The Beasts Of Valhalla

29

Problems in Mount Doom.

"Gas," Garth said as I led the way up a ladder in a shaft leading to a network of mines on another level.

"What?"

"Gas," he repeated, grabbing my ankle and holding me steady. "There's poison gas somewhere up there; I can smell it. We can't go this way."

"We have to go this way. We've wasted too much time already."

"We haven't 'wasted' anything, Mongo. You can only see in the tunnels where the fungus grows, and none of us can walk through fire. We'll find another way up."

"Which could take another two hours. Lippitt's torch will be out by now, and he can't last long in the dark. We have to get to him."

"Mongo, why the hell am I arguing with you? I'm telling you there's poison gas up there. We have to find another way."

"I think you've still got a case of nerves," I said as I pulled my ankle free and started climbing again. "You and I live in New York City; we breathe poison gas all the- "

Something green and black exploded inside my head at the same time as a wrecking ball smashed into my chest, blowing my breath away along with my strength. I choked and coughed, and my fingers slipped from the rough wooden rung above my head. My knees collapsed, and I plummeted.

Fortunately I didn't plummet very far, because fortunately Garth had lunged upward at the last moment and grabbed my ankle again. I dangled in Garth's strong grip, hacking and gasping for breath, until Golly reached out and hauled me in. Grabbing a handful of overall, she turned me upright and planted me firmly on the ladder between her and Garth.

"Okay, guys," I said when I could breathe again. "I'm all right now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I think I'm glad the two of you decided to come along."

"Why, Mongo, that's a terribly sweet and generous thing for you to say."

"Think nothing of it."

"Now, O Great Leader, would you care to reconsider your previous decision?"

"Yeah. After thinking things over, I feel it might be better if we searched for an alternate route."

GOOD FUCKING IDEA

There was nothing in the tunnels ahead of us but fire. Unable to go ahead or up, where I was pretty certain Lippitt would be, we went down to another level, then circled back along a route that took us, I believed, beneath the Treasure Room and in the general direction of the chasm. Hot air was blowing at a pretty good speed, and there was enough of a glow in some of the branching tunnels for Garth and Golly to see by. I put on my smoked glasses, turned into a tunnel to my left, and almost tripped over Hugo.

The giant, asleep or unconscious, lay beside a puddle of brackish water that had formed from water dripping from the ceiling. He was covered with blood, scrapes, and bruises, but I saw no deep wounds, and no twisted limbs that would indicate broken bones. The worst damage seemed to be to his legs just below both knees, which were discolored and blistered with second- or third-degree burns. The soles of his shoes had been burned away.

All things considered, I thought as I knelt down beside a head that had a circumference almost as large as my hips, giants must not cook as well as they bounce.

"Hugo?"

The giant's eyelids flickered; he opened his eyes, peered up at me. "Mongo!"

"And friends."

HELLO FUCKING HUGO

GOLLY HAPPY TO SEE FUCKING HUGO

GOLLY FUCKING SORRY SHE TOLD MASTER

"Dream," Hugo sighed, and closed his eyes.

"It's no dream, Hugo."

Again, Hugo opened his eyes; now there were tears in them. "Did Loge throw you in here?"

"No. Actually, we dropped in here on our own-and we're all going to get out after we find another man who's down here someplace. How the hell did you survive?"

Hugo sat up, moaned with pain. He cupped handfuls of water, splashed them on his legs. "I landed on a ledge. It knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was… burning. I managed to crawl in here, by the water."

"Anything broken?" I asked as I scooped water, dribbled it over his burns.

"No. At least I don't think so."

"I know these burns hurt like hell. Do you think you can walk?"

With Golly lending him her not inconsiderable support, Hugo struggled to his feet. Leaning on Golly, he took a few tentative steps, then nodded. "I can walk."

"Good. See if you can walk and shout at the same time. Lippitt is the name of the man we're looking for."

"Mongo, Garth… I'm sorry I was so incredibly fucking stupid. I don't know what else to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Hugo. We all have our deep psychological needs, dreams and fantasies; sometimes they're all we can see."

One hour, three levels, and four tunnels later we found Mr. Lippitt. He was seated with his back against a wall, his profile sharply outlined by the fiery tunnel behind him, casually swatting with his extinguished torch at the occasional creature that scuttled out of the darkness at him.

"It's about time you got here, Frederickson," Lippitt announced gruffly as Golly chased the creatures with a few obscenities. "I've been hearing the booming voice of your big friend there for the last forty-five minutes. I shouted myself hoarse. There are some hungry little things around here. What the hell took you so long?"

"Meet Mr. Lippitt," I said to Hugo and Golly. "When you get to his advanced age, little things tend to upset you. I'd like to say that he isn't always this crotchety, but it wouldn't be the truth."

