The Children of the Company Part 10

I wondered if this was how the immortal ones regard my own race. Are we so brief and small and foolish in their eyes?

Anyway, she didn't last long.

I had taken the midday meal with her, spooned soup into her toothless mouth and napkined her little chin, nodding my agreement to her stream of complaints that never stopped, even while she was eating. Then I carried her to the shade of one of the vast trees I had had transplanted for her, for we were in her own garden that day. I set her down where she could see me, and went to arrange the new bedding plants around the fountain.

I heard her talking to Fallon again, and was grateful, because it meant I wouldn't have to keep nodding to show I was paying attention. After a while I noticed she had grown silent, and I turned. She looked as though she had gone to sleep.

I buried her in the narcissus bed, and then I went to tell Lord Aegeus. Perhaps I should have told him first, but she was already beginning to crumble in on herself; and I was afraid he might have some further use for her poor body.

I found Lord Aegeus in Lady Maire's quarters. They each had hold of one of little Amelie's hands and were pacing carefully beside her as she toddled along, chatting together over her head like happy parents. He actually looked blank for a moment when I told him my news.

But then he was instantly sympathetic, clapping me on the shoulder and commending me for my careful attention to dear old Maeve, telling me how grateful he was I'd made her last days comfortable. He swung the baby up in his arms and held out her dimpled hand to me. He said, "You must thank your uncle Simeon, Amelie. He was a good friend to your biological mamma." And the child patted my cheek and smiled at me with an intelligence that was, maybe, just a bit more human than Maeve's.

Lady Maire exclaimed, "Isn't the sweet thing clever!" And Lord Aegeus kissed Amelie between her wide eyes and agreed that she was the cleverest, most precious little girl in the whole world. I don't think he noticed when I left.

I planted a rosebush to mark the grave. It wasn't one of the elegant ones the lords and ladies so love. It was a wild rose with a single-petaled flower. It bears many thorns, it is half bramble; but the perfume of its white roses is intense, though they bloom in an hour and the petals scarcely last a day.

Labienus sets the doc.u.ments to one side. He contemplates Victor's picture a while, and presently he begins to grin. So many expressions can be read into that expressionless face, those blank eyes; is he mournful? Resigned? Bored? Labienus is irresistibly reminded of the drawings of Edward Gorey, of all those stiffly miserable Victorian figures trapped in their airless world.

"Disaffected," he says aloud. "Disillusioned. Disinclined. Poor Victor. Aegeus is a pompous a.s.s, isn't he? I wonder whether you'd like a change of masters?"

Yes. Victor must be turned. It shouldn't be difficult.

LOST BOYS.

Labienus glances up at a red file folder, secure in its locked gla.s.s case with other Red Level Deniability doc.u.ments. This particular doc.u.ment is the record of an experiment. Certain twenty-fourth-century mortals would be horrified to know any evidence of their work was in Labienus's possession, let alone that their project had been co-opted by him. He smiles wryly, remembering Project Adonai.

On impulse, he orders the case to unlock itself, and he pulls the folder down. But another file pops out with it, tumbles down, fluttering open as it comes. Labienus seizes it in midair, but it has opened.

He frowns at the picture he sees, and the memory that rises by a.s.sociation. The shot is of a black man with a lean face, fine features, bright hard gaze like a young hawk's gaze. Labienus remembers the child the man had been. His mouth twists, as though he tasted bitterness.

He has no protege of his own, no bright second-in-command ...

He can see the woman in his mind's eye, immortal, blue-eyed and blonde, but without any of the chilly grace he likes in an immortal woman. Unacceptably disorganized for an Executive. Untidy, credulous, earthy, sentimental. Just the thought brings her voice back into his ears, gossiping on and on ...

I was sweeping down my front steps when I first saw him, or rather when he saw me. It's not as though I swept every day! I mean, we had servants like all other respectable households were supposed to; but if you've ever lived in Amsterdam for any long time, or at least in that year 1702, you'll know how hard it is to get the d.a.m.n servants to actually serve. My G.o.d, so touchy! I mean, look at that wet nurse of Rembrandt's, practically sued him for palimony and I know for a fact their relations.h.i.+p was the most innocent you can imagine.

Where was I?

