Time Travel Omnibus, page 822
“Good guess.” He nodded his head. “But wrong. They were never killed, those poor failed things. I’ve seen them, screaming in little steel boxes. No. Guess again.”
“Then . . . perhaps at one time it was necessary to have agents whose specialty was Defense.” I tried. “Prior to the dawn of civilization.”
“Whee! An easy guess. You fool, of course it was! You think our Masters waited, so gentle and pure, for sweet reason to persuade men to evolve? Oh, no. Too many wolves were preying on the sheep. They needed operatives who could kill, who could happily kill fierce primitives so the peaceful ones could weave baskets and paint bison on walls.” He grinned at me with those enormous teeth, and went on:
“We made Civilization dawn, I and my kind! We pushed that bright ball over the horizon at last, and we did it by killing! If a man raised his hand against his neighbor, we cut it off. If a tribe painted themselves for war, we washed their faces with their own blood. Shall I tell you of the races of men you’ll never see? They wouldn’t learn peace, and so we were sent in to slay them, man, woman, and child!”
“You mean,” I exhaled, “the Company decided to accelerate Mankind’s progress by selectively weeding out its sociopathic members. And if it did? We’ve all heard rumors of something like that. It may be necessary from time to time even now. Not a pretty thought, but one can see the reasons. If you hadn’t done it, mankind might have remained in a state of savagery forever.” I took another step forward.
“We did good work,” he said plaintively. “And we weren’t hypocrites. It was fun.” His pale gaze wandered past me to the doorway. There was a momentary flicker of something like uneasiness in his eyes, some ripple across the surface of his vast calm.
“What is the point of telling me this, may I ask?” I pressed.
“To show you that you serve lying and ungrateful Masters, child,” he replied, his attention returning to me. “Stupid Masters. They’ve no understanding of this world they rule. Once we cleared the field so they could plant, how did they reward us? We had been heroes. We became looters. And you should see how they punished us, the ones who argued! No more priming the vine, they told us, let it grow how it will. You’re only to gather the fruit now, they told us. Was that fair? Was it, when we’d been created to gather heads?”
“No, I dare say it wasn’t. But you adapted, didn’t you?” To my dismay I was shaking with emotion. “You found ways to satisfy your urges in the Company’s service. You’d taken your share of heads the day you caught me!”
“Rescued you,” he corrected me. “You were only a little animal, and if I hadn’t taken you away you’d have grown into a big animal like your father. There were lice crawling in his hair when I stuck his head on the pike. There was food in his beard!”
I spat in his face. I couldn’t stop myself. The next second I was sick with mortification, to be provoked into such operatic behavior, and dabbed hurriedly at my chin with a handkerchief; Budu merely wiped his face with the back of his hand and smiled, content to have reduced my stature.
“Your anger changes nothing. Your father was a dirty beast. He was an oathbreaker and an invader too, as were all his people. You’ve been taught your history, you know all this! So don’t judge me for enjoying what I did to exterminate his race. And, see, see what happened when I was ordered to stop killing Saxons! When Arthur died, Roman order died with him. All that we’d won at Badon Hill was lost and the Saxon hordes returned, never to leave. What sense did it make, to have given our aid for a while to one civilized tribe and then leave it to be destroyed?” His gaze traveled past me to the doorway again. Who was he expecting? They weren’t coming to his aid, that much was clear.
“We do not involve ourselves in the petty territorial squabbles of mortals,” I recited. “We do not embrace their causes. We move amongst them, saving what we can, but we are never such fools as to be drawn into their disputes.”
“Yes, you’re quoting Company Policy to me. But don’t you see that your fine impartiality has no purpose? It accomplishes nothing! It’s wasteful! You know the house will burn, so you creep in like thieves and steal the furniture beforehand, and then watch the flames. Wouldn’t it be more efficient use of your time to prevent the fire in the first place?” He paused a moment and looked at the back of his hand with a slight frown. I saw the red lines there fade to pink as he set them to healing over.
