The Beasts Of Valhalla

27

Chore time. Garth was put to work shoveling manure, and I got to milk cows. It was lousy busy work, but it beat sitting around in the dungeon.

Golly, who still seemed upset, had refused even to look at me for two days. On the morning of the third day I felt a leathery hand touch my shoulder. I turned on my milking stool to find Golly standing by me, her earphones draped around her neck.

MASTER ALMOST MADE FUCKING GOLLY KILL YOU

"We understand that you have to do what Loge tells you. Don't worry about it."

GOLLY DON'T WANT TO FUCKING KILL YOU

"I know."

?

WHY MAKE MASTER KILL FUCKING ANIMALS

"The animals were suffering a lot of pain."

PLEASE KILL FUCKING GOLLY

"Why?" I asked, frowning. "I know Loge hurt you before, but are you in pain now?"

FUCKING NO

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

I shook my head. "If you know you're wrong, you're not that wrong."

GOOD THAT YOU KILL FUCKING ANIMALS

"That's what Garth and I thought."

MONGO AND GARTH FUCKING GOOD

"Thank you."

MONGO AND GARTH FUCKING STUPID

I laughed. "Loge thinks that it's the machine on your chest that makes you seem so smart. What do you think?"

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

"I'm tired of milking cows, sweetheart," I said, stretching and arching my back. "How about letting me do some gardening for a change of pace?"

?

"Gardening; I want to work on those plants by the house."

PLANTS FUCKING DEAD

"No. They're like that because it's cold now, but things should be done so that they'll grow when it's warm again. I like digging around in the dirt. Okay?"

FUCKING OKAY

Whisper was where I'd left her.

Since I'd been such a well-behaved specimen, Loge granted my request for a changing of the guard. Golly was hurt, and Hugo was surprised.

After a morning spent watching me milk cows, even Hugo seemed bored. After lunch, he accepted my suggestion that we go for a walk in the woods. We strolled, chatting amiably about the difficulties of dwarves and giants, while I kept my fingers looped in the shoulder straps of my baggy green overalls.

"Hugo," I said as we stopped to examine the tracks of some animal in the thin cover of snow, "there's something I want to show you."

The eight-foot giant peered down at me, his large limpid eyes aglow with curiosity. "What is it, Mongo?"

"Look at that tree over there."

Hugo turned to his right. "What-?"

Zip.

Shhh.

Thunk.

Hugo jumped-and a jumping giant is a sight to see. He stared, transfixed, at Whisper as she quivered in the tree trunk a few feet away. "Holy shit," he said. It was the first time I'd ever heard him curse.

"Do I have your attention, Hugo?" Still staring at Whisper, he grunted. "Go get the knife."

Hugo walked stiffly to the tree, removed Whisper from the trunk, turned the knife over in his hands.

"That wasn't a nice thing to do, Mongo," the giant rumbled, looking at me and frowning. Hugo was recovering from his initial shock, and now looked a mite peeved. "I heard this thing go past; you could have slicked off my ear."

"It's a nice knife, isn't it?"

"Where'd you get it?"

"From the religious commune I was telling you about. I told you that's how Garth and I got the address of this place."

"Mongo!"

"Shut up, Hugo. Forget your ear; I could have sliced off your head. I could easily have killed you just now, but I didn't. After killing you, I could have strolled back to the manure pile and killed the gorilla. Garth and I could probably even have killed the Loges, and then just walked off. Escaping isn't enough anymore. Loge took things from Garth and me, and we have to get them back and destroy them; if the things aren't here, we have to find out where they were sent. To do that, we need somebody on the inside-you. The fact that you're holding my knife instead of your head in your hands would seem to give me the right to hold forth for a minute or two without you interrupting to tell me how crazy I am."

Hugo narrowed his eyes. "What things?"

"Body fluids and tissue; blood, urine, bone marrow, skin tissue, muscle tissue, feces, sperm. All of it has to be found and destroyed, along with the results of all the tests that were conducted."

