“In Which Hermes Is Revealed”
1.
“Right,” said Nathanial, pushing aside his tray. “Let’s look at this logically. How do we explain the other ghosts? There haven’t been any deaths here apart from the professor’s.”
“Perhaps,” Annabelle said, “all of the ghosts are Professor Fournier.” She pursed her mouth up thoughtfully and shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make much sense, either—no one’s claimed that the ghosts they’ve seen have looked anything like her. And remember I caught a brief glimpse of Corporal Heath’s ghost, and that was nothing like her either.”
They sat in silence for a while—and Arnaud fetched them some more tea. Nathanial took the chance to ask Annabelle if she truly was all right.
“Of course I am, silly,” she laughed. “A little bit tired, but I’m finding all of this more fascinating than frightening.”
“Have you seen much of your uncle?”
“Hardly anything. If I’d have known that he’d be so busy, I’m not even sure I’d have suggested coming here, you know. Sorry.”
“You silly thing,” Nathanial said with a grin. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world: ghosts! Well, whatever passes for them in this place. You’ve got nothing to reproach yourself about.”
“And how are you getting on with Arnaud? You weren’t sure about him at the start, were you, and now you seem quite the pair.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad—a bit crazy, but you know what the French are like. He seems to know his onions when it comes to geology, though. He saw some glowing rocks down there and got terribly excited about them.”
“Hmmm,” Annabelle said. “I can see why the two of you get along so well.”
Her attention was caught by Corporal Heath entering the mess. He nodded at them, and she beckoned him over. He walked with an undisguised limp, but he looked a lot better than he had been the day before.
“You’re looking in fine health today,” she said, motioning for him to sit down. “This is my friend, Nathanial Stone—and you’ll already have met Doctor Fontaine.”
Arnaud arrived at that moment.
“Yes, ma’am, we’ve met. A pleasure to meet you, Professor Stone.”
“So, how are you today?” Annabelle asked him as Arnaud volunteered to fetch tea for him.
“I’m getting there. Told ’em I wouldn’t be needing my crutches today—never get better if I keep hobbling about on them things. Need to learn to stand on my own two feet again, don’t I?” He paused awkwardly. “I’ve just heard that they’ve brought the professor’s body up.”
“Yes. Nathanial and Arnaud here helped them.”
“Very good of you, thank you,” Heath said, turning his enamelled metal mug around and around on the table. “I was spark out. A shame, ’cos I’d like to have helped, you know?”
Annabelle nodded.
“Is she…?” Heath fumbled around. “How is she, then? I mean, dead, obviously, but…”
“Considering what befell her,” Nathanial said, hoping he was reassuring Heath, “she wasn’t in as bad a condition as I’d expected.”
“That’s good,” Heath said quietly. “She didn’t deserve to go like that.”
“I think that ‘going like that’ is just the way she would have wanted,” Arnaud chimed in. “Working.”
“Maybe, sir,” Heath said, clearly not convinced but too polite to argue. There was a long pause. “You’ll probably think I’m a bit daft—a bit addled in the head—but there’s something I’d like to do.” They all looked at him. “I’d like to go down there—down to where she died. And say a prayer or two for her. Does that sound silly?”
“Not at all,” Annabelle reassured him. “That’s a lovely thought. I think she’d appreciate that. And there’s something else I should tell you, Corporal. You know your ghost? The one I saw? Well I saw another one this morning.”
Heath’s eyes went wide.
“But it wasn’t yours—it was Professor Fournier.”
The corporal stared at her for a few moments, and then looked at the other two. “You’re not joshing me, are you, miss?”
“Of course not! It was only brief, but she appeared in my room.”
“Bloody hell!” he said eventually. “Sorry, miss.”
“Oh trust me, Corporal, I’ve heard far worse.”
Heath gave a sheepish smile. “I reckon I’ll go down there now,” he said eventually. “Best not say anything to the colonel, though. You know what he’s like. He’ll probably just order me back to bed.”
“Would you mind if I came along?” Arnaud asked. “There are things we saw this morning that I would like to take another look at.”
