by Kage Baker
At my side, Mendoza turned away her face in disgust. But I was watching the old couple, who stood a little way back from the rest of the family. They clung to each other in mute terror and had no eyes for the smiling Virgin. It was the bottom of the ever-deepening hole they watched, as birds watch a snake. And I watched them. Old Diego was bent and toothless now, but sixty years ago he’d had teeth, all right; sixty years ago his race hadn’t yet learned never to fight back against its conquerors. Maria Conception, what had she been sixty years ago when those vines were planted? Not a dried-up shuffling old thing back then. She might have been a beauty, and maybe a careless beauty. The old bones and the rusting steel could have told you, sixty years ago. Had he been a handsome young captain with smooth ways, or just a soldier who took what he wanted? Whatever he’d been, or done, he’d wound up buried under that vine, and only Diego and Maria knew he was there. All those years, through the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he’d been there. Diego never coming to Mass because of a sin he couldn’t confess. Maria never missing Mass, praying for someone. Maybe that was the way it had happened. Nobody would ever tell the story, I was fairly sure. But it was clear that Diego and Maria, alone of all those watching, did not expect to see treasure come out of that hole in the ground.
So when the first glint of gold appeared, and then the chalice and altar plate were brought up, their old faces were a study in confusion.
“The treasure!” cried Salvador. “Look!”
And the rancheros spurred their horses through the crowd to get a better look, lashing the Indians out of the way; but I touched the remotehidden in my sleeve and the Blessed Virgin spoke, in a voice as sweet and immortal as a synthesizer:
“This, my beloved children, is the altar plate that was lost from the church at San Carlos Borromeo, long ago in the time of the pirates. My beloved Son has caused it to be found here as a sign to you all that ALL SINS ARE FORGIVEN!”
I touched the remote again and the Holy Apparition winked out like a soap bubble, and the beautiful music fell silent.
Old Diego pushed his way forward to the hole and looked in. There was nothing else there in the hole now, nothing at all. Maria came timidly to his side and she looked in too. They remained there staring a long time, unnoticed by the mass of the crowd, who were watching the dispute that had already erupted over the gold.
The bishop had pounced on it like a duck on a June bug, as they say, asserting the right of Holy Mother Church to her lost property. Emidio and Salvador had let it be snatched from them with hard patient smiles. One of the Gentes de Razon actually got off his horse to tell the bishop that the true provenance of the items had to be decided by the authorities in Mexico City, and until they could be contacted the treasure had better be kept under lock and key at the alcalde’s house. Blessed Virgin?
Yes, there had seemed to be an apparition of some kind; but then again, perhaps it had been a trick of the light.
The argument moved away down the hill—the bishop had a good grip on the gold and kept walking with it, so almost everyone had to follow him. I went to stand beside Diego and Maria, in the ruins of their garden.
“She forgave us,” whispered Diego.
“A great weight of sin has been lifted from you today, my children,” I told them. “Rejoice, for Christ loves you both. Come to the church with me now and I will celebrate a special Mass in your honor.” I led them away with me, one on either arm. Unseen behind us, Mendoza advanced on the uprooted and forgotten vine with a face like a lioness kept from her prey.
Well, the old couple made out all right, anyway. I saw to it that they got new grapevines and food from the Mission supplies to tide the family over until their garden recovered. Within a couple of years they passed away, one after the other, and were buried reasonably near one another in the consecrated ground of the Mission cemetery, in which respect they were luckier than the unknown captain from Castile, or wherever he’d come from.
They never got the golden treasure, but being Indians there hadnever been any question that they would. Their descendants lived on and multiplied in the area, doing particularly well after the coming of the Yankees, who (to the mortification of the Gentes de Razon) couldn’t tell an Indian from a Spanish Mexican and lumped them all together under the common designation of Greaser, treating one no worse than the other.
Actually I never kept track of what happened to the gold. The title dispute dragged on for years, I think, with the friars swearing there had been a miracle and the rancheros swearing there hadn’t been. The gold may have been returned to Carmel, or it may have gone to Mexico City, or it may have gone into a trunk underneath the alcalde’s bed. I didn’t care; it was all faked Company-issue reproductions anyway. The bishop died and the Yankees came and were the new conquerors, and maybe nothing ever did get resolved either way.
