George Chesbro: The Beasts Of Valhalla

Loge grunted his affirmation. "Apparently severe trauma will do, precisely that, which may mean that even less severe trauma could arrest the process. I believe the problem can be solved, but I should have anticipated it."

Severe trauma, indeed, I thought-like almost freezing to death. "Don't feel bad," I said. "All the clues were right under the noses of your crazy son and grandson, in their Mount Doom, but they were too busy jerking off with their toys, games, and fantasies to see the implications of the fact that many of the animals they threw into that heat and cold not only survived, but multiplied. Is there a chemical antidote?"

Loge slowly blinked, shook his head. "What would be the point of having an antidote?"

"What's the point of the Valhalla Project?"

Loge simply stared at us. Once he removed his pipe from his mouth and seemed about to speak, then thought better of it; he put his pipe back in his mouth and puffed.

Garth tapped on the Plexiglas in front of Loge's nose. "Mongo wants to know why a nice senior citizen like yourself wants to risk destroying the world."

Loge just continued to puff and stare; he seemed lost in thought.

"I'd say it doesn't make any difference, Loge," I said. "The whole thing looks like a bust to me. You may do a lot of damage and cause a lot of suffering, but doctors and scientists will certainly discover the temperature factor before too long. The shit you want to make may not even work anywhere outside the temperate zones, which excludes most of Russia. What do you say we all go home and forget this thing? You gave it the old college try."

Loge grunted, took a pencil and small note pad out of the pocket of his sweater, and began doodling; before our eyes, he was apparently solving the problem. "No," he mumbled. "The problem can be solved. It's in the reverse transcriptase."

"Just where I thought it was," I said, and looked at my Chief Researcher.

"It's a genetic substance that can read RNA into DNA," Garth said. "You can inject new material into genetic programs, cause those programs to run backwards along evolutionary lines. Controlling the reaction from the reverse transcriptase is the key to this thing."

"I'm sorry I asked," I replied, and turned back to Loge. "Where are Mike Leviticus and the other Warriors who brought us here?"

Loge finished a series of equations, gave a smile of satisfaction which I found maddening, put the pencil and pad back in his pocket. "They were sent back after they wired your apartment for sound and constructed this shield."

"You didn't want us to talk to them, did you?"

"No," Loge answered simply.

"Because what we had to say might contradict some of the things they believe about you and Project Valhalla. In fact, each one of them may believe something different. No wonder you kept us drugged. Warriors are trained to be close-mouthed, even with each other. You certainly didn't want us to start them debating with each other."

"Correct. The two of you happen to be the most dangerous men on the face of the earth; yet, you may still end as the saviors of humankind."

"Oh, you're just saying that because you like us-you're going to give us delusions of grandeur. I assume you're referring to our reaction to the shit Jake Bolesh put in us?"

"Of course. Without the two of you, and your unique reaction to that particular formulation, I might never have found the correct formulation."

"You have it now?" Garth asked quietly.

"Yes," Loge answered with a saintly smile of gratitude. "It is done, thanks to the information I was able to gain from your bodies. Also-thanks to your remarkable wills to survive, your resourcefulness and resilience-I discovered, and was able to correct, this problem of reversal outside certain temperature parameters. You are, or were, the most dangerous men on the planet because you would not stop coming at me, and I must confess that on a number of occasions I was afraid that you might actually be able to stop me from completing the project. That would have been a tragedy with dimensions you can't imagine-yet."

"Oh, woe. When do we get to know what you're really up to, so that we can try to imagine the dimensions of the tragedy we would have caused if we'd been able to stop you? Garth and I are really into tragedy."

"Soon. Not yet. When you do understand the reason for Project Valhalla, Dr. Frederickson, I don't believe you'll find things so amusing."

"Listen, Dr. Loge, Garth and I aren't exactly splitting our sides now; a lot of people find our sense of humor somewhat bizarre." To my mind, Project Valhalla, whatever it really was, still had one major flaw. But I couldn't recall ever winning a single Nobel Prize, and I wasn't about to argue with a double laureate. Also, after watching him casually doodle through the problem of reversal with a pencil and paper, I wasn't about to stimulate him with any hints. "Who else is here?" I asked.

"Nobody. We're alone."

"Bullshit."

Loge simply shrugged. "Why should I lie about something like that? It's true; we are alone."

"No security?"

"Security against what? The only threat against us in this place would be from a Greenland or NATO force, and my Warriors couldn't defend against that. Illusion and isolation remain my principal weapons of security, as they have always been. Next week, of course, things will be different. Hundreds of people will begin arriving to prepare for manufacture and distribution."

"What about the babies who were sent to you?" Garth asked in a low, menacing tone.

"They were sent back to their parents some time ago-and I would like you to believe that, while they were here, they were expertly cared for by a trained staff. No infant suffered because of its stay here."

"They weren't… tampered with?"

"No, Garth. After I learned of your reactions to the last formulation, I knew there was no need for the work I had planned to do with the infants; you two were the work, the human experimental subjects, the living laboratories in which the solution to a correct formulation could be found. Indeed, it's arguable whether I could have produced that reaction in any other humans on earth. You were indispensable in bringing the Valhalla Project to fruition. I believe Mr. Lippitt understood this danger from the beginning. Considering his mind set, I'm surprised he didn't kill the both of you. An unpredictable man, that one."

"What happened to Mr. Lippitt and the man who was with him at the Institute?" I asked carefully, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"They're both dead. I'm sorry."

The news hit both Garth and me like bullets in the stomach. We were alone, without allies, imprisoned and at the mercy of Siegmund Loge while the clock of the world ran down.

Seeing our reaction, Loge stepped closer to the shield. Tears actually glistened in his sea-blue eyes. "I really am sorry," he said. "I know they were your friends, and I understand your grief. But remember that I've lost a son and a grandson. Believe me, it doesn't make a difference. All of the death and suffering for which you hold me responsible is insignificant compared to… what would have been, and can now be prevented."

"What's it about, Loge?" I asked through clenched teeth. "Which of the dozen different versions of Project Valhalla we've heard is the right one?"

"None."

Garth and I looked at each other, then at Loge. The old man had both his hands placed on the shield, almost as if he wanted to reach through and touch us. For a brief moment, grief and loneliness swam in his eyes. Then it was gone. He stepped back, seemed to be making an effort to compose himself as he refilled his pipe from a pouch in his pocket, lit it.

I asked, "Besides yourself, who else knows what the Valhalla Project is really supposed to do?"