The Machine's Child (Company)

by Kage Baker

  Unfortunately there’s been an El Niño condition in this year of 1879, and the summer fogs have lasted well into autumn, so all one would see on this particular day is a grayed-out closed-down perspective, like a Victorian photograph of a landscape. Sea the color of ashes, sand the color of ashes, wet fog hanging in wreaths through the tops of the twisted and spectral cypresses, all the jewel colors lost. Naturally enough, the frail man, himself more than half wraith as he picks his way among the tide-pools, is depressed. But then, he depresses easily.

  He cheers up easily, too. His moods could best be described as hysterically mercurial, which is only one of the reasons the motherly lady he’s courting hasn’t quite made up her mind about him. He perches now on a prominence of rock and rolls his trouser legs up again, for they have become soaked. He can roll them up quite a distance on his pipestem legs. It isn’t just that he’s emaciated from illness; his whole graceful body, slender feet and long expressive hands, is weirdly attenuated. That, and his enormous eyes—too wide, too bright, in his thin face—contribute to his otherworldly appearance.

  He notices the whaleboat appearing out of the fog. From whence has it come? A shadowy something on the obscured horizon suggests an immense ship, big as a clipper at least but phantomlike. Why is it standing on and off so far out in the bay? And why are there only two persons in the whaleboat, which is of considerable size to be rowed by only one man? He begins to tell himself a story about the occupants of the whaleboat.

  To his delight, they are rowing straight for the cove where he sits. They near him and his imaginings go from crime to romance, for he observes that one of the two is a lady. He leans his chin in his palm and stares at them, fascinated, as they approach his rock. The lady has bright hair, is simply dressed in brown calico and a shawl. It is impossible to tell her age, for though her face is rounded and young, her gaze is mature, assessing.

  The man is striking in appearance, too, wearing sea boots and rough serviceable clothes cut well. How effortlessly he bends to the oars and sends the boat flying along! Too homely really to be a hero, but a character and no mistake. What kind of character?

  They pass their observer, as dolphins play in their bow wake, and a moment later they make landfall. As the man leaps out to pull their boat up on the sand, splashing through the surf foaming about his boots, it becomes evident that he is remarkably strong. And quite tall, towering above the young lady! The frail man rises and hurries across the rocks to get a better look at the couple, trying to make it appear as though he is just sauntering in a casual sort of way.

  He is in luck, for the pair stand there several moments beside the boat, discussing something. They seem irresolute. Are they worried about leaving their boat? Why are they going into the old Spanish capital? Her long braid and golden earrings suggest that the lady is Iberian, despite her pallor. The daughter of an exiled Spanish don, returning in secret to claim some birthright? She reaches up to stroke back the sailor’s lank hair in an unmistakable gesture of intimacy. Are they lovers? Must be!

  The frail man halts, for he is out of breath. He stoops to pretend to examine a clump of sea-wrack. Unfortunately this brings on a coughing fit, which is the end of his unobtrusive scrutiny. The young lady turns and fixes her black stare on him and it connects like a blow, not hostile but terrifyingly intense. She advances and asks him a question, in beautifully aristocratic Castilian. He knows enough Spanish to understand that she is asking him if he’d like to earn a few dollars watching the boat while they go ashore, but he isn’t proficient enough in that tongue to reply gracefully, and so he stammers:

  “Perdon yo, por favor, Señorita, pero—parlez-vous français?”

  “Mais oui, certainement,” she says, in the perfect accents of a native Parisienne. Then she puts her head on one side, frowning at him. “Etesvous ecossais, Monsieur?”

  “Oui, mademoiselle,” he admits, thinking peevishly that his accent can’t be that pronounced.

  “Well then, we can talk in English!” she concludes, in flat American. At that moment the sailor gasps as though he’s seen a ghost, and he cries:

  “Robert Louis Stevenson!”

  And to Louis’s astonishment the sailor strides forward and seizes him by both fragile shoulders, and stares down into his eyes with burning adoration.

  “Er—” says Louis, as the woman looks swiftly from him to the tall sailor and back again.

