by Kage Baker
“Hello.” Imarte smiled at him earnestly. “I’ve come to speak with you. Are you all right? Is there anything I can get you?”
“The pleasures of love would be welcome, but will not distract me from my purpose here,” he replied, politely enough. He looked at me. “What kind of test is this, Thief? Am I to preach to these?”
“Oh, please do.” Imarte sat down across from him. “We’ve come to hear you speak, this spirit and I, and I promise we’ll listen respectfully. It’s not our intention to mock you in any way. You mustn’t imagine we’re servants of Coyote!”
“Thanks a lot.” I scratched myself. She gave me an impatient glare. The stranger looked from one to the other of us, sizing the situation up. He leaned forward to Imarte.
“Listen to me, Beautiful One. If you will believe in the One True God, even a creature like you will be treated with mercy by Him. But I haven’t come here to preach to your kind; I came here for the people of this village. Let me go out and speak to them! The Lord would look favorably upon such an action on your part.” His eyes were big and appealing.
“Alas, Coyote has powerful sorcery and won’t allow it,” Imarte said with a sigh. “But tell me of this Lord you follow, for I know nothing of Him, and I want very much to know.” Her assistant began to record, unobtrusively.
The stranger knitted his brow. “What do you mean, you know nothing of Him? You’re a spirit. Of course you know of the One True Lord. All spirits know of Him; they’ve simply been wicked and disobedient since time began, and refused to acknowledge Him.”
“Well, but we don’t know much about Him,” Imarte temporized. “You see, um—Coyote has kept us ignorant.” She gestured dismissively at me. “But this I promise you, holy man: if you will preach to us, this spirit and I will remember your words always, and we will tell them to other spirits. Now, wouldn’t the Lord want that?”
He narrowed his eyes, I guess trying to figure whether she was lying. “How many other spirits would you speak to?”
“Through us, your words would reach more spirits than there are stars in the sky,” she told him, more or less truthfully. “And everyone would know that you were the bringer of truth to the spirits.”
Bravo, temptress! She hooked him with that one. No missionary born could resist such an offer. She knew it, too, from his expression, and pressed her advantage:
“What we would like to hear first is the true story of how the universe came into existence, followed by a description of Him and any earthly manifestations He may or may not assume, and then any notable miracles worked by Him or His prophet, and of course the body of His laws—uh—but why don’t you just tell us in your own words? And please stop us at any time if you need a drink of water or anything like that. All right?”
“Very well.” The stranger drew a deep breath, trying to ignore the dazzling prospects opening before him—or maybe it was Imarte’s bosom he was trying to ignore—and, raising his fine, loud voice, he began:
“In the beginning was Vacancy and Emptiness, but He was before the beginning.
“Then Vacancy and Emptiness became Pallor and Oblivion; but He was not pale, and He was conscious. Then Pallor and Oblivion became Explosion and Falling Outward, but He did not move, He was in the still center. Then Falling Outward became the Night, full of stars; and the Earth was in it, and He looked upon the Earth.
“And He saw her bear many children, but they followed no Law. He was angry with the children of Earth for this, and so He came to Earth and was born as one of her children too. He was more beautiful than the Sun, but He was so terrifying to the guilty children of Earth that she had to hide Him at first. Still He was like a fire shining out of a grave, and made His Law known to them.
“Earth taught all her other children to worship Him. Now, those who obeyed, He spared. But to those who would not worship Him, His avengers came, bringing terrible torment; the Bear to bite, the Scorpion to sting, the Rose to grieve, the Rattlesnake to poison …”
I sighed and left as discreetly as I could. The missionary ignored me and kept going, and Imarte listened, rapt, stars in her eyes, drinking in his every word. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the same old spiel, as I had, in a hundred ancient tongues, in a hundred different centuries; but this was her line of work, and it gave her as much delight as rare maize cultivars gave Mendoza or fake temples gave Houbert.
