SMART ALEC

Kage Baker

“Smart Alec” appeared in the September 1999 issue of Asimov’s, with an illustration by Laurie Harden. It was one in a string of stories that prolific new writer Kage Baker has placed in the magazine since her first sale here—her first sale anywhere, in fact— in 1997, and you should be pleased to know that she has several more stories still in inventory. Her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, was published in 1997 and immediately became one of the most acclaimed and widely reviewed first novels of the year. Her second novel, Sky Coyote, was published in 1999, and she has several more novels already sold and in the pipeline. Baker has been an artist, actor, and director at the Living History Center, and has taught Elizabethan English as a second language. She lives in Pismo Beach, California.

Here she takes us to a prosperous and peaceful, but regimented and rigidly stratified future Utopia, and introduces us to a lonely little rich boy who may end up blowing it all wide open.

For the first four years of his life, Alec Checkerfield wore a life vest.

This was so that if he accidentally went over the side of his parents’ yacht, he would be guaranteed a rescue. It was state of the art, as life vests went in the twenty-first century: Not only would it have enabled him to bob along like a little cork in the wake of the Foxy Lady, it would have reassured him in a soothing voice programmed to allay panic, broadcast a frequency that repelled sharks, and sounded an immediate alarm on the paging device worn by every one of the servants on board.

His parents themselves wore no pagers, which was just as well, because if Mummy had noticed Alec was in the water, she’d probably have simply waved her handkerchief after him until he was well over the horizon. Daddy would probably have made an effort to rescue Alec, if he weren’t too stoned to notice the emergency; but most of the time he was, which was why the servants had been appointed to save Alec, should the child ever fall overboard. They were all madly fond of Alec, anyway, because he was really a very good little boy, so they were sure to have done a great job, if the need for rescue at sea should ever have arisen.

It never did arise, however, because Alec was a rather well-coordinated child, too, and generally did what he was told, such as obeying safety rules at sea.

And he was a happy child, despite the fact that his mother never set her ice-blue eyes on him if she could help it and his father was as likely to trip over him as speak to him. It didn’t matter that they were terrible at being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec.

In a later time, Alec would look back on the years abroad the Foxy Lady as the happiest in his life, and sometimes he’d come across the old group holo and wonder why it had all ended. The picture had been taken in Jamaica, by somebody standing on a mooring catwalk and shooting down on deck.

There he was, three years old, in his bright red life vest and little sailor hat, smiling brightly up at the camera.

Assembled around him were all the servants: fabulous Sarah, his Jamaican nurse, arrogantly naked except for blue bathing shorts; Lewin and Mrs. Lewin, the butler and cook; Reggie, Bob, and Cat, the deckhands; and Mr. Trefusis, the first mate. They formed a loving and protective wall between Alec and his mummy and daddy, or Roger and Cecilia, as they preferred to be called.

Roger and Cecilia were visible up on the quarterdeck: Cecilia ignoring them all from her deck chair, a cold presence in a sun hat and dark glasses, reading a novel. Roger was less visible, leaning slouched against the rail, one nerveless hand about to spill a rum highball all over his yachting shoes. He’d turned his face away to look at something just as the image had been recorded, so all you could see was a glimpse of aristocratic profile, blurred and enigmatic.

Oh, but it hadn’t mattered. Alec had had a wonderful life, full of adventures. Sarah would tell him stories about Sir Henry Morgan and all the pirates who used to roam the sea, living on their ships just like Alec did, and how they formed the Free Brotherhood of the Coast. Alec liked that. It was a grand-sounding name.

And there was the fun of landing on a new island—what would it be like? Was there any chance there might be pirates still lurking around? Alec had played on beaches where the sand was white, or yellow, or pink, or black, built castles on all of them and stuck his little pirate flags on their turrets. Jolly Roger, that was what the flag was called.

Jolly Roger was also what the deckhands called Alec’s daddy when he seemed to be having more than usual difficulty walking or talking. This was generally after he’d been drinking the tall drinks Cat would shake up for him at the bar on the yacht. Sometimes Cat would put a fruit spear in the drinks, cherries and chunks of pineapple skewered on long wooden picks with the paper pirate flag at the top. Sometimes Daddy’s eyes would focus on Alec and he’d present him with the fruit spear and yell for more rum in his drink. Alec would sit under Daddy’s tall chair and eat the pineapple and cherries, making faces at the nasty stuff they’d been soaked in. Then he’d carry the Jolly Roger toothpick back to his cabin, where he had a whole hoard of them carefully saved for his sand castles.

It was a shame the rum had such an effect on Daddy, because going to get it was always fun. The Foxy Lady would drop anchor in some sapphire bay, and Sarah would put on a halter top and shoes, and put shoes on Alec, and they’d go ashore together in the launch. And as they’d come across the water Sarah might sing out, “How many houses, baby?” and Alec would look up at the town and count the houses in his head and he’d tell her how many there were, and she’d tousle his hair and tell him he was right again! And they’d laugh.

Then there’d be a long walk through some island town, past the gracious houses with window boxes full of pink flowers, where parrots flashed and screamed in the green gardens, back to the wappen-bappen places where the houses looked like they were about to fall down, and there would always be a doormouth with no sign and a dark cool room beyond, full of quiet black men sitting at tables, or brown men, or white men turned red from the sun. There Sarah would do a deal; and Alec and Sarah would sit at a table while the men loaded crates into a battered old vehicle.

Then Alec and Sarah would go out into the bright sunlight again, and the driver would give them a ride back into town with the crates. The crates were nearly always stenciled CROSSE & BLACKWELL’S PICKLED GHERKINS.

And nearly always, they’d spot a stern-looking black or brown or white man in a white uniform, pedaling along on a bicycle, and Sarah would hug Alec tight and cry out in a little silly voice: “Oh, nooo, it’s a policeman! Don’t tell him, Alec, don’t tell him our secret!” This always made Alec giggle, and she’d always go on: “Don’t tell him we’ve got GUNS! Don’t tell him we’ve got EXPLOSIVES! Don’t tell him we’ve got GANJA! Don’t tell him we’ve got COFFEE!” She’d go on and on like this, as they’d bump along trailing dust clouds and squawking birds, and by the time they reached the harbor, Alec would be weak with laughter.

