The Children of the Company Part 15

It is the latest thing in field technology, a crude mechanism which compensates for its crudeness by a wealth of ornamental detail. Gold vines and flowers twine over its surface of gleaming black wax. It looks almost, but not quite, like a Victrola hooked up to a candlestick telephone. There is a headset, of sorts. He slips it on.

Ave! He recognizes the voice at once. It is Nennius, sounding quietly gleeful.

Ave. Executive Section Head for the Northwest- Yes, yes, I know it's you! Listen to me. How many stones does it take to kill a large fat self-important bird with delusions of grandeur?

If he's immortal, there aren't enough stones in the world, Labienus replies. But I'd still like to get Aegeus with a good sharp one, right between the eyes. You've had a stroke of luck?

An unbelievable stroke of luck, transmits Nennius. How quickly can you come to Bucharest?

What the h.e.l.l are you doing in Bucharest?

Attending a street fair. You remember the old green house next door to the Unirii Square HQ? It's a cafe now. I'll look for you there in twelve hours.

Lesser immortals would be obliged to hike south to the nearest seaport, book pa.s.sage on a s.h.i.+p as far as Panama, disembark and take a train across the isthmus, travel by s.h.i.+p again across the Atlantic to France, there to travel east, arriving eventually by a series of unreliable stage connections in Romania. Facilitator Generals, however, merely hop a transpolar flight, touching down at a Company transport station in the Carpathians, and enjoy a leisurely ride in a nicely appointed private coach.

Being considerably older and wickeder than any vampires, werewolves, or mysterious blue flames that might dare to cross his path, Labienus arrives unmolested at the Unirii Square HQ, precisely twelve hours after having received Nennius's call.

Nennius is sitting at a street table, looking expectant. A waiter has just set down two gla.s.ses of slivovitz.

"Have a seat," says Nennius, reaching into an inner pocket. As Labienus sits, he tosses a field photograph on the table.

Labienus stares. He lifts his gla.s.s, with elaborate unconcern, and takes a long slow drink before permitting himself to reach for the photograph.

The image before him is of a small mortal man.

The mortal wears the coa.r.s.e uniform of some inst.i.tution, and his big head has been shaved. His slender hands were in the act of rising to his face when the shutter snapped, his weak mouth opening in protest as he turned from the camera. His eyes are wide, dark, wet, blind-looking. Labienus is irresistibly reminded of the little figure in The Scream.

Nennius tosses another photograph on the table.

Here is a formal studio portrait: the mortal is wearing a suit now, though it is a badly-fitting one, and he has closed his eyes against the camera flash. He has a curiously inanimate appearance, like a corpse or a waxwork that has been dressed up.

"h.o.m.o umbratilis," murmurs Labienus. "Who is he? How did you get him?"

"His name is Emil Bergwurm," says Nennius. "And I haven't got him. We do want him, though, don't we?"

"Yes," says Labienus. "Our own tiny freak of genius? Oh, yes. What do we have to do to get him?"

"Take him away from Amaunet," says Nennius.

Labienus says something so unpleasant that were it written down, in the ancient pictographs of its own language, the little symbols would smoke and snake and spit venom on clay tablet or papyrus.

"It's not as bad as all that," Nennius says hastily. "She's keeping him a secret from Aegeus. You asked me to have her monitored; well, I got word she bribed the director of the lunatic asylum here, three years ago. When I investigated, this is what I found."

"How do you know she hasn't s.h.i.+pped the thing off to the Cevennes?" Labienus demands.

"Perhaps you'd better come and see for yourself," says Nennius They leave without paying for their drinks. The waiter watches them go, sadly. He is uncertain exactly what variety of stregoi they might be, those two sneering gentlemen; but he knows it is as much as his life is worth, to demand payment of something with that particular cold and glaring eye.

Nennius leads and Labienus paces close after him through the narrow streets. Blind cobbled alleys, deepset doors, handsbreadth windows behind which one candle gives faint light, and even the light has a certain quality of gloom, as though it were no more than gold paint on an interior. Night and fog come down.

When they emerge on the open field where the fair has been, any sense of festivity has long departed. Vendors are taking down their booths by lantern light, dropping tent poles. The menagerie has already hauled its wagons into the night, leaving only a reek of exotic manure. But at the far edge of the field, one place is still doing business, still has its banner out on a tall leaning pole. MOTHER AEGYPT, the sign reads. There are two wagons behind the sign, taller and narrower than the vardas of the Romanies. They are painted black.

How frightening, Labienus transmits. What's next? Bats swooping out of the mist?

No. The rats haven't finished yet, Nennius responds, nodding at the patient mortals who wait in a line that stretches from darkness into the circle of lamplight before the lead wagon's door. Their impa.s.sive faces are turned up to the light. They are hard men, all but the last, who seems to be a peasant woman.

These aren't here to have their fortunes told, guesses Labienus.

