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Mobius Trippers!
Darcy Clarke got as far as Pill - the mysterious object shot down over the Hudson Bay, but without yet explaining its nature - when Harry stopped him ’So far,’ the Necroscope co, I don’t see how it’s got much to do with me; or with Brenda and Harry Jnr’
Clarke said, ’But you will You see, it’s not the sort of thing I can just tell you part of, or only the bits you’re going to be interested in If you don’t see the whole picture, then the rest of it will be doubly difficult to understand Anyway, if you do decide you’d like in on this, you’ll need to know it all I’ll be co later’
Harry nodded ’All right - but let’s go through to the kitchen Could you use a coffee? Instant, I’’
’Coffee would be fine,’ said Clarke ’And don’t worry about your instant Anything has to be good after the gallons of stuff I drink out of that h the dim corridors of the old house, he sative response, Clarke could see that in fact he was starting to unwind
In the kitchen Clarke waited until Harry brought the coffee to the large wooden kitchen table and seated hiain ’As I was saying, they shot this thing down over the Hudson Bay Now-’
’Wait,’ said Harry ’OK, I accept that you’re going to tell it your oay That being the case, I’d better know the bits round the edges, too Like how your lot got interested in Perchorsk in the first place?’
’Actually, by accident,’ Clarke answered ’We don’t auto, you know We’re still very much the "silent partner", as it were, when it comes to the country’s security No more than half-a-dozen of Her Majesty’s lads in Whitehall - and one lady, of course - know that we even exist And that’s hoe prefer to keep it As always, itdifficult, not to et by Gadgets and ghosts, that’s always been the way of it We’re apoint - but only just - between super-science and the so-called supernatural, and that’s hoe’re likely to stay for quite sos have been relatively quiet Our psychics get called in a lot to help the police; indeed, they’re relying up on us old, art treasures, arhton, and a couple of our lads were actually on their way down there when it happened But by and large we’re still very , and alas we don’t get told everything Even the people who do know about us have difficulty seeing how conition We’ve co way, but let’s face it, telepathy isn’t nearly as accurate as the telephone!’
’Isn’t it?’ Harry’s sort - with the dead - was one hundred per cent accurate
’Not if the other side knows you’re listening in, no’
’But it is more secret,’ Harry pointed out, and Clarke sensed the acid in his tone ’So how did you "accidentally" learn about Perchorsk?’
’We got to know about it because our "Comrades" at Perchorsk didn’t want us to! I’ll explain: do you remember Ken Layard?’
The locator? Of course I remember him,’ Harry answered
’Well, it was as si up on a bit of Russian military activity in the Urals - covert troop movements and what-not - and he met with resistance There were opposedthe place in ree of animation showed in Harry’s pale face, especially in his eyes, which seehten appreciably So his old friends the Russian espers had regrouped, had they? He nodded grimly ’Soviet E-Branch is back in business, eh?’
’Obviously,’ said Clarke ’Oh, we’ve known about them for some time But after what you did to the Chateau Bronnitsy they’ve not been taking any chances They’ve been even more low-key than we are! They have two centres now: one in Moscow, right next door to the biological research laboratories on Protze Prospekt, and the other in Mogocha near the Chinese border,a wary eye on the Yellow Peril’ "And this lot at Perchorsk,’ Harry reminded him ’A small section,’ Clarke nodded, ’established there purely to keep us out! As far as we can tell, anyway But what on earth can the Soviets be doing there that rates so high on their security list, eh? After Pill, we decided we’d better find out
The MI branches owed us favours; we learned that they were trying to put one of their agents - a man called Michael J Simmons - in there; and so ell, we sort of hitched a lift’
’You got to him?’ Harry raised an eyebrow ’How?
And more to the point, since he’s one of ours anyhy?’
’Quite simply because we didn’t want him to know!’ Clarke seemed surprised that Harry hadn’t fatho all over the place, we should openly establish a telepathic link with hi? No, we couldn’t do that, for their psychics would be onto hied him instead And since he was in the dark about it, we decided not to tell his bosses at MIS either! Let’s face it, you can’t talk about what you don’t know about, now can you?’
Harry gave a snort ’No, of course not!’ he said ’And after all, why should the left hand tell the right one what it’s doing, eh?’
’They wouldn’t have believed us, anyway,’ Clarke shrugged off the other’s sarcas They couldn’t possibly have understood ours We borrowed so to Siave it to one of our new lads, David Chung, to work on’ ’A Chinaain the raised eyebrow ’Chinese, yes, but a Cockney, actually,’ Clarke chuckled ’Born and raised in London He’s a locator and scryer, and daave it to Chung Sied for hi had developed a "sympathetic link" with the cross, so that he would "knohere it was at any given ti a crystal ball It worked, too - for a while, anyway’
’Oh?’ Harry’s interest aning again He never had thought e the lowest of all its many forms Yet another reason why he’d left E-Branch Deep down inside he thought of espers who used their talents that way as psychic voyeurs On the other hand he kneas better that they worked for the coainst it As for his own talent: that was different The dead didn’t consider hi Tom but a friend, and they respected hi we did,’ Clarke continued, ’was this: we convinced Simmons’s bosses that he shouldn’t have a D-cap’
’A what?’ Harry wrinkled his nose That sounds like so tackle to me!’
’Ah, sorry!’ said Clarke ’You weren’t with us long enough to learn about that sort of thing, were you? A D-capsuIe is a quick way out of trouble A man can find himself in a situation where it’s a lot better to be dead When he’s suffering under torture, for instance, or when he knows that one wrong answer (or right ansill coood friends Simmons’s mission was that kind of job We have our sleepers in Redland, as you know Just as they have theirs over here; your stepfather was one of theroup of sleepers who’d been activated; if he was caught maybe he wouldn’t want to jeopardize them The initiative to use his death capsule would be Sioes inside a tooth; all a man has to do is bite down hard on it and’
Harry pulled a face ’As if there aren’t enough of the dead already!’
