'My vehicle?' he mumbled, but Trask had already moved on.

The entire camp was coming awake, and overhead the shrill, pulsing whistle of a jet-copter cutting its thrusters; the whup- whup - whup of its vanes lowering it down from a sky in which the stars 119.

were only just beginning to fade. And the first faint nimbus of dawn silhouetting the treetops and shining on rising, writhing wisps of mist.

'h.e.l.l's teeth.'' Lardis Lidesci groaned where he came stumbling from the direction of the b ig articulated Ops vehicle. As he came, his tremblin g right hand gingerly explored a blackened patch of bloodied, matted hair on the left side of his head. It looked ugly, and was made to look worse by a flow of blood that had run down and congealed around his ear. 'd.a.m.n the b.l.o.o.d.y man to h.e.l.l.'' he said.

Meeting him halfway, Trask grunted: 'Miller?' 'Wouldn't you just know it?' Lardis nodded, then groaned and held his head again. 'I bedded down under the steps at the back of Ops. And I heard something in the dead of night, something breaking.

But these d.a.m.ned short nights of yours ... my system's all out of kilter with them ...

I'm used to sleeping, not these forty winks that you people take.''

'You didn't wake up till too late,' Trask grunted. I'm not a d.a.m.ned watchdog!'

Lardis snapped. Trask shook his head. Tm not blaming you, Lardis. h.e.l.l, I didn't think the crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d had enough guts to make a run for it! So if it's a nyone's fault it's mine. I sho uld have posted a guard on him.' lan Goodly came loping, looking more than a little angry with himself. 'The camp's awake,' he said, sourly.

Trask looked at him and growled, 'You too? It seems we're each and every one of us blaming himself.'

'But I'm the precog,' Goodly chewed on his top lip.

'Ri ght,' Trask agreed, 'but one man can't foresee it all. And let's face it, if you could antic.i.p.ate everything that was coming...'

'... Then I would probably have killed myself a long time ago, yes,' Goodly nodded.

'But d.a.m.n it, I did see this one!'

'You what?' Jake was wide awake now. 'So why didn't you do something?'

'I saw it in my sleep,' the precog answered. 'Saw it as a dream. Hub! When is a dream not a dream? When it's a glimpse of the future! But even if I'd known what it was, how would I have woken myself up? When you're asleep you're asleep.

And the future guards its secrets well.'

'And I thought I was the only one who was having problems with his dreams!' Jake said. At which Trask looked at him very curiously ... but only for a moment. There was too much to do.

'Okay,' Trask said, let's forget it. I'm to blame, Lardis is to blame, lan is to blame, and so is Jake-'

'Me?' Jake raised an eyebrow.

'For leaving the keys in your 'Rover,' Trask nodded. 'Anyway, no one is really to blame. The problem is we've grown too used to dealing with the weird, the abnormal, the monstrous. I mean, if it's mundane we tend to l et it slide. And you couldn't ask for anything more mundane than Mr b.l.o.o.d.y Miller!'

'I beg to differ,' said Goodly.

'Eh?' Trask looked at him.

'Can I put you fully in the picture now?' the precog said. And when Trask nodded: 'Miller's a strange one,' Goodly continued.

'When finally I woke up I was worried about my dream. So I went to see if everything was okay. I missed Lardis where Miller must have pushed him back out of sight behind the trailer's steps, but I found the Duty Officer. He's going to be okay, but he, too, h ad been bashed on the head. He was lying in the corridor outside Miller's bunk with the door on top of him. They're pretty flimsy, those doors. The hinges had been worked loose.

'I wasn't sure how long the D.O.'d lain there, so I checked that he was okay then went to see if the Ops Room was safe. The place was working as normal ... incoming, that is. Several messages, waiting for answers, and situation reports coiling up on the floor. There was some Cosmic Secret stuff that the D.O.

must have been processing when Miller attracted his attention.

Quite a bit of it had been decoded. Then I remembered how you'd asked for background information on Miller. That was there, too, coming 120.

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out of the printer even as I got there. But there was stuff that should have been there and wasn't ... like a lot of Cosmic Secret stuff from HQ? The printouts had been ripped through and some of the serials were missing. We'll need to get them duplicated, find out what was on them.

