The Life of the World to Come (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “What need hast thou of meat?” Nicholas told him, returning the plate to Alec. “Let the boy eat, thou wretch.”

  “I’m a man, you know,” muttered Alec. “And I’m not stupid.”

  “No indeed, you’ve apparently quite the superior intellect in this day and age,” said Edward. “God help us all.” He changed his tone as a thought occurred to him. “Here now. That little trick you worked with brother Nicholas’s clothing—do you suppose you could create anything else? What if you could make a veal cutlet and some new potatoes materialize out of the ether?”

  “Like this?” said Alec irritably.

  “I should of course prefer them on a plate,” said Edward through his teeth, picking a nicely breaded cutlet out of his lap. “Damn you, boy, I hope you can launder these trousers. Never mind; we’ve made John Calvin over there smile, which is probably sinful and therefore worth the inconvenience.”

  “I only wish you’d asked for soup,” Alec retorted, but he read Edward’s memories. A moment later a dish of blue willow pattern appeared before Edward, bearing the meal he had requested as well as haricots verts and a glass and bottle of claret, vintage 1859. Edward blinked.

  “That,” he said in awe, “is the last meal I had in London, at Redking’s. I—Thank you, Alec.”

  “What about you?” Alec said to Nicholas, who was gaping at the laden table. “You want anything? I bet you’d be happier if you weren’t hungry.”

  “How can a spirit hunger?” said Nicholas. “But an thou couldst summon eel pie and a pintpot of ale, in the same wise, boy—”

  “Stop calling me boy,” said Alec, but he summoned them. Nicholas picked up a spoon cautiously, broke the pastry crust. A plume of steam rose, bearing with it the fragrance of eel pie. Nicholas’s pupils dilated. There followed a reverent conversational silence, broken only by the scrape of knives on china and pewter.

  Now, that’s what I like to see! My fine gentlemen all minding their manners and getting along.

  “Don’t fawn, machine,” Edward said. “What about Clive Rutherford? Have you tracked him down, yet?”

  Aye, sir, that I have. Turns out he’s one of the team that worked on yer project, sir, Adonai.

  “Is he now?” Edward’s eyes grew mean and small. “Rutherford of Rutherford, Chatterji, and Ellsworth-Howard? That’s convenient, I must say. We can combine business with pleasure.”

  “We’re not going to kill anybody, are we?” said Alec.

  “It might be necessary,” Edward said, taking a sip of claret.

  “I will do no murder, Edward,” Nicholas said sternly. “Nor shalt thou. What, hast thou not had thy fill of necessary deaths?”

  “That’s true enough,” Edward said at last, looking away.

  The Captain made a noise as though he were clearing his throat and continued:

  The record shows he’s also a museum curator. He’s got charge of a historical architectural monument—row of houses in London, all done up so tourists can see how people used to live in the old days. He lives in one of ’em, and if he’s the curator I reckon he’d be at home most days.

  “What’s his address?” Alec asked.

  It says here No. 10 Albany Crescent, London NW1. Edward choked on his wine.

  “I grew up in that house,” he gasped, as Alec thumped him helpfully on the back.

  “No kidding?”

  “But it can’t be the same. It must have been pulled down long ago.” Edward recovered himself. “Or bombed. Wars seem to have swept over London like so many juggernauts since my time. Damned incompetent idiots. We were becoming a world power!”

  Well, nobody’s a world power anymore, sir, if that’s any consolation. Except for Dr. Zeus Incorporated

  “I know where Albany Crescent is,” Alec realized. “I broke into a house there once.”

  Nicholas frowned and Edward looked intrigued. “A thief, were you? And an earl’s son? What were you doing, playing at being Prince Hal?”

  “Oh, go shrack yourself. I wasn’t stealing! Balkister and I were just looking for a place to get drunk in out of the rain. London’s full of old empty houses, see, because there aren’t nearly as many people as there used to be,” Alec said. “Or maybe nobody can stand to live there. God knows I couldn’t.”

  “But thou canst find thy way there, and bring us to this man?” Nicholas said.

