Sky Coyote (5 page)

“Well …” I bit the end off a croissant and chewed slowly, giving myself time to come up with an answer. “It wasn’t all like that, you know. There was a lot of garbage and disease and starvation, too. Maybe that’s it, you know, sir? You see the bad with the good long enough, and by the time a change comes, you’re ready to welcome it. No more gilded carriages in the streets, but no more crippled beggars either. Sometimes it’s a good idea for weeds to cover a place.”

“I see your point.” Houbert looked disappointed. “But in that case, there’s really no analogy possible, is there? For of course we have no crippled beggars here. No ugliness, no injustice, no hunger. Only perfection. No reason for the hypothetical gods to take their revenge on us.”

I nodded and stuffed the rest of the croissant in my mouth, but I thought privately that I’d seen some perfect pleasure gardens go up in flames too, and sometimes it seemed like a good idea at the time. Not that I’ve ever been the one with the torch, of course. That’s not my job; I’m what Dr. Zeus used to call a Preserver, not an Enforcer. But, then, nowadays nobody even remembers that there ever were Enforcers, except for really old operatives like me.

“I suppose one learns not to care,” mused Houbert, spreading
mango jam on a helping of teosinte polenta. “After all, however many palace revolutions one flees, there’s always another palace somewhere. For us, at least. The charm of the new continually soothing away regret for the old. Do you not find it so?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“And of course we immortals must above all things cultivate our sense of enchantment.” Houbert spooned a massive glob into his mouth, and jam dripped into his beard. One of the Mayans deftly and immediately napkined him. “That’s one of the things, the
truly
important things I’ve been endeavoring to impart to our little colleague here. Life is ours, eternally; whether a gift or a curse is largely up to our own efforts. Boredom is a dreadful thing to carry through the centuries. One must preserve one’s sense of wonder at life. One must make it a grand continual game, full of rapture, revelry, and surprises.”

He had a point there. You do have to play certain mind games to keep from going nuts. A good sex life helps, too.

“Your problem, sir, if I may speak plainly,” said Latif, “is that you don’t have enough real work to do.”

“Child, child, how can you understand?” My god, tears were actually standing in Houbert’s eyes. “There is
endless
work to do. But if you don’t find a way to make it delightful, what do you face but ages upon ages of drudgery? We must retain the freshness and capacity for enjoyment of childhood—qualities that, I regret to say, you do not seem to possess in any great quantity.”

Maybe watching his mother die in chains had something to do with it. Latif snorted and tossed a bit of javelina sausage to the piranhas, who made it vanish.

“And you really must learn to appreciate these things, child, or life will be the dullest eternity of bread and water you can
imagine. If you
can
imagine,” Houbert pleaded. “Nobody can face eternity without dreams.”

Actually dreams can be a problem, but I didn’t feel I should butt in at this point, because, except for the raving excess, I agreed with Houbert. It’s just that not everybody has to prance around in a perpetual Disneyland to have a good time, and when you enforce whimsy with an iron hand, nobody enjoys it.

“Well, sir, I’m doing my best to understand you,” Latif told him. “I’m wearing the costume. I play the games. What you don’t seem to get is that I’ve got a
purpose
here. Purpose can be fun, too. I’ve had plenty of style, but I’d like some substance now, thank you. I want to learn about managing people. I want to learn about command decisions. Okay? I now know how to arrange a diplomatic banquet and brunch for a real live field agent who’s actually been out in reality and done things with it. I know all about providing my subordinates with magic and mystery and fun. It’s the problems I want to learn about.”

“My child, my child, won’t you find out about the problems soon enough?” Houbert raised his hands to heaven. The Mayans misunderstood his gesture and stepped in with hot towels, one for either hand. “But I know what it is. You’re young. And who is so impatient to be perfect as a youthful operative, still in the process of sloughing off his imperfect mortal flesh? Look at you, your augmentations have barely begun, and yet you can’t wait to leave your flawed humanity behind. So eager to be the perfect machine! If you’d only listen,
this
old machine could warn you that the day will come when you’ll learn to savor that humanity. Playfulness, irrationality, sheer nonsense for nonsense’s sake lend a dimension to life we immortals need, need desperately. How else can we endure the centuries rolling over our heads and the horrors they bring?”

