Shadows loomed menacingly as the lamp floated along above their heads. Carrion finally stopped before a row of lockers, and looked at each of them thoughtfully. Silence looked at them disbelievingly. They were barely a foot and a half wide and six feet high, not even big enough to make a decent coffin. What could have frightened the esper so badly that she'd been driven to hide in such a cramped place? Carrion stopped before one locker, and tried the door. It was locked. He focused his power, and the door burst open, shattering the lock. Inside the locker, Diana Vertue was half-standing and half-crouching, her arms wrapped around her, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. The posture would have been painful to hold for a few minutes; after all this time it should have been agonising, but she made no move to leave the locker.

She showed no sign of even knowing they were there. Carrion reached out and gently touched her shoulder.

"She's gone deep inside herself," said the outlaw softly. "Something happened here, something so bad she shut down her whole mind rather than think about it."

"We need to know what happened," said Silence. "And where the marines are. Bring her out of it, Carrion."

"There's nothing I can do, Captain. If I try and force her mind open, I could shatter it completely."

"Then I'll have to do it," said Silence. He knelt down beside the comatose esper and laid a surprisingly gentle hand on her arm. "Diana, this is Captain Silence. Please, wake up and talk to me. I need you to talk to me, Diana. Talk to your father."

The esper stirred slowly. Carrion and Frost exchanged a quick glance of surprise, and then looked back at the esper as she slowly opened her eyes. She saw Silence kneeling beside her, and threw herself into his arms, sobbing loudly. He held her tightly and rocked back and forth, murmuring comforting words into her hair. He looked up, and shrugged when he saw Frost and Carrion studying him.

"They took her away from me when she was six. When her esp first started to manifest. I kept in touch as best I could, and when she graduated from the Academy, I got her transferred to my ship, where I could keep an eye on her. I thought she'd be safe with me."

Diana finally got herself back under control and stopped crying, sniffing back the last few tears. Silence let go of her and helped her to her feet. She stretched awkwardly, wincing as cramped muscles protested.

"What happened, Diana?" Silence asked. "Why were you hiding? Did the Guardians take Ripper and Stasiak away?"

"I don't know," said Diana, with a troubled look, "I can't remember. But it couldn't have been the Guardians. We beat them. Carrion showed me how. It was easy. And then . . . something happened, but I can't remember what."

"Don't force it," said Carrion. "It'll come back to you."

"There's only one place Ripper and Stasiak could have been taken," said Frost. "Down to Level Three.

We're going to have to go down after them."

"Yes," said Silence. "I think we are. Lead the way, Investigator. Diana, stay close."

Frost glanced at him briefly, and then set off into the gloom with the esper close behind her. Silence and Carrion followed, hanging back a little.

"The esper really shouldn't be here," Carrion murmured. "Whatever she saw, it frightened her so much she shut down her mind completely, rather than admit it happened. Her current mental state is precarious, to say the least. If she's forced to once again confront the circ.u.mstances that caused her breakdown, her mind could shatter completely. She could retreat so far into herself that not even the best esper shrink could bring her out again. Just making her stay here could be putting her under an impossible strain. Send her back to the pinnace, John. We don't need her here. You have me. My esp is more than strong enough to deal with whatever we find."

"I need to know what she saw," said Silence. "Keeping her here will bring those memories back to the surface."

"She's your daughter, John!"

"I'm Captain of theDarkwind . I know my duty."

"Yes," said Carrion. "You always did. You haven't changed at all, John."

He increased his pace to catch up with the two women. Silence looked at the three backs turned to him, and made no move to join them.

The stairwell leading down to Level Three seemed open and inviting. No insects crawled on the metal steps, and the walls were free of slime. There were still strange alien growths erupting from the walls and ceiling, and tattered webbing hung in thick grey streamers, but the stairway itself seemed untouched.

Carrion gestured for Frost to lead the way, and she started slowly down into the gloom, step by step, gun in hand. Carrion moved down after her, with Diana at his side. The esper's hands were trembling visibly, but her back was straight and she held her head high. Silence brought up the rear. He would have liked to be proud of his daughter's courage, but he couldn't afford to think of her that way. She was his ship's esper, and that had to come first.

The temperature rose sharply as they made their way down into the darkness, from bitter cold to almost suffocatingly humid heat. They turned off the heating elements in their uniforms, and pressed on in growing discomfort. The lamp still hung above them, buoyed up by Carrion's esp, but its light didn't travel far. They hadn't been able to find Diana's lamp, and she was unable to tell them what had happened to it.

She didn't speak much at all, but did as she was directed. She was an esper, and espers obeyed orders.

