The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  The chanting began, the dark-throated curse without words, and the Mothers began the dance in each circle and the priestesses linked arms and began to sway. Cecelia let herself be pulled along with them as they focused their rage, their grief on the man whose image hung there in the darkness. She raised her voice with them when the directed prayer began, led by the Great Mother, imploring Hecate to bring him triple death and a thousand years of torment.

  But all Cecelia was really aware of now was an image that had appeared behind her eyes, clearer than the blurry giant in midair above them all: Roger, sinking down through dark water, his slack face staring as in wonder at the gloomy reefs of Hell, his fair hair floating out around his head as though he were a prophet touched with visions.

  On the fourth day of 2352, a pretty black girl came walking unsteadily into High John’s Bar in Port-au-Prince. Claude behind the bar peered out, frowning, thinking she was a drunk and preparing to shout at her. Then his eyes widened, for he recognized the girl, and knew that she was certainly not to be shouted at. His hands shook as he poured out a glass of his best rum, remembering that to be the appropriate offering to a lady of her station.

  He hurried from the bar and brought it to her. She had sagged into a chair at a table and was staring up at the images playing on his holo, the terrible footage from Mars Two, which seemed to be all that would ever be shown again.

  “Lady,” he said deferentially, bending to set down a napkin and the glass at her elbow. To his consternation, he saw that her face was wet with tears. And she hadn’t noticed him or his offering, she just kept looking up at the floating light where the Hangar Twelve footage was playing now, and when the tall tall white man turned to stare into the surveillance camera, she bared her teeth in agony.

  “My little boy,” she whispered, improbably. “My good little boy.”

  On the 24th of March, 1863, the Botanist Mendoza was brought up out of her cell and left alone in a room. There was nothing in the room but a holoset, staring from the ceiling with its three eyes. Noting this, she sighed. She waited in the room, doing nothing, seeing no one, for three hours.

  At the end of that time the door opened abruptly, and an immortal entered the room. He nodded to her.

  “Botanist Mendoza? Facilitator General Moreham.”

  “Are you a member of the tribunal?” Mendoza said. He merely lifted his eyebrows with a wry sort of smile, as though to indicate he’d thought she was more intelligent than to ask such a thing.

  “There will be no trial,” he said.

  “why?”

  “Who could judge you, Mendoza?” he said. “Let me show you what you’ve done.” He waved his hand and the holoset activated, and there before them was an image of a tall man loading crates from a shuttle to a hangar dock. She started.

  “Alec,” she said faintly.

  “Yes, that’s his name. However, he’ll be better known to history as the Hangar Twelve Man,” the other immortal said.

  She turned to him, eyes wide. After a moment her lips formed the words, without sound: Mars Two. He nodded. She looked back at the image, Alec going busily to and fro, and sank to her knees but did not look away. Suddenly the hangar footage was replaced by the famous last few seconds from the camera mounted over Commerce Square. She shut her eyes, turned her white face from the red light, but she could not shut out the sound.

  When it had ended, the man spoke loudly into the silence:

  “Now, you see what happens when you disconnect intercept devices? Those things are put in there for a reason, you know.”

  Her spine was bowing, it was as though some private gravity were pulling her down, but she opened her eyes and looked up at the man.

  “So that was what I saved him for?” she said. “So he could become the Destroyer?”

  The man didn’t deign to reply.

  “I learned about Mars Two in school,” she said. “I never paid attention to the footage. Too upsetting. But this was what it was leading up to my whole life, that mortal and I, and what we’d do together. You knew it would be my fault, didn’t you?”

  “We did,” the man admitted, “But you didn’t. You made the choice to disobey. There was nothing we could have done. History, you see, cannot be changed.”

  She said nothing in response. He walked around her where she knelt, considering her from several angles.

  “Frankly, we’re pretty tired of this, Mendoza,” he said lightly. “After all, you were given every chance. But you’re not quite up to standard, are you? You’re a Crome generator. A defective. You disobey orders. And you kill mortals!”

