The Hunter Victorious Read online

  Unfortunately, the ductwork connected to several other chambers which also required fresh, filtered air, namely the computer room, where the massive mainframes were housed, and the operations center, where the delicate, irreplaceable communications equipment was kept. Both of these installations were filtered for fine particles that might disturb the functions of their precious equipment, but there was no way it could filter out the dense clouds of thick black smoke that poured through the vents with absolutely no warning.

  Neither of the rooms was equipped with water sprinklers, for water would have been equally as devastating as fire. Fire had never been a serious consideration or threat, for the technicians were far too careful to have made even the slightest mistake. But just as no one had considered the link with the fabric room, which was just above the communications center, neither had they ever considered the possibility of smoke without fire.

  The technicians went wild, for most of them were so dedicated to their machines that they thought of them more as children than as bits of metal and plastic. They shouted frantic orders which frequently contradicted one another and were soon at each other’s throats, driven almost insane with the threat to their beloved machines. They who had fretted and worried over the tinest change in temperature, the smallest particle of dust carried in on the antiseptic bootie of a worker, now shrieked and wailed as they heaved at the massive machines in their attempts to move them to safety. And all the while the thick, black, viscous smoke feeding off the oily lanolin contained in the natural wool fabric continued to pour in through the efficiently functioning vents. It never occurred to anyone to shut them off.

  Blissfully unaware of the chaos he had inflicted upon his enemies, Barat Krol continued to search the vast medical complex. The first and second alarms were calls for labor; the third alarm was a call for more specialized assistance, including medical.

  Only as the last of the medicos with their intergalactic red cross emblazoned on their chests rushed by carrying their bags did the thought occur to Barat Krol that he might have done well to have captured one of them and persuade him to take him to the containment units.

  He waited for a time, but it appeared that the last of them had passed. It worried Barat Krol that it should have taken him so long to think of capturing a medico. Such a basic thought; how could he have been so dumb? No sooner had he raised the thought than it came to him that it was not the first time he had made such a mistake. Lately, it seemed that his mind was operating more slowly, taking longer to come to obvious conclusions.

  And then it hit him with a wave of certainty. The Scandis were depriving him of his daily dose of the intelligence enhancing drug, substituting a look-alike placebo! What better way to rid themselves of a troublemaking Madrelli? Soon he would sink to the same level of indifferent intelligence as his less fortunate brethren and the Scandis would be rid of the thorn in their side, bloodlessly and without implicating themselves in any way. “A failure of the drug—unfortunate, but it happens that way sometimes.”

  The realization was so stunning that Barat Krol sank down on his haunches and bowed his head. How close he had come to death without even knowing it, for life without intelligence was little more than death with another name.

  Just then a voice intruded on his thoughts, a nagging, prissy voice, the kind of voice that belonged to one who followed every rule no matter how stupid, obeyed every sign as though it had been printed by the god of the universe and expected others to share his vision of order. “You there, what are you doing? There is no loitering allowed in these halls. Where is your permit? Show me your permit! Why are you here? Where is your keeper?” The flood of words beat around Barat Krol’s head like a swarm of mosquitoes.

  Third-class technician Thorvald Johannson stopped a mere two paces from the numbed Madrelli, furious at this obvious breach of regulations. How was it that all the others had managed to pass through these same halls and not notice such a large creature on the loose? Thorvald heaved a sigh and pressed his thin lips together in a droop of martyred weariness. Why was it always he who had to clean up everyone else’s messes? It was probably that lazy, no-good Erik Girstad—he never finished what he started. Why, if Thorvald hadn’t decided to come along behind everyone else and check, this ignorant creature could have run amok. Thor only knows what mischief he might have caused.

  Thorvald pursed his lips again and hooked a toe into the Madrelli’s rib cage, a sensitive spot as he well knew, painful in the extreme. “Here! You stinking animal, up! Back in your cage!” he cried as he drove the point of his foot into the animal’s rib cage for a second time, wondering if he had injured it with the force of his blow.

