“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.
“It’ll have to do,” Dariat said.
Tolton frowned down once again at the horribly confusing mass of icons eddying across the block’s screen. “Will they be able to cure her?”
“No. The tumours can’t be reversed, but the packages should be able to contain them until we get back to the real universe.”
“All right. I suppose that’ll do.”
Dariat managed to feel mildly guilty at the sadness in Tolton’s voice. The way the street poet could become so anxious and devoted to a stranger he’d only spent five minutes with was touching.
They walked through the moat of decaying shacks and into the surrounding ring of human misery. The loathing directed at Dariat by those that saw him was profound enough to sting. He, a creature now purely of thought, was buffeted by the emanation of raw emotion; his own substance refined against him. It wasn’t as strong as the blows inflicted by his fellow ghosts, but the cumulative effect was disturbingly debilitating. When he’d sneaked into the lobby he hadn’t attracted such attention, a few glances of sullen resentment at most. But then, he realized, he was still suffering from the effects of the entombment, he’d been weaker, less substantial.
Now, the jeering and catcalls which chased him were building to a crescendo as more and more people realized what the commotion was about and joined in. He started staggering about, groaning at the pain.
“What is it?” Tolton asked.
Dariat shook his head. There was real fear building in him now. If he stumbled and fell here, victim to this wave of hatred, he might never be able to surface from the soil again. At every attempt he would be pressed back by the throng of people above him, dancing on his living grave.
“Going,” he grunted. “Got to go.” He pressed his hands over his ears (fat lot of good that it did) and tottered as fast as he could out towards the shadowy trees beyond. “I’ll wait for you. Come when you’ve finished.”
Tolton watched in dismay as the ghost scurried away; becoming all too aware of the animosity which was now focusing on him. Head down, he hurried away in the direction he thought he’d left the woman.
She was still there, propped up against the tree. Dull eyes looked up at him, suffused with dread, hope denied. It was the only part of her which betrayed any emotion. Her stretched-tight face seemed incapable of displaying the slightest expression. “What was the noise about?” she mumbled.
“I think there was a ghost around here.”
“Did they kill it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think you can kill ghosts.”
“Holy water. Use holy water.” Tolton knelt down, and gently eased her clutching hands from the blanket. This time when it parted he was determined not to grimace. It was hard. He placed the nanonic medical packages on her breasts and belly the way Dariat had said, and used the block to activate the pre-loaded programs. The packages stirred slightly as they started to knit with her skin.
She let out a soft sigh, embodying both relief and happiness.
“It’ll be all right,” he told her. “They’ll stop the cancer now.”
Her eyes had closed. “I don’t believe you. But it’s nice of you to say it.”
“I mean it.”
“Holy water; that’ll burn the bastards.”
“I’ll remember.”
Tolton found Dariat skulking among the fringes of the trees. The ghost couldn’t keep still, nervously searching round for signs of anyone approaching.
“Don’t fret, man. The others don’t care about you so long as you stay away from them.”
“I intend to,” Dariat grumbled. “Come on, we’ve got a way to go.”
He started walking.
Tolton shrugged, and started after him.
“How was the woman?” Dariat asked.
“Perky. She wanted to sprinkle you with holy water.”
“Silly cow,” he snorted with derisive amusement. “That’s for vampires.”
Kiera had decreed that the zero-tau pods should be put in the deep chambers around the base of the northern endcap. The polyp in that section was a honeycomb of caverns and tunnels; the chambers used almost exclusively by the astronautics industry to support the docking ledge infrastructure. Stores, workshops, and fabrication plants all dedicated to supplying Magellanic Itg’s blackhawk fleet. It was a logical place to use. The equipment was already close to hand. There wasn’t as much danger from Rubra’s insurgency in the big, unsophisticated caverns as there was in the starscrapers. And if they wanted them set up anywhere else, they’d be facing a troublesome relocation job.
As soon as Dariat told him where the zero-tau pods were, Tolton tried to use one of the rentcop jeeps abandoned around the starscraper lobby. It crawled along barely at walking pace. Stopped. Started. Crawled some more. Stopped.
They walked the whole way to the base of the northern endcap. Several times during the day Tolton caught
