Gods and Pawns (7 page)

“Madam?” Lewis blinked at her.

“But, of course,
you
wouldn’t know that,” said Atabey, frowning and waving a dismissive hand. As though to herself, she muttered: “All the same…it never hurts to ask.” She turned to Lewis again, and smiled graciously. “I merely inquire, you see, because we do need to keep our august and ancient family present in this plane of existence, and one does require a body of flesh in which to manifest, after all. And for that—” She gave a little embarrassed laugh. “One does need daughters, doesn’t one?”

“I suppose so, great goddess,” said Lewis, wishing hard that he were in a peaceful room somewhere far away, Londinium perhaps, with a martini at his elbow and a copy of the
Iliad
or perhaps the plays of Aristophanes…

“And, of course, there is the question of servants,” Atabey went on. “Your master will certainly want to see that his in-laws are well attended. A mere hundred or so to see to our personal needs—really, we wouldn’t require much. Oh, the difficulties and inconveniences we’ve had to face, the last few years!”

“I can imagine,” said Lewis, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

“I don’t think so,” said Atabey severely, now clearly uncomfortable to have unburdened herself before a lesser creature. “It has been a great trial.”

“Terribly sorry, great goddess.” Lewis lowered his eyes.

“You may continue with your task,” said Atabey, and stalked off. Lewis scanned her as she went; no sign of liver fluke at all, contrary to Mendoza’s expectations.

I wonder who’s eating all the watercress, then?
he wondered. He sighed, gritted his teeth, and took another haul on the sledge.

Lewis had just thrown a bundle of reeds across his shoulder and was starting up the ladder when he spotted Agueybana approaching him. He stepped back down, dropped the bundle, and dusted his hands.

“Good afternoon, god Agueybana,” he called, “Would you like a word with me in private?”

Agueybana winced and hurried nearer.

“Not so loudly, if you please,” he said in an undertone. “Or we’ll have them all about us, babbling away with their nonsense. Look here—we need to discuss a few practical matters.”

“Such as, great god?” said Lewis innocently.

“Such as a bride price, for one thing,” said Agueybana. “I’m sure your master is a practical fellow; he’s sure to see what an advantage it’ll be for him to take our Cajaya to wife. We are, after all, the most ancient of the divinities! To say nothing of the wealth of this land of ours.”

“It is, indeed, a fruitful country,” said Lewis.

“So it is,” said Agueybana, with a sly look. “Let us just say that he who weds Cajaya shall never lack for guavas, eh? But, of course, he can’t expect such advantages for nothing. We ought to be provided for
properly.
”

“What did you have in mind, great one?” said Lewis.

“Mortal slaves,” said Agueybana, without hesitation. “As well as building stone and artisans. A few thousand mortals to maintain the gardens, a retinue for the house. Preferably highborn—we couldn’t be expected to put up with field slaves waiting at table.”

“Ah,” said Lewis, nodding noncommittally. He scanned the mortal for liver fluke infestation, continuing to murmur “Yes,” and “I see,” as Agueybana rambled on with demands.

No, the man was in perfect health, like the ladies…except…No! There was some trace of something after all…Lewis concentrated and focused his scan, going slightly crosseyed with effort, though Agueybana failed to notice.

“…enough slaves to make the trip to the coast again, with sledges to bring back stones…”

Signs of an old infestation, long healed. At some point in the past Agueybana
had
suffered from liver fluke, but made a full recovery. And seemed, overall, quite robust now. Therefore…nobody was eating the cresses? Or the fish? Perhaps the pond was merely ornamental. But…

“…glad you agree with me!” Agueybana was saying, and thumped him on the back with painful heartiness. “It’s damned annoying to be the only level-headed person in the place, but there you are. Lord Maketaurie will sympathize, I’m sure. Tell me…has he an army?”

“I’m sorry?” Lewis came alert. “An army? Oh, no, great one. Why would the ruler of the afterlife need an army?”

“Hm. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Agueybana, pulling at his lip. “Pity. It might have come in useful. Oh, well. You present my terms, anyway, understand? And I’ll see to it your master receives good report of you.”

“You are too kind,” said Lewis, genuflecting.

