by Kage Baker
As I probed deeper, my horrified perceptions made the shocking truth quite plain: the child had not merely been repaired but modified! Made one of us, in a manner of speaking. Not to the extent of making him an immortal, of course, for Kalugin had neither the knowledge, tools nor time to do such a dreadful thing: but I read enhanced abilities,certain crude structural improvements, favorable genetic mutations induced… I began to tremble as I realized the extent of the changes Kalugin had wrought. I attempted to scan a second time to be certain, but Mrs. Hayes was reaching out for him. I put him in her arms. “It’s a little boy, Mrs. Hayes,” I told her in a faint voice.
“Oh, Mackie’ll be ever so happy!” she exclaimed, and fell to examining him with delight. I turned wondering eyes to Kalugin. Do you understand what you have done?
You shan’t tell anyone, he transmitted. I shan’t tell anyone. Who’s to know? . I had no words to respond to him that might suitably express my terror and dismay. To breach Company procedure in such a fashion was to risk far, far more serious consequences than disciplinary counseling. Oh, if he were ever found out!
“What’s this, though?” Mrs. Hayes fretted, touching the thin red scar on the infant’s breast.
“A birthmark, I should guess.” Kalugin gathered me to him with an arm. I must have seemed in danger of fainting. “Nothing to concern you unduly, Mrs. Hayes. Why, he can have it covered with a tattoo when he grows up—for I daresay he’ll be a sailor, like his father.”
“I guess so.” She looked wistful. “Though I kind of hope he turns out to be a Christian instead. Mackie don’t hold with gospel much.” Her face became woebegone as she remembered the predicament her mate was in. Kalugin patted her hand gallantly.
“In view of the happy occasion, we have decided not to press charges against Mr. Hayes,” he informed her. “Our intention is to set you ashore presently, with some remuneration for Mr. Hayes’s services on the Gladstone, to which he is after all entitled. We do regret the loss of your boat, but she was scarcely seaworthy. You were lucky to escape with your lives. What a blessing we were standing by when she went down!”
She dissolved in tears of gratitude. I held close to Kalugin, marveling at him. Some little while after I took Mrs. Hayes’s things out on deck to dry them. The spiral of the storm was moving away to the north leaving behind a fine morning, with strong sunlight and a freshening breeze. Sea birds circled the Chronos, wheeling and mewing; dolphins leapt and sported in the glittering water all around us.
“Yes, all nature rejoices at our success,” said Victor grandly, pausing in a lap of his morning constitutional about the deck. “The loathsomeHayes is safely immured below, happy in his oblivion. He shan’t wake until well after he’s safely ashore and we’ve salvaged the Gladstone.”
“You’ve persuaded him to discretion?” I spread out a shabby cotton frock in the sunlight.
“Oh, quite. If he ever does speak of us to anyone, it’ll be in such a way his hearers will condemn him for a rank liar or a lunatic. Never fear. I gather the unfortunate female pupped, by the way?” I pursed my lips. “Yes, the poor child had her blessed event early this morning. Need we do anything further? Her lot could scarcely be made more unfortunate. Ought we not err on the side of compassion and set her ashore without further processing?”
“Hm! I suppose so. Some sort of humane gesture might be in order. She’s got to live with Hayes, after all! Though I rather think he’ll ship out on the first vessel he can hail, now that his prospects for the Gladstone are gone. Didn’t strike me as a family man.”
This was certainly likely, and for Mrs. Hayes’s sake I could not be unhappy at the prospect of her abandonment by such a creature. But in truth there was some quality of ineffable happiness in the morning air, for all the violent and near-tragic events of the night now past, some celestial mirth at some tremendous joke. And the unthinkable joke was on Victor, after all. So long as he never found out what Kalugin had done…
Toward midday we put in to the island, where Mrs. Hayes directed us to a likely anchorage. The settlement there was no more than a cluster of squatters’ shacks, gray and leaning with age, tucked away in the ravines under the looming mountains of the interior. A few goats grazed on the hills; there were a few garden patches where patient industry had coaxed forth a few dry cabbage and spinach plants, and one or two fig trees. Upon this dismal prospect Mrs. Hayes looked with fond anticipation, when she could bear to lift her regard from happy contemplation of the child who slept shaded in her bosom, and allowed herself to be handed down into the whaleboat without a murmur. She did look up with timid concern when Hayes was brought up on deck in a stretcher; she did squeak and flutter in a wifely way as the servants loaded him into the whaleboat; but it was evident that their parting, when it should occur, would be considerably softened by the presence of her boy.
