The Life of the World to Come (6 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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What did the operatives report? That they found a small population with a barely viable gene pool, living at the southwestern edge of the ice sheet that covered England. Decided they were some kind of
Homo heidelbergensis
community that had been isolated long enough for distinct speciation to occur. Dutifully recorded their extinction, once the ice sheet melted and
Homo
crewkernensis
were able to move east,
where they encountered tribes with whom they could not interbreed successfully (lethal recessive affected the females) and who objected to their territorial aggression.
I wonder if the Company saved any of their genetic material?
Oh, we’ve gone way, way beyond any romantic metaphysics to do with reincarnation, haven’t we? Alec is no member of any human race I’ve ever encountered. Fancy my never suspecting that in all these centuries, eh? I don’t know what he is, but what I do know about him is far too much for the Company’s liking. And I already knew more than was safe … I am
so
doomed.
… You know, when I was a mortal child, my mother sold me to a band of wicked strangers. They told me I’d be married to a great lord. When I finally peered into the room where they were hiding my betrothed, what was there?
Only a straw man, a thing braided out of wheat of the field, the bright-ribboned Lord of the Corn, destined for the festival bonfire. Maybe the strangers meant to sacrifice me with him. Maybe my inescapable fate has always been, one day, to burn in that fire.
But it’s been almost a week now, and nobody’s come for me yet.
I suppose it all hinges on how closely I’m being monitored, whether my auditory and visual intake is being recorded and analyzed somewhere or just recorded and stored. It might be years before some bored clerk decides to have a look at what I’ve been doing. Who knows whether Alec will have succeeded in his quest by that time? I might never be found out.
If, on the other hand, analysis is instantaneous—then I’m certainly going to learn whether or not Dr. Zeus has devised a way to grant its weary immortals the gift of death. Is this crawling sensation fear for
myself
? How novel.
And if what I’ve done has really set in motion the events that will lead to the end of the world, I’ll deserve whatever the Company does to me. It would be a pity, really. I’d have liked to have made that sad mortal happy, sailed away with him on his absurd pirate ship and been Mrs. Alec Checkerfield. Don’t want to think about that too much.
On the other hand, if Alec fails, dies as Nicholas and Edward died—perhaps his hungry soul won’t need to come back for me, if I too am hit by the bolt of Dr. Zeus’s wrath. Can I go through that doorway of fire, where Nicholas waited for me?
It’s so strange, waiting to see.
Rain again today, but I think it’ll blow out later, and another astonishing thing has happened.
Got up this morning and took my usual perambulation down to Avalon Bay,
and something had washed up on the beach
. I could smell it long before I got there, though it really isn’t so badly decomposed as all that, but, you know—fish stink.
Except this isn’t a fish, exactly. It’s an ichthyosaur! And to think I told Alec there were no dinosaurs in this time period.
You can keep your stupid coelacanths. There it is, large as life, which seems to have been 7.5 meters long. I’ve taken a full hour of holo footage, from every possible angle. I managed to turn it over with a shovel, which was unfortunate because I promptly lost my breakfast (
much
more decomposed on that side) but this gave me a good view of its skeletal structure for the camera. So much for its being extinct! I really should get some DNA samples before the seabirds get it all. Actually I should signal for a Company ichthyologist, I suppose, but under the circum—
Ship has arrived out front. Not Alec’s stolen shuttle. Maybe Dr. Z fish specialist come to see discovery?
Oh dear. There are uniformed security techs searching through my compost heap.
My own beloved, it would have been fun. Good-bye Alec Edward Nicholas.
Quia fortis est ut mors dilectio dura s
6 Maye 1579
33 deg 20 min The two ilands here shewn as
La Victoria &
San Salvador
, Moone hath sighted at nine o’clock today. We determined to try whether da Silva spake truth or no, or rather spake the lye concerning this Ile of Divells, that this was a devise to conceal rich store of plate hid in the caves hereabouts.
