The Machine's Child
Encyclopedia
The Machine's Child is a science fiction
novel by Kage Baker
. It is the seventh book in the series concerning the exploits of Dr. Zeus Inc.
, otherwise known as The Company.
develop in this volume. Most of the characters are immortal cyborg
s created in the past by an organization, Dr. Zeus Inc., which exists in the 24th century and has both time travel and immortality technology.
The official business of Dr. Zeus is the "finding", for a fee, of artifacts and living things thought lost to time, which have actually been carefully collected by the cyborgs known as Preservers, aided by the fixers, conmen and masters of deception known as Facilitators.
Alec Checkerfield, introduced in The Life of the World to Come
, is trying to find his lost love, the Preserver known as the Botanist Mendoza. With the aid of his AI
helper "Captain Morgan" and their time travelling schooner using technology stolen from Dr. Zeus, he aims to find her wherever and whenever she is.
This is complicated by the fact that he is hosting the personalities of his two dead clones, Nicholas Harpole and Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, in his own partially cyborged body. All three personalities knew Mendoza in the flesh, so to speak, but each has his own way of looking at the world. Nicholas is a religious zealot, Edward a cold-blooded killer, and Alec is the squeamish product of a culture that prohibits or represses everything enjoyed by humans in the past, including religion, sex, and violence.
The Facilitator Joseph is reviving his "father", the ancient Enforcer cyborg Budu, as the 24th century opens. To him, Alec Checkerfield represents his nemesis and the one responsible for the downfall of Mendoza, who he regards as a daughter. As Budu re-assembles his shattered body, Joseph plunders the archives of Dr. Zeus, learning about the Adonai project which created Alec, Nicholas and Edward. He tries to bring down Adonai by any means possible, including tracking Alec through time.
Executive Facilitator Suleyman is using his power base in North Africa to prepare for the year 2355, when the Company apparently suffers such a setback that no transmissions from the time beyond have ever been received. He gathers trusted operatives to his base, while hoping that Joseph, whom he revived and cast out as a rogue, untraceable and answerable to nobody, will not bring disaster about by reviving Budu, the oldest and most powerful Enforcer.
Budu is enduring the decades-long process of self-repair, having been buried for 370 years, body cut apart, in rubble after the San Francisco earthquake. He knows far more about the Company than Joseph dared believe. Passing this knowledge to Joseph, he prepares his own surprise for Dr. Zeus.
Alec's AI, Captain Morgan, is also creating surprises to bedevil the Company in 2355. Alec drops these in strategic places at different times in history.
This is also a nod to a passionate conversation held by Mendoza and the first incarnation of the Adonai (Nicholas Harpole) during the 'first' novel of The Company stories, In the Garden of Iden.
, Alec Checkerfield, aboard his schooner the Captain Morgan, crewed and piloted by the eponymous AI he created from a teaching computer given to him as a child, had escaped from Dr. Zeus' installation on Santa Catalina Island
with information stolen from the Company databases. Using this information the Captain turned the ship into a time machine, leaving the year 2351 to hide in history. Along the way Alec found and lost Mendoza, unwittingly downloaded his alter egos into his own brain, and equally unwittingly was party to one of the most infamous massacres in human history, the destruction of the colony Mars Two by terrorists. As a result Alec is racked with guilt, and thus weakened he falls prey to the other personalities, especially the former assassin Edward. In a bizarre joint effort they break in and steal from the Nuevo Inklings in 2351 more information in the form of a buke, a 24th century notebook computer. Thus fortified they disappear into time to plot the rescue of Mendoza.
The Captain begins talking to the personalities individually as he creates the plan. Mendoza is in "Options Research", 300,000 years in the past. This is a facility dedicated to finding ways to kill cyborgs, using Preservers who have lost their will to live as guinea pigs. Only one Company operative is there, but it is Marco, the only Enforcer other than Budu to remain free once the Enforcers original mission was completed. Instead of being placed in suspended animation like the other Enforcers, he was sent to run Options Research where he systematically disassembles cyborgs and subjects them to horrendous treatments in an attempt to destroy them.
