Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (21 page)

 
          
"Here—this
might help." Pollard was distracted for just a second by the handle of a
net being waved in his face, and in that second, Red struck. Four talons seized
Pollard's upraised arm and clamped down hard.

 
          
Pollard
sucked in his breath and stifled a yell, and through a superhuman effort he
managed not to jerk his hand back; to do so, he understood, would only have
encouraged the hawk to squeeze harder. Red had stopped his chirping now, his
icy glare holding more triumph than terror.

 
          
Slowly,
Pollard turned his head toward the ashen-faced technician. "Don't say
it," he croaked when the man began a feeble apology. 'Just give him the
injection while he's busy with me."

 
          
Nodding
nervously, the technician hurried to the bench and returned with a syringe. Red
paid no attention to him and gave Pollard's arm an extra squeeze, as if to
emphasize the fact that Pollard had made a big mistake in trifling with him. He
did not let go, nor did he take his intense gaze off the scientist, even after
the technician had given him the first injection of the virus that Pollard had
spent the last year engineering.

 
          
"There,"
Pollard said shakily. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Again he turned
toward the technician standing nearby. "Now, if you would be so kind as to
help pry his talons out of my
arm.
. . ?"

 
          
Dr.
Pollard worked with Red then on a daily basis. He would spend hours talking
with the bird, showing him pictures and reading to him. Periodically, Red would
have to endure another injection of the virus, an artificial strain of avian
pox which Pollard had engineered
himself
after
exhaustive research, and whose core contained the rare mixture of nitrogenous
bases that had granted Jack the dog such high marks in mathematics. Every
injection meant another wrestling match, during which Red would try his level
best to draw blood from Pollard. He often succeeded.

 
          
For
months Red showed no interest in the pictures. He would preen his feathers
during Dr. Pollard's reading and sit motionless during his monologues.

 
          
"Subject
'Red' continues to show no sign of enhancement," Pollard would mumble into
his tape recorder at the end of every day. "No reaction to verbal
stimulus,
and no discernible interest in the selected
imagery." He grew increasingly frustrated, and increasingly worried about
how much longer his funding would last at this rate.

 
          
One
spring morning, Pollard stepped into Red's cage as he had hundreds of times
before. "Hello, Red," he mumbled as he sat down on a well-whitewashed
stool. "Hello. Hello?"

 
          
Red
peered levelly at him.

 
          
Pollard
took a little red ball from the pocket of his lab coat. "This is a ball,"
he said patiently.
"A ball.
A
... ball.
I'm holding a ball."

 
          
"Oh,
shut up."

 
          
Pollard
gasped. The ball fell from his fingers and bounced away. "My God," he
stammered. He thought at first that one of his technicians was playing a
far-from-funny joke on him, but a hasty search revealed no one else in the
corridor, no hidden speakers,
no
laughing underlings
sweeping into the room and clapping him on the back. "Red," he
ventured again. "It's . . . a ... ball. Say 'ball.' "

 
          
Red
had tucked one foot up into his body feathers while Pollard was searching the
room. Now he lowered it again and gripped the perch. He raised all of his
feathers and shook them out thoroughly, ending with a little shake of his red
tail, newly molted in just that year. "Shut up," he rasped again.
"Go away."

 
          
The
technicians barely recognized the wild-eyed man that burst, babbling, into
their coffee room. One of them dropped a full cup and sent coffee splashing
across the floor. Pollard bore down on them like a crazed animal, whooping and
yanking at their lab coats. He half-led, half-pulled them down the hall into
Red's room. "Ball!" he shouted. "Shut up!" Go away!"

 
          
Red
peered at him as though he were mad. So did the technicians. "Shut
up!"

 
          
Pollard
repeated, exasperation creeping into his voice. "Shut up!"

 
          
The
technicians glanced at one another uncertainly. One of them raised a hand
tentatively. "Dr.
Pollard.
. . ?"

 
          
Pollard
whirled toward him. "Shut up!" he shouted hoarsely. "Go
away!"

 
          
The
technicians hurriedly complied, leaving Dr. Pollard alone, red-faced and out of
breath. He looked around helplessly, and then suddenly remembered the tape
recorder in his pocket. He fumbled for it, dropped it, snatched it up again and
jabbed the "rewind" button. He counted ten breathless seconds, and
then pushed "play."

 
          
"Shut
up." The words on the tape were unmistakable. "Go away."

 
          
Raising
his eyes to the perching hawk, Pollard broke into a tremendous grin.

 
          
"You
did it," he panted. "You feathery bastard, you said it!"

 
          
Red
fluffed his feathers regally, paused to preen a wing, and then peered straight
down into Pollard's eyes. "Bastard," he repeated.

 
          
Science
had triumphed once again.

 
          
The
celebration was short-lived, however, as Red took little interest in the items
Pollard
brought
in to show him over the next month,
nor did he seem inclined to engage the good doctor in conversation. Indeed, he
showed a remarkable inclination for retaining only those words and phrases that
Pollard would have preferred Red not to learn. After a peculiar increase in the
number of four-letter words that Red was picking up, it was discovered that a
playful technician had been sneaking into the lab after hours and teaching the
bird the more colorful aspects of the English language. That technician was
sent packing over Red's loud protests.