Clarke felt he was losing Harry, that he was driving him further from the fold He speeded up:
’Anye convinced his bosses that they should give hi complex but harmless chemicals, knock-out drops at the worst’
Harry frowned ’Then why give him one at all?’
’Incentive,’ said Clarke ’He wouldn’t knoas a fake It would be there as a reminder to watch his step!’
’God, the ust
And Clarke actually agreed He nodded glumly ’You haven’t heard the worst of it We told the: he was going to cooods Except’
’Yes?’ Harry narrowed his eyes
’Well, the fact is we’d given hi to be picked up!’
Harry jumped up, slammed his fist down on the table so hard that he made it jump ’In that case it was criminal even to let theet picked up, spill the beans under pressure, drop the people who’d helped hi of hi in E-Branch over the last eight years? I’m damned sure Sir Keenan Gormley wouldn’t have stood for any of this in his day!’
Clarke was dead white in the face The corner of his mouth twitched but he remained seated ’Oh, yes he would have, Harry This time he really would have’ Clarke made an effort to relax, said: ’Anyway, it isn’t as black as I’ve painted it See, Chung is so good that he’d know the minute Simmons was taken He did know, and as soon as he said so we passed it on As far as we’re aware MIS has alerted all Simmons’s contacts over there and they’ve taken action to cover their tracks or even get the hell out of it’
Harry sat down again, but he was still coldly furious ’I’ve just about had it with this,’ he said ’I can see now that you’ve got yourself in a hole and you’ve co you out Well, if that’s the case, then the rest of what you have to tell ood becausefrankly, this wholeSiet picked up, you fixed hiet himself sent on an impossible mission Also - ’
’Wait,’ said Clarke ’You still haven’t got it right As far as ere concerned, that was histo be anyway’ His expression was as cold as Harry’s but without the other’s fury
’I can’t see this iets worse and worse! And all of this to get acould spy through him But didn’t it dawn on you that the Soviet espers would pick Chung up, too? His ESP?’
’Eventually they would, yes,’ Clarke nodded ’Even though Chung would use his talent in the shortest possible bursts, they’d crack him eventually - and in fact we believe they have Except we’d hoped that by that ti on in there We’d have proof, one way or the other, about what the Soviets were- ?’ Harry’s mouth slowly formed an ’O’ And now his tone was veryto tellthey shot down over the Hudson Bay,’ Clarke said, very slowly and very clearly, ’was one hellish thing, Harry Can’t you guess?’
Harry felt his scalp tingling again ’You’d better tell me,’ he said
Clarke nodded and stood up He put his knuckles on the table-top and leaned forward ’You rerew and kept in his cellar? Well, that’s what it was, Harry, but big enough to make Bodescu’s creature look tiny by comparison! And now you knoe need you You see, it was the biggest, bloodiest vaine - and it ca h said: ’If this were soross to-’
’No joke, Harry,’ Clarke cut in ’Down at HQ we have filot it and burned it out of the sky If it wasn’t a vampire - or at leastbusiness But our people who survived that raid on Bodescu’s place, Harkley House in Devon, they’re a lot more qualified than I am; and they all say that it was exactly like that, which toit could possibly be’
’You think the Russiansthem - as weapons?’ It was plain that the Necroscope found it incredible
’Didn’t that lunatic Gerenko have exactly that in mind before you dealt with him?’ Clarke was persistent
Harry shook his head ’I didn’t kill Gerenko,’ he said ’Faethor Ferenczy did it for ain at Clarke, and said, ’But you’ve made your point’
Harry put his head down, clasped his hands behind hi house to his study Clarke followed hi to contain hi and he desperately needed Keogh’s help
It was ht were filtering in through the s, highlighting the thin layer of dust that lay everywhere Harry seeer along a dusty shelf, then paused to consider the accuertip Finally he turned to Clarke and said: ’So really, there was no "parallel case" after all That was just to make sure I’d listen to you, hear you out?’
Clarke shook his head ’Harry, if there’s one person in the world I would never lie to, you’re it! Because I know you hate it, and because we need you There’s a parallel case, right enough You see, I reo when your wife and child disappeared - before you quit E-Branch You said: "They’re not dead, and yet they’re not here - so where are they?" I reain’
’Someone has disappeared? In the same way?’ Harry frowned, made a stab at it: ’Simmons, do you mean?’
’Jazz Simmons has disappeared, yes, in the sa less than a o and he was taken into Perchorsk After that contact was difficult, very nearly i reckoned it was (a) because the complex is at the foot of a ravine; the sheer bulk of matter blocks the psychic view; (b) because it’s protected by a dense lead shield, which has the same effect; and (c)the place Even so, Chung was able to get through on occasion What he has seen or "scried" in there isn’t reassuring’
’Go on,’ said Harry, his interest waxing again
’Well,’ Clarke continued, and ihed ’This isn’t easy, Harry Ifound it difficult to explain, and I’lass tank He says he can’t describe it better than that because it never seems to be the same No, don’t ask me,’ he quickly held up his hands, shook his head ’Personally I haven’t the foggiest idea Or if I have an idea then I don’t much care to voice it’
’Go ahead,’ said Harry ’Voice it’
’I don’t have to,’ Clarke shook his head ’I’m sure you knohat Ielse?’
’Only this: Chung says he sensed fear, that the co in terror Everyone in the place was desperately afraid of soain, we don’t knohat So that was how things stood until just three days ago Then - ’
’Yes?’
’Then no more contact And not just Soviet "static" either - literally no contact! Simmons’s cross, and presuer anywhere, in fact’