Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(65)
“The first time,” she said, sticking a finger up, “I had no choice. The second time, you just took off on me. That’s twice now you decide to just take off on a whim and leave me sitting around like a dutiful housewife waiting for you to come home,” she said.
“What’s a housewife?” he asked.
“Never mind.”
“Elise,” he knelt in front of her, “you don’t know how dangerous it is in this time. By all accounts, these people could have been cannibals. You could have been eaten, or worse.”
“I fail to see many more scenarios that could be worse than being someone’s dinner.”
James held his tongue. He wasn’t used to people disobeying him, be it out of fear or respect. He was a chronman, after all. Elise didn’t care that he was a chronman; she didn’t know what one was. She treated him like she would anyone else. James had to admit, he liked that about her. On the other hand, though, he wouldn’t mind striking a little fear in her, so she’d damn listen to him once in a while.
“You need to stop acting like a child!” he snapped.
“Stop treating me like one, then,” she snapped back, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. The top of her head almost reached his chin. “And watch your tone, mister. I don’t know how you treat other people here in the future, but you don’t get to talk to me like that.”
“What?” He was taken aback. His plan to strike fear in her wasn’t working.
“I mean it. Don’t do that again.”
“I’m sorry,” James said finally. “I didn’t mean to be rough, but these wasteland tribes can be dangerous.” They weren’t going to solve this today, and much as he wished, it wasn’t like he could order her into submission. “What were you doing out there, anyway?”
“Was bored, mostly,” she admitted. “Starving too. And then I got curious about the sewer you call an ocean.”
He shrugged. “What about it? It’s been like that as long as I’ve been alive.”
“The ocean is not supposed to be brown.”
“Who cares what color it’s supposed to be?” James had to make her realize how dangerous things were in the present. Out here in the wastelands, there were hundreds, thousands of things that could kill her. Many of these savages were reputed to be cannibals, and that was probably one of the most humane ways she could have died.
They might have been fortunate to come across what seemed like a friendly tribe, but he was still wary of them. They obviously didn’t trust him either. If it hadn’t been for Elise and that savage boy she had rescued, James would have spilled all their blood by now. He still might. He didn’t trust their motives.
A chronman’s bands were valuable commodities on the black market, after all, and these savages had already shown themselves to have somewhat advanced weaponry at their disposal. They could be tech thieves, for all he knew, just waiting for him to lower his guard so they could take him by surprise. James unconsciously balled his hands into fists.
The boy with the broken leg, Sammuia, popped his head into the tent, throwing Elise a shy smile as he limped awkwardly on the splint. He gave James a wide berth. “Deenn. Foue,” he said.
Elise looked confused.
“He said dinner,” said James.
“How did you understand that?” she asked.
“Your…” James smacked his forehead. “Your comm band can translate nearly all spoken languages. Turn it on and think at it to activate global translation.”
Elise’s jaws dropped as she shook the bands on her wrist at him. “You mean all along I had a frigging universal translator here and you forgot to tell me?”
“I was going to get to it eventually. I didn’t realize you were going to go live among the savages as soon as I wasn’t looking.”
“It would have been nice to know about this yesterday! I spent an entire day playing charades with these people. And while we’re at it, don’t call them savages. They’re people just like you and me.”
A few minutes later, with the comm band on and translating like it was supposed to, the two joined the rest of the natives for dinner in a wide open field surrounded by six skyscrapers arranged in a circle. Near the tops of the roofs was a circular bridge that connected all of them together. The six buildings, known as the Farming Towers, formed an easily defensible perimeter for the Elfreth to entrench themselves in.
The field in the center among the towers looked worn; this tribe must have lived here for a while. A large fire burned in a pit in the center. It was surrounded by several increasingly larger circles of benches. Small children sat in bunches along the ground, some playing, some being nursed by their mothers. On two sides of the field, guards kept watch on top of two broken columns.
James took a quick count. There were maybe two hundred of these Elfreth here; this must be one of the larger wasteland tribes surviving in the region. Most of them were just ragtag settlements of a couple dozen malnourished people. The Elfreth actually seemed healthy.
Elise was right about one thing: they weren’t total savages. The field among the six large buildings was easy to defend. They had built makeshift barricades that could be easily moved to fill in the spaces between the buildings. Their food stores and supplies were stacked and organized near the entrances of the buildings. There was even a land-bound vehicle at the far end. James wondered if it worked.