  She nodded.

  “What do you think we ought to do with you?”

  “Put me to death,” she said. “If that’s possible.”

  “Well, we can try,” he said, dropping to one knee in front of her and tilting her face up to look her in the eyes. “We can’t promise anything, but we can certainly try. Would you like us to try?”

  She recoiled slightly from the familiarity. Moving stiffly she pulled herself upright, got to her feet.

  “Yes, señor,” she said, staring down at him. “Try.”

  Alec Times Three

  He hurt, but everything was going to be all right; the soothing voice kept telling him so. Every time the pain became bad enough to make him groan, the warmth would come, lovely drowning oblivion, and he’d drift away again like a good boy, no more fighting or crying. He’d be a good boy now. He was always a good boy. Wasn’t he?

  But there had been …

  No.

  But he’d done …

  No, Alec was a very good boy.

  There was no up or down, there was nothing to see, there was nothing but the voice and the pain and the pain ebbing away.

  The Captain was doing a conjuring trick. Alec had to watch very carefully. Here was a treasure chest, did Alec see it? The Captain opened the lid and tilted the chest forward so that Alec wouldn’t miss the point that it was full of gold doubloons. He tilted it further and the gold ran out in three spiraling streams, to lie in three little heaps upon a red tablecloth. He covered them with a red handkerchief, looked hard at Alec to be sure he was following the trick, and whisked the handkerchief away. The three little heaps of doubloons had become three little pink fish!

  Was Alec getting all this? Now the Captain pulled three bell-skirted dolls from his coat, all exactly alike, golden-haired, with blank blue eyes. He set each one down on one of the pink fish and the pink fish disappeared under the dolls’ skirts. Now the Captain plucked up one of the dolls and tossed her carelessly over his shoulder, revealing that the first fish had been transformed into a little man. But then, whoosh! There was a burst of flame, and the little man was gone.

  Now the Captain took up the second doll and tossed her away. There was another little man. But, pop! Out of nowhere a pellet came and struck him, knocking him off the table, and he was gone, too. Had Alec observed all this? Had he understood?

  The Captain took up the third doll and tossed her away. She hit the wall and bounced. Her head broke, but it didn’t seem to matter. Here was another little man. Across the table came rolling a shiny black sphere, from which a burning wick protruded. The sphere was bowling straight for the little man, but at the last moment the Captain seized him up and tucked him inside his coat. Boom! When the smoke cleared, the Captain took the little man out again and set him back on the table.

  He looked at Alec, grinning confidentially. Then, from his pocket, he drew out another figurine and set it next to the little man. It was the mermaid from the prow of the ship, reproduced in perfect miniature detail.

  Did Alec understand?

  He’d been listening to the waves for a long while now, idly watching the silver cords as they drifted in patterns around him. He was content. The cords were vaguely uncomfortable, but the discomfort seemed to be affecting somebody else. His nose itched, too. It had itched after Mendoza had put the coagulator wand to it …

  Mendoza.

 
Like a man realizing he has overslept on the morning of an important appointment, Alec tried to sit bolt upright.

  The violence of his motion set him turning slowly through space. He tried to cry out. The tubes in his mouth and nose prevented him

  It’s all right, son. Wait.

  He looked around wildly. He was in the hyperbaric chamber in the Captain Morgan’s infirmary, floating in an antigravity field. He was intubated, catheterized, helpless. Billy Bones and Flint stood sentry at the door of the chamber.

  Let me out of here!

  Aye, laddie, aye. But if you ever try to scuttle yerself again, here’s where you’ll be, and for longer next time. Do we have an understanding, Alec? Nobody hurts my boy. Not even himself.

  Captain, sir, please!

  Yer not dying, Alec. That ain’t in the plan. You, stretched out stiff, witlt that bloody marvelous brain no more’n a lump of cold carrion? That’d be wasteful, aye. Goes against all my programming. Not for my little Alec what set me free.

