‘I looked over Jordan and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home.’
Morpho flapped closer to Jane’s face, and danced upon her cheeks.
And finally Jane realised what this strange moth-like creature actually was. It was a flying, living tattoo. She opened her mouth in astonishment.
Morpho flew inside.
And so Hayley was also inside her now. Inside her own mother. In her mouth, her throat, her stomach. Morpho was so impossibly thin it could pass through flesh so Hayley was in her mother’s heart, in her lungs, in her kidneys.
Hayley sensed the creature that was her mother and she marvelled at it. Billy had told her about the two selves theory, the two in one notion. The parasite not-mind and the human-mind, existing in ugly juxtaposition in a single body
But Hayley saw and felt none of that in Jane. Instead, she felt a unity. A single creature.
Mother?
Not Exter, not Human, but a union of the two.
Daughter?
That was how Jane Carter had been able to defy her destiny. The two minds inside her had become one: Exter-Human. A new species; a new life-form.
My name is Hayley. This is pretty embarrassing, I guess. I’m the one who –
None of that matters. Hello Hayley. I am Ursula. That is my real name.
Billy told me. About how –
The plague pit, yes.
You found him –
I ran through the streets.
You kissed him.
We were so in love.
You still are.
You can feel that?
I can feel – everything. A lot.
Don’t look too close. Too many dark memories.
I’m going to try something. Open yourself up. Let me be you.
Hayley groaned and twitched and turned – and she gave her life spirit to Morpho.
Ahhh!
Morpho burned with the energies of Hayley’s soul. The little butterfly-of-ink-and-skin drank in the power of Hayley’s blood and she fed it all to Jane Carter.
And mother and daughter were as one. Their souls touched.
Jane sighed, and gasped, and her power grew. And her chains became taut as her muscles swelled. And she yanked at them. And again. And the stone of the wall cracked and the securing link broke away. And now Jane Carter’s arm was free. Then the other arm. Then her legs.
Jane shook the chains off and staggered forward and tottered like a heron on dry land. And then she picked up the vial and unscrewed the top and she drank her own blood, in a series of slow gulps.
And inside Jane’s body, Morpho bathed in ecstasy as the blood gouted down into Jane’s organs and veins and arteries.
Then Morpho was spat out and Jane howled with joy. And Hayley, through the eyes of Morpho, saw it all. She saw Jane, now free, smashing chains, punching apart stone blocks, liberating her fellow captives.
I did this. I did this! I gave freedom to my kindred! Hayley thought with glee.
And as the chains shattered, the chorus of slaves continued their rousing hope-filled song:
‘If you get there before I do
(Coming for to carry me home).
Tell all my friends that I’m coming there too.
(Coming for to carry me home).
About the Author
Philip Palmer is a novelist, screenwriter, and radio dramatist.
He has written five science fiction novels for Orbit Books – Debatable Space, Red Claw, Version 43, Hell Ship and Artemis. These are fast-paced space opera thrillers with a large streak of dark humour running through them, featuring shameless and sardonic anti-heroes and shockingly ruthless villains. His most recent novel is a fantasy crime thriller called Hell On Earth – a police procedural with demons in three linked volumes, set in a future London even darker and more diabolical than our own.
Previously, he has worked as a television and movie script editor, and also as a TV development executive, head of development, and head of drama; and for many years was fortunate enough to make his living reading scripts and novels full-time. He currently teaches screenwriting and creative writing at Goldsmiths University.
His TV script writing credits include Rebus: The Hanging Garden, Heartbeat, The Bill, and The Many Lives Of Albert Walker (nominated for the Gemini Award in 2002).
Philip is also a distinguished BBC Radio dramatist, with plays including Gin And Rum, The Faerie Queen, starring Simon Russell Beale and David Oyelowo, The King’s Coiner starring Ian McDiarmid, The Art Of Deception (2 series), Red And Blue (3 series) and Keeping The Wolf Out starring Leo Bill, Clare Corbett and Andy Linden (3 series). His science fiction thriller Invasion was shortlisted for Best Play in the BBC Audio Awards in 2014.
NewCon Press Novellas Set 5: The Alien Among Us
Nomads – Dave Hutchinson
Are there really refugees from another time living among us? And, if so, what dreadful event are they fleeing from? When a high speed car chase leads Police Sergeant Frank Grant to Dronfield Farm, he finds himself the focus of unwanted attention from Internal Affairs and is confronted by questions he’s not sure he ever wants to hear answered.
Morpho – Philip Palmer
When the corpse on the mortuary slab sits up and speaks to Hayley, asking for her help, she thinks she’s losing her mind. If only it were that simple… Philip Palmer delivers a tense fast-paced tale of a secret society that governs our world from the shadows, of immortality at a terrible price and events that lead to the overthrow of social order.
The Man Who Would Be Kling – Adam Roberts
When two people ask the manager at Kabul Station to take them into the Afghanizone he refuses. What sane person wouldn’t? Said to represent alien visitation, the zone is deadly. Nothing works there. Electrical items malfunction or simply blow up. The pair go in anyway, and the biggest surprise is when one of them walks out again. Nobody survives the zone, so how has she?
Macsen Against the Jugger – Simon Morden
Two centuries after the Earth fell to alien machines known as the Visitors, humanity survives in sparse nomadic tribes. Macsen is an adventurer, undertaking hazardous quests to please Hona Loy. Macsen never fails, but this time he is pitted against a deadly Jugger. Can he somehow survive, or will it fall to his faithful companion Laylaw to tell the tale of his noble death?
www.newconpress.co.uk
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
About the Author
Morpho Page 13