Lumley,Brian - E-Branch 3 - Avengers

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Brian Lumley - Necroscope 13 - E-Branch 3 - Avengers

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NECROSCOPE: AVENGERS

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Also by Brian Lumley

Necroscope Series

Necroscope

Necroscope II: Wamphri!

Necroscope III: The Source

Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

Necroscope V: Deadspawn

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Volume I

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Volume II

Vampire World I: Blood Brothers

Vampire World II: The Last Aerie

Vampire World III: Bloodwars

Necroscope: Invaders

Necroscope: Defilers

Titus Crow Series

The Burrowers Beneath, The Transition of Titus Crow, The Clock of Dreams,

Spawn of the Winds, In the Moons of Borea, Elysia

Psychomech Trilogy

Psychomech, Psychosphere, Psychamok!

Other Books

The Compleat Crow

A Coven of Vampires

The House of Doors

The House of Doors: Second Visit

Dagon's Bell and other Discords

The Second Wish and Other Exhalations

Khai of Ancient Khem

The House of Cthulhu and Others

Ghoul Warning and Other Omens (poetry)

Return of the Deep Ones

Hero of Dreams

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Demogorgon

Fruiting Bodies and other Fungi

The Caller of the Black

Beneath the Moors

The Horror at Oakdeene

NECROSCOPE:

AVENGERS

Brian Lumley

Hodder & Stoughton

Copyright G 2001 by Brian Lumley

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Hodder and Stoughton

A division of Hodder Headline

The right of Brian Lumley to be identified as the Author

of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form

or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher,

nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than

that in which it is published and without a similar condition being

imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Lumley, Brian

Necroscope : avengers. - (E-Branch ; v. 3)

I.Keogh, Harry (Fictitious character) - Fiction 2.Vampires

-- Fiction 3.Horror tales

I.Title

823.9'14 [F]

ISBN 0 340 79247 7

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Polmont, Stirlingshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Hodder and Stoughton

A division of Hodder Headline

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

---

This one is for that master of dust-jacket artwork, my good

friend Mr Bob Eggleton. Bob, I just can't help wondering

where we'd be without all those marvellous skulls!

---

CONTENTS

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Invaders and Defilers: a resume 1

Chapter 1: The Sun, the Sea and the Drifting Doom 11

Chapter 2: The Survivor 22

Chapter 3: The Trouble with Harry 34

Chapter 4: The Survivor's Story 48

Chapter 5: Undead in the Med 62

Chapter 6: The 'Entertainment', and Leave It to the Marines 75

Chapter 7: Collecting the Specimen 88

Chapter 8: First Warning 100

Chapter 9: Turchin s Trade-off. The Sleeping . . . and the Undead? 114

Chapter 10: Messing with the Mechanisms 129

Chapter 11: Calling Harry Keogh 143

Chapter 12: Starside - a Wolf's-Eye View 157

Chapter 13: Skin Graft - Clay Pigeons and Red Herrings 170

Chapter 14: Submarine Sabotage - the Threat of the Threads 185

Chapter 15: Problems Past, Present and . . . ? Grave Conversations 198

Chapter 16: Romania, and Korath - London, and Liz - Turkey, and Bernie Fletcher . . . and

Friends? 213

Chapter 17: Sirpsindigi and London - Double Detente 226

Chapter 18: Getting to Know Harry - and Ill Met in Turkey 238

Chapter 19: Terror at the Tundza - The Future: Writ in Flames! 252

Chapter 20: Tracking the Wamphyri - The Horror at the Crossing 266

Chapter 21: The Vampire Hunters. Memories Out of Time. 280

Chapter 22: News from Porton Down - The End of Things - Jake: Remembering . . . 296

Chapter 23: Transitions 311

Chapter 24: Tilting at a Windmill 326

Chapter 25: Revelations, Reservations, Resolutions 341

Chapter 26: Final Preparations 356

Chapter 27: Perchorsk 371

Chapter 28: Opening Skirmish 384

Chapter 29: The Final Battle . . . ? 397

Chapter 30: Or Merely the First of Many? 414

By Way of an Epilogue: Not So Very Devious After All 430

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INVADERS AND DEFILERS:

A RESUME

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WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE:

INVADERS AND DEFILERS

Three years ago, three Great Vampires - two Lords and a 'Lady' of the Wamphyri, the alien

originators of the alleged vampire 'myths' or 'legends' of Earth - entered our world via a trans -

dimensional Gate under the Carpathian mountains. Having split up following their covert

'invasion,' the trio went their own ways. Lord Nephran Malinari ('Malinari the Mind'), enthralled

an Australian billionaire to set himself up in a casino aerie in the exclusive resort of Xanadu in

the Macpherson Mountains. Lord Szwart, a metamorphic 'fly-the-light' in the truest sense of the

term, headed for London, settling in a forgotten Roman 'temple' in the deepest, most inaccessible

bowels of the city. And Vavara -'beautiful' mistress of mass-hypnotism - defiled an order of nuns

by infiltrating their fortress-like monastery on the Greek island of Krassos.

Their plan to overthrow the planet, reducing it to a vampire paradise, was in essence a simple

one: to plant gardens of deadspawn fungi and bring them to deadly maturity. Nurtured on the life

fluids (the mutated DNA) of sacrificed vampire thralls or lieutenants, these toadstools, when they

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ripened and spawned, would release myriad spores into the Earth's atmosphere, to be breathed by an

unwitting human race! Then, as men became blood-lusting monsters who hid from the sun during

daylight hours and hunted by night, and nation fought nation as the world sank into chaos, and no

one - least of all the mazed, blood-addicted victims - was able to understand or even consider

fighting the incurable 'disease' that was converting them . . . then the Great Vampires, the

Wamphyri, would emerge from the shadows and come into their own.

4

As in the earliest days of their pre-dawn Vampire World of Sunside/Starside, their thralls and

lieutenants would go abroad in the world, carrying their monstrous plague with them as they

consolidated their masters' (and mistress's) territories, where the laws of the Wamphyri would be

the only laws. Malinari would take Australia, expanding into all the islands around and eventually

into Asia, and Vavara would take the Mediterranean and Africa, spreading east to form a border

with Malinari. As for the metamorphic horror that was Lord Szwart: while it would seem he had been

disadvantaged, with only the British Isles, France, Spain, and the northern and westernmost

regions of Europe coming under his control, as he deployed his forces west across the Atlantic he

would quickly seed the Americas with his deadspawn and, when the time was ripe, he would move his

power base to New York. The metropolis's sprawling underground network would provide access to all

parts of the city, whether in daylight or darkness, while its greatest building would be Szwart's

aerie, its every window lacquered black and draped against the sun.

These had been the ambitions of the Wamphyri, and they had seemed infallible: their dreams, and an

unwitting mankind's as yet unrealized nightmares. But, despite their legendary cunning and

leechlike tenacity, the three Great Vampires had not reckoned with E-Branch.

E-Branch (E for ESP): a top secret arm of the British intelligence services, many of whose

psychically talented agents had dealt with vampires before, not only in this world but also in

Sunside/Starside. Ben Trask, the members of his London-based organization, and a small handful of

people in the Corridors of Power were the only human beings who knew of the alien invasion. And

because of the planetwide panic any disclosure would cause, they dared not speak of it to anyone

outside their circle.

But having traced Malinari to Australia (with the ever-grudging assistance of their Minister

Responsible in Whitehall and his help in covertly informing an Australian counterpart of the

problem and enlisting military aid), Trask and an E-Branch task force had ventured down under to

confront Malinari in his aerie. There in Xanadu they had destroyed his fungi garden (though not

without the timely assistance of Jake Cutter, a young man whose extraordinary powers were not yet

fully developed or even understood) but The Mind himself had escaped.

As for Jake Cutter (though more especially from Ben Trask's necessarily cautious point of view):

Jake seems an entirely wrong-headed man with something of a chequered background. Having fallen

foul of a gang of international drug-runners and suffered at their hands, he was bent on settling

old scores when strange circumstances brought him into contact with E-Branch. (He

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was, in fact, pursuing a vendetta with this criminal organization's powerful leader and several of

his close colleagues - people who had raped and murdered a girl of Jake's aquaintance, with whom

he had had a brief but passionate affair - and had been responsible for a series of violent,

extremely ugly deaths in their higher echelon.)

