by Kage Baker
You’ve served your purpose. You can stay here or join the assault; it won’t matter. Your choice.
I’d like to fight alongside you, if I may, sir.
Budu looked him up and down. You have no weapon.
Yes, I have! Hearst looked eager. I’ll go get it. He turned and ran for his stateroom.
You know, father… Joseph eyed Mount Torquemada. It’s awfully quiet. There are a lot of mortals in there, but they’re not doing much. And I’m not picking up any of us, and that’s pretty odd considering that it’s almost elev—
There was a sudden crackle in the air, a puff of force that sent seabirds flapping and screaming from their nests in the cliff face. Joseph saw Budu’s eyes light with holy joy, cold as a field of glaciers. The perimeter defense just went down, Joseph realized.
Father of Justice! Budu turned to Hearst as he came running out on deck. Drop anchor and order the boat lowered.
Yes, sir! Hearst saluted, and they saw he had belted a sword in its scabbard to his waist. He turned to obey as Budu’s lieutenants ran to his side.
Sir! Orders, sir!
Change of strategy. Abort frontal assault. All forces to concentrate on Target Beta.
Sir! They were gone, and from the Oneida’s hold came a high-pitched gleeful baying, a sound to freeze the blood of any guilty mortal. Joseph himself found it rather terrifying, but a second later something frightened him even more.
Father! I’m picking up aircraft coming in from the east. Six—no, eight shuttles! And some kind of fighting going on in the interior.
It won’t matter, Budu told him, as Enforcers swarmed up from under the hatches, war axes bound about them, and leaped overboard without hesitation. I expected someone else would try. Maybe they were the ones to kill the perimeter defense. Our luck. He vaulted into the boat as it began to rattle down, and Joseph drew a deep breath and scrambled after him, followed unsteadily by Hearst. There. Budu pointed to the little beach at the mouth of the canyon. Now!
Hearst powered up the boat the moment the davit locks disengaged, and they cut forward through the water dotted everywhere with Enforcers making their relentless way ashore. Joseph glanced down at Hearst’s sword. Uh… can you use that thing?
You bet I can! I had one of those reenactor fellows teach me when I was living in Europe.
But it looks like an antique.
It is. It’s supposed to be the Sword of Roland. Hearst’s eyes were wide, shining with excitement. I bought it at Sotheby’s. It’ll fight in the last battle of the world!
I thought Roland had a horn.
Well, I guess he had a sword, too, didn’t he? He was a hero.
Joseph shuddered and turned his attention to the beach, and the high cliffs that rose to either side. Ordnance emplacements? Snipers? Land mines? None in evidence. Cameras, several of those, and even now they must be sending the images of Budu’s army to the mortals quailing inside the mountain; but no other defense. They had trusted everything to their perimeter field. It had been designed to be impregnable. That, to a mortal of the twenty-fourth century, had been enough.
Now. Budu jumped from the boat and waded ashore, and Joseph and Hearst followed. Budu winked out and reappeared halfway up the canyon, pausing above a particular bit of goat path where tumbled rocks were piled a bit more evenly than elsewhere. As his men were storming ashore and freeing their weapons, he slung off the pack and set it down on the path. He bent for a second to do something to whatever was in the pack. The next second he had winked out and reappeared on the beach beside them, and Joseph gasped and poised to dodge. The explosion, when it came, echoed across the water. Rocks and dust flew everywhere, raining down and rattling in little avalanches. There were also quite large pieces of cast architectural material falling here and there.
Before the last of the dust had settled Budu was bounding forward, screaming, and the Enforcers swept in a shrieking tide after him. Joseph found himself, as in a nightmare, pulled along up the canyon toward the gaping hole where the path had been. Budu had blown open a tunnel. An escape hatch for the mortals? An undersea entrance?
To one side he saw Hearst, easily keeping pace with the charge, his boyish face flushed, his eyes bright, and gleefully he brandished aloft the sword of Roland as though this were his very own San Juan Hill. To the other side ran Marco, a flint axe in his fist, uncouth and shambling but swift as monsters are always swift, fast as a shadow across the face of the moon, unstoppable as time that had brought this hideous hour around at last.
