“I know.”
“How?”
“Because when you’re holding a bundle of dynamite in your hand,” Rudabaugh said, “and the fuse is lit, you’ll want nothing more at that particular moment than to put as much distance between the dynamite and you as humanly possible.”
“Good point,” Orson conceded.
Chapter Seventeen
He stood on the rise south of Catlow, the wind whipping his black cloak and disheveling his dark hair. Overhead, the stars were bright pinpoints of light.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
The brooding figure turned. “What do you want?” he brusquely demanded.
“I thought you might like some company, Doktor,” Clarissa said. “And it was cold in our cot without you to warm me.”
The Doktor stared at Catlow, his lips a tight line.
“What’s bothering you?” Clarissa ventured to inquire.
“I miscalculated today,” the Doktor stated. “I made serious blunders.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, I should never have sent in the Genetic Research Division en masse,” the Doktor remarked.
“You were unaware they had explosives,” Clarissa stated in justification of his maneuver.
“Still, I should have considered the contingency,” the Doktor reprimanded himself. “I’m slipping.”
“You are not,” Clarissa disputed him.
“I tell you I am,” the Doktor disagreed. “My mental lucidity is strangely impaired. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I’m suffering from the same premature senility I inflicted on the Family by poisoning their water supply.”
“But you haven’t consumed any of their tainted water,” Clarissa said.
“And even if you did, you have the antidote. You’re merely fatigued.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course,” Clarissa asserted. “You haven’t enjoyed a good night’s sleep since the Biological Center was destroyed.”
The Doktor’s shoulders slumped. “How can I sleep? For the first time in decades, I’m facing the specter of my own demise.”
“But you can’t die!” Clarissa objected, striving to cheer her lover and creator, the man she practically worshiped.
“No, I couldn’t die,” the Doktor muttered, “as long as I had access to my laboratory, to my equipment and chemicals, and to a constant source if fresh infant blood. But it’s gone! All gone! Thanks to them!” He shook his right fist in the direction of Catlow, his voice rising in mounting fury.
“They’ll pay for what they have done!”
Clarissa wisely remained silent. She recognized the symptoms: the Doktor was working himself up into one of his periodic frenzies.
“Those imbeciles have meddled in my affairs for the final time! I’ll grind them underfoot as I would a common slug! I will show them why my name is feared far and wide! They shall see!”
Clarissa heard the Doktor take a deep breath, evidently seeking to control his raging emotions.
“I’ll play on their nerves tonight,” he said in a softer tone. “They’re probably anticipating an attack, but there won’t be one. Let them stay awake all night, dreading an assault! Then they’ll be tired, come morning, and we’ll defeat them easily.”
“We will crush them,” Clarissa vowed. “And then we will travel to Denver and establish a new laboratory. Locating healthy babies will be simplicity itself. Once you’ve synthesized your rejuvenation complement, you’ll be as good as new.”
“Thank goodness I’d had a transfusion shortly before the Biological Center was demolished,” the Doktor said. “Otherwise, I might be dead by now.”
Clarissa couldn’t comprehend all this talk of dying. It was utterly uncharacteristic of the Doktor. Her feminine intuition was tugging at her mind. “What’s really bothering you?” she asked, reaching out and touching his right elbow, reassuring him of her concern and affection.
The Doktor glanced at her, his black eyes probing. “Can you read my mind then?”
Clarissa didn’t respond.
The Doktor sighed. “I would expect no less from my masterpiece. The majority of the others are so primitive, so savage. But you! You’re unique! You give meaning to my life and provide hope for my future accomplishments! You’re beautiful, and intelligent, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re telepathic as well.”
She wasn’t telepathic, but saying so would simply depress him further.
The Doktor gazed at the stars, his stature seemingly diminished by their majestic grandeur. “Did you see his face?” he asked in a hushed whisper.
“What?”
“Did you see his face?”
“Whose face?” Clarissa had no idea whom he was talking about.
“The boy’s,” the Doktor said quietly, “when he was nailed to the crossbeam.”
“Joshua? The one from the Family?”
“Who else?” the Doktor snapped, glaring at her.
Clarissa recoiled in shock and amazement. “Is that what’s bothering you? What you did to Joshua?”
The Doktor turned and looked off into the distance. “Did you hear him? Did you hear what he said to me when we hung him up?”
“No,” Clarissa responded. She had been conversing with Thor when the youth mumbled several words to the Doktor.
“He stared into my eyes with this pitifully sad expression,” the Doktor said, relating the incident, “and told me…” The Doktor paused, his voice fading. “I was forgiven.”
Clarissa threw back her head and laughed. “Forgiven! He—” Her sentence was abruptly cut short as the Doktor whirled and grabbed her by the front of her fatigue shirt.
“Are you laughing at me, my dear?” he demanded. “You may be my favorite, but you know I will not tolerate anyone ridiculing me!”
“Doktor! Please!” Clarissa put her hands on his arm. “You’re hurting me!”
The Doktor slowly released her, his features troubled.
“I don’t understand,” Clarissa stated. “You’ve killed so many during your lifetime. Why is this one affecting you so much?”
“Didn’t you see his eyes?” the Doktor replied. “There was something about them, an ineffable quality of… compassion. I’ve never beheld eyes like his.”
“I can’t believe you let him get to you,” Clarissa remarked.
The Doktor studied the firmament. “Is it possible he was right?”
“About what?”
“Is it possible there is a God after all?”
Clarissa was alarmed by the Doktor’s erratic behavior. He was a confirmed atheist and had been ever since she’d known him. Why was he doubting his beliefs? What motivated this peculiar discussion? Had the loss of his laboratory unhinged his mental equilibrium? “But you’ve told us time and time again there is no God,” she reminded him.
“What if I was wrong?” he queried in a melancholy tone. “Look at all those stars! Ponder the infinity of the universe, and observe how everything, from the grandest galaxy to the minutest microbe, has a functional purpose to perform.” He paused. “What if I was wrong?”
Clarissa gently took his right hand in hers. “Doktor, get a hold of yourself. You are not wrong. You are never wrong. Oh, you may commit a small error every now and then. We all do. But your genius, your mighty intellect, is unequalled. Your wisdom is beyond reproach. Your accomplishments are unparalleled. Men and women tremble at the mere mention of your name. You are the greatest man this planet has ever seen.”
The Doktor slowly nodded. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?”
Clarissa grinned. She was getting through to him, nipping this morbid introspection in the bud. “What was Joshua compared to you? He was an insignificant gnat. Will his name be remembered? No. Yet yours is legend. Why let the memory of a gnat upset you so?”
The Doktor straightened, smiling. “You are correct, of course. I apologize for this rare display of weakness. I haven’t quite been myself since Yama and Lynx obliterated my Biological Center.” He stared at her and laughed. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking about lately?”