Time Salvager (52 page)
“I have no choice,” he said. “We Elfreth need my salvaging more than ever.”
Franwil’s face took on a perplexed but curious look when he said those words. She nodded in approval and the ends of her lips curled slightly upward.
Grace turned to Elise. “Talk sense into the idiot.”
Elise looked surprised, then worried. “Grace is right. I didn’t realize. We’ll find another way.”
Stunned and speechless, James just stood there. In a way, this was what he’d always wanted. To stop being a chronman and not have to face the tragedies of the past. However, this was the one time he wanted to travel back in time. He finally had a cause worth fighting for, with people who were important to him.
Something else occurred to him.
He turned to Grace. “I can only survive one more jump?”
“Sixty percent isn’t exactly odds I’d gamble with.”
James nodded. “I can live with that. There’s one more jump I have to do. I don’t care about the odds of survival. It’s worth the risk.”
The tribunal was a spectacle, a scandal that spread across the entire solar system like Academy gossip. Every senior of the chain made the trip to Earth to see his shame. Levin thought he could keep his dignity intact as the day progressed, but it was hard. Rumors became gossip; gossip became facts; facts became accusations. By the time he was brought up on charges, Levin had all but committed genocide against the human race and destroyed the entire chronostream. It was all he could do to keep his back straight and not wither from the onslaught of blame and judgment being piled upon him.
Thank the abyss the tribunal was mercifully short. There was no reason for it to have wasted anyone else’s time and gone any longer than the three hours it did for the entire leadership of ChronoCom to find Levin Javier-Oberon guilty on all charges. After all, he had pled guilty to every single one and offered no defense for the crimes of not upholding the Time Laws, of willingly letting a known fugitive escape, of attacking a valued Valta operative ally, and of high treason. That last stung Levin the most, but he kept his head held high and face stoic as the charges were read.
To his left, the vids broadcasted his shame, as billions tuned in to the entertaining reality drama of a high auditor’s fall from grace. High Director Jerome, the head of ChronoCom, personally recited his crimes and continued at length for all the universe about the stain Levin had caused on the agency’s honor and how every other member of ChronoCom would have to bear the weight of his shame.
To his right, Kuo, along with an entire delegation of Valta suits, smirked as the light shone onto his humiliation. Levin had to admit; her presence there hurt him as well. He could feel her smugness all the way from the center of the room. At the very least, she had a broken leg for all his efforts, thanks in large part to the many monitors who had stood with him that day at Central.
They were the one thing Levin defended in this trial: his people. He passionately argued for leniency for all the monitors who had saved him from Kuo, citing their loyalty to the agency and his direct command as the cause for their attacking this so-called valued ally. He had ordered all those monitors not to counter his false claim. In this case, the little white lie saved dozens of them from the fate he was about to endure. In the end, his sentence was the same as that of many before him.
“At least I’ll get to see Cole one more time,” he muttered as his life sentence of labor until death on Nereid was pronounced. He wondered if Cole would be glad to see him, or whether he would stab him in the back while he wasn’t looking. What surprised and stung him a little more was when Jerome announced that his name would be stricken from the Watcher’s Board and from all ChronoCom records. He would effectively never have existed. To be cast off from the tiers … that broke Levin’s stoic facade, his iron will shattering. He had earned the right to be on that board. It shouldn’t have been something they could take away.
Yet, Levin had no regrets about his decision. If what the Mother of Time had said was true, then Levin embraced this fate gladly. He looked out the large dusty windows where the gray winds swirled, continually layering more grime on the glass until the view was nothing more than dark shadows passing by. If what she had said really was true, then why not? One life was a small price to pay. He just hoped that James and the girl came through with their promise.
“Do you understand your charges and sentence, Levin Javier-Oberon?” Jerome said as the trial wrapped up.
Levin tore his gaze from the window and addressed the court in a clear voice. “I do, Director.”
“Do you have any final words before it is carried out?”