Then they were at the hole in the tunnel and were going in, storming upward, and everything was darkness and jostling pounding rush, deafening echoes. Joseph, sick with terror, saw his life passing before his eyes. It was an extremely long parade of memories, given that it began with watching his father paint bison on a cave wall. It kept him occupied all the way to the top of the tunnel.
CHAPTER 35
The Silence at Last
To travel by suborbital shuttle from Morocco to California is to travel backward in time, in a prosaic and straightforward way. When Suleyman and his forces had piled into their aircraft, their chronometers told them it was early in the evening of 9 July 2355. In the hour or so it took to jump the globe, their chronometers reversed, throwing back again the hours of the day like coins out of a slot machine. They swept down on the Mojave in the bright morning of 9 July and screamed westward over the near curve of the earth.
Island’s in sight, transmitted Latif from the craft he commanded.
I know, Suleyman responded.
Try the Perimeter Disable Protocol now?
No. Wait.
Wait???
Wait. I have a theory.
You think Victor took it down for us? It’s not down!
I know.
But it’s eleven hundred hours!
By this time the island was before them and they were cutting speed, descending to the west end, and Mount Torquemada was below and then before them, green ironwood forests obscuring the landing platform on her northern shoulder.
We’ll hit the perimeter field!
No—
There was a sudden turbulence. It’s down!
We’re landing.
But how did you know, dammit?
We can’t be the only ones attempting this, Suleyman told him, as they dropped like hawks to the platform. Someone else has taken out the perimeter defense.
Probably whoever’s in that ship on the windward side, eh? transmitted Sarai.
Damn!
The race is on, son.
The shuttles landed. There were no guards to confront them, no warning shots as Suleyman’s forces jumped from the hatchways; nothing but the mute blank surface of the sealed door in the mountain. Suleyman strode toward it, and Latif and Sarai sprinted to join him. I’m picking up emergency messages from everywhere! Latif’s eyes were wide.
Chaos, agreed Suleyman.
Pretty bloody noisy for the Silence, transmitted Sarai.
As if on cue there came an explosion to the east, and, turning, they saw the black smoke and fireball. More explosions followed. It’ll be silent enough soon. Suleyman pointed at the door. One team ran forward and planted charges. The mortals dropped and covered, the immortals poised to dodge; the door blew, along with a neat chunk of the mountain. Another team, brandishing disrupters, charged into the breach and ran down the corridor beyond. Latif and Sarai, also brandishing disrupters, ran after them. Suleyman followed. Half the remaining troops filed after him, while the others took up defensive positions on the platform.
There were screams and sobbing from within the bunker even before Sarai leaped into the room yelling, “Yeehaa! Resistance is futile!”
“Secured,” shouted Latif, and the two of them took up positions on either side of the door, disrupters raised, grinning at the mortals as the advance team spread out to either side. Suleyman emerged from the tunnel and swept the room with a stare. He shook his head in sad disgust. Armed personnel spilled into the room after
him, taking aim on the mortals.
The room stank of cold sweat and nervous indigestion, of unwashed bodies. The mortals cowered together, a clinging mass around and under the great polished conference table. They regarded their creation with terrified animal eyes but not one drew breath to speak. Suleyman exhaled.
“Suleyman, Executive Facilitator, Regional Sector Head for North Africa,” he informed the mortals. “You are all under arrest. The charge is attempted murder. Under Emergency Protocol Epsilon, I hereby take command.”
“Please don’t kill us,” begged somebody near the center of the mortal mass.
“No executions are contemplated at this time,” said Suleyman, and there was a split second of relaxation before an explosion came from somewhere far below the open portal across the room. It was followed by a shrill cacophony of yammering cries. “At least,” amended Suleyman, “none are contemplated by me.”
Latif gave an order and all weapons were trained on the portal, but withheld fire as a handful of frantic mortals came scrambling upward out of the darkness.
