Gods and Pawns (Company) Read online

  If I do, you’ll deserve it. You’ll get a week in Monte Carlo yet, Lewis.

  He wondered if he dared to reply: “Would you come with me?”

  But before he could screw up his courage, she was brisk again: I’m setting up to run tests on the samples from the females, now. See you in a minute.

  And in precisely sixty seconds she walked up to the base of his ladder, tossing him a Zeusola bar.

  “Bon appétit! I’m off to weed the garden again. I really ought to get some samples of the infested watercress, too, don’t you think?”

  “Probably,” Lewis agreed. He watched her walk away, down the hillside into the weeds.

  He paused long enough for his snack, then went back to work. The mist was burning away; macaws called and sailed across the blue on wings like fragments of shattered rainbow. The mortals drowsed in their courtyard, save for Agueybana, who finally decided to go hunting. He took his bow and arrows and went down to the boat landing. A little while later Lewis saw him, far off, poling out to a distant island.

  Only one boat left, Lewis thought to himself. Household furniture falling apart. They must have forgotten how to make things for themselves, if they ever knew. Poor creatures. It’s just as well…

  He heard the commotion before the scream came; incandescent wrath scorching through the ether, hissed interrogation, the child’s stammering replies. Then the scream followed, but by that time he was already down from his ladder and running.

  They were on the terrace with the fish ponds. Tanama was clutching a golden basket half full of watercress, but the cress was spilling out because Mendoza had caught her by one wrist. The child was sobbing.

  “I have to!” she protested. “It’s his sacred food!”

  “Mendoza!” Lewis grabbed her arm. “You’re hurting her!”

  “They’re infecting that boy on purpose,” said Mendoza. She was shaking with anger. “They know exactly what they’re doing. And they could cure him if they wanted to! Look!” She let go Tanama’s wrist, but pointed an accusatory finger at the plantings on either side of the walkway.

  “Baccharis Trimera,” she said, spitting out the botanical name like a curse. “Pemus Boldus. Boerhavia Caribaea. All of them specifics for liver trouble, all of them vermifuges. But what are they giving him? This stuff!” She seized up a frond of watercress and held it out to Lewis.

  Dazed, Lewis took the cress. Yes; the leaves were full of cysts that would develop into liver fluke, if ingested. More significant just now, however, was the fact that Orocobix was coming down the steps, followed by Atabey and Cajaya.

  “What did you do, you little fool?” Cajaya shouted.

  Tanama threw herself down before Orocobix, hiding her face.

  “I didn’t,” she wept. “The dead lady—she saw—”

  Orocobix lifted her gently to her feet, and she clung to him. He looked at Lewis.

  “Oh, dear,” he said.

  “I’m afraid you have not told us everything,” said Lewis, with all possible diplomacy.

  “And why should we?” cried Atabey. “You’re nothing but a servant—” Orocobix lifted his hand and she fell silent.

  “It’s the terra preta, isn’t it?” Mendoza demanded, speaking in Cinema Standard. “The microbe’s only produced by infecting someone with liver fluke! They’re sacrificing him, and by inches—for goddamned compost—”

  “Mendoza, wait,” said Lewis. Orocobix was watching their faces closely.

  “I trust you’ll pardon us our omission,” he said. “It’s a state secret, you see. But I suppose you must be told…”

  “We have become aware of another member of your family. The dead notice these things,” Lewis improvised. “Why is the young man so ill?”

  “He was Kolibri, but became Caonaki,” said Orocobix. “The King, whose honor it is to suffer for the good of all mankind. The very sweat of his agony makes the earth bear in abundance. Without him, I could never have made these islands. We should have starved on a barren and watery plain long since.”

  Savages—mortal savages—barbaric devils—Mendoza was not trusting herself to speak aloud anymore, for which Lewis was grateful. He cleared his throat.

  “He seems very young,” he observed.

  “He never lives very long,” said Orocobix regretfully. “But he always comes to us again, for he loves us. He understands his duty. And now, you understand the advantage we are offering your master, do you not? For it is likely Cajaya will bear his next body. The land of the dead will become a garden of all loveliness.”

