Deadspawn

But drifted from where?

They looked out across the sea, followed the swath to its source. Previously u

And the vessel's name, as she gurgled down out of sight into her own blood? Clarke didn't need to read all of those black letters daubed on her scabby hull as they disappeared, in reverse order, one by one into the crimson ocean: O... R... C... E... N.

No, for he already knew that this was the plagueship Necroscope, out of Edinburgh, contaminated in strange ports of call and doomed for ever to oceans of gore! Or until, like now, she sank.

Aghast, he watched her go down, then jumped to his feet as Papastamos cursed and leaped to snatch up a speargun. The swath of blood beside the boat was bubbling, fuming, as some nameless thing drifted to the surface. A body, naked, face-down, floated up and lolled like some weird jellyfish, dangling its tentacle arms and legs. And feeble as a jellyfish, it tried to swim!

Then Papastamos was at the side of the boat, aiming his gun, and Clarke was starting forward, screaming, 'No!'... but too late! The steel spear hissed through the air and thwacked into the lone survivor's back, and he jerked in the water and rolled over. And his face was the face on the figurehead, and his scarlet eyes glared and his scarlet mouth belched blood as he sank down out of sight for the last time...

Which was when Clarke would start awake.

He started now as his telephone chirruped, then sighed his relief that his morbid chain of thoughts had been broken. He let the telephone chirp away to itself for a few moments, and considered his nightmare in the light of cold logic.

Clarke was no oneiromancer but the dream's interpretation seemed simple enough. Zek, to her own dismay, had pointed the finger of suspicion at Harry. As for the Aegean backdrop and the blood: these were hardly inappropriate in the circumstances and considering the occurrences of the recent past.

And the dream's conclusion? Papastamos had put an end to the horror but that wasn't significant, hadn't been the point of it. It didn't have to be Papastamos but could have been any one of them - except Clarke himself. That had been the point of it: that Darcy Clarke himself hadn't done it and didn't want it to happen. In fact he had tried to stop it. Just like, right now, he was less than eager to start anything...

The telephone was starting its fifth ring when he reached for it, but the relief he'd felt at the first chirrup was shortlived: his nightmare was right there on the other end of the wire.

'Darcy?' The Necroscope's voice was calm, collected, about as detached as Clarke had ever heard it.

'Harry?' Clarke pressed a button on his desk, ensuring the conversation would be recorded, and another which alerted the switchboard to start a trace. 'I'd thought I might have heard from you before now.'

'Oh, why?'

Harry asked good questions, and this one stopped Clarke dead. For after all, E-Branch didn't own Harry Keogh. 'Why - ' he thought quickly, ' - because of your interest in the serial killer case! I mean, it's been ten days since we met in Edinburgh; we've spoken only once since then. I suppose I'd been hoping you'd come up with something pretty quick.'

'And your people?' Harry returned. 'Your espers: have they come up with anything? Your telepaths and hunch-men, spotters, precogs and locators? Have the police come up with anything? No, they haven't, because if they had you wouldn't be asking me. Hey, I'm only one man, Darcy, and you have a whole gang!'

Clarke decided to play the other at his own circuitous game. 'OK, so tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure, Harry? I can't believe it's a social call.'

The Necroscope's chuckle - normal, however dry -brought a little more relief with it. 'You make a good sparring partner,' he said. 'Except you cry uncle too quick.' And before Clarke could counter, he went on: 'I need some information, Darcy, that's why I'm calling.'

Who am I talking to? Clarke wondered. What am I talking to? God, if only I could be sure it was you, Harry! I mean, all you, just you. But I can't be sure, and if it's not all you... then sooner or later it will be my job to do something about it. Which, of course, was what his nightmare was all about. But out loud he only said, 'Information? How can I help you?'

Two things,' Harry told him. The first one's a big one: details of the other murdered girls. Oh, I know I could get them for myself; I have friends in the right places, right? But this time I'd prefer not to put the teeming dead to the trouble.'

'Oh?' Clarke was curious. Suddenly Harry sounded cagey. Put the Great Majority to the trouble? But the dead would do anything for the Necroscope - even rise from their graves!

'We've asked enough of the dead,' Harry tried to explain himself, almost as if he'd read Clarke's mind. 'Now it's time we did them a few favours.'

Still puzzled, Clarke said, 'Give me half an hour and I'll duplicate everything we have for you. I can mail it or ... but no, that would be silly. You can simply pick it up yourself, right here.'

Again Harry's chuckle. 'You mean via the Möbius Continuum? What, and set off all those alarms again?' He stopped chuckling. 'No, mail it,' he said. 'You know I'm not struck on that place of yours. You espers give me the shivers!'

Clarke laughed out loud. It was forced laughter but he hoped the other wouldn't notice. 'And what's the other thing I can do for you, Harry?'

'That's easy,' said the Necroscope. 'You can tell me about Paxton.'

It was delivered like a bolt out of the blue, and quite deliberately. 'Pax - ?' The smile slid from Clarke's face, was replaced by a frown. Paxton? What about Paxton? He didn't know anything about him - only that he'd done a few months' probation as an esper, a telepath, and that the Minister Responsible had found cause to reject him: something about a couple of small kinks in his past record, apparently.

'Yes, Paxton,' Harry said again. 'Geoffrey Paxton? He's one of yours, isn't he?' There was an edge to his voice now, an almost mechanical precision which was cold and controlled. Like a computer waiting for some vital item of information before it could begin its calculations.

'Was,' Clarke finally answered. 'Was going to be one of ours, yes. But it seems he had a couple of black marks against him and so missed the boat. How do you know about him, anyway? Or more to the point, what do you know about him?'

'Darcy.' The edge on Harry's voice had sharpened. It wasn't menacing - there was no threat in it, no way - but still Clarke could sense its warning. 'We've been friends, of sorts, for a long time. I've stuck my neck out for you. You've stuck yours out for me. I'd hate to think you were shafting me now.'

'Shafting you?' Clarke's answer was instinctive, natural, even mildly affronted; with every right, for he wasn't hiding anything or shafting anyone. 'I don't even know what you're talking about! It's like I said: Geoffrey Paxton is a middling telepath, but developing rapidly. Or he was. Then we lost him. Our Minister found something he didn't like and Paxton was out. Without us he won't ever be able to develop to his full potential. We'll give him the onceover now and then, just to make sure he's not using what he has to take too much of an advantage on society, but apart from that - '

'But he's already taking advantage,' the Necroscope, plainly angry now, cut in. 'Or trying to - and of me! He's on my back, Darcy, and he sticks like glue. He tries to get into my mind, but so far I've kept him out. Only that takes effort, gets tiring, and I'm getting pissed off exerting so much effort on something like this! On some sneaking little bastard who's doing someone else's dirty work!'