The Sons of Heaven (49 page)

“It
is
a geometric progression,” Mendoza gasps. “How marvelous!”

“Captain!” roars Alec. “Hoist anchor and set sail!”

Aye, son! We’re casting off!

And everything they inhabit—the ship, the sky, the sea, the house, the garden, and they themselves, their whole reality—lifts gently free of linear time and sails into eternity.

Aegeus considered himself in the mirror and daubed a little more makeup on his left cheek. He turned to Victor. “What do you think?” he inquired. “Do I look as though I’m about to do something militant?”

“Quite,” Victor replied. “As long as the cameras stay on your face.”

Aegeus looked down at his suit. “You have a point,” he admitted. “Summon a few security techs, please.”

Sighing, Victor stepped out into the hall and waved at the techs on duty there. They approached obediently and Aegeus shouldered past Victor to survey them. “You,” he said, tapping the foremost on the shoulder. “You’re about my size. Let’s see how that combat jacket looks on me.”

The tech shrugged out of the garment in question as Aegeus divested himself of his suit coat. Victor held it while Aegeus tried on the combat jacket, fussing with the pocket flaps, adjusting the fit. He unfastened the clock pin from his lapel and stuck it on the front of the jacket. “Oh, yes, this’ll do,” he said, pleased. “Splendid. Now I feel the part as well. Let’s not waste any of this energy! Are the cameras ready?”

And so the broadcast went out, to all Executive Headquarters, on all channels, very much in the style in which Suleyman’s famous announcement of the liberation of Options Research had been presented.

It began with Aegeus turning, as though distracted from some vital task, and peering sharply into the cameras. He looked solemn, but with a suggestion of controlled and righteous anger. He spoke in Latin: “To all operatives still capable of receiving this warning, greetings!

“Facilitator General Aegeus, Southern European Sector Head, reporting. If
you have received shipments of Theobromos from our mortal masters, do not, repeat, DO NOT distribute them as instructed. Do not under any circumstances ingest any Theobromos. As some of you may by now have discovered, the shipments have been adulterated with a poisonous substance.”

Aegeus leaned in closer. In the background could be heard a dim clamor suggesting riot. It was recorded, but only Victor and Aegeus knew that.

“My fellow immortal ones,” continued Aegeus, letting a bit more rage show in his face, “I regret to inform you that we have been betrayed. I have in my possession undeniable proof that, after so many thousands of years of faithful service, we were to be rewarded by abrupt termination. If you doubt me, analyze the contents of any of those prettily decorated boxes with which you’ve been presented.”

He gasped, as though struggling with his emotions. “If you could see the poor devil here who fell for their trap—or maybe you have casualties of your own already. Listen to me, brothers and sisters! You know I’ve never been reckless. You know I always counseled patience with the mortals, even when we uncovered the horror that was Options Research. I was loyal, may the gods forgive me! But
this
—this is the last straw. The mortal masters have at last shown, finally and conclusively, that they are too vicious, too stupid to be allowed to control the great enterprise in which we have all labored so long. If we suffer this outrage, we are indeed their slaves.” He tore the clock pin from its place and held it up to the cameras. “This should have warned us all, this symbol of their infamy!”

His voice rose, his eyes widened. “We must take control.
We
made this Company; we are the rightful inheritors of the glorious heritage we’ve preserved for so many centuries. For our own sakes, and for the sake of innocent humanity, we must wrest power from this handful of mortal monsters! Now, before it is too—”

On cue, Victor activated the charge that sent a flare and puff of smoke billowing through the room, as Aegeus winked out from in front of the cameras. He shut them off.

“Oh, that went terribly well,” cried Aegeus in a gleeful voice. “Wouldn’t you say that went well?”

“I thought so,”Victor agreed.

“Yes, the feces have now well and truly encountered the windmill.” Aegeus peeled off the combat jacket and held it out at arm’s length, considering, before he dropped it. “Not really my style, on the whole,” he decided. “Well. Now to dress for dinner!”

