The Machine's Child (Company)

by Kage Baker

  That’s way inland, though, isn’t it, Captain sir? Alec said. How are we going to manage?

  ONE MORNING IN WARWICKSHIRE, 1600 AD

  It does stop raining in England, occasionally. In the month of August, it even stops raining long enough for the roads to become disagreeably dusty, or at least it did in the year 1600, when few roads were paved.

  So the dust lay in a fine powder on the starched linen ruff about the throat of the tall gallant who trudged along in the bright morning, and on the brim of his copatain hat, and on his thigh-high boots, and on all the bright brass buttons on his well-cut doublet. It powdered the velvet hat of his lady friend, too, and her ruff, and her bodice and brocade overskirt; which was perhaps why she was looking a little sourly on the green paradise of Warwickshire.

  They had been walking along that road since before sunrise, when they had hidden their conveyance in a ruined barn and set off on foot for Stratford. They had passed only three travelers: a respectable spinster, riding back from London with a basket of hornbooks for the pupils of her dame school; an adolescent boy with vomit on his doublet and torn hose, looking sick and furtive as he slunk along the narrow lane; and a sturdy beggar with a crutch, a purported veteran of the Armada battle twelve years previous, who eyed the couple thoughtfully before deciding that the man was too big, and too well armed, to attack.

  Had he decided to attempt to rob the couple, he would have noticed the winged shape floating directly above them, to all appearances a common hovering hawk. He wouldn’t have noticed it for very long, however, because it would have blown off his head with a small guided missile within seconds of his making any threatening moves toward his intended victims.

  But since he passed by them with no more than a nod and a cheerful good morrow, he lived to eventually father offspring, one of whose distant descendants did a very large favor for a corrupt prime minister, and was rewarded by being made first earl of Finsbury. The pattern of history sighed in relief, took another loop around itself, and continued on its way unchanged.

  When the beggar was well out of earshot, Mendoza said:

  “That mortal wasn’t really a cripple.”

  “Like enough, ay,” said Nicholas grimly, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword and turning to stare after him. “Well, we’ll hire us horses at the first good inn we pass. Less danger from low rogues, and less dust.”

  “Good,” said Mendoza, sneezing.

  The first good inn was just beyond the next spinney, as it turned out, so they were able to continue their journey in comparative comfort in a gratifyingly short space of time.

  Where are we now? said Alec.

  A greener place than I knew, said Edward in wonder. No railway. No canals. No factories. No coal smoke. And, somewhere under this curiously cloudless sky, the Swan of Avon stretching his wings.

  The what?

  Shakespeare, you imbecile!

  Now then, lads, don’t spoil things with a fight.

  Mightn’t we at least ride by his house? fretted Edward.

  We ain’t sightseeing, bucko. We got a storage facility to find.

  And anyway, he won’t be here, Alec informed Edward. He spent all his time in London until he quit show business. He told me so himself, when I used to visit his museum.

  That was an actor portraying Shakespeare, Alec, Edward said with barely controlled contempt.

  No, it wasn’t! He was a computer-generated hologram. Alec glared at Edward. And he was as real as they could make him, too. Somebody dug up his lead coffin from where it was buried, and scanned the body. They did a forensic reconstruction and then they programmed in every word he ever wrote and did an extrapola-whatever so he was just the way he would have been really, see?

  Then he was no more real than your Captain Morgan, Edward said.

  I’ll show you real, you lubber!

  Peace, thou, for Christ’s sake. Nicholas looked around impatiently.

  “Here we are,” said Mendoza, as they rode into Henley Street.

  And Nicholas stared, more struck than Alec or Edward, at the world he’d missed: a small town quiet and prosperous, secure from Spanish invaders or Papist oppressors, untouched by fire or sword. Comfortably bourgeois, with dungheaps that reeked no worse than in any other little town, and a great many oak-timbered and impressive homes of the well-to-do. A fine guildhall, where traveling companies of players might perform. A respectably solid stone bridge over the river.

  And in Henley Street, and Sheep Street, and Ely Street, ducks sauntering boldly; through the windows of the splendid modern school, sullen resentful children droning out their recitation; by the Market House, two goodwives listening breathlessly to the hot gossip a third was dishing out; down the green aisle of elm trees, a self-important alderman in grand clothes cantering along on a self-important horse.

