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The Plasm

By
William Meikle

-1-

It’s the oldest cliché in the book – on a dark Halloween night a newly married couple are

travelling in a thunderstorm when their car breaks down on a lonely road and the only sign of life is a

Gothic mansion complete with a wrinkled, debauched retainer intent on mischief. It was nearly
Halloween, they weren’t married, it wasn’t a thunderstorm and they weren’t in a car. But for all

intents and purposes they might as well have been given what transpired.

It started in darkness, two days out from Bradbury Flats and cruising. Mars showed as a red

dot in the view-port, getting closer all the time. It had been a particularly smooth run, just two

months this time, a relatively short hop compared to some of their other trips. Now they headed for

base with a full cargo of coloured stones that could be polished and cut for the stay-at-home market.
The stones would have several hundred per cent mark-up applied and would be sold under names like

“The Whirling Glass from the Red Deserts” and “The Singing Rocks of the Purple Mountains”. The

buyers would never know that the pieces of rock were mined on a dirty grey asteroid amongst many

other dirty grey rocks. Nor would they care that billions of dollars worth of technology were being
used to satisfy the taste for adventure of a world full of couch potatoes that could afford to pay

handsomely for the dubious pleasure.

Steve Falmoth couldn’t complain. He piloted one of the fastest machines ever built, he got to

spend most of his time offworld far away from the day-to-day fight for survival, and the dark majesty

of the stars in his viewing port kept him endlessly occupied.

It’s not the most exciting job around – but who needs excitement?

He’d had more than enough of that back Earthside, back before. That’s always how he

thought of the time he spent on his own, pre-Sam. Bad times of theft and gang fights, weed-addled
confusion and people – far too many people. That all changed in a bar in the space dock in L3.

Sam walked into his life, appearing at his side at the bar one night when he was feeling

particularly sorry for himself. One word was all it took.

She said “Hi”.

Instantly smitten, Steve’s life changed completely. Less than two weeks later he was flying a

cargo rig in the asteroid belt as Sam’s wing man.

It hadn’t all been roses and chocolates since that day five years ago, but he knew just how
lucky he was. Every time they went back to L3 another of the old gang was gone; either dead in a

bar, lost in the world of dream-weed, or just fallen off the grid never to be heard of again. Eventually

they’d be completely forgotten, almost never existed at all. At least out here among the darkness
Steve knew how insignificant he was and had come to terms with his place in the cosmos, however

small that place might be.

And I have Sam.

That was a constant marvel to him. The mere fact that she would even talk to him astonished
him that first night, and continued to astonish him every day since. They had almost

diagrammatically opposite character traits; she brash, bold and confident, he more subdued and
recalcitrant, but somehow they meshed; their whole better than the sum of their parts.
There was no better flight team in the system. That was no idle boast; it was something they

proved every time they took a job that nobody else wanted or that no one thought could be handled
without too much exposure to risk. This current trip was a cakewalk in comparison to some others
they’d recently undertaken, but it was proving to be a welcome change of pace and a chance to soak
up some quiet time.

Like every other morning Steve had spent a couple of minutes in the shower counting these
simple blessings. It was his way of starting the day, a reaffirmation of his place in the scheme of
things. For a short space of time he believed all was well, but the day went downhill fast after that.

He had just stepped out of the sonic shower when it started. There was no warning – just a
complete systems failure, plunging him into darkness. He stood still, waiting for the backup to kick

in. After twenty seconds he realised it wasn’t going to.

“Sam?” he called out.

There was no reply.

He spent a bad couple of seconds groping in the blackness looking for his clothes before the
emergency lights finally came on. They were dim, hardly more effective than candlelight, but at least

he could see enough to dress quickly and make his way up to the flight deck.
Sam was already there, hunched over a console. Her blond hair looked orange under the

winking emergency lights. When she turned Steve saw her excitement – eyes wide, nostrils flaring.
They were dead in space and she didn’t look too unhappy with the situation.

Steve knew why without having to ask. Sam sucked up life in an endless stream of
experiences and was always on the lookout for something new. Here they were, stranded without
power, a long way from help and floating along in the blackness… and she was happy. At that point

Steve could have cheerfully strangled her.

“What’s the problem?” he started to say, but then he looked out of the view port and didn’t

really have to ask.

A ship hung in space ahead of them, blocking out half the view. It was big, it was black and it
was mean. In shape it looked like a monstrous sperm whale carrying a giant egg under its belly,

hanging pregnant in the dark where there should only be empty space.
Steve had a chill feeling in the pit of his stomach and his brain told him to run, as far and as

fast as possible. He should have listened to it, but instead he forced himself to concentrate on Sam.
He silently counted to ten before asking the obvious question.
 “What happened?”
“Primary coil burnout,” she said, and Steve knew they were in deep trouble as she continued.

“I didn’t have time to warn you. I was sitting here minding my own business when we got a
‘PROXIMITY ALERT’ message. I just had time to get to the console then everything went, all at

once.”
“Do we have any power at all?” Steve asked.

“We’ve got the emergency lighting. But we can forget about going anywhere soon. We’ve got

manoeuvring thrusters, but the main drive has gone.”

Steve lapsed into silence. He was thinking of how they could get out of this before they either
froze or suffocated. He thought that Sam was thinking along the same lines but her next statement

told him otherwise.

“I think she’s the Vordlak,” she whispered. The lump of ice that had settled in Steve’s
stomach got just that little bit colder.

From the New York Times, May 2nd 2121

ALL HOPE LOST

The Vordlak has been officially declared lost with all hands, six months after she disappeared
on her maiden voyage. Deep space scans have found no sign of the vessel, and there has been no

contact with the Vordlak herself, nor have there been any sightings since she left Mars back in late

October of last year.

So what started as a voyage of hope, a showcase for the pinnacle of modern technology has

ended in abject failure. This will prove a major setback in the quest for an affordable transport

vehicle for deep space runs. The first live run for the newest NASA drive technology has ended in

ignominy, and the agency may take many years to recover from this setback.

*
 Steve responded with more vehemence than usual.

“Come on, Sam. Get a grip. This is serious. We might be in for a slow cold death, and all you
can talk about is eighty-year old ghost stories? We need to be thinking about how we get this crate

working.”

She didn’t even look at him; couldn’t take her eyes off the huge ship outside.

“Sam,” Steve said, taking her arm. “I said…”

She turned and looked him in the eye. “Would you stop worrying and just look?” she said.

Her face was only six inches from his. “Take a good look at it and tell me if I’m wrong.”

Sailors have the Marie Celeste; airmen have flight 109… spacefarers had the Vordlak. She’d
been built in the early 22nd Century as a cargo cruiser to run on the asteroid belt shuttle route and at

the time she was the biggest man-made thing in space. A huge song and dance was made, dignitaries

from all over attended the launch and the holovids proclaimed the start of a new era of space flight.

She left Martian orbit with nothing but plaudits cheering her on.
During her first voyage she disappeared without a trace – all twelve crew and a lot of

expensive technology – gone as if they had never existed. They didn’t show up on any of the deep

space scanners, no sign was ever seen of any debris; no communications were ever received.
Until now.

Steve didn’t need to look. Like every other boy with space in his heart he knew the story

intimately. He’d seen the holovid of the launch many times over the years; he knew exactly what the

Vordlak looked like. And like every other boy, he’d harboured hopes that she was still out there
somewhere in the dark spaces, just cruising.

I just wish it hadn’t been us that found her.

“Okay,” he said resignedly. “I agree with you. She’s definitely the Vordlak. But that doesn’t
help us any out here. We’re going to be breathing stale air in a while and it’s going to get mighty cold

in here. We should…”

He trailed off. She still wasn’t listening. She went back to staring out of the port. Her eyes
were wide in wonder.
 We’re in trouble.
“Think of the fame waiting for us if we got back to base with her,” Sam said. Her gaze never

left the Vordlak, and as she spoke it was almost a whisper, talking to herself more than to Steve.

“Think of the fuss it would cause. Every journo in the system will be falling over to give us money.

We’ll go down in history. Everlasting fame, a life of luxury, all that happy shit.”
“I don’t need any of that,” Steve said. “I’m happy out here, just me and you.”

But Sam hadn’t heard. She was gone with the idea and he knew then that they were going to

try to board the Vordlak. Serious alarm bells were now ringing in his skull.
“Sam,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and low. “It’s taken her eighty years to get this

far. How long do you think it will take us to get her back?”

It didn’t faze her – not one bit. “I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she said.

That’s what worries me.

She took the controls and fired up the thrusters. The Vordlak started to loom ever bigger in

the port view. Steve considered arguing, but he’d learned a long time ago that once Sam had made up

her mind you either went with the flow or got out of her way, for she never went backwards.
“Okay,” he said. “You win. But this is just a quick once over. We need to focus on survival.”

She didn’t reply, but she did stick her tongue out at him and smile; he took it as a small

victory as she concentrated on getting them into docking position. Steve watched as the black hull

got closer. It looked new - sleek and polished and somehow cold.
Cold as Hell.

Once again his flight reflex kicked in, but he had no time to put it into action. Sam brought

them right up beside the larger ship, lining up with one of several docking ports visible along the left
flank. The hard metallic clash of their joining echoed around their small ship. And now that they

were right up close he could see that there was light glowing in some of the Vordlak’s ports.

She’s still got power? How is that possible?

He was still wondering when he heard the hiss of the airlock behind him and a swish as the
doors opened – and closed. When he turned, Sam had already gone through. It took him a second or

so to spot that she had done so without suiting up first.

 Of all the damned irresponsible…

He screamed after her, banging hard on the door. She turned and wiggled her fingers at him

in a little wave.
“Get back here,” Steve shouted, and was dismayed to hear fear in his voice.

Her voice came back immediately across the comms.

“Don’t worry lover. I’m okay. Life support is still running and you’ll be able to come through

in a few minutes. Meanwhile I’m off to explore – I couldn’t let you go first, now could I?”
She broke the connection. Steve cursed and screamed as she turned and moved out of view

through the Vordlak’s airlock. He pounded at the door in rage and frustration until his hands hurt. But
it was on a strict time control, cycling through its sequence. It wouldn’t be hurried. He had plenty of

time to reflect once more on the differences between them – differences that were bound to lead them

into trouble one day.

And here it is.

Finally the door opened. He started to enter the airlock then caution kicked in again. He went

back, picked up a heavy torque wrench, and comforted slightly by the weight of it in his hand went
slowly through to the other ship, expecting at any second to fall under attack.

The air tasted stale and even slightly warmer than that back in their ship. The lights were on

both in the airlock and the passageways beyond, casting a pale blue, almost luminescent glow. Steve

put his hand up to one. It felt cold to the touch, and hummed slightly against his fingertips as if the

ship itself was alive and responding to his presence. He left the airlock and walked into the main

ship.

A corridor stretched away into a distant blue gloom. There was no sign of Sam as he
followed a faint trail in the dust on the floor.

“Sam,” he shouted, then wished he hadn’t. His voice was swallowed, somehow dampened, as

if the ship wanted to stay quiet and would brook no new noise. There was no echo. The lights buzzed,

flickered once, then steadied.

“Sam,” he whispered. “What have you got us into this time?”

 As he walked further along the corridor he felt that the ship was not nearly as dead as it had

looked. Small, subtle, vibrations throbbed along the gangway underfoot, as if an engine ran

somewhere. The hackles rose slowly at the back of his neck as he had another thought.
Or something heavy is moving about down there.

He walked faster. The corridor stretched in a long unbroken curve with no doors on either

side. He guessed he was in one on the main outer ring-access areas and was proved right a minute

later. He knew they had docked near the cargo bay so he wasn’t surprised when the corridor opened

into a vast empty space with only a fine layer of dust coating the floor.

What did surprise him was just how empty the area was. According to the story, the Vordlak

had been headed for the asteroid belt to map and collect a newly discovered ore - some sort of
uranium substitute. If they had got that far, there was no sign of it. The hold was empty save for a

few rocky pebbles. There was no sign of any robots or Waldos, which was puzzling in itself, as a

cargo ship such as this should have had a full complement of help in the hold to free the crew up for

other duties.

More mysteries.

He didn’t feel like hanging around to investigate - Sam was somewhere up ahead and his

sixth sense told him to hurry. He picked up her trail in the dust again several minutes later as he
approached the far side of the hold. The marks stopped at an elevator. He pushed the button to call

the cabin down. Silence fell as he waited, not even a buzz from the lights to disturb it. Normally he

welcomed this depth of quiet, and even sometimes actively sought it out. But not here – not in this

empty hold, and not on a ghost ship carrying so much myth and baggage.

He whistled tunelessly to himself to keep down the screams that built in his throat. With each

breath he had to take he imagined some dry dead thing on the ground behind him starting to move.

He saw it in his mind’s eye; its thin withered arms pulling it across the floor towards him, the grin
widening as twin pinpricks of fire flared in the empty skull and it crept closer, ever closer.

When the elevator arrived and a soft over-friendly voice welcomed him aboard he was inside

before the door fully opened. He didn’t start to relax until the door swished closed, enveloping him in

a small warm cubicle that hummed musically as it rose. The sudden feeling of safety was so profound
that he considered stopping the elevator there and then and staying put until his life returned to

normalcy.

Then he thought of Sam wandering alone through all these empty rooms and corridors. He

thought about dead things again.

The short trip came to a smooth halt, the elevator wished him a good day, and the door
opened to an area that was obviously the main bridge and control area. Sam was there, bent over a

console. He spent a minute or so chewing her out, using the choicest words in his vocabulary. She

didn’t respond, not even when he used the words he’d learned in the bars and docks when he was

younger. She let him rant until he gave up. Her eyes still sparkled but there was something else there

– something he hadn’t seen in those blue eyes before. It took him a little while to realise what it was

– it looked like fear.

He finally calmed enough to be able to talk to, rather than at, her.

“Have you found anything?”

She nodded and motioned towards the console.

“We’ve definitely found the Vordlak,” she said, and her voice dropped as quiet as he had ever

heard it. “But I think we might have found something else.”

He tried to press her, but she didn’t answer, just pulled him towards the console.

“I was looking for something, anything, that might tell us what happened here. This is the
only thing on the log.”

She sat Steve down in front of the screen. It did indeed look like a log entry and as he read he

realised he was looking at the last entry the crew had made all those years before.

Text transcript from vocal recording.

Captain Zorinski - 31st October 2120

I don’t have much time. The drive has failed and containment is down. It is coming - it knows

I am here, and it is hungry. All I can do is leave this as a warning to anyone who may come after me.
 Oh shit. It’s at the door. I can see the blue, flowing and glowing and bright. Oh God - help

me. I’m scared. I’m…

(Unidentified noise on disc - unable to translate).

“What the hell is this?” Steve said, turning away from the screen. “It reads like the summary

of a horror holovid. Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”

This time he was sure – there was definitely fear in Sam’s eyes.

“If it’s a joke, where is everybody?” she said. He sensed some hysteria building, and stroked

her arm as she continued. “Where did they go? It’s not as if they could just pull up somewhere and

get off.”

Steve stared at the words on the screen, unable to process them into anything resembling

sense.

“It’s been eighty years. That’s a long time out here. I’m sure we’ll find them, or what’s left of
them, somewhere on board. But first things first. Are the comms working?”

Sam nodded, and seemed happier to be discussing other matters.

“I got off a message to Alcan Station. They’re sending a salvage crew out to help us –

Nelson’s team – but we’ve got first dibs.” The hysteria was forgotten at the thought of riches to

come. She danced a little excited jig. “This is it Steve. This is the big score. We can pack it all in and

retire to a beach, a bar and some blue sky for once.”

Put like that, he couldn’t fail to find the prospect appealing. But this ghost ship had got to
him.

“How long before they reach us?” he said.

“Forty eight hours… maybe more.”

Two days in this empty shell? I’ll be screaming long before then.

*
 They spent the next two hours in a complete tour of the ship, a task that did much to calm
Steve’s heebie-jeebies. But they found no sign of the crew, nor any remains to show that there had

been a dozen men on board. The Vordlak was equipped with a small lifeboat pod, but that sat in its

bay and its internal log showed it had never been deployed. They searched every nook and cranny

they could reach without suiting up. They found no bodies. A remote vid link also allowed them to

explore the exterior, and another cargo bay that was open to space. That too proved to be empty and

devoid of any cargo or machinery.

Piracy maybe?
There had been persistent rumors of space pirates, for as long as Steve could remember.

But they’re nearly as much a myth as The Vordlak. And nobody’s ever seen one. Besides…

wouldn’t pirates have taken the whole ship?

He pushed the questions aside as he helped Sam search. They had left the crew’s living

quarters to last. There had been a meal in the Mess – that much was obvious from the crusted

remnants of food in the plates and the cutlery on the table. But the sleeping chambers off to one side

were as empty as the rest of the ship.

A survey of the area only raised more questions than answers. The crews’ effects were all

still in their lockers; they all had pictures from home, of loved ones, even some extremely unsubtle

porn. And Steve finally put down the heavy torque-wrench when he found a long knife at the foot of

one of the beds. He stuck it in his waistband and immediately felt slightly less exposed.

The fact that the ship still had some power available was another source of puzzlement, and

something Steve wanted to explore at the earliest opportunity. The Vordlak was rumored to have a

unique method of propulsion, something very hush-hush and something whose very existence had
been wiped from the historical record. Even after they found the engine room and control center,

Steve was none the wiser. They found several large storage batteries, each almost at capacity, but

how they might link to any engine was not immediately apparent, and the control systems in the

room seemed to be dead.

First things first. We need to stay alive long enough for the salvage team to reach us.
 He helped Sam fetch and carry what provisions they could salvage from their own, still dead,

craft, and set up a temporary billet on the Vordlak’s bridge. They cooked up a small meal, brewed
some Java, and for a while were almost cozy.

“Nelson’s team you said?” Steve asked over coffee.

Sam nodded, cradling her cup as if her hands were cold, when in truth the Vordlak was

running warmer than they ever kept their own craft.

“They’ve got the biggest ship available, and the most kit. And you know Nelson? If anyone

can get this beast on the move it’ll be him. Remember the Pandora? He took that pile of rusted crap,

got it working again in a month and sold it on for a healthy profit.”

“I remember,” Steve said. “But I also remember him stiffing us in that poker game at L2, and

also undercutting us on that sweet Titan trip last year and…”

Sam smiled.

“I can handle Nelson.”

Not half as much as he wants to handle you.

“We should try to contact him – find out if he’s on his way,” he said.

“Maybe later,” Sam replied. “We need to find out more first.”
“More? What more is there?”

But Sam couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t stay away from the console, searching for more clues

as to what might have happened.

