Alien - 3

VII

There is night, which is dark. There is the obdurate emptiness of dreams, whose lights are only imaginary. Beyond all is the void, illuminated however faintly by a million trillion nuclear furnaces.

True darkness, the utter absence of light, the place where a stray photon is as impotent as an atomic anomaly, lies only deep within the earth. ‘In caverns measureless to man’ as the old stanza rhythmically declaims. Or in those cracks and crevices man creates in order to extract the wealth of planets.

A tiny but in and of itself impressive portion of one corner of Fiorina was honeycombed with such excavations, intersecting and crisscrossing like the components of a vast unseen puzzle, their overall pattern discernible only in the records the miners had left behind.

Boggs held his wax-impregnated torch high, waved it around as Rains lit a candle. To such men the darkness was nothing to be feared. It was merely an absence of light. It was also warm within the tunnels, almost oppressively warm.

Rains placed the long-burning taper on the floor, next to the wall. Behind them a line of identical flames stretched off into the distance, delineating the trail they’d taken and the route back to the occupied portion of the complex.

Golic sat down, resting his back against a door set in the solid rock. There was a sign on the door, battered and worn by machinery and time.

TOXIC WASTE DISPOSAL

THIS SPACE HERMETICALLY SEALED

ACCESS TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL

PROHIBITED

That was just fine with the explorers. They had no wish to be suitably authorized.

Rains had unfolded the chart at his feet and crouched, studying the lines and shafts by the light of his torch. The map was no simple matter of vertical and horizontal lines. There were old shafts and comparatively recent ones, fill-ins and reopenings, angle cuts and reduced diametre accessways to accommodate specialized machinery only. Not to mention the thousands of intersecting air ducts. Different colours signified different things.

Numerous earlier expeditions had given the prisoners some idea of what to expect, but there was always the chance that each new team would run into something unexpected. A scrambled byte in the storage units could shift an abyssal shaft ten metres out of line, or into a different tunnel. The chart was a tentative guide at best. So they advanced carefully, putting their faith in their own senses and not in dated printouts.

Boggs leaned close. ‘How many?’ Though he spoke softly, his voice still echoed down the smooth-walled passage.

Rains checked the chart against his portable datapack. ‘This makes a hundred and eighty-six.’

His companion grunted. ‘I say we call it a vacation and start back.’

‘No can do.’ Rains gestured at the seemingly endless length of tunnel that lay before them. ‘We’ve at least got to check out the rest of this stretch or Dillon’ll pound us.’

‘What he don’t know won’t irritate him. I won’t tell. How about you, Golic?’ The third member of the trio was digging through his backpack. Hearing his name he looked up, frowned, and uttered a low, vaguely inquisitive sound. ‘That’s what I thought.’

Golic approached an ancient cigarette machine. Kicking the lock off, he yanked open the door and began loading packs of preserved narcosticks into his duffel. Naturally he chewed as he worked.

On the surface the noise would have been far less noticeable, but in the restricted surroundings and total silence of the tunnel the third man’s rumbling maceration resounded like a large, improperly lubricated piece of machinery. Boggs grumbled.

‘Can’t you chew with your mouth closed? Or better yet, swallow that crap you’re eating whole? I’m trying to figure how big this compartment is so we can decide if it’s legit toxic storage or some miner’s private stock, and I can’t think with all the goddamn noise you’re making.’

Rains rustled the chart disapprovingly. ‘Just because we’re away from the others doesn’t mean we, should ignore the precepts. You’re no supposed to swear.’

Boggs’s mouth tightened. ‘Sorry.’ He stared daggers at Golic, who quite naturally ignored them. Finally he gave up and rose to squint down the tunnel. ‘We’ve circled this entire section once. That’s all anyone could ask. How many candles, again?’

There was no reply from the floor. ‘Rains, how many candles?’

His companion wasn’t listening. Instead he was scratching himself furiously, an intense nervous reaction that had nothing whatsoever to do with the bugs, who didn’t live in the shafts anyway. It was so uncharacteristic, so atypical, that it even managed the daunting task of drawing Golic’s attention away from his food. Boggs found himself staring fixedly back the way they’d come.

