by Kage Baker
“Rose,” says Nicholas. “Except that we haven’t got her.”
“Yes, we do!” says Alec desperately. “She’s with us all the time and she loves us and she forgives us and, and kisses us and … supplies all the psychological stuff that, for example, that Checkerfield guy never had from his mother. She tucks us in at night.”
“Yes,” says Nicholas. “And then she goes away to Edward. And don’t bother to deny how that makes you feel. I can hear a lot more in that upper bunk than you think I can.”
Alec goes pale.
Now, Nick, let him alone.
“You may not remember what it was to be a man,” says Nicholas. “But I do. One day, we’ll be men again. And what will happen then?”
“Shut up,” says Alec.
“I’ll tell you: nothing,” says Nicholas wretchedly. “Once I loved a girl in a green garden … but we will never dance that particular dance again.”
“You read her journal!” says Alec, outraged. “Mr. Righteousness went behind her back and—”
“—Did just as little Alec had done, or else he wouldn’t recognize the quote,” says Nicholas. Alec glares at him and finally looks away.
“This is creepy. We’re only children. Why worry about all this now? It’s too Freudian. Anyway, it’ll all turn out all right, because as soon as our heads are permabonded or whatever, Deaddy will let us escape out of linear time, and that’ll be great! Mendoza writes about it like it’s some kind of ultimate orgasm or something. So we won’t miss anything. And we’ll all live happily ever after. So there.”
“Haven’t you forgotten something?”
“Yes. Tons of stuff.”
“The Cyborg Child,” intones Nicholas, perfectly mimicking Edward’s voice, “with his superior cognitive powers, and unique perspective that will better enable him to fulfill what one might almost call his divine purpose as he takes his place in the immortal universe! Edward has a purpose for us. Ruling the world, I assume.”
“He can’t,” says Alec, aghast. “That’s what villains do! Deadward’s different now. He looks after us—and he loves Mendoza and makes her happy—besides, he must know it’s wrong to run other people’s lives. It never works out. Even if you mean well, something always goes horribly wrong, and then—then you’re guilty again, and—”
There is a flash in midair, far out, and a certain boiling in the water of the lagoon far below.
They’re home, lads!
Alec winks out, and Nicholas winks out too, and Flint goes slowly clanking down the spiral stair. A second later the boys arrive at the landing pier, just as the Captain Morgan is retracting her storm bottle and opening out her masts.
“There they are,” cries Mendoza, emerging from the wheelhouse. “There are my babies. Hello! Oh, I’ve missed you. It feels so miserably awkward traveling with all this encumbrance now but we did bring back the loveliest things and, Alec, I’ve got some signed first editions for you! We met Robert Louis Stevenson again, can you imagine? If I don’t get out of this thing immediately I’m going to explode.” Presumably she is referring to the whalebone corset she is wearing under her circa 1885 travel ensemble.
The gangplank extends, the boys run up it, and Mendoza opens her arms and hugs them together, kissing them. Edward is stepping down from the quarterdeck, loosening his stiff collar. He removes his gloves and top hat, looks down at the boys sternly. “Were you quarreling?” he inquires.
“Not really,” says Alec, not meeting his eyes. “I was only pulling Nicky’s chain a little …”
“And I pulled his,” says Nicholas.
“Fair enough,” replies Edward. He hands Alec his walking stick, and sets his hat on Nicholas’s head. “There now. I’ll leave the two of you to oversee getting the cargo unloaded. Ten cases of champagne and a consignment of port that ought to be first-rate in a linear decade or two. Some rather fine chairs as well.”
“And some gorgeous paintings, a Van Gogh, poor little man but what a find!—and we got four wonderful Turkish carpets—” adds Mendoza, drawing out the long hatpin and removing her hat. “But I have got to get out of these clothes, Edward. Next time let’s go to the twenty-first century, there’s no style whatever but at least there are no foundation garments either, which is certainly a fair tradeoff, wouldn’t you say?”
Alec goes pale with longing as she begins to unbutton. Edward notices and takes Mendoza’s arm in his. “Let’s go up to the house, my dear. The boys can manage nicely.”