On the steps, sweeping, because Margarite had retired to her bed with the vapors over something, G.o.d knows what, probably because Eliphal had been muttering again about the way mortals cook, which I wished he wouldn't do because she's very clean really for a mortal, and as for using too much b.u.t.ter, we were in Amsterdam for Christ's sake, not a health spa, and where was she going to get hold of polyunsaturated fats?

See, this is just the sort of domestic calamity our mortal masters failed to foresee when they founded Dr. Zeus Incorporated, though you'd think being up there in the twenty-fourth century would give them a clue. But that Temporal Concordance of theirs only tells them about big things like wars and disasters to be avoided, I guess; they have to rely on us, their faithful immortal cyborgs, to manage the little details of business for them here in the past. I know they're all scientific geniuses, to have come up with time travel the way they did, but I can't help thinking they must be a bit lazy.

So anyway I told Margarite, there there dear, you just take the afternoon off, and that was how I came to be out on my front stoop with the broom, in my old black dress with my hair bound up in a dishcloth, which is not really the way an Executive Facilitator wishes to be seen by a prospective Junior Trainee, but there you are.

"I am shocked," observed a little voice, "to behold the beautiful and celebrated Facilitator Van Drouten engaged in drudgery better left to mortals."

I looked down with my mouth open and there he was, standing beside the Herengracht in a pose as arrogant as a captain of the Watch, plumed hat doffed but held on his hip in a lordly sort of way. All along the ca.n.a.l other women were leaning over their stoops to look, because you see a lot of unusual stuff along the ca.n.a.l but not often a teeny-tiny black kid with the poise and self-a.s.surance of a burgomaster.

"h.e.l.lo, Van Drouten," said Kalugin, who was standing beside him looking sheepish. Kalugin's an old friend, a big man but one of those gentle melancholy Russians, and why the Company made him a sea captain I can't guess. He's the last person to scream orders at people. "I'm afraid we've caught you at rather a bad time."

"Oh! No," I said, when I had got over my surprise. "Minor household crisis, that's all. Goodness, you must be Latif!"

"Charmed, madam," the child said, and he bowed like-well, like a captain of the Watch, and a sober one at that. "And may I say how much I've been looking forward to the prospect of learning Field Command from one of the unquestioned experts?"

I had to giggle at that, I mean there I was looking at my least executive, but he stiffened perceptibly and I thought: whoops. Dignity was clearly important to him. But, you know, it is to most children.

"Very kind of you to say so, with me such a mess," I said, descending the steps. "And welcome to Eurobase Five. Shall we go inside? I can offer you gentlemen cake and wine, if you've time for a snack, Kalugin?"

"Unfortunately, no," he apologized, taking off his tall fur hat as he ducked through the low kitchen door, which was the one we ordinarily used, and not the grand main entrance.

"Not even for a cup of chocolate?" I coaxed. He looked as though he could use a little Theobromos.

"Theobromos on duty?" Latif inquired, looking up at us. "Isn't that prohibited, indulging in Theobromos before nineteen hundred hours?"

Of course it is, technically, but the young operatives who aren't allowed Theobromos yet have such puritanical att.i.tudes ... almost as bad as the mortal masters, on whom it has no effect at all! Our masters were horrified when they discovered that chocolate gets us pleasantly stoned, because they thought they'd designed us to be proof against intoxicants. They even tried to forbid it to us, but must have realized they'd have a revolt on their hands if they did, and settled for strictly regulating our use of the stuff. Or trying to, anyway.

"I really can't stay. My s.h.i.+p won't wait," Kalugin told me, with real regret. "But I have some deliveries-besides young Latif, here-a moment, if you please-"

As he shrugged awkwardly out of his fur coat he transmitted, And here's the young Executive himself, and good luck with him!

Oh, dear, is he a brat? He seems like such a polite little boy, I responded, as Latif inspected the Chinese plates ranged along the pa.s.sage wall.

Polite? Certainly! Even when one doesn't quite meet his particular standards. Kalugin unstrapped the dispatch pouches he'd brought with him. He graciously agreed to overlook at least four flagrant violations of Company protocols he detected on my s.h.i.+p.

