The Machine's Child (Company)

by Kage Baker

  Aye! It means there ain’t a Company operative within five kilometers. No posted base personnel nor no unexpected visitors, neither. The way’s open, free and clear. If you watch the trail to the right, you ought to see what looks like a track to an old mine adit.

  Very well, said Edward, looking down into a sharp-dropping valley. The interior was fairly rugged, with plunging gorges and steep yellow meadows overflown by ravens. Of the forests that had once towered there, not a shadow remained but scrub oaks on the lower hills. All else was bare and broken rock.

  “I’m sure I don’t remember this,” said Mendoza, frowning. She looked across at Edward. “But I rode somewhere with you. Didn’t we, before the accident?”

  “So we did,” Edward said. He reached across and took her hand. “We were trying to get across to this island, then. Now, you see? We’ve reached our destination at last, and they’ve been unable to stop us.”

  She brightened at that. Then she leaned past him, staring at something.

  “Is that what we’re looking for?” she asked, pointing.

  He turned. Some twenty feet below the trail grew a band of sage and artemisia, lower, more uniform than the surrounding brush. It was evenly three meters wide, and curved along the hillside a good distance before ending abruptly in a tumbled mass of rock and spurge laurel.

  “That was a road once,” said Mendoza.

  “So it was,” Edward said. Well, Captain?

  That’s it, laddie. Bull’s-eye.

  “And it’s been a long time since it was used,” said Mendoza, urging her mount over the edge of the trail for a closer look. “To judge from the growth. See there? Those are all older plants, with a lot of hardwood.”

  “I’m no botanist, my love, so I’ll trust your word,” said Edward, following her. “How long since it’s been used, would you say?”

  “Sixty years?” Mendoza turned her head to one side, considering. “Sixty, I think.”

  “Well then,” said Edward. He smiled and rode forward.

  Once they were actually on it, there was no question that the place had been a road, though it was gently crumbling now. In the clarity of full sunlight, Edward was able to perceive a faint wavering on the air before the rockfall.

  “This is some sort of deliberate illusion,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” said Mendoza, looking at him sidelong.

  Aye, lad, and if you’ll stand to a second— The Captain paused. Suddenly the tumbled rocks vanished, revealing a featureless bronze door in their place. An unseen mechanism clanked within. Haar! Security’s offline. At ’em, me hearties!

  They dismounted, tying their reins to a non-illusory laurel. Edward crouched before the door, studying it for brute force traps. Satisfied that there were none he could perceive, he tugged gently at the recessed knob. The door swung open, revealing a smooth-walled passage beyond. There were no cobwebs, no hanging roots, no pools of water; only a clean dry corridor with rows of drawers set flush in its walls, stretching away as far as they could see into darkness.

  Edward narrowed his eyes, considering it. He reached down and tossed in a pebble. It bounced and fell without incident.

  It’s safe, laddie. But you’d best be quick, all the same. Yer looking for a drawer labeled BTM 417.

  “BTM 417,” Edward said aloud.

  “Is that what we want?” Mendoza stepped across the threshold. She scanned the walls. “Tsk! They’re in no order, are they? Let’s search.”

  The drawers were of all different sizes and shapes, labeled according to no discernible system. Some had little file cards of yellowed pasteboard, with names or numbers neatly written in copperplate script. Some had pasted tags of an odd silvery tissue, with legends in curiously blurred type. A few others had engraved brass plates, of a disturbingly familiar design.

  Though it did not seem to disturb Mendoza, who paced along the corridor, scanning as she went. She stopped before one drawer. The somber brass plate on its front was engraved: BTM 417.

  “Here it is,” she said, turning to Edward, who had followed cautiously. “Shall I open it?”

  No, transmitted the Captain in a panicky sort of way. He had just scanned the drawer and its contents. Don’t let her see, son.

  “Let me,” Edward said swiftly, putting his hand on her wrist. She looked up into his eyes, startled. In his smoothest voice, with his nicest smile, he said: “I’d be very much obliged, my love, if you’d stand guard at the entrance.”

