Capulin Station, New Mexico
July 16, 59,886 BCE
The Timepiece field sent glowing tendrils bristling down Nathan's limbs. He twisted loose from Claude's grip while nausea momentarily curdled his stomach. The corners of his mouth dragged downward as he gulped at the saliva that flooded his mouth. Still, it wasn't as bad as last time. Maybe he really was getting used to it.
The memory of Haakon's salute still filled him with quixotic yearning, like he was Cinderfella to the Timekeeper's Prince Charming. His jeans sagged and he yanked them up, his momentary romantic feelings burning out in flames of impatience and anger over his situation. He rested his hands on his hips and scanned the latest place he'd let circumstances whipsaw him into.
Golden sunlight flooded through floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors and reflected off harsh, angular surfaces. Harvest textures and colors dominated the modern-looking room, from the hardwood floors to the low-slung sofas and armchairs arranged in a conversational cluster facing the window. Outside, tall grasses waved across low, rolling hills, while nearby a copse of oaks and pines clustered about a stream that meandered a dozen or so meters from the window. Cone-like mountains dominated the purple haze of the horizon.
Nathan turned to confront Claude and demanded, "What is the place? It's not Chicago."
Claude heaved a sigh and ran fingers through greasy strands of gray hair. "No, it's not." Weariness dragged at his voice. The bright light accentuated the crow's feet about his eyes and the age lines that furrowed his cheeks.
Nathan paused, struck by how old his ex-lover looked, but then charged on. He deserved answers. "You were supposed to take me to Chicago. You promised Haakon."
Claude shook his head. "I made no such promise."
Nathan tried to remember the conversation back in the chapel. Corbett had certainly said to take him to Chicago, but maybe Claude was right. Maybe he hadn't promised anything. It was just like Claude to twist things around. "Don't try to weasel out. Haakon for sure thought you were going to take me there. Now I'm here, where ever that is. I don't like double-crosses, and this sure feels like one."
Claude took his elbow and tried to lead him to one of the chairs, but Nathan shook him off. Claude's shoulders drooped and he murmured, "I would never double-cross you. I'm protecting you."
"Why should I believe you? You've been fucking lying to me ever since you showed up back there, in that stinky, old chapel."
Claude closed his eyes and stroked the bridge of his nose before he turned his gaze back on Nathan. "Please, just give me a chance. Don't be so impetuous." A tone sounded from an adjacent room and he turned. "Walk with me. I need to check the systems here." He trudged through a doorway on Nathan's left.
Exasperation furrowed Nathan's brow, and he rushed after. "You can't get off that easy. I want answers, and I want them now." He jerked again at his jeans and rushed after the Frenchman. How dare the jackass walk away from him? Haakon would never do that.
Nathan lurched to a halt as he entered the adjoining room. Claude hunkered in a chair, swiping at a maze of computer screens that glowed with inchoate graphs and incomprehensible script. He'd seen a room just like this before: the control room back in the Pleistocene. The rest of the facility was different—more homey. But this room he recognized. "Where are we? Or should I ask, when are we?"
Claude didn't look at him. "We're in what will be New Mexico in about sixty thousand years."
Sixty thousand years. Haakon had taken him to New Mexico, but a hundred thousand years ago. "What's so special about New Mexico?"
"Volcanos." Claude grimaced. "In less than a thousand years, an eruption will bury this site in hundreds of feet of lava. It's perfect for a Timekeepers resort."
"Resort? You mean for, like, vacations?"
Claude scowled, pushed his chair back and glared at Nathan. "Yes, for vacations. Timekeepers need places for rest and recuperation, for training, and for retreats, just like any big organization. We could hardly do those in, say, Chicago. Places like this ancient volcano field are perfect. There are no humans around, and any buildings or other leavings won't matter. They'll all just get wiped out by the lava. Now, will you let me finish what I'm doing?"
Nathan's mouth twisted down and his face heated. Same old Claude, snapping at him and treating him like a child. Haakon would never do that. Haakon treated him with respect. Honor. He wandered to the windows on the far side of the room. Behind the screens, another set of windows admitted shadowed light, feathered by the trees that bordered the pebbled stream bank. The veldt rose from the opposite bank and stretched to the distant horizon. But what caught Nathan's attention was the gutted body of an animal on the opposing bank of the stream. He wrinkled his nose, grateful he couldn't smell the decaying flesh. "What's that?" he murmured. "A pig?"
Claude followed his gaze, and then turned back to the screens. "Yes, late Pleistocene peccaries. A saber-tooth or maybe a dire wolf must have killed it. Give me a moment while I activate the wards."
