Free The Source by Brian Lumley Page B

know any more
about that than Luchov himself. But the matter which had formed the floor of this place, and the pile itself along with its fuel—yes, and all the machinery, too, which had filled this area— all of these things, outwards from the centre to the spherical wall which now you see, were eaten, transformed, converted. Men, too. Seventeen nuclear physicists and technicians died instantly, leaving no trace.”
    Jazz was impressed, if not by Khuv’s telling of the story, certainly by its content. “And radiation?” he said. “There must have been a massive release of—”
    Khuv shook his head, bringing Jazz to a halt. “In relation to what was available, there was very little in the way of escaped radiation. The tips of those wormholes, fifteen to twenty feet into the rock, some of those were hotspots. We did what we could, then sealed them off. In the levels above there are dangerous places still, but again mainly sealed off. And in any case those levels are no longer in use and will never be used again. You have seen something of the magmass, but you have not seen all of it. Metal and plastic and rock were not the only materials which flowed together inseparably in that blast of alien energy, Michael. But rock and metal and plastic do not rot! You understand my meaning, I’m sure …”
    Jazz grimaced, said: “How did they … clean the place up? It must have been a nightmare.”
    â€œIt still is,” Khuv told him. “That’s why the lighting is muted up there. Acid was used. It was the only way. But it left moulds in the magmass which are utterly hideous to look upon. Pompeii must be something similar, but there at least the figures are still recognizably human. Not elongated or twisted or … reversed.”
    Jazz thought about it, enquired no further as to Khuv’s exact meaning.
    Vyotsky had been growing restless for some little time. “Do we have to stand here like this?” he suddenly
growled. “Why must we make targets of ourselves?”
    Jazz’s dislike for the man was intense, amounting to hatred. He’d hated him from the moment he first laid eyes on him, and couldn’t resist jibes whenever the opportunity for such surfaced. Now he sneered at the huge Russian. “You think their fingers are likely to slip?” he nodded in the direction of the crew manning the closest Katushev. “Or maybe they’ve a grudge against you, too, eh?”
    â€œBritish,” said Vyotsky, taking a threatening pace closer, “I could happily toss you on that fence there and watch you fry! You’ve been advised to mind your mouth. But me?—I hope you go on pushing your luck till you push yourself right over the edge!”
    â€œCalm yourself, Karl,” Khuv told him. “He’s looking for your measure, that’s all.” And to Jazz: “He doesn’t mean that sort of target,” he said. “Or rather he does, but not in the way you think. It’s simply that if anything—anything at all strange—comes out of that ball of light there, those crews have orders to open fire immediately and destroy or try to destroy it. And those orders take absolutely no account of the fact that we happen to be standing here, right in the arc of fire.”
    â€œBut if it did happen,” Vyotsky added, “and if what could come through did, then I personally would be glad to stop a bullet!”
    Khuv gave a little shiver, said, “Let’s get out of here. Karl is quite right: we are stupid to stand here tempting fate. It has happened five times before, and there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again.”
    As they turned away and headed back toward the stairs, Jazz asked, “Do you have it on film? I mean, if it’s a regular occurrence—”
    â€œNot regular,” Khuv corrected him. “Five—shall we call them, ‘emergencies’—in two