“To be honest,” Heath said, “I’d be quite glad of the company. This’ll be the first time I’ve been down there since it happened, and if the professor’s ghost is wandering about… Well, you know…”
They nodded understandingly, and Annabelle said: “Is there room for another? These two seem to have done all the adventuring so far. Nathanial, how does that sound to you?”
Nathanial gave a small sigh: he’d only been back an hour or two, and the thought of making the trip again didn’t exactly fill him with joy. But it was a chance to be with Annabelle, and he already felt a little guilty that he hadn’t spent much time with her. He nodded, trying to look as enthusiastic as he could. “Why not? Are you all right with that, Corporal?”
“Suits me fine, sir. In fact, I’d be honoured.”
Arnaud jumped to his feet. “Give me ten minutes to get my sample bag and a couple of tools. I’ll meet you at the top of the path, yes?”
And off he raced, whilst the rest of them finished their tea.
2.
This time, Nathanial was relieved to discover, the trip seemed to take almost no time at all—particularly considering that Heath was still recovering from his accident. But, like a true soldier, he didn’t complain once. They reached the generator that, earlier in the day, had been chuntering away to itself, providing the power for the lamps strung up along the route, and Nathanial got it started again with little trouble. They were all equipped with safety helmets and lamps, and made sure—at Heath’s insistence—that they stayed within sight of each other.
“No running off,” Annabelle warned the two scientists. “I know what you’re like, Nathanial, when something grabs your interest.”
Like naughty schoolboys, he and Arnaud pulled faces at each other.
Soon they reached the metallic seams in the tunnel wall, and paused so that Arnaud could chip away some samples and stow them in the leather bag that hung from his shoulder. It gave Heath the chance to rest his leg and for all of them to take a few mouthfuls of tea that they’d brought in flasks from the mess.
It took no time to reach the cavern where Professor Fournier had died, but Nathanial paused before they went in.
“You’re sure about this, Heath?” he asked the soldier.
“I am, sir, thanks for asking.”
“Good man.”
He patted the corporal awkwardly on the shoulder, and, in silence, they entered the cavern.
Heath went ahead to the far side and kneeled down by the rubble from which the professor’s body had been removed, whilst Arnaud wandered off in search of more rocks.
“Seems a decent enough chap, Heath,” Nathanial whispered to Annabelle. “He’s taken quite a shine to you, you know.”
“I think he feels a bit intimidated by you, though.”
“Me?” Nathanial was surprised. “What’s intimidating about me?”
“Apart from your height, you mean?” She laughed. “I get the feeling that he’s a little bit suspicious of scientists—especially,” she nodded in Arnaud’s direction, “atheist scientists.”
“French atheist scientists to boot.”
“There is that, yes.”
They stood quietly for a moment, watching Heath making the sign of the cross as he knelt there, his head bowed.
“What?” said Annabelle suddenly.
“What?”
“What did you say?”
Nathanial frowned at her. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You did,” Annabelle insisted.
“I did not.”
Annabelle looked around. “How very strange. I was sure you’d said something.”
“Perhaps the acoustics in here are playing tricks on your—” Nathanial stopped, and like Annabelle before him, looked around, puzzled. “That is strange—just for a moment, it sounded like someone was repeating my words back. Did you hear that?”
Annabelle shook her head. “Maybe it’s another ghost?”
“Well if it is, it’s staying hidden.”
Nathanial peered into the inky patches of shadow cast by the rocks in case a ghost was lurking, when he suddenly felt Annabelle tap him on the arm.
“Nathanial,” she said, a note of alarm in her voice.
He turned to see what looked like a vague, smoky patch in the centre of the chamber, slowly growing denser and denser as he looked at it. And the more he looked, the more he realised that it wasn’t smoke at all—it was, rather, like a swarm of bees or wasps, each individual shimmering and glowing, like fireflies.
Heath, too, had seen the cloud and rose to his feet. In the centre of the cavern, the swarm of sparkling particles began to coalesce, drawing together in a somewhat random, haphazard way, as though undecided about what they should be doing.
“What are they?” whispered Annabelle. “Insects?”
