by Kage Baker
In fact… there were a couple of operatives up ahead, formless moving shadows by starlight unless you looked at them in infrared, when they became Mendoza and MacCool. They were going slowly because she was picking her way with finicky care. I could hear them, too. MacCool was saying:
“You know, what you want to do is ask one of the Indians to make you a pair of tule sandals. Then you can just stride along without worrying about rocks and thorns.”
“Thank you, but I’m all right.” I knew the expression on Mendoza’s face without seeing it.
“No, really, they’re happy to do it. Jacqueline got a pair, and they’re quite well made, ought to last for years! Better than you’d get in shops.”
“Mm.”
“I’ll ask for you, if you’d rather not talk to them.”
“We’ll see. Wasn’t that a wonderful show tonight?”
“Best I’ve seen in centuries,” he agreed. “But, can you imagine what our lords and masters would have made of it?” He laughed, and Mendoza chuckled along with him.
“I daresay they’d be horrified,” she said. “At least the ignorant prudes they assigned to run this mission would be.”
“Too right!” His amusement faded. “If the Company officers are the benevolent and all-knowing people we’ve always been told they are, why do they send a bunch of idiots to run a mission as important as this one is supposed to be? Tell me that. Rude idiots, too. If any of them had gone in to make contact with the Chumash, they’d have been massacred.”
I heard Mendoza sigh. “That’s why they had us do it, MacCool.”
“Why, of course. We’re their slaves, the builders of their empire, the ones who go in and do the hard things. Now that I’m actually seeing the inhabitants of the future, it’s obvious to me why we were created!”
“To preserve life from death,” Mendoza said with another sigh. “To save man from the consequences of his own destructive stupidity. To save the rest of the life on this planet from man.”
“That’s the official reason, but—isn’t it convenient that we also give our masters infinite wealth and infinite power? All their platitudes about world conservation aside, do you think they’d keep us if we threatened their supremacy even once? Why do you suppose we’re never given any information from the future after the year 2355? No books, no cinema, no history?”
“Well, that’s the year all our work bears fruit, they say, the year the earth becomes a paradise again and we immortals can all rest and enjoy things firsthand. And of course nobody has ever believed that for a minute. Everybody knows there’s some dark secret Dr. Zeus is keeping from us about 2.355.”
“I suspect that’s when we all get retired,” said MacCool grimly.
“Yeah, or there’s a cosmic disaster and they ditch the earth (and us) and take off in a space ark with all the stuff we’ve saved for them. I heard all the theories back in school! Something big happens in 2355. Some say that’s when we immortals rebel and take over at last. Some say there are factions among even us, twenty different cabals, each with its own plan to take over the world. Some say the Company has a self-destruct mechanism built into each of us that we can’t detect, and that 2355 the year they push its button. MacCool, who the hell knows?”
“Twenty cabals?” He sounded nonplussed.
“But, you know what? None of it changes the fact that we do preserve life. We do prevent extinctions and rescue great art. Whatever the truth is, we’re doing the only work that really matters. Why should I care if that also means that some bureaucrat somewhere is getting fat off my labors? As if anybody could get fat on that atrocious food, anyway!”
“But doesn’t it ever make you angry?”
“Angry?” She stopped on the trail and turned to him. “You can’t imagine my anger. It’s infinite rage; it’s surrounded me so long, I no longer have any idea where it begins, where it ends. So what? I’m just a machine. You are too. What use is anger to either of us?”
“We’re more than that,” protested MacCool. “They’re the machines. They have less human feeling than you or I do.”
“Not me.” Mendoza leaned toward him. “My human feeling is falling away, a grain at a time. Every year I find myself having less in common with mortals, even with my own kind, for that matter.”
“You feel rage, but you work on. That’s exactly the kind of attitude a good general prays for in a soldier.” MacCool sounded weary. “That’s what Dr. Zeus is counting on, don’t you see? And don’t you see that you should place that unshakable faith of yours in worthier masters?” He took her by the shoulders and looked down into her eyes.
She sneered. “Faith? You dope, that’s resignation! I don’t care how the Company’s run! Are you actually promoting some kind of rebellion against those poor idiots? Do you think it’d change anything? Has there ever been a revolution that produced some thing better than what it overthrew? The only thing people learn from being oppressed is how to oppress others!”
She stalked ahead. He followed cautiously, and I followed more cautiously still.
“That’s true of mortals, I grant you,” he ventured. “But how can you think we’d do the same?”
“I’ll tell you how.” By infrared she was a figure made of flames, dancing on the path in her anger. “You think there aren’t some of us who hate the goddam human race by now, after what we’ve seen? How long do you think it would be before we started rounding them up in camps for their own good? And we’d have to weed out the genetic defects, of course. And supervised breeding programs, we’d have to have those. We’d run things, because they’re evil and incapable of learning, while we’re these godlike superior beings!”
“And if it came to a time when we had no choice?” he demanded. “What if that’s the only way to save them, in 2355?”
She threw back her head and screamed in silence. He moved toward her.
