Chapter Thirty

 

 

 

"We walked into that like blind children into the jaws of a panther." J.B. banged his fist against a wall of their room, hard enough to chip plaster.

 

"No reason to think danger," Jak said, lying flat on his back on one of the beds, staring up at the ceiling. "Spilled blood can't go back in body."

 

Doc sighed. "An unusual variant on a famous old saying, Jak, my dear friend. The question now must be how do we get out of here?"

 

"I wish I knew the answer to two questions." Mildred stood next to the Armorer. "When they picked me up I heard that Ryan and Trader's party is missing. Love to know where they are now."

 

"That's only one question," Abe said.

 

"Second is where's Krysty? She should have been brought back to us by now."

 

J.B. nodded his agreement. "We all set off at noon, yesterday. Now it's around ten in the morning. After they disarmed us they kept us separated before bringing us back to this wing. Where's Krysty been all this time?"

 

 

 

KRYSTY HAD BEEN LOCKED UP in a small side ward at the far end of the top floor of the secret wing of the institute. After the relatively gentle interrogation, she had expected to be returned to the rest of the group.

 

But Crichton had other ideas.

 

"There is so much more we want to talk to you about," he'd said in that desiccated, croaky voice. "We do not wish you to be tainted by discussing this afternoon with your colleagues. It will render our research soiled and impure."

 

"You mean you're making me a prisoner instead of just, like, a guest?"

 

The lizard head had trembled, the hooded eyes blinking rapidly at her. "Prisoner? Was that the word I heard you use, my dear? Not so. After tomorrow, or the following day at the latest, you can go back to the rest of the outlanders."

 

"And we can go?"

 

"Oh, yes. Then you can all go."

 

The men with the scatterguns had escorted her, having taken the elementary precaution of removing the 640 Smith amp; Wesson from its holster.

 

It had all been very polite and calmly efficient. There had been four sec men, including Ellison, and they hadn't taken any chances. Two stood off on each side, covering her as she walked along the brightly lighted corridor.

 

"Dead lock on the door," the sec boss said. "Two men outside. This was used for restraining patients who'd got themselves sort of crazed after experiments. That's why there's also bars on the window. So, save your strength." He laughed, making the deep scar by his mouth curl up even more. "Though the whitecoats'll sure like to see you use that mutie power you got. That's what interests them more than anything."

 

 

 

SHE HAD SLEPT WELL, quieting herself with the meditative techniques taught to her by her mother Sonja. It had been a calm, dreamless night, and she woke at dawn feeling refreshed.

 

There had been a change of guards since the previous evening, and Ellison greeted her when he unlocked the door. "Have a good night?"

 

"Not bad."

 

"You notice the walls and ceiling are kind of padded in this part of the institute?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"That's because this end of the wing was used for crazies when the old-time scientists' predark experiments went wrong." He grinned at her so that the livid scar twitched as though it had a life of its own.

 

"You told me that last night."

 

"I did?"

 

"Yeah, you did."

 

He sniffed. "You say so. Anyway, they want you bright and early for the next round."

 

"Sure. Can't wait. Listen, is there any news about the rest of my friends?"

 

Ellison looked suddenly suspicious. "Why? What've you heard? Someone flapped his mouth?"

 

Krysty shook her head, aware of how tightly curled her flaming hair was, a sure sign of a threatening situation. "No. I heard that the hunting party had gotten separated. Most got back. Just Ryan and Trader out there."

 

Ellison nodded noncomm it tally. "I heard that."

 

"Will I see the others at breakfast? Hear the latest news from them?"

 

"No."

 

"Why not? The scientists want me to cooperate with them. If they don't help me, then I won't help them. You can tell them that."

 

"Wouldn't think that's a good idea, lady. They'll easy make you do what they want. Don't matter to the whitecoats whether you want to help or not. I should know."

 

"Why? Why should you know?"

 

Ellison backed off. "I didn't saydidn't mean nothing. But you don't get to see the others."

 

"Until I've been a really good girl with the whitecoats. Is that it?"

 

"Sure."

 

"What about Ryan and Trader? They must have come back during the night."

 

"No news." He hesitated. "Sorry, lady. Weather's been triple cold and snowy. Chances can't be that good for anyone stuck out there all night. Not with that giant grizzly on the loose."

 

Krysty nodded. "Bear's not born that could take out Ryan Cawdor and Trader."

 

 

 

CRICHTON WAS WAITING for her, with Ladrow Buford hopping nervously about at his side. There were eight or nine of the other scientists gathered around him, and half a dozen sec men. Krysty was immediately aware of a barely suppressed air of intense excitement.

 

The old man greeted Krysty with a warm smile. "Sleep well, child?" he asked.

 

"Sure. Can we get one thing straight right away?"

 

"Of course?"

 

"I don't like being held a prisoner. Don't like being cut off from my friends. I guess they're prisoners, as well. And I want to know what's been done to send out search parties to look for Ryan and Trader."

 

Crichton's smile disappeared like a rabbit down a hole. "What you don't like doesn't matter. I've had enough of your outlander arrogance. This is the Crichton Institute, founded by my grandmother." A thread of white frothy spittle sprayed from his lips. "We have been playing Mr. Nice Guy with you peasants far too long."

 

"Peasants! Just"

 

"I will have you beaten unconscious by the sec men if I have to. Whatever it takes to shut you up. Your friends are our prisoners. We shall find uses for them. The albino boy might be interesting, and the black woman."

 

Krysty felt a wave of anger swelling inside her. Despite her efforts to use the Gaia power to calm herself, she was aware that the rage was in danger of running the red arrow and getting beyond her control.

 

Buford was watching her closely, and he tugged at Crichton's sleeve, whispering something urgently in his ear.

