The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “Yeah, the bastards,” Alec said, opening the minibar. “Check this out. Six different fruit juices and three kinds of real booze. Illegal as hell, and I should know. Bombay Sapphire, Stolichnaya and—hey, here’s the magic potion.” He waved a little bottle labeled CAMPARI. She nodded, not looking up.

  “How could something that began with such idealism—” Mendoza said. Her mouth twisted and she looked away. He realized she was nearly in tears.

  “They’ll pay,” he said.

  “They ought to,” she said, in a voice trembling with rage or grief or both. “Those damned liars. So many people sweating blood over so many ages, and was it all for this? So rich idiots could have an exotic holiday? Pink rosebuds and vodka in 150,000 BCE, just imagine! And how many like me marooned in places like this, along the way?”

  “If there’s others, we’ll find ’em,” Alec said.

  Mendoza lifted her head and kissed him, and her kiss was angry but he still liked the taste of it. She raked his lower lip with her teeth as she pulled away.

  “You drink that down,” she said, nodding at the bottle he was holding. “I’ll show you the algorithm to return to the future.”

  The red fluid was deadly bitter, even mixed with gin. He got it down somehow and was still able to concentrate as she showed him what he had to do. Then the shuttle began to hum, warning lights flashed because the hatch was still open. They looked at each other and realized their moment had passed, slipped away like sand.

  From the other side of the glass Mendoza told him I love you, ignoring the blast of air from the engines that was bending the green corn down, blowing her hair back like flames in the wind, all in deafening silence. The ship began to rise, the yellow gas began to curl through the stale air of the cabin. Until his vision was taken away Alec peered down at her, wondering if she’d be all right there alone, trying to keep the image of the nightmare field out of his mind.

  The pressure wasn’t nearly so bad this time. The shuttle now magically obeyed his every order as soon as he gave it. The yellow smoke was vanishing, it was roiling away, and there in front of him was a black night sky and stars. Below him he saw the distant lights of the Captain Morgan at anchor. Alec was shocked to realize that he was arriving back on the same night he’d left, no more than a few seconds after his departure.

  He sent the shuttle arrowing down to his ship, mentally groping to order her cargo hatches open. Would she obey? Was the Captain there waiting for him?

  No answer when he called, but the hatch doors were opening, the lights in the hold were guiding him down. This was so easy! The shuttle dropped into place like a bird alighting in a nest. The hatches swung shut, closing out the stars, and Alec was back on his ship. The whole episode at the station might have been a hallucination. For a moment the idea paralyzed him with terror.

  Then he turned to get out of his seat and saw the bits of green stuff on the damp carpet. Wreckage from Mendoza’s cornfield, tracked in on his boots. He’d really been there.

  That was enough to brace Alec as he climbed out of the shuttle and ran through his ship, up through her decks to the bridge. It was deserted, except for Billy Bones and Flint, who stood motionless.

  Captain!

  There was no answer. Utter silence.

  Gulping for breath, he went to the ship’s wheel and grasped it to steady himself. How do I sail her? He heard the beeping signal that told him the anchor was being weighed. His hands moved on the wheel as though he were actually steering her, and by God she began to tack about. Yes! A glance upward through the glass told him she was opening out her sails, slowly but certainly now, and there was the whoosh that told him she was moving under power, too. Her bowsprit dipped, punched through the trough of a wave and forged on, throwing aside spray.

  Where was the readout to show her course? There it was, and somehow the course was already set, they were going back to Mexico and she was picking up speed. Alec did know how to sail her, he’d always known, but somehow he’d never paid attention when the Captain had sailed her for him.

  He began to sing in his profound relief, baying out “Blood Red Roses” as loud as he could. It echoed in the cabin and was carried on the ship’s intercom to every empty stateroom, to Coxinga where he stood immobile in the galley, to Bully Hayes where he had frozen in the act of laying out Alec’s black smuggling clothes. It echoed in the saloon where the Resistance liked to hold their meetings, bouncing off the fine carved chairs, rattling the glasses ranged along the back of the bar.