  He had expected the Madrelli to react; a cry of pain, a crouching, posturing snivel for mercy would have been normal. Instead, a massive black furred hand shot out and grasped his ankle, hard, squeezing it hard enough to bring tears of pain to Thorvald’s eyes.

  He opened his mouth to scream at the Madrelli, to threaten him with punishment, when his brain finally acknowledged what his eyes had known for some time. The Madrelli was not one of those small, cowering, terrified specimens they kept caged in the labs for use in experiments.

  Still gripping the technician’s foot, the Madrelli stood up, raising himself to his full height, which was easily two heads taller than Thorvald Johannson. He was huge, gigantic, immensely muscled, with powerful arms and a chest and shoulders that rippled with muscles each time he moved.

  Thorvald’s mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound emerged. The Madrelli’s mouth opened too. Thorvald stared at him in horror, his eyes opened wide. The Madrelli’s lips drew back, exposing his black gums and his long, pointed canines.

  The Madrelli was staring at him with a look of utter joy upon its ugly animal face. Its large dark eyes glittered insanely. Without taking its eyes off the terrified technician, it yanked his leg, hard, painfully hard, drawing him closer. Thorvald Johannson took one final look—the bright eyes, the sharp teeth, the powerful muscles—and did the only logical thing left for him to do. He fainted.

  17

  After Braldt had been captured, Septua had wandered without aim or goal—not knowing what to do with himself. He had found himself in the labyrinth of corridors belonging to the healers and had sunk down on the seats circling the operating amphitheater to ponder his limited choice of options. When the alarms began to sound. At first he rose, fear hammering in his chest. He could hear the sounds of running feet, and yells and curses as the various workers responded to the call.

  His first impulse was to run. But where would he go? He had no designated post, as did every Scandi over the age of twelve. They had not deemed him worthy of assistance in the face of danger. The old bitterness twisted in his gut, accompanied by the familiar burning anger.

  He could not have honestly said whether he was sad or angry or frightened, for he was filled with currents of strong, conflicting emotions, each warring within him for dominance.

  He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, trying to bring himself under control. It was then that he heard his name called. Startled, he looked up, his hand darting to his dagger even as he recognized the Madrelli—what was his name… Bartha Kol? But what was he doing here?

  The two disparate figures, one short and barrel-chested with outsized features, the other immense and shaggy with intense, burning eyes, approached each other warily, yet with a certain amount of barely concealed eagerness. Each desperately hoping that the other, barely known, would become an ally in this place of enemies and danger.

  Slowly at first, and then ever more swiftly, the words tumbling over themselves like rocks careening downstream in a flood, they told and compared stories. All the while, the Klaxon continued to blare its urgent message of alarm.

  “What’s ’appening? Is the world exploding?” asked Septua, looking around him fearfully.

  Barat Krol barked a short, mirthless laugh. “I set the place afire. Must have done a better job than I thought!�
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  “Fire… that’s good. Never would ’ave thought of fire myself,” Septua said, looking up at the Madrelli with admiration. “Ought to give us some time to find the stuff what you needs.”

  “You’d help?” Barat Krol asked in astonishment.

  “Consider it done!” Septua said, grinning broadly. “Anyone what sticks a rock in their engine ’as got me in their corner! Let’s be on our way afore they comes back!”

  The frozen ova were harder to find than they had anticipated, and the precious intelligence-enhancing substance no less obvious. What they did find were a wide variety of animals and Madrelli, little better than animals themselves,. most of whom were in pain, all of whom were being used for Scandi experimentation.

  Barat Krol went berserk when they encountered the first of these unfortunates linked to machines by various implanted wires and tubes. The creature, a doglike animal, looked up at them and seemed to cringe, although such an action would have been all but impossible considering the number of attachments controlling its body. Its eyes were large and soulful and seemed to implore them silently. A whimper of anticipated pain escaped from its muzzle.

