The Machine's Child (Company) (41 page)

“You don’t understand!” Alec said. “I know I’m a shracking monster, but I love her. I’ve been taking care of her, she’s been happy! Doesn’t that mean anything to you, if you love her, too? For the first time in her life, she’s not a slave! And she loves me.”

“Says you,” Joseph told him wearily, pacing toward him with the cutlass. “The really awful part is, no matter how many times I kill you, the Company’ll just bring you back again, won’t they? But you won’t get
her
again, punk. Think about that while you’re regrowing in your jar—”

At this moment the forward hatch exploded upward in a mass of fragments and splinters, glinting in the first light of the sun. Mendoza rose through it, eyes ablaze with fury. Her white silk was torn and trailing after her journey through the emergency access crawlspace in the bulkheads, and she was armed with the first weapon that had come to hand in Alec’s weapons locker, which happened to be a double-barreled speargun. From the hatchway after her came snaking grapevines, waving and crawling toward the morning light.

Joseph, regaining his feet after leaping back from the explosion, stared at her. Then he drew a long breath, and exhaled.

“Mendoza,” he said pleasantly. “Baby. Nice to see you again, kid. You know, and I mean this sincerely, you look great—”

She leveled the speargun at him and fired.

“Okay, so you’re a little sore at me,” he said from the foretop, as the head of a spear plunked into the rail immediately behind where he’d been standing a split second earlier. Looking up and fixing him with a black glare, she backed toward Alec. She knelt to unpinion him with one hand, keeping the speargun trained on Joseph. The vines began to scale the foremast in an aggressive kind of way.

“So I was about to kill the boyfriend. I’m sorry, okay? But I’ve been
kind of worried. I thought maybe you were hurt, or something. I mean, you never called. You never wrote.”

“Why the hell should I?” she said. “I haven’t the slightest idea who you are.”

“What?” Joseph peered down at her, as she freed Alec’s hands and moved to untie his ankles. “What do you mean, you don’t know who I am?” He leaned forward to scan her, so far he nearly fell from his perch on the foretop. “You’ve known me since you were four years old!”

“Stay up there,” she ordered, keeping the gun trained on him. “I’ve never seen you before in my life, but I’d be delighted to pin you to that mast.”

But Joseph was still scanning, looking distressed.

“You’ve been damaged!” he said. “Somebody’s rebuilt you, and they didn’t do it to specs—and there’s some kind of block on your memory.”

Mendoza ignored Joseph, lifting Alec into a sitting position, and as he hissed in pain and clutched at his left arm she scanned him. Then she looked up at Joseph with a murderous expression.

“You’ve broken his shoulder! Severe concussion, scalp laceration, multiple sprains and contusions . . . little man, I’ll kill you.”

She aimed the speargun and fired again, just as the first green tendril groped at Joseph’s ankle. Joseph avoided the spear by throwing himself sideways, which carried him off the foretop into midair. He twisted to land on his feet and fell and rolled, springing up again in a crouch.

“Nice shot, but you don’t have any other spears in that gun, do you?”

“No, but I can club you with it,” she said, rotating it swiftly in her hand. “And if you come any closer to him, I will.”

“Mendoza, honey, you wouldn’t do that,” he said coaxingly, stepping over the sprawling vines. “And anyway, I’m not after that big loser now. Trust me! All I want to do is have a look at that block on your memory, okay? I can fix it. You’ll be good as new, little girl. Come on, you can’t be comfortable like that—”

He was advancing on her steadily, one hand stretched out in a placatory gesture, and she was trembling as she gripped the speargun.

“What are you, crazy?” Alec said hoarsely, struggling to get between them. “Stop it! You know where she was. You know what happened there!
Do you want her to remember that?
”

Joseph stopped, staring at Alec. He was just opening his mouth to speak when earsplitting Klaxons sounded, causing sleepers across the bay in Port Royal to sit up in their beds and wonder if Judgment Day had come. It was still ten years away, however. The Klaxons, warbling down into a sort of electronic growl of rage, were merely the Captain signaling that he had at last remodulated around the jammed signal and was very much back online.

From all parts of the ship came the sound of locks snapping, drives powering up, and a clashing noise that grew louder, resolving into the scuttling approach of Billy Bones, Flint, Coxinga, and Bully Hayes. The servounits emerged from the saloon and advanced on Joseph menacingly, chattering like so many giant steel crabs.

