The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I refused. And he told me I couldn’t! He only hinted at the things that might happen if we disobeyed. I wanted the truth, and at last he broke down and admitted that we’d be raising Elly’s baby. Why on earth would a Company with that kind of power interest itself in the affairs of a pop star?

  “Roger couldn’t explain. He kept saying there was nothing we could do, and if we gave the baby a better life than the one he’d have had with his natural parents, where was the harm?”

  Where was the harm. Alec closed his eyes for a moment, hearing Roger before the cold educated voice swept on over his memory:

  “So I went along with it, may She have mercy on me. I signed the damned agreement, swore to keep the lie. I’m violating that oath now. What do I care, after all this time? Let them try to come after me here! But I never saw Roger with the same eyes again.

  “Can you wonder that I could never bring myself to touch you? I know it wasn’t your fault, and I can’t expect you to forgive me. But you had plenty of affection from everyone else on that boat.”

  “You pushed me away,” said Alec in a thick voice. Cecelia shrugged.

  “I’m sure you didn’t miss me when I left. There was simply no point in continuing with the charade. Roger was miserable and, believe me, I was as miserable as he was. I came here and consecrated myself to a life of penance for what I’d done.”

  Cecelia had rehearsed that speech a thousand times over the years. What a feeling of release now, what a weight was gone! She tilted her head slightly, watching the effect of her words on the man. He’d gone very pale; all that high color had just fled from his face.

  “What happened to her? To, to—Elly?” Alec asked.

  “She never recovered from what they did to her. She’d been a little slow before, you see. After you were born, she just went away to another planet It’s a happy place. I have that much consolation: she at least has stopped suffering.”

  “Where is she?”

  Cecelia considered him.

  “I’ll take you to her,” she said at last. “I don’t think you can do her any harm now.”

  She led him out of the Epona chapel through a curtained alcove, across a quiet garden. Somewhere there was the staccato chanting of contralto voices, a vaguely frightening sound in that peaceful place; but it grew fainter as they emerged onto a wide lawn.

  There was a croquet game in progress there. Half a dozen girls in white were scrambling about clumsily after wooden balls, watched by reserved-looking women in blue robes. One or two of the girls wandered by themselves or sat on the grass rocking to and fro. Alec realized with a start that they weren’t girls, but damaged women. One grimaced uncontrollably, another’s laugh was far too shrill and constant; another staggered like a baby just learning to walk.

  The women in blue were clearly their attendants. One approached now, questioning Cecelia with her eyes.

  “Will you bring Sister Heliotrope, please?” said Cecelia. “She has a visitor.”

  The attendant glided away and returned a moment later with one of the more enthusiastic players, gently relieving her of her croquet mallet as they approached. She protested, but only until she spotted Cecelia. She ran forward and hugged her gleefully.

  “Mother Cicely! Nice seein’ ya!”

  Cecelia hugged her back, apparently with genuine affection. Alec stared. He looked at the plain round face, imagining it with the garish makeup of the ’twenties, trying to see the horrified girl of the news footage. Not this smiling creature with her blank china-blue eyes. She looked nothing like him at all.

  “Heliotrope, dear, this man has come to see you,” Cecelia told her. Elly turned to notice Alec and looked away, taking two little sideways steps to put distance between them, like a well-behaved animal avoiding a noisy child.

  “Too busy,” she muttered.

  “Now, dear, be nice. He’s come a long way. Let’s go sit in the shade, shall we?” Cecelia led them to a bench and sat down with them. “There we are. I won’t go away, dear, it’s all right. Did you have anything to say to her, Alec?”

  Alec reached out to take Elly’s hand. She looked at it with an unreadable expression.

  “I—I just—Are you okay here?”

  “Yeh,” Elly said.

  “Are you happy?”

  “Always ’appy, ain’t I?” Elly grinned, showing gappy little teeth. “Lucky me!”

  Her voice was still young, her accent that of the London clubs where the bands had played and the kids had danced, a million miles from this place she’d come to.

