Liz was part of this second team in her capacity as a telepath. Not that her talent was in any way specific to vampires, but if David Chung were to detect mindsmog, that might provide her with a target area, a 'direction' in which to cast her mental net if only to corroborate the locator's find. Before letting her go, however, Ben Trask had cautioned her that that was as much as she could do, and had warned her:
'Liz, you'd better know what you could be up against. That stuff with Bruce Trennier? Child's play by comparison with what you could expect from a "real" Lord of the Wamphyri! I remember once over — oh, it seems like a million years ago — how Harry Keogh wouldn't hear of Zek using her talent anywhere near Janos Ferenczy. Janos was a powerful mentalist, too, but according to what Lardis has said about Malinari, Janos couldn't have held a candle to him] And it might well turn out that Nephran Malinari is our man, that he's the one we're dealing with here. It's unlikely to be Szwart, we're fairly certain of that, so it has to be either Vavara or Malinari. But if it's the latter, and if he really is better than Janos…
'Listen, twenty-odd years ago I had a friend called Trevor Jordan. He was E-Branch, and a telepath. Janos Ferenczy caught
Trevor spying on him and got into his head — I mean literally! And later, at a distance of some seven hundred miles, Janos was able to invade and even inhabit Jordan's mind. And just to show us how good he was, he made Jordan put a gun to his own ear and pull the trigger! Now that… is mentalism!
'But this Nephran Malinari isn't just another telepath. In his own world, in Starside four hundred years ago, his own kind, the Wamphyri, called him Malinari the Mind. Doesn't that say it all? Anyway, we've learned the legends from Lardis, and the Old Lidesci's word is good enough for me. And even if it wasn't… well, I know I'll never forget the things that Zek showed me on the night she died. That bastard vampire thing, trying its best to leech on her mind.
'So I'm asking you, Liz. Please be careful. You… you're very special, and in my time I've lost too many special people. I just need to be sure you fully appreciate the danger. I don't want you locking on to something — and perhaps receiving something — that you don't want and can't get rid of.'
That had been some three hours ago, but now…
… Trask's words were still echoing in Liz's mind when the pilot's voice climbed a notch in her headset to declare: 'We're going down now, folks. Gladstone next stop. So if yer'll excuse me, I'll just radio a pal o' mine on the ground, tell him to get the beer out o' the cooler, and slice up a fresh batch o' sarnies. By the time yer've all freshened up, I'll be done refuelling and we'll start back. A slightly different route this time, if yer'd like. We can stick more closely to the coast and—'
'No,' Liz interrupted him. Tm sorry, but we're especially interested in mountains. On the way back, it would suit us just fine if you'd show us some mountains that we haven't seen yet.' And then, perhaps a little selfconsciously, 'Er, sorry to be a nuisance.'
The pilot glanced back though his window, looked from face to face, shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Suit yerself, Miss, fellers. I'm to accommodate yer as best I can, so whatever yer say is okay with me.'
At which Liz craned her neck and looked for confirmation from David Chung where he sat behind her… only to find that the locator's attention, indeed his concentration, seemed rapt on something that no one else could see. With his jaw hanging slack, he gazed as if transfixed eastward, out across the open sea. It lasted for a single moment only, then Chung started as he became aware of Liz's eyes upon him, the unspoken question that was written in them.
His gaze met hers and he half-nodded, half-shrugged, then said, 'I… I don't know. I can't be sure. It was so faint.'
They were settling fast towards a small airport. The locator snapped out of it, put his headset on, and asked the pilot, 'What's out there? I mean east, er, the sea?'
'Exactly, mate,' the other's tinny voice came back, seeming to vibrate as the pitch of the rotor vanes changed to landing mode. 'The sea, a handful o' little rocks, and stretching a thousand miles to the north, the Great Barrier Reef And then a laugh. 'Sorry, but all that's way out o' our itinerary…'
They freshened up, drank ice-cold beer out of glasses dripping with condensation, ate prawn sandwiches and barbecued chicken, and talked while they waited for their pilot to call for them.
They were in a private Skytours suite that overlooked the small airport through a soundproof panoramic window. While eating they had watched a handful of planes coming and going, not said too much, been glad of the overhead fan that struggled to waft a stream of warm, sluggish air around the room.
But eventually curiosity had got the better of the military men. Liz was aware of it but didn't find it intrusive, and anyway they were all members of a loose-knit team.
And the fact was that apart from Trask's briefings — and that these men had been ordered to accept all Branch members as voices of authority here — there hadn't been and could never be a great deal of understanding of E-Branch's role. Not to disparage the military, but it would have proved extremely difficult for entirely
military minds to grasp the concepts, motivations, and operating practices of an ESP-oriented intelligence agency. And, indeed, they weren't required to. But now, here in the intimacy of a much smaller grouping, these young soldiers had been presented with an opportunity to dig just a little deeper.
On the other hand and on behalf of E-Branch, both Liz and Chung were sworn to a modified version of the Official Secrets Act, and so had to be be circumspect in what they revealed.
'You're a psychic, right?' one of the Warrant Officers, a slim, well-muscled, crew-cut redhead in his early thirties asked of David Chung. 'I mean, don't take offence, but isn't it a bit strange, using — what do you call it? Parapsychology? — against bloody awful things such as that nest we burned out in the desert?'
'No offence taken,' said Chung. 'But you'd do well to remember that I'm the one who found those bloody things out in the desert! And I've been dealing with such things on and off— but mercifully more off than on — for some twenty years. Currently, however, we're definitely on again, and like,most of the others in E-Branch I'm getting past my sell-by date. Oh, we're recruiting young blood all right, such as Liz here, but the years take their toll. So on a job like this we're obliged to call in different kinds of "experts". We like to be sure there's plenty of muscle behind the mind.'
'Like us?' said the other.
And Chung nodded, smiled, raised an eyebrow and said, 'No offence?'
'But a psychic? I mean, how can you simply think the location of these creatures? Like, you read their thoughts or something?'
And though he was polite up front in his talking to Chung, Liz couldn't help reading that he was more than a little sceptical. She read one or two other things, too, such as: Never kid a kidder, Mr Chinaman. Old Red isn't buying it! Red: a nickname no one had used since his teens, and one which he wouldn't accept from anyone else despite that it fitted him so well and was how he continued to think of himself.
So before Chung could answer Liz told herself to hell with the rules and said: 'Whether you're buying it or not, my friend Mr Chung here — who is in fact a fourth-generation Brit, despite that his roots are oriental — isn't kidding, Red!'
The young soldier jerked in his seat, instinctively touched a hand to his crew-cut, and stuttered: 'Er, my hair, right?'
But Liz shook her head. 'Your thoughts/ she replied. 'And Red, the next time I walk into a place ahead of you, please try to remember I can't help how I walk, and find somewhere else to look… okay?'