Daughter of Regals (36 page)

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.”