Time Salvager (10 page)
Levin blamed the Academy. Someone in psychological analysis should have picked up on his mental frailty early in his first year. Maybe they hadn’t dared fail the nephew of a high-ranking auditor. Maybe ChronoCom, with its depleted ranks, had loosened its strict requirements. In any case, there was failure on every level, and it had paved the way to today. But Levin felt especially guilty. He brought his glass to his lips and sipped the Pappy again.
He gave himself another minute of anger before he pushed it out of his mind. Duty called, and he had wasted enough of his time reminiscing over what had happened. The past was already dead: a chronman axiom that couldn’t have been truer.
The vid on his desk began to blink. Levin stared at it for a few moments before sitting down and pulling it up. He had cleared his calendar earlier today to deal with Cole’s trial. Whatever it was must be important.
Instead, he received instructions from the director for a last-minute psychological audit on a Tier-1 who was running a jump for one of the agency’s largest sponsors. Levin frowned. He disapproved of these sorts of jobs.
The agency was intentionally created outside of the corporate complex, unaffected by capitalistic motivations. After all, ChronoCom was far too important to humanity and to the solar system to be weighed down and tainted by profit and greed. However, with the corporations funding an increasing percentage of their operations, it was becoming more and more difficult to keep corruption out.
“Damned abyss,” he swore when the audited chronman’s profile came up.
It was James Griffin-Mars. As if his day could get any worse. Levin had banned James from all Earth salvages three years ago because the two couldn’t get along, ever since that unfortunate incident with Landon. As high auditor of Earth, Levin was forced to make hard decisions. He had had to make several with Cole, after all. The recent dearth of Tier-1s must have pulled James back. How unfortunate for them both.
Levin grimaced.
Might as well get this over with.
He still had a lost nephew and sister to mourn.
* * *
True to his word, Smitt was still standing outside his door two hours later when James received the summons from High Auditor Levin, or Backstabbing Asshole, as he liked to refer to the man. Wearing a scowl, he let his handler lead him through the audit wing to Levin’s office door.
“I’ll be waiting right here when you’re done,” his overbearing best friend said. “Behave yourself.”
It wasn’t that James minded these audits, it was that he hated Levin. Well, no, he felt the audits were a waste of time, too. Passing or failing one of these stupid things didn’t really matter. All auditing did was decide the tier of jobs a chronman was allowed to run. With the suicide rate for chronmen so high, there weren’t enough Tier-1s these days for the agency to pull anyone off the line regardless, so these audits were essentially a formality.
ChronoCom had commissioned a study a few years ago on the high suicide rates among time operatives. Some of the scientists had hypothesized that excessive time travel affected the brain. James could have just saved them all that time and energy by telling them that chronmen became the way they did because the job fucking sucked. The study became moot when the only recommendation they could make was to offer extended rest to the more senior chronmen. Humanity couldn’t afford to bench any Tier-1 operatives.
He knocked on the door and walked in. Levin was busy acting busy and ignoring James, staring at the vid floating in front of him. He was probably the least sympathetic of the high-ranking planetary auditors, which was surprising, considering he was a former chronman.
That was one of the two retirement options for guys like James. Usually, they died on the job, but sometimes, if a chronman was exceptional and kissed the right ass, he became an auditor and tracked the performances of other chronmen and their handlers.
“Have a seat,” Levin said after a while. He pulled up James’s file on the vid and skimmed it while James plopped on a chair in front of his desk. Levin sniffed at him and raised an eyebrow. “Straight to the bar after breakfast, or was that still from last night?”
“Before, after, does it matter?” James shrugged. “It’s something I saw you do often when you were one of us.”
“According to Jobe, you were at the bar almost all the time on Himalia Station. Nearly single-handedly keeping the place afloat. He says you buy everyone drinks. You’re not saving your scratch. Kujo said you made a drunken scene at the Never Late last night as well. Your account isn’t nearly what it should be for a chronman of your status. How are you ever going to save up for life after the agency?”
