'You have such limited vision, John,' said the Collector, shaking his head sadly. 'Surrounded by treasures, and so blind to them. Look around you. There are species of insect here unknown to the world we came from. Unique variations, unavailable anywhere else. I know collectors who speculate in insects who will piss blood when they hear what I've got. I'll take back a few duplicates, of course, to auction off for utterly extortionate prices. Travelling in Time can be so expensive these days.'
'Time travel?' Joanna said quickly. 'You have a time machine?'
'Nothing so crude,' said the Collector. 'Though I do have rather a nice display of some of the more rococo mechanisms ... No, I have a gift. Many do, in the Nightside. Dear John here finds things, Eddie kills with a razor that no-one ever sees ... and I flit back and forth in Time. It's how I've been able to acquire so many lovely pieces. But to answer your next question; no, I don't carry passengers. How did you get here, John?'
'Timeslip,' I said. 'I was heading for the boundary when these insects appeared. When exactly are you from, Collector?'
'You've just left the Nightside,' said the Collector. 'In something of a hurry, swearing never to return. Do I take it you're back?'
'Five years up the line, after you left,' I said. 'I'm back, and my mood has not improved.'
'Can't say I'm surprised,' said the Collector. He grinned happily about him. 'Ah, so many beauties, I don't know where to start. I can't wait to get them back to my warehouse and start pinning them to display boards!'
Joanna snorted. 'Hope you brought a really big killing bottle.'
The insects were stirring restlessly all around us, antennae twitching with dangerous agitation. I decided to get to the point. 'Collector, Eddie says we're only eighty-two years in my future, but everything here is destroyed. Do you know what brought this about?'
The Collector spread his fat, nail-bitten hands in an innocent gesture. 'There are so many futures, so many possible timelines. This is just one possibility. If it's any comfort, there's nothing inevitable about this.'
'You knew this future well enough for your gift to bring you here,' I said. 'You knew about the insects. Talk to me, Collector. Before I get upset with you.'
The Collector just kept on smiling his insufferable self-satisfied smile. 'You're in no position to make threats, John. In fact, you don't even recognise just how much danger you're in. You're right; I have studied these insects, from a safe distance. I know why they're so interested in us. In humans. I even
know why they haven't just killed you. I'm afraid it's rather an unpleasant reason, but then, that's insects for you. Such wonderfully uncluttered minds. No room for fear, or other emotions. They don't even bother with sentience, as we understand it. They're concerned only with survival. I've always admired their ruthlessness. Their single-minded, implacable nature.'
'You always were strange,' I said. 'Get to the point.' It seemed to me that the insects around us were edging closer.
'You never studied,' said the Collector. 'Insects lay their eggs in host bodies. Non-insect host bodies. The eggs grow and hatch inside the host, and the larvae then eat their way out. A bit hard on the host, of course, but... Nasty, totally without conscience and compassion, and utterly insect. However, the only living species left in this future world are insects. So all they've got left to use for a host is ... that unfortunate fellow with you. For eighty- two years now, the undying form of Razor Eddie has been host to generation after generation of insects. Eggs go in, larvae with teeth come out, and the insect race survives. Rather unpleasant for poor Eddie, of course, eaten alive over and over again, but then ... I never liked him.'
I didn't look at Eddie. He didn't need to see my shock and horror at what had been done to him. Especially if it really was my fault. I knew now why the
insects had kept him imprisoned in a cocoon. They couldn't risk his finding a way to kill himself. I was so angry then ... if I'd been big enough, I'd have stamped on every damned insect in the world.
'And now here you are, John,' said the Collector. 'You and your lady friend. New hosts, for more insect young. I shouldn't think you'll last anywhere near as long as Eddie, but I'm sure they'll make good use of you, while you do last. I suppose I could help you escape . . . but then, I never liked you much either, John.'
