Noble Mold
by Kage Baker
For a while I lived in this little town by the sea. Boy, it was a soft job. Santa Barbara had become civilized by then: no more Indian rebellions, no more pirates storming up the beach, nearly all the grizzly bears gone. Once in a while some bureaucrat from Mexico City would raise hell with us, but by and large the days of the old missions were declining into forlorn shades, waiting for the Yankees to come.
The Company was operating a Receiving-Storage-and-Shipping terminal out of what looked like an oaken chest in my cell. I had a mortal identity as an alert little padre with an administrative career ahead of him, so the Church kept me pretty busy pushing a quill. My Company duties, though, were minor: I logged in consignments from agents in the field and forwarded communiques.
It was sort of a forty-year vacation. There were fiestas and fandangos down in the pueblo. There were horse races along the shore of the lagoon. My social standing with the de la Guerra family was high, so I got invited out to supper a lot. And at night, when the bishop had gone to bed and our few pathetic Indians were tucked up for the night, it was relaxing to sneak a little glass of Communion wine out on the front steps of the church. There I’d sit, listening to the night sounds, looking down the long slope to the night sea. Sometimes I’d sit there until the sky pinked up in the east and the bells rang for Matins. We Old Ones don’t need much sleep.
One August night I was sitting like that, watching the moon drop down toward the Pacific, when I picked up another immortal somewhere out there in the night. It was following the shoreline, coming around the point at Goleta; got up on the Camino Real and followed it along, until it turned inland and came straight up the hill in my direction. Company business. I sighed and broadcast, Quo vadis?
Hola, came the reply. I scanned, but I knew who it was anyway. Hi, Mendoza, I signaled back, and leaned up on my elbows to await her arrival. Pretty soon I picked her up on visual, too, climbing up out of the mists flowing along the little stream; first the wide-brimmed hat, then the shoulders bent forward under the weight of the pack, the long walking skirt, the determined lope of the field operative without transportation.
Mendoza is a botanist, and has been out in the field too long. At this point she’d been tramping around Alta California for the better part of twelve decades. God only knew what the Company had found for her to do out in the back of beyond; I’d have known, if I’d been nosy enough to read the Company directives I relayed to her from time to time. I wasn’t her case officer anymore, though, so I didn’t.
She raised burning eyes to me and my heart sank. She was on a Mission, and not the kind I was lounging on the front steps of. I smiled cheerily. “How’s it going, kid?” I greeted her in a loud whisper when she was close enough.
“Okay.” She slung down her pack on the step beside me, picked up my wine and drank it, handed me back the empty glass and sat down.
“I thought you were back up in Monterey these days,” I ventured.
“No. The Ventana,” she replied. There was a silence while the sky got a little brighter. Far off, a rooster started to crow and then thought better of it.
“Well, well. To what do I owe the pleasure, et cetera?” I prompted. She gave me a sharp look.
“Company Directive 080444-C,” she said, as though it were really obvious.
I’d developed this terrible habit of storing incoming Green Directives in my tertiary consciousness without scanning them first. The soft life, I guess. I accessed hastily. ‘They’re sending you after grapes?” I cried a second later.
“Not just grapes.” She leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “Mission grapes. All the cultivars around here that will be replaced by the varieties the Yankees introduce. I’m to collect genetic material from every remaining vine within a twenty-five mile radius of this building.” She looked around disdainfully. “Not that I expect to find all that many. This place is a wreck. The Church has really let its agricultural program go to hell, hasn’t it?”
“Hard to get slave labor nowadays,” I shrugged. “Can’t keep ’em down on the farm without leg irons. We get a little help from the ones who really bought into the religion, but that’s about it.”
“And the Holy Office can’t touch them.” Mendoza shook her head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Hey, things change.” I stretched out and crossed my sandaled feet one over the other. “Anyway. The Mexicans hate my poor little bishop and are doing their level best to drive him crazy. In all the confusion with the missions being closed down, a lot of stuff has been looted. Plants get dug up and moved to people’s gardens in the dark of night. There are still a few Indian families back in some of the canyons, too, and a lot of them have tiny little farms. Probably a lot of specimens out there, but you’ll really have to hunt around for them.”
She nodded, all brisk. “I’ll need a processing credenza. Bed and board, too, and a cover identity. That’s your job. Can you arrange them by Oh-Six-Hundred Hours?”
“Gosh, this is just like old times,” I said without enthusiasm. She gave me that look again.
“I have work to do,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “It is very important work. I’m a good little machine and I love my work. Nothing is more important than My Work. You taught me that, remember?”
Which I had, so I just smiled my most sincere smile as I clapped her on the shoulder. “And a damned good machine you are, too. I know you’ll do a great job, Mendoza. And I feel that your efficiency will be increased if you don’t rush this job. Take the time to do it right, you know? Mix a little rest and rec into your schedule. After all, you really deserve a holiday, a hard-working operative like you. This is a great place for fun. You could come to one of our local cascaron balls. Dance the night away. You used to like to dance.”
Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. She stood up slowly, like a cobra rearing back.
“I haven’t owned a ballgown since 1703. I haven’t attended a mortal party since 1555. If you’ve chosen to forget that miserable Christmas, I can assure you I haven’t. You play with the damned monkeys, if you’re so fond of them.” She drew a deep breath. “I, myself, have better things to do.” She stalked away up the steps, but I called after her:
“You’re still sore about the Englishman, huh?”
She didn’t deign to respond but shoved her way between the church doors, presumably to get some sleep behind the altar screen where she wouldn’t be disturbed.
She was still sore about the Englishman.
I may have a more relaxed attitude toward my job than some people I could mention, but I’m still the best at it. By the time Mendoza wandered squinting into morning light I had her station set up, complete with hardware, in one of the mission’s guest cells. For the benefit of my fellow friars she was my cousin from Guadalajara, visiting me while she awaited the arrival of her husband from Mexico City. As befitted the daughter of an old Christian family the seiiora was of a sober and studious nature, and derived much innocent pleasure from painting flowers and other subjects of natural history from life.
She didn’t waste any time. Mendoza went straight out to what remained of the mission vineyard and set to work, clipping specimens, taking soil samples, doing all those things you’d have to be an obsessed specialist to enjoy. By the first evening she was hard at work at her credenza, processing it all.
When it came time to loot the private gardens of the Gente de Razón her social introductions went okay, too, once I got her into some decent visiting clothes. I did most of the talking to the Ortegas and Carrillos and the rest, and the fact that she was a little stiff and silent while taking grape brandy with them could easily be explained away by her white skin and blue veins. If you had any Spanish blood you were sort of expected to sneer about it in that place, in those days.