One by one, the candles which traced their path back to the surface were going out.

‘What the shit is doing that?’

Golic pursed his lips, wiping food crumbs from his mouth with the back of one hand. ‘You’re not supposed to swear.’

‘Shut up!’ Not fear — there was nothing to fear in the tunnels — but concern had crept into Boggs’s voice. ‘It’s okay to say “shit.” It’s not against God.’

‘How do you know?’ Golic muttered with almost childlike curiosity.

‘Because I asked him the last time we talked and he said it was okay. Now shut up.’

‘Dillon’ll scream if we don’t come back with anything,’ Golic pointed out. The mystery was making him positively voluble.

Boggs decided he preferred it when the other man did nothing but eat.

‘Let him scream.’ He waited while Rains lit another torch.

Reluctantly, Golic repacked his remaining food and rose. All three stared back down the tunnel, back the way they’d come.

Whatever was snuffing out the candles remained invisible.

‘Must be a breeze from one of the vent shafts. Backwash from the nearest circulating unit. Or maybe a storm on the surface. You know what those sudden downdrafts can do.

Damn! If all the candles go out, how’re we going to know where we are?’

‘We’ve still got the chart.’ Rains fingered the sturdy printout.

‘You want to rely on that to get us back?’

‘Hey, I didn’t say that. It’s just that we’re not lost. Only inconvenienced.’

‘Well, I don’t wanna be inconvenienced, and I don’t wanna be stuck down here any longer than absolutely necessary.’

‘Neither do I.’ Rains sighed resignedly. ‘You know what that means. Somebody will have to go back and relight ‘em.’

‘Unless you just want to call it quits now?’ Boggs asked hopefully.

Rains managed a grin. ‘Huh-uh. We finish this tunnel, then we can go back.’

‘Have it your way.’ Boggs crossed his arms and succeeded in projecting the air of a man intending to go nowhere fast. ‘It’s your call; you get to do the work.’

‘Fair enough. Guess I’m nominated.’

Boggs gestured at Golic. ‘Give him your torch.’

The other man was reluctant. ‘That just leaves us here with the one.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’ Boggs waved the light around to illustrate his point. ‘And we have the rest of the candles. Besides, Rains’ll be right back. Won’t you, buddy?’

‘Quick as I can. Shouldn’t take too long.’

‘Right, then.’

Reluctantly, Golic passed the taller man his light. Together, he and Boggs watched as their companion moved off up the line of candles, pausing to relight each one as he came to it.

Each rested where it had been set on the floor. There was nothing to indicate what had extinguished them.

Just a sudden downdraft, Rains told himself. Had to be.

Boggs’s voice reverberated down the passageway, faint with increasing distance.

‘Hey, Rains, watch your step!’ They’d marked the couple of vertical shafts they’d passed, but still, if the other man rushed himself in the darkness, disaster was never very far away.

Rains appreciated the caution. You live in close quarters with a very few people for a comparatively long time, you learn to rely on one another. Not that Boggs had reason to worry. Rains advanced with admirable care.

Ahead of him another candle went out and he frowned.

There was no hint of a breeze, nothing to suggest the presence of the hypothesized downdraft. What else could be extinguishing the tapers? Very few living things were known to spend much time in the tunnels. There was a kind of primitive large insect that was big enough to knock over a candle, but why a whole row? He shook his head dolefully though there was no one near to observe the gesture. The insect wouldn’t move this fast.

Then what?

The tapers he’d reignited burned reassuringly behind him.

He straightened. There were no mystical forces at work here.

Raising the torch, he aimed it up the tunnel, saw nothing.

Kneeling, he relit the next candle and started toward the next in line. As he did so the light of his torch bounced off the walls, off smooth-cut rock. Off something angular and massive.

It moved.

Very fast, oh, so very fast. Shards of reflection like chromed glass inlaid in adamantine black metal. It made an incongruously soft gurgling sound as it sprang soundlessly toward him. He was unable to identify it, had never seen anything like it, except perhaps in some especially bad dreams half remembered from childhood.

In an instant it was upon him, and at that moment he would gratefully have sought comfort in his worst nightmares.

