by Джеффри Лорд
Hall said, «The blip’s still on the radar. I think… yes, the Thing has changed course to follow us up. It’s gaining on us. One and a half kilometers and closing.»
«What did I tell you?» Salas said gloomily. «It’s a homing missile.»
No one answered him. The only sound was the rushing muffled roar of the jets.
«One and a quarter kilometers and closing,» said Bob Hall crisply, then added with a slight quaver in his voice, «The static is getting bad. I can’t understand the control tower.»
J muttered, «The Thing seems to have the ability to jam radio transmissions.»
Hall reported: «One kilometer… I think.»
«What do you mean you think?» The Captain glanced back at him, scowling. «You’re supposed to know.»
«Sorry, sir.» Hall was staring at the scope in frustration. «The radar is malfunctioning, too.»
J noted that a flock of blips had appeared on the screen, like fireflies, forming no consistent pattern.
At that instant the plane broke out of the cloud cover and soared up into the clear thin air of the lower stratosphere. The moon was full, the stars brighter and more numerous than they could ever be to the earthbound Londoners. The upper surface of the overcast spread out on all sides to the horizon like a vast white undulating desert.
J pressed his face against the window, trying to look back and down.
Hall said, «I don’t think you’ll be able to see the thing. «It’ll come up behind us, in our blind spot.»
«Bank then,» J said. «I want to get a look at it.»
Captain Ralston looked worried. «If we bank, we’ll lose air speed.»
J snapped, «I don’t care. We can’t seem to outrun the damn thing anyway. It’ll catch up a little sooner, that’s all. Bank, Ralston!»
Ralston obeyed.
The area of clouds they had just left came into view. It had a pale red glow to it, but that was the glow of London. There were other areas of muted light across the face of the clouds, each indicating the location of some well-lit city. J knew them; he could have identified each of those cities by the shape and brightness of its glow. He was looking for something else.
And there it was!
A swift-moving sphere of bright blue-white flame burst from the overcast and rose toward him. The color was the same as he’d seen seeping from the seams of KALI’s case the night of Richard Blade’s return, but much brighter. The Ngaa-for this must be the Ngaa-seemed to fairly seethe and sizzle with energy.
«Beautiful,» J whispered in awe.
The Ngaa was beautiful as a fallen star.
As the plane leveled out, the Ngaa swung out of sight in the blind spot.
«Have you-ever seen anything like that before?» demanded Salas in amazement.
J nodded slowly. «Yes, during the war.»
Though there had been many wars since, all understood he meant World War II.
«You saw something like that in the war?» Captain Ralston was incredulous.
«Yes,» J said thoughtfully. «I was in an RAF bomber over Germany, about to parachute behind enemy lines. I’d heard about them from the Air Force lads, but I didn’t believe in them, thought they were airborne folktales, like the gremlins. They often followed Allied bomber squadrons on their missions over the Axis nations, and the flyboys called them Foo Fighters. Yes, that night I saw one just like this, only smaller and dimmer.» He was thinking, There were men under heavy mental stress on those missions. Can mental or emotional stress awaken the same slumbering powers that KALI cart?
Hall, watching his radar screen, broke in, «Your Foo Fighter, if that’s what it is, gives off radio waves on the radar wavelengths, and from the way they register, I’d say old Foo is some sort of electromagnetic field, not anything solid. And he seems to be about ten or fifteen times larger than he looks. The outer part of him is visible, nothing but pure energy, and outside the visible spectrum, in the ultraviolet and infrared and beyond. I’m just guessing, though. The damn radar is going crazy! I can’t tell anymore, even approximately, how far away he is or where he’s located in relation to us.»
«Is the radar getting worse?» J demanded.
«By the second!» Hall answered fervently.
«Then I’d say Foo is getting close,» said J. «We may already be within his outer edge.»
«Here he is!» Salas the copilot cried out.
The wing on his side had become illuminated by flickering blue light and now, as all turned to look, the bright ball of blue-white fire came alongside, not more than a few hundred meters away, drifting with a languid slowness that belied the fact that it was traveling well into supersonic speeds. The instruments on the control panels were registering rapidly changing impossibilities, and J noticed the hairs on the back of his hand standing up and swaying as they had done only once before, on the night of Blade’s last return from the X dimensions.