“Baloney,” muttered Latif.

“Well, he can’t really appreciate your point, sir, because there aren’t any horrors here, are there? There aren’t even any problems.” I took on the voice of reason. “This is a five-star vacation resort compared with some other places I’ve been, kid. You’ll get your chance to wade in trouble up to your neck, believe me. Enjoy the hot showers and the flush toilets while you’ve got ‘em, because for the next two hundred years or so they’ll be few and far between. Take your time. God knows you’ve got time.”

“When we stop playing, we die emotionally,” sniffled Houbert, waving away Mayans.

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d agree with that.” I looked at Latif. “But take your fun while you can get it, that’s what I always say. Your friend Suleyman, for example. Boy, the laughs we had in the souk at Fes! He had complete control of the political situation the whole time, dispatching reports and coordinating intelligence, but did he neglect to hang out by the pool in the evening with a couple of cold ones and a good book? Nope. You learn what you like, and you make sure you always have enough of it, so you can work as hard as the Company needs you to.”

“He reads?” Latif asked in an offhand way. “I wonder what he likes to read.”

“Poetry,” I informed him. He looked shocked. “No, seriously. I mean, what would he want with adventure stories? With
his
life? And philosophy is mostly crap when you live forever. No, he likes great poetry.”

“You see?” Houbert cried. “What is life without poetry?” Latif ignored him, but I could tell he was thinking about it. I looked at the Mayan waiters.

“What do you think, guys?” I inquired. It was their turn to look shocked. After a moment’s hesitation, the one with the most green plumes in his headdress spoke.

“Well—we think the Son of Heaven must, in every respect, agree with the Father of Heaven.”

“Oh, I do. But what do
you
think? You think all this pleasure chasing and show business and incense is a good idea?”

“Of course. You’re gods. These things are fitting for You.”

Boy, if the front-office mortals in the twenty-fourth century could hear this.

“You think maybe we ought to tone down our style a little? Live more like you do?”

“Why would You want to, Son of Heaven?” The Mayan looked appalled. “Look how pleasant it is here. Can You imagine any of us wanting to go back and live in the world of men? We were made to live in blood and flames and shit. We have escaped these things because we were Your chosen ones, and we would very much prefer to stay here with You. But if You were to go down to that other world and suffer as men do … what kind of god would do a thing like that? It’s not appropriate behavior, You see.”

“But a god might have work to do there,” pointed out Latif. “Important work, like running things. Anyway, you don’t really believe we’re your old gods, do you?”

“Certainly.” The Mayan looked faintly offended. “You may not resemble the gods we were led to expect, but You neither age nor die, You reside in the ancient places of our fathers, and You work miracles on a daily basis. That is quite close enough for us. Miserable wretches that we are, we take pride in knowing that we serve such splendid masters. The Father of Heaven always takes great care to behave in a suitably godly way, and I could only wish some of His children would follow His example a little more.”

“Thank you, best of slaves.” Houbert sighed happily and clasped his hands together on his stomach. “You see, child?
They
understand. We require pomp and circumstance. We require pageantry and ritual. There is a certain touching beauty in the way mortals instinctively grasp this about us when we ourselves deny it.”

Latif’s response was brief, explicit, and to the point. I looked brightly from one to the other; I hadn’t enjoyed brunch like this in a long time. Houbert winced profoundly. He turned to me, pointedly ignoring his apprentice.

“Well, here’s a perquisite of divinity you won’t turn down, I daresay.” He gestured hypnotically, and a drop-dead gorgeous Mayanette came gliding into the room, bearing a golden tray of jade vessels. I thought he was talking about the girl, but as soon as she was close enough, I caught a scent that grabbed hold of my nose and yanked me to my feet.

“Jesus, what IS that?” I yelped. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing the tray from her. She dimpled and leaned low to place it before us, giving me a spectacular view of cleavage I had absolutely no interest in at that moment. A blue mystery of aroma was coiling from the spout of an urn, a smell of every sweet deal in life, every sure thing, and every winning ticket. Latif clenched his little fists and looked away. Houbert’s smile was like the sun in splendor.

“Theobromos, my friend. A little more complex than the formula to which you are accustomed, however. This, you see, is the original recipe. This is the sacred beverage our dear Mayans reserved for the incarnation of God on Earth Himself alone.
And
for grownups.” He turned and blew Latif a Bronx cheer.

