I didn’t know how Ushre lasted even that long. He was on his feet, wasn’t even trying to avoid getting hit. But nothing touched him. There must’ve been a charm of madness on his life. Roaring and laughing, he was on his way to the hovercraft. A minute later he climbed into the one I had so conveniently left idling.
I wanted to run after him, but I didn’t get the chance. Before I could move, a rabbit went scrambling past and practically hit me in the face with a live grenade.
I didn’t stop to think about it. I didn’t have time to ask myself what I was doing. I didn’t want to ask. All those dogs and deer and rabbits and God knows what else were getting butchered, and I’d already gone more than a little bit crazy myself.
I picked up the grenade and threw it. Watched it land beside Ushre in the cockpit of the craft.
Blow him apart.
The ‘craft would’ve gone up in flames if it hadn’t been built around a power pack like the one that wasn’t doing me any good.
I just turned my back on it.
The next minute, a man came running out of the barracks. He dodged frantically toward me, firing his blaster in front of him as he ran. Then he landed on his stomach beside me.
Morganstark.
“You all right?” he panted. He had to stop blasting to talk, but he started up again right away.
“Yes!” I shouted to make myself heard. “Where did you come from?”
“Your transceiver went off!” he shouted back. “Did you think I was going to just sit on my hands and wait for your death certificate?” He fired a couple bursts, then added, “We’ve got the handlers tied up in the barracks, but there’s one missing. Who was that you just blew up?”
I didn’t tell him. I didn’t have time. I didn’t want Paracels to get away.
What I wanted was to tell Morganstark to stop the killing. I was going wild, seeing all those animals die. But I didn’t say anything about it. What choice did Morganstark have? Let Paracels’ fine creations go and wreak havoc around the countryside? No, I was going to have to live with all this blood. It was my doing as much as anybody else’s. If I’d done my job right, Ushre would never have gotten a chance to push that button. If I’d killed him right away. Or if I hadn’t confronted him at all. If I’d let that handler back in the preserve tell me what he was afraid those gates shut!” I yelled at Morganstark. “I’m going after Paracels!”
He didn’t have a chance to stop me. I was already on my feet, running and dodging toward the office door.
I took the M-16 with me. I thought it was about time Dr. Avid Paracels had one of these things pointed at him.
7
I don’t know how I made it. I was moving low and fast—I wasn’t very easy to see, much less hit. And I had only about twenty meters to go. But the air was alive with fire. Bullets were ripping all around me. Morganstark and his men were answering with lasers and blasters. Ushre must not have been the only one with a charm on him. Five seconds later. I dove through the open doorway, and there wasn’t a mark on me. Nothing new, anyway.
Inside the complex, I didn’t slow down. It was a sure thing Paracels knew what was happening—he could hear the noise if nothing else. So he’d be trying to make some kind of escape. I had to stop him before he got out into the night. He was the only one left who could stop the slaughter.
But I was probably too late. He’d had plenty of time to disappear; it wouldn’t take much at night in these hills. I ran like a crazy man down the corridor toward the surgery—like I wasn’t exhausted and hurt and sick, and didn’t even know what fear was. Slammed into the clinic, scanned it. But Paracels wasn’t there. I went on, hunting for a way into the lab wing.
A couple of corridors took me in the right direction. Then I was in one of those spots where I had several doors to choose from and no way to tell which was right. Again. But now I was doing things by instinct—things I couldn’t have done if I’d been thinking about them. I knew where I was in the building and had a relative idea where the lab was. I went straight to one of the doors, stopped. Touched the knob carefully.
It was unlocked.
I threw it open and stormed in.
He was there.
I’d come in through a door near the cremator. He was across the room from me, standing beside the lab tables. He didn’t look like he’d even changed his clothes since last night—he didn’t look like he had enough life in him to make the effort. In the bright white lights he looked like death. He should not have even been able to stand up, looking like that. But he was standing up. He was moving around. He wasn’t hurrying, but he wasn’t wasting any time, either. He was packing lab equipment into a big black satchel.
He glanced at me when I came in, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. Taking everything he could fit in his bag.
I had the M-16 tucked under my right elbow and braced with my left hand. My index finger was on the trigger. Not the best shooting position, but I wasn’t likely to miss at this range.
“They’re getting butchered,” I said. My voice shook, but I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to stop it. You’re going to tell me how to shut down that goddamn whistle. Then you’re going to go out there with me, and you’re going to order them back into the preserve.”
Paracels glanced at me again, but didn’t stop what he was doing.
“You’re going to do it now!’
He almost smiled. “Or else?” Every time I saw him he seemed to have a different voice. Now he sounded calm and confident, like a man who’d finally arrived at a victory he’d been working toward for years, and he was mocking me.
“Or else,” I hissed at him, trying to make him feel my anger, “I’ll drag you out there and let them shoot you themselves.”
“I don’t think so.” I wasn’t making any kind of dent in him. He surprised me when he went on. “But part of that I was going to do anyway. I don’t want too many of my animals killed.” He moved to the far wall, flipped something that looked like a light switch. All at once, the high-pitched pressure of the whistles burst like a bubble and was gone.
