The what?
Yama edged toward the four wide doors without knobs. The second door was still open, the G above the door flashing yellow. A memory tugged at Yama’s consciousness, a recollection from his childhood, from his schooling years. He recalled lessons dealing with life before World War III, in particular a study of the mechanized marvels mankind had developed before the Big Blast. One of the books from the Family Library was spread open on the teacher’s desk, revealing photograph after photograph of wonders of the scientific age: planes and jets, buses and trains, cars and trucks, motorcycles and snowmobiles, and something really incredible.
Portable closets.
Yama absently snapped his fingers, attempting to remember the proper name. It began with an E…
Elevators!
Yama hurried into the open elevator. To his right was a series of letters and numbers corresponding to those on the lighted strip above the door, with each letter or numeral stamped onto a square white button. The buttons were arranged in a vertical row.
How did the elevator operate?
Yama glanced at the front doors.
The policeman and the six soldiers were only three steps from the top.
Yama quickly pressed the bottom button, the one marked with an S.
Instantly, the door slid shut and the elevator rocked slightly as it began to descend.
Where was it taking him?
The elevator’s descent was quiet, the motion smooth. As the door had closed, the button labeled with a G became very bright. The G grew dark after a few seconds, however, and the next button, the one marked with a B, lit up. After the elevator continued to drop, the next button, the S, flickered and illuminated.
What did the G, B, and S stand for?
The elevator abruptly stopped and the door rolled Yama raised the Wilkinson, alert for trouble.
A solitary hallway extended from the elevator, running straight ahead for twenty-five yards before it branched in two directions. The walls were constructed of cinder blocks, the ceiling of white tile, while the floor was covered with a thick red carpet.
The hall was deserted.
Yama edged from the elevator. There were closed doors on both sides of the hallway, four on his left and three on his right. The first door he passed was identified by a small sign reading: “Janitorial Closet.”
Not exactly what he was looking for.
The next door bore a sign stating: “Bio Lab.” Yama tried the doorknob and the door swung slowly open. Cautiously, he peered around the door, not knowing what to expect.
The chamber was huge and filled with table after table of scientific, medical, and chemical apparatuses. Dozens of workers, the majority of them from the Genetic Research Division and the rest human, were engaged in a variety of technical and experimental tasks. Some were toiling over smoldering test tubes, others mixing chemicals, and a group of four near the door was dissecting a dog, a collie.
Yama quietly closed the door before the occupants noticed him. He realized he must be in the very heart of the Biological Center, in the Docktor’s inner sanctum.
The next door opened into a small office containing a desk, two chairs, and a file cabinet. No one was inside. The sign on the door revealed this office evidently belonged to someone named Clarissa.
Yama padded along the hallway and reached the next door. This door was locked and a bright red sign was posted at eye level. It read: “Keep Out!”
Now what could this be?
Yama knelt and examined the lock. He could shoot it open, but the shot would attract unwelcome attention to his presence. Trying to pry it open would take too long and leave marks.
The sound of cheerful whistling suddenly reached his ears.
Yama rose and hurried into Clarissa’s office, leaving a slight opening between the door and the jamb so he could view the hallway.
A man in a white frock appeared at the junction, holding a glass bottle filled with a red liquid. The man reached the locked door, produced a key, and walked inside.
Yama waited a moment, then left the office, crossed the hall, and carefully entered the room. There was no sign of the man in the frock. This chamber, like the Bio Lab, was enormous, and like the Bio Lab it contained row upon row of tables. On these tables, however, were large glass vats filled with a clear liquid and something else.
What were they?
Yama moved closer to the nearest vat, observing at least a half-dozen tubes emerging from the vat and running along an overhead rod until they reached a massive piece of equipment positioned in the middle of the room. This latter item rose almost to the ceiling. Dozens upon dozens of tubes ran into it near the top, and the bottom third was a confusing array of switches, knobs, and blinking lights of varied colors.
Still no trace of the man in the white frock.
Yama reached the first vat and gazed inside. Although the liquid in the vat was clear, along the sides it was somewhat foamy, compelling the Warrior to squint as he looked within the vat. It took several seconds for the sight he was viewing to register.
It couldn’t be!
Ordinarily, Yama was one of the more stoic Warriors, refusing to allow his feelings to show. It usually took quite a shock to elicit a reaction from him, and this time his mouth dropped, his eyes widened, and he inadvertently took two steps backward. Sheer disgust overwhelmed him and he suffered a nauseous sensation.
The grisly scene he beheld struck the Warrior to the very core of his being. As with every other Family member, Yama was deeply religious.
The Founder of the survival retreat called the Home, Kurt Carpenter, had himself been a religious man. He had developed a program of religious instruction for Family members starting when they were yet infants.
Carpenter had recognized that religion was indispensable to moral and spiritual growth, but he had wanted to avoid the formalized dogmatic doctrine, the perpetuation of fossilized creeds, so prevalent in pre-war society. Consequently, every Family member was permitted to cultivate exclusively personal spiritual beliefs, and the establishment of a Family religion was strictly forbidden. Despite the injunction against formalization, a certain generalized consensus did exist. Everyone in the Family believed there was a God, a Supreme Being, a Divine Light, the Way, Allah, or whatever term the individual Family member decided to use in describing the Maker and Shaper of the cosmos. Each Family member also accepted the fact every mortal was spiritually related to everyone else, was a son or daughter in one vast universal family.
Consequently, the Family viewed life itself as especially precious, to be treated with the ultimate respect. Yama’s reverence for all life was particularly keen, and consequently he was exceptionally unsettled by the contents of the vat.
It was a baby, no more than six months old, floating in the liquid in the vat, attached to a half-dozen intravenous tubes!
Yama couldn’t bring himself to take another look. His utter revulsion sickened him. What was it Seth Mason had said? That the Doktor drank blood? Wasn’t that the rumor? Well, one of the tubes running from the infant to the machine in the middle of the chamber was carrying a reddish substance!
What did it all mean? What was the Doktor…
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
Yama turned to his left. The man in the white frock was standing three feet away, his hands on his hips, glaring in obvious anger at the Warrior.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” the man repeated. “You know damn well this area is off-limits to everybody except authorized personnel! Let me see your pass!”
“Certainly,” Yama replied sheepishly. He stepped over to the man and held out the Wilkinson. “Would you hold this for me?”