With a merry face Kalugin bent to the oars to take them to land. Mme. Masaki and I waved our handkerchiefs in farewell, Victor beamed on them in his cold way, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; a band of ragged children came running down to the water’s edge to help the passengers ashore. I felt again the sensation of being present at some eventof cosmic significance, on that bright day in that remote place; yet I have been present at several significant moments in history without any such mysterious intimations at all.
We put to sea again and returned to the site of the wreck. Once we had blessed privacy, it took less than two hours to locate and retrieve the long cylinder containing the lost painting. Kalugin and Mme. Masaki rose to the surface bearing it between them, and when it was safely on board it was borne straight to my laboratory, where, having made all the necessary preparations, I waited to receive it and begin the work of restoration.
When he had bathed and rested from his ordeal, Kalugin stopped in to visit me as I bent over the object of our concern.
“How badly was it damaged?” he inquired.
“Not badly at all, dearest. There are a few little tears. The varnish bloomed, as you see, but really I have seen much worse.”
Kalugin leaned close to consider Delacroix’s great canvas opened out before us. An outdoor temple was the setting, milk-white columns rising into a sky black and churning with storm clouds. From the upper-right-hand corner, Jupiter looked down on the scene with paternal indulgence and a certain Gallic smirk. Juno his spouse regarded him from the upper-left-hand corner, her stare terrible and direct, holding in her raised hands the serpents with which she intended to avenge herself. Their bright coils and the patterns of her bracelets formed spiraling patterns of energy echoed in the draperies on Queen Alcmene’s couch, down in the center-right of the canvas; she must have had a Celtic needlewoman. The queen herself lay in a cozy pool of golden light, pale limbs slack with the exhaustion of her labor, lifting sweet vacant features to the midwife. This figure stood half-silhouetted in the left foreground, enigmatic and powerful, holding up the infant demigod; and he was rendered with strong and twisting brushstrokes in smoky red, not an idealized cherub at all but a howling, flailing, bloody newborn.
“Extraordinary painting,” remarked Kalugin. “What contrasts! Sentimental and crude all at once. What can the artist have been thinking of?”
“It’s an allegory, dear,” I explained, reaching for another scrap of cottonwool. “There was some kind of scandal in Paris society. Someone the artist knew was a co-respondent in a dreadfully public divorce trial, with a question of paternity. The painting was done as a joke, in rather poor taste I think, and was never exhibited for that reason.”
“What vile, silly creatures they are.” Kalugin shook his head. “And yet, look: out of such a sordid business comes beauty. I am not sorry for what I did.”
I set down my materials and turned, taking his hand firmly in my own. You mustn ‘t speak of that again, my love. Not ever.
Never again, he agreed. But if I lay at the bottom of the sea a thousand nights for it, still would I have done the same.
He kissed me and went away to his
own duties. Presently the sunlight slanted and moved along the wall: the Chronos was tacking about, taking us home to Europe. I opened another bottle of cleaning solvent and settled in to the rhythms of my work, making fresh and new again the old story of the birth of the Hero.
In the future we will all be very healthy, very attractive, and very, very good. It will be illegal to be otherwise.
Today, the ordinary citizen in Britain is under more constant surveillance from remote cameras than in any other country in the world In West Hollywood, it is illegal to describe oneself as a “Pet Owner”; one must use the term, “Animal Guardian.” Elsewhere in America, there is a movement afoot to outlaw serving large portions of food in restaurants, on the grounds that this is a criminal act contributing to obesity. Several public interest groups have successfully criminalized the wearing of perfume in public places. Many communities have laws in effect penalizing untidy yards or even the ownership of clotheslines, on the grounds that they lower property values. Can it be long until physical ugliness is prohibited too, for the mental distress it occasions in others?
