The Machine's Child (Company) (28 page)

The mill ain’t there in this time period, begging yer pardon, but no matter. There’s plenty of other wholesalers here.

“Good,” said Edward, taking control and dusting Alec’s hands. “We’ll need at least as much as we got from that poor fellow in 1855. And I believe ready-mades are rather more available in this era?”

Indeed they are, sir. I diddled the automated tellers; you can withdraw all you need by this afternoon, so you’ll be well provided for. Bit of shopping, eh, Mrs. Checkerfield, dearie, what d’y’say? And a lovely romantic supper for two someplace, aye.

“Of course, we’ve the raw materials to see to, as well,” said Edward, buttoning the top button of Alec’s shirt. Alec promptly took control back and unbuttoned it again.

I already done the deals. There’s consignments awaiting us at the warehouses south of Market. Nothing to do tomorrow but go ashore to a place on Lombard Street, pick up the internal combustion wagon
I rented for you, and go collect the merchandise. Neat, eh? Three boatloads and we’ll be set up nicely. So just relax this afternoon, me dears. Old Captain Morgan’s got things well in hand.

They did go ashore and have the romantic afternoon he’d encouraged them to have. They moored the whaleboat at the municipal pier and walked up to Ghirardelli Square, where Alec took Mendoza into some of the finer shops. Three hours later she had a completely new wardrobe, pearls and peach satin, soft things in summer sherbet colors. Edward, moreover, had taken control long enough to select some dignified new clothes for Alec.

So they were unlikely to draw mortal attention, when, laden with shopping bags, they strolled hand in hand into Ghirardelli’s. Nevertheless, the counter girl seemed in a distinctly agitated condition as she greeted them.

“I’m sorry, I’ll have to ask you to wait a moment before we can seat you,” she said. “We’ve got a little cleanup going on.” And in fact they could see a couple of busboys, mopping and moving tables around beyond the frosted glass partition.

“Has there been a disturbance of some kind?” Edward inquired, frowning.

“We just had to pour two drunks into a taxi.” The girl shook her head. “It takes all kinds, I guess. Would you like to see a menu?”

After a shared hot fudge sundae Mendoza got a little giggly, so they left Ghirardelli’s and wandered down to the bottom of Hyde Street, where they stood looking out at the bay and the green hills beyond. Alec put his arm around Mendoza. She put her arm around him. After a while he leaned down to kiss her.

“Hey! You people want some music? Serenade or something?” yelled a black man with a trumpet. “Support the artists, you know?”

Alec raised his eyes, without lifting his mouth from Mendoza’s, and groped in his pocket. He thrust a bill at the man, who ran forward and caught it, and examined it briefly.

“Holy cow! I’ll play you twenty serenades, for that kind of money. What you want to hear? You want some jazz? No! I know what you
want,” he said, and lifting his trumpet to his lips he began to play
La Paloma.
He stopped after a few bars to ask: “You like that one? That okay?”

Alec signed okay and made a come-on gesture, as Mendoza sighed and leaned into the kiss. Unnoticed, green blades of grass began to emerge from the edges of the pavement, waving up toward the sun. The man began again,
La Paloma
strong and slow and passionate. It echoed across the quiet water, and all along the waterfront.

You could hear it on the
Captain Morgan
where she lay at anchor in her obscuring fog bank, and the Captain was in fact listening, monitoring Alec and Mendoza’s progress through the dolphins’ telemetry system. You could almost hear it out at Alcatraz, where a young British conspirator named Alfred Rubery had been interrogated about a plot to invade California, and let slip the name of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax. You could hear it up at Ghirardelli Square, where Joseph and his friend Lewis had gotten so stoned that very afternoon, never knowing that Alec, and Edward, and Nicholas, were draping a strand of pearls about Mendoza’s throat within shouting distance of them.

They stayed a few days in 1996, because the business of loading on raw materials took longer than they had anticipated. Mendoza was the only one who knew how to operate a truck, and that only in theory: and even the limitless ability of an immortal being is insufficient for the experience of driving in San Francisco.

