The Source

Vyotsky grabbed up his weapon, checked it was undamaged, aimed at his oncoming enemy. Why was the stupid bastard gri

'British, you're dead!' said Vyotsky. He deliberately lowered his aim - to chew up the other's thighs, groin and belly - and squeezed the trigger. The weapon was on automatic. It fired three stuttering shots before Vyotsky's finger was jerked from the trigger, which happened when the gun slammed into his chest and sent him crashing backwards to sprawl on the floor. Vyotsky felt as if his chest had caved in, as if his ribs were broken; possibly one or two of them were.

Lying there hugging himself, gritting his teeth and murmuring, 'Ah! Ah.r from the pain, he looked at Jazz. In the distance between them, three bullets were plainly visible lying on the floor. The SMG had 'fired' them insofar as they'd escaped from its barrel, but only just. And that had resulted in three mighty mule-kicks coming in rapid succession, blows which even the huge Russian's bulk hadn't been fully able to absorb.

Vyotsky made an effort to reach the smoking gun where it lay, but that was in Jazz's direction, which was the wrong way. He tried harder, and of course failed. The SMG was all of fifteen inches beyond his straining fingertips - hardly a great distance - but it might as well have been a mile, or not there at all. The motorcycle, too, lay in the wrong direction.

Jazz reached the bike, hauled it upright, stood astride the front wheel and wrenched the handlebars back into position from where they'd been knocked slightly askew. He ignored Vyotsky's groaning. Then he wheeled the bike forward and picked up the Russian's gun. And at last he spoke:

'Sound and light are the only things that seem to work in both directions here,' he said. 'We can hear each other, talk to each other, and even though you're ahead of me -toward the other end of the Gate, I mean - your words get back to me. Likewise your picture, for I can see you. But while we're standing like this, nothing solid can ever come from you to me. Reverse our positions, and sure enough I'd be dead, except that isn't the case. So there's no way you could have harmed me, Ivan: no bullets, no sticks or stones, nothing. These three rounds - ' he kicked the three spent projectiles aside, ' - they fired the gun! If you weren't so burned-up with hate, you'd have worked it out for yourself.'

It all sank in, and finally Vyotsky scowled and nodded.

Then, still holding his chest, he sat up. 'So get it over with,' he said. 'What are you waiting for?'

Jazz looked at the other and grimaced. 'God, what a wanker you are! Hasn't it dawned on you yet that we may be the only human beings this side of Earth? You and me? Not that I'm much for male companionship, but I can't see myself killing off half the human population just for the fun of it. Last time that happened it was Cain and Abel!'

Vyotsky was finding it hard to follow Jazz's logic. He wasn't even sure it was logic. 'What are you saying?' he said.

'I'm saying that, against my better judgement, I'm giving you your life,' Jazz told him. 'See, I'm not the sort of murderous lunatic that you appear to be. Yesterday, in my cell - if I'd had you then in this position - things might be different. And your own fault because you worked me up to it. But I'm damned if I can kill you here and now.'

Vyotsky tried to sneer, managed only a wince. 'Lily-livered chickenshit son of a - ' He jerked himself to his feet.

Jazz lowered his own SMG and put a single round between Vyotsky's feet. It whupped where it ricochetted off the ground. 'Sticks and stones,' he reminded, 'can't hurt my bones, but names can certainly do yours a hell of a lot of damage!' He got on the bike and kicked it into life.

'You're leaving me here, without my gun?' Vyotsky was suddenly alarmed. 'Then you might as well kill me after all!'

'You'll find your gun waiting for you when you come through the Gate,' Jazz told him. 'But remember this: if I ever catch you on my trail again, it'll be a story with a different ending. I don't know how big that world is up front, but from here at least it looks big enough for the two of us. It's your decision. So that's all from me, Comrade. Here's hoping I won't be seeing you.'

He put the bike in gear and rolled forward past Vyotsky, upped the gear and picked up a little speed, looked back once, briefly. The big Russian was watching him go. It was hard to say what sort of an expression he was wearing. Jazz sighed, climbed through the remaining gears and headed for the sunlit scene ahead. But in the back of his mind something kept telling him he'd made a bad mistake...

Another mistake was this: failing to recognize where the Gate ended and the strange world beyond it began!

Jazz had been riding only three or four minutes, had kept his speed even at maybe twenty, twenty-five miles per hour, when without warning he breached the sphere's outer skin. For it was a sphere on this side, too, he realized as he tumbled in mid-air. The trouble was that on this side the sphere seemed parked in the throat of what looked like a crater, and the crater's rim was three feet higher than the surrounding terrain.

The bike fell, Jazz too, managing somehow to kick himself free of the rotating machine, and both of them collided jarringly with hard earth and scattered rocks. Winded, Jazz lay there for a moment and let his senses stop reeling. Then he sat up and looked all about. And then he knew how lucky he'd been.

The dazzling white sphere was perhaps thirty feet across, and all around its perimeter, penetrating the earth and the crater walls alike to a radius of maybe seventy feet, magmass wormholes gaped everywhere. Jazz had landed between two such holes, and he knew it was only a matter of good fortune that he'd not been pitched headlong down the throat of either one of them. Their walls were glass smooth and very nearly perpendicular, and their depth entirely conjectural; once in, it would be one hell of a job to climb out again.

Jazz glanced at the sphere, turned his face away before the dazzle blinded him. A giant, illuminated golf ball plopped down in wet mortar and left to dry out. That's what it looked like. 'But who in hell drove it here?' Jazz muttered to himself. 'And why didn't he shout "fore"?'

He stood up and checked himself over, finding only bumps and bruises. Then (and despite the fact that he felt almost compelled to stand still and simply gape at the weird world he'd entered) he went to the bike and examined it for damage. Its front forks were badly twisted and the wheel jammed immovably between them. If he had a spa

So ... what about tools in general?

He released catches on the bike's seat and tilted it back... the tool compartment underneath was empty. Now the machine was doomed to lie here until it rusted. So much for transport...

Now Jazz gave a thought to Karl Vyotsky. The Russian was maybe one-and-a-half to two miles behind him. Forty minutes at the outside, even weighed down with equipment. The last thing Jazz wanted was still to be here when Vyotsky arrived. But he must do one more thing before he moved off.

He had a small pocket radio, a walkie-talkie that Khuv had insisted he bring with him. Now he switched it on and spoke briefly into the mouthpiece: 'Comrade bastard Major Khuv? This is Simmons. I'm through to the other side, and I'm not going to tell you a bloody thing about how I got here or what it's like! How does that grab you?'