  Barat Krol destroyed every single machine that the poor animal was linked to, in an attempt to free it. There were so many machines, it was impossible to know which one contained the link that kept the poor creature alive. When the last of the machines had crashed to the floor, the last of the bottles had broken, spilling their fluids, the piteous crying had stopped. Only then did they discover that the animal had mercifully died.

  Barat Krol was shaking with rage, his eyes ringed with scarlet, the whites shot through with red. Septua had never seen such a towering rage, and despite himself he was more than a little afraid of the Madrelli. He began to edge away when Barat Krol turned to him and tried to smile, tried to bring himself under control. “I-I’m sorry. It troubles me to see creatures treated so poorly. Would they do such a thing to one of their own?”

  Septua was unable to speak, remembering all too well some of the tests and experiments they had done on him as a youngster when it had first been ascertained that he was not “normal” and would never achieve his full growth. His mother had put an end to it, but Septua had never forgotten… or forgiven.

  Together they “liberated” the rest of the animals. Those that had not been damaged beyond salvation were freed and each helped the less fortunate. Those who would never be whole again they freed as well, giving them well-deserved eternal peace and surcease from their pain.

  Barat Krol and Septua were icy calm by the time they opened the last of the cages. Their earlier fury had become a steely resolve that drove them relentlessly on. Had they not been so determined to find and rescue every last creature, they might not have found the lab technician, who had done his best to squeeze himself into a tiny ball inside of a storage compartment.

  A small, tight smile crooked the corner of Barat Krol’s mouth. He reached in and despite the fact that the technician scrabbled away and tried to fend him off, he seized him and pulled him out like a pile of dirty laundry.

  The boy—he was no more than a youngster, really, despite his attempt at a thin, stringy mustache—began to cry and a fetid stink filled the air as he soiled himself. He covered his face with his hands and it was obvious that he thought he was going to die. Barat Krol gave him a hard shake. “Stop that noise. We have freed the only ones who had a need for tears. You had best save your breath for your prayers!” The boy wailed and cried all the louder.

  Barat Krol flung him away in disgust and wrenched a leg off one of the tables. He hefted it as he walked toward the crying boy, no sign of sympathy on his face.

  “Wait a minute ’ere,” Septua said thoughtfully. “’E might do us better alive than dead.”

  Barat Krol was not easily persuaded. After all that they had seen, he felt the need to inflict pain and suffering upon one of those who had caused such agony.

  “It was only a job!” wailed the boy, thinking to lend his voice to the dwarf’s point. But if he had thought to plead his innocence, he had chosen the wrong argument.

  “Do you not have eyes? Do you not have a heart? Could you not see their plight, feel their agony?” Barat Krol raised the chair leg, ready to club the boy, to see the blood flow. His whole body shook under the stress of his anguish.

  “I couldn’t stop them! Nobody would’ve listened to me!”

  “Did you try? Did you even try?” Barat Krol was frightening to see, shivering with the need to strike out.

  “’Ere now, Barat Krol, I un’erstan’ ’ow you feel,” Septua said appeasingly, daring to place a hand on the Madrelli’s arm. “But think about it a minute, ’ere. We got us a pris’ner, eh? Don’cha see? Leave ’im live an’ mebbe ’e’ll just show us what we come lookin’ for!

  “Wot’s the rest?” Septua nodded into the steaming, frosty interior of the small freezer.

  “Other stuff.” The boy wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You know, other breeding stock: sheep, cows, chickens, stuff like that.”

  “Let’s take ’em!” Septua grabbed at the handle covered with frost and cursed as he jerked his hand back, minus a patch of skin, the flesh already beading with blood. He sucked the bloody patch and glared at the boy, who raised his hands and backed up. “You have to use gloves, see! It’s way below freezing in there!”

  Still cursing, Septua donned the protective gloves, which were many sizes too large and came up well over his elbows, before he attempted to retrieve the remainder of the freezer cylinders.

  “Now, show us the substance,” directed Barat Krol in a tone that invited no argument.