Popular psychology now informs us that our misfortunes and illnesses are our own fault, brought about by our unconscious urges; secular puritanism, as I live and breathe! But surely Coercive Law will set us all to rights, and make certain that we cannot pose a threat to ourselves or others.
Hooray.
Monster Story
* * *
When alec checkerfield was ten, he was Sorted.
The official name for it was Pre-Societal Vocational Appraisal, but what it amounted to was that Alec, with every other ten-year-old child in England, was examined to determine how he’d best fit into society. Sorting had been going on for nearly a century now, and everyone agreed it worked much better than the old haphazard way of choosing careers.
“It’s nothing to be worried about,” Lewin assured him, pacing back and forth at the end of the long polished table. “You’re such a bright boy, Alec, you’re sure to do well.” Alec sat at the other end of the table and wondered why Lewin was sweating. He could tell Lewin was sweating from all the way across the room, which was one of the reasons Lewin was sweating.
“Is it just a test like we have at St. Stephen’s?” Alec asked.
“Not exactly,” said Lewin.
Lewin was Alec’s butler. Alec lived in a mansion in London with his butler and Mrs. Lewin, his cook. Alec’s Daddy was off on a yacht in the Caribbean and Alec’s Mummy was staying with friends somewhere. Alec hadn’t seen either of them since he was four.
“Then how is it different?”
Lewin gave up on class distinction and paced down to Alec’s end of the room, where he pulled out a chair and sat with his elbows on the table. “It’s like this, son. The PSVA isn’t a test to see how much youknow; it’s to see what kind of person you are. That way they’ll know what sort of job to put you in when you grow up, and just how to train you for it when you leave primary school.”
“But I already know what I’m going to be when I grow up,” said Alec with a sigh. He was sighing because he was going to have to be the seventh earl of Finsbury and attend a Circle of Thirty, when what he really wanted to be was a pirate.
“Well, yeh, but they have to go through the motions, don’t they?” said Lewin, leaning forward confidentially. “You’ll be Sorted right out in public with all the other little kids, Admins like you and Consumers alike, so it looks like everybody gets a fair chance. And it is mostly fair. Every year there’s a couple Consumer boys and girls score so high they get to join a Circle. And there’s usually an Admin kid who doesn’t make the grade.”
“What happens then?”
“Nothing bad,” Lewin assured him quickly. “He’ll get trained for a nice low-stress job somewhere and never have to worry about much. But that won’t happen to you, son. You’ll go right on into your Circle because of your dad being who he is. And you’ll like it in Circle. You’ll get to meet other kids!” Alec thought that might be fun. He had never met any children.
“Will there be other kids when we go there tomorrow?” he asked. Lewin nodded. “Which is why,” he said, drawing an envelope from an inner pocket, “you’ll need to take this.” He opened it and shook out a bright blue capsule. “Ministry sends ‘em out free. Jolly little pill, see? It’s to fight off any germs you might pick up from anybody. Kids used to have to get stuck with needles to keep them well. Aren’t you lucky you don’t? But you’re to take that after supper tonight.”
“Okay.” Alec picked it up and dropped it in his blazer pocket.
“Good lad.” Lewin shifted uneasily in his seat and cleared his throat. “You’ll pass with flying colors, son, I know, but… you want to make a good impression.”
“Because first impressions are very important,” Alec agreed, echoing the Social Interaction Programme he’d been given.
“Yeh. So we aren’t going to talk about, er, pirates or anything, are we, son?”
“Nope,” said Alec solemnly.
“And we don’t want to show off how smart we are, eh? No talk about what you can do with your little toolkit. Not a good idea to let people know you’re a bit different.”
“Oh, no,” Alec agreed. “Because that would make the other children feel bad about themselves.”