“It would be more efficient, yes,” I said, “but for one slight difficulty. You couldn’t prevent the fire happening. It isn’t possible to change history.”
“Recorded history.” He bared his big teeth in amusement once more. “It isn’t possible to change recorded history. And do you think even that sacred rule’s as unbreakable as you’ve been told? I have made the history that was written and read. It disappoints me. I will make something new now.”
“Shall you really?” I folded my arms. Doubtless he was going to start bragging about being a god. It went with the profile of this sort of lunatic.
“Yes, and you’ll help me if you’re wise. Listen to me. In the time before History was written down, in those days, our Masters were bold. All mortals have inherited the legend that there was once a golden age when men lived simply in meadows, and the Earth was uncrowded and clean, and there was no war, but only arts of peace.
“But when Recorded History began—when we were forbidden to exterminate the undesirables—that paradise was lost. And our Masters let it be lost, and that is the condemnation I fling in their teeth.” He drew a deep breath.
“Your point, sir?”
“I’ll make an end of Recorded History. I can so decimate the races of men that their golden age will come again, and never again will there be enough of them to ravage one another or the garden they inhabit. And we immortals will be their keepers. Victor, little Victor, how long have you lived? Aren’t you tired of watching them fight and starve? You creep among them like a scavenger, but you could walk among them like—”
“Like a god?” I sneered.
“I had been about to say, an angel,” Budu sneered back. “I remember the service I was created for. Do you, little man? Or have you ever even known? Such luxuries you’ve had, among the poor mortals! Have you never felt the urge to really help them? But the time’s soon approaching when you can.”
“Ridiculous.” I stated. “You know as well as I do that History won’t stop. There’ll be just as much warfare and mortal misery in this new century as in the centuries before, and nothing anyone can do will alter one event.” I gauged the pressure of his fingers on Donal’s neck. How quickly could I move to get them loose?
“Not one event? You think so? Maybe.” He looked sly. “But our Masters will turn what can’t be changed to their own advantage, and why can’t I? Think of the great slaughters to come, Victor. How do you know I won’t be working there? How do you know I haven’t been at work already? How do you know I haven’t got disciples among our people, weary as I am of our Masters’ blundering, ready as I am to mutiny?”
“Because History states otherwise,” I told him flatly. “There will be no mutiny, no War in Heaven if you like. Civilization will prevail. It is recorded that it will.”
“Is it?” He grinned. “And can you tell me who recorded it? Maybe I did. Maybe I will, after I win. Victor, such a simple trick, but it’s never occurred to you. History is only writing, and one can write lies.r
I stared at him. No, in fact, it never had occurred to me. He rocked to and fro in his merriment, dragging Donal with him. Silent tears streamed down the child’s face.
Budu lurched forward, fixing me with his gaze. “Listen now. I have my followers, but we need more. You’ll join me because you’re clever, and you’re weary of this horror too, and you owe me the duty of a son, for I saved you from death. You’re a Facilitator and know the codes to order Company equipment. You’ll work in secret, you’ll obtain certain things for me, and we’ll take mortal children and work the Augmentation Process on them, and raise them as our own operatives, for our own purposes, loyal to us. Then we’ll pull the weeds from the Garden. Then we’ll geld the bull and make him pull the plough. Then we’ll slaughter the wolf that preys on the herd. Just as we used to do! There will be Order.
“For this reason I came as a beggar to this city and followed you, watching you. Now I’ve made you listen to me.” He looked at the doorway again. “Tell me I’m not a fool, little Victor, tell me I haven’t walked into this trap with you to no purpose.”
“What will you do if I refuse?” I demanded. “Break the child’s neck?”
This was too much for the boy, who whimpered like a rabbit and started forward convulsively. Budu looked down, scowling as though he had forgotten about him. “Are you a stupid child?” he asked Donal. “Do you want to die?”
I cannot excuse my next act, though he drove me to it; he, and the horror of the place, and the time that was slipping away and bringing this doomed city down about our ears if we tarried. I charged him, howling like the animal he was.
