Forces from Beyond (26 page)

“None we’ve been able to detect,” said Hamilton. Her voice was dry, almost entirely uninflected. “It doesn’t eat, drink, breathe, move, or react to its surroundings. None of the accepted signs of life. As though it’s . . . indifferent, to everything in this world. It doesn’t need anything from us. It has no obvious limbs, to manipulate its surroundings. No obvious sense organs, to observe them. No electrical activity, to suggest a brain. Nothing to give us a handle on it.”

“You said it kills every living thing that gets too close,” said JC. “How, exactly?”

“We don’t know,” said Hedley. “They just die. Maybe it freaks them out.”

“Understandable,” said Melody.

“Perhaps it’s simply so alien, nothing from our world can exist in its proximity,” said Hamilton. “It just . . . overwhelms everything else.”

“Your bubble at work, Dr. Goldsmith,” said Hedley. “It overwrites the rules of our world with its own.”

“It’s toxic,” said Goldsmith. “To everything our world considers life.”

“I’d go along with that,” said JC.

“We need to get a closer look,” said Melody.

“There is a way,” said Goldsmith. He paused, for another of his brief smiles. “But you’re really not going to like it.”

“Why did I just know you were going to say that?” said JC.

“Maybe you’re psychic,” said Happy.

“Finally,” said Chang, smiling sweetly. “We get to the reason we’re here. Vivienne MacAbre’s master plan. Captain Katt, be so good as to take us back up on deck, so we can look at our latest toy.”

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They went back up through the levels of the ship and onto the open deck, where the Captain led the way to the far end of the
Moonchilde
. JC and Chang stuck close behind him, with Melody and Happy bringing up the rear. Chang bounced along at JC’s side, smiling happily. She slipped an arm through his in a companionable sort of way; and JC politely but firmly pushed it away. Melody led Happy along like a child. He came willingly enough but seemed mostly uninterested in his surroundings. JC wondered if perhaps he should send Happy back to his cabin, to get some more rest. But if he did that, Melody would insist on going with him; and JC needed her. She was the only one who could talk to the scientists for him.

“There!” the Captain said proudly, gesturing at the thing before them. They all stopped to look.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding,” said JC. “Is that . . .”

“It is!” said Chang, beaming widely. “The only way to get down to the Flesh Undying and get up close and personal, without being spotted. The old-fashioned way. In a bathysphere!”

She gestured expansively at the huge steel ball, a simple pressurised container some thirty feet or so in diameter, hanging above the deck from its winch mechanism. A wonder of early-twentieth-century science, with all kinds of cables and tubes and support tech dangling off it. A huge, air-generating machine stood to one side, firmly bolted to the deck. JC and Melody stared at the bathysphere with something like shock. Katt grinned, enjoying the astonishment and horror growing in their faces.

“It looks very . . . solid,” JC said finally.

“Lots of rivets,” said Happy. “I like rivets. Something very reassuring about a lot of rivets.”

“But can something like that withstand the pressure?” said Melody. “I mean, if we’re going all the way down to the Flesh Undying, that means descending about as deep as you can go . . .”

“The scientists assure me it can cope,” said Katt. “It has been specially reinforced.”

“I’ve met your scientists,” said JC. “And I didn’t find them at all reassuring. Where did you get this thing?”

“Bathyspheres are so out-dated, no-one makes them any longer,” said Chang. “And museums won’t give them up. The Project had to buy one, and all its support equipment, from a private collector.”

“What kind of person collects bathyspheres?” said JC.

“Come on, JC,” said Melody. “People collect anything. I once saw an ad for a convention of barbed-wire enthusiasts.”

“You can find anything on eBay,” said Happy, nodding wisely.

“You should have seen the size of the crane it took, to transfer the bathysphere onto the
Moonchilde
,” said Katt. “I was convinced the other ship was going to tip right over.”

“A bathysphere?”
said JC. “Really? Somebody actually thought this was a good idea?”