But the leader of the gang - a Sicilian vampire named Luigi Castellano - had laid a trap for Jake,

causing him to fall into the hands of the Italian police. Incarcerated in a Turin prison, Jake had

soon discovered that Castellano was not without influence there, and that his demise had been

scheduled for the very near future.

Then, during a jailbreak (also arranged by Castellano), when it seemed certain that Jake must die

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under fire from the guards . . . a weird reprieve, a miraculous escape: Jake's first taste of

things to come, and the beginning of his transition.

Something he took to be a ricochetting bullet - a flash of golden fire - struck him in the

forehead. But instead of falling dead he fell into something else entirely and was conveyed

through the Mobius Continuum ( a means of metaphysical teleportation) to Harry's Room at E-Branch

HQ in London.

Harry's Room:

The long-dead (?) Necroscope Harry Keogh was once the most important member of E-Branch. On those

occasions when he stayed at the London HQ, he had a room of his own, as did many espers. Harry's

Room, however, has always been (and still is) different from the other rooms. Perhaps to signal

their regard for their much loved, highly respected ex-member - or perhaps because the room

continues to retain something of the Necroscope's personality - it has been left untouched and

unoccupied, exactly as it was in the time of Harry's residence.

And so it was a singular event for Ben Trask and his espers to discover a bewildered stranger

inside the locked room of the Necroscope, in the heart of security-conscious E-Branch HQ( And it

had to be more than a mere coincidence

Jake's advent had come at a propitious moment (or, at least, everyone except Trask thought so),

for it was only a short time later that Nephran Malinari was discovered in Xanadu, his playboy

retreat and aerie in the mountains of the Macpherson Range. And teaming Jake up with Liz Merrick,

a young, attractive, budding telepathic receiver whose powers, like Jake's, were still developing,

Trask took them to Australia as part of his task force.

It was during the course of this largely successful operation that Jake discovered the truth of

what Trask and his people had suspected all along: that indeed he had inherited something of

Harry's powers. For when the

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original Necroscope had died on Starside, his metaphysical personality - the sidereal intelligence

that was Harry - had fragmented into many golden splinters or darts, one of which had entered into

Jake! Now, in his dreams, Jake could converse with the 'dead' Necroscope through the medium of

deadspeak. Then, too (not yet aware that his dreams were of crucial importance, that they had real

meaning in the waking world and were much more than disturbing symptoms of paramnesia and a

crumbling mentality), Jake had felt obliged to ask Trask just what, exactly, a Necroscope was.

But while Trask had been willing to explain something of a Necroscope's powers to Jake - his

ability to teleport, and the unearthly 'gift' that enabled him to converse with the dead - there

were certain other things that he dared not speak of. For, as the director of E-Branch for many

years, Trask had developed an inquiring and sceptical mind; he knew how very deceiving outward

appearances could be, and how even the most innocent-seeming of men (especially the innocent ones:

for example, the original Necroscope) might be susceptible to the greatest evils. Moreover, Trask

had never had much faith in coincidence or synchronicity. He believed that things usually had good

reasons for happening, and that when they happened might be equally relevant . . .

Jake had come on the scene at a propitious time, certainly - but propitious for whom? And wasn't

it simply too much of a coincidence that at the advent of a trio of Great Vampires out of Starside

a new Necroscope should also put in an appearance? So had Jake arrived of his own (or Harry

Keogh's) accord, by 'coincidence', or had he in fact been sent to infiltrate E-Branch? What was it

of the original Necroscope - how much of Harry, what element - that had entered Jake? Something of

his light side, from his earlier life - or something of his far more dangerous side from a later,

darker period?

For one of the several things that Jake didn't yet know was that at the end of the Necroscope's

time on Earth he had been a vampire in his own right -Wamphyri! And probably the greatest of them

all! And not only Harry but two of his sons: they, too, had been vampires, changeling creatures,

on Starside in a weird parallel world . . .

