Gods and Pawns (4 page)

Lewis shook his head. “Though I’ve known a few who did. People who have stayed out in the field too long. They’re certainly the best at what they do, and some of them can do some remarkable things…one fellow I knew called it
stripping down to the machine.
Cutting away the inessentials. They’re not bothered by rain or snow or heat.”

“See, I think that would be marvelous. You’d be sort of this super Zen master ninja cyborg,” said Mendoza. “You wouldn’t need anything. What stories they must have to tell!”

“Except that they don’t tell them,” said Lewis.

“What?”

“They’re not great talkers. I suppose that becomes inessential, too. They don’t work well with other operatives, much, and they can’t work around mortals at all.”

“Oh.” She lowered her gaze to the little fire. “Well, it’s still an interesting idea.”

They retired early, Mendoza crawling into the sole remaining bivvy and Lewis wrapping himself up in his poncho in one of the crates. He lay there a while, cold and uncomfortable, listening to distant thunder. Gradually the thunder moved closer, and the lightning became more frequent. He opened his eyes and looked up just as a blue-white flash revealed dozens of insects, including a tarantula, making their determined way over the edge of the crate, all of them looking for a warm place to spend the night.

“Yikes!” Lewis nearly levitated up and out of the crate, landing with a squelch in the long grass.

“What?” Mendoza leaned up on her elbows.

“Just, er, a few bugs,” said Lewis, leaping to his feet and smacking at something crawling up his arm. “It’s all right—”

“Look—” Mendoza unzipped the flap. “This is dumb. Crawl in here with me. There’s room enough and we can lie back to back, okay? Chaste as anything.”

“Okay,” said Lewis, and scrambled into the bivvy. Mendoza zipped it shut again.

They slept, chaste as anything. The rain began to fall again. The night filled with the scent of green leaves.

Lewis opened his eyes. Sunlight, above his face, sparkling on water drops. Early early sunlight, just after a gentle misty dawn. He could glimpse blue sky through the canopy, and a flash of color as a macaw streaked by overhead. The storm had rolled through.

None of which made any impression on him, however, because he was lying on his back and Mendoza was resting her head on his chest, and had thrown one arm over him, and was holding him close.

He lay there, scarcely daring to breathe.

Lord God Apollo, this is Lewis. Remember me? I don’t suppose you’d remember, actually, I’m not the sort of fellow people remember much, but anyway here I am, and I still pray to you occasionally even though I’m a cyborg now, and I was just wondering: I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stop time, right this minute? Right here, in this moment, for the rest of Eternity?

She was warm. Her hair was fragrant with something. Roses? Her arm was bare. She was breathing quietly as a child.

He could almost—

“Mh…
Nicholas?
”

He felt her come awake, utterly relaxed one moment and utterly alert the next. He squeezed his eyes shut.

She started violently, and he heard her draw a sharp breath. A frozen moment of immobility; then, with great care, she drew away from Lewis and turned on her side, with her back to him.

She made no sound, but he felt the slight trembling as she wept.

Lewis waited an hour before stretching and yawning loudly.

“My gosh, the sun is shining!” he announced.

“And we made it through the night without being washed down the hill,” said Mendoza in a bright voice. She turned to face him, red-eyed but calm and collected.

“What shall we do today?” said Lewis. “Other than pay a heck of a lot of attention to barometrical readings?”

“Hang things out to dry,” she said, leaning up on one elbow to peer out through the mesh. “And I guess we really should see if we can dig out any more of the gear that got buried. Just so some Victorian explorer doesn’t stumble on it and claim it’s evidence for colonists from Atlantis.”

A few strands of her hair were stuck to the side of her face. Lewis, unable to stop himself, reached out and smoothed them back. She pretended not to notice.

“Do you want to go any farther afield to look for your maize?”

“Teosinte. No…I think I’ve found pretty much everything there is to find, there,” she said. “I’m starting to be more interested in the place itself.”

Lewis nodded. “It must have been quite an engineering feat on somebody’s part.”

“There had to have been a huge resident population to build it all, and then to keep the land in production. I want to do some tests on the fruit trees here, to see if there’s much genetic difference from the cultivars grown in other parts of Amazonia.”