  Beyond the bright town, green dreaming hills and blackberry bramble where the fairies were supposed to haunt, and fields where Robin Good-fellow was thought to dance circles in the green corn, when townfolk shut their windows against the night.

  Nicholas stared at it all and tried to tell himself that his death had weighed in the scale, that this England might not have existed had he not gone willingly into the fire.

  Then he saw an ancient making his way along Bridge Street, hobbling on a stick, clutching a fur-trimmed gown about him with one gnarled hand. Nicholas realized with a shock that he would be just so old, now, if he’d lived, and all this pleasant mundane place would still be here.

  It hadn’t mattered at all that he’d lived or died, not to England. She went on without him, self-sufficient. Even God had shrugged off his sacrifice. The knot of misery about his heart tightened once more, and as it did he felt another surge of anger toward Joseph.

  He found himself reaching out desperately, and feeling Mendoza take his hand he gripped it tight. They rode on, through Stratford-upon-Avon.

  Beyond the outskirts of the town they followed the Captain’s directions to a certain high wood, dark with rooks and less palpable shadows, not an inviting place. No paths led there. They rode in under its gloom all the same, and careful searching disclosed the wavering trick in the air obscuing a grove darker still. The steel-winged hawk circled once over the forest. As the panicked rooks flapped out in all directions the illusion vanished, to reveal another bronze door.

  This is it, lads, the Captain said. BTM 417, same as afore. Quick now.

  “Wait here with the horses, love,” said Nicholas, dismounting and handing Mendoza the reins. “I’ll not be long.”

  “All right,” she said, looking uneasily out through the black trunks to the sunlit world beyond that wood.

  He kissed her hand and went to the door, which opened easily at his touch.

  Nicholas found himself looking down a stone corridor much like the one on Santa Catalina Island, clean and dry, lined with drawers. Not far in was one drawer with his file designation on it. Holding his breath, he opened it.

  Whew. Alec relaxed. No skeleton, anyway. What are those things?

  Don’t touch ’em, lads! The Captain was referring to a pair of containers of roughly four-liter size, of ceramic or opaque glass. They’re tissue specimen jars. They’ll go transparent for viewing, if they’re handled.

  Ugh! Alec yelled silently, as comprehension hit him. One of those must have Edward’s—

  Shut your damned mouth, Edward said.

  But, then, what’s in the other—

  You don’t need to see it. Let’s just say that things don’t burn down to a nice anonymous pile of ashes in a country where the wood’s always wet.

  Nicholas shuddered.

  Not so easy to be objective about your own mortal remains, is it? said Edward tightly. No psalm for the occasion, brother Nicholas? No heartening words about the sea giving up her dead on the Last Day? Do you suppose what’s in those jars will be made incorruptible? But I daresay the Company’s already made certain it’s well preserved.

  That’ll do, Edward.
>
  I merely point out—hello, what’s this? said Edward, taking control to reach deeper into the drawer. He pulled out a third and smaller jar.

  A little chime sounded and a quiet unhuman voice announced: “PROJECT ADONAI, THIRD SEQUENCE ORGANIC RESIDUE.” The opaque sides of the jar cleared, to reveal several small objects floating in transparent preservative.

  They appeared to be a clump of dun-colored hair, one whole tooth and broken pieces of at least three others, and an ear.

  Alec gasped.

  Here now! Don’t go all green, laddie, it’s only cloned stuff. When you was in the infirmary after yer accident, I made some bits and pieces to scatter about in the shuttle afore I sunk it in forty fathoms. These scraps fooled ’em into thinking you was killed in the crash, until we could raid them lubbers in Albany Crescent.

  But what’s it doing back here in 1600? Alec asked.

  Standard Company procedure, son. The more secret Secret Material is, the further back in the past they hides it.

  You . . . cloned this? Cloned, is that the word? Edward peered into the jar. You made an ear? Might you make a whole body as easily?

  No, and we ain’t got time to go into why now. Look. Be there more of them plaquettes?

  Just a couple, Alec said doubtfully. Do we take ’em?

  If that’s all there is, aye. Maybe there’ll be clues in them like there was in the others.