  “Ah! Of course. You must be the author of”—she appears to be thinking rapidly—”An Inland Journey. Are you not? That very entertaining travel narrative, Alec.”

  “Man, oh, man, I love your stories,” says the sailor hoarsely, with tears standing in his eyes. He seems to be English, and though his voice is pleasant his accent is strange and uncouth.

  “Yes, he does,” affirms the lady in a nervous sort of way. She thinks again and rattles off: “We’ve read A Lodging for the Night, Will o’ the Mill, The Sire de Maletroit’s Mousetrap, The Latter-Day Arabian Nights, and Providence and the Guitar; and that’s all we’ve read, of course, because that’s all that’s been published at this time, Alec,” she adds with what might be a warning in her voice. “But we enjoyed them very much and do hope you’ll write more.”

  “Oh, we do,” says the man, letting go Louis’s shoulders and grabbing his hand to pump it vigorously. “You—er—you won’t mind if I shake your hand?”

  “No,” Louis says, for the extraordinary warmth of the man’s skin seems to go right through his own thin chilled fingers, and anyway he wouldn’t care if the fellow had the clammy grip of death, because he’s read Louis’s stories! “Actually I’ve a number of new pieces drafted, you know. I’m, er, gathering material from life.”

  “Brilliant.” The man shudders pleasurably. He can’t seem to take his eyes off Louis. Suddenly he turns his head a little to one side, just as the girl had done. His nostrils dilate, he inhales, and a puzzled look comes into his eyes. “Oh—you’re diff—” he begins, and then stops himself.

  “Well, rather obviously we can’t ask you to watch our boat for an hour or so,” says the girl quickly.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t mind—er, ma’am—” Louis says, and she throws out her hands in a gesture of slightly theatrical chagrin.

  “And how remiss of us! We haven’t introduced ourselves. This is my husband, Alec—Harpole, and I am—Mrs. Harpole.”

  It is too obviously an alias, and Louis’s eyes gleam with understanding.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Harpole,” he says in a conspiratorial sort of way. She looks at him consideringly, for a long moment.

  “Mr. Stevenson,” she says, “may we rely on your discretion? We are here under something of a cloud. We had hoped to run ashore swiftly and accomplish, ah—what we had hoped to accomplish, and get away again to our ship before—” Her eyes glaze over slightly in rapid thought. “—Before my father’s enemies could come to know of our presence here. I trust I need say nothing further, other to assure you that our intentions are completely honorable?”

  “Nothing at all,” Louis cries, thrilled to the marrow of his bones. “Look here, I’ll be delighted to stay with the boat.”

  “Oh, sir, how gallant,” she replies, with a charming smile. She puts her hand on her husband’s arm. “We are very much obliged to you. Let us haste, then, Alec dear. We won’t be more than an hour or so, Mr. Stevenson, I promise you.”

  And the tall man lets go Louis’s hand only reluctantly, with more protestations of high regard, and Louis watches as the two of them run away in the general direction of the Customs House. When they are gone, he clambers a little self-consciously over the gunwale of their boat and sits at the oars, gazing out at the gray sea-phantom in wildest speculation. Some sort of Flying Dutchman, perhaps? The dolphins have remained, circling in the near water, almost as though they were waiting.

  Louis tries the oars once, utterly failing to move them, and marvels at the strength of the oarsman. He can’t define to himself just what is so striking about the man,
other than a peculiar quality of being not quite human.

  Which is a little ironic, in light of the fact that Alec has been thinking exactly the same thing about him.

  In just over an hour the couple return, flushed and gleeful, and they have brought him a present: a bottle of the best brandy Sanchez’s Tavern has to offer. The tall man presents it to Louis shyly, as a hawk comes swooping low out of the fog above them and vanishes again. Louis makes a valiant pretense of helping the man push the boat off into the surf. He stands waving from the shore as they cut away through the gray water, dolphins leaping after, until at last the fog obscures them.

  Louis returns to his bare corner room in the French Hotel, clutching the brandy bottle to his skinny chest, and curls up on the floor in his blanket in the gathering dusk. He does not notice, now or ever, the tiny dab of new plaster on the adobe wall above his head, and even if he did it’s unlikely he would examine it closely enough to learn that it conceals a vitrified tube containing a tiny bottle of something resembling gold paint.