He was lying down on one of the two ancient cots when Mendoza entered their room, carrying another platter of guavas.

“I headed off our hostess,” she said. “Told her the dead need a little peace and quiet now and then. My God, Lewis, you look exhausted.”

“I’ve been lying like a Facilitator all day,” said Lewis dully. “But I’m nearly done with the east wing of the palace.”

“Bloody lazy mortal aristocrats,” said Mendoza, setting down the platter. “I’m surprised they didn’t make the child do it. They make her do everything else.”

Lewis sat up and reached for a guava. “They don’t have liver flukes, by the way. I scanned. No parasites at all.”

“None?” Mendoza looked suspicious. “But that fish pond is crawling with the stuff. It’s in the snails and the fish. It’s encysted on the watercress. Lewis, we’ve got a tiny inbred colony of primates living together here on one hilltop. They ought to be loaded with fleas and lice and—just about every nasty parasite mortals can get.”

“They’re not, however,” said Lewis, peeling the guava. “Odd, isn’t it?”

“Distinctly odd. By the way…I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor?”

“I’d be happy to. What is it?”

“Since you don’t seem to mind talking to them…I wonder if you could sort of indirectly bring up the subject of plant composting in the garden, and ask them what their recipe is?”

“But I thought you discovered that,” said Lewis, bewildered.

“No. I spent all day analyzing samples I took from the bottom of the chute—when I wasn’t weeding their damn terrace paths and herb beds. Fish bones, broken pots, vegetable matter, mortal sewage.
And something else.
Some batch of microorganisms I could not, for the life of me, identify,
but
which is able to convert stinking muck into black gold.”

“All right,” said Lewis, mentally adding another to the long list of things for which the greatest delicacy and tact was needed. “Rely on me.”

“Thanks,” said Mendoza. She threw herself down on her bed, which promptly collapsed in a tangle of rotten wood and cord. With explosive profanity she rose and kicked it across the room, where it broke into bits with a sound like old bones shattering.

Lewis rose at once. “You can have mine.”

“No! No, sweetheart. All I had to do for the wretched monkeys all day was weed their little plague-spot of a garden. They worked you a lot harder. You stay there,” said Mendoza, controlling her temper with difficulty.

“Oh, I couldn’t—” said Lewis dazedly, the word
sweetheart
pounding in his ears.

“No. Hell, you know what I’ll do? I’ll just see if I can’t sleep standing up.” Mendoza surveyed the room and found a patch of wall that was slightly less leprous with moss than the rest. She leaned against it, and balanced herself cautiously. “What’s it called,
going into fugue
? If those old field ops can do it, I’ll bet I can do it, too.”

“It takes a little practice,” said Lewis. “You have to sort of open your consciousness. The opposite of focusing, you see? Just…reach out into the Everything.”

“So you’ve done this before?” Mendoza let her arms hang down, decided that was uncomfortable, and folded them instead.

“A little,” Lewis admitted. “I had climbed a tree to get out of a flood. On the third day I was up there, I tried going into fugue, so I could get some rest.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes…though I wouldn’t call it a success. I found myself identifying entirely too closely with my tree. Next thing I knew, I was having a furious conversation with a family of gall-wasps. Had this overpowering urge to rub insect repellent on myself for months afterward.”

“Ugh.” Mendoza shuddered and closed her eyes.

Lewis peeled and ate another guava.

Mendoza opened her eyes.

“Wait a minute. These people survived an epidemic that wiped out the rest of their civilization. You don’t suppose they’ve got some kind of genetic resistance to parasites in general? And, therefore, maybe, to certain diseases transmitted by the parasites?”

“Possibly,” said Lewis, struck by the idea. He looked at her. “Interesting! But…you know, if you want to go into fugue, you need to stop thinking about anything specific.”

“Oh. Right,” said Mendoza, and closed her eyes again. “Well, good night, Lewis.”

“Good night.”

He ate one more guava, slowly, wondering why the mortals he’d scanned hadn’t so much as a flea bite among them. What
if
they, alone of all their people, had some genetic characteristic that helped their ancestors survive an epidemic? He knew that Native Americans were dying, in the millions, of smallpox and other European diseases. They died, not because they were especially weak and susceptible, but because they were more genetically alike, one to another, than the mongrel Europeans.