'Anyway, I grabbed the stuff on Miller, then began to wake people up. Now they're all awake, though I don't see what they can do to help. Oh yes, and here's all the background information on Miller...' He thrust some sheets of printout at Trask.

But before Trask could even begin reading, Goodly went on: 'Miller isn't as mundane as you think, Ben. But he is an obsessive nut, and the black sheep of the family. His uncle was big in Western Australian politics, got him work as a minor official in a job where he didn't have a lot to do but could indulge his thirst for power-in however small a way. Why else do you sup pose he's the guardian of a million square miles of nothing? To keep him out of the way, that's why. Good grief, and we had to get lumbered with him.' Come to think of it, it's likely that that, too, came about as a result of his uncle's influence.

'Okay, his obsessions. Anything...! I mean it: this fellow can get hooked on literally anything! An obsessive personality, it's as simple - or not as simple - as that. But guess what? Back in the late 1970s, early '80s, he saw Close Encounters and E.T. - well, who didn't? But this is Peter Miller we're talking about.'

He joined a whacky UFO group, of which he's still a member, and wrote two "Friendly Aliens Are Here" books that didn't get published. Need I say more? No way you could have convinced this bloke that we were in the right last night, Ben.

No way at all...'

'I see,' said Trask. And, after he had given it a moment's thought, 'Do we have any idea how long he's been gone?'

'Judging by the D.O.'s signatures in the message log, maybe three, three and a half hours,' Goodly answered.

Trask nodded. 'Then he could be anywhere by now. Two hundred and more miles away, for all we know.' So no good our trying to chase him. Very well, here are the priorities. I want Lardis 122.

and the D.O. taken care of as best possible. And I want a man - you, lan - in the Ops chair sending out wanted notices to all the police authorities in a two hundred miles radius ... better make it three hundred miles ... or better still, all of Western Australia!' But on second thought: 'No, wait, send out just one, to the Internal Security people in Perth. He's their man, after all, so let them go after him. Oh, and check that they have his profile, too, which ought to scotch any "wild stories" that Miller may be circulating. And finally, I want to know what was on those missing printouts ...'

Trask paused, shrugged, and eventually continued, 'Anyway, there's one good thing come out of all this: I won't be wasting half a. day handing Miller over to the IS people in Perth. And as for right now .

.. I.

'm hungry .' He headed for the trench with the back-burner, which someone had fired up. Tm going to have breakfast.'

By which time an agent was tending to Lardis, and all over the camp sleepy-looking people were on the move. The jet-copter had landed, and Phillips the pilot was leading a tall, grizzled stranger - strange to Jake, anyway - through the grey predawn light between the trees into the camp's clearing. Trask spotted them as they came striding through thinning ground mist; waving to attract their attention, he diverted his steps in their direction. J ake followed on behind him.

'Grahame,' Trask smiled a greeting. 'If it's no the laird himself.

It's been quite a few years now.' But while Jake might wonder at Trask's a.s.sumed accent, the stranger's seemed perfectly in keeping and went well with the swing of his kilt: 'Aye, that it has,' he rumbled through the full grey beard that gave him his grizzled aspect, grinning to display a bar of strong square teeth. 'What, twelve years? How goes it with you, Benjamin? You and yere bleddy gadgets!'

They shook hands ... but in the next moment the stranger's searching eyes, those oh so dark eyes of his, transferred their gaze to Jake. 'And this'll be the subject, is it no?'

123.

PART TWO.

'It is/ Trask nodded. 'As for the gadgets - like the one that flew you here in a matter of hours - well, they're improving all the time, if that in itself can be considered an improvement.'

But to be truthful, which I always am, I find it harder and harder to keep up. Future shock, or something. Anyway, it's not that side of the equation that concerns us, not this time/ 'Then if it's no the gadgets, it must be the ghosts/ said the other, still staring at Jake.

And Trask nodded. 'One ghost, anyway/ he said...

124.

The Why Of It

CHAPTER NINE.

Regression As they seated themselves at a folding table, to a brea kfast of black coffee in plastic mugs and bacon and eggs on paper plates, Trask made belated introductions. 'Jake Cutter, mah guid friend here is Grahame McGilchrist, Laird o' Kinlochry ...' But then he ahemmed his embarra.s.sment, and went on, 'Who, despite my atrociously false and corny accent, is the genu ine article.'

