Andrew, of all people, insisted they
have lunch before anyone touched the sword.
He pointed out that no one had eaten at all so far that day and they’d
all exerted themselves. Further exertion
should be deferred until after they’d taken some time out. Pete, of all people, agreed with him.
“Don’t
you wanna know what happened?” Nick frowned.
“Sure
but not at the risk of hurting someone.
Derek’s said he’d try. That’s
good enough for me. I can wait till
he’s ready,” Pete replied. “Derek ..?”
“Yes,
Pete.”
“Is
it okay with you if I mention in my report that a psychic was hired? I won’t give your name.” Pete shrugged. “It’d be a big help if you said yes. My lieutenant doesn’t have a very high opinion of psychics. If I put down that I used one to help
determine the series of events, he won’t read much more after that.”
“I
have no objection,” Derek responded.
“Sir,”
Andrew insisted. “Lunch. Now.”
They
went to the dining room and enjoyed a bigger than usual midday meal. In fact, they spent longer than usual eating
it and relaxing a little. Pete expanded
on his altitude theory and they digressed into why it could be the explanation
for the attack. The entity suffered
from motion sickness, or it would have preferred a passenger flight because the
service was better. It never quite sank
to the level of laughing at their predicament because it was still very much in
their minds. An invisible killer in the
house which could strike without warning wasn’t something easily forgotten, but
the mood around the dining table was definitely lighter.
Pete
asked where Alex had gone, and why Nick hadn’t gone with his wife.
“Well,
we were supposed to go on vacation together but this came up an’ I decided it
was more important. Peri, in turn,
decided she’d wait in Hawaii while I worked here,” Nick answered. “She had business there too but it wasn’t
much an’ she extended her stay.”
“A
sword was more important? You must have
the most understanding wife in the whole world,” Pete commented.
“Believe
me, Hawaii was payback.”
“You
wish you’d gone?”
Nick
thought about it. “No. If the sword had been just a sword, like it
was meant to be, I’d have a few regrets but, as it isn’t .. no. I’m glad I stayed.” He shrugged. “I’m glad too that Peri isn’t here.”
“Wouldn’t
she have been useful?” Pete queried.
“Yeah,
but, if she was here, it would mean Kat was here as well so I’m pleased they’re
both safe.”
“Probably
having the time of their lives,” Pete agreed.
“So .. what’s Alex’s story?”
“Alex
has gone to Canada to get back to nature.”
“Nurturing
her inner child,” Nick grinned.
“Not
quite,” Derek smiled. “Alex has an
artistic side, a creative side which doesn’t get as much exposure as any of us would
like. She has gone to a community where
that situation can be rectified.”
“Tree
hugging?” Pete queried.
“Painting,
sculpting, making jewelry, weaving, dyeing, and the potter’s wheel.”
“Oh
.. one of those vacations. Like an adventure
vacation but without the adventure.”
Pete finished his coffee. “An’
Rachel, of course, is away working.”
“Again,
not quite, at least not on a Luna Foundation fieldtrip,” Derek commented. “This is more her professional work.”
“You
mean .. she’s an amateur here?”
“No,
I don’t mean that,” Derek replied. “I
mean she is a board certified, state registered psychologist. No one can qualify with a genuine
certificate to hang on the wall to do this kind of work. However, we are all professionals, all
experienced in our own way, and we each bring those experiences and expertise
into play in our work here on the island.”
“Plus
the pay in this job is lousy,” Nick added.
“Most
necessary jobs are poorly paid,” Pete opined.
“Cops, the military, the psychics.
I bet Rachel’s really glad she has another job outside. What about you, Derek? How’d you afford to keep this place going?”
“If
I said that I am independently wealthy, I don’t want you to imagine the Luna
Foundation is my hobby. It isn’t.”
“No
one in their right mind would do this work if they didn’t feel in their soul
that they had to,” Nick remarked. “But
it helps coming into it with a big reserve in the bank.”
“Did
you?”
“Are
you kidding? I got my Navy pension, a
little in the way of savings but not much.
I married into money.”
“Peri
is rich,” Pete stated, but he sounded as if he didn’t believe himself.
“Yes,
she is,” Derek confirmed.
