The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  “Do you want to live, little boy?” he asked me in perfectly accented Saxon. He had a high-pitched voice, nasally resonant.

  “Yes,” I replied, shocked motionless.

  “Then be good and do not try to run away from me. I will preserve you from death. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He forced my mouth open and examined my teeth. Apparently satisfied, he got up, thrusting me under his arm. Taking the two horses’ bridles, he walked back to the war-camp of the Bear with long rolling strides.

  It was growing dark, and new fires had been lit. We passed pickets who challenged my captor, and he answered them with smiles and bantering remarks. At last he stopped before a tent and gave a barking order, whereupon a groom hurried out to take the horses and led them away for him. Two other knights sat nearby, leaning back wearily as their squires took off their armour for them. One pointed at me and asked a question.

  My captor grinned and said something in fluting reply, hugging me to his chest. One knight smiled a little, but the other scowled and spat into the fire. As my captor bore me into his tent I heard someone mutter “Romani!” in a disgusted tone.

  It was dark in the tent, and there was no one there to see as he stripped off my clothes and continued his examinations. I attempted to fight again but he held me still and asked, very quietly, “Are you a stupid child? Have you forgot what I said?”

  “No.” I was so frightened and furious I was trembling, and I hated the smell of him, so close in there.

  “Then listen to me again, Saxon child. I will not hurt you, neither will I outrage you. But if you want to die, keep struggling.”

  I held still then and stood silent, hating him. He seemed quite unconcerned about that; he gave me a cup of wine and a hard cake, and ignored me while I ate and drank. All his attention was on the two knights outside. When he heard them depart into their respective tents, he wrapped me in a cloak and bore me out into the night again.

  At the other end of the camp there was a very fine tent, pitched a little distance from the others. Two men stood before it, deep in conversation. After a moment one went away. The other remained outside the tent a moment, breathing the night air, looking up at the stars. When he lifted the flap and made to go inside, my captor stepped forward.

  “Salve, Emres.”

  “Salve, Budu,” replied the other. He was a tall man and elderly – I thought: his hair and eyebrows were white. His face, however, was smooth and unlined, and there was an easy suppleness to his movements. He was very well-dressed, as Britons went. They had a brief conversation and then the one called Emres raised the flap of the tent again, gesturing us inside.

  It was so brilliantly lit in there it dazzled my eyes. I was again unrobed, in that white glare, but I dared do no more than clench my fists as the old one examined me. His hands were remarkably soft and clean, and he did not smell bad. He stuck me with a pin and dabbed the blood onto the tongue of a little god he had, sitting on his chest; it clicked for a moment and then chattered to him in a tinny voice. My captor and he had a conversation in a swift tongue quite unlike the Latin they’d been using until that time. At its conclusion, Emres pointed at me and asked a question. My captor shrugged. He turned his big head to look at me.

  “What is your name, little boy?” he asked in Saxon.

  “Bricta, son of Baldulf,” I told him. He looked back at Emres.

  “Ecce Victor,” he said.

  The taste in my mouth was unbearable. I hadn’t wanted this recollection, this squalid history! I much preferred Time to begin with that first memory of the silver ship that rose skyward from the circle of stones, taking me away to the gleaming hospital and the sweet-faced nurses.

  I got unsteadily to my feet, groping after my hat and stick. As I did so I heard the unmistakable sound of an automobile approaching. In another second a light runabout rattled around the corner and pulled up before me. Labienus sat behind the wheel, no longer the jovial Master of Ceremonies. He was all hard-eyed centurion now.

  “We received your distress signal. Report, please, Victor.”

  “I was attacked,” I said dully.

  “Tsk! Rather obviously.”

  “I . . . I know it sounds improbable, sir, but I believe my assailant was another operative,” I explained. To my surprise he merely nodded.

  “We know his identity. You’ll notice he’s sending quite a distinct signal.”

  “Yes.” I looked down the street in wonderment. The signal lay on the air like a trail of green smoke. Why would he signal? “He’s . . . somewhere in Chinatown.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Labienus. “Well, Victor, what do you intend to do about this?”