  They stashed the plaquettes, which framed rather nasty-looking bits of things nobody wanted to examine particularly, in Nicholas’s belt pouch, and hurried out to where Mendoza waited with the horses.

  “Any luck?” she said, waiting to hear whether he’d slip back over to Victorian or Transatlantic idiom again.

  “Small luck, but belike we’ll have better,” Nicholas told her, swinging up into the saddle. He leaned over to kiss her. “Let’s to sea again, love.”

  They rode back the way they’d come, into Stratford. Edward craned his neck longingly, peering into Chapel Lane.

  There’s New Place! he said. Good God, that’s the Bard of Avon’s own house. Mightn’t we at least ride close to see it?

  Can’t we, Captain sir? Alec asked. It means a lot to him.

  Edward glared at Alec in embarrassment. Nicholas shrugged and urged his horse into the lane.

  “This house would be his that wrote the fairy play?” Nicholas asked, pointing. “Shakespeare, was it not?”

  “Is it?” Mendoza looked up, interested. “Nice garden.”

  The property in question took up most of a long deep lot, with the splendid brick-and-timber house away at the end of it, fronting Chapel Street. Over the wall that enclosed the yard, they could see orchards and a couple of barns. Roses climbed the walls of the distant house, waving toward its plentiful chimneys. Espaliered fruit trees could be glimpsed against the far walls. Vines arched over a long pergola, shading the central walk. There was a strong fragrance of honeysuckle, and sweet herbs, and flowering privet.

  Here’s flowers for you, quoted Edward reverently, hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ th’ sun, And with him rises, weeping—

  Alec and Nicholas looked at him in disbelief.

  “Look at that formal knotwork,” said Mendoza in awe, urging her horse closer. “Look at the Lavandula spica!”

  Mightn’t we ask to see the garden? Edward implored. There might be a servant home, and if we paid—

  “Beautiful box hedges, too,” Mendoza added, leaning on the top of the wall to see better.

  “I thank you kindly, madam,” said someone, standing up more or less under her nose. He had apparently been kneeling on the walk just the other side of the wall, weeding.

  “Oh,” said Mendoza, abashed.

  Hey! Alec exclaimed in delight. Edward gasped, peering over the wall.

  Nicholas, seeing Mendoza’s discomfiture, rode close and looked down at the man who stood there, regarding Mendoza with an expression of mild annoyance as he rubbed dirt from his hands. He was a neatly made fellow of average height, with a receding hairline and a trim beard, and handsome regular features. The only thing remarkable about him was his eyes, which had an unnervingly piercing stare. Altogether he looked like nothing so much as the lead singer for Jethro Tull.

  “I cry thee mercy, goodman,” said Nicholas politely. “Art thou the gardener here?”

  No, you idiot! groaned Edward.

  That’s, er, him actually— Alec said.

  “—Or are you the master of the house and a gentleman, as clearly your bearing and countenance do proclaim?” Nicholas revised in haste.

  “This is my house, sir, and my garden,” Shakespeare said with some asperity.

  “It is a marvelous garden, sir, truly,” Mendoza said. “The lavender knots, particularly. And the, er, roses.”

  “Mm,” said Shakespeare.

  “I, myself, have had but ill luck with my lavender in all this English rain,” Mendoza temporized, blushing. “I do protest, sir, I have never seen any so fine as this of yours. I pray you excuse the rudeness of our too-open regard! We meant no unmannerly behavior.”

  “Well,” said Shakespeare, looking a little mollified.

  “But as for the lavender, kind sir, I must ask! How have you such abundance to make knots wherewith, and in this shrewd air?” Mendoza babbled. “You never grew them from seed? Hell itself may freeze over before the knavish things will sprout, and yet I can get no cuttings of mine to live.”

  Wow, she’s good at lying, Alec said in awe. Company training, huh?

  Shakespeare, meanwhile, was looking smug.

  “I pray you, lady, did you root them in sand?”

  “Certes, as who would not?” Mendoza said. “Grow cuttings in clay or loam? It is impossible.”

  “Ay, ay, so it is, lady,” said Shakespeare, stroking his beard craftily. “Pray, took you cuts from the wood of the said lavender?”

