Our dreams were calmer today, though I’d expected any number of nightmares. We stood on the deck of a ship. It was a trading vessel, hard-worn by wind and salt, but clean and painted in the sand-and-bark colors that marked every ship out of Innsmouth. I recognized Grandfather’s hubristically-named Kraken’s Journal. Sailors, oddly difficult to focus on, moved among too many sails.
Chulzh’th tugged me from distraction. “Let me see your cord.”
I turned obediently, a little frightened. “I keep losing track of time, forgetting to count. You’ll watch over me?”
“Stubborn child. Yes, since you insist on coming along, I’ll keep time for everyone.” She frowned. “You too, Yringl’phtagn.”
He returned from the rail. “My apologies, Acolyte. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Is this your ship?” asked Charlie.
“It was,” said Grandfather. “Kraken’s journal, written in the script of sails across the waves. Abiel liked the poem, but he never liked the name.”
“I remember,” I said. My eldest cousin had inherited the ship when Grandfather went into the water. “He was superstitious about it. He always swore he’d change the name to Obed’s Terrible Handwriting.” Grandfather’s laughter boomed across the deck.
Chulzh’th drew the blue ribbon from my forehead. It looked smoother than before, though the edges were still ragged. It bent, but stiffly. “It’s healing, but still brittle,” she told me. “You must be careful. As with a half-healed bone, you’ll be tempted to move as if you were whole, but you could shatter it easily.” She hesitated, and I thought for a moment she’d finished speaking. “Ghavn Yukhl, it’s proper for the eldest-on-land to have a place in these negotiations, and I respect your knowledge of the air’s politics. But speaking solely of your own well-being, this is a bad idea. You should have delegated to your brother.”
I started to duck my head, thought better of it as the cord wavered. “Thank you, Acolyte. I know the risks. And I know the politics better than Caleb.”
As carefully as we could, we pushed through. The city rose in a cascade of shining towers, shadowing the ridge. I took a cautious breath, testing the cord between mind and body, as much me as the things it connected.
Figures scrambled across the face of the ridge. My eyes adjusted despite the city lights: sinewy ghouls clambered over the rock like monkeys, in sudden fits of movement, circling the fungous growth without touching it. Withered scarlet stalks lay scattered on the ground. One ghoul hung almost upside down, held in place by its fellows. It wove its fingers in a cat’s cradle and spat between them. The droplets sizzled as they hit the mushroom ward, and more stems and caps shriveled and fell.
The ghouls looked different from each other, but the things I’d marked about Glabri were things they all had in common. They were all raw sinew and muscle, skinned corpses in obscene motion. Yet they varied in the contours of their flesh, in height and sickly shade and blotches that mimicked wounds and rot. On a battlefield, interrupted in their feast by a living intruder, they might fall motionless in an instant, perfectly camouflaged among their meals.
I held up the string of tiny bones. “Glabri! Are you here? We’ve learned more.”
One figure broke from the herd and crabbed his way to the ground. I could see now that he was tall and lithe for his kind. His well-muscled legs were spotted with greenish discoloration, and his ears came to sharper points than most of the others.
“We learn,” he said, drawing himself up. “Can fill holes. Explain holes?”
Chulzh’th glanced at the uprooting in progress on the cliff face. Our negotiations weren’t likely to be as simple as we’d hoped. “I yield to you in this,” she told me. Grandfather nodded, looking stern and reassuring in his quiet support.
I took a deep, steadying breath, but had to disguise my reaction: the ghouls’ camouflage included scent as well as appearance. I stepped forward. “One of the Outer Ones came to me, seeking help. They’ve split into two factions, fighting each other. One faction planted the holes here in case their attack on the other failed. The ones they chased off need a place to retreat if they want to continue to fight. If you’re willing to come back with us, they want to negotiate for the holes.”
Glabri scratched his leg, looked back at the cliff. “Dead clutch-thieves good—safer for clutches. But clutch-thief battles useless. No bones, no marrow. Why should we bring them here?” He shrugged and cocked his head. “But you want to help—why? You hate clutch-thieves too.”
“The attackers want to interfere in human wars. The defenders want to stop them. We want to stop them too—our wars are our own business.” But would Glabri care? Perhaps it would matter to him that atomics left no corpses—though merely the thought of that reasoning turned my stomach.