“We need to be the ones that solve it,” she said. “It’s our story now. We need to make the

most of it.”

He couldn’t fault her logic, but it was with some trepidation that he watched as she went

through everything she could find on the computer.

“I thought you said there was nothing there?”

She looked up.

“Nothing in the log. But there’s other stuff on the database, older material. There’s

schematics, cargo manifests, letters home from the crew, all sorts. Maybe there’s something here

that’ll help us.”

 She lost herself in it, and after a while Steve took a fresh coffee over to the main viewing port

and let the emptiness of space fill and calm him.

Eighty years. I wondered what could have been seen out of this port in that time. Where have

you been old girl?

He stood there for a long time even after his coffee had gone stone cold, transfixed as ever by

the always changing yet always the same star field beyond the viewing port. Sometime later Sam

tapped him on the shoulder, bringing him back.

“My eyes are too tired to go on any more. I need some sleep,” she said. “But there’s

something you need to read.”

She led him to the console and sat him in front of the monitor.

“I think this explains some of the story,” she said. “But you’re not going to believe it.”
He started to read and soon he too was lost in a story that had started to unfold back even

before this ship they were in had been built.

 -2-

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 1 – 11:45 pm – August 1st – 2105)

Hello darling.
I’m settling in okay here, but I’d rather be at home with you. You might have seen me on the link
talking to that snotty newsman. Don’t believe a word of what they said – I’ve been promised that my
role here is purely as a consultant – all the rest is just scare mongering.
The ship is really impressive. Remember all those old 2D films with the flying saucers? Well they’ve
actually gone and built one. It took my breath away when I first saw it from the viewing deck of the
Asimov. It’s fifty meters in diameter and ten meters high at the edges. It looks silver, shiny and mean.
If you can imagine looking down on it as it is docked, my berth is at nine o’clock, almost halfway in
towards the centre.
Everything looks and smells new – antiseptic like a hospital. The room they have given me is pretty
small – only about two meters square with most of that being taken up by the bed at the moment. I’ve
been told that it folds away, transforming itself into a desk and seat, but I’m too shagged out after the
trip to do anything other than sleep.
I’ll drop you another line tomorrow. Maybe by then I’ll know what all the rush was about. I’m still
unsure as to why they need a medieval scholar on a high-tech piece of equipment like this.
Give my love to the kids. Miss you.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 2 – 11:02 pm – August 2nd – 2105)

This has got to be the weirdest thing that ever happened to me. If I’m to explain it to you I’ll have to
give some history, so bear with me. It might not seem relevant at first, but all will become clear. I
promise you – you won’t believe it. I’m not sure I do – and I’m in the middle of it. Maybe the act of
dictating it here will help me get it straight in my mind. I certainly hope so, for they say tomorrow is
going to be stranger still.
We were called into the conference room after breakfast for what they told us was just the first in a
long line of daily briefings – it seems they mean to bore us to death. Breakfast was fine by the way –
none of that reconstituted gloop you expect space people to eat. I had real eggs, tomatoes and freshly
squeezed orange juice. The General stood at the top of the table as the twelve of us entered. He looks
a lot like your father – stiff, straight and uptight. He doesn’t smile much, and when he does it never
reaches his eyes. I wouldn’t like to mess with him.
He told us that what we were about to see was highly classified and that all communications home
would have to be censored. So I don’t know how much, if any, of this will be let through, but here
goes anyway.

It seems the whole thing began in the early 21st Century. The General reminded us that the people
back then didn’t have holovids and that what we were to see was a reconstruction. It looked lifelike
enough to me.
The vid began with a Brit scientist – Thompson. It seems he was a research physicist who also
dabbled in parapsychology. There was a lot of stuff about his academic career and background. I
switched off for a while during that I must admit, but then it finally got to the good bit.
Thompson had a theory that paranormal events were associated with the production of energy – a
new form of energy which, as yet, had not been investigated. At this point the vid went off into a long
explanation about particle physics and the space-time continuum.
I switched off again – you know how I am with that kind of stuff. I wondered what the relevance of it
all was, but I was snapped back to the vid when it went 2D. They were showing a scene from an old
movie where these three guys managed to catch ghosts in a little oblong box. Seemingly Thompson
had got inspiration from the film and had been able to build some sort of containment chamber for
paranormal energy and was using it to investigate poltergeist activity. Sounds weird doesn’t it?
Don’t worry. It gets worse.
By using his box of tricks he was able to prove that a small amount of electromagnetic energy was
produced during these events. The vid showed him holding a meter. The meter was going crazy while
in the background something invisible was throwing pots and pans around the kitchen. Thompson,
the crazy little sucker, had a huge grin spread all over his face.
Have you guessed where all this is leading yet? I’ll give you a night to think about it. I’m going to
stay up a bit longer – they’re showing the holovid version of Alien tonight. I’ve never watched it
during a trip before – I wonder if I’ll get any sleep afterwards?
I hope they allow this to get through. Hope you are keeping well.
All of my love, forever.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 3 – 8.16 am – August 3rd – 2105)
Morning sweetheart. What with watching Alien and the holovid of Thompson’s experiments
yesterday, I didn’t sleep much. I suppose I’d better put you out of your misery and get on to the really
unbelievable bits.
Thompson’s work caused quite a stir – any new form of energy was pounced upon quickly back then.
Of course it was all kept quiet – can you imaging the outrage if it had been publicised?
There seems to have been two main groups involved in research – one in the States and one at
Oxford University. The one in the States had the first success. They managed to produce a battery to
store the power released. There was only one major problem – one apparition only gave enough
power to run a light bulb for about an hour. It seemed that Thompson’s discovery was of no practical
use – after all there was only a limited amount of known apparitions to go around.
You have no idea how silly this all sounds as I’m saying it. But the General had a straight face all
through the briefing, and he doesn’t strike me as a man with any humour at all in him. I do believe
they are deadly serious about all of this stuff.
Now where was I? Oh yes… the apparitions limit. This is where the Oxford connection comes in.
You know how the Brits have always been interested in spooks and the things that go bump in the
night? Well, one bright spark had the idea of linking Thompson’s machinery with a seance. That’s
when the real breakthrough came.
The General asked us to pay careful attention as a new vid started up. It showed the whole thing with
remarkable clarity. At first it was all a bit dull, just a bunch of people sitting around a table. There
was monitoring equipment and meters round the walls, and one sector of the holovid was taken up
with just a close shot of those meters. There was a joke we didn’t understand when one of the people
round the table started singing Cherry-ripe, Cherry-ripe in a high pitched voice and they all laughed.
We were getting a bit twitchy by now, but the General called us back to attention just in time for the
good bit.
The seance had been going on for six minutes with no reaction from the meters then suddenly, just as
the planchette began to move, the machinery went wild, meters overloading, cameras running at
double speed, people screaming. Pure pandemonium, but funny to watch. The vid zoomed in on the
meters to show the needles straining at maximum. It was calculated later that enough energy was
released from the séances to keep the average household going for a year.
Of course that fact alone got a whole lot of people interested in what had previously been the
provenance of the lunatic fringe.
Since then things have got really wild. I’ll have to tell you about them later – duty calls. We have
been promised that we’ll finally find out what we’re here for. I’ll give you an update later.
Tell Sean not to worry about his Math exam. I’m sure he’ll pass it with flying colours. And do
remind Jennie to send me a new painting. Her primary colours would do wonders for the walls in this
room.
All my love, forever.

COMPILERS NOTE: TAPE 4 HAS BEEN LOST. IT IS PRESUMED TO

HAVE CONTAINED DETAILS OF THE UCLA DISASTER OF 2065.
INTERESTED PARTIES ARE REFERRED TO "THE JOURNAL OF
PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL. 112(5) PP 127 - 162" WHERE A FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE MATTER MAY BE FOUND.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 5 – 8.18 am – August 4th – 2105)

As you can imagine, the powers-that-be proved to be none too keen to continue with their
experiments after the UCLA fiasco. The work was ostensibly dropped from all respectable
establishments, but in reality all that happened was that the military took over the research. After all,
they are always interested in anything with a potential for mass destruction – and if the UCLA
experiment had proved anything at all, it was that the forces being played with were capable of
almost any amount of carnage.
The military research team tasked with getting results realised early that any further experiments
would have to be done away from large cities to avoid any mishaps. They set up a state-of-the-art test
centre in Death Valley – you know, where all the interesting stuff we never hear about happens?
They also realised that they had stumbled onto something with huge ramifications, not in the least for
the major religions of the world. Naturally they kept it quiet – using bits of God to power weapons
technology isn’t something they would want to publicise. Besides, the military are almost completely
dismissive of any spiritual side of the experimentation. Their current thinking is that they are dealing
with a gateway to another dimension, or even several other dimensions. It seems that the greater the
psychic strength of the summoned entity the more power is leaked through.
The holovid they showed us this morning was very strange indeed and the General had to reassure us
that what we were seeing was not a reconstruction. What we saw actually happened – it’s just that, at
first, none of us would believe it.
The first thing we saw was an empty room. Empty, that is, except for a pentagram, seemingly etched
into a hardwood floor then traced in paint. It looked to be a complex example of its type, consisting
of several circles within circles, each surrounded by script in a mixture of Latin and alchemical
symbols. We had no sense of scale – not until the action started.
A figure dressed in long flowing robes like a monk came in from out of frame to the left. As he lifted
his cowl you could see that he was no more than twenty-five years old. His hair was cut military style
and his gait was stiff and straight as he strode into the pentagram. A read-out in the bottom left of the
vid showed us the state of the battery cells set around the walls to capture any power released in the
ceremony.
The young soldier started to chant words he seemed to be struggling to remember, a series of
syllables and phrases in disjointed Latin. I recognised the rite almost immediately. It came from the
Grimoire of Honorius – widely discredited amongst people who study such things and dangerous to
boot. I won’t bore you with the details – if you want to know about it, go and look it up on the vid,
it’s filed under Ceremonial Magic. In medieval times it was employed for a variety of purposes, from
love charms for the terminally single to putting a hex on one’s enemies. But the version the young
soldier chanted was one of the more powerful examples – it is supposedly capable of summoning an
imp or minor demon.
I wasn’t convinced the first time I read it, way back in my college days, and sitting watching the
holovid I was even more sceptical. But ten minutes into the scene, after more of the seemingly
interminable chanting in Latin, something actually began to happen. We couldn’t see anything, but
the batteries started registering – only a minor flicker at first – but then a steady rising indication of
power flooding the room.
The camera operator must have noticed something that we hadn’t. He panned into a spot on the floor
six feet in front of the would-be summoner, focussing on an area just outside the pentagram. The
floor started to bulge – like someone feebly struggling underneath a thin blanket. There was another
shot of the meters on the batteries going wild, rapidly rising up towards one hundred per cent
capacity.
The camera snapped back to the floor – just in time to catch sight of a long arm ripping through the
floor, tearing it like paper – a blue arm with too many joints and far too many fingers. Serrated talons
dragged on the floor, a screech setting my teeth on edge as the arm struggled for leverage. A shoulder
appeared as the hole in the floor widened. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the young
man stepping backwards away from the sight – stepping out of the pentagram.
A blinding flash of golden light forced me to look away from the vid. When my eyes recovered, I
looked back, but the room was empty. Only the empty pentagram and the meters were visible.
The meters read one hundred per cent capacity.
The General had to stop the session to give us time to assimilate all this.
“What happened to the soldier?” someone asked, but the General never replied. He didn’t have to.
During the break I began to realise how serious this was for me – and I wasn’t happy about it. We
were called back half an hour later. That’s when my fears were confirmed. They had found out – after
some trial and a lot of error I suppose – that it was not feasible to use the power they had generated
on Earth without the risk of what they called collateral overspill. The General handed the session
over to a NASA engineer who gave us a long spiel on the physics of propulsion before they got to the
real meat.
This ship is a prototype. They’ve found a way to utilise the power from the ceremonies in propelling
a ship through space ten times more efficiently – and five times faster – than the current fastest
vessel. A space drive has been built around a new generation of batteries.
They currently stand empty in the central core.
They want me to power them up.
They want to go to Mars… and to do so they need me to conjure them up a demon.
 -3-

Something touched Steve’s shoulder and he almost leapt out of his skin.
Sam laughed loudly, the sound echoing in the empty bridge.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Steve joined her in laughing. “Then maybe you should have found me some less frightening reading
material.”
“How far have you got?”
“Just far enough to know that this has to be a wind-up – some bridge engineer’s idea of a joke. The
NASA I know would never entertain such wild notions.”
Sam looked over his shoulder and read the passage he’d just finished.
“It gets even wilder later,” she said. “But I’m not the only one needing sleep. Come on. Let’s get
some shut-eye. You can save the really scary stuff till later.”
Steve laughed again.
“The cold vacuum of space – that’s scary. The idea that demons from the Great Beyond can power
space drives? Meh… not so much.”
But she was insistent, leading him away from the console to where she’d set up a couple of camp
beds while he’d been reading.
“We could go and use the crew quarters?” he said, but knew as soon as he said it that neither of them
wanted to entertain that notion – not until they knew for certain what had happened to the crew of the
Vordlak. Despite his recent reading, Steve was no closer to fathoming the mystery. He was starting to
wonder whether he would ever know what happened here as Sam led him to bed.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Steve tossed and turned in fitful dreams of a planet under a deep purple sky, with dark stems rising
from darker soil, casting shadows from a moon that rose above jagged hills. Things moved among
the stems, low-slung and insect-like, farmers tending to the growth. Something crossed the face of
the moon – a thin body, propelled by gossamer wings, hovering like a vast dragonfly above the plain
below.
He swirled down, gaining speed, spinning dizzily, accelerating towards where something waited –
something that wanted a closer look at him. He tried to scream, but nothing came, caught in the
nightmare. He tumbled deeper into blackness. It sucked ever more eagerly at him
He screamed…
And looked up into Sam’s concerned face.
“What’s up lover?” he asked.
She put a finger to her lips.
“Shhh. There’s something here.”
There was five seconds of silence, then a sound came that made him want to cover his ears and hide
in a corner until it went away. It was a voice, but it didn’t sound like it came from anything human.

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!

It stopped abruptly and silence fell again. Steve and Sam lay still for long
minutes. The noise wasn’t repeated.
Sam started to rise, but Steve pulled her back.
“Not now,” he said, and was frightened to hear a tremor in his voice. “Let’s
wait and see if it happens again. It might just have been the old hull
showing its age.”
Neither of them believed that, but much to Steve’s relief Sam lay back in
the bunk. Eventually Steve noticed that her breathing had got slower and
deeper, and she gave out the faintest of snores as she slept. But Steve could
find no rest. It was too much coincidence – the dream and the noise so close
together.
The heebie-jeebies were back, and they kept him awake while the Vordlak seemed to close in around
him. Sam slept like a baby, and woke several hours later to find Steve still staring at the ceiling.
“What do you think that noise was earlier?” Steve asked as they rose. He should have known better.
“I’ll go and have a look,” Sam said.
Before he could stop her she was up and out of the door. He called after her but there was only the
clang of her footsteps echoing away down the corridor.
He let her go. Despite the heebie-jeebies, now that he was up and about he couldn’t believe there was
anything left here to harm them - not after eighty years.
He busied himself at the computer. The ship had once again fallen quiet around him, and there was
only the slight, almost imperceptible hum and vibration through the floor. There was something
troubling him, down at the back of his mind. That awful sound in the night had tickled something in
his memory. Whatever it was, his mental filters weren’t letting it through. He resorted to the
computer,
“Cross reference. Tekeli Li,” he said. Almost immediately the reply came back.
“2117 - World Premiere - 3d holovid. The Mountains of Madness. Based on a story by H.P.
Lovecraft.”
The memory came back to him all at once of an old book in his Grandfather’s house, the one with a
faded picture on the front showing the hulking thing dragging itself from beneath the crumbling ruins
of a castle. He remembered the thrill it had given him back then, the tingle of horror, but he had only
been fourteen at the time and easily impressed. Inwardly Steve relaxed. One of the crew must have
gone mad, identifying himself with a monster from an old story.

Maybe he read the same book.

He was almost feeling proud for rationalizing the situation away when he heard the noise again.
This time it was more of a high pitched, reedy squeal, like a gull in pain.

Tekeli-Li.
Tekeli-Li.
It rang in his head long after the sound had faded. He was out of the chair even before Sam started
screaming. He ran frantically along long, empty corridors, fearing the worst at every turn.
“Sam!” he called.
“Here,” she replied, somewhere close by.
He found her in the next corridor slumped against a bulkhead, eyes wide and staring, her breath
coming in hot, hitching gulps.
“In there,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, pointing with one shaking hand to the room beyond.
Even as she pointed something rose from the doorway to dance in the air in front of them; a swirling
aura of glimmering blueness that seemed confined in the form of a faint mist. The sound started, low
at first, almost inaudible, but it rose to a crescendo until they were being buffeted with a mocking
piping; a cacophony of high fluting that crashed discordantly over them.
Without much conscious thought Steve drew out the long knife at his waist and thrust it forward. The
only effect was that the mist swirled and folded around the blade. Where it touched the knife it send a
jolt of cold up Steve’s arm so severe that the whole arm suddenly felt like a lump of ice.
Sam pulled him backward, the knife coming with him. As soon as it was away from the mist his arm
started to warm again, pins and needles sending jolting pain up the length of the limb. But he had no
time for hurting. Sam dragged him off up the corridor.
“Time to go,” she shouted in his ear.
They ran, and all the time the crazed fluting danced in the air around them.
They’d made it as far as the cargo bay when Steve chanced a look back.
The air behind them crackled with electricity, static running over a shifting blue mist that hung in the
air like a rainbow in the spray from a waterfall. A high pitched sound rose again.

Tekeli-Li!

Tekeli-Li!
“Run,” Steve shouted. They picked up the pace as they headed for the airlock, reaching it mere yards
ahead of the shifting mist. Steve slammed the button and almost screamed in frustration as the door
hissed slowly. He let it open just enough for them to slip inside. The door started to swish closed. The
mist seethed and roiled against the window, but showed no sign of getting through to them.
“What the hell was that?” Sam said.
Steve heard a tremor in her voice that he’d never heard before. She was rattled, and that in itself was
enough to get him even more worried.
“No idea sweetheart,” he replied. “But I think we were right to run. The fact that it followed us shows
it has an intelligence of a kind. We can’t take any chances.”
She nodded, took one last look out into the airlock, then turned back to him. She had her business
look back.
“Okay, now what?” she said.
Steve’s heart rate was just about getting back to normal, the drumbeat no longer pounding in his ears.
The mist hung outside the door for a full five minutes before retreating back into the main shell of the
Vordlak. After it had gone Sam did something Steve should have thought about earlier. She purged
the airlock between their ship and the other, and a vacuum seal now gave them an added sense of
protection.