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Thus Trask's doubts - or, more properly his natural caution, coupled with his inability to read

the young Necroscope despite that his own weird talent made him a human lie-detector - held him

back from bringing Jake more fully into his confidence. For if Jake was not the real thing, if he

had not inherited Harry's mantle to become the fantastic weapon against the Wamphyri that most of

Trask's agents believed him to be, but rather possessed the potential to become the exact opposite

. . . then Trask might yet have to kill him!

7

Hence his great quandary, for if on the other hand Jake was the real thing, and if he was made

privy to everything, then he might easily shy from the knowledge - the full knowledge - of what he

was becoming and what he would be capable of doing, and would be lost to E-Branch for ever. For

while it takes a special kind of man to accept the responsibilities of a Necroscope, the role of

caretaker to the dead, it takes an extra-special man to accept that the Great Majority will do

almost anything for love of him . . . including the agony and horror of self-resurrection, of

rising from their graves in order to protect him!

After the Australian venture, when Jake was given the comparative 'freedom' of E-branch HQ - if

not access to all of its many secrets the first thing he did was desert the cause in order to

pursue his own agenda: his vendetta with Castellano. But the fact was that Jake didn't see his

leaving as any kind of treachery; his reasons for walking out on Ben Trask and E-Branch were more

than one, and not least self-preservation.

First, the Harry Keogh influence had been replaced by something of a far more disturbing nature:

Jake was finding himself under constant attack from a deceased vampire lieutenant called Korath

(once Korath Mindsthrall), an ex-minion of Malinari's. Dead and sloughed away in a subterranean

sump in Romania, Korath had used deadspeak to tell Jake the histories of the three Wamphyri

invaders from Starside-but in the process he had also tricked his way into semi-residence in

Jake's head. Only let Jake relax and let his mental shields down - and Korath would be there with

him in his mind, dreaming his dreams, conversing with him, attempting to influence - to 'guide' or

'advise'- him and generally sharing his wakingworld experiences. Jake could send him away, back to

his sump, but he could never be absolutely certain when Korath was or wasn't there.

The only good thing to come out of this was that Korath had 'inherited' something of his former

masters mentalism: endowed with eidetic recall, he'd memorized the mathematical Mobius formula

given to Jake by Harry Keogh -which for some reason Jake was unable to grasp - and had thus become

his reluctant host's one and only key to the metaphysical Mobius Continuum's mode of trans- or

teleportation.

And so he and Jake had worked out a compromise. All Korath wanted - or so he had led Jake to

believe - was revenge on his former master and the other Great Vampires for killing him as a means

of accessing our world. But since Korath was incorporeal, a dead creature whose sole contact with

the living was through Jake and his deadspeak, the new Necroscope was the only one who could

possibly exact such a revenge. Jake couldn't go about his business without Korath, and Korath

would have no existence at all without Jake.

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One other problem with Korathi if Ben Trask found out about his coexistence with Jake, it might

yet be a case of having to kill two birds with one stone - or, more properly, one man and a

parasitic mind-thing with however many bullets were required to do the job.

But even that, self-preservation, wasn't Jake's only reason for quitting the Branch. In fact, he

was driven to leave by some unknown but increasingly insistent force that demanded that he pursue

his own or perhaps someone else's? -agenda. Moreover, the longer he remained with E-Branch, the

greater the chance of a romantic attachment with Liz Merrick, with whom he'd developed a semi-

telepathic rapport. The last thing Jake needed was to be close to someone he couldn't touch for

fear of a dead vampire's voyeurism!

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In Jake's absence, while he used the Mobius Continuum to pursue and harass Luigi Castellano's

Mediterranean-based drug-runners, E-Branch had tracked down Malinari and Vavara to the tiny Greek

island of Krassos. This time, as distinct from the Australian operation, Trask's task force was a

very small one, and politically and economically (even climatically, in an El Nino year), there

were huge problems to be overcome. But with the help of a Greek friend of theirs from an earlier

adventure - an Athenian police inspector called Manolis Papastamos - finally E-Branch located and

burned Vavara's monastery aerie, while her deadspawn garden was dynamited and buried in a series

of explosive attacks.

