The Source

Jazz watched him grovelling there for a moment, then said: 'Suit yourself, Ivan. Stay here and scream and gibber, and in the end die.'

Vyotsky's head turned swiftly. 'Die?'

Jazz nodded. 'Of starvation, or exhaustion...' Then he turned his back on the view beyond the Gate - of Khuv, against a backdrop of magmass walls and slow-motion soldiery - and started forward into what looked and felt like an aching white immensity.

From behind him Vyotsky snarled, 'But why? Why? What good am I to you, here?'

'None at all,' Jazz called back. 'But you'd have been even less good to Tassi...'

9

Beyond the Gate

Major Chingiz Khuv of the KGB faced his underling, Karl Vyotsky, across a distance of no more than ten feet and through a fine white milky film so thin it was almost invisible - yet they were worlds apart. Khuv could take two or three paces forward, reach out and shake Vyotsky by the hand. He could do it, but dared not. For in his present condition Vyotsky might just hold on, and while the Major couldn't drag Vyotsky out of there, Vyotsky was certainly capable of dragging him in. They could still converse, however, albeit laboriously.

'Karl,' Khuv called out. 'There's no way you can get back right now, and you can't just go on kneeling there like a lost waif. Or you can, but it won't do you any good. Oh, we can feed you - of course we can - simply by pushing food through to you! Simmons was quite wrong about that. It was something he hadn't thought out, that's all. But he was right when he said you'll die. You will eventually, Karl! How long that will be depends on how long you've got before Encounter Six. Do you follow me?'

Khuv waited for Vyotsky's reply. Communicating through the gate was a frustrating business, but eventually Vyotsky nodded and got to his feet. Just doing that took him all of two minutes and more, and meanwhile the figure of the British agent was dwindling into the distance, oh-so-slowly vanishing from sight. Then Vyotsky's face and mouth began to work grotesquely, and his words came in a dull, distant, slow-motion booming. Khuv made him out to say: 'What do you suggest?'

'Simply this: that we kit you out exactly like Simmons, give you all we can of equipment and concentrated food. Then at least you'll have the same chance he has.'

Eventually the answer came back: 'No chance, is that what you mean?'

'A slim chance,' Khuv insisted. 'You won't know unless you try it.' He called forward an NCO from the squad of soldiers at his rear, issued sharp, rapid orders. The man went off at a run. 'Now Karl, listen,' Khuv continued. 'Is there anything you can think of that might be useful to you - other than what Simmons has?'

Again Vyotsky's slow nod, and at last, 'A motorcycle.'

Khuv's jaw fell open. They had no idea what the terrain would be like. He said so, and:

'So if I can't ride it, then I'll ditch the bloody thing!' Vyotsky answered. 'For God's sake, is it too much? If I could fly a helicopter I'd ask for that instead!'

Khuv issued more instructions; but all of this taking time, and Simmons now a dot on the white horizon, gradually drawing away like an ant across the face of a sand dune.

The equipment began to arrive, and a trolley to carry it. The trolley was loaded and pushed into the sphere, and Vyotsky commenced the endless business of kitting-up. He was working as fast as he could, but to Khuv and the other observers it was like watching the progress of a snail. The paradox was this: that it was just as bad for Vyotsky. He felt that he was the one moving at speed, and they were the flies stuck in treacle! While to them even the droplets of sweat falling from his brow took seconds to strike the invisible floor where he stood.

At last his motorcycle arrived: a heavy military model -but in good working order, with about two hundred and fifty miles of fuel in her belly. The bike was put on its stand on a second trolley and wheeled through. On the other side, Vyotsky began the incredibly slow process of mounting the machine, kick-starting its engine into life. But whatever might be wrong with time in there, the rest of the physical spectrum seemed in order. The bike coughed, made a noise like great hammers on oak, where the beat of each piston was a distinct, individual sound, and Vyotsky lifted his feet off the ground. And slowly, oh-so-slowly - but still a great deal faster than Simmons -so Vyotsky and his machine dwindled into the white distance and finally disappeared from view. Two empty trolleys were all that was left...

After Vyotsky had gone, Khuv continued to watch the sphere until his eyes began to hurt. Then he turned and crossed the walkway to the Saturn's-rings platform, and started up the wooden stairs to the shaft through the magmass. There on the landing at the mouth of the shaft Viktor Luchov was waiting for him. Khuv came to a halt, said:

'Direktor Luchov, I notice you distanced yourself from this experiment. Indeed you were conspicuous by your absence!' His tone was neutral, or if anything even a little defensive.

'As I shall continue to absent myself from such... acts!' Luchov answered. 'You are the KGB here, Major, and I am a scientist. You call it an experiment, and I call it an execution. Two executions, it would seem! I thought it would be over by now else I'd not have been here, but unfortunately I was in time to see that lout Vyotsky take his departure. A brutal man, yes, and yet now I pity him. And how will you explain this to your superiors in Moscow, eh?'

Khuv's nostrils flared a little and he grew slightly paler, but his voice remained even as he replied: 'My reporting procedures are my business, Direktor. You are right: you are a scientist and I am KGB. But you will note that when I say "scientist" I do not make it sound like pig-swill. I would advise caution how you emphasize your use of the term KGB. Does the fact that I am able to perform certain thankless tasks better than you make me any less useful? I should have thought the very opposite. And can you truthfully tell me that as a scientist you are not fascinated by the opportunity we have here?'

'You perform these "tasks" better than me because I would not perform them!' Luchov almost shouted. 'My God, I ... I-!'

'Direktor?' Khuv raised an eyebrow; the line of his mouth was tight, thin and ugly now.

'Some people never learn!' Luchov stormed. 'Man, have you forgotten the trials at Nuremberg? Don't you know we're still bringing people to justice for - ' He saw the look on Khuv's face and stopped.

'You compare me with Nazi war criminals?' Khuv was now deathly white.

'That man,' Luchov pointed a trembling finger at the sphere, 'was one of our own!'

'Yes, he was,' Khuv snapped. 'He was also psychotically brutal, devious, insubordinate and dangerous to the point of being a downright liability! But haven't you wondered why I never reprimanded him? You think you know it all, don't you, Direktor? Well, you don't. Do you know who Vyotsky worked for before me? He was a bodyguard to Yuri Andropov himself - and we still don't know exactly how he died! But it's a fact they didn't get on, and that Andropov intended to demote him. Oh yes, you can believe it - Karl Vyotsky was implicated! Very well, and now I'll tell you why he was sent here - '

'I ... I don't think that's necessary,' Luchov grasped the landing's handrail to steady himself. All of the blood had drained from his face until he was as white as Khuv. 'I think I already know.'

Khuv lowered his voice. 'I'll tell you anyway,' he whispered. 'But for his misadventure tonight, Karl Vyotsky was to have been our next "volunteer"! So don't cry for him, Direktor - he had only a month left anyway!'