“Interfere how?” He added something in his own tongue, and Chulzh’th responded.
“I’ll translate,” she murmured to me. “He understands English better than he speaks it, but…” I nodded.
“They’re worried that we’ll destroy ourselves,” I told Glabri. “That we’ll fight too hard and go extinct. We’re worried about that too, but we think that if they try to help they’ll make things worse. We’re helping the faction who agree with us.” Up on the ridge, the other ghouls had stopped their weeding. The corpse-crowd watched us with silent, black eyes. “Do you care if we destroy ourselves? You eat our dead, but I suppose you can eat something else when we’re gone. What matters to you, besides keeping Outer Ones away from your den?”
He laughed—a surprisingly normal-sounding laugh, where most of his speech darted like his movements. “Humans. So superstitious. We taste death—same stuff alive. Can like alive, still eat dead.” He nibbled his finger, which disturbed me unreasonably. Superstitious. Familiarity with death had never reconciled me to it. In the camps our captors had studied our corpses, turning atrocity to practical use and supplanting the sacred rites we should have been able to offer. I tried to think of the ghouls’ diet as something other than desecration—but it was hard. Glabri continued. “Clutch-thief guests near our den, chased by enemies? Too dangerous.”
“If you’ll talk with them, they might have more to offer,” I said. “They might even agree to stay away from your clutches forever.” I didn’t think Nnnnnn-gt-vvv would be thrilled by that. It was too attached to letting individuals go where they willed without any authority’s leave. But it might have little choice.
Glabri snorted. “Clutch-thief promises? Llllirrap murrrrt.”
“He doesn’t believe it,” said Chulzh’th. “Roughly.”
Charlie touched my back, a shock of warmth. “Aphra, I’m starting to feel queasy. We’ve been here a while. Are you okay—do you need to go back?”
“This isn’t a good time,” I said.
“Excuse me,” said Chulzh’th to Glabri. She added something in Ghoulish, and once more drew my cord into visibility. She hissed. “Yes, you need to go back. Yringl’phtagn and I will finish the discussion. My apologies, Glabri.”
I sighed. I had promised to be responsible. I didn’t want to leave the thing half-finished—or worse, let it fail without me—but I’d do no good if I collapsed. “My apologies as well, Glabri. I have … an illness … and I can’t stay long in the dreamland. I’ll have to let the elders take over. Unless you’d be willing to come back with us, and continue our discussion there even if you don’t want to speak with Nnnnnn-gt-vvv?”
He snorted again. “Better here—no clutch-thieves. I’ll talk to scaled lords.” He wiggled his fingers impatiently at the staring ghouls above us, and they laughed and returned to their work, tearing out Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s hope.
“All right. Thank you.” Perhaps when I got back I could convince Nnnnnn-gt-vvv to offer an initial concession, a show of good faith that would convince the ghouls to be more cooperative.
I released my hold on the dreamland and cast myself back toward my body—or tried to. Instead I gasped and stumbled. There’s a moment, exhausted and drifting at day’s end, when you seem to fall suddenly onto your bed, jarred awake by sleep’s approach. So I fell now. I—my image of myself, created by my mind in shadowed imitation of its sustaining form—lay on my imagined belly in the dream-dirt, aware at my core that I wasn’t in my native reality. I gasped out a sob.
“Is she all right?” Charlie’s voice, and Grandfather’s behind it: “Is her cord broken? Chulzh’th!”
Chulzh’th’s voice, not as calm as it should be, and dream-talons against my dream-forehead. “It’s still there, but it’s cracked. I don’t know how to get her back safely.” My confidence in my own form wavered vertiginously, and I teetered on the brink of dissolution.
Feet scratched lightly in the dirt. The gut-wrenching stench of rot pulled me back to the illusion of my senses.
“Ghouls walk that path whole. Could carry a human mind—maybe.” He bent and sniffed my cheek. I almost gagged, and was grateful. I pushed myself to sitting. The movement made me feel worse physically, but more like I had a physical self to do the feeling.
“Could you carry her mind back into her body?” asked Chulzh’th.
Glabri shrugged. “Never tried. But shorter walk, safer than your way?” He chewed his finger again. His nails were dark and ragged. “Clutch-thieves good at minds alone. Bring stupid fleshless thing here. We will allow, long enough to help carry lost mind.”