"Here we are-diamonds for Eliphal, I believe, they've been rather uncomfortable-and these are the credenza components Diego ordered." Kalugin presented them to me with a slight bow. "Have you anything to go?"

"Not at the moment, thank you." I accepted the pouches.

"Then I must attend to duty." Kalugin put his coat back on. "The young gentleman's luggage will arrive within the hour. Latif, best of luck in your new posting-Van Drouten, I'm desolated to rush but you know how things are-perhaps we can dine at a later date. Have you still got that mortal who works such wonders with herring?"

"Yes, which was why I was sweeping, but I'll tell you next time-" I said, following him as he sidled into the street and put on his tall hat. My goodness, I thought, he was in a hurry!

"Now, that's interesting," said Latif thoughtfully, and Kalugin stopped dead.

"What is, young sir?" he asked, and not as though he wanted to.

"I must have missed something. Or am I mistaken in my interpretation of Directive Four-Oh-Eight-A regarding acknowledgment of delivery of all Cla.s.s One s.h.i.+pments? I thought the Executive Facilitator of a Company HQ signed for all packets above a certain value."

"Um-" said Kalugin, looking like a trapped bear, but I knew what the problem was now. Latif had been training under Executive Facilitator Labienus, who is a martinet. Not the best influence for a child, even if Labienus is a big cheese. I've never cared for him, personally.

"Except in cases where delivery occurs no fewer than six but no more than twelve times within a calendar year," I told Latif. "And then it's at my discretion whether I sign or not."

"Yes," Kalugin agreed, throwing me a grateful look. "Well. I'll just be going, shall I?"

"Marine Operations Specialist Kalugin," Latif executed another perfect bow. "Dos vedanya!"

"The pleasure was all mine, I a.s.sure you," Kalugin called over his shoulder, and was gone down the Herengracht like a shot. Beside me, Latif cleared his throat.

"Insofar as my arrival seems to have been unexpected," he said with beautiful delicacy, "I would be happy to report to my quarters until a more convenient time for my briefing."

"No, no," I told him. "We can chat as I work. So, you've been studying with Labienus at Mackenzie Base?"

"Yes, madam, for the last eighteen months." He fell into step beside me as I took the deliveries and climbed up into the house.

"Well, that's nice. He's a very efficient administrator, Labienus. Very military, isn't he? Of course, personal styles vary widely," I said, and Latif snorted.

"I've learned that much already. During my first semester I studied under Houbert."

"Ah. I've heard he's ... a little creative." It was the politest word I could think of.

"Yes, madam, I would say that's one way to describe him," Latif replied. "In any case, this will be my first experience at a Company HQ actually within a mortal urban community, observing field command and interaction with mortals in a situation where cover ident.i.ties are used."

I nodded, and told him: "Sounds scary, doesn't it? But, really, you know, it's not that difficult. Especially here in Amsterdam. This is a very civilized town." I lifted my skirts to clear the last step, which is just a little higher than the others, and really I've been meaning to get that fixed, but somehow I never get around to it.

"It's even a boring town, nowadays. I wish you'd been stationed here back in the fifties! I could have taken you around for a sitting with Rembrandt-the Company bought so many of his canvases!-or maybe a chat with Spinoza. We used to buy a lot of his lenses, though of course he had no idea he was grinding them for credenza parts, but he never minded special orders and I used to love to get him talking ..."

We had been making our way down the narrow pa.s.sage, with Latif obliged to stay a bit behind because my skirts were so wide, but when my hoops caught that d.a.m.n little hall table as they always do he was agile enough to grab the Ming vase before it leaped to its untimely death.

"Nice catch!" I congratulated him, knocking on Eliphal's door. He just stood there gasping with the vase clutched in his arms as Eliphal opened the door and stood peering down at us.

"What?"

"See?" I waved the packet at him. "Diamonds."

"Oh, great!" He took them and looked over his spectacles at Latif. "Who's that?"

"Eliphal, this is Latif, who's going to be studying with me. He's an Executive Trainee, you know that experimental program where they're sending some neophytes into the field for early hands-on acclimatization?" I explained. "He'll be playing-gee, I guess I can tell people you're my page, would you like to tag along after me when I go shopping and hold my fan and stuff like that? And, Latif, this is Cultural Anthropologist Grade Two Eliphal; he's playing a diamond-cutter who rents a room from me. I was just telling him about Spinoza, Eliphal."

