The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  The rest of the world seemed to be running along smoothly. He noted the presence of Robert Louis Stevenson memorabilia scheduled for the block at Sotheby’s, the entire contents of the Napa Valley museum including the writer’s childhood toys! Alec hurriedly made a preemptive bid, and arranged for shipping. Smiling, he settled back and finished his meal.

  He knew that what he was doing was technically wrong, pushing governments and leaders around like so many toy soldiers. He told himself it was what anyone would do, if they had the chance. And the money. He told himself he had a responsibility, as a person of privilege, to help others. He told himself it made up for his failure to attend Parliament: he could do a lot more good for the world this way, after all, direct and hands-on, without hours of tedious debate in the House of Lords.

  But he knew, in his heart, that he enjoyed the God Game. He felt a little guilty about that.

  He shrugged off the feeling now and finished his dinner, as Coxinga crawled forward offering another tray.

  Pudding time! Mango surprise à la mode.

  “Cool,” he said, and looked on expectantly as Coxinga placed it before him and scuttled away with the empty dishes.

  Two months later Alec was emerging from a Happy Club in Tijuana, yawning though the evening was young indeed. Normally he loved working his way through every bed in a house, but this time hadn’t been nearly the wild fun he’d expected after months at sea. He didn’t speak Japanese, so the Captain had had to translate everything the girls had said to him, and what with the time lag between their questions and his halting phonetic replies, about the only phrase he clearly understood by the end of the evening was “big stupid gaijin.”

  Cultivating an image as an idiot is one thing, but being taken for one when you’re trying to look clever and seductive is another. Alec was in a foul mood as he paced through the immaculate streets.

  It didn’t matter. He had other fun lined up for tonight.

  He found his rental transport, a cheap little Aerboy, where he’d left it under a mosaic mural of Moctezuma and his court wearing what bore a strong resemblance to samurai armor. He climbed in and shot away in the direction of the sea, speeding to feel the wind in his face. It woke him up considerably in the time it took him to get to the marina and go down to the mooring where the Captain Morgan was.

  Bully Hayes was waiting by the gangplank as he came aboard. He shrugged out of his dinner jacket and handed it off to the servounit.

  Lay in a course for Catalina. Let’s blow this town.

  Don’t blame me that you can’t speak Japanese! I did my best.

  I’m just not good with people sometimes. No big deal, right?

  Right you are, my lad. You’ll have yerself a hell of a good time in Lahaina, wait and see. Shall I set a course?

  Yeah. Right after we deliver.

  Flint and Billy Bones pulled up the gangplank. The Captain had already started up the fusion drive and switched on the running lights. In eerie silence the massive ship backed from her berth and put about, moving at half speed toward the end of the breakwater, unfurling her vast sails as she went, looking semitransparent and unreal as she retreated from the glare of the harbor lights. Around the signal on the end of the breakwater and she was on the open sea, and her speed came up and she was running north, under the inconstant Northern Star.

  They wouldn’t reach their destination for hours yet, so Alec had a shower to wash the incense out of his hair and put on his all-black smuggling ensemble, snickering at his own pretensions. His good humor was quite restored by the time he stepped into the deckhouse and Billy Bones silently proffered him a mug of coffee. On the quarterdeck that existed simultaneously in cyberspace, the Captain stood at the helm, holding a steady course.

  How are we doing? Alec sipped from the mug. Like wine: Jamaica Blue Mountain hot and black, full of complex fragrances.

  Couldn’t ask for better, son. Wind’s out of the south, mild swell, temperature’s ten degrees centigrade, time’s twenty-one hundred hours. At the speed she’s making we’ll be there well before sunrise.

  Cool. Alec settled into his chair and looked up through the glass at the stars. Make it so!

  Aye aye, matey. What’s yer listening pleasure this evening?

  Give us … give us something classical. What about Folded Space?

  That was Alec’s favorite twenty-third-century neobaroque fusion group. The Captain nodded, and after a moment, softly wailing tenor sax music flowed out of the ship’s speakers, a piece called “Variations on a Theme by Bryan Ferry.” It was sentimental music, evoking late nights in cocktail lounges and wistful memories, but it fit his mood to perfection. Alec had just had his twentieth birthday the week before and he felt sophisticated and old.

