by Brian Lumley
Harry shrugged. 'Obviously you don't know much about espers. I take it you and Khuv don't get on too well?'
Luchov's teeth had started to chatter. 'ESP? Is this something to do with ESP?'
Harry had run out of time and patience. 'OK,' he said, straightening up, 'I can see you need convincing. So I'm going to leave you now. I'm going somewhere else, somewhere warm. I'll come back in about five minutes, or maybe ten. Meanwhile you can make up your mind: to talk to me or to attempt to climb down from here. Personally I don't think you'd make it. I think you'd fall, and then that we would talk again when I found your body at the bottom of the ravine.'
Luchov grasped his ankle. It was all a nightmare — had to be a nightmare, surely — but it felt horribly real, as real as the flesh-and-blood ankle he was grasping. 'Wait! Wait! What… what is it you want to know?'
'That's better,' said Harry. He drew Luchov to his feet, took him somewhere more comfortable: an evening beach in Australia. Luchov felt the hot sand under his feet, saw a shimmering ocean with its endless lines of whitecaps, sat down abruptly as his legs gave way. He sat there in the sand, wide-eyed, shivering and very nearly exhausted. The beach was deserted. Harry looked down at Luchov and nodded. Then he stripped down to his underpants, went for a swim. When he came out of the sea, Luchov was ready to talk…
When Luchov was finished (which is to say when Harry had run out of questions) it was getting dark. A handful of cars had come roaring down to the beach a quarter of a mile away, spilled young people with blankets and barbecue gear. Laughter and rock music came wafting on a crosswind.
'Back at Perchorsk it'll be morning, daylight,' said Harry. 'But they'll still be running around in circles looking for you. If Khuv has a locator, they'll know approximately where you are. To be absolutely sure, though, they'll go over the Projekt with a fine-toothed comb. And by now everyone involved will be very tired. One thing is certain: Khuv now knows something of what he's up against.
'Now listen: you've co-operated with me and so I'll give you fair warning. It may be that I have to destroy Perchorsk. Not for my sake or in the interest of any nation or specific group of people, but for the sake of the world. But in any case, even if anything should happen to me, eventually Perchorsk will be destroyed. The USA won't sit still for any more monsters coming out of that place.'
'Of course,' Luchov answered. 'I had foreseen that eventuality. Some months ago I passed on my warning to people in authority, made my recommendations. The warning was heeded and the recommendations accepted. Within the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow — today — trucks will start to arrive at Perchorsk from Sverdlovsk. They will deliver a new failsafe. So you see, on this one point if on no other, we are in agreement. Nothing — alien — must ever again get out of Perchorsk…'
Harry nodded. 'Before I take you back there,' he said, 'I'd like to ask you one more thing. With that space-time Gate down there in Perchorsk's guts, how come you found me so incredible? I mean, surely the two principles come pretty close? In Perchorsk you have… a grey hole? And I make use of a dimension or space-time plane other than my own.'
Luchov stood up, stiffly brushed sand from his clothes. 'The difference is this,' he said. 'I know how the Perchorsk Gate came into being. I've worked out most of the mathematics. The Gate is a physical reality, with nothing transient or insubstantial about it. It is physical, not metaphysical. The result of an accident, yes, but at least I know how that accident happened. You, on the other hand — you're just a man! I can't understand how you could ever possibly have happened.'
Harry thought about his answer, eventually nodded. 'Actually, I believe I was an accident, too,' he said. 'The product of a one-in-a-million combination of events. Anyway, I've warned you about Perchorsk. You risk your life staying there.'
'Do you think I don't know that?' Luchov shrugged. 'Still, it's my job. I'll see it through. And you. What will you do now?'
'After I've taken you back? I have to know what's on the other side of that Gate. There has to be more there than the nightmares you've described.' There had to be, for how else could little Harry and his mother exist there? If they exist there. But what if there are other dimensions beyond that one? What if Harry Jnr has taken his mother even further afield?