“The tunnel’s been blown,” screamed Rigby. “We’re under—” She broke off as she saw Suleyman and his forces. Without further ado she dove beneath the conference table. There were so many people crouched under it now that it was slightly raised off the floor, wobbling as it balanced on their heads and backsides. Suleyman sighed, and watched the mouth of the portal.
“Hold your fire,” he ordered.
“But—!” said Latif.
“Hold your fire.”
Budu vaulted into the room, and to either side of him were Joseph and Hearst, and the officers, and Marco. Their ululation stopped. Budu thrust up his hand and his army halted in midcharge behind him, like a frozen wave.
In the moment of mutual appalled silence that followed, the trembling knot of mortals made itself even more compact, and the legs of the conference table lifted a good five inches clear of the floor. “Oh, man,” said Joseph in a small voice. “This is going to be really ugly.”
Hearst lowered his sword, blinking at the cowering mortals, and he looked suddenly very young and foolish.
Budu and Suleyman were staring at each other across the room. The holy joy had died out of Budu’s eyes; they were calm, thoughtful, regretful. Suleyman had drawn himself stiffly upright. He looked outraged. “You,” he said, in a voice deep as an earthquake. “Lord of Pestilence!”
“No,” Budu said. “That title’s for my son, Labienus. Where is he? I’ve come to claim him.”
“Suleyman, remember I explained about that—?” Joseph ventured, sweating. “How Labienus doublecrossed us? He’s the one who spread those viruses in Africa, honest!”
“Hush,” said Budu and Suleyman in unison.
“Where is Labienus?” Budu asked again.
“Not here,” Suleyman told him. “You want to take him to your arms? He’s lying in a locked room with his brothers and sisters. Order your men to withdraw, and I’ll tell you where you can find him.”
“No,” said Budu almost absently as he scanned the room. He looked at Suleyman again. “We’re the only ones here, it seems.”
“We are. What do you want?”
“The Company,” said Budu. “Quick justice. Their blood.” He gestured with his war axe at the mortals. “And the heads of my guilty children on pikes.”
Suleyman shook his head. “You’re welcome to your children, when you find them. The mortals, though, are my prisoners. There will be no slaughter here today.”
“There must be,” said Budu. “You know that. They’re mine, by right. Look at them! They betrayed their own kind. Their greed made all the misery in the world.”
“They’ll pay for it,” said Suleyman. “But not at your hands.”
Another silence. They considered each other, quiet as though they sat over a chess table. Their forces were silent, too, watching. The only noise in the room was the whimpering and massed incoherent prayer of humanity’s genius, kneeling in its own piss under the table.
“Don’t make me do this,” said Budu abruptly. “I don’t want to fight you. You’re a righteous man. But if we engage, you’ll lose; you haven’t got a tenth of my forces.”
“True,” said Suleyman. “But most of yours are bottled up in that tunnel behind you. If I order one of my shuttles to bomb it, that should even the odds.”
Marco snarled.
“Sir, please,” Hearst said. He had been unable to take his eyes off the abject mortals. “Does it have to come to this? Look at the poor things! If we just make them stand trial—”
Budu held up his hand for silence. “There is an alternative,” he said.
“I’d like to hear it,” Suleyman said.
“Joseph,” said Budu. “Open the pouch.”
Joseph started, having forgotten he had it on. Looking down, he unzipped it. Budu held out his hand, and Joseph drew out what was inside and handed it to him. Budu held it up where Suleyman could see. It was small, flat, looked like an old-fashioned holo remote.
Latif groaned. Joseph had gone very pale. “What is that?” Suleyman inquired, knowing in that moment that he had lost.
“A launching device.” Budu chuckled. “To summon a guided missile. Not a very big one, but powerful. It ought to take out this mountain.”
“Oh dear God,” said Hearst. Someone among the mortals screamed, a weak sound that trailed away into hysterical sobbing.
“Where did you get a missile, father?” said Joseph in a ghost of a voice.
“I built one,” Budu told him. “While you slept.”
“Oh.”
Budu was still holding Suleyman’s gaze with his own. Suleyman’s eyes were like coals. “Well?” he said.
