Time Siege (41 page)

Elise knelt down and ran her hands through his hair, pushing it off of his face. “Please go,” she said softly. “We'll work this through. I promise.”

James nodded numbly. She stood him up and gave him a soft squeeze on the arm, and then she took a step back and signaled to a group of guardians standing off to the side. Four pairs of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and arms, though gently. All of them looked unsure and frightened. He had trained them and led all of them into battle before. Instead of struggling, he allowed them to lead him away, only glancing back at Elise when he heard her sob.

The parade back up the floors to his residence was shameful. Word of his arrest had spread quickly and the people, Flatirons and Elfreth alike, came to watch the spectacle. The only thing that he could see was Elise's face at that one moment he broke her heart. That look of disappointment tore him apart. It was the same look many of the Elfreth wore as he passed by them. He was surprised that their opinions mattered to him. They did, and his attempt at a proud facade broke. He hung his head and stared at the ground.

They reached his residence, and one of the guardians held the door open for him. They stood around and tried to figure out what to do next. The Elfreth had never needed a jail before.

“I'm sorry, Elder,” Poll, one of the guardians, stammered. “Oldest Elise…”

James pulled out his knife from his boot and handed it to him. “Next time, guys, check a prisoner for weapons and confiscate them. Sweep the holding pen and then put two guards at the door.”

“Um, thanks, Elder,” Poll said.

“And stop being so damn polite to a prisoner.” James walked into the room and sat down in his desk chair. The door closed and he could hear the guardians chatting animatedly between them. He looked to the side and saw Smitt sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk. The two sat in silence for several minutes.

James finally decided to break the ice. “I've really messed up this time, haven't I, Smitt?”

Smitt nodded slowly. “You made a fool of the teacher's son for no reason other than the fact that he was a snot fluffing his feathers. He wasn't wrong to tell you to get off the barricade for drinking.”

James stared at his friend, tears brimming in his eyes. “I never gave you enough credit for how much you took care of me. You weren't supposed to die. You were safe with your stupid desk job. Why did you help me?”

Smitt sighed. “Trust me. I'm the first to agree that I wasn't supposed to die. In fact, I should be enjoying the good life on Europa with a pleasure girl to warm me up at night.”

“Why did you help me, damn you!”

“Because you're my friend, and that is what we've always done for each other.”

“You should have just got pissed at me for knocking you out and then never talked to me again.”

Smitt grinned. “And get stuck running Tier-5 runs with a bunch of fodders for the next five years? Nah, death is better.”

James buried his head in his hands. “What do you think will happen now? Will the Elfreth exile me?”

Smitt shook his head. “More of the Elfreth look up to you than you think. They also all know you have a problem. They'll get behind you.”

“What do I do?” James asked. “Tell me what to do next.”

“Well, for starters,” the ghost of his best friend said. “Let's finally address your drinking problem and apologizing to everyone. And I mean everyone. The list is going to be long.”

 

THIRTY-NINE

A
NOTHER
W
AY

There was bright yellow flash and Levin found himself floating in the depths of space in a small debris field where the old Lunar fuel depot used to orbit on the dark side of the moon. A few minutes earlier, he had witnessed the depot's destruction as a refueling accident cascaded a fire across the entire station. He had escaped with eight hundred liters of low-grade fuel and two tons of aluminum. Usually, this sort of jump wasn't worth a chronman's effort, but Grace and the Elfreth had a much lower bar than the agency.

Not for the first time, he felt a queasiness brewing in the pit of his stomach. This was the fourth jump in the past six days, the seventh jump since that disturbing encounter with Julia. Levin had had trouble sleeping ever since Madrid. He wasn't sure why, but the incident twisted him up inside, even though he knew he would have changed nothing if he had to do it all over again. For him, that was his benchmark for making the right decision: that with full hindsight, he would reach the exact same conclusion.

