?
WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT
"What are you listening to, Gollum?"
FUCKING MOZART
"Mozart?"
I SAID FUCKING MOZART
"You like fu… you like Mozart?"
MUCH FUCKING YES
"So do I. May I listen with you?"
She thought about it, finally heaved her chest in what I assumed was an indulgent gorilla sigh. She unplugged the earphone jack, and the strains of The Magic Flute filled the air.
"What else do you like besides Mozart?" I asked after a few minutes.
JUST LIKE FUCKING MOZART
"Why?"
MAKE GOLLUM NOT FUCKING SAD
"You mean Mozart makes you happy?"
MEAN MOZART MAKE GOLLUM
NOT FUCKING SAD
"You're sad when you don't listen to Mozart?"
FUCKING YES
'Why?"
FUCKING WRONG
"It's wrong to feel sad, or wrong to listen to Mozart?"
GOLLUM FUCKING WRONG
"I don't understand."
She stared at me hard, and suddenly her yellow eyes were filled with-a profound sadness. Her thick lips trembled, and I had the distinct impression that she was debating whether or not, or how, to reply. Suddenly the fingers of both hands flew over the keyboard.
I stared at the screen in disbelief, a lump rising in my throat, tears welling in my eyes.
GOLLUM MADE FUCKING WRONG
GOLLUM HAVE FUCKING PERSON FEELINGS
GOLLUM NOT A FUCKING PERSON
GOLLUM NOT A FUCKING GORILLA
GOLLUM FUCKING WRONG
"Oh, my God," I whispered in a choked voice. "You understand that?"
GOLLUM FUCKING WRONG
GOLLUM NOT FUCKING STUPID
And she put her earphones back on.
CAT Scan.
Mmmmmmm.
Whatever else they were finding in my body, the machines would have blown out if they'd been able to measure rage. I was getting seriously pissed.
"Loge hurt you very badly when he made you wrong, didn't he?" I asked quietly.
Gollum studied me for a long time from beneath her thick, bony brows. Finally the answer came.
FUCKING YES
"I'm sorry I upset you before. I didn't mean to."
FUCKING OKAY
"I'm also sorry Loge hurt you."
?
FUCKING WHY
MASTER NOT FUCKING HURT YOU
"He has hurt me, and he is hurting me and my brother, but that isn't the point. I'm saying that I'm sorry he hurt you. You didn't deserve it. Neither do Garth and I deserve to be hurt."
?
WHY MASTER HURT GOLLUM AND FUCKING PEOPLE
"Because Loge is a bad man."
?
MASTER IS FUCKING WRONG
"Loge is bad-he's evil. He likes to hurt. That's much worse than being wrong." I glanced over my shoulder, saw that the technician-a surly midget-was sitting by the controls across the room, thoroughly absorbed in an issue of Hustler. I turned back to Gollum, lowered my voice, "Will you let me go so that these people can't hurt me any more?"
She tensed, quickly reached for the keyboard.
FUCKING NO
FUCKING CHOKE
"Why not, since you know they're making me wrong and hurting me?"
HURT FUCKING GOLLUM MORE
MASTER KILL FUCKING GOLLUM
"Okay."
GOLLUM SORRY YOU MADE FUCKING WRONG
GOLLUM SORRY MASTER FUCKING HURT YOU
GOLLUM SORRY SHE DROP YOU ON FUCKING HEAD
I smiled at her, shrugged. "It's fucking okay."
GI series: Injections of irradiated barium, more X-rays. Clickety-click.
"I'm not going to call you Gollum any longer," I announced to my watch-gorilla after a particularly nasty spasm of nausea had passed. "The kid named you that, didn't he?"
FUCKING YES
"That's a bad name, and you're a good gorilla. I'm going to call you Golly. Okay?"
FUCKING OKAY
FUCKING SPEAK SPELL PLEASE
I said the name slowly, and Golly tried out a series of spellings.
When she hit the right one, I nodded my head.
?