“A
hotel, couple of nightclubs, an’ a house on Nob Hill, plus her place in
Tiburon,” Nick added. “That’s just in
San Francisco.”
“Holy
shit.” Pete sat back. “You’d never know it to look at her.”
“She’s
one smart lady,” Nick grinned. “Don’t
ever go into a battle of wits with her unless you’re very sure of your ground.”
“Well,”
Derek said, pushing back from the table, “if we’re all finished .. we have a
job to do.”
He
led the way back to the library. Andrew
was sitting at the table and rose as they came in.
“I
haven’t touched it,” he said. “I just
didn’t want to leave it unguarded. I
know intruders would have a difficult task breaking in but .. it didn’t feel
right to just .. ignore it. Not this
sword.”
Derek
nodded. “Your diligence is appreciated,
Andrew. This weapon does deserve our
respect and admiration.”
“Yes,
sir.” Andrew inclined his head and left
them alone.
“He’s
a good guy,” Pete remarked. “Got his
finger right on the pulse.”
“And
we’re grateful for that,” Derek said.
“It gives us one less thing to think about.” He approached the weapon, taking several deep, cleansing breaths.
“I may get nothing from this sword, you
understand. It may choose to remain
silent.”
“My
money’s on you, Derek,” Pete responded with quiet faith and a quick smile.
Derek
glanced at Nick. “Are you ready?”
“Go
for it,” Nick nodded.
Derek
closed both hands into fists then opened them and laid them flat on the hilt
and the blade. He shut out the world,
shut out Pete’s anxious expression, shut out Nick’s watchful presence, shut out
the quiet gasp of shock. His body
stiffened.
Pete
looked around quickly. “Shouldn’t we
break him out of it?”
“Stay
with him!” Nick ordered and ran.
Derek
was staring at nothing, his entire body rigid.
“How
long does this last?” Pete called, unable to drag his gaze away.
“Till
it’s over,” Nick called back. He sounded
close but he wasn’t in the room.
“C’mon,
Derek, snap out of it. It isn’t worth
this, okay? C’mon, guy, listen to
me. Come back.”
Then
Nick was in the room again. Pete had no
idea where he’d gone but he was glad the former SEAL had returned.
“He’ll
collapse soon after he comes round,” Nick commented, opening the first aid
kit. “We’ll have to work fast.”
Derek
was oblivious to this. He gripped the
sword with both hands. Then, after what
seemed like an agonizingly long wait, he blinked and his grip loosened. Nick carefully took the sword away and put
it on the table. Pete was hovering
behind, ready.
Derek
sucked in a breath and looked down at his hands, at the blood. Then his eyes rolled up and his knees
buckled. Pete caught him as he collapsed
and laid him on the floor.
“Jeez
.. why’d he do that? I didn’t mean for
him to do that, Nick! I swear to God!”
“I
know. I don’t suppose he realized he’d
done it. But he will. Help me.”
They
cleaned the wounds, stitched where they could, put tape on the rest, then
dressed Derek’s hands and hoped it would be enough.
“Let’s
get him to his room,” Nick muttered.
*****
Derek’s
eyes fluttered open an hour later and the first thing which came into focus was
Nick’s face.
“What
happened?” he croaked, his throat dry.
“Can
you drink?” Nick asked. “You need
fluids. I don’t think you hit an artery
but you did lose a lot of blood.”
Derek
frowned as he allowed the younger man to help him up. “Why?” he frowned, sipping the water Nick held to his lips.
“You
got one hell of a grip, you know that?
When you went rigid, your hands clenched around the sword. The hand holding the hilt isn’t so bad but
the other hand closed tight around the blade and that thing is sharp. It’s a miracle you didn’t slice all your
fingers right off.”
Derek
recalled the blood and looked then at his swathed hands. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“An
hour or so. Pete’s blaming himself.”
“He
shouldn’t. I had to touch the blade,
Nick.”
“Did
you see anything?”
Derek
nodded. “I saw it all.”
“Okay,
you tell us later. You need to rest up
for a while. You need fluids.”
“Send
Pete up here. I’ll tell him what I can
and then get some sleep. You go check
on the computer, see how the translation is coming along. And check the house audio monitors.”
Nick
nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry you got hurt. I’ve seen you go into these trances enough
times. I should’ve anticipated that.”