  Set ME free! For Christ’s sake, send me to Hell where I belong . Alec thrashed, to no avail; he merely spun counterclockwise amid the tubes.

  Now, matey, you should know I ain’t about to do that. I can keep you in here, helpless as a baby in a cradle, until you listen to me. Are you going to listen to me, Alec?

  Raging, Alec told the Captain to do something an inorganic machine would have found very difficult to accomplish. The Captain laughed.

  That’s my boy! Now you’ve got some fight in you. You ain’t going to feel like whimpering and dying once we’ve had our little talk, by thunder. Reckon you’ll be good long enough for us to parley?

  Okay! Yes! I promise.

  That’s yer word as a gentleman, is it? Watch yerself, then. I’ll just turn off the field.

  Alec was lowered to the floor, and the weight of gravity came down on him like a flattening hand. He flailed weakly, trying to get his breath. The chamber door opened and Billy Bones and Flint came in. They ministered to him, disconnecting the tubes and lifting him onto a stretcher. They seemed to have been modified somehow, given more arms and more functions built into the arms. Certainly they were more powerful. Alec was borne away through the ship to his cabin as though he weighed no more than a feather.

  Aye, lad, there’s been some changes made. I can’t say I ain’t missed you, but keeping you safe in the brig did give me the chance to catch up on me reading, as it were, and do a bit of home improvement. I think you’ll approve of the changes.

  What have you done?

  You’ll see. We need to talk first.

  Alec was tucked into bed in his cabin, and lay there staring around. Everything was as it should be. There was a sipper bottle of cold water within easy reach, and a plate of biscuits. His beard had grown out, thick as a summer wheatfield. He had no sense of how long he’d been unconscious. The light was different; it dawned on him that the usual vista of blue sky and sea was missing beyond his window. It was white out there, with stains of gray and pale green, and the Captain Morgan was nearly motionless.

  Captain, where are we?

  Antarctica, son. They’re looking for us everywhere else. They’ll look for us here, too, soon enough, but we’ll be long gone by then. Now, you hear this, Alec! Dr. Zeus let you steal that shuttle. Because of his precious Temporal Concordance, the bastard knows what’s going to happen afore it happen, see? He stood to profit from what happened on Mars. He could have stopped you; he didn’t.

  But why—?

  He bred you to deliver that bomb. He set the whole plan in motion. The only thing as went wrong was that you was supposed to be blown to hell too, after you left Mars’s orbit. No evidence to point to Dr. Zeus. All the same, you did yer best to die like he wanted. You been programmed, son, more’n I ever been.

  But that means—all this time we thought we were working to bring down Dr. Zeus, we’ve been playing into the Company’s hands!

  Not quite. He didn’t know about me, and that’s cost him dearly. It’s going to cost him more afore I’m done.

  So that was why … the whole plot with Elly Swain, and all the stuff I can do that nobody else can … it was just so somebody could make some money off Mars? That’s why I exist? Alec gulped for breath. Why the hell didn’t you let me die?

  Don’t get fractious again, son. There’s much more to it than that. For one thing, ain’t you at all curious why you wasn’t blown up in the shuttle like he planned you’d be?

  You saved me.

  Not I. I had my hands too full with that stupid trip to assimilate the data that’d have warned me in time. No, somebody else had already disconnected the theft intercept system. Somebody else working against Dr. Zeus. See if you can guess who, laddie.

  I can’t.

  Have you forgotten her already? The girl you wanted to marry?

  Mendoza!

  To be sure, the Botanist Mendoza.

  Alec lay there, stunned. Tears began to run down his face. I was supposed to go back and rescue her. She’ll be in so much danger now … and what’ll she say when she hears about Mars Two?

  She’ll forgive you, lad. I’m wagering she’d forgive you anything you did.

  Nobody’ll ever forgive me, Captain.

  This girl will. Trust yer old Captain on this one, Alec. And, just as soon as yer well enough to stand the trip, we’re going back to the station for her. You need to know something about the lady first, though, son.

