by Brian Lumley
“We’ll be … friends?” he said, offering her a first, wan smile. “Despite Turkur Tzonov?”
“We are friends,” she answered, and sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “And to hell with Turkur Tzonov! Except—” She frowned. “He will expect something out of all this.”
Nathan nodded. “Of course. He’ll expect answers, and you shall supply them …” He was suddenly thoughtful, withdrawn, subdued. “But I won’t tell you—him—everything, not just yet. No, he won’t get all of it until … until he brings his machine here.”
Siggi felt her heart sinking like a stone. “His machine?” Her voice was a whisper. She knew about such a machine, banned now throughout the civilized world, but: “Turkur hasn’t spoken to me about … about that!”
“Nor has he said anything to me,” Nathan answered. “But he has thought it …”
5
Out of Perchorsk
Siggi had asked him, “What will you tell me about yourself?”
And Nathan had answered, “Most of it, but I shall leave out anything which would help Tzonov. It could be argued that anything I tell you will be of some help to him, I know, but in fact there’s a great deal that might frighten him off! He would be a fool to ignore the menace of the Wamphyri.”
“You don’t know Turkur, despite what you’ve read in his mind,” she’d told him then. “And you haven’t seen—couldn’t possibly imagine—the power of the weapons he commands. How long will it take you to tell me … everything?”
Again Nathan’s expressive shrug. “How long is a lifetime? I can only tell it as it happened.”
“It would be shorter if I could see it, and it wouldn’t exhaust you.”
“In my mind?” He had understood her meaning. “I suppose so. But still it will take time: most of the night, maybe.”
She’d thought about it, then gone to the door and rapped on the hatch until it opened. “Give me your key,” she’d told the young soldier. “Then go to your bed. Your duty is over.” lip
“My orders are clear,” he’d answered. “I am to—”
“But I’ve just changed your orders! This is the way we planned it, Turkur Tzonov and I. So don’t interfere with the plans of your superiors. As you can see, the prisoner is completely harmless. Also, I’ve a gun hidden on my person.” These things were lies, but she went on anyway. “In the morning, I shall return the key to Turkur personally. And that’s enough of explanations. Now give me the key and I’ll continue with my work, and you can go and get a good night’s sleep.”
“Madame, I—”
“Or perhaps you’d prefer to explain your disobedience to Tzonov himself, right now, tonight? Maybe you’d like to go and wake him up, so that he can validate what I say?” At which the soldier had handed over the key, saluted, and excused himself.
Siggi’s actions had been almost automatic; she knew why she’d sent him away but would never have admitted it, consciously or otherwise, not even to herself. She was preparing the way, securing the ground, that was all; she didn’t want anyone outside the door, on the other side of that window. It wasn’t so much that she wanted Nathan, not yet, but if the night was going to be as long as he thought it would be …
That had been a little less than three and a half hours ago, and now the two were asleep … in each other’s arms.
How it had happened: neither of them would ever be sure. But as night stretched out and Perchorsk’s energy requirements were reduced, the room’s temperature had fallen by several degrees. Together with their physical inactivity, this hadn’t helped matters; soon they had felt the cold and eventually (in order to share their body heat, certainly) they’d sat together on Nathan’s bed. Finally it had seemed only natural that Siggi should recline in his arms, and then she’d drawn a blanket up to cover their fully clothed bodies. But when Nathan had reacted to her proximity, she’d known it at once, from which time on their thoughts had gradually turned away from his story to much more intimate things. And then Siggi had known for sure why she had sent the guard away.
When her curious hand had discovered him hot and pounding, Nathan had closed his mind, warning her: “But if I love you, it will be Misha …” Of course, for only four or five Earth-days ago he’d been with his young Gypsy wife on Sunside.
“Not if you love me with your body, not your mind.” And she too had called up her mind-smog to obscure her thoughts.
“Even so, still you’ll know it. Just as you know it now.”
“But I won’t see her face in your mind.” And what the eye can’t see, the mind won’t grieve. “I’ll imagine it’s me you’re pleasuring. And in a purely physical sense it will be. But you have a need, Nathan. Which you can relieve in me.”
