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Authors: Kage Baker

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The Life of the World to Come (44 page)

BOOK: The Life of the World to Come

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SON!

THE YEAR 2352:

MEETING IN THE NEW WORLD

Rutherford sat alone in the parlor at No. 10 Albany Crescent. He had been crying for hours; his eyes were swollen nearly shut. There was no fire in the fireplace. There were no holo images flickering in midair. The room was as silent as he could make it, but there was still a noise coming in through the dead air from outside. It was a queer
massed
sound. It seemed to be coming from every direction, because in fact it was.

An electronic drone rose and fell and, now and then, you could make out voices. Every so often there was an appalling sound, a repeated
BOOM
always followed by the same shrill piping.

He was hearing it because every holoreceiver in London was switched on, tuned to the same footage that was being shown over and over.

This had gone on so long, and he had sat so long silent, that he nearly screamed when there came a furtive knock at his door. He got up and scuttled across the room, peering through the curtain first to see who might be standing on his front step.

When he saw who it was, he ran to open the door.

“Hurry,” he said. Chatterji slunk in, followed by Ellsworth-Howard, who was moving in a distinctly unsteady manner. Rutherford closed the door and the three of them stood there in the hall, staring at each other.

Chatterji hadn’t shaved in two days. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hands were shaking as he fumbled with his cloak. Ellsworth-Howard wasn’t shaking at all; he was so relaxed his pupils were like pinpoints.

After a moment of mutual silence, Rutherford blurted:

“Are we going to be arrested?”

“N-n-no,” Chatterji said. “That’s just what we’ve c-come round to t-tell you. It seems—it s-seems we’re not to buh-buh-blame.”

“But we are!” Rutherford began to cry again. “We created
him
. It’s him in that surveillance footage. We know, and soon everybody else will. He’ll be hunted down and caught They’ll put him in hospital to find out what could have made him do such a thing, and they’ll do tests on him—and then they’ll look at him more closely—and they’ll know what he is, and—”

“C-C-Company won’t let it happen,” Chatterji said. “They’ll keep it q-quiet. I was t-told. You see, they knew. ’S the old rule, R-Rutherford, about not being able to ch-chchange history. They knew our m-man was the one who delivered the buh-bomb. Nothing could be done about it. S-so Dr. Zeus did what it always d-does. Pulled its people out b-beforehand, w-well before the event.”

“P‘lice never kesh ’im,” Ellsworth-Howard said very slowly, shaking his head from side to side. “Never kesh ’im. Comp‘ny hunt ’im dowwwn. Top secret. Hushushush shhh. Hide ‘im in a lab somewhere far far awayyy. Nobody never know Comp’ny’s to blame, see.”

“But it’s our fault.” Rutherford wrung his hands.

Chatterji shook his head numbly.

“Nope. Because, s-see, if it’s our f-fault, it’s Dr. Z-Zeus’s fault too. That won’t do at all. So we’re all innocents instead. They had to let us work on
A-Adonai
because history r-records we did. They just didn’t tell us what was guh-guhgoing to happen …”

“You mean nobody’s going to punish us?” quavered Rutherford.

“Nobody.” Chatterji turned and walked into the parlor, where he collapsed into his favorite chair. “Oh, they’ll never let us work on anything like
him
again. They still want Enforcer r-r-replacements, but no new designs now. We’re to
create a subclass of Preservers instead. Simple policemen. Security techs. G-g-guards. No more heroes, thank you. No more fuh-fuh-freedom fighters.”

Ellsworth-Howard was still standing in the hallway, drooling on the mat. In a high plaintive voice he began to sing:

“Frankenstein, Frankenstein, won’t you be my valentine …”

Rutherford went and got him and led him to a chair. It took some work to actually get him seated; he kept sliding down toward the floor. Finally Rutherford gave it up and collapsed into his own chair.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said hoarsely. “We made him a
good
man! And he was so clever. How could we have gone so wrong?”

Chatterji gave a bitter laugh. “If we’d programmed him to hide in his r-room like everybody else does nowadays, he’d never have become a guh-guh-gun runner, would he? If he hadn’t had those d-damned high ideals we g-gave him, he’d have let Areco evict the MAC.”