Of course not. They're thieves. They bring stolen goods to her; she pays them handsomely, and forwards the loot on to Dr. Zeus. Jewelry, porcelain, plate. It'd be stolen in any case, and this way it won't be melted down or hacked apart. Everyone wins! Except the rightful owners, of course, but that can't be helped.

Ah. The usual story. Shall we take our place in line with the other thieves? They stroll across the dark field, and step into line behind the woman. As the queue progresses forward, they can hear murmured conversation, the clink of coin. There is surprisingly little talk, no haggling at all. One by one the thieves emerge from the caravan, each face lit for a second by the lantern over the door, and each face bearing the same expression of profound relief to be gone from Mother Aegypt.

The mortal woman is the last to go in. She alone bears no loot. Three minutes later she emerges, and her square heavy face is white as paper.

"Didn't you like your fortune?" inquires Labienus.

"She told me I am dying," the woman whispers.

"Why, so you are," says Nennius. "But don't you believe in eternal life? You must have perfect faith!"

The woman looks at him, and looks at Labienus. With a shudder she makes the sign of the Cross, and hurries away from them.

Dead silence from the wagon.

"So much for surprising her," says Labienus. "Let's pay a call, shall we?"

They step up, and go in.

Stifling warmth and all the perfumes of Arabia, myrrh and frankincense and spices to make the eyes water. Amaunet looks up at them sharply, from the cheap folding table at which she does business.

She gives the impression of great age. Her skin is smooth, but seven millennia of contempt and despair look out of her eyes, and her dark face could cut diamond.

"h.e.l.lo, Amaunet," says Labienus. "Can you tell our fortunes?"

Her lip curls. "You'll get what's coming to you, in the year 2355," she says. "How about that?"

Labienus chuckles, and closes the door behind him. He lounges there, blocking the exit, and Nennius moves to lounge in turn in front of the one window. This is all largely psychological, of course, because Amaunet could exit straight through a wall if she chose, but a threat is a threat.

"You've been playing a double game, haven't you?" Labienus says. "I don't imagine Aegeus would be happy to learn you've kept a secret from him."

"What do you want?" asks Amaunet.

"Emil Bergwurm."

Amaunet closes her eyes. "h.e.l.l," she says. The logic is inescapable: two immortals can overpower one, and even were she to escape them, she'd be unable to take her prize with her.

"You'd better tell us the whole story," Labienus says.

She opens her eyes and looks at him in a way that makes even Nennius flinch, but he just grins at her.

"My slave choked to death on a chicken head. I went to the nearest asylum to buy another. Imagine my surprise when I found Emil," she says.

"Does he cost you much in chicken heads?"

"No. He does other tricks."

"Such as?"

"Magic potions." She smiles now, and it is more frightening than her expression of anger. "That's his little streak of genius, you see. Not machines; chemistry. If the mortals need to abort a child or poison a spouse, little Emil can fix them up with something tasteless, odorless, and untraceable. He's useless at anything else, but now I make double my operating budget from the elixirs I sell."

"And that's why you've kept him from Aegeus?" Labienus takes out a silver case, withdraws a stick of Theobromos. He offers the case to Amaunet. She hesitates a long moment, then takes a stick herself.

"Partly." She peels back the silver paper. "I've had him working on a project of my own, if you must know."

"The Holy Grail, I suppose," says Nennius, and Amaunet nods sadly. She has been trying to die for five thousand years.

"Once a month, he brings me the black cup.You'd be amazed at how close he's come; his last batch stopped my heart for five minutes. The d.a.m.ned thing started up again, alas, since it's as stupid as he is."

"I'll make you a promise," says Labienus. "If we can get him to produce an elixir of death that works on an immortal, we'll send you a bottle."

"How chivalrous of you," she says, leaning back. "Theobromos and promises, my my. You must want something else. And what do you need with my poor little maggot-baby, anyway? You don't long for the grave, not an ambitious b.a.s.t.a.r.d like you."

"Why, Amaunet, it's elementary! My rival has a fabulous weapon, so of course I want one just like it. That's been the rule of the game since the monkeys discovered fire. And if you betrayed Aegeus once, I'm certainly curious to know whether you'll betray him again," says Labienus.

"Don't count on it," says Amaunet with a snarl. "I haven't forgotten Carthage, Labienus."

He shrugs. "I wouldn't respect you if you had. But we're planning our endgames now, dear Amaunet. I love cleansing fire; you know how well. What will Aegeus do, if he seizes power in 2355? Make the world a vast extension of Eurobase One? Pink carpets and gilded chandeliers! Think of all those immortal gourmands and lechers and esthetes, battening on the monkeys like so many vampires. What will you do in that world, lady?"

Amaunet just looks at him.

"Bring me what I long for, and I'll show you," she says.

He laughs, and rises to his feet. "Why don't you introduce us to little Emil?"

She nods at her narrow bed, which is on a long chest built into the caravan's wall. "Introduce yourselves. He's under there. He likes the dark."