We could have spaced it.

But it was too late for recriminations. They had jumped from a frying pan into a fire, sealing
themselves in a ship with minimal life support and no drive. They had plenty of food and water, but
the O2 was going to be a problem – that, and the temperature. It already felt chilly, and it was only
going to get colder.
“How long before the salvage crew gets to us?” he asked.
He knew the answer before Sam spoke.
“At least twenty-four hours.”

It’s going to be close.

 -4-

Mars

The modified Harley roared through the desert evening and arrived in a cloud of dust and

sand outside a concrete block in an otherwise featureless landscape. The driver leaned the bike over
forcing a skid that brought it in a long slow glide to the perfect centre in a parking space between two

transport Waldos. Dust hung in the air lending the sun a deep orange glow that cast a hanging shadow

on the concrete. The engine pinged as it immediately started to cool in the high desert air. Corporal
Jake Royle had arrived for his shift.

He kicked the bike up onto its stand and adjusted the breather tube in his helmet before

approaching the concrete structure. A mechanical voice squawked at him.

“Identification please.”

“Fuck off and die,” Jake said.

“Welcome Corporal Royle,” the voice replied, and a loud clack echoed across the sand as a

door opened.
Start of the Twenty-third century, he thought. You’d think they’d have developed a computer

that understood abuse by now.

Jake headed inside and stood quietly as the airlock hissed.

“Equalised”, a tinny voice said at the same moment Jake removed the helmet and wiped off
the dust that had accumulated in his twenty-minute bike ride. The opposite door slid open into a huge

service elevator, large enough to carry a transport Waldo if need be. Jake always felt small in
comparison, and usually found that he stayed close to the control panel, even if that meant being

subject to the scrutiny of the CCTV camera all the way down.
The trip only took a minute, but it always felt longer, and Jake was relieved to step out onto

the floor of the Administration Level, even if the air here was always stuffy. It smelled, of stale

coffee, disinfectant, and sweat, and most of the odours were down to Sarge Withers, the man in

charge of this little operation at the ass-end of the solar system. As Jake walked along the corridor to

the locker room he saw there was a shipment waiting to go down, a small city of crates and boxes

piled at the far end near the access shaft. The Sarge was there, briefing the rest of Jake’s team.
“Nice of you to join us,” Sarge said as Jake stowed his helmet and leathers. “Only ten

minutes late tonight.”

Jake didn’t reply – to do so would only lead to an argument, and both men knew each other

well enough to realise there wouldn’t be a winner. Instead Jake walked towards the other man on his

team. Moose was a hulking, slab muscled gorilla of a man with a ready smile and a soft voice -

usually. But tonight his brow was furled and he was on the verge of shouting. Brenda and Jill, the

dynamic duo that made up the rest of Jake’s team, had broad smiles on their faces as Jake
approached.

“Tell him Jake,” Brenda said. “It’s not the size that matters.”

Jake laughed.
“I’ve told you before, no teasing the help.” He clasped Moose by the shoulder, feeling the

hard tension in the muscles underneath. “And I’ve told you before big man. Just ignore these two.
They’ll grow out of it when they hit puberty.”

Jill shook her boobs provocatively and Brenda blew a kiss.

“I can show you just how far past puberty I’ve got,” Brenda said. “Any time.”

Jake laughed again.

“Don’t tempt me. But not here... you never know who might be watching,” he said, jerking a
thumb towards a CCTV camera above them.

It was Jill’s turn to laugh.

 “The only one who is ever watching is the Sarge.” She turned to the Sarge. “We could give
you a cheap thrill as we’re on the way down?”

The Sarge just smiled.

Seems he’s not in the mood for any horsing around today. I wonder

what’s got him riled?

Jake looked up at the camera, the single eye staring, always staring.
“They’re out there, watching us,” Jake said. “They’ll always be watching.”

“Who is this they you’re always on about?” Moose asked, for maybe the twentieth time.
Jake didn’t reply.

Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.
The women looked like they were ready to keep the interplay going, but one look from Jake
put paid to that. They made a good team, and the women both knew when it was time to play, and

when to work. Jake set Moose to shifting crates into the main service elevator, and the women to
organising them according to where they were going to be stored once they got down to the caverns

below. He was about to start helping Moose when the Sarge called him back.
“Can I see you for a minute Jake. In my office?”

Well, this is something different.

The only time Jake was ever in the Sarge’s office was on pay-day, and

then it was only for as long as it took for him to take the slip and leave.
And today isn’t pay-day.

The office was small, and made smaller by the fact there were three

suits standing by the desk, all big men, all looking as if they’d be happier in

combat fatigues.

Inspection team?
 He hoped not. Any inspection was going to find discrepancies in the

storeroom databases. This might be a shitty job at the ass end of Mars, but

there were certain perks that the team enjoyed – things pilfered from the
store and sold on in the spaceport at Bradbury Flats that supplemented the

meagre Army payslips. He thought the Sarge didn’t know about that end of

the team’s activities, but he was wrong.

“Don’t worry Jake. This isn’t an inspection. Not yet.” Sarge said, and

motioned towards the two men nearest Jake. “Agents Kaminski and

Newman will be going down with you. They’re headed for F3 – you’re not

to get in their way.”

The Sarge’s tone told Jake two things – that this was important, and

that there were to be no questions asked. Jake played it by the book.

“Yes sir,” he said, and saluted. As he left the office Kaminski and

Newman followed him.

Jake was worried. Suits were never a good sign – not this far away

from the spaceport. This pair carried themselves like military men and the

one on the left in particular looked like he might consider himself a bad-

ass. There was something around the eyes that told of a temper waiting to

be unleashed. Jake knew that look well – he saw it in the mirror most

mornings.
 They’re not that big. I can take them. But let’s just hope it doesn’t

come to that.

The elevator trip seemed even longer than usual today. There was no

chat, and thankfully no giggling. The presence of the two intelligence men

seemed to suck all life out of the elevator cab, and it felt like the whole

universe had been put on hold, waiting.

He pushed the thought away. The universe had never shown any signs

of caring for him, so he wasn’t about to waste any time thinking about it

now. Instead he started to wonder what the suits were after, especially in

section F3. This was Jake’s fourth year in this gig, and in all that time he’d
been in F3 once, and that was just to fix a busted heating coupling. Boxes of

crates sat in long rows in a tall natural chamber and they had gathered a

thick dust that could only have come from a long spell of years.

What the hell could they possibly want from there?

The curiosity kept niggling at him. When the elevator stopped at the

stores and the suits headed off into the caverns Jake set his crew to work,

then quickly padded after them. They did indeed seem to be heading for F3,

and quickly at that. Jake had to walk fast just to keep pace with them. At

first he worried that they might look back and see him but they seemed

focussed on the task at hand. There was something about their manner that

had Jake thinking.

 They might be suits. But they’re worried suits. Badly worried.

Suddenly all Jake wanted was to get back out onto the Harley and

head for the bar.

But this must be important. I need to know.

He closed the gap on the agents and was only thirty yards behind

them as they went through the entrance to the F3 cavern.

It was darker here, and he was able to move even closer as the men

moved among the crates. It was obvious they were looking for something in

particular.

“Oh fuck,” a voice said a minute later.

I guess they’ve found it.

Jake peered round a tall crate. The two men were leaning over a box.

The darkness wasn’t so deep over there and it took Jake several seconds to

realise why; the light came from inside the box the men had opened, a

shimmering blue luminescence that felt somehow cold. Once again Jake

wanted to be elsewhere, preferably back up on the surface, on his bike,

getting the flock out of here. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the blue

shimmer. It was humming, reverberating in his gut like a good bass beat.
“Just close it back up,” one of the suits said. “Nobody need know.”

“The batteries are charging up,” the other replied. “You’ve read the

reports. You know what happened the last time.”

 “So what do we do?” the first said, and Jake heard a tremble of fear

there.

“What we came to do,” the second replied. He took something small

and rectangular from his pocket, the size of a cigarette pack. He slapped it

against the side of the crate. “We blow the fucker before it gets any worse.”

Jake knew a bad idea when he heard one. He stepped out from the

shadows.

“Nobody’s blowing any fucker up down here,” he said casually. “Not

unless you’ve got a death wish. This bedrock isn’t as stable as it looks, and

the air supply is hinky at the best of times. Trust me guys, this is not a good
idea.”

The taller of the two was already walking away from the crate. The
blue luminescence framed his outline, and his face was in thick shadow as

he spoke.
“No time to argue about it. It’s going to blow in sixty seconds. Time

to go.”
Jake thought, for about a second, of standing his ground, but the suits

were already making their way at haste out of the chamber and short of
starting a knock down fight and getting them all killed, he had no choice but
to follow them
 They nearly didn’t make it. Jake had to run to catch the other two, and
just as he was close enough to reach out and touch them the chamber

behind them blew with a loud crump. A distant rumble told Jake that there
had been a rock-fall, and a big one at that. Instinctively he held his breath

before he realized the futility of it.

“Best hurry guys,” he said sarcastically. “If the roof has come in

we’ve got enough O2 for a minute at most. My guess is it’ll take us at least
that long to get to the first box of emergency tanks.”
As before they ignored him completely, instead turning back the way

they had come.

“You don’t have to come,” the taller one said. “Get yourself safe. But

we came here to do a job and we have to check we were successful.”

“Oh, I’d say you were successful all right,” Jake said. “I’d say you

successfully blew the shit out of a whole bunch of old crates.”

He should have headed for an emergency tank, but his curiosity got

the better of him again.

Besides, the air feels fine. And I might have overestimated the risks a

bit.
When the suits went back to the site of the explosion, he followed.

But all three of them were brought up short when faced with a new wall of
rubble at the mouth of F3.
 “Looks like it worked,” the smaller of the suits said. Jake could see
that the other wasn’t convinced.

“I’m not sure that thing can be blown up,” he said.

“What thing?” Jake asked, but got no reply. The suit had walked

forward to examine the rubble. The shorter of the two had held back.
“Be careful…” he started. He didn’t get to finish. The first indication

that something was wrong was a flickering of the lights overhead. Then
they went dim, and the blue florescence seeping from the rubble became

visible. Jake felt his hair stand on end, a growing charged feeling in the air.
Electrical short.

There was a loud crack and a blue flash. When Jake’s eyes recovered
it was to see the taller of the suits lying on the floor. The second suit went to

his colleague’s aid.

“Don’t touch him…” Jake began, but was too late. The blue light,

now thicker, almost like a hanging fog, surged forward over both suited
men. Static cracked again and the second man fell, landing on top of the
first. Neither of them showed any sign of life. The fog, if that is what it was,

crept above the prone bodies, draping over them with obvious intent.
It means to feed!

Jake moved forward, thinking to check on the fallen men. Tendrils of

blue mist reached for him and the air crackled.
 He turned and ran. He looked back just once, and ran faster. The blue

mist had already filled the whole corridor and was coming after him fast.
He slowed just long enough to hit an Emergency Evac node on the

way past then ran full speed down the corridors. By the time he arrived in
the main chamber the mist was at his heels, although it seemed less like

mist now and more like some vast amoeboid blob. He burst through into the
high open space to see his three co-workers standing in a group.
They looked confused, unsure about their next actions.

By the time he reached them the blob was right behind him. He
passed the others, shouting.

“Get into the fucking elevator.”

They didn’t move fast enough. Jake pushed the button to open the

main door and turned, just in time to see the blob loop a ropy tentacle round
Brenda’s thigh and squeeze. She squealed in pain and tried to pull way. The

tentacle started to come apart as if it were made of little more than tissue
paper, but a second looped around the woman’s waist and slowly tugged,

pulling her off her feet. And as soon as that happened, the end was quick.
The blob surged forward, falling on her like a wave. A single arm waved

feebly then Brenda was lost in a thickening coating of… something. Jake
had no idea what this thing might be, but he wasn’t about to wait to find

out.
 The elevator door started to open and he squeezed in as soon as there

was enough space.

“Get into the fucking elevator,” he shouted again. “We’re leaving.”

Jill wasn’t listening. She stared at the blob.

“Brenda?” she said softly, and stepped forward. The blob took her in

less than a second – misty tentacles coiling at neck and chest. She was
pulled into the main mass of the thing and disappeared with a moist suck.

“Come on Moose,” Jake shouted. “Last chance.”

But like Jill seconds before, the big man wasn’t listening. He

bellowed, like a bull in a rage, and charged at the blob. Jake gave thanks
that the elevator door closed before he had to watch the man get taken

down. But the door wasn’t thick enough to mask the screams that followed
him all the way up to the Administrative Level.

Jake watched the floor at his feet all the way, expecting at any second
for the blue luminescence to start seeping through from below. By the time
the door opened at the admin level he was a nervous wreck, and not helped

any to come face to face with the Sarge and the third suit. Both men had a
gun trained straight at Jake.

“What the hell happened?” the suit said. “Where’s the others?”
Jake almost jumped out of the elevator, ignoring the guns completely.

He headed off along the corridor. In his mind’s eye he could see the blue
mist seeping up the elevator shaft, roiling and seething as it came. He didn’t
want to be around when it arrived. He headed for the locker room. The suit

followed, shouting now.

“I asked you a question.”
Jake didn’t stop. He reached his locker and removed his leathers.

The suit decided to press the issue. Jake felt a hand on his shoulder.
I don’t have the time.

He spun and in one movement delivered an old-fashioned uppercut on

the suits’ jaw. The man went down in the corner in a heap. Jake kicked the

gun away into another corner and went back to putting on his leathers. The
Sarge appeared in the doorway, still with a gun in his hand, but it was now

pointing at the floor.

“What’s going on Jake?” Sarge said.

“Your suits were here to check on something down there. They tried
to blow it up. And whatever it is, it’s now big and pissed off. We need to get

out of here Sarge, and we need to go now.”

Sarge kept looking down at the unconscious man in the corner. He

shook his head.

“We have our duty,” he began, but now it was Jake’s turn not to listen.

“Screw duty,” he said. “All duty is going to get you here is killed… or
worse. I’m leaving. Unless you’re going to shoot me?”
 He could see in the Sarge’s eyes that the man wasn’t about to shoot
anybody. Nor however was he about to leave.

Jake checked he had enough O2 in his helmet for the trip back to the
spaceport. As he made for the escalator to the surface the Sarge was still in

the locker room doorway.

“Come with me Sarge,” Jake said. “Right now. Last chance.”

Even as he said it he looked over the Sarge’s shoulder. At the far end
of the corridor a blue luminescent haze seeped from the service escalator,

already starting to fill the space.

The Sarge saw Jake looking and turned. Jake saw him stiffen.

“Come on Sarge. Let’s get out of here.”

But instead the man walked towards the blue. It was now thickening

and taking on solidity in the same way it had below.

“Sarge!” Jake called, even as he entered the escalator.
The Sarge ran towards the haze and started shooting, the noise almost
deafening in the confines of the corridor. Jake let the door slide shut, once

again having to endure the screams of a friend from the other side.
He punched the button for the surface, and tried not to think about
what was coming, tried not to stare at the floor, willing the escalator
upwards. It seemed to take an age, and then he had to wait while the airlock
cycled through. The blue haze started to seep around him as the exterior
door opened and he felt a tug at his heels but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

He ran for the bike.

He looked back just once as he turned the Harley out of the lot and
onto the track to the spaceport. He could see the blob, solid now,
shimmering in the airlock door. But it came no further, as if in fear of the
sunlight outside the compound.

That was just fine by Jake. He hit the accelerator and sped off.
On the way back to the port all he could think of was the blue
amoeboid plasma filling up all the nooks and crannies of the cave system,
growing huge there in the dark.
 -5-

Sam and Steve spent most of the time cuddled together in the bunk under as many layers of sheets as
they could stand. Neither spoke much, preferring to conserve what little O2 was remaining. Once
again any sleep Steve had was fitful, interspersed with vivid, almost too-real dreams.
He was back on the alien planet, falling into a hole at the top of a huge black pyramid, down into
blackness. The further down he went, the more his eyes adjusted and he saw it wasn’t completely
dark. The interior of the pyramid was bathed in a thin blue dancing light that lit a massive empty
shell, sepulchral, like a huge cathedral. He was still high above the floor of the building but already
he saw things moving below. The floor was covered in an oily blue sheen, bubbling and frothing,
throwing up high spouts of spray only for it to fall back with a patter as light as snowflakes on a
windless day. Thicker globules seemed to swim through the fluid, gaining mass, swelling into all too
familiar shapes – a torso, two legs, two arms, and a head, conical and distended, but almost human.
Ten of them grew from the gloop and stood, stock-still.
As one, they lifted their heads and stared straight at the point where Steve hung. He felt them tickle
in his mind.

Stop it!
He pushed. The figures staggered, almost fell, and Steve took his chance. He willed himself up and
sped, faster than thought, until he once again hovered high above the pyramid. But still the alien
mind tickled inside his, probing for a way in.

Wake up you idiot!

He opened his eyes and sat up, too fast, bashing his head against the bulkhead.

What the hell was that all about?

He had no time to reflect on the experience. A headset they had left by the bedside crackled.
“Come in Sam,” a voice said. “Your knight in shining armour is here.”
Steve beat her to it. He grabbed the headset just before her hand reached it, and rolled out of bed,
wincing at the cold that bit deep to the bone.
“And here I was thinking that you were more of a damsel in distress,” he said into the mike.
There was several seconds of silence at the other end. Peter Nelson thought very highly of himself,
and didn’t take kindly to teasing, especially if it came from a man. Steve had discovered that fact a
year ago and since then had taken advantage of it every chance he got. Despite the dark and the cold
he managed a smile at the irritation in Nelson’s voice when he replied.
“Steve,” Nelson said. “What lump of junk have you stuck me with this time?”
Steve laughed.
“If you’re close enough for these comms, you’re close enough to see for yourself.”
This time it was Nelson who laughed.
“Close enough to touch,” he said. “We’re at the loading dock to the cargo bay. Meet us there in five.”
“No!” Steve shouted. “It’s not safe.” But the link had already been cut.
“They’re here already?” Sam asked.
Steve nodded.
“And we’d best get to them before Nelson does something spectacularly stupid.”
Sam followed him through to the airlock. Their only weapon was the knife, and he already knew how
ineffective that was, but he took it with him anyway, the heft of it in his hand providing some small
sense of security.
When the airlock door opened they went through, slowly at first. The airlock itself was clear with no
sign that the mist had ever been there. The main corridor beyond was equally quiet. They made their
way quickly to the cargo bay, just in time to hear the hiss of another airlock opening, about twenty
yards way on the left hand side. A long tall door opened up showing a loading bay beyond. Past that
they saw six figures walking though from a docked ship.
Nelson and his salvage team had arrived.
Nelson walked ahead leaving the others to come along behind shepherding the carts carrying their
equipment. Doug Wilkins gave Steve a little wave, and despite the tension in him, Steve felt a smile
rise. Doug was one of the good guys – he was also one of the best science geeks on this side of the
system.

