I just waved a hand at him despairingly. Then I focused intently on what I could hear inside me. Yes, Gesar was somewhere close by, and Zabulon . . . and Svetlana . . . and hundreds, thousands of Others. They were waiting.
They were counting on me.
'How can I help?' Las asked. 'Maybe I could look for some aspen stakes? By the way, they make matches out of genuine aspen, did you know that? I always wondered why it had to be aspen, does it really burn better than anything else? But now I realise it's for fighting vampires. Sharpen a dozen matches . . .'
I looked at Las.
He spread his arms apologetically.
'All right, all right . . . I'm only trying to be helpful.'
I walked across to the door of the washroom and looked out. A long corridor, daylight lamps, no windows. At the end was a man in uniform with a pistol on his belt. A guard? Yes, there had to be security guards here. Even these days.
Only why was the guard frozen in such a stiff, awkward pose?
I went out into the corridor and moved towards the soldier. I called quietly:
'Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you something?'
The guard didn't mind. He was staring into space – and smiling. A young man, not yet thirty. Absolutely rigid. And very pale.
I pressed my fingers against his carotid artery – I could just barely feel the pulse. The bite marks were almost invisible, there were just a few small drops of blood on the collar. Kostya must have been drained after that exit he'd made. He'd been in need of refreshment, and there hadn't been any cats around . . .
But if the soldier was still alive, there was a chance he would make it.
I took his pistol out of the holster – it looked like he must have been reaching for it when the vampire's command made him freeze – and carefully laid him out on the floor. Let him rest. Then I turned round.
Of course, Las had followed me. And now he was gazing at the motionless soldier.
'Can you use a gun?' I asked.
'I'll give it a try.'
'If you have to, aim for the head and the heart. If you hit him, it might just slow him down.'
Naturally, I was under no illusions. Even if Las emptied the entire clip into Kostya, which was unlikely enough, bullets wouldn't stop a Higher Vampire. But at least it gave Las something to do.
I just hoped he wouldn't get the jitters and shoot me in the back.
Finding Kostya wasn't hard, even without using magic. We came across another three men – a guard and two civilians – who were in a trance and had been bitten. Kostya must have been moving in that vampire style that becomes too fast for the eye to follow, when feeding takes no more than ten seconds.
'Will they become vampires now?' Las asked me.
'Only if he wanted them to. And they agreed.'
'I didn't think there was any choice.'
'There's always a choice,' I said, opening yet another door.
I realised we'd arrived.
It was a spacious, brightly lit hall, full of people. At least twenty men. The cosmonauts were here – our captain, and the American, and the space tourist, a German chocolate manufacturer.
They were all in a state of blissful trance. Apart from two technicians in white coats, that is, whose eyes were vacant, but whose hands were moving with their customary skill as they helped Kostya put on a spacesuit. It wasn't an easy job – flight suits are made to measure, and Kostya was a bit taller than the German.
The unfortunate tourist, stripped naked – Kostya hadn't even been worried about putting on his underwear – was sitting at one side, sucking on his index finger.
'I've only got two or three minutes,' Kostya said cheerfully. 'So don't try to stop me, Anton. Get in my way and I'll kill you.'
My appearance was no surprise to him, of course.
'They won't let the rocket take off,' I said. 'What were you expecting? The Higher Ones know what you're planning.'
'They'll let it go, they have no choice,' Kostya replied calmly. 'The air defence cover here is pretty good, you can take my word for it. And the cosmodrome's head of security has just given all the necessary instructions. Are you trying to tell me they'll launch a ballistic missile strike?'
'Yes.'
'You're bluffing,' Kostya replied coolly. 'A strike by the Chinese or the Americans is out of the question. That would start a world war. Our rockets aren't targeted on Baikonur. They won't let planes with tactical warheads get close. You've no way out. Lie back, relax and enjoy.'
Maybe he was right.
Or perhaps the Great Ones did have a plan to incinerate Baikonur with a nuclear strike – and not start a world war.
That wasn't important.
The important thing was that Kostya had made up his own mind that he wouldn't be stopped. That now they would take him out and put him in the rocket . . . and what then?
What would he be able to do, sitting in a metal barrel, when the portals of a dozen Higher Magicians opened on the launch pad? When they instantly purged the brains of the head of security and those who had to press the start button and destroyed him with a portable nuclear missile or by activating some secret satellite with an x-ray laser?
