“The Western Hunter practices do help in some areas, Pack Alpha, but don’t make the mistake of thinking the hygiene improvements are making us soft. The Western Hunters and their packs are now fully blooded in true combat, unlike before my arrival. And their civilized practices didn’t keep me from taking over from Leo.”
“I meant no challenge, General,” Tangiers said, suddenly meek.
“Challenge me all you want,” I said. “If I take offense, I’ll just beat the crap out of you. As you said, the Hunter Empire needs to step up its game if we’re ever going to win our rightful place as the rulers of the world. We can’t afford the meek.”
“Thank you, General.” Loess smiled at Tangiers, and I could feel the love. This would make three, for only Thunder and myself among the existing Hunters had a love bond with their Pack Alpha or Pack Mistress. A true partnership, led by a Hunter, was far more potent than the resentful enslavement too typical for our Pack Alphas and Pack Mistresses. Too many of our people still thought in stone-age terms and refused to let their minds enter the modern, enlightened, world. “You need to know we’ve made progress on the insanity problem,” Tangiers said. “In the past six months, our Gal cull rate is down by over seventy five percent.”
“I welcome your success,” I said. Nor did I lie. The insanity problem, the shattering of the minds of some of the Gals by repeated draws, was one of our larger issues. Gals with shattered minds were too much work to maintain, and putting them down was always a messy and emotional process. I would make sure Tangiers met with Cleo and the other Pack Alphas so she could pass along her technique. “Does the progress lie within the Law, or outside it?”
“Outside it, unfortunately,” Tangiers said. “It speaks of at least one necessary change to the Law. I’ve heard this is something you can do?”
“It is something I can pay to have done, and thus isn’t done trivially.” I had been working up a long list in the past several months. I didn’t know how we would be able to pay the necessary price, as Guru Athabasca’s ‘offer’ of a juice-level alliance with the Judges wasn’t a price I was willing to pay. I flickered my eyes over to Loess. “I know similar issues bedeviled your peers, back in the days of the Patriarchs,” I said. “Is this technique derived from the Shade’s Patriarch Law alterations?”
Loess was a Hunter now, having begged me to give him the Hunter Law after Wandering Shade’s demise, but unwilling then to bend a knee to me. I had given him the Eastern Hunter Law in exchange for the last two young Patriarchs, who became my students and were now full Hunters – Captain Calgary and Captain Turbulent Waters.
“Yes,” Loess said. “After much experimentation, though. The alteration to fit a Gal’s mentality was difficult to discover and master.” As a Patriarch, Loess had held and recruited from Kansas City since the mid 60’s. Too many Patriarchs had gone homicidally insane because of the Patriarch fixation on pure human shapes and integration of the Patriarchs into normal urban human society. Loess still preferred his man shape, and he was the shortest and least bulky of the modern Hunters. His beast form wasn’t too far off his man-shape, requiring him only to lengthen his legs and arms, and armor his skin. His dark eyes pierced my soul, and I wondered what he found there. “General, I have grave misgivings about hiding here in the mountains. How will we recruit? How are we going to claim our place as world leaders from here?”
“Let’s speak of that over dinner,” I said, and led him to the dining hall. Despite the shape restrictions, the dining hall floor had been abused for years by Wandering Shade’s early experiments. Here he had fed any Chimera willing to behave himself indoors. Leo had resealed the floor with the gouges still in it, to preserve their memory. Slaves bustled in with the food I had ordered hours ago – Montana lowland steaks, steaming fresh venison, as well as feral hog heads and feet. Inspired, I wiggled the juice and called Cleo to the table, instead of Colonels Leo and Ursus, and invited Tangiers to sit with us as well. Properly introducing Cleo to Tangiers, in a place where I had full control over the setting and the juice, struck me as extremely important.
My gut feel proved correct, as Cleo showed when she hissed at Tangiers, who growled back. They circled each other, and the table, before sitting. I introduced them to each other, and over the first course, the lowland steaks, I told Cleo of Tangiers’ new anti-insanity developments and I told Tangiers’ about Cleo’s recent work involving juice-based physical training of the Gals. As I hoped, thinking about the technical details reduced their aggression levels. Later, they would spar and work out which one dominated the other, but that would be on their time, not mine.
