NECROM

by Mick Farren

  "So you see how you qualify for the Four Requirements of Anu Enlil."

  Gibson took a deep breath. "It all seems a little farfetched. For one thing, I didn't kill the king. I only took the rap for it."

  "Everybody thinks you did and that may be enough for the prophecy. A lot of prophecies are really just a matter of perception."

  Gibson started shaking his head as if by doing it he could ward off this new idea. "If it's all the same to everyone, I really don't think I want to have anything to do with this Anu Enlil business. I gave at the office."

  Nephredana took out a compact and, still chewing gum, checked her makeup. "You may not have much choice in the matter."

  Gibson scowled. "Why didn't I guess that? So what happens to me if I qualify for the prophecy, do I get taken out and burnt at the stake or what?"

  Slide grinned. "Hell, no. You do okay on this one. When He wakes and returns, you become the Master of Humans in your dimension."

  "He?"

  Slide's grin faded. "Don't make me say his name."

  "You mean Necrom?"

  Slide winced. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

  Gibson blinked. "I'm not sure I want to be Master of Humans in my dimension."

  Apparently satisfied with her face, Nephredana put away her compact. "It sure beats living as a bond slave, or, worse still, culled out with the excess."

  Gibson frowned. "Culled out with the excess."

  "When He walks again, the numbers of your species will be appreciably thinned out."

  Gibson swallowed hard. "Thinned out."

  "Well, you have been rather overbreeding for the last few centuries."

  Gibson couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Thinned out? Just like that?"

  "What did you humans expect? To go on breeding exponentially until you'd filled up the known universe?"

  Gibson leaned forward and clasped his head in his hands. It was starting to hurt. "I wish someone would offer me a drink."

  Nephredana produced a flat, one-pint, sterling-silver flask and handed it to Gibson. "Why didn't you ask?"

  Gibson took a grateful pull on the flask, and fire exploded in his throat, than roared through his head and chest. He coughed and his eyes watered. "What the hell was that?"

  "I call it a sheer drop."

  "No kidding."

  He remembered the frightening cocktails that Nephredana had ordered in the bar and at Raus's party and was thankful that he couldn't see what he had just drunk. Damn, but he wished that he had some more of the streamheat's hero serum. Being pitchforked from police headquarters into a car full of mad demons who proceeded to inform him that it was the eve of destruction and that the cause of all his troubles might well be because he was the subject of some ancient prophecy was taking a sorry toll on his nerves, and he needed something to dull the edge. Despite the taste, he took a second hit from Nephredana's silver flask, and after the rerun explosion had rippled through his nervous system, he let loose a long sigh. "You know, all I really want is for the world to leave me alone for a while."

  Nephredana's smile was brittle and impatient. "Didn't you hear, Joe? You can't always get what you want."

  Gibson nodded. "I imagine there's also a catch to all this prophecy business."

  Slide quoted in a low voice. " 'And qualifying according to the prophecy, the man shall pass the Portal and, entering the Realm of Gods, shall look upon the Sleeper in the act of waking.' "

  Again, Gibson shook his head, "I really don't think so. I don't want to pass any portals and look on any sleepers, and, even if it's inevitable, I'm still going to go kicking and screaming."

  Nephredana laughed delightedly. "That's my Joe Gibson."

  Any further protests from Gibson were cut short by Yop Boy pointing at a light that had started flashing on the control panel. "Looks like we got a soft spot, boss."

  Slide pushed back his hat. "It sure does. With luck, we'll be out of here momentarily."

  "I'm not too sure about that, boss."

  Slide glanced at Yop Boy. "What now?"

  "More lights out there."

  "Another roadblock? "

  Yop Boy shook his head.

  "I don't think so. This is something weird."

  Now Gibson was scanning the road up ahead. So far he couldn't see anything, and he didn't really want to imagine what Yop Boy might define as weird. It was a couple of minutes before he saw it, a pale-gold light, way off in the distance. Slide didn't slacken speed, and as they came closer Gibson could see that the light was some sort of beam coming from an object that appeared to be hovering above a point on down the highway.