Levin looked over at Kuo, her eyes glinting in the light. She was daring him to break, to show that he had lost his faith. In the end, he supposed he had, at least with this current iteration of the agency he had grown to admire and then come to loathe. But then again, he had learned something new as well, and though he was powerless from this point on to see it through, he’d like to think that he, Auditor Levin Javier-Oberon, ninth of the chain, had played a small part in saving humanity. No one here could take that away from him.
“I do not, Director,” he said.
* * *
Kuo, Jerome, and Young stood with hundreds of others at the launch pad and watched as the transport disappeared into the night sky as it began its journey to the penal colony on Nereid. Kuo sent a signal through her AI chip to the rest of her team. The effect should be dramatic, after all.
“Bad business.” Jerome sighed, looking at Young. “Watch the men closely over the next few months. Morale will be low; keep them in line.” He turned to Kuo. “I trust the results are satisfactory for our allies at Valta?”
She nodded. “Valta feels that this is the only way justice could have been served, and we are satisfied that the proper sentencing has been handed down. I’d also like to convey a message from our board that your request for a space station at the Ship Graveyard has been accepted, and Valta will gladly finance its construction.”
“Valta’s generosity is legendary, Securitate,” Jerome said, heading back into Central. “Very well then. The media will have a field day with this, and then it’ll blow over next month when something equally loud and stupid happens.”
“There’s one more thing,” Kuo remarked, remaining in place.
Both Jerome and Young turned back to face her.
“We still have the matter of the Nutris scientist at large. You still have a problem while this temporal anomaly is free, and we still expect to receive what we paid handsomely for.”
“We will mount another operation once this blows over,” Young said.
Kuo shook her head. “No, we tried it ChronoCom’s way first. Now, Valta is going to do it our way.”
Behind her, a row of parked Hephaestus transports opened their bay doors and disgorged their cargo. A squad of six securitates and sixty Valta shock troops marched down the ramp, joined a few seconds later by four combat mechanoids. Kuo looked on in approval as her task force saluted in unison.
She turned to Jerome and Young. “I also have a squadron of Valkyries en route. They will be here within the week. We’ll accomplish the mission correctly this time. Clear residences and hangar space for my forces. I expect all your resources at my disposal beginning right now.”
Sasha Griffin-Mars woke to the distant banging of pipes. She hated them. They always came on when she tried to sleep. She crept out of the small cubbyhole where she and her brother made their home. Home base, it was called. A place to run to when playing tag from the bad people who roamed the big space station.
She was hungry and thirsty. Well, she was always hungry. She couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t. That couldn’t be helped. She could quench her thirst, though. The dispenser was just down the hall. She wasn’t supposed to go off on her own, but James was tired. He had come back from playing tag late last night, bringing home a little piece of bread and three fruits he had found at the market. He gave her the fruit because he hated it, he said. She was more than happy to take it from him. James was funny not to like fruit. It was so delicious. In fact, he was funny not to like food of any sort. Sasha was more than happy to take it all off his hands.
She crawled out of the cubbyhole and stretched her thin arms and legs. She should wake James up to take her to the water dispenser, but he was tired. He needed to go play more tag tonight, so she let him sleep. She had sneaked out for water many times anyway. She was nine years old, after all, big enough to take care of herself. Soon, she would be able to play tag with James.
Sasha looked down both sides of the hall and moved toward the dispenser, her bare feet moving nimbly along the metal grating. There was a heavy stench of refuse in the air, but she didn’t think anything of it. Everything smelled like this on Mnemosyne Station. Besides, she couldn’t remember life before here.
Her faint memories of Momma were barely more than faded little sketches that she couldn’t quite make out. Momma had pretty hair, and she was tall. Momma was also very sad. Then momma was gone. Sasha remembered crying when she was gone. That was all. She remembered nothing except for coming to Mnemosyne Station and being hungry. Always hungry.
There was the dispenser. Sasha grinned. She was very quiet and sneaky. Soon, she was going to play tag with James and then he wouldn’t have to leave her for so long every day. She reached the corner of the station and peeked around the edge. There was no one there. James said it was very important that no one was around. Don’t trust anyone but him, he said. They could all be bad.