  “Are we in danger?” she demanded, and he could see the change in her, as though she were a self-drawn sword, white-edged steel tensing to launch itself.

  “Unlikely,” he replied. “But it’s best to take no chances, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I would, señor,” she said, and went back to the daylight, where she stood obediently scanning the trail.

  Brace yerself, son.

  Oh, really! said Edward. How bad can it be?

  He opened the drawer.

  It opened out a long way, being perhaps seven feet deep. Long before it had extended in full, Edward had let go and drawn back; but the rolling mechanism was so nicely balanced the drawer just kept opening on its own, as though a ghost were pulling it.

  Though not the ghost of the occupant of the drawer.

  It was a skeleton, cleanly laid out on a metal tray in the pattern of its original articulation. All the bones were present, though some of the ribs and two thoracic vertebrae had been shattered and wired back in place, as had one lumbar vertebra. There was no sign of healing, indicating that these injuries had occurred at the time of death. It was the skeleton of a male in his late thirties.

  He had apparently been in very good health up to the time of his sudden death. The teeth were all present and in splendid condition. The skeleton itself was very large, with massive femurs. There was something peculiar about the articulation of the arms and neck. There was also something peculiar about the skull, quite apart from the fact that the top of the cranium had been sawn off and then reattached with wire after the brain had been removed.

  Alec gulped, as it dawned on him whose skeleton this was. Edward, still in control—though he was losing it—had backed against the opposite wall and was staring, white-faced, into the drawer.

  What, man, art thou faint? said Nicholas. Edward looked up at him.

  I’m dead, he said quietly. I am a dead man. There’s proof, there are my damned bones.

  Is this all? Nicholas made an impatient gesture. Wherefore art thou amazed? Thou wert born mortal, as I was, and lived certain years, as I did, and died and came to this.

  Edward was shaking his head.

  I didn’t think—

  Ah. Nicholas leaned close, looking him in the eye. Then, think! How many didst thou send to this same charnel state? Wilt thou tremble that it befell thee, too, at last? Is it not justice, Homicide?

  Shut up, Edward cried.

  Please, Alec said. Leave him alone! It’s awful enough as it is, do you have to make him feel worse? He turned to Edward. So what if they didn’t preserve your body? You’re not completely dead. We’re talking, and you’ve been riding a horse, and—and drinking, and eating, and having great sex—

  You have! Edward said. You’re alive, and I’m that thing lying there. I thought they had the science to—I had been promised a resurrection. Damn them! They never had any intention of bringing me back. I was unmade and mounted like a bloody museum specimen! But I’ll live again, by God. Edward pushed himself upright and surveyed the old bones. We’ll take them away with us. Captain! You can repair them, clothe them with new flesh—and I’ll go into my own body, and—

  Son! Son, I can’t do that.

  You repaired Mendoza! Edward’s voice rose in a howl. You can repair me!

  Edward, lad—she never died. There weren’t much of her, but what there was, was still alive. This thing’s dead. I can’t even take DNA from it, because you was almost forty when you died. D’y’see? Too many replication errors by that ti
me. You ain’t a machine, to be repaired. You were a mortal man.

  And what am I now? Edward demanded.

  Thou art a spirit, that never believed in spirits, Nicholas informed him. There’s irony for thee.

  Stand to, both of you! We’re wasting time. There’s more there than the bones, ain’t there? Some electronics, should be. There’s got to be something to give us a clue where yer DNA vial is.

  Nicholas took control and reached in past the skeleton, to a steel box at the back of the drawer. He pulled it out and opened it.

  There was a man’s hat, of the stovepipe style worn in the middle of the nineteenth century. It had been Edward’s. So had the pair of riding boots.

  There was a package of clothing, sealed in some transparent material. It appeared to be a complete suit from the same historical period, and was in fact what Edward was wearing when he died. It was covered in dried blood. There were at least seven bullet holes visible, and the right lapel of the coat was torn. The tear had not occurred during Edward’s lifetime. The coat had been torn when five security techs pulled Mendoza screaming from his body.

