Argonaut Affair

14

It was an incongruous room to be found in a palace in ancient Greece. The floor was parqueted wood covered with a Persian carpet. The furnishings were late Victorian. The wine decanter on the sideboard held a Margaux made from grapes that would not grow for several thousand years. The cork-lined wooden humidor upon the desk contained tobacco blended from plants grown in a country that would not be discovered for centuries. The briar pipe held in Drakov's hand had been made by an English craftsman whose ancestors were at that moment painting their backsides blue and worshiping the trees.

In a land that would be the cradle of civilization, at a time when that cradle had not yet been constructed, in a universe that was familiar and yet alien to him, Nikolai Drakov had created an environment that belonged to no one time or place. It was an environment that suited him, a man who belonged to no one time or place himself. It did not, however, suit the man who paced back and forth across the room, doing his best to control his temper and failing in the task.

"You are being unreasonable, Moreau," said Drakov, momentarily wreathed in a cloud of aromatic pipe smoke. "Everything is under control. Sit down and relax. Have a glass of wine. It will help steady your nerves."

Moreau stopped his pacing and stood in front of Drakov stiffly, his arms held tightly against his sides, his hands balled into fists. He was a small man, slightly built, with a high forehead crowned by a thick shock of unruly gray hair. His eyes were a very pale blue and he had grown a thick, luxuriant gray beard since leaving his own time. He was dressed in a white laboratory coat, a stark contrast to Drakov's elegant smoking jacket in black and red brocade.

"My nerves are not in need of steadying, thank you," said Moreau. "I am not nervous. I am not being unreasonable and everything is not under control. When I agreed to join you in this venture, you gave me certain assurances and you are failing to live up to your part of the bargain."

"And in what way have I failed, Professor?" Drakov said, evenly.

"In more ways than one," Moreau replied. "You are being careless, Drakov. Your monumental ego is placing this entire project in jeopardy. It seems as if you have gone out of your way to advertise our presence in this time period. Did you think the Special Operations Group would fail to notice? And now taking those temporal agents prisoner and bringing them here-the risk is simply unacceptable. You've told me yourself that these very agents have defeated you several times before and yet it seems you've failed to learn from the experience."

"Go on," said Drakov, his voice sounding dangerously calm. "You said I've failed to respect our bargain in more ways than one. What else?"

"You have displayed nothing but callous disregard for my creations," said Moreau. He put his hands on the edge of Drakov's desk and leaned down toward him. "I took my project away from the Special Operations Group because they insisted upon treating my hominoids as some sort of inferior sub-race. I did not devote half my life to this project merely to turn out genetically tailored mongoloids for the Special Operations Group to use as cannon fodder. I set out to create beings specifically designed to perform tasks and survive environmental conditions hostile to ordinary humans. I meant for them to work together, for hominoids and humans to complement each other in order to achieve a more perfect society. Yet fools and paranoid bureaucrats saw them only as slaves, creatures to be inhibited in their development so that they could not become 'competitive' with humans, to have their pain centers blocked and their minds programmed so that they could fight like automatons. I thought you were different. You made me believe that you were sympathetic to my goals, but you are no different from the others. Forty-seven of my hominoids were killed by those two S.O.G. agents when you sent them into that idiotic robot of yours. And for what? What did you accomplish? You killed one and took the other prisoner. Was that worth forty-seven lives?"

"Are you finished?" Drakov said.

"No, not quite. I insist that we move the headquarters of this project at once. It has become far too dangerous for us to remain here. I also demand that the prisoners be removed. Get rid of them. Clock them out to some other time period. Their presence here constitutes a serious threat to the project."

"You insist?" said Drakov. "You demand?" He rose to his feet, towering over the professor. "You arrogant pismire! You dare to dictate terms to me? I was the one who seized the Infiltrator Project from the Special Operations Group. I was the one who took a glorified university professor away from a government sponsored research project and gave him the opportunity to play at being God! Without me, you are nothing!"

"And without me," Moreau said, his voice barely under control, "you don't have the hominoids."