But at the same time there had been two major setbacks. In London, Ben Trask's newfound love of

only a few days' duration, the telepath Millicent Cleary, had been kidnapped by Szwart and his

minions down into his Roman temple dedicated to dark gods in a forgotten cavern deep under the

city. And in Krassos, Liz Merrick had been taken by Vavara when that mistress of evil made her

escape from the blazing monastery. It had looked like the end for both of these brave women. But:

In Sicily, where Jake had finally rid the world of Castellano and his organization - and in the

process discovered why he had felt so driven by his vendetta: that this had been part of a task

begun but left unfinished, even unremembered, by the original Necroscope - the new Necroscope

'heard' Liz's desperate cry for help. Across all the many miles between them, Jake beard it. It

was the rapport which existed between them that had boosted Liz's developing telepathic talent.

But when Jake required Korath to show him the Mobius equations in order that he might use the

Continuum to find Liz and rescue her . . . then Korath had sprung his trap!

Korath had already discovered that Jake couldn't be bribed or threatened when his own life was at

stake, for without Jake there would be

9

no Korath; so whatever else the vampire did, he would try to keep his host alive. But Jake would

definitely be open to persuasion if another's life were at risk . . . and more especially if that

other was the woman he loved. Now Jake knew Korath's real objective: access to his inner mind to

be one with him, a part of him -and perhaps permanently!

Jake couldn't refuse . . .

Without Korath's help, Liz was as good as dead . . .

In order to view the equations, create a Mobius door, teleport through the Continuum and rescue

Liz, Jake must first accept this dead but incredibly dangerous thing's conditions. And this

despite Harry Keogh's warning: that he must never let a vampire into his mind . . .

But there was no longer any other way . . .

He went along with it, gave Korath access to the very core of his mind and welcomed him in 'of his

own free will' . . . and only then discovered how he had been duped, that he would have been able

to conjure the formula all along - if Korath had not been blocking his every attempt!

Too late now, though, to do anything about it, for Liz was in trouble on a small Greek island

hundreds of miles away . . .

Jake was in the nick of time. In Krassos, he reunited Liz with her E-Branch colleagues, who then

informed him of the plight of the telepath Millie Cleary in London. Using the Continuum, Jake

returned Trask and company to their London HQ, where the espers combined their weird talents to

locate Millie. Still alive, her psychic aura was well known to Liz who was then able to contact

her and determine her precise whereabouts. Now it was up to the new Necroscope.

Taking Millie's coordinates from Liz's mind, Jake 'went' to the distraught telepath in her

previously unknown temple prison. There he found not only Millie, but also Lord Szwart's terrible

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deadspawn garden, which (after a nightmarish confrontation with the 'Lord of Darkness' himself) he

managed to destroy by bringing about an explosion of natural gas.

So now, and despite that the plans of the Wamphyri were in disarray, the main question had to be:

how many of the invaders themselves had survived? Had Vavara died when her limo crashed, throwing

her into the sea? Had Malinari been trapped below, in Vavara's garden, when it was buried? Had the

metamorphic Szwart suffered the true death in a Roman temple whose destruction had even registered

on the seismographs at Greenwich?

Now, too, with Ben Trask and his people in Jake's debt, it was time for a showdown. Time for Jake

to give up bis secret - the fact that he harboured a vampire intelligence in his mind - and ask

for E-Branch's help. But also time for him to demand to know the full story: why Trask

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had been so reticent in his dealings with him, and what had been the problem with the previous

Necroscope that the Head of Branch hadn't dared talk about it?

Harry Keogh's ability to raise the dead? But Jake had found that out for himself; indeed, it

accounted for the grey streaks at his temples, and the hint of fearful, forbidden knowledge in his

eyes. But he knew that wasn't the entire story. Perhaps one day the teeming dead - that Great

Majority of human souls gone before -- might believe in Jake, have enough faith in him that he

could ask them, but for now he was asking Ben Trask.

Or he would have been.

But at a meeting in Trask's office, when all Jake's questions might finally have been answered:

An urgent message from the Minister Responsible: something had come up that he knew would

'interest' E-Branch. His usual British understatement, for in fact the minister knew that it was

something that only E-Branch could handle.

And now read on . . .

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---

1

THE SUN, THE SEA, AND THE DRIFTING DOOM

At some 35,000 tons and just over 700 feet from stem to stern, the Evening Star was a

Mediterranean cruise ship without peer. Her eight public decks were all served by elevators, and

with her casino, gymnasium, outdoor pools, bars, gift shops, sports deck - all the usual amenities

- the Star was the pride of her line. Of an evening, her 1,400 plus passengers could choose to

relax in the Moulin Rouge lounge or the All That Jazz show bar, dance the night away in the Sierra

Ballroom, or simply sit and be serenaded, watching the sunset from the panoramic sun deck.

This being the Star's last voyage of the season, however, last night had been a little different.

A mid-cruise 'extravaganza', the extra glitz of its shows . . . and its grand finale - a fireworks

display from the stern, lighting the Aegean sky with dazzling spirals and brilliant, thunderclap

bomb-bursts - had been one of the highlights of the voyage: the locals ashore in Mytilene on the

island of Lesbos had enjoyed it as much as the passengers aboard had. Add to this cuisine straight

out of a gourmet's dream of paradise, and it was easy to see why the on-board partying had gone on

and on through the night, and why the run on the champagne locker had seemed unending . . .

But all good things do come to an end.

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Now . . . it was early morning of a Monday in October, and in the galley breakfast was being

prepared for those who still had the stomach for yet more food while those who didn't slept off

their excesses. A few younger passengers were up and about, making the most of the pools while

they still had them to themselves. As if emulating their energy a

12

pod of dolphins, like so many silver mini-submarines, played chicken on the bow-wave, criss-

crossing the prow just beneath a sparkling surface that was so flat calm it might well have been a

horizon-spanning plate of diamond-etched glass. While the sun had risen no more than half an hour

ago, already the deck rails were warm from its rays.

Perfect!

So thought Purser Bill Galliard where he strolled the main deck for'ard, having risen early to

prepare the shore-excursion roster for the Star's midday visit to the picturesque island of

Limnos. Thus far the cruise had gone precisely to plan, without a hitch, and Galliard had wanted

to do his bit to ensure things stayed that way. Now that he'd finished with the Limnos

documentation, he could take it easy for an hour or so, at least until the bulk of the passengers

were astir and those who desired to go ashore were readying themselves for terra firma.

Now, in the very prow of the ship, forty feet above and forward of the spot where the knife-like

stem sliced the water, he leaned on the deck rail and looked out across the vast curve of the

ocean. No land in sight, but Galliard came from a long line of deckhands; he knew how quickly land

masses could take shape on the horizon, especially in the Aegean, looming up as if from nowhere

into cloud-capped mountain ranges. And with the cooling breeze of the vessel's forward motion in

his face, and the hiss of parted waters in his ears, he reflected on the trip so far.

Most of the passengers were middle-aged, comfortably well-to-do, generally easygoing Brits, and

the crew was composed of a British Captain, officers and senior stewards, supported by a largely

Greek Cypriot body of deckhands, engineers, chefs, and an 'international' line-up of entertainers.

The passengers had flown out from England to Cyprus, joining the cruise in Limassol. After a week

of sailing they would return to Cyprus before flying home.

Sailing from Limassol on Thursday evening, the Evening Star had cruised all day Friday, providing

an ideal opportunity for the passengers to get to know the vessel and their fellow holiday-makers.

Saturday it had been 'All ashore who's going ashore' in Volos on the Greek mainland, and purser

Bill had taken time out to visit friends in their villa at the foot of the Pelion mountains, also

to pick up some gifts in Volos's bustling bazaar for the folks back home. Sunday they'd cruised to

Lesbos and Mytilene, where the sightseers had gone ashore again, and last night had been the food-

and-fireworks fest.