Nennius thrusts the mattress back and opens the side of the chest. There is a shrill scream. Emil Bergwurm curls away from the light, hiding his face. Labienus leans down to smile at him.

"Come out, little man! I've work for you to do." He begins to chortle. "Nothing matters except our work, you know."

Even Amaunet laughs at that.

In the end they have to haul him out bodily, and he squeals and fights until they shut him in a fake mummy case Amaunet has had propped in the corner. They take their leave of Amaunet. Labienus walks with the case tucked under his arm, like a devil carrying off a soul.

"That went rather well, really," says Nennius.

"Didn't it, though?" says Labienus cheerfully. He has already thought of a use for Emil Bergwurm.

TWO.

1906.

SON OBSERVE THE TIME.

On the eve of destruction we had oysters and Champagne.

Don't suppose for a moment that we had any desire to lord it over the poor mortals of San Francisco, in that month of April in that year of 1906; but things weren't going to be so gracious there again for a long while, and we felt an urge to fortify ourselves against the work we were to do.

London before the Great Fire, Delhi before the Mutiny, even Chicago-I was there and I can tell you, it requires a great deal of mental and emotional self-discipline to live side by side with mortals in a Salvage Zone. You must look, daily, into the smiling faces of those who are to lose all, and walk beside them in the knowledge that nothing you can do will affect their fates. Even the most prosaic of places has a sort of haunted glory at such times; judge then how it looked to us, that gilded fantastical b.u.t.terfly of a city, quite unprepared for its approaching holocaust.

The place was made even queerer by the fact that there were so many Company operatives there at the time. The very ether hummed with our transmissions. In any street you might have seen us dismounting from carriages or the occasional automobile, we immortal gentlemen tipping our derbies to the ladies, our immortal ladies responding with a graceful inclination of their picture hats, smiling as we met each others'terrified eyes. We dined at the Palace and as guests at n.o.b Hill mansions; promenaded in Golden Gate Park, drove out to Ocean Beach, attended the theater and everywhere saw the pale, set faces of our own kind, busy with their own particular preparations against what was to come.

Some of us had less pleasant places to go. I was grateful that I was not required to brave the Chinese labyrinth by Waverly Place, but my a.s.sociate Pan had certain business there amongst the Celestials. I myself was obliged to venture, too many times, into the boardinghouses south of Market Street. Beneath the Fly Trap was a Company safe house and HQ; we'd meet there sometimes, Pan and I, at the end of a long day in our respective ghettoes, and we'd sit shaking together over a brace of stiff whiskeys. Thus heartened, it was time for a costume change: dock laborer into gentleman for me, coolie into cook for him, and so home by cable car.

I lodged in two rooms on Bush Street. I will not say I slept there; one does not rest well on the edge of the maelstrom. But it was a place to keep one's trunk, and to operate the Company credenza necessary for facilitating the missions of those operatives whose case officer I was. Salvaging is a terribly complicated affair, requiring as it does that one hide in history's shadow until the last possible moment before s.n.a.t.c.hing one's quarry from its preordained doom. One must be organized and thoroughly coordinated; and timing is everything.

On the morning of the tenth of April I was working there, sending a progress report, when there came a brisk knock at my door. Such was my concentration that I was momentarily unmindful of the fact that I had no mortal servants to answer it. When I heard the impatient tapping of a small foot on the step, I hastened to the door.

I admitted Nan D'Arraignee, one of our Art Preservation specialists. She is an operative of West African origin with exquisite features, slender and slight as a doll carved of ebony. I had worked with her briefly near the end of the previous century. She is quite the most beautiful woman I have ever known, and happily married to another immortal, a century before I ever laid eyes on her. Timing, alas, is everything.

"Victor." She nodded. "Charming to see you again."

"Do come in." I bowed her into my parlor, acutely conscious of its disarray. Her bright gaze took in the wrinkled laundry cast aside on the divan, the clutter of unwashed teacups, the half-eaten oyster loaf on the credenza console, six empty sauteme bottles, and one smudgily thumb-printed winegla.s.s. She was far too courteous to say anything, naturally, and occupied herself with the task of removing her gloves.

"I must apologize for the condition of the place," I stammered. "My duties have kept me out a good deal." I swept a copy of the Examiner from a chair. "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you." She took the seat and perched there, hands folded neatly over her gloves and handbag. I pulled over another chair, intensely irritated at my clumsiness.

"I trust your work goes well?" I inquired, for there is of course no point in asking one of us if we are well. "And, er, Kalugin's? Or has he been a.s.signed elsewhere?"

"He's been a.s.signed to Marine Transport, as a matter of fact," she told me, smiling involuntarily. "We are to meet on the Thunderer afterward. I am so pleased! He's been in the Bering Sea for two years, and I've missed him dreadfully."

"Ah," I said. "How pleasant, then, to have something to look forward to in the midst of all this ..."