Nathan stepped to the window and placed a palm on the glass. "I saw a saber-tooth shred a baby buffalo when we were in New Mexico," he breathed. "One swat and the poor thing was in ribbons."
Claude's gaze never left the screens before him. His touch brushed here and there against the flashing images while he asked, "What do you mean you saw a saber-tooth in New Mexico?"
"Haakon took me to another place like this. A refuge, he called it, except he said it was over a hundred thousand years earlier, not sixty thousand like this place."
"Finished." Claude leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands and cracked his knuckles. "You're saying he brought you back to the mid-Pleistocene? That's a violation." His eyes narrowed. "Now that I think of it, where are your glasses? You're blind as a bat without them."
"That's the strangest thing. Those jump jeebie things, they almost killed me. Haakon injected me with something he called nano-docs, and they cured my nearsightedness."
Claude's mouth formed a grim line. "Nano-docs are restricted to field agents, to Timekeepers. It's a serious violation to use them on a temporal like you because of the...residual effects."
"Residual effects?" Great. Haakon had told him they were good for him, so maybe that was it. "What residual effects?"
Claude stood but his gaze stayed locked on the screens. "Nothing bad, mon ami. Things like repairing your defective vision. They do something to cell reproduction, too, to the telomeres at the ends of your chromosomes. It's some boring genetic thing. Makes you resistant to cancer, for example."
Claude wasn't looking him in the eye. That was a sure sign he was lying. "There's something more, something you're not telling me." This was nothing like what Haakon had suggested. Nathan tried to recall his exact words, but he was sure he'd implied the nano-docs would mostly wear off after a few days.
Claude's gaze bored into him, his eyes ablaze. "Look, what Haakon did—using nano-docs on you—violated Timekeeper rules. Big time. They're fanatical about these things. He must be a renegade of some sort. God alone knows what Corbett and her superiors would do to him and you if they knew about this. Anyway, it's proof that I was right to bring you here."
Stay focused. "Let's suppose what you say is true. I still don't see why you can't take me back to Iowa, just like none of this ever happened."
"But it did happen." Claude leaned forward and his eyes sparked with reflected sunlight. "I've been there, in Iowa, looking for you. You can't go back because you never went back. Destiny, Timekeepers, temporal sinks, whatever won't permit it. Corbett will kill you before she'll let you go back. She might kill you just because that fool Haakon shot you full of nano-docs. They're all fanatics about protecting the space-time continuum. Mon dieu, for all I know they might be right. But I do know that I saved you, here and now, and you're arguing with me about it."
Fatigue and defeat punctured Nathan's determination. His muscles ached, his head hurt, and he couldn't think. Not that he expected or wanted Claude's opinion, but still he asked, "What should I do?"
The other man's voice turned gentle, cajoling. "You should take a shower and get some sleep. Look at you. You're too tired to make any rational decisions. You need to rest. You're safe here. No one knows I brought you to this place and time. We can decide what to do when you wake up."
Nathan let Claude pull him away from the window and the gruesome scene outside. He followed him through another doorway into a spacious room with an enormous waterbed and a panoramic view of distant mountains. Lighting panels in the ceiling came on when they entered and illuminated an alcove with a shower, commode and sinks, just like the earlier bedroom where he and Haakon had made love. Nathan stopped and confronted Claude. "You still haven't told me why we're here."
Claude entered the bath area and fiddled with the shower. He held his hands under the water while he answered. "We're here because it's safe. This is a refuge, a kind of safe house. The Timekeeper Bureau has them scattered all through space-time, places where people can rest, or hide if necessary." Steam billowed out of the shower and he stood back. "Just as you like it, hotter than hell. There's a kitchen in the other wing, and foodstuffs enough to last as long as you're likely to need. Plus there's a, er, food processor. It's from twenty-first century survivalists, so the directions are in English. It'll make nutrition bars out of just about any plant or animal matter." He put his hands on his hips and wrinkled his nose. "Aren't you going to take a shower? You could use one."
Nathan chewed on his cheek. What the hell. A shower and sleep do sound fantastic. Tomorrow's another day. He pulled off his shirt and plopped onto the bed to get rid of the blasted prison slippers the FBI had given him. "I'm not staying here forever."
"Of course not," Claude agreed. "But you can stay a few days while I work out something better, something permanent. For us."
For us. There's no fucking 'us,' you lying asshole. Instead of expressing his animosity, Nathan held it in check and asked in an indifferent tone, "What about Haakon?" He slipped out of his blue jeans and let them drop to the floor. When he stood, he ran his fingers under the elastic of his boxer shorts.
