by Brian Lumley
Goodly wanted to say, “The dome?” but figured he’d find out soon enough.
And he did, and then was glad he’d kept silent.
For soon they were into a part of the city that he definitely recognized. Ahead of the vehicle, suddenly the air was full of a shimmering distortion; and the buildings beyond it—while they were gradually falling into disrepair—were still more or less intact.
As they drew to a halt before the shimmer, Chung spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Hello the barrier. Let us in.”
There was no barrier as such that the precog could see, but the uniformed man beyond the shimmer gave a nod, spoke into his own walkie-talkie, and a moment later the distortion went away.
“Ah!” said Goodly then, beginning to understand. And frowning, Chung turned to him and asked:
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
But the precog never got to answer. Not in his “dream,” for his mind had moved on again. He had moved it on…
This time Goodly—the current, time-travelling Goodly—wasn’t himself present. At least not as a viable, corporeal presence.
On the first occasion, on the bus, he’d experienced a true vision. For in that world as he had foreseen it, he definitely wouldn’t have been riding a bus…not with red Wamphyri eyes! The next time, in the half-track, that had been him; he’d actually played himself, inhabited that future Goodly and seen out through his eyes. This meant that he was learning; his vampire-enhanced talent was growing, exploring its own potential.
Now, this third time out, his talent reverted to its previous parameters, so that he “saw” the future without the future seeing him. Also, the time and location weren’t randomly thrust upon him but determined by the precog himself. And knowing that he did it, he went to E-Branch HQ, into the Ops Room, during an introductory briefing by Trask.
Ben Trask, on the podium, leaning on the lectern exactly as the precog had seen him so often before, now talking to a handful of new recruits. David Chung and Paul Garvey, Gustav Turchin and the Minister Responsible, Jake, Liz and Millie—even Goodly himself!—they were all there, standing at the back watching the proceedings, along with many other members of old E-Branch. And a few of them were still entirely human.
As for the six seated people, four men and two women: they were fatigued, dirty, and their eyes were feral. They were vampires, yes, but only recently.
“The reason you’re here,” Trask told them, “is because you managed to hold out, because you lasted all this time out there on your own, fighting back and refusing to give in despite that the country is overrun. In short you’ve done what we’ve done—or what we haven’t done—you haven’t succumbed. You’ve refused to kill other men in order to prolong your own existence. That, and only that, is what sustained you. You’re vampires, yes, but you’re human, too. And we need you because there are so few of us. It’s your choice: to stay and work with us, or to go out in the streets, where you’ll live till you die the true death. For while you haven’t taken the blood of your fellow men and women, there are millions in the world who have. They’re killing themselves off and we can’t stop it, because once they’ve tasted it…well, that’s the end of it.
“But in this place, under this dome of energy, that doesn’t happen. It isn’t allowed to happen, and if you ever forget that…then we will kill you. Survival of the fittest, yes. And we are, and we intend to remain, the fittest.
“We have food. We have healthy animals—a farm of sorts, a Noah’s Ark—and we’re learning how to synthesize blood. We’ve got scientists here, geneticists and microbiologists, and we’re getting better at what we do all the time. There’s got to be an answer, a better way, and because we know it’s there we’ll find it…that’s a fact. You can be a part of our future, too. And believe me, we do have a future.” Trask paused to glance at the other Goodly standing at the back of his audience, smiled knowingly and continued. “We know that quite definitely, that there will be a future. And meanwhile, as for what we’ve got here:
“This place is our protection, a dome of energy half a mile wide that covers all of central London. It was a foreign invention originally, but it didn’t work for them; in fact it caused a disaster. But with the help of a Russian friend—the man who brought us the specifications—we’ve made it work for us.” Now he glanced at Gustav Turchin, an older, much less robust Turchin of course, but still human. For now as then, the old fox was tenacious in his own right.
Trask gave him a grateful nod, and carried on:
“The power source is a nuclear generator buried deep underground beneath what used to be our seat of government. A secret national emergency measure from cold-war times, it remained inactive until…well, until the emergency. Let’s face it, there couldn’t have been a greater emergency.
