The Machine's Child Read Online Free PDF

traced the shape of his eyes and did not gouge them out; murmuring a prayer of thanks, Joseph reached up and took the big hand in both his own. He began to spell out a message in universal code.
    The giant, Budu, became motionless and focused all his attention on the message, which said something to the effect of:
Hello, it’s Joseph, rememberme? Please don’t disable me. I rescued you from Chinatown but you’d been there a long time and you were in really bad shape. You’re in a regeneration vault. It’s now the year 2317. I finally accessed the code you gave me and found the other Enforcers, but a lot of bad stuff happened that I can’t explain fast and I had to run, just like you did. The Company doesn’t know we’re in here.
    Joseph paused, at a loss for what to say next and terribly afraid the giant was too damaged to understand him anyway. Budu let go his collar, however, and groped for Joseph’s hand instead. With his able hand he spelled out:
How bad is it?
    Joseph floated there in shock a moment, and Budu patiently repeated his message before Joseph signed back:
You were poisoned with something and Victor says he’s sorry, he didn’t know, and then somebody hacked you in pieces—
    The giant interrupted him.
Know that
, he signed.
Remember and have run self-diagnostic. Meant how bad political situation?
    Joseph signed back:
Bad bad bad bad bad.
    Budu grimaced again. He spelled out:
We wear clock faces yet?
    He was referring to the rumor, believed by immortals who feared the worst about the future, that by the twenty-fourth century all cyborg Company personnel would be obliged to wear a certain emblem. It would represent a clock face without hands, supposedly denoting their triumph over time, but in reality enabling the mortal masters to distinguish them from everyone else, and, perhaps, round them all up.
    Not yet,
Joseph signed.
    Budu signed:
Who rules?
    I don’t know,
Joseph replied.
    Labienus rules?
inquired Budu.
    Not that bad,
Joseph signed back.
    Labienus caught?
    Not yet.
    More grimacing from Budu. Joseph went on to sign:
    All alone, Father, so lonely, I watch them and I think nobody knows about us but I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to repair you. You can tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Do you want revenge? We can do that—2355 is coming. We can get them if we set the Enforcers free. I found the Enforcers but so many others lostnow. Good operatives. I lost my daughter. I lost my friend. I can’t find them. Please tell me what to do. Please . . .
    As he signed the last word over, faster and more clumsily, Budu lifted his hand away and used it to pull Joseph in close. He held Joseph’s head a moment in the vast angle of his scarred neck, then released him. Taking Joseph’s hand again he signed:
We will find them.

ONE AFTERNOON IN 2302 AD
    The three men sat around the table, doing their best to ignore one another.
    Nicholas was peering into the bright screen of the plaquette, so caught up in the Bible it was doubtful he’d have noticed if a gun had been fired next to his ear, though the
Captain Morgan
was riding out heavy weather. Rain beat against her portholes, when it wasn’t shouldered aside by glass-green sea sweeping high.
    Alec sat next to him, trying not to watch over Nicholas’s shoulder as the words flitted by. He’d never been able to read or write much more than his name, though as a well-educated aristocrat of the twenty-fourth century he had at least a passing familiarity with the letters of the alphabet. In the past few days, though, ever since the unwelcome arrival of his previous selves, the meaning of written words had begun to glimmer through to him.
    He didn’t want to think why this might be happening. He certainly had no interest in reading an ancient religious text that was synonymous with oppression and bigotry. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from following the cryptic letters, trying to piece meaning out of the old-fashioned speech. The storm