Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(7)
“Collie’s responding sluggishly. Might need you to work through some of these controls,” Smitt said, static covering much of his words.
“Switching to manual.”
He took control of the ship and began to guide her gently through the debris field. The collie had already slowed to a crawl as they neared Neptune. The junk field grew more congested the closer he got to the planet. James was, at best, a passable pilot, and maneuvering through such a dangerous section of space pushed his skills to their limits. Without Smitt’s help, there was no way he could have navigated Collie through this hazard zone.
An exhausting seven hours later, the collie finally exited the Ship Jungle, little worse for the wear, other than a few scrapes and minor collisions. It’d be another few days before he reached the ChronoCom outpost at Himalia Station. Exhausted, James put the ship back on auto, lay down on the rusty metal bunk in the back, and activated his cryo band. Within seconds, he felt its effects as sleep swept over him. He needed the rest. Time travel was a wearying affair and a strain on the mind. Hopefully, his brain would be too exhausted to dream; James doubted the musings of his unconscious mind would be pleasant.
THREE
HIMALIA STATION
Just as James was drifting off, someone shook him awake. On reflex, he powered on his exo band, expanded his field, and lashed out. The powerful exo-kinetic system—the military-industrial complex being one of the few industries still innovating—practically made him a god whenever he ventured back in time. The yellow glow of the exo sparked to life, expanding outward and slamming the intruder into the interior wall of the collie. A kinetic coil sprouted from it and wrapped around the man’s waist. It squeezed.
“Whoa!” the dock engineer gasped and threw his arms up. “Easy there, Chronman. You’re among friendlies.”
It took James a few moments to realize where he was. He froze, glancing in both directions before dissolving the kinetic coil. He had been dreaming when this poor soul had tried to wake him. Fortunately, the dream had already faded from memory, though it wasn’t hard for James to guess what it was about. He only had nightmares these days.
He glanced at the terrified engineer. The man was holding his breath, waiting for James to say something. The fool should know better than to wake him so soon after his return from a salvage. Strangely, James was ambivalent about almost killing the engineer. Not that he took pleasure in harming others, but if the accident had happened, would it matter? He wasn’t sure if he’d feel anything either way.
James sat up on his bench and shook his head. “What the abyss do you think you’re doing waking a chronman up that way?”
“I’m … I’m sorry,” the engineer said. “We left you alone in here for four hours. Your handler sent word to wake you and retrieve the marks from your job. Shipment to Earth goes out in a cycle. I need to bag it.” His eyes moved down to look at the netherstore band around James’s wrist.
James held out his left arm to the engineer.
“Uh, Chronman?” The engineer pointed at the yellow shielding around his body. “You’re still on.”
James looked down and then back at the hull of the ship. Finally, he powered down his exo and atmos bands, watching the fields waver before flickering off. He felt a rush of stale air and inhaled the heavy odor of oil and metal. The station’s filtration generators were on half power again. James flipped the netherstore container’s link to the engineer. “Have at it. Two items. Register to S-yi and C-san.”
When the transfer was completed, the engineer scurried out of the collie as fast as he could. Chronmen were the second-highest operatives in ChronoCom and also the most feared by the rucks—civilians—for good reason. It took a special sort of person to be a chronman, and it wasn’t the good kind of special.
A prerequisite to becoming a chronman was five years of grueling training at the ChronoCom Academy on Tethys. Officially known as time operatives, chronmen had to be intelligent, quick to adapt to changing situations, and be good actors. They also must have short memories of their past assignments.
Good chronmen also shared negative traits. They tended to be antisocial, short-tempered, excessively violent, and borderline suicidal. Needless to say, the life expectancy for people like James was short.
Still, in spite of all their psychological problems and eccentricities, chronmen were considered critical to maintaining the power supply for all of humanity, so nearly everything they did was tolerated. Some even argued that having eccentricities made good chronmen, rather than the job causing such behaviors.
James walked down the ramp of the collie and passed through the crowded docking hangar. Himalia Station was a launching point for mining operations to Jupiter as well as one of the only ChronoCom offices this far out in the solar system. Right now, mining operations were quiet while salvaging operations were in full swing.
James paused as a yellow collie—the Ramhurst—one of the newer ships, still sporting its paint job, came in hot on its landing and nearly took out half an engineering crew. Not having seen Palia in several months, he waited and watched as several engineers scrambled to the ship and pried the door open. A few seconds later, they floated Palia out on a gurney and sped off.
James grabbed Kia, Palia’s handler, as she ran by. “What happened to her?”
Kia shook free. “Curellan Mining uprising. She got caught during the retrieval. Barely got her back. Sorry, James; talk later.” She sped off.