The Beasts Of Valhalla

15

We stood on the crest of the rise and stared down at the enormous black stain on the prairie. "Mirkwood" was gone; the entire Volsung Corporation complex had been expertly and efficiently destroyed, probably with hundreds of strategically placed incendiary grenades.

Despite the fact that I was wearing dark glasses, the light of day hurt my eyes and had given me a headache. Garth was having muscle spasms with increasing frequency; he would clench his fists, throw his head back and stiffen his body until they passed.

"You knew it was gone, didn't you?" I asked quietly.

Lippitt nodded absently.

"And you weren't kidding about the gorilla snitching on me, were you?"

"I have to find Siegmund Loge and kill him," Lippitt said distantly. "I'm responsible for him."

"What difference would that make?" Garth asked, using a handkerchief to mop sweat from his face as yet another spasm passed. "You'd still have all those other scientists working merrily away someplace else. How can you even be sure Siegmund Loge is involved with Project Valhalla?"

"Every once in a while they'd run into problems at Volsung," Lippitt replied. "I wasn't supposed to know, but I've been in the finding-out business for a long time. They'd struggle with the problem for a week or so before a call would go out, in code. A day or so later a call would come back, and the problem would be solved."

"Father was feeding them information, guiding the research?"

"I'm sure of it. Without him, they'll eventually run into a problem they can't solve and work will stop."

"What work?" I asked. "Just what is it you think Siegmund Loge is trying to do?"

No answer.

Garth closed his eyes and clenched his fists as a new series of spasms seized him.

"What do we do now, Lippitt?"

"You and your brother must run, Frederickson, and you must keep running. Don't go near any member of your family; don't contact anyone you've ever known; don't go anyplace you've ever been. Sooner or later-probably sooner-men will be hunting you."

"What will you do?"

"Hunt Siegmund Loge."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we're sure as hell going with you."

"No," Lippitt said in a flat voice. "Mongo, my friend, you're just a bit conspicuous. Also, the shadows in your spines are growing. I don't know what's going to happen to you, or what form the symptoms may take."

"Fuck that," Garth said, his voice trembling with rage as he came out of his seizure. "We sure as hell are not going to just run around. You say you don't know what's finally going to happen to us. Men will be after us. You're the only link we have to what's happened. You think we're just going to wave good-bye to you?"

"I'm sorry, Garth," Lippitt said evenly. "I don't have any other advice. You can't come with me for the reasons I already gave you. I'll be far more effective traveling alone. I don't know what else you can do but run. You could see some doctors, but I strongly doubt that anyone is going to be able to help you."

"Father-or his son-may be able to help us," I said. "At least they know what's wrong with us. Given that information, we may be able to stop it-find a cure."

Lippitt abruptly turned and walked back to the car. There was nothing for Garth and me to do but follow. We sat in the back and waited for Lippitt to start the engine. He didn't. He simply sat stiffly behind the wheel, staring intently through the windshield. He sat like that for close to ten minutes before his curt voice cut through the silence.

"Get out."

Garth and I got out, walked around to meet Lippitt at the front of the Cadillac.

"You've finished thinking," I said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"What is it you've been thinking about?"

"I've been trying to decide whether or not I should kill the two of you."

Garth and I instinctively stepped back and apart, ready to attack Lippitt from two sides if it looked as if he were going to reach for a gun. The D.I.A. agent gave no indication that he'd even noticed our sudden, sharp movement.

"Mongo and I are thinking that's not such a good idea," Garth said quietly. "Maybe you should think about it some more."

"I've decided not to kill you, but in a short time one or both of you may wish I had."

"Oh, hell," I said. "We'll risk it."

Lippitt stared at me for a long time, finally said: "What if I told you that your deaths-voluntary or otherwise-might benefit every human being, perhaps every living creature, on the face of the planet?"

"I suspect I'd ask for a few details."

"Then you shall have them"

Lippitt opened the trunk of the car, took out a metal canister the size of a water pail. He unscrewed the top, and the sharp smell of formaldehyde cut through the air, causing my eyes to tear. Lippitt reached into the canister with his bare hands, withdrew two lumpy things, and perfunctorily tossed them onto the fender. They landed on the metal with a slurpy, ominous plop.

Garth and I stepped closer in order to see what the things were; we both cried out, lurched back. I could feel bile rising in my throat, and I fought back the urge to vomit at the sight of these monsters from Mirkwood.

"Project Valhalla seems to be about devolution," Lippitt said tersely.

One of the dead beasts was a large bird that had been a reptile-or vice versa. It had wings, a beaked head; the rest of it was a long, tubular, scale-covered body that ended in tiny webbed feet and a feathered tail.