"You delude yourself, Professor," Drakov said. "I could easily have compelled your unquestioning obedience through psycho-conditioning from the very start. Santos is quite expert in such matters. I did not do so because I did not wish to risk damaging your creative faculties. However, do not make the mistake of thinking yourself indispensable. Do you think I have been merely sitting on my hands all this time? I have been watching you most carefully. Watching and learning. I am a highly intelligent man, Professor, but I am not a genius, as you are. I could never have created the hominoids myself, but given the creative spark you provided, I could learn to imitate the process. I do not pretend to have acquired all of your expertise, but I believe that I can create hominoids of my own now without any help from you."

"And you call me arrogant?" said Moreau, sarcastically.

"Here," said Drakov, picking up a file from the desktop and tossing it to him. "See for yourself."

"What is this?"

"Don't you recognize it, Professor? It's a status file on a new generation of hominoid. I have done this one exactly as you have done yours, only I wasn't going to tell you about it quite this early. I was going to save it for a surprise."

Moreau leafed through the file quickly, his eyes growing wider as he read it. "You can't be serious! This is some sort of joke."

"It's no joke, Professor, I assure you. By the way, please feel free to point out any errors you feel I might have made. After all, I am only the apprentice while you are the master."

"I don't believe it!" Moreau said. "You couldn't possibly have done this. It's beyond your scope, beyond all your abilities-"

"If that is, in fact, the case," said Drakov, "then it should show up in the status file. Does it? It is too early yet to tell how it will perform when it matures, but tell me, how does it look on paper?"

Moreau was shaking his head slowly. "This is monstrous!" he said. "Creating hominoids such as the titans and the harpies is one thing, but this is precisely what the government officials were most frightened of. This is a species that would compete with humans!"

"So you acknowledge that I have done it, then?" said Drakov. "That it is not, after all, beyond my capabilities?"

Moreau moistened his lips. "On paper, I must admit that it looks feasible," he said. "However, you have merely taken the first step. Still, I see that I have seriously underestimated you. I must congratulate you. Obviously, you are not as ignorant of the science of genetic manipulation as I thought. I cannot believe that you have learned all of this from me in so short a time."

"Now you underestimate yourself, Professor," Drakov said. "You have been an excellent teacher. However, you are quite correct. I am not an entirely unversed layman. Knowledge is power and power is a passion with me. To one who has lived as long as I have, and to whom time poses no barriers, it is not difficult to accumulate vast amounts of knowledge. I have spent years of study in preparation for this."

"You never told me," said Moreau.

"You would have been more guarded with me if I had," said Drakov. He poured Moreau a glass of wine. "It is pointless for us to quarrel, Professor. True, I have used you, but then you also have used me. In that sense, our relationship has been quite symbiotic. Look at all we have accomplished. I do not blame you for your concerns, but then you do not see the full scope of my plans. You do not have access to all of the details. I have learned long ago not to put all of my eggs into one basket. True, I have taken risks, but believe me, they have been well within the parameters of acceptability. I can understand your being protective, but you are being too conservative."

"Conservative?" Moreau snorted. "That's a new one. I have been called mad, but never conservative."

"That is because the people you have dealt with are little men," said Drakov, "and little men have little vision. I am not a little man, Professor. And my visions are panoramic."

"And you have really done this?" said Moreau, tapping the file. "This wasn't just an exercise? You have really taken this to the gestation stage?"

"That one and several others, as well," Drakov said. "But I could never have done it without you. As I have said, you are the genius. I am merely a clever imitator."

"And where will you go from here?" Moreau asked. "To what use do you intend to put this… this creature?"

"It shall be brought along in a manner similar to all the others," Drakov said, "only this one shall be allowed to develop to its fullest potential, even beyond what we have achieved with the centaur. And what we have learned here with our little exercise in altering historical scenarios and making myths reality will be applied with this creature and others like it in my own timeline. I will clock it back to the appropriate time period, Professor, and then I will set it free."

The heavy bolt on the other side of the door was slowly drawn back and the temporal agents were on their feet in an instant. As the door started to open, Delaney grabbed it and pulled back on it hard, yanking the person on the other side into the cell. The others were standing poised to attack, but there was only the one man whom Delaney had knocked to the floor. He held his hands out in front of his face to shield himself from further blows.

"Don't!" he cried. "I've come to help!"

"Moreau!" said Hunter.