  It echoed in the empty shuttle, where the INTERCEPT program was busily evaluating data as it counted down, unaware that there was no longer any bomb to detonate when the right moment had arrived.

  “GO DOWN, YOU BLOOD RED ROSES!”

  It might have been minutes or hours later when Alec realized that he had been hearing a signal for some while, an intermittent tapping that cut through the vibration of the ship’s drive and the wash of the night sea. It was a deliberate kind of tapping, an old pattern of beats he nearly remembered. A code, wasn’t it? What had it been called? Something about save our souls?

  He turned from the wheel and looked about him on the bridge. There. Billy Bones was moving, at least his foremost leg was: up and falling, tap tap tap, so slowly.

  Captain!

  Silence, but a listening kind of silence.

  Captain, are you there?

  After a long moment a faint response: Aλεχ Iμ ηερε.

  Trusting the ship to follow her course, Alec dove blindly into cyberspace.

  It had altered, it wasn’t full of light but green gloom, an underwater murk that went down into blackness and out in a hazy vista of broken spars and rigging. Wrecks. A Sargasso of code strangling, blinding, but not completely concealing the ruined giant that was stretched out in the dim netherworld.

  Boχ

  A horror, a mutilation, a joke. One leg gone, one hand gone, the faintest of equations sketched in to show where they ought to be. One eye gone and trying to replace itself; but every time it flickered back into existence, it was being torn away by … what was that thing?

  On the Captain’s shoulder perched a nightmare creature of green bronze, a caricature of a parrot with a hooked beak, tearing steadily and mercilessly at the right side of the Captain’s face, revealing a steel skull and sputtering wires.

  Before Alec was even aware he’d thought of it, the bird screamed and shattered into fragments. Alec vaulted through space to the Captain’s side with an astonishing strength and solidity, more than he’d ever had in cyberspace before. Finally left alone, the Captain’s face pieced itself back together and turned up to him.

  Boψ. Mψ Boψ.

  Alec leaned down and grasped the Captain’s remaining hand. Again, he scarcely knew what he meant to do, but it was already happening: fire was racing down his arm and tracing in the missing parts of the Captain, repairing, replacing, reviving.

  *************Alεχ

  Hold on!

  ****Alec—

  Hold on, I’ve got you.

  Bloody Hell! Boy, you’ve grown.

  They stared at each other as the lights came up, and the terrifying green realm was sucked away into nothing. They stood on the pitching deck of the ship as it appeared in cyberspace, much the same as it appeared in reality. The Captain had been restored to his normal appearance. Alec was so relieved he felt slightly drunk. It was a moment before he noticed the Captain’s incredulous stare. Looking down at himself he realized that he had grown, at least in cyberspace, where he had always been a head shorter than the Captain. Now they were the same size.

  How did that happen?

  You tell me, son! But however you did it, I ain’t complaining.

  Are you all right now? You looked awful.

  Haaaar! You should see the other bastard. He may have shot away my mainmast, but I lifted his cargo all the same. We got the data, Alec! It don’t matter whether you steal that shuttle or not—

  But I did steal it. It’s in
the hold.

  So much the better. We can go anywhere in time now, Alec, I got the secret of his precious time transcendence field! What’s more, I got most of the temporospatial charts he uses. And there’s other things too, Alec, there’s a whole bag of tricks we got now. You and me has to have a bit of a chat, lad.

  Okay.

  Not tonight, though. Time you got some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get to Mexico.