  “Yeah. No problem.”

  Oh, I reckon you’ll find it a bit more complicated than that, me boys. The police may not be looking to question our Alec anymore, but Dr. Zeus might still be hunting him. This ship’s just a bit conspicuous, more’s the pity. You won’t be able to dock at Tower Marina this time. Or ever again, likely.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have laid out all that money for mooring membership,” said Alec, slightly stunned. “How are we going to get into London?”

  You’ll come up with ways and means, Commander Bell-Fairfax, sir, I shouldn’t wonder.

  “I can get into or out of any city on Earth,” Edward said, draining the last of his claret. “Leave it to me.” He pushed away his empty plate and looked sidelong at Alec. “I don’t suppose you’d care to try to materialize brandy and a good cigar?”

  “Okay,” said Alec, and they appeared on the table, complete with a matchstand and another tankard of ale for Nicholas.

  “Aaah,” Edward gloated. “Capital. Young Alec, you are decidedly a man of parts.” He struck a match and lit the cigar; taking a sensuous drag, he leaned back in his seat. “Mmf. There now! It is conclusively proven. We’ve gone to Heaven after all.”

  “Mocking knave,” muttered Nicholas, waving away the cloud of smoke. He lifted his tankard and drank, however.

  “And is this Courvoisier?” Edward raised the brandy snifter to his nose and inhaled. “You’re a man of taste as well, my boy. We may make something of Alec yet.”

  “You couldn’t get out of Los Angeles,” said Alec suddenly.

  “Eh?” Edward frowned at him.

  “You didn’t know how without getting caught. Mendoza had to help you.” Alec was astonished at the unfamiliar memory he’d accessed, seeing a dusty pueblo and sere brown hills under a darkening sky. “Just like she helped me, when I crashed.”

  “So she did,” said Edward after a moment. He blew a thoughtful smoke ring. “This much hasn’t changed, at least. Over cigars and brandy, we talk about the ladies. Or one lady, in this case. Gentlemen, I give you Dolores Alice Elizabeth Mendoza.” He raised his glass.

  Nicholas sighed. “When she rode into old Sir Walter’s garden, she was called Dona Rosa Anzolabejar.”

  “All she ever told me was, her name was Mendoza,” said Alec.

  “I wonder what her true name is?” Edward savored his brandy. “The mystery, that was one of the things I loved about her. Who was she? How could a woman, let alone such a young girl, understand so perfectly what it was to be a political unless she were one herself? To say nothing of her other abilities.”

  “Even so it was with me,” said Nicholas sadly. “I sought to know the truth; and even when I had found it out, I knew nothing. Save only that she loved me. The poor child watched me ranting in the fire, and I saw my least word was a knife in her heart.”

  “How could you do that?” demanded Alec, seeing his memory. “You wanted her to die with you! That’s horrible.” The image from his dream, the field of death, came abruptly before his eyes. He turned his face away, to find himself looking into Edward’s cold level gaze.

  “Were we any kinder to her, you and I?” Edward inquired. “Though, I’ll grant you, neither of us went so far as to actually ask her to destroy herself.” He looked at Nicholas. “That’s your own particular distinction, man of God.”

  “I thought to save her immortal soul from Satan,” said Nicholas, staring into his ale. “I wanted to bring her unto the Lord.” His voice grew faraway. “Yet God He knows she was innocent enough of sin. It was I lusted after her from the moment I saw her little face, though I lied and said not so to my heart
. She did no more than offer me half an orange for courtesy’s sake. I wanted to lick the sweet juice from her hand, and have her on her back there in the long grass …”

  “What a fine godly hypocrite,” Edward chuckled, exhaling smoke. Nicholas just stared at him, terrible bleakness in his eyes, and then said:

  “Ay. So I was, and it cost me Heaven in the end. Will you hear?

  “When I suffered in the fire, my pain was grievous; but there came a roar in mine ears and a burst of light, and I was gone out of mine agony like a bird set free. And I ascended, as I thought, toward Heaven. Methought I saw the kingdom of God, like a pleasant garden for His elect, and I made haste to go in.

