talked he kneeled and carefully slipped the sandals off her feet, began to work on her wounds.
'Them,' she echoed him, making the word sound sour; and again a shudder ran through her. 'The Wamphyri, do you mean? Oh, they're the main problem, it's true, but there are other things on Starside almost as bad. Did you see Agursky's 'pet', the thing in the tank at Perchorsk?'
Jazz looked up, nodded. 'I saw it. Telling you exactly what I saw would be a different matter!' He tore off a strip of gauze, soaked it in water from his flask, gently wiped away the caked blood from her toes. She sighed her appreciation as he squeezed ointment from its tube and rubbed it into the splits under her toes and the pads of her feet.
'That thing you saw was what happens when a vampire egg gets into a species of local fauna,' she told him. She said it as simply as that, her voice quite neutral.
Jazz stopped working on her feet, looked her straight in the eye, slowly nodded. 'A vampire egg, eh? That is what you said, isn't it?' She stared at him, obstinately, until he had to look away. 'OK, a vampire egg,' he shrugged, began wrapping her feet in gauze. 'So you're telling me that the Wamphyri are oviparous? They're egg-layers, right?'
She shook her head, changed her mind and nodded. 'Yes and no,' she said. The Wamphyri are what happens when a vampire egg gets into a man — or a woman.'
Jazz put her sandals on. They'd been a little loose, tending to cause burns and blisters. Now they were tighter, stopping the feet from sliding about too much. 'Is that better?' he asked. He thought about what she'd just told him, decided to let her tell it all in her own time, her own way.
'That feels good,' she said. Thanks.' She stood up, helped him get his packs hooked up, and they set off toward the sun again.
'Listen,' he said, when they were underway. 'Why don't I just listen and let you tell me everything that's happened to you while you've been here? All you've seen, learned, everything you know. So far as I can tell we've got plenty of time on our hands. Vision's good, and we don't seem in any sort of immediate danger. The sun's up ahead, and we have some good moonlight…'
'Have we?' Zek answered. Jazz craned his neck, looked at the moon. It had crossed the pass and already its rim touched the eastern peaks. A few more minutes and it would be gone. The planetary rotation period is incredibly slow,' she began to explain. 'But on the other hand the moon's orbit is closer and much faster. A 'day' here is about a week on Earth. Oh, and incidentally, this place is 'Earth'. That's what they call it. It isn't our Earth, of course not, but it's theirs. I thought it was strange at first, but then I thought: what else would they call it?
'Anyway, this planet rotates westward very slowly, and its poles are not quite lined up on the sun. So it's like the planet has a wobble. The sun is seen to revolve west to east — anti-clockwise, if you like — in a slow, small circle. Now, I'm not an astronomer or a space scientist of any sort so don't ask me the whys and wherefores, but how it works out is like this:
'On Sunside we get a 'morning' of about twenty-five hours' duration, a 'day' of maybe seventy-five hours' duration, an 'evening' of twenty-five hours and a 'night' of about forty. Midday or thereabouts is sunup, and all of the night is sundown.'
Jazz looked up again, saw the moon halved now by the sharp rim of the mountains. Even as he watched its glow lessened as it prepared to slip from sight. 'I'm no astronomer either,' he said, 'but still it's very plain we have something of a fast-moving moon up there!'
'That's right,' she answered. 'It has a rapid spin, too, and unlike the old moon shows both its face and its backside.'
Jazz nodded. 'Not shy, eh?'
She snorted. 'In some ways you remind me of another Englishman I once knew,' she said. 'He seemed sort of naive, too, and yet in reality he was anything but naive!'
'Oh?' Jazz looked at her. 'Who was this lucky man?'
'He wasn't that lucky,' she said, tilting her head a little.
Jazz looked at her in profile in the last rays of moonlight, decided he liked her. A lot.
'So who was he?' he asked again.
'He was a member — maybe even the head — of your British E-Branch,' she answered. 'His name was Harry Keogh. And he had a special talent. I have a talent, too, but his was… different. I don't even know if you could call it ESP. That's how different it was.'
