Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [36]
“It’s of a confidential nature.”
“Alas. Well, my business is brief. Master Gregorian understands that you have come into possession of a certain item which has some sentimental value to him.”
“His notebook.”
“Just so. A valuable learning tool, I might point out, that you lack the training to take advantage of.”
“Still, it is not exactly devoid of interest.”
“Even so, my master must beg its return. He trusts you will prove cooperative, particularly considering that the book is not, properly speaking, yours.”
“Tell Gregorian he can pick up his book from me any time he wishes. In person.”
“I am in the master’s confidence. What can be said to him can be said to me, what can be given him can be given me. In a sense one might say that where I am he is indeed present.”
“I won’t play this game,” the bureaucrat said. “If he wants his book, he knows where I am.”
“Well, what can’t be arranged one way must be arranged another,” Veilleur said philosophically. “I was also instructed to give you this.” The surrogate laid its box at the bureaucrat’s feet. “The master directed me to tell you that a man bold enough to fuck a witch deserves something to remember her by.”
Briefly his electronic grin burned on the telescreen, bright as madness. Then the surrogate turned away.
“I’ve spoken to Gregorian’s father!” the bureaucrat shouted. “Tell him that too!”
The surrogate strode away without a backward glance. The wind lifted and swirled its raincoat, and then it was gone.
Suddenly fearful, the bureaucrat crouched down and lifted the box. It held something heavy. He stepped back onto the porch, unwrapping the wet oilskin, then removed the lid.
Stars, snakes, and comets burned wildly in the box’s dim interior. Putrefaction had just begun, and the iridobacteria were feasting.
* * *
The laughter in the kitchen died when he entered. “Lord of ghouls, man,” Le Marie said, “what happened to you?” Chu seized his arm, steadied him.
“I’m afraid something unfortunate has occurred,” a voice said. His own. The bureaucrat laid down the box on the kitchen table. A little girl wearing a red jeunes évacuées kerchief with tiny black stars about her neck craned up on tiptoe to reach for the box, and had her hand slapped. Mintouchian, who stood close enough to see within, hastily slapped the lid back on and rewrapped the cloth. “Something untoward.” He sounded dreadful, like a recording played at the wrong speed, false and subtly inhuman.
A scurry of activity. Two men ran outside. A chair was scraped forward, and Le Marie folded him down into it. “I’ll call the nationals,” Chu said. “They can lift in a laboratory as soon as the rain ends.” Somebody gave the bureaucrat a drink, and he gulped it down. “My God,” he said. “My God.” Anubis emerged from beneath the table and licked his hand.
The men who had run outside returned, wet to the skin. The door slammed to behind them. “Nobody out there,” one said.
More children came crowding in. Mother Le Marie hastily set the box up atop the pie cabinet, out of reach. “What’s in there?” one of the locals asked from the far side of the kitchen.
“Undine,” the bureaucrat said. “It’s Undine’s arm.” To his utter and complete embarrassment, he burst into tears.
* * *
They led him protesting feebly to his room, eased him down on the bed, took off his shoes. His briefcase was laid by his side. Then, with consoling murmurs, they left him alone. I shall never be able to sleep, he thought. The room smelled of mildew and old paint. Barnacles speckled the walls and encrusted the mirror, from flies blown in at night by the fever wind, over the top of a window that would not quite close. Wind through that same narrow slot stirred the curtains now. Doubtless it would never be repaired.
The dim thunder of water on the roof slowly faded as the storm abated. The rain died away to a drizzle and finally a mist.
A voice separated from the kitchen conversation and floated up the stairs. “Mushroom rain,” it said gently.
* * *
The bureaucrat could not sleep. The pillow was hard and buzzed with