by Kage Baker
“Yeah.” Alec nodded.
Will looked hard at him. “How canst thou do these things, child? What art thou?”
“Different,” said Alec, squirming.
Will raised an eyebrow, remembering the abnormal cerebral activity his sensors had picked up. Shrewd as he was, he was unable to guess the whole truth; for his owners at Jupiter Cyberceuticals had not included any information on genetic engineering in his programming. After all, it was illegal to make an enhanced human being. Even a small one… because who knew what such a creature might do if it was allowed to grow up? It would be as unpredictable as—for example—an artificial intelligence built on a human memory file, which was an equally illegal creature.
But Jupiter Cyberceuticals did a lot of illegal things.
“Thou art some prodigy, with powers,” speculated Will.
“Don’t tell on me! I’d get in trouble if anybody found out.” Alec looked pleadingly up at Will.
“Nobody’s supposed to be different, you see?”
“I know it well, ay,” Will told him with feeling.
Alec started as the clock began to strike across the river. “Oh! I have to go now. It was really nice seeing you again, Mr. Shakespeare.” He jumped down from the stage and ran for the exit, pausing long enough to turn and wave. “I hope that works. Bye-bye!”
He fled past Caitlin, who looked down at him in surprise as she came in.
“You’re not allowed to run in here!” she called after him, and turned to Will. “Look, I’m awfully sorry about Mr. Pressboard. Who was that?”
“Verily one of the young-ey’d cherubins,” said Will, throwing his deepest bow. He grinned like a fox. Six hours sped by like so many elephantine years, leaden, dull, and ponderous, but Will could wait. He bore gracefully with a chartered busload of Scots who found fault with every aspect of Macbeth, /and wanted an apology; he capered for an infant care class who had no idea who he was, and sang them his song about the wind and the rain. When the clock struck 6:00 at last he bid Caitlin a fond adieu. As she shut him off for the day, she observed to herself that he seemed much less moody than usual, though there was a disconcerting glitter in his eyes as he vanished from her sight. Somehow present and conscious still, he watched her departure and waited. The lights were extinguished. The security system activated. Dark roaring rain and night closed over old London. He reached out a sinuous impalpable thread of his will—Ay! That was it, he was all Will now, and most himself being nothing but will!—to the surveillance cameras, bidding them see only shadows. Then he willed the holoemitter on and gave it wider range than it had previously, and his Globe was full of light, like a bright craft venturing on the night ocean. Briefly he considered summoning a pen and inkhorn, but realized they were unnecessary now.
“I have a muse of fire!” Will cried, and wrote his will in code that blazed like lightning, sparkled like etched crystal. From the brightest heaven of invention he ordered a backdrop of lunar cities drawn in sil-verpoint, painted in ivory and gold and cloudy blue, outlandish spires and towers flying fluttering pennons against the eternal stars.
With clean hands he willed the light, and out of the spinning dust a simulacrum of Richard Burbage formed. He stood before Will in his prime, not yet run to fat, and there too were Ned Alleyn and Kempe and Armin, Heminges and Condell, Lowin and Crosse and Phillips with the rest. Attending on his will, they were in makeup and in costumes that fit too, coeval, awake, sober and on their marks, every man jack of ‘em.
They looked around uncertainly.
“Why, Will, what’s toward?” inquired Kempe, meek as you please.
“A rehearsal!” thundered Will. “And I will give thee thy lines extempore. The Most Fantastical Comedy of Man on the Moon, my masters!”
In September 1879, the fledgling novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, threadbare and ill, traveled to California. He had come in a gallant attempt to rescue a lady who, on his arrival, turned out not to need rescuing after all. He then fled lamenting into the wilderness, or to be more exact rented a buckboard and went on an ill-advised camping trip into the mountains above Monterey. Up there his illness worsened, and he lay delirious under an oak tree for three days and three nights.
What happened to Stevenson up there? Had he died at that point in his career, Treasure Island would never have been written; neither would The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What came to him under that oak tree?
