The Beasts Of Valhalla

34

"His mind isn't damaged," Rafferty said quickly as he came up beside me. "That part of Garth which makes him your brother is still there. He's been drugged, but he knows we're here."

It was true, I thought as I forced myself to walk across the room, up to the cage. My expression, whatever it was, felt frozen, pasted on, and I struggled to keep it that way; Garth had enough of his own horror to contend with without seeing more reflected on my face. Although the cage did not allow him to stand, I estimated that he was now no more than three-quarters of his former height. He was covered with glossy black fur, except for his face and hands, which had turned the color of shoe leather. He had a jutting brow, a flat nose with extremely broad nostrils, and a massive, protruding jaw structure, which made it impossible for him to do anything but bawl, roar, bark, and scream.

But the eyes were those of my brother. At the moment they reflected horror, disgust and terror, which was to be expected, but they also reflected love. And hope.

"Shut up," I said, unable any longer to hold back tears as I reached through the bars of the cage and gripped his hairy, sinewy shoulder. "You always talked too much anyway. Also, this settles once and for all which one of us has more animal in him."

Lippitt took a key on a large ring off its peg on the wall, came over and opened the cage. Garth, trying and failing to walk upright, slouched out of the cage, and we held each other.

"Garth," I continued in a whisper, "neither of us is finished yet. I swear to you I'm going to get our bodies back, and when I do you're going to owe me all the Scotch I can drink for the rest of my life." I paused, turned to Rafferty. "Can he understand?"

The telepath nodded. "Oh, yes. He just can't speak."

I shook my head in bewilderment, squinted at Garth through my tears. "How can that be possible? Look at him."

Rafferty shrugged. "Look at you. You've also gone through all kinds of rapid and progressive physical changes, but your mental capacities seem to be intact. Obviously, something in the body-or, perhaps, the mind itself-forms a barricade to protect the brain. At least up to a point. Neither of you has reached that point yet."

It was true, I thought. I'd had so many things on my mind that it hadn't even occurred to me to be properly grateful for the fact that I still had a mind at all. I wondered what Siegmund Loge thought about this little kink in his project-if he thought about it at all. Or if it was a kink.

Rafferty was staring hard at my brother, and I could tell by the wonder moving in Garth's eyes that Rafferty was scanning his mind-and letting Garth know that he was doing it.

"Garth wants you to know that he'd really like you to get his body back," the telepath continued, turning to me, "but a case of * gin should be sufficient payment. He also wants to know if we brought aspirin; he says he's feeling just a bit under the weather."

Garth made a barking sound of laughter and astonishment, saluted Rafferty.

"Pretty good trick, huh?" I said to Garth. "You probably remember him being introduced to you as Ronald Tal, but his real name is Victor Rafferty. He's- "

"He already knows the story," Rafferty interrupted softly. "I just told him. I can also transfer my own thoughts."

"Yeah, well; what he does is the secret Lippitt and I have shared all these years. When we sic Rafferty on Loge's head, we're going to know everything there is in there-including a cure to what ails us, if there is one."

"That's it," Rafferty said suddenly, glancing up in alarm. "They're here."

There was a chugging sound in the night outside, and a large gray canister smashed through the window; the canister exploded in the air over our heads, releasing a weighted net that abruptly began to descend. Golly grabbed Garth's arm and pulled him beyond the perimeter of the falling net, but it was too late for the rest of us.

Shhh.

Whisper shredded the net as easily as if the thick rope strands had been made of bailing twine, and in moments I had freed Lippitt, Rafferty, and myself. It was wasted effort; Stryder London and five Warriors had rushed into the room, and were aiming their machine pistols at us.

Lippitt, Rafferty, and I aimed back. It was a Mexican standoff-of sorts; the problem was that their side had twice as many armed Mexicans as our side. But then, a machine pistol can do a lot of damage, even when it's only the twitch of a dead man's finger that pulls the trigger.

