Dariat cursed as she started to pick her way over the loose debris bordering the hole. He knew now why the personality had picked her. She had more gung-ho optimism than a whole squadron of test-pilots. Reluctantly, he started to follow.
There were deep gouge marks in the floor that had torn the scarlet and lemon carpet into crumpled waves. The naked polyp underneath was pocked with small craters in a triangular pattern every couple of metres. Dariat had no trouble picturing them as talon marks. The visitor had bulldozed its way along the vestibule, cracking the walls and shredding the furniture and fittings. Then it had veered off deeper into the interior of the starscraper. According to the personality, it was resting right against the core. The door to a large apartment suite was missing, along with a considerable chunk of the surrounding wall. Erentz halted several of metres short, and ran her suit’s wrist beams around the big aperture.
The vestibule on the other side is undamaged,she said. It has to be in there.
I agree.
Can you tell for certain?
I’m a ghost, not a psychic.
You know what I mean.
Yeah. But I feel okay so far.
She knelt down and began unhooking sensors from her belt, screwing them onto a telescopic pole. I’ll just run a visual and infrared scan first, with spectral and particle interpretation programs hooked in, no active sweeps.
Try a magnetic scan as well,the personality suggested.
Right.erentz added one last sensor to the small clump, then looked round at Dariat. Okay?
He nodded. She extended the pole cautiously. Dariat used affinity to receive the results directly from the bitek processor governing the sensors, seeing a pale image of the frosted wall sliding past. It was superimposed with translucent sheets of colour that shimmered with defraction patterns, the results of the analysis programs, which Dariat fully failed to understand. He shifted the focus, cancelling everything but the raw visual and infrared image.
He watched the edge of the smashed wall go past. Then there was nothing. Is it still working?he asked.
Yes. There’s absolutely no light in there. No electromagnetic emissions at all. That’s odd, the walls should register on the infrared no matter how cold they are. Its like the visitor has thrown some kind of energy barricade across the hole.
So go for an active scan,dariat said. Laser radar, perhaps.
Simpler if you just go and take a peek,the personality said.
No bloody way! You don’t know it’s an energy barricade; that might be the visitor itself hiding round the corner.
If it was that close, you really would sense it.
We don’t know that for sure.
Stop farting about like an old woman and go stick your head round the edge.
Erentz had already pulled the telescopic pole back. She wasn’t going to give him any support at all.
Okay, I’ll look.the whole notion was even worse than when he’d taken that suicide pill back in Bospoort’s apartment. At least then he’d had a pretty good idea what he was letting himself in for. Shine as much light over here as you can,he told erentz.
She put the last sensor back on her belt, then pulled out the laser pistol and a small tubular flare launcher. Ready.
They both moved over to the other side of the vestibule, giving Dariat a better angle. Erentz focused her helmet beams on the gap as he crept towards it. There was nothing to see. The beams could have been trying to illuminate a cold neutron star for all the effect they had.
Dariat was standing opposite the gap now. Shit. Maybe it is an event horizon. I can’t see a bloody thing in there.it was as if the universe ended inside the apartment. an uncomfortable analogy, given their circumstances.
Stage two, then,erentz said. she brought her flare launcher up, aiming it at the gap. Let’s see if this exposes anything.
We shouldn’t rush into this,dariat said quickly.
Fine,the personality interjected. As you can’t see anything from outside, and you don’t want to use the flare, why don’t you just go in there and take a look around.
It might think the flare is some kind of weapon,dariat said.
Then what do you suggest?
I’m just saying, that’s all. It doesn’t hurt to be prudent.
We’ve taken every precaution we can. Erentz, use the flare.
Wait!right out on the very edge of visibility, there was a perturbation in the curtain of darkness. Faint shadow-shapes moved sinuously, the surface distortion of something stirring deep inside. The blackness started to recede from him with the leisurely speed of an outgoing tide, uncovering the edges of the apartment.
