The Children of the Company Part 7

"Sir, I confess myself to be utterly baffled," I said, sitting down abruptly. My movement drew the little girl's attention-apparently she wasn't blind-and she came wafting toward us, waving her poppies our way. I found myself drawing back, hating the thought of her touching me, and felt prompt shame. "These are genetic defectives! Certainly not fit for the immortality process. They're useless even as servants. What are they doing here?"

"Genetic defectives," Aegeus repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, you'd think so, on first glance. And if I told you that they are, in fact, very far from being defective? That they represent a new and improved strain of what they are?"

"You'd confuse me even further."

"Good lad! You're learning never to lie to a superior. You've earned another morsel of knowledge reserved for Facilitators alone, Victor. Observe little Fallon. You're not seeing him at his best today-he doesn't care for the outdoors much-so I dare say you'd be rather surprised to see his playroom.

"Fallon has all manner of wonderful toys there. There's a clockwork galley full of tiny manikins who actually make its oars move. There's an orange tree in a pot, in whose branches blossoms burst forth, wither, and are replaced by fruit, which is small and green and then expands, only to wither and be replaced by buds once more-and all worked by a device so subtle it's beyond my comprehension. There's a camera obscura, though it seems to work in reverse somehow.

"Fallon doesn't play with his marvelous toys, you understand. He doesn't quite comprehend play. He made them."

"I see, sir," I said, thinking I did. "What might be called an idiot savant."

"Not at all." Aegeus held out his hands to Maeve, who had come to the edge of the gra.s.s and stopped there, pacing back and forth in her slow dance, trailing her flowers and watching him out of the corner of her eye. What a smile now lit her face, as she accepted his invitation and stepped forward, crossing some magic line that had forbidden her to venture onto the pavement until bid. The poppies fell, forgotten; she took Aegeus's hands in both her own and pressed her mouth into his palms, one kiss and then another kiss.

"Pretty Maeve shows such promise, I'm sure she'll be a great lady some day," Aegeus told her. "Shan't she? With so many fine clothes, and a garden full of flowers, and lovers and lovers to pick them for her. Maeve is so wise and good. Though she doesn't make clever toys like Fallon, does she?"

The tiny creature's expression changed at that. Her upper lip drew back from her teeth-they were barely visible, the faintest dots of pearl in her colorless mouth. I realized she was looking disdainful. Then she spoke, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Fallon makes toys for me," she told us, in a voice like a silver flute.

"Does he indeed, my treasure?" said Aegeus.

"He does. I tell him, and he makes them. He will do anything if I tell him."

"You see how it is, Victor?" her cheek fondly. "The little girl gives the orders, the little boy obeys them. If she took it into her sweet head to order him to fly, why, he would! He'd devise some brilliantly simple mechanism neither you nor I might have thought of in a thousand years, perfect and immortal creatures though we are. Isn't that so, pretty Maeve?"

But she'd lost interest in what he'd been saying; she was staring away enraptured at the pattern of sunlight and leaf shadows on the garden wall. Aegeus let go of her hands and she drifted away from us, lifting the hem of her gown as she went, her slow dance resumed. She found her way to the wall and danced for the shadows a while, and then fell to running her fingertips over the stones, tracing their pattern under the pattern of light and shadow.

"These aren't human children, are they?" I stated.

"Oddly enough, they are," Aegeus told me, watching Maeve. "Rather more human than you or I, my young friend, given what we are. Not a kind of human one sees often, however, in spite of the fact that they've always existed. Certainly not h.o.m.o sapiens sapiens. These creatures are on the order of hybrids, actually. I believe the designation that's been decided on is h.o.m.o sapiens umbratilis."

Man of the shadows? I'd have been fascinated, were I not so repelled.

"We got the genetic material in Ireland," Aegeus explained. "Ten years ago. A distress call came in from a disabled operative, in a place called Malinmhor. We went in to pick him up for repair, and what a mess we found!"

"Lewis?"

Aegeus nodded. "So badly wrecked he'd been unable to help himself. The local monks had had to rescue him, for heaven's sake. The burning question of the hour, of course, was: who on earth could have done such damage to one of us?

"We made it our business to find out pretty d.a.m.ned quickly, as you can imagine. It seemed the holy monks weren't the only mortals who had a community at Malinmhor! There were creatures living in a warren nearby. Some sort of fantastically inbred mortal family, as near as we could tell. Quite subhuman, stunted physically and emotionally. Their brains were so far from normal that ordinary solutions to problems were quite beyond them, but they'd developed a remarkably sophisticated technology to compensate.