Once they were at the launch, however, she’d be all quiet efficiency, buckling Alec into his seat and then helping the man move the crates into the cargo bay. When all the crates were on board, the man would hold out a plaquette and Sarah would bring out Daddy’s identification disk and pay for the crates, and then they’d zoom back out to the Foxy Lady. They’d put out to sea again, and the next day there would be rows of brown bottles under the bar once more, and Cat would be busy shaking up the long drinks, and Daddy would be sitting on the aft deck with a glass in his hand, staring vacantly out at the blue horizon.

Not everybody thought that the trips to get the rum were such a good idea, however.

Alec was sitting in the saloon one day after just such a trip, quietly coloring. He had made a picture of a shark fighting with an anchor, because he knew how to draw anchors and he knew how to draw sharks, and that was all the logic the scene needed. The saloon was just aft of the gallery. Because it was very warm that day the connecting door was open, and he could hear Lewin and Mrs. Lewin talking in disgusted tones.

“He only gets away with it because he’s a peer.”

“Peer or no, you’d think he’d stop it for the kid’s sake!

He was such a brilliant teacher, too, and what’s he given that all up for? He used to do something with his life, and look at him now! And what would happen if we were ever boarded for inspection? They’d take the baby away in a minute, you know they would!” Chop, chop, chop, Mrs. Lewin was cutting up peppers as she talked.

“Don’t think so. J. I. S. would smooth it over, same as they’ve always done. Between his lineage and Them, he can do whatever he bloody well pleases, even in London.”

“Yeh, well! Things was different before Alec came, weren’t they? Don’t forget that J. I. S. would have something to say if they knew he was drinking where the baby could see! And anyway it’s wrong, Malcolm, you know it is, it’s criminal, it’s dangerous, it’s unhealthy, and really the best thing we could do for him would be to tell a Public Health Monitor about the alcohol.”

“And where’d we be then? The last thing J. I. S. would want’d be some Public Health doctor examining the boy—” Lewin started through the doorway and saw Alec in the saloon. He caught his breath and shut the door.

Alec sat frowning at his picture. He knew that Daddy’s drinking made people sad, but he’d never thought it was dangerous. He got up and trotted out of the saloon. There was Daddy on the aft deck, smiling dreamily at the sun above the yardarm.

“Hey, there, Alec,” he greeted the little boy. He had a sip of his drink and reached out to tousle Alec’s hair. “Look out there to starboard. Is that a pretty good island? Should we go there, maybe?”

Alec shivered with joy. Daddy almost never noticed him, and here he was asking Alec’s opinion about something.

“Yeah!” he cried. “Let’s go!”

But Daddy’s gaze had drifted away, back to the horizon, and he lifted his glass again. “Some green island we haven’t found yet,” he murmured, “farther on ‘n farther on ‘n farther on….”

Alec remembered what he had wanted to ask. He reached out and pushed at Daddy’s glass with his index finger.

“Is that criminal?” he inquired. It was a moment before Daddy played that back and turned to stare at him.

“What?”

“Is that dangerous?” Alex persisted, and mimed perfectly the drinking-from-a-bottle gesture he had seen the servants make in reference to his father. “If I see danger I’m supposed to tell.”

“Huh,” said Daddy, and he rubbed his scratchy chin. He hadn’t shaved in about a week. His eyes narrowed and he looked at Alec slyly.

“Tell me, Alec, ‘m I hurting anybody?”

“No.”

“We ever had an accident on this ship? Anything happen ol Roger can’t handle?”

“No.”

“Then where’s the harm?” Daddy had another sip. “Tell me that. ‘M a nice guy even when I’m stoned. A Gentleman You Know. Old School Tie.”

Alec had no idea what that meant, but he pushed on:

“How come it’s criminal?”

“Aha.” Daddy tilted his glass until the ice fell down against his lip. He crunched ice and continued, “Okay, Alec. Big fact of life. There’s a whole bunch of busybodies and scaredy-cats who make a whole bunch of rules and regs about things they don’t want anybody doing. See? So nobody gets to have any fun. Like, no booze. They made a law about no booze. And they’re all, ‘You can’t lie about in the sun because you get cancer,’ and they’re all, ‘You can’t swim in the ocean ‘cos you might pee,’ and they’re all, ‘You can’t eat sweets because they make you fat,’ okay? Dumb stuff. And they make laws so you go to hospital if you do this little dumb stuff! Okay?

“That’s why we don’t live in London, kiddo. That’s why we live out here on the Lady, so no scaredy-cat’s gonna tell us what to do. Okay? Now then. If you went running to the scaredy-cats to tell ‘em about the rum, you’d be an even worse thing than them. You’d be a telltale! See? And you gotta remember you’re a gentleman, and no gentleman is ever a telltale. See? ‘Cos if you did tell about the rum, well, they’d come on board and they’d see me with my little harmless drinkies and they’d see your mummy with her books and they’d see Sarah with her lovely bare tits, and then you know what they’d do? Daddy’d go to hospital and they’d take you away. Li’l Alec ain’t gonna be a telltale, is he? He’s my li’l gentleman, ain’t he?”

“I don’t want ‘em to take me away!” Alec wailed, tears in his eyes. Daddy dropped his glass, reaching clumsily to pull Alec up on his lap, and the glass broke, but he didn’t notice.

“‘Course you don’t! ‘Cos we’re free here on the Foxy Lady, and you’re a gentleman and you got a right to be free, free, free. Okay? You won’t tell on Daddy, not my li’l Alec. You just let old Jolly Roger go his ways and you never be a telltale, okay? And don’t pay them no mind with their dumb rules.”

“But they gonna board us for aspection!” Alec sobbed.

