Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(94)
“And I say you walk a moral gray line, even if it is for a good cause. There’s an old French saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
“I thought the TIs were absolutists when it came to the morality of technology.”
“Only fools and sociopaths are absolutists, pet.”
James hesitated as he considered his next question. It was something he feared asking, but knew he couldn’t talk to Elise about it. He wanted her to hold on to her newfound hope. She needed her optimism far too much for him to bring it up. He knew Grace would have no such necessity.
“I have to ask: what do you think about Elise’s research, about the odds of a cure actually working?”
There was a long pause before Grace spoke. “She’s on the right track; the theories are sound. The research from her time period did indicate that the scientists were very close to a working prototype.”
“So it’ll work? You two can cure the entire planet?”
“Not a chance in space, at least not with what we have right now.”
“I … I…” James was speechless. “Why not?”
“Because, pet,” she spoke as if speaking to a child, “it’s a big problem that requires a big solution. We’re two scientists, an alcoholic—don’t deny it, James—and a mud-wallowing tribe in the middle of a dystopian wasteland. And I thought my odds were bad during my time.”
“So why did you sign on for this? Why are you helping at all if you think it’s impossible?”
“I didn’t say it was impossible, pet,” she said, “it’s a slim chance, but at least there is a chance. That, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m already living on borrowed time. I was supposed to die on the High Marker, remember? Mortality changes one’s perspectives and I feel that I owe mankind a better Grace Priestly than I’ve given them. Just because I’m one of the greatest humans to ever have lived doesn’t mean I left that footprint. Looking back, all I did was lead the Technology Isolationists to a catastrophic war. I would like my legacy to be something more.”
“I see. Thanks for the candor, High Scion.”
“For the last time, call me Grace.”
Fifty-six hours later, flying into the atmosphere under the cover of an Arctic storm and going low over the water to avoid detection, James made it to the collie parking grounds with his latest haul in tow.
Chawr and his crew leaped into action as James walked out of the collie. They were all still inexperienced and prone to mistakes, but they were improving. He still double-checked all their work, but they were dedicated and would become competent eventually. Eventually. They’d almost blown up the ship only twice.
Elise, as usual, called him on his comm band as soon as she found out he had returned. “You got the stuff for Grace?” she sounded eager with anticipation.
“I got you a present.” He couldn’t help but smile. Something about hearing the joy in her voice was infectious.
“I never thought I’d be so happy about an elevator,” she said. “No more seventy flights four to five times a day.”
James unloaded the materials out of the netherstore and ordered runners to carry them to Farming Tower One. “The parts are on their way up now. See you at dinner?”
“Afraid we can’t, James. Too busy up here. Besides, I want to get Grace cracking on the lift right away. Stop on up when you have a chance.”
“Will do,” he said. “We can go over the next present you want.”
James surveyed the hangar, which was nothing more than a half-buried parking garage, and waited until Chawr and his crew had attached the collie to the generator, which was powered by batteries charged by dozens of solar panels he had obtained through trade with settlements all over the world. Once a battery was charged, Chawr’s crew would run down and move the energy to the generator. It was incredibly inefficient and usually took four to five days, depending on the weather, to charge the collie fully for a long voyage. James didn’t know what in the black abyss they were going to do once winter came.
Some of the very long trips, like the one James took to pick up Grace and the more recent one to Saturn, required extended power. He had bartered for batteries at Earth’s black market in Bangkok. The cost to buy enough power to make it all the way back to the heliopause was most of the extra chronman bands he had stolen from Earth Central, including the two precious exo bands he had obtained from storage as backup. Now, relying mostly on solar panels, trips off-planet were probably no longer possible. He perhaps had enough levels in the extended power sources to make a round-trip to Mars or Venus, and then the collie would be Earthbound until he found another power source.
Hopefully, these new advanced TI items—the magnetic siphoner and gravity converter, according to Grace—would help solve some of their energy needs. The list of her demands had been long and he had given up sifting through her requests to see if each was necessary. He didn’t pretend to know her thoughts. Two things became abundantly clear to him after the first two days of giving her the breakdown of their situation: Grace knew exactly what was going on and what had to be done, and some of her ideas were so advanced and forward-thinking that he would have no chance of understanding them.
James nodded his approval as Chawr’s guys hooked Collie up and went through the diagnostics, though he stayed around and watched them go through the maintenance steps. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them; it was just that they hadn’t earned his confidence yet. His new engineering crew were quick learners, but tended to be sloppy when they didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing. That would come with experience. For now, it was his responsibility to teach them without blowing his collie up in the process.