Separation (11 page)

“It mean
foreigner.
”

Considering the men were armed with guns,
they weren’t looking to take anyone on a guided tour. “What we do,”
Leo questioned. “I smell they have food and wine. I am hungry.”

“I am also hungry,” Istvan whined. “I do not
want to think about food, but it is thinking about me.”

“Fine, fine,” Harry said, trying not to be
impatient. He also hadn’t eaten in a while, but he’d been thinking
of what Allenby could be planning, and his mind was full of
possible theories. Still, he had to focus on the situation at hand.
“Okay, sit tight, let me look this over.”

He checked their targets—yes, three of them
carried knapsacks, and while this was so not the time to think of
their next meal, Anastasia’s tummy had begun to growl, very
audibly, too. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m... you know.”

Yeah, I know, Harry thought, and then came up
with an idea. “Leo, take a walk.”

The mole-man turned around with a quizzical
expression on his furry face. “Take walk... where?”

“Over there,” Harry pointed directly at the
group of thugs.

“Are you feeling normal?”

It had to be the oddest question around, and
in any other situation it would have been funny, but Harry had no
time to explain. “Just do it.”

Leo threw him a nervous glance, but toddled
out with his hands held high and yelled something in Italian.
Immediately, the group hustled over and one of the men slammed him
to the ground. They stood in a circle over their captive, laughing
as though they’d bagged the biggest prize.

Anastasia leaped out of her hiding place and
smashed two of them to the ground. Harry took care of the other
three in short order, using fists and elbows to knock them out.
After tying them up with their belts, he took their knapsacks. As
Leo had indicated with his hypersensitive nose, two of the
knapsacks contained bottles of wine along with bread, cheese, and
some sausages.

“We eat now?” Leo asked, practically
salivating at the sight of the edibles.

“We find somewhere safe to eat and then
sleep,” Anastasia stated, and pointed off to their right. “I see a
bunch of trees up ahead. Let’s go there.”

Her observation proved to be correct, and
they took their booty over to the small forest where they tore into
the food. Leo immediately guzzled down one of the bottles of wine,
gave a satisfied burp, and then passed out. Istvan also ate his
fill and lay down to sleep, and Harry nodded at his wife. “Get some
rest,” he said. “I’ll stand watch.”

She kissed him fondly on the lips. “Give us a
couple of hours. We have to get moving.”

Curling her tail around her body, she
gracefully slipped to the earth and was soon out. Harry smiled at
the way she slept, like a small child, but Anastasia was no child.
She was
with
child, and he would soon become a father.

Once again, awe overcame him. A father...
what would the baby look like, he wondered with a sense of
bemusement. He’d always wanted to get married, but this? Fear of
fatherhood, perhaps a natural feeling for everyone, filled him, but
at the same time he resolved to be strong. Bringing a new life into
the world, he had to take responsibility.

Shifting his attention to the landscape
around them and the rapidly lightening sky, he paced back and
forth, sniffing the air, but detected no scents of anything save a
few animals that had come out to forage. Still, he stayed on the
alert until the early cry of a rooster alerted them that morning
had broken.

They continued their journey just after
sunup, and while they made decent progress for the first hour,
Anastasia soon tired, and Leo’s body was not built for long hikes.
He plodded along, each step becoming slower than the last. “I must
rest,” he said, plopping down on the ground.

Istvan also complained about not being able
to walk much further. They’d come to the edge of a small village
and sought refuge in a grove of bushes at the edge of a field. The
day had dawned hot and bright, and by now everyone was sweaty and
tired, but the trees and bushes gave them a bit of shelter.

However, without any water or food, the
situation would soon go from bad to desperate, and no ideas seemed
to be forthcoming until Leo tapped him on the arm. “I have idea,”
he said, his mood brightening somewhat. “Come with me.”

What was up with the assertive bit? There was
no need for anyone to prove themselves, but once he saw the target,
he played along. They trotted over to the people who were getting
out of their truck, and Harry offered a greeting in a most cheerful
air. “Hi, how would you like some passengers?”

