Chapter Twenty-Three

 

The raspy hissing of the communicator woke her. The noise formed into words, and Corree realized the science station was making contact. She mutated into her reptilian form and slithered into the robot. Her energy force flowed through the manufactured veins. Fingers moved to push the right buttons and the mechanical voice answered the summons. They would be landing soon. She was relieved to see the station take over the docking procedures. Her companions were now awake.

Corree clicked off the communicator and motioned to Meeka and Tanna. Her friends raised their arms and she placed the cuffs on their wrists without activating the magnetic controls. Unless they were examined closely, it would be hard to tell. They waited in their seats as their ship approached the station. The pod gently bumped into the docking arm, and the artificial gravity shut off, surprising Meeka and Tanna. Corree grabbed them until the station’s gravity kicked in a few seconds later. By the time the hatch opened, Corree had her two companions in front of her, ready to escort them to wherever the scientists commanded.

Of course, that didn’t mean they would make it. Corree marched them out of the pod and started down the same bleak corridor she had gone down before. Two scientists and a robot were waiting for her. One of the scientists—Corree recognized him but couldn’t remember his name—examined Meeka and Tanna.

“Neither of these are the ones we wanted,” he barked.

So they had been wanting Riss, too.

“You failed.” He was very tall, enough so that he had to duck every time he went through a doorway. His piercing eyes were dark brown, almost so dark as to be black. He was not fat, but he was solid. After the Creator, Windemere, this was the one she had felt most threatened by when she was younger. He worried her now, but he did not seem as scary as before.

“I did not fail,” Corree returned, grateful that the voice apparatus did not allow for emotion. “I was commanded to capture the rebellious workers, but if I was unable to do that, I was ordered to kill both of them. The female fought me and I killed her in the mountains.” She hoped the robot’s less than perfect condition would back her up. “These are the closest to the ones we were to capture. According to this female, the male we were supposed to capture was already dead. There was no way to verify that information.”

The scientist studied her for several minutes. “Are you sure?”

“The evidence of the female’s death was conclusive,” she intoned.

He didn’t look totally convinced, but he didn’t say anything else about it. “Come with me to the holding area,” he ordered.

Corree clomped behind Meeka and Tanna. The boy kept his body stiff and straight. They went down several corridors and halted in front of a massive looking metal door. The scientist in charge pulled out a tiny disk from his pocket and held it up in front of the entrance. A blue light shined on it and the door made a slight beep. “Now yours,” the man ordered.

Corree felt panic clawing at her mind. Her what? The robot had one of those disks? The scientist frowned, but his initial glance told her where this disc might be. She reached to a spot on her chest. There was an indention which she originally thought had been a result of the fights it had been in. Nothing happened. She pressed again. A crack appeared in the metal skin. It stopped, then opened a little more with a thin screech. Corree reached a metal finger in and felt a disk. She couldn’t pull it out. The panel creaked shut when she pulled her finger out. “The planetary conditions have made it impossible to extract my disk. I am fortunate to still have existence.”

The scientist scowled, and Corree realized she may have said too much. She waited.

The man grumbled but tapped a sequence of numbers on a small symbol pad on one side of the door. It swung open and the scientists entered. Corree almost gasped in shock. This was the place where she and her family had first come together as a group. It was where they had received their last training; their last indoctrination. She remembered the most common word of her time here—obey. Obey the directive, obey the Federation, and obey any orders.

Meeka and Tanna did stop. Tanna made a small choking sound but regained control quickly. Corree pushed them forward.

“Wait here,” the scientist ordered. He walked through one of the smaller doors on the other side of the room.

Corree, when? Tanna asked in her mind. His thought was thin and tenuous.

When I am in the place of my dream; the place where the old one spoke before we were sent to Mendel.

How will…happen?

Not sure. If they take you to the study place like they did me, she began, but was interrupted by an opening door. Two scientists came through this time. Corree recognized one of them. The assistant to the younger Windemere. Dr. Tookdon, she thought his name was.

“You will come with me,” he told Meeka and Tanna. “I want to talk with you.” His gaze turned to Corree. “You need repairs. Report to the machine shop,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Corree replied. She turned and clumped toward the entrance.

Keep contact, Corree.

Stay ready, she returned.

“Wait!” Tookdon ordered just as she reached her exit. “I want to do some studies on you, too, robot.”

