One of the puppies put a paw on Jefri’s wrist and pressed gently downward. At the same time, another extended its muzzle and licked Jefri’s fingers. The tongue was pink and raspy, a round narrow thing. The high- pitched wheeping got stronger; all three moved in, grabbing at his hand with their mouths.
“Be careful!” Jefri said, jerking back his hand. He remembered the grownups’ teeth. Suddenly the air was full of gobbling and buzzing. Hmp. They sounded more like goofy birds than dogs. One of the other pups came forward. It extended a sleek nose toward Jefri. “Be careful!” it said, a perfect playback of the boy’s voice… yet its mouth was closed. It angled its neck back… to be petted? He reached out; the fur was so soft! The buzzing was very loud now. Jefri could feel it through the fur. But it wasn’t just the one animal who was making it; the sound came from all directions. The puppy reversed direction, sliding its muzzle across the boy’s hand. This time he let the mouth close on his fingers. He could see teeth all right, but the puppy carefully kept them from touching Jefri’s skin. The tip of its snout felt like a pair of small fingers closing and opening around his.
Three slipped under his other arm, like they wanted to be petted too. He felt noses poking at his back, trying to pull his shirt out of his pants. The effort was remarkably coordinated, almost as if a two-handed human had grabbed his shirt. Just how many are there? For a moment he forgot where he was, forgot to be cautious. He rolled over and began petting the marauders. A surprised squeaking sound came from all directions. Two crawled beneath his elbows; at least three jumped on his back and lay with their noses touching his neck and ears.
And Jefri had what seemed a great insight: The adult aliens had recognized he was a child; they just didn’t know how old. They had put him in one of their own kinderschools! Mom and Dad were probably talking to them right now. Things were going to turn out all right after all.
Lord Steel had not taken his name casually: steel, the most modern of metals; steel, that takes the sharpest edge and never loses it; steel, that can glow red hot, and yet not fail; steel, the blade that cuts for the flenser. Steel was a crafted person, Flenser’s greatest success.
In some sense, the crafting of souls was nothing new. Brood kenning was a limited form of it, though mainly concerned with gross physical characteristics. Even kenners agreed that a pack’s mental abilities derived from its various members in different measures. One pair or triple was almost always responsible for eloquence, another for spatial intuition. The virtues and vices were even more complex. No single member was the principal source of courage, or of conscience.
Flenser’s contribution to the field—as to most others—had been an essential ruthlessness, a cutting away of all but the truly important. He experimented endlessly, discarding all but the most successful results. He depended on discipline and denial and partial death as much as on clever member selection. He already had seventy years of experience when he created Steel.
Before he could take his name, Steel spent years in denial, determining just what parts of him combined to produce the being desired. That would have been impossible without Flenser’s enforcement. (Example: if you dismissed a part of yourself essential for tenacity, where could you get the will to continue the flensing?) For the soul in creation, the process was mental chaos, a patchwork of horror and amnesia. In two years he had experienced more change than most people do in two centuries—and all of it directed. The turning point came when he and Flenser identified the trio that weighed him down with both conscience and slowness of intellect. One of the three bridged the others. Sending it into silence, replacing it with just the right element, had made the difference. After that, the rest was easy; Steel was born.
When Flenser had left to convert the Long Lakes Republic, it was only natural that his most brilliant creation should take over here. For five years Steel had ruled Flenser’s heartland. In that time he had not only conserved what Flenser built, he extended it beyond the cautious beginnings.
But today, in a single circling of the sun about Hidden Island, he could lose everything.
Steel stepped into the meeting hall and looked around. Refreshments were properly set. Sunlight streamed from a ceiling slit onto just the place he wanted. Part of Shreck, his aide, stood on the far side of the room. He said to it, “I will speak with the visitor alone.” He did not use the name “Flenser'. The whitejackets groveled back and its unseen members pushed open the far doors.
A fivesome—three males and two females—walked through the doorway, into the splash of sunlight. The individual was unremarkable. But then Flenser had never had an imposing appearance.
Two heads raised to shade the eyes of the others. The pack looked across the room, spotting Lord Steel twenty yards away. “Ah-h… Steel.” The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Steel had bowed when the other entered, a formal gesture. The voice caused a sudden cramp in his guts, and he involuntarily brought bellies to the ground. That was his voice! There was at least a fragment of the original Flenser in this pack. The gold and silver epaulets, the personal banner, those could be faked by anyone with suicidal bravado… But Steel remembered the manner. He wasn’t surprised the other’s presence had destroyed discipline on the mainland this morning.
The pack’s heads, where they were in sunlight, were expressionless. Was a smile playing about the heads in shadow? “Where are the others, Steel? What happened today is the greatest opportunity of our history.”
Steel got off his bellies and stood at the railing. “Sir. There are some questions first, just between the two of us. Clearly, you are much of Flenser, but how much—”
The other was clearly grinning now, the shadowed heads bobbing. “Yes, I knew my best creation would see that question… This morning, I claimed to be the true Flenser, improved with one or two replacements. The truth is… harder. You know about the Republic.” That had been Flenser’s greatest gamble: to flense an entire nation- state. Millions would die, yet even so there would be more molding than killing. In the end, there would exist the first collective outside of the tropics. And the Flenser state would not be a mindless agglomeration grubbing about in some jungle. The top would be as brilliant, as ruthless as any packs in history. No people in the world could stand against such a force.
“It was an awesome risk to take, for an even more awesome goal. But I took precautions. We had thousands of converts, many of them people with no understanding of our true ambition, but faithful and self- sacrificing—as they should be. I always kept a special group of them nearby. The Political Police were clever to use mob assassination against me, the last thing I had expected—I who made the mobs. No matter, my bodyguards were well trained. When we were trapped in Parliament Bowl, they killed one or two members of each of those special packs… and I simply ceased to exist, dispersed among three panicky, ordinary people trying to escape the blood swamp.”
“But everyone around you was killed; the mob left no one.”
The Flenser-thing shrugged. “That was partly Republican propaganda, and partly my own work: I ordered my guards to hack each other down, along with everyone who was not me.”
Steel almost voiced his awe. The plan was typical of Flenser’s brilliance, and his strength of soul. In assassinations, there was always the chance that fragments would get away. There were famous stories of heroes reassembled. In real life such events were rare, usually happening when the victim’s forces could sustain their leader through reintegration. But Flenser had planned this tactic from the beginning, had envisaged reassembling himself more than a thousand miles from the Long Lakes.
Still… Lord Steel looked at the other in calculation. Ignore voice and manner. Think for power, not for the desires of others, even Flenser. Steel recognized only two in the other pack. The females and the male with the white-tipped ears were probably from the sacrificed follower. Very likely only two of Flenser really faced him. Scarcely a threat… except in the very real sense of appearances. “And the other four of you, Sir? When may we expect your entire presence?”
The Flenser-thing chuckled. Damaged as it was, it still understood balance-of-power. This was almost like the old days: when two people have a clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes almost impossible. There is only the ordered flow of events, bringing good to those who deserve to rule. “The others have equally good… mounts. I made detailed plans, three different paths, three different sets of agents. I arrived on schedule. I have no doubt the others will too, in a few tendays at most. Until then,” he turned all heads toward Steel, “until then, dear Steel, I do not claim the full role of Flenser. I did so earlier to establish priorities, to protect this fragment till I am assembled. But this pack is deliberately weak-minded; I know it wouldn’t survive as the ruler of my earlier creations.”
Steel wondered. Half-brained, the creature’s schemes were perfect. Nearly perfect. “So you wish a background role for the next few tendays? Very well. But you announced yourself as Flenser. How shall I present
