The first is on the subject of evil. We know the Beast Men and the Arms are evil, from direct observation. I didn’t think of the younger Focuses as evil, but while watching the local Focus households, I noticed a sizeable fraction of them treat their household Transforms badly, often by punishing them through withholding juice. Even the best Focuses are cruel on occasion, and the bad ones are horrifying. The only conclusion I can come to is the Focuses are also evil.
So where does that leave Crows? I always thought us Crows were good people, good to each other and good to normals, or at least not harmful. However, with three of the other forms of Major Transform evil, how did the Crows find a way to remain good and uncorrupted? Are things going on that I don’t know about? Or is my logic flawed? Any help you could give me on this subject would be appreciated.
That’s not the only puzzle I’ve seen. Why don’t Crows care about subjects that matter? Back in Philadelphia, the five of us spent hours discussing Transform Sickness, its origins, why we are what we are, our problems with memories, all the basic mysteries of our existence. Since then, I haven’t found a single other Crow who is interested in those subjects. They all want to discuss music, modern and classical art, architecture, literature, religion, philosophy, politics, science and, of course and at length, sports. The more esoteric and irrelevant the subject, the better. One Crow even wrote back to me ‘boring, boring, boring’ when I tried to bring this up in my letters. Polaris told me to go look up nursery rhymes and fairy tales for the answers to my questions. Why the disinterest?
Another puzzle is the Crow Sky. He seems to me to be a Crow who does significant and dangerous things, and I admire him for his efforts, but it seems I’m the only one. Among the rest of the Crows he’s an object of ridicule.
None of this makes sense to me. Please, Shadow, can you help? If you can help me understand any of these puzzles, I’ll be profoundly grateful.
Sincerely,
Gilgamesh
Dear Gilgamesh,
I received your letter with your questions and I’d like to give you some important advice. Some questions are not good to discuss in letters. I’d like to recommend you avoid a number of subjects in your missives, especially such things as how many Crows there are and who was the first Crow. Also, anything about Crows in other nations, names of Crows who look into their own abilities, what Crows can do with their Transform capabilities, and how Crows in general earn money.
I understand your questions and I appreciate your concerns, but some subjects are best not brought up. Stick to existential philosophy, semiotics, quantum physics, professional baseball and modern art, please.
Sincerely,
Shadow
Gilgamesh let the letter fall from his hands and sank down on his bed. The implications of Shadow’s letter were terrifying, and every moment he thought about them, he caught more implications and they were worse. Don’t ask questions? The shivering started, and he curled around himself in a ball. What was so bad about his questions? The answers, obviously, as were the answers to every question Shadow listed.
Oh, no, Crows weren’t the good guys. Not at all.
Enkidu: November 30, 1967
Dearest Enkidu,
My friend, I have bad news to report: Hunter Odin failed in his attempt to negotiate with the Talking Arm. The two of us were right in thinking the Arm isn’t interested in reason.
In other news, The Skinner (a common name for the mute Arm) has taken her reign of terror nationwide. The secretive Arm hit assets of mine in the Great Plains and mountainous Northwest, and killed one of my civilized Beast Men. As of yet no one knows where she lairs, and she is now difficult to sense, essentially invisible to the senses when not moving. Beware!
I trained up a new civilized Beast Man, in an attempt to deal with our mutual problem. This new Beast is more of a fighter than a hunter, and he will soon be ready for an attempt on the Talking Arm. If you meet him, be kind and helpful.
Enkidu, your job is to continue what we talked about before – building up the size of your pack to the point where you have so much extra juice you can quickly change your shape. We need to learn the limits of this, as well as what forms you can take to enhance your capabilities. Recruit only to the south and east of where you are.
Be well.
Master Wandering Shade
Henry Zielinski: December 3, 1967
“Hell, Doc, I’m not sure how anyone is going to believe the old disease theory of Transform Sickness once your Transform training methods hit the public,” Jim said. Hank took a sip of Bob’s Barn’s excuse for coffee, which they claimed was much better when aged several days. By comparison, this stuff was fresh, made only yesterday. He repressed a grimace.
