The Life of the World to Come (27 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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You bloody idiot, you know better than to mix yer liquors!
“No, son, no.” Lewin reached out and took the glass from him. He began to cry again. “All these years you’ve thought … what Sarah’s game was I’ll never know.” Alec looked around for a tissue to offer him. He groped in the pockets of the new coat again, with just as much lack of success.
“You know what?” Lewin took a gulp of whiskey. “Doesn’t matter what they was up to at J. I. S. You turned out real fine, never mind what happened to his lordship and her ladyship. Can’t help that, can you? No. All the same. Whoever it was made you, wanted to make something good.”
“What?” said Alec.
Lewin’s eyes were closing.
“Tell yer about it sometime,” he said indistinctly. He put his head down on the table. A moment later he began to snore.
Alec staggered to his feet and looked down at Lewin.
What was he talking about?
Beats me, son,
said the Captain a bit too casually.
Alec stood staring at Lewin a moment longer. Out across the water, beyond the Tower, a clock began to strike. It went on striking for a long time. Alec shrugged out of his ludicrous coat and draped it around Lewin’s shoulders. The old man gave a little cry and called out his wife’s name, but he didn’t wake up. Alec stretched out on the floor.
Get up and lie down on the bunk, laddie.
Not going to sleep. Just thinking a minute.
Alec?
What’d he mean, about J.I.S.? …
When Alec woke it was broad daylight. He sat up painfully. He looked over at the table where Lewin still sat huddled under his coat, waxen-faced, shrunken somehow.
Alec knew at once.
Why didn’t you wake me?
He had a stroke afore his heart went, son. It was over in two minutes. Nothing you could have done. Better to let you sleep.
Alec scrambled to his feet, feeling his throat contract
It must have been the whiskey! He hadn’t had a drink in all those years
—
Alec, belay that. This wasn’t yer fault. I’ve already checked his medical records and run a postmortem scan. He was dying anyway. Wouldn’t you rather he’d gone in his sleep like this?
I guess so. He was so old, and he missed her so much. But he was all I had left!
Oh, I don’t know about that. Yer mother’s still alive, ain’t she?
Alec put his hands to his pounding temples.
My mother?
he repeated in stupefaction.
CHRISTMAS MEETING
A fine snow was falling over London. Rutherford was happily putting up greenery at No. 10 Albany Crescent, humming Christmas carols to himself. Christmas was a very popular month, in the year 2350. It had long since been purged of the embarrassment of its religious origins, to the point where the younger generations were sentimentally inclined to be tolerant of it. It was so retro!
One was even beginning to hear the unexpurgated versions of the old carols again, probably because few people had any idea what the words meant anymore. Rutherford was doggedly working his way through learning “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” because of its literary connotations, but even with his extraordinary classical education he couldn’t imagine why the Blessed Babe had been born in Jewelry.
He tacked up the last swag of paper holly and scrambled down from the stepladder to have a look around. There in the corner was his artificial tree, releasing its fragrance of balsam mist spray as the tiny electronic lights pulsed. Around its base he had carefully arranged the favorite toys of his childhood, his hypoallergenic Pooh Bear and Montessori blocks, as well as a host of antique playthings he’d found in various galleries. Visitors were occasionally shocked to see the lead
soldiers or, worse, the wooden horse and buggy; but Rutherford was a historian, after all, and secretly enjoyed it when the truth did injury to modern sensibilities.
Over the table he had spread a red cloth, and laid out the most historically accurate feast he could put together. No shop he’d visited had had any clue what
sugar plums
might be, so he’d compromised by setting out a dish of prunes next to a bowl of fresh damsons, flown into Covent Garden from Australia only that morning. He’d made a steamed bran and carrot pudding, and only burned himself a little in turning it out of its round mold. Now it sat sullen on its festive plate, leaking golden syrup. There was a dead-pale BirdSoy blancmange, with the word JOY spelled out in dried cherries. There was a plate of wholemeal biscuits and another of roasted chestnuts. The steaming Christmas punch had been the easiest of all: he’d simply opened a carton of fruit punch and boiled it in a saucepan.
The flames from the Fibro-Logs leaped merrily, the little Father Christmas on the mantel waved a mittened hand as if to welcome in carolers, and the snow kept falling beyond the windows. Rutherford went longingly to the glass and peered out into the steadily darkening afternoon. There were his friends, hurrying along through the whirling flurries! He ran to open the door for them.
“Merry Solstice,” Chatterji said, smiling as he brushed the snow from his long black cloak.
“Happy Exmas,” said Ellsworth-Howard, throwing back the hood of his anorak and peeling off his ski mask.
“Happy holidays, chaps!” Rutherford hastened to close the door and shut out the icy air. “Come in and partake of the groaning board.”
