"What's done with us may not be your concern, but it's still your responsibility."
"I'm sorry."
"When do we go?"
London looked up at the sky, which had grown very dark. "There's a storm coming-a bad one. We'll wait it out here, and by tomorrow morn- "
Suddenly Golly came flying off the edge of the cliff above the lean-to. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up charging at London. The Warrior clawed for his gun and had it halfway out of his holster when Golly hit him. The Warrior flew backward through the air and almost landed in my lap. Golly started to charge again, abruptly stopped when she saw the gun swinging around toward her, turned to her left and headed around the fire for the trees. London leaned over me, took careful aim on Golly's back and was about to pull the trigger when I leaned forward and sank my teeth into his right cheek.
London's burst of fire went over Golly's head, and she disappeared from sight as London cursed and flailed at me. I hung on to his cheek, chewing the raw flesh and working saliva into the wound. Finally he tore free, and I spat out the chunk of flesh he'd left in my mouth.
Holding one hand to his bleeding cheek, London raised his machine pistol to club me, then thought better of it. "You're not the class act I thought you were, Frederickson," he said, as if that were the best insult he could think of. Then he turned and walked away into the woods, apparently looking for Golly.
London looked more than a little peaked when he returned about five minutes later. In fact, he didn't look well at all. His face had gone gray and seemed to grow even darker before my eyes as he staggered, caroming off the naked trees. He fell on his back in front of the lean-to, got up on his knees, crawled toward us.
Somehow, he'd managed to hang on to his machine pistol.
Garth and I looked at each other, and I could see in his eyes that he understood what was happening.
London also understood what was happening, and I could see by the look in his eyes that he didn't appreciate the irony of it all.
"You… poisoned me," Lieutenant General Stryder London, AWOL from the U.S. Army, whispered hoarsely as he flopped on the ground in front of me. "Kill… you… too."
Garth and I watched with more than passing interest as the hand with the machine pistol lifted off the ground; it was trembling violently, but it was moving. Toward us. Then it stopped, collapsed to the ground.
"Now that's a class act," I said as London twitched and died.
Garth threw back his head and uttered a long, drawn-out howl of triumph and joy.
"Don't get too excited yet, brother," I said as I tested the strength of the tether around my neck and only managed to tighten it. "There's a blizzard on the way, the fire's going out, and London hog-tied us pretty good. Can you work yourself up into one of your mighty snits?"
Garth slowly shook his head. I glanced at Whisper, stuck in the log twenty feet away; she might as well have been twenty miles away.
"Golly!"
There was no response, no gorilla-only the rising wind whistling through the swaying trees. The flames of the campfire were starting to gutter and die, and I was growing cold and sleepy. I fumbled at the knot around my wrists with my gloved fingers, got nowhere.
"Golly?! Golly! Hey, babe, we could really use a little help here!"
Inspired by desperation, I began belting out arias from The Magic Flute like show tunes, shouting them out at the top of my lungs, hoping I could be heard above the wind. Finally I stopped, looked around.
Nothing.
Act Two. More arias, complete with a la-la-la orchestral accompaniment. I could feel my voice going when I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I yelped, looked around to see Golly standing behind me.
GO Y LOV?UPQINGM ZAAT
"Right, babe. I love Mozart too, remember? Listen to me carefully, Golly. I want you to take the knife out of that log over there and bring it here. I want you to cut us free. Do you understand?"
?
More Mozart. This time I hummed a cheerful, soothing etude. Golly inclined her head, half closed her eyes, and seemed to be swaying tentatively in time to the music.
"Golly, please try to concentrate and understand," I said softly.
"I understand now what you meant when you told me you felt funny; you're losing your wrongness. But you have to stay like people just a while longer. Understand?"
FUCKING TRY
"If you can't, sweetheart, Garth and I will die. You have to take the knife out of the log and bring it here."
Golly slowly ambled over to Whisper. She cocked her head and stared at the blade for a few moments, then pulled it free. She shuffled around the campfire three times, then responded to more Mozart and coaxing, and came over to me. Half an aria, another instruction, and she cut the bark strips around my wrist.
Not knowing how she would respond, and not caring, I wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed her brow. Then I took Whisper from her hand, cut the rope around my ankles, and cut Garth free. I immediately rushed to throw more logs on the fire, and the three of us huddled around the leaping, life-giving flames.
"Listen, guys," I said, "I've got a problem. London's plan was the best; wait here in the shelter of the cliff, by the fire, until the storm blows over. I can't do that. I've gone cold-blooded, and the only thing keeping me alive in this cold is a battery-operated heating unit. The batteries are going dead. I have to make a run for it now, hope that I can find the snowmobile, and hope there's enough gas to get me back to the Institute-if I can find it in the- "
Garth didn't wait to hear any more. He straightened up, came over and pushed me in the direction from which we had come. I resisted, clutched both his naked, hairy forearms.
"Garth, I don't know what's going to happen out there. I've lost my sense of direction; even without the storm, I'm not sure I can find my way back before I run out of gas. If you and Golly stay here, at least you have a fire, and maybe there's a chance- "
Now Garth actually growled at me, and anger flared in his eyes as he motioned for me to lead the way. I grabbed one of Golly's hands, Garth grabbed the other, and together we hurried back through a forest that had grown ominously still. Heavy snowflakes had begun to fall.
36
A half hour after we'd dug one of the snowmobiles out of a drift and started off, I knew we were hopelessly lost. The sense of direction that had guided me so unerringly through Mount Doom had disappeared. By now the storm was hitting us in full fury, and we were wallowing in a howling, wind- and snow-blasted world of freezing cold that had no horizon.
Even with Garth and Golly huddling around me, I kept nodding off at the controls, and it was only Garth's persistent shaking and slapping that kept me even semiconscious.
Then we ran out of gas.
My mother's dream…
Bad decision to allow Garth and Golly to come with me into the blizzard; maybe they could have made it out on their own, in the morning.
Maybe other Warriors from the Institute would have mounted a rescue party, found them; at least Garth would have been alive.
Maybe Garth's cells would have stopped exploding.
Despite his prehuman form, maybe Garth could have found Siegmund Loge on his own and stopped Project Valhalla.
While there's life, there's hope. Ho, ho, ho.
Maybe Loge, or even some other scientist, could have cured Garth.
Maybe.