The Beasts Of Valhalla

14

Garth and I kept an eye on the medical personnel while Lippitt went out to his car, returned with a large ice chest filled with fruit and juices. There were thin vanilla milk shakes for dessert. I wasn't exactly overjoyed, and Garth wasn't too happy, either.

"Lippitt, you're a real prick," my brother growled, his voice ringing with utter sincerity.

"You should eat lightly at first," Lippitt replied evenly. "Otherwise, you'll get sick. I'll buy you a good dinner later."

"What does Father have to do with the Valhalla Project?" I asked through a mouth filled with the most delicious banana that had ever been grown.

Lippitt sipped at a container of apple juice, stared at the floor.

"If the government isn't behind Volsung and the Valhalla Project, who is?"

"Eat, Frederickson. There are still things I'm trying to sort out."

Up to this point Garth had been content to watch, listen, and evaluate while I did the interrogating. I'd been stalking the elusive Lippitt all day, but it was Garth who now fired the silver bullet.

"Lippitt," Garth said casually, picking a piece of apple skin from between his teeth, "why are you afraid of us?"

It struck him in the heart, and he started. He recovered quickly, but I had seen the unmistakable reaction in his eyes, the twitch of the muscles in his jaw and throat. A puddle of apple juice shimmered on the floor like a silent, liquid witness.

"I'm afraid for you," Lippitt said tightly.

"Yes," I responded quickly. "But Garth is right. You're also afraid of us! It's why you won't answer the most important questions. Why are you afraid of us?"

"The ring," Lippitt whispered.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not liking the look on Lippitt's face. "What fucking ring?"

Lippitt's response was to rise from his chair and walk quickly from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Electrocardiogram.

"What's your connection with Father?"

"Don't talk; you'll disrupt the test." The Ice Man returneth.

"Then you talk to me. Do it, Lippitt. You came close before. Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood priest, and remember that confession is good for the soul. Enthrall me with the whole truth."

Lippitt stared at me intently for a few moments, then gave a curt nod to the technician who was operating the machine. The technician went into the other room where Garth, who had finished the test, was sitting. Lippitt quietly closed the door, then took over the controls of the machine himself. He had obviously made some kind of decision.

"I was faded to a place I believe you're familiar with," Lippitt said quietly, making delicate adjustments to two knobs, leaning closer to study the inky squiggles left behind by the needles. "The Institute for the Study of Human Potential."

That piece of information must have caused quite a jolt in my personal magnetism. It was, as far as I could see, a four-knobber; Lippitt looked like he was trying to control a ship at sea.

"Relax, Frederickson."

I lay back on the cold black vinyl, took a series of deep breaths.

The Institute for the Study of Human Potential was, indeed, familiar to me. It had been founded by a friend of mine, Jonathan Pilgrim. Pilgrim, an ex-astronaut who had walked on the moon, had "died"- suffered clinical death, inasmuch as his heart had stopped for almost three minutes-as the result of a crash in an experimental plane. The doctors had brought him back, and he'd been profoundly changed by the experience. He'd resigned his commission in the Air Force, then used his name to raise money to found the Institute, located on a mountain in northern California, near Crescent City.

"Pilgrim wouldn't let a government agent set foot on his place. Not knowingly."

"You're wrong. In order to establish a research facility of the size and scope that he has, he was forced to make some compromises."

"Jonathan takes government money?"

Lippitt nodded. "In exchange for allowing the D.I. A. to monitor his experiments. The Institute studies unusual human phenomena and exhaustively tests people with very special talents from all over the world, from musicians to Indian fire walkers"- he paused, chuckled- "to gifted dwarfs who defy all the odds to become star circus gymnasts and karate experts. Every once in a while someone with a special talent or talents comes along whom we feel warrants our attention. I was the agency's monitor."

"Father accepted an invitation to go to the Institute to be tested. He certainly 'warranted your attention,' didn't he?"

"It was two and a half years ago. He wasn't 'Father' then-just Dr. Siegmund Loge. He was there to take special, computer-generated intelligence tests. Incidentally, he went right off the charts on everything; he was-is-just about the smartest man in the world. He was a pioneer in DNA research, work with basic enzymes, and an expert in all the life sciences. Naturally, I recommended that he be interviewed by our people. He was, and he agreed to work for us in certain research areas."

"But he's been out in the wilderness walking on water for almost two years now. He must have had his breakdown right after he went to work for the Pentagon."

"It would seem that way," Lippitt replied in an oddly distant tone.

"Meanwhile, you were thrown out of Pilgrim's Institute and 'buried' at Volsung. How did you fall into the shithouse?"

"Very sensitive, top secret human genetic data was stolen from the Institute, along with a collection of sperm samples taken from a variety of very unusual individuals. The data was 'leached' out of computer banks that were equipped with the latest in supposedly unbreakable lock codes."

"You were responsible for security on those items, so they held you responsible for their theft. Get thee to Volsung?"

"Right."

"There's a certain irony in the fact that you helped recruit Siegmund Loge, then ended up working for his screwball son and chauffeuring his grandson."

"You think so, Frederickson? I don't. Given enough time and support, I'm sure I could have traced the theft of the material and nailed the people responsible."

"Ah."

"I was sent to Volsung because that was the best place to contain and keep an eye on me."

"Why should the D.I.A. want to contain and keep an eye on you? You work for them."

"It wasn't the D.I.A. that was responsible-at least not my immediate superiors. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I'm convinced there's a small group of very powerful men-a cabal, if you will, made up of people in all phases of government-who are responsible for Volsung and the work conducted there. They've got the bit between their teeth, and they're up to… something." He hissed, clenched his fists; for Lippitt, one more absolutely incredible display of emotion. "They're mad, Frederickson. Mad!"

"Who, Lippitt?"

"The people who helped Siegmund Loge steal genetic data and sperm samples from Pilgrim's Institute."

Garth, Lippitt, and I stood in the darkened room, silently staring at the large X-ray negatives on the fluorescent display screen in front of us. They were pictures of my spine and Garth's. In both X-rays there were small gray blotches-shadows with small, radiating fingers, like tentacles-in the spinal fluid, just below the base of the skull.

"What are they?" I asked softly.

Lippitt slowly shook his head. "I don't know. Nothing shows up in the spinal fluid itself; only in the X-rays, under fluorescent light. Whatever is causing those shadows must have been incorporated into your genetic material at the most fundamental level. It's part of your DNA. Something might show up on an electron scanner, but frankly I doubt it. My guess is that we're looking at something caused by viroids-tiny organisms that can transform genetic material; they're much smaller than viruses, and even viruses are difficult to see."

"After all the tests we've been through, that's all you can say?"

"Oh, we've determined that the rods and cones on your retina have multiplied three- or four- fold."

"Does that mean I can give up eating carrots?"

It wasn't funny, and nobody so much as smiled.

"You'll notice that your night vision is dramatically improved, Frederickson," Lippitt said grimly. "Also, you'll probably be able to see further into both the infrared and ultraviolet bands of the spectrum than other people. The problem is that you'll be virtually blind-or in great pain-during the day, unless you wear very dark glasses."

"What about me?" Garth asked quietly.

"There's an alteration in the way your acetylcholine activates the nerve impulses that fire across your nerve synapses. We don't have basal tests for comparison, but I'd guess that your reflexes are now two or three times as fast as they were before Bolesh got hold of you."

My hand trembled as I raised it, touched the shadows in our spinal columns. "That's causing it?"

"We have to assume so," Lippitt replied in the same soft voice. "We can identify some of the symptoms, but not the precise causal effect."

"What the hell is in Lot Fifty-Six?"

"I don't know. It would take a team of biochemists to try and answer that, and I'm not at all sure they'd be able to do a final analysis."

"Father knows, doesn't he?"

Lippitt nodded once, very slowly. "I believe so. Also, perhaps, Siegfried Loge and the other scientists working on the Valhalla Project."

"Then we'll have to pay them a visit, won't we?" I asked tightly.

Lippitt just grunted.

"Lippitt, what's wrong with us?"

Lippitt thought about it, said: "As dramatic and disturbing as your symptoms may seem to you, it's what's not wrong with you that's important."

"Maybe to you. I know there's still more to this. What 'ring' were you talking about before?"

There was no response, but now Lippitt seemed not so much evasive as very distant and distracted.

"What the hell is Father up to?"

No answer.

Now Garth spoke, and there was menace in his voice. "Lippitt, I'm giving serious thought to doing something to your spine. After all the good times Mongo and I have had over the past few days, don't you think we have a right to know everything?"

"I'm sorry," Lippitt said in a voice so low Garth and I could hardly hear him. "I'm still thinking about it."