 
          
One
day, on the notion that Red would most likely be interested in items that would
appeal to his predatory instincts, Pollard brought in a cage containing two
white laboratory mice. "Now, Red," he began, "These are—"

 
          
"Mousies."

 
          
Pollard
nearly dropped the cage. "That . . . that's right!" he exclaimed, but
then he realized that Red was staring not at the cage, but rather out the
window into the courtyard.

 
          
"Mousies,"
Red repeated. "Crispy fries, choc-choc-chocolatey shakes."

 
          
Confused,
Pollard stood on his tiptoes and peered through the window. Only after fetching
a pair of binoculars from one of the guards at the front gate did he discover
that a television set was visible through the window of the lunchroom on the
far side of the courtyard. At that moment another commercial aired for Mousie's
Burger Bistro, and on cue, Red raised his wings and loudly proclaimed the
virtues of the popular restaurant's choc-choc-chocolatey shakes.

 
          
"I'll
be damned," was all that Dr. Pollard could say.

 
          
A
requisition was hastily drawn up for a television to place in Red's cage, but
the bird showed only moderate interest in it, preferring to stare at the
far-off screen in the lunch room. It made sense, of course—hawks are designed
to perceive things at great distances. Pollard thus had the television mounted
in a room on the opposite side of the compound and facing a window that Red
could easily see, and ordered that, it remain tuned to educational and "socially
fulfilling" programming.

 
          
Red
watched his television avidly for many weeks, and it soon became clear that he
preferred its company over that of Dr. Pollard or his technicians. At first,
Pollard tried to discourage this behavior, but with Red's vocabulary growing at
a pace far beyond every reasonable expectation, Pollard reluctantly allowed him
to watch as much as he wanted to. The programming, at least, was wholesome.

 
          
Soon,
however, Red began to repeat off-color jokes and to utter some decidedly
ungentle-manly propositions to the female technicians. Pollard dogged the
staff, demanding to know who was teaching the bird such outrageous language.

 
          
It
was then discovered that whereas the scientific crew had been behaving
themselves, the janitorial staff had been taking nocturnal advantage of the big
television across the courtyard and had even hooked it to a cable feed.

 
          
The
evening programming was far from what Dr. Pollard considered proper, and he
proclaimed that the television was to be turned off for good.

 
          
Red
rebelled. For a full week he refused to speak a word, and the next week he
stopped eating. A week later, Pollard ordered that the hawk be force fed. He
was concerned, of course, but stubborn in his resolve not to allow his subject
to be exposed to the polluting influence of prime time cable TV programming
ever again.

 
          
At
last, one of the senior technicians intervened. "Why don't you just let
him watch the television?" she asked.

 
          
"No,"
Pollard growled. "He has to learn."

 
          
The
tech crossed her arms. "You don't have any children, do you?"

 
          
"Me?
Why ... no, I don't. Why?"

 
          
"It
shows." She suddenly strode past him. "Allow me to demonstrate."

 
          
Pollard
followed her, sputtering in protest, as she marched into Red's room.

 
          
The
bird turned his back to her and pointedly whitewashed a portion of the floor at
her feet. She stood firm. "I've had just about enough of this," she
barked sternly. "Do you want your TV back?"

 
          
Red
turned his head around and peered at her.

 
          
"Do
you?"

 
          
With
a flap he turned fully to face her. "Yes," he rasped.

 
          
"Then
you're going to have to be a good bird and do what Dr. Pollard tells you. You
will eat all of your food, and you will answer Dr. Pollard when he talks to
you.
Otherwise, no more TV.
Is that clear?"

 
          
Red
glowered at her and raised all of his feathers indignantly.

 
          
"I
said, 'Is that clear?' "

 
          
After
a tense moment, the feathers slowly came back down, and the fiery defiance in
the hawk's eyes cooled. "It's clear," he muttered sulkily.

 
          
Red's
mental capacity continued to advance, breaking new ground on a daily basis. The
military, of course, was ecstatic, proclaiming the project a rousing success
and ordered the project expanded, and new targets for the treatment identified.
Pollard complied, but remained troubled by Red's persistent defiance. From the
very beginning Pollard had worried that the fierce independence inherent in all
hawks would be a stumbling block in training them to perform on command, and
Red's attitude seemed to be confirming his fears. He tried to convince himself
that Red was simply suffering the usual growing pains, and that once he had
progressed to a more mature level of intellect he would become more manageable.

 
          
Day
by day, however, the hawk grew both wiser and more troublesome, and he began to
acquire numerous bad habits. One day, he somehow managed to obtain a
cigar—Pollard never found out
who
gave it to him—and
from then on insisted being allowed to smoke. Naturally Pollard refused, but
the bird retorted, "I saw the General smoking them. Why can't I?"
"Because they're bad for you."
"They aren't
bad for the General." "Yes, they are."