She pulled the chain and waited as the pipe near the ceiling rattled and then the metal tube with the many holes began to leak water. It drizzled on Sasha’s face and she opened her mouth as the water splashed down. The pipe made more banging sounds as it shuddered, the water coming down, then stopping, and then coming down again. She closed her eyes and drank her fill.
When she finished, she turned to sneak back again, but saw two big men blocking her way. She jumped back and squeaked, freezing. Her eyes darted for a cubbyhole to run into.
“Hello, little girl,” one of the men said. “What are you doing out and about by yourself?”
“Out for a drink,” she mumbled, looking down at the floor and twisting her toe to the grating.
“Where’s your momma?” the other asked.
“Gone,” she said.
“Aw, poor girl has no family,” the first said. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
Sasha shook her head. “My brother is with me.”
“I have a daughter,” he said. “Would you like to meet her, girlie?”
“My brother says I shouldn’t talk to people who don’t know my name.”
“Well, why don’t you tell us your name then,” the second one said. “Then we’ll all be friends.”
“I have to go.” Sasha tried to walk in between them down the hall. Maybe they’d just let her go and pretend she wasn’t here.
The second one blocked her path with his beefy arm and put his hand on her shoulder. “Can’t let you go off on your own, girl,” he said. “Why don’t you come with us? You can meet some girls your age.”
Sasha tried to wriggle away, but the man’s grip tightened. She tried to cry out, but he put his other hand over her mouth.
“Now, now,” he cooed. “Let’s just take it easy. This won’t last too long, knowing Pael over there. I might be a little longer.”
“Hey, fuck you, Bach,” the first replied.
The one known as Bach grinned. “Come on. This one likes to squirm. Go up front and watch the path for the guards.”
There was a yellow flash of light and Sasha didn’t know what happened, just that the man with the smelly hand covering her mouth suddenly flew through the air and slammed into the wall. The other man, mouth open and eyes wide, was staring at something behind her. He tried to take off in the opposite direction.
He fell forward and then started sliding toward her. He screamed as he clawed at the grating, his legs and hands flailing. He flipped over onto his back and began to blubber for mercy. Something covered Sasha’s mouth and eyes so she couldn’t see anything. There was a loud thunk and then everything became quiet.
The veil lifted over her eyes and she saw both men lying at her feet.
“Are they dead?” she asked, her body trembling.
“No,” a voice behind her replied. “Only sleeping. They will wake soon enough with very bad headaches.”
Sasha turned to see a glowing man standing next to her, sort of like one of those old pictures that Momma used to bow and make wishes to. Sasha remembered asking Momma what she was doing. Momma said she was praying to Yahweh to take them away from this place. Sasha had spent many days praying like Momma did when she and James first came to Mnemosyne Station a little over a year ago, but no one ever took them away. She hated it here. The Yahweh never came. Or maybe he was just late. She looked down at the floor and twisted her big toe back and forth on the metal grating, shyly sneaking a peek up at the man. He was so bright. Most of the station was always so scary-dark.
The man knelt in front of her and extended his hands palms up. “Hello, Sasha,” he said in a soothing voice.
“You know my name,” she whispered, her heart welling in her chest. No one on the station knew her name except for James.
The glowing man nodded, his voice cracking. He must be sick, because he was sniffling. “I know a lot about you. I’ve been missing you for a long time. Will you take my hand? I want to take you away to a better place.”
Sasha hesitated. This man seemed nice, and he kind of looked like that man in Momma’s picture that she liked to look at a lot. James liked to stare at that picture now. “Are you my papa?” she asked.
The glowing man smiled. “No, I’m not. No one can replace your father. I miss him, too.”
Sasha looked at the bodies of the two bad men who had tried to take her, and then back at the glowing man. He knew her name, and he had saved her from these bad men. The glowing man couldn’t be bad then.
