Daughter of Regals (35 page)

But I made it. My aim
wasn’t too good (when I finally spotted the bright pink freon bulb at the
landing area, it was way the hell off to my left), but it was good enough. I
went skidding over there until I was sitting almost on top of the light, but
then I took a couple minutes to scan the area before I put the ‘craft down.

I suppose what I should’ve
done was not land there at all. I should’ve just gone until I got someplace
where I could call the Bureau for help. But I figured if I did that Ushre and
Paracels would get away. They’d know something was wrong when their hovercraft
didn’t come back, and they’d be on the run before the Bureau could do anything
about it. Then the Bureau would be hunting them for days—and I’d miss out on
the finish of my own assignment. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

So I took a good look
below me before I landed. Both the other ‘craft were there (they must’ve had
shorter feeding runs), but nobody was standing around outside— at least not
where I could see them. Most of the windows of the barracks showed light, but
the office complex was dark—except for the front office and the laboratory
wing.

Ushre and Paracels.

If they stayed where
they were, I could go in after them, get them out to the ‘craft—take them into St.
Louis myself. If I caught them by surprise. And didn’t run into anybody else.
And didn’t crack up trying to fly the 300 km. to St. Louis.

I didn’t even worry
about it. I put the ‘craft down as gently as I could and threw it into idle.
Before the fan even had time to slow down, I jumped out of the cockpit and went
pelting as fast as I could go toward the front office.

Yanked open the door,
jumped inside, shut it behind me.

Stopped.

Fritz Ushre was standing
behind the counter. He must have been doing some work with his ac-computer; he
had the console in front of him. His face was white, and his little boar eyes
were staring at me as if I’d just come back from the dead. He didn’t even
twitch—he looked paralyzed with surprise and fear.

“Fritz Ushre,” I said
with my own particular brand of malice, “you’re under arrest for murder,
attempted murder, and conspiracy.” Then, just because it felt good, I went on, “You
have the right to remain silent. If you choose to speak, anything you say can
and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be
represented by an attorney. If. you can’t afford one—”

He wasn’t listening.
There was a struggle going on in his face that didn’t have anything to do with
what I was saying. For once, he looked too surprised to be cunning, too beaten
to be malicious. He was trying to fight it, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He
was trying to find a way out, a way to get rid of me, save himself, and there
wasn’t any. Sharon’s Point was dead, and he knew it.

Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe there was a way out. All of a sudden the struggle was over. He met my
eyes, and the expression on his face was more naked and terrible than anything
he’d ever let me see before. It was hunger. And glee.

He looked down. Reached
for something under the counter.

I was already moving,
throwing myself at him. I got my hands on the edge of the counter, vaulted over
it, hit him square in the chest with both heels.

He smacked against the
wail behind him, bounced back, stumbled to his knees. I fell beside him. But I
was up before he could move. In almost the same movement, I got my knife out
and pressed the point against the side of his fat neck. “If you make a sound,”
I said, panting, “I’ll bleed you right here.”

He didn’t act like he
heard me. He was coughing for air. And laughing.

Quickly, I looked around
behind the counter to find what he’d been reaching for.

For a second I couldn’t
figure it out. There was an M-16 lying on a shelf off to one side, but that
wasn’t it—he hadn’t been reaching in that direction.

Then I saw it. A small
ray box built into the counter near where he’d been standing. It wasn’t
much—just a big red button and a little red light. The little red light was on.

Right then, I realized I
was hearing something. Something so high-pitched it was almost inaudible. Something
keen and carrying.

I’d heard something like
it before, but at first I couldn’t remember where. Then I had it.

An animal whistle.

It was pitched almost
out of the range of human hearing, but probably there wasn’t an animal in 10
km. that couldn’t hear it. Or didn’t know what it meant.

I put my knife away and
picked up the M-16. I didn’t have time to be scrupulous; I cocked it and
pointed it at Ushre’s head. “Turn it off,” I said.

He was just laughing
now. Laughing softly. “You cannot turn it off. Once it has been activated,
nothing can stop it.”

I got out my knife
again, tore the box out of the counter, cut the wires. He was right. The red
light went off, but the sound didn’t stop.

“What does it do?”

He was absolutely
shaking with suppressed hilarity. “Guess!”

I jabbed him with the
muzzle of the M-16. “What does it do?”

He didn’t stop shaking.
But he turned to look at me. His eyes were bright and wild and mad. “You will
not shoot me.” He almost giggled. “You are not the type.”

Well, he was right about
that, too. I wasn’t even thinking about killing him. I wanted information. I
made a huge effort to sound reasonable. “Tell me anyway. I can’t stop it, so
why not?”

“Ah,”
he sighed.
He liked that idea. “May I stand?” I let him get to his feet.

“Much better,” he said. “Thank
you, Mr. Browne.” After that, I don’t think I could’ve stopped him from telling
me. He enjoyed it too much. He was manic with sharp appetite maybe he didn’t
even know glee. Some about was about to get fed.

“Dr. Paracels may be old
and unbalanced,” he said, “but he is brilliant in his way. And he has a taste
for revenge. He has developed his genetic techniques to the point of precise
control.

“As you may know, Mr.
Browne, all animals may be conditioned to perform certain actions upon certain
signals—even human animals. The more complex the brain of the animal, the more
complex the actions which may be conditioned into it—but also the more complex
and difficult the conditioning process. For human animals, the difficulty of
the process is often prohibitive.”

He relished what he was
saying So much he was practically slobbering. I wanted to scream with frustration,
but I forced the impulse down. I had to hear what he was saying, needed to hear
it all.