Wherfore we lay off
San Salvador
to the windward, but I lyked it not so well, ther being no convenyent shoare but onely great clyffes. I was not minded to go on a fooles exspedycyone; but Moone swore great oaths he should bring back gold bollyone yf I pleased to lett him take the pinnace & som two or three good fellows that durst go, being not afeard, whether of divells nor men. I gave orders therfore (that he should) lower the pinnace & away. With him went Carie & the Kentishman Crokeham, who hath ever madly sworn & thirsted after Spaynysh bloode, & I thowght it best to lett him go his ways. We then lay at anchor vntyll three o’clock, Iohn & I painting the whiles the passage between the two ilands. From the main top then Legge descried the pinnace returning. When it came nigh enough Moone cryed that we should up anchor & away for the Ile was truly full of divells and fowll poysons. We took them up in the pinnace, Moone & Carie much afeard & Crokeham in a sound, & with them a boxe or kist of great weight. This boxe when opened was
found to carry som manner of brasse plate & suche as I will nott name herein save that Dee hath the same at his house in Mortlake, as I haue seen with mine own eyes. Ther were besides som glasse vialls & two lyttell bottels that had benn alyke filled with sherrisacke as they thowght, but Crokeham had oped & drunk one of the same thence fallen dead drunk or poysoned, we knew not which.
This much hath Moone & Carie sworn, thow questioned together & apart: that they went into the iland & climbed a long hill, seeing nether caves, nor divells, nor plate, but onely goats. That Crokeham, desiring we should haue fresh meate, gave chase to the said goats, & had laid hands upon one, but that it vanished into air lyke a thing bewitched. They did then stare and tremble, the whiles they could plainly hear the hooves of the said goat strikyng stones but saw him not.
Then a horrible wonder, for as Crokeham stretched forth his hand, it seemed gone off his arm as though he were made mutilate, though he felt no blow nor paine; & upon drawing it backe he saw he was hoooll & well, his hand as good as it was before.
Wherfore they knew ther was som divellish illvsione here & Crokeham, though he boast overmuch, yeat he is no coward, & was minded to try what was concealed in this iland. He did walk forrward & both Moone and Carie do sweare they saw him goe as thow the earth gaped under him, thow yeat they did hear him speakyng, yeat they saw him not They sowt to follow him & after 3 paces beheld him again & beheld too a cave mowth lyke a mine that men haue made, which sure the illvsione was to conceal.
Wherin they went a lyttell ways & beheld a lampe, but what manner of lampe it was they connot tell, but that it was not candle nor rvshlight nor in any manner what light we vse to haue, but onely lyke a white windoe in the tunnell wall, through which light shone but no thing could be seene, & it was more lyke the moones beams then sun.
& farther, that ther were dwarfish divells lying dead therabout, that fell to ashes when Crokeham smote one with his foote. & farther, that the said boxe was ther. Wherfore Crokeham took it up and they left that place, being not minded to see any farther thervnto.
Now they fell to quarreling who should open the said boxe, whether they should themselves ther by reason of any danger that myght lie therin, or bring it a board first. At last Carie gave order Crokeham should open (the box).
& seeing therin no treasure, & being as they thowght themselves cheated {for that they did not knowe how Dee & Waylsinghamme bid me take especyall care to find the verie same when I lay at Mortlake} they were sorely vexed; & that Crokeham swore he would tast of the sacke, & broke the seal one 1 bottel & drank it off straight. Therafter he grew hotte, & cryed the divells were come alive after them {though Moone & Carie could see none suche} and ran before them to the pinnace, wher on a sudden he sounded and lay lyke 1 dead. Thither haue they come in fear of their lives, rowing hard & bearing him along in the bottom of the pinnace.
Now haue I geuen order they shall tell no tale of this to any, being questioned privily, but most especyallye Iohn Douty, & the boxe I haue made safe, nor shall Flettcher tell of the same. Upone Crokeham haue we set watch, as it is now nine o’clock at night & he waketh not, but lieth as dead still.
9 Maye, 1579
This fearful marvel I mvst set down, that Crokeham who was poysoned in
San Salvador
hath not yeat waked, but lieth asleepe yeat, & worse, though it myght not be worse an he were wakyng. This Crokeham was in Rochester to see the holy Martyrs burn, wherby you may know he is not yonge, but even a man of mine own age, & bore som white in his bearde & bore divers scars beside, for he hath fought bravely against Spayne since that he saw the Martyrs die, seekyng ever means to quarrel for their sakes. Lo, since that he hath lain thus, all his scars are gone. So is the snow melted out of his beard, which is grown soft & small lyke the beard of a boye. & Flettcher who hath the care of him hath prated that that Ile shall be called in our mappe
Insula Endymione,
but I haue geuen order he shall hold his fooles tong lest he engender fear in the saylers, & Crokeham hath benn lain alone in Iohn’s cabin lest more talke betyde.