“Just so,” said Lewin, feeling relieved. “You’ll make your father proud, son. Time for school now!”
“Yes, sir,” said Alec, and sliding from his chair he ran upstairs to his schoolroom. He was eager to make the sixth earl proud of him; he thought that if he did, perhaps his Daddy might come home some day. Perhaps he might even take Alec back to sea with him, and things might be the way they had been before the divorce.
He knew it wasn’t actually his fault his Mummy hadn’t wanted children, but she had gone away all the same; so that was another reason he must be good and get high marks in school. But not too high.
Alec entered his schoolroom, sat down at the console and logged on to St. Stephen’s Primary. The surveillance cameras in the upper corners of the room followed him. The nearest one telescoped outward suddenly and sent forth a scan. Meanwhile, Alec watched the icon of the frowning headmaster appear on his console’s screen. He picked up the reader and passed it over the pattern of stripes in his school tie, wherein was encoded his identification. The frowning headmaster changed to a smiling one, and Alec was admitted to morning lessons.
Before he could begin, however, a gravelly voice spoke out of the cabinet to his left.
“Bloody hell, boy, what’s that in yer jacket?”
As Alec turned from the console, a cone of light shot forth from the Maldecena projector on top of the cabinet. There was a flicker of code and then the form of a man materialized. He was big, with a wild black beard and a fierce and clever face. He wore a coat of scarlet broadcloth. He wore a cocked hat. He wasn’t supposed to look like that. He was supposed to look like a jolly old sea captain in a yachting cap, harmless and cheery, in keeping with the Pembroke Playfriend he had been programmed to be when it was purchased for Alec. Alec had tinkered with the Playfriend’s programming, however, removing the Ethical Governor, and the Captain was far from harmless now.
“It’s a pill, so I won’t catch germs from the other kids tomorrow,” Alec explained.
“No it ain’t! That damned thing’s got circuitry in it.”
“It has?” Alec slipped the capsule out of his pocket and looked at it curiously.
“Get the tools out, boy,” the Captain snarled. “We’d best have a look at it.”
“But it’s class time.”
“Bugger class time! Send 2-D Alec instead this morning,” the Captain told him. Alec grinned and, taking the buttonball, ordered up the two-dimensional Alec program he had designed to answer questions for him when he needed to be somewhere other than St. Stephen’s.
“Aye aye, Captain sir,” he said, hopping back from the console and going to his work table. He pulled out his chair and sat down, taking from a pocket
his small case of terribly useful tools. The Captain hauled an adult-sized chair from cyberspace and set it beside the little table, where he bent down awkwardly to glare at the blue capsule.
After scanning it intently a moment, he swore for forty-five seconds. Alec listened happily. He had learned a lot of interesting words from the Captain.
“Germs, my arse,” said the Captain. “There’s a monitor in the little bastard! And I know why, by thunder. Old Lewin said you was to take this afore bedtime, I’ll wager?”
“Yes.”
“Hmph. What he don’t know is, it’s part of the goddamn PSVA.” The Captain stroked his beard, considering the capsule balefully. “Once that thing’s inside you, it’ll transmit yer reactions to the questions themselves. The Education Committee’ll get yer pulse, blood pressure, respiration, reaction times—that whole lot. Like you was hooked up to one of them old lie detectors.”
“But I’m not going to tell any lies,” said Alec.
“That ain’t the point, son! Didn’t Lewin explain about what this Sorting is for?” Alec nodded. “It’s to see what kind of person I am.”
“And that’s just what we don’t want ‘em to see, matey!”
“Oh,” said Alec resignedly. “Because I’m different, right?” Alec did not know how he was different from other people. He had drawn the conclusion that he was simply very smart, which was why he was able to do things like look at a tree and immediately say how many leaves were on it, or decrypt the site defense of a Pembroke Playfriend so it could be reprogrammed to his liking.
Only the Captain knew the truth about Alec, and only some of the truth at that.
“Bloody busybodies,” the Captain growled. “Wouldn’t they just love to get their hooks into my boy?