"Lumley, Brian - Vampire World 3 - Bloodwars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

would not pursue. In any case, it was abhorred by the Thyre and the dead of the Szgany alike, which was why the latter had avoided Nathan: because he was the son of the hell-lander, Harry Keogh. It was the last legacy of his father, which in his own world at least Nathan still must live down; either live it down, or prove that Harry's reputation in this respect was unwarranted.
But in this world, now that the Great Majority had finally befriended him:
Nathan visited a graveyard outside of Ploiesti in Romania, whose dead had risen up on his father's behalf against Securitatea thugs in the days of Ceausescu. They were still there and they still remembered, and made him welcome. His father was a legend to them, and they swore that despite the timidity of the Great Majority in general, they had never turned their backs on Harry Keogh.
What? But Harry had been responsible for the removal of a great cancer out of their earth: the termination of Faethor Ferenczy himself, and his expulsion into the infinite abyss of future time - indeed, into Mobius time. For within the Mobius Continuum, Harry had sent the incorporeal spirit of the master vampire Faethor winging down future time-streams with only his mind intact and no possible hope of rescue. Such had been the Necroscope's loathing of vampires ... and such was his son's loathing of them . ..
He visited a cemetery not far from Newcastle in England's north-east, to talk to a prostitute Harry had known. Pamela's one regret was that she had never known his father 'that' way ... but she had known and liked him enough to dig her way out of her grave for him when he was in trouble. It had happened at a time shortly before Harry had been driven out of (or had chosen to leave) this world for Starside, when the Necroscope had been up against a monster in human guise by the name of Johnny Found. With Pamela's help -and the help of others of the teeming dead, Pound's victims all - Harry had destroyed him right there in that graveyard.
So Nathan learned of his father's works, from the living
and the dead alike: from his friends in E-Branch and from the teeming dead in their graves across the world. And so he spanned the world in his efforts to track down any who had known Harry Keogh, in order to vindicate his father and re-establish his reputation.
In point of fact, it wasn't an absolute requirement that Nathan visit their last resting places in order to talk to the dead; it would be far easier to reach out a deadspeak probe, seek them out across all the miles, and do it that way. But that had not been his father's way. The first Necroscope had never been the one to 'shout' at the Great Majority; when he had desired to speak to a dead man, then he had gone to 'see' him. Except in matters of extreme urgency, it had seemed the polite thing to do; and so it seemed to Nathan.
In this respect, too, he must use extreme caution. A good many of Harry Keogh's dead friends lay in graves or other resting places within perimeters which had enclosed the once USSR. Even with the Mobius Continuum to command, Nathan knew enough to restrict his visits to places such as these. Just as there were espers in the West, so there were 'talented' men in the East - and most of them belonged to Turkur Tzonov!
But so many dead people to visit, because this might be his last chance; so many of them who he must talk to. And all to be seen to in little more than twenty-four hours: a day, a night and a morning. Because that was all the time Nathan had left.. .
... In this world, at least.
To most men, his itinerary - the amount of work he packed into those few short hours - would have been exhausting; without the Mobius Continuum it would have been impossible. Nathan was Szgany, however, and accustomed to the seemingly interminable hours of day- and night-time on Sunside/Starside, where each day/night cycle was equivalent to a week in the parallel world of Earth. In this respect, he could and did drive himself to an almost insomniac extent.
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But when all or as much as possible was done, and Nathan returned to E-Branch HQ after one last trip - to a graveyard in the north-east of England where he'd talked awhile and said a fond farewell to a personal friend, the revenant spirit of a small girl called Cynthia, dead before her time - then, even he was weary. It showed in his face as he stepped out of the Mobius Continuum into Harry's room, where David Chung was no longer required to act as a homing beacon, for Nathan had the co-ordinates now.
And it also showed when he reported to Ben Trask, as he had been instructed to do after each Mobius trip ...
II
Trouble at E-Branch - The Mobius Route
The Head of Branch wasn't looking too good himself. Trask's voice was more than a little testy when he reminded: 'It's Friday, Nathan, and we've a plane to catch - you, me and a couple of minders. There'll be more of our people waiting in Belgrade, in case Turkur Tzonov is watching and has agents there. In fact, you can bet your life he has! And while we're on the subject of Tzonov: you may not know it, but I worry when you're away from here on your own - that you might stray too far into his territory, that he might somehow trap and kill you. So maybe you'd like to tell me why you've kept me waiting? I was beginning to think you'd left it too late. Our plane leaves in just three hours' time. It's a standard flight of around two and a half hours; maybe you can catch up on some lost sleep in the air. Frankly, you look like you could use it.'
