by Greg Cox
At the moment, he felt a more than usual kinship with Earth’s great apes, given that he was locked inside a cage that smelled distinctly of chimpanzee. Straw carpeted the cement floor beneath his feet, while both wrists were handcuffed to the bars at the front of the cage. Thankfully, he had this particular cage all to himself, although a large Bengal tiger paced back and forth in the adjacent cell, occasionally snarling at its new two-legged neighbor. Unfortunately, the big cat was nowhere near the conversationalist that Isis was.
An imposing male guard, whom Seven quickly identified as a Sikh by the man’s uncut beard, steel wristband, and ritual dagger, stood by watchfully outside the cage, along with Williams, who fidgeted impatiently [129] near the entrance to the storeroom, glancing frequently at his watch. “Where is she?” Williams said for possibly the tenth time. “I thought she was coming soon.” Even though they had escaped the punishing heat of the surface, the portly scientist was still perspiring heavily. “Can’t you shut those bloody animals up?” he snapped at the turbaned guard. “All this caterwauling is giving me a splitting headache.”
The guard shrugged philosophically. Clearly, quieting restless lab animals did not fall within his job description. Seven shared the Sikh’s fatalistic attitude toward their mildly cacophonous surroundings; compared with some of the environments he’d visited in the past, on Earth and elsewhere, this zoological prison was fairly easy to endure. He was more concerned about what was going on beyond the walls of the storeroom.
His own watch had been taken from him, but Seven estimated that it was approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, Indian time, when the door swung open to admit a tall Indian woman in a white lab coat, carrying a black leather doctor’s bag. He recognized her face immediately Sarina Kaur, he mused. His eyes narrowed as he compared the missing prodigy to her photos. Of course, I should have guessed she was the woman Offenhouse described.
Her obvious pregnancy disturbed Seven. He hoped that Kaur had not been so rash as to practice genetic engineering on her own unborn child, but feared the worst. That makes my task ten times more difficult, he realized, and puts the very future of this planet at much greater risk. With effort, he tore his troubled gaze away from the woman’s protruding stomach.
Kaur inspected him right back, looking more curious than concerned about her uninvited guest. “My apologies for your admittedly dehumanizing accommodations,” she said calmly. Self-assurance bordering on arrogance suffused her voice, which spoke perfect English, presumably for his benefit. “I’m afraid this base lacks proper detention facilities. An oversight, in retrospect, but not one I ever anticipated we would have cause to regret.” She sighed and applauded softly. “To be quite honest, Mr. Seven, you’ve come much further than I ever expected any outsider to get.”
[130] “Your installation is impressively remote,” Seven admitted, returning the compliment, “not to mention admirably well concealed.” If Kaur wanted to maintain a veneer of polite conversation over the reality of his imprisonment, he was willing to accommodate her for the time being. I’ll probably learn more that way.
Two stern-faced bodyguards, in matching blue uniforms, stood attentively behind Kaur, crowding the already cramped storeroom. Williams fluttered nervously outside the perimeter defined by Kaur’s guardians, watching their charismatic charge with an obvious mixture of admiration and anxiety. “It’s all Offenhouse’s fault,” he gulped, trying his best to look indignant. “He let this spy find out all about the flight.”
Despite Williams’s hasty indictment, Kaur appeared uninterested in assigning blame, at least for now. “Has he been searched?” she asked without looking at Williams. Her preemptory tone left little doubt as to where the pudgy Brit ranked on Chrysalis’s pecking order.
“Yes, of course,” he assured her. Retrieving a clear Ziploc bag from the original guard, he handed Seven’s personal effects to Kaur, who gave her own black valise to one of the guards. “Just some odds and ends,” Williams said dismissively.
Kaur carefully scrutinized the contents of the bag: Seven’s watch, wallet, keys, and pen. “No weapon?” she asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “That strikes me as unlikely.”
“We searched him thoroughly,” Williams insisted, tugging at the collar of his shirt. If nothing else, the director of Chrysalis had surely put the fear of God into her subordinate, “He’s unarmed.”
