The Children of the Company Part 6

"Only heal him." I nodded at Lewis. "Only save his mind, if you can." I thought of all the stories of enchantment Lewis knew, all the remarkable people he must have known, the things he must have seen: Rome in its decline, perhaps the Blessed Patrick, perhaps even the old heroes when they breathed mortal air and hunted the red deer.

"Of course we'll make every effort. He's a highly valued operative, after all," Aegeus told me. "Now, look.You do as he told you, and keep your vow of silence, and you'll be a fortunate man. I'll see you again soon. Let's go now, Barry."

"Right," replied the knave, and pulled Lewis from the bier and threw him over his shoulder like so much merchandise. They walked toward the door.

"But his body," I cried. "It'll be gone! What will I tell the others?"

Aegeus stopped and turned, tapping his upper lip thoughtfully with one finger. He grinned. "Ah. You can tell them a miracle occurred. The Holy Angels came and carried him off bodily to heaven! This is an ignorant age. They ought to believe that."

I only stared at them, too shocked to reply; and he waved cheerily, and they walked out into the darkness. I think it was then that my faith died in me utterly.

Yet in the end I told his lie, for I could think of nothing else, and my brothers and sisters rejoiced, and the story spread, so poor Lewis became venerated as a local saint. But I knew the truth for what it was. And, as I thought over the whole story-what the Prince had said, what Lewis had revealed of himself-nowhere in it could I find any trace of Christ's power, or His mercy, or His love. My G.o.d was irrelevant to those pale folk hiding in their mound, and to that knave in his oil-stained clothes.

And for all that we had a celebrated saint and a miracle to call our own, the peace of our community had been broken. There was never any molestation after that, mind: the night after Lewis's body was taken away, there was a violent thunderstorm and brilliant lights playing about on Dun Govaun. Perhaps the kin had fled to some new hiding place, or perhaps Lewis's Company had avenged his injury.

But Brother Crimthann tried to hang himself one night. He was caught and survived, yet our Abbess had to watch him continually as she would watch a child, for he would weep and rage at the smallest thing.

My life was no joy to me, either. I kept faith with Lewis, I found the lead casket and buried the Codex Druidae where he'd bid me, deep down under the stones of the scriptorium floor. For all I know, it lies there still. Indeed, I have a.s.surance it must.

I found his harp, too, and kept it safe, though it broke my heart to see it and remember his voice. I thought perhaps the two strangers might come back to claim it. The more I thought about this, though, the more I began to dread the idea. One night I took the harp and what little I owned, and, breaking my vows, I fled the community to lose myself in a distant land.

It was for nothing, anyway. On the third night of my exile, I woke in the heather to find Aegeus crouching beside me.

"This'll never do, you know," he told me sternly. "You're supposed to stay where we can keep an eye on you."

"I buried your book!" I sat up. "I told your lies. Leave me in peace, can't you?"

"Can't do that, I'm afraid." He shook his head. "You're a security risk. Look, we're not so bad. You'll have to come with me now, but you'll be all right. You'll work for us and live a long, happy life."

So I went with him in the strange s.h.i.+p, and I learned more of the way the world is run-no Christ there running it, either-and I was given lands and livestock and a fine house. All I must do to earn my wealth is keep silent and open my door, certain nights, to certain strangers who come and depart in haste, after meals and a change of clothes and horses. Sometimes they leave packages, which other strangers come and collect later.

They seldom answer my questions, and never my inquiries about Lewis; so I fear that they failed to save him, though in most other respects they seem as powerful as G.o.ds. I have seen many things that men would think were miracles. I am supplied with every comfort a man might want for his flesh. My masters seem to think it will make me happy.

But I have not been happy since: until this last Samhain night, when I lay in my too-comfortable bed with banked coals warming the room, very unlike the hard pallet on chilly stone in the place where I was blessed.

I heard my name called, there in the darkness. I sat up and saw Lewis, just as he had been, brightly lit as though he stood in sunlight. He looked puzzled.

"Am I having a dream?" he wanted to know.

"No; it must be me dreaming, because you're dead," I told him.

"Dead?" He looked appalled. His jaw hung slack a moment before the memory seemed to come back to him. "Good Lord, what am I doing here then?"

"Well, I-I'd supposed you'd come back to offer me spiritual comfort," I ventured.

He shook his head dubiously.

"Sorry, old fellow, I haven't a clue. Unless-perhaps they've succeeded in reactivating me." His eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together. "Not that that explains how I got here, but I'm not complaining."

"But you're not really here," I pointed out.

"Of course I am! Look." He made a grab for a pitcher that sat on the table, but his hand pa.s.sed straight through it. He overbalanced slightly and righted himself.

