“For the light,” Khuv explained, though there was hardly any need. “It can be blinding until you're used to it.” He put on his glasses.
Jazz did the same, followed Khuv down the stairway built through the glass-smooth cylindrical shaft. From behind them came a clatter as the soldier's rifle toppled over when he went to pick it up, then Karl Vyotsky's husky, threatening voice hissing: “Idiot! Dolt! Would you like to do a month of nights?”
“No, sir!” the young soldier gasped. “I'm sorry, sir. It slipped.”
“You damn well should be sorry!” Vyotsky rasped. “And not only for the rifle. What the hell are you here for anyway? To check passes for security, that's what! Do you know that man in front, and me, and the man with us?”
“Oh, yes, sir!” the young soldier quavered. “The man in front is Comrade Major Khuv, sir, and you too are an officer of the KGB. The other man is ⦠is ⦠a friend of yours, sir!”
“Clown!” Vyotsky hissed. “He is
not
my friend. Nor yours. Nor anyone's in the whole damned place!”
“Sir, Iâ”
“Now hold that rifle out in front of you,” Vyotsky snapped. “Arm's length, finger through the trigger-guard, finger under the backsight.
What the hell ⦠?
Arm's length, I said. Now hold it, and count to two hundred, slowly! Then get back to attention. And if I ever catch you slacking off again, I'll feed you into that white hell down there dick first, got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
Following Khuv toward the white glare at the end of the shaft, Jazz murmured sourly: “A disciplinarian, our Karl.”
Khuv glanced back, shook his head. “Not really. Discipline isn't his strong point. But sadism is. I hate to admit it, but it does have its uses ⦔
At the end of the shaft there was a railed landing where the stairs levelled out and turned to the left. Khuv paused on the landing with Jazz alongside. Waiting for Vyotsky, they gazed down on a fantastic scene.
It was like being in a cavern, but there was no way it could be mistaken for any ordinary sort of cave. Instead, Jazz saw that the rock had been hollowed out in the shape of a perfect sphere, a giant bubble in the base of the mountainâbut a bubble at least one hundred and twenty feet in diameter! The curving, shiny-black wall all around was glass-smooth except for the wormholes which riddled it everywhere, even in the domed ceiling. The mouth of the shaft where Jazz and Khuv stood pointed downward at ninety degrees directly at the centre of the space, which also happened to be the source of the light. And that was the most fantastic thing of all.
For that central area was a ball of light some thirty feet across, and it was apparently suspended there, mid-way between the domed ceiling and the upward curving floor. A sphere of brilliance hanging motionless within a sphere of air, and the whole trick neatly buried under the foot of a mountain!
Narrowing his eyes against the glare, which was powerful even through the tinted lenses of his spectacles, Jazz slowly became aware that the spherical cavern contained other things. A spidery web of scaffolding had been built half way up the wall and all around the central blaze. The scaffolding supported a platform of timbers which circled the weird light source, reminding Jazz vaguely of the ring system round Saturn. Leading inwards from the ring, a walkway proceeded right to the edge of the sphere of light.
Externally, backed up against the black, wormhole-riddled wallsâevenly spaced around the perimeter and massively supported on a framework of stanchionsâthree twin-mounted Katushev cannons pointed their muzzles point-blank at the blinding centre. Crews were in position, their sights aligned on the sphere, their faces white and alien-looking with headset antennae and insect goggle-eyes trained on the dazzling target.
Between the guns and the sphere stood a ten-foot high electrified fence, with a gate where the timber walkway spanned the gap between the Saturn rings and the centre. There was some motion down there, nervous and jumpy, but not much; the stench of fear was so thick in the supposedly conditioned air that Jazz could almost feel it like slime on his skin.
He gripped the wooden rail, let the entire scene print itself indelibly on his brain, said: “What in the name of all that's ⦠?” He turned his head to stare at Khuv. “I saw the arrival of those guns that night you caught me. The electrified fence, too. I thought they were meant to defend Perchorsk against attack from the outside, which struck me as making no sense. But from the
inside
? Christ, that doesn't make much sense either! I mean, what is that thing? And why are those men down there so desperately afraid of it?”