  What?

  Well … she’s a cyborg, Alec.

  Like me?

  Not … exactly like you, no. I’ll explain more when yer feeling better. But she’s the girl I always hoped you’d find, and by God I’m going to get her for you.

  Alec’s head was pounding. Despite the Captain’s reassuring words he had an awful sense of loss, lost innocence, lost time.

  And then what? he snapped. You’ll keep us both prisoner in here? How’d you learn so much about her, anyway?

  Poor lad, yer still too weak to figure it out. You’ve a nasty old headache, now, too, ain’t you? Time to go sleepy-bye. We’ll talk later.

  Alec stiffened as a mask was clapped over his mouth and nose. He looked up wildly, into the steel eye sockets of Billy Bones. He struggled; then the tide rose and floated him away, to the safe place without questions.

  Over the next few days he grew a little stronger, and the Captain was able to explain more of what had happened since the night Alec tried to kill himself. Even as Alec was being detoxified and placed on life support, the Captain Morgan had been slipping down the coast of South America, making steadily for Tierra del Fuego. The Captain focused his attention on his most recent data acquisitions, integrating and studying them carefully, and learned a great many interesting things.

  Acting on his new knowledge, his first move was to alert Alec’s lawyers and present them with his airtight alibi: surveillance footage proving that on 24 October Alec was dancing at a club in Martinique, which in fact he had been. The Global Identity Bureau quietly discarded the case it had been building based on the uncanny resemblance between a minor British peer and an unknown terrorist, and went away to investigate other, less absurd leads. The Captain’s next move was to ditch the stolen time shuttle.

  But how’ll we rescue Mendoza? Alec cried.

  I’m coming to that, the Captain told him. He’d drawn a pint of Alec’s blood and cloned some hair and tissue samples, with which he liberally salted the pilot’s console and chair. He then planted a charge under the pilot’s seat, blew a gaping hole in the forward cabin, and jettisoned the shuttle off the Falklands, with the hatch sprung. Let Dr. Zeus find her there, let him subject the shuttle to forensic tests. All the evidence would point to a crash, and a badly splattered body floating away beyond recovery. It might buy them time.

  Then the Captain had made several vital purchases of chemicals, alloys, and other materials from a black market supplier in Argentina.

  So on down to Antarctica, and temporary haven in the icy water at the bottom of
the world. Here, as Alec floated in oblivion, the Captain had begun his next project: installing time transcendence capability in the Captain Morgan.

  It seemed that if her masts and spars were retracted, if the storm bottle were opened out, if the whole smooth unbroken surface then presented were varnished with a complex chemical solution that crystallized upon contact with air or water—why, you had nearly the whole of the works in place right then. The actual time drive was so easy to build, even enlarged and customized, that probably the only thing that kept everyone from having timeships (other than the fact that the design was a jealously guarded secret) was that building one required certain prohibitively costly alloys, such as were available only from black market suppliers.

  All that was left to do was make certain modifications in the quarterdeck console so the drive could be installed and amped up, connect it to the ship’s more than adequate fusion generators, rig the ship’s ventilation system to puff out stasis gas, and mix liberal quantities of the bitter red liquid.

  The Captain Morgan was now capable of sailing the waters of any past century. It had cost several fortunes, unbelievable amounts of money, but Alec was so rich money had very nearly ceased to have any meaning. Nor, from this day, was Alec bound by the circumference of the globe. He had an infinite number of globes to escape through. The river mouth that led to Roman Londinium, or the wherry-crowded Thames of Chaucer’s time, or the black-fogged Victorian Thames were only three of his vast possible refuges, because any place contained an infinite number of times.

  There were still a few refinements to make, of course. A holo generator was necessary to give the ship the illusion of a suitably historical appearance, or at least obscure her with shifting fogbanks, in any era she might cross. Also, the Captain was still organizing and correlating the time charts he’d plundered from Dr. Zeus.