The Machine's Child (Company) (44 page)

“Wouldn’t we, though?” chuckled Alec. Edward just looked smug. He was still looking smug, in fact he was positively swaggering as they paced along the deck to the saloon; until he disappeared.

Alec, walking ahead after Mendoza, heard Nicholas’s cry of surprise. He turned and stared into Nicholas’s shocked face, and looked around for Edward, who was nowhere to be seen.

Where’d he go?

I know not! He vanished away like—like a candle blown out.

Captain!
Alec cried in silence, running absurdly to the rail to look over. Mendoza turned.

“Alec?”

Stand by, Alec.

Captain, Edward’s gone!

“Alec, sweetheart, what is it?” Mendoza was beside him in an instant, taking his hands and staring into his face.

“I—” Alec gulped painfully for breath. “I just thought I saw him again. Joseph.”

“Where?” she asked, her eyes going flinty at the mention of his name.

“But he’s not really there,” Alec said. “It was just shadows.”

“Darling, you’re white as a sheet,” she said. “Post-traumatic stress. Come on. We’re quite safe; the Captain’s here, and any miserable little dog-men the Company sends after us will be sorry they tried again. Am I correct, Captain?”

Aye, ma’am,
said the Captain tersely.

“Let’s go inside, now,” she coaxed. “Would you like to shower first? Nice relaxing hot water? And supper afterward, and then perhaps we’ll weigh anchor and cruise off for a change of scene. I think we’ve been here long enough.”

“Right,” he said shakily. He and Nicholas followed her into the saloon, watching each other in terror.

Edward found himself, abruptly, in darkness and utter silence. Worse: he had no sense of feeling in any limb. He was nothing but a point of consciousness in a vacuum. He screamed and heard nothing, not even the sound of his own pounding heart.

Did he have a pounding heart? But he was dead, wasn’t he? A skeleton in a drawer, a few corpse parts preserved in formaldehyde?

“NO!” he raged, and heard himself. There! And he could hear his heart, now, yes, and his own breath coming raggedly, yes, and he
had
eyes, by God, he just couldn’t see with them at the moment but that was because he was sitting in the utter darkness somewhere, and it was somewhere familiar, too, and any minute now he’d remember where it was.

Sitting. Sitting, not standing, he was certainly crouched, he could feel the cramping in his muscles and an unpleasant splintery surface under his buttocks, because he was naked. Or, no, not completely naked: there was something cold and heavy around his wrists, about his ankles. He moved, and heard clanking. Metal? Shackles.

He’d been in a place like this, once. This must be a ship’s brig, like the one on the
Zagreus,
where he’d awaited trial after assaulting Captain Southbey. He turned his head, half-expecting to see the remembered pattern of light through the hatch cover in long stripes. Behold, there it was! And he could see himself. So his eyes had simply been getting used to the darkness, that was all.

Edward had all his senses back, now, he could smell the salt tang in the air, and the heavy tarry reek of the ship. He could taste his own salt sweat on his upper lip. It was stifling in here. He looked down and saw in sharp detail his chains and what secured them: a great eyebolt sunk in the timber of the bulkhead. Gritting his teeth, he pulled on it with all his strength. There was an audible creak, but it held him.

Bloody hell. How’d you come back on, boy?

“Captain!” He looked around desperately. “Something’s happened. Find a way to get me out of here.”

You’ve turned yerself on, and you’ve built yerself a site to boot.
There was a disgruntled tone to the Captain’s voice.
How’d the likes of you manage that, I wonder?

“Captain, can you hear me?” Edward said. “Captain!”

Oh, I hear you right enough, Edward.

Edward’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. Ah, I see now. I removed the collar. I broke your hold over Alec for a moment, and you didn’t like that, and so you’re punishing me.”

No. I ain’t punishing you, Edward. Mind you, I’m going to, but I was too busy to deal with you proper-like just now. I was going to leave you off for a while, to give the others a little peace whilst I made up my mind what to do with you. Yet here you be, and here’s this place, and it’s damned inconvenient, says I.

