The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “There,” Rutherford said. “There, he’s a genius at least.”

  “What happened?” said Chatterji.

  “Oh, they lost the case,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “Him being peerage and all, and only seven, too. They went into receivership two years later. Stupid bastards.”

  “Did he continue to display genius at school?” Rutherford said.

  “Well, he got high marks in maths,” said Ellsworth-Howard, after listening again. “Top of his class there. Shrack—wonder how he got past medical scans all his life?” He looked panicked for a moment. “That brain I designed—oh, shrack, and his bleeding DNA!—”

  “His Company handlers hushed it up, of course,” said Chatterji, with a wave of his inhaler. “Just as they faked the genetic assay.”

  Ellsworth-Howard relaxed, and listened again. “No university. Seems he’s designed the cybernavigation system for his boat, though. That’s what he spends his money on when he’s not partying. And—aw, shrack!”

  “What?” Rutherford and Chatterji stared at Ellsworth-Howard, whose face had contorted in fury.

  “He’s shracked with my design,” Ellsworth-Howard snarled. “He’s had himself modified for interface. He’s a cyborg! Not one of them old plughole jobs but the new ones, look like a tattoo under the skin. Where’s he think he gets off, the sodding bastard?”

  “Well, it’s his body,” Rutherford said.

  “No it ain’t.” Ellsworth-Howard clenched the buttonball fiercely. “I designed it. If he’s gone and compromised my brain—”

  “Ah.” Rutherford frowned in comprehension. “Well, perhaps that’s our problem. Nothing you could have foreseen when you designed him, Foxy. I think we were all envisioning he’d operate in pre-electronic eras. Perhaps he’s become one of those Lotus-Eaters one hears about, lolling around in cyberspace. That would explain this self-indulgent and useless existence.”

  “Though he seems to be physically quite active,” said Chatterji, watching worriedly as Ellsworth-Howard worked the buttonball, attempting to break into Checkerfield’s cyberenvironment. There was a fixed glare in his eyes that Chatterji had seen only twice before, on two very unpleasant occasions. Ellsworth-Howard began to growl in his throat as he was repeatedly frustrated in his efforts.

  “Most of the port junkies don’t get out much—” Chatterji was continuing, when Ellsworth-Howard gave an animal scream and threw his buke across the room. He was in the act of picking up his chair too when Chatterji seized him from behind, pinioning his arms. “Rutherford! The meds, for God’s sake!”

  Rutherford ran for the sideboard and brought out a forced air applicator. Ellsworth-Howard was twisting in Chatterji’s arms, doing his best to bite him, when Rutherford darted in and jabbed with the applicator. There was an audible hiss. Ellsworth-Howard began to snicker. Laughing feebly he sagged to the floor, falling through Chatterji’s arms. His eyes rolled back in his head. He stopped laughing.

  “Oh, poor old chap.” Rutherford ran and got a cushion from the sofa. “Let’s make him comfortable until he comes to, Chatty.” He tucked the cushion under Ellsworth-Howard’s head while Chatterji busied himself with opening Ellsworth-Howard’s collar and cuffs and checking his pulse.

  “He’ll be all right,” said Chatterji shakily.

  “He’s an artist, that’s all,” said Rutherford, climbing back into his chair and curling up. “It—it can be very upsetting to have your art interfered with.”

  “Yes, certainly.” Chatterji got to his feet and looked around. He spotted Ellsworth-Howard’s buke, lying where it had fallen after bouncing off the wall.

  “Oh, I hope it’s not broken,” he said, bending to pick it up. It didn’t seem to be. It was in fact still trying to obey Ellsworth-Howard’s last command, flashing its WAIT pattern in vain. Suddenly the screen cleared and Chatterji found himself staring at the seventh earl of Finsbury again. He was smiling out from the screen, not a very nice smile really. The pale blue eyes were so cold.

  “Hi there,” said the pleasant tenor voice. “If you’re seeing this image, it means you’ve been trying to shrack with me. Do you know what this means?” The face transformed into a horribly grinning skull over a pair of crossed bones. From the eyes of the skull, a pair of cannons emerged. There was a flare of fire and the recorded sound of explosions, and the screen went black.

