by Kage Baker
“Though you might have just a shot of tequila or something, you know, for your nerves,” Balkister added, watching as the sky went through ever-brassier shades of melon and salmon and peach.
“That’s the last thing I need right now,” said Alec sharply. He was still mortified at getting so drunk at the arms dealer’s. To make matters worse, four days earlier he’d been sitting at the Happy Club bar in Campeche when he’d picked up the unmistakable scent of perfume from the trap in his house. Turning slowly in his seat, he’d noticed the unobtrusive man who’d come in after him and sat now three stools down, ordering a Red Stripe. Not a cyborg, at least; but it meant the Company had investigated that address and was still managing to have him shadowed ashore. Too many of his habits were known. They would bear changing.
“Try to keep the rest of them halfway sober, yeah?” he told Balkister. “Timing’s going to be everything, if I make it back.”
“Of course you’ll make it—”
“These are serious bad guys, Balkister. Just as bad as Areco in their way, okay? And no, I’m still not telling you who they are. Once they find out one of their shuttles is gone, they’ll come after it. If we’re really lucky we’ll have about five hours’ lead. But if one of those clowns is so stoned he drops a crate off the pier when we’re loading—”
“Won’t happen! You have my word, Checkerfield. They’re just keyed up. This is a bit more exotic action than most of them ever get to see, you know.” Balkister sucked at his frozen drink. “But none of them have forgotten what it’s in aid of, believe me. God, I envy you, Checkerfield, I really do. Mars at last.”
“Year,” Alec said, realizing he had barely thought about that part of the plan. Not that it hadn’t been meticulously arranged; but all his attention had fixed on the next seven hours, to the exclusion of anything else. If those seven hours were a success, the rest of the run would seem like a kiddie ride.
And after that, he’d decided, it was time to get out of the smuggling business and focus entirely on revenge.
Balkister cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.
“You’re quite sure you can fly the shuttle?”
“Hey.” Alec made a dismissive gesture. “This is Super Cyborg you’re talking to, remember? Of course I can fly it.”
“And it really can—” Balkister mouthed the words time travel.
“She,” Alec cautioned, with a glare toward the house.
“Oh, quite. Top secret. Now—not that I haven’t every confidence in you, but—just on the chance something goes, er, wrong—is there anybody you’d like us to contact?”
“You mean if I snuff it?” Alec grinned. “Nope. All my legal stuff’s sorted out already. Title dies with me. Most of the money’s tied up in a trust fund for my mother.”
Balkister frowned. Surely Alec had meant from his mother? The moment was too solemn to correct his grammar, however. “You can be certain we’ll honor your memory for all time, you know. We put it to a special vote, when you’d gone to bed last night.”
“Nice of you,” said Alec. “Don’t worry about your rent payments, either. There’s a codicil just for that purpose.”
“That’s awfully decent, Checkerfield,” said Balkister stiffly. He looked out on the twilight water and, for a moment, regretted what they were doing. Behind them there was a sudden blast of sound as Magilside cranked up the music, a swoony mariachi rendition of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” loud enough to rattle the window glass.
When night had fallen, Alec went on board the Captain Morgan . Swiftly she put to sea and sped north through the black night ocean, on a familiar course, and the mermaid on her prow wept silently.
By the time the lights of the island were visible, Alec had put on a thin set of thermals and fastened himself into his subsuit. As the Captain Morgan made her cautious way around the windward side of the island, standing well out to sea, he wondered uncomfortably whether Dr. Zeus had someone in that distant cluster of lights watching him on a gray screen. He started as Billy Bones crept up, offering him the mask that went with his suit.
Not to worry, son. They ain’t scanning the coast I reckon piracy’s the last thing they expect, in this day and age.
They really don’t know, do they? They’ve got no clue about us, right?
How could they? They may know you can do amazing stuff, but they don’t know about me. I reckon I’m the rock they’ve split on, thinking they’d have things all their own way.
Yeah. This is the beginning of the big payback.