Corree turned around and gazed at Tookdon for a moment. Did he suspect? On the other hand, this would keep them together. “Yes, sir,” she intoned, and got in line behind her companions.

They exited through the same door Tookdon and the other scientist had come through. This time, the corridor was short and straight. One door was open and as they passed, Corree realized it was someone’s living quarters. There was a bed and a computer station. It was much smaller than the one she had stayed in during her last visit.

They entered a laboratory, and Meeka came to a sudden stop, drawing back against Corree. She put her hand on Meeka’s shoulder as though to push her along. She squeezed gently to reassure her.

“Remember it now, girl?” Tookdon asked, a sneer in his voice. “Yes, this is the place you spent some time in while we were preparing you for your time of service. This is where you were conceived. This is where the growth drugs were administered and where the rejects were destroyed,” he gloated.

How could someone casually kill living, thinking human beings, she thought.

“Bring her to me,” he ordered.

Corree guided Meeka forward until they were standing directly in front of the older scientist. He touched her chest with a fist-sized device. Meeka went rigid for several heartbeats before the instrument was pulled away. She sagged back against Corree. Tookdon did the same with Tanna.

“Hmm. Number 1683 from mountain habitat group and 9460 from forest habitat.”

Meeka had managed to stay in forest mutation during the trip. Corree was hoping that would fool them. She should have known better. He stared hard at Corree. She suppressed her panic.

“Explain how this happened. You were ordered to find number 970, the rebel forest mutant and, if possible, her companion from the space trip. Instead you have a mountain habitat resident.”

“I had to follow the subject deep into the mountains It was there I killed 970. A short time later, I captured this one.” Corree was still gripping Meeka’s shoulder. “I took her with me back to the ship. The other one attacked me there. I brought them in case they might prove valuable to you. This one mutated after I had captured her.”

“Quite logical. There is, however, one small flaw in your reasoning.”

Uh, oh! she thought.

“You are not the same robot that was given orders to capture or destroy 970. Robots do not refer to the experiments as ‘her.’” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The experiments have become experimenters. But how?” The last was almost spoken to himself.

Corree wasn’t waiting for him to figure anything else. She pulled all of her energy back into the flower snake. She scurried down a leg, while the older scientist was still studying the robot. Tookdon’s attention was still on Meeka and Tanna. Corree slid under a table.

Should she mutate back to herself? No, it had to be something that could overpower both scientists quickly. Again she chose the mountain cat. That form had served her well every other time. She had also become quite fast with that mutation. Almost before the thought finished entering her mind, Corree was changing, growing larger, bulkier and stronger. She stood on her hind legs and tossed the table aside. Each massive, clawed paw grabbed a scientist and drew them close. Her hold around their necks tightened and their faces turned red. Just as they passed out, she flung them to the ground. Corree mutated back to her normal self and checked the two men. They were still alive. She felt relief, but also worry they would wake up too soon.

“Here. We can bind them with these.” Tanna held up the belts that had been around the scientists’ laboratory coats.

“Good,” Corree replied absently. She was trying to remember how to get from here to the big auditorium. She noticed a bulge in Tooksdon’s pocket. A weapon! She grabbed it, wishing for a carry pouch.

Meeka peeked out of the door they had come through. “I think I remember the way to the large knowledge place,” she said. She jumped when a loud voice sounded in the air above her head. “That I don’t miss,” she muttered.

“Someone is calling him.” Corree pointed to the older scientist. “We have to hurry.”

“Let’s go, then,” Tanna said.

They slipped down well-lit corridors, freezing every time they heard a noise. Suddenly the slight noises turned into an earsplitting shriek that rose and fell. When it finally ended a description of Meeka and Tanna was broadcast.

“We can’t stay together,” Tanna shouted over the din. “We have to give Corree a chance to get to the computer room.”

“But if you’re caught—” Corree began.

“I think the knowledge room, the auditorium, is that way,” Meeka told her, pointing down one of the corridors. “Tanna and I can take different routes back to the space-ship docking facility.”

“Wish we had some kind of drawing; maps, of the different places here,” Tanna added, glancing at the blank walls they were passing.

“Me, too. Amazing that we didn’t need anything like that in the forest,” Corree mused. “We don’t split up until we have to.” They passed rooms Corree found somewhat familiar. Teaching rooms. “Let’s see if we can find a map,” she said, jerking them into one of the rooms.

Corree sat down at the computer station. When she turned it on and searched for a map of the station, nothing happened. The shrieking noise and description of them blared again.