If anyone can figure this shit out, Doug can.

Sam and Steve waited in the cargo bay for the new crew to reach them. Both of them eyed the
corridors leading off for any sign of the blue mist. Nelson saw their apprehension and laughed.
“Don’t tell me it’s got you spooked already? You’ve only been here a day.”
Steve noticed that the man didn’t even look his way. He only had eyes for Sam. But Steve was too
on-edge to make anything of it.
“There’s something here on board,” Sam said. “We need to leave, and right away.”
Nelson laughed even louder.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “Your claim is safe. We’ll just get her to dock for you, take our salvage
percentage and be off and away. It shouldn’t be too hard to get this old crate moving again – she
looks to be in good enough shape.”
“You’re not listening,” Sam said. Steve could see that her temper was rising. Nelson didn’t know her
well enough to see the signs though, and was still amused. The amusement faded somewhat when she
took hold of his nose and tweaked, hard.
“You will listen. There’s some kind of alien entity aboard. It may even be the same thing that caused
the ship to disappear in the first place. We must leave.”
Nelson had started to pay attention now, but he was still dismissive.
“A fucking alien? And how many of them have ever been seen? How many millions of man-hours
have we all spent out here? If there were aliens out here, wouldn’t we have met them by now? Think
about it Sam. Isn’t it more likely that you and your wee boy here got spooked? I thought you were
smarter than that.”
He walked away. Sam looked set to follow him, and if it had been her carrying the knife Steve
believed she might have buried it in the man’s back. He reached out and touched her arm.
“He’ll have to find out the hard way,” Steve said. “It’s the way he rolls. You know that.”
The anger left her as quickly as it had come.
“Okay. But if that misty shit turns up again, we leave in Nelson’s ship - straight away. Agreed?”
Steve nodded.
“I’ll even race you to the airlock.”
Doug Wilkins brought up the rear of the salvage crew, and Steve and Sam waited for him.
“The Vordlak?” Doug said with a smile. “Fortune and glory is it?”
“Well, I’ll take the fortune anyway,” Steve said. “But that’s not a given. We’ve got a problem for
you.”
Doug’s smile got broader.
“Then lay on MacDuff.”
 -6-

Nelson took his crew off to try to find out more about the propulsion system. He wasn’t happy that
Steve had appropriated Doug, but Steve had to smile as Sam worked her wiles on the man. By the
time she was finished she had promised to accompany Nelson on an inspection tour of the ship, and
the man had a wide grin on his face.
“Be careful,” Steve said softly as Sam left. “And remember, first sign of trouble, run first, ask
questions later.”
She gave him a peck on the cheek that brought a scowl from Nelson then left with the rest of the
salvage crew. Nelson headed off with her to the bowels of the craft a happy man, completely unaware
he had just been played by a master.
Steve led Doug to the bridge and showed him the Journal entries from the night the Vordlak was lost,
but the man seemed more interested in the older material.
“I’ve heard rumours about the Poldakayne,” he said. “About a hush-hush drive using energy drained
from alternative universes that let something through.”
He skim-read the parts that Steve had already gone through, and Steve read over his shoulder as they
got to the meat of the story.

COMPILERS NOTE: TAPE 6 HAS BEEN OMITTED. IT CONTAINS

ONLY PERSONAL MATTERS NOT RELEVANT TO THE MISSION.
ANYONE WISHING ACCESS SHOULD CONTACT NASA RECORDS
OFFICE 7.12

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 7 – 11:39 pm – August 5th – 2105)
Hello again, sweetheart. Well, this situation keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. I feel like Alice,
having passed through the Looking Glass to a place where everything is just slightly off.
I spent most of today on the computer doing esoteric research. I won’t bother you with the details,
but you’re really going to have trouble believing everything that is going on here.
For one thing, they have discovered that a summoning can be done using a hologram for the
summoner, as long as it is placed inside the pentagram and the proper words are spoken. It saves on
young marines I suppose.
But the weirdest thing of all is what they need from me. They want me to tell them which spell to use
for the summoning. Then, after the power cells are fired up, I need to be able to banish whatever it is
we manage to call up before it can cause too much mayhem.
I’ve told the General about my misgivings concerning dabbling in Demonology, but he doesn’t
believe in Demons. He thinks that we are tapping into another dimension. He believes that mankind
has known about it for a long time, but has cloaked it in religious ceremony and symbolism to
preserve the secret. I hope he’s right – maybe there is a scientific rationale behind all the mumbo-
jumbo – but I’m worried, very worried.
I think you’ll like Dean – the computer engineer. He has a wicked sense of humour and a great talent
for mimicry. His takeoff of the General made me laugh out loud for the first time since I left you. The
hologram necromancer was his idea and he was surprised as anyone when it worked in tests. He tells
me that they have tried the Honorius rite on eight occasions now – the last two with the hologram.
Before that they lost six men.
He personally designed the hologram. He calls it Crowley, but to me it looks like Gandalf. You know
the type – pointed hat, long beard and piercing eyes – looks like a maniac.
Dean showed me the chamber where it will all happen. At the moment it is empty apart from a six-
foot circle in the middle. This circle is a thin sheet of 24 carat gold, just waiting to be etched with the
pentagram I decide on.
I must go, there is someone at the door. Take care.
Love you.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 8 – 8.47 am – August 6th – 2105)

Sorry about the cut off last night. It was a new arrival on board and he wanted to see me urgently. Get
this – he’s from the Vatican. Cardinal John Docherty – Exorcist. Do you believe it – an exorcist in
this day and age? He said he’d been asked in person by the Pope to get himself on board – in case of
emergencies.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, he’s very well versed in the literature and we stayed up, swapping
stories and drinking his whisky, until around three this morning, finally deciding to work together on
the summoning. I feel a little hung over, but not too bad.
Today John and I have to decide what demon we try to summon. I thought that he would be
completely against the whole idea, but it seems he wishes to see what happens. He’s got a strong Irish
brogue and he said to me – in his mocking way.
“I’ve never met a Prince of Hell yet that could stand up to an Irishman in a fair fight.”
How do you like my attempt at an Irish accent? Pitiful, eh?
I’d better go. I think I need a couple of black coffees before facing the day.
Kiss kiss. Love you.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 9 – 11.35 pm – August 6th – 2105)

Working seems to bring some stability to this crazy mess. John and I spent the morning with the
computer going through the literature. We have a theory. Considering that the experiments so far
have yielded enough energy to power a small town, if we conjure up a fully-fledged demon, we
should be able to power this ship.
John’s got some ideas on the subject. He reminded me of Great Cthulhu – a major league player
amongst the ancient pagan gods. John has had access to some of the forbidden books – the Vatican
seems to be jam packed with them. Makes you wonder about the piety of some of the archbishops – I
can imagine them scurrying to the forbidden books for a quick thrill after matins.
Anyway, John has seen the Necronomicon, and even showed me a couple of facsimile pages. He
reckoned that Cthulhu is worth fifty Dukes of Hell on his own and has worked out the amount of
time we’d have to have him in the chamber to power up the batteries. Neither of us believe a word of
it, of course, but he thinks that the General will be very impressed by the figures.
We adjourned at lunchtime to the rec. area. After the first day’s breakfast the food has got worse. We
now get subjected to the reconstituted gooey stuff. I should have known it was too good to last.
The more I think about it, the more surreal the whole thing becomes. Am I really trying to conjure up
a demon to power a spacecraft? Sometimes I think that it is all an elaborate joke at my expense. Any
minute now a horde of laughing, shrieking colleagues are going to descend on me, awe-struck at my
gullibility.
At other times – especially when I meet John’s stare – I am more frightened than I have ever been.
Later in the afternoon we chose the summoning rite, deciding on one from the mad Arab’s book –
look it up on the vid if you want some gruesome entertainment. It details all kinds of paraphernalia
deemed necessary, but John is adamant that only the words and the pentagram count. Just as well,
really. I can do without the nails from the dead child’s coffin or the candles made from human flesh.
I couldn’t even pronounce most of the words in the spell, but John was more capable. I wondered
again about what really goes on in the Vatican.
We passed our decision on to Dean who programmed it into the computer, then shared a drink as we
watched the robo-arm etch the pentagram into the gold disk – first cutting the fine grooves and then
depositing hairline tracks of silver into the etched markings. The General was especially happy to
note that the batteries started charging as soon as the pentagram was complete.
One last thing. Dean was looking pleased with himself all afternoon. When I asked him why, he
showed me what he’d done to the hologram of the summoner.
It still looks manic, but now it has my face.
We do it tomorrow.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 10 – 12.30 pm – August 11th – 2105)

Hello, sweetheart.
Well, I’m still alive. They tell me that you insisted on being kept informed, but I wanted to drop you
a line to let you know I’m okay – just a bit shaken up.
I suppose you want to know what happened, but I’m not too sure myself – it all came so fast – but I’ll
tell you what I think occurred. It will be best if I start off slowly – things get a bit hectic at the end.
Picture it.
A circular room about five meters in diameter. In the centre is the pentagram. I am off to the left in
the control room with Dean and we have an observation window about five-foot square looking into
the room.
Opposite me I can see the General and John looking in from a similar window. I know that in a room
to the left of us the remainder of the crew follows proceedings on the vid. Dean is waiting to be given
the nod by the General. I can see a bead of sweat running along the crease between his nose and his
cheek. The battery meters show a slow but steadily climbing charge.
He gets the nod from the General and starts twiddling the buttons on the console. The summoner
appears in the centre of the pentagram, feet first.
In the space of five seconds it builds to the tall wizard – my face leering back at me through the
window. Dean twiddles a few more buttons and the wizard sweeps his sword around the circle. He
waits for another signal from the General. The bead of perspiration is now teetering on his
moustache.
I can see that the meters are rising faster. The General nods his head, Dean pushes another button and
a voice begins the harsh guttural chant. Although I know the words, they are spoken too quickly for
me to comprehend them. Across the room I can see John mouthing the spell, keeping in time with the
computer.
Otherwise the silence is deep as can be.
 Arak barang Cthulhu f’thang.

Cthulhu R’lyeh f’rhenghi Ia!

Ia Cthulhu
Ia Cthulhu
Twenty seconds pass. The computer stops chanting. The meters stop rising.
The bead of sweat falls off Dean’s chin to the floor. The General is glaring at me. I turn away, mostly
in relief, but get distracted by a movement near the pentagram.
As if from a great distance I can hear a cry, like a wounded seagull.

Tekeli-li

Tekeli-li.
And behind that there comes a manic piping – a crazed flutist who plays in a flurry of cacophonous
discordance.
Dean touches my arm – he, too, has seen the movement. The meters start to rise – more rapidly this
time. At a point midway around the room the walls start to bulge and flatten, bulge and flatten. The
wall stretches and tears as easily as a piece of newly rolled dough. A shimmering blue mist,
somehow oily seeps from the tear.
I notice that the meters are going crazy, passing fifty, then sixty per cent capacity as I watch. Looking
across the room I see John is in argument with the General. A movement catches my attention. I look
round to see the wizard slipping across the pentagram.
I look down and see that Dean has become distracted by the mist and has allowed the image to
wander. I tap him on the shoulder. He starts, looks at me and twists the button. Too far. The wizard
leaves the pentagram. And all hell breaks loose.
The mist seethes and roils in a ball of plasma, pulsing, growing. A thin film of frost runs over the
viewing window.
The meters are going wild, eighty, ninety, one hundred percent as I watch.
Across the room the General is trying to catch Dean’s attention. Dean is trying to manoeuvre the
wizard back into the pentagram – with little success. The interior of the room is beginning to glow in
shining blue.
I can barely see the other window – only enough to notice that the General is now holding John, as if
to stop him from doing something. I press the button to begin the banishment, more in hope than in
anything else. An electric discharge snaps noisily from the mist, running around the walls of the
room, dancing across the walls. I lean forward towards Dean, but it is too late.
The electric shock flings him backwards against the wall where he falls, slumped as if in a stupor.
I try to get control of the wizard when I realise that the banishment spell is still being broadcast.
The mist makes a move in my direction, but something stops it. I see, behind it, that John has entered
the room, crucifix raised. He is saying something, but the noise from the banishment spell and the
ever-increasing hum from the batteries drown him out.
I move the wizard back into the pentagram – quite how, I’m not sure. The light in the room has
increased so much that I have to shade my eyes. As they adjust I see John hanging, suspended in the
mist.
The banishment spell is nearing its end. Blue bolts of electricity are crackling around the room. John
is dead – I can see that. The batteries have started to screech.
I think of you and the kids just as the banishment spell ends. There is a blast of light. All further
thought is driven from my head.

TAKEN FROM THE TAPE JOURNAL OF MEGAN DOWLES,

CONSULTANT HISTORIAN – USS POLDAKAYNE
(Tape No. 11 – 2.30 pm – August 11th – 2105)

That’s all really. I woke up on the Asimov this morning and, apart from a severe headache, there
seems to be no after effects.
The General came to see me and, after exchanging some insincere pleasantries, he helped me fill in
the parts I’d blanked on.
When the flash came, he was on the floor – just getting to his feet after being sandbagged by John.
He was turned away from the window, so didn’t see what happened, but by the time he reached the
door, the room had been scoured. There was no trace of the pentagram or of John’s body. The whole
room looked as if it had just been cleaned.
He is very pleased with the results of our ‘experiment.’ The batteries are fully charged and he intends
to go ahead with the Mars trip. He was suitably contrite about the deaths of John and Dean of course,
but he still believes that there is a scientific rationale. He thinks we have tapped into a tremendous
energy potential and says he intends to press for further experimentation.
I told him that I’d fight him, but the look in his eyes showed me all I needed to know. To the military
eye, the experiment was a success. He has already won.
They took me to the viewing port to see the Poldakayne depart. We had to have full filters on the
windows as it spun off across the sky, streaming shimmering blue light in a long comet tail behind it.
It was night on Earth below.
Millions of people will have seen a new star.
I need to see you, hug you. I need you to bring me back to reality – to reassure me that I have done
no wrong.
I keep thinking of something John said.

Great Cthulhu has slept for millennia, but when the stars are right he will awaken and chaos

will walk the skies.

I wonder if the stars are right out there in the vastness, out towards Mars?
See you very soon.
Lots and lots of love and kisses.
 -7-

Doug sat back from the console. There was one last entry and Steve leaned closer to read it before
Doug wiped it away.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF M. DOWLES – 21ST JUNE 2106

The Mars trip has been a great success. Congratulations. Request your help in our next
mission. We are going to need more power.

General J.E. Levi

Commander.

Doug whistled softly.

“Well, that explains a lot.”
“Glad you think so,” Steve replied.
Doug smiled.
“There’s been chatter for decades about this technology,” he said. “You can’t keep something that big
a secret for long. I’ve long suspected what propelled the Vordlak. I think this confirms it. And I think
we’ve just solved the mystery of what happened here.”
“We did?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The new drive has sprung a leak. All we have to do is plug the leak, kick start
the system, and we can get this old gal running again.”
Steve wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
“But what is it? That blue mist stuff – it’s a demon?”
Doug laughed.
“I doubt it. It’s some kind of energy from an alternate dimension, that’s all.”
“Oh… that’s all,” Steve said sarcastically. “Nothing to be worried about then?”
Doug’s smile was turned on full.
“Come on man. This is going to be fun.”
Steve had plenty more questions – like where were the crew? And how did his increasingly vivid
dreams fit? But he held them in check. Doug looked to be almost giddy with excitement, and they
needed the scientist focussed.
“So you think you can harness this… whatever it is?”
“Lead me to the drive control room,” Doug said. “If I can access the main core, we should have a
chance.”
When they got to the engine room Sam and Nelson were already there. Nelson had the main core
panel open but both of them were standing back, unsure as to how to proceed.
“It seems to be completely dead,” Nelson said. Doug pushed him aside.
“Leave it to me. I know what we’re dealing with now. Give me some time alone with it.”
They helped Doug fetch his equipment, then Nelson, Sam and Steve retired to the bridge where they
brewed up some coffee and Steve brought them up to date with what they’d discovered in the recent
reading.
Nelson listened with an ever-widening grin on his face.
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”
Steve resisted the urge to scream in frustration.
“Just go and ask Doug,” he said wearily. “He’ll back me up.”
Nelson shook his head.
“I know a wind-up when I hear one. That was a nice act you put on down in the hold. I actually
thought you were both spooked. But I’m not about to waste another moment on this nonsense –
we’ve got a ship to salvage. Let’s get to it.”
Doug Wilkins chose that moment to get the ship-wide comms system working.
“Hey guys, get down here. I’m on to something.”

Everyone replied to Doug’s call. With eight people there the control room felt cramped and crowded,
but Steve was strangely relieved that they were all together in one place and that he didn’t have to
worry about them meeting the mist in the corridors. Doug waited until they were all quiet, milking
the moment for all its worth, then motioned towards a spot in front of the ranks of batteries.
“Watch and learn friends, watch and learn.”
Sam took Steve’s hand in hers as Doug dimmed the lights. A holoprojector in the ceiling beamed a
pentagram onto the floor; a luminescent blue that glowed like neon and sent dancing shadows
flickering around the room. A chant rang out, the sound echoing as if they stood in a huge
amphitheatre.

O caput mortuum impero tibi per vivium Serpentem

Kerub impero tibi per Adam

Aquila impero tibi per alas Tauri.

