by Kage Baker
“I don’t want Golden Syrup!” Alec screams, beating his fists on the table. “I hate you, Deadward, I hate you, I hate you!”
“No, you don’t,” soothes Mendoza. “Look, Alec, here’s Barnacle Bill.” She holds up a pirate rag doll. Alec makes an involuntary grab and hugs it close, keenly aware of the humiliation of being comforted by something full of sawdust but unable to resist. He grits his teeth, or would if he had molars yet, and after a long moment sets the toy aside, as casually as he can.
“I changed my mind. Golden Syrup, please,” he says.
Hands shaking with frustration, Edward offers him the syrup tin. Alec takes it, pouting, and sweetens his oatmeal liberally. “You might have said thank you, you mannerless little whelp,” Edward mutters.
“Piss off,” Alec tells him.
“Four demerits, Alec!”
“Piss off,” says Nicholas meditatively, salting his own oatmeal. “Piss off, piss off, piss off piss off piss offpissoffpiss OFF!!! Edwuhd Oolton Bell-Fehfex,” he concludes, perfectly mimicking Edward’s plummy Victorian tones. Mendoza bites her lip to keep from laughing. Alec giggles, tilting his helmet back and wiping away a tear.
“Twenty demerits each, Max and Moritz,” snaps Edward, grabbing his teacup before it leaps out of its saucer. Alec casts a dark look at Edward. He pulls his soft-boiled egg close and whacks his spoon down on the top of the egg, and its shell breaks with a disturbing sound.
“Funny boy,” Mendoza says to Nicholas, smiling as she offers him a morsel of torta on the end of her fork. Nicholas leans forward to take the proffered tidbit. Edward winces.
“My dear, must you give them trifles from your fork? Particularly in such high seas? The tines might stab him—”
Speaking of high seas, Commander sir? That typhoon’s spinning up bigger than we’d reckoned. I’ve set a course for the closest anchorage, but we’d best be prepared for squalls by the first dog-watch.
Edward’s eyes widen. He swallows a mouthful of kipper hastily.
“I knew it. Children, deck liberty’s canceled until further notice. I want you both in life jackets as soon as we’ve finished dining.”
“Piss off, Captain Bligh,” says Alec, indignant. “Don’t tell me what to do!”
Aw, now, matey—
“Damn your insolence!” says Edward. “As God is my witness, one more insubordinate word and you’ll be confined to quarters.”
“Two demerits, Commander,” says Nicholas.
Alec begins to cry again. “This is MY ship—” he rages, flinging his sipper bottle, and with the pitch of the deck it rolls right out of the saloon.
“There! You’ll do without orange juice, because I won’t get up and fetch it for you. Are you pleased with your cleverness? I’ve had enough of your tantrums—”
“PLEASE!” says Mendoza, clenching her fists. “Tempers!” She looks down distractedly at Nicholas. He has unfastened his safety belt and clambered quietly into her lap. He unclenches her fist, takes her hand in both his own, stretches up to whisper in her ear.
“Swedenborg?”
“Please?” he says, and points her index finger between his eyes. She blinks, collects herself, obliges him.
“Downloading,” she croons. “Down the little dataport it goes, whoosh!” She looks across at Edward and resumes in a normal voice: “Señor, of course nobody’s going abovedecks in a storm! How silly even to contemplate. And, you know, if either of them fell overboard he’d just swim like a little cyborg fishie. Wouldn’t you, sweetheart?” She smiles down at Nicholas.
“Mmm.” He nods, busy absorbing the flood of binary. Edward and Alec are still looking balefully at each other. Mendoza frowns at them.
“You know,” she says, “Perhaps it’s time we thought about making a change.”
“A change, my dear?” Edward reaches for his teacup, deciding to ignore Alec.
“Yes,” says Mendoza. “You know how you once said we’d never get married, but we did?”
“I recall, yes.” Edward takes a sip of tea. Alec finishes his oatmeal sullenly. Coxinga, having retrieved the sipper bottle, sets it back on the table without comment.
“And you said we’d never raise children … but we are?”
“Sadly, yes,” Edward says. Alec ignores him too, pushes away his bowl and climbs out of his seat, managing to pick up Barnacle Bill on the way without being too obvious about it.
