E-Branch - Invaders Part 38

Chung sjace - Us slightly damp skin gleaming a pale yellow, his nostrils pinched, eyes slanted more than usual in deep concentration -gazing out of his window, north-west at the distant curve of the world, the horizon, the sea's wide expanse.

Then his gaze becoming a vacant stare, and his eyes almost glazing over as his mind ... as his mind went out!

No, not his mind but a probe. And Liz Merrick a part of it - riding it like a carrier wave - sharing telepathically in the emptiness of the locator's search, his far-flung probing of the psychic void ... or what should be a void!

But there was something there -faint, so very faint, but definitely there - and she felt it like ... like an emotion as opposed to a conversation. Like something spiritual, or lacking in spirit. For it was s.h.i.+very cold, this thing, where it wa lked on he r spine with icy feet. And now she knew its name.

'Well?' Trask was leaning over her. And: 'Fear!' Liz blurted it out. 'I felt fear!'

The look on her face; her great green eyes wide in sudden knowledge where they stared into his ... and Trask took a pace back from her. 'You were afraid?'

'Not me, no,' Liz shook her head. 'He, they - whoever they 431 43.

were - were afraid. That's what it was, Ben: terror, gnawing at them, eating their hearts out.' 'Them?'

'More than one, I'm sure.'

'Uncertain a moment ago, and now you're sure?' She shook her head. 'I just wasn't willing to believe that there could ever be such hopelessness, such utterly black despair. I suppose I thought it was the emptiness, the psychic void before David's probe found - well, whoever they are - and that the fear was in fact mine. But now ...' 'Yes?'

Again she shook her head, searched for words. 'I know that I, personally, have never been that afraid - that I couldn't be that afraid - unless something happened to cause me to lose all hope, all faith/ Trask nodded grimly. 'In short, unless you'd been vampirizedf 'I... I don't know. I imagine so.'

But now Trask took a different tack. 'Or could it possibly have been fear of discovery? Had someone detected David's probe and reacted to it?'

Liz shook her head. 'No, I don't think so. It was simply -or not so simply - an aura of overwhelming doom.'

'Good!' Trask grunted. 'And on both counts. One, that you weren't detected. And two, that therefore whoever it was couldn't have been afraid of you. But they were afraid, and I think we can all imagine of what.'

He looked up from Liz, from face to face around the room, and paused at Lardis Lidesci. And Lardis said, "Thralls. These were thralls, and fairly recent.

Thralls who don't have much contact with their master, but who know he's there nevertheless. Aye, and they have every right to fear him!'

'Another nest,' Trask nodded. 'Why not? It's enti rely possible. Then he frowned. 'But out at sea?' 'My point exactly/ said Chung ...

'Maps/ Trask said, turning to Jimmy Harvey where he sat at a keyboard. 'Jimmy, se e if the computer has an even smaller-scale map of that area, and blow it up on the wall there/ 'I've been working on it/ said the other, tapping a key.

'Consider it done/ The wall screen turned blue, if not entirely blue. For in the specified area there were the dotted outlines of reefs and other irregular shapes: islands or islets, and a legend identifying them as Heron Island and the Bunker and Capricorn groups, the latter because they lay on or close to the Tropic of Capricorn.

Other lettering at the top of the map said that this was The Capricornia Section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

And very quietly, Trask said, 'So, not necessarily a s.h.i.+p after all/ But, looking sick, the locator David Chung could only shake his head and remark, 'What a fool he is who has no faith in his own G.o.d-given skills!'

Trask might have denied it, but lan Goodly beat him to it. 'Not at all/ the precog said. 'When we use talents like these, it's against nature. I mean, even we appreciate that what we're doing isn't, well, mundane. Is it any wonder we're sceptical of our results? Or that we occasionally fail to see their significance?'

