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“Yes. Yes. Come in, come in. I have so few visitors these days.”
The bent man stood at a low table on which numerous broad swatches of curled paper were held down with various components and bric-a-brac.
“You are not one of the red men of Mars,” Billy said.
“You are correct about that,” Mort Prime stated. “I am a prisoner here.”
“I have never seen a prison cell so large,” Avi said.
The old man chuckled. “I would have to agree with that, Mr. Rathmandu.”
“You know my name. How is this?”
“I know the names of your entire crew. I was told that you were coming, and to be ready in the event Grundy, Fu Manchu, or Dracula and his clone army could not stop you.”
“You didn’t mention the Golden Man,” Billy said. “Wasn’t he supposed to stop us as well?”
“Ah! I keep wondering what to call him, since he doesn’t have a name, and you have supplied the simplest name of all. I should have thought of that. The Golden Man.” Mort Prime laughed long and hard for a moment, and his outburst echoed off of the high ceiling and the bare walls of his citadel. When he regained his composure, he continued. “Dracula thinks he controls the Golden Man. He is the wild variable in this equation. His purpose is more sinister than anyone guesses. He would burn the worlds, I am afraid.”
“And what about you?” Avi asked. “Would you burn the worlds?”
“No. I would use my final days and hours to finish my creation,” Mort Prime tapped the paper beneath his hand.
Billy and Avi stepped slowly to the table and looked down.
“Cyclops!” Billy said. “These are the plans for Merkam’s murderous robot! Why would you rebuild the damned thing?”
“It is not for Dracula. It is for me.”
“I don’t understand. You said your days and hours are numbered.”
“But they are. No one knows how long I will live. I am the first generation. I am the oldest. I am most closely my father’s son, although my brothers are legion.”
Billy’s stomach contracted. He looked from the intricate designs on the table to the face of Mort Prime and concentrated. The hook of the old man’s nose, the shape of his head, his almost non-existent chin. It dawned on Billy with sudden clarity. “You are the first clone of Dr. Jonathan Conklin!”
“I am,” Mort Prime said. “I have lived eight years and seven months from the day I emerged from the vat of brine and dimethyl sulfoxide where I was matured. I have seen each succeeding generation of my kind born and I have seen them die of old age. This last generation—the twenty thousand—will live no more than a few months. That is, those who do not perish in the battle that is just now raging out there.” Mort Prime pointed toward the dais and the window.
“How will building Mr. Merkam’s robot help you?” Avi asked.
“It is more, far more, than Merkam could ever have hoped to build. Before I die, I will...merge with it. I will become immortal.”
Billy’s eyes moved back to the design on the table. He
took in as much of the plans as he could in a short space of time. “I see there are biological components to that big ugly head, but there’s not nearly enough room in there for your whole body.”
“The whole body is the problem, therefore I have rendered the whole body as unnecessary. All that is needed, is the brain.”
Avi took a step back from the table. Billy moved backwards more slowly. It was useless to fight the rising wave of revulsion to the insane man’s notion.
“Where is Koothrappally?” Billy asked Mort Prime. “I’ve come for him.”
“Billy the Kid,” Mort Prime said. “You are in your forties now. Surely you have seen the inevitable coming. The mind stores all that you have seen, it computes all of your experiences to enable your continued survival. Then, at the point you should be most able to use that vast storehouse of knowledge and experience to permit you to live forever, the body betrays you and you die. Don’t you think that is nature’s foulest joke?”
“It’s the natural order,” Billy said. “And I’m not so high and mighty that I would second guess the grand plan.”
“Grand plan? Grand plan? There is no plan!” The old man rounded on him and took a step forward. Billy’s Colt came up level with the old man’s chest. “There is only Chaos! But I have made Order out of Chaos!”
“Koothrappally,” Billy said, and cocked the Colt with his right thumb. “Where is he?”