“Inconvenient—” Edward’s mouth was dry. There was no water in his prison, not even the cracked wooden tankard there should have been.

Well, let’s see if I can’t shut you down again.

A wave of darkness and cold rolled over him, with a paralyzing numbness, and he howled and fought for all the sensations that had been so noisome and uncomfortable a moment before. He held on to his thirst and the stink of the ship, the close foul heat, the raw pain in his wrists and ankles.

By thunder, you don’t want to go down, do you? Yer a strong little bugger, Edward, I’ll give you that.

“What are you doing?” Edward shouted. “What are you doing to me? I won’t die, do you hear me?”

I thought it’d be enough to shut you off. Ah, it’s a damn shame, too. Look how useful you was at Options Research! I were thinking you’d come in right handy once we’d got the DNA.

Edward began to shake with anger.

“Useful, am I? Handy, am I? Damn your insolence! I have better things to do than wait on that boy.”

No, Edward, you don’t.

“I tell you I do! Is this your plan for me, Machine? I’m to have no life of my own, I’m to serve merely as some sort of
useful
proxy for your boy? Do you think you can pull me out like a pair of gloves for him, when he faces something difficult?” said Edward, wrenching at his chains until he felt them cutting into his wrists.

Aye, that were the plan. I were hoping you’d integrate with him, by and by. But you won’t behave, and I don’t know what to do about it, afore God I don’t. I can’t let you out; you’d only pull another such trick as you just done, putting my boy in danger to see if you could get away with something. And what’s poor Mendoza to do, now? You been leading her on to think Alec wants a baby, and you know damned well that ain’t true. Yer a liar, boy, and to the lady what loves you best in all the world.

“
I’m
a liar? As though you haven’t got your own plans for her! You restored her ability to bear children, didn’t you?”

That ain’t your business, Edward.

“You truly think Alec will fight immortality, is that it? Is her womb an insurance policy for you? You think she’ll bear you a new body for him, if he insists on wrecking the one he’s got?” said Edward furiously.

Ain’t you a clever lad! Too clever by half, aye.

“You think your boy
deserves
eternal life? The idiot seventh earl of Fins-bury?” Edward raved. “Look at the hash he made of his one attempt to better mankind! You think he deserves Dolores? I’ll never forget the look on his face, when he realized what she was.
Thing,
he called her!”

My little Alec may not suit you, but he’s my boy, and what’s more important, he’s alive. All you are is a program, Edward. A recording of a dead man’s memory what can’t be shut off. I’ll figure out a way, all the same, though, bucko.

“No,” Edward said, lunging upward. He broke the chain and beat his bleeding fists against the door of the cell. “You can’t do this to me. I’ll have my life back, do you understand? I have work to do! I
will
walk the Earth again, in spite of you, or Alec, or Nicholas, or the Society! I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!”

Please, Captain sir, can you talk to us now?
said Alec, shivering with Nicholas under the jets of the shower.

I’m busy, son.

But Edward’s gone,
Nicholas said.

I know.

But we’ve got to get him back!
Alec said.

I’ve got him, Alec.

Alec and Nicholas looked at each other, bewildered.

Thou hast rescued him, then,
said Nicholas.

Not exactly, lad. I’ve had to give him a bit of discipline.

Nicholas frowned.
Punishment?

Aye.

But how’d you make him disappear?
Alec demanded.

I shut down his program.

WHAT?

Aye. I’ve known how to shut it down for a few months now, but there didn’t seem to be no need, did there? Ye’d all been getting along well enough.

You just—just switched him off?
Alec looked as though he was going to be sick.
Would you do that to me? Or to Nicholas?

Not to you, lad. I could shut our Nicholas down, aye, but he behaves himself most of the time. He only went berserk the once.

But that’s
horrible!
You can’t just shut people off like they were lights or something,
said Alec.

Nor can he. Spirit, thou liest!
Nicholas said firmly.
We are no shadows of thy casting, nor canst thou kill us. Thou hast but hidden Edward away.