“Okay,” said Lewis, unzipping the mesh and crawling out before the conversation could get more botanocentric. He dressed himself, performed such ablutions as were possible, and wandered off to see if he could find any more guavas for breakfast.

There was a bearing tree just at the edge of the slide precipice. He approached with caution, so busy scanning for unstable earth that he didn’t notice the view until it was right before his eyes. When he did notice it, though, he stopped in his tracks, openmouthed.

The land had become a shallow sea, sky-reflecting as a mirror, brilliant blue. The high mounds rose from the water, an archipelago of green gardens, and on their lower slopes grew purple flowers. Macaws sailed out on brilliant wings, blue and gold, scarlet and green, between the islands. All of it in dreamlike silence, but for the rustling of their wings; not a bird or a monkey cried anywhere.

Mendoza came up behind him and gazed out.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“Another Eden,” said Lewis, but she shook her head.

“Mortals built this place,” she said, and went to the guava tree and picked the fruit.

They put their waders and ponchos back on and made their slow way down the hill after breakfast, paralleling the smooth chocolate-colored track of the slide, digging into the mud at the bottom with camp shovels. They found Lewis’s sleeping bag, very much the worse for wear, and a case of bottled water.

“And there was great rejoicing,” said Mendoza, hoisting it on her shoulder. “Let me get this up the hill into the shade.”

“I think I see the flamecube,” said Lewis, poking with the handle of his shovel.

“Oh, good. That’d really give the Von Danikenists something to talk about, wouldn’t it, if that got left behind?” She set the water down and came back to peer into the slush. Lewis raked with the upper edge of the shovel and levered up a corner of the cube. Before it sank into the muck once more, Mendoza was able to reach down and grab hold.

“Oh, no, you should have let me—”

“It’s all right, just back up a little so I can—”

“Really, let me—”

So busy were they that neither one of them noticed the mortal’s approach.

He was within arrowshot when they looked up and saw him at last, and then they stared in disbelief.

He was an ancient mortal, poling along toward them in a flat-bottomed skiff. His boat was elaborately carved to represent some kind of water bird. It moved without a sound across the glassy water, leaving no more wake than a dream. His own garments were elaborate, too, woven cotton in several colors and a headdress of bright macaw feathers, and little pendant ornaments of shell and hammered gold.

He brought his skiff up to the edge of the mound and stopped, leaning on the pole.

“Good morning,” he said.

They did a fast linguistic access and realized that he was speaking in a Taino dialect, though his accent was strange and archaic.

“Good morning, sir,” Lewis replied, in Taino.

“You wouldn’t happen to be gods, would you?” inquired the old man.

“No, sir,” said Lewis. “Only servants of a god.”

“Ah,” said the old man. “Well, that would explain the mud all over you. Tell me, children, is the lord Maketaurie Guyuaba anywhere about?”

“Er—no,” said Lewis, doing a fast access on Taino mythology.
Maketaurie Guyuaba: lord of Coaybay (land of the dead) beyond the sunset.
Hastily he transmitted the reference to Mendoza.

“What a pity,” said the old man, cocking an eye at the hilltop. “I had so hoped to speak to someone important. That would be his camp, up there, where his effulgence shone out the other evening?”

“No, sir, that’s our camp,” said Lewis. “The, er, effulgence was a sort of lamp, this one in fact,” and Mendoza held it up, “but I’m afraid it washed down the hill in the storm, and we’ve just been digging it out.”

“
Your
lamp?” The old man looked askance at them, mildly amused. “Yes, very likely indeed. You’d best get the mud cleaned off it, children, or your master will beat you.
I
know what servants will get up to, when the lord of the house is away. When may I find him at home?”

“I’m afraid he lives—er—that way,” said Lewis, waving an arm, “Many moons—ah—quite a long distance off. He sent us here on a great bird to, er…”

Gather plants for him
, transmitted Mendoza.

“Gather plants for him, and he’s sending the bird back to collect us in a few days,” Lewis finished.

“A great bird. I see,” said the old man, in a tone of polite disdain. He coughed delicately and said: “The fact is, I had hoped to consult with him on a matter of some importance.”

“We would be happy to deliver a message to him,” said Lewis.

