Del read. She couldn’t say much about the plan, as the plan’s details were based heavily on information Del didn’t know how to judge. When she finished she put the plan on the table.
“Why the Barony of Fog?” Ma’am Keaton said.
“Their Crow Master, Whisper, is an imbecile,” Bass said. “He alienates everyone he deals with except his enslaved Chimeras. They are the least well put together of any of the so called Baronies, and thus the least hazardous for us to probe.”
“What’s the rationale for this?” Rayburn said. Del controlled her body to blank her reactions when she realized she could read Rayburn, the number five Arm. She expected an Arm as old as Rayburn to be better controlled. By viewing Rayburn’s reflection in the quiet pools in her mind, Del realized Rayburn despised Bass.
“We’ve heard from Hancock how cute and pretty these so-called Noble households are,” Bass said. “They go on quests and they fight in tournaments, tra lah lah. In the battles since my graduation, they’ve fought out of our sight, with little success. I believe the Nobles are significantly weaker than the Hunters.”
“Shall we compare the Nobles to the Hunters as they are now, or the Hunters as they were before the Clearing of Chicago?” Rayburn said. Outwardly, she remained as poised and neutral as Ma’am Keaton. Inwardly, she thought Bass’s idea idiotic.
Del let this wash from one quiet pool to the other. Her instincts said to choose Rayburn over Bass, but she didn’t trust her instincts. She would wait until she accumulated better data. Just because Rayburn had been less cruel to her than Bass shouldn’t sway a decision of this importance.
“We won’t be able to distinguish such fine detail,” Bass said. “All I’d like to show is that the Hunters are significantly stronger than the Nobles. We should co-opt the Nobles, train them and use them in our opposition to the Hunters.” As frontline cannon fodder.
“You think the Noble dependence on Crows is disynergistic?” Keaton asked.
Blank expressions from both Rayburn and Bass. “One plus one is less than two,” Keaton continued.
“Yes,” Bass said.
“Let’s say we do this. What sort of response might occur?” Keaton said.
“Baronies are joint Crow and Noble operations and are sponsored by Guru Shadow. We would piss off both Shadow’s Crows and Nobles,” Rayburn said. “Neither are currently annoyed at the Arms. Quite unlike the situation when we probed Focus Schrum, who we knew to already be an enemy.”
“Whether they’re allies or enemies doesn’t matter!” Bass said, leaning forward and staring hotly at Rayburn. Ma’am Keaton yanked on Bass’s tag to quiet her. Bass sat down and took a deep breath. Del found this disturbing. Unlike Rayburn, she couldn’t read Bass, even when Bass openly displayed anger.
Less angry, Bass continued. “The other Major Transform groups are our enemies, all of them. We’re constrained not because they humbled us, but because we gave up and left our respective dominance positions undetermined. Only the Hunters gave us proper battle, and only the Hunters earned my respect.”
“And only after you killed them,” Ma’am Keaton said. Bass stiffened momentarily. Del added ‘thin skinned’ to her mental list of Bass’s flaws.
“The Nobles deserve no respect, because they’re a Crow creation. Without Crows, they wouldn’t exist. I say we hit the Barony of Fog and make off with their usable Transforms. Hit enough Baronies and they’ll surrender to us.”
Keaton turned to Rayburn. “Flo?”
Rayburn stared straight ahead. “I have no alternative proposal. I just don’t think the time is right for such a probing attack.”
Keaton turned to Del. “Del?”
A storm whipped across the quiet pools in Del’s mind, and then dissipated. Del recognized the vanished emotion as what should be panic at contributing to such a high-level discussion. “Ma’am? I would like to clear up some facts, before I state any opinions.”
“Ask away.”
“The entity who sent the threat to reveal Ma’am Bass’s activities has been deduced to be a first Focus, not Crow Chevalier?”
Ma’ams Keaton and Rayburn nodded. Ma’am Bass did not.
“Have you gotten any information contradicting the Crow notes regarding the origins of the anti-‘Arm Pet’ movement, ma’am?” Also the first Focuses.
Keaton shook her head.
“From what I’ve read in your library, the ratio of information on Focuses to information on Chimeras runs about a thousand to one. A similar ratio exists regarding information on the leading Focuses versus information regarding the leading Hunters and Nobles. Am I correct?”
Ma’am Keaton nodded.
“Then my opinion is that a similar probing attack on the Nobles has a similar ratio concerning predictability of outcomes.”
“Too hazardous?” Bass said. “The whole point is to find out information, not…”
Ma’am Keaton shook her head. “Don’t forget that when we find out information on those we attack, we also give them information about us and our capabilities. We attacked Focus Schrum to test data we had acquired from other sources – a belief she was weaker than advertised – not to just gather information and exact vengeance.”
Bass didn’t answer, her face blank.
“I have a suggestion for an alternative plan,” Rayburn said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“We’ve already challenged the first Focuses, ma’am. They’re not going to forget, and neither should we. I think we should penetrate the organization of one of the weaker first Focuses. We’ve probed militarily. Let’s hit them another way. I think their organizations are also weaker than advertised. I base this on their overall poverty, which we’ve validated from several sources.”
“Well, then, write it up. Find us a target, Flo. We’ll jaw about it then.”
Bass’s gazed locked on to Del. Although Del couldn’t read Bass, a sudden flux of fear washed through her.
Ma’am Bass’s notice wasn’t a good thing.
---
Bass pulled the intestines around Del’s neck tighter, again cutting off Del’s air. Del finally spotted what she had been waiting for, the faint flickering of Ma’am Keaton’s presence at the edge of Del’s metasense range. Against all her instincts, Del began to flood her lungs with her own blood.
Del regularly got tortured in Ma’am Keaton’s basement. Ma’am Keaton had broken Del down here several times, and Ma’am Hancock once, attempting to torture Del’s voices out of her.
This session with Bass was worse. She used pain far more effectively than the other Arms, much better at turning pain into forced juice use. Del suspected she wouldn’t survive this session.
She played a dangerous game with Bass. She could have kept screaming and not revealed her mastery over pain. She could have kept silent, instead of making the comments that provoked Bass enough to cut Del’s tongue out. Del’s tricks roiled her quiet pools, threatening to let loose the voices and undo Del’s progress.
Necessary risks. Without the provocations, Bass would have quit torturing her long ago, leaving her in control, and with the implied right to torture Del whenever Bass desired. These repeated torture sessions would have set back Del’s progress as a student Arm and opened Del up to Ma’am Keaton’s ire again, a likely fatal outcome.
Unfortunately, without outside help, Del would soon die. If Bass cut Del’s throat, severed a femoral artery or did more brutal damage to Del, she would bleed to death. She needed juice to regenerate blood, juice she no longer possessed. However, if the blood sat safely in Del’s lungs…
The situational crux came when Ma’am Keaton entered Bass’s shorter metasense range. Ma’am Keaton had planned to be away for four days, leaving Bass in charge of the Arm school. Shock flushed Bass’s face at the surprise return of Ma’am Keaton, and with an angry slice of her knife, Bass did cut Del’s throat. Fait accompli were difficult to argue with.
Ma’am Keaton floored the accelerator of her vehicle, ditched her ri
de outside the gate to her Los Angeles estate and started a running burn toward her own basement. Bass hesitated for a moment, unsure what to make of the fact that Del’s blood didn’t bathe her from Del’s cut throat. Bass reached for a longer knife, one suitable for beheading Del, and started the motion of the cut. Del heard her inner voices for the first time in a month, as they began to overwhelm her quiet pools. Not good. Beheaded, she would need immediate help from Ma’am Keaton to survive, a hell of a gamble based on Del’s reading of Ma’am Keaton’s personality. With her inner voices loosed, even Ma’am Keaton’s help wouldn’t be enough. Del burned precious juice to steady her quiet pools and willed Ma’am Keaton to continue her burning run.
Ma’am Keaton did as Del hoped, catching Bass’s arm before Bass severed Del’s head.
Bass fell to her knees.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Keaton said, her face dark with anger.
Bass replied with one word. “Punishment.”
“Maynard!” Student Maynard skidded to a stop on her knees in front of Ma’am Keaton a moment after Ma’am Keaton’s roar. Del had never heard Ma’am Keaton raise her voice before.
“Ma’am!”
“You called to report this. Why?”
“Ma’am!” Student Maynard said. “Student Sokolnik predicted Arm Bass would attempt to kill her while you were gone, Ma’am. When Arm Bass began to torture Student Sokolnik just like she said…”
Bass roared and reached toward Student Maynard with her hand. Student Maynard fell back, curled into a fetal ball, her heart racing faster and faster until it stopped.
Ma’am Keaton tapped her foot on the ground. “I begin to see.” She picked up the groveling Bass and tossed her across the room.
“No! No! I was within my rights to torture Sokolnik. I’m not challenging…”
Ma’am Keaton hit Bass again, then lifted Bass and held her, her nose just inches from Ma’am Keaton’s. “Your teaching privileges are revoked,” Ma’am Keaton said. “Your visiting privileges in my territory are revoked. From now on, you are only welcome here when I am here, personally, and only when I invite you. Explicitly. Each time. What you did to Student Maynard was your mistake, not what you did to Student Sokolnik. Now, give me your juice.”
“Ma’am, of course, I…”
Bass ceased her struggle and followed orders. Ma’am Keaton drew Bass down to around ninety-six, and then put her hand on Bass’s forehead. Bass stopped moving and fell into the blood and gore on the basement floor, paralyzed by something Ma’am Keaton did to her with the juice.
Ma’am Keaton stalked back to Del.
“Put your fucking blood back in your fucking bloodstream, student.” Del obeyed, after first healing her cut throat. Her efforts took her juice count down to near withdrawal. While she did this Ma’am Keaton examined the gory remains of Del’s body, now strewn about the basement. “I thought I was the only Arm who’d figured out the blood in the lungs trick,” Ma’am Keaton said, grumbling. “Do you know what happened to your tongue?”
It’s under my left breast, next to the blowtorch, Del thought.
Keaton kicked Bass out of the way, knocked aside the mangled remains of Del’s left breast and picked up Del’s severed tongue. She stuck the tongue in Del’s mouth, and began to unhook the surgical apparatus keeping Del’s ruined jaw open.
“Let me sew this in place,” Ma’am Keaton said. She finished in a moment. “I can give you juice, but only if you don’t make any attempt to draw more than I give you.” Del indicated assent with her eyes. “Heal just the tongue, and nothing else.”
Del did as ordered. The procedure was intensely unsettling, to give over so much control of her body to another Arm, even if the Arm was Ma’am Keaton. She doubted a graduate Arm could tolerate the procedure. Ma’am Keaton took Del up to a juice count of 110, some of which had to be from Ma’am Keaton personally. Del felt both surprised and honored by this exceptional gift.
“Gifts like that create obligations from the gift receiver,” Ma’am Keaton said, able to read Del’s mind as trivially as always. “None of the other Arms realize the power in such things, even the ones who received it.”
“Then I am to die?” Del said, realizing Ma’am Keaton had just given her one of her deeper secrets. Ma’am Keaton had the right to end Del’s life, which she accepted. She would not fight Ma’am Keaton over the judgment.
Ma’am Keaton shook her head. “Perhaps you’ve lost too much of your humanity, Del. I’m telling you this because I’m teaching you more than I teach my other students. I’m paying off my obligation to you.”
“The quiet pools.”
“Yes. I find the ones I created in my mind to be very useful.”
Ma’am Keaton didn’t explain what uses she had found for them. Del expected Ma’am Keaton’s uses to be different than her own.
“So, tell me what happened.”
“Ma’am, Ma’am Bass took a disliking to me in the discussion two days ago. I anticipated today’s torture session, and so maneuvered the session to happen when you were reachable by telephone and close enough to respond.”
“Huh.” Ma’am Keaton thought, and paced. “You saw that by including you in my discussions, you’d find further holes in Bass’s logic, and I’d force you to speak these objections to me in front of Bass, further angering her. So you took what should’ve been a simple punishment session and goaded Bass into going over the top.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What if I don’t appreciate your arguments, Sokolnik, and torture you for them?”
“That’s your right.”
“And you don’t give that right to Bass, because you don’t respect her.” Ma’am Keaton paced. “However, I did give Bass teaching rights, which included the right to punish you, so you were indirectly going against my orders by rebelling against her authority.”
“Ma’am.”
Keaton studied Del. “You walked a very fine line with this stunt, Del. Enough so that I see no reason to further punish Bass for what she did to you. What she did to Student Maynard, though, was far out of line.”
“Ma’am, is Maynard dead?”
“No. But she will die unless someone heals her. That I’ll leave to you, as your responsibility, and a test of your mettle.”
“I don’t know how, ma’am.”
Ma’am Keaton smiled. “For one of your talents, it’ll be easy, and will cost almost no juice at all. Assuming I tell you how Bass did what she did to Maynard.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’ll trade. You tell me what you did to set Bass off, and I’ll tell you what Bass did.”
Del let the comment sit in her quiet pools, and inspected the statement from all sides. Ma’am Keaton didn’t need to make such an agreement. She could have just ordered Del to talk. Thus, Ma’am Keaton punished Bass indirectly by being lenient to Del, and by doing her minor favors. Del had no problem accepting such largess.
“I did two things, ma’am. First, I stated to Ma’am Bass that I was tired of screaming. After my statement, I let the pain Ma’am Bass caused dissipate in the quiet pools. Second, I interrupted Bass’s monologue about constraints, and pointed out that Ma’am Bass’s desire to restrict all the Arms from cooperating with other Major Transforms was far more constraining than Ma’am Hancock’s program of being reasonable with those she chooses to be reasonable with, and hostile toward those she chooses to be hostile with.”
Ma’am Keaton smiled, then laughed, and continued laughing for several moments. Del didn’t join in.
“Del, you need to re-learn your sense of humor,” Ma’am Keaton said, when she finished laughing.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That was a great jab. Do you see the flaw in your logic, though?”
“Yes, ma’am. Ma’am Hancock’s plan doesn’t constrain her, but does constrain the rest of us, by setting precedents.”
“Huh.” Ma’am Keaton cut Del down from the restraints and sewed up what needed sewing up. “Bass r
eversed the Arm healing skill and used it as a weapon to harm, in combination with her predator effect. So, Del, let’s see if you can figure out how to save Maynard. Assuming you think our fourteen year old student Arm is actually worth saving.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m not completely convinced that she’s old enough to save. This isn’t the first mess she’s found herself in. For one thing, she should have picked up on the fact you ranked her and stopped harassing you without forcing you to humble her.”
“Ma’am, I taught girls of her age for years. They always behave this way.”
“I’ll leave her to you, then, and place the responsibility on your shoulders.”
Ma’am Keaton stood back as Del slid her ruined body, worm style, through her own gore and feces, until she reached Maynard. Then Del put her hand on Maynard’s head, and by modulating her own predatory nature, called Maynard back from wherever her mind had gone. Several minutes later, after Maynard’s heart restarted, she opened her eyes and crawled into Del’s ruined arms, weeping.
This was another gift from Ma’am Keaton. If Ma’am Keaton had brought Maynard back, the rescue would have created an obligation from Maynard to Ma’am Keaton strong enough to bind the young Arm to Ma’am Keaton for life. Instead, she gave the obligation as a gift to Del. In private, later today, Del planned to take Maynard’s tag as part of the obligation. She would need Maynard to hunt for her, and Maynard, if she was good at anything, was good at hunting.
“You two put yourselves back together and clean up this mess,” Ma’am Keaton said. “After that, clear out, far out of range. Arm Bass and I are going to have a little extended discussion.”
Even if Bass’s punishment would be for what the older Arm had done to Maynard, and not herself, Del remained pleased. She had gambled, and won.
Gail Rickenbach: September 18, 1972
“Did you see this article, Beth?” Gail asked. They hid out in Beth’s office, Beth taking a break from the responsibilities and distractions of running a Focus household and Gail on an enforced break from her juice pattern practice. Enforced by Van, Sylvie and Kurt. At least she didn’t have to listen to Van and Kurt arguing about the significance, or lack thereof, of Chrysanthemum payments to the late Focus Katie Anderson in 1968 and 1969. Gail hadn’t wanted to stomp her big Focus feet into the argument, but it was clear to her that Wandering Shade bought Focus Anderson’s traitorous attack. He hadn’t rolled her with any form of Crow charisma, or blackmailed her, or extorted her, or used any of the dozen Focus-face-saving methods people standardly attributed to him. No, he simply waved a roll of twenties at her and bought her off.
Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) Page 13