Serpens impero tibi per Angelum et Leonem.
Steve felt Sam’s grip tighten as a blue mist formed inside the pentagram.
Doug’s fingers danced over the holodisplay controls and the mist flowed
into a holographic construct of sound, light and ionised gas, an ever-moving
plasma bubble that hung like a giant amoeba in the centre of the room. As it
swam, Doug’s creation sang along with the chanting from the speakers. It
was strangely beautiful.
“Wasn’t there supposed to be a magician?” Nelson said, mockingly, looking
straight at Steve.
Doug smiled, waved a hand at the holocontrol, and a small robed figure
appeared in the center of the pentagram. “He’s just for show,” Doug said.
“The chant is the important thing.”
The air above the plasma crackled with electricity, blue static running over
the formless mass. Sam gripped Steve’s hand even harder, but he barely
noticed. He tensed, ready to run at the slightest hint of trouble.
“No need to worry,” Doug said, sitting back from the console. “It’s stable.
Our understanding of plasmas and their control has improved somewhat
since this crate was launched.”
“It might be stable,” Sam whispered. “But what is it? That thing attacked
us.”
Doug laughed.
“I really doubt that. It’s just an amalgam of energy particles from another
dimension. There’s no intelligence there.”
Steve realised he could still hear chanting in the distance. Doug also
noticed.
“Again, no worries,” he said. “The alternate universe, like ours, works on
vibration and light. The chant is a cage, a visual and sonic prison that keeps
the plasma from leaking further into our dimension, holding it in the
hologram.”
Steve eyed the roiling ball of plasma.
“It’s still growing,” he said.
Doug nodded. “Yes. There’ll be more than enough to get us back to
spacedock. A couple of days I reckon should do it.”
He clapped Steve on the shoulder.
“We’re going to be rich my friend.”
It doesn’t explain what happened to the crew, he thought. Nor the dreams.
But he held his peace. Nelson would only start in with the mocking again,
and there had already been too much of that already. But when Nelson
suggested that they use the Vordlak’s crew quarters both Steve and Sam
declined. With an hour of Doug’s help and some power cells from Nelson’s
stores they got the power back in their own ship. When it came round for
time to sleep, they went to their bunk, ignoring the sound of a party coming
from deep in the Vordlak’s bowels as Nelson’s crew celebrated their latest
salvage.
The trouble started that same night.
 -8-

It came in their dreams.

He was back in the black pyramid, and the whole place rang with the
sound of chanting. Steve felt it through the soles of his feet, and soon his

whole frame shook, vibrating in time with the rhythm. His head swam, and

it seemed as if the walls of the pyramid melted and ran. The pyramid
receded into a great distance until it was little more than a pinpoint of light

in a blanket of darkness, and he was alone, in a vast cathedral of emptiness

where nothing existed save the dark and the pounding beat from below.

Shapes moved in the dark, wispy shadows with no substance, shadows

that capered and whirled as the dance grew ever more frenetic. Steve tasted

salt in his mouth, and was buffeted, as if by a strong, surging tide, but as the

beat grew ever stronger he cared little. He gave himself to it, lost in the

dance, lost in the dark.

 He didn’t know how long he wandered, there in the space between. He

forgot himself, forgot his friends, lost in blackness where only rhythm

mattered.
He woke in a cold sweat. Sam was draped over his back, the pair of them
snuggled together like two spoons in a drawer. But spoons were never this
warm. His back was soaked and clammy. Sam moaned and jerked – chasing
rabbits she called it. The moans got louder and she started to thrash. Steve
disentangled himself from her and turned round, stroking her upper arm.
Usually this was enough to calm her – but not tonight. She tried to scream,
and almost made it. Steve was about to shake her awake when she started to
chant. He recognised it immediately.
O caput mortuum impero tibi per vivium Serpentem
Kerub impero tibi per Adam
A blue haze appeared in the corner of the room, wispy, like smoke.

Aquila impero tibi per alas Tauri.

Serpens impero tibi per Angelum et Leonem.

The haze started to take on the now familiar look of a misty cloud. There
was a crack as static electricity arced from the cloud to the ceiling. Steve
saw the flash behind his eyelids for a long second afterwards. The cloud
started to move, drifting closer. Steve dragged Sam away, tumbling them
both out of the bed. Her head bounced on the deck.
The chant cut off mid-flow and the blue haze came apart like thin fog in a
breeze. By the time Sam opened her eyes there was no sign that anything
had ever been there. She lay on the floor and looked up at him while
rubbing the back of her head.
“What the hell did you do that for?”
What the Hell? She might be right.
He made her get dressed and hurriedly pulled on a vest and pants. He
almost dragged her out of the room while she was still pulling on her own
pants. He closed and locked the door behind them, taking one last look to
make sure there was still no sign of the haze.
Sam waited until they got to their flight deck before starting to chew him
out. It took ten minutes of quiet explanation from Steve before she calmed.
And it was only then that she looked in his eyes.
“What happened?” she said softly.
He told her about the dream. She went quiet then, and her gaze kept
flickering away to the Vordlak as he spoke about the chant, and the
reappearance of the haze.
“In the dream,” she said. “We floated, and there was dancing.”
Steve nodded, and took her hand, heading for the airlock.
“We need to talk to Nelson.”
They didn’t have to go far to find him. He was standing on the other side of
the airlock as the door opened, wide-eyed and trembling.
“Don’t tell me. You’ve been dreaming?” Steve asked.
Nelson nodded.
“Me, and everybody else too. Doug’s got some coffee going in the rec-
room. I think we need a pow-wow.”

It seemed that no one could sleep without the dreams intruding. Doug, as
ever, had an explanation ready.
“Look, there’s no need for us to get spooked by this,” he said. “It’s obvious
that the seepage into this dimension is having an effect on our brains. I
suspect it’s a resonant frequency issue. I can fix it… just give me some time
to come up with a dampening vibration.”
“Seepage,” Steve said and laughed. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Do
tell Doug… did you see the pyramid? How about the crawlers in the lance
forest?”
He saw from the expressions around the room that he’d touched a nerve.
That made him continue.
“And what about the chanting…in Latin no less. Is that seepage?”
Doug shrugged.
“What do you want me to say Steve? That we’ve got some kind of demon
on board? You know I don’t believe any of that shit?”
It was Sam that replied, voicing what Steve was thinking.
“It doesn’t matter what any of us believes,” she said. “It’s obvious that
there’s something in here with us. And given that the original crew has all
disappeared, I for one am not keen on staying here to investigate any
further. I vote we set the autopilot for space dock and let the old bird get
home on her own.”
Steve was glad it was Sam that had said it. If it had been anyone else
Nelson would just have browbeat them into submission. But because it was
Sam, he actually seemed to consider it, or at least pretended to.
“I’ll admit, the dreams freak me out too,” he said. “But if Doug says there’s
no real threat here, I’m inclined to believe him. Besides, we’ll be in port
inside a day or so now. We stay.”
He said it as if it was an order. That was a mistake, and Steve saw that Sam
had taken immediate umbrage.
“Newsflash sports fans,” she said. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.
Steve and I are getting out of Dodge and heading for spaceport. Anyone
that wants to come with us is welcome. But make it quick. We undock in
five.”
And with that she left the room. Steve didn’t hesitate, following her out and
catching up to her in the corridor.
“Getting out of Dodge? That’s a new one.”
She managed a smile.
“Something my Grandma used to say… although there was more swearing
involved.” She took Steve’s hand. “I meant it though. I want to go. And go
now. It doesn’t feel safe here.”
“I was just waiting for you to realise it,” Steve replied.
They hurried to the airlock.
They waited for more than five minutes, but no one came to join them.

Nelson came on the comm as they pulled away from the Vordlak.
“We’ll see you back Mars-side tomorrow,” he said. “And if you buy us all a
drink we won’t tell anyone you got spooked.”
Sam kept her eyes looking ahead as they left, but Steve couldn’t resist one
last glance back. He didn’t tell her, but as they left the other vessel behind it
was obvious that the Vordlak – the whole length of it – had taken on a blue
shimmering glow.
 -9-

Mars

Jake wasted no time on his return to Bradbury Flats. He knew that he

should report the situation to the authorities. But he also knew what that
would mean – an endless round of interviews and recriminations, and
possible criminal charges ranging from fleeing the scene all the way up to
multiple murder.
Somehow I don’t think ‘A big blue blob did it and ran away’ is a

viable defence.
So now here he was, in the first bar he’d come to, working on his third beer
and considering starting in on the hard stuff. The bar itself was rougher than
most, being the nearest one to the docking bays and the airlock that led out
to the Eastern Desert mining operation. The last time he’d been in it had
been with Moose, and they’d got into a knock down fight with four miners.
Jake smiled at the memory, then remembered what had happened to the big
man down in the cavern.
That settles it. Vodka it is.
The bar was busy and it took him a while to catch the barkeep’s eye. He
ordered another beer and a vodka chaser, on the rocks. The barman turned
to get the drinks and while he was there switched on the Holovid.
At first there was no sound, but Jake recognised the picture well enough – it
was the compound he’d left earlier.
“Mystery in the desert,” the scrolling headline read.
The picture showed an aerial view of the concrete block from a high
vantage, probably a camera on a flying drone. At first sight there seemed
nothing untoward – until the camera zoomed in. A body lay in the dust just
outside the airlock door.

Sarge?
The camera zoomed in closer. It was the Sarge, lying face down. He was
obviously dead but more than that he seemed somehow deflated, as if the
bulk of his body tissue had gone… sucked.
Jake had more than a good idea what might have caused that.
More of a clue than the news crew has anyway.
He had the barkeep turn up the volume. The newsreader was giving a
description of what they could already see. After that there was much
speculation but few facts. Mention was made of the work crew being
missing, but it was what wasn’t said that interested Jake.

The suits. They haven’t mentioned the suits.

If he’d needed more proof that this was a Black-Ops mission gone wrong,
then here it was. He listened for a few minutes more, hoping there might be
a scrap of information that he could use to make sense of what had
happened that morning. But there was nothing forthcoming; five minutes
later they were back to talking over the picture of Sarge on the ground
again.
Jake tuned them out and went back to drinking.
By the time he looked up at the vid again several hours and a lot of drinking
had passed. He had to force his eyes to focus on the screen.

I’ve been here longer than I thought.

Dusk was falling over the compound. The camera angle had changed,
showing armed law officers edging their way closer to the Sarge’s body in
the dust. Even in his slightly inebriated state Jake recognized the tension in
the men involved, the sense that they were walking into an unknown
situation where people had already died. He’d made that walk himself a few
times in the past.
The camera panned again, away from the men and towards the compound.
It was getting darker fast, but that wasn’t the main thing that Jake noticed.
The whole area, in a rough circle a hundred meters in diameter and centered
on the concrete block, had began to glow, blue, shimmering and
luminescent.
Before he even knew what he was doing Jake was out of his seat and
shouting at the vid.
“Get the hell out of there. You’re all going to get killed.”
The patrons of the bar looked on bemused.
“Can’t you idiots see?” Jake shouted. By now his face was pressed up near
the vid so he got a front row seat as the blue glow thickened and surged.
The law officers never knew what hit them.

By the time the suits found him Jake was completely insensible, having
finally managed to get enough booze in him to make him forget, for a
while.
They didn’t let him stay in that state long. They pumped him full of
something that led to ten very unpleasant minutes as Jake’s body purged
itself of fluids from anywhere they could escape. After that they stripped
him off, hosed him down, gave him a set of overalls and left him to stew in
an empty room for the most miserable hour of his life.
By the end of the hour he hit a wall of fatigue that took him down into sleep
so fast he barely noticed the transition from waking to dream.
He floated in a deep blue glow, buffeted to and fro as if by a strong tide.
Somewhere someone…no something chanted, a high cacophonous chorus
as if from a million voices raised at once.

Tekeli-Li!
Jake was dimly aware of shadows near him, others similarly trapped, but he
paid them no heed. He moved with the rhythm, giving himself to the flow.
He was lost, lost to the dance, and only came out of it when someone
slapped his face, hard.
“Wake up,” a voice said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
When Jake looked up it was to see two suits standing over him. They didn’t
look happy. And they looked even less so when Jake told his story. He
could see they didn’t believe him.

But I’m way beyond giving a shit.

He had to tell it three times, and each time they asked him different
questions, trying to find an inconsistency. But all they had on him was
fleeing for his life.
Last I heard there’s no crime in that.
Jake eventually lost his temper.
“You want to know what happened? You guys screwed up. The suits you
sent in blew the shit out of whatever was in that crate and let it out. Is that
what you need to hear? Stop trying to make me a scapegoat… just get out
there and get that fucking thing back in a box.”
He saw the look that passed between the men.

They can’t.
Jake laughed.
“I guess that’s a no then? Can you at least tell me what it was they allowed
to escape?
The men looked at each other again, and the larger of them seemed to come
to a decision.
“What do you know about the Vordlak?” he said.

It took them a while to tell the story, and this time it was Jake’s turn to be
the skeptic. But it didn’t take too much of a leap for him to believe the
story. After all, he’d been down in the cavern; he’d felt the thing’s presence
for himself. The bits about the religious hocus-pocus sounded weird in the
extreme, but he had seen the mist at first hand, and the idea that it came
from elsewhere seemed about right to him.
And there was the new holovid to take into account. The suits - now that
they’d started, seemed keen to show him everything. That made Jake very
worried about their future plans for him, but any suspicions were
momentarily forgotten when the vid came up on the tabletop.
It was another overhead shot of the compound. It was full dark, but the
blob, for that was what it now seemed to most resemble, glowed in a
shimmering blue that was strangely hypnotic. Whatever the thing was, what
had been a mist was now mostly solid, an amoeboid thing with several
tentacle-like appendages stretched out over the desert. It trembled and
shook, like jelly. But what caught the eye most were the bodies, now
embedded in the amoeboid mass.
“Look closely,” the larger suit said.
He speeded up the playback… the body was slowly being dragged through
the semi-solid body of the thing.

Like they’re being swallowed.

Jake didn’t want to see any more. He could imagine it all too well… the
dead drifting in a blue light being drawn into the darkness of the compound
then down through the elevator shafts to the caverns below where…
He forced himself to stare into the eyes of the suit. There was such a thing
as too much imagination.
“The thing in the crate in F3 – that was the batteries from the Poldakayne?
From the original experiment?” he asked.
The suit opposite him nodded and replied.
“Yes. And when the Vordlak reappeared from out of nowhere, something
seems to have woken up.”
“So why not just bomb the shit out of it?” Jake asked, but he knew the
answer to that one; he’d seen for himself that the thing could survive a
bomb, and indeed might even have fed on the explosion’s energy. That
would explain the rapid growth he’d seen down in the cavern.
The men across the desk confirmed what he’d been thinking.
“We just don’t know if a bomb would work.”
“So what’s the plan?” Jake asked, and by now he had a sinking feeling in
the pit of his stomach. They were getting to the actual reason he’d been
brought here, and he was certain he wasn’t going to like it.
The suits replied by showing another overhead shot of the compound. This
time it had been done using a night vision camera, which had been needed
because there was no sign of any blue luminescence.
“This is now,” one of the suits said. “It seems there is some kind of feeding
cycle, and that it pulls back for digestion.”
Jake’s already tender constitution almost rebelled again at that thought, but
he fought down the sudden rush of nausea as the man continued.
“The last time, back on the Poldakayne it took an exorcism to seal the
breach. That’s the plan this time too.”
Jake was almost afraid to ask.
“And where do I come in?”
“We’re sending a team in. And we need someone with insider knowledge of
the complex.”
Jake felt the nausea rise again.
That’ll be me then.
 -10-

They were six hours out from Mars.

Just six more hours. Then maybe I can sleep. Maybe we both can

sleep.
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried. Three hours after leaving the Vordlak
behind Sam had fallen asleep in her chair only to wake with a start five
minutes later. There had been no chanting this time, and no return of the
blue luminescence, but judging by the sweat on Sam’s brow and the fear in
her eyes the dream had been bad enough.
He didn’t ask her about it; he didn’t think he had to. He knew where she
had been – back dancing in shadow in the deep blue yonder, lost in the
dance. It seemed that the Vordlak’s malign influence stretched even through
the cold blackness of space.
Steve kept himself going through mugs of black coffee, trying to focus on
happier times, losing himself in daydreams of sun and the feel of solid
ground under his feet. For all his musings from before they encountered the
dead vessel it seemed that the vastness of space had, temporarily at least,
lost its charms for him. They reminded him too much of being lost, floating
in shadow with no sense of self. It was not a feeling he relished.
 Even the dust and sand of that shithole back on Mars will be

welcome.
Sam in the meantime spent her time in research. She couldn’t leave the
story alone, and dug deep into any database she could find, looking for
clues, answers, anything that might bring some rationality to the situation.
Even her frustration at coming up empty served to keep her hyperactive and
awake.
For the first few hours they got updates from Doug on progress back on the
Vordlak.
“I’ve got it under control,” he said after a while. “Why don’t you come back
and join us. I found some liquor.”
Steve wasn’t even close to accepting the offer. And he was glad of that as
Doug’s transmissions took on a more worried tone.
“On second thoughts,” he said an hour later. “Stay where you are. I’m
starting to think you’re better out of it.”
He didn’t elaborate, but both Steve and Sam had heard the doubt in his
voice. And by the time they got to the next transmission the doubt had
festered into fully-fledged worry.
“We’ve just had a call from NASA,” he said. “After congratulating us on
finding their ship, they asked me how I felt about performing an exorcism.”
That had been four hours ago. They tried to call Mars, but instead got a
news-feed, and watched in astonishment the events unfolding at the desert
compound.
For the past half-hour Sam had been fretting.
“Something’s gone wrong,” she said for a third time.
Of course something’s gone wrong, Steve thought. And it started when we
found that ship. I’m starting to wonder whether she didn’t mean to be found.
He kept his mouth shut, knowing better than to voice anything that might be
seen as putting the blame on Sam. She was barely paying him any heed
anyway, her attention divided between the news from Mars-side and in
attempts to raise the Vordlak. Neither activity was proving fruitful and Steve
sensed her nervous energy mounting. He punched in a new set of
coordinates and the ship began a long banking turn. It took her a minute to
notice.
“What are you doing?” she said, bewildered.
“What you would have done anyway. I just saved us five minutes on the trip
back. Let’s go and see what Doug is up to shall we? And maybe I will take
him up on that offer of some liquor.”
She blew him a kiss, then went straight back to trying to get a comms
connection to Doug. But Steve had a grim smile on his face. He might not
want to go back to the Vordlak… but he wanted to upset Sam even less. It
was however the first time he’d done something rash in quite a while, and
he wasn’t sure if it was completely the right decision, or just one that he’d
made to avoid the obvious flare-up that he’d seen coming from Sam. It
became a moot point minutes later when the comm link crackled into
action.
It suddenly felt cold. It was Doug’s voice, he recognized that much. But the
words sounded like gibberish… but as it went on he realized he’d never
heard these sounds before, but he knew from the cadence that he’d read
them, in Megan Dowles report.
Arak barang Cthulhu f’thang.

Cthulhu R’lyeh f’rhenghi Ia!

Ia Cthulhu
Ia Cthulhu.