Alec and the Captain arrive from the future, with Edward in control of their body to carry out the mission. This is fortunate, as the horrors created by Marco sicken Nicholas and Alec. They find Mendoza, who has been lying in a steel coffin for 900 years, disabling Marco in the process. The Captain has duplicated the virus that brought down Budu, although Edward is only able to inject it by sheer luck. Mendoza is in dreadful condition; her coffin is only 1 meter long.
In the year 2317, Joseph is still waiting for Budu to finish regenerating after rescuing him in 2276. He lives in a corner of the revival facility under Mount Tamalpais
, near San Francisco, stealing food, clothing and other equipment as he needs them. Lately he has been playing the role of visiting handyman and lover to Mavis, the landlady of the nearby Pelican Inn. Budu finally awakes, despite being blind and unable to communicate. Joseph steals a vocoder
and hooks it into Budu's systems so he can hear and talk.
Budu tells his story about what happened to him after he escaped from Company custody in 1099. Becoming a rogue like Joseph, he roamed Europe until the Black Death
gave him the idea of using disease to cull humanity of its violent members. Contacting his various recruits, like Labienus, he formed the Plague Cabal, which began creating diseases designed to kill target populations quickly and then die out before spreading to the rest of humanity. Labienus, however, had visions of reducing human population on a global scale, committing genocide, and caused Budu's downfall at the hands of Victor, who had unwittingly been made into a carrier of targeted viruses.
Joseph finds a time-travel capsule that Budu had hidden on Morro Rock
and goes to Options Research in search of Mendoza. He arrives well after Alec has left, and is attacked by Marco even as he lies ill with the virus. After Marco calms down, he tells Joseph what happened, before wading into the sea, presumably to hide himself from the Company, who he now believes is after him. Joseph, horrified by what he sees and failing to find Mendoza, returns to the 24th century and contacts Suleyman, who mounts a mission to rescue the cyborgs held at Options Research and expose it to all the other active Company operatives still alive.
With knowledge supplied by Budu, Joseph begins to ransack Company databases for information about Mendoza, his friend Lewis, and the Adonai project which created Alec, Edward and Nicholas. Over the last few decades he had lost some of his grip on reality and thus became obsessed with destroying Adonai. Knowing that Alec is born in 2320, he brings Alec's "parents", the Earl and Countess of Finsbury, to the Pelican so he can prevent Alec's conception. To his dismay he finds that they had long ago decided not to have children and Roger had been medically sterilized. In reality, Alec was born to a host mother and given to the Checkerfields by the Company.
Alec and his phantom companions are finally able to hold their beloved once the Captain, using his own version of the Company revival tank, rebuilds her. She has lost most of her memories, though there are indications the Captain may have blocked them to protect her sanity. One side effect is that the Company conditioning which suppressed her paranormal abilities has been removed, and she constantly creates temporal anomalies around her when her emotions are aroused. The typical result is that plants seem to grow with incredible speed. The ship is soon a floating greenhouse
.
The Captain meanwhile has been digesting the Company data. He can make Alec immortal like Mendoza, who thinks he is already immortal like her. He can create devices using nanotechnology
that the Company, slow and bureaucratic, had never thought to build. Alec and Mendoza proceed to drop small time-bombs in the form of collections of nanobots throughout history. Meanwhile a search for Alec's original genetic template, which the Captain needs for the immortality treatment, turns up the mortal remains of both Edward and Nicholas, hidden in Company repositories; this is a shock for each of Alec's mental passengers.
Eventually they locate Alpha-Omega, a secret facility where genetic templates for all operatives, and indeed every kind of human who has ever existed, are stored. Before doing this Alec insists on a vacation, and since he is obsessed with his romantic vision of pirates, he decides to go to Port Royal
, Jamaica
, in its heyday before being destroyed by an earthquake in 1692
.
Joseph and Budu have been studying Alec, and have realized that he is likely to visit Port Royal
. Joseph sets himself up in the less rowdy inland community of Spanish Town
, ready to wait years for their arrival, equipped with a device that can detect and jam the Captain's signals.