  "Helicopter?"

  Yop Boy cursed under his breath. "That's no helicopter. In fact, you're not going to like this, boss."

  "I'm not."

  "I think we've got a saucer up ahead. As far as I can tell, it's sitting on top of the the soft spot just like it was guarding the trans point."

  Slide pursed his lips. "Goddamn it to hell. I hate those fucking things."

  Gibson leaned forward. "What are they?"

  Slide snarled at the beam of light. "I don't know, that's why I hate them. I've never, in all my days, ever got a satisfactory explanation of those things." He began to slow the Hudson until it was only moving forward at a crawl."I don't take any chances with those things. I don't trust them."

  "You think they're alien spacecraft?"

  Slide shook his head. "I gave up that bullshit theory a long time ago. Never could believe that aliens could act so weird. If they were aliens, there would have been some kind of contact by now. Aliens wouldn't keep up the same terminal skittishness century after century."

  Gibson was leaning forward on the back of Yop Boy's seat, staring through the windshield. "I heard a theory once that UFOs were really time machines from some point in the future."

  Slide nodded. "I heard that idea a few times myself, and I have to admit that it's one that best fits with the facts. It certainly accounts for the lack of contact. I imagine time travelers would be real hung up on not causing random time displacements and what have you. You must have heard about all that stuff? Tread on the wrong beetle and, a million years down the pike, a whole civilization vanishes without trace. I gave up on that theory, too, though. I just didn't like to think about it. There are enough contemporary problems without bastards coming back from the future to fuck with you. I don't think about these things anymore. I just hate the sight of goddamn saucers."

  It was now possible to make out details of the craft, and Gibson's heart sank as he recognized the configuration of the thing, the gray metal superstructure like a giant hubcap with portholes ringing the top turret and the three large hemispheres on the underside.

  "It's an Adamski saucer."

  Slide turned and looked at Gibson as though he was surprised that he knew about such things. "Adamski was a fucking liar. He claimed that he went for rides in one of these things with tall handsome guys from Venus. Take my word for it, there are no guys from Venus, handsome or otherwise."

  Nephredana snorted. "He was just making it up to sweeten his book deal."

  Gibson continued to stare at the saucer. It was fascinating to see one close up. It must have beeen about forty feet across and was hovering at about its own diameter above the roadway. The single wide beam of golden light streamed down from a source that Gibson couldn't see, somewhere on the underside, at a central point between the three spheres. It formed a circular pool of gold on the roadway that was like a spotlight on the stage at a Vegas casino. It only needed Frank Sinatra standing there singing "My Way" to complete the picture.

  "I've seen saucers like this before."

  Slide dismissed Gibson with a slight wave of his hand. "Yeah, I know, one buzzed your plane while you were on the way to London. It was a lot different from this one."

  Gibson was angry at the curt dismissal. "I'm not talking about that one, I mean saucers exactly like this."

  Three heads turned in unison.

&nbs
p; "Where? When? What happened?"

  "It was on the way to Luxor. After we'd left Gideon Windemere's house in Ladbroke Grove and taken a conventional road out of town."

  Nephredana interrupted him. "We know that, we were following you."

  "That's right, you were. Anyway, out in the country, near some ducky English village, we hooked into the laylines."

  This time it was Slide who interrupted. "So that's where you vanished to."

  "So we're lost in the ozone in this kind of layline fairyland and suddenly these UFO's started strafing us."

  "Ones like that?"

  Gibson shook his head. "No, it was another kind that were attacking us, ones that looked like white glowing disks with a kind of blue aura around them. I thought that we were going to be blown all to hell by these red fireballs they kept shooting at us, and then these other guys showed up like the goddamn cavalry, ones exactly like that one, and ran off the first bunch, seemingly saved our ass."

  Slide was giving him a decidedly squint-eyed, Clint Eastwood look of suspicion. "They helped you and the streamheat?"

  "Right."

  "So they might have been saving you or they might have just been saving the streamheat."

  "I guess so."

