The Beasts Of Valhalla

33

Flying at low altitudes to avoid radar, stopping only at remote airports to refuel, it took us three days to reach the northern tip of California, where Jonathan Pilgrim's Institute for the Study of Human Potential was located.

A former astronaut who had experienced a profound shifting of consciousness while walking on the moon, Pilgrim, a retired Air Force colonel, had spent almost a decade seeking to fund and shape an institute that would provide the cutting edge in all the social, psychological, and physical sciences relating to humankind. He had succeeded. The Institute's sports medicine research program was second only to East Germany's, and its myriad other programs were second to none. Leading scientists from all over the world came to "Pilgrim's Mountain" to lecture and continue their own research with the Institute's state-of-the-art equipment and massive computer files on human types ranging from New Guinea pygmies to African Watusi. Research volunteers ranged from geniuses to idiot savants, prodigies in chess, music and mathematics, world record holders in virtually every organized sport and not a few unorganized ones, smart people and stupid people, altruists and sociopaths, heroes and mass murderers. Pilgrim had even done a workup on a certain dwarf who'd used his rather remarkable athletic abilities to become a circus head-liner, but I'd been there long before Siegmund Loge, Stryder London, and Mr. Lippitt.

A huge sign on the highway at the foot of the mountain bore Siegmund Loge's likeness, and the logo: FATHER IS THE ANSWER. We left the clunker we'd stolen in a plowed parking area off the main highway and, after checking my battery pack, hiked up the mountain through snow and forest, moving parallel to the Institute's access road.

Because of the many celebrities, talented and powerful people who might be at the Institute at any given time, there had always been tight security; there was still tight security, but now it appeared to be provided exclusively by Warriors. From our position in a culvert across the road from one of the entrance gates, we watched for almost an hour; the gate, guarded by two Warriors, was open, but nobody came or went.

"Can you do anything about those guards?" Lippitt asked Rafferty.

"I'm not sure," the telepath replied after some hesitation. "It's been a long time since I've done any probing and manipulation."

"I know the layout of this place very well. If we can find a way of getting in through this entrance, we'll be close to a good hiding place we can use as a base of operations."

Rafferty nodded. "You two wait here. I'm going to talk to the guards. When you see me motion for you to come, just walk across the road and through the gate. Walk at a normal pace, and act normal. Don't speak to me or the guards. I'll follow you."

Keeping low, hiding behind the banks of snow at the side of the road, Rafferty moved off to his left, disappeared from sight around a bend in the road. Ten minutes later we saw him coming down the highway on the Institute side, walking with a pronounced limp. The Warriors watched him approach, but showed no signs of nervousness. Rafferty stopped by the gate and began talking to the men; from his gestures, he appeared to be describing an automobile accident farther up the road. Then the Warriors began talking to each other; their conversation grew increasingly animated, until finally they seemed to be engaged in a heated argument, virtually ignoring Rafferty.

Then the hand signal came.

Lippitt and I looked at each other uncertainly. Both of us had very good reason to be in awe of Victor Rafferty's powers, but it was still unnerving to think that we were now expected to leave our cover and try to stroll past two fully conscious Warriors.

But Rafferty's instructions had been explicit.

"Let's do it," I said, clambering up over the snowbank and sliding down the other side.

Lippitt followed. Keeping his hand on the gun inside the pocket of his overcoat, he walked behind me at an unhurried pace across the road, around Rafferty and the two Warriors, and through the open gate.

The Warriors were arguing with each other over which of several service stations provided the best towing service. Rafferty's face was clenched with the strain of maintaining the illusion he had placed in the men's minds; blood ran bright crimson from both nostrils, staining his lips, dripping off his chin.

I followed Lippitt down a narrow road between low-roofed buildings which looked as if they were used for storage. We ducked into an alleyway, waited. Rafferty joined us a few minutes later.

"Are you all right?" I asked anxiously.

"Yes," Rafferty answered evenly. Blood was smeared on his face where he had wiped it off with a handkerchief, but it was no longer running from his nose. I could tell by his eyes that he was still in pain.

"Did you find out anything?"

Rafferty shook his head. "I can't do the sort of thing I just did and scan at the same time."

I went to the opposite end of the alley, looked around in the dusk, saw nobody.

"Where the hell is everybody?" Lippitt said as I reported back to him.

"They're getting ready to close the place down," Rafferty answered. "That much I picked up when I first went into their minds. There's just a skeleton crew of Warriors, technicians, and a couple of researchers left."

"Working over Garth," I said through jaws that suddenly ached with tension. "Now that Loge has the biosamples, and Garth himself, he figures he's ready to go from research into production. Lippitt, let's go catch us somebody who knows where Garth is."

