'Simply this: that we kit you out exactly like Simmons, give you all we can of equipment and concentrated food. Then at least you'll have the same chance he has.'
Eventually the answer came back: 'No chance, is that what you mean?'
'A slim chance,' Khuv insisted. 'You won't know unless you try it.' He called forward an NCO from the squad of soldiers at his rear, issued sharp, rapid orders. The man went off at a run. 'Now Karl, listen,' Khuv continued. 'Is there anything you can think of that might be useful to you — other than what Simmons has?'
Again Vyotsky's slow nod, and at last, 'A motorcycle.'
Khuv's jaw fell open. They had no idea what the terrain would be like. He said so, and:
'So if I can't ride it, then I'll ditch the bloody thing!' Vyotsky answered. 'For God's sake, is it too much? If I could fly a helicopter I'd ask for that instead!'
Khuv issued more instructions; but all of this taking time, and Simmons now a dot on the white horizon, gradually drawing away like an ant across the face of a sand dune.
The equipment began to arrive, and a trolley to carry it. The trolley was loaded and pushed into the sphere, and Vyotsky commenced the endless business of kitting-up. He was working as fast as he could, but to Khuv and the other observers it was like watching the progress of a snail. The paradox was this: that it was just as bad for Vyotsky. He felt that he was the one moving at speed, and they were the flies stuck in treacle! While to them even the droplets of sweat falling from his brow took seconds to strike the invisible floor where he stood.
At last his motorcycle arrived: a heavy military model — but in good working order, with about two hundred and fifty miles of fuel in her belly. The bike was put on its stand on a second trolley and wheeled through. On the other side, Vyotsky began the incredibly slow process of mounting the machine, kick-starting its engine into life. But whatever might be wrong with time in there, the rest of the physical spectrum seemed in order. The bike coughed, made a noise like great hammers on oak, where the beat of each piston was a distinct, individual sound, and Vyotsky lifted his feet off the ground. And slowly, oh-so-slowly — but still a great deal faster than Simmons — so Vyotsky and his machine dwindled into the white distance and finally disappeared from view. Two empty trolleys were all that was left…
After Vyotsky had gone, Khuv continued to watch the sphere until his eyes began to hurt. Then he turned and crossed the walkway to the Saturn's-rings platform, and started up the wooden stairs to the shaft through the magmass. There on the landing at the mouth of the shaft Viktor Luchov was waiting for him. Khuv came to a halt, said:
'Direktor Luchov, I notice you distanced yourself from this experiment. Indeed you were conspicuous by your absence!' His tone was neutral, or if anything even a little defensive.
'As I shall continue to absent myself from such… acts!' Luchov answered. 'You are the KGB here, Major, and I am a scientist. You call it an experiment, and I call it an execution. Two executions, it would seem! I thought it would be over by now else I'd not have been here, but unfortunately I was in time to see that lout Vyotsky take his departure. A brutal man, yes, and yet now I pity him. And how will you explain this to your superiors in Moscow, eh?'
Khuv's nostrils flared a little and he grew slightly paler, but his voice remained even as he replied: 'My reporting procedures are my business, Direktor. You are right: you are a scientist and I am KGB. But you will note that when I say "scientist" I do not make it sound like pig-swill. I would advise caution how you emphasize your use of the term KGB. Does the fact that I am able to perform certain thankless tasks better than you make me any less useful? I should have thought the very opposite. And can you truthfully tell me that as a scientist you are not fascinated by the opportunity we have here?'
'You perform these "tasks" better than me because I would not perform them!' Luchov almost shouted. 'My God, I… I-!'
'Direktor?' Khuv raised an eyebrow; the line of his mouth was tight, thin and ugly now.
'Some people never learn!' Luchov stormed. 'Man, have you forgotten the trials at Nuremberg? Don't you know we're still bringing people to justice for — ' He saw the look on Khuv's face and stopped.
'You compare me with Nazi war criminals?' Khuv was now deathly white.
'That man,' Luchov pointed a trembling finger at the sphere, 'was one of our own!'
'Yes, he was,' Khuv snapped. 'He was also psychotically brutal, devious, insubordinate and dangerous to the point of being a downright liability! But haven't you wondered why I never reprimanded him? You think you know it all, don't you, Direktor? Well, you don't. Do you know who Vyotsky worked for before me? He was a bodyguard to Yuri Andropov himself — and we still don't know exactly how he died! But it's a fact they didn't get on, and that Andropov intended to demote him. Oh yes, you can believe it — Karl Vyotsky was implicated! Very well, and now I'll tell you why he was sent here — '
'I… I don't think that's necessary,' Luchov grasped the landing's handrail to steady himself. All of the blood had drained from his face until he was as white as Khuv. 'I think I already know.'
Khuv lowered his voice. 'I'll tell you anyway,' he whispered. 'But for his misadventure tonight, Karl Vyotsky was to have been our next "volunteer"! So don't cry for him, Direktor — he had only a month left anyway!'
Luchov gazed aghast at Khuv where he turned away and climbed the steps through the shaft. 'And he didn't know?' he said.
'Of course not,' Khuv answered without looking back. 'If you were in my shoes, would you have told him?'
Jazz plodded on.
No use hurrying and wasting energy needlessly, and it wasn't as if anyone or thing was going to sneak up on him. Not here. But certainly he must try to conserve his strength. He didn't know how far he had to go, another mile or ten or a hundred. He felt like a man crossing a vast lake of salt, whom the sun had already blinded. Yes, it was like that: as if he marched blindly, endlessly under a blazing sun, but one which held no heat. Only light. He sweated, yes, but purely from his efforts and not from any external source of heat. It was neither hot nor cold in this white tunnel between the worlds; the temperature seemed constant and was no problem; one might actually live here, except one couldn't possibly live here. No one could ever really live here; not in a place where he was the only reality and everything else was… white!
Twice he'd taken a swig from his water bottle, replacing lost moisture, and twice he'd thought to himself: is this all there is, this emptiness? What if it doesn't go anywhere?
But then, where had the bat and the wolf come from, and the magmass creatures, and the warrior? No, it had to go somewhere.
He had also paused to take the rusty magazine off his SMG and throw it away, and fit a good one from his packs. If he had to use the weapon, the last thing he wanted to happen was for a duff round to jam itself in the breach.
It was then, just after he'd fitted the new magazine, that he learned something else about this weird Gate place. Fastening the straps of his pack, he'd looked up — and discovered that he didn't know which direction was which. He had a compass on his wrist, but it was a little late for that; he should have checked it immediately after entering the sphere. He'd looked at it anyway — and seen the hand circling aimlessly, just as lost as he was! And then again he'd looked all about him, slowly turning in a full circle, or what he believed was a full circle. But he couldn't even be sure of that.