He wouldn't be able to do a thing!
A space ship isn't a car – you can't just steal it and drive it away. A space launch is the coordinated effort of a thousand people, and at every stage all it needs is for one little button to be pressed to make sure the ship never reaches orbit.
Even if Kostya was a stupid fool, he was a Higher One now, he should be reading the probability lines to foresee what would happen – he must realise that he'd be stopped.
That meant . . .
That meant all of it – the cosmodrome, the rocket, the people whose minds he'd taken over or put to sleep – all of it was a blind, a bluff. Saratov airport all over again.
He didn't need a rocket! Just as he hadn't needed a plane!
He was going to open a portal straight into space.
So why had he come dashing to Baikonur? For the spacesuit? Nonsense. Zvyozdny would have been much nearer, and somehow or other he could have found a functional spacesuit the right size there.
So it wasn't just for the spacesuit . . .
'I need to read the incantations,' Kostya said. 'To smear the blood on the page. You can't do that in a vacuum.'
He got up and pushed the technicians aside. They stood obediently to attention.
'I'll have to open a portal to the space station. For that I need to know its precise position. And even so mistakes are possible . . . maybe even inevitable.'
I couldn't sense him reading my thoughts, but he clearly was.
'You got everything right, Anton. I'm ready to depart for the station at any second. Before all of you can do anything about it. And even if Gesar and Zabulon turn themselves inside out, you won't have enough Power. I'm as powerful as it's possible to be, get it? Absolute Power! There is nowhere higher to go! Gesar dreamed that your daughter would be the first enchantress to do that . . .' Kostya laughed. 'But look – I'm the first!'
'Enchantress?' I asked, allowing myself a smile.
'Absolute Magician,' Kostya snapped. 'And that's why you can't beat me. You can't gather enough Power, do you understand? I am absolute!'
'You're an absolute zero,' I said. 'You're an absolute vampire.'
'Vampire, magician . . . what's the difference? I'm an absolute Other.'
'You're right, there is no difference. We all live off human Power. And you're not the most powerful of all – you're the weakest. You're an absolute vacuum, sucking in Power that isn't yours.'
'So be it.' Kostya wasn't going to argue. 'That doesn't change a thing, Anton. You can't stop me, and I'm going to carry out my plan.'
He paused for a second, then said:
'And still you won't join me . . .What's going on in your head?'
I didn't answer. I drew in Power.
From Gesar and Zabulon, from Dark Ones and Light Ones, from the Good and the Evil
. Somewhere far away those I loved and those I hated were all giving me their Power. And right then it made no difference to me if that Power was Light or Dark. We were all in the same boat now – in the same small boat out in space, adrift in the absolute void . . .
'Go on, strike,' Kostya said contemptuously. 'You won't take me by surprise again.'
'Strike,' Gesar whispered. 'Strike with the "white mist".'
The knowledge of what the 'white mist' was came creeping into me together with the Light power. The knowledge was terrible, frightening – even Gesar himself had only ever used the spell once, and afterwards he'd sworn never to use it again . . .
'Strike!' Zabulon advised me. 'Better use "shades of the rulers".'
The knowledge of 'shades of the rulers' slid into me together with the Dark power. The knowledge was even more horrifying – not even Zabulon had ever dared raise those shadows from the fifth level of the Twilight . . .
'Strike!' said Edgar. 'Use the "sarcophagus of the ages". Only the "sarcophagus of the ages"!'
The knowledge of what the 'sarcophagus of the ages' was flooded into me with the Power of the Inquisitors. The knowledge was utterly spine-chilling – the one who used the spell remained in the sarcophagus with his victim forever, until the universe came to an end.
'What if I put a hole in his spacesuit?' asked Las, standing in the doorway with his pistol.
An absolute Other.
An absolute zero.
The most powerful of all, the weakest of all . . .
I gathered together all the power I had been given – and put it into a seventh-degree spell, one of the very simplest, one every Other can manage.
The 'magician's shield'.
So much power had probably never been wasted so senselessly.
Now not a single magician in the world was so reliably protected.
Against everything.
A white reticulated cocoon appeared around me. The threads of the cocoon crackled with the energy streaming through them. It was rooted way down in the deepest depths of the universe, beyond the countless levels of the Twilight, where there is no matter, or space, or time – nothing that a human being or Other can comprehend.