  Alec blinked back tears. “I wanted you to know—how sorry I am about the bad stuff that happened, and—and to let you know your baby didn’t die. He was safe the whole time. He turned out okay.”

  “Oh, yeh, I knew that, din’t I?” Elly nodded rapidly. “No aggro on that. No way Jose! All okay, you know why?”

  “Er … why?”

  “’Cos, ain’t I had ‘im just after Christmas? I was this virgin, see. Poor old Tommy never did it at all. I thought we was doing it and then the doctor and the police was going, you know, questions questions questions and it turned out we wasn’t doing it after all only I didn’t know better ’cos I’m so dumb. Not that dumb! I know you don’t get no baby from not doing it So I was scared it was like in that Ultimate Evil game with the Devil and all. An’ then the Forces of Darkness stole’m away.”

  “Don’t argue with her,” Cecelia told Alec quietly.

  “An’ it all came to little pieces and I was cryin’ so bad. But then I got into the Goddess and everything was really cool. They told me the story, see? They’re all, a virgin has this baby at Solstice and ’e’s the child of light, and the bad guys take ’im away from ’er and she’s really sad, goes to jail. I was in jail. But then, ’e’s really okay, see? Because ‘e ain’t dead. ’E never dies. And then the virgin is so happy. And I knew that was my story, see? It’s all about me! Me and my child of light.”

  Alec caught his breath. Out of the unwanted memories seeping up came a Christmas party, at least Sarah had told him it was a kind of Christmas party, when he’d been so tinywinji he hadn’t known there were any other children in the world, and then there were lots of them, black like Sarah, and he was with them around a tree trunk where there was a party for them all with cake … and the old black man bowing his head for them to pat his hair, and the black people smiling and clapping their hands and singing about the children of light. Sarah carrying him back to the harbor, sugar-sticky and sleepy, telling him he was her little child of light. It had been a sweet memory; suddenly it chilled him.

  “Oh,” said Alec. “Well—I’m really happy for you, then.”

  “That’s ’im up there.” Elly jerked her thumb at the sun. “See ’im? I can see ’im any time I like. Sun my son. Son my sun! Ain’t ’e neat?”

  “Yeah.” Alec looked away, wishing he hadn’t come.

  “Just looks like ’e dies every night. Not really.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “’E didn’t die! Not my baby, not my poor little tiny baby—”

  “Heliotrope, they’re having lots of fun over there,” said Cecelia. “Why don’t you go back to play? I think we’ve had a long enough talk, don’t you?”

  “Okay,” said Elly, and leaped up and ran away unsteadily. Alec sat staring after her. Cecelia watched him, and after a moment she said:

  “Do you have any idea why they did it, Alec?”

  “No,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”

  “I always wondered, you see … Roger mentioned once that there was a division of his company that did some kind of genetic work. And that awful man did swear you weren’t his child, I mean really past the point where it made sense. He’d have had much less trouble if he’d just admitted to it and paid his fines.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And there was something different about you, Alec.” Cecelia shook her head. “There’s something different about y
ou still.”

  There’s something different, all right.

  Alec shuddered violently. “You don’t think—there wasn’t some weird sick cultist agenda or anything, was there?”

  “A religious one, you mean? At Jovian Integrated Systems?” Cecelia looked contemptuous. “Not if Roger was any example. He believed in nothing. Life was easier for him that way.”

  “And they’ve never done anything with me! Nobody ever told me what I was or why I wasn’t like everybody else. I’ve had to figure it out for myself,” Alec cried.

  “Perhaps they’ve simply been watching you, to see what you’d do,” Cecelia suggested. “Just how are you different, Alec?”

  “I’ve got a couple of, er, talents,” Alec said uncomfortably. “I’ve done real well for myself in the world, as a matter of fact. But nothing I can do is worth what happened to the rest of you.” He turned to Cecelia.

  “Listen to me. Jovian Integrated Systems doesn’t exist anymore. They were bought up by this even bigger company that calls itself Dr. Zeus Incorporated. I’m going after them. If anybody who’s responsible for me is still alive, I’ll find him, or her, or it.”