  They made for the windward side of the island, standing well out to sea and following her coast. Alec was energized and jittering long before they got there. He jumped when the Captain informed him:

  Right, laddie, we’re just off Eagle Rock. I’ve dropped anchor. They’ve signaled to let us know they’re coming out.

  Okay. Have you scanned?

  Aye. All according to the plan.

  Alec went out on deck and stood by the rail, swaying against the sidelong roll of the sea. There was the looming bulk of Mount Torquemada, black against the eastern sky, which had not quite started to pale with the dawn but was perhaps a shade less black than the island. He inhaled deeply: perfume of gardens, peppery evergreens, sagebrush, and … machinery, growing more dominant. There were the blue lights of the cutter, coming in a long path across the water toward them. He rubbed his hands together and went below deck to shift cargo, summoning Billy Bones and Flint to help him.

  When he came up on deck with the first tea crate, he recognized the voice giving him a cautious hail.

  “Yo ho there, DICK.”

  “Yo ho there, Ebenezer,” he responded. The boarding ladder extended and a moment later a man pulled himself up to the deck. He was dressed in gray exercise clothing and a stocking cap, and his features were fairly nondescript. Alec recognized his voice, though, with its regional Californian accent.

  “Dude.” The owner of the voice clapped him on the shoulder. “What’ve you got for the old man?” No wrong smells; no stress chemicals in the man’s sweat.

  “How’s this?” Alec shone a penlight on the crate. He prised open a loose slat and the bright letters were clearly visible behind it: RED ROSE DARJEELING.

  “Cool.”

  “Five crates of this, ten of Earl Grey, ten of Orange Pekoe. You like?”

  “I don’t drink the stuff myself, but he’ll be a happy guy. Five grand for everything?”

  “Deal, man.”

  “Then let’s dance.”

  The Californian produced a disc from his pocket and Alec took it for a moment. Somewhere, the Eagle Rock Marine Institute went on record as having purchased fifty cases of jotpads and other student supplies from the Cayman Islands Trading Company. Smoothly, crates of tea were offloaded into the cutter from the Captain Morgan.

  “This is really kind of funny,” grunted the Californian, handing down the last box. “You ever hear of the Boston Tea Party?”

  “Nope,” Alec said.

  “It had something to do with our revolution, the one where we broke away from you guys. Your people were charging our people a hell of a lot less than this for tea, but we didn’t want to pay it anyway, so we raided some ship or something.”

  “Was that why the Yanks did that whole Fourth-of-July thing?” Alec was astonished. “Over tea?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I think so. Seems kind of pointless now, doesn’t it?” The Californian glanced over at the Captain Morgan’ s figurehead, illuminated by the blue lights of the cutter. “Hey, man, look at that! Your lady’s crying.”

  Alec leaned over the rail to see. Pearls of seaspray were rolling down the mermaid’s face, brimming in her black eyes.

  “How about that?” he said. “She wants to be out of here, I guess. Time we
were gone. Bye-bye, then!”

  “Be seeing you.” The Californian waved, turning to keep his face to Alec as the cutter put about. They made off and vanished into the island’s black silhouette, deeper and blacker as the eastern sky paled, to deliver their cargo to the Eagle Rock Marine Institute … better known in some circles as the emergency command center for Dr. Zeus Incorporated.

  The Captain Morgan tacked about and sailed west, well out to sea, setting a course for Maui.

  THE YEAR 2350: ANOTHER MEETING. A MONTH LATER. FAIR AND WARMER

  On the twenty-seventh, Rutherford woke with excitement in his heart. He scrambled out of bed and hurried through his breathing therapy. Then he took all his medication. Then he took the herbal supplements that kept the side effects of his medication at bay. Then he took his vitamins. Then he had breakfast: fruit juice and an oat fiber bar, chewed thoroughly.

