series 01 03 “THE GHOSTS OF MERCURY”

by By Mark Michalowski

  Saul, like Annabelle, was beginning to feel like this whole thing was running out of control, especially now that the colonel was involved. But Heath had such determination, such confidence in it all, that he found himself being carried along.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, but something in his voice must have rung alarm bells in Heath.

  “I’ll do my best to get the colonel out of there before it all goes up. I’m no murderer; you’ve known me long enough to know that, Saul.”

  Mollified, Saul managed a weak smile.

  Heath patted him on the shoulder and, checking the backpacks were secure, one over each arm, he set off, unrolling the wires from the detonator as he went.

  4.

  Shawbridge felt confusion vying with anger at Stone’s words. He’d seen Prince Albert’s statue himself, with his own eyes. But then what did seeing things with one’s own eyes mean any more? This was getting too much to take in, too much to accept—that anything, or indeed everything of what he’d witnessed recently could be nothing more than a mirage. Perhaps Stone was trying to sabotage his plan, to ruin the last few years of his career.

  “Why?” he heard Nathanial call to Hermes. “What’s the point of lying? Are you planning to somehow play with Her Majesty’s perceptions, and make her see Prince Albert, too? Why not just make a real sculpture of him?”

  “Because that statue is not going to Her Majesty Queen Victoria,” Hermes replied. “It will be going to Tsar Nicholas himself.”

  “What the Devil for?” Shawbridge asked. “I thought you wanted to curry favour with Queen Victoria. Not the damn Russians!”

  “Think about it, Colonel,” Nathanial said, recalling the conversation that he’d overheard—well, that Hermes had allowed him to overhear. “Remember what Hermes said about the two Empires being at extremes. He’s not just interested in finding out about the British one. What are you up to Hermes, or shall I guess…?”

  “I would be interested in your suppositions, Professor Nathanial Stone. Why do you think I allowed you to hear our conversation? Your viewpoint is important to me.”

  Nathanial had no doubt that Hermes had probably already read his mind and knew what he was about to say. “Your earlier theories about humanity and binary perception were fascinating, and I suspect there’s more than an element of truth there. Yes, that’s generally how we think—and I’m not apologising for that.”

  “You have no need to,” Hermes said. “You and Doctor Arnaud Fontaine are, in many ways, atypical of the humans I have so far observed.”

  “Really?” Nathanial was thrown a little by this.

  “You are men of reason and logic and science, and yet you maintain enough openness of mind to accept that there may be things that science cannot—as yet—explain. And there are other aspects of both of you that do not quite accord with the binary attitudes of other human beings—social and personal aspects that I have not before encountered.”

  Nathanial saw Arnaud throw him a glance, and it was only in that moment that he had a sudden insight into what Hermes meant, and was reminded of a conversation he’d once had with his dean at Mortarhouse College in Oxford. “That’s all very well and good,” Nathanial said quickly, “but let’s get back to these statues and whatever your plans are. I am certain that they involve more than simply handing over gifts to the two most powerful figures on Earth.”

  “Humanity,” Hermes said thoughtfully, “is a very promising species. You have energy and insight and dynamism. You are spreading out into the Solar System, changing it to match your image of how reality should be. That is understandable. However it is a very limited perception, incapable of seeing reality as it truly is. I plan to help you.”

  “Help humanity?” Arnaud spoke up.

  “Yes. Through the statues and through your leaders, I will improve it.”

  “Improve?” Nathanial asked querulously. “Improve in what way, exactly?”

  “I am still considering the possibilities,” Hermes said, as casually as if he were discussing which coat he should wear. “But the most interesting idea I have had is to merge the British and Russian Empires, make them one.”

  “Madness!” cried Shawbridge. “Utter madness. Neither we nor the Russians would have anything to do with such a plan.”

  “I anticipate difficulties, yes, Colonel Ernest Shawbridge; but with your queen and the Russians’ tsar acting in accordance with my wishes, I believe it can be achieved.”

  “But people aren’t stupid,” Nathanial protested. “They won’t just overturn decades of social order just because Her Majesty suggests it, never mind the tsar.”

