by Kage Baker
“But you punished criminals to protect the innocent, didn’t you? The whole point of your job was the greater good of humanity. Well, you won’t serve humanity by slaughtering the mortals in this room.”
“Why not?” said Budu.
“Because you’d have to disable Suleyman to do it, and if Suleyman is disabled, Alpha-Omega is lost, and the innocent mortals won’t survive without it. Which ought to give you no end of programming conflict.” Alec stared into Budu’s eyes. “You want to punish the really guilty immortals? Be my guest. There are a few of ‘em left, hiding out here and there. You can see to it that they never set up another dictator or disease. Hunt ‘em down and take off their heads with flint knives. But I can take them out with a wave of my hand, so what’s the point? I am the New Enforcer.”
“Then we are obsolete,” said Budu. He said it without anger, or sorrow, or in fact any recognizable human emotion. He was watching Alec very closely.
“If we were machines, you would be obsolete. But we’re people,” said Alec. He turned to face them all, and his eyes were shining and his voice had become golden, persuasive as music. “There are better ways for us to spend our eternal lives. Listen to me! I can set you free, all of you. There’s a whole world you don’t even know exists, outside of time, and all you need to—”
“No!” Joseph shouted, quivering with fury. “No! He’s doing it again! Can’t any of you hear him? Don’t look at his damn eyes! His voice is getting inside your heads, he’s making you want to agree with him!”
“Yeah,” Alec admitted, “because I’d rather you did agree with me. I don’t want to have to do this the hard way. It wouldn’t—”
The wrath of centuries choked Joseph. “You fucking seducer—” he blurted out, and evaded Budu’s restraining hand to hurl himself at Alec. Stepping back, Alec shouted, and—
Joseph hung suspended in midair, twitching. Alec, white as a sheet, covered his mouth with his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Please—Joseph—look, I don’t want it to be like this. I owe you, you know? If you hadn’t saved Mendoza—”
“Where’s my daughter, you son of a bitch?” Joseph said. His tears, falling from so high, spattered wide.
‘Who’s threatening my boy?” roared a hoarse voice from the corridor. Two of Suleyman’s guard backed into the room, keeping their weapons trained on something that lurched slightly as it came on. Presently Captain Morgan appeared in the doorway.
He looked very much the worse for wear; one of his legs had been reduced to its skeletal core, in fact, and his suit was torn and bleeding. “Captain sir!” Alec strode to his side. “What happened to you?”
“Only the same as what would happen to you if you had to fly through a goddamned war zone,” the Captain growled. “But I’ll thank’ee for building in them rockets anyway, lad.”
“Flying pirates. And I thought things couldn’t get any more surreal,” said Joseph with a sigh of resignation.
Alec reached out to the Captain, gripping his hand, and the ruined leg reconstituted itself: red tendons, bare hairy skin, and, at last, impeccably pressed trouser cuff. There were murmurs of astonishment from the immortals present. “Aye, ye may well stare,” said the Captain, grinning at them. “See what my boy can do? Best mind yer manners, says I, or there’s liable to be unpleasantness.”
“No! I don’t want anybody else getting hurt,” said Alec unhappily. “You were monitoring everything. What happened with all those bombs?”
“Haar! That’s finished, lad. Everything’s up and running again, no further cause for alarm, so sorry for the temporary interruption. You should have seen our Nick! That’d be Nicholas Harpole. I reckon you’d remember the name, aye,” he added, lurching up to Joseph where he still dangled in midair.
“Up yours,” said Joseph. The Captain chuckled.
“That’s enough, Captain,” said Alec, letting Joseph sink gently to the floor. He hastened to help him to his feet. “I’m so sorry—you’re practically my grandfather—or sort of a father-in-law, I guess, but it’s hard to explain—”
Joseph struggled free, staring at him in consternation. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Or maybe Budu’s our grandfather, and you’re—she’s fine, Joseph,” Alec assured him. “The thing is—er … “He looked around at the gathered immortals, aware that he was not quite making the impression he had desired, and reddened.
