by Anthology
One August night I was sitting like that, watching the moon drop down toward the Pacific, when I picked up the signal of another immortal somewhere out there in the night. I tracked it coming along the shoreline, past the point at Goleta; then it crossed the Camino Real and came straight uphill at me. Company business. I sighed and broadcast, Quo Vadis?
Hola, came the reply. I scanned, but I knew who it was anyway. Hi, Mendoza, I signaled back, and leaned up on my elbows to await her arrival. Pretty soon I picked her up on visual, too, climbing up out of the mists that flowed along the little stream; first the wide-brimmed hat, then the shoulders bent forward under the weight of the pack, the long walking skirt, the determined lope of the field operative without transportation.
Mendoza is a botanist, and has been out in the field too long. At this point she’d been tramping around Alta California for the better part of twelve decades. God only knew what the Company had found for her to do out in the back of beyond; I’d have known, if I’d been nosy enough to read the Company directives I relayed to her from time to time. I wasn’t her case officer anymore, though, so I didn’t.
She raised burning eyes to me and my heart sank. She was on a Mission, and I don’t mean the kind with stuccoed arches and tile roofs. Mendoza takes her work way too seriously. “How’s it going, kid?” I greeted her in a loud whisper when she was close enough.
“Okay.” She slung down her pack on the step beside me, picked up my wine and drank it, handed me back the empty glass and sat down.
“I thought you were back up in Monterey these days,” I ventured.
“No. The Ventana,” she replied. There was a silence while the sky got a little brighter. Far off, a rooster started to crow and then thought better of it.
“Well, well. To what do I owe the pleasure, et cetera?” I prompted.
She gave me a sharp look. “Company Directive 080444-C,” she said, as though it were really obvious.
I’d developed this terrible habit of storing incoming Green Directives in my tertiary consciousness without scanning them first. The soft life, I guess. I accessed hastily. “They’re sending you after grapes?” I cried a second later.
“Not just grapes.” She leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “Mission grapes. All the cultivars around here that will be replaced by the varieties the Yankees introduce. I’m to collect genetic material from every remaining vine within a twenty-five-mile radius of this building.” She looked around disdainfully. “Not that I expect to find all that many. This place is a wreck. The Church has really let its agricultural program go to hell, hasn’t it?”
“Hard to get slave labor nowadays.” I shrugged. “Can’t keep ’em down on the farm without leg irons. We get a little help from the ones who really bought into the religion, but that’s about it.”
“And the Holy Office can’t touch them.” Mendoza shook her head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Hey, things change.” I stretched out and crossed my sandaled feet one over the other. “Anyway. The Mexicans hate my poor little bishop and are doing their level best to drive him crazy. In all the confusion with the Missions being closed down, a lot of stuff has been looted. Plants get dug up and moved to people’s gardens in the dark of night. There are still a few Indian families back in some of the canyons, too, and a lot of them have tiny little farms. Probably a lot of specimens out there, but you’ll really have to hunt around for them.”
She nodded, all brisk. “I’ll need a processing credenza. Bed and board, too, and a cover identity. That’s your job. Can you arrange them by 0600 hours?”
“Gosh, this is just like old times,” I said without enthusiasm. She gave me that look again.
“I have work to do,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “It is very important work. I’m a good little machine and I love my work. Nothing is more important than My Work.You taught me that, remember?”
Which I had, so I just smiled my most sincere smile as I clapped her on the shoulder. “And a damned good machine you are, too, I know you’ll do a great job, Mendoza. And I feel that your efficiency will be increased if you don’t rush this job. Take the time to do it right, you know? Mix a little rest and rec into your schedule. After all, you really deserve a holiday, a hard-working operative like you. This is a great place for fun. You could come to one of our local cascaron balls. Dance the night away. You used to like to dance.”
Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. She stood up slowly, like a cobra rearing back.
“I haven’t owned a ballgown since 1703. I haven’t attended a mortal party since 1555. If you’ve chosen to forget that miserable Christmas, I can assure you I haven’t. You play with the damned monkeys, if you’re so fond of them.” She drew a deep breath. “I, myself, have better things to do.” She stalked away up the steps, but I called after her:
“You’re still sore about the Englishman, huh?”
She didn’t deign to respond but shoved her way between the church doors, presumably to get some sleep behind the altar screen where she wouldn’t be disturbed.
She was still sore about the Englishman.
I may have a more relaxed attitude toward my job than some people I could mention, but I’m still the best at it. By the time Mendoza wandered squinting into morning light I had her station set up, complete with hardware, in one of the Mission’s guest cells. For the benefit of my fellow friars she was my cousin from Guadalajara, visiting me while she awaited the arrival of her husband from Mexico City. As befitted the daughter of an old Christian family, the señora was of a sober and studious nature, and derived much innocent pleasure from painting flowers and other subjects of natural history.
She didn’t waste any time. Mendoza went straight out to what remained of the Mission vineyard and set to work, clipping specimens, taking soil samples, doing all those things you’d have to be an obsessed specialist to enjoy. By the first evening she was hard at work at her credenza, processing it all.
