To the Land Beyond the Sunset
by Kage Baker



Somewhere in South America, New World One, 1650 ad…

Well aware that it was probably the most pointless thing an immortal could do, Lewis sat slouched behind his desk with his chin on one fist, watching the clock.

He was stuck in a dull job working for an idiot, his love life was nonexistent, and he was bored.

As immortal servants of an all-powerful-cabal-of-scientists-and-investors-who-possess-the-secret-of-time-travel go, Lewis was an unimposing fellow: slightly built, with limp fair hair and eyes of twilight blue. He was handsome, in the earnest manner of a silent-film hero. When called upon to act he could be plucky, determined, and brave; but it had been half a millennium since he’d had to do anything but sit behind a desk and hand out brochures.

This might have suited timid and retiring mortals, but Lewis happened to be a cyborg programmed in library sciences. He was, in fact, a Literature Preservation Specialist. He had once wandered the British Isles with a harp, gathering hero stories from persons painted blue. Later still he had wandered France with a lute, troubadoring for all he was worth and slipping the odd illuminated copy of le Romain de la Rose into his parti-colored coat before making a quiet exit down the castle drainpipe.

Lewis had done his job cheerfully and well, so it had come to him as a complete surprise when, following a minor accident in the field, he had been abruptly transferred to the Company base at New World One and appointed Guest Services Director. The clock struck three.

Sighing, Lewis got to his feet. Finding his hat, he stepped out into the lobby.

“Closing time, Salome,” he said, and then realized he was speaking to thin air. Frowning, he went to the receptionist’s desk. She had left a scrawled note: Lewis—something came up. Be a dear and punch my time card? Thanks!

Muttering to himself, Lewis punched her time card with quite unnecessary force, punched his own, and left the pyramid.

The tropical heat fell on him like a wet blanket. He gasped, wishing he had gills, and set off down the broad straight avenue between the pyramids. Beyond the Perimeter, animals screamed and fought in the jungle depths, but not here; a vast sleepy silence reigned, suffering only the trickle of fountains and the chatter of little parrots to disturb it.

And, now, the rhythmic pounding of bare feet. Lewis turned to look over his shoulder and groaned. Bearing down on him was a sedan chair borne by six immense Mayans in matching livery, splendidly kilted and adorned in jade and gold, with quetzal plumes nodding above their headdresses. He tried to wave them past, but they drew level with him and stopped.

“No, no, it’s quite all right,” he said. “Shoo.”

“We respectfully implore the Son of Heaven to permit us to carry him to his destination,” said the lead bearer, in well-bred tones that implied disapproval. Lewis looked up at him in despair. The bearers were mortal, descendants of intercepted child sacrifices, haughty beyond reason, and Lewis had had this same argument with their fathers and grandfathers to no avail. Still:

“I’d really rather walk. I need the exercise,” he said. The lead bearer smiled indulgently.

“The Son of Heaven is pleased to be humorous. I respectfully point out that, being immortal, he cannot require exercise. Moreover, if he walks all the way to Administrative Residential Pyramid his divine garments will be soaked with sweat, and he will scarcely be in any fit state to attend the four o’clock cocktail reception mandated by the wise and just Father of Heaven,” said the bearer, and knelt. So did the other bearers, in perfect unison, and Lewis found himself irresistibly (but respectfully) boosted into the sedan chair.

He gave up, taking off his hat and fanning himself as the chair rose smoothly and the bearers went bounding away down the avenue. From his seat he had a fine view of New World One, laid out with all the precision of a knot garden: red and white pyramids, manicured emerald lawns, lush flowerbeds, turquoise swimming pools. To an immortal who’d just come in from a field assignment working somewhere dirty and dangerous, it would have seemed a vision of hallucinatory beauty. Lewis had long since grown weary of its splendor.

“Administrative Residential,” the lead bearer announced, as they pulled up in front of a particularly imposing pyramid.

“Thank you,” said Lewis, and hopped out as they dipped for him. They went running on, having fixed on a drooping immortal trudging along some distance off, and Lewis went inside. It was cool and dim, save for a pink neon sign saying THE PALENQUE POODLE about twenty meters down the passage, by the elevator doors. He could hear the clink of glasses, the banal chatter with one voice braying above the rest. Lewis stood straight, threw back his shoulders, and marched into the bar.

Houbert, the Director General, was holding court under an immense potted philodendron, sprawled back at his ease on a divan with jaguar skin upholstery. He was large for an immortal, beefy in a way that did not suggest muscle, and thinly bearded.

“And he-ere’s Lewis,” he announced to the room, “punctual for our party! Really too good of you, sir. I suppose you made the extra effort for the special occasion?”

“What special occasion, Director General?” Lewis inquired, sweeping off his hat as he bowed.

“What a delightful hat! Makes you look like a little puritan. But, you haven’t heard? Victor is leaving us!”

“Really?” Lewis turned and saw Personnel Coordinator Victor, surrounded by well-wishing immortals. The lucky devil, he thought.

“For Paris, the beast. But, what can one do? That’s life with Dr. Zeus; the job’s the job, we go where we’re posted, and all that. Go over and say good-bye to him, do.” Houbert waved a dismissive hand.

Lewis turned and had made it halfway across the room when a Mayan waiter loomed into his path, bearing a tray of violet martinis.

“Cocktail, Son of Heaven?” he said.

Lewis looked at the tray in horror. “Might I have a gin and tonic?”

The waiter shook his head, causing the plumes on his high headdress to shimmy gently. “The august Father of Heaven has ordained a special Beverage of Lamentation in honor of the departure of one of His divine Children from Paradise.”

Lewis knew from tedious experience that there was no point in arguing, so he took a martini from the tray and forged on toward Victor. Victor, dressed in full cavalier rig, was smirking rather as he accepted congratulation from his fellow cyborgs. He spotted Lewis on the edge of the crowd and raised his violet martini in ironic salute.

“Lewis, old man! What shall you do without me to keep an eye on you, I’d like to know?”

“This’ll be a duller place, by all the gods,” said Lewis sincerely, shaking his hand. “Paris! Oh, how I envy you. I hear it’s quite the city nowadays. I’d give anything to go back there.”

“Well, don’t despair; one never knows what the Company has in store for one,” said Victor, with a significant lift of his eyebrow. He twirled his red mustaches. “I have a feeling no one will miss me here.”

“Oh, no, that’s nonsense.” Lewis had a sip of his drink and shuddered. “Look at this turnout! We’ll all miss your wit.”

Victor regarded Lewis with the closest thing he could muster to affection. Lewis was possibly the only immortal at New World One not to have figured out that Victor was there in the capacity of Political Officer.

“No doubt,” he said dryly. “All the same, half of ’em here are from Botany. They’re hoping to assault Houbert en masse to get a definitive answer on the Pool and Gymnasium Exclusivity Question.”

“Oh, my, is that still going on?” Lewis glanced over his shoulder at the head of the Botany Department, who was advancing on General Director Houbert with a glare of adamant. Botany Residential had had to share its recreational facilities with Support Tech Residential for the last four centuries, and furious interoffice transmissions had been flying back and forth like electronic wasps for decades now.

“Still unresolved, I fear,” said Victor, swirling his martini. The candied violet sank to the bottom and lay there, rotating sluggishly. He regarded it in distaste a moment before adding, in a lower voice, “Mendoza’s here, you know.”

“She is?” Lewis turned his head sharply. Victor narrowed his eyes in amusement.

“Brought in as moral support for Botany Director Sulpicius. I can’t imagine she gives a damn, though, can you? Why don’t you trot off and relieve her ennui, like the good little knight-errant you are?”

“I rather think I will,” said Lewis. He backed up to a potted palm, surreptitiously dumped the contents of his glass, and hurried off to the booth where the Botanist Mendoza sat alone.

He had known her since 1596. It had been the longest relationship he’d ever had with a woman he’d loved, possibly because she had never noticed that he loved her. He didn’t mind. She liked him, at least, and the Botanist Mendoza liked hardly anybody. Somewhere in her past, a mortal lover had gotten himself burned at the stake, and it had left her with a fixed loathing of mortals and not much tolerance for immortals, either.

She raised a cold black stare to Lewis now, as he slid into the booth, but then she recognized him and smiled. Had he been a mortal man, his heart would have skipped a beat.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was going mad with boredom. How are you, Lewis?”

“Just peachy-keen, now that I have the fragrance of violets on my breath,” he replied. She snickered and drained the last of her martini.

“Ugh. They don’t serve these every day, do they?” she asked.

“God Apollo, no. I gather Houbert invented them especially for the occasion,” said Lewis. “Shame about Victor leaving, though, isn’t it? I shall miss his sense of humor.”

“Did he have one?” Mendoza looked genuinely surprised. “I always thought he was a pompous twit.”

“Oh, no. You must never have seen his impression of—”

They were interrupted by a Mayan waiter sweeping in to pick up their empty glasses. He was in the act of setting down another pair of martinis when Mendoza said, “Not those damn things. Bring us a pair of gin and tonics, can’t you?”

“But the divine Father of Heaven—” the waiter began.

“—can go and sit on his big jade throne,” said Mendoza. “Do as you’re told, mortal man.”

The waiter left, looking miffed. Lewis wrung his hands in embarrassment. “Now, now, look at it from his point of view—he adores Houbert, and it can’t be easy waiting on the lot of us, he must hate this as much as we do—”

“I suppose so,” said Mendoza. “I just get so fed up. ‘The Father of Heaven insists that all shall wear their hats backward today! The Father of Heaven ordains that all shall eat nothing but purple jelly beans today! The Father of Heaven commands that all shall do the Hokey Pokey!’And the mortals just bend over backward to obey.”

“Cheer up; if Victor got a transfer out of here, perhaps we will, too,” said Lewis.

“You’d really like to go back to Europe?”

“Lord, yes. How wonderful it would be to be able to do some real work for a change. Or at least, step outside the Perimeter walls!”

“I know how you feel,” said Mendoza, patting his hand in sympathy. “Nothing matters but the work, as they say. There’s this place in Bolivia—”

The waiter returned and sullenly slapped down in succession two cocktail napkins, two gin and tonics, and a pair of what resembled jade mah-jongg tiles.

“Thank you. What’re these?” Mendoza inquired. “Raffle tokens,” replied the waiter. “The incomparable Father of Heaven requests that His children retain them. There will be a drawing later.”

“Oh, whoopee,” said Mendoza glumly.

“You never know.” Lewis toasted her with his drink. “It might be a box of fruit jellies. Perhaps even a set of shoe trees, this time. Cheers.”

They clinked glasses and drank. “You were saying, about Bolivia?” said Lewis, when they had set their glasses down.

“Well, one of the field ops brought back something interesting from there,” said Mendoza. Her voice dropped as though she were about to impart a secret. “You’re aware I’m working with primitive cultivars of maize, right?”

“Of course,” said Lewis, looking into her eyes. Like most immortals, her physical body had stopped aging at twenty or so; but Mendoza, more so than any other immortal Lewis had met, had an extraordinary quality of reflecting her moods in her appearance. Sad, she was pale and austere, a bitter old woman for all the smoothness of her skin. But if he could make her laugh—if he could delight her with a story, or with good news—then the color rose in her face and the years dropped away.

He watched the process now, and made himself pay attention to what she was telling him with such intensity.

“… bigger than the teosinte I’ve found anywhere else, but not only that—it was found in a deposit of terra preta.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Also known as Amazonian Dark Earth,” said Mendoza, in a seductive sort of voice. “Super-compost. Occurs near ancient settlement sites but not even the Indians know where it comes from. Reproduces itself, like sourdough yeast. Bury some in lousy rain forest soil and it’ll convert it to arable land. One of those answer-to-world-hunger things about which mortals will never quite get a clue.”

“Oh. But the Company will?”

“Probably. And probably find a way to market it to gardeners and make a profit, up there in the future. Anyway, I’d give a year’s worth of damned pool privileges to be able to go down there and have a look at it.”

“But, do we lowly Preservers ever get any budget for field excursions?” said Lewis, and she chorused with him: “Noooo!”

At that moment a particularly well-muscled Mayan stepped up to a gong and smote it with a tremendous mallet. The note reverberated in the room, rather painfully for the immortals with their augmented senses. All the petty chatter died at once and all heads turned to Director General Houbert, who had risen to his feet.

“And now, darlings, it’s time for our weekly ration of delicious suspense,” he announced. “Console yourselves through the endless nights with this thought: that though we, servants of an all-knowing godlike pseudo-entity, are cursed with foreknowledge of nearly all things that happen, this at least we cannot know. I refer, of course, to the matter of who shall win the fabulous door prize!”

“And what is the fabulous door prize, oh beloved Father of Heaven?” said his Mayan majordomo.

“Why don’t you tell them, best of slaves?” said Houbert coyly.

“At once, Divine One!” The majordomo cleared his throat. “The lucky holder of this week’s winning token will receive—a full week’s liberty for two, complete with air transport to the holiday destination of his or her choice!”

There was a silence.

“Is it my imagination, or did the irony level just drop in here?” whispered Mendoza.

“We’re all a bit stunned,” Lewis whispered back. “Generally he awards things like potted orchids or spa coupons.”

A Mayan waiter wheeled forth a dessert trolley on which sat a big glass bowl, filled with jade tokens.

“Victor, as our departing celebrity, perhaps you’ll do us the honor of selecting our winner?”

“Certainly, sir.” Victor stepped up to the bowl and delved in, stirring the tokens.

“Suspense suspense suspense suspense suspense suspense,” chanted the Mayan waiters, until Victor drew out a single piece of jade. He held it up with a flourish, and then read aloud what was engraved thereon:

“Nine Flower Monkey Rain Cloud!”

