“There wasn’t anything with me when he found me?”
“No, nothing. It was true what I said before. Everything you had was burned. It was unimaginable that you yourself survived.”
“So I wasn’t a fixer? A detective?”
Rasmus shrugged. “Who knows? I suppose you might have been.”
“And Horkai’s my real name?”
“Horkai’s the only name I have for you.”
“Why lie to me? Why tell me that I was ill?”
Rasmus hesitated. “I already told you,” he finally said, “that’s what I heard from my father. If I had the facts wrong, I’m sorry.”
“You’re still lying,” said Horkai.
“Believe what you want,” Rasmus said.
“What about the mules?”
“What about them?”
“They kept saying that one of them was first, but insisting that they weren’t brothers. What did they mean by that? Why are they mules?”
Rasmus was silent for a time, staring down at his hands. “You’re not ready to hear the answer to that,” he finally said.
“Who are you to tell me what I’m ready for?”
“Let’s just say you’re not in the right mind-set.”
“Tell me anyway.”
And when Rasmus shook his head, Horkai took out his pistol and aimed it at his head.
“More proof that you’re not in the right mind-set,” said Rasmus, still calm.
“Tell me or I’ll shoot,” said Horkai.
“If you do that, then who will answer your questions?”
And then Horkai was out of his chair and around the desk. He swung the butt of his pistol, knocked Rasmus and his chair over.
“Tell me,” he said again.
Rasmus lay there wincing, a gash on his cheek gushing blood, his eye already starting to swell shut. Even so, Horkai had to hit him again before he would speak.
“Because, like you, they’re not really human,” he said.
“Not human? How?”
“You were made out there,” said Rasmus, gesturing. “Some weird mutation or transformation triggered by the events of the Kollaps. The mules we made here.”
“What do you mean,
“In a laboratory.”
“But they’re flesh and blood.”
“They’re not human. They’re grown in a solution. Recycled genetic material, manipulated to provide certain characteristics. They’re not so much brothers as slight and deliberate variations of the same being. Sturdy bastards, mules, but not as stable as humans. They’re made too quickly. Even without exposure to the outside, they last a decade or two, then start to break down. They’re disposable. But we always keep a few new ones at the ready.”
“They’re genetic experiments,” said Horkai.
“They’re members of the community,” said Rasmus. “The hive. But in the same way a dog is a member of a human family. They know their place, they’ve been trained to stay in it.”
It made him furious. He bent down and slapped Rasmus.
“Told you that you weren’t ready,” said Rasmus. “You haven’t had to live through the aftermath—you slept through it. You haven’t had to face facts the way the rest of us have for the last thirty years.”
“What’s to stop me from killing you?”
“All you’re doing with talk like that is proving that you’re an animal, that you shouldn’t be let loose,” said Rasmus, and he smiled.
Frustrated, Horkai put the gun away, returned to his seat. He leaned his elbows on the table, held his head in his hand. He heard the sound of Rasmus slowly getting up, breathing heavily, then setting his chair aright, sitting in it.
“Feel better?” Rasmus asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“I’m going now,” he said.
“All right,” said Rasmus. “Have it your way.”
BUT WHEN HE OPENED THE DOOR, there were Olaf and Oleg, coming back. They shouldered their way past him.
“Should be okay,” Olaf said. “Technician says that most won’t survive but a few will. Enough to get started.”
“All right,” said Rasmus. “Have him preserve the rest as well. We’ll salvage what material we can.”
“What happened to you?” asked Oleg.
“I had a little fall,” said Rasmus.
The twins both glanced at Horkai.
“Nothing to worry about,” Rasmus said. “A minor disagreement.”
“You’re going?” asked Olaf.
“I’m going,” said Horkai. “I did what you asked.”
“No hard feelings,” said Rasmus. He held out his hand. When Horkai didn’t reach out to take it, he said, “I’m not asking you to be friends. I’m just trying to thank you for what you’ve done.”
Reluctantly, he stretched out his hand, took Rasmus’s own. Then he released it and turned and reached for the handle of the door.
And that was the moment they chose to fall upon him.
HE FELT A HEAVY BLOW on the back of his head, stumbled, and fell into the door. He slid down, felt the door vibrate and crack as it was struck just above his head. He turned and saw Olaf trying to work a hammer out of the wood, with Oleg trying to get past his brother and at him as well. He kicked hard and heard the crack as Oleg’s leg gave, the cry as he went down. He looked up and there was the hammer coming down. He turned his head so it glanced off his neck to break or bruise his collarbone. He was fumbling in his pocket, trying to get the gun out, but it was stuck, he couldn’t get to it, and the hammer was coming down again. He swept his legs sideward and knocked Olaf’s feet out from under him, the hammer striking his arm and making it go numb, all Olaf’s weight landing on him. And then he was scrambling, pushing Olaf off, struggling up. He looked up just in time to have the back of a chair splintered over his face.
He went down, groaning, and immediately someone was on him, holding his face down against the ground, immobilizing one of his arms. He tried to roll over with the other arm, but then there were other people on him as well, holding him down, keeping him down, a dozen or more of them. He groaned again.
“Josef,” he heard Rasmus’s voice hiss in his ear. “So you’ve decided to stay with us after all.”
And then they were tearing his shirt up close to the collar, ripping it open, and someone was pulling the gun out of his pocket, stripping the rifle away, pulling his boots off as well.
“Get the hypodermic,” said Rasmus.
“Look what I found in his boot,” one of the twins said somewhere above him, either Olaf or Oleg, he couldn’t tell which.
“Throw it over with the other weapons,” said Rasmus. “And for God’s sake, get the hypodermic.” And suddenly Horkai’s head was free. He jerked it up, trying to look around, struggling and failing to break free. He roared with frustration. And then others’ hands were on his head again, holding it down, grinding it into the floor.
He felt a sharp pricking in his neck, and jerked.
“Hold the bastard still!” yelled Rasmus. “Hold him!”
