by Brian Lumley
Dave Collins, looking on, sighed and said, An hour ago I was a policeman, and now it seems I’m to be an executioner.
It’s a unanimous verdict, Dave, Harry reminded him.
And like the Grim Reaper himself, so Dave Collins advanced and took Yulian’s hideous head as cleanly as possible, even though he had to strike more than once or twice. After that it was Guy Roberts’s turn; he worked on the now silent vampire with roaring, gouting, blistering, cleansing fire until there was really nothing much left of him at all. And he didn’t stop until his tanks were empty. By then the dead were dispersing, back to their riven graves.
It was time for Harry to move on. The wind had blown Yulian’s fog away, the stench of putrefaction, too, and stars were shining in the night sky. Harry’s work was finished here, but elsewhere there was still a great deal to be done.
He thanked the dead, one and all, and found a Möbius door.
Harry was almost used to the Möbius continuum now, but he suspected that most human minds would find it unendurable. For it was always nowhere and nowhen on the space-time Möbius strip; but a man with the right equations, the right sort of mind, could use it to ride anywhere and everywhen. Before that, of course, he would need to conquer his fear of the dark.
For in the physical universe there are degrees of darkness, and Nature seems to abhor all of them much as she abhors a vacuum. The metaphysical Möbius continuum, however, is made of darkness. That is all it consists of. Beyond the Möbius doors lies the very Primal Darkness itself, which existed before the material universe began.
Harry might be at the core of a black hole, except a black hole has enormous gravity and this place had none. It had no gravity because it contained no mass; it was immaterial as thought itself, yet like thought it was a force. It had powers which reacted to Harry’s presence and worked to expel him, like a mote caught in its eye. He was a foreign body, which the Möbius continuum must reject.
At least, that was how it had used to be. But this time Harry sensed that things were different.
Previously there had always been this sensation of matterless forces pushing at him, attempting to dislodge him from the unreal back into the real. And he had never dared to let that happen except where or when he desired it to happen, else he might well emerge in a place or time totally untenable. But now: now it seemed to him that those same forces were bending a little, perhaps even jostling each other to accommodate him. And in Harry’s unfettered, incorporeal mind, he believed he knew why. Intuition told him that this was his — yes, his metamorphosis!
From real to unreal, from a flesh and blood being to an immaterial awareness, from a living person to — a ghost? Harry had always refused to accept that premise, that he was in fact dead, but now he began to fear that it might indeed be so. And mightn’t that explain why the dead loved him so? The fact that he was one of theirs?
He rejected the idea angrily. Angry with himself. No, for the dead had loved him before this, when he was still a man full-fleshed. And that was a thought which also angered him. I still am a man! he told himself, but with far less authority. For now that he’d conjured it, the idea of a subtle metamorphosis was growing in him.
Something less than a year ago he had argued with August Ferdinand Möbius about a possible relationship between the physical and metaphysical universes. Möbius, in his grave in a Leipzig cemetery, had insisted that the two were entirely separate, unable to impose themselves in any way one upon the other. They might occasionally rub up against each other, the action producing reaction on both sides — such as ‘ghosts’ or ‘psychic experiences’ on the physical plane — but they could never overlap and never run concurrent.
And as for jumping from one to the other and back again.
But Harry had been the anomaly, the fly in Möbius’s ointment, the spanner in the works. Or perhaps the exception that proves the rule?
All of that, however, had been when he had form, when he was corporeal. And now? Perhaps now the rule was at last asserting itself, ironing out the discrepancy. Harry belonged here; he was no longer physical but metaphysical, and so should remain here. Here forever, riding the unimaginable and scientifically impossible flux of forces in the abstract Möbius continuum. Perhaps he was becoming one with the place.
Word association: force-flux — force fields — lines of force — lines of life. The bright blue lines of life extending forward beyond the doors to future time! And suddenly Harry remembered something and wondered how it could possibly have slipped so far to the back of his mind. The Möbius strip couldn’t claim him, not yet, anyway, because ‘he had a future. Hadn’t he seen it for himself?