Nathanial could only shake his head as, with a decisive surge, the swarm seemed to make its mind up and snapped into a clearly recognisable form—a man. Well, thought Nathanial, a human-shaped form. A human-shaped form about twenty feet in height. It had no recognisable features or, indeed, gender. Although it was fluid and unfixed, as the particles danced around each other, Nathanial imagined he saw a vague hint of the female form about it—but the next second, a wave of change rippled through it and it became decidedly male. There were no facial features: one second he saw a proud, jutting chin, the next it became almost elfin in its physiognomy. It was as though it couldn’t decide quite what it wanted to be. Perhaps, thought Nathanial, it was attempting to imitate aspects of their own forms and couldn’t reconcile the differences. Even its height changed.
Nathanial only wished he could get a closer look—to examine the constituent particles, to work out what they were, organic or inorganic. They glittered with a cold crystal light as they danced and fluttered about each other, and from this distance, Nathanial could make out no legs or wings.
“What is it, sir?” he heard Heath whisper as the soldier tentatively took a few steps forward to stand at Annabelle’s side.
“You know, Corporal—I have absolutely no idea. But it is rather magnificent, isn’t it?” Nathanial smiled.
“Do you think they are capable of intelligent thought?” asked Annabelle. “Or are they just flocking together like that out of some sort of instinct—like birds?”
“It’s possible, but I’ve never seen birds flock together to form the shape of a human being before. It—they—may just be very capable mimics, of course, copying what they see.”
“Us, you mean?”
“See how its shape changes—one minute it looks a little feminine, and the next masculine.”
“And all the shades in between,” added Arnaud from the other side of the chamber. He made as if to cross over to them, but as he did, the swarm blew apart as though a gust of wind had disturbed it.
“No!” called Nathanial. “Stay where you are, Arnaud. Your movement seems to have disturbed them.”
Arnaud paused, and after a few seconds, the swarm pulled back in on itself, resuming its humanoid form. Even as it continued to shift, the “head” rotated until it seemed to be facing Arnaud.
“It’s…it’s looking at me,” he whispered.
“It would appear that way, yes,” agreed Nathanial. “Which suggests that it is capable of seeing, despite appearing to have no eyes with which to see.”
“Could the individual parts of it be capable of acting like eyes, do you think?” asked Annabelle.
Nathanial experimentally raised his right hand, palm forwards. The swarm’s head slowly turned away from Arnaud, back to him. And then it raised its left hand in a mirroring gesture.
“Mon Dieu!” said Arnaud.
“Don’t get too excited,” cautioned Nathanial. “It clearly perceives us—although by what manner of senses I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess. But it may not be thinking or reasoning.”
Annabelle cleared her throat. “Hello there!” she said clearly and loudly.
“Annabelle!”
“What, Nathanial? If we’re to determine whether this thing is more than some bizarre mirror, we have to see if it can understand as well as copy us.”
Suddenly, with a clarity Nathanial had never experienced before, he heard a voice. “Hello!” it said, and it seemed as if the voice were emanating from within his own skull. The strange, church-like acoustics which had accompanied their own voices in the cavern were gone; the voice was flat and free of all reverberation and echo. Next to him, Heath clapped his hands over his ears reflexively.
“Did you all hear that?” Nathanial asked his companions. They nodded. “I am Nathanial Stone,” he said clearly, this time watching the face of the figure to see whether any sort of mouth formed.
“Yes,” came the reply—and yet there was no change from the figure other than the endless, incessant forming and reforming. There was no sign of a mouth. Without lungs or vocal chords or mouth or lips, Nathanial could not conceive of how the thing could be making real sounds, anyway.
“I believe it is speaking into our heads directly,” Arnaud ventured cautiously. “And in French.”
“That were no French,” said Heath. “That were the best Queen’s English.”
“Annabelle?” Nathanial turned to her.
“English for me, too, albeit with an Arizonian drawl.”
“Then it must be some sort of mental projection. Telepathy.” Arnaud said. “I did not hear English, you did not hear French. It is speaking simultaneously in our mother tongues.” He turned back to the figure. “Do you have a name?”
“Professor Maria Fournier calls me Hermes.”
The professor? Nathanial was astounded.
“Hermes?” asked Annabelle. “Do you not have a name of your own?”
There was barely a pause before the thing spoke to them again. “I have had no need of a name before now.”
“Why not? Surely everyone—and everything—has a name. How else would others know how to identify you?”
“There have been no others on Mercury until the arrival of humanity.”