"Well, what a little fellow to get such a big a.s.signment," said Eliphal, leaning down to him like a kindly uncle. "And how old are you, Latif?"

"Five, sir," said Latif coolly, putting down the vase and bowing. "I recently read your dissertation on Mana.s.se ben Israel, and may I say how impressed I was with your insights into the influences at work during his formative years?"

"Uh-thank you." Eliphal straightened up, blinking.

"You're quite welcome."

"Come on, sweetie, let's deliver these. Dinner's at five, Eliphal. So, let's go on upstairs and you can meet Lievens, not the painter of course though he's our Art Conservationist, he's supposedly a cabinetmaker I'm renting to like Eliphal, and so is Diego ourTech, and Johan and Lisette-they're our Botanist and Literature Specialists-they're playing my son and daughter and help me run my business, and then we've got the mortal servants-you've worked with mortals before?-well, ours are very nice though a bit temperamental, Margarite and Joost, childless couple, they've got Code Yellow security clearance," I informed Latif as we climbed up to the next floor.

"I see," Latif answered. "Which would mean they actually share residential quarters with us?"

"Yes, in fact their room is next to yours. They don't snore or anything, though," I added, turning to see if Latif was looking upset. Sometimes young operatives are afraid of mortals, until they get used to them. I think it's because of the indoctrination we all get when we're being processed for immortality, in the base schools. But, you know, it takes hardly any time before you learn that they're all just people and not so bad really, and I think half of what you learn in school you just sort of have to take with a grain of salt, do you know what I'm saying?

Anyway if Latif was bothered by the idea of living next to mortals he hid it well, because he just shrugged his little shoulders and said: "How nice. And I understand your cover ident.i.ty is as a widowed dealer in East Indian commodities?"

"Oh, yes, smell!" I exhorted him, pausing on the landing. I took a good deep sniff myself. "Ahh. Pepper, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg just now. The whole top floor is warehouse s.p.a.ce, you see, and actually I don't just pose as a spice merchant, we really do business here. I think I'd have made a great businesswoman if I'd stayed mortal, I really enjoy all those guilders on the account sheet and the exotic bales coming from the s.h.i.+ps. It defrays operating costs like you wouldn't believe. There's my first word of advice as a field commander, okay? Always find ways to augment your operating budget, if you want to rise high in the Company ranks."

"Very good, madam, I'll remember that," Latif was saying, as Johan's door banged open and he came running out in a panic.

"Van Drouten! Van Drouten, what do I do? Kackerlackje's having a seizure!" And he held up the miserable little dog who was having a seizure all right, and I knew why, too, the d.a.m.ned thing had been eating paint again, and if I've told Johan once I've told him a dozen times: if he can't watch a pet every minute of the day he shouldn't have one, I think it should be a general rule that cyborgs shouldn't keep pets anyway because they always die after all and it hurts nearly as badly as when a mortal you're fond of dies.

Anyway I told him, "Take him out in the back and make him vomit! And I'll see if I've got any bicarbonate, all right?You know, if you'd kept an eye on him like I told you-" but Johan had gone clattering down the stairs out of earshot. I sighed and turned to Latif.

"I think that mutt is trying to commit suicide. Here's another piece of advice: Never let your subordinates keep pets, but if you must, make sure you've got a Zoologist stationed with you who knows how to physic a dog, or you'll wind up doing it."

"I'll remember that, too," said Latif, looking appalled. The mortal with his trunk came after that, so I helped Latif get it up to his room. He insisted on squaring everything away before we went back downstairs, and I had to hide a smile at how finicky-neat he was, all his clothes pressed just so and severely grown-up in their cut. He even had a miniature grooming kit in a leather case! Silver-backed brushes and all; he only lacked a razor. Small wonder he looked askance at the toys I'd set out on his bed.

"Sorry about those," I told him. "I wasn't expecting somebody quite so, um, mature."

"It was a charming thought," he said courteously, giving one of his hats a last brush before setting it on a shelf. "And, after all, it does go with the character I'm portraying. I suppose I'll need to observe mortal children to see how they behave, won't I? Certainly all the rest of you seem to be doing a splendid job blending in with the mortal populace."

