Jake frowned again. 'I don't see the connection.' 'Neither do we,' Trask said. 'Not just yet. But if there is one, we're going to find out about it.' His eyes were speculative, bright with some strange emotion - hope, perhaps? - where they studied Jake's face ... But then he shrugged it off and said, 'Meanwhile Lardis is right. Decontamination time for you two. And I do mean right now.'

And L iz and Jake both knew enough - they had se en enough now - not to argue; and so headed for the command vehicle ...

When they had left: 'I missed it/ the Old Lidesci spoke to Trask. 'But he did actually do it, then, this Jake? He used the Mobius Continuum?'

Trask nodded. 'And that makes three times now that we know of.'

'Then we must accept that he is what he is/ Lardis shrugged. 'It seems obvious to me.'

'And I wish it seemed as obvious to me/ said Trask. 'It's just that I don't like the coincidence - that at a time such as this he turns up.'

'But what better time?' Lardis asked him.

'Or what worse?' Trask countered. 'The point is, we know what he might be, but we don't know what he is. The only thing I know for sure, it isn't an act. He really doesn't know what's going on/ 'And you haven't told him?'

'What do you want me to tell him, Lardis? That part of him has been occupied by someone who talks to dead people?

Someone who can even call the dead up out of the earth, to walk again?

Someone who, at the end of "life as we know it," was himself a vampire - and not only him but two of his sons, too? Should I tell him that in Starside, in your worl d, one of Harry Keogh's sons wa s a Lord of the Wamphyri, while another was The Dweller, a werewolf? And if Jake didn't think I was a madman, if he actually believed me, what then?'

Again Lardis's shrug. But then, perhaps grudgingly: 'I see what you mean/ he growled. 'If it was me, I'd run like all the devils of h.e.l.l were after me!'

'And so might he/ Trask nodded. 'And in the Mobius Continuum, he can run a very long way. We can't afford that, can't afford to lose him. Which is why we'll just let this thing develop for a while, and see what happens ...'

And some little distance away: As Jake and Liz pa.s.sed a patch of blac kened, tarry ground, and a slumped mou nd that still gave off the stench of roasting flesh: 'What?' Jake paused, and his face was very pale. 'What? Do you hear that, those screams? Jesus, what the h.e.l.l is that?' He turned in a circle, looked all about, but no one was there.

For a moment Liz said nothing. She had heard nothing and couldn't imagine what he was talking about - or maybe she could but didn't want to. But it was plain to see that Jake was badly shaken.

'Screams?' she said. 'The hiss and sputter of sap, perhaps, boiling out of a scorched branch?'

'Well, maybe/ Jake shuddered. 'Maybe/ But he really didn't think so. What he knew he'd heard had sounded much more like the screaming soul of a sinner, roas ting in his own private h.e.l.l. Or perhaps someone shrieking his final denial from a. world beyond the flames, a world beyond life.

And the bubbling patch of scorched earth continued to give off steam and smoke ... 53

CHAPTER FOUR.

Gadgets And Ghosts The decontamination booths reminded Jake of those antique telephone kiosks so treasured by collectors. They weren't red and didn't have those small gla.s.s panes for windows, but they were much the same size and even smelled bad. Not of urine, no, but garlic; Jake couldn't make up his mind which was more nauseous.

Situated in the back of the rearmost articulated trailer section, and fitted with doors as small as the toilet doors on an airplane, there were three booths on each side. Inside each booth was a disposal unit for soiled clothing; discarded items were sucked away, irradiated and microwaved, spat from an exterior chute and burned. The procedure covered all clothing. Which meant you were left buck-naked in the waterproof and airtight booth, where the rest of the process was entirely automatic. And that was when you discovered why these claustrophobic little shower-units - for that's what they were - smelled so foul. At first it was just hot water, stinging like BB shot where it blasted down on you from overhead jets, but in a few seconds it was something else: a mixture of something chemical and antiseptic, and something vegetable and oily. The chemical saturated and then evaporated, but the oil stayed. And - d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l! - you were supposed to rub it into your pores. But if there was one thing Jake especially hated, it was garlic! There was an intercom system; you could talk to people in the ops section, or to other agents undergoing decontamination in the booths, whichever. Also, the uppermost sections of the booths were gla.s.s-panelled on the sides from the neck up, and from there down stainless steel. This last was simply a matter of common decency; there were female as well as male agents.

Jake had chosen a central booth and Liz had taken the one to his left. Switching on her booth intercom, she said, 'I see you picked the middle one. You could have taken the one on the end, so there'd at least be a booth between us!' Looking s.e.xy as h.e.l.l (for all that Jake could only see her face, her long slender neck and shoulders), she pulled an impish face at him through the gla.s.s.

