facetious. So what you mean is that after the blow-back everything within sixty-five feet or so of the centre of that… that — whatever it is — was 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 energy — or the energy in action — in 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 fuel — yes, and all the machinery; too, which had filled this area — 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 of — '
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? — I 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 anything — anything at all strange — comes 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 occurrence — '
'Not regular,' Khuv corrected him. 'Five — shall we call them, 'emergences' — in 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 capture — on film, anyway. As for the thing your side has code-named 'Pill': 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…
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 looked — for a split-second. Then -
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!