  “Sir?” I looked back at him, confused. Something was wrong here, some business I hadn’t been briefed about, perhaps? But why –?

  “Come, come, man, you’ve a mission to complete! He took the mortal boy! Surely you’ve formed a plan to rescue him?” he prompted.

  The hideous taste welled in my mouth. I suppressed an urge to expectorate.

  “My team on Nob Hill is more than competent to complete the salvage there without my supervision,” I said, attempting to sound coolly rational. “That being the case, I believe, sir, that I shall seek out the scoundrel who did this to me and jolly well kill him. Figuratively speaking, of course.”

  “Very good. And?”

  “And, of course, recapture my mortal recruit and deliver him to the Collection Point as planned and according to schedule,” I said. “Sir.”

  “See that you do.” Labienus worked both clutch and brake expertly and edged his motor forward, cylinders idling. “Report to my cabin on the Thunderer at seven hundred hours for a private debriefing. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.” So some mystery to be explained. Very well.

  “You are dismissed.”

  “Sir.” I doffed my hat and watched as he drove smoothly away up Market Street.

  I replaced my hat and turned in the direction of the signal, probing. My dizziness was fading, burned away by my growing sense of outrage. The filthy old devil, how dare he do this to me? What was he playing at? I began to walk briskly again, my speed increasing with my strength.

  Of course, the vow to kill him hadn’t been meant literally. We do not die. But I’d find some way of paying him out in full measure, I hadn’t the slightest doubt about that. He had the edge on me in strength, but I was swifter and in full possession of my faculties, whereas he was probably drooling mad, the old troll.

  Yes, mad, that was the only explanation. There had always been rumours that some of the oldest operatives were flawed somehow, those created earliest, before the Augmentation Process had been perfected. Budu had been one of the oldest I’d ever met. He had been created more than forty thousand years ago, before the human races had produced their present assortment of representatives.

  Now that I thought of it, I hadn’t seen an operative of his racial type in the field in years. They held desk jobs at Company bases, or were Air Transport pilots. I’d assumed this was simply because the modern mortal race was now too different for Budu’s type to pass unnoticed. What if the true reason was that the Company had decided not to take chances with the earlier models? What if there was some risk that all of that particular class were inherently unstable?

  Good God! No wonder I was expected to handle this matter without assistance. Undoubtedly our masters wanted the whole affair resolved as quietly as possible. They could count on my discretion; I only hoped my ability met their expectations.

  Following the signal, I turned left at the corner of Market and Grant. The green trail led straight up Grant as far as Sacramento. What was his game? He was drawing me straight into the depths of the Celestial quarter, a place where I’d be conspicuous were it daylight, but at no particular disadvantage otherwise.

  He must intend some kind of dialogue with me. The fact that he had taken a hostage indicated that he wanted our meeting on his terms, unde
r his control. That he felt he needed a hostage could be taken as a sign of weakness on his part. Had his strength begun to fail somehow? Not if his attack on me had been any indication. Though it had been largely a matter of speed and leverage . . .

  I came to the corner of Grant and Sacramento. The signal turned to the left again. It travelled up a block, where it could be observed emanating from a darkened doorway. I stood considering it for a moment, tapping my stick impatiently against my boot. I spat into the gutter, but it did not take the taste from my mouth.

  I walked slowly uphill past the shops that sold black and scarlet lacquerware and green jade. Here was the Baptist mission, smelling of starch and good intentions. From this lodging-house doorway a heavy perfume of joss sticks; from this doorway a reek of preserved fish. And from this doorway . . .

  It stood ajar. A narrow corridor went straight back into darkness, with a narrower stair ascending to the left. The bottommost stair tread had been thrown open like the lid of a piano bench, revealing a black void below.

  I scanned. He was down there, and making no attempt to hide himself. Donal was there with him, still alive. There were no other signs of mortal life, however.

