The Children of the Company Part 8

"The Company will want to be sure you've fully recovered," I told him, rather peevishly, because we had just come to the pavilion gate and he was failing to react to the grand spectacle of the pleasure gardens. But he was only a drone, after all, wasn't he? "I should think you'd be in no hurry to go back down there. Not when you've got the run of all this."

I waved an arm at the expanse of perfect lawn, the fragrant stepped terraces of flowers arranged in subtle gradations of height and shade, white through cream pink through deepest rose, the trees artfully clipped and trained to render each one the flawless expression of an artist's conception of a tree. And Lewis was old enough to remember the cla.s.sical world, and so surely he could appreciate the statuary that rose in graceful postures here and there! Extravagant pa.s.sion in tones of snow, masterworks by Praxiteles that had never known defacement by mortal vandals, having been bought new from the master himself and s.h.i.+pped straight here to this garden from his studio . Really, what drab mortal place could compare?

Lewis hastened into the garden after me then, and made a point of exclaiming over everything I showed him. But why on Earth should I have tried to impress him? Why should I have any regard for the opinions of a miserable little scuttler after scrolls and codices? Did I need further proof he was beneath my concern, when the poor fool was eager to go down amongst the monkeys again and resume his work? Bargaining with savages for their inky and imperfect knowledge!

As Lewis was widening his eyes in polite appreciation of a particularly fine group representing the Three Graces honoring some dictator or other, I had a sudden inspiration.

"Of course, this is nothing, compared with the library," I remarked casually.

"Splendid collection," Lewis agreed. "I remember it well."

"Ah, but not the New Wing, I don't think," I told him slyly. "There have been some improvements in recent years. You'll remember the old electronic stuff, I dare say. Aegeus has made a few interesting acquisitions for us. Would you care for a look at the originals of Aristotle's Treatises?"

Yes! Now I'd got his attention. Lewis turned around to stare at me in such haste he nearly tottered on his long cloak.

"The originals?" he gasped. "You're never talking about the books Theophrastus left to Neleus? The ones Faustus sold to pay his gambling debts?"

"The very same," I told him smugly. "The complete set, I need hardly add. They were in wretched shape, of course, but we've had them restored-perhaps you'd like to give us your opinion of the job we've done?"

"I should say I would," Lewis cried, and nearly raced me the whole way to the library.

I was gratified to watch his astonishment, confronted with Aegeus's work. The library that Lewis remembered was a rather chilly place, dull banks of electronic storage with a few plain work terminals and interface consoles. Not a cozy room, or one that invited lingering.

Ah, but Aegeus's new wing opened out of the old like a blossom out of a dry gray stem. Through paneled doors one stepped into the beautifully climate-controlled chamber beyond, jewel-toned, richly carpeted and indirectly lit, hung with tapestries that Aegeus had had specially commissioned by masters, celebrating the literary glory of the cla.s.sical world. There were plenty of inviting little nooks, well cus.h.i.+oned, in which one might curl up with a scroll some Preserver like Lewis had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the conflagration of time. There were graceful Roman bronzes depicting the Nine Muses ranged along the wall of terminals and consoles, where one could pull information out of the depths of the sea-blue screens like a supplicant coaxing an oracle to speak.

But it was the wide gla.s.s case along the eastern wall that was the glory. Safely displayed there were the treasured texts, works known to mortal scholars only by paraphrase, but possessed by us in their entirety! The complete poems of Archilochus and of Sappho, all one hundred twenty-three plays of Sophocles (mortals had been able to keep only seven!), Theophrastus's General History of Science and-the very jewel in the crown-the complete works of Aristotle himself, the lost ma.n.u.scripts that had pa.s.sed through so many tragicomical adventures before disappearing from mortal ken forever in a cheap little shop in first-century Rome.

Lewis stood staring, taking in the beauty, the elegance, the rarity. Inexorably he was drawn to the cabinet at last, as though it were exerting a magnetic force. There he pressed his palms against the gla.s.s and looked down at what was, after all, just so much brittle old paper.

"Oh," he said quietly. Good G.o.ds, I thought to myself, is the man crying?

A mortal servant had risen to his feet, and came close now with an inquiring look. I turned and crooked a finger at him.

"Fetch up a siphon and some of the thirty-year-old single malt, if you please. Or-no! Let's have wine for the occasion. I think a bottle of Falernian would be appropriate, don't you? Or perhaps Valpolicella?" But Lewis wasn't listening to me. "Bring both," I told the servant, who bowed and sped away in silence.