“I hope your teeth rot,” said Latif gamely, and poured himself another shot of java. He couldn’t stop himself from adding four lumps of sugar, though, I noticed. But my attention was yanked back to the sacred vessels as Miss Mayan Universe poured me a cup of something smooth and rich and dark as any sin I’d heard
confessed in three hundred years of faithful service to the Church. She held it out to me balanced on both her palms, and her smile of invitation was as tender and reverent as though I were her god, just her special god, the one she dreamed about.

Our mortal masters designed us to be pretty much resistant to intoxicants, you see; at least, the ones they knew about. Alcohol is pleasant but provides no more than a mild buzz, and the big nasties like cocaine and opium do nothing for us at all. How surprised (and horrified) they’d been to discover that
Theobroma cacao
interacts with an immortal’s nervous system in a totally unique manner.

I accepted the cup from the girl and breathed in deeply. “Holy smoke” was all I could say. But the first sip unlocked my tongue and all my senses, and I won’t even attempt to describe what it was like, because you’d just moan and toss on your pillow all night from unbearable envy. No kidding. You really would.

Our masters were envious enough; the stuff will be illegal anyway in the twenty-fourth century, on the grounds that it’s fattening and contains refined sugar, but it never has that effect on
them
. There was talk about forbidding us its use, at the very beginning; wiser heads prevailed, though.

“Houbert, you are one swell host,” I gasped. He quaffed from his exquisite jade cup and beamed upon me. How could I have thought he looked like Wimpy? Charles Laughton in
Rembrandt
, that’s it, he was a dead ringer for the guy.

“You won’t find this little specialty at the commissary, I think.” He raised his cup to the Mayans. “My kitchen does have its own secrets. Notice the bouquet! How many complex alkaloids, how many extracts of certain rare orchids can one perceive? You’ll find the range of perception varies, but in this morning’s brew I believe there are—” He took another sip and inhaled judiciously. “Let me see, I detect five distinct perfumes. Would
you say? But perhaps it takes a rather longer acquaintance with the God in the Jar to become proficient in judging such matters.”

How was he managing to express himself so elegantly when he’d had a snootful of this stuff? I was lost in admiration for him. Latif sipped his coffee and watched us critically. I turned to look at him and felt like crying out of sympathy. Imagine not being able to drink this yet! I wanted to tell him something to console him. Any minute now I would, too. As soon as I remembered what the other thing was I’d been going to say.

Only, how could I talk and interrupt such beautiful music? How the hell was Houbert doing that with his voice, perfectly counterpointing the Gounod in the background? What was he saying, anyway? Whatever it was, it was sheer poetry. It brought tears to my eyes. Had I thought he looked like Charles Laughton? Was I blind? Ronald Colman in
Lost Horizon
, with the voice to match. The enchantment just kept coming, too, because Latif’s voice rose like a little temple flute:

“Well, I’m certainly learning important things this morning. Not one, but two millennial creatures of infinite experience and knowledge reduced to drooling idiots before my eyes. I simply can’t wait until I grow up.”

“You’re just jealous,” retorted Houbert, but I thought it was so funny, I started giggling and couldn’t stop. I had become a flooded house, and about a hundred little Josephs were running around in my bloodstream frantically trying to bail me out. Damn. The buzz was wearing off. There it went. My internal chemistry revolted and dumped a few toxins to teach me a lesson. Suddenly I needed sugar.

“Where are those petits fours?” I wanted to know, and a Mayan with a cake plate was at my elbow like a devil after a soul. I took a handful of tiny, poisonously bright cakes and wolfed them down. Houbert had receded in dignity again; he was
about at Peter Ustinov in
Spartacus
now. Hadn’t there been a point to this feast of fools, anyway? Oh, yeah. “I was supposed to have a briefing of some kind, wasn’t I?”

“Oh, that,” said Houbert dismissively. “I assume the ever-so-efficient Lewis provided you with most of the mundane facts. As for the classified material …” He began to smile again. “I’ve set you another little test. Your access code strip is here, within reach. To find it, you have only to use the imagination and ingenuity that stood you in such good stead when the High Priest of Dagon tried to have you stoned!”