The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One (17 page)

Lozinak sighed and rubbed his eyes beneath his spectacles. Even though he had napped most of the flight, the all-night journey still seemed to have taken a lot out of the old man. His breathing was labored and his face was pale and drawn. “I don’t know,” he wheezed uncertainly. “Perhaps there would be no harm ...”

“The director wouldn’t like it,” Carlos warned. He glowered at Roberta. “She knows too much already.”

Says Mr. Breaking-and-Entering,
Roberta thought huffily. Not even bothering to respond to the sullen bodyguard directly, she looked to Takagi for assistance. “Heck, I probably won’t even know where we are when we get there. I’ve never been to India before, and wouldn’t know the Punjab from the Taj Mahal.”

This much was true; the present assignment was her first trip to India, although Seven had ’ported some maps and background material over to her the night before, which she had carefully read and reviewed before incinerating the incriminating papers in the wastebasket in her hotel bathroom.
I wish I’d had more time to prepare,
she thought. Despite her crash course in Rome, most of what she knew about modern India still came from childhood memories of Kipling and the occasional Satyajit Ray movie.
In other words, not much at all.

“She has a good point,” Takagi said, much to Roberta’s satisfaction.
[102]
The Japanese biochemist had emerged from the flight in better condition than his aged mentor, but still looked fatigued from the trip. His tweedy jacket was more crumpled-looking than usual, and he yawned as he spoke. “She’s not going to be out of our sight until we reach the base.”

“That’s right,” Roberta argued, glad to have Takagi on her side. “Who am I supposed to squeal to anyway, the chauffeur?”

Carlos wouldn’t let the matter drop. “We should not take any chances,” he insisted. “There’s already that problem in New York, someone snooping around where he shouldn’t.”

Er, that would be my boss,
Roberta thought, choosing to keep that observation to herself. Neither did she mention spotting Seven in the terminal as they disembarked from the plane, resorting to sarcasm instead: “C’mon, next you’ll be asking me to put blinders on the kitty-cat.”

Isis protested loudly at the mere suggestion.

“Perhaps, there would be no harm,” Lozinak announced wearily. “We have a long drive ahead, and it would indeed be inhospitable to keep Dr. Neary blindfolded the whole way.”

How long a drive?
Roberta wondered apprehensively, hoping that Chrysalis’s secret headquarters was not tucked away on top of the Himalayas or something.
I’m not dressed for mountain-climbing.

“Let me have that, if you please,” Lozinak said, taking the blindfold from Roberta and handing it back to Carlos. Despite his exhaustion, he made it clear the discussion was over. “You are a valued colleague, not a captive.”

“Thanks!” Roberta said gratefully. “I was starting to feel a bit like Patty Hearst, before she was brainwashed.” She grinned triumphantly at Carlos, who grumpily turned his back on the two scientists and their supposed new recruit.
Score one for the American chick,
she thought smugly, as the limo pulled away from the curb.
At this rate, I’ll be running Chrysalis by Thursday.

In theory, that is.

Lozinak had not been kidding when he mentioned the long road ahead. After several hours on the road, Roberta figured they had to be halfway to Pakistan by now.

[103]
The limousine’s tinted windows and first-rate air-conditioning insulated her from the exotic yet torrid environment outside, something Roberta considered a distinctly mixed blessing. On the one hand, she wanted to see and experience more of India itself; on the other hand, her body kept reminding her that it was now long past midnight, Roman time, and that she had been traveling for at least eleven hours at this point. Under the circumstances, she found it all too easy to doze off for long stretches of the trip, waking abruptly whenever their driver slammed on the brakes or leaned on the horn, which seemed to occur with alarming frequency.