There was a long silent pause during which Steve thought the comms link
had broken. Then he wished it had. Doug started to scream; high pitch wails
like nothing Steve had ever heard before – the sound of a man in terror.
Then, suddenly, it went quiet again, only for the wailing to be replaced by
something even more disturbing – a distant sobbing, quiet and hitching; the
sort of sound a child might make if it had been hurt but was too afraid to
make a noise.
“Doug!” Steve shouted.
But there was no reply.
 *

It took them three more hours to get back to the Vordlak during which time
Steve and Sam fretted, took out their frustration on each other, and watched
the newsfeed from Mars, hoping that someone there might have an answer
for them.
But the feed was no help at all, showing seemingly endless loops of the
same footage as the law officers tried to approach the compound only to be
overcome by the plasm. That was Sam’s new word for it, for want of a
better one, and they started using it as their shorthand for the whole range of
phenomenon they had encountered so far. Steve kept returning to the same
image, one that he knew would haunt his dreams in nights to come, of a
body, arms outstretched as if attempting a high dive, being sucked along
inside the plasm until it, thankfully, disappeared from view into the bowels
of the concrete bunker.
Eventually Sam turned off the feed.
“We’re learning nothing here. Let’s try Doug again.”
The last thing Steve needed to hear was more of that pained sobbing. But
like Sam he needed to know that his friend was still alive. He nodded in
agreement and they tried the comm link to the Vordlak.
They got nothing but static, and Steve was horrified to find that he was
relieved. He wasn’t given time to consider it though, as the link suddenly
crackled.
“Doug?” Sam said.
“Afraid not,” a voice replied. “It’s Timmons from the Agency. We need to
talk.”
Steve remembered Timmons well. A bean-counter who pretended to be
everybody’s friend while shafting them for every percentage of salvage he
could get. The man didn’t waste any time getting to the point.
“NASA are claiming salvage rights don’t apply on the Vordlak,” he said. “I
can’t get Nelson on the comm so I need you to get back there right now and
claim squatter’s rights.”
Steve was about to complain but then decided it would be futile.

We’re going back anyway. The rest is just politics; busy work for the

bean counters.
Sam voiced the main concern he had.
“What about this ritual that they’ve had Doug perform. Any news on how
that went?”
Timmons went quiet.
“How much have you heard?” he said softly.
Steve laid out what they knew, and Timmons sounded relieved that he
didn’t have to start from scratch with the story. But as it turned out, he knew
little more than Steve and Sam.
“The last message was some garbled chanting,” he started. Sam finished for
him, sarcastically.
“Followed by our best friend screaming in pain. Yeah. We heard it.”
Timmons, to his credit, knew when to back off.
“Just get back there and make sure Nelson’s crew is okay,” he said. “We can
sort out everything else later.”
“And what do we do about the plasm?” Steve asked.
Timmons didn’t pretend not to understand.
“NASA hope that the exorcism has worked. It’s been quiet at the compound
on Mars, and they’re taking that as a good sign, They’re sending a team in
there – it’s on its way now. All you need to do is get to the Vordlak and
check on the others. Let NASA worry about the rest. Any trouble, just get
out of there as fast as you can.”
Steve thought there was something they weren’t being told, but Sam was in
no mood for any more speculation
“We’ll get back to you on that,” she said into the comm, and cut the line.

*
It wasn’t long before they were able to see the Vordlak in the view port.
And now it was obvious that, far from being a dead hulk in space, the vessel
ahead of them was very much alive. Even before they could make out the
outline of the hull they saw the blue luminescence, like a glowing gas cloud
hanging ahead of them.
And more than that, Steve realized he could feel it. It was only subtle, but a
pilot gets used to feeling his ship under him, and now Steve felt a swell like
a tide ebbing and flowing, and he found himself remembering the dream
and the dancers in the blue darkness.
“Do you feel it?” Sam whispered, and Steve could only nod. A degree of
willpower was needed just to keep the call of the dance at bay, and it would
be all to easy to succumb to the temptation to just drift there and lose your
sense of self completely.
He deliberately turned his attention away from the view-port and turned
Sam’s face towards his.
“Are we sure we’re going to do this?” he said.
Sam nodded.
“It’s Doug. He’d do the same for us.”
That was true, but it didn’t make Steve any happier. They tried the comm
again. This time they got dead air instead of static and, just as Steve went to
switch it off, the faintest, far-off chanting, like a choir singing in a strong
wind. The sound accompanied them as they headed for the docking bay.

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!
 -11-

Mars

They didn’t give Jake time to think. He tried to complain, but the suit
summed up his situation pretty succinctly.
“You ran away and left your friends to die. Is that the story you want us to
put out on the feeds?”
While it wasn’t strictly accurate, it was close enough to shame Jake into
agreeing to at least listen to their proposal. He didn’t like what he heard –
not one bit.
“NASA are sending a team. They’re on the fastest ship possible and should
be here in an hour or so. There’s a couple of tech guys, some marines and
the exorcism expert.”
A fucking exorcism expert? What have I got myself in to.
He knew the answer to that one. Every time he closed his eyes he was back
there, lost in the blue beyond. He could just about buy the idea of a rift from
another dimension but he drew the line at demons and exorcists.
But that wasn’t his problem. He resolved to take the team in and leave them
to their business. If it were to come to any mumbo-jumbo then he’d get out
of there fast.
The suits had left him with only the holofeeds for company. He watched
them for several hours but he didn’t learn anything new. The area around
the compound had fallen quiet. The blue thing seemed to have retreated
back into the caverns, taking the bodies with it. The reporters on the feeds
did their best to speculate; theories ranged from long-dormant Martians to a
genetic experiment gone wrong. Nobody mentioned anything about demons
or exorcism.
Jake watched a holo extract about the Poldakayne experiment that the suit
had pointed him to, but afterwards he was none the wiser. It just seemed too
far-fetched to him, as if it was all some kind of elaborate joke. Sure, he
knew that the suits had secrets; he’d always known that. He just refused to
believe these secrets.
Matters weren’t helped much when the NASA team and the Marines
arrived.
There were three NASA people – consisting of two more suits and a small
rumpled man who looked like an academic and who Jake guessed must be
the exorcist.
“So you’re the demon hunter?” Jake said when he was introduced.
The little man smiled and Jake realized that he was going to like him.
“Dave Richards,” the man said. “And I’m not much of a hunter. Generally I
just talk them into submission.”
Although they turned up at the same time it was immediately obvious that
the two marines were even more clueless than Jake as to the situation at
hand.
“We’ll brief you all on the way out there,” Richards said, and Jake was
surprised to note that the suits from NASA deferred to him.
Things happened fast for a while after that. They gave Jake his leathers
back along with a helmet with a full ration of O2.
“Do you want a weapon?” he was asked.
He eyed the two marines standing by the door; they’d been introduced as
Hook, a bull of a man, and Dennings, a tall woman who looked like she
chewed razor blades for breakfast.
“I can’t imagine what I could have that would make any impact on the thing
I saw in there.”
The marines looked at each other, and Dennings laughed and patted her
weapon. Jake had to admit that the pulse-rifle did indeed look impressive.
“I haven’t met anything yet that the Peacemaker here couldn’t handle.”
Jake kept his mouth shut. The marines, while they’d seen the holo-vid
footage from the news feeds, had not been briefed on the nature of what
was waiting in the caverns, and Jake wasn’t about to enlighten them. He
had no desire to be laughed at by these hard-faced fighters.
As soon as Jake got into the leathers they were packed tight into a small
transport truck. Only one of the NASA suits came with them - Patel, a
stocky Indian man with a soft voice and hard eyes. He was to be their driver
for the trip to the compound. Jake sat in the back with the two marines and
Richards.
They started out through the base to the West airlock. The main drag was
quiet, almost calm, and Jake was once again hit by the unreality of the
situation. That was compounded by the fact that Richards had started to lay
out the full story for the marines.
It took him a while and they were cycling through the airlock out of the
base before he finished. The marines looked at each other, then to Jake for
confirmation.
“This is for real?” Hook asked, and his disbelief was obvious.
Jake nodded.
“I don’t know about the religious side of things,” he said. “But I promise
you, whatever they let loose down in the caverns, it’s not from around here.
And as I said earlier – I doubt your weapons will be any use against it. It
took a bomb and swallowed it without even a burp.”
“So how do we fight it?” Dennings asked.
This time Richards replied.
“I have some experience in these matters. Trust me. When it comes down to
it, you will be needed.” He smiled. “Just keep me alive long enough.”
Once they were out of the base the going got bumpy and Jake was wishing
he had taken the bike. But at least in here he didn’t have to wear the helmet.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to put the headgear on; wasn’t sure he would be
able to handle the claustrophobia in the current situation.
He closed his eyes, trying to will away the thought. Much to his surprise, he
fell asleep.

Once more he dreamed.

He had a vision of a deep purple sky as he was sucked downward towards a
pyramid. It had a hole in the top leading down into its bowels and Jake
knew he did not want to see what was inside. He swirled down, gaining
speed. He passed the mouth of the hole in the pyramid and tumbled deeper
into blackness. It sucked ever more eagerly at him.

He woke with a start. Richards was out of his seat and bent over Jake,
looking concerned. He made a sign of the cross in the air, and started to
chant.
Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

Jake pushed the man away, but something in the chanting resonated with
him, and he did indeed feel much calmer, almost relaxed. Richards smiled.
“What was it?” he asked. “The pyramid or the deep blue ocean?”
“The pyramid,” Jake replied. “But how did you know?”
This time the small man’s smile held more than a hint of sadness.
“I’ve been to both – numerous times. And lost good friends to both too.”
“Lost?”
But Richards had gone back to his seat and would not be drawn further. The
marines looked like they had more questions.

Just don’t ask me. I have no answers.

They drove across the desert in silence. The sun was just coming up as they
approached the compound.

Time for my shift.

Patel brought them to a stop at some distance from the compound.
“Helmets on,” Richards said. Jake was already ahead of him, sealing the
close-fitting helmet at the neck of his leathers. He had been right – it fit too
close, too claustrophobic. But when the marines opened the door it was
going to be preferable to the alternative. He could only hope that the
compound was still airtight, for there was no way in hell they were going to
get him down into the caverns wearing the helmet.
No way in hell.
He laughed, and Richards gave him a sharp look.
“Are you all right son?” he asked.
Jake pulled himself together and gave the man the OK sign with thumb and
forefinger.
They disembarked into a Martian early morning. Despite his leathers and
the thermals underneath Jake felt chilled; it was too early yet for any heat.
The compound would be warmer, but being out here was way more
attractive an option.
Richards was already walking towards the concrete box and the entrance
airlock. The exorcist was carrying a backpack that was almost as large as he
was, but he seemed to handle it with practiced ease. Patel and the small man
were in deep conversation and seemed actually excited at the prospect
ahead. The marines were being more circumspect, and Jake decided there
and then not to stray too far from these two. He still wasn’t sure their
weapons would be of any use, but the sheer intensity and impression of
solidity they carried would at least give him something to focus on,
something that would reassure him in the dark places ahead.
Alongside the marines he had to scurry to catch the other two. All five were
together in one group as they reached the airlock. Jake expected the door to
be open, but he’d forgotten the automated systems.
A mechanical voice squawked at them.

“Identification please.”

Richards looked to Jake.

Looks like I’m on.

He stepped up to the communicator panel.

“Fuck off and die,” he said tiredly, getting none of the pleasure he usually took in the small

act of rebellion.
If it took any heed, the voice didn’t show it. “Welcome Corporal Royle,” it replied and a loud

clack echoed around them as the door opened.

The marines took point, the pair of them making sure the airlock was empty before
motioning the others inside. The door hissed closed and, by habit more than judgement, Royle started

to remove his helmet. Richards put a hand on his arm and spoke over the comm link.

“Not until we’re sure of the lay of the land. At least wait until we’re in the complex proper?”

Jake nodded in reply. The lock cycled through its procedure. “Equalised” a tinny voice said
and the far side opened out into the service escalator. Once again the marines checked it out before

ushering the rest forward. Jake realised that his whole body was tense, ready for immediate flight

should there be even a hint of blue anywhere. He forced himself to relax and tried to moderate his
breathing as the escalator door closed and they headed down to the Administrative Level.

The escalator, which had always previously felt too big, too empty, suddenly felt

overcrowded and claustrophobic.

At least the lights are on.

It was the emergency system; he knew that the red tint to the overheads meant that the main

systems were all down, probably as a result of Jake himself pushing the panic button back when

things went to hell.

Only twenty-four hours ago. It feels like months.
 He braced himself again as the door slid open onto the admin level. But there were no bodies

– or body parts – and no hint of any blue. The marines checked out the corridor. It was empty, lit

again by the dim red glow from the overhead, but otherwise it could be any other working day.
Then his gaze shifted to the far end of the corridor. On any other working day the main

elevator door to the shaft would have been closed; either that or open to show the cab beyond. Today

the door lay open. The cab’s cables and the rough walls of the shaft itself were visible beyond.

The marines moved swiftly forward. At first Jake didn’t react, then he called out rather than
tongue the comm link, so that by the time he had regained his composure Hook and Dennings had

already reached the open cab door and showed every sign of looking down into the shaft.
“Wait,” Jake finally said into the comm, and was dismayed to hear a tremor in his voice.

“Back this way – let’s see what’s working and what’s not before we think about heading down that

way?”

Much to his relief the marines backed away, keeping a wary eye on the shaft as they returned

to where Jake stood at the admin office door. Even as they approached Jake had a picture in his

mind’s eye of blue tentacles frothing from the shaft and dragging the soldiers off screaming into the
darkness. It was with some sense of relief that he got everybody into the office and closed the door

behind him. Part of him knew that the door was no barrier for the blue entity. But another part, the

part that had been a small boy grateful for the fact that the closet door in his bedroom could be firmly

closed, was happy just not to have to look at the black hole of the shaft.

His sense of relief grew when he checked the systems. The caverns
below were secure, and air pressure was at normal levels throughout the

whole complex. He switched off his airflow and raised the faceplate on his
helmet.
“Okay folks,” he said. “Looks like we can breathe at least.”

While the others raised their own faceplates Jake checked the shaft. He had access to a
camera that looked down the full depth. He zoomed and saw, just visible in the depths, the roof of the

cab, resting at the bottom at the cavern level.

 Dare I bring it up?
There was no other way down to the caverns themselves, and Jake knew that Richards would

just order the cab brought up anyway. He yielded to the inevitable and turned to Dennings and Hook.

“You might want to take guard at the shaft,” he said. “I’m bringing the cab up. I’m hoping

it’ll be empty, but if it isn’t, you’ll get a chance to see how effective your Peacemaker is going to

be.”

Richards followed the marines out into the corridor and watched both them and Jake, from
the doorway. Jake in the meantime couldn’t take his eyes from the screen and the cab rising up

slowly out of the dark,

The first hint of blue and I’m gone.

In the end it was an anticlimax. The cab came up, Jake held his
breath, the door opened…and nothing. There was just an empty cab.
“Are there more cameras down there?” Richards asked,

Jake nodded. He cycled through every remote camera in the facility. All showed the same

thing. Dim, red-lit corridors and storerooms. There was no sign of any bodies, but neither was there

any sign of the entity.

“Okay,” Richards said. “We’re going in.”

 -12-

Steve had his hand on the switch for the burners all the way in as they

first approached, then entered the Vordlak’s cargo airlock. At the same time

Sam was almost frantically trying to raise anyone on the comm. There was

no answer, just the dry dead hiss of space noise.

They docked alongside Nelson’s ship, scanning its view ports for any
signs of life. But everything was dark and quiet.

“Where are they all?” Sam whispered, but Steve didn’t reply. He

didn’t want to consider that question; not until they’d had a chance to look

around.
Sam insisted that they suit up.
 “We don’t know what’s going on. There could be a toxin, or a hull

breach… let’s follow standard salvage procedure.”

Steve laughed.

“That might be the first time I’ve heard you use those words in that

order.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Please?” she said. “For me?”

The worry he saw in her eyes was infectious. They suited up and

tested every piece of their kit twice before heading for the airlock.

He gave Sam one last chance to reconsider before they started the
cycle.

“Are we sure about this?”

Sam took his hand.

“In and out and off again,” she said. “No hanging around, no

investigating strange noises. I just want to make sure that Doug and the

others are okay.”

He followed her lead and closed his helmet, tonguing the breather
into action.

They stayed hand in hand as the airlock opened. Steve realized as they

stepped down into the cargo hold that the ship felt somehow even more
dead than previously. It was still, as quiet as the darkness in which it hung,

and there was a fresh chill that had not been present before.

Sam gripped his hand tighter.

She feels it too.

But neither spoke of it, although they did cover the floor of the cargo

bay at a much brisker walk than they would have normally. He followed
Sam’s lead. She headed straight for the bridge, but there was no sign of

anyone there, just a cup of coffee with a cigarette butt in it.

Sam punched some buttons on the console but all she could get was

rolling static.

Most of the main systems are down. That’s not good. If anyone is still

here, they’re in a suit and breathing fumes by now.

Sam voiced what he was thinking.

“Doug must be out of action. He’d never be able to live it down if we

found he’d left it in this state.”

She laughed, but it came out as more of a sob, and she leaned against
him, just for a second before straightening.

“Let’s try the mess room next,” she said.

They had no better luck there. The place was as quiet as when they’d

found it the first time round.

But this is worse.

 There were signs of a meal having been prepared – but not eaten, the

pot still full of chilli and a jug of coffee, full but cold.

Where are the bodies?

That was a thought he wasn’t going to share with Sam any time soon.

He knew there were going to be bodies, and he’d tried to inure himself

against the sight that would surely be coming soon. Nelson’s crew wouldn’t

run quiet like this for any period of time. And Doug in particular was just

too noisy to be silenced.

By the time they reached the engine room Steve’s nerves were in

shreds. This time it was he who tightened his grip, so much so that Sam let

out a small yelp of pain.

“Sorry,” Steve said, at the same time as his ear-piece crackled into

life.

“Steve? Sam? Is that you?”

“Doug!” Sam almost shouted. “Where are you?”

“Control room,” he said. He sounded beat, almost too tired to speak.

“Where are you?”

“Outside the door,” Steve replied, and heard an answering gasp from

Doug.

“Shit. You shouldn’t be on board. It’s not safe. Get in here, quick.”
 The control room was a sealed environment and they had to pass

through an airlock to enter. The hiss as the door opened told them that the

room beyond was pressurized fully, and to prove it Doug was sitting inside

- unsuited.

The whole space was filled with a luminescent blue that glowed like

neon and sent dancing shadows flickering around the walls. That wasn’t the

strangest thing though. Their friend sat in the middle of the room, inside a

ten-foot diameter pentacle that was being beamed down from the holo-

projector in the ceiling. He was surrounded by discarded ration-pouches and

water bottles. It looked like he’d been there for quite some time.
Steve heard the airlock hiss again behind them as they were locked in.

“Quick,” Doug said, almost shouting. “Get over here. Before it comes

back.”