A moment of hurried clicking, like a roomful of scorpions, as the immortals grabbed up their jade tiles and examined them. Lewis looked around, waiting for someone’s exclamation of triumph.

“Hell,” said Mendoza. “I’ve got Nine Flower Jaguar Stone Star.” She looked across at Lewis. “Aren’t you going to check yours?”

“Oh, I never win these things—great Caesar’s ghost!” Lewis stared at his tile, unbelieving. “Nine Flower Monkey Rain Cloud! Oh! Oh, my gosh!”

“We have a winner!” shouted the majordomo, seizing Lewis’s hand and holding it up.

“Olé!” cried Mendoza, applauding. “Lewis, you can go to Paris! Rome! London! Bravo!”

And his fellow immortals joined in the applause, and Director General Houbert himself condescended to come forward to shake his hand, but as the roaring wave of congratulation broke over him all Lewis saw was Mendoza’s face, bright and happy for once, and for him.



He had to use every ounce of invention and tact.

“You see, the awkward thing is, it’s specifically for two,” Lewis explained.

“Myself and a guest. And, er, you know… I’m not a couple. Lucretia informed me it’s not only over, it never even began…”

“She’s an idiot, and you were too nice for her anyway,” said Mendoza firmly.

“Funnily enough, that was what she said, too,” said Lewis, grimacing at the memory. “So I thought, well, perhaps—after all, there we were, talking about that place in Bolivia you’ve always wanted to see, and then, bang, I won, and—perhaps it’s destiny or something!”

Mendoza blinked. “You’re going to use your week’s liberty on a field expedition?”

“We could actually get some work done!” said Lewis. “You could, anyway. And it would do me no end of good to get in a little wilderness experience.”

“Oh, Lewis, you can’t! I mean, I can’t—”

“Of course you can! It’s my door prize, after all; I can invite whom I please,” said Lewis. “And I’ve decided I really, truly want to explore Bolivia.”

“You perfect gentle knight,” said Mendoza, and threw her arms around him and kissed him.

He had imaginary heart palpitations for an hour afterward, and drew stares from the Mayan gardeners as he went skipping back to Administrative Residential Pyramid.



“You’re lucky the rainy season hasn’t started yet,” Grover informed them, ordering their shuttle to begin its descent. He was a very old operative, distinctly Neanderthal of brow, so much so in fact that he could no longer go out among mortals without drawing undue attention to himself. His duties these days were limited to on-base jobs like piloting shuttles.

“I suppose all that turns to impassable mud?” said Lewis, peering down at the plain below them. It was dry and brown, distinguished only by the curious forested mounds that rose here and there from the general flatness.

“No; it turns into a lake,” said Grover. “See all those hills? They’re actually islands. You want my advice, you’ll set up your camp on one.”

“Are there mortals down there?” Mendoza scowled at the network of raised causeways between the islands. “Certainly looks like it. That land’s been farmed.”

“Not in recorded history,” said Grover. “Thirty thousand square miles of isolation. You can play your music as loud as you like—nobody’s going to slap your wrist over anachronisms out here!”

“Good,” said Mendoza.



They landed and were left with four crates of gear, and the cheery promise that Grover would return for them in a week’s time. Lewis watched the shuttle vanish away to the west. Lowering his head, he regarded the island-hill before them and felt the first slight qualm of concern, with a deeper uneasiness following.

“My gosh, that’s dense undergrowth,” he said. “I’m not sure we’re really dressed for adventuring. We look like a Dresden shepherd and shepherdess.”

“What?” said Mendoza. “My whole ensemble’s khaki. We’ll be fine!”

“I suppose so,” said Lewis, reflecting that seventeenth-century costume in khaki was still seventeenth-century costume.

“Besides,” said Mendoza, hoisting a crate on one shoulder, “I hate those damned Company-issue coveralls.”

Halfway up the hill, however, she was using language that rather shocked Lewis, or at least it did after he did a quick idiom access of sixteenth-century Galician Spanish. He ducked as first one and then the other of her high-heeled shoes went flying down the trail.

An hour later, however, there was a neat camp on the plateau at the top of the hill, on one edge so as to take advantage of the view.

“All the comforts of home,” said Mendoza happily, setting up a folding chair. “Did you bring the gin?”

“And a bottle of olives,” Lewis replied, hunting for the cocktail shaker. He found it, activated the self-refrigeration unit, and set it aside to chill. “Shall I build a fire?”

“We’ve got something better,” said Mendoza, reaching into the depths of a crate. She pulled out a cube of something resembling thick glass, about the size of a hatbox. Further search revealed a wrought-iron base for it; Mendoza set it out, placed the cube on top, and switched it on. “There we go!”

Lewis watched as the cube lit up and began to radiate heat, with stylized holographic flames dancing across its surface. “Oh, my! How did we mere Preservers rate that kind of field technology?”

“We didn’t,” said Mendoza smugly. “Pan Li in Accounting owed me a favor. Nice, huh?”

“Splendid,” said Lewis, setting up his own chair.

“And, look at this perfect camping spot! Guava trees. Brazil nut trees. Peach-palms. Anyone would think it had been someone’s little private orchard.”

“Paradisial,” Lewis agreed.

They relaxed, sipping cocktails as the gigantic tropical evening descended, and listened to the night coming to life. Drowsy parrots nestled together in the high branches; far off, some monkey set up a low monotonous hooting. The stars swarmed like white moths.

“Now, this is solitude,” said Mendoza in satisfaction. “No fussy department heads. No tedious meetings. No mortals!”

Except for one, Lewis thought to himself. He gazed across at Mendoza and imagined once again the specter of the mortal man she had loved, looming beside her. He had long since learned that he’d never supplant Nicholas Harpole, though the man had been dead the best part of a century. Lewis cleared his throat and said: “Wonderful, isn’t it? What shall we do tomorrow?”

“Go exploring!” said Mendoza. “Take the field credenza and go in search of specimens yet unclassified.”

“Search for lost worlds and dinosaurs? Ancient civilizations? Forgotten colonists from lost Atlantis?” Lewis suggested.

They laughed companionably and clinked glasses.

Later, as she sat in the entrance to her tent, combing out her hair without the least self-consciousness, he watched her and thought: This, at least, I have. And it’s more than she’ll grant to anyone else.



A field bivvy is a compact and useful piece of gear, lightweight and eminently portable. Once zipped inside, however, Lewis found it rather cramped.

He lay flat on his back, staring up at the mesh screen scant inches from his nose. It was hot, but the profusion of little insects whining on the outside of the screen dissuaded him from unzipping the flap. He turned over, and the tarpaulin underneath crackled disagreeably. He attempted to punch some comfort into his flat camping pillow, and failed.

God Apollo, he thought irritably, I used to tramp through half of Europe dossing down in ditches, and slept like a baby. Have I really grown so soft?

Just as sleep began its hesitant approach, something out on the far plain shrieked. Lewis gave up and resigned himself to a night of insomnia.

For a long while he listened to Mendoza’s distant breathing and heartbeat. The night sounds grew louder: tree frogs peeping by the millions, immense stealthy insects, moon-eyed things that haunted the upper branches…

He heard, quite distinctly, the crash of a metal door rolling open. A soft white light, only just brighter than moonlight, flooded the camp. Lewis opened his eyes and saw that a door had opened in the hillside. Little people were emerging.

“Hey,” he said, and tried to sit up. To his horror, he found that he was unable to move. But they had heard him; they came quite purposefully and yanked up the bivvy stakes, and commenced dragging him, doubly shrouded, toward the door in the hill.

“NO!” he shouted, managing at last to thrash about, and sat up face-first into the mesh. Moonlight, shining into his face, dappled through the jungle canopy; silence. No door, no little people.

“Lewis, are you okay?” Mendoza’s voice was cautious.

“Bad dream,” he said.

“Oh. Sorry,” she replied.

“Quite all right,” he said, and lay down and stared up at the mesh, knowing he’d never close his eyes again.



But the next thing he saw was red radiance everywhere, and a concerted morning birdcall backed up by little monkeys screaming at the sun.

Lewis turned over, focused his eyes, and recoiled at the number and size of the insects perched all over the bivvy mesh. He heard Mendoza give a muffled shriek and begin flailing away, as bugs flew off in all directions from her bivvy.

“Horrible, aren’t they?” he called.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh.” Mendoza unzipped her bivvy and scrambled out, and danced up and down. “Goddamned tropics! We should have brought one of those electronic bug killers.”

“Watch out,” said Lewis, beating upward to dislodge two tarantulas and a dragonfly with a twelve-inch wingspan. Mendoza retreated to one of the equipment crates. Lewis crawled forth into the morning and dutifully looked elsewhere as Mendoza got dressed.

“Oh! There are pineapple guavas growing over here,” he announced. “Shall I pick some for our breakfast?”

“Go ahead,” said Mendoza, sounding muffled. Lewis spent the next few minutes busily gathering fruit. Then a tarantula reached out of a clump of leaves and grabbed back a guava he had just picked, at which point Lewis discovered just how far he could jump from a standing start.

He came skittering back with his arms full of guavas, just in time to see Mendoza step forth from the crate dressed in hip waders, into the top of which she had tucked the hem of her gown. It looked more than odd. She met his stare and said proudly, “I don’t care. I’m insect-proof!”

“You know, you’ve got a point,” Lewis replied and, setting down the guavas, dove into a crate himself, to root through his gear for his own waders.

Fully armored against insect peril, they sat down and dined. The freshness of the morning was rapidly boiling away, as steam rose from the broad leaves all around them. Far to the horizon, where mountain peaks were visible, lay a low line of slaty cloud.

“Is it storming over there?” Mendoza remarked, frowning as she spooned up guava juice.

“I suppose so,” said Lewis. He peered out at the distant clouds, bringing them into close focus. “Oh, dear, we may not have escaped the rainy season after all.”

“We’ll just take rain ponchos,” said Mendoza, shrugging. “Never understood the way mortals get upset by a few drops of water. England, now—that was a rainy country. And wretchedly cold.”

They finished breakfast in a leisurely fashion and loaded on their field credenza packs, after which they made their way down from their hill to the plain. Close to, it was possible to see that irregular bands of dark earth circled each of the islands on the wide land.

“Ah-ha!” said Mendoza, pointing. “Teosinte!”

“Where?” Lewis turned his head.

“There! Growing all over the terra preta. See?”

“That stuff that looks like giant crabgrass?”

“Well, yes, it does,” said Mendoza impatiently. “But do you realize how-significant its presence is here? Nobody thought teosinte was cultivated this far down the continent! The indigenes farmed manioc and amaranths instead.”

“You don’t say,” Lewis replied, as his brain went into comfortable shutoff mode, its custom whenever Mendoza started in on the subject of botany.

For the next few hours he trotted after her through the shimmering heat as they explored farther afield, nodding and making polite exclamations, occasionally holding things when asked or standing beside plants she was imaging so as to provide a reference of scale. As he watched Mendoza working, his primary consciousness was focused in a pleasant fantasy.

The hip waders impaired his imaginings somewhat, but still there was something of human passion about her when she worked, not like the other immortals at all, with such an intensity she seemed ever so slightly dangerous.

And how could something lithe as a tigress have such apple-blossom skin? Her hair was coming undone as she worked, floating like flames around her face, and the long coiled braid drooping down… if he were to reach out and take hold of it, what would she…

“… The odd thing is, it’s immense but it doesn’t seem to have been cultivated, ever,” she was saying in a puzzled voice. “Just some gigantiform variant, but no disproportionate increase in the size or number of seed capsules.”

“How curious,” Lewis said, jerked from his reverie by something registering on his hazard sensors.

He turned his head. Far out upon the cracked and blazing plain, a mirage of silver water shimmered, rippled, advanced. Advanced? A sudden gust of hot wind buffeted his face.

“Er—” he said, just as Mendoza lifted her head and turned swiftly.

“What’s that?” she demanded. “Oh, God my Savior!”

“I think it’s—”

They winked out more or less simultaneously and wound up halfway up the side of the nearest island, perched on a tree branch. Watching in horrified fascination, they saw the shining flood roll onward, unhurried, unstoppable, surrounding their refuge and flowing on to the horizon.

“Damn,” said Mendoza, staring. “Where’d all that water come from?” Lewis pointed to the sky, where the slate cloud front of morning was just blotting out the sun and taking on a nasty coppery tint.

“It must be from the storm in the mountains. Grover told us this turned into a lake,” said Lewis.

“So he did. Well, it doesn’t look all that deep,” said Mendoza. “We can wade back to camp. We wore our waders, after all.”

An anaconda, quite a large one, floated past their perch. They regarded it in thoughtful silence.

“Then again,” said Mendoza, just as the sky opened with the force of a fire hose.

They clung to their branch as torrents of water beat down on them, gasping for air with their heads down. The rain shattered the silver mirror of the plain, turned it into a seething, leaping mass of brown water.

“I think we ought to wait it out,” shouted Lewis. Mendoza nodded and pointed to a drier section of branch, one overhung with a canopy of broad leaves. They worked their way along until they reached its comparative shelter and huddled there, dripping. Below them, various Amazonian fauna displaced by the flood was hurrying up the hillside on four, six, or eight legs respectively, likewise seeking refuge.

“But… It never does this at New World One,” said Mendoza, pushing back her wet hair.

“New World One has a force field projected over it,” said Lewis. “Houbert only lets in enough to keep the lawns green.”

“Ah,” said Mendoza. “That would also explain why we aren’t besieged by insects every night.”