But Mendoza got her damned vine and her bonus, so she was as happy as she ever is. The Company got its patent on Black Elysium secured. I lived on at the Mission for years and years before (apparently) dying of venerable old age and (apparently) being buried in the same cemetery as Diego and Maria. God forgave us all, I guess, and I moved on to less pleasant work.
Sometimes, when I’m in that part of the world, I stop in as a tourist and check out my grave. It’s the nicest of the many I’ve had, except maybe for that crypt in Hollywood. Well, well; life goes on. Mine does anyway.
Anyone who has done time with the very small and the very bright will agree that computer adventure games, when done with wit, creativity and good graphics, are the greatest thing since moveable type. Puzzles, riddles, language games, BRAIN EXERCISE! And a lesson in humility when a three-year-old, tiny fingers flying over the keys, is halfway through the first quest while you are still trying to make sense of the walkthrough guide…
The old world is just as dark and narrow as it ever was, just as unkind to little things, just as cold and intolerant; but the machines and the children get brighter all the time. Such possibilities…
Smart Alec
* * *
For the first four years of his life, Alec Checkerfield wore a life vest. This was so that if he accidentally went over the side of his parents’ yacht, he would be guaranteed a rescue. It was state of the art, as life vests went in the twenty-fourth century: not only would it have enabled him to bob along like a little cork in the wake of the Foxy Lady, it would have reassured him in a soothing voice programmed to allay panic, broadcast a frequency that repelled sharks, and sounded an immediate alarm on the paging devices worn by every one of the servants on board. His parents themselves wore no pagers, which was just as well because if Mummy had noticed Alec was in the water she’d probably have simply waved her handkerchief after him until he was well over the horizon. Daddy would probably have made an effort to rescue Alec, if he weren’t too stoned to notice the emergency; but most of the time he was, which was why the servants had been appointed to save Alec, should the child ever fall overboard. They were all madly fond of Alec, anyway, because he was really a very good little boy, so they were sure to have done a great job, if the need for rescue at sea should ever have arisen.
It never did arise, however, because Alec was a rather well-coordinated child too and generally did what he was told, such as obeying safety rules at sea.
And he was a happy child, despite the fact that his mother never set her ice-blue eyes on him if she could help it and his father was as likely to trip over him as speak to him. It didn’t matter that they were terribleat being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec. In a later time Alec would look back on the years aboard the Foxy Lady as the happiest in his life, and sometimes he’d come across the old group holo and wonder why it had all ended. The picture had been taken in Jamaica, by somebody standing on a mooring catwalk and shooting down on deck. There he was, three years old, in his bright red life vest and little sailor hat, smiling brightly up at the camera. Assembled around him were all th
e servants: fabulous Sarah, his Jamaican nurse, arrogantly naked except for blue bathing shorts; Lewin and Mrs. Lewin, the butler and cook; Reggie, Bob and Cat, the deckhands, and Mr. Trefusis, the first mate. They formed a loving and protective wall between Alec and his Mummy and Daddy, or Roger and Cecilia, as they preferred to be called. Roger and Cecilia were visible up on the quarterdeck: Cecilia ignoring them all from her deck chair, a cold presence in a sun hat and dark glasses, reading a novel. Roger was less visible, leaning slouched against the rail, one nerveless hand about to spill a rum highball all over his yachting shoes. He’d turned his face away to look at something just as the image had been recorded, so all you could see was a glimpse of aristocratic profile, blurred and enigmatic.
Oh, but it hadn’t mattered. Alec had a wonderful life, full of adventures. Sarah would tell him stories about Sir Henry Morgan and all the pirates who used to roam the sea, living on their ships just like Alec did, and how they formed the Free Brotherhood of the Coast. Alec liked that. It was a grand-sounding name.
And there was the fun of landing on a new island—what would it be like? Was there any chance pirates might still be lurking around? Alec had played on beaches where the sand was white, or yellow, or pink, or black, built castles on all of them and stuck his little pirate flags on the turrets. Jolly Roger, that was what the flag was called.
