Munoz
In the outer lab, Dane pointed at Sefura and yelled to Munoz, "Get her out of here." He spun on his heel, eyes searching for anything he could use as a weapon.
"Can't. Bianca has the keys to the corridor exit."
"Then take Sef's, dammit. Just get her out of here!"
From where she slumped against Bianca's desk Sefura looked at Munoz through eyes glazed with shock. "I don't have them anymore. Bee took them back like she always does."
"There's nothing in this lab that's powerful enough to stop that animal," Munoz said, watching Dane open and close cabinets, search through drawers.
Dane paused and held up a finger.
"Listen."
"I don't hear anything," Sefura whispered.
"Exactly. It's too quiet." He glanced at Munoz. "Do you think she—"
Then it came: the sounds, filling the room with demonic fury and pealing laughter. Bianca screamed with pain and the roaring tumult intensified. Dane pulled Sefura to her feet and held her tight to his chest, covering her ears with his arms. Frozen with fear, they stood like statues in a museum, and waited.
As abruptly as it started, the raging fury ceased.
Barely breathing, they watched the paneled doorway, listened to the silence flowing around their tortured ears.
The door slid open.
Right leg dragging, Bianca pulled herself through. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds on her arms, her legs, her face. One hand clutched her left side, trying to stem a red flow. Her head lifted defiantly as she glanced from one stunned face to another.
"He is ready to be placed in his new container now. Raphael, if you will help Dane do that . . . and hurry. I don't know how long the sedative will last. He yanked the pole from my hand before I completed the injection."
Sefura raced forward, double-folded towel in hand. Bianca released the flowing slash long enough to grab the towel and press it tightly to her side. "He broke through one of the bars," she said to no one in particular. "He broke . . . " She fainted.
"Christ!" Dane leaped for the open doorway.
"You'll have to handle her, Sefura," Munoz said. "If that sedative wears off before we get George into the container, he'll kill us all." He followed Dane into the room.
The two men stared at the red-splattered walls, at the pool of blood beside the cage, at the unconscious creature whose upper torso sprawled on the floor, its hips jammed between the remaining bars. Nearby, the sedative pole, its tip ripped off, dripped liquid from the broken end. Across the room was the hated rod.
Kneeling beside the animal, Dane examined the cage. He looked up at Munoz. "If she hadn't managed to get some of that sedative into him, he would've had her. Look at this."
Munoz squatted down beside Dane and let out a low whistle. Not one, but three bars were missing. A fourth rattled loosely when Dane touched it with his finger.
"We're going to need maintenance to help," Dane said. "That container's nearly fifteen feet high."
Using the sweep hand on his watch as a timer, Munoz counted the slow chest heaves as the animal breathed. "He's not down deep—we need more sedative." Leaping to his feet, he ran to glass-fronted cabinets and searched through vials of fluid. "They're all marked with numbers—I can't tell which one is which."
"We don't have time to try to figure it out—we've got to get him into the container. Sefura, call maintenance," Dane yelled. "Tell them to get a sling winch down here on the triple, and I mean triple, unless they want to face death incarnate."
"They can't get in. Whenever Bee's in the lab with George, she keeps the door to maintenance locked too." Sefura's voice trembled with fear.
"In her pocket, Sef. The keys are in her pocket," Munoz called out.
A moment later, they could hear the girl's frantic instructions on the maintenance com line.
Three minutes later, Amory Ryan and Harvey Blakely rode into the room atop a flimsy looking machine shaped like an inverted L. A canvas sling dangled from the crossbar. Munoz felt a foundering sickness in the pit of his stomach as he looked from the winch to the creature.
"It'll carry three times the weight of that thing on the floor, Your Holiness," Harvey said as he twisted knobs. The narrow platform lowered until the canvass lay flat beside the creature. "It's getting the damn thing onto the sling that's going to be the problem." He turned to his partner. "Hand me that laser so I can get these cage bars out of the way."
