“In Which Nathanial Makes a Bad Situation Worse”
1.
For some reason, Annabelle had pictured Reverend Lyden, the station’s chaplain, as a small, unremarkable Englishman. The reality was, in fact, that he was a tall, rather angular Welshman, with a beautiful, sonorous voice. She could quite imagine him conducting services and commanding the attention of his flock.
Despite the late hour, he was still awake, tending a display of Mercurian flowers in the chapel. They stood in the vestibule, fanning out from a simple, white china pot, all blues and greens, some of the leaves edged in red and bronze. Annabelle wasn’t quite sure that she liked them, but they certainly were dramatic.
“Ah,” said Lyden warmly as she and Heath let themselves in. “You must be the colonel’s niece, mustn’t you? Lovely.”
He shook her hand vigorously—and, to her surprise, did the same to Heath, who seemed a little taken aback by the chaplain’s familiarity.
“Sorry about calling in so late,” Annabelle said.
“Ah, don’t you be worrying about that.” Lyden beamed, showing them through to the kitchen of his own quarters, adjacent to the chapel. Whereas the rest of the station’s buildings seemed to have been furnished—and kept tidy—with military efficiency, it was clear that Lyden was neither a woman nor a soldier: unwashed teacups stood by the sink, drying clothes hung haphazardly from a rack on the ceiling, and piles of papers and prayer books stood in precarious piles. He hastily cleared space for them on his sofa. “Perhaps some tea, then?”
“Actually, yes,” said Annabelle. “Tea would be lovely—as long as we’re not keeping you from your bed.”
“Oh, Heavens no,” Lyden said. “Back home I was always a night owl, I was, and here—well, here it’s anyone’s guess what time it is, isn’t it?”
“It does feel a little that way, yes,” Annabelle agreed. “I’m not sure I could cope with an extended stay. There’s something a bit…disorienting about it, isn’t there?”
“There is indeed, Miss Somerset,” Lyden replied, fussing with teacups and filling the kettle. “It seems that we underestimate the value of having a proper night and day. I wonder what it would be like to be somewhere in permanent daylight.”
“At least you could have curtains and blinds to shut it out at night,” Annabelle said.
“Darkness is easier to create than light, isn’t it?” Lyden smiled. “And no, that’s not a religious statement.”
“It would make a very apposite one,” said Annabelle, remembering why they were here. “The reason we’ve come to see you, Reverend, is…” She glanced at Heath who was sitting very tensely, hands clasped in his lap. “Well, we’ve just had a very strange, and somewhat disturbing, encounter.”
“Really? Oh splendid!” As the kettle started whistling, he brought over the tea tray and returned to fill the teapot. “Please, do tell me all about it.”
“Where do I start? Well, this is probably going to sound like madness, but—”
“We’ve seen the Devil,” Heath interjected.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Annabelle said, somewhat taken aback by Heath’s declaration. “It’s a long story…”
As the chaplain returned with the teapot, she told him the whole tale, keeping an eye on Heath, who remained quiet. At the end, Lyden sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “Well now, that is a story. But then little surprises me nowadays, not with all this space travel and alien worlds. Seems like almost anything is possible, doesn’t it?”
Heath lifted his head suddenly. “So you think it is the Devil then?”
Lyden thought for a few moments. “I think, Paul, that the Devil comes in many forms—some of them recognisable, others not at all so.”
“But the things he said about there not being any such thing as the soul, or God.”
“Perhaps this creature, this Hermes, is simply one of the innocents that hasn’t been introduced to God’s love? Even back on Earth there are many people who are ignorant of Him—that’s what missionaries are for, after all. Perhaps, rather than condemn him, we should pity him, and seek to enlighten him.”
That seemed quite reasonable to Annabelle—she hadn’t considered that before.
“With all respect,” Heath said, “you didn’t hear him. He was arrogant, wasn’t he, miss? Full of himself and science and how God didn’t exist. And the stuff about making a copy of the professor…” He looked up at Lyden. “That’s God’s work, isn’t it? Making people.”
“Yes,” Lyden said thoughtfully. “I have to admit, that part of the story worried me the most. You didn’t see this ‘copy’ then, did you?”
“I think I may have done,” said Annabelle—and went on to tell him of her encounter with Professor Fournier’s ghost.
“Ah,” said Lyden. “Yes. The ghosts.”