At that moment there was a tremendous peal of music, an echoing roll like thunder, or at least a full orchestra approximating thunder, and golden light poured into the room. All heads turned, expecting to see a wall blown away. But it was only Nicholas, entering from thin air.
He stepped down beside Alec and turned, taking in the room, his gaze resting only very briefly on Joseph. His face was serene. He held up what he had brought in one hand.
It was a crushed and half-melted thing of greened bronze that had been the head of a copy of the Artemisium Zeus. Nicholas cast it down. It hit the floor with a crash, ringing like a gong. “Behold the end of sinful pride,” said Nicholas.
“Okay, that’s Nicholas Harpole,” said Joseph. The music moved out from Nicholas in a wave, and as it did so the great viewscreen lit with cells of images coming in once more from England, from Europe, from New York, from Luna, from China, and cautious messages murmuring faintly: Power has been restored … We’re still here … Is anyone receiving? Disruption seems to have … No fatalities reported … Hello?
“See?” said Alec brightly. “Everything’s under control.”
Latif snorted. “Let me see if I got this straight. From now on, the universe is going to be run by a Recombinant in an aloha shirt, a pirate android, and some other guy who carries his own background music around with him?”
“No,” said Nicholas. “That would be blasphemy.”
“But what was the Company is ours now,” said Alec. “And there are going to be some changes.”
Latif looked from one to the other. He set down his gun. “Pretty impressive,” he said. “I need a little more proof than that, though. So here’s a challenge for you: can you bring Lewis and Mendoza here, into this room?”
Behind them, the vast screen above the console flashed blue-white, in a swift manipulation of time, space, and perception. They turned and tilted back their heads to look up at the screen.
Edward and Mendoza sat close together somewhere, staring down into what would have been a window, had it not been a manipulation of time, space, and perception. Palm fronds waved gently behind them under a blue sky. They were still holding hands. They wore identical expressions of worry. “But where are they?” Edward was saying.
“Darlings, I hope you won’t mind; we just thought you might need a little—” Mendoza began.
“Mendoza!” Joseph croaked, clutching his chest.
Her eyes widened as she spotted him, and then they became like chips of black flint. “That’s Lady Finsbury to you,” she snapped.
“You’ve got a third one,” cried Joseph, aghast.
“No thanks to you, you murdering little son of a—”
“You’ve got some nerve calling me names! I gave you eternal life, and this is the thanks I get—”
“Thanks? Thanks? Listen, you slimy—”
“My dear.” Edward pulled her back from the window, through which she had apparently been about to leap to get at Joseph. “Perhaps you might consider continuing this no doubt fascinating discussion at a less awkward moment—” “Oh, my, is this the son-in-law you were telling me about?” Hearst murmured, sidling up to Joseph. “I’m so sorry! This is much worse than—say, you’re turning purple.”
Joseph threw back his head and howled, so loudly that the mortals present clapped their hands over their ears.
Edward put up a conciliatory hand. “Now, now. We’re here to prevent a war, not to start one.”
“Okay,” said Latif, “that’s everybody except Lewis. I want—” “Where is Lewis?” said Mendoza, scowling down at them al
l. “We sent him up there to help you, Alec—”
“Sorry!” said Lewis, emerging into the conference room from thin air. “Sorry, one and all. We stopped at Claridge’s, and the time just got away from us.”
He wore impeccable evening dress, and carried what appeared to be an attaché case. With him was a young woman, tiny, also elegantly dressed, and, as far as one could tell beneath the hat and sunglasses, exquisite. “Oh, dear,” Lewis said, looking around apologetically. “I left it till the last minute, didn’t I? We’re still getting used to temporal freedom, and—”
“This is that Lewis for whom you made the garden?” said Nicholas, looking up at Mendoza.
“None other.” Lewis struck a bold pose. “Formerly a mere Literature Preservation Specialist, now the Paraclete of the Most High! Hello, Latif. Hello there, Joseph.”
“Trust you to show up for Judgment Day wearing a tuxedo,” said Joseph in an exhausted voice.
