by Kage Baker
We got back to Iden Hall, I remember that very clearly. I thought it would hurt, but it didn't hurt, because it wasn't the same place. Nothing at all looked familiar.
Only my work area met me like an old friend. I went straight to it and got busy wrapping up my projects for travel. I worked steadily there until we left, however many days that may have been. One day, when I was in the middle of an entry, Joseph and Nef told me that I had to dismantle the unit for packing. So I logged out, and they told me to pack my other things too.
Joan came in while we were closing up our trunks, no doubt to discreetly inventory the linen to be sure we didn't make off with anything at check-out time. Nef attempted to press a shilling on her by way of tip, but Joan drew her hand back as from a snake.
"Thank you, mistress, but I will none," she snapped.
"How now?" Nef stared at her. "Wherefore art thou displeased with us? Have we not ever treated thee well?"
"Ay, mistress, it seems; but God knows this is not the house it was when ye came into it, and a many strangenesses have happened, and whose doing were they?" She turned a killing look on me. "And there was a holy martyr lately burned for his faith at Rochester, they say, but I say he had been living still, had not some here meddled with him."
Nef stepped swiftly to my side and put an arm around me, but I had taken the blow without blinking. Why blanch at the truth?
"We need no reproaches from the likes of thee." Nef glared at her. "Leave us!"
"With a right good will," retorted Joan, and flounced out of the room.
When the servant came to help us carry our bags down, it wasn't a servant I knew. I saw no one as we descended the staircase for the last time, went through the great hall for the last time, went out and climbed into our saddles and rode out through the garden the way we'd come. Not a sign of Sir Walter or Francis Ffrawney. Had they gone away to London? But that had been a lifetime ago. I didn't look back as we rode, knowing that the house had already faded to transparency and would vanish altogether if I turned.
So through the whirligig gate, Joseph, Nef, and I. Just beyond it a farmer was pulling up in his cart, and he gave us a bright expectant look as we came abreast of him.
"Be ye folk come from the great house yonder?"
"Aye, good man," replied Joseph.
"Then I have a marvel for ye, gentles. Grant a look, sir, only a look—" And he jumped down and pulled a cover of sacking from the back of the cart. There, lying in the straw, was the complete skull of an ichthyosaur half embedded in a rock.
"Sir, you see? The very dragon's head of the dragon Saint George slew. It came out of a rock nigh to my house. What say you, sir, is it not worth an angel at least?"
"Without doubt." Joseph stroked his beard. "But I fear thou hast come a long way for naught, man. Iden Hall hath been sold. There is no market here anymore for such things as dragon's heads."
The man's mouth fell open. He gave such a howl of dismay that the unicorn struggled and bleated in Nef's arms. "Say not so! I have carried it clean from Lyme, sir!"
"Sad but sooth, my good man. Though I'll tell thee, there's an inn on the road to Southampton, the Jove-His-Levin-Bolt, where they might pay thee for a look at this skull," Joseph offered.
"Nay, out upon Southampton! If I've come on a fool's errand, I'll no further with the damned thing!" the farmer yelled, and he hauled off and kicked the wheel of his cart. His horse reared, the traces flew up, and the cart dipped backward, tipping the skull out into the road. It rolled ponderously, wobbling end over end, to the edge where the embankment dropped away; poised there a thudding second, and then went over, picking up speed as it went, bumping away down the long sloping meadows of Kent. The last we saw, it struck a log and bounded into space, completely clearing a hedge and crashing out of sight below. For all I know it is rolling still.
"You'll be sorry you did that, in the morning," Joseph called to the farmer, who had gone storming off.
"When will they ever regret what they do?" Nef brooded.
"Oh, some morning or other," said Joseph lightly. And we rode on.
Not that morning, though, nor for many others.
Poor Queen Mary never had her baby, because of course it was only a tumor. She went right on burning her subjects, though, in the hope that God would somehow produce a baby from somewhere if she did His will resolutely enough.