Alec arrives with Mendoza, though he is quickly repelled by the place, and is only able to continue with help from Edward and Nicholas, who are not bothered by such horrors as abbatoirs, meat markets, pet animals, thugs and pirates. By way of celebrating their impending triumph over Dr. Zeus, Alec and Mendoza, helped considerably by Nicholas' passion and poetry, marry themselves and enjoy a belated honeymoon in a harbor inn. Joseph has had the misfortune to be away from his home when his alarm is activated, and when he returns the couple are gone. After an exhausting journey he finds the Captain Morgan at anchor and sneaks aboard, after disabling the Captain with a signal jammer. Confronting the man he thinks of as Alec Checkerfield, he is astonished to be attacked by the Nicholas personality. Knocking Alec out, he interrogates him when he revives, but finds himself dealing with Edward. At that point Mendoza erupts from the cabin of the ship, and the Captain defeats the jamming and activates the ship's defenses. Mendoza does not recognize Joseph, who realizes that whatever he thinks, Alec, Edward and Nicholas genuinely love her. He flees and returns to Budu. From Budu's point of view, Joseph has been gone a few days. From Joseph's viewpoint, it has been 20 years.
Alec's injuries from the fight require even more recuperation. In a resort in 2276 they play a violent video game that is illegal in Alec's time. Edward beats the game, literally burning it out. As a result he becomes Alec's equal in cyberspace
, though this is unknown to the others.
Finally raiding Alpha-Omega, on an island in 500,000 BCE, they bypass the AI and the single human attendant it protects, and recover the Adonai genetic template. With the Captain distracted by the other AI, Edward takes over Alec and confines the other personalities to a virtual prison. His bravado is short-lived, however. Alec and Nicholas attempt to escape, distracting Edward when he is attacked by an ichthyosaur
while wading into the sea. Gravely injured, he attempts to transfer his personality into Mendoza's systems, but the result leaves her catatonic.
The Captain is left to pick up the pieces. The final scene is enigmatic, and a cliff hanger. Mendoza is "rebooted", but the Captain seems to have obtained human form. He implies that Alec and Nicholas are still trapped in Mendoza's mind and, strangely, calls her "mother".
, and various future events, both real and imagined. With the fourth volume, The Graveyard Game
, a transition to exposition of the greater plot took place, though period vignettes appeared as well.
This volume is heavy on plot exposition but also returns to earlier themes, allowing the author to revel in her knowledge of Elizabethan English once more, as in In The Garden of Iden
. Real people such as William Shakespeare
and Robert Louis Stevenson
appear. Alec is an admirer of Stevenson for writing Treasure Island
, his favorite book. Edward is a great admirer of Shakespeare. Both are apparently important to the author, also.
Alec and the Captain pursue their mission in stages while Joseph, in pursuing Alec, becomes aware of the larger Adonai plot, discharging his obsession with Nicholas Harpole and the safety of Mendoza. This clears his mind to concentrate on dealing with the future, and finding his other lost friends.
Alec himself has to reconcile himself to his past crimes before his deathwish brings him, and his co-personalities, to an untimely end. He also has to avoid a takeover by Edward, who is learning how to "write code" in their shared virtual world. Edward may not have a deathwish, but his recklessness poses just as much risk. Nicholas' passion can also endanger their body, as when he takes over in his rage to attack Joseph, who is physically capable of breaking him in two.
Suleyman and his allies are mostly on the sidelines, bearing witness to the coming of a future they dread as the long-awaited signs, such as the Company issuing badges consisting of a clock with no hands, begin to appear.
The appearance of a live ichthyosaur
at the end echoes Mendoza's discovery of a recently-dead member of that species during her exile on Santa Catalina Island
, as recounted in The Life of the World to Come
. Since both events take place in times millions of years after the supposed extinction of ichthyosaurs, this may imply that time is somehow "out of joint" around Company bases. Company stories such as "The Catch"
, as well as The Life of the World to Come
, refer to "variable permeability of the time continuum" occurring when a particular time and place has repeated time journeys made to it.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Kage Baker
Kage Baker
Kage Baker was an American science fiction and fantasy writer.- Biography :Baker was born in Hollywood, California and lived there and in Pismo Beach most of her life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language...
. It is the seventh book in the series concerning the exploits of Dr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as The Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker....
