'There,' Rafferty said, pointing at the door.
I pushed Lippitt and Rafferty aside and, with Golly close by my side, opened the door and stepped into the large, fluorescently lit laboratory. I abruptly stopped and probably would have fallen if Golly hadn't grabbed me and held me up. Horror wrapped its arms around me and squeezed the breath from my body, the hope from my soul.
Except for a bank of monitoring machines hooked up to a crude cage erected in the center of the room, the laboratory had been virtually stripped. Next to the cage was a stainless steel operating table covered with gleaming surgical instruments; somebody was getting ready to do a dissection.
Although he wasn't around to enjoy it, Jake Bolesh had finally gotten at least a part of what he'd wanted.
Inside the cage, rearing on its haunches on a bed of filthy straw littered with waste and food scraps as it tore at the wires attached to its shrunken, hairy body, was the bawling thing that had been my brother.
34
'His mind isn't damaged,' Rafferty said quickly as he came up beside me. 'That part of Garth which makes him your brother is still there. He's been drugged, but he knows we're here.'
It was true, I thought as I forced myself to walk across the room, up to the cage. My expression, whatever it was, felt frozen, pasted on, and I struggled to keep it that way; Garth had enough of his own horror to contend with without seeing more reflected on my face. Although the cage did not allow him to stand, I estimated that he was now no more than three-quarters of his former height. He was covered with glossy black fur, except for his face and hands, which had turned the color of shoe leather. He had a jutting brow, a flat nose with extremely broad nostrils, and a massive, protruding jaw structure, which made it impossible for him to do anything but bawl, roar, bark, and scream.
But the eyes were those of my brother. At the moment they reflected horror, disgust and terror, which was to be expected, but they also reflected love. And hope.
'Shut up,' I said, unable any longer to hold back tears as I reached through the bars of the cage and gripped his hairy, sinewy shoulder. 'You always talked too much anyway. Also, this settles once and for all which one of us has more animal in him.'
Lippitt took a key on a large ring off its peg on the wall, came over and opened the cage. Garth, trying and failing to walk upright, slouched out of the cage, and we held each other.
'Garth,' I continued in a whisper, 'neither of us is finished yet. I swear to you I'm going to get our bodies back, and when I do you're going to owe me all the Scotch I can drink for the rest of my life.' I paused, turned to Rafferty. 'Can he understand?'
The telepath nodded. 'Oh, yes. He just can't speak.'
I shook my head in bewilderment, squinted at Garth through my tears. 'How can that be possible? Look at him.'
Rafferty shrugged. 'Look at you. You've also gone through all kinds of rapid and progressive physical changes, but your mental capacities seem to be intact. Obviously, something in the body-or, perhaps, the mind itself-forms a barricade to protect the brain. At least up to a point. Neither of you has reached that point yet.'
It was true, I thought. I'd had so many things on my mind that it hadn't even occurred to me to be properly grateful for the fact that I still had a mind at all. I wondered what Siegmund Loge thought about this little kink in his project-if he thought about it at all. Or if it was a kink.
Rafferty was staring hard at my brother, and I could tell by the wonder moving in Garth's eyes that Rafferty was scanning his mind-and letting Garth know that he was doing it.
'Garth wants you to know that he'd really like you to get his body back,' the telepath continued, turning to me, 'but a case of * gin should be sufficient payment. He also wants to know if we brought aspirin; he says he's feeling just a bit under the weather.'
Garth made a barking sound of laughter and astonishment, saluted Rafferty.
'Pretty good trick, huh?' I said to Garth. 'You probably remember him being introduced to you as Ronald Tal, but his real name is Victor Rafferty. He's- '
'He already knows the story,' Rafferty interrupted softly. 'I just told him. I can also transfer my own thoughts.'
'Yeah, well; what he does is the secret Lippitt and I have shared all these years. When we sic Rafferty on Loge's head, we're going to know everything there is in there-including a cure to what ails us, if there is one.'
'That's it,' Rafferty said suddenly, glancing up in alarm. 'They're here.'
There was a chugging sound in the night outside, and a large gray canister smashed through the window; the canister exploded in the air over our heads, releasing a weighted net that abruptly began to descend. Golly grabbed Garth's arm and pulled him beyond the perimeter of the falling net, but it was too late for the rest of us.
Shhh.
Whisper shredded the net as easily as if the thick rope strands had been made of bailing twine, and in moments I had freed Lippitt, Rafferty, and myself. It was wasted effort; Stryder London and five Warriors had rushed into the room, and were aiming their machine pistols at us.
Lippitt, Rafferty, and I aimed back. It was a Mexican standoff-of sorts; the problem was that their side had twice as many armed Mexicans as our side. But then, a machine pistol can do a lot of damage, even when it's only the twitch of a dead man's finger that pulls the trigger.
'Drop your guns,' London said evenly. He had his free arm wrapped around Garth's throat, and was using my brother's shrunken body as a shield; Garth, drugged and dazed, was powerless to resist. Golly was to one side of the room, crouched between two filing cabinets. Both her long arms were crossed over her head, but her head was up and her gaze was intense, darting back and forth between the Warriors and us, as she sat in silent witness.
'You drop yours,' I replied.
'Why die when you don't have to?'
'We die, you die.' I had my gun aimed directly at London's forehead.
'In hindsight, I guess it was a mistake for Siegfried Loge to give you back your glasses, Frederickson. You've become a real pain in the ass.'
'Fuck you, General. I have nothing to lose, which makes me a very dangerous man. I'm probably going to die anyway, and it would give me great pleasure to take as many of you with me as I can. You'd better let go of Garth and back off while I'm still in a good mood.'
London rested the bore of his gun in Garth's ear. 'Maybe I'll just blow his brains out.'
'I don't think so. Loge doesn't have it quite right yet, does he, London? He doesn't have all his answers; he still needs Garth and me, and he'd prefer us alive. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have bothered with the net business; you'd have killed us outright.'
'I'll take him your bodies.'
'Somebody may, London, but it won't be you; once the first shot is fired, the chances are that everyone in this room will die.'
'Where is Siegmund Loge?' Rafferty asked in a flat voice that was almost a monotone.
London's eyes narrowed as he slowly leveled his gun on Rafferty. 'Who's your friend, Frederickson?'
'My name is Ronald Tal,' the telepath said without taking his eyes off the two Warriors in front of him. His machine pistol was aimed at a point equidistant between them.
'What do you do, Tal? Frederickson has some strange friends, and I suspect you're one of them.'
'I ask strange questions. All of the computer data, including the information you've been extracting from Garth's body, is instantly transformed into telemetric signals and sent to some other place, via satellite relay. What are- '
'How the hell do you know that?!' The blood had drained from London's face.
'I'm a veritable mind reader,' Rafferty answered drily. 'What are the coordinates of the receiving site?'
'I don't think he's going to tell us that, Tal,' I said, 'but I do believe he's giving some thought to declaring this a draw. What do ^ you say, London? Nobody dies today. Release Garth. You and your men take a walk, and come