“And your need?”
She had taken his hand, guided it to her hardened nipples. “My need is to satisfy the need in you. This could well be the only chance we’ll ever get. And it might be all I’m able to do for you, ever.”
“But you do have your own need?”
“I want you, yes.”
“Because I’m different? Or because you’ve been ordered to have me?” There had been a certain bitterness in his voice, but he’d stroked her breasts in spite of it. Siggi could hardly be expected to know that she wouldn’t be the first woman who had come—or been gift-wrapped and sent—to Nathan.
“Because you are different, probably.” She’d smiled sadly. “But ‘ordered’? To love you? On the contrary, I’ve been told not to!”
And she had sensed his understanding, and knew that he too was his own man. “I’m … forbidden?”
“Turkur likes to own things,” she had told him. “Including people. And if he can’t own something, still he’ll try to deny its … its use, to others. He would like to own both of us.”
“And this will help set you free?” Her fingertips had felt like small flames, burning where they brushed.
Again her wry smile. “Hardly that, for I’m in too deep. No, I can’t be free. But inside I’ll be like you: my own person.”
They’d been mainly free of their clothing by then, and when Siggi rolled onto him her breasts were soft, scented in his face. Her woman’s juices had prepared the way, and slipping into her was so easy it came almost as a surprise. But as she’d tightened herself to control him, slow him, take charge, then Nathan had seen how expert she was. And then, too, he’d known that she wasn’t and never could be Misha.
The first time had been quick, for all her control. But the second was slower, deeper, more knowing. It was as if he reached for her heart, while she in turn tried to swallow him whole. Then, when all too soon it was over and this man from a weird world fell asleep in Siggi’s arms and body, she could have cried. For at the last she’d glimpsed herself in his mind, and seen how she glowed there. Not the dark, sweating, sucking thing she’d come to expect—perhaps especially this time—but a haven, a harbour, almost a holy place.
She could have cried because … because he might be the one! Oh, it was too early to know, but he might be. Except he couldn’t be, not ever, because of Misha.
And so Nathan had slept in Siggi’s arms as at the house of an old friend. Then … she had wanted to give him something more than her body, because it might be her only chance to give him anything, ever. Taking her jade clasp, she’d placed it in a pocket of his jacket. And finally, lulled by the steady beat of his heart, in a little while she, too, had slept …
… And slept—
—Until Turkur Tzonov woke them up!
Finished with his work, Tzonov had caught up on a couple of hours’ lost sleep until something—some dream or other—had brought him awake. Siggi’s room was only a few doors from his own; out of curiosity (or perhaps for some other reason?) he’d looked in … and the rest had seemed obvious. What? She was still working? Right through the night? Ah, but there’s work and there’s work! And now, coming here:
“Where’s the guard?” His voice was a snarl, his eyes huge and furio
us as he dragged her from the bed. His automatic pistol was trained on Nathan.
Confused by sleep, Siggi tried to think. What time was it? She glanced at her watch, which was all she was wearing! A little after four-thirty. In another hour or so Perchorsk would be waking up. But Tzonov was already awake, fully awake.
“I asked you—” He shook her.
“I heard you!” she shouted. “I … I sent him away.”
Tzonov growled low in his throat and nodded. “Yes, yes of course you did!”
“Out there in the corridor, he was a … a distraction. I couldn’t work.”
“Work?” Tzonov looked Siggi up and down, sneering at her nakedness. “You couldn’t … work? Ha!” He drew back his hand and slapped her, hard, a backhander that sent her sprawling.
Nathan was awake now, starting up from the bed. His face was white as chalk, hands reaching. Tzonov turned his gun on him and snarled through clenched teeth, “Come on, show me how you Travellers fight for your sluts. Give me a reason to blow your guts all over the room!”
Nathan held back, trembling, cold sweat marbling his brow. His eyes were rapt on the Russian’s ugly blued-steel pistol, which held him at bay. But if Tzonov had been unarmed …
Just this minute risen from sleep and still confused, for the first time Nathan’s mind was unguarded, wide open to Turkur Tzonov. Eye-to-eye contact: the Russian read Nathan’s angry thoughts and glanced down at the gun in his hand.