And then Trask said, 'You're right, lan, and I was on the point of making much the same remark. But as I've already said, this isn't a skills contest. How we get there doesn't matter a d.a.m.n, only that we get there. Where these monsters are concerned, the end always justifies the means. Any means/ 'Huh!' said Lardis. 'And in Starside, whenever a man asce nds to a vampire Lord and becomes Wamphyri, they have much the same saying - it's not the route but the getting there.

In that respect, and except that their evil has been made ten times as great, these monsters are much like men, you know/ 'Because they were men / said Trask. 'An d G.o.d knows we're none of us pure. Very well, now let's get on - but as soon as we're done here I want the Duty Officer to contact our aide in Prime 432.

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Minister Blackmore's office. We need authority for liaison with someone high in the administration of the reef marine park. We need to know who or what is out there on those islets in the Bunker and Capricorn groups ...' A moment's pause and he turned to Goodly: lan, you and Lardis were in the other chopper party. And just like David here I know you, too, have a problem. Time now to have it out in the open, get it cleared up.'

The precog stood up, tossed a pamphlet attached to a tourist map onto the table. 'I picked this up at the Skytours helipad,' he said. It's a freebie: a give-away route map into the Macpherson Mountains, and a colour brochure describing the wonders and benefits of the Xanadu health and pleasure resort. But that's not all I picked up. There was - or I should say there may have been - something else, when we flew over the place.'

Sitting at the table (feeling more than a little useless, and wondering what he was doing her e), Jake remembered the odd, str ained look on the precog's face - the way his hands gripped his seat's armrests - after they'd descended to have a closer look at the resort. And now his interest focussed more definitely on Goodly as he saw once again the same nervous tension in the man's face and att.i.tude.

'The thing is,' Goodly went on, 'I have precisely the same problem as David. The location: all that unhampered sunlight.

I just can't see how the kind of creature we're looking for could exist up there ... if that's what it was about.' Seeing Trask's face, he held up a hand placatingly. 'Yes, all right, I promise I will get on with it. But there are complicati ons ...

'First: as we were descending toward the place, so that we could get a better look at it, our pilot/tour-guide mentioned a fire that occurred during the El Nino back in 1997. And I found some of his descriptions vivid and perhaps evocative: the place was like a tinderbox ... it went up like so much kindling, et cetera.

'Also, while we've been here I've heard quite a lot of talk about the Great Fire of Brisbane, and what with this awful heat and all-'

'You saw a fire?' Trask cut in.

Goodly nodded. 'But I didn't see its cause, and I couldn't tell when it was happening. I mean, it could have been a mental response to what the pilot had said. For example, when someone says "do you remember" this or that other thing, you are made automatically to see it, relive it, in your mind's eye.

Do you see? It could be that our pilot had evoked just such a response in me. And Ben, if this was one of my things, then it was only the very briefest glimpse. Smoke, and leaping flames ... gouts of yellow fire roiling up to a night sky, and a full moon hanging there ... and someone shouting, "To me, to me!"'

Listening to him, Trask displayed a kind of amazement, as if he'd only just realized something that should have been obvious for a lo ng time. 'How long have I known you?' he said. 'It sometimes seems that I've known you forever. And yet I've never thought to ask you - do you sometimes see the past?'

The precog raised an eyebrow, said, 'I remember the past, just like anyone else.' And then a wry chuckle. 'It's just that I sometimes remember the future, too!' But he was serious again in a moment. 'That's what we have to consider, Ben. The future. And we know just how devious that can be - or is it perhaps my talent that's devious?

I've never been able to figure it out.'

'Okay,' said the other, 'so you don't know whether it was the past or the future. It's just one of those ti mes when y our talent leaves you in doubt. But there's one clue, at least.'

'Oh?' Again Goodly's eyebrow.

'You said it was night-time when Xanadu went up in flames, and-'

'Not Xanadu,' Goodly stopped him. 'Just a handful of weekend or holiday homes, on the false plateau where Xanadu stands now.'

'Whatever,' Trask waved a hand. 'But you did say there was a full moon?'

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'Yes.'