But after a few minor misadventures, they had successfully loaded the
Captain Morgan
’s cargo holds with the contents of several chemical supply, metal, and fabric warehouses, most of a lumber yard, and $417 worth of assorted seed packets from a garden center. By the evening of the Fourth of July they had wrapped up their affairs and were able to cruise out beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, where they dined on deck while watching the fireworks celebrating American Independence. Then they sailed away, bound for other places, other times.

“So what are you getting Leslie?” Sylvya said, lingering just at the edge of the yellow track.

“Some bath things and a towel,” David said. “And a card. All in blue. It’s been ordered and it’ll come to your house.”

“Great!” Sylvya looked excited. “And now the Third Floor isn’t being so selfish, we’ll all have a lovely time.”

“We will, won’t we?” David looked smug. “Anyway, there’s lots of room on this floor.”

Actually he had done more than force the Third Floor to agree to change the location of the shower: they had to admit Sylvya into the planning committee, and she promptly found a less expensive place to get decorations. There had been some bitter grumbles that the more expensive decorations were nicer, but thrift was after all morally correct. Sylvya arrived that morning in triumph with a mysterious package she sent down to the Third Floor for safekeeping.

“Do you know what the others are getting her?” David asked.

“Darla’s getting her nappy service and Mirlene got her a pram,” Sylvya said. “Jenna got clothes and Cyntia found a TotMinder that has over six hundred songs in its memory.”

“Well, that’s Cyntia, isn’t it?” David threw up his hands in exasperation. “Spending more to make the rest of us look bad.”

“Oh, no, she took up a collection in her subdepartment,” Sylvya said. “So they all shared the expense.”

“Ah.” David nodded, satisfied. Cooperation within a group was
much
more morally correct. “What about the party treats?”

“Sharona’s committee’s doing them,” Sylvya said. “Sandwiches, I expect, and fruit punch. And Aerocrisps.”

“Well, good,” said David. “Everybody can eat those.”

Sylvya shuddered, remembering the disaster two years ago when there’d been a potluck luncheon and somebody had brought in lentil cakes, forgetting that one of the girls in Brandi’s department had a legume allergy. She’d had a reaction. There’d been tears and recriminations that had gone on for weeks.

“So it’s all planned, then,” said David. He glanced over at Leslie’s desk and it occurred to him that she’d been away at the lavatory for a strangely long time. “Er—I wonder if Leslie’s all right in there. Do you think you should go see?”

“No!” said Leslie, from a completely unexpected direction. David turned in astonishment to see her standing there, smiling, bearing in her arms a big bouquet of flowers, and behind her Mr. Chandra the Departmental Manager stood smiling, too.

“SURPRISE,” they all said. There was a little tootling fanfare from his console and David turned back to see the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY shimmering on his screen, behind a scatter of bright electronic confetti.

“You didn’t really think we’d forget, did you?” said Sylvya gleefully.

“Do we ever forget?” Leslie said, bringing the flowers forward and setting them in a vase just beside David’s window. “There! Now you can look at them while you work. You see? Delphiniums and white roses. Your favorites.”

“As always, David, it’s very nice having you work for us,” murmured Mr. Chandra.

David reflected that he really was a terribly lucky man, to be employed by Dr. Zeus Incorporated. He knew that lots of big corporations weren’t nearly so thoughtful as regarded their employees’ happiness. This hadn’t exactly been a surprise—they remembered his birthday every year, year in, year out—but that only made it all the nicer, something to be anticipated shiveringly all day from the moment he removed his sleep mask.

“And you’ll find a little something downloaded to your entertainment console when you go back to your Flat this evening,” Mr. Chandra said.

David looked up sharply at Sylvya and Leslie. “No!
Not
Totter Dan’s Mountain Rescue? You didn’t!”

They giggled wildly.

“Wait and see,” said Leslie.

“Oh, you didn’t,” David said, hugging himself.

“And you can all go early to lunch,” Mr. Chandra told them, bestowing the final beneficence of the day. “Back at two. Shoo now. Go have fun.”

Well! What a happy man was David Reed.

Suleyman was working at the credenza in his study. It was a lovely room, elegant in a spare way: high bare walls set with Moorish tile, fine old carpets on the floor, tiny latticed windows far up the walls that would have made it difficult for an assassin to shoot an arrow through them, once upon a time, or for any unidentified person to lob an explosive device through them now.