I am afraid I was swaggering, as I joined him at the cabinet and entered the code to unlock it. "Shall we see what the old boy had to say?" I suggested.

"Oh, but they're nearly a thousand years old," Lewis gasped, actually wiping away a tear. "We shouldn't, really-"

"Nonsense. They've been stabilized long since. Here we go!" I drew out one of the nasty old things and unrolled it on the reading table for his perusal, under the soft light of a shaded lamp. He bent over it like some priest over an altar, biting his knuckles.

"Rather a nice prize, wouldn't you say?" I said smugly. "This was Hieron's work-have you met him? Very good man in your line, handles the Mediterranean acquisitions."

"Oh, how I wish I'd been stationed down there," Lewis moaned, finally giving in to irresistible impulse and reaching out to touch the scroll. "Look at this. Aristotle's observations on Egyptian technology!" He began to read avidly, and I realized I'd lost my audience again. I sank back onto one of the couches to wait impatiently until the mortal returned bearing our wine.

I sampled both carafes and decided on the Valpolicella. At my nod, the servant filled our cups. Lewis was too immersed in the scroll to notice. He chuckled suddenly and read aloud, in the original Greek: "'This art of flight is said to have been present in Egypt from the time of Horus, and I am a.s.sured that the priests conceal detailed charts for travel between the stars, which the kings of the former time steered between as mere men followed the course of the river; though none now have understanding of the sacred texts.'" Lewis looked up, grinning, and noticed the servant standing there offering him a cup of wine. In fact, the mortal had been rather craning his head to read over Lewis's shoulder. When he noticed this, what should Lewis do but step aside with a gesture of invitation!

"Please, it's hilarious," he said, smiling. "Do you read Greek?"

"Oh, yes, my lord," the mortal replied, hastening to peer at the scroll.

"Then you'll appreciate the joke. Though you've probably seen it a dozen times!" Lewis looked wistful. "I can't tell you how much I envy you, working here. I'd just start at one end of the case and read my way through."

The mortal looked up a little nervously. "Well-I would, my lord, if I were allowed to open the case."

Lewis's jaw dropped. "You mean you can't?"

"Of course he can't," I told Lewis crossly, sipping my wine. "None of the mortals have clearance to handle anything this valuable. They're mortals, after all. Left to themselves, they ruin anything they touch. Isn't that so?" I demanded of the servant. He lowered his eyes and murmured: "Unfortunately so, my lord."

Lewis stood there speechless a moment before he drew himself up and set his chin. "But Aristotle himself was a mortal," he told the servant! "I think you can be trusted to read this text a little while, don't you, without tearing it or chewing on it?"

"I would never do such a thing, my lord," the servant a.s.sured him. "I was trained in library science."

"Well then." Lewis pulled out a chair for him. "Please, sit and read."

I'm not certain who was more shocked, the servant or myself; but after a frozen moment the mortal hastened to obey, as Lewis took his wine and carried it to the cus.h.i.+ons next to mine. His eyes were angry.

I must protest against this policy, he transmitted in silence. Why shouldn't they be allowed to read their own books? Aren't we preserving these things for THEM, after all?

Old fellow, you must understand, I replied as casually as I could. He's a good enough creature-and one of ours, of course-but you've been down among them yourself. You know the villainy of which they're capable. Destructive little Barbary apes for the most part, and human intelligence only makes them worse. How many libraries have you seen burned in your time?

But the mortals built the libraries, too, argued Lewis, sipping his wine. I was at least pleased to note that he stopped and inhaled the bouquet before taking another, more appreciative sip. It takes thousands of them to create an archive of human wisdom; only one to set a torch to it. Wouldn't you have to say, then, that the work of the librarians is more typical of mortal behavior than the work of the arsonist?

I really didn't know what to say. This was absolutely the last sort of talk I'd expect to hear coming from someone who'd nearly been murdered by the little brutes.

Well, you've known more of them than I have, I conceded. Doubtless you've some insight I lack. I wouldn't want to leave even that one alone with the scroll, though. What do you want to bet he'd slip out of here and run down the mountain with it, if there were no alarms? He knows it's valuable. He'd sell it in a second if he had the chance.