'Well, that ... is one h.e.l.l of a clue!' He turned to Harvey where he sat at the computer keyboard. 'Jimmy, can you get into the local libraries on that thing?'

Harvey looked up from where he was working and smiled. But before he could say anything Trask said, 'I know, don't say it: you're way ahead of me. The newspapers? For the fires of'97?'

Harvey nodded towards the wall screen. 'On the screen, just about any time ... now!'

And: Gadgets and ghosts! though t Jake, as headlines sprang into life on the big screen, and Harvey brought the small print into focus. The location, date, and time, everything was there, written into the report. And Trask said: 'Good! Now then, Jimmy, can you cross-reference that date with phases of the moon?'

It took but a moment, but then Trask's shoulders sagged as he slumped into a seat and said, 'd.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l! The last thing I wanted. A b.l.o.o.d.y full moon!' And looking at the precog: 'So maybe you can see the past, and not just remember it, after all...'

'And maybe he can't/ said Jake. It was the first time he had spoken, and now everyone looked at him. And after a while: 'Well, go on then,' said Trask.

'Shouldn't we take the next step?' Jake said. 'The same as we did with David Chung? I seem to have been hearing about synchronicity, coincidence, and what have you ever since I collided with this outfit. So couldn't this be exactly the same thing? I mean, just because there was a full moon on the night in question back in '97, that doesn't mean the precog wasn't seeing the future up there at Xanad u. Or aren't there going to be any more full moons? Me, I'm wondering when the next one is due.'

Trask frowned, stared at Jake, then turned again to Jimmy Harvey. 'Do it,' he said.

And in a very short time the answer was up on the screen.

'Three days' time!' Trask husked then, open-mouthed, staring at the date and full-moon symbol. And Goodly cautioned: 'But does it mean what we're thinking? Are we going to do it, or is it our old friend El Nino again? Will it result from us attacking the place and burning out a nest, or from a freak of nature, a terrible disaster? I still can't see how it's possible for our quarry to exist up there.'

And Jake said, 'Neither could the locator see how a vampire could live out on the ocean. And maybe I'm stupid, or a lot less bright than you people, but I can't see there being a fire up at Xanadu without we're the cause. Surely the first thing we do if Xanadu isn't what we're looking for, we'll warn whoever's responsible about the fire. And we'll be able to tell him when, so there'll be no loss of life.'

The precog shook his head. 'You're not at all stupid, Jake. In the dark it's always the blind who see best. But believe me, you don't understand the future. I don't understand the future! And I say again: it's not knowing what will happen that counts, but how it's going to happen. The only sure thing is once it's foreseen, then it will happen. As for loss of life: I did hear that voice calling, "To me! To me!"'

'Rescuers?' said Liz.

'Or one of us, pulling the teams out,' said Tra sk. 'Didn't you recognize the voice?' Goodly shook his head. 'Not over the roaring of the flames, the shattering of gla.s.s.'

'Gla.s.s?' said Jake. 'Did I miss something, or is that something you didn't mention before?'

'I just this minute remembered it!' said the precog.

'There was plenty of gla.s.s in that topmost dome,' Jake said 'In the pleasure dome itself. Black gla.s.s, from the look of it, covering everything bu t the wind ows.'

'No/ said the precog. 'Not black gla.s.s but solar panels - a sort of gla.s.s, I suppose.

The upper dome was covered in them: a very startling effect. But the windows themselves, 436.

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they were gla.s.s, certainly, and they circled all three lower floors.'

Trask was looking at the colour brochure. 'You think that the casino's going to burn?'

But Goodly could only shrug his defeat. 'It's all speculation. Don't ask me what I think. I still don't know for sure if the fire was in the past or the future. And I'm d.a.m.ned if I can see how any kind of vampire could live up there!'

'But I can,' said Jake, watching Harvey searching for Xanadu, and finally putting that area of the Macpherson Range onto the screen. And, as before, Jake was suddenly the centre of attention. 'It was something Lardis said that got me thinking about it,' he explained.

'Me?' said Lardis, looking surprised.