“What’s your take on them, then?” asked Heath eagerly. “The ghosts. Are they real? You know I’ve seen one, don’t you? I’d have come to tell you about it if I hadn’t been laid up in the hospital.”
Heath, Annabelle was increasingly realising, was searching for answers. From what he’d told her about his upbringing, the Church, Bible and God had always been there for him, providing him with a framework for his life. Perhaps that was why he’d joined the army—to be part of something bigger than himself, something that would give him direction?
“To be quite honest, Paul, the ghosts are a mystery to me,” Lyden said. “It’s hard to say quite what they are. But Miss Somerset’s visitation by Professor Fournier’s does rather lend credence to the idea that, yes, they are ghosts.”
“But what about the others?” Heath insisted, leaning forward even further. Annabelle saw Lyden flinch a little and started pouring the tea, hoping that it might calm Heath down a little. “What about mine? Even Miss Somerset here saw it, didn’t you?”
“I have to confess I did, yes. Only briefly, but there was certainly something there.”
“And everyone else as well,” Heath continued. “We can’t all be mad, can we?”
“No one’s suggesting you’re mad,” Annabelle insisted. “I’m certainly not, and I’ve seen two of them.”
Heath sat back and chewed at his lip, his eyes lowered again, as Annabelle handed him a cup. He declined it with a brief raise of his hand. “What if,” he said, suddenly animated again, “what if they’re devils as well, sent by Hermes to torment us, or trick us or something? That would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s a possibility,” Lyden admitted, throwing a look at Annabelle. She could see that he too was finding Heath’s attitude a little intense. Disturbing, even. “But remember where we are, Paul—we’re on a strange world, millions of miles from home. This is a whole new era for humanity, and I’m sure that many of the things we’ve encountered since we left Earth could have been seen as, oh, miracles or angels—or, yes, devils. I don’t think we should be too quick to judge. Miss Somerset—what’s your opinion?”
Annabelle was a little thrown. “Really, I don’t know. Yes, I’ve seen some strange sights, but ghosts?” She shook her head gently. “One thing I do know, though, is that the feeling I got from Hermes was not a good one. There was something arrogant and lofty about it. Something….”
“Inhuman?” suggested Heath. “It was Hermes that the professor’s ghost was talking about, no doubt about that. And she warned you, didn’t she?”
Annabelle took deep breath and nodded. “She did, yes. Inhuman.”
2.
Shawbridge and Nathanial followed Iris out into the gloom; in the distance, they could hear much muttering and a few astonished cries.
“They’re everywhere,” Iris said as they reached the main square of Princess Christiana Station. Little huddles of people were standing around, pointing and crying. Some of them were shouting, their fists raised.
And around each little group, there were ghosts.
Some of them were as solid and concrete as Shawbridge’s own ghost had been earlier, but most of them were hazy phantoms, displaying the same flickering and shifting that had been reported in earlier sightings.
“Right!” bellowed Shawbridge at the top of his voice. “There’s no need to panic.”
A woman in a nurse’s uniform with a coat wrapped around her shoulders came running over. “Sir,” she said, her voice heavily accented. Nathanial caught sight of her name badge: Nurse Juanita Lopez. “I have seen one—and it was me!”
Shawbridge threw a glance at Nathanial. “Is that so, Nurse? Well trust me, there’s no need to worry—”
“But it was me!” she repeated, patting her chest. “I am going to die, aren’t ? I’m going to die!”
Nathanial fought back the impulse to point out that everyone was going to die. “Listen to me, Juanita,” he said calmly, making sure that he had her attention. “These things—ghosts, whatever they are—they don’t mean anything.”
“But it was me!” she repeated, clearly fixated on the idea of her own death. “How can that not mean anything?”
“Professor Stone is right,” Shawbridge said. “You’re not the only one to see your own ghost.”
“He’s right,” said a massively-built soldier who’d been standing nearby, his arm around a sobbing young woman. “There’s Joan’s.” He pointed to a translucent figure standing just a few yards away. Its face was hazy and unclear, but the resemblance to Joan was indisputable.
“Does that mean we’re all going to die?” asked someone else.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” another voice chimed in.
A fresh round of wailing and muttering broke out.
“This is madness,” muttered Shawbridge to Nathanial. “What do I tell them?”
“The truth?” suggested Nathanial.
“We don’t know the truth.”
“Well, tell them that, then.”
“And have them lose faith in me? What kind of commander would I be, then, admitting I don’t know?”
