by Kage Baker
This Joseph and Lewis learned from a brass plate set beside the door of the elevator that would have taken them down into the library, had it not been locked. The plate further informed them that actual physical visits to the library were by appointment only, on certain days of the week, to persons with the proper academic credentials.
“Well, that’s a sign of the times, I must say,” remarked Lewis in disappointment. The Company again. Good lord, there are probably books I acquired for them in there.
Joseph shrugged. “Who reads anymore?” It’s very Company, though, isn’t it? Collect a huge mass of something really valuable, put it in an unbelievably safe place where the monkeys can’t get at it, and sit on it. Nice piece of design. Bet it’s safe from electromagnetic pulses and anything else that could happen.
“What a pity.” Lewis put his hands in his pockets and strolled out into the courtyard, looking down the right-hand staircase. “There appears to be a trailhead over there. Do you suppose we could follow it to the other side of the island?”
They could and did, up a steep switchback grade. It brought them, after an hour’s steady labor, to the top of the coastal ridge. The view was well worth the climb: sea in all directions dotted with white sails, the long valley opening out to their right with the little white town at its end. To their left, wild canyons descended to the windward shore, beyond a fence posted with the sign NO ADMITTANCE. ENDEMIC SPECIES PRESERVE.
Somewhere down there, transmitted Lewis, staring.
You think so? Joseph pretended to shade his eyes with his hand, scanning intently. He turned this way and that, recording, interpreting, analyzing. I don’t find anything, Lewis. And that’s good. I’m picking up definite Company signals off at the other end of the island, and some from the library below; but nothing in this quarter. It’s called Silver Canyon on the maps.
I don’t read any trails going in or out, either.
You’re sure this is the place?
Joseph, I know it. Standing here, I can almost hear her voice.
Not as bad as I thought. Just a few square miles of wilderness nobody cares about. No alarms, no security techs. I hope you brought working clothes?
Naturally.
And you’re not going to die of disappointment if we don’t find anything?
We’ll find something, Joseph.
Tonight, then. Joseph yawned and stretched. “Some view, huh? I could use a sandwich right about now. Want to head back down?”
Back in town, the very picture of relaxed vacationers, they spent an enjoyable afternoon idling. They ate lunch at one of the terraced restaurants, and played several games of miniature golf on a course set up as an English-style formal garden complete with maze and marjoram knots. They took several tours, including the noted glass-bottomed boat ride. They dressed formally for an early dinner and went to the Avalon Ballroom to hear swing music played by a Benny Goodman reenactor with his reenactor band. Charlie Chaplin wandered over to their table and attempted a conversation in mime. They tipped him, and he went away.
As they walked back to the Hotel Saint Catherine, Joseph lurched a little on the stair and bumped into Lewis. Lewis felt something slipped into the pocket of his dinner jacket.
That’s the signal killer?
That’s yours. I’ve been playing around with a model Latif designed. It looks like a class ring. Slip it on. When you’re back in your room, go through the whole business of getting undressed, getting into bed, turning off the light, closing your eyes; then activate the ring by turning the bezel mount to the left. It’s good for ten hours. Then get up and put your work clothes on. I’ll meet you in the hall.
I feel like James Bond.
Cool, huh?
There was nothing remarkable about two gentlemen in formal dinner dress going to their rooms at ten o’clock in the evening. There was nothing remarkable about their reemergence twenty minutes later, dressed in simple exercise suits of dark-gray cotton fleece and dark running shoes. A certain amount of daily exercise was mandated by law in the twenty-third century, and many people preferred to jog in the cool of the evening.
So nobody noticed the two gentlemen as they pounded dutifully along Casino Way and then Crescent Avenue, or as they turned up Sumner. When they neared Avalon Canyon Road, an observer might have found it curious that they were increasing their speed, inasmuch as they were now going uphill. But all the golfers of the day were long since sprawled in front of entertainment centers with drinks in their hands, so there was no observer. Which was a good thing, because just past the pitch-and-putt greens the two gentlemen, shifting into hyperfunction, accelerated into blurs and vanished up the canyon, on the dark road under the white stars.
