Xeno Sapiens (32 page)

He looked away from the far distant
Alamo and at a line of lights. Like a strangely and painfully
broken snake, the line of car headlights moved slowly down the
highway toward Sedgefield auditorium where Joshua Hall was
preparing to deliver the sermon of his life. Seth did not know the
specifics as such, but was attuned to some great force that
gathered there. Having no referent to tell him this was anomalous
human perception, he accepted it as valid input.

He felt no guilt for his killings. His
first lesson at the hands of the old man had been a painful one,
and well learned. He would not make that mistake again.

Seth lapsed into a self-induced
hypnosis. The pain, the infection, the hunger, all had taken their
toll. He shook his head, wincing once again at the fresh stab of
pain.

Rain began to fall as he made his way
up the mountainside, back to the only home he had ever
known.

Alex had been demanding an audience
with Merrifield all day. Late in the afternoon, shortly before Val
Sheffield and Jay Thomas made Seth’s acquaintance, his demand was
granted.

Merrifield had kept close tabs on the
search. He was more than displeased with the lack of results. There
had been numerous possibles, but after the initial excitement at
these sightings, Merrifield had begun to dismiss the possibles as
meaningless. No small feat when one considered that this childish,
injured creature had eluded a manhunt that would have netted the
wiliest criminal. He briefly wondered if Ingrid had managed to give
him the ability to become invisible as well. Sophisticated infrared
equipment and helicopters had been used. The searchers had found a
lot of deer, and even a bear, but no Seth. And when they did find
him, Merrifield feared the discoverers might find that Seth could
freeze them, fry them, or shake and bake them as easily as he
thought about it. It was exactly what Merrifield had desired, but
he had never wanted it to be used against him.

He had been expecting a renewed
confrontation with Clifton. It was a sticky situation. On the one
hand, Clifton was no more than an employee and Merrifield would
have been completely justified in refusing him an explanation of
anything. On the other, he was a valuable commodity and Merrifield
harbored hopes he could be turned to the way of right-thinking
people. If Clifton had a fault it was a tendency to let emotion
cloud his logic.

There was a light rap on the door.
Clifton, looking drained and ill even beneath his new shower and
change of clothes, walked in and sat down opposite
Merrifield.

“
We can discuss this rationally,”
Merrifield said in opening, “or we can have a reprise of last
night’s dustup. We’re all tired, we’re all on edge.” He sagged back
in his chair. “What say we talk this out like civilized
men?”

“
All I want to know,” Clifton said,
“is where we stand. What’s the official line?”

“
The official line comes from me. In
point of fact, I have to consider other opinions.”

“
Including mine?”

“
I’ve always valued your
input.”

“
Then why do you keep shoving my
opinions out of the way? You refuse to even consider the points I
make.”

“
That’s not true,” Merrifield said. He
straightened his back, contorting his face painfully as he did so.
“Just last night you were all too eager to put the cart before the
horse. Your first reaction was to hunt Seth down like an animal and
kill him. I don’t believe you stopped to think it would be a hell
of a job just to find him.”

Alex opened his mouth, but Merrifield
stopped him.

“
Please, Alex. You’ve been nailed to
the wall by me for far less in the past. Do you think I like
telling you this? Do you think it brings me any joy to know you’ve
turned against me? And Ingrid?”

Clifton had enough sheer brass neck to
look Merrifield straight in the eye.

“
No, Jon. I know you don’t like it. I
don’t like it, either.”

“
We can go on butting heads,”
Merrifield said, “and end up with somebody getting hurt. Or we can
work together and thresh this whole mess out.”

“
My mind is the one that should be
changed?”

“
The rest of us, the people that
matter, think we should do it just as it’s going off.”

“
You think Seth is
salvageable?”

“
Salvageable or not, he’s as human as
you or I. Killing Seth would be the destruction of two years’ work,
not to mention murder just as surely as you think he murdered those
two soldiers. Worse, still, cold blooded murder. At least Seth only
killed to survive.”

“
You make him sound like some poor,
orphaned inner city kid from a broken home. I suppose you’ll give
him the Miranda when he’s captured?”

“
Alex, if we were to do it your way,
you would have him brought before a drumhead court complete with
bailiff, judge, jury, and executioner. That’s not a reasonable
scenario, is it?”

“
I never said that’s the way I wanted
it.”

“
No. Barring that, you would have had
him shot down on sight like a dirty dog.”

Alex stood. “I think this is about all
I want to hear.”

“
Siddown,” Merrifield said.

Alex looked at Merrifield as if his lid
had finally been screwed down too tight and was mashing his
brains.

“
It doesn’t matter what I think,
anyway, does it,” Alex asked.

Merrifield sighed. “No. It doesn’t. I
make the final decision. Seth comes back. Alive.”

“
Then why the interview?” Despite his
frustration, Alex was fascinated, wondering why Merrifield
considered it so important to keep him thinking along lines of
saving the project.

“
If Seth dies,” Merrifield went on,
“the project dies. There will be no second chance.” Merrifield
spoke with distaste. “If Seth is not back by tonight, the Doomsday
Plan begins.”

“
Doomsday Plan?” Clifton, who knew
many things about the project even Ingrid didn’t, was caught by
surprise.

