The Sons of Heaven (7 page)

“The Silence … “Ratlin tugged at his beard. “Hm. That’s in the year 2355, right? Thirty-seven years away. Hellholes, I’ll never live so long. I’m terrible old, as kin goes, all of thirty. Even you may not live so long. We go quick through the world.”

“We can live that long if we take Pineal Tribrantine Three,” said Bugleg.

Ratlin peered at him in amazement, and then grinned like a saw blade. “So we might. Your clever medicine keeps the years away from your cyborgs, don’t it? Oh, yes, you’re kin and no mistake. How do we get us some Pineal Tribrantine Three?”

“I can make it in my sink,” said Bugleg proudly.

“That’s a boy,” yelled Ratlin, bouncing in his seat. “Devious and deep. Oh, we’ll do great things together, we two. And how do we get us some Theobromos to tamper with? Lots and lots of it?”

Bugleg’s face fell. “It’s hard to get,” he admitted, knitting his brows. “All the nice countries stopped making it. It’s against the law. You can only get it in the countries where they still do bad things like, um, selling meat and alcohol.”

“Like the Celtic Federation?” Ratlin inquired craftily.

“Well—yes.”

“Where I keep a business office, where I strut around unbeknownst to the big tribes, because I’m High Hybrid and can pass for one of them? What if I was to go into the business of making chocolates, eh? Lovely dainties to tempt your cyborgs? And the cleverest part is, we’ve got thirty-seven years to set the trap! By the time we spring it, your slaves’ll fall for the trick, because they’ll have been happily stuffing themselves with Ratlin’s Harmless Chocolates for thirty years and more. They’ll be so used to ‘em they won’t even think to scan.” Ratlin’s voice rose to a happy scream.

Bugleg drew back a little nervously, but his heart was racing. “Then—we’d
have all we needed,” he said. “The only hard part would be making sure the cyborgs all ate it at the same time. There are a lot of them.”

“Right. Timing’s everything. Logistics! Got to work that out. Well, you leave all that to me.” Ratlin put his sun goggles back on. “They’ll never suspect a thing.”

“How stupid do they think we are?” said Aegeus, looking disdainful. Ereshkigal—dark, slinky as an immortal Siamese cat—shrugged and set the surveillance device on automatic record again.

“You don’t think it’s true, do you?” she asked. “It’s impossible. Nobody’s ever manufactured a poison we couldn’t detect.”

“And I’m quite sure they haven’t now,” Aegeus replied. “Though all the same … if there were such a substance, we’d want to be certain it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. In fact—”

“In fact, if
we
had it—” Ereshkigal anticipated.

“It might come in damned useful against any eleventh-hour purges by the other cabals,” said Aegeus. “Yes! Well, well, see what’s to be gained by an adequate budget for intelligence?”

“What should I do now?” inquired Ereshkigal. “Let them go ahead with their plans and monitor their communications?”

“Exactly,” said Aegeus. “Give them all the rope they’ll need. At the last possible moment we’ll step in and confiscate their work. We’ll see who gets terminated then.”

“You’re so clever,” she told him, settling back on the divan.

“Aren’t I?” He settled back beside her, smiling. He made a gesture, an exceedingly ancient one, of sexual invitation.

“Now, now.” She shook a finger at him. “You didn’t call me all the way from San Francisco for this, did you?”

“No,” he admitted, looking annoyed. “You need to know something.”

“I see,” she replied, and her body at once lost its pose of languid sensuality. “What exactly is it I need to know?”

“There’s a … client, of the Company’s, a rather special case,” Aegeus said. “He’s been living in Europe the last few centuries. He’s decided to come home to California.”

“Centuries?” Ereshkigal’s eyes widened.

“Yes. You’re to coordinate his relocation with his handler. See to it that everything goes smoothly. There are a few specific lies that must be told, and you’re the woman to tell them.”

“Centuries?”
Ereshkigal repeated. “What do you mean? Is he one of us?”

“Not exactly,” said Aegeus.

“He’s either one of us or he’s a mortal, Aegeus,” said Ereshkigal.

“I said he was a special case,” Aegeus reminded her. “You worked in New York at the end of the nineteenth century, as I recall. Do you remember the millionaire, William Randolph Hearst?”

“Of course I do,” said Ereshkigal. “But he was mortal.”

Aegeus snickered. “Only temporarily, it seems,” he replied. “It’s a long story.”