  Cecelia gazed on him, a strange expression in her cold eyes.

  “You’re a good man,” she said at last, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. She rose to stand before him and, placing both hands on his shoulders in a formal gesture, leaned down to kiss him between his eyes. He was amazed.

  “Be careful,” she told him. “They were powerful then; Roger was frightened to death of them. They’re probably a lot more powerful now. Don’t think they don’t know exactly where you are. They must have kept people close to you your whole life, observing you.”

  “Maybe.” Alec stood, looming over her. “But there’s something they don’t know.” He took one of her hands in both of his and shook it awkwardly. “I’d better go now. Good-bye, Cecelia. I’m glad I got a chance to talk to you, after all these years.”

  “Good-bye, Alec,” Cecelia said. “Good hunting.”

  It was not a gentle Goddess she served.

  He just nodded and walked away.

  When he had gone, she climbed the hill behind the garden and stood looking down on the temple and the grand processional way that led out to the sea. After a while she spotted him, taller than any other traveler, walking back to the harbor where his ship lay at anchor. She watched until he had disappeared with distance, praying to her Goddess, not certain what she was feeling.

  I knew it! I knew all along you weren’t no freak. Yer a deliberate favorable mutation, Alec lad, you must be, specially bred. J.I.S. meant you to be the bloody wonder boy you are! Alec could almost hear the Captain’s boots clattering on the ancient pavement as he danced for joy.

  Oh, yeah? You reckon they had any idea what their wonder boy was going to do to them, when he found out how he was made?

  Not a whit, I’d wager. They never counted on me, did they? Oh, laddie, the revenge we’re gonna take. Blood and hellfire! Loot for years. But the lady was right—we go into this slow, see? We ain’t doing a thing without a perfect plan, and a perfect backup plan, and a backup plan to that. We takes our time. No risks. You let me do the reconnoitering first.

  Then start your planning. Find out everything you can about these bastards, do whatever you have to do. We’re gonna wreck ’em.

  That’s my boy.

  … Sarah couldn’t have known about it, could she? She wasn’t in the pay of J.I. S.

  Mm. Why, no, matey, certain she wasn’t. Don’t you worry none about her. We’ve work to do! And to think it was only the other day you was moping about having no purpose to yer life.

  Well, I’ve got one now, haven’t I?

  Alec marched down to the harbor and went aboard his ship. Her anchor was weighed, her sails were set. Under his black ensign he sailed out into the Ionian Sea, and laid in a course for Jamaica.

  THE YEAR 2351: MEETING

  Rutherford was in a daring mood. He had poured himself a glass of the apple-prune compound and swaggered over to the window with it, pretending it was sherry. It might be, for all any passing public health monitor knew. He was rather disappointed when the minutes stretched by without a soul coming into Albany Crescent, and wondered peevishly if the Westminster surveillance cameras were working properly.

  At last he spotted Chatterji and Ellsworth-Howard rounding the corner, and waved at them. Ellsworth-Howard waved back. Chatterji, who was looking troubled, just nodded.

  “Yo heave ho, fellows,” said Rutherford as he opened the door. “Have you seen the Adonai sequence update yet?”

  “Only just got mine,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “Haven’t had the shracking time to look at it.”

  “Well, you are in for a treat.” Rutherford practically danced across the room to his chair. “I’ve been gloating over it all morning. Our man is a hero after all, chaps. A dashing, daring rogue in the classic mode! Wait till you see the holoes.”

  “I’m concerned about a few things,” said Chatterji. “The committee’s not happy about them either, Rutherford.”

  “They don’t understand him,” said Rutherford dismissively. “Our man’s a genius, isn’t it obvious? And you were so concerned that he’d modified your design, Foxy! Er—that is—it’s clearly worked out for the best, hasn’t it? Because it’s made him even more brilliant than his previous two sequences. You should see what he’s done with his wonderful brain now that he’s got it cyborged.”

  “Such as?” Ellsworth-Howard said sullenly, settling into his armchair.