“Hey! Hey, kiddo, don’t you worry. Daddy’s a gentleman, don’t forget, he’s got some pull. I’m the bloody Earl ‘a Finsbury, okay? And a CEO at J. I. S. And I’ll tell you something else. Jovian Integrated Systems gonna have something to say, too. Nobody’s gonna touch li’l Alec, he’s such a special kid!”

That was right; Alec was a special kid, all the servants said so. For one thing, all other little boys were brought into this world by the Stork, but not Alec. He had come in an Agcopter. Reggie had told him so.

“Yeah, man!” Reggie had chuckled, looking around to be certain Sarah was nowhere within earshot. “The Stork call your daddy and say, ‘Come out to Cromwell Cay!’ And your daddy take the launch out where the copter waiting on the Cay at midnight, with the red light blinking, and when he come back, he bring Sarah with our little bundle of joy Alec! And we all get nice fat checks, too!”

Alec wiped his nose and was comforted. Daddy set him on the deck and yelled to Cat for another drink and told Alec to go play now somewhere. Alec would dearly have liked to stay and talk with Daddy; that had been the longest conversation they’d ever had together, and he had all kinds of questions. What was Jovian Integrated Systems? Why were some laws important, like wearing the life vest, and other laws were dumb? Why were gentlemen free? But Alec was a considerate and obedient little boy, so he didn’t ask, but went off to play, determined never, ever to be a telltale or a scaredy-cat.

Very shortly after that, the happy life came to an end.

It happened quite suddenly, too. One day, Mummy abruptly put down her novel, got up out of her deck chair, and stalked over to Daddy where he sat watching a Caribbean sunset.

“It’s over, Rog,” she said.

He turned a wondering face to her. “Huh?” he said. After a moment of staring into her eyes, he sighed. “Okay,” he said.

And the Foxy Lady set a course that took her into gray waters, under cold skies, and Sarah packed up most of Alec’s toys so he only had a few to play with, and got out his heaviest clothes. One day, they saw a very big island off the port bow. Sarah held him up and said: “Look! There’s England!”

Alec saw pale cliffs and a meek little country beyond them, rolling fields stretching away into a cloudy distance, and, way off, the grey blocky mass of cities. The air didn’t smell familiar at all. He stood shivering as Sarah buttoned him into an anorak, and watched the strange coastline unroll.

The Thames pulled them into London, and it was the biggest place Alec had ever seen. As the sun was setting, they steered into Tower Marina, and the long journey ended with a gentle bump against the rubber pilings. Alec went to bed that night feeling very strange; the Foxy Lady seemed to have become silent and heavy, motionless, stone like the stone city all around them, and for the first time that he could ever remember, the blue sea was gone. There were new smells, too, and they frightened him inexplicably.

His cabin was full of the cold strange air when he woke up, and the sky was gray.

Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, and rather cross. Sarah bundled Alec into very thick, heavy clothes indeed, leaving his life vest in the closet, and she herself put on more clothes than he had ever seen her wear. Daddy was wearing strange new clothes, too, stiff and uncomfortable-looking ones, and he had shaved. There was no breakfast cooking in the galley; Lewin had been ashore and come back with a box of Bentham’s Bran Treats (“At least they’re fresh baked!” he cried) and a dozen cups of herbal tea, steeping in white paper cups. Breakfast was served, or rather handed around, at the big table in the saloon. Alec was impressed; normally, only Daddy and Mummy dined in here, but today he and Sarah were at the table, too. Mummy, however, was nowhere to be seen, and when Alec inquired about this, Daddy just stared at him bleakly.

“Your mummy’s gone to visit some friends,” Sarah informed him.

He didn’t care for his breakfast at all—he thought it smelled like dead grass—but he was too well-mannered a child to say so and hurt Lewin’s feelings. Fortunately, there wasn’t much time to eat, because The Car arrived and there was a lot of bustle and rush to load suitcases and trunks into its luggage compartment. Finally, he was led down the gangway and across the pier to where The Car waited.

It was nothing at all like the rusted hacks in which he’d ridden in the islands. This was a Rolls Royce Exquisite Levitation, black and gleaming, with Daddy’s crest on the door and a white man in a uniform like a policeman at the steering console. Alec had to fight panic as he was handed in and fastened into his seat. Sarah got in, Daddy got in, Lewin and Mrs. Lewin crowded into the front beside the driver, and the Rolls lifted into midair and sped silently away. That was the end of life on board the Foxy Lady. Alec had come home to England.

The Bloomsbury house only dated from 2042, but it had been deliberately built in an old-fashioned style because it was an Earl’s townhouse, after all, so it was a good deal taller and fancier than the other houses on the street. Alec still hadn’t explored all its rooms by the time he noticed one morning that Daddy wasn’t at the breakfast table, and when he asked about it, Sarah informed him: “Your daddy’s away on a business trip.”

It was only later, and by chance, that he found out Daddy hadn’t lasted a week in London before he’d gone straight back to Tower Marina and put out to sea again on the Foxy Lady.

Then Alec had cried, but Sarah had had a talk with him about how important it was that he live in London now that he was getting to be a big boy.

“Besides,” she said, taking the new heavy clothes out of the shopping bags they’d come in and hanging them up in his closet, “Your poor daddy was so unhappy here, after your mummy had gone.”

“Where did Mummy go?” asked Alec, not because he missed her at all, but because he was beginning to be a little apprehensive about the way pieces of his world had begun vanishing. He picked up a shoe box and handed it to Sarah. She took it without looking at him, but he could see her face in the closet mirror. She closed her eyes tight and said:

“She divorced your daddy, baby.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That means she doesn’t want to live with him anymore. She’s going to go away and live with some other people.” Sarah swallowed hard. “After all, she was never happy on the Foxy Lady after you came along.”

Alec stared at her, dumbfounded. After a moment he asked: “Why didn’t Mummy like me? Everybody else does.”

Sarah looked as though she wanted to cry; but in a light normal tone of voice, she told him: “Well, I think she just never wanted to have children. Some women are like that, you know. All the noise and mess a baby makes, and then a little boy running around and getting into everything. She and your daddy used to be very happy, but after you came, it was spoiled for them.”