“And you said we’d never live in a cottage by the sea …?” Mendoza reaches out to steady Alec, who dives toward her possessively.
“I want to download now,” Alec demands.
“Sweetheart, Nicky hasn’t finished yet.” Mendoza looses the strap and slides off Alec’s helmet. Above her head, the saloon lamp swings on its gimbal until it nearly parallels the deck. Alec lurches, off balance, and Edward grabs him by the back of his sunsuit.
“Come here,” says Edward, in a resigned tone of voice. Alec flails at him.
“I won’t download from you! It’s boring!”
“Don’t be absurd,” says Edward, tucking him into the crook of one arm. “No knowledge is useless.”
“But she gives us nice data … “Alec’s eyes glaze as Edward downloads to him. His little body relaxes. Barnacle Bill drops unnoticed to the floor.
“There’s a good boy,” says Edward, reaching for his teacup once more. “I’m sure you’ll find a multitude of uses for Latin grammar. You were saying, my love?” he continues, regarding Mendoza over the rim of his cup.
“Well, as long as we’re stuck in linear time for the next few years, perhaps we ought to find a cottage somewhere on dry land. It might be less stressful, at least as far as storms and life jackets go. What do you think?” says Mendoza, bracing her feet against a batten as she leans back in the booth. Alec, startled into exterior awareness, clutches for Barnacle Bill.
“Leave my ship?”
“By Jove!” Edward brightens. “Perhaps we could find a suitable island, at that.”
Extract from the Journal of the Botanist Mendoza:
In the Saloon
Well, this has certainly pulled the Evil One out of his post-post-partum doldrums. Edward loves making plans.
He has been applying his considerable powers of analysis to a novel concept: Dubious Isles. At least, he has been pursuing the subject when he can persuade himself that neither Alec nor Nicholas will toddle into the galley and get brained by a falling skillet for the next hour. This is mostly when they’re in bed.
“What do you mean, Dubious Isles?” I said sleepily, snuggling in under Edward’s arm. “Like on old maps, only they turn out never to have existed? Somebody charted a fogbank or an iceberg?”
“Precisely, my love,” he told me, speaking in a low voice over the two tiny snores coming from the cradle. “Consider the operative mechanism by which Dr. Zeus Incorporated exploits history! Things are thought to be extinct, or nonexistent entirely, when in fact they are merely hidden away. Consider, too, the as it were cloaking process by which our erstwhile masters conceal doorways and, indeed, entire bases.”
Name me any other man who uses a phrase like as it were in pillow talk. “Mmhm,” I said. “And?”
“And here we are, sailing about in prehistorical seas,” said Edward. “Long before the most elementary maps are drawn. What would be simpler than setting the good Captain to exploring those regions wherein early navigators charted legends?”
“Bermuda Triangles, Summer Isles, Shambhalas, et cetera?”
“Just so. We need only access early charts for islands that vanish from later maps. We find one that proves to be real, and, should it seem suitable for settlement, we’ll then mask its existence from early Company surveys, and, midway through the seventeenth century or so, extend the concealment to ensure that it is never positively identified, which will cause it to be deleted from subsequent maps! Q.E.D.” Smiling, Edward wound his hand into my hair.
Hmm. What about satellite imaging systems, Commander sir?
“What abo
ut ‘em?” said Edward breezily. “You’ve concealed your own location from the hundred-eyed Argus of GPS for ages now; surely you won’t find it any trouble to do the same for an island.”
So … yer giving me an order to sail about, hither and yon, la de da, looking for islands what ain’t there, until we runs aground on one that is there, only it ain’t? You see, Commander yer worship sir, me being only a machine and all, I’d like orders what ain’t quite so open to interpretation and semantic confusion. Otherwise I’m liable to conclude yer a Goddamned idiot and mutiny. Saving yer presence, ma’am, I’m sure.
Edward leaned up on his elbow, glaring at the nearest camera. He gave a set of map coordinates. “Is that precise enough for you?” I referenced them and frowned, as Sir Henry spoke my thought: Eh? But there ain’t nothing in that corner of the world. The map’s blank.
“So I was told, one summer’s day in 1842,” said Edward. “Serving on the Repulsion at the time. I was mastheaded for my obstinacy in insisting I had sighted land, and I could see it all the clearer from my perch. I learned that a midshipman never answers back to an officer, but I know what I saw. Be so good as to set a course.”