HOW FUCKING GOLLY CALL YOU
"Mongo," I said, and spelled it for her. The gorilla did some fast fingering on her keyboard, assigned me a symbol.
MONGO FUCKING OKAY
Rest time.
Figuring that a watch-gorilla and my choke collar were sufficient to make me stay put, my last technician had not bothered to strap me into the leather recliner while he'd gone off for a smoke. Golly was slumped in another recliner in the small lounge. She had her earphones on, and her eyes were closed. She appeared to be asleep.
Moving very slowly, I eased myself out of the recliner and tiptoed across the room. I would have liked to try and snatch the control box for my choke collar, but that was in Golly's lap and it seemed best to let sleeping gorillas lie. I tiptoed past her, out of the lounge. I turned right and sprinted as fast as I could down a narrow, white corridor toward a swinging door. I didn't know the range of the control box, but it couldn't be limitless; if I could only get beyond it, I'd find a way to get the collar off and get down to serious business.
Halfway down the corridor, I felt the leather collar snap tight around my neck and begin to squeeze. I held my breath and kept running toward the door. My only hope was to get beyond range, or get behind something that was shielded with lead.
Anybody who wants to learn the hard way about oxygen debt should try sprinting while holding his breath and while a leather collar is threatening to squeeze his head off. Anyway, I kept running, legs and arms pumping, trying to reach the door. At least I thought I was running. Everything was beginning to look hazy through my smoked glasses, and a giant fist was pounding my chest. My head felt ready to explode.
Still, I was somehow convinced that I was making progress, that I might still escape. I kept feeling that way right up to the point where, clawing at the leather band around my neck, I collapsed to my knees, then fell forward on my face.
26
I'd expected that Garth and I would be killed after our biosamples were taken and safely stored away. Instead, it seemed to be game time; we were getting a tour of Ramdor, personally conducted by Siegfried Loge and his son.
"You two don't seem to be entering into the spirit of things," the hawk-nosed, pale-eyed scientist said as we paused in the middle of a long land bridge that had been constructed over an area of earth that actually glowed from the furnace heat beneath it.
"Fuck you, creep," Garth said, and yawned.
"Garth never liked to go on outings, even as a kid," I added. "Besides, when you've seen one dairy farm you've seen them all."
Loge took a piece of paper from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball and dropped it over the railing; the paper burst into flames even before it hit the ground. "It's better than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit down there on the surface. There are a number of areas like this around Ramdor. You two are lucky you weren't fried on your way in."
It occurred to me that it might have been better for millions of people if we had been fried, or if Lippitt had killed us back in Nebraska. We'd accomplished nothing by chasing after the Loges, except to supply them with what they wanted and needed. It was precisely what Lippitt had feared would happen.
I remembered my mother's dream.
"This place is a regular Disneyland," I said, glancing around to look at Golly, who trailed behind us and held both control boxes. The gorilla had been in a snit ever since I'd tried to run off on her, refusing even to look at me. Throughout the tour she'd been off with Mozart, the thin cables to her earphones snaking out of her canvas shoulder bag. However, on more than one occasion her thumb, as if by accident, had brushed against the joystick on my control box; the tugs of the collar around my neck caused only minor discomfort, but Golly had made it clear that she felt hurt and betraye
d. "Where's Hugo?"
"Hugo has chores to do," the scientist said in a tone that sounded evasive. "Gollum can easily handle the two of you in this situation."
"Let's show them the Treasure Room," Obie Loge said to his father. The teenager's face was flushed with excitement.
"Whoopee. How about showing us the exit?"
"Hey, creep," Garth said to Loge. "You've got what you wanted. Why haven't you killed us?"
It was a question to which I'd given some thought, and I thought I knew the answer. "It's because Gramps has to check the results to make certain everything's all right. That's it, isn't it, Loge?"
"Of course," Loge replied evenly. "Also, it would be senseless to dispose of you while the reaction continues in your bodies. We'll simply continue to monitor you."
"Where is the old man?"
