E-Branch - Invaders Part 18

'He told her about the body in the monitor pipe, said that it had been shoved, or crushed, all the way in, almost its full length.

But despite the awesome force that must have been exerted to cram it in there head first - because the pipe was only eighteen inches in diameter, and the male figure was... Ug-there was still some kind of horrible life in it; the feet kept twitching!

And that wasn't the worst of it. Whoever or whatever had done this awful thing was still down there. Trennier had heard something, and he'd seen movement in the inky darkness between him and the open duct!

'And now Zek knew beyond a doubt what was happening here.

She didn't want to believe it, but she knew anyway. In the eye of her mind, suddenly she could see the whole story: something had happened to stop the water flowing from Perchorsk, and the Starside Gate was open again. It was the only possible explanation. The children were feeling the influence of whatever Trennier was experiencing, and the "darkness"

between him and his only escape route had to be, could only be- '-Wamphyri! How didn't matter, but they were back. Back in our world this time, and Bruce Trennier was down there with them. And the kids... their vulnerable minds had been discovered and explored by more powerful minds, or one more powerful mind at least. Sensing it as mice sense a cat, the orphans had reacted - not without justification. Knowing the Wamphyri, Zek knew that their thoughts were terrible things - knew also that the cat was already bunching its muscles, preparing to spring.

'Her mind must have flown every which way. Her responsibilities to the Refuge, the children, E-Branch... even to me, G.o.d d.a.m.n it! The fact that out of the Refuge's double handful of staff she was the only one who knew anything about the Wamphyri.

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And the sure knowledge that if they broke into the Refuge, into Romania, the world, then the nightmare would be on us all over again. All of these things galvanizing Zek into activity.

But the right or wrong activity - who could say? She only knew she must do something.

'And how to tell Trennier, still hysterical on the phone, that he was already as good as dead or changed forever, so perhaps he'd care to volunteer his own life for the sake of everyone else's? For Zek knew something about the Refuge that no one else, not even the New Zealander, the engineer, knew: that some years ago E-Branch had installed the last of several fail- safes, and down there in the sump there was a way to close this end of the loop for good.

'Powerful explosive charges in the ceiling of the cavern: a blast sufficient to bring down the roof of the place and seal it permanently. And we would have done it long since, but the Gates were closed and the Wamphyri gone and we needed the turbine to power the Refuge.

'There were two switches that had to be thrown, one inside the sump to arm the charges, and the other outside the reinforced concrete barrier that sealed the resurgence and channelled its waters: the exterior switch triggered the thing, obviously. But also, as a sensible safety precaution, there was a fifteen-minute delay after both switches had been thrown. And last but not least by way of safety, both hatches had to be locked from the outside - in fact, they could only be locked from the outside - before the electrical circuit could complete itself.

'Zek calmed Trennier down as best she could, gave him directions to the switchbox, told him to throw the switch and get out of there (if he was able) - but she kept that last reservation to herself. For there was no time, no way she could begin to explain her fears about the Wamphyri. Not that the New Zealander would have understood; he was in too much of a funk. And who wouldn't be, trapped in the dark with the Utterly Unknown? At least Zek had given him something to go on, instructions of a sort.

'Then she hit the alarms, woke the staff, told them to take the kids and move out - all of this taking very little time and none of it making too much sense to anyone except Zek, who just didn't have time to explain.

'A.

nd in that chaos of blaring alarms and puzzled, sleepy staff colliding with each other, and scared kids awake and crying in their rooms, the rest of it was up to Zek. Now she must make her way to the bas.e.m.e.nt, set the trigger, and wait at the open hatch for the engineer to come through - and hope that it was only the engineer who came through - before she closed the hatch and locked it, completing the connection that would blow the sump and whatever else it contained to h.e.l.l.

'But if it wasn't the New Zealander who came through, what then? My G.o.d! What a nightmare!

'And now maybe you'll forgive me that I've tried to forget all this, all the panic and sweaty horror of it as Zek, my Zek, rushed to the bas.e.m.e.nt levels, climbed down into the now- silent engine room, and made her way down a spiralling steel staircase into the belly of the Refuge, to the reinforced concrete floor whose underside was the man-made ceiling in the natural cavern of the resurgence. In normal circ.u.mstances that floor would have been trembling to the throb of pressured water, but the water was a trickle now and the place no longer vibrated.

