The Children of the Company Part 25

I don't feel like that, of course. It's not their fault. Capable of such wonderful things, too. But I know some immortals who think ...

Oh, G.o.d and Saint Mikhail, what if one of us ... what if Labienus ...

h.e.l.lo, Dunya. h.e.l.lo, Sima. You want me to come out there to you? Isn't this enough for you, that I'm down here under the water with you at last? And I'm with you to stay, I think. I don't believe I'm ever coming up again, not now. I stumbled on something I shouldn't have seen.

But I won't go out to you. The black smoker's so dirty. Dark and wet and dirty. It's burying me under dirty little secrets and soon not even you will be able to get to me, with your reproachful faces, not even my friend the worm will be able to help me.

Oh, but that makes you angry, how Papa's eyes flash, and he's lifting his giant hand and it's coming down now with the bloodstone ring on his knuckle and it will do more than black my eye this time, I'm sure ... but it's not the bloodstone after all, it's become an aquamarine. How strange, and what a beautiful color the stone is!

I can't take my eyes off its pure light and in fact I'm floating up toward it now, I've been accidentally netted. They're dragging me through the shallows, because the wreck wasn't deep. Now I've left the rotting hulk down there below me but I shouldn't be here, should I? Here where I first met my beloved? What's gone wrong with time?

Yet I bob up into the bright air. I behold a lovely picture, the water and the sky so blue and the lateen sails like old parchment, and golden cliffs in the distance, and very surprised black faces regarding me from the deck of the fis.h.i.+ng boat.

I struggle free of the net but it's a mistake, because the water's claiming me again, I'm plummeting back down into depths of sea the color of Spanish gla.s.s. No! I'll swim, I'll make my way to the sh.o.r.e because I know she's coming to meet me, she's heard my distress signal. I must meet her, up there in the sunlight.

I blunder up out of the surf, soaked and sick and exhausted, but it's all right because I see her now. Nan! On a long curve of golden sand, under swaying palms, seated in majesty on the tallest camel I've ever seen, the tiny G.o.ddess carved of blackest jet. My Queen of the Night with her eyes like desert stars, veiled in a blue that puts the sky to shame. She extends her little hand to me. I reach, and reach, but I can't seem to pull free of the water, my legs are like lead, and in my ears ever louder is the roar of breakers on the Moroccan coast.

FOUR.

2225.

FATHER OF PESTILENCE.

The office has changed.

The credenza on the desk has a sleek post-postmodern look. The furniture matches it in style, everything ergonomically correct, in the bright primary colors of the first half of the twenty-third century. Labienus likes to move with the times. As far as it is possible to dress elegantly in that particular era, he is elegantly dressed.

He is frowning as he gazes out the window at his wilderness.

It has not quite the pristine splendor that it had. There is not that lucent quality to the air that there was; particulate matter from air pollution has found its way farther north than even the Yukon. There are a great many more skeletal silver trees in his line of sight than there used to be, and many trees nominally alive but tipped with brown needles. Contrails stripe the sky. Satellites cross it at night. No more than a century ago, he had looked up from his work one morning just as a grinning s...o...b..arder waved at him from the other side of his window. A small and well-aimed missile disposed of the mortal; but, really, the annoyance!

It is not this that causes Labienus to frown, however.

The air pollution has been worse than at present, and is diminis.h.i.+ng yearly. Likewise the aircraft; and as for the mortals, their birth rate has been steadily dropping for a century now. This is particularly unfortunate (for them) in light of the pandemics that have been sweeping the world population with increasing frequency since the beginning of the twentieth century. Influenza, AIDS, Ebola 3, the Sattes virus ...

Labienus is pondering the Sattes experiment.

"No good deed goes unpunished," he murmurs to himself. Kalugin had been handily disposed of, but the Sattes virus had not been what he would call an unqualified triumph. So much for a gesture of filial piety! They'd tried Budu's preferred method of a quick directed kill at last, and what had happened? They'd drawn attention to the operation. Much too obvious.

True, the body count had been impressive. All the same, conspiracy theorists everywhere had pointed fingers at the blatant pattern in the disease's progress, its unsubtle choice of victims. Thank the G.o.ds most of the suspicion had been s.h.i.+fted onto the Church of G.o.d-A, but the fact that even a lump like Kalugin had been able to figure out what was really going on was clear evidence that selective culls would never have worked as a long-term strategy.

What a pity Budu hadn't been there to witness it! Would he have been baffled? Angry? Apologetic?