Delaney let him up.

"Here," said the professor, reaching inside his jacket and removing several warp discs. "Take these. Quickly. You must escape at once."

"What is this?" Hunter said. "I thought you and Drakov were in this thing together. Why are you doing this?"

"Because I must," Moreau said. "I've been a fool, thinking Drakov would help me prove the worth of my creations, demonstrate what they can be capable of doing, but he has perverted all my work, stolen the fruits of all my labors and now he plans to do something so monstrous that I cannot even imagine what the consequences will be if he is not stopped."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" said Steiger.

"I have given you the means to escape and bring soldiers here to stop him," said Moreau. "You must do it now, immediately, before it is too late."

"You weren't so concerned when you were helping him create a temporal disruption," Hunter said. "What's so terrible that you suddenly developed a conscience?"

"It's true," Moreau said, "I was angry, embittered, determined to make them pay for turning my creations into mindless slaves, but this… what he plans is unthinkable. It's madness. I have to stop him somehow."

"I think you've done enough, Professor," Hunter said. "The Special Operations Group will stop him. You're coming back with me."

"I don't think so," Steiger said. "I'm afraid we can't let you take him, Hunter."

"Well, I'm not about to let. vow take him, pilgrim," Hunter said.

"I guess the truce is over," said Delaney.

"Moreau's coming with me," said Hunter. "And if I have to take you out to do it, I will."

"All three of us?" said Steiger.

"You fools!" Moreau shouted. "There is no time for this!"

"Get back behind me, Professor," Hunter said, reaching out quickly and pulling Moreau behind him.

"Don't make us do this, Hunter," said Delaney.

"Sorry, Finn," said Hunter. "I've got my duty. If you want him, you're going to have to come through me to get him."

"No one's taking me anywhere!" Moreau said. "Fight like dogs for all I care! I will do what must be done myself!"

He disappeared.

"Finn, he's clocked out!" Andre shouted.

Hunter turned around and Steiger hit him with a flying tackle. They fell to the floor, but Hunter recovered quickly, striking Steiger in the temple with his elbow and throwing him off. Delaney was on him before he had fully regained his feet and he slammed him against the wall. The breath hissed out of Hunter, but he brought his knee up into Delaney's groin and smashed a hard right into his face, then reeled back from Steiger's right cross to his jaw, ducked beneath his left and drove his own fist into Steiger's solar plexus. He followed it up with an uppercut to Steiger's chin and then turned toward Andre just in time to catch a spinning wheel kick to the head. Her heel connected with his temple and he staggered back, bounced off the wall and fell to the floor.

"Son of a bitch hits hard," said Steiger, rubbing his chin. Delaney was still doubled over, clutching his groin. "You okay, Finn?"

"I'll live," Delaney managed to reply, though his voice was a bit high.

"Nice work," Steiger said to Andre. "You two are slowing down," she said. "You should work out more often. What do we do with him now? We can't just leave him here."

"No, and we'd better get out while we still can," said Steiger. He bent down over Hunter's warp disc and started programming coordinates. "I think we're going to need some help. We'll clock him back with us and turn him over to Curtis. Then we bring the Rangers back with us and hit this place with everything we've got."

"Major Curtis!" the sentry shouted.

Curtis came running. From the direction of the river, four people dressed in ancient Greek costume were coming toward him. Two of them supported a third between them, with his arms over their shoulders.

"Hold your fire!" Curtis shouted.

"Got a prisoner for you, Major," said Steiger. "Capt. Reese Hunter of the Special Operations Group." They dropped Hunter to the ground at Curtis' feet.

"Well done," said Curtis. "Mission accomplished?"

"Not exactly," said Delaney. "We've got a problem. A big one. Hope your boys are ready for some action, Major."

"The whole thing was a setup," Steiger said. "The opposition got suckered in as badly as we did. Our old friend Drakov is behind it all. He's using the congruent universe as a staging area to launch an attack on our timeline using beings created by genetic manipulation. We've just come from his base. We're going to have to go back and hit it before he has a chance to move his operation. Hit it hard."