“Dr. Paracels—bless his
retributive old heart—has learned how to increase animal brain capacity enough to
make possible a very gratifying level of conditioning without increasing it
enough to make conditioning unduly difficult. That provides the basis for the
way in which we train our animals. But it serves one other purpose also.

“Each of our animals has
been keyed to that sound.” He gestured happily at the air. “They have been conditioned
to respond to that sound in a certain way. With violence, Mr. Browne!” He was
bubbling over with laughter. “But not against each other. Oh no—that would
never do. They have been conditioned to attack humans, Mr. Browne—to come to the
source of the sound and then attack.

“Even our handlers are
not immune. This conditioning overrides all other training. Only Dr. Paracels
and myself are safe. All our animals have been imprinted with our voices, so
that even in their most violent frenzies they will recognize us. And obey us,
Mr. Browne. Obey us!”

I was shaking as bad as
he was, but for different reasons. “So what?” I demanded. “They can’t get past
the fence.”

“Past the fence?” Ushre
was ecstatic. “You fool! The gate is open’ It opened automatically when I
pressed the button.”

So finally I knew what
that handler back in the preserve had been so scared about. Ushre was letting
the animals out. Out to terrorize the countryside until God knows how many
people were killed trying to hunt them down. Or just trying to get away from
them. Or even just sitting at home minding their own business.

I had to stop those
animals.

With just an M-16? Fat
chance!

But I bad to try. I was
a Special Agent, wasn’t I? This was my job. I’d signed up for it of my own free
will.

I rammed the muzzle of
the M-16 hard into Ushre’s stomach. He doubled over. I grabbed his collar and
yanked his head up again.

“Listen to me,” I said
very softly. “I didn’t used to be the type to shoot people in cold blood, but I
am now. I’m mad enough to do it now. Get moving.”

I made him believe me.
When I gave him a shove, he went where I wanted him to go. Toward the front
door.

He opened it, and we
went out together into the night. I could see the front gates clearly in the
light from the landing area. He was absolutely right. They were open.

It was already too late
to close them. A dark crowd of animals was already coming out of the preserve.
They bristled with weapons. They didn’t hurry, didn’t make any noise, didn’t
get in each other’s way. And more came over the ridge every second, moving like
they were on their way out of Fritz Ushre’s private hell. In the darkness they
looked practically numberless. For one dizzy second I couldn’t believe Ushre
and Paracels had had time to engineer so many helpless creatures individually.
But of course they’d been working at it for years. Sharon’s Point must have
been almost completely stocked when they opened for business. And since then they’d
had twenty months to alter and raise even more animals.

I had to move fast. I
had one gamble left, and if it didn’t work I was just going to be the first on
a long list of people who were going to die.

I gave Ushre a shove
that sent him stumbling forward. Out in front of that surging crowd. Between
them and the road.

Before he could try to
get away, I caught up with him, grabbed his elbow, jabbed the M-16 into his
ribs. “Now, Mr. Ushre,” I said through my teeth. “You’re going to tell them to
go back. Back through the gates. They’ll obey you.” When he didn’t respond, I
gouged him viciously. “Tell them!”

Well, it was a good
idea. Worth a try. It might even have worked—if I could’ve controlled Ushre.
But he was out of control. He was crazy for blood now, completely bananas.

“Tell them to go back?”
he cried with a laugh. “Are you joking?” There was blood in his voice—blood and
power. “These beasts are mine! Mine! My will commands them! They will rain
bloodshed upon the country! They will destroy you, and all people like you. I
will teach you what hunting truly means, Mr. Browne!” He made my name sound
like a deadly Insult. “I will teach you to understand death!”

“You’ll go first!” I
shouted, trying to cut through his madness. “I’ll blow you to pieces where you
stand.”

“You will not!”

He was faster than I
expected. Much faster. With one quick swing of his massive arm, he smacked me
to the ground.

“Kill him!” he howled at
the animals. He was waving his fists as if he was conducting an orchestra of
butchery. “Kill them all!”

A monkey near the front
of the crowd fired, and all of a sudden Ushre’s hell erupted.

All the animals that had
clear space in front of them started shooting at once. M-16 and .22 Magnum fire
shattered the air; bullets screwed wildly in all directions. The night was
full of thunder and death. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t being hit.

Then I saw why.

Two thin beams of
ruby-red light were slashing back and forth across the front of that dark surge
of animals. The animals weren’t shooting at me. They were firing back at those
beams.

laser cannon!

I spotted one of them in
the woods off to one side of the landing area. The other was blazing away from
a window of the barracks.

They were cutting the
animals to shreds. Flesh-and-blood can’t stand up against laser cannon, no
matter what kind of genes it has. Monkeys and bears were throwing sheets of
lead back at the beams, but they were in each other’s way, and most of their
shooting was wild. And the people operating the cannon were shielded. It was
just slaughter, that’s all.

Because the animals
couldn’t run away. They didn’t know how. They were conditioned. They reminded
me of a tame dog that can’t even try to avoid an angry master. But instead of
cringing they were shooting.

The outcome wasn’t any
kind of sure thing. The animals were getting cut down by the dozens—but all
they needed was a few hand grenades, or maybe a couple of mines in the right
places, and that would be the end of the cannon. And the dogs, for one, didn’t
have to be told what to do. Already they were trying to get through the fire
with mines in their jaws. The lasers had to draw in their aim to get the dogs,
and that gave the other animals time to spread out, get out of direct range of
the lasers.

It was going to be a
long, bloody battle. And I was lying in the dirt tight in the middle of it. I
didn’t know how I was going to live through it.

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.