“Of course they can, they’re getting so big,” Mendoza remarks, as they proceed down the gangplank. Then she turns back to shout:
“Oh, and Nicholas—you look marvelous in the hat, darling! There’re four little Quercus lobata in pots in the botany cabin. And some rosebushes, and garden statuary from Greece, so be please be careful—”
“They will,” says Edward, and he pulls her away and they proceed, arm in arm, across the lawn, and up the long balustraded walk through the garden. “Now, my love, what about a bath?”
“Hmmm.” Mendoza smiles dreamily.
Edward sits behind his great desk, leaning back in his chair. He would appear to be gazing out the window at the solarium, through whose panes Mendoza can be glimpsed going to and fro over trays of Mays mendozaii, taking samples. On one level of his consciousness, he is indeed watching her; most of his attention, however, is taken up in reviewing a certain file he has accessed. It contains meticulously arranged and cross-referenced data, a relentless barrage of images, voices, facts. He began compiling it the day the boys made their reentry into the world.
He sees a long procession of disturbingly similar faces, from every period in history and some clearly from prehistory. Bohemund Guiscard, whose subtly inhuman quality so fascinated and repelled the Byzantine emperor’s daughter. Rasputin’s face, with its high wide cheekbones and haunting silver eyes. Rolf Chapman, the man who founded the Church of God-A, his brooding rawboned face on a thousand police updates in the twenty-second century. Churchmen, politicians. Newspaper publishers and actors and scholars.
Many of them had died violently. Some had died mysteriously, with bodies that went missing afterward. Few had made it into the front ranks of history, yet every one had triggered a chain of events leading to massive changes for humanity. A certain man, with the absolute conviction of his beliefs and remarkable powers of persuasion, in a certain place at a certain crucial moment in time.
And every one of them with certain facial features, to a greater or lesser degree but all, undeniably, resembling those of the old Enforcers. Edward hears a voice like liquid gold, crying out words Joseph had written for a Christmas masque long ago; I am a spirit that does not rest. Age after age I come again, to test men’s hearts …
“Edward?” says the same voice now. Edward turns in his chair and sees Nicholas standing in the doorway of his study. “Edward, I have a question.”
“Have you finished your hyperfunction training?” Edward asks, noting that the boy is still wearing his exercise singlet.
“Yes. I was just going to bathe. Edward, do you think we have souls?”
Edward looks at him askance. “In a poetical sense, I suppose. Certainly an essential life force.”
“I don’t mean spirits,” says Nicholas. “I mean souls. They’re not the same thing.”
“You’re speaking theologically, then. You’ve had your nightmare again, haven’t you?” says Edward. Nicholas frowns, lowers his eyes.
“I dreamed I saw myself in a glass, and the word DEATH was written on my forehead,” he says. Edward, with the images from his private file still vivid in his mind, feels a twinge of unease. But he makes a dismissive gesture.
“More symbolism. Come here, son.”
Nicholas steps forward unwillingly. Edward takes the boy’s face in his hands, pushing back his lank hair. He draws his thumb across Nicholas’s brow. “There! The old word’s obliterated. We’ll write a new one.”With his forefinger he traces out the word TRUTH. “You see? By an act of
will, we change ourselves.”
“We are still unnatural things,” says Nicholas.
“Ha! Nature, my boy, is overrated. There’s no peaceable kingdom in the natural world; every horror of appetite is practiced there. The lion looks with no shame on the lamb he slaughters. The ape eats his neighbor’s infant alive. Every vile thing man has done, is done no less by his fellow beasts. We alone have the intellect to feel shame for what we do. We cry out against the slaughter, and we resolve to change. Under the cold stars that look down and say nothing, we are the only thing that can.”
“But are we even men?” says Nicholas.
“We are changed men,” says Edward. “The product of evolution, even as were the men who created us.”
Nicholas narrows his eyes, thinking hard.
“… How if this were the purpose of evolution?” he says. “A conscience in the darkness? A vein of gold in the clay?”