Kaur seemed unconvinced. “I wonder,” she murmured. Seven watched as she opened the bag and personally inspected his belongings. His face betrayed no hint of extra attention when she got to his servo. “Nice pen,” she commented, rolling the slim silver utensil between her fingers. “For taking notes on our operation?” she asked, giving Seven a quizzical look through the bars of his cage.
“Something like that,” he answered tersely
For a moment or two, he thought Kaur was going to put the servo aside without detecting its true nature. Then she gave the supposed pen a second look, twisting and manipulating its shiny silver casing [131] until, with a electronic beep, a pair of metallic antennae sprouted from the sides of the device. A victorious smirk lent a somewhat malevolent cast to Kaur’s refined features. “Well,” she intoned archly, “what have we here?”
Williams’s ordinarily ruddy face went pale. “I didn’t realize—I mean, how could I?” He was obviously not having a good day. Kaur’s personal bodyguards glowered at him scornfully, for compromising the director’s security, while the original guard just looked glad that the other man was taking the heat. “The important thing is, we did confiscate the bloody thing,” Williams blustered unconvincingly.
Kaur paid no attention to the Brit’s excuses. Instead she pointed the tip of the servo at Seven as she fiddled with the controls. “You might want to be careful with that,” he warned her sincerely, his poker face masking a degree of genuine apprehension on his part. From where he was confined, it was impossible to tell how Kaur might have adjusted the servo’s settings; for all he knew, it was now set to kill. The twin antennae vibrated and beeped, targeting Seven. He held his breath, waiting.
At the last minute, right before she fired, Kaur shifted her aim to the tiger instead. Invisible energy hummed momentarily, and the tranquilized feline drooped onto the straw-covered floor of his cage, settling in for a long nap. Seven watched the animal’s striped torso rise and fall with every sleepy breath, relieved that no one—including the tiger—had been seriously harmed.
“You might have killed it,” he chided Kaur. “I thought tigers were an endangered species.”
She deactivated the servo, whose antennae receded back into the silver casing. “At the moment, the most endangered species here is you, Mr. Seven.” She contemplated the disguised servo with amusement, then placed it in the pocket of her lab coat. “Or should that be Mr. Double-Oh-Seven?” she quipped.
Kaur’s little demonstration had served two functions, Seven realized: to test the capacities of the servo, yes, but also to demonstrate just how far Kaur was willing to go to protect her project. Very efficient, he thought, making a mental note not to underestimate this woman.
[132] “I am not a government agent,” he informed her deadpan, “and this is not a movie.” He looked Kaur squarely in the eye, determined to reason with his captor if that was at all possible. “What you are doing here could have very real consequences for the entire world.”
“I should hope so,” she replied. “Have you seen the current state of the world? It could certainly stand a welcome dose of rationality and superior intelligence.” She patted her swollen belly in a way that confirmed Seven’s most dire expectations.
“Be careful, Dr. Kaur,” he cautioned. “The heedless pursuit of genetic superiority almost always leads to strife and attempted tyranny, pitting the worshippers of perfection against those judged to be inferior.” He watched Kaur’s face intently, hoping to discern some crack in the woman’s forbidding self-confidence. Too bad I can’t tell her about the Borg, he thought, considering them to be an excellent caution
ary example, for all that they preferred cybernetics to genengineering. “Don’t you think the people of the world are divided enough already, without adding new and artificial grounds for discrimination and conflict?”
Kaur frowned, perhaps lacking an immediate rebuttal. “I would be considerably more interested in debating such matters with you,” she stated coldly, “if I knew who you are and whom you represent.” She stepped closer to his cage, so that only the bars of the enclosure separated them. He could have grabbed her, had he been so inclined, if his wrists weren’t handcuffed to the bars. “Enough chitchat,” she declared, examining him as though he were a genetically deficient retro-virus. “Tell me who sent you.”
“I work for myself,” he said, which was true enough, at least on a terrestrial scale. His nearest supervisor was several light-years away, and not remotely human.
