A sudden snap caught his attention and he whirled, hand reaching down for the pistol on his hip. He caught the last of the black Wall fading into nothingness. Then just as quickly it was back, hanging there, shimmering.
One thing he knew for sure-they weren't in Tunguska.
"Where do you think we are?" His words were muffled by the thick air and swayed about by a skittish wind, a strange feeling in what his senses told him was an enclosed place. The place felt old and abandoned, with a thin layer of dust covering the floor, which appeared to be smoothly cut black rock.
Levy had put a hand over her eyes, trying to keep the grainy dirt from blowing in them as she peered about. "We're there."
"Which is where?" Hawkins repeated.
"This is where the Makers are from."
"The Makers?" Hawkins asked.
"Of the Wall."
"But where exactly is here?" Hawkins wanted to know. He'd traveled extensively throughout his military career and this place bothered him deeply, as it didn't fit in his known catalogue of locations and climates. Underlying all that was the inherently disturbing fact that the air simply didn't feel right as it ran across his skin.
"We're not on Earth," Levy quietly replied.
"How do you know that?" Hawkins snapped.
Levy simply looked at him. "Do you feel like you're on Earth?"
Hawkins didn't respond to that. "How can we breathe, then?"
"Because they wouldn't have said come if we couldn't."
Hawkins frowned. "Who said come?"
"The Makers."
Hawkins tried to control his emotions. "Who are the Makers?"
Levy met his eyes again. "I don't know. They told me to come and I have." Hawkins took a deep breath. "What do you think is going to happen?"
Levy shook her head, her eyes bewildered behind the thick glasses. "I don't know. I just had to act, after seeing your man come through and thinking of those who have died. It is all so foolish and terrible that men should die like that. We put the best of ourselves — our heroism, our intelligence-into the worst of ourselves." She shook her head. "I didn't expect you to join me."
"I didn't either," Hawkins muttered, looking about cautiously.
Levy didn't bother replying to that remark. She was staring off into the distance. "Look!"
Hawkins looked in the direction she was pointing and then shifted his eyes in small arcs, coming back toward their position, and spotted what Levy was pointing at. There were four figures moving among several of the large objects that Hawkins assumed were some sort of machinery, about eight hundred meters away, moving off toward the light.
Hawkins instinctively grabbed Levy and pulled her to the ground. The figures were out of sight now, behind something. Hawkins thought furiously. He hadn't been able to see that well through all the blowing grit and darkness, but the four had appeared to have human form. "Let's go back," he suggested.
Levy sat up and regarded him curiously. "Back where?"
"Back to the Rock."
"How?" she asked.
Hawkins jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Through the Wall."
Levy shook her head. "We don't know where we'd end up if we went through again."
"But we came out here," Hawkins argued.
"Yes," Levy acknowledged, "but your man went through in Tunguska and came out at the Rock. We went through at the Rock and came out here. I don't think there is a direct one-to-one linear connection among these Walls. You saw it disappear and come back-what if that was some sort of realignment and it now has a different connection?
"Someone or something is controlling these Walls. We might go through here and end up someplace where we can't breathe. Or at least not without equipment."
Hawkins sat up himself. She had a point. If they weren't on Earth, then this was totally out of his scope of reality. If they were on Earth, then the odds were those four figures out there might have some answers. He stood. "Let's go."
Levy didn't ask where this time, she simply joined him and they moved out in the direction of the figures. Hawkins wished he'd been better prepared as he flipped open the cover on his hip holster. He had the 9mm but that was it, other than a survival knife strapped inside his shirt in a shoulder sheath.
He led them among the machinery, some of which hummed with power, crossing open areas only when necessary and then by keeping low and moving quickly. He caught a glimpse of the four figures as they crossed what appeared to be a wide-open thoroughfare among the machines. They were now less than four hundred meters away.
Definitely two arms and two legs on each, which comforted Hawkins somewhat. They were wearing helmets and dark full-body suits. One thing he had definitely noticed were the weapons in the hands of each one of the figures. They were nothing he'd seen before, but he had no doubt that they were weapons-they were as long as an M16 and the way the figures handled them, ends pointing out, left little question as to their function.
Hawkins slithered to the edge of the next machine on his stomach, Levy crawling up beside him. Looking ahead, he could see two of the figures about eighty meters ahead, halted and silhouetted against the light source, which appeared to be no closer. He wished he had a pair of binoculars.
"They look human," Levy whispered.
Where were the other two? Hawkins thought. His instincts were on fire. "Let's get out of here," he ordered, grabbing Levy by the arm. Turning, he froze, looking into two wicked-looking large-bore muzzles. Hawkins looked from the muzzles to the heads-the faces were hidden behind tinted visors but just above those faceplates was something that confirmed what Hawkins had been fearing. Each figure had a name stenciled there in Cyrillic writing.
"Nyet strelyat,” Hawkins yelled, moving his hands away from his holster and getting to his feet.
One gestured with the weapon at Hawkins's holster. Using his left hand he unsnapped the belt and thigh catch, letting it drop to the ground and then kicking it toward the two. One picked it up and slipped it into a pack. The two figures inclined their helmets slightly at each other, as if exchanging an unseen glance. Hawkins assumed they were speaking on a com-link. He turned slightly as the other two appeared from behind and joined their partners. The four stood together, ten feet away, regarding Hawkins and Levy. He desperately wished he could hear what they were saying on their radio.
He was surprised when a voice echoed out of a speaker on one of the men's helmets, speaking unaccented English. "You have no trouble breathing?"
Hawkins relaxed slightly. That simple question told him a great deal about the present situation. "Nyet."
"You can speak English, Major Hawkins," the man replied, gesturing at the name strip on his uniform. "I have heard of you, although we did not know what you looked like." The man lifted the shaded visor and a leathery face peered out the clear plastic at the two of them. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Tuskin of the Russian Army. You are either very brave or very foolish to be here so poorly equipped. Or perhaps you know something about all this"-the weapon made a small arc-"that we do not know?"
Hawkins shrugged. "I was about to ask you the same question."
Tuskin's face showed no emotion. "What about your man who went through the portal in Tunguska? Do you not know of him?"
Hawkins hesitated, not sure how much information to divulge. "I don't know what you're talking about."