All Beasts Together (The Commander) (35 page)

“No.  I succeeded with Hancock.  Then the system destroyed me,” Zielinski said.  “Not surprising, considering the power of the Arms.
”  He paused and closed his eyes for a moment, willing to confide in an area where he hadn’t been willing before.  “Back when the Focus Council told the Network ‘no more research into personal Focus capabilities, stop here’, after the Julius rebellion, I realized no matter what I did, I would eventually run afoul of the first Focuses.  It actually took longer than I originally feared.”

Lori scuffled damp snow
and pushed it in little mounds.

“I know your worries,” she said.  That she
would sell him out.  “Given what the other Focuses have done to you over the years, I didn’t expect you to believe I would never do such a thing.  Now, though…”

“Yes?” Zielinski asked, quiet.

“Your success here has bought you a lifetime membership in Inferno,” the Focus said.  For a second she raised her eyes to the heavens.  “I’m hoping you can finally relax around me.”

“I’ll try, Focus.”

Lori sighed.  “What you want is a way to help the Arms, especially Hancock.”

He suspected he was that easy to read right now.

“I can’t lie to you,” he said.  “If I could help, I would.”

“Give it some thought, then,” the Focus said.  “Not about leaving Inferno, but what Inferno and I c
an do to help the Arms.”

“Thank you
.”  He had earned himself a big favor.

Now all he had to do was think up
some way Inferno might be able to help the Arms.

Enkidu: January 23, 1968 – January 26, 1968

The shack in the forest was long gone.  In its place, Enkidu had built a crude stockade of logs, forty feet square. 
He and his Gals had leveled and tamped the dirt down inside.  All he needed for shelter was a lean-to in one corner and another lean-to in another corner for his Gals.  Beasts they were and beasts they would remain.

The setting sun cast long shadows into the stockade. 
Enkidu smiled and watched as Heidi and Sue fought.  Both screamed at the other, clawing, biting and snarling.  Once he had needed to keep all of his Gals but Cleo penned up.  Those days were also long gone.  These days his Gals were bound to him through Cleo.  He no longer had to fear them running, escaping.

Progress.

Heidi went after Sue’s neck and got a good grip with her teeth.  She shook Sue’s neck, trying to break it, but to no effect.  Both were Monsters, Heidi one of the big chimps, Sue a four legged scaly thing like a giant lizard.  Sue’s hind claws ripped at Heidi’s gut and laid it open.  With a yelp, Heidi fell back, Sue at her neck.

“Hold!” Cleo said.  Both stopped at the sound of Cleo’s voice.  “You win, Sue.”

Heidi whimpered, still on her back.  Sue hissed, threatening and superior.  Cleo looked over at Enkidu, and he nodded.  “Heidi, go to the Master for healing.”

Heidi crawled to Enkidu, leaking blood
into the dirt of the yard.  Without healing Heidi would die.  The Wandering Shade said older Monsters healed like Hunters but more slowly, at about twenty percent of Hunter speed at best, but none of his pack was that old.  It took almost two and a half years before a Monster showed any enhanced healing abilities.

Heidi stopped at Enkidu’s feet.  She whimpered, pleading.

“I’ll heal, if you agree to stop stealing the other Gals’ food, Heidi.”

Heidi nodded.  Heidi would never speak again, but the new Laws
let her understand spoken words without difficulty.  Her mind hadn’t become inhuman, just her vocal apparatus.  Nothing a Monster needed, anyway.

Enkidu knelt and mounted Heidi
, visualizing her as whole as he did so, the same trick he used when he healed himself.  By the time he and Heidi finished their yowling pleasure, he had patched her back together.  Not fully healed, but healed enough so she wouldn’t die, and would heal normally like any other Transform.

The Gals appreciated this method of healing much more than his other, where he bit out their wounds.

Either form of healing cost élan, but even with only six Gals he had more than enough élan to heal.  These days.

---

“So, what’s this about a visit?” Cleo said.  The iridescent scales around her eyes glistened in the moonlight.  She cuddled up against him in the cold of the night, under the shelter of his lean-to.  Neither of them cared about cold, but the companionship was comforting in the still darkness.  In the other lean-to, the Gals mostly slept, in their own companionable pile, while the night noises of rustling trees and small wildlife drifted in from outside.

Cleo might look like a lizard-woman, but inside, according to the Wandering Shade, she was still a
warm-blooded mammal.  She was only part Monster, stabilized so she could still speak.  Quite intelligent – but she had been that, even before the recent changes.  Now, she was flat-out brilliant.  She could read as well as Enkidu, for instance, better than she could as a normal woman.  Same as Enkidu.

“I saw it in the cold winter sunset, smelled it on the wind.  The Wandering Shade is coming
, and this time he’s bringing someone important with him.”

“Another
Chimera?  Like Torma?”  Cleo found Torma, the fallen Stalker, quite intriguing.  She liked the monstrous side of creatures.

“No.  Someone else.  Something else.”

“Who else is worthy?” Cleo said.  Growled.  She feared competition.

She
had always been his best Gal.  Now, she had become something more, something they had no name for.  Enkidu, experimenting during an élan draw and trying to prove his worth to his Master, had found a way to give Cleo the entire Law.  The Wandering Shade knew of Enkidu’s trick, but the Shade had never seen Cleo in her new form, with her new mind and capabilities.  These days she had power as well as smarts; like an apprentice Hunter she feared losing any newly gained status.

“I don’t know.  We’ll have to find out.  Are you going to behave?”

Cleo laughed, an oddly human sound to come from so monstrous a mouth.  “Me?  Why should I?  I like what you’ve helped me become.  I’d rather be dead than go back.”

“I like it, too.  But the Wandering Shade may not like it.”  The Wandering Shade never had anything good to say about women.  He hated the Arms and the Focuses, and most especially the way
some Focuses enslaved their Transform men.

Cleo growled.  “That’s not for him to say.  You’re my Master.”

“I’ll protect you as best I can,” Enkidu said.  “But the Wandering Shade’s my Master.  What he says, I do.”

“You can argue with him, the way I’m arguing with you.”

“True.”  That had been the biggest change, after he gave Cleo the entire Law.  Her slavish devotion to his every word had gone away.  Now they were more like husband and wife.  If she disagreed with a suggestion, he would hear about it.  She would obey, eventually, but he had to listen.  She had good suggestions, too.  Sometimes.

---

The Wandering Shade arrived three hours after dawn, wearing the uniform of a state trooper, the first time he had dressed so, as far as Enkidu remembered.  He always dressed as a lawman, though.  His companion was another man, a tall saturnine fellow, what Enkidu would have called black Irish in the old days, before he transformed.  They both entered Enkidu’s stockade as if they owned the world.

“Master,” Enkidu said
.  He bowed, sniffed, and growled.  The other man, dressed in hiking boots, jeans and a dingy blue winter coat, was a Crow.

Enkidu hated Crows.  What the hell was the Wandering Shade doing with a Crow?

“Your friend here doesn’t like me,” the newcomer said.

“Stand,” the Wandering Shade said, to Enkidu.  “Show proper respect for my friend.”

Enkidu stood.  Cleo, two paces behind him, stood as well.  The rest of the Gals retreated to their lean-to.  “If you insist, Master.  What respect do you deserve, Crow?”

The newcomer
turned to Wandering Shade.  They signaled to each other, with their bodies, in some manner foreign to Enkidu.  Disquieting and annoying.  Enkidu wondered again what form of Major Transform his Master was.  He refused to say, always.  Enkidu suspected there were other types of Major Transforms who remained hidden, the rare ones.  The True Masters.

The Wandering Shade certainly hid well.  Enkidu only saw him if the Wandering Shade permitted.

After the non-verbal confab the newcomer turned to Enkidu.  “I’m named Athabasca, Hunter.  I’m a Crow Guru.”

An older Crow, then.  Enkidu backed off in sudden fear.  Instincts.  Older Crows were dangerous to a Hunter, at least in the opinion of Enkidu’s instincts.  He hadn’t actually ever met one.