The second creature was a rabbit with large purple gill slits on both sides of its throat.

Garth was making a desperate effort to speak, but he was caught in the throes of another seizure and could make only choked, strangling noises. Tears streamed from his eyes as he fought to control the spasms.

I wasn't suffering a seizure, but it felt as if my vocal cords were paralyzed. I could only stand and stare in horror at the dead, pathetically deformed creatures.

"As you pointed out, Mongo, the cell is immortal," Lippitt said in a hollow voice. "Each cell of every species carries within its genetic material not only directions for replicating itself the way it is, but also a complete genetic record of its evolutionary history. We're nothing more than sentient mammals, and we carry a long evolutionary history. It's why we have so many vestigial organs-the appendix is a legacy from birds, hair is fur that has not completely disappeared yet, newborn infants have a strong gripping reflex in hands and feet that comes from lower primates. Human fetuses go through a stage of development in the womb when they actually have gills. We- "

Mercifully, Lippitt stopped when I held up my hand.

"Are… we going to end up like… that?"

"I have no idea. By rights, the two of you should have been dead and looking something like that within an hour after Bolesh gave you the first injection. The stuff is incredibly fast-acting. It just tears apart the cellular structure and re-forms it, virtually before your eyes. It seems to act by magnifying the genetic information of the evolutionary past, throwing all the biological controls out of whack and commanding the cells to try to do everything at once. Naturally, the organism quickly dies as a result of the… molecular insult. I tried it on these specimens myself, I'm sorry to say, but I had to observe exactly what happened. There were many more-things-like this behind the red door in Volsung, all in various stages of dying."

"Maybe it works differently in humans," I said, my voice quavering as I squinted through a nimbus of light at Garth. My brother hobbled over to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

Lippitt slowly shook his head. "I'm sure there's been human experimentation."

"Bolesh couldn't understand why it wasn't working," Garth said, his voice a deep rumble. "He said he'd seen it work."

"Yes," Lippitt replied. "I think we can safely assume that there's a shallow, unmarked grave by a roadside somewhere in Peru County where a hobo or hitchhiker is buried." He paused, looked somewhere over our heads. "And Father continues to organize his communes around the world."

It took a moment for the full impact of his words to strike me, and then the sweat began to slide from my pores. "But most of the communes are here, Lippitt, in the United States!"

"Now you begin to see the depth of my particular nightmare," he said, focusing his eyes on my face. "Remember; I'm responsible for him."

"If you hadn't recruited him, somebody else would have."

"Somebody else didn't recruit him; I did."

"Loge may or may not be crazy, but- "

"He knows exactly what he's doing," Lippitt said in a clipped voice. "I'm certain of it."

"Why don't you show these specimens to people, tell them your story?"

Lippitt smiled thinly. "Show and tell to whom? The editors of The New York Times or the Washington Post?"

"You're Goddamn right!" Garth snapped. "For openers!"

"The story might or might not be believed; I think not. Freaks like this do occasionally occur spontaneously in nature. In any case, the government-or the men I spoke of-will come back with a heavy story people are much more likely to believe. There's my age, after all, and you see what's happened to Volsung. The same thing would happen to me. There's no other evidence."

"You have us!"

"So, what's wrong with you? You've developed eye problems, and your brother's become an epileptic."

"It's a bit more than that, Lippitt."

"I suspect both of you would be killed-or worse, kidnapped-within an hour after you checked into any medical center large enough to conduct the proper tests."

I glanced at Garth, then back at Lippitt. "Euthanasia aside, what would be the point in your killing us? Frankly, I'd rather be kidnapped."

"That's because you still don't understand."

"Then explain it to us!"

It was some time before Lippitt answered. Finally, he asked: "Have you read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings?"

"Jesus Christ!" I exploded. "I'm getting tired of that question! What dwarf hasn't? Is that the ring you were talking about? What the hell does a fantasy trilogy have to do with saving the world by killing us? I think you've gone crazy, Lippitt!"

"In this instance, the work is instructive as an analogy," Lippitt replied evenly, fixing me with his gaze. "In the novels there are seven magical rings of great power. The Dark Lord has all of them-save for the one in Frodo's possession. If the Dark Lord gains possession of the last ring, he will rule the world forever. All that is good will be vanquished."

Suddenly, with a pang that clenched my heart, I recalled my mother's dream. And Jake Bolesh's words came back to me, screaming like an icy wind through the back doors of my mind.

God didn't make you right!

And I understood what Lippitt was talking about. "Garth and I are the last ring," I whispered hoarsely.