In fact, Roberta quickly decided that the less she saw of the traffic on the overcrowded, underlit roads, the better she’d sleep. India had one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the world, at least according to the briefing the Beta 5 had provided, and Roberta could easily see why. Buses, taxis, cows, bullock-carts, bicycles, water buffalo, motorbikes, trucks, and motorized rickshaws contended for space on the overtaxed highway, with right-of-way going to the biggest vehicles and the loudest horns. Convoys of ten-ton moving vans roared past the limo, carrying their freight from Delhi to distant parts of the subcontinent, while public buses swayed with the weight of the teeming human cargo clinging to the sides and rooftops of the rickety vehicles. The twisted and mangled ruins of numerous traffic casualties rusted alongside the road, appearing every thirty miles or so to provide mute evidence of past automotive catastrophes, far more regularly than Roberta would’ve preferred.

She couldn’t help recalling that her immediate predecessors, Seven’s original Earth-based operatives, had both perished in an unforeseen traffic accident.
Here’s hoping history won’t repeat itself
she mused, wondering how Seven would react to her own unfortunate demise, not to mention the cat’s.
Probably complain some more about the senseless barbarity of twentieth-century life.

Their driver stuck to the highway, bypassing both the larger cities and small, rural villages. The slums and shantytowns south of Delhi gave way to mile after bumpy mile of congested roadways as the limo made its way across the open countryside, through rocky hills and shadowy ravines. In the darkness of the early morning, Roberta
[104]
occasionally glimpsed distant bonfires, the murky silhouettes of small farms and temples, and, far less frequently, the glow of electric lights. Speeding trains occasionally ran parallel to the dusty dirt roads on which they traveled, and she got the impression that the limo was heading vaguely south, but didn’t see much in the way of signage.
What’s south?
she tried to remember, wishing she could have brought along a map without arousing suspicion.
Agra? Calcutta? Probably some place more off the beaten track,
she speculated.

Breakfast consisted of a thermos of milky
chat
tea, plus some tasty banana fritters that the chauffeur had packed for them. The tea was hot, spicy, and presumably caffeinated, but even that was not enough to keep her eyes open. Soon she was somewhere else, far away from the cramped and bouncing limo.

In her dreams, she was back at the dimly lit Italian restaurant, but this time the spaghetti on her plate came alive, the wriggling strands of pasta twisting into an intricate double helix that Roberta recognized from all the biology texts and articles she had forced herself to consume lately. The double helix, the essential human genome, rose up before her, rotating slowly around an invisible axis like an upright work of art upon a revolving pedestal. She gaped in wonder at the sheer elegance and deceptive simplicity of the coiled, ribbonlike structure, which appeared to glow with its own transcendent light.
So
that’s
what the basic recipe for people looks like,
she marveled, wondering why anyone would want to tamper with such a flawless design.

Then the helix began to change.
Mutate.
Before her eyes, the genome unraveled, each luminous strand writhing like sparking electrical wires. The wriggling noodles snatched at each other, knotting themselves into a tangle of unlikely connections and chromosomal linkages. A new double helix swiftly formed, but unlike the graceful rungs of the original structure, this mutated helix was bound together by something that looked like a demented cobweb made out of pasta.
That can’t possibly be right,
Roberta realized, aghast. She reached forward desperately, hoping to somehow untangle the mess and put all the mismatched genes and chromosomes back where they belonged, but the sinuous genome slithered through her fingers, eluding her grasp.

[105]
Ugly and distorted, the mutant double helix reared back like an angry cobra, then lunged for her throat. Roberta threw up her hands to protect herself, but the serpentine monster passed through her hands like a phantom before striking her in the jugular, where it dissolved into her own bloodstream.
Oh my gosh,
she realized in horror.
It’s inside me now!

Like venom, the mutant DNA coursed through her system, rewriting her own genetic code. Convulsive cramps and spasms racked her body. She could literally feel her bones and organs shifting and changing as the recombinant invader transformed her very identity Visions of glowing mice and limbless thalidomide children infected her imagination, but when she looked down at her hands, afraid that all she would see were flippers, she discovered instead that her fingers were stretching before her eyes, growing longer and preternaturally more supple. New knuckles formed, one to each finger, and she found she was able to bend them in places she never could before.
Is this supposed to be an improvement?
she wondered, unsure whether to be amazed or appalled. Then extra fingers sprouted from her palms and she started to scream. ...