“How
could you have prevented it? I had to
touch the naked blade. The entity isn’t
in the hilt. Padding the sword would
have revealed nothing. And these
bandages look very professional.”
“You’ll
have scars. Maybe reduced sensation an’
movement. I’m not sure if you didn’t
cut some ligaments.”
“When
Peri gets home, she’ll heal me,” Derek remarked with a tired smile. “Go fetch Pete. He needs some reassurance.”
Nick
left him alone. Derek managed to get a
cup to his mouth and he drank deeply, then he lay back against his
pillows. His hands were aching,
throbbing. He saw that as good – his
nerves still worked. He couldn’t move
his fingers because of the padding and bandages. But he didn’t think about his wounds. His mind was gripped by what he had seen.
Pete
eased around the door. “Nick said you
wanted to see me. Derek, I’m so sorry. I never meant – ”
“I
know. Pete, it’s all right. Don’t blame yourself. You had a good idea, asking me to try
this. It showed me everything I needed
to see. Sit down.”
Pete
sat on the edge of the bed. “You gave
me a seriously bad turn, y’know that?”
“One
of the hazards of the job,” Derek commented with a slight shrug.
“Okay,
I’m listening,” Pete said.
*****
Once
he’d passed on the message, Nick poured himself a mug of black coffee and
settled in the control room. He figured
he might as well start preparing now because it looked like being one of those
nights. With Derek out of action, Nick
was alone in facing the entity. For the
first time since this started, he wished Merlin was here. Not so she could fight it for him but .. so
he could talk to her, she could listen to his ideas, suggest some tactics. He thought about calling but she’d only
wonder why and cut short the trip, and that would bring Kat into danger.
I
can do this, he decided. I don’t know how
but I can do it. And I’m not exactly
alone – I have Pete and Andrew. Derek
isn’t dead, only out of action. He can
still think, talk, suggest ideas.
Merli’s better off where she is.
He
glanced at the computer and was surprised.
Sixty percent of the translation was done. The probability of it being right had dropped a couple of points
but that was okay. Then he put in some
earphones and started to listen to the audio recordings. He had been with Derek when they’d analyzed
the cockpit recorder so he ran the house recordings thru his workstation with
the same settings as on the audio analyzer – the middle suppressed, the top and
base boosted, the speed slowed by a third.
He closed his eyes and listened.
Behind
him, a golden glow began to materialize.
It hovered about two feet behind his right shoulder, sparkling and
twinkling, almost .. watching what he was doing despite having no eyes with
which to see.
Nick
spun abruptly, frowning, sure he wasn’t alone.
But there was nothing there. At
least, nothing he could see.
“We
don’t mean you any harm,” he said clearly.
“None of us do. The sword will
go home to Japan. It’s only here to be
studied .. as a sword, nothing more.”
Warily,
he turned back and resumed his work.
But, this time, he kept his eyes open.
*****
“I
saw, at first, nothing except the aircraft interior. The curtain was closed.
Then,” Derek related in a quiet, steady voice, reeling off facts with no
emotion in his tone to influence his audience, “from the wooden crate
containing the sword, a black mist began to crawl out. It seemed heavy because it flowed
sluggishly, hugging the side of the crate, then the floor. Once it was clear of the holding area, it
began to crawl up itself.”
He
glanced at Pete. “Like a tower of
acrobats, standing on the shoulders of the one below,” he explained and Pete
nodded. “When it got to the height of a
man, it took on form, substance. It was
the same creature as the picture in the book.
No-Kami-No-Matsu. It was
difficult to gauge the expression on its face because it has a perpetual snarl
but its eyes seemed to suggest it was pleased to be free. It didn’t last long. It strode forward to the curtain, jerked it
aside, and opened its mouth.”
“Did
you hear it?” Pete frowned.
Derek
shook his head. “I can hear sounds,
sometimes, during these visions, but, fortunately for me, it was vision only
this time or I might not have been here to tell you this. I assume it was when it began its cry of
rage that more black mist poured out.
It filled the cockpit like dark fog.
Then, after a few seconds, the demon opened its mouth again and sucked
the mist back inside. The flight crew
were dead and looked more or less as they did when we saw them. Partially mummified. The mist must have done that. Some properties within it desiccate living
tissue. The demon then seemed happy
until it looked sharply at the instrument panel.”