“Thank you,” said Grandfather fervently. “Next time I have a carcass, I’ll bring it to you in thanks.”
I breathed, concentrating on the ghoul’s rot and the warmth of Charlie’s hand.
“Don’t go,” I told him.
“I’m right here,” he promised.
The dreamland grew nebulous around me, or I within it. One of the elders must have gone for the Outer One. I had no idea how long it took. A jag of ashen silver etched the blue of my cord.
Ghouls chittered alarm. Tentacles brushed the dream of my head, raising static.
“Can you help?” asked Charlie.
“Yes, I see the problem. I can’t heal it, but I can hold it steady while we move her. Like a cast on a broken bone. Miss Marsh, focus. Don’t let yourself drift.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to hold still.”
“Hold still. But focus. This will feel odd.”
It did feel odd—not painful, but like someone wrapped a scarf around one of my limbs and I couldn’t tell which one. Then as if, wrapped in this inexplicable fashion, they pulled me through a narrow pipe for a very long time …
I tried to concentrate on myself, my wholeness, and not to question these incomprehensible sensations. I tried not to think about how frightened I should be.
Then I lay crouched on real sand, coughing with my real lungs. Every smell, salt and garbage and sweat and cologne and ghoul-rot, cut through fear and dissociation to bind me again to myself. I breathed the warmth of confluence and family.
Because I could, I counted seconds. I didn’t try to focus on anything outside myself until I reached one hundred, and knew my heart was counting on its own. Then I looked up. Charlie and Grandfather still attended me—Grandfather checked me over as if seeking some outwardly visible wound, Charlie simply stayed near. The others watched me anxiously, save for S’vlk. Her vigilance was all for Nnnnnn-gt-vvv and Glabri—as theirs was for each other. Rigid attention thickened the space between them.
Chulzh’th squatted in front of me. “I was foolish. You will not have your way in this again.”
“I … think that’s a good idea.” I hadn’t considered how my diplomatic efforts would distract me from stretching precisely as far as was safe, and no farther—or how my safety might distract all of us from the task at hand. I hadn’t really believed my limits so inflexible. I didn’t want to confess that weakness in front of Glabri and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv, grateful as I was for their help, but Chulzh’th could see my hubris clearly enough.
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv swayed and said something to Glabri in Ghoulish. I wondered how many languages it spoke—and how long it would take Deedee to learn this one. Chulzh’th, still crouched before me, translated in a low voice.
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “Your people travel well.”
Glabri: “We travel between home and feeding ground. Not out to the stars, away from meat and bone.”
(I should not have been surprised, to learn that the ghoul was more poetic and fluent in his own tongue. It shouldn’t have been so easy to dismiss him as a mere scavenger.)
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “You’re angry with us because some of your people make a different choice. Because we welcome those ghouls who want to join us.”
Glabri: “Children are more than their own choices.”
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “They’re more than yours as well. You think we don’t understand family, but we do. We recognize many kinds of family, many kinds of connections that matter. We understand duties beyond obedience, and loyalty that can transcend species. We’re not the demons you think, tempting children away from the safe shadow of the gravestone. We serve a greater purpose too. We can aid you, if you’d take what we have to offer.”
Glabri: “That’s a very nice speech, but there’s no flesh on you. Nothing to trust.”
(I looked for some clue in Chulzh’th’s expression. Should I try to mediate? But sitting upright still took all the effort I could muster. At least I’d succeeded in my first goal: convincing Glabri to speak with Nnnnnn-gt-vvv.)
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “I can’t help being made of different matter. Our homespace is a long way away, but I promise there are creatures there who’d love to feast on my corpse.”
Glabri broke into barking laughter. “Maybe I ought to talk with them.”
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “If they recommended our carrion, would you be willing to offer us shelter? We’ll die here without a mine, with no one to honor our bones.”
Glabri: “Too close to our clutches, alive or dead. Why not take a hole with you and plant it somewhere else?”
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: “Because I don’t know how to start a new mine growing—I don’t think any of my faction-mates do. I know just enough to turn what you’ve left intact”—it had, a few seconds before Chulzh’th’s translation, waved tendrils at the cliffside growth—“into a crude shelter. We won’t have the means to encircle minds, or any other comforts. Just a place that mimics our homespace, where we can rest. I can’t ignore Nyarlathotep’s command, but … I can promise that if any of your young come to us asking to join our travels, we’ll bring them to talk with you. They won’t disappear.”