“Dr. Neary? Ronnie?”

She awoke with a start to discover that the limo had come to a stop. Takagi nudged her shoulder gently while, on her lap, Isis squawked impatiently. “Sorry to disturb you,” the younger scientist said, “but we have to get out of the car.”

Roberta blinked in confusion. The chauffeur opened the back door of the limo, letting in a blast of shockingly hot air. She shook her head, glad to have awakened, but having difficulty throwing off the lingering unease generated by her nightmare.
Yikes, what a dream!
she thought, trying to remember the last time she had experienced anything so surreal.
Woodstock maybe, but who needs acid when your own unconscious mind can conjure up a head trip like that one?
She made a determined effort to come back to reality. “Are we there yet?”

“
Almost,” Takagi promised, climbing out of the limo. Peering past the exiting biochemist’s back and shoulders, Roberta caught a glimpse of some sort of village right outside the car. “We just need to transfer to another mode of transportation.”

[106]
Holding on to Isis’s pet carrier, she clambered out of the backseat after Takagi, then looked around to inspect her surroundings, squinting against the harsh glare of the morning. The scorching sun, which had risen sometime during their trip, beat down on an isolated desert village composed of thatched adobe and yellow sandstone huts. Hot and dusty air, smelling of spices and camel dung, enveloped Roberta like a heavy blanket, albeit one doused in ginger and curry. Scrawny white cows and bleating goats wandered freely through the unpaved streets of the village, while women in brilliantly colored saris, some balancing clay pottery upon their heads, paused to stare at Roberta and the others with open curiosity. Barefoot children chased each other along dry dirt paths and around the village well, their high-pitched voices competing with the muttering and whispers of their mothers. Old men, whose white beards contrasted sharply with their wizened brown faces, sat on mats outside their homes, watching the new arrivals warily. Like their elders, the women and children kept their distance, quite unlike the hyperaggressive porters and taxi-wallahs back at the airport.
Must not get many visitors around here,
Roberta guessed, feeling slightly self-conscious.
Especially not blondes.

Beyond the village, stretching away to a seemingly endless horizon, rolling sand dunes sprawled beneath a bright turquoise sky. Desolate patches of desert scrub struggled to survive amid the arid sandscape. “That would be the Great Indian Desert, I’m guessing,” Roberta observed, relying on a photographic memory of her discarded map.

Takagi nodded. “The locals call it
marust’hali
.”
He was already sweating profusely from the heat, but seemed perfectly willing to act as tour guide. “The abode of death.”

How cheery,
Roberta thought. Shielding her eyes with her hand (which, thankfully, had merely the usual number of fingers and knuckles), she regarded the vast desert thoughtfully As far as she could see, the road they were on came to a stop at the edge of a sandy wasteland. Could this be the end of the line? No, she recalled, Takagi had said something about switching to another means of transport.

Nervously, her gaze wandered back to the camels grazing on a block
[107]
of dry-looking straw beside the nearest thatch building. A male villager, wearing a large orange turban and a mercenary expression, gripped the reins of a pair of camels as he watched Carlos and the chauffeur help Dr. Lozinak out of the limo, which clearly had gone as far as it could go.
Please don’t tell me we’re making the rest of the trip on camelback,
she prayed wholeheartedly.

According to her watch, it was now a few minutes after ten in the morning, which meant she had already been in transit for at least thirteen hours, seven by air and then another six in the limo. No wonder she felt so wasted; Roberta considered herself a more than usually adventurous person, always ready to try something new, but right now the prospect of spending several more hours stuck between the bouncing humps of a plodding Indian camel was enough to induce genuine despair. “Is that our ride?” she asked, nodding glumly in the direction of their prospective mounts. A brownish lather dripped from the slowly masticating mouth of one of the camels in question.