It was Annabelle’s turn to bridle. She had a strong faith and an equally strong belief in the afterlife. She’d spent too long with Indians and heard too many tales of spirits communicating with their loved ones to be able to dismiss it as nonsense. “Regardless of my personal beliefs,” she said, slightly primly, “the existence of spirits has surely been proven on many occasions. I, myself, have been to several spiritualist meetings where, I can assure you, people have been contacted by their loved ones.”
“Excuse my scepticism, Annabelle, but these people are charlatans and confidence tricksters, using flim-flam and stage magic to extract money from people with more belief than common sense.”
Annabelle’s mouth tightened. “But that’s not what we’re talking about here, is it?” she said. “We’re talking about your men seeing ghosts, not attending séances and witnessing all manner of strange phantasmagoria and table-rattling. There’s one obvious question, though, isn’t there? Could these visitations be from her?”
“Despite the vagueness of the descriptions, Annabelle, none of them tallied with the professor. Would be a darned sight easier if they did, wouldn’t it?” He gave a regretful shake of his head. “She was here doing some research into rocks and crystals and the like. Very smart woman—always managed to bamboozle me with her science talk, but then that’s not all that difficult, is it? A little bit testy, as the French are inclined to be. But her death was a big shock, I can tell you. She was down in the caverns, digging for more samples. A rockfall crushed her completely. Almost did for one of my men—Corporal Paul Heath. I’d assigned him to help her with her work. He got caught in the rockfall but managed to pull through with just a few cracked bones and bruises. The professor, though…”
“And her body’s still down there?”
“Until tomorrow. Took a hell of a lot of excavation to get back into the damned cavern where she died. I don’t imagine that she’ll be a pretty sight, if you don’t mind my saying so, Annabelle. Several tons of rocks don’t pull their punches, if you know what I mean.”
“Awful,” Annabelle whispered. “And now you have this Doctor Fontaine taking over from her?”
“He was one of her best students, apparently, and came very highly recommended by the same source that suggested Professor Fournier. A bit of a radical, if you ask me. One of these new Socialists that they have over there, now. Only been here a week and I’ve hardly spoken two words to the chap. Let him get on with whatever he’s getting on with, I say.”
“He seemed very charming when Nathanial and I met him earlier. Perhaps a little casual, but only in that mildly eccentric way that many scientists have.” She smiled, thinking of both Nathanial and her Uncle Cyrus, who was still on Luna (from where he had failed to send her a single heliograph message in over three months!). It took Annabelle a moment to bring herself back on track. “It does seem a remarkable coincidence, though, you have to admit. Princess Christiana Station’s been here for nine years or so, has it not? And yet, just a week or so after Professor Fournier’s death, you suddenly have twenty-odd people claiming to see ghosts.”
“Some sort of mass hysteria, if you want my opinion. People can get very tense and tired in a strange environment like this. It only needs one death to have them seeing things in every corner, doesn’t it?”
“And yet you don’t really believe that, do you, Uncle?”
“No,” he replied at length. “No I don’t. But I have to take a different official line, as I’m sure you understand. If I let it be known… My father used to say that the British Empire was built on discipline and common-sense. And if I let common-sense fly out of the window now, I might as well throw out discipline with it. And then where would we be? Without us here, the tin-miners would have no support and no means of getting the tin back to the Earth. And without the tin, there could well be a stock market crash, and then where would we all be, hmm?”
He looked back at her, his eyes suddenly very tired, very old and very sad.
And in that moment, Annabelle made a vow to herself that she and Nathanial would get to the bottom of the matter. Whatever it took.
Chapter Three
“In Which Nathanial and Arnaud Get Down to Some Science, and Annabelle Witnesses Something Inexplicable”
1.
Nathanial turned the rock over in his hand. It was the size of his palm, flat and glassy and roughly hexagonal, although a couple of the edges had what he could only think of as “growths” on them—more of the same material but bubbled up into strange, organic shapes as if by great heat. It had a dull, brownish lustre which, as he turned it over, flashed redly in the light.