"Drop your guns," London said evenly. He had his free arm wrapped around Garth's throat, and was using my brother's shrunken body as a shield; Garth, drugged and dazed, was powerless to resist. Golly was to one side of the room, crouched between two filing cabinets. Both her long arms were crossed over her head, but her head was up and her gaze was intense, darting back and forth between the Warriors and us, as she sat in silent witness.

"You drop yours," I replied.

"Why die when you don't have to?"

"We die, you die." I had my gun aimed directly at London's forehead.

"In hindsight, I guess it was a mistake for Siegfried Loge to give you back your glasses, Frederickson. You've become a real pain in the ass."

"Fuck you, General. I have nothing to lose, which makes me a very dangerous man. I'm probably going to die anyway, and it would give me great pleasure to take as many of you with me as I can. You'd better let go of Garth and back off while I'm still in a good mood."

London rested the bore of his gun in Garth's ear. "Maybe I'll just blow his brains out."

"I don't think so. Loge doesn't have it quite right yet, does he, London? He doesn't have all his answers; he still needs Garth and me, and he'd prefer us alive. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have bothered with the net business; you'd have killed us outright."

"I'll take him your bodies."

"Somebody may, London, but it won't be you; once the first shot is fired, the chances are that everyone in this room will die."

"Where is Siegmund Loge?" Rafferty asked in a flat voice that was almost a monotone.

London's eyes narrowed as he slowly leveled his gun on Rafferty. "Who's your friend, Frederickson?"

"My name is Ronald Tal," the telepath said without taking his eyes off the two Warriors in front of him. His machine pistol was aimed at a point equidistant between them.

"What do you do, Tal? Frederickson has some strange friends, and I suspect you're one of them."

"I ask strange questions. All of the computer data, including the information you've been extracting from Garth's body, is instantly transformed into telemetric signals and sent to some other place, via satellite relay. What are- "

"How the hell do you know that?!" The blood had drained from London's face.

"I'm a veritable mind reader," Rafferty answered drily. "What are the coordinates of the receiving site?"

"I don't think he's going to tell us that, Tal," I said, "but I do believe he's giving some thought to declaring this a draw. What do ^ you say, London? Nobody dies today. Release Garth. You and your men take a walk, and come after us another day."

"No, Frederickson. I- "

A deep, burbling sound from the doorway behind him caused London to start, then half turn in that direction; only his soldier's discipline saved him, for if his gun had wavered I'd have put a bullet in his head.

The Warrior directly in front of me moved aside and turned slightly, enabling me to see the huge form of Hugo slumped in the doorway. Somebody had slit the giant's throat, and the last of his life was dribbling out through the fingers of both hands, which he'd wrapped tightly around his neck in an effort to keep it in. Hugo's eyes were glazing, but he had managed to stagger this far-and he was still on his feet. Now those huge feet started to move.

Blood spurted and pulsed when Hugo took his hands away from his throat. Throwing his arms wide, he uttered a bubbling roar and charged. Two of the Warriors spun around and pumped Hugo's body full of bullets a split second before Rafferty cut them down. London and the other three Warriors dove in opposite directions to the floor while both Lippitt and I fell on our backs and went for the lights.

Instantly, the laboratory was plunged into darkness that was complete except for a shaft of moonlight falling in through the broken window. I rolled to my left under a shower of falling glass and a hail of bullets, kept rolling until I came up hard against the wall. Rolling up into a ball to make as small a target as possible, I took off my smoked glasses and looked around.

Golly was still huddled between the two filing cabinets, face down, eyes closed and arms tightly wrapped over her head. Lippitt was crouched behind one of the filing cabinets, spraying bursts of fire down the length of the laboratory. Rafferty lay flat on the floor a few yards away, partially protected by the bars and base of the steel cage, returning the fire of the three Warriors, who were concealed behind heavy packing crates and another filing cabinet. Bullets flew everywhere, many ricocheting off the steel bars of the cage and striking sparks that hurt my eyes almost as much as the sharp, bright flashes from the muzzles of the machine pistols.

I did not see Stryder London-or Garth.