  Mendoza hesitated a moment. “Well—” she said, wondering why she’d blurted out spontaneous prevarication.

  Good God, Edward said in anguish, this is the foremost poet of the English tongue, and is she going to spend the whole damned time talking about lavender?

  “Ah!” said Shakespeare. “There your error lies. They must be little and new shoots, lady, not old wood that hath lost the vigor of youth.”

  “Is it even so?” said Mendoza, smiting her forehead with the palm of her hand. “And I have been cutting the old wood all this weary time! Truly, sir, you are master over me.”

  Shakespeare arched one eyebrow at that, as Nicholas put out a hand.

  “Peace, wife,” he said, trying not to giggle. “I would inquire, patient sir, whether you are not Shakespeare the poet?”

  Shakespeare threw him an oddly furtive look. “I am that he, sir,” he admitted.

  “Oh, sir, your Rape of Lucrece!” Mendoza said, attempting to make a good impression. “We bought us two copies i’Paul’s churchyard and read them to tatters, did we not, husband? And your Venus and Adonis, too.”

  “So we did,” Nicholas agreed cautiously. Shakespeare looked rather gratified at that.

  “Why, I am glad they pleased,” he said. “I have another in hand, to speak truth. More matter of Ovid: Actaeon his outrage ’gainst the goddess Diana, lewdly observed in her bath, and his transformation thereafter to a hart.”

  Edward muttered an oath of surprise. Nicholas looked intrigued.

  “Diana in her bath?” he said. “Naked-pale as the watery moon? Now, there’s matter that will speed, surely.”

  “Ay, with the gallants at Court,” Shakespeare said, grinning. “You see how it will be, sir, much Rhyme Royal treating of fair wet bub—well!” He broke off, looking sidelong at Mendoza. “But peradventure you shall read, sir, an you apply to Master Field again, a year hence.”

  “H’m! Peradventure I shall,” said Nicholas. “Well, then, Master Shakespeare, for your forbearance I do thank you humbly. Truly the garden is a poem, and each poem severally a garden of divers delight
s. Let us on, wife, and use no more of this fair gentleman’s time.”

  NOOO, screamed Edward in silence. For God’s sake, can’t we even get a photograph?

  Captain, can you take an image with the remote cam? Alec said, watching Edward in uneasy concern.

  Oh, bloody Hell. Nicholas, turn and point out the hawk.

  And the hawk-remote swept in low, as Nicholas pointed to it and said:

  “Marry, she stoops! I hope you have no chickens at hazard, sir.”

  “Oh, fie,” said Shakespeare, frowning up at the camera, and so his image was captured: prosperous gentleman with slightly muddy knees, staring up indignantly from his side of the garden wall, with the Elizabethan gallant and his lady staring up, too, posing for the camera on their side of the wall.

  “Whose should that be but one of Greville’s again?” Shakespeare muttered. “I’ll get me a fowling-piece, and see how he liketh hawk pie.”

  “Truly it is a shame, the way folk will let their birds range unmewed,” said Nicholas sympathetically. “Well, we must away. Bid Master Shakespeare good-day, wife.”

  “Good-day, Master Shakespeare,” said Mendoza.

  “And to you, little madam,” Shakespeare said, smiling at her. His remarkable eyes widened as an idea occurred to him, and he held up a hand. “But stay you, now. Here’s an herb for you, lady, this same sweet lavender.” He scooped up one of several small clay pots containing live cuttings and handed it over the wall. “An it live it’ll be a goodly bush in a year’s time; and, remember you, it is the young wood that hath the life in it.”

  Mendoza accepted it, wide-eyed. “I do thank you, gentle sir.”

  “Y’are most welcome, lady,” he said, and returned to his weeding as they rode away.

  “God, that was embarrassing,” said Mendoza. “What possessed me to come up with all that plausible incidental detail? Was that something we used to do for the Company?”

  “Ay,” said Nicholas, with just a trace of smugness. “Thou wert a most complete, excellent, and perfect liar.”

  You damned fool, said Edward as he ran along at Nicholas’s stirrup. Do you know how many generations yet unborn would pay fortunes even to have a glimpse of that man, let alone five minutes’ conversation, and you wasted my chance to ask even one question about his plays?