The Life of the World to Come (37 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

Tags: #Adult, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Fantasy, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat, #Travel

BOOK: The Life of the World to Come

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The gunsmith reached into the bottom of the case and brought out a smaller wooden box, engraved all over with death’s heads. He opened it carefully to display, nested in red velvet, a brass shell the size and appearance of a human skull. Incised knotwork and spirals swirled on its surface, swooped between its blind eyes, incorporating inscriptions that looked as though they’d been copied from some ancient grimoire.

“You know what this is, of course,” said the Maelrubha.

“Yeah,” said Alec, who had no idea. He drank uncertainly.

“I’ll thank you to observe this special feature, here—” the Maelrubha indicated the delicate lettering, “—that you won’t find offered by any other dealer in arms, assuming you could find one in this enlightened age. Each line an original curse of deadly puissance, time-tested by experts! Now, the bomb is free with your order; but for an additional, nominal charge the curses can be personalized. Right here whilst you wait, our artist will engrave the name of your heart’s enemy in that attractive oval blank there, see?”

It was such an absurd idea Alec found it delightful.

“Sure,” he said. “Okay! It won’t explode while it’s being engraved on, will it?”

Muttering, the gunsmith drew a tiny golden acid pencil from a slot in his leather apron. He looked impatiently at Alec.

“Er—ARECO,” Alec said. And though it seemed as though his thick black fingers could barely get purchase on the pencil’s shaft, the gunsmith quickly and easily wrote
ARECO
in flowing uncials so perfect you’d swear he’d attended a convent school. “Neat,” said Alec admiringly. “Okay, what do I owe for the lot?”

“Hm, hm—” The Maelrubha exchanged glances with Mother. “Let’s see now, five hundred of the assorted pistols
and rifles—and then you’ll want the extra power packs—plus cleaning kits and accessories—plus the charge for the engraving—and then there’s the Celtic Federation transfer tax, but I like you, so we’ll disregard that—let’s make it a nice round sum and say eleven million pounds English? And I’ll throw in this case as a personal gift, on account of you appreciate a work of art when you see one.”

Alec gulped. The Captain was stunned into silence.

“Okay,” said Alec, thinking of the valiant Martian agriculturists and the way the odds were stacked against them. “I’ve got four million in gold specie in the boat. I can transfer the balance from my own account, yeah?”

The deal was made. Coordinating with Mother’s system, seven million pounds were transferred from Cocos Island Trading’s account to a certain account in Switzerland. As soon as the transaction had gone through, the Maelrubha produced a second pocket flask and quaffed cheerfully.

“Now, that’ll buy a lot of little shoes,” he said. “Drink with me, English, drink deep. Death to our enemies!”

And Alec certainly didn’t want anybody to die really, but because he was a courteous man he grinned and held his flask aloft.

“Death to our enemies,” he said, and drank deep, as he had been bid.

All that remained was to wait while box after box was loaded into the launch, by barefoot lads who seemed entirely unaffected by the blue cold. The specie was unloaded and examined by the gunsmith, who pronounced it satisfactory with a grudging nod. When the last of the order had been battened in place Alec splashed out to the launch and climbed in. He started up the motor and put about, turning in his seat to wave farewell to his hosts. He felt light-headed and half-frozen, and the thought that he was transporting a real bomb that might blow him to atoms gave him a certain giddy delight.

The Captain made a note that Alec needed another psychotherapy workout, but was preoccupied by the task of getting the launch safely back to the
Captain Morgan
where she
rode the rising swell in the eternal blue dusk. It was time to take her out where she’d have plenty of sea room.

“So long, English,” called the Maelrubha, from where he watched near the cave mouth. “Please call again. Always happy to serve a repeat customer.”

“Aren’t they English on Mars, sir?” said Mother, waving at Alec.

“We can hope so, darlin’,” growled Bull.

THE YEAR 2351 :

Alec Meets a Girl

“Sushi for evewyone,” sang Binscarth, offering around a tray as though it contained so many green and black petit-fours. He had to shout over the mariachi music and the roar of the food processor as it battered ice cubes and tequila into a slimy slush. The roar cut out abruptly, replaced by a torrent of curses from Magilside.

“It’s broken now! I told you we should have rented a houseboy,” he bellowed from the kitchen.

“Oh, yes, that’d make a
lot
of sense, have some local spy weporting on us to the Fedewales because you wanted a pwoperly made fwozen mawgawita,” sneered Binscarth. “Sushi, Checkewfield?” He danced up to Alec, who was standing on the balcony staring out at a red sunset over the Pacific.

“No, thanks,” said Alec. He was too edgy to eat.

“Don’t be a fool, Mexican’s the best sushi in the wowld,” said Binscarth huffily. Balkister waved him away, lifting his drink in a toast to Alec.

