thing, where it walked on her spine with icy feet. And now she knew its name.
'Well?' Trask was leaning over her. And:
'Fear!' Liz blurted it out. 'I felt fear!'
The look on her face; her great green eyes wide in sudden knowledge where they stared into his… and Trask took a pace back from her. 'You were afraid?'
'Not me, no,' Liz shook her head. 'He, they — whoever they were — were afraid. That's what it was, Ben: terror, gnawing at them, eating their hearts out.' 'Them?'
'More than one, I'm sure.'
'Uncertain a moment ago, and now you're sure?' She shook her head. 'I just wasn't willing to believe that there could ever be such hopelessness, such utterly black despair. I suppose I thought it was the emptiness, the psychic void before David's probe found — well, whoever they are — and that the fear was in fact mine. But now…' 'Yes?'
Again she shook her head, searched for words. 'I know that I, personally, have never been that afraid — that I couldn't be that afraid — unless something happened to cause me to lose all hope, all faith/
Trask nodded grimly. 'In short, unless you'd been vampirizedf 'I… I don't know. I imagine so.'
But now Trask took a different tack. 'Or could it possibly have been fear of discovery? Had someone detected David's probe and reacted to it?'
Liz shook her head. 'No, I don't think so. It was simply — or not so simply — an aura of overwhelming doom.'
'Good!' Trask grunted. 'And on both counts. One, that you weren't detected. And two, that therefore whoever it was couldn't have been afraid of you. But they were afraid, and I think we can all imagine of what.'
He looked up from Liz, from face to face around the room, and paused at Lardis Lidesci.
And Lardis said, 'Thralls. These were thralls, and fairly recent. Thralls who don't have much contact with their master, but who know he's there nevertheless. Aye, and they have every right to fear him!'
'Another nest,' Trask nodded. 'Why not? It's entirely possible. Then he frowned. 'But out at sea?' 'My point exactly/ said Chung…
'Maps/ Trask said, turning to Jimmy Harvey where he sat at a keyboard. 'Jimmy, see if the computer has an even smaller-scale map of that area, and blow it up on the wall there/
'I've been working on it/ said the other, tapping a key. 'Consider it done/
The wall screen turned blue, if not entirely blue. For in the specified area there were the dotted outlines of reefs and other irregular shapes: islands or islets, and a legend identifying them as Heron Island and the Bunker and Capricorn groups, the latter because they lay on or close to the Tropic of Capricorn. Other lettering at the top of the map said that this was The Capricornia Section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
And very quietly, Trask said, 'So, not necessarily a ship after all/
But, looking sick, the locator David Chung could only shake his head and remark, 'What a fool he is who has no faith in his own God-given skills!'
Trask might have denied it, but lan Goodly beat him to it. 'Not at all/ the precog said. 'When we use talents like these, it's against nature. I mean, even we appreciate that what we're doing isn't, well, mundane. Is it any wonder we're sceptical of our results? Or that we occasionally fail to see their significance?'
And then Trask said, 'You're right, lan, and I was on the point of making much the same remark. But as I've already said, this isn't a skills contest. How we get there doesn't matter a damn, only that we get there. Where these monsters are concerned, the end always justifies the means. Any means/
'Huh!' said Lardis. 'And in Starside, whenever a man ascends to a vampire Lord and becomes Wamphyri, they have much the same saying — it's not the route but the getting there. In that respect, and except that their evil has been made ten times as great, these monsters are much like men, you know/
'Because they were men/ said Trask. 'And God knows we're none of us pure. Very well, now let's get on — but as soon as we're done here I want the Duty Officer to contact our aide in Prime Minister Blackmore's office. We need authority for liaison with someone high in the administration of the reef marine park. We need to know who or what is out there on those islets in the Bunker and Capricorn groups…' A moment's pause and he turned to Goodly:
lan, you and Lardis were in the other chopper party. And just like David here I know you, too, have a problem. Time now to have it out in the open, get it cleared up.'
The precog stood up, tossed a pamphlet attached to a tourist map onto the table. 'I picked this up at the Skytours helipad,' he said. It's a freebie: a give-away route map into the Macpherson Mountains, and a colour brochure describing the wonders and benefits of the Xanadu health and pleasure resort. But that's not all I picked up. There was — or I should say there may have been — something else, when we flew over the place.'
Sitting at the table (feeling more than a little useless, and wondering what he was doing here), Jake remembered the odd, strained look on the precog's face — the way his hands gripped his seat's armrests — after they'd descended to have a closer look at the resort. And now his interest focussed more definitely on Goodly as he saw once again the same nervous tension in the man's face and attitude.
'The thing is,' Goodly went on, 'I have precisely the same problem as David. The location: all that unhampered sunlight. I just can't see how the kind of creature we're looking for could exist up there… if that's what it was about.' Seeing Trask's face, he held up a hand placatingly. 'Yes, all right, I promise I will get on with it. But there are complications…
'First: as we were descending toward the place, so that we could get a better look at it, our pilot/tour-guide mentioned a fire that occurred during the El Nino back in 1997. And I found some of his descriptions vivid and perhaps evocative: the place was like a tinderbox… it went up like so much kindling, et cetera.
'Also, while we've been here I've heard quite a lot of talk about the Great Fire of Brisbane, and what with this awful heat and all—'
'You saw a fire?' Trask cut in.
Goodly nodded. 'But I didn't see its cause, and I couldn't tell when it was happening. I mean, it could have been a mental response to what the pilot had said. For example, when someone says 'do you remember' this or that other thing, you are made automatically to see it, relive it, in your mind's eye. Do you see? It could be that our pilot had evoked just such a response in me. And Ben, if this was one of my things, then it was only the very briefest glimpse. Smoke, and leaping flames… gouts of yellow fire roiling up to a night sky, and a full moon hanging there… and someone shouting, 'To me, to me!''
Listening to him, Trask displayed a kind of amazement, as if he'd only just realized something that should have been obvious for a long time. 'How long have I known you?' he said. 'It sometimes seems that I've known you forever. And yet I've never thought to ask you — do you sometimes see the past?'
The precog raised an eyebrow, said, 'I remember the past, just like anyone else.' And then a wry chuckle. 'It's just that I sometimes remember the future, too!' But he was serious again in a moment. 'That's what we have to consider, Ben. The future. And we know just how devious that can be — or is it perhaps my talent that's devious? I've never been able to figure it out.'
'Okay,' said the other, 'so you don't know whether it was the past or the future. It's just one of those times when your talent leaves you in doubt. But there's one clue, at least.'
'Oh?' Again Goodly's eyebrow.
'You said it was night-time when Xanadu went up in flames, and—'
'Not Xanadu,' Goodly stopped him. 'Just a handful of weekend or holiday homes, on the false plateau where Xanadu stands now.'
'Whatever,' Trask waved a hand. 'But you did say there was a full moon?'
'Yes.'
'Well, that… is one hell of a clue!' He turned to Harvey where he sat at the computer keyboard. 'Jimmy, can you get into the local libraries on that thing?'
Harvey looked up from where he was working and smiled. But before he could say anything Trask said, 'I know, don't say it: you're way ahead of me. The newspapers? For the fires of'97?'
Harvey nodded towards the wall screen. 'On the screen, just about any time… now!'
And: Gadgets and ghosts! thought Jake, as headlines sprang into life on the big screen, and Harvey brought the small print into focus. The location, date, and time, everything was there, written into the report. And Trask said:
