Brian Lumley - Necroscope - Invaders

Morning found Jake in an introspective mood. But before he was up and about Liz took the opportunity to have a word in private with Trask about her experience of the previous night.

They were out in the grounds, walking under the high wall, breathing easy while still the sun hung low in the east. It was early, and the dawn chorus of various parrot species was clattering in the still air. Another hour or two, the air would be dry and 'subtropical' Brisbane baking in furnace heat.

Trask heard Liz out, was silent a while, thinking it over. Then he asked her: 'He was definitely using deadspeak?'

'I don't think so… but does it matter? I mean, the way I understand it, as a Necroscope — or the Necroscope — his very thoughts are deadspeak. Unless he's shielding his thoughts, the dead will hear him thinking. And they will always know where he is. It's like an extra sense, their only sense. They can't see, hear, feel, taste or smell, but they'll know when he's near.'

Trask shook his head defeatedly. 'I probably know as much about deadspeak as anyone else,' he sighed. 'Indeed, more than anyone else. But I still don't know about it. I talk about it, yes — I know it exists — but sometimes it's hard to believe in it. So don't ask me about it, because I don't know. Hell, Liz! You're the telepath!'

'It was deadspeak,' she said. 'Or at least, he was listening to deadspeak. Listening to — my God! — to dead people, conversing in their graves. And they were talking about him. That was all I got: the fact that he could hear them and was trying to join in their conversation, but they wouldn't let him.'

'Huh!' Trask grunted. 'Who can blame them? Neither would I "let him in" if I could help it. His bloody attitude…'

'But to mature, to be the Necroscope, he has to be able to talk to them, right?'

'That's part of it, yes. Well, let's just hope it comes to him, as everything else will have to come to him — the good and the bad. And meanwhile you keep an eye, or an ear, on him.'

'You're still hot sure of Jake, are you?' Liz said.

Trask shrugged. 'I'm not sure he's sure of us! And despite what he has said, I know he still has his own agenda. Anyway, I spoke to Premier Turchin about that, and I'm hoping he can come up with some answers. If we can just find a way to lay that one ghost — kill off the one thing that's burning a hole in Jake's brain, this revenge thing, this course he's set on — maybe it will leave him with an open mind.'

'You mean with Castellano out of the way, Jake would more easily be able to concentrate on the job in hand?'

'Right. So Turchin will try to dig some dirt on this fellow, see if he can get something solid on him. If we could lock him away it would be a start. But lan doesn't think that would be enough, not for Jake. And the hell of it is I understand: I know how Jake feels. Think yourself lucky, Liz, that you don't know the kind of hatred we're all capable of. What if I should tell you that I would gladly give my right arm at the shoulder just to see Nephran Malinari writhing, burning on a cross, and to revel in the stink of his smoke? Well, now I'm telling you. And I mean it.'

'And Jake's no different,' she said, with a small shiver.

'Neither was the Necroscope Harry Keogh,' Trask told her.

'And neither am I. Few men are, when the crime and the pain it brings are nasty enough. An eye for an eye, Liz.'

'But in fact, Jake hardly knew that girl.'

'He knows that she was raped and tormented and died horribly, because of him. He knows it was fixed so that he'd take the blame, and that Castellano tried to have him killed in the jail in Turin. That's enough. It would be enough for me, too.'

'Yet you're still hard on him. You think hard on him.'

But the other shook his head. 'He's hard on himself. Anyway, let it go now. And let's hope Turchin comes up with something.'

Hearing footsteps on the gravel drive, they look'ed toward the house.

It was the precog, lan Goodly. He came in his accustomed, long-legged lope — with a long face, too — for all the world a cadaverous mortician. 'Fresh coffee's on the go,' he said in his piping fashion. And: 'Did I hear someone mention Turchin?'

'What about him?' said Trask.

'It was on the early news,' the precog answered. 'He'll be attending a couple of conference sessions this morning, but tonight or tomorrow he's out of here and back to Moscow.'

'What?' Trask frowned. 'Moscow is the last place he'd want to be right now. What happened?'

'A fist fight, apparently,' Goodly answered. 'In Turchin's hotel bar last night. An Australian delegate got drunk, accused the Premier point-blank of lying about Russia's soft ecological policy, went on to call him a puppet mouthpiece for his industrial and military masters back home.'

'Which right now is true as far as it goes,' Trask nodded. 'Mainly because he has no other choice. So what else?'

'Turchin got a drink thrown in his face before his minders stepped in and started throwing their weight around. The upshot is that he'll speak today — state Russia's case, protest about his treatment and what have you — and take the first plane out tomorrow. Tonight, if he can get one.'

Turning it over in his mind, Trask stroked his chin. 'That doesn't sound like Gustav Turchin to me/ he said. 'Long before he made Premier he was a diplomat, could talk his way through a minefield. Something like this happens… I just can't see him letting it happen.' He shook his head. 'Not unless he wanted it to happen. In which case… it has to be a ploy.'

'A ploy?' Goodly looked surprised.

'An excuse to get him out of here,' Trask said. 'He has a couple of things to organize in Moscow. I made a deal with him, gave him one or two problems to solve on our behalf. It's possible that the only place he could work on it is back in Russia. And isn't there another Earth Year Conference starting in Oslo in just a few days time? Acid rain or some such? I'll give you odds that's his next stop. He's something of a fox, Gustav Turchin. I'm betting he'll go home, set a few wheels turning, then head for Oslo. And of course, with the rest of the world baying at his heels, it will make him something of a hero with his own people. A temporary thing, but it ought to distract his enemies a while. Anyway, and whatever's going on, wish him luck. Gustav has come through for us in the past and he probably will again. I'll brief you on our conversation later.'

'Gustav?' said Goodly. 'First-name terms?'

'Right,' said Trask. 'It's called detente, my friend. And with the Opposition, as it happens. Well, it won't be the first time.'

'Tell me more,' said Goodly, wide-eyed.

'Later,' Trask said again, as they headed back towards the house…

In general, Trask's briefing would be the very simplest thing. As yet he wasn't speaking to a full team — and he wasn't about to mention his private arrangement with Premier Gustav Turchin to any others than core members of E-Branch — but in the current lull he knew that he needed to keep his people sharp, keep them in the picture and give them some sort of incentive. Thus, while he intended to stick to a loose broad-screen scenario or overview, still he would remind them of what they were dealing with here, emphasizing the extreme dangers of the job in hand.

His audience included everyone available, which left only the technician Jimmy Harvey doing Duty Officer in the Ops Room; but in fact Trask's words were directed mainly at the Australian Military contingent. Dressed in casual, lightweight summer 'civvies/ and while for the moment they didn't much look like soldiers, in fact these young special-forces officers were the best that their vast country had to offer. Which was to say (in their own down-to-earth terms, and as members of an elite Australian regiment) they were 'bloody useful in a scrap, mate'.