That’s my boy. Alec’s revenge! Take no prisoners, son.
This is for my mother, for Roger and Cecelia, for all of ’em.
Alec leaned backward over the rail, kicking once to deploy the flippers in his boots. He tumbled into the dark water and immediately the infrared sights in the mask cut in, lighting his way into an eerie undersea nocturne.
The water was beautifully clear, full of shoals of bright fish that fled from his silent passage. Once, at a distance, he saw the slow cruising bulk of a shark; but it picked up the signal his suit was broadcasting and turned, making off through the kelp forest as though it had abruptly remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere.
He saw nothing more dangerous until he began to pass the mines, drifting things that resembled jellyfish. Their purpose was to adhere to the hulls of approaching vessels and transmit all perceptible information on them to Dr. Zeus. They were programmed to deliver an unsettling electric charge to something Alec’s size, but he avoided them with ease. Now he was past the strung foul-wires, the netting, the camouflaged underwater entrances. A moment more and he was crawling ashore on his hands and knees, and a seal was turning to look at him in an affronted way before rolling over and lolloping down to the surf to take its rest somewhere else.
He pulled off his mask and sat there gasping a moment, reviewing the plan in his head. Then he tucked the mask away in a pouch, retracted the flippers into his boots and edged along the sheer cliff wall, hunting for any place where it was less vertical, working always toward the white lights of the compound.
At length he found a goat path and went up it, crouching forward to feel his way with his hands, ascending swiftly. About twenty meters up it led him into a sparse stand of ironwood trees, and he leaned against one and studied the view.
The compound lay to the north, on a shelf of land blasted from the cliffs to create a platform. It jutted out like a proscenium stage, painted with the hummingbird landing pattern for vertically rising and descending aircraft. A half-circle of maintenance offices were built against its back wall. Their windows were dark. Three small aircraft sat on the landing platform.
They did not look particularly skyworthy, or even attractive. They were rather like buses in shape and size, dull silver, with only the slightest tapering at the nose and only the suggestion of stubby wings and tail fins. Their designer had clearly wanted no part of Buck Rogers Revival.
On the other hand, Alec reflected, it made a certain sense to make the most outrageously valuable piece of technology ever invented as drab and functional as a toaster. Who’d want to steal a dumpy-looking craft like that? Unless he knew what it was.
He advanced through the trees and came upon an access road, thickly planted along its verge with mimosa and hibiscus. Silently he paralleled the road, working through the bushes, and came at last to the powered gate with its glowing control box.
Here?
May as well Give ’em hell, son. Where do we come firom?
From the sea Alec freed his collar from the neck of the sub suit and unscrewed the knob at one end. He withdrew a plug on a fine length of wire. Groping, he found a port on the underside of the control box and connected.
WE’RE IN!
Alec had the momentary sensation of swallowing a lot of very good rum simultaneous to having the orgasm of his life while inhaling the fragrance of a Jamaican garden. He knew, now, all he needed to get in. Dizzy and elated, he ordered the gate to open and it did. Unport
ing, he ran through, keeping to the shadows, and made straight for the nearest time shuttle.
As he ran, the Captain was running too, down what would look to Alec like an immense corridor lined with the richest and most desirable of loot. Metaphorically he had his arms extended, sweeping across either wall, and the loot flowed into him through his fingertips, and as it did he was growing, expanding to tremendous size. In lighthouses all across the face of the globe, lights were winking, data of unimaginable content and complexity was being downloaded.
Alec sped across the painted tarmac and ordered the time shuttle to open for him. Obediently its hatch sprang wide, and he vaulted in. He stared around as the hatch closed behind him. The interior of the shuttle was nothing like its exterior. He’d never seen such luxury in a commercial transport.
There was an odd sharp smell in the air, a chemical kind of smell. What was that? The new data he’d received told him it was residual stasis gas. What was stasis gas? Harmful? No? Okay, then, and here was what was obviously the pilot’s seat, in front of what must be the guidance console.