'There, in that cellar-like room which now seemed vaguely threatening, a pair of cylind rical turrets stood up knee-high from the floor. The carbon- steel hatch of one of them had been laid back on ma.s.sive hinges, revealing a dark throat that was more threatening yet.

But looking around and seeing a niche in the wall, and a shelf bearing an extension telephone handset, Zek believed she knew how to approach this thing.

'First and foremost there was the hatch: it must be closed, and immediately. If Trennier was on his way out ... he would go through h.e.l.l when he found the hatch locked. But there was nothing else for it, and it was only a temporary measure. And trying not to think of the New Zealander's terrible situation, Zek 198.

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9 wasted no time but closed the hatch, locked its wheel, then ran to the open end of the cavern, where concrete steps took her down to the ancient bed of the resurgence.

'From there she climbed rusting iron rungs to a place high in the wall of the cavern, where a deep crevice housed the trigger's waterproof switch. It was stiff- probably a little rusty - but she managed to throw it anyway, then rapidly retraced her route back to the empty, echoing bas.e.m.e.nt.

'By now Zek was feeling shaky: the combination of fear and frantic physical activity had almost exhausted her, but at last the stage was set. By now, too, Trennier should be battering on the closed hatch... but wasn't. And if by now he'd thrown that switch, he only had eight to ten minutes to get out of there.

'Zek ha d an automatic pistol. Ever since being attacked on Zante, she'd been in the habit of carrying a gun; I don't think I need mention what kind of ammunition she used. Now, preparing her weapon, she stuck it in her waistband and took up the dusty telephone from its shelf in the wall niche. Neglected, its battery was dead, but its generator handle twirled readily enough. In a moment she had Trennier on the other end of the line.

'The New Zealander was still in a state - even worse than before - and he hadn't done what Zek required of him. Oh, he'd found the switch in i ts secret place, but he hadn't thrown it. Trennier wasn't a stupid man. An engineer, he'd taken one look at that switch and known that the sump was rigged for destruction. Knowing Zek, however, he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen while he was in there, but still he wasn't taking any chances.

And in a panting whisper, he demanded to know what was going on, what it was all about, and what it was that was keeping him silent but observant company down there?

Something was watching him, he felt sure.

'She couldn't tell him, could only tell him once again to throw the switch and get back to one of the ducts - either one, it made no difference - and climb out of there. As long as they stayed in contact, she would know it was him and no other; she wouldn't shoot him as he emerged.

'But telling him that was a mistake. No other? What other or others was Zek going on about? What did she know that Trennier didn't? Others that needed shooting? Others that were capable of stuffing a big man into an eighteen-inch pipe? What in h.e.l.l were the murdering things down there in the dark with him, in the sump? But no, she needn't bother to tell him. And f.u.c.k the switch! He'd be going back to the duct right now - and up through the hatch - and G.o.d help anyone or anything that got in his way!

'Zek yelled into the phone then, screamed into it to get his attention, and finally she got it; but she knew she had to be hard on him. It was the only way. And so she told him about the hatches, how they were closed and she wasn't going to open one until she was sure he had thrown that switch! Oh, Zek knew she would let him out anyway, however it went, but she daren't let him se e that.

'And so he did it, threw the switch; and Zek knew he had, because she'd reached out to him with her telepathy and "seen"

him do it! And now there were just fifteen minutes to go ...

'But in reaching out to Trennier, she had opened her mind - and it wasn't only his thoughts that came through the breach.

Then, however briefly, she found herself listening to something else, the Thing that had terrified the children. It was a fleeting experience, momentary, but all the same it chilled her mind like a blast out of some frozen h.e.l.l: '"Ahhh, see! Now he makes a move. Now he flees this place, and in so doing shows us the way out.. ."That much and no more, before Zek closed her mind again. But more than enough, surely? Panicked, Bruce Trennier was on his way...

and how many of the Wamphyri were following on behind him?

'But it also showed a degree of uncertainty on their part - showed that they weren't entirely sure of what they were up against in this world - for they hadn't simply taken Trennier and made him show them the way out. What would that cold 200.

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Thing have learned, for example, from the damaged minds of the Refuge's children? Nothing, except perhaps something of the caring warmth and attention of the Refuge's staff. But that in itself might have been seen as a weakness, for on Starside such children wouldn't have been spared. Mentally - and frequently physically - unfit, their only use would be as fodder for the beasts. Even on Sunside the Szgany would have thought twice before accepting such burdens, especially under threat from the Wamphyri. What could such children be, except an enormous hindrance? Yet here they were cared for?

