Star began running.
“Wait!” Blade abruptly called.
She stopped and faced him. “What’s wrong?”
Blade picked up the keys from the dash and locked the door. “We wouldn’t want anyone to sneak into the SEAL, would we?” He flipped the keys to her and watched as she raced toward the cabins.
“Much excitement, yes?” shouted someone off to his left.
Blade twisted, smiling. Gremlin was standing at the entrance to the underground chamber used to store the SEAL. He walked in Gremlin’s direction as the creature approached him.
“Good morning, no?” Gremlin greeted him. “Catching worms, yes?”
“Catching worms?” Blade repeated, then grinned. “You must be hanging around Hickok too much. Your jokes are getting as corny as his.”
Gremlin chuckled. “Bad news, yes? It means Gremlin’s brain functioning like Hickok’s, no? How awful!”
The mention of a brain reminded Blade of a conversation he had had with Gremlin in Montana, one they had never satisfactorily resolved.
“Gremlin, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk.”
“About Hickok’s brain?” Gremlin retorted. “Small subject, yes?”
“No, not about Hickok’s brain,” Blade said. “About you.”
Gremlin’s levity vanished. “We must, yes?” he asked, frowning.
“We must.”
“Why?”
Blade placed his right hand on Gremlin’s left shoulder. “You must see my position. I know you don’t like to talk about your past, but it can’t be helped or delayed any longer. I’m head of the Warriors, as you know, and I’m responsible for the
Family’s security. I think you have information critical to the welfare of the Family. I’ve postponed questioning you because I was reluctant to disturb you, but we’re going to talk now. There’s no one else up yet so we can enjoy a heart-to-heart without interruption. Is it okay?”
Gremlin sighed. “If we must, we must, yes?” His expression saddened.
“Does hurt, though.”
“Then we’ll begin with a painless question,” Blade said. “Like what were you doing in the underground chamber?”
“Sleep there, no?” Gremlin responded.
“You sleep down there?” Blade’s surprise showed. “Why? You could use a bunk in B Block.”
Gremlin shook his head. “Gremlin know some of Family afraid of him, yes? Not want to upset their sleep, no? So sleep by self.”
Blade knew better than to argue. While most members of the Family, especially the children, were fond of Gremlin, there were a few who were uneasy in his presence. Blade decided to change the subject. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you. I shot you in Montana, remember?”
“Gremlin not forget little things like that, yes?” he sarcastically quipped.
“You healed so quickly,” Blade stated. “I know I missed a vital organ, but your recovery was still remarkable. And the wound on your neck where the collar used to be also healed incredibly fast. How?”
Gremlin tapped his chest. “Accelerated repair, yes?”
Th^y absently began strolling as they talked, heading on an easterly course.
“I don’t understand,” Blade confessed. “You’ll need to tell me everything.”
“Everything?” Gremlin repeated. “Not serious, no?”
“Completely serious,” Blade assured him. “Listen. What do I know about you? Very little. I know you’re from the Cheyenne Citadel, and you were in a unit called the Genetic Research Division, or G.R.D., as it’s known. This G.R.D. is operated by the man they call the Doktor. You also told me you talk the way you do because part of your brain was removed by this Doktor. And you said you were once a man. Am I right? Did I get all the facts straight?”
Gremlin, downcast, nodded.
“I must know more,” Blade urged him. “I believe the Family is in deadly danger from this Doktor and Samuel II. The more I can learn about them, the better.” He paused, touched by regret, sorry he was distressing Gremlin. “Let’s take the items one at a time. What do you mean by saying you were once a man? A man like me?”
“Almost a man, yes?” Gremlin detailed. “Would have been, no?”
Blade shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Doktor…” Gremlin said, his expression tortured. “Doktor change human embryo, yes? Make Gremlin. Understand, no?”
“You mean,” Blade stated, “the Doktor took a human embryo, a perfectly normal embryo, and somehow made you?”
Gremlin slowly nodded.
Blade’s mind whirled, staggered by the implications. Tampering with an innocent embryo! The very idea was obscene! “The Doktor is capable of such an atrocity? He has the skill and the means to accomplish such a feat?”
Again Gremlin nodded. “Doktor is living evil, yes? But very smart man. Genius, no? Scientist. Expertise in chemistry, electronics, radiology, and genetics. Much more, yes?”
“And there are others like you?” Blade inquired.
“Fifteen hundred, yes? More or less, no?”
Fifteen hundred! That tallied with the figure Blade had learned in Montana. “Were all of them created from an embryo like you?”
“No,” Gremlin answered. “Some, yes? Not all, no. Others made by Doktor in his laboratory.”
“What else does the Doktor do?”
“Experiments all the time, yes? Uses living subjects, no?”
Blade stopped. “He experiments on living people?”
“Yes. Especially babies. Doktor likes babies, yes?”
Blade, stunned, continued moving toward the cabins. “And he gets away with it? Why don’t the people in the Civilized Zone stop him?”
“How, yes?” Gremlin gestured hopelessly, uplifting his palms and shrugging. “Doktor’s lab is fortified, yes? Has personal bodyguards from his creations, no? Army also protects. Nothing people can do.”
“I was told by a soldier in Montana,” Blade said, “that the Doktor and Samuel II are very close. Is that true?”
“True, yes? They work together, plan together, to reconquer United States for themselves. Gremlin hopes it never happens, no?”
“We’ll do our utmost to insure it doesn’t,” Blade pledged. “You told me before that the Doktor maintains his headquarters in the Cheyenne Citadel. How long has he been there?”
“Since right after the war, yes?” Gremlin gazed ahead. They were abreast of the row of cabins and still bearing east.
“Right after the…” Blade repeated, then laughed. “You’re pulling my leg, or else you misunderstood. I asked…”
“Gremlin know what you asked,” Gremlin snapped, cutting him off.
“And Gremlin gave right answer, yes? Doktor has been in Cheyenne Citadel since right after war.”
“The Third World War was a century ago,” Blade reminded his companion.
“Gremlin know that,” Gremlin stated indignantly.
“Are you trying to tell me the Doktor is almost one hundred years old?”
Blade questioned skeptically.
Gremlin shot Blade an annoyed glance. “Gremlin not trying to tell you anything, yes? Gremlin is telling you Doktor is over one hundred years old, no?”
“Impossible,” Blade flatly disputed him.
“You can look at Gremlin and say that, yes?” Gremlin retorted.
Blade absently stared at the trees ahead, reflecting. Was it really possible? Could this Doktor be that old? If so, how? Life expectancies were markedly reduced since the Big Blast, an inevitable consequence of the harsh struggle for existence, an invariable result of reducing the state of society to the survival of the fittest. Gremlin must be mistaken. It simply wasn’t feasible. But what about the rest of the information? The experimentation and the Genetics Research Division, the babies and removing a portion of Gremlin’s brain. How did it all tie together? What was the Doktor’s purpose?