All Beasts Together (The Commander) (36 page)

“Master,” Enkidu said.  “Cleo follows me.  She’s mine.”  Cleo was his responsibility and he
would protect her, even against his Master.

The Wandering Shade looked around the stockade, at Enkidu’s Gals, well behaved and quiet.  He turned back to Enkidu and Cleo
and spat.  Paced.  “Tell me about your Gals and your recent experiments.”

“
As Monsters, my Gals can’t speak anymore, as you had surmised would happen.  Now, only Cleo can talk.”  He paused.  “However, they don’t deteriorate
at all
, and with every draw they produce more and more élan.”

“
But since they’re fully Monsters, don’t you need to replace them?” the Wandering Shade said, continuing to pace.

“No.  They follow Cleo and don’t fight me
anymore, the way the Gals used to when they went too far into Monsterhood.  Instead of a huge pack to give me more élan, I get more élan from each pack Gal.  Enough for plenty of healing after fights, enough so I can change my shape quickly, as you ordered.  It also helps my mind; I’m thinking very clearly these days.  So are the pack Gals, by the way.  They’re much smarter as Monsters than as half-human things.  They can’t speak, but they can think, hear and understand.”

“Do you think you c
an teach other Hunters how to make Gals into whatever Cleo is?”

“Yes, Master
,” Enkidu said, glowing in pride.  “I think I can.”

“Well, then,” the Wandering Shade said.  He paced some more.  “Athabasca, is this viable?  Or am I fooling myself?”

“It’s viable,” Athabasca said.  “Or, at least, no less viable than Hunters are.  More viable than your other Hunters and their packs, I should say.  You know my fears.”

Enkidu smell
ed those fears on Athabasca.  Athabasca wasn’t particularly happy with the idea of Hunter civilization, a typical fear-driven Crow.

Wandering Shade stopped pacing.  He looked over Enkidu’s pack, and let himself smile.  “Cleo,” the Wandering Shade said, uneasy and grudging.  “You need a name, a title.  Since Enkidu is a wolf at heart and shape, that makes you his pack alpha female wolf. 
Let’s honor Enkidu’s discovery by giving you the title of Pack Alpha.”

“Pack Alpha,” Cleo said, and smiled.  She waved at the Gals, and they howled with glee for her.  “Do you have any enemies my pack needs to bring down and rip the guts out of, my Masters?”

Wandering Shade turned to Enkidu.  “They fight?”

“
Oh yes, Master,” Enkidu said, exultant.  “With Cleo’s help, I’ve been training them all to fight.  Next time the goddamned Arms come by, my Gals aren’t going to be defenseless.”

“Good.  Oh, that’s very good, Enkidu.  They fight…yes, I see uses for that.  You’ve done well.  Not enough to win yourself back fully within my good graces, but well enough, for now.  Enkidu, we’ve got some other Hunters to visit…”

Gilgamesh: January 26, 1968 – January 30, 1968

The days went by in a whirlwind as he recovered from the Beast Man attack.  He found a new apartment less than two miles from Tiamat’s home, far inferior to his old apartment.  Apartment was actually a misnomer.  The place was no more than a single room in a decrepit flophouse, quaintly named an SRO – single room occupancy.

Gilgamesh wrote letters to Sky, Sinclair, Occum and the other Crows, and thought.  Waited.  He watched Tiamat
and stayed alert for another Beast Man attack.  He puzzled through Tiamat’s games with him, and planned and plotted his responses.  He knew what he was putting off and delayed as long as he could.  Then he wrote Shadow about what happened, and his plans, and took the plunge.

---

Gilgamesh located a phone booth six miles from his new apartment and waited, just inside his metasense range of Tiamat.  He had made sure to be full up on Arm dross beforehand.  Right now the Arm was home indulging the nastier side of her personality with one of her people.  Her cruelty both appalled and aroused in a twisted way.  Gilgamesh wished, not for the first time, he were safe enough to turn off his metasense so he wouldn’t have to sense such things.  A half hour later she finished.

