The Machine's Child by Kage Baker Page B

thought of something to try.”
    “How tedious.” Edward swallowed.
    “It is. For the first few thousand years I used to just whittle away at them, until finally they were down to the skulls. That’s where the last defense action gets fought, you see?
Nothing gets into their skulls.
Can’t penetrate the things. Can’t crush them, either.”
    “Really?” Edward looked up.
    “Oh yes.” Marco grinned, leaning across the table companionably. He jostled his subject in doing so. It went into a fit of silent shrieking. He ignored it and had another sip of beer. “I’ll bet you haven’t been briefed on this, but because you’re some kind of little brother, I’ll let you in on a secret. It isn’t the design of an immortal’s skull that makes it impenetrable. It isn’t even the decapitation support package in there. It’s the fact that it incorporates its own time transcendence field.”
    “Fascinating.” Edward attempted to appear intrigued. He felt the focus of attention that meant that the Captain was listening and recording.
    “Swear to God. Inside their skulls, existence is always just a split-second out of phase with the rest of the universe. No matter when I go in to try and saw one of them open, they’re always in some other
when
just as soon as I do, and nothing happens. Well, to them. Saw blades explode, or turn to rust flakes in my hand. This is why you can lop off our heads, but you can’t kill us,” Marco said. His smile widened, became slightly malicious as he regarded Edward. “And you can bet our masters won’t install this stuff in
you,
little brother. It doesn’t matter to them if you die; they can always make more of you. But you’re probably too well indoctrinated to mind that, I guess.”
    “Naturally.” Edward smiled back. “What about fire?”
    “I’ll tell you about fire.” Marco drained his beer and flung the container out through the door. “I thought, what if I dumped one of their skulls in a raging volcano? I didn’t have one handy, of course, but I dug a pit out there and filled it with everything I could think of. Special-ordered liquid fuel, solid fuel, all the flammable junk in the world. Lit it and had to jump back: it roared up two stories tall, singed my beard right off to the roots, good and hot like Hell is supposed to be. Burned for two days down, consuming the rock underneath it. I was almost afraid this island was going to sink. But I’d created a nice white-hot inferno in its heart, so on the second day I loaded up my little friends into a wheelbarrow.
    “Come on, kids, I yelled, we’re going for a ride! Must have been ten skulls in there, ten old deathless ones holed up inside their ferroceramic caves. I took them out and tipped them into the holocaust. Boom! Something jerked at the fabric of space and time, I can tell you, and I thought I’d done it at last. I danced around that pit, I was so happy. Then I was thirsty, so I went for another beer, but you know what I saw when I looked in through the door?
    “There they were, all ten of them, lined up on a shelf like so many coconuts, staring at me with their sockets.
    “Man, I was pissed,” Marco said, standing and stretching. “And you know what the worst part of it was? Within two days they were growing tissue back. All the fire had done was scour away the bioretardant.”
    “How very frustrating for you,” said Edward. Marco shrugged.
    “It’s a job,” he said. “Not so bad, really. The work is fun and I can tinker with my little hobbies. What do you think of my generator? The wind vanes weren’t reliable, and I had all these immortal parts lying around, and I thought—”
    “Put them to some use, yes, really rather clever of you,” said Edward. “Well. As interesting as this is, I need to attend to business, I’m afraid.”
    Marco’s smile widened, showing his enormous long teeth, and his eyes took on a shine like broken glass.
    “That’s right, your business,” he said brightly.