, otherwise known as The Company.
Plot introduction
Several elements introduced as far back as the fourth book The Graveyard GameThe Graveyard Game
The Graveyard Game is the fourth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
develop in this volume. Most of the characters are immortal cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
s created in the past by an organization, Dr. Zeus Inc., which exists in the 24th century and has both time travel and immortality technology.
The official business of Dr. Zeus is the "finding", for a fee, of artifacts and living things thought lost to time, which have actually been carefully collected by the cyborgs known as Preservers, aided by the fixers, conmen and masters of deception known as Facilitators.
Alec Checkerfield, introduced in The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come is the fifth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
, is trying to find his lost love, the Preserver known as the Botanist Mendoza. With the aid of his AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
helper "Captain Morgan" and their time travelling schooner using technology stolen from Dr. Zeus, he aims to find her wherever and whenever she is.
This is complicated by the fact that he is hosting the personalities of his two dead clones, Nicholas Harpole and Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, in his own partially cyborged body. All three personalities knew Mendoza in the flesh, so to speak, but each has his own way of looking at the world. Nicholas is a religious zealot, Edward a cold-blooded killer, and Alec is the squeamish product of a culture that prohibits or represses everything enjoyed by humans in the past, including religion, sex, and violence.
The Facilitator Joseph is reviving his "father", the ancient Enforcer cyborg Budu, as the 24th century opens. To him, Alec Checkerfield represents his nemesis and the one responsible for the downfall of Mendoza, who he regards as a daughter. As Budu re-assembles his shattered body, Joseph plunders the archives of Dr. Zeus, learning about the Adonai project which created Alec, Nicholas and Edward. He tries to bring down Adonai by any means possible, including tracking Alec through time.
Executive Facilitator Suleyman is using his power base in North Africa to prepare for the year 2355, when the Company apparently suffers such a setback that no transmissions from the time beyond have ever been received. He gathers trusted operatives to his base, while hoping that Joseph, whom he revived and cast out as a rogue, untraceable and answerable to nobody, will not bring disaster about by reviving Budu, the oldest and most powerful Enforcer.
Budu is enduring the decades-long process of self-repair, having been buried for 370 years, body cut apart, in rubble after the San Francisco earthquake. He knows far more about the Company than Joseph dared believe. Passing this knowledge to Joseph, he prepares his own surprise for Dr. Zeus.
Alec's AI, Captain Morgan, is also creating surprises to bedevil the Company in 2355. Alec drops these in strategic places at different times in history.
Explanation of the novel's title
Mendoza needs careful reviving after 900 years in the Company hell known as "Options Research". Since Capt. Morgan ran the apparatus that resulted in her rebirth, he likes to call her "the Machine's child".This is also a nod to a passionate conversation held by Mendoza and the first incarnation of the Adonai (Nicholas Harpole) during the 'first' novel of The Company stories, In the Garden of Iden.
Plot summary
At the end of The Life of the World to ComeThe Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come is the fifth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
, Alec Checkerfield, aboard his schooner the Captain Morgan, crewed and piloted by the eponymous AI he created from a teaching computer given to him as a child, had escaped from Dr. Zeus' installation on Santa Catalina Island
Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...
with information stolen from the Company databases. Using this information the Captain turned the ship into a time machine, leaving the year 2351 to hide in history. Along the way Alec found and lost Mendoza, unwittingly downloaded his alter egos into his own brain, and equally unwittingly was party to one of the most infamous massacres in human history, the destruction of the colony Mars Two by terrorists. As a result Alec is racked with guilt, and thus weakened he falls prey to the other personalities, especially the former assassin Edward. In a bizarre joint effort they break in and steal from the Nuevo Inklings in 2351 more information in the form of a buke, a 24th century notebook computer. Thus fortified they disappear into time to plot the rescue of Mendoza.
The Captain begins talking to the personalities individually as he creates the plan. Mendoza is in "Options Research", 300,000 years in the past. This is a facility dedicated to finding ways to kill cyborgs, using Preservers who have lost their will to live as guinea pigs. Only one Company operative is there, but it is Marco, the only Enforcer other than Budu to remain free once the Enforcers original mission was completed. Instead of being placed in suspended animation like the other Enforcers, he was sent to run Options Research where he systematically disassembles cyborgs and subjects them to horrendous treatments in an attempt to destroy them.