“The what?” said Ellsworth-Howard, but he was advancing on the food even as he spoke. “Bloody hell, blancmange. My favorite! Here you go, Rutherford, here’s your shracking present.” He took a silver-wrapped parcel from under his coat and dropped it on the table, then grabbed a spoon and helped himself to blancmange.
“This is for you too, old chap.” Chatterji presented Rutherford with a similarly bright package.
“Oh!” Tears stood in Rutherford’s eyes. “I say. Here, you must have yours—” He ran and brought out a pair of little boxes, one for each of them. Ellsworth-Howard stuck his spoon back in the blancmange and there was a brief pause in the conversation, full of the sounds of tearing paper.
“Cuff links,” said Chatterji. “By Jove! I’ve just found a shirt to go with these, too.”
“A tie,” gloated Ellsworth-Howard. “Now I am gonna look spiff. Thanks a lot, Rutherford. I got you a book.”
“Oh, you’re not supposed to tell me—” fussed Rutherford, pulling it free of its shiny wrapping. He tilted it on its side, peering at the words on the spine. “What’s it say?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ellsworth-Howard shrugged and had another mouthful of blancmange. “Lots of pictures of superheroes, anyway.”
“No.” Rutherford strained to spell out the words. “It says JOSEPH CAMPBELL. It’s about ancient gods! Thank you, Foxy.” He set it down and tore open the other package. He drew out an old wooden box and looked at Chatterji in wild surmise. “Chatty? This is never what I think it is.”
“Open it and see,” Chatterji said. Rutherford lifted the lid cautiously and nearly screamed in excitement. There they were, still in the cellophane wrappers in which they’d arrived at a tobacconist’s two centuries earlier: three dozen cigars. The faintest perfume was still perceptible, a melancholy breath of brandy and spices.
“Good God.” Rutherford’s hands were shaking with joy. “Chatty! Wherever did you find them?”
“Oh, just a discreet little shop.” Chatterji waved his hand in an airy sort of way.
“Cost him a packet, too,” Ellsworth-Howard informed Rutherford.
“Well, what’s money for, after all?” Chatterji looked over the buffet and selected a wholemeal biscuit. “Anyway, Foxy has another present for you. Haven’t you, Foxy?”
“No I haven’t,” said Ellsworth-Howard with his mouth full. “Oh! I’ll tell a lie. I forgot, just got word this morning: another host mother’s been found. We can start the third sequence for our man.”
“That’s wonderful.” Rutherford carried the cigars to the sideboard and arranged them carefully beside his pipe rack. “I was beginning to think they’d never find anybody suitable again.”
“Well, it certainly took them long enough, but here’s the great thing—” Chatterji paused, pouring himself a tankard of hot punch. He looked up meaningfully. “The report came in from
2319
.”
“Thirty-odd years ago?” Rutherford stared blankly a moment before the implications sank in. “But that would mean—he’d be alive right now.”
“Exactly.” Chatterji nodded. “And all the indications are that he’s secured a place in history already, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that we’ve secured it for him.”
“What do you mean?” Rutherford’s eyes got big behind his glasses.
“‘WHERE’S ELLY’S BABY?’”
cried Ellsworth-Howard in a shrieking falsetto.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Earth Hand kidnapping case, Rutherford, surely you’ve heard of it?” Chatterji nibbled another biscuit. “It’s never been solved, you know. BBC Delta does a retrospective on it every now and then.”
“Oh.” Rutherford frowned. “Well, police cases aren’t exactly my line. Some scandal, wasn’t it? Paternity suit or something?”
“I remember it on the tabloids,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “Just a little bugger then, but I remember that fat lady yelling ‘Where’s Elly’s baby?’ My mum and dad used to listen to Earth Hand all the time. Tommy Hawkins, that was the lead guitarist, had this go-girl he kept with him, see, and suddenly she’s about to have this baby! Only he and she ain’t got a permit, and anyway he says it ain’t none of his. She went off her nut and had to go in an institution. The Ephesian church took it up as a cause.”
“But Hawkins wouldn’t back down,” Chatterji said. “He refused to admit he’d fathered the baby and he refused to pay the unauthorized reproduction fines. The Ephesians wanted his head! And legions of Earth Hand fans were just as positive he was innocent. There were riots, for heaven’s sake.
And then she had a little boy, and genetic assay results were published showing that the child was Hawkins’s.”
“How sordid,” said Rutherford.
“Yeah, well, it got worse,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “Tommy Hawkins says the assay results are faked. He demands another one done in front of a camera! Full blood test, too. It would have been a shracking media horrorshow, I can tell you. Only problem was, the baby went and disappeared.”
“Just vanished,” said Chatterji. “One minute he was there in his cot in the mental health centre and the next he was gone. No trace of a kidnapper on the hospital surveillance recordings. No ransom note. And the tabloids screamed: ‘Where’s Elly’s Baby?’ But no one ever found out, you see.”
