The Titan Drowns: Time Travel Romance by Nhys Glover (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

is married to a Brazilian. You will meet them both when we go through the Portal. They are down in third class now, as is Cara’s Jac, Luke the soldier and his adopted son, Bart, who was also Retrieved from 1942. Bart was the boy I went to see this afternoon. He was beaten badly but he has had worse. He is almost eleven and this is his first mission. From what Pia was saying, he is doing a brilliant job winning the children over. We are hoping to rescue forty-eight of them.’

‘You are taking the children? What about their parents?’

Karl frowned and sighed, drawing her in closer so he could tuck her head under his chin. She could hear his voice rumble under her ear when he spoke. ‘That is one of the contentious parts of what we do. Some parents we will take if we feel they will handle the new world. If not, we will just rescue their children.’

‘That seems cruel.’

‘Some people do not adjust to our world. It is no kindness to take them there. And most parents would be happy to know that their children were being saved from death and given a chance at a good life, even if it is without them.’

‘I suppose…’

They stood together watching the stars, the black ocean and the white wake for a long time.

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

Pia

 

It had been a good day, except for the beating poor Bart had received. Luckily, he wasn’t badly injured and he’d been up and about, back at his job, less than half an hour after he was knocked down. She had made him go to bed directly after tea, though, and had sat at his side, stroking his head until he finally fell asleep.

His last sleepy words still echoed in her mind. ‘We should take Marco. He’s a good guy…’

And Bart was right. From all she had seen of Marco, it did appear that he was a ‘good guy.’ However, that didn’t mean they could Target him. If they took every good person on the ship, there would be a noticeable discrepancy in the number of victims. And history said that there were hundreds of people still on the decks when the ship went down and many more in the icy waters. If they took everyone, then history would be noticeably changed. And that they couldn’t do.

So Marco was not a Target. And that thought started an ache in her chest she couldn’t explain. Why should she care? She didn’t know him. She’d barely exchanged more than a few words with him. They were ships passing in the night. That was all.

Even so, as time ticked on and she knew that it was drawing close to eleven o’clock, she felt drawn to meet him as he’d asked. After all, he had helped them at risk to himself. He deserved that much from her.

So when the others came in for the night with the word that there would be a meeting in the morning when they were allowed to return to their cabins, she donned her coat and scarf and headed out onto the deck.

Pia didn't see any crew as she made her way out the companionway onto the Well Deck and then took the short flight of steps to the Poop Deck. It was cold up there at this hour. She shivered and tightened her scarf around her head and neck. Then she scurried into the shelter Marco had told her about and crouched down to keep hidden.

What would happen to her if she was found on deck after curfew? She didn’t know. But she didn’t want to find out.

After what felt like hours, she heard footsteps approaching. She held her breath and hoped it was not a crew member discovering her hiding place. Luckily, when she looked up she saw it was Marco, his white grin lighting up the night. He dropped down to her side and sandwiched in beside her so that if anyone passed it would look as if he was there alone. He wrapped the blanket he was carrying around their shoulders and snuggled in.

It felt so different to be close to a warm, hard-bodied man. Except for the children, she could not remember a time in the hundreds of years of her life since the LGP that she’d been this close to another human being. She could smell his male scent, subtle but intoxicating. She had to fight the urge to sniff deeper and draw his scent into her lungs.

‘I did not think you would come,’ he said softly. ‘I am late. The last patron left right on eleven and we had to clear the table.’

‘I did not know what the time was. I have no watch.’

‘Why did you come?’ His voice seemed tentative. All his usual charm and confidence were missing.

‘You asked me to. And you helped us. We are grateful.’

‘You did not need to come out of gratitude. I said I would understand.’

‘I… wanted to come.’ She suddenly knew the truth of her words as she said them. She did want to come and spend time with him, even though they had no future, even though he was too handsome by far to be interested in someone like her. He’d asked her to come and she’d wanted to come.

‘I am glad. You are not scared of me now?’

‘I was not scared of you before!’ she said indignantly.

‘Yes you were. You were shy and scared like a little mouse.’ He was teasing her, and the laughter in his voice made her smile.

‘Does that make you the cat playing with his catch?’

The chocking sound was almost too loud. He hushed and didn’t speak again until he had himself under control. ‘Do you want me to play with you?’