Not to knock the guy’s religion or anything.
And speaking of religion, here was my own little prophet of Revealed Truth waiting for me just outside the door! Kenemekme pushed a chaplet of flowers up from where it had slipped over one eye and looked at me terribly earnestly.
“Is it true what they’re saying, Uncle? Is that one of Your enemies in there? Why don’t I just go in and explain about how nice You are?”
“Thanks, nephew, but I have my spirits in there working on him.” I took him by the arm and led him away.
“I could play some music for him,” he offered. “I composed the most beautiful song this morning, all about the light and how it shines and shines.”
“That’s just wonderful. Say, I’ll bet the sea would like to hear your song, don’t you think so? How about you run down to the beach and play some tunes to the waves?”
“What a beautiful thing to do!” Kenemekme looked enchanted. “I’ll go right now.” He ran away, breaking into his weird little dance as he went.
“Sky Coyote?” Sepawit was pacing nearby, looking unhappy. “How long am I going to be kept out of my house like this?”
“Not much longer, Sepawit, I promise.” There had to be a more convenient place for Imarte to conduct her researches. “I’ve got my spirits on him now, softening him up. They’ll get him to talk in no time.”
“Sounds like he’s talking well enough,” Sepawit said with a scowl. He was right; the stranger’s trained voice was carrying right through the walls, so that all Sepawit’s neighbors were getting an earful of the Youthful Miracles of Chinigchinix. He had reached the part where the Boy Divinity takes His elderly blind aunt digging clams and tricks her into entering a sea cave, which He then walls up so she drowns at high tide, which is okay (as He explains to His disconcerted family) because she’s really a sorceress, only nobody but Him knew.
“The spirit is letting him think he’s converting her. Lulling him,” I explained. “Once she has his confidence, she can trick him into revealing the invasion plans.”
“If You say so.” Sepawit looked down and sighed. “I don’t suppose You could try to find out what became of my Speaker?”
“Sumewo. Right. She’ll ask, but … the Tongvans had to have captured him, Sepawit. How else would the guy know to come straight here, to this village? And they had to have made him talk, and to do that … well, the outlook isn’t good. I’m pretty sure he’s dead, Sepawit.”
Sepawit turned his face away. “I thought he must be.” After a moment that wasn’t enough, and he covered his face with both hands, and drew a deep breath and held it. Finally he managed to say, “But I have to know, Sky Coyote. You understand.”
“He was your son, wasn’t he?” I guessed. Behind us the droning voice went on, describing the birth of a prophet to a young girl who had never slept with a man. Sepawit nodded miserably.
“Not Ponoya’s. My firstborn. From a long time ago. He was a brave boy … would have made a great chief. He became my Speaker when he was only sixteen.” He choked off. “He volunteered—oh, Coyote!”
I sighed. So many old masks to try and fit on over this coyote face. All afternoon I’d been wearing the Persecuting Inquisitor; now I had to put on the kindly Father Confessor.
“You know what happens to a soul like that, when it leaves the body? Flies straight over the rainbow bridge to paradise, straight as an arrow,” I told him. “After all, this wasn’t a boy who died in a stupid accident, or in a fight over a woman, or of illness. He was willing to risk his life for his people! And a strong soul, and a good soul, comes back sooner, because it has the most
work to do in this world. You’ll see him again, Sepawit.”
“Will I see him where you’re taking us?” he asked, without much hope.
“Well, no, because you won’t be dead. But there are higher paradises, and you’ll move on to them eventually, and he’ll be there.”
“If he’s dead.” Sepawit turned his head in the direction of the house, where the stranger had begun to sing a hymn. “There’s always the chance, of course, that he isn’t. It’s not knowing that’s killing me. Maybe the Tongvans aren’t as bad as we think, maybe they’ve treated him well. What if he’s alive, and we leave here, and we leave him behind us? What if … it makes me afraid to go, Sky Coyote, white men or no white men.”