“We been used, ya know,” Ellsworth-Howard addressed the ceiling. Rutherford and Chatterji turned to look at him.

“Comp‘ny
wanted
us to make ’im,” he said. “Look what ’e did in California. Kept the Yanks from getting the big hushush discovery on Cat‘lina Island. If ’e hadn’t, there‘d’ve been no Dr. Zeuuuus, would there of been? But it’s worse’n ya think it is. Y’know how he got the bloody bomb to Mars? He stole a Company ship. With time drive. He was smart enough to shrack with Dr. Zeus security codes. S‘how he got past the blockade. I know, I traced his signal. Comp’ny don’t know, but they’re sure to find out. ’Spect some heads’ll roll over that.”

Chatterji and Rutherford regarded each other in dawning horror. “No, he c-couldn’t have!” cried Chatterji. “Those things have an autodestruct b-built in to prevent theft.”

“Yeh … funny about that. Talk about your shracking Mandelbrots. Our bright boy stole the ship, all right. First thing he done was detour into the past. Went Back Way Back. Guess who ’e met there, eh?”

There was a moment of bewildered silence. Then Rutherford jumped as though he’d been shot. “Not that woman!”

“The botanist,” said Chatterji.

“Yeah—” Ellsworth-Howard gagged on his drool and fell over, coughing. Rutherford ran to him and pulled him into a sitting position, shaking him in his agitation.

“You can’t mean that Preserver of yours again.”

“I do, though,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “Same Mendoza. An’ y’know what? She musta shown him how to disconnect the autodestruct. If she hadn’t, he’d never got the bomb to Mars. Just blown up in space. Funny, ain’t it?”

“Then it’s
her
doing,” shrieked Rutherford. “He’d have died like a hero again, if not for her!”

“It’s w-worse than that,” Chatterji said, putting his hands to his face in horror. “She knows about him. And if the Company d-doesn’t know yet who stole one of their ships, you can bet they’ll find out, and when they do, the first thing they’ll do will be to fetch her—and then the committee’ll be investigated, and it’ll all come out before the stockholders—”

“Oh, no, it won’t.” Grimly Rutherford wrestled Ellsworth-Howard’s buke out of his daypack. He snapped it open and dragged Ellsworth-Howard’s nerveless fingers to the buttonball. “We’ll get rid of her first. Who are those discreet fellows in charge of Black Security? Send the order out, Foxy.”

Ellsworth-Howard gurgled in protest, but even had he been willing it was obvious he was utterly incapable of coordinating his long fingers. Rutherford seized the buke and thrust it at Chatterji. “Here! You’ve got the clearance, too. Have them bring her in.”

“But—where are we going to put her?” Chatterji protested, as his hand moved uncertainly on the buttonball. “She’s already been sent B-Back Way Back. Unless you want to hide her with the Enforcers?”

“Yes. No, wait!” Rutherford paced across the room and then turned to glare at Chatterji. “This is her fault. This whole thing is her fault. What might our man have been, if he hadn’t kept running into
her
? Send her to Options Research.”

“No,” howled Ellsworth-Howard.

“We have no choice.” Rutherford turned on him. “If we hid the damned creature in the deepest bunker we could contrive, she’d turn up again somehow. I won’t stand for this any longer.
GET RID OF HER.
”

Chatterji squeezed in the request.

“Bloody bastard,” Ellsworth-Howard groaned. “Wasting my Preservers.”

“Hardly, given the harm she’s done.” Rutherford continued his pacing. “I’d call it justice, actually. We can’t undo what our man did, but at least we’ve maintained project security, and if she can’t tell what she knows
we
can’t get into any worse trouble.

“And the story’s not over yet, is it? If our man’s done great harm, well, he may yet do even greater good. I should think he must be feeling simply terrible about all this. Perhaps it’ll spur him on to some magnificent act of atonement that’ll benefit all mankind! And if
that woman’s
not around to ensnare him, maybe it’ll work this time.” He threw himself into his chair decisively.

“Ya shracking idiot, our man’s already done what Dr. Zeus wanted ‘im to do,” Ellsworth-Howard said, as his feeble burst of adrenaline petered out and the drugs pulled him back down. “Comp’ny don’t care he killed all those people.” He lay back down and went on from his new position:

“Nursie gave us big meds today. See, now Comp’ny’s gonna own Mars.”

