All Beasts Together (The Commander)

by Farmer, Randall

  Sky: October 16, 1967

  In his long association with Anne-Marie, he had been amazed how successfully she killed three birds with one stone. The big rig itself represented one bird, its contents supposedly wine casks from France, going to Kentucky. Hidden in several of them were…well, Sky wasn’t sure, but they were metal and looked like weapons. Some other operation would pick them up in Kentucky. His job was to drop them off in Boston, one pass through customs and a simple 400 kilometer haul. That made him a smuggler. Not for the first time, either.

  He himself the Crow made the second bird, on a mission Anne-Marie had arm-twisted into undertaking. Anne-Marie said he should be able to figure out the next step by himself if he played truck driver for a while. Anne-Marie had somehow gotten hold of his real passport and a valid driver’s license, in his real name. Typical. Luckily, he had enough years as a Crow he didn’t panic around normals, and he could drive an eighteen wheeler. Truck driver was only one of the many odd jobs he had held over the years to keep money in his pockets. Rather illegal, but his existence was rather illegal. The government preferred to remain ignorant of the existence of Crows. Too much of a hassle.

  Bird three was his passenger, a Mr. Paul Langdoc. Riiight. A fiftyish gentleman who spoke like a poofy French academic yet dressed in a red checked long sleeve shirt and grubby khaki pants. He was no more a real backup truck driver than he was a Focus. Not an ordinary normal, this Paul Langdoc. To Sky’s metasense, Langdoc had spent far too much time around the wrong sorts of Transforms.

  “So, Paul, why are you going to visit the Foyer Rizzari?” Foyer meant Focus in French, one of Anne-Marie’s devious puns, as she had thought up the name herself. Technically, it meant ‘focus’, as in lens, as well as the entry-room of a house.

  “You know this?” Mr. Paul Langdoc said. He shrugged. “I’m acting as a courier, delivering some information from Europe.”

  Sky chuckled. Ahead of him, traffic slowed as they approached the border. “I understand, Mr. Langdoc, quite well. There are things we need to not let certain American Foyers learn, eh? The less they know, the better.”

  “True.”

  Sky wondered how much this Mr. Langdoc knew. What linked him and Anne-Marie. What name he called her. Sky’s disguise should be able to fool most anyone, but this Mr. Langdoc seemed rather more interested in him than was healthy. Sky suspected his partner in crime at least noticed Sky wore a disguise.

  This did warm Sky’s heart, because the disguise he wore was the way he had appeared before his transformation. Complete with his scraggly old beard. Sky also had the odd sensation he had run into Mr. Langdoc before but couldn’t remember when or where.

  “I too need to make discrete contact with Foyer Rizzari or her household, but I haven’t come up with a good method,” Sky said as he pulled the rumbling truck to a ponderous stop. Four trucks waited ahead of him in the customs line. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Mr. Langdoc thought, likely wondering how much to trust him. “May I ask who you’re representing?” Mr. Langdoc asked. He perched awkwardly on the vinyl bench seat of the truck, as out of place as a tropical parrot in a Toronto winter.

  “I cannot, alas, divulge that information. However, I am working through Mm. Foyer Madonna de Montreal.” Anne-Marie’s current public working name.

  “Did you try writing or phoning?” Mr. Langdoc said.

  Anne-Marie’s name was good enough, it seemed. “Not discrete enough. Nor can I approach Foyer Rizzari’s place of residence.”

  “The Foyer Rizzari teaches at Boston College and keeps an office as well, in Higgins Hall.”

  “I may need to use that approach, although I am deathly afraid even such an approach would not be sufficiently discrete,” Sky said. Another truck pulled in behind Sky with a scream of bad brakes. Sky inched his truck forward as the line moved. The stench of diesel exhaust and the chuff and rumble of the big rigs drifted in through the cracked window.

  Mr. Langdoc laughed. “I’ve got one for you, then, if you’re feeling chancy. Several members of the household, including Foyer Rizzari herself, recently became interested in a medievalist fad. The Boston area medievalists are holding their first tournament at the end of October, a celebration of All Souls Day or something equivalent and pagan. In any case, many in the Rizzari household, including the Foyer, have been planning to attend for months.”