It had to be the most naïve as well as the
stupidest idea around, but this was the perfect situation in which
to try it. The leader of the group turned his head and began to
smile, nodding his head up and down in a rapid motion. Gesturing to
his friends, they also began to nod and then clapped their hands.
Words in Italian began flying back and forth, and finally, with
hearty “Si” it seemed as though a deal had been struck.

Leo nodded and switched to English. “They
will take us. Get your wife and our friend.”

Harry whistled, and Anastasia bounded over
with Istvan under one arm. “Have we got a ride?”

“We’ll fit right in.” He pointed at the
truck—a circus truck, one of three.

Immediately, she let out a giggle. “Yeah, I
guess we will.”

Clambering into the back, they nestled among
the supplies. Harry searched around and found a few loaves of bread
and cheese, while Istvan sniffed out a jug of water. Soon, the food
and water disappeared, with Anastasia ingesting most of it. They
all got comfortable and Harry posed the question to Leo, “What did
you say to them?”

“I say we are performers. We seek work. We
are clowns, yes?”

Talk about sharp! Leo had pretty useful
assets, the gift of gab being one of them. “Yeah, we’re clowns. Are
they going to take us to Lyon?”

A nod came his way. “They will get us over
the border. They do not know about us being... what we are. Once we
cross, we go to Lyon. I say we must go to Lyon. That is about two
hundred fifty miles.”

Harry rapidly calculated the time and
distance—they might just make it. Harry thanked him and settled
back, Anastasia in his arms. The truck bounced merrily along, but
he barely felt the jolts. Instead, he held onto his wife tightly
and soon exhaustion overtook him and he slept.

“We are here,” a voice said.

Harry immediately awoke. Leo thrust his face
close to his. “We are outside Paris. The truck driver, he say he
must go on without us.”

Shaking his companions awake, Harry poked his
head out the back of the truck. The sun felt glorious and he basked
in its warmth for a moment. Clambering outside, he waited for his
wife and Istvan to emerge. After they did, the truck drove off.

Anastasia asked, “So what do we do now? Can
we hitch a ride?”

It didn’t seem possible. They’d arrived at
noon and they were out in the open. Additionally, two hundred-plus
miles separated them from their destination. Harry glanced around,
saw nothing in the way of transportation, and then turned around to
focus on Leo. “Do you know this guy Lambert?”

The mole-man shook his head, but Istvan spoke
up. “I know of him. I heard the Monsignor talk about him, and I
know his computer address.”

Why didn’t he say so before?
For a
second, Harry felt more than a little put out, but checked his
anger. He hadn’t thought to ask. “Tell me. I’ll send him a
message.”

Getting the information, Harry sent an email,
then waited for a reply, tapping his fingers impatiently on the
keyboard until the computer let out a faint pinging sound. One
email was there. Opening it, he read
Thank you for contacting
us. We will come to meet you. Please wait about three
hours.

With nothing better to do, the four of them
hunkered down in a nearby forest and waited. Anastasia’s morning
sickness continued and she quietly crept off to toss her cookies
while Istvan and Leo foraged for some food. Harry kept watch, but
no one seemed to be coming after them, and for a moment, he forgot
about their predicament.

A memory, though, of vigilante groups,
assailed him. In New York, roughly six months earlier, he and
Anastasia had been running for their lives and had found an
unlikely rescuer, a nearly blind woman named Josephine. She’d
willingly hidden them, fed them, and supplied them with enough
funds to continue their flight. “Why’d you help us,” was Harry’s
first question to her.

She offered a beatific smile. “I helped you
because you’re good people. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m old, a
widow, and have no money, and if you’d wanted to kill me you
already would have. You didn’t, and that means I can trust
you.”

He’d never forgotten her, and once settled,
he’d sent her enough money to help her live decently for however
long she had. It was a considerable sum, and he hoped it would be
used wisely.

Now, he had to rely on the kindness of
strangers, and his hopes that humanity would understand rose, if
only by a few percentage points...