It was fun to imagine, yet Labienus knew the truth: the old monster would have refused to change his methods. He simply hadn't a human mind. He'd have pushed straight on winnowing the unrighteous from the righteous by degrees of wickedness, playing Ten Little Indians on a global scale, and sooner than later it would have all come out. Not that Labienus feared anything the mortal masters could do in retaliation; but Aegeus and his people would have objected to the complete extinction of the mortals (too useful!), and they had real weapons in reserve.

So it was just as well Budu remained where Victor had left him, buried under tons of rubble in San Francisco. More than likely in two or three pieces, too. Labienus smiles.

That was pure Victor, that touch, sending in the tong members with hatchets. Spiteful, but coldly effective, too.

He wonders again why Victor has delayed stepping in and consoling Kalugin's wife, with whom he is so comically smitten. Another generous gesture on Labienus's part, getting the husband out of the way, and what good has it done?

But perhaps he's drawing out the luxury of conquest. Victor is methodical in his pleasures. Exquisite taste and iron resolve coupled with that venomous temperament ... really a pity he wasn't brought all the way in sooner. Everything ripens in its own time, however.

Labienus turns his attention to a minor problem that has been niggling for his attention. His sources have been reporting excruciatingly detailed and frequent attempts, by a low-level Preserver drone, to access cla.s.sified data.

The data concerns Project Adonai. The drone in question is, of all people, Literature Preservation Specialist Grade Three Lewis.

Labienus knits his brows. Project Adonai has been defunct for centuries, more's the pity. Nennius has promised to advise him if it is ever reactivated.

So what the deuce is a Literature Preservation drone doing, poking his silly nose into the matter of an obscure British spy who died in 1863? Not once has he attempted to find out anything about h.o.m.o umbratilis, as might be expected from his unfortunate history. Why Bell-Fairfax, instead?

Standard procedure is to draw the operative in by dangling more information before him, luring him into a trap, and Labienus duly composes a memo giving the order to follow procedure. He fires it off to Nennius. As he waits for confirmation, the thought drifts into Labienus's mind: for a comparative nonent.i.ty, Lewis has been a.s.sociated with far too many cla.s.sified matters ...

Is it possible that Nennius's favorite a.s.sa.s.sin can be employed, from beyond the grave, to claim another victim?

Something about the idea warms Labienus's heart. He glances up at the locked cabinet where the red file still sits, though its contents have long since been transferred to disk. He has been reluctant to consign the hard copy to a fusion hopper; Nicholas's portrait is an original work of art, after all. And how could he part with those meticulous mission reports in Edward's elegant copperplate script, such a painstaking list of horrifying deeds committed with the n.o.blest possible intentions? Labienus chuckles, imagining a tall spectral figure rising from the dust, advancing implacably on Lewis ...

"Vae victis," he says cheerily. Sacrifices, always sacrifices to keep the world rolling in its profitable orbit ...

A call comes in on the secured channel. Labienus lifts the amplifier-no more than a twist of silver wire now, like a piece of modern art-from its cradle, and slips it on.

Labienus, he transmits.

Nennius. Ave. Just got your memo about the Literature drone. How the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l did you hear the news before I did?

Labienus is startled, but covers his wave of confusion.

I have my ways. Still, I'd like a fuller report from you.

Well, did you hear why Lewis had to run?

My sources were a bit sketchy on that, Labienus admits blandly, wondering what has happened. Details, please.

Apparently some nests of h.o.m.o sapiens umbratilis evaded us. They've been out there all this while, hiding. They found Lewis again!

I knew that, Labienus prevaricates. But- You'll never believe this. The d.a.m.ned kobolds have been hunting for him since he ran into them in Ireland.

But it's been nearly two millennia! Labienus remembers the illuminated pages, the uncials switching from Gaelic to Latin and back again. What had the umbratilis Prince threatened? That if it took them years, they'd still get Lewis back?

They're incompetent but they have long memories, it seems. And they hold a grudge. Blew his cover and chased him from London to Dieppe, before he got away last night. Aegeus's people have had their hands full dealing with the mortal witnesses.

Labienus begins to grin incredulously. The things want him that badly, do they? I wonder if they're more talented than our in-house idiots?

There is a silence on the ether. He can almost feel the shock waves as his meaning gets across to Nennius. Then there is wild laughter.

Do you suppose they'd be willing to cut a deal?

What do you suppose they'd give us for him?

Beyond the gla.s.s of his window, something momentarily distracts Labienus. A lost hiker, emaciated, bearded, filthy, his parka in rags, has climbed to the window ledge and is staring inward in disbelief. He presses his palms to the gla.s.s, uncertain whether or not he is hallucinating but desperately sincere in his silent plea for help.

