15.
Creben
The work is routine. The repair process is perfectly logical.
Once you express the sum of the integers as a - "Whoever done this knew what they were doing," says Ben.
"They did," we agree. They knew they had to make it simple enough even for the likes of him. "They certainly did."
We take the last fizzing bundle of cables from his sweaty hands. "This should be the last of the links."
Before we can make the final repair, the Doctor"s voice sounds in our skull. "Good news, my friends. Polly and Shade have the crystals. We can reset the coordinates and steer ourselves far from Morphiea"s noisome influence."
We hesitate, unsure how to react. To us, this scarcely seems possible.
"We should not make this known to all in our network," the Doctor goes on.
"As we saw the Schirr through Roba"s eyes," we say, "you think they can see through his?"
"And Tovel, and Frog, too, are no longer dependable,"
mutters the Doctor.
Not just them.
"I think we were allowed to complete these repairs," we say.
"Denni could have sent a hundred angels to take us here.
She"s been waiting for something... Just keeping us busy..."
"Perhaps so," the Doctor concedes. "But Denni won"t have expected us to find those crystals. Hidden most ingeniously, most ingeniously, yes." He chuckles. It"s strange, we can hear an echo of his voice in our mind, but the words are different.
We wonder how many conversations he"s having at once.
"Those little gems may yet give us the advantage in this struggle. Once you"ve finished here, head for the control room. Be on your guard. I shall join you."
We plant our handful of red vines deep in a misty circle of amber light. They glow contentedly. The last of the harm is undone.
"All done and dusted," the boy says strangely. "Let"s get back to the control room, meet the others."
We start to agree. Then the voice of a Schirr purrs out to us. A voice we know straight away from a dozen gloating broadcasts system-wide after the dust has settled on each new ruined world he"s left behind.
To witness these events from Ben"s viewpoint, select section 10 on page 214 page 214
To switch to Polly"s viewpoint, select section 19 on page 229 To switch to Tovel"s viewpoint, select section 23 on page 235 To switch to Shade"s viewpoint, select section 26 on page 241
Or you may withdraw from the neural net - but only after experiencing Frog"s perspective. Select section 27 on page 241 experiencing Frog"s perspective. Select section 27 on page 241
16.
Frog
Thank you and goodnight, Dax Roba. He"s still there, you know, his head bubbling quietly away. Like us. We had the same kinda story bubbling under a while back. Some other Schirr"s view. Same kind of ending though.
Can still feel how it was to have our guts blasted open. If we could lift our head, see over our chins, we imagine we"d find that hole gaping there now. All the life, just slipping away.
You know we seemed happy before, when the others were gathered round? You probably think we"re such a flake. One minute we"ve got the knives out ready to carve us right up, and the next we"re giggling like a kid on her first date.
Well, we"ve been making sense of stuff, or trying to. A part of us was thinking, we had our voice taken away ten years ago and now it"s come right back. Luck, see. The kind of luck we"ve never had in our life. So, we might be changing but so"s our luck. And we ain"t never had looks neither, so losing them ain"t so bad.
Weird thing is, all this time we"ve wished we was Denni, or Lindey, or anyone "cept us... the moment we started to change it seemed all right. But we want to hold on to us now.
We"re not a frog. Not now we can speak. So we don"t wanna croak now.
We remember... we remember when we came down on some dead village on a sun-scorched world in the outer Argentines. Forget its name. But the Schirr had done a good number on the place when Empire hadn"t pulled out of Idaho by the deadline, and there was nothing there alive when our squad scooted down in the shuttles to check it out. Nothing "cept this stupid bird.
It was all white, white all over. St.u.r.dy looking thing, too. A swan, or a goose maybe, can"t remember which, we ain"t been on too many nature trails in our time. But the d.a.m.ned thing kept following us around, and honking and stuff, and there was no one round any more to feed it and water it, and it"d be alone once we"d buried the dead and shipped out. We kind of felt sorry for it.
