Madden called on Lutz, the expert, who nodded briskly and told the woman, "Yes, you're quite right, ma'am. Gene splicing--in other words chopping up DNA to obtain the pieces you want and then growing multiple copies--is the same basic technique used in all genetic manipulation experiments. But the order of complexity alters dramatically with different organisms. Let us take, say, a simple laboratory strain of
"Yes, yes, yes." The red-haired woman raised a hand in self-defense. "I take your point--or rather, I don't. But never mind."
"And when you've perfected this mutant technique, or process, or whatever it is," said Jim Devanney, "how many of these creatures can be produced?"
Madden said, "Once we have the genetic blueprint, as many as we need. A million. Ten million. A billion." He shrugged. "There's literally no limit. We can recolonize all of Africa, India, the Far East, China--everywhere--with our own people."
"People?" Devanney said, staring.
"Whatever you care to call them, they'll be ours," Wayne Hansom said, his upper lip slightly curled where a fine scar tugged at it. "Ten years from now the Russians will be gasping for breath themselves; they'll be in no fit state to offer any kind of challenge. At least half their population will be on the verge of extinction. In my opinion we're very fortunate that General Madden was perceptive enough to foresee this several years ago and to lay his plans accordingly. ASP has proved itself of inestimable benefit to the United States, as I'm sure everyone here today acknowledges."
"You mentioned something about surgical experiments," Devanney said to Madden. He was like a man with a loose tooth who couldn't stop probing it with his tongue. "On whom are you experimenting?"
"Children," Madden said, smiling at him. If the whining son of a bitch wanted it, he could have it straight between the eyes. "The Pryce-Darc Clinic sends us kids with pollution sickness and genetic deformities. Dr. Rolsom came up with the idea that we could make use of their defects and surgically adapt them for our own purposes. Grafting tissue and transplanting organs and so on."
"Jesus Christ, what for?" Devanney asked faintly.
"Research," Madden said, as if he'd been asked a stupid question. "Maybe we can construct the perfect model for the next generation of Americans. I find that a pretty exciting prospect, don't you?"
The rasping siren was part of his dream, warning him not to step into the minefield. He sat bolt upright, the sound real and all around him as the dream faded into the warm black air.
Chase switched on the bedside lamp and reached for the telephone just as the red light began to wink in time to the urgent bleeping. He snatched up the handset and threw back the sheets.
"Duty Officer, sir. Somebody trying to gain entry through access five."
He recognized Drew's voice. "How many, Sam?"
"We're not sure. Eight, ten, maybe more."
"Are all other access points secure?"
"So far, though eight and nine have yet to report."
The attack hadn't been unexpected. Even though the Tomb was hidden belowground and even though the supply trucks approached Desert Range from the Nevada side, keeping a hundred miles clear of Baker, Garrison, Mitford, and Lund, the movement of supplies could have been spotted by somebody with a curious mind and a suspicious nature. Probably they thought it was a top-secret government establishment--as it had been once--which in these fraught times would be enough to provoke hostility and feelings of revenge.
None of this surprised Chase. Nobody was sure anymore who controlled what. The location of the political and military seat of power-- still referred to as Washington--was a mystery to the population at large. For a while "Washington" had been in Des Moines, then moved, so rumor had it, to Minneapolis. When the president appeared on television, speaking from a replica of the Oval Office, he might have been on the far side of the moon as far as anyone knew.
