saw that the technician-a surly midget-was sitting by the controls across the room, thoroughly absorbed in an issue of
She tensed, quickly reached for the keyboard.
FUCKING NO
FUCKING CHOKE
'Why not, since you know they're making me wrong and hurting me?'
HURT FUCKING GOLLUM MORE
MASTER KILL FUCKING GOLLUM
'Okay.'
GOLLUM SORRY YOU MADE FUCKING WRONG
GOLLUM SORRY MASTER FUCKING HURT YOU
GOLLUM SORRY SHE DROP YOU ON FUCKING HEAD
I smiled at her, shrugged. 'It's fucking okay.'
GI series: Injections of irradiated barium, more X-rays. Clickety-click.
'I'm not going to call you Gollum any longer,' I announced to my watch-gorilla after a particularly nasty spasm of nausea had passed. 'The kid named you that, didn't he?'
FUCKING YES
'That's a bad name, and you're a good gorilla. I'm going to call you Golly. Okay?'
FUCKING OKAY
FUCKING SPEAK SPELL PLEASE
I said the name slowly, and Golly tried out a series of spellings.
When she hit the right one, I nodded my head.
?
HOW FUCKING GOLLY CALL YOU
'Mongo,' I said, and spelled it for her. The gorilla did some fast fingering on her keyboard, assigned me a symbol.
MONGO FUCKING OKAY
Rest time.
Figuring that a watch-gorilla and my choke collar were sufficient to make me stay put, my last technician had not bothered to strap me into the leather recliner while he'd gone off for a smoke. Golly was slumped in another recliner in the small lounge. She had her earphones on, and her eyes were closed. She appeared to be asleep.
Moving very slowly, I eased myself out of the recliner and tiptoed across the room. I would have liked to try and snatch the control box for my choke collar, but that was in Golly's lap and it seemed best to let sleeping gorillas lie. I tiptoed past her, out of the lounge. I turned right and sprinted as fast as I could down a narrow, white corridor toward a swinging door. I didn't know the range of the control box, but it couldn't be limitless; if I could only get beyond it, I'd find a way to get the collar off and get down to serious business.
Halfway down the corridor, I felt the leather collar snap tight around my neck and begin to squeeze. I held my breath and kept running toward the door. My only hope was to get beyond range, or get behind something that was shielded with lead.
Anybody who wants to learn the hard way about oxygen debt should try sprinting while holding his breath and while a leather collar is threatening to squeeze his head off. Anyway, I kept running, legs and arms pumping, trying to reach the door. At least I thought I was running. Everything was beginning to look hazy through my smoked glasses, and a giant fist was pounding my chest. My head felt ready to explode.
Still, I was somehow convinced that I was making progress, that I might still escape. I kept feeling that way right up to the point where, clawing at the leather band around my neck, I collapsed to my knees, then fell forward on my face.
26
I'd expected that Garth and I would be killed after our biosamples were taken and safely stored away. Instead, it seemed to be game time; we were getting a tour of Ramdor, personally conducted by Siegfried Loge and his son.
'You two don't seem to be entering into the spirit of things,' the hawk-nosed, pale-eyed scientist said as we paused in the middle of a long land bridge that had been constructed over an area of earth that actually glowed from the furnace heat beneath it.
'Fuck you, creep,' Garth said, and yawned.
'Garth never liked to go on outings, even as a kid,' I added. 'Besides, when you've seen one dairy farm you've seen them all.'
Loge took a piece of paper from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball and dropped it over the railing; the paper burst into flames even before it hit the ground. 'It's better than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit down there on the surface. There are a number of areas like this around Ramdor. You two are lucky you weren't fried on your way in.'
It occurred to me that it might have been better for millions of people if we had been fried, or if Lippitt had killed us back in Nebraska. We'd accomplished nothing by chasing after the Loges, except to supply them with what they wanted and needed. It was precisely what Lippitt had feared would happen.
I remembered my mother's dream.
'This place is a regular Disneyland,' I said, glancing around to look at Golly, who trailed behind us and held both control boxes. The gorilla had been in a snit ever since I'd tried to run off on her, refusing even to look at me. Throughout the tour she'd been off with Mozart, the thin cables to her earphones snaking out of her canvas shoulder bag. However, on more than one occasion her thumb, as if by accident, had brushed against the joystick on my control box; the tugs of the collar around my neck caused only minor discomfort, but Golly had made it clear that she felt hurt and betrayed. 'Where's Hugo?'
'Hugo has chores to do,' the scientist said in a tone that sounded evasive. 'Gollum can easily handle the two of you in this situation.'
'Let's show them the Treasure Room,' Obie Loge said to his father. The teenager's face was flushed with excitement.
'Whoopee. How about showing us the exit?'
'Hey, creep,' Garth said to Loge. 'You've got what you wanted. Why haven't you killed us?'
It was a question to which I'd given some thought, and I thought I knew the answer. 'It's because Gramps has to check the results to make certain everything's all right. That's it, isn't it, Loge?'
'Of course,' Loge replied evenly. 'Also, it would be senseless to dispose of you while the reaction continues in your bodies. We'll simply continue to monitor you.'
'Where is the old man?'
'You'll enjoy seeing the Treasure Room. As long as I have absolute power over you, why not relax and enjoy my hospitality? Both of you are intelligent, and there aren't a great many people I can share all of Ramdor's wonders and secrets with.'
'I believe that.'
'Hey, Loge,' Garth said quietly. 'What would you think of another fun experiment in which we see if I can break your neck before this collar chokes me to death?'
'I wouldn't do that!' Loge snapped, wheeling on my brother. 'Don't even think about it!'
'Why not?' Garth asked in a mild tone that caused me to wince; committing suicide didn't seem to make much sense. 'You don't think that would be as much fun as ordering the murder of two boys who'd befriended your fat, ugly son? On second thought, it might be even more fun to throw the two of you over the railing and watch you sizzle.'
'Hey, fucking Gollum!' Loge shouted.
Golly jumped, snatched the earphones from her head. Her eyes glittered with terror, and her hand trembled
