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smock which on his last visit he'd seen hanging there. The smock was the
insignia of a Projekt scientist or technician. In the garment's pocket he
found tinted spectacles and put them on.
And without more ado he went straight to the magmass heart of the place,
materializing on the Saturn's-rings circumference midway between two sets of
manned
Katushev cannons. He stayed perfectly still, held a Mobius door fixed in his
mind, ready to take cover - but all seemed well. A soldier lounging against
the smooth magmass wall saw him, looked a little startled, straightened up and
gave a half-hearted salute. Harry stared hard at him, much to the man's
discomfort, then turned and scanned the great unnatural cavern in which he
found himself. Especially he stared at the blinding white sphere which was the
Gate . . .
There were other technicians about. Everyone looked tired following their
night-shift, even the gunners in their padded bucket-seats where they sighted
their weapons on the Gate. Two scientists walked past Harry, talking, moving
in the direction of the walkway to the sphere. One of them glanced his way as
they passed, smiled and nodded in a familiar manner. Harry wondered who the
man thought he was. He nodded back, began to follow the pair, and as he drew
level with the walkway turned off and moved toward the centre, heading
directly for the sphere of light.
Behind him a soldier shouted: 'Hey! - not in our line of fire, sir!
Regulations!'
Harry glanced back casually over his shoulder and kept going. He left the
outer platform behind and moved onto the walkway. Even as the gate in the
electrified fence began to close, he passed through it, reached the spot where
the boards were scorched. Behind him the gates opened again; footsteps came
hurrying; Harry was aware of a low, angry muttering. But he was more aware of
the Katushevs aimed directly at him; or rather not trained on him but on the
Gate, which amounted to the same thing.
'Sir!' a voice shouted in his ear, from directly behind him.
Harry conjured a Mobius door -
and with a tremor of unaccustomed panic saw that it was all wrong!
The outline of the door wasn't clear-cut in Harry's mind. Its edges shimmered
like a heat-haze mirage. It floated up alongside him, drifted toward the
sphere as if attracted by it, and was held there, gradually fading where it
trembled above the wooden walkway. Harry had seen nothing like this before. He
conjured a second door with the same result: the sphere both attracted and
repelled the doors; it made them less substantial, pinned them down and broke
them up. It cancelled them!
A hand fell on Harry's shoulder, and at the same time he heard shouts from the
wide wooden staircase where it emerged from the magmass shaft. Someone with a
high-
pitched voice was screaming: 'He's here! He's here!' As the Sergeant who'd
grabbed Harry's shoulder turned him about-face, he glanced toward the stairs,
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saw Chingiz
Khuv and a second man coming down from the shaft. Harry thought:
God! Doesn't that bastard ever sleep?
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Khuv seemed to be holding his companion up, keeping him from toppling
headlong. The man he helped was one of the espers Harry had struck while he
was laying his smoke screen. And he was the one who was doing all the
shouting. Then he pointed directly at
Harry screamed one last time, "That's him!' - and Khuv's dark gaze followed
his shaking hand.
Khuv's eyes blazed in a moment. 'Open fire!' he shouted at once. He too
pointed at Harry, shouting, 'Shoot him! Kill him! He's an intruder!'
The Sergeant who had taken hold of Harry let go of him, stepped back, went to
draw the pistol at his hip. Harry moved quickly after him, drop-kicked him and
sent him flying off the walkway. Falling to the boards, Harry stayed low, out
of the line of fire of the Katushevs. He conjured a Mobius door level with the
walkway, hanging over empty space. It was his notion to dive headlong through
it -
but the door shimmered and warped, was drawn up and toward the sphere of
light!
Harry could hear the Katushev commander yelling: Target to the front - take
aim - ' and knew that the next command would be 'fire!' He mustn't be here
when that order was given. Before the shimmering, disintegrating door could
disappear entirely, he sprang for it. Even though it appeared printed on the
very face of the sphere itself, still it was his one chance.
He passed through the door -
into a hell of physical and mental agony!
When Harry regained consciousness he was adrift in the Mobius Continuum,
apparently in motion through a region of the continuum which was new to him.
His body and his psyche both felt badly battered, and that sixth sense of
Harry's which was usually sharp as a razor felt tarnished and dull. Not
without a deal of effort, he formed the mental equations and conjured a door;
it opened on deep voids of space shot with stars in alien constellations. He
closed the door at once and groped for others.
He found a door on future-time and peered through it. No blue life-threads
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