“You’re shivering. That cape’s no use here. Mine’s wool—” He slung it off his shoulders, and the colors of his body changed instantly as the cold bit into him. He draped it around her shoulders, and I’m afraid she didn’t even thank him. He drew a deep breath and said, “It could come to that, you know. Aren’t they becoming less than human? And all the same, I’d rule with human compassion.”
“And what makes you think you’ll be running the show, you sap?” Mendoza paced back and forth in her agitation. “There are those among us smarter than you, my friend. I mean—here we are, eternally young, infinitely informed, and designed to preserve ourselves at all costs. Now, if we all suspect we’re going to be terminated in the year 2355, doesn’t it seem likely that some of us have already taken steps to make sure that that never happens? What if we’re already running things? But if that’s the case, we aren’t exactly ruling mortals with human compassion, are we?”
“If that’s the case, it’s not our fault,” replied MacCool. “The rule about being unable to change history applies to us as well. But we don’t know what happens after 2355! If we move then, we might be able to make a new beginning for the world. Doesn’t it make sense to start preparing now?”
“Stop this, MacCool!” She put her head down and started on up the path, but stopped and turned to him again. “Here’s a thought for you. They (whoever they are) can hear everything we say to each other. All the electronic shit in our heads, you know? All those audio and video transcripts we record. You think we can’t be accessed as easily as we ourselves access? Why bother with plots? They’ll know.” She turned to go again. He caught her arm.
“But don’t you see? If they know what we’re saying and not punishing us—then either we’re already in control or they’re hopeless simpletons. There’s no risk involved, Mendoza!”
She ignored his hand on her bare arm. “How do you know you can trust me, fool?”
At this juncture Old Coyote—old Joseph too, for that matter—was wishing He could turn around on the path and go back to His children of Humashup, snuggle down beside their mortal hearths, listen t
o their sleepy mortal talk and snoring, and give advice on their little mortal concerns, such as how to get their daughter to stop dating that boy or whether to save up for a canoe they couldn’t really afford.
“Because I know you, Mendoza. I know your history, what you’ve endured.” MacCool’s voice was full of compassion, but I cringed inwardly. He was treading on really dangerous ground with her; did he know it? He pulled Mendoza close to him. “Why would you serve mortal despots, after what you’ve suffered at their hands? You wouldn’t betray me to them, not you. Not after what happened in England. You’ve been alone too long, Mendoza, but you needn’t be!”
He didn’t wait for her reaction, but bent her back in a dramatic kiss. That was enough for me. I decided to take an alternate path home and veered off uphill through the sagebrush, heading for the ridge route. As I did, though, I heard her come up for air with an infuriated yell of “Aw, for crying out loud! Was that what this was all about?”
I left them below me, climbing through the darkness until I made the top of the ridge, where I could look out across the folded canyons at the black night ocean. I needed to sit alone for a while.
It wasn’t the embarrassment of being an inadvertent spectator to the seduction attempt. Mendoza appeared to have that particular problem well under control, and if MacCool was smart, he’d lay in some frostbite salve. Of course, he wasn’t smart.
He was a lot more than not smart, and it had nothing to do with Mendoza. How can you work for the Company for however many hundred years MacCool had been around and not know how it handles little troubles that aren’t supposed to happen?
We’re going to have a flashback sequence now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I HAD COME A LONG way to find him, following rimrock trails through what would one day be the Italian Alps. He’d set up a base in a cave there, with his heroes around him. It was well below the snow line, but as far as the local mortals went, he was as safe as though he were on the moon; they knew his reputation.
You don’t want to go up there! the village headman had signed to me. Angry god up there. Really angry. Takes heads. You stay down here like us, don’t make trouble, hunt for ducks or cut wood—no problem. You go trespassing his place, he kill you.
I’ll be all right, I signed back. He won’t kill me, because I have no weapon. He only kills men who go after him with weapons.
The headman stared at me a minute, then slapped his brow to indicate that I was right. He’d never noticed it before, but the angry god did seem mostly to pick on people with weapons!
Isn’t he a good god most of the time? I signed my inquiry. Kills bears for you, keeps invading tribes out of your valley?
I guess so, signed the headman, but when we go out raid cattle from other tribes, he go after us too.
Well, that’s your problem! I explained.
The headman thought about that. You mean we not supposed to invade anybody either?
That’s it.
The headman looked appalled as this sank in. Then another thought occurred to him. He looked at me worriedly. Are you his priest or something?
No, no, I assured him. Just a friend.
He stared after me as I went on my way, and when I had climbed so high that the little village looked toylike in its alpine meadow, I could still see him standing there, lost in thought amid the edelweiss. Or whatever those flowers were. I hoped I hadn’t started a religion.
I kept climbing, and before long I saw a pair of the heroes, standing with their spears on either side of the path like towering menhirs. All they wore were bearskins. You have never seen guys that big and strong in your life, unless you’re as old as I am, because they’re all gone now.
Imagine immortals made from Neanderthals, with just a little genetic interference to give them some Cro-Magnon characteristics, like extreme height and the tendency to go crazy when they’re excited. All the rest of their personal qualities were pure Neanderthal, though, the weight lifter’s build, the helmet head, the big clever hands; also the courage that nothing could shake, and I mean nothing.
