“Not me. And watch what you say about the skinny one with glasses.”
“He means something to you, this Dix?”
“He does.”
“Could have fooled me. Where’s the affection, Dr. Wyeth? The secret smiles, the holding of hands… from my observation, limited as it might be, he treats you as one of his fellows.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Well, for one thing, if you were my companion, I’d treat you with the attention and care a woman such as yourself deserves. Like I’m doing now. Good food. Nice clothes. Intelligent conversation.”
“Look, Silas,” Mildred began, “fine wines and new clothes aren’t the only things a woman is seeking in a mate.”
“I know, but aren’t they a nice bonus?”
Their eyes met for a second, and then each turned attention to the meal. No words were spoken for a series of lengthy moments, until Doc Tanner stumbled up and announced himself.
‘ ‘I say, I had wondered where the two of you had gotten off to,” he remarked. “Are those scrambled eggs I smell?”
Mildred bit back a giggle. “Why don’t you join us, Doc?”
“A splendid suggestion.” Doc slid back one of the two unoccupied chairs and began to serve himself from the covered tray of eggs and potatoes.
“Well, you wanted us to stay and assist you- we’re doing so. Now it’s time for you to come clean and explain why to me. Are you serious about trying to trawl yourself home?”
“I am. And my dear Dr. Wyeth, Puerto Rico has long been a site of the most infinite possibilities. What I find amusing is that even in this far-flung age, decades upon decades after the final nuclear conflagration, this tiny island remains as unstable as it was in the 1990s.”
Mildred’s brow furrowed. “Unstable in what way?”
“Electromagnetically, of course,” Jamaisvous said. “And Puerto Rico is on the edge of one of the great mysteries of life, the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Of course!” Doc agreed in between bites of a piece of toast smeared with jam.
“An electromagnetic field covers the world like a blanket,” Jamaisvous continued. “When combined with gravitational forces, we have the status for our little network of matter-transfer gateways. When the mat-trans units are focused on the grids of ley lines currently crossing the globe, we tap into the very molten power of Mother Earth herself for transport, and our earth parent is a most powerful entity indeed.”
Although she didn’t attest to it, Mildred knew Jamaisvous was correct. She’d seen the power of Gaia harnessed before in the form of Krysty Wroth, power that made the woman seem to glow with an inner energy-an energy that gave her terrific speed and strength. Krysty once described the sensation to Mildred as sinking down into a thick whirlpool of heated molten goo, all-encompassing, all-comforting. While your own movements were unencumbered by the substance, the world around you seemed to fall into bizarre slow motion. What to her seemed to be nothing more than a casually launched counterattack against a foe. appeared to others as a blur of destructive power and force.
Mildred had seen Krysty rip off a man’s arms as easily as she might break a twig. Back in Kings Bay, Georgia, at the naval base of Admiral Poseidon, while under the influence of the Gaia force, one well-placed kick had sent a man’s head flying up, tearing away from his shoulders and spinal column like a punted football.
“Such forces aren’t easily controlled,” Mildred remarked.
“I don’t understand why you weren’t brought here, Dr. Tanner,” Jamaisvous mused. “In my reading, this site appears to have been a nexus point for advanced chron-jumping. Instead of devoting such a large part of their time and funding to waging war, their undivided attention and Herculean efforts should have been focused on time trawling.”
“Too late now,” Mildred said and took a bite of toast.
“Actually it isn’t. Such is the joy of having access to time travel. If it works, one can always go back to put a fix in, right?”
Doc and Mildred exchanged concerned looks.
“Pass the salt,” Doc said.
Chapter Twelve
According to the legends, the lair of El chupacabras was supposed to be farther up the island, somewhere within the dank boundaries of the El Yunque Rain Forest.