Harry dropped Luchov off outside the great sliding doors of the service bays, left him in the grey morning light and the sullen snow, hammering at the wicket-gate and bellowing to be let in. Then Harry went to Luchov's quarters (which he found empty and locked from the outside), where he donned a white smock which on his last visit he'd seen hanging there. The smock was the insignia of a Projekt scientist or technician. In the garment's pocket he found tinted spectacles and put them on.
And without more ado he went straight to the magmass heart of the place, materializing on the Saturn's-rings circumference midway between two sets of manned Katushev cannons. He stayed perfectly still, held a Mobius door fixed in his mind, ready to take cover — but all seemed well. A soldier lounging against the smooth magmass wall saw him, looked a little startled, straightened up and gave a half-hearted salute. Harry stared hard at him, much to the man's discomfort, then turned and scanned the great unnatural cavern in which he found himself. Especially he stared at the blinding white sphere which was the Gate…
There were other technicians about. Everyone looked tired following their night-shift, even the gunners in their padded bucket-seats where they sighted their weapons on the Gate. Two scientists walked past Harry, talking, moving in the direction of the walkway to the sphere. One of them glanced his way as they passed, smiled and nodded in a familiar manner. Harry wondered who the man thought he was. He nodded back, began to follow the pair, and as he drew level with the walkway turned off and moved toward the centre, heading directly for the sphere of light.
Behind him a soldier shouted: 'Hey! — not in our line of fire, sir! Regulations!'
Harry glanced back casually over his shoulder and kept going. He left the outer platform behind and moved onto the walkway. Even as the gate in the electrified fence began to close, he passed through it, reached the spot where the boards were scorched. Behind him the gates opened again; footsteps came hurrying; Harry was aware of a low, angry muttering. But he was more aware of the Katushevs aimed directly at him; or rather not trained on him but on the Gate, which amounted to the same thing. 'Sir!' a voice shouted in his ear, from directly behind him.
Harry conjured a Mobius door — and with a tremor of unaccustomed panic saw that it was all wrong!
The outline of the door wasn't clear-cut in Harry's mind. Its edges shimmered like a heat-haze mirage. It floated up alongside him, drifted toward the sphere as if attracted by it, and was held there, gradually fading where it trembled above the wooden walkway. Harry had seen nothing like this before. He conjured a second door with the same result: the sphere both attracted and repelled the doors; it made them less substantial, pinned them down and broke them up. It cancelled them!
A hand fell on Harry's shoulder, and at the same time he heard shouts from the wide wooden staircase where it emerged from the magmass shaft. Someone with a high-pitched voice was screaming: 'He's here! He's here!' As the Sergeant who'd grabbed Harry's shoulder turned him about-face, he glanced toward the stairs, saw Chingiz Khuv and a second man coming down from the shaft. Harry thought: God! Doesn't that bastard ever sleep?
Khuv seemed to be holding his companion up, keeping him from toppling headlong. The man he helped was one of the espers Harry had struck while he was laying his smoke screen. And he was the one who was doing all the shouting. Then he pointed directly at Harry — screamed one last time, "That's him!' — and Khuv's dark gaze followed his shaking hand.
Khuv's eyes blazed in a moment. 'Open fire!' he shouted at once. He too pointed at Harry, shouting, 'Shoot him! Kill him! He's an intruder!'
The Sergeant who had taken hold of Harry let go of him, stepped back, went to draw the pistol at his hip. Harry moved quickly after him, drop-kicked him and sent him
flying off the walkway. Falling to the boards, Harry stayed low, out of the line of fire of the Katushevs. He conjured a Mobius door level with the walkway, hanging over empty space. It was his notion to dive headlong through it — but the door shimmered and warped, was drawn up and toward the sphere of light!
Harry could hear the Katushev commander yelling: Target to the front — take aim — ' and knew that the next command would be 'fire!' He mustn't be here when that order was given. Before the shimmering, disintegrating door could disappear entirely, he sprang for it. Even though it appeared printed on the very face of the sphere itself, still it was his one chance.
He passed through the door — into a hell of physical and mental agony!
When Harry regained consciousness he was adrift in the Mobius Continuum, apparently in motion through a region of the continuum which was new to him. His body and his psyche both felt badly battered, and that sixth sense of Harry's which was usually sharp as a razor felt tarnished and dull. Not without a deal of effort, he formed the mental equations and conjured a door; it opened on deep voids of space shot with stars in alien constellations. He closed the door at once and groped for others.