You want an example? When a guy in a Cro-Magnon hunting party fell into a bear den, his friends would step away from the edge and wring their hands. They’d compose sorrowful elegies about him afterward, or maybe horror stories about bears; but no way would they endanger themselves to get him out. When a guy from a Neanderthal tribe fell into a den, though, his friends wouldn’t even stop to think: they’d jump right in after him and lay about them with their fists, if they had nothing else, until the bears stopped biting or their friend managed to scramble out.
Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that eventually there were a lot fewer Neanderthals than Cro-Magnons, which meant that Neanderthals contributed a lot less genetic material to Homo sapiens sapiens. They contributed some, though.
“Hey, Big Nose, how’s it going?” I greeted the one I recognized. That was only a nickname, his real name was Dewayne, but his nose really was this massive lumpy thing between his wide eyes.
“How’s it going yourself, you little sack of shit?” he responded in the flat high voice they all had. He grinned, dropping to one knee. I went up to him, and we hugged hello, trying to make each other’s ribs creak. Guess who succeeded. “Been a long time,” he told me. “Look at you! Tailored skins and everything. How long you been a Facilitator now?”
“Since graduation,” I told him. I was looking him over, too; almost no scars remained to give away the fact that when I’d first seen him, he’d been bleeding from a dozen wounds, including the stump of his neck. His head had been in a bucket between his feet on the stretcher. The medics cursed at us kids and told us to beat it, not to watch or we’d have nightmares the rest of our lives. I took somebody up on a dare later, though, and sneaked into the base intensive care unit to see the fallen hero in his regeneration vat. There he was, floating dreamily in blue solution; his head had been reattached, and his wounds were healing already. Little Preservers like me were programmed to avoid physical injury at all costs, but the big Enforcers were so brave, they didn’t care what happened to themselves, so long as they did their job. That was why they were heroes. We were taught to admire them but never to imitate them.
“All grown up.” Dewayne got to his feet. He giggled. “Though I’d be surprised if you hadn’t, after seven thousand years. You here to see the old man, by any chance?”
“I’d like to,” I replied. “I hope he’ll see me.”
“You? Why wouldn’t he?” he said, and then his smile faded. “You’re here on Company business, huh?”
“Kind of unofficially,” I replied. “Where is he, Dewayne?”
“Well—”
It’s all right. Send him up. The transmission came through loud and clear. Dewayne pointed up the trail and stood to attention again, resuming his unblinking watch over the valley below us. I passed through three other patrols before I came to the cave under the glacier.
He was sitting in the sunlight at the cave mouth, frowning slightly at the clouds that were massing in the northern quadrant of the sky. He lowered his head as I approached and smiled at me with his pale eyes. He didn’t look surprised to see me. Budu never looked surprised. He surprised other people.
He was bigger and older and smarter than any of the other Enforcers, and even the people who loved him were frightened of him. I don’t want to give you the impression I didn’t love him. I’ve paid lip service to thin sad gods on crucifixes and bearded gods who flung thunderbolts and green gods all wrapped up in bandages, but the god my heart really believes in wears a bearskin, has bloody hands and a calm, merciless stare.
“What nice clothes, son,” he observed, and I ran to him and we embraced. He still smelled the same: not like a Homo sapiens sapiens at all. I came up to his collarbone now, but I still felt four years old.
“Thanks. Look! Custom stitching!” I preened, trying to make him laugh. He did smile a little.
“Look at you, how grand you are
nowadays. You must have risen high in the ranks,” he remarked in his toneless voice.
“Oh, not all that much,” I said. “Otherwise I’d have a nice soft desk job. I’m just a field operative, and they keep me busy, let me tell you.”
He nodded. “Sending you on errands like this one.”
I coughed a little at that. “They didn’t exactly send me. I wanted to come, to talk to you myself. There’ve been a lot of strange stories going around. I wanted to get your opinion on things.”
“My opinion or my statement, child?” he said, and chuckled at my discomposure.
“You know what’s been happening,” I told him, deciding to throw circumlocution to the winds. “The war’s over. It’s been over for centuries, really. If there are any of the Goat Cult left anywhere, they’re keeping to themselves, not bothering anybody. A lot of the Enforcers are balking at new assignments, though. They won’t believe the Goats are really gone.”
“They are gone,” Budu told me.
“I knew you weren’t one of the problem cases,” I said, reassured. “So maybe you could tell me what’s going on with the other guys, that they won’t come back to the bases with their regiments? One or two have even refused direct orders. You’d think they’d be glad to come in out of the cold, after all this time!”
“And some have done worse things,” he prompted.
“Yes,” I sighed and looked down at my feet. “It’s a pretty ugly story. Marco commandeered a mortal village and quartered his regiment there. Said his intelligence was that there were Goat spies hiding out with the civilians. He began interrogations.”
“And it came to killing,” Budu said.
“Yeah. But apparently nobody there had ever even heard of the Goats. A lot of innocent mortals died.”
Budu nodded slowly. “Marco is a fool,” he said. I was so glad to hear him say that! But my relief was damped down when he went on to say: