‘But my work is important!’ Agursky protested. ‘We have to know what lies beyond that Gate, and this creature may carry the answers. I can’t find them if I’m to be kept on my back in here.’
‘Another day won’t hurt,’ Luchov stood up, ‘and I’ll also see to it that from now on you have an assistant. It can’t be good for a man to have to deal with a creature like that on his own. Some of us – ‘ he glanced meaningfully at Vyotsky, ‘ – would have broken long ago, I’m sure . . .’
‘Another day, then,’ Agursky lay down again. ‘But then I really must get back to my work. Believe me, what lies between me and that creature has now become a very personal thing, and I won’t give in until I’ve beaten it.’
‘Get your rest then,’ Luchov told him, ‘and come and see me when you’re up and about. I’ll look forward to that.’
Agursky’s visitors left the ward and at last he was on his own. Now he could stop acting. He smiled a sly and yet bitter smile – a smile composed in part of success, in that he’d deceived everyone who’d seen him, and partly of his terror of the unknown, and the fact that he was now on his own – which died on his face as quickly as it was born. It was replaced by a nervous anxiety which showed in his pale, trembling lips, and in the tic that jerked the flesh at the corner of his mouth. He had fooled his doctors and visitors, yes, but there was no fooling himself.
His doctors had examined him thoroughly and found nothing except a little stress and maybe physical weariness – not even Vyotsky’s ‘exhaustion’ – and yet Agursky knew that there was a lot more than that wrong with him. The thing in the tank had put something into him, something which had hidden itself away for now. But wheels were turning and time ticking away, and the question was: how long would it remain hidden?
How long did he have to find the answer and reverse the process, whatever that process was? And if he couldn’t find the answer, what would it do to him, physically, while it lived and grew in him? What would it be like when it finally surfaced? So far no one knew about it but him, and from now on he must watch himself closely, must know before anyone else knew if … if anything strange were to happen. Because if they knew first – if they discovered that he nurtured within himself something from beyond that Gate – if they even suspected it …
Agursky began to shudder uncontrollably, gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in a spasm of absolute terror. They burned those things from the Gate, hosed them down with fire until they were little heaps of congealed glue. And would they burn him, too, if . . . if-
What would he be like after those slowly turning inner wheels had turned full circle? That was the worst of it, not knowing . . .
Out on the perimeter and having separated from Luchov who had gone his own way, Khuv and Vyotsky were making for their own place of duty with the Projekt’s esper squad when one of the latter came panting to meet them. He was a fat and especially oily man called Paul Savinkov, who prior to Perchorsk had worked in the embassies in Moscow. An unnatural predilection for male, junior members of foreign embassy staff had made him something of a risk in that employment. His transfer to Perchorsk had been swift; he was still trying to ooze his way out of the place, primarily by doing his very best to keep Khuv happy. He was sure he could convince his KGB watchdog that there were places where his talent could be far more effectively and productively employed. His talent was telepathy, in which he was occasionally very proficient.
Savinkov’s fat, shiny baby-face was worried now as he bumped into Khuv and Vyotsky in the sweeping outer corridor. ‘Ah, Comrades – the very men I seek! I was on my way to report . . .’He paused to lean against the wall and catch his breath.