‘And did you?’ asked Big Copper. ‘Do you, I mean.’
‘I believe he was telling the truth as he believed it,’ replied Andy cautiously.
A thought struck him and he looked around for his laptop.
‘You know, I recorded our interview on Tuesday. I could dig out the file if you want and play it for you. I couldn’t identify it myself but maybe one of you can recognize the tune Mr Kendry was humming.’
Boy Copper puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.
‘I tell you what, sir,’ said Big Copper. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Perhaps you could make a copy of the recording and send it to me at the station? My details are on here.’ He handed Andy a card.
‘Of course. Anything I can do to help.’
As soon as the officers had gone, Andy switched on the laptop and found the audio file containing Tuesday’s interview. He skipped through the early chat until he found the point at which Kendry had begun to hum the tune to him. He made a note of the time – a little over eight minutes in – and composed a short email to that effect. Then he attached a copy of the recording and emailed both to the address on Big Copper’s card.
He leaned back, feeling virtuous. The older policeman would appreciate his help, he felt, even if the other one was a dickhead. And perhaps Andy’s recording would turn out to be valuable evidence, although he couldn’t imagine how.
Outside of television shows Andy had had little contact with police during his life, and he was still tingling with excitement as he wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Humming to himself, he dropped a teabag into a cup, feeling a twinge of guilt as the action made him think of Kendry’s mysterious disappearance. He wondered if the officers would find him – and with that he realized that he was humming Kendry’s tune.
Damn it, he thought. It really does get into your head. Mind you, Kendry had been right. There was something maddeningly elusive about the way the notes were supposed to fit together. The tune he was humming was close but it wasn’t exactly the same. Not yet.
What was it? A fragment of a jingle half remembered from an advert heard years ago? It had that catchiness to it, those irritating hooks that get into your brain and dig in deep.
The best thing, he decided, was to drown it out with another earworm. He tried running through pop groups in his head, trying to recall a particularly memorable chorus from any of their songs, but it was strangely difficult to bring any to mind.
Trying, and failing, to think of any tracks on his favourite albums, Andy carried his coffee through into the living room. Night was well and truly drawing in and the room was chillier than he’d expected. He must have spent longer with the police officers than he’d thought. He closed the living room door to keep the warmth in and wandered across to the sofa.
As he settled himself into the cushions he caught himself humming Kendry’s tune again. For Heaven’s sake!
The door behind him creaked. A long, slow, deliberate creak.
Andy froze.
An inexplicable dread had seized him, overwhelming him with an all-encompassing yet meaningless intensity. It was like nothing he had experienced since childhood nightmares he had thought long forgotten.
He sat, heart hammering in his throat, breathing as shallowly as possible, until his annoyance at discovering himself to be so impressionable grew too strong. He shifted around in his seat, determined to face whatever it was behind him.
Halfway through his turn he heard another creak, but this time he forced himself to look. As the door moved into vision he thought he saw the handle turning. He stared at it in horror, even after he realized it hadn’t moved at all.
Keeping his gaze fixed on that handle, he made himself stand. He stepped to the door. He took hold of the handle, made certain his grip was secure … and he twisted it. He flung the door open.
It crashed into the wall, and bounced back, swinging gently.
There was nobody there. Just his empty hallway.
Andy sighed with relief, then smiled at his stupid imagination. The whole business had got to him much more than he had suspected.
Just to satisfy those final niggling doubts he took a quick look around the other rooms, which were every bit as empty as he’d known they would be. On his way back through the hallway he checked the thermometer and turned it up a few degrees. The cold, at least, hadn’t been his imagination.
Returning to the living room he again shut the door behind him so that the radiators would warm the place up more quickly. He saw his cup and picked it up, humming absent-mindedly as he sipped the warming liquid.
He was knackered. It had been a long day at work, and then with the police coming to see him this evening, and the strain of this whole Kendry business (until now he hadn’t realized just how much of a strain) he really needed a rest.
Finishing his cup, he decided to treat himself to a bath. It would do him the world of good.
He headed for the stairs, anticipating a long, relaxing soak.
As he stepped out of the living room, he was so immersed in the tune he was humming that he didn’t notice the door was already open.
Europa Union
The silence hit first, as always. More than lack of sound it was the abrupt absence of all those noises that normally went unnoticed. The inhalation and exhalation of air, the murmuring surf of blood in veins, the muffled throb of pumping muscle: the organic sounds of life. None of that existed in the Black. Out here there was only mind, and the Link that tethered mind to machine.
He flexed his metal fingers, pretending he could sense the whir of tiny servos responding to his thoughts. He rotated the wrist joints, watching each hand in turn as it swivelled, protruding from the cuff of the ancient ESA spacesuit. He lifted the hands to his faceplate and tapped gently, imagining the tink of robotic fingertips against glass. Nothing.
Marsh didn’t need to know how it worked: quantum entanglement, instantaneous information transfer, the ‘spooky action at a distance’ that Einstein had apparently been wrong to dismiss. If Einstein hadn’t really understood his own science what chance did Marsh have? Enough to know that it did work, and that he, the otherwise unprepossessing Fergus Marsh, possessed the mental quirk that enabled him to slink with the best of them.