“No. You wouldn’t want to fall into the white men’s hands,” I said emphatically. “I didn’t tell you as much as I could have about them, you know. Your people would have been too scared. South of here, way south of here, they came for a tribe that was bigger and richer than you could ever imagine. Only a handful of white men against this powerful tribe, but you know what happened? They walked right into the biggest village and took their chief prisoner, without striking a blow. That tribe are all slaves now, the ones left alive. And you and I could walk south right now, Sepawit, for only a few moons, and you could see with your own eyes the graves of their babies stretching to the horizon. You think that doesn’t make me sick with fear for all of you? And they’re coming for you, Sepawit, don’t kid yourself. They’re creeping up on the Tongvans just as surely as the Tongvans are creeping up on you.”
“Maybe the white men won’t last forever,” he sighed. “Maybe there’ll come an age of the world when they’ve all gone away and we can be born again back here. And then I won’t … then my son can be the chief he would have been.”
“Of course he will,” I said. “But meanwhile your other son will grow up free and happy, and he’ll never have to watch his mother being raped by conquerors, and he’ll never be sick a day in his long, long life. And why? Because you’ll all be safe with me, in the place I’m taking you. Think about it, Sepawit. You don’t really have a choice here, do you?”
“No, of course not,” he replied. His gaze wandered to the house again. The stranger was singing:
And he told her, the priest said to the girl,
To the girl white with anger,
To the pure girl in her robe of honor,
The priest fell to his knees and said to her,
“O young girl, you are most fortunate!
For you have been the one to bear the child of the clouds,
The son of the dead, the hungry one,
The prophet of justice,
The Sun in his person, the Moon and Stars in the flesh!
Here on this island of the blessed, you will bear him!”
He had a beautiful voice. All of Sepawit’s neighbors were coming out to listen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I TRUDGED WEARILY BACK TO the base by my devious ways and had myself a sponge bath. It didn’t do much toward taking away the psychological stench, but not even peeling off my skin would have done that.
I used to soap up in various wooden or tin tubs after a session in the dungeons of the Holy Inquisition. Anybody in his right mind would have bathed, the places were so foul. The worst part wasn’t working in the questioning chambers; it was being sent to fetch prisoners from the filthy cells where they’d been sitting forgotten for weeks or even months. Worst of all was opening a door and seeing a buzzing mass of flies whirl up from something that wasn’t going to have to worry, ever again, about whether or not it was Jewish. Or maybe it was worse to open a door into darkness and meet the stare of a child, alone there, forgotten by everybody except some rabid priest who’d authorized red-hot pincers for her mother.
Maybe that was my last straw, maybe that was the moment I finally came to the place Budu had been when he watched Christians eating Moslem corpses. Not that I hadn’t seen children die before. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of seeing them die over centuries, being able to rescue only the perfect few for immortality. Maybe it was just my amazement that the kid never cried.
She didn’t cry once while we were interrogating her. She was so angry. Her anger fascinated me; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d refuse to break. Even when we began to wear her down, when she was terrified by having been shown the torture chamber, when she was confused and exhausted, she didn’t cry. I think she was four years old, at most.
And she’d fit all the physical parameters. With an iron soul like hers, I thought she’d make a great Facilitator someday, so I spirited her off to the hidden lab where Marigny and I ran the rescue operation. I couldn’t believe it when he came out later with that look on his face.
“What do you mean, she’s not up to specs?” I hissed. “I scanned her myself. She’s optimum for augmentation, for Christ’s sake!”
“She scored high on everything, but that’s the problem,” he muttered, not looking me in the eye. “She’s a Crome generator, Joseph. Not much, maybe only force two, but the readings are there. Look at the brain imaging, if you don’t believe me. Any score above .009, and the Company doesn’t want them. You know that.”