Alec and the Captain arrive from the future, with Edward in control of their body to carry out the mission. This is fortunate, as the horrors created by Marco sicken Nicholas and Alec. They find Mendoza, who has been lying in a steel coffin for 900 years, disabling Marco in the process. The Captain has duplicated the virus that brought down Budu, although Edward is only able to inject it by sheer luck. Mendoza is in dreadful condition; her coffin is only 1 meter long.
In the year 2317, Joseph is still waiting for Budu to finish regenerating after rescuing him in 2276. He lives in a corner of the revival facility under Mount Tamalpais
Mount Tamalpais
Mount Tamalpais is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park and the Mount Tamalpais Watershed.-Geography:...
, near San Francisco, stealing food, clothing and other equipment as he needs them. Lately he has been playing the role of visiting handyman and lover to Mavis, the landlady of the nearby Pelican Inn. Budu finally awakes, despite being blind and unable to communicate. Joseph steals a vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...
and hooks it into Budu's systems so he can hear and talk.
Budu tells his story about what happened to him after he escaped from Company custody in 1099. Becoming a rogue like Joseph, he roamed Europe until the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
gave him the idea of using disease to cull humanity of its violent members. Contacting his various recruits, like Labienus, he formed the Plague Cabal, which began creating diseases designed to kill target populations quickly and then die out before spreading to the rest of humanity. Labienus, however, had visions of reducing human population on a global scale, committing genocide, and caused Budu's downfall at the hands of Victor, who had unwittingly been made into a carrier of targeted viruses.
Joseph finds a time-travel capsule that Budu had hidden on Morro Rock
Morro Rock
Morro Rock is a volcanic plug located just offshore from Morro Bay, California, at the entrance to Morro Bay Harbor. A causeway connects it with the shore, effectively making it a tied island. The area surrounding the base of Morro Rock can be visited. The rock is protected as the Morro Rock State...
and goes to Options Research in search of Mendoza. He arrives well after Alec has left, and is attacked by Marco even as he lies ill with the virus. After Marco calms down, he tells Joseph what happened, before wading into the sea, presumably to hide himself from the Company, who he now believes is after him. Joseph, horrified by what he sees and failing to find Mendoza, returns to the 24th century and contacts Suleyman, who mounts a mission to rescue the cyborgs held at Options Research and expose it to all the other active Company operatives still alive.
With knowledge supplied by Budu, Joseph begins to ransack Company databases for information about Mendoza, his friend Lewis, and the Adonai project which created Alec, Edward and Nicholas. Over the last few decades he had lost some of his grip on reality and thus became obsessed with destroying Adonai. Knowing that Alec is born in 2320, he brings Alec's "parents", the Earl and Countess of Finsbury, to the Pelican so he can prevent Alec's conception. To his dismay he finds that they had long ago decided not to have children and Roger had been medically sterilized. In reality, Alec was born to a host mother and given to the Checkerfields by the Company.
Alec and his phantom companions are finally able to hold their beloved once the Captain, using his own version of the Company revival tank, rebuilds her. She has lost most of her memories, though there are indications the Captain may have blocked them to protect her sanity. One side effect is that the Company conditioning which suppressed her paranormal abilities has been removed, and she constantly creates temporal anomalies around her when her emotions are aroused. The typical result is that plants seem to grow with incredible speed. The ship is soon a floating greenhouse
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...
.
The Captain meanwhile has been digesting the Company data. He can make Alec immortal like Mendoza, who thinks he is already immortal like her. He can create devices using nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
that the Company, slow and bureaucratic, had never thought to build. Alec and Mendoza proceed to drop small time-bombs in the form of collections of nanobots throughout history. Meanwhile a search for Alec's original genetic template, which the Captain needs for the immortality treatment, turns up the mortal remains of both Edward and Nicholas, hidden in Company repositories; this is a shock for each of Alec's mental passengers.