He shrugged his shoulders, wriggled his legs and turned his head from side to side, and the endoskeleton reacted at once to every command. As for his mental state, Marsh felt back in control of that too, fully focused again with none of that odd restlessness that had been troubling him since the start of this mission. Good. He’d known it would pass and was glad he hadn’t raised unnecessary concerns with his supervisor.
‘Marsh to Charon control. S-Link established and holding steady. All OK.’
‘Received, Marsh. Lisicki should be with you any moment. Stand by.’
Control’s words floated in on a telepathic wave, silently arriving in Marsh’s awareness where they puffed into being, and evaporated, leaving only a memory of their meaning. He replied along the same channel, framing his message with instinctive ease.
‘Roger that, Charon. Standing by.’
Europa hung below his feet. A little under five kilometres below him, according to the sensor readings. Not that concepts such as ‘below’ had any real meaning out here, but it was natural – and psychologically healthy, he’d been told – to think in such terms. Slinkers might exist as robot-housed minds out here in the Black, but the actuality of who they were remained wrapped in the biological embodiment of countless generations of evolution. That, Marsh was sure, was why Charon Mining insisted on housing the endoskeletons in these obsolete spacesuits, relics from an age when humans wanting to leave the confines of Earth had had to risk their lives by travelling in the flesh. The spacesuits weren’t needed now, and neither were the helmets, but they gave an illusion of body to whomever was inhabiting the machinery.
‘Hey, Fergus.’
Lisicki’s telepathic greeting expanded like spring sunlight across a millpond. Not
for the first time, and taking care to shield his thoughts, Marsh wondered what she looked like. Not that there was much chance of ever meeting her in person. He didn’t even know which country she operated from, although from her name he suspected it might be Germany or Austria. He liked to think her words were tinged with a Germanic accent too, but he knew that was his imagination colouring the impressions he received.
‘Hi Ulli,’ he replied, grateful as ever that his stutter did not exist out here.
Her suit was awake now, dancing its routine checks as she drifted closer.
‘Ulrike to Charon control. Link is established. All is good.’
‘Received, Lisicki. You both ready?’
Marsh looked to the blank-faced suit suspended beside him. He felt her smile as its skeletal hands gave a double thumbs-up.
‘Affirmative, Charon,’ he answered. ‘Beginning descent.’
‘Roger that. Good luck.’
A sense of impish fun reached Marsh and flowered as Ulli broke protocol by taking his hand. She triggered a burst of thrust and together they fell towards the rusty surface.
* * * *
He was running through the scheduled drill-site co-ordinates when it washed in, achingly familiar but so faint he had to stop work and focus his attention to stay tuned in. Devoid of pitch or timbre, existing only as rhythmic impressions of ebbing and flowing intensity, it yet had a musical beauty of its own, and ‘song’ was the closest concept Marsh had for the experience. It wove a sense of seaweed streamers suspended in emerald-glinted darkness, and of the eternal surge of deep ocean currents. At the same time, it invoked a memory of sunlight spilling across his back as he lazed on a sandy beach, of the almost-perceptible sigh of foam caressing a shore. The warmth of a long-ago seaside holiday, wrapped in the comfort of family. It might have been a memory, had he ever enjoyed that sort of childhood. As it faded he marvelled, not for the first time, at the power of music to stir emotion.
‘That was beautiful,’ he told Ulli. ‘It reminded me of something. Was it German maybe?’
He shielded the fact that his question was really a probe, a hopeful attempt to find out more about her without betraying his interest.
Her reply arrived as a question mark, glittering with good humour but sincere in its puzzlement.
‘You had an ear-worm,’ he explained.
‘I did not!’
‘I definitely picked it up. I’m not entirely sure I recognized it but it felt old. Perhaps a traditional folksong?’
‘I think your mind must be getting old,’ she said. ‘Don’t let Charon find out or I’ll be finishing this job with a handsome young replacement!’
Before Marsh could respond she was lost in a sparkling cloud of pulverized ice particles as their retros kicked in, disturbing the Jovian moon’s surface. Time to focus on the job.
* * * *
He gasped, eyes snapping open. His breathing was loud after the silence and he lay for long moments, relishing the subtle sounds of biology. Sensing his return, a warm orange glow was permeating the moulded interior, gradually brightening to let his eyes adjust. When the electrodes in his mesh cap determined he was ready, the locks snicked open and, with a hiss of released air pressure, the lid swung up.
Marsh took an extra moment before he pulled himself out of the womb, then a moment more to allow his flesh-and-blood feet once again to become the norm before he risked walking to the kitchen to make a mug of tea. It had been a long shift and slinking always left his throat dry. At least it gave him the excuse for an extra spoon of sugar and a chocolate digestive, to rebalance his levels.
Not that any excuse was needed, he reflected as he savoured the biscuit’s crunch. He wouldn’t give this up for the world, and nor should he need to. Just the other day he’d read an estimate that only one person in every ten thousand could do what he could. Wonder of quantum technology that it was, the ‘spooky Link’ needed operators who could be trained to focus their imagination for three, four, even five, hours at a stretch. That was the key, the singular quality that could allow a human mind to remain entangled with the physical controls of a remote body, and it was a talent that had always come naturally to Marsh, even before the training.