Where do we start?
Good question. Joseph looked down from the spine of the island, regarding the impenetrable dark mass of trees. He switched to infrared, and it lit up for him. Ordering a topographical analysis, he saw the whole landscape behind his eyes, neatly lined and graded. Beside him, Lewis was doing the same thing.
Let’s start with the nearest ridge and work our way along it, scanning downhill as we go, said Joseph.
Good thinking. We’re looking for caves and electromagnetic anomalies that would suggest old excavation.
That’s what I thought.
They jumped the fence and moved out together, silent in the gigantic silence of that night. Not a bird called, the crickets had fallen still, no wind moved in the trees. Even the surf washing the rocks far below made no perceptible sound.
Here’s something. Lewis transmitted.
Joseph whirled to scan. He found the anomaly and analyzed; moved in a little closer for greater detail. Old mine adit, probably.
How old is it, do you think?
We’ll see.
They worked their way down the hill slowly and found the adit, half collapsed and masked by bushes, invisible to mortal eyes even by daylight. Joseph extended his scan, detected the remains of wooden supports, analyzed the extent of their decay. I’d have to say 1890s, plus or minus a decade. That doesn’t fit, though, does it?
No. What we’re looking for should be much older. Something prior to 1492.
You think your mystery is from a pre-Columbian civilization?
It might be.
Wow. Okay, let’s move on.
They went back up the hill and continued along its crest. They found evidence of three more adits, all dating from the same era, then traces of grading that might have been a road for pack horses, also from the late nineteenth century. There were a number of spot anomalies where holes had been. The holes might have been dug for buried treasure or camp latrines, or might have been the work of extraordinarily busy ground squirrels. When they came to the end of one ridge, they made their way down and up the side of the next and began again. Two hours went by in this way, yielding no caves and nothing else of interest.
In the third hour they entered a region west of their starting point, where even the ground squirrels had never chosen to burrow. Lewis was silent and withdrawn, and Joseph ran a diagnostic on himself for malfunction. It didn’t seem possible they’d found a place where nothing had ever disturbed the soil.
Then, abruptly, it showed up on both their internal screens at once: an anomaly bigger than any they had seen yet, undoubtedly a cave. There was something else, too.
What the hell is that? Joseph stopped in his tracks.
Is that old aircraft wreckage? And there’s . . . some kind of masking wave. It’s cloaking most of an acre. To hide the wreckage from discovery, or is this one of your bunkers, Joseph?
No. Joseph was staring hard at the anomaly. I know where all the bunkers are, and there are none on this island.
There aren’t?
I can tell you one thing for certain: the masking isn’t being generated by any Company technology. That’s one weird frequency. There’s a cave there, all right. I don’t know what the wreck is, though. And I’m not picking up any life signs, are you?
No.
<
br /> But I think there’s a dead mortal.
Edward. It must be Edward. Lewis started for the anomaly at a run.
Joseph stood gaping a moment before he ran after him Come back here. Are you nuts? Was this what you dragged us up here after? A goddam dead Englishman?
I thought—Nennius implied—
They skidded to a stop just short of the anomaly. Lewis stared down, white-faced, at the old wreckage: a small Beecraft of the kind that had been popular just before antigravity was patented. Its stubby wings and fuselage had smashed on impact, but the cockpit was intact. A skull grinned through the windshield at Lewis, an ordinary mortal skull, nothing remarkable about its shape.
When did you talk to Nennius? said Joseph, seizing Lewis by the arm.
Last year. He told me about Edward, he said his disappearance might have been connected with a cave up here. Lewis had begun to shake.
Joseph let go of his arm and doubled over, as though he was going to be physically ill. You fool. How could you have been so stupid as to tell Nennius—of all people—about what we’ve been doing all these years?
I didn’t! It happened by chance. We ran into each other on a cruise, and he told me the story to pass the time.