Well, lad, you may be right at that; for he won’t stay off, it seems. I don’t know how he’s still able to do what you can do without him having an actual physical brain anymore, Alec, but he done it, and he’s throwing himself quite a tantrum at the moment.

Let him go, Captain sir, please!
Alec said.

Ought I, now? And don’t you want to know what he was shut up for doing? Whilst you two was asleep, he talked yer lady into letting him grow himself a new body in her womb.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Nicholas began to pound his right fist into his left palm.
That smiling whoreson bastard,
he muttered.

That was why she was talking about babies!
Alec realized.

Unfortunately, it was at this precise moment that Edward managed to break free of his prison and popped into existence there in the shower with them, naked and bleeding.

HA,
he said.
I told you you wouldn’t—

He was unable to finish his sentence, however, because Nicholas punched him right in the mouth, and followed with two more blows in rapid succession before Edward collected his wits enough to start hitting him back. Alec, uncertain whether to dodge blows or hit Edward too, slipped and fell backward against the shower door, which opened abruptly and they fell, all three, on the bathroom floor in a cursing, struggling mass.

Hearing the crash, Mendoza was instantly beside Alec, who was gasping and convulsing as the others strove for control.

“Sir Henry,” she screamed, taking Alec in her arms. “He’s having a seizure!”

It was a full hour before she could be calmed down enough to be assured that Alec had not developed a short-circuit as a result of his concussion,
but had merely slipped on the soap and been too out of breath to explain this when she’d found him. An hour of her heartbroken crying was enough to make even Edward feel miserably remorseful, and a general truce was agreed upon all around. The Captain administered mild tranquilizers, put everybody to bed, and weighed anchor for Maui.

ONE MORNING IN LAHAINA, 2281
AD

They strolled through the old village between Front Street and the highway, debating endlessly about where to have breakfast.

“Hey, this place is still here,” said Alec, stopping in front of a bright-painted eatery. “I mean—it’s here already. I used to come to this place all the time . . . or I guess I will. It looks so
new
now.”

“The ‘
WHALER GETS HIS
’ café,” Mendoza read aloud, craning her head back to look up at the sign, which showed a mortal in nineteenth-century foul weather gear regarding, with an expression of annoyance, the harpoon protruding from his chest. In the background, whales leaped up on their tails with big cartoony grins. “Well, it is new, darling.”

“Great food,” Alec said, looking down hopefully at his two tiny reflections in the optics of her sunglasses. She had awakened shortly before dawn with a screaming nightmare, and wept uncontrollably after while he held her. Though he had assured her that she looked fine now, she was still worried that her eyes were red, and wouldn’t take the glasses off.

“Is it good?” She peered through the window.

“Really good.” He took both her hands in his and leaned down to kiss her. “Pretty lady, can I buy you breakfast? Hawaiian-style omelet? You’d like it a lot.”

She smiled at last. “Okay, señor.”

They went in and Alec found that it was even brighter and newer inside, though the menu was not substantially different. A Hawaiian omelet turned out to be soyfluff with bananas and caramelized onions, bizarre but delicious with an iced glass of unbelievably pungent local ginger ale. The lightheartedness of the fare was counterbalanced by the antiwhaling artwork printed all down the sides of the menu and on the paper placemats,
perhaps a bit unnecessary given that nobody had intentionally killed a whale in two centuries.

“Why are they so down on whaling so long after the fact?” Mendoza said, slipping off her sunglasses at last. She squinted up at a poster depicting Moby Dick triumphantly devastating the crew of the
Pequod.
Her eyes were still a little red.

“I don’t know,” Alec said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. “Maybe because the Royals over here are all members of the Beast Liberation Party.”

Ridiculous,
muttered Edward, polishing off virtual kippers.
Conservation’s all very well, but turning on one’s own kind?

Thou art no more kin to man than to the whale, monster,
Nicholas said gloomily, watching Mendoza’s pale tense face as she stared at a harpoon gun mounted above the door.