So suppose,
he thought to himself as he lay down,
this one family were just different enough to live through the plague? Some kind of favorable mutation. They might have decided they were gods. But then, with no one else with which to breed, they’d have fallen into the same trap of genetic homogeneity…ah, the ironies of history…shallow gene pool, just like the cheetahs…

He thought over the absurd parade of requests he’d received from the mortals. The contrast between their royal expectations, and what was most likely to happen, was painful to contemplate.

If Dr. Zeus followed usual policy, every byte of data Lewis was absorbing would be wrung from him, and from Mendoza, too, as though they were a pair of sponges; then a team of anthropologists would be sent in, masquerading as Maketaurie and his entourage, no doubt.

These last survivors, with their culture, would be studied, collected, and packed off to some Company facility like so many rare butterflies. How would they adjust to life as mere Company dependents?

Too sad to dwell upon…

Lewis turned and watched Mendoza, intending to offer her helpful advice should she be finding it difficult to go into fugue. To his amazement, she appeared to have succeeded on the first try. Stiffly upright there in the darkness, she had taken on the immobility of a dead branch or a pillar of stone; she seemed nearly transparent, a shade among shadows. Her features were drawn, almost deathly, and yet there was something ecstatic in her expression.

It frightened him, for no good reason he could name. Lewis felt an irrational urge to leap up, to put his arms around her and carry her away from that inhuman void into which she slipped with such terrifying ease.

Perhaps she’s meeting
him
there,
thought Lewis.
Perhaps the void is Nicholas Harpole.

Guilt, and regret, and weariness so overcame him that he turned his face away. He tried to remember a place he’d been happy once, a wine shop in Piraeus with a view of the sea, and he’d sat there with a fresh copy of Menander’s
Dis Exapaton
all one sunny afternoon, with never a care in the world
…

Dawn came with a thousand birds crying, and Lewis opened his eyes to an empty room. He started up, panicked; but after a moment of scanning he picked up Mendoza’s signal down on one of the terraces. She was pulling weeds again.

Are you all right?
he transmitted.

Yes! Lewis, it worked. What a great way to rest! I can’t think why we don’t fugue out more often.

I believe it’s frowned on if you’re posted in an urban environment around mortals,
said Lewis.
The argument is, you might as well slap a big sign saying
CYBORG
across your forehead.

Mendoza responded with a cheerful obscenity. Lewis sighed, got to his feet, and wandered out into the palace courtyard.

Orocobix sat there, gazing out at the morning. On a block of stone at his feet, the flamecube flickered away; someone had scrupulously cleaned it and figured out how to switch it on. It diffused a pleasant heat against the early morning chill. Little Tanama was just offering her grandfather a cup of something steaming. He accepted it, smiling, and bowed a greeting to Lewis.

“Good morning, child. I must say, the palace roof has never been so well repaired.”

“Thank you,” said Lewis, accepting a cup from Tanama. He sipped it: a bitter herbal tea. He had no idea what its botanic origin was; he detected caffeine, as well as chemical compounds intended to regulate metabolism and keep the prostate an acceptable size. Useful, for an elderly mortal male.

“Are you going to be working on the other side of the house today?” Tanama asked him. “I need to know so—” Orocobix held up his hand in a warning gesture, and she blushed and fell silent. Gathering up the tray with its pot and cups, she hurried indoors.

“Great Orocobix,” said Lewis, setting aside his cup. “I must be frank with you. It is likely that my master will prefer to take you, and your family, to his own kingdom, rather than leave you here.”

“I am aware of that, child,” said Orocobix placidly. “The Lord of Coaybay takes all into his realm. It is his nature.”

“Yes, but your family seems to believe that life will go on, unchanged,” said Lewis. “That will not be the case at all.”

Orocobix nodded.

“They are greedy and impatient,” he said. “And not, I think, very great observers of the world. A great tree shoots up from the earth, it bears fruit, the fruit ripens and rots and falls; the tree sees many seasons come and go, watches many harvests drop from its branches. Yet in some hour the tree itself will die at the heart, and rot and fall, too.