  “Now that sounds interesting,” Sky said. “Thank you very much.” He continued to chat with Mr. Langdoc on the particulars of this medievalist tournament as their truck idled through American customs. As usual, Anne-Marie was correct in her assessment. This was exactly what he had been looking for.

  Gilgamesh: October 17, 1967

  Gilgamesh blinked. He thought he had seen about everything, but this was different. A Crow was driving a tractor-trailer rig, a full-sized eighteen-wheeler, into a trucking warehouse in south Boston. Not one of the Boston Crows, either. Someone new.

  Gilgamesh couldn’t resist.

  He trotted out of Columbia Park, where he had been hiding, observing, and hunting for signs of Tiamat. He had tried to work up enough nerve to visit Occum and his Beast Men earlier today, but failed, because of the Beast Men. Courage enough to chase down the new Crow might make him feel a little less like a complete wimp.

  Or so he hoped. He ran up Old Columbia to Dorchester, and trotted right on Broadway. The new Crow spotted him and gave him a friendly wave. This had to be an older Crow, though what an older Crow was doing not masking himself from twerps like him, Gilgamesh couldn’t fathom.

  The other Crow left his tractor trailer in the trucking warehouse and briskly walked south before turning southeast through a working-class Irish community into what turned out to be Independence Square Park. Gilgamesh slowed to a walk as the other Crow settled on a park bench. Gilgamesh approached within whispering distance, not at all minding the sea breeze blowing in. Storm coming tomorrow, an early season nor’easter. Perfect mid-October weather. Low clouds drifted in overhead, lit on their undersides by the lights of the port area nearby. He rounded the last building, a corner grocery, and spotted the Crow, a powerfully built short man.

  “Gilgamesh,” he said.

  “Sky.”

  Gulp. Sky was one of his correspondents, or had been, before Gilgamesh started out on his journey to find Tiamat.

  Sky the adventurous Crow. The Crow many other Crows thought Gilgamesh most resembled.

  “What brings you here, Gilgamesh? I thought you were still recovering with Shadow. Come on over. I have some dinner.” Sky spoke with a French accent, elegant and distinguished.

  Crows normally didn’t share food with strange Crows, but Sky’s breach of etiquette didn’t surprise Gilgamesh. Sky’s reputation preceded him, and more, he lived in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City, or at least he maintained post office boxes in each of those cities. Foreign. Disquieting.

  On the other hand, Gilgamesh decided he could use some real food.

  “Thanks.” Gilgamesh sat down on the other side of the bench. Sky passed over a bag of apples, bananas, raw yams, carrots, and some other root vegetable Gilgamesh couldn’t identify. “I’ve decided to try and hunt down Tiamat.”

  “The baby Arm? Whatever for? Arm dross?”

  “Yes. It helps me think.”

  Sky frowned. “Too much moving around, Gilgamesh. Find a decent Focus, rest, take her household dross, and you won’t lack.”

  “I seem to need more than a single Focus household can provide.”

  “Oh.” Sky looked Gilgamesh over, hmm-ing and haw-ing. “You’re one of those. Your metasense is overpowered. You need to learn to control it, force the cost down, or you’ll run dry of juice constantly.”

  Gilgamesh scratched his head.

  Sky laughed. “Sorry. When I was your age as a Transform I had similar issues. Of course, I was a pet of an Arm at the time. You need to watch out for that. We’re not Arm prey, but Arms are attracted to us like five year old boys are attracted to puppies. Th
ey can’t resist us, and the boy may not be what’s best for the puppy. I suppose the personality of the Arm makes all the difference. I’d hate to be Stacy Keaton’s pet. Painful. Hancock? Well, from what I’ve seen, she looks a bit, um, temperamental. She might benefit from having a Crow pet. She’s smart, too, and in a Major Transform, smart can be dangerous. Luckily, no one has ever called me a genius, eh?”

  “Uh?” Gilgamesh said. Sky was a strange bird, chattering away with a pronounced Canadian accent and not making a lot of sense. Pet of an Arm? “I’m not sure I ever want Tiamat to know I exist. She’s intimidating enough as it is.”

