The Last Aerie (6 page)

“Well?” Trask gave voice to all of their anxieties.

She took a deep breath and said, “Perchorsk reads to me just exactly the way it did the last time I scanned it—menacing! The place itself is … well, a dire threat, obviously. But I detected nothing of any additional hazard. I did sense something new, however. Something … warm? In my opinion: if something, someone, has come through to our side, he, she, or it is harmless to our world, maybe even benevolent.”

Trask sighed. Like everyone else, he’d been holding his breath. He looked around. Who else could he use? David Chung was standing close to him, but he shook his head. “I can only tell you what I’ve already told you: it feels like the Necroscope to me.
Like
him, but that’s all.”

The precog Guy Teale had taken over Duty Officer from Millicent Cleary. As the group of espers had entered the Ops area, Teale had been summoned to duty by his pager, which was locked into Branch communications. Now he returned and said, “It’s the Opposition, Turkur Tzonov again. Still wanting to speak to you, sir.” He looked at Trask. “I patched him through to the screen in here. When you’re ready?”

“He can wait a minute more,” Trask growled. But he knew that if Tzonov was that impatient, this was at least as important as he suspected it to be. He looked at the others gathered round him. Ian Goodly seemed on the point of saying something. Knowing how reluctant “hunchmen” usually are to air their talents, Trask prompted him, “Ian?”

“I was waiting until Guy got back,” the gangling, cadaverous esper answered. “Being likeminded, so to speak—both of us being precogs, prognosticators—I’m interested to get a second opinion.”

“Your own opinion will do for starters,” Trask told him.

Goodly shuffled uncomfortably, then shrugged. “We’re going to be involved,” he finally said. Trask turned towards Teale.

“Likewise,” said the other. “Who or whatever it is that’s come through —” He frowned and paused. “—No,
whoever
it is, he needs our help.”

“He?”

“That’s my guess,” Teale answered. “Educated, as always.”

“And that’s it?”

“Heavily involved,” Goodly nodded. “I see … interesting times ahead.” He held up a hand. “But don’t ask me to look any deeper than that, Ben. Not yet. It’s never safe, and right now it isn’t necessary.”

Again Trask’s sigh, this time of frustration. “Right,” he said. “No more guesswork, however informed. It’s time we knew for sure. I’m going to speak to Tzonov. I would prefer all of you off-screen, however, so if you don’t mind …?”

As they moved out of range, Trask made himself comfortable in a black, padded swivel chair before a large flat screen on a central console. But as Teale made to switch on the televiewer:

“Wait!” Trask stopped him. “I want you to cover me, all of you. Let’s play the Opposition at their own game and have some mental static around here. Tzonov’s a damn fine, an extraordinary, mentalist. If I’m not covered he’ll be able to read things in my head that even I don’t know are there!”

And as they shielded him with the combined energy of their minds, Teale switched on.

The signal from Moscow unscrambled itself onto the opaque screen; a fuzzy hi-tech background blinked into being, while in the foreground sharp features under a high-domed, totally bald head faced Trask and held him with penetrating eyes. He stared back as the picture gained stability and clear, almost better-than-life contrast. On-screen the Russian’s face was certainly larger than life: in order to make himself that much more impressive, he’d given his screen extra amplification. Which was scarcely necessary. The looks of the man were … startling. But Ben Trask was a hard man to intimidate. It’s not easy to impress a human lie-detector, a man who will instantly recognize even the most remote distortion or elaboration. It was the reason Trask had always liked and been impressed by Harry Keogh; not so much by the Necroscope’s awesome powers but by his humility, and his truth.

“Truth, Mr. Trask?” Tzonov raised his right eyebrow. “But there you have the advantage. As long as your agents keep you covered, you can lie to your heart’s content and remain hidden in their static. As for myself, I have no such safeguard. Nor do I need one, not on this occasion. If I wanted to play games … well, I’m sure you know I have enough clever chessmen, without my own personal involvement. So there we have it: I am here to ask a favour of you, not to lie to you or spy on you.” Tzonov’s voice—well-modulated and without accent, and to all intents and purposes lacking in emotion—nevertheless contained the merest suggestion of a sneer.

