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Chapter 5:
Madness

"Bloody hell, there's something behind us!" Fiona yelled.

Alouette's heart jumped at the shout, and she gripped her gun tighter even as she spun to put the wall at her back. Flashlights swung wildly, making the shadows leap, and there came a clatter of weaponry as her companions took up position. Marcus dashed past, headed in Fiona's direction, his weapon raised and ready to fry anything that moved.

Silence descended, tense and ready to explode. But the expected shots never came.

"Nothing's there," Marcus said in disgust.

Flashlight beams caught Fiona's pale face, and Alouette saw beads of sweat clinging to her lightly-freckled skin. The pupils of her blue eyes constricted to pinpricks. "I was hearing them," she said doggedly. "There were footsteps in the hall behind us."

Marcus shook his head, lowering his gun. "Echoes. You're jumping at damned echoes."

"They weren't being any echoes! The floor is carpeted, and I was hearing the echoes on the dock clear enough and not thinking they were anything other."

A part of Alouette wanted to believe Fiona. The first mate was strong and competent, and seemingly unafraid of anything. In other words, everything that I'm not. But at the same time, Alouette didn't see how anyone behind them could have disappeared so thoroughly. Unless there's a concealed door of some kind.

"Captain?" she asked tentatively. "Did you, ah, ‘hear' anything?"

Rat's eerie amber eyes seemed to glow with intensity. "I can hear...I can hear...someone...but not close." He shook his head sharply, as though trying to dislodge something. "No. No, I didn't sense any strangers nearby."

"I know what I was hearing," Fiona said stonily.

Alouette winced. "Maybe...could someone have been using a com? Tricking us?"

"That must be it," Juanita agreed. "Like with the dead man on the dock, yes?"

Marcus looked torn between skepticism and not wanting to disagree with Juanita. "But why?"

"The sooner we find whoever is behind this, the sooner things will make sense." Rat started off in the direction they had originally been heading. "So stop messing around and fall in!"

That wasn't fair. Alouette couldn't remember the captain ever speaking harshly before, but for whatever reason this mission seemed to have set him on edge. His golden skin had taken on a yellowish hue, and she thought that his hands shook slightly as he passed by.

She told herself to be calm, to remember the offering to Erzulie Dantor asking for strength. That seemed a long time ago, though, far away from this dark place.

They walked, and walked, and walked. The smell of rot grew fainter, then stronger, and she wondered if they were heading toward it, or away, or if it meant nothing at all. Her head felt light, and her mouth parched with thirst; she fumbled at the canteen on her belt, and drank a mouthful of cold, clear water. The beams of the flashlights flickered over half-glimpsed scenes: cross-corridors, signs, doorways. Nothing stirred besides them, and Alouette wondered if they were all hiding. Or dead. Ghosts.

Maybe we're the ghosts.

There was someone else there, she was sure of it. She could feel their eyes on her, watching. Fear coiled in her belly, and she swallowed hard against her dry throat. Don't look up. Don't acknowledge whoever it is, don't give him an excuse to notice you any further.

She tried to remember what station they were on and failed. What did it matter? The slave column shuffled along, herded from one place to the next, never knowing where they were going or what would happen to them when they got there. She'd heard rumors that the Zats were using slave labor in mines, both on worlds and amidst the hazards of asteroid belts. She'd thought at the time that had to be a lie, that machines would be cheaper to use than humans, but then she'd met someone who claimed he'd seen it for himself. When you had billions of expendable humans, when you wanted to just get them out of the way for your own settlers, or so you could strip their planets for the resources, things began to look different. An unlimited supply of workers and no need to worry about safety regs...it didn't get much cheaper than that.

I won't survive the mines. She was too small for the heavy physical labor. Big men died there broken—what chance did she have?

His eyes were on her, she could feel them, and she wondered if she ought to look up, if it would save her, if he would pull her out of the line. Or would that just lead to a different kind of death?

There was death everywhere, and no escaping. She'd pass below the waters, to where the spirits dwelled, another ghede among an infinite tribe.

One of her fellow slaves stumbled, then sank to his knees. His hands clutched either side of his head, threaded through his dreads. The guards would kill him for stopping, for being unfit even before they reached the mines, so despite the fear of drawing attention that clogged her throat, Alouette went to him and extended her hand to help him up.

His head snapped back, amber eyes blazing, and he snarled at her like an animal. The taste of blood filled her mouth, and she hastily stepped back. Bright lights sparked in her vision, and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them.

