David Dun - Necessary Evil

Kier hesitated, his mind spinning. He didn't know. Not even a clue.

"I think it's something you made. Probably you were trying to build a vector and it ran amok. Maybe mutated. Maybe combined with inert DNA from long extinct retroviruses that have become part of our genetic makeup. At any rate, you were convinced it was a great little delivery wagon and rushed its development. Something went wrong. A surprise. Why don't you tell me?"

"You deal with us and maybe we will."

''But if you can manipulate genes, you can cure viruses. I figure that before you could figure a way to explain how you developed cures, you had to understand how the cure virus would behave in a population. Somehow, some way you made guinea pigs of my tribe."

"God, what an imagination. But you're just daydreaming, Dr. Kier. It's an interesting fantasy. The fact is your people have a naturally occurring but as yet undiscovered virus. I happen to have the cure. We may have helped some couples with fertility problems, but that's it."

"We're not going to get anywhere if you feed me your trumped-up stories."

"I know a hell of a lot about you, Kier. I've been studying your clones. Fine boys. Maybe you'd like to meet them."

Kier was stunned, unable to think properly.

"The number 042863 588561289 that was on the various tables in Volume Six. I thought maybe you'd recognize it."

Then Kier saw it. It was his birthdate and social security number. He hadn't looked at those numbers at all because he had never possessed Volume Six.

"Why me? Why would you clone me?"

"Well, you among others. I had to clone somebody and you've got excellent genes. Half-breeds often do. Everything from your propensity to muscle, straight teeth, and facile brain, Kier. It's a compliment."

"How many are there?"

"You cooperate and I'll tell you."

"What are you doing with them?"

"Yours or other people's?"

"Mine."

"Your offspring. They're safe." Tillman lowered his voice to a soothing tone. "Kier, you can save them and your tribe if we make a deal. But you're fantasizing about a lot of things. Nothing wrong with making a baby. People do it every day. You've got some odd ideas about what we're doing. But I can straighten out the misunderstanding."

Kier felt disoriented, but he knew he had to maintain absolute control. "You're scuffing your hind legs a bit much-like a dog trying to cover his scat."

''We seem to have a chicken and egg problem here. If you're on board, we can tell you things. If you're not, naturally we'd rather keep our own counsel. I'm afraid you'll just have to trust us a little. You give me back what is mine. Then you get the young Kiers. You get your tribe safe from an unfortunate and naturally occurring infection. Those mink farms are a real hazard. I can tell you one thing. A lot of your people are gonna die if we don't make a deal."

"Call your men off, go back down in the valley. Then we'll talk about getting you your fifth and sixth book." Kier was trying to decide exactly how to run his bluff.

"If I pull back and you don't show up for the powwow, you're going to piss me off."

"You're not going to make a deal with this maniac?" Jessie whispered fiercely.

Kier patted her arm in reply, and shook his head.

"You go back to the Donahues' farm." Kier stood with the radio. ''Wait with your radio on. I'll be there day after tomorrow at nine a.m."

"It doesn't take that long to walk out of these mountains."

"You'll forgive me if I don't trust you and take my time."

"You don't show, a lot of people are going to die." Tillman signed off.

She put her hand on his arm. For once there was no anger in her eyes.

"I am at a loss for words," she said.

He had never felt so bewildered. Obviously Tillman wanted to throw him off balance, and it had worked. The table of contents stuffed into Crawford's boot had a section titled "Adult Cloning Methodologies." It was now absolutely clear that it meant adult people, not adult monkeys. There had been numbers of four digits and each four-digit number was followed by a letter of the alphabet. Undoubtedly the four numbers were an abbreviation. Probably the first four numbers of the birth date. By running the numbers together with no breaks or slashes, it had not been obvious.

Perhaps Kier's number had appeared several times followed by an "a," a "b," and so forth. Or maybe it was only listed in Volume Six. He couldn't remember how many letters were opposite each number. Undoubtedly each letter was the designation for a child clone. He wondered who "1220" was.

"I know what you're thinking… my not having anything to say," she said.

Kier half smiled.

"Is it that funny?"

"Well, you're talking," he said.

"I know. I can't help it. It's so weird. So bizarre. Here you are with a whole bunch of little people who are identical to you. It would be like finding out you had a bunch of twin siblings." She paused and moved closer to him. "I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do. How much like you do you suppose they'll be?"

She put her arm around him. He thought about how good it felt.

"God, they'll be a lot like you."

He put his arm around her and held her close.

"He really rang your bell, didn't he?"

Kier looked down into her eyes, seeing the trouble in them.

"I guess he rang my bell as much as yours," she continued. "I can barely handle one of you in this world. Now I find out I'm sharing the planet with several of you."

They sat, holding each other for a time. ''You know he never would have conceded what he did, if he wasn't completely desperate," she said.

Kier nodded. But, he could find neither energy nor consolation in that thought.

''Maybe they were expecting the plane to crash,'' she finally said.

"They had to be expecting something ugly. They were here in force. Tillman's guy told me the fiberglass pods were supposed to have been dropped."

"If you did want to deliver something secret to Wintoon County, why would you drop it from a jet? Why not just drive in on the county road?" she said. "Maybe the goal was some illusion. Maybe the point wasn't to deliver something to Wintoon County. Maybe the real point was to make something disappear."

It was precisely what he was thinking.

" Worm's Way? I don't like the sound of that," Jessie said. "Why not go back the way we came in-at Tree Cave?"

"It'll be okay."

"Exactly how small is it? How long is the tunnel?"

"Tight for maybe forty feet. But I can fit. For you, it'll be easy."

She stared at him.

"You aren't normal, Kier. You're not afraid of things that scare the piss out of most people. So when you say it's tight for forty feet, what about the rest?"

"You crawl for a hundred yards, then lie flat on your back for probably thirty yards. Then comes the tight part. Hopefully not much rock has fallen down. I haven't been through in a few years."

"Do the kids go there?"

"No."

"Why?"

Kier started to walk and decided to change the subject. There was no point in having her frightened out of her mind before they even arrived at the tunnel.

It took almost a half-day's hiking through the darkroom-black caverns until they stood before the telescoping rock passage that Kier called Worm's Way. They had used up two lights and were on their third, but they had several more lights from incapacitated or dead enemies.

Stooping to look, Jessie would have sworn the passage petered out just beyond the first bend sixty or seventy feet away.

"Can't be."

"It's an illusion," he replied.

Bending, she looked again.