  “Hah! Help her hunt, warm her bed, help her work through her head problems. She won’t be as intimidating then,” Sky said. “The downside is until she gets older, your Tiamat isn’t going to be willing to give you up or let you go. Arms are possessive.”

  “You talk like this sort of arrangement can be done rationally?”

  “But of course, young Gilgamesh. We are Crows, are we not? Powerful, the most powerful of all the Major Transform variants. Sane, wise and confident.”

  Sky lived in a different world than Gilgamesh. “Panicked, poor and physically weak,” Gilgamesh answered.

  “Everything has its downside. Panic is good, Gilgamesh. It keeps you alive. Meditate, obviously, but override your panic only when you have a logical reason to. Never otherwise. Poor? That’s good as well. We’re not tied to possessions, our needs are easily satisfied, and the elements don’t bother us. We can move if and when we need. Physically weak? There’s a lesson you can learn from the Arms on that subject, my friend. Crows can train themselves to be as physically talented as any of the other Major Transforms. Not that we’re going to deck our opponents with our fisticuffs, but we do have our strengths.”

  He thought meditation was obvious? “Name one,” Gilgamesh said.

  Sky jumped. Before Gilgamesh could reorient his metasense, Sky was a half mile away. Then he returned, leaping down from a nearby oak tree, creating his trademark starry image artwork above the two of them. “How about that?”

  Gilgamesh found himself backing away from Sky. He took a deep breath, and forced himself to walk back to the bench. “That’s – ah – disconcerting. You think I should practice my running and leaping like an Arm practices combat?”

  “Yes, but only when you’re full up on dross. Never let your internal juice supply get too low.”

  Gilgamesh nodded. “I hate it when that happens. It makes me dim.” He closed his eyes and thought. “You know where Tiamat is, don’t you? All I know for certain is that she wandered through Boston a few weeks ago.”

  “You’re pretty sharp yourself, aren’t you, youngster. Yes, I suspect I do know where she is. You do too, if you have any of your Crow correspondence with you. Look for a major city where the Crows suddenly moved out. That’s where your Arm is.”

  Uh oh. Cold fear sweat covered Gilgamesh. Sky had indeed given him enough information. “Chicago.”

  Sky nodded. “Why do you fear Chicago so, Gilgamesh?”

  “That’s where Enkidu was born. My own personal nemesis. It’s the last place on Earth I want to live.”

  “I’d pick Pittsburgh, myself, as the last place I’d want to live,” Sky said.

  “I don’t even let myself think about Pittsburgh,” Gilgamesh said.

  “Well,” Sky said, walking over and clapping Gilgamesh on the shoulder. “It’s been nice meeting you, but I’ve got plans to make and things to do. I’m on a mission and I’ve got far too few days to prepare for a medievalist tournament. See yah in the funny papers.”

  Then Sky was gone, and gone from Gilgamesh’s metasense as well.

  Damn the old Crows. They did things like this to him every time he met one, Gilgamesh thought, as he shook. Mission? Crows didn’t have missions. Sky was either pulling his leg, or certifiably insane.

  Gilgamesh was envious, though. He couldn’t wait to get old.

  Part 2

  Inferno

  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,

  Who put darkness for light and light for darkness,

  Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes

  And clever in their own sight.

  Isaiah 5:20-21 (NIV)

  Chapter 4

  A Focus says ‘I move the juice, making everything better’. A Transform says ‘just move the goddamned juice!’

  “Inventing Our Future”

  Henry Zielinski: October 18, 1967

  “Well, look who’s here!” Tina Williams said. Tina, a tall woman with a muscular build, was reading out gas chromatograph specs from the manual while they put the chromatograph back together. Henry Zielinski banged his knee on the autopsy table as he extracted himself from where he and Jim huddled with their heads together in the bowels of the delicate machine. Tina, a woman in a man’s field – mechanical engineering – had been helping Hank with the earlier repairs, until Jim wanted a turn inside the machine. Both Tina and Jim were Transforms.

  The woman walking into the basement lab appeared to be a stunning nineteen year old. The average man would guess her to be an obviously well made-up movie star. Eyes followed her as she passed. Grown men stammered in her presence, and took off their coats to lay them in front of her so she wouldn’t step in a puddle.