He reared back; but instead of closing about Donal’s throat, his fingers twitched harmlessly. As his weight shifted, his right arm dropped to his side, heavy as lead. My charge threw him backward so that his head struck the wall with a resounding thud.
All the laughter died in his eyes, and they focused inward as he ran his self-diagnostic. I caught up Donal in my arms and backed away with him, panting.
Budu looked out at me.
“A virus,” he informed me. “It was in your saliva. It’s producing inert matter even now, at remarkable speed, that’s blocking my neuroreceptors. I don’t think it will kill me, but I doubt if even your Masters could tell. I’m sure they hope so. You’re surprised. You had no knowledge of this weapon inside yourself?”
“None,” I said.
Budu was nodding thoughtfully, or perhaps he was beginning to be unable to hold his head up. “They didn’t tell you about this talent of yours, because if you’d known about it, I would have seen it in your thoughts, and then I’d never have let you spit on me. At the very least I wouldn’t have wiped it away with my wounded hand.”
“A civilized man would have used a handkerchief,” I could not resist observing.
He giggled, but his voice was weaker when he spoke.
“Well. I guess we’ll see now if our Masters have at long last found a way to unmake their creations. Or I will see; you can’t stay in this dangerous place to watch the outcome, I know. But you’ll wish you had, in the years to come, you’ll wish you knew whether or not I was still watching you, following you. For I know your defense against me now, think of that! And I know who betrayed me, with his clever virus.” Budu’s pale eyes widened. “I was wrong! The rest of them may be shovels, but you, little Victor—you were made a poisoned knife. Victor Veneficus!” he added, and laughed thickly at his joke. “Oh, tell him—never sleep. If I live—”
“Were going now, Donal Og, Uncle Jimmy’ll get you safe out of here,” I said to the child, turning from Budu to thread my way between the stinking corpses on the floor.
I heard Budu cough once as his vocal centers went, and then the ether was filled with a cascade of images: A naked child squatting on a clay floor, staring through darkness at a looming figure in a bearskin. Flames devouring brush huts, goatskin tents, cottages, halls, palaces, shops, restaurants, hotels. Soldiers in every conceivable kind of uniform, with every known weapon, in every posture of attack or defense the human form could assume.
If these were his memories, if this was the end of his life, there was no emotion of sorrow accompanying the images; no fear, no weariness, no relief either. Instead, a loud yammering laughter grew ever louder, and deafened the inner ear at the last image: a hulking brute in a bearskin, squatting beside a fire, turning and turning in his thick fingers a gleaming golden axe; and on the blade of the axe was written the word VIRUS.
Halfway up the ladder, the trap opening was occluded by a face that looked down at me and then drew back. I came up with all speed; I faced a small mob of Chinese, grim men with bronze hatchets. They had not expected to see a man in evening dress carrying a child.
I addressed them in Cantonese, for I could see they were natives of that province.
“The devil who killed your grandfathers is still down there. He is asleep and will not wake up. You can safely cut him to pieces now.”
I took up my hat and left the mortals standing there, looking uncertainly from my departing form to the dark hole in the stair.
The air was beginning to freshen with the scent of dawn. I had little more than an hour to get across the city. In something close to panic I began to run up Sacramento, broadcasting a General Assistance Signal. Had my salvage teams waited for me? Donal clung to me and did not make a sound.
Before I had gone three blocks I heard the noise of an automobile echoing loud between the buildings. It was climbing up Sacramento toward me. I turned to meet it. Over the glare of its brass headlamps I saw Pan Wen-Shi. His tuxedo and shirtfront, unlike mine, were still as spotless as when he’d left the Company banquet. On the seat beside him was a tiny almond-eyed girl. He braked and shifted, putting out a hand to prevent her from tumbling off and rolling away downhill.
“Climb in,” he shouted. I vaulted the running board and toppled into the back seat with Donal. Pan stepped on the gas and we cranked forward again.
“Much obliged to you for the ride,” I said, settling myself securely and attempting to pry Donal’s arms loose from my neck. “Had a bit of difficulty.”
