Astronomy(60)

What he was telling her was good: All she had to do was hold on another few minutes and it would be over. Kriene’s target window would pass overhead.

But where was Charley Shrieve?

She looked for Charley in the truck’s side mirror, saw nothing.

She risked a glance out the window. Her hostage took the opportunity to reach for her pistol. She backhanded him across the mouth with the butt-end, and then clubbed him across the temple.

Charley was not back there, not anywhere.

The radio crackled to life: “Whoever is in the lead truck, we have your compatriot. Throw out your weapon and step out with your hands in plain view.”

In case she had any ideas to resist, a small squad appeared to her left. Charley was in the middle of them, twisted over by the collar, the better to have a Luger stuck in his ear.

Kriene came back on the radio. “You inconvenience us only momentarily. Your truck has the main triggering circuit, but we have redundant systems. It will take only a little longer to switch over to them than it will to kill your friend.”

Susan knew this was not entirely true. If Kriene had a secondary system to switch to, Charley would be dead now, and so would she.

Susan saw the man with the Luger pull back on the hammer. Charley closed his eyes. He didn’t look scared; he looked like he always looked—that is, mildly annoyed.

Someone she guessed to be the angel of her better nature whispered in her ear that the whole world was counting on her to sit tight and let Azathoth roll this place into the ocean.

Something deeper reminded her that Charley Shrieve had ridden up and down that elevator forty-five minutes waiting for her to be hauled down to a Zentralbund research lab. The world had been waiting on him too.

Sometimes, she sighed, the world just has to wait.

She eased the Luger over the windowsill. She stepped out.

Two Zentralbund soldiers were on her immediately. She was frisked with a bracing indifference to gender, picked up under the arms, beaten generously, and deposited, hands behind head, next to Charley Shrieve. She couldn’t decide if it hurt or not. It was sort of like being tumbled around in the bottom of a giant wave.

Kriene sat before them, somewhat stunned. “You!” he cried. “You are supposed to be communing with Yog Sothoth! Where are my men?”

How does one answer a question like this? She shrugged.

An officer came forward with his Walther P-38 in his hand. He intended to make a quick end to this business. Kriene would not hear of it.

“No, no,” he chided. “No death for you.” He could have been holding a cookie out on a vexing child. “Not till Yog Sothoth has had its use of the young lady. And you—” He tapped his finger to his lips as he studied Charley. “You will provide many hours of valuable and intensive anatomical study for the great Nyarlathotep. Certain entities have provided valuable technical assistance to me. You both will help me square accounts with them, yes?”

Kriene turned his chair around to face the dais. He dipped his head close to the microphone in his collar. He croaked at his men to proceed.

The summoning dropped into its deepest and most unnerving register.

“Yngaiih . . . Ygnaiih . . . thfthk’ngha . . . Azathoth . . .”

The voices found some sympathetic vibration with the very bedrock of Totenburgen Island, so that the floor tremored slightly to their every whisper.

The crush and crash of steel girders reverberated through the walls, as if the apocalypse waited right outside.

Even so, all was not well. Electricians were hunkered between the first and second trucks, trying to undo the damage Charley Shrieve had done. No doubt it was nothing serious; they could have fixed it in half an hour, if only they had a half-hour to use.

Susan sensed the panic mount as the sorcerers proceeded through the arguments for the Daemon Sultan’s arrival. Electricians ran back and forth between the trucks. Men in gas masks checked and re-checked their work. The images of Sirius became ever more bloated and surreal as Azathoth’s shadow moved closer.

—And here was this kid again, this little doily.

Where exactly did he fit in? Susan looked around and saw an amphitheater full of people, all of whom had some role in the end of the world.

And here was this kid.

The kid smiled at her. He mouthed the words, “Pop, pop,” meaning, she supposed, the sound of her shoulders being dislocated.

She did the mature thing—she stuck out her tongue at him.

Jürgen Kriene was getting some unpleasant news of his own. She saw him talking into the little microphone in his collar. He was agitated.

He rolled forward to get a better view of the trucks. He made a sound of disgust.

Susan glanced back to see the electricians holding up their hands in a helpless gesture.