 

"You think she" Crichton muttered. "Not with all these guns around her, surely. If we could try the experiment while she is in such a vein it would be" Krysty couldn't catch the rest of what was said.

 

Ellison caught her eye and winked at her. It helped Krysty break the vicious spiral of rising anger that had trapped her, and she felt her breathing slowing, control fighting its way back into her mind.

 

Crichton turned to her. "We have wasted enough time. For your information, we believe your companionsthe middle-aged man and the one with an eye missingare probably dead. We have sent out search parties. If they are found, they will be dealt with out in the field. Neither are of any value to us here." He wiped his hands together. "Now, we will attempt what my colleagues call 'the big one.' The excitement is nearly too much to bear." His face had become flushed, and Krysty noticed he was rubbing his left arm with his right hand. "Perhaps, Ladrow, you would give me one of my green pills. It would be a sad irony if I was to miss my date with destiny."

 

Buford had reached into the pocket of his lab coat and fished out a small black box. He opened it and offered a tablet to his boss, who laid it beneath his tongue.

 

"Thank you," he said. "Now, let us to it. This is the day that we have been working toward for a hundred years."

 

 

 

"FEAR IS A BEAST that can be small and easily beaten, or it can grow and swell until it could swallow the world. The decision is yours alone."

 

That was what Krysty's mother had said in one of her lectures on life and living.

 

It came back to Krysty as she was marched, under escort, into the largest laboratory she had yet seen. It was divided in two by a huge powered door, and she couldn't yet see what lay in that distant half.

 

There were a number of cubicles of different sizes, scattered around the part of the room where she stood. Most of them had walls of clear glass, though one or two were heavily smoked. The rest of the lab looked like sets for predark science-fiction vids, with bubbling retorts, whirring computers and flashing lights. None of it made the least sense to Krysty.

 

"Sit over there," Buford directed her. "Professor Crichton has to go and rest a little. His health is far from excellent. But he has delegated to me the responsibility for continuing. And" he paused for effect, throwing out his chest like a pouter pigeon, "he has allowed me the honor of telling you of the work we have done here. The work which is now near to its conclusion."

 

"So, tell me."

 

It took the better part of an hour, with his narrative constantly being interrupted by Krysty's questions.

 

At the end, she sat back, fighting to mask her emotions, trying to recount what she'd learned.

 

"You have nearly mastered the skill of duplicating living creatures while removing or controlling their worse aspects? Is that it?"

 

Buford nodded, his glasses glinting, his bald skull shining under the harsh overhead lights. "That really is a massive oversimplification, but yes. It will mean a Deathlands free from genetic mutations. As we copy, so we improve. That was the maxim of our beloved founder. Simple genetic engineering that will rearrange the DNA of our specimens. Any kinks in the chain can be removed and tweaked sideways." He demonstrated with a delicate gesture of his hands.

 

"A cleaner world." Krysty rubbed the side of her nose. "Uncle Tyas McCann, back when I was a girl, had plenty of old books. There was one from the Nazi times. Talked about something called eugenics. Racial cleansing. Rid the world of undesirables. Stop any kind of physical or social deviation from the norm." She paused. "They called it their 'final solution,' back then."

 

"Yes, yes!" He clapped his bony hands together. "You see, don't you? Oh, Krysty, I am so glad you do both see and understand."

 

"I understand real well. Though I'm not sure I believe it. I heard it took years and years to try to reproduce even the simplest organism."

 

"Not now." He looked around, then limped over to a cage of silvered wire on a bench, leaning heavily on his cane. "This rat, for instance."

 

It was white, with a pattern of black spots and patches, including one that looked amazingly like a spoon with a curved handle. Its eyes were pink, and its nostrils twitched as it peered out of its prison.

 

"You see its markings, Krysty?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"The bit here, like a ladle? Good. Now, I shall take it beyond the doors and return with it in less than five minutes. Sit quiet and wait."

 

 

 

THE SEC MEN STARED at her with a studied indifference, except for Ellison, who came and stood by her. "Having fun, Red?" he asked. "Better than watching paint dry, ain't it?"

 

"You can say that," she replied, "but you can't really expect me to comment, can you?"

 

"They tell you about their twinning?"

 

"Ah." She sighed, nodding, suddenly making the connection in her mind. "Of course. The hounds that went missing. They were identical, weren't they?" Krysty thought of the dying man they'd encountered who had been cruelly subjected to hideous medical experimentation, but decided it was wiser not to let on that she had seen him.

 

Ellison wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Sure were. Like as two peas in the pod, Red."

 

Buford appeared from a small door set in the side of the large door.

 

In each hand he held a cage, and in each cage there crouched a rat, each a perfect copy of the other, down to the last detail of their complex markings.

 

"There. Now do you believe?"

 

Krysty sniffed. "I've seen better tricks done by a medicine-show conjurer with a rabbit."

 

"Trick? Trick!" His face flushed, and be nearly dropped the cages in his temper. "It's not a trick, you mutie triple-stupe bitch!"

 

"I'm not stupid. There isn't any growth accelerator in the history of the world that could copy like that. Has to be a chautauqua trick."

 

"Right." He handed the rats to Ellison.

 

Raising his voice, he commanded, "Open the main doors."

 

A sec guard pressed a recessed button to the right of the room, and Krysty heard a faint grinding of machinery, a sound almost identical to the opening of the heavy sec doors in a gateway. The lab door began to lift.

 

The other half of the room was slightly smaller and less cluttered. But Krysty's eyes were drawn instantly to two pieces of equipment. She remembered what Ryan had said about the faded sign.

 

Though they were much smaller than the mat-trans chambers she had seen in a number of buried redoubts, Krysty didn't have the least doubt what she was looking athexagonal, made from armaglass, with small metal disks in floor and ceiling. They stood about fifty feet apart.

 

Then she knew.