I knew. Some mortals generate Crome’s radiation spontaneously. Actually everybody generates some, under sufficient stress, but mortals who produce above a certain amount tend to do flukey things like levitate small objects and see the future. If it were controllable or predictable, the Company could make use of it; but it isn’t, so we don’t. And when you’re transforming a mortal into an immortal, you really don’t want anything uncontrollable or unpredictable in the equation, because any mistakes you make aren’t going to go away. Ever.
But what was I going to do, send the little girl back to her cell to die? One more lousy deed in my life that was becoming an unending string of lousy deeds, just so I could occasionally get a good deal on something or someone Dr. Zeus wanted.
She’s stressed, I told Marigny subvocally. That’s why she’s scoring so high. So, you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to fudge the test results so they read under .009, and nobody’s ever going to know you did it. I’ve already forgotten what I just said. You owe me, Marigny!
Out loud I said, “Well, you’d better go back and double-check to be sure. Did you remember to factor in the medication I slipped her?”
“Oh, my gosh, that totally slipped my mind!” exclaimed Marigny. He wasn’t as good a liar as I was, but he was good enough. “I guess I’d better go back in and take another reading.”
So he did, and this time Mendoza scored nice and low on the Crome test, and we shipped her off to Terra Australis Base to be processed for immortality. I couldn’t believe it when I found out she’d become a botanist. I’d been certain that the kid was Facilitator material.
Then again, would I want a daughter to have to do the kind of work I do?
“Are you out of your mind?” I took off my tricorne and flung it down on the conference table so hard that papers fluttered everywhere and styluses rolled off. “This guy is poison! He already has my people arguing. Everything we’ve done so far could be jeopardized. All that cooperation, all that trust could go.”
“With respect, Joseph, you’re overreacting.” Imarte kept a tight hold on both ends of her stylus. She looked demurely down the table at Lopez. “You should see the man, sir. He’s no warrior, not by any stretch of the imagination. He came on a peaceful mission to evangelize for his faith. While I agree that he mustn’t be allowed to do that, for the sake of our own mission, we have an incredible opportunity to learn from him. And we certainly can’t mistreat him in any way! Not only is it in violation of our code and everything we stand for, it wouldn’t give the Chumash a very good impression of us.”
Lopez sighed and drummed his fingers on the polished synthetic substance of the tabletop. “Joseph’s not asking that we kill the man, madam. You simply want him removed from the village, am I right?” He turned his head to me. Besid
e him, Bugleg watched us uneasily.
“That’s all. Put him in a holding cell here. Conduct your interviews with him as long as you want, but in a place where my people won’t have to listen,” I implored. “The guy can project like a stage actor! And my poor chief would like his house back.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Imarte, looking away. “We can try to make arrangements for Sepawit. But we can’t move the man here, not to this alien environment! Don’t you understand the importance of obtaining such material in context? Right now, his beliefs are intact. Even meeting you and me, disguised as we are, has reinforced his world picture and his belief system. The minute he’s exposed to this—” she indicated the base with a sweeping gesture that took in the four long walls of the gray conference room—”the material will be compromised. His belief system will change.”
“So dress up your quarters to look like the inside of a tule house,” I snarled. “Don’t let him see any plastic while he’s here. Whatever. But I want him out of Humashup!”
“And we’ll get him out,” Lopez agreed. “I’m certain there’s a way to accommodate everyone, Imarte. Our first priority must be the Chumash rescue, however.”
“But they’re as good as rescued. We’ve learned nearly everything we can from them. What can happen now?” Imarte said. “And this man is such a valuable source of information, it would be criminal not to learn as much as we can while we have access to him. Besides, not only would he speak differently here in this strange place, I’d listen differently. There’s a mind-set that goes with hearing such stories seated on the earth, under a wooden roof, where I can smell the cooking fire and see the artifacts of ancient life around us. All that would be lost here.”
“Look, you may be grooving on the primal ancientness of it all,” I said, “but in the meantime this man presents a real danger to everything we’ve accomplished. And the Company has a low, low tolerance for people who endanger our work.”