  The boy was clearly miserable as he slowly led the way back into the main laboratory area. He was all but dragging his feet by the time they reached the largest of the rooms, where many of the most hideous experiments had been carried out. Barat Krol had begun to realize that the boy was stalling for time when he heard the sound of footsteps and mingled voices. The workers were returning! Only then did he realize that the Klaxon had ceased its unrelenting braying. How long had it been silent?

  The first of the workers entered the room and stopped, astonished expressions on their faces that might have been comical had the circumstances been less serious.

  Barat Krol was the first to react. He seized the boy by the back of the neck, the fragile column dwarfed by his enormous paw. “One step, one sound, and the boy is dead!”

  One of the men turned and ran. Barat Krol cursed and threw the boy aside like a rag doll, scattering the small knot of workers like dry leaves as he followed the worker down the hall. When he returned at a more leisurely pace, he wore a look of satisfaction and Septua guessed that he had finally satisfied the need to punish someone for all that he had seen.

  The look on the remaining workers’ faces was a bonus. If any of them had been contemplating escape, they quickly changed their minds.

  “What do you want with us?” one of the braver technicians asked.

  “They want the Madrelli formula,” the boy answered tearfully. “I tried to keep it from them.”

  “Look, Stephus, they have the ova!” one of the women exclaimed, pointing with horrified recognition at the frosty containers.

  “They said they’d kill me,” the boy said miserably. Almost as one, the workers shot a quick glance down the hall.

  “Don’t worry, Tani,” the one known as Stephus said. “No one will hold you to blame. Let us give them what they seek before they kill us all.”

  The substance was no less unusual in appearance than the ova had been. Barat Krol had been prepared for anything, a beaker of fluid, a box of pills, anything but the chunks of dry, chalky material that Stephus casually pulled out of a larger box sitting in a corner like a bit of debris.

  “This is it?” Barat Krol asked, shaking the box and hearing the contents rattle dryly. “The fate of my people rests on these… these rocks?” He turned toward Stephus and his lips twitched, revealing his long, sharp eyeteeth.


  “No, no! Uh, I mean yes!” Stephus hurried forward to take the box out of the Madrelli’s hands. “Look, I can understand why you might think that something so important is worthy of more respect, but the fact of the matter is that we have so much of it on hand that, quite honestly, we don’t give it its proper due. Here, here, taste a bit of it on your tongue. You’ll see, it’s just what I said it was!” He thrust the box back to the Madrelli, a pleading, anxious look on his face. Clearly he recognized their danger.

  The Madrelli reached out and touched his finger to the powder, flicking a tiny clump up with the end of his thick yellow fingernail. He touched it with his tongue and instantly the suspicious, distrustful look vanished, replaced by a look of sheer joy. “This is it!” he cried. “We’ve found it!” he thumped Stephus on the back, sending the technician stumbling forward, and when he turned, he was smiling as well. “See, I told you the truth. Can we go now?”

  “I never said you could go nowheres. I just said we wouldn’t kill you, mebbe,” Septua said with a sly grin, and over their loud protests he herded them into a large storage room with a sturdy door and bolted it behind them.

  “What now?” he asked the Madrelli.

  “We must find Uba Mintch, get this to him. He will know what to do and how to do it.”

  They were striding through the corridors, Septua half running to keep up with the long-legged Madrelli, when suddenly the lights blinked out with no warning and they were thrown flat.

  “What the—” exclaimed Septua, rising to his knees and feeling around for the precious canisters. “What ’ave they done now? ’ow did they make the floor shift like that?”

  “Quiet,” Barat Krol whispered, and in the dim red glow of the emergency lights Septua could see that the Madrelli had not risen from the ground, nor was he searching for the containers. He was lying still with his head pressed flat against the floor, and Septua studied him in puzzlement, wondering if he had been injured in the fall. He hurried to the Madrelli and knelt beside him. Barat Krol waved him down and when he did not move, seized him by the hem of his robe and jerked him down and pressed his head against the stone floor. None too gently either, as Septua began to point out.