“We make the purpose, my boy,” says Edward. Nicholas’s eyes have brightened, he goes on breathlessly:
“Or if the progress of all Time’s a lie—if Eternity is the only truth—what if Creation goes on apace, and all time is now? And dust is still rising into the image of God, forming but not formed yet, waiting for its soul? Is this our purpose?”
Edward gazes at him, wondering. He shrugs. “What made me had no purpose. But, by God, I have one! And that’s enough for me. Go on now, boy; bathe and dress for dinner.”
Mendoza leads a procession up the side of the mountain. She carries odds and ends of marble in a basket, fresh from a stonecutter’s yard in ancient Greece. Nicholas follows, carefully bearing a white rosebush with its roots wrapped in sacking. After him crawls Flint, laden down with more potted plants, statuary, and gardening tools.
They follow the old trail high along the shoulder of the mountain, whose scars have been long since repaired with netting and new plantings. They continue over the replacement bridge, beneath which the bright stream still courses down to its dark pool, far below. Farther along the trail, farther up, and they come to a shaded ravine, a green place close to an overhang where another stream shoots down in a white veil, and clouds weep. Some work has been done here already, stone walls shoring up a little terrace.
“Look at the way those creepers have grown back,” Mendoza frets. “If only there were a way to keep the garden out of linear time, too.” Her eyes light with speculation. “I wonder if there is a way?”
“But then, nothing would ever bloom,” says Nicholas, setting down the rosebush.
“Well, but you could arrange it so that things would, you see?” says Mendoza. “Currents and eddies of time through the whole garden, like water directed in conduits. I really must ask the señor about it. Fruit and blossom on one branch. Just like the legends about Paradise, eh?”
Nicholas can see exactly how it might be done, but he merely takes up a shovel and digs a hole big enough for the rose, as she unwraps its root ball and shakes out the branches. They plant the bush and water it well, making several trips to the falls. Then they work together, setting up a marble bench, building a little platform at the back of the terrace. Mendoza pulls out a bag of white hyacinth bulbs. “We’ll put these along the front, where the drainage is better,” she says.
They kneel together, planting flowers. “This reminds me of England,” says Nicholas quietly. “In old Iden’s garden.”
“I suppose it might,” she says, unable to keep a slight tremble out of her voice. “You remember that, do you?”
“I remember everything,” says Nicholas. “The taller I grow, the more clear the memory becomes.”
She lays aside her trowel, stares distracted at the bulb she had been about to plant. Green spikelets appear at its top, push outward and become leaves; up rises a stem with its closed buds. “Oh, dear,” she says, and sets it down. “Do you hate Edward, for what happened?”
“I did once,” says Nicholas. “I hated myself, too. I remember the fire that burned my pride to ashes.” He looks up at her. “But here I am, in this paradise now; and you’re here. There is no one to blame anymore, Rose.”
She gazes into his eyes. “You’re still my Nicholas,” she says.
“Do you love me?”
“Always,” she says.
“Then I’m content,” he says, and takes up the bulb and sets it in the earth. The white flowers open. Mendoza sighs.
“Do you think Alec will ever remember?”
“Alec remembers,” says Nicholas, firmly. “He just lies about it.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” says Mendoza. “I suppose.” She rises to her feet and looks around. “Now, where’s that Apollo, or Helios, or whichever solar divinity he is? Ah.”
She lifts the little statue to the platform they have built. He’s slightly battered; the rays of his sun-halo have been broken. He looks neither godlike nor all-wise, but appeals to her, for some reason. Nicholas rises too, and dusts his hands.
“What do you think?” Mendoza asks. “Is it too wet up here for cypress to thrive? Or rosemary?”
“Rosemary?” Nicholas looks from her to the little statue. “For remembrance. This is a memorial,” he realizes.
“I suppose it is,” Mendoza admits. “I made this place for Lewis. Another immortal. He was my friend.”
“Being immortal, he cannot die and require a funerary shrine,” Nicholas points out.