He was so intense it was hard to say no. Still hand in hand, Steve and

Sam walked over and joined him inside the circle. And immediately they

did so the ship started to feel alive again, almost warm.

“You can take off the helmets,” Doug said. Steve felt too tall, standing

above where Doug sat cross-legged below him. Sam seemed to agree. She

pulled him down to sit beside their friend as they lifted their faceplates and

tongued off the breather tubes.

 Doug immediately threw his arms around Steve and started to bawl

like a baby. Steve patted him awkwardly on the back while Sam looked on,

bemused and slightly amused despite the situation. It was several minutes

before Doug calmed himself enough to talk.

“I thought I’d never see anyone again,” he said through sniffles. “But

you shouldn’t have come. It’s not safe.”

“Where are the others?” Sam said softly.

Doug flinched as if he’d been slapped.

“It took them,” he said. “They refused to come into the protection and

it took them. If they’re lucky, they’re dancing with the others in the blue

ocean.”

Now it was Steve’s turn to flinch. He might have questioned Doug

further as to his meaning, but Sam had other ideas. She took Doug’s arm

and tried to lift them both from the floor.

“Come on. We’re leaving. Right now.”

But Doug refused to be budged, and Steve couldn’t see how they’d

get him out anyway – he didn’t have a suit, and the ship beyond was in

vacuum. And it was obvious that Doug wanted to talk. Steve handed Sam a
bottle of water.

“Let’s hear him out first,” he said. “Maybe he knows something

that’ll help us sort this mess out.”

 Sam wasn’t happy, but Doug was nodding.

“Yes, let’s stay here. It’s safe here.”

He seemed like a man on the edge of sanity, but when he started to

tell his story it came out calmly and orderly, as if he’d already spent some

time getting it straight in his mind.

“It started to get hinky not long after you left,” he began. As he spoke

his gaze kept wavering from their faces, looking around the walls.
He’s expecting something to come through.

Steve forced himself to pay attention. Their lives might depend on

something Doug could tell them.

“I got a call from NASA,” Doug continued. “It nearly sent Nelson
into apoplexy, for they demanded that the Vordlak was theirs, and that

salvage rights did not apply. But that wasn’t the important bit. They said
that, although they wouldn’t pay out on salvage, they would pay us – me in

particular – to carry out an exorcism.

“I didn’t get the full story from the NASA boys, and I had a nagging
suspicion they were deliberately withholding something important from me

– but more of that later. I was told that there was a breach in the control
system on board, and that they were a hundred per cent sure that the
exorcism ritual they would provide me would bring it under control. It

would also allow the engines to be fully charged, and get us to Mars in
double-quick time.

“Of course I didn’t quite believe them, but Nelson had the money in
sight – they were offering more than we would have got for our share of the

salvage. He more or less ordered me to do as NASA said. And I went along

with it – you know me, always keen to play with the toys.
“And as usual, I wanted an audience. When I was ready I had

everyone gather in here for my performance. Nelson was back to his most
skeptical, but even he was shocked when I started up the pentacle and the

air immediately started to hum in time with the computer-generated chant

that NASA had provided.”

Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

Even as Doug repeated the chant Steve caught a glimpse of something

at the corner of his eye – a bluish flicker that immediately had his heart

racing. But when he turned towards it there was only a blank wall. Doug
had immediately continued his story and looked about as miserable as any

man Steve had ever seen. His voice choked up with grief.
 “And as usual I had to show off. I’d been messing with the
holographic matrix; this time when I called up the little wizard, he had my

face, smiling back at me. He wasn’t smiling long. The blue mist started to
come through the walls. I retreated, away from the console, into the

pentagram here.”
Doug stopped, looked from Steve to Sam and back again.

“You must believe me,” he said, his voice now barely more than a
whisper. “I tried everything I could to get them to join me in here. But

Nelson was having none of it.

“‘Mumbo-jumbo’ he called it. When the blue mist started to thicken

and throw out tentacles, Nelson walked forward to meet it, as if he might
repel it by sheer force of will. And of course the others followed; they

would have followed Nelson to the very Gates of Hell.

“And I think that’s just what they did.”

Doug stopped, unable to continue as fresh tears ran down his cheeks.
“It took them,” he whispered. “One second they were here; the next
they were all gone. But I could still hear their screams, for a long time

afterwards.”
He fell quiet again, and his next sentence was spoken softly, almost to

himself.
 “I think it took them to the pyramid. I think they’ve been

assimilated.”
Steve spotted, too late, that Sam had reached breaking point. She

grabbed Doug by the shoulders and started shaking him.

“Enough of this bullshit,” she said, almost shouting. “Where are

they?”
Steve put a hand on her arm, and she calmed immediately.
“I think we already know sweetheart,” he said softly. “We’ve both

had the dreams.”

Doug’s eyes widened.

“You too?” he whispered. “I thought it was restricted to this area. If

you’ve had the dreams, it means the malign influence is much stronger than

I thought.”
He doesn’t know about Mars.

Steve wasn’t about to start that conversation – not with Doug in his
current state.

“Sam’s right,” Steve said. “We need to get out of here. Let NASA
handle it – they’re the experts. Can you pressurize this wreck so we can get

you out?”
“I could,” Doug replied, but he didn’t look happy about it. “But I

won’t. It’s not safe out there.”

 Steve laughed.

“And it’s safe in here?”

Doug didn’t laugh in return.

“In here,” he said, motioning around the pentacle. “We’re safe in

here. For a while.”

Sam looked like she was about to explode again, but any further
discussion became moot.

“It’s starting again,” Doug said.

A blue mist drifted through the airlock door.
 -13-

The journey down to the caverns was the longest minute of Jake’s

life. They’d left Patel up in the control room. In case of emergencies

Richards said, and Jake had to restrain himself from stating the obvious.

We’ve already got one of those.

He stood at the rear of the cab with the small man while the marines

covered the door. Jake steeled himself against the sight of his friend’s

bodies. He hadn’t seen them on the camera link-up.

But they have to be somewhere.

To quiet his misgivings he turned to Richards.

“So how did you get dragged into all of this?” he asked, and even as

he spoke he realized he actually was interested in the answer.

 “It started with a dream,” the small man replied, and Jake saw that he

too was relieved to have something else to occupy his mind. “And you

already know what that dream was of – a black pyramid under a purple sky.

I first dreamt it nearly fifty years ago.”

That took Jake aback, but Richards didn’t notice, staring unseeing
straight ahead as he spoke.

“I devoted my life to that dream, for it was so vivid, so clear that I

knew it to be real. I studied, long and deep in old books written in archaic

languages. And after a time, I finally arrived at some sort of understanding.

“I think the pyramid is the entity itself,” he said, almost whispering.

“And I think it has known of us for a very long time. Long enough for it to

enter our myths, our collective unconscious… our dreams. It may even be

Hell itself, the place of infinite torment for lost souls to scream in eternity.

And as for the other dream? The dance in the ocean? I have come to believe

that the entity too is a dreamer, and in that ocean, we all dream together. It

too may well have entered our myths, as limbo.

“I’m afraid I have become what NASA call the expert in this matter,”
he concluded.

“But exorcism?” Jake said. “Isn’t that a bit too medieval?”

Richards managed a laugh.

 “It turns out that the Church were doing something right all along. But

the power is not in the faith as they thought; it is in the rhythm and cadence

of the words themselves.”

Jake was surprised when the elevators door slid open – he hadn’t

realized they’d reached bottom. The marines stepped out into the cavern.

“We are all creatures of rhythm and vibration,” Richards said. “And
like ripples in a pool, sometimes when we meet we cause a wave, other

times a trough… and sometimes we just cancel each other out.”

Jake didn’t get time to think about that, as Hook waved them forward

and out onto the stockroom floor.

Despite his worries, Jake saw no bodies. There was no sign of any

violence at all. The only indication that there was a problem was the fact

that the dim red emergency lighting was all they had to show them the way.
And I’ve got myself to blame for that one – it was me who pushed the

panic button.

He’d gone over those few frantic minutes in his mind many times

now; wondering if he had in fact caused his friend’s deaths and if it could
all have been avoided had he just held his curiosity in check and let the suits

do their jobs.

But then none of us would have had any warning at all – and I’d be
just as dead as the rest of them.

He forced himself to focus – Dennings was looking to him for

directions. Jake pointed to the tunnel leading to F3.

“Down there,” he said. “About a klick along. You’ll know you’re

there when you see the rubble.”

He considered staying put and leaving them to it, but now that he was

here the idea of spending any time alone in an empty chamber with only the

emergency lights on and shadows dancing in every corner had lost any

appeal it might have had. He followed behind Richards as Dunning and

Hook led the way.

He was ready to run at the merest hint of blue, but it was the red that

started to bother him after a few minutes walking. The air felt hot, heavy

and damp, and along with the dim lighting made it feel like they were

walking through the gut of some huge beast. He half-expected the walls to

constrict, for digestion to start.

The marines in contrast seemed almost sanguine about the situation.

“This must be like a walk in the park for you guys,” Jake said, more
for the need to talk than from any great desire for education. Hook however
took him seriously.

“Baby-sitting an exorcist in a cave is not exactly what I signed up

for,” the big man said. He patted his weapon. “But me and Betsy here are

ready for a tussle. Bring it on.”

I hope you don’t get your wish.

A minute later Richards had to stop. He put a hand to his forehead,

and looked to be in some degree of pain.

“Can’t you feel it?” he said. His eyes were bloodshot; his cheeks red

and inflamed. “It’s here. We’re getting close.”

Jake nodded.
“F3 is just around the next bend. But I’ve already told you; there’s

just a pile of rubble.”

Richards waved him away, but even that small action seemed to take

all of the man’s effort.

“I need a favor Jake,” he said. He shucked off the backpack. “Can

you carry this for me? I have to concentrate from here on in, and this is like

a tombstone on my back.”

I wish you hadn’t said that.

Jake thought it but didn’t say it. Richards looked to be in no mood for

levity. He had started to chant under his breath, the same words Jake had

heard before back on the road.

 Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

Jake hefted the pack onto his back. It didn’t feel heavy at all. And

now that Richards was chanting, the walls of the cavern seemed less

oppressive, the air less heavy. Most of the apprehension he felt at

approaching the mouth of the F3 storeroom had evaporated. He even smiled

when Dennings started to sing.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho it’s off to work we go.

Jake turned back to Richards, to ask if this was his doing. Sweat ran

down the small man’s cheeks and his skin color had had gone from red to a

sallow gray. His lips were similarly bloodless, like dry paper, and his tongue

looked like cold stone as it flickered between his teeth.

“Is there anything I can do?” Jake asked, all sense of wellbeing

evaporating as quickly as it had come. Richards shook his head and strode

off, ignoring the three others and heading at pace for their goal.
 -14-

“Stay in the pentacle,” Doug whispered. “Whatever you do – stay

within the lines.”

The plasm oozed from every wall; wispy and thin at first, but quickly

taking on solidity, sending out long whip-like tendrils that searched the
space ahead of any encroachment into the room. Doug seemed hypnotized.

“It’s coming through a breach,” he whispered. “The NASA geeks said

that the exorcism chant would seal the hole but, as you can see, that failed

pretty spectacularly.”

The room was by now a thrashing frenzy of tendrils. Every time one
of them touched the area around the pentacle it brought a shower of sparks

from the holo-field and a rapid retreat by the plasm - but only for a matter

of seconds. Very soon it was back again, lashing the air above them and

sending fresh sparks flying around the room.

It’s testing the defenses.
 As if he’d read the thought, Doug continued.

“It will hold,” he said, looking up at the dancing sparks. “At least, it

has until now.”

“Did you try the exorcism again?” Sam asked.

Doug never lowered his eyes from the show above.

“Twice now,” he finally replied. “I took a chance each time, waiting

for a quiet period when this wasn’t happening. But it’s almost as if the

plasm is coming through from elsewhere, as if there’s a second breach we

don’t know about.

Steve had a sinking feeling as he remembered.

He doesn’t know about Mars.

He looked at Sam, and she nodded.

“Tell him,” she said. “It might be important.”

Doug finally looked down, staring at Steve. For the first time since

they’d arrived he showed signs of a spark of interest. Steve didn’t let the

opportunity go to waste. He laid out the details of what they knew; from the

broadcasts, and from the bean-counter back at base. By the time he finished
Doug looked like he was excited enough to set of sparks of his own.

“That’s it,” he said, and suddenly he was no longer the whimpering

beaten child, but their old friend again, ready to solve this latest puzzle.

“That’s the fact I was missing. All I have to do is recalibrate the acoustic
properties to take the second breach into account. I’ll have to factor in the

distance to Mars, and make sure to add a fudge factor for attenuation but…”

He started to rise, looking as if he meant to step out of the pentacle.

Steve made a grab for him and missed, but Sam caught him sound the legs

and dragged him back down. She was almost too late as a long tendril found

his arm where it had left the plane of the protections, and wrapped itself
round Doug’s wrist, twice before he could move.

He pulled his arm back into the protection. For a second the tendril

tried to tug back. Doug howled in pain and yanked, hard. The holo-grid

flared bright yellow and a crack of static ran around the walls. When

Steve’s eyes adjusted after the flare it was to see an empty room, all trace of

the plasm gone except for a worm-like twist of flesh at Doug’s feet that

turned quickly to little more than blue smoke. It dissipated with an almost

disappointed hiss.

A red, weeping scar that looked painful in the extreme circled Doug’s

wrist, but before Steve or Sam could stop him he had rolled away from
them, out of the pentacle, headed for the console.

“Stay there,” he shouted. “This will only take a couple of minutes.”

He started to work frantically at the command center. Sam showed

signs of wanting to rise and join him there, but Steve grabbed her and

pulled her close.

 “No heroics, remember?”

They sat huddled together waiting for Doug to complete his

reprogramming.
The plasm started to seep from the walls two minutes later.
 -15-

As Jake had expected, the opening that led to F3 was completely

blocked with rubble.

“What now?” he asked.

Richards stared for a while at the blockage, all the time uttering the
rhythmic chanting under his breath. Eventually he turned to Jake, and

paused the chant long enough to answer.

“The rift is through there. Obviously we can’t get to it. But maybe we

can widen it to the point where we can?”

That doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me.

Richards had gone back to the muttered chanting, He motioned that

Jake should take off the backpack and put it on the ground. He bent and

started to unpack it. First out was a small black box that Jake recognized as

a portable holo-projector, but one much more advanced than any he had
seen before. Richards put it to one side. The rest of the items were far older
in the techniques to be employed in their use. There was some chalk, five

small bottles of water, five candles, and, in a vacuum pack sealed tight, five

cloves of garlic. When Richards tore the pack open the pungent smell of the

bulbs immediately filled the corridor.

The exorcist switched on the hold-projector. An elaborate pentacle

immediately appeared on the cavern floor, traced in brilliant white, made

more so by its contrast against the dim red emergency lights. Jake moved

over for a closer look. It consisted of a five pointed star encased inside two

concentric circles. There was writing around the circumference inside the

two rings, and as he read, he heard Richards mouth those same words.
Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

Richards started to draw in chalk over the lines projected in the holo-

field, then traced over the written words of the chant taking care to match

the holo-lines exactly. In the meantime the two marines prowled the

corridor.

Now that they’re here they’re itching for a fight.

Richards started to rub garlic along the chalk lines. Before he was

halfway done the blue fog started to seep through the pile of rubble.

“Whatever you’re doing, go faster,” Jake said. Richards didn’t pause,

but motioned with his free hand that Jake should move inside the pentacle.
Jake felt faintly silly in agreeing, but stepped over the chalk lines and into

the so-called protection. Once again things felt much less oppressive, and

the feeling of something bearing down on him lifted.

“Get in here,” Jake shouted to the marines. “I think he knows what

he’s doing.”

The marines had other ideas. As soon as the mist formed they had
their weapons raised and ready. And as soon as it started to coalesce and

firm, they started firing. The muzzle-flash was dazzling, the sound

thunderous. Through a growing haze Jake was just able to make out that the

weapons were having little to no effect on the entity. Where bullets struck

the flesh they left a small neat hole; one that immediately filled in leaving

no trace of a wound.

“Fire in the hole,” Hook shouted, and Jake saw the man first arm then

throw a grenade. He had the good sense to cover his ears and close his eyes

so the whoomp didn’t have a completely devastating effect on him, but his

ears rang and he saw the after image behind his eyes.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he wished he’d kept them shut. All

that the grenade blast had achieved was to spread pieces of the entity over a

wider area. Worm-like pieces of it slithered and snaked across the chamber

floor and up the walls. Pieces as large as fingers initially stuck then fell

from the roof.

 One fell with a moist slap on Hook’s forehead. The big man’s skin

immediately started to melt. A reflex jerk caused him to spray the nearest

wall with a volley, and Jake had to throw both himself and Richards to the
ground as bullets ricocheted around them.

Hook dropped his weapon to the floor and clasped both hands to his

head, only to scream piteously as they stuck, melting and flowing like

rubber in a flame. Dennings moved to stand over her comrade, gun raised

but unsure as to her next action.

Some of the fragments of the blue gloop hung from the ceiling above

the pentacle. Jake moved to avoid being directly beneath them, but Richards

took his arm.

It was only then that Jake noticed the small man had both stopped

inscribing the circle and chanting. Lit candles sat at all five points of the

star and the bottles of water sat, opened at the top, in the valleys. Richards

touched Jake’s arm again.

“Watch,” he said softly.

One of the blue blobs came away from the ceiling with a moist

sucking sound. Before Jake could stop him Richards stepped directly

beneath it. Jake waited for it to hit the exorcist on the head. Instead it

seemed to hit a barrier a foot or so above him. There was a sudden shower
of sparks and a hiss. The blue gloop came apart like smoke in the wind.
 “It seems the protections are working,” Richards said with a grim

smile.

Dennings still stood over Hook. The big man lay on the ground,

hands over his forehead, writhing and moaning, obviously in acute pain.

Jake made to leave the pentacle but Richards pulled him back.

“They must come to us,” Richards said. “It’s too risky otherwise.”

“Get over here,” Jake shouted.

Dennings ignored him. Instead she renewed her firing, pumping

volley after volley into the blue. As before it had no discernible effect, but

she didn’t seen to have any other plan. She screamed as she fired and, at her
feet, Hook screamed along with her.

Jake once again tried to leave the pentacle to go to their aid, but

Richards pulled him back with a surprisingly strong grip.

“What would you do?” the small man said, having to shout to be

heard above the roar of gunfire. “What could you do?”

Something.

Anything.

