Gods and Pawns

TO THE LAND BEYOND THE SUNSET

THE CATCH

THE ANGEL IN THE DARKNESS

STANDING IN HIS LIGHT

A NIGHT ON THE BARBARY COAST

WELCOME TO OLYMPUS, MR. HEARST

HELLFIRE AT TWILIGHT

Somewhere in South America, New World One, 1650
AD
…

Well aware that it was probably the most pointless thing an immortal could do, Lewis sat slouched behind his desk with his chin on one fist, watching the clock.

He was stuck in a dull job working for an idiot, his love life was nonexistent, and he was bored.

As immortal servants of an all-powerful-cabal-of-scientists-and-investors-who-possess-the-secret-of-time-travel go, Lewis was an unimposing fellow: slightly built, with limp fair hair and eyes of twilight blue. He was handsome, in the earnest manner of a silent-film hero. When called upon to act he could be plucky, determined, and brave; but it had been half a millennium since he’d had to do anything but sit behind a desk and hand out brochures.

This might have suited timid and retiring mortals, but Lewis happened to be a cyborg programmed in library sciences. He was, in fact, a Literature Preservation Specialist. He had once wandered the British Isles with a harp, gathering hero stories from persons painted blue. Later still he had wandered France with a lute, troubadoring for all he was worth and slipping the odd illuminated copy of
le Romain de la Rose
into his parti-colored coat before making a quiet exit down the castle drainpipe.

Lewis had done his job cheerfully and well, so it had come to him as a complete surprise when, following a minor accident in the field, he had been abruptly transferred to the Company base at New World One and appointed Guest Services Director.

The clock struck three.

Sighing, Lewis got to his feet. Finding his hat, he stepped out into the lobby.

“Closing time, Salome,” he said, and then realized he was speaking to thin air. Frowning, he went to the receptionist’s desk. She had left a scrawled note:
Lewis—something came up. Be a dear and punch my time card? Thanks!

Muttering to himself, Lewis punched her time card with quite unnecessary force, punched his own, and left the pyramid.

The tropical heat fell on him like a wet blanket. He gasped, wishing he had gills, and set off down the broad straight avenue between the pyramids. Beyond the Perimeter, animals screamed and fought in the jungle depths, but not here; a vast sleepy silence reigned, suffering only the trickle of fountains and the chatter of little parrots to disturb it.

And, now, the rhythmic pounding of bare feet. Lewis turned to look over his shoulder and groaned. Bearing down on him was a sedan chair borne by six immense Mayans in matching livery, splendidly kilted and adorned in jade and gold, with quetzal plumes nodding above their headdresses. He tried to wave them past, but they drew level with him and stopped.

“No, no, it’s quite all right,” he said. “Shoo.”

“We respectfully implore the Son of Heaven to permit us to carry him to his destination,” said the lead bearer, in well-bred tones that implied disapproval. Lewis looked up at him in despair. The bearers were mortal, descendants of intercepted child sacrifices, haughty beyond reason, and Lewis had had this same argument with their fathers and grandfathers to no avail. Still:

“I’d really rather walk. I need the exercise,” he said. The lead bearer smiled indulgently.

“The Son of Heaven is pleased to be humorous. I respectfully point out that, being immortal, he cannot
require
exercise. Moreover, if he walks all the way to Administrative Residential Pyramid his divine garments will be soaked with sweat, and he will scarcely be in any fit state to attend the four o’clock cocktail reception mandated by the wise and just Father of Heaven,” said the bearer, and knelt. So did the other bearers, in perfect unison, and Lewis found himself irresistibly (but
respectfully
) boosted into the sedan chair.

He gave up, taking off his hat and fanning himself as the chair rose smoothly and the bearers went bounding away down the avenue. From his seat he had a fine view of New World One, laid out with all the precision of a knot garden: red and white pyramids, manicured emerald lawns, lush flowerbeds, turquoise swimming pools. To an immortal who’d just come in from a field assignment working somewhere dirty and dangerous, it would have seemed a vision of hallucinatory beauty. Lewis had long since grown weary of its splendor.

“Administrative Residential,” the lead bearer announced, as they pulled up in front of a particularly imposing pyramid.

“Thank you,” said Lewis, and hopped out as they dipped for him. They went running on, having fixed on a drooping immortal trudging along some distance off, and Lewis went inside. It was cool and dim, save for a pink neon sign saying
THE PALENQUE POODLE
about twenty meters down the passage, by the elevator doors. He could hear the clink of glasses, the banal chatter with one voice braying above the rest. Lewis stood straight, threw back his shoulders, and marched into the bar.