"And they knew about us." Aegeus smiled. "At least, they had created a disrupter field to protect themselves against cyborgs. Lewis blundered into it when he ventured inside their hill with one of the monks. Bad luck for him, but not necessarily for us."

"I see, sir," I exclaimed. "He led us to an exploitable resource!"

"Precisely," said Aegeus, smiling. "You've got an Executive's grasp of the situation, I'm pleased to observe. Waste nothing! Though of course we had to wipe them out. No one damages Company property, even a lowly Preserver, with impunity. But we helped ourselves to their genetic material first, and then we set a grand breeding experiment in motion."

A grossly illegal one, but it certainly wasn't my place to say so. We Facilitators are frequently obliged to weigh the greater good against mere regulations, or so it had been explained to me.

"The first pair we got died, poor little things. I think we very nearly have the mix right now. Sapiens enough to communicate with-Maeve at least-and umbratilis enough to provide us with certain opportunities. And what's that proverb-? 'Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer'? Look at this, Victor, look what she can do."

Aegeus pointed at the girl, who had turned to the boy and fixed him with an imperious stare. Though he could not have seen her-he had his hands still pressed to his eyes-he turned in her direction like a blind worm. Slowly, clumsily, he got to his feet and came to her side, groping with his hands out before him, keeping his eyes tight shut and his head turned from the sun. He looked like a new-hatched bird, with his pinched face and sealed eyelids.

Impatient with his slow advance, she seized his hand and yanked him closer. He stumbled forward and b.u.mped his head against the wall. She paid that no notice, but pressed his fingertips to the stones, trying to make him feel the pattern as she had done. No use; he opened his virtually toothless mouth and wailed, and I was startled to hear the quite human-sounding crying of a hurt child.

"Oh, dear, he's b.u.mped his little head. Let him alone, now, Maeve, beauty," said Aegeus. He went to them and picked up the boy, who curled into his shoulder to hide his face. Something about his movement was horribly like a grub burying itself in earth. "Poor Fallon. He needs to go back inside. Come along, pretty girl."

Maeve had been staring blankly at us, but as soon as Aegeus extended his hand she took it, smiling. He walked away, leading her and carrying the boy, for all the world like a loving father and his two children. I followed after a moment, thoroughly unnerved.

"You've taken this very well, young Victor," Aegeus told me. "No less than I'd have expected of you, however. You understand that this is all highly cla.s.sified?"

"Of course, sir."

"Of course. Now, having said that-" Aegeus gave me a shrewd look over Fallon's bowed head. "Just how much does the unfortunate Lewis remember about his accident?"

"Almost nothing, sir," I replied.

"Very good," said Aegeus. "Very good."

I need hardly say that I was tremendously flattered at being made party to such secrets, though I had bad dreams that night, and for many others, wherein dreadful pale children came and stood beside my bed. Aegeus must be grooming me for some powerful inner cabal, surely! I decided to curl my mustaches after all, when they grew in sufficiently.

"Good morning, Lewis." I announced myself after peering around the frame of the door to be certain he was awake. He was indeed; he'd pushed back a tray of half-finished breakfast and was staring fixedly at an access code plaquette. I could see the flas.h.i.+ng green letters reflecting in his eyes as he integrated at high speed. "Catching up on current events, are you? I trust you slept well?"

"Yes, thank you." Lewis shut off the flow of codes and looked up at me. "Victor. No problem with new memories! I don't suppose you've been able to learn anything?"

Nothing I had any intention of telling him about. I smiled apologetically and held out the clothes. "What about a bit of fresh air and exercise?"

"That's a splendid idea," he said with genuine enthusiasm, and climbed out of bed and dressed himself without further prompting from me. Wasn't he game? Just the sort of mild-mannered chap to obey all Company directives. A good fellow, but nothing more than a Preserver, after all.

"I wonder if it might be possible to interview the rescue team that brought me in?" he inquired as we made our way up to Level Three.

"Not a bad idea," I conceded. "Of course, it's been ten years; I should think it might take a while to track them all down. Now, we'll start you on the Cletes Reflexive at primary speed, if you feel up to it."

"By all means," he said as we stepped out of the lift, so readily I wondered if he remembered what the Cletes Reflexive was.

