But the ghosts never went any further than the trees. It was as if the greater depths of the darkling habitat frightened them, too. That was the aspect of this whole affair which worried Tolton the most.
His own wanderings were almost as aimless as anyone in the throes of recovery. Like them, he didn’t relish the idea of venturing through the shanty town, he also considered it prudent not to fraternise with the ghosts. Though somewhere at the back of his mind was some ancient piece of folklore about ghosts never actually killing anybody. Whichever pre-history warlock came up with that prophecy had obviously never encountered these particular ghosts.
So he kept moving, avoiding eye-contact, searching for . . . well, he’d know what when he saw it. Ironically, the thing he missed most was Rubra, and the wealth of knowledge which came with that contact. But the processor block he’d used to stay in touch with the habitat personality had crashed as soon as the change happened. Since then he’d tried using several other blocks. None of them worked, at most he got a trickle of static. He didn’t have enough (any, actually) technical knowledge to understand why.
Nor did he understand the change which the habitat had undergone, only the result, the mass exorcism. He assumed it had been imposed by some friendly ally. Except Valisk didn’t have any allies. And Rubra had never dropped any hint that this might happen, not in all the weeks he’d kept Tolton hidden from the possessed. There was nothing for it but to keep moving for the delusion of purpose it bestowed, and wait for developments. Whatever they might be.
“Please.” The woman’s voice was little more than a whisper, but it was focused enough to make Tolton hesitate and try to see who was speaking.
“Please, I need some help. Please.” The speaker was in her late middle-age, huddled up against a tree. He walked over to her, avoiding a couple of people who were stretched out, almost comatose, on the grass.
Details were difficult in this leaden twilight. She was wrapped in a large tartan blanket, clutching it to her chest like a shawl. Long unkempt hair partially obscured her face, glossy titian roots contrasted sharply with the dirty faded chestnut of the tresses. The features glimpsed through the tangle were delicate, a pert button nose and long cheekbones, implausibly artistic eyebrows. Her skin seemed very tight, almost stretched, as if to emphasise the curves.
“What’s wrong?” Tolton asked gently, cursing himself for the stupidity of the question. As he knelt beside her, the light tube’s meagre nimbus glimmered on the tears dribbling down her cheeks.
“I hurt,” she said. “Now she’s gone, I hurt so badly.”
“It’ll go. I promise, time will wash it away.”
“She slept with hundreds of men,” the woman cried wretchedly. “Hundreds. Women, too. I felt the heat in her, she loved it, all of it. That slut, that utter slut. She made my body do things with those animals. Awful, vile things. Things no decent person would ever do.”
He tried to take one of her hands, but she snatched it away, turning from him. “It wasn’t you,” he said. “You didn’t do any of those things.”
“How can you say that? It was done to me. I felt it all, every minute of it. This is my body. Mine! My flesh and blood. She took that from me. She soiled me, ruined me. I’m so corrupt I’m not even human any more.”
“I’m sorry, really I am. But you have to learn not to think like that. If you do, you’re letting her win. You’ve got to put that behind you. It’s over, and you’ve won. She’s been exorcised, she’s nothing but a neurotic wisp of light. That’s all she’ll ever be now. I’d call that a victory, wouldn’t you?”
“But I hurt,” she persisted. Her voice dropped to a confessional tone. “How can I forget when I hurt?”
“Look, there are treatments, memory suppressers, all sorts of cures. Just as soon as we get the power turned back on, you can . . .”
“Not my mind! Not just that.” She had begun to plead. “It’s my body, my body which hurts.”
Tolton started to get a very bad feeling about where the conversation was heading. The woman was shaking persistently, and he was sure some of the moisture glistening on her face had to be perspiration. He flicked an edgy glance back at her unnatural roots. “Where, exactly, does it hurt?”
“My face,” she mumbled. “My face aches. It’s not me anymore. I couldn’t see me when she looked in a mirror.”
“They all did that, all imagined themselves to look ridiculously young and pretty. It’s an illusion, that’s all.”
“No. It became real. I’m not me, not now. She even took my identity away from me. And . . .” Her voice started trembling. “My shape. She stole my body, and still that wasn’t enough. Look, look what she’s done to me.”
Moving so slowly that Tolton wanted to do it for her, she drew the folds of the blanket apart. For the first time, he actually wished there was less light. To begin with it looked as though someone had badly bungled a cosmetic package adaptation. Her breasts were grossly misshapen. Then he realized that was caused by large bulbs of flesh clinging to the upper surface like skin-coloured leeches. Each one almost doubled the size of the breast, the weight pulling them down heavily. The natural tissue was almost squashed from view.
The worst part of it was, they obviously weren’t grafts or implants; whatever the tissue was, it had swollen out of the natural mammary gland. Below them, her abdomen was held anorexically flat by a broad oval slab of unyielding skin. It was as though she’d developed a thick callous across the whole area, fake musculature marked out by faint translucent lines.
“See?” the woman asked, staring down at her exposed chest in abject misery. “Bigger breasts and a flat belly. She really wanted bigger breasts. That was her wish. They’d be more useful to her, more fun, more spectacular. And she could make wishes come true.”
“God preserve us,” Tolton murmured in horror. He didn’t know much about human illnesses, but there were some scraps of relevant information flashing up out of his childhood’s basic medical didactic memories. Cancer tumours. Almost a lost disease. Geneering had made human bodies massively resistant to the ancient bane. And for the few isolated instances when it did occur, medical nanonics could penetrate and eradicate the sick cells within hours.
“I used to be a nurse,” the woman said, as she ashamedly covered herself with the blanket again. “They’re runaways. My breasts are the largest growths, but I must have the same kind of malignant eruptions at every change she instituted.”
“What can I do?” he asked hoarsely.
“I need medical nanonic packages. Do you know how to program them?”
“No. I don’t even have neural nanonics. I’m a poet, that’s all.”
“Then, please, find me some. My neural nanonics aren’t working either, but a processor block might do instead.”
“I . . . Yes, of course.” It would mean a trip into the lifeless, lightless starscraper to find some, but his discomfort at that prospect was nothing compared to her suffering. Somehow, he managed to keep a neutral expression on his face as he stood up, even though he was pretty certain a medical nanonic package wouldn’t work in this weird environment. But it might, it just might. And if that slender chance existed, then he would bring one for her, no matter what.
He cast round the dismal sight of people strewn about, holding themselves and moaning. The really terrifying doubt engulfed him then. Suppose the anguish wasn’t all psychological? Every possessed he’d seen had changed their appearance to some degree. Suppose every change had borne a malignancy, even a small one.
“Oh fucking hell, Rubra. Where are you? We need help.”
As always, there was no warning when the cell door opened. Louise wasn’t even sure when it had swung back. She was curled up on the bunk, dozing, only semi-aware of her surroundings. Quite how long she’d been in this state, she didn’t know. Somehow, her time sense had got all fouled up. She remembered the interview with Brent Roi, his sarcasm and unconcealed contempt. Then she’d come back here. Then . . . She’d come back here hours ago. Well, a long time had passed . . . She thought.