He could even witness it again if he wished, by simply finding a future-time door. Or perhaps this time it wouldn’t be so simple. What if the Möbius continuum should claim him while he traversed time? That was an unbearable thought: to hurtle into the future forever! But no need to take the risk, for Harry could remember it well enough:
The scarlet life-line drifting closer, angling in towards his own and Harry junior’s blue threads. Yulian Bodescu, surely?
And then the infant’s life-thread abruptly veering away from his father’s, racing off at a tangent. That must have been his escape from the vampire, the moment when he’d first used the Möbius continuum in his own right. After that — then there’d been that impossible collision:
That strange blue life-thread, dimming, crumbling, disintegrating, converging with Harry’s own thread out of nowhere. The two had seemed to bend towards each other as by some mutual attraction, before slamming together in a neon blaze and speeding on as one thread. Briefly Harry had felt the presence — or the faint, fading echo — of another mind: but then it was gone, extinct, and his thread rushing on alone.
Yes, and he had recognised that dying echo of a mind! Now he knew for sure where he must go, who he must
seek out. And with something less than his usual dexterity, he found his way to INTESP HO in London.
The top floor — self-contained suites of offices, labs, private quarters and a communal recreation room — which comprised INTESP HO were in turmoil. Fifteen minutes ago something had occurred which, despite the nature of the HO and the various talents of its personnel, was completely beyond all previous experience. There had been no warning; the thing had not telegraphed itself to INTESP’s telepaths, precogs or other psychic sensitives; it had simply ‘happened’, and left the espers running round in circles like ants in a disturbed nest.
‘It’ had been the arrival of Harry Keogh Jnr and his mother.
The first INTESP had known of it was when all the security alarms went off simultaneously. Indicators had shown that the intruder was in the top office, Alec Kyle’s control room. No one but John Grieve had been in that room since Kyle flew to Italy, and the place was now secured. There couldn’t possibly be anybody in there.
It could be a fault in the alarm system, of course, but and then had come the first real intimations of what was happening. All of INTESP’s espers had felt it at the same time: a powerful presence, a mental giant in their midst, here at HO. Harry Keogh?
Finally they’d got the door to Kyle’s office open — and found mother and child curled up together in the middle of the office carpet. Nothing physical had ever manifested itself in this way before; not here at INTESP, anyway. When Keogh himself had visited Kyle here, he had been incorporeal, without substance, a mere impression of the man Keogh had been. But these people were real, solid, alive and breathing. They had been teleported here.
The ‘why’ of it was obvious: to escape Bodescu. As for the ‘how’, that would have to wait. Mother and child — and therefore INTESP itself — were safe, and that was the main thing.
At first it had been thought that Brenda Keogh was simply asleep; but when Grieve carefully examined her he found the large soft lump at the back of her head and guessed she was concussed. As for the baby: he had looked around, alert and wide-eyed, appeared a little startled but not unduly afr
aid, lying in his mother’s relaxed arms sucking his thumb! Not much wrong with him.
With the greatest care and attention to their task, the espers had then carried the pair to staff accommodation and put them to bed, and a doctor had been summoned. Then INTESP’s buzzing members had concentrated themselves in the ops room to talk it over. Which was when Harry came on the scene.
While his coming was startling, if anything it was less of a shock and more of an anticlimax; the previous materialisation had prepared them for it. It might even be said that he was expected. John Grieve had just taken the ops room podium and turned the lights down a little when Harry appeared. He came in the form all of the espers had heard about but which few of them, and none present, had ever seen: a faint mesh of luminous blue filaments — almost a hologram — in the image of a man. And again that psychic shockwave went out, telling them all that they were in the presence of a metaphysical Power.
John Grieve felt it, too, but he was the last of them to actually see Harry, for he’d appeared on the podium’s platform slightly to Grieve’s rear. Then the permanent Duty Officer heard the concerted gasp that went up from his small audience where they’d taken their seats, and he turned his head.
‘My God!’ he said, staggering a little.
