The Children of the Company (28 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

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BOOK: The Children of the Company
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By Jove,
I repeated.
How typical of the Maestro. So he was all set to invent us, was he?
To say nothing of hip replacements.
But what a find for the Company, Lewis!
Of course, to give you a real idea of the text I ought to have presented it like this:
Lewis began to rattle it out backwards. I shook my head, laughing and holding up my hands in sign that he should stop. After a moment or two he trailed off, adding:
I don’t think it loses much in translation, though.
I shook my head.
You know, old man, I believe we’re treading rather too closely to a temporal paradox here. Just as well the Company will take possession of that volume, and not some inquisitive mortal! What if it had inspired someone to experiment with biomechanicals a century or so too early?
Ah! No, we’re safe enough, Lewis pointed out. As far as history records those da Vinci pages at all, it records them as being lost in the Mercantile Library fire. The circle is closed. All the same, I imagine it was a temptation for any operatives stationed near Amboise in da Vinci’s time. Wouldn’t you have wanted to seek the old man out as he lay dying, and tell him that something would be done with this particular idea, at least? Immortality and human perfection!
Of course I’d have been tempted; but I shook my head.
Not unless I cared to face a court-martial for a security breach.
Lewis shivered in his wet wool and slid back into the water. I turned on my back and floated, considering him.
The temperature doesn’t suit you? I
inquired.
Oh … They’ve got the frigidarium all right, but the calidaria here aren’t really hot enough,
Lewis explained.
And of course there’s no sudatorium at all.
Nor any slaves for a good massage, either
, I added, glancing up at the mortal onlookers.
Sic transit luxuria, alas
. Lewis smiled faintly; he had never been comfortable with mortal servants, I remembered. Odd, for someone who began mortal life as a Roman, or at least a Romano-Briton.
Weren’t you recruited at Bath … ?
I inquired, leaning on the coping.
Aquae Sulis, it was then
, Lewis informed me.
The public baths there.
Of
course. I
remember
now! You
were rescued from the temple. Intercepted child sacrifice, I imagine?
Oh, good heavens, no! The Romans never did that sort of thing. No, I was just left in a blanket by the statue of Apollo. Lewis shrugged, and then began to grin. I hadn’t thought about it before, but this puts a distinctly Freudian slant on my visits here! Returning to the womb in time of stress? I was only a few hours old when the Company took me, or so I’ve always been told.
I laughed and set off on a lap across the pool.
At least you were spared any memories of mortal life.
That’s true, he responded, and then his smile faded. And yet, you know, I
think I’m the poorer for that. The rest of you may have some harrowing memories, but at least you know what it was to be mortal.
I assure you it’s nothing to be envied,
I informed him. He set out across the pool himself, resuming his backstroke.
I think I would have preferred the experience, all the same, he insisted. I’d have liked a father—or mother—figure in my life. At the very least, those of you rescued at an age to remember it have a sort of filial relationship with the immortal who saved you. Haven’t you?
I regret to disillusion you, sir, but that is absolutely not true
, I replied firmly.
Really?
He dove and came up for air, gasping.
What a shame. Bang goes another romantic fantasy. I suppose we’re all just orphans of one storm or another.
At that moment a pair of mortals chose to roughhouse, snorting and chuckling as they pummeled each other in their seats in the wooden bleachers; one of them broke free and ran, scrambling apelike over the seats, until he lost his footing and fell with a horrendous crash that rolled and thundered in the air, echoing under the glassed dome, off the water and wet coping.
I saw Lewis go pale; I imagine my own countenance showed reflexive panic. After a frozen moment Lewis drew a deep breath.
“One storm or another,” he murmured aloud. “Nothing to be afraid of here, after all. Is there? This structure will survive the quake. History says it will. Nothing but minor damage, really.”
I nodded. Then, struck in one moment by the same thought, we lifted our horrified eyes to the ceiling, with its one hundred thousand panes of glass.
“I believe I’ve got a rail car to catch,” I apologized, vaulting to the coping with what I hoped was not undignified haste.
“I’ve a luncheon engagement myself,” Lewis said, gasping as he sprinted ahead of me to the grand staircase.
On the sixteenth of April I entertained friends, or at least my landlady received that impression; and what quiet and well-behaved fellows the gentlemen were, and how plain and respectable the ladies! No cigars, no raucous laughter, no drunkenness at all. Indeed, Mrs. McCarty assured me she would welcome them as lodgers at any time in the future, should they require desirable Bush Street rooms. I assured her they would be gratified at the news. Perhaps they might have been, if her boardinghouse were still standing in a week’s time. History would decree otherwise, regrettably.
My parlor resembled a war room, with its central table on which was spread a copy of the Sanborn map of the Nob Hill area, up-to-date from the previous year. My subordinates stood or leaned over the table, listening intently as I bent with red chalk to delineate the placement of salvage apparatus.
“The Hush Field generators will arrive in a baker’s van at the corner of Clay and Taylor Streets at midnight precisely,” I informed them. “Delacort, your team will approach from your station at the end of Pleasant Street and take possession of them. There will be five generators. I want them placed at the following intersections: Bush and Jones, Clay and Jones, Clay and Powell, Bush and Powell, and on California midway between Taylor and Mason.” I put a firm letter X at each site. “The generators should be in place and switched on by no later than five minutes after midnight. Your people will remain in place to remove the generators at half past three exactly, returning them to the baker’s van, which will depart promptly. At that moment a private car will pull up to the same location to transport your team to the central collection point on Ocean Beach. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.” Delacort saluted. Averill looked at her slightly askance and turned a worried face to me.