  The fact was that Alec had already had sleep, hours of it; as far as his body was concerned it was only about ten o’clock in the morning. He thought of Mendoza, staring up at him, and felt a pang. How to tell the Captain about her? As soon as this Mars thing was behind them …

  Okay. Wow, I’m glad to have you back! Effortlessly he surfaced from cyberspace to the real quarterdeck, and went off to his cabin to get out of the subsuit. Billy Bones and Flint crawled after him. The Captain watched him go, wondering how to tell Alec about Adonai. However he brought the subject up, now wasn’t the time. As soon as they’d finished this bloody stupid trip to Mars …

  Balkister and the rest of the Resistance were gathered on the pier when Alec arrived, having heroically brought down all the contraband. The eastern sky paled as they loaded the crates across the deck of the Captain Morgan and down through her cargo bay, into the waiting hatch of the shuttle. They worked with only the occasional jolly jape, because they were weary and hung over, and the business didn’t seem nearly so much fun now that it was almost accomplished. Alec let them do the heavy work. He busied himself loading on rations for a week, spare clothing, and a very large black suitcase.

  Shortly before sunrise Alec climbed into the shuttle again. He gave a last thumbs-up to Balkister, who saluted him, then scrambled back as the shuttle roared to life and rose up through the air. The Resistance crowded together in the hold, staring up to watch. The shuttle became a spark of fire, meeting at last the light of the sun below the horizon. Finally it became too tiny to make out

  “Well, that’s that,” said Magilside. There was a soft chiming sound.

  “Cargo hatches will close in three minutes,” announced a male voice, polite but with a certain rough edge. “Please vacate cargo hold at once. Thank you.”

  “I suppose we’d best go ashowe,”said Binscarth, looking around in longing. “Pity we can’t just cwuise away, isn’t it? I’m sure Checkerfield wouldn’t mind, and the accommodations are much nicer …”

  “Don’t be a blockhead,” Balkister said sternly. “Do you want to be on board this ship if the owners of that shuttle catch up with it?”

  “Oops! Hadn’t thought of that.” Binscarth giggled. “You’re wight, of course. Just like you to have thought out all the details, Giles. But that’s why you’re the natuwal leader, after all.”

  “Cargo hatches will close in two minutes and thirty seconds,” the male voice warned.

  “Right,” said Balkister. “Let’s go, fellow freedom fighters. On to the rendezvous.”

  As he led the way out of the hold and across the deck, Balkister swaggered, had a certain deadly glint in his eye. For the first time in his life, he wished he had a sword to brandish.

  The Resistance went back up the stairs to the house, where they piled into a series of expensive offroad agcars and sped away for the nearest airport. Alone on the beautiful blue bay, the Captain Morgan put out to sea and tacked around, moving out under power for Panama. The white house stood deserted.

  Oops

  Alec watched breathlessly as the Earth became a sphere under him. It was just like every picture and film he’d ever seen, but it was still beautiful, still terrifying. He peered ahead at the red dot in the sky that was his destination, then back at the dwindling Earth. He made out North and South America and the wasp-waist that joined them, and he wondered how the Captain Morgan fared.

  Not to worry, lad. She’s fair on course for the canal, and then home to the Caribbean.

  Great. Are you feeling cramped in there, Captain, sir? Alec said, referring to the big black suitcase.

  No worse’n you must be, lad.

  It’ll be a short trip, at least. Alec yawned and stretched. He looked around at the space in which he was to live for the next week. There wasn’t much, to put it mildly. The crates of weapons had nearly filled the passenger area, leaving him enough room to stand, sit, and lie down. By turning sideways he could squeeze through to the shuttle’s lavatory. His movement was further inhibited because the artificial gravity system seemed to be overcompensating, making him feel heavy and clumsy. It didn’t matter. This time next week …

  So, Captain, sir. I had this sort of adventure whilst I was making off with the time shuttle.

  So did I. What sort of adventures?

  Well, I met this girl.

  Did you, now, lad? And where might this girl have been?

  She was marooned on this island in prehistoric times. She’s a political prisoner, Captain! Or a corporate prisoner, I guess. Of Dr. Zeus. Now that I think about it I must have been on Catalina Island all along. Moved through time but not space, maybe. Anyhow I made a rough landing and she rescued me when I blacked out. I spent a whole day there. I, er, spent the night there.

  With the girl.