'When you said, "Now wouldn't this make a wonderful aerie, without all this sunlight, of course."'

'That's right/ said Lardis. 'I said that.'

'Look at the map,' Jake told them. 'That dog-leg fold and the false plateau sitting in the middle. The mountains are much higher, and steep-sided. The fold goes north to south, and then backtracks. Certainly Xanadu gets plenty of sunlight, from, say 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 in the evening. But the rest of the time it's in the shade, and during the night the darkness must be utter - except for electric lighting, of course.'

'Artificial lighting can't harm them/ said Trask. 'Szwart doesn't like it but it can't kill him. Only natural light, sunlight itself, can do that.'

'Not quite true/ Lardis barked. 'The Dweller, Harry h.e.l.l- lander's changeling son, used artif- er, artificial light, yes - in the form of ultra, er, ultraviolet lamps, when he battled the Wamphyri in his garden in the mountains west of Starside.'

'But that's sunlight, Lardis/ Trask told him. 'Artifical, I'll grant you, but sunlight nevertheless.' And to Jake: 'Maybe you're right. For sixteen or more hours a day, the sun isn't in fact s.h.i.+ning directly onto that place. When it is s.h.i.+ning, however, it's doing it very brightly/ And Jake answered, 'But don't they sleep during the day?'

And again Lardis: 'In Starside, when the sun's rim came up over the barrier mountains, the Lords and Ladies usually ran to their northermost apartments. And there they slept - but even there with drapes at their windows! But if they were caught out in the open Sunside of the mountains, as occasionally happened, then they had to find caves or deep holes in the earth 'til nightfall/ Jake nodded, and said to Trask, 'So, do you think there are no "deep holes in the earth" in Xanadu? But that brochure says it all. Fancy fountains, swimming pools, saunas and gymnasiums. An aerial monorail, and a casino. I mean, do you think that all of that stuff is above ground? No, a complex like that is like an iceberg: you only see its tip. All the cellars and conduits; the pipelines, tunnels, sewerage, and water systems; the reservoirs, pump-, boiler- and storage-rooms, and refrigerators - they're all underground - or rather, they're on the old bed of the plateau, while the resort has been built above them. That's why the place looks so clean and uncluttered .. / Trask blinked, shook his head as if to clear it, and said, 'Do you know, I believe you could be right? This creature we're looking for could be right there, in or under Xanadu!' He tossed the brochure onto the table. 'A place like that, where we would least expect to find him!' Then once more he said, 'Three days, and we have a lot to do ... not least to prove our point, clear the way before we can take any real action/ 'Prove our point?' Liz looked at him.

'Make sure we're on the right track/ Trask nodded. 'So we can be certain when we go in that what we want is there. And as for clearing the way: well, the Gibson Desert job was one thing but Xanadu is quite another. All of those people; we'll have to find a way to get them out of there before we go in - and without arousing anyone's suspicion.. / Th en, offeri ng another curt nod: 438.

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'Right, so let's get to it. This night is still young, but there may be only three of them left.'

Heading for a door leading to an outer room, where the SAS Commanders were poring over their maps, Trask's heart was a little lighter; for now at least he had something to tell them.

But before leaving, he turned and said, lan, David, Liz - and you, too, Jake - I'm very grateful. You've all worked well, despite initial doubts. But today was only your first time out and you're not finished yet. I want you all back in those Skytours choppers again tomorrow. So, maybe we have struck it lucky this first time, but who knows what else could be hiding out there?' Then he looked at his technicians: the gnomish Harvey, and the gangling Paul Arenson.

'But there are more skills than this freaky stuff that we espers use - or that uses us, whichever,' he said. 'Our ghost-talents may serve us well, but without your gadgets for back-up they wouldn't be nearly as effective. So well done, all of you. And now get your thinking caps on and try to look ahead. Jimmy: dig up some plans of Xanadu, its subsurface systems, et cetera, lan: please draft a comprehensive record of this meeting. Paul: it's late now, but first thing tomorrow ensure I have access to Prime Minister Blackmore's office so that I can organize a liaison with someone on this marine park thing.'