It spoke volumes for the inhabitants of Earth, but mainly that they were soft, riddled with unnecessary guilt, self-doubt, and pity for their society's underdogs. But in Starside underdogs were eaten.

'What Zek didn't know, of course, was that Vavara and the others - had already seen something of Earth's awesome firepower. At the Starside Gate, they'd clashed with General Mikhail Suvorov's men: an unequal battle, yes, but at the time they'd been an army. Now there were just the three of them, plus a handful of lieutenants. Not only that, but Malinari also knew that at least one of this world's inhabitants was a powerful telepath. While she wasn't of his order (but then again, who was?) still she was proof that the h.e.l.l-Lands weren't entirely defenceless.

'The minutes ticked by, and Zek was on tenterhooks. Five minutes, six, seven. Even if she returned to the dry bed of the resurgence and climbed up to the crevice with the switch, still she wouldn't be able to reverse the process now. The clock was ticking and nothing could stop it, and the only way to delay it would be to open one of the hatches, a temporary measure and definitely the most dangerous of all.

'The bas.e.m.e.nt was lit by half a dozen naked light bulbs in the ceiling. Since these were powered by a small emergency generator, their light was less than reliable. Through all of what she had been doing, Zek had worked in the flicker of these weak light sources, all the while conscious of the Refuge's foghorn alarms, their muted blare carrying down to her through concrete floors and steel stairwells. Yet in a wa y the sound had comforted her, and even the flickering lights had reminded her of the world above, its relative sanity.

'Now it seemed someone was intent on denying her even these small comforts. For suddenly the alarms ceased, and at the same time the lights burned low, held for a moment, and went out. It could only be that up there in the chaos of the Refuge, someone had turned the alarms off. Whoever it was, he had inadvertently hit the bas.e.m.e.nt light switch, too.

'And now there were only a few minutes left before the sump erupted in death and destruction. Zek couldn't even be sure she herself was safe there in the bas.e.m.e.nt, let alone Bruce Trennier in the sump. And she was tempted to reach out to him yet again and see what progress he'd made. She would have done so - but that was when the telephone jangled.

'Mercifully she'd thought to take a small torch down there with her. Three paces took her to the niche with the telephone, and in another moment she was asking: "Bruce ...

are you alright? Where on earth are you?"

' "At the foot of the duct," he answered, and his voice was one long shudder. "I've been dodging ... G.o.d, Things!! catch them in my torch beam, and they just sort of melt aside! But I can feel them there in the darkness. One of them ... it doesn't seem to have a shape! It collapses in my torch beam, flows, reforms.

And Zek - G.o.d, Zek - they make my flesh creep!"

' "Bruce, come up," she told him. "But as quick as you can, and I'll let you out."

'And then another slow minute until she heard him banging on the hatch that she'd closed. A moment to spin the wheel, her heart hammering and breath coming in panting gasps; the silence absolute, the darkness, too, except where her torch beam sliced into it. She hauled on the hatch, and he pushed from below, and in that last moment she thought to reach out to him, touch him with her mind. And she did- '-But his mind was a blinding white agony, and his single 202.

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thought was a scream that shrank even as it pierced her, gradually disappearing into the distance of mental oblivion!

And as it ran and ran, with nowhere to hide, still it echoed her name: "Zek!-Ah} Zek!- Zekkk! - Zekkkk! - Ah, Zek-k-k-k-kf Until it was gone. Then: 'Zek's strength was as furious as her fear as she tried to slam the heavy lid on Trennier. For in fact it was the New Zealander - his head and shoulders - emerging from the hatch. But it wasn't his mind that drove him; it wasn't his muscles propelling him up out of the darkness, for pain had robbed him of consciousness and all its attendant skills. Try to picture it. His body rising up, loose arms flopping up over the rim, blind eyes staring, back ramrod straight. The engineer was like some grotesque puppet... he was a grotesque puppet.'

'For someone had an arm up inside him, at full stretch, and that someone's hand was gripping his spine from inside, holding him upright! A glove-puppet, yes, as he folded in the middle to topple out of the turret, and another's head and shoulders came into view. But such an Other!

