On the Second Floor of the library, Holly and Selexin huddled together underneath one of the large central tables. On the floor all around them lay the crumpled remains of a dozen shattered computers.
The glass walls of the Reading Rooms had once been like the glass partitions on the First Floor—glass from the waist up, wood from the waist down—only now they had been shattered beyond recognition by the explosions, reduced to little more than gaping windows with jagged edges.
Worse still, on the eastern side of the floor, in two of the reading rooms, fires had started.
Selexin sighed sadly. Next to him, Holly was sobbing.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No . . . want Daddy,’ she whimpered. ‘I want my Daddy.’
Selexin looked over at the doorway leading to the stairwell. It was shut. ‘Yes. I know. I do, too.’
Holly stared at him, and Selexin could see the fear in her eyes. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she sniffed.
‘I do not know.’
‘And those things that pushed him out through the door? I hope they die. I hate them.’
‘Believe me,’ Selexin said, still eyeing the door, ‘I dislike them intensely, too.’
‘Do you think Daddy’s coming back inside?’ Holly asked hopefully.
‘I am sure he is already back inside,’ Selexin lied. ‘And I would wager that at this very moment he is probably somewhere in the building looking for us.’
Holly nodded, wiping her eyes, encouraged. ‘Yeah. That’s what I think, too.’
Selexin smiled weakly. As much as he wanted to believe that Stephen Swain was still alive, he was extremely doubtful. The labyrinth was electronically sealed for the sole purpose of keeping the contestants in. Only an inexplicable fluke had created an opening in the building at the time of electrification—it was highly unlikely that another existed.
And besides, he had heard the explosion himself. Stephen Swain was most certainly dead . . .
And then, out of the corner of his eye, Selexin saw movement.
It was the stairwell door.
It was opening.
Swain hurried down the grey corridor and stepped out into the white fluorescent light of the car park.
It was exactly as he remembered it. Clean, shiny concrete, white floor markings, the DOWN ramp in the centre.
And it was quiet. The carpark was totally empty.
Swain hurried over to the DOWN ramp and had just started to descend it when he heard someone shouting.
‘Hello! Hey!’
Swain turned around, puzzled.
‘Yes, you! The guy at the top of the ramp!’
Swain searched for the source of the shouts. His gaze fell on the entry ramp. It was off to the left, down a long, narrow passageway, closed off to the outside world by a big steel grille. At the bottom of the grille was a round exploded hole that glowed blue with criss-crossing lines of electricity.
Beyond the hole in the grille, however, was a man, dressed in blue combat attire.
And he was shouting.
Holly sat frozen underneath the long wooden table. Selexin stared at the slowly opening door.
Apart from the muffled crackling of flames that came from the fire in the reading rooms, the Second Floor of the New York State Library was completely silent.
The door to the stairwell continued to open.
And then slowly—very slowly—a big black boot stepped through the doorway.
The door opened wide.
It was Bellos. He was alone. The two remaining hoods were nowhere to be seen.
Selexin raised a finger to his lips and Holly, her eyes wide with fear, nodded vigorously.
Bellos walked into the open central area of the Second Floor.
His boots crunched softly on the broken glass of the computer monitors as he passed within a foot of the table under which Holly and Selexin hid.
He stopped.
Right in front of them!
Holly held her breath as the big boots swivelled on the spot, the body above them looking around in every direction.
Then the knees began to bend and Holly almost squealed at the prospect of it: Bellos was going to look under the table!
Bellos’ legs crouched and a wave of terror swept through Holly’s body.
The long tapering horns appeared first.
Then the evil black face. Upside down. Peering at them.
And at that moment, a wicked grin broke out across Bellos’ face.
In the parking lot, Swain edged cautiously toward the exit ramp.
‘Hellooo!’ the man behind the grille called. ‘Can you hear me?’
Swain didn’t reply. He moved forward, toward the grille, focusing on the man on the other side.