“Both sides swore the other one done away with the little sod. Earth Hand’s next album was called
You Ain’t My Shracking Kid,
” Ellsworth-Howard recalled. “Title track was a lullaby my mum and dad would play for me all the time. Ephesians nearly burned down the recording studio. Little Elly never came off the meds, ever again. Last I heard she was in one of the Ephesians’ cloisters, shut up tight. Tommy Hawkins died of something, a couple of years back. But nobody ever found the baby.”
“I really fail to see the point of all this,” said Rutherford.
“The point, my dear fellow, is that the host mother our Facilitator has located in 2319 is a sixteen-year-old go-girl answering to the name of Elly Swain.” Chatterji smiled. “And the man with whom she is cohabiting is none other than Thomas Eustace Hawkins.”
“Oh,” said Rutherford.
“Which means, you see, that in the act of creating one of the greatest mysteries of the century, we’re also solving it,” Chatterji said with an air of triumph. “You see? Hawkins really wasn’t the father at all. Little Elly was abducted by our operatives and implanted. And obviously Elly’s baby vanished because we took him.”
“By Jove, Chatty, I won’t say I approve entirely but—there is a certain mythic quality to all this,” said Rutherford.
“And, think about it—there will be no tragedy.” Chatterji sat down in his favorite chair. “My mother used to cry and leave the room whenever the case was mentioned on holo
shows. Couldn’t bear the thought of that little helpless child lying dead somewhere. But we know he’ll really be alive and all right! No sad ending after all.”
“Except for little Elly in her rubber room at the convent,” added Ellsworth-Howard.
“Well, that can’t be helped. But think about it for a minute: isn’t this the sort of thing the Dr. Zeus mission statement is all about?” Chatterji’s eyes shone. “History cannot be changed,
but
if it is possible to work within the parameters of recorded history, tragedy can be transmuted into triumph. Nothing lost to the ages—simply hidden away safely by Dr. Zeus. Children rescued, not murdered! Little Romanovs, little Lindberghs, little Makebas. Little Elly’s baby. All secure in some fold of unrecorded history somewhere.”
“Yes, you’re quite right.” Rutherford began to pace. “We’re almost obligated to do this, aren’t we? Very well—suppose we put the order through to implant that wretched girl. Nine months later, the baby’s born. We’ll have to order the operative in charge to fake genetic assay results showing that he’s the musician’s offspring.”
“Hang on.” Ellsworth-Howard slid into his chair and pulled out his buke. He put on an earshell and mike and grunted in commands, inquiries, follow-ups.
“Now, how do we kidnap the baby?” mused Rutherford.
“That’s one of the things our Facilitators are best at,” said Chatterji.
“Oh, this is exciting.” Rutherford rubbed his hands together as he paced. “Now, once they’ve got the baby, what will they do with him? Have to place him in a foster home, of course, but where?”
“It’s coming together,” Ellsworth-Howard informed them, listening at the shell. “Third sequence initiated. Girl’s been implanted. Shrack!” He gave a raucous shout of laughter. “If that don’t beat all. Now we bloody know why Tommy Hawkins kept yelling it wasn’t his kid.”
“What do you mean?” Chatterji stood up and leaned over to peer at the screen.
“Facilitator who did the implant got little Elly up on the table and had a good look at her, and guess what?
She ain’t never done it with anybody!
”
“You mean she was a virgin?” said Rutherford.
Ellsworth-Howard nodded, scratching around one of the rivets on his scalp. “He accessed some Harley Street bugger’s secret files and found out why, too. Turns out Tommy Hawkins had spent a fortune trying to get his dead willy fixed. Nothing worked, so he spent another fortune to have his secret kept.”
“But he was sleeping with Elly Swain,” Chatterji said.
“Yeah. Sleeping.” Ellsworth-Howard was silent a moment, grinning, listening. “You know what else our Facilitator found out? Little Elly wasn’t the brightest bit who’d ever gone for takeaway for a band. Blond and beautiful but just a bit to let upstairs, see? Dumb enough to settle for hugs and nighty-night kisses from her Tommy, as long as she was With the Band. Plus she was only shracking sixteen.”
“Please.” Rutherford held up a hand as if to shut out the nastiness. “The lurid details can be glossed over, can’t they? The essential point here is that the girl was a virgin. This is perfect, don’t you see? She’s the mother of our hero, our extraordinary man, our Arthur. Scandal and mystery surrounding his birth fits the mythic pattern exactly. Being born of a virgin is even better.”
“You don’t find that blasphemous?” Chatterji looked mildly shocked.
“Why? We’re the gods here, Chatty, have you forgotten? If it doesn’t offend Foxy and me, it certainly shouldn’t offend you.” Rutherford was racing around the room now on his stout little legs. “So. I daresay our Facilitator finds it rather tricky to arrange a foster home, in this day and age?”

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