Munoz once more timed the rising of George's chest. The sedative was wearing off. "We'd better hurry. He's coming up pretty fast," he said.
Together, the four men shoved and tugged until the creature rolled onto the tarp, its upper torso hanging precariously over the front edge.
Dane jumped onto the winch platform. "No time to reposition. I'll take it up, Harvey. You three keep the sling steady as long as you can reach it. If anything happens, get the hell out of here."
Halfway up the container side, the body twitched and slipped another inch forward. Faces taut with fear, the three below tried to keep the sling from swinging.
"It's going to fall, Mr. Wyland. It's going to fall!" Harvey shrieked as the tarp rose beyond their reach. Amory Ryan stood like a block of carved ice.
"I can't stop now. He's regaining consciousness." Sweat trickled down the side of Dane's face as he gently swung the tarp toward the open top.
A baleful yellow eye snapped open—stared in his direction.
"Oh, shit!" Dane shoved the power lever forward. As the sling lurched over the edge of the container, he released the holding ring and the creature pitched forward.
One clawed arm and a hooked foot grasped the edge of the container. With its opposite arm and leg flailing against the smooth glass, the beast hung suspended in the seven foot space between sand and freedom. The hooked foot slipped free and, slowly, the arm lost its grip; what was once George Kayman hit the sand level and disappeared.
Dane slammed down the cover and snapped it securely. "Throw me that can." He pointed to the table. "The blue one."
Munoz tossed it into the waiting hands as if he tossed a ball into a waiting net. With one fluid motion, Dane flipped the can top open and began to spray.
Below him, sand mounded.
He froze.
The mound exploded outward. With nose flaps waving and snout almost touching the glass top, the creature stopped its upward blast. Yellow eyes glowed for one quick instant then it was gone.
"Jeezus! Did you ever see anything so fast?" Amory Ryan said. "It moves through that sand like a damned fish in water."
"I didn't even see it move," Harvey gulped. "All I know is, one second it was there and the next it wasn't. I'm out of here." Without a backward look, both men barreled from the laboratory.
Hands shaking, Dane finished sealing. He climbed back onto the winch platform and lowered himself to the floor. Turning to Munoz, he said, "We better see to Bianca."
Sefura looked up as they entered the front lab. "I called the house doctor. He said not to move her." She looked back down at her sister's pale face. "She's going to be okay, isn't she?"
"If Doctor Upman can't take care of her wounds, he'll contact San Francisco," Munoz replied. "All we can do right now is wait."
He turned toward Dane. "Bianca's in good hands," he said, nodding toward Sefura. "While we're waiting, you and I will talk." Ignoring the look on Dane's face, he continued, "Mace Williams will be back tomorrow. You will start his training as soon as possible. It's imperative that he understand the in-vaulting equipment, especially the freezing constants."
"I hope he has three or four years to spend studying, Sir," Dane said wryly. "Otherwise, about all he's going to learn is how to read dial settings."
"He's got the time. He's also an intelligent scientist. I think you'll be surprised."
"Then let me put it this way, Sir," Dane said. "I don't want anything more to do with Pelican Island. I'd rather be back in the desert."
"I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. Wyland," Munoz said with a silken voice. "We need you here not there. Need I remind you that you're still under contract?"
"As a designer and engineer," Dane said stubbornly. "Not as a teacher. I believe the contract specifies that if the Church has no further need of my engineering skills, I will be released from said contract."
Munoz leaned back in Bianca's chair, steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "So it does. I see you are one of the rare few who not only reads what he signs, but understands what it says. That pleases me." He dropped his hands to the desk top, pressing his palms flat. "Your skills are required for more cases such as you've built in there," his head jerked toward the paneled wall. "Considerably smaller, however. I'll give you the dimensions when we're ready. In addition to the cases, you will design the new quarters for Tartarus. We are relocating the Foundation to South America—near Brasilia."
"Why are you moving the Foundation?"