Trask smiled back, however tightly. “For someone who protests my advantage over his own ‘innocence’, you picked that out of my mind easily enough, Tzonov. Naturally I’m concerned about the truth; I always have been and always will be. It happens to be my talent.” While he answered, he studied the other’s face.

Turkur Tzonov was part-Turk, part-Mongol, all man. Without question he was an “Alpha” male, a leader, an outstanding mind housed in an athlete’s body. His grey eyes were the sort that could look at and into a man, or through him if the mind behind them considered him of little or no importance. It was a measure of Trask’s stature that Tzonov’s eyes looked at him, and not without respect.

The Russian’s eyebrows were slim as lines pencilled on paper; upwards-slanting, they were silver-blond against the tanned, sharp-etched ridges of his brows. From the eyebrows up he was completely hairless, which was so in keeping with his other features as to make it appear that hair was never intended. Certainly his baldness wasn’t a sign of ill-health or premature aging; the broad bronze dome of his head glowed with vitality to match the flesh of his face, where the only anomaly lay in the orbits of Tzonov’s eyes. Deep-sunken and dark, their hollows seemed bruised from long hours of study or implacable concentration. Trask knew it was a symptom of the man’s telepathy. Tzonov’s nose was sharply hooked, which despite his light grey eyes might mark him as an Arab; except Trask suspected it had been broken in an accident or a fight. Probably the latter, for the head of Russia’s E-Branch was a devotee of the martial arts. His mouth was well-fleshed if a little wide, above a chin which was strong and square. His cheeks were very slightly hollow, and his small, pointed ears lay flat to his head. The picture overall was of a too-perfect symmetry, where the left and right halves of the Russian’s face seemed mirror images. In the majority of people this would be a disadvantage, Trask thought: the physical attractions of a face, its “good looks”, are normally defined by imperfections of balance. Turkur Tzonov to the contrary: paradoxically, he was a very attractive man.

The secret lay in the eyes, which were a fascination unto themselves. Trask could well understand the Branch’s profile of this man, which detailed a long string of beautiful and intelligent female companions. None of them had voiced any complaint when he moved on; they had all remained “loyal” to him in their various ways. Trask wondered if it were true loyalty, or simply that Tzonov knew too much about them. How could any woman speak out against a man who knows every detail of her pastlife? Only a stupid or insensitive or entirely innocent woman would dare, none of which were Tzonov’s sort.

And now those near-hypnotic eyes—those telepathic eyes of Turkur Tzonov—were intent upon Trask as the two heads of British and Soviet ESP-Intelligence measured each other across a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles.

Trask’s appraisal of the other had taken moments; possibly the Russian had read something of it in his mind; in any case there had been nothing there he could possibly object to. And if there had been, well he was the one who was asking for help. Trask nodded. “So you have a problem, Turkur … er, do you mind if I use your first name? I know you’re still fond of the term ‘Comrade’ over there, but we’re hardly that.”

“Turkur, by all means,” the other shrugged and permitted himself the ghost of a smile. “As for ‘Comrade’: it’s true our organizations have had their differences in the past, Mr. Trask—or should that be Ben? But that is history and this is now, and the future is … oh, a
very
big place! In a world scrutinized by alien intelligences, perhaps even under the threat of attack, we wouldn’t find it so difficult to be Comrades. Am I right?”

His argument and the way he presented it were disarming, especially since Trask knew what he was talking about. Perhaps Trask knew even more than Tzonov thought. For instance, he knew or suspected that the—intruder?—from the other side was a man. And now there might be a way to confirm his suspicions.

“Is that what you think?” he said. “That your visitor is a spy for the Wamphyri? Their advance guard, as it were? Someone working for Harry Keogh, perhaps?”

If his words caught the other off guard there was little outward sign of it: a single blink, and the almost imperceptible narrowing of cool grey eyes. Then Tzonov’s answer. “The reputation of your Branch is well-deserved, Ben. That is precisely what I think. It’s at least a possibility. Between us we control talents with which to combat any such incursion; but until we know what the threat is, or that it definitely exists …” He let his words taper off.

“You haven’t been able to fathom him, then?” Trask took it that Guy Teale had been correct: what had come through the Perchorsk Gate was a man.

“As yet we’re not wholly in a position to fathom him, no,1 Tzonov said. “Rather, he is not in
a
position to be fathomed.”

