Del shrugged. Her orders were to stand as a screening guard, but with the camp now on the move, they wouldn’t need her for that. She jogged over to the Harley and motioned for Arête to get on.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to try and talk to Emperor Caveworm again,” she said. The Law was insidious – it was difficult for her to think of the Emperor as Sinclair any more.
The Emperor rode in the back of one of their newly acquired big rigs. “You stay with the Harley,” she said, as she slowed and got off. Arête didn’t like to drive the motorcycle, but if forced to by circumstances, he would.
To think the ambience of the Hunter caravan had bothered her once. No longer. Now the caravan felt like home. She even came to enjoy the screwy élan illusions, in a strange way, especially after Hunter Tarn introduced her to each of them, verifying that they were the ghosts of fallen Hunters. Each Hunter group attracted ghosts these days, and according to Hunter Tarn, some locations where the Hunters staked a powerful presence acquired them as well. Hunter Tarn thought they were real – real ghosts, real spirits of the dead – but Del proved they weren’t. They were actually conjured from the memories of living Hunters, aspects of the Hunters’ subconscious minds, brought to life through the actions of the Officer Hunters and their Shamans and motivated via élan. The Hunter ghosts resonated with Del’s own new capabilities, and she was experimenting in her off-minutes with trying to bring up a ghost of the only fallen Arm she knew, Arm Rayburn. So far, she had managed to summon up a shade while she concentrated, but as soon as she concentrated on something else, the ghostly Arm vanished. She suspected this was one of those limitations of the Arm metacampus.
Del ran over to the Emperor’s big rig and climbed on board just as it started moving. It was a comfortable place, if shabby, piled with blankets, pillows, and layers of carpets. Del managed to talk her way by the guard, and walked up to where the Emperor curled on his hassock, then stood and waited while he took care of some logistical issue involving gasoline procurement.
“You have something to report, Huntress?” Caveworm said, after five minutes or so. He was as pleased to see her as, well, anyone else was when she came up with a bright idea.
“A question,” she said. “I’d like to know what in the hell is going on.”
Her rudeness attracted everyone’s attention, especially that of Pack Mistress Elspeth and her two Monster bodyguards. The Law forbade such discourtesy.
“I see,” Emperor Caveworm said. “Sit down and talk to me, Huntress. I’m willing to trade information.”
Interpersonal interaction was part of the Law, including the bit about trading information. The fact that the Law worked at all to maintain Hunter civilization appalled her, given how many of its members’ responses were scripts in their heads. There was more leeway with regard to dealings with non-Hunters, which put in a built-in bias toward expansion. Still, it seemed like a miracle to Del that the Hunters survived this long.
She wondered if her former side, the Cause and the rest of them, was as pathetic as they seemed. Or, was there something about the Hunters that made them so effective despite their mental limitations? She suspected she missed something.
“So,” the Emperor said. “How little Law do you have to follow, anyway?”
“I’m not sure, Emperor,” Del said as she settled herself into the cushions. They vibrated with the comfortable hum of a truck on the move. “It’s all a matter of how much pain one is willing to endure.”
“Talk to me, Huntress.”
“The Law makes me think in a particular way and do particular things. Then again, so does the juice. However, I’m an Arm.” Del reached out and grabbed Pack Mistress Elspeth’s arm, brought the Pack Mistress’s hand to her lips and kissed it. Then let the hand go. “An Arm must master her juice hunger early in her career, else it will destroy her by leading her to do stupid things. Such as trying to juice-suck Focuses and tagged Transforms. What I did here – physical contact with a Focus I don’t have tagged – took, in my estimation, about an order of magnitude more willpower than it did to ask you what in the hell is going on, sir. Letting go of the Focus’s arm was more painful. I’m not willing to ignore the Law for fun, Emperor Caveworm – notice, sir, the use of proper honorifics and obeisance at the moment – but I can ignore it when I need to.”
“So, Huntress, why haven’t you fled?” the Emperor said, watching her carefully with his eyeless face.
