The Children of the Company (11 page)
Read The Children of the Company Online
Authors: Kage Baker
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat
I followed his gaze and was, quite frankly, appalled at what I saw. They
couldn’t have been more than five or six, but had evidently sustained some sort of abuse in their brief lives to date. Had they been rescued from a cellar? Their ghastly pallor, their emaciated appearance, their attenuated limbs in proportion to their swollen bellies and domed heads, all bespoke neglect. What had the poor things done to deserve such treatment?
couldn’t have been more than five or six, but had evidently sustained some sort of abuse in their brief lives to date. Had they been rescued from a cellar? Their ghastly pallor, their emaciated appearance, their attenuated limbs in proportion to their swollen bellies and domed heads, all bespoke neglect. What had the poor things done to deserve such treatment?
The boy could never be made right. He had retreated from the sun to a nest of shade under a bush, and sat there rocking to and fro, silent, keeping his hands clapped tight over his eyes. Probable mental retardation, too—severe alopecia with only the barest traces of clumps of hair on his pale scalp.
The girl showed more promise, was even pretty in a terrible sort of way. Her hair was fine as floss and stood up like flames all over her head. She had picked a double handful of poppies and was playing some inexplicable game with them, sweeping them back and forth, crooning to herself in a thin voice. She might be mad; she might simply be a child absorbed in play. She had great pale blind-looking eyes, enormous eyes in her tiny weak face.
No, this was no abuse; some sort of chromosomal damage. Sad, but it happened amongst mortals. I couldn’t fathom what these two imps of misfortune were doing at a Dr. Zeus base, however.
“Their names are Fallon and Maeve. I wanted you to see them, Victor,” Aegeus told me.
Wanted me to see them? “Who rescued them?” I inquired, trying to keep the horror out of my voice. Aegeus turned to regard me.
“No one rescued them, my boy. They’ve spent their whole lives here, at Eurobase.” He watched me closely to see what my reaction would be. Under the circumstances, frank honesty seemed advisable.
“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?”
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.
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.”
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 grass 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.
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
Homo sapiens sapiens.
These creatures are on the order of hybrids, actually. I believe the designation that’s been decided on is
Homo sapiens umbratilis.”
Homo sapiens sapiens.
These creatures are on the order of hybrids, actually. I believe the designation that’s been decided on is
Homo 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?
us?
“We made it our business to find out pretty damned 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.”
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.”
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 bumped 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 bumped 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 classified?”
“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.”
“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 flashing 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 trespassed, 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 goddess. Her no one visits, neither god—’” 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 ship—’” “Springing nimbly down he threw himself flat on the path, narrowly avoiding the steel dart a frowning god spat at him. “‘—and wrecked it in the middle of the wine-dark sea!’”
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