The Rituals of Infinity by Michael Moorcock

Author:Michael Moorcock [Moorcock, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9

E-Zero

Doctor May looked relieved. He stood wiping his glasses in the bare concrete room which Faustaff recognised as being in Earth One's headquarters at Haifa.

Faustaff waited for his head to clear before advancing towards May.

'We never thought we'd get you back,' said May. 'We've been trying for the last day, ever since you disappeared in the break-up of E-15. I heard our adjustor was destroyed.'

'I'm sorry,' said Faustaff.

May shrugged and replaced his glasses. His pudgy face looked unusually haggard. 'That's nothing compared to what's going on. I've got some news for you.'

'And I for you.' Faustaff reflected that May's invocation had come at exactly the wrong time. But it was no use mentioning it. At least he was back at his own base and could perhaps conceive a plan that would permanently put Orelli out of action.

May walked towards the door. Technicians were disconnecting the big invoker which had been used to pull Faustaff through subspace once they had picked up the signal from the invocation disc on his wrist.

Faustaff followed May out into the corridor and May led the way to the lift. On the fourth floor of the building they came to May's office.

Several other men were waiting there. Faustaff recognised some of them as heads of Central Headquarters departments and others he knew as communications specialists.

'Have you something to tell us before we begin?' May said, picking up a phone after introductions and greetings. He ordered coffee and replaced the phone.

'It won't take me long to fill you in,' Faustaff said. He settled himself into a chair. He told them of Steifflomeis's attempt to kill him and how it was plain that Steifflomeis knew much more about the worlds of subspace than he had admitted, that he had referred to his 'powerful principals' and indicated that the Faustaff organisation couldn't stand a big attack—and neither could the worlds of subspace. He then went on to describe Orelli's 'specimens' and what he had discovered about them.

The reaction to this wasn't as startled as he had expected. May simply nodded, his lips set tightly.

'This fits in with our discovery, professor,' he said. 'We have just contacted a new alternate Earth. Or I should say part of one. It is at this moment being formed.'

'An alternate actually being created!' Faustaff was excited now. 'Can't we get there—see how it happens. It could tell us a lot ...'

'We've tried to get through to E-Zero, as we've called it, but every attempt seems to have been blocked. This Earth isn't being created naturally—there is an intelligence behind it.'

Faustaff took this easily. The logical assumption now could only be that some non-human force was at work not only, as was now obvious, destroying worlds, but creating them as well. Somewhere the D-squaders, Steifflomeis and Maggy White fitted in—and could probably tell them a lot. All the events of recent days showed that the situation was, from their point of view, worsening. And the odds that faced them were bigger than they had guessed.

Faustaff helped himself to a cup of coffee from the tray that had been brought in.

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