"You're going to die," she whispered to him, then turned away. But that wasn't the whole truth, was it? "We're all going to die."

Her head down and her shoulders hunched against the unseen watcher, Alouette stepped back into line and kept walking.

*   *   *

Fiona could hear the steps coming up behind her. Not only that, but the occasional whisper, the rustle of cloth, even a muted snicker as whoever--whatever--was back there congratulated itself on its own cleverness. None of the others knew it was back there, none of the others would listen when she told them, and now she swore she could feel its fetid breath on the back of her neck.

Maybe the others are knowing about it. Maybe they're all in on it together.

The thought felt like revelation. That had to be it. But she was far too clever for them to trick. So she slowed her steps, not being obvious about it, and the distance between her and Marcus grew wider and wider. Eventually, the chance she had been waiting for arrived; everyone else disappeared around a bend, just as a door appeared on her left. Pleased with her own cunning, she slipped inside.

The stench struck her the moment the door slid open, and she had to fight not to gag. The room appeared to have been an office of some kind, decorated in typical Zat fashion, which meant stark white walls and flooring. A body slumped over the large desk, and dark fluids dripped slowly from it to the floor. Holding her breath, Fiona edged around the desk to get a better look. The woman--she thought it had been a woman, anyway--was dressed in a Zat uniform, gray with brown piping. A gun was still clasped loosely in one hand, and the blast seemed to have entered through the mouth and exited the back of the head, the skull exploding outward as the brains inside boiled.

A suicide, it looked like. But what had she been so afraid of that it had driven her to take her own life?

Something heavy slammed into the door. With a hiss of fear and anger, Fiona swung her rifle around and took aim at the door.

Again, the blow against the door, as though something were...knocking.

She didn't know why the door didn't just open, as it had with her. Maybe the thing outside was playing with her. Taunting her. Letting her know that it could get her whenever it wanted, that if she was alive now it was only because it chose not to destroy her, a decision that could be revoked at any moment.

It wanted her afraid. It wanted her to hide, so it could find her.

She'd never been one to cower, never. Hadn't she answered the call of the clan chief, when he'd asked every able-bodied MacLachlan to join up and fight the Zats? She'd gone, even when she'd known it would probably cost her marriage to Mary, and with it all of her dreams of a cottage amongst the heather and the laughter of children.

Fiona firmed up her grip on her gun and strode to the door, slapping the pad and tightening her finger on the firing button. The instant a crack appeared between door and frame, she fired.

There came a thump as a body hit the floor. Stepping cautiously out, she saw a dark-haired woman slumped against the far wall, clutching her belly. A sort of fierce satisfaction slid through Fiona, and she found herself grinning wildly. "You'll not be bothering anyone ever again, I'm thinking," she said.

The woman looked up, familiar green eyes in a pale face, and Fiona's heart missed a beat.

"Fiona," Mary moaned. Blood bubbled at her lips. "Why? Why did you kill me?"

*   *   *

*(pain/loneliness/despair) why what who did this why I can't live like this where are you where are you?*

Rat gritted his teeth together. Pain hammered at his head, continuous, unending, making it hard to think. He didn't even know how much of the pain was his, and how much everyone else's. The whispers spiraled around him, shrieks of fear and horror, clawing at the inside of his skull until he dragged his nails down the side of his face and screamed.

*(horror) Jorges dead (a child, face covered with pustules, body sprawled on stone)*

*the walls are moving the walls are closing in can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe*

*lizards on me, crawling in my hair, get them out get them out get them out*

*he's watching me, I can feel it (shame, terror, pain)*

All the voices battered him, little insects in his skull, tunneling through his brain. One, though, was louder than the rest, a song of such utter, empty lonely horror that he knew it would never let him be.

Not unless he found the source and shut it up.

Rat blinked through the hair hanging into his eyes. He was alone in a corridor he didn't recognize, stumbling down it like a drunk. The shadows writhed, grasping at his coat with greedy fingers, trying to keep him from finding the center. He shrugged out of the coat, let it fall, so that they couldn't pull on it any more. That seemed to confuse them, so he shed more clothing, laughing wildly under his breath as he did so. They thought they were going to stop him, to make him stay here with the screaming, but he wasn't going to play along.

The lift took him up, farther from the docks, closer to the loudest voice, the one that wouldn't, wouldn't be silent, even for an instant. As the door opened to let him out, something slammed into him, knocking him back into the wall.

*kill the monster, going to kill me first, got to finish it (image of a hulking creature, drool sliding down long teeth, eyes glowing in the darkness)*

Is that me? Is that what I look like?