“The
air traffic controller’s voice checking in,” Pete reasoned.
“I
think so, yes. The demon appeared
confused, nonplussed, a little agitated.
It studied the cockpit and .. I sensed, without really sensing, that it
had no idea what to do or say. It was
at a complete loss. It may not even
have known the language to comprehend what it had heard or to respond in
turn. Then it leaned forward and put a
hand on each shoulder. Very
lightly. A mere touch. Its mouth opened again and the mist poured
out, entering both men thru the mouth and nose. The demon must have spoken the reanimation spell because the crew
began to move.”
Derek
swallowed. “It was horrible to watch. Their bodies, faces, hands, were all twisted
in death yet they flew the plane. The
demon stood behind them with a hand on each of their shoulders until the
aircraft taxied to a halt on the ground.
Then the mist flowed out again and reentered the demon, and it returned
to mist itself and went back into the crate.”
Pete
nodded. “Okay. So we have to watch out for floor hugging
black mist.” He paused for a
second. “How do we stop this thing,
Derek?”
“I
don’t know,” Derek admitted. “Let me
sleep on it and .. maybe I’ll have the answer in the morning.”
“Okay. We’ll have Andrew bring you up some
supper. For now, you stay put an’ get
some rest.”
“Tell
Frances,” Derek requested.
“Tell
her what, exactly?” Pete frowned. “That
the blood was thick but didn’t pool yet did move round because the bodies were
filled with black mist?”
“Yes. Exactly that,” Derek agreed.
“Will
she buy it?”
“She’s
worked with us before.”
“Okay,”
he shrugged. “I’ll tell her.”
Pete
left him and headed downstairs again.
He kept his gaze low, on the floor, and hoped Derek would have
the answer by morning because this was way beyond what he understood.
*****
Nick
joined him for supper in the dining room.
“Did he tell you?”
“Yeah. Basically, it’s black fog, stays low until
it’s about to attack, then it climbs up itself to a man’s height and takes on
form. From what Derek says, it’s pretty
slow moving. It crawls across the
floor.” Pete forked a piece of steak
into his mouth and chewed speculatively.
“I think our best weapon is a leaf blower.”
Nick
grinned.
“C’mon! What’s so stupid about that? I’ve had a good few hours on my own this
afternoon to think about how we can protect ourselves. I figured if we could stop it climbing up
itself by scattering the mist, it can’t attack. I went exploring. You
have a leaf blower in one of the outhouses.
Soon as I saw it, I thought bingo!”
“You’re
probably right,” Nick agreed. “It’s
just .. I’m used to all kinds of weapons – firearms, knives, crossbows, spears,
swords. Wooden stakes, silver bullets,
you name it, I’ve used it. I’m
proficient with most, less so with others.
I never saw myself fighting a demon with a leaf blower, that’s all. It’ll most likely work for the reason you
state.” He leaned back, his supper finished. “Derek said he invited you here to stay
because you think outside our usual box.
You just proved it.”
Pete
shrugged. “I have a very keen an’
practical survival instinct. As a cop,
you learn you don’t wanna fight. You
wanna disarm, stop the bad guys before they start. Fighting, shooting, is the last option. Using something to disperse this mist avoids a fight. If you do wanna fight it .. well, I guess a
vacuum cleaner would be the weapon of choice.”
“Temporarily. Wouldn’t hold it for long,” Nick commented
then grinned again. “I am so glad none
of my Team buddies can hear us having this conversation.”
“Same
goes for me. If we had this talk in the
precinct house, I’d never hear the end of it.”
Pete poured coffee and returned to the table. “So what did you do this afternoon?”
“Checked
the house audio monitors. Doesn’t
really compare to Beethoven or Wagner for excitement.”
“Get
anything?”
Nick hesitated then nodded. “Yeah, kinda. Yeah, I definitely picked up the same noises as on the cockpit
recorder for the tape of last night. It
was around three this morning, around the time the kitchen got trashed. I tracked it from the library down to the
foyer, an’ back again.”
“So
why’d you hesitate? Why say kinda?”
Pete asked.
“There
was something else. A different
sound. It wasn’t on the cockpit
recording that I heard. I only just
picked it up at the settings we used an’ I had to damp down the base, boost the
top end a little more to get it clearer.