He wanted to shout “What Transform training methods?”, but didn’t. They believed in him, despite his lack of results. He had observed the training techniques already used in Inferno and tested the Inferno Transforms for six weeks. He had collated his results and run the statistics, amazed at what he found: if he could crack the secret, his results implied he would be able to create a training regimen able to compress five years of off and on training into a week or two. He had seen hints he might be able to take the training enhancements even farther.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know much about training anyone except the naturally fast-learning Arms. From what he had learned so far, Transforms trained the same way as normals, taking years of intense training to develop bodyguards as capable as what Inferno already had. Theories and statistics fell short of useful, though. He needed hard results. The Focus’s occasional hot glares had become quite worrisome.
His other problems also nagged for attention. The rigid structure of Inferno grated on him; he wasn’t used to being so constrained in his actions, and he didn’t at all appreciate the households’ no-alcohol stance. Also, despite his extensive experience, he had somehow become disconnected from Lori, Ann, Tim and Connie. He couldn’t even guess what was going on, politically or otherwise, in the Transform community, except for the fact that something important was distracting the Focus from her normal interest in his research.
He found the isolation strange. They had been open to his advice and speculations when he had been an independent outsider, but no longer.
At least he lived in an interesting household subgroup, the engineering crew. Their boss, Dr. Robert Masterson, was talented enough to be teaching in a university somewhere. Dr. Bob (his nickname) had volunteered to live in the household for the cause. His crew had taken over the ground floor of the barn a year and a half ago, and Bob’s Barn was one of the more amazing engineering workshops Zielinski had ever encountered. Dr. Bob and Tina Williams churned out an average of one patent a month in the field of engineering lab equipment, which they sold to engineering firms and government labs on a regular basis. Most of the proceeds went to the household, and they used the remainder to purchase more equipment.
“You think it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?” Hank said. He had wondered the same ever since Keaton started showing the world her true mature Arm capabilities. He put his camera down, pleased with the pictures he had taken, and grabbed a cream filled chocolate glazed milk-free doughnut, an Inferno house special. Hank had no idea how they managed stable non-dairy cream that didn’t taste like chalk. He wasn’t about to ask. The answer might induce a transformation.
Hank sat in a corner of Bob’s barn, away from the ruckus surrounding an experimental cloud chamber’s leaky cryogenics. With him were Jim Simpson, Forrest Darcy, and the normal kid, Einstein, who in the last month had attached himself to Hank whenever the kid had any free time. Einstein was one smart thirteen year old and a non-Transform who had grown old enough and smart enough to realize how bad things would get in another ten to fifteen years. He wanted reassurance, in the form of attention from any sympathetic adult. They sat in old vinyl chairs around a stained formica table, except for Einstein, who claimed the broken recliner. It sat neglected by the coffee pot, stuffing and the oc
casional spring protruding through the faded fabric, with the footrest permanently half-extended. Einstein lounged cross-wise, with his gangly legs hanging over one arm.
“Yeah,” Jim said. “People can ignore the Major Transform capabilities because there are so few Major Transforms. There’s thousands of Transforms. If a bunch of us start turning into Supermen, Doc, people won’t be able to ignore us.”
“Never underestimate the resilience of a false idea once learned,” Hank said. The American public was quite capable of holding on to utterly nonsensical beliefs for quite a long time after the scientific community had debunked or discarded them.
“So, Doc, do you think you doctors will ever give up the disease theory?” Einstein said. “I’ve read the Focus’s dissertation and her other papers on Transform biochemistry. They pretty much show the medical explanation of the Transform Sickness is false.”
“How so?” Forrest asked.
“Uh,” Einstein said, turning red. “It’s obvious? Sorry. I can barely follow the biochemistry when I’m reading it.”
They all turned to Hank. He smiled. “These days, I don’t put much credence in any of the theories.”
