The Touch

by Brian Lumley

  “Okay, what’s past is past.” Trask turned to Scott, Shania, and the rest of his crew. “Those of you who are taking part, we should get you seated around a table. And then when we’ve calmed down a little, let’s get on with it . . .”

  40

  And so with four of Trask’s team continuing to keep watch from upstairs at the front and rear of the Gasthaus, Scott, Millie Cleary, and Paul Garvey—and Wolf, even that one, in a chair of his own with his paws on the table—sat in something of a circle, throwing a mental shield around Shania where she sent out her telepathic probe to Schloss Zonigen.

  Scott and Shania flanked Wolf, their hands on his clawed paws. Millie and Paul were seated opposite, connected to each other by touch, and also to Scott and Shania. And much like a seance group they were the souls of concentration, as if they conjured other souls—those of the dead, a notion that indeed gave Scott pause, so that he must put it right out of his head—but all five of them concerned now with the living, aware of the danger in what they were doing, and no one daring to relax his or her mental effort for the smallest fraction of a second.

  “Schloss Zonigen!” Shania breathed the words like a curse, her eyes closed, her still camouflaged forehead deeply creased, her Khiff—as yet a secret ally, unknown to Trask and E-Branch—lying by no means dormant in her mind but ready at a moment’s notice to spring to her defence. And:

  “Schloss Zonigen,” Shania said it again, but just a little louder. “I have to seek out the ordinary people, those who live in fear: the captives, hostages, and injured people, the workers who bend to Mordri threats. Some of these must surely know when it’s going to be, and the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance of that knowledge.”

  Keeping guard by one of the circular windows—occasionally craning their necks to watch the flickering lights in the ice castle, but more often with their eyes glued on Shania and the other telepaths—Trask and Robinson were both well aware of the importance of the moment. The latter, however, with the nightmarish nature of what he had seen continuing to cloud his mind, remained more than a little dubious of the situation, of the newcomers, and of almost everything else.

  “That woman, Shania,” he said very quietly, making sure he wasn’t overheard by those at the table. “She’s a whole lot more than she seems.”

  “I know,” said Trask.

  “Yes, but she’s even more than you know,” the other insisted. “I can feel it, it’s what I do.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Trask again. “Weren’t you listening to what she told us?”

  Silent for a moment, finally Robinson admitted, “Actually, boss, I don’t think I was listening to much of anything! I was right out of it, in a complete funk, and I’m really very sorry. I feel I’ve let you down. And now . . . well, perhaps I’m trying too hard not to let you down again.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” said Trask. “So get over it. Anyway, St. John says Shania’s on our side, and she certainly has good reason to be.”

  “Perhaps, but what about St. John himself?” Robinson still needed convincing. “David Chung is right. When St. John—when they—were on their way here, just a split second before they arrived, I felt them coming. It was like . . . I don’t know, some kind of mental tsunami! It was that powerful! And the only time I’ve ever felt anything like that before was at the Necroscope’s place in Scotland, the night we razed his house to the ground.”

  “Oh, really?” said Trask. “Well you know something, Frank? That’s truly excellent news, because that’s precisely the sort of power we may need to see this thing through.”

  “You do trust them then? I mean, completely?”

  Staring straight into Robinson’s eyes, Trask said, “Every word that St. John and Shania have spoken since they first got here has been true or what they believe to be the truth. And I do mean every word they’ve spoken.”

  The other nodded. “Fine. But have they spoken every word?”

  Instead of answering him, Trask looked at the group around the table, held up a quietening hand, and said, “Shh! Look, something’s happening!”

  For suddenly Shania’s back was ramrod-straight against the back of her chair, as if she strained against it. Her eyes were still closed but her mouth was half open, her face turned up at an angle—looking not at the ceiling over Trask’s and Robinson’s heads but through it—“looking,” in fact, at Schloss Zonigen.

