The Source

'British,' said Vyotsky, taking a threatening pace closer, 'I could happily toss you on that fence there and watch you fry! You've been advised to mind your mouth. But me? - I hope you go on pushing your luck till you push yourself right over the edge!'

'Calm yourself, Karl,' Khuv told him. 'He's looking for your measure, that's all.' And to Jazz: 'He doesn't mean that sort of target,' he said. 'Or rather he does, but not in the way you think. It's simply that if anything - anything at all strange - comes out of that ball of light there, those crews have orders to open fire immediately and destroy, or try to destroy it. And those orders take absolutely no account of the fact that we happen to be standing here, right in the arc of fire.'

'But if it did happen,' Vyotsky added, 'and if what could come through did, then I personally would be glad to stop a bullet!'

Khuv gave a little shiver, said, 'Let's get out of here. Karl is quite right: we are stupid to stand here tempting fate. It has happened five times before, and there's no guarantee it won't happen again.'

As they turned away and headed back toward the stairs, Jazz asked, 'Do you have it on film? I mean, if it's a regular occurrence - '

'Not regular,' Khuv corrected him. 'Five - shall we call them, "emergences" - in two years can hardly be called frequent. But I take your point. Oh, yes, Michael, we learned our lessons quickly. After the first two encounters we fitted cameras, and now there are also cameras mounted on these guns. They are triggered when the weapons themselves are triggered. What the gu

'Any chance of seeing what we're talking about?' Jazz might as well go for broke; there was little or no chance of him getting out of here, but still he'd try to discover what he could of this mess if only on the off-chance.

'Certainly,' said Khuv without hesitation. 'But if you prefer I can show you something far more interesting than mere films.' There was something about the way he said it that warned Jazz to be careful, but nevertheless he answered:

'Well, by all means, let's keep me interested.'

Vyotsky's grimly sardonic chuckle sounding from behind made him wonder if he'd made the right choice...

They went back up through the quiet but disquieting magmass levels to the perimeter, and along it to the secure area which housed the Projekt's laboratories. Passing through two guarded security doors, they arrived finally at a steel door bearing a stencilled scarlet skull and the stark warning:

CAUTION!

KEEPER AND SECURITY

CLASSIFIED PERSONS

ONLY!

Jazz couldn't help but think: more melodramatics? But Khuv and Vyotsky had gone very quiet, and perhaps it would be as well if he followed suit. He held his tongue, wondered about the word 'keeper'. Keeper of what?

Khuv had a plastic ID tag which he inserted in a slot in the door. The card was accepted, 'read' and given back; mechanisms whirred and the door opened with a click. Before pushing it all the way open, Khuv motioned to Vyotsky who turned down the lights in the anteroom. As the lights dimmed Jazz noticed Vyotsky's face: it was pale and shiny with cold sweat. Also, his Adam's apple bobbed noticeably. There could be little doubt that the big Russian was both hard and cruel, but it seemed there were some things that could get to him. It also appeared that Jazz was about to meet one of them.

Khuv, though, was cool as ever. Now he pushed the heavy door open and motioned Jazz through it. With some misgivings, the British agent stepped inside the dark room. Vyotsky followed close behind him, and Khuv came last, closing the door after him.

The darkness was almost complete: only a series of small red lights the size of flashlight bulbs glowed in the ceiling. Revealed by their dim glow, the rectangular shape of a glass case stood against one wall like a huge tropical fish tank. Khuv's voice came soft out of the darkness. 'Are you ready, Michael?'

'When you are,' Jazz answered. But even as the words left his mouth, he knew he wasn't here to admire goldfish.

A sharp click sounded and the lights came on.

Something moved in the tank and reared up!

Behind Jazz, Vyotsky made a choking sound. He'd seen this before, had known what was in here, but if anything the knowledge had only served to precipitate his instinctive reaction to it. And now that Jazz saw it he could readily understand why.

The thing was something like the moulds in the magmass which Khuv had not described but Jazz had pictured. It was like that, and yet not like that, for it was alive. Twisting, flowing, it glared out through the thick glass of the tank with eyes that were sheer hell. It was the size of a large dog, but it was not a dog. It wasn't anything Jazz could have possibly imagined but a composite of most of his worst nightmares. It didn't stay still long enough for him to even try to decide what it was. And worst of all, it didn't seem to know itself!

Flattening itself for a moment against the glass of the tank, the thing might have been a leech. Its underside was corrugated and shaped like a huge, elongated sucker. But its four hands, its tail and its head were parts that might readily fit on a giant rat! That was how it looked - for a split-second. Then -

The head and hands changed, underwent a swift metamorphosis, became manlike. An almost human face crushed itself to the glass, gazing flatly, almost pitifully out into the room. It grimaced: an expression that was part smile, part scowl, part snarl, and then its human jaws yawned inhumanly open. Inside that mouth was a hell of teeth worthy of some monster piranha!

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.'