“You mean you are alone here?” Nathanial interjected. “You’re the only one?”
“I am the only one. I have always been the only one.”
“But what are you?” Annabelle said, gesturing vaguely in its direction. “Sorry if that sounds blunt or rude, but we have never encountered anything like you before.”
“Professor Maria Fournier thinks of me as a ‘cooperative organism’.”
“A…what?”
“It means, I think, that I am a single consciousness made up of numerous individual parts, each capable of independent existence.”
“The particles that make up your form, you mean?”
“The fragments, yes.”
Another wave of metamorphosis swept through Hermes: its height reduced whilst it grew noticeably more feminine around the torso.
“Please excuse our questions,” Nathanial said, fearing that the change may have been due to the nature of the interrogation. “We mean no offence by it. We’re simply curious about you.”
“How could I be offended by curiosity?” replied Hermes—and this time its voice had taken on a distinctly more feminine tone. “Curiosity is an integral part of life. Without curiosity there is no discovery, no progress, no development, no improvement.”
“I can’t argue with that philosophy. So these fragments,” ventured Nathanial, “of what are they composed? Are they intelligent?”
“The fragments are composed of nothing—I have generated them in your minds as a visual representation of myself and my constituents. Their real-world analogues are not intelligent in the way you think of intelligence. They are…” Hermes paused. “They are functional elements. Units of activity, of processing. From one moment to the next, they are different, depending on what activities are needed to be performed. They are semi-autonomous but their behaviour is subject to the requirements of the whole.”
“Semi what?” asked Heath. Nathanial had almost forgotten he was there, and the man’s voice gave him a start.
“They act individually within narrow parameters but their…their duty, if you will—is to the whole.”
“Like soldiers in an army, you mean?” ventured Heath.
“That is a good way of thinking of them, yes,” agreed Hermes. “They are like soldiers, each capable of almost any task, although many have specialised in particular functions over the centuries.”
“Centuries?” whispered Annabelle. “How long have you been here?”
“It is difficult to say with any accuracy, since it is only recently that the concept of the measurement of time has had any significance for me. But certainly thousands of years, by your reckoning, has passed since I became aware of such things.”
“You’ve been here, all alone, for thousands of years?”
“Yes.” Hermes paused. “You find the concept strange.”
“The idea of anyone being alone—especially somewhere like this—for thousands of years is strange. And a little bit sad, I suppose.”
“Why?” Hermes’ voice had shifted again, becoming a strong tenor with just the merest hint of a foreign accent for some reason.
“Because it is—I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped here on my own, never mind for thousands of years.” Annabelle paused, and swallowed. Nathanial frowned, wondering why this bothered her so. “Were you not lonely?”
“The concept of loneliness only has meaning when you are aware of the existence of others, surely. Until humanity’s arrival, I was the only thinking being on this planet. I had no other experiences with which to compare it.”
“What about the other creatures here?” asked Arnaud, gesturing upwards. “The beasts that live along the World River?”
“They are not like me.”
“But they’re alive,” Annabelle insisted.
“They are alive, but they are not thinking beings. I had assumed that I was the only thinking being in existence.”
“So,” Arnaud asked cautiously. “Has our arrival changed the way you think?”
“It has. There are vast realms of thoughts and ideas that I must now consider. You are used to being surrounded, from birth, by other sentient, thinking creatures. You live and swim in an ocean of difference and otherness. I am just standing on the shore of that ocean.”
“That’s very poetic,” said Annabelle admiringly.
“I have learned much from humanity already. You have modes of thought and behaviour that I had never previously considered and which I am still trying to understand. Professor Maria Fournier is teaching me.”
Nathanial looked around awkwardly. “You know that Professor Fournier is dead, don’t you?” He had no idea whether Hermes was capable of sorrow or misery—or, indeed, of any human emotions.
“No,” replied Hermes—with yet another shift of voice and form, this time to a taller, slender shape with a higher-pitched, but yet still male, voice.
Nathanial cleared his throat. “She died a few weeks ago—a terrible accident here in these very caves.”
“Yes,” said Hermes. “She did die. But she is still alive.”
Nathanial blinked, his mind trying to catch up. “I’m sorry—I don’t understand you. You mean she didn’t die here?”