  He dressed with some care, in his best twentieth-century costume. He had an idea that sensible walking shoes were called for, and from the depths of his wardrobe pulled out a pair of heavy boots he’d found at an auction. They were a bit large, but Rutherford reflected that too large was certainly better than too small, and he laced them up happily and stood to admire himself in his long mirror. He remembered his daypack and strapped it on. For good measure he put on his spectacles, and struck what he felt was quite a Victorian pose in the mirror. Intrepid, that was the word for how he looked.

  He’d clumped downstairs, sliding a bit inside the boots, before he remembered that he’d forgotten to actually put anything inside his daypack. So he clumped back upstairs, loaded the pack with his medication and a jotbook, and for good measure added a couple of oat fiber bars and a bottle of distilled water. He paused over his identification disc, wondering if he oughtn’t make a symbolic gesture of leaving it on his dresser; but good sense prevailed, especially once he remembered he’d need money for any jolly country inns he might encounter.

  Rutherford went down to the parlor and settled into his favorite chair (he had to take off the daypack again first) and waited eagerly for his friends to arrive.

  Two hours later he was fuming with impatience, and started up, quite cross, when he heard the others knocking at his door.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded, on pulling it open.

  “Sorry, are we late?” Chatterji looked surprised.

  “We had to shracking eat, didn’t we?” said Ellsworth-Howard.

  He surveyed them in despair. Chatterji wore his usual tuxedo and black patent leather shoes. The only concession Ellsworth-Howard had made to the spirit of adventure was to wear exercise slippers in place of his customary saddle oxfords. “Had you forgotten we’re going on a walking tour?” Rutherford said, controlling his temper.

  “Of course not.” Chatterji half turned and flipped aside his cape to display his black silk daypack. “See? And I’ve brought a map.” He held out a little booklet triumphantly. It was a late-twentieth-century transit guide to greater metropolitan London. “Found it in an antique gallery. It’s even the proper time period! At least, it’s not off by more than a few decades.”

  “Oh, I say,” Rutherford felt his mood lift. “Good thinking.”

  “Can I have a sherry?” Chatterji looked past him into the room to the bar.

  “No time!” Rutherford stepped out on the mat and pulled the door shut. “We need to get started. Besides, don’t you want to see if we can find a pub in the country?” He started boldly down the front walk.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Chatterji hurried after him, and Ellsworth-Howard caught up with them.

  “You don’t reckon we can really find any place that serves sherry and all that, do you?” he said.

  “Of course not, but there’s bound to be prune juice, and we can pretend it’s sherry,” said Chatterji.

  “It will be sherry,” said Rutherford. “We’ll transform it with our imaginations. Or it could be nut-brown ale, or—or even tea.”

  They came to the main road that led out of Albany Crescent and went down it confidently, at least as far as the transit station on the corner.

  “Terra incognita.” Rutherford gestured at the maze of streets opening beyond. “Here there be dragons, or maybe the edge of the earth. Onward!”

  “Where?” Ellsworth-Howard wanted to know, looking out doubtfully. The unknown world was largely deserted, except for the big public transports rumbling by. Dust blew and drifted in the streets of London, but no voice called, no footsteps sounded on her ancient paving.

  “This way,” Rutherford said, pointing down a lane less dark than the others, with what he fancied was a glimpse of green in the distance. They waited until there was a gap in the traffic and hurried across, as pale faces with surprised expressions stared out at them from the transports.

  “Where’s all the dust come from?” Ellsworth-Howard said as they tramped along. “There’s none of this in my street. None in yours, either, is there?”

  “Perhaps it’s kept swept up where people live,” Rutherford said. He looked up at the blank windows of the housefronts. “I’m not sure this district is inhabited. Funny there aren’t any people about, isn’t it?”

  Actually, it wasn’t. It had never occurred to Rutherford that the rest of the population of London might venture out as seldom as he did. There were no longer thieves to be afraid of and wandering madmen very seldom, no bombs or random gunfire, hadn’t been in a couple of generations; but people were fairly timid nowadays. Anyway the weather in London was the same as it had always been, so there just wasn’t that much incentive to leave one’s rooms.

  A few streets on they did pass a foreign-looking person with a map plaquette and a camera, wandering from house number to house number with a puzzled air. When he noticed the three adventurers, he took in their outlandish antique clothing in a long slow stare and crossed to the other side of the empty street.