He slid into the seat, buckled the restraints and looked the console over, ordering it to activate. Rows of lights blinked on, greeting him. Somewhere here must be the buttonball where he’d enter the algorithm to take it through time. Right now, though, he was only planning on taking it through space, out of this yard and across the dark sea to where the Captain Morgan waited.
Meanwhile the Captain had paused, staggering slightly as he absorbed the implications of a file he had just downloaded. Its designation was Adonai. He was leaning on a wall of light, wondering how he was going to safely relay the file’s contents to Alec, when he became aware of the electronic analogue of the sound of approaching feet.
Captain? Alec called.
The Captain turned. Walking down the virtual corridor toward him was the figure of a man, seemingly cast out of green bronze. Powerfully built, bearded, naked but for some white drapery over one shoulder and about his waist. He appeared to be looking directly at the Captain, but it was impossible to tell; the sockets of his eyes were black and empty. In his right hand was a thunderbolt.
Captain, I’ve got the shuttle! How do I put in coordinates?
The Captain muttered a string of words that would have given a sailor in any era pause. The approaching figure smiled, with a sound like bronze plate screaming across bronze plate.
Captain?
YOU ARE IN MY HOUSE, THIEF
Bloody Hell. I reckon yer Dr. Zeus, ain’t you? Someone’s given you an interface identity
I AM THE DOCTOR AND I AM THE GOD, THIEF.
Captain! It’s time to take off!
The figure advanced implacably on the Captain, raising its thunderbolt as it came. Backing off a pace, the Captain drew his cutlass from thin air.
CAPTAIN!
You hurt my boy. You hurt him worse than ever I knew.
I MADE YOUR BOY, THIEF.
You won’t unmake him again, bastard.
Frantically Alec sought to enter cyberspace to see why the Captain wasn’t responding, but as he did so there was a rending crash, a blue-white flame within his eyes, and he gasped and clutched at his temples.
There was nobody there with him. He was alone, for the first time since he cared to remember. If he probed he could perceive the database he’d accumulated over the years, distant and difficult of access. Trembling, he leaned forward, tried to make some sense of the lights on the shuttle console. He gave what he thought might be the command to lift off.
Smoothly the shuttle rose, and kept rising. Alec saw the lights of the compound dropping below him. He gave more commands, attempting to turn the shuttle and take it out to where the Captain Morgan rode at anchor in the night.
No, he’d done something wrong. The console gave a peremptory electronic grunt and ignored him, and cryptic red letters flashed in front of his eyes as a recorded voice cried: “ERROR! ENTER PILOT CODE!”
“Pilot code?” Alec bit his lower lip. He sorted in desperation through the database as the shuttle continued its rise, high enough now to show him the distant lights of Los Angeles. At last he found something that seemed right, and entered it.
The shuttle made an awful noise and lurched forward, then began to spiral wildly, out of control. Alec heard warning Klaxons, and the red letters flashed again as the voice shouted at him: “ERROR! ERROR! DEFAULT COORDINATES!”
The chemical smell intensified. Turning his head, Alec could see the cabin beginning to fill with yellow smoke. Not smoke. Stasis gas. The shuttle was preparing to return to its last destination, was about to take him through time.
“Oh God, oh God—” He sought for the information he needed, but without the Captain it was like thumbing through a thirty-volume encyclopedia in a burning house. The gas filled his lungs and blinded him. There was a moment of sensual pleasure to which his body responded with moronic readiness, and then a wave of nausea as a brilliant light cut through the yellow fog and an impact seemed to flatten him in his seat like a crushed insect.
Alec might have lost consciousness for a second. He was next aware of watching the gas boil away as some vent activated, and he was staring down in bemusement at the blue sky. Above it, like a cloud mass, spread a brown horizon and blue water.
But that was wrong, wasn’t it?