“According to our pet scientists, we can’t risk any kind of standard submersible,” said Katt. “The Flesh Undying would detect the computers that are built into everything these days. And we can’t risk doing anything that might wake it up . . .”

“How did it destroy the last submersible?” said JC. “I mean, if it just sits there and doesn’t move . . .”

“Some kind of energy attack, I’m told,” said Katt.

“It didn’t just destroy the submersible,” said Melody. “It also reached out to attack the scientists associated with it, half a world away in Brighton. The Flesh Undying has powers and abilities beyond our understanding.”

“Then why does it need human agents?” said Happy. “Like the Faust and Heather?”

“Good question!” said Melody. “Are you back with us, sweetie?”

“Now and again,” said Happy. “I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.”

“I think . . . it needs individual agents for individual actions,” said JC. “For when subtlety is required. Maybe that’s why it killed a whole roomful of people at the convention. Because it can’t focus enough to kill specific people.”

“Okay,” said Melody. “You are reaching now.”

“Somebody has to,” said JC.

“All right!” Melody said loudly, glaring dangerously at the bathysphere. “What do we do? Pack this thing full of sensors and data collectors, then just . . . lower away?”

“Not quite,” said Katt. “We can only use the most basic equipment if we want to get really close to the Flesh Undying. So we need volunteers to go down inside the bathysphere, to oversee the tech and make sure it’s pointing in the right direction. The scientists were getting ready to draw lots, to see which of them would go, before we got word you were coming.”

“Why is he looking at me?” said Happy. “JC, tell him to stop looking at me!”

“The bathysphere is so old-school it should sneak past the Flesh Undying’s radar, so to speak,” said Chang.

“Old-school?” said JC. “That thing is practically steampunk!”

“And that’s why it will work,” said Catherine Latimer.

They all looked around sharply as Latimer emerged from behind the bathysphere. No-one had noticed she was there. She nodded briefly to everyone before returning her attention to the sphere. She seemed to approve of it.

“Thought you were sleeping?” said JC.

“I’ve slept enough,” said Latimer. “You don’t need much, at my age.”

“Whatever that really is,” said Happy.

“I think I preferred him when he wasn’t talking,” said Latimer.

“Lot of people say that,” Happy said sadly.

“Did you know about this in advance, Boss?” said JC.

“You couldn’t have!” said Chang. “This was all kept highly classified, at the highest levels! Really high levels!”

“When I thought about the problem, this was the only approach that made sense,” said Latimer. “I have seen one of these in action before . . . Not a word out of you, Mr. Palmer, if you like having your organs on the inside . . . This model seems perfectly sound. It should do the job.”

“Could we use it to deliver a nuke?” said JC.

“You keep coming back to that,” said Happy. “And I keep telling you, a nuke won’t work.”

“Why not?” said JC. “I know the Flesh Undying is a bit on the big side, but . . .”

“Because apart from its very unpleasant side effects, any atomic device is still really just a big bomb,” said Melody. “Something that goes bang. The Flesh Undying isn’t a natural object, so we can’t expect it to react in natural ways to simple physics. The blast might not reach it, or damage it; or it might just put itself back together again.”

“I’m not sure any physical weapon would work,” said Latimer. “The Flesh Undying exists in more than three spatial dimensions, remember? You can’t hope to destroy something that exists in physical dimensions we can’t even detect. Traditional weapons wouldn’t even touch it.”

“Then we need untraditional weapons!” said Melody. “You have contacts with all sort of groups; somebody must have something!”

“You have to remember I’m rogue now,” said Latimer. “By the time I could convince anyone to listen to me . . .”

JC looked at Chang. “Your people don’t have anything?”

“At the Crowley Project,” Chang said carefully, “in the Armoury I wasn’t allowed to show you, we have all kinds of weapons and devices and really nasty surprises. Designed to destroy all manner of things, in and out of this world. The living and the dead and everything in between. But the Flesh Undying is so far beyond our experience, our comprehension . . . We were rather hoping you’d have something.”

“Maybe we could exorcise it,” said Happy.

They all looked at him.