Yes. Yes.

Rat grinned, exposing fangs, and launched himself off the floor. He felt wild, powerful. There was a smaller man in front of him, who screamed and took a swing at him with a piece of broken pipe.

"No! Stay back, ogre! Please, God, help me!"

The ragged end of the pipe struck sparks off the wall. Rat snarled--the pathetic little creature was trying to kill him! He lunged at the man, felt a burst of satisfaction as his attacker scrabbled back. The pipe swung again in a murderous arc, but this time Rat was ready. He grabbed hold of the cold metal, wrenching it easily from the other man's grasp.

*no, no, going to kill me, eat me (mouth opening wide, rotting breath, strings of flesh caught between yellow teeth)*

In a strength born of desperation, the man closed his hands around Rat's throat. Startled, Rat shoved him away, breaking his grip easily.

Then he swung the pipe.

The scent of blood filled the air. Rat stared down at the man, either unconscious or dead, he didn't know. Red poured from the wound, matting the man's hair. On sudden impulse, he bent down, dipped his fingers in the warm blood.

"Coming for you," he whispered to the howl in his head, even as he dragged his fingers over his skin, painting designs in drying blood. "Stronger than you. I'm the thing in the dark, and I'm coming to shut. You. Up."

His laughter ringing high and wild in his ears, Rat hefted the pipe and staggered off down the corridor, searching for his prey.

*   *   *

"Is it bigger than a cooker?" Neva asked.

"Commercial or noncommercial?"

"Normal."

"Yes."

"Is it on board now?"

"Yes."

"Is it in the galley?"

"No."

"The rec room?"

"Yes."

"Is it square?"

"Sort of."

"The couch?"

"No."

"The storage cabinet?"

"That's it!" Jason leaned back in his chair and stretched. "Your turn now."

Neva sighed and tossed Jasmine's ball. The little primate raced across the bridge and chased it under the nav station's chair. At least one of us is having fun.

Neva had joined Jason on the bridge partly to keep him company, and partly so that she could listen in on any communications from the boarding party. So far, they'd spent a little over two hours doing nothing but playing "guess the object" and entertaining Jasmine. Although Jason seemed fine with the wait, Neva thought she would tear her hair out if something didn't happen soon.

In this case, though, no news is good news, right? Rat would alert them if anything had gone seriously wrong, or if the party found anyone who needed medical attention. The fact that no transmissions came hopefully meant that everything was fine. Or as fine as it could be, given the spooky emptiness of the station.

Jasmine came back with the ball clutched in her hands. Neva took it and prepared to throw, when Jason suddenly sat up, all his attention on the boards. "There's something on the dock cam."

The feed from the cam that the boarding party had set up near the airlock was displayed on the main screens. So far, it had shown nothing but an expanse of empty dock. Now, a lone figure approached slowly, its hands held high in the air. Jason hurriedly zoomed in, and Neva saw that their visitor was a man dressed in a filthy white uniform. He had short dark hair and pale skin, and the lower half of his face was obscured by a breather.

"Why is he wearing that?" Jason asked.

Neva shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe they're going to launch some sort of gas attack? But then why be so obvious about it?"

The man stopped a short distance away from the airlock, hands still held out to display a lack of weaponry. "Hello?" His voice was tinny through the cam's cheap speaker, and further muffled by the breather. "Is anyone there?"

Jason and Neva exchanged a glance. Then Jason went to com and opened the link. "Identify yourself."

Even through the camera, the sudden glisten of tears in the man's eyes was visible. "Thank the gods! Please, let me on board, I beg you!"

Jason's mouth thinned. "I told you to identify yourself."

"Of course, of course!" The man wiped at his eyes awkwardly. "I'm just so relieved. I'm D-Dr. Evan Latchfield. Until recently, I was the head of the Human Welfare Initiative aboard this station. You can see I'm unarmed--I don't even know how to shoot a gun. Please, please, just let me aboard."

Neva didn't like this. The doctor's insistence on getting onto the ship seemed ominous at best. Jason seemed to share her opinion, because he said, "Why should I open our airlock to you? What's going on here?"

Latchfield glanced about nervously. "I'll tell you once I'm safe. Please, I don't want to stay here! One of them might see me!"

Better and better. "And who are they?" Jason asked warily.

"There was an accident." Latchfield wrung his hands, his glances growing more desperate. "It got into the air."

Now truly alarmed, Neva stepped up to the com boards. "What got into the air?"

