‘The daughter is staying with friends for the moment. Candide Stenger is under treatment for severe mental trauma. She… She’s unlikely to make a full recovery.’
‘O-oh.’
‘Setting that aside, we have the problem of an unknown perpetrator using a form of mental control which Mercia Reynell has never encountered before.’
Mitsuko started at that. ‘Seriously?’
‘Very seriously. She’s researching it, but the forms of control she knows would all leave an impression in the subject’s memory. Lambert Stenger has no memories of the period he was under control. None. They’re not buried away where he can’t access them or repressed due to the horror of it. They’re simply not there.’
‘That’s… weird and unhelpful.’
‘Right. If he remembered what happened, he’d probably be as traumatised as his wife, but he also might be able to tell us something about his attacker.’
‘It’s weird,’ Melissa said. ‘It kind of sounds like some of the ghost stories associated with Harbinger sites.’
Courtney frowned. ‘Explain, please, Mel.’
‘Uh, well, I’d have to do a search to find the details, but on several of the worlds which used to be Harbinger colonies, there are stories about ghosts possessing the living. A couple of Harbinger sites have been discovered by people who went to sleep in their beds and woke up having apparently dug up some bit of Harbinger architecture or technology. No one knew the sites were there before then and the people concerned have no memory of going to the site or doing the digging.’ Melissa’s cheeks coloured. ‘A-and there are a few stories about couples having, uh, wild nights of passion, only to discover that one of them doesn’t remember it in the morning. And a few other variations on a theme. I don’t know how many of them can be verified, but the main thing is that the people involved don’t remember what happened while the “ghost” possessed them.’
‘Ghosts…’
‘Ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them. I think there has been some research into the possibility of immaterial beings like that.’
‘Yes,’ Rochester said. ‘During the early period of metaphysics research, it was theorised that “beings of pure thought” were possible and that such entities might be the basis for ghosts, spirits, and even gods. However, no such entities were ever observed on Earth and research along those lines is largely regarded as fanciful.’
‘But we have ghost stories associated with Harbinger sites matching Lambert Stenger’s experience,’ Mitsuko said. ‘And we have a smashed Harbinger artefact which appeared to be designed to contain something. Sorcery was no use in penetrating the interior of that artefact, so we can assume that the barrier within it would stop anything magical getting out.’
‘Until Lambert Stenger turned it off,’ Courtney concluded.
‘Just so I’m clear,’ Kyle said. ‘We’re saying that a two-hundred-thousand-year-old ghost was locked up in an equally old magical device. Lambert Stenger freed it and it possessed him to destroy its prison and then do things I’m not going to mention to his wife. Is that about the size of it?’
‘Well, you have to admit that it fits the available facts,’ Courtney said.
‘Yes. Yes, it does. But it’s really out there, Courtney. I just, um, can’t come up with anything more reasonable right now.’
Courtney actually grinned. ‘I’m sure there’s some quote about impossible answers being what you have to go with when nothing else works.’
‘Yeah, but there’s also the old adage about extraordinary claims demanding extraordinary evidence.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘It’s only a working hypothesis,’ Rochester said. ‘That adage is entirely wrong. Even if a claim is beyond normal, any evidence which supports it irrefutably is sufficient, no matter how ordinary. However, more evidence is needed. As with any hypothesis, we can only progress through testing it against observed reality. I’ll see if the library has any of the old papers on non-physical entities and see whether that gives us anything new.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Courtney said. ‘Lambert Stenger will be trying to work out what the artefact actually did tomorrow. That may give us something.’ She turned her gaze on Nava, who was sitting quietly on her sofa. ‘You usually have more to say, Nava.’
Nava looked up, a slight wrinkle touching her brow. ‘I don’t have anything to add.’ She looked down again and went back to her thoughts. Something was bothering her. There was something… unsettling about the conversation, or the room, or… She felt nervous. And Nava never felt nervous. Well, not since she had seen the artefact in Lambert Stenger’s lab…
‘We’ll wrap this up, then,’ Courtney said. ‘Chess, if you find anything, message me. Any time. I don’t care whether I’m in bed or a lecture.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Rochester replied.
‘I’ll see if I can find out more about those ghost stories,’ Melissa said. ‘The library is bound to have some papers on “space folk tales” or something. Some sort of comparative study.’
‘Right,’ Courtney said. ‘And I’ll… be at a loss for what to do while you people do that.’
‘Get a good night’s rest,’ Mitsuko suggested. ‘If something does come out of all this research, I suspect you’ll need to be fresh to make use of it.’
‘Yeah. An early night sounds good. If I can sleep. Kyle, let’s get out of their hair.’
Kyle nodded, a smile touching his lips. ‘An early night sounds good to me too.’
~~~
‘I’m going out for a while.’ Nava was obviously going out since she was walking toward the apartment door.
‘Okay,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘I don’t know. I’m going out to find out.’
‘Uh, okay.’
‘You haven’t upset me or anything. Don’t worry about it.’
Mitsuko brightened a little. Nava had been very quiet since Courtney and Kyle had turned up. There was something of a natural tendency to wonder whether one had inadvertently upset one’s partner when they went all quiet on you. ‘I’m glad to–’
‘Yet. There’s nothing to worry about yet.’ And then the door was closing behind her.
Staring at the closed door of her apartment, Mitsuko voiced her concerns over the matter. ‘Oh. Crap.’
~~~
If