  “Stupid is the wrong word,” Hermes said. “Ignorant would be a better one. If they were not ignorant of all the other choices available, they would not have chosen their present ones. It will be necessary to modify things a little in order to bring about the necessary changes.”

  Hermes used such calm, neutral-sounding words, thought Nathanial: modify, change… But what Hermes was planning felt much more dramatic than they would suggest.

  “Generally,” Hermes continued, “it seems to me that your two systems are at war in a relatively minor way. For the majority of your people, it seems to be a fairly—if I am correct in my usage of the term—‘gentlemanly’ war.”

  “I may be wrong, Hermes,” Nathanial said, “but I believe it’s true to say the United Kingdom and Russia are antagonistic rivals. We are not at war.”

  Hermes paused as it considered this. “And yet you act as if you are at war. Incursions by one side are met by the other; the battlefield shifts around but, overall, the status quo holds. And while that is the case, the civilian populations of the two systems have no compelling reason to change that status quo. I will change that. I will accelerate the war, forcing the reality of it upon those who remain behind, safely, watching from afar. Once it begins to dawn upon them that the fight is real, that their lives are in danger—and not simply those they have charged to fight on their behalf—change will come. I am learning that the disjunction in your perceptions of reality is partly down to your individual nature and individual experiences. I will unite humanity in experiencing the true nature of war, and they will change.”

  Nathanial was completely at a loss for words: in a matter of seconds, Hermes’ plan had bloomed, like cancer, from something relatively benign to something that horrified him beyond belief.

  There came a shout from the far side of the cavern, and out of the shadows stepped a man.

  It was Heath.

  Even at a distance, Nathanial could see the swagger in his gait, the arrogant set of his head. This was a different Heath to the one he’d last spoken to, and he remembered Annabelle’s insistence that they stop him. Now he could see why. Nathanial looked behind Heath, expecting Annabelle to follow him in.

  “Oi!” Heath had shouted, a cocky lilt to his voice that didn’t bode well.

  “Corporal Paul Heath,” Nathanial heard Hermes say. “Welcome. I believe I sensed your presence earlier but, somehow…I could not feel you properly. There is something about your mental state that makes it difficult to read you.”

  “What’s going on, then?” Heath said, looking round as if Hermes hadn’t spoken. “Plotting with the Devil, are you? Ha! I should have guessed it—you’re all as Godless as he is.”

  “Heath,” Shawbridge said in confusion, clearly wondering why one of his men had suddenly appeared from nowhere. “What’s going on, man? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to save you,” Heath announced, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve been sent on a mission.”

  “By whom? I don’t recall giving you any orders, Corporal.”

  “Sorry, Colonel…but by a higher power than you.”

  “There is no higher power than me,” Shawbridge fumed. “I am your commanding officer.”

  “Yes, sir, that you are. But there is a higher power than any of us here, isn’t there?” Heath raised his eyebrows meaningfully and it to
ok Nathanial a moment to realise that he wasn’t talking about any human being.

  “You’re saying that God sent you?” Nathanial ventured, hardly believing what he was saying.

  “I am indeed, sir. He has a plan—a plan for us all, and a plan for me.”

  “What ruddy plan, Heath?” sputtered Shawbridge. “Where are you getting these crackpot notions from, Corporal? Your accident unhinged your brain, did it?”

  Heath simply shook his head—and, from the waistband of his trousers and hidden under his jacket, he pulled out a revolver.

  Without another word, he raised it, pointed it at Hermes and pulled the trigger.

  5.

  Waiting edgily in the tunnel, Saul jumped when he heard the gunshot. Heath hadn’t mentioned anything about shooting. Maybe Colonel Shawbridge had shot Heath.

  What was he supposed to do now? He felt sweat break out on his forehead, and wiped it away with his sleeve.

  He had to stay calm. Stay calm and do the job. If it had been Heath doing the shooting, then nothing had changed; and if someone had shot him, then it meant that it was even more important to make sure the job was finished, didn’t it? Saul took a deep breath and fished out the small flask of rum that he kept tucked in his pocket. His shaking fingers struggled to unscrew it, but once it was opened, he drank the contents in one go, feeling himself become steadier as it burned its way to his stomach. But not steady enough that he didn’t jump when Heath himself suddenly appeared in the tunnel.

