Luchov grasped his ankle. It was all a nightmare – had to be a nightmare, surely – but it felt horribly real, as real as the flesh-and-blood ankle he was grasping. ‘Wait! Wait! What . . . what is it you want to know?’
‘That’s better,’ said Harry. He drew Luchov to his feet, took him somewhere more comfortable: an evening beach in Australia. Luchov felt the hot sand under his feet, saw a shimmering ocean with its endless lines of whitecaps, sat down abruptly as his legs gave way. He sat there in the sand, wide-eyed, shivering and very nearly exhausted. The beach was deserted. Harry looked down at Luchov and nodded. Then he stripped down to his underpants, went for a swim. When he came out of the sea, Luchov was ready to talk …
When Luchov was finished (which is to say when Harry had run out of questions) it was getting dark. A handful of cars had come roaring down to the beach a quarter of a mile away, spilled young people with blankets and barbecue gear. Laughter and rock music came wafting on a crosswind.
‘Back at Perchorsk it’ll be morning, daylight,’ said Harry. ‘But they’ll still be running around in circles looking for you. If Khuv has a locator, they’ll know approximately where you are. To be absolutely sure, though, they’ll go over the Projekt with a fine-toothed comb. And by now everyone involved will be very tired. One thing is certain: Khuv now knows something of what he’s up against.
‘Now listen: you’ve co-operated with me and so I’ll give you fair warning. It may be that I have to destroy Perchorsk. Not for my sake or in the interest of any nation or specific group of people, but for the sake of the world. But in any case, even if anything should happen to me, eventually Perchorsk will be destroyed. The USA won’t sit still for any more monsters coming out of that place.’
‘Of course,’ Luchov answered. ‘I had foreseen that eventuality. Some months ago I passed on my warning to people in authority, made my recommendations. The warning was heeded and the recommendations accepted. Within the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow – today – trucks will start to arrive at Perchorsk from Sverdlovsk. They will deliver a new failsafe. So you see, on this one point if on no other, we are in agreement. Nothing – alien – must ever again get out of Perchorsk . . .’
Harry nodded. ‘Before I take you back there,’ he said, ‘I’d like to ask you one more thing. With that space-time Gate down there in Perchorsk’s guts, how come you found me so incredible? I mean, surely the two principles come pretty close? In Perchorsk you have … a grey hole? And I make use of a dimension or space-time plane other than my own.’
Luchov stood up, stiffly brushed sand from his clothes. ‘The difference is this,’ he said. ‘I know how the Perchorsk Gate came into being. I’ve worked out most of the mathematics. The Gate is a physical reality, with nothing transient or insubstantial about it. It is physical, not metaphysical. The result of an accident, yes, but at least I know how that accident happened. You, on the other hand – you’re just a man! I can’t understand how you could ever possibly have happened.’
Harry thought about his answer, eventually nodded. ‘Actually, I believe I was an accident, too,’ he said. ‘The product of a one-in-a-million combination of events. Anyway, I’ve warned you about Perchorsk. You risk your life staying there.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Luchov shrugged. ‘Still, it’s my job. I’ll see it through. And you. What will you do now?’
‘After I’ve taken you back? I have to know what’s on the other side of that Gate. There has to be more there than the nightmares you’ve described.’ There had to be, for how else could little Harry and his mother exist there? If they exist there. But what if there are other dimensions beyond that one? What if Harry Jnr has taken his mother even further afield?
Harry dropped Luchov off outside the great sliding doors of the service bays, left him in the grey morning light and the sullen snow, hammering at the wicket-gate and bellowing to be let in. Then Harry went to Luchov’s quarters (which he found empty and locked from the outside), where he donned a white smock which on his last visit he’d seen hanging there. The smock was the insignia of a Projekt scientist or technician. In the garment’s pocket he found tinted spectacles and put them on.