“Just a thought,” said Happy. “Of course, we would need a really big book, bell, and candle.”

“That’s not for exorcisms,” said Melody. “That’s for when you want to curse someone.”

“I feel like doing some serious cursing,” said Happy.

“So do I,” said JC.

“We can use the bathysphere to study the Flesh Undying up close, undetected,” said Latimer. “Get new data, and just possibly a better idea of what it is we’re up against.”

“We?” said Happy. “What’s this we shit, kemo sabe?”

“Exactly,” said JC. “Does anyone here feel like volunteering?”

Everyone looked at everyone else. Hoping someone would raise their hand so they wouldn’t have to. Katt shook his head firmly.

“I will not be going, and neither will any member of my crew. We just run the ship.”

“There could be a substantial bonus involved,” said Chang.

“There isn’t that much money in the world,” said Katt.

“Don’t you trust the sphere?” said JC, innocently.

“I do not like the idea of walking up to the Flesh Undying and banging on its door,” said Katt. “Studying it is one thing; disturbing it quite another.”

“But you’re happy enough for someone else to do it?” said JC.

“Of course,” said Katt.

“What about the scientists?” said Melody. “I would have thought they’d jump at the chance.”

“It has been decided, at the highest level, that the scientists are needed here,” said Chang. “To run their equipment, and sort and study the new data as it comes in. So who does that leave, to volunteer for this highly dangerous and quite possibly suicidal mission?”

“You are enjoying this far too much,” said JC.

“I still have my guns,” said Melody.

Chang folded her arms and looked smug. “I do not do the volunteer thing.”

Catherine Latimer looked suddenly old, and frail.

“Oh stop it,” said JC. “You’re not fooling anyone.” He sighed, loudly. “It has to be me.”

Kim appeared suddenly, standing right in front of him. Everyone jumped at the ghost girl’s sudden reappearance, especially Katt.

“You do get used to that,” said Latimer. “Eventually.”

“I will not have ghosts on board my ship!” said Katt.

“Why not?” said Melody. “Because they’re unlucky?”

“I thought that was women?” said Happy.

“Depends on the woman,” said Latimer.

Kim was still staring at JC. She looked solid and real and very human. “Why, JC? Why does it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you?”

“Because I was there at the beginning,” said JC. “When forces from Outside reached down to save me from a terrible death and mark me as one of their own. I think perhaps they knew, even then, that this was where my life would lead. To this place, this moment, this decision. So I could be their weapon.”

“If you go,” said Kim, “I go with you.”

“And that means Happy and I go, as well,” said Melody.

“We do?” said Happy.

“Yes,” said Melody.

“Okay,” said Happy. “Just checking.”

JC looked at them all. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Of course we do,” said Melody. “We’re a team.”

“Damn right,” said Happy.

“Forever and ever,” said Kim.

The four Ghost Finders looked at each other.

“We’ve come a long way together,” said JC.

“And it would appear we still have a long way to go,” said Melody.

“Straight down,” said Happy.

They all laughed, quietly.

“Don’t any of you dare die on me,” said Kim. “I like being the only ghost in the Ghost Finders.”

“I am not going!” Chang said loudly.

“No-one ever thought you would,” said JC, not even turning his head to look at her. “And you’re not going either, Boss.”

“Of course not,” said Latimer. “I’m going to be needed here, to keep an eye on everyone. Go get some rest. You’re going to need it. You dive at dawn.”

“I thought that was for executions?” said Happy.

“Exactly,” said JC.

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THINGS PEOPLE SAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

They all decided they’d had enough for one day. Captain Katt escorted them back below, showed them to their cabins, and wished them a pleasant good night. Everyone nodded to everyone else and prepared to turn in. It had been a very long day. JC opened the door to his cabin and looked it over. It had clearly been occupied before, and by the look of it, quite recently. The narrow bunk bed was still half-made, and there were personal belongings scattered everywhere. Including a half-full bottle of Gordon’s gin, standing on the pull-out table. JC looked at Katt.