  There was a battered leather saddlebag, smaller but otherwise not very dissimilar to the one they had brought with them. It contained Edward’s personal effects. Nicholas sorted through them:

  A man’s watch on a chain with a seal, engraved with Edward’s initials; a Spanish-English phrasebook, printed in 1860; a clasp knife; a canteen; a pair of field glasses; a small pistol, in a leather holster cracked with age; a wooden case containing ammunition and cleaning supplies for the pistol; three knives in strapped sheaths. A garrote. Three tiny glass vials containing a white powder. A small tin case of picklocks. A box of matches. A white linen handkerchief. A folded telegram, yellow and crumbling. A ring of assorted keys. A silver pen with a steel nib and cap. A set of cufflinks, plain brass with a fouled anchor design. A wallet containing banknotes and other currency from several nations. A letter of mark issued to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, authorized representative of Imperial Export & Company. A silver card case, containing about fifteen pasteboard embossed cards reading:

  Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax

  Redking’s Club Mayfair

  The last item in the box was a case containing a number of small, odd-looking plaquettes. Each framed a pair of transparent slides pressing between them a slice of what resembled human tissue. Below them was a readout screen, speaker, and connector port. Nicholas held one up to the light, staring without comprehension.

  That’s good, said the Captain. There’ll be data encoded in that. Leave the rest of it. Take the box and get back to Mendoza.

  No, said Edward, grabbing without effect at the saddlebag. I want my things!

  Wherefore, fool? Nicholas fended off his frantic attempts to seize control. What need hast thou of vanities anymore?

  I WANT THEM!

  Oh, let him take ’em, pleaded Alec. If we don’t shift it, Mendoza’s going to come see what’s taking us so long, and if she sees this—

  She must not. Moving fast, Nicholas removed the plaquette case and the saddlebag from the box. He slid the long drawer shut, and grabbing up their finds ran for the entrance, where Mendoza was ceaselessly scanning.

  “We’re safe,” she said. “Was it in there, your loot?”

  “No, love,” Nicholas said, stuffing the case and smaller bag inside the saddlebag they’d brought. “Naught but time’s trash.” He turned and pulled the door shut. Unlooping the reins, he bent to give her a hand up into the saddle; swung up easily on his own mount. She cantered ahead of him up the old road, and he waited only for Alec and Edward to catch his stirrups before following her.

  They rode along in nervous silence a while. Mendoza was wondering why he had switched his speaking idiom again.

  “What was in there?” she asked at last.

  “Ghosts,” Nicholas told her.

  They returned to the ship, where Billy Bones accepted the saddlebag and hurried off with it. Mendoza watched this, but said nothing. Nor did she remark when they lifted anchor and sailed away at once for Panama.

  Edward was finally able to wrest control from Nicholas as they emerged from the bathroom, after showering away the dust of their ride. Without a word he pulled Mendoza to the bed, where he made violent love to her in silence. Though he sank down exhausted at last, the mute agony did not leave Edward’s eyes.

  Mendoza asked no questions. Edward lay his head on her breasts. She put her arms around him and sang, some wordless and soothingly monotonous little tune. Gradually the despair went out of his body, and Edward slept.

  Alec, who had been waiting patiently with Nicholas, said:

  Council of war, Captain sir?

  I’m still analyzing, lad. Them tissue samples—

  But at that moment Mendoza, who had been stroking back Edward’s hair, spoke quietly.

  “Sir Henry.”

  —Aye, Mrs. Checkerfield! the Captain said aloud.

  “What was it, in that place? What did he see to upset him like this?”

  —Well, now, dearie, I’m sure it ain’t nothing for you to worry over—

  “To Hell with that,” she said, and both Alec and Nicholas jumped. “Tell me the truth.”

  Er—aye, ma’am, to be sure. It was more evidence of Dr. Zeus’s perfidy, d’y’see? Something nasty the Company did a long while back. He wouldn’t talk about it, good lad that he is, lest it rake up old sorrows for you, but it bothered him powerful.

  “Obviously. What did he bring back, that he took such pains I might not see?” Mendoza said.