“Or snakes,” said Lewis.

“That’s right; snakes can climb, can’t they?” said Mendoza.

They edged a little closer together on the branch.

“Well, we did hope we’d have an adventure,” said Lewis. “And I suppose this beats sitting in on another departmental budget meeting.”

Mendoza nodded doubtfully, watching the rain lash the surface of the water to muddy foam.

“I have to admit, this is as rainy as England,” she said. “At least there weren’t anacondas in Kent.”

“Scarcely any snakes at all there, really,” said Lewis.

“Except for Joseph,” Mendoza added, narrowing her eyes. Lewis, well aware of her feelings for the immortal who had recruited her, made a noncommittal noise. Seeking to turn the conversation elsewhere, he said brightly, “Think how wretched I’d be right now if I’d asked Lucretia along! She wasn’t what you’d call a good sport.”

“Mineralogist, isn’t she?”

“Mm. Emphasis on jewels. Curates the Company’s new world loot. All that plundered gold, jade, and whatnot.”

“You never know; maybe she’d have found a few emeralds out here.” Mendoza turned to look at him. “Wait a minute—there’s a rumor that somebody over in Mineralogy is kinky for gemstones. Supposedly has a private trove she likes to scatter in the bedsheets when she’s entertaining friends. Among other things. That wouldn’t be Lucretia, would it?”

“It certainly wouldn’t,” said Lewis firmly, and untruthfully. Mendoza grinned.

“And you wouldn’t tell me if it was, would you?”

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

“You really are the perfect gentleman, Lewis,” said Mendoza fondly. “What a bunch of idiots your ex-lovers have all been. One of these days, the right one will come along. You’ll see.”

Lewis gave her a forlorn look, which she utterly missed.



The rain continued without cease or indeed any sign that it was ever going to grow less. More things were swept by: a jaguar, crouched on a floating tree trunk, its ears flattened down in disgust. Caymans, swimming in flotillas. A sloth, apparently drowned but possibly not.

And then, abruptly, the rain stopped.

“Oh, look, somebody turned off the taps,” said Mendoza.

They sat there a few minutes, waiting expectantly for the water level to drop.

“I don’t think it’s going down anytime soon, somehow,” said Lewis. A few more minutes went by.

“Well, it’s only—” Mendoza scanned. “Just over a meter deep. We could wade.”

“We could,” Lewis agreed. A raft of broken branches drifted past, crowded with unhappy-looking monkeys.

“Or we could wait a little longer,” said Mendoza. They did.

“Dry clothing,” said Lewis at last. “Dry martinis. Comfortable chairs.”

“Yeah,” said Mendoza. The tree tilted outward, ever so slightly, but unmistakably.

“Oh, crumbs,” said Lewis, as the tree tilted farther.

They jumped and landed some distance behind the tree, which keeled over gracefully and slid down the hillside in a runnel of flowing mud. It took a lot of the hilltop with it.

“I have this sudden compelling urge to return to our camp,” said Mendoza. Lewis just nodded, speechless.

They picked their way down the sodden hillside and ventured out into the water, which was just precisely high enough to trickle in over the tops of their waders.

“Lewis, I am so sorry,” Mendoza said as she slogged along. “You might have been sunning yourself in some Venetian palazzo or other right now.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Lewis. “I don’t mind.”

Mendoza looked at him askance. “I’ll bet you say that to all the other girls, too. Sweetheart, there’s such a thing as being too much of a—” She broke off and turned, coming face-to-face with the cayman that had been advancing on them stealthily. It opened its jaws, but closed them on empty air as Mendoza dodged and brought her fists down on its flat head, with a crack that echoed across the water. It spasmed, rolled over and drifted away belly-up. “—nice guy,” Mendoza finished.

“I suppose so,” said Lewis. “All the same, this isn’t so bad. We’ve made a few discoveries, haven’t we? You’ve lots of samples of your, er, maize thing.”

“Though not the cultivars I expected,” said Mendoza, squelching on. “Odd, that. You can almost see what this place was like a thousand years ago—some vanished tribe of indigenes working out how to grow things here. No rice, or they’d have figured out rice paddies—no way to drain the marsh, the rainforest soil good for nothing, so they built these islands instead, out of terra preta. Each island a little orchard, and maybe some of them were used for amaranth or manioc crops…”

“I wonder what happened to them all? And where the terra preta came from?” said Lewis. “Surely the Company knows.”

“If all-seeing Zeus knows, he isn’t telling the likes of us,” said Mendoza. “Bloody paranoid corporate conspira—oh, my God.”

Before them rose an island. They could tell it was their island, beaten and lashed by the storm though it was, because the little clearing in which they had pitched their tents was clearly visible. It was visible because it was now halfway down the side of the hill. As they watched, it slid farther. The crates were still up on top, on the edge of what was now a precipice, but everything else had spilled down the slope and Lewis’s folding chair was already bobbing away on the flood.

“NO!”

Another cascade of mud came down, and the clearing flopped over, burying most of what they’d brought with them.



Three hours and a lot of cursing later, they sat on the hilltop once more, amid what they had been able to find of their base camp.

“It could be worse,” said Lewis. “We saved the cocktail shaker.”

“Pity about our sleeping bags, though,” said Mendoza bleakly, taking a sip of gin. “And Pan Li’s flamecube. And my tent.”

“You can have mine, of course,” said Lewis.

“But what’ll you sleep in?”

“I’m an old field campaigner,” said Lewis, with a wave of his hand. “I used to lie up in the heather with nothing but my cloak, when I even had a cloak. This is nothing to Northern Europe! Why, I’ll bet I can even get a fire going.”

Mendoza gave him an incredulous look.

“With what? All the wood is wet.”

“Only on the outside,” said Lewis and, rising, he took a hatchet and strode off in search of a dead tree. It took him a while; most of the local dead wood had already rotted down to punky, bug-infested bits. Finally he was able to scramble up and hack a few dead branches down, and further hack them into shorter lengths, and at last he staggered back with his arms full.

“Et voilà!” he said, looking around for a place to start a fire. There were no rocks, there were no patches of bare dry earth. Finally he improvised a sort of basket of strips of packing steel.

“And now,” Lewis said triumphantly, “the old field operative makes fire. What’s that, you say? We have no flint? We have no matches? We have no magnesium shavings? But we do have hyperspeed!” He held up a pair of dry sticks and then his hands became a blur, and a moment later both sticks had burst into flame.

“Nice trick,” Mendoza admitted. She watched as he coaxed the wood in the basket to catch. It smoked a great deal, but there was no denying it was on fire. She drew the rubber field poncho about her shoulders more tightly.

“So… when was your first mission?” she asked him.

“Anno Domini 142,” said Lewis proudly, rummaging through the box of field rations they’d salvaged. He drew out two pouches of Proteus Hearty Treats, wiped off mud, activated their autoheat units, and passed one to Mendoza. “Ireland. Well, I had to spend a year in Britain first, to acclimatize myself to mortals.”

“They did that to me, too,” said Mendoza. “Spent a whole year in Spain. I hated it. Damned mortals! I’d done all my prep work programming myself for the New World, and I was desperate to get out here. Then, what does the Company go and do? It sends me to England.”

“I’d have been perfectly happy staying in Britain,” said Lewis, taking a mouthful of Proteus Hearty Treats. He chewed, paused, and then said: “Is it me, or does this taste like a brownie steeped in beef gravy?”

Mendoza opened her pouch and ate some. “You’re right.” She looked into the pouch. “Not bad, though. So anyway—”

“So anyway it was Roman Britain by that time, and I was stationed at the Dr. Zeus HQ in Londinium. Oh, it was wonderful there! Heated rooms. Neighbors from all corners of the empire. Quite cosmopolitan, you know, you’d hardly think you were in a barbarian country at all. But then, of course, just as I’d got to taking clean clothes and indoor plumbing for granted—”

“Isn’t that the way it always is?”

“—I was sent to Ireland. Which was quite a contrast.”

“I’ll bet it was. What the hell would a Literature Specialist have to do in Ireland, in that era?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” said Lewis. “Learning tribal lays, and all that. So I just made the best of things. Learned to forage, make fire, get myself out of difficult situations. I did so well I was rewarded with a job in Greece for a few decades, but then—back to rainy old Eire. I got work as a druid.”

“At least I was never sent anywhere that primitive,” said Mendoza with a shudder. “How long were you in Ireland?”

“Until—” Lewis halted, frowned. “Until I… ow.” He put his hands up to his head and squinted his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Old programming error. Something… I’m so sorry, my memory’s never been right since. I had an accident. Spent ten years in a regeneration vat, would you believe it? And ages in reprogramming therapists’ offices after that,” he babbled. He had begun to sweat profusely.

“Did it happen in Ireland?” Mendoza was watching him closely, concern in her eyes.

“I don’t know! I was in France afterward. Old World One, in the Cevennes. Lovely place. Have you ever been there?”

“No. Lewis, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m just—there’s just that little glitch. Something fairly traumatic happened, apparently.” Lewis shook himself, trying to regain some composure. Mendoza reached over and took his hand in hers, which sent his composure flying again, but he smiled at her and hoped she wouldn’t notice the way his heart was pounding.

“Happens to all of us,” said Mendoza gently. “Damned tertiary-consciousness programming. The Company hides all sorts of little traumas down there, and they spring out and nail you at the worst times—usually just as you’re about to do something Dr. Zeus doesn’t want you to do. Like me with Nicholas.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Lewis, sitting very still so she wouldn’t take her hand away.

“You should have seen the panic attack I had the first time some mortal suggested I might be a Jew,” said Mendoza. “Complete hysterical collapse. Utterly humiliating. All pulled out of suppressed memories of being in the dungeons of the Inquisition. And the nightmares…”

“I have nightmares, too,” said Lewis sadly.

“Like last night?”

“Yes. Usually… I’m lost somewhere, and there are these tremendous domed hills or, or mounds or something… and then I’m being pulled down a hole. Or a tunnel. It’s hot and suffocating and I’m trapped… and I wake up yelling, which doesn’t much impress—well, anyone who happens to hear me.”

Mendoza gave him a thoughtful look.

“Well,” she said finally, “maybe romance just doesn’t work for immortals, eh, Lewis? It certainly didn’t work for me. And maybe it’s just as well. No passion, no pain. Good friendship’s just as important, after all. Maybe even more so.”

She withdrew her hand.

“To get back to the subject of roughing it—I’ve heard stories of some of these older field operatives who are really good at it. Don’t take any gear with them at all. They’ve trained themselves to sleep upright, only it isn’t sleep, it’s a sort of altered consciousness—like their perception of time and the exterior world changes. They just sort of become one with the landscape and blend in. Have you ever done that?”

Lewis shook his head. “Though I’ve known a few who did. People who have stayed out in the field too long. They’re certainly the best at what they do, and some of them can do some remarkable things… one fellow I knew called it stripping down to the machine. Cutting away the inessentials. They’re not bothered by rain or snow or heat.”

“See, I think that would be marvelous. You’d be sort of this super Zen master ninja cyborg,” said Mendoza. “You wouldn’t need anything. What stories they must have to tell!”

“Except that they don’t tell them,” said Lewis.

“What?”

“They’re not great talkers. I suppose that becomes inessential, too. They don’t work well with other operatives, much, and they can’t work around mortals at all.”

“Oh.” She lowered her gaze to the little fire. “Well, it’s still an interesting idea.”



They retired early, Mendoza crawling into the sole remaining bivvy and Lewis wrapping himself up in his poncho in one of the crates. He lay there a while, cold and uncomfortable, listening to distant thunder. Gradually the thunder moved closer, and the lightning became more frequent. He opened his eyes and looked up just as a blue-white flash revealed dozens of insects, including a tarantula, making their determined way over the edge of the crate, all of them looking for a warm place to spend the night.

“Yikes!” Lewis nearly levitated up and out of the crate, landing with a squelch in the long grass.

“What?” Mendoza leaned up on her elbows.

“Just, er, a few bugs,” said Lewis, leaping to his feet and smacking at something crawling up his arm. “It’s all right—”

“Look—” Mendoza unzipped the flap. “This is dumb. Crawl in here with me. There’s room enough and we can lie back to back, okay? Chaste as anything.”

“Okay,” said Lewis, and scrambled into the bivvy. Mendoza zipped it shut again.

They slept, chaste as anything. The rain began to fall again. The night filled with the scent of green leaves.



Lewis opened his eyes. Sunlight, above his face, sparkling on water drops. Early early sunlight, just after a gentle misty dawn. He could glimpse blue sky through the canopy, and a flash of color as a macaw streaked by overhead. The storm had rolled through.

None of which made any impression on him, however, because he was lying on his back and Mendoza was resting her head on his chest, and had thrown one arm over him, and was holding him close.

He lay there, scarcely daring to breathe.

Lord God Apollo, this is Lewis. Remember me? I don’t suppose you’d remember, actually, I’m not the sort of fellow people remember much, but anyway here I am, and I still pray to you occasionally even though I’m a cyborg now, and I was just wondering: I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stop time, right this minute? Right here, in this moment, for the rest of Eternity?

She was warm. Her hair was fragrant with something. Roses? Her arm was bare. She was breathing quietly as a child.

He could almost—

“Mh… Nicholas?”

He felt her come awake, utterly relaxed one moment and utterly alert the next. He squeezed his eyes shut.

She started violently, and he heard her draw a sharp breath. A frozen moment of immobility; then, with great care, she drew away from Lewis and turned on her side, with her back to him.

She made no sound, but he felt the slight trembling as she wept.



Lewis waited an hour before stretching and yawning loudly. “My gosh, the sun is shining!” he announced.