A hundred metres down the tunnel Golic and Boggs listened to their companion’s single echoing shriek. Cold sweat broke out the back of Boggs’s neck and hands. Horribly, the scream did not cut off sharply, but instead faded away slowly and gradually like a high-pitched whistle receding into the distance.

Suddenly panicked, Boggs grabbed up the remaining light and took off running, down the passageway, away from the scream. Golic charged after him.

Boggs wouldn’t have guessed that he could still move so fast.

For a few moments he actually put some distance between them.

Then his lack of wind began to tell and he slowed, the torch he clutched making mad shadows on the walls, ceiling, floor. By the time Golic ran him down he was completely exhausted and equally disoriented. Only by sheer good luck had they avoided stumbling into an open sampler pit or down a connecting shaft.

Staggering slightly, he grabbed the other man’s arm and spun him around.

Golic gaped in dumb terror. ‘Didn’t you hear it? It was Rains!

Oh, God, it was Rains.’

‘Yeah.’ Boggs fought to get his breath. ‘I heard it. He’s hurt himself.’ Prying the torch from the other man’s trembling fingers he played it up and down the deserted passageway.

‘We’ve got to help him.’

‘Help him?’ Golic’s eyes were wide. ‘You help him. I wanna get out of here!’

‘Take it easy. So do I, so do I. First we’ve got to figure out where we are.’

‘Isn’t that a candle?’

Turning, Boggs advanced a few cautious steps. Sure enough, the line of flickering tapers was clearly visible, stretching off into the distance.

‘Damn. We must’ve cut through an accessway. We ran in a circle. We’re back—’

He stopped, steadying the light on the far wall. A figure was leaning there, stiff as anything to be found in cold storage.

Rains.

Staring not back at them but at nothing. His eyes were wide open and immobile as frozen jelly. The expression on his face was not a fit thing for men to look upon. The rest of him was. . the rest of him was. .

Boggs felt a hot alkaline rush in his throat and doubled over, retching violently. The torch fell from his suddenly weakened fingers and Golic knelt to pick it up. As he rose he happened to glance ceilingward.

There was something up there. Something on the ceiling. It was big and black and fast and its face was a vision of pure hell.

As he stared open-mouthed, it leaned down, hanging like a gigantic bat from its clawed hind legs, and enveloped Boggs’s head in a pair of hands with fingers like articulated cables.

Boggs inhaled sharply, gagging on his own vomit.

With an abrupt, convulsive twist the arachnoid horror jerked Boggs’s head right off his shoulders, as cleanly as Golic would have removed a loose bolt from its screw. But not as neatly.

Blood fountained from the headless torso, splattering the creature, Rains’s body, the staring Golic. It broke his paralysis but in the process also snapped something inside his head.

With ghastly indifference the gargoyle tossed Boggs’s decapitated skull to the floor and turned slowly to confront the remaining bipedal life-form. Its teeth gleamed like the platinum ingots which had been torn from Fiorina’s bowels.

Howling as if all the legions of the damned were after him, Golic whirled and tore down the tunnel. He didn’t look where he was going and he didn’t think about what he’d seen, and most of all he didn’t look back. He didn’t dare look back.

If he did, he knew he might see something.

Bishop’s remains had been carefully laid out on the worktable.

Bright overhead lights illuminated each component. Tools rested in their holders, ready to be called upon. The profusion of torn hair-thin fibre-optic cables was staggering.

Some Ripley had simply tied off as best she could. Her experience did not extend to making repairs on the microscopic level. She’d spent a lot of time wiring the parts together as best she could, sealing and taping, making the obvious connections and hoping nothing absolutely critical lay beyond her limited talent for improvisation.

She wiped her eyes and studied her handiwork. It looked promising, but that meant nothing. Theoretically it stood a chance of working, but then theoretically she shouldn’t be in the fix she was in.

No way to know without trying it. She tested the vital connections, then touched a switch. Something sizzled briefly, making her jerk back in the chair. She adjusted a connection, tried the switch again. This time there was no extraneous flash.

Carefully she slipped one bundle of fibre-optic filaments into what she hoped was still a functional self-sorting contact socket.