Derek said he wanted to listen to the voice recorder again .. so maybe
it is on there too.”
“What
does it prove?” Pete inquired.
“Maybe
nothing. Could be natural harmonics.”
“So
why bother?”
“Because
the Luna Foundation has a motto – faith has need of the whole truth. We bother because, otherwise, we’d miss
something an’ that something could be important.”
Pete
scratched at his ear. “The criminal
justice system has a similar motto – the truth, the whole truth, an’ nothing
but the truth, so help you God. I can
understand your motto. But not
tonight. I’m beat. See you in the morning.”
“
’Night,” Nick murmured.
Pete
left him alone to finish his coffee.
Andrew came in to clear the table.
“I’ve
taken Dr Rayne a small supper. Is he
going to be all right?”
“I
think so. The cuts were quite deep on
one hand. He lost blood. Bed rest, fluids, light food should see him
okay. Why? You ask for a reason?” Nick frowned.
“I
woke him when I entered. He’d been
sleeping. Dr Rayne didn’t appear
feverish in any way but he said he’d seen golden lights in his room.”
“Maybe
he was dreaming. I’ll check in on him
later.”
“Very
well. I’ll just put these in the
dishwasher.” Andrew hesitated. “Nick, I can stay over tonight, if it’ll
help.”
“I
won’t force you to leave but I think we got it covered. And, if you do go, you can hit the
grocery store on your way in tomorrow.”
“There is that. Good idea.
I’ll see you in the morning then.
Goodnight, sir.”
“
’Night, Andrew. Safe journey home.”
Then
Nick really was left on his own. He
poured another cup of coffee and drank it, thinking about common domestic
appliances and their place in the war against evil, black mist, golden lights,
and a nearly completed translation. He
shook his head, and went to set the alarms.
*****
Pete
woke bright and early, rose, showered, shaved, and set off for the
kitchen. He thought he’d check it over
before Andrew got there, just in case any more nocturnal antics had wrecked the
place. He hadn’t heard anything, but
then he hadn’t heard anything the first time it had happened. As he crossed the foyer, Nick came in.
“Jeez,
what time did you rise an’ shine this morning?” he demanded.
“Around
six thirty .. an’ it was more wake an’ crawl outta bed than rise an’ shine,”
Nick admitted. “Didn’t crawl into
bed till nearly one.”
“What
were you doing? Keeping watch?”
“Partly. Working the rest of the time. With Derek outta action, all this is my
responsibility.”
“But
I’m not out of action,” Derek said as he came down the stairs.
“You
shouldn’t be up,” Nick accused, in spite of the fact his Precept looked very
well.
“I’m
fine.” Derek held out his hands. There were no bandages. No cuts, no scars, no evidence of any wounds
at all.
“How
..?” Pete and Nick chorused warily.
“The
sword has the power to heal as well as to kill.”
“When
did this happen?” Nick asked. “I
checked in on you before I hit the rack at just after one. You were asleep. Did you go downstairs?”
“I
stayed in my room all night. As far as I
know, I slept all night,” Derek replied.
“When I woke this morning, the bandages were at the side of the bed and
I was cured.”
“No
black mist in your room?” Pete ventured.
“No. What I saw were golden lights.”
“Andrew said you’d told him that. We thought you’d dreamed it.”
“Obviously,
I didn’t,” Derek answered. “Pete, if
you will excuse us, we have work to do.”
“This
is my case, Derek,” Pete pointed out.
“If you’re going over that recording again, I wanna be there.”
“And
you will. Nick and I have other work to
do first.”
“Fine. I’ll go check the kitchen,” Pete muttered
irritably and walked away. “Arm myself
with a dust devil … ”
Derek
overheard this and frowned but Nick grinned.
“I
got time for a shower?” he queried as they climbed the stairs.
“First,
bring me up to speed.”
“Translation’s
done. I read thru it, it makes no sense
to me whatsoever but the syntax could be a little off. And I checked the house monitors. I got the same sounds as on the cockpit
recorder .. plus something else.”
“Really. That is interesting. Tell me more as we walk.”
