Up in Failsafe Control, Viktor Luchov heard the pounding of booted feet as the core's military units vacated the Projekt. Well, at least they were out of it now. That left Khuv and Litve, and whatever else was down there waiting for them. Luchov glanced again at the silent, now motionless screens — especially the centre screen, which showed the core and the Gate — then returned to his private thoughts. Thoughts about Khuv. He had never much cared for the man; the KGB were a brutal lot. And yet now…
Luchov's thoughts froze right there. Gooseflesh crept on his neck. Something he had seen? He looked at the centre screen again. He strained his eyes, rubbed at them… but no, there was nothing wrong with his eyes.
On the centre screen a pale, gelatinous mass was visible on the curve of the sphere's dome, a slow-motion picture of something within. It hadn't been there ten or fifteen minutes ago — or maybe it had, and with so much going on he simply hadn't noticed it. Crazy! It was exactly what he was here to notice!
He stared harder, and yes — in a minute the thing had grown larger, starting to bloat up huge on the great curved screen which was the Gate. It was like… like Encounter One. But bigger. Much bigger! And it was moving faster than anything had ever moved in there before. If it was the same sort of creature as Encounter One, and if it should break loose from the Gate -
'God/' Luchov gritted his teeth, slammed a balled fist into his palm. At a time like this!
Khuv and Litve were still down there somewhere. They had thought to trap Agursky between themselves and the soldiers. And now who was trapped? At least Luchov could try to warn them. Khuv's own novel method should suffice.
He reached out a trembling hand and pressed button number two…
Down on the fringe of the eerie magmass levels, Khuv and Litve stayed close together, moving very slowly. There was darkness here, where even the well-illuminated areas were dark with implication. Even above the blaring, maddening klaxons, whose row was fading a little behind them, the heart of the Perchorsk beast could be heard thudding more loudly, seemed that much closer.
They moved cautiously down the wide timber stairway, Khuv's eyes raking the magmass on the right, and Litve's on the left. The pilot-lights of their flamethrowers threw weird, blue-flickering shadows, making faces and threatening figures of the disturbing magmass fusions.
Khuv adjusted the strap of his flamethrower across his right shoulder, and metal parts chinked together. The sound was amplified by the magmass, and despite the incessant klaxons came echoing back seemingly from all directions. Another sound, having its origin elsewhere and rising to drown it out, came back with it: stuttering, almost chattering laughter!
'Behind us?' Khuv whirled to look back, eyes wide so as to miss nothing.
'No,' Litve's voice was a whisper where he crouched, 'in front of us — I think.'
'It's hard to tell,' said Khuv, beginning to breathe a little faster. 'He could be anywhere.'
'But he's just one,' Litve was starting to shake, his voice, too, 'and there are two of us. For God's sake don't get separated from me, Major!'
They turned right and followed the wooden path — an artificial and entirely familiar road through this alien landscape — into the heart of a magmass cavern, where the echoes of their footsteps resounded louder yet… and that was when the pitch and frequency of the alarms increased from a repetitive, mindless blaring to a definite cry of warning!
'What the hell — ?' Litve gasped.
That was Luchov,' said Khuv, 'telling us that something isn't right. Shit — we know that already!'
The laughter came again, and this time there was no mistaking its source: behind them. Also, Khuv recognized the voice as Agursky's beyond any shadow of doubt. So did Litve, apparently. 'He's tracking us,' he whispered.
'Let's find a vantage point,' Khuv moved faster, heading for the stairwell through to the core. That was the only way to go now, down to the core itself. But with still thirty or so paces to go to the final descent, Litve grabbed Khuv's elbow. '
'Look!' he croaked.
Khuv looked back. From behind a leaning magmass nodule, a shadow had fallen on the walkway. One that moved. Closer still, there was more movement: Khuv's and Litve's startled eyes went together to a heavy-duty cable where it snaked along the mad flow of the magmass wall. The cable jerked; its loops between staples contracted as something hauled on it. Almost before the meaning of this could dawn, there came a cry of combined pain and frustration from behind the same magmass nodule. The shadow on the walkway was highlighted, emboldened by flaring blue illumination and a shower of sputtering sparks. And it was a monstrous shadow!
Incapable as yet of movement, the two watched. The shadow — a single shadow — began to split in two. There came a rending sound, like sailcloth tearing, as the two halves of the shadow struggled to break apart — struggled and succeeded. Two of them now: one of which seemed human, and the other the size and roughly the shape of a dog, except it was not a dog. Then both of them moving back a little, merging with the shadow of the nodule, and a further moment of struggling with the power cable. There was more electrical sputtering and a second shower of sparks…
And the lights went out!
The two men backed toward the shaft going down to the core. Their legs were jelly but they forced movement out of them. A faint wash of light came from behind them, over their shoulders: residual light from the sphere-gate, shining up through the shaft. But along the walkway where they'd been, all was now night.
'If he — it — they are going to come,' Litve stuttered, 'then it has to be along this walkway.'
Khuv's throat was too dry and tight to answer, but he thought: that's right. They were both wrong. The thing from the tank, or rather metamorphic vampire material from the core of the thing in the tank — not dead but subsumed into Agursky, and now released to even up the score, two against two — didn't have to come that way at all. It came under the walkway!
Almost at the mouth of the shaft, where the walkway turned sharply to the left and once more descended as stairs, the thing struck. Something coiled up over the handrail, wrapped itself clingingly around Litve's waist, dragged him screaming through the shattering rail. He was there, beside Khuv, and he was gone. His flamethrower put forth a single blast of flame, and looking down Khuv saw what had him. The thing from the tank, yes: a great flat tentacled leech now, which smothered Litve's face and the upper half of his body like a mass of leprous dough, while its many-jointed 'limbs' wrapped him and crushed his body like so many pythons! And eyes in the surging filth of the thing, staring up unblinking at Khuv where he choked and gurgled on the walkway.
Litve's flamethrower went clattering; Khuv knew that was the end of him; he aimed his own weapon and sent searing flame blasting into the heaving obscenity where it threshed on the magmass floor. Screaming his rage and terror, he burned it — burned it — burned it. Until the white heart of his torch turned yellow, hissed, crackled into silence, until the pilot-light itself went out. Then came Agursky's chuckle again, and through the reek and the smoke Khuv saw him coming. He saw him closing with him, his hands elongating, reaching…
He dropped his empty weapon, ran, stumbled, went flailing down the stairwell into the heart of the place; and down the stairs from the landing onto the boards of the Saturn's-rings perimeter. Agursky came close behind, chuckling, flowing, inexorably pursuing. Khuv looked back and saw him: the impossible gape of his jaws, the nightmare of his bone dagger teeth meshing like a mincer in the cavern of his mouth. He screamed and raced for the nearest Katushev cannon.