Labienus exhales in annoyance and reaches over to flip a switch. With the release of a powerful spring under the ledge, the mortal is launched, screaming, into midair. He tumbles end over end into the rocky chasm beyond, and drops from sight.

Focusing again, Labienus transmits: I wonder if by any chance they could be persuaded to do us a favor in return?

You never mean ...

Wouldn't it be nice to have a permanent way to get rid of our rivals, when 2355 comes at last? We can smash the masters like insects, but Aegeus won't go down without a fight. To say nothing of mortal-loving idiots like Suleyman.

You brilliant b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Thank you.

If the little cretins haven't yet found a silver bullet, perhaps they can experiment on Lewis to make one.

We can suggest it.

And then it's only a matter of delivering the merchandise to them ...

All the more reason to bait a trap for him. What did you think of my suggestion about luring him in with a false lead on Adonai?

Could be useful. Why on earth is the idiot snooping around a black project?

That's for you to find out.

Very well. You know, Adonai's still running.

Are you sure?

I still get the updates once a month, reminding me to search for a host mother. They don't seem to realize that a stunt like that's a good deal harder to pull off in this day and age than it was in 1825.

Or 1525. But a third boy ... Think of the uses we could find for him, in these modern times! Perhaps something truly worthy of his talents.

I suppose I could arrange for some hapless girl to dream she's been abducted by aliens and implanted with a s.p.a.ce hybrid ...

They both roar with laughter, booming through the ether like static. Labienus dances without getting out of his chair, an elbows-out buck and wing.

Do let me know if anything is ever done. Vale.

Vale, Labienus.

Labienus puts down the amplifier and lounges back in his chair, still smiling broadly. His thoughts return to Victor ...

MESSIS VERO CONSUMMATIO SAECULI EST.

I first saw the boy through the wavering light of a flame; rather ironic, as things turned out.

It was in a pleasant suburban villa out beyond the Vondelpark. We'd had to leave the car a good distance off and walk, Labienus and I, because so many people had already arrived for the party. The night was clear for early December, with a black sky full of stars, and the red windows of the house looked warm and inviting. As we drew near we could smell the fragrances of a midwinter celebration: evergreens, spices, mulled wine.

"How festive," remarked Labienus, smiling. "If only they knew, eh?"

I found his remark in the worst of taste under the circ.u.mstances, but I smiled back. Labienus is very much my superior in rank, however much I dislike him.

And he had told me, after all, to play this lightly, for my own emotional health; stress levels would be reduced if I resolutely put gory details out of my mind. I wasn't even being told everything about the job. Better that way.

The door was already open as we came to the bottom of the steps, for our hostess was welcoming in a young couple and their child. Anna Karremans was a plain smiling woman in her mid-forties. Her guests edged past her into the hall, and she stood gazing down at us expectantly as we started up the steps.

Yes, that was the first unnerving moment, for me: the mortal woman seemed to be standing in the open mouth of an oven, smiling as an inferno blazed behind her. But it was only the scarlet light of the holiday decorations, after all, and it was a gentle heat that flowed down on our cold faces.

"Michel Labeck," Anna exclaimed, recognizing Labienus. "Oh, we were beginning to be afraid you'd had an accident!"

"Not at all, Dr. Karremans," Labienus greeted her, and his smile widened as he stepped up to the door and took her hand. "I wouldn't let an accident derail a media event like this one! And the party does seem to be proceeding successfully," he added, looking in through the hall at something I was unable to see.

"They're all here," she leaned forward to tell him in an undertone. "All the journalists. Everyone on the list you gave me. You're a miracle worker, Michel."

"Not at all," he told her, still smiling, and beckoned me forward. "But I've kept another promise: here's the a.s.sistant Doss and Waters has sent you. Nils Victor. Nils, this is Dr. Anna Karremans."

"Delighted, madam." I bowed slightly and attempted to smile.

"How nice to meet you," she exclaimed. "Oh, but you look so serious! Not to say half frozen. Please, come in, let me take your coats-"

So I entered the mortal woman's house, and stood in her bright hall looking in at the party.

Yes, there were plenty of journalists in evidence. I recognized several from the Amsterdam Wire and the global Wires, too. There were a number of kameramen, but they were all unplugged; so far as they knew, yet, there was nothing to See. No, they stood in small groups chatting, like the other mortals, helping themselves from the buffet or admiring the Yule tree, or gathering about the piano to argue over the lyrics to the new Yule songs. Ranks of real candles were burning on the buffet table, long red tapers in bright-painted wooden candlesticks, quite old-fas.h.i.+oned and charming in a rural sort of way. It might have been a room from the twentieth century, or the nineteenth.