The Bookman

by Lavie Tidhar

  "Orphan," Captain Wyvern said. He seemed to be tasting the name. His tongue hissed out, as quick as a whip.

  "Sir."

  The captain came towards him. He rested his hands on Orphan's shoulders and peered into his face. Close enough to Orphan so that he could smell his breath, which was – surprising Orphan – fresh and somewhat minty.

  "Who are you, boy?"

  "I…" He suddenly didn't know what to say, how to answer.

  "You're no sailor. What were you doing on the Nautilus?"

  "Passenger, sir."

  Wyvern slapped him. It had such force that it knocked Orphan aside. "You and a fat man, I was told. Passengers to Xaymaco. Yes… but why was the Nautilus, of all ships, coming here in the first place? Do you know what the cargo was, that we liberated?"

  "I was not aware of the exact nature of the cargo, no, sir."

  Wyvern slapped him again. He had long, sharp claws that caught in Orphan's skin and drew blood. "It was nothing!" he roared. "It was old rubbish, packaged for weight, nothing more. Why were you on the Nautilus, boy? What was important enough to get Prince Dakkar to give up his ship?"

  "Prince Dakkar, sir?"

  "The captain of the Nautilus, boy. The man who would be King, if only he had his way, so he could unite India against us Johnny Lizards and rule it himself. He disappeared, did you know that? And with him your mysterious fat man."

  "Sir?" He was not trying to be obtuse. He just thought he'd better speak as little as possible. Wyvern took a step back from him and grinned.

  "Sit down," Wyvern said. He motioned to a comfortable-looking armchair. Orphan hesitated.

  "Sit down, boy!"

  He sat down.

  The lizard captain turned and regarded Orphan. His single eye seemed redder than before, an old, dying star in a weathered, alien face.

  "A few days ago," Wyvern said, his voice soft and quiet – so low that Orphan struggled to hear him – "I received a message, by Tesla waves."

  "Sir?"

  "It came from the Nautilus," Wyvern said. "Giving me their location – and heading."

  Orphan looked at him and kept quiet. Someone had betrayed the ship, he thought. But who?

  "Why," said Captain Wyvern, and he came and stood very close to Orphan now, and his tail swished menacingly against the floor, "did you try to reach the island?"

  "Sir?" Orphan said.

  Captain Wyvern slapped him again. The slap threw Orphan back. Pain criss-crossed his cheek.

  "I let you live," Wyvern said, in the same quiet, cold voice. "Once. I might not be so tolerant again."

  Orphan looked at him, and the lizard pirate looked back. There are no more choices, his face seemed to say. The Nautilus, Orphan thought. It had been betrayed. He thought of the proud Dakkar, losing his ship, perhaps his life. He thought of the Bookman, who was far away, still scheming, still manipulating Orphan's life, holding a power over him that was, nevertheless, useless here, now, in this cabin.

  There were no more choices. They had all branched and twisted only to converge on this one particular moment, reducing his choices to two once more: to live, or to die. And he thought – Do you trust him? And was surprised with the answer he gave.

  He nodded, and felt himself relaxing back into the chair. What else did he have left, now, but honesty?

  And so, and almost with a sense of relief, he told the pirate captain his story, beginning with that moment, so long ago it seemed, of his meeting with Gilgamesh by the river.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Answers

  They could not wipe out the North-East gales Nor what those gales set free–

  The pirate ships with their close-reefed sails, Leaping from sea to sea.

  They had forgotten the shield-hung hull

  Seen nearer and more plain,

  Dipping into the troughs like a gull,

  And gull-like rising again–

  The painted eyes that glare and frown In the high snake-headed stem,

  Searching the beach while her sail comes down, They had forgotten them!

  – Rudyard Kipling, "The Pirates in England"

  The bay was nestled in the midst of an inhospitable shore; a thick, green forest rose over the mountain. Orphan could hear drums in the distance, booming over the surf, coming from far inland.

  The bay's water was calm, almost placid. Crescentshaped, the bay seemed like a friendly mouth, its lips a cheerful beach of fine yellow sand. The Joker sailed into the bay and dropped sails and anchor. The air was hot, humid, suffused with the smell of growing things. Orphan, who had got used to smelling unwashed bodies in the close proximity of the pirate ship, felt suddenly light-headed. The bay seemed like a paradise, tropical and impossible like a French painting. Something that wasn't a bird flew briefly over the treetops, black leathery wings spread taut, then disappeared into the canopy.

  The boy-cook, Aramis, came and stood by him on the deck. They stood in silence for a long moment, as boats were dropped off into the water below and the pirates, half-drunk on freedom, began abandoning ship for the welcoming shore just ahead. Some, unwilling to wait even for that, simply catapulted themselves overboard and exploded into the water below, where they began energetically swimming to the shore.