Razor Eddie cried out suddenly, his back arching, his whole body shaking and shuddering. I grabbed him by the shoulders, but his spasms were so violent I couldn't hold on to him. He fell to the ground, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out again, but his eyes were leaking tears in spite of him. I knelt beside him. I think I already knew what was happening. I didn't back away as hundreds of insect young the size of thumbs burst out of his flesh, eating their way out of his convulsing body. Black soft squishy things, with teeth like tiny razors. They even came out through his eyes. His coat soaked up most of the blood. Joanna fell to one knee and vomited, but still managed to hang on to her lighter. I grabbed handfuls of the emerging larve and crushed them viciously. Their innards ran down my wrists, but there were just too many of them.
'What can I do, Eddie?' I said desperately, but he couldn't hear me.
'Only one thing you can do,' the Collector said reasonably. 'Kill him. Put him out of his long misery. Except, of course, you can't. This is after all the remarkable Razor Eddie, who cannot die. Take a good look at him, John. Once that cigarette lighter runs out of fuel, they'll come for you ... and this will be your future, and hers, for as long as they can make you last...'
I pushed his hateful words aside, concentrating on my gift. If there was anything that could still kill Razor Eddie, and give him peace at last, my gift would find it. It didn't take long. Pretty obvious, once I had the answer. The only thing that could kill Eddie was his own straight razor. The weapon that no-one ever saw. I already knew it wouldn't be anywhere about his person, or he'd have used it on himself before now. The insects couldn't separate him from it, either. Eddie and his Razor were bound together by a pact only a god could break. I focused my gift further, and there it was, in the one place the insects could put it that Eddie couldn't reach it. They'd buried it deep inside his own body, in his guts.
I made myself act without thinking, without feeling. I thrust my hand into one of the insects' exit wounds, forcing it open, and then drove my hand deep into Eddie's guts, not listening as he screamed,
holding him down with all my weight as he kicked. Joanna was dry-heaving by now, but she couldn't bring herself to look away. My arm was bloody up to the elbow by the time my fingers closed around the pearl handle of the old-fashioned straight razor, and Eddie howled like a damned thing as I pulled my hand back out again. Blood dripped thickly from my fingers and my prize. Eddie lay shuddering, moaning quietly. I opened the razor and set the edge against his throat, and I like to think there was gratitude in his eyes.
'Good-bye, Eddie,' I said softly. 'I'm so sorry. Trust me. I won't let this happen.'
'How very sentimental,' said the Collector, 'but you haven't really thought this through, have you?' I didn't need to look round to know that he was enjoying every moment of this. 'You see, if you destroy the insects' only host, and then remove yourself and the woman from this Time, you will be condemning every species here to extinction. Are you really ready to commit genocide, to wipe out the only living things left on the earth?'
'Hell yes,' I said, and Razor Eddie didn't even twitch as I cut his throat, pressing down so hard with the blade that I could feel the steel edge grate against his neckbones. I needed to be sure. Blood pumped out under pressure, soaking his clothes and mine, and the dusty ground around us. Eddie lay there peacefully as he died, and afterwards I held him in my
arms and cried the tears he couldn't. Because for all our differences, and there had been many, he had always been my friend. When the very last of his life went out of him with a sigh, his razor disappeared from my hand. I lowered his body to the ground and clambered unsteadily to my feet. The Collector was looking at me, utterly stupefied.
The insects screamed suddenly; a shrill inhuman sound that filled the purple night. It had taken them a while, but they'd finally understood the significance of what I'd done. The scream rose and rose as more and more of them took it up, until it seemed to be coming from everywhere in the desolate city. I smiled my old smile, my devilish smile, and the Collector flinched at the sight of it. The insects were boiling all around us, pressing right up to the limits of the yellow light. I had just murdered all their future generations ... unless they could find a way to make use of me, and Joanna. I checked the distance to the far boundary again. Fifteen minutes' running time, maybe ten, depending on how motivated we were. As long as the lighter fuel held out.
The Collector cried out suddenly as holes opened up in the ground around his feet. The insects down below weren't intimidated by his light, and they had finally come for him. One of the Collector's legs plunged down into a