The testing ground wouldn't give him any clue, if he'd forgotten. It looked like a pleasant formal garden laid out within an immense greenhouse, with flowers and statuary, fountains and paths. It was barricaded with iron bars to a height of fifteen feet all around, and locked securely; but nearly every year some foolish mortal servant trespa.s.sed, to his brief regret.

I pressed my palm to the via plate and the gate swung open. Lewis and I stepped in upon the square of white paving where the Reflexive began. "You're quite comfortable with this, old fellow?" I questioned. To my eyes he looked rather nervous, but he grinned and flexed his arms.

"Can't wait! Set 'em up."

So I reached into the top of the hollow post that rose from the pavement, and set the speed at primary. There was a click and the faintest humming noise, quite inaudible I suppose to a mortal. Lewis cleared his throat.

"Let's see, shall I give my memory a test, too? Something from Homer, I think." Lewis stepped out into the gravel pathway and proceeded along it warily as he recited: "'Ogygia is an island lying far out at sea, where the daughter of Atlas dwells-'" He sprang aside neatly as a spear came hurtling up through the gravel, sure impalement for anyone with duller senses. He paced on. "'-crafty Calypso, a fair-haired, powerful G.o.ddess. Her no one visits, neither G.o.d-'" He ducked, avoiding the discus-bearing bronze that spun on its base to strike at him. "'-nor mortal man; but hapless me some heavenly power brought to her hearth, and all alone-'" He leaped from the path and balanced along a row of iron spear-points set beside the way, swift and sure from point to point, a painful walk but the only alternative to treading on the mines concealed on that section of the path. "'-for Zeus with a gleaming bolt smote my swift s.h.i.+p-'" "Springing nimbly down he threw himself flat on the path, narrowly avoiding the steel dart a frowning G.o.d spat at him. "'-and wrecked it in the middle of the wine-dark sea!'"

He crawled the next few meters, for golden flowers on either side of the path tilted their trumpet-throats and sent jets of acid arching clean across. As he crawled, he continued indefatigably: "'There all the rest of my good comrades perished, but I myself caught in my arms the keel of my curved s.h.i.+p-'" He scrambled to his feet as soon as it was safe, and dodged the stone post that came bas.h.i.+ng across the path. "'-and drifted for nine days.'"

An espaliered tree let fall a little crimson fruit, which rolled down the embankment to fall at his feet. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and flung it from him, reciting: "'Upon the tenth, in the dark night-'"There was a bright flash and detonation from the far end of the greenhouse. "'-G.o.ds brought me to the island of Ogygia, where dwells Calypso-'" He paused at the edge of the pretty meandering stream, just long enough to crouch and spring into the air, some ten feet above the inviting stepping-stones. From the shadowy water beneath them great eels darted up in frustration, following Lewis with their dead eyes.

He landed safely on the opposite bank and went on: "'-the fair-haired, powerful G.o.ddess. Receiving me, she loved and cherished me-'" He began to sprint now, past the inviting bench that would have tipped him backward into a pit. "'And often said that she would make me an immortal-'" Whirling automata rose from the lilies beside the path, armored figures bearing razor-edged scythes, and the last ten meters of his journey were an intricate dance at tremendous speed through their zone of hazard. "'-young forever!'" Unshredded, he somersaulted through the air and landed beside me again.

"Not bad," I told him, comparing his time to the optimum score. "Care to try it again on intermediate?"

He improved time on the second round, giving me some of the Elder Edda, and went on to advanced with a bit of second-rate stuff by Ausonius.

"Though frankly Ausonius is rather second-rate at his best," Lewis admitted, cras.h.i.+ng to the pavement as he completed the third round. "Nice enough fellow, as I remember, but the muses kept their distance."

"You remember Ausonius?" I inquired, unlocking the gate.

"Yes! Quite clearly. Beautiful estate in Gaul. He quite knew how to entertain a guest, even if he couldn't write an original line to save his life." Lewis followed me out and I led him down the hall to the sauna. "I remember Ausonius, I remember everything. Except what happened in Ireland. Didn't the Company send in investigators? In ten years I'd have thought they'd have found out something, talked to people at least. I remember monks and nuns they might have interviewed-"

His questions were certainly good ones, just what I'd have been asking myself if by some unthinkable chance I were in his position. A distraction was in order ... I watched his face sidelong as we pa.s.sed the door to the gymnasium baths and kept going.