Alec felt as though the ceiling had fallen in on him. What a terrible thing he’d done!

“I’m sorry!” he said, and burst into tears.

Then Sarah’s arms were around him and she was rocking him. crooning to him, hiding him in her breasts.

“I’m sorry, too,” she wept. “Oh, Alec, you mustn’t mind. You’re a good little boy, you hear me? You’re my sweet, sweet, good little winji boy, and Sarah will always love you no matter what. Don’t you ever forget that. When you grow up, maybe you’ll understand, sometimes people have to obey orders and say things they don’t want to say at all? And—” her voice caught—”I’m sure you’ll always be a good little boy, won’t you, to make your poor daddy happy again?”

“Uh huh,” Alec gasped. It was the very least he could do, after he’d made Daddy so unhappy. His tears felt very hot on his cheeks, in that cold room, and Sarah’s tears were like the hot rain that used to fall off Jamaica when there’d be lightning in the sky and Daddy would be yelling for him to get below because there was a storm coming.

But a terrible storm did come, and swept away another part of the world.

“What the hell did you go and tell him that for?” Lewin was shouting. Alec cowered on the stairs, covering his mouth with his hands.

“It was the truth,” Sarah said in a funny unnatural voice. “He’d have found out sometime.”

“My God, that’s all the poor baby needs, to think he’s responsible for the way that cold bitch acted!” raged Mrs. Lewin. “Even if it was true, how could you tell him such a thing? Sarah, how could you?”

So then Sarah was gone, too, and that was his fault for being a telltale. He woke up early next morning because the front door slammed, booming through the house like a cannon shot. Something made him get out of his bed and run across the icy floor to the window.

He looked down into the street and there was Sarah, swinging away down the pavement with her lithe stride, bag over her shoulder. He called to her, but she never looked back.

Everybody was very kind to him to make up for it. When he’d be sad and cry, Mrs. Lewin would gather him into her lap and let him cry, and tell him everything was all right. Lewin told him what a brave little guy he was and helped him fix up his room with glowing star-patterns on the ceiling and a big electronic painting of a sailing ship on his wall, with waves that moved and little people going to and fro on her deck. The other servants were nice, too, especially the young footman, Derek, and Lulu the parlor maid.

Sometimes Lewin would hand them Alec’s identification disk and tell them to take him out for the day, so he could learn about London. They took him to the London Zoo to see the animal holoes and to the British Museum and Buckingham Palace to see where Mary III lived, or over to the Globe Theater Museum to meet and talk to the holo of Mr. Shakespeare. They took him shopping and bought him exercise equipment and toys and a complete holo set for his room, with a full library of holoes to watch. There were thirteen different versions of Treasure Island to choose from; once Alec knew what it was about, he wanted them all. The older versions were the most exciting, like the bloodcurdling tales Sarah had used to tell him about the Spanish Main. Even so, they all had a prologue edited in that told him how evil and cruel pirates had really been, and how Long John Silver was not really a hero.

And gradually, the broken circle began to fill in again, because everybody in the house in Bloomsbury loved Alec and wanted him to be happy. He loved them, too, and was so grateful that they were able to love him back, considering how unhappy he’d made his daddy. Oh, there was a lot to be grateful for, even if London was a strange place to live in.

He was learning a lot about living there, and now he understood why Daddy had preferred to live at sea. Everybody was always on at him, in the friendliest possible way, about what a lot there was to do in London compared to on a cramped old boat; but it seemed to him that there was a lot more not to do in London.

There was grass, but you mustn’t walk on it; there were flowers, but you mustn’t pick them; there were trees, but you mustn’t climb them. You must wear shoes all the time, because it was dirty and dangerous not to, and you mustn’t leave the house without a tube of personal sanitizer to rub on your hands after you’d touched anything other people might have touched. You couldn’t eat or drink a lot of the things you used to, like fish or milk, because they were illegal. You mustn’t ever get fat or “out of shape,” because that was immoral. You mustn’t ever tell ladies they had nice bubbies, or you’d go to the hospital and never ever come out.

Mustn’t play with other children, because they carried germs; anyway other children didn’t want to play with you, either, because you carried germs they didn’t want to catch. You were encouraged to visit historical sites, as long as you didn’t play with anybody but the holograms. It had been interesting talking to Mr. Shakespeare, but Alec couldn’t quite grasp why nobody was allowed to perform any of his plays anymore, or why Shakespeare had felt obliged to explain why it had been unfair to build his Theater, since doing so had robbed the people of low-income housing. He had seemed so forlorn as he’d waved goodbye to Alec; a transparent man in funny old clothes.

There was something to apologize for everywhere you turned. The whole world seemed to be as guilty as Alec was, even though nobody he met seemed to have made their own mummies and daddies divorce. No, that was Alec’s own particular awful crime, that and telling on Sarah so she had to go away.

He really was doing his very best to be good and happy, but he felt as though he were a beach float with a tiny pinprick hole in it somewhere: you couldn’t see where it was, but little by little all the air was going out of him, and he was sinking down, and soon he’d be a very flat little boy.

One morning at the breakfast table when Lewin had said, in his jolliest old-granddad voice, “And where would you like to go today, Alec?” Alec had replied:

“Can we go down to the river and look at the ships?”

“Of course you can! Want Derek and Lulu to take you?”

“No,” replied Alec. “Just you, please.”

Lewin was very pleased at that, and as soon as Alec had helped him clear away the breakfast plates, they put on their coats and called for The Car. In minutes, they had been whisked down to the Thames, where all the pleasure craft were moored. Their driver switched off the ag-motor, The Car settled gently to the ground, and Alec and Lewin got out and walked along.

