The Children of the Company by Kage Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

open?” she demanded of the baby. It just glared up at her. “My lord husband, I put the latch on!”
    “He’s a magician,” said Imhotep, grinning in embarrassment. “Like me.”
    “Horses might have killed you under their hooves,” she admonished the baby, gathering it into her arms. “Crocodiles might have eaten you!” She glanced over at Atrahasis and crimsoned in a blush. “Ten thousand apologies, my lord!”
    “It’s all right,” said Imhotep. He put his arms around her and kissed her. “I’ll be in soon. Send Aye and Pepi and a couple of the others out, okay? And unlock my study. I want that chest taken inside and set against the far wall.”
    “Will our guest stay for dinner?”
    “I don’t think so,” Imhotep said.
    “No potty go,” the baby informed them.
    “We’ll see about that, kiddo,” Imhotep told him sternly, and the mortal woman bore the protesting child away to the house. He returned to the stone bench to find Atrahasis regarding him in scandalized disgust.
    “We adopted,” explained Imhotep, looking a little shamefaced.
    “No wonder you don’t mind the pollution,” Atrahasis said at last. “You’re actually living in intimacy with them!”
    “It’s part of my job,” said Imhotep. “She was a gift from the king. What was I supposed to do? You know the procedure on this kind of mission. And anyway, since when is sex with them against the rules?”
    “True enough,” Atrahasis said, but mentally he crossed Imhotep off his list of possible allies.
    “I know she’ll die one of these days,” Imhotep went on defensively. “The kid will die, too, maybe fifty years down the line, but in the meanwhile he’ll have had a good life and … well, they all die, don’t they? And I’ll be somewhere else by then anyway. I’ve been through this before. I can handle it. The Company doesn’t care, as long as I get the job done, right?”
    “Whatever it takes,” Atrahasis agreed.”
    He didn’t stay to dinner.
    Imhotep might be besotted with mortals, but he had indeed gotten the job done. In founding an occult society that promised secret knowledge and earthly power to its members, he had forged the first link in a long chain that would ultimately terminate in that remarkable cabal of scientists and investors calling itself Dr. Zeus Incorporated.
    Not quite in keeping with the high moral purpose expressed in the Company’s mission statement. However, Atrahasis had learned—long before he became Labienus—that the mortal masters were the first to jettison their principles, when it was necessary to get something they wanted.

VICTOR THE PRISONER
    From time to time, Labienus has considered compiling a book of wisdom of his own, perhaps an immortals’ version of The Prince or The Art of War .
    He has never done so. For one thing, when one is immortal, there is no point in passing on wisdom to the next generation lest it be forgotten, for it cannot be forgotten. Nor would it do, after all, to empower up-and-coming young rivals by letting them in on one’s secrets.
    And Labienus has no bright subordinate in training, in any case, no youthful immortal he can impress or mentor.
    So his desire has never progressed beyond a list of maxims. The first one is, It is not enough to tend one’s own garden. One must assiduously sow weeds in one’s neighbor’s garden, and encourage snails there.
    He unlocks a drawer now, and draws forth another paper file. It is bulky, it is clumsy, but hard copy has certain advantages to a conspirator. And there is something so satisfying, really, in holding in one’s hands the tangible damnation of one’s enemies.
    The file is labeled simply HOMO UMBRATILIS.
    Labienus opens it. The first thing to greet his eye is an image, a straightforward Company identification shot of another Executive Facilitator. His designation is Aegeus, and he looks as benign as the chairman of some philanthropic foundation.
    His expression makes Labienus’s lip curl in