They reached the bottom of the stairwell without incident, and stopped a moment to get their breath. The heat was almost overpowering, and sweat dripped from their faces. All around them, the walls were cracked and pitted, and spotted with jagged outgrowths whose regular shapes suggested purpose, if not meaning. Stalact.i.tes of distorted metal hung down from the ceiling, dripping moisture that collected in pools on the uneven floor. The air was heavy with the stench of rotting flowers.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" said Silence. He reached out and touched the nearest stalact.i.te, and then s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away. The metal was painfully hot, the moisture almost boiling.

"This is something different," said Frost. "On Level Two the alien growths seemed wilder, almost out of control. This seems more pervasive, more planned. There's the same mixture of living and non-living materials, but the mix here seems more comfortable, almost organic."

"But where did it all come from?" said Carrion, frowning. "The aliens must have brought some of it from the ship, but there hasn't been enough time to bring about such extensive changes in the Base's structure.

Besides, this doesn't look as though it was constructed; it looks more like it was grown this way."

"Just like the alien ship," said Frost, nodding. "Whatever this stuff is, it isn't parasitic. There's a definite sense of purpose to it, of function. Symbiosis. Different systems working together, to reach the same end.

This is an entire ecology, taking over and supplanting the original one. The aliens' technology must be centuries ahead of ours, to have achieved so much so quickly. We have to get back to the pinnace, Captain. The Empire must be warned. Whatever's taken root here must be destroyed, down to the last fragment. If this should spread . . ."

Silence nodded. "Odin, are you still in contact?"

"For the moment, Captain." The AI's voice was low, but still clear. "Audio contact remains firm. I am still unable to regain visual contact, and I have no contact at all with the missing marines. Something significant must have happened, either to the marines or their comm implants. I am maintaining a running log on this mission. In the event of my losing contact with you entirely, I will send a General Distress signal, and put this planet under full Quarantine."

"Thank you," said Silence dryly. "Next time, you might wait for me to give the order. I am still in charge of this mission."

"Of course, Captain. However, in order to present a complete log on this mission, I must have further data on the structural changes in Base Thirteen. To achieve this, it will be necessary for you to proceed further into the Base."

"When this is all over, computer," said Silence, "you and I are going to have a long chat about which one of us is in charge, and you aren't going to enjoy it at all." He looked at the others and tried not to scowl.

"Unfortunately, the AI is right. We do need more information, and the only way to get it is to press on."

He stopped and looked at Diana, who was trembling violently. All the color had drained from her face, and her eyes were very large. She realised he was watching, and made an attempt to stand straighter.

She hugged herself tightly, and managed a shaky smile.

"I'm all right, Captain. Really. I've been trying to scan the area, but something down here is preventing me. I can't tell yet whether that's deliberate or not. I can't locate Ripper or Stasiak, but there are definite life signs all over the place. This whole level feels like a jungle, but I can't focus enough to identify anything. The one thing I am sure of is that we're not alone down here. Something's watching us."

"Can you be more specific?" said Silence, careful to keep his voice cool and unconcerned. He didn't want the esper any more upset than she already was.

Diana bit her lip and shook her head. "Something's down here, Captain. I don't know what or where it is. But it knows we're here."

She stopped suddenly, as though she'd been about to add something and then changed her mind. Silence waited a moment, but it was clear the esper had said all she was going to. She still looked scared, but she was back under control again. For the moment.

"All right," he said briskly. "We're going in. If anything moves, kill it. We don't have any friends down here."

"What about the marines?" said Carrion.

"The odds are they're dead," said Silence flatly. "Otherwise Diana or the AI would be able to locate them. We'll search for them as we go, but they can't be our main objective. We're looking for the aliens.

Anything else has to come second."

"Of course," said Carrion. "People always come second, as far as the Empire's concerned. When in doubt, shoot first and ask questions later. If at all."

Frost shrugged easily. "We go with what works. Now let's get a move on. I don't like us standing around like this. It makes us too good a target."

She started off down the corridor, stepping carefully over the uneven floor, and the others followed her.

The heat grew steadily heavier and more oppressive as they moved deeper in, and condensation fell from the ceiling like intermittent rain. Alien growths blossomed on the walls, complex and enigmatic. Great fleshy petals uncurled from outgrowths of bone spliced with metal, and great structures of living clockwork moved steadily towards some unknown goal. Some shapes seemed to border on the edge of purpose and meaning, but still evaded human understanding.

At one point the corridor became choked with a thick ma.s.s 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 rea.s.sembled 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, thick with meaning.

The towers are everywhere, linked by bridges of gossamer webbing. Life is everywhere, leaping, soaring, growing. There is no room. Time pa.s.ses. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l after the ship crashed, and made a new sh.e.l.l 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 theDarkwind 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 pa.s.sing on that infection to theDarkwind ."

"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 h.e.l.l had he got there? Where were the others?

Where was Carrion?"