Jolly Roger was also what the deckhands called Alec’s Daddy when he seemed to be having more than usual difficulty walking or talking. This was generally after he’d been drinking the tall drinks Cat would shake up for him at the bar on the yacht. Sometimes Cat would put a fruit spear in the drinks, cherries and chunks of pineapple skewered on long wooden picks with the paper pirate flag at the top. Sometimes Daddy’s eyes would focus on Alec and he’d present him with the fruit spear and yell for more rum in his drink. Alec would sit under Daddy’s tall chair and eat the pineapple and cherries, making faces at the nasty stuff they’d been soaked in. Then he’d carry the Jolly Roger pick back to his cabin, where he had a whole hoard of them carefully saved for his sand castles.
It was a shame the rum had such an effect on Daddy, because going to get it was always fun. The Foxy Lady would drop anchor in some sapphire bay and Sarah would put on a halter top and shoes, and put shoes on Alec, and they’d go ashore together in the launch. And as they’d come across the water Sarah might sing out, “How many houses, baby?” and Alec would look up at the town and count the houses in his head and he’d tell her how many there were, and she’d tousle his hair and tell him he was right again! And they’d laugh.
Then they would take a long walk through some island town, past the gracious houses with window boxes full of pink flowers, where parrots flashed and screamed in the green gardens, back to the wappen-bappen places where the houses looked like they were about to fall down, and there would always be a doormouth with no sign and a dark cool room beyond, full of quiet black men sitting at tables, or brown men, or white men turned red from the sun. There Sarah would do a deal; and Alec and Sarah would sit at a table while the men loaded crates into a battered old vehicle. Then Alec and Sarah would go out into the bright sunlight again, and the driver would give them a ride back into town with the crates. The crates were nearly always stenciled CROSSE & BLACKWELL’S PICKLED GHERKINS.
And nearly always they’d spot a stern-looking black or brown or white man in a white uniform, pedaling along on a bicycle, and Sarah would hug Alec tight and cry out in a little silly voice: “Oh, nooo, it’s a policeman! Don’t tell him, Alec, don’t tell him our secret!” This always made Alec giggle, and she’d always go on: “Don’t tell him we’ve got GUNS! Don’t tell him we’ve got EXPLOSIVES! Don’t tell him we’ve got GANJA! Don’t tell him we’ve got COFFEE!” She’d go on and on like this, as they’d bump along trailing dust clouds and squawking birds, and by the time they reached the harbor Alec would be weak with laughter.
Once they were at the launch, however, she’d be all quiet efficiency, buckling Alec into his seat and then helping the man move the crates into the cargo bay. When all the crates were on board, the man would hold out a plaquette and Sarah would bring out Daddy’s identification disk and pay for the crates, and then they’d zoom back out to the Foxy Lady. They’d put out to sea again, and the next day there would be rows of brown bottles under the bar once more, and Cat would be busy shaking up the long drinks, and Daddy would be sitting on the aft deck with a glass in his hand, staring vacantly out at the blue horizon.
Not everybody thought that the trips to get the rum were such a good idea, however. Alec was sitting in the saloon one day after just such a trip, quietly coloring. He had made a picture of a shark fighting with an anchor, because he knew how to draw anchors and he knewhow to draw sharks, and that was all the logic the scene needed. The saloon was just aft of the galley. Because it was very warm that day the connecting door was open, and he could hear Lewin and Mrs. Lewin talking in disgusted tones.
“He only gets away with it because he’s a peer.”
“Peer or no, you’d think he’d stop it for the kid’s sake! He was such a brilliant teacher, too, and what’s he given that all up for? He used to do something with his life, and look at him now! And what would happen if we were ever boarded for inspection? They’d take the baby away in a minute, you know they would.” Chop, chop, chop, Mrs. Lewin was cutting up peppers as she talked.
“Don’t think so. J.I.S. would smooth it over, same as they’ve always done. Between his lineage and them, he can do whatever he bloody well pleases, even in London.”