Lewis shook his head impatiently. You don't understand. We all know why they're driven to thievery. But I can tell you from experience that mortals love their literature. When I was in Ireland, Eogan- "Eogan," Lewis cried aloud. "That was his name! That was the monk I was working with-and the abbess sent us out to the hollow hill, after the fair folk. I thought it was all absurd, I had no idea-" He turned to me. "I'm accessing the blocked files now. We'll have to find Eogan, if he's still alive. He was there with me, we went into the hill and actually found them-and-he got me out afterward, when they ..." He fell silent. Cold sweat broke out on his brow. The gla.s.s vial was in my hand, unseen.

"Perhaps you'd better not-" I began, when all h.e.l.l broke loose, and from a completely unexpected quarter.

A section of wall to my left began to move. Seeing it out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a draft moving the tapestry at first; then I realized that the tapestry wasn't there any more, or at least that part of it wasn't. A rather t.i.tillating depiction of Sappho and her companions had vanished in a pattern of light, and the edges all around it curled up. For a moment one could glimpse the plaster of the wall behind, illuminated by the same pattern of light, as though the wall were outdoors and slanting beams of sunlight were playing through leaf-shadows on it. There came a rumbling like far-off thunder.

Then the plaster had gone, and one saw the stone and mortar underneath. Then it all dissolved, like mist, and two small figures came walking through. The girl strode confidently, the boy groped hesitantly after, though his great blank eyes were open now. They were both naked.

To be precise, this was the actual moment when pandemonium erupted. Lewis leaped to his feet. The girl looked down, noticed that she was naked, and screamed shrilly. The mortal servant caught up the volume of Aristotle, and ran for the cabinet with it. Only after he'd thrust it inside and shut the cabinet did he take to his heels in the direction of the door, nearly bowling over Aegeus, who was entering in some haste.

"My dress," Maeve shrieked. "My pretty dress! You stupid, stupid Fallon!"

She flew at the boy and began to beat him with her tiny fists. He dropped the exceedingly odd device he had been carrying and cringed, putting up his hands to protect his head.

"Not supposed to make my dress go away," Maeve wept. "Just the wall! You bad boy, bad boy!"

"Now, now," exhorted Aegeus, bearing down on them. "Naughty Maeve! Look, you've drawn blood on poor Fallon. Stop this at once." He caught her hands. "It's bad to go out of your room without asking. You've been told and told! It's bad to hurt Fallon, too. You know he was only trying to make you happy."

"But he lost my pretty dress," wailed the child.

"Silly girl, we'll get you another," Aegeus a.s.sured her. "Twice as nice and ten times as pretty, shall we? Sweet little Maeve." He lifted her in his arms.

She sniffled and nodded, subsiding, and Aegeus now had leisure to notice Lewis.

Lewis hadn't made a sound, but had backed up as far as he could go and was flattened against the cabinets, as though Aristotle and Theophrastus would somehow protect him. He couldn't take his horrified eyes off the children. Aegeus considered him coldly. The hair stood on the back of my neck as though I were a mortal creature, I couldn't have told you why. But- "Oh, dear," was all Aegeus said.

Lewis lifted his gaze to Aegeus. He no longer looked frightened. There was wrath in his face, and bleak understanding. He said, very quietly: "What have you done?"

"Poor Lewis," said Aegeus. "You've remembered a great deal too much, haven't you? And now you'll have bad dreams again, when we've worked so hard to make them go away." He sighed heavily and looked at me. "Victor, Lewis has had a nasty shock. Fix him a drink."

No need to tell me twice. I poured out another cup of Valpolicella, dispensing the vial's contents into it with a gesture so clumsily concealed Lewis had surely noticed, had he been able to pay attention to anything but the two horrible children and their protector. I brought the cup to him. Not even looking at it, he raised it to his lips and gulped the wine down.

He didn't bother to scan first. Why should he? He was among his own people, wasn't he? Safe on a Company base, not amongst savages.

He set down the cup and looked across at Aegeus again, saying in tones of accusation-unbelievable nerve, to Aegeus!-"They're hybrids, aren't they? This is forbidden!"

Aegeus didn't bother to reply, but the coldness in his face set and froze. Lewis looked down at the boy curled into himself on the floor, at the girl who had forgotten her anger and was staring, fascinated, at the Roman bronzes. She pointed imperiously.

"Fallon," she ordered, "make them dance for me."

Opening his eyes, wide and liquid as a rabbit's, the boy got painfully to his hands and knees.

