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We’re where you want to be,” she said.
“I don’t want to be here.”
Grace looked amused. “You only think that.”
She led him to the control room of the ship, where the nothingness of space outside the heliosphere of the solar system awaited them on the display. Only a few specks of light pierced the black emptiness.
She turned to him. “We’re past the point of no return. What are you going to do about it?”
There was a pause as James glanced up at the screen and then back to her. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Grace smiled and repeated herself: “You only think that.”
She took his hand and led him to the exit. He stepped off the command deck and into the Amber Room. Inside, the young Nazi soldier was staring up at the intricate gold and amber carvings on the wall. The room itself looked different. Gone were the cakes of dust that had smothered the luster, as if someone had polished the entire room to a bright sheen. The walls practically glowed like the sun, giving the room a dream-like flare.