said. 'If we triedto run now, they would bring us down before we had run twenty feet.”
'The laser, Moreau,' said Drakov. 'Now!'
Moreau felt Jasmine tense and he took hold of her firmly. 'We must do as he says. he told her.
Together, they went over to where the laser pistol had fallen and Moreau bent down to pick it up. Drakov remained where he was, on the long stairway leading down from the upper floor. Doyle and Stoker stood closeto one another in the center of the great hall, between Drakov and his creatures.
'Look at them!' said Stoker, his voice scarcely above a whisper. 'They cannot possibly be human!'
'No. Stoker, Doyle said, staring at the creatures, 'I am afraid they are. Only something terrible has been done to them, something beyond all reason. Their minds have snapped, poor devils, and vet this man controls them with a word. He has them mesmerized. It appears that we have found the guiding intelligence behind these awful crimes and he is without a doubt a madman.'
'And who are you, sir, to call me mad?' said Drakov. 'I repeat my question. What are you doing here and how did you get here?'
'My name is Arthur Conan Doyle and this is Mr. Bram Stoker. As to how we came here, we were rendered unconscious and abducted, brought here against our will by Count Dracula. And now you have the advantage of me, sir. 'Indeed I do,' said Drakov with a smile. 'I admire your composure, Dr. Doyle, but then I would expect no less from the distinguished creator of Sherlock Holmes. My name is Nikolai Drakov. Forgive nit for not having recognized you, but I hardly expected to find you here, of all places. I had heard that you were working with Scotland Yard. Allow me to congratulate you for having come so far. And as for you, Mr. Stoker, your presence here is an exquisite irony. Where is Dracula?'
'It was he who released those wretches from their dungeon cells.' said Stoker.
'And has doubtless been torn to pieces for his trouble, the sentimental fool,' said Drakov. 'What a pity. What a criminal waste. He was my prize, my greatest achievement! You should have seen him, Moreau!”
Moreau raised the laser pistol, but Conan Doyle shouted, — Don't do it, man! Don't be a fool! He is all that holds these murderous creatures in check!'
Moreau hesitated.
'Well, Moreau,' said Drakov, smiling down at him, 'go on, shoot. You wanted to kill me. You will never get another chance. But kill me and you condemn yourself and the others to a decidedly unpleasant death.'
With an air of helpless resignation, Moreau started to lower the weapon.
'Wait, Mr. Moreau!' said Doyle, his voice ringing out in the great hall, echoing off the ancient walls. 'So long as you possess that weapon, we still have a chance. Kill him, and the creatures will be freed from his will, released to butcher every one of us. But so long as you possess that weapon, you still have the threat of death over him. And that, I assure you, is undoubtedly all that is keeping us alive! We are at a stalemate.'
Jasmine ran to Moreau's side and clutched his arm. Moreau raised the laser once again and pointed it at Drakov.
'Very good, Dr. Doyle,' said Drakov. 'Moreau was always spineless, but I had not counted on you to bolster him up. Between you, the girl, and his newly awakened sense of morality, he is becoming a veritable pillar of masculine vigor.”
'Don't let him rattle you. Moreau,' said Doyle. 'He wants to make you angry. Anger makes people's hands shake, their aim becomes unsteady.'
'Time does much the same thing. Dr. Doyle,' said Drakov. 'How long do you think we can all stand here before his arm starts to become tired?'
'However long it takes for us to resolve this stalemate and leave here safely,' Doyle said. 'If his arm should become tired, he can pass the pistol to the girl. She seems capable enough.'
'As are you, apparently,” said Drakov. 'What happens now? Even if I were to let you leave, under the threat of being shot, how far do you think you would get before they ran you down? Look at them. They need but one word from me and they will tear you apart. They have been down in the dungeons for a long time. And they are hungry.”
'We could take you with us as our hostage,' Stoker said. 'I do not think so, Mr. Stoker. I have no intention of moving from this spot. Perhaps you would try taking me by force?' 'Stay away from him!' Moreau said. 'He has at least three times your strength and he is an expert in the art of unarmed combat. You would have no chance against him.'