“Yeh, well! Things was different before Alec came, weren’t they? Don’t forget that J.I.S. would have something to say if they knew he was drinking where the baby could see! And anyway it’s wrong, Malcolm, you know it is, it’s criminal, it’s dangerous, it’s unhealthy, and really the best thing we could do for him would be to tell a Public Health Monitor about the alcohol.”
“And where’d we be, then? The last thing J.I.S. would want’d be some Public Health doctor examining the boy—” Lewin started through the doorway and saw Alec in the saloon. He caught his breath and shut the door.
Alec sat frowning at his picture. He knew that Daddy’s drinking made people sad, but he’d never thought it was dangerous. He got up and trotted out of the saloon. There was Daddy on the aft deck, smiling dreamily at the sun above the yardarm.
“Hey, there, Alec,” he greeted the little boy. He had a sip of his drink and reached out to tousle Alec’s hair. “Look out there to starboard. Is that a pretty good island? Should we go there, maybe?” Alec shivered with joy. Daddy almost never noticed him, and here he was asking Alec’s opinion about something.
“Yeah!” he cried. “Let’s go!”
But Daddy’s gaze had drifted away, back to the horizon, and he lifted his glass again. “Some green island we haven’t found yet,” he murmured, “farther on ‘n farther on ‘n farther on… ” Alec remembered what he had wanted to ask. He reached out and pushed at Daddy’s glass with his index ringer.
“Is that crinimal?” he inquired. It was a moment before Daddy played that back and turned to stare at him.
“What?”
“Is that dangerous?” Alex persisted, and mimed perfectly the drink-ing-from-a-bottle gesture he had seen the servants make in reference to his father. “If I see danger I’m supposed to tell.”
“Huh,” said Daddy, and he rubbed his scratchy chin. He hadn’t shaved in about a week. His eyes narrowed and he looked at Alec slyly.
“Tell me, Alec, ‘m I hurting anybody?”
“No.”
“We ever had an accident on this ship? Anything happen ol’ Roger can’t handle?”
“No.”
“Then where’s the harm?” Daddy had another sip. “Tell me that. I’m a nice guy even when I’m stoned. A Gentleman You Know. Old School Tie.”
Alec had no idea what that meant, but he pushed on, “How come it’s crinimal?”
“Aha.” Daddy tilted his glass until the ice
fell down against his lip. He crunched ice and continued,
“Okay, Alec. Big fact of life. There’s a whole bunch of busybodies and scaredy-cats who make a whole bunch of rules and regs about things they don’t want anybody doing. See? So nobody gets to have any fun. Like, no booze. They made a law about no booze. And they’re all, ‘You can’t lie about in the sun because you get cancer,’ and they’re all, ‘You can’t swim in the ocean ‘cos you might pee,’ and they’re all,
‘You can’t eat sweets because they make you fat,’ okay? Dumb stuff. And they make laws so you go to Hospital if you do this little dumb stuff! Okay?
“That’s why we don’t live in London, kiddo. That’s why we live out here on the Lady, so no scaredy-cat’s gonna tell us what to do. Okay? Now then. If you went running to the scaredy-cats to tell
‘em about the rum, you’d be an even worse thing than them. You’d be a telltale! See? And you gotta remember you’re a gentleman, and no gentleman is ever a telltale. See? ‘Cos if you did tell about the rum, well, they’d come on board and they’d see me with my little harmless drinkies and they’d see your Mummy with her books and they’d see Sarah with her lovely bare tits and then you know what they’d do? Daddy’d go to Hospital and they’d take you away. Li’l Alec ain’t gonna be a telltale, is he? He’s my li’l gentleman, ain’t he?”
“I don’t want ‘em to take me away!” Alec wailed, tears in his eyes. Daddy dropped his glass, reaching clumsily to pull Alec up on his lap, and the glass broke, but he didn’t notice.
” ‘Course you don’t! ‘Cos we’re free here on the Foxy Lady, and you’re a gentleman and you got a right to be free, free, free. Okay? You won’t tell on Daddy, not my li’l Alec. You just let old Jolly Roger go hisways and you never be a telltale, okay? And don’t pay them no mind with their dumb rules.”