It was how he was earning decent money, a fact that would irritate the hell out of the schoolteachers who just three years ago had written him off as a dreamer, prone to drifting into fantasy when he should have been devoting himself to acquiring useless information. They hadn’t seen what was coming. Neither had he, if he were honest, but that was beside the point. The solar system was a goldmine – literally as well as metaphorically. And not only gold; it was stuffed full of valuable elements, and now the Link put all that treasure within reach. It enabled operators to prospect and mine out there in the Black, working in real time, with no maddening radio delays, no clumsy AI interfaces, and none of the associated expenses of keeping human bodies alive in a hostile environment. Thanks to the Link, companies like Charon were the emerging power today.
He gulped down the final mouthful of tea, feeling fully at one with himself again, and looked for his shoes. He’d finished the last of his favourite single malt yesterday and at this hour he should be able to avoid the patrols between here and the shops. Then he could spend the entire evening at home, drinking and watching films in splendid isolation.
Sure, one in ten thousand still left an awful lot of people who could, potentially, learn to slink almost as well as he could, and the wages on offer meant there would never be a shortage of applicants eager to take his place, but Marsh was a natural and that made him special – an elite among the elite. All he had to do was avoid messing up and he was made for life.
* * * *
‘Careful! Oh, you bleedin’—’
Blushing and mumbling apologies, Marsh collected the apples before they rolled off the step and splashed into the large puddle that had once been the building’s front garden. His fault. He’d been thinking about Ulli, wondering what she looked like, and hadn’t noticed Mrs Fletcher just ahead of him, already opening the front door.
‘Let me c-carry them in for you,’ he said, cradling the fruit in his arm. The handle of the bag holding his Scotch cut into his wrist. His downstairs neighbour made a snorting sound that he took to be assent, pushed the door open and led them inside. Outside her flat she shucked off her raincoat and rustled it dry, then disappeared inside with the rest of her shopping, continuing her interrupted phone conversation.
‘No, nothing – hm? Well, that’s what I was saying. Get rid of work permits once and for all. Send ‘em all back. Pay into your own country’s system and your own country can support you if – well, exactly.’
Marsh waited in the hall, hoping she wouldn’t be long. He was dripping onto the polished floorboards.
Mrs Fletcher reappeared, putting away her phone then holding out a fresh bag for him to drop the apples into. She snorted again, a sound that this time he took to be if not thanks then at least an acknowledgement.
‘I was starting to think I’d become invisible to you,’ she said. ‘What with this morning as well.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Walking straight past me like that, without a word.’
Marsh was baffled. He hadn’t left the flat after finishing his shift last night. In fact, it had been at least two days since he had been outside.
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ she insisted. ‘That may be how you lot behave but it’s not how we do things in England.’
‘Mrs Fletcher, I’ve told you.’ He could feel blood rushing to his cheeks and hated himself for being intimidated so easily. ‘I was born in T-Tooting – in St George’s as it happens. I’m as English as you are.’
Mrs Fletcher’s eyes were the grey of battleships as they locked onto his. He felt like a child again and the sensation came with a deep ache of loss and loneliness.
‘Alright, lad. No need to get your sporran in a twist!’ She chuckled. ‘I’m only joking, in’I? But it don’t cost nothing
to be polite. That’s all I’m saying.’
Marsh backed away, trying to smile. His waterproof trousers swished as he moved and he could smell the pollution in the steam rising from the damp floor. She was still watching him.
He had almost reached the staircase when she called out: ‘Mind you, it makes a change to see you out in the real world twice in one day. You shouldn’t stay cooped up indoors all the time. You don’t look well, excuse me for saying so. You’re even more pasty than you lot normally are!’
He started up the stairs.
‘You should try eating some of our foreign food,’ she cackled after him. ‘Vegetables, we call ‘em!’
* * * *
Jupiter loomed, presiding in solemn majesty over the too-close horizon. Its beauty was terrible, girdled in bands of swirled pastels that belied the savageness of storms that had already been raging generations of human lives ago. It demanded attention, as if thought itself were subject to the imperial planet’s mighty gravity – and thought was all he really was out here. Marsh was being sucked in by the gas giant. He was caught in the same invisible tides that gripped this moon, compressed it, squeezed it, the powerful flexing forces warming the body as it tumbled in locked orbit. Europa’s surface was firm but in planetary terms the brittle icy rock beneath Marsh’s metal feet was like an eggshell. Below was liquid, an ocean. And, just conceivably, life, swimming through the eternal darkness….
‘Wakey wakey.’
Marsh turned to see Ulli waiting for him to connect his end of the drilling rig. Her spotlights threw hard-edged patches of illumination onto the crust. He cut loose thoughts of unknown lifeforms and returned his attention to his monotonous task: log co-ordinates, drill down, collect samples, bag and tag and transfer to the Poseidon for analysis. Repeat until the bosses said otherwise. The tedium was mind-numbing, more fit for a robot than a skilled operative.
Strangers at the Door: Twelve unsettling tales of horror Page 2