Eventually they locate Alpha-Omega, a secret facility where genetic templates for all operatives, and indeed every kind of human who has ever existed, are stored. Before doing this Alec insists on a vacation, and since he is obsessed with his romantic vision of pirates, he decides to go to Port Royal
Port Royal
Port Royal was a city located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of the Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1518, it was the centre of shipping commerce in the Caribbean Sea during the latter half of the 17th century...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, in its heyday before being destroyed by an earthquake in 1692
1692 Jamaica earthquake
The 1692 Jamaica earthquake struck Port Royal, Jamaica on June 7, at exactly 11:43 a.m., according to a stopped pocket watch found in the harbour in the 1950s. Port Royal was then the unofficial capital of Jamaica, and one of the busiest and wealthiest ports in the West Indies...
.
Joseph and Budu have been studying Alec, and have realized that he is likely to visit Port Royal
Port Royal
Port Royal was a city located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of the Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1518, it was the centre of shipping commerce in the Caribbean Sea during the latter half of the 17th century...
. Joseph sets himself up in the less rowdy inland community of Spanish Town
Spanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
, ready to wait years for their arrival, equipped with a device that can detect and jam the Captain's signals.
Alec arrives with Mendoza, though he is quickly repelled by the place, and is only able to continue with help from Edward and Nicholas, who are not bothered by such horrors as abbatoirs, meat markets, pet animals, thugs and pirates. By way of celebrating their impending triumph over Dr. Zeus, Alec and Mendoza, helped considerably by Nicholas' passion and poetry, marry themselves and enjoy a belated honeymoon in a harbor inn. Joseph has had the misfortune to be away from his home when his alarm is activated, and when he returns the couple are gone. After an exhausting journey he finds the Captain Morgan at anchor and sneaks aboard, after disabling the Captain with a signal jammer. Confronting the man he thinks of as Alec Checkerfield, he is astonished to be attacked by the Nicholas personality. Knocking Alec out, he interrogates him when he revives, but finds himself dealing with Edward. At that point Mendoza erupts from the cabin of the ship, and the Captain defeats the jamming and activates the ship's defenses. Mendoza does not recognize Joseph, who realizes that whatever he thinks, Alec, Edward and Nicholas genuinely love her. He flees and returns to Budu. From Budu's point of view, Joseph has been gone a few days. From Joseph's viewpoint, it has been 20 years.
Alec's injuries from the fight require even more recuperation. In a resort in 2276 they play a violent video game that is illegal in Alec's time. Edward beats the game, literally burning it out. As a result he becomes Alec's equal in cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
, though this is unknown to the others.
Finally raiding Alpha-Omega, on an island in 500,000 BCE, they bypass the AI and the single human attendant it protects, and recover the Adonai genetic template. With the Captain distracted by the other AI, Edward takes over Alec and confines the other personalities to a virtual prison. His bravado is short-lived, however. Alec and Nicholas attempt to escape, distracting Edward when he is attacked by an ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that resembled fish and dolphins...
while wading into the sea. Gravely injured, he attempts to transfer his personality into Mendoza's systems, but the result leaves her catatonic.
The Captain is left to pick up the pieces. The final scene is enigmatic, and a cliff hanger. Mendoza is "rebooted", but the Captain seems to have obtained human form. He implies that Alec and Nicholas are still trapped in Mendoza's mind and, strangely, calls her "mother".
Characters
- Mendoza, a significant character in three previous books and an important voice in the series, is relatively passive and almost silent in this story. Having lost most of her memory she is only aware that she loves plants and has encountered Alec, or Edward, or Nicholas before and loved him/them. In this state, however, her unleashed paranormal ability, generating "Crome radiation", allows the AI Captain Morgan to find a way to bring Mendoza into her own future, which for her is after 1863.
- Joseph has also lost much of what made him tick. He has lost the thing he needed most, to belong to the Company. Instead he finds refuge in his attachment to Budu, his father, and his desire for justice for Mendoza and his other lost friends.