  “Good afternoon, Professor Rizzari,” Zielinski said, smiling.

  “Lori, please,” Focus Rizzari said. They hadn’t seen each other in person for several months. She hadn’t changed as far as he could see, dressed in a halter top and shorts, the clothing she preferred at home. The nation’s only Focus Professor (microbiology, at Boston College) didn’t depend on her clothes for beauty. Or her make-up, which Zielinski had never seen her wear. She stood less than five feet tall in her stocking feet, a gymnast in both appearance and talent.

  Lori turned her heart-melting brown eyes at Zielinski and smiled. Like Zielinski, she had a narrow face, but the shape of her face and slightly olive skin tone were pure Mediterranean in ancestry. She was a talented top-end Focus, and this was her household, self-named Inferno. Or, considering the strange politics of Inferno, she was their Focus, as Connie Yerizarian, the household president and the person who welcomed in Zielinski, ran the day to day operation of the household.

  “You figure out what’s wrong with that dog?” Lori said, with an airy wave. Zielinski extended his grimy hand to greet the Focus, but she gave him a quick hug instead.

  “Take a look,” Zielinski said. Connie hadn’t known what to do with him after he showed up out of the blue, so she directed him toward Dr. Robert Masterson’s Inferno engineering works. After Zielinski requested an inventory of the household lab equipment, Tina mentioned the non-working HP gas chromatograph. Everyone thought the electronics were fried, but Zielinski wanted to check it out for himself. Tina had corralled another of the engineering crew to help, one Jim Simpson. Jim, booted from college after his transformation, was one of the many self-taught and locally tutored Transforms in Inferno. Tina, Jim and Zielinski had been working on the chromatograph for hours.

  “Cool,” Lori said, squatting and peering around the innards of the machine.

  “The doc managed to find three problems, all fixable. I think we can actually get this puppy working again,” Jim said. Everyone in Inferno wanted to call him ‘doc’ or ‘the doctor’, grating given he had lost his medical license. Connie had been firm about her feelings on the matter, and he thought he might possibly be able to get used to it. ‘We don’t recognize the right of the government to take away medical licenses on such specious grounds,’ she had said. Her words warmed his heart.

  “I’m still worried the bum thermostat may have gummed up the works more than we realize,” Zielinski said. “One of the problems was condensate in one of the fraction collection lead-in tubes, caused by the oven firing at too low a temperature.”

  Lori raised her eyebrows at him and Zielinski became conscious of h
is appearance. He still wore his trucker’s disguise, which didn’t fit in too badly with the grubby clothes of the engineering crew. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to repress a giggle.

  “I thought you were born in a suit,” she said, poking at his clothes. “So you’re someone who gets in and mucks with the lab equipment?”

  Zielinski nodded, and smiled. “I’ve always liked to get my hands dirty, whenever I can find the time.”

  Lori nodded, now more serious. “We need to talk,” she said, grabbed his elbow and led him off. He couldn’t resist, as her suggestion had been backed by Lori’s ample Focus charisma.

  “So, what are you doing here, Henry?” Lori asked. She had taken him all the way back to Inferno’s home, a mansion well beyond the means of most Focus households, where she led them to the Inferno library and chased everyone else away.

  “You invited me,” he said.

  She frowned. “That was before you vanished in Europe. Connie says you showed up today, out of nowhere. Out of a taxi.” She leaned toward him, sparking feelings both inappropriate and unwanted. Her powerful presence was nearly as intimidating as an Arm in a bad mood. “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

  “The taxi.” They sat in a pair of comfortable reading chairs in a corner by the fiction collection. He wasn’t particularly interested in detailing his journey, but the Focus wasn’t giving him any choice.

  Lori’s eyebrows came together. “Before that?” He winced at a sudden stabbing headache, brought on by Lori’s charismatic demand.

  The security-minded Focus wouldn’t let him off the hook. “I flew from Paris to Montreal, where a friend of mine arranged for me to enter the country using a false identity, as a back-up truck driver.”

  Lori wrinkled her nose. “The Madonna of Montreal.” She leaned back and released her charismatic hold on him. “You’ve been climbing in the world if you’ve gotten her attention.”

  “You know about her?”