“We learned of this power source from one of our oldest and most learned members,” now Trask turned his gaze on the crimson-eyed Minister Responsible, “a man who is still with us to this day—as we hope you’ll be with us from now on.
“And that’s it. For the time being that’s all I have to say. But as I’ve already said, you have a choice: stay here and work with us, or return to the streets, the terror, the end of humanity. Except here humanity—albeit a different humanity—will go on.”
That was enough for Goodly. Having heard what he had wanted to hear, so did the precog go on: into the future, but further, much further than ever before…
This time the precog’s mind found its own way. For Goodly could home in now on his target times and subjects as surely as David Chung homed in on radiation or people of his acquaint. And when he knew he’d reached a point of revelation, there he paused.
Once again he was the ghost, not participating in the scene but simply viewing it. It seemed to him that he was in a classroom—or perhaps a church, or a cross between the two—but it was only dimly lit, with tall windows set high in the walls, so that the light came slanting in overhead, crisscrossing, without reaching down to the children. And for the time being, that worried him: that the light wasn’t reaching them.
The teacher, or preacher, was a woman. She wore dark-tinted spectacles and held a chalk in a white-dusted hand. She was the only one who stood in a pool of reflected light that loaned her something more than a dusky outline. And behind her on a blackboard, there were names and words that Goodly couldn’t help but recognize: Perchorsk…Necroscope…Liz…Porton Down…Trask…New Eden…E-Branch…the Minister Responsible…and last but not least, Goodly!
It was the end of the lesson, and now the teacher was testing her charges. She took up a rod, pointed it at a word on the blackboard, and said, “Gordon Clarke?”
A small boy stood up. Like all the children he was a featureless blob in the gloom. “Perchorsk,” he said, in his little boy’s voice. “The bad blood came from Perchorsk, and those who brought it died there. The true death, aye.”
As he sat down the pointer moved on, and the teacher said, “Jimmy Chungskin.”
Another small figure stood up, reciting, “The Minister Responsible. He Ministered the Power and gave glory to The Dome.”
“Annie Goldfarb,” said the teacher, moving her pointer. And a small girl answered:
“Liz. She was wife to Jake, mother to Harry Jakeson. He was a Necroscope, the fifth of his line.”
The pointer moved on; the teacher called a name. And, “Porton Down,” a tall, eager boy jumped up, his voice like a chant. “Jake the First brought Wise Men out of Porton Down; they were the Keepers of the Blood; and he brought others who understood the power of the sun, to harness it and make The Dome.”
“Alice Techschild,” said the teacher. And:
“E-Branch,” came the answer. “Ben Trask was its father, and E-Branch mothered and fathered us all.”
“John Garviskin,” said the teacher, her pointer on the move across the blackboard. “Er, but without reading my thoughts, if you don’t mind!”
“Eden,” a well-built boy tried not to snigger. “They ca
lled The Dome ‘New Eden,’ which means ‘Innocence’ and a ‘New Beginning.’ And when The Dome failed they went out into the land, and found the clean places and built again.”
“Too smart by far, John,” said the teacher, after he’d sat down. “Don’t think I didn’t feel your probe, clever-clogs…!”
Then once again, for the last time this session, she moved her pointer and said, “Jake Jakeson?”
“Goodly,” said that one, in a strong, sure voice. “He foresaw it all, all of this, and was able to guide them, Trask and the Wise Men and all. And without his future, we wouldn’t have had one. Goodly and Trask and the host of E-Branch, they could have had eternity, but in choosing the blood that is true, they relinquished their years to retain their humanity, as we shall give of ours, for our children’s sake.”
And the teacher nodded and said, “So ends the lesson. Time to go home.”
Then it was a race for the door, and Goodly went with them out into…into the sunlight!
Out into the broad green fields under blue skies, where for the first time he saw their eyes—those different eyes of the children of E-Branch—which so perfectly reflected the nature of their genetically altered blood.
Some of them were yelling, “Jake, this time we’ll beat you home!”
And Jake Jakeson—the spitting image of another Jake from another time, except for those amazing eyes—answered, “Not a hope! Why, I’m already there!”
But the teacher grabbed his arm, shook a finger, and said, “Jake Jakeson the Twelfth, or is it the Thirteenth? Why, you’re just like your father—and his, and his before him, like all of them have been—for two hundred and fifty years, according to the books. Now listen to me. By all means beat your friends home, but do it on your own two feet and running! Beat them by running, Jake, like all the rest of us, and not by just…by simply going there! You’re to stay fit and strong, do you hear? But you’ll only do that by using your God-given muscles as well as your talents.” (This despite that the boy was the strongest, fittest-looking child that Goodly had ever seen!)
“Yes, ma’am,” Jake said, looking up at her with his oh-so-innocent eyes…those uniformly azure-blue eyes!
She let go of his arm and turned toward the precog—then gave a small start, so that just for a moment he thought she’d actually seen him there. For like all of them, the teacher was talented, too. But then, frowning, she blinked, shook her head, and turned to call one last time after Jake—
—Two seconds too late. For while the other children were streaming out over the fields toward their homes, Jake Jakeson was no longer there.
And neither was the precog Ian Goodly. For there was nothing left to see, and only one place left to go…
E-Branch’s entire higher echelon, its most senior members, were standing at Goodly’s bedside. His scarlet eyes moved from smiling face to face, knowing they would find no one missing—only to find someone missing! And the first thing the precog said as he came fully awake, was:
“Lardis?” For in those future times there’d been no mention, no hint, of Lardis Lidesci.
Ben Trask laid a hand on the precog’s arm, and said, “Don’t concern yourself about Lardis. He’s back in Sunside, Lardis and Lissa both, taken there by Nathan.”
“Nathan recovered, then?” said Goodly, struggling to sit up. And as Trask helped him: “But of course, he must have! For with the exception of The Dweller, he is the only one who ever moved between worlds without using one of the Gates.” Then he frowned and asked, “So what about it, Ben? What about the Gate?”
“Gone,” said Trask. “It all worked out fine, and we did our job, stopped those alien bastards at Perchorsk and stopped them dead.” Then the smile slipped from his face. “As for the world: there’s nothing good to report, I’m afraid. It’s going to hell, and fast.”
“I know,” said Goodly, taking Trask’s hand and standing up. “And we’ve an awful lot to do.”
“The trouble is finding a place to start,” said Jake Cutter as he stepped forward, hand in hand with Liz.
But the precog only smiled, albeit wryly, and said, “No big deal, Jake. But there’ll be work for you—work for all of us—and the sooner we get to it the better.”
“Ian?” said Trask anxiously. “What’s going on? Are you sure you’re—?”
“I’m fine,” Goodly cut him short. “And now if you’re ready, I want you to get the Minister Responsible in on this, and call in every available agent, and then…and then—”
“Yes?” said Trask.
“Then I’ll tell you all just exactly how it’s going to be,” said the precog.
And that’s just exactly how it was…
Tor Books by Brian Lumley
The Necroscope® Series
Necroscope
Necroscope: Vamphyri!
Necroscope: The Source
Necroscope: Deadspeak
Necroscope: Deadspawn
Blood Brothers
The Last Aerie
Bloodwars
Necroscope: The Lost Years
Necroscope: Resurgence
Necroscope: Invaders
Necroscope: Defilers
Necroscope: Avengers
The Titus Crow Series
Titus Crow Volume One: The Burrowers Beneath & The Transition of Titus Crow
Titus Crow Volume Two: The Clock of Dreams & Spawn of the Winds
Titus Crow Volume Three: In the Moons of Borea & Elysia
The Psychomech Trilogy
Psychomech
Psychosphere
Psychamok
Other Novels
Demogorgon
The House of Doors
Maze of Worlds
Khai of Khern
Short Story Collections
Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi
The Whisperer and Other Voices
Beneath the Moors and Darker Places
Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes!
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
NECROSCOPE®: AVENGERS
Necroscope® is a registered trademark of Brian Lumley
Copyright © 2001 by Brian Lumley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1328-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001017386