He was a stocky man, dressed in blue fatigues and a bulletproof vest, like a member of a tactical response team.
The man called again. ‘I said, can you hear me?’
Swain stopped, twenty yards away from the electrified grille.
‘I can hear you,’ he said.
At the sound of Swain’s voice, the man behind the grille turned instantly and spoke to someone else, someone Swain could not see.
The man turned back, held up his palms and spoke very slowly. ‘We mean you no harm.’
‘Yeah, and I come in peace,’ Swain said. ‘Who the hell are you?’
The man continued to speak in that kind of slow, articulate voice one uses with an infant.
Or, perhaps, an alien.
‘We are representatives of the government of the United States of America. We are’—the man spread his arms wide—‘friends.’
‘All right, friend, what’s your name?’ Swain said.
‘My name is Harold Quaid,’ Quaid said earnestly.
‘And what department are you from, Harold?’
‘The National Security Agency.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve got some bad news for you, Harold Quaid of the National Security Agency. I’m not the alien you’re looking for. I’m just a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
Quaid frowned. ‘Then who are you?’
Something inside Swain’s head told him not answer that question.
‘I’m just a guy.’
‘And where are you from?’
‘Around.’
‘And what are you doing in a building that’s got a hundred thousand volts of electricity running through its walls?’
‘Like I said, Harold, wrong place, wrong time.’
Quaid changed tack. ‘We can help you, you know. We can get you out of there.’
‘I’ve already been out, thanks,’ Swain said. ‘It’s hazardous to my health.’
Quaid turned away for a second and conversed briefly with the man behind him. He turned back to Swain. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t catch that last thing you said,’ he called. ‘What was it again? Something about your health?’
‘Forget it,’ Swain said, rapidly losing interest in this conversation.
The NSA was not so selfless as to come all the way out here to save innocent humans caught up in an electrified library. It was bigger than that, it had to be. The NSA was here for contact—extra-terrestrial contact. Somehow they must have figured out that something was going on inside the library and now they wanted the aliens.
And, presumably, anyone who had come into contact with the aliens.
‘No, I mean it,’ Quaid said reasonably, ‘come a little closer and say it again.’
Swain took a step back. ‘I don’t think so, fellas.’
‘No, no. Please! Listen. We’re not going to hurt you. I promise.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But if you’ll just step a little closer . . .’
The dart whizzed by Swain’s head, missing it by inches.
It had come from behind Quaid—from somebody who must have crept up behind him while he had kept Swain occupied. They must have shot the tiny dart through a gap in the electric field.
Swain didn’t wait to think about it. He turned and ran, bolting for the DOWN ramp in the centre of the parking lot.
And as he raced down the ramp toward Sub-Level Two, the last thing he heard was the echoing voice of Harold Quaid of the National Security Agency shouting fiercely at some poor unseen subordinate.
At the base of the outer ramp, Quaid swore.
‘Fuck! We had him!’
He turned to the Lab agent holding the tranquilliser gun. ‘How the fuck did you miss? I can’t believe you could miss him from—’
‘Hold on, Quaid,’ Marshall said, resting a hand on his shoulder. ‘We may have lost the guy, but I think we just hit the jackpot. Take a look at that.’
Quaid turned. ‘Take a look at what?’
Marshall pointed at the parking lot and Quaid followed the line of his finger. His jaw dropped immediately.
‘What the hell is that?’ he breathed.
‘I don’t know. But I want it,’ Marshall said.
Through the grid of blue electricity they could see it clearly, whatever it was.
It looked monstrous, like a large, low-bodied dinosaur—at least fifteen feet long, with a rounded, blunt snout and two long antennae that clocked rhythmically from side to side above its head.
Quaid and Marshall watched, entranced, as the creature limped slowly across the parking lot. It stopped at the top of the DOWN ramp, where it seemed to sniff the ground for an instant.
Then it slithered quickly down the ramp and out of sight.