“It took them long enough,” said Labienus, setting his surveillance device on automatic record again. He looked nothing like Aegeus, yet somehow they shared the same indefinable look of public probity, dignity, and authority.

“How likely is it they’ve actually managed to find a toxin that works?” wondered Nennius, who might be brother to either the aforementioned immortals. He scowled as he sipped from a glass of sherry.

“Oh, very likely,” Labienus assured him. “They’ve had that little drone you gave them to experiment on for, how long now? Five decades?”

“Thereabouts,” said Nennius. “There wasn’t that much to Lewis; you’d think they’d have finished him long ago.”

“Perhaps they’ve been perfecting it, whatever it is.” Labienus poured himself a glass. “Here’s to the waters of Lethe! There really are too many of us anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of our immortal brethren actually jump at the chance to die, when the time comes.”

“And leave the world for us to bustle in? Bravo,” agreed Nennius. “You’ll monitor the tiny cretins closely, I suppose? Be prepared to step in at the last possible moment and grab the goods?”

“What else?” Labienus smiled. Nennius raised his glass in salute.

“I’ll set my best people on it. Now! The reason I came out here in such a tearing hurry is, I’ve got a private collector who’s willing to pay anything for the corpse of Harry Houdini. The only catch is, he wants the monument bust as well. Can you arrange it?”

Labienus made a face. “The bust’s available. The corpse, unfortunately …”

“Ah. It’s in bad shape?”

“Not exactly. It’s not there, that’s the problem. When we got his coffin open, it was empty.”

“Damn,” said Nennius, mildly outraged.

Suleyman sets back the Viziers and draws out the ivory Rukh, turning it in his hand. It’s a heavy piece, depicted as a crusader-era stone tower in the Norman style. On the battlements stand two scowling warriors in generic European army uniforms. They are disproportionately large. At their feet crouches a dog, his ears and muzzle sharp points, and his head is lifted as though he is baying at the moon
.

Time for the news!

The big boy set down his little dog and stood up. He sighted along the row of tiny holoprojectors mounted through the room at eye level (his eye level, anyway) and focused sharply on the first one to send its picture flaring into light and color, about halfway down the wall. He began to snap out a staccato rhythm with his fingers.

As the opening fanfare sounded he was abruptly
there
in front of the floating image, watching as the first snippets of program teaser played. Just as the commercial interlude was beginning, a projector on the wall opposite put forth its lit image, commencing a news broadcast from another region. He whirled and absorbed its lead-in; whirled back as another image appeared, and darted to another apparition as it came, and so to another and another, as the whole of his long study glowed with a babel of voices and bright forms.

By this time the big boy was moving rather too fast for a mortal eye to follow, and it was just as well. Any mortal would be profoundly unsettled watching his movements, which resembled a bizarre dance, sort of a cross between the rushing assault of a grizzly bear and the effortless glide of a hummingbird between the vivid ghosts. Image to image to image, he was actually managing to watch all thirty news programs simultaneously.

His speed wasn’t the only unsettling thing about him. It was impossible to tell his age: twenty? Twenty-two? There was a blank innocence to his face that recalled childhood. His eyes were blue-gray, set close together above a long straight nose; his features were even and smooth, his mouth a little pursed. And yet there was a certain grimness to the young man impossible to explain, the gravity and isolation of a granite mountain range.

His little dog had prudently found herself a place under a chair, well out of range. The big boy was a kind master, but to be stepped on by William Randolph Hearst—even by accident—was very, very bad.

Anyway, she hadn’t long to wait; within three minutes the phantoms had begun to fall silent, wink out. News programs weren’t very long in the year 2333.

The big boy slowed in his dance, turning before the last of the images went dark, frowning thoughtfully. Then he paced back along the length of his study to the work console at the far end, by the windows.
Click, click, click
, his snapping fingers punctuated his progress. He seated himself before the console, took up its buttonball and settled down to work.

His buttonball, by the way, was of the old-fashioned variety with alphabet option as well as all modern commands. The big boy could read and write. It was only one of the many things that set him apart from the mortal public he guided, and only one of the reasons he took it upon himself to guide them.

RED PLANET MARS SEQUENCE TOO LONG, HE WROTE. GIVE THE AMERICAN VIEWER A BREAK! DON’T MAKE THEM SIT THROUGH A LECTURE CLASS ON THE HISTORY OF SOCIALISM. FIND SOME MORE SUCCINCT WAY TO MAKE IT REAL TO THEM
.

