Time Salvager (32 page)
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.”
“We’ll need a new venue for our base camp,” Kuo said, cutting in front of Levin. “The transports can only land on flat zones. Those grounds are at a fifteen-degree slant. Our people will have to cross the entire basin to resupply.”
Levin leaned in toward her. “Just a slight inconvenience. It’s their land.”
But, of course, that didn’t stop her. Levin had seen individuals of corp privilege operate before, but none as callously and unabashedly as this woman did.
“We’ll take this center area,” she said, pointing to the field in the center of the village. “The transports require a seventy-meter clearance for loading operations.” She pointed at the nearest row of hutches. “That space will need to be cleared.”
The four monitors with them exchanged glances and then looked to him for guidance.
“Belay that order,” he said, then turned to Kuo. “Walk with me.” He was surprised she obliged. They continued down the hill away from the small crowd. “This isn’t necessary,” he stressed. “Antagonizing the natives over a minor inefficiency isn’t worth it. It’s a short walk up a damn hill.”
Kuo looked down the hill to where they were supposed to set up camp, then back up to the contested ground, then she gave him a flat stare. “Three hundred ninety-three meters distance, to be exact. Assuming your men are in Valta Security shape, they can cover that distance fully loaded with gear in a minute. Do you know how far a chronman can travel during that minute?” Before Levin could reply, she cut him off. “Assuming a lower tech level of bands, which I believe is the standard for band channelers of your agency, two kilometers. Now do you see why we need to be closer to the landing zone?”
“It’s not our land to commandeer,” he said.
“Savages living in the mud, beggars suckling off the generosity of the corps.” She brushed off his words. “The Earth Regent provides these natives year-round supplies of fuel and food stock during their winter months. Valta generously provides nine percent of Earth’s off-planet supplies, so unless these savages wish to have their welfare dry up, they don’t get a say in this. They better learn to tolerate the inefficiency of having those four hovels removed.” She started walking away, and then looked back at him. “Give the order. It is for the good of all parties involved.” She didn’t bother holding back the threat in her voice.
Levin watched Kuo walk back to the plateau and disappear into the transport. He swallowed his anger and glanced at the four men awaiting his orders. With a sigh, he joined them.
“Vonder, Linden, clear that row of buildings. Try to do as little damage as possible. You two set up a clearing zone for the transports.” He turned to the leader of the villagers and bowed. “Please walk with me, Venerated One. Allow me to explain.”
The Venerated One didn’t like what Levin had to say, and neither did the rest of the council. They had raised their voices and threatened to throw Levin and his men out of their village. At first, he tried to reason with them, to beg, apologize, and offer bribes of increased supplies, but in the end, he told them they had no choice. Kuo’s command would be followed, no matter what any of them said. In fact, by the time they had returned to the plateau, Vonder and Linden had cleared the entire area, flattening nine structures. Levin learned later on that four of the buildings were homes.
Levin’s head hurt, and for the first time in years, he turned his atmos off and felt the cold biting wind touch his skin. The chill immediately seeped through his cloak and uniform, causing his body to shiver, something it hadn’t done in a long time. He inhaled and felt the icy air seep into his chest. He watched the small cloud of steam leave his mouth and float away. He closed his eyes and took a few more deep breaths. These were trying times and things were only getting more difficult.
“Auditor,” Kuo’s voice cut through the air. “Your attention is required.”
Of course it was. Levin paused for just a moment before he cleared his head and walked with as much dignity as he could muster toward the transport. He stole a glance over at his men, who watched him make the laborious journey to the ship with a mixture of sympathy and uncertainty. For the first time ever, Levin felt shame for his position. However, Director Young’s orders were explicit. Valta’s contributions to the agency were too important to risk, thus compliance with their requests could not be an issue.
“There you are,” Kuo said, not bothering to look up as he entered the belly of the transport. She was leaning over a floating tactical display of Asia and the surrounding bodies of water.
“Your agency collies are too well cloaked,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval. “Why is that necessary?”
“Because not all ships are Apollo-class retrofitted battleships that pirates avoid in the Ship Graveyard,” he replied dryly. “It’s cheaper to cloak our ships from detection than it is to equip them for combat.”
“And more troublesome when one decides he no longer wishes to be found,” she added. “You are an auditor. Why are your people not tracked and accounted for?”
“They’re not cattle, nor property,” he said. “Besides, live tracking could affect their jobs. Previous centuries had far more advanced detection capabilities than does the present.”
“Pity. All high-profile Valta employees are continually monitored. Cuts down on corporate espionage.” She gestured with her hands and a three-dimensional map of the region appeared. Kuo made another quick motion and the view pulled backward to display a larger region. She signaled one more time and half a dozen blue dots appeared on the map.
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.
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.
