The Traveler

Maya waited two minutes for the first shield to dry, and then opened up a second test tube for the shield that went on her right index finger. The airplane hit a patch of turbulence and began to bounce around in the air. A red warning sign went on in the toilet. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEAT.

Concentrate, she told herself. You can’t make a mistake. As she slipped her finger into the shield, the airplane lurched downward and she tore the fragile tissue.

Maya fell back against the wall, feeling sick to her stomach. She had only one backup shield and if that didn’t work, there was a good chance that she would be arrested when she landed in America. The Tabula had probably obtained her fingerprints when she was working for the design firm in London. It would be easy for them to insert false information into the United States immigration computer that would be triggered by a fingerprint scan. Suspicious person. Terrorist contacts. Detain immediately.

Maya opened a third test tube and poured her only backup shield into the sink water. Once again, she sprayed the adhesive on her right index finger. She took a deep breath and reached into the water.

“Excuse me!” The cabin attendant knocked on the toilet door. “Please return to your seat immediately!”

“Just one minute.”

“The pilot has switched on the seat-belt light! Regulations require all passengers to return to their seats!”

“I’m-I’m feeling sick,” Maya said. “Give me one minute. That’s all.”

Sweat trickled down her neck. This time she breathed slowly, filling her lungs with air, then slipped her finger into the shield and removed her hand from the water. Still wet, the gelatin shield glistened on her finger.

The cabin attendant, an older woman, glared at Maya as she returned to her seat. “Didn’t you see the light?”

“I am sorry,” Maya whispered. “But I feel sick to my stomach. I’m sure you understand.”

The plane jumped again as she buckled her seat belt and prepared her mind for battle. A Harlequin who arrived in a strange country for the first time was supposed to be met by a local contact who would hand over guns, money, and identification. Maya was carrying her sword and knives concealed in the camera tripod. Both the weapons and the tripod had been manufactured in Barcelona by a Catalan sword maker who tested everything with his own X-ray machine.

Shepherd had promised to meet her at the airport, but the American Harlequin was showing his usual incompetence. During the three days before Maya left London, Shepherd changed his mind several times, then sent an e-mail saying that he was being followed and had to be careful about his movements. Shepherd contacted a Jonesie, and this person was going to be at the terminal.

“Jonesie” was the nickname for a member of the Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones. They were a small group of African Americans who believed that a Traveler named Isaac Jones was the greatest prophet who had ever walked the earth. Jones was a cobbler who lived in Arkansas in the 1880s. Like many Travelers he started out preaching a spiritual message, and then began to spread ideas that challenged the ruling structure. In southern Arkansas, both black and white sharecroppers were controlled by a small group of powerful landowners. The prophet told these poor farmers to break the contracts that kept them in economic slavery.

In 1889, Isaac Jones was falsely accused of touching a white woman who had come to his shop to pick up some shoes. He was arrested by the town sheriff and killed that night by a lynch mob that broke down the door of his cell. On the night that Jones was martyred, a traveling salesman named Zachary Goldman had gone to the jail cell. When the mob broke in, Goldman killed three men with the sheriff’s shotgun and two others with a crowbar. The mob overwhelmed Goldman and the young man was castrated, then burned alive in the same bonfire that consumed Isaac Jones.

Only the true believers knew the real story: that Zachary Goldman was a Harlequin named Lion of the Temple who had gone to Jackson City with enough money to bribe the sheriff and get the Prophet out of town. When the sheriff fled, Goldman remained at the jail and died defending the Traveler.

The church had always been a Harlequin ally, but the relationship had changed during the last decade. A few Jonesies believed that Goldman wasn’t really at the jail, but that the Harlequins had made up the story for their own advantage. Others believed that the church had done so many favors for the Harlequins that Goldman’s deed had been repaid years ago. It bothered them that other Travelers existed in the world, because new revelations should never supplant the teachings of the Prophet. Only a handful of stubborn Jonesies called themselves DNPs-an abbreviation for “Debt Not Paid.” A Harlequin had died with the Prophet during his martyrdom and it was their duty to honor that sacrifice.