  "Or they may have just been having a beef among themselves."

  "I guess that's possible, too."

  "It still sounds too much like they're getting into our business."

  They were now just fifty yards from the silently floating craft, and Slide brought the car to a halt.

  "If that thing doesn't get out of our way and fast, we're in a lot of trouble."

  Nephredana blew a quick bubble and snapped the gum back into her mouth again. "Can't we go looking for an alternative soft spot?"

  Yop Boy shook his head. "No time."

  Slide opened the driver's door. "There's no point in sitting here like a bunch of idiots. I'm going to take a look at that thing."

  Slide started walking toward the saucer. Gibson opened his door to follow but Nephredana quickly put a hand on his arm. "Don't be ridiculous. Anything could happen with that thing."

  "Slide's going out there."

  "He's Yancey Slide."

  Gibson grinned at her as he slid out of the car. "Yeah, and I'm Joe Gibson. Don't forget that."

  Yop Boy didn't say a word. He just climbed out of the car and followed with the ever-present assault rifle at the ready.

  Nephredana's voice rasped after the three of them. "Damn you, you macho morons, wait for me!"

  They walked until they were thirty feet or so from the saucer and then they stopped, standing side by side, well back from the pool of light. The saucer hung above them like a silent floating enigma. No hatches opening, no ladders extending to the ground, no octapoids rushing out to carry off Nephredana and no zapping death ray.

  The other three stood and watched while Slide fumed. "At the very least the bastards could take the trouble to explain what they want."

  Nephredana produced the silver flask. "I've never seen you too keen to explain yourself to strangers."

  "That's not the point."

  Nephredana spat out her gum, took a long pull on the flask and then passed it to Gibson. Gibson took a hit, wondering if the stuff could make a man go blind, and handed the flask to Yop Boy, but Yop Boy didn't drink any and passed it straight to Slide. Slide didn't hesitate. He put the flask to his mouth and tilted his head back, seemingly draining it. When he was through, he let out a satisfied gasp and looked up at the saucer.

  "I'm going to have to do something about you. The question is what."

  At that moment a flight of jets roared across the sky heading east. It was too dark to make out anything but the faint flare of their exhausts. Whatever the jets were and wherever they had come from, they were traveling without navigation lights.

  Gibson looked at the dark sky in alarm. "Are those the enemy bombers?"

  Slide was also looking at the sky. "Kamerian interceptors, but the Hind-Mancu wings can't be far away. We have to do something about this fucking saucer or we're going to find ourselves caught out in the firestorm."

  Nephredana retrieved the flask and upended it. Slide had finished off the booze. "So what do you do about a flying saucer?"

  Slide paced round in a small frustrated circle three times before he halted and slapped his fist into his palm.

  "That's it, I can't fuck around any longer." He gestured to Yop Boy. "Fetch the doombeam."

  Yop Boy looked at him doubtfully. "Are you sure about this, boss?"

  "Just get the damned thing."

  Yop Boy started back toward the car. Nephredana was also staring dubiously at Slide. She didn't even have to say anything for him to snarl angrily. "Don't you start."

  "The last time you tried to use the doombeam you blew away half of that Mexican village and all but discorporated yourself."

  "You have a better idea?"

  Nephredana shook her head. "I'm not sure that the doombeam is an idea at all. What do you hope to do to the saucer with that thing? Blow it up?"

  "At the very least, I'll annoy it."

  Nephredana shook her head in disbelief, "Now we're annoying flying saucers."

  Further argument was halted by the arrival of Yop Boy with the doombeam. Gibson could hardly believe what he was seeing. The thing looked like an antique, art-deco vacuum cleaner mounted on a telescopic steel tripod. It resembled something that might have been pressed into service as a prop in a 1930s Flash Gordon serial.

  "Where the hell did you get that thing?"

  "Don't ask."

  Nephredana supplied the answer. "He built it. Yancey always wanted a genuine raygun. Some of it's made from stuff that the AEC had locked up in a vault at Oak Ridge until Yancey and some of his friends broke in and stole it. He matched that up with some black-market streamheat components and a few odds and ends that he got from this weird dimension where reptiles developed a civilization and eventually he created a weapon that's probably too dangerous to be fired."