“Can you explain that?”

“We’re holding him
within
the Gate,” Tzonov obliged. “At our end, just beyond the Perchorsk threshold. What? But do you think we’ve learned nothing from the lessons of the past? That we would simply let such a creature in without first considering our actions? A thing—
possibly
a man, which at least has the looks and present shape of a man—from the parallel dimension of the Wamphyri?”

“Holding him?” Trask couldn’t help but frown. Since that time all those years ago when Harry Keogh had gone through the Gate, E-Branch had lost much of its interest in Perchorsk. It had been taken for granted that the Russians were adequately equipped to close the place down. Or if not that, certainly to deal with whatever might come through.

“Ah!” said Tzonov, nodding. And for the first time during their conversation he seemed surprised, and pleased. “You don’t know of the—precautions—which we’ve taken at Perchorsk.”

“We’ve always assumed you sealed the place up,” Trask told him. “Permanently. Any responsible authority would have seen to it at once.”

“That had been tried before,” Tzonov answered with a grim smile, “before my time. But do you know, I’m told that it was far better to be in Perchorsk and living in fear, than out of that place and
not know
what was going on! And I believe it, for since then we’ve had the experience of an entirely separate but analogous comparison. I refer to Chernobyl, of course. You may recall that the Sarcophagus was a sealed unit, too—until they opened it up again …
and
again! But the place is still alive and dangerous, and will continue to be for a long time to come. Which is why they must now open it yet again, a third time, in order to be certain they know what’s happening. Well, Perchorsk was the same: we had to know what was happening.” He paused, and in a moment continued, “We’ve taken precautions, of course. Such as these safeguards are, they have allowed us to contain this most recent visitor at our end of the Gate. So that we now have a choice: we can study him, if it’s at all possible, or simply destroy him out of hand. I would prefer to study him.”

“And you want to let us in on it?” Trask kept his face expressionless. “That would seem very big of you, if I didn’t already know that you can’t handle it on your own.” It was so, he knew; also that everything Tzonov had told him was the absolute truth. The needle on Trask’s mental lie-detector hadn’t so much as wavered. “But what you haven’t yet told me is the sort of help you expect from us. How about it, Turkur? What is it we’ve got that you need?”

“Several things,” the other accepted his reading, made no pointless attempt to deny the accuracy of Trask’s deductions. “Your Branch has a wealth of experience in such matters, for one thing. Not to mention a diversity of ESP talents. You yourself would be invaluable, Ben. Your ability to look at what we’ve got here and know the truth of it: whether our visitor is merely a man and harmless, or much more than a man and a monstrous threat. As I am sure you’re aware, your talent is unique and we have nothing like you. Then there are your prognosticators—your ‘hunchmen’?—Teale and Goodly. We too have a man who reads the future, our own precog, of course. Alas his talent is …” Tzonov shrugged, “… middling at best. And I’m sure you’re aware of that, too. But your men
are
the best! At the first sign of danger, they’d recognize it immediately. Indeed, it is their nature to know well in advance.”

It was Trask’s thought to ask
: What is it about this man or thing that interests you? Why don’t you just destroy it out
of hand? What do you hope to gain from studying it?
But if he asked those questions and Tzonov chose to lie or obfuscate … their new found rapport could be broken, and Trask knew now that he needed the cooperation of the Russian telepath as much as he himself was needed. Of course he did, for if David Chung was correct and the visitor was in some way revenant of Harry Keogh …

“If you won’t help us and we’re obliged to work on this alone,” (it was as if Tzonov had got inside Trask’s head, but Trask prayed that he hadn’t), “and if there’s any profit in it … then we alone reap the benefits. Can you really afford to refuse us? I should think you’d jump at the chance to help!”

He was right. If the visitor was like or “of” Harry, he must never be allowed to fall so easily into the Opposition’s hands. What a weapon they’d make of him! Before Trask let that happen, and if it should be necessary, why he’d kill the visitor himself!

“Very well,” he nodded, “you shall have our cooperation. But this is a busy time, Turkur, and if we’re to work together in Perchorsk there are things I have to see to here first. I’ll get my Duty Officer to phone you back, within the hour, to make the necessary arrangements.”