“And we made it through the night without being washed down the hill,” said Mendoza in a bright voice. She turned to face him, red-eyed but calm and collected.

“What shall we do today?” said Lewis. “Other than pay a heck of a lot of attention to barometrical readings?”

“Hang things out to dry,” she said, leaning up on one elbow to peer out through the mesh. “And I guess we really should see if we can dig out any more of the gear that got buried. Just so some Victorian explorer doesn’t stumble on it and claim it’s evidence for colonists from Atlantis.”

A few strands of her hair were stuck to the side of her face. Lewis, unable to stop himself, reached out and smoothed them back. She pretended not to notice.

“Do you want to go any farther afield to look for your maize?”

“Teosinte. No… I think I’ve found pretty much everything there is to find, there,” she said. “I’m starting to be more interested in the place itself.”

Lewis nodded. “It must have been quite an engineering feat on somebody’s part.”

“There had to have been a huge resident population to build it all, and then to keep the land in production. I want to do some tests on the fruit trees here, to see if there’s much genetic difference from the cultivars grown in other parts of Amazonia.”

“Okay,” said Lewis, unzipping the mesh and crawling out before the conversation could get more botanocentric. He dressed himself, performed such ablutions as were possible, and wandered off to see if he could find any more guavas for breakfast.

There was a bearing tree just at the edge of the slide precipice. He approached with caution, so busy scanning for unstable earth that he didn’t notice the view until it was right before his eyes. When he did notice it, though, he stopped in his tracks, openmouthed.

The land had become a shallow sea, sky-reflecting as a mirror, brilliant blue. The high mounds rose from the water, an archipelago of green gardens, and on their lower slopes grew purple flowers. Macaws sailed out on brilliant wings, blue and gold, scarlet and green, between the islands. All of it in dreamlike silence, but for the rustling of their wings; not a bird or a monkey cried anywhere.

Mendoza came up behind him and gazed out.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“Another Eden,” said Lewis, but she shook her head. “Mortals built this place,” she said, and went to the guava tree and picked the fruit.



They put their waders and ponchos back on and made their slow way down the hill after breakfast, paralleling the smooth chocolate-colored track of the slide, digging into the mud at the bottom with camp shovels. They found Lewis’s sleeping bag, very much the worse for wear, and a case of bottled water.

“And there was great rejoicing,” said Mendoza, hoisting it on her shoulder. “Let me get this up the hill into the shade.”

“I think I see the flamecube,” said Lewis, poking with the handle of his shovel.

“Oh, good. That’d really give the Von Danikenists something to talk about, wouldn’t it, if that got left behind?” She set the water down and came back to peer into the slush. Lewis raked with the upper edge of the shovel and levered up a corner of the cube. Before it sank into the muck once more, Mendoza was able to reach down and grab hold.

“Oh, no, you should have let me—”

“It’s all right, just back up a little so I can—”

“Really, let me—”

So busy were they that neither one of them noticed the mortal’s approach.

He was within arrowshot when they looked up and saw him at last, and then they stared in disbelief.

He was an ancient mortal, poling along toward them in a flat-bottomed skiff. His boat was elaborately carved to represent some kind of water bird. It moved without a sound across the glassy water, leaving no more wake than a dream. His own garments were elaborate, too, woven cotton in several colors and a headdress of bright macaw feathers, and little pendant ornaments of shell and hammered gold.

He brought his skiff up to the edge of the mound and stopped, leaning on the pole.

“Good morning,” he said.

They did a fast linguistic access and realized that he was speaking in a Taino dialect, though his accent was strange and archaic.

“Good morning, sir,” Lewis replied, in Taino.

“You wouldn’t happen to be gods, would you?” inquired the old man.

“No, sir,” said Lewis. “Only servants of a god.”

“Ah,” said the old man. “Well, that would explain the mud all over you. Tell me, children, is the lord Maketaurie Guyuaba anywhere about?”

“Er—no,” said Lewis, doing a fast access on Taino mythology. Maketaurie Guyuaba: lord of Coaybay (land of the dead) beyond the sunset. Hastily he transmitted the reference to Mendoza.

“What a pity,” said the old man, cocking an eye at the hilltop. “I had so hoped to speak to someone important. That would be his camp, up there, where his effulgence shone out the other evening?”

“No, sir, that’s our camp,” said Lewis. “The, er, effulgence was a sort of lamp, this one in fact,” and Mendoza held it up, “but I’m afraid it washed down the hill in the storm, and we’ve just been digging it out.”

“Your lamp?” The old man looked askance at them, mildly amused. “Yes, very likely indeed. You’d best get the mud cleaned off it, children, or your master will beat you. I know what servants will get up to, when the lord of the house is away. When may I find him at home?”

“I’m afraid he lives—er—that way,” said Lewis, waving an arm, “Many moons—ah—quite a long distance off. He sent us here on a great bird to, er…”

Gather plants for him, transmitted Mendoza.

“Gather plants for him, and he’s sending the bird back to collect us in a few days,” Lewis finished.

“A great bird. I see,” said the old man, in a tone of polite disdain. He coughed delicately and said: “The fact is, I had hoped to consult with him on a matter of some importance.”

“We would be happy to deliver a message to him,” said Lewis.

“I wonder if you might,” said the old man. “Would you just let him know that a fellow deity wishes to discuss a matter of mutual advantage?”

Lewis and Mendoza exchanged glances.

Company business, transmitted Lewis. We’ve encountered a member of a previously-unknown culture. We’re supposed to investigate and report back to Dr. Zeus, so they can send an evaluation team.

But we’re not anthropologists! protested Mendoza.

We’re Preservers, all the same. And, after all, how many people get a chance to discover a fabulous lost civilization?

Hmf. And if we don’t investigate, we’ll get nailed with a Section Sixteen, won’t we? Damn. So much for a vacation away from mortals.

“Of course, sir,” said Lewis to the mortal. “In the meanwhile, may we be of any assistance? Our master has given us some power to act for him.”

“Has he?” The old mortal considered them, looked at the gear scattered about. “Perhaps.”

“May we speak directly to the god?” Lewis inquired. The old man raised his eyebrows.

“Child, you are speaking to a god. I am Orocobix, Lord of Abundance.” Lewis gaped and then knelt, grabbing Mendoza’s arm in his descent to compel her to kneel, too.

“Pardon our ignorance, Lord Orocobix,” he said.

I’m kneeling to a mortal… Mendoza ground her teeth. The old mortal gaped, too, and then smiled. He drew himself upright, holding the pole like a scepter.

“Rise, children rise.You may be forgiven; you’re dead, after all. However—” and he looked again at their gear “—you might want to present me with a suitable offering…?”

Lewis glanced over his shoulder. With great presence of mind he ran and fetched the case of bottled water.

“Please accept this, great Orocobix! Pure water in conveniently reusable containers,” he said.

“How nice,” said Orocobix. “Perhaps the lamp as well.”

But I borrowed it from Pan Li in Accounting!

Can’t be helped. Technically it’s Company property, you know.

“Certainly, great Orocobix,” said Lewis, bowing. “Will you permit us to accompany you to your sacred place, bearing these gifts for you?”

“Yes,” said the old mortal, “I think that would be best.” He retreated to the stern of the skiff and sat down. Lewis loaded the water and the Flame-Cube into the bow, and handed Mendoza up onto one of the thwarts; when he stepped in himself, Orocobix handed him the pole.

“Due east,” he instructed. He reached over and took the flamecube from Mendoza’s hands, and, holding it up critically, brushed some of the mud off.

“How does it burn?” he inquired.

“I think it has to dry out first,” said Lewis, pushing them off from the shallows. The skiff went gliding across the water. “I hope you’ll pardon us, great Orocobix, but I’m certain our god will have a lot of questions to ask us about you. He was under the impression that this part of the world was deserted.”

“Oh, no,” said Orocobix, leaning back. “This has always been our country. We created all this kingdom.” He waved an arm at the surrounding landscape. “Sadly, we have been without subjects for some time now. It is very inconvenient.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”

Bloody mortal aristocrats, Mendoza transmitted, glowering.

Orocobix shrugged. “So it goes. Even gods may be obliged to endure difficulties. When did the august lord of the dead extend his dominion this far east, may I ask?”

“Actually, he hasn’t,” said Lewis, leaning into the pole to send their boat gliding forward. “We’re just visiting.”

“Of course.”

“Though of course his kingdom is perfectly immense, you know,” Lewis improvised. “What with mortals dying on a regular basis.”

“How very interesting,” said the old man, stroking his chin. “Has he many wives?”

“Well—not so many, no,” said Lewis.

“Indeed,” said Orocobix. He gave a slight smile and leaned back, clasping his hands in his lap. Seen close to, it was apparent that his garments were a little threadbare, and the feathers of his crown had a somewhat moth-eaten appearance.

Four miles more or less due east, they drew near to an island that was larger than any other they had yet seen. Its sides seemed to be terraced; some stonework was visible here and there. Mendoza stared hard at it.

Cultivation! she transmitted. Lewis, somebody’s farming those slopes. See the manioc? I don’t notice any maize, though…

“You are to be commended on the admirable silence of your sister,” said Orocobix, a little uneasily. “Does your lord prefer his women without voices?”

“No,” said Mendoza.

“She’s just, ah—loath to chatter in the presence of gods,” said Lewis hastily. That seemed to please Orocobix.

“Very wise policy,” he said. “We have reached the sacred mountain, by the way. Put in there, at the boat dock.”

Lewis poled them up to a fairly ramshackle little causeway built out over wooden pilings, and tied off the painter. Several boats had been moored there, but lay now just under the water in various stages of ancient decay. The old man did not trust his weight to the rotten planks of the dock. He hopped straight ashore. Lewis and Mendoza followed his example.

“Do bring the water gift as well, won’t you? You may ascend to the Royal Palace,” said Orocobix, waving a hand at the stone staircase that led up from the landing, a flight of a hundred moss-grown steps. As they gazed at it, a furious commotion broke out somewhere above.

“Merely the sacred birds,” said Orocobix. “Pray do not mind them; they are kept penned up.”

Animal domestication! Lewis transmitted, hefting the case of bottled water to his shoulder.

Whatever, Mendoza replied. She started up the long stair, peering at the terraces as she passed them. By contrast with the island on which they had camped, it was quite a tidy cultivation; manioc, sweet potatoes, small fruit and nut trees Lewis was unable to identify. Several plantings of what were apparently medicinal herbs, to judge from the fragrance. Some terraces seemed to be given over to fish ponds; there were also withy enclosures where geese came to the fence and put their heads over, honking dire threats.

It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem! Lewis was terrifically excited.

Damned if you aren’t right, Mendoza replied. She came to a dead halt on the stairs, staring. What—?

Lewis followed her gaze. Those are cotton plants, he informed her helpfully.

But they’re the wrong kind! Mendoza stepped off the stairway and out onto the terrace, where she bent down to inspect what was growing there.

“My sister is impressed by your garden,” said Lewis. Orocobix, who was following at a slow but steady pace, looked pleased.

“I take it your master has none such?”

“Well—no, not really.”

“Ah,” said Orocobix, with great satisfaction.

They ought to be growing Gossypium barbadense. This is Gossypium herbaceum. It’s African cotton, Lewis!

Aha! Proof of Atlantis!

Oh, don’t be a—

“We have other excellent plants here, also,” remarked Orocobix, as he passed Mendoza. “Come along, child.”

He led them up the last few steps. “The Royal Palace of the Guanikina,” he said complacently.

They stared, and were stared back at.

The palace was a low sprawling building of thatched stone, with wings opening off a central courtyard, green with moss and overhung with forest canopy. In the courtyard sat two mortal women and a man. The man and woman appeared to be in early middle age, clad in the same sort of worn finery as the old man. The other woman was young, in her late teens or early twenties. She had been in the act of fanning herself and was looking rather disagreeable, though her expression changed to one of shock when Lewis and Mendoza stepped into the courtyard.

“My family, I bring you visitors,” said Orocobix, looking smug.

“My lord,” exclaimed the girl, and rising from her seat she threw herself at Lewis’s feet.

“I’m sorry?” Lewis looked down at her.

Orocobix cleared his throat.

“My child, this is a mere servant of Maketaurie Guyuaba. A dead mortal.”

“Oh!” Blushing furiously, the young lady scrambled to her feet. “How dare you, man of earth!”

“You should have known they were dead by the color of their skin,” said the older lady to the younger, in tones of icy reproof. She turned a brilliant smile on Lewis. “How do you do, child? You may set your offering down. We scarcely expected a delegation from divine Maketaurie. Not in broad daylight, at least.”

“His kingdom is apparently doing rather well,” said Orocobix meaningfully. “And he has few wives.”

“Has he?”The older woman and the younger exchanged glances.

Lewis, they’re all alone here! I can only pick up two other mortal signs. Who the hell are these people?

A royal family with no subjects?

“So, I suppose older deities, who are perhaps not such swift fellows as they once were but nevertheless have a certain amount of wisdom the young cannot possess, do have their uses,” said Orocobix to the other man, with an air of triumph.

“You needn’t preen yourself,” said the other man. He was thickset, with something of the look of a dissipated politician. He turned dull eyes on Lewis and Mendoza. “There are only two of them.”

“But they are authorized by their lord to negotiate on his behalf,” said Orocobix. “And will return to him in a week’s time. Therefore it behooves us to treat them as ambassadors, don’t you think?”

“Of course it does,” said the lady, taking the man by his arm in a rather firm clasp. “Welcome, proxies of great Maketaurie! I am Atabey, goddess of the earth, and this is Agueybana, god of the sun. Regard the goddess Cajaya. Is she not fair?”