No, said Harry, just Harry Keogh. Are you all right?’
Grieve had almost fallen from the podium, only finding his balance at the last moment. He steadied himself, said, ‘Yes, I think so,’ then he held up his hand to quiet the buzz of excited, expectant conversation. ‘What’s happening, Harry?’ He got down off the podium and backed away.
Try not to be frightened, Harry told them all. This was a ritual he was getting used to. I’m one of you, remember?
‘We’re not frightened, Harry,’ Ken Layard found his voice. ‘Just… cautious.’
I’m looking for Alec Kyle, said Harry. Is he back yet?
‘No,’ Grieve shook his head, turned his face away a little. ‘And he probably won’t be. But your wife and son got here OK.’
The Keogh manifestation sighed, visibly relaxed. This told him the extent of the baby’s delving into his mind. Good! he said, — about Brenda and the baby, I mean. I knew they’d be somewhere safe, but this place has to be the safest.
The handful of espers were now on their feet, had come forward to the base of the raised platform. ‘But didn’t you, er, send them here?’ Grieve was puzzled.
Harry shook his neon head. That was the baby’s doing. He brought them both here, through the Möbius continuum. You’d better look after that one, for he’s going to be a hell of an asset! Listen, there are things that can’t wait, so explanations will have to. Tell me about Alec.
Grieve did, and Layard added, ‘I know he’s there, at the Château, but I read him like… well, like he’s dead.’
That hit Harry hard. That strange blue life-thread, dimming, crumbling, disintegrating. Alec Kyle!
There are things you’ll want to know, he told them, apparently in a hurry now. Things you have every right to know. First, Yulian Bodescu is dead.
Someone whistled his appreciation, and Layard cried, ‘Christ, that’s wonderful!’
It was Harry’s turn to avert his face. Guy Roberts is dead, too, he said.
For a moment there was silence, then someone asked, ‘Darcy Clarke?’
He’s fine, Harry answered, as far as I know. Listen, everything else will have to wait. I’ve got to go now. But I’ve a feeling I’ll be seeing all of you again.
He collapsed in upon himself to a single point of radiant blue light, and disappeared.
Harry knew the route to the Château Bronnitsy well enough, but the Möbius continuum fought him all the way, It fought to retain him, to keep him to itself. The longer he remained unbodied, the worse it would become, until finally he’d be trapped in the endless night of an alien dimension. But not yet.
Alec Kyle was not dead and Harry knew it; if he had been then Harry could simply reach out his mind and talk to him, as he talked to all the dead. But though he tried — however tentatively at first, cringingly — mercifully there was no contact. This made him bolder; he tried harder, putting every effort into contacting Kyle’s mind, while yet hoping that he’d fail. But this time —
— Harry felt horror wash over him as indeed he picked up the faint, failing echo of the man h~ had known. An echo, yes: a de-pairing, fading cry tailing off into nothing.
But it was all the beacon Harry needed, and he homed in on it in a moment.
Then… it was as if he were caught in a maelstrom! It was Harry Jnr all over again, but ten times worse, and this time there was no resisting it. Harry did not have to fight free of the Möbius continuum but was ripped out of it intact. Torn from it and inserted — Elsewhere!
It hadn’t been easy but Zek Föener had eventually fallen asleep, only to toss and turn for hours in the throes of sheerest nightmare. Finally she’d started awake in the small hours of the morning and looked all about in the darkness of her spartan room. For the first time since coming to the Château Bronnitsy the place seemed alien to her; her job here was empty now; it offered neither reward nor satisfaction. Indeed it was evil. It was evil because the people she worked for were evil. Under Felix Krakovitch things had been different, but under Ivan Gerenko… his very name had become a bad taste in Zek’s mouth. Her life would be impossible if he took control here. And as for that squat, murderous toad Theo Dolgikh.
Zek had got up, splashed cold water in her face, made her way down to the cellars which housed the Château’s various experimental laboratories. On her way, on the stairs and in a corridor, she’d passed a night-duty technician and an esper: both had nodded their respect but she’d hardly noticed, merely brushed by them and continued on her way. She had her own respects to pay, to a man as good as dead.
