'She?' Jazz found it hard to believe. 'Are you telling me you actually sent a woman through there?'
'I am telling you exactly that,' Khuv answered, 'And a very beautiful woman at that. A great pity. Her name was or is Zek Foener. Zek is short for Zekintha. Her father was an East German, her mother a Greek. In her time she had been the most proficient esper of them all but… something happened. We can't be certain what changed her, but she lost her talent — or so she said. And she kept saying it for all of the six years she spent in a mental institution, where she was troublesome to a fault. Then she spent two more years in a forced labour camp in Siberia, where espers kept an eye on her. They swore that she was still a telepath, and she as vehemently denied it. All very annoying and a terrible waste. She had been a brilliant telepath; now she was a dissident, refused to conform, demanded the right to emigrate to Greece. In short, she had become a problem in far too many ways. So-'
'You got rid of her!' Jazz's tone was scornful.
Khuv ignored the acid in the other's eyes. 'We told her: "Go through the Gate, use your telepathy to tell us what it's like on the other side — for we've people here who will hear you, be sure — and if you're successful and after you've done all of these things to our satisfaction, then we'll bring you back."'
Jazz stared coldly at Khuv, said: 'But you didn't know how to bring her back!'
Again Khuv's shrug. 'No, but she didn't know that,' he said.
'So we are talking about murder after all,' Jazz nodded. 'Well, if you'd do that to one of your own, I can't see how I can expect any better. You people are… hell, you're shit!'
Vyotsky grunted a warning, or a challenge, came forward with his huge hands reaching. Khuv laid a hand on his arm, stopped him. 'My patience is also used up, Karl. But what does it matter? Save your energy. Anyway, we're all through here. Believe me, I'm just as sick of Mr Simmons as you are, but I still want him to go through the Gate in one piece.'
They went to the door; Khuv knocked and it was opened for them; but on the point of leaving, suddenly the KGB Major said: 'Ah, but I had almost forgotten! By all means show Michael your dirty pictures, Karl. If we are shit, then by all means let's behave like shit!'
Khuv went out through the door, disappeared without looking back. Vyotsky turned and looked at Jazz, grinned, and produced a small manila envelope from his pocket. 'Remember your friends at the logging camp? The Kirescus? As soon as we caught you your friends in the West tipped them off. We'd had our suspicions about them for some time, and we were watching them when they made a run for it. I can't imagine where they thought they could run to! Anna Kirescu will go to a forced labour camp, and the boy Kaspar to an orphanage. Yuri put up a fight and had to be shot — fatally, naturally. That leaves only two of them.'
'Kazimir and his daughter, Tassi? What about them?' Jazz stood up. He could almost feel himself leaning in Vyotsky's direction. God, how he wanted the bully!
'Why, we have them, of course! There are so many things they can tell us. About their contacts here in Russia, and in the old country. But since they're a bit unsophisticated, our methods for extracting information needn't be so devious. We can allow ourselves to be more… direct? Do you follow me?'
Jazz took a short pace forward. His emotions and temper were on the boil. He knew that if he took another step he'd have to go all the way, hurl himself at Vyotsky. Which was probably what the KGB thug hoped he'd do. 'An old man and a girl?' he grated the words out. 'Are you saying you'd torture them?'
Vyotsky licked his rough, fleshy lips, flipped the envelope across the cell, accurately onto Jazz's bed. "There's torture and there's torture,' he said, his voice husky with inner lust. 'For example, these photographs will be torture for you. I mean, you and your little Tassi quite enjoyed each other, didn't you?'
Jazz felt the blood draining from his face. He looked at the envelope, then back to Vyotsky. He was torn two ways. 'What the hell — ?' he said.
'See,' Vyotsky drawled, 'the Major knows how I enjoy taunting you, so he said it would be OK if we had a little photographic session, me and the girl. I hope you like them. Very artistic, I think.'
Jazz flew at him.
Vyotsky stepped backward through the door and slammed it in Jazz's face.
Inside the cell Jazz skidded to a halt. He glared at the door, his breathing ragged in his chest and throat. At that moment he could have happily performed an operation on Vyotsky's intestines with a rusty penknife and no anaesthetic. But the photographs…
Jazz stepped to the bed and took five small pictures from their envelope. The first was a little crumpled; Jazz knew it well: Tassi, sitting in a field of daisies. She'd once given the picture to him. The next photograph showed her… naked, manacled to a steel wall. Her hands were chained over her head, her legs spread wide. The girl's eyes were squeezed tightly shut — and Vyotsky towered beside her, grinning, weighing her left breast in the palm of his hand.
The third picture was worse and Jazz didn't even look at the others. He screwed them into a tight ball and hurled them away from him. And then he curled up on his bed and concentrated on pictures of his own. They centered on Vyotsky's intestines again, but this time there was no penknife. Just Jazz's fingernails.
Outside the cell door Vyotsky stood for a moment with his ear to the cold steel. Nothing. Absolute silence. And Vyotsky thought: his blood must be water! He banged on the door. 'Michael,' he called out. 'Khuv says that tonight, after we're rid of you, then I can amuse myself with her for an hour or two. Life has its little moments, eh? 1 thought maybe you'd like to tell me how she likes it? No…?' Still silence.
The grin slipped from Vyotsky's face. He scowled and walked away.
Curled up tightly on his bed, Jazz Simmons gave a low moan where he bit his lip until it bled. His blood wasn't water but liquid fire…
Over the space of the next five or six hours Jazz had a good many visitors. They came to his cell with various pieces of equipment whose functions were all minutely explained and demonstrated. He was even allowed to handle, take to pieces and reassemble them; and he worked hard at it, for they were survival. But the tiny flame-thrower came minus its gallon of fuel, and instead of the small caliber sub-machine gun he got only a handbook.