“Which makes you what?” she demanded. “A mercenary? An opportunist?”
“A concerned citizen,” he retorted, “and one who has every reason to object to the reckless experiments you are conducting here.” In fact, he had yet to determine the exact nature of those experiments, but he wanted to give Kaur and her associates the impression that [133] they had nothing further to hide from him. The more Kaur tries to defend her work, the more I’ll learn.
“There is nothing at all illegal about our research,” she pointed out, “although I admit we’ve bent some rules here and there when it comes to financing and obtaining the necessary equipment. Last I heard there were no laws against creating superior human beings, not here in India, nor in your native America.” She peered at him speculatively. “That is where you’re from, Mr. Seven, isn’t it? The United States?”
“I like to think of myself as a man without a country,” he answered. In more ways than one.
“How very cosmopolitan of you,” she observed sarcastically. Seven detected an edge of irritation in her voice. “I’m losing patience with your evasions, Mr. Seven, if that is indeed your real name.” It is on this planet, he thought. “You realize, of course, that I cannot allow you to leave here before you have answered my questions. The security of the project depends on it.”
Somehow I doubt that I’d be going anywhere regardless, Seven thought. He detected in Kaur a ruthless streak that reminded him of too many of the fanatics and megalomaniacs he and Roberta had encountered over the last few years. Is it the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation that breeds these extremists, he wondered, or is this sort of ethical tunnel vision simply an intrinsic part of human nature? For the future’s sake, he hoped Kaur and her kind were just a temporary symptom of humanity’s painful transition to true civilization.
“What about the vast quantities of bacteria you’re stockpiling? Is that for the good of mankind, or just your own chosen heirs?” A flicker of surprise disturbed Kaur’s composed veneer, alerting Seven that he had scored a hit, even though he had genuinely hoped he was mistaken. Just like on Lanac VI, he thought regretfully, chagrined to see history repeating itself once more. “What sort of vile biological toxin have you concocted, Dr. Kaur? How many people have to die to clear the stage for your miniature messiahs?”
Kaur did not waste time with denials. “Evolution is a cruel process, Mr. Seven. Why burden future generations with the crushing failure of our own overpopulation?” Although briefly startled by Seven’s [134] knowledge of her plans, her calm self-confidence swiftly reasserted itself. “Barring decisive action on my part, the population of India alone is expected to exceed one billion by the year 2000. Can you imagine the sheer daunting impossibility of trying to feed, clothe, and govern that many human organisms, let alone the rest of the world? That is not the legacy I wish to bequeath to my children.”
“Extermination is no solution,” Seven warned her, “only an invitation to extinction.” He wished he could somehow plant a seed of doubt in Kaur’s mind, but feared that nothing could grow there but her own unshakable convictions. “When do you intend to release the virus?”
“Bacterium,” she corrected. “Genetically modified streptococcus, to be precise, capable of devouring soft tissue at an accelerated rate.” Judging from the silent acceptance of Williams and the guards, none of this came as a surprise to Kaur’s inner circle. “As for deployment, that’s still under debate. To be honest, the contagion remains something of a work-in-progress; I am not yet entirely satisfied with its rate of communicability. We’re almost ready to start testing the bug on selected population centers, though, so I’m currently negotiating with moles in the Soviet germ warfare program, Biopreparat, for a quantity of ICBM missiles equipped with specialized biowarheads.”
Seven nodded gravely. Although the Soviet Union had only recently signed the Biological Weapons Convention, banning the development and use of germ warfare, he was not surprised to hear that the Russians were secretly continuing their efforts in that area. Something to look into, he acknowledged, if and when I survive this current mission.
“Ultimately, of course,” Kaur continued, “there’s no need to fully unleash the final version of our lovely, flesh-eating bacteria until the children of Chrysalis are ready to inherit the Earth.” She patted her gravid belly. “Still, I must say, Mr. Seven, that your own success at penetrating our security makes me think that sooner might be safer than later.”