When it came time to loot the private gardens of the Gentes de Razon her social introductions went okay, too, once I got her into some decent visiting clothes. I did most of the talking to the Ortegas and Carrillos and the rest, and the fact that she was a little stiff and silent while taking grape brandy with them could easily be explained away by her white skin and blue veins. If you had any Spanish blood you were sort of expected to sneer about it in that place, in those days.
Anyway it was a relief for everybody when she’d finished in the pueblo and went roving up and down the canyons, pouncing on unclaimed vines. There were a few Indians settled back in the hills, ex-neophytes scratching out a living between two worlds, on land nobody else had wanted. What they made of this woman, white as their worst nightmares, who spoke to them in imperious and perfectly accented Barbareno Chumash, I can only imagine. However she persuaded them, though, she got samples of their vines too. I figured she’d soon be on her way back to the hinterlands, and had an extra glass of Communion wine to celebrate. Was that ever premature!
I was hearing confessions when her scream of excitement cut through the subvocal ether, followed by delighted profanity in sixteenth-century Galician. My parishioner went on:
“. . . which you should also know, Father, was that I have coveted Juana’s new pans. These are not common iron pans but enamelware, white with a blue stripe, very pretty, and they came from the Yankee trading ship. It disturbs me that such things should imperil my soul.”
Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!
“It is good to be concerned on that account, my child.” I shut out Mendoza’s transmission so I could concentrate on the elderly mortal woman on the other side of the screen. “To covet worldly things is very sinful indeed, especially for the poor. The Devil himself sent the Yankees with those pans, you may be certain.” But Mendoza had left her credenza and was coming down the arcade in search of me, ten meters, twenty meters, twenty-five . . . “For this, and for your sinful dreams, you must say thirty Paternosters and sixty Ave Marias . .
.” Mendoza was coming up the church steps two at a time . . . “Now, recite with me the Act of Contrition—”
“Hey!” Mendoza pulled back the door of the confessional. Her eyes were glowing with happiness. I gave her a stern look and continued the Act of Contrition with my somewhat disconcerted penitent, so Mendoza went out to stride up and down in front of the church in her impatience.
“Don’t you know better than to interrupt me when I’m administering a sacrament?” I snapped when I was finally able to come out to her. “Some Spaniard you are!”
“So report me to the Holy Office. Joseph, this is important. One of my specimens read out with an F-M Class One rating.”
“And?” I put my hands in my sleeves and frowned at her, refusing to come out of the role of offended friar.
“Favorable Mutation, Joseph, don’t you know what that means? It’s a Mission grape with a difference. It’s got Saccharomyces with style and Botrytis in rare bloom. Do you know what happens when a field operative discovers an F-M Class One, Joseph?”
“You get a prize,” I guessed.
“Si, Señor!” She did a little dance down the steps and stared up at me in blazing jubilation. I hadn’t seen her this happy since 1554. “I get a Discovery Bonus! Six months of access to a lab for my own personal research projects, with the very finest equipment available! Oh joy, oh rapture. So I need you to help me.”
“What do you need?”
“The Company wants the parent plant I took the specimen from, the whole thing, root and branch. It’s a big vine, must have been planted years ago, so I need you to get me some Indians to dig it up and bring it back here in a carreta. Six months at a Sciences Base, can you imagine?”
“Where did you get the specimen?” I inquired.
She barely thought about it. “Two kilometers south-southeast. Just some Indian family back in the hills, Joseph, with a hut in a clearing and a garden. Kasmali, that was what they called themselves. You know the family? I suppose we’ll have to pay them something for it. You’ll have to arrange that for me, okay?”
I sighed. Once again the kindly padre was going to explain to the Indian why it was necessary to give up yet another of his belongings. Not my favorite role, all things considered.
But there we were that afternoon, the jolly friar and his haughty cousin, paying a call on the Kasmali family.
They were good parishioners of mine, the old abuela at Mass every day of the week, rain or shine, the rest of the family lined up there every Sunday. That was a lot to expect of our Indians in this day and age. They were prosperous, too, as Indians went: they had three walls of a real adobe house and had patched in the rest with woven brush. They had terraced their tiny hillside garden and were growing all kinds of vegetables on land not fit for grazing. There were a few chickens, there were a few little brown children chasing them, there were a few cotton garments drying on the bushes. And, on the crest of the hill, a little way from the house, there was the vineyard: four old vines, big as trees, with branches spreading out to shade most of an acre of land.
The children saw us coming and vanished into the house without a sound. By the time we reached the top of the winding stony path, they had all come out and were staring at us: the toothless old woman from daily Mass, a toothless old man I did not know, the old son, the two grown grandsons, their wives, and children of assorted ages. The elder of the grandsons came forward to greet us.
“Good evening, little Father.” He looked uneasily at Mendoza. “Good evening, lady.”
“Good evening, Emidio.” I paused and pretended to be catching my breath after the climb, scanning him. He was small, solidly built, with broad and very dark features; he had a stiff black moustache. His wide eyes flickered once more to Mendoza, then back to me. “You have already been introduced to my cousin, I see.”
