John Crowley - Beasts

“Come in TK24,” the radio said. “Come in TK24. Have you achieved 01?” It spoke in quick, harsh bursts, all inflection lost in an aura of static.

Getting no reply from TK24 (who was dead), it began a conversation with someone else; the someone else’s voice couldn’t be heard, was pauses only, long or short. “Roger your request to return to base.” … “No, that hasn’t been verified as yet. He doesn’t come in.” Negative, negative. Listen, you’d be the first to know.” That’s what I understand. The cabin was his 01. Then the wrecked plane.” A laugh, strangled in static. “Government. A real antique. He wouldn’t get fan.” Positive, that is 02 of TK24 and we’ll hear soon.” Right, positive, over. Come in TK24, TK24…”

On the glossy seat of the copter were charts covered with clear plastic. On one of them were circles in red grease crayon: one circle was labeled 01. The other circle, from what Painter could read of the map, was about ten miles off, up a sharp elevation, and was labeled 02.

Caddie came toward him, passing slowly the folded body of TK24, and feeling as though she had entered somewhere else, somewhere totally other, and had no way to get hack. “You killed him.”

“You’re staying here,” he said. “Up there on the mountain a plane’s crashed. It might be him, If it isn’t, I’ll be hack tonight or tomorrow.”

“No.”

“Get my rifle.”

“I’ll get it. But I’m coming with you.”

He looked at her for a moment, looked at her — in a new way, with that new bond between them, looked — no. She felt a chill wave of something like despair. He looked the same. Nothing had changed, not for him. All her surrender had been for nothing, nothing…. He turned away. “Get the horses, then. We’ll take them as far as we can.”

If he wasn’t made for walking, he was made less for climbing. Only his strength hauled him up, his strength and a fierce resolve she didn’t dane break by speaking, except to tell him where she had found the easiest ways up. He followed. Once, she got too fan ahead, lost sight of him, and couldn’t hear him coming after her. She retraced her steps and found him resting, panting, his back against a stone.

“Monkey,” he said. “A damned monkey. I haven’t got your strength.”

“Strength,” she said. “Two hours ago you killed somebody, with your hands, in about ten seconds.”

“I saw him first. It would’ve taken him even less. He had a gun.” For the first time since he had turned those yellow eyes on her at Hutt’s place the night she was being sold, she felt that he was trying to read her. “They want to kill us all, you know. They’re trying.”

“Who?”

“The government. Men, You.” Still his eyes searched her. “We’re no use to them. Worse than useless. Poachers. Thieves. Polygamists. We won’t be sterilized. There’s no good in us. We’re their creation, and they’re phasing us out. When they can catch us.”

“That’s not right!” She felt deep horror, and shame. “How can they… You’ve got a right to live.”

“I don’t know about a right.” He stood, breaking his look. “But I am alive, I mean to stay that way. Let’s go.”

The government. Men, You. What did she expect from him, then? Love? The leo had bought hen as men hunt leos. They were not one kind; never, never could she and he be one. He could only use hen, on not, as he liked. She climbed fiercely, tears (of rage or pity, for herself on for him, she didn’t know) breaking the chill morning into stars.

They found O2 fitted snugly into the trees at the end of a rocky pasture. Its wings were folded back, neatly, looking at rest like a bind’s; but bits of the plane were scattered over the pasture violently, and its wings were never made to bend, Painter went near it cautiously. The long shadows of the forest crept across the field, quicker as the sun sank further. One crazed window of the plane flared briefly in the last sun. There was an absolute stillness there; the wrecked plane was incongruous and yet proper, like a galleon at the bottom of the sea. There was no pilot, dead on alive; no one. Painter stood by it a long moment, turning his head slowly, utterly attentive; then, as though he had perceived a path, he plunged into the woods. She followed.

He didn’t go unerringly to the tree; it was as if he knew it must be there, but not exactly where it was. He stopped often, turned, and turned again. The long blue twilight barely entered here, and they must go slowly through the undergrowth. But he had it then: an ancient monarch, long dethroned, topless and hollow, amid upstart pines. Insects and animals had deposited the powdered guts of it at the narrow door.

“Good afternoon, Counselor,” he said softly.

“If you come any closer,” said a little voice within the tree, “I’ll shoot. I have a gun. Don’t try…”

“Gently, Counselor,” Painter said.

“Is that you? Painter? Good god…”

She had come up beside him and looked into the hollow. A tiny man was wedged into the narrow space. His spectacles, one lens cracked, glinted; so did the small pistol in his hands.

“Come out of there,” Painter said.

“I can’t. Something’s broken. My foot, somewhere.” From fear, exposure, something, his voice sounded faint and harsh, like fine sandpaper. “I’m cold.”

“We can’t light a fire,”

“There’s a cell heater in the plane. It might work.” She could hear in his voice that he was trembling. Painter withdrew into the trees toward the blue dimness of the pasture, leaving her alone by the tree. She squatted there, alert, a little afraid; whoever was looking for this counselor would come and find him soon.

“You don’t,” said the tree, “have a cigarette.” It was a remark only, without hope; and she alniost laughed, because she did: the pack she had put in her shirt pocket, for Painter, a lifetime ago…. She gave them to him, and her tin of matches. He groaned with relief. In the brief, trembling bight of the match she glimpsed a long, small face, thick, short red hair, a short red beard. His glasses flashed and went out again. “Who are you?” he said.

“His.” Yes. “Indentured, from now till…”

“Not a bit.”

“What?”

“Against the law. No leo could possibly employ a man. You’re not obbiged. ‘No human being shall be suborned by on beholden and subservient to a member of another species.’” A tiny bark of a laugh, and he relapsed into exhausted silence.

Painter came back carrying the heater, its element already glowing dully. He put it before the tree’s mouth and sat; the tension had slipped from him bike a garment, and he moved with huge grace to arrange himself on the ground. “Get warm,” he said softly. “We’ll get you out. Down the mountain. Then we’ll talk.” His eyes, jewellike in the heater’s glow, drifted closed, then opened slowly, feral and unseeing.

“He said,” Caddie said, “that you can’t own me. In the law.”

He could at that moment have been expressing rage, contempt, indifference, jealousy: she had no way to tell. His glower was as vast as it was meaningless. “Warm,” he said, He scratched, carefully. He slept.

“Of course,” said the little mocking voice inside the tree, “he is King of Beasts. Or Pretender anyway. But that never applied to men, did it? Men are the Lords of Creation.”

Painter was a shaggy shape utterly still. The law. What could it matter? The bond between them, which she had made out of total surrender since she had no other tool to forge it with, couldn’t be broken now; not even, she thought fiercely, by him. “I suppose,” he said, “a person could stop being a Lord of Creation. Surrender that. And be a beast.” There was a tiny hammer beating within her thigh where he had stretched her. She felt it flutter. “Only another beast of his.”