'By now Zek was feeling shaky: the combination of fear and frantic physical activity had almost exhausted her, but at last the stage was set. By now, too, Trennier should be battering on the closed hatch… but wasn't. And if by now he'd thrown that switch, he only had eight to ten minutes to get out of there.
'Zek had an automatic pistol. Ever since being attacked on Zante, she'd been in the habit of carrying a gun; I don't think I need mention what kind of ammunition she used. Now, preparing her weapon, she stuck it in her waistband and took up the dusty telephone from its shelf in the wall niche. Neglected, its battery was dead, but its generator handle twirled readily enough. In a moment she had Trennier on the other end of the line.
'The New Zealander was still in a state — even worse than before — and he hadn't done what Zek required of him. Oh, he'd found the switch in its secret place, but he hadn't thrown it. Trennier wasn't a stupid man. An engineer, he'd taken one look at that switch and known that the sump was rigged for destruction. Knowing Zek, however, he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen while he was in there, but still he wasn't taking any chances. And in a panting whisper, he demanded to know what was going on, what it was all about, and what it was that was keeping him silent but observant company down there? Something was watching him, he felt sure.
'She couldn't tell him, could only tell him once again to throw the switch and get back to one of the ducts — either one, it made no difference — and climb out of there. As long as they stayed in
contact, she would know it was him and no other; she wouldn't shoot him as he emerged.
'But telling him that was a mistake. No other? What other or others was Zek going on about? What did she know that Trennier didn't? Others that needed shooting? Others that were capable of stuffing a big man into an eighteen-inch pipe? What in hell were the murdering things down there in the dark with him, in the sump? But no, she needn't bother to tell him. And fuck the switch! He'd be going back to the duct right now — and up through the hatch
— and God help anyone or anything that got in his way!
'Zek yelled into the phone then, screamed into it to get his attention, and finally she got it; but she knew she had to be hard on him. It was the only way. And so she told him about the hatches, how they were closed and she wasn't going to open one until she was sure he had thrown that switch! Oh, Zek knew she would let him out anyway, however it went, but she daren't let him see that.
'And so he did it, threw the switch; and Zek knew he had, because she'd reached out to him with her telepathy and "seen" him do it! And now there were just fifteen minutes to go…
'But in reaching out to Trennier, she had opened her mind
— and it wasn't only his thoughts that came through the breach. Then, however briefly, she found herself listening to something else, the Thing that had terrified the children. It was a fleeting experience, momentary, but all the same it chilled her mind like a blast out of some frozen helclass="underline"
'"Ahhh, see! Now he makes a move. Now he flees this place, and in so doing shows us the way out.. "That much and no more, before Zek closed her mind again. But more than enough, surely? Panicked, Bruce Trennier was on his way… and how many of the Wamphyri were following on behind him?
'But it also showed a degree of uncertainty on their part — showed that they weren't entirely sure of what they were up against in this world — for they hadn't simply taken Trennier and made him show them the way out. What would that cold Thing have learned, for example, from the damaged minds of the Refuge's children? Nothing, except perhaps something of the caring warmth and attention of the Refuge's staff. But that in itself might have been seen as a weakness, for on Starside such children wouldn't have been spared. Mentally — and frequently physically — unfit, their only use would be as fodder for the beasts. Even on Sunside the Szgany would have thought twice before accepting such burdens, especially under threat from the Wamphyri. What could such children be, except an enormous hindrance? Yet here they were cared for? It spoke volumes for the inhabitants of Earth, but mainly that they were soft, riddled with unnecessary guilt, self-doubt, and pity for their society's underdogs. But in Starside underdogs were eaten.
'What Zek didn't know, of course, was that Vavara and the others — had already seen something of Earth's awesome firepower. At the Starside Gate, they'd clashed with General Mikhail Suvorov's men: an unequal battle, yes, but at the time they'd been an army. Now there were just the three of them, plus a handful of lieutenants. Not only that, but Malinari also knew that at least one of this world's inhabitants was a powerful telepath. While she wasn't of his order (but then again, who was?) still she was proof that the Hell-Lands weren't entirely defenceless.
'The minutes ticked by, and Zek was on tenterhooks. Five minutes, six, seven. Even if she returned to the dry bed of the resurgence and climbed up to the crevice with the switch, still she wouldn't be able to reverse the process now. The clock was ticking and nothing could stop it, and the only way to delay it would be to open one of the hatches, a temporary measure and definitely the most dangerous of all.
'The basement was lit by half a dozen naked light bulbs in the ceiling. Since these were powered by a small emergency generator, their light was less than reliable. Through all of what she had been doing, Zek had worked in the flicker of these weak light sources, all the while conscious of the Refuge's foghorn alarms, their muted blare carrying down to her through concrete floors
and steel stairwells. Yet in a way the sound had comforted her, and even the flickering lights had reminded her of the world above, its relative sanity.
'Now it seemed someone was intent on denying her even these small comforts. For suddenly the alarms ceased, and at the same time the lights burned low, held for a moment, and went out. It could only be that up there in the chaos of the Refuge, someone had turned the alarms off. Whoever it was, he had inadvertently hit the basement light switch, too.
'And now there were only a few minutes left before the sump erupted in death and destruction. Zek couldn't even be sure she herself was safe there in the basement, let alone Bruce Trennier in the sump. And she was tempted to reach out to him yet again and see what progress he'd made. She would have done so — but that was when the telephone jangled.
'Mercifully she'd thought to take a small torch down there with her. Three paces took her to the niche with the telephone, and in another moment she was asking: "Bruce… are you alright? Where on earth are you?"
' "At the foot of the duct," he answered, and his voice was one long shudder. "I've been dodging… God, Things!! catch them in my torch beam, and they just sort of melt aside! But I can feel them there in the darkness. One of them… it doesn't seem to have a shape! It collapses in my torch beam, flows, reforms. And Zek — God, Zek — they make my flesh creep!"
' "Bruce, come up," she told him. "But as quick as you can, and I'll let you out."
'And then another slow minute until she heard him banging on the hatch that she'd closed. A moment to spin the wheel, her heart hammering and breath coming in panting gasps; the silence absolute, the darkness, too, except where her torch beam sliced into it. She hauled on the hatch, and he pushed from below, and in that last moment she thought to reach out to him, touch him with her mind. And she did—
'—But his mind was a blinding white agony, and his single thought was a scream that shrank even as it pierced her, gradually disappearing into the distance of mental oblivion! And as it ran and ran, with nowhere to hide, still it echoed her name: "Zek! — Ah} Zek! — Zekkk! — Zekkkk! — Ah, Zek-k-k-k-kf Until it was gone. Then: 'Zek's strength was as furious as her fear as she tried to slam the heavy lid on Trennier. For in fact it was the New Zealander — his head and shoulders — emerging from the hatch. But it wasn't his mind that drove him; it wasn't his muscles propelling him up out of the darkness, for pain had robbed him of consciousness and all its attendant skills. Try to picture it. His body rising up, loose arms flopping up over the rim, blind eyes staring, back ramrod straight. The engineer was like some grotesque puppet… he was a grotesque puppet.'