Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(79)

It was the middle of the night by the time Elise popped her head into their tent. She had counted at least twenty-seven taps of the nightstick, which meant she had only a few more hours to sleep. Tomorrow was going to suck. Knowing how much of a light sleeper James was, she tiptoed around him toward her side of the tent.

James, who was asleep in his cot nearby, rolled over and suddenly thrashed out, startling the hell out of her. He let out a low guttural moan and both his arms shot up into the air as if he were pushing something away. His head pivoted left and right violently as another groan, painful and heartbreaking, escaped his lips. His hands clenched and unclenched as they drew circles in the air.

Elise realized then that he wasn’t pushing something away, he was clutching for it. Cries of “no!” rang in the tent as he thrashed even harder. Afraid that he would wake the rest of the tribe, and worried that they might not understand what was happening to him—half of the Old Ones still wanted to send him away—she tried to wrap her arms around him and hold him down, shushing into his ear. He was terrifyingly strong, and for a second, Elise feared for her safety.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, over and over again.

Eventually, the cries softened and fell into mumbled whispers. He seemed to be apologizing to people named Grace and “Nazi boy.” Then he let loose a stream of names, thirty long, saying that he was sorry over and over again. Elise held on to him, trying to keep him still. Eventually, whatever was happening in his dream passed and his heart rate steadied.

The worst seemed to have passed, but Elise didn’t move. Maybe her being so close comforted him, and to be honest, his closeness did the same for her. For the rest of the night, for the last thirteen nightstick bangs until sunup call, she stayed near him, her arms draped around his shoulders. And for the second time in so many weeks, Elise slept well.





THIRTY

CASTING THE NET

The small armada of transports landed one by one in the bombed-out basin of Mt. Fuji on what remained of the Japanese islands. This particular region had been hit hard by the rising tides and earthquakes over the centuries. Tokyo, its last remaining city, had sunk into the sea in 2242. Now, only the land mass around Fuji was stable enough for use, and it was here that whatever remained of this island’s population lived.

The armada—nine collies and two Hephaestus-class transports—was all Levin could requisition from ChronoCom. To be honest, he was surprised he even got those. Valta must have had a hand in making sure his team got the additional equipment. Hephaestus-class transports weren’t regulars in the agency’s fleet. They were massive floating fortresses, large, unwieldy, and far too energy-inefficient for any of their operations. The advanced scanners being leveraged to track down James weren’t standard either, but courtesy of Kuo, standing a few meters away on the other side of the Hephaestus bridge.

Levin glanced her way. He would trade all this advanced crap in a heartbeat just to be rid of her. The past few weeks with the Valta lapdog shadowing his every command had been a complete nightmare. She had dropped the pretense of being an observer immediately after Sourn’s transport had left Earth, and they had butted heads ever since.

But that wasn’t what bothered him about her. He could handle disruptive authority. No auditor achieved his link without having to step over dozens of others, be they chronmen, administrators, other auditors, or even directors. Everyone understood the game to climb up the chain. At the end of the day, it was about defeating your allies almost as much as upholding the agency’s laws. There were limits, however.

Securitate Kuo took this venture to an entirely new level. The woman obviously did not know what an observational role meant. With the exception of maybe James, Levin had never wanted to kill anyone so badly in his life. And at least with James, there was a decade of animosity built up. With Kuo, it had taken less than a week of having to deal with her arrogant prejudice before he wanted to strangle the life out of her. Her views on rucks and Earthlings in general, while typical of many spaceborn from the Gas Giant moons, were more extreme than most. Even now, as the two walked down the ramp of the transport to the waiting village nestled in the caldera of the Fuji mountaintop, he worried about what she would do next.

The villagers, descendants of an old Japanese space dock military facility, had lived in relative isolation for the past two hundred years. ChronoCom was aware of their existence, having used their village as a base of operations for the nearby chrono-resource-rich region of Tokyo, and had a productive, if not sometimes tense, relationship with these xenophobic people. Levin himself had run several operations out of here in his younger days as a chronman.

As long as the agency respected their requests, the sides usually had an equitable relationship. The only requests the small settlement of a thousand souls had were for the agency to operate in the southeastern corner of the village, and to have no more than two of their people walking among the villagers at all times without permission from their council.

Levin was careful to walk ahead of her as they came down the ramp of the lead Hephaestus transport. “Greetings, Venerated One,” he said formally, bowing low as was the custom in these parts. “We are grateful for your generosity, and offer gifts to repay your kindness.”

The old man, flanked by a dozen others, returned the bow. “We welcome our friends to our house.” He gestured to the southeast corner of the caldera. “May our guests find their accommodations worthy.”