"You'll enjoy seeing the Treasure Room. As long as I have absolute power over you, why not relax and enjoy my hospitality? Both of you are intelligent, and there aren't a great many people I can share all of Ramdor's wonders and secrets with."
"I believe that."
"Hey, Loge," Garth said quietly. "What would you think of another fun experiment in which we see if I can break your neck before this collar chokes me to death?"
"I wouldn't do that!" Loge snapped, wheeling on my brother. "Don't even think about it!"
"Why not?" Garth asked in a mild tone that caused me to wince; committing suicide didn't seem to make much sense. "You don't think that would be as much fun as ordering the murder of two boys who'd befriended your fat, ugly son? On second thought, it might be even more fun to throw the two of you over the railing and watch you sizzle."
"Hey, fucking Gollum!" Loge shouted.
Golly jumped, snatched the earphones from her head. Her eyes glittered with terror, and her hand trembled as she fumbled at the keyboard.
?
FUCKING WHAT
"Show them the kill button."
Using the thumbs of both hands, Golly flipped open the tops on the cases of the boxes to reveal bright blue buttons.
"It's true that we want to keep you alive," Loge continued as he glanced back and forth at Garth and me, "but not to the extent of allowing you to attack either Obie or me. There'll be no repetition of what happened in the dungeon. If one of you does attack my son or me, I absolutely guarantee that the button on your box will be pushed; then it's your brains that will sizzle. Do I make myself clear?"
"You're a real spoilsport," Garth said.
"Enough unnecessary unpleasantness," Loge said, turning away. "Come. Obie wants you to see the Treasure Room and Mount Doom."
We went back to the ranch house, walked through it to the rear. Loge opened the door to what I thought was a closet; it turned out to be the entrance to a long, unlighted tunnel that had been carved out of the rock. He removed two gasoline-soaked torches from brackets on the wall, lit them with a cigarette lighter, handed one to his son. Then they led us down the tunnel, with Golly bringing up the rear.
At the end of the tunnel was a door with its edges set flush to the rock; like the door in the black cell, there was no keyhole.
Loge, his eyes glassy in the torchlight, turned to face us. "Behold," he intoned as he removed the ring medallion from around his neck and slowly passed it back and forth over the flame.
The metal of the medallion slowly changed its configuration to the shape of a key. Garth yawned loudly.
His spirits undampened, Loge turned and passed the flame across the surface of the door; a section of metal appeared to melt and flow apart to form a keyhole. Garth yawned again.
Loge turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door. Instantly, the air was filled with the music of Siegfried's Funeral March, from Gotterdammerung, and the darkness beyond the door began to glow like sunrise. The torches were extinguished and cast aside as the light came up, and we followed the Loges into the room.
This time Garth didn't yawn.
The Treasure Room, bathed in soft blue fluorescent light, was a huge circular chamber blasted out of the rock. On the wall opposite the door was an enormous, Cinerama-size panel of some material on which was projected a photomural of scenes from Wagner's Ring. The chamber was filled with an astonishing array of Wagnerian memorabilia. There was gold, of course, but even more impressive were other artifacts-special, undoubtedly rare, musical instruments, bejeweled swords and daggers, antique costumes, opera posters with Richard Wagner's distinctive signature scrawled across them.
"This is from a practice room at Bayreuth," Loge announced proudly as he walked across the room and sat down at an old, scarred upright piano. "Wagner himself played on it. The page on the stand here is from the original manuscript of Das Rheingold. Here; listen."
And he began to play. He was actually quite good, and I might have enjoyed it if not for the fact that the recital was being given by the man responsible for the fact that Garth and I were standing around there dying. Impulsively, I marched across the room and slammed my fists down on the keys. The collar around my neck tightened, but did not choke.
"You don't like my playing?" Loge continued sardonically as he smiled at me. "I'm told I have some talent."
"Save it for somebody else, Loge."
"You understand, of course, why there aren't too many people I can bring in here."
"Oh, I understand perfectly." It struck me that the medallion, which he had replaced around his neck, had returned to its original shape.
