Steiger examined it, frowning. 'It doesn't make sense. If they had him long enough to surgically install a cybernetic implant, they had him long enough to kill him.
Why fit him with an implant, let him go, and then track him down and kill him?'
'Manoeuvres?' said Delaney. They all turned to look at him. 'What?' said Steiger.
'I was just thinking out loud,' Delaney said. 'Maybe they installed the implant and let him go so they could practice long range assault tactics. Track the target, home in on the target's co-ordinates, clock in, hit hard, take out the target and clock out again. Suppose you had a target area that was hard to get to, maybe you could only get one man in or you had the co-ordinates, but a full-scale assault would be impractical for whatever reason. Too well defended, not enough room to manoeuvre.. but if you could clock in a miniaturised assault force…'
'Jesus,' Steiger said. 'That could be a bloody nightmare!'
'It is a bloody nightmare,' Forrester said, grimly. 'What's more, we're not even sure who's responsible for it. Is this some new wrinkle from the Special
Operations Group in the parallel universe or has the Network somehow managed to come up with this?'
'Either way, we've only got one lead,' Delaney said. He looked at
Gulliver.
'You're not going to ask me to go back there, are you?'
Gulliver said, in a hollow voice.
'Our Archives Section has been unable to find any record of such an island, Dr.
Gulliver,' said Forrester. 'I realise you've already been through a great deal, but perhaps if you could help us to locate this island, or at least show us its location on a chart, then we'd require nothing further from you.'
'And what shall become of me then?' Gulliver stared at them all anxiously.
'Have no fear. You'll be returned to your own time,' said Forrester. 'And we shall arrange it so that you have no memory of this experience.'
'You could do that? You could actually take away my memory?'
“Yes,' said Forrester. 'But there's no need to be concerned.
The procedure is quite safe and painless, I assure you.'
Gulliver shook his head vehemently. 'No! No, absolutely not! I cannot allow that.'
''I'm afraid you have no choice in the matter, Dr. Gulliver,' said Forrester. 'You have seen entirely too much.'
'And who in their right mind would believe me?' Gulliver responded. 'They ridiculed me for my story of the Lilliputians, as Mr. Swift called them, can you imagine how they would react if I told them about this? They would undoubtedly put me in a madhouse. I suppose that I could not prevent your using force against me, but in that case, I would refuse to help you. I would tell you nothing.'
''Dr. Gulliver,' said Forrester, 'please try to understand-'
'No, General, you try to understand. A man's life is but the sum of his experience. How can I forget what's happened to me? How can I forget that gallant young man who gave his life to save my own? I said that I would help you, but it must be in my own way. If I were to tell you all I know and show you the island's location on a chart, then there would be nothing to prevent you from doing as you will with me. No, sir. If you are going back there, then much as I dread it, I fear that I must go as well.'
Forrester glanced at Gulliver, his mouth set in a tight grimace.
'Dr. Gulliver, you're putting me in a very difficult position. We could easily get the information that we need from you, even without your consent. And yes, it would involve using a form of force, though not what you might think. You would feel no pain whatsoever. In fact, you would feel mildly euphoric and be happy to tell us whatever we wanted to know. However, I would prefer to have your voluntary cooperation. And I'm not unsympathetic to your feelings in this matter. I'll have to give it some thought.'
Suddenly Andre gasped and dropped her glass.
'What is it?' Steiger said.
She was staring at the window behind them. For a moment, only the briefest instant, she had seen Lucas standing in front of it, but there was nothing there now. She blinked and shook her head.
'Nothing,' she said, swallowing hard. 'It was nothing. I just thought… for a moment, I thought…'
Delaney was watching her with concern… Andre, you all right?'
'You didn't see anything?' she said. 'Over there, by the window? You didn't see?'
Delaney shook his head, frowning. 'No, I was looking at Dr. Gulliver.'
'What did you see?' said Steiger, frowning.
Andre shook her head. 'Nothing,' she said, nervously. 'It must have been my imagination, a trick of the light… I don't know.'.
'What do you think you saw?' Delaney said.
'Nothing! It was nothing, just drop it, all right?' 'lieutenant?' said Forrester.
'I'm sorry, sir,' she said, sheepishly. 'It wasn't anything. I.. I guess I'm a little jumpy, what with everything that's happened tonight.'
'Well, we've all been under a strain,' said Forrester. 'And I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse before it gets much better.' He glanced at his watch. 'It's almost dawn. Why don't you all go freshen up and grab some chow and coffee? Dr.
Gulliver will stay here with me. Be back here for a briefing at oh six-hundred hours.'
As they left, Finn Delaney grabbed Andre by the arm. 'You're not the type to jump at shadows,' he said. 'You want to tell me about it?'
'I've already told you-'.
He interrupted her. 'Something’s bothering you, Andre. I know you too damn well.
You saw something back there or you thought you saw something. What was it?'
'Okay, you're right, I thought I saw something. I guess I'm seeing things. That makes me a liability, right? Maybe I should go to the division shrink and get myself checked out. '
'Hell, you're saner than anyone I know,' Delaney said.
'And we've known each other too long to keep things from each other. Now tell me what you saw.'
Andre licked her lips nervously. 'A ghost, all right'! I just saw a ghost…
Chapter 3
'You should've let me stay dead,' said Lucas Priest, sighing and wearily running his hand through his dark brown hair. 'I simply can't seem to control it.'
Dr. Robert Darkness turned a steely gaze on Priest. 'You will control it. You will Learn. You have become the living embodiment of my life's work, Priest. I brought you back from death for this and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow you to give up!'
'It doesn't look as if I have much choice, does it'!' Lucas said, rubbing his aching head.
He lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The simple act of smoking helped to keep his mind occupied. It was excruciatingly difficult trying to control his thoughts. It had never before occurred to him just how exhausting it could be. Random thoughts were taken for granted by most people, but unlike most people-in fact, unlike anyone else in the entire universe-Lucas Priest could no longer afford to take random thoughts for granted. A random thought could mean disaster for him now. And his thoughts were becoming increasingly harder to control. A person could concentrate only for so long and then something had to give. Lucas was tired.
And he was afraid.
He had always thought of Dr. Darkness as a brilliant, scientist, eccentric, highly idiosyncratic and unpredictable, but it went beyond that.
Dr. Darkness was a madman. Not a raving lunatic, but a madman just the same. It was often said that there was an exceedingly fine line between genius and insanity.
When had Darkness slipped over the edge? Was it after his invention of the warp grenade, the most devastating weapon known to man? Perhaps his sanity had been derailed by the knowledge-that his invention had been responsible for the loss of billions of lives, when — the surplus nuclear energy of exploding warp grenades was
