kill the animals, or have your boy die and be forced to kill your two prize specimens.'
'This is insane, Frederickson. You and your brother risk your lives just to make a silly, token gesture? It doesn't make sense.'
'It's like you told Hugo; the shit in us has affected our minds. Do it, Loge. Then your boy can start breathing again, and Garth and I can get back to our nice, cozy dungeon.'
Loge shrugged, turned and walked to the control panel on the wall. He snapped back a protective plate, began pushing a series of small brown buttons. Electric grids in the bottoms of the cages sparked; one by one, the tormented creatures in the cages stiffened and were still.
When Loge was finished, Garth pushed Obie Loge away from him.
'Choke them,' Siegfried Loge said casually to Golly, and Golly did.
27
Chore time. Garth was put to work shoveling manure, and I got to milk cows. It was lousy busy work, but it beat sitting around in the dungeon.
Golly, who still seemed upset, had refused even to look at me for two days. On the morning of the third day I felt a leathery hand touch my shoulder. I turned on my milking stool to find Golly standing by me, her earphones draped around her neck.
MASTER ALMOST MADE FUCKING GOLLY KILL YOU
'We understand that you have to do what Loge tells you. Don't worry about it.'
GOLLY DON'T WANT TO FUCKING KILL YOU
'I know.'
?
WHY MAKE MASTER KILL FUCKING ANIMALS
'The animals were suffering a lot of pain.'
PLEASE KILL FUCKING GOLLY
'Why?' I asked, frowning. 'I know Loge hurt you before, but are you in pain now?'
FUCKING NO
GOLLY FUCKING WRONG
I shook my head. 'If you know you're wrong, you're not that wrong.'
GOOD THAT YOU KILL FUCKING ANIMALS
'That's what Garth and I thought.'
MONGO AND GARTH FUCKING GOOD
'Thank you.'
MONGO AND GARTH FUCKING STUPID
I laughed. 'Loge thinks that it's the machine on your chest that makes you seem so smart. What do you think?'
GOLLY FUCKING WRONG
'I'm tired of milking cows, sweetheart,' I said, stretching and arching my back. 'How about letting me do some gardening for a change of pace?'
?
'Gardening; I want to work on those plants by the house.'
PLANTS FUCKING DEAD
'No. They're like that because it's cold now, but things should be done so that they'll grow when it's warm again. I like digging around in the dirt. Okay?'
FUCKING OKAY
Whisper was where I'd left her.
Since I'd been such a well-behaved specimen, Loge granted my request for a changing of the guard. Golly was hurt, and Hugo was surprised.
After a morning spent watching me milk cows, even Hugo seemed bored. After lunch, he accepted my suggestion that we go for a walk in the woods. We strolled, chatting amiably about the difficulties of dwarves and giants, while I kept my fingers looped in the shoulder straps of my baggy green overalls.
'Hugo,' I said as we stopped to examine the tracks of some animal in the thin cover of snow, 'there's something I want to show you.'
The eight-foot giant peered down at me, his large limpid eyes aglow with curiosity. 'What is it, Mongo?'
'Look at that tree over there.'
Hugo turned to his right. 'What-?'
Zip.
Shhh.
Thunk.
Hugo jumped-and a jumping giant is a sight to see. He stared, transfixed, at Whisper as she quivered in the tree trunk a few feet away. 'Holy shit,' he said. It was the first time I'd ever heard him curse.
'Do I have your attention, Hugo?' Still staring at Whisper, he grunted. 'Go get the knife.'
Hugo walked stiffly to the tree, removed Whisper from the trunk, turned the knife over in his hands.
'That wasn't a nice thing to do, Mongo,' the giant rumbled, looking at me and frowning. Hugo was recovering from his initial shock, and now looked a mite peeved. 'I heard this thing go past; you could have slicked off my ear.'
'It's a nice knife, isn't it?'
'Where'd you get it?'
'From the religious commune I was telling you about. I told you that's how Garth and I got the address of this place.'
'Mongo!'
'Shut up, Hugo. Forget your ear; I could have sliced off your head. I could easily have killed you just now, but I didn't. After killing you, I could have strolled back to the manure pile and killed the gorilla. Garth and I could probably even have killed the Loges, and then just walked off. Escaping isn't enough anymore. Loge took things from Garth and me, and we have to get them back and destroy them; if the things aren't here, we have to find out where they were sent. To do that, we need somebody on the inside-you. The fact that you're holding my knife instead of your head in your hands would seem to give me the right to hold forth for a minute or two without you interrupting to tell me how crazy I am.'
Hugo narrowed his eyes. 'What things?'
'Body fluids and tissue; blood, urine, bone marrow, skin tissue, muscle tissue, feces, sperm. All of it has to be found and destroyed, along with the results of all the tests that were conducted.'
'Why?'
'You're not ready for that yet. Let's take a small step first. When I think that you may be beginning to trust and believe me, I'll tell you the answer to that question. The first thing is to show you that Loge is a liar. Then, maybe you'll consider the possibility that I'm not, and that all of you are being used for purposes exactly the opposite of what you think they are.'
'How are you going to do that?'
'I want to show you the room where Loge keeps all the things that are sent to him by commune members; I want to show you a place where the bones of men the Loges have killed have been left lying out in the open; I want to show you a room where animals are tortured in a way beyond anything you can imagine.'
Hugo was silent for a long time, and we stared into each other's eyes. 'Show me,' he said at last.
'I'd like my knife back.'
'First show me these things.'
'If I don't show them to you, then you can take it back. You know that I have it; it's enough. You have the choke collar, and you're just a tad bigger than I am.'
Hugo thought about it, flipped Whisper in his hand and held her out. I took the handle, but Hugo maintained