He found a door on future-time and peered through it. No blue life-threads raced into the future here, only his own, which bent violently aside beyond the door to disappear at right-angles to Harry's viewpoint. The past was equally hostile: indeed there seemed to be no past in this place, just an ocean of interminable, impersonal stars. The lack of human activity, of even traces of activity, reinforced Harry's opinion that he had been blown off-track and had left the mundane world of men far behind.
Beginning to panic, he tried one last door — and gazed out on the surface of a roaring furnace star! He closed that door, too, then forced himself into a state of calm, a condition in which he might at least apply a little reason to the problem. He was lost, yes, but what is lost can be found again. He didn't know where he was or how he had got here, true, but since he had come here there must be a way back. Except… space is a big place and Harry Keogh felt like an exceedingly tiny mote in the eye of the infinite.
Then—
Harry? whispered a familiar, distant voice in his mind. I thought I recognized you! The voice sped closer, rapidly grew stronger. But what's this? Are you trespassing?
'Mobius! Thank God!' said Harry.
God? That's outside my line of research, Harry, Mobius told him. I prefer to thank my equations, if it's all the same to you. Though I suppose it could be argued that they are one and the same!
'How come you're out here?' Harry was calmer now. 'Wherever "here" is.'
Here is in the constellation of Orion, Mobius answered. And the point is, what are you doing out here?
Harry explained.
Hmm! Mobius mused. Well, first let's get you home again, and then we'll see if we can find an explanation for what's happened. If you'll just follow me…
Harry stayed with Mobius, sped with him homeward, materialized in the Leipzig graveyard. It was evening, which told him he'd spent an entire day (or possibly two?) in the Mobius Continuum. In the grey, wintry light of the graveyard, Harry blinked, staggered; his legs wouldn't hold him up, so he sat down on the gravel beside Mobius's marker.
You could do with a good long rest, my boy! Mobius told him.
'You're right,' Harry agreed. 'But first I'd like to know if you can explain what happened to me.'
I think 1 can, yes, said the mathematician. You yourself have likened my strip dimension to a parallel plane, and this gate at Perchorsk leads to another; they are both gates between planes of existence. Both are negative conditions, blemishes on the perfect surface of normal space-time. Now: take two magnets and push their negative poles together, and what happens?
'They repel one another,' Harry shrugged.
Exactly. And so does the gate and the doors which you create in your mind. But the Perchorsk Gate is stronger, and so the repulsion is that much more fierce. When you used that door close to this sphere gateway, you were hurled across the Mobius Continuum like a shot from a gun! Your equations were warped out of focus; your body underwent stresses it could never hope to survive in the physical world; in three-dimensioned space you would have died instantly! The continuum itself saved you, because it is infinitely resilient. Lesson: you may not impose your metaphysical self upon the Gate. Go through it as a man, by all means, if you must; but never again attempt entry using the Mobius Continuum.
Harry frowned, then slowly nodded. 'You're right,' he said. 'And I've been foolish — but that wasn't entirely my fault. I hadn't intended to use the continuum in conjunction with the Gate, it just worked out that way. But my curiosity has worked against me. I had to see what this Gate looked like — see it with my own eyes. And by now there won't be a man in the entire Perchorsk Projekt who doesn't know what I look like! The next time I stick my nose in there, be sure someone will blow it right off my face.'
What will you do?
Harry leaned back against the headstone and sighed. 'I don't know. But I know I'm tired.'
Go home, said Mobius. Sleep, rest. Things will be that much clearer in your mind when you wake up.
Harry said his thanks, his farewells, did as Mobius advised. He emerged back in Jazz Simmons's flat in a prone position two inches over his bed, gently fell onto it. Almost before his head hit the pillows he was asleep…
18. Zek Continues Her Story
It was deep twilight now. A few birds sang hushed, warbling songs in the grass of the plain; the mountains marched cold on the right flank, dark in their forested roots and gold on their snow-spiked peaks; the tribe of Lardis the Traveller moved silently, no words spoken, with only their natural jingle, the creaking of their caravans and rustle of travois to tell that they were there at all in the shadows of the woods where they skirted the barrier mountains.