  It’s a favorable recessive! Mendoza shouted silently, thinking even through the red fog of her anger. He’s not less able to resist the parasites—he’d have died by now. He fights them off! That’s why the damn mortals keep reinfecting him! And his body fights them off by producing the bacteria—

  Which also produce the terra preta. Lewis almost heard the click as the puzzle pieces snapped into place. He stared at Orocobix. He must have been tested in childhood—so must Agueybana—and found wanting. Their bodies did not generate the magic microbes. They’d been cured and allowed to live normal lives. The women were never tested, but carried the recessive.

  For a moment Lewis saw so clearly the immensity of what had been here, once: the great agricultural empire expanding, the black islands rising from the plain of thin poor soil, the unfruitful rain forest conquered and made to bear. The royal family, presiding over the people they had subjugated with promise of eternal plenty. Their thousands of subjects lived in peace in hilltop gardens, never knowing hunger, with death merely the promise of a more carefree life.

  But, at the heart of this earthly paradise…always somewhere a young man suffering in darkness, voiding gold from his bowels and bladder.

  The royal family had understood exactly the genetic reasons for their wealth, and the mechanism of infestation.

  Here on this island they had issued commands, received tribute, and calculated their bloodlines to a nicety. Here they had huddled together, immune, when the unknown epidemic came, and their subjects died to the last man, woman and child. The stench of the far gardens must have risen up to heaven. Here they had dwindled over the decades, as the extended family died back. Here they had married cousins and finally brothers and sisters, and in a few more years would have come to nothing anyway.

  And no poet to sing their story! Lewis cried from his heart.

  The bastards, Mendoza transmitted bitterly. The mortal bastards. Send them a miracle and they’ll never fail to nail it to a cross.

  All this in a split second, and Orocobix was still looking at Lewis, hoping his proposition had found favor. Lewis drew breath and bowed, knowing what he must say.

  “I think my master will be pleased, Great Orocobix,” he said, blandly.

  They left the next morning, before the mists had cleared.

  Orocobix accompanied them, though he sat as a passenger while Lewis poled the boat across the green water on the journey out. He looked up at their island as it loomed out of the fog, and shook his head at the raw scar of the slide, which had grown bigger.

  “They’re all going like that now,” he said. “No one to tend them, you know. I suppose, given enough time, they’ll all melt down onto the plain. It’s just as well we won’t be here to see.”

  Mendoza stepped from the boat without a word to him, shouldering the case that held her credenza. Lewis turned and helped him to his feet, passing the pole over before he stepped ashore.

  “Many thanks for your splendid hospitality, Great Orocobix,” he said. “I can assure you, my master will respond promptly to your offer.”

  “She was a prettier girl, when she was younger,” said Orocobix. “I think it likely she’ll improve with a little plumpness, as she matures; they tend to be a good deal less flighty after the children start coming.”

  “No doubt,” said Lewis. The old man fumbled for something inside his robe.

  “By the way,” he said, “I meant to send you with something�
��ah! Here it is. Present this to Lord Maketaurie, with my compliments. We honor him with the most ancient heirloom of our house, as an earnest of our sincerity.”

  He handed Lewis a small bundle. Lewis accepted it with a bow, sticking it in an inner pocket.

  “Good day to you, then, children,” said Orocobix. “Pray excuse me; so much to do, you know…”

  “Farewell, great god,” said Lewis. He watched as the old man dipped the pole and sent the boat around, light as a leaf on the water; it went gliding away, and vanished into the mist.

  Lewis started up the hill after Mendoza, who had paused halfway up to retrieve a few buried items washed out by the storms. He was rehearsing a speech, and it began: Look here, I was wondering…we get on pretty well, don’t you think? I have nightmares, and a little glitch or two, and you have nightmares, too, and bad memories, but—we could sort of form a mutual support alliance. I know I’ll never replace your Englishman, but—

  “Oh, look,” Mendoza said glumly, and held up a martini glass. “Ancient visitors from space left us a ritual object. Do you suppose they preferred shaken, or stirred?”