As if racing the hopelessly inferior aircraft, the Ngaa pulled into the lead, passing them with frustrating ease, then rapidly outdistancing them. The instruments resumed some semblance of normality. The hairs on J’s wrist stopped swaying.
Captain Ralston sighed with relief. «He’s going to leave us alone.»
The Ngaa slowed.
«Oh, oh,» murmured Ralston.
The Ngaa wheeled in a gleaming arc and came rushing toward them, accelerating.
Salas shouted, «He’s going to ram us!»
«Hang on!» warned Ralston, throwing the big jet transport into a steep shearing turn, veering away from the impending collision. The Ngaa shot past in a bright blur.
Salas was muttering something in Spanish, perhaps a prayer.
Ralston’s anguished voice rang out. «What’s that damn fireball doing, anyway?»
J said grimly, «Mr. Foo is trying to communicate with us, in his own quaint way. I believe he is trying to persuade us to turn around and go home.»
«What Mr. Foo wants, Mr. Foo gets,» Ralston said with feeling, hand closing on the master throttle lever between his seat and Salas’s.
J touched the pilot’s elbow. «No. Wait. We can beat Mr. Foo.»
«Are you insane?» howled Salas. «If that fireball hits the fuel tanks in this plane, we’ll go off like a bomb.»
«Mr. Foo won’t do that,» J said firmly. «We have Richard Blade on board, and Mr. Foo needs Richard Blade.»
The Ngaa had swung into sight up ahead as they spoke. «Here he comes again,» groaned Ralston.
J commanded, «This time don’t veer away. If he wants to ram us, let him.»
Ralston hesitated a moment, then sighed, «Aye, sir.»
Salas whispered, «Madre… «
The Ngaa was on a collision course, accelerating, blindingly bright like a welding torch. J braced himself for the impact. Ralston sat frozen, gripping the wheel with white fingers.
The cockpit filled with shimmering blue-white light and then… the Ngaa passed through them!
There was no impact, but J was somehow aware of a rushing movement in the brightness, as of an unseen, unheard, unfelt wind, a hurricane of nothingness, and in the midst of the nothingness was a consciousness, a mind that was ancient beyond belief and intelligent in ways so different from man that words like superior and inferior lost all meaning. And J felt, for an instant, a rush of nameless emotions no man had ever felt before and stayed sane. And J glimpsed, as if in a memory of a nightmare, a city that was made of living matter, that hung, breathing, in a violet sky beneath a glowering red sun, above a planet burnt clean of the last trace of vegetation. And J knew, because the Ngaa knew, that someday soon that great red sun would explode.
Then, inexplicably, the Ngaa was gone.
J sat blinking, his head aching, his eyes watering numb and uncomprehending. Captain Ralston continued to hold the wheel, pale, eyes glazed. Salas leaned back, eyes closed. Bob Hall sat at his navigator’s table, swaying, mouth hanging open. The jet droned on. The full moon stared in at them impassively.
At last J whispere
d, «Are you all right?»
The others nodded, apparently unable to speak.
«Where did it go?» J asked, beginning to find his voice.
«I don’t know,» Ralston said, as slowly as if he were relearning the English language, rediscovering the meanings of the simplest words.
They searched the heavens, but the Ngaa was nowhere to be seen.
«Thank God,» Bob Hall murmured.
Suddenly the cockpit door burst open with a crash and Zoe stood there, dark hair disheveled, wide-set eyes wild. «Richard… «she cried. «He’s broken free!»
J began unsnapping his seat belt. «What about his nurse? His two guards?»
She staggered into the narrow cockpit. «He’s killed them!»
J stood up and looked through the doorway. Richard, clad only in a hospital gown, was advancing slowly up the aisle, steadying himself by gripping the backs of the seats. Though the light was dim, there was no mistaking the dark wet bloodstains on his gown.
I’m unarmed, J thought, as a vision of his old Webley service revolver hanging in its holster in the closet of his office flashed through his mind. Perhaps it’s just as well. Wouldn’t want to hurt Richard. J was afraid, but not that afraid.