“What is it?” he asked at length. “Is it glass?”
“If it is,” Arnaud said, taking the rock from him and looking at it himself, as though it were the first time he’d seen it, “then it is a type of glass I have never encountered. Professor Fournier has a considerable collection of them.” He gestured to a tall cupboard, almost ceiling height, full of tiny drawers.
Nathanial began flicking through a brown leather notebook that Arnaud had given him. The ivory-coloured pages were almost completely blank, after a few initial notes about Mercury and meteorological observations.
“Not a great keeper of notes,” Nathanial said sourly. “Not exactly the mark of a true scientist.”
Arnaud shrugged and tapped his head. “The true mark of a scientist is in what they think and what they discover, not in their handwriting.”
Nathanial raised a quizzical eyebrow. “We shall see,” Nathanial said, glancing around the shabby room. His eyes alighted on a workbench with a sturdy, brass-riveted box situated at one end. He wandered over, opened a panel in the side and peered in. “Ah yes,” he said after a moment. “Some sort of electric arc device—see? Two rods—presumably carbon, judging by their colour—brought close together and then an electrical discharge is passed through them.”
“I have heard of an arc lamp, yes,” said Arnaud dryly.
“Of course,” Nathanial apologised. “Please forgive me. I’ve fallen into the habit recently of assuming that other people’s knowledge of such things is…well…not as extensive as mine. And it isn’t as though the late professor wrote any details down anywhere, is it?” he added archly.
He glanced up to see Arnaud smiling. “We appear to have more in common than we had thought,” the Frenchman said. “I, too, have the same problem. Especially here. The military mindset—yes?—is not always comfortable with me. They are good people but I must confess that sometimes I feel they see me more as a hindrance than a help.”
“Then we must prove them wrong, Arnaud!” said Nathanial. “We must prove them wrong! Now—let’s see if we can’t work out the purpose of this darned contraption.”
“I believe it needs the attentions of an engineer,” Arnaud said.
“Then it’s a good job I’m here,” Nathanial replied, opening the door in the box and peering inside. “Ah! Yes! A broken rod. The question is,” he said, standing up and looking around the laboratory, “is there a spare?”
A brief search unearthed a small cardboard containing a dozen of the carbon rods. Nathanial busied himself with the repair before turning around to see Arnaud pouring two more ridiculously generous shots of cognac.
“Do you normally drink as much as this?”
Arnaud looked at the two glasses. “This is much?”
“Well…”
“Ha! You English—you are so…”
“English?”
The Frenchman laughed heartily, almost spilling the brandy. “If you would prefer more tea… That would be much more English, wouldn’t it?”
“And Annabelle will smell it on my breath—and there’ll be the Devil to pay, you know.”
“Then you must tell her that the Frenchman led you astray—we are not to be trusted, non?” Arnaud grinned—and then gestured at the other end of the apparatus Nathanial was poking about in. “Since you have so cleverly worked out what that end is for—do
you have the idea of what this end does?”
Arnaud gestured to a different device. Because it was mounted on a stand of its own and not on the bench, he’d assumed that it was unrelated to the lamp. It consisted of another steel box, slightly larger than the one that housed the arc lamp. A six-inch square of lightly-smoked glass with an incredibly fine pattern of concentric circles etched into it, was mounted on the side of the box facing the lamp mechanism, in line with it.
“If that,” said Arnaud thoughtfully, swirling his cognac around his glass and raising it to his nose to savour the smell, “is a lamp, then…” He set down his glass and traced the path of an imaginary line from the front of the smaller box to the centre of the clamp and then through it to the smoked-glass panel. “Perhaps this is for receiving the light after it has passed through whatever sample has been placed in between.”
Nathanial nodded. “That seems plausible—you mean some sort of spectrographic or luminal analysis?”
Arnaud, apparently forgetting about his cognac, started to examine the “receiver”—if that was indeed what it was. “There are a series of dials—”
“There is a series of dials,” Nathanial corrected him before he could stop himself.