“Because I still consider it my mission to guard you, to keep you alive, sir. Even though it appears the other members of the Hunter civilization have more to fear from you than you need to fear them. I believe your life is still in danger, sir, at least from Hecate.” Hecate had threatened to challenge Emperor Caveworm in some sort of duel, and given that Hecate sculpted the Emperor to start with, Del figured the Emperor wouldn’t survive the challenge.
Not that Del could stop Huntress Hecate by herself, but between the four of them, including Hunter Tarn and Pack Mistress Elspeth, she figured the odds were a hell of a lot better.
Emperor Caveworm studied her intently for several minutes, his snake-like head bobbing back and forth. “It this just you, Huntress, or could any Huntress resist the Law?”
“I am a rather willful Arm, sir. On the other hand, I have no doubt a senior Arm such as Hecate could do this as well as I can. If not better. Huntress Ingrid, with Enkidu, likely cannot.”
“That puts a new light on Hecate’s ‘failures’, now doesn’t it, Huntress?”
Del nodded. This had been the first thing that occurred to her.
“Why don’t the Hunters have the same capability?” Pack Mistress Elspeth asked. Her glossy blonde hair still appeared magnificent, despite their traveling. Del wondered how the Pack Mistress managed it, and had a strong urge to crawl into bed with the beautiful Focus. Heh. She wondered what the Law would make of that.
Del missed Modesty. She doubted she would ever see her again. This was, unfortunately, the suicide run to end all suicide runs.
“I can think of two reasons, Pack Mistress,” Del said. “The first is that the subconscious of the male Major Transforms is significantly more malleable than that of ours. The second is that most Hunters who fought the Law as I am would destroy themselves, because the Law supports their ability to maintain their intellect.”
“That explains my limited ability to balk the Law,” the Hunter Tarn said. “My intellect is maintained in other ways. Emperor Caveworm thought my ability to balk the Law came from Armenigar’s tag.”
“I’m sure the tag helps, Hunter Tarn,” Del said. “Pack Mistress, I believe you could similarly fight the Law, if you were able to withstand the pain.”
“You don’t think the pain would destroy me? I thought that was part of the Law.”
“The Law informs you that the pain leads to your destruction, because the Law is meant for Hunters, and destruction is what it means for most Hunters. For you? It just means pain.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Hecate could destroy the Hunters at any time, then,” Newton said. “What’s she up to?”
“Perhaps the same thing as we’re up to,” Emperor Caveworm said.
“Which is what, sir?” Del said. She had been trying for that bit of information since she got here, without success. She needed to know whose side the Emperor was on, and what he was doing.
Emperor Caveworm wagged his head back and forth. “Accept my tag, and I’ll tell you,” he said.
“Mutual or nothing, sir,” Del responded. Her head suddenly throbbed so hard that her vision went black. This bit of defiance, it seemed, was a significant violation of the Law.
The Emperor didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he nodded. “So be it, Huntress.” He worried about his status among the Hunters, Del suspected, but Hunters didn’t really understand tags, and could barely metasense them.
Del knelt into the Emperor’s arms, and shivered as she took his tag. She experienced a mome
nt of panic as she thought about how far into the Emperor’s world she had fallen, but it was too late for regrets now.
Then the Emperor kept his word and took hers. Her tag didn’t give her dominance on him. The Law and the Barony recognition bond meant that he still held authority over her. Del suspected the only time she would be able to give him an order and make it stick was if his life was in immediate danger, the authority of the bodyguard.
The exchange of tags took only moments, such a short time for so momentous an act. Emperor Caveworm’s tag felt strange to her. Not what she expected a Crow tag to feel like. Sort of pulling her sideways. As if she and Caveworm now stood back to back, the two of them against the world. Deeper and deeper she sank…
“Ah! I can use your eyes, Huntress,” the Emperor said. “I hadn’t expected that. Look around for me.” Del turned, still in his arms, and let her eyes rest on the features of the truck. He smiled as he used her eyes, one of the first smiles she had seen from him. “Man, am I ugly,” he said, with a laugh. After a long lingering look at Focus Elspeth, he said “What I’m doing is taking over the Hunters and slowly remaking the Law. I can’t do too much too quickly, because if I remake the Law too quickly, the other Hunters will be able to attack me. Once I grab all the Hunters, and it’s my Law, well, I have plans, big plans…”
The Law had this nifty clause that disallowed joint attacks on other members of the Hunter civilization. You could challenge each other to fight; you could fight peers and force a challenge; you could enforce discipline; but you couldn’t get a bunch of others at your back and go after another member of the Hunter civilization. All because they shared the same Law, or at least shared a similar Law.