And suddenly, without any prompting, he knew the answer before it came. Not all of the answer but enough. Suddenly everything fitted: all he'd seen, and all Khuv had told him. And especially the flying monstrosity that the American fighters had burned to hell and sent crashing to earth in a ball of flame from high over the west coast of the Hudson Bay. And speaking of flames, wasn't that a four-man flame-thrower squad down there on the Saturn's-rings platform? Yes, it was.
Vyotsky had come up quietly behind Jazz and Khuv where they stood at the rail. He put a huge hand on Jazz's shoulder, causing him to start. “As to what it is, British,” he said, “it's some sort of gate or door. And as such we're not frightened of it.” But Jazz noted how for once Vyotsky's tone was muted, perhaps even a little awed.
“Karl is right,” said Khuv. “No, we're not frightened of the Gate itselfâbut I defy any sane person not to fear the things that sometimes come through it!”
The Gate To ⦠?
THEY STARTED DOWN THE FINAL FLIGHT OF WOODEN STAIRS to the Saturn's rings of spiderweb platform, then moved round the central sphere until they approached the walkway leading to its coldly incandescent heart. Ten feet away from the gate in the electric fence Khuv halted, turned to Jazz and said: “Well, what do you make of it?” He could only be talking about the glaring yet enigmatic globe which stood on the other side of the gate, maybe seven paces away. It was quite motionless, it made no sound, and yet it was menacing.
“You said that this was where the atomic pile stood,” Jazz answered. “What, in mid-air? No, OK, I'm being facetious. So what you mean is that after the blow-back everything within sixty-five feet or so of the centre of that ⦠thatâwhatever it isâwas vaporized out of existence, right?”
“That would have been my explanation, too,” Khuv nodded, “but incorrectly. As I've already pointed out, conversion is the word. According to Viktor Luchov, the energy of the trapped beam was attracted by the latent energyâor the energy in actionâin the pile. You could compare it to the way a nail is drawn to a magnet. In the final fusing there was no explosion. Perhaps there was an implosion, I don't know any more
about that than Luchov himself. But the matter which had formed the floor of this place, and the pile itself along with its fuelâyes, and all the machinery, too, which had filled this areaâ
all
of these things, outwards from the centre to the spherical wall which now you see, were eaten, transformed, converted. Men, too. Seventeen nuclear physicists and technicians died instantly, leaving no trace.”
Jazz was impressed, if not by Khuv's telling of the story, certainly by its content. “And radiation?” he said. “There must have been a massive release ofâ”
Khuv shook his head, bringing Jazz to a halt. “In relation to what was available, there was very little in the way of escaped radiation. The tips of those wormholes, fifteen to twenty feet into the rock, some of those were hotspots. We did what we could, then sealed them off. In the levels above there are dangerous places still, but again mainly sealed off. And in any case those levels are no longer in use and will never be used again. You have seen something of the magmass, but you have not seen all of it. Metal and plastic and rock were not the only materials which flowed together inseparably in that blast of alien energy, Michael. But rock and metal and plastic do not rot! You understand my meaning, I'm sure ⦔
Jazz grimaced, said: “How did they ⦠clean the place up? It must have been a nightmare.”
“It still is,” Khuv told him. “That's why the lighting is muted up there. Acid was used. It was the only way. But it left moulds in the magmass which are utterly hideous to look upon. Pompeii must be something similar, but there at least the figures are still recognizably human. Not elongated or twisted or ⦠reversed.”
Jazz thought about it, enquired no further as to Khuv's exact meaning.
Vyotsky had been growing restless for some little time. “Do we have to stand here like this?” he suddenly
growled. “Why must we make targets of ourselves?”
Jazz's dislike for the man was intense, amounting to hatred. He'd hated him from the moment he first laid eyes on him, and couldn't resist jibes whenever the opportunity for such surfaced. Now he sneered at the huge Russian. “You think their fingers are likely to slip?” he nodded in the direction of the crew manning the closest Katushev. “Or maybe they've a grudge against you, too, eh?”