"d.a.m.n! How embarra.s.sing." He frowned. "Well-I suppose the possibility exists that I'm actually floating in a regeneration vat at a Company repair facility, and I'm coming to you now by means of some sort of electromagnetic projection."

"What on Earth does that mean?" I rubbed my eyes wearily.

"I don't know how I'd explain it to you. Actually I don't know if it's even possible," he added. "No, I think I'm the one having the dream, and you're the illusion. That must be it. I'm in a nice warm vat somewhere, with all my organics being regenerated, and my brain's come back online and I'm having a rather peculiar dream. Still ... you don't look well, Eogan."

"I've lost my faith."

"Gosh, I'm sorry to hear it." He looked sympathetic. He seemed to be searching in his mind for something nice to say, and then an expression of incredulous delight crossed his face. "Great Caesar's ghost! You don't suppose that baptism business actually worked, do you? You don't suppose this is my soul talking to you now?" He took a few swaggering steps back and forth.

"I wish I could believe that, Lewis." I leaned my head in my hand.

"I suppose I don't believe it, either. But how can we know for sure? Wouldn't you like to believe that your G.o.d would let me into your Christian Heaven? a.s.suming I died, of course?"

"More than anything, Lewis. If there is such a place, you'll be there. But I don't know," I replied, anguish coiling in me like a snake. "I used to know."

"Oh, who knows anything? If you're simply the result of my nutritive solution being a bit rich, then I'll wake up when the Company decants me and go on about my business of making money for them, forever and ever and ever. And if I'm nothing more than your dream-maybe sent to you because your Christ wanted to cheer you up a little-then you'll wake up in the morning, and go on with your mortal life until it's over. Let's be happy, Eogan.Your life's too short, and mine's too long, to mourn. Do something that gives you joy."

"What?" I demanded. "What, in G.o.d's name, can I do?"

"Well ..." He waved his hand. "You used to enjoy writing, didn't you?"

That was when the stranger, arriving late and pounding on my door, woke me to a black room and unrelieved night.

But then I dared this thing, to write down what I'd seen, and my heart hasn't been so light in ages. Lewis was right: this is real joy to me, the dance of my goose quill across the bare page. Perhaps it would violate n.o.body's trust to begin it again, the copying down of knowledge? I'm not fit for the Gospels any more, but I remember so many of the hero-tales Lewis told me. The community at Malinmhor has only the one copy we made. I could set them down again.

I will, I'll uncover the harp and watch as the sunlight moves across the fine wood and glints on the strings. I'll imagine Lewis sitting there talking to me, sipping the heather-honey mead, or singing as the birds chatter in the soft air beyond the stone windowsill. We'll set Finn galloping with his band of heroes, and Cuchulainn will perform terrible wonders, and it will all flow out of my pen like gold. G.o.d have mercy on me, a miserable sinner; what other grace can I hope for?

Labienus shakes his head, looking pained. It is with some relief that he turns to the next transcript, for though it is of paper no less crumbling and ancient, it is printed in a straightforward and easily readable font, written in simple Cinema Standard. Is it a diary entry? A private confession? Some immortals write compulsively, out of a need to put distressingly eternal lives in perspective. Labienus considers it a weakness. He tsk-tsks at Victor's portrait before reading ...

The man was floating in blue s.p.a.ce, motionless, and his gentle expression suggested that he was enjoying the pleasantest of dreams.

"This is the one I mentioned the other day," said Aegeus in a low voice. "He's been in here for a full decade. It's taken that long to regenerate him."

"Poor devil," I murmured, scanning him and recoiling at what I perceived; nearly every major organ had had to be regrown. "Does it really take that long to replace an immortal heart?"

"As a matter of fact, no," replied Aegeus, watching my expression. "There was extensive damage to his biomechanicals as well, you see. To all intents and purposes, this man died."

If he was antic.i.p.ating incredulous horror on my face, his expectations were rewarded. "But that can't happen," I cried. "The biomechanicals are impervious, aren't they? What about his brain?"

"Victor." Aegeus was smiling as he stepped closer to me, but there was no warmth in his eyes. His voice dropped still lower. "You're a Facilitator. We're in a cla.s.s of our own, you and I. There are certain half-truths told to the others, surely you've come to suspect that! Not lies. Truth Dilute, if you will. If we didn't present the facts in the most advantageous way now and then, the common rank and file would grow unduly alarmed, to say nothing of those idiots in the twenty-fourth century who think they're running the Company. All they have to see are the valuables we collect for them, here at our end of time. As long as their shareholders get results, they don't really care how we obtain them.