"You and your brother should feel honored that Obie and I choose to share it with you."
"Once, everything in this room was rare, intriguing and beautiful; in your hands, they're just pieces for death and silence."
"I understand that you have one of my pieces," Loge said as he rose from the piano stool. "I'm told it's an exquisite knife-which, incidentally, you used to lop off the hand of one of Stryder's men."
"It was lost in the car crash and fire."
"Too bad. I understand it was made of Damascus steel; truly one of a kind. It would have made a nice addition to my collection."
"Hey, pimple nose," Garth said to Obie Loge. "What do you play with in here? This is all Wagner. No Tolkien?"
The boy flushed angrily, but Siegfried Loge just laughed. "Relax, Obie. Remember what they say about sticks and stones. Show the gentlemen Mount Doom. It will make you feel better."
The boy hesitated, then shrugged and walked over to a panel of switches that appeared to be part of a console controlling lights, a videotape machine, and a bank of six large television monitors. Obie Loge flipped a switch. The lights dimmed, and for a few moments my eyes had trouble making the transition. I started to remove my smoked glasses, then saw a reddish glow building where the photomural had been. Garth, sensing my difficulty, put his hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the red glow.
"Behold Mount Doom," Obie Loge said, and he sounded almost as spooky as his father until he ruined it all with a giggle.
With the lights out, the projected photomural had disappeared, leaving a huge, transparent panel of what was probably Plexiglas. Standing next to Garth in front of the panel, I found myself staring out over what looked like a miniature Grand Canyon which wasn't so miniature. It was a great, stone-bounded cathedral or amphitheater with dimensions I could only guess at. The reddish glow emanated from fire somewhere far below the Treasure Room, and was swallowed up by darkness far above. On the great stone wall across the chasm, perhaps two hundred yards away, three different series of steps running in different directions from a central point high to the right had been carved out of the stone, which was pockmarked with caves. There were bones-bare, polished bones-and scraps of clothing strewn over the steps at three different sites. Even at that distance and without the evidence of the clothes, I'd have been able to tell that the skulls were unmistakably human.
"How quaint," I muttered. "I don't know why you don't show this to Hugo. He's really into clinics."
"What the hell is that?!" Garth said, shying as something big
and brown flapped down out of the darkness, banged against the Plexiglas by his head, then soared on hot air currents up out of sight.
The Loges looked at each other, laughed. "We don't know," the elder Loge said. "We haven't been able to figure out a way to capture one."
I turned to look at the scientist. "You don't know what it is?"
"No," Loge said, grinning. "As a matter of fact, there are a great many curious things in Mount Doom. Obie likes to put things in there to see what happens. The results, as you see, have been totally unexpected; serendipity in science. What's become of the things he drops in there isn't a question that's likely to be answered soon. We've never known a man to go in there and come out again."
Wheeling around, I fixed my gaze on the apex of the three sets of steps; I could just barely make out the outlines of a door cut into the rock. "The black cell," I whispered in horror as two more of the things swooped past; the flying things were leathery, looked something like bloated pterodactyls with hair and teeth.
"Right," Obie Loge said with obvious satisfaction. "Man, you should see those fuckers attack."
"Totally unexpected," Siegfried Loge repeated in a somewhat distant tone. "There was no way to predict… I really should have paid more attention to what you threw in there, Obie."
"Aw, shit," Garth drawled. "This is really a bummer. What you need in there is a dragon. What's a Mount Doom without a dragon?"
Once again the Loges looked at each other and tittered; this time, I thought I detected more than a hint of nervousness in their looks and laughter.
"Where did they come from originally?" I asked, watching one of the leathery beasts drop down out of sight toward the furnace glow below.
"You'll see on the exit leg of the tour," Siegfried Loge replied. "Right now, I'm sure Obie wants to show your wisecracking big brother a dragon."
Obie Loge nodded enthusiastically, turned on the videotape machine. One of the monitors on the wall came alive with fast-moving, fuzzy images. The images slowed, became what looked like a large metal pipe suspended over a mound of bones.
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