Glabri chittered thoughtfully. “Your enemies will attack. They’ll make a mess of our den, and leave no bodies.”
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv shuddered all over, wings and tendrils drawing inward. “If they wanted to attack us directly, they wouldn’t have gone to such trouble to trick us into leaving the mine peacefully. They’ll focus on their own plans and leave us in peace.”
As I listened I realized that I’d been thinking like a human. Of course, I’d assumed, Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s allies would want to attack those who’d exiled them and retake their lair from the usurpers. Of course such passionate disagreement must come to blows. I’d assumed we would join them in battle. And with them beside us—or more realistically, beside the elders with their warriors’ experience—we could prevent the interventions that might otherwise break humanity.
But from all I’d seen, the Outer Ones hated direct conflict. With each other they found it nearly unthinkable. Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s passivist faction would dig in to their new shelter and think of slow, subtle ways to regain their place while the interventionists—gently and without ever drawing blood—did their best to control humanity.
And Neko, and Spector’s colleagues, would remain unwittingly vulnerable.
“Very well,” said Glabri. “I’ll speak to the warren. I’ll tell them we should give you shelter so long as you keep your word about our clutches, and leave when we say. And you’ll owe us flesh when you have it to give, and protection one day when we need it.” He bared ragged teeth. “Always good to make alliances with strange people—you may be creepy, but your strengths complement ours.”
He solemnly offered Nnnnnn-gt-vvv another bone from his string. The Outer One bent low, took the offering, and brushed tendrils over the ghoul’s shoulders. Glabri hissed and shuffled back, but the agreement appeared sealed.
I should have been pleased at our success. But I’d risked life and mind not merely to gain Nnnnnn-gt-vvv its refuge, but to oppose Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt’s plans for my family and species. In all the ways that mattered to the people in danger now, I’d failed.
I was ready to sleep for a week, but didn’t dare give in yet to exhaustion. Waves splashed against sand, and I clung to the sound. I reached deliberately and carefully for the confluence, and was rewarded by the syncopation of four hearts supporting my own. “Before you go, Nnnnnn-gt-vvv, we need to know how you plan to stop the interventionists. When will you move against them? We need urgently to reclaim the mine before their interference with human governments turns disastrous. We want to help.”
“We want to get my son out of there,” said Frances.
“Freddy chooses to stay with Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “That’s his right.”
“He’s being an idiot,” said Shelean. “I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but he trusts the creature. I used to. It means well, of course it does.”
“Have you learned anything new?” asked Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. Spector watched intently.
“Not much,” she said. “They’ve talked about whether they can fix Miss Harris’s brain, and how much risk they should take in the treatment. They really do intend to help her, but they also think that it’ll give them more influence over her team. And they’ve talked about getting Russian government people into the Carpathian mine, but I haven’t been able to figure out who’s actually there.”
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv hummed thoughtfully. “Keep listening and try to find out. And if you can get one of them alone, try to give the American government our side of the story. Maybe one of my faction-mates knows someone in Moscow as well. In answer to your question, Ghavn Marsh, we need to reclaim influence so we can demand our place in the mine. Shelean, if any of Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt’s faction-mates sound amenable to our perspective, we may be able to siphon off some of its strength. But that will depend on having a stable anchor in this space, where defectors could join us.”
Spector leaned forward. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better just to talk with Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt yourself? I don’t like how it treated your faction, but it seemed willing to engage openly with the government today, regardless of all this talk about espionage. If they want something from us, we may be able to get concessions, for humanity and for your faction.”
“You must not,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “Even during the most aboveboard negotiation, it could undermine you surreptitiously—it’s been practicing such artifices for longer than your country has existed. It would love the chance to influence more of your people.” Tentacles swiveled in my direction. “You especially must stay away. It wants you; that’s why it tried to draw you in through the trapezohedron.”
I wished it hadn’t mentioned the trapezohedron. Sharp and fresh, memory of R’lyeh mixed with awareness of my new fragility. “I can’t just hide. It’s used me already; I have to help stop what I gave it the means to do. And Neko is there. She may have chosen to go, but she didn’t know this was coming. She didn’t know about the trapezohedron’s influence.” I’d waited too long already; whatever my vulnerabilities, however I’d strained them already, I needed to see this through.