Latchfield didn't have a chance to answer. Instead, he spun around, his back to the cam, and screamed. "No! Get away from me!"

Jason swore and zoomed the camera back out. On the screen appeared a second figure, this one even more filthy than Latchfield. Her clothing looked as though it might once have been a standard-issue maintenance jumpsuit, but the original color couldn't be made out through all the layers of grease and dirt covering it. It was torn in places, and the skin beneath crusted with blood. The woman's hair was matted, and she moved with a limp. In one hand, she held a Zatvian rifle, which she swung like a club, swatting wildly at the air about her, as though she were surrounded by invisible enemies.

"Hex it," Neva snarled, and ran for the lift, Jason on her heels. He gave her a surprised look when she slapped the button for crew level, so she said, "Breathers. Just in case. I don't want that maniac to kill him, but I want us dead from something in the air even less."

Goddess, please let him be wrong. Or crazy. Or lying. Because Rat and the rest have already been out there for over two hours, without a single breather among them. "We need to get the boarding party on the com. Curse it!"

"I've got it covered," Jason assured her, then appeared to speak to the air. "Jason Silent Hawk to Captain Rat. Come in."

Neva wondered uneasily if Rat knew that Jason had linked whatever tech he was toting around--or had implanted directly into him, maybe--into their systems. The lift came to a halt, and she bailed out, running all the way to snatch up a pair of breathers and a gun for herself. When she came back, Jason shook his head in response to her questioning look.

"No one's answering. It might be that someone is jamming the signal."

Or it might be that they can't answer.

The breather made Neva feel like she was suffocating, and reminded her unpleasantly of the oxygen mask she'd worn for months in the hospital, while the doctors put her back together. The boarding tube bounced under their feet as they ran to the other end, which was blocked by the patch the rest of the crew had put over Juanita's cut. Jason kicked it once, hard, and the seals broke, dumping it onto the decking outside.

As they emerged, Neva saw the madwoman slamming the butt of her rifle into the nearby console, hard enough to crack the protective covering. Latchfield cowered behind its scanty cover, and Neva reflected that he would have been dead several times over if his attacker had possessed any sanity.

Jason brought up his gun and pointed it at the woman. "Drop your weapon! Now!"

She paused in her bashing of the console, but didn't let go of the rifle. Beneath the strands of her matted hair, her gaze fixed on Jason. Her eyes were blank, seeming to focus on something other than the man pointing a gun at her. "No," she croaked in a broken voice. "I see you. I see you. You can't sneak up on me. Heh. Going to kill you. Going to show you!"

The final word spiraled up into a maddened scream, and she lunged at Jason, swinging the rifle. He fired once; her body jerked, then crumpled slowly.

Neva went to check, but there was nothing more to be done. The woman was dead.

Latchfield rushed towards them. "Thank you! Gods--"

He stopped, brought up short by Jason, whose gun swung around to train on the doctor's forehead. "Not another step," Jason advised. "We want answers."

"We need to get off the docks! There might be more of them!"

As much as Neva hated the idea of bringing a Zatvian on board, she knew that they didn't have much other choice at the moment. "He's right."

Jason sighed, then motioned for Latchfield to go first. "I don't think I have to tell you not to make any sudden moves."

Latchfield all but ran up the boarding tube. The moment they were in the spine with the airlock closed behind them, Neva pulled off her breather. "All right. Start talking."

Latchfield removed his breather as well, taking in great gulps of air. "We have to get out of here. We have to leave this station."

"We have a boarding party on the station," Jason said. "We're not going anywhere."

Latchfield paled. "Leave them! We have to get away! I don't care--"

Something deep within Neva gave way. Grabbing the front of the Zat's once-white uniform, she shoved him hard against the curved wall. His shoulders and the back of his head struck the unforgiving metal, and he let out a yelp of pain.

"And we don't care about you," she snarled into his frightened face. "We are not leaving this station without the rest of our crew! So you are going to tell us exactly what's going on here. Understand?"

"All right!" Latchfield tugged ineffectually at Neva's arms, but she didn't loosen her grip. "I already told you--I was part of the Human Welfare Initiative."

"Which is?"

"We were developing ways to pacify insurgent populations without jeopardizing the lives of our own brave soldiers."

Goddess. "Weapons? You were developing large-scale weapons?"

"Oh, no, no." Latchfield managed a pasty smile. "Nothing like that. No bombs here! The military already has plenty of those. We were looking into ways of pacifying populations without damaging the existing infrastructure of their worlds."