But this wasn’t like his earlier flight. Then he’d been acting out of

good old-fashioned fear of the unknown. Now he could actually see what

they were up against, could see that anything he might attempt would be no

help at all to the marines. What he felt now wasn’t fear – it was despair.
 “Get over here!” he called out, but Dennings seemed stuck to the spot

and Jake was pretty sure he hadn’t been heard over the din.

“It’s too late,” Richards shouted.

It was all over so quickly that Jake scarcely had time to breathe, never

mind go to the marines’ aid. Almost as if it had taken enough indignities

from the weapons, the blue gloop surged forward; no tendrils or tentacles,

just a rushing wall, like a breaking wave. Dennings fired a volley, then the

cavern fell completely silent as she, and Hook, were engulfed.

The wave kept coming, rolling across the cavern towards the

pentacle.

“Stand fast lad,” Richards said, but in truth there was no time to do

anything else. The wave of blue crashed against the defences. The air filled

with yellow sparks, and there was a sudden sensation of heaviness and

pressure. Jake felt pain in his ears. A howl rose up, a scream as of many

voices raised in unison.

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!

A new voice, deep and pounding, shouted above the chorus. It took
Jake a second to realise it came from Richards’ throat.

Dhumna Ort!
 Another blinding flash brought a fleeting, searing pain. Darkness

called for Jake, and he went with it willingly.

 -16-

“Doug. Get your ass back here right now.”

When Sam used that tone, few men disagreed, and Doug was no
exception. He fiddled with the controls one last time then rejoined Steve

and Sam in the pentacle. And he was just in time. Blue tendrils once more
filled the room, writhing and lashing against the protection.

“I got it done,” Doug said. Steve saw that their friend was back;

excited and full of energy. The wound at his wrist looked raw and painful

but Doug, in his current state, probably would scarcely notice if his hand

fell off. “It should kick in sometime in the next few minutes; there will be
some processing needed first.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask,” Steve said, trying to force his attention

away from the squirming tentacles. “But what should kick in?”

“The new improved ritual,” Doug said.

 “Well that explains everything,” Sam said sarcastically as a large

tendril lashed the defenses bringing a new flare of sparks.

They huddled closer together, seeking the center of the pentacle. It

felt to Steve like being inside a cage, albeit one that was alive… and

hungry. He asked another question, needing to divert his mind from the
snake-like tentacle that slithered across the ceiling directly above the

protective dome.

“So what’s the improved part.”

He had to give Doug a nudge and repeat himself. The engineer was

still hypnotized by the dance of the plasm.

“It’s rather beautiful, don’t you think,” Doug finally said. “What

we’re seeing here is an extrusion from another dimension.”

“It’s a bit lively,” Sam said dryly as another tentacle lashed against

the protection.

Doug got a far away look in his eyes.

“I think, over there, wherever there is, it is intelligent. There’s the

pyramid of course, but also the ocean, and the dance. It obviously doesn’t
think in the same way we do, but there’s a mind at work. I’m sure of it.”

“But what does it want from us?” Steve asked.

“I doubt that want comes into the equation,” Doug replied. “It

probably doesn’t even register our existence. I’ve been watching this plasm
for a while now. It acts just like any creature would when encountering a

new environment; testing its limits, feeling out the new space.”

“But what about the dreams?” Sam asked.

Doug had that far away stare again,

“I believe that’s a function of being too close to it – too close to the

breach in the dimensions. There’s some seepage, and resonance effects

involved. It’s all quite fascinating,”

Steve hated to do it, but a dose of reality was called for.

“Was it fascinating to watch our friends die?”

He immediately felt like he’d kicked a puppy. Doug’s face seemed to

collapse in, and sudden tears rolled down his cheeks. Sam shot Steve a look

that would have floored a lesser man, but Steve ploughed on.

“Cut to the chase Doug – we might not have long. What’s this

modified exorcism you were talking about? And when does it kick in?”

Just at that moment a soft chant filled the air, and Doug smiled.

“Timing – you’ve either got it or you haven’t.”

It was the same Gaelic chanting as before, but at a slightly faster pace

this time, and multi-layered, as if many voices were joining in, only not

quite on the beat. It reminded Steve of a call to prayer he’d once heard on a

visit to one of the old European cathedrals and it had the same sepulchral
property. The sound echoed around them, and caused the plasm to pause in

its exploration.

“It’s a counter-vibration,” Doug said, as if that would mean anything

to them. “It should, in theory anyway, resonate with both the breach here

and the breach on Mars, and cause any seepage from the other side to

retreat, allowing the fault to be closed at the end of the cycle of sound.”

“And how long will that take?”

“Ten minutes or so,” Doug said, but he didn’t look too sure. And he

looked less confident when a counter chant began, seeming to come from

out of the walls around them. It quickly rose to a scream, as of many voices

raised in unison.

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!

The air grew hot and heavy, pressure building in Steve’s chest and in

his sinuses until he felt like it might cave in his skull and leak his brains

from his ears.

Just as he thought he could take no more a new voice, deep and pounding,

shouted above the chorus.

Dhumna Ort!

Things got strange very quickly soon after.

 -17-

Jake dreamed.
He was in a high place, soaring like an eagle above a barren plain under a
purple sky. It seemed he spent hours there in the air, drifting slowly towards
an unseen destination, but he felt no worry, no fear. It was not like being in
a dream at all; everything seemed vibrant and alive. He felt hot wind on his
face, heard it rush in his ears, and he could taste the air, which proved to be
acrid and bitter, like cheap tobacco. He seemed to hover above a huge black
pyramid carved from a single piece of stone, like Jet but somehow darker
still, and with a sheen to it that made it shimmer, like far-off buildings on a
hot summer’s day.
He tried to back away, but a compulsion held him, and drew him down ever
closer to the structure. Deep down inside the pyramid, something stirred,
something that knew Jake was there. He descended ever more rapidly.
Shortly he was inside the structure itself, and falling through darkness.
Everything was bathed in a thin blue dancing light and the pyramid seemed
to be a massive empty shell, sepulchral, like a huge cathedral. Jake was still
high above the floor of the building but already he saw things moving
below. The floor was covered in the familiar viscous blue fluid, bubbling
and frothing, throwing high tendrils upward only for them to fall back with
a splash to the lake of slime. Thicker globules seemed to swim through the
fluid and as Jake got closer these gained mass, swelling into all too familiar
shapes – a torso, two legs, two arms, and a head, conical and distended, but
almost human. Ten of them grew from the slime and stood, stock-still.
As one, they lifted their heads and stared straight at the point where Jake
hung.
A voice shouted in Jake’s ear.
Dhumna Ort!
Jake blinked.

…and looked up into Richards’ concerned eyes. He was back in the

chamber, and although he didn’t quite understand it, he knew that he had

been close to being taken.

What was the word… assimilated.

Richards helped Jake to his feet.

“I thought I’d lost you lad,” the small man said. Jake was about to

reply when he finally noticed where he was. He still stood inside a holo-
generated pentacle, but beyond the dome of protection the walls of the

chamber couldn’t be seen. All that was there was a roiling, seething mass of

blue, the same viscous fluid he’d just seen in his dream. Once he got his

bearings he turned towards where he knew the entrance would be to F3.

The fluid seemed thicker, denser there. Shadows danced and cavorted to a

rhythm that Jake couldn’t hear, but could feel pounding in his gut, his heart

thumping in time.
 Richards started to chant again, and immediately it was as if the

malign influence from beyond the protection had lifted away completely.

Jake’s head cleared.

“I suppose I need to thank you,” he said, but Richards only nodded.

He paused in the chanting.

“I need to concentrate on this,” he said. “We must widen the breach to

bring it within reach of the pentacle’s influence.”

That still didn’t sound like a good idea to Jake, but Richards had

protected him so far, and in truth, the small man was now the only thing

standing between Jake and the same fate that had befallen the marines.

If letting him get on with it means I can avoid getting eaten, I’m all

for it.

The swirl of the blue just outside the pentacle was mesmerizing. It

moved as if it had a definite purpose. Tendrils probed along the domed

surface defined by the holo-projector, only rearing back when there was a

spark of electrical discharge.

As Jake watched he noticed a new phenomenon. The fluid started to

surge and pulse in time with the cadence of Richards’ chanting.

Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

 At the same time the shadows over at the entrance to F3 thinned and

tore, the area becoming semi-opaque, almost watery. Like looking down

through a glass of liquid, Jake saw the room beyond.

That’s not F3.

At first he thought the opaque quality of the fluid was causing some

kind of reflective quality, for he saw what looked to be an image of the

holo-pentacle. But instead of two shadowy figures standing inside there

were three, and they were frantically waving their hands as if trying to catch

Jake’s attention.

What the hell is this?

Richards’ chanting speeded up, becoming louder and once again

sounding more like a chorus of voices than any thing that came from a

single throat. The other pentacle seemed to rush forward. Jake felt the

protective dome lurch as if magnetically attracted to the newcomer. There

was a sudden flurry of electrical sparks. Richards shouted at the top of his

voice.

Dhumna Ort!

*
 A blinding flash momentarily blinded Jake and when his sight

recovered he was once again elsewhere. They stood in a pentacle – a

different pentacle. Two men and a woman were there with them, and these

three all had the same expression on their faces – one of complete

astonishment.

Richards took it all in his stride.

“This must be the Vordlak, yes?”

The woman regained her composure first, and answered.

“Yes. But where the hell did you come from?”

“Mars,” Richards replied. “Where I’ve just sealed the other breach.
Hopefully there will be time for explanations later, but for now, I need to

know everything that you’ve done here.”

 -18-

Steve was still trying to make sense of what had just happened as
Doug brought the newcomer up to speed.

It had all happened so fast. They’d heard a shout.

Dhumna Ort!

The wall furthest from them had thinned – there was no better word
for it, and they could see, faintly at first then increasingly more solid, two

men in a pentacle very similar to their own.

It was all a bit of a jumble in Steve’s mind after that. There had been

more chanting, some surging plasm, and an awful lot of electrical sparks,

culminating in one last blinding flash.

When that was all over, there were five of them in the pentacle, and

the plasm was gone. But whether it was gone completely, or merely

retreated back into the walls Steve didn’t know.

And I’m not about to do anything stupid in an attempt to find out.

 It seemed that Doug and the newcomer had no such qualms. Both of

them stepped from the protection and made their way to the console.

Seconds later a soft chant filled the air and the pentacle started to glow a

deep golden colour. And it had another effect – Steve immediately felt less

stressed. He looked at Sam, she smiled back, and suddenly life didn’t seem
all that bad.

The other newcomer was still standing in the pentacle, looking as

dazed as Steve had felt.

“The Vordlak?” the newcomer said. “How the hell did we get here?”

Steve laughed.
“I think maybe one of those two over at the console could answer

that, but don’t look at me; I’m just a tourist here.”

They made hasty introductions, but there wasn’t time for much more

because, right on cue, the plasm started to seep from the walls again.

Doug turned a control and the Gaelic chant filled the room. The plasm

retreated, although every few seconds an extrusion flowed through only to

be pulled back again.

Whatever that chant does, it seems to be working.

Doug and the small newcomer walked back over and joined them in

the pentacle.
 “It won’t hold long,” the newcomer said. “You should all go, and

quickly.”

The other newcomer – Jake he’d said his name was – was having

none of that.

“There’s no way I’m leaving here without you,” he said. “I’ve done

enough running. I want to see this thing through.”

It was Sam who pointed out the other flaw in the thinking.

“We can’t all go anyway,” she said. “There’s no air outside this room

and we’re a helmet short.”

Doug shook his head.

“No, you’re not. I’m not going either. I’m staying with Richards. I

can help.”

“We came back to save your ass,” Sam said. “If you think we’re

leaving without you, you’ve got another think coming.”

Doug didn’t get a chance to reply. The newcomer, Jake, came up

behind him and put him in a chokehold. Doug was unconscious in seconds.
“Problem solved,” Jake said, removing his helmet and passing it to

Steve. “Get your friend out of here. We’ve got a breach to seal and I get a

feeling that my man here isn’t too confident of success.

Richards didn’t say anything – he didn’t have to. The look in his eyes

told Steve all he needed to know. He didn’t hesitate. He put the spare
helmet over Doug’s head and made sure he was getting air. He hefted a

shoulder into Doug’s armpit and turned towards the airlock.

“Sam,” he said. “Time to go.”

She didn’t argue, instead moved to the other side of Doug and took

her share of the weight.

“We’ll wait in the cargo bay for you,” Steve said as the airlock started

to cycle.

Richards shook his head.

“Get to a safe distance. The breach is highly unstable and if it tears

there’s no telling how wide it can get. I’ll be in touch when we’ve got the

job done.”

He said when, but his tone said if. Steve didn’t push it. The airlock

opened and between him and Sam they got Doug inside.

“Last chance,” he said to Richards. The man smiled grimly.

“Yes, it is,” he said, and punched the button to close the airlock door.

The journey through the abandoned ship was one that Steve would

never forget. Even from the first stretch of corridor outside the control
centre airlock it was apparent that the plasm was everywhere, oozing in

heavy droplets from walls… and ceiling.

“Don’t let any of it touch you,” he said, having to swerve and duck –

not the easiest thing to do when the three of them were staggering as one

unit. They wove through the corridor as quickly as they could. At some

point Steve became aware that he could feel the rhythm of the chant in his

gut; something that was going on back in the pentacle was definitely having

an effect out here in the rest of the ship.

And hopefully it’ll work in our favour long enough for us to get free.

Doug came to his senses just as they reached the cargo bay. It took
him a second or two to realise what had happened to him, and another few

seconds to decide whether to get angry or not. By that time it was too late

anyway.

The three of them turned to look back the way they had come. All of

the corridors leading off the bay were completely filled with oozing plasm.

“Looks like you’re coming with us,” Steve said, and Doug nodded.

“Looks like it. And we’d best be quick about it.”

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!

The plasm surged, filling a quarter of the cargo bay in seconds.

The three of them ran the rest of the way to their vessel.
The plasm followed at their heels.
 -19-

Jake had plenty of time to reflect on his suddenly discovered heroism.

He stood in the pentacle beside Richards, the chanting ringing out around
them. He could hear that it was slowly, subtly, building to reach an eventual

crescendo, but by the sound of it that was some way away yet.
The plasm had become bolder, seeping into the room and slumping in

quivering blobs at the junction of wall and floors. As the chant from the

computer got louder, so the plasm responded with the now familiar scream

of its own, the harsh grating of it setting Jake’s teeth on edge.

Tekeli Li!
Tekeli Li!

Richards in the meantime kept time with the exorcism’s Gaelic chant,

first whispering, then speaking and eventually shouting along in time.

Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.
 All the while the plasm slowly filled the room until, just as it had

been in F3, the protective dome was completely surrounded by oozing blue

gloop

Here we go again.

The plasm seethed and roiled, as if angry. The piping screams rose
and rose, threatening to drown out the computer’s chant completely.

Richards stopped, just long enough to plead with Jake.

“Help me. Sing.”

The pause had cost him dearly. A thick drop of gloop fell from the

ceiling, hissed against the defenses… and kept coming, a lot less of it
remaining as it fell on Richards’ head… but more than enough to start to

melt and burn.

Jake lifted a hand, thinking to push the gloop off, but Richards, his

face a mask of pain, shrugged him away.

“Sing,” he shouted. “It’s our only chance.”

Jake had heard the chant often enough by now to manage at least a

rough approximation. He raised his voice to join Richards as the smaller

man shouted.

Ri linn dioladh na beatha, Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis, Ri linn iobar

na creadha, Ri linn dortadh na fala.

 Wisps of smoke came from the raw wound on the small man’s scalp,

red and weeping where half his hair had already been melted away. The

skin of the scalp beneath bubbled, as if boiling away. Jake could scarcely

imagine the pain the man must be in, but his voice stayed strong.

As before, it seemed that there were more voices than just two in the

chorus. Rationally Jake thought it must be the computer, augmenting their

singing and amplifying it. But that’s not what it felt like. It felt like they

were pulling power from the air itself, using the natural vibration of this

universe to negate the other.

Whatever the cause, it seemed to be working. As before, the plasm

seemed to stretch and thin, taking on an aqueous property. Jake started to

see a shadowy scene beyond. But this was no alternative pentacle, nor was

he looking back into F3. He knew exactly what he was seeing. The last time

he’d seen it was in a dream. Once more he looked over the wide space

inside the pyramid and a lake of slime. Ten humanoid figures swelled and

grew from the slime and stood, stock-still.

As one, they lifted their heads and stared straight at the protective pentacle.
They started to walk forward, solidifying as they came, features forming on
the faces – sharp noses, thin mouths and wide almost-shaped eyes – blue
eyes, staring.
A voice shouted in Jake’s ear.

Dhumna Ort!
 This time he’d been waiting for it. Jake closed his eyes and braced

himself for the blinding flash.

It did not come.

Instead the plasm screamed louder.

Tekeli Li!

Tekeli Li!

The blue gloop threw itself again and again on the protective dome,

causing sparks to flare. And beyond that, the ten tall figures were pushing

their way forward, arms outstretched. Jake could imagine all too well the

effect being enveloped in their embrace would have on human flesh.

Richards had continued to sing, although now there was not the same

resonance as before, even when Jake joined him. The small man stopped,

but indicated that Jake should continue.

He started to walk away, towards the rim of the circle, shouting as he

went.

Dhumna Ort!

Dhumna Ort!

“No!” Jake shouted. “No more.”

He put out a hand and grabbed Richards’ shoulder, just as the exorcist

put a foot on the lines of the pentacle and called out one last time.
Dhumna Ort!
The resultant blinding flash blew Jake back into darkness.
 -20-

Steve, Sam and Doug watched from five kilometres away.

The Vordlak glowed in the darkness, blue and swirling. Steve felt the

vibration build in his gut.

Not long now.

When it finished it was quick. The blue shimmering light flared

brightly, just once, then seemed to fall in on itself, winking out like a dying

star. The vibration in his gut cut off. When he looked back, the Vordlak had

gone and there was only an empty star field in view.

“Is that it?” Sam asked.

Steve nodded. “I think so. Whatever Richards did, it looks like it

worked.”

They spent an hour trying to reach the Vordlak, hoping against hope
that Richards or Jake would reply.
 But there was only dead space. Eventually they gave up.

“Tell you what,” Steve said as they set course for Mars. “Let’s not

take any work for a while. I need a holiday, somewhere sunny, with ground

under our feet.”

Sam took his hand.

“Whatever you say boss.”
13
3

-21-

Jake floated.
Shapes moved in the dark, wispy shadows with no substance, shadows that
capered and whirled as the dance grew ever more frenetic. He tasted salt in
his mouth, and was buffeted, as if by a strong, surging tide, but as the beat
grew ever stronger he cared little.
He gave himself to it, lost in the dance, lost in the dark.

THE END