Shaking hands with the big Scotsman across the table, Jake said, 'A Scottish laird, living on the other side of the world? There has to be something of a story in that.'

'No much o' a one,' the other rumbled. 'It's simply a matter o' choice. See, the McGilchrist estate went broke all o' a hundred years ago. Oh, Ah had mah crumblin' old castle, but in truth Ah wiz a figurehead in the local community, and that wiz a'. But Ah still had mah pride. So, when a cousin o' mine pegged it out here in Oz and left me his wee place in Carnarvon, Ah came out and took over.

That was some nine years ago.'

'That "wee place" Grahame's talking about,' Trask cut in, 'is two and a half thousand acres of well-watered farmland east of Carnarvon. If he wanted to sell up he could go back home and be a proper laird again.'

'But Ah willnae do it,' McGilchrist said. 'Ah have lads t ae tend mah land and animals, while Ah have mah own interests.'

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'He has a practice in Carnarvon/ Trask explained. 'His own special slant on psychiatry.'

'Aye, and there ye have the other reason why Ah made mahsel scarce frae they so-called "British" Isles.' McGilchrist c.o.c.ked his head, frowned at Trask and winked at Jake. 'Tae escape frae these bleddy E-Branch types!'

'He worked for us a while/ Trask said. But Jake had been quick to catch on to something else. 'Psychiatry?' he said, suspiciously. '

And I'm the subject?'

Liz Merrick appeared out of nowhere, looking great in black slacks, cowboy boots and a frilly white blouse. Seating herself beside Jake, she said, 'And a suitable subject at that/'

'Thanks/ Jake told her sourly, while he waited for Trask's or McGilchrist's explanation. And: 'Hypnotic regression/ Trask said without further preamble. 'That's Grahame's speciality. It's not a "talent" as recognized by E-Branch - that is, it isn't some strange parapsychological ability, though the way it works for Grahame it might well be - but it does come in useful in cases like yours/ 'Cases like mine?' Again Jake waited.

'Where the subject has subconsciously deleted some part of his memory/ Trask said. 'Or something else has blocked it-'

'-Or he has simply forgotten it/ McGilchrist finished it for him. 'Ye're no a nutcase, if that's what's bothering ye.' 'You don't know him yet/ said Liz, and Jake scowled. McGilchrist grinned at Liz across the table and said, 'Will one o' ye kind gentleman no introduce me tae this beautiful wee thing? Oh, Ah ken Ah'm a mite late - a mite too old, maybe? - but still Ah'd like tae be in wi' a chance!'

'Too late?' Liz blushed at his words. But McGilchrist simply looked at Jake, smiled, and went on eating ...

Jake had been studying the Scotsman, and despite his apprehension he discovered that he liked him. McGilchrist seemed as open as a book. The hypnotist was tall, yes, but with his huge chest and ma.s.sive girth looked almost stocky. Jake could well picture him tossing a caber, and for that matter he could probably toss big men around as well. Except, Jake reckoned, that wouldn't be in his nature. He was the salt of Scottish soil, the hard flint of wooded mountains, however far removed; but there was a kindness - an understanding of Nature, human nature especially - in those dark eyes of his, however deeply they might probe.

It was frequently the same with men of rare ability. Even in Jake's few days with E-Branch he had been aware of it in Ben Trask's espers, the ones he'd met, and of course in the Head of E-Branch himself. The big Scotsman might not be as parapsychologically endowed as a true esper, but still there was that special som ething abo ut him; in those eyes, mainly - those hypnotic eyes - and the way they studied a man ...

Jake suddenly realized that they'd been studying him, reading him much as he had been reading the other. Perhaps reading him more, or more cleverly. And breakfast was over now.

'So when's it tae be?' McGilchrist stood up, stretched and yawned. 'G.o.d, but ye got me up early, Ben Trask! Ah wiz barely in bed ... then up again, when yere chopper landed in mah back yard. Ah wiz expectin' yere man, aye, but no at that hour.'