“Checkmate,” said Budu.
“No,” said Suleyman.
“What do you mean NO?” yelled Joseph in agony, his eyes starting out of his head. “Are you nuts? He’ll blow us all to pieces!”
“Don’t be scared,” said a voice, as the room flashed blue-white.
Alec Checkerfield walked into the room through a solid wall, and stood before them with his hands held up in a placatory gesture. “Let’s all just stop this,” he said in a terrifically reasonable voice. Sarai gave a little scream.
“My baby!”
Alec winced. “Hello, Sarah.”
Latif, staring at him intently, said: “But you’re the Englishman, too. Aren’t you? Bell-Fairfax!”
“Not exactly,” said Alec.
“What are you?” Budu asked.
“I’ll tell you what he is,” Marco said, pushing his way to the front. He pointed at Alec. “He’s nothing but a jumped-up Enforcer replacement prototype. Look at him! And the Hangar Twelve Man, remember that?”
“Yes, that was me,” said Alec. “I ran guns to Mars. And you’re right: I’m not even as human as the rest of you. I’m a Recombinant.”
“And not only that—” Marco began to giggle, looking sidelong at Joseph. “He had this hot little Preserver girlfriend, that I—” He vanished.
Budu looked from the place where Marco had been to Alec. “What did you do with him?” he inquired.
“He was standing there a second ago,” exclaimed Hearst.
“He is still standing there, a second ago,” Alec said bluntly, though he had gone very pale. “And that’s where he’s going to stay. If the rest of you won’t listen to me, you can go where he went. Okay?”
“Why should we obey you?” Budu asked.
“Because I’m, er, omnipotent,” said Alec.
“Really?” Budu said. “What will you do if I fire the missile?” he said, placing his thumb on the button. Before he could press it, the control had vanished from his hand.
“See?” said Alec. “And I can do that with your weapons, and your bombs, and—and you, if you won’t surrender.”
“Oh, great,” muttered Joseph. “He’s got godlike powers now.”
“And I know how to use ‘em, too,” Alec retorted. “The war ends right here,
everybody. So please, shut up and listen to me.”
“I knew it,” snarled Joseph. “So you’re immortal now, huh? So you know so much better than the rest of us that you’re going to rule the world? Ready to play God, Nicholas?”
Alec looked embarrassed. “Nicholas isn’t here, Joseph. Though he could probably do a better job—”
“Most people would have some inkling of humility, but not you, boy! As though the mortals needed another self-righteous egomaniac dictator making them bow down—”
“We’re not going to rule the mortals,” Alec informed him.
“Of all the lousy fanatic—what?”
“The mortals get to rule themselves,” said Alec. “There have been enough fake gods leading them in circles, don’t you think? And that’s why,” he added, as his voice became like steel, “to make sure they get to keep their freedom, we do plan on ruling all of you.”
“You do, eh?” Budu regarded him.
“Yes.” Alec matched his stare.
“What’s the source of your authority, boy?”
“The same as yours,” said Alec. “We were both created to deliver them from evil, weren’t we?”
“So we were. Know this.” Budu pointed to the squalid huddle under the table, that peered out with desperate eyes. “They created us because they wanted us meddling in their affairs. They always have. They’ll find a way to beg for our intervention again.”
“And if they ask for our help, we ought to help them,” said Alec. “But we can’t judge them! We’re nothing more than the things those men and women made.”
He looked around, his eyes wide and earnest. “Look,” he said, “what’s the point of punishing the mortals now? You can’t win by breaking the board and sweeping all the pawns into a lake of fire. What kind of endgame is that for all-wise superior beings? Or even the kind of things we are?
“We’re not creatures of infinite wisdom and mercy, but even we ought to know better than to act like babies smashing our toys. Or psychotic prophets who really, really want the whole mess to go up in blood and flames.
“Don’t tell me that supercyborgs like us need a concept like revenge!”
“Speak for yourself,” said Budu. Alec whirled to face him, and his voice was smooth, confident now, strong.
