Beyond the bubble of radiance which enveloped him, it was very dark indeed. And silent with it. No light shone in through any of the windows; there wasn’t even a dripping tap to break the monotony of his timorous footsteps. Three times since he’d been down here, the electrophorescent cells had burst into life. Some arcane random surge of power sending shoals of photons skidding along the vestibules and stairwells. The first time it happened, he’d been petrified. The zips of light appeared from nowhere, racing towards him at high speed. By the time he yelled out and started to cower down, they were already gone, behind him and vanishing round some corner. He didn’t react much better the next two times, either.
He told himself that he should be relieved that some aspect of Rubra and the habitat was still functioning, however erratically. It wasn’t much reassurance; that the stars had vanished from view had been a profound shock. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to share that knowledge with the other residents for a while. What he couldn’t understand was, where were they? His panicky mind was constantly filling the blank space outside the windows with dreadful imaginings. It wasn’t much of a leap to have whatever skulked outside getting in to glide among the opaque shadows of the empty starscraper. Grouping together and conspiring, flowing after him.
The muscle membrane door at the bottom of the stairwell was partially expanded, its edges trembling slightly. He cautiously stuck the lightstick through the gap, and peered round at the fifth floor vestibule. The high ceilings and broad curving archways that were the mise-en-scиne of Valisk’s starscrapers had always seemed fairly illustrious before; bitek’s inalienable majesty. That was back when they were bathed in light and warmth twenty-four hours a day. Now they clustered threateningly round the small area of illumination he projected, swaying with every slight motion of the lightstick.
Tolton waited for a moment, nerving himself to step out. This floor was mainly taken up by commercial offices. Most of the mechanical doorways had frozen shut. He walked along, reading the plaques on each one. The eighth belonged to an osteopath specialising in sports injuries. There ought to be some kind of medical nanonics inside. The emergency lock panel was on the top of the frame. He broke it open with the blunt end of the axe, exposing the handle inside. Now the power was off, or at least disabled, the electronic bolts had disengaged. A couple of turns on the handle released the lock entirely, and he prised the door open.
Typical waiting room: not quite expensive chairs, soft drinks dispenser, reproduction artwork, and lush potted plants. The large circular window looked out at nothing, a black mirror. Tolton saw his own reflection staring back, with a fat man in a grubby robe standing behind him. He yelped in shock, and dropped the lightstick. Flat planes of light and shadow lurched around him. He turned, raising the axe up ready to swipe down on his adversary. Almost overbalancing from the wild motion.
The fat man was waving his arms frantically, shouting. Tolton could hear nothing more than a gentle murmur of air. He gripped the axe tightly as it wobbled about over his head, ready for the slightest sign of antagonism. None came. In fact, there probably couldn’t ever be any. Tolton could just see the door through the fat man. A ghost. That didn’t make him any happier.
The ghost had put his hands on his hips, face screwed up in some exasperation. He was saying something slowly and loudly, an adult talking to an idiot child. Again, there was that bantam ruffling of air. Tolton frowned; it corresponded to the movements of the fat ghost’s jaw.
In the end, communication became a derivative of lip reading. There was never quite enough sound (if that’s what it truly was) to form whole words, rather the faint syllables clued him in.
“Your axe is the wrong way round.”
“Uh.” Tolton glanced up. The blade was pointing backwards. He shifted it round, then sheepishly lowered it. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Dariat.”
“You’re wasting your time following me, you can’t possess me.”
“I don’t want to. I’m here to give you a message.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. The habitat personality wants you to switch off some zero-tau pods.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“We’re in affinity contact.”
“But you’re a . . .”
“Ghost. Yes, I had noticed. Although I think a revenant is a term more applicable in my case.”
“A what?”
“The personality never warned me you were this stupid.”
“I am not . . .” Tolton’s outrage spluttered to a halt. He started to laugh.
Dariat gave the alleged street poet a mildly annoyed glare. “Now what?”
“I’ve had some weird shit dumped on me in my time, but I think arguing with a ghost over my IQ has got to be the greatest.”
Dariat felt his lips move up in a grin. “Got a point there.”
“Thank you, my man.”
“So, are you going to help?”
“Of course. Will turning off the pods be of any use?”
“Yeah. That mad bitch Kiera was holding a whole load of my illustrious relatives in stasis. They should be able to get things up and running again.”
“Then we can get out of . . .” Tolton took another look at the window. “Where are we, exactly?”
“I’m not sure you can call this a place, more like a different state of being. It exists to be hostile to the possessed. Unfortunately, there are a few unexpected side effects.”
“You sound as though you’re talking from a position of knowledge; which I frankly find hard to believe.”
“I played a part in bringing us here,” Dariat admitted. “I’m not completely sure of the details, though.”
“I see. Well, we’d better get started, then.” He picked up the lightstick. “Ah, wait. I promised a woman I’d try and find some medical nanonic packages for her. She really does need them.”
“There’s some in the osteopath’s storage cabinet, through there.” Dariat pointed.
“You really are in touch with Rubra, aren’t you.”
“He’s changed a bit, but, yes.”
“Then I’m curious. Why did the two of you choose me for this task?”
“His decision. But most of the other corporeal residents got whacked out when they were de-possessed. You saw them up in the park. They’re no good for anything right now. You’re the best we’ve got left.”
“Oh, bloody hell.”
When they emerged up into the decrepit lobby, Tolton sat down and tried to get a processor block to work. He’d never had a didactic memory imprint covering their operations and program parameters. Never needed one; all he used them for was recording and playing AV fleks, and communications, plus a few simple commands for medical nanonics (mainly concerned with morning-after blood detoxification).
Dariat started to advise on how to alter the operating program format, essentially dumbing down the unit. Even he had to consult with the personality about which subroutines to delete. Between the three of them, it took twenty minutes to get the little unit on line with a reliable performance level.
Another fifteen minutes of running diagnostics (far slower than usual), and they knew what medical nanonics could achieve in such an antagonistic environment. It wasn’t good news; the filaments which wove into and manipulated human flesh were sophisticated molecular strings, with correspondingly high-order management routines. They could bond the lips of wounds together, and infuse doses of stored biochemicals. But fighting a tumour by eliminating individual cancer cells was no longer possible.
We can’t waste any more time on this,the personality protested.
Tolton was hunched up over the block. Dariat waved a hand under his face—the only way to catch his attention. Out here in the park the poet found it even harder to hear him; though Dariat suspected his “voice” was actually some kind of weak telepathy.