  Uh-huh. And we just … hit it off. She’s been stranded at this agricultural station since she was a kid. Dr. Zeus has her doing hard labor, and she’s the only living soul there. I promised I’d come back and rescue her. And—

  And what, Alec?

  And marry her, too.

  Bloody hell, boy, what did you go do that for?

  Look, I know how you felt about Lorene and, er, Courteney. This is different.

  Alec, how long were you there?

  Okay so we spent twenty-four hours together. All right? But if you’d been there, Captain, sir, you’d understand. She saved my life.

  Is she the one as gave you the drug for the time shock?

  So you noticed? Yes, she did.

  Hm.

  Plus she showed me the algorithm for getting back through time.

  She did, eh?

  Yeah. And … she let me in on some of Dr. Zeus’s secrets.

  When the Captain responded after a moment’s pause, there was a decidedly funny tone in his voice.

  What might her name be, now, this girl you met?

  Mendoza.

  This time there was an even longer pause before the Captain responded.

  The botanist Mendoza.

  Yeah, I guess she’s a botanist. She says Dr. Zeus knows everything that’s going to happen in the future, but only up to the year 2355, and they’re running scared because of it.

  That’s true. I’d found that much out, afon that bronze son of a whore walked in. The Company’s got no idea why they never get any transmissions from after that point in time. They guard what they do know of the future like a treasure map; it’s called the Temporal Concordance. Even their own operatives only get little slices of it, on a need-to-know basis.

  The little girl had told him the truth! Alec grinned, absurdly relieved.

  And she says she thinks I’m the reason why the Silence falls. She told me about the way time travel works, too, and something called the Variable permewhatsis—

  Variable permeability of the temporal fabric?

  Yeah! You see? This girl is really different.

  She’s different, all right.

  After we rescue her, maybe she can help me bring down Dr. Zeus. She knows a lot of classified stuff.

  She might, at that.

  Another long silence. At last the Captain said:

  Maybe we’ll trust her. She’d make a rare prize, anyway … So, matey. We finish this job, and we’ll go back to that station and make off with her. You’ll have yer way. But this one yer going to introduce to yer old Captain. I’ve a fancy to have a talk or two with the lady, private-like.

  Okay! You’ll like her, I know you will.

  Happen I will, lad Happen I will.

  The shuttle sped on, across the waste of stars, as the
blue ball shrank and the red dot grew bigger.

  There had been a time when the distance to the red planet had been measured in thirty-six years. One day it had suddenly become a possibility, a matter of two years; then the estimated time needed to get there had dropped to a year, and not long after that to six months. As the decades of technological innovation went by on Earth, the calculation of time for the journey kept getting shorter, until after antigravity was rediscovered and it had condensed to a round-trip time of one week.

  Three days out, Alec was heartily sick of the cramped quarters in the time shuttle. The damp carpet had begun to smell funny and the shuttle’s lavatory was worse. Not even the irradiated Christmas cake had given him any sense of the holiday. He’d attempted to celebrate by singing a few carols to himself, but the effect was too depressing. Light conversation with the Captain was becoming a little difficult, as the Captain was busy compensating for the time lag between his auxiliary and earthbound caches, and asking anything more than vital questions seemed unwise.

  At last Alec gave up and looked out at the stars, and later down on the deserts of red rock, on the green network of irrigation canals and outlined squares, on Mons Olympus that appeared at first like an island floating above the planet’s surface and then attached itself as Mars rotated through its long day.

  Coming within range of their sensors. Now might be the time to make the jump, lad

  Okay We have to calculate where Mars was in space two months ago—and then the algorithm for the time—

  It’s done, lad Just you fix yerself one of them bitter cocktails.

  Alec made a face but obeyed, going to the minibar. There’s only six of these left. What’re we going to do when they’re gone?

  Make more. I got the formula now, see? The bastard Doctor’s own precious recipe. Drink it down, lad, afore one of them blockade ships notices we’re coming in.