  For a moment the room was so silent one could hear the faint chime of the electronic lights sparkling on the Christmas tree.

  “Oh, dear,” said Chatterji at last. “Now he’ll really be upset.”

  “The buke’s been destroyed, hasn’t it?” Rutherford. said faintly.

  “I’m afraid it has,” Chatterji said. “Of course, he’ll have kept backups on everything. Won’t he?”

  “Of course,” Rutherford said. “Except for the work we’ve done tonight. I’d like another sherry, please.”

  “Right,” said Chatterji, and dropping the wrecked buke he went to the sideboard and poured them two more drinks.

  “Shame about the buke, but, you know, we’ve learned something tremendously valuable about our man,” said Rutherford at last, with a little of his former briskness. “He’s someone to be reckoned with! This is no mere admin-class dilettante living for his pleasures, no, this is our hero all right. He’s just got unexpected talents. What sort of genius can spike a Company inquiry? Have you ever heard of anybody doing that?”

  “Never,” Chatterji admitted.

  “There’s obviously more to him than shows on his social record,” Rutherford said. “And either he’s covered it up terribly well or he just hasn’t encountered the right challenges in life. He must work for the Company! We’ll have to order the proper people to get in touch with him and make him the usual recruitment offers. Once he’s working with us, properly guided, who knows what he might accomplish?”

  “It would be appropriate.” Chatterji leaned back wearily and had another gulp of pretend sherry, feeling the fruit sugars race in his bloodstream.

  “My Pendragon. My Messiah. My Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Rutherford sighed, looking into the fire. “In my time. I’ll get to shake his hand at last.” He turned his head and looked out into the gloom beyond the windows, all darkness and whirling snow. “When this began I half-thought … well, secretly … that perhaps he really would save us all. When … in 2355.”

  Chatterji shivered. “Don’t let’s think about that,” he said.

  “But maybe we’re wrong to assume something terrible’s going to happen,” Rutherford said. “Perhaps it won’t be a meteor, or a war, or a plague. Maybe things just … change.”

  “Maybe.” Chatterji drained his drink.

  “Whatever happens, doesn’t it make sense to have this magnificent creation on our side before the end comes? Maybe he’ll find a way to stop it from happening, whatever it is. Maybe that’s his ultimate purpose,” Rutherford said.

  “I hope so,” Chatterji said, stretching out his legs. “Do—do you ever have nightmares, Rutherford? About what it’ll be like?”

  “Sometimes,” Rutherford said. “I suppose all of us do, who know about it.”

  “I dream the streets are on fire,” said Chatterji, staring into their own cheery little blaze. “I remember a song about the world ending by water last time, by fire next time. People are running through the streets screaming, and they’re all on fire. I go into my grandfather’s room, and he’s there on the bed and it’s on fire, and so’s my grandmother. They turn their heads to look at me, and it’s as though they’re telling me I have to climb up there too and burn with them. It mustn’t end that way!”

  “Well, we’re doing everything we can to be certain it doesn’t,” said Rutherford doggedly. “Let’s put in that request to have somebody approach our man on the Company’s behalf. Full speed ahead.”

  There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by a gentle snore from Ellsworth-Howard.

  “As soon as we have another buke,” said Chatterji sadly.

  T
HE YEAR 2349:

  Alec Solves a Mystery

  “And so, to conclude old business.” Magilside cleared his throat. The other Resistance members grew alert at that vital word conclude and sat upright, trying to look as though they’d been listening. Behind him, through the portholes of the saloon, the pink towers of New Port Royal taunted the rebels with promise of unattainable naughty delights.

  Magilside continued in his barely audible monotone: “It is expected that our support will enable the Semantic Renegades to continue their pressure on the Athenian Senate for the remainder of the fiscal year. If the FPFOM AKA Fair Play for Original Macedonians Committee increases their shipments of software, I am confident that a resolution will be passed, possibly within the next five years, granting sole use of the name Macedonians to those persons actually born within the prerevolutionary boundaries …”

  They ought to send him over there to talk to their bloody senate, transmitted the Captain. Those Greeks’d be down on their knees begging for mercy in five minutes.

