The Source

Luchov gazed aghast at Khuv where he turned away and climbed the steps through the shaft. 'And he didn't know?' he said.

'Of course not,' Khuv answered without looking back. 'If you were in my shoes, would you have told him?'

Jazz plodded on.

No use hurrying and wasting energy needlessly, and it wasn't as if anyone or thing was going to sneak up on him. Not here. But certainly he must try to conserve his strength. He didn't know how far he had to go, another mile or ten or a hundred. He felt like a man crossing a vast lake of salt, whom the sun had already blinded. Yes, it was like that: as if he marched blindly, endlessly under a blazing sun, but one which held no heat. Only light. He sweated, yes, but purely from his efforts and not from any external source of heat. It was neither hot nor cold in this white tu

Twice he'd taken a swig from his water bottle, replacing lost moisture, and twice he'd thought to himself: is this all there is, this emptiness? What if it doesn't go anywhere?

But then, where had the bat and the wolf come from, and the magmass creatures, and the warrior? No, it had to go somewhere.

He had also paused to take the rusty magazine off his SMG and throw it away, and fit a good one from his packs. If he had to use the weapon, the last thing he wanted to happen was for a duff round to jam itself in the breach.

It was then, just after he'd fitted the new magazine, that he learned something else about this weird Gate place. Fastening the straps of his pack, he'd looked up -and discovered that he didn't know which direction was which. He had a compass on his wrist, but it was a little late for that; he should have checked it immediately after entering the sphere. He'd looked at it anyway - and seen the hand circling aimlessly, just as lost as he was! And then again he'd looked all about him, slowly turning in a full circle, or what he believed was a full circle. But he couldn't even be sure of that.

It was all the same everywhere he looked: whiteness stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction. Even a white floor and a white sky, making no distinction anywhere, no horizon, nothing but himself. Himself and gravity. And thank God for gravity, for without the sensation that there was something solid underneath him - he knew he would have very quickly gone mad. With it ... at least he knew which way was up!

Then he'd looked back over his shoulder. Had he really come from over there? Or from over there? Difficult to tell. How did he know he was still heading in the right direction? What the hell was 'direction' in this Godforsaken place?

But when he'd tried to move off again there had been resistance, a wall of invisible foam that pushed him back with a force equal to that which he mustered against it. To the right it wasn't so bad, but still difficult, and to the left likewise. There was only one way to go, which meant that that had to be the right way. That was why he hadn't noticed it before; because he'd automatically chosen, or been guided, along the path of least resistance. And after that there'd been more plodding, more sweating, until now - time for another swig at his bottle. Staring ahead, and as he pulled at the bottle and let the water cool his mouth, Jazz suddenly realized that things were no longer pure white. That came as a shock, so that he almost choked on his water. Now what the hell...? There in the distance... mountains? Silhouettes of crags? A dark-blue sky and... stars? It was like looking through a sea-fret; better, like looking down a tu

Jazz plodded on, more eagerly now - and at the same time somewhat more apprehensively. The scene came closer, growing brighter as the stars blinked out and were replaced by weak beams of sunlight seeming to strike through the mountains to the right of the picture's frame. And that was when Jazz heard the sound.

At first he associated it with the emerging scene, but then he realized that it came from behind him. And no sooner that than he recognized it for what it really was: a motorcycle! He turned and looked back.

Karl Vyotsky rode with the sling of his SMG across his right shoulder, the gun itself hanging under his arm, muzzle forward. As yet he couldn't see the distant scene that Jazz had spotted, but he could see Jazz. The big Russian gritted his teeth into a snarling grin, guided the bike with his left hand and his knees and took the handgrip of the gun in his right fist. He laid his index finger along the trigger-guard, turned up the throttle and felt the bike surge forward. 'British,' he grunted to himself, 'your time's up. Kiss it all goodbye!'

For a moment Jazz was stu

Vyotsky rode closer, revved up until sixty showed on his clock and the bike throbbed under him. The ride was smooth as silk, but even so, aiming the SMG would not be easy. It would be, literally, hit or miss. But he did have the element of surprise, or if not surprise, shock at least. What must the Englishman be thinking now, he wondered, to see this powerful machine bearing down on him?

He's a little less than half a mile away, Jazz was thinking. Thirty seconds. He got down on one knee, turned his body side-on so as to decrease his target silhouette, turned his gun in Vyotsky's direction. Not that he intended to shoot at him, just make him a little nervous.

A quarter-mile to go, and Vyotsky's face a mask of hatred where he thundered to the attack. But... suddenly his quarry had grown smaller, he'd gone down on one knee. And at the same time Vyotsky saw the scene on the other side of the Gate. For a moment it threw him, but then he returned his concentration to what he was doing, namely: hunting down this British bastard to the death! He began to move his knees, shift his body-weight, give the bike something of a slow wobble; and at the same time he commenced firing single shots in Jazz's direction.

One hundred and fifty yards, and Jazz held his fire. He hadn't even released the safety-catch, hadn't cocked the weapon. It seemed obvious that the crazy Russian intended to run him down; Vyotsky was relying on Jazz losing his nerve and making a run for it, trying to get out of the way. But Jazz had some ideas of his own. Finally he clicked off the safety-catch, cocked the weapon, re-sighted and... waited. For if he was correct it would be useless to fire anyway.

Fifty yards, and Vyotsky firing on automatic, a stream of lead that buzzed and plucked at the air all about Jazz, too close for comfort. And at the last possible moment he hurled himself to one side. Vyotsky's bike careened by him; its rider threw it into a steep, banking turn; the bike stood on its nose and hurled him out of the saddle!

Then machine and rider were somersaulting in different directions, and Jazz walked carefully forward toward them, and toward the scene looming on the other side of the Gate. Miraculously, Vyotsky came to the end of his skidding and tumbling and found himself virtually unharmed. The 'ground' here was obviously different. He had bruises and one sleeve of his combat suit was torn where he'd put his elbow through it, but that was all. He climbed shakily to his feet, stared unbelievingly at the Englishman maybe fifteen paces away where he walked toward him. 'Hello there, Ivan!' Jazz called out. 'I see you got here the easy way.'