Part 22 (2/2)

Ross, terrified of further pain, ducked and scuttled across to where Sarah was hanging from the pipes. It took him a minute to fish the key to the handcuffs from his pocket, and even longer to manage to unlock them one-handed. Sarah sighed happily as she could finally lower her arms. They'd felt like the joints were about to break at any moment. Rubbing her wrists, she joined the other captives.

Breckinridge smiled at her. 'And, lest you think that my decision to allow you to join us shows evidence of any favour in your direction, or weakness on my part . . .' His hand whipped around in a savage blow to her cheek that threw her backwards across the floor. 'Think again, please.'

Sarah cried out in pain and stumbled backwards into the tanks, smacking down hard on the floor. Her backside stung, and there was the taste of blood in her mouth.

'There was no need for that,' the Doctor growled at Breckinridge.

'On the contrary,' the businessman purred. 'Or would you prefer me to have Brogan shoot someone so that you understand the situation here? Brogan would happily do that; he likes to kill people.' Breckinridge sighed theatrically. 'He does have such simple tastes, but he's a dedicated worker.'

'It's okay,' Sarah said. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her right hand. Blood smeared across it, which she wiped off rather obviously on to her skirt. 'I'm not badly damaged.' She groaned as she started to rise, but for effect and not from pain.

The scalpel she'd knocked out of Ross's hand earlier now lay inside her left sleeve. Her ostentatious mannerisms with the blood had been to distract attention while she'd palmed the fallen weapon. Simply having it gave her more courage.

Breckinridge and his minions might aim to kill them all, but she would go down fighting, if she went down at all.

'Very well,' Breckinridge announced. 'Let's be moving out of here. Ross Doctor Doctor Ross,' he added with stress, 'lead the way to the viewing room.' He turned to the Doctor. 'I'm sure Miss Smith informed you that the ocean is something of a pa.s.sion with me?' Ross,' he added with stress, 'lead the way to the viewing room.' He turned to the Doctor. 'I'm sure Miss Smith informed you that the ocean is something of a pa.s.sion with me?'

'It's nice to see that you have a few innocent pa.s.sions,' the Doctor answered as he fell in beside his adversary.

'Oh, I have lots of them,' the man laughed. 'Though you may not believe it.'

'You're right,' agreed the Doctor, just as cheerfully, 'I don't.' He glanced around as Sarah joined him. Doyle, Colonel Ross and Abercrombie muttering gloomily under his breath followed them, and the two thugs brought up the rear as they paraded out of the laboratory.

Sarah realized that the rest of the subterranean pa.s.sageways and rooms that had been added to the factory were all in roughly the same shape as the laboratory. The pa.s.sageway bent at odd angles several times, showing that it had been cut to follow the pathway of an old cave system. The rooms that they pa.s.sed were closed, and presumably had been cut from larger openings. The walls were rough and unfinished, with electric lights at set intervals, linked by thick cables that snaked along the pa.s.sageway. The sound of dripping water increased, and the floor shone in spots where puddles gathered in the uneven surface. She had the distinct impression that they had now travelled under the sea bed.

At one of the doors they pa.s.sed, the Doctor halted, frowning. 'What's in there?' he demanded. There was the sound of movement within the room.

'Precautions, Doctor,' answered Doctor Ross. 'The seals aren't the only guards I've bred for this place. Thus far, though, the guardians in there haven't been needed.'

'More abominations,' muttered Doyle.

'My brother has a fertile mind when it comes to such matters,' Colonel Ross said, quietly but audibly. 'What he lacks in intelligence he makes up for in depravity.'

His brother whirled to glare furiously at him. 'I've been in your shadow all my life,' he snarled. 'It was always ”you're not half the man your brother is, Percival” and ”look how well Edmund is doing at Oxford, Percival”. Well I've had enough! Today I shall prove to everyone that I'm the more intelligent Ross, because I'll be alive and creating a new world, and you'll be dead.'

'So there,' added the Doctor. 'Talk about an inferiority complex.'

'I've never seen a more complex complex,' Sarah offered.

Breckinridge shook his head sadly. 'Please can we dispense with the silly jokes? I'd hate to have to dispense with either of you before you see our triumph. Through the next door, if you please, Doctor.' He stood aside to allow the Doctor and Sarah to precede him.

Sarah dutifully followed the Doctor into the indicated room, and then stood just inside, staring in wonder at what she could see.

The far wall was almost entirely gla.s.s. It was about twenty feet long and half that in height. She couldn't guess its depth, but it had to be pretty thick to hold out the pressure of the water beyond. As a result, the gla.s.s wasn't crystal clear. Patches had a smoky appearance and some parts were not quite level. But it was enough to show what lay outside.

Outside lay the ocean. Rows of lights led away from the gigantic window, set into the sea bed and glowing faintly. The illumination was low-level, but sufficient to show them what lay out there. Sarah took several steps forward as the others crowded into the room behind her. She heard Doyle gasp in amazement at the view.