But he only grinned - a rare occurrence in itself where Jake Cutter was concerned - and answered, 'Oh, really? And why didn't you choose one on the other side of the vehicle, so you wouldn't have to be near me at all?' Then on the spur of the moment he leaned forward, flattened his hawk nose to the gla.s.s panel, and made as if to look down inside her booth. There was no way; the gla.s.s was misted at the edges and it was all gleam, steam, and cream down there. 'Oblige me and stand on your toes, will you?' he grunted - and was so astonished at himself that he bit his tongue - and was equally amazed at Liz when, for a single instant of time, she actually seemed to consider doing it!

It was the look on her face: a not-quite innocence, a curiosity, a magnetism that w orked both ways. She looked beautiful like that: hair plastered down, make-up all washed away, and her skin shiny with oil - yet still beautiful. Jake was drawn by it - and repulsed. There was something he'd vowed to himself, and he would stick by it to the end, until it was done. And anyway, Liz didn't stand on her toes but simply blushed. Or maybe that was as a result of the steam. In which case it would be hiding his colour, too ... thank the Lord!

'Anyway, what are you doing here?' she said. And maybe it was his imagination, but her voice sounded just a little husky.

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55.

Must be the intercom. 'I mean, you've made it amply clear that you don't want to be with us. So wh y are you?'

Jake glanced at the intercom panel. Liz's b.u.t.ton was the only one that was lit up. No one else was listening, so their conversation would be completely private. That was a.s.suming he wanted to talk, of course. And suddenly he did. 'I didn't have any choice,' he said. 'I could be here or I could be locked up. Well, I've been in jail, and here is better. But after tonight, I can tell you it's not much better ...' There he stopped short, reconsidered. Why bother? Why try to get close to anyone?

He'd been close to someone before, and she'd paid for it. Once was enough.

'They ... they jailed you for murder?' Liz said, and her face was very serious now. 'That's what I've heard, anyway.'

'I killed some people,' Jake nodded. 'And if I get half a chance there are still two more who I want to kill.' He admitted it oh so matter-of-factly, and for a moment his brown eyes were very nearly black; they were bleak, too, almost vacant in their intensity. Liz felt that Jake's eyes looked at something a thousand miles away, perhaps a scene from memory, his as yet undisclosed past. Or maybe it was just an effect of the misted gla.s.s.

But then he smiled, however wanly, and was animate again. 'So, there you go. That's me, Mr Bad M an. So what's your story, Liz? What's a nice girl like you doing in a freaky outfit like this?'

She felt cheated, because s he knew he hadn't told it all. Not nearly. 'Tell me just one more thing,' she said, shivering because the spray was cooler now, and also because of the look she'd seen in his eyes. 'About you, or about those men you say you killed. Did they deserve it?'

He looked at her, then answered her with a question of his own. 'What about those creatures tonight: did they deserve it?'

'But they were vampires, monsters!'

He simply nodded, left it for her to figure out...

By which time the spray had become shampoo, and they knew it was nearly over, this part of it, anyway. As he soaped himself

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down Jake reminded her, 'I'm waiting.' Despite his doubts, his resolve, still his interest couldn't be denied.

'Hmm?' she said. Then: 'Oh! Why am I here? That's easy. I was doing some work for a psychic-resear ch group. Looking back, I suspect it was an E-Branch recruiting ploy. They haven't said as much, not yet, but I gather they're pretty hush-hus h until a person is well-established with them. Anyway, the job was easy, the money was good and I needed the work. My office was in central London; I interviewed people, allegedly for Mind Magazine, and if they responded positively to a certain set of questions, then I was supposed to work with them and carry out a series of tests.'

She shrugged, and through the misted gla.s.s Jake saw her shoulders give a little twitch, the suggestive movement of her o oo under arm flesh as the weight of her ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s settled.

'Anyway,' she went on, 'I used an old German Prismaton-70 in the tests, and-'

'A what?' Jake cut her off.

'It's a machine that chooses psi symbols at random.'

'Psi symbols?'

Liz sighed. 'Five designs: a star, a circle, a square, a plus sign, and wavy lines.'

'I'm with you now,' Jake said. 'The machine picks the symbol, and the test subject has to guess which one it is.'

'Except it's not supposed to be a guess,' Liz told him. 'I mean, they're supp ose d to concentrate and try to know what symbol it is! That's what ESP is all about.'

'Go on.'

'Well, at first I would get a few lucky guessers ... they might come up with two or three correct symbols in a row and I would get all excited.

But in the long run it never worked out to anything, and I'd be disappointed because, you know, I wanted to earn my money.

But for me to be successful, obviously my test subjects had to be successful, too. And so I found myself willing them to get it right. Someone would say, "Square!" And I would be telling myself, "No, no, no! That's wrong! It's the wavy lines!"

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Until I reached the stage when I was saying, "No, that's wrong," or, if someone got lucky, "Yes, that's right," before they named their choice, before they even spoke!'

'Let me guess,' said Jake. 'You didn't know what was going on.