The young soldier who turned up later that evening with the handbook also brought with him an ammunition box half-full of condemned rounds and rusting magazines. This was so Jazz could practice magazine loading. In a combat situation, the faster you can load a magazine the longer you live. Jazz had fumbled the first load, then concentrated, speeded up and succeeded in loading a second magazine in very quick time. The young soldier had been impressed, but after that he'd yawned and lost interest. Jazz had continued to load and unload magazines for another half-hour.
'What are you in for?' the soldier had asked eventually.
'You mean why am I a prisoner? Espionage,' said Jazz. He saw little or no reason to hide the fact. Not now.
'Me,' the youth thumbed himself in the chest, 'it'll be mutiny if I don't get some sleep soon! There was a practice alert at the barracks last night, and I've been on duty ever since. I'm dead on my feet!' He frowned. 'Did you say espionage?'
'Spying,' Jazz nodded. He tossed the old magazines and a handful of discoloured, brass-jacketed shells into the ammo-box and slammed the lid, then fastened its hasps. Then he dusted his hands on his trousers and stood up. There. I think I can manage that well enough now.'
'Not much good, though, knowing how to load a magazine,' the soldier grinned, 'if you don't have a gun!'
Jazz had grinned back. 'You're right,' he said. 'Are you going to bring me one?'
'Hah!' the youth had laughed out loud. 'Mutiny is one thing, but madness is something else again! Bring you a gun? Not me, friend. You'll get that later…'
Now was the 'later' that the soldier had been talking about: 2 a.m. in the outside world, but inside the subterranean Perchorsk Complex the hour was of no real consequence. Things didn't change a great deal down here day or night. Not on a normal night, anyway. But tonight was different.
Below the nightmare magmass levels, in the core of the place, Michael 'Jazz' Simmons stood on the Saturn's-rings platform and allowed himself to be kitted-up in his gear. In any case, he didn't have much choice about it. But he still hadn't been given the fuel tank for his mini-flame-thrower, and he was still minus his SMG. That was in the very capable hands of Karl Vyotsky, who cradled the lightweight weapon like a baby in his great arms. Vyotsky was to be Jazz's escort along the walkway.
At last the agent had everything he could carry and still move with a degree of efficiency. He had refused a parka, and a huge woodsman's knife which must have weighed all of three pounds. But he'd taken a small, razor-honed hatchet which would serve both as a weapon and as a most useful tool.
Finally Khuv had stepped forward through the circle of people who'd been attending to Jazz, said: 'Well, Michael, this is it. If I thought you would accept them, now would be the time to offer you my best wishes.'
'Oh?' Jazz looked him up and down. 'Personally I wouldn't offer you shit, Comrade!'
The corners of Khuv's mouth turned down. 'Very well,' he said, 'so be hard! And stay hard, Michael. Who knows but that that way you might even survive. But if you do find a way to come back through, we'll be waiting. And then I'll look forward to hearing all about it. Eventually, you know, we'll be obliged to put an army through there; any advance knowledge would be a big help.' He nodded to Vyotsky.
'Let's go, British,' the big Russian prodded him with the business end of the SMG.
Jazz moved inwards across the planking, glanced back once, shrugged and faced the sphere. Dark glasses protected his eyes from something of its glare, but even so the very plainness of the sphere's surface was a pain in itself; it was like looking at a dead channel on a live TV screen. Now the Saturn's-rings platform was left behind and Jazz went forward along the neck of the walkway. Scorched timbers underfoot told him that this was where the warrior had died, and it seemed he heard again that creature's cry: Wamphyri! Then -
— They had reached the sphere. Jazz came to a halt, put out a hand. His fingers passed easily into the white light; there was no resistance, until he withdrew his hand again; but then he felt a weird viscosity, felt the sphere tugging at him. It didn't like to let go, not even from the first moment of penetration. He pulled his hand free, but not without a little effort.
'Hold it,' said Vyotsky from right behind him. 'Don't be too eager, British. You'll need these.' He hung a cylindrical aluminium bottle on Jazz's harness at the rear: the fuel for his flame-thrower. Then he said, Turn around.'
Jazz obeyed him. Vyotsky grinned at him and said: 'You're very pale, British! Feels queer, does it?'
'A little,' Jazz answered truthfully. Now that it was inevitable it did feel a little queer. It would be a lot worse except he wasn't concentrating on his feelings but something else entirely.
Vyotsky searched his face for a moment, said: 'Huh! I don't know if you're a hero or just plain stupid! Whichever, this is yours.' He removed the magazine from the SMG and handed the weapon to Jazz. Then, chuckling, he said, 'Wouldn't you like this, too, British?' He shook the magazine in his hand until it rattled. 'A lot handier right now than the ones you have in your pack, eh?'
The other's drawn face was all concentration, showing no emotion whatever; and suddenly Vyotsky thought: something's wrong here! He stopped grinning, took a single backward step.
Jazz's right hand snatched at a pocket of his one-piece combat suit, came out holding a rusty but serviceable magazine. In a single fast-flowing movement he slapped the magazine into its housing and cocked the weapon. 'Stand still!' he snapped at Vyotsky.
Vyotsky froze. Jazz closed the distance between, stuck the muzzle of his gun up under the Russian's chin. And he grated: 'Funny, but you're looking a bit pale, Ivan! Is something bothering you?'