"I'll deal with him back at Chicago Control. I don't trust him at all. I'm sure now he's a renegade of some kind."
Nathan remembered how earnest Haakon had been, right before he and Claude had jumped. "Well, I trust him." Even if he lied to me about the nano-docs. He must have had a good reason.
Claude tossed his head and clenched his fists. "With your life? I tell you, he's a renegade, in league with who knows what miscreants. Everyone who's got anything to do with slime like him is at risk. It always turns out badly for people too close to those types. They're like terrorists. Ruthless, they are, with no heart."
Nathan walked to the shower and stuck his hand under the water. Too hot. He adjusted the faucet and then turned back to face Claude. "I don't care what you say. I'm sure Haakon's no terrorist. Maybe I'm a fool, but I trust him." Just like I trusted you, once. He turned his back, let his boxers drop to the floor, and stepped into the blessed shower. He squinted his eyes closed, stuck his head under the stream, and shampooed the accumulated sweat and grime out of his hair.
Claude raised his voice. "I'll see what I can do about him. I have to leave, but I'll be back. Remember, if you go outside, stay inside the wards. You said you saw what a saber-tooth tiger can do. They're still about, along with worse predators. Keep on this side of the stream and within a hundred meters of the refuge."
Nathan called out, "Like I'm going outside. I don't want to be saber-tooth chow." He stepped back, tossed the water out of his face with a shake of his head, and lathered his weary muscles. "Why do you have to leave?"
No answer. The iridescent Timepiece field already surrounded Claude. In seconds, he was gone.
"What an asshole." Frustration knotted Nathan's stomach. He sluiced the soapy water off his body, grabbed a towel, and dried himself while walking back into the bedroom. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He toed his filthy jeans and T-shirt, and then opened wardrobe doors looking for something clean to wear. Khaki chinos, a gray safari shirt, and flip-flops more or less fit his rangy form. At least he had a belt, so his pants wouldn't fall down. Feeling more human, he decided to explore his new habitat.
The scene out the window in the main room now included an enormous bird that squatted next to the pig's body, its dainty wings folded back. Its head dipped, and entrails disappeared down its gullet. Nathan's mouth squirmed down. He retreated to a fourth wing of the refuge. This room was the kitchen, just like where he and Haakon had been. The basic structure must be standard, with only the décor varying. He opened freezers and cabinets. At least there was plenty of food. Medical supplies, too, not that expected to need them.
With a heavy sigh, he returned to the main room where a flicker of motion outside caught his eye. He slid one of the glass panel doors open and stepped onto a cedar deck. The fresh scents of pine trees and grasslands mixed with the fetid aroma from pig. The flightless terror bird cawed and rushed away, its feathers aflutter.
The clearing fell silent. Too silent.
A gentle breeze warmed Nathan's cheeks and coursed across the veldt in a cascade of waves. But there, in the grasses, something interrupted the pattern. Whatever it was—a creature, perhaps—must be trampling the grass, heading directly for the stream and Nathan. He held his breath. Claude said something about the "wards" keeping the Pleistocene denizens at bay. He didn't know what that meant, but he hoped whatever it was worked.
The grass parted, and an old woman staggered into the clearing, barely five meters from the ravaged pig corpse. Her filthy, tattered dress swirled in the breeze, and her long, iron-gray hair fluttered about her ashen features. Her feet were bare and bleeding, and a purple-and-green bruise swelled one eye closed. Her good eye lit when she gazed in his direction. She held out a beseeching hand and spoke in a tremulous wail. "Help me." Her mouth gaped black in her withered countenance, turning her face a whiter shade of pale.
The distant grasses she had just trampled rippled. Something followed in her footsteps. From the trail it was leaving, it was something big. And fast.
Nathan didn't hesitate. He splashed across the stream and swept the old woman up in his arms. He hefted her once to catch his balance. Her frail body weighed nothing.
A howl, earsplitting and terrifying, broke the preternatural silence.
Hope and fear pumped in his chest and drove his legs. He splashed back into the stream, his breath tearing at his throat.
Pain, hot and sharp, flared across his lower back and pushed him forward. The stream foamed with fierce life as a swarm of insects buzzed to the surface and shot into the air. Sudden dizziness made the world whirl about him, but he managed to stumble to the far bank on wobbly legs.
Lightning flashed from the roof of the building and crackled on the opposite bank. He fell to his knees, lowering the old woman onto the pebbly shore. Blood pooled at his knees and soaked his chinos. Where did that come from? Blackness narrowed his vision. His face struck the rocks. He thought of Haakon's gallant salute. Longing and sorrow suffused his soul.
Then there was nothing.