What I did see was a band of blue-black suddenly appear on the wall opposite me. The silhouette of a tall man carrying something over his shoulder appeared for an instant, and then the door slammed shut.

There was no way for me to make it across the room to the door without risk of being torn apart in the thundering, murderous gunfire. The nearest exit was the broken window, and that's where I headed at a dead run.

Lippitt must have caught my movement in the moonlight out of the corner of his eye. "Don't do it, Frederickson!" he yelled, his voice punctuated by gunfire. "London will kill you! Your brother's already a dead man!"

I left my feet, ducked and crossed my arms over my face, sailed through the broken window and did a shoulder roll as I landed outside in the snow. Rafferty's shout from inside just reached me.

"Greenland, Mongo! Look for the ring!"

I came up on my knees with my gun in firing position. Stryder London, with Garth slung over his shoulder, was clearly silhouetted against the night sky as he ran along the rim of the snow bowl, almost directly in front of me, thirty yards away. I braced, aiming the machine pistol with both hands, and fired off a short, low burst, aiming at his knees. My aim was too low, and bullets kicked up little showers of snow around his feet. The Warrior hurled Garth down the slope, then dove over the rim himself, disappearing from sight.

Rising to my feet, I ran forward, then slowed, dropped on my belly and crawled the last few yards to the rim; once I looked over, it would be my head that was silhouetted, and there was no doubt in my mind that this "super soldier" would have little difficulty putting a bullet through it if he had a clear shot.

I was too cautious, had waited too long; suddenly there was a roar, and I got to the rim in time to see London on a snowmobile shoot out from an observation shelter used by both the Institute's researchers and its resident ski patrol and rescue team. Garth, apparently knocked unconscious, was crammed into a narrow space just behind London, and his hairy, naked body flopped dangerously over the side as London raced at an angle down the face of the bowl. There was no way I could fire at the Warrior without the risk of killing Garth.

Flinging myself over the rim of the bowl, I slid, rolled, and ran through the snow toward the shelter, desperately hoping there would* be a second snowmobile there.

There was, and London hadn't even bothered to take the simple precaution of removing the key from the ignition-a "lapse" that I strongly suspected had been intentional. I jumped on the seat, reached for the key, and was almost bounced out on the snow when something very heavy and furry landed on the rear of the snowmobile, rolled into the cockpit with me.

GOLLY HELP FUCKING MONGO

I didn't know what I was going to do with a gorilla, except not try to push her out. London had already reached the bottom of the slope, and I expected him to race toward the throat of the bowl, a half mile away; instead, he began climbing the opposite face. I turned on the ignition of my snowmobile and, with Golly hugging me around the waist, shot out over the snow, taking a dangerously precipitous angle in an attempt to cut the distance between the Warrior and myself.

London had already slipped over the rim of the bowl by the time

I got to the bottom and started up the face. I was almost to the top when the thought came to me that it was highly arguable who was playing cat and who was playing mouse in this chase. I turned the snowmobile at an angle where its treads would hold it on the slope, shut off the engine and listened.

Except for the distant, snow-muffled chatter of the firefight still in progress at the laboratory across the bowl, there was silence: London was waiting for me somewhere over the rim.

"Go back, Golly," I whispered as I got out of the snowmobile and snapped a fresh magazine into my machine pistol. "There's nothing you can do, and it's too cold out here for you. I don't know how long this is going to take."

FRIEND HUGO FUCKING DEAD

"I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry. There's no reason for you to die, too. Go back and find someplace warm where you can hide."

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

NO PLACE FOR FUCKING GOLLY TO GO

NO ONE TO LOVE FUCKING GOLLY

"I love you," I replied, and as soon as I'd said it knew that I'd just lost a debating point to a gorilla.

FUCKING RIGHT

GOLLY STAY WITH FUCKING MONGO

"All right," I said, starting up the slope. "But you stay put right there."