“British,” said Vyotsky, taking a threatening pace closer, “I could happily toss you on that fence there and watch you fry! You've been advised to mind your mouth. But me?âI hope you go on pushing your luck till you push yourself right over the edge!”
“Calm yourself, Karl,” Khuv told him. “He's looking for your measure, that's all.” And to Jazz: “He doesn't mean that sort of target,” he said. “Or rather he does, but not in the way you think. It's simply that if anythingâanything at all strangeâcomes out of that ball of light there, those crews have orders to open fire immediately and destroy or try to destroy it. And those orders take absolutely no account of the fact that we happen to be standing here, right in the arc of fire.”
“But if it did happen,” Vyotsky added, “and if what
could
come through
did,
then I personally would be glad to stop a bullet!”
Khuv gave a little shiver, said, “Let's get out of here. Karl is quite right: we are stupid to stand here tempting fate. It has happened five times before, and there's no guarantee it won't happen again.”
As they turned away and headed back toward the stairs, Jazz asked, “Do you have it on film? I mean, if it's a regular occurrenceâ”
“Not regular,” Khuv corrected him. “Fiveâshall we call them, âemergencies'âin two years can hardly be called frequent. But I take your point. Oh, yes, Michael, we learned our lessons quickly. After the first two encounters we fitted cameras, and now there are
also cameras mounted on these guns. They are triggered when the weapons themselves are triggered. What the gunners see, the cameras captureâon film, anyway. As for the thing your side has code-named âPill': that was the first. Nobody here was ready for it. The second one was smaller, but we weren't ready for that, either. After that the cameras were put in.”
“Any chance of seeing what we're talking about?” Jazz might as well go for broke; there was little or no chance of him getting out of here, but still he'd try to discover what he could of this mess if only on the off-chance.
“Certainly,” said Khuv without hesitation. “But if you prefer I can show you something far more interesting than mere films.” There was something about the way he said it that warned Jazz to be careful, but nevertheless he answered:
“Well, by all means, let's keep me interested.”
Vyotsky's grimly sardonic chuckle sounding from behind made him wonder if he'd made the right choice â¦
Â
They went back up through the quiet but disquieting magmass levels to the perimeter, and along it to the secure area which housed the Projekt's laboratories. Passing through two guarded security doors, they arrived finally at a steel door bearing a stencilled scarlet skull and the stark warning:
CAUTION!
KEEPER AND SECURITY
CLASSIFIED PERSONS
ONLY!
Jazz couldn't help but think:
more melodramatics?
But Khuv and Vyotsky had gone very quiet, and perhaps it would be as well if he followed suit. He held his tongue, wondered about the word “keeper.” Keeper of what?
Khuv had a plastic ID tag which he inserted in a slot in the door. The card was accepted, “read” and given back; mechanisms whirred and the door opened with a click. Before pushing it all the way open, Khuv motioned to Vyotsky who turned down the lights in the anteroom. As the lights dimmed Jazz noticed Vyotsky's face: it was pale and shiny with cold sweat. Also, his Adam's apple bobbed noticeably. There could be little doubt that the big Russian was both hard and cruel, but it seemed there were some things that could get to him. It also appeared that Jazz was about to meet one of them.
Khuv, though, was cool as ever. Now he pushed the heavy door open and motioned Jazz through it. With some misgivings, the British agent stepped inside the dark room. Vyotsky followed close behind him, and Khuv came last, closing the door after him.
The darkness was almost complete: only a series of small red lights the size of flashlight bulbs glowed in the ceiling. Revealed by their dim glow, the rectangular shape of a glass case stood against one wall like a huge tropical fish tank. Khuv's voice came soft out of the darkness. “Are you ready, Michael?”
“When you are,” Jazz answered. But even as the words left his mouth, he knew he wasn't here to admire goldfish.
A sharp click sounded and the lights came on.
Something moved in the tank and reared up!
Behind Jazz, Vyotsky made a choking sound. He'd seen this before, had known what was in here, but if anything the knowledge had only served to precipitate his instinctive reaction to it. And now that Jazz saw it he could readily understand why.