  “What was that?” Saul asked suddenly, hiding the flask as well as he could. Heath didn’t seem to notice.

  “Slight change of plan,” Heath said. “You need to move the explosives.”

  Saul was totally lost. “Move ’em?”

  “Yes,” Heath replied firmly. “Move ’em.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cos I’m telling you to. I don’t have time to explain, but where they are is all wrong.”

  “But that’s exactly where they need to be to bring that place down,” Saul said, gesturing past Heath towards the cavern.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But trust me, that’s not going to work. You’ve got to move ’em—and fast.”

  “Right,” Saul said a little reluctantly, “but where am I moving them to?”

  Heath fixed his eyes on Saul’s, and Saul braced himself for a ticking off. “You remember the last widening?” Heath said after a few moments. “Back there.”

  Saul nodded, more confused than ever: he knew the fractures and fault lines in the caves like no one else, and Heath’s new choice of location meant that….

  “Put ’em there,” Heath snapped.

  Saul looked down at the timer, ticking away to itself: it had about ten minutes to go. “You sure? You’re cutting it fine.”

  “I know, but if we leave them where they are, we might as well cut the wires, give up and go home.”

  Saul shrugged. “You’re the boss, but I know these caves; I know the weak points. If we move ’em to there, all that will happen will be that—”

  “Just do it, right? I’m going back there.”

  “What was that gunshot?” Saul asked again, as Heath turned to go.

  “Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll explain later—now move, man!” And with that, Heath disappeared around the corner.

  Saul watched him go, still puzzling over his instructions—before sighing heavily and following him to get the dynamite and do what he’d been told.

  6.

  The bullet, as Nathanial fully expected, passed straight through Hermes as if Hermes hadn’t been there at all. Which, in a very real sense, he hadn’t. What they saw was a purely mental projection.

  “Oh well,” Heath said blithely. “Worth a go.”

  “That was your plan?” Shawbridge said in disbelief.

  Heath threw him a withering look. “No, Colonel. It wasn’t.” He checked his watch and then looked back at Hermes. “Cat got your tongue, has it? Or can you just not stand hearing the truth?”

  “I am still attempting to reach your mind through all the irrational noise it is generating at the moment,” Nathanial heard, checking Heath for a reaction, but there was none. Heath genuinely didn’t seem to be able to hear Hermes.

  “Tell the truth and shame the Devil, my old mum used to say,” Heath shouted to the rest of them, his eyes still on Hermes. “Looks like Satan here is on the back foot, eh?” He gave a throaty chuckle.

  Nathanial concentrated hard. Hermes, he sent with all the force he could manage. You can hear me, yes?

  “I can, Professor Nathanial Stone, yes. You mind is uncluttered with Corporal Paul Heath’s confusion and irrationality. But I am making progress with him.”

  Just tell me one thing—was Annabelle one of the ones with Heath? The ones you said you could sense but not communicate with?

  “I believe she was, yes,” Hermes replied. No one else responded to this, so Nathanial assumed that this conversation was just between the two of them. Heath, meanwhile, was beginning to rant again. Hermes continued, oblivious: “But her mind, too, was clouded with the same sort of anger and confusion.”

  Nathanial was a little puzzled at this, but her location and safety were paramount. Where is she now? Can you tell?

  “She is more distant than she was. I can feel her, but I would have to expend more mental effort than I wish to in order to determine her exact location.”

  Nathanial let out a sigh of relief: if she were further away, she was safer, he felt sure. Thank you, he thought at Hermes.

  Shawbridge had just started on at Heath about what his actual plan was—and Heath, perhaps surprisingly, was as forthcoming as Hermes had been. His voice held a sense of invulnerability now.

  “I’m going to send you back to Hell,” he said. “Back where you belong.”

  “I fear that it is pointless arguing with you about my origins,” Hermes said, and this time Heath responded with a frown.

