The Gabble

Are you in?

I am in … cutting motor functions.

Harbing dropped as if someone had cut his strings. Simoz knelt with him as he collapsed, his hands still in position.

Can you link?

Parasitic fungus is primitive form. Aggression. Fungal form, dead.

What happened?

No link established.

‘Damn!’

You are vocalizing.

I was aware of that. We’ll try again in the Wrack. Withdraw from him and blank out the last minute or so.

Withdrawn.

Simoz removed his hands and cradled Harbing’s head. After a moment Harbing opened his eyes.

‘What. . what happened?’

Simoz gestured to the generator.

‘You were showing me the generator then you just keeled over,’ he said.

‘I feel sick,’ said Harbing.

Understandable. The fungus is breaking down in his lymphatic system.

Will he be all right?

He will not notice as soon as he is reinfected.

How long till that happens?

It has probably already happened. I have noted a high degree of spore incursion on this ship.

And that means?

The spores are in the air of this ship. Forty per cent of my function at present is keeping them from infecting you. They are especially prevalent in here.

I thought they wouldn’t infect me.

Not a primary infection, but they could make you ill.

What about the retrovirus?

I am keeping it in somnolent form until I have made sufficient alterations.

What?

The fungal form here shows extreme divergence and I am altering the retrovirus to suit.

A mutation? Could that be it? Something the original virus missed?

There is that possibility.

Simoz helped Harbing to his feet then pointed to the scanner link at Harbing’s waist.

‘It might have something to do with that,’ he said.

Harbing gaped at the signs of rejection. ‘Yeah. . yeah, I gotta do something about that.’

‘Perhaps you should see the ship’s doctor.’

‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’

Somewhat bemusedly Harbing turned and tottered from the engine room. After casting a glare of suspicion at the generator, Simoz followed.

Here was a city enclosed in a translucent bubble, steady on a copper-coloured sea. It could have been mistaken for something built had it not been for the veins in the surface of the bubble. The crosstech ship, apparently the bastard offspring of a dredger and a manta ray, circled the bubble to where a split developed in the meniscus and it drew aside like stage curtains. On the deck of the ship Simoz noted the stench of decay wafted to him on the sea breeze, then glanced aside to where a cluster of smaller, house-sized bubbles surfaced and were drawn away by the tide.

These bubbles were mostly opaque but with inset glass windows. Through some of these he saw human faces staring out — faces blank of human expression.

They keep washing up at the mouth of the Thranx.

It is where the currents take them.

Some of the other Wrack cities have taken to burning any that get close.

A perhaps understandable reaction.

The ship motored in through the opening and drew in to docks in the shape of lily pads clustered around the organic city. Ramps terminating in spiked hooks lowered from the crosstech ship and punctured the pads, securing