“What, this?” In control again, but barely, he knew how close he had come to using it. “Is this what’s stopping you? This and my threat? Oh no, my young friend; I want you alive and kicking! For now, anyway …”
Their contact worked in two directions. Once more Nathan saw a monstrous machine in Tzonov’s mind—a mechanical vampire, feeding, with himself as its victim! The thing ate his brain with electrical fire, and left his skull an empty shell. But Nathan wasn’t alone, for this time Siggi saw it, too. Then Tzonov blinked and the picture was gone, and his mind seemed sheathed in ice.
He applied the safety catch on his gun, flipped back the left-hand drape of his jacket, and drove the weapon home in its underarm holster. “Very well,” he said, “let’s see what you’ve got if we dispense with—”
But Nathan was already moving—and Siggi was shouting at him, “Nathan, don’t!” Too late.
As Nathan came flying from the bed, Tzonov seemed to back off a pace. But coldly efficient, even robotic in the precision of his movements, at the last moment the Russian stepped to the right, grasped Nathan’s left wrist, twisted, and leaned back. In midflight but descending, Nathan found himself flipped forward in an uncontrolled somersault. And before releasing him, Tzonov used his own body as a pivot and centre of gravity, to add his weight to his victim’s impetus.
Nathan hit the vinyl-tiled floor, bounced, rolled, and slammed full-length into the metal wall—and lay still. The “fight” was over. Tzonov crossed to him, went to one knee, and checked his pulse. Then he grunted and looked at Siggi where she was silently cursing and pulling the last of her clothes on. Glaring back at him, she said, “Well, and have you killed him?”
He shook his bullet head. “No. I will kill him, eventually! But for now he’s just winded, dizzy, feeling sick …”
“You’re the sick one!” She headed for the open door. But Tzonov was there first, thrusting her out into the corridor so hard that she collided with the opposite wall. Then, while she clung there, he took out a duplicate key and secured the door. Siggi saw the key in his hand and clamped her mind tight shut, obscuring its thoughts behind her uniquely misty screen. And:
Fuck you! she thought again.
She hadn’t planned it this way (had she? had she?), but Tzonov had forced the issue. And what he intended to do to Nathan … well, it just couldn’t be allowed. Siggi told herself that that was the real reason why, while Tzonov had been dealing with Nathan and she’d been so hurriedly, breathlessly dressing, she’d left her key on the rim of Nathan’s washbasin. It wasn’t just the worm turning, the need to take revenge on this grotesque egomaniac bastard and all his cruelties. No, it was a human act, of a kind Turkur Tzonov would never understand.
For she knew now that it wasn’t Nathan who was the enemy, the alien here. Not by any means …
Something a little more than two and a half hours later, Siggi was in her bed. Her exhaustion was mostly feigned, but not her trembling as she lay there wondering how Tzonov would react to his prisoner’s escape. It was unavoidable, something which was bound to erupt at any moment now; in fact she was surprised it was taking so long, unless—
Was it possible that Nathan had been in such a bad way that he’d just stayed there unconscious on the floor? Perhaps he’d staggered to his bed and collapsed there, and so failed to find the key where she’d left it.
But even as that thought occurred:
Hurried footsteps in the corridor, a muted curse, and a moment later a fist hammering on the door. Then Tzonov’s voice demanding that she wake up. Siggi took her time, made sure she looked disheveled, hoped that her makeup had given her black eye a little extra shine and that the smoked glasses she wore didn’t hide its bruised lower orbit. And belting her dressing gown, finally she opened the door.
Tzonov was alone. At least that was a mercy. She wasn’t about to be arrested. No, that was a stupid thought: how could she have feared that he would dare to charge her with anything? She knew too much about him, and anyway the era of dawn arrests and summary executions was over … in the rest of the world, at least. But this was Perchorsk, and Tzonov had the power here.
“Siggi.” His voice was harsh, rasping. “He’s escaped!”