CELTIC FEDERATION CLIP GOOD. MAKE THIS A CONTINUING FEATURE. POSITIVE CLIPS, DANCE, WEAVING (BUT AVOID MENTION OF WOOL), CALLIGRAPHY, AND ABOUT THREE EPISODES INTO IT AN OVERVIEW OF HISTORY. SUGGEST: SIR WALTER RALEIGH INVENTED GENOCIDE, RESPONSIBLE FOR LUNG CANCER? BUT NOT SO BLATANT WE GIVE THE BRITISH CONSUL AN EXCUSE TO SQUAWK AGAIN
.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TEXAS-MEXICO TREATY SEQUENCE???? PUNCH UP IMAGES! IF YOU CAN’T GET GOOD FOOTAGE THERE USE STOCK SHOTS AND DOCTOR THEM
.

He sent this message and began another. His little dog, having ventured out from under her refuge, trotted across the room and curled up at his feet. She settled her head on her forepaws, ready to nap. Then she lifted her head and stared around suspiciously.

The big boy noticed at once. He looked down at her. “What is it, Helen?” he said. His voice was unnerving too, high and soft. During his mortal lifetime, it had been described as the fragrance of violets made audible.

She whuffed and jumped to her feet. He turned his cold gaze out into the room, following the direction of her attention.

Everything as it ought to be: his room much the same as it had looked for the last four centuries, his Gothic pieces neatly ranged above the surveillance equipment, his fabulously ancient books in their sealed cases, the portrait of his mortal self—somewhat older than he appeared now—staring back at him
from its accustomed place above the long polished conference table. A mortal man would have been fooled.

And how likely, was it, after all, that anybody could get past his surveillance system up here on La Cuesta Encantada? Even if they made it over the perimeter boundaries and into his high gardens, La Casa Grande itself was well protected from any but invited guests.

But the big boy got to his feet, picking up the little dog and tucking her into the corner of his arm. She snarled at the unseen presence, uttering terrible threats in little-dog language. He touched her muzzle and smiled at her, briefly, before his face resumed its dead implacable expression.

“You may as well take a breath,” he said quietly. There was a gasp from beyond the far doorway as someone followed his advice.

“Damn,” said someone, “I forgot about the dog.”

He dropped into the doorway—apparently from somewhere near the ceiling—a short, dark man in a slightly rumpled business suit. Nervously he shot his cuffs, smoothed his hair, stroked his close black beard and mustaches to neatness. With a final tug at his lapels, he turned and regarded the big boy with a dazzling smile. “Hey, Mr. Hearst, how’s it going? Long time no see, huh?”

Hearst raised an eyebrow. “Joseph Denham,” he said.

“Gosh, it’s been a while since I used that name. But, yeah, it’s me.” Joseph adjusted the knot of his tie. “You’re looking great these days! And I mean that sincerely. So you got your castle back again, after all these years. It must have felt swell to come home.”

“Mr. Denham,” said Hearst, “can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t call my security team and advise the Company of your presence here?”

“Yeah,” said Joseph. “I’ve got some information you need, Mr. Hearst. Trust me—you really should hear me out.”

Hearst looked at him in silence a long moment. “I can do that,” he said at last. He turned and indicated a chair with his gaze. “Come in and sit down, Mr. Denham. And I’d like to ask you a couple of questions first, if I may.”

“Sure! No problem,” said Joseph. He crossed the threshold and went straight to the offered chair, where he made himself comfortable. Hearst picked up the hand unit of a household communications device—rendered in best Retro style to resemble a candlestick telephone—and waited a moment.

“Mary? Send up a tray with a couple of glasses of ginger ale, please. Thank you.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Joseph.

“You’re welcome.” Hearst sat down across from him and leaned forward to put the little dog on the floor. She went straight to Joseph’s shoes and became very interested in sniffing them, now and then reminding him she was on duty with a stern
whuff
. Joseph did his best to ignore her, saying only: “She looks just like the one you had the last time we met.”

“She’s a descendant, actually,” said Hearst, watching the little dog. “I call them all Helen; makes it easier, in the long run. Of course, everything’s in the long run now.” He raised his eyes to Joseph. “At least, I think it is. Maybe you’ll be able to tell me about that, Mr. Denham.”