Curtis was all business. "Sgt. Peck, Corporal Willis, take charge of the prisoner. Lt. Nelson, clock out to Galveston and get the strike force mobilized and back here on the double. Pick up your attack coordinates from Col. Steiger." He spoke into his communicator. "Condition Red," he said. "Repeat, Condition Red. We're going through. Unit will assemble at the picket lines on the double. Move it!"

"Look out!" Peck shouted.

As they had started to help Hunter to his feet, he had uncorked a haymaker into Willis' midsection and now he and Peck were rolling on the ground, struggling. Nelson aimed her plasma pistol at the pair.

"Hold it!" Curtis said. "You'll hit Peck."

Peck had rolled over on top and was trying to pin Hunter to the ground, but Hunter brought a knee up sharply and Peck grunted and went limp on top of him. A second later, Peck wasn't on top of Hunter anymore. Hunter had disappeared and Peck dropped about a foot to the ground onto the space where Hunter had lain.

"What the-" Nelson said. "He got Peck's warp disc!"

"Never mind," said Curtis. "It was set for HQ. He'll have a nice surprise when he clocks in. Get some battle gear for these people, move it! You're busted to corporal, Peck. Private Willis, on your feet! Fall in!"

The Rangers began to clock in at the picket line, ready for battle.

Moreau ran through the clean room of the laboratory, smashing racks of petri dishes and destroying the equipment. Tears ran down his cheeks as he obliterated his life's work, killing his creations before they ever had a chance at life. He knew that somewhere in here, hidden among the others, had to be the creature Drakov had created and he had to make certain to destroy that one above all others. Once that was done, he intended to kill Drakov, even if at the cost of his own life.

Nothing mattered anymore except the ending of it all. He had devoted years of painstaking research and experimentation, sacrificed everything to his work, suffered the derision of his colleagues and the insults of petty bureaucrats and government officials who referred to him at best as "the mad professor" and at worst as a monster without a conscience, "the modern Mengele." He had sought to improve the human condition, to broaden the capabilities of the race, and they had vilified him for immorality, accused him of playing God with human reproduction even while they backed his work and used his developmentally stunted creations as if they were android slaves. They had never given him a chance to allow his creations to develop to their full potential, partly out of fear and partly out of a self-serving justification-it was all right to treat them as sub-human so long as they were not fully developed.

The hominoids were never allowed a chance to stand on equal footing with humans and now they never would receive that chance. It was over. His life's work, wasted. "That will be enough, Moreau!"

Moreau turned to see Drakov standing at the entrance to the clean room, a laser pistol held in his hand.

"You're too late," said Moreau. His voice broke. "I've destroyed them all. I began with the gestation room and once I smashed all the artificial wombs, I finished the task here. There is nothing left. Nothing."

"You're wrong, Professor," Drakov said. "I told you before, I learned long ago not to put all of my eggs into one basket. Did you think this was my only laboratory? You have destroyed all of your own work. My own creations are being kept elsewhere. In fact, the one you were so concerned about has already been born. Even as we speak, it is in its time cycle of maturity. You are the one who is too late, Professor. When the Special Operations Group arrives, they will find three dead temporal agents and the corpse of one of their own people. Your body shall be here, as well. I imagine that Capt. Hunter will receive some sort of posthumous decoration for having single-handedly, at the cost of his own life, eliminated the threat to this timestream. You see, Professor, it all dovetails neatly. What you have done here will only lend credibility to the scene I will create."

"Only it doesn't dovetail quite so neatly, Nikolai," Moreau said. "You will not have any corpses with which to stage your scene because I have released the prisoners and they are long gone."

"You've done what?" said Drakov.

"They'll know now who was responsible for this," Moreau said, "and the only corpse they find here will be yours!"

He hurled a glass specimen jar at Drakov. Drakov jerked his head aside and fired as the jar smashed against the wall behind him, but his shot went wide and Moreau was on him in a flying leap. The laser flew out of Drakov's grasp and skittered across the floor, beneath one of the counters. They fell to the floor, Moreau on top, his fingers digging into Drakov's throat. Drakov dislodged him effortlessly, rolling him over and reversing their positions.

"You fool," said Drakov, pinning him down. "I have three times your strength!"