  “Shrack you too!” cried Ellsworth-Howard heartily. His voice echoed against the buildings.

  By the time they got to the green place, Rutherford was limping slightly. A fold of sock had somehow wadded up inside one of his too-big boots, and was rubbing painfully against his toes with every step. He ignored the discomfort, however, in the exhilaration of discovery.

  To either side of the street here the buildings were gone, and only concrete foundations and a few rusted pipes remained to show where steel and glass towers had been before the 2198 earthquake. Structurally, they’d withstood the shaking very well: not so the rush hour pedestrians who’d looked up and seen a million guillotines of broken window pane hurtling down at them. But the blood had been washed away long ago, and now the sun flooded in on an open square of derelict commerce, where a single tree had taken advantage of the light and air to grow to enormous size. It happened to be a California redwood, planted long ago by some transatlantic corporation.

  “Golly.” Chatterji’s mouth hung open. “Have you ever seen a tree that big in your life?”

  “Not real, is it?” Ellsworth-Howard peered at it. “Nah. It’s a holo, right? Bloody expensive one, must be.”

  “I don’t think so.” Rutherford was shivering with delight. “Look! There’s ravens perching up there. Do you suppose it’s a sacred oak?”

  “Looks more like a giant Christmas tree,” said Chatterji.

  “All the same, this is it!” Rutherford threw his arms up in the air. “We’re at the beginning of the country. We’re at the end of the urban nightmare. From this point on the ultimate west commences.”

  “We’re going north, ain’t we?” Ellsworth-Howard squinted around them in the sunlight.

  “Whatever,” said Rutherford, and strode forward. His friends followed gamely.

  But they went on and somehow did not emerge into green and rolling countryside: only long deserted streets of houses, quiet in the sunlight. Now and then they changed direction, wandering across vacant lanes or terraces, yet everywhere the view they encountered was the same. The dust had buried the curbs in some place
s, or formed little sloping dunes against front steps, or lay in the cracks in the pavement. The only sound was the wind and the occasional roar of a public transport going by. Once, briefly, they heard music coming from within a house. Its windows were shut and curtains drawn, however, so they couldn’t see anyone inside.

  Ivy scaled the walls of a few houses, and weeds grew high in the tiny yards below street level. With all the tall buildings dismantled, there was plenty of sun and rain for any growing thing that might seed itself in London; but few seeds, apparently, and nobody with the inclination to make a garden.

  On they went, and both Rutherford and Chatterji were limping badly now. Ellsworth-Howard had begun to shake his head, making a high-pitched growling noise in his throat. Chatterji was about to tell him not to be so negative when Ellsworth-Howard abruptly clutched at his skull and spun around in a circle.

  “My shracking head’s on fire,” he screamed.

  Aghast, his friends caught hold of him. Chatterji put his hands up to Ellsworth-Howard’s head and drew back with a cry.

  “The rivets,” he said. “They’re hot!”

  “It’s the sun!” Rutherford realized. They staggered together into the shade of a wall and Rutherford fumbled off his daypack. He got out his distilled water and splashed it over Ellsworth-Howard’s scalp.

  “How could we have been so stupid?” Ellsworth-Howard moaned. “The shracking sun’s radioactive! That’s why people used to wear hats.”

  “Hats?” Rutherford and Chatterji looked at each other in dismay.

  “I knew I’d forgotten something.” Ellsworth-Howard wiped away tears.

  “Stop a bit,” Chatterji said. He pulled out an immaculate silk handkerchief and tied knots in the corners. “I saw this in an Early Humor anthology. You do this, and this and this, and it makes a sort of a hat, see? Here we go.” He fitted it carefully on Ellsworth-Howard. “There. Now you’ll be fine.”

  “But what’ll we do?” said Rutherford.

  “I expect we’ll be all right. You know,” Chatterji said, passing his hand over his hair in a tactful gesture. Rutherford nervously put his hands up to his own scalp and encountered an awful lot of pink forehead. Chatterji bit his lip. “Well—er— perhaps we’ll find an antique shop. You might buy a hat there.”