[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
human genetic material.
Kane looked at Balam's empty cell and shook his head in rueful resignation. He
knew now that in many ways the entire sequence of events that resulted in the
factionalizing of the baronies and the rise of the im-
perator's forces began when Balam was set free. There were some nights when an
insomnia borne of suspicion crowded into his mind and kept him awake all
night.
In hindsight, it seemed more and more likely that Balam had manipulated his
release, practicing the art-ful deception his people had directed against the
hu-man race for thousands of years. If that was the case, Kane was only a
component in a long-range plan Balam had conceived years before. He couldn't
help but wonder if Balam had planned his captivity in Area 51 and his own
contributions to the hybridization pro-gram.
Area 51 was the predark unclassified code name for a training area on Nellis
Air Force base. It was also known as Groom Lake, but most predarkers
pre-ferred to call it "Dreamland."
Contained in the dry lake bed was a vast installa-tion, extending deep into
the desert floor. Only a few of the buildings were aboveground. Area 51 was
more than just a military installation; it served as an inter-national base
operated by a consortium from many countries. Now its operation was overseen
by a con-sortium of barons, which in turn would be overseen by the imperator.
Kane and Domi had penetrated Area 51 and been captured. Domi had been found by
a little group of insurgents led by the hybrid female Quavell, while Kane was
sentenced by Baron Cobalt to what amounted to stud service.
During his two weeks of captivity, he was fed a steady diet of protein laced
with a stimulant of the catecholamine group. It affected the renal blood
sup-ply, increasing cardiac output without increasing the need for cardiac
oxygen consumption.
Combined with the food loaded with protein to speed sperm production, the
stimulant provided Kane with hours of high energy. Since he was forced to
Page 79
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
achieve erection and ejaculation six times a day every two days, his energy
and sperm count had to be pre-ternaturally high, even higher than was normal
for him.
Although Kane knew he was supposed to be bio-logically superior, he also knew
the main reason he was chosen to impregnate the female hybrids was simply due
to the fact male hybrids were incapable of engaging in conventional acts of
procreation, at least physically. Their organs of reproduction were so
undeveloped as to be vestigial.
Kane wasn't the first human male to be pressed into service. There had been
other men before him, but
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...er%2000%20-%20Devil%20in%20the%20
Moon.html (76 of 127) [12/28/2004 3:52:10 PM]
James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon they had performed
unsatisfactorily due to their terror of the hybrids. At first the females
selected for the process donned wigs and wore cosmetics in order to appear
more human to the trapped sperm donors. The men had to be strapped down and,
even after the ap-plication of an aphrodisiac gel, had difficulty main-taining
an erection.
Such a problem wasn't something a hybrid, baron or no, was likely to ever
experience. What made the barons so superior had nothing to do with the
physi-cal. The brains of the barons could absorb and process information with
exceptional speed, and their ^cogni-tive abilities were little short of
supernatural.
Almost from the moment the barons emerged from the incubation chambers, they
possessed an IQ so far beyond the range of standard tests as to render them
meaningless. They mastered language in a matter of weeks, speaking in whole
sentences. All of Nature's design faults in the human brain were corrected,
mod-ified and improved, specifically the hypothalamus, which regulated the
complex biochemical systems of the body.
They could control all autonomous functions of their brains and bodies, even
the manufacture and re-lease of chemicals and hormones. They could speed or
slow their heartbeats, increase and decrease the amount of adrenaline in their
bloodstreams.
They possessed complete control over that myste-rious portion of the brain
known as the limbic system, a portion that predark scientists had always known
possessed great reserves of electromagnetic power and strength.
Physically, the barons were a beautiful people, al-most too perfect to be
real. Even their expressions were markedly similar to one another a vast
pride, a diffident superiority, authority and even ruthless-ness.
They were the barons, and as such, they be-lieved themselves to be the avatars
of the new humans who would inherit the Earth.
But since they were bred for brilliance, all barons had emotional limitations
placed upon their enormous intellects. They were captives of their shared
Archon hive-mind heritage, a remorseless mind-set that did not carry with it
the simple comprehension of the im-portance of individual liberty to humans.
Smug in their hybrid arrogance, the baronial oli-garchy did not understand the
primal beast buried in-side the human psyche, the beast that always gave
humans a fair chance of winning in the deadly game of survival of the fittest.
Visceral emotions didn't play a large part in the psychologies of the
so-called new humans. Even their bursts of passion were of the most
rudimentary kind. Although the tissue of their hybridized brains was of the
same organic matter as the human brain, the mil-lions of neurons operated a
bit differently in the pro-cessing of information. Therefore, their thought
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]