“One of them’s coming here?”

“We don’t believe so. They rampage about without any attempt to disguise themselves. This is more like a mouse sneaking along. None of the surrounding polyp is suffering the usual heat-loss death. But our perceptive cells are unable to obtain a clear image.”

“The bastards have changed tactics,” Erentz snarled. She snatched one of the flame throwers from a rack. “They know we’re here!”

“We are uncertain on that point,” the personality said. “However, this new incursion will have to be investigated.”

Several more people ran into the armoury, and began picking up weapons. Tolton watched the abrupt whir of activity with bewildered alarm.

“Here.” Erentz thrust an incendiary torpedo launcher at him.

He grabbed it in reflex. “I don’t know how to use this.”

“Aim it and shoot. Effective range two hundred metres. Any questions?”

She didn’t sound in a forgiving mood.

“Oh crap,” he grunted. He rocked his head from side to side, attempting to force the stiffness out of his neck muscles, then joined them in the hurried exodus.

There were nine of them in the group which marched down the stairs to the endcap tube station. Eight of Rubra’s heavily armed, grim-faced descendants; and Tolton hanging as close to the back of the pack as possible while trying not to make it too obvious.

The main lighting strips were dark and cold. Emergency panels flickered with sapphire phosphorescence as if stirred into guilty life by the clumping footsteps. Not that they were of much use. Helmet projectors encased each member of the group in a sphere of bright white light. So far their power cells were unaffected.

“Any change?” Tolton whispered.

“No,” the block whispered back. “The creature is still moving along the tube tunnel.”

Rubra hadn’t damaged this particular station during the brief active phase of his conflict with the possessed. Tolton kept expecting everything to return to life in a blast of light and noise and motion. It was Marie Celeste territory. A carriage was standing abandoned at one of the twin platforms, its door open. A couple of fast food packets lay abandoned on the marble floor outside, their contents dissolved into a pellicle of grey mould.

Erentz and her cousins fanned out along the platform, and edged cautiously towards the blank circle of the tunnel mouth behind the carriage. Three of them dropped down onto the rail, and crossed swiftly to the far wall. They slunk back into various crannies, crouched down, and aimed their weapons forward.

Along with those remaining on the platform, Tolton secured himself behind one of the central pillars, and brought his launcher up. Nine helmet projectors focused their illumination on the tunnel entrance, banishing the shadows for several metres along its length.

“This isn’t exactly an ambush,” he observed. “It can see we’re here.”

“Then we find out just how determined they are to get at us,” Erentz said. “I tried the subtle approach back in the Djerba. Believe me, it’s a bunch of shit.”

Wondering just how much their definitions of subtle were at variance, Tolton tightened his grip on the launcher. Once again, he checked the safety catch.

“Getting close now,” the personality cautioned.

A speck of grey materialized at the furthest extreme of the tunnel’s shadows. It rippled as it moved steadily forwards towards the station.

“Different,” Erentz muttered. “It’s not concealing itself this time.” Then she gasped as the habitat’s sensitive cells finally managed to focus.

Tolton squinted at the slowly resolving shape, pointing his launcher to the vertical so he could strain ahead. “Holy shit,” he said quietly.

Dariat emerged from the tunnel mouth, and smiled softly at the semicircle of lethal nozzles pointing at him out of the blazing light. “Something I said?” he asked innocently.

You should have identified yourself to us,the personality said in censure.

I have been busy thinking, discovering what I am.

And that is?

I’m not quite sure yet.

Tolton whooped happily, and emerged from behind his pillar.

“Careful!” Erentz warned.

“Dariat? Hey, is that you?” Tolton hurried along the platform, grinning madly.

“It’s me.” There was only a slightly sardonic tone colouring his voice.

Tolton frowned. He’d heard his friend’s voice loud and clear, never even needing to concentrate on the lip movement. He came to a confused halt. “Dariat?”

Dariat put his hands flat on the platform edge, and heaved himself up like a swimmer emerging from a pool. It looked like a lot of effort to lift so much weight. His toga stretched tight over his shoulders. “What’s up, Tolton? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He chuckled as he walked forward. The frayed hem of his toga brushed against one of the fast-food packets, and sent it spinning.

Tolton stared at the rectangle of plastic as it skidded to a halt. The others were bringing their weapons to bear again.

“You’re real,” Tolton stammered. “Solid!” The obese grinning man standing in front of him was no longer translucent.

“Damn right. The Lady Chi-Ri smiled on me. A warped kind of smile, I guess, but definitely a smile.”

Tolton reached out gingerly and touched Dariat’s arm. Cold bit into his questing fingers like razor fangs. He snatched his hand back. But there had definitely been a physical surface; he’d even felt the crude weave of the toga cloth. “Shit! What happened to you, man?”

“Ah, now there’s a story.”

“I fell,” Dariat told them. “Ten bloody stories down that lift shaft, screaming all the way. Thoale alone knows why suicides are so fond of jumping off cliffs and bridges; they wouldn’t if they knew what that trip’s like. I’m not even sure I did it on purpose. The personality was bullying me to do it, but that thing was getting closer, which made me weaker. I probably lost control of my legs I was so debilitated. Whatever . . . I went over the edge and landed smack on top of the lift. I even penetrated it a few centimetres I was falling so hard. Shit, I hate that. You’ve no idea how bad solid matter feels to a ghost. Anyway, I was just forcing my legs through the lift’s roof to get out of there when the bloody bogeyman lands right bang beside me. I could even feel it coming, like a gust of liquid helium blowing down the shaft. But the thing is, it didn’t break when it hit. It splashed.”

“Splashed?” Tolton queried.

“Absolutely. It was like a goo bomb detonated on top of the lift. The whole shaft was splattered in this thick fluid. Everything got coated, including me. But the fluid reacted to me, I could feel the droplets. It was like getting caught in a spray of ice.”

“How do you mean, reacted?”

“They changed while they were going through me. Their shape and colour tried to match the section of my body they were in. I figured it’s like my thoughts have a big influence over them. I’m imagining my shape, right. So that imagination interacts with the fluid and formats it.”

“Mind over matter,” Erentz said sceptically.

“You got it. Those creatures are no different from any human ghost, except they’re made up of this fluid; a solid visualization. They’re souls, just like us.”

“So how come you became solid?” Tolton asked.

“We fought for it, me and the other entity’s soul. The impact made it lose concentration for a moment, that’s why the stuff went flying off. Both of us started scrambling round to suck up as much as we could. And I was a hell of a lot stronger that it was. I won. Must have got seventy per cent of what was there before I made a run for it. Then I hid in the bottom floors until the rest of them had gone.” He looked round the circle of faintly suspicious faces. “That’s why they’ve come here. Valisk is saturated with energy that they can use. It’s the kind of energy that makes up our souls, life-energy. The attraction is like a bee for pollen. This is what they crave; they’re sentient just like us, they’ve come from the same universe as us, but blind instinct rules them now. They’ve been here so long they’re severely diminished, not to mention totally irrational. All they know is that they have to feed on life-energy, and Valisk is the biggest single source to emerge here that they can remember.”