The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker Read Free Book Online

twice—three times, perhaps. I test my blood on a weekly basis, but I’ve never been able to predict an episode.”
    “Mm.” Latif shook his head. “Whatever goes down when the Silence falls, I hope Labienus gets it in the neck.”
    “He doesn’t see himself as an evil man, you know,” said Victor. “He sees the mortals as the source of all evil. His dream is for a restoration of the Golden Age: no more wars, no more pollution, no more wretched little human race. Only a few of us immortals, flitting about like fairies through the replanted forests and happy beasts.”
    “That’d get old real fast,” growled Latif.
    “Aegeus, on the other hand,” said Victor, “doesn’t want the mortals exterminated. They’re an exploitable resource. What would we do for waiters and busboys, after all? To say nothing of other uses. We’ll still need them to compose their music and paint their paintings and write their novels for us to enjoy, since we immortals are incapable of creating art.”
    “Well, we weren’t made to create things. We were made to save them,” reflected Latif. “Although … I don’t think I’d agree that we don’t create art. You remember Houbert?”
    Victor rolled his eyes.
    “All right, I know he was a big…” Words failed Latif. “But you have to admit he was a genius at design. Those pavilions he’d put up for his parties. All the special effects. I was at a New Year’s Eve ball once where he … “His voice trailed off. Victor looked at him. “You know who else tried to create?” Latifwent on at last. “Lewis. You remember him? The little Literature Preserver we’ve never found?”
    Victor shivered. “I remember him.”
    “I knew him from the time I was a neophyte, at New World One. He was sort of pathetic, but a nice guy. I ran into him on a job one time in New Zealand, back in the early part of the last century,” said Latif. “At a transport terminal. He was working on an adventure novel he’d spent years writing. He’d found an old picture of a mortal who used to work for the Company, some spy named Edward Bell-Fairfax. Lewis was fascinated with him. Wrote this epic about him being some kind of Victorian James Bond. Showed me some of it.”
    “That’s rather unusual, I must admit. One of
us
, writing? Was it any good?”
    Latif shrugged. “I don’t know.” He frowned out at the dim world beyond the viewport, turning the beer bottle in his long hand. “It was crap, actually. But he tried. He had the inspiration, for all the good it did him. At least he wasn’t one of those poor amnesiac bastards we pulled out of the Bureau of Punitive Medicine—” He leaned forward abruptly and peered at the screen where the blue-sound images were playing out. “What’s that?”
    Victor ordered the
Met Agwe
to pause, then proceed forward slowly. “It’s cylindrical.”
    “It’s about the right size.”
    “It seems to be in one piece.” Victor called up the single surviving photograph of the
Alyosha
. The two immortals compared it to the image on the screen.
    “Mostly in one piece,” amended Latif after a moment. He activated the sensors again. They listened, sifting through the gibberish that was dissolved iron, copper, zinc …
    Latif stiffened. “There.” He enhanced the image, the sensor readings. The two immortals sat there gazing at the screen a moment before Latif rose in his seat. He stalked back to the alcove where his pressure suit hung waiting, silent as the man entombed five fathoms below the
Met Agwe
‘s keel.

Fez, 9 July 2355
    Suleyman takes out the Viziers, ivory and ebony, and compares them
.
    They’re more similar than other pieces in the game, for all that the artist was depicting different cultures. One is robed in a djellaba, one wears a tailcoat, but both look wise and dishonest. Both smile, fingering their beards. About the feet of both, reaching up with gestures of supplication, are carved smaller figures: the envoys of conquered tribes?