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mustered against it. To the right it wasn't so bad, but still difficult, and
to the left likewise. There was only one way to go, which meant that that had
to be the right way. That was why he hadn't noticed it before; because he'd
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automatically chosen, or been guided, along the path of least resistance. And
after that there'd been more plodding, more sweating, until now - time for
another swig at his bottle. Staring ahead, and as he pulled at the bottle and
let the water cool his mouth, Jazz suddenly realized that things were no
longer pure white. That came as a shock, so that he almost choked on his
water. Now what the hell . . .? There in the distance . . . mountains?
Silhouettes of crags? A dark-blue sky and . . . stars? It was like looking
through a sea-fret; better, like looking down a tunnel at a misty morning. Or
at a scene faintly etched on a white silk screen. But how far away?
Jazz plodded on, more eagerly now - and at the same time somewhat more
apprehensively. The scene came closer, growing brighter as the stars blinked
out and were replaced by weak beams of sunlight seeming to strike through the
mountains to the right of the picture's frame. And that was when Jazz heard
the sound.
At first he associated it with the emerging scene, but then he realized that
it came from behind him. And no sooner that than he recognized it for what it
really was: a motorcycle! He turned and looked back.
Karl Vyotsky rode with the sling of his SMG across his right shoulder, the gun
itself hanging under his arm, muzzle forward. As yet he couldn't see the
distant scene that
Jazz had spotted, but he could see Jazz. The big Russian gritted his teeth
into a snarling grin, guided the bike with his left hand and his knees and
took the handgrip of the gun in his right fist. He laid his index finger along
the trigger-guard, turned up the throttle and felt the bike surge forward.
'British,' he grunted to himself, 'your time's up.
Kiss it all goodbye!'
For a moment Jazz was stunned. A motorcycle! And here he'd been knocking
himself out walking it! The problem was, how to turn Vyotsky's advantage into
a disadvantage? But as he'd walked, so Jazz had been giving the Gate's weird
physics a thought or two. Now he believed he had the answer. 'OK, Ivan,' he
murmured to himself, 'so let's see if you're as smart as you think you are.'
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Vyotsky rode closer, revved up until sixty showed on his clock and the bike
throbbed under him. The ride was smooth as silk, but even so, aiming the SMG
would not be easy. It would be, literally, hit or miss. But he did have the
element of surprise, or if not surprise, shock at least. What must the
Englishman be thinking now, he wondered, to see this powerful machine bearing
down on him?
He's a little less than half a mile away, Jazz was thinking.
Thirty seconds.
He got down on one knee, turned his body side-on so as to decrease his target
silhouette, turned his gun in Vyotsky's direction. Not that he intended to
shoot at him, just make him a little nervous.
A quarter-mile to go, and Vyotsky's face a mask of hatred where he thundered
to the attack. But . . . suddenly his quarry had grown smaller, he'd gone down
on one knee.
And at the same time Vyotsky saw the scene on the other side of the Gate. For
a moment it threw him, but then he returned his concentration to what he was
doing, namely: hunting down this British bastard to the death! He began to
move his knees, shift his body-weight, give the bike something of a slow
wobble; and at the same time he commenced firing single shots in Jazz's
direction.
One hundred and fifty yards, and Jazz held his fire. He hadn't even released
the safety-catch, hadn't cocked the weapon. It seemed obvious that the crazy
Russian intended to run him down; Vyotsky was relying on Jazz losing his nerve
and making a run for it, trying to get out of the way. But Jazz had some ideas
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of his own. Finally he clicked off the safety-catch, cocked the weapon,
re-sighted and . . . waited. For if he was correct it would be useless to fire
anyway.
Fifty yards, and Vyotsky firing on automatic, a stream of lead that buzzed and
plucked at the air all about Jazz, too close for comfort. And at the last
possible moment he hurled himself to one side. Vyotsky's bike careened by him;
its rider threw it into a steep, banking turn;
the bike stood on its nose and hurled him out of the saddle!
Then machine and rider were somersaulting in different directions, and Jazz
walked carefully forward toward them, and toward the scene looming on the
other side of the
Gate. Miraculously, Vyotsky came to the end of his skidding and tumbling and
found himself virtually unharmed. The 'ground' here was obviously different.
He had bruises and one sleeve of his combat suit was torn where he'd put his
elbow through it, but that was all. He climbed shakily to his feet, stared
unbelievingly at the
Englishman maybe fifteen paces away where he walked toward him. 'Hello there,
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