But Nathan shook his head and said, 'No, I don't think so. Flying isn't for me. I don't really care for airplanes.'
It took the wind right out of Trask's sails. He frowned and said, 'What the -- ?'
'I wasn't much for riding on Wamphyri flyers, either.' Nathan's smile was wan, despite the tan he'd picked up in the Ionian. 'And in a way planes are just as bad - perhaps worse. It was exciting enough at first, I suppose, but .. . let's face it, nothing that heavy should jump that high! So why don't you take David Chung to Belgrade, and I'll do my sleeping here and catch up later?'
'You'll catch up -?'
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'Later,' Nathan repeated it. 'My way. As soon as you're in the Refuge at Radujevac .. .'
After a moment's silence: 'Your way . . .' Trask said. The way he breathed the words, they were like a sigh. And in that same instant of time, both men realized how much the older envied the younger. But then, perhaps in an attempt to disguise the fact, Trask asked, 'Does it come that easy to you now?'
'It's getting easier, yes.'
'With Harry, it was like walking, talking, breathing. But he'd had practice.'
'And I'm getting it.'
'You .. . you brought Zek here that way. I mean yesterday.' Trask had had plenty of time to think about it; the idea should be old hat to him, but it wasn't and never could be. 'You just, well, brought her here, from Zakynthos.'
That's right, I did.' Nathan wasn't boasting; in the main, it was still a mystery to him, too; he was just stating an anything but simple fact. And even without his telepathy, somehow he knew what was on Trask's mind, what was coming next.
'Son, do you think ...' Trask began, and squirmed a little in his chair. He hated to obfuscate and liked all things clear-cut. Perhaps it was his talent working in reverse. '- I mean, in his time your father took quite a few people with him along the Mobius route. But it's something strange to me, an experience I can never know . .. Isn't it?'
'It's still strange to me, too,' Nathan answered. 'And yet attractive, maybe even addictive. Do you want to try it?'
'I ... I don't know.' Trask began to shake his head, then stopped and nodded. 'Yes, I want to try it. This could well be my one and only chance.'
'And do you trust me?'
This time there was no hesitation. 'Yes, of course I do. You know I do.'
Nathan shrugged and smiled again. 'So be it,' he said.
And so it would be ...
Nathan slept, but Trask was too excited to do anything but sit at his desk, shuffle paper and try to keep his mind off what was coming next, in just a few hours' time. For to dwell upon it ... he knew he'd get no work done at all! Trask had been in a good many strange places and had done a good many strange things -- the strangest! - but this was to venture into a place where only a handful of men had ever been, one which shouldn't even exist, except in the fevered dreams of theoretical physicists or abstruse mathematicians. The Mobius Continuum! Only let him think of it ... off he would go again, into crazy dreams and fancies of his own. But only fancies, because there was no imagining how it would really be.
In the end, he pushed the paperwork aside and went to the Ops room. This was to be the stepping-off point for Romania. It was empty now, but in about three more hours ...
They would all be here, E-Branch in its entirety, or with the sole (the soul?) exception of Anna Marie English, eco-path, who for some months now had been working with the kids in the Romanian Refuge, and at the same time making the way ready for Nathan. Even the Minister Responsible would be here, because this was something he'd never seen, either.
But Ben Trask had seen it, even before Nathan:
That time at Harry Keogh's place not far from Bonnyrigg, his 'last refuge' on Earth, when the Necroscope had reached the end of his time in this world. Trask had seen Harry in his Wamphyri mode - had witnessed something of a vampire's weird metamorphosis - and sometimes he nightmared about it still. But as for the Mobius Continuum: that was something you didn't see, unless you were the one who conjured it. But you could see it in use, certainly.
Remembering the way Harry had looked that night when the Branch burned his house, Trask shivered again. Jesus! The Wamphyri overlords of Nathan's world - or of Starside at least - were like that? He knew that they were, of course;
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