That brought Galliard up to date. The next port of call in some four hours' time would be Limnos's

new deep-water harbour, and tomorrow they'd be through the Dardanelles on their way to Istanbul.

But that was

13

to look too far ahead, and cruises such as this were best taken one day at a time.

As he thought these things through, Galliard had been idly scanning the forward horizon. A moment

ago - if only for a moment - he'd caught sight of something in direct line ahead. The fact hadn't

made a great impact on him; shipping of one sort or another can be found any time in Mediterranean

waters, and just about anywhere. Anyway, it had been a flash of white on a glittering surface . .

. maybe a dolphin had leaped clear of the water and the splashdown had caught his eye. But

Purser Galliard stepped to one of two telescopes mounted on the rail and focused ahead. For a

while there was nothing, but then . . . now what was that? A Greek caique? Just sitting there, all

these miles from the nearest island? Nothing peculiar about the boat itself; the islands were full

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of them - like gondolas in Venice - but they usually stuck pretty close to shore. This one looked

becalmed, and it simply shouldn't have been there.

The canopied boat was maybe three-quarters of a mile ahead - but dead ahead - and it definitely

wasn't moving!

Galliard took out his on-board communicator and pressed 'one' for the bridge three decks higher.

His call sign was recognized, and a voice answered, 'Bridge. What can we do for you, Purser Bill?'

It was Captain Geoff Anderson, informal as ever.

'You might try swinging her a tad to port and calling full stop on all engines,' Galliard told him

at once. 'We're about a minute and a half from running someone down!'

Wait,' came the terse answer, and ten seconds later: 'Well done, Purser Bill. We would have seen

and cleared her okay, but if they need help we'd have had to slow down and come about. So you've

saved us some time and a little embarrassment, possibly. Now for your trouble you can arm yourself

with a hailer and get down starboard onto B deck, okay?'

'Aye, aye, Cap'n,' Galliard answered with a grin, heading at the double for his office amidships.

After only a few paces, he was gratified to feel the gentle shudder of a sudden deceleration, the

barely noticeable shifting underfoot as the Star began veering a few degrees to port . . .

From just below the surface of B deck (the vessel's basement) a section of the hull had been

rotated outwards to form stairs. And from the bottom step, Purser Bill Galliard threw out a line

to the tatteredlooking man in the shade of the caique's canopy. Accompanied by three stewards and

a deckhand, Galliard watched as the figure of the man in the caique made fast the line, then began

to haul his boat in alongside.

'That's okay,' Galliard called out. 'I'll do that. You just sit tight.'

14

Water,' the shaded, crumpled-seeming man answered him, his voice a dry croak. 'The lady and I . .

. we're burning up.'

A lady? That must be the second figure, lying supine between the thwarts. Even as Galliard drew

the caique alongside, he saw her jewelgreen eyes flicker open to fix his own, in the moment before

a luminous glow suffused her face, making it indistinct. And:

God, sbe's beautiful! he thought . . . before wondering where that idea had come from, since as

yet she was barely visible in the shade of the boat's canopy, which made a jet-black contrast with

the blinding sunlight.

'Shade,' said the gaunt, ragged figure of the man, standing hunched under the canopy. 'The sun. We

have . . . suffered!'

'We have juice,' said Galliard, passing a pitcher down. 'Sip a little. It will ease your throats,

give you strength. But how long have you been out here?'

'Too long,' said the other, sipping and passing the pitcher to the woman, then reaching out a hand

to Galliard. 'Help me to get her up there.'

The purser took his hand, and felt its chill. Strange, on a day as hot as this to feel a hand so

cold. Stranger by far that the hand seemed to smoke in the sunlight! But Galliard was much too

busy, too concerned, to wonder about the apparent contradictions here. The woman was heavily

muffled; wrapped head to toe, she seemed almost mummified as she struggled to her feet, tottering

where she emerged into the light. Galliard leaned forward, held to the rail with one hand and

caught her round her slender waist with the other. She stepped - was lifted up - from the boat to

the stairs, and her man-friend close behind, apparently eager to enter into the shade of the ship.

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Lumley, Brian - E-Branch 3 - Avengers

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