“That is what I have just said,” said Arnaud, before realising that Nathanial was correcting his English.
“Sorry,” Nathanial said, trying not to laugh, “force of habit.”
“Ah…a force of nature I have heard of. But a force of habit?”
“It’s a little like a force of nature—but sadly sometimes more unstoppable. Sorry—the fault of the cognac, I’m sure. What about these dials, then?”
“They seem to be marked in Angstrom units—oh, and there is another row…” Arnaud paused, and Nathanial could see him puzzling over them. “Unless they are in some impenetratable code, I believe they are for measuring the passing of time in very small increments.”
“It’s impenetrable,” said Nathanial.
“Is it? What is?”
“No, the word is impenetrable, not impenetratable.” Nathanial sighed and set his glass down firmly, still almost half full. “Enough of this evil spirit!” he laughed. “At this rate, you’ll be carrying me back to my quarters, and imagine the sport that Annabelle would have with such a scenario!”
“Bien sûr,” said Arnaud, raising an eyebrow.
“You and those damn eyebrows,” Nathanial said wryly, shaking his head and finishing off the repairs to the arc-lamp. “Let’s see these dials, then… Yes, yes, I believe you’re correct: the top row are for measuring the wavelength and the bottom ones… Why would she want to measure such small increments of time for the transmitted light?”
“Or perhaps emitted light. Perhaps the plates emit light in some way?”
Nathanial took a firm, deep breath. “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s fire up the device and see, shall we?”
2.
He was there. Again. Standing silently in the corner of the room. There but not quite there.
When Corporal Heath looked directly at him, he seemed to jump, as if instantly whisked to some other part of the room that was now at the edge of his vision. Heath couldn’t help but still try to catch it out, hoping that, just once, the ghost might forget to jump.
Heath ached—not only with the pain in his leg and ankle and chest, but with frustration. He had lost count of the number of times the ghost had vanished completely, and he’d found himself staring down at his white hands, balled up into fists, clutching the hospital sheets. He sensed something not altogether right, not happy about the ghost. There was a darkness there that he didn’t like at all. Realising how tense he was, Heath consciously relaxed and let his chin drop to his chest, triggering a jolt of pain from the torn muscles around his collarbone—before looking up suddenly, another bolt of pain shooting down his left arm from his shoulder. There was something going on in the corridor; he recognised Doctor Schell’s voice. The door to the ward was flung open and in swept the doctor, in his wake a slim, striking woman with black hair and the most hypnotic eyes Heath had seen for a long time. She had a healthy tan which immediately marked her out as a newcomer to Mercury. In her arms, she carried a large, buff folder, holding it close like it was the most important thing in the world. Behind them, hands flapping and a look of intense annoyance on her face was Nurse Lopez. She shot a glance at Heath as if to apologise for letting Schell and this new woman in.
“Heath!” beamed Schell coming to a sudden stop at the side of the bed and folding his arms. “How the devil are you, man?”
“Can’t complain sir,” Heath replied, knowing that an angel must surely have been looking out for him all those weeks ago.
“Good man,” Schell said. “Good man. Been through the wars, haven’t you? Good to see you on the mend, though. Bearing up, hmm?”
Schell turned to Nurse Lopez who stood there, glowering at him. By all accounts, Nurse Lopez’ parents—and in particular her mother—were possessed of fiery Latin temperaments that their daughter had clearly inherited.
“This man is sick, Doctor Schell. I do not think you really need me to tell you that, do you? You are a doctor after all. He needs rest and time to recover, not being interrupted during dinner.” Her English was impeccable with barely a hint of a Spanish accent. Doctor Schell looked up and down the bed and at the side-table. There was no sign of any meal, either fresh or half-eaten.
“Not hungry, Heath?”
“Not really, sir, no. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise for not being hungry, you know,” interjected the dark-haired young woman who sounded, from her accent, like an American. She smiled at him and gave him a wink.
“Well that just won’t do,” said Schell with a firm shake of his head. “You need to get something inside your belly. No man ever got better from not eating, now did he? And many have gotten much, much worse.”