Munoz knew he had piqued the young man's interest. "Take a good look at the water line around this island. If a rising ocean doesn't answer your question, I have an environmental report which clearly explains why this area will, in the not too distant future, experience a plate shift of such catastrophic proportions that a sea way is bound to be opened. When that happens, the Sierras themselves will be nothing more than green tipped islands. I would prefer that this organization be as protected as possible when that time comes." Munoz paused to let the tension build. "As for our third project, you will design a tree that will not only support the central building of our new quarters, but will also serve a useful purpose for our new population control program," Munoz smiled. "This tree will carry a leaf for every inhabitant on the planet. You will be provided with a blueprint specifying the exact placement of such."
Wyland was hooked. Munoz could see his mind racing with the possibilities of design, the engineering problems to be overcome, and the complexity of incorporating such a design into a building's esthetics. He must have a thousand questions.
"How did you come up with the idea of a tree?" Dane said.
"I can't stand monitor printouts. They hurt my eyes and are difficult to decipher. Visual imagery, that's what I want. In between, you will school Mace Williams on the finer points of freezing."
He thumbed the pages of the leather bound volume lying on Bianca's desk. "Speaking of deciphering, I see you're working on volume twelve, Sefura. Anything interesting surface?"
"Same as the others, Holiness. I've never seen genealogies set out like this before. Pages and pages of dates, names, and places with a number thrown in every now and then." Sefura rubbed a finger across her eyelid. "Tiny little writing, I might add. I'll probably go blind before I'm finished." She glanced toward the door. "When is that doctor getting here?"
"She's comfortable. Stop fretting. Have you determined what the numbers stand for, yet?" He studied her face intently.
"Just numbers as far as I can tell. Aside from being consecutive, there doesn't seem to be any reason for them and I haven't found any explanation for them either. When you translated the first book, was there anything in it that would give some kind of clue?"
"Pages and pages of tiny little writing." He chuckled.
"Sef?" Dane squatted beside her, rubbed her cheek with the side of his hand. "I'm afraid for you to be here any longer with that monstrosity in there. I want to take you some place safe."
"No," she said. Her face and her voice were set with determination. "Bianca needs me. Especially now." Her hands smoothed her sister's dark hair. "Who knows how long it will be before she can be up and around? Also, that monstrosity, as you call him, has a name. It's George Kayman."
"My God, Sefura. That thing in there isn't your friend—it's a dangerous animal. A killer. Let me take you somewhere safe."
Her eyes flashed. "Stop it! He's not a killer. Yes—he went out of control in there, but Bianca shouldn't have used the rod. He doesn't need it, has never needed it. Like I've said before, Dane, George will never harm me. He loves me and depends on me. He has for a long time. I'm not going anywhere, so stop pestering me about it." Her head bent to watch her unconscious sister.
He rose and stood with hands in pockets. "I'll let it go for now, but don't think you've heard the last of it. If nothing else, you'll come with me just to get rid of my carping." When she made no response, he added, "I will do whatever it takes to protect you. With or without your cooperation."
A loud banging echoed down the outer corridor.
"That must be the doctor," Munoz said. "Give me the key, Sefura."
A moment later, he strode back into the room with Doctor Upman close behind.
"Your fast work applying the healer saved your sister a lot of blood loss, young lady," he said when he had finished his examination. "The side wound is deep, but nothing vital's been injured. That ankle cut is a different matter." He traced the gash that circled round the back of Bianca's foot. "The tendon's hanging by a thread—if not severed completely. I won't be able to tell how serious it really is until I get her cleaned up."
Munoz paled. "If it's severed?"
The doctor rose. "Modern medicine can heal a lot of things, Holiness, including severed tendons. She'll walk with a limp, but at least she'll walk."
Dane casually edged sideways until he reached the paneled wall. "You tried, didn't you, George," he muttered to the door. "You didn't kill her, but you may have crippled her. For a woman like Bianca, I think that's worse." He listened to the silence. There came no answering chuck or howl and he returned to the group bent over the Foundation's director.
No one saw George Kayman grin.