  Lewis took the glass and tilted it so the mud trickled out. “Looks like they drank espresso.”

  “Ugh,” said Mendoza. “Do you realize, this whole time we’ve been living on a mountain of—”

  “Don’t think about it,” said Lewis. “Just don’t. Think about anything else. Fairies dancing in the moonlight. The meaning of Rosebud. The far-off tinkle of little golden temple bells.”

  “Or, for example, my disciplinary hearing,” said Mendoza.

  “What disciplinary hearing?”

  “The one I’ll get when the anthropologists discover what I did. I sneaked into the damn Room of Sacrifice again last night. Gave that boy a dose of medication to kill liver flukes,” said Mendoza, starting up the hill again. Lewis stared after her a moment, then ran to catch up.

  “Bravo,” he said. “Bravo! But it won’t make any difference, I’m afraid. He’ll only be reinfected.”

  “No, he won’t.” Mendoza reached the top and swung around to face Lewis. “Because after I dosed the kid, I went out to the fish ponds. Yanked out every last little bit of watercress. And smashed every damn snail I could find.”

  Her eyes were sullen, her mouth was hard, and Lewis thought he had never loved her more than in that moment.

  “I had to, Lewis. That temple room was the most obscene thing I’d seen since…since England.” England, where a young man had gone willingly to the stake because he believed it was his duty.

  “I know,” said Lewis gently, seeing the tall specter loom beside her, and knowing it would never go away. Nicholas Harpole’s shadow rose with her in the morning, walked with her in all her ways, and lay down beside her at night.

  “It still won’t make any difference,” she went on. “You can bet Dr. Zeus will infect him again, once the Company gets its hands on him. They’ll want to experiment on him, won’t they?”

  “It won’t be that bad,” Lewis said. “The Company isn’t inhumane. They’ll cure him again once they get their answer, and then—well, the Guanikina will learn they’re not gods, and will that really be such a bad thing? Better than living in ever-increasing squalor and—and—”

  “And incest,” said Mendoza. “You’re right, of course.”

  “And who cares what the anthropologists think anyway? We’ve still made an amazing discovery. How often do lowly field operatives discover something about which All-Seeing Zeus didn’t already know?” said Lewis, more cheerfully.

  “That’s true.” Mendoza brightened up a little.

  They waded into the remains of their camp, which was already disappearing under creepers, and began to throw what they’d salvaged into the packing crates.

  “By the way,” said Mendoza, “what was that, that the old man gave you?”

  “A relic of ancient Atlantis, ha ha,” said Lewis. He reached under his poncho and pulled out the bundle. Carefully, he unwrapped rags of colored cotton.

  “Oh,” he said. Mendoza came and peered at the little lidded basket, woven of pink and yellow straw.

  “Talk about cheesy souvenirs,” she said. She lifted off the lid. “Something in there? Those look like somebody’s keys.”

  Lewis reached in and pulled out a bunch of metal tags, all fastened together on a loop of braided cord. They were rectangular, apparently made of polished steel, and engraved on one side. He separated one out from the rest and held it up to examine it. His eyes widened.

  “What?” Mendoza craned her neck to look.

  “Numerus XXXV. Pertinens ad Stationem XVII Experimentalem Hesperidum,” Lewis read aloud. He tilted the tag so she could see the stylized thunderbolt logo underneath the inscription.

  “Hesperides Experimental Station?” Mendoza stared at the tag. “Wasn’t that the old Company base out in mid-Atlantic they had to close when…” She trailed off and was silent for about thirty seconds before turning away and doubling up with laughter. Lewis joined her, laughing so hard he had to lean against a tree. At last he stood, threw his hat in the air and whooped in despair:

  “So much for discovering something unknown to Dr. Zeus! Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places for the Causality Quadrille!”

  The Catch

  The barn stands high in the middle of backcountry nowhere, shimmering in summer heat. It’s an old barn, empty a long time, and its broad planks are silvered. Nothing much around it but yellow hills and red rock.