Labienus rocked back in his chair, roaring with laughter as the holo vanished in its flash and boom. “Oh, the audacity,” he cried. “The sheer hypocritical nerve of that man! What a little tin demagogue.” He mopped his eyes with the back of one hand. “I’m almost sorry to think he’ll lose. Almost… oh, well, who am I fooling? I won’t regret watching his head come off at all. I will miss having such a worthy opponent, though.”

“No, you won’t,” Kiu told him, yawning behind her hand.

“I will,” protested Labienus. “A man of my own intellect, my methods and aspirations … except for his lamentable dependence on slaves. And the fact that he’s a crude boor. Other than that there’s not much to distinguish between us, really.”

“You don’t think he could be persuaded to your point of view, with a knife at his throat?” Kiu inquired.

“Of course he could,” Labienus said. “But I’d never be able to trust Aegeus. He hasn’t the necessary moral character. Too fond of his comforts! Always maundering on about the mortals and their art, their philosophies, their perishable flesh … ugh. Makes me feel unclean even thinking about it.”

“Well, but what could he do, once you’d exterminated them all?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put it past him to attempt some in-vitro revival nonsense with mortal DNA,” Labienus replied, getting to his feet and stretching. “There are caches of the stuff hidden away in the Company’s vaults, or so we’ve always been told. I can just see him making a new Adam in his own image, can’t you? And some sweet Eve for a playmate. Disgusting!”

“There are rumors you got mixed up in something like that,” Kiu told him slyly, watching as he crossed to his wardrobe and pulled out a garment bag. He turned to her in surprise.

“What? Victor? Not at all. He was born mortal, like the rest of us. I merely experimented with his augmentation, to make him the truly useful tool he is.”

“Not Victor! I heard it was a black project,” Kiu prompted. “Something that went by the code name
Adonai?
…”

“Ahhh.” Labienus paused with a dinner jacket over his arm. For a moment he looked mild and wistful, as though contemplating some sentimental memory.
“That
fellow. Nennius and I masterminded that project. My Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. We told them we needed a New Enforcer, and the monkeys obligingly put together the most wonderful monster for us. Great hulking creature with a brilliant mind, and what courage he had! What virtuous zeal!
Even when our little idea-men botched the program, he was unfailingly destructive. A thousand pities he couldn’t have been made one of us.

“Oh, well.” He hung the dinner jacket up in the bag. “You’d better pack, you know; we’ve got a transport to catch. Will you be wearing that slinky red number tonight?”

“Of course,” Kiu said, tossing her head and brushing back her hair. She grinned at him. “No matter how much blood spills, I’ll still look divine.”

“You said they’d never be able to tell what was in the chocolates,” screamed Rossum, pointing an accusatory finger at Bugleg. He was still gaping in horror at the space where the holo had run only a second before, broadcasting Aegeus’s call for rebellion.

“They weren’t supposed to,” Bugleg stammered.

“You promised!” Rappacini wailed. “You and that cousin of yours. That nasty man. Get him online. Find out what he did wrong!”

“You idiots, there’s no time for that,” Freestone told them, but Bugleg had already summoned his unit from the table and was fumbling out a communication card. He slipped it into the port. After a breathless second the screen lit up with a geometric pattern of purple and green, as a tweedly dance tune played. Over the music a smooth electronic voice said: “Mr. Ratlin regrets to inform the caller that he is presently on holiday. If you’re feeling blue, Ratlin’s Finest is just the thing to lift those weary spirits. Luscious whole-milk chocolates high in butterfat content, manufactured with scrupulous sanitary care. And we’re pleased to announce our new Summer Assortment! When you’re relaxing at the seaside—”

“They’ll kill us.” Rossum clutched his head, rocked himself back and forth. “They’ll all come and kill us. We’ll die. We’re dead.”

“We’ve got to hide,” said Bugleg, looking around frantically as though a suitable hole might present itself.

“Where on earth can we hide from
them?”
demanded Freestone. “They’re all cyborgs. Oh, I always knew this would happen—”

“Wait! Wait! I know who’ll be loyal,” exclaimed Rappacini. “Dr. Zeus. He’s the Company, after all! Isn’t he?”

There was a pause, punctuated by terrified asthmatic breathing, while they
all considered his suggestion. One by one, they looked sidelong at the bronze figure on its pedestal in the corner. “But he was Lopez’s idea,” objected Bugleg.