Ralston’s voice was low, guarded. «Shall I flip the plane over on its back, sir. That should… «
J answered softly, «No, not yet.» He stepped through the doorway, outwardly calm. «Richard! What are you up to now, you young scamp?»
Richard halted a few paces away, a puzzled frown on his face. The expression changed, became alien and opaque, then changed back again. J received an unmistakable impression of two separate personalities struggling for control of Blade’s features.
«Richard,» J called again. «You know me. It’s J.»
«J?» Blade closed his eyes, swayed, and almost fell.
J advanced a step. «You remember me. I know you do. Come along now, no more of this nonsense.» J watched uneasily as Richard’s fingers curled into fists. Richard could easily kill a man with one blow of his fist, and J knew it. Killing had always been a routine part of the work of the Special Branch.
J became aware of a curious blue glow in the cabin, a pulsing, shimmering light that was brightest around Richard Blade, but moved over every surface, sometimes so dark a blue as to be all but invisible, sometimes so light as to be nearly white. It was a breathtaking display, like aurora in a polar sky, like reflections in a sea grotto. Here and there a tiny spark arced between two neighboring metal objects, and the bracing smell of ozone was strong. J thought, The Ngaa is here.
Barely audible above the drone of the jets was an irregular crackly hiss, and as he listened, J fancied he could hear voices in the hiss, as of a multitude of whisperers. What they were saying J could not quite make out, though the whispers grew steadily louder.
Richard shuffled forward, then halted. The aircraft shifted in its course and the bright moonlight fell on his face like a searchlight. Richard closed his eyes and turned away from the brightness, his features half in light, half in shadow, beads of sweat clearly visible on his forehead. Richard was struggling, J saw, harder than ever before, harder than he had ever had to struggle against enemies who were outside him, not inside.
J said, «Get a grip on yourself, Richard. You can do it.»
Richard spoke. J leaned forward to catch the slurred, muttered words. «Yes. I think I can. The Ngaa is strong, so strong.»
«But you are stronger.»
«But I am stronger. Yes. Yes.»
Richard’s eyes opened, and it was Richard who looked out through them.
J whispered, «A little more, Richard. Fight him a little more.»
«Yes. Yes!»
Abruptly, from everywhere and nowhere came a toneless scream. J heard it not with his ears, but with his mind. Then there was a swirl of glowing fog, a play of cold white flame along the edges of every object in the passenger compartment, then a sensation of dizzy speed as the fog flowed in a rush up through the roof, passing through solid steel as if nothing were there.
From the cockpit Bob Hall called, «The thing’s on the radar again, following us, but it seems to be falling back.»
Richard stumbled to one side, and fell into a seat where he sat, head in hands, sucking in deep gasping breaths.
J leaned over him, saying, «Are you all right, Richard?»
Blade answered, «Not really. I’m awfully weak. Good Lord, sir, do you know I almost killed you? The Ngaa was forcing me, but I saw it was you, and I fought it.»
«Had you tried to fight it before?»
«Yes, but not successfully.» Richard’s voice was stronger. «Perhaps I needed… more motivation. To tell the truth, I’d begun to believe the thing was omnipotent.»
«It may attack you again.»
«Yes, but I’ll know I can beat it, and that should make all the difference.»
«I hope so. I certainly hope so.» J was not one for physical demonstrations of emotion, but he placed his hand on Richard’s shoulder.
Captain Ralston called, «What now, sir?»
J answered, «Set a course for the USA. We proceed as planned.»
Richard tried to stand, but fell back into his seat. «I’d like to stay up and chat but… «
J said, «You’d better get back in your bunk.»
Zoe gently pushed past J’s elbow, saying, «Here now, Dick. Let me help you.» She did not quite succeed in keeping her voice steady and impersonal.
Chapter 9
«May I smoke, Dr. Colby?»
«By all means, sir.»
J lit his pipe and thoughtfully puffed it into life, staring out the tall window over the green garden city of Berkeley to the sailboat-dotted bay and the Golden Gate Bridge beyond. The afternoon sun was bright in an almost cloudless sky that seemed after the gray overcasts of London, unnaturally blue.