His mind was aware of Erentz’s finger tightening on the launcher’s release trigger. Determination in her mind not to come back without some useful information on the visitor.
No. Don’t . . .
The flare streaked across the vestibule, a searing-white magnesium blaze that punctured the pseudoveil across the gap. Dariat looked directly into the shattered apartment.
Paradoxically, the new strength it had gained was weakening the Orgathé as a whole. As it absorbed the life-energy contained within the stream of liquid, its once-quiescent riders began to rise out of their unity. It was no longer a singleton. The collective which had originally formed the Orgathé was separating. Before, they had bound their meagre scraps of life-energy together, a synergistic combination which had allowed them to fly free of the mélange. Together, they had been strong. Now there was more than enough life-energy to make them strong individually. They had no real need for each other any more.
Physically, they remained in the same place. There was no reason to move. Quite the opposite. They needed to stay and consume the life-energy which would finally allow them their independence. That ultimate condition hadn’t yet been achieved, though it was very close now. Already the Orgathé’s physical composition was changing in anticipation of the splendid moment. Internally, it had begun to compartmentalise; dividing in a mockery of biological cell multiplication, with each section attaining a unique shape. The Orgathé had become a womb for a dozen different species.
Then it sensed the two entities approaching. Their flames of life-energy were too small and weak to be worthy of any active intervention. The liquid supply of life-energy was far more enriching than any it would gain by devouring individuals. The Orgathé simply coiled the darkness protectively around itself and carried on consuming.
And Erentz fired the flare into the apartment. Dariat saw the vast bulk of the Orgathé clinging to the far wall, a sagging glossy-black membrane with flabby protuberances that pulsed in discordant rhythms, as if something was scrabbling round underneath. Tentacle-like bands of raw muscle were wound round it so tightly they quivered with tension.
The flare smacked into a wall, bounced, dropped to the frost-sprinkled carpet where its started to burn through into the polyp. Heat and light drenched the apartment in equal proportions. The Orgathé could ward off the light, but not the heat. That penetrated right through its fractions, bringing a wave of pain with it.
Dariat watched the Orgathé peel apart like segments of rotting fruit as it fell off the wall. A torrent of ice-frothed sludge poured out of two puncture holes it had been suckling from. The thick bubbling tide swept a grotesque menagerie of malleable creatures across the floor before it. They tottered and rolled chaotically in the dimming light, churning up the slough. Multi-jointed legs scrabbled round in the same fashion as a newborn deer attempting to stand. Damp wings fluttered ineffectually, flinging off fantails of sticky droplets. Mouths, beaks, and gullets pumped and gasped in silence.
Oh fuck,dariat moaned. the habitat’s affinity band was stunned into mortified silence as he shared his vision with everybody.
Erentz started to back down the vestibule, fear sending cold shivers along her limbs. The flare sputtered and died, sending up a final spiral wisp of smoke. Just before the light vanished, Dariat thought the creatures were solidifying, their skin hardening. In the darkness, he heard a clack as might be made by teeth in an excessively large jaw snapping shut. Dizziness struck him like a rubber truncheon. He staggered away from the apartment, almost unaware of Erentz’s suit lights bobbing about wildly as she started running.
Move, Dariat!the level of worry in the personality’s plea goaded him into taking a few shaky steps. Come on, boy. Get the fuck out of there.he took a few more steps, sobbing in frustration at the weakness that had infected his spectral limbs. Lodging in his mind, though not through the gateway of affinity, was an awareness of the visitor’s stupendous hunger.
Dariat had stumbled on for several metres before he even realized he was going the wrong way. Wretched despair produced a pitiful growl in his throat. “Anastasia, help me.”
Come on boy. She wouldn’t want you to give up, not now.
Angry at the injustice of her memory being used against him, he glanced over his shoulder. Erentz’s lights were almost out of sight as she raced away. He saw a halo of darkness eclipse the thin slices of fading light behind him. His legs almost gave out at the sight.
Keep going. I’ve got you a way out.