“Whoops,” said Joseph, and turned and ran. He vaulted over the rail with all four of them still in hot pursuit. Landing neatly in his stolen boat, he cast off, bent to the oars, and rowed away like mad.

Before he had got well clear, however, he saw with horror that gun-ports were opening out in the formidable side of the
Captain Morgan,
and the mouths of what could only be laser cannon were emerging. They swiveled to aim, and fired in unison, but he had already plunged into the water and was diving down for dear life. The laser broadside vaporized both his boat and the sea chest containing his signal monitor.

Peering up from below, Joseph saw four black shapes diving toward him. They nipped at his desperately kicking heels all the way back to Port Royal, and squealed insults at him as he waded ashore.

THE EVENING OF THAT SAME DAY, 1682
AD

Mrs. Ansolabehere was not disposed to be charitable when Dr. Ansolabehere finally returned. This in spite of the fact that his face was gray with fatigue, his clothing ruined, his hat lost, his beady little eyes sunk back in his head. Smiling and curtseying to a departing customer, she swept down on him where he stood swaying in the doorway and frog-marched him back to the kitchen, where she boxed his ears soundly.

“Where hast thou been, sir?” she hissed. “Art thou drunk? Art thou mad? And wherever is Captain Marley’s horse?”

He stood there in stupefaction a moment, clutching his ears. Then he began to glare resentfully, and without a word he strode over to the bar and helped himself to an onion bottle of rum. As she looked on unbelieving he extracted the cork with his teeth, spat it across the room, and drank half the rum as though it were water.

“What, husband!” she said.

“I’ll tell you what, wife,” he said, wiping his chin. “The horse is dead. I’m mad, all right, and I’m going to be drunk pretty damned fast, for all the good it’ll do me. What else? Oh, where’ve I been? Well, that’s a long story, and I don’t feel like telling it right now.”

She just stared at him. He scowled at her and drank down the rest of the rum. Then he helped himself to two more bottles and marched out the back door.

She never set eyes on him again.

MOUNT TAMALPAIS, 2322
AD

The giant under the mountain was aware when the outer threshold was crossed. He withdrew his attention from the Company files through which he had been cruising, relentlessly as a shark, and focused on the tunnel. After a millisecond’s analysis of the approaching footsteps’rhythm he relaxed. He rose from the console, looming in a shapeless robe made from blankets, and watched as Joseph came tottering down the aisle between the vaults.

“Son,” he said.

“I’m back,” Joseph replied. “How’s it going, Father?”

They considered each other. It had been nearly twenty years since Joseph had seen Budu, though of course from Budu’s point of view it had been no more than a few days. Joseph thought Budu looked great. Budu thought Joseph looked as though he’d been through a wringer.

“You failed to recapture your daughter,” Budu stated.

“Yeah,” Joseph agreed. He sank down and stretched out on the stone floor, folding his hands on his chest.

“It doesn’t matter. She might have been useful, but we won’t need her
for victory. While she’s with that boy, the Company can’t use her either. I’ve been finding out a lot about him. Interesting.”

“Uh-huh.” Joseph closed his eyes. Budu inhaled the scent of rank exhaustion and alcohol, and grimaced, but kept annoyance out of his voice as he said:

“You look tired, son. You’ll need to rest for a few days. Restore yourself to optimum physical status. I have work for you to do.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll begin by completing the corrective surgery on my right arm.”

“Okay.”

“Then you’ll go out again. I have a list of things to be stolen. It may take you years to get everything. You must also seek out a certain man and speak to him. You’ll need to prepare carefully for this, and exert your powers of influence. He’s necessary to our plan.”

“Okay. How’s the plan going?” Joseph opened his eyes again.

“Completed.” Budu smiled in a fashion that would have terrified anybody but Joseph. The blue light glinted on his teeth, his eyes. “All potential elements in place. We’ll bring the masters down with one strike. I know the hour and the location. You have only to wind the clock, son.”

“Sure. Sure, I can do that.” Joseph yawned. “So what about this guy I’m supposed to talk to?”

“A unique case, son. A living riddle. Immortal, but not one of us. A Company stockholder, but not one of them. Lord and master in his own place, and yet Dr. Zeus has his name on the list for removal in the last hour.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s been a necessary compromise. They required his existence, and yet he should never have been born.”