As we chatted aimlessly about pack technology, Loess’s tension grew. He wasn’t sold on my vision of the Hunter Empire, and here the two Pack Alphas sat and chattered about tech issues, both assuming that Loess and his pack were formally joining up.
I waited until the venison course, and for Loess to get fully steamed, before I turned the conversation to our plans, and the future.
“The Battle in Illinois proved to me that we’re too weak to defeat the Amazons and their Transform allies in open battle, and proved to me that we needed a better grand strategy than ‘more Hunters’,” I said. “We need new and better juice tricks and we need new and better combat strategies and tactics. We’re still recruiting, but we’ve decided that recruiting is only half the problem.” Love that ‘royal we’. “Friend Low-ess, you’re well known as one of the Hunter’s best researchers. We need you to help us become what we need to be to make the Hunter Empire real.”
“You’re talking a real position of authority, then?”
“Yes. Immediate rank of Colonel.” Loess had always been touchy, but he had never challenged my implied leadership save by saying ‘no’ and getting out of my way. He would be the first to be brought in from outside to be given the rank of Colonel from the start. “You and Captain Thunder will be responsible for research, but you’re going to be the research Boss. Captain Thunder’s wanted out of the hot seat ever since I told him we needed results, on paper, not one wild experiment after another. I’ll be involved as well, part time.” I turned to Cleo, and then to Tangiers. “With your permission, I would like to formally invest Cleo and Tangiers with this responsibility as well, at the Pack level.”
“Responsibility? For Gals, even if they’re Pack Alphas?” Tangiers growled and gave Loess a look that portended contentious late night discussions, later. “That seems unwise.” Someone, it seemed, had taken the ‘Patriarch’ title way too seriously.
“We can’t afford to overlook any useful ideas just because of manageable risks,” I said. Cleo kicked me, under the table, and I predicted I would be hearing from her about my implied insult later. “We’ll cope.” Show some spine, Loess, I didn’t say. Trust that you are superior.
I certainly did.
“I’m not sure about this,” Loess said. “Pushing juice-level research will just push our enemies into doing the same. You do know they keep close tabs on us, in the Dreaming, don’t you.”
“Of course I do,” I said. I waved over the slaves and had them bring the third course. Tangiers already looked a bit meat-drunk from the excess. Fully meat-drunk was my goal as a proper host. “Loess, I’m counting on our research program pushing our enemies, especially the Arms, into copying us.” I was the one calling the tunes in the Great Game. I had been, ever since Wandering Shade’s fall. “The Arms and Focuses are already at odds because of what I did to them during the Battle in Illinois.” Myself and Pack Mistress Delilah, I didn’t say. No need to complicate matters. “If I can goad the Arms into an, um, arms race with us, that will bring them into conflict with the anti-research factions of the first Focuses and Crow Gurus-of-Gurus.” One of the things I absolutely needed to do was hide the meat of our research program from Guru Athabasca of the Judges, ever a font of worries about too-quick progress. “If I’m lucky, it will trigger a civil war among our enemies.”
“Oh,” Loess said. He bit hard on a pig’s foot and gu
lped, a slow smile growing over his face. “There’s another obvious benefit to this – since we’re less technically adept at the juice than the other Major Transform groups, save for the pathetic Nobles, we have more room to grow, and the obstacles to our research will be far easier to surmount.”
“That did not escape my notice,” I said. He had bought in and joined my Hunter Empire. “Friend Loess – may I call you Colonel Loess?” He nodded. “Colonel Loess, we need to speak about one potential sticking point, a potential hidden enemy.” I motioned to a slave, and had the slave bring out the new pictures I had commissioned after my discussion with Guru Athabasca. “He’s called the Provocateur, and…”
“Roger Mountbatten Wimpole,” Colonel Loess said. “Or that was the name he used when he was working for the Canadian Intelligence Corp at Camp X during the Second World War.”
My jaw nearly fell off my face.
“This man is known to you?”