For some reason, thinking about Madrid angered him. His bitterness grew as he ran these inconsequential jobs. One after another, they sent him on errands to retrieve food, energy sources, clothing. What was the point? They were all stopgaps. What were they really accomplishing? All these jobs did was break more Time Laws and increase their risk of capture, either by ChronoCom during the jump or by the Co-op when they were sneaking under their blockade of the Mist Isle through that tunnel. The Co-op was bound to figure that out one of these days. Levin wasn't sure if Elise was actually getting anywhere with her supposed cure of Earth. It didn't seem like it, and if she wasn't, what was he doing out here? He reached the collie and signaled to Grace that he was coming in, making sure they had an atmos field up before entering. He passed the netherstore container link to her and, without saying another word, marched to the back room to lie down.

Grace appeared a few minutes later. She rapped the metal wall and took a seat next to him. “Clean job. Zero ripples.”

He kept his eyes closed and rolled over. To be honest, he wasn't sure what had come over him. The past few weeks. The Bastion. Julia's face. All the jumps. He had forgotten how difficult it was to experience all those last moments. All that tragedy to parse, the faces of the dead dancing in his head. It was a lot to process, and he had so little time to do it, considering how condensed his jump schedule was. All he knew right now was that he wanted to be left alone to stew.

Grace was having none of that. “You're going to roll over and pout on me? Since when did you start acting like the chronman? I expected as much from our dour friend, but you, Auditor?”

Levin took a deep breath and sat up. “Apologies, Mother of Time. The effects of all these jumps are weighing me down. We need to locate miasma soon.”

“James said he was working on it.”

“He keeps saying that, but he seems more interested in the bottle.”

“We've been trying to locate some for nearly a year. Your ChronoCom keeps it tightly locked up. I have one more jump scheduled before we head back to Earth. After that, I promise we'll take a little break.”

Levin sighed. “Let's hear it.”

Four jumps on a six-day trip was insane. It was also an unfortunate reality, given the resources they possessed. Each of these jaunts out to space used up scarce resources. They had to maximize every trip. It was hard on the salvager, but he knew Grace had planned and scheduled everything as meticulously as possible.

“This should be easy,” she said. “Year 2208. Juliano Bishop, a dear friend of mine from the Technology Isolationists. Fantastic logician and even better general. The man was always twenty steps ahead of our opposition. He actually died in 2210, but with the way my faction broke, I calculate the ripple will be quite minimal, especially since—”

Levin shook his head. “No. I won't do it.”

“—the last few years were actually quite tragic for…” Grace stopped. “Beg pardon?”

He stood up. “We've gone over this. I won't go back and retrieve a person. I've already bent enough Time Laws for this supposed greater good, but I'm not retrieving someone.”

“I don't make this decision lightly, Levin. We need him. The Elfreth need him.”

“I don't care. I'm running the salvages and I draw the line at another human.”

“If it's because it's two years before his death, I can work around that. There's an incident three months before the Battle of Charon that—”

“I won't do it!” he roared, slamming his fist on the wall. “In fact, I don't even want to jump at all anymore. What are we doing, Grace? I mean, really. What the abyss are we doing?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Most chronmen just resort to alcohol. But if you must know, we're fighting to give us a chance to cure the planet of the Earth Plague.”

“Is that really what we've been up to?” Levin stormed off into the cargo hold in the back. He kicked the door open and gestured at the small stockpile he had obtained from his last two jumps. He jabbed a finger at the three pitiful piles of scraps that ChronoCom would never have spent the resources salvaging. “This is how we're doing it? You think this is going to solve anything?” He flipped the top off one of the crates and pulled out several stacks of empty plastic containers holding even smaller containers inside. He picked up a pile of these worthless things and scattered them to the ground. “You send me back to the twenty-second century to a doomed supply transport to get boxes of plastic boxes. What the abyss is going on!”