Agatha Christie likewise vanished from human knowledge in 1926, only to reappear eleven days later without a word of explanation. Her silence on the subject, maintained for the rest of her long and successful life, still fascinates. Who met her on a lonely road at a turning point in her career?
The Literary Agent
* * *
The object, had it been seen when it arrived, might have been described as a cheap aluminum trunk. In fact it was not a trunk, nor was it made of aluminum, and it was certainly not cheap. Nor was there anyone present who might have seen or attempted to describe it. So much for the sound of a tree falling in the forest.
Nevertheless the Object was there, between one second and the next, soundless, spinning slowly and slower still until it wobbled to a gentle stop. For a moment after that nothing much happened. Clouds roiled past the Object, for it had arrived on the seaward face of a coastal mountain range. It sizzled faintly as moisture beaded upon it. Underneath it, ferns and meadow grasses steadily flattened with its unrelieved weight.
Then the lid flew back and from the chest’s interior a cloud of yellow gas boiled away. A man sat up inside, unfolding with some pain from his coiled fetal position. He exhaled a long jet of yellow smoke, which was whipped away at once by the driving mountain wind. Retching, he pulled himself free and tumbled over the side of the Object, sprawling at his length beside it.
He lay perfectly still a while and then sat up, alert, apparently fully recovered from his ordeal. He groped in his vest pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a watch. Actually it was a sort of watch, certainly more so than the Object was a trunk. He consulted the timepiece and seemed satisfied, for he snapped it shut and got to his feet.
He appeared to be a man; actually he was a sort of man, though human men do not travel in trunks or breathe stasis gas. He was of compact build, stocky but muscular, olive-skinned. His eyes were hard as jetbuttons. They had a cheerful expression, though, as he squinted into the wind and viewed the fog walling up the miles from the bay of Monterey.
Leaning over into the Object he drew out the coat of his brown worsted suit, and slipped it on easily. He shot his cuffs, adjusted his tie, closed the lid of the Object that was not a trunk—but for the sake of convenience we’ll call it a trunk from here on—and lifted it to his shoulders, which gave him some difficulty, for the thing had no handles and was as smooth as an ice cube. Clutching it awkwardly, then, he set off across the meadow. His stride was meant to be purposeful. The date was September 8, 1879.
He followed a wagon road that climbed and wound. He clambered through dark groves of ancient redwoods, green and cold. He crossed bare mountainsides, wide open to the cloudy air, where rocks like ruins stood stained with lichen. None of this made much of an impression on him, though, because he wasn’t a scenery man and the thing that we have agreed to call a trunk kept slipping from his shoulder. Finally he set it down with what used to be called, in that gentler age, an oath.
“This is for the birds,” he fumed.
The trunk made a clicking sound and from no visible orifice spewed out a long sheet of yellowed paper. He tore it off, read what was written there, and looked for a moment as though he wanted to crumple and fling it away. Instead he took a fountain pen from an inside coat pocket. Sitting on the smooth lid of the trunk he scribbled a set of figures on the paper and carefully fed it back into the slot that you could not have seen if you had been there.
When he had waited long enough to determine that no reply was forthcoming, he shouldered his burden again and kept climbing, quicker now be
cause he knew he was near his destination. The road pushed up into a steadily narrowing canyon, and the way grew ever steeper and overhung with oak trees. At last he saw the dark outline of a wagon in the gathering dusk, up ahead where the road ended. He made out the shape of a picketed horse grazing, he heard the sound of creek water trickling. A few swift paces brought him to his destination, where he set his burden down and looked at the figure he had traveled so far to see, sprawled under the tree by the coals of a dying fire. He snapped off a dry branch and poked up the flames. He did not need additional light to see the object of his journey, but courtesy is important in any social encounter.
The fire glittered in the eyes of the man who lay there, wide-set eyes that stared unseeing into the branches above him. A young man with a long doleful face, shabbily dressed, he lay with neither coat nor blanketin a drift of prickly oak leaves. He had yet to write The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Treasure Island, and from the look of him it was unlikely he’d live long enough to do so. The other scanned him and shook his head disapprovingly. Malnutrition, tubercular lesions, malaria, a hideous case of eczema on both hands. “Tsk tsk tsk.” He drew a little case from his pocket. Something he sprayed on the scabbed hands, something he injected into one wrist. He peeled the back from a transdermal patch and stuck it just behind the young man’s ear.
