The Beasts Of Valhalla

Sorscience.'

The name Loge, Richard Wagner's God of Fire, rang a big, Nobel Prize-winning bell. Loge was certainly not a common name, and the Dr. Loge I knew of had earned doctorates in virtually every one of the life sciences. He'd won two Nobels-one for the invention of his Triage Parabola, a statistical model used for predicting the survival rates of various endangered species. But Siegmund Loge was into animals, not plants; he certainly didn't grow corn. Indeed, Siegmund Loge didn't do much of anything any longer, except make a fool of himself. At the age of seventy-four he'd gone instant bonkers, resigned all his positions, abandoned his research projects, and when last heard of was roaming around the country as 'Father,' a new brand of mystical messiah preaching Armageddon and Resurrection to people in the wilderness communes he had set up around the world. At last membership estimate, he'd passed the Rosicrucians and was breathing hard on the neck of the Reverend Moon. Some people will insist on believing anything.

'Do you know this Dr. Loge's first name, Bill?'

'Siegfried, Mr. Mongo. Like in the opera.'

It had to be the son, I thought. Siegmund, Siegfried, and Auberlich; it sounded like an invitation list to a cast party for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Rings within Rings. I made a mental note to myself to drop Garth a cryptical postcard saying that the doings in Peru County were more fun than a three-ring circus. 'What does Dr. Loge do?'

'He heads the Volsung Corporation. That's all I know about his work.'

'Have you ever met him?'

The boy shook his head. 'No, sir. The scientists never come out of there. They're flown in and out.'

'Obviously, Obie must have come out.'

'Yes, sir. He was going to school here, at the university.'

'The extension program?'

'No. He was a regular student. He must be nineteen or twenty. He hung around with us because we were all interested in fantasy.'

'Obie boards at the university?'

'Right. But he'd visit his father on weekends. Someone would pick him up in a car, take him back and forth. That's where he got the Fluosol-DA. He brought it out to demonstrate for us so he could get a big score, and he gave it to me. It's not like there's anything secret about it; I told you they discovered twenty years ago that lab animals could breathe the stuff.'

'What else can it fee used for besides blood transfusions?'

'Nothing; at least nothing that I know of.'

'What would a bunch of plant geneticists want with artificial hemoglobin?'

'I have no idea, Mr. Mongo.' He suddenly grinned mischievously. 'Hey! Maybe they're all 'pod people' in there, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers!'

For some reason, I didn't find the notion overwhelmingly amusing. 'Did Obie ever talk about what went on in there?'

'Never-except to tell us what we already knew; the Volsung Corporation was involved with plant genetics, gene splicing, recombinant DNA.' He took a deep breath, got slightly red in the face. 'Recombinant DNA research is the key to the future, sir. We'll have all disease-free crops that will grow anywhere, and even manufacture their own fertilizer. They already have bacteria that produce insulin, other bacteria that eat up oil spills.'

Also bacteria that could produce human growth hormone, I thought. Unfortunately, the scientists had pieced together the little fellows too late to be of any help to me.

'We have super-wheat and super-corn,' Bill Jackson continued in a voice that was steadily climbing in pitch. 'It's going to revolutionize agriculture around the world! We'll be able to feed everybody! No one need ever go hungry again! They- ' He abruptly stopped speaking, bit his lower lip, flushed. 'I'm sorry, sir. I do talk too much when I get excited.'

'It's all right, Bill. I'm interested in everything you have to say. Obie never even hinted at what specific projects Volsung might be working on?'

'No, sir. He never talked about specifics, and we all understood. There's a lot of top secret stuff in that industry, you know. They're always worried about industrial espionage.'

Or some other kind of espionage, judging from the camouflage coloring of their building. Since General Foods wasn't likely to order up a bombing run, I assumed Volsung had to be concerned about someone-something-else spotting them from the air. Like a spy satellite.

'Bill, I'd very much like to talk to Obie Loge. Is he boarding at the university this summer?'

'No way. He was taking summer courses, but he was yanked out and flown home right after… after…'

'Take it easy, Bill,' I said, gently patting his shoulder. 'You want to take a lemonade break?'

He shook his head, wiped his eyes. Bill Jackson was a very sensitive, gentle, and kind young man.

'Where does Obie live?'

'Actually, I don't know. I guess I must have asked him, but he couldn't even tell me that.' He cocked his head to one side, grimaced. 'Of course, I never really cared. I wouldn't have wanted to visit him anyway.'

'Why not?'

The boy shrugged. 'Well, first of all he's a lot older than I am, and the only thing we really had in common was an interest in fantasy. He could really be a mean-excuse me-sucker when he wanted to be. A real sore loser. It's probably why he liked to hang around with us; he could push us around when he felt like it, and nobody his own age would put up with him.'

'Bill, does 'Mirkwood' mean anything to you?'

He grinned, laughed. 'Sure! You've got to be kidding, Mr. Mongo. Mirkwood's the evil forest that the Company passes through on their Quest. Don't you remember those giant spiders?'

'But does it mean anything to you in another context? Did it mean anything else to Tommy?'

He thought a long time about it, obviously anxious to please me, but ended up shaking his head. 'No, sir. It doesn't mean anything else to me, and I never heard Tommy mention it outside the context of Tolkien and Sorscience.'

'Bill, did Sheriff Bolesh or any of his deputies ask you questions like these?'

'No, sir.'

'Did-?'

'Someone else did, though.'

'Who?'

'I don't know his name.'

'Would your mother?'

'I doubt it. He came up to me at the university. He didn't give me his name, but I knew he worked at the Volsung Corporation. I'd seen him around town once or twice.'

'I thought you said- '

'The scientists never come out. This guy's like a chauffeur and handyman. He drives into town to pick up odds and ends, and he used to chauffeur Obie on weekends.' Bill Jackson frowned, shook his head. 'Spooky guy.'

'How so?'

'He's kind of hard to describe. He wasn't spooky-crazy or spooky-mean; otherwise, I wouldn't have talked to him. He was just… spooky. He had these big brown eyes that kind of looked right through you, and you just knew he could tell if you were lying or telling the truth. He never smiled, and he was completely bald-like Yul Brynner. I'm positive he was pretty old, but I can't tell you why I think that. It was hard to tell his age.'

Bill Jackson's words startled me. His description could have fit one of the two men with whom I shared the terrible secret I had mentioned to Janet, a secret that would die with me. But the man I was thinking of wouldn't be holed up in a windowless blockhouse in Peru County doing odd jobs and chauffeuring kids. Not likely.

'Bill, as far as you know, did anyone in the county work on the construction of that building?'

'I don't think so, sir. They brought in truckloads of construction workers, and they set up tents for them out on the prairie. When the building was finished, the workers were taken away.'

My watch read four thirty. 'Bill, thank you for answering my questions.'

'Oh, any time, Mr. Mongo.'