‘When you are,’ Jazz answered. But even as the words left his mouth, he knew he wasn’t here to admire goldfish.
A sharp click sounded and the lights came on.
Something moved in the tank and reared up!
Behind Jazz, Vyotsky made a choking sound. He’d seen this before, had known what was in here, but if anything the knowledge had only served to precipitate his instinctive reaction to it. And now that Jazz saw it he could readily understand why.
The thing was something like the moulds in the magmass which Khuv had not described but Jazz had pictured. It was like that, and yet not like that, for it was alive. Twisting, flowing, it glared out through the thick glass of the tank with eyes that were sheer hell. It was the size of a large dog, but it was not a dog. It wasn’t anything Jazz could have possibly imagined but a composite of most of his worst nightmares. It didn’t stay still long enough for him to even try to decide what it was. And worst of all, it didn’t seem to know itself!
Flattening itself for a moment against the glass of the tank, the thing might have been a leech. Its underside was corrugated and shaped like a huge, elongated sucker. But its four hands, its tail and its head were parts that might readily fit on a giant rat! That was how it looked – for a split-second. Then –
The head and hands changed, underwent a swift metamorphosis, became manlike. An almost human face crushed itself to the glass, gazing flatly, almost pitifully out into the room. It grimaced: an expression that was part smile, part scowl, part snarl, and then its human jaws yawned inhumanly open. Inside that mouth was a hell of teeth worthy of some monster piranha!
Jazz stepped back, gasping, and bumped into Vyotsky. The big Russian grasped his shoulders, steadied him. And in the tank the thing’s hands sprouted hooks that scrabbled at the glass; its face collapsed to a black leathery mask with a convoluted snout and huge, hairy pointed ears, like a great bat; webs grew between its limbs and body, forming wings. It sprang high, thudded against the tough glass ceiling of its tank, flopped down on the deep sandy bed.
Jazz was vaguely aware that someone – possibly Khuv, he thought; yes, even Khuv – had murmured, ‘My God!” In that same moment the thing had elongated into a worm with a spade head, rammed itself head-first down into the sand and burrowed out of sight. There was a final flurry of sand and … all was still.
After long moments of silence Jazz expelled his breath in a great sigh. ‘Christ almighty!’ he said, in a small voice. Then all three men drew air deeply into starved lungs. Jazz closed his gaping mouth, looked at the two Russians. ‘And you’re telling me this – thing – came out of that ball of light, right?’
Khuv, pale in the bright lights, with eyes that were dark blots in his doughy face, nodded. Through the Gate, yes,’ he said.
Jazz shook his head in bewilderment. ‘But how in hell did you catch it?’ It seemed a very reasonable question.
‘As you can see,’ Khuv answered, ‘it doesn’t like bright lights. And for all that it can change its shape at will, still it seems very primitive in its mental processes – if it has any worth considering as such. It could be that it’s all sheer animal instinct. We think it probably attacked the Gate on the other side; it would have been night in that world, and the glaringly bright sphere must have seemed like an enemy, or even prey. But when it burst through to our side – into the hollow sphere of rock down there – it was bright as day. Luckily for the people who were there, it headed straight down one of the wormholes – to escape from the light, do you see? And someone had his wits about him sufficiently to put the open end of a steel cabinet over the mouth of the hole. When it tried to come back out it was trapped.’