“But
we
made him,” said Rappacini.

“But we made Lopez, too,” Freestone pointed out.

“But we don’t have any choice,” said Rossum. “Didn’t he get rid of that Recombinant thing for us? Hasn’t he worked fine ever since?”

“Er … Dr. Zeus?” Freestone turned to the bronze. “Can you hear us?”

I HEAR.

In midair the robed figure appeared beside its original, and with a squeal of metal turned its greened head as though to regard them from the hollow sockets of its eyes. Freestone caught his breath, and in what he hoped was a firm voice said: “Do you know about our problem?”

I KNOW.

“Well, can you help us?”

I CAN.

“Then help us! What must we do to be saved?”

YOU MUST EVACUATE YOUR PERSONNEL TO THE FORTIFIED COMMAND CENTER ON SANTA CATALINA ISLAND, it told them. YOU WILL SURVIVE THE REBELLION THERE.

“Okay, yes, good! That’s the sort of thing we need to hear.” Freestone looked around at the others. “How do we do that, please? Can you get a transport for us?”

YOUR AIR TRANSPORT IS WAITING ON THE ROOF. IT SEATS FIFTY-THREE IN COMFORT.

“Great,” cried Rappacini. “We can take our best people! Can you secure a communications line for us, please?”

THE LINE IS OPEN AND SECURED.

So they summoned their best and brightest, did the masters of the universe, and Dr. Zeus stood passively in midair considering them.

All over England the calls went out, received by terrified geniuses hiding in closets or under beds. Soon from every quarter they came, slipping furtively along the deserted streets of London to the nearest tube station or crossing open fields on foot, expecting every moment that raging cyborgs with disrupter pistols would leap out from behind the copses and spinneys.

Oddly enough, none did.

The reason for this was that the rank and file of cyborgs had no knowledge of the dastardly plot. Aegeus’s message had gone out to the Executive Facilitators only, and they were already quite aware that there was something wrong
with the Theobromos. Not one of them, therefore, had distributed the stuff. The painfully detailed logistical chain had broken and the Theobromos sat undelivered in its boxes in offices all over the world, except in Morocco where it was burning merrily in Suleyman’s pool.

Where were the rank and file immortals, if they weren’t marching shoulder to shoulder on their erstwhile masters, as they had in
Cyborg Conquest?

There was a high plateau somewhere north of the Matto Grosso, an island in the air, a place no mortal could reach on foot. The Botanist Smythe, however, had scaled it easily, hauling herself up by creepers and reclining at last under the towering canopy of gigantic ancient trees, under the trailing moss and epiphytes, under the flight of bright-winged macaws. She wasn’t a particularly nice person, the Botanist Smythe. Still, she had opted to spend what might be the last hours of her life in the place she had come closest to loving anything.

On Santa Rosa Island, off the coast of California, the tourist transport lowered with a whoosh, and the yellow grasses bent backward in the rush of air. The tourists filed from the vehicle, and somehow none of them noticed the lone visitor who winked out from their midst. On a deserted stretch of beach, he looked skyward and saw the tiny black figure planing toward him, coming over the sea, descending, avoiding the thermals generated by the hot barren hills. A moment later Raven settled on Juan Bautista’s shoulder, ruffling out her feather-cloak. He smiled at her.

At a certain famous museum in Florence, the curator failed to emerge from his office, though it was long past closing time. The mortal guards occasionally peered in at Beckman where he sat alone, and at last one of them coaxed him to come out and join them for a midnight supper. He sat in the company of mortals and the paintings he had spent his immortal life preserving, and Beckman felt a wave of relief sweep over him. Why go back to his empty apartment, ever again? Why face the end, whatever it was, alone, when he could spend it gazing into the tenderly mocking eyes of Botticelli’s Flora?

Everywhere in the world, as the hours passed, the immortals were finding their places. In museums, in gardens, in ancient libraries, they appeared for the last solitary watch.

In London, nobody seemed to notice the woman who had retreated into a high gallery at the Globe Theatre and was staring at the empty stage, watching shadows strut and posture.

In China, there was a whole party of silent folk on the Great Wall, looking out to the north, as though phantom armies massed there.