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"Shit," Walt said "It’s not a black-and-white issue, is it?"

Le"

Walt sht now, it’s a whole hell of a lotthan I care for Okay I can see the wisdo a lid on this Besides, if we made it public, you’d have a thousand half-assed adventurers out there looking for the thing, and they’d end up victiun down one another"

"Exactly"

"Butin the search"

Leence units ere still coh-tech tracking gear and, in soot moreas ? Will you stay out of it?"

Frowning, Walt said, "For now But I want to be kept inforht"

"And I have , why do they call it The Outsider?"

"Well, the dog was the first breakthrough, the first of the lab subjects to display unusual intelligence This one was next They were the only two successes: the dog and the other At first, they added capital letters to the way they pronounced it, The Other, but in time it became The Outsider because that seemed to fit better It was not an i; it was entirely outside of creation, a thing apart An abo are of its status as an outsider, acutely aware"

"Why not just call it the baboon?"

"Becauseit doesn’t really lookyou’ve ever seen-except in a nightmare"

Walt did not like the expression on his friend’s dark face, in his eyes He decided not to ask for a better description of The Outsider; perhaps that was so he did not need to know

Instead, he said, "What about the Hudston, Weatherby, and Yarbeck murders? Who was behind all that?"

"We don’t know the er, but we know the Soviets hired him They also killed another Banodyne man as on vacation in Acapulco"

Walt felt as if he were jolting through one of those invisible barriers again, into an evenabout the Soviets? How’d they get into the act?"

"We didn’t think they knew about the Francis Project," Lem said "But they did Apparently, they even had a ress When the dog and, subsequently, The Outsider escaped, the mole informed the Soviets, and evidently the Soviets decided to take advantage of the chaos and do us even e They killed every project leader-Yarbeck and Weatherby and Haines-plus Hudston, who had once been a project leader but no longer worked at Banodyne We think they did this for two reasons: first, to bring the Francis Project to a halt; second, to make it harder for us to track down The Outsider"

"Hoould thatof the crisis, he was more clearly aware of the burden on his shoulders "By eli Hudston, Haines, and especially Weatherby and Yarbeck, the Soviets cut us off from the people ould have the best idea how The Outsider and the dog think, the people best able to figure out where those aniht be recaptured"

"Have you actually pinned it on the Soviets?"

Lehed "Not entirely I’ and The Outsider, so we have another entire task force trying to track down the Soviet agents behind theUnfortunately, the Soviets seem to have used freelance hitmen outside of their own network, so we have no idea where to look for the triggeration is pretty much stalled

"And the fire at Banodyne a day or so later?" Walt asked

"Definitely arson Another Soviet action It destroyed all the paper and electronic files on the Francis Project There were backup computer disks at another location, of coursebut data on theain?"

"We think so The leaders of the Francis Project and all their files have been wiped out, leaving us in the dark when it coht think, where they ht be tricked into captivity"

Walt shook his head "Never thought I’d be on the side of the Russians, but putting a stop to this project seeood idea"

"They’re far froot a similar project under way at laboratories in the Ukraine I wouldn’t doubt we’re working diligently to destroy their files and people the way they’ve destroyed ours Anyway, the Soviets would like nothing better than for The Outsider to run wild in so the heads off little kids, because if that happens a couple of ti to blow up in our face"

Chewing the heads off little kids? Jesus

Walt shuddered and said, "Is that likely to happen?"

"We don’t believe so The Outsider is aggressive as hell-it was designed to be aggressive, after all-and it has a special hatred for itsYarbeck didn’t count on and soenerations The Outsider takes great pleasure in slaughtering us But it’s also sives us a new fix on its whereabouts So it’s not going to indulge its hatred too often It’s going to stay away froht Once in a while, out of curiosity, it e of the developed eastern flank of the county-"