“What?” She turned her face away, as if hiding her eye. In fact she was hiding both of them, making sure that Tzonov couldn’t see past the double barrier of dark lenses and mind-smog. “Who has … escaped, did you say? Nathan!”
“Of course, Nathan! Who else?” He caught her shoulders, forced her to face him—and saw the dark blue bruise under the gold rim of her glasses. His expression changed at once. “What? Glasses? Something wrong with … your eyes?”
“No, with my eye!” Siggi hissed. “My left eye, where you struck me! Is your memory so short, then?” She snatched away the glasses—but only for a moment.
“Ah!” He looked staggered. “But I didn’t mean to … I mean … did I strike you so hard?”
She covered her eyes, conjured even deeper banks of fog. “It doesn’t matter, not anymore. And it isn’t important. But Nathan, escaped? How?”
Then … she let her jaw fall, caused her hand to fly to her mouth. “The key!” (In time of need, Siggi could be a very good actress.)
“Key?” Tzonov tightened his grip on her shoulders and frowned. “No, the door was locked. And I had returned my key to the key cabinet. Do you mean the duplicate? But I’d given that to your guard, with orders that …”
She tore herself loose, ran to where her clothes of the previous night were hanging, frantically searched the jacket pockets. “I dressed so hurriedly,” she gasped as he followed after her and stood waiting close by, with his fists clenched and the skin over his jaw tight as a drumhead. “If you hadn’t acted like a jealous, egotistical fool … !”
“You had the key?” Tzonov couldn’t believe it, and a moment later neither could she—as he laughed and slapped his thigh! “But I thought … I thought … !” Amazingly, his expression was one of relief, and suddenly Siggi knew exactly what he’d thought: that Nathan had his father’s powers. That he’d teleported out of his locked room!
“Why are you laughing?” She continued to act it out. “At me? Of course I had the key. How else was I to let myself out of his cell? But while you were busy … throwing your weight around …” She hurled her jacket to the floor, stamped on it, and burst into tears. False tears, but enough to fool Tzonov. She was only a weak woman, after all. His ego was quite safe. And for the same reason she knew now that he never would have believed that she could give the key to
Nathan. But now that she was on fairly safe ground again:
“Since then … why, I’ve been in such a state that … that I haven’t even thought about that bloody key!”
Now Tzonov had someone to blame, chastise, and again his hands tightened on her shoulders. “Siggi, you’re a sick little idiot. You sought to seduce him, yet even now you’re not sure that he didn’t seduce you. You’re assuming you lost the key—but he could well have taken it from you! I should have known better than to let you be alone with him.”
Again she stamped her foot, tore herself free, and turned her face away. “No, I’m not sick! Whatever I did was for you, us, our country. You wanted information, and I got it. Everything I could, anyway. And whatever it took.”
“Ah?” She had Tzonov’s attention, if only for the moment. “He told you things? A lot? Good! But … why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“What?” She glared at him. “And did you give me even half a chance?”
Tzonov knew that he hadn’t. “Perhaps not. But in any case it will have to keep.” He was fully in control again. “On the other hand, his escape can’t keep. Well, let’s see: he’s been loose for some two and a half hours, presumably. But a cell is one thing and the complex is another entirely. There’s always a guard on the outer doors. And no way out except through those doors. So there’s every chance he’s still in the place.”
“Where would he go?” She was off the hook and could afford to relax a little. “He has no friends here.”
Tzonov looked at her sharply. “The British?”
She acted up to it. “Yes! He could speak to them.”
“Huh!” Tzonov snorted. “Well, he could in a fashion, yes.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Better than that. He’s a telepath!” She would have had to tell him eventually, before he found out for himself. So why not now?
“What?”
“It’s true. He spoke to me that way, and he’s good at it. I would have told you before, if you’d let me before throwing me in here! It’s why—it’s how—I knew he wanted me.” And before Tzonov could fly into another rage she continued, “Why, Nathan even told me about what he saw in your mind, Turkur: a machine, and how you planned to use it on him—which is something you never told me …” With her last few words, Siggi had even dared to let a disapproving tone creep into her voice.
