Then the precog said, 'That… that's enough. We'd better get on our way now.' And there was a certain edge to his piping voice that had Jake looking at him across the aisle.
He saw that Goodly's face was suddenly drawn, and noticed how his hands gripped the armrests of his seat…
PART FOUR The Hell Of It
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Here Be Vampires
That evening at the safe house, when Trask's people had eaten, he got them together in the Ops Room to debrief them and start them working on the correlation of their findings. For he knew by then that they had been partially successful — or at least that they'd detected something out of the ordinary — and that a lot might soon depend on their observations.
For instance, the military contingent: it was most likely that the siting of the SAS back-up teams would be based on the as yet unproven suspicions or 'hunches' of Trask's espers. And in just two days' time those men and vehicles would start arriving and moving into harbour areas whose locations were as yet undecided. Time was of the essence.
After Trask had settled his people down, David Chung described his temporary contact with something during the landing at Gladstone, and went on to talk about the system of triangulation that they had devised.
'Taking Gladstone as the centre of a clock face,' the locator said, 'the first reading would see the minute hand at some thirteen minutes past the hour, or a few degrees north of east. As for the second reading, over Sandy Cape, that would be about twelve and a half minutes before the hour, or north-west.'
Chung stood before an illuminated wall map of the area and used his index finger to point out the coordinates, then traced the directional lines to their junction some sixty miles out in the open sea. 'Which puts it — whatever it is — right there/ he said. But staring at the map, he could only offer a baffled shrug. 'The last place on Earth that we'd expect to find a vampire or vampires. Right in the middle of an ocean, with nothing but water and lots, I mean lots of sunlight, for miles around!'
'But you got readings,' said Trask. 'You got mindsmog. So, how do you explain it?'
The locator looked at him, frowned and said. 'Explain it? But if it wasn't for Liz here I'd probably simply ignore it! A glitch, something out of kilter in my head… a headache? The evidence of the map, the location, it's all against us. I mean, what would a vampire be doing out there? Also, we know that in the past we've puzzled over similar effects from other espers, from talents outside E-Branch giving off vibes they don't even know they've got! So but for Liz I'd probably settle for someone on a ship out there — maybe a cruise liner? — using precognition to place bets in the casino, or maybe telekinesis to drop the ball on his numbers at roulette. Someone who's extraordinarily "lucky," who doesn't even know he has a skill — who thinks he has a "system" — but who's nevertheless been banned from half a dozen mainland casinos. That's what I'd be tempted to think, except…' He paused and looked at Liz. 'Liz doesn't think so. But there again, no matter what anyone thinks, nothing can change the fact that it's sixty miles out to sea.'
Trask said, 'But so were those Russian nuclear submarines, and you haven't been wrong about those. And I remember the time when a certain Jianni Lazarides had just such a ship, The Lazarus, out on the Mediterranean. Yes, but his real name was Janos Ferenczy! He was Wamphyri, too, one of the very worst. And remember: just because there's a lot of sunlight, it doesn't mean our man has to go out in it.'
He turned to Liz. 'David says it might be nothing. But he also says you don't think so. So what do you think?'
Liz looked anxiously from face to face, bit her lip, and said,
'Ben, are we right to place this much faith in my talent right now? I mean, at that kind of range, riding David's probe… I could easily be mistaken. I'm not really sure that—'
'No, no, no!' Trask cut in, waving his hand dismissively, impatiently. 'Just tell us what you got and let us try to figure it out. It isn't the first time we've done this, Liz. And it isn't as if we're vying with one another to see who will be first to find these damned things! But while no shame attaches to being in error, still we do have to find them. Which means anything is better then nothing. So whatever it was you sensed out there, let's have it.'
Liz, Trask and Chung were on their feet; the rest of the team were seated. And now Liz sat down, too, and thought about it for a moment. Casting her mind back, she asked herself exactly what it was that she had experienced when the locator took his second reading from the helicopter as it circled high over Sandy Cape.
Chung sjace — Us slightly damp skin gleaming a pale yellow, his nostrils pinched, eyes slanted more than usual in deep concentration — gazing out of his window, north-west at the distant curve of the world, the horizon, the sea's wide expanse.
Then his gaze becoming a vacant stare, and his eyes almost glazing over as his mind… as his mind went out!
No, not his mind but a probe. And Liz Merrick a part of it — riding it like a carrier wave — sharing telepathically in the emptiness of the locator's search, his far-flung probing of the psychic void… or what should be a void!
But there was something there — faint, so very faint, but definitely there — and she felt it like… like an emotion as opposed to a conversation. Like something spiritual, or lacking in spirit. For it was shivery cold, this thing, where it walked on her spine with icy feet. And now she knew its name.
'Well?' Trask was leaning over her. And:
'Fear!' Liz blurted it out. 'I felt fear!'
The look on her face; her great green eyes wide in sudden knowledge where they stared into his… and Trask took a pace back from her. 'You were afraid?'
'Not me, no,' Liz shook her head. 'He, they — whoever they were — were afraid. That's what it was, Ben: terror, gnawing at them, eating their hearts out.' 'Them?'
'More than one, I'm sure.'
'Uncertain a moment ago, and now you're sure?' She shook her head. 'I just wasn't willing to believe that there could ever be such hopelessness, such utterly black despair. I suppose I thought it was the emptiness, the psychic void before David's probe found — well, whoever they are — and that the fear was in fact mine. But now…' 'Yes?'
Again she shook her head, searched for words. 'I know that I, personally, have never been that afraid — that I couldn't be that afraid — unless something happened to cause me to lose all hope, all faith/
Trask nodded grimly. 'In short, unless you'd been vampirizedf 'I… I don't know. I imagine so.'
But now Trask took a different tack. 'Or could it possibly have been fear of discovery? Had someone detected David's probe and reacted to it?'
Liz shook her head. 'No, I don't think so. It was simply — or not so simply — an aura of overwhelming doom.'
'Good!' Trask grunted. 'And on both counts. One, that you weren't detected. And two, that therefore whoever it was couldn't have been afraid of you. But they were afraid, and I think we can all imagine of what.'
He looked up from Liz, from face to face around the room, and paused at Lardis Lidesci.
And Lardis said, "Thralls. These were thralls, and fairly recent. Thralls who don't have much contact with their master, but who know he's there nevertheless. Aye, and they have every right to fear him!'
'Another nest,' Trask nodded. 'Why not? It's entirely possible. Then he frowned. 'But out at sea?' 'My point exactly/ said Chung…