  “Those poor people!” she whispered, drawing Trask back to the table the better to hear what she said. “They are in pain, tortured, terrified! And the guards, the trustees and soldiers, many of them criminals: the things they’ve done, despicable and unbelievable cruelty! And many of them lusting still! The workers—the lies that they have been told—all frantically busy, putting the finishing touches to the Mordri Three’s vessel. For they think that when the grav-ship departs they’ll be set free, their loved ones returned to them whole again in body and mind. No, they don’t really believe the Mordris will keep their word, not all of them, yet at the same time they daren’t not believe! They have to believe in something. But in all of the prisoners, hostages, and workers, the uppermost emotion is hatred! Given a chance, one decent opportunity, and they would fight, even some of the trustees. Alas, but until now they’ve had no chance, and the Mordri Three’s punishments are severe . . .”

  As she paused, Trask spoke to her from close at hand. Not wanting to break her connection with the thoughts of the people trapped in Schloss Zonigen, however, he spoke almost as quietly as Shania herself, asking the all-important question: “But when is it going to be? When, Shania, when?”

  “The Mordris have accelerated things,” she said, without seeming to speak to Trask directly, as if she simply continued to transcribe the thoughts drifting outward from Schloss Zonigen. “It appears they’re afraid; perhaps they begin to feel the hatred and the sheer energy of the talents ranged against them. And so they have brought the time of their departure forward—not just once but on two or three occasions—until now it’s going to be . . . it will be . . .”

  “Yes?” said Trask.

  At which a ragged cry sounded from the stairs: “Ben! It’s going to happen at dawn!” Holding on to the bannister and still almost falling, Ian Goodly came staggering into view. “At dawn, Ben—it will happen at dawn!”

  The group at the table immediately broke apart, and starting to her feet Shania cried, “Yes, he’s right! They’ve planned their departure for first light. As the sun rises, then they’ll leave. And unless we stop them your world will go with them!”

  Trask hurried to the foot of the stairs to offer his support to the precog, who was plainly shaken. “What did you see?” he demanded. “Damn it all, Ian, tell me what you saw!” And assisting Goodly to a chair, he helped lower him into it.

  “What did I see, Ben?” said Goodly then, choking the words out. “Oh, I saw and felt more than enough! First, dawn’s light: a crack of silver, dazzling on the eastern peaks. And a beam of purest energy lancing upward from the roof of Schloss Zonigen. Then I was inside a great cavern, where a trench of gold became liquid, burning in the fires of an electrical storm! But it was real liquid gold, Ben! Gold that flowed, then smoked, evaporating and turning into blue-grey sand! The essence of the gold—some unknown property of it—was being leeched off, sucked out of it along that beam of pure energy that poured through a hole in the cavern’s ceiling. And tons of gold, quite literally tons of it, being converted in this manner, while the cavern’s electrics went insane! Then it was done; there was nothing but this blue-grey spoil in the trench, and all the lights were out . . .”

  “And?” said Trask. “What then, Ian? Don’t tell me that was all you saw, because I know there was more to it than that!”

  Of course Trask knew—as anyone who knew Ian Goodly would have known—if only because of the lost, hopeless look in the precog’s eyes. And:

  “More than that?” he finally groaned, a rare sound indeed, considering Goodly’s usually high-pitched voice
. “Oh, yes, there was something more, but I felt it rather than saw it:

  “An incredible disruption of space-time. A massive blast, followed by an irresistible suction—as if a great black hole had suddenly come into being. It was everything that Anna Marie and I told you about when we were working on it together at the HQ. Except that this time . . . this time . . .”

  “Tell it, Ian,” said Trask, gritting his teeth. “You have to tell it, because we have to know.”

  Goodly stared at him blankly for several long seconds and finally said, “Yes, yes of course you do. You have to know . . . but believe me you don’t want to know.”

  “Go on,” Trask urged. “After the blast—the disruption, Big Bang, or whatever else you want to call it—what then?”

  “A vast erasure,” Goodly answered, in the merest ghost of a voice. “Ben, I can’t describe it any other way. It was . . . it was like everything we ever knew being shut down at once, wiped out, removed, erased. Until nothing was left but darkness.”

