‘That’s one of the signs. Right.’
Vic changed the subject and talked about preparations for the arraignment of Cal McBride and predictions about the dust storm’s duration until the nurse sent him away.
Chloe had lost twelve centimetres of her colon to Drury’s bullet, and it had chipped her pelvis and caused some nerve damage. She’d also contracted pneumonia and suffered congestive pressure to her heart. And there was something else, something growing under the skin of her wrist. When the biochine had bitten her, it had left something behind.
One of the consultants treating her said that she’d seen similar examples of biochine infection amongst prospectors and ruin miners. Fibrous growths of carbon whiskers with complex nanostructures incorporating copper and iron and other elements, with a pathology similar to neurofibromatosis.
‘In your case, fortunately, the fibroid is localised and highly organised. As if it has a purpose or function. Although what that is, I’m afraid we do not yet know.’
‘Is it still growing?’ Chloe said. The idea of a weird alien parasite stealthily invading her flesh was simultaneously unnerving and queasily fascinating.
‘The scans show that it appears to have stabilised, although threads resembling afferent nerves have extended up your arm and made connections to your sensory and paranervous systems at the fifth cervical vertebra.’ The consultant touched her neck to show what she meant. ‘You aren’t the only person infected, by the way. Your friend, Fahad Chauhan, has a similar growth.’
‘He must have been bitten too. He didn’t mention it…’
‘The other good news is that it appears to have had no effect on your immune system or brain activity,’ the consultant said. ‘And there is no loss of mobility in your wrist or hand. You’ll hardly notice it’s there.’
It took a moment for Chloe to realise what she meant. ‘You aren’t going to remove it?’
‘Surgical excision is often unsuccessful — the fibroids grow back. And any attempt to remove the threads embedded in your spinal cord could cause paralysis. We’d like to do some more tests,’ the consultant said. ‘With your permission, of course.’
‘Maybe when I’ve healed up.’
Chloe had a good idea what the growth was for. A terminal. A connector. She had been prepared. Fahad had been prepared too. And maybe the idea that she’d been prepared was part of that preparation.
She gave Vic Gayle a statement about witnessing Hanna Babbel’s murder, and over several days told him about everything else, from the breakout in Dagenham to the final confrontation at Site 326. One day she realised just how ill she had been, and knew then that she was getting better. Soon afterwards, she was able to begin physical therapy. It would be a while before she could walk again, but the cheerful young Romanian physiotherapist who put her through her gruelling routines said that if she continued to exercise regularly she would probably only have a trace of a limp.
Vic told her about progress in the case against McBride. The dust storm was still blowing and communications were still down between the city and Idunn’s Valley: there was no news from the excavation site.
‘Which almost certainly means there’s no sign of a ship yet,’ Vic said.
‘One is on its way. Fahad was sure of it.’
‘Maybe this Ugly Chicken lied to him. Or he misunderstood. I wouldn’t blame the kid if he did.’
‘This ship, or whatever it is, it may have been asleep for a long time. Thousands of years. Tens of thousands…It may need a while to get back up to speed again. Take it from me.’
Fahad visited her, too. He showed her a brief video message from Rana, sent via q-phone. They talked about the confrontation between Ugly Chicken and the Jackaroo avatar, and discovered that they’d seen different things.
‘It was inside our heads. Real and not real,’ Fahad said. ‘We were trying to make sense of something we didn’t understand.’
Which as far as Chloe was concerned just about summed up the last month.
Their patches were identicaclass="underline" pale oval blotches sitting just beneath the skin, flexible, very thin. Like Chloe, Fahad was absolutely certain that they had something to do with the spaceship. Some kind of connection.
‘We’ll find out what they can do when it comes,’ he said.
‘If the Jackaroo let us keep it. If the UN lets us visit it.’
‘I’ve tried to talk to Mr Gayle about that, but he always changes the subject. I don’t think he has the authority to help us. I’ve decided to stay on,’ Fahad added. ‘The UN asked me if I wanted to go home on the next shuttle, but I want to be here when the ship arrives. If it ever comes.’
‘Maybe it’s waiting for the dust storm to blow out,’ Chloe said.
The storm blew through the rest of Mangala’s night-year. Every day, Chloe spent four excruciating hours in physiotherapy. She endured batteries of tests that reminded her of her time in Ada Morange’s lab. The doctors were excited by the discovery that pulses of ultrasound at particular frequencies focused on her wrist patch induced a form of parathesia — made her see geometric patterns, taste salt, feel transient pulses of heat or cold travel up her arm. Chloe, only half-joking, said that it made her feel like a broken robot. ‘Maybe you can find the code that’ll help me walk in a straight line.’
She gave a statement to two UN investigators, who wanted to know more about Nevers and Ada Morange than she could tell them. A lawyer paid a visit and told her that he had been instructed by Ada Morange to provide any legal aid she required. She told him that as far as she knew she wasn’t in any trouble and sent him away.
The storm was still blowing when Vic Gayle visited Chloe again, early one morning. He found her in the hospital’s physio room, heaving herself back and forth along a set of parallel bars. She was supporting most of her weight with her arms, taking baby steps. It still hurt. It hurt a lot.
‘They’re here!’ he said as he strode towards Chloe. ‘They’re here!’
The physiotherapist tried to intercept him, telling him off for interrupting the session. Vic sidestepped her. He was grinning hugely.
‘This is more important. The damn kid was right! They’re here!’
There were two ships, he said, and pulled out his phone and showed Chloe images of a pair of elongated teardrops shaped from a froth of bubbles and pierced at random by gleaming spars. They hung above neighbouring mounds at Site 326 like the ugliest balloons in the universe. They had sunk down through the atmosphere two days ago, Vic said. It had taken that long to get the news back to Petra because comms were still down.
The ships were each about as big as a three-storey house. Close-ups showed that their skin was mottled with subtle shades of grey and blue.
‘Both of them opened ports. Right there,’ Vic said, zooming in on what looked like a tear or wound at the tapering base of one of the ships. ‘And that’s all they’ve done. No coherent electromagnetic activity, although there are random emissions in the ultraviolet spectrum, and a steady pulse at around fifty megahertz. That’s what the report said. I don’t know what any of that shit means.’
Chloe asked if anyone had been inside; Vic said not yet, although the team on site had sent in camera drones.
There were views of a space webbed with spars of various thicknesses, illuminated by a harsh blue-white glare which came from nowhere in particular. Irregular blisters on the walls which might contain the machinery of the ship’s drive and its lifesystem.
‘The temperature is about forty degrees Celsius, very humid,’ Vic said. ‘And the air is thin, about half ordinary atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth, with just enough oxygen to make it breathable. The light is rich in ultraviolet, too. The Elder Culture that made these things seems to have come from a world with a hotter, bluer sun.’