'Zek's legs were rubber, her hand, too, where she forced it to reach for the gun in her waistband. She was stumbling backwards, away from this scene of uttermost horror, yet every move she made was in some kind of dreadful slow-motion.

And the figure in the hatch wrenching its c rimson arm from Trennier's body... blood flying, splas.h.i.+ng Zek's face in a red slap ... yellow eyes burning on her, seeming to burn into her, their cores blazing scarlet in a moment. They were like the holes in a Hallowe'en mask, those eyes, but they were alive!

'He - it - came out of the hatch in one flowing movement, while another figure rose up behind him; all of this happening in a surreal slow-motion that was simply a trick of Zek's mind.

For in fact it was very fast, and in her extreme of numb, gnawing terror, almost too fast to follow.

'She snapped out of it, put her hands together, aimed with the torch and the gun both. But even as she pulled the trigger, that bloodied arm swept the gun aside, sent it flying, and the torch, t oo. And a cold wet hand caught at her wrists, trapping both of them in its icy grip ...'

Trask had paused. His eyes were staring, unblinking. Gaunt and grey, he seemed to have collapsed down into himself a little.

When a crackle of static sounded from the radio, the Duty Officer gave a start. But then a tinny voice was heard, reporting the jet-copter's progress. 'Bird One to base ... ETA twenty to twenty-five minutes, over.'

'Roger, out,' said the D.O. into his hand-set. That served to bring Trask out of it, and: 'I suppose I'd better finish it,' he said. And in a little while, lackl.u.s.tre and robotic, but inured now, he carried on.

'Understand, this wasn't my dream - not all of it - though I'm sure that parts of it were. What I've told you so far is my ... my reconstruction of the so-called "Radujevac incident," as I've pictured it time and time over in my mind's eye, and in my current nightmares. It's built out of details that Nathan Keogh gave us, out of ... G.o.d, evidence ... that we found at the Refuge, and lastly out of Zek's telepathic contact with me, while I lay tossing and turning during her final moments.

'Her final moments, yes ...

'For that was when she knew it was over, when that b.a.s.t.a.r.d thing Malinari trapped her wrists, gripped them in his freezing cold hand, and smiled his dreadful smile at her. Smiled at Zek, inclined his head, and began reading her like a book. But every page as he absorbed it was torn out, discarded, went fluttering into oblivion. And knowing it was over, that was when she contacted me. Once before she'd done it, when she'd thought she was dying. But this time she was dying.

'In my nightmare I saw his face. Handsome, yes, but a vacant sort of beauty, superficial, cosmetic. Lord Malinari looked as he willed himself to look, young but not too young, dark but not too dark, thirsty and... and no way to hide it. Greedy for knowledge, 204.

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and the power it would bring. Zek's knowledge, which she wasn't going to give him without a fight.

'At first she didn't look at him, could only stare at poor Trennier, sprawled on the floor in h is o wn blood, his face alternating between glaring white and shadow, white and shadow, as her torch rocked to a standstill close by. At his bulging eyes, his gaping mouth. Poor Trennier, raped and dead. But- '"Ah, no," said Malinari the Mind, in a voice like bubbles bursting on a pool of oil. "Not dead but undead, or soon to be.

He knows things - of metals, machines and engines - and I would know them, too. But you ... the things thatjyow know are of far greater interest. Moreover, I see that I am not the first of my kind that you have known."

'Zek could feel her knowledge slipping from her - slithering out of her and into him, like a greasy rope in a tug-o'-war - and she fed her thoughts to me that much faster. But Malinari would not be denied; he read her telepathic messages, too, interpreting them as best he might. As for her knowledge: 'It was as if Zek's past, her memories, her understanding of the world ... as if it were all iron filings, and Malinari's mind a vast magnet drawing them out of her. But she fought - oh, how she fought - so that what came to me was of the moment, not of the past, as she allowed me to see how it was, and explained in a kaleidoscope of telepathic scenes how it had been for her, and how if would be for the world if I didn't receive her warning.

'But she knew that it couldn't go on - couldn't be allowed to go on - for he was taking too much, and if she let him he'd get it all. About me, E-Branch, our espers, their talents Malinari would get it all, if she let him.