“He’s been one of my principle advisors for over four years, after the Master introduced me to him.” Loess shrugged. “He took a liking to me. Compatible personalities, I guess.” Not too much of a surprise. “Why do you consider Jolly Roger a problem? He’s nothing but a kindly old man with a lot of good insights into Transform life.”
“He’s a Transform himself, for one.” Colonel Loess frowned in disbelief. Using an Amazon term, I decided that Loess had been rolled by a mere Goldilocks. “He’s been meddling in our affairs for years.” I motioned for the slaves to bring out the documentation, including Wandering Shade’s badly-kept diary. I opened the diary to the page where the Shade admitted that the idea of becoming the Law – which eventually destroyed him – had been the Provocateur’s. I showed Colonel Loess the enemy’s other provocations, especially the ones associated with the appalling Chrysanthemum Corporation. “Read, please.”
Loess read.
“Interesting,” Loess said, after a quick first pass through the documents. “I still don’t think he’s an enemy. He’s always been my friend, and nothing here changes my opinion on the matter. Causing chaos and confusion? What do you think I’ve been doing since the Master’s fall?”
I kept my temper in check, but only barely. I needed Colonel Loess, even if he was too stupid to understand the dangers the Provocateur represented. “Can you give me an example of how he’s helped you?”
Colonel Loess nodded. “It’s something the research program needs to look into.” He closed his eyes and concentrated on the juice; with his eyes closed and his face slack he bore a striking resemblance to the TV character, Lurch. Cleo’s chair skittered back, and I inched back myself, as seven apparitions appeared around Colonel Loess.
I recognized two of the apparitions as the prior forms of Captain Calgary and Captain Turbulent Waters, the forms they wore in their Patriarch days. These apparitions weren’t mere images, though, but mobile ghosts with the feel of intelligence to them, and the look of free will in their eyes. The ghosts of the departed Patriarchs. They bowed to me as a group.
Commander, what are your orders?
They spoke without speaking, something of the juice.
“I’m not the Commander, I’m the General,” I said, to the apparitions. “My orders? Aid the Hunter Empire in preparing to destroy our enemies and help us conquer the world.” The answer was obvious, my standard recruitment spiel.
I smelled the élan leaking off Loess. This was not an easy or cost free trick.
We hear and will obey.
Freaky.
They vanished. Colonel Loess slumped forward, leaning on the table, exhausted. His plate, and some feral hog headcheese, went sliding to the floor. The slaves bustled forward to clean up the mess.
“What use is such a trick if it nearly kills you to bring them forward?” I said, angry. I didn’t like such surprises, and I especially didn’t like being called the Commander.
“I know,” Colonel Loess said, his eyes rolling because of his exertion. “The trick needs to be made more efficient. But that’s what research programs are for.”
I motioned for the slaves to bring out the special dessert, jellied human brains, the greatest delicacy known to the Hunters. “Let me tell you about the concept of community juice use,” I said, the obvious way to stabilize such a thing. “But, first, do you happen to know where Jolly Roger lives? I think I might want to pay him a visit. Get his advice.” Advice, hah. I wanted to scry about the future, using his entrails.
“Certainly. He moves around a lot, but when he’s at home he lives in the Dayton, Ohio area. I don’t know his exact location, but” he tapped his nose “that won’t be a problem. I know his scent well.”
The Shadow of the Progenitors (December 4, 1971)
“He’s here,” Colonel Loess said. I nodded. This deep into enemy territory – the odor of the Nobles’ previous nearby patrol paths was unmistakable – we both kept our Gals with us for protection. I did wonder what the local police would be making of our ride, a stolen Yellowstone tour bus. The Gals wouldn’t be going in on the confrontation with us. They were with us strictly as backup.
“Here?” I winced at the incongruity of the place; to me, the situation stank of the unknown and of danger. I had thought ‘suburb’ when Loess first mentioned Dayton, but ‘here’ was a large and forested multi-acre estate, reeking of money. I concentrated on my nose and picked up four normals living in the place, and the odor of a non-standard Transform. Three of the four normals were of retirement age. “The non-standard Transform?”
“That’s him,” Colonel Loess said. “Interesting. I recognize the scent of one of the normals. He’s an old acquaintance of mine. With your permission, General, let me handle this.”