“He’s no fool. He’s a hero, and he knows damned well that one doesn’t go out on a mission stuffed full of food and drink. Eh, fellow ugly guy?” He stepped out on the balcony beside Alec and considered the view. The vacation house belonged to Johnson-Johnson’s grandmother, and was white and soaring of line, with its back firmly turned on a parched
wilderness of scorpions and spiny plants. The land road was a windy misery of brick-red dust. The only pleasant access was by sea, into a perfect little bay of golden sand and turquoise water. The
Captain Morgan
rocked quietly at anchor below them, at the end of the private pier.

“Though you might have just a shot of tequila or something, you know, for your nerves,” Balkister added, watching as the sky went through ever-brassier shades of melon and salmon and peach.

“That’s the last thing I need right now,” said Alec sharply. He was still mortified at getting so drunk at the arms dealer’s. To make matters worse, four days earlier he’d been sitting at the Happy Club bar in Campeche when he’d picked up the unmistakable scent of perfume from the trap in his house. Turning slowly in his seat, he’d noticed the unobtrusive man who’d come in after him and sat now three stools down, ordering a Red Stripe. Not a cyborg, at least; but it meant the Company had investigated that address and was still managing to have him shadowed ashore. Too many of his habits were known. They would bear changing.

“Try to keep the rest of them halfway sober, yeah?” he told Balkister. “Timing’s going to be everything, if I make it back.”

“Of course you’ll make it—”

“These are serious bad guys, Balkister. Just as bad as Areco in their way, okay? And no, I’m still not telling you who they are. Once they find out one of their shuttles is gone, they’ll come after it. If we’re really lucky we’ll have about five hours’ lead. But if one of those clowns is so stoned he drops a crate off the pier when we’re loading—”

“Won’t happen! You have my word, Checkerfield. They’re just keyed up. This is a bit more exotic action than most of them ever get to see, you know.” Balkister sucked at his frozen drink. “But none of them have forgotten what it’s in aid of, believe me. God, I envy you, Checkerfield, I really do. Mars at last.”

“Year,” Alec said, realizing he had barely thought about that part of the plan. Not that it hadn’t been meticulously arranged; but all his attention had fixed on the next seven hours, to the exclusion of anything else. If those seven hours were a success, the rest of the run would seem like a kiddie ride.

And after that, he’d decided, it was time to get out of the smuggling business and focus entirely on revenge.

Balkister cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.

“You’re quite sure you can fly the shuttle?”

“Hey.” Alec made a dismissive gesture. “This is Super Cyborg you’re talking to, remember? Of course I can fly it.”

“And it really can—” Balkister mouthed the words
time travel.

“She,” Alec cautioned, with a glare toward the house.

“Oh, quite. Top secret. Now—not that I haven’t every confidence in you, but—just on the chance something goes, er, wrong—is there anybody you’d like us to contact?”

“You mean if I snuff it?” Alec grinned. “Nope. All my legal stuff’s sorted out already. Title dies with me. Most of the money’s tied up in a trust fund for my mother.”

Balkister frowned. Surely Alec had meant
from
his mother? The moment was too solemn to correct his grammar, however. “You can be certain we’ll honor your memory for all time, you know. We put it to a special vote, when you’d gone to bed last night.”

“Nice of you,” said Alec. “Don’t worry about your rent payments, either. There’s a codicil just for that purpose.”

“That’s awfully decent, Checkerfield,” said Balkister stiffly. He looked out on the twilight water and, for a moment, regretted what they were doing. Behind them there was a sudden blast of sound as Magilside cranked up the music, a swoony mariachi rendition of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” loud enough to rattle the window glass.

When night had fallen, Alec went on board the
Captain Morgan
. Swiftly she put to sea and sped north through the black night ocean, on a familiar course, and the mermaid on her prow wept silently.

By the time the lights of the island were visible, Alec had put on a thin set of thermals and fastened himself into his subsuit. As the
Captain Morgan
made her cautious way around the windward side of the island, standing well out to sea, he wondered uncomfortably whether Dr. Zeus had
someone in that distant cluster of lights watching him on a gray screen. He started as Billy Bones crept up, offering him the mask that went with his suit.

Not to worry, son. They ain’t scanning the coast I reckon piracy’s the last thing they expect, in this day and age.

They really don’t know, do they? They’ve got no clue about us, right?

How could they? They may know you can do amazing stuff, but they don’t know about me. I reckon I’m the rock they’ve split on, thinking they’d have things all their own way.

Yeah. This is the beginning of the big payback.

That’s my boy. Alec’s revenge! Take no prisoners, son.

This is for my mother, for Roger and Cecelia, for all of ’em.

Alec leaned backward over the rail, kicking once to deploy the flippers in his boots. He tumbled into the dark water and immediately the infrared sights in the mask cut in, lighting his way into an eerie undersea nocturne.

The water was beautifully clear, full of shoals of bright fish that fled from his silent passage. Once, at a distance, he saw the slow cruising bulk of a shark; but it picked up the signal his suit was broadcasting and turned, making off through the kelp forest as though it had abruptly remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere.

