cars steadied up and the danger was past.
So everyone thought—
— Except lan Goodly. 'There's one bomb left!' He suddenly cried. 'It's in the reception area, the gatehouse!' He was right and just like the bomb in the Pleasure Dome, this too was a delayed action device. When it went it took a good man, their rearguard, with it — but it also took out the last elevated section of the monorail!
Liz was behind Jake, shouting, 'Look! Look!' and pointing ahead. But he was already looking. All he could see through the smoke and the fire was a mass of slumping, buckled metal — the wreckage of the tower that had borne the weight of the monorail — beyond which there was empty space and a drop of some thirty odd feet into a red, roaring death!
Jake slammed the drive lever into reverse… and nothing happened. The power had gone along with the overhead gantry and power line, and the cars were free-wheeling down a gentle gradient at some thirty miles an hour.
But lan Goodly's talent was back in force. Suddenly he was there, leaning over Jake and shouting, 'Jake, listen! There's a way out. I can see it. We're going to make it!'
And he told Jake what he had seen, shouted it into his ear as the articulated cars went lurching into empty space, heading for the inferno that waited below.
Korath knew what was required and set those fantastic formulae rolling yet again down the screen of Jake's mind — until Jake froze them and conjured a door that even Harry Keogh would be proud of. Then:
Darkness surrounded the cars — the Ultimate Darkness of a time before time — and in a single moment which might yet be as long as forever, light, gentle moon and starlight, blinked into being as Jake made his first perfect three-point exit from the Mobius Continuum at well-known coordinates.
The cars were boat-bottomed. They didn't dig in but rode across the dry grass and sandy soil of the safe house's garden, quickly slowing until, with scarcely a jolt, they were brought up short by the stout wall. Then the rear car slewed a little — but not enough to spill anyone — and both cars rolled sideways through forty-five degrees and came to a rocking standstill…
For a long time there was silence. Until Jake and the E-Branch
EPILOGUE
people climbed out of the lead car and, as a man, collapsed or plumped down on the withered grass and began to breathe again. Then someone (it sounded to Liz like 'Red' Bygraves) said, 'Holyfuck!' And everyone started talking at once.
In Xanadu, Jethro Manchester had built a Pleasure Dome. Now it was gone, and Manchester with it, to an end as undeserved as it was brutal and horrific. Likewise the alien author of Xanadu's and Manchester's ruin; he, too, was gone. But Lord Nephran Malinari was fled, not dead. And it grieved Ben Trask's heart that he must admit it: that the chase wasn't nearly over yet, but if anything was now more needful and deadly than ever.
For if the others, if Vavara and Szwart, were trying to do what Malinari had begun to do in subterranean Xanadu — if they, too, were nurturing 'gardens' of loathsome plague-bearing death-spawn — and if a single red spore, all unnoticed, inhaled like a speck of dust, could write finis on a human life and replace it with undeath, how then millions or billions of spores — and what then for the world…?
On the second morning after the Australians cremated their four dead comrades in a quiet ceremony with full military honours — a ceremony which Trask and his E-Branch people felt privileged to attend, where in fact there were only three bodies in their coffins, for the fourth had burned on Manchester's island, and was represented by a photograph, a scroll of honour, and messages of farewell from his closest colleagues only — the second morning after that, the Major and his two stalwart Warrant Officers were at the airport in Brisbane to see Trask and his people off.
After the British team had received their regulation new bubonic shots — for the Australian authorities were insistent that no one be allowed to enter or leave the continent without first being inoculated — then, over drinks in the departure lounge, Trask and the Major had a quiet word in private. Jake, Liz, and the rest of the team sat at a table with Bygraves and Davis, where for the better part they commiserated in silence. Something of an aftermath, it seemed there wasn't a lot to be said. But Trask and the SAS Major weren't willing to leave it at that.
'And so it goes on/ said the Major, Tor you at least.'
'For us it never seems to end,' Trask answered. 'Just when we think it might, there's always something new. Not always as bad as what we've just been through, but always bad.'
'And you can't give up on it,' said the Major; not a question but a statement of fact.
'Never!' Trask growled. 'This time, for me it's personal. But personal or not, it's always the same. We've seen all this before, and we'll see it again. Yes, and we'll see it through, all the way to the end. But myself… I for one will never be able to rest until this one is dead. Or until I'm dead. One or the other.'
'Malinari?'
'The same,' Trask nodded. 'I want that bastard dead, dead, dead! And I intend to get him, no matter what it takes. As Lardis Lideci might say, that's my vow. Hub! My Szgany vow, aye.'
'Well, you have a good team to help you,' the Major glanced across the room at the people sitting with his men. 'Weird as hell, but good. That David Chung, for instance. Such a quiet little man — with his built-in radar dish. And the tall fellow, lan Goodly, who I'd hate to play cards with. And Liz, who hears people thinking? I definitely wouldn't play cards with her! And as for Jake… I just can't believe what he does! It may have saved my life, but I still don't believe it.'
'I know,' Trask answered. 'And it doesn't help that it's something I can't talk about. Or something we can't talk about. But being what you are, SAS, I'm sure you understand that. Anyway — and if it makes it any easier — there are times when I don't believe this stuff myself. Times when I wake up and think I've been nightmaring. And the hell of it is, I'm the only one who really knows that it's true!'
The Major shook his head and said, 'Weird, weird people — but I'm glad to have known you.'
'Same here,' said Trask. 'I'm only sorry that—'
'I know.' The other cut him short. 'The only consolation lies in what we've achieved. For let's face it, no sane people could ever suffer such as that to live. Those four lives might have saved thousands.'
But Trask shook his head. 'Think again,' he said. 'Thousands? There are over six billion people on this small planet. And that's how many we might have saved. Or that we've started to save.'
And after a while the Major said, 'Hearing you put it like that, I know it was worth it.'
At which Liz called across and said, 'They're boarding.'
'It's time we weren't here,' said Trask, standing up. And as the Major reached out his hand Trask looked at it, took it, and said, 'I don't even know your name!'
'It's Tom,' said the other.
'Just Tom? Major Tom?'
'That'll suffice,' said the Major, grinning.
Trask smiled, too, and said, 'Well, Major Tom, ground control is calling for us.'
The Major had been carrying a fat, eighteen-inch-long parcel. Now he gave it to Trask. 'This is for you,' he said. 'The men found it when they went down and burned out the underground rooms, tunnels and conduits in Xanadu. It got burned, too, so I can guarantee it's clean. I don't believe in trophy-taking, not after a job like that one. Maybe you'll find a use for it.'
After that there was no time for anything other than handshakes all round. Then Trask and his people went to board their Qantas VTOL Skyskip…
But as they queued at the boarding gate, Jake sensed someone's gaze upon him and glanced toward the reinforced flexiglass wall that secured the boarding area from the viewing promenade. From the far side of the wall, distorted by the images of other passengers that moved across its reflective surface, a thin, pockmarked face looked back at him. And for a moment their eyes met before Jake looked away.
He looked away, but only for a moment…