I
n the early evening, light snow fell from the sky and blew in little eddies on the frozen roadways.  No one noticed the ordinary man waiting in the phone booth next to the Crown Liquor store, hidden by the darkness. Gilgamesh hunched over, dialed, and whispered anyway.

“Carol?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m the Crow.”

“Wow, you called!  Neat!”

Neat?  Wow? 
Ah, Tiamat put on a show.  If the show made Tiamat easier to deal with, Gilgamesh approved.

“I thank you for your kind presents.  You must have heard of the poverty of Crows.”

“It was easy to figure out.”  Truthfully, everything seemed easy for Tiamat to figure out.  Her intelligence embarrassed him.

“You’ve run into Enkidu,” Gilgamesh said.

“Huh?”  Noticeable pause.  “How did you know?  The painting?  Your metasense is that good?”

“Not exactly.  I see you, and what you hold, and at times, what you’re near, especially if you’re concentrating on it.  Your painting is quite distinct.”  Gilgamesh thought.  “Enkidu
came close to killing me on several occasions.  When he transformed, I found him and thought he was a Crow.  When he started sprouting fur, I ran.  He’s harassed me several times since.”

“Then we have a common enemy, because Enkidu nearly killed me,” Tiamat said.  She sounded happy to be able to confide in someone.  “I ran into him west of here, out in the Quad Cities.  He waited until I was down after taking a kill.  You know what I mean by that?”

“Yes.”

“Then he raped me and nearly killed me.  I got him good, though.”

“He and Odin aren’t the only Beast Men in the area.  I’ve spotted the glows of two more hunting south of Chicago.  Neither of them has come into the city.”

Tiamat paused.  “Beast Man is a Chimera, like Enkidu?  Glow is the metapresence?”

“Yes to both.”

“You followed me from Philadelphia, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You said you loved me.  What was that all about?”

“Stress makes Crows say the stupidest things.  We’re more than a little jumpy.”

“Hmm.  Stress, eh?  You can’t like the number of Chim… Beast Men in the Chicago area, can you?”

“No.  They make for far too much panic.”  He paused.  “It can’t be good for you, either.”

She growled, startling Gilgamesh.  “Chicago is
mine. 
I’ll fight any other damned predator who tries to take it from me.”  The tone of her voice made Gilgamesh shiver.  He couldn’t even respond.  Tiamat continued, oblivious, back to
cheerful Tiamat
.  “You ever think of moving in with an Arm?  I could use someone to stand guard for me.  Hello?”

Gilgamesh had dropped the phone and flattened himself against the back of the phone booth.  Mov
e in with an Arm?

“I prefer to sleep on the streets,” he said, when his panic eased enough to let him speak.  Not quite a lie, but definitely true when compared to moving in with an Arm.

“Sorry I scared you.  You can come back to the phone, now,” Tiamat said.

“Perhaps we’ll speak another day,” Gilgamesh said, and hung up the phone.  He found a dark alley close by and curled into a ball, trying to still his beating heart.  Move in with an Arm?

Chapter
9

One alternate name for Focuses is ‘juice magnet’.  Ignorance of that fact has cost many their lives, often inadvertently.

“Inventing Our Future”

Sky: January 27, 1967 – January 28, 1967

When Sky awoke Saturday morning, Lori
still lay curled beside him in his attic nest.  She gazed at him with cold brown eyes.

“Good morning,” he said.  Her hard icy stare robbed some of the wonder out of the situation.  Sky wanted to wiggle in glee and revel in the coziness.

“Same to you.”  Lori turned her head and laid it on his chest.  “I have the entire day blocked off for Major Transform politics.”

“Already?” Sky said.  He was surprised to
find Lori here this morning.  Duplicating the events of earlier Fridays, he had carried her upstairs and bundled in with her after she exhausted herself conducting orgy time.  Still, he hoped he would be able to spend some personal time today with her.  Didn’t she ever stop working?  Did she ever unbend?  “Who are you going to be talking to?” Sky asked, equanimity and professionalism in his voice.  He hoped.

She snorted. 
“You, silly,” she said.  “I got us tickets to the symphony tonight.  Are you interested in me carting you around Boston to see the sights?”