"Excuse me, but wasn't that the door we wanted?" He pointed back along the hall, slight panic in his eyes. Was this another hole in his memory? I grinned and threw open the door to the executive baths.

"Well, old man, if you like-but I thought you'd enjoy a bit of rarefied atmosphere, after what you've been through." I strutted into the deluxe bathing accommodations reserved for Facilitators and their guests. Lewis stepped across the threshold after me and stared.

"I don't remember this," he said, taking in the bathing grotto with its elaborate mosaics in porphyry, in gold and semiprecious stones. The attendant mortals hurried forward to disrobe us-I suppose they got rather bored in there all day, with so few of us to wait on-and in short order we were being steamed, splashed, and scrubbed with fragrant oils. For some little while there was no conversation other than groans of pleasure. I couldn't imagine a drone got an experience like this very often, and Lewis certainly seemed to be enjoying it to the fullest.

Though he did look over at me during our third soak in perfumed waters, when the servants had temporarily retired for fresh towels, and murmured: "Please understand that I don't want to complain, but-is this really appropriate? Having mortals wait on us this way?"

"They're enjoying it!" I scoffed. "Can you imagine what they'd be doing if they weren't working here? Starving, most likely. Scratching out a living on miserable little stony farms and dying young."

"I suppose so," Lewis agreed reluctantly. "But, you know, it never used to be the policy-we're their servants, really, not the other way around."

"Exactly, and we work a good deal harder for them than they do for us," I explained to him, as though he weren't my senior by a good four centuries. But I outranked him, you see, and I thought that gave me insights that might never have occurred to one of his cla.s.s.Yet I was merely parroting Aegeus as I went on: "After all, our lives are dedicated to preserving the best of their world for them, all their art and literature, and occasionally even their wretched mortal selves. Don't we deserve a little luxury?"

"This is rather a lot of luxury," Lewis observed, as the fresh scrubbing team came on duty: a pair of mortal girls, identical twins, looking flushed and lovely in exceedingly brief cotton tunics. Aegeus had personally selected them for the sauna, and I couldn't resist a smirk as Lewis's eyes widened at the effect.

"I think, on the whole, that this old place has seen some distinct improvements during Aegeus's administration," I said judiciously, looking up one brief tunic as my maiden came to swathe me in a towel and lead me to the ma.s.sage table. "Worked wonders, hasn't he? Took a great rambling old training compound, and transformed it with grace notes for all the senses."

But Lewis wasn't listening, had actually engaged his girl in conversation, in her own language.

"You don't mind this work, child?" he wanted to know!

"I know nothing but happiness, my lord," she replied in the hushed tones the mortals were encouraged to use. But she dimpled at him, and I had the jealous fancy that Lewis got the pleasanter and more thorough ma.s.sage that afternoon. There was just possibly a bit of edge to my voice when I inquired, as we went on after we'd been dressed: "Does any of this seem to have helped your memory?"

"Not much, I'm afraid." Lewis looked apologetic. "I've been in awe. This is all quite a contrast to what I remember of Ireland."

"Well, you were out in the freezing peat bogs, among monks," I pointed out. "Living in cells like flint beehives! No wonder this place-" But he had stopped, staring at me, or through me, with a haunted expression.

"Beehives, yes," he muttered. "Hives. Termite mounds. Oh, what was it? The brothers in their hives and the ... d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n. Something almost in my mind. I can't get it clear."

"That's bound to be a good sign," I said encouragingly, making a mental note to go straight to Aegeus. "Perhaps your access channels are attempting to reroute."

I changed the subject and saw him to his room, where I left him, promising to return next day for a stroll around the perimeter of the grounds.

Aegeus's private rooms were what one would expect of the brilliant and sophisticated administrator that he was, magnificently furnished. Clearly, becoming an administrator was the goal to be striven for.

Mere field personnel seldom acquired enough personal possessions to adorn a private retreat, and even if they did, they were generally on the move so much it was scarcely worth getting them out of storage. Might I have a cla.s.sic bronze like that one day, or that fine Samian ware at just such a table, with its carved griffin-legs? To say nothing of that wardrobe!

"Sir." I inclined in the informal bow that was appropriate for the occasion.

"Victor." He waved me in, looking up from his desk. "Sit, please, sit. Tell me how the poor Literature drone is coming along. Any sign of his memory coming back?"

"I'm afraid something seems to be surfacing," I answered.