"Poor things," Lewis gasped. "They don't know what you-"

Then he stiffened and turned to me, terrible question in his eyes. I braced myself, expecting an a.s.sault; but he staggered forward and fell, and lay like something discarded on the fine deep carpet.

"Pity," said Aegeus. "Now we've got it all to do again, I suppose."

"I thought-" I stared down at Lewis, who was neither moving nor, so far as I could tell, breathing. "I thought we were simply going to block his memory again."

"To be sure. He's got to be deactivated first, you see?" Aegeus turned Maeve's face to his own. "Leave the old statues alone, dear."

"Yes, sir," I found myself saying. "What will happen to him now?"

"Oh, back to the tank, for further erasure." Aegeus stepped forward and looked down at Lewis's sprawled body critically. "I wonder how much we'll have to obliterate this time. I must take greater care my little monkeys stay in their cage, in future." He said this teasingly to Maeve, who dimpled. "Pretty Maeve, can you make Fallon build you something to take away bad dreams? This poor fellow has such bad dreams. You'd like to help him, wouldn't you?"

"No," she said impishly. "I want a new dress." Aegeus laughed at that and she laughed, too, like the tiniest silver bell. The boy was still crawling toward the Roman bronzes, staring up at them with his enormous black eyes.

Labienus turns the page. The next section is a transcript of an interview, one of his own private intelligence forays. What a wreck the old mortal had been, knotted with age, what an old mud-colored thing with his white hair and his network of wrinkles! Unsettlingly like a chimpanzee. He'd had all his wits about him, at least.

I will tell you about Maeve.

Me, you wouldn't be interested in, for there is nothing extraordinary about my life. My mother had been shamed, was about to drown herself in the Loire when one of the immortal lords spotted her and offered her his protection. This was just before Justinian became emperor of Byzantium, I think, in the time the mortal men reckoned the sixth century after the birth of Christ.

But my mother's savior was about the usual business of the immortals who work for their Company, which is to walk among mortals and preserve fine and rare things that would otherwise be destroyed by them. The lords and ladies do this, as I understand, because there will come a day in the distant future when men will need the things they have wasted. In that hour the Company will be able to open its strongholds and come to mankind's rescue, showering down its harvest of their treasures. Who could find fault with such benign masters? Especially as their mercy does not extend to things alone; they save people, too.

Anyway, the mortal girl came with the lord to this mountain, to this ancient stronghold that the immortals call Eurobase One: and some weeks later she died giving birth to me, for she was not strong.

I was strong, but I was not perfect as a child must be perfect to be given eternal life. They were very kind to me anyway, the immortal lords and ladies. I've never lacked anything, never gone hungry a day in my life! I was lucky that I could live with them, and not with the ignorant savages in the mortal world down the mountain.

And they gave some thought to my future, too: I was apprenticed to old Claude, who was an artist, a genius, master of gardens without peer. The lords and ladies themselves said it was a thousand pities he couldn't be made immortal, but mortal and aging he was. So I was given to him, to climb the high ladders and prune where he directed, and to kneel for hours on the cold earth, planting out hyacinth bulbs where he pointed with his stick. He taught me his art. I was very grateful.

But I don't know where Maeve came from.

I was sixteen when I saw her first, the little creature with the hair like moonlight. She had got into the pergola somehow, though the gate was locked, and she had tugged her feeble brother after her. They were in there making a mess of the pomegranates, pulling them from the espaliers, bowling them around and breaking them open, scattering the red beads without even tasting them. It was their tiny crazy laughter that called us.

Old Claude was so angry with them, he lost all sense; he was especially proud of those trees. He advanced on them howling curses, waving his stick. The children stopped, staring at him, but they did not run as sensible children would. The boy cowered and sank down, hiding his face, covering his big blind-looking eyes. The girl remained on her feet. She looked at Claude with no fear at all, though his stick was whistling in the air and his eyes were starting out of his head in wrath.

He kept coming, and when I saw that she would not move I ran to put myself between them. I crouched over her and Claude's stick came whistling down on my back. That only made him more angry, and he beat me with all the strength of his old arm. I didn't mind; I have a strong back. I said, "Master, the little girl is mad! She didn't know it was wrong."

I was mistaken to think this would make him stop belaboring me, because he got in three more good blows before we heard one of the lords laughing.

"Stop! Stop, if you please, worthy Master Claude," he called, striding down the walk toward us.