A red digital readout on the test unit nearby immediately went from zero to between seven and eight. As she threw another switch the numbers wavered but held steady.

The android’s remaining intact eye blinked. Ripley leaned forward. ‘Verbal interaction command. Run self-test sequence.’

Then she wondered why she was whispering.

Within the battered artificial skull something whined. Other telltales on the test unit winked encouragingly. A garbled burbling emerged from the artificial larynx and the collagenic lips parted slightly.

Anxiously she reached into the open throat, her fingers working inside. The burbling resolved itself as the single eye fixed on her face.

‘Ripley.’

She took a deep breath. She had visual, cognition, coordination, and memory. The external ears looked pretty good, but that signified nothing. All that mattered was the condition of the internal circuits.

‘Hello, Bishop.’ She was surprised at the warmth in her tone.

After all, it wasn’t as if she were addressing a human being.

‘Please render a preliminary condition report.’

There was a pause, following which, astonishingly, the single eye performed an eloquent roll in its socket. ‘Lousy. Motor functions are gone, extracranial peripherals nonresponsive, prospects for carrying out programmed functions nil. Minimal sensory facilities barely operative. Not an optimistic self-diagnosis, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she told him honestly. ‘I wish it could be otherwise.’

‘Not as much as I do.’

‘Can you feel anything?’

‘Yes. My legs hurt.’

Her lips tightened. ‘I’m sorry that—’

‘It’s okay. Pain simulation is only data, which from the rest of my present condition I infer is probably inaccurate. Confirm?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘I’m afraid that your legs, like most of the rest of you, has gone the way of all flesh.’

‘Too bad. Hate to see all that quality work lost. Not that it matters in the scheme of things. After all, I’m just a glorified toaster. How are you? I like your new haircut. Reminds me of me before my accessories were installed. Not quite as shiny, though.’

‘I see that your sense of humour’s still intact.’

The eye blinked. ‘Like I said, basic mental functions are still operative. Humour occupies a very small portion of my RAM-interpretive capacity.’

‘I’d disagree.’ Her smile faded. ‘I need your help.’

A gurgle emerged from between the artificial lips. ‘Don’t expect anything extensive.’

‘It doesn’t involve a lot of analysis. More straightforward probing. Where I am right now they don’t have much in the way of intrusive capability. What I need to know is, can you access the data bank on an EEV flight recorder?’

‘No problem. Why?’

‘You’ll find out faster from the recorder than I could explain. Then you can tell me.’

The eye swiveled. ‘I can just see it. You’ll have to use a direct cranial jump, since my auxiliary appendages are gone.’

‘I know. I’m all set. . I hope.’

‘Go ahead and plug in, then.’

She picked up the filament running from the black box and leaned toward the disembodied skull. ‘I’ve never done this before. It won’t hurt or anything?’

‘On the contrary, I’m hoping it’ll make me feel better.’

She nodded and gently inserted the filament into one of several receptacles in the back of his head, wiggling it slightly to make sure the fit was tight.

‘That tickles.’ She jerked her fingers back. ‘Just kidding,’ the android told her with a reassuring smile. ‘Hang on.’ His eyes closed and the remnants of his forehead wrinkled in concentration. It was, she knew admiringly, nothing more than a redundant bit of cosmetic programming, but it was encouraging to see that something besides the android’s basics still functioned.

‘I’m home,’ Bishop murmured several minutes later. ‘Took longer than I thought. I had to run the probe around some damaged sectors.’

‘I tested the recorder when I first found it. It checked out okay.’

‘It is. The damaged sectors are in me. What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘McNary Flight Recorder, model OV-122, serial number FR-3664874, installed—’

‘Are all your language intuition circuits gone? You know what I mean. From the time it was emergency activated. What happened on the Sulaco? Why were the cryotubes ejected?’

A new voice emerged from the android’s larynx. It was female and mechanical. ‘Explosive gasses present in the cryogenic compartment. Fire in the cryogenic compartment.

All personnel report to evacuation stations.’ Bishop’s voice returned. ‘There are a large number of repeats without significant deviation in content. Do you wish to hear them all?’