James snorted. “You mean when I’m dead? Tell me, who has a life after ChronoCom? And don’t tell me that shit you do counts.”
Levin leaned back in his chair. “What’s wrong with what I do? It’s my job to make sure our people are operating at peak levels, which you obviously aren’t. It’s also my job to take corrective action.”
“Corrective action like turning Landon in and clearing out half his savings when he was six months from buying out his contract?” James said, leaning forward over the desk, his hands gripping the metal like claws.
“Don’t start on Landon again,” Levin said. “He deserved his punishment for screwing up three consecutive jobs and then trying to cover it up.”
“Twenty years on the job and six months from getting out.” James clenched his fist. “He was our mentor and friend.”
“Maybe he should have kept his focus on earning out his exit instead of getting drunk before his jumps,” Levin said, “a habit that, by the way, you seem to have picked up.”
James scowled. “Go fuck yourself, Levin.”
“Not if I get you first,” Levin said. “I’m supposed to clear you for this corp request. Maybe I won’t. Let’s start with your last job, shall we?” His eyebrows rose as he read the report. “A six on ripples. A little high for such a minor salvage, don’t you think?”
“I got dropped in the middle of a war!”
The meeting went downhill from there, with Levin nitpicking every single decision James had made over the past month. Finally, an exhausting hour later, after both of them had insulted the other countless times, Levin shook his head.
“You’re walking a fine line,” he said.
“Like I care.”
“You might care if your funds dry up, which might happen, at the pace you drink.”
“You going to Landon me then, huh? And you wonder why the chronmen hate you.”
“No one likes you much either.”
“Landon flew his collie into Neptune because of you.”
That touched a nerve in Levin. “I’m not at fault for his suicidal actions.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” James said. “I’m sure you sleep like a baby. You only think that—”
James froze, a thought or memory or dream triggering in his head. He suddenly found himself short of breath. Why did saying that send chills through his body? He clenched his fist and willed his shaking arms still. There was no way he’d show Levin any weakness.
Levin was an observant auditor, though. “Are you all right, James? How are your nerves? You look like you’re about to lose it.”
“How’s your jaw?” James shot back through gritted teeth.
Levin smirked. “Fully healed. Next time you want a go at me, do it while I’m looking.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as both men refused to back down. Levin pulled up another set of files and looked them over. “Your last few reports show empathy for the victims of these dead-end time lines,” Levin said. “How do you feel about abandoning the Mother of Time?”
Grace’s face flashed in front of him.
So how do you feel about abandoning me?
she said.
“The past is already dead.” James wasn’t sure about that anymore. “You can’t abandon dead people.” He didn’t believe that either.
“And the crew on the ship?” Levin asked.
“Inconsequential. I only went back for the Time Law Charter and the Titan source and convertor. It’ll power a million-unit moon colony for years,” said James.
Levin made a note in his report. “Good. So the value of the living in the present is still your primary concern?”
James forced himself to nod, and then he paused as a question stumbled out of him. “What happens after we’ve run out?”
“We salvage more, of course.”
“No, I mean out of sources to salvage.” He leaned back and furrowed his brow. “During my tenure, I’ve retrieved over fifteen Titan sources, and maybe a hundred or so lesser cores, converters, and generators. If I remember my studies at the Academy correctly, less than a thousand Titan-powered facilities and ships were ever produced, with only half of them salvageable within the strictures of the Time Laws.
“We’ve probably already salvaged a third, maybe half of those salvageable sources. We don’t have the technology to build anything powerful enough to power entire moon colonies anymore, not since the last of the Technology Isolationists were wiped out. So what happens after we’re out of history to plunder? What does humanity do next?”
“That’s not really your concern, James,” Levin said. “The corporations and the governments will eventually develop new technologies or relearn what was lost.”
“The corporations,” James scoffed. “All they care about is profit and control. Those shortsighted bastards don’t care about the future.”
