Brian Lumley - Necroscope - Invaders

'First: as we were descending toward the place, so that we could get a better look at it, our pilot/tour-guide mentioned a fire that occurred during the El Nino back in 1997. And I found some of his descriptions vivid and perhaps evocative: the place was like a tinderbox… it went up like so much kindling, et cetera.

'Also, while we've been here I've heard quite a lot of talk about the Great Fire of Brisbane, and what with this awful heat and all—'

'You saw a fire?' Trask cut in.

Goodly nodded. 'But I didn't see its cause, and I couldn't tell when it was happening. I mean, it could have been a mental response to what the pilot had said. For example, when someone says "do you remember" this or that other thing, you are made automatically to see it, relive it, in your mind's eye. Do you see? It could be that our pilot had evoked just such a response in me. And Ben, if this was one of my things, then it was only the very briefest glimpse. Smoke, and leaping flames… gouts of yellow fire roiling up to a night sky, and a full moon hanging there… and someone shouting, "To me, to me!"'

Listening to him, Trask displayed a kind of amazement, as if he'd only just realized something that should have been obvious for a long time. 'How long have I known you?' he said. 'It sometimes seems that I've known you forever. And yet I've never thought to ask you — do you sometimes see the past?'

The precog raised an eyebrow, said, 'I remember the past, just like anyone else.' And then a wry chuckle. 'It's just that I sometimes remember the future, too!' But he was serious again in a moment. 'That's what we have to consider, Ben. The future. And we know just how devious that can be — or is it perhaps my talent that's devious? I've never been able to figure it out.'

'Okay,' said the other, 'so you don't know whether it was the past or the future. It's just one of those times when your talent leaves you in doubt. But there's one clue, at least.'

'Oh?' Again Goodly's eyebrow.

'You said it was night-time when Xanadu went up in flames, and—'

'Not Xanadu,' Goodly stopped him. 'Just a handful of weekend or holiday homes, on the false plateau where Xanadu stands now.'

'Whatever,' Trask waved a hand. 'But you did say there was a full moon?'

'Yes.'

'Well, that… is one hell of a clue!' He turned to Harvey where he sat at the computer keyboard. 'Jimmy, can you get into the local libraries on that thing?'

Harvey looked up from where he was working and smiled. But before he could say anything Trask said, 'I know, don't say it: you're way ahead of me. The newspapers? For the fires of'97?'

Harvey nodded towards the wall screen. 'On the screen, just about any time… now!'

And: Gadgets and ghosts! thought Jake, as headlines sprang into life on the big screen, and Harvey brought the small print into focus. The location, date, and time, everything was there, written into the report. And Trask said:

'Good! Now then, Jimmy, can you cross-reference that date with phases of the moon?'

It took but a moment, but then Trask's shoulders sagged as he slumped into a seat and said, 'Damn it all to hell! The last thing I wanted. A bloody full moon!' And looking at the precog: 'So maybe you can see the past, and not just remember it, after all…'

'And maybe he can't/ said Jake. It was the first time he had spoken, and now everyone looked at him. And after a while:

'Well, go on then,' said Trask.

'Shouldn't we take the next step?' Jake said. 'The same as we did with David Chung? I seem to have been hearing about synchronicity, coincidence, and what have you ever since I collided with this outfit. So couldn't this be exactly the same thing? I mean, just because there was a full moon on the night in question back in '97, that doesn't mean the precog wasn't seeing the future up there at Xanadu. Or aren't there going to be any more full moons? Me, I'm wondering when the next one is due.'

Trask frowned, stared at Jake, then turned again to Jimmy Harvey. 'Do it,' he said.

And in a very short time the answer was up on the screen.

'Three days' time!' Trask husked then, open-mouthed, staring at the date and full-moon symbol. And Goodly cautioned:

'But does it mean what we're thinking? Are we going to do it, or is it our old friend El Nino again? Will it result from us attacking the place and burning out a nest, or from a freak of nature, a terrible disaster? I still can't see how it's possible for our quarry to exist up there.'

And Jake said, 'Neither could the locator see how a vampire could live out on the ocean. And maybe I'm stupid, or a lot less bright than you people, but I can't see there being a fire up at Xanadu without we're the cause. Surely the first thing we do if Xanadu isn't what we're looking for, we'll warn whoever's responsible about the fire. And we'll be able to tell him when, so there'll be no loss of life.'

The precog shook his head. 'You're not at all stupid, Jake. In the dark it's always the blind who see best. But believe me, you don't understand the future. I don't understand the future! And I say again: it's not knowing what will happen that counts, but how it's going to happen. The only sure thing is once it's foreseen, then it will happen. As for loss of life: I did hear that voice calling, "To me! To me!"'

'Rescuers?' said Liz.

'Or one of us, pulling the teams out,' said Trask. 'Didn't you recognize the voice?'

Goodly shook his head. 'Not over the roaring of the flames, the shattering of glass.'

'Glass?' said Jake. 'Did I miss something, or is that something you didn't mention before?'

'I just this minute remembered it!' said the precog.

'There was plenty of glass in that topmost dome,' Jake said 'In the pleasure dome itself. Black glass, from the look of it, covering everything but the windows.'

'No/ said the precog. 'Not black glass but solar panels — a sort of glass, I suppose. The upper dome was covered in them: a very startling effect. But the windows themselves, they were glass, certainly, and they circled all three lower floors.'

Trask was looking at the colour brochure. 'You think that the casino's going to burn?'

But Goodly could only shrug his defeat. 'It's all speculation. Don't ask me what I think. I still don't know for sure if the fire was in the past or the future. And I'm damned if I can see how any kind of vampire could live up there!'

'But I can,' said Jake, watching Harvey searching for Xanadu, and finally putting that area of the Macpherson Range onto the screen. And, as before, Jake was suddenly the centre of attention. 'It was something Lardis said that got me thinking about it,' he explained.

'Me?' said Lardis, looking surprised.

'When you said, "Now wouldn't this make a wonderful aerie, without all this sunlight, of course."'

'That's right/ said Lardis. 'I said that.'

'Look at the map,' Jake told them. 'That dog-leg fold and the false plateau sitting in the middle. The mountains are much higher, and steep-sided. The fold goes north to south, and then backtracks. Certainly Xanadu gets plenty of sunlight, from, say 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 in the evening. But the rest of the time it's in the shade, and during the night the darkness must be utter — except for electric lighting, of course.'

'Artificial lighting can't harm them/ said Trask. 'Szwart doesn't like it but it can't kill him. Only natural light, sunlight itself, can do that.'

'Not quite true/ Lardis barked. 'The Dweller, Harry Hell-lander's changeling son, used artif— er, artificial light, yes — in the form of ultra, er, ultraviolet lamps, when he battled the Wamphyri in his garden in the mountains west of Starside.'

'But that's sunlight, Lardis/ Trask told him. 'Artifical, I'll grant you, but sunlight nevertheless.' And to Jake: 'Maybe you're right. For sixteen or more hours a day, the sun isn't in fact shining directly onto that place. When it is shining, however, it's doing it very brightly/