It was the lord Aegeus, still chuckling as he surveyed the ruin all about us, the broken branches, broken fruit. The child ran to him and buried her face in his cloak, and he swept her up in his arms, where she looked at us disdainfully.

I knelt at once, but Claude remained on his feet. He took liberties; the lords and ladies allowed it because he was an artist. His back was stiff with his anger. His jowls were flushed red with it. He clasped his shaking hands on the k.n.o.b of his stick and stared at Lord Aegeus in silence, so that the lord had to speak first.

"Worthy master, my apologies," said the lord, smiling. He knit his brows at the little girl, pretending to be stern with her. He said, "Naughty Maeve! Look what you've done now. Did you spoil this pretty garden?"

And she said, "Oh, no!" though her tiny hands were pink with the juice, and that was the only color to her skin anywhere. She looked like a ghost, she was so white.

Claude made a sharp noise in his throat. I looked over at the little boy, who was still trembling where he lay.

The lord said, "You didn't? Who was it, then?" And she pointed her finger at the boy and said, "It was Fallon!"

The lord looked as though he wanted to laugh afresh, but he bit his lips and then he said: "Now, you know that's not true. Poor Fallon doesn't do things unless you tell him to do them. You're the one always getting into mischief, little fairy! I want you to apologize to our dear Master Claude for all this mess."

She dimpled and said, "No!" and Claude shouted: "Most divine Lord, never in seventy-five years of faithful service have I seen such wanton vandalism!" and Lord Aegeus looked at him rather coldly as he said: "Sadly true, Master, for everyone knows the young people of today have no respect for their elders. I can a.s.sure you that this child will not misbehave here again, however. Calm yourself! Your boy will clean everything up." And his gaze turned to me and he said, "Rise, boy. And, please, accept my thanks for moving so quickly! My poor cherubs would have broken like eggsh.e.l.l if your master had landed a blow."

I rose awkwardly and ducked my head in acknowledgment of the lord's thanks. I wondered, how could they be his children? The lords and ladies do not beget their own kind, I knew that. They take mortal children and give them immortal life, if the children are sufficiently perfect. But the girl and boy did not look like any mortal children I had ever seen. They were so little and pale, and their eyes were so big.

Anyway Lord Aegeus carried them away, and I cleaned up the mess they'd made.

I saw her sometimes now and then, over the next few years. Sometimes the boy would be with her, though less and less as time went on. There were rumors that he was a genius of some kind, but he never looked well.

She grew up very quickly, and not in the way of being tall, if you know what I mean; she looked like a woman within a few years, with high little b.r.e.a.s.t.s filling out the bodice of her gown. She would wade through the beds of annuals picking big bunches of flowers, which drove Claude to distraction, but now that he was aware she was a special favorite of Lord Aegeus he knew better than to complain.

Maybe it was keeping his anger to himself that did for him at last, because he had a stroke when I was twenty. After that I was Head Gardener, and won the t.i.tle of Master when I devised the three-level topiary walk for the north slope.

The lords and ladies were enchanted with it. They love beautiful things, and they respect artists. Master Simeon by the age of twenty-two! I had all I could ask for in life.

And then I was given more.

When I was summoned to Lord Aegeus's study, I thought he had some request to make relative to my art, maybe for a new kind of rose or rare fruit. They like such things, the lords and ladies. Lord Aegeus was seated by the fire in his study, and across from him in another chair sat his a.s.sistant, the lord Victor. Lord Victor was young as immortals go, not really much older than me, and he looked younger already.

Well, they waved me to a third chair. I sat hesitantly, and another mortal stepped forward and poured wine for me, the same wine the lords themselves were drinking. I thought to myself, This is what it is to be an artist! and I bowed respectfully over my cup and said, "Thank you, divine Lord."

Lord Aegeus said, "Quite welcome," with a wave of dismissal. He was staring at me in an a.s.sessing kind of way, and so was the other lord. I kept a humble silence, as Claude had kept his insolent silences, and it worked: Lord Aegeus cleared his throat and said at last, "Well! You've certainly grown into a st.u.r.dy fellow since that day in the pergola. You were only Master Claude's boy then. And you're the master yourself now, are you not? What's your name?"

I told him it was Simeon and he laughed out loud, and the Lord Victor smiled thinly. Lord Aegeus said: "Simeon! That's appropriate, I must say! Up in the treetops all the time, and as hairy as a monkey, too! But come, don't take offense. All your tests show you're a supremely healthy young simian, and quite a bright one at that."