Letting herself into the mind-lab, she’d taken a steel chair and sat beside Alec Kyle, touched his pale flesh. His pulse was erratic, the rise and fall of his chest weak and abnormal. He was almost totally brain-dead, and less than twenty-four hours from now… The authorities in West Berlin wouldn’t know who he was or what had killed him. Murder, pure and simple.
And she had been part of it. She had been duped, told that Kyle was a spy, an enemy whose secrets were of the utmost importance to the Soviet Union, while in reality they were only of the utmost importance to Ivan Gerenko. She had defended herself before that sick creature, made excuses when he said she’d been party to it — but there was no defence against her own conscience.
Oh, it was easy for Gerenko and the thousands like him, who only ever read reports. Zek read minds, and that was a different matter entirely. A mind is not a book; books only describe emotions, they rarely make you feel them. But to a telepath the emotion is real, raw and powerful as the story itself. She hadn’t simply read Alec Kyle’s stolen diary, she’d read his life. And in doing so she had helped to steal it.
An enemy, yes, she supposed he’d been that, in that he held allegiance to another country, a different code. But a threat? Oh, in higher echelons of his government there were doubtless personalities who would wish to see Russia devolve, become subservient. But Kyle wasn’t a militarist, he’d been no subversive strategist worrying at the foundations of Communist identity and society. No, he’d been humanitarian, with an overwhelming belief that all men were brothers — or should be. And his only desire had been to maintain a balance. In his work for the British EBranch he’d been used, much as Zek herself was now being used, when both of them could have been working towards greater things.
And where was Alec Kyle now? Nowhere. His body was here, but his mind — a very fine mind — was gone forever.
Eyes filming, Zek looked up, looked scathingly at the machinery backed up against the sterile walls. Vampires? The world was full of them. What of these machines, which had sucked out his knowledge and sluiced it all away forever? But a machine can’t feel guilt, which is an entirely human emotion.
She came to a decision: if i
t were at all possible, she’d find a way to break free of EBranch. There had been cases before where telepaths lost their talent, so why shouldn’t she? If she could fake it, convince Gerenko that she was no longer of any use to this sinister organisation, then — Zek’s train of thought stopped right there. Under her
fingertips where they lay on Kyle’s wrist, his pulse had suddenly grown steady and strong; his chest was now rising and falling rhythmically; his mind… his mind?
No, the mind of another! An astonishing wave of psychic power washed outwards from him. It wasn’t telepathy — wasn’t anything Zek had felt before — but whatever it was, it was strong! She snatched back her hand and sprang to her feet, found her legs wobbly as jelly, and stood gulping, staring at the man lying on the operating table that should have been his deathbed. His thoughts, at first jumbled, finally fell into a rhythm of their own.
It isn’t my body, Harry told himself, without knowing that someone else was listening, but it’s a good one and it’s going free! There’s nothing left for you, Alec, but there’s still a chance for me — a good chance for Harry Keogh. God, Alec, wherever you are now, forgive me!
His identity was in Zek’s mind and she knew she’d made no mistake. Her legs began to buckle under her. Then the figure — whoever, however it was — on the table opened its eyes and sat up, and that finished the job. For a moment she passed out, two or three ticks of the clock, but sufficient time in which to slump to the floor. Time enough, too, for him to swing his legs off the table and go down on one knee beside her. He rubbed her wrists briskly and she felt it, felt his warm hands on her suddenly cold flesh. His warm, alive, strong hands.
‘I’m Harry Keogh,’ he said, as her eyes fluttered open.
Zek had learned a little English from British tourists on Zakinthos. ‘I… I know,’ she said. ‘And I… I’m crazy!’
He looked at her, at her grey Château uniform with its single diagonal yellow stripe across the heart, looked all around at the room and its instruments, finally looked — with a great deal of wonder — at his own naked self. Yes, at his self, now. And to her he said, accusingly, ‘Did you have something to do with this?’
