‘Not much good, though, knowing how to load a magazine,’ the soldier grinned, ‘if you don’t have a gun!’
Jazz had grinned back. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Are you going to bring me one?’
‘Hah!’ the youth had laughed out loud. ‘Mutiny is one thing, but madness is something else again! Bring you a gun? Not me, friend. You’ll get that later . . .’
Now was the ‘later’ that the soldier had been talking about: 2 a.m. in the outside world, but inside the subterranean Perchorsk Complex the hour was of no real consequence. Things didn’t change a great deal down here day or night. Not on a normal night, anyway. But tonight was different.
Below the nightmare magmass levels, in the core of the place, Michael ‘Jazz’ Simmons stood on the Saturn’s-rings platform and allowed himself to be kitted-up in his gear. In any case, he didn’t have much choice about it. But he still hadn’t been given the fuel tank for his mini-flame-thrower, and he was still minus his SMG. That was in the very capable hands of Karl Vyotsky, who cradled the lightweight weapon like a baby in his great arms. Vyotsky was to be Jazz’s escort along the walkway.
At last the agent had everything he could carry and still move with a degree of efficiency. He had refused a parka, and a huge woodsman’s knife which must have weighed all of three pounds. But he’d taken a small, razor-honed hatchet which would serve both as a weapon and as a most useful tool.
Finally Khuv had stepped forward through the circle of people who’d been attending to Jazz, said: ‘Well, Michael, this is it. If I thought you would accept them, now would be the time to offer you my best wishes.’
‘Oh?’ Jazz looked him up and down. ‘Personally I wouldn’t offer you shit, Comrade!’
The corners of Khuv’s mouth turned down. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘so be hard! And stay hard, Michael. Who knows but that that way you might even survive. But if you do find a way to come back through, we’ll be waiting. And then I’ll look forward to hearing all about it. Eventually, you know, we’ll be obliged to put an army through there; any advance knowledge would be a big help.’ He nodded to Vyotsky.
‘Let’s go, British,’ the big Russian prodded him with the business end of the SMG.
Jazz moved inwards across the planking, glanced back once, shrugged and faced the sphere. Dark glasses protected his eyes from something of its glare, but even so the very plainness of the sphere’s surface was a pain in itself; it was like looking at a dead channel on a live TV screen. Now the Saturn’s-rings platform was left behind and Jazz went forward along the neck of the walkway. Scorched timbers underfoot told him that this was where the warrior had died, and it seemed he heard again that creature’s cry: Wamphyri! Then –
– They had reached the sphere. Jazz came to a halt, put out a hand. His fingers passed easily into the white light; there was no resistance, until he withdrew his hand again; but then he felt a weird viscosity, felt the sphere tugging at him. It didn’t like to let go, not even from the first moment of penetration. He pulled his hand free, but not without a little effort.
‘Hold it,’ said Vyotsky from right behind him. ‘Don’t be too eager, British. You’ll need these.’ He hung a cylindrical aluminium bottle on Jazz’s harness at the rear: the fuel for his flame-thrower. Then he said, Turn around.’
Jazz obeyed him. Vyotsky grinned at him and said: ‘You’re very pale, British! Feels queer, does it?’
‘A little,’ Jazz answered truthfully. Now that it was inevitable it did feel a little queer. It would be a lot worse except he wasn’t concentrating on his feelings but something else entirely.
Vyotsky searched his face for a moment, said: ‘Huh! I don’t know if you’re a hero or just plain stupid! Whichever, this is yours.’ He removed the magazine from the SMG and handed the weapon to Jazz. Then, chuckling, he said, ‘Wouldn’t you like this, too, British?’ He shook the magazine in his hand until it rattled. ‘A lot handier right now than the ones you have in your pack, eh?’