Then he really did smile—a grin that looked as if he’d learned it from Ushre. “Ushre probably told you it couldn’t be shut off. And you believed him.” He shook his head. “He wanted to make it that way. But I made him put a switch in here. He isn’t very farsighted.”
“Wasn’t,” I said. I don’t know why. I didn’t have any intention of bandying words with Dr. Avid Paracels. But something changed for me when the whistle stopped. I lost a lot of my urgency. Now the animals would stop coming, and Morganstark would be able to get the gates closed. Soon the killing would be over. All at once I realized how tired I was. I hurt everywhere.
And there was something else. Something about the good doctor didn’t fit. I had a loaded M-16 aimed right at him. He didn’t have any business being so sure of himself. I said, “He’s dead. I killed him.” Trying to shake his confidence.
It didn’t work. He had something going for him I didn’t know about—something made him immune to me. All he did was shrug and say, ‘I’m not surprised. He wasn’t very stable.”
He was so calm about it I wanted to start shooting at him. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted to make him talk. It took a real effort, but I asked him as casually as I could, “Did you know what you were getting into when you started doing business with him?”
“Did I know?” He snorted. “I counted on it. I knew I could handle him. He was perfect for me. He offered me exactly what I was looking for—a chance to do some research.” For an instant there was something in his eyes that almost looked like a spark of life. “And a chance to pay a few debts.”
“The genetic riots,” I said. “You lost your job.”
“I lost my career!” All of a sudden he was mad, furious. “I lost my whole future! My life! I was on my way to things you couldn’t even imagine. Recombinant DNA was just the beginning, just the first step. By now I would have been able to synthesize genes. I would�
��ve been making supermen! Think about it. Geniuses smart enough to run the country decently for a change. Smart enough to crack the speed of light. Smart enough to create life. A whole generation of people that were immune to disease. People who could adapt to whatever changes in food or climate the future holds. Astronauts who didn’t need pressure suits. I could have done it!”
“But there were riots,” I said softly.
“They should have been put down. The government should have shot anybody who objected. What I was doing was to important.
“Rut they didn’t. They blamed the riots on me. They said I violated the sanctity of life. They sent me out in disgrace. By the time they were finished, I couldn’t get a legitimate research grant to save my life.”
“That’s why you want revenge,” I said. Keep talking, Paracels. Tell me what I need to know.
“Retribution.” He loved the sound of that word. “When I’m done, they’re going to beg me to let them give me whatever I want.”
I tried to steer him where I wanted him to go. “How’re you going to accomplish that? So far all you’ve done is kill a few hunters. That isn’t exactly going to topple the government.”
“Ah”—he grinned again—”but this is just the beginning. In about two minutes, I’m going to leave here. They won’t be able to find me—they won’t know where I’ve gone. By the time they find out, I’ll be ready for them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t understand!” He was triumphant. “You spent the whole day in my preserve and you still don’t understand. You aren’t able to understand”
I was afraid he was going to stop then, but he didn’t. He was too full of victory. “Tell me, cyborg”—the way he said cyborg was savage—”did you happen to notice that all the animals you saw out there are male?”
I nodded dumbly. I didn’t have the vaguest idea what he was getting at.
“They’re all male. Ushre wanted me to use females, too—he wanted the animals to breed. But I told him that the animals I make are sterile—that grafting new genes onto them makes them sterile. And I told him the males would be more aggressive if they didn’t have mates. I knew how to handle him. He believed me.
“Ah, you’re all fools! I was just planning ahead—planning for what’s happening right now. The animal I make aren’t sterile. In fact, they’re genetically dominant. Most of them will reproduce themselves three times out of four.”
He paused, playing his speech for effect. Then he said, “Right now, all the animals in my breeding pens are female. I have hundreds of them. And there’s a tunnel that runs from this building to the preserve.
“I’m going to take all those females and go out into the preserve. Nobody will suspect—nobody will ever think I’ve done such a thing. They won’t look for me there. And once the gates are shut, I’ll have time. Nobody will know what to do with my animals. Humanitarians’ll want to save them—they’ll probably even feed them. Scientists’ll want to study them. Nobody will want to just kill them off. Even if they want to, they won’t know how. Time will pass. Time for my animals to breed To breed. cyborg! Soon I’ll have an army of them. And then I’ll give you revenge that’ll make the genetic riots look like recreation!”
That was it, then. That was why he was so triumphant. And his scheme just might work—for a while, anyway.
Probably wouldn’t change the course of history, but a lot more than just forty-six hunters would get killed.
I was gripping the M-16 so hard my hands trembled. But my voice was steady. I didn’t have any doubt or hesitation left to make me sound uncertain. “First you’re going to have to kill me.”
“I’m a doctor,” he said. He was looking straight at me. “I won’t have to kill you.”
With the tip of his tongue, he made a small gesture around his lips.
He almost got me for the second time. It was just instinct that warned me—I didn’t hear anything behind me, didn’t know I was in any danger. But I moved. Spun where I was, whipped the M-16 around.