“I’ll cause you no harm, sir.  My claws…”  Enkidu said, about to finish ‘remain sheathed’.  Instead, Athabasca turned to Enkidu with a glazed half-distracted stare and Enkidu’s muscles turned to water.  Enkidu fell to the ground with a thump.

“Hunter, you’re putty in my hands,” Athabasca said.  “You will cause me no harm because to me, you’re
harmless
.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Crow
Guru, sir,” Enkidu said, horrified, able to talk only with difficulty, forcing the words out one at a time.  Athabasca smelled faintly of fear and Enkidu understood.  Athabasca was terrified of him.  He had to prove his control, violently, to quiet his Crow-ish fears.  Whatever the Wandering Shade was, he had no Crow-ish fears.

“Stand, then,” Athabasca said.

Enkidu stood.

“Master?” Enkidu said.  “Is this Crow your master?”

The Wandering Shade laughed and laughed, while Athabasca waited, puzzled.

“In your terms, Enkidu, I’m
his
Master.  In his terms, he’s chosen to follow me.  Neither of us are Beast Men and we work differently,” the Wandering Shade said.  “He isn’t bound by the Law, as are the both of us.  I’ve asked Athabasca to examine you and the unexpected things you’ve done, to give me an independent set of eyes and ears.  I’m also here to pass along some news.”

Enkidu nodded.  “I await, Master.”

Wandering Shade stood up straighter.  “When Torma fell, we discovered the Crow Gilgamesh with the Talking Arm.  In some obscene fashion they’re now working together.”

“I grieve then, Master,” Enkidu said
, guarded.  Gilgamesh was his; they shared responsibility for each other, and someday Enkidu would take Gilgamesh as a personal slave.

He couldn’t face his Master with that thought, so he studied Athabasca and thought about the Wandering Shade
’s comments.  His Master both trusted and distrusted this Athabasca, but tolerated him because he was a weak Crow.  Enkidu understood.  He understood a great deal more these days, because Wandering Shade had found a way to make Enkidu smarter.

Enkidu
now comprehended the mystery.  “You’re a judge, then, Guru Athabasca,” Enkidu said, and bowed to Athabasca.  It was important to know names, as it was important to know status.

To Enkidu’s surprise, Athabasca bowed back to him. 
He turned to the Wandering Shade.  “Dear friend, you were right about this one.  He’s an immense treasure and his image of reality is quite seductive and pure.”

“A Judge, eh?” the Wandering Shade said, giving Athabasca a comradely punch in the shoulder.  “Well, now that’s true.  All good officers of the Law need a Judge!”  The Wandering Shade laughed again.  “Yes, yes.  It fits.  Enkidu may not win me any fights against my enemies, but
sometimes I wonder which of us is truly making the other.  As you say, he’s a veritable treasure.”

“So, what am I to judge, then?” Athabasca said, a smile edging on his face.

“Enkidu and I have been experimenting with the structure of the Hunter pack,” the Wandering Shade said.  “My bright idea was that instead of trying to keep these Gals human, I would work on extending their usefulness, stabilizing them to last through many draws.  To enact that stabilization, they had to become Monsters.  However, one of the pack women, this Cleo here, didn’t like the idea.  She’s the best talker among Enkidu’s Gals, and she and Enkidu came up with a different way.”

“Master,” Cleo said, as she stepped forward and bowed to the Wandering Shade.

“Hmm.”  Athabasca nodded.  “This one…” He stopped talking and his eyes looked to infinity.  He held his inhuman pose for over two minutes before coming back to them.  “This one is something entirely new and different.”

“How so?” the Wandering Shade said.  “I see the nuances in her
glow, but I can’t make sense of them.”

“She has the same Law on her as a Hunter.  She carries Hunter juice and élan within her, but she isn’t a Hunter.  Like an old Monster she’s
become tough and strong.”

“What!” the Wandering Shade said.  Enkidu had never seen his Master surprised before.
“Impossible!  I don’t like this.”

“You should,” Athabasca said.  “She’s no danger to you or your Hunters, bonded to you with the Law.
”