Turning away, he offered one of his rare smiles and said: 'And that, I think, is that. Now I have to speak to our Australian friends. I'll see you all in the morning ...'

The next day, a Sat.u.r.day, they split the teams up. Lardis, Jake and Liz were together on the northern routes (Trask didn't want Liz anywhere near Xanadu); Goodly and Chung flew south, each of them hoping to complement the other's strange talent.

The trips were mainly uneventful; the precog's mind was a frustrating blank - at least where the future was concerned - and the locator daren't get too close to Xanadu in case someone, or something, should locate him! But in any case and as per Trask's orders, they were looking at different mountains this time out.

As for Trask himself: He had a very satisfying day, and when the teams returned to the safe house he was waiting to speak to them. This time he brought the SAS in on it - at least for the first stage of his briefing. For while it wasn't his intention to explain his findings in their entirety (the way E-Branch had used its combined paranormal talents to discover their targets) still he did have to display those targets, and advise these men as best possible on what they would be up against.

This was done with the aid of the wall screen; Trask supplied the narrative: 'This island in the Capricorn Group - its grid reference is shown alongside - is our secondary target. Now, I've called it an island, but in fact it's little more than a rock or coral reef. It has a few trees, some other tough vegetation; nothing much to mention. It was a marine park conservation station some years ago but that moved to Heron Island, forty miles away. All that's there now is the reef, a shallow lagoon, a private villa on the island, and, we presume, our enemies. But I have to emphasize that they are probably lesser enemies, which is to say we don't think they're of the order of unpleasantness that we were obliged to deal with in the Gibson Desert. However, and having said that, you should remember that they will be vampires.

'How many of them? No more than five or six, which is six too many. But with a chopper, a hired vessel, and half a dozen or so of your men - along with Jake Cutter here and Lardis Lidesci from our side - that should be sufficient. You, which is to say the military, will have command; but you'll listen very carefully to Lardis, and you'll take his advice in the ... the handling of whatever you find on that island. Take my word for it, Lardis is the forem ost authority in these matters.

Very well, what can you expect to find in the villa? The master of the house for one, a man of some fifty-eight years of age.

Easy? But he'll be a vampire, and as strong as any four or 440 441.

five of your men! Then there'll be his married daughter and her husband, also his son and possibly a woman friend. The worst of them will be a fourth man, not family, who we think will be acting in the role of t heir keeper. And he will be dangerous, much more so than the others.

'Now, the problem is this: some if not all of these people will look and act perfectly normal. A bit edgy, perhaps. But if you were to strand your boat on the beach there, they'd probably help out; they might even call the coastguard for a.s.sistance.

That's because they want to appear normal, because they daren't be discovered for what they really are - not until their master decides they're no longer of any use to him, or her. So, a.s.suming it's a "him" for the time being, what use are they to him?

'Well, for one, the island is a bolthole: it's a place for the Vampire Lord to hide in the event he gets driven out of his aerie. So in fact it's much similar to the Old Mine Gas Station in the desert. You must plan to take it out accordingly and, if necessary, in exactly the same way. With an air strike, yes, if it comes down to that - though of course we'd vastly prefer the kind of hit at which you people so excel: seek and destroy, and as quickly and quietly as possible.

'And that's about it, all you need to know about this secondary target for the time being. But I would like to take this opportunity to remind you: you won't be taking any prisoners ...

'Which leads me to your main target. Xanadu, the so-called "health and pleasure resort" high in the Macphersons. And so it is a resort, but only as a front for the ugly Thing that's runing the show.

'And here's another problem: this time we don't know - we have no idea - how many men he's vampirized. The only thing we can say for sure is that when they know they're being hit, then they'll protect their master with all that's left of their miserable lives.

'Oh yes, and one other thing. When the Wamphyri came into our world, they brought thralls or "lieutenants" with them.