She never birthed her Counter-Reformation, either. In November 1558 she died, quietly in her pointless bed, and Elizabeth got the throne. That was it for the Catholic Church in England. The burnings stopped abruptly. The Protestants were reinstated. England did an about-face into a Golden Age.
But you missed it, Nicholas. You should have listened to me.
I missed it, too, because six months after leaving England I was stepping out of an air transport at New World One, and I was fine, just fine. I'd had therapy, I'd had drugs, I had lots of new clothes, and the AAE recommendation had mysteriously vanished from my personnel file. Happy me. Best of all, I was in New Spain.
I was discovering that a transport terminal was a pretty good indicator of the status of the outpost. New World One glittered: fabulous Mayan murals, gold leaf everywhere, inlaid floors. I wandered around the lounge, staring. A transport hostess with a spectacular feathered headdress. Jade cups in the coffee bar. Art objects, for God's sake, mounted on brackets above the announcement speakers. A little cross-legged god vibrated slightly as I was asked to report to the arrivals office.
The arrivals office looked like a hothouse. Thick bluegreen glass, terra-cotta, flowers crowding the walls. A smiling woman in tropical whites came to the window. I had on tropical whites, too. With our hoop skirts we looked like a pair of wedding cakes.
Wedding cakes. Grooms and brides. A thought like a loose plank in a bridge, to be stepped around.
"Hi there." A musical voice. "Botanist Mendoza? Did you have a good flight?"
"Reporting. Yes. Where do I sign in?"
She dimpled about something. "Well, your personnel coordinator is waiting right through those doors. You'll want your arrival packet first, of course." She drew out a handsomely embossed portfolio and pushed it across the desk to me. "You might want to remove the complimentary Theobromos right away. It melts out in the sun."
"Hot here, huh?"
"This is a tropical paradise," she informed me.
"Nice. Thank you," I said, took the portfolio, and headed for the exit.
Neat doors. A bas-relief sculpture of two jaguars rampant, battling with each other. When I got close enough, the jaguars disengaged as the doors slid apart, vanishing into silhouettes. A blaze of white light struck through the doorway. I stepped out. I faced heat. Light. Complex smells and sounds. A horizon of towering green as far as the eye could see, a mild and tolerable green, out to the edges of a blue sky transparent with the intensity of sunlight. Off to the west, a city of red and white pyramids: New World One. And here, right before me, four mortals and a man of my own kind. The mortals, all four, dropped on their faces.
"Hail, child of gods!" they cried.
I stared at them, dumbfounded, and then up at the Old One. He looked amused. He was a vision in white: white doublet and white trunk hose, white skin, white canvas conquistador's helmet. His hair and pointed beard were flaming red. He was lounging in an open sedan chair. "Welcome to New Spain," he said.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" I inquired.
"Quetzalcoatl," he replied. "As it were." The mortals got to their feet, and they too were a sight to behold, each one clothed like a Mayan prince in gold and feathers. Their faces were sad and noble; they had big high cheekbones, curved noses, and sullen mouths. I swallowed hard. I looked past them at the guy in the sedan chair.
"Botanist Mendoza reporting in," I said. My voice didn't shake at all.
"Personnel Coordinator Victor, at your service." He made room for me on the seat beside him. "Hop in, and we'll take you to your suite. Boys, collect the lady's luggage."
As
we were jogged along, he said:
"A protegee of Joseph's, eh?"
"Yes."
"And you've just spent two years in the field? In the Old World? How grueling."
"Yes, it was."
"My word." He leaned back. We went sailing by mahogany trees like standing gods. "Well, life is just a little more gracious in these parts. You'll like it. Joseph pushed quite a few buttons to get you in here, you know. Any questions I can answer for you?"
"Do you have flush toilets and hot showers?"
He smirked. "And four restaurants. And an eighteen-hole golf course. And cocktails served in the main courtyard every afternoon at four." He glanced at his chronophase. "We'll be in plenty of time. We're mostly scholars here, and we enjoy our little rituals."
