“There will be political pressure on the military to act, though,” the First Admiral said dourly. “So far our only notable public success has been the destruction of the Yaku in the Khabrat system. Trivial. What we need above all is some kind of weapon which is able to incapacitate the possessed. That or an effective method of exorcism. Preferably both.” He gave Dr Gilmore a questing gaze.
“I believe we can now help you on the first count,” the implant specialist said confidently. They stopped before the biological isolation facility, and he datavised his code at the door.
Euru’s researchers had acted swiftly as soon as they’d obtained permission to advance their studies. The First Admiral flinched at the sight which greeted him within the examination room. On his side, the monitoring consoles were fully staffed; remorselessly obsessive scientists and technicians absorbed in the displays projected by AV pillars. A scene of brisk competence and scientific endeavour, as always reinforcing the concept of impersonal efficiency.
Samual Aleksandrovich doubted there was any other way the team could cope with their objective; it must act as a psychological buffer between them and the subject. Subject —he chided himself silently. Although he’d witnessed inhumanity on a far more brutal scale than this during his active service days.
With Captain Khanna at his side he walked hesitantly up to the transparent wall which cut the rock chamber in two, wondering if he should show signs of dismay or approval. In the end he settled for the same bleak acceptance which everyone else in the room had put on along with their baggy white lab overalls.
A naked and shaven Jacqueline Couteur had been immobilized on a surgical bed. Although wired into it would be a more honest evaluation, the First Admiral thought. Grey composite ribs formed a cage over the length of her body, supporting clamps which pressed pairs of large circular electrodes against her forearms, abdomen, and upper legs; clear jell was leaking out from beneath the silvery metal, ensuring better contact and conductivity. Two ceiling-mounted waldo arms had been equipped with sensor arrays, like bundles of fat white gun muzzles, which they were sweeping slowly and silently up and down the prone body. The thick circular brace which held her head fast looked as if it had melded with her skin. A plastic defecation tube had been inserted in her anus, while a free-fall toilet suction catheter adhered to her vagina. He couldn’t decide if that was a civilized courtesy or the final humiliation.
Not that Couteur would care, not in her present condition.
Her entire musculature twitched and rippled in random spasms. The flesh quivering on her face made it seem as though she were enduring a ten-gee acceleration.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” Maynard Khanna asked in a guttural whisper.
It was the first time the First Admiral could ever remember the staff captain speaking before his superiors.
“Neutralizing her offensive potential,” Dr Gilmore said with a tone of high satisfaction. “The report we received from Lalonde contained a reference from Darcy and Lori that electricity affects the possessed in an adverse fashion. We checked and discovered it’s true. So we’re running a current through her.”
“Dear God, that’s . . .” His face crunched up in a disgusted grimace.
Dr Gilmore ignored him, addressing himself solely to the First Admiral. “She is having to use her entire energistic ability to ward off the current. We experimented with the voltage level until we achieved this balance. Her physiological functions continue to operate normally, but she is completely incapable of manifesting any reality dysfunction effect. She can no longer distort matter, create illusions, or conjure up white fireballs. It means we are free to study her without any interference; even our electronic systems have recovered eighty-five per cent of their efficiency in her presence.”
“So what have you learned?” the First Admiral asked.
“Please bear in mind we are on the threshold of a completely new field here.”
“Doctor,” the First Admiral cautioned.
“Of course. Firstly, we have developed a screening method which can pick out any possessed. There is a tiny but constant discharge of static electricity right across their bodies. We think it must be a by-product of their beyond continuum spilling into ours. Such an influx surge would also account for the energy they constantly have at their disposal.”
“Static electricity?” a bemused Lalwani said.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s beautiful: the sensors that will pick it up are cheap, easy to mass-produce, simple to use; and if they malfunction it’s a certainty that a possessed is nearby anyway. Now we know what to look for they will find it impossible to hide in a crowd or infiltrate new areas.”