"Now, what you need to know about this poor fellow is: we've never before seen injuries of the kind he sustained. We don't know what the accident has done to his brain. What happened was a fluke, a singular occurrence. Why, then, upset the hardworking field operatives by letting it be known that they aren't one hundred percent indestructible, when they're all of ninetynine point nine? The chances of anything of the sort ever happening again are positively astronomical."

"I'm exceedingly glad to hear that, sir," I replied, resolving to withhold my questions.

"And you may be sure the Company has used this unfortunate opportunity to learn, that we may prevent such damage happening in later models," Aegeus continued, turning to look again at the man. "He was a good operative; doubtless he'd be gratified to know that his misfortune gave us invaluable information. Indeed, with any luck you'll be able to tell him so."

"I, sir?" Was this to be my first a.s.signment? I straightened my spine and attempted to look shrewd and perceptive.

"You," Aegeus said, and my keen looks were wasted on him, for he kept his eyes on the dead man. "He's scheduled to be decanted and revived in three days' time. You're to act as his handler, Victor. His guide. His psychopomp, if you will." He smiled at his joke. "Ease his transition back to immortal life." He turned and fixed me with a direct stare. "Find out how much he remembers about his accident."

Ah. That was the agenda. I nodded, intent on showing him I was a fellow of few words.

In his vat before us the man slept on, with his new heart and his brain that might-or might not-have a half-thousand years of memories within its convolutions.

In my opinion, one of the hallmarks of a true Facilitator is the ability to absorb unpleasant realities while remaining focused on the job at hand. I believe I was rather better at this when I was nineteen; I was not, as yet, aware that there were any unpleasant realities for us immortals.

And so I was able to watch with a certain detachment, three days later, as the dead man was dredged out of his vat in a creel of copper mesh and deposited on a steel table, where technicians intubated him and drew the oxygenated fluid from his lungs. I watched him coughing, jerking to life, s.h.i.+vering and vulnerable, not really conscious yet. He groped blindly as they hosed the last of the fluid off him-I had enough of a sense of empathy to hope that they were using warmed water, at least-and then lay quiet under the rush of air, as the technicians moved in to perform the necessary diagnostic procedures.

I extended a scan myself: he seemed fully functional, as immortal as any of us once again. The technicians finished with him, lifted him onto a stretcher and threw a blanket over him.

He was taken to the infirmary dormitory, to a private room, and there I waited next day for his return to consciousness. I amused myself by studying his features and speculating on his mortal origins.

My biological inheritance is Saxon and Danish, as my skin and hair bear witness; he had more of the look of a fair Celt about him, and something of a Roman as well, in his even and precise features. We were both men of slight stature, but whereas I am fairly solidly made, he had a swimmer's build. His body bore no mark of whatever accident had precipitated ten years in a regeneration vat.

I confess that I yielded to the temptation to lift one of his eyelids, ostensibly to determine what color his eyes were but in truth to see if I could prod him awake. He slept on. I threw myself back into my chair with a sigh of ennui.

Callous young brute, wasn't I? And so easily bored. Most of my cla.s.smates had already departed Eurobase One, flown off to exciting missions in the field in places like Byzantium or Spain or Cathay. Of course, they were mere Preservers: a Facilitator requires more subtle and detailed education. No grubbing after rare plants or animals for him! His job is to sway ministers and kings, and thereby arrange mortal political affairs to the Company's advantage. He must, therefore, learn from masters. That was why I was still cooling my heels here, watching the neophyte cla.s.s toddle through its immortality process and listening to Aegeus pontificate.

Not that it seemed like pontification then. At the time I hung on his every word, and, to an even greater degree, on his meaningful silences. The true significance of silence is another thing one fails to appreciate at the age of nineteen.

I was examining my thin little beard and wondering if I ought to comb my mustaches or curl them when I glanced over the top of the mirror and saw that the man had opened his eyes. Hastily I slid the mirror into my belt pouch, but the man didn't seem to notice. He was staring at the ceiling in a vacant kind of way. Gradually he began to look around him, to take in the frame of his bed and the wall fresco.

"G.o.d Apollo," he whispered to himself.

"H'em!" I enunciated.

He sat bolt upright-nothing wrong with the fellow's reflexes-and saw me at last. "Good-is it good morning? I'm afraid my chronometer seems to be offline," he said.

"I shouldn't be surprised if it were," I said, hugely amused at the joke. "How do you feel?"

"Fresh as a daisy, thanks," he replied. His eyes tracked around the room. "I'm in a repair facility. Aren't I?"

"Eurobase One, in point of fact," I informed him.

"Ah! Of course," he said with some satisfaction, but as he followed the thought further his face grew blank. He was trying to run a self-diagnostic. The results must have been inconclusive, for he turned to me in panic.

"What happened? Something's wrong with my memory. How long have I been here?"

