The Machine's Child Read Online Free PDF Page A

and the green alder trees, somebody coming in—
    Instantly Joseph was on his feet, peering around the corner into the hall. But it was okay: two more well-groomed people in yachting clothes, murmuring in delight at how quaint everything looked, on their way to the bar. He settled back into his seat and relaxed, drank more of his cider, watched the fire.
    He recognized Mavis’s firm tread long before she came around the corner. He got to his feet, doing his best to look dignified and respectable for her, as he ought to look if he were the former executive consultant he always claimed to be. He knew she didn’t believe him, though in fact he’d been a consultant to a lot of people, including pharaohs, in his time; but that was okay. Their relationship wasn’t built on belief.
    She hove into sight like a Spanish galleon, and looked him up and down.
    “So it’s you again?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Joseph said, giving her his most ingratiating smile. “Just stopped by on my way up the coast. Going to a business conference in Seattle, you know. Oh, and I had a look at your holoscreen. Works fine now. Just needed a little realignment.”
    “Really? How nice. As long as you’re here, you might look at a couple of other things that need realigning,” she told him quietly, slipping a key into his hand. “And take a shower first. I’ll have some supper sent up.”
    Sometimes it’s just
great
to be a Rogue Cyborg. Not only can Rogue Cyborgs fix holoscreens, there are a whole bunch of other useful things they can do better than mortals.
     
    He left before daylight, because she preferred that, and made his way back to the mountain as the sky paled. The sun was rising red, blazing on a wall of sea-fog when he slipped furtively up his little canyon and disappeared into the darkness under the trees.
    The Rogue Cyborg began another day.
    He shrugged out of his good coat and hung it up, poked around in his kitchen alcove and found some not-coffee left over from the previous morning, reheated it (it couldn’t taste any worse, after all), and poured himself another mugful. Then he walked back into the mountain, throughthe blue light of the regeneration tanks, and stopped finally in front of the vault where the hideous giant floated.
    “You’re looking good, Father,” said Joseph thoughtfully, taking a sip from his mug. “I think your eyes are starting to grow back. The only thing that’s still got me worried—”
    The giant in the vault moved abruptly, thrust out one hand in a clawing gesture and struck the transparent wall. Joseph leaped backward and dropped his not-coffee, although (being a cyborg) he was able to catch it before it hit the floor.
    “Holy smoke!” he said. He watched spellbound as the giant flattened his palm against the transparency and felt his way along it, like a one-armed mime defining a wall.
    “Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh—” Joseph said, scrambling up the ladder. “Father!” he yelled, “Father, are you—”
    A hand came plunging up out of the blue, sweet-scented fluid and seized him by his shirt collar. Swift as thought it pulled him down, into the tank.
    Joseph’s
oof
of surprise emerged as an air bubble and floated before his astonished face, so viscous was the bioregenerant medium. And so warm, and so perfumed, and so comfortably oxygenated it was, that he could have drawn in a double lungful and lost himself in the primal pleasures of the womb, had he not been in more peril at that moment than he had faced in most of his immortal life.
    After transmitting frantic inquiries and receiving no response, he gave up and hung there in the enfolding warmth, unresisting as the terrible giant pulled him close. The blind face grimaced wildly, but the head lay slack on one shoulder; the left hand gripped him beyond hope of escape. Slowly and painfully the other hand rose, the one on the arm that had been severed and reattached.
    It splayed its fingers over Joseph’s face, reading his features. It