All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) by Randall Farmer Read Free Book Online Page A

tendency to lose his metasense in it.  Her glow was even more impressive when she was inside Inferno, as all of Lori’s links to her Transforms mesmerized him into awed silence.
    Which was one possible reason Lori had taken him away from Inferno.
    “Carol?  She’s no one to complain about my personal life, or yours,” Lori said.  A person might almost think Lori was jealous of Tiamat and her Arm freedoms.  Gilgamesh decided that couldn’t be so.  No one in their right mind would want to be an Arm.
    “You were closer to Sky, once,” Gilgamesh said, not wanting to use the word ‘break up’.  His feelings disquieted him.  Where was the anxious male competitive jealousy he remembered from similar situations as a normal man?  Did he misremember his old feelings?  He swore he had been a rather possessive and jealous young man, back in his old courting days.  He felt nothing like jealousy now.
    Nor was this normal courting.  This wasn’t a date, Lori had little romance in her, and although Gilgamesh did feel romantic about Lori, it wasn’t an overwhelming feeling.  Yet this was courting at the juice level.  From Sky’s letters, from before Gilgamesh had met Lori, Sky and Lori had been quite romantic during their earlier courtship.  Gilgamesh wasn’t Sky, though.
    “He’s impossible,” Lori said.  “He’s got his ideas about the way Transforms work, and we can’t live up to his expectations, so he fights with us all the time.”
    Gilgamesh watched distant cars and did a metasense sweep.  Lori’s bodyguards were about a quarter mile away, back, front and sides.  He reviewed Sky’s interactions with Inferno, the ones he had seen and the ones he overheard or metasensed.  A snowflake landed on the tip of his nose.  Finally, he understood.
    He had lost many of his old panic reflexes during the time he had been dealing personally with Tiamat.  If he hadn’t, he would have run, from the realization he made about Inferno.
    “Why is Ann so annoyed with Sky?”
    Lori smiled.  “It’s not just Ann, Gilgamesh.  I broke up with Sky long before she did.”
    “Yes, but since Ann is the real boss of Inferno, her dislike is far…”
    His comment earned him a snowball in the shoulder.  “I thought you said you didn’t understand Focus and Transform politics, Gilgamesh,” Lori said.  “We don’t exactly advertise this little tidbit of information.”
    “I just figured it out.”  He didn’t answer, and eventually Lori waited him out.  “No, I don’t understand why , but it’s the only data that fits.”
    Lori nodded, and turned to look over toward the Charles River, and an approaching snow squall.  When she answered, her voice was Crow quiet.  “Sky and Ann had grown close, I think to the point where the two of them gave serious thought to making things official.  Marriage official.  Then Sky went and told Ann that as a woman, she should be engaged in something more nurturing, and give up on her anthropology and field biologist work.”
    “Let me guess,” Gilgamesh said.  “Ann took Sky’s comment as showing his true colors as an old fashioned male supremacist.”
    “You’re laughing,” Lori said.  “I’ll tell you, none of us were amused.”
    Gilgamesh nodded.  “I’m sorry if I made light of the situation.  I know the story from the other end: Sky was attempting to help some panicked Crows, in particular, a Crow by the name of Coriolis.  Coriolis has been having terrible nightmares about Ann.  Quite a few Crows have a problem with the fact they’re being studied by a Transform anthropologist.  Sky wanted Ann to back off a bit, and he ended up, um, taking one for the home team.  As he termed it.”
    “So Sky isn’t a male chauvinist pig, he’s just more tied to Crow society than to Inferno.”
    “Uh huh.”  More than willing to sacrifice a serious relationship to keep other Crows happy.  Gilgamesh didn’t think he could ever do such a thing.
    They crossed a