Wow.
"What about the—" I gestured at our mortal bearers, their plumed hats waving as they ran. "Isn't this kind of exploitive?"
"No, no, it's prestigious for them. They're all intercepted sacrifices. This way they get to be Servants of the Gods without dying. We acquire most of our mortal staff that way. They're the most devoted fellows you could imagine."
"No kidding?" A red stucco wall rose before us, and we were carried in through the gate. Victor gave me a tour around: acres of plush lawn, fountains, courtyards, flowers, water-lily pools, parrots. The chaos of the jungle outside, but within the perimeter of that high wall, absolute manicured control.
"Boys, Botany Residential Pyramid." Victor waved an arm. He leaned back beside me as they took us down a boulevard toward a white palace. "The red building over there is the botany lab, and the gardens are on the other side. The residential suites are really first-rate. There's a PX on the first floor and laundry facilities, though I'm afraid we've had some complaints because Botany Residential has to share its pool and gymnasium with Support Tech Residential. Yes, a few ruffled feathers over that. I hope you won't feel slighted."
I looked at him sidelong. "I'll manage," I told him.
We pulled up in front of Botany Residential, and Victor took me into the concierge's office, where we registered my retinal pattern, and so up to my suite. Four rooms, all for me. The walls were smooth bare plaster, and there any resemblance to a cell stopped.
"Complete entertainment center here." Proudly Victor swung open the doors of a vast console. "It's tied in to our library. Over forty million entries to choose from, and here's the receiver for Radio Maya. Liquor cabinet over there, sauna over there. You're scheduled to meet with your departmental director at 1830 hours for your briefing."
"Great." Business at last. "Where's the director's office?"
"Oh, he's reserved a booth at El Galleon." At my blank stare Victor added, "Our premier restaurant. Formal dress, of course. If you call the porter service from the lobby desk, a pair of the boys can take you there in ten minutes, though I should tell you—" he lowered his voice a little—"it's considered correct to attend cocktail service at half past four precisely and remain until six, and then arrive early for dinner."
"Oh."
"Etiquette," he explained. "It's very important here."
"I see."
"I'm sure you'll fit in quite well. I'll just toddle on now and leave you to your own devices; daresay you'd like privacy while you unpack. If you have any other questions, the answers are most probably in your arrival packet. I'd suggest you read it through before your briefing."
"I will, thank you."
He bowed, and I curtseyed, and I was alone again.
By the time I had showered, dressed, tested the bed and the holo reception, it was almost 1600 hours. I decided to walk to the main courtyard on my own legs. I wasn't really up to being a goddess in a chariot yet. Besides, I found the Mayan profile disconcerting.
So of course the cocktail waiters were all Mayans.
"What would the Daughter of Heaven prefer?" mine inquired politely, putting down a napkin at my elbow. I was unnerved but stared hard at him: no resemblance at all, really. Not straight on.
"What have you got there?" I nodded at his tray.
"Dry vodka martini. Tequila on the rocks, rum and soda, rum and tonic, margarita. Might this slave suggest the margarita?"
"Sure. Thanks."
He set it down and glided off. I settled back and picked up my arrival packet. There was a round spreading oil stain on the cover: whoops. My Theobromos had melted. I opened the front and peeled my complimentary stick off the first page of the brochure in order to read all about New World One and its calendar of social events for the coming year.
After a while, though, my attention wandered. The breeze through the white arches of the court was very pleasant, and the splashing of the central fountain was pleasant too, as was the chattering of the little green parrots in among the flowering vines. How soothing it all was. I could sit here, just like this, for years and years. I probably would, wouldn't I?
I only became aware that my eyes had filled with tears when I noticed some commotion in the treetops, far off outside the perimeter wall. I blinked and looked again. There were monkeys out there fighting, screaming and pelting one another with rotten fruit.
Shuddering, I reached for my drink.
