“Eavesdropping, Silas?” Ryan asked easily.
“If you are curious about my past, Ryan Cawdor, why don’t you just ask?” the elegantly dressed man replied. “I have tried to be as open and honest with you as I know how.”
“Then consider this a request.”
“Very well, then. What would you like to know?”
“Funny thing, Silas,” Ryan said in a dry voice that indicated he didn’t find a single thing amusing about what he was going to say. “I’ve been here in Old San Juan for three days now, and I can’t seem to find any of the lucky bastards who got to help you cart that mat trans out of the wilderness and into this stone shell of a fortress.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for any of the ‘lucky bastards,’ Mr. Cawdor.”
“I wasn’t, really. Just making conversation with the locals. One of them said the boys who gave you a hand vanished once you made this overblown tomb your home.”
“Vanished? My, that is amusing. My legend continues to grow within the walls of Old San Juan. Evil white man comes to the village. If you think for a moment, I’m sure you’d become aware that most of the men who assisted me now live here within El Morro’s walls, serving as my gardeners or security force. And I did not ‘cart a mat trans.’ I merely ab- sconded with a few key components and used them in the modification of the gateway hidden here in the fortress.”
“Two gateways?” Dean asked, wrinkling his nose. “Weren’t they pretty close together?”
“Not so unusual, my boy. The other one was used primarily for advanced experiments in time trawling-a prototype facility. The gateway located here in El Morro was for nothing more than quick transportation. Obviously, despite its formidable exterior and historical reputation, El Morro is no hidden redoubt or modern military installation.”
“Seems like a stupe move, and you don’t strike me as a stupe,” Ryan noted. “Why not just stay in the redoubt?”
“If fate had been more kind, I would have. However, once I had come out of cryo sleep, I discovered the true reason my hibernation had been interrupted, and it had nothing to do with a faulty timer. The nuclear generator at the lowest level was beginning to malfunction, causing power fluctuations to spike and burn out all through the facility.”
Ryan caught Mildred’s eye. The woman gave an almost imperceptible shrug. The story did appear to be truthful, at least on the surface.
“Since my reaction to this bleak world after nuclear exchange was the same as your own Dr. Tanner’s, I decided after research to make the attempt to go back in time before the conflict. Since Puerto Rico seemed to be a chosen spot for advanced trawling attempts-or rather, it would have been had war not broken out when it did-why not take advantage? To do so, I needed to utilize a matter-transfer device for my experiments. However, I needed a steady source of power I could rely on without interruption. I did attempt a few transports while housed in the redoubt and all of them ended badly from a lack of necessary energy.”
“You look okay to me.”
Jamaisvous grinned. “I was not fool enough to climb inside the gateway myself. I used objects. Sent them out and brought them back. The drain of power required to activate the mat-trans unit was too much for the weakened nuclear generator, so I had to stop. Within a month’s time, I realized another solution would be needed. Knowing of the second gateway, I decided to avail myself of it.”
“But, how?” Ryan pressed. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About the second mat-trans unit? How did you know it was in El Morro? Why even suspect Puerto Rico to have more than one? Like Dean said, two in close proximity is unusual.”
Jamaisvous frowned, as if annoyed by the question. Finally he said, “When my own cryogenic chamber malfunctioned and I was brought out of cryo sleep, I was afraid, perplexed. The redoubt I found myself in was like nothing I had ever seen before, especially once I realized some of my own theories regarding matter transfer were in fact in use. I had no concept of shadowy government groups be- yond what I’d read in fiction or saw on television. The late nineties were a hotbed of stories for conspiracy buffs.”