It didn’t bother the Master, though. He just kept working away.
“Now, you see why it’s so important to obey us Masters and do
your job?” he lectured Abdiel. “Wouldn’t it be awful to suffer the way this old guy has? You don’t ever want this to happen to you.”
“Gosh, never ever!” gasped Abdiel, pulling himself upright and wiping his mouth.
“So you will keep the commandment about silence, right? Because it would be just too awful to break it and turn out like
him.”
The Master gritted his teeth and reached up into the neck to pull down one end of a severed tendon. He reconnected it and went on. “Now, I’ve pretty much got the hard parts over with, so you can go on and do your regular work. Run along.”
Abdiel was only too glad to go, out into the heavenly light where the blessed ones slept, fresh and clean every one of them. He busied himself with his assigned tasks and soon forgot all about the nastiness in the side chapel, in fact he was quite startled a week later when the Master came walking down an aisle between the vaults, lugging the ugly old man who was all put together now.
“Hi there,” the Master said. “Where’s an empty vault, Abdiel?”
Abdiel showed him. The Master climbed up nimbly and dropped the body into the regenerant, where it bobbed for a moment before being drawn in. Then it sank, settled, and, seen through the pure blue glow, seemed no longer quite so dead. Was it moving? Were the shriveled limbs stretching out?
“That’s a nice sight,” said the Master. “Wasn’t as hard as I thought, either. I feel like celebrating! You want a granola bar, Abdiel? My treat.” He held out a nubbly confection, and Abdiel accepted it thankfully. He hadn’t remembered to eat in days, and his own stash of Power Crunchies was back at the entrance in his pack. The Master drew out another bar and unwrapped it, and they stood there chewing companionably, looking up at the floating figure.
“Will he get better now?” Abdiel asked.
“Oh, yeah,” the Master said with his mouth full. “Now that he’s all put together, his self-repair will take over and the nanobots will bring him up to specs, rebuild anything he’s missing, get the organs functioning again. His brain’s offline, but that’s the protective fugue.
It might take years, but one of these days he’ll look just like the rest of the people in here. Like the big guys, anyway.”
“What about his heavenly crown?” Abdiel asked, indicating the circlet all the other floating figures wore.
“Oh. Well, he was pretty bad, even if he got forgiven, so I don’t know if he’ll get one of those,” the Master said. “We’ll see.”
Abdiel nodded, feeling compassionate and hoping the old man would merit a crown. The crowns were terribly important, and must never, ever be taken off a sleeper, because they gave the blessed ones good dreams. Evil ones, of course, had nightmares.
The rest of that time the Master walked with Abdiel, observing him at his duties. He was interested in everything Abdiel did, and asked him a lot of questions. He particularly tested Abdiel on the access codes to the terminals that connected the bunker with the Masters in their distant abode of delight. Abdiel passed every test. The Master congratulated him and told him he was a good operative. When at last Abdiel chalked his witness on the board, shouldered his pack, and walked away down the tunnel to the mortal world, he turned and waved at his new friend, buoyed by a pleasant sense of self-worth.
By the time he was walking along Highway
I
, however, he’d forgotten the Master ever existed. All his attention was fixed on finding the mysterious first shrine, which he’d heard was off somewhere in a land far away . . .
S
O THERE IT IS
. So here we are.
You’re getting better, father, I can tell. You still look like a murder victim six times over, but at least you don’t seem to have been dead quite so long. Some day soon you’ll start growing back the soft tissues of your eyes, your liver, your heart, all those things the rats . . .
What if she . . .
I wonder how you got on the wrong side of the Black Dragon Retribution Tong, father, in an opium cellar on Sacramento Street, just minutes before the 1906 earthquake? Must be quite a story. You’ll tell me someday. Or maybe Victor will. I have a feeling he knows. He could never have inflicted those hatchet wounds, he’s half your size. And yet something happened when he spit on you. I wonder if it has any connection with those gloves he never takes off.
Were the hatchetmen sent later? Were you unconscious then? Did Labienus set you up? Was he power hungry? Were you a little inconvenient to have around with your rigid moral code? If it wasn’t your own people, was it the Company? It’s just like something the Company would do. I can testify to that.
This is what the Company does to all its operatives, sooner or later, isn’t it? None of us actually dead, but we’d be luckier if we were. Those of us who behaved ourselves get to dream away time in a nice warm bath. Those of us who haven’t behaved? They find an excuse
to lower the boom on us, one day when we least expect it. Then we’re abandoned to rot in a grave like you were, or handed over to the enemy like Lewis was, or used and thrown away like Mendoza so nobody would ever discover the truth about her . . .
The Company must have watched us all, weighed every incident, heard every word we said, and waited, keeping score. They could afford to wait years, hundreds of years, thousands of years, and while we worked so faithfully for them, the list of marks against us grew longer.
Maybe I deserved what happened to me, and maybe you did, too, father, but Lewis? What harm did he ever do anybody? And yet I can’t imagine what he’s suffering now, if he’s not so damaged he’s past suffering. Poor romantic idiot.
Was he in love with Mendoza? Was he in love with the Englishman? With both of them? Did he even know? He never gave up trying to find them. He wasn’t a coward, like me.
She’s still lost, my little girl, and maybe in some dungeon blacker than the one in Santiago, with hotter coals. What would they do to a Crome generator? Try to disconnect her extra talents? Experiment on her? She’s not in here now, I know. I’ve looked. If there’s the least chance she alone can go forward in time, she alone can discover the truth about 2355, the Company will have locked her away some place a lot more secure than this; and they’ll never let her out.
I should have gone after her sooner. I should have gone after you sooner, too.
He was right, the goddam Englishman. I screwed up just like Hamlet. You handed me the truth about your betrayal right at the beginning of the play, and I delayed, procrastinated, because I was scared, wasn’t sure, didn’t want trouble. Now look. I’ve lost everything I had, and the curtain’s coming down on a stage littered with bodies.
But we’ll write a new last act, won’t we, father? When I get you out of there, we’ll make a plan. You were always a lot better at battle strategies than I was. It’ll be easy. I still have the Company access
codes Lewis downloaded to me, we know where all the bodies are buried, and we have seventy-four years to get ready.
Maybe we’ll set all the Old Guard free, and see how they feel about what’s been going on. And then! Wouldn’t that be great, father? All of us together again, one last time? I couldn’t save Lewis, but we can avenge him. Lewis and all the other innocents. Will we go after treacherous bastards like Nennius? Will we hunt down the masters who have lied to us so shamelessly, for so many thousands of mortal lifetimes? Is 2355 payback time Is it time? to sing the Dies Irae?
Yeah!
For behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea!
I can quote Scripture too, you know.