“So how does the Focus’s research invalidate the disease theory?” Jim asked Zielinski.
“Well, for Transforms, she says juice isn’t the important substance, but, instead, the trace chemicals in the juice,” he said. “There are, apparently, hundreds of them, at a minimum, and she identified quite a few of them as likely pheromones.”
The Focus. Even he was thinking of Lori as ‘the Focus’ these days. Embarrassing but necessary; Inferno was an abnormal Transform household, one where the household members ran themselves and their lives. The Focus controlled her household indirectly, as she had the responsibility for recruiting people to join the household and letting them loose when they burned out.
“Uh, so?” Jim said.
“A disease might cause a body to produce one new important chemical to interact with someone’s biochemistry and mind,” Zielinski said. “Perhaps even a small number of important chemicals. Transform Sickness produces hundreds of important chemicals, many of which are new pheromones, far beyond the capabilities of a disease.”
“What’s a pheromone, exactly? Why can’t a disease produce many pheromones?” Forrest said. He winced as something metal crashed to the floor behind him, then rolled in circles and fell over, with a distinctive wah-wah-wah-koing sound.
“A pheromone is a chemical secreted by an animal for signaling purposes, such as attracting the opposite sex or marking the edges of territories. Although they haven’t been identified, researchers believe normal humans produce several varieties of pheromones. Transforms use and produce over a dozen, all easy to find.” And at times smell. “All pheromones need receptors to work. One, perhaps, might be possible for a disease to take over – but not many.”
“How in the hell did Transforms end up with so many pheromones, then? That sounds insane,” Einstein said. He fidgeted with a super-ball, doing a three cornered bounce off an upended wooden pallet.
“I reacted the same way, initially,” Hank said. “However, I’ve looked over the Focus’s research and I don’t see any holes. The only way so many pheromones could develop is through time and evolution, which leads to your mother’s and the Focus’s myth theory.” Ann Chiron, the co-author of the myth theory with Lori, was Einstein’s mother. They believed, without hard evidence, that Transform Sickness had appeared before.
The other three didn’t say a thing, prompting Hank to continue with his lecture. “The reason Transform Sickness is so dangerous is because these extra pheromones have somehow – and we don’t know how, yet – become tied into basic Transform metabolism, not just signaling. We do know all Transforms withstand stress better, and withstanding stress better is very beneficial in bad times.” He suspected stress involvement in triggering the increased training speeds, but so far he had struck out with his uses of stress. “What seems to be a deadly disease in a non-stressful situation becomes a beneficial disease in a highly stressful situation, such as a nasty multi-generation drought. When the stress is over, the survivors, the better Transforms, including Major, go on to repopulate the area. Non-Transforms only come back in numbers after the area has been repopulated, and force out the Transforms.”
“Is this testable?” Jim said. “Scientifically?”
Einstein looked smug. He had probably heard his mother and the Focus talking about this particular little problem for months.
“Yes,” Hank said. “It’s already been tested, for one prediction. In Ann and Lori’s theory, Monsters are the evolutionary precursors of the female Major Transforms. They predicted the development of a metacampus in some Monsters.”
“Oh,” Jim said. “That’s why we spent a bunch of time this year hunting down old Monsters.” As one of the household bodyguards, he must have been involved in the hunts. He looked at Einstein. “From the shit-eating grin on your face, they must have found them.”
“Four so far,” Einstein said. Whack – whack – catch went the super ball.
Hank nodded. “Each metacampus precursor has been in an old Monster with a high juice count. All are slightly different from each other and from the metacampus of a Major Transform, but the implications are obvious. The metacampus is an inevitable development of high juice levels in any Transform; the metacampus is an evolutionary adaptation originally evolved to manage high juice levels and do nothing else. The evolution of Major Transforms and their capabilities came later.”
“How does this tie in with the Major Transform infinite fountain of youth?” Jim asked.
Hank’s face fell.
“Uh oh,” Jim said. “Doc, what is it?”