Lippitt glanced at his watch. "I'll do the catching-in another hour or so, when it's dark." He removed the machine pistol and three clips of ammunition from his pocket, handed them to Rafferty.

"Aren't you going to need this?" the telepath asked.

Lippitt shook his head. "I'll get another one from where that came from-I hope. I can't afford to fire a gun out there, anyway. Mongo has his own gun. If they catch me, it may all come down to how much heavy killing the two of you can do."

A half hour after Lippitt went out into the night a brown-uniformed Warrior with mud on his chest and blood on his mouth came crashing through the door of the near empty building where Rafferty and I were holed up. The man staggered around in a circle, at which point Lippitt entered and whacked him in the chest with the butt of the Warrior's captured machine pistol. The Warrior sat down hard.

I was definitely never, ever, again going to suggest to Mr. Lippitt that he was senile; the D.I.A. agent was one tough old man.

"Stay, you son-of-a-bitch!" Lippitt snapped at the dazed Warrior. "Just sit there and answer our questions. Try to get up, and I'll kill you."

"Where's Siegmund Loge?" I asked the man.

The Warrior, a husky blond Nordic type, shook his head, looked at me. "Fuck you, dwarf," he said as his eyes came into focus.

"Now, now," Lippitt said, tapping the Warrior on top of the head with the barrel of the machine pistol. "There's no need to be rude. If you want me to kill you and go get one of your buddies, just keep it up. The gentleman of slight stature just asked you a question."

"I don't know where Siegmund Loge is," the Warrior said sullenly. "If I did know, I wouldn't tell you."

"Where are the passengers in the van you stopped?"

"What van?"

"Is Father's Treasure almost ready?" Lippitt asked.

Silence.

"Is Stryder London here?"

Silence.

Lippitt and I kept peppering the Warrior with questions. Considering his refusal to speak, we could understand his growing bewilderment at our somewhat casual persistence; what he couldn't understand was that it was necessary only for him to hear a question and register the answer in his mind.

After about ten minutes of this I glanced across the room at Rafferty, who was standing in a dark corner, behind the Warrior. Rafferty stepped quietly out of the shadows and nodded to me. I nodded to Lippitt, who clipped the Warrior hard across the jaw, knocking him out.

"The Institute was taken over by Loge's people, with unofficial government backing, some ten months ago," the telepath said in a low voice as he slowly walked toward us, rubbing his temples. "All of the genetic computer data has been electronically leached and transmitted somewhere, but this man doesn't know where. He trained here, and believes he's a member of an elite security force of Warriors who will police the world after Father's Treasure is administered to most of the world's population. He doesn't know where Loge is, doesn't know what Loge is doing-he simply believes that whatever it is will enable him to exercise control over a great many people. Stryder London is here. If we can capture and interrogate him, then we may be able to find out where Loge is. You'll both be happy to know that Jonathan Pilgrim fought this from the beginning; they have him and a large part of the staff locked away in some southern military installation."

"What about Garth, Hugo, and Golly?" I asked anxiously.

Rafferty bent over the unconscious Warrior, removed a set of keys from his pocket. "Hugo and your hairy friend are locked up in a room three buildings away. They're continuing to run tests on Garth in a laboratory in the winter sports complex."

"I know where it is," Lippitt said tersely.

I swallowed hard. "Is Garth… is he…?"

Rafferty avoided my eyes. "Garth is still alive, Mongo. Hold on to that. You won't recognize him. I don't know about his mind, and I don't know whether he'll be able to understand anything you say. He definitely won't be able to speak to you." Now Rafferty looked at me, his dark, brooding eyes filled with sorrow. "He's not human anymore, Mongo."

"There isn't much human left in me, either," I said, turning toward the door to hide my tears, stoking my anger to displace what would otherwise be panic, "and he's still my brother."

The two prisoners down the block, after they'd recovered from their initial shock, seemed rather pleased to see us.

HELLO FUCKING MONGO

HELLO FUCKING MISTER LIPPITT

HELLO FUCKING MAN

"Hello, fucking gorilla," Rafferty answered without hesitation, smiling at her. After all, he'd already met Golly in my mind.

"Mongo!" Hugo shouted, and I quickly closed the door to cover his booming voice. I was too far away to grab, and so it was a somewhat perplexed Mr. Lippitt who was forced to suffer, feet dangling a good six inches off the floor, a very serious giant hug.

Finally Lippitt managed to extricate himself. Taking deep breaths, he rubbed his chest for a few moments, then nodded toward a bemused Rafferty. "This is Ronald Tal," Lippitt said in a hoarse voice. "He's a friend of ours from the U.N."

