The Source

'Good Lord!' said Khuv; to which one of the espers added:

'Something bit his head like it was a plum! Major, look at his arms.'

Khuv looked. Both arms were broken at the elbows, bent back on themselves until the bones had parted at the sockets. Whatever it was, it had found a simple and effective way of stopping Roborov from fighting back.

Khuv shook his head, felt his gorge rising. He could almost feel the pulse of the Projekt quickening as morning came and the place started to wake up. There was a faint throbbing underfoot, like the heart of a great beast. And within the beast, a lesser beast: the one that had done this. Or perhaps, a greater beast? What sort of beast? Not human, surely. But if not human...

There was a telephone out in the corridor. Khuv ran to it and called the Duty Officer at Failsafe Concen. He didn't let the man speak but rasped: 'Have you been sleeping? Have you been asleep on duty?'

'Who is this?' came a wide-awake, alert voice from the other end. Khuv recognized the voice: a senior scientist on Luchov's team. A very responsible person.

'This is Major Khuv,' he lowered his voice. 'It seems we may have an intruder. Certainly we have a murderer in the place.'

'An intruder?' the voice on the other end hardened. 'Where are you, Major?'

'I'm in the corridor close to KGB quarters. Why?'

'Do you mean an intruder from outside, or from the Gate?'

'Well, obviously that's why I'm on the phone!' Khuv snapped. 'To find out!'

Now the other came back just as venomously: 'In which case it should also be obvious that your intruder is from outside! If it was anything else - by now you'd be burning, Khuv!'

'I-'

'Listen, I've got the screens right here in front of me. Everything is normal down there, except they're all a bit nervous because of those bloody alarms. Nothing, repeat nothing, has come through that Gate!'

Khuv slammed the phone down. He stood glaring at it. Something was loose in here. Maybe it had been let loose in here. By whom? British E-Branch?

He ran back into Roborov's room, told the two espers: 'Out, leave all this. If you come up with something let me know. But until then leave this to my investigators.'

Savinkov was making himself as small and insignificant as he could in a corner. 'You,' Khuv said. 'There are three more KGB men stinking in their beds just down the corridor, a stone's throw from the scene of a double murder. Go wake the idle bastards up. Wake them all up! Tell them I want them here, now.'

Savinkov went.

Khuv ushered the espers out into the corridor and closed Roborov's door. Viktor Luchov had just arrived, looked bewildered, only half-awake. 'Don't go in there,' Khuv warned him, shaking his head. Luchov took one look at the KGB officer's face and was sensible enough to take heed.

'But what's happened?'

'Murder - at least I think so.'

'But don't you know?' Luchov gaped.

'I know two people are dead, and if their killer is human, then it's murder.'

Luchov was waking up quickly. 'Is it that bad? Have you checked with Fail - '

'Yes,' Khuv cut him short. To both questions.'

'But -'

'No buts,' Khuv interrupted again. 'If it's something from the Gate, then it's invisible.'

At that moment Litve returned with Agursky. Khuv's eyes went straight to the tiny scientist. Except... Agursky hardly seemed that small any more. He slumped a little, yes, but if he were to stand up straight...

Agursky had on his night things with a dressing-gown thrown over them. And he was wearing dark spectacles. 'Something wrong with your eyes?' Khuv frowned.

'Eh?' Agursky squinted, peered at the Major through tinted lenses. 'Oh, yes. It comes on now and then. Photophobia. It's with being down here, out of the natural light. All this artificial lighting.'

Khuv nodded. He had more than enough with which to concern himself without worrying about Agursky's weird-ness. 'In there,' he nodded, indicating the door to Roborov's room. 'Two dead men.'

Agursky seemed hardly concerned. He opened the door, made to go in. Khuv caught his arm, felt the tension in him. Strange, because it hadn't shown in his movements or his ma

While they were inside the room, Khuv told Luchov all he knew. Impossible to work if the Projekt Direktor was going to be prying into everything. Better to put him firmly in the picture right now, from square one. By the time he was through, Litve and Agursky had come back out of the room. Litve was still very pale; Agursky seemed his usual self.

'Any ideas?' Khuv asked him.

The other shook his head, averted his eyes. 'Something terrifically strong. Immensely strong. A beast, certainly.'

'Beast?' Luchov blurted.

Agursky glanced at him. 'In a way of speaking, Direktor, yes. A human beast. A murderer. But as I said, a very large, very strong man.'

Khuv said: 'And the teeth marks in Roborov's skull?'

'No,' Agursky shook his head. 'His skull was smashed in with a hammer or something very similar. Yes, something like a small-pane hammer. But wielded with considerable force.'

Remembering that garbage Savinkov had spewed out, Khuv scowled. 'But I have an esper,' he said, 'Paul Savinkov, who says he "saw" the killer. And he says it was something nightmarish!'

Agursky had started to turn away, but now he slowly turned back. 'He saw this happen, you say?'

'In his mind, yes.'

'Ah!' Agursky nodded his understanding. Then he smiled, shrugged half-apologetically. 'Well, my science takes note of physical evidence only, Major. Metaphysics isn't my scene. Will you be requiring me any more? I have many things to do now, and - '

'Only one more thing,' said Khuv. 'Tell me, what did you do with the corpse of the dead creature from the tank?'

'Do with it? I photographed it, studied it to the point of stripping it down to cartilage and bone, finally destroyed, burned it.'

'Burned it?'

Agursky shrugged again. 'Of course. It was from the Gate, after all. There was nothing else to be learned from it. And... best not to take chances with things like that, don't you agree?'

Luchov patted him on the shoulder. 'Of course, Vasily, of course we do. Thank you very much.'

'If we do want you,' Khuv called after him, 'you'll be hearing from me. But with any luck we won't.' To Luchov he said, 'God, he gives me the creeps!'

"This whole place,' Luchov muttered, 'gives me the creeps!'

As Agursky went off, so Savinkov returned with Khuv's KGB operatives. They'd had civil police training, and since this now appeared to be a case of routine murder...

Khuv scowled at them. They looked ruffled, unshaven. He dressed them down, told them what had happened and what he wanted. They went into Roborov's room. By now Savinkov had disappeared, probably sneaked off before Khuv could find more work for him.

But as Khuv and Luchov made to return to the upper levels, so the telepath came back. He was reeling, sobbing, seemed totally uncoordinated. 'Major - help! I ... I... oh, God!'

Khuv pounced on him, grated: 'What now, Paul?'

'It's Leo!' he gasped.

'Leo Grenzel?' The locator! 'What is it with Leo?'

'I wondered why he hadn't picked up the presence of the intruder,' Savinkov babbled, 'and so I went to his room. The door was ... it was open. I went in, and... and...'

Khuv and Luchov looked at each other. Their expressions were much the same: shock, disbelief, horror! Savinkov's reasoning was faultless, of course: Grenzel, if he was awake and well, should have appeared on the scene long before now.

Leaving Savinkov leaning against the metal wall, sobbing, Khuv and Luchov set off down the corridor at a run.

Khuv called back: 'No alarms, Paul! Only set them off one more time and the entire Projekt will take flight!'