"Oh, it's easy, really," I a.s.sured him. "Easiest part of the job. What's hard is coordinating the actual running of the station."

"I can't wait to observe," he replied, laying out his monogrammed (!!) towel beside the washbasin. "What shall we start with? Duty rosters? Security protocols? Access code transfers? Logistics?"

Was there a little boy in there at all? The machine part was up and running, trust Labienus to see to that; but we work best as whole people, you know, same as the mortals.

"Logistics," I replied. "Want to come watch me get dinner for nine people on the table when the cook's sick?"

I made erwtensoep because we already had the peas soaking and it's easy. Latif perched on the edge of the table and stared as I chopped leeks and onions, and after a while ventured to say: "I think I'm getting this, now. This really is total immersion simulation, isn't it? You, uh, really and truly do have to live the mortal experience, don't you?"

"Not like a nice Company HQ with everything just so, is it?" I smiled at him. "No military command post with precise rules. I know Labienus, he's such a cyborg! Probably gave you that impression of absolute order, but the truth is that working for the Company is much more like this, like-like-"

"Chaos?" said Latif, and hastened to add: "Except that this is actually order artfully disguised as chaos, of course. Isn't it?"

"Sometimes," I told him, pulling out the potato basket. "See, you have to be so flexible. Like today, when Margarite isn't feeling well. And suppose I drew up a strict duty roster and I was all settled down to transmit reports at my credenza according to rules and regulations, like I was just last week, and Magdalena, that's the mortal girl from next door, dropped in to show off her new baby?"

"That's the Anthropologist's department, I would think," said Latif hopefully.

"Eliphal? Not likely, sweetie. And then, see, while I was sitting there pouring Magdalena and me nice little gla.s.ses of gin, there was a pounding on the door and who was it but some poor Facilitator who'd been riding day and night from the Polish front with a dispatch case of cla.s.sified material from the king of Sweden he absolutely had to have scanned and transmitted right then so he could get it back before anybody'd noticed it was gone? And he had to be fed and given a fresh horse, I might add.

"Fortunately at that point dear baby woke up, wanted to be fed, so Magdalena retired to the next room while I apologized and ran the Facilitator back to Diego's room where the doc.u.ment scanner is, left him there to figure out where everything was, it was all so rush-rush I didn't even catch his name, and ran back to bring Magdalena her gin and sit down with her.

"We'd each had time for a sip, and Magdalena was just beginning to tell me about what Susanna over in the Jodenbreestrat told her about the play she saw-and down the stairs came Lievens in a panic to hiss in my ear because he'd run out of stabilizer for the lost Purcell score he was getting ready to seal up in one of his cabinets so it could be rediscovered in 2217 AD, and he had to have more right then because the cabinet was scheduled to be s.h.i.+pped to Scotland in three days. So I had to apologize to Magdalena and ask her to hold that thought, run back to Diego's room and ask the Facilitator to let me edge by him while I transmitted an emergency request to Eurobase One for a drum of stabilizer to be sent by express flight so it could arrive in time.

"Then I had to edge back past the Facilitator and my hoops knocked off his papers where he had them stacked, poor man, and I had to apologize and help him pick them up before I could run back and sit down with Magdalena, and she'd just got to the juicy part of this play-will you hand me that paring knife, dear? Thanks-when there's another knocking on the door.

"So, I apologized again, profusely, to Magdalena but fortunately baby needed a change at this point, so she busied herself with that while I went see who was at the door, and it was Hayas.h.i.+ from Edobase, standing there on the doorstep in full j.a.panese costume feeling terribly conspicuous. Apparently there'd been an accident with his trunk! And he wanted to know if I could get him a change of clothes and a spare field kit before his s.h.i.+p put out again?

"So I hurried him back through the house and thank G.o.d Magdalena didn't look up from baby's mess or she'd have seen a samurai complete with sword tiptoeing past the doorway! And the only person in the house who had spare clothes Hayas.h.i.+'s size was Eliphal, who was just coming down the stairs on his way out the door to one of those minyan things, but they ran like mad back upstairs and I ran back in to Magdalena, and I needed another gin by this time, I can tell you.