‘Karl is right,’ said Khuv. ‘No, we’re not frightened of the Gate itself – but I defy any sane person not to fear the things that sometimes come through it!’
4
The Gate To….?
They started down the final flight of wooden stairs to the Saturn’s rings or spider web platform, then moved round the central sphere until they approached the walkway leading to its coldly incandescent heart. Ten feet away from the gate in the electric fence Khuv halted, turned to Jazz and said: ‘Well, what do you make of it?’ He could only be talking about the glaring yet enigmatic globe which stood on the other side of the gate, maybe seven paces away. It was quite motionless, it made no sound, and yet it was menacing.
‘You said that this was where the atomic pile stood,’ Jazz answered. ‘What, in mid-air? No, OK, I’m being facetious. So what you mean is that after the blow-back everything within sixty-five feet or so of the centre of that . . . that – whatever it is – was vaporized out of existence, right?’
“That would have been my explanation, too,’ Khuv nodded, ‘but incorrectly. As I’ve already pointed out, conversion is the word. According to Viktor Luchov, the energy of the trapped beam was attracted by the latent energy – or the energy in action – in the pile. You could compare it to the way a nail is drawn to a magnet. In the final fusing there was no explosion. Perhaps there was an implosion, I don’t know any more about that than Luchov himself. But the matter which had formed the floor of this place, and the pile itself along with its fuel – yes, and all the machinery; too, which had filled this area – all of these things, outwards from the centre to the spherical wall which now you see, were eaten, transformed, converted. Men, too. Seventeen nuclear physicists and technicians died instantly, leaving no trace.’
Jazz was impressed, if not by Khuv’s telling of the story, certainly by its content. ‘And radiation?’ he said. ‘There must have been a massive release of – ‘
Khuv shook his head, bringing Jazz to a halt. ‘In relation to what was available, there was very little in the way of escaped radiation. The tips of those wormholes, fifteen to twenty feet into the rock, some of those were hotspots. We did what we could, then sealed them off. In the levels above there are dangerous places still, but again mainly sealed off. And in any case those levels are no longer in use and will never be used again. You have seen something of the magmass, but you have not seen all of it. Metal and plastic and rock were not the only materials which flowed together inseparably in that blast of alien energy, Michael. But rock and metal and plastic do not rot! You understand my meaning, I’m sure . . .’
Jazz grimaced, said: ‘How did they . . . clean the place up? It must have been a nightmare.’
‘It still is,’ Khuv told him. That’s why the lighting is muted up there. Acid was used. It was the only way. But it left moulds in the magmass which are utterly hideous to look upon. Pompeii must be something similar, but there at least the figures are still recognizably human. Not elongated or twisted or … reversed.’
Jazz thought about it, enquired no further as to Khuv’s exact meaning.
Vyotsky had been growing restless for some little time. ‘Do we have to stand here like this?’ he suddenly growled. ‘Why must we make targets of ourselves?’
Jazz’s dislike for the man was intense, amounting to hatred. He’d hated him from the moment he first laid eyes on him, and couldn’t resist jibes whenever the opportunity for such surfaced. Now he sneered at the huge Russian. ‘You think their fingers are likely to slip?’ he nodded in the direction of the crew manning the closest Katushev. ‘Or maybe they’ve a grudge against you, too, eh?’
‘British,’ said Vyotsky, taking a threatening pace closer, ‘I could happily toss you on that fence there and watch you fry! You’ve been advised to mind your mouth. But me? – I hope you go on pushing your luck till you push yourself right over the edge!’