The thing was something like the moulds in the magmass which Khuv had
not
described but Jazz had pictured. It was like that, and yet not like that, for it was alive. Twisting, flowing, it glared out through the thick glass of the tank with eyes that were sheer hell. It
was the size of a large dog, but it was not a dog. It wasn't anything Jazz could have possibly imagined but a composite of most of his worst nightmares. It didn't stay still long enough for him to even try to decide what it was. And worst of all, it didn't seem to know itself!
Flattening itself for a moment against the glass of the tank, the thing might have been a leech. Its underside was corrugated and shaped like a huge, elongated sucker. But its four hands, its tail and its head were parts that might readily fit on a giant rat! That was how it lookedâfor a split-second. Thenâ
The head and hands changed, underwent a swift metamorphosis, became manlike. An almost human face crushed itself to the glass, gazing flatly, almost pitifully out into the room. It grimaced: an expression that was part smile, part scowl, part snarl, and then its human jaws yawned inhumanly open. Inside that mouth was a hell of teeth worthy of some monster piranha!
Jazz stepped back, gasping, and bumped into Vyotsky. The big Russian grasped his shoulders, steadied him. And in the tank the thing's hands sprouted hooks that scrabbled at the glass; its face collapsed to a black leathery mask with a convoluted snout and huge, hairy pointed ears, like a great bat; webs grew between its limbs and body, forming wings. It sprang high, thudded against the tough glass ceiling of its tank, flopped down on the deep sandy bed.
Jazz was vaguely aware that someoneâpossibly Khuv, he thought; yes, even Khuvâhad murmured,
“My God!”
In that same moment the thing had elongated into a worm with a spade head, rammed itself head-first down into the sand and burrowed out of sight. There was a final flurry of sand and ⦠all was still.
After long moments of silence Jazz expelled his breath in a great sigh. “Christ almighty!” he said, in a small voice. Then all three men drew air deeply into starved lungs. Jazz closed his gaping mouth, looked at the two
Russians. “And you're telling me thisâ
thing
âcame out of that ball of light, right?”
Khuv, pale in the bright lights, with eyes that were dark blue blots in his doughy face, nodded. “Through the Gate, yes,” he said.
Jazz shook his head in bewilderment. “But how in hell did you
catch
it?” It seemed a very reasonable question.
“As you can see,” Khuv answered, “it doesn't like bright lights. And for all that it can change its shape at will, still it seems very primitive in its mental processesâif it has any worth considering as such. It could be that it's all sheer animal instinct. We think it probably
attacked
the Gate on the other side; it would have been night in that world, and the glaringly bright sphere must have seemed like an enemy, or even prey. But when it burst through to our sideâinto the hollow sphere of rock down thereâit was bright as day. Luckily for the people who were there, it headed straight down one of the wormholesâto escape from the light, do you see? And someone had his wits about him sufficiently to put the open end of a steel cabinet over the mouth of the hole. When it tried to come back out it was trapped.”
“How long have youâ” Jazz found the greatest difficulty in concentrating on what he was saying, found it almost impossible to take his eyes off the tank, “âhad this thing?”
“Eighteen months,” Khuv answered. “This was the third encounter.”
“Of the too close kind,” Jazz had finally got himself together.
“Pardon?” Khuv stared at him blankly.
“Nothing,” Jazz shook his head. “But tell me: what does it eat?” He didn't know why he'd asked that. Maybe it was the memory of all those teeth, and Khuv's talk of prey.
Khuv's eyes narrowed. Not defensively but thoughtfully. He opened the door, switched off the lights and
beckoned Jazz and Vyotsky to come out. They went back to the perimeter and Khuv led the way to his own quarters. On the way Jazz asked: “I take it it does eat?”
Khuv remained silent but Vyotsky answered for him: “Oh, yes, it eats. It doesn't need to, apparently, but it does when food's on offer. It eats peopleâor anything else with good red salty guts! Or it would if it could. Its keeper feeds it on blood and offal which is pumped through a tube to it. He knows exactly how much to give it. Too much and it gets bigger and stronger. Too little and it shrivels, hibernates. When they've worked out a way to handle it safely, then they'll try to find out what makes it tick.”
“They?”
“The specialists from Moscow,” said Vyotsky, shrugging. “The people fromâ”