I crawled the last ten yards, slowly raised my head and peered over the rim. London might be able to pick up my silhouette, and he might be able to see shapes fairly well in the reflected glow of moonlight on snow-but I could see one hell of a lot better. What I saw was London crouched next to a tree in the middle of a crosscountry ski trail, slowly tracking his machine pistol back and forth across the rim. His snowmobile, with Garth still slouched unconscious over the side, was parked behind the tree.

I flung my shoulders over the rim, aimed and fired off a burst; snow kicked up around his feet and bark flew off the tree-too close to Garth. I stopped firing.

London fired in my general direction, but he knew that he was at a deadly disadvantage in this situation; he spun around behind the tree, jumped into the snowmobile. An instant later the engine roared to life and he shot off heading west.

?

LONDON FUCKING DEAD

"Not yet, babe," I said, leaping into the snowmobile and gunning the engine to life. "I'm still working on it."

I shot over the rim. The snowmobile landed hard, bounced, and I almost lost control. I straightened it out, raced down past the tree and settled into London's tracks. I doubted that I carried any more total weight than he did, but the problem was that I had to stop frequently, turn off the engine, and listen to make certain that he had not stopped and set up an ambush.

Each time I stopped I continued to hear his engine-growing farther and farther distant. He seemed to be heading in a straight direction, away from the Institute, which suggested to me that he had a plan, a specific destination, in mind. Yet there was nothing ahead of him but wilderness-the "steppes," a savage morass of swamps in summer and bleak, frozen desert in winter, where the Institute conducted survival clinics and research, on government contracts. London would know the steppes well.

"Shit," I said, then turned when I felt a shivering, leathery hand touch my shoulder.

?

WHAT FUCKING SHIT

"We've got problems, babe," I said, shouting in order to be heard over the roar of the engine. Not the least of our problems was that the cells in my battery pack had to be changed fairly frequently, and I knew that the intense cold had to be draining them rapidly; keeping my body temperature at a minimum of eighty degrees in zero weather required a lot of battery power. And I wondered how long Golly, still a jungle animal despite her fur coat, could last.

I wondered how long Garth could last. I wondered if my brother was already dead, from further cellular explosion or from exposure. I had to find out, and in any case had to prevent Stryder London from getting Garth-dead or alive-to Siegmund Loge.

Twenty minutes later I emerged from a copse of trees. I turned off the engine, stood up and looked out over the beginning of the six-hundred-acre steppes; before me was nothing but a vast, windswept ocean of snow-angry now, tossing from the gelid breath of what I feared was an approaching storm. Somewhere out in that frozen ocean were my brother and his captor; the difference was that the captain of that ship knew where harbors, if there were any, could be found.

Golly patted my shoulder, and I turned to look at her; she was shivering, and her yellow eyes were clouded with misery. Her hands were trembling so violently that she could barely manage to work the keyboard of her computer display screen.

GOLLY FUCKING COLD

"I know, sweetheart. Me too. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to get even colder. Just hang in there. I'll try to find a place where I can build a fire."

MONGO FUCKING BRAVE

"You're fucking brave, too."

GOLLY LOVE FUCKING MONGO

"The feeling is mutual, babe."

GOLLY FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

"You mean you're cold?"

GOLLY FUCKING COLD

GOLLY ALSO FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

"You mean 'wrong'?"

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

GOLLY ALSO FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

I still didn't understand what she meant, but it didn't really make a difference. What was important was how I felt-and I felt cold. Dangerously cold. My batteries were starting to fail.

I was growing sleepy.

Shhh.

Sometimes gestures, even empty ones, are important; I slowly turned back to face the steppes, held Whisper aloft and in front of me like a talisman of defiance.

One fucking cold and funny-feeling gorilla and one dwarf in imminent peril of falling into permanent hibernation were up against a super-soldier operating in his own neighborhood.

I swallowed hard, grimaced at the sudden numbness in the tip of my nose and the bitter aftertaste of burnt chocolate in my mouth. Then I turned on the engine and, with Golly hugging me for mutual warmth, slowly headed out into the steppes.