"Precisely. Let's assume that the object of the Valhalla Project is to develop a capacity to bring about rapid devolution in adult humans and their offspring in selected populations. Not kill; bombs and bullets can do that, and everybody has all of those that are needed. And, of course, there's no point in simply deforming. The process of devolution must be controlled-subtle, and virtually undetectable. Let's say a prototype serum is needed that will generate devolution just to the point where you have stupid, manageable humans-who wouldn't really be human at all. For the sake of argument, let's call it a population of human-like creatures somewhere on the evolutionary cusp between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon."

"What's to prevent this 'capacity' from accidentally escaping into the rest of the earth's ecosystem?" Garth asked.

"To ask the question is to understand the potential horror," Lippitt replied. "Even to attempt such a thing is insane-and yet someone is doing it. Obviously, developing a serum that will give a controlled reaction is enormously difficult. It seems to me that the two of you are now the laboratories where the final answer Siegmund Loge is looking for can be found. You've become human Petrie dishes, and indescribable evil is growing in you."

God didn't make you right!

"Perhaps it's because you're a dwarf, Mongo," Lippitt added in a flat voice.

"Garth isn't a dwarf."

"No, but he's your brother. His genetic pattern must be very close to yours; although he isn't a dwarf, he certainly must carry the recessive gene for dwarfism. The pattern is close enough so that he too becomes a kind of living laboratory. If Father gets hold of either one of you, he may finally have the key that will enable him to produce Lot Fifty-Seven-the serum that will be effective for every human."

"Why couldn't any of my blood relatives do? Or any dwarf, for that matter?"

"It's possible they would do, but I suspect not. There can be enormous differences, even within families. The three generations of Loges are a good example; Siegmund Loge is as kind and gentle as Siegfried and Auberlich are savage. Who is to say such differences aren't at least partially genetically induced?"

"If the old man is so nice, what's he doing creating monsters?"

"A very good question. Perhaps I'll be able to find the answer before I kill him." He paused, sighed. "In any case, I don't know what all the genetic factors may be. That's another reason I decided not to kill you; they might just find somebody else."

"Thanks a lot, Lippitt. That's very thoughtful of you."

Lippitt shrugged, almost smiled. "Besides, I'm rather fond of the two of you. Frederickson, you know that's true."

Garth grunted in disgust.

"I believe this nightmare will end if I can kill Father," Lippitt continued seriously. "But you do see why I want the two of you to hide; you may be the only people in the world who can help Loge develop Lot Fifty-Seven- if he finds you, and if he discovers exactly what's happened to you. His people will be looking for you, because you're both loose ends; it's important for them not to find you. After a time, they may simply assume you're dead."

"We're lousy hiders!" Garth snapped, and immediately began to shudder.

"Frodo returned the ring to Mount Doom, where it was forged," I said. "He destroyed it."

"Frodo made his journey at the risk of letting the ring fall into the hands of the Dark Lord. Since you are the ring in this case, the usefulness of the analogy ends."

"Not for us," Garth said through clenched teeth. "We'll kill the son-of-a-bitch, after he fixes whatever is wrong with us."

"You'll risk delivering to Siegmund Loge exactly what he may need to bring the Valhalla Project to completion."

"Garth and I just want to get straight," I said wearily. "We're not into saving the world."

"Aren't you, Mongo?" Lippitt said quietly. "Think about it. Things could actually come down to that."

"If this group of men behind Loge is as powerful as you say it is, Loge's people are bound to find us eventually anyway. When they do, they'll realize what's happened. Better to take the offensive. Garth and I will hunt Loge in our own way."

Lippitt thought about it, shrugged. "Why not? Maybe it's just as well. That way, if they stop me, you may still have a shot at Loge."

"A Company," I whispered.

Lippitt laughed loudly. In the past I'd rarely seen him smile, much less laugh. "On a Quest!" Lippitt said at last, and then laughed some more. Garth and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

Finally the laughter tapered off, and Lippitt shook his head. "You realize it's hopeless, don't you?" the D.I.A. agent continued. "It's going to happen. Siegmund Loge is going to pull off the Valhalla Project, and God only knows what this planet is going to look like in two or three generations."

"You say it's hopeless, Lippitt."

"Well, maybe there's a million-in-one chance of finding Loge, getting through his security, and then nailing him before one hell of a lot of forces combine to capture or kill us. An old man, an epileptic policeman, and a half-blind dwarf who can barely tolerate sunlight. So, why do I feel like laughing?"

"Because you've set aside lifelong loyalties and given up everything in order to come down on the right side. 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,' Lippitt: Kris Kristofferson."

Lippitt walked up to Garth and extended his hand; after a long hesitation, Garth took it. Not being inclined toward theatrics or emotionalism, I held back. Then, almost without realizing it, I found myself stepping forward, reaching out and clasping my hands around theirs.