'What are you doing?' Kostya asked, with an expression of childish resentment on his face. 'What are you doing, Anton?'
I didn't answer, just stood there, looking at him. I didn't want even the shadow of a thought to show on my face. I wanted him to think whatever he wanted to think.
Let him.
'Are you frightened?' Kostya asked. 'You . . . why you . . . you're a coward, Anton!'
I didn't answer.
And the Higher Ones were silent too. Or, more likely, they were shouting, swearing, cursing me – because I'd squandered all the power they'd collected on absolute protection for myself.
If they hit Baikonur with a thermonuclear warhead now, I'd be left safe and unharmed. Floating in a cloud of plasma, encased in boiling stone, but completely safe.
'I don't even know what to say . . .' Kostya shrugged. 'I wasn't going to kill you anyway. I haven't forgotten that you were my friend.'
I didn't answer.
Forgive me, but I can't call you my friend any more. That's why you must not realise what I have realised. You must not read my thoughts.
'Goodbye, Anton,' Kostya said.
The technicians came over to him and lowered the glass shield of his helmet. He cast a final glance at me through the glass – a glance of incomprehension and resentment. And then turned away.
I was expecting him to open the portal into space there and then. But Kostya had made his preparations for the leap thoroughly. What did I know? I'd never even heard of anyone attempting to transport themselves on board an aeroplane in flight, let alone a space station in orbit.
Abandoning the cosmonauts and the personnel in their state of trance, Kostya walked out of the hall. Las moved aside and squinted at me, holding up the pistol.
I shook my head, and he didn't shoot.
We simply followed him into the flight control room, where the technicians and programmers were all sitting at their computers like zombies.
When had he found the time to subject them all to his will?
Could he really have done it all the moment he reached Baikonur?
An ordinary vampire can easily keep one or two people under his control. A Higher Vampire can manage about twenty.
But Kostya really had become an absolute Other – he had the entire fine-tuned mechanism of the huge cosmodrome dancing to his music.
They brought Kostya some kind of print-outs, and pointed out something to him on the screens. He listened and nodded but didn't look in our direction once.
A clever boy. Well educated. He studied in the physics faculty, and then moved to biology, but it looked like he'd maintained his enthusiasm for physics and maths. Those diagrams and graphs wouldn't have meant a thing to me, but he was preparing to put up a magical portal directly into orbit. To go out into space using magical means – one small step for an Other, one huge leap forward for all mankind . . .
Just don't let him drag it out too long.
Just don't let Gesar panic.
Just don't let them make that nuclear strike – it won't do any good, and there's no need, there's no need!
Kostya didn't look at me until after he'd opened the prism of the portal. He stared at me with that contemptuous resentment in his eyes. The lips behind the glass moved and I realised what they'd said: 'Goodbye'.
'Goodbye,' I agreed.
With his life-support pack in one hand and the briefcase containing the Fuaran in the other, Kostya stepped into the portal.
And then I allowed myself to remove the shield – and all that Power that wasn't mine zoomed away from me, spreading out in all directions.
'Just how do you propose to explain all that?' Gesar asked.
'What exactly?' I sat down on the nearest chair, shaking. How long would the air supply last in a light spacesuit never intended for spacewalking? A couple of hours? It was unlikely to be more.
Kostya Saushkin didn't have long left to live.
'What makes you so sure . . .' Gesar began. Then he stopped. I even thought I heard him exchange a few words with Zabulon. No doubt something about orders that had to be rescinded, about bombers that had to be returned to base. About the team of magicians that would start covering up the traces left by the outrageous events that had taken place at Baikonur. About the official cover story for the failed launch.
'What happened?' Las asked, sitting down beside me. The technician he had unceremoniously shoved off the chair gazed around, perplexed. People were gradually recovering their wits.
'That's it,' I said. 'It's all over. Or almost all over.'
But I knew it wasn't really over yet. Because somewhere high in the sky, up above the clouds, in the cold starlight, the Absolute Other was tumbling over and over in his stolen spacesuit. Kostya Saushkin. He was trying to open a portal – but he couldn't. He was trying to get to the space station drifting past him – but he couldn't. He was trying to get back to Earth – but he couldn't.