“You’re a cynic, James,” Levin said. “Always have been. All of us have our roles to play to prevent our extinction. ChronoCom’s is to buy humanity time by mining the past.”
James looked out the window outside Central. “When’s the last time you walked outside?” he asked, his voice low. “Among the wretched people. Breathed the unfiltered air. Lived in the squalor. We’re losing.”
Levin followed his gaze out the window, and for a few moments, the two stared in silence as the bristling gray winds swirled around the decaying city. Then he shook his head, as if snapping out of a trance, and looked back at James. “We’re getting off track. How are you sleeping?”
“Like a baby,” James lied.
“What about your lag sickness? Are you up to date on the miasma regimen?” Levin looked at the vid. “Says here you’re behind by two months.”
James shrugged. “Been busy keeping humanity’s lights on. I’ll do it when I get around to it.”
For another thirty minutes, Levin peppered him with questions about his health and his feelings, asking about everything ranging from throwing up after jumps to his dreams to his drinking habits to when he last bedded a woman. He actually varied it a little bit from the previous time James was there, though not by much.
Finally, a visibly frustrated Levin stood up. “You’ve given me the exact same answers for three audits in a row, so let’s cut to the chase.” He walked around his desk. “Don’t think I don’t see the shakes in your hands. I will call you in after every job until I get straight answers from you. Unfortunately, you’re too senior for me to slap you back to running wood recoveries in the seventeenth century, or I would. Now listen closely: next time you get back from a job, you report straight to your handler before you hit the bottle. Understand?”
“Or?” James shrugged.
Levin slammed his fist on the desk. “I’m getting tired of your insubordination,” he said, rising to his feet. “I control your fate in ChronoCom. I can keep you here forever, regardless of your credit.”
“I’ve made myself clear on where I stand with your idle threats,” James said, standing up as well.
The two glared at each other for several tense moments. Finally, Levin turned his back to him. “I don’t think you’re stable, but you put on a good act and you get results. ChronoCom doesn’t have enough high-tiers to bust you back, but I’m watching you. You slip once and I’ll happily Landon you if I get the chance. Now, get out of here and send for Thompson to come in next.”
James smirked and started toward the door. “Good seeing you again. Glad we had this chat.”
“And get that miasma regimen administered right after this meeting. You aren’t green-lit until the medical ward tells me that’s done.”
James marched out of Levin’s office and was about to head back toward the Never Late when he changed his mind and went toward the medical ward instead. Might as well get his miasma regimen over with. That bile climbing up his throat had been getting closer to his mouth every time. Would save him the embarrassment of throwing up on his next jump.
Levin was starting to catch on, and while the man might be a backstabbing ass, he was good at his job. He was right to question James’s stability. Frankly, James questioned it himself. He was holding his sanity together by a thread, but he’d be damned if he let a jerk like Levin force him into a corner. That, and he conveniently forgot to send for Thompson.
James flew
Collie
north through the Arctic Circle and watched with increasing concern as she struggled against the crosswinds, torrential rains, and fist-size balls of hail continuously slamming into the small ship from all directions. It was a sad testament to the Earth’s condition when space debris and interplanetary dust caused less wear and tear on a ship.
The collie sputtered and popped, giving him the impression of a crippled bird about to drop out of the sky. There was also a constant hiss somewhere in the cabin. He reminded himself to keep his atmos on at all times.
“James, how’s my reception? Gyros are showing a bumpy ride to the north pole,” Smitt’s voice popped into his head. He was sitting in the comfort of the Hops at Central.
“Just keep her low in case this thing dies,” James thought back. “It started leaking cabin pressure an hour after takeoff. Remember to fix that before we head out into space again.”
James leaned back in his chair and watched as the collie flew into one of the many electrical storms common in the northern part of the planet. The collie shook even harder, which James had thought impossible. He increased his exo and atmos levels, fully anticipating a midair explosion that would jettison him out into the ocean at any moment.