“Nothing would please me more, my gracious lady.”  Careful, Sky.  “Might I ask why you are honoring me so?”

“You have touched my heart, Sky.”

Ah.

And ‘uh oh’.

Sky mentioned the nearby arboretum, which they toured.  They grabbed an early lunch, likely to be the first of two.  They entered the small café as it opened, and claimed a table by the window.  Sky picked at a fruit cup and watched Lori with care as she ate a chef salad.  They were alone in the café except for the staff, and neither of them paid attention to the gorgeous view of the arboretum outside their window.

“I have a confession to make,” Lori said, tense.

“A confession?”

“When you crashed my microbiology class, I was more than just a little annoyed at you.  I, um, rolled you with my charisma.”

Sky nodded. “I noticed.  Your bodyguards should have never been able to get so close to me without my noticing them.”

“That was just business.”
Lori smiled, and then the smile disappeared.  “I also, um, did something else.  I did the same thing to you as you did to Sadie, as a sort of payback.”  She looked abashed, but Sky didn’t believe her.  “I hope you aren’t too annoyed.  I didn’t reinforce it or anything, but…”

“But what, gracious lady?” Sky said,
carefully mild.

“You still seem to be affected.  I can’t seem to, well, um, turn it off.”

Sky laughed, his first good belly laugh since he started this mission.  Lori’s face blanked, expressionless. “Sorry, my most gracious lady.  You framed a guilty man.  Shipped coal to Newcastle.  Sold a freezer to an Eskimo.”  Sky smiled.  “You won my heart at the tourney.  Even before you shot at me and sealed the deal.”

Lori’s iron control melted a bit, enough
to make her relief apparent.  “What are we going to do with each other, Sky?”  Lori frowned at the expression creeping over Sky’s face.  “I didn’t mean
that
, either.”

“What, my gracious lady, you don’t want to undertake a personal amorous experiment in individual multi-Major Transform relations?”

“I… I…”  Lori paused.  Sky’s tone, diction and word choice perfectly matched Lori’s professional voice, which often crept into her day-to-day conversations when she didn’t pay attention.  “What happens on Friday nights in my household is all fine, but even among my people, not all of them participate.  People choose.  I chose my career.”

“Yes, I see,” Sky said.  “Yet, you are here, talking about it to me.  I wouldn’t expect this intimacy from you if your career remained so
consumingly important.”

Lori sighed.  “My inexperience shows.  How about a bit of post-human morality bluntness, then: I can’t
imagine hopping into bed with you for a one afternoon romp.”

From one extreme to the other, eh?  Sky studied Lori.  If she
provided hints to the turmoil inside her, he couldn’t fathom them.  He sensed the turmoil and no more.  Her turmoil didn’t surprise him.  One of the first things he had realized about Lori was her physical and emotional virginity.  In the matters of the heart, she was still fourteen.

“You wish a marriage?  Marriages and Transforms don
’t go together well.”

“They happen, they fall apart,” Lori said.  “Formal marriage isn’t what I’m talking about.”  She
reached across the table to grab his hands.  Her small hands were strong and warm.  “I want to be a mother.  I want a lover who will be the father of my children.  I’m scared out of my mind, Sky, because I hear the juice whispering to me, telling me to do this.  I don’t trust myself to follow the juice.  I had to nerve myself up just to talk to you about this, like I’m some sort of baby Crow.”

“Step back, then,” Sky said.

Lori pulled her delicate hands from his and for a moment looked crushed.  The next moment, the ice queen mask returned.

“
That isn’t what I meant,” Sky said.  Yes, his heart’s desire was indeed inexperienced at matters of the heart.  “I’m not refusing.  I’m saying you won’t disturb me if you don’t rush things.”

Lori nodded
and turned to stare out the window, her hands clenched on her actually shivering knees. “This is going to be rough on both of us, Sky, and it’s all going to be my fault.  It’s going to be rough on my household.  If I had any sense, I would chase you back to Toronto.  I’m imperiling the household and the Cause with my selfish desires.”