“So, sir, what was with Enkidu’s envoy?”
“Orders. I still need to obey the General’s orders, at least for now. At least as well as any of my little coterie here has to obey orders,” Emperor Caveworm said. “We’re going to be paying a visit to some members of the Cause.”
Shit. Direct orders were the most difficult part of the Law for Del to fight, and tagged to Emperor Caveworm, she had a bad feeling it was now even harder. Not good. Not good at all.
Mizar (3/26/73)
“Where are we?” Van said.
“In your mind and my mind,” Mizar said. “The Dreaming, if you like.”
Van stood and looked around. In Mizar’s mind, his home in the Mackenzie Mountains was sunlit, graced by the glorious but short northern summer. Wildflowers of pink, white and pale blue covered the meadows, the trees were verdant and the sky achingly blue. Snowshoe rabbits frolicked in the sun, and in the far distance, under a copse of trees, a wolf rested. Its belly was full.
“I’m a normal,” Van said.
“I’m not,” Mizar said. He was in his man form in this image, easier on Van. “I’m actually holding on to your arm in the Inferno clinic. You’ve been badly injured.”
“I remember,” Van said. “It’s all confused. Gunshots. The van tipped over. Someone healed me. Webberly. It was cold, and I was on my back, and she was healing me. A flicker of memory.”
“Some things are best not remembered,” Mizar said. “I spent some time wandering the Bay Area on my feet, as you suggested.”
Van smiled. “Do you still think that our smelly and nasty civilization should be razed to the ground?”
Mizar growled and paced. “No. You were right. I had forgotten so much – I have no idea where I came from, where I was born, where I grew up, what I did before I transformed. After a while, though, I started to run into things I remembered. A bookstore near a college campus had a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and I knew the cover. I’d seen it before. A lady walked by me in one of those enclosed shopping areas – what they call a mall – and I recognized her perfume. The cars may look different than I remember, all boxy, but car exhaust smells the same. Especially diesel exhaust from the city busses. Funny thing, city busses look the same as I remember.”
“Not everything changes,” Van said. “Fashions change, but lightbulbs are still lightbulbs.”
“Men don’t wear hats anymore,” Mizar said. “I remember wearing a hat. The lack of hats makes all the men look, I don’t know. Different. Too informal. Not serious about what they’re doing. Short, too.” Mizar shook his head. “There are a lot of young war veterans with injuries. They don’t look well cared for. Transform wars?”
“No. Just the same old wars there’s always been. A place called Vietnam.”
“Sounds Asian,” Mizar said. “I vaguely recall something about war in a place called Korea. Occasionally, I get hints of memories of cold, snow and blood. That might be Korea.” He growled and knelt beside a small stream. Tiny minnows and pollywogs flashed at his shadow, and then vanished. “I don’t like war.”
“I don’t either,” Van said. “Sometimes war comes to you, though, no matter how hard you run away.” Van inspected the flowers. “How can all of this be in your mind? There’s such detail. Too much detail.”
“We create the detail ourselves,” Mizar said. Lori had explained it, and it made sense. “This works because we’re always creating extra detail with our normal mundane senses. Integrating sight, sound and smells into a whole. Filling in details all around us. The juice and élan may just be chemicals, but some of them are chemicals that trigger memories and thoughts just like our normal senses trigger memories and thoughts. What you’re seeing isn’t exactly the same as what I’m seeing.”
“But I’m still a normal, not a Transform,” Van said.
“Has being a normal ever stopped Focus charisma from affecting you?”
Van flushed in embarrassment. “Well, no.”
“So, there.”
Van shook his head, and stood. “Gail’s coming, isn’t she?” he said, tense. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of what he saw around him. The trout in the stream. The sparrows flittering just out of his reach. Van’s surprise at what Mizar projected to him brought a smile to Mizar’s face.