“Who did these cabins belong to, originally? Why are they empty now?”

“I told you,” said Katt. “People have died on this ship. They don’t need these cabins any longer. What’s the matter, Mr. Chance? Afraid they might be haunted?”

“No,” said JC. “I always bring my own ghost with me.”

Kim smiled dazzlingly at Katt, who looked away.

“I wouldn’t mind if there were a few ghosts still floating around,” said Chang, from further down the corridor. “I could use a bedtime treat.”

“Don’t even think of coming visiting,” said JC. “I shall be locking my door.”

“If you think that’ll help . . .” said Chang.

“I have a gun,” said Melody.

“So do I!” said Chang.

“I’m not ready to retire, just yet,” said Catherine Latimer. “I’ve already had enough rest for one life. I think . . . I’ll go back down and talk with the scientists some more.”

JC looked at her thoughtfully. He had no doubt Latimer was keeping something from him. But that was just business as usual where the Boss was concerned.

He ushered Kim into the cabin ahead of him, then went in, locking the door behind him. He stood by the door, listening to Happy and Melody going into their cabin, then Chang entering hers. Followed by the departing footsteps of Katt and Latimer. It promised . . . to be a very long night.

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JC pulled all the sheets and blankets off the narrow bed and threw them to the back of the cabin before lying down on the bare mattress. It felt less like lying on a dead man’s bed, that way. JC could be surprisingly fastidious about such things. He was almost too tall for the bed, his heels resting on the bottom edge. He worried about putting creases in his marvellous white suit but didn’t have the energy to get undressed. Besides, he wanted to be ready for . . . anything that might happen. Kim lay down on the air beside the bed, floating horizontally, as close as she could get without actually touching him. For fear of spoiling the illusion. JC smiled.

“I appreciate the thought, Kim, but you’re lying on nothing. It’s not much of an illusion.”

“You always know what I’m thinking,” said Kim.

“Not always,” said JC. He wriggled a little, settling himself.

“Try and get some sleep, love,” said Kim. “It’s been a hell of a day, and you’ve been through a lot. It’s all right; you’re safe. I’ll keep watch. Nothing will get to you while I’m here.”

“I’m tired,” said JC. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired in my life . . . My body feels like it’s made of lead . . . But I’m not sleepy. My head’s too full. Too many thoughts, racing at a thousand miles a minute. Far too many questions and not enough answers.”

He sat up again, scowling and hugging his knees to his chest. Kim sat up on the air beside him, hovering gracefully on nothing at all. Still keeping as close to JC as she could. She was wearing the memory of a battered old dressing-gown she used to have, back when she was alive. It helped her feel casual.

“I wish I could hold you,” she said. But she could tell he wasn’t listening, too busy re-running the events of the day. She sighed and fluffed out her long red hair without touching it. He liked it when she wore her hair long.

“I’m not even sure what time it is,” said JC. “My watch says one thing, that clock on the wall says another; but it doesn’t mean anything. My body clock’s not even talking to me after everything we’ve been through. Especially since we passed through Latimer’s dimensional Door.”

“Maybe you’re suffering from dimensional jet lag?” Kim said brightly.

JC could tell she was trying to cheer him up. It didn’t help, but he managed a small smile for her, to show he appreciated the effort.

“I’m not even sure what time-zone we’re in,” he said. “This far out in the Atlantic. It’s day now, when it used to be night; but is it the same day, or the next day . . .”

“It will be dark soon,” said Kim. “I can feel it. Do you think bad things will start to move around up on deck once it’s night, like the Captain said?”

“I hope so,” said JC. “I could use something straightforward to fight.”

“What’s really worrying you, JC?” said Kim. “You’re not usually this . . . tense.”

“The bathysphere!” said JC. “The bloody bathysphere! Can you believe that thing? I wasn’t sure where the day’s events were leading me, but that big steel ball wasn’t even on my list of things to be worried about. The last time I saw a bathysphere, it was on a television show, when I was a kid.
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
.” He looked at Kim, but she just looked back at him. “Don’t make me feel old, girl. The point is, they never seemed safe to me. And now I’m supposed to trust my life to one.”