Aye sir, aye. But even if yer right… we’d have no guarantee nobody else’s ever going to blunder into it by mistake, you know.
“Ah, but we’ll have centuries before we need worry about that,” said Edward, unbuttoning my pajama jacket.
“How romantic, señor,” I said. “A quest for a phantom island.”
He did not reply, being busy, but as our minds surged together his memory rose over me like a wave. I saw through the eyes of the gawky boy perched far up on the crosstrees, regarding bitterly the far green place so plain to him, and then gazing down at his shipmates so far below. Resentment, inevitably, but a chill of horror, too: as for the first time the boy wondered just how different he might be from the mortal men who walked the deck beneath him.
Child Care in the Cyborg Family, Volume Three:
Limitations of the Infant Psyche
… Given his human heritage, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that the very young cyborg will stubbornly retain certain primitive belief systems. This is a natural consequence of his immature state and ought not to cause undue irritation or alarm in the concerned parent. Indeed, his desire to grapple, as it were, with the fundamental issues defining his cosmos can be viewed as the inevitable outcome of his augmented intellect; for it is his very precocity that elevates him to the domain of sages and philosophers when mortal children his age are still preoccupied with the spinning top and hobbyhorse…
Mendoza wakes abruptly in the darkness, aware something has changed in the room. Edward is awake beside her at once, listening.
They hear panicked staccato gasps for air. One of the boys is frightened, trying not to cry. The Captain’s surveillance camera has swiveled to focus on the ship bed. Alec has been half waking with nightmares lately, shrieking about fire and begging to be forgiven, incidents he never seems to remember by morning light; but Alec is, this moment, sleeping peacefully. Night terrors, transmits Edward. See: Molesworth’s Encyclopedia of Maternity Volume III, Chapter 4, “Neurological Development and Nocturnal Irrational Fears in the Young Child.”Nothing to worry about.
Mendoza climbs from bed and leans over the little ship. “Nicholas?” He sits up, frantically reaching for her, and when she lifts him he wraps his arms around her neck and hides his tear-streaked face against her cheek. She stands there, rocking him slowly, aware of the irony; in another age, Nicholas Harpole had sat up in bed to stare at the girl who had come unbidden to his room with the terror of eternity in her eyes.
Murmuring consolation, she carries him to her bed and lies down with him. Edward turns and gathers them in against him. “Now, what’s all this, Nicholas?” he inquires. “You’re perfectly safe, you know.”
“I was in a garden,” says Nicholas, and gasps for breath. “The sweetest place. And then the man came in.”
“What man? Querido, there’s no one here but us—”
“The one who said I was a monster. He made the garden,” says Nicholas. “But he set it all on fire. I was so angry. Why did he burn what he made? I chased him to make him tell, but he ran from me—he wouldn’t show his face—and—”
“That was symbolism, Nicholas,” says Edward firmly. “Go back to sleep. I’ll explain this in the morning—”
“I ran after him such a long time, Rose!” says Nicholas. “Always north, and everywhere he went was blighted. I saw the ice floes. I saw the white waste and the dead men. The bones of seals—”
“My darling, my baby, it’s all right—”
“Why would he burn the garden?” Nicholas’s voice rises in a wail.
“It doesn’t matter what the man did,” says Edward. “It doesn’t matter what he called you. We’ll plant a new garden, my boy.”
“What kind of monsters are we?” says Nicholas, weeping.
“The ones best suited to plant gardens,” says Edward. “And, out of all creation, the only beasts to whom it has occurred to do so.”
“Humanity has signally failed at recreating Eden, señor,” says Mendoza bitterly.
“So far,” says Edward. “But no other creatures will try, you may be certain.”
“And what if there are serpents?” Mendoza looks at him sidelong.
“Damned nonsense, leaving serpents in a garden,” says Edward. “Not when my children play there. I was made to kill serpents; perhaps I’ll kill one worth the name.”
