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shivering. His teeth were still chattering intermittently when they stopped
before a door. The
Commander stepped aside, inclined his head in a short bow and waved one hand.
Ryan walked across the threshold and was dazzled by bright light reflecting
from plate glass
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They were in a long hexagonal room. The left wall was composed of sheets of
frosty glass. Ryan glanced through one, down into a room below. It took his
mind a moment to identify what his eye was seeing, and when it did, he
instinctively recoiled. His hand grabbed at his empty holster. If he had been
a wolf, he would have snarled and tucked his tail under his belly.
Ryan felt a great fear welling up within him, but not a natural, rational
survival mechanism type of fear. It was a mindless, xenophobic cringing from a
sight that was terrifyingly alien.
Below him, sloshing and floating in metal vats filled with a semiliquid gel
were figures of horror. One resembled a young boy, about Dean's age. Judging
by his lack of ears and the series of suction pads on the fingers, Ryan knew
he was a stickie. However, he was malformed beyond the limits of a nightmare.
He seemed to have neither joints nor muscles, and his flailing arms terminated
in tentacles that suggested an octopus. The tentacles were disproportionate,
far too short for his size, and the lower half of the stickie was a quaking,
quivering mass of fatty tissue covered with undulating suction cups. The sight
made him feel physically ill, bile working its way up his throat. He tried to
back away, but the Commander put a hand against his back to keep him in place.
"Nothing to fear, Mr. Cawdor." The gray-eyed man's quiet voice purred with
amusement.
"They can't see you. They're kept in a constant state of sedation."
There were other figures in other vats, anthropomorphic, bloated bulks that
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bore no true resemblance to humanity. In one, a froglike head reared from the
gelid contents. There were breathing slits at the sides of the head, and an
inhumanly wide mouth was creased in a constant half-smile. Its round eyes were
dull and fathomless.
Another gel-filled tank held a human figure, or the exact likeness of one. But
the face was covered with coarsely matted hair, huge apish nostrils and
snapping black eyes. It didn't move, but gazed up at the ceiling, as though
lost in thought. There were many more, some so nauseating he couldn't bear to
even glance at them.
"Genetic engineering is a program we began over a century ago," the Commander
said quietly. "Have you ever heard of pantropic science?"
Ryan shook his head, too sickened to speak.
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"Pantropy is a form of bioengineering, primarily theoretical, to reproduce a
strain of humanity designed to live in different environments. After the bombs
fell, the science took on a new meaning. It was no longer theoretical or
impractical. The challenge was to adapt and modify humanity to survive in the
new environment shaped by the holocaust.
We experimented with human and animal subjects to create entities that could
thrive in any physical condition, immune to radiation and other adverse
environmental factors."
"You're making muties."
"Muties? You mean mutants, I take it. In a way you're correct. The subjects
you see below were born with mutated characteristics. They were brought here
and exposed to a mutagenic biochemical process in an effort to direct and
control their altered DNA. You see, it makes little difference whether we get
good raw material to start with. Let them be mutants or normals, we'll have
our successes in the end."
Not bothering to hide his disgust, Ryan turned to face the Commander. "Why
show me this?"
The Commander fixed his icy gaze on Ryan. "To prove to you beyond a shadow of
a doubt that your perverted, primitive kingdom of Helskel cannot hope to trick
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