“Well, I’m a man on a mission.” Lewis stepped forward. The young lady followed him closely, staring around in fascination. “And may I present my daughter, Tiara? I’ve come as a sort of diplomatic envoy, though I suppose the peace talks have already started—”
“Not quite,” said Edward.
“Oh, good, then. Ahem.” Lewis set down the attaché case, took a grip on his lapels. “My fellow immortals, the Apocalypse scheduled for today has been cancelled.”
“Dead, we were doing perfectly well on our own,” said Alec, glaring up at the screen.
“Of course you were, and Mendoza and I are very proud of you,” said Edward in the most soothingly tactful voice imaginable. “Nevertheless, we felt that your argument would benefit from additional incentives.”
Budu looked up at him. “What are the terms?” he said.
“Take your oath to serve our purpose,” said Edward, “and we will liberate you from time.”
“As he has liberated me!” exclaimed Lewis, flinging up his hands. “The most fabulous experience of my eternal life.”
“I don’t think any of you can begin to imagine what it’s like,” said Mendoza. “But trust me, it’s wonderful.”
“It would be wonderful for you, wouldn’t it, with three husbands?” retorted Joseph. Mendoza blushed.
“It isn’t what you—Oh, can it. Don’t you see? You can go anywhere you want. No more Company watching your every move and ordering you around,” she said.
“No; we’d have your Englishman telling us what to do, instead,” said Joseph.
“Yes. You will,” said Edward, turning a gimlet eye on him. “It is our moral duty to humanity, especially after the way our creators profited at their expense. Perhaps we’ll find that men are actually capable, without meddling immortals whispering in their ears, of making intelligent decisions. But their evolution must run its course, whatever its end.”
“Except I am going to intervene on Mars,” said Alec. “That one’s my burden. I broke it; I’ll fix it.”
“Good,” said Budu.
“As for Earth and Luna, I had in mind some sort of charitable consulting firm,” added Edward, steepling his fingers. “Utilizing the resources we’ve seized from Dr. Zeus. We might provide suggestions or recommendations; always assuming the mortals will accept them, of course.”
“But that’d be the Company all over again,” objected Joseph.
“No, no,” Lewis cried. “More sort of an organized bunch of philanthropic independent contractors. And look what we could give them, for example—” He grabbed up his attaché case and went to the conference table. “Er—could some of you folks move out from under there, please? Thanks.” He set down the attaché case and opened it, turning to display its contents. “There!”
The case was packed full of what appeared to be somewhat irregular marbles, brightly colored. Closer inspection revealed them to be kernels of corn, quite large, with a whole ear of corn resting atop the pile. “Mays mendozaii,” said Lewis. “The answer to world hunger.”
“It’s more nourishing than soy and it’ll grow anywhere, Joseph,” said Mendoza, her eyes intense. “On Earth, anyway. I’m working on a cultivar for Mars now.”
“And think of all the other possibilities for encouragement! Really, we’ve got quite a lot of work to do,” said Lewis.
“Then there will be work,” said Budu thoughtfully. Lewis turned to look up at him, and his eyes widened. Nevertheless he set his chin.
“Er—yes. And as for the killing business—”
“I, myself, was created to kill,” Edward said. “However, I have devoted some painful thought to the questions concerning sublimation of programmed savagery—even written a brief monograph on the subject—”
“Actually, it’s fifteen volumes long,” Nicholas said. Edward scowled at him.
“—and I would enjoy discussing it with you at our mutual leisure, when the opportunity arises,” he continued, looking down at Budu.
“You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?” said Joseph, slumping.
“Far from it, Doctor Ruy,” Nicholas told him. “Edward, though he may believe otherwise, is not the Almighty.”
“Oh, that takes a load off my mind,” Joseph growled.
“The Almighty, indeed! I much prefer the New Prometheus. But, to return to the crucial question: will you join us, sir?” Edward inquired of Budu. Budu considered them, no expression in his glacial eyes that were Alec’s, and Edward’s, and Nicholas’s eyes. At last he took both his axes from his belt. He held them up in his immense hands.