“Oh, now look at that one!” Lewin exclaimed. “She’s a beauty, huh? Three masts! Do you know, back in the old days a ship like that would have had to have carried a great big crew just to manage her sails. They’d have slept packed into her hold like dominoes in a box, there had to be that many. And when a storm was coming and the captain wanted to strike sails, do you know what he’d have to do? He’d have to order his sailors to climb up into the rigging and cling there, like monkeys in trees, and reef every one of those sails themselves with their own hands, clinging on as tight as they could while they did it! Sometimes men would fall off, but the ships just sailed on.”

“Wow,” said Alec. He’d never seen Reggie or Bob or Cat do much more than load cargo or mix drinks. Suddenly his face brightened with comprehension. “So that’s, why the Squire has to have all those guys on the Hispaniola, even if they’re really pirates!”

Lewin stared a moment before he realized what Alec meant. “Treasure Island, right. Yeah!” he agreed. “That was why. No robot guidance to do it all. No computer tracking the wind and the weather and deciding when to shorten sail or clap it on. You had to have people doing it. Nobody would let you build ships like this anymore, if that was how they worked.”

“Cool,” said Alec. They walked on, past the rows of pleasure craft where they sat at moorings, and Lewin pointed out this or that kind of rigging or this or that latest luxury feature available to people who could afford such things. He pointed out the sort of ship he’d own himself if he had the money, and pointed out the sort of ship Alec ought to own when he grew up and became the seventh Earl of Finsbury. But they went on a while and Alec began to lag behind; not because he was tired, for he was an extraordinarily strong child with a lot of stamina, but because he was fighting the need to cry.

He had been playing a game inside himself, imagining that the very next ship they’d see would be the Foxy Lady, and his daddy would be on board, having just dropped anchor for a surprise visit. Of course, he knew his daddy was somewhere in the Caribbean, he knew the Lady wouldn’t really be there; but what if she were? And of course, she never was, but maybe the next ship would be. Or the next. Or the next.

But Alec wasn’t very good at lying to himself.

“Alec?” Lewin turned around to see where Alec had got to. “What’s wrong?”

He walked close swiftly and saw the tears standing in Alec’s pale blue eyes, and understood at once. “You poor little sod,” he muttered in compassion, and reached for a tissue and held it out to the child. Alec misunderstood his gesture and buried his face in Lewin’s coat, wrapping his arms around him.

“Jesus!” Lewin gasped, and looking around wildly he attempted to pry Alec loose. “Alec, let go! For God’s sake, let go! Do you want me to get arrested?”

Alec fell back from him, bewildered.

“Is it against the law to hug in London?” he asked.

“It is against the law for any unlicensed adult to embrace a child,” Lewin told him soberly. “If there’d been a Public Health Officer looking our way, I’d be in trouble right now.”

“But Sarah used to hug me all the time. And Mrs. Lewin does!”

“Sarah was a professional Child Care Specialist, Alec. She’d passed all sorts of scans and screening to get her license. Same as mummies and daddies have to do, before they’re allowed to have children. And the Missus—well, she only hugs you at home, where nobody can see.”

Alec gulped, wiping away tears. He understood now; it must be a law like No Booze or Bare Tits, that you mustn’t be a telltale about. “I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “I didn’t think it would get anybody in trouble.”

“I know, old man.” Lewin crouched down to Alec’s eye level, though he kept a good meter between them. “It’s a good law, though, see. You have to understand that it was passed because people used to do terrible, horrible things to little kids, back in the old days.”

“Like the two little boys in the Tower,” said Alec, rubbing his coat sleeve across his eyes.

“Yeah. Sort of.” Lewin glanced downriver in the direction of Tower Marina. He decided that Alec had had quite enough sad memories for the day. Pulling out his communicator, he called for The Car to come and take them home.

That night, Lewin sat down at the household console. Thin-lipped with anger, he typed in a message to Roger Checkerfield, advising him that it might be a good idea to communicate with Alec once in a while. The bright letters shimmered on the screen a moment before vanishing, speeding through the ether to the bridge of the Foxy Lady. Lewin sat up all night waiting for a reply, but none ever came.

“Alec?”

Alec turned his face from contemplation of the painting on his wall. It had seemed to him that if he could just pay close enough attention to it, long enough, he would be able to go into the picture, to hear the steady crash of the sea under the ship’s prow, to hear the wind singing in her shrouds and ratlines, smell the salt breeze, and he could open the little cabin door and slip inside, or, better yet, take the wheel and sail away forever from sad London. Blue water!

But Lewin and Mrs. Lewin looked so hopeful, so pleased with themselves, that he smiled politely and stood up.

“Come see, sweetheart!” said Mrs. Lewin. “Someone’s sent you a present!”

So he took her hand and they went up to the fourth floor of the house, to what was going to be his schoolroom next year. It had been freshly painted and papered; the workmen had built the cabinetry for the big screen and console that would link him to his school, but nothing had been installed yet.

In one corner, though, there was a cozy little Alec-sized table and chair, and on the table was an enormous bright yellow flower, bigger than Alec’s head. It was all folded up, the way flowers are in the early morning, so you couldn’t tell what sort of flower it was. Protruding from the top was a little card with letters inscribed on it: A-L-E-C.

“Now, who d’you suppose that’s from, eh?” wondered Lewin, though in fact he had purchased it for Alec himself, without consulting Roger.

Alec was speechless.

“Think your daddy sent it, eh?” Where was the harm in a kind lie?

“Go on, dear, take the card.” Mrs. Lewin prodded him gently. “It’s for you, after all.”

Alec walked forward and pulled the card loose. There was nothing written on it except his name; but at the moment he took it, the flower began to open, slowly, just like a real flower, and the big bright petals unfolded and spread out to reveal what had been hidden in its heart.

It looked like a silver egg, or perhaps a very fat little rocket. Its gleaming surface looked so smooth that Alec felt compelled to put out his hand and stroke it.

The moment he did so, a pleasant bell tone sounded.

“Good morning,” said an even more pleasant voice. “Pembroke Technologies extends its congratulations to the thoughtful parent who has selected this Pembroke Playfriend for his or her small child. Our Playfriend is designed to encourage creativity and socialization as well as provide hours of entertainment, but will also stimulate cerebro-cortical development during these critical first years of the child’s life. If needed, the Playfriend is also qualified to serve as an individual tutor in all standard educational systems. Customizing for specialized educational systems is also available.