  If they weren’t asleep. It’s people like him have kept the debate going for three hundred years. Alec concealed a yawn and looked across at Balkister, raising his eyebrows as if to inquire whether somebody couldn’t prod Magilside to the finish line. Balkister shrugged and moved his hand in a gesture like a chattering mouth. Magilside was one of their most dedicated workers, and his feelings were easily wounded.

  Alec sighed, surveying the gallant company assembled in the saloon of his ship. The Resistance had a number of designated meeting places, but somehow he’d wound up playing host to the disaffected elite more and more often. It might have been because his fellow revolutionaries found the thrill of a rendezvous on an actual ship too much to resist. It might have been because there were plenty of illicit substances to eat, drink, and smoke on the Captain Morgan, and Alec was always a good host. It might have been that they were snobs at heart, despite the fact that most of them seemed to feel that Alec, by virtue of being an actual titled peer, could be treated with a barely concealed condescension.

  Right now he felt he couldn’t blame them. Joining Balkister’s secret club seemed one of the stupider moves he had ever made, even less of a good idea than the God Game had been. How could civil disobedience be so boring?

  Though it was a little less boring when the Resistance bickered within itself. Binscarth, their resident literary lion, was at last unable to contain himself any longer and leaped to his feet, applauding.

  “And thank you, Magilside, for that bwilliant summation of old business,” he cried. Magilside stopped with his mouth open, breath already drawn for his next run-on sentence. He looked wrathful, and thumbed off his plaquette of notes with a gesture that suggested he wished it were Binscarth’s eye.

  “All right,” he muttered, and sat down in a huff. Binscarth leapt up and took the podium.

  “I’d like to bwing an exciting matter to your attention, fellow Wesistance members. I’ve located a potential wecruit whose libwawy of pwoscwibed materwial is even more extensive than mine. Both Buwwoughs—William and Edgar Wice! He’s got a copy of Medea, he’s got Fahwenheit 451, and he may even have Pawadise Lost. If we waive dues and allow him to join on a conditional basis, he’ll let us copy his books for distwibution. What do you say, fellows?”

  There were some oohs and aahs of enthusiasm, very polite and subdued. It took a dedicated antiquarian like Binscarth to get much worked up about books or their distribution to a populace that was largely unable to read them. But the material was forbidden, after all, so it was certainly worth something. Besides, there were certain grubby holo production businesses, operating out of abandoned blocks of flats for the most part, who would pay nicely for proscribed material to be adapted to scripts.

  “I’m in favor. What do the rest of you think, guys?” Balkister looked around.

  “Sure,” Alec said, raising one fist with the thumb up. He assumed all the works Binscarth had referred to were pornographic, and since most of the pornography he’d ever encountered had been astonishingly dumb stuff, he didn’t see how it could hurt anybody. The other Resistance members followed with a chorus of Oh, why nots and Okays.

  “I commend you gentlemen on your taste.” Binscarth looked smug. “You won’t wegwet this, I assure you. I’ll contact the chap next week.”

  He stepped down and Johnson-Johnson took the podium to deliver a report on financial aid sent to the Mars One colonists, who were engaging in a series of lawsuits and countersuits with Areco, the corporation that actually owned their farms. Alec looked longingly over at his bar. At last it was his turn to go to the podium, where he briefly described how the smuggling business was going and mentioned that he had got a deal on fifty crates of Cadbury’s cocoa. There was some speculation as to how much revenue this might bring in, and though Alec knew to the penny he stepped down gladly to let Krishnamurti, the treasurer, give the revised figures for projected income in the current fiscal year.

  At last the meeting broke up. Binscarth tried to lead them in a chorus of “I’ve Got a Little List” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, but everybody else thought it was silly. Binscarth exited, mightily miffed. The others stayed for one last round of beer floats and then toddled ashore to partake of the club life of Jamaica.