  I paced forward into the darkness and stood looking down. Chill air was coming up from below. It stank like a crypt. Rungs leading down into a passageway were just visible, by a wavering pool of green light. So was a staring dead face, contorted into a grimace of rage.

  After a moment’s consideration, I removed my hat and set it on the second step. My stick I resolved to take with me, although its sword would be useless against my opponent. No point in any further delay; it was time to descend into yet another hell.

  At the bottom of the ladder the light was a little stronger. It revealed more bodies lying in a subterranean passage of brick plastered over and painted a dull green. The dead had been young men, and seemed to have died fighting, within the last few hours. They were smashed like so many insects. The light that made this plain was emanating from a wide doorway that opened off the passage, some ten feet further on. The smell of death was strongest in there.

  “Come in, Victor,” said a voice.

  I went as far as the doorway and looked.

  In that low-ceilinged chamber of bare plaster, in the fitful glow of one oil lamp, more dead men were scattered. These were all elderly Chinese, skeletally emaciated, and they had been dead some hours and they had not died quietly. One leaned in a chair beside the little table with the flickering lamp; one was hung up on a hook that protruded from a wall; one lay half-in, half-out of a cupboard passage, his arm flung out as though beckoning. Three were sprawled on the floor beside slatwood bunks, in postures suggesting they had been slain whilst in the lethargy of their drug and tossed from the couches like rags. The apparatus of the opium-den lay here and there; a gold-wrapped brick of the poisonous substance, broken pipes, burnt dishes, long matches, bits of wire.

  And there, beyond them, sat the monster of my long nightmares.

  “You don’t like my horrible parlour,” chuckled Budu. “Your little white nose has squeezed nearly shut, your nostrils look like a fish’s gills.”

  “It’s just the sort of nest you’d make for yourself, you murdering old fool,” I told him. He frowned at me.

  “I have never murdered,” he told me seriously. “But these were murderers, and thieves. Who else would keep such a fine secret cellar, eh? A good place for a private meeting!” He leaned back against the wall, lounging at his ease across the top tier of a bunk, waving enormous mud-caked boots. His dress consisted of stained bluejean trousers, a vast shapeless red coat made from a blanket, and a battered black felt hat. He had let his hair and beard grow long; they trailed down like pale moss over his bare hairy chest. He looked rather like St Nicholas turned monster.

  Donal sat stiffly beside him. Budu had placed his great hand about the boy’s neck, as easily as I might take hold of an axe handle.

  “Uncle Jimmy,” moaned Donal.

  “Explain yourself, sir,” I addressed Budu, keeping my voice level and cold. He responded with gales of delighted laughter.

  “I was the Briton, and you were the little barbarian!” he said. “Look at us now!”

  I stepped into the room, having scanned for traps. “I followed your signal,” I told him. “You certainly made it plain enough. May I ask why you thought it was necessary to cut my throat?”

  He shrugged, regarding me with hooded eyes. “How else to get your attention but to take your quarry from you? And how to do that but by disabling you temporarily? What harm did it do? Spoiled your nice white shirt, yes, and made you angry!” He chuckled again.

  I tapped my stick in impatience. “What was your purpose in calling me here, old man?”

  “To tell you a few truths, and see what you do when you’ve heard them. You were wondering about us, we oldest Old Ones, wondering what became of us all. You were thinking we’re like badly made clockwork toys, and our Great Toymakers decided to pull us off the shelves of the toyshop.” He stretched luxuriously. Donal tried to turn his head to stare at him, but was held fast as the old creature continued:

  “No, no, no. We’re not badly made. I was better made than you, little man. It’s a question of purpose.” He thrust his prognathous face forward at me through the gloom. “I was made a war-axe. They made you a shovel. Is the metaphor plain enough for you?”

  “I take your meaning.” I moved a step closer.

  “You’ve been told all your life that our masters wish only to save things, books and pretty pictures and children, and for this purpose we were made, to creep into houses like mice and steal away loot before Time can eat it.”