Houbert, the Director General, was holding court under an immense potted philodendron, sprawled back at his ease on a divan with jaguar skin upholstery. He was large for an immortal, beefy in a way that did not suggest muscle, and thinly bearded.

“And he-ere’s
Lewis,
” he announced to the room, “punctual for our party! Really too good of you, sir. I suppose you made the extra effort for the special occasion?”

“What special occasion, Director General?” Lewis inquired, sweeping off his hat as he bowed.

“What a delightful hat! Makes you look like a little puritan. But, you haven’t heard? Victor is leaving us!”

“Really?” Lewis turned and saw Personnel Coordinator Victor, surrounded by well-wishing immortals.
The lucky devil,
he thought.

“For Paris, the beast. But, what can one do? That’s life with Dr. Zeus; the job’s the job, we go where we’re posted, and all that. Go over and say good-bye to him, do.” Houbert waved a dismissive hand.

Lewis turned and had made it halfway across the room when a Mayan waiter loomed into his path, bearing a tray of violet martinis.

“Cocktail, Son of Heaven?” he said.

Lewis looked at the tray in horror. “Might I have a gin and tonic?”

The waiter shook his head, causing the plumes on his high headdress to shimmy gently. “The august Father of Heaven has ordained a special Beverage of Lamentation in honor of the departure of one of His divine Children from Paradise.”

Lewis knew from tedious experience that there was no point in arguing, so he took a martini from the tray and forged on toward Victor. Victor, dressed in full cavalier rig, was smirking rather as he accepted congratulation from his fellow cyborgs. He spotted Lewis on the edge of the crowd and raised his violet martini in ironic salute.

“Lewis, old man! What shall you do without me to keep an eye on you, I’d like to know?”

“This’ll be a duller place, by all the gods,” said Lewis sincerely, shaking his hand.
“Paris!
Oh, how I envy you. I hear it’s quite the city nowadays. I’d give anything to go back there.”

“Well, don’t despair; one never knows what the Company has in store for one,” said Victor, with a significant lift of his eyebrow. He twirled his red mustaches. “I have a feeling no one will miss me here.”

“Oh, no, that’s nonsense.” Lewis had a sip of his drink and shuddered. “Look at this turnout! We’ll all miss your wit.”

Victor regarded Lewis with the closest thing he could muster to affection. Lewis was possibly the only immortal at New World One not to have figured out that Victor was there in the capacity of Political Officer.

“No doubt,” he said dryly. “All the same, half of ’em here are from Botany. They’re hoping to assault Houbert
en masse
to get a definitive answer on the Pool and Gymnasium Exclusivity Question.”

“Oh, my, is that still going on?” Lewis glanced over his shoulder at the head of the Botany Department, who was advancing on General Director Houbert with a glare of adamant. Botany Residential had had to share its recreational facilities with Support Tech Residential for the last four centuries, and furious interoffice transmissions had been flying back and forth like electronic wasps for decades now.

“Still unresolved, I fear,” said Victor, swirling his martini. The candied violet sank to the bottom and lay there, rotating sluggishly. He regarded it in distaste a moment before adding, in a lower voice, “Mendoza’s here, you know.”

“She is?” Lewis turned his head sharply. Victor narrowed his eyes in amusement.

“Brought in as moral support for Botany Director Sulpicius. I can’t imagine she gives a damn, though, can you? Why don’t you trot off and relieve her ennui, like the good little knight-errant you are?”

“I rather think I will,” said Lewis. He backed up to a potted palm, surreptitiously dumped the contents of his glass, and hurried off to the booth where the Botanist Mendoza sat alone.

He had known her since 1596. It had been the longest relationship he’d ever had with a woman he’d loved, possibly because she had never noticed that he loved her. He didn’t mind. She liked him, at least, and the Botanist Mendoza liked hardly anybody. Somewhere in her past, a mortal lover had gotten himself burned at the stake, and it had left her with a fixed loathing of mortals and not much tolerance for immortals, either.

She raised a cold black stare to Lewis now, as he slid into the booth, but then she recognized him and smiled. Had he been a mortal man, his heart would have skipped a beat.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was going mad with boredom. How are you, Lewis?”

“Just peachy-keen, now that I have the fragrance of violets on my breath,” he replied. She snickered and drained the last of her martini.