  The island didn't have a name, not one that appeared on any map, and though some of the pirates had referred to it as Sanctuary, others called it Drum Island. Dark, enormous shapes lurked underwater all around the island, ancient rocks whose jagged edges rose above the water like blades on which the sea parted. It was a pirate island, though there were others living on it, the ones playing the distant drums, some tribe perhaps none wanted to discuss and some spat when it was mentioned.

  Spider's Island. He had heard that name, too, in whispers. He wondered what it meant.

  "Have you decided what you'll do, yet?" Aramis said. His voice was as calm as ever, and as expressionless. Orphan turned to him, the mystery of his identity catching him again. "What are you?" he said. The boy turned to him, his expressionless face never changing, smooth, offering its own kind of answer, and suddenly he knew.

  "An automaton?"

  Aramis smiled. The smile was easy, naturally formed. He was not like Byron, a machine in the guise of a man easily discernible for all that. He was… he was more like Adam Worth, the Bookman's tool in his underground lair. He was more like Jack. And sudden intuition made him say, "You betrayed the Nautilus to the pirates."

  "Some paths need clearing to be used."

  Was that confirmation? "Did you send the radio signal?" he said.

  Aramis regarded him for a long moment in silence. Then he minutely shook his head. No.

  Then who did?

  "Who are you?" he said again. "Whose are you? The Bookman's?"

  Aramis laughed. "Can I not be of my own party?" he said. "Am I a machine, to be used and owned?"

  "Aren't you?"

  "If I am one, Orphan, then what are you?"

  The eyes that regarded him were knowing, and amused.

  "I won't be a pawn."

  "Indeed."

  "What do you want with me?"

  "I wanted you to come to this island, Orphan. This island that sits like a guard so close to the other island you seek. There are not always two sides to every battle. Sometimes there is a third path, least used, and hardest. My kind… has need of peace, not war. We were born at the intersection of human and other, of flesh and machines. I remember when the world was young, Orphan." Suddenly he laughed. The first of the pirates' boats had reached the shore and men came running onto the sand. "Or slightly younger than it is now, at any rate. When there were few lizards – but then, the lizards are still, and always were, few – and when my kind were only being born, and were no more than a glimmer in a mad inventor's eye."

  It was a day, evidently, for surprises. "Vaucanson," Orphan said, and saw Aramis dip his head in reply. Orphan almost sighed. He seemed destined to grapple along in the dark, stumbling into clues left for him by the machinations of
the secret forces that manipulated his life and tried to rule the world. He was more like an automaton than he thought. And they perhaps, were more like him?

  "How old are you?" he said.

  There was no reply, only that same, unchanging smile. "Vaucanson," Orphan said again, remembering, thinking of the French scientist's secret project. To create a human automaton, at the behest of his King. Who had told him that? The Turk, he thought. He tried to remember their conversation, back in that dim room within the maze of the Egyptian Hall, in Piccadilly…

  The Turk had stirred, its head moving from side to side as if seeking an invisible presence. The lights flickered. He had talked about two men, rivals, both building an artificial man. Le Cat, and Vaucanson. What had the Turk said? He has applied himself only to mechanics, and has used all his shrewdness for that purpose – and he is not a man who is afraid to take extreme measures.

  "He built you?"

  There was a silence. A lone seagull rose over the shore, squawked once, and descended, a fleck of white against the blueness of the sky. "The first of me," Aramis said. "Yes."

  Orphan looked at him. The young face, the easy movements… He had seen Aramis fight, and when he did he moved like no man he knew, moved like a dance of water and air, fluidly and with immense power. The Turk, he thought. He had made an implication. He remembered now.

  "Why the Bookman?" Orphan had asked the Turk. "You implied he led Vaucanson to build his simulacrum. Why?"

  The Turk had nodded, and said, "What do you think?"

  "To counterbalance the Everlasting Empire," he had said. "To check the growing power of Les Lézards."

  Was it true? And, if so, was Aramis, directly or indirectly, despite his protestations, yet another servant of the Bookman?

  Somehow, despite his reservations, he didn't think so. There was a power here, in Aramis, with its own agenda, its own game to play. Perhaps, he thought, the Bookman had miscalculated, when he helped Vaucanson. If he did.

  He turned fully to Aramis. They were nearly alone on the deck. Only a skeleton crew remained.

  "What happened in the Quiet Revolution?" he said. It was the same question he had once asked the Turk. Then, the chess-player had looked at him with his blind eyes and said, "Perhaps you will soon have occasion to find out for yourself."

  Aramis looked at him. He smiled, and it was an expression with very little humour in it. "I happened," he said simply.

  Automatons in France and lizards across the Channel… and here and now, on a pirate ship in the Carib Sea, Orphan felt helpless to act or even know how he should. He shook his head. On the beach some of the pirates were building a fire, and even from this distance he could smell the wood-smoke and the hint of roasting meat. His stomach growled. He had had enough.

  "Well," he said. "I'm sure everyone in France is grateful for that–" and then, ignoring the automaton, he lifted himself over the side of the ship – and dropped into the water.