'Quite staggering, isn't it?' asked Breckinridge proudly.

Sarah didn't want to admit that it was, so she continued moving. There was only one piece of furniture in the room, a table of sorts. Strapped to it, unconscious, was Kipling. She spared him a quick glance to be certain he was still breathing, then moved until she was touching the huge window.

The sea bed looked marvellous. Rocks, pebbles and sand were illuminated gently. In the distance probably only a few hundred yards away in the dark waters was a large wheel, set in a spool. Attached to the wheel were more lights. This was clearly the source of the mysterious lighting that they had witnessed from their boat the previous night.

Closer to the window was a garden of sorts. There were seaweeds there, and other plants, all in neat, short rows. They were obviously being cultivated, and Sarah gasped as she saw the workers in these strange fields. There were almost two dozen of them merfolk, all children. Each of them was naked, their upper torsos human, their lower sections dolphinine.

They moved slowly along the rows, weeding and checking the growing plants. Sarah stared at them, and recognized one of them as the girl who had saved her life. She looked as if she were the oldest one among them, and seemed to be in some kind of charge over them.

Beyond the workers, though, were three dark shapes that moved continually: the seal guards.

'Dear Lord!' said Doyle fervently, from behind her.

'They're bleeding real,' muttered Abercrombie. He glanced uncertainly at his boss. 'I guess your warped brother ain't entirely mad.'

'On the contrary,' the Doctor said, in a soft, dangerous voice that Sarah knew too well, 'he's criminally insane.' The Doctor whirled around to glower at Breckinridge and Ross. 'Those are children out there that you've mutilated.'

'Mutilated?' Breckinridge sounded incredulous. 'Doctor, they're not mutilated at all! They're magnificent! They can stay out there indefinitely, harvesting the sea, and they are viable, the nucleus of a brand new race. I a.s.sure you, they are not ill-treated.'

'They're slaves,' the Doctor thundered. 'That's why you need those guards: to prevent your slave army from escaping!'

'They're useful, for the first time in their miserable little lives,' protested Breckinridge. 'Doctor, every one of those children out there was doomed to die if they stayed here on the land. They're all from the docks and wharves and gutters. Parasites, scavengers and worse. Now, thanks to Ross and myself, they have useful, productive lives.'

'Useful to you,' the Doctor countered. 'Production for you. None of them was given the chance to decide whether they wanted that life or not. You made that choice for them.'

'They were hardly in a position to make rational judgements, Doctor,' Breckinridge argued. 'Dirty, ill-educated, disgusting little urchins from the dregs of the street. Now look at them they're magnificent!'

'Not all of them,' Sarah said quietly. 'One of them is a boy named Anders, from the same school as Kipling. He's got parents that care for him, and he wouldn't have been a parasite.'

'True,' agreed Breckinridge. 'But he stumbled across us one night when certain supplies were being delivered. It was either change him or kill him.' He nodded at the gla.s.s. 'I a.s.sume you approve of the choice I made?'

'I approve of nothing you do,' she answered. 'It's inhuman, disgusting and perverted.'

Breckinridge flushed. 'I should have known you wouldn't understand,' he snapped. 'Can't you see that those children are better out there than they would be if this asinine Government of ours had their way? All this talk of educating the street brats. What a waste! They don't have the minds or the imaginations to take advantage of an education. And who would pay for their waste of time? Businessmen like myself, that's who! Well, out there ' he gestured savagely out of the window again ' is my response to the unwanted children. We can transform them, put them to useful work, to extend Man's domin-ion.'

'To enslave them,' the Doctor added coldly. 'To make them work for you. That's the real reason, isn't it?' He pointed to the garden. 'That's pathetic, a sham. What you really have in mind is to make the children work for you, isn't that it? That wheel of light of yours has no real point, does it?'

'It has its reasons, Doctor,' Breckinridge responded. 'I'm training those children because, as you rightly observe, they will have to work to repay me for all I've done for them. I foresee a future, Doctor, where the world is linked by communication. The telegraph is outmoded, and the telephone is just beginning. I see a day when pictures as well as words can be transmitted through such cables. And he who has the network in place will be the master of this new world.'

'So that's it,' said Colonel Ross. 'Those children are being trained to work so they can lay your cables.'

'Precisely,' agreed Breckinridge. 'Do you have any idea how expensive it is to lay cables from s.h.i.+ps? And if one breaks, there's no way to repair it. You have to start over again, laying a new sea-bed cable. But with my race of merfolk out there, those problems cease. They can lay the cables and even repair them, if needed, at any depths. They're the perfect workers, and they will help me to become the leader in a new world order.'

'I pity you,' the Doctor said, in that icy, dangerous tone of his. 'Ross, at least, is doing his filthy work as a perversion of science. But you are doing it simply to make more money.'

'And what's wrong with making money?' cried Breckinridge. 'Without men like me, this world would grind to a sorry halt in days. It is my money that gives the people here in town work. It's my money that funds research, and brings on the future!'

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