“What’re they going to do if some cop comes along and wants to know what they’re doing there at that time of night?”
“Any cop coming in range of the Hush Field will pass out, dummy,” Philemon
informed him. I frowned and cleared my throat. Cinema Standard (the language of the schoolroom) is not my preferred mode of expression.
“If you please, Philemon!”
“Yeah, sorry—”
“Your team will depart from their station at Joice Street at five minutes after midnight and proceed to the intersection of Mason and Sacramento, where a motorized drayer’s wagon will be arriving. You will be responsible for the contents of the Flood mansion.” I outlined it in red. “Your driver will provide you with a sterile containment receptacle for item number thirty-nine on your acquisitions list. Kindly see to it that this particular item is salvaged first and delivered to the driver separately.”
“What’s item thirty-nine?” Averill inquired. There followed an awkward silence. Philemon raised his eyebrows at me. Company policy discourages field operatives from being told more than they strictly need to know regarding any given posting. Upon consideration, however, it seemed wisest to answer Averill’s question; there was enough stress associated with this detail as it was without adding mysteries. I cleared my throat.
“The Flood mansion contains a ‘Moorish’ smoking room,” I informed him. “Among its features is a lump of black stone carefully displayed in a glass case. Mr. Flood purchased it under the impression that it is an actual piece of the Qaaba from Mecca, chipped loose by an enterprising Yankee adventurer. He was, of course, defrauded; the stone is in fact a meteorite, and preliminary spectrographic analysis indicates it originated on Mars.”
“Oh,” said Averill, nodding sagely. I did not choose to add that plainly visible on the rock’s surface is a fossilized crustacean of an unknown kind, or that the rock’s rediscovery (in a museum owned by Dr. Zeus, incidentally) in the year 2210 will galvanize the Mars colonization effort into making real progress at last.
I bent over the map again and continued: “All the items on your list are to be loaded into the wagon by twenty minutes after three. At that time, the wagon will depart for Ocean Beach and your team will follow in the private car provided. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Rodrigo, your team will depart from their Taylor Street station at five minutes after midnight as well. Your wagon will arrive at the corner of California
and Taylor; you will proceed to salvage the Huntington mansion.” I marked it on the map. “Due to the nature of your quarry you will be allotted ten additional minutes, but all listed items must be loaded and ready for removal by half past three, at which time your private transport will arrive. Upon arrival at Ocean Beach you will be assisted by Philemon’s team, who will already (I should hope) have loaded most of their salvage into the waiting boats.”
“Yes, sir.” Rodrigo made a slight bow.
“Freytag, your team will be stationed on Jones Street.You depart at five after midnight, like the rest, and your objective is the Crocker mansion, here.” Freytag bent close to see as I shaded in her area. “Your wagon will pull up to Jones and California; you ought to be able to fill it in the allotted time of two hours and fifteen minutes precisely, and be ready to depart for Ocean Beach without incident. Loong? Averill?”
“Sir!” Both immortals stood to attention.
“Your teams will disperse from their stations along Clay and Pine Streets and salvage the lesser targets shown here, here, here, and here—” I chalked circles around them. “I leave to your best judgment individual personnel assignments. Two wagons will arrive on Clay Street at one o’clock precisely and two more will arrive on Pine five minutes later. You ought to find them more than adequate for your purposes.You will need to do a certain amount of running to and fro to coordinate the efforts of your ladies and gentlemen, but it can’t be helped.”
“I don’t anticipate difficulties, sir,” Loong assured me.
“No indeed; but remember the immensity of this event shadow.” I set down the chalk and wiped my hands on a handkerchief. “Your private transports will be waiting at the corner of Bush and Jones by half past three. Please arrive promptly.”
“Yes, sir.” Averill looked earnest.
“In the entirely likely event that any particular team completes its task ahead of schedule, and has free space in its wagon after all the listed salvage has been accounted for, I will expect that team to lend its assistance to Madame D’Arraignee and her teams at the Mark Hopkins Institute.” I swept them with a meaningful stare. “Gentlemen doing so can expect my personal thanks and commendation in their personnel files.”
That impressed them, I could see. The favorable notice of one’s superiors is invariably one’s ticket to the better sort of assignment. Clearing my throat, I
continued: “I anticipate arriving at no later than half past two to oversee the final stages of removal. Kindly remain at your transports until I transmit your signal to depart for the central collection point. Have you any further questions, ladies and gentlemen?”
“None, sir,” Averill said, and the others nodded agreement.
“Then it’s settled,” I told them, and carefully folded shut the map book. “A word of warning to you all: you may become aware of precursors to the shock in the course of the evening. History will record a particularly nasty seismic disturbance at two A.M. in particular, and another at five. Control your natural panic, please. Upsetting as you may find these incidents, they will present no danger whatsoever, will in fact go unnoticed by such mortals as happen to be awake at that hour.”
Averill put up his hand. “I read the horses will be able to feel it,” he said, a little nervously. “I read they’ll go mad.”
I shrugged. “Undoubtedly why we have been obliged to confine ourselves to motor transport. Of course, we are no brute beasts. I have every confidence that we will all resist any irrational impulses toward flight before the job is finished.
“Now then! You may attend to the removal of your personal effects and prepare for the evening’s festivities. I shouldn’t lunch tomorrow; you’ll want to save your appetites for the banquet at Cliff House. I understand it’s going to be rather a Roman experience!”
The tension broken, they laughed; and if Averill laughed a bit too loudly, it must be remembered that he was still young. As immortals go, that is.

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