You thought that either you were mistaken, or the machine - the, er, Prismaton-70? - was playing tricks with you, or-'

'But it couldn't be the machine,' Liz cut him short, 'because it's only a machine/ '-Or that you yourself/ Jake went on, 'must somehow be "in tune" with your subjects. Mental telepathy, right?'

Sh e nodded. 'It was me. It wasn't that my subjects, an incredibly high percentage of them, were good at sending - which is E- Branch parlance for telepathic transmissions - but that / was good at receiving. I was a receiver, a mind-reader. I could "tune in" to other people's thoughts, yes. Not all the time and not without a lot of effort a nd concentration, but sometimes/ 'Which was something you'd never noticed before?' Despite the events of the night - the fact that he'd observed for himself her obvious effect on Trennier - still Jake was a little sceptical. 'I mean, that you knew what people were thinking?'

She grinned. 'Well, I frequently knew what men were thinking ....'' Slowly her grin disappeared. 'No, seriously, I hadn't the foggiest idea. But as soon as I did know, then it was like Topsy/ 'It just growed and growed .. / Jake thought it over.

'And then there's you/ Liz said pointedly. But he wasn't having any and simply looked away.

The pungent soap had stopped and it was plain water now, and cold. Just as they might have started complaining, the system closed itself down and a light began flashing on the intercom.

It was Trask, wanting to know, 'Are you people done? Good.'

So get out of there and make room for someone else/ The rest of the team, all of them, would go through a less intensive cycle. But Jake and Liz weren't finished yet.

Dry towelling robes dispensed themselves from compartments in the rear of the booths, with plastic-bag 'bootees' for their feet. Then the doors concertinaed of their own accord, and outside in the corridor other agents were coming aboard and making ready. But Jake and Liz stayed apart from them and went on into th e body of the ops vehicle and the next s tage, where Trask himself administered hypodermic injections while the old man, Lardis Lidesci, stood watching. Until finally they were obliged to drink something vile.

'G.o.d!' Jake gasped, clutching his throat. And again: 'G.o.d, but if I'm not going to be sick as a dog ...!'

'If you are,'said the Old Lidesci, Til take it as a very bad sign/ And Trask grinned, however coldly, as Lardis fondled the grip of his machete.

'He won't be sick/ Trask said then. 'And even if he is it won't mean anything. I remember I was sick myself, desperately, the first time I tasted that stuff/ 'Garlic?' Still Jake felt like gagging.

'Derived from/ Trask shrugged. 'Anyway, it's good for you ...

or so I'm told/ Turning, he led the way down the corridor, past doors to a half-dozen cramped bunks, and through a telescopic conduit and hatch into the vehicle's forward trailer section. Then at last they were there: in the ops room itself, the mobile nerve- centre ...

lan Goodly was in the hollow oval that formed the central desk. He swung round the oval on a tracked chair, studying the various illuminated wall-charts and monitor screens. The place was hi-tec heaven, well in advance even of anything else that AD 2011 had to offer. In complete contrast to the articulated sh.e.l.l of truck and trailers - indeed, utterly contradicting that outer facade, with its mundane and easily identif iable 'Castlemaine' and 'x.x.xX' legends - this interior was something out of speculative fiction. And never a can of beer in sight.

Goodly was wearing what looked like a virtual reality

59.

headset that was constantly tuning itself to whatever event or location he was observing. But as he swung into a new position and Trask and company came between the precog and the ever-changing screens, so Goodly brought his chair to a halt and took off the headset.

The Old Lidesci shook his grizzled head in astonishment and grunted, 'After two years of work ing with you people, I'm still not used to it.' Not used to ... to this.'

Trask nodded his understanding. 7 know what you mean/ he said, 'but you won't get too much sympathy from me. h.e.l.l, it's been more than thirty years for me - and I still feel the same about it/ What was it Alec Kyle used to say? How did he put it? Or was it Darcy Clarke?' He shrugged. 'But what difference does it make, eh? It could have been any one of us. "Robots and romantics. Super-science and the supernatural. Telemetry and telepathy. Computerized probability patterns and precognition. Huh! Gadgets and ghosts.'" Well, that's it. That's E-Branch/ But Jake wanted to know: 'Just what is E-Branch? What's it all about? Don't you think i t's time we saw the whole picture?' He glanced at Liz. 'Well, me at least... especially after what you threw me into tonight?'

'Threw us into,' said Liz. 'I'm not as much in the dark as you, Jake, but it's still pretty murky around here.' She looked at Trask, perhaps accusingly. 'And after all , while tonight was one of the first things we've done, it might also have been the last.'

But lan Goodly shook his head. 'No/ he said. 'You have a way to go yet, you two/ 'Precog/ Jake said, sourly. 'That's how I've heard people refer to you. But how can you possibly know for sure?'

And Trask said, 'Because he ha sn't let us down yet/ 'And what if tonight had been the first time?' Jake wasn't convinced.

But Trask only raised a white eyebrow. 'So what's your big problem, Jake? Are you trying to kid us you haven't been doing your best to get yourself killed these last three years?'