Ripley rubbed her chin, thinking hard. ‘No, that’s sufficient for now. Explosive gases? Where did they come from? And what started the fire?’ When no response was forthcoming she became alarmed. ‘Bishop? Can you hear me?’

There was gurgling, then the android’s silky faux voice.

‘Sorry. This is harder than I thought it would be. Powering up and functioning are weakening already damaged sectors. I keep losing memory and response capability. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. You’d better keep your questions brief.’

‘Don’t null out on me yet, Bishop,’ she said anxiously. ‘I was asking you about the report of fire.’

‘Fire. . — *crackle— *. . yes. It was electrical, in the subflooring of the cryogenics compartment. Presence of a catalyst combined with damaged materials to produce the explosive gas. Ventilation failed completely. Result was immediately life-threatening. Hence ship’s decision to evacuate. EEV detected evidence of explosion on board subsequent to evacuation, with concomitant damage to EEV controls. That’s why our landing here was less than perfect. Present status of Sulaco unknown. Further details of flight from Sulaco to present position available.’

‘Skip ‘em. Did sensors detect any motile life-forms on the Sulaco prior to emergency separation?’

Silence. Then, ‘It’s very dark here, Ripley. Inside. I’m not used to being dark. Even as we speak portions of me are shutting down. Reasoning is growing difficult and I’m having to fall back on pure logic. I don’t like that. It’s too stark. Not anything like what I was designed for. I’m not what I used to be.’

‘Just a little longer, Bishop,’ she urged him. She tried tweaking the power up but it did nothing more than make his eye widen slightly and she hastily returned to prescribed levels.

‘You know what I’m asking. Does the flight recorder indicate the presence of anything on the Sulaco besides the four survivors of Acheron? Was there an alien on board? Bishop!’

Nothing. She fine-tuned instrumentation, nudged controls.

The eye rolled.

‘Back off. I’m still here. So are the answers. It’s just taking longer and longer to bring the two together. To answer your question. Yes.’

Ripley took a deep breath. The workroom seemed to close in around her, the walls to inch a little nearer. Not that she’d felt safe within the infirmary. For a long while now she hadn’t felt safe anywhere.

‘Is it still on the Sulaco or did it come down with us on the EEV?’

‘It was with us all the way.’

Her tone tightened. ‘Does the Company know?’

‘The Company knows everything that happened on the ship, from the time it left Earth for Acheron until now, provided it’s still intact somewhere out there. It all goes into the central computer and gets fed back to the Network.’

A feeling of deadly déjà vu settled over her. She’d battled the Company on this once before, had seen how it had reacted.

Any common sense or humanity that faceless organization possessed was subsumed in an all-encompassing, overpowering greed. Back on Earth individuals might grow old and die, to be replaced with new personnel, new directors. But the Company was immortal. It would go on and on. Somehow she doubted that time had wrought any significant changes in its policies, not to mention its corporate morals. In any event, she couldn’t take that chance.

‘Do they still want an alien?’

‘I don’t know. Hidden corporate imperatives were not a vital part of my programming. At least, I don’t think they were. I can’t be sure. I’m not feeling very well.’

‘Do me a favour, Bishop; take a look around and see.’

She waited while he searched. ‘Sorry,’ he said finally. ‘There’s nothing there now. That doesn’t mean there never was. I am no longer capable of accessing the sectors where such information would ordinarily be stored. I wish I could help you more but in my present condition I’m really not good for much.’

‘Bull. Your identity program’s still intact.’ She leaned forward and fondly touched the base of the decapitated skull.

‘There’s still a lot of Bishop in there. I’ll save your program.

I’ve got plenty of storage capacity available here. If I ever get out of this I’ll make sure you come with me. They can wire you up again.’

‘How are you going to save my identity? Copy it into standard chip-ROM? I know what that’s like. No sensory input, no tactile output. Blind, deaf, dumb, and immobile. Humans call it limbo. Know what we androids call it? Gumbo. Electronic gumbo. No, thanks. I’d rather go null than nuts.’

‘You won’t go nuts, Bishop. You’re too tough for that.’

‘Am I? I’m only as tough as my body and my programming.