“So had I. We must tell one another our stories some day,” Pan acknowledged, rounding the corner at Powell and taking us down toward Geary. The little girl had turned in her seat and was steering at us. Donal was quivering and hiding his eyes.
“Now then, Donal Og, now then,” I crooned to him. “You’ve been a brave boy and you’re all safe again. And isn’t this grand fun? We’re going for a ride in a real motor-car!” Under my words was a soothing frequency to blur his memory of the last two hours.
“Bad Toy maker gone?” asked the little muffled voice.
“Sure he is, Donal, and we’ve escaped entirely.”
He consented to lower his hands, but shrank back at the sight of the others. “Who’s that?”
“Why, that’s a little China doll that’s escaped the old Toymaker, same as you, and that’s the kind Chinaman who helped her. They’re taking us to the sea, where we’ll escape on a big ship.”
He stared at them doubtfully. “I want Mummy,” he said, tears forming in his eyes.
The little girl, who till this moment had been solemn in fascination, suddenly dimpled into a lovely smile and laughed like a silver bell. She pointed a finger at him and made a long babbling pronouncement, neither in Cantonese nor Mandarin. For emphasis, she reached down beside her and flung something at him over the back of the seat, with a triumphant cry of “Dahl.” It was a wrapped bar of Ghirardelli’s, only a little gummy at one corner where she’d been teething on it. I caught it in midair.
“See now, Donal, the nice little girl is giving us chocolates!” I tore off the wrapper hastily and gave him a piece. She reached out a demanding hand and I gave her some as well. “Chocolates and an automobile ride and a big ship! Aren’t you the lucky boy, then?”
He sat quiet, watching the gregarious baby and nibbling at his treat. His memories were fading. As we rattled up Geary he looked at me with wondering eyes.
“Where Ella?” he asked me.
When I had caught my breath, I replied:
“She couldn’t come to Toyland, Donal Og. But you’re a lucky, lucky boy, for you will. You’ll have splendid adventures and never grow old. Won’t that be fun, now?”
He looked into my face, not knowing what he saw there. “Yes,” he answered in a tiny voice.
Lucky boy, yes, borne away in a mechanical chariot, away from the perishable mortal world, and all the pretty nurses will smile over you and perhaps sing you to sleep before they take you off to surgery. And when you wake, you’ll have been Improved; you’ll be ever so much cleverer, Donal, than poor mortal monkeys like your father. A biomechanical marvel fit to stride through this new century in company with the internal combustion engine and the flying machine.
And you’ll be so happy, boy, and at peace, knowing about the wonderful work you’ll have to do for the Company; much happier than poor Ella would ever have been, with her wild heart, her restlessness and anger. Surely no kindness to give her eternal life, when life’s stupidities and injustice could never be escaped?
. . . But you’ll enjoy your immortality, Donal Og. You will, if you don’t become a thing like me.
The words came into my mind unbidden, and I shuddered in my seat. Mustn’t think of this just now: too much to do. Perhaps the whole incident had been some sort of hallucination? There was no foul taste in my mouth, no viral poison sizzling under my glib tongue. The experience might have been some fantastic nightmare brought on by stress, but for the blood staining my elegant evening attire.
I was a gentleman, after all. No gentleman did such things.
Pan bore left at Mason, rode the brakes all the way down to Fulton, turned right and accelerated. We sped on, desperate to leave the past.
There were still whaleboats drawn up on the sand, still wagons waiting there, and shirtsleeved immortals hurriedly loading boxes from wagon to boat. We’d nearly left it too late: those were my people, that was my Nob Hill salvage arrayed in splendor amid the driftwood and broken shells. There were still a pair of steamers riding at anchor beyond Seal Rock, though most of the fleet had already put out to sea and could be glimpsed as tiny lights on the grey horizon, making for the Farallones. As we came within range of the Hush Field both of the children slumped into abrupt and welcome unconsciousness.
We jittered to a stop just short of the tavern, where an impatient operative from the Company’s motor agency took charge of the automobile. Pan and I jumped out, caught up our respective children, and ran down the beach.
