“Then you have missed much,” Surplus said haughtily. “It is true we are a young nation, created only seventy-five years ago during the Partition of New England. But there is much of note to commend our fair land. The glorious beauty of Lake Champlain. The gene-mills of Winooski, that ancient seat of learning the Universitas Viridis Montis of Burlington, the Technarchaeological Institute of—” He stopped. “We have much to be proud of, sir, and nothing of which to be ashamed.”
The bearlike official glared suspiciously at him, then said, “What brings you to London? Why do you desire an audience with the queen?”
“My mission and destination lie in Russia. However, England being on my itinerary and I a diplomat, I was charged to extend the compliments of my nation to your monarch.” Surplus did not quite shrug. “There is no more to it than that. In three days I shall be in France, and you will have forgotten about me completely.”
Scornfully, the officer tossed the credentials to the savant, who glanced at and politely returned them to Surplus. The small fellow sat down at a little desk scaled to his own size and swiftly made out a copy. “Your papers will be taken to Whitechapel and examined there. If everything goes well—which I doubt—and there’s an opening—not likely—you’ll be presented to the queen sometime between a week and ten days hence.”
“Ten days! Sir, I am on a very strict schedule!”
“Then you wish to withdraw your petition?”
Surplus hesitated. “I…I shall have to think on’t, sir.”
Lady Pamela watched coolly as the dwarf savant led them away.
***
The room they were shown to had massively framed mirrors and oil paintings dark with age upon the walls, and a generous log fire in the hearth. When their small guide had gone, Darger carefully locked and bolted the door. Then he tossed the box onto the bed, and bounced down alongside it. Lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, he said, “The Lady Pamela is a strikingly beautiful woman. I’ll be damned if she’s not.”
Ignoring him, Surplus locked paws behind his back, and proceeded to pace up and down the room. He was full of nervous energy. At last, he expostulated, “This is a deep game you have gotten me into, Darger! Lord Coherence-Hamilton suspects us of all manner of blackguardry, ”
“Well, and what of that?”
“I repeat myself: We have not even begun our play yet, and he suspects us already! I trust neither him nor his genetically remade dwarf.”
“You are in no position to be displaying such vulgar prejudice.”
“I am not bigoted about the creature, Darger, I fear him! Once let suspicion of us into that macroencephalic head of his, and he will worry at it until he has found out our every secret.”
“Get a grip on yourself, Surplus! Be a man! We are in this too deep already to back out. Questions would be asked, and investigations made.”
“I am anything but a man, thank God,” Surplus replied. “Still, you are right. In for a penny, in for a pound. For now, I might as well sleep. Get off the bed. You can have the hearth-rug.”
“I! The rug!”
“I am groggy of mornings. Were someone to knock, and I to unthinkingly open the door, it would hardly do to have you found sharing a bed with your master.”
***
The next day, Surplus returned to the Office of Protocol to declare that he was authorized to wait as long as two weeks for an audience with the queen, though not a day more.
“You have received new orders from your government?” Lord Coherence-Hamilton asked suspiciously. “I hardly see how.”
“I have searched my conscience, and reflected on certain subtleties of phrasing in my original instructions,” Surplus said. “That is all.”
He emerged from the office to discover Lady Pamela waiting outside. When she offered to show him the Labyrinth, he agreed happily to her plan. Followed by Darger, they strolled inward, first to witness the changing of the guard in the forecourt vestibule, before the great pillared wall that was the front of Buckingham Palace before it was swallowed up in the expansion of architecture during the mad, glorious years of Utopia. Following which, they proceeded toward the viewer’s gallery above the chamber of state.
“I see from your repeated glances that you are interested in mydiamonds, ’Sieur Plus Precieux,” Lady Pamela said. “Well might you be. They are a family treasure, centuries old and manufactured to order, each stone flawless and perfectly matched. The indentures of a hundred autistics would not buy the like.”
Surplus smiled down again at the necklace, draped about her lovely throat and above her perfect breasts. “I assure you, madame, it was not your necklace that held me so enthralled.”