“Most fair,” said Lewis, bowing. In fact Cajaya was sallow, angular, and rather pigeon-breasted, but she simpered for him now and batted her goose-feather fan.

“You must excuse the sad state in which you find us,” said Atabey. “No servants to wash your feet, no retainers to salute you! The truth is, our great family has suffered certain reverses.”

“Very sorry to hear it, oh goddess,” said Lewis.

“The end of the damned world, in fact,” said Agueybana gloomily. “Except for us, of course. And your master, obviously.” He gave Lewis and Mendoza a speculative look. “Tell me, has he any live servants at all?”

Careful, Mendoza transmitted.

“A certain number,” said Lewis. “And great multitudes of our kind, of course.”

“But surely it is not mannerly to interrogate our guests without refreshment!” cried Atabey. “Tanama! Tanama, attend at once!”

“Yes, mother,” replied someone from the depths of the house, and a moment later a second girl came forth. She seemed no more than ten or eleven, small and thin, and wore a plain robe of brown cotton. She blinked in surprise to see visitors, but folded her hands and bowed low.

“Fetch chairs for our guests, child, and then bring wine. Bring it in the good service,” ordered Atabey.

“At once, mother,” said the little girl, and hurried away.

Within a few moments Lewis and Mendoza found themselves seated somewhat uncomfortably on cane chairs, watching as the little girl poured something fruity and fermented into cups of pure gold. She presented them with a brief dazzling smile.

“Here is your drink, dead people,” she said. “It’s made from guavas. Is that right? Can you drink the same as us? Because all the stories say—”

“Do not presume, Tanama!” said Atabey.

“It’s quite all right,” said Lewis, smiling as he raised the cup in salute. “We don’t need much. Thank you.”

What on earth is it? transmitted Mendoza, who was staring into her cup in a mixture of fascination and loathing.

It doesn’t matter. Drink, Lewis replied, and sipped. Guava brew, fermented by human enzymes. Without shuddering, he set his cup aside and smiled at his hosts.

“Now, oh great ones, what message would you have me carry to my master?”

“First,” said Agueybana, “extend our greetings to our most mighty fellow divinity—before whom the stars and planets prostrate themselves, before whom he who sends the rain gusts feels inadequate—and so forth and so on.”

“And tell him we do apologize abjectly for not communicating with him earlier, but our situation here—” began Atabey.

“Don’t tell him that! Gods never apologize to anyone!” said Agueybana indignantly.

“Perhaps you ought to say,” said Orocobix, “that we, ancient and powerful as we are, have been so preoccupied with the administration of our own realm that it had not occurred to us to survey its outer regions in some time, and that therefore the discovery of great Maketaurie’s proximity to our neighborhood comes as a pleasant surprise to us.”

“And that we are happy to extend our hospitality to a pair of his servants,” added Atabey.

“Whose undoubtedly unintentional trespass into our dominion we will generously forgive,” said Orocobix, with a graceful inclination of his head in Lewis and Mendoza’s direction. “That they may serve as couriers of our will. Which is, that we propose to our brother Maketaurie a dynastic union of great advantage to himself.”

“We offer young Cajaya,” said Agueybana, raising his voice, “of immaculate and perfect pedigree, in whose bloodline runs the wealth of the earth and golden immortality.”

“I hear,” said Lewis gravely. He remembered a timbered hall on a green hill, where he had watched a druid preside over the betrothal arrangements for a chieftain’s bride in almost exactly the same terms. Not quite the same, though. Golden immortality?

“And in return for this magnificent gift,” said Agueybana hurriedly, “we expect no less than the girl is worth.”

This is like a Jane Austen novel, for God’s sake, transmitted Mendoza.

I’m sure the Company can come up with a suitable trousseau, Lewis responded. Aloud he said: “I hear and will convey your message, great ones. I hope you’ll permit a few discreet questions on my master’s behalf?”

“Naturally,” said Orocobix.

“Thank you, great one. Will it please you to relate the ancestry of lovely Cajaya?” inquired Lewis. “With, perhaps, a digression explaining how her glorious forebears came to rule this place?”

“Of course,” said Orocobix, looking pleased. Agueybana exhaled loudly, folding his arms. Atabey and Cajaya rolled their eyes at each other. He ignored them and, clearing his throat, struck a majestic attitude.

“In the beginning of Time, great Orocobix floated in the void with his people,” he announced. “He was the first great father. His children were Agueybana and Atabey, Kolibri and Tanama, Tonina and Cajaya. Many were the storm-spirits of the void he subdued. Yet in time his children wearied of the flesh of fish, and so great Orocobix thought it good to make a solid world.

“He drew up his celestial boat in this place, which was made up of void and firmament, and sent his servants out to live in it. They planted crops, but there was too much void still. The crops would not grow. Great Orocobix saw that he must make the world more solid, in order that his servants might not starve.

“Wherefore he created sacred Caonaki, who made the crops grow abundantly. And great Orocobix moreover created the solid mountains to rise above the void, where his people might live. There they prospered, and rejoiced, and praised great Orocobix for his wisdom and beneficence. As well they ought,” concluded Orocobix.

Standard run-of-the-mill creation myth, transmitted Mendoza. Void, firmament, mortals multiplying. Same old story.

Not quite, Lewis replied. He bowed politely. “Indeed an impressive tale, great Orocobix.”

“In time,” Orocobix continued, “Great Orocobix wearied of the flesh he wore, and it pleased him to pass again into the shining void. When he wished to return, divine Atabey bore him new flesh. And so he came again to rule his children and his servants in wisdom. Thereafter, when any of the Children of Orocobix had worn out their flesh, they went away to the void, and shortly returned in new bodies. By this, you may see that divine Cajaya’s ancestry is direct and is as pure as gold.”

They’re claiming to be their own ancestors. Mendoza looked coldly amused. And what a shallow little gene pool it must be!

You never know; maybe the Atlanteans could clone themselves. Lewis bowed and said aloud: “Pure as gold indeed, great Orocobix. I have no doubt my master will be delighted to marry fair Cajaya. Though it is my painful duty, as his servant, to make inquiry touching the apparent absence of your subjects…?”

“Oh, they all got sick and died,” said little Tanama. In the moment of mortified silence that followed, Cajaya looked away and fanned herself more rapidly. Atabey clenched her fists. Agueybana cleared his throat.

“They were disobedient,” he said, “so great Orocobix smote them with pestilence. That’s why we need new ones.”

“It was a great while ago,” said Orocobix, in a tone of sad wonderment. “I can’t really remember it very clearly. In retrospect, it seems rather a foolish thing to have done; but apparently my wrath used to be formidable. I incline to a somewhat more merciful temperament nowadays. Even we gods grow in wisdom.”

“My master himself has often regretted the rashness of his youth,” Lewis hastened to say.

“So you can appreciate our position,” said Agueybana.

“We wouldn’t require much,” said Atabey. “I’m sure your master has plenty to spare—”

“But, of course, this is hardly the sort of petty accounting with which to annoy great Maketaurie,” said Orocobix, with a severe look at his children. “Only slaves beg for favors, after all.”

Cajaya’s fanning reached a speed comparable to the beat of hummingbird wings. Agueybana flushed and stared at the ground. Atabey called sharply, “Tanama! Take yourself off to your duties, stupid child! Do you think anyone here wants to listen to your opinions?”

“At once, mother,” said Tanama, and went back indoors. Mendoza turned to watch her go.

Interesting family dynamic. And… Lewis, there’s another mortal in the house.

“Hem! Well,” said Lewis, “quite right, great Orocobix.To continue, then: I take it that some members of your family are not presently here?”

“Tonina is refreshing himself in the void,” said Orocobix. “We expect his return to the flesh presently. As for Kolibri… he is engaged in certain duties. You understand, of course, that there are matters beyond a servant’s comprehension? Very good. Let it suffice that he also sends his most cordial greeting to our brother Maketaurie.”

“Certainly, great Orocobix,” said Lewis.

I think the one inside must be sick, Mendoza transmitted, from what I can pick up of his life signs. And of course gods are never sick, so they’re keeping it a secret, aren’t they? Or perhaps he’s just too inbred to be presentable.

I suppose so. Lewis studied the royal family critically. There were a few signs of genetic trouble; Cajaya’s high narrow chest, a trace of scoliosis in Agueybana. Poor things. They must have been marooned here for generations. I wish I really were an emissary from another god; they could use some new blood.

I somehow doubt the Company’s going to patch up their little pantheon with a gift of chromosomes.

Lewis cleared his throat. “All this will I relate to my master, of course. No doubt his munificence will be extraordinary. In the meanwhile, is there any service we may render you, divine ones?”

“Oh, of course not,” said Orocobix airily. “Which is to say, other than one or two little things… I scarcely like to bring them up, they’re hardly worth notice… but if you could see your way to, perhaps, putting a new roof on the palace? Now that the rains have begun, the leaks will be dreadfully inconvenient, you know.”

“And the garden needs weeding,” said Atabey.



Climbing the ladder with an armful of cut reed, Lewis reminded himself that he was exploring a lost civilization, after all. He peered down through the roof beams at the humble interior below—somebody’s bedchamber, rough furniture many times repaired with jungle liana or braided cotton fiber.

“So great Orocobix floated in the void and ate a lot of fish,” he speculated to himself. “And fought with storm-spirits. A seagoing culture, obviously, and they found themselves obliged to adapt to specialized agriculturalism.

“And if they came from some other place, let us say somewhere in the Caribbean, perhaps that was why they hadn’t any interest in teosinte and grew manioc instead. But rain forest soil’s dreadful to grow things in, so… Orocobix the First, clearly a clever chap, devised elevated fields of terra preta.

“The thing is, how? What, and from whence? Gosh, I wish I’d been programmed in anthropology…”

He worked on, lashing reeds in place with liana cord, wondering how Mendoza was faring down on the garden terrace. A voice floated up from some room in the house below him. A child? Yes, the little girl Tanama…

“… they look very lively for dead people to me. And not at all like bats! Except for their clothes, which are sort of loose and shiny, like folded bat wings. The boy is pretty and nice, but the girl is angry. What do you suppose the dead have to be angry about? Anyway, isn’t it exciting?”

A silence followed her remark. Or did it? Had there been a faint reply?

“You know what I think? I think the world is possibly a lot bigger than they always told us it was. And realer! Maketaurie is real. Coaybay beyond the sunset is a real place. I could tell Mother and Father were surprised by it all, they didn’t know what to do. And you should have seen Cajaya being nice! It was just hysterical. She smiled and smiled and smiled until I thought her face would crack!

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if she went away to Coaybay to be a queen? I wonder what would happen then? I suppose we’d have to get a new Cajaya from somewhere. But if I ask Grandfather—”

“What a splendid job you’re doing, child,” remarked Orocobix, wandering out to peer up at Lewis. “I shall certainly commend you to your master, when at last we meet. And such quickness! But then, the dead work swiftly, don’t they?”

“Thank you, sir. We do our best,” said Lewis, descending the ladder in some haste.



The little girl brought them their supper—a platter loaded with guavas—in the guest room they had been given, a dank chamber wherein painted murals were just visible on the crumbling plaster walls.

“You ought to like it in here, dear dead people,” she said cheerily. “It’s nice and dark. I’m afraid the beds aren’t very good, but then you sleep hanging from the ceiling, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” said Lewis. “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable, thank you.”

“What’s it like in the land of the dead?”

“Er… well, it’s… lovely, and everyone is happy,” said Lewis.

“Is it dark there, on the other side of the sunset? Grandfather said he was going to go there and I just thought he meant he was going to die soon. I didn’t think he meant it, you know, literally, or maybe he was going to take some Magic Medicine and dream he was going there, not really get in the boat and go there,” Tanama chattered. “But he did! What a surprise!”

“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Lewis, wishing Mendoza would take some part in the conversation. She merely sat on one of the low chairs with her arms crossed, clearly impatient for the little girl to leave. When Tanama left at last:

“Why is that child under the impression we’re a pair of fruit bats?” she inquired.

“It’s part of Taino mythology,” said Lewis, sitting down. “The dead turn into bats, and go to live in the west, and eat a lot of guavas. At least, that’s the story I’m getting from my folklore database. You don’t have it?”

“I’m only a Botanist, remember?” Mendoza selected a guava and looked at it critically. “I wasn’t programmed with that stuff. You’re the Literature Specialist.”

“It’s a rather nice afterlife,” said Lewis, a little wistfully. “No concept of eternal damnation or reward either, for that matter. Ever so much pleasanter than the Mesopotamian model. You just fly about in the night and have all the sweets you want. Not unlike Halloween.”

“Not that we’ll ever know,” said Mendoza. “But I’ll tell you something I did find out, Lewis. Ask me how my afternoon went!”

“How did your afternoon go, Mendoza?” Lewis said, drawing out his knife and slicing the top off a guava.

“It was an afternoon of discovery. I pulled a lot of weeds,” she said. “And rebuilt a couple of dry-stone walls which had crumbled. Noted a lot of rare herb plantings; I’ll tell you, Dr. Zeus’s pharmaceuticals branch is going to be interested in those. Watched as little What’s-her-name came and gathered watercress from one of the fish ponds, which are crawling with snails, to which the geese have no access. A textbook setup for parasites. Our hosts must have one helluva problem with liver flukes.”

“Oh, dear. All that and inbreeding, too.”

“Nasty, isn’t it? But I digress! I worked my way around to the far side of the island, Lewis, following these cunning little Machu Picchu-style terraces, and guess what I found over there?” She withdrew her own dagger, sliced open a guava, and bit into it with gusto.

