The Source

Twenty-five minutes or so later, pausing to lean against a great boulder, Jazz turned and looked back.

The sphere was now a little less than two miles behind and below him, and he had actually entered the mouth of the 'V where it lay like a slash through the mountain range. But back there on the rock-littered plain ... the sphere was like a brilliant egg half-buried in its magmass nest. And a dark speck moved like a microbe against its glare. It could only be Vyotsky. A moment more - and Jazz nodded sourly. Oh, yes, that was Vyotsky all right!

The crack of a single ringing shot came echoing up to Jazz, bouncing itself from wall to wall of the pass. The Russian had found his gun where Jazz had left it for him; now he was telling this alien world that he was here. 'So look out!' he was saying. 'A man is here, and one to be reckoned with! If you know what's good for you, don't try fooling around with Karl Vyotsky!' Like a superstitious peasant whistling in the dark. Or maybe he was just saying: 'Simmons, it's not over yet. This is just to warn you: keep looking back!'

And Jazz promised himself that he would...

Down beside the sphere, Vyotsky quit cursing, laid aside his gun and turned to the bike. He saw the seat laid back on its hinges and his face twisted into a grin. Tucked loosely into a pocket of one of his packs he had a small bag of tools. It was the last thing they'd given him on the other side, and he'd been in such a hurry that he hadn't stored his tools away under the seat. Then the sneering grin slid from his face and he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd not once thought of those tools since Simmons took the bike off him. If he had, then for sure he'd have thrown them away somewhere in the last couple of miles.

Now he unhooked a small kidney-pack from his back harness, got the tools out and loosened the front wheel. He stood on one of the forks with his foot wedged under the wheel, bent his back and hauled on the other fork one-handed until he could feel it giving, then slid the wheel free. Now it was only a question of straightening the forks. He picked up the front end of the bike, half-dragged, half-wheeled it over to a pair of large boulders where they leaned together. If he could jam the twisted forks into the gap between the boulders, and apply the right amount of leverage in the right direction...

He upended the bike and got the forks in position, began to exert leverage - and froze! He stopped panting from his exertions, stopped breathing, too. What the hell was that? Vyotsky raced for his gun, grabbed it up and cocked it, looked wildly all about. No one. Nothing. But he'd heard something. He could have sworn he'd heard something. He went warily back to the bike, and -

There it was again! The big Russian's skin prickled, broke out in gooseflesh. Now what - ? A tiny voice? A ti

That wasn't all - Vyotsky recognized the voice. Zek Foener's voice, breathless and yet full of desperate hope, eager to communicate with someone, with anyone human in this entirely alien world.

He flung himself face-down beside the wormhole, peered over its rim. The smooth shaft was perfectly circular, about three feet in diameter, curving sharply inward toward the buried base of the sphere and so out of sight. But just where the shaft disappeared from view... there lay a small radio like the one Vyotsky carried in his own pocket! Obviously it had been Simmons's, and he'd discarded it. Every time Foener's voice came, so a little red monitor light flickered on and off on the control panel. It warned of reception, that light; it advised its operator to turn up the volume.

'Hello?' Zek Foener's voice came again. 'Hello? Oh, please answer! Is anyone there? I heard you speaking but ... I was asleep! I thought I was dreaming! Please, please - if there's anyone out there - please say again who you are? And where you are? Hello? Hello?'

'Zek Foener!' Vyotsky breathed, licking his lips as he pictured her. Ah, but a different woman now from the acid-tongued bitch who'd spurned his advances at Perchorsk! This world had seen to that. It had changed her. Now she craved companionship. Any sort!

Vyotsky took out his own radio, switched it on and yanked up the aerial. There were only two cha

'Zek Foener, this is Karl Vyotsky. I'm sure you'll remember me. We've discovered a way to neutralize the one-way drag effect of the Gate. I've been sent to seek out any survivors of through-Gate experiments and bring them back. Find me, Zek, and you find your way out of here. Do you hear me?'

As he finished speaking, so the red light on his set began to flicker and blink. She was answering, but he couldn't hear her. He turned up the volume and got broken, crackling static. He shook the set, glared at it. Its plastic casing was cracked, and the miniature control panel in the top was badly dented. It must have got damaged when he was flung from the bike. Also, its proximity to Simmons's discarded radio was jamming reception on that set, too.

'Shit!' he hissed from between clenched teeth.

He set the broken radio aside and lowered his head, one arm and shoulder into the wormhole. He gripped its rim with his free hand and hooked one foot round a knob of rock. And he stretched himself down and around, inching his fingers toward Simmons's radio. Its ante

Damn!

The set went clattering out of sight into unknown depths below.

Vyotsky snatched himself viciously up and out of the hole and jumped to his feet. Of all the bloody luck! He picked up his own set again, said: 'Zek, I can't hear you. I know you're out there and you can probably hear me, but I can't hear you. If you get my message you'll most likely want to start looking for me. Right now I'm at the sphere but I won't be staying here. Anyway, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for you, Zek. It looks like I'm your one hope. How's that for a novel situation?'

The red light on his set started flickering again, a brief, unintelligible morse message that wasn't intended to be understood. He couldn't tell if she was pleading with him or screaming her defiance. But sooner or later she would have to search him out. He'd been lying when he said he was her one chance, but of course she couldn't know that. She might suspect it, but still she couldn't afford to ignore him.

Vyotsky gri