She sighed heavily and rested her forehead on her drawn up knees. ‘I am not used to playing. I have never been played with. You are better off finding another mouse if you want to play.’

She felt his hand on her hair, stroking it gently.

‘I do not want another mouse. I think you see me as something I am not, Sweet Petra. I do not have trouble getting women that is true. They come easily, often when I do not want them. You are different. I have known that from the first moment we met. I do not want to play cat-and-mouse games with you. I want to know you… and I want you to know me.’

‘In the biblical sense?’

‘I do not understand…’ he said, the frown readily identifiable in his voice.

‘In the Bible, to know someone means to have sex with them.’

She could hear the surprised intake of breath and then the slow exhale. ‘No, not in the biblical sense. As people. I have not been friends with a woman… ever. I would be your friend.’

That thought filled her with a fierce joy. He didn’t want her as another notch on his bed head. He wanted to know her as a person. How strange and wonderful was that concept?

‘Then tell me about yourself, Mr Cat. Tell me why you left home at fourteen to see the world.’

‘Ah, sweet Mousie, that is a sad story that you might not want to hear.’ She heard the sadness in his voice and the resistance to going there. And she wanted him to go there.

‘Tell me, if it is not too painful.’

For a long moment he was silent. Then, as if he’d made up his mind, he cleared his voice and started to talk. His deep, gentle baritone lulled her, as the words tore at her with their sadness.

‘My father was a good man who tried to do his best for his family. But, working in a factory in Milano was not the way to become rich and so our family struggled, often not having enough to eat. I joined him in the factory as soon as I was old enough, doing jobs that were dangerous… sometimes deadly. But I was lucky or quick. I do not know which. And I survived.

‘Then the men started to grow angry with their treatment and their wages, which were not enough to feed their families, and they went on a demonstration. I wanted to go, but I had to stay home and help my mother. If I had gone, I might have been able to save my papa. But instead, he died, shot by soldiers sent in by the government to break the demonstration up. I was thirteen, almost fourteen.

‘My mother married the factory foreman soon after. I was angry with her for so quickly getting over my father. And I was angry with the man who thought he could replace my father. I was angry with everyone back then – especially myself. The new husband tried to beat me into line, but it only made me worse. In the end, my mother sent me away. I have not seen her or my brothers and sisters since. I send money, though, to help out.’

‘You were so young to be on your own.’

‘Sí, but I was not the only one. Orphans crowded the streets like rats, and I became a very clever rat. Then, I decided to leave Milano and see the world. And rather than be a rat, I became a bell boy or a scullery hand. Eventually, I became a waiter, and because I pick up languages fast, I found I could go anywhere and find work. So I moved from one country to the next, never staying anywhere more than a year.’

‘It sounds lonely.’

‘Yes.’

‘I am sorry.’

She felt him shrug beside her. ‘Life is lonely, even when you are surrounded by people.’

Pia wanted to deny his words but their truth hung heavily between them. Did she feel lonely surrounded by people? Yes, yes she did. She had been lonely ever since she woke up alone in Stravenger after the LGP.

‘Tell me of your life, sweet mouse.’

‘I have no special story to tell. My family were all killed in a plague that swept through our town. I worked as a nurse and then with children, as I told you this morning. And now I am here.’

‘Where you are needed.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is good to be needed. But what are your needs? Who do you need?’

‘No one. I have no needs. I am happy as I am. I need no one.’

‘Tut, tut, that is a lie. You do need people. We all do.’

‘I do not. I can get by on my own. I always have.’

‘Getting by. Surviving. It sounds… I was going to say sad, but then I realised it sounds like my life. I am not sure I see my life as sad.’

Pia felt tears sting her eyes and she hastily wiped at them with her gloved hand. ‘Life is just life. It is not sad or happy; it just is.’

‘Tell me the happiest memory you have.’

‘Rolling down a grassy hillside with my brother on a hot summer’s day,’ she answered immediately. ‘It was so hot we had gone swimming in the river, and it was icy because it carried the thaw from the Fiordlands. I think we fell and rolled at first by accident. Then we enjoyed it so much we kept going up to the top of the hill and rolling down it again. I was black and blue afterwards and my mother was furious with us. But it was such fun. If you try to say something when you are rolling like that it comes out all wobbly like this.’ She made her voice vibrate and wobble until Marco laughed.

‘I remember riding on my papa’s shoulders through