seven of a metre: quite a large one of its species, I'm told, but by no means a giant. It was seen coming well in advance, of course, and no chances were taken with it. As it emerged, in that selfsame moment, they shot it dead. But just as the wolf was a true wolf, so the bat was a true bat. Curiously, the vampire bat is a creature of South or Central America. Perhaps our grey hole was a gateway not only to other worlds but also to other parts of this world.
'Anyway, I was here by this time; the rest of this account is first-hand. Oh, and I can show you film of the bat's emergence, if you like. Not that you'll learn anything more than I've already told you, for it is exactly as I've described it. Ah, but the Fifth Encounter… that was something entirely different.'
At this juncture Jazz had noted how Vyotsky, behind his dark beard, had gone very pale again. He, too, had been present for that Fifth Encounter. 'Get it over with,' the big KGB man had stood up, gulped down his drink, started to pace the floor. 'Tell him about it, or show him the film, but get done with it.'
'Karl doesn't like it,' Khuv's comment was entirely superfluous, his smile cold and grim. 'But then, neither do I. Still, likes and dislikes change nothing. They can't alter the facts. Come, I'll show you the film.'
In a second small room Khuv had something of a study. There were bookshelves, a tiny desk, steel chairs, a modern projector and small screen. Vyotsky made no attempt to join Jazz and his senior officer but poured himself another drink and stayed behind in Khuv's living-room. Jazz knew, however, that that was the only way out of Khuv's quarters, and that only a few scant paces and a bit of flimsy door panelling separated him from the huge KGB bully.
Now, too, he had seen that his coming here had not been a spontaneous occurrence; Khuv had prepared himself in advance; all he had to do was dim the lights and roll the film. And whatever Jazz had expected, it certainly had not been what he saw.
The film was in colour, had a sound track, was very professional in every way. At one side of the screen a dark, fuzzy, out-of-focus shadow proved to be the side of a Russian soldier, with a glinting Kalashnikov braced against his thigh. Centre screen was the sphere of white light, or 'Gate' as Jazz now thought of it, and imposed on its dazzling surface — the bottom of the 'picture' coming just inches higher than the boards of the walkway where it spanned the gap between the Saturn's-rings platform and the sphere — was the image… of a man!
The camera had then zoomed in, turning the entire screen white and therefore that much less dazzling, with the image of the man central. He 'strode' straight ahead, looking directly into the camera. His movements were so painfully slow that each pace took long seconds, and Jazz had found himself wondering if he'd ever get here. But then Khuv had warned:
'See how the picture clears? A sure sign that he's about to come through. But if I were you I wouldn't wait for that. Study him now, while you can!' And obligingly, the camera had closed on the man's face.
The forehead was sloped, and the skull shaved except for a central lock of hair like a thick black stripe on the pale, almost grey flesh. Swept back like a mane and tied in a knot, the lock bobbed at the back of the man's neck. His eyes were small and close together, and very startling. They glared out from under thick black eyebrows that met in a tangle across the bridge of a squat or flattened nose. The ears were slightly pointed and had large lobes; they lay flat to the head above hollow, almost gaunt cheeks. The lips were red and fleshy, in a mouth slanted to the left and set with a sort of permanent sneer or snarl. The man's chin was pointed, made to look even more so by a small black beard waxed to a point. But the face's main feature was that pair of small, glaring eyes. Jazz had looked at them again: red as blood, they'd gleamed in deep black orbits. As if sensing Jazz's needs, the camera had then drawn back to show the entire man again. He wore a short pelmet of cloth about his loins, sandals on his feet, a large ring of golden metal in his right ear. His right hand was gloved in a gauntlet heavy with spikes, blades and hooks — an incredibly cruel, murderous weapon!
After that Jazz had only sufficient time to note the man's leanness, the ripple of his fine-toned muscles, and his wolf's lope of a walk before he stepped out of the sphere onto the walkway — and then everything had speeded up!
The British agent came back to the present, gripped the edge of his bed and drew himself into a sitting position. He swung his feet to the floor and put his back to the metal wall. The wall was cool but not cold; through it. Jazz could feel the life of the subterranean complex, the nervous, irregular coursing of its frightened blood. It was like being below decks in a big ship, where the throb of the engines comes right through the floor and walls and bulkheads. And just as he'd be aware of the life in a ship, so he was aware of the terror in this place.
There were men down there in that unnatural cavern in the heart of the mountain, men with guns. Some of them had seen for themselves, and others had been shown on films like the one Jazz had seen, what could come through the Gate they guarded. Little wonder the Perchorsk Projekt was afraid.
He gave a small shiver, then a grim chuckle. He'd caught the Projekt's fever: its symptom was this shivering, even when it was warm. He'd seen them all doing it, and now he did it, too.
Jazz deliberately gave himself a mental shake, forced himself to return to the film Khuv had shown him…
5. Wamphyri!
The man came right out through the sphere onto the walkway — and then everything speeded up!
He shuttered his red eyes against the sudden light, shouted an astonished denial in a language Jazz half-way understood or felt he should understand, and fell into a defensive crouch. Then the film had suddenly come alive. Before, the sounds had seemed muted: the occasional low cough, nervous conversation, feet shuffling in the background, and now and then the springs of weapons being eased or tested and the unmistakable metallic clatter of magazines slapped into housings. But all of it seeming dull and a little out of tune, like the first few minutes of a film in a cinema, where your ears are still tuned to the street and haven't yet grown accustomed to the new medium of wall to wall sound.
Now, however, the sound was very much tied to the film. Khuv's voice, shouting: Take him alive! Don't shoot him! I'll court martial the first man who pulls a trigger! He's only a man, can't you see? Go in and capture him.r
Figures in combat uniforms ran past the camera, caused the cameraman and therefore the film to jiggle a little, burst into view on the screen and almost blotted out the picture. Having been ordered not to shoot, they carried their weapons awkwardly, seemed not to know what to do with them. Jazz could understand that: they'd been told that hideous death lurked in the sphere, but this seemed to be just a man. How many of them would it take to cow just one man? With an assortment of weapons at their fingertips, they must feel like men swatting midges with mallets! But on the other hand, some damned weird things had come out of that sphere, and they knew that, too.
The man from the sphere saw them coming, straightened up. His red eyes were now at least partly accustomed to the light. He stood waiting for the soldiers, and Jazz had thought: this lad has to be six and a half feet if he's an inch! Yes, and I'd bet he can look after himself, too. And certainly he would have won his bet! The walkway was maybe ten feet wide. The first two soldiers approached the near-naked man from the sphere on both sides, and that was a mistake. Shouting at him to put his hands up in the air and come forward, the fastest of the two reached him, made to prod him with the snout of his Kalashnikov rifle. With astonishing speed the intruder came to life: he batted the barrel of the gun aside with his left hand, swung the weapon he wore on his right hand shatteringly against the soldier's head.
The left side of the soldier's head caved in and the hooks of the gauntlet caught in the broken bones of his skull. The intruder held him upright for a moment, flopping uselessly like a speared fish. But it was all nervous reaction, for the blow must have killed him instantly. Then the man from the Gate snarled and jerked his hand back, freeing it, and at the same time shouldered his victim from the walkway. The soldier's body toppled out of sight.
The second soldier paused and looked back, his face bloodless where the camera caught his indecision. His
