The Children of the Company (13 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

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BOOK: The Children of the Company
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Lewis hastened into the garden after me then, and made a point of exclaiming over everything I showed him. But why on Earth should I have tried to impress him? Why should I have any regard for the opinions of a miserable little scuttler after scrolls and codices? Did I need further proof he was beneath my concern, when the poor fool was eager to go down amongst the monkeys again and resume his work? Bargaining with savages for their inky and imperfect knowledge!
As Lewis was widening his eyes in polite appreciation of a particularly fine group representing the Three Graces honoring some dictator or other, I had a sudden inspiration.
“Of course, this is nothing, compared with the library,” I remarked casually.
“Splendid collection,” Lewis agreed. “I remember it well.”
“Ah, but not the New Wing, I don’t think,” I told him slyly. “There have been some improvements in recent years. You’ll remember the old electronic stuff, I dare say. Aegeus has made a few interesting acquisitions for us. Would you care for a look at the originals of Aristotle’s
Treatises?
”
Yes! Now I’d got his attention. Lewis turned around to stare at me in such haste he nearly tottered on his long cloak.
“The originals?” he gasped. “You’re never talking about the books Theophrastus left to Neleus? The ones Faustus sold to pay his gambling debts?”
“The very same,” I told him smugly. “The complete set, I need hardly add. They were in wretched shape, of course, but we’ve had them restored—perhaps you’d like to give us your opinion of the job we’ve done?”
“I should say I would,” Lewis cried, and nearly raced me the whole way to the library.
I was gratified to watch his astonishment, confronted with Aegeus’s work. The library that Lewis remembered was a rather chilly place, dull banks of electronic storage with a few plain work terminals and interface consoles. Not a cozy room, or one that invited lingering.
Ah, but Aegeus’s new wing opened out of the old like a blossom out of a dry gray stem. Through paneled doors one stepped into the beautifully climate-controlled chamber beyond, jewel-toned, richly carpeted and indirectly lit, hung with tapestries that Aegeus had had specially commissioned by masters, celebrating the literary glory of the classical world. There were plenty of inviting little nooks, well cushioned, in which one might curl up with a scroll some Preserver like Lewis had snatched from the conflagration of time. There were graceful Roman bronzes depicting the Nine Muses ranged along the wall of terminals and consoles, where one could pull information out of the depths of the sea-blue screens like a supplicant coaxing an oracle to speak.
But it was the wide glass case along the eastern wall that was the glory. Safely displayed there were the treasured texts, works known to mortal scholars only by paraphrase, but possessed by us in their entirety! The complete poems of Archilochus and of Sappho, all one hundred twenty-three plays of Sophocles (mortals had been able to keep only seven!), Theophrastus’s
General History of Science
and—the very jewel in the crown—the complete works of Aristotle himself, the lost manuscripts that had passed through
so many tragicomical adventures before disappearing from mortal ken forever in a cheap little shop in first-century Rome.
Lewis stood staring, taking in the beauty, the elegance, the rarity. Inexorably he was drawn to the cabinet at last, as though it were exerting a magnetic force. There he pressed his palms against the glass and looked down at what was, after all, just so much brittle old paper.
“Oh,” he said quietly. Good gods, I thought to myself, is the man crying?
A mortal servant had risen to his feet, and came close now with an inquiring look. I turned and crooked a finger at him.
“Fetch up a siphon and some of the thirty-year-old single malt, if you please. Or—no! Let’s have wine for the occasion. I think a bottle of Falernian would be appropriate, don’t you? Or perhaps Valpolicella?” But Lewis wasn’t listening to me. “Bring both,” I told the servant, who bowed and sped away in silence.
I am afraid I was swaggering, as I joined him at the cabinet and entered the code to unlock it. “Shall we see what the old boy had to say?” I suggested.
“Oh, but they’re nearly a thousand years old,” Lewis gasped, actually wiping away a tear. “We shouldn’t, really—”
“Nonsense. They’ve been stabilized long since. Here we go!” I drew out one of the nasty old things and unrolled it on the reading table for his perusal, under the soft light of a shaded lamp. He bent over it like some priest over an altar, biting his knuckles.
“Rather a nice prize, wouldn’t you say?” I said smugly. “This was Hieron’s work—have you met him? Very good man in your line, handles the Mediterranean acquisitions.”
“Oh, how I wish I’d been stationed down there,” Lewis moaned, finally giving in to irresistible impulse and reaching out to touch the scroll. “Look at this. Aristotle’s observations on Egyptian technology!” He began to read avidly, and I realized I’d lost my audience again. I sank back onto one of the couches to wait impatiently until the mortal returned bearing our wine.
I sampled both carafes and decided on the Valpolicella. At my nod, the servant filled our cups. Lewis was too immersed in the scroll to notice. He chuckled suddenly and read aloud, in the original Greek:
“‘This art of flight is said to have been present in Egypt from the time of
Horus, and I am assured that the priests conceal detailed charts for travel between the stars, which the kings of the former time steered between as mere men followed the course of the river; though none now have understanding of the sacred texts.’” Lewis looked up, grinning, and noticed the servant standing there offering him a cup of wine. In fact, the mortal had been rather craning his head to read over Lewis’s shoulder. When he noticed this, what should Lewis do but step aside with a gesture of invitation!
“Please, it’s hilarious,” he said, smiling. “Do you read Greek?”
“Oh, yes, my lord,” the mortal replied, hastening to peer at the scroll.
“Then you’ll appreciate the joke. Though you’ve probably seen it a dozen times!” Lewis looked wistful. “I can’t tell you how much I envy you, working here. I’d just start at one end of the case and read my way through.”
The mortal looked up a little nervously. “Well—I would, my lord, if I were allowed to open the case.”
Lewis’s jaw dropped. “You mean you can’t?”
“Of course he can’t,” I told Lewis crossly, sipping my wine. “None of the mortals have clearance to handle anything this valuable. They’re mortals, after all. Left to themselves, they ruin anything they touch. Isn’t that so?” I demanded of the servant. He lowered his eyes and murmured:
“Unfortunately so, my lord.”
Lewis stood there speechless a moment before he drew himself up and set his chin. “But Aristotle himself was a mortal,” he told the servant! “I think you can be trusted to read this text a little while, don’t you, without tearing it or chewing on it?”
“I would never do such a thing, my lord,” the servant assured him. “I was trained in library science.”
“Well then.” Lewis pulled out a chair for him. “Please, sit and read.”
I’m not certain who was more shocked, the servant or myself; but after a frozen moment the mortal hastened to obey, as Lewis took his wine and carried it to the cushions next to mine. His eyes were angry.
I must protest against this policy,
he transmitted in silence
. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to read their own books? Aren’t we preserving these things for THEM, after all?
Old fellow, you must understand
, I replied as casually as I could.
He’s a good enough creature
—
and one of ours
, of
course
—
but you’ve been down among them yourself. You know the villainy of which they’re capable. Destructive little Barbary
apes for the most part, and human intelligence only makes them worse. How many libraries have you seen burned in your time?
But the mortals built the libraries, too
, argued Lewis, sipping his wine. I was at least pleased to note that he stopped and inhaled the bouquet before taking another, more appreciative sip.
It takes thousands of them to create an archive of human wisdom; only one to set a torch to it. Wouldn’t you have to say, then, that the work of the librarians is more typical of mortal behavior than the work of the arsonist?
I really didn’t know what to say. This was absolutely the last sort of talk I’d expect to hear coming from someone who’d nearly been murdered by the little brutes.
Well, you’ve known more of them than I have
, I conceded.
Doubtless you’ve some insight I lack. I wouldn’t want to leave even that one alone with the scroll, though. What do you want to bet he’d slip out of here and run down the mountain with it, if there were no alarms? He knows it’s valuable. He’d sell it in a second if he had the chance.
Lewis shook his head impatiently.
