Romani Armada (29 page)

Nayara was leaning over the table, sweeping her fingertips across the surface.

As Justin got closer, he saw the table was a souped-up replica of the fret board the Agency once had mounted on the wall in the main administrative room on the station, which showed where every traveler was in history.

Nayara straightened up when she saw Justin and came toward him, smiling. “Welcome to the agency’s new home,” she said, then surprised him by hugging him. Justin hugged back, wondering what was up. He had known Nayara for a long while, but she had never been openly affectionate with him and she had grown distant and almost chilly while he and Ryan had been together.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d make it back in time,” Mariana told Nayara.

“A plus side to jumping is you can choose when to return,” Nayara told her.

“You’ve been in the past?” Justin asked curiously. “I didn’t think we were doing tours yet.”

Nayara waved to the table. “Demyan came through with the images of the old story board. We replicated it on this new board and every traveler I can spare has been jumping back and retrieving the travelers still back in time.”

“The board looks clean,” Justin observed.

“Because we’ve retrieved all our travelers now,” Nayara said complacently. “We will be open for business again in a few days. You might want to keep that in mind if you have any keen customers lined up.”

“Always,” Justin said automatically and truthfully. He was looking at the table, which had changed views and was now streaming newsnet items across its top. The stream was replicated on the other side of the table, where Mariana stood, so anyone on that side could read the headlines, too.

Experimentally, Justin touched one of the items streaming past, and a portion of the table under his hand opened up into a window and the news item played live.

“Tap again to turn it off,” Nayara told him.

“I remember tables like this from…hell…the early twenty-first century. They were basically one large computer monitor. But that was before the Internet went neural. Once you needed a brain pattern to plug into the web, they became obsolete.”

“Everything old is new again,” Nayara assured him. “They found a way to mimic a human brain, so standalone terminals like this can receive net feeds.” She looked around. “
Corriere della Sera
, the Common language newspaper, just finished an interview with me here in this room. It’ll run at the same time we launch the book.”

“In three days’ time,” Mariana added and picked up a reading board sitting on the corner of the table. “I don’t want to nag, Nayara, but if we’re to hit all the deadlines….”

Nayara grinned. “She nags so nicely, too. Come with me, Justin. Mariana, I’ll be back in a few minutes and we can pick up where we left off.”

Nayara walked over to one of the half dozen doors and openings leading off from the room. It really was a nexus.

“Where is Brendan’s security to go?” Justin asked as she opened the door and stepped aside, letting him enter first.

“On the other side of the cavedium.”

He looked around. There was no mistaking that this was Nayara’s office, for there were feminine touches everywhere – even her chair was a rich tapestried fabric, with abstract flowers worked into the design.

The room was large and featured the same high ceiling as the reception area had. There were three sets of double doors placed along the far wall, and these were glass doors with lead lights. Armored glass, most likely, but the view through the doors was breathtaking.

Justin took in the highlights of the rose garden – the multicolored blooms nodding in the sun, the trellis holding up climbing roses, and partially hidden statues. There was a sundial in the middle of the enclosed garden.

“How much did this place cost?” Justin asked, turning to face Nayara as she closed the door. “Beyond the price of turning the Julianis?”

“That was the price,” Nayara replied, sitting in her chair. “They didn’t qualify for regeneration, even though they could more than afford it.”

“Genetic mutation?” Justin guessed.

“Biagio carries—
carried
a rare and very old aging mutation. He is Agata’s third husband and when he was turned he was only thirty-five years old.”

“Wow,” Justin breathed. “He looks nearly twice that age.”

Nayara nodded. “That is the work of the mutation. His telomeres, thanks to the mutation, would have fought the regeneration process. His aging was accelerating and they were both desperate for a solution, which I was able to supply.”

“At a price,” Justin qualified.

