‘Your own quarters are similarly situated, albeit on a different bearing,’ Luchov pointed out. ‘We would have equal chances. So would anyone in that area, including your KGB men and parapsychologists.’
Khuv grudgingly conceded that. ‘And you think it’s a wise move to tell everyone just exactly how this failsafe operates? You don’t think it will scare them witless?’
‘I think it probably will,’ Luchov answered, ‘but I see no alternative. In the event of … a disaster, as many as possible should have the chance to live. And where the military is concerned: well, they are the only ones who can’t run when the alarms start sounding. The Katushev crews and the flame-thrower squads. And here I’m afraid I begin to sound too much like you for my own liking -but at least they now have the ultimate incentive to stop any emergence from the sphere!’
Khuv pursed his lips, made no reply.
‘And now that I have satisfied your curiosity,’ Luchov continued, ‘perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me how your – experiments? – are proceeding? Have you had any message from those poor bastards you hurled through the Gate? Or have you simply written them off? And what about your investigations into this intruder affair? Do you know how he got in? What have you discovered about him?’
Khuv scowled, turned on his heel and strode away. Over his shoulder he called back: ‘At this moment in time I have no information for you, Direktor. But when I have all the answers, and when they make sense, then rest assured that you will be among the first to know of it.’ He paused in his striding and looked back. ‘But you are not the only one who has been busy, Comrade, and I have made certain recommendations of my own. So far you have only considered an invasion from the other side, but my imagination is more wide-ranging. In a few days you will more fully comprehend my meaning, with the arrival of a platoon of crack assault troops – under my command!’
Before Luchov could enquire further, Khuv had passed through a bulkhead door and so out of sight . . .
In his private quarters, Vasily Agursky stared at himself in a mirror on his toilet wall. He stared, and had difficulty believing what he saw. As yet no one else appeared to have noticed, but then no one took a great deal of interest in him. But Agursky knew himself very well indeed, and he also knew that what he saw in the mirror was more than the sum total of his parts. Of his parts.
His first reaction, when he’d noticed the early changes, had been to distrust the mirror, a distrust which had quickly turned to a strong dislike. Ridiculous for a man to dislike a mirror, but it was true, he did. He disliked all mirrors, probably because they reminded him of certain undeniable alterations, which he’d be only too happy to forget about.
The changes were . . . weird! He wouldn’t have believed them possible.
He had positioned this mirror on the wall himself, so that his face would be exactly centered in the glass. But now he had to bend his knees a little to get the same effect. He had gained two or more full inches in height. That fact should have delighted him, who had always considered himself as being little more than a dwarf, but instead it terrified him. For he could actually feel the ability of his body to be tall! And if the vampiric growth continued – then someone would notice.
His hair, too, was undergoing something of a metamorphosis. Its dirty-grey down was darkening, showing signs of a long-delayed virility, and the halo was contracting toward the centre of his head’s dome, filling itself in. No one had noticed that, either, but he supposed they must when finally the growth was complete. Why, already he looked – and felt – years younger. Felt ready now for … almost anything. And yet for a little while longer he must continue to play the part of the old Vasily. The old, despised, neglected and contemptuously treated Vasily . . .