  “Well, he’s built up the modest fortune the late earl left him into a fabulous economic empire, and concealed it so the petty bureaucrats don’t tax him to death. Isn’t that so, Chatty?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Chatterji, sinking into the chair opposite. “Although … did you notice that trust fund he set up to benefit the Ephesians last year? You don’t suppose he’s turned religious again, do you?”

  “Shracking hell,” Ellsworth-Howard cried.

  “Nothing of the sort,” said Rutherford. “I’ll tell you exactly why he did that. Our programming! He tracked down the former Lady Checkerfield, the one he thinks is his mother. She’s an Ephesian priestess now. He’s still trying to atone for having caused his parents’ divorce, you see?”

  “So you think he’s attempting to buy her forgiveness?” Chatterji took out his nasal inhalator. Rutherford smirked.

  “You may have noticed that he named her the administrator of the trust fund. But you certainly don’t see him having the operation and donning any purple robes himself, not our boy.”

  “No, that’s true. He’s something of a libertine,” said Chatterji.

  “But one with a social conscience,” said Rutherford, jumping to his feet and strutting up and down before the fire. “In a proper secular way. Look at this renegade club he’s joined, all those young gentlemen dedicating their lives to fighting perceived injustice everywhere. There’s a lot more to the seventh earl of Finsbury than we originally thought!”

  “The committee had some rather sharp words about all his illegal activities, Rutherford, I must tell you,” said Chatterji, bracing himself with a deep drag.

  “Pooh. He’s simply fulfilling his program in the only way possible, in this wretched day and age,” said Rutherford. “What scope is there nowadays for a hero? So he belongs to that particular group of lawbreakers. They’re only educated fellows who object to this absurd restricted life we’re all obliged to lead. Not all that different from us, really.”

  “He shracking well ain’t like me,” said Ellsworth-Howard gloomily.

  “Oh, chaps, you’re missing the point,” Rutherford said, going to the sideboard and pouring out a couple of glasses of pretend sherry. He brought them back and handed one each to his friends. “He’s obedient to a higher law. He rebels because he needs to play a more active role in history. We put that need in him, didn’t we, we sub-creators?”

  “You’re
right,” said Chatterji, brightening. “After all, in the last sequence he committed any number of—er—outright crimes. But he did obey his handlers without question. Yes, that puts a much more positive spin on it.”

  “You see?” said Rutherford. “The only thing wanting now is to get him in for a visit with a Company recruiter. After all, we know he’s a kindred spirit.”

  “How d’you reckon?” Ellsworth-Howard said.

  “Just access those holoes and you’ll see,” Rutherford told him, and sipped his drink as Ellsworth-Howard took out the buke and squeezed in a request. The little projector arm shot up, unfolded its disc and sent out its beam of golden light. A moment later the Captain Morgan appeared in the midst of the room, under full sail, caught in the sunlight of a Caribbean morning.

  “Ooh” said Ellsworth-Howard, and even Chatterji, who had already seen the report, smiled. Rutherford just nodded.

  “There now! Can you wonder he prefers to live aboard that, and not in some dismal urban hive with public health monitors dogging his every step?”

  “That is so cool,” moaned Ellsworth-Howard. “Look at the pirate flag!”

  “Though I should mention that the committee found the flag in poor taste,” said Chatterji reluctantly.

  “Oh, shrack them.”

  “Offended their sensibilities, did he?” Rutherford said, casually leaning over the back of his chair. “Personally, I’m delighted with him. This is a true Briton, by God, this is the sort of fellow we used to have in this country. Like Drake! Like— well—all those other seafaring heroes and, er, daring explorers. Imagine what misfits they’d have been nowadays.”

  “You have a point there,” admitted Chatterji. Rutherford tossed back a slug of pretend sherry with reckless abandon.

  “We’re of the same breed, you know. Look at us, dreaming of tea and sherry and pipe tobacco. Haven’t you ever wanted to smuggle chocolates in your suitcase when you’re coming back from a trip to the Celtic Federation?”