“Major Transform immortality is a myth,” Hank said. “Just because they appear young doesn’t mean they’ll stay young. In nature, the higher the metabolic rate of a creature at any particular mass, the shorter their lifespan. I expect someday soon researchers are going to discover reduced average lifespans in the Major Transforms, somewhat reduced for Focuses and Crows, and significantly reduced for Arms and Chimeras. Not, by the way, counting mortality associated with the initial transformation.”
“Do they know?” Jim asked. In specific, ‘does the Focus know?’
“I haven’t ever spoken to the Focus on the subject, but it’s in the standard literature.”
Jim stared at the floor, his face glum, trying not to think about the inevitable tragedy of Focuses dying of cancer. Forrest and Einstein mirrored Jim’s dour face.
“Then again, who knows,” Hank said. “Maybe the research community is wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Hell, the Van Reijn theory has a hole big enough for even casual commentators to notice: the fertility issue.”
“Why does that cause problems for the Van Reijn theory?” Forrest said.
“The Van Reijn theory involves multigenerational Transform evolution. This requires female Transforms to be fertile. They aren’t.”
After that, they sat around looking glum, until Forrest brought up the upcoming football playoffs, and they were on to another topic.
Hank’s biggest fear about his training speed theories was that implementing them would require multiple Major Transforms. If so, he wouldn’t be able to crack it here, and given his shaky status in Inferno he might not live long enough to get another chance.
Sky: December 14, 1967 – December 17, 1967
Sky adjusted his brassiere and looked at himself in the mirror of his tiny ‘borrowed’ apartment. Perfect. This time everything would be perfect, with none of the hurried mess of the tournament.
Hennie had cornered him after he escaped the bad dream sent by a certain you-know-who in Montreal. At two o’clock in the morning, she told him in no uncertain terms to get back to the States and try again. Hennie was his current Focus partner in Toronto, and although some might consider Henrietta Russell a ditz, the long-suffering Focus hid enough buried steel within her to get on his case for
even thinking about quitting. Or, in this particular instance, sit on his chest and glare hotly. “You’re not hurt, panicked or even flustered. You’re just embarrassed. Get over it, Sky. People are suffering in that horrible mutie mill Focus Abernathy is running and we need it shut down.” Hennie and the Ontario local of the ISF were distraught because someone had grabbed two of their friends and incarcerated them in Focus Abernathy’s household.
He needed to talk to Focus Rizzari alone this time, without her household around. While back in Toronto he had received several letters from them, none positive. Sadie’s letter contained over fifty percent expletives, Ann’s letter was a tear-stained missive stating it was no longer appropriate for her to correspond with him, and Tim’s letter chewed him up one side and down the other for not meeting Tim’s high standards of behavior. Sky had sent an apologetic letter to Lori, expecting no reply. Instead, the letter had been returned, the pages of the letter shredded with loving care into thin strips.
Well prepared, with a good quality fake student ID, all dolled up as a woman, with all of his illusionary dross constructs in place, Sky decided he was ready to attend classes at Boston College. In particular, one class, taught by Professor Lorraine Rizzari: Introduction to Microbiology.
He entered Boston College with ease. He attended class like any other student, attracting no notice. He found an inconspicuous seat in the back of the auditorium style classroom. Lori’s bodyguards were nowhere in sight, quite unobtrusive. They weren’t likely to notice a student, him, going up to the professor after class and handing the professor a piece of paper. Class was, well, dull. Organelles, membranes, chromatin, chromosomes, yawn. He couldn’t tell if Lori noticed him or not. He wondered how much she kept track of her students at all.
After class, two of her students came up to her to ask questions about her lecture. When they finished he stepped forward. “Professor,” he said, in his woman’s voice. He handed Lori his prepared note, which covered only his assigned mission, professionally and utterly impersonally, signed by himself and every Focus in the Ontario ISF Local. In return, she handed him a note, on a piece of paper he had noticed her writing on during her lecture.
All Beasts Together (The Commander) Page 14