At one point the corridor became choked with a thick mass of the grey webbing, and they had to stop and cut their way through with their swords. It was slow, back-breaking work as the sticky webbing tore reluctantly under the blades. Sometimes Silence thought he saw strange lights flashing briefly in the darkness, but the others never mentioned them, so he kept his peace till he could be sure himself. The esper began to frown heavily, and stopped at times to stare intently at some new outgrowth or alien structure.
"She's starting to remember," Carrion murmured to Silence. "I'll keep an eye on her."
And then they rounded a corner, and Diana stopped dead and screamed. Carrion and Frost moved quickly forward to stand between her and what she was looking at. She managed to swallow the second scream, but she was trembling so violently she could barely stand. Silence moved in beside her, and had to fight down an urge to look away. They'd finally discovered what had happened to the missing personnel of Base Thirteen.
Stretched across the wall, interspersed with alien growths and mechanisms, were recognisably human shapes and organs. Bodies had been torn apart and reassembled in strange patterns. Alien technology mixed with brightly veined meat, and nerves and wires curled around familiar bones. And every organ and stretch of tissue was still clearly alive and functioning, as part of an alien, monstrous whole. Stasiak's face peered blindly from a shifting spider web of silvery traces. There were no eyes in the face, but a muscle twitched regularly by the slack mouth.
"It's alive," said Carrion quietly. "I can feel it in my mind. It shouldn't be alive, but it is."
"Just like the alien ship," said Frost. "Living and nonliving tissues cyborged together. A biomechanical gestalt whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is functioning, Captain; it has a purpose, a reason for existence."
Silence looked at Diana. Her mouth was slack, and her eyes saw nothing at all. He looked back at the living wall. "At least now we know what happened to the marines. They must have been taken and . . . broken down, in front of Diana. No wonder she blocked out the memory." He looked at the esper again, and then away. The empty eyes were more accusing than any stare could have been. "Why didn't they take her, too?"
"Espers have a unique defence mechanism," said Carrion coldly. "In times of danger, they can use their esp to become psionically invisible. Can't be seen or heard. You could walk right into one and not notice. Apparently it works equally well on aliens. You can ask Diana all about it, when she wakes up. If she wakes up."
"If she can't keep up with us, we'll have to leave her behind," said Frost.
"I know," said Silence. "I know."
They walked along the wall, trying to take in the details. Carrion took Diana by the hand and she walked along beside him, her face completely blank. The lamp still hovered above them, its pitiless light revealing every awful detail of the living surface. Familiar body parts and organs had been worked seamlessly into the alien technology. Half a brain bulged wet and glistening within a silver and grey latticework, next to a bloodless hand whose fingers curled and uncurled, over and over again. A single eyeball gleamed dully among copper piping beaded with sweat. An endless display of viscera wound back and forth, intertwined with gold and silver wiring. Frost studied it all with cool fascination. Silence couldn't look away. Carrion mostly looked after Diana, who went where she was led.
There were more walls, equally disturbing, and as the party moved deeper into Level Three, the mix of living tissue and alien technology became increasingly overt and bizarre. One hundred and twenty-seven men and women had lived and worked in Base Thirteen before the aliens came, and not a single body part of any one of them had been allowed to go to waste.
"Why?" said Frost finally. "What's the point of it all? What is this supposed to achieve? If the aliens were capable of such extensive work, why didn't they use the Base's . . . resources to repair their ship?"
"Perhaps the ship was too badly damaged," said Carrion. "Or perhaps this . . . construction was the reason the aliens came here. We need more information, and a context to see it in. For the moment, we're just guessing."
"We need to find the aliens," said Silence. "They can't be allowed to get away with this."
"Captain," said Odin quietly in his ear. "I have been examining the memory crystal discovered on the crashed alien vessel, and I have finally managed to access the information within. I have arranged it in as palatable a form as possible. I strongly suggest that you study the information now."
"All right," said Silence. "Run it for me first, then run it for Carrion and the Investigator, while I stand watch. Be prepared to break off at a moment's notice if necessary."
"Of course, Captain. Stand by."
Silence's vision shimmered, and was suddenly replaced by exotic alien vistas as the AI patched the memory crystal directly into his comm implant.
Tall towers, draped in strands of glass and pearl, under a mercury sky. Silvered clouds boil slowly around a sun too bright to look at. The towers stand alone on an endless plain. There are dim cavities in the sides that might be entrances. Something living curls around the bases or the towers, unfurling wide, jagged petals to the brilliant sun. The images are blurred, seen through a fluid, distorting haze.
A series of similar images come and go, in which the details change but the scene remains the same. The towers age but do not fall, the strands twisting and shuddering as time shakes them. More towers spring up, covering the plain. In and out of the cavities, around the bases of the towers, near and far, are shadowy figures, never still, always blurs. It is as though film exposures, taken some time apart, have been laid side by side to give an illusion of movement.
Something is speaking though not with words. Information is passed, thick with meaning.
The towers are everywhere, linked by bridges of gossamer webbing. Life is everywhere, leaping, soaring, growing. There is no room. Time passes. There is war among the towers. Fires burn and terrible energies blaze. The dead are everywhere. Life is everywhere.
