Deadspawn

Again she tossed her head. 'Why, rather than have Shaithis force himself upon me, I'd give myself to a more destructive, even more faithless lover. For I'd mount my flyer and head south, over the mountains and across Sunside, even into the brazen face of the sun itself. Let Shaithis chase me there if he would, into streaming gases and exploding flesh and nothingness. So be it!'

Harry drew her into his arms and she came without resistance. 'It won't come to that,' he husked, stroking her hair while her furious tremors subsided. 'Not if I have anything to do with it.' But etched on the mirror of the Necroscope's inner mind, kept hidden even from Karen's telepathy, was a scene out of future time which try as he might he could not banish.

A picture of a fiery, molten gold future. A vision of THE END, framed in the scarlet, all-consuming fires of an ultimate hell...

4

Again Perchorsk - The Icelands Now

The hivelike caverns, burned-out burrows and haunted magmass levels of the Perchorsk Projekt had seen a period of intense activity. Six days had passed since Harry Keogh's night visit with Projekt Direktor Viktor Luchov, and his subsequent invasion of the core riding a powerful American motorcycle; as a result of which, a final, terrifying scene had now been set. The pieces were all in place for what Luchov could only hope would be the permanent closure of the Gate.

Down in the core, standing on the now deactivated, recently cleaned and polished fish-scale plates where they encircled the dimensional portal, Luchov's unblinking gaze fell in silent awe on the would-be instruments of that disconnection: a pair of top-secret Tokarev Mk II short-range missiles (in more common parlance, nuclear exorcets), mounted atop the compact, caterpillar-tracked carriage of their grey-metal launching and guidance module. Behind the smoked lenses of his plastic eye-shields, the Projekt Direktor's eyes were mere slits, as if frozen in a wince or grimace; for it had been his responsibility, passed down from Moscow, to order the Tokarevs armed and programmed. He knew only too well what he had here: knew that obscene slugs of toxic metal had been loaded into the slender steel bellies of the missiles, where now they lay quiescent but ready on the instant to spring shrieking awake. All it required was the push of a button.

A group of military technicians in white smocks were busy in the vicinity of the Tokarevs, checking and double-checking electrical hookups, semi-automatic and computerized systems, radiation levels, other instrument readings. Their senior man, directly responsible to the | Projekt Direktor, touched Luchov's arm and caused him to give a start. Vainly trying to conceal his nervous reaction, the Direktor barked, 'Yes, what is it?'

The man was young, no more than twenty-six or -seven but already a Major; he wore upon his lapels the crown of his rank inside the stylized atomic nucleus insignia of the Special Artillery Arm. 'Sir,' he formally reported, 'we're all ready here. From now on or until these weapons are required for use, there will always be two of us on duty here... armed, of course, as a safeguard against sabotage. We are aware that the Projekt has a history of, er, intruders?'

Luchov nodded. 'Yes, very good.' But he'd scarcely been paying attention. Turning jerkily away from the Tokarevs and pointing towards the glaring sphere of the Gate, he said, 'And do you know what you're on guard against - from that, I mean? Are you sure that if ever it's required, you'll know just exactly when to press the button?'

The other stiffened. He knew his duty well enough. A pity he now found himself in a position where he must take orders from a damned civilian, that's all! He was tempted to answer Luchov in just such terms and from the heart, except it had been made adequately clear to him that the senior scientist was a power in his own right

And so: 'I've acquainted myself with the Projekt's history, certainly, sir,' he said coldly. 'Also, we've watched all of the films. But in any case, the firing sequence may not be initiated except on your instructions.'

'Listen.' Luchov turned more fully towards him, fixed him with a wide-eyed glare and grasped his arm in a trembling claw. That's your brief, yes, but it doesn't say everything. Indeed, it says very little. You've seen the films? Good! But you can't smell them, can you? They can't spring out from the screen and swallow you whole, can they?'

Nodding wildly, and again pointing at the glaring white upper hemisphere of the Gate, he continued hoarsely: 'In there, a curse, a plague, something to make Chernobyl seem of no consequence whatsoever! If it, they, whatever, got out into the world... that's the end, I mean of everything! Mankind joins the dinosaurs, the trilobites, the dodos - gone! So don't get snotty with me when I ask if you know what you're dealing with.'

Pale with barely suppressed anger, the young officer came to attention and his thin mouth cracked open; but Luchov wasn't finished with him, hadn't yet told him the worst. 'Listen,' he said again. 'One week ago a man, or something which was once a man, went through that Gate into whatever lies beyond. When he went the world breathed a sigh of relief - since when it's been holding its breath! We were glad to see the back of him because he was tainted, a carrier. Only now we wonder: how long before he finds his way back here? And if he does, what will he bring with him? Do you follow me so far?'

Something of the colour had returned to the Major's face. He sensed the importance of what the Projekt Direktor was saying, the enormous stresses playing on his mind. 'I follow you so far.' He nodded.

'Very well,' said Luchov, 'and now something which wasn't in your brief. You mentioned our previous problem with intruders. Quite right; we did have this problem; we could have it again. So now I'm going to add to your brief and issue a new order.' He pushed his face closer. 'This one: if I should get taken out - if anything weird or inexplicable should happen to incapacitate me or even, yes, exclude me permanently from the scheme of things - then you're the next in line. Consider yourself appointed, here and now.'

'What?' The officer looked at Luchov's pale, shining face, his hideously scarred skull, and wondered if he was entirely sane. 'You are ... appointing me, Projekt Direktor?'

'Indeed I am!' Luchov was vehement. 'As Guardian of the Earth, yes!'

'Guardian of...?'

'Press it!' Luchov whispered, cutting him short. 'If anything should happen to me, press the bloody thing! Don't delay - don't waste time phoning Gorbachev or those mumbling cretins who so poorly serve him - but press the button! Get it over and done with and send your exorcets on a real mission of exorcism, into the world beyond the Gate, before the devil himself comes spewing out of there right into your face! Have you got that?'

The Major took a pace to the rear. His eyes were very wide now, very concerned; and still Luchov held his arm in a steel grasp. 'Sir, I...'

Abruptly Luchov released him, straightened up a little and stiffened his back and shoulders, then glanced away. 'Say nothing.' He gave a curt, almost dismissive nod. 'For the moment, don't say anything at all. But neither must you forget what I said. Don't you dare forget it, that's all!'

How to answer him? With a smile, which might be misinterpreted? With words? But Luchov had advised him to say nothing, and anyway the Major had no words. Perhaps it were better if he simply forgot the whole incident. Except Luchov had warned him about that, too. And anyway, would it be a wise move: to forget that this possibly dangerous man was in charge here? And in so doing, to forget what he was in charge of ...

Saving the Major from further embarrassment and possibly worse, a hatch in the fish-scale plates clanged back on its hinges and a maintenance engineer came up from below. Staggering a little as he stood up in the glare of the Gate, he wrenched breathing apparatus from his pale damp face and put on plastic goggles. Then he reached out a groping hand, as if seeking support, and staggered again.