“An honest one?”
Shawbridge glared at Nathanial, and he wondered whether he’d gone too far. The colonel’s attitude to his own ghost had been more rational than Nathanial would have expected, but now, faced by the panic of the station personnel, was he losing control of his faculties?
“And why haven’t we all seen them?” chirped up Iris. “Does that mean some of us aren’t going to die?”
“No one,” said Nathanial calmly, “is going to die. Not before their natural time, anyway.”
“And how would you know?” asked the soldier, pulling Joan closer. “With respect, sir, you’ve been here less than two days. Some of us have been here months, and I’m telling you, there’s something not right with this place.” He pointed at her ghost. “These things ain’t right, and you know it. If you know what they are, then tell us. If you don’t…”
“Have some respect, Lister,” Shawbridge warned him, but his voice was thin and devoid of authority, like a teacher who’d finally lost control of a class of unruly boys. The soldier just glowered and, arm still around his wife, turned away.
“Sir,” insisted Iris. “What do we do?”
“Go back to your quarters, Iris.” He turned to address the crowd. “Everyone! Go back to your quarters. Whatever these things are, they can’t harm you.”
“Says who?” shouted someone from the back of the crowd.
“Stop that, man!” Shawbridge shouted. “You want to be up on a charge of mutiny, do you?”
Nathanial realised he was holding his breath, and let it out in a long sigh. This was going from bad to worse. “Colonel Shawbridge is right,” he stepped in without thinking. “These ghosts can’t harm you—they have no physical substance. We don’t know exactly what they are yet, that’s true, but we can assure you that they mean no harm. Go back to bed, stay with friends or workmates—whatever makes you feel safe. But trust me, you’re in no danger.”
A sullen muttering broke out and gradually, the crowd began to disperse. They were not happy, but they were going.
“Thank you, Stone,” said Shawbridge under his breath—but the tone of his voice held no gratitude whatsoever. “Thank you very much for that.”
And without another word, he stormed off.
“What did I say?” Nathanial asked Iris before she rushed after Shawbridge.
She turned and gave Nathanial a withering look. “Why did you come here?” she snapped. “Why did you come here?” Iris ran after the colonel, leaving Nathanial feeling more wretched and alone than he’d felt in a long time.
Yes, he thought to himself miserably. Why did I come here?
3.
Nathanial knocked tentatively at Annabelle’s door, not at all sure that she’d welcome him after their earlier parting. There was no answer so he tried a little louder, but still nothing. He pressed his head against the wood of the door, and for a moment he felt like punching it. He’d come here as Annabelle’s friend, to see Annabelle’s uncle—and now he seemed to have alienated both of them, never mind the rest of the station’s personnel.
Where could he go? Back to his own bungalow? To lie sleepless in the dark, fretting and worrying about how this whole trip seemed to have turned out?
Damn it, no!
With new resolve, Nathanial drew himself up. He knew where he needed to go.
4.
Heath walked her back to her bungalow in awkward silence. There seemed to be a lot of people around, she thought—couples, individuals and groups of people—heading away from the main square.
“Sorry for getting a bit, you know, back there, miss,” Heath said eventually, clearly sensing the awkwardness as much as Annabelle. “It’s just…” His words dried up and he pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose noisily into it.
“Don’t worry about it—you’ve had a terrible time over the last few weeks. Heaven only knows how I’d cope in your shoes.”
He managed a crooked grin. “I must have sounded like a right loony, mustn’t I?”
“Of course you didn’t.” She paused. “I’m sorry, too.”
“What for?”
“For not backing you up—back there with Reverend Lyden. I should have done.”
Heath shook his head. “Don’t worry, miss, really. I reckon this is something I’ve got to sort out on my own.”
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant, and he read her expression correctly.
“I know you and Professor Stone—and the Frenchman—have your own views on that thing down there, and I respect ’em, I really do. But I was brought up proper, to know right from wrong. No offence meant, I’m sure you were too, miss. But my mum always told me that if you stand by and let summat evil happen, then you’re no better than the evil itself.”
“I don’t…” said Annabelle, hesitantly. “What do you mean? What are you going to do?”
“Don’t you worry yourself, miss. This is man’s work. You get off to bed, or go find that gentleman of yours. Everything’ll be fine. I’ll sort it all out.” And with a nod, Heath turned and vanished into the dark, leaving Annabelle with a very bad feeling.