Nicholas sleeps at last, close in Mendoza’s arms, and Edward holds them both against the night and the cold stars. Mendoza dreams, chaotically, of seraphim with blazing wings. When she wakes, it is in the pale hour when the sun hasn’t risen yet, and she hears a thump as Alec climbs out of bed and staggers into the bathroom. Edward hears it, as well, with hair-trigger child sensors, and gets up to follow him in there to be sure he can manage. (Even the Cyborg Child can fail to hit the urinal, if he’s not entirely awake.) She is listening to Alec’s cross little voice telling Edward he’d like some privacy, thank you, when:
Island off the port bow!
“Hey,” Alec cries, and dashes from the bathroom with pajamas at half-mast. “We have to go see!”
“Not without your life jacket,” Edward tells him, but Alec runs laughing up on deck and proceeds to dance there, gleefully impudent. Edward mutters and goes to grab a pair of jackets from a locker.
“Look,”Alec shouts. “Look, Mendoza, come see! This is so cool!” Mendoza scrambles out of bed, as Nicholas rubs his eyes, and she runs up on the main deck after Alec to see the island.
A green mountain forested and bright with birds, descending in plateaus and terraces to a green lawn above a white sand beach. Waving palms, bluest of lagoons, a fragrance coming off it of ginger and rum, and still one bright clear star over the mountain’s shoulder in the growing light.
They are dancing hand in hand, Alec and Mendoza, as Edward and Nicholas hurry on deck. Nicholas is shrugging into his life jacket and Edward seizes Alec to fasten him into one, too, muttering: “You are never under any circumstances to go abovedecks without the proper safety apparatus—”
“Piss off,” says Alec cheerily, resuming his dance the moment Edward lets go of him. “Look, Deaddy! It’s our very own green island, yeah?”
“I told Captain Meade there was land here,” says Edward, looking out in satisfaction. “Two demerits, Alec.”
“And there’s the third star to the left,” Mendoza sings, picking up Nicholas and dancing with him, too. He stares out at it, amazed.
“Is this a real place?” he asks.
“Well, it’s not Neverland,”Alec says, and hoots madly as he races around on deck. “Because I’m going to grow up, oh yes I am, oh yes I am—”
“The Blessed Isle, remember, darling?” Mendoza kisses Nicholas on his brow. “At long last, a real tropical Paradise.”
“—oh yes I am, and when I do, I’ll kick your butt—” Alec con
tinues his little song, running close enough in his orbit to punch Edward’s leg and leap away again, laughing wildly. “And then I get to be Commander of the Seven Seas!” Edward chases him, grinning, and, catching him up, settles him on his shoulders.
“If you earn it, perhaps,” he says. Nicholas is still staring at the mountain.
“Paradise,” he repeats.
“Some people would take that as a sign, you know,” Edward tells him. “Well, Captain, do you detect habitation?”
Not a blessed soul, Commander sir. This far back in time and this far out to sea, it ain’t likely there’d be any hominids could get here anyhow. Hoping you’ll accept an old machine’s humble apologies for thinking you was a blockhead to send him a-chasing after cloudbanks all on account of you being too stubborn to say you was wrong one time clear back in 1842.
“Apologies, eh? Very well.” Edward paces along the deck, balancing Alec on his shoulders as he surveys the island thoughtfully. “Send a survey party ashore immediately. Flint and Billy Bones are to note all water sources, any possible hazards including fungal or viral, and collect specimens of local flora and fauna.”
Aye aye, sir.
“Yaay!” shouts Alec.
Edward smiles at Mendoza, as Flint and Billy Bones emerge from the saloon and crawl toward the agboat. “And now, my dear, what would you say to breakfast? I believe Coxinga’s preparing oyster savory.”
“And coffee, please, señor?” she replies. Nicholas, watching the island, has folded his hands on the front of his lifejacket.
Extract from the Journal of the Botanist Mendoza:
On the Island, Intrepidly
We made a slow circle of the island that day, scanning all the while, and found the place meets virtually all of Edward’s criteria. No snakes. No lizards bigger than twenty-five centimeters, no members of the rodent family at all, and consequently a great many varieties of birds. There are sea turtles, ponderous as boulders all over one quiet beach, and abundant fish in the lagoon.
So ashore we went today, and what a picture we made. Edward in his full explorer ensemble, and didn’t he look elegant and dangerous! The effect was offset somewhat by the harness on his back where Nicholas rode, peering out from under his little sun helmet. I carried Alec; he can’t seem to resist spitting down Edward’s neck when he’s able, so it’s best not to tempt fate.