At last I was able to let him in on the joke. "Ten years," I told him, grinning, but when the shock registered on his face I felt like the wretched little worm I was. "Sir," I added.

"May I ask who you are?" he said, rather quietly under the circ.u.mstances.

"Facilitator Grade Two Victor, sir, at your service." I bowed, trying to do it with military precision. "I've been a.s.signed to help you through your period of readjustment. Do you remember your name?"

After a long moment, he spoke with some care: "To the best of my recollection, I'm Literature Preservation Specialist Grade Three Lewis."

I nodded encouragingly. "You were on duty in Ireland. Do you have any memories of being there?"

He knotted his fingers together. "I remember the village. No, it was a monastery! That was it. I was working with the Christians there."

"Very good," I told him. "Your mission was to plant a copy of the Codex Druidae there for future retrieval. You were to bury it in a lead casket. Have you any idea whether you succeeded?"

"Lead," he muttered, wincing. He put up his hands and ma.s.saged his hollow temples. "It was s.h.i.+elded in lead. That was the trouble ..."

"Was there any failure in the casket seal?" I pressed.

"No. I don't know. I couldn't-" He opened his mouth but the words wouldn't come. After a futile moment he made an eloquent gesture, suggestive of releasing a bird from between his hands. "No use. It's gone."

"Do you remember what happened to you?" I ventured to inquire.

"No." He lifted his eyes to mine, pleading. "Do you know what happened?"

"No," I told him truthfully. "Only that you were so badly damaged it's taken the Company this long to repair you. You don't suppose the Christians discovered you were a cyborg? Superst.i.tious peasants and all that, jabbing pitchforks into your circuitry?"

"No!" He shook his head decisively. "I remember that much. They weren't a bad lot of mortals. I was quite fond of them."

I nodded, thinking that he was probably right. It would take a lot more than an angry mob to do what had been done to Literature Preservation Specialist Grade Three Lewis.

I let him rest while I hooked him up and ran a diagnostic on his conscious processes. A Literature drone! That was the strangest part of the mystery, to my way of thinking. He wasn't a Facilitator; he wasn't even an Anthropologist, and they were famous for throwing themselves into harm's way with mortals. Just some little Preserver chasing around after old ma.n.u.scripts. How on earth had he managed to find himself in that much danger?

"There's storage s.p.a.ce I can't access," I informed Lewis. "You may have memories in there, or you may have so much oatmeal. In any case, blocked or destroyed, we can't get at them just at the present time. Cheer up! If you feel up to it tomorrow, I'll take you to Level Three for some cautious exercise."

"Thank you," he said absently, staring up at the fresco again, as though the story of his lost time might be written there. "Victor," he added, giving me a brief courteous smile.

I went in search of Aegeus to make my report.To my astonishment, I located his signal in that sector of the compound reserved for the mortal servants.

My astonishment increased when, on emerging from the mountain, I found him seated in the mortal children's play garden, watching a pair of the little monkeys with evident amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Look at this, Victor." He chuckled, waving me closer. "Look. The boy's hopeless, but the girl's quite a charmer. As they go, of course."

I followed his gaze and was, quite frankly, appalled at what I saw. They couldn't have been more than five or six, but had evidently sustained some sort of abuse in their brief lives to date. Had they been rescued from a cellar? Their ghastly pallor, their emaciated appearance, their attenuated limbs in proportion to their swollen bellies and domed heads, all bespoke neglect. What had the poor things done to deserve such treatment?

The boy could never be made right. He had retreated from the sun to a nest of shade under a bush, and sat there rocking to and fro, silent, keeping his hands clapped tight over his eyes. Probable mental r.e.t.a.r.dation, too-severe alopecia with only the barest traces of clumps of hair on his pale scalp.

The girl showed more promise, was even pretty in a terrible sort of way. Her hair was fine as floss and stood up like flames all over her head. She had picked a double handful of poppies and was playing some inexplicable game with them, sweeping them back and forth, crooning to herself in a thin voice. She might be mad; she might simply be a child absorbed in play. She had great pale blind-looking eyes, enormous eyes in her tiny weak face.

No, this was no abuse; some sort of chromosomal damage. Sad, but it happened amongst mortals. I couldn't fathom what these two imps of misfortune were doing at a Dr. Zeus base, however.

"Their names are Fallon and Maeve. I wanted you to see them, Victor," Aegeus told me.

Wanted me to see them? "Who rescued them?" I inquired, trying to keep the horror out of my voice. Aegeus turned to regard me.

"No one rescued them, my boy. They've spent their whole lives here, at Eurobase." He watched me closely to see what my reaction would be. Under the circ.u.mstances, frank honesty seemed advisable.