*****
Derek
flexed his hands and marveled at how good they felt. Even a couple of childhood scars had disappeared overnight. He made a point of visiting the sword which
was back in its crate in the lab, inclining his head, and saying thank
you. Then he returned to his office and
picked up the printout Nick had left on the desk.
He
read it a couple of times, frowning as he worked his way around the tortuous
syntax of archaic Japanese. The
computer had rendered it into an Anglicized version of the Japanese words as
well as into English. Derek read
both. Having seen the vision, Derek
didn’t really need the translation but it would be appended to the report of
this investigation. It was, essentially,
a chant imploring the corpse to rise and assume a parody of life, beholden to
the voice which spoke to it. At least,
that was Derek’s interpretation of the translation the computer had done.
He
made a few notes at the base of the printout, initialed and dated it, then set
it aside to look at the other thing Nick had left for him. It was a note of the settings he’d used to
clean up the house recording. Derek
would need this to confirm what he suspected – there were two entities in the
sword. One good, one which cured the
sick and healed the wounded, and one evil, one which killed without even a
first thought. Black mist, golden
lights.
Derek
took the CD of the cockpit voice recorder and set up the audio equipment in the
library. Nick came in, his hair still
damp.
“You
figured it out yet?” he asked.
“Almost. This should prove my theory. My old Precept was right. Just because you think you have all the
answers doesn’t always mean that you do.
No situation is ever that dire that you can’t take a little time to
check again.”
“Unless
you have your back to the wall an’ the thing’s closing in fast,” Nick
commented.
“Even
then,” Derek defended. “Don’t tell me
you don’t check your gun has bullets, even though you know that it does.”
“Maybe,”
Nick conceded.
Derek
raised an eyebrow. “You always check
your aim.”
“Okay,”
Nick grinned, “you got me on that one.”
They
regarded each other. “You did good
work, finding these settings,” Derek commented. “There used to be a time when I would fight against being
incapacitated, being forced to my bed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust people, it was more .. I was afraid
something would be missed or someone might make a terrible mistake that only I
could prevent. Not any more. I know you will do whatever is necessary, no
matter how long it takes, no matter what the cost, to yourself or to
others. I am .. very grateful that you
chose to overcome your personal history regarding the Legacy and join us here. You make my life easier, Nick.”
Not
expecting this, Nick flushed slightly.
“Yeah, well .. you know, more than anyone else here, that I haven’t
always found your decisions easy to live with but you’ve always stood by me,
been the family I always wanted but never had.
Loyalty means a lot to me, Derek.
An’ .. what I get, I give.”
Derek
nodded, his eyes warming. “Now, tell me
.. what did Pete mean by .. dust devil?”
Nick
laughed softly. “He has this idea that
we should use a leaf blower as defense.
Scatter the mist, it can’t form.
If it can’t form, it can’t attack.
And, if we wanna fight it, we use a vacuum cleaner as a temporary
containment device.”
Derek
was silent for a moment. “He certainly
has an unusual approach to problem solving,” he remarked at last.
“For
sure,” Nick agreed, amused.
“Well,
the kitchen’s fine so I found the fixings an’ put on a pot of coffee,” Pete
said as he strode in. “Andrew’s just
arrived. He said to tell you forty
minutes.”
“As
punctual as ever,” Derek commented, making a note of the time.
“Can
I take a look at your hands?” Pete inquired.
Derek held them out, palm up.
“That is incredible. An’ you
have full movement?”
“I
appear to, yes.”
“I
was sure you’d cut thru to the bone.”
“I
probably did,” Derek agreed.
“So
.. a golden light fixed you up .. and a black mist killed the crew.” Pete’s face blanked for a second. “There’s two of ’em, isn’t there?”
“That’s
what we have to prove,” Derek replied.
“If you’re ready, we’ll make a start.”
*****
Pete
leaned closer, his elbows resting on the table top. “Can’t you get it any clearer?
It’s so faint … ”
Derek
began cautiously turning dials.
“Maybe
it doesn’t have much of a voice,” Nick remarked, arms folded. “It could be more a visual phenomenon. Just because the black mist turns into
something which has a voice which can kill an’ a face even its mother would
dislike, doesn’t mean the golden light can do the same.”
“This
is the best I can get with this equipment,” Derek said, finally admitting
defeat.
“Play
it again,” Pete requested.
