Finnegan, who'd spent most of the day sleeping on his bunk, appeared bleary-eyed in the doorway, grinning as he caught on to what had happened.

"Fucking good for the old man," he said, laughing as he punched his right fist into his left palm with a loud smack.

"Unamused," Dr. Tardy barked. "Our projects here are finely balanced, near to fruition. In the next six or seven daily periods, we shall be ready to test several of our..." She stopped, as if she wanted to say more but couldn't. "That's enough. Our efforts for the peace of the world are nearly done. Soon we can go up to the place beyond to claim our reward in the world we will have reshaped for Central."

Behind the thick lenses of her glasses her eyes glittered and danced. A film of frothy spittle dangled from her coarse lips, running over her chin among the warts.

Behind her, off down the main corridor from the center of Wizard Island, they suddenly heard the raucous sound of someone singing.

"See 'er on the bridge at midnight,

Throwin' snowballs at the moon,

She said, 'Jack, I've never..."

The song broke off, and they all clearly heard the noise of someone throwing up violently.

"In Central's name, shut him up," the little woman whined. "He will ruin our concentration, and as for poor Dr. Avian..."

She spun on her heel and waddled away from them, passing Doc Tanner at the corner of the passage. He was being supported by two stumbling sec men, his long arms drooped over their shoulders as if he were a dying scarecrow. His long jaw fell, and his eyes squinted at the scientist.

"Good morrow to you, Mistress Whateveryourfuckingname. Pax vobiscum. May you... Greetings, Master Cawdor. My dear, dear friends. Mistress Lori, my felicitations to you, above all."

Ryan and Finn took him from the two sec muties, who stood there, staring blankly, as if their orders hadn't gone any farther. They were still there when J.B. shut the door on them.

"Get me to bed," Doc said. "Had a little drink 'bout an hour... Gone right to..." He locked his bony fingers in the top of Ryan's coveralls, pulling the one-eyed man's head down. There was the smell of vomit and the stench of raw alcohol. But when Ryan looked, Doc's eyes were as clear as limpid pools, and his whisper showed no signs of inebriation.

"Ryan. Know all 'bout Project Eurydice. I mean all'bout it."

"Yeah?"

"Think of your worst nightmare, and it's a hundred times worse. By the three Kennedys, but it is truly truly dreadful!"

Chapter Nineteen

Hoisted up by Finnegan, J.B. found it easy to short out the vid camera and sound mikes in half of the dormitory. There were so many pieces of equipment malfunctioning in the Wizard Island Complex that there seemed little risk of any of the scientists becoming at all suspicious. And it gave Doc Tanner the chance to tell them all what he'd found during the day.

"I encountered that halting fellow with the plas-steel fingers, the one who can hardly stammer through his voice box."

"Avian," Krysty said.

"Yeah. Got friendly. One scientist to another. He showed me part of his lab. Near shitting his breeches in case any of the others found out. Had him some pure alcohol. Showed him how to dilute it then mix it with some of that good spring water they've got here. We... Phew, but I fear I have imbibed a little too... I must..."

He pushed them aside and tottered off into the washroom, where they heard him retch. Lori went to follow him, but Ryan shook his head.

"Leave him be, girl. Best thing when you feel like that, with your mouth like a sticky's crotch."

Doc reappeared, looking rather more jaunty, singing some old chant about being born in a dead man's town. The rest became inaudible as he bent double with a coughing fit. His cheeks were almost purple as he fought for breath. Eventually he managed to straighten.

"Upon my soul, I am getting too old for this sort of taradiddle. I shall eschew all alcohol. I swear it."

"Tell us what you found, Doc," Ryan urged.

"Indeed, I will. Dr. Avian and I shared a beverage or two. His capacity was markedly less than my own. After a beaker or two — or three or four, I disremember me how many — well, he stammered out the whole filthy, despicable tale of Wizard's Island. Should be called Devil's Island. How it started. How it's gone on. What they do. What they'd done. And what they will be doing within the next week. We have arrived at what Dr. Avian called a 'nodal point' in the life of the complex. The past hundred years have been research and rehearsal for the next week. And we, ladies and gentlemen, are here. And we must stop it." He coughed again, then looked around at each of them. "There can be no argument. We muststop it."

For a century, Doc Tanner told them, the scientists had stuck to their chosen path with a crazed, religious fervor. As a generation died, the flame burned more brightly. As they bred and interbred, the streak of genetic madness grew broader until all sanity was lost forever.

All that mattered to them was research for Central. And now Doc had found out just where that research was being aimed.

Very simple. Bigger and better methods of total genocide. Ways of wiping the last pitiful survivors of the planet from their fingernail hold on a form of life. As though the slaughter of the long chilling of 2001 hadn't been enough, the scientists of WICSA wanted more.

Doc spoke for a long while, his voice pitched low, drawing the others into the nightmare world he'd accidentally stumbled upon. Once he asked Finn to bring him a glass of water for his dry throat. The rest of the time he just talked.

The scientist operated largely by committee. With their ranks thinning, and with any sense of balance gone forever, they had decided some months ago to test-launch all their new babies into the unknown world beyond the lake. And their arsenal contained all manner of horrific weapons.

Some old-fashioned and conventional.

Some chemical, some biological and some postnuclear in design.

Doc told them that the scientists had perfected a particle beam missile, linked to a rail-gun employing kinetic energy bullets, a missile system, fully integrated, using pulsed laser beam riding and a multifunctional infrared-coherent optical scanner.

The complex was protected from the results of its own toys. Even a high-power electromagnetic pulse that would knock out all conventional electronics and computers wouldn't touch the deeply buried Wizard Island complex.

The scientists were also producing grossly malignant strains of germ culture that could be disseminated by low-yield missiles and used on a fire-and-forget premise. Doc talked about the old Russian-initiated chemical agents, how the scientists had taken them and made them more foul. Particularly there had been research, led by Dr. Tardy, in the uses of tabun and thickened soman.

"The 'dirty' missiles were specifically designed to produce the most fatalities and the highest incidence of terminal cancer in survivors — hundreds of milli-Sieverts pouring out across the ravaged Deathlands.

"I'm not surprised they've developed a successful rail gun," Doc said. "Parallel conducting rails, linked to a direct current. Sliding armature between them that completes the circuit. Plasma-arc materials were always best. Current on. Down one rail and through the armature up the other rail. Acceleration is produced by the Lorentz force. Put the projectile in front of the armature, and it goes with it."

"How fast?" J.B. asked.

"Between fifty and one hundred kilometers per second," Doc replied.

The Armorer laughed at that. "Come on, Doc. That's around three hundred and fifty thousand kilometers an hour. Nothing goes that fast."