“Ugh. They don’t serve these every day, do they?” she asked.

“God Apollo, no. I gather Houbert invented them especially for the occasion,” said Lewis. “Shame about Victor leaving, though, isn’t it? I shall miss his sense of humor.”

“Did he have one?” Mendoza looked genuinely surprised. “I always thought he was a pompous twit.”

“Oh, no. You must never have seen his impression of—”

They were interrupted by a Mayan waiter sweeping in to pick up their empty glasses. He was in the act of setting down another pair of martinis when Mendoza said, “Not those damn things. Bring us a pair of gin and tonics, can’t you?”

“But the divine Father of Heaven—” the waiter began.

“—can go and sit on his big jade throne,” said Mendoza. “Do as you’re told, mortal man.”

The waiter left, looking miffed. Lewis wrung his hands in embarrassment. “Now, now, look at it from his point of view—he adores Houbert, and it can’t be easy waiting on the lot of us, he must hate this as much as we do—”

“I suppose so,” said Mendoza. “I just get so fed up. ‘The Father of Heaven insists that all shall wear their hats backward today! The Father of Heaven ordains that all shall eat nothing but purple jelly beans today! The Father of Heaven commands that all shall do the Hokey Pokey!’ And the mortals just bend over backward to obey.”

“Cheer up; if Victor got a transfer out of here, perhaps we will, too,” said Lewis.

“You’d really like to go back to Europe?”

“Lord, yes. How wonderful it would be to be able to do some
real
work for a change. Or at least, step outside the Perimeter walls!”

“I know how you feel,” said Mendoza, patting his hand in sympathy. “Nothing matters but the work, as they say. There’s this place in Bolivia—”

The waiter returned and sullenly slapped down in succession two cocktail napkins, two gin and tonics, and a pair of what resembled jade mahjongg tiles.

“Thank you. What’re these?” Mendoza inquired.

“Raffle tokens,” replied the waiter. “The incomparable Father of Heaven requests that His children retain them. There will be a drawing later.”

“Oh, whoopee,” said Mendoza glumly.

“You never know.” Lewis toasted her with his drink. “It might be a box of fruit jellies. Perhaps even a set of shoe trees, this time. Cheers.”

They clinked glasses and drank. “You were saying, about Bolivia?” said Lewis, when they had set their glasses down.

“Well, one of the field ops brought back something interesting from there,” said Mendoza. Her voice dropped as though she were about to impart a secret. “You’re aware I’m working with primitive cultivars of maize, right?”

“Of course,” said Lewis, looking into her eyes. Like most immortals, her physical body had stopped aging at twenty or so; but Mendoza, more so than any other immortal Lewis had met, had an extraordinary quality of reflecting her moods in her appearance. Sad, she was pale and austere, a bitter old woman for all the smoothness of her skin. But if he could make her laugh—if he could delight her with a story, or with good news—then the color rose in her face and the years dropped away.

He watched the process now, and made himself pay attention to what she was telling him with such intensity.

“…bigger than the teosinte I’ve found anywhere else, but not only that—it was found in a deposit of
terra preta.
”

“I’m sorry?”

“Also known as Amazonian Dark Earth,” said Mendoza, in a seductive sort of voice. “Super-compost. Occurs near ancient settlement sites but not even the Indians know where it comes from. Reproduces itself, like sourdough yeast. Bury some in lousy rain forest soil and it’ll convert it to arable land. One of those answer-to-world-hunger things about which mortals will never quite get a clue.”

“Oh. But the Company will?”

“Probably. And probably find a way to market it to gardeners and make a profit, up there in the future. Anyway, I’d give a year’s worth of damned pool privileges to be able to go down there and have a look at it.”

“
But
, do we lowly Preservers ever get any budget for field excursions?” said Lewis, and she chorused with him: “Noooo!”

At that moment a particularly well-muscled Mayan stepped up to a gong and smote it with a tremendous mallet. The note reverberated in the room, rather painfully for the immortals with their augmented senses. All the petty chatter died at once and all heads turned to Director General Houbert, who had risen to his feet.

“And now, darlings, it’s time for our weekly ration of delicious suspense,” he announced. “Console yourselves through the endless nights with this thought: that though we, servants of an all-knowing godlike pseudo-entity, are cursed with foreknowledge of nearly all things that happen,
this
at least we cannot know. I refer, of course, to the matter of who shall win the fabulous door prize!”