“What did you expect?” Hickok asked.
“We had no right to kill her,” Geronimo said. “How could you, Nathan?”
“Piece of cake,” the gunfighter replied. “And we had every right to kill her. She wanted us dead, didn’t she? She was goadin’ the nymphs on to tear us apart.”
“But Warriors aren’t supposed to be cold-blooded killers.”
“And what do you think Warriors do for a living? Grow flowers? We’re trained to kill. That’s our purpose in life. Oh, I know we do it to protect the Family and the Home, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, we kill scumbags for a living.”
“There’s more to being a Warrior than that,” Blade said, staring at Endora’s oddly composed features.
“Like what, paid?”
“Like adhering to higher ideals of duty and purpose.”
“You’ve been listenin’ to Plato again. Ideals are fine and all, but when those nymphs came through the door at us I’ll bet you didn’t spend one second thinkin’ about ideals, duty and purpose. All you were thinkin’ about was stayin’ alive and killin’ as many of those crazies as you could.
Am I right?”
“Of course, but—”
“I rest my case.”
“You didn’t let me finish. Yes, we kill for a living, but only when the need arises. We can’t go around blowing people away for the hell of it.
There must be a reason.”
“How about savin’ the lives of lots of innocent folks? Is that a good enough reason for you? The Morlocks have been torturin’ and murderin’ people for years. All we’re doing is puttin’ a stop to it.”
Blade dropped the subject. He knew better than to waste his breath trying to persuade the gunfighter to change his mind. Also, the sentiments Hickok expressed matched his own in many respects, but he still disliked the callous way in which Hickok had slain Endora Morlock. It had beem more like an execution than a necessary act of preservation.
“Let’s go find the brains of this outfit,” Hickok suggested, walking toward the doorway, carefully stepping over the many bodies in his path.
Blade and Geronimo started to follow him.
Unexpectedly, Elphinstone sat up, the armor rasping loudly, then heaved himself erect and surveyed the room. His gaze lingered on the dead serfs and finally on his sister. “Endora?”
The three youths simply watched as the brute sank to his knees and lifted Endora’s head into his metal lap.
“Sissie? Talk to Elphie.”
Blade could barely stand the sight. Shame saddened his soul, and his broad shoulders slumped dejectedly. Should they just leave Elphinstone to his misery? If they did, he might come after them. Perhaps it would be best to reason with him. “Elphinstone?”
Those dull eyes snapped up, peering through the dented visor, and locked on the youths. “You!” he growled. “You did this to her!”
“Please, Elphinstone,” Blade said. “Stay calm.”
“Kill!” the brute bellowed, surging to his feet, his sister’s head hitting the floor with a thud. “Kill!” he repeated, raising his enormous fists, and charged.
Chapter Twenty
Blade had the Martin halfway to his shoulders when Geronimo’s Winchester cracked twice.
Both rounds were aimed at the visor, one of them flattening against the metal with a distinct ping and not quite penetrating while the second went through the right eye slot, bored through the brute’s brain, and pinged a second time when it struck the back of the helmet.
Elphinstone halted, his arms sagged, and he swayed. Although his brain had ceased to function, his body hadn’t quite gotten the message. His fingers twitched, as if he wanted to grab something, and his left knee jerked forward as if about to intitiate another step. Then, like a towering tree in the forest, he toppled with a tremendous crash.
“Two down and two to go,” Hickok said, departing without a backward glance.
Geronimo slowly lowered the rifle and looked at Blade. “I didn’t want to do that.”
“I know.”
“There was no other choice.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think being a Warrior is all it’s cracked up to be.”
Blade wheeled and stepped into the corridor where the gunfighter was waiting. “Endora mentioned something about a control room. If we find it, we’ll find Morlock.”
“A control room for what?”
“I don’t know.”
A reserved Geronimo joined them and fed new bullets into the Winchester. “Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“What’s the matter, pard?”
“I may not become a Warrior.”
Hickok’s mouth dropped. “Why not?”
“I’m not like you, Nathan. When I kill someone, I feel a hurt inside.”
“And you think I don’t?” Hickok responded, his tone betraying bitterness. “I feel it too, but I don’t let it get to me. I control it. I tell myself it has to be done.” He turned and walked toward the stairs.
“Nathan?” Blade said.
“What?”
“Why did you shoot her?”
“One of us had to do the job, and it might as well have been me,” Hickok said and kept walking.
Blade glanced at Geronimo, whose melancholy visibly intensified. “He did it so we wouldn’t have to,” he stated in a whisper.
“Me and my big mouth,” Geronimo remarked.
They hurried to catch up, and the three of them were soon climbing the steps to the next floor. There were no candles lit, no sounds indicating any of the rooms were occupied, so on they went to the next level, and the floor after that, until eventually they reached the uppermost one, ten stories above the ground. An arched, open window gave them a view of the glittering stars and the inky expanse of countryside and explained the breeze they always felt on the stairway.
A sole candle burned next to a partly open door along the left-hand corridor.
“He’s mine,” Hickok said, leveling both Colts and stalking forward to the door. He kicked it open and darted inside.
Blade and Geronimo were right on his heels. The giant marveled at a large chamber illuminated by two lanterns that revealed banks of electronic equipment aligned along all four walls. There was no sign of Angus Morlock.
“The crud has skipped,” Hickok guessed.
“What is all this?” Geronimo asked, moving to a console and studying a series of switches and knobs.
When Blade noticed a dozen blank squares of glass arranged in three rows on the far wall, curiosity impelled him closer to study them. Their shape prompted vague memories of photographs he’d once seen in a book in the Family library, but he couldn’t put his mental finger on the exact photos. Two knobs were positioned under each square.
Hickok walked to a piece of equipment and flicked several toggle switches. “I wonder what these do?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything,” Geronimo said. “Morlock might have this room booby-trapped.”
“No way, pard. He wouldn’t want to damage all this stuff,” Hickok said and worked another toggle.
Suddenly, from a speaker mounted on the north wall, came the sound of leaves being stirred by a strange breeze, the distant wail of a coyote and the croaking of tree frogs.
“Where the blazes is that coming from?”
“Outside somewhere,” Geronimo said. “But how?”
An answer formed unbidden in Blade’s mind, and with it came comprehension. “A microphone.”
“What?” Hickok said.
“A microphone. It’s a device that can hear sounds and relay them elsewhere. There must be a mike planted outside the castle walls connected to this room by an underground wire, or else the equipment in here operates on battery power.”
“How do you know all this?” Hickok asked.
“I remember reading a book about the electronic age, as it was called, and all the wonderful devices available before the Big Blast. The people had devices for playing music, washing clothes and cooking food in a minute flat,” Blade said, indicating the blank squares of glass. “And unless I miss my guess, these are monitors used to keep watch on the grounds.”