"Really? What a shame." Aegeus reached for his penknife and began to cut a new quill thoughtfully, slicing away at the shaft with sharp, precise strokes. "Something to do with the programming the Literature operatives get, I suppose. His brain won't stop trying to tell the story ... and sooner or later he'll access the file where we locked it away."

I felt a slight chill at this, but tried to sound every inch the competent underling as I said with a.s.surance: "I'll simply see to it that he never manages, sir."

Aegeus kept his eyes on the pen he was cutting.

"Will you? Good lad.You'll find what you need in here." He gestured with his knife at a tiny box next to his inkwell, a lovely thing, a miniature chest banded with silver and semiprecious stones. I reached forward and lifted its lid. There was nothing inside but a sealed phial of opaque gla.s.s. Drawing it out, I said: "And this would be ... ?"

Aegeus frowned at his pen. "Something to wipe his memory again, of course. Derived from Theobromos, if you must know! You'll administer it at the first sign of trouble. He may resist; you'll do whatever's necessary."

I sat there speechless a moment. Aegeus lifted his eyes to mine.

"You have qualms? Natural enough. It must seem perilously close to what the mortal monkeys do to one another."

He was correct, though I'd never have said so much aloud, and there was still more: I had been taught, always, that our immortal brains are perfect and inviolable. The mortal soul is an illusion, but our eternal consciousness is surely its nearest approximation. That the Company would force one of us to give up some part of himself ... The horror must have been evident in my face. Aegeus leaned forward and spoke in a low voice.

"Now, young man, we'll see what you're made of. You've been shown something cla.s.sified, and you understand its importance to the Company. You've had ample opportunity to observe what a comparative nonent.i.ty is Literature Preservation Specialist Lewis. You've been given a task, an unpleasant one certainly, but undeniably necessary, and well within your abilities. So much depends on what you do next, young Victor."

He waved his pen in a general sort of way at the splendid room wherein we sat. "A future like mine, in rooms like these, isn't that what you'd like? It's certainly what the Company has had in mind for you, ever since that bright day when your apt.i.tude testing indicated you were Executive material. I can't think for a minute you've any intention of throwing away that future. You weren't given immortal life to spend it down there wading in muck amongst the mortals. That's for talentless little Preserver drones-who'll never miss a memory they'd only find disturbing, after all."

"I shall manage the matter to your satisfaction, sir," I a.s.sured Aegeus. He smiled.

"See that you do," he told me.

"I thought we'd go more easily today," I informed Lewis next morning. "Just the stroll around the grounds, and then another session in the baths, eh?"

"Yes, thanks." Lewis accepted the fine cloak I'd brought for him-even in summer, the Cevennes can be chilly-and followed me down the hall with alacrity. "I woke up this morning and realized I'd been dreaming of sunlight, and that was when it occurred to me I haven't seen it in ten years! It feels positively unnatural. Do I look pale?"

"Not at all," I said tactfully. We climbed the staircase to the exterior portal and I activated the panel. A moment later we stepped out onto the mountainside, to a wide view of heath and stony ranges. Lewis's face brightened at once. He drew in a deep breath of air. "You're a nature enthusiast, I gather?" I said.

"Not particularly," he admitted. "But even the middle of nowhere has a certain savor, when you've been out of commission as long as I have. Look at this! Rabbit tracks. Birds. Smoke at fifteen kilometers-that's a village of mortals, isn't it? It's, let's see, it's early summer-they're haymaking down there, can you smell it? And there are cattle pastured over there, somewhere, and I can smell apple orchards. Chestnut trees. Ah!" He rubbed his hands together and started forward, his cloak trailing after him through the brush. I followed dubiously.

"We ought to go no farther than the perimeter," I said. "I thought we'd walk along the edge to the gate and go back in through the quadrangle. There are some really exquisite pleasure gardens concealed back here-"

"Oh, by all means." Lewis stopped and allowed me to take the lead. "I'd love to see a fountain again. Never in my life imagined I could be so hungry for sheer sensation! Do you suppose we can arrange to go out tonight? What on earth will the stars look like to me now?"

"Do things really seem so different?" I asked, eyeing him as he strode along beside me. He looked different in the sunlight, certainly. His pale features had lit up with warmth and color, his eyes shone.

"Yes, absolutely," he told me. "It must be the near-death experience. You wouldn't have any idea how long it'll be before I'm given another posting, would you?"