Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(81)
Kuo turned to Levin. “Due to the failed condition of the planetary surveillance network here on Earth, Valta is generously allocating a cast net system for the duration of your search. Unfortunately, these nets cannot detect your collies. However, they will be more than sufficient to detect chrono jump signatures as well as objects with visual parameters.” She pointed at the dots.” I will leave it up to you to complete setup of the outpost for this region.” She paused. “There will be some necessary integration of your handler operations in order to process the data from the cast net. I assume this won’t be an issue?”
Of course. First she takes his command. Now, she takes control of their network. Valta was sinking one claw at a time into the agency, and soon, ChronoCom wouldn’t be anything other than a puppet of the megacorporation. Levin wondered how Young and the rest of the leadership could tolerate this. The agency was neither regulated nor profit-driven for a reason: so that something so powerful could not be abused. Yet Levin was slowly seeing his beloved agency lose its autonomy.
“I am sure this will be very useful,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Valta just seeks the common good,” Kuo said with a straight face. “We need to catch this fugitive and bring him to justice, and Valta desires to apprehend that anomaly for our purposes. Inform your men. I want this base fully functioning within four hours. In the meantime, I’m taking the second Hephaestus to set up the outpost in southern Africa. We’ll flush him out of his hole soon enough.” She stopped at the bottom of the ramp and looked back up at Levin. “Inform the entire village that their continuing supply of our generosity depends on their cooperation. And you are ordered to shoot any of these savages if they cause any problems.”
Then she turned and disappeared into the darkness.
THIRTY-ONE
DIRECTIVE
An argument broke out the next day between a group of younger Elfreth and the Old Ones. The evening began innocently enough. Food preparation was running late, so several of the Elfreth had started singing stories, passed down by word of mouth for generations, around the bonfire to pass the time. Their songs didn’t fully translate through the comm bands, but for the most part, James was able to understand the history of these people and how they came to the Farming Towers here in Boston.
This particular tribe could trace their lineage back from the city of Philadelphia, to the time when the last of the city-states on the eastern seaboard collapsed during the Core Conflicts. The Elfreth received their name from the street they called home until they were driven away by a rival tribe from the south known as the Terrible Eagles. For years, they wandered through the Appalachians until a particularly cold winter pushed them to seek shelter on the Mist Isle, formerly known as Manhattan. Additional conflict with the islanders there finally drove them northeast to Boston a little over a hundred years ago.
The atmosphere was merry until talks moved to the upcoming winter. As expected, the Old Ones of the Elfreth worried that even with the unexpected boon of foodstuffs—they acknowledged James with a nod—the winter would still bring many lean months. It had always been this way, every year seeming a bit more difficult than the previous one. The tribe had never been this large. Many felt that it was time again to move.
The conversation revealed two camps, one arguing to stay in the city and the other urging the group to head northwest for what they believed were more fertile lands. The arguments became more heated when the group of the younger Elfreth banded together and declared their intent to leave, saying that they would no longer be weighed down by so many elderly and useless young. They even went as far as going back to the storeroom and gathering supplies for their trip.
The argument looked like it might descend into violence when the small group of ten, laden with equipment and sacks of food from the storage room in one of the Farming Towers, tried to leave the communal field. Qawol walked in front of their leader and blocked their path. Everyone knew that if something happened to Qawol, blood would be shed.
“Out of the way, Oldest,” the ringleader—James recognized Chawr, the young man who had given him the tar booze—growled. “Even you say there are too many mouths to feed. We will relieve you the burden of ours.”
Qawol stared at the ringleader’s eyes, then he stepped to the side. “If you wish to leave, young Chawr, so be it. I cannot stop you. However, you cannot take what are the people’s supplies.”
“These aren’t their supplies,” Chawr said. “This is the tribe’s and we were all part of it. You see my brothers and sisters behind me? We’re the ones who lifted the Elfreth on our shoulders. We’re the ones who hunt and gather and protect the young. We bled the blood. We aren’t stealing this. We’re owed this.”
An angry muttering erupted behind Qawol as the rest of the Elfreth took offense. The Oldest looked back at them and the sounds immediately died. He turned back to Chawr. “The Elfreth will stay. The land here has been good to us. We will survive as we always have. Together, we are strong. Alone, we die.”
“The old and weak saps too much from the strong and there are many old and weak in this tribe,” Chawr replied.
James looked at the meager supplies they were fighting over: four satchels’ worth of dried meats, half a dozen baskets of vegetables, two stacks of kindling, five power packs, two rifles, three crossbows, and what looked like an orbital radio.