Then he turned his attention to the fire again. He built it up to a good blaze, filled the tin kettle at the creek and set more water to boil. It had not yet begun to steam when the young man twitched violently and rose up on his elbows. He stared at his visitor, who put his hands on his trouser-knees and leaned over him with a benevolent smile.
“Robert Louis Stevenson! How’s it going?”
“Whae the hell are you?” croaked he.
“Allow me to introduce myself: Joseph X. Machina.” The other grabbed Stevenson’s limp hand and shook it heartily. “At your service, even if I am just a hallucination. Would you like some tea? It’s about ready.”
The young man did not reply, but stared at him with eyes of extraordinary size and luminosity. His visitor, meanwhile, rummaged amid his belongings in the back of the wagon.
“Say, you didn’t pack any tea. But then you didn’t really come up here to camp, did you? You ought to do something about that death wish of yours.” He found a tin cup and carried it back to the fire. “Luckily, I always carry a supply with me.” He sat down and from an inner pocket produced a teabag.
“What’s that?” inquired Stevenson.
“Orange pekoe, I think.” The other peered at the tag. “Yeah. Now, here’s your tea, and let’s make you nice and comfortable—” He found Stevenson’s coat, made a pillow of it and propped up his head.
“There we are.”
He resumed his seat on the trunk and drew from the same inner pocket a bar of chocolate in silver foil. He unwrapped one end of it and took a bite.
“Now, Mr. Stevenson, I have a proposition for you,” he said. Stevenson, who had been watching him in increasing fascination, began to laugh giddily.
“It seems I’m a popular man tonight,” he gasped. “Is the trunk to carry off my soul? Is the Accuser of the Brethren different in California? I’d have wagered you’d look more like a Spanish grandee in these parts.
Do you change your coat with the times? Of course you would, wouldn’t you? Yet you haven’t quite the look of a Yankee. In any case, Retro, Sathanas!”
“No, no, no, don’t worry. I’m not that guy. I’m merely a pleasant dream you’re having. Here, have some of this.” He broke off and handed a square of chocolate to Stevenson, who accepted it with a smirk.
“Sweeties from Hell!” The idea sent him into a giggling fit that started him coughing. The other watched him closely. When he recovered he pulled himself up on his elbow and said, “Well then—you haven’t any cigarettes, I suppose.”
“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
“Lucifer not smoke?” This time he laughed until he wept, wiping his eyes on his frayed sleeves. Consumptives do not wipe their eyes on their handkerchiefs. “Oh, I hope I remember this when I wake. What an idea for a comic narrative.”
“Actually that was sort of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Joseph went on imperturbably, finishing the last of his chocolate in a bite.
“Is that so?” Stevenson lurched into a sitting position. He grasped the cup of tea in his trembling hands, warming them.
“Absolutely. Remember, this is all part of a dream. And what is your dream, Louis, your most cherished dream? To make a success of this writing business, isn’t it? Financial independence so you can win this American lady you’ve come mooning after. Well, in this dream you’re having right now, you’ve met a man from the future—that’s me—and I’ve come back through time to tell you that you’ve got it, baby. All you wanted. Everything. Mrs. Osbourne too.”
“What nonsense. I’m dying penniless, unknown, and (I fear) unloved.” Stevenson’s eyes grew moist. “I came such a long way to do it, too. She sent me away! What does she care if I expire in this wilderness?”
“Louis, Louis, work with me, all right?” Joseph leaned forward, looking earnest. “This is your dream. This dream says you’re going to become a famous author. You write slam-bang adventure stories.”
“I write abominably derivative fiction. The only good stuff’s from life, my essays and the travel books.”
“Come on, Louis, let’s make this bird fly. You’ll write adventure novels about the sea and historical times. People love them. You’re a hit. You’re bigger than Sir Walter Scott, all right?”
