WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

perceived as enemies.

“Yarbeck’s first task in the physical alteration of the baboon was to make it

larger, big enough to threaten a grown man,” Lem said. “She decided that it

would have to stand at least five feet and weigh one hundred to a hundred and

ten pounds.”

“That’s not so big,” Walt protested.

“Big enough.”

“I could swat down a man that size.”

“A man, yes. But not this thing. It’s solid muscle, no fat at all, and far

quicker than a man. Stop and think of how a fifty-pound pit bull can make

mincemeat of a grown man, and you’ll realize what a threat Yarbeck’s warrior

Could be at a hundred and ten.”

The patrol car’s steam-silvered windshield seemed like a movie screen on Which

Walt saw projected images of brutally murdered men: Wes Dalberg,

Teel Porter . . . He closed his eyes but still saw cadavers. “Okay, yeah, I get

your point. A hundred and ten pounds would be enough if we’re talking about

something designed to fight and kill.”

“So Yarbeck created a breed of baboons that would grow to greater size. Then she

set to work altering the sperm and ova of her giant primates in other ways,

sometimes by editing the baboon’s own genetic material, sometimes by introducing

genes from other species.”

Walt said, “The same sort of cross-species patch-and-stitch that led to the

smart dog.”

“I wouldn’t call it patch-and-stitch . . . but yeah, essentially the same

techniques. Yarbeck wanted a large, vicious jaw on her warrior, something more

like that of a German shepherd, even a jackal, so there would be room for more

teeth, and she wanted the teeth to be larger and sharper and perhaps slightly

hooked, which meant she had to enlarge the baboon’s head and totally alter its

facial structure to accommodate all of this. The skull had to be greatly

enlarged, anyway, to allow for a bigger brain. Dr. Yarbeck wasn’t working under

the constraints that required Davis Weatherby to leave his dog’s appearance

unchanged. In fact, Yarbeck figured that if her creation was hideous, if it was

alien, it would be an even more effective warrior because it would serve not

only to stalk and kill our enemies but terrorize them.”

In spite of the warm, muggy air, Walt Gaines felt a coldness in his belly, as if

he had swallowed big chunks of ice. “Didn’t Yarbeck or anyone else consider the

immorality of this, for Christ’s sake? Didn’t any of them ever read The Island

of Doctor Moreau? Lem, you have a goddamn moral obligation to let the public

know about this, to blow it wide open. And so do I.”

“No such thing,” Lem said. “The idea that there’s good and evil knowledge . . .

well, that’s strictly a religious point of view. Actions can be either moral or

immoral, yes, but knowledge can’t be labeled that way. To a scientist, to any

educated man or woman, all knowledge is morally neutral.”

“But, shit, application of the knowledge, in Yarbeck’s case, wasn’t morally

neutral.”

Sitting on one or the other’s patio on weekends, drinking Corona, dealing with

the weighty problems of the world, they loved to talk about this sort of thing.

Backyard philosophers. Beery sages taking smug pleasure in their wisdom. And

sometimes the moral dilemmas they discussed on weekends were those that later

arose in the course of their police work; however, Walt could not remember any

discussion that had had as urgent a bearing on their work as this one.

“Applying knowledge is part of the process of learning more,” Lem said. “The

scientist has to apply his discoveries to see where each application leads.

Moral responsibility is on the shoulders of those who take the technology out of

the lab and use it to immoral ends.”

“Do you believe that bullshit?”

Lem thought a moment. “Yeah, I guess I do. I guess, if we held scientists

responsible for the bad things that flowed from their work, they’d never go

to work in the first place, and there’d be no progress at all. We’d still be

living in caves.”

Walt pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his face, giving

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