  He warms himself with the brandy and with working out, in a dozen different ways, the imaginary adventures of the couple from the phantom ship. His last thought, before he drifts off to sleep, is a question: Will their story have a happy ending?

  THAT SAME EVENING OFF THE BAY OF MONTEREY, 1879 AD

  “This is so cool,” Alec said, as he admired the holoshot. “There we are, and there he is, and he looks just like his pictures!”

  “What a stroke of luck, eh?” Mendoza said, kissing his ear as she leaned past him to set down a dish of green corn tamales. “And how neatly it solved the problem! No chance of his walking in on intruders in his room, when he’s guarding their boat.”

  It could only have been more unfair if you’d gotten his autograph, groused Edward.

  I already have his autograph, Alec said smugly. Bought it at auction, years ago.

  Puppy!

  Creep!

  Belay that, both of you, the Captain ordered.

  “And Mr. Stevenson will go off and write Treasure Island, which will inspire you to build this ship and go cruising around the Spanish Main,” said Mendoza, slipping into the booth beside him and shaking out her napkin. “I think? That’s why all the pirate things in here?”

  “You could say that,” said Alec. “He was always one of my heroes. When I was six, I’d have given anything to have had a chance to talk to him about pirates.” He scowled at his place setting. “My father wasn’t around, so . . . stories meant a lot to me. Treasure Island especially.”

  Mendoza, just reaching out to help herself to grilled fish, halted.

  “Your father?” She blinked. “When you were—we must have been children, once. Mustn’t we?”

  Thou fool! Nicholas groaned.

  “Yes,” said Alec, mentally kicking himself. “But . . .”

  “I can’t remember anything about being a child,” said Mendoza. Her eyes were wide and distant. “Why can’t I remember? We must have had—mothers, and fathers—”

  “Er—we were orphans,” said Alec, taking her hand.

  “Was it . . . unpleasant, when we were children?” she asked cautiously.

  “At first,” Alec improvised. “But, er, the Captain came along to look after us. It was great, because he told us stories, and taught us about stars and navigation and everything. And then later he, he helped us escape from the Company!”

  “It must have been a nice childhood, then,” said Mendoza, relaxing a little.

  “Oh, that part of it was brilliant!” said Alec with enthusiasm. He looked at her sidelong. “We’d, er, sail around to different islands, and have adventures. Build sand castles. Pretend we were digging for buried treasure. We learned all about the real pirates, too. Like, the way the Brotherhood of the Coast’s ships would pass each other, and when they weren’t sure if they were pirates, too, one of the ship’s crews would call out, ‘Where do you hail from?’ and the other ship’s crew would call back—”

  “ ‘From the sea!’ ” said Mendoza with him, as she held out her wineglass for Coxinga to fill. “Yes. Oh, it sounds lovely. I wish I could remember.”

  As he clinked glasses with her, Alec thought sadly: No you don’t, baby. He looked over into Nicholas’s somber gaze, and thought of the dungeons of the Inquisition. He found himself with an irrational desire to buy her dolls, sweets, games, anything to give her the idyllic childhood he’d just been inventing for them.

  The idea came out of nowhere, bright as lightning, and seemed the best he’d ever had in his life.

  “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before,” he said. “Why couldn’t we go see some real pirates?”

  “Because they were filthy, sadistic, and murderous mortals and it would be terribly hazardous,” said Mendoza, sipping her wine.

  Aye, dearie, I’m afraid that’s just so.

  “Well, but we wouldn’t invite them on board,” said Alec. “We could just go back to the Spanish Main and watch them!”

  Seek out thieves and murderers for sport? Nicholas frowned in bewilderment.

  You young idiot, do you have any idea of the risk you’d be running? said Edward wearily, pushing away his untasted virtual dinner. You’ve never associated with any real criminals, have you?

  I have so, said Alec, incensed.

  Alec, smugglers of Cadbury’s cocoa and double-cream brie hardly qualify as authentic felons—

  Well— began the Captain, in a considering kind of voice. Edward and Mendoza looked up at the camera with identical expressions of amazement and disapproval.