“
If Seth is not returned by tomorrow,
a special detachment of Blue Berets and FBI agents will arrive.
These are soldiers and agents unlike any other. They
will
find Seth, and when
they do, the plug will be pulled. All files, tapes, hard drives and
discs will be commandeered. The facility will be dismantled and all
traces of what we’ve done here will be obliterated. You, me,
Ingrid, everyone will be dispersed and scattered to the four winds.
Likely, by design, to never see each other again.
Finis
.”

Merrifield squeezed his eyes shut. They
were red from rubbing and too generous tipping of the bourbon
bottle. Clifton saw the truth in Merrifield’s eyes even through
their red weariness. At least the truth as he believed it. Clifton
began to doubt his own intractability. Seth’s destruction would
only postpone the inevitable heat that was going to come down. It
wouldn’t bring the dead soldiers back and it surely would not bode
well for his continued employment with the company.

But the most compelling point was that
there would be no second chance. Clifton wondered if he was feeling
a gut reaction to blood on so many hands it was impossible to lay
blame. The burden of guilt had to be borne by someone. Merrifield
wouldn’t take it, and Ingrid was already carrying around a load of
guilt that would break a pack mule’s back. Maybe the guilt could be
transferred, spread around. When and if he were ever asked about
it, he could say he had done the all American thing and passed the
buck. The conscience of a shady, manipulative, and sometimes
vicious complex was too great a weight for him to bear. He would
have to go along with everybody else.

“
Is it that important,” he asked. “Now
that it’s done, do you really think you need him?”

“
Those that dole out the funds don’t
accept technical papers as proof. They need a breathing
body.”

“
A slave,” Clifton said
thickly.

Merrifield sighed deeply, a sign that
even he could be dismayed.

“
We have no voice in that. But he’s
likely to save many more lives than he takes. So when you worry
about a couple of dead soldiers, ask yourself if that’s too large a
price to pay for what we’ve learned.”

“
They were people, too,” Alex said.
“They have to be answered for.”

“
Dead is dead. They’re beyond our
help. All we can do now is help ourselves.”

“
Josh Hall isn’t planning to make it
easy for us.”

“
Should Mr. Hall queer anything we
have going, he will be publicly defrocked and humiliated. Four
women will come forth having borne his illegitimate children. Also
a man, claiming to have contracted HSV II from him. Quite a coup,
especially considering his hellfire and damnation against moral
decadence.

“
A list of his exploits in Nicaragua
will be made readily available to the media. The IRS and DEA will
have a field day with him. A half kilo of nose candy is not a good
thing to be found behind the light switch in your
house.”

“
You would do all that to discredit
him?”

“
We’re prepared to do just that.
There’s more, but what I’ve already mentioned will be more than
ample for the left wing media hacks to crucify him. They’ll have to
unstick themselves from their own baby batter just at the thought
of bringing down some right wing fundamentalist.”

“
He’s speaking tonight,” Clifton said
uneasily. He wondered if the dirt Hall was planning to dump could
be acted on so quickly. “He’ll probably spill his guts about
everything tonight.”

“
I’m sure that’s exactly what he has
in mind. It’s unfortunate, but it can’t be undone. However, there
is a bright side. If we, with hundreds of people beating the bushes
for Seth, can’t find him, what chance does Hall have? And without
Seth, what proof has he?”

“
It doesn’t seem likely,” Clifton
admitted, “But what if Seth finds
him
?”

Merrifield seemed startled. “I don’t
quite follow.”

Alex smiled strangely. “That’s what he
was made for, wasn’t he?”

The auditorium was packed. The
temperature among the milling crowd had soared to over a hundred
degrees despite the night’s chill. The mixed aromas of perfume,
cologne, anti-perspirant, and the pervasive, cattle-car smell
unique to crowds, thickened the air.

Alex had driven down at Merrifield’s
request to get the low down on Hall’s plan. A steady rain fell, but
this time it was not a thunderstorm. The temperature was dropping
and there would be snow by morning. His legs wanted to cramp as
they were shifted into a sitting position and his eyes had blurred
a couple of times on the way down. It was an effort for him to
straighten his limbs once he got to the auditorium, but he felt his
mobility was slowly returning. An usher greeted him as he entered
the lobby. Clifton felt the heat even this far away from the main
body of the congregation. The usher clasped his hand warmly,
smiling widely as if his mouth had too many teeth.

“
Welcome, brother,” he gushed. He
squeezed Clifton’s hand tighter. “We’re so
glad
to have you.”

Alex told the usher he wouldn’t have
missed it. This pleased the usher to no end. His eyes
gleamed.

“
God will bless you,” he said,
“Reverend Hall has a special message tonight. You’ll be glad you
came, brother. Tonight is the start of something big.”

“
I’m sure,” Clifton
murmured.

Alex looked around. An hour before show
time and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Josh had the
place loaded against him.

More ushers were busy handing out
leaflets to the six hundred or so standees at the rear of the
auditorium. The crowd milled about all the way to the lobby and
jammed the fire exits. Clifton guessed there to be two thousand
souls there. A handsome young man appeared before Clifton and
pressed a leaflet into his palm before disappearing. It was a
single sheet of paper, printed on one side.

Are you tired of loved ones
dying because of man-made global warming, pollution, pestilence,
and disease?

Tired of man’s loss of
faith in The Lord? The turning away of God’s children from the
Father? The worshiping of false idols?

Are you sickened at the degradation of God’s most perfect
creation at the hands
of
false healers who use artificial means to prolong the agony
of man on earth, when that time could have been spent in the Glory
of the Kingdom of God?