She colored delicately, pleased. Lightly, she said, “And that box your man carries with him wherever you go? What is in it?”
“That? A trifle. A gift for the Duke of Muscovy, who is the ultimate object of my journey,” Surplus said. “I assure you, it is of no interest whatsoever.”
“You were talking to someone last night,” Lady Pamela said. “In your room.”
“You were listening at my door? I am astonished and flattered.”
She blushed. “No, no, my brother…it is his job, you see, surveillance.”
“Possibly I was talking in my sleep. I have been told I do that occasionally.”
“In accents? My brother said he heard two voices.”
Surplus looked away. “In that, he was mistaken.”
England’s queen was a sight to rival any in that ancient land. She was as large as the lorry of ancient legend, and surrounded by attendants who hurried back and forth, fetching food and advice and carrying away dirty plates and signed legislation. From the gallery, she reminded Darger of a queen bee, but unlike the bee, this queen did not copulate, but remained proudly virgin.
Her name was Gloriana the First, and she was a hundred years old and still growing.
Lord Campbell-Supercollider, a friend of Lady Pamela’s met by chance, who had insisted on accompanying them to the gallery, leaned close to Surplus and murmured, “You are impressed, of course, by our queen’s magnificence.” The warning in his voice was impossible to miss. “Foreigners invariably are.”
“I am dazzled,” Surplus said.
“Well might you be. For scattered through her majesty’s great body are thirty-six brains, connected with thick ropes of ganglia in a hypercube configuration. Her processing capacity is the equal of many of the great computers from Utopian times.”
Lady Pamela stifled a yawn. “Darling Rory,” she said, touching the Lord Campbell-Supercollider’s sleeve. “Duty calls me. Would you be so kind as to show my American friend the way back to the outer circle?”
“Or course, my dear.” He and Surplus stood (Darger was, of course, already standing) and paid their compliments. Then, when Lady Pamela was gone and Surplus started to turn toward the exit, “Not that way. Those stairs are for commoners. You and I may leave by the gentlemen’s staircase.”
The narrow stairs twisted downward beneath clouds of gilt cherubs-and-airships, and debouched into a marble-floored hallway. Surplus and Darger stepped out of the stairway and found their arms abruptly seized by baboons.
There were five baboons all told, with red uniforms and matching choke collars with leashes that gathered in the hand of an ornately mustached officer whose gold piping identified him as a master of apes. The fifth baboon bared his teeth and hissed savagely.
Instantly, the master of apes yanked back on his leash and said, “There, Hercules! There, sirrah! What do you do? What do you say?”
The baboon drew himself up and bowed curtly. “Please come with us,” he said with difficulty. The master of apes cleared his throat. Sullenly, the baboon added, “Sir.”
“This is outrageous!” Surplus cried. “I am a diplomat, and under international law immune to arrest.”
“Ordinarily, sir, this is true,” said the master of apes courteously.“However, you have entered the inner circle without her majesty’sinvitation a
nd are thus subject to stricter standards of security.”
“I had no idea these stairs went inward. I was led here by—” Surplus looked about helplessly. Lord Campbell-Supercollider was nowhere to be seen.
So, once again, Surplus and Darger found themselves escorted to the Office of Protocol.
***
“The wood is teak. Its binomial is Tectona grandis. Teak is native to Burma, Hind, and Siam. The box is carved elaborately but without refinement.” The dwarf savant opened it. “Within the casing is an archaic device for electronic intercommunication. The instrument chip is a galliumarsenide ceramic. The chip weighs six ounces. The device is a product of the Utopian end-times.”
“A modem!” The protocol officer’s eyes bugged out. “You dared bring a modem into the inner circle and almost into the presence of the queen?” His chair stood and walked around the table. Its six insectile legs looked too slender to carry his great, legless mass. Yet it moved nimbly and well.