"So that it would all be intact when your own people moved in?" Jason guessed grimly. His dark eyes were clouded, as though he regretted not shooting Latchfield on the docks. "After all, if there are already roads and buildings and hospitals and universities, why bomb them into nonexistence and end up having to build them all over again?"

"Exactly." Latchfield nodded, seeming pleased Jason had understood. "We were looking for a more efficient way of doing things. Plus, we would save the lives of loyal Zatvian soldiers."

Neva let her hands fall to her sides, then scrubbed them on her pants, feeling as though she had been made unclean by the very act of touching the man before her. "What have you done?"

He looked pained. "Nothing! We were in the process of developing a new kind of gas. Nothing fatal, of course not, just something to help the insurgents understand that the best thing for them would be to surrender. Operation Peaceful Kingdom. We called it PK-gas, because of that."

That explained the breather. Goddess, at least it isn't deadly. "So what does it do?"

"It...well. It causes hallucinations. Paranoid delusions. The specific content of the hallucinations varies from subject to subject. Some see monsters, some relive past traumas, some see a specific phobia manifest: spiders, disease, whatever they most fear. Many become extremely violent."

Neva felt bile rise in her throat. "So you turn this gas loose on an unsuspecting population, sit back and watch while they kill each other, then come in and clean up?"

Latchfield nodded, smiling. "More or less. If the gas is allowed to disperse, the subjects eventually recover. We offer to accept their surrender, which they gladly give, and that's it."

She felt her hands shaking with rage. "I ought to shoot you where you stand."

"What? Why?" He looked genuinely confused. "I'm a victim here! We were helping people! Doing what was best, not just for our own soldiers, but for the insurgents as well! Until this happened, anyway."

"And what did happen, exactly?" Jason asked.

"I'm not completely certain, but I think one of the test subjects managed to get loose and sabotage the project. The gas was hooked into the life support, after the filters. It was sheer luck that I realized what was going on and got to a quarantine lab before I'd had a large enough to dose to effect me." He shuddered. "Some of the other techs wanted in, of course, but I couldn't risk it."

For a moment, Neva considered asking Jason to shoot Latchfield--or just shooting him herself. Because of this man, the rest of the crew, not to mention an entire station, was being subjected to whatever horrors their minds could devise. Goddess, Rat, hold on. Now that we know what's happening, we'll come to help you.

Rat.

"Have you ever heard of Project Zero?" she asked.

Latchfield frowned uncertainly. "Rumors," he said cautiously.

"Enough to know what affect this gas might have on a Project Zero volunteer?"

Latchfield paled, sending a surge of angry satisfaction through her. "There was one with your boarding party? Who are you? Did Command send you?"

"Command's not sending anyone ever again. Didn't you wonder why no ships came to save you? Zatvia is decimated, and your High Command is dead."

"No." All the color drained from his face. "No, that can't be true."

"It is. And you'll join them if you don't cooperate. Is there an antidote for the gas?"

Latchfield shook his head slowly, seeming lost in shock. "No. Why would there be?"

Jason cast him a disgusted look. "Neva, could you synthesize one if you had a sample of the gas?"

"No. I'm not a chemist."

"Then we need to find life support and disconnect the gas." He still glared at Latchfield. "In your labs, did you have any kind of sedative gas? Something that could be used to flood the station? If we can knock everyone out, perhaps the PK-gas will have time to wear off before they awake."

Latchfield swallowed nervously. "I...I don't know. Maybe. I only paid attention to my section; I don't know what others might have worked on."

Neva sighed. "Wonderful."

"First priority should be to get the PK-gas offline," Jason said. "I'll can work on that, if you can try to find a sedative."

"And if we meet up with any more victims? Jason, that woman on the docks...it wasn't us she was attacking. I don't think she even really saw us, just some horror out of her mind."

"That wouldn't have made us any less dead." But his dark eyes looked troubled. "I wish we had the tranq gun. We'll just have to try to avoid everyone."

"And if we can't?"

"Then we defend ourselves. We have to, Neva. If we get killed, who's going to help the rest of the victims?"

She knew he was right, but she hated it. "Fine. Let's get going, then."

Latchfield stared at her nervously, as if he suspected what was coming. "I'll just wait here, then."

Neva pulled out her gun and pointed it directly at his forehead. A bit to her own surprise, her hand didn't shake at all. "You're taking us to your labs. Or I put a hole in your head. Your choice."