'I'm sorry about that/ Trask said, 'but we never know how long we'll be in any one place. And in fact we could be moving on at any time. I'm just waiting on some information from London, and then we'll be out of here/ He got to his feet, Jake and Liz, too, and she said, 'Can I come in on this? Jake's my partner, after all/ 'He might yet be your partner/ Trask answered immediately.

'We won't know that until we know.'

And Jake, as fidgety as ever, burst out, 'Then for Christ's sake let's get on with it! For whatever it is, it seems my future's hanging on it.'

'Yere future?' said Grahame McGilchrist, as Trask led them towards his tent. 'Ah, no. Ye'd be better off askin' the precog about that. And ye'll find that even he isnae that sure. But as 128.

129.

for the past: well, that's different. What's been has been, and it cannae be changed. But even if it's been well and truly buried - buried in or by the mind, that is - we can usually dig it up again, aye. And as for me: Ah'm one h.e.l.l o' an archaeologist/'

He turned his attention to Trask.

'So then, but this is a verra different E-Branch to the one Ah used tae know. They pilots, talkin' over there: Australians, aye?

And a couple more fiddlin' wi' those vehicles there? Seems ye're recruitin' far afield these days, Benjamin.' 'No, not really/ Trask answered. 'Not even if it was just our espers you were talking about. See, in E-Branch we've never much cared about colours, creeds or nationalities. In that respect you could even say that we've always recruited far afield. For example: David Chung is of Chinese stock, you are Scottish, and poor Darcy Clarke's forebears were French. As for Zek Foener. Zek ...' Trask's voice faltered and his face clouded over.

'Aye, Ah ken, and Ah'm sorry/ McGilchrist took his arm. They had arrived at Trask's tent. Freeing himself from the Scotsman's grip, his well-meant but inopportune commiseration, Trask turned his face away, occupied himself in fastening back the entrance flap to let in the predawn light. And in a while: 'Currently the team consists of a small nucleus of agents, mainly from London HQ/ he went on on. 'But the back-up squads are Australian military, and likewise all their gear. It's not likely that anyone would know that, because the tac signs have been removed from the vehicles and choppers, and of course the men themselves aren't wearing their standard uniforms. But the discipline is the same. And you're quite right, Grahame, there have been several changes in E-Branch. For one, we're no longer the shoestring outfit that we used to be. Financially we're pretty stable now; when you can pay your own way, it gives you that much more clout.

'Five years ago, through our dealings with Gustav Turchin, the Russian Premier, we got ourselves accepted and well- established. We could afford to come out of hiding - emerge, as it were, from the esoteric closet - but never too far. For let's face it, an organization like E-Branch can't remain secret if everyone knows about it.

'As for these Australians: obviously they're all subject to their own version of the Official Secrets Act, and they've all been hand-picked for their loyalty, their unswerving devotion to duty and their country. Isn't that just exactly how it should be?

Who better to do ... well, what I'm calling on them to do, than loyal subjects of the country under threat?'

'Under threat?' Suddenly McGilchrist's tone was sharp as he took his seat at Trask's small table.

Trask nodded gravely. 'Perhaps the entire world/ he said.

'Except the world doesn't know it yet, and it mustn't/ 'A secret invasion?' McGilchrist looked from face to face, trying to fathom their expressions. 'As bad as a' that, is it? Then ye can only be talkin' about one thing.

Oh, Ah dinnae need tae ken it a', but is it... Them?' An ex- member of the Branch, he'd had access to the files on their long-term war against the Wamphyri; indeed those files had long been required reading for all Branch operatives and senior affiliates.

'Grahame, you weren't part of the Sunside/Starside thing/ Trask told him, 'and from past experience I know how dangerous it could be to put you in the picture now. So please let it be. But yes, it is ... Them. And now perhaps you'll forgive me for getting you out of bed in the middle of the night? As for Jake Cutter here, he could be very important to us - but very important - in the work we've still to do/ The big Scot ha d heard enough and was suitably impressed. 'Then we'd best be at it/ he said. 'But tell me, just what am Ah supposed tae be lookin' for? Can ye no offer a wee clue?'

Trask looked torn two ways. He glanced first at Jake, then turned back to McGilchrist. 'I can, but that would mean telling Jake, too/ 'What's that? But doesnae he have a right to know?'

McGilchrist frowned. And Jake said: 130.