“She heard about the attack, and got upset.”
“My sister died, didn’t she? That’s what hurts so much.”
“Daisy? Yes, and very understandable. For someone I talked to for all of five minutes, she made quite an impression. She will be missed.”
“Sidney, Arm Webberly and Count Dowling?”
Sidney was a commoner, and in Noble households, tradition said you lost your last name. That irked Mizar. “Sidney didn’t make it, but Count Dowling and Arm Webberly will be fine,” Mizar said.
He could feel Van’s resentment of his Focus wife, still strong after all this time. Mizar hoped the two of them would be able to work out their problems. Getting Van back would make Gail a lot easier to live with. Much of Gail’s anger at the world was redirected anger at herself for messing up her relationship with her husband. His realization took too much explaining, though. He had been doing too much explaining. One obvious thing a day was his limit, and that took work.
Lori told him, a few weeks ago, that the reason for their attraction to each other was because they were both loners, and both forced to do too much interacting with other people. Leadership and public speaking were his responsibility, but they drained him. Lori understood, as she heeded the same call herself, many times over the years. Neither Carol nor Sky comprehended. They needed other people, drew energy from other people, and couldn’t understand why most of the time he and Lori would rather disappear.
Van was another kindred soul, another loner. One with an amazing ability to ignore the hustle and bustle of everyday life going on around him. Mizar wished he possessed Van’s ability. Perhaps, Mizar thought, he wasn’t as much of a loner as he thought.
“I’d do anything to be able to stop this war against the Hunters,” Van said. “It’s not a realistic hope, though. When one side of a conflict doesn’t want to listen to reason, or can’t, and just keeps attacking and attacking, there isn’t much you can do. I worry about the consequences, though. I’ve seen several small Transform battles, and Tra
nsforms are very good at causing massive damage. The coming fight looks like it’s going to be much larger.”
“Yes. You’re right. Carol estimates Enkidu may be able to field fifty Hunters and one to two thousand pack members and slaves. There’ll be fewer on our side of the fight. Still, the total number of combatants will be huge, and the authorities can’t help but notice.”
“One to two thousand? That’s enough to lay waste to the entire town of San Jose. The authorities will need to send in the US army. This is bad, very bad.”
“Why?”
“Our nation has a tendency to over-react to that kind of event. We’ve entered wars against foreign nations on flimsier provocations. Major calamities, such as Pearl Harbor, caused our nation to mobilize for war. Imagine millions of Americans drafted to fight the Transforms. The predator Transforms are quite a bit better than normal humans one on one, but a hundred to one? A thousand to one? The Transforms wouldn’t stand a chance. But what good would it do to kill all the Transforms, when in a few years, nearly everyone who survives will be a Transform themselves? I’m afraid this battle could lead to a stupid and suicidal orgy of killing, normals versus Transforms, until no one is left alive.”
Mizar hated the concept of war, hated the constant Transform fighting, but he had never thought about the current conflict in that fashion. Van was right. This could easily get out of hand. Flatten a city, kill thousands of normals if not more. Apocalypse, a word he often heard from Lori.
“I don’t see what to do about it, though,” Mizar said. Despite the fact this appeared to be part of his responsibility.
“Neither do I,” Van said. “Neither do I.”
“Addiction is no excuse.”
Carol Hancock (3/26/73)
“That’s everything on this plan,” I said. The vanguard of Haggerty and Hoskins’ army had finally showed up at the Inferno rest home, Haggerty in the lead. Hoskins remained with the main force, currently dancing with the enemy on the east side of San Francisco Bay. All the Arms save Webberly were here, including Armenigar, along with the entire Canadian contingent, the newly arrived Courtier Sir Dan Freeman and his own small pack of bodyguard Monsters, and a woebegone and exhausted Madonna of Montreal. I shooed off everyone but the senior Arms, and sat us down in the Inferno Rest Home main meeting room. Workers – merc demolitions experts – worked around us, not noticing our presence. In four hours I would pick up Gail at the San Jose airport. I expected Enkidu to attack soon after that, if not before.
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