Moreau's hand clawed for Drakov's eyes. Drakov grabbed it, twisted Moreau's wrist, and broke it. Moreau cried out with pain. Drakov drew back his fist and smashed it into Moreau's face, once, twice, three times-and then the wall exploded.

The Rangers fanned out as they clocked in, circling round the palace complex from both sides and firing their weapons as they ran. The plasma blasts whumped against the walls, imploding them and bursting into washes of blue flame. A black garbed figure came diving out of one of the second-story windows as the palace erupted into flame. He hit the ground in a hard and awkward roll and came up running, favoring his side and holding his left shoulder as he ran.

"Benedetto!" Delaney shouted. "Come on, he's heading for the robot!"

"For the what?" yelled Curtis, but Delaney was already sprinting after Benedetto with Andre running behind him. Deciding that two of them were sufficient to catch one man, Curtis turned his attention back to the assault. They were only a handful, one small unit, and they had to hit hard and keep on hitting hard until the Temporal Counter-Insurgency battalion clocked in from Galveston and came through the confluence to reinforce them. With any luck, they'd already have the job done by the time the T.C. I, strike force came on the scene. They had to get in and get out fast. The last thing they needed was for S.O.G. units to show up.

As Curtis and his squad moved in, a howling mob of half-naked men came streaming out from the compound, bearing down on them. Curtis blinked several times. They seemed to have about six arms apiece.

"Fire!" Curtis shouted.

His squad opened up on the attackers. They kept on coming, living torches running at them until they fell to the ground as lifeless hunks of charred meat. "Sir," said one of his men, "did those guys have-"

"Never mind," said Curtis. "Just fry anything that moves."

"Or flies?" the soldier said.

Curtis looked up. "What in the name of…"

Screeching like banshees, the harpies came diving down, talons extended.

Moreau struggled to his knees, his face a mask of blood. Drakov was gone. The entire side of the building was demolished and the laboratory was in flames.

"All for nothing," Moreau said, wiping the blood away from his eyes with his one good hand and gazing about him through the smoke at all the ruin. "Drakov!" he shouted. "Drakov!"

The flames were coming closer and he crawled away, coughing from the smoke.

"You should have killed me, Nikolai," he said. "You should have killed me while you had the chance."

He struggled to his feet and lurched out of the laboratory into the hall. He could feel the plasma blasts slamming into the building and he knew there was very little time left. He staggered into Drakov's quarters and half collapsed onto his desk. He pawed through the papers, finally finding what he sought. He tucked the files beneath his arm and rummaged through the drawers, seeking the spare warp disc he knew Drakov kept there for emergencies. He knew it would be programmed with escape coordinates. He had little doubt that Drakov had already made good his escape. Wherever he had gone, Moreau would follow.

The entire room shook as a plasma blast hit the outside wall and the ceiling fell in. Moreau's hand closed around the warp disc as the debris struck and knocked him to the floor. The whole room was in flames. Half buried under the wreckage, wincing from the pain in his broken wrist, Moreau reached for the controls.

The fall had broken Benedetto's shoulder, but it hadn't slowed him down much. He knew well what to expect from the soldiers of the Temporal Corps and there was no chance to clock out. When the plasma blasts had hit the building, he was blown right through the window and the fall, in addition to breaking his shoulder, had shattered his warp disc. The only chance he had left now was Talos.

Trying to ignore the pain, he sprinted hard for the harbor. He glanced over his shoulder and saw two figures running after him. He swore and redoubled his efforts, but they were gaining on him. A plasma blast exploded on the ground to his left. Seconds later, another one hit to his right, directly ahead of him. They had him bracketed. The next one would find its target. He started to run serpentine to throw off their aim. It was the only thing to do, but it resulted in their closing the distance between them.

He reached the giant robot straddling the harbor, with plasma fire exploding all around him. One blast hit right next to him, close enough to throw him to the ground and set his clothes on fire. Gasping with pain, he ripped off his burning shirt and threw himself through the doorway in the robot's ankle, stabbing with burned fingers at the controls which would shut it. As it started to slide to, two plasma blasts struck it in rapid succession, the wash of blue flame coming through the slowly closing opening. He threw himself back just in time. Several more blasts hit the door and he saw molten bronze flowing at the bottom of the crack. There was no way out now. He was sealed in.