There... the sound of a truck disturbed the
peace. Many vehicles had already passed by, but the smells of the
passengers had been the standard smell of humans, dry skin, milk
and meat. This time he smelled something different... something not
entirely human. Tilting his nose in the air, he sniffed again
and... yes, different. Anastasia came over to stand beside him.
“You smell them too, right?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed with a nod. “I make two
of them being like us, but not.”

The
not
part perturbed him. Even
though Anastasia’s sense of smell was superior to his, he’d always
been able to discern the differences between transgenics and
humans. Sometimes it was the fur and sometimes it was just a
deeper, heavier, gamier smell. This time... he wasn’t sure.

A few seconds later, Istvan and Leo joined
them and they waited as the truck approached. It stopped, and three
people got out. One of them was human, a small, slender man in his
fifties. Harry recognized him as Lambert, the liaison from the
French government.

The others resembled goats, with small horns
protruding from their skulls, although their features were
essentially human. They looked like twins, and Harry remembered
reading about experiments performed on twins in an earlier,
terrible war...

“You must be Harry Goldman,” the man said in
an elegant French accent, and then nodded politely at Anastasia.
“Are you his girlfriend?”

“I’m his wife,” she said.

Lambert nodded. “It is good you have found
each other. I also see a special guest, one my Italian compatriot,
Monsignor Morello, told me about.” He aimed his forefinger at
Istvan. Leo blinked and looked away, as if disconcerted at not
being included in the introductions.

“I am the French government’s special envoy
for transgenic affairs,” he continued, indicating his men with a
slight wave of his hand. “These are my bodyguards. We have some
trouble, and it is vital that we tell you.”

“What kind of trouble are we talking
about?”

Lambert glanced around and muttered something
to one of the goat-men. “Not here. We are in an open place, and
there have been attacks as of late. Follow us.”

He gestured to his truck and everyone piled
in. One of his men took the wheel and rapidly drove to a small
house on the outskirts of town. Surrounded by open field, it seemed
like an outpost in the middle of nowhere.

A rustic looking place made of wood and
sparsely furnished, it contained only a few couches and chairs.
Lambert spoke to his guards, one of whom promptly went outside. “My
guard will watch over us,” he said as the other goat-man took up a
position near the window.

“We have been contacted by some members
within the Vatican, chief among them Monsignor Morello,” Lambert
began. He leaned over, elbows on his knees and a thoughtful look on
his face. “You must understand, when the transgenics first came to
us, we did not know how to handle them. Their needs are special and
our attitudes were not so...” he deliberated for a time,
“cordial.”

“Cordial, as in jailing or shooting
everyone,” stated Anastasia. A glint of something was in her eyes,
and it was not friendly. “That’s how the Italians treated their own
people. We just escaped from Rome. They hunted us down and shot
your representative.”

The message seemed to rock Lambert’s world,
as he shot up to a ramrod stiff position and his mouth dropped
open. “They killed Monsignor Morello?”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Lambert said nothing, and then
he started to shake his head slowly, as if unable to process the
news. Tears formed in his eyes. “He was a good man, committed to
equality.” With a quivering hand, he wiped the water away. “This is
terrible, and it makes our mission even more imperative.”

“What can you tell us about Allenby?”

Lambert’s face hardened. “We did not know of
him at first, but after we found out, we realized what he is. He is
a monster. He was the former head of a research company in the
United States. He is after Istvan, we know that much.”

At the news, Istvan, who hadn’t uttered a
word thus far, shrank in his seat. “He wants my blood,” he
whispered.

“Yes,” Lambert nodded. “From what we know,
Allenby is convinced that using Istvan’s blood is the key.”

“You mean the key to curing diseases,”
Anastasia put in.

“No.”

Lambert arose and pointed at his guard. “He
is seeking to transform others into hybrids, but not the way you
think. He is trying to turn them more human... clone them, if you
will.”

With a shock, Harry recalled that both goat
guards looked identical. “But why...”