Jazz remembered what Khuv had told him about her. That sort of stuff was so much baloney as far as he was concerned, but best not to let her see his scepticism. 'Oh, yes, that's right,' he said. 'You're a mentalist, right? You read minds. So what was this Keogh's talent, eh?'
'He was a Necroscope,' she said, her voice suddenly cold.
'A what?'
'He could talk to the dead!' she said; and coming to a sudden, angry halt, she drew apart from Jazz.
He looked at her stubborn, bad-tempered stance, and at the great wolf standing between them, staring yellow-eyed from one to the other. 'Did I do something?'
'You thought something!' she snapped. 'You thought, 'what a load of-''
'Christ!' said Jazz. Because that was exactly what he'd thought.
'Listen,' she said. 'Do you know how many years I've been hiding the truth of my telepathy? Knowing I was better than anything else they had but not wanting to work for them? Not daring to work for them, because I knew if I did then sooner or later I'd come up against Harry Keogh again? I've suffered for my telepathy, Jazz, and yet now — here where it doesn't matter much any more — the moment I admit the truth of it…'
'Show me!' he said, cutting her off. 'OK, I can see how we won't get anywhere if we've no faith in each other.
But we won't get far by lying or misleading each other either. If you say you can do it I have to accept it, right — certainly I know there are those who do believe you have this talent. But isn't there any way you can show me? You have to admit, Zek, it would have been easy just now to take a guess at what I was thinking. Not only about your telepathy but also about this Keogh bloke — about what you say he can do! Don't tell me you haven't met up with scepticism before, not with a gift most people would consider supernatural!'
'You're tempting me?' her eyes flashed fire. 'Humouring me? Taunting me? Get thee behind me, Satan!'
'Oh, it's godlike, this talent of yours, is it?' Jazz couldn't quite conceal his sneer. 'Well, if you're that good, how come you didn't know who it was coming up the pass? if telepathy and ESP in general are real, why didn't Khuv know I'd hidden away a magazine for my SMG, which is how I came to get the chance to drag that goon Vyotsky in here with me?'
Wolf gave a low whine and his ears went flat.
'You're annoying him,' Zek said, 'and you're annoying me, too. Also, you've missed my point. Big macho man! I say: 'I'm a telepath', and you say: 'Prove it'. The next thing, you're asking me to prove I'm a woman!'
Jazz nodded, pulled a sour face. 'You rate yourself pretty damned high, don't you? God knows what sort of men you're used to, but I — '
'All right!' she snapped. 'Watch…'
She looked at Wolf, the merest glance, then turned and tossed her head, walked on toward the sun. She went maybe a hundred yards, and Jazz and the wolf stood still watching her. Then she stopped and looked back. 'Now I'm not going to say anything,' she called out. 'So see what you think of what happens next.'
Jazz frowned, thought: What the — ? But in the next moment Wolf showed him what the. The huge creature loped closer, took the sleeve of Jazz's one-piece in his great jaws — but gently — began to tug Jazz in Zek's direction. Jazz stumbled to keep up, and the faster he went the faster Wolf ran, until both of them were flying full tilt toward the girl where she waited. Only then did the wolf let go, when both of them drew level with her.
'Well?' she said, as Jazz came to a panting, stumbling halt.
He sucked the hole in his jaw where two teeth had once been, put up a hand and scratched his nose. 'Well,' he started, 'I — '
'You're thinking I'm an animal trainer,' she cut in. 'But if you say it out loud, that's it. We go our separate ways. I've survived so far without you and I can keep right on doing it.' Wolf went and stood beside her.
'Two to one,' Jazz grinned, however ruefully. 'And since I've always believed in the democratic process… OK, there's no option but to believe you. You're a telepath.' They carried on walking, but slightly more apart now. 'So why didn't you know it was me coming up the pass? How come you challenged me as Vyotsky?'