"Why?"

"You're not ready for that yet. Let's take a small step first. When I think that you may be beginning to trust and believe me, I'll tell you the answer to that question. The first thing is to show you that Loge is a liar. Then, maybe you'll consider the possibility that I'm not, and that all of you are being used for purposes exactly the opposite of what you think they are."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I want to show you the room where Loge keeps all the things that are sent to him by commune members; I want to show you a place where the bones of men the Loges have killed have been left lying out in the open; I want to show you a room where animals are tortured in a way beyond anything you can imagine."

Hugo was silent for a long time, and we stared into each other's eyes. "Show me," he said at last.

"I'd like my knife back."

"First show me these things."

"If I don't show them to you, then you can take it back. You know that I have it; it's enough. You have the choke collar, and you're just a tad bigger than I am."

Hugo thought about it, flipped Whisper in his hand and held her out. I took the handle, but Hugo maintained his grip on the blade. "When are you going to show me?"

"Tonight. And I'll need your help for that, too."

"What do you want me to do?"

"It's dangerous, Hugo. I have to tell you that you could be killed."

"You claim that Dr. Loge is trying to hurt, not help, people like us?"

"It's worse than that, Hugo. Much worse."

"Mongo, if this turns out to be just crazy talk, I swear I'll be so upset that I don't think I'll be able to keep myself from hurting you real bad."

"I'll take my chances."

Hugo released his grip on Whisper, and I replaced her in the sheath in my belt, inside my overalls.

"What do you want me to do, Mongo?"

"First, you mustn't tell Golly about this conversation, or have her find out what you're doing."

"All right."

"You and Golly live in the house, guard it at night?"

"Yes."

"With those big feet of yours, do you think you can sneak into Loge's room while he's sleeping without waking him or having Golly hear you?"

"Maybe," Hugo said after some hesitation. "Why do you want me to do that?"

"The thing he wears around his neck all the time is a key to the room I want to show you. Bring it to Garth and me tonight, along with the keys to our cell."

"Mongo, you remember that I warned you what could happen if this turns out to be crazy talk."

"I'll remember. You remember what I said about this being dangerous. Is there any way I can get you to help us get the biosamples and test results back without showing you these things?"

"No."

"Don't get caught, Hugo. If the nice people who run this place that you think is a friendly neighborhood clinic catch you at this, they'll probably kill you on the spot. I'd hate to have you learn the truth the hard way, while a bullet's ripping through your brain."

Garth, holding a torch, led Hugo and me down the long stone corridor leading to the Treasure Room. Two floors above, according to Hugo, Siegfried and Obie Loge were sleeping, and Golly was watching "The Late, Late Show" on television while she listened to Mozart, earphones on her head; tiptoeing through the house, Garth hadn't smelled the gorilla, and we assumed she hadn't smelled us.

"Hey, Mongo," Garth whispered, "I really was impressed with Loge's magic key trick. As I recall, you have difficulty cutting a deck of cards."

"Behold," I said as we reached the door at the end of the corridor and I took the torch from Garth's hand. I passed the medallion back and forth over the flame, and the four rings began to curl and twist into the shape of a key. I touched the flame to the door, and the keyhole appeared. "No trick; just a little Sorscience from that sociopathic delinquent. This is made of a substance called anitol molten alloy-it's metal with a memory. The area of the keyhole is the same thing. The molecules will return to the same configuration they were in when the metal was shaped at a certain temperature. This anitol was formed into the shape of a key when it was heated to flame-temperature, then twisted into the rings after it had cooled. Heat it, and it goes back to its original shape. It's used in the newer thermostats and thermocouplings."

I twisted the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The sound and light show began. Hugo, who'd looked rather dazed when we'd entered the corridor and lit the torches, looked even more dazed as he roughly pushed between Garth and me, ducked through the doorway and entered the Treasure Room. Garth and I followed.

