In the bowels of the place, beneath its foundations, the river's rush had been perted, channelled, controlled. There were monitors down there, to register the presence of anything which might prove inimical to mankind. And there was . .. machinery which permitted the entry but not the exit of anything bigger than a minnow or small eel. Any man or creature not of this world, coming from the underground Gate and flushed down the river, would find other than safe refuge here. And alive, dead, or undead, the thing would undergo something other than a metamorphic change. Electrocuted, gutted, boiled and ground down, eventually he, she or it would emerge as so much mush or paste to be dried out and incinerated. In this matter, as never before, E-Branch had been very specific .. .
Above ground, the Refuge sprawled in three tiers, like a modern, half-buried ziggurat against the face of a cliff once carved by the Danube but now standing well back from the river's swirl. The lower level was built on pylons sunk into the scree; between the pylons, reinforced concrete walls had been frescoed into autumnal patterns and shapes. An outsider would probably think it unlikely that there was a cellar back there, though certainly anyone approaching the wall too closely would hear a low whine of turbines when it rained or the cloud ceiling lay low on the foothills; especially in the winter months, when the resurgence powered the Refuge's heating and lighting systems. Outsiders, however, were kept well back behind gardens and a high perimeter fence right on the rim of the river. The entire location was a 'Sovereign Base Area', a small British enclave on foreign soil.
Having first run the gantlet of the Refuge's security or 'purification' systems, water from the subterranean sump now resurfaced below the east-facing wall into a large lily pond. From there it made its way to the Danube via a deep concrete sluice, forming a slow, shallow stream in the dry season, but running to something of a torrent when the rains came.
So the Romanian Refuge fulfilled its prime objective, and its staff only half-jokingly referred to themselves as 'Guardians of the Gate'. But the kids in their care weren't simply a cover. They had always been well-cared for and, as long as Anna Marie English was in charge, the same level of care was guaranteed. Orphans, cripples, socially deprived kids (one might call them all of these things, and even 'inmates' in certain cases): they occupied the Refuge's two upper tiers. Their classrooms, workshops and recreational facilities were in the lower tier, along with the staff accommodation, directly above the site of the original resurgence. But the infrequent whine of turbines was lost in a massively reinforced and soundproofed concrete floor.
The room where Trask and Nathan had emerged from the Mobius Continuum was little more than a storage room off the inner corridor of the central tier. Anna Marie had ordered it cleared out so that Nathan would have ample room in which to work. Her admin office was on the same level, with a huge window facing south. Looking out of that window, Chung, Trask and Nathan had gazed across the sunlit river into Bulgaria on the one hand, and Yugoslavia to the east. But borders no longer mattered a great deal, and so the scenery was simply 'country'.
From the admin office they had gone down into the Refuge's lower level, and in a gymnasium where an instructor worked out with some of the kids they'd looked east through patio windows across a wide balcony set with tables and chairs, to where the gravel drive wound across gardens and into the trees, right up to iron security gates set in the high fence. The place would be generally secure, at least. But not from determined men.
And that was when Trask had decided: 'It all looks far too peaceful out there - but it isn't!' It was his talent working, telling him that this was all a lie. 'We're observed. The Refuge as a whole is under scrutiny. Probably Tzonov's people. Or CMI -' and quoting Anna Marie: '- or both. You're right: we have to get Nathan out of here asap.'
They didn't bother to visit the basement (Anna Marie told Trask that in any case it was all very quiet and ominous down there, like the stomach of some hungry, patiently hibernating beast), but left David Chung back at the admin office to take calls and went up to the Refuge's top level. There, Trask met some of the staff, people who actually were what they appeared to be: teachers, nurses, physio-and psychotherapists, people who cared what they were doing, and for the kids they were doing it for. But among these specialists were others, ostensibly 'under instruction'. And these were Trask's men, seconded to E-Branch from Special Forces, security-vetted and sworn to secrecy.
They were ex-Navy men, cavers, spelaeologists, experts in subterranean exploration and underwater equipment, and
Trask had been rotating their duties here for as long as the Refuge had existed. These were the men who would handle the machinery down in the guts of the place, if ever that should become necessary, and they were also the men who would escort Nathan to the Gate in the lightless bowels of the foothills. (Lightless with the exception of the Gate's own enigmatic glare, of course.)
There were five of them, three of whom had already visited the Gate. That had been two weeks ago, when the water-level had gone down after a long dry spell. But the good weather had continued and they now considered it safe to take both Nathan and his weapons up the resurgence and into ... into another world. Into his own world, of course. Or at least take him as far as the threshold of that world, from where he would go on alone.
As Nathan was introduced to them, so a Romanian youth came running with a message from Chung: E-Branch was secure. Nathan could commence ferrying his weapons into the Refuge ...
The Mobius jumps were no problem at all, and each time Nathan used the Continuum, so it got easier. There was no longer any sensation of 'speeding' to a place, he simply 'went' there.
And E-Branch HQ was where he went, where lan Goodly had seen to the readiness of what was to become his Sunside arsenal. Nathan had picked up a case of fragmentation grenades, compact flame-throwers normally used in rat-infested sewers, nite-sited, infra-red, laser-guided machine-pistols, three llmm SLRs, inches-accurate to three-quarters of a mile, a pair of light-weight, 30mm rocket-launchers, ammunition galore. He had also developed a certain fondness for a new model all-metal crossbow used in quarrying, forestry and the Canadian logging camps. The half-inch bolts were full of plastic high-explosive and could bring down a pine tree faster than any chainsaw. Fired into a trunk from a safe distance, the core of the bolt would detonate 1.5 seconds after impact. On Sunside, crossbows were weapons Nathan had always known and respected, but this model was something else. He'd picked up six of them.
All in all the weight of these armaments came to around five hundred and eleven pounds, but Goodly had bagged them in lots of one hundred pounds. Five trips to and fro, with espers loading Nathan's arms into his arms at the London end, and Trask and Chung offloading them in the Refuge. If CMI or anyone else knew about it they weren't making any noise, and the job was done in less than five minutes ...