You don’t understand. We all know why they’re driven to thievery. But I can tell you from experience that mortals love their literature. When I was in Ireland, Eogan—
“Eogan,” Lewis cried aloud. “That was his name! That was the monk I was working with—and the abbess sent us out to the hollow hill, after the fair folk. I thought it was all absurd, I had no idea—” He turned to me. “I’m accessing the blocked files now. We’ll have to find Eogan, if he’s still alive. He was there with me, we went into the hill and actually found them—and—he got me out afterward, when they …” He fell silent. Cold sweat broke out on his brow. The glass vial was in my hand, unseen.
“Perhaps you’d better not—” I began, when all hell broke loose, and from a completely unexpected quarter.
A section of wall to my left began to move. Seeing it out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a draft moving the tapestry at first; then I realized that the tapestry wasn’t there any more, or at least that part of it wasn’t. A rather titillating depiction of Sappho and her companions had vanished in a pattern of light, and the edges all around it curled up. For a moment one could glimpse the plaster of the wall behind, illuminated by the same pattern of light, as though the wall were outdoors and slanting beams of sunlight were playing through leaf-shadows on it. There came a rumbling like far-off thunder.
Then the plaster had gone, and one saw the stone and mortar underneath. Then it all dissolved, like mist, and two small figures came walking through. The girl strode confidently, the boy groped hesitantly after, though his great blank eyes were open now. They were both naked.
To be precise, this was the actual moment when pandemonium erupted. Lewis leaped to his feet. The girl looked down, noticed that she was naked, and screamed shrilly. The mortal servant caught up the volume of Aristotle, and ran for the cabinet with it. Only after he’d thrust it inside and shut the cabinet did he take to his heels in the direction of the door, nearly bowling over Aegeus, who was entering in some haste.
“My dress,” Maeve shrieked. “My pretty dress! You stupid, stupid Fallon!”
She flew at the boy and began to beat him with her tiny fists. He dropped the exceedingly odd device he had been carrying and cringed, putting up his hands to protect his head.
“Not supposed to make my dress go away,” Maeve wept. “Just the wall! You bad boy, bad boy!”
“Now, now,” exhorted Aegeus, bearing down on them. “Naughty Maeve! Look, you’ve drawn blood on poor Fallon. Stop this at once.” He caught her hands. “It’s bad to go out of your room without asking. You’ve been told and told! It’s bad to hurt Fallon, too. You know he was only trying to make you happy.”
“But he lost my pretty dress,” wailed the child.
“Silly girl, we’ll get you another,” Aegeus assured her. “Twice as nice and ten times as pretty, shall we? Sweet little Maeve.” He lifted her in his arms.
She sniffled and nodded, subsiding, and Aegeus now had leisure to notice Lewis.
Lewis hadn’t made a sound, but had backed up as far as he could go and was flattened against the cabinets, as though Aristotle and Theophrastus would somehow protect him. He couldn’t take his horrified eyes off the children. Aegeus considered him coldly. The hair stood on the back of my neck as though I were a mortal creature, I couldn’t have told you why. But—
“Oh, dear,” was all Aegeus said.
Lewis lifted his gaze to Aegeus. He no longer looked frightened. There was wrath in his face, and bleak understanding. He said, very quietly: “What have you done?”
“Poor Lewis,” said Aegeus. “You’ve remembered a great deal too much, haven’t you? And now you’ll have bad dreams again, when we’ve worked so hard to make them go away.” He sighed heavily and looked at me. “Victor, Lewis has had a nasty shock. Fix him a drink.”
No need to tell me twice. I poured out another cup of Valpolicella, dispensing the vial’s contents into it with a gesture so clumsily concealed Lewis had surely noticed, had he been able to pay attention to anything but the two horrible children and their protector. I brought the cup to him. Not even looking at it, he raised it to his lips and gulped the wine down.
He didn’t bother to scan first. Why should he? He was among his own people, wasn’t he? Safe on a Company base, not amongst savages.

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