“I agree with Nnnnnn-gt-vvv,” said S’vlk. “Not that we should work subtly and slowly—this isn’t sea floor mapping—but that open negotiation is a good way to lose. They hate fighting, so that’s our best option.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Caleb. He looked ready for that fight. I wasn’t the only one to inherit Grandfather’s impulsive streak.
“They might prefer to talk,” said Spector, “but they can certainly outclass our spears and guns. If they don’t like violence, it’s for the same reason humans should have learned—their weapons have grown too deadly. The Outer Ones have probably had atomics since we were swinging in trees.”
“I’ve seen them fight,” said S’vlk. “I’m not suggesting we rush them with tridents. Just that we act. Go in, sabotage or steal what we can, and try to reset the wards so they answer to Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s faction instead.”
“You’ve been complaining that the interventionists will act rashly, and get the opposite effect from the one they intend,” said Spector. “You could easily do the same. More easily—you’ve had less time to plan than they have. Let us try negotiation—it costs nothing and could save a lot of bloodshed.”
“It risks everything,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “And S’vlk’s plan is even worse. I beg you, give us time to work our own way.”
Audrey watched this exchange with unreadable eyes. I thought she’d been quiet because Shelean was present, but now she turned to Spector, smiling brightly. “I assume you reported this whole thing to your superiors—I know you don’t have the same boss as Barlow. What did they say? Is this whole negotiation idea theirs, or yours?”
“Both,” he said. “They didn’t even know this species—this political power—existed until a few days ago. They want to learn as much as they can, and you do that by talking.”
“What do they think about the Outer Ones talking to Russia?”
“Obviously they’d prefer these people as American allies. They’re willing to offer a lot to make that happen, and I agree with them. The safety of our country may depend on it.” He nodded at me. “Aphra, I know you have every reason to be upset after how you’ve been injured, but it may not have been intentional. If the Outer Ones value your diplomatic abilities—as we do—your help could go a long way toward making this work out in our favor.”
I stiffened. It had been a long time since Spector had so cavalierly assumed I’d cooperate. Even with the day’s stress, I expected better of him. “I do have every reason to be upset, yes.”
Audrey stood and stretched. “I’m just gonna point out that it’s past 2 a.m., and none of us have slept well in days. Unless you have?” She smiled at Spector, and he smiled back and shook his head. She paced around the circle, stopping near him to stretch again and then clear a smooth seat in the sand beside him. His gaze tracked her movements. Deedee’s did too, more thoughtfully. Audrey put a hand on Spector’s arm. “What do you think we can get from them, if we play our cards right?”
“Well…” He didn’t pull back. My pulse surged, but I forced myself not to show any reaction. He went on. “We can convince them that we’re a power in our own right, one worth treating with respect. I think it would be better if we could treat with them openly—being the first country with public diplomatic channels would give us a great advantage.”
I recalled Audrey, smug with the information she’d wangled from Barlow, admitting cheerfully that she could never do the same with Spector. “Your brain is always going, even when you’re talking to a girl.”
Spector was among the few men who could go armed around me without raising old terrors. Now I stared fixedly at the sand to avoid looking at his holster. What should I do? Who would react quickly enough, if I said something? I felt Charlie’s breath quicken, the chill that squeezed his chest.
Audrey smiled more broadly and slipped her arm around the man beside her. At last he started to draw away—but the gun was in her hand, and she pushed herself back as he gasped. She trained the weapon on him. “Thank god. I was afraid you knew how to look after this thing. But you were just wearing it because he does.”
My veins stung with the speed of her pulse. Charlie stared, breath tight in his throat. Spector—whoever he was—raised open hands. “Audrey—Miss Winslow—what are you talking about?”
“Mr. Spector would never be so familiar,” she said. “It’s sweet, really. Plenty of guys act the gentleman with young ladies, but they’re not respectful. Nnnnnn-gt-vvv, I don’t suppose you recognize this imposter?”
I turned on the Outer One abruptly. “Did you know? That he was one of your doppelgangers?”
“No!” Nnnnnn-gt-vvv approached the man from the side, not blocking Audