Changer (Athanor) (80 page)

Chris and Bill walk quickly away from where the one-eyed man holds the red-haired one prisoner.

“Do you think we did the right thing?” Bill asks worriedly.

“I do,” Chris answers firmly.  “Those guys reacted just like Rob Trapper told us they would.  I don’t think the guy with the one eye is going to hurt the other one.”

“No.”  Bill ponders.  “Chris, I’m beginning to wonder if these people are dealing drugs after all.”

“I’m not so certain anymore, either” Chris admits, “although this last bit could have been some sort of gangland rivalry.  Listen, Rob Trapper promised that he’d be calling.  He hinted that he had something important to tell me.  That’s one of the reasons I agreed to go along with this whole thing.”

“Even if we never learn the truth,” Bill says, cheering up, “we got these cool jackets and hats for our night’s work.  And that Georgios taught me some amazing things.”

Chris stares disbelievingly at him, then laughs.  “So he initiated you into the deep secrets of romance.  Is that it?”

“You never know,” Bill says mysteriously.

He grins flirtatiously at the next pretty girl who passes.  To his amazement, she smiles back and winks.

“You never know,” Bill repeats wonderingly.

Chris slugs his lightly on the arm.  “Come on, Romeo.  You can try your luck some other time.  I want to beat the traffic and get some rest.  Who knows what Rob has up his sleeve?”

“But I wanted an ice cream cone!”

“After all that cotton candy?”

“Sure.  It’s the only way to finish a day at the Fair.”

28

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

—George Bernard Shaw

C
hris Kristofer’s phone rings about an hour after he gets home from the Fair.

“Chris, this is Rob Trapper.”

“Hi, Rob.”

“Chris, I need to see you.  Bill, too, if you can get him.”

“You’re in luck,” Chris says easily, his mind racing with scenarios varying from Rob giving him a full confession to Rob setting him up to be assassinated by Dakar and Katsuhiro.  “Bill crashed here—he didn’t want to miss your call.”

“Can you come by our hotel?”

“Sure,” Chris hears himself saying.  His mouth is a lot more confident than his imagination.  “Is a half hour okay?”

“Come to Room 805.  We’ll be waiting.”

“Right.”  
We,
Chris thinks as he hangs up the phone.  
I hope to hell that “we” doesn’t include Dakar and Katsuhiro.

Rob opens the door to Room 805 and hurriedly ushers them in.

“You remember Bronson,” he says nervously.  “This is my Aunt Swansdown and my friend Demetrios.”

“Aunt”?
Chris thinks, looking at the white-bearded fellow sitting stiffly upright on the sofa.  He glances at Bill, who shrugs ever so slightly.

“Pleased to meet you,” Chris says, accepting the seat Rob offers.  Bill echoes him.

“We… well,
I
,” Rob begins.  Demetrios interrupts.

“‘We’ is okay, Rebecca.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.  We’re all taking a considerable risk.”

Chris raises one hand.  “I think we need to start at basics.  Who are you folks?  Is Rob’s name really Rebecca?”

Rob nods.  “Yes.  I’m Rebecca Trapper.  Bronson’s my husband.  We’re…  We’re sasquatches.”

Chris finds himself gaping.

Bill sputters, “Like Bigfoot?  All of you?”

Demetrios gives a thin-lipped smile.  “Not all of us.  I’m a faun.  Swansdown is a yeti.”

“An Abominable Snowman,” she says.  “Or Snowwoman.”

Explanations take quite a while, but by the end the two humans have a fair grasp of what the athanor are and what risks the four theriomorphs are taking by talking with them.

“So if you could get thrown out of this Accord for talking to us,” Chris asks, “why are you doing it?”

“Arthur and the others need to see that all humans aren’t like what he fears,” Rebecca says eagerly.  “You helped us last night, trusted us.  We want to trust you now.  It might be the first step toward something a whole lot bigger.”

“You mean,” Bill says, “you want us to be ambassadors for the whole human race?”

“What’s to keep Arthur from killing us?” Chris says in almost the same breath.  “We’re dangerous to his secret.”

“Rebecca thinks,” says Swansdown, “that the secret can’t be kept for much more than a century.  I’m coming to agree with her.  The amendments to the Accord that we’ve been negotiating include an information campaign.  You two could help.”

“And you trust us not to blow the whole thing wide open?” Chris says, visions of headlines running through his head.

“I think,” says Bronson, and something of his bearing reminds Chris of Dakar Agadez, “that you realize there are certain risks involved.”

“So we’re in whether we like it or not,” Bill says.

“Pretty much,” Swansdown says.  “There are ways to make it impossible for you to speak about any of this, but I prefer not to use them.  They can be painful and noticeable.”

The two humans trade glances.

“Actually, we’d like to help,” Chris says.  Bill nods, suddenly solemn as he realizes this is a lot more exciting than a career in computer engineering.

“First of all, we need to sneak you into the meeting,” Rebecca says.  “Aunt Swansdown has worked out an illusion…”

The next morning, Chris and Bill take seats in a crowded room buzzing with conjecture and rumor.  Thanks to Swansdown’s art, they are disguised as two fauns who have agreed to hide back at the hotel.  Demetrios assures them that no one but the fauns and satyrs, who are in on the secret, should notice the switch.  In any case, they have no desire to draw attention to themselves for both Katsuhiro and Dakar—as well as other menacing figures—are among those in the meeting room.

King Arthur sits at a curved table at the front and slightly to the side of the room.  The central position is commanded by a speaker’s podium.

Near the front of the room, off to the left, is the one-eyed Changer from the night before, a puppy leaning against his leg.  Someone Rebecca has identified as Frank MacDonald sits near him.  Amazingly, he has a falcon on his shoulder and what has to be a jackalope in his lap.  Something like a half dozen cats occupy other chairs.

Bill excitedly points out Tommy Thunderburst, the rising musical sensation, sitting toward the back, his manager Lil Prima beside him.  As Chris makes a mental note to see if he can get an interview, he is shaken to realize that Tommy’s presence means that he both he and Lil are immortal.  Somehow, the concept had been easier to apply to sasquatches and legendary kings than to people one reads about in gossip magazines.

Arthur rises and taps the bell, requesting a silence that comes before the last clear note has faded away.

“Our business,” he says, with a rueful smile, “keeps getting increasingly complex.  We began with from an appeal by the Harmony’s theriomorphic members (supported by some others) that our Accord reform its policy regarding secrecy.

“Then, yesterday, Sven Trout, speaking as a supporter of these reforms, directly challenged my administration, proposing a complete overhaul.

“Finally, last night, the Changer came to me requesting a hearing before the Accord regarding a complaint he has against Sven Trout.  I would like to ask this assembly if we might begin this day by hearing the Changer’s appeal.  Yes, Jonathan?”

Jonathan Wong raises his hand.  “Your Majesty, why should we hear the Changer’s case?  He is not a member of the Accord, nor has Sven Trout requested the Accord’s protection.”

“A good question,” Arthur answers.  “The Changer asked that we hear this case because Sven
is
a member of the Accord.  Moreover, as we will hear when the case has been presented, the Changer is bringing his case in part on the behalf of one of his children, a daughter whom he wishes recognized as in Harmony and, thereby, protected by the juvenile’s clause in the Accord.”

This last statement brings many murmurs, some of surprise, some of approval.  All eyes turn to where Shahrazad leans against her father’s leg.  (“
The puppy’s his child?”
Bill whispers.  Rebecca nods matter-of-factly and hushes him.)

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jonathan says formally.  “I withdraw any implied objection.”

Lil raises one elegantly manicured hand.  “Your Majesty, why should the Changer’s business take precedence over existing business?  Can’t it wait until we have settled the other issues?”

Arthur gestures for the Changer to speak.  “Lil, I want everyone to hear just what Sven will stoop to in order to get what he wants.  I think they should know this before they consider replacing Arthur’s government with his.”

Lil laughs.  “Don’t we know too well what Sven is willing to do?  But perhaps some of our younger kin need a reminder.  Very well, I do not make any formal objection.  Let the Changer’s business be handled first.”  

“Does anyone else have a question about this new issue?” Arthur asks.  “No?  Then we will vote.  A show of hands will do and, please, hold them high so that Eddie and Vera can see them. All in favor of hearing the Changer’s case as our first item of business, raise your hands.”

Eddie and Vera make a quick count.

“All against?”

One hand rises.  Katsuhiro Oba shrugs.

“I’m so tired of all this talk,” he says, thrusting out his prickly beard defiantly.

A varitoned chuckle fills the room, then Arthur motions for the Changer to come to the speaker’s podium.  He does so, Shahrazad hugging close to his legs.

“Thank you all,” he says, his gravelly voice carrying easily through the packed room.

In a brief, concise speech, the Changer tells of Shahrazad’s kidnapping, of the evidence that she had been taken by Louhi and Sven, of Sven’s phone call and the demands he had made.

The Changer’s missing eye is testimony enough that he has paid the ransom and at a cost higher than what had been asked.  He then tells of what he had overheard regarding the use to which his blood and eye would be put.  Several in the audience look ill, and many glance uneasily at where the Head sits impassively beside an equally impassive Louhi.