“Lead on,” I said. We trotted up to the front door of the home, a mansion-sized two story colonial. Fifty feet away was a detached four stall garage with a small maid’s quarters on top. Next to that was a full-sized barn housing several horses. The buildings sat in a clearing in a forest of maples, oaks and the occasional pine, with no real lawn. Colonel Loess rang the front doorbell.
A maid answered. “Can I help you?”
“Is Todd – Mr. Collins – in? I’m here to see him.” Colonel Loess used one of his Patriarch tricks I hadn’t mastered to wield his Terror the same way a Focus wielded her charisma.
“Certainly. Come on in, sirs. He’s in the sitting room taking an after dinner nap.”
The interior of the home was quite pleasing to the eyes, ritzy but not ostentatious. The maid led us to the sitting room, where Mr. Collins slept in an easy chair, a blanket over his lap. His wife woke with a start when we entered the room; she had fallen asleep, reading. Our target, the screwy-odored Transform – who metasensed as a normal – rolled into the room in a wheelchair as we entered the room. He matched exactly our sketch of the Provocateur.
“Mr. Collins, sir,” the maid said, gently shaking the elderly man. “Some people to see you.”
Mr. Collins awoke, looked the two of us over, and shakily stood, grabbing his cane as he rose. “Patriarch Loess!” he said. “I hadn’t ever expected to see you again.” He caned forward and stuck out his old gnarled hand. Colonel Loess shook it, gently. “How are you doing?” He paused and looked at me. “A Hunter? My, my!”
I played along. “Enkidu,” I said, and shook the old man’s hand.
Colonel Loess chatted, small talk, with Mr. Collins. Apparently, Mr. Collins had once run United Toxicol’s special projects department in Kansas City, and Toxicol had, at the time, somehow found a way to get the Patriarchs on retainer to help them with security. I spent the time during the chat studying the Provocateur. The wheelchair was a prop, or mostly a prop. Given the ancient shrapnel in his hip, my guess was that he suffered from occasional bouts of rheumatoid arthritis. His metasense protections weren’t perfect and I was able to tell he wasn’t a Major Transform. I had never metasensed a Goldilocks before, though; all I could tell in my occasional glimpses through his protections was that he had a far stronger glow than any
male Transform I had ever before encountered.
“Truthfully, Todd, the reason we’re here today is to chat with your friend, who we know of as Roger Wimpole,” Colonel Loess said.
“Well, I know of him by that name, too!” Mr. Collins said, amused. “Most don’t.” He turned to the Provocateur. “Rog?”
“I’ll take this, in the library,” the Provocateur said. His voice made the hackles on my close-cropped fur stand up on end. His accent wasn’t in the slightest bit Canadian; he spoke with a flat coastal Mid-Atlantic accent I placed as from Delaware, eastern Maryland or tidewater Virginia. “Go back to your nap. Get some rest.”
Mr. Collins did as asked. Logic said the Provocateur had just used some form of Major Transform charisma on his friend, but my metasense said ‘no’. I found this worrisome.
The Provocateur waved us to follow, and rolled out of the sitting room, down a hall past the house’s great room, and finally to a blank section of wall. We followed. He tipped over a vase in a wall niche and the blank section of the wall opened to reveal a room that looked more like a combination library and workroom.
The secret door closed behind us and vanished. Something powerful in the door or wall was messing with my metasense. A true secret door, Major Transform style.
I suspected, right about now, that Leo would soon be the new General of the Hunters.
“Enkidu, Loess, have a seat at the big table,” the Provocateur said. I found his wording ominous, as well as the fact that he pronounced Loess’s name the way Loess preferred. The contents of the ‘library’ also bothered me. The Provocateur’s office knickknacks came from many cultures, but many were ancient Egyptian, Greek and Persian artifacts, often small and made from solid gold. He used a bowl, painted with Greek dancers, as a fucking bookend on one of his bookshelves. I swore I recognized the piece from my reading. How many millions of dollars of museum-quality loot did he keep here, anyway?
Beasts Ascendant: The Chronicles of the Cause, Parts One and Two Page 6