“It looks . . . very sturdy,” said Kim. “Do you know what it’s like, inside? Have you any idea how to operate it?”

“No!” said JC. “Well . . . given the period it comes from, the systems can’t be that complicated. I should be able to handle the basics. And once we’re down on the sea-bottom, all we have to do is make sure all the equipment they load in with us is functioning properly.”

“How safe is a bathysphere, really?” said Kim.

“Normally, very, I would think,” said JC. “But these aren’t normal conditions. Bad enough that we’ll be sitting on the bottom of the ocean, our only link to the ship a bunch of fragile cables . . . surrounded by God knows how many pounds of pressure per square inch . . . But once we get right up close to the Flesh Undying, anything could happen.”

“What if it attacks you?” said Kim. “Could you defend yourselves? Does the bathysphere have any weapons?”

“Just a really thick shell,” said JC. “And Latimer’s right—weapons wouldn’t be any use against the Flesh Undying. Our best hope lies in not being noticed. I think that’s what’s really bugging me . . . How helpless we’ll be. I hate being in situations I can’t control. Where I can’t hit back.”

“You don’t have to do this, JC,” Kim said steadily. “Tell them to go to hell. I’ll back you up. Send that Natasha Chang cow down instead. No-one will miss her.”

“No,” JC said immediately. “We couldn’t trust her. Not that close to something so powerful.”

“You think she might be an agent of the Flesh Undying?” said Kim.

“No . . .” said JC. “I like to think she’s got more sense than that. Or at least, a better sense of self-preservation. I think it’s more . . . if there are secrets to be discovered down there, we need to be the ones who do it. And I can’t help feeling . . . that this is what everything in our lives has been leading up to. We’ve been through so much, there has to be a reason.” He stopped and looked at her. “Did I die, down in the London Underground? On that demon train? When the forces from Outside reached down and touched me, altered me; did they bring me back from the dead for their own purposes? Does that make me a ghost?”

“No,” Kim said immediately. “I’d know.”

JC thought of several things he could say in response to that, but moved on. “And what are these forces from Outside? I’ve researched everything I could find on the subject, in some pretty unlikely places, and I haven’t been able to find a single solid answer. Or at least, nothing I could trust. Given that the supernatural and the uncanny are our business, it’s amazing how little we know for sure about the realms that lie beyond our own. The only other person I know has had direct contact with these Forces is Catherine Latimer. And I’m not sure how I feel about her right now. I’d say she’s playing both sides against each other, but I’m not even sure how many sides there are . . .”

He rose abruptly from the bed and prowled around the cabin like a caged animal. Kim drifted carefully back out of his way. They both hated it when he sometimes accidentally walked through her. JC strode up and down, his head bowed, lost inside his own racing thoughts. Kim said nothing. At times like this, he needed to work things out for himself. JC stopped, facing a mirror on the cabin wall. He looked at himself for a long moment, then took off his sunglasses. Bright golden light spilled from his eyes. It was hard for him to see anything of himself in the reflection, past the light.

“I don’t even remember what my eyes used to look like,” he said slowly. “What does it mean, these changes they’ve made in me? The glowing eyes show they’ve marked me, but as what? A warrior for the Good? Or their property? Is this a sign of grace, or ownership?”

“Those eyes have saved your life,” said Kim. “On more than one occasion. They’ve scared off some fairly scary things. I can understand that. They creep me out, sometimes. And I’m dead.”

“Yes, but . . . saved me for what?” said JC. “For what reason, what purpose? I need answers, Kim! If I’m going down into the dark, all the way to the bottom of the ocean to stare the Flesh Undying in the face . . . If I’m going to my death tomorrow . . . I need to know what’s really going on.”

Kim came and stood beside him, standing as naturally on the floor as she could manage. “Being dead isn’t so bad. It beats the alternatives.”

JC looked at her. “There are alternatives?”