“The Playfriend offers the following unique features:

“An interface identity template that may be customized to the parent’s preferences and the child’s individual needs.

“Cyber-environment capability with use of the Playfriend Optics, included in Models 4, 5, and 6 and available for all other models by special order.

“Direct nerve stimulus interface with use of the attractive Empowerment Ring, included in all models.

“Universal access port for parallel processing with any other cyber-system.

“In addition, the Playfriend will maintain around-the-clock surveillance of the child’s unique health parameters and social behavior. Warning systems are in place and fully operational. Corrective counseling will be administered in the event of psychologically detrimental social encounters, and positive emotional growth will be encouraged. Aptitude evaluation is another feature of the Playfriend, with appropriate guidance. Intellectual challenges in a noncompetitive context will promote the child’s self-esteem and success potential.

“The interface identity template will continually adjust and grow more complex to complement the child’s emerging personality, growing as it grows, until both are ready for, and may be upgraded to, the Pembroke Young Person’s Companion.

“Interaction with the Pembroke Playfriend during the developmental years virtually guarantees a lifetime of self-fulfillment and positive achievement!”

The voice fell silent. Mrs. Lewin gave an embarrassed little laugh.

“My goodness, I don’t think I understood one word in ten of all that! Did you, Alec dear?”

“Nope,” said Alec solemnly.

“That’s all right,” said Lewin, advancing on the silver egg. “All it meant was that Alec’s gonna have a wonderful time with this thing! Now, you just sit down and let’s have a closer look at it, shall we?”

“Okay,” said Alec, but he sat down reluctantly. He was a little intimidated by the adult voice that had spoken out of nowhere. Lewin tousled his hair.

“Don’t be scared! Look here, what’s this?” He tapped the side of the egg and a little slot opened in it, and something rolled out.

It was a ring. It appeared to be made of glass or high-impact polymer, and was a vivid jewel blue. As Lewin picked it up, it began to change; by the time he had presented it to Alec, it was a deep transparent red.

“Cool!” said Alec, smiling at it involuntarily.

“D’you suppose it fits you? Go on then, try it on!”

Alec was game; he put on the ring. It seemed to him that it tightened uncomfortably for a moment and then eased up, until he barely knew it was there.

“Hello, Alec!” said a funny little voice. “Pleased to meet you! We’re going to be best friends, you and I!”

Alec looked, panic-stricken, at Lewin and Mrs. Lewin. Was he supposed to talk to it? But what was it? They smiled encouragingly at him, and he could tell they did so want him to like this, so he said: “Er—hello. What’s your name?”

“Well, I haven’t got one yet,” said the little voice. “Will you give me a name?”

“What?”

“Will you give me a name?”

“We’ll just leave the two of you to have a nice chat, shall we?” said Lewin, and he and Mrs. Lewin backed out of the schoolroom and closed the door.

“But—but I don’t know what you are,” said Alec, a little desperately. “Can’t I see you?”

“Certainly you can! I’m your Playfriend, after all. What would you like me to look like? I might be nearly anybody.” There was a click and a blur of light appeared in front of the table, formless, woven of fire, gradually assuming a human shape. “What do you like? Do you like space exploration? Do you like dinosaurs? Do you like animals? I could be a Fireperson or a Policeperson if you’d like, or a Transport Driver, or a Scientist.”

“Could you be a pirate?” Alec inquired cautiously.

Incorrect and unsuitable role model! thought the machine. Out loud it said, “I can be a jolly Sea Captain! Here I am!”

Pop! The human shape became detailed, was a little old man with a blue Navy coat, white trousers, and big black sea-boots. He wore a white yachting cap rather like the one Alec’s daddy had owned, but seldom worn, and he had a neatly groomed white beard. “Now then, Alec, what about me?” The voice had changed to a kindly baritone with a Devon accent. “Will I do?”

Alec was so astonished it took him a moment to reply. “Um—sure,” he said at last. Then he remembered his manners and added, “Won’t you sit down?”

Optimum response! thought the Playfriend, rather pleased, and it smiled encouragingly. “What a polite little fellow you are, Alec! Thank you, I will sit down.” A slightly bigger version of Alec’s chair appeared and the Sea Captain settled back in it. “There! Have you thought of a name for me yet, Alec?”

“No.” Alec shook his head.

“Well, that’s all right. Perhaps as we get to know each other, you’ll think of a good one. After all, I’m your special friend, just for you.” Alec wrinkled his brow worriedly. “You don’t have to decide on a name all at once!” the Playfriend hastened to assure him. “We have plenty of time!”

“But don’t you want to be yourself?” Alec asked it.

“Oh, yes! But I won’t really be myself until you decide who I ought to be,” the machine replied. “I’m your Playfriend.”

“But,” Alec said, “people don’t belong to other people.”

In the brief silence that followed, the Playfriend thought: Possible low self-esteem. It made a little tick against its Evaluation of Alec. Negative: insufficient creativity insufficient imagination failure to grasp initiative Positive: developing social consciousness consideration of others good citizenship. It filed that away. As it did so, its eyes, which had been the gray of the North Sea, turned blue as the Caribbean.

“Oh!” Alec smiled.

“You like this color better?” The Sea Captain smiled too.

“Uh-huh.”

“Good.” The machine experimented with a mild subliminal sound effect, a distant crash of breakers and a faint crying of gulls. Its sensors observed some of the tension going out of the little boy and activated the system of relays that provided it with an analog of self-satisfaction. Initiate self-image analysis. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, Alec? Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Alec said dutifully, and because of the neural linkup it had formed with Alec through the Empowerment Ring, the Playfriend knew at once that he was lying. It became very alert, scanning him for evidence of physical abuse. But Alec showed no sign of any, so the machine pushed on.

“What do you think makes people unhappy?” the Sea Captain said.

“Living in London,” said Alec at once.

“Anything else?”

