His eyes were interesting. They looked at Kyle and yet seemed to look right through him, as if he were the apparition and not the other way about. They were blue, those eyes – a startling, almost colourless blue neon – but more than this, there was that in those eyes which said they knew more than any twenty-two year old had any right to know. The wisdom of ages seemed locked in them, the knowledge of centuries lying just beneath the shimmer of blue haze which covered them.
Apart from that: his features would be fine, like blue porcelain and seemingly equally fragile; his hands slim, tapering; his shoulders drooped a little; his skin in general, apart from the freckles, pale and unblemished. But for those eyes, you probably wouldn’t look twice at him on the street. He was just. . .a young man. Or had been.
And now? Now he was something more. Harry Keogh’s body had no real, physical existence now, but his mind went on. And his mind was housed in a new – quite literally new – body. Kyle found himself starting to examine that part of the apparition, quickly checked himself. What was there to examine? In any case it could wait, wasn’t important. All that mattered was that Keogh was here, and that he had something important to say.
‘Something’s come up?’ Kyle repeated the Keogh projection’s statement, made it a question. ‘What sort of something, Harry?’
Something monstrous! Right now I can give you only the barest outline – I simply don’t know enough about it, not yet. But do you remember what I told you about the Russian E-Branch? And about Dragosani? I know there was no way you could check it all out, but have you looked into it at all? Do you believe what I told you about Dragosani?
While Keogh spoke to him, so Kyle had stared fascinated at that facet of him which was different, that : addition to him since the last time he’d seen or sensed him. For now, superimposed over the apparition’s abdomen – suspended in midair and slowly spinning on its own axis, turning in the space that Keogh’s body occupied -there floated a naked male baby, or the ghost of one, just as insubstantial as Keogh himself. The child was curled like a foetus floating in some invisible, churning fluid, like some strange biological exhibit, like a hologram. But it was a real baby, and alive; and Kyle knew that it, too, was Harry Keogh.
‘About Dragosani?’ Kyle came back to earth. ‘Yes, I believe you. I have to believe you. I checked out as much as I could and it was all exactly as you said. And as for Borowitz’s branch – whatever you did there, it was devastating! They contacted us a week later, the Russians, and asked us if we wanted you … I mean – ‘
‘My body?’
‘ – if we wanted it back, yes. They contacted us, you understand. Direct. It didn’t come through diplomatic channels. They weren’t ready to admit that they existed, and didn’t expect us to admit that we existed. Therefore you didn’t exist, but they asked us if we wanted you back anyway. With Borowitz gone they have a new boss, Felix Krakovitch. He said we could have you, if we’d tell them how. How you did what you did to them. What, exactly, you’d done to them. I’m sorry, Harry, but we had to deny you, tell them we didn’t know you. Actually, we didn’t know you! Only I knew you, and Sir Keenan before me. But if we’d admitted you were one of ours, what you’d done might be construed as warfare.’
Actually, it was mayhem! said Keogh. Listen, Alec, this can’t be like the last time we talked. I may not have the time. On the metaphysical plane I have comparative free-dom. In the Mobius continuum I’m a free agent. But here in the physical now I’m a virtual prisoner in little Harry. Right now he’s asleep and I can use his subconscious mind as my own. But when he’s awake his mind’s his own, and like a magnet I’m drawn back to it. The stronger he gets -the more his mind learns – the less freedom for me. Eventually I’ll be forced to leave him entirely for an existence along the Mobius way. If I get the chance I’ll explain all of that later, but for now we don’t know how long he’ll sleep and so we have to use our time wisely. And what I have to say can’t wait.