Chapter Twenty-Four

 

Corree heard soft sounds she couldn’t identify. With silent steps, she moved closer to the noise. They were coming from one of the teaching rooms. Corree and Meeka stepped up to a window where a group of children was playing, their leader watching and taking notes on a small speech pad. There were eighteen children, the equivalent of a family group on Mendel. They were about the same age as she and her family members had been at the beginning of their Mendel experience. Corree wondered where these children were being sent and why.

“We need to keep going,” Meeka reminded her, again shifting Tanna.

“Do you want me to take him a while?”

Meeka shook her head. “You need to figure out how to get into that secret area.”

They heard more of the soft sounds. There must be another group training. As she moved closer to the second room, Corree saw only a tiny bit of light filtering into the corridor. When she stood in front of this window she had to strain to count the children inside. Their room was almost pitch dark.

Corree realized they were not playing with the various-sized objects, but sorting them. She looked closer and realized the objects were jewels or something that mimicked gemstones. These kids were being taught to work in the caves. There was no adult in the room. One of them seemed to be in charge of the others. He would occasionally give a verbal command or a hand signal. This leader appeared to be several years younger than she had been when her family had been sent to Mendel.

As though she had called to him, the child looked up to stare directly at her. The others did the same. The boy seemed almost normal, but the others had large, bulbous eyes that didn’t blink. Their gaze was cold and emotionless. Corree hadn’t been around babies that much, but the ones she had seen weren’t like these.

“Let’s get out of here,” Meeka whispered.

Corree nodded and they continued down the corridor.

“It was like that one despised us, but how could he? We’ve never met before.”

“Like he or they could read our minds,” Corree replied, shivering. “The older one reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

Who did that child remind her of? The arrogant, knowing eyes…. The old one—Windemere! But the old scientist only had a nephew that she knew of. That Jeron knew of. How could there be a child from one so old and sick? “Windemere, the Creator,” she told Meeka as they continued down the corridor.

“If they could read our minds…would they know what we’re going to do?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. I suppose it depends on how much they can pick up our thoughts. Maybe we need to think about other things, just in case.” Meeka looked tired. “How’s Tanna?”

“Heavy. We need to take a little time to see if we can wake him up.”

Corree tried to pick up thoughts in his mind while Meeka worked each of the ten limbs. Tanna jerked, then began thrashing the short, clawed legs. “Come on, Tanna. Wake up,” Corree coaxed.

Tanna’s slider tail lashed weakly at first and then with more strength. The amber eyes opened and blinked. He studied them for a moment before mutating. The spindly legs shrank into the body and two regular arms and legs grew in their place. It was slow and Corree found herself mentally pushing. She stopped, knowing he couldn’t do it any faster. The Mendel stone could help, though. She took the carry pouch from Meeka and pulled out the stone. It flashed brightly as she laid it in Tanna’s half-formed hand. The tail disappeared as the body grew.

“Where are we now?” he asked as he finished mutating.

“On the way to the secret area—we hope,” Corree replied. She studied the corridor. It was exactly like the one that had appeared in her dream. Even the muted light was the same. There was a faint noise behind them; the tread of heavy feet trying to be stealthy.

“They’re close,” Meeka stated the obvious.

“But I don’t think they can enter where Windemere used to come.” Corree hoped she was right.

“Can you walk?” Corree asked Tanna. He still appeared a bit shaky.

“Think so.”

This corridor led to a room with a table and five chairs. It was some kind of meeting room, her Alogol experience told her. It was probably for the top scientists. Each desk had a computer, but a thin layer of dust told her it had been a while since the last meeting. The walls were bare except for two doors. Her memory told her neither of these led to the secret area. It was another hidden door. Again Corree closed her eyes and pulled up her memories. The door she wanted was almost equidistant between the visible doors. Opening her eyes, Corree walked a sure path through the unlit room. Her outstretched hand touched the wall. She couldn’t feel anything different, but she knew it was there. Then Corree felt a slight indentation at the edge of an invisible door.

“Found it?” Tanna whispered.

“Yes, but not how to open it,” she replied.

Her side ached—the stone! Help me now, she pleaded. Nothing. Her finger dug into the indention with no result. How could Windemere get in here stuck in a wheelchair? She moved her hand down one edge of the door, used her fingertips to find anything that might be an access button. Again, there was nothing. Corree almost ground her teeth in frustration. She remembered the old scientist controlling his chair with his right hand because his left was useless. The left side of the door would not have an access control.

Her side hurt and Corree rubbed where the stone had assimilated and lay in its pocket under her ribs. What was it trying to tell her? Greelon had some rooms that had various personal recognition devices. If she could mutate enough into Windemere.

“They’re coming!” Meeka hissed.

Corree concentrated on changing her right hand to match that of the old scientist. That didn’t work. Then she changed her eyes to resemble the cold, dark fire of Windemere’s eyes. Corree crouched and stared at the spot that would have been directly in front of the old man’s eyes. The door shuddered and then slid open.

“Come on!” she urged as she passed into an even darker hallway. Her companions pressed close behind her. It smelled dusty and unused, even worse than the room they just came from. As the door slid shut behind them, dim lights appeared along the floor. At various intervals Corree saw doors, but she ignored them. If they had time they could check later. No, she corrected herself, if they had time they’d be looking for some way to escape. Escape? The dream didn’t cover that. Corree put a clamp on her anxiety. She didn’t need the others picking up on that.

They finally reached the end of the corridor. A shorter door confronted them. This place was in her dream! The door opened at her approach. Only one person came down here and he had not needed any pass codes. Two sides of the room were lined with computers.

“How do you know which one to use to shut down the station?” Tanna asked.

In her latest dream, a brief one as they sped to the science station, Corree remembered going to the right. There were no chairs, but then there didn’t need to be. She got down on her knees, but she was too low to use the keyboard. Crouching was awkward, but necessary. Memory made a direct link to her fingers and she touched a keyboard. The computers on that wall lit up. Monitors ran numbers and symbols across the screens.

Now what? she thought. In her dream, Windemere had typed in a sequence of letters and symbols, but it wasn’t clear what they were. Corree closed her eyes, tried to remember. Finger here; another one there.

The monitor lit up and a face smiled at her. “Welcome back, Dr. Windemere.” It frowned. “You’re not Dr. Windemere.” A pause. “Ah, you must be the chosen one I had instructions to bring here. Welcome.” The smile returned. “What is it you wish?”

Corree couldn’t believe her luck. “I want to begin the sequence to shut down this station.”

“Very well. Is this in preparation to our relocation to the planet’s moon?”

Corree was speechless. Relocation to the moon? She glanced at the others, but they looked as blank as she felt. “Mendel?”

“Affirmative.”

Corree couldn’t figure how non-changed humans could live on the moon, unless Windemere had figured out what she and Jeron had discovered by accident and improved on it. Corree assumed if she asked too many questions the computer might question her right to be here. “No, he only told me to order the station de—” She began. Destroyed was probably not what Windemere had in mind.

“Destroyed. His master plan has been discovered! All must be eliminated.”

Master plan? The destruction of Alogol? Was that it, she wondered? All eliminated? “No, the master scientist died before relating his…uh, different plans. He only talked about dismantling this station.” Now, she was going to really take a chance. “Leaving Mendel alone for a while to develop on its own.”

The computer face froze for a few seconds. “That was not one of the Creator’s decisions that he left with me; although that had been one of his first goals.”