  Just something as might be useful—as a matter of fact I was just starting to analyze it, as is me duty, when you called, ma’am, and I’ll be happy to get back to it when we’re done chatting—

  “Then get back to your duty,” she said wearily. “I remember this, I remember when he’d come to bed like this. Hard as steel, heartsick, and nothing I could do comforted him. Something bad always happened, then, didn’t it? Fire and blood. What will take that look out of his eyes?”

  Missus, you mustn’t be afeared. Nothing’s going to hurt my boy, nor you neither, ever again. Not with the plans old Captain Morgan’s laid. But yer tired, dearie; that was a long ride and a rough wooing. Shut yer eyes and sleep, eh?

  Mendoza nodded, looking down at Edward. She drew the blankets up over his shoulders. He started, wild-eyed, clutching at her, but she stroked his face and murmured to him, and he lay his head down again without really waking. She leaned into the pillows and gazed up at the improbable pirate carvings, wondering for the twentieth time why on earth Alec had decorated their bedroom in Early Captain Blood.

  The Captain did the electronic equivalent of wiping sweat from his brow, but he wasn’t off the hook yet.

  She’s starting to remember everything, isn’t she? said Alec. She’ll know we’ve lied to her, and worse—what if she remembers Options Research?

  Now, lad, there ain’t no danger of that.

  Yes, there is! She’s remembering the way you changed, when she lost you in England. Alec glared at Nicholas. Stiff-necked Puritan bastard.

  Nicholas was outraged. He took her sulking rude, and lieth there now sprawling on her! Not I.

  He can’t cope, man. I don’t think I could either, if I saw my own corpse laid out in a drawer, Alec said.

  A few old bones, Nicholas said impatiently. And look, boy, here is the lesson: He and all his Age of Reason were so proud, and so haught, in their science and their power, they held themselves very gods on Earth. Now, see! His worldly Empire’s perished and so hath his vain flesh. He is confounded by mortality’s blind emblem in his own face.

  It’s still not fair to be cruel to him about it, Alec insisted. If you hadn’t been burned at the stake the Company’d have a drawer like that for you, someplace. And what are you both? You’re just ghosts.

  Ay, said Nicholas. But there was no place for spirits in all his philosophy, boy. I died, I know it well; he will not know, though the truth lie
stark before his eyes, and so he lechers with his ghostly prick to deny it. Yet he’s a spirit still.

  So what’s he supposed to do now? Alec snapped. Are you so happy being dead? But maybe you are. You went out of your way to get yourself burned alive. You wanted her to burn with you!

  Nicholas grimaced. I knew not what she was. I— He brought his fist up close to his chest and struck, painfully. Nor I knew not myself, neither. I lived in lies no less than Edward did. But the truth—

  That is one dark house your God lives in, man. Alec shook his head. You can keep your Age of Faith. Whyn’t you find somebody to worship who isn’t a shracking psychopath?

  Let it alone, now, Alec. Yer lady ain’t going to remember Options Research. Her brain’ll fit together enough pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to give her a nice picture she can live with, and lock away the rest. I reckon there’s some memories you’d be glad to be rid of, yerselves.

  And that’s true, too, said Nicholas, shuddering.

  Yeah. Alec thought of Mars.

  Right. Now, about that council of war.

  What were those things in the plaquettes? Alec asked reluctantly.

  Pieces of Edward, what d’y’think? And I’ll thank you not to tell him. No end of data in them little files, too, which is lucky; forensic analysis reports with references to another location. See, they left the skeleton and these bits here, once they’d done with ’em, but the jewel of the lot’s at their storage facilities in England.

  What jewel? Nicholas frowned.

  The brain, the Captain said, which was the same as yer own little anomalous beauty of a brain what set me free, Alec, and yers, too, I reckon, Nicholas, but unlike any others as ever was. It weren’t dissected, but sent back to Stratford.

  Stratford-on-Avon? Alec said in disbelief. Where Mr. Shakespeare lived?

  Aye. There’s a Company storage facility hid in a place what ain’t never going to be bombed, nor demolished, nor catch fire. I’ve already checked its manifest. Another unit with yer file designation is there.