“The chariots of the gods?” said Lewis. “Prester John?”

“I’ll tell you what I found,” said Mendoza. Her eyes burned at him. “A structure of stone, like an enormous grain silo tipped on its side, or maybe a chute roofed over with slates. It runs from the back of the palace all the way down the hill to the lake below. And, all the way down that hill, the brush has been kept clear and the tree branches cut back, so that this immense stone tube gets full sunlight during the hottest part of the day. You know what else?”

“What?”

“It was steaming,” said Mendoza, as though that were terrifically significant.

“So… it’s a hot water conduit?” Lewis ventured.

“No,” said Mendoza patiently. “It’s a composter. The biggest composter in the world. I climbed up the hillside to see what went in at the top. Charcoal, broken pottery, fish bones, fruit and vegetable peels, and, yes, feces in astounding quantity. The smell would knock you down.

“Then I climbed down the hillside to see what comes out at the bottom, after what must be about two years of ripening in its slo-o-ow passage down the hill, pushed by all the muck thrown in above it. Guess what I found down there, oozing into the sunlight?”

“Terra preta!” cried Lewis.

“Bingo,” said Mendoza calmly, reaching for another guava. “It’s just compost?” said Lewis. “How anticlimactic.”

“No, no. It’s made with compost; but there’s some microbial content I can’t identify. The stuff that makes it work like sourdough starter, I guess.”

“A secret ingredient,” said Lewis.

“That’s right,” said Mendoza. “A completely organic, self-renewing fertilizer so powerful it could convert the Sahara to prime farmland. And these mortals are the only ones left who know how to make it.”

“Oh, dear,” Lewis murmured. He looked at Mendoza with wide eyes. “You do realize, don’t you, that once we make our report, the Company is going to do a lot more than send anthropologists to study these people? It’ll do whatever it takes to get the secret out of them.”

Mendoza shrugged. “Yes. Could it be much worse than leaving them up here to become a bunch of inbred idiots?”

“I suppose not,” Lewis said. “Still… we discovered a lost world, perfectly intact, perfectly unchanged until we made contact with it. And now… it’ll burst like a soap bubble.”

Mendoza stared at the floor. “Funny how that happens, isn’t it?” she said wearily. She took another bite of guava.



Lewis balanced precariously, straining to reach the roofbeam. He grabbed, made the cord fast, and dragged the next bundle of reed thatching into place. Pushing away to reach the ladder again, he looked down into yet another dark and empty room. The palace must have housed dozens of mortals at one time; but most of the rooms he had seen had clearly been unoccupied for years.

What had happened? Not famine, that much was certain. An epidemic of disease was much more likely. Not liver fluke. Probably something that killed swiftly… An epic tragedy, Lewis thought, and the rest of the world never even noticed.

“Good morning, Slave of Maketaurie,” said someone at the base of the ladder. Lewis glanced down between the rungs and spotted Cajaya, peering up coyly. “Leave that work, for now. I’ve brought you a nice guava to eat.”

“Many thanks, fair goddess,” said Lewis, reflecting that he was going to be heartily sick of guavas soon. He descended the ladder and accepted the guava with a bow. Recalling his conversation with Mendoza, he scanned Cajaya for liver fluke. To his surprise, the girl was quite free of parasites.

Cajaya smiled widely at him—it really did look as though she found it painful—and waved her goose-wing fan.

“We’ve scarcely had any time to talk since you arrived here! And I was so hoping to pry a few details from you concerning dear Lord Maketaurie,” she said.

“What do you wish to know, radiant Cajaya?” Lewis inquired.

“Well, silly, I want to know what he’s like!” Cajaya demanded, blushing. “Tell me! Has he a man’s form, like yours?”

“Why, yes, he does,” said Lewis, wondering which lucky anthropologist was going to be assigned the role of Maketaurie by Dr. Zeus Incorporated.

“But he’s taller than you are, I assume,” said Cajaya, looking him up and down appraisingly. “And his skin’s a better color, I hope.”

“I think so, goddess,” improvised Lewis. “I, er, don’t look at his divinity directly, you see. It’s not proper etiquette for a servant.”

“Oh! Well, that’s understandable,” said Cajaya. She gave him a sidelong look from behind her fan. “I wonder what you can tell me about his other wives? Does he give them many presents? Golden nose rings? Feather cloaks? Has each her own household, with a proper train of servants? They aren’t all crowded together in one palace, are they?”

“I believe my master is very generous, goddess,” said Lewis. He wondered what a Company Facilitator would say in his position. He decided an extravagant falsehood was likely. “And I believe each lady has quite a spacious suite to herself, but—”

“And are any of them as beautiful as I am?”

“Goddess, that is something on which a mere servant cannot possibly offer an opinion,” said Lewis desperately. “I should be committing a grave breach of propriety, were I to do so.”

“Of course,” said Cajaya, touching his arm with her fan. “However… I shall give you an opportunity to do me a service, gentle dead man. You shall advise your master of my desires—indirectly, of course, dropping little details here and there in the most nonchalant fashion, about what you have observed. Let him know I expect a palace of my own, and servants, and heaps of gold—nose rings, ear plugs, necklaces, the whole lot. My favorite color is scarlet, although violet is acceptable.”

“I will endeavor to let my master know these things, goddess,” said Lewis.

“Discreetly, do you understand?”

“Without fail, goddess.”

Cajaya turned and walked away a few paces; then turned back. She pulled a gold bead from the fringe of her gown and tossed it to him. “I nearly forgot. For your trouble,” she said.



Lewis was trudging back up the steps, dragging a sledge loaded with new-cut reeds, when he saw Atabey waiting on the near landing. He smiled and bowed, but his heart sank as he realized she was intent on speaking to him.

“Slave of Maketaurie, a moment of your time,” she said.

“Of course, great goddess.” Lewis pulled the sledge level and stopped. He drew off his hat and bowed. Atabey regarded his hair with displeasure. She reached out and touched it gingerly.

“Your hair is the color of dead grass. Appropriate for a dead person, I suppose, but—is your master’s hair the same way?”

“I don’t believe so, great goddess.”

“What about his other traits? Is he—how shall I put this?—suitably virile?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Atabey pursed her lips. “Has he many sons by his other wives?”

“Oh. Indeed, great goddess, mighty Maketaurie has begotten abundant sons.”

“Has he? Very good. And daughters?”

“Of course. He may rule the land of the dead, but is not himself dead, you see?”

“Oh, good! Yes, that’s an important distinction. I wonder whether he would consider sending a few of his children by Cajaya back here, once she’s settled in and bearing him sons on a regular basis?”

“Madam?” Lewis blinked at her.

“But, of course, you wouldn’t know that,” said Atabey, frowning and waving a dismissive hand. As though to herself, she muttered: “All the same… it never hurts to ask.” She turned to Lewis again, and smiled graciously. “I merely inquire, you see, because we do need to keep our august and ancient family present in this plane of existence, and one does require a body of flesh in which to manifest, after all. And for that—” She gave a little embarrassed laugh. “One does need daughters, doesn’t one?”

“I suppose so, great goddess,” said Lewis, wishing hard that he were in a peaceful room somewhere far away, Londinium perhaps, with a martini at his elbow and a copy of the Iliad or perhaps the plays of Aristophanes…

“And, of course, there is the question of servants,” Atabey went on. “Your master will certainly want to see that his in-laws are well attended. A mere hundred or so to see to our personal needs—really, we wouldn’t require much. Oh, the difficulties and inconveniences we’ve had to face, the last few years!”

“I can imagine,” said Lewis, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

“I don’t think so,” said Atabey severely, now clearly uncomfortable to have unburdened herself before a lesser creature. “It has been a great trial.”

“Terribly sorry, great goddess.” Lewis lowered his eyes.

“You may continue with your task,” said Atabey, and stalked off. Lewis scanned her as she went; no sign of liver fluke at all, contrary to Mendoza’s expectations.

I wonder who’s eating all the watercress, then? he wondered. He sighed, gritted his teeth, and took another haul on the sledge.



Lewis had just thrown a bundle of reeds across his shoulder and was starting up the ladder when he spotted Agueybana approaching him. He stepped back down, dropped the bundle, and dusted his hands.

“Good afternoon, god Agueybana,” he called, “Would you like a word with me in private?”

Agueybana winced and hurried nearer.

“Not so loudly, if you please,” he said in an undertone. “Or we’ll have them all about us, babbling away with their nonsense. Look here—we need to discuss a few practical matters.”

“Such as, great god?” said Lewis innocently.

“Such as a bride price, for one thing,” said Agueybana. “I’m sure your master is a practical fellow; he’s sure to see what an advantage it’ll be for him to take our Cajaya to wife. We are, after all, the most ancient of the divinities! To say nothing of the wealth of this land of ours.”

“It is, indeed, a fruitful country,” said Lewis.

“So it is,” said Agueybana, with a sly look. “Let us just say that he who weds Cajaya shall never lack for guavas, eh? But, of course, he can’t expect such advantages for nothing. We ought to be provided for properly.”

“What did you have in mind, great one?” said Lewis.

“Mortal slaves,” said Agueybana, without hesitation. “As well as building stone and artisans. A few thousand mortals to maintain the gardens, a retinue for the house. Preferably highborn—we couldn’t be expected to put up with field slaves waiting at table.”

“Ah,” said Lewis, nodding noncommittally. He scanned the mortal for liver fluke infestation, continuing to murmur “Yes,” and “I see,” as Agueybana rambled on with demands.

No, the man was in perfect health, like the ladies… except… No! There was some trace of something after all… Lewis concentrated and focused his scan, going slightly crosseyed with effort, though Agueybana failed to notice.

“… enough slaves to make the trip to the coast again, with sledges to bring back stones…”

Signs of an old infestation, long healed. At some point in the past Agueybana had suffered from liver fluke, but made a full recovery. And seemed, overall, quite robust now. Therefore… nobody was eating the cresses? Or the fish? Perhaps the pond was merely ornamental. But…

“… glad you agree with me!” Agueybana was saying, and thumped him on the back with painful heartiness. “It’s damned annoying to be the only level-headed person in the place, but there you are. Lord Maketaurie will sympathize, I’m sure. Tell me… has he an army?”

“I’m sorry?” Lewis came alert. “An army? Oh, no, great one. Why would the ruler of the afterlife need an army?”

“Hm. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Agueybana, pulling at his lip. “Pity. It might have come in useful. Oh, well. You present my terms, anyway, understand? And I’ll see to it your master receives good report of you.”

“You are too kind,” said Lewis, genuflecting.



He was lying down on one of the two ancient cots when Mendoza entered their room, carrying another platter of guavas.

“I headed off our hostess,” she said. “Told her the dead need a little peace and quiet now and then. My God, Lewis, you look exhausted.”

“I’ve been lying like a Facilitator all day,” said Lewis dully. “But I’m nearly done with the east wing of the palace.”

“Bloody lazy mortal aristocrats,” said Mendoza, setting down the platter. “I’m surprised they didn’t make the child do it. They make her do everything else.”

Lewis sat up and reached for a guava. “They don’t have liver flukes, by the way. I scanned. No parasites at all.”

“None?” Mendoza looked suspicious. “But that fish pond is crawling with the stuff. It’s in the snails and the fish. It’s encysted on the watercress. Lewis, we’ve got a tiny inbred colony of primates living together here on one hilltop. They ought to be loaded with fleas and lice and—just about every nasty parasite mortals can get.”

“They’re not, however,” said Lewis, peeling the guava. “Odd, isn’t it?”

“Distinctly odd. By the way… I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor?”

“I’d be happy to. What is it?”

“Since you don’t seem to mind talking to them… I wonder if you could sort of indirectly bring up the subject of plant composting in the garden, and ask them what their recipe is?”

“But I thought you discovered that,” said Lewis, bewildered.

“No. I spent all day analyzing samples I took from the bottom of the chute—when I wasn’t weeding their damn terrace paths and herb beds. Fish bones, broken pots, vegetable matter, mortal sewage. And something else. Some batch of microorganisms I could not, for the life of me, identify, but which is able to convert stinking muck into black gold.”

“All right,” said Lewis, mentally adding another to the long list of things for which the greatest delicacy and tact was needed. “Rely on me.”

“Thanks,” said Mendoza. She threw herself down on her bed, which promptly collapsed in a tangle of rotten wood and cord. With explosive profanity she rose and kicked it across the room, where it broke into bits with a sound like old bones shattering.

Lewis rose at once. “You can have mine.”

“No! No, sweetheart. All I had to do for the wretched monkeys all day was weed their little plague-spot of a garden. They worked you a lot harder. You stay there,” said Mendoza, controlling her temper with difficulty.

“Oh, I couldn’t—” said Lewis dazedly, the word sweetheart pounding in his ears.

“No. Hell, you know what I’ll do? I’ll just see if I can’t sleep standing up.” Mendoza surveyed the room and found a patch of wall that was slightly less leprous with moss than the rest. She leaned against it, and balanced herself cautiously. “What’s it called, going into fugue? If those old field ops can do it, I’ll bet I can do it, too.”

“It takes a little practice,” said Lewis. “You have to sort of open your consciousness. The opposite of focusing, you see? Just… reach out into the Everything.”

“So you’ve done this before?” Mendoza let her arms hang down, decided that was uncomfortable, and folded them instead.

“A little,” Lewis admitted. “I had climbed a tree to get out of a flood. On the third day I was up there, I tried going into fugue, so I could get some rest.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes… though I wouldn’t call it a success. I found myself identifying entirely too closely with my tree. Next thing I knew, I was having a furious conversation with a family of gall-wasps. Had this overpowering urge to rub insect repellent on myself for months afterward.”