The former’s gone and the latter’s fading fast. I’d rather be an intact memory than a desiccated reality. I’m tired. Everything’s slipping away. Do me a favour and just disconnect. It’s possible I could be reworked, installed in a new body, but there’d be omphalotic damage, maybe identity loss as well. I’d never be top of the line again. I’d rather not have to deal with that. Do you understand what it means, to look forward only to being less than you were? No, thanks. I’d rather be nothing.’

She hesitated. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Do it for me, Ripley. You owe me.’

‘I don’t owe you anything, Bishop. You’re just a machine.’

‘I saved you and the girl on Acheron. Do it for me.. as a friend.’

Reluctantly, she nodded. The eye winked a last time, then closed peacefully. There was no reaction, no twitching or jerking when she pulled the filaments. Once more the head lay motionless on the worktable.

‘Sorry, Bishop, but you’re like an old calculator. Friendly and comfortable. If you can be repaired, I’m going to see to it that that comes to pass. If not, well, sleep peacefully wherever it is that androids sleep, and try not to dream. If things work out, I’ll get back to you later.’

Her gaze lifted and she found herself staring at the far wall.

A single holo hung there. It showed a small thatched cottage nestled amid green trees and hedges. A crystalline blue-green stream flowed past the front of the cottage and clouds scudded by overhead. As she watched, the sky darkened and a brilliant sunset appeared above the house.

Her fingers fumbled along the tabletop until they closed around a precision extractor. Flung with all the considerable force of which she was capable and accelerated by her cry of outrage and frustration, it made a most satisfying noise as it reduced the impossibly bucolic simulation to glittering fragments.

Most of the blood on Golic’s jacket and face had dried to a thick, glutinous consistency, but some was still liquid enough to drip onto the mess hall table. He ate quietly, spooning up the crispy cereal. Once, he paused to add some sugar from a bowl.

He stared straight at the dish but did not see it. What he saw now was very private and wholly internalized.

The day cook, who’s name was Eric, entered with a load of plates. As he started toward the first table he caught sight of Golic and stopped. And stared. Fortunately the plates were unbreakable. It was hard to get things like new plates on Fiorina.

‘Golic?’ he finally murmured. The prisoner at the table continued to eat and did not look up.

The sound of the crashing dishes brought others in: Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, Morse, and a prisoner named Arthur. They joined the stupefied cook in staring at the apparition seated alone at the table.

Golic finally noticed all the attention. He looked up and smiled.

Blankly.

Ripley was sitting alone in the rear of the infirmary when they brought him in. She watched silently as Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, and Clemens walked the straightjacketed Golic over to a bed and eased him down. His face and hair were spotted with matted blood, his eyes in constant motion as they repeatedly checked the ventilator covers, the ceiling, the door.

Clemens did his best to clean him up, using soft towels, mild solvent, and disinfectant. Golic looked to be in much worse shape than he actually was. Physically, anyway. It was left to Andrews, Aaron, and Dillon to tie him to the cot. His mouth remained unrestrained.

‘Go ahead, don’t listen to me. Don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. You pious assholes are all gonna die. The Beast has risen and it feeds on human flesh.

Nobody can stop it. The time has come.’ He turned away from the superintendent, staring straight ahead. ‘I saw it. It looked at me. It had no eyes, but it looked at me.’

‘What about Boggs and Rains?’ Dillon asked evenly. ‘Where are they? What’s happened to them?’

Golic blinked, regarded his interrogators unrepentantly. ‘I didn’t do it. Back in the tunnel. They never had a chance, not a chance. There was nothing I could do but save myself. The dragon did it. Slaughtered ‘em like pigs. It wasn’t me. Why do I get blamed for everything? Nobody can stop it.’ He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. ‘Not a chance, no, no, not a chance!’ Clemens was working on the back of his head now.

Andrews studied the quivering remains of what had once been a human being. Not much of a human being, true, but human nonetheless. He was not pleased, but neither was he angry. There was nothing here to get angry at.

‘Stark raving mad. I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault, but he should have been chained up. Figuratively speaking, of course.’ The superintendent glanced at his medic. ‘Sedated.