We let the giant browse around for a couple of minutes, and then Garth went to the control panel and dimmed the lights. The photo-mural disappeared, and Hugo's gasp was audible. He stumbled slightly as he went across the room and stood before the clear Plexiglas shield, staring out over Mount Doom.

"Those are human bones over there," Hugo whispered hoarsely as Garth and I came over and joined him.

"As advertised, Hugo," I said.

"Don't bother asking what those flying things are," Garth said drily as two of the leathery flappers swooped across our field of vision. "Nobody seems to know. Now we'll show you- "

"You won't show anything to anybody," Siegfried Loge said.

Pfft.

Pfft.

I reached for the dart in my left shoulder, never got my arm up; a powerful, fast-acting paralytic had almost instantly erased all sensation in my body, and nothing worked. I started to collapse, was grabbed under the arms and turned around by a burly Warrior. Garth, in the same condition and supported by another Warrior, found himself helpless and unable to do anything more than stare at the Loges, Golly, and a third Warrior who were standing by the entrance.

Golly must have grown bored with "The Late, Late Show."

Siegfried Loge lowered his dart gun, and the third Warrior slowly advanced across the room, his machine pistol aimed directly at the center of Hugo's forehead. Golly followed and, looking about as shamefaced as a gorilla is ever likely to look, took the control boxes from the giant's hand. Hugo, the bore of the gun pressed against his spine, was ushered out of the Treasure Room, and Garth and I were turned around again to look out over the chasm of Mount Doom.

"I figured I'd use synthetic curare instead of PCP in the darts this time," Siegfried Loge said as he and his son came over to stand beside us at the shield. "I didn't want to let you do anything to get yourselves killed, but I didn't want you to sleep through this show."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Golly growing increasingly agitated.

PLEASE NO KILL FUCKING HUGO

PLEASE NO KILL FUCKING HUGO

"Obie, turn on the monitor and bring me the microphone."

The younger Loge, still in his bathrobe and slippers and looking rather sleep-eyed, flopped across the room and turned on one of the television monitors; it showed the inside of the black cell. He took a hand microphone on a long extension cable out of a small recess, brought it back to his father.

A few moments later the monitor showed Hugo being shoved into the black cell. A door slammed down out of the ceiling, trapping him. The giant shaded his eyes and squinted into the floodlight and television camera, which were on a level with his head.

"Take the torch off the wall, Hugo," Loge said into the microphone. "It will light automatically when you take it out of the bracket."

Hugo pulled the torch out of the bracket, and it instantly burst into flame. Loge pressed a button on the side of the microphone; across the chasm, at the apex of the three sets of steps, a door opened in the rock. I could see Hugo in the opening, and he was shielding his face with one hand as his long hair whipped around his head. It was very hot in the chasm, with a lot of swirling air currents.

"Ohhhh… ahhhhh… my… faawwlt. Doohhnt… kill… him."

Loge ignored my rather pathetic, probably unintelligible, attempt at speech.

"The door behind you won't open again, Hugo," the scientist said. "You can wait there until you rot, or you can take your chances in Mount Doom. Choose a set of steps, try to make it to one of the caves. Who knows? You might be the first one to find your way out of there. Lots of luck, you oversize idiot."

Loge grunted and draped the microphone cord around his neck as Hugo, his torch held aloft and his body bathed in a red glow, stepped through the opening. He chose the middle set of steps, which appeared to be the widest.

He'd gone about twenty yards before the flying things hit him.

Hugo draped one arm over his head and flailed blindly with his torch, but the brown things kept dropping clumsily but accurately from the darkness above; they bit at him with their teeth, pounded his body with the appendages that served as wings, swarmed over him like huge, murderous bats. His clothes torn and bloody, Hugo staggered to the edge of a step, slipped, and fell out of sight toward the furnace glow below.

The curare hadn't paralyzed my tear glands.