  “What?” the soldier said. “I didn’t get all that.”

  Hermes repeated the statement. To Nathanial, it sounded the same as before, but clearly he was now getting through to Heath.

  “Argue all you want,” Heath sneered. “In three minutes, you’ll be going right where you belong.”

  “What’s happening in three minutes?” asked Shawbridge.

  “In three minutes,” Nathanial said, “Heath here is planning to blow this whole cavern to oblivion. Isn’t that right?”

  Heath’s mouth actually dropped open. “How d’you know that?” He regained his composure somewhat to add: “Not that it matters.”

  “A little bird told me,” Nathanial answered dryly. “You know it’s not going to work, don’t you?”

  “Well let’s just wait and see, eh?”

  “Blow it up?” said Shawbridge, as if Heath’s words had only just hit him.

  Heath gave a respectful little nod of the head. “Yes sir. Now I suggest, respectfully, that the three of you run like Hell. It’s this Devil I’m planning to bury, not you lot.”

  “You’re not listening, Heath,” Nathanial insisted. “Your plan won’t work.”

  “The longer you stay here arguing, the less time you have to get away, sir.”

  “Professor Nathanial Stone is correct,” said Hermes. “Your plan will not work. I now see into your mind, Corporal Paul Heath. You have explosives planted there…” One shimmering, luminous arm rose to point at the spot from which Heath had emerged. “They will destroy this cavern, as you planned; you will destroy the copies of your comrades. The ghosts. But my mind is distributed throughout a much larger volume than this cave. I will survive.”

  “You would say that, though, wouldn’t you? But they won’t.” Heath gestured at the crystal sculptures.

  “Although now I have learned to lie,” Hermes said implacably, “from you, Corporal Paul Heath, you can obviously not trust my words. But regardless of that, I am speaking the truth. You will only succeed in destroying yourself and the ghosts—and the stat
ues, yes. But I will survive.”

  A flicker of doubt flashed across Heath’s face. “From me? What are you talking about?”

  “Yours was the first lie I encountered—and I learned.”

  “Nathanial,” hissed Arnaud. “Maybe we should go, yes? The bomb, remember…?”

  Arnaud was right. Even if the bomb didn’t destroy Hermes, it would probably kill the four men there. “Colonel?” Nathanial said. “Arnaud’s just reminded me that there’s a bomb about to go off. Now might be a good time to leave.”

  Shawbridge was still clearly torn: he obviously still clung to the hope that, somehow, he could rescue some shred of his dignity and career from this whole, wretched affair. Nathanial saw him look up to Hermes.

  “Just tell me!” he demanded. “Tell me the truth, Hermes. It’s over for me, isn’t it, plan or no plan?”

  “You could still have had the glory, yes, Colonel Ernest Shawbridge. But it would come at the cost of humanity’s transformation. I don’t believe that is a price that you would be willing to pay.”

  “One minute,” Heath reminded them quietly.

  “Can’t you stop it?” asked Nathanial of Hermes, more out of curiosity than out of wishful thinking. Hermes’ plan for humanity’s improvement now far outweighed the loss of its ability to copy human minds. On one hand, Nathanial thought sadly, untold death; on the other, immortality. Binary thinking again. Perhaps Hermes had a point.

  “I don’t believe I can, no. I could possibly create a complex series of illusions and thereby, somehow, get one of you to disarm the explosives. But a minute is not long enough.”

  “And not long enough, either—I hope—for you to edit our memories of this encounter.”

  He saw Arnaud raise his eyebrows appreciatively.

  “No,” said Hermes—perhaps a little sadly. “I have the greatest of admiration for you, Professor Nathanial Stone. Playing for time, I understand it’s called. I continue to learn from you.”

  All heads turned sharply at the sound of distant thunder from the passage at the far side of the cavern and the ground shook beneath their feet. A second later, a huge plume of dust and rock jetted from the opening, spreading out almost lethargically in the low gravity before beginning to settle. A sound like cracking ice cut in, and from the domed ceiling above them, more dust and fragments of rock began their slow-motion fall.