The Last Aerie Read Online Free PDF Page B

Soviet E-Branch had been on the blower asking to speak to you.”
    “Harry’s room?” Trask frowned.
    They were heading down the corridor towards the Ops room. Chung took Trask’s elbow and brought him to a halt, looked over the other’s shoulder at a door behind him and nodded. “Harry’s room, yes,” he said. The expression on his face was curious, questioning.
    Then Trask remembered. When Harry Keogh stayed here after the Bodescu affair, they’d given him a room of his own. Indeed the Necroscope had literally lived here, however briefly, until his wife’s problem had become apparent. That had been … what? A quarter century ago? And eight years after that he had been debriefed here, after his return from Starside. God, the passage of time: it made Trask feel old! Who was he kidding? Well past fifty he was getting old, and too fast!
    He turned and looked at the door, which had its own faded plastic name plate:
     
    H ARRY’S R OOM
     
    Trask frowned again, and said: “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in there? Well, not since Harry’s time, anyway.” He looked at Chung and saw that he was suddenly pale; his mouth was tight and his slanted eyes were blinking rapidly. “David?”
    The other shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just this room, I think. You’ve never been in there? Well, you’re not alone. The Necroscope used it for a while, since when …” He shrugged. “The room housed a computer terminal for eight years, until we refitted. In fact the old machine is still in there, gathering dust. Then the room fell into disuse, and no one seems to have had any use for it at all! But now … I find myself wondering if it doesn’t go deeper than that? I mean, it’s always cold in that room, Ben. All of the espers feel it: it has an aura. The room itself doesn’t seem to want anyone; it doesn’t want to be messed with.” Chung stared hard at Trask. “Haven’t you felt it too?”
    Trask looked blank. “I don’t think I’ve even noticed the room,” he said. “I mean, I have noticed it—the name plate and all—but it hasn’t made any impression. It’s just a place I’ve lived with every day of my life all these years, without really seeing it.”
    “That’s exactly what I mean,” Chung answered. “And all of the others say the same thing. Someone stuck that plate on the door God knows how long ago and since then it’s been Harry’s room and that’s all. But ever since he returned to Starside … we might have forgotten Harry, or tried to, but it’s like this room hasn’t.”
    A phrase the Necroscope had used came back to Trask, “His last vestige on Earth?”
    Chung shrugged. “Something like that.”
    Trask nodded and said, “We’ll look into it later. First I have to know what’s been happening in Perchorsk.”
    Waiting for Trask and Chung in the large Operations room, one half of which was an auditorium, a small group of espers occupied seats in the lower tier facing the stage and podium. As the Head of Branch entered, the low murmur of their voices reached out to him for a moment. Then the noise fell away, and showing their respect, they stood up. Trask waved them back into their seats, climbed steps up onto the stage with Chung following on behind. To one side of the podium, a table and chairs faced the audience. The two men seated themselves and Trask went straight into it:
    “Being who and what you are, you probably know as much as I do about what’s going on. Briefly: something has come through into Perchorsk from Starside. Now, we’re each and every one au fait with the problem at Perchorsk, so it’s no wonder our ‘colleagues’ over there seem to have a flap on. Anything that comes through the Gate has to be highly suspect. Except this is more so, because David here tells me it’s Harry Keogh …”
    “… Something of the Necroscope,” Chung cut into their gasps and whispers. “Something with powerful connections. We know Harry was—well,