“Yes, she did die, but she is still alive.”
Nathanial looked at Annabelle, Heath and Arnaud—who had gingerly jumped down from the ledge and joined the rest of them: all three were frowning.
“Hermes—you’re not making any sense,” said Annabelle gently, clearly cautious of contradicting or antagonising the creature. “Did she die, or didn’t she?”
Hermes turned its head slightly to face her. “How would you define ‘death’?” it asked.
“Well that’s obvious,” Annabelle said. “She…ceased living.” She turned to Nathanial as she stumbled around looking for some other way of defining what she clearly thought of as a fairly unambiguous state.
“You are using circular definitions,” Hermes said. “Defining ‘death’ as ‘the absence of life’.”
“But isn’t that what it is? Death is the absence of life.”
“But what is life?”
“What’s it on about, sir?” said Heath under his breath, looking at Nathanial. “The professor was dead, no doubt about it. No one could have survived that rockfall. You saw her yourself, earlier.”
“But that’s not what you’re saying, is it Hermes?” Nathanial asked the shimmering figure. “You’re not saying that she survived. You’re saying that she died and yet is still alive—have I understood you correctly? But surely the two are mutually contradictory, are they not?”
“Humanity has a very binary way of thinking about the universe—and itself. I have found this with Professor Maria Fournier.”
“Binary?” said Annabelle.
“You define and describe things in terms of polar opposites, of extremes. Am I incorrect in this observation?”
“You mean like life and death?” asked Arnaud, clearly fascinated by the direction the conversation was taking.
“Life and death,” agreed Hermes, as another shudder fluttered through him and his voice became distinctly female—almost girlish. “Black and white, right and left, male and female…. Your worldview seems to be filtered like this, I have observed.”
“But that is the way things are,” protested Annabelle. “How else could it be?”
“I have a theory,” Hermes said, almost thoughtfully. “About why you think this way when I do not. But I need to reflect upon it a little more.”
“But what about the professor?” insisted Heath. “Is she alive or dead?” He looked at the others. “How difficult can it be?”
“Perhaps,” suggested Arnaud, “for a being like Hermes who has never known death, only perpetual life, the concept of death is confusing?”
“I am not confused. I understand the difference between the two states. Your idea of death is the destruction or terminal failure of the body, is it not?”
“What else could it be?” Arnaud said.
“But the cells of which your body is composed die and are replaced and renewed on a regular basis, is that not the case?”
“That seems to be the case, yes,” agreed Nathanial with caution. His own mind was working frantically to understand the logic which defined Hermes’ perceptions.
“Let us assume that over a period of years, every cell in your body is replaced by a new one. If there is no continuity of physical existence, then can you genuinely claim to be the same person throughout your life?”
“Even if that were the case,” argued Nathanial, enjoying the discussion greatly, “and I’m not for one moment conceding that it is, then surely the replacement of one cell by another does not constitute any form of death at all. Look at us!” He gestured to his companions. “We are the same people—older and, hopefully, wiser—that we were ten, fifteen years ago.”
“Then what is the ‘you’ that maintains its continuity if not the cells from which you are constructed?”
Nathanial was stumped.
But Annabelle wasn’t. “Are you talking about the soul?” she asked with a quiet reverence.
“The soul does not exist,” stated Hermes simply—as one might deny the existence of purple cats. “My conversations with Professor Maria Fournier suggest that it is a construct designed to reassure humans that, as they approach the ends of their lives, they will not completely cease to exist.”
Nathanial was reminded of the conversations he used to have with his father; they, too, were never able to find a middle-ground. Now they were having such philosophical—verging on theological—discussions with a form of life so unlike any of them.
“Nonsense!” said Annabelle. “What sort of rubbish is that? That we have no souls?” She turned to Nathanial, outrage written across her face.
Nathanial wasn’t sure what to say: although brought up in a very religious household, the things he had seen since leaving Earth had made him reconsider many of the basic tenets of his faith. It was hard to reconcile the word of the Bible with some of the strange beings he had met. If they were not mentioned in the Good Book, then did that mean that God had created them soulless? Or were they simply a part of God’s design that, so far, had been hidden from humanity?