“Ugh.” Mendoza shuddered and closed her eyes.

Lewis peeled and ate another guava.

Mendoza opened her eyes.

“Wait a minute. These people survived an epidemic that wiped out the rest of their civilization. You don’t suppose they’ve got some kind of genetic resistance to parasites in general? And, therefore, maybe, to certain diseases transmitted by the parasites?”

“Possibly,” said Lewis, struck by the idea. He looked at her. “Interesting! But… you know, if you want to go into fugue, you need to stop thinking about anything specific.”

“Oh. Right,” said Mendoza, and closed her eyes again. “Well, good night, Lewis.”

“Good night.”

He ate one more guava, slowly, wondering why the mortals he’d scanned hadn’t so much as a flea bite among them. What if they, alone of all their people, had some genetic characteristic that helped their ancestors survive an epidemic? He knew that Native Americans were dying, in the millions, of smallpox and other European diseases. They died, not because they were especially weak and susceptible, but because they were more genetically alike, one to another, than the mongrel Europeans.

So suppose, he thought to himself as he lay down, this one family were just different enough to live through the plague? Some kind of favorable mutation. They might have decided they were gods. But then, with no one else with which to breed, they’d have fallen into the same trap of genetic homogeneity… ah, the ironies of history… shallow gene pool, just like the cheetahs…

He thought over the absurd parade of requests he’d received from the mortals. The contrast between their royal expectations, and what was most likely to happen, was painful to contemplate.

If Dr. Zeus followed usual policy, every byte of data Lewis was absorbing would be wrung from him, and from Mendoza, too, as though they were a pair of sponges; then a team of anthropologists would be sent in, masquerading as Maketaurie and his entourage, no doubt.

These last survivors, with their culture, would be studied, collected, and packed off to some Company facility like so many rare butterflies. How would they adjust to life as mere Company dependents?

Too sad to dwell upon…

Lewis turned and watched Mendoza, intending to offer her helpful advice should she be finding it difficult to go into fugue. To his amazement, she appeared to have succeeded on the first try. Stiffly upright there in the darkness, she had taken on the immobility of a dead branch or a pillar of stone; she seemed nearly transparent, a shade among shadows. Her features were drawn, almost deathly, and yet there was something ecstatic in her expression.

It frightened him, for no good reason he could name. Lewis felt an irrational urge to leap up, to put his arms around her and carry her away from that inhuman void into which she slipped with such terrifying ease.

Perhaps she’s meeting him there, thought Lewis. Perhaps the void is Nicholas Harpole.

Guilt, and regret, and weariness so overcame him that he turned his face away. He tried to remember a place he’d been happy once, a wine shop in Piraeus with a view of the sea, and he’d sat there with a fresh copy of Menander’s Dis Exapaton all one sunny afternoon, with never a care in the world…



Dawn came with a thousand birds crying, and Lewis opened his eyes to an empty room. He started up, panicked; but after a moment of scanning he picked up Mendoza’s signal down on one of the terraces. She was pulling weeds again.

Are you all right? he transmitted.

Yes! Lewis, it worked. What a great way to rest! I can’t think why we don’t fugue out more often.

I believe it’s frowned on if you’re posted in an urban environment around mortals, said Lewis. The argument is, you might as well slap a big sign saying cyborg across your forehead.

Mendoza responded with a cheerful obscenity. Lewis sighed, got to his feet, and wandered out into the palace courtyard.

Orocobix sat there, gazing out at the morning. On a block of stone at his feet, the flamecube flickered away; someone had scrupulously cleaned it and figured out how to switch it on. It diffused a pleasant heat against the early morning chill. Little Tanama was just offering her grandfather a cup of something steaming. He accepted it, smiling, and bowed a greeting to Lewis.

“Good morning, child. I must say, the palace roof has never been so well repaired.”

“Thank you,” said Lewis, accepting a cup from Tanama. He sipped it: a bitter herbal tea. He had no idea what its botanic origin was; he detected caffeine, as well as chemical compounds intended to regulate metabolism and keep the prostate an acceptable size. Useful, for an elderly mortal male.

“Are you going to be working on the other side of the house today?” Tanama asked him. “I need to know so—” Orocobix held up his hand in a warning gesture, and she blushed and fell silent. Gathering up the tray with its pot and cups, she hurried indoors.

“Great Orocobix,” said Lewis, setting aside his cup. “I must be frank with you. It is likely that my master will prefer to take you, and your family, to his own kingdom, rather than leave you here.”

“I am aware of that, child,” said Orocobix placidly. “The Lord of Coaybay takes all into his realm. It is his nature.”

“Yes, but your family seems to believe that life will go on, unchanged,” said Lewis. “That will not be the case at all.”

Orocobix nodded.

“They are greedy and impatient,” he said. “And not, I think, very great observers of the world. A great tree shoots up from the earth, it bears fruit, the fruit ripens and rots and falls; the tree sees many seasons come and go, watches many harvests drop from its branches. Yet in some hour the tree itself will die at the heart, and rot and fall, too.

“We were the tree, you see; our people came and went, and finally went away forever, but we Guanikina remained on awhile. And my children have proceeded on the assumption that we would always remain. But I knew our heart had rotted out.

“When I saw this light, shining out after the sunset, I thought perhaps that Maketaurie was advancing his borders. That was why I went in search of him. What would you have done, child, in my place? Wait to grow weaker, and fewer, as the years go by, dwindling to nothing at last? Or go to him voluntarily while we still had some shred of our former dignity? I have made the best bargain I can. It is, I think, better than we might have expected.”

Lewis bowed his head. “You are a wise god, Great Orocobix.”

“And, in any case, it’s not as though we haven’t done this before,” added Orocobix.

“What?”

“When we came from the land beyond the sunrise,” said Orocobix.

“What’s the land beyond the sunrise?” Lewis asked, feeling all his senses come alert. Somewhere, some time, a Company official in a dark room would be listening very closely to this.

“The place we lived before we sailed in the void,” said Orocobix. “Many, many lives ago. Guanike. I don’t recall it personally anymore, you understand; one head can only hold so many memories.”

“That’s so true,” said Lewis, with a surreal sense of mirth. Unless you get called in for an upgrade. He edged closer. “What can you tell me, great Orocobix, of what you know? Is it a real place?”

“It was,” said Orocobix. “Sadly, it sank into the void, and we were obliged to leave. We traveled westward, and found a little country, with mortals to be our servants there. In time we left that land, too—I don’t know why, anymore—and found this place, which was much more suitable because it was simply immense, you know. And now, we travel on again. I think it’s all for the best.”

Mendoza! Mendoza, you won’t believe what I just heard!

What? From her tone she was doing something boring in a methodical manner.

These people have an Atlantis story! They came from some place in the east that sank into the sea!

Lewis, that’s dumb. Atlantis never really existed. The Company would know if it had.

What if it was Thera? What if it was in the Black Sea or the Mediterranean?

Lewis, they are Indians. Run a DNA sample, for heaven’s sake.

Lewis cleared his throat. “Tell me, great Orocobix: did you bring anything with you from lost Guanike?”

“Nothing very much,” said Orocobix. “Not a lot of room in an open boat, after all. There’s a little box in my chambers. A few old ornaments.”

“I would very much like to look upon them, Great Orocobix.”

“One of these days,” Orocobix replied, with a yawn. “I’ll ask the child to find them for me.”

Lewis bowed. He scanned the old man; but was able to determine only that he was in good health for his age. And… had evidently once, long since, suffered hepatic insult consistent with parasitic infestation, and recovered completely.



Lewis staggered up the ladder with a bundle of reeds in his arms and a positive frieze of ancient Atlantean figures processing through his head.

Lost Guanike! Where could it have been? Having reached the top of the wall, he peered down into the chamber within, where the ancient plaster crumbled from the walls. Any traces of a painted mural there? Any suspiciously amphoralike jars?

No.

But, not far distant, mortal voices raised… Lewis tilted his head, listening.

“I can’t move him again! That’s twice in one week, and he gets so tired!” It was Tanama, sounding angry, even tearful.

“Then I’ll help you move him.” That was Agueybana, sounding peremptory. “We can’t leave him in here; do you want the dead man looking in at him as he mends the damned roof? If we lose our secret, we’ll bargain from a weaker position.”

“But… if Cajaya marries his master, won’t he find out anyway?”

“Not likely,” said Agueybana. “He’s a servant, after all! Do you suppose Maketaurie involves such creatures in his private affairs?”

Lewis, I’m going back to the camp. Mendoza’s transmission so took Lewis by surprise that he nearly fell backward off the ladder.

What?

I’ve taken the old man’s boat. I won’t be gone long; but I’ve got to have a credenza to analyze this stuff.

What stuff?

The terra preta!

Oh. Right. Perhaps we could do a quick DNA analysis as well?

So you can find out whether your Indians are actually from Santorini? Mendoza sounded as though she were grinning. Oh, why not?

But what am I going to tell them if they notice the boat’s gone?

Oh, I asked the old man. Startled the daylights out of him when I spoke, but he was polite as anything. See you soon…

From the ladder he spotted her returning, later in the day, poling along with a credenza strapped to her back; she put in at the landing and started up the steps with a purposeful stride.



Lewis went wearily through the purple twilight, as a fine drizzle fell. New World One had begun to gleam in his thoughts with a luster it hadn’t possessed in ages; how could he ever have been bored with flush toilets, hot showers or crisp white bed linen?

Mendoza was already in their room when he walked in, sitting on the edge of his bed with the credenza on her knees, staring into its screen.

“Hello,” she said in an absentminded way. “I got us a few things while I was over there.”

“Zeusola bars!” Lewis cried in delight, and seized up one and tore off its wrapper. “Oh, gods… Caramel Oat Nut, mmm mmm…”

“A change of clothing, too,” Mendoza added. Lewis looked around for his bag and didn’t see it. She waved a hand at the bundle on the head of the bed.

“You brought me underwear?” he said, disconcerted.“… Thank you.”

“You’re a very neat packer,” she said. “It was easy to find. Say, did you happen to ask anybody about the compost formula?

“Oh! No. I’m sorry. But I did learn something—”

At that moment they felt the little girl’s approach.

Oh joy, Mendoza transmitted grumpily. More guavas. She slid the credenza out of sight.

“Good evening, dead people,” said Tanama. “Look! I brought you some lovely fruit! You’re lucky, we had a really good year for guavas. Grandfather says fruit’s always in season in the Land of the Dead. Is that true?”

“Why, yes, it is,” said Mendoza, startling Lewis. “We get good watercress, especially. Though of course we don’t grow things the way you do, here, on these hills. Very nice compost you use. How is it made?”

“Oh, it’s just—” The little girl clapped her hand over her mouth. “It’s—just some stuff. That’s, um, lying around.”

“I notice it’s a much darker color than the earth of the plain,” said Mendoza, with an interrogative stare like a hot poker.

This is not the way to ask, Lewis transmitted. Mendoza gave him an impatient look, but subsided as he said: “In the Land Beyond the Sunset, you see, we have no such earth. It’s, er, pink.”

“Pink?” Tanama looked enchanted. “Like Cajaya’s dress? Really?”

“Yes, and all the trees grow on flat ground,” said Lewis. “In straight lines.”

“How strange! That must make them hard to water, when the rains stop,” said Tanama.

“Oh, our master is clever. He has spirits that fly about with jugs of water tending to them,” said Lewis. “They’re called, er, amphorae. Have you ever heard of such things?”

“No,” said Tanama. “We use gourds for that. Oh, dear, one of the beds broke. Shall I go get you another one?”

“Most kind! But I wouldn’t hear of you fetching such a heavy piece of furniture, little goddess. If you’ll show me where another bed is, I’ll bring it back myself,” said Lewis, as smoothly as he was able. Tanama, however, bit her lip and backed off a pace.

“I’m not supposed to—that is, Father says—”

“It’s all right,” said Mendoza quickly. “I’ll just sleep hanging from the ceiling again. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Thank you!” said Tanama, and ran from the room. Lewis and Mendoza exchanged glances.

“I had been about to tell you,” said Lewis, “that the royal family seems to be keeping a secret.”

“I’d guessed as much.” Mendoza turned her head and eyed the doorway. “Something other than the obvious secret ingredient in terra preta?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Lewis. He told her what he’d overheard, and she frowned.

“Why would a drooling inbred idiot be considered a bargaining chip?” she said.

“Perhaps a negative one? In any case, I’m afraid we don’t have much choice,” said Lewis. “Company procedure, and all that.”

Mendoza sighed. “Pass me a guava. It’s going to be a long night.”



They sat up in silence as the night darkened. The soft mist became driving rain, thundering down on the broad leaves of the tree canopy above the house; soon there was a counterpoint of plinks and plonks from pots hastily placed in rooms Lewis’s thatching had not yet reached.

Breathing deeply, Lewis attuned himself to the night. Under the drum and spatter of the rain, the fearful song of a million tree frogs chanting their lust. He made out the slower rhythms: mortal heartbeats, mortal breathing, a drowsy conversation, the popping of embers in a low fire. The creak of a bed frame: someone was tossing impatiently.

There were the scents, too: the smoking fire fragrant as incense, the sweetness of overripe fruit, the bitterness of mold. Over all, the immense raw wet black smell of the night outside; under all, a faint mortal reek.

The mortals grew still. The conversation drifted into snores. The impatient sleeper lay quiet, finally at peace.