"Hello, Garth," Lippitt said, rising to his feet and taking my brother's hand in both of his. "Thanks for coming along on the rescue party."

"You're welcome, Lippitt."

"This is Hugo and Golly," I said. "Golly's the pretty one, and don't you forget it. She's very sensitive."

HELLO MISTER FUCKING LIPPITT

"Hello, fucking Golly," Lippitt said as he affectionately patted the gorilla's head. He shook Hugo's hand, grimaced when he noticed the burns on the giant's legs. "You've got some pain, Hugo. We should wrap those burns."

"If you don't mind," Hugo replied, "I'd just as soon wait until we get out of here."

Lippitt looked at me. "Are we going to get out of here, Frederickson?"

"Hey, are you joking? Are there dragons in Mount Doom?"

"This is just about what I'd expect to find in this loony bin," Mr. Lippitt mumbled. "One dwarf, one giant, a foul-mouthed gorilla, and a New York City police detective rapidly going to seed."

Lippitt's tone was gruff, but his physician's touch was exceedingly gentle as the Defense Intelligence Agency operative knelt beside another brackish puddle and wrapped Hugo's burns with strips of cloth I'd cut from my overalls.

Although we were "camped" less than a dozen yards from a thick column of fire that shot up through an elevator shaft, the flame sucked air past us and, like so many other areas in the mines, it was quite cold. By my reckoning, it was almost dawn in the outside world. I longed to see the sun again, wondered if we ever would.

"How are we doing, Mongo?" Hugo asked tentatively.

"We're okay. We have to hang a left the next chance we get. That'll put us back on track to the south. Don't worry. There's plenty of fresh air in these mines, and it has to come from someplace."

Lippitt had asked Garth and me to describe in detail what had happened to us since we'd parted company in Nebraska. We'd complied. Now, when he had finished wrapping Hugo's legs, he asked us both to undress. We stripped, and by the light cast by the column of fire, he carefully examined our bodies; his face was impassive as he ran his fingers through Garth's fur and stroked my scales, and he made no comment.

Next, he interrogated Hugo on the Ramdor operation, and then Golly. Not surprisingly, Golly was able to provide the most useful information on the overall operation, and if Lippitt felt at all strange chatting up a gorilla, nothing in his tone or manner betrayed it; the man would ask questions in a flat voice, and the gorilla would flash the answers on her computer display screen.

"How do Garth and I look to you?" I asked Lippitt when he had finished talking to Golly.

"You look like you're still alive."

"So are the things down here."

"That hasn't escaped my attention, Frederickson. Obviously, more changes have taken place in these animals-but their general deterioration was arrested. Not only have they survived, but they've reproduced. Interesting. I wish I had a dissection kit."

"Sorry we neglected to bring one along. Let's get back to Garth and me. How close are we to cellular explosion?"

"I have no way of predicting that. What I can tell you is that Garth seems to be devolving along a fairly straightforward humanoid and ape line."

"Loge told us that."

"You, Mongo, are a mess."

"For Christ's sake, Lippitt!" Garth snapped.

"It's all right, Garth," I said. "He knew I wanted it straight. Lippitt, make an educated guess. How long can I last?"

"A pessimist would say that you could explode at any moment. An optimist might give you a couple of weeks-a month at the very most. Then, even if you don't explode, you're not going to make very good company."

"I hear what you're saying, Lippitt, and I thank you for laying it out like that. I consider you my friend. If I get too, uh, snaky, I want you to look out for me."

"I will, Mongo," Lippitt said quietly. "And I promise you there'll be no pain."

"You'll do shit unless I say so, Lippitt," Garth said angrily. "I'll make any final decision about killing him."

"That goes without saying," Lippitt replied evenly.

PLEASE NO KILL FUCKING MONGO

"It's all right, Golly. Nobody's talking about doing anything I wouldn't want them to do."

"What about your mental faculties?" Lippitt asked.

Garth and I looked at each other. "No changes at all, as far as we can tell," I answered. "I don't think we're any loonier than we've ever been. Just seriously pissed."

"I agree there's been no apparent intellectual or psychological change in either of you," Lippitt said in a somewhat distant tone. "That's also interesting."

"And now I'm really glad we didn't bring you a dissection kit. How did you find this place, Lippitt?"

"I didn't find it; a team of Warriors found me."

"Then you haven't killed Siegmund Loge?"

"Not yet," Lippitt said tersely.

"Good," Garth said. "If we can get to him, there's still a chance for Mongo and me."

"It's possible Loge knows of, or can cook up, an antidote. But one thing must be clearly understood: If we can find an antidote for your condition, that's wonderful, but nothing is more important than putting Siegmund Loge out of commission for good, because that's the only way of ensuring that the Valhalla Project will never be completed. No life, obviously including my own, matters more than stopping whatever it is Loge is up to."