  Long ago, somebody painted it with a mural. Still visible along its broad wall are the blobs representing massed crowds, the green diamond of a baseball park, and the figure in a slide, seeming to swim along the green field, glove extended. His cartoon eyes are wide and happy. The ball, radiating black lines of force, is sailing into his glove. Above him is painted the legend:

  WHAT A CATCH! And, in smaller letters below it:

  1951, The Golden Year!

  The old highway snakes just below the barn, where once the mural must have edified a long cavalcade of DeSotos, Packards, and Oldsmobiles. But the old road is white and empty now, with thistles pushing through its cracks. The new highway runs straight across the plain below.

  Down on the new highway, eighteen-wheeler rigs hurtle through, roaring like locomotives, and they are the only things to disturb the vast silence. The circling hawk makes no sound. The cottonwood trees by the edge of the dry stream are silent too, not a rustle or a creak along the whole row; but they do cast a thin gray shade, and the men waiting in the Volkswagen Bug are grateful for that.

  They might be two cops on stakeout. They aren’t. Not exactly.

  “Are you going to tell me why we’re sitting here, now?” asks the younger man, finishing his candy bar.

  His name is Clete. The older man’s name is Porfirio.

  The older man shifts in his seat and looks askance at his partner. He doesn’t approve of getting stoned on the job. But he shrugs, checks his weapon, settles into the most comfortable position he can find.

  He points through the dusty windshield at the barn. “See up there? June 30, 1958, family of five killed. ’46 Plymouth Club Coupe. Driver lost control of the car and went off the edge of the road. Car rolled seventy meters down that hill and hit the rocks, right there. Gas tank blew. Mr. and Mrs. William T. Ross of Visalia, California, identified from dental records. Kids didn’t have any dental records. No relatives to identify bodies.

  “Articles in the local and Visalia papers, grave with the whole family’s names and dates on one marker in a cemetery in Visalia. Some blackening on the rocks up there. That’s all there is to show it ever happened.”

  “Okay,” say the younger man, nodding thoughtfully. “No witnesses, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The accident happened on a lonely road, and state troopers or whoever found the wreck after the fact?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the bodies were so badly burned they all went in one g
rave?” Clete looks pleased with himself. “So…forensic medicine being what it was in 1958, maybe there weren’t five bodies in the car after all? Maybe one of the kids was thrown clear on the way down the hill? And if there was somebody in the future going through historical records, looking for incidents where children vanished without a trace, this might draw their attention, right?”

  “It might,” agrees Porfirio.

  “So the Company sent an operative to see if any survivors could be salvaged,” says Clete. “Okay, that’s standard Company procedure. The Company took one of the kids alive, and he became an operative. So why are we here?”

  Porfirio sighs, watching the barn.

  “Because the kid didn’t become an operative,” he says. “He became a problem.”

  1958. Bobby Ross, all-American boy, was ten years old, and he loved baseball and cowboy movies and riding his bicycle. All-American boys get bored on long trips. Bobby got bored. He was leaning out the window of his parents’ car when he saw the baseball mural on the side of the barn.

  “Hey, look!” he yelled, and leaned way out the window to see better. He slipped.

  “Jesus Christ!” screamed his mom, and lunging into the back she tried to grab the seat of his pants. She collided with his dad’s arm. His dad cursed; the car swerved. Bobby felt himself gripped, briefly, and then all his mom had was one of his sneakers, and then the sneaker came off his foot. Bobby flew from the car just as it went over the edge of the road.

  He remembered afterward standing there, clutching his broken arm, staring down the hill at the fire, and the pavement was hot as fire, too, on his sneakerless foot. His mind seemed to be stuck in a little circular track. He was really hurt bad, so what he had to do now was run to his mom and dad, who would yell at him and drive him to Dr. Werts, and he’d have to sit in the cool green waiting room that smelled scarily of rubbing alcohol and look at dumb Humpty Dumpty Magazine until the doctor made everything all right again.

  But that wasn’t going to happen now, because…