And the bird kept following us around and making this stupid bird noise. So in the end we shot it.
Just a reflex, that was all. Put it out of its misery. But it didn"t know nothing about misery. Maybe it might"ve stayed alive somehow if we"d not been around down there, and all sick with the stuff we"d seen. You know, we can still see it now plain as a hot clear day. That beautiful white bird turned all red and messy. Regretted the shot as soon as we fired it, but what can anyone do? What"s done is done. One hit.
We was gonna kill ourself but we didn"t. Haunt saw to that.
Why she"s a marshal and we ain"t making Elite in a hurry, we guess. We feel like that white bird now. Except we bled, and then we got healed. A second chance.
So we lie here and we hold on. We"re holding on. We"re gonna keep on honking like that swan-goose thing. Only, it"s a sweet songbird voice now.
No one to hear it now, in this empty place. No one to see us neither, to tell us what we look like. Floating above the floor on our little bubble looking up at the gla.s.s on the ceiling.
Holding on.
What you still doing here? I just got the verbal c.r.a.ps. Get out of here.
To switch to Creben"s viewpoint, select section 2 on page 198 To switch to Roba"s viewpoint, select section 22 on page 234 - then return here
17.
Haunt
We snap out of Roba. Clutch hold of ourselves, to know we"re still here. Still us.
"Well, well," says the Doctor.
"We should kill him now," we say.
"He"s truly becoming one of those Schirr," the Doctor says, as if he"s impressed or something. "I"ve seen cultures where consumption of a person"s flesh resulted in the eater taking on certain memories, certain characteristics... but this is an altogether more invasive process. The subject is helpless to resist."
"So we"re all going to turn this way?" we ask, though we know it"s true anyway. "Each of us into one of them?"
The Doctor nods grimly. "And I think DeCaster wants us to know. He wants to feed our fear, to keep us off our guard. To stop us from thinking clearly..." He gestures at Roba"s bloated, distorted body beneath the fleas. Hence this somewhat graphic demonstration of possession."
"Then we should should kill Roba, shouldn"t we?" Creben"s voice sounds over the communicator. Now we can feel him, trying to watch through our eyes. He"s learned to use the network quickly and well. An adept. We can feel the strength of his mind. kill Roba, shouldn"t we?" Creben"s voice sounds over the communicator. Now we can feel him, trying to watch through our eyes. He"s learned to use the network quickly and well. An adept. We can feel the strength of his mind.
"We should just kill him," he says again, spare him all this.
Stop DeCaster"s plan."
"I agree," we say.
"But what is DeCaster"s plan, hmm?" The Doctor addresses his question to our wrist for want of something better to focus on. "What will killing this poor man achieve?" The Doctor shakes his head. "And where should we stop? Should we take our own lives now, simply give up?"
Creben remains silent. We feel him sulking at the back of our mind.
"OK," we say. "Then let"s move on. He lives. But we leave his webset on so we know what he"s doing."
A wise precaution," the Doctor agrees. "You know, I feel quite distracted and disorientated after that experience. I wonder how the others are getting on, hmm?"
To switch to Creben"s viewpoint, select section 2 on page 198 To switch to Frog"s viewpoint, select section 16 on page 224
18.
Creben
We feel we"ve been here for an age, body pressed hard back against the rock, trying to conceal ourself. But the glow bleeding from the stare of the carved eyes makes everything too bright.
We"re noticed the moment the furtive figure rounds the corner.
It"s Ben.
He"s relieved. "Creben. I"m glad to see you." He frowns at the schematic. "You all right? What"s all this?"
"It"s what we came here to fix. That"s all."
"That"s all?" he says. "This is it! We"ll be all right!"
"We"ll be able to breathe for a while longer, certainly. But since Denni brought us here with the intention of changing us into something else, it was never likely we were going to suffocate before that happened, was it?"