- Budu does not emerge much in the story, merely providing a way for Joseph to get access to information, money, and equipment. His resources and the nature of his plan to bring down Dr. Zeus are not revealed, although they apparently involve an immortal William Randolph HearstWilliam Randolph HearstWilliam Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, posing as his own descendant. - Alec, along with Nicholas and Edward, becomes outwardly more stable even as the older personalities become stronger. Nicholas expounds on his Christian faith and how it fails to explain his current situation. Edward expresses his faith in Reason, shorn of passion and superstition, as the only hope for them and humanity. Alec represents the third aspect of history, as Edward sees it. If Nicholas is Faith and Edward is Reason, Alec is blind Technology which has no purpose until Reason takes control of it.
- Captain Morgan, once a mere teaching machine, has grown beyond reason until he can accomplish almost anything for Alec. Only when Edward impetuously disconnects the device linking Alec to the Captain, or when the Captain's systems are jammed, does the human part of the symbiosisSymbiosisSymbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
function as an independent actor. When the Captain is in charge, Alec's personalities have little to do but argue with each other. - Marco the Enforcer, as described in Sky CoyoteSky CoyoteSky Coyote is a science fiction novel of The Company by Kage Baker. It is the second in the series which began with In The Garden of Iden and continues with Mendoza in Hollywood.-Plot introduction:...
, wanted to lead his own army of Enforcers to purge humanity of killers and other malefactors once the original mission of stopping the pernicious Great Goat Cult was complete. Instead he was sent into the past to run Options Research. Having created cyborgs that are literally indestructible, the Company is desperate to find ways to destroy them. - William Randolph Hearst, as related in a story "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst!" in Gods and PawnsGods and PawnsGods and Pawns is a collection of stories written by Kage Baker and published by Tor Books. The stories are set in the universe of her series about The Company.-Background:...
, has been given a version of immortality by the Company, and masquerades as his own descendant in 2320. His part in the plan is yet to be revealed.
Major themes
Beginning with the first volume the series concentrated on telling small stories in a large context. Much space was given to period detail, in Elizabethan England, pre-Spanish California, Old California during the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, and various future events, both real and imagined. With the fourth volume, The Graveyard Game
The Graveyard Game
The Graveyard Game is the fourth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
, a transition to exposition of the greater plot took place, though period vignettes appeared as well.
This volume is heavy on plot exposition but also returns to earlier themes, allowing the author to revel in her knowledge of Elizabethan English once more, as in In The Garden of Iden
In The Garden of Iden
In the Garden of Iden is a 1997 science fiction novel by Kage Baker. Although it is set entirely in the 16th century, in Spain and England, it is a science fiction story revolving around the activities of a group of immortal cyborgs, individuals who appear human but have been transformed by high...
. Real people such as William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
appear. Alec is an admirer of Stevenson for writing Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
, his favorite book. Edward is a great admirer of Shakespeare. Both are apparently important to the author, also.
Alec and the Captain pursue their mission in stages while Joseph, in pursuing Alec, becomes aware of the larger Adonai plot, discharging his obsession with Nicholas Harpole and the safety of Mendoza. This clears his mind to concentrate on dealing with the future, and finding his other lost friends.
Alec himself has to reconcile himself to his past crimes before his deathwish brings him, and his co-personalities, to an untimely end. He also has to avoid a takeover by Edward, who is learning how to "write code" in their shared virtual world. Edward may not have a deathwish, but his recklessness poses just as much risk. Nicholas' passion can also endanger their body, as when he takes over in his rage to attack Joseph, who is physically capable of breaking him in two.
Suleyman and his allies are mostly on the sidelines, bearing witness to the coming of a future they dread as the long-awaited signs, such as the Company issuing badges consisting of a clock with no hands, begin to appear.
The appearance of a live ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that resembled fish and dolphins...
at the end echoes Mendoza's discovery of a recently-dead member of that species during her exile on Santa Catalina Island
Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...
, as recounted in The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come is the fifth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
. Since both events take place in times millions of years after the supposed extinction of ichthyosaurs, this may imply that time is somehow "out of joint" around Company bases. Company stories such as "The Catch"
Gods and Pawns
Gods and Pawns is a collection of stories written by Kage Baker and published by Tor Books. The stories are set in the universe of her series about The Company.-Background:...
, as well as The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come is the fifth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
, refer to "variable permeability of the time continuum" occurring when a particular time and place has repeated time journeys made to it.