“No … “Mendoza considers the statue. Her smile has faded. “But… he had such a desperate look in his eyes, the last time I saw him. Something had gone terribly wrong. I never learned what it was. I wish …”
Nicholas puts his arm around her. “Don’t fear for him,” he says. “All must be well, in the end.”
“So I keep telling myself,” says Mendoza.
Nicholas, gazing steadily at her face, says: “You must have loved him.”
“Yes,” says Mendoza. “As a matter of fact, I loved him very much.”
Extract from the Journal of the Botanist Mendoza:
Dark Water
My, I haven’t kept up with this much lately. Haven’t written a line since before the boys were born; all that business with the pen and ink seems sort of an adolescent affectation these days. Much easier just to dictate, especially when I’m busy.
I don’t suppose I’d have the quiet moment now, except that the boys are both in bed in the infirmary of our vast South Seas palace, recuperating from having their support packages and intracranial fields installed. Yes; they’re at last physically mature enough for the final step in their journey toward immortality.
But there they lie, poor things, pale and semiconscious. Flint crouches by Alec’s bed, and if a servounit were able to wring its hands nervously, I’m sure it would be doing just that. Edward and I are taking turns sitting between the boys to spoon-feed water or soup, just as we did when they were tiny, or stroke away cold sweat with a wet cloth. They’re big strapping fellows now, much taller than I am, gaining on old Edward at last. Cherubs no longer; angels with blazing wings. What a long time we’ve worked in harness together to produce them, my husband and I.
Oh, Nicholas, don’t cry! Here’s my hand …
It’s odd how little I remembered this from my own teens, but it’s true: the immortality process hurts. Maybe I blocked memories of the trauma. I’m nearly as good as Joseph was at shutting out things I don’t want to think about. I suppose I could have had a worse legacy from the slimy little bastard, if we inherit anything from our parents-in-immortality.
Now and then, strangely, I find myself missing him. God knows why. I wish he could know how things turned out for me. I wish he could have seen the children.
I suppose I ought to get over hating Joseph. Adolescent anger is all very well, but… no, actually, it isn’t all very well. It’s particularly distressing in Alec.
He was the sunniest child, and he seemed to adore Edward-as-paterfamilias, but the instant he hit puberty … Edward is Never Right. At the moment, Edward’s crime is that he wants to wait
at least two more years linear before showing the boys how to step through time. Shall we replay the latest ghastly scene?
“But you promised!”Alec raved.
“I did nothing of the kind,” said Edward. “I told you I’d teach you when you were ready, which you most certainly are not.” He took a bite of toast and had a sip of tea. All he needed was a copy of the London Times to complete the picture of patriarchal imperturbability. Alec glared at him, his pale eyes glittering. “And you can take that look off your face, boy, or you’ll be polishing the silver all next week.”
“I can’t believe this. We’re only growing older, you know! What the bloody hell are you waiting for, Dead?” Alec cried.
“Some sign of maturity,” Edward said. “Inner discipline. Wisdom. Which you are scarcely displaying at the present moment, I might add.”
“Oo, yeah, demerits to Apeman Alec again,” said Alec bitterly. “He never does anything right, does he? But I suppose Nicky meets your criteria right now. He’s perfect, after all.”
“Darling, Nicholas has to wait, too,” I pointed out.
“That’s true,” said Nicholas, who had been silent up until this moment, following the action with his eyes like a spectator at a tennis match.
Edward had another sip of his tea, cleared his throat and said: “Your impatience is, of course, the direct result of your life in the twenty-fourth century, an Age of Technology obsessed with personal entitlement and a perpetual selfish childhood.”
“Oh, not that speech again,” Alec moaned, putting his hands over his ears. “That was the other me. Dead Checkerfield. I’m somebody else, I’m new, I’m improved, I haven’t done any of the stupid rotten things he did! Or that you did. Let’s look at your famous career a moment, shall we, Deadward? Assassinations, arson, espionage, theft, anything the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society AKA Dr. Zeus Incorporated told you to do! And you never once questioned them, did you?” He turned and stormed out of the breakfast room.
Aw, now, son, you ain’t being fair! said Sir Henry, as Flint scuttled after him.