It was colder, too, and a racing moon sailed like a pale, far-flung coin on high, calling to the wild wolves of the peaks, whose answering calls echoed down with an eerie foreboding. The sun was a sliver of gold in the south, gleaming faintly far beyond the plain and silvering the coils of winding rivers.
Only Michael J. Simmons and Zekintha Foener spoke, because they were hell-landers and knew no better. But even their speech was hushed. It would soon be sundown, which was not a time for making loud noises. Even strangers could sense that much.
Jazz had built a light-framed travois; he hauled their kit bundled up in skins, carried only his SMG strapped across his back. Zek helped as best she could where the going was rough, but in the main he was well able to manage on his own. In just a few days his trained physique had attained new heights of strength and endurance.
A few miles back they'd picked up the main Traveller party and now Lardis's tribe was complete. Now, too, the sanctuary outcrop was only a short distance ahead; already its dome was visible, with the sun gleaming on it like some great, fleshless, yellowed skull in the middle distance. From here on, as they went, the Gypsies would cover their tracks, leave no sign to tell that they'd come this way. Oh, the Wamphyri knew their hiding holes well enough, but even so they didn't care to advertise their presence here.
A few minutes ago Lardis had toiled up alongside Jazz and Zek, said: 'Jazz, when the tribe's in and settled down, then meet me at the main entrance. Myself and three or four of the lads, we'll have a go at learning how to use these weapons of yours. The flame-engine, and your guns.'
'And the grenades?' Jazz had paused for a moment, wiped his sweating brow.
'Eh? Ah, yes!' Lardis grinned. 'But bigger fish next time, eh?' The grin had fallen from his face in a moment. 'Let's hope we don't have to use them — any of them. But if we do — the silver-tipped bolts of our crossbows, sharpened staves which we've got cached away in the caves, our swords of silver which are likewise hidden, combined with your weapons… if it's our turn to go, at least we'll go fighting.'
Then Zek had spoken up: 'That's gloomy talk, Lardis Lidesci. Is something bothering you? We
've just one more sundown ahead of us, and before the next one we'll be meeting up with the Dweller. That's what you promised your people. Surely all's gone well so far?'
He'd nodded. 'So far, aye. But the Lord Shaithis has a score to settle. There was no bad blood before. It was the old game of wolf and chicken, as always. But now the chicken has clawed the wolf's nose. He's not just curious or greedy any more, he's angry! Also — ' and he'd closed his mouth and shrugged.
Tell us the worst of it, Lardis,' Jazz had urged him. 'What's on your mind?'
Again Lardis's shrug. 'I don't know — maybe it's nothing. Or maybe it's several small things. But there's a mist back there, and that's something I don't like for a start!' He'd pointed back the way they'd come. In the distance, to the east, a wall of grey mist rolled down from the mountains, coiled itself shallowly on the forests. It swirled and eddied, lapping like a slow tide over the foothills. The Wamphyri have a way with mists,' Lardis had continued. 'We're not the only ones who cover our tracks…'
'But it's still sunup!' Jazz had protested.
'In a very little while it will be sundown!' Lardis had snapped. 'And the great pass has been in darkness for a long time now. Here in the lee of these forests, there's shade aplenty.'
Zek's hand had flown to her mouth. 'You think Shaithis is coming? But I've sensed nothing. I've been scanning constantly but I've read no alien thoughts.'
Lardis had breathed deeply, more a sigh. That's reassuring, anyway. And if he is coming, we'll meet on our terms at least.' He'd glanced up into the mountains. 'But the wolves were howling, and now they've stopped. And our own animals are quiet, too. See — only look at Wolf, there!' Zek's great wolf loped a little way apart; his ears were flat and his tail brushed the rough ground. Every now and then he'd pause and look back, and whine a little.
Jazz and Zek had looked at each other, then at Lardis. 'But maybe it's nothing,' the Gypsy leader had grunted. And with another shrug he'd gone on ahead.