“He couldn’t write a lucid sentence if his life had depended on it,” Stevenson sneered. “Oh, this is all the rankest self-conceit anyway.”
“Then what will it hurt you to listen? Now. I represent the ChronosPhoto-Play Company. Let me explain what a photo-play is. We have patented a method of, uh, making magic-lantern pictures into a sort of effect of moving tableaux, if you can grasp that. Maybe you’ve read about the cinematograph?
Oh, gee, no, you haven’t.” Joseph consulted his timepiece. “You’ll just miss it. Never mind— So, in the future, we have these exhibitions of our photo-plays and people pay admission to come in and watch them, the same way they’d watch a live play or an opera, with famous players and everything. But since we don’t have to pay live actors or even move scenery, the profit margin for the exhibitor is enormous. See?”
Stevenson gaped at him a moment before responding. “I was wrong. I apologize. You may or may not be the Devil, but you’re most assuredly a Yankee.”
“No, no, I’m a dream. Anyway. People are crazy about these photoplays, they’ll watch anything we shoot. We’ve adapted all the great works of literature already. Shakespeare, Dickens, all those guys. So now, my masters are looking for new material, and since you’re such a famous and successful writer they sent me to ask if you’d be interested in a job.”
“I see.” Stevenson leaned back, stretching out his long legs and crossing them. “Your masters want to adapt one of my wonderful adventure stories for these photo-plays of theirs?”
“Uh, actually, we’ve already done everything you wrote. Several times.”
“I should damned well hope I got royalties, then!”
“Oh, sure, Louis, sure you did. You’re not only famous, you’re rich. Anyway what my masters had in mind was you coming up with something completely new. Never-before-seen. Just like all your other stuff, you know, with that wonderful Robert Louis Stevenson magic, but different. Exclusively under contract for them.”
“You mean they want me to write a play?” Stevenson looked intrigued.
“Not exactly. We don’t have the time. This dream isn’t going to last long enough for you to do that, because it’s a matter of historical record that you’re only going to lie here another—” Joseph consulted his timepiece again, “—forty-three hours before you’re found and nursed back to health. No, see, all they need you to do is develop a story treatment for them. Fou
r or five pages, a plot, characters. You don’t have to do the dialogue; we’ll fill that out as we film. We can claim it’s from long-lost notes found in a locked desk you used to own, or something.”
“This is madness.” Stevenson sipped his tea experimentally.
“Delirium. But what have you got to lose? All you have to do is comeup with a concept and develop it. You don’t even have to write it down. I’ll do that for you. And to tell you the honest truth—” Joseph leaned down confidentially, “—this is a specially commissioned work. There’s this wealthy admirer of yours in the place I come from, and he’s willing to pay anything to see a new Robert Louis Stevenson picture.”
“Wouldn’t he pay more for a whole novel? I could make one up as we go along and dictate the whole thing to you, if we’ve got two more days here. You’d be surprised at how quickly stories unfold when the muse is with me.” Stevenson squinted thoughtfully up at the stars through the branches of the oak tree. Joseph looked slightly embarrassed. “He’s… not really much of a reader, Louis. But he loves our pictures, and he’s rich.”
“You stand to make a tidy sum out of this, then.”
“Perceptive man, Mr. Stevenson.”
Stevenson’s eyes danced. “And you’ll pay me millions of money, no doubt.”
“You can name your price. Money is no object.”
“Dollars, pounds or faery gold?” Stevenson began to chuckle and Joseph chuckled right along with him in a companionable manner.
“You’ve got the picture, Louis. It’s a dream, remember? Maybe I’ve got a trunkful of gold doubloons here, or pieces of eight. I’m authorized to pay you anything for an original story idea.”
“Very well then.” Stevenson gulped the tea down and flung the cup away. “I want a cigarette.” The other man’s chuckle stopped short.
“You want a cigarette?”
“I do, sir.”
“You want— Jeepers, Louis, I haven’t got any cigarettes!”