Mount Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I guess you could say I’m curious.”
    Singer smiled. “There’ll be plenty of time when we reach Mount Dragon.” His eyes drifted back to the road just as they whipped past a yucca, close enough to whack the driver’s mirror. Singer jerked the Hummer back on course.
    â€œThis must be like a homecoming for you,” he said.
    Carson nodded, taking the hint. “My family’s been here a long time.”
    â€œLonger than most, I understand.”
    â€œThat’s right. Kit Carson was my ancestor. He’d been a drover along the Spanish Trail as a teenager. My great-grandfather acquired an old land grant in Hidalgo County.”
    â€œAnd you grew tired of the ranching life?” Singer asked.
    Carson shook his head. “My father was a terrible businessman. If he’d just stuck to straight ranching he would have been all right, but he was full of grand schemes. One of them involved crossbreeding cattle. That’s how I got interested in genetics. It failed, like all the rest, and the bank took the ranch.”
    He fell silent, watching the endless desert unfold around him. The sun climbed higher in the sky, the light turning from yellow to white. In the distance, a pair of pronghorn antelope were running just below the horizon. They were barely visible, a streak of gray against gray. Singer, oblivious, hummed “Soldier’s Joy” cheerfully to himself.
    In time, the dark summit of a hill began to creep over the horizon in front of them, a volcanic cinder cone topped by a smooth crater. Along the rim of the crater stood a cluster of radio towers and microwave horns. As they approached, Carson could see a complex of angular buildings spread out below the hill, white and spare, gleaming in the morning sun like a cluster of salt crystals.
    â€œThere it is,” Singer said proudly, slowing. “Mount Dragon. Your home for the next six months.”
    Soon a distant chain-link fence came into view, topped by thick rolls of concertina wire. A guard tower rose above the complex, motionless against the sky, wavering slightly in the heat.
    â€œThere’s nobody in it at the moment,” Singer said with a chuckle. “Oh, there’s a security staff, all right. You’ll meet them soon enough. And they’re very efficient when they want to be. But our real security’s the desert.”
    As they approached, the buildings slowly took form. Carson had expected an ugly set of cement buildings and Quonset huts; instead, the complex seemed almost beautiful, white and cool and clean against the sky.
    Singer slowed further, drove around a concrete crash barrier and stopped at an enclosed guardhouse. A man—civilian clothes, no uniform of any kind—opened the door and came strolling over. Carson noticed that he walked with a stiff leg.
    Singer lowered the window, and the man placed two muscled forearms on the doorframe and poked his crew-cut head inside. He grinned, his jaw muscles working on a piece of gum. Two brilliant green eyes were set deeply into a tanned, almost leathery face.
    â€œHowdy, John,” he said, his eyes slowly moving around the interior and finally coming to rest on Carson. “Who’ve we got here?”
    â€œIt’s our new scientist. Guy Carson. Guy, this is Mike Marr, security.”
    The man nodded, eyes sliding around the car again. He handed Singer back his ID.
    â€œDocuments?” he spoke in Carson’s direction, almost dreamily. Carson passed over the documents he had been told to bring: his passport, birth certificate, and GeneDyne ID.
    Marr flicked through them nonchalantly. “Wallet, please?”
    â€œYou want my driver’s license?” Carson frowned.
    â€œThe whole wallet, if you don’t mind.” Marr grinned very briefly, and Carson saw that the man wasn’t chewing gum after all, but a large red rubber band. He handed over his wallet with irritation.
    â€œThey’ll be