Then he knew about you, Lewis. The Company finally noticed your prying into old secrets, and they sent him after you. He set a trap, and we’ve walked right into it. Mendoza’s not here, and neither is Edward. We’ve got to get the hell out before the security techs come for us. Joseph straightened up and looked around, preparing to run for his life; but it was too late.
“We have weapons,” a drippy little voice informed them.
Both turned. There, instead of the phalanx of security techs they expected, stood three small pale men, dressed in what appeared to be golfing ensembles. They did indeed have weapons, and the weapons were trained on Lewis.
“You don’t do anything smart, this time,” said the foremost of the men. “We wait here until the others come for us. Then we take you home.”
Joseph, they’re only after me, transmitted Lewis, deadly calm. You can get away.
“For Christ’s sake!” snarled Joseph, and winked out, to reappear between Lewis and the pale men. “Go, Lewis! Look, you stupid little—ow!”
Lewis, who had obediently winked out and reappeared thirty yards away, heard Joseph’s howl of pain. He saw the pale men firing again, and watched in horror as Joseph fell.
Then he was beside Joseph, caught hold of him, and they were away, this time getting as far as the next canyon before Lewis lost momentum. When they stopped, Joseph tottered a moment and fell again. He struggled to pull himself up but seemed unable to use his left arm and leg.
Lewis crouched over him. My God, I’ve killed us both.
Joseph struggled, making croaking noises. His face was terrifying: the left side slack, the left eye turned up sightless and white. The right eye rolled wildly as he strained to see over Lewis’s shoulder. Lewis followed his stare to behold three little globes of light floating over the ridge, coming after them.
Betrayed, said Joseph. Company told them, deal. Find you. Company let them take— He went into a seizure.
Lewis, supporting his head, looked across the canyon in quiet despair. The lights came closer. Can you see, Joseph? Can you hear me?
Uh.
I’ll lead them away from you. I’ll go as far as I can. They might forget there were two of us. Try to crawl to cover. If you can make it to morning, most of your systems ought to reset, and you can get away. I am so very sorry about this, Joseph.
Lewis.
But Lewis had winked out, and at the head of the canyon Joseph heard a shout and saw a waving figure, dark against the skyline.
“Here I am! Up here, you wretched imbeciles!” yelled Lewis, and dashed over the top out of sight. The three lights froze and then moved after him with uncanny speed, drifting above the brush like balloons. Joseph was left in darkness. He tried to keep from passing out from the pain, which was unlike anything he’d experienced in his twenty-odd thousand years.
After a moment he was able to coordinate his right arm and leg sufficiently to drag himself backward, half upright in the deeper gloom of an ironwood thicket. Panting, he tried to run a self-diagnostic. As he did so, he heard a distant crashing, a faint shout from Lewis, something Joseph couldn’t make out.
There was another light on the ridge across from him.
Right eye widening, Joseph crouched back into the shadows. Someone whined in the darkness beside him. But there was no one beside him. On the opposite ridge a lot of lights now moved fast, all in a line, like ants following ants, following Lewis, up and over the ridge. A torchlight procession. The Hollywood Bowl performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream. When was that, 1938? Max Reinhardt’s stupendous, colossal extravaganza. Fairies in the trees with lights. Shine, little glowworm. Joseph went with Lewis, had drinks afterward in the bar at Musso and Frank’s, Lewis in his tuxedo elegant and so funny critiquing the show over his martini, acting out the worst moments, Joseph laughing and laughing—
A flare of light in his face, a tremendous vibration. He was flat on his back looking up at the biggest damn full moon he’d ever seen. But the moon didn’t notice him, it rose majestically and drifted up over the ridge, following all the little horrible lights. It dipped out of sight on the other side, but he could still see the glow through the trees.
As he was levering himself upright again, with unbelievable effort, he heard far off a long, wavering cry of agony.
Lewis!
