Necroscope IV Deadspeak - By Brian Lumley Page 0,64

He'd apparently been on the verge of it but needed a spur. Which came when the East German GREPO found him talking to Möbius in a Leipzig graveyard. That did it, triggered his mathematical genius. He teleported - or used the Continuum - to escape from them. That's why I have his file here: I wanted to check that I had it right. And it's also why I'm double-checking with you.'

'So?'

"The way I see it,' Wellesley continued, 'Keogh's like a computer that's suffered a power failure: the information he requires - and which E-Branch wants to use - is no longer accessible to him. Oh, it's probably still in there but it's jammed in limbo. And so far we haven't been able to shake it loose.'

'What do you propose?'

'Well, I'm still working on it. But the way I see it, if we apply just the right spur... with a bit of luck it could be Leipzig all over again. You see, Keogh has been having some bad dreams lately; and if what you say of him is true - oh, I don't doubt it, but nevertheless if - then any dream awful enough to frighten him must be really bad. But perhaps not quite bad enough, eh?'

'You want to scare him silly?'

'I want to scare him almost to death. So close to death that he escapes into the Möbius Continuum!'

Clarke sat still and silent for long moments, until eventually Wellesley leaned forward and quietly said:

'Well, what do you think?'

'My honest opinion?'

'Of course.'

'I think it stinks. Also, I think that if you plan to fool with Keogh you'd better take out extra insurance. And finally I think that it had better work, because if it doesn't I'm up and gone. When this is finished, no matter how it works out, I won't be able to work with you any longer.'

Wellesley smiled thinly. 'But you do want me out of here, right? And so you won't... hinder me?'

'No, in fact I insist on being part of it. That way I can be sure that if Harry has any breaks coming, he'll get them.'

Wellesley continued to smile. Oh, he'll get his breaks, all right, he thought. Broken all the way through, in fact!

And he was one of only a handful of men in the entire world who could think such things - especially here in E-Branch HQ - and be certain that no one could hear him doing it.
Chapter 6
6

Sandra

Sandra Markham was twenty-seven, possessed a beautiful face and figure, and was a neophyte telepath. As yet her talent was a fifty-fifty thing; she had very little control over it; it came and went. But where Harry Keogh was concerned, that might be just as well. Sometimes, in Harry's mind, she'd read things she was sure had no right to be there - or in any sane mind, for that matter.

She and Harry had made love only an hour ago, and afterwards he had at once fallen asleep. Sandra had come to know Harry's habits well enough: he'd stay asleep for three or four hours, which for him would serve as a full night's rest. As for Sandra: she would have to sleep tomorrow, at her own place in Edinburgh, making up the night's deficiency.

Staring right into Harry's pale, relaxed, almost little-boyish face, she saw no sign as yet of the rapid eye movements which would tell her that he was dreaming. So for now she too could relax. It was Harry's dreams which most interested her. That was what she tried to keep telling herself, anyway.

She worked for E-Branch. Sometimes she wished she didn't, but she did. That was how she earned her daily bread (the meat and gravy, too), so she really shouldn't complain. And in fact there hadn't been too much to complain about, until Harry came along. At first he'd been just another job - a new friend to get close to, learn about and try to understand - but then she'd got in deeper. It had 'just happened', and afterwards she'd wanted it to happen again, and again. Until in a little while he wasn't just a job but more a way of life, not only 'on her mind', as it were, but under her skin as well. And finally she'd started to suppose, and still did, that she was in love with him.

Certainly working on Harry's case (she hated thinking of it like that, but it was the truth however she dressed it up) had been more interesting