Derek
reset the CD. Now the noise they’d
heard before was almost silent. All
other background noise had been damped right down as well.
“When
is this in the flight?” Nick whispered.
Derek
checked the counter. “About the
reanimation point.”
“There. There it is,” Pete said. “Is that .. what I think it is? Laughter?”
“Sounds
like it,” Nick agreed heavily.
“But
that can’t be right,” Pete said. “Are
they working in tandem? One kills, the
other laughs about it? How does that
fit in with healing people?”
Derek
leaned closer, his head angling. “It
isn’t laughter. It’s a very high,
musical voice. It’s speaking. Listen.”
He replayed it again.
“What’s
it saying?” Pete demanded. “I never
even mastered Spanish. Japanese is way beyond
my level of understanding.”
“I
don’t understand it either,” Derek confessed, switching off the playback and
shrugging. “But .. now that the
computer has translated the first speech, it should be able to translate this
in a lot less time. Nick, set it up.”
“Yes,
boss.”
“Hey,
wait a second,” Pete said. “You got a
translation? You never said you were
even working on a translation.”
Derek
pursed his lips. “We didn’t know if we
could get one. It took till midnight
last night. Over twenty four hours,
Pete. Why raise hopes? And, anyway, that translation is now
redundant to this investigation.”
“Your
investigation, yes. My
investigation, no way. It’s evidence,
Derek. Don’t make me arrest you for
withholding it.”
“Nick,
it’s in my office. Would you get a copy
for Detective Miller?” Derek requested.
“Sure.”
“Dr
Rayne? Breakfast is served,” Andrew
reported.
“I’ll
fetch the copy to the dining room,” Nick said.
“I’ll just get the computer working on the second translation and be
along in a few minutes.”
Pete
followed Derek out. “Derek, c’mon. Don’t go defensive on me.”
“I’m
not. In fact, I offer my
apologies. I forgot your investigation
is running alongside ours. You’ve been
such a help to us that I had begun to think of you as a part of my team.”
“Really?” Pete’s eyes widened. “Wow, that is some praise. I appreciate it, thank you.”
“It
isn’t praise, it’s the truth.”
“So
why is the first translation redundant?”
“Because
I saw the vision of what happened. We
know the creature spoke words and we know what it did as it spoke them. Therefore, we don’t need to know the words
in English. But the process by which
the computer carried out the task is invaluable for translating the second
voice on the recording, so it was not a waste of time by any means.”
“An’
how soon will we know?”
“Hopefully
.. before we sit down to lunch,” Derek replied.
*****
While
Derek, Pete and Nick sat down to eat breakfast and talk over ideas, Andrew
returned to the kitchen to make a start on lunch and finish putting away the
groceries. Pete had offered to help
earlier but Andrew had politely refused.
He knew where everything went in the larder. Restocking it was one job it was quicker to do alone.
He’d
gotten a bargain on Pacific salmon and he intended to cook some of it for
supper that evening. The rest he put in
the freezer next to the cold store.
What to prepare for lunch ..?
Andrew
worked methodically, unpacking the boxes he’d brought over in his automobile,
carrying the contents thru to the larder, stacking them on the shelves,
returning for the next batch. Not
steak, he thought. We had steak
yesterday – twice. Maybe a summer
risotto … I think I have some prawns
somewhere.
One
by one, the shelves began to look healthy again. He put some beer to chill in the icebox and the rest in a corner
of the larder. Nick did enjoy a bottle
of beer in the evening.
Would
it help if I put a lock on the door ..?
Probably not. If something can
escape the security precautions, a lock on the larder door isn’t going to stop
it breaking in. This floor still feels
a little sticky … I’ll have to scrub it
again, maybe at the weekend.
Andrew
put the last of the groceries away and, still not quite decided on the lunch
menu, returned to the kitchen to make a list for his next shopping
expedition. There was a hardware
wholesale depot in Belvedere, and the house was starting to run short on light
bulbs, bleach and furniture polish.
Behind
him, from the corridor leading to the cold store, a black mist started to crawl
over the floor.
Firelighters. I know it’s summer right now but best to
stock up when they’re a little less expensive.
Silver polish and cloths. We get
thru so many …
Slowly,
the mist began to climb, one on the shoulders of the one below …