flooded the spacious garage. Parked inside were a brown Toyota pickup, a red Chevrolet van, a black, late-model Cadillac.
There was a narrow stairway to my right. I went up it, pressed another glowing plate on the wall, stood and stared. The open space before me was massive, perhaps three-quarters the size of a football field, more if you counted the dozens of rooms radiating off the outer wall. The floor was all off-white tile, soothing to the eyes under the same type of fluorescent lighting installed in the garage.
It looked like some scientist's idea of heaven. There were six separate computer banks, all still now, their black tape spools staring at me like reproving eyes out of faces of glass and stainless steel. Long, rectangular, marble-topped work tables, spaced a few yards apart, marched like silent soldiers down the center of the space; the surfaces of the tables were covered with Bunsen burners, test tube racks, pipettes, microsurgery equipment, state-of-the-art microscopes, including no less than four huge, portable electron scanners.
A number of theater-size speakers, high-fidelity Bose models, hung in pairs from the ceiling, but I could not see any television monitors or electronic eyes.
There were cages, empty now but irrevocably
When five minutes passed and no welcoming committee arrived to greet me, I took an exploratory stroll around the perimeter of the space. At the far end a moving walkway-now still-disappeared into darkness down a long, narrow corridor. I assumed it led to the scientists' sleeping and recreation quarters, and I didn't bother going down it.
Three-quarters of the way around the circuit, on the inside wall, I found something I certainly would have gone through if I'd been able. It was a red door with a notch configuration different from that on the outer gates and the garage door. I tried the card, but it fit loosely in the slot; the door would not move, no matter how hard I pushed, pounded, and kicked. I leaned my head against the cool metal, fought against a sudden, unexpected welling of tears.
As hangar-large as this workspace was, it formed only a small part of the huge complex I'd viewed from outside. There was more, much more, on the other side of the red door.
Tommy, I was certain, had been through the red door. He and Rodney Lugmor, escorted by Obie Loge, had been into the inner sanctum; although it seemed beyond belief, the son of Volsung's director, in order to score some points in a bizarre fantasy game, had somehow been able to bypass a few million dollars' worth of security and show his two friends the 'monsters in Mirkwood.' It had to have happened.
My fourteen-year-old nephew had been bright and sophisticated enough to recognize the grave danger in what he saw, decent enough to be profoundly disturbed by it. Fourteen years old, torn between a natural desire not to betray a 'friend' who had trusted him and a need to shout that there was evil growing in the county-evil that could conceivably be let loose, or escape, into the land. The pressures on him had been enormous.
Tommy and Rodney Lugmor had not known what to do. They had spent a week together debating what course of action to take, wrestling with an awesome conflict that would have brought most adults to their knees. I was immensely proud of my nephew, and of Rodney Lugmor.
But it had been too late to do anything. Whether alerted by a nervous Obie Loge who had begun to have doubts, or whether the breach had been independently discovered, the darker-obviously more efficient-arm of Volsung's security operation had gone into action. The price of the tour through Mirkwood had been death.
Somebody had cold-bloodedly blown up two gentle teenagers with a shotgun; there could be nothing more twisted or monstrous beyond the red door.
For a few seconds I considered the pleasant, simple expedient of trashing the place, but realized that such an exercise would accomplish nothing except to get me very sweaty and very dead. The equipment was only money, and the Volsung Corporation obviously had all of that they needed, and more. I kept moving.
The first room I entered looked like an office-lab that was being renovated or repaired. Part of the wall had been torn out, and the steel, cast-iron, and zinc components of a slop sink were sitting in an open case by the hole, waiting to be assembled.
The second room was a spacious office, well-furnished and elegant. There was a large desk and file cabinet against one wall, a small computer terminal on a hardwood stand. There were more file cabinets against another wall, as well as an enormous, thousand-gallon aquarium, empty now of fish, attached to complex compression and filtration equipment. A six-foot-high working model of the DNA double helix stood against another wall, looming over me like some knobby, multicolored skeleton creature unearthed on some very distant planet; in fact, the construct represented the fundamental basis of life on our own.
Although the files seemed to be arranged in the normal alphabetical indexing system, there was but a single label at the top of each file cabinet.
THE VALHALLA PROJECT
It had a logo-four thick, interconnecting rings forming a larger ring. It didn't surprise me.
Starting with the file cabinet next to the desk, I slid open the top drawer, stuck my hand in-and froze. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, stood up. I hadn't heard anything, but suddenly I felt another presence in the room with me. I turned and found myself face to face with a gorilla.
He was a big mountain gorilla, three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds, a male silverback. He was sitting on his ample haunches, filling the doorway, staring at me with beady bloodshot eyes under a jutting black brow that ran across his low, sloping forehead like a cliff edge. He wore what looked like an upside-down electronic typewriter with display screen strapped to his chest. The expression on his face was almost human; at the moment he seemed bemused, perhaps by my size, more likely because he wasn't quite sure what to do with me.
Normally, mountain gorillas are the gentlest beasts imaginable, dangerous only if provoked or cornered. However, I had a strong suspicion that this fellow was an exception; he was a 'watch-gorilla,' and he had me cornered.
'Uh, down boy?' I flashed a great big smile and made little kissing noises.
The gorilla looked down at the machine on his chest, then slowly and deliberately punched a few color-coded buttons. When he'd finished he glanced up at me and- I was absolutely certain-arched what would pass for gorilla eyebrows while I read the message on the display screen.
?
THE WHO FUCK YOU SMALL SONBITCH
Cute as a button, I thought, the creation of an animal behaviorist with immense patience, a lot of time, a few tons of bananas, and a bent sense of humor. He'd been trained to respond to a password-or the lack of it.
'Valhalla,' I said quickly, taking pains to clearly enunciate each syllable. 'Wotan?
He just wasn't into opera. I was still rummaging around in my very limited Wagnerian vocabulary when he came for me. As big as he was, he was quick. I managed to sidestep his rush a couple of times, but he cut me off at the pass each time, blocking my route to the door while he lurched after me like some great hairy express train.
After five minutes of this, he decided to take a rest break. He sat in the doorway, pointing and glowering at me. I stood against the opposite wall, panting and glowering back at him.
'Valkyrie? Fafner?'
A message.
LITTLE SONBITCH QUICK QUICK
'Volsung? Siegfried? Bayreuth?'
FUCK ALL OUT TIRE
A conversationalist, smarter than the average gorilla. 'Me, too. Let's you and I go find a nice quiet bar, have a few drinks, and talk this over.'
?
STOP RUN
'Polly want a banana?'
BIG NOW PISSOFF
