It was like being in a cavern, but that was where any similarity ended. The rock had been hollowed into the shape of a perfect sphere, a giant bubble well over a hundred and twenty feet in diameter. The curving shiny-black wall all around was glass-smooth except for the gaping mouths of energy 'wormholes' which riddled it everywhere, even in the domed ceiling. And at the centre of the core ... the Perchorsk Gate itself, encased in a huge carbon steel shell some thirty feet in diameter, whose three welded sections were supported on massive hydraulic rams. Those rams could apply terrific pressure to hold the fused sections together in one mass, if that were ever necessary. While within this protective (defensive?) shell of steel, the Gate supported itself, floating there dead-centre, right where it had been born in a melting pot ofalien energies.
At least, that was the scene which the two Mobius intruders had expected to see; that was what they had seen the last time they were here. But now:
Around the spherical steel 'egg' which contained the Gate, a suspended catwalk ten feet wide had been drawn back in sections to allow for the egg's hatching. The catwalk was equipped with consoles, computers, viewscreens, but
was empty of people, with the exception of a handful of white-smocked, red-splashed bodies where they lay grotesquely crumpled and lifeless, close to the master console. They had been scientists and were only recently dead, a minute or two at most. Nathan knew this with the sure instinct of a Necroscope; he felt the confusion, disbelief, panic of people who had known that death was a thing that only happens to others ... which is what we all believe until it happens to us.
Nathan and Trask had emerged from the Mobius door on the outermost rim of a Saturn's-ring system of platforms, where a perimeter catwalk encircled the core around its equator. And, as good fortune would have it, they'd emerged behind a shielding plate of aluminium fixed to the walkway's rail, making it a vantage point where they were hidden from the view of the rest of the core. The shield had smoked-glass windows through which, if ever the Gate should be opened up, it could be viewed without the customary dazzle. But of course the Gate wasn't likely to be opened up ... was it?
Some ten feet higher and sixty feet away, around the gradual curve of the glossy-black wall, a landing fronted the perfectly circular mouth of a shaft running at forty-five degrees upwards into the rock. A railed stairway clung to the wall, with wide steps descending from the landing to the catwalk. Reaching out from the perimeter, a spidery gantry with an overhanging walkway formed a bridge to the inner catwalk with its consoles, computers and corpses - and its glaring white light.
Light, yes: three giant cat's-eye slits or wedges of light shining out like solid bars from the four-foot gaps in the carbon steel shell, where the mighty rams had drawn back and torn the welded sections apart, leaving strips of weld hanging down like the rind of some strange metal fruit. And the alien light came flooding from the Gate, of course, exposed like the blind, free-floating eye of a gigantic Cyclops. Or the all-seeing orb of some colossal shewstone. Or maybe the seething evil of Pandora's Box - standing open!
But this was the static picture, a first impression following the darkness of the Mobius Continuum, as when a light is switched on and the contents of a room print themselves on the viewer's eyeballs. Static, motionless, soundless . .. until, as Nathan and Trask realized they were actually here, suddenly it erupted into life! Then -
- A veritable chaos of sound, motion and deadly action!
The men on the inner walkway were not the only dead bodies here, and more were being made even now, so that it was immediately apparent what was happening: that Premier Gustav Turchin had done with his softly-softly approach and was going straight for the throat; he was attempting to beard Turkur Tzonov in his den. Beard him? He was trying to kill him!
'Christ!' Trask yelped, as automatic gunshots echoed and bullets ricocheted from the metal trim of the catwalk. 'We've walked into a war! And Turchin ... not a word of warning from him!' As more bullets spattered, he grabbed Nathan's arm. 'God Almighty! Let's get out of here.'
But Nathan, crouching down, said, 'Wait! I have to see.'
'See what?' Trask gasped, but in fact he already knew what. Nathan wanted to see Turkur Tzonov, what he was up to, what was going on here. The Perchorsk Gate connected with Nathan's world in a parallel universe, and the Gate stood open. The Russian's intention had been to invade Sunside/Starside with a crack infantry platoon loyal to himself; to colonize the vampire world, open it up as a vast new satellite of Mother Russia and sack it for its precious metals, thus financing a resurgence of expansionism and old-style communism here on Earth, in what had become a politically, ecologically and financially bankrupt USSR. During the course of which, Premier Turchin would be assassinated and replaced by a new, 'democratically elected' leader of that vast region's polyglot peoples - Tzonov himself, of course!
That had been the state of play some four months ago. But then, when Nathan had come through the Perchorsk
Gate from Sunside/Starside, Tzonov's plan had been discovered and passed on through diplomatic channels to the Russian Premier; since when nothing much had appeared to be happening. Now it was becoming apparent that indeed things had been happening. Gustav Turchin had been busy and this was to have been the culmination of the Premier's efforts, the realization of Turchin's goal: to catch Turkur Tzonov and his people red-handed and round them up. But it was equally obvious that Tzonov, the head of the Opposition - Russia's E-Branch - had seen it coming; this firelight in Perchorsk had to be the result of his contingency planning.