“And how do you come to that conclusion, Hermes, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nathanial said. “At the very least, it’s a contentious theory.”
“There is no evidence for it,” Hermes said blithely.
“No evidence?” cried Annabelle—who was clearly getting angry, Nathanial could tell. And he wasn’t yet sure that a full-blown argument with this bizarre creature was a good idea. “Of course there’s evidence. Even if you haven’t read the Bible, has Professor Fournier not told you about spiritualism? Séances? Ghosts?” Her eyes widened. “Ghosts! How do you explain the ghosts that the men upstairs have been seeing?” She clenched her fist and placed it against her chest. “That I have seen?”
“There are many possible explanations that are more plausible than the existence of a soul.”
“Well maybe in your world, there are. But humanity has been around a lot longer than you. We’ve known life…” Annabelle paused and Nathanial felt sure he saw a tremor in her lower lip. “And we’ve known death. You haven’t. You can’t know there’s no such thing as a soul. You can only postulate it, or whatever the wretched phrase is.”
“It is possible that I am wrong, yes,” Hermes replied. “But there is no evidence for that either. And it was not the soul to which I was referring. It was the mind.”
“The mind?” repeated Arnaud. “But that is surely the same thing, non?”
“No,” Hermes said. “The soul is a concept with no evidence. The mind is what operates and animates your body, is it not, and which ceases to exist upon your bodily death? Whereas, if I understand correctly, the soul is some ineffable, untouchable, immutable thing. Have I misunderstood?” It seemed almost worried.
“Of course you have!” snapped Annabelle
“Hold on, Annabelle,” Nathanial said cautiously, aware that Annabelle was already spoiling for a fight. “There is some sense in what Hermes has said. Our souls live on after our bodies, with no body to support them. And yet the mind can be twisted and damaged by all manner of things physical, things acting upon our persons. Perhaps Hermes has a point—I confess, I am no great philosopher.”
“But, Nathanial,” argued Annabelle. “Our souls are what make us us. How can they not have an effect on us?”
“It is your minds that make you what you are,” Hermes corrected her. “Make us who we are. I am no different to you in that respect. We are creatures of mind, not of soul.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Heath suddenly. “Miss Somerset is right.”
Annabelle raised her hands towards the glowing figure, in what Nathanial took as a placatory gesture. “I’m sorry, Hermes,” she said. “I don’t wish to cause offence, but you are most certainly not like us.”
“My physical form differs, that is true. But what does that matter? It is the mind that animates the body; it is the mind that communicates; it is the mind that is us.”
“Well maybe that’s true. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have souls, too.”
“Indeed it does not—the two are not mutually contradictory. But there is empirical evidence for mind, and none for soul. I would imagine that you consider me to have a mind, but probably not a soul. Is that true?”
“I couldn’t comment on whether you have a soul or not. There is only one judge of that. But…well, yes, you seem to have a mind. That much is clear.”
“And yet despite the fact that my ‘body’—the physical matter of which I am composed—is different to yours, our minds are not so different. Less different, indeed, than you and a horse, for example. It is our minds, our ability to think and communicate, that we have in common. And yet, in terms of our physical natures, you are much, much closer to a horse than I am.”
“Cheeky beggar!” snapped Heath. “We are not!”
“Sorry, Corporal,” said Nathanial. “But I suspect he’s right. Hermes, if what we see before us is just some mental conjuring trick, what exactly is your body—your physical form?”
“You have heard of the things that Professor Maria Fournier refers to as ‘plates’?”
“The crystals?” Nathanial looked around the chamber. “The ones that are everywhere.”
“They are not everywhere. But yes. The plates are the medium within which my mind resides, as your brains house your minds. The difference is simply the material from which our bodies are constructed. The important part is the interconnections between those parts: they are what create mind. In you, your minds are simply a series of chemical processes. In me, they are a series of electrical and optical ones.”
Nathanial was still trying to absorb what Hermes had just said: its body was threaded through the rock of Mercury, not entirely dissimilar to the Heart of Luna. Although the Heart was the centre of that world, Hermes was… He gazed round the chamber, noting the threads of dark rock woven into the walls, the boil-like crystal spheres protruding from them. Hermes was…the planet?
“So you’re, like, just rock then?” asked Heath in disbelief.