“It is harmless, sir. Merely something our technarchaeologists unearthed and thought would amuse the Duke of Muscovy, who is well known for his love of all things antiquarian. It is, apparently, of some cultural or historical significance, though without rereading my instructions, I would be hard pressed to tell you what.”
Lord Coherence-Hamilton raised his chair so that he loomed over Surplus, looking dangerous and domineering. “Here is the historic significance of your modem: The Utopians filled the world with their computer webs and nets, burying cables and nodes so deeply and plentifully that they shall never be entirely rooted out. They then released into that virtual universe demons and mad gods. These intelligences destroyed Utopia and almost destroyed humanity as well. Only the valiant worldwide destruction of all modes of interface saved us from annihilation.
“Oh, you lackwit! Have you no history? These creatures hate us because our ancestors created them. They are still alive, though confined to their electronic netherworld, and want only a modem to extend themselves into the physical realm. Can you wonder, then, that the penalty for possessing such a device is–” he smiled menacingly—“death?”
“No, sir, it is not. Possession of a working modem is a mortal crime. This device is harmless. Ask your savant.”
“Well?” the big man growled at his dwarf. “Is it functional?”
“No. It–”
“Silence.” Lord Coherence-Hamilton turned back to Surplus. “You are a fortunate cur. You will not be charged with any crimes. However, while you are here, I will keep this filthy device locked away and under my control. Is that understood, Sir Bow-Wow?”
Surplus sighed. “Very well,” he said. “It is only for a week, after all.”
***
That night, the Lady Pamela Coherence-Hamilton came by Surplus’s room to apologize for the indignity of his arrest, of which, she assured him, she had just now learned. He invited her in. In short order they somehow found themselves kneeling face-to-face on the bed, unbuttoning each other’s clothing.
Lady Pamela’s breasts had just spilled delightfully from her dress when she drew back, clutching the bodice closed again, and said, “Your man is watching us.”
“And what concern is that to us?” Surplus said jovially. “The poor fellow’s an autistic. Nothing he sees or hears matters to him. You might as well be embarrassed by the presence of a chair.”
“Even were he a wooden carving, I would his eyes were not on me.”
“As you wish.” Surplus clapped his paws. “Sirrah! Turn around.”
Obediently, Darger turned his back. This was his first experience with his friend’s astonishing success with women. How many sexual adventuresses, he wondered, might one tumble, if one’s form were unique? On reflection, the question answered itself.
Behind him, he heard the Lady Pamela giggle. Then, in a voice low with passion, Surplus said, “No, leave the diamonds on.”
With a silent sigh, Darger resigned himself to a long night. Since he was bored and yet could not turn to watch the pair cavorting on the bed without giving himself away, he was perforce required to settle for watching them in the mirror.
They began, of course, by doing it doggy-style.
***
The next day, Surplus fell sick. Hearing of his indisposition, Lady Pamela sent one of her autistics with a bowl of broth and then followed, herself, in a surgical mask.
Surplus smiled weakly to see her. “You have no need of that mask,” he said. “By my life, I swear that what ails me is not communicable. As you doubtless know, we who have been remade are prone to endocrinological imbalance.”
“Is that all?” Lady Pamela spooned some broth into his mouth, then dabbed at a speck of it with a napkin. “Then fix it. You have been very wicked to frighten me over such a trifle.”
“Alas,” Surplus said sadly, “I am a unique creation, and my table of endocrine balances was lost in an accident at sea. There are copies in Vermont, of course. But by the time even the swiftest schooner can cross the Atlantic twice, I fear me I shall be gone.”
“Oh, dearest Surplus!” The Lady caught up his paws in her hands. “Surely there is some measure, however desperate, to be taken?”
“Well…” Surplus turned to the wall in thought. After a very long time, he turned back and said, “I have a confession to make. The modem your brother holds for me? It is functional.”
“Sir!” Lady Pamela stood, gathering her skirts, and stepped away from the bed in horror. “Surely not!”
“My darling and delight, you must listen to me.” Surplus glanced weakly toward the door, then lowered his voice. “Come close and I shall whisper.”