J began, «You’ve examined him?»
«Yes.»
«What do you think?»
«The prognosis is favorable, certainly more favorable than it was in the case of poor Dexter. Your Richard Blade would seem to be perfectly normal except for one thing.»
«What’s that?»
«He’s living in the past, or to be more exact, he appears to have lost a span of ten years or more.»
«Lost?»
«Forgotten. Repressed. In his own mind he is a much younger man than he really is, a man who has never visited the X dimensions, full of the confidence of his training and his successful career in British intelligence. He is a man in love with and engaged to a Zoe Cornwall, a Zoe Cornwall who was never married to Reginald Smythe-Evans, never lost her children, never was widowed.»
J turned to face the man. «But Dr. Colby, he seemed to remember everything on the plane, even the Ngaa.»
«He remembers nothing of what happened on the plane. After all, he killed three of his own organization’s men with his bare hands. That can’t be an easy thing to face. And the Ngaa is what drove him into amnesia in the first place. At present Ngaa is no more to him than a meaningless word.»
J stood, back to the window, studying the psychiatrist, thinking, Can I trust the judgment of this fellow?
Had he not devoted himself to psychology, Dr. Saxton Colby could have been a actor. He had an actor’s deep, carrying voice, an actor’s high cheekbones and expressive lean face, an actor’s lithe and graceful body, an actor’s shock of long disheveled iron-gray hair. J knew, from a cursory study of Colby’s dossier at Copra House, that he had been raised in a theatrical family, and that his father had been a famous Shakespearean performer.
J had known actors, including a few of the more famous film stars. They were a self-centered lot at best, yet here was a man who had broken with that world to devote himself to studying and helping others. Yes, I think I can trust him..
Colby leaned back in his leather-upholstered swivel chair, looking up at J calmly, confidently, slacks-clad long legs crossed, white short-sleeved sport shirt open at the throat. «One progresses, as
they say, two steps forward and one step back,» he said.
J began to pace the room, puffing moodily. «If only we had more to go on.»
«It would be easier,» Dr. Colby agreed. «At first glance Dexter and Blade would appear to be the only recorded cases of this particular syndrome.»
J halted in midstride. «What do you mean, ‘At first glance?’ «
Colby had swiveled to follow J’s movements across the large room. «You are familiar with the work of the American student of the unusual, Charles Fort?»
«Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve read his book Wild Talents, and couldn’t help but notice the similarity between his ‘Fortean Events’ and the things that the Ngaa has been doing.»
«Then you understand the implications. The Ngaa has invaded our universe many times in the past and may continue in the future. I’ve studied the Ngaa. I think I’ve studied this being more than any other living man, and in my studies I’ve found that others have gone before me, attempting to uncover the true nature of the creature, if one can call it a creature. Charles Fort was not the only one, by any means. Some of them have, I think, come much closer than he did.»
«Who, for example?»
Colby searched through the piles of papers and books on his desk and came up with a sheaf of papers. «I don’t know who wrote this pamphlet, but I suspect it was a turn-of-the-century occultist named DeCastries.»
J took the copy and examined it. It was perhaps twenty pages long, on eight and a half by eleven sheets. The title caught his eye. «Megapolisomancy.» J raised a questioning eyebrow.
«DeCastries had a theory that what we call hauntings or Fortean events were caused by some sort of paramental beings that were attracted by large cities, that somehow fed off the life energies of the masses of people jammed together there. I think he had at least part of the truth. The Ngaa seems to like big cities, but it has been known to function outside them.»
«Where did you get this thing?» J was leafing through it, reading a line here, a line there.
«I joined an occultist society called the Rosicrucian Order. Their world headquarters is just south of here, in San Jose. I worked my way up from level to level until I reached the point where they would allow me to read the books they keep in their restricted library, books they won’t show the general public or even the novices, though I should tell you the books they do let the novices see are quite amazing. I found a great deal, there in the restricted stacks, but this was so interesting I took the liberty of copying the more relevant passages.»