  “But the Lord Himself refused me entrance. Wherefore may I not rest, I cried. Have I not suffered to bear witness to Thee, my God?

  “Indeed thou hast, quoth He. But this is neither thy place nor thy time. Thou art alone, Nicholas! Where is the girl?

  “I was ashamed, and I said: Lord, she would not come.

  “And the Lord said: Go forth, then, for I tell thee thou shalt never come near to Paradise until thou bearest her along with thee.

  “And I fled lamenting from the presence of God, and woke here, to know myself for the vile thing I am.”

  “When will you stop this metaphysical nonsense?” said Edward wearily. “But I suppose you’ve no other way to look at the matter, born as you were in an age of superstitious piety. Our life-forces have been kept intact somehow, can you understand that? The goal of the Society was always immortality. Politicals like me, but invincible! And I was promised resurrection in the flesh myself, when my time came. I was told that even death was no more than an injury, from which Science would heal me.”

  “You’re both deluded,” said Alec, shaking his head. Nicholas scowled at him and Edward tipped ash off his cigar before replying:

  “By no means. The Society—or the Company—may have lied to me about a good many things, but it’s obvious they did find some way to preserve my intellect And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if my own proper body isn’t being kept as well, in some electrical sarcophagus, or perhaps a magnetic bottle of life-sustaining fluids, until it can be revived.”

  Alec shuddered and Nicholas looked askance. “That is rank alchemy,” he said.

  “Science,” Edward corrected him. He blew another smoke ring and grinned at Nicholas. “And hard luck for you, old man. I doubt very much whether even the most advanced medicine can reanimate a bucketful of ashes. The Company clearly preserved your life-force as well, to what purpose I cannot imagine, but you thoughtlessly let your body go up in flames! You may as well make the best of sharing the premises with young Alec here; you’re unlikely to get any closer to eternal life.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Alec told him. “I don’t know what you are, but I know nobody’s figured out any way to make a corpse back come to life yet. What about those autopsy pictures? You’re dead, and you deserve it!”

  “And yet, I live.” Edward had another sip of his brandy, smiling. “Even Nicholas lives. Explain that, young genius.”

  I can explain it, son.

  “The machine has opinions? This should be entertaining,” said Edward.

  I wouldn’t get so high and mighty if I was you, Commander Bell-Fairfax, sir. You ain’t nothing but a stored file my boy downloaded by accident. The only reason you think yer alive is because his brain’s able to run yer program—and our Nicholas’s program too—at the same time he’s using it for his own thinking.

  “Is that what it is?” Alec looked sick with relief. “So I’m not crazy!”

  No, no, son, it’s only because yer brain’s so special that yer able to have this kind of disassociative personality—the Captain sought for a more positive spin. Er, what you are is multiple personality-abled. See?

  “A likely story,” scoffed Edward. “And I’ll thank you to retract it, when I’ve been restored to my own flesh. Once we’ve rescued Dolores, I rather think finding where they’re keeping my body should be the next order of the day, shouldn’t you? The sooner we can dispense with this intolerable living arrangement, the better.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see who she feels like snuggling up to then, won’t we?” said Alec contemptuously. “A live man, or some kind of pickled zombie like you.”

  Edward gave him a long, hard stare before shrugging and taking another drag on his cigar. He blew smoke in Alec’s face and said:

  “You’ve still no grasp on the situation, have you, boy? But Dolores will understand. She and I are of a kind. I’d begun to guess what she was, even before she let the truth slip. The Society claimed there would be a way to make immortal creatures and dispatch them, through time itself, to do our work. I thought she must have been sent to assist me. But I couldn’t ask her until the business was over, and by then it was too late.

  “And then at the last, she said—” Edward paused, his face clouding. “She told me she was a prisoner in time. She begged me to come back and break her chains. I had no idea what she meant. It had never occurred to me that the Society would countenance the creation of immortal slaves.” He looked at Alec with aversion. “How could I have known that a blunderer like you would find her in her prison?”

  Alec clenched his fists. “I went back for her.”

