Part 23 (1/2)

As silently as she could, Piper backed away from the airlock, into the darkness.

And a light silhouetted her against the wall.

Her body suddenly became numb. An icy sensation rushed through her limbs. Her heart faltered, then resumed its steady rhythm. She gasped, clutched her chest and sank to the metal grillework which served as the floor of the corridor. Her head spun and her left arm tingled painfully with pins and needles. She blinked. The light was s.h.i.+ning in her eyes, swooping towards her.

Something simultaneously velvet and diamond insinuated itself into her body, slipping easily between the molecules of her skin and coalescing within her. Piper screamed. The sensation moved around inside her, filling her up, shuffling, searching, pa.s.sing through to leave her sick and trembling and curiously empty.

The light faded, driven aside by the darkness of the Base. She heard footsteps: people running towards her, attracted by her scream. She struggled to her feet, her only thought to avoid discovery, and staggered off into the darkness.

Bernice ran forward into the darkness, her torch beam bobbing in front of her. A babble of conversation filled her ears.

'What was it? Did you see it?'

'See what? I heard a noise, like a whisper '

'There was something a light, shadows '

'How can you see shadows? It's dark!'

'What the h.e.l.l there's someone there!'

'Hey! Hey you!'

Teal's hand found her arm. 'Don't. Bernice, don't go any further.'

'But I have to see '

'No.' The Doctor's voice rang out like a s.h.i.+p's bell in the darkness. 'You don't have to see anything. Come back here, now. All of you.'

The running footsteps faltered, slowed, began to return along the corridor.

The Doctor shone his torch on to Bernice as she returned from the darkness. Her face was flushed with excitement. 'Did you see it? What was it?'

Beside her, Teal's voice trembled in the darkness. 'There was nothing to see. I only heard...' He faltered. 'I only heard...'

The Doctor spoke firmly. 'Get everyone together. a.n.u.shkia, Julie, Craig... Get them all and meet me in the Operations Room. Bernice, Bishop: carry Alex will you. And mind you go carefully with his head. We'll need him to get the neural network back on line.' Without another word, the Doctor strode into the darkness.

Bernice stared distastefully at the physicist, rec.u.mbent on the floor. 'Come on then, Sleeping Beauty.'

Christine LaFayette blinked a layer of viscous blue gel from her eyes and sat up, coughing. 'Ciel!'

She coughed again, and spat a wad of blue gel to one side. Her throat stung with the effort. She tried to ma.s.sage her neck but her left arm would not move. She peered down at it, noting that a white smock, like a hospital gown, clothed her from throat to ankles. Projecting beyond the sleeve, the flesh of her hand was pallid and sweaty. It hung uselessly at her side. She rolled up the sleeve to her elbow, the fingers of her right hand brus.h.i.+ng her left forearm as she did so. She felt nothing. She pinched herself, but might as well have been pinching the padded plastic of the bed on which she sat for all the sensation she felt. She rolled her sleeve up further. Above her elbow, the flesh displayed a normal skin tone. A razor*sharp line divided the quick from the newly grown. She pinched herself on her left biceps and yelped with pain.

As the pain subsided, she looked around. She was sitting on a diagnostic bed in what was obviously a medlab of some kind. But where? There was no equipment this sophisticated anywhere on Eden. Straining, she tried to gather her thoughts. The last thing she remembered was...

Yukio's face erupting before her, stumbling backwards, a pressure on her elbow. My arm! Is that my arm? Why is it floating in front of And then the pain, and the darkness.

And then here. Wherever here was.

Feeling her stomach churn with the painful memories, she leaned sideways and was violently sick. Something metallic slithered from beneath her bed and vacuumed the debris away, before slipping back under the bed and deactivating with a click. Medical droid.

Not on the Base, then. Not anywhere on the Base.

Painfully, Christine swung her legs to one side until she was in a sitting position. Her muscles were a little stiff, but, although she flinched in antic.i.p.ation, there was no pain.

She glanced down again at her left arm. Prosthetic? Cloned? Easier to believe that it was hers, and there was something wrong with it. d.a.m.n the memories of seeing it floating away in front of her. Nerve damage, say, or muscle wastage. Something. Anything.

She ran her right hand lightly over the rest of her body. Everything seemed fine. She took a deep breath. Time to leave then, and find some answers.

Peering around for a locker where she might find some clothes, she stood.

A medical alarm sounded.

Bernice helped Bishop lay Alex Bannen on the floor beside one of the main Operations Room workstations. There was a loud clattering and muted conversation as a.n.u.shkia Smyslov, Shmuel Zehavi and a morose Cheryl Russell followed them into the room and placed their torches so that the beams played over the domed ceiling, throwing a dim reflected light, like candlelight, back into the room. Bernice stood. 'Anyone here got med training?'

a.n.u.shkia pushed forward into the circle of torchlight. 'Yes. I'll take charge here. You and Teal go and find Craig Richards and Tiw Heimdall.'

'I'll find the Doctor,' Cheryl said dully, as she picked up a torch. 'Craig's probably checking the power linkages. G.o.d alone knows where we'll find Tiw.'

Bernice nodded. 'Let's do it.'

Bishop stepped forward as the women left the room.

a.n.u.shkia looked up from beside Alex Bannen's p.r.o.ne body. 'And where are you going?'

'Orders to the contrary notwithstanding, Krau Smyslov,' Bishop produced his ubiquitous thin smile, 'to apprehend the villain of the piece.'

The Doctor ran soundlessly through the darkness. He had no torch, but darkness did not impede his progress. In the back of his mind he knew the air in the Base was getting staler as the crisis progressed, but he couldn't afford to worry about that now. More urgent was the need to find out why Piper had felt it necessary to shut down the neural net like this. Only then could he decide if it was safe to reboot the system.

His foot touched a black rubberized cylinder, and he stopped his headlong dash instantly. He bent to examine the device. A torch. Piper's?

Pocketing it, he moved on.

Behind him, unnoticed, faint beams of light s.h.i.+mmered softly, and without apparent source, across the corridor walls.

'Atten*shun.'

Six pairs of polycarbide*armoured boots slapped the IMC executive transporter bay deckplates at the Staff Sergeant's command. Six high*power weapons chunked as they were slung across six heavily muscled male and female shoulders.

Silence hung in the air.

'Squad Number One: prepare for executive transporter embarkation. You know the drill, now let's move! Point!'