“Maybe later, sir.”
Schell raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Nurse Lopez. “Well make sure you do—and if he doesn’t, Lopez, I’ll be wanting to know why.”
“Corporal Heath is doing very well, doctor. He’ll eat when he wants to.”
The doctor nodded as if he’d just won that round and turned to the woman he’d arrived with. “Corporal Heath, this is Miss Annabelle Somerset. She arrived on Mercury today. She’s a close family friend of the colonel, so make sure you show her some respect. She’s here…” He paused and looked at Nurse Lopez. “That’ll be all, thank you, Lopez. I’ll shout for you if I need you.”
Nurse Lopez pulled a sour face, looked Miss Somerset up and down as if appraising her as a potential rival—as women, in Heath’s opinion, were wont to do—and then turned on her heel and left, letting the door bang behind her as a final gesture.
“Sorry about that,” Schell apologised to Miss Somerset. “She gets very protective about poor Heath here. Good thing, I suppose, considering she’s a nurse. But still… Anyway, the colonel says that Miss Somerset here would like to talk to you, if you feel up to it.”
“What about, sir?”
“About your accident,” said Miss Somerset. “And…and what’s been happening to you since then.”
“I, um,” stumbled Heath. “I’m not sure what you mean, miss.”
Miss Somerset turned to the doctor and placed a hand on his arm. “Maybe it would be better if I spoke to Corporal Heath on my own for a while. It may be less stressful for him,” she added gently.
“Well…I suppose so,” Schell said. “You take care of her, young man. And,” turning to Miss Somerset, “if he starts getting cheeky or taking liberties, you let Nurse Lopez know—and believe me, Heath’s next bed-bath will be one for him to remember. And not with fondness, if you take my meaning.”
Heath’s mouth dropped open, expecting Miss Somerset to be at least surprised, if not shocked, by what Schell had said, but instead she laughed—a lovely laugh. Something Heath hadn’t heard on Mercury for a very long time. He felt his cheeks redden
and kept his head down as the doctor wagged a departing finger at him and swept back out of the room.
“There’s a chair there, miss,” Heath said, hoping his blushing had died down.
“Thank you, Corporal.” She set down the folder on a clear space at the foot of his bed. “I can’t keep calling you corporal, now can I, not if we’re going to get to know each other?”
“It’s Paul, miss.”
“Paul.” She held out her hand for him to shake. “And please call me Annabelle—miss is just a little stuffy, don’t you think?”
Heath didn’t think so at all, but he nodded. Even Nurse Lopez didn’t let him call her by her first name, and he’d known her for three months. He wondered if all Americans were like this.
“So…now that those two have gone, how are you really?”
He wondered if this were some sort of trap and whether Miss Somerset hadn’t simply been brought in to sign him off to Bedlam. “Doing as well as can be expected, I suppose, miss. Um…Annabelle. It’s this leg, really—under orders to keep off it for another couple of days. They’ve got me all strapped up. I can walk around but Nurse Lopez causes such a hoo-ha when I do. It’s easier just to stay in bed.”
“You must get terribly bored in here,” she said, casting her eyes around. There were three other beds—all of them empty and made up, crisply. “Do you not have any books to read?”
“Not much of a reader, really. But I’m fine, I’ve got my Bible in the drawer there—that’s enough.”
She smiled, understandingly. “It’s given me a lot of comfort over the years, too. But having nothing else to do must give you a lot of time to think about things. And that’s not always good, is it?”
“Not sure I catch your drift, miss.”
“Oh, you know the way your mind goes around and around in circles when there’s nothing to distract you. Let me tell you—” she leaned forward conspiratorially, “—the journey here from Venus was terribly tiresome. Oh, I know I had the run of the ship, but there are only so many conversations you can have with the cook about the meals, and only so many times you can stare out of the portholes into space. Space itself is dreadfully dull, don’t you think?”
series 01 03 “THE GHOSTS OF MERCURY” Page 4