“Look!” said Kim. “This is me, changing the subject! The only way you’re going to get any straight answers about the forces from Outside is to talk to them directly. Ask them.”

“Is that even possible?” said JC. “How can you make contact with something that isn’t even a part of our reality?”

“They reached out to you,” said Kim. “Maybe you can reach out to them.”

JC thought about it. “Yes . . . When they reached down to touch me, they forged a connection. Whether they meant to or not. And I think . . . it’s still there.”

“Be careful, JC,” said Kim. “And very polite. You don’t want to risk upsetting them. If nothing else, they made it possible for us to be together.”

“That buys them a lot of credit,” said JC. “But not a blank cheque. I have to talk to them, Kim. I need answers, something definite to hang on to. Down in the depths, in the dark.”

“All right,” said Kim. “How do you want to do this?”

“I think we already know how,” said JC. “Think hard; think back to the day you and I first met.”

“I remember,” said Kim. “Though God knows I’ve tried to forget a lot of it. The demons, the horror, that old monster Fenris Tennebrae. I was never so frightened in my life. Or my death.”

“Concentrate,” said JC. “On that moment when the Forces found us, and everything changed forever.”

They stood facing each other, staring into each other’s eyes. The golden glow and the ghostly gaze.

“What did it feel like?” said Kim. “When something from the world above the world touched and altered you?”

JC concentrated, remembering a great force that raced through his body and soul, transforming the way he saw the world . . . and slowly he turned his head to look in a new direction, one he’d never noticed before.

“JC!” said Kim. “Your eyes! They’re glowing so brightly!”

She stared directly, unblinkingly, into the fierce light that blazed from his eyes, filling the cabin. She could do that because she wasn’t alive, with life’s limitations. And she remembered that she could see beyond this world, too. JC and Kim concentrated on the new direction, looking beyond the cabin wall, beyond the boundaries of this reality, beyond the fields we know. Kim began to glow, just like JC. He pointed an accusing finger at the world beyond the wall.

“I can see you!”

“I can see you!” said Kim.

“Took you long enough,” said a calm, kind, and not in any way human Voice.

JC and Kim stood close together, feeling very small in the face of something so vast and overwhelming. The cabin wall had disappeared, replaced by a whole new vista. Another place, of perfect shapes and concepts, perfect thoughts and emotions. Existence on a much grander scale. They could no more comprehend its details and significances than a fly crawling over a stained-glass window in a cathedral. All they could grasp were glimpses, impressions. But in a strange sort of way, it reminded them of home. The home they left, to be born. They couldn’t see what was speaking to them, or even where the Voice was coming from. Just a sense of being seen and understood by some incomparably vast Presence. Something taking an interest in them for reasons of its own.

“Who are you?” said JC. “Really?”

“Ah,” said the Voice. “The difficult ones first, eh? We’re you, JC, only more so. What you need to know is, we are the inhabitants of the realm the Flesh Undying came from.”

“Why did you dump it here?” said JC.

“We didn’t,” said the Voice. “It escaped. You can’t hope to comprehend what it really is except through the mercy of metaphors. Think of it this way; it isn’t a criminal. It’s insane. Broken, on a spiritual level. It was running from us, when some very foolish people on your side of the Veil opened up a gap in the walls of the world. And the Flesh Undying plunged through, to get away from us. And because it thought it could be a god in your lesser reality. It didn’t realise how much taking on form and shape and Flesh would bind and limit it.”

“Why haven’t you come to take it back?” said JC.

“We can’t,” said the Voice. “If we were to force our way into your world, our presence alone would be enough to damage it forever. Our very existence would be too much for your laws of physics to accept. So, like the Flesh Undying, we have to work through agents. Like you and Kim. Happy and Melody. Catherine Latimer. And . . . others.”

“Wait a minute!” said JC. “The Boss said you contacted her ages ago, when she was still young, long before the Flesh Undying entered our world!”

“Time doesn’t mean the same thing to us as it does to you,” said the Voice. “We see it from the other side.”