He half ran, half staggered up the metal stairs toward the control room, pulling himself along with his right hand grasping the railing. "Bastards!" he swore, as he climbed the stairs, "fucking bastards!"

Finn and Andre fired charge after charge into the door in the giant robot's ankle. They saw the bronze soften and start to flow, but even the intense heat of the plasma charges was not enough to blast the door open.

"It's no good," said Delaney. "The door's melted shut."

"Then he's not going anywhere," said Andre.

"Don't bet on that," Delaney said, tersely. From inside the robot, they heard the sounds of machinery and hydraulics starting to move.

Curtis had posted guards around the perimeter of the transit area, but he needn't have bothered. The terrified population had fled in terror from them. The ground was littered with the corpses of Moreau's creatures and with the bodies of several of the Rangers who had been killed in the suicidal attack of the harpies. Drakov's ruined palace was ablaze. It was all over by the time the first wave of the T.C. I, strike force battalion started to clock in. Curtis approached Col. Cooper, the commander of the strike force.

"Looks like you people didn't need us," Cooper said. "You seem to have the situation well in hand."

"We had no idea what kind of resistance we might have encountered, Colonel," Curtis said. "There was a — "

"Jesus H. Christ on a crutch!" said Cooper, looking beyond him. "What in the hell is that!" Curtis turned around. "Holy shit!" Finn and Andre were running at top speed toward them, while behind them, gaining with every massive stride, was Tales. The bronze giant, with Benedetto at the controls, was moving slowly, awkwardly, but with the length of its strides, it didn't need to move fast. Servomotors within it whined with each giant stride. The huge arm lifted the bronze obelisk of a sword.

"Skirmish line!" Cooper shouted out to his battalion. "Fire at will!"

A hundred plasma rifles opened up on the advancing robot, wreathing it in an aura of blue flame and blackening the bronze. Benedetto was blinded by the plasma fire, but he remained at the controls, keeping the robot advancing toward the soldiers. He felt the intense heat building up as the relentless barrage continued. The bronze began to soften.

"I knew I should have installed cannon in this ridiculous contraption," Benedetto said, grimacing with pain. The controls were growing hot to the touch. "I'm going to be cooked alive like some damned lobster." He slammed a control lever forward, but the robot arm holding the sword remained immobile, the servomotors damaged by the plasma fire. "Damn it!" Benedetto swore. He reached for the level controlling the arm holding the shield.

"Maintain fire!" Cooper shouted as the strike force and the Ranger unit poured everything they had into the robot. Molten metal was now running down its exterior like hot wax flowing down a candle. The robot's impassive features sagged. Molten bronze fell to the ground in globs with each step it took.

Inside the control room, it was like an oven. The interior walls were starting to glow red. Benedetto's skin was turning red and blistering. His hands were being crisped as they worked the controls. "Christ!" he screamed, in agony. "CHRIST!"

The left arm extended from the giant's body and then bent at the elbow back toward the robot's chest. Benedetto was blind now, but he knew the soldiers were somewhere in front of him. With his last ounce of strength, he released the locks holding the shield in place and then slammed forward the lever controlling the arm.

"Look out!" Curtis shouted.

The massive bronze shield spun toward them like some flying saucer. The soldiers scattered, but the shield ploughed into the ground where they stood, crushing a number of them beneath hundreds of pounds of superheated metal.

"Concentrate your fire on the legs!" yelled Cooper. "Slag that fucker!"

Benedetto's hair burst into flame. He screamed as his skin crackled and the fluid ran out of it. He smashed his head repeatedly against the interior wall of the control room, then staggered back and fell over the railing, landing hard on his back in the room below. The impact snapped his spine. Overhead, at the dome of the robot, the huge V-20 warp disc came loose from its fastenings and plummeted down, crushing him as it smashed into pieces.

"He's going down!" Delaney shouted. "Run for it!"

The left leg gave way and the robot, melting like solder, slowly toppled. Its shadow fell over the soldiers as they ran and then it slammed into the ground hard enough for the shock of the impact to knock several of those closest to it off their feet.

Delaney slowly picked himself up off the ground. "The bigger they are-" he said.

Steiger glared at him. "Don't say it."