“I wonder if you might,” said the old man. “Would you just let him know that a fellow deity wishes to discuss a matter of mutual advantage?”

Lewis and Mendoza exchanged glances.

Company business,
transmitted Lewis.
We’ve encountered a member of a previously-unknown culture. We’re supposed to investigate and report back to Dr. Zeus, so they can send an evaluation team.

But we’re not anthropologists!
protested Mendoza.

We’re Preservers, all the same. And, after all, how many people get a chance to discover a fabulous lost civilization?

Hmf. And if we don’t investigate, we’ll get nailed with a Section Sixteen, won’t we? Damn. So much for a vacation away from mortals.

“Of course, sir,” said Lewis to the mortal. “In the meanwhile, may we be of any assistance? Our master has given us some power to act for him.”

“Has he?” The old mortal considered them, looked at the gear scattered about. “Perhaps.”

“May we speak directly to the god?” Lewis inquired. The old man raised his eyebrows.

“Child, you
are
speaking to a god. I am Orocobix, Lord of Abundance.”

Lewis gaped and then knelt, grabbing Mendoza’s arm in his descent to compel her to kneel, too.

“Pardon our ignorance, Lord Orocobix,” he said.

I’m kneeling to a mortal…
Mendoza ground her teeth. The old mortal gaped, too, and then smiled. He drew himself upright, holding the pole like a scepter.

“Rise, children rise. You may be forgiven; you’re dead, after all. However—” and he looked again at their gear “—you might want to present me with a suitable offering…?”

Lewis glanced over his shoulder. With great presence of mind he ran and fetched the case of bottled water.

“Please accept this, great Orocobix! Pure water in conveniently reusable containers,” he said.

“How nice,” said Orocobix. “Perhaps the lamp as well.”

But I borrowed it from Pan Li in Accounting!

Can’t be helped. Technically it’s Company property, you know.

“Certainly, great Orocobix,” said Lewis, bowing. “Will you permit us to accompany you to your sacred place, bearing these gifts for you?”

“Yes,” said the old mortal, “I think that would be best.” He retreated to the stern of the skiff and sat down. Lewis loaded the water and the FlameCube into the bow, and handed Mendoza up onto one of the thwarts; when he stepped in himself, Orocobix handed him the pole.

“Due east,” he instructed. He reached over and took the flamecube from Mendoza’s hands, and, holding it up critically, brushed some of the mud off.

“How does it burn?” he inquired.

“I think it has to dry out first,” said Lewis, pushing them off from the shallows. The skiff went gliding across the water. “I hope you’ll pardon us, great Orocobix, but I’m certain our god will have a lot of questions to ask us about you. He was under the impression that this part of the world was deserted.”

“Oh, no,” said Orocobix, leaning back. “This has always been our country. We created all this kingdom.” He waved an arm at the surrounding landscape. “Sadly, we have been without subjects for some time now. It is very inconvenient.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”

Bloody mortal aristocrats,
Mendoza transmitted, glowering.

Orocobix shrugged. “So it goes. Even gods may be obliged to endure difficulties. When did the august lord of the dead extend his dominion this far east, may I ask?”

“Actually, he hasn’t,” said Lewis, leaning into the pole to send their boat gliding forward. “We’re just visiting.”

“Of course.”

“Though of course his kingdom is perfectly immense, you know,” Lewis improvised. “What with mortals dying on a regular basis.”

“How very interesting,” said the old man, stroking his chin. “Has he many wives?”

“Well—not so many, no,” said Lewis.

“Indeed,” said Orocobix. He gave a slight smile and leaned back, clasping his hands in his lap. Seen close to, it was apparent that his garments were a little threadbare, and the feathers of his crown had a somewhat moth-eaten appearance.

Four miles more or less due east, they drew near to an island that was larger than any other they had yet seen. Its sides seemed to be terraced; some stonework was visible here and there. Mendoza stared hard at it.

Cultivation!
she transmitted.
Lewis, somebody’s farming those slopes. See the manioc? I don’t notice any maize, though…

“You are to be commended on the admirable silence of your sister,” said Orocobix, a little uneasily. “Does your lord prefer his women without voices?”