She obeyed.
“In the waning days of Utopia, during the war between men and their electronic creations, scientists and engineers bent their efforts toward the creation of a modem that could be safely employed by humans. One immune from the attack of demons. One that could, indeed, compel their obedience. Perhaps you have heard of this project.”
“There are rumors, but…no such device was ever built.”
“Say rather that no such device was built in time. It had just barely been perfected when the mobs came rampaging through the laboratories, and the Age of the Machine was over. Some few, however, were hidden away before the last technicians were killed. Centuries later, brave researchers at the Technarchaeological Institute of Shelburne recovered six such devices and mastered the art of their use. One device was destroyed in the process. Two are kept in Burlington. The others were given to trusted couriers and sent to the three most powerful allies of the Demesne—one of which is, of course, Russia.”
“This is hard to believe,” Lady Pamela said wonderingly. “Can such marvels be?”
“Madame, I employed it two nights ago in this very room! Those voices your brother heard? I was speaking with my principals in Vermont. They gave me permission to extend my stay here to a fortnight.”
He gazed imploringly at her. “If you were to bring me the device, I could then employ it to save my life.”
Lady Coherence-Hamilton resolutely stood. “Fear nothing, then. I swear by my soul, the modem shall be yours tonight.”
***
The room was lit by a single lamp which cast wild shadows whenever anyone moved, as if of illicit spirits at a witch’s Sabbath.
It was an eerie sight. Darger, motionless, held the modem in his hands. Lady Pamela, who had a sense of occasion, had changed to a low-cut gown of clinging silks, dark-red as human blood. It swirled about her as she hunted through the wainscoting for a jack left unused for centuries. Surplus sat up weakly in bed, eyes half-closed, directing her. It might have been, Darger thought, an allegorical tableau of the human body being directed by its sick animal passions, while the intellect stood by, paralyzed by lack of will.
“There!” Lady Pamela triumphantly straightened, her necklace scattering tiny rainbows in the dim light.
Darger stiffened. He stood perfectly still for the length of three long breaths, then shook and shive
red like one undergoing seizure. His eyes rolled back in his head.
In hollow, unworldly tones, he said, “What man calls me up from the vasty deep?” It was a voice totally unlike his own, one harsh and savage and eager for unholy sport. “Who dares risk my wrath?”
“You must convey my words to the autistic’s ears,” Surplus murmured. “For he is become an integral part of the modem—not merely its operator, but its voice.”
“I stand ready,” Lady Pamela replied.
“Good girl. Tell it who I am.”
“It is Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux who speaks, and who wishes to talk to…” She paused.
“To his most august and socialist honor, the mayor of Burlington.”
“His most august and socialist honor,” Lady Pamela began. She turned toward the bed and said quizzically, “The mayor of Burlington?”
“’Tis but an official title, much like your brother’s, for he who is in fact the spy-master for the Demesne of Western Vermont,” Surplus saidweakly. “Now repeat to it: I compel thee on threat of dissolution to carry my message. Use those exact words.”
Lady Pamela repeated the words into Darger’s ear.
He screamed. It was a wild and unholy sound that sent the Lady skittering away from him in a momentary panic. Then, in mid-cry, he ceased.
“Who is this?” Darger said in an entirely new voice, this one human. “You have the voice of a woman. Is one of my agents in trouble?”
“Speak to him now, as you would to any man: forthrightly, directly, and without evasion.” Surplus sank his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
So (as it seemed to her) the Lady Coherence-Hamilton explained Surplus’s plight to his distant master, and from him received both condolences and the needed information to return Surplus’s endocrinelevels to a functioning harmony. After proper courtesies, then, she thanked the American spy-master and unjacked the modem. Darger returned to passivity.
The leather-cased endocrine kit lay open on a small table by the bed. At Lady Pamela’s direction, Darger began applying the proper patches to various places on Surplus’s body. It was not long before Surplus opened his eyes.
The Best of Michael Swanwick Page 45