Lewis waited until he thought he could hear centipedes rustling through the garden mold. He opened his eyes and looked at Mendoza. Her eyes were wide and vacant, dreaming awake. Gently he took her hand. She turned her face to him blindly; gradually she pulled her consciousness to the here and now, and met his eyes. He smiled and rose to his feet, taking her with him.

They walked out into the dark house.

A black corridor stretched before them, and only faintly glowing mushrooms along the baseboards gave any light; but they needed none. Silent they proceeded over the damp flagstones, through the vacant wing of the palace where they had been housed. Empty rooms opened black mouths, all along the wall to their right; now and again an arcade opened to the left, where rain gurgled in all the cistern runnels of the courtyard.

The mortal scent became stronger, the walls dryer and in a little better repair. It was now possible to see where painted frescoes had been, peeling and flaking away. No dainty ships or wasp-waisted ladies; only clubbed geometric figures, with here and there a dead-eyed face protruding its tongue through gapped teeth, and things that might have been intended to represent flowers or stars.

And now, a surreal flickering on the wall, making the murals seem to writhe and grimace. Mendoza halted. Lewis raised a hand to point at the line of doorways ahead, where rush lights smoked and threw fitful illumination.

They can’t harm us, he told her.

I have nightmares, too. Mendoza stood rigid. Sometimes I dream I’m awake, and standing in the house where my mortal family lived. They’re lying there together in our bed, my mother and my father, and my little brothers and sisters. They’re all asleep; only I am awake and alone, in the night. I can’t wake them to keep me company, no matter how I try. And then I remember that they’ve all been dust this many a year, and I can never, never rest.

Lewis put his arms around her. She clung to him. He held her until she stopped trembling. Without a word, then, he led her on along the corridor.

They looked in through the first doorway. Orocobix, Lord of Abundance, lay on his plain bed. He was gaunt and ancient, composed as though he had been laid out on a bier. His clothing was neatly folded on a chest. Under the bed frame was a clay chamberpot.

Lewis scanned the room. Unable to take her eyes from the old mortal, Mendoza fumbled in the credenza case she had brought and took out a glass vial, tipped with a needle point. She passed it to Lewis, who stepped forward soundlessly and bent over Orocobix where he slept, placing a hand on his brow. Orocobix sighed; he passed into deeper sleep. Lewis jabbed his upper arm once with the cell collector; the vial filled with a pinkish mist, and its needle point retracted inward. He passed the vial to Mendoza, who capped it and put it away.

In the next room was a wide bed, where Agueybana and Atabey curled together snoring. Their room was cluttered with what must have been the best surviving furniture from the palace; the atmosphere, even in that roaring wet night, was thick and airless. Mendoza withdrew two more vials from the case; Lewis stepped very carefully as he took cells from the mortals. Agueybana grunted and shifted, but did not wake; Atabey slept on.

The room beyond was Cajaya’s. It was strewn with clothing and discarded ornaments. On a small table sat several jars of scent and powders, most of them with their lids ajar, diffusing a sickly sweetness. Some attempt had been made at daubing flowers on the walls here; Lewis examined them hopefully, but they bore no resemblance to the graceful lilies of Thera. The room’s mistress sprawled under furs, and her snore was high-pitched. She never so much as stirred when the needle nipped her arm.

One more room, Mendoza noted, as they returned to the corridor. Lewis nodded. Prepared as they were for another shabby bedchamber, they stepped through the doorway and halted in astonishment.

This room had been maintained above all others. The plaster seemed to have been renewed regularly, and it was painted, polychrome in barbaric splendor, red and yellow and black. Fernlike trees grew on black cone mountains, bowed with black fruit under winking stars. Birdlike things stalked and gestured. Abstract patterns shimmered by the fluttering light of the lamp. From an incense brazier a solid blue fume arose, smoke straight and thick as an arm, vanishing in a cloud of shadows near the ceiling.

The incense did nothing to dispel the sickroom atmosphere. For it was a sickroom: upon a bed grand as an altar lay a young man in an agony of illness, feverish and shaking, emaciated. His body shone like gold in the lamplight. For one moment Lewis thought, Good gods! It’s El Dorado himself!

He stepped close to see, and realized that the illusion came from the film of sweat over the boy’s skin, which was yellow as a harvest moonrise.

But his bed had been decked with ornaments of shell and beaten gold, with bright-dyed cotton ribbon, with macaw feathers, and the massy crown upon his brow was gold, too. A jaguar pelt was spread on the floor beside the bed, where little Tanama was curled up like a devoted puppy. Something gleamed beside her. On closer inspection, it proved to be a great vessel of hammered gold. It stank like a latrine.

Mendoza gasped for breath. He’s got the worst case of liver fluke I’ve ever seen.

Lewis scanned him and winced. Chronic hepatic fascitis, all right; it was a wonder the boy was still alive. He must have been infested for years.

His bones are poking through his skin. Mendoza dug in the case and thrust two more vials at Lewis. Hurry! I can’t bear it in here.

She stepped to the side and looked away as Lewis bent over the bed. The young man opened wide dark eyes, but did not see him, or thought he was only one more in a lifetime of fever dreams. Lewis touched his brow gently, sent him into deep sleep, and looked for a likely place to take a sample; there was very little spare flesh.

Getting a sample from Tanama went much more easily. Lewis stepped away, turning to hand the vials off to Mendoza. She was staring fixedly at the back wall of the room, where the mural pattern swirled around a hole that opened into utter darkness.

Do you realize what that is? she transmitted.

A ventilation shaft?

No! Triangulate its position. The composting chute is right below this room. It’s a… sewer drain?

Mendoza pointed at the big vessel. They gave him a solid gold bedpan. That, and a golden crown. What compensation! The little girl waits on him, and dumps everything in here.

How happy they’ll be to encounter Company plumbing. Lewis backed away from the smell, which intensified as a gust of wind backed and sent appalling vapor up the shaft.

Let’s get out of here!

They fled back through the nightmare corridors.

So… the family has some genetic resistance to liver fluke, Lewis theorized. Except for one or two members in a generation.

Dr. Zeus will be interested in whatever gives them immunity, Mendoza replied. Possibly even more than in the source of terra preta. Oh, God, how I want a hot shower in a clean room.

They ducked back into their chamber. It seemed almost fresh and wholesome to them now, and they sucked in great breaths of dank air.

You’ll take the bed tonight. Lewis led her to it with a firm grip. Mendoza did not resist, but sank down on it.

I think I’ve had a bit more mortal company than I can stand… She lay back and curled on her side. You’re very kind, Lewis…

The rain intensified, roared down in torrents, and thunder cracked sullen and slow. Lewis leaned against the wall, avoiding a leak that streamed in, and watched as Mendoza slept.



When he opened his eyes, after a long night of being hyperaware of the bacterial life of the wall, he saw Mendoza awake. She was sitting up with the credenza on her lap, studying its screen while she munched a Zeusola bar. The rain had stopped.

“Morning, Lewis,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Good morning.” Lewis stretched painfully and looked around for the cache of bars. He had torn one open and was wolfing it down before the import of her words sank in on him. “Mmf?”

“I’ve been running analysis on the samples from the males,” said Mendoza, rubbing her eyes. “I’m running the boy now. Guess what? The old man and his son aren’t entirely Indians. Had a lot of odd genetic markers. Closest match I could find was the aboriginals of the Canary Islands.”

Lewis did a fast access. “What, the Guanches?” He slapped his forehead. “Of course! And they call themselves the Guanikina!”

“Do they? And the Canary Islands have a lot of volcanic activity. Villages wiped out by eruptions, survivors paddling off to other islands in the chain to start new villages. My guess is, at some point in the past somebody paddled due west and wound up in the Caribbean,” said Mendoza. She shrugged. “It isn’t exactly Atlantis, but…”

“But it’s fascinating!” Lewis rubbed his hands. “What a story, what a journey it must have been! And then… they must have conquered a Taino tribe somehow or other, and… and interbred, but not much. And later emigrated here to the mainland, where they founded this astonishing agricultural civilization! What else have you been able to find out?”

“Not a lot,” Mendoza admitted. “I’m a botanist, remember? If they were maize cultivars instead of mortals, I could really do some analysis. That’ll have to wait for the anthropologists. At least now I know where the African cotton came from.”

“Of course,” said Lewis automatically, but his mind was racing with speculation. “Maybe this would explain how the royal family survived whatever it was that killed off all their subjects! They were from the Old World! They had a greater genetic variation, therefore greater resistance to disease—”

“Maybe,” said Mendoza. “Access the data. Old World natives have better immunoresponse to disease; New World natives have better immunoresponse to parasites.”

“Which would explain why that poor boy is so ill with liver fluke!”

“But why’s the rest of the family perfectly healthy, then?”

“Oh.” Lewis frowned. “Favorable mutation? Or some miracle herb in their garden?”

“I think we’d better leave this for the Company to figure out,” said Mendoza.

She was silent a moment, and then added: “By the way… sorry about last night. I behaved like an idiot.”

“Not at all! Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.”

“I have issues with mortals,” said Mendoza stiffly. It was the most outrageous piece of understatement Lewis had heard in a while, but he merely nodded and reached for another Zeusola bar. The credenza beeped. She peered down at the screen. Her eyes widened.

“Well, this is interesting,” she said. “The boy’s different. Significantly…”

“Isn’t he related to the others?” Lewis leaned past her to look, but made out only dense columns of code.

“Oh, no question, but look…” Mendoza ordered up other columns of code and juxtaposed them with the other results.

“It’s probably whatever genetic variation that makes him susceptible to the liver fluke, when the others aren’t,” said Lewis.

“Maybe,” said Mendoza, sounding unconvinced. She looked at the screen suspiciously. “I think I need to do a blood analysis, too.”



They left the credenza running tests on the samples, and slogged away to their respective tasks.

The island rose above a lake of white mist now; the vapor flowed like a white river, trailing through the treetops, veiling the lower terraces. Lewis went splashing across the courtyard and found the bundles of reed he had cut yesterday, undisturbed by the storm. Hoisting one to his back, he went up the ladder with it and set to work.

As he labored, Lewis let his awareness expand a little. He felt the little household coming to life in their corner of the vast ruinous palace. Creaking, grumbling, coughing, the padding of bare feet. Cajaya’s high thin voice raised in query. There was the raking back of coals, the snap of kindling catching fire. Tanama’s cheery voice beginning its chatter, like a bird greeting the day. Splashing from a cistern. The smell of amaranth porridge cooking.

He watched when they came wandering out into the courtyard, one by one, avoiding the pools of rainwater. Cajaya folded a blanket on which to sit, complaining about the wet stone. Orocobix wandered out to the edge of the courtyard and seemed to pray a while, gazing out into the mist. Agueybana and Atabey were bickering, with no particular heat, about whether or not he ought to go hunting.

Tanama came out, carrying bowls of pure gold and a cooking pot that steamed. Orocobix came back and sat down; the child dished up a serving for each of them, and then retreated back into the palace.

“She’s left lumps in it again,” Cajaya said. “I never used to leave lumps in it.”

“You certainly did,” said Agueybana.

“Don’t eat them, if you don’t like it,” said Atabey. “Just think! Soon you’ll have servants cooking for you. Servants! And a divine husband. So you’ve nothing to complain about.”

“I suppose not,” said Cajaya. “If that dead man is any kind of an ambassador.”

“He’s doing a nice job on the roof,” Orocobix remarked, glancing up at Lewis. He caught Lewis’s eye and nodded graciously.

“They really do seem to work astonishingly well,” said Agueybana. “Think what it’ll be like to have a few thousand of those laboring for us, eh? We’ll do nothing all day but sit about at our ease!”

“How lovely!” said Cajaya, fanning herself.

“How like ancient times!” said Atabey, with a sigh. Orocobix looked into his empty bowl and said nothing.

And there they sat, in expectant pettiness, as they must have sat every day of their lives. They looked out on their empty kingdom. Lewis shook his head sadly.

Did all mortal adventure end like this? Once, there had been journeys into the unknown, and struggles against great odds, and grandeur.



Around noon, Mendoza transmitted: Lewis, I’m back in the room. Thought I’d see how the analysis is going. You want another Zeusola bar?

I’d love one, thanks.

There was no reply. He worked on placidly, and had only paused to remove his hat and wipe sweat from his face when there came a wave of astonishment through the ether, without coherent words. Lewis cocked his head, turning, triangulating. Where was she? Still in the room?

Mendoza, what’s going on?

The emotion subsided a little. When he heard her again, he had the impression she was overwhelmed with disgust.

I have the blood analysis results.

Well?

That boy has more than liver fluke, Lewis. He must be dying of septicemia.

What? Lewis called up his memory of the ghastly room, the stick-thin figure on the bed. But… no. We’d have picked it up in our scans, if that were the case. Why do you think—

His blood’s rotten with bacteria.

What kind of bacteria?

There was a long pause. The next burst of emotion nearly knocked him off the roof.

When he had regained his grip on the ladder, Lewis heard Mendoza laughing.

Well, we’ve just solved another mystery. I now know the secret ingredient in terra preta.

Lewis thought rapidly. The mystery microbes? They’re from him?

That’s right. Remember the drain in his room, that empties straight into the compost chute?

No! You don’t mean… There’s some sort of bacteria that makes mortals deathly ill, but when passed into the soil—no, wait—

Wait, that doesn’t add up—

Maybe whatever it is that makes him particularly susceptible to the liver fluke—

But that doesn’t make sense—because when you compare his DNA to the others… Her thought trailed into a sense of bewilderment, frustration.

You’ve solved the mystery of Super-Compost, anyhow. You’ll get a Commendation, do you realize that?

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 appetit! 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 End.