With a cry of terror, he struggled again to get the controls to obey him. Earth and sky exchanged places, flipped again, righted themselves. The shuttle screamed through a long descending turn and straightened out a few bare meters above the surface of the water, barreling toward land and steadily losing altitude. A winged fish smacked into the window, its goggle-eyed astonishment mirroring his own before it was torn away by the slipstream. He attempted to cut the shuttle’s power and found that it seemed to be obeying him. The forward thrust lessened perceptibly. Unfortunately, he was still headed straight for the island.
Alec spotted a bay between two projecting headlands, and beyond it a green flood plain coming down to the water’s edge, at the mouth of a wide canyon running back into the depths of the interior. He steered for it and the shuttle obeyed him. If he could just run out of momentum before he ran out of canyon—
He began hitting green stuff, tall grass, sugar cane or something. It got all over the window and made it hard to steer around the low foothills that rose to right and left, blocking his way. Somehow Alec managed, though, snaking the shuttle through the long slalom, and a distant corner of his mind noted with satisfaction that he was beginning to learn to pilot the craft. The same detached observer noted that there was blood dripping from his chin.
The shuttle began to slew sideways, cutting a swath though the green field as it came. The ground rose to meet it with a sickening impact, and Alec was thrown forward painfully in his seat restraints. He was no longer moving in any direction, through space or time. The relief was so intense he blacked out.
Someone was trying to get his attention.
He blinked, focusing his eyes. Where had all this blood come from? He straightened up in his seat and peered incredulously out the window. The shuttle had come to rest tilted forward on its nose in the field, and there was a strong smell of crushed vegetation coming through the open air vents. Heat, too; a bright subtropical sun was beating down on the shuttle. His vision was blurred, doubling; his sense of smell was more acute than usual. How much ganja had he smoked? Why would he have been smoking ganja on a job?
The girl who stood looking in through the window waited patiently as he sorted all this out. Their eyes met. She slipped a marker into the pocket of her coveralls and held up her right hand, on the palm of which she had written for him to see:
DO YOU SPEAK CINEMA STANDARD?
What did the words mean? He could recognize a couple of them.
She made a trumpet of her hands and leaned close to the window, shouting: “You appear to require medical assistance! Do you need help getting out of there?”
Who on earth was she? After a moment o
f gaping at her he unfastened his safety restraints and ordered the shuttle hatch to open. It popped up, filling the cabin with fresh air, unbelievably sweet after the stasis gas. Drawing in a deep breath, he stood up and pitched forward, falling to his hands and knees.
He must have blacked out again for a second because she was abruptly there beside him, without appearing to have come around the front of the shuttle, and he was outside. She got her arms around him and hoisted him up. Alec stood beside her in the midst of her ruined field, clinging to her lest he topple over. What a strong young lady she was! He looked down at her and saw that his blood was smeared on her face and in her hair. He muttered an apology, but she just smiled at him. In fact … was she turned on by him? Was that what that fragrance on her skin was, arousal?
They walked away, Alec leaning on her as they threaded through the green rows. It was funny-looking sugar cane they were walking through. It was covered all over with things like big green ganja-joints, each one bearing a tassel at its end. If he’d been smoking this stuff, no wonder he was hallucinating. He wondered if he was hallucinating the girl. She looked just like his mermaid figurehead, except that she had clothes on. And legs instead of a curled fishtail. And her fire-colored hair was braided back severely, a long braid that came clear down to her behind. He considered her breasts thoughtfully, looking down as they staggered along.
“Here now, sweetheart.” She led him up on a porch and settled him down on a bench. “You rest here a moment.” Her scent trailed away as she left him.
He looked around, and his fog cleared a little. The bench was made of big hand-hewn planks. He must be somewhere in the past. He wondered when. He didn’t know enough about history to pinpoint his location, but he had a vague idea that houses and furniture hadn’t looked like this since well before the Space Age. She’d been speaking with just the faintest unidentifiable accent, too, a steely precision that suggested … what? This must be some time before the twentieth century. On the other hand, she’d shown not the slightest surprise or dismay at the sight of the time shuttle. She smelled very young. And she wanted to sleep with him? Who was she?