"We know what he's up to. He's trying to develop a biochemical agent that will enable him to control behavior genetically-everyone's behavior. He's set himself the modest task of ruling the world."

Lippitt's reaction was somewhat unexpected; he threw back his head and laughed. "Who the hell told you that?"

"Stryder London. He's- "

"I know who he is. Stryder London is full of shit."

"Funny; that's how London described Siegfried Loge when we told him that Loge believed the Valhalla Project was a straightforward, bomb-the-enemy-into-beasties, biological weapon being funded by your friendly ex-employees in the Pentagon."

"They're both full of shit," Lippitt said casually. "Neither man knows what he's talking about. Siegmund Loge has absolutely no interest in power, nor in ruling anyone. Also, he has nothing but contempt for the way governments perceive and treat each other as enemies."

"Then what is he up to?"

"What difference does it make? What he's doing is a threat to all life on this planet."

"It has to be funded by the Pentagon, Lippitt. Why do you have so much trouble with that?"

"The trouble is that you don't know what you're talking about, and you have an antigovernment attitude. I've spent my life working for this country, and I know something about authorized research projects. I know something about the development of biological and chemical weapons. The government authorizes research into some pretty hairy areas; it has to, because it must assume that other countries are doing the same thing. The point is not what Loge is doing-it's how he's doing it. The Pentagon would never allow this kind of cockamamy, strewn-all-over-the-landscape kind of operation. Siegmund Loge is a loose cannon, and he's a loose cannon because the people who fund him can't control him."

"Who do you think funds him?"

"My best guess is a secret cabal of politicians, businessmen, and military men. A lot of government money is being siphoned off, yes, but I'm convinced that no official committee in the military or in government has ever heard of Project Valhalla. The money men behind Loge are extremely powerful, and they probably believe that what they're doing is in the best interests of the country, but they're renegades and traitors."

"London seems to be pretty close to Siegmund Loge," Garth said quietly.

"Oh? Closer than Loge's own son and grandson?"

"You have a point," Garth replied with a shrug.

"Let me tell you a few things about Lieutenant General Stryder London. For openers, he's listed as AWOL from the U.S. Army."

"It wouldn't be the first time the military faked a desertion, or falsified a classification, in order to put a man on a secret operation."

Lippitt dismissed my comment with an impatient wave of his hand. "London was at the Institute for the Study of Human Potential the same time that Loge and I were there. He's what the military thinks of as the model for the future fighting man, and they'd contracted with the Institute to do a complete physical and psychological workup on him. London is an awesome combat soldier-but he's also a raving fascist who has a lot of problems with people who don't share his views on what this country should be and do. What he told you about the genetic control of behavior is his fantasy."

"Loge must have told him something," Garth said.

"Of course Loge told him something," Lippitt answered tersely. "Loge gave him the fantasy. Loge tells a lot of different people a lot of different things, and even his funders may not know what he's really up to. He has personal presence and charisma you can't believe until you meet and talk with him. He mesmerizes people. You visited a commune of lunatic Christians. I infiltrated three communes-one of murderous Moslems into whipping themselves with chains, another of Jewish Defense League types, and a third of Zoroastrians. Each commune was isolated. Each thought Loge was God or a messiah, and each thought Loge had come to fulfill their particular religious vision. The only person who knows what Siegmund Loge really wants may be Siegmund Loge."

"Do you have any idea where Stryder London's taking our bio-samples?"

Lippitt slowly nodded. "If my information is correct, Loge has control of the Institute for the Study of Human Potential-the best-equipped facility in the world for extracting the kind of genetic data he needs from your biosamples. If you two are the keys to Valhalla, and I believe you are, Loge may now have all he needs to open the lock. Obviously, Loge thinks you're the keys."

"The Institute," I said. "That's where it all started for you-when you tried to find out who was leaching data from the computer banks."

Again, Lippitt nodded. "It's hard for me to believe that Jonathan Pilgrim is involved in this; I would have trusted the man with my life. Loge must have found the right button of his to push, too."

For some time there was silence, broken only by the hissing of the fire column. Fire, one of humankind's oldest allies and enemies, can soothe the soul at a very deep level; everyone seemed reluctant to leave it and go back into the darkness around us, a night with claws and teeth.

"We're never going to get out of here, are we, Mongo?" Hugo said in his deep, rumbling voice.

"Wrong."

HUGO FUCKING RIGHT

"Wrong."

Lippitt laughed. "You and Hugo worry too much, Golly. Frederickson said he was going to get us out of here. If you knew Frederickson as well as I do, you'd know that he usually manages to do what he says he's going to do. He's going to take us out of here. Right, Frederickson?"

"Right." I nodded in the direction of a tunnel to my left. "Let's go find us a dragon."