  Slide ignored her. He was bending over the tripod, carefully sighting the device. When he was satisfied, he stepped back. "You'd better all take cover."

  Nephredana started walking quickly away.

  "I'm taking cover all the way back to the car."

  Yop Boy remained beside Slide, but Gibson turned and followed Nephredana. Being one of the boys was okay, but there were limits. The two of them had no sooner reached the car than a massive and blinding fireball filled the space beneath the saucer. At the same time a thunderclap of an explosion almost deafened them. Gibson's jaw dropped.

  "Sweet Jesus Christ!"

  It seemed impossible for Slide and Yop Boy to have survived the blast and conflagration. The doombeam had the desired effect, however, and the saucer flipped up as though it had been given a hot foot. The gold light narrowed down to a tight pencil beam and skittered over the ground as though it was searching for who or what was responsible, then the saucer went straight up and zigzagged away at high speed.

  Gibson looked on in horror: the actual surface of the road was burning. "There's no way that they're going to walk out of that."

  Nephredana was surprisingly unconcerned. "I know I tend to bait Yancey but you shouldn't underestimate him. He's virtually indestructible."

  In confirmation, two figures came walking out of the flames. Their clothes were trailing ribbons of smoke, and the right sleeve of Yop Boy's ninja suit was actually burning. Despite a certain charring of his duster, Slide was grinning like a maniac. "I said I'd annoy them."

  Nephredana yawned. "My hero."

  Slide rubbed his hands together. "Okay, let's all get in the car and get going."

  In the moment that he spoke, the sky behind the car became brilliant, blinding white. It was as though a star had exploded just beyond the horizon, and Gibson, even the three demons, cringed away from it. A brief moment of the most terrible silence made the world seem as though all sound had been drained away and replaced by light, a h
ideous killing light that rapidly condensed into a single brilliant fireball, blazing over the city of Luxor like a new sun, while evil smoke roiled up around it, beginning to form into the familiar mushroom cloud.

  Even Slide stood awed. "One of their bombers made it through early."

  Then the spell broke and he was galvanized into action. "Get going! Get into the car!"

  The shock wave hit moments after they were all inside. Slide's hands flew over the control panel as the Hudson bucked and shuddered on its springs in the grip of an instant hurricane and debris slammed into the car's windows and bodywork. The engine caught and it roared forward, accelerating like a dragster for fifty yards as nuclear hell howled all around. When he reached the spot over where the saucer had been hovering, Slide slammed on the brakes. He worked on the panel again and then sat back.

  "Okay, here we go. Leaving town one jump ahead of the holocaust."

  Gibson braced himself for the same kind of mind-wrenching hallucinations that had accompanied his previous transfer from dimension to dimension. To his surprise, nothing happened except that the Hudson sank smoothly into the ground.

  The White Room

  GIBSON HAD IT figured. After three weeks of intensively studying the minutest workings of the small and very exclusive clinic, the theft of an old discarded raincoat that had been left behind by a crew of workmen who were repainting the clinic's dayroom, and a trade of his accumulated candy ration with another inmate in return for a blue Mets baseball cap, he believed that he was ready to go. He'd discovered that there was a loophole that happened every day during the lunch period. For over two months, Gibson had been taking his lunch in the dayroom with the other patients who were trusted to eat outside their rooms. It was supposed to be an advanced level in patient interaction. Gibson had initially hated this communal lunching and would have much preferred to have gone on eating in his room. Most of his mealtime companions were doped to the eyeballs and had trouble finding their mouths, and, since the lunches served at the clinic uniformly consisted of various flavors of semiliquid goop, it was always a messy and unsightly affair. Even John West, who was an urbane sophisticate by inmate standards, occasionally missed his mouth with a plastic spoonful of creamed spinach or strained beats, and some of the others looked like ambulatory Jackson Pollacks by the time they had made it through to dessert.