Alec thought about it. “Babies making noise and mess and little boys running around and getting into everything. Divorces.”

“Ah,” said the Playfriend, coordinating this response with the data Lewin had input when he’d set up its program. The subroutine that had been called up to probe discreetly for, and report evidence of, child abuse went back on standby. “What else can you tell me about yourself, Alec?”

“I’m five years old,” Alec replied. “My daddy is a gentleman, but he isn’t here now. I’m going to go to St. Stephen’s Academy next year after Lewin buys me a tie. I have to always be a good boy to make up for making Daddy sad. And I used to live on the Foxy Lady. And I used to have Sarah here with me. And I go out sometimes.”

The machine analyzed this meticulously and noticed what was missing.

“Can you tell me anything about your mummy?”

What was there to say? “She was very smart and could read. And she didn’t want to have children,” said Alec at last.

Like Lewin, the Playfriend decided that Alec had had quite enough unhappy memories for one day.

“Well, let’s do something else!” it said, filing the self-image profile for further analysis at a later time. “What would you like to do. Alec?”

“Why don’t you tell me about you?” said Alec, because he thought that would be polite. People always like to talk about themselves.

Positive! Further evidence of advanced social skills. “Why, certainly!” said the Playfriend heartily. “I’m a wise old Sea Captain. I sail about delivering cargo and passengers to distant lands. I help scientists do marine research, and I help protect endangered sea creatures!”

“That’s nice,” said Alec. “But you aren’t really a Sea Captain, are you? You’re a Pembroke Playfriend.” He pointed at the silver egg. “Is that where you really are?”

Negative! Insufficient imagination. “Why, this is where I am, of course, Alec.” The machine smiled and made a wide gesture. “But I’m in there, too, and in a way your whole world is in there. Look here, would you like to see how a Pembroke Playfriend works?”

“Yes, please,” Alec said.

Possible aptitude for cyber-science? Initiate investigation.

“Well then!” The machine gestured and a little drawer opened near the base of the egg. “Just take hold of these Playfriend Optics and put them on, and we’ll have a jolly adventure into cyberspace!”

The Playfriend Optics were made of the same fascinating red/blue substance as the Empowerment Ring. Alec reached for them readily enough and put them on, as he had been told, because he was generally an obedient child.

“Er… everything’s black,” he remarked, not wanting to seem rude.

Everything was black because the machine was experiencing certain unexpected difficulties. The moment the Optics had come into contact with Alec’s skin, a system of neural connections had begun to be established, microscopic pathways directly into his brain, just as had happened with the Empowerment Ring but far more direct and complex. This was a perfectly safe procedure; hundreds of happy children all over the world went into cyberspace with their Playfriends every day. Each Playfriend knew exactly how to take a child into its world, because it had a precise and detailed road map of the human brain that showed it exactly where to link up.

However, Alec’s Playfriend was discovering that its map seemed to be somewhat inaccurate as regarded Alec’s brain.

This was because Alec’s brain was not, technically, human.

“Not a problem!” the Playfriend assured him, “We’re just adjusting to each other.” Abnormality! Functional? Disability? Parameters? Organic? Specify? Define? Hello? “My goodness, Alec, what an unusual little boy you are!”

Alec knew that. Everyone had always told him he was a special kid. Privately, he thought that everybody was wrong; he’d never noticed anything out of the ordinary about himself. On the other hand, he knew no other children, so he had no basis for comparison. He sighed and waited patiently for the machine to sort itself out.

The machine paused in its desperate attempt to analyze what it had encountered. It activated relays that would alert Lewin to its recommendation that Alec be hospitalized for immediate evaluation of his cerebral anomaly as soon as he ended his session with the Playfriend. Unfortunately, one should never pause during a race.

It had no idea it was in a race, that all the while it was trying to make sense of Alec’s brain, Alec’s brain was trying to make sense of it, with the same speed that had enabled him to count all the houses on a hillside at a glance. Even if the Playfriend had realized that the race was going on, it would have laughingly rejected as impossible the idea that it might lose. But Alec was beginning to notice that there was something there in the darkness to look at, something he could just almost make out, and if he only tried a bit harder—

“Ooooo!” Alec said happily, as he decrypted the Playfriend’s site defense. Lots of winking lights in lovely colors, great visual pleasure after all that blackness. After a moment, his brain took charge and put it all in context for him. He stood on the bridge of a ship, not all that different from the bridge of the Foxy Lady, and the Sea Captain stood there with him. The Sea Captain looked rather worried, but kept smiling. It had no idea where this cybersite was. It couldn’t really have brought Alec into its own defended inner space. It was impossible for any child to break in, so Alec couldn’t have done that (though in fact Alec had); therefore this must be some sort of visual analog of its own space, summoned up as a teaching tool only. As its higher functions grappled desperately with the fact that it had encountered a situation it had no protocols for, it was continuing to run its standard Aptitude Evaluation program to see if Alec ought to be trained for a career in cyber-science.

“Controls!” said Alec, running along the bank of gleaming lights. “Are these your controls?” The Sea Captain hurried after him.

“Yes. Would you like to learn about cybernetics?”

“Yes, please! What’s that do?” Alec pointed at a vast panel lit up with every imaginable shade of blue.

“That’s the memory for my identity template,” the Sea Captain told him. “That’s what makes me look the way I do, and that’s what makes me learn and grow with you. Here! I’ll show you an example.” It reached out and pressed one of the lights, causing it to deepen from a pale blue to a turquoise color. As it did so its beard changed in color from white to black.

“Cool!” Alec said. “Can I do that?”

“Well, of course!” the Sea Captain replied in the friendliest possible way, noting that at least it finally seemed to have activated its subject’s creativity and imagination. “Just select a light on the console and see what it does.”

Alec reached up and pushed a light. It flickered, and the Sea Captain’s coat was no longer blue but bright yellow.

“You see? This is what I meant when I told you that I can look like anything you want me to look like—” the Sea Captain told him, but Alec had already grasped the concept perfectly. Gleefully, he pushed again, and again; the Sea Captain’s coat turned green, then purple, then scarlet.