They stood in the cargo hold in silence for several minutes. Finally, Grace trotted over to one of the spilled containers and picked it up. She pushed a little button in its side and watched as a lid folded over the top with a small sucking sound and the sides of the containers frosted over.

She tossed it to Levin. “Invented during the early days of the Famine's March that wiped out entire cities. World War Three had just ended, and every country was scarred by the conflict. Food production was at fifteen percent of prewar days. Do you know what kept mankind alive? This thing!” She picked up another container and tossed it at him. “These worthless pieces of plastic are not only airtight, they freeze their contents for months, are antibacterial, and utilize so little energy I can almost power them with my body heat. What do you think the Elfreth need right now living in the dank and dark permanent fog of New York?”

He hadn't realized what the boxes were. He bent down and began picking up the scattered containers. One by one, he placed the smallest into the one sized larger, and again until they were all neatly compartmentalized. He held the final, largest box in his hand and stared. His hands were still trembling.

Levin suddenly felt deeply ashamed and very foolish. He hadn't lost his temper like this since his early days at the Academy. He had been raised in the harsh and unforgiving tunnels of Oberon. He had been an undisciplined youth, wild and always fighting for stupid and prideful reasons. Finally, unable to control him and tired of paying his many fines, his father had sent him off to the ChronoCom Academy, either to straighten him out or to see him dead.

Even then, it took several years of bad mishaps, a few nearly getting him tossed from the Academy his first two years, before he settled down and became a semblance of a productive member of society. It took the combined effort of all in the Academy—his teachers, mentors, and fellow initiates—for him to get his head straight.

In the end, he suffered an unknown amount of beatings, punishments, and solitary confinements before he became hardened and disciplined enough to achieve the tier and eventually the chain. Once he did, though, he learned to appreciate the agency and the institution that was able to forge who he was from who he used to be. It was a monumental task, once thought impossible by those close to him.

“I'm sorry,” he said finally. “I'm just frustrated. I don't see what we're doing actually accomplishing anything.”

Grace put a hand on his arm. “We make do with what we have, Auditor. We're three minds, you two barbarians, and a group of primitive aborigines in a bunch of hovels trying to cure the entire planet. The cards are stacked against us. I know our odds are low.”

“What is the point?” he asked again, resigned, for the dozenth time. “We're hunted by the authorities, disrupting the chronostream, and risking innocent lives. For what?”

Grace Priestly chuckled. “Because that's what dead people do. Titus, myself, Elise, even James, to an extent. We're all living on borrowed time, determined to make one last difference to justify our continuing existence, even if it seems impossible. You, on the other hand, had a life. You were part of an institution that gave you purpose and provided a vehicle for you to make a difference. Now you've lost that, and it pisses the hell out of you.”

Damn woman could look right into his soul.

It takes an institution. Something about that word nagged at Levin. The words and images he couldn't quite focus on swirled in his head for several moments. Then it was as if all the pieces suddenly fit together neatly and crystalized into a clear image. It was so easy. Why hadn't he thought of this before?

“I understand now.” Levin put the boxes back into their shipping crate and closed the lid. He walked with renewed purpose out of the hold toward the cockpit. “We've been approaching this all wrong. When do we head back to Earth? I need to speak with James.”

Grace trailed close behind. “We still have that job retrieving Juliano.”

“I told you I'm not doing that.”

“Even after our little pep talk?”

He looked back at her with a rare smile. “Especially after our little pep talk. Come on, let's go.”

 

FORTY

B
EING
A
L
EADER

“Teacher, words cannot begin to express my shame. I assure you this will never happen again.” Elise sat in Crowe's office and kept a brave but humble front. Word of the incident had spread across the entire All Galaxy with few of the tall tales being anything close to the truth. The version Rima heard was that James was so drunk that he could barely stand, and that he had thrashed everyone at the barricade, Elfreth and Flatirons alike. And when noble Maanx tried to stop him, James nearly killed him, beating him to within inches of his life.