“Excellent,” the First Admiral said. “We’ll have to see that this information is distributed as fast as our original warning.” He moved right up to the transparent wall, seeing his breath mist the surface, and activated the intercom. “Do you remember me?” he asked.
Jacqueline Couteur took a long time to answer, her syllables maimed by the laboured gurgling of vocal cords not fully under control. “We know you, Admiral.”
“Is she in communication with those in the beyond?” he asked Dr Gilmore quickly.
“I cannot give you an absolute, Admiral. However, I suspect not; at least nothing more than leaking a rudimentary form of contact back into her own continuum. Our Jacqueline is very fond of dominance games, and ‘we’ tends to sound impressive.”
“If you are in pain,” the First Admiral told her, “I apologize.”
“Not as sorry as that shit’s going to be when I catch up with him.” Bloodshot eyes juddered around to focus on Dr Gilmore.
He responded with a thin superior smile.
“Exactly how much pain do you inflict on the mind of the body you have stolen?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked mildly.
“Touché.”
“As you see, we are learning from you as I said we would.” He gestured at the sensors which the waldo arms were sliding over her head and torso. “We know what you are, we know something of the suffering which awaits you back in the beyond, we understand why you are driven to do what you do. I would ask you to work with me in helping to solve this problem. I do not wish there to be conflict between us. We are one people, after all, albeit at different stages of existence.”
“You will give us bodies? How generous.” Somehow she managed to grin, lips wriggling apart to dribble saliva down her cheeks.
“We could grow bitek neural networks which you could inhabit. You would be able to receive the full range of human senses. After that they could be placed in artificial bodies, rather like a cosmonik.”
“How very reasonable. But you forget that we are human, too; we want to live full human lives. For ever. Possession is only the beginning of our return.”
“I am aware of your goals.”
“Do you wish to help us?”
“Yes.”
“Then terminate your life. Join us. Be on the winning side, Admiral.”
Samual Aleksandrovich gave the vibrating, abused body a final, almost disgusted glance, and turned his back to the transparent wall.
“She says the same thing to us,” Dr Gilmore said as if in apology. “Repeatedly.”
“How much of what she says is the truth? For instance, do they really need human bodies? If not, we might just be able to force them into a compromise.”
“Verification may be difficult,” Euru said. “The electricity has contained the worst excesses of Couteur’s reality dysfunction, but a personality debrief in these circumstances may prove beyond us. If the nanonics were to malfunction during axon interface they could cause a lot of damage to her brain.”
“The possessed are certainly capable of operating within bitek neurone structures,” Lalwani said. “Lewis Sinclair captured Pernik’s neural strata; and we have confirmed that Valisk’s blackhawks have also been captured.”
“Physically they’re capable of it, yes,” Euru said. “But the problem is more likely to be psychological. As ex-humans, they want human bodies, they want the familiar.”
“Acquire what information you can without risking the actual body itself,” the First Admiral instructed. “In the meantime have you developed any method of subduing them?”
Dr Gilmore indicated the surgical table with a muddled gesture. “Electricity, Admiral. Equip our marines with guns that fire a dart that contains a small electron matrix cell and simply push a current into them. Such weapons were in widespread use from the mid-twentieth century right up until the twenty-third. We’ve already produced a modern chemical-powered design with a range over five hundred metres.”
Samual Aleksandrovich didn’t know whether to berate the implant specialist or commiserate with him. That was the trouble with laboratory types, all theory, no thought about how their gadgets would perform in the field. It was probably just the same in Couteur’s time, he reflected. “And how far can they project their white fire?”
“It varies depending on the individual.”
“And how will you determine what voltage to discharge from the electron matrix cell? Some will be stronger than Couteur, while others will be weaker.”
Dr Gilmore glanced to Euru for support.
“Voltage regulation is a problem area,” the suave, black-skinned Edenist said. “We are considering if a static scanner can determine the level in advance. It may be that the quantity of static exuded might indicate the individual’s energistic strength.”