  Usually on their departure Alec yielded to an irresistible impulse to run howling through his gloriously empty ship, leaving Billy Bones and his mates to creep forth and clean up the debris of glasses and plates. Not today. He stood surveying the party mess and then stalked over to the bar to mix himself a drink.

  Now then, matey, the sun ain’t below the yardarm yet.

  What the hell does it matter? Alec groped in the ice bin. There was a big chunk frozen together at the mouth of the bin. He prized it out, lifted it above his head and smashed it on the counter. Bright fragments of ice went spinning everywhere, and Billy Bones and Flint paused in their duties to turn their skull-faces to him questioningly. He ignored them and picked through the mess on the counter for cubes to put into his drink. Smashing the ice had felt good.

  Well, well. Our little Alec needs a session with his punching bags, don’t he? Now why, I wonder? You been bored by them amateur revolutionaries afore. Are they finally getting to be too much, with their silly-ass agenda?

  Maybe. They never accomplish ANYTHING! I’m going to be thirty soon, you know? What have I done with my life? I’ve had a great time, I’ve had nearly everything I’ve ever wanted—not that I’ve deserved it—and the only people I’ve ever made happy are those twits in the Resistance.

  You’ve made me happy, son.

  Well, thanks, but you’re a machine, aren’t you? Alec sipped his drink moodily. You’re happy when I’m happy.

  And I’m unhappy when yer unhappy, my lad.

  Okay, great. Somebody else whose life I’ve ruined.

  Belay that self-pitying crap! Down to the gym, quick march.

  Alec sighed in exasperation as he set down his drink. All the same, he got up and went below to his gym. He had several punching bags of assorted sizes there, from the suspended balloon type to the full-length body model, and today he didn’t even bother to put on gloves before he launched his attack. Up in the corner of the cabin a surveillance camera turned and observed him in satisfaction.

  Alec had long since grown bored with Totter Dan, but found a tremendous release in physical violence. It got him nearly as high as dancing. He thundered away now at the unresisting canvas duffel until sweat was pouring down his face and throat. Finally he staggered back, gasping and blissful from the endorphin rush, and sprawled on the mat.

  Now, that’s better, ain’t it, boy?

  Yup.

  I know what’s gone and got you thinking. It’s two years today since old Lewin went to Fiddler’s Green. You don’t reckon he’d approve of what yer doing with yer life.

  I guess he wouldn’t, would he? Alec reached out to accept a wet towel from Bully Hayes, and mopped his face.

  So, buck. Ever tho
ught about those things he said, just afore he died?

  Nope.

  Now why’s that, eh? A clever lad like you. I’d have thought you’d have done anything to get to the bottom of that mystery.

  What mystery? All it comes down to was that Roger didn’t want me either. Nobody wanted a kid on the Foxy Lady, but they got one, and everybody lived unhappily ever after. The end.

  The hell it is! That ain’t all he said. You was drunk at the time—if I recall correctly—and maybe you didn’t notice something peculiar about the old man’s exact words, but I did. Shall I refresh yer memory?

  No!—But the Captain played the recording for him, and Lewin’s thin old voice came over the ship’s audio system. Alec covered his face with the towel. He couldn’t stop himself listening, however, and as the recording ended and Lewin’s voice slurred away into eternity Alec sat up.

  Hey! Did you—? It almost sounded like he was saying that J.I.S. made Roger and Cecelia have me.

  That’s what I thought.

  But that’s nuts! Why would a big company like that want anybody to have a kid? Let alone Roger. I mean, he was an executive because he was an earl. He never actually did anything for them except teach some marine biology.

  Don’t seem to make a lot of sense, now, does it? But ain’t you ever wondered why he was always telling you what a special kid you were?

  Alec sat there in silence for a moment, watching the punching bag as it swung in ever-lessening arcs and was finally still. Abruptly he got to his feet.

  I need to research this. I’m going to go shower; have the data ready for me in twenty minutes. I want everything you can find on Jovian Integrated Systems.

  Aye aye!

  By the time Alec strode into the deckhouse, Coxinga was waiting for him with a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of fruit tea. He threw himself down in his chair and looked up at the surveillance camera.