Not that Suleyman expected anything so trivial or half-hearted from his enemies. A bomb would be merely a warning gesture, after all, and the opposing side in this game never gave warnings. Besides, on this particular day in 2319, many on the opposing side weren’t even born yet.

Then, too, there were more than two sides, and the degrees of opposition varied depending on which side was considered in relation to which other side. All very confusing. One would need to be a fairly old immortal, with a calm and not easily distracted mind capable of appreciating extreme subtleties, to keep track of it all; and Suleyman had days when he felt neither so calm nor so good at geometry as he ought to be.

He became aware that he had a guest long before he could hear the voices approaching his study, so he logged off and closed up the inlaid rosewood cabinet that housed his credenza. By the time the double knock sounded on his door he had already risen, and was crossing the room with his unhurried stride to open it.

He regarded Latif and his visitor, a formidable-looking lady who would once have been described as Nubian.

“Nefer,” Suleyman said with genuine pleasure, holding out his hands to her. She rushed into his arms and embraced him, murmuring an exclamation of relief.

“This is the Nefer who used to be one of your wives?” said Latif, leaning in the doorway and grinning.

“Oh, yes,” Suleyman said. “Back in 1699, wasn’t it, Nef?”

“God, that was a long time ago,” said Nef, still holding tight to him. “You don’t mind if I just cling here a minute, do you? You smell like safety.”

Suleyman raised his eyebrows at that. “Latif? Tea, please? And—you haven’t dined, have you?” he said, frowning as he pulled back to look at her. “You haven’t slept, either.”

“I’ve been running since I found out,” she said, in an exhausted voice.

“Tea, brunch, and a guest room,” predicted Latif, turning on his heel and going off to arrange matters.

“Come on,” Suleyman coaxed, leading her to the divan. Nef still wore field clothing, dusty and travel-stained, and carried her field pack by one dangling strap. She collapsed into the pillows and stared at him with haunted eyes.

“I know this is going to sound incredibly stupid, but I only just found out about—
that place,
” she said.

“The Bureau of Punitive Medicine,” Suleyman said, his smile fading.

“And I know what you’re thinking. Where’s she been, in a cave?” babbled Nef. “Well, as a matter of fact I have been living in a cave, I’ve been on Gradual Retirement because there’s not a lot for me to do nowadays, and so I’d just sort of taken an extended vacation in the Serengeti, and you know how it is when you’re really having a good time, you just lose track of the years, and one day I noticed I was out of discs for my field unit so I thought I’d just hike into the nearest base and Kwame took one look at me and said Father Damballah, where’ve
you
been, I was about to report you as disappeared, too, and I said, What? And he told me about everything that happened back in July, and he told me all the rumors, and I thought—oh, shit, I’d better find someplace safe. And this was the only safe place I could think of,” she finished. “Sanctuary!”

“Are you formally asking for my protection?” Suleyman said.

“Oh, yes.” She nodded, closing her eyes wearily. “Please, Suleyman.
I’m not in trouble, I haven’t done a damned thing wrong, but I’m just the kind of nobody that’s becoming superfluous nowadays. And some of these rumors I’ve heard . . .”

“You know you’re welcome here, Nef.” Suleyman took her hand again. “But I’d like to know what you’ve been hearing.”

“Well, Kwame played me back your broadcast,” Nef said, wincing at the memory. “And of course everybody says it’s just the tip of the iceberg, that there are actually hundreds of us that can’t be accounted for. Everybody seems to be talking about some Literature Specialist named Lewis, because he’s supposed to have been sold out by the Facilitator Joseph, who’s supposed to be one of the suspects. Him and somebody named Marco. Suleyman, I used to work with Joseph. He was a Company man to the bottom of his slimy little heart, but I can’t believe he’d be mixed up in something like this.”

“I don’t believe he is, myself,” Suleyman said. “But, since nobody’s been able to locate Joseph, he can’t wash away any of the filth that’s settling on his name either. Very convenient.”

“That’s what I heard,” Nef said. “And that the whole Gradual Retirement plan is just a way to make us lose track of each other, so the Company can dispose of immortals as we get closer to 2355. People whose work is done.” She shivered. “God knows mine is. I haven’t had a posting in ages.”