'At the risk of sounding immodest,' Drakov said, 'he is quite correct. Your position is untenable. Dr. Doyle. I am not sure how long I can hold them back. They are quite difficult to control, sometimes. Personally. I do not wish either you or Mr. Stoker any harm. I never intended that you should become involved in this.'
'Precisely what did you intend?' said Doyle. 'These poor creatures have obviously been the victims of some sort of brutal and perverse medical experimentation. Leaving aside the despicable act itself and the question of morality, it took the skills and knowledge of a genius to accomplish this. How could a man of such obvious intelligence do such a horrifying thing? What possible reason could there be to justify such cruelty?'
'Cruelty. Dr. Doyle'?' said Drakov. 'You speak to me of cruelty? What do you know of cruelty, you who have enjoyed a life of pampered indolence and taken it for granted, your facility with words netting you sums of money that would feed entire families for months? Your trade is that of obfuscator! You weave pretty little spells to entertain the masses, or at least those privileged enough to have one shilling to spend for a copy of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Spells meant to distract them from the squalor of reality; stories meant to entertain them so there will be no necessity to think! Lord forbid that they should think, for thinking is dangerous and most of them do not do it very well! Let them think and they will devise new ways to further degrade themselves and despoil the world, a world they look upon as nothing more than property to be used, bartered and developed!
'The beasts of the jungle have more ethics than they do,' Drakov continued. 'When the tiger makes a kill, it consumes enough to satisfy itself, but it leaves something behind for the hyena and the hyena in turn leaves something for the rodents and the insects, each-by instinct-taking only what is needed to survive, each leaving something for the others. And what does your noble species do, Dr. Doyle? They kill for the sake of pleasure and they consume for the sake of greed, leaving nothing behind for anyone! Their instinct is only for rape and domination, their drive towards self-destruction!”
'I have had generations in which to study cruelty, Dr. Doyle, to experience it firsthand! I have seen humanity spread out over the world like maggots on a carcass, breeding on it, choking it, all in the name of progress, when their true motives were gluttony for wealth and lust for power and their only progress was the progress of decay! You call what I've done cruelty? No, Dr. Doyle, it is a kindness, the last kindness that anyone can give to a beast in its dying agonies, the kindness of the coup de grace!”
'The man is hopelessly insane!' said Stoker.
'He is worse than insane,' said Doyle. 'He is a cynic. For a madman, it is at least possible to feel pity. For a cynic, one can feel nothing, because the cynic does not suffer. He does not feel. He has enclosed himself within his armor of disdain; his buckler is contempt and his shield is bitterness. His lance is sarcasm and his sword is pessimism, but they are blunted weapons, dulled by hopelessness. Yes, Mr.
Drakov, I do have a facility for words, as you put it, not unlike yourself, yet the words I live by do more than merely entertain. They set forth the principles by which I believe we can avoid those dying agonies you speak of. There are things worth living for, worth dying for, and it is that which separates us from the jungle beasts, that the best of us will live for honor and die for an idea. If I die here today, I die knowing that I have done my best and that even if I ultimately failed, the struggle was worth it even so. I will have died for something. You, on the other hand, seem to have nothing left to live for and your death, when it comes, will have no meaning. In these poor, tortured creatures, you have not recreated humanity stripped of its pretensions, as you might believe. Rather, you have made them living mirrors of yourself. I shall pity them, even as they kill me, but I shall never pity you, because you are not deserving of it.'
'I could not have said it better,' Forrester said.
Drakov spun around. “ You!'
Forrester fired.
The plasma blast took Drakov in the chest and blew him back against the wall as he exploded in a ball of fire. The creatures howled and surged forward, but the time commandos opened up with their disruptors on a wide spray pattern, laying down a deadly stream of neutrons. Moreau tackled Doyle and Stoker, knocking them off their