“I offered to have them turned, which gave them exactly what they wanted. They both get to live in their villa for as long as they wish and they get the stimulation of the company of their peers, and a willing workforce whenever they need it. They can stay here forever, if they want. I have made them formal custodians and managers of the estate. They have told me they consider the price a bargain. It was a very happy deal.” Nayara smiled reminiscently.

“And equipping this place? That cost nothing, too?”

“I’ve dipped into the agency reserves for that. We’re not broke yet, but I’m drawing heavily. Clients would be good for our cash flow, right now.”

“How is Ryan doing?” he asked.

“He’s recovering nicely,” she said stiffly.

“You’ve said that far too often, lately,” Justin told her. “How is he
really
doing?”

Her smile faded and it seemed to Justin that even her shoulders slumped. “I’m worried,” she confessed softly. “But all I can do is watch him.”

“When does Stelios return from Malacá?”

Nayara looked at him blankly and Justin rolled his eyes. “Of course I know,” he told her. “For three weeks before the station blew, you were glowing with it. If either Ryan or Stelios were in the same room, you nearly floated as you walked.”

Nayara closed her eyes briefly. “Does everyone know?”

“I’m pretty sure Christian and Rob know, which means Tally does. Brenden was in on it from the start, I suspect. He would have had to have been, to let Stelios have free run of the station the way he did.” Justin did a mental tally. “Demyan, probably. Pritti would have picked up your vibrations alone, and she and Demyan…” He trailed off, his gut clenching as he recalled Demyan’s wretched expression whenever Pritti wasn’t looking at him and the way she limped along, her head hanging with the effort, whenever Demyan was not there to see her. Her deterioration was an acknowledged fact that no one spoke of.

“Kieren knows, of course,” Nayara said, then sighed. “Well, as long as the knowledge doesn’t move outside the Agency, I will just have to live with it being common knowledge.”

“It’s not so bad, everyone knowing,” Justin assured her, thinking of Deonne.

She smiled, then swiveled her chair around to face Justin properly. “You were told to remain in your apartment in Sydney,” she said and the good humor in her voice and face evaporated. “What are you doing here, Justin?”

Business time
.

Justin spread his hands. “It’s been four days and there’s been no wave as a result of my trip back.”

“They can take time to arrive,” she reminded him.

“Salathiel created his wave in the fifth century and it only took two days to get here. I went back a measly two hundred years. Any wave should have come through long ago.”

“There are no experts on time waves,” she said gently. “We spend our lives trying to ensure they don’t happen, so studying them is not a viable option. It’s possible that any wave you created was smaller and weaker and is therefore taking longer to reach through time and make itself felt.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?” Justin asked incredulously.

Nayara didn’t answer.

Justin pulled one of the visitors’ seat over and sat in it, leaning toward her desk. “Look, I’ve spent the last four days keeping myself from going stir crazy by digging into the history nets.”

“Looking for Santiago?” Nayara guessed.

“He doesn’t exist!” Justin said. “There’s no trace of him, especially in and around China in the twenty-first century.”

“I’m not surprised you couldn’t find him,” Nayara replied. “Adán Santiago is a Romani name.”

Justin stared at her blankly.

“Gypsies,” she interpreted. “Spanish Romani, to be exact. They used to roam all over Europe and later, every continent except Antarctica. Now, they are usually among the first to sign up for a new world colony. They’re travelers. Human travelers. Romani preferred a life on the road, unfettered by any authority except their own. They are expert at staying off the grid, even now.”

“He’d use personas,” Justin concluded.

“Exactly.” Nayara gave him a grim smile. “The Romani would have given vampires a run for their money, when we were still in hiding before the Revelation.”

“You know them well, then, if they came from Spain.”

Nayara shook her head. “I was shipped to Constantinople in the sixth century. That was a while before the Romani culture formed. But there are historians who say the Romani emerged from the last traces of the Celts who immigrated to Iberia in antiquity. Celts are my people, too, so I’ve always had an interest in the Romani.” She leaned forward, too, her gaze sharp. “Santiago is one of their more common last names. Coupled up with his first name, which is Spanish for Adam, makes it almost a certainty that your Santiago is Romani.”