12 Maye, 1579
That Crokeham who hath grown yonge sleepeth yeat, & though he be yonge still he is yeat not well, for he be much reddened in the face & breathes him hard lyke a whale blowing. I haue seen this in men with too greate effvsione of blood to the brain or as doctors call (it,) grosse apoplectickal humours. Wherfore I am in som dowte whether to physicke him with bleeding or no, lest that he be weake and dye therby, or that the poysone that is in him should fowllly contaminate vs all.
Flettcher saith belyke the sacke was som draughte as thatte devised by Paracelsvs to make a manne yonge again, & as proofe of this tells me it be knowen that Spayne hath sowt suche in the natural watters of Florida, the which I knew afore, but I told him nott, onely that he should speak noe carelesse word therof. Privily I doe consyder with myselfe whether it is not so, & the bottel had suche a draughte therin; & that Crokeham had come to noe harm had he not drunke it all incontynent, but by excesse is strucke down. Yf it be so, Dee mvst haue the other (bottle) to prove. Belyke the draughte, yf tempered with som more gentler physicke, may yeat serve to grant long youthe to our soverign Ladie, to the lasting checke of Spayne.
Wherfore I haue locked the said boxe safe away, noe man but I to know wher vntyll {As Christ Jesu grant} I see Deptford & maye convey it to Waylsynghamme, wher he shall do as he thinks most mete. I haue sworn to Flettcher his face that an he prate more in this, he shall be soundly whipt.
19 Maye, 1579
This daie dyed Crokeham, at two o’clock in the morning, after a great palsie that shook him upwards of three owers. Had I never met him afore but onely at the last ower I would haue said & sworn that the poor knave were a boye of syxeteen, though he is fowllly dead for all that. I gave order he should be made away privily, Moone and Carie to bring the round shot & wynding sheete & bear all. This was done & we commytted him to the sea & Flettcher spake the office for the dead, spedelley & quiet in the dark. & at first lighte I spake to
the saylers and said: That the manne was dead, by poyson as we thowght, throw his rash want of forethowght, but noe strange thyng attended his going as som myght unwisely saye. & this they well understood & drew off their cappes but murmured nott, wherat I was well pleased.
THE MEETINGS OF THE INKLINGS NOUVEAU
In the year 2350, Oxford University was located at No. 10 Albany Crescent in London. There was a small sign over the doorway telling visitors so. If there had been such things as postmen in that day and age, the local one would have smiled indulgently and shaken his head every time he dropped letters through the slot in the front door. But there were no postmen in the year 2350, and no letters for them to deliver if there had been, and anyway the letter slot had been sealed shut for two centuries to prevent the insertion of small bombs, incendiary devices, or venomous reptiles.
By and large the only people who noticed the sign were tourists strolling through the historical district of Georgian terraces, who usually stood there staring at it for a moment before frowning, turning to each other and saying something like:
“Wasn’t Oxford University supposed to be
bigger?
”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be in, uh, Oxford or something?”
“Was Oxford in London?”
“I don’t know.”
They would usually wander off in mutual confusion, and the portly man watching from the window at No. 10 would chuckle and rub his hands. His hands were usually cold. He’d shiver, then, and pull his tweed jacket tighter around himself. It didn’t button in front (it had been made a long time ago for a much thinner man), but it was a genuine tweed and he was
terribly proud of it, which was why he wore it on conference days. Conference days were special, because then his colleagues would arrive at No. 10 and they’d have a brainstorming session.
On this particular day he turned from the window and went to the fine old oak table, where he’d carefully arranged his props. He had an antique stoneware jug full of ginger beer and three tankards—not pewter, unfortunately, but twentieth-century aluminum copies were the closest thing available in 2350. He had a stack of real books prominently displayed, moldy and swollen with age. He’d actually attempted to read one of them, once, but the first page had crumbled so badly he had closed the book and looked over his shoulder fearfully, expecting the wrath of the curator, forgetting that he was the curator now.
He had a humidor on the table, too, and a rack with three actual pipes, black and ancient. There hadn’t been tobacco in the humidor in over a century, but if you lifted the china lid you could still detect a faint perfume of vanilla and whiskey. If he was so bold as to take up one of the pipes and set his lips to its amber stem (having first made sure nobody was watching him), he could inhale an air of sensuous old poisons, burnt tar, bitterness, faintly salty.
Rutherford (that was the portly fellow’s name—well, not his real name, but reality was what you made it, after all) very nearly put a pipe in his mouth now, but thought better of it. The others would arrive at any moment, and so far he’d never dared that particular affectation in front of anybody. His colleagues, of all people, would probably understand; but he valued their friendship too highly to risk disgusting them. They were the only friends he’d ever had, hard to find as a real tweed jacket or a briar pipe in 2350.