  “That’s an oversimplification, but essentially true.”

  “Is it?” He stroked his beard in amusement. I could see the red lines across the back of his hand where I’d clawed him. He hadn’t bothered to heal them yet. “You pompous creature, in your nice clothes. You were made to save things, Victor. I wasn’t. Now, hear the truth: I, and all my kind, were made because our perfect and benign masters wanted killers once. Can you guess why?”

  “Well, let me see.” I swallowed back bile. “You say you’re not flawed. Yet it’s fairly common knowledge that flawed immortals were produced, during the first experimentations with the Process. What did the Company do about them? Perhaps you were created as a means of eliminating them.”

  “Good guess.” He nodded his head. “But wrong. They were never killed, those poor failed things. I’ve seen them, screaming in little steel boxes. No. Guess again.”

  “Then . . . perhaps at one time it was necessary to have agents whose specialty was Defence,” I tried. “Prior to the dawn of civilization.”

  “Whee! An easy guess. You fool, of course it was! You think our masters waited, so gentle and pure, for sweet reason to persuade men to evolve? Oh, no. Too many wolves were preying on the sheep. They needed operatives who could kill, who could happily kill fierce primitives so the peaceful ones could weave baskets and paint bison on walls.” He grinned at me with those enormous teeth, and went on:

  “We made Civilization dawn, I and my kind! We pushed that bright ball over the horizon at last, and we did it by killing! If a man raised his hand against his neighbour, we cut it off. If a tribe painted themselves for war, we washed their faces with their own blood. Shall I tell you of the races of men you’ll never see? They wouldn’t learn peace, and so we were sent in to slay them, man, woman, and child!”

  “You mean,” I exhaled, “the Company decided to accelerate Mankind’s progress by selectively weeding out its sociopathic members. And if it did? We’ve all heard rumours of something like that. It may be necessary from time to time even now. Not a pretty thought, but one can see the reasons. If you hadn’t done it, mankind might have remained in a state of savagery for ever.” I took another step forward.

  “We did good work,” he said plaintively. “And we weren’t hypocrites. It was fun.” His pale gaze wandered past me to the doorw
ay. There was a momentary flicker of something like uneasiness in his eyes, some ripple across the surface of his vast calm.

  “What is the point of telling me this, may I ask?” I pressed.

  “To show you that you serve lying and ungrateful masters, child,” he replied, his attention returning to me. “Stupid masters. They’ve no understanding of this world they rule. Once we cleared the field so they could plant, how did they reward us? We had been heroes. We became looters. And you should see how they punished us, the ones who argued! No more pruning the vine, they told us, let it grow how it will. You’re only to gather the fruit now, they told us. Was that fair? Was it, when we’d been created to gather heads?”

  “No, I daresay it wasn’t. But you adapted, didn’t you?” To my dismay I was shaking with emotion. “You found ways to satisfy your urges in the Company’s service. You’d taken your share of heads the day you caught me!”

  “Rescued you,” he corrected me. “You were only a little animal, and if I hadn’t taken you away you’d have grown into a big animal like your father. There were lice crawling in his hair when I stuck his head on the pike. There was food in his beard!”

  I spat in his face. I couldn’t stop myself. The next second I was sick with mortification, to be provoked into such operatic behaviour, and dabbed hurriedly at my chin with a handkerchief; Budu merely wiped his face with the back of his hand and smiled, content to have reduced my stature.

  “Your anger changes nothing. Your father was a dirty beast. He was an oathbreaker and an invader too, as were all his people. You’ve been taught your history, you know all this! So don’t judge me for enjoying what I did to exterminate his race. And, see, see what happened when I was ordered to stop killing Saxons! When Arthur died, Roman order died with him. All that we’d won at Badon Hill was lost and the Saxon hordes returned, never to leave. What sense did it make, to have given our aid for a while to one civilized tribe and then leave it to be destroyed?” His gaze travelled past me to the doorway again. Who was he expecting? They weren’t coming to his aid, that much was clear.