Rutherford shook his head. “Dr. Zeus has no holdings on Mars,” he said. “They sold them all to Areco, two months ago.”

“And they got a p-pretty price for them.” Chatterji nodded grimly. “But I’d bet anything they’ll be able to b-buy them back a lot more cheaply. Areco will have to s-sell everything it owns, with the kind of lawsuits it’s facing.”

“The newsman said that—” Rutherford paled. “That the horrible irony of all this is that the eruption will speed up the terraforming. It will actually become easier for people to live up there now. Once they rebuild.”

“Used,” Ellsworth-Howard confirmed from the floor. “See? Comp‘ny didn’t want a hero really ever. Just a killer they could control better than my Enforcers. Use ’im to make history turn out the way Dr. Zeus wants it, never mind who dies.”

“They lied to us,” said Rutherford. His eyes were perfectly round with shock.

“Bin-
GO
,” giggled Ellsworth-Howard. “You an’ yer peaceful warrior.”

Chatterji rested his chin in the palm of his hand and stared into the cold hearth.

“Whatever happens in 2355,” he said, “we’re going to d-deserve it.”

None of them noticed the quiet beep that announced that their order had been obeyed, consigning a perfect stranger to an unimaginable fate.

Rutherford turned on his heel and marched to the sideboard. He drew out an antique key and unlocked a drawer. A moment later he returned with a smooth and featureless black bottle.

“Here,” he said. “I’ve been saving this for a suitable occasion.”

Ellsworth-Howard just pointed to it and laughed. Chatterji sat up and stared.

“That’s not B-Black Elysium, is it?” he whispered.

“It is.” Rutherford unlocked the neck of the bottle.

“But that’s illegal.”

“It is.” Rutherford got the stopper off and inhaled the dark fragrance that rose from the bottle. “But what are laws to us, chaps? Drink was always supposed to help, at times like these.”

He put his mouth to the neck of the bottle and took a dramatic gulp. Promptly he choked and leaned back, gasping and coughing. Chatterji watched him in horrified fascination.

“Wh-what’s it like?” he said. Gagging, Rutherford handed him the bottle at arm’s length. After a moment’s hesitation he took it, and drank deep.

“Oh, God, it’s awful,” he said, shaking his head. But he had another gulp.

“Here here here,” Ellsworth-Howard reached up from the floor. Chatterji leaned down and pulled him into a sitting position so he could drink without spilling.

“The Company makes this stuff, too, you know,” said Rutherford. “Exclusive patent is held by Dr. Zeus Incorporated.”

“G-gosh, we’re not nearly the saviors of humanity we thought we were, are we?” said Chatterji, wondering when he would feel his liver begin to shut down. “Now we know how p-poor old Prashanti and Hauptmann felt, when their project
went so disastrously wr-wrong.” Rutherford winced at the names and took the bottle again.

“Was that messing with my design did it,” said Ellsworth-Howard. He wiped away tears. “I know it. He got access to all kindsa stuff’e shouldn‘ta seen. We shouldn’ta tried to run the sequence in real time. He got away from us.”

“You’d think we’d have known,” sighed Rutherford. “How many times have we all seen
Frankenstein?
Why is it we sub-creators can’t seem to create life without things going disastrously wrong?” He passed the bottle to Chatterji.

“You don’t s-suppose, do you, that the entire course of human history has been shaped by cl-clever chaps like us, sitting around in p-parlors and playing with ideas?” Chatterji said. He had another gulp of the liqueur. It seemed to go down easier this time. “All working for D-Dr. Zeus?”

“Why not?” Rutherford said. “We’re the only gods there are.”

“Shracking incompetent gods, then,” said Ellsworth-Howard. He drew a deep breath and sang again, shrill and tremulous, the little he remembered of the music his mum and dad had played when they used to kick him awake in the middle of the night …

“
Freude, schoner gotterfunken, tochter aus Elysium … feuer-trunken …

Seid umschlungen, millionen! Diesen kuss der ganzen welt
…”

BOOK: The Life of the World to Come

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