“Please don’t rush on my account,” he told her dryly. “If I were you, I’d worry less about your security, and more about the long-term implications of what you’re doing.” Although willing to make the effort, [135] he was rapidly abandoning any hope of convincing Kaur through logic and argument. I need to contact Roberta and Isis, he concluded, planning ahead to the next phase of this mission, and find out what they’ve learned. Touching base with the two agents was not going to be any easier now that Kaur had taken his servo, but Seven was confident that he could locate one or more of his operatives once he succeeded in escaping this cage. After all, he had once managed to track down Roberta in the middle of that fifth-dimensional maze of mirrors, so finding her in a multistory underground laboratory should pose only minimal difficulties. All he needed now was for Kaur and the others to leave him alone for a few minutes.
He resisted the temptation to start searching for an escape route already. Not while Kaur is watching me so closely, he knew. Hopefully, she would tire of this fruitless interrogation soon and give him a bit more privacy. He had no doubt that he would be able to outwit a mere guard or two.
“You seem to have a genetic predisposition toward stubbornness,” she remarked with what Seven considered an encouraging degree of impatience. “An annoying trait, at least when harnessed to a reactionary desire to hold back the future.” She stepped back from the cage to regard Seven from a greater distance. “Fortunately, we possess effective means to erode that stubbornness.” She turned her head to address a guard. “The bag, please, Sanjit.”
Seven didn’t like the sound of that. Was Kaur really obsessed enough to resort to physical torture? That hardly meshed with the utopian vision she espoused, but, then again, she would scarcely be the first reformer in Earth’s history who proved willing to build a paradise atop the bones of countless victims. Unevolved humanity, Seven had learned the hard way, was capable of embracing appalling contradictions.
Fortunately, he had little to fear from torture except the actual physical discomfort. Carefully constructed psychological blocks, implanted in his mind well before he ever set foot on this backward planet, would prevent him from revealing any of the Aegis’s most dangerous secrets, no matter how brutally he was treated. His only real [136] concern, besides an innate instinct for self-preservation, was that his ordeal might leave him too weak to complete his mission, let alone come to the assistance of Roberta or Isis. They’ve both had plenty of experience in the field, he reminded himself. If worst comes to worst, perhaps they can neutralize Chrysalis on their own?
“Maybe you should examine your methods as well as your goals,” he said, trying even now to plant that seed of dou
bt in Kaur’s mind. “If one is suspect, perhaps there may be something profoundly wrong with the other as well.”
Kaur’s implacable demeanor remained unperturbed. “You needn’t worry about torture, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she told Seven. “Physical coercion is a barbaric remnant of the past.” She reached into her bag and drew out a capped plastic vial and a hypodermic syringe. “As always, I prefer a more biochemical approach.”
A dark purple fluid, the color of spilled Klingon blood, sloshed within the clear plastic tube. “Sodium pentothal?” Seven guessed uncertainly. The color didn’t match any variety of truth serum that he was familiar with, and certainly nothing available on contemporary Earth.
“Nothing so crude,” Kaur declared with pride, carefully filling the syringe with the contents of the vial. “We have something much better: an artificially synthesized neurotransmitter that stimulates the, shall we say, confessional areas of the brain.” She held the hypo up to the light, checking for unwanted air bubbles, then sprayed a small quantity of the serum through the point of the needle. “A useful byproduct of our research into brain chemistry.”
Handing the bag back to her bodyguard, she approached Seven once again, holding the syringe upright. The other guard stepped forward as well, responding to a subtle nod from the director. He reached through the bars of the cell and took a firm hold on Seven’s right arm. “Please refrain from struggling,” Kaur advised the prisoner. She waited patiently while the guard rolled up Seven’s sleeve, exposing his lower arm. “It will hurt less if I can make a clean stick.”
Seven did not try to yank his arm from the guard’s grip. As long as he was handcuffed to the cage, not to mention outnumbered and [137] unarmed, there was little point in resisting. I guess we’ll see now, he mused, just how effective Kaur’s serum is.