“Huh! Like Nicholas Edward Alec Harpole Finsbury whatever . . .” Joseph’s eyes were closing.

“You didn’t kill him,” Budu said, watching Joseph. Joseph opened his eyes and looked up at the towering blue-lit figure that studied him.

“Uh . . . no, as a matter of fact. I didn’t.”

“Why had he taken your daughter?” said Budu, in the tone of one who is about to announce a checkmate.

“Because . . . he loves her. Her really does love her, after all.” Joseph’s eyes were exhausted, bewildered. “Can you beat that?”

“No,” Budu said, “you can’t. And now you’ve got that through your head, maybe I can trust you to pay attention to something else.”

AT THE PELICAN INN, 2333
AD

“Oh, wow,” said Keely, pausing at the window. She shifted little Nelson to her other hip and leaned closer for a better look.

“What is it now?” said Mavis irritably, not looking up from her accounts plaquette. She had just been informed that, due to recent increases in the cost of living, the bribe necessary to obtain hotel permits was going to increase by eight percent.

“It’s Mr. Capra,” Keely said, and Mavis’s ears pricked up. She bustled to the window and stared out.

Yes. A
new
BMW Zephyr, a brand-new suit, too, and wasn’t Joseph looking trim? She put her hands to her temples and smoothed back the gray, hoping it wasn’t too obvious, before she hurried to the door.

“Well, hello, stranger,” she said coyly, flinging the door wide. Joseph stopped on the walk, put down his briefcase, and held out his arms, smiling.

“Gee, Mavis, you’re looking great,” he said as they embraced. “I mean that sincerely. Long time no see, huh?”

“Ages,” she murmured in his ear, wondering if he still had that expense account with HumaliCorp.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s been ages. Say, are you still making that swell persimmon cider?”

“Kee-LY,” she yelled through the door. “Two persimmon ciders in the Snug, now!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Keely said, scrambling obligingly.

“And will you stay for dinner, too?” Mavis inquired, leading him into the house.

“Of course. In fact, honey, I’m staying the night as an actual paying guest. I’ve got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow, and I’d like to have a nice relaxing evening first,” Joseph said, gazing around the familiar rooms and inhaling deeply.

“Well, we’ll just have to see that all your stress melts away, somehow,” Mavis promised, sweeping little Nelson’s blocks and rag dolly out of the Snug without even looking at them as she bowed Joseph to a seat. “Though I have to tell you, dear, you just seem to get younger all the time!”

“Uh—well—” Joseph glanced swiftly at the gray in her hair and felt a pang. He put on an embarrassed expression and indicated his neat little jet-black beard. “I keep this dyed, if you want the truth. I have to, for my clients, see. Business.”

“Really? I’d never have known,” Mavis said, wide-eyed.

“Yeah,” Joseph said. He began to giggle. “Sort of a Grecian formula.”

Keely brought their cider and hurriedly picked up the blocks and dolly, giving Joseph the opportunity to note that she was considerably more bo-somy nowadays. He sighed in contentment and raised his glass to Mavis.

“Here’s to love,” he said.

“Okay,” Mavis said, her heart beating fast. They drank. She reached across the table and took his hand.

“How are you doing these days? Are you still with HumaliCorp?”

“Who? Oh. Yeah, as a matter of fact, they’ve been keeping me pretty busy,” Joseph said.

“How far do you have to go tomorrow?” she said.

“Way down the coast,” he said, having another taste of his cider. He swirled the glass, breathing in the fragrance. “Below Monterey. San Luis Obispo Protectorate, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, my, that’s a long way,” Mavis said, looking worried. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It’s not that wild any more,” Joseph assured her. “I hear they haven’t had any trouble with bandits in years. The guy who runs the place laid out a lot of money on patrols to keep the Salinas open for produce freighters.”

“How exciting.”

“In fact,” Joseph said, taking another sip, “that’s the guy I’ve got to go talk to.”

Mavis looked astonished. “The man with the big castle?”

“Yeah,” said Joseph, and she noted a certain uneasiness in his black eyes.

“Oh, my, that really is exciting,” she said. “I knew somebody who went
there once and saw all the statues and things. And you’re going to talk to him? The Protector? I can never remember his name—”