You didn’t see this coming, Mr. Clemens?’

‘You know me, sir. I don’t diagnose. I only prescribe.’

Clemens had almost finished his cleaning. Golic looked better, but only if you avoided his eyes.

‘Yes, of course. Precognitive psychology isn’t your specialty, is it? If anyone should have taken note, it was me.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, sir,’ said Aaron.

‘I’m not. Merely verbalizing certain regrets. Sometimes insanity lurks quiet and unseen beneath the surface of a man, awaiting only the proper stimulus for it to burst forth. Like certain desert seeds that propagate only once every ten or eleven years, when the rains are heavy enough.’ He sighed. ‘I would very much like to see a normal, gentle rain again.’

‘Well, you called it right, sir,’ Aaron continued. ‘He’s mad as a fuckin’ hatter.’

‘I do so delight in the manner in which you enliven your everyday conversation with pithy anachronisms, Mr. Aaron.’

Andrews looked to his trustee. ‘He seems to be calming down a little. Permanent tranquilization is an expensive proposition and its use would have to be justified in the record. Let’s try keeping him separated from the rest for a while, Mr. Dillon, and see if it has a salutary effect. I don’t want him causing a panic. Clemens, sedate this poor idiot sufficiently so that he won’t be a danger to himself or to anyone else. Mr. Dillon, I’ll rely on you to keep an eye on him after he’s released.

Hopefully he will improve. It would make things simpler.’

‘Very well, Superintendent. But no full sedation until we know about the other brothers.’

‘You ain’t gonna get anything out of that.’ Aaron gestured disgustedly at the straightjacket’s trembling inhabitant.

‘We have to try.’ Dillon leaned close, searching his fellow prisoner’s face. ‘Pull yourself together, man. Talk to me.

Where are the brothers? Where are Rains and Boggs?’

Golic licked his lips. They were badly chewed and still bled slightly despite Clemens’s efficient ministrations. ‘Rains?’ he whispered, his brow furrowing with the effort of trying to remember. ‘Boggs?’ Suddenly his eyes widened afresh and he looked up sharply, as if seeing them for the first time. ‘I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me. It was. . it was. .’ He started sobbing again, bawling and babbling hysterically.

Andrews looked on, shaking his head sadly. ‘Hopeless. Mr.

Aaron’s right. You’re not going to get anything out of him for a while, if ever. We’re not going to wait until we do.’

Dillon straightened. ‘It’s your call, Superintendent.’

‘We’ll have to send out a search party. Sensible people who aren’t afraid of the dark or each other. I’m afraid we have to assume that there is a very good chance this simple bastard has murdered them.’ He hesitated. ‘If you are at all familiar with his record, then you know that such a scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility.’

‘You don’t know that, sir,’ said Dillon. ‘He never lied to me.

He’s crazy. He’s a fool. But he’s not a liar.’

‘You are well-meaning, Mr. Dillon, but overly generous to a fellow prisoner.’ Andrews fought back the sarcasm which sprang immediately to mind. ‘Personally I’d consider Golic a poor vessel for your trust.’

Dillon’s lips tightened. ‘I’m not naive, sir. I know enough about him to want to keep an eye on him as much as help him.’

‘Good. I don’t want any more people vanishing because of his ravings.’

Ripley rose and approached the group. All eyes turned to regard her.

‘There’s a chance he’s telling the truth.’ Clemens gaped at her. She ignored him. ‘I need to talk to him about this dragon.’

Andrews’s reply was crisp. ‘You’re not talking to anyone, Lieutenant. I am not interested in your opinions because you are not in full possession of the facts.’ He gestured toward Golic. ‘This man is a convicted multiple murderer, known for particularly brutal and ghastly crimes.’

‘I didn’t do it!’ the man in the straightjacket burbled helplessly.

Andrews looked around. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr. Dillon?’

‘Yeah,’ Dillon agreed reluctantly, ‘that part’s right.’

Ripley gazed hard at the superintendent. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’

The older man considered thoughtfully. ‘When I have finished with my official duties I’ll be quite pleased to have a little chat. Yes?’

She looked as if she wanted to say something further, but simply nodded.