He toppled and fell, going into another seizure. When it subsided, he grappled frantically at roots, stones, anything to pull himself along, anything to go in the opposite direction from the monstrous light, scuttling like a crab, blindly going faster and faster, and gravity was helping him now, because he was rolling, tumbling, oh shit he’d forgot about the cliffs—
Roaring air for a moment, and then a deafening crash as he hit the water. Darkness and deathly cold. Smashed like a bug. But he wouldn’t drown, would he? He was immortal.
He was floating face up when the full moon reappeared, drifting over the top of the cliff. He gasped and flailed, but once again it took no notice of him. It rotated, and he saw it was a beautiful craft really, a glowing drop. It hesitated a moment before moving out to sea, picking up speed as it went but still zigging and wobbling unsteadily, as though piloted by idiots.
He watched it leave. It had no need to come back: it had caught what it had been hunting for so long.
San Pedro
MAN? BOAT? Dead? Not dead?
Joseph was instantly awake, his eye narrowed. He waited until he felt the prodding beak again, nudging his painful ribs.
Not-man? Dead?
Alive! He grappled with his right arm and clung, sinking his teeth into its dorsal fin for good measure as the dolphin screamed and darted under, trying frantically to throw him off. He hung on, through a long icy bubbly ride.
Ow ow! Not-man, off! Not-man, off!
Hear me.
Okay!
Seek boat. You swim me to boat. In boat, I stop bite, you go.
Okay, the dolphin agreed sullenly, and they rose slowly to the surface. The dolphin cast about for a ship, located one, and swam for it awkwardly, still giving a stealthy flip now and then in hopes of dislodging Joseph, who gripped it like grim death.
Not soon enough for either of them, the animal closed with its object, a small craft cutting through the darkness under power. It was towing a dinghy.
Baby boat, Joseph indicated. The dolphin swam to the dinghy. Joseph lunged and got his leg over the side, then his arm. He rolled gasping into the bottom of the dinghy, as the dolphin called him dirty names and swam away.
He looked up at the stars. Late, look how far they’d wheeled across the sky. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, the sky was pale, the stars had disappeared. Gray air, stale smells, and suddenly a very large tanker was taking up most of the view. He lurched up on his
right elbow. The left side of his body was still dead.
Important things to do right now:
1. Reactivate signal killer.
2. Get out of dinghy before you are noticed.
Joseph groped for his left hand, pulled it into his lap, twisted the bezel on the ring, and felt a comforting little jolt. He writhed around and took his bearings.
He was traveling into San Pedro Harbor courtesy the good ship Bobbi Jo, which seemed to be making for a berth near the old Ports o’ Call sector. He made a tentative attempt to access a map; he got one! Los Angeles County. In the last moments before the Bobbi Jo docked, he scanned the map, made a plan, and rolled over the side into murky water.
Ten minutes later, he was crouched shivering under a boat dock, snarling at the crabs who advanced, intrigued by his condition. Finally he killed a few of them and cracked them open, and sucked the meat out of the pieces of shell.
He stayed there all day, unnoticed by anyone. By nightfall his left leg responded to commands somewhat, though he was still blind and deaf on the left side and unable to use his left arm at all. In the afternoon he reactivated the signal killer.
When the evening grew late and quiet, he crawled out and up to the marina. Filthy, unshaven, staggering, he looked like any of the other zombies who roamed the night. He quickly found the paths they used, the alleyways and ugly places where they passed freely, invisible to others. Before morning he found his way to the city wall. He waited near an access port and watched. At dawn a convoy of transports lined up to exit. He shambled to the last one, swung himself up on its loading step, and hung on for dear life. He didn’t worry about being seen. Nobody cared about people going out to Los Angeles; it was only the incoming transports that were searched for refugees.
He clung like a limpet as the transport picked up speed, following the route of what used to be the old Harbor Freeway. As it drew near a certain overpass in Compton, he launched himself and fell, rolling and tumbling down the embankment, to come to rest against an ancient chain-link fence in a nest of blown paper and trash. The rest of the world collected its garbage to run fusion plants: not Los Angeles.