Need I mention that Rutherford wasn’t really an Englishman? He had, in fact, been born on Luna, to parents of American extraction. As a child, though, he’d fallen in love with the idea of England. He wore out three copies of
The Wind in the Willows
with continuous viewing, listened to nothing but Beatles and PunxReich, never missed an episode of
Doctor Who
(and could name all three hundred and fifteen Doctors). He even owned a couple of heavily censored
Shakespeare plays. Being a fat asthmatic little boy, he’d taken refuge in the green country behind his eyes, so often and so completely that he’d been diagnosed an eccentric by the authorities.
He was also very bright, though, as brightness went in the twenty-fourth century, and his parents knew certain important people. The diagnosis was changed from eccentric to creative, and instead of being sent to a residential hospital he was shipped down home for training as a museum curator. While he was there, certain work he did came to the attention of Dr. Zeus, Inc.
They sent a headhunter to interview him. A bargain was struck, and the Company agreed to pull a number of strings. When he turned twenty-one he’d been sent to England, and had lived a happy and fulfilled life there ever since.
As happy and fulfilled as one could be in the twenty-fourth century, anyway.
Now he was a fat asthmatic little man of thirty, with a receding hairline and a ginger mustache that made him look silly. His appearance was improved if he put on the goldrimmed spectacles he’d bought from an antique dealer; then he looked like a person in an old photograph. Sometimes he did that, too, staring at himself in a long mirror for hours at a time, imagining he was somebody Victorian. He never put the spectacles on where anybody but his friends could see, of course. He’d got rid of his Luna accent, too, carefully cultivating an English one that was a kind of polyglot of cinema Cockney, late twentieth-century Transatlantic, and Liverpudlian. It wasn’t entirely satisfactory.
Bang! He jumped straight off the floor—hard to do down here on Earth—before he realized that someone was actually using the polished brass knocker to announce themselves. With a sheepish smile he hurried out into the hall and opened the door.
“Chatty, old man!” he said heartily.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Frankie Chatterji. That
was
his real name. His great-grandparents had self-consciously changed it to Chatterton, but when he’d graduated he’d decided to honor the glories of the Raj and changed it back. Rutherford envied him terribly. He had no need to study an accent; he’d
been born in upper-class London, scion of a long line of civil servants, an elegantly spare fellow with a
café au lait
complexion and smoky blue eyes. He affected tuxedoes and moreover had a jade cigarette holder, in which he kept a menthol inhalator. It had nearly got him arrested more than once, before he could explain about his sinus condition, but there was no one to compare with him for sheer style.
He stepped into the hall now and shrugged out of his opera cape. Rutherford took it eagerly and hung it up for him, saying:
“Well, you’re here before Foxy, anyroad.”
He was referring to Foxen Ellsworth-Howard, the third member of their fellowship, who was at this moment having a bitter argument with a public transport operator. Ignorant of his plight, Chatterji strolled into the parlor and surveyed the careful preparations with approval.
“I
say
,” he enunciated, striding over to the tapestry Rutherford had hung up above the fireplace. It depicted unicorns in a rose garden. It had been manufactured in Taiwan of purple rayon, but Rutherford thought it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen, and Chatterji was inclined to agree with him. There was another on the opposite wall depicting Merlin the Magician, equally cheap and hideous, but Chatterji’s thin face warmed as he turned to regard it.
“This is really something! Where’d you get these, Rutherford?”
“Sotheby’s.” Rutherford beamed. “Late twentieth century! Set the mood, don’t you think? I’ll have to take them down before the tours tomorrow, but I sort of thought—you know—they’ll be like our flags. Like outside a palace to show the king’s in residence. Magic is in residence here! Jolly good, what?”
“Jolly good,” said Chatterji, and made a mental note to view a few more Sherlock Holmes holoes. Rutherford’s accent was dreadful, but his grasp of archaic British idiom was far better than Chatterji’s.
A battering on the brass knocker announced the belated arrival of Foxen Ellsworth-Howard, and the first thing he said on entering was “It’s shracking freezing in here!”
Shrack
was an extremely nasty word, first coined to describe
a particular immoral act that had become possible with twenty-second-century technology. Ellsworth-Howard’s friends winced slightly, but only slightly.