I couldn’t have messed it up any better if I’d been practicing for weeks. My turn slapped the barrel of the M-16 into the palm of a hand as big as my face. Black hairy fingers as strong as my whole arm gripped the rifle, ripped it away from me. Another arm clubbed me across the chest so hard I almost did a flip in the air. When I hit the floor, I skidded until I whacked into the leg of the nearest table.
I climbed back to my feet, then had to catch myself on the table to keep from falling. My head was reeling like a sonofabitch—the room wouldn’t stand still. For a minute I couldn’t focus my eyes.
“I call him Cerberus.” Paracels smirked. “He’s been with me for a long time.”
Cerberus. What fun. With an effort that almost split my skull, I ground my eyeballs into focus, forced myself to look at whatever it was.
“He’s the last thing I created before they kicked me out. When I saw what was going to happen, I risked everything on one last experiment. I took the embryo with me and built incubators for it myself. I raised him with my own hands from the beginning.”
That must’ve been what hit me the last time I was here. I’d been assuming it was Ushre, but it must’ve been this thing all along. It was too quiet and fast to have been Ushre.
Basically, it was a gorilla. It had the fangs, the black fur, the ape face, the long arms. But it wasn’t like any gorilla I’d ever met before. For one thing, it was more than two meters tall.
“You see the improvements I made,” Paracels went on. I didn’t think he could stop. He’d gone past the point where he could’ve stopped. “He stands upright naturally—I adjusted his spine, his hips, his legs. His thighs and calves are longer than normal, which gives him increased speed and agility on the ground.
“But I’ve done much more than that.” He was starting to sound like Ushre. “By altering the structure of his brain, I’ve improved his intelligence, reflexes, dexterity, his ability to do what I teach him to do. And he is immensely strong.”
That I could see for myself. Right there in front of me, that damn ape took the M-16 in one hand and hit it against the wall. Wrecked the rifle. And took a chunk out of the concrete.
“In a sense, it’s a shame we turned you off, cyborg. The contest might’ve proved interesting—an artificial man against an improved animal. But of course the outcome would’ve been the same. Cerberus is quick enough to dodge your blaster and strong enough to withstand it. He’s more than an animal. You’re less than a human being.”
It was coming for me slowly. Its eyes looked so vicious I almost believed it was coming slowly just to make me more scared. I backed away, put a couple of tables between us. But Paracels moved too—didn’t let me get closer to him. I could hardly keep from screaming, Morganstark’ But Morganstark wasn’t going to rescue me. I could still hear shooting. He wasn’t likely to come in after me until he was finished outside and the gates were closed. He couldn’t very well run the risk of letting any of those animals go free.
Paracels was watching me, enjoying himself. “That’s the one thing I can’t understand, cyborg.” I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but he went on maliciously, “I can’t understand why society tolerates, even approves of mechanical monstrosities like you, but won’t bear biological improvements like Cerberus. What’s so sacred about biology? Recombinant DNA research has unlimited potential. You’re just a weapon. And not a very good one.”
I couldn’t stand it. I had to answer him somehow.
“There’s just one difference,” I gritted. “I chose. Nobody did this to me when I was just an embryo.”
Paracels laughed.
A weapon—I had to have a weapon. I couldn’t picture myself making much of an impression on that thing with just a knife. I scanned the room, hunted up and down the tables, while I backed away. But I couldn’t find anything. Just lab equipment. Most of it was too heavy for me to even lift. And I couldn’t do anything with all the chemicals around the
lab. I didn’t know anything about chemicals.
Paracels couldn’t seem to stop laughing.
Goddamn it, Browne! Think!
Then I had it.
Ushre had turned off my power pack. That meant he’d built a certain kind of magnetic probe. If that probe was still around, I could turn myself back on.
Frantically, I started ‘hunting for it.
I knew what to look for. A field generator, a small field generator, something no bigger than a fist. It didn’t have to be strong, it had to be specific; it had to make exactly the right magnetic shape to key my power pack. It had to have three antenna as small as tines set close together in exactly the right pattern. I knew what that pattern looked like.
But Paracels’ ape wasn’t giving me time to search carefully. It wasn’t coming slowly anymore. I had to concentrate to stay away from it, keep at least a couple of tables between us. Any minute now it was going to jump at me, and then I was going to be dead. Maybe the generator wasn’t even here.
I reached for my knife. I was going to try to get Paracels anyway, at least take care of him before that thing finished me off.
But then I spotted it.
Lying on a table right in front of the gorilla.
“All right, Cerberus,” Paracels said. “We can’t wait any longer. Kill him now.”
The ape threw himself across the tables at me so fast I almost didn’t see it coming.
But Paracels had warned me. I was already moving. As the gorilla came over the tables, I ducked and went under them.
I jumped up past the table I wanted, grabbing at the generator. I was in too much of a hurry: I fumbled it for a second. Then I got my right hand on it. Found the switch, activated it. Now all I had to do was touch those tines to the center of my chest.
The ape crashed into me, and everything went blank. At first I thought I’d broken my spine; there was an iron bar of pain across my back just under my shoulder blades. But then my eyes cleared, and I saw the gorilla’s teeth right in front of my face. It had its arms around me. It was crushing me.
My left arm was free. But my right was caught between me and the ape. I couldn’t lift the generator.
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