‘Well, well, well. What do we have here?’ Bellos said, peering under the table.
Selexin was trying hard to keep his body from shaking—and obviously not succeeding. Holly sat frozen beside him.
‘Why, tiny man, your memory is as short as you are. I told you I would find you. Or did you forget?’
Selexin swallowed. Holly just stared.
‘Perhaps your memory needs a little . . . refreshing.’ Bellos began to stand. ‘Get out from under there.’
Holly and Selexin scrambled out to the far side of the table. Bellos stood on the other side, his wounded guide draped over his shoulder. The flickering fires in the nearby reading rooms were now looking decidedly out of control.
Bellos cocked his head mockingly, ‘Where will you run to now, tiny man?’
Selexin glanced over toward the stairwell, and saw the two hoods step menacingly into the open doorway, cutting off their only escape.
‘Uh-oh,’ he whispered.
When he looked at Bellos again, he saw that his golden breastplate was now smeared with thick red streaks of blood. On the black background of Bellos’ forearm, Selexin saw his grey wristband clearly.
And saw the glowing green light suddenly flicker off.
The red light next to it blinked to life.
‘Uh-oh,’ Selexin said again.
Bellos began to strut around the long table. He seemed to be in no hurry. Savouring the moment. He didn’t appear to notice the red light now illuminated on his wristband.
‘Why have you done this?’ Selexin asked.
‘Done what?’
‘Broken the rules of the Presidian. Cheated. Why have you done this?’
‘Why not?’
‘You have broken the rules of the contest in order to win it. How can you respect the prize if you cannot respect the tournament? You have cheated.’
‘When one is caught breaking the rules, one is a cheat,’ Bellos said, walking around the end of the table. ‘I do not plan to be caught.’
‘But you will be caught.’
‘How?’ Bellos asked, as if he already knew the answer to the question.
Selexin spoke quickly. ‘A contestant can expose you. He can say ‘Initialise’ and show those watching at the other end that you have hoods with you.’
‘It would be a brave man who would attempt such a thing while he was running for his life. Besides,’ Bellos said, ‘who here knows that I have hoods?’
‘I do.’
‘But your master was last seen falling out of the labyrinth. And he is the only one who can initialise the teleport on your helmet.’
Selexin paused for a moment. Then he said, ‘Reese.’
‘What?’
‘Reese knows,’ Selexin said, remembering the hoods attacking Reese back on the First Floor.
‘But you do not know if Reese is still alive.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘Amuse me,’ Bellos said. ‘Let us suppose for the moment that Reese is still alive.’
‘Then she can report you. She can initialise the teleport on her guide’s helmet and expose you.’
‘And what about her guide?’
‘Excuse me?’ Selexin frowned.
‘Her guide,’ Bellos said smugly. ‘Surely you cannot believe that if I let Reese live, I would also allow her guide to do so.’
‘You killed Reese’s guide before you attacked Reese?’
Bellos smiled. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’
‘Clever,’ Selexin said. ’But what about the hoods? How did you plan to get the hoods out of the labyrinth. Surely you were not just going to leave them here.’
‘Trust me, the hoodaya will be long gone from the labyrinth by the time I step through the final teleport,’ Bellos said.
Selexin frowned. ‘But how? How can you remove them from the labyrinth?’
‘I will simply use the same method I used to bring them here.’
‘But that would require a teleporter . . .’ Selexin said, ‘and the co-ordinates of the labyrinth. And no-one but the organisers of the Presidian knows the location of the labyrinth.’
‘On the contrary,’ Bellos looked down at Selexin, ‘guides like you know the co-ordinates of the labyrinth. You have to, because you are teleported with each contestant into the labyrinth.’
Selexin thought about that.
The process of teleportation involved a guide being sent to the contestant’s home planet. There, the guide and the contestant would enter a teleporter, alone. Once inside, the guide would enter the co-ordinates of the labyrinth and the two of them would be teleported.