Ellsworth-Howard had been born to devout NeoPunks, and disappointed them terribly when he’d become a scientist His retaliation was dressing in antique clothes, the baggy trousers and waistcoats that Rutherford also loved; but he could do nothing about the speech patterns he’d learned at his mother’s knee, nor the fact that she’d had his hair permanently removed when he was six and replaced with a pattern of steel rivets, for the good of his character (believing, as she did, that one ought to give children painful obstacles to shape their personalities). An attempt to tattoo the appearance of hair had only succeeded in making his head look dirty, and wigs wouldn’t sit right because of the rivets, which couldn’t be removed without losing the trust fund his mother had also settled on him. All this, with the bipolar emotional disorder for which he took daily medication, made him terribly cross most of the time.
But he, like Chatterji and Rutherford, was a certified genius in his particular field, and that was what had brought them together in the first place.
“Whyn’t you turn on the climate control?” Ellsworth-Howard inquired, looking around.
“Because I’ve got a surprise, chaps,” said Rutherford. He ran to the nineteenth-century fireplace and gestured at the objects stacked in the grate. There were three of them, grayish cylinders about the thickness of a man’s arm and half as long. “Look! They’re Fibro-Logs from a mountain survival kit. Watch and observe, men.” He drew out a tiny steel box and thumbed a lever on its side, causing a jet of flame to leap up from the top. He held it down to the objects in the grate. After a long moment (during which he twice dropped the lighter with a hiss of pain) the objects caught, and flame crawled along them and a thin stream of smoke flowed up the chimney.
“Shrack me,” gasped Ellsworth-Howard.
“Are you mad, man?” said Chatterji. “We’ll be arrested!”
“Nope,” said Rutherford, somewhat muffledly around his burnt thumb. “This is a historical structure. It’s got a fire permit,
if you’re doing a historical re-creation. And we are, don’t you see? We’re the Inklings Nouveau! We’re having a creative meeting of minds, just the way the Oxford dons used to. Haven’t we got the beer and the pipes and the books? And the cozy armchairs? If somebody from the twentieth century looked in on us right now, he’d think we were real. Except for some little details that don’t really matter,” he finished uncomfortably, glancing at Ellsworth-Howard’s gleaming head.
Ellsworth-Howard and Chatterji looked at each other with a certain guilty glee. “Blimey,” said Ellsworth-Howard at last, making an attempt to match the mood. “Why shouldn’t we get away with it? Aren’t we all the Oxford University there is, nowadays? Come on, guys.” He caught hold of an antique chair and shoved it close to the fire.
“Chaps,” suggested Rutherford.
“Yeah, chaps, I meant.”
In no time they were cozily ensconced in chairs about the fire, and Rutherford had handed around mugs of ginger beer. There was a long moment of silence that was more than contented; it was reverent, sacred almost. The transforming magic of anachronism hung in the air like incense.
“Shakespeare must have sat like this,” said Rutherford and sighed.
“Shracking C. S. Lewis too.” Ellsworth-Howard shut his eyes. “Only of course it’d have been real beer.”
“Or ale,” Chatterji said wistfully. “Or port, or sherry. Or tea! You know what we need? We need one of those cabinet things with fancy bottles and stuff in them. I could get some grape juice. We could pretend it was port.”
“Yeah! Yeah! Capital.” Rutherford wriggled with excitement. “And something brown for tea or sherry. What could we get that was brown?”
“Prune juice is dark brown,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “Maybe if we mixed it with some apple juice?”
“Well, that’s definitely on the list for our next meeting,” said Rutherford, and reaching into his pocket he drew out a tiny electronic memorandum and jotted a picture of an apple and a wrinkly prune with the stylus. “I’ll see what I can get at Harrods.”
“First rate,” said Chatterji. They all sat there, immensely
pleased with themselves. The fire in the grate burned cheerily, brightening their pale faces, warming the washed-out light of a gray summer day in London.
“We’d better do some work,” said Ellsworth-Howard at last, groaning. “Or I might just sit here being happy all shracking afternoon.”
“Right. Shall I give my report?” Chatterji set down his tankard and struck an attitude, steepling his fingers.
“Please,” said Rutherford, and Ellsworth-Howard pulled his attention away from the dancing flames reluctantly.
“Well, it seems the project has been a success overall. The Enforcers succeeded in wiping out the last remnants of the Great Goat Cult, and it looks like civilization has finally begun to dawn.”
“Told you they’d do the trick,” said Ellsworth-Howard.
Chatterji smiled and went on: “Our operatives in the past report that the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons are starting to interbreed and share ideas, which is what we thought would happen. There’s been pressure from some board members who want to see the hunter-gatherer tribes forcibly settled in farming communes, but we had to explain how this contravenes history as known from the Temporal Concordance.”

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