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 someone — possibly Khuv, he thought; yes, even Khuv — had 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 this — thing — came out of that ball of light, right?'
Khuv, pale in the bright lights, with eyes that were dark 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 processes — if 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 side — into the hollow sphere of rock down there — it was bright as day. Luckily for the people who were there, it headed straight down one of the wormholes — to 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 you — ' Jazz found the greatest difficulty in concentrating on what he was saying, found it almost impossible to take his eyes off the tank, ' — had 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 people — or 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 from — '
'Karl!' Khuv stopped him with a word. And Jazz thought: so even though I'm a prisoner, and for all Khuv's 'glasnost', still there are sensitive areas, eh?
'Specialists,' said Khuv, 'yes. If they can find out about it, maybe they'll also discover something of its world.'
Something else was bothering Jazz. 'What about these flame-throwers I keep seeing?'
'Isn't it obvious?' Vyotsky scowled. 'Are you stupid after all, British?'
'Concentrated fire kills them,' said Khuv. 'Up to now it's about the only thing that does. That we've discovered, anyway.'
Jazz nodded. Things were beginning to shape up in his head. 'I'm starting to see the potential,' he said, drily.
'And no need to tell me where your 'specialists' come from. The Department for the Study of Chemical and Biological Warfare on Protze Prospekt, right?'
Khuv made no answer. His mouth had fallen aslant in a twisted smile.
Jazz nodded. His own expression was a mixture of sarcasm and revulsion. 'And how would that be for a biological weapon, eh?'
They had reached Khuv's quarters. He opened the door, said: 'Would you like a drink, or should I let Karl take you back to your cell and toss you around a little to improve your manners?' His voice crackled like thin ice underfoot. Jazz had touched a tender spot. The British agent was much quicker on the uptake than Khuv had given him credit for.
Jazz looked at Vyotsky's grinning face, said: 'Oh, I think I'd prefer the drink every time.'
'Very well, but try to remember: you are in no position to criticize anything. You are a spy, a murderer, a would-be saboteur. And remember this, too: you don't know everything. We don't know everything! Weapons? Like… like that? Personally I would rather close the place down, concrete it in, lock the Gate shut forever — if that's at all feasible. So would Viktor Luchov. But the Projekt was sponsored — indeed it was ordered — by the Defence Agency. We don't control anything, Michael, but are ourselves controlled. Now make up your mind: we can be 'friends', or I can have someone else, someone a lot less sympathetic, complete your briefing. It's up to you.'
Briefing? For some reason Jazz didn't like the way Khuv had used the word. A slip of the tongue, obviously. Briefing didn't really apply here, did it? Why are you being given the treatment? a voice asked in the back of his mind. What's in it for them? He didn't have the answers and so put the question aside, said:
'OK, I accept that. We all do what we have to. We all have our orders. But just answer me one more thing and after that I won't interrupt you again.'
Khuv ushered Jazz and Vyotsky into his living area. 'Very well,' he said, 'what is it?'
'That thing in the glass tank, your intruder from another world,' Jazz wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'You say it has a keeper? Someone who looks after it, feeds it, studies it? It's just that I can't imagine what kind of a man he would be. He must have nerves of steel!'
'What?' Vyotsky gave a snort that was half-way a laugh. 'Do you think he volunteered? He's a scientist, a small man with thick spectacles. A man dedicated to science — also to the bottle.'
Jazz raised an eyebrow. 'An alcoholic?'
Khuv's expression didn't change. 'Very soon,' he said after a moment's pause. 'Yes, I'm afraid he will be…'
Three hours later, at about 7:30 p.m. - after Jazz had had delivered to him in his cell a cup of tepid, flavourless coffee and a cold meat sandwich, standard evening fare, and after he'd consumed both — he lay on his back on his metal army bed and yet again turned over in his mind all the facts Khuv had given him. The Russian had talked almost nonstop for an hour and a half, during which time the British agent had remained true to his word and had not once interrupted him. Once Khuv was underway Jazz hadn't wanted to stop him anyway, partly because the Russian's flow of words and images had been smooth and required no deep explanation, but mainly because his story had been completely fascinating.
And now, yet again, Jazz recapped:
The Perchorsk Incident or 'pi' had been the disastrous test run of Franz Ayvaz's sub-atomic shield. After that mess, clearing up had almost been completed when 'Pill' happened, which Khuv referred to as Encounter One; but from what the KGB Major had told Jazz, it hadn't been so much an encounter as a downright nightmare!
The — creature? — which had come through the sphere of light on that occasion had been… well, it had been the monstrosity Jazz had seen on the film shot by the AWACS reconnaissance aircraft over the Hudson Bay, which now he realized was like nothing so much as the Big Brother of the thing in the glass tank. But when Big Brother had squeezed its bulk into this world from its own…
Khuv's description of Encounter One as he himself had heard it from people present at the time had been graphic:
'You've seen it, Michael, on that film you told us about. You know what it was like. Ah, but that was only after it had escaped through the shaft into the ravine and got itself airborne! On the ground it had been far worse;
