The man’s eyes widened, and his finger moved onto the trigger of the shotgun. “How the showering sheep shit do you know my name, outlander?”
Ryan could see that there was something wrong, but couldn’t for the life of him figure what it was. “I know you because we spent hours together out in the park.”
“Park?”
“Acadia.”
The muzzle of the Mossberg was now aimed, very definitely, at the pit of Ryan’s stomach. “You say you and me spent hours together, outlander?”
“Sure we did.”
“I say that you’re some kind of sneaking liar. I never seen you before.”
“Why did you shave off the mustache, Ellison?” Ryan asked, trying to find some connection with the angry man. “Get bored with it?”
“I never had a fucking mustache in my life. I never seen you before in my life. And you’re about to find out what it’s like to buy the farm.”
“Hold it, Ellison.”
Ryan glanced over his shoulder. He’d been about to chop his hand at the barrel of the 12-gauge and take his chances, which he’d mentally put at around a hundred to one.
“Buford,” he said. “Didn’t think I’d be saying it, but I’m glad to see you.”
The scientist pointed a trembling finger at the sec man. “Gun down, Ellison. Order! Do it or you’ll be cleaning out the freak cages for the rest of your life.”
“He said he knew me, the outlander.”
With the threat of the blaster removed, Ryan was becoming angry. “Course I know him. He was with you all of the time. Saw the tree fall and everything. I asked him why he’d shaved off his mustache.”
“I never had”
Buford reached across and actually laid his hand across the sec man’s mouth, silencing him. “No more talking, Ellison.”
“Let it lie,” Ryan said. “I’ll just go back and join the others. Doesn’t matter.”
“It was his brother who accompanied us into the forest in our pursuit of the animals that had escaped from our laboratory.”
“Brother?”
“Yes. His twin brother.” Buford took his hand away from the sec guard’s face. “Now go and carry on the patrol, Ellison. I shall speak with you at a later time.”
The man turned wordlessly and marched off, the Mossberg slung once more across his broad back. His whole posture was one of frustrated rage.
“There,” Buford said, rubbing his hands together. “No problem too small and no solution too large. That’s what we say here at Crichton.”
“Sure. I’ll go”
“Of course. We’ll meet at six. Everyone is so very excited about it. Krysty won’t No, of course. Too early. But, perhaps tomorrow?”
“Perhaps.”
On his way back toward the rooms they all shared, Ryan wondered about the Ellison brothers. One with a mustache and one without.
And both of them with a precisely identical scar.
Chapter Twenty
“It was my dear departed grandmother, Melissa Crichton, who was responsible for the foundingand a deal of the funding.” The scientist emitted a fragile, dry chuckle that sounded like the peeling off of a mummy’s shroud. “Just my little joke. Many of my colleagues have heard it, I fear, many times in the past sixty years or more. So difficult to calculate the passing of time as one slips into the eighth decade of life.”
“I would be the first to drink to that, Professor Crichton,” Doc said gallantly, lifting his cut-crystal goblet of elderflower wine.
David Crichton was eighty-three years old, or eighty-three years young as he sometimes declared himself. He sat at the head of the table, with his senior staff ranged on either side, alternating with Ryan and his friends.
Only Krysty was absent from among the visitors, and Dean, who had volunteered he didn’t want a formal supper and had offered to stay in the room to keep Krysty company. Ryan had been glad to accept the offer.
The food was terrible, a surprisingly large proportion of it recycled and artificial. Ryan had found himself sitting between Crichton and Ladrow Buford and had commented on the lack of fresh meat and vegetables.
“No need for it,” the little scientist explained. “We can process much of what we need. It prevents any necessity for us to go outside the valley more than three or four times a year. Then we mount a large-scale expedition. Stock up. And dry and pulp and freeze and retexture the food to last us another three or four months. Tasty, is it not?”
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