Selexin’s case had, of course, been different, since humans knew nothing of teleporters and teleportation. He and Swain had been teleported separately.
‘But you would still need a teleporter to get the hoods out of here,’ Selexin said. ‘And there are no teleports to be found on Earth.’
Bellos offered an indifferent shrug, conceding the point. ‘I suppose not.’
Selexin was angry now. ‘You forget that this is all based on the assumption that you will be the last contestant remaining in the labyrinth. And that is yet to be determined.’
‘That is the risk I take.’
‘Your great-grandfather won the Fifth Presidian with no need for treachery,’ Selexin said spitefully. ‘Imagine what he would think of you now.’
Bellos waved a dismissive hand. ‘You do not realise, do you? My people expect me to win this contest, just as they expected my great-grandfather to do so, too.’
‘But you are not the huntsman your great-grandfather was, are you, Bellos?’ Selexin said harshly.
Bellos’ eyes narrowed. ‘My, my. How boldly we speak when we are about to meet our maker, tiny man. My great-grandfather did what he had to do to win the Presidian. So will I. Different methods, for sure, but tiny man, you must realise that the end does justify the means.’
‘But—’
‘I think I have had enough of your talk,’ Bellos cut him off. ‘It is time for you to die.’
Slowly, Bellos rounded the near corner of the table, moved toward Selexin and Holly. Selexin looked desperately about himself. There was nowhere to run to now. Nowhere to hide.
He stood there rooted to the spot, in front of Holly, watching Bellos come closer.
And then—slowly, silently—something behind Bellos caught Selexin’s eye.
Movement.
From above.
From behind one of the air-condition
ing ducts in the ceiling.
Slowly, ever so slowly, a spindly black body began to unfold itself from the ceiling behind Bellos.
It made no sound.
Bellos hadn’t noticed it. He just kept approaching Selexin and Holly—while behind him, the large spindly creature assumed its full, ominous, nine-foot height.
Selexin was dumbstruck.
It was the Rachnid.
The seventh and last competitor in the Presidian. It looked like a giant stick insect, small-headed, multi-limbed. He saw its eight bone-like limbs slowly expand, preparing to wrap themselves around Bellos’ body and squeeze him to death.
Then suddenly the Rachnid struck—quickly, violently—closing its arms around Bellos with stunning speed, wrenching him off his feet, lifting him high into the air.
At first, Selexin and Holly were stunned by the sheer rapidity of the attack. It had happened so fast. The slow ominous descent of the Rachnid had instantaneously transformed itself into brutal violence. And now all of a sudden Bellos was in the air, in the grip of the Rachnid, struggling with this new opponent.
The hoods moved immediately.
The able-bodied one galloped from the doorway, leapt up onto the table and flung itself at the Rachnid, jaws bared, defending its master. The second, injured hood moved more slowly, but with equal fervour, clambering up onto the table and diving into the fray.
The element of surprise now appeared completely worthless as the Rachnid—confronted by the unexpected appearance of the two hoods—dropped from the ceiling, shrieking. It landed with a loud smack! on the table below, its eight spindly limbs flailing wildly in a desperate attempt to ward off the three-pronged attack.
Holly and Selexin were both staring at the scene in amazement when suddenly they both had the same thought.
Get out of here.
They bolted for the stairwell door and burst into the darkened stairway.
‘Up or down?’ Holly asked.
‘Down,’ Selexin said firmly. ‘I saw another contestant up on the Third Floor before.’
They had barely taken five steps down the stairs when there came a deafening—but familiar—roar from the bottom of the stairwell.
‘The Karanadon,’ Selexin said. ‘It’s awake again. I saw the red light on Bellos’ wristband. Come on,’ he grabbed Holly’s hand. ‘Upstairs.’
They started up the stairs again, and as they ran past the door to the Second Floor, Selexin glanced inside and saw a flashing glimpse of Bellos on the table, kneeling astride the Rachnid, locked in combat.
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