'By now the others were up out of the sump: Vavara, incredibly beautiful in Zek's mind, lit by her own radiance, alluring so as to further weaken Zek by her presence. And I saw her, but I'll spare you any description because I know that any description would be false. For the beauty of a vampire Lady is literally skin deep. Let me just say this: most women- young women, especially those of great 206.

beauty-would hate her; they would be irresistibly attracted to her, but they'd hate her. And even the most blase man, a man drained by his excesses, sated to his full measure, wo uld l.u.s.t after Vavara.

'And finally Lord Szwart. A darkness ... a flowing, oozing something ... a shape without a shape ... the ultimate in meta- morphism... scorning any fixed form for the constant, ongoing, unceasing mutation of protoplasm which was his existence. A fly-the-light, but more so than any other Great Vampire: the closest comparison we could make would be Nathan Keogh's description of Eygor Killglance of Madmanse in Turgosheim, in a vampire world. But where Eygor was made of flesh and bone - albeit the flesh and bones of others - Szwart was of a far more elemental mat erial. And most of it was darkness.

'Vavara, seeing Zek drawn up against Nephran Malinari, and jealous of any naturally attractive woman, said, "Take what you will and finish it." Her voice was beautiful as her lying form, as ugly as her words. And Szwart's was a hiss of air driven out through temporary lungs specifically created, as on the spur of the momen t, to enable speech: '"Aye, get done with it. There are young ones up above ....

sweet meat for the taaaking ... and a world entire to conquer."

But: ' "No, ah no," said Malinari, and moved his slender hand to lift Zek's chin. "She fights me with a will of iron, and I desire what's in there." And to Zek - and through her to me - "Do you know, the eyes are the windows of the soul? It's true, Zekintha. But to these fingers of mine, they are also the doorways to the mind. And I weary of this and would have it quickly." He held up two fingers before her, aiming them at her, only inches from her eyes.

'Zek knew what he would do; but seeing his fingers vibrating, pulsing with purple veins, elongating and reaching towards her, she also knew what she must do. She volunteered a picture, thrust it at him, showed him the doom she'd planned for him and the others and seared it into his probing mind. Oh, she lied - described a devastation far greater than the truth, that would 207.

come ripping through the floor in rivers of fire and tortured concrete, threatening him even here - and perhaps Lord Malinari suspected it was a lie. But the way Zek's eyes were locked on that open hatch, out of which the last of three lieutenants was even now appearing, he couldn't take the chance.

' "What?" he said, furious where he drew back a pace. "And was this for me, for us?" Then he gathered her up, carried her to the hatch , and without pause ... without pause ...

'Head first she fell, down and down, and as Nephran Malinari slammed and locked the hatch, the time was up.

'That was when I woke up, drenched and s.h.i.+vering, hot yet cold, with Zek's last words still ringing in my mind.

'"Goodbye, Ben," she said. "I love you ..." 'And then a blinding white light, which I prayed was only the dazzle of my bedside lamp as my trembling fingers switched it on. That's what I prayed it was- '-But it wasn't.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Charnel House.

It was plain that Trask couldn't go on, so while he sat there shaking his head in a kind of numb disbelief, still seeking a reason for, or perhaps a solution to, his irreparable trauma, the precog lan Goodly took over. In contrast to Trask's harsh, grating rasp, his voice was almost melodious: 'It was a period of unrest among the old USSR's satellite countries,' he began, 'one of many since the death of European Communism. The former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, they were all in a state of political turmoil, and Radujevac stood at the crossroads, as it were, of all three nations. The Refuge was a kind of Sovereign Base Area - a British enclave, if you like - on foreign soil. But despite that, and as a result of its work, it was greatly respected and had achieved an almost diplomatic status. Of course, the British government had safe houses, emba.s.sies and the like, in all the former satellites. But because of the unrest access was always difficult, even to the Refuge.

'Well, Nathan Keogh arrived at our London HQ that night, and he was in the process of explaining what was happening in Sunside/Starside when Ben got there. At first Ben was overjoyed, even relieved to see him. Maybe this was what had sparked his dream; perhaps in some way he had antic.i.p.ated this renewed contact with a friend from the once-hostile environment of the vampire world. But as Nathan's story unfolded, Ben's awareness 208.

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- his sense of dread, of foreboding - returned in short order.

It was one of those times that come to all esp-endowed persons, when out of the blue they're made aware of the other side, the downside of their talents. And now more than ever Ben's talent was telling him that Zek's telepathic message had been no mere nightmare...'