“Yes, little Father.” He made a slight bow in her direction. “The lady came yesterday and cut some branches off our grapevines. We did not mind, of course.”
“It is very kind of you to permit her to collect these things.” I eyed Mendoza, hoping she’d been tactful with them.
“Not at all. The lady speaks our language very well.”
“That is only courtesy, my son. Now, I must tell you that one of your vines has taken her fancy, for its extraordinary fruit and certain virtues in the leaves. We have come back here today, therefore, to ask you what you will accept for that near vine at the bottom of the terrace.”
The rest of the family stood like statues, even the children. Emidio moved his hands in a helpless gesture and said, “The lady must of course accept our gift.”
“No, no,” said Mendoza. “We’ll pay you. How much do you want for it?” I winced.
“She must accept the gift, please, Father.” Emidio’s smile was wretched.
“Of course she shall,” I agreed. “And, Emidio, I have a gift I have been meaning to give you since the feast of San Juan. Two little pigs, a boar and a sow, so they may increase. When you bring down the vine for us you may collect them.”
The wives lifted up their heads at that. This was a good deal. Emidio spread out his hands again. “Of course, little Father. Tomorrow.”
“Well, that was easy,” Mendoza remarked as we picked our way down the hill through the chaparral. “You’re so good with mortals, Joseph. You just have to treat Indians like children, I guess, huh?”
“No, you don’t,” I sighed. “But it’s what they expect you to do, so they play along.” There was more to it than that, of course, but something else was bothering me. I had picked up something more than the usual stifled resentment when I had voiced my request: someone in the family had been badly frightened for a second. Why? “You didn’t do anything to, like, scare those people when you were there before, did you, Mendoza? Didn’t threaten them or anything, did you?”
“Heavens, no.” She stopped to examine a weed. “I was quite polite. They weren’t comfortable around me, actually, but then mortals never are. Look at this! I’ve never seen this blooming so late in the year, have you?”
“Nice.” I glanced at it. I don’t know from plants. I know a lot about mortals, though.
So I was surprised as hell next day when Emidio and his brother appeared at the Mission, trundling a cart full of swaying leaves into the open space by the fountain. I went out to greet them and Mendoza was behind me like a shadow. She must have been prowling her room, listening for the squeak of wheels.
“This is very good, my sons, I am proud of you—” I was saying heartily, when Mendoza transmitted a blast of subvocal fury.
Damn it, Joseph, this is wrong! These are just clippings, they haven’t brought the whole vine!
“—but I perceive there has been a misunderstanding,” I continued. “My cousin requested the vine itself, with its roots, that she may replant it. You have brought only cut branches, apparently.” The Indians exchanged glances.
“Please forgive us, little Father. We did not understand.” They set down the traces and Emidio reached into the back. “We did bring all the grapes that were ripe. Maybe it was these the lady wanted?” And he proffered a big woven dish of grapes. I looked close and noticed they did have a funny look to them, a bloom on the skin so heavy it was almost . . . furry?
“No,” said Mendoza, in clearest Chumash. “Not just the grapes. I want the vine. The whole plant. You need to dig it up, roots and all, and bring it here. Do you understand now?”
“Oh,” said Emidio. “We’re very sorry. We didn’t understand.”
“But you understand now?” she demanded.
“I am certain they do,” I said smoothly. “What remarkable grapes these are, my sons, and what a beautiful basket! Come in and rest in the shade, my sons, and have a cool drink. Then we will go catch one of the little pigs I promised you.”
By the time we got back, Mendoza had vanished; the grapes and the vine cuttings were gone too. The brothers trudged away up the hill with their cart and one squealing shoat, his legs bound with tw
ine. Pig Number Two remained in the Mission pen, to be paid on delivery of the vine. I figured if the wives got that message they’d see to it the job got done.
Mendoza came out when they were gone. She looked paler than usual. She handed me a sheet of paper from her credenza. “This is a Priority Order,” she told me. “I sent them the codes on the grapes and clippings anyway, but it’s not enough.”
I read the memo. She wasn’t kidding; it was a first-class trans-departmental Priority Gold telling me I was to do everything in my power to facilitate, expedite and et cetera. “What have we got here, anyway, cancer cures from grapes?” I speculated.
“You don’t need to know and neither do I,” said Mendoza flatly. “But the Company means business now, Joseph. We must get that vine.”
“We’ll get it tomorrow,” I told her. “Trust me.”
Next day, same hour, the brothers came with hopeful smiles and a big muddy mess of a vine trailing out of their cart. Such relief! Such heartfelt praise and thanks the kindly friar showered on his obedient sons in Christ! Mendoza heard their arrival and came tearing out into the courtyard, only to pull up short with an expression of baffled rage.
THAT’S NOT THE VINE! she transmitted, with such intensity I thought for a second we were having an earthquake.
“. . . And yet, my sons, I am afraid we have not understood each other once again,” I went on wearily. “It appears that, although you have brought us a whole vine, you have not brought the particular vine that was specifically asked for by my cousin.”