“He’s not my bloody Santiago,” Justin replied. The response was jerked out of him and emerged hard and low.

Nayara’s eyes narrowed. “Are you that afraid of him, Justin? A Romani armada of one? Don’t you trust Deonne?”

He pushed his hand through his hair impatiently. “Of course I do…but the letter!”

“Which you may have negated with your jump back to her.”

“I want to go back again.”

Nayara sat up, her face falling into the careful, neutral expression that Justin knew was her default reaction to being surprised.

“Look, I’m coming to you openly this time. You can put all the safeguards and whatever you do in place, but I’m going back there. We can’t bring her here, the psi will have her scooping her own brains out with a spoon and thinking she’s eating gelato or something just as horrendous. She’s marked.”

“She is,” Nayara agreed softly. “Go on.”

Hope flared in his chest, hot and bright. He pressed on hurriedly. “I’m not a time expert. You just said there were no wave experts, so my opinion is just as valid as yours.” He held up his hand to forestall any protest. “I think I was
supposed
to go back. I think I was meant to be there. That’s why there has been no wave. If I’m right, then I have to go back there again and this time, I have to stay there.”

“And stop her from meeting Santiago?” Nayara questioned. “What about the letter? You received it, and relativity dictates that if you received it, then Deonne
must
write it. You can’t stop this, Justin. It has to be allowed to play out.”

He battled the wave of fear that washed over him, pushing it aside with an impatient mental shove. “I can’t explain the letter,” he said. “But you can’t explain why there is no wave, and I can.”

“
If
you’re right,” Nayara reminded him.

“Can you provide a better explanation? Any explanation at all?” he said, forcing a reasonable tone into his voice.

Nayara stood and walked to the glass doors and stood there with her back to him. She was a tall woman, and she was wearing a green dress in a light fabric. The hem of the dress brushed the floor and it reminded Justin vaguely of Roman tunics, except this one was not white or undecorated. Was it a salute to Rome itself?

He swiveled on his seat, and tried to unclench his fists. His heart was racing all by itself.

“The more I work with time,” Nayara said, her back still presented to him, “the better I grasp just how little I know and understand about it. Time is…unpredictable, even while we can rely absolutely on what history tells us, if our sources are good. Time flexes and changes courses. But ultimately, time is uncrushable and relentless.” She turned back to face him. “If a thing must come to pass, time has a way of ensuring that it does.”

“You’re letting me go back,” Justin interpreted.

She nodded. “I don’t know if you are right about the lack of a wave. I’d like to think you are. It has time’s irony stamped all over it. If you are right about that, then your return to China is inevitable. You’ll go whether I allow it or not.”

Justin drew in a breath, trying to calm his raging heart. He nodded, confirming her guess.

She moved back behind her desk. Oddly, she looked sad. “If you are wrong, then I suspect it doesn’t matter what you do back there. The letter will still be written.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.:
Deonne took the long way back to her apartment, through meandering nature walks that switched back and forth among the pockets of trees, by-passing secluded areas and vignettes placed for ultimate contemplation; a sun dial in a sun-dappled glade, a tiny bridge arching over a trickling stream, stepping stones, and more.

She noticed none of them except to mark her progress toward the apartment. She hurried along the shade and leaf covered path, listening intently for any sounds that said Santiago had found her.

Once inside, she locked the door and closed the drapes, wishing uselessly that she could simply polarize the windows against prying eyes and not have to work in semi-darkness. She pulled out the largest carrysack she had bought with her and started laying out essentials on the bed. She was going to have to do without a lot of things. She could only take what she could carry.

She worked quickly, for she didn’t have many possessions to begin with. She still had to off-load most of her clothes and it amused her to see the high pile she was forced to put aside. She had been steadily acquiring garments the whole time she had been here, without realizing it.

When the sack was full and she had managed to pack everything she considered essential, including a single pair of fashionable shoes, she started to fasten it.