Dakota Run by David Robbins

Author:David Robbins [Robbins, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_postapocalyptic
ISBN: 9780843924732
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 1991-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

“Die!”

He towered above the others in the expansive chamber, this lean, brooding skeleton of a man. His broad shoulders, covered by a knee-length white smock, were set arrow straight, his delicate fingers clasped behind his back. The small speaker on the console in front of him conveyed the sounds of the conflict and he smiled, revealing two rows of tiny teeth, teeth curiously thin and pointed. His eyes were placed deep in their sockets and seemed to blaze with fiery inner light, although in reality they were an unfathomable black. The top of his sloping head was completely bald, but the sides still retained long wisps of fine white hair. His figure presented an amazing paradox; it appeared incredibly ancient and yet immensely powerful simultaneously.

A young man in a green uniform dutifully approached and stood at attention.

The eerie one in the smock slowly turned. “Yes, Captain?” he asked, his voice a resonant rumble in his chest.

The frightened captain swallowed hard. “I beg your pardon for disturbing you, sir.”

“Quite all right,” the tall man stated. He nodded at the speaker. “You’re not interrupting anything important.”

The captain could distinctly detect the sounds of combat emanating from the speaker in the bank of electronic equipment and his eyebrows arched.

“What you hear,” the first man continued, “is the end of a nuisance, the termination of a particularly troublesome thorn in my side.” He stared into the captain’s brown eyes. “And we both know how I deal with those who oppose me, don’t we?”

The captain was too wise to reply.

“Now, what may I do for you?” demanded the one in the smock. His right hand flicked a switch on the board and the speaker went dead.

The captain cleared his throat. “I’m from Communications, sir.”

“I know,” affirmed the tall man. “Captain Miller, isn’t it? You’ve been at the Citadel only two weeks, correct?”

“Yes, Doktor,” Captain Miller replied. How did the fiend do it?

Scuttlebutt had it the Doktor was endowed with a startlingly efficient photographic memory. Rumor also was that he read the new Personnel Report for the entire Citadel each week and memorized its contents!

“I’m waiting,” the Doktor said.

The captain raised the message in his left hand.

“What have we now?” the Doktor muttered and took the message.

Although the typed copy on the yellow teletype paper was twenty lines long, the Doktor read the contents in the time it took the captain to blink once.

Captain Miller felt his skin crawl. He fervently wished he were anywhere but in the freak room at the moment.

The Doktor abruptly hissed and crumpled the message into a ball.

“Damn infantile idiot!” he snapped. “He is positive proof that stupidity is genetically inherited!”

A clammy sweat broke out all over the captain’s body.

The Doktor glared at the officer. “Does the fool think I make these suggestions for my health? He doesn’t realize the danger!”

Mustering his courage, Captain Miller ventured to speak. “I was told to await your reply, sir.”

“I’ll provide you with a reply,” the Doktor growled. “You will transmit a one word response to him.

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