“But Bast is not a human, nor a Changed human. Bast is an elf. And what is impossible, even for most Changed, is normal to elves. Be glad elves so happy. If not, there be no more humans on earth.”
“So you’re not a Change race?” Antja asked. “Like the mer or the delphinos?”
“No,” Bast said, shaking her head. “We’re a made race, like the dragons. And, like the greater dragons, we have abilities that were, finally, recognized as just too dangerous to let breed unchecked. So most of us retreated to Elfheim and live in Dream.”
“What abilities?” Jackson asked.
“That is for elves, and Mother and the Council, to know,” Bast said with a grin. “But know this, I can take an orca, any single orca and probably more than one, in the water, mask or no mask. I’ll give you one: I can hold my breath as long as delphino. Mask is really unnecessary so far.”
“Damn,” Jason said.
“I am as fast as a mer in the water,” she added. “And can keep it up as long or longer.” She nodded at a rock in the sand by Jackson. “Throw rock.”
“This?” Jackson said, picking it up.
“Throw. Hard. To hit.”
“I don’t want to hit you,” Jackson temporized.
“Won’t,” Bast said. She waited, leaning on one arm, the other hand languidly at Herzer’s side, until Jason threw. She caught the hard-flung rock out of the air and, in turn, tossed it against the bluff so hard it cracked and left half of its mass buried in the limestone.
She stood up and pointed about a hundred yards down the beach.
“See big rock?” she asked and took off.
Her speed was phenomenal, especially since she was running on sand. The sand flew up behind her like a rooster-tail and by the end of the run she was striding nearly five meters at a time, bounding more like a gazelle than anything human. But she slammed to a stop at the end and then began cartwheeling and back flipping nearly as fast back to where the group was sitting with open mouths. She ended in a multiple flip and twirl that had her lowest point no less than two meters off the ground; she had jumped nearly twice her own height into the air.
“Not human,” Bast said, dropping back to a lotus position and not even breathing hard. “Look, somewhat, human, but less human than chimpanzee.” She smiled at Herzer. “Will not comment on what that means for mating, morality wise.”
“The elves were created as super-soldiers, by the North American Union,” Herzer amplified. “Bast…”
“Bast was created by Nissei Corporation during height of AI war,” Bast said. “Is old joke, old even then, ‘cheap Japanese knockoff.’ ” She grinned at the joke. “But not so bad knockoff, no?”
“Not bad at all,” Jason said. “Jesus.”
“Bast, I’ve got a question,” Herzer said. “What was that… horrible sound you made when you were holding Shanol.”
“That was the hunting scream of an orca,” Jason said, shuddering. “I’ve heard it before.”
“There are two types of orca,” Antja amplified. “There are pods that generally stay in one area and hunt fish. And then there are nomad tribes, which hunt marine mammals. They’re practically identical, but the nomads use that… sound when they are hunting. And for all they look the same, they’re pretty much two distinct subraces of orca. And that sound… it’s eerie as hell.”
“It is indeed,” Bast said. “Often thought that it was original of banshee’s cry. But Herzer was explaining some of what Edmund and dolphin-eater were talking about.”
“Yeah, Herzer,” Antja said. “I want to know what he said that set you off the first time. Something about Doctor Daneh.”
“As I said, I fell in with Dionys McCanoc,” Herzer said, for a moment reliving those days and seeing the house-broad McCanoc as if he were alive. “This is… I have to give you the background, sorry. I… knew he wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. No, I’ll be more honest. I’d discovered shortly before the Fall that he was a bug-house nuts bastard. But… when I was growing up, I had a genetic problem that screwed up my nerves. I shook all the time, had a hard time speaking. And it was just getting worse and worse. So I didn’t have many friends. And when it got worse I ended up with almost none. McCanoc… picked up on that and drew me into his circle. Generally as the butt of his jokes. But when I got better, when Dr. Daneh cured me, finally, I still hung around with him. Right up until just before the Fall, when I decided to give him a wide berth.”
“What happened?” Elayna asked, cocking her head to one side.
“Dionys-fisker set up rape of homunculus,” Bast answered. “Little girl homunculus, program to hate and fear sex.”
“And… he invited me,” Herzer said. “The problem being, as he had realized, I was… very tempted.” He looked up at the group around him and saw responses ranging from disbelief to anger. “As I said, I have my demons.”
“And very fine demons they are,” Bast said, patting him on the leg. “Love it when you let them off leash.”
“Bast!” Antja said.
“Hey, is fun play rough sometimes,” Bast said. “Herzer very gentle lover when wants to, right Elayna?”
Elayna blushed bright red but nodded.
“Very nice,” was all she said.
“Everyone demons have,” Bast said, looking off to sea. “Question is, do we run demons or demons run us?”
“Don’t get too angry with Herzer,” Jason said, looking at Antja. “Unless you’ve never thought about some of the play that we do. ‘Who’s my pretty little baby?’ with her hair tied up in pigtails?”
This time it was Antja’s turn to blush but she just nodded at Herzer to continue.
“Anyway, that was when I started avoiding McCanoc. Up until the Fall,” Herzer sighed. “I found him, or he found me maybe, shortly after. And… we were wandering with a group. No, not even wandering, waiting for something. McCanoc was always talking about his friends coming for him. And then we ran out of food and McCanoc decided that we needed to… take some from passersby.”
“Bandits,” Jason said.
“Oh, yes,” Herzer replied. “He almost made it sound romantic. If it hadn’t been for the constant rain and the hunger. I was thinking more in terms of begging food from them until whatever manna McCanoc expected dropped from heaven. Or, probably, just leaving the group, although McCanoc had said he considered that desertion. But before I could decide, one of the lookouts caught their first passerby. Who happened, by awful coincidence, to be Dr. Daneh.”
“Oh, shit,” Pete said. “What did you do?”
“Well, McCanoc, big-hearted guy that he is, offered me first rape,” Herzer said, his face hard and cold. “There were eight of them, McCanoc was armed with a sword, others had knives. I was unarmed. So I did the only thing a true hero would do in the situation; I ran.”
“Damn,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Not much else you could do. Except die pointlessly.”
“You didn’t tell us about this,” Antja said, looking at Rachel. “This was when you were on your way to the town, Raven’s Mill?”