Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(72)

Kuo looked disapproving as she walked to the map and studied it. She spoke with her back still to him. “Your resources seem to be stretched quite thin.”

“We use what we can, Securitate, and he is only one fugitive, after all.”

“Report to the director that you will require three times your current allocation. If you have insufficient numbers, I will be happy to provide Valta forces.”

Levin kept his face neutral. Like the abyss he was going to let her take over his operations like this. “I’ll see what numbers we can spare.”

She pointed to four of the regions that Levin had circled. “These are the high-probability zones on the continent. I see they are all rural.”

He nodded. “Every remaining major city has a heavy state presence. His best bet to avoid discovery would be in the wastelands and the scattered settlements throughout these areas.”

“The two fugitives, James and the scientist, they have rad bands?”

Levin nodded. “Possibly. He ransacked the armory before he made his escape.”

Kuo made a slow circle around the table. “Good. What if we were to filter all high-population zones with trace grayon gas? Valta uses it to trace pirate ship movements in mining operations regularly.”

Levin frowned. “Grayon gas is highly radioactive. That would kill off every living person for several kilometers. There could be thousands of wastelanders there.”

Kuo turned to him with a perplexed look on her face. “And?”





TWENTY-SEVEN

TRIBAL LIFE

Sammuia appeared in their tent once again just as the sun was rising. This time, he had company with him. A girl, slightly taller, but with his same face, peeked at Elise over his shoulder while he nudged Elise’s shoulder.

“Elder Elise,” he whispered in her ear. “The sun is up.”

James, sleeping on the far side of the tent, bolted out of bed, his eyes shifting back and forth to the two children in the tent. Sammuia yelped in terror. Whatever hopes Elise had for waking up peacefully were ruined by the cries of not one but two children literally climbing over her to get as far away from James as possible.

She gave him a dirty look and pulled Sammuia in for an embrace. “There, there,” she soothed. “The big bad monster’s only being a jerk.”

James looked at the young boy, and then at the flap through which the girl had run for cover, and yawned. “These people obviously have no concept of privacy.”

“Is there something you need, Sammuia?” Elise said, turning the boy’s head so that he was no longer staring petrified at James. “And who did you bring with you?”

“This is my sister Rima,” Sammuia said, puffing out his chest and pulling her back in the tent. “She wanted to meet you.”

“Hello, Elder,” Rima said, eyes averted and toe digging into the dirt. She held out a single flower.

Elise accepted it and held the girl’s hands. “Thank you, dear.”

Sammuia tapped her on the shoulder. “Elder Elise, Oldest Qawol would like you to gather with the tower workers.”

Sammuia nodded, and then clung to Elise again when James got out of bed. Elise wondered what had happened between the Elfreth and his people for them to be so terrified of him. Even the food he brought them earned him only temporary goodwill. Would they ever learn to trust him?

James scowled. “They’re trying to make you one of them.”

There was a hint of anger in his voice; Elise wondered why. Did the Elfreth do something to upset him? Why was there so much animosity between them? She had to remind herself that she was a visitor here to this world and there was much she didn’t understand. After all, a lot had changed in four hundred years. She looked down at the dust-covered ground, complete with vines and weeds crawling in between what looked like chunks of cracked concrete. Their tent was on what used to be a street.

“Damn straight, a lot changed,” she muttered. She stood up and stretched, rising to her tiptoes and feeling her aching joints pop. She was used to surviving in the wilderness back home; she wasn’t the lab rat sort of biologist, after all, but what she was going through right now was a whole new level of discomfort.

“Come on, James the time-traveling liar,” she said, “we ate their food and slept in their homes. The least we can do is work for it.”

Sammuia and Rima, each one holding one of her hands, led them to where the Elfreth had gathered in the communal field. Franwil, Qawol’s wife, was in charge and split everyone up into smaller groups. James made a small ruckus when Elise was separated from him, but finally relented when she pinched him on the arm and told him to mind his manners.

“I’m only going to be planting crops on that rooftop,” she whispered fiercely in his ear. “If something happens, I’ll think to you through the comm band and you can come all knight-in-shining-armor at me. But for Gaia’s sake, stop being so petulant. You’re scaring people.”

James kept that scowl on his face until the very last moment, when his group led him away to help reinforce a dam that kept the rising tides from overflowing into their camp. Elise watched as he looked back no less than three times as he disappeared over the hill, looking like a little boy being forced to go to school.

“Be safe,” he thought to her.

“I’m hoeing crops. What could go wrong?”