  “But too late.” Nicholas shook his head. “Thou hadst thy vanities to attend to first, thine ambuscades and treasons up amidst the cold stars. Yet I did the same. If I’d let my lust rule me I’d have stolen her away and fled from England, and would to God I had! But not I. I went vainly after righteousness and left her trapped here. And when at last a smiling villain came to her, she must have thought—”

  “What, thought I was you?” Edward blew another smoke ring. “She didn’t cry your name at the height of passion, brother. And what passion! I couldn’t imagine how a virgin girl—” He halted.

  “I had her maidenhead,” Nicholas informed him.

  “But—”

  “But she was a virgin with me, too,” said Alec. There was a silence while they considered the contradiction, before Edward grinned.

  “Good God, she must be made like the houris in Mahomet’s paradise! And she knew tricks I thought only the women in the souk could do. I suppose she had her education at your godly hands, brother Nicholas, in which case I’m obliged to concede there’s more to you than meets the eye as well!”

  “Don’t speak of her this way,” said Nicholas, giving him a deadly look. “Thou, who never loved her.”

  “I tell you I did, man,” Edward said, all the banter going out of his voice. He put down his cigar. “I thought she was superb. Lustful as Aphrodite, and wise as Athena. She seemed to think we were made for each other. And we were, by God! She’s mine, not the damned Society’s chattel.”

  “She was going to marry me,” said Alec. “I asked her, and I’m still the only one with a real body, so you can just—just—”

  “Let me guess. Piss off?” Edward inquired in a bright voice.

  “Oh, shut up,” said Alec miserably. “I guess she only loved me because of you two. Figures, doesn’t it? She …” He stopped, struck. “She must have known about us. That we were Recombinants and everything! Don’t you think? And she didn’t care.”

  “How should she care, who was scarcely a creature of flesh and blood herself?” said Nicholas. “Though she at least began as a mortal child, not an unnatural scrap of flesh in an alembic’s womb.”

  “How d’you know that?” Alec asked him.

  Nicholas raised his pint and drank deep. “Her father admitted it to me,” he said, with an extraordinary expression of malevolence. “No true father of hers, understand my meaning, yet he that bound her into eternal labor for his masters. Doctor Ruy! A meddler and a poisoner, and were he not deathless I would kill him with my two hands, should he ever cross my path again.” He looked sullenly at Edward. “There’s necessary murder for you.”

  Edward merely gave him an ironic smile and drank more of his brandy. Alec sat lo
oking from one of them to the other.

  “There might be a way to find out how much she knew about us, anyway,” he said. “I guess you both can read writing, can’t you?” The concerted look of scorn they gave him made him flush. “Hey! I can do lots of things you can’t, you know.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Edward drawled, reaching for his cigar again. “Though I intend to become your equal in them pretty damned quickly. How does one control your Ancient Mariner, for example?”

  That’s for my boy to know and you to find out, ain’t it, sir?

  “Rest assured I will,” Edward said.

  “Peace! Wherefore, boy?”

  “She left writing,” Alec said. “I brought it with me from the station but I can’t read it, and—”

  “Good God. There was a book, wasn’t there?” Edward sat bolt upright. “What did you do with it, Alec?”

  Five minutes later they were settled down around the table again, with fresh cigars and brandy for Edward and more ale for Nicholas, examining the book under the light of the gimbal lamp.

  It was a big book, very rough and hand-made in appearance, and it consisted of three sections sewn together. The first part was written on glossy sheets of something indestructible, brightly printed on their reverse sides with pictures of seductive-looking cuisine. They were in fact opened-out labels for a popular soy protein product. The ink varied here in color and thickness; the writer had evidently been experimenting with thinning agents. Toward the middle of the text a satisfactory uniformity had been achieved, and remained consistent thereafter.

  The second part was of machine-cut white paper, crumbling with age, a printed text here and there annotated in the same hand as the first section, with a written postscript. It appeared to be the transcript of a hearing.

  The third part was the shortest: more of the bound labels, covered in closely written text to about halfway through. The writing had broken off abruptly. There were some thirty pages following, blank, clean and new-looking.