She could see the fear in his eyes, and for a moment she wondered what it had been like for him, trapped alone on a station of people driven mad. But it was his own fault. He helped developed the PK-gas. He refused to let the other techs in with him.

That was enough to crush any budding pity, and she motioned with her gun. "Well? Time's up."

"I'll go! I'll go, all right?"

"Good choice." She tugged the breather back up over her face. "Let's get to it, then."

*   *   *

Rat danced through dreams, transformed by them. He could feel his heart beating, strong, feel the dried blood cracking on his skin. He was a hunting thing, the stalker of the night, the secret fear born out of the black muck at the bottom of the mind.

He came upon a woman curled up in a corner, rocking and weeping to herself. Shadows writhed around her, caressing her with their tendrils. They tried to bite him, but he snarled at them, and they curled away. Her head came up at the sound, and he saw himself reflected in her mind: a creature with skin dark as space and burning red eyes, its bat-like wings wreathed with fire. The smell of scorching filled the world, and she screamed and begged for forgiveness for whatever terrible sins she might have committed.

It was not his function to forgive. He was here to smite, to torment, to punish.

She screamed and tried to run. He lashed out at her with long claws, and she fell heavily. Pain jarred through his knees, and he let out a startled hiss. It was enough of a distraction to let her scramble to her feet and run.

He tried to chase her, but the shadows had snuck up on him while he was watching her, and they twined around his legs, miring him. He bit at them with his sharp fangs, and they twitched away, but by that time the woman's dream was fading, fading. No more wings or claws. Nothing to shape him until he found the next dreamer.

Nothing except for her, the void howling out her pain, breaking the inside of his skull. To let her shape him was to cease to exist. He couldn't allow that. Wouldn't. She would be the one destroyed instead, because by the time he came to her, he would be strong from the visions of the other dreamers.

He giggled softly as another dream flitted across his consciousness. A maintenance worker, one corridor over, thrashed as spiders poured out of the ducts and crawled over his skin. Rat dropped to all fours--no, to all eight legs--and scuttled off.

*   *   *

"No," Fiona said, but it came out a moan. She dropped to her knees on the damp carpet and reached out, even though she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop the gush of Mary's life.

"Don't touch me!" Mary shouted, and Fiona flinched back. Mary's beautiful artist's hands, the first thing about her that Fiona had noticed when they met, scrabbled at the gaping hole in her belly. "Haven't you been doing enough damage already, Fiona MacLachlan?"

Fiona rocked back on her heels. "Mary? What...what are you doing here? How were you coming to this place?"

Mary coughed, and black blood dribbled from her lips to drip softly from her chin. "The Zats were coming to Alba. You ran off."

"I didn't! I left to fight! To try and keep them from destroying our homeworld!"

"You abandoned me! You were leaving me alone, in the cottage that was to be our life. You left, and when the Zats were coming at last, there was no one to protect me."

Somehow, Fiona could see it all, as clearly as if she watched a vid. The heather burned, filling the sky with smoke. Mary ran into the cottage, but a dozen black-uniformed figures followed her. One flung her down across the bed, and plunged a knife into her gut, dragging out blood and organs while Mary screamed. All of her artwork, the sculptures and the mobiles and the paintings, lay smashed on the floor.

Bile filled Fiona's mouth, and she vomited on the floor. It was her fault. She'd left Mary, gone off to chase after the dream of space, and her wife had paid the price. "I'm sorry," she heard herself moan, but her voice seemed distant, unimportant. "I'm sorry, Mary. I was never meaning for it to come to this."

"It doesn't matter what you were meaning." Mary had crawled closer, and Fiona could smell the rot on her breath. She looked up, and saw that the sockets where Mary's green eyes had once glowed were empty and writhing with maggots. "The outcome is being the same, is it not?"

A sob tore Fiona's frame, and she found herself struggling to stay upright. "I-it is."

Fingers touched her face, slippery and cold as a doll made of wax. "But you can atone for it, Fiona," Mary whispered, and now her voice was kinder. "I know that you were loving me, once. I know that you're missing me now. All alone, aren't you, among strangers who shut you out. There's being a way back, though, a way to be together again. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

The world spun, nothing making any sense. Fiona clung to Mary's words like a lifeline. "Yes. Yes, I'm wanting to make things right by you. Whatever it takes."

Mary reached out, and now her hand was nothing but a skeleton held together by rags of flesh. A fingernail fell off when she touched the gun that Fiona still held loosely in her lap. "Well then," Mary whispered, "I think you're knowing what you have to do."