“I’m not Luke Skywalker,” said Jim, “but the force is with us, I suppose.”
“Oh yes, indubitably, Jim.”
“Right then.” Pooley eased back on the throttle and in fits and starts they approached the opening. “Please extinguish your cigarettes and fasten your seat-belts.”
“Now is hardly the moment for levity. As soon as we are into the entrance hall, switch off the engine.”
Jim was suddenly more doubtful than ever. “But we will float up again surely?”
“And lodge under the entrance arch.”
That, thought Jim, was as iffy a proposition as any he had yet known. “In for a penny then.” The car bumped down on to the walkway with a squeal of tyres, bounced up again uncontrollably, the engine faltered and made coughing sounds. Jim gripped the wheel. “We’re going to crash.”
“Hold on tight, Jim. Now!” Pooley slammed on the brakes, tore the key from the ignition and made his personal recommendations to his Maker. The car ground along a side wall raising a stream of sparks and mangling metal, swerved, stopped dead and almost at once began to rise. There was a sickening crunch as it struck the top of the entrance hall. And then, a blessed silence. “Bravo, Jim, you did it!”
“I did?” Pooley’s face appeared over the wheel, nose crooked, a facsimile of the now legendary Chad. “I did do it, I really did.”
“Right, now we have wasted more than enough time — to work.”
“Right,” said Inspectre Hovis, “we have wasted more than enough time.” Rune’s Raiders stood in a dubious huddle before the great gasometer, fingering an arsenal of weaponry they were certainly unqualified even to handle, let alone raise in anger. Hovis cocked his old service revolver. “Now, Rune,” he said. “Open it up, there’s a good fellow.”
“Open it up,” Rune slowly remouthed the Inspectre’s words, “open it up.”
“We have the element of surprise to our favour.” Hovis turned to address the nervous constables. “Now, gentlemen, I do not want a bloodbath on my hands. We do not know how many of them there are in there. No-one, and I mean no-one, shoots anyone until I give the order, do I make myself understood?” The boot-blackened faces bobbed up and down in the darkness. Constable Meek straightened his Rambo-style headband and wondered which end of his Kalashnikov was the killing end. “OK, Rune, take us in.”
“Yes indeed,” said the Perfect Master, “indeed yes. Take us in, now let me see …”
“Now let me see.” Professor Slocombe studied the blueprint. He and Pooley stood within the shadow of the entrance hall; above them the Hartnell Air Car roosted quietly. “We go this way, Jim. Now try to keep your bearings, we may have to return at some speed.”
Pooley tucked the car’s ignition key safely away in his top pocket. “Exactly where are we going to?” he asked.
“To the very heart, Jim, the very hub. The core which lies at the centre of the arena, this area.” He pointed to the blueprint.
“But there’s nothing there but a black spot.”
“Indeed.” The Professor nodded gravely. “This way now, follow me.”
The two men passed between the titanic structures. Their entire design and geometry was strange, unnatural, alien. Jim ran his hand along a handrail and speedily withdrew it. “It hums,” he said, “it vibrates.”
“It knows we are here.”
Jim shuddered. “And what’s it all made of, Professor? This isn’t metal or glass, what is it?”
“Horn, bone, chitin, it is organic,” said the sage. “I don’t think this stadium was built, in the true sense of the word. I think it was grown.”
“Then it is …” the word did not come easily to Pooley’s lips, “… alive?”
“Not quite, it is dormant, moribund, if you like, it sleeps.”
“I do not like.” Jim tottered along behind the Professor, who moved with certain, long strides. “What when it wakes?”
“That, my dear Jim, is what we are here to prevent. We must not allow Kaleton to activate it, animate it, whatever you will.”
“This big shot of his that will ring out across the universe?”
“The very same. A shot of energy, some activating chemical agent, or pre-programmed codification. Whatever it might be we must prevent it.”
“It’s ever so quiet,” said Jim. “There must be thousands of people up here, how come we haven’t seen anybody?”
“I would suggest the use of a soporific gas, introduced into the air-conditioning at night to prevent any of the athletes wandering. We will not enter the dormitories to find out. Now wait.”
Jim looked up, somehow they had now entered the great arena. As usual Jim had been doing too much talking and not enough paying attention. He was lost, and now he was speechless. A low gasp arose simultaneously from two throats. They had entered a world of dream. Above them spread the weather-dome but from below it did not look like a glass canopy, more like a transparent membrane, breathing gently. And the arena itself, its scale was daunting, impossible to take in at a single viewing. The seating rose in great rings, rank upon rank, tier upon tier about a circus maximus built for Titans. The scope and symmetry was fearsome, yet it was fascinating.
“Oh indeed,” said Professor Slocombe. “Oh yes, indeed.”
“Why?” Pooley asked. “Why do all this if it is only meant to destroy?”
“It can destroy a million people here at a single go. But the whole point is that the entire world will be watching. More people watch the start of the games than any other single event, they would have to have something to look at.”
“It is inhuman, all too big, no human architect was a part of this.”
“No, Jim, it is as if all previous architecture was just a dry run for this. Baalbek, the pyramids, the temples of the Incas, the great cathedrals, all leading towards,” he gestured to include all that he could, “a temple for the gods.”
Jim’s head swam. “You are talking about religion again.”
“Not religion. An ideology perhaps, a greater understanding, a greater knowledge, but not one born of men. Worship of his gods has driven man to his most abominable of crimes, but also to his greatest of achievements. But this is not the work of man, but that of a higher order of being.”
“Esoterica was never my strong point, but this is the work of the devil.”
“It is all here, Jim, a masterplan, a great formula, the culmination of a hundred thousand years of accumulated thought and knowledge.”
“Then we are finished, Kaleton told the truth. Those that would walk with the gods require somewhat superior footwear. Let’s go out now, Professor, warn the army or something, take our chances on the ground.”
“No, Jim.” The Professor held up his hand. “All this can act for good as well as for evil. We can save the games, save mankind. This is the product of High Magick. Knowledge is neither good nor evil, it is in how it is applied.”
“As ever you have grasped but a tiny morsel of reality,” came a voice from everywhere and nowhere. “You think to construct a map of the universe, having nothing but the plan of your own backyard.” Pooley turned about in circles. The Professor stared into space. “Proud little man,” the voice continued, “puffed up with your own importance, creating God in your own image.”
“I am unable to see you,” said the Professor. “Will you show yourself or must I call out to you in the darkness?” The air buzzed with an unnatural electricity.
“Proud little man,” said the voice.
“Do you fear me so much that you dare not show yourself?”
“Fear is a human concept, Professor.”
“As is love. But you would know nothing of that.”
“Love, fear, hatred, all masks and blinkers, walls of delusion hiding a higher reality.”
Pooley strained his eyes to see something, anything, but the stadium swept away in all directions, fading into hazy perspectives. The owner or owners of the voice remained hidden to view. Jim shivered. There was a terrible B-movie banality about Kaleton’s conversation. One which, to Jim’s extensive knowledge of the genre, generally terminated in such phrases as “so die, puny earthling,” or something of a similarly unpleasant ilk.