A line of shapes, huge and metallic, each different from the next, appear on the plain. They throw themselves up into the mercury sky, and are gone.
Silence rocked on his feet as the images left his eyes, and would have fallen if Frost hadn't steadied him. He leaned on her a moment, till his legs steadied, and then nodded to the Investigator that he was all right. He waited a moment while Odin ran the alien memories through Carrion and Frost's minds, and then they looked at each other with new eyes.
"Incredible," said Frost. "A species, a civilisation, where the boundaries between animate and inanimate, living and non-living, have been blurred and forgotten. Everything there was alive, struggling for space and survival."
"No room anywhere, anymore," said Carrion. "So they built or grew starships and set off to find new worlds. New planets to conquer, to infest, to make over in their image. That's what's happening here. The Base has been remade into something more . . . familiar."
"More than that," said Frost. "Base Thirteen is a beacon, calling others of its kind. They have to be stopped, here on the Rim, while they're still confined to one world. If this were to spread . . . The Empire must be warned. The aliens must be destroyed."
"Not aliens," said Silence. "Just the one. Each of those ships carried a single creature. Or rather, each of those ships was a single creature. I sensed it. Our visitor left its shell after the ship crashed, and made a new shell for itself here, in Base Thirteen. We have to find it, and kill it. If we can. I'm not sure if it is life, as we understand it."
"We can't take chances," said Frost. "Not with something like this. Our very species is at risk. Our best bet is to return to the Darkwind and use atomics on the Base until nothing's left but a few grains of dust."
Silence looked at Carrion, who nodded slowly. "We'll have to find the force shield generator and shut down the screen first."
"Are you hearing all this, Odin?" said Silence. "How are your repairs going? Can you be ready to take off once
we've shut down the force screen?"
"I'm sorry, Captain," said the AI, "but I can't take you anywhere. You have all been exposed to the alien organism. The probability is high that you are yourselves infected. I cannot risk your passing on that infection to the Darkwind."
"Odin, this is a direct order from your Captain," said Silence. "Stand by to carry us back up to the Darkwind, where we can be kept in Quarantine."
"I'm sorry, Captain. My standing orders override yours. You will remain here. The pinnace is barred to you."
Carrion laughed softly. "Isn't that the bottom line with the Empire, John? Everyone's expendable. Everyone."
CHAPTER NINE
Unexpected Complications
Silence fell helplessly through darkness without end. The bitter air was thick with the stench of sulphur and burning blood. Bright lights flared about him, flashing past like blazing comets. There were voices in the dark, loud and meaningless, interspersed with screams and laughter. Silence didn't know how long he'd been falling, but it felt like an eternity. He thrashed about, hands searching frantically for something that might slow his fall, but there was only the dark and the cold wind rushing past him. He forced himself to stay calm, his mind racing. Where was he, and how the hell had he got there? Where were the others? Where was Carrion?"
"Right here, Captain."
And suddenly he was standing on a narrow stairway, its cracked marble steps falling away into infinity. Carrion stood beside him, calm and unruffled. The cold wind stirred his hair, and his cloak swirled around him like billowing wings. He looked down at the endless drop, and then looked at Silence, unmoved.
"I did warn you, Captain. Trips like this are always dangerous."
"Trip?" said Silence, his voice harsh to hide the uncertainty. "Where are we, Carrion?"
"Where you insisted I take you. Inside Diana Vertue's mind."
Memories returned in a rush. Diana had seen the marines die, ripped apart before her. Horror and survivor's guilt had overwhelmed her mind, until the only way to save her sanity had been to deny it had ever happened. She forgot it all, until she was forced to remember. And then, rather than face the horror again, she'd shut herself away inside her own mind, where nothing could reach her and nothing could harm her. She shut herself down and stood staring blindly, mute and comatose, safe at last.
Carrion couldn't reach her with his esp, but he did have one suggestion. It was risky and uncertain, dangerous both to him and the espers, but he could drop his shields and join his mind directly with Diana's. Make her pain his own. If you're going in there, I'm going in with you, Silence had said. After all, I am her father. Carrion had argued, and Silence hadn't listened. He had no choice. He needed the esper if he was to complete this mission successfully. And she was his daughter, after all.
Lights blazed in the darkness, guttered, and were gone. Voices came and went, shrill and inhuman. And the wind rose and fell, blowing out of nowhere.
"Every light is a thought," said Carrion softly. "Every voice a memory. And the rising and falling of the wind is the force of her will. We're a part of her mind now, as vulnerable as she is. Either we find a remedy for her madness, a way for her to live with her memories, or we'll never leave here."
"Where did the stairway come from?" said Silence, as much for the comfort of hearing his own voice as anything else.
"It's a construct created by our joined minds; a symbol of constancy, to help us feel more secure. You must expect strange things here, Captain. The mind deals in symbols. Particularly when dealing with things it doesn't really want to think about."
He looked down, and Silence followed his gaze. The stairway suddenly came to an end not far below, in a shimmering silvery plain that stretched away in all directions further than the eye could follow. And there, at the foot of the stairs, was a great white-walled house with strange lights burning in its windows.