  Happen there’s this plan I been revolving, see, said the Captain. It seems that Dr. Zeus has a satellite in geosynchronous orbit stationed smack above Jamaica. It’s one in a series he’s got linking his bloody communications network. I was afeared he was using it to spy on you, Alec, so I had a good look at it.

  Now, this here Jamaica satellite is the master, see? Everything in the system comes and goes through it. The bloody thing’s only protected by a distortion field to hide it, and a little ring of orbiting laser cannon to take out any space debris that might blunder towards it.

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Edward, seizing control. “If it’s that vital, it’s sure to be better protected than that.”

  Haar! Aye, says you; but yer not taking into account the way the big fat fool’s mind works. He don’t need to protect it any better, thinks he, and why? Because his Temporal Concordance says it’ll never be attacked, at any time in recorded history. Mind you, the Temporal Concordance don’t go past 2355; and besides, a lot of history’s recorded wrong, ain’t it? So . . .

  “So if we planted something to activate then, that would take out this satellite—” Mendoza squinted thoughtfully as she unwrapped a tamale. “Or better still, override its signal and replace it with a false signal of our own—”

  Bless yer little heart, dearie, that was just what I were about to say. A nice deadly bolus for the Jamaicasat. Antigravity to take it up there, RAT transmitter to lie to the lasers so they’ll think it’s a maintenance servo and let it past them, where it’ll eat through the hull; and then our own little satellite, what clamps on the Jamaicasat and unfolds like a steel daisy, see, and picks up broadcasting without a second’s interruption once the Jamaicasat’s killed! Dr. Zeus will never know anything’s happened, but from that moment on I’ll be controlling every signal that’s sent.

  “Captain, I must apologize,” said Edward, lifting his wineglass to the camera. “You have once again demonstrated your brilliance at treachery, and I stand in awe.” Mendoza looked across at him, one eyebrow raised. “But I fail to see how this has anything to do with pirates, other than being itself an act of piracy.”

  We got to lay the trap, don’t we? And it’s best laid right under her keel, which is to say somewhere on Jamaica itself. Ah, says you, but where? Mighty unstable place, Jamaica; deforestation and reforestation and the ground all dug up for plantations, so’s you’d be hard put to find an acre of
land that ain’t going to be disturbed one way or the other afore 2355. Worse still, there’ll be earthquakes.

  “So there shall,” said Edward, who didn’t get the point. Alec shoved him aside and took control again.

  A powerful lot of earthquakes.

  “Well, an earthquake wouldn’t damage our mine, but it might uncover it from wherever we’d concealed it—” said Mendoza.

  One bloody BIG earthquake.

  “Port Royal,” yelled Alec, jumping up at his place. Bang, his head collided with the lamp and he sat down abruptly.

  “Darling!” Mendoza reached out to him in concern but he caught her hand and kissed it, grinning.

  ONE AFTERNOON IN

  SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA,

  1682 AD

  Her name wasn’t Mavis Breen, but it might just as well have been.

  She kept an inn in Spanish Town, the Goat and Compasses, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Pelican in Muir Harbor, and she was a compact muscular lady of opulent attributes running just slightly to plumpness as she gravitated toward middle age. She kept a husband, too, which was why she was Mrs. Dolly Ansolabehere instead of Miss Dolly Venables.

  She hadn’t particularly wanted a husband—Dolly was a strong-willed lady and preferred to call the shots in her life and her business—but like a stray dog he had somehow made himself useful, and the less formal relationship she would have preferred to establish with him was impossible, thanks to the nosiness of the Reverend Mr. Carrowes. All the clergy in Jamaica tended to zealotry in their moral crusades, overcompensation no doubt for their complete inability to do anything about that teeming cesspit of immorality across the bay: Port Royal.

  Jamaica, like Dolly Venables, had had to compromise.

  The British had captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, eager to please Oliver Cromwell, but realized they had little chance of holding on to it should the Spanish make any determined attempt to get it back. Indeed, there was only one armed force of ruthless and effective fighters ready to hand, capable of driving off any Spanish, French, or Dutch incursion, and it wasn’t the British Navy.