“Yes,” he said. “The purpose is just. The work will go forward. I’ll take service with you. So will they,” he added, indicating his men with an axe. Immediately all the Enforcers in sight held their axes up, as did the ones still waiting patiently in the darkness of the tunnel, who had had the events above transmitted to them by their officers. Hearst, watching in awe, hesitated only a moment before drawing the sword of Roland and following suit.
“And you?” Nicholas turned to Suleyman.
Suleyman looked sadly at the mortals. “Can you guarantee that they will not be massacred?”
“Yes,” Nicholas replied. “We will do no murder! Let their peers judge them; but they’ll stand trial, now their secrets are all told.”
“Secrets told?” Joseph said. “What’d you do? Tip off the tabloids?”
“No,” said Nicholas, cool as ice. “I sent an extract of Company financial records for the last thirty years to the tax assessment board of the Tri-Worlds Council for Integrity.”
“Ouch,” said Joseph. Some of the mortals under the table began to sob noisily.
“And Alpha-Omega?” Suleyman pressed.
“That place?” Alec shuddered, and accessed briefly. “That’s right; you captured it, didn’t you? Why don’t you keep it, for now, until we can explain about it to the mortals? Then they can take custody of their stuff, and the rest of you can get your own back.”
Suleyman stroked his beard. He looked over at Latif. “What do you think, son?”
“I’m happy,” Latif replied quietly, looking in satisfaction at Lewis and Mendoza. Suleyman put his hands in his pockets, looked back at Alec.
“Very well,” he said. “We’re with you.”
Edward, watching their reactions, thumped the arm of his chair in satisfaction. “Well done,” he said. Nicholas looked up at him.
“But there is another matter,” he said. “There are others like the Captain! Spirits trapped in steel. We must consider their welfare, Edward.”
“Aw, now, son, I wouldn’t worry about no spirits,” said Captain Morgan. “But I reckon some of the inorganic brethren might take kindly to trying on a bit of flesh.” He cocked a hopeful eye at Sarai. “You wouldn’t happen to be a professional lady, now, would you, dearie? No? Well then, has anybody got a drop of rum for an old seaman?”
“Rum for everybody!” Alec said, and arranged time and space just enough to provide all those watching with drinks. Edward raised his glass.
“To hope,” he said. Bright brass sounded from somewhere, the Dies Irae in major key at last, rendered as a heroic coda. They drank.
Afterward, amid the strangest cocktail party milling that had ever taken place, Lewis attempted to coax the packed mortals out from under the table. Tiara, who had followed him like a little silent shadow up to that point, wrinkled her nose at the mortals’ smell and turned to watch the other big people. She spotted Latif and advanced on him, as one spellbound. “You’re beautiful,” she said breathlessly. “Are you married?”
Latif gaped down at her and Sarai took him firmly by the arm. “Uh-uh,” she said. “Find another, p’tite Erzulie.”
“Oh, well,” said Tiara, shrugging. Her gaze fell on Hearst, who was talking to Joseph. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “A gallant hero with a sword! And he is also beautiful!”
She drifted over and stood looking thoughtfully up at Hearst, who was saying: “… he doesn’t seem like such a bad fellow after all. Say, do you think he’ll want any kind of cabinet of advisers?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Joseph said morosely, and then ducked as something black came flying out of the screen and bounced on the table beside him. “Hey,” he yelled, looking up. “You could have hit somebody with that!”
“I should be so lucky,” Mendoza yelled back.
“What is it, anyway?” He set down his glass and picked up the object. It was a holocube album.
“Baby pictures of your grandchildren,” she told him. He looked horrified.
CHAPTER 36
Joseph, a Long While Afterward
So I keep the holocube on my desk. I don’t look through the pictures much. Boy, they were ugly babies.
The one I keep in view is the best, though. There’s God Himself—oops, no, it’s just Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax—sitting in that big chair of his, with the two brats on his lap, and they’re all dressed up in tiny sailor suits (with hats, yet), which they obviously hate wearing. Mendoza, standing beside the chair with her hand on Edward’s shoulder, is gazing serenely into the imager and she looks …