"That is Diana's consciousness," said the outlaw. "Or how she perceives it. We have to enter the house and put right the damage there, if we can. We'd do well to make haste. Time isn't a factor; a few days here can be only a few seconds in the real world. But the mind is a dangerous place to visit. All the things we really fear are here, with nothing to protect us from them save the strength of our own wills. There are no rules here, Captain, only varying degrees of necessity."
"Then let's get on with it," said Silence, and he started down the stairs towards the great white house.
The house drew close by slow degrees, as though reluctant to accept any visitors. Silence began to get the feeling there was something else in the darkness with them. He looked unobtrusively about him, but the dark turned aside his gaze with contemptuous ease. He heard slow, regular breathing, and what might have been the flapping of giant wings. The sounds came first from one side and then the other, growing steadily closer, nearer. He sensed a hot, arid presence watching from the concealing darkness.
"Ignore it, Captain," said Carrion softly. "Whatever it is, we don't want to meet it. Concentrate on the house. Just the house."
And suddenly they were at the foot of the stairway, the house looming over them, shining like a moon. The great structure looked old-fashioned and curiously stylized, as though built more for viewing than actual use. The strange lights were gone, and the windows held only darkness, like so many watching eyes. A sudden chill stabbed through Silence as he finally recognised what he was looking at. It was the doll's house he'd bought Diana for her fifth birthday. When she'd still been his child, before the Empire took her from him. He looked at the door before him. It was a great featureless slab of wood, without knocker or handle.
"What do we do now?" he asked. His voice seemed to echo on and on, falling away into disturbing whispers.
"We go in," said Carrion evenly. "And then we talk to Diana, or whatever part of her she chooses to show us. We can't force her to come back with us. We have to persuade her. If we can."
He stepped forward and knocked firmly on the door. The sound was flat and empty, not at all like a door should sound. It swung slowly open before them, revealing a brightly lit hallway. Silence looked at Carrion, who gestured for him to lead the way. Silence stepped resolutely forward, Carrion a step behind him. The door closed behind them with a solid, final sound. The hallway stretched ahead of them, impossibly long. The light came from everywhere and nowhere, and doors led off from the hallway at regular intervals.
"The mind is a labyrinth," said Carrion. "Let's hope we don't meet the Minotaur."
"There might not be one," said Silence.
"There's always a Minotaur. If we're lucky, there'll also be a guide."
As though the house had been listening all along, and waiting for the word to be spoken, a door opened not far away, and a young child stepped out into the hallway. Diana, six years old, in her party dress. There were electrode burns on her forehead.
"Do you recognise the image, John?" said Carrion. "Do you know why she chose this of all her selves to show us? This is what she looked like when the Empire was training her how to use her esp. Or to be more exact, when not to. The first thing all espers have to learn is obedience—to use their esp only when ordered to. Espers are controlled through pain-avoidance conditioning, a long and painful process whose only justification is that it works. No one uses the word torture. Espers have no rights. They're a commodity, to be used and discarded as needed. And if that means attaching electrodes to a young child and turning up the voltage, well, you can't make an omelette, and all that. No, Captain; don't look away. This is your doing."
"I didn't know," said Silence.
"You didn't want to know. You closed your eyes to evidence, and your mind to rumours, and told yourself it was all for the best. You sent your daughter to Hell, John, and part of her is always there, endlessly suffering, endlessly screaming. And we're going to have to walk through it to reach her." Carrion leaned forward, his voice gentle as he spoke to the child before him. "Diana, we need to talk to you. Can you talk to us?"
> The child turned, put out her hands for them to take, and led them down the hallway. The small hand was warm and soft and very real in Silence's grasp. Ghosts came and walked in the hall with them, pale and silent people who had been important to Diana in her short life. Silence didn't recognise any of them. There was no sign of him among the ghosts. They filed past in eerie silence, their eyes preoccupied, their thoughts somewhere else. Some of them bore the mark of the electrodes on their skin. Some were screaming soundlessly, some were clearly insane, and too many of them were children.
Silence looked away, studying the doors they passed. Some were closed and some were open. The rooms held moments from Diana's past, endlessly repeating like flies trapped in amber. Most were scenes of suffering, mental or physical and often both. You sent your daughter to Hell, John. Silence wanted to look away, but wouldn't let himself. And then they came to a closed door, behind which a small child sobbed endlessly, without comfort or hope, and Silence stopped. Carrion and Diana stopped with him. Silence stared at the door, his hands clenched unknowingly into fists, and it seemed to him that if he opened that door and stepped through, he could save his daughter and undo the evil that had been done to her. Carrion looked at him sharply, and there was something in the outlaw's eyes that might have been fear.
"There's nothing you can do, John. What you're hearing is the past. It's already happened. In some deep part of our mind everything that ever hurt or scared us is still there, waiting for a chance to attach itself to us again. If you open that door and let loose what's in that room, you condemn Diana to Hell again, and us with her. Come away, John. The odds are you'll have to face worse than this before we reach the core mentality—the deep hidden centre of Diana, the self that never sleeps."