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?'
Khuv came running from the Saturn's-rings platform. 'Hold your fire!' he yelled — not to Jazz but to the soldiers on the perimeter where all weapons were aimed at the British agent. Khuv skidded to a halt a good ten feet away. 'Michael,' he panted. 'What's on your mind?'
'Isn't it obvious?' Jazz was almost enjoying this. 'Ivan the Terrible here is coming with me.' He took a firm grip on Vyotsky's beard, pushed the SMG up harder under the Russian's chin, backed toward the sphere.
Vyotsky was white as death. 'No!' he gurgled; but he didn't dare to struggle, not and risk the Englishman putting too great a pressure on that trigger.
'Oh yes you are, Ivan — or you die right here!' Jazz told him. 'Me, I've nothing to lose.' He could feel the outer skin of the gate tugging at him.
Khuv came closer, and Jazz was struck with an even better scenario. 'You too, Major,' he said, 'or I shoot right through this bastard and into you!'
Khuv was fast; he was in motion on the instant Jazz's words registered, falling flat to the walkway and screaming: Fire, fire,fire.'
Jazz tumbled backwards into the sphere, yanking the stumbling Vyotsky after him. And -
— It was white in there! It was pure white, a solid white background against which Jazz and Vyotsky formed the only imperfections. They rolled on a solid-seeming floor, made invisible because it too was pure white! Shots were screaming overhead in a deafening barrage of rumbling thunder — which ceased in another moment as Khuv's voice, slowed down to an almost unrecognizable drone, howled as if from an infinity away:
'C-e-a-s-e f-i-r-e! C-e-a-s-e f-i-r-e.r Now that they were inside the sphere and he was safe, he didn't want any further harm to befall them.
Jazz stood up, looked back. Through a thin film of milk, 'outside', all motion seemed slowed down almost to a standstill. It was a two-way effect. Khuv was half-way to his feet, one arm and hand raised high overhead as he signalled the ceasefire.
Jazz waved at him, then turned and pointed his gun at Vyotsky where he sprawled, terrified. 'Up you get, Ivan,' he said, and his voice came out sounding perfectly normal. 'Let's move it, shall we?'
Vyotsky looked around, came to his senses. His shoulders slumped. He slowly got to his feet, said: 'Fuck you, British/' and made a dive toward Khuv.
Or attempted to. Useless, for from now on this was a one-way trip! He hit against an invisible barrier, slid to his knees clawing at thin air. And as the truth dawned on him, then he did what Jazz expected him to do: he started screaming for help!
Jazz watched him grovelling there for a moment, then said: 'Suit yourself, Ivan. Stay here and scream and gibber, and in the end die.'
Vyotsky's head turned swiftly. 'Die?'
Jazz nodded. 'Of starvation, or exhaustion…' Then he turned his back on the view beyond the Gate — of Khuv, against a backdrop of magmass walls and slow-motion soldiery — and started forward into what looked and felt like an aching white immensity.
From behind him Vyotsky snarled, 'But why? Why? What good am I to you, here?'
'None at all,' Jazz called back. 'But you'd have been even less good to Tassi…'
9. Beyond the Gate
Major Chingiz Khuv of the KGB faced his underling, Karl Vyotsky, across a distance of no more than ten feet and through a fine white milky film so thin it was almost invisible — yet they were worlds apart. Khuv could take two or three paces forward, reach out and shake Vyotsky by the hand. He could do it, but dared not. For in his present condition Vyotsky might just hold on, and while the Major couldn't drag Vyotsky out of there, Vyotsky was certainly capable of dragging him in. They could still converse, however, albeit laboriously.
'Karl,' Khuv called out. 'There's no way you can get back right now, and you can't just go on kneeling there like a lost waif. Or you can, but it won't do you any good. Oh, we can feed you — of course we can — simply by pushing food through to you! Simmons was quite wrong about that. It was something he hadn't thought out, that's all. But he was right when he said you'll die. You will eventually, Karl! How long that will be depends on how long you've got before Encounter Six. Do you follow me?'
Khuv waited for Vyotsky's reply. Communicating through the gate was a frustrating business, but eventually Vyotsky nodded and got to his feet. Just doing that took him all of two minutes and more, and meanwhile the figure of the British agent was dwindling into the distance, oh-so-slowly vanishing from sight. Then Vyotsky's face and mouth began to work grotesquely, and his words came in a dull, distant, slow-motion booming. Khuv made him out to say: 'What do you suggest?'