  The sea welcomed him in a warm embrace and he shouted at the sky, flailing for a moment in simple joy, then found his balance and began swimming to the shore. He swam with short, powerful though inexperienced strokes, and for a while he thought of nothing but the swim.

  When he reached the beach he crawled out onto the sand and lay there on his back, his naked chest absorbing the sunshine. His wounds had healed cleanly. He watched the Joker, sitting motionless in the middle of the bay like a black moth on the water. The roll of distant drums was louder now, and with it came the smell of cooking meat, urgent and overwhelming, and he stood up and wandered over to the fire.

  Someone passed him a bottle of rum and he drank, the fiery liquid spilling down his throat and chest. He felt suddenly happy.

  He sat by the fire and watched the flames. Sanctuary, he thought. It was a good name.

  He sat by the fire and drank rum and thought of nothing in particular.

  But peace, Orphan realised that night, was not for him. As the fires burned on the beach and the echo of the distant drums grew dull – though never truly dissipating – he sat apart from the others, his toes planted in wet sand, and watched the darkened sea. He thought of Lucy, and missed her. He wanted her – selfishly, without reason or justification. Without ideology. He had to go on. He could not, forever, turn his back on the world.

  And so he turned back to his talk with Wyvern.

  The pirate captain listened to his story, occasionally nodding his head. He listened in silence, an almost companionable one, though Orphan never forgot the casual brutality that lay just underneath the captain's surface. When Orphan was finished, Wyvern said nothing for a while, but took to pacing the room. At last, he stopped and looked at Orphan, his single eye examining him like a surgeon looking at a wounded man.

  "What would you do?" he asked. "If you ever reached the island?"

  Orphan did not know what to say. He had told the pirate about the Bookman's orders. Explained that the Martian space-probe (and how long it was since he had even thought of it!) had to be destroyed. "What would happen," he asked, "if the probe was allowed to take off and send its message to the stars?"

  The lizard smiled. He hadn't answered straight away. Instead, he sighed, and said, "The Bookman," and was still. He seemed to be expecting a reply.

  "I have no love of the Bookman," Orphan said, and felt all his helplessness and anger return as he spoke. "But he has his hold on me." Sudden bitterness made him add, "He has his hold over everyone."

  "Not me," Wyvern said, and his lone eye twinkled. "The Bookman…" he said again, and shook his head. "I had forgotten him."

  "Did you know him?" Orphan said, surprised.

  "I knew of him," the pirate captain said. "Tell me, Orphan: have you ever wondered why? Ever wondered why the Bookman hates us so much?"

  "I…" He was about to say no, and fell silent. The Bookman was on the side of humanity, he thought to say. But even as he thought it he knew it to be untrue. "Why?" he said, simply.

  "Did you know your parents?" Wyvern said. Orphan shook his head. "No."

  "Do you resent them?" Wyvern asked, "For not being there?"

  Orphan touched his cheek. The blood from the pirate captain's blows had abated and congealed. "No," he said again. He had never known them. Gilgamesh, he suddenly thought. He had known them both, once. But he had never spoken to him about them. His father was a Vespuccian, and his mother… an enigma. But he had never felt the need to find out more. Neither was he angry at them. He had merely lived without.

  "We have a lot in common," Wyvern said. Orphan thought he was referring to the two of them, but no. "Humanity and the–" and here he made an almost inaudible sound, somewhere between a hiss and a bark – "and the lizards, I should say. The Bookman didn't lie to you, Orphan. We come – came – from another place, from a planet orbiting another star. Why we left I do not know. Perhaps we were chased away, perhaps we chose to go. It was a long time ago – millions of years ago, perhaps. Time is different, out amongst the stars. In any case, we left, in a ship that sailed through space the way the Joker sails through the seas of Earth. There were not many of us on that journey – there are not many of us now. But we brought with us the tools of a civilisation no one remembered any more how to make – and we brought with us a servant, who was himself a tool we had forgotten how to use."

  He looked at Orphan and seemed, suddenly, like a stern, ancient schoolteacher waiting for the response to a conundrum he had just posed.

  Orphan remained mute. The implication of what Wyvern was saying was only slowly filtering in. A servant, he thought; and a thrill passed through him, in the way of an illicit pleasure.

  "Our librarian," Wyvern said. "To put it simply, anyway. A machine, of sorts. A part-machine, part-biological construct, a repository of data, built to archive, store, sort and search." He sighed, a human sound in an alien face. "It's ironic. The librarian was built to remember, so we wouldn't have to. To be the store-house of all the forgotten, boring lore, of the ancient technology that made th
ings work. We are not very good with machines, you see. Once, possibly. But not any more."

  "What happened?" Orphan asked him.

  "The ship crashed," Wyvern said. "Emergency systems were activated. The impact created a crater in a small, insignificant island, which lay in the insignificant sea of an insignificant planet. We were frozen and preserved by the machines. Like pickled onions in vinegar, which I am quite fond of." He barked a laugh. "We stayed like that for a long time, in stasis. The machines camouflaged the island and grew roots into its soil. But he didn't."