“Essentially, yes. But then the particles which constitute your bodies have come from the Earth where you were born. You are simply a different arrangement of rock.”
“Sir,” said Heath quietly, turning his face away from Hermes. “This thing, whatever it is… Don’t mean to speak out of turn, sir, and I know you know all about science and that. But, well, it’s not all there, is it?” Heath tapped the side of his head.
“I don’t understand,” said Hermes, the voice becoming that of a young boy. “What does that mean?”
Heath turned sharply, clearly not expecting Hermes to have been able to hear him. “You’ve got bloody good hearing for a rock man, I’ll give you that.”
“I am not hearing with anything you might consider as ears. I am speaking directly into your minds and hearing you the same way. Professor Maria Fournier thinks that this might alarm you. Is that true?”
“It’s…unusual,” said Arnaud. “But then this whole situation is unusual, is it not?” He threw a twinkly grin at Nathanial.
“You keep talking about Professor Fournier in the present tense,” Nathanial said, feeling that the conversation had strayed somewhat. “Why?”
“Because she is not dead.”
“Not that again!” spat Heath. “I’m sorry, sir, but we should go. We need to tell the colonel about this thing.”
“By your definition of life, she is dead,” Hermes continued, “her body was crushed, her heart stopped beating and her lungs ceased to supply her body with oxygen. But by my definition, she is still alive.”
“I still don’t understand—,” began Nathanial, but Arnaud suddenly made a noise and threw his arms wide.
“Ah! You mean that her mind is still alive, n’est ce pas? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? We see people as things made of flesh and blood, but you see them simply as minds. Am I correct, Hermes?”
“Yes,” the figure said. “Professor Maria Fournier continues to exist. I have attempted to copy the patterns of the cells in her brain.”
“Copy?” said Nathanial, a little disturbed by the idea.
“Yes. It is inadequate and incomplete because part of her brain was damaged in the accident and much of it had degraded beyond the point of accurate transcription by the time I was able to copy her.”
“This is horrible!” said Annabelle, clearly aghast. “You’ve made a copy of a woman?”
“I have made an incomplete copy of her mind. Do you consider that wrong?”
“Of course it’s wrong! It’s unnatural—it’s against God.”
“There is no God,” Hermes said calmly—and at this even Nathanial narrowed his eyes, “therefore it cannot be against it or him or her. And since I am a part of Nature, it—and hence everything I do—cannot be unnatural.”
“Sir,” hissed Heath, tapping Nathanial on the arm. “This thing…it’s…I think we should go, sir. I really think we should go.”
There was a barely-restrained anger in Heath’s voice, and his eyes were dark. Perhaps he was right. There was so much more that Nathanial wanted to ask Hermes, but he caught sight of Annabelle, nodding in agreement with Heath.
“Hermes, we have to go,” Nathanial said.
“Where?”
“Back up to the surface.”
“Yes,” Heath agreed, vigorously. “And Colonel Shawbridge knows we’re down here and is expecting us.”
There was a very long pause before Hermes said: “That is not true.”
Heath and Nathanial glanced at each other.
“What is the purpose of making an incorrect statement when you know it to be incorrect?” continued Hermes.
“Are you reading our minds?” Annabelle asked cautiously.
“Beyond the activity of your speech centres, no—I have not yet perfected that ability. But I can understand some peripheral thoughts. And Corporal Paul Heath’s statement was not true.” There was puzzlement in Hermes’ voice. “Why would you knowingly state an incorrect fact?”
Heath didn’t have an answer.
“I think what the corporal meant is that Colonel Shawbridge will be missing us if we are gone too long,” Nathanial suggested.
“But that is not what he said—and not what you believe.”
Hermes was determined not to let this go, but Nathanial felt it was time for them to depart.
“And the corporal isn’t well, either—after the accident. He needs to rest.”
“Very well,” Hermes said simply.
“But we will come back and talk more, yes, Hermes?”
“I hope so.”
And, like the death of a swarm of fireflies, the glittering particles which made up Hermes’ body went out. Just like that.
“Well,” said Annabelle. “Not a word of goodbye. How terribly rude.” She looked at Nathanial, but instead of the humour he expected to see in her face, there was only annoyance. And anger.