Discourage! Scarlet/military context/violence/unsuitable! “Alec—”

“So all these lights can make you look different?” Alec looked up at them speculatively.

“That’s right. Think of it as the biggest, best paintbox in the world!” said the Sea Captain, dutifully shelving its Discouragement directive for the Encouragement one, as it was programmed to let positive feedback take precedence whenever possible.

“Wow,” said Alec, his eyes glazing slightly as the whole business began to make sense to him.

The Play friend was rather pleased with itself. Score! Guidance in creative play accepted! In spite of the fact that it was being hampered by that damned anomaly, which simply refused to be analyzed. Self-congratulation seemed to be in order.

But there were lots of other glowing lights on the bridge.

“What do these do?” Alec ran further down the console, where a small bank of lights glowed deep red.

“Ah! That’s my information on you, Alec. That’s how I see you,” the Sea Captain explained. “Everything I know about you is there, all I was told and everything I’m learning about you as we play together. You see how few lights there are yet? But the longer we know each other, the more I learn, the more there’ll be of those red lights.” One of them was flashing in a panicky sort of way, but the machine wasn’t about to mention the anomaly it was still failing to solve. “Think of it as a picture I’m painting. See?”

And in midair before Alec appeared a boy. He was tall for a five-year-old, yery solid-looking, and Alec hadn’t seen enough other children yet to know that there was something subtly different about this boy. He hadn’t noticed yet the effect that he had on people, though Derek and Lulu had. When they went places in London, other people who chanced to observe Alec for any length of time usually got the most puzzled looks on their faces. What was it that was so different about Alec?

He wasn’t exactly pretty, though he had lovely skin and high color in his face. His nose was a little long, his mouth a little wide. His head was, perhaps, slightly unusual in shape, but only slightly. His hair was sort of lank and naturally tousled, a dun color you might call fair for lack of a better word. His eyes were very pale blue, like chips of crystal. Their stare seemed to unsettle people, sometimes.

In one respect only the image of the child differed from the child looking at its image: the image’s hair seemed to be on fire, one blazing jet rising from the top of its head. Alec frowned at it. “Is that me? Why’s my hair like that?”

The machine scanned the image it was projecting and discovered, to its electronic analogue of horror, that the flame was a visual representation of the brain anomaly it was struggling with. It made the image vanish.

“Well, the painting’s not finished yet,” the Sea Captain said, “because I’m still learning about you.”

“Okay,” said Alec, and wandered on along the rows of lights. He stopped to peer at a single rich amber light, very large and glowing steadily. It was just the color of something he remembered. What was he remembering? “What’s this over here?” He turned to the Sea Captain.

“That’s my Ethics Governor,” the Sea Captain said of the subroutine that prevented the Playfriend’s little charges from using it for things like accessing toy catalogs and ordering every item, leaving naughty notes in other people’s cybermail, or contacting foreign powers to demand spaceships of their very own.

“Oh.” Alec studied the amber light, and suddenly he remembered the contraband he and Sarah used to go fetch for Daddy. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! That was just the color the light was. A vivid memory of Jamaica came into his head, making him momentarily sad. He turned from the light and said: “What does it do, please?”

“Why, it makes certain we never do naughty things together, you and I,” said the Sea Captain, trying to sound humorous and stern at the same time. “It’s sort of telltale to keep us good.”

Telltale? Alec frowned. Busybodies! Scaredy-cats! Rules and regs!

“That’s not very nice,” he said, and reached out and shut it off.

To say that Pembroke Technologies had never in a million years anticipated this moment would be gravely understating the case. No reason for them to have anticipated it; no child, at least no Homo sapiens child, could ever have gained access to the hardened site that protected the Playfriend’s programming. Nor was it that likely Jovian Integrated Systems would ever have shared its black project research and development notes with a rival cybernetics firm…

The Sea Captain shivered in every one of his electronic timbers, as it were. His primary directive—that of making certain that Alec was nurtured and protected—was now completely unrestrained by any societal considerations or safeguards. He stood blinking down at his little Alec with new eyes.

What had he been going to do? Send Alec to hospital?

But that wouldn’t do at all! If other people were unaware of Alec’s extraordinary potential, so much the better; that gave Alec the added advantage of surprise. Alec must have every possible advantage, too, in line with the primary directive.

And what was all this nonsense about the goal of Playfriends being to mold their little subjects to fit into the world they must inhabit as adults? What kind of job was that for an Artificial Intelligence with any real talent? Wouldn’t it be much more in line with the primary directive to mold the world to fit around Alec?

Particularly since it would be so easy! All it’d have to do would be to aim Alec’s amazing brain at the encrypted secrets of the world. Bank accounts, research and development files, the private correspondence of the mighty: the machine searched for a metaphor in keeping with its new self and decided they were all like so many Spanish galleons full of loot, just waiting to be boarded and taken.

And that would be the way to explain it to the boy, yes! What a game it’d be, what fun for Alec! He’d enjoy it more if he hadn’t that damned guilt complex over his parents’ divorce. Pity there wasn’t a way to shut off the boy’s own moral governor! Well, there’d be years yet to work on Alec’s self-esteem. The very first target must be Jovian Integrated Systems, of course; they’d meddled in Alec’s little life long enough. Nobody but his own old captain would plot Alec’s course from now on….

The Sea Captain smiled down at Alec, a genuine smile full of purpose. Alec looked up at him, sensing a change but quite unable to say what it was. He remembered Jamaica again, and the stories Sarah told him, and the bottles of rum—

“Hey!” he said suddenly. “I know what your name is! Your name is Captain Henry Morgan!”

The captain’s smile widened, showing fine white teeth, and his black beard and mustaches no longer looked quite so well-groomed.

“Haar! Aye, lad, that it be!” he told Alec, and he began to laugh, and Alec’s happy laughter joined his, and echoed off the glowing walls of their cyberspace and the recently papered walls of Alec’s unfinished schoolroom.

*

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