Hugo flung his arms out to his sides, and Lippitt quickly stepped back, almost knocking me over. "The U.N.!" Hugo said. "Does that mean-?"

"No, it doesn't," Lippitt replied. "There's just Tal. But he's been a big help so far. We might not be standing here with you right now if it weren't for him."

Rafferty and Hugo shook hands, and I felt a smooth, leathery hand grip mine.

GOLLY LOVE FUCKING MONGO

"Yeah, babe. I love you, too."

"Mongo, they caught us- "

"Later, Hugo. First we get Garth, and then we hunt up Stryder London. I have a real urge to hit that man."

"Mongo," Hugo said, his voice breaking as he reached out with a trembling hand and gently touched my shoulder, "your brother… It was no more than an hour or two after you left…"

"I know about it, Hugo," I said, patting his hand reassuringly. "I'll handle it. As long as he's alive, there's still a chance Loge may have something that can reverse the process."

I had to believe that, I thought, as, with Lippitt in the lead, we slipped out into the night and walked quickly through a series of narrow alleyways in the warren of storage buildings. Without hope, there was… nothing. If Siegmund Loge couldn't heal and make us human again, then we would die. And the world would probably die with us.

And my mother's dream would come true.

GOLLY KILL FUCKING STRYDER LONDON

"No, sweetheart. At least not until we're finished with him."

FUCKING OKAY

"That's the winter sports lab," Lippitt said, pointing across a snow-covered open area to where a blue and white building sat near the lip of a deep bowl used for skiing and jumping.

Rafferty nodded. "It's the building that was in the man's mind. Garth is in a room at the far end."

"Let's go get him," I said, stepping away from the side of the building where we were pressed.

Lippitt put a hand on my chest, pushed me back into the shadows. "I don't like it," he said in a low voice. "I found the one that's tied up back there easily enough. Now there's nobody around. I know there's only a skeleton crew here, but it's still too quiet. It doesn't feel right."

"Maybe they feel there's nothing left to guard. They may be having dinner."

"It may be a trap."

"Garth's in there, Lippitt, and that's where I have to go. I'll go alone. If you hear shooting, you'll know it's a trap and you can get out of here."

Lippitt shook his head. "Unless we can find out where Loge has his main base of operations, there's no place to go, and we have no way of communicating if we separate. I think we have no choice but to go in together and take our chances." He paused, turned to the giant. "Except for you, Hugo. You stay here and act as lookout."

Hugo scowled. "I want to go in with you. You may need me."

"We do need you-and we need you here. Do you know how to use one of these pistols?"

"No," Hugo answered grudgingly.

"Right," Lippitt said evenly. "Even if you did know how to use one, we don't have an extra one to give you. Your voice will carry as far as a gunshot. If you spot trouble after we go in there, give a warning shout-and then get lost. That's the best help you can give us."

"All right," Hugo said softly, bowing his head in resignation.

Lippitt turned to Golly, smiled kindly. "You stay with Hugo, lovely lady."

PLEASE FUCKING NO

PLEASE GOLLY GO WITH FUCKING MONGO

The D.I.A. operative gently stroked the gorilla's jaw with the back of his hand. "If this is a trap, Golly, you'll be killed. You have no way of defending yourself against guns."

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

GOLLY LOST WITHOUT FUCKING FRIENDS

"She has a point, Lippitt," I said. "There's nothing she can do out here, so she may as well come with us."

Lippitt nodded, then stepped out from the side of the building. Keeping low and spreading out to present more difficult targets, three men and an ape ran across the open area to the blue and white laboratory on the lip of the snow bowl. There was no gunfire, no warning shots.

Motioning for us to stay back, Lippitt gripped the knob of the door, then flung it open and went down into a crouch, gun aimed, into the lighted interior. There was no one inside.

Victor Rafferty took the lead as we entered the building, running down a wide corridor toward a closed green metal door at the end.

"There," Rafferty said, pointing at the door.

I pushed Lippitt and Rafferty aside and, with Golly close by my side, opened the door and stepped into the large, fluorescently lit laboratory. I abruptly stopped and probably would have fallen if Golly hadn't grabbed me and held me up. Horror wrapped its arms around me and squeezed the breath from my body, the hope from my soul.

Except for a bank of monitoring machines hooked up to a crude cage erected in the center of the room, the laboratory had been virtually stripped. Next to the cage was a stainless steel operating table covered with gleaming surgical instruments; somebody was getting ready to do a dissection.

Although he wasn't around to enjoy it, Jake Bolesh had finally gotten at least a part of what he'd wanted.

Inside the cage, rearing on its haunches on a bed of filthy straw littered with waste and food scraps as it tore at the wires attached to its shrunken, hairy body, was the bawling thing that had been my brother.