Below in the woods a great wolf howled piteously – Zek’s Wolf, who knew that his mistress was now removed from him and gone far away. He lifted his head and howled again, the cry rippling from his taut throat. Then he sniffed the air and looked north and a little west, across the mountains. She was there, yes. That was the way he must go.
Grey as the night, Wolf began to climb through the trees. Two figures passed him going down. He curled his upper lip back, writhing from his carnivore teeth. But he made no sound. They passed out of sight into the misty woods. Wolf let them go and continued on his way.
The siren call of his mistress was strong in his mind . . .
It was noon at Perchorsk, but in the metal and plastic bowels of that place it could be midnight and nothing would be changed. One change at least was occurring, however, and Direktor Luchov and Chingiz Khuv were watching as a team of workmen fitted pipes high in the wall of the perimeter corridor. The pipes were maybe seventy millimeters in diameter, made of black plastic, and might in other circumstances be conduits for heavy-duty electrical cable. But that was not their purpose.
‘A failsafe?’ Khuv said. He looked flustered. ‘But I know nothing about this. Perhaps you’d explain?’
Luchov looked at him, tilted his head on one side a little. ‘You work here,’ he shrugged, ‘and I have no reason to keep it from you. I proposed this mechanism some time ago. It is simplicity in itself, and quite foolproof. What’s more, it’s cheap and very quick and easy to install – as you can see. If you follow these pipes you’ll see that they go straight back to the loading bays inside the main doors. There you’ll find a fifteen-thousand-litre container on the back of a truck. The truck is locked in position with its brakes on, rotor arm removed. That, too, is a failsafe. The pipes connect directly to the truck and they’re being laid throughout the Projekt.’
Khuv’s frown grew deeper. ‘I’ve seen the truck,’ he said. ‘It’s a military supply vehicle, carrying chemical fuel for flame-throwers. Are you telling me that these pipes will carry that stuff? But it’s highly corrosive! Man, it would eat through this plastic in a matter of minutes!’
Luchov shrugged. ‘By which time it wouldn’t matter anyway,’ he said. ‘A failsafe only has to work once, Major, and that’s the beauty of this one. Gravity fed, fifteen thousand litres of highly combustible fuel will rush downward through these pipes and circulate right through the Projekt in less than three minutes. As it courses along its way there are sprinklers. They will spray the fuel under pressure into every corner. Its fumes are heavy but they’ll spread very rapidly. The Projekt has laboratories, boiler rooms, electrical fires, workshops, a thousand naked flames of one sort or another.’ He shrugged again. ‘But I’m sure you can see what I’m getting at. We can sum it up in one very descriptive word: inferno!’
A short distance away, Vasily Agursky had paused to listen. Khuv had noticed him and now he deliberately stared at him. Still looking at Agursky, Khuv said: ‘I take it this information is not sensitive? If it is, you should know we are being eavesdropped.’
‘Sensitive?’ Luchov glanced along the corridor, saw Agursky. ‘Ah, but it is sensitive, yes! Everyone who works here in the Projekt will soon be aware exactly how sensitive it is. It would be criminally irresponsible for anyone to try to keep it a secret. There will be notices posted everywhere explaining the system in great detail. This is not a matter for the KGB, Major, but for humanity. It is not your sort of “security” but mine – and my superiors’. And your superiors’!’
Agursky came closer, joined Khuv and Luchov. ‘If this system is ever used,’ he said, in a strange, emotionless voice, ‘the Projekt would be destroyed utterly.’
‘Correct, Vasily,’ Luchov turned to him. That is its purpose. But it will only be used if another horror like Encounter One should ever escape from the Gate!’