He saw nothing more dangerous until he began to pass the mines, drifting things that resembled jellyfish. Their purpose was to adhere to the hulls of approaching vessels and transmit all perceptible information on them to Dr. Zeus. They were programmed to deliver an unsettling electric charge to something Alec’s size, but he avoided them with ease. Now he was past the strung foul-wires, the netting, the camouflaged underwater entrances. A moment more and he was crawling ashore on his hands and knees, and a seal was turning to look at him in an affronted way before rolling over and lolloping down to the surf to take its rest somewhere else.

He pulled off his mask and sat there gasping a moment, reviewing the plan in his head. Then he tucked the mask away in a pouch, retracted the flippers into his boots and edged along the sheer cliff wall, hunting for any place where it was less vertical, working always toward the white lights of the compound.

At length he found a goat path and went up it, crouching forward to feel his way with his hands, ascending swiftly. About twenty meters up it led him into a sparse stand of ironwood trees, and he leaned against one and studied the view.

The compound lay to the north, on a shelf of land blasted from the cliffs to create a platform. It jutted out like a proscenium stage, painted with the hummingbird landing pattern for vertically rising and descending aircraft. A half-circle of maintenance offices were built against its back wall. Their windows were dark. Three small aircraft sat on the landing platform.

They did not look particularly skyworthy, or even attractive. They were rather like buses in shape and size, dull silver, with only the slightest tapering at the nose and only the suggestion of stubby wings and tail fins. Their designer had clearly wanted no part of Buck Rogers Revival.

On the other hand, Alec reflected, it made a certain sense to make the most outrageously valuable piece of technology ever invented as drab and functional as a toaster. Who’d want to steal a dumpy-looking craft like that?
Unless he knew what
it was.

He advanced through the trees and came upon an access road, thickly planted along its verge with mimosa and hibiscus. Silently he paralleled the road, working through the bushes, and came at last to the powered gate with its glowing control box.

Here?

May as well Give ’em hell, son. Where do we come firom?

From the sea
Alec freed his collar from the neck of the sub suit and unscrewed the knob at one end. He withdrew a plug on a fine length of wire. Groping, he found a port on the underside of the control box and connected.

WE’RE IN!

Alec had the momentary sensation of swallowing a lot of very good rum simultaneous to having the orgasm of his life while inhaling the fragrance of a Jamaican garden. He knew, now, all he needed to get in. Dizzy and elated, he ordered the gate to open and it did. Unporting, he ran through, keeping to the shadows, and made straight for the nearest time shuttle.

As he ran, the Captain was running too, down what would look to Alec like an immense corridor lined with the richest and most desirable of loot. Metaphorically he had his arms extended, sweeping across either wall, and the loot flowed into him through his fingertips, and as it did he was growing, expanding to tremendous size. In lighthouses all across the face of the globe, lights were winking, data of unimaginable content and complexity was being downloaded.

Alec sped across the painted tarmac and ordered the time shuttle to open for him. Obediently its hatch sprang wide, and he vaulted in. He stared around as the hatch closed behind him. The interior of the shuttle was nothing like its exterior. He’d never seen such luxury in a commercial transport.

There was an odd sharp smell in the air, a chemical kind of smell. What was that? The new data he’d received told him it was residual stasis gas. What was stasis gas? Harmful? No? Okay, then, and here was what was obviously the pilot’s seat, in front of what must be the guidance console.

He slid into the seat, buckled the restraints and looked the console over, ordering it to activate. Rows of lights blinked on, greeting him. Somewhere here must be the buttonball where he’d enter the algorithm to take it through time. Right now, though, he was only planning on taking it through space, out of this yard and across the dark sea to where the
Captain Morgan
waited.

Meanwhile the Captain had paused, staggering slightly as he absorbed the implications of a file he had just downloaded. Its designation was
Adonai.
He was leaning on a wall of light, wondering how he was going to safely relay the file’s contents to Alec, when he became aware of the electronic analogue of the sound of approaching feet.

Captain?
Alec called.

The Captain turned. Walking down the virtual corridor toward him was the figure of a man, seemingly cast out of green bronze. Powerfully built, bearded, naked but for some white drapery over one shoulder and about his waist. He appeared to be looking directly at the Captain, but it was impossible to tell; the sockets of his eyes were black and empty. In his right hand was a thunderbolt.

Captain, I’ve got the shuttle! How do I put in coordinates?

The Captain muttered a string of words that would have given a sailor in any era pause. The approaching figure smiled, with a sound like bronze plate screaming across bronze plate.

Captain?

YOU ARE IN MY HOUSE, THIEF

Bloody Hell. I reckon yer Dr. Zeus, ain’t you? Someone’s given you an interface identity

I AM THE DOCTOR AND I AM THE GOD, THIEF.

Captain! It’s time to take off!

The figure advanced implacably on the Captain, raising its thunderbolt as it came. Backing off a pace, the Captain drew his cutlass from thin air.

CAPTAIN!

You hurt my boy. You hurt him worse than ever I knew.

I MADE YOUR BOY, THIEF.

You won’t unmake him again, bastard.