“We don’t have time for this, Corree,” Meeka shouted over the racket. “Funny that they showed us whatever we wanted in the teaching pod and we can’t even get a map here,” she grumbled as they rushed back out into the corridor.

“Maybe it’s because we’re in the wrong place,” Corree countered. “Let’s go back to the group training center.”

“No!” Meeka argued. “They have probably found the two scientists by now. Probably why all these alarms. We’d be walking into a cave stingers’ nest. I think we’re going in the right direction to the gathering place….”

Two robots turned the corner. They hesitated a split second. “You must surrender yourselves to us. If you do, you will not be hurt.”

Tanna was behind her, but she knew he was mutating. A ten-legged tree slider about twice the size of a real one leaped past her. Corree didn’t have time to be amazed at Tanna’s ability to change size as well as form. Meeka launched herself at the second robot. A flash dropped Tanna like a rock, but Corree had not been idle. Meeka dodged another weapon burst and plowed into one of the robots. Corree pointed her weapon at the other one and pressed the button under her finger. The light hit the robot square in the head. A metallic screech echoed down the corridor as it collapsed to the deck. The other robot, trying to get to its feet after Meeka’s attack, got a blast to the chest.

“That will bring a lot more,” warned Meeka as she scooped up Tanna’s unconscious body. She grabbed his pouch that had been left behind when he mutated. He was still in the form of the slider. “I can’t tell if he’s alive or not.”

Corree laid her hand on the rough scaled back. “I think he is, but can’t be sure until we’re someplace safer.”

Meeka pointed. “That way!”

The girls ran to the beat of the renewed sirens. “How are we going to do this?” Corree panted.

“Get to that secret area and computer before they catch us!”

Two more robots tried to bar their way, but Corree and Meeka, who had mutated into the larger mountain-habitat form, bowled them over. Corree turned and blasted them as the girls continued down the hallway.

“Close,” Meeka puffed.

Corree recognized the area. “Yes! We are.”

They came to a double door and skidded to a halt. Meeka touched one of the doors, but nothing happened. “I bet they’ve locked all the doors so they can trap us.”

Corree felt energy from her internalized Mendel stone, and she laid her hand on a plate in the middle of the left hand door. The plate glowed, but the doors did not budge. Corree placed both hands on the plate and pushed. The plate glowed brighter and became hot. The heat intensified and was almost unbearable when the doors flew open. Meeka dashed in, Tanna still draped over her shoulder. Corree followed on her heels. The doors wooshed together, closing with a loud click.

“Let’s find this secret place,” Meeka said. “It won’t take long for them to figure out we’re here.”

“I know,” Corree concurred. She thought about trying to lock the door against intruders, but realized almost as quickly that it would be easy for someone with an entry disk to unlock it. No—they needed to find Windemere’s secret place as fast as they could.

Corree didn’t need Meeka’s instructions now. She knew where she was. They sprinted down the corridor and then veered to their right. This was a short hallway that led to another set of double doors. These opened immediately after she placed her hands on the entry pad. They walked into the auditorium where they had all endured lectures from the top scientists and teachers during their short lives on the science station. There were several visible doors, but what she wanted wasn’t one of these. She turned in the direction her dream had shown her and ended up staring at a wall. Feeling with her fingertips didn’t reveal anything.

Corree closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had seen. Her fingers touched a spot and sank slightly. It felt warm. She pressed her palm down on the spot and it sank into the door. What kind of metal was this? she wondered. Both doors slid open and they looked down a corridor that was a little wider than the others. Corree motioned for Meeka to follow her. The doors slid shut behind them.

“Is it ahead?” Meeka asked.

“Yes,” Corree replied, almost in a whisper. The corridor was colder and had a less finished look than anywhere else in the station. It was a little brighter than in her dream. It was short, too. They came to the end in a few steps. There were three doorways.

“Which way?” Meeka asked.

Corree turned to the left. The door led out to a hallway where someone could secretly watch all the mutant children as they grew, learned and developed their skills. She recognized the room as one of many where she had played and worked, presumably in front of what she had thought was a pretty picture of a Mendel habitat. Windemere and probably many other scientists had watched them. In one of her recent dreams he had sat in his chair, his eyes large and fixed on them on the other side of the window. Corree shivered, thinking of the wizened old man spying on her. It was creepy. Meeka shifted the still inert Tanna to her other shoulder.