  Trask’s throat was suddenly dry as chalk; it caused him to croak a little as he inquired, “Beyond which?”

  “Beyond which there was nothing!” said the precog, shaking his head and slumping down in the chair . . .

  For all that Ian Goodly’s reputation was something of a legend in E-Branch, Trask hadn’t been willing to let it go at that. A fighter to the very last, he’d immediately made himself responsible for bolstering morale, reminding his team that the future can be a very devious thing. Rallying to him, they had seen him sit down, behaving as nearly as possible as if nothing much had changed, and deliberately make out a watch duty roster. And now he continued to make plans, inviting suggestions from everyone around him.

  “We should eat,” said Paul Garvey. “We should have already eaten, but with everything that’s been happening . . .”

  “You’re right,” said Trask. “In the dining room there’s a whole lot of food going to waste. It went cold a long time ago, but what does that matter? We should bring some of the choicest and most easily digestible cuts in here. And we can brew tea or get some fresh coffee on the go in the kitchen.”

  At which Millie Cleary said, “Leave the kitchen to me.”

  “Okay”—Trask nodded—“but there’s something very unpleasant in there, and—”

  “It’s all right,” she assured him. “It can’t be any worse than what we’ve seen upstairs, or what happened to poor Norbert Hauser.” The latter’s body had been moved to a broom closet out of the way, undignified but very necessary. When Millie made to head for the kitchen Wolf went padding along with her; with his keen nose he knew there was death back there, but with any luck there should also be some fresh meat of a more acceptable kind. A wolf of the wild no longer, he’d now settled for a life with his human friends and that was that . . .

  In something less than half an hour jugs of hot coffee and plates of food had been delivered to the four on duty upstairs, where Robinson had replaced Ian Goodly at the front of the Gasthaus. As for the latter: it appeared that his latest experience had completely exhausted him; the precog was asleep in the easy chair where he’d collapsed, and Trask had thrown a blanket over him.

  While things had been settling down, Trask had also found time to order his thoughts. Now as the group in the foyer ate, he began to outline his simple plan:

  “We can’t get up there tonight,” he began. “They know the place and we don’t. Right now, up there on that esplanade, you can bet your life—you would be betting your lives—there’s a fully armed welcoming party just waiting for us. And it’ll be the same in the morning, but by then they should at least be as tired as we are; maybe more so if we can get some sleep tonight. And we will if we stick to the watch roster. So let’s make that an order: if you’re not on watch you’re asleep, and your weapon is right there alongside you! We can never be too sure.”

  He paused to look at his watch, said, “Almost 9:30. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?” And turning to Scott: “Any idea what time the sun comes up around here?”

  Scott shook his head. “Never thought to check it out.”

  “Neither did we,” said Trask.

  But Shania said, “Even though it’s summer here, dawn isn’t as early as you might think. Your precog said the Mordris would depart when a crack of silver appeared on the eastern peaks. It seemed like dawn to him, and as far as this valley is concerned you might well call it dawn, but in fact it’s about 6:15, 6:20 when the sun begins to clear the peaks.”

  Trask nodded. “You’ve done your homework.”

  “Not really,” she said, “but I have been here before when I was trying to find out what they were up to, and it was about this time of year. I simply remembered it, that’s all.” In fact, it had been a very close friend—indeed a perpetual friend of hers—who remembered it. But then that was one of her Khiff’s main functions.

  “So then,” said Trask, “if we’re to get up there at all it will have to be before 6:15; let’s say 5:30. That means we’ll have to be out of here by . . . oh, five at the very latest.”

  “You’ll be driving straight into the teeth of hell!” said Scott.

  “I hope not,” Trask replied. And to Shania: “Didn’t I hear you say there was enough power in that thingumajig of yours for another two or three short trips?”

  “Three more, I think,” she answered. “Maybe even four, but that’s just guesswork. Any small spark of energy retained after that wouldn’t be enough to take anyone anywhere.”

  “But at least you and Scott will be able—”

  “—To get up there ahead of you?” said Scott. “To reprise our previous attack, get behind them and take Schloss Zonigen’s defenders by surprise? Yes, we can do that. I have to tell you, though, that after that you’ll probably be on your own. I know what’s important to you, Trask—and to everyone, of course—but I have my own agenda, too. If we’re all going to die I want to be sure that at least one of those bastards is going to hell ahead of me.”

  “Simon Salcombe?”

  “The same.”

  “Very well,” said Trask. “I can’t argue with you, for if I were in your place I’d feel the same. And without you we’d never stand a snowball in hell’s chance of getting up there anyway!”

  “That’s it then?” said Scott. “Is that all there is to it? That’s the deal?”

  “Unless you’ve got something to add?” Trask looked at him. “Or you?” He turned to Shania. “Or any of you?” He glanced from face to face of the others. But only Wolf answered:

  I go with my One and my Two! he growled, rising up on his hind legs and planting his paws on Trask’s thighs. Then, fixing the Head of E-Branch with an unwavering feral glare, he said it again, I go with Scott and Shania!

  Trask couldn’t hear him, but the four telepaths could. And aloud Scott answered Wolf: “Certainly you’re going. We’ll doubtless be needing that nose of yours to sniff things out.”

  And now, understanding what had passed between them, Trask nodded his consent. “Yes, of course you’ll go with them, Wolf.” And dryly, “Let’s face it, you’re one of their Three Unit.”

  “Just one thing,” said Scott then.

  “Oh, and what’s that?” said Trask.

  “I can’t find my name on your watch roster. Neither Shania nor myself. What, we’re not accepted as part of the team?”

  “You must know it means no such thing,” said Trask. “It’s just that you’ll need to be at your best tomorrow morning. And anyway there are eight of us: techs, a spotter, a locator, telepaths, and a precog—well, when he wakes up! We’re more than adequate to the task. And then there’s Wolf, who I’ll bet is a better watchdog, er, watch-wolf, than all of us put together. So you two get your sleep and let us do the rest.”

  “Ben is right,” said Ian Goodly, stirring in his chair. “I saw it a very long time ago, or so it seems now: you two in the thick of it, and the whole world in the balance. So if you want to be strong tomorrow you shou
ld sleep tonight.”

  “Oh?” said Trask. “So there’ll be a tomorrow, will there?”

  “I suppose there’s always hope,” said the precog. “And anyway, you should never try to second-guess the future. You would think I’d know that by now, because in my experience the future always finds a way to do its own thing no matter what.”

  Trask nodded and said, “Okay, let’s leave it at that then. And now go back to sleep.”

  “I will after I’ve eaten,” said the precog, getting to his feet and stretching.

  “Very good,” said Trask. “And then go back to sleep.”

  Goodly crossed to a small table heaped with the remainders of the team’s meal, and taking a sandwhich, he asked, “Ben, why are you so eager for me to sleep?”

  “Because you’re on watch at the midnight hour,” said Trask with a sour grin. “I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming!”

  But the precog only sighed, then bit into his sandwich . . .

  41

  Appearing on a backdrop as black as interstellar space, impossible numbers, equations, and evolving formulae flickered on the screen of Scott’s mind, scrolling up his dreaming field of vision as if some hugely powerful computer was attempting to solve the most complicated mathematical problem; and while Scott knew that he’d witnessed this before, still he couldn’t understand a single line of what he was seeing.

  It seemed to go on for a very long time, and when finally Scott recognized a part of the sequence—its resolution?—then the cosmic screen where this constantly mutating math was being written split open like the doors of an elevator, showering space with disintegrating decimals, fragile fractions, and all the scrawled paraphernalia of higher, highest, and totally towering mathematics. Except that it wasn’t a pair of doors at all but a single Möbius door, and from behind it stepped . . . a boy.

  Scott knew the boy at once, because he’d been places, done things with him before. And:

  “You,” he said, almost in a groan. “Wouldn’t you just know it? It’s the Necroscope Harry Keogh. And just when I thought it was safe to go back to sleep!”