The Keep of Fire by Mark Anthony Page B

date.”
    Travis’s grin faded. “I’ll be gone by the time you drive around, you know.”
    “What makes you think I don’t have wire cutters in the car?”
    “You would have used them already if you had.”
    The man laughed. “Very good, Travis. You’re a smart man. A fascinating man.” He gripped the chain link, his blue eyes bright behind his glasses. “I so want to speak to you. Do you know that, Travis? Do you have any idea how much I want to listen to you, to hear about everything you’ve done, every place you’ve gone, all the sights you’ve seen?”
    “Why?” Travis said. “So you can know which mountain range to start mining first?”
    “Is that what the Seekers told you I wanted?”
    “Isn’t it?”
    His knuckles whitened as he gripped the fence. “The Seekers are as blind as they are arrogant. They think they’re so open-minded, but they’re not.” He let go of the fence, took a breath. “Listen, Travis. TheSeekers say they’re scholars, and they are, but they’re the worst kind. They’re not trying to learn and understand. They already think they have everything figured out. All they want are a few specimens they can stick in a case to prove it.”
    “How do you know so much about the Seekers?”
    He fixed his eyes on Travis. “Because I was one once.”
    Travis opened his mouth, but he had no response.
    “It comes down to this,” the other said. “The Seekers think they have ownership of any new world that’s discovered—that only the elite should be able to see it, study it, catalog it. Duratek is different. That’s why I joined. We think that a new world should belong to everybody, not just a few academics in their high towers. We want to give this world to everyone.”
    “You want to exploit, you mean. To sell it.”
    “Words, Travis. Those are just words. And the Seekers’ words at that, I’d guess.”
    Travis took a step back from the fence.
    “Listen,” the man said, his voice hushed with urgency. “I know I don’t have much time with you. So let me just say one last thing. Two worlds are drawing near, ours and another. You know that better than anyone. That connection is going to be made—you can’t stop it. But what you
can
do is help us manage it, control it, to make it happen the right way, not the wrong way.”
    Travis hesitated. “What do you mean?”
    The other shook his head. “What are you asking? Are we going to harvest its resources, mine its ground, farm its soil? Is that the question? If so, the answer’s yes. I’m not going to lie to you, Travis, I’ve told you that. This isn’t some park we’re talking about. We’re not going to put a fence around it, not like this.” He brushed a hand across the chain link. “But the exchange doesn’t have to be one-sided.Think of the things we have to offer. Jobs. Technology. Medicine. This isn’t the first time we’ve discovered new worlds, Travis. But this can be the first time we do it right. Except we need your help.” He stepped back from the fence. “It’s your choice.”
    Travis didn’t move. The wind moaned around the abandoned boxcars. Wasn’t that what this place had been once? A jumping-off point to a new world of prosperity? They had pushed out the Indians, killed off the buffalo, and pulled the guts from the mountains looking for wealth to cart to the world back East. Now the silver and gold were gone, but the mountains still bore the open, oozing wounds. Yes, he did have a choice. He always had a choice.
    “No.” Travis’s voice was hard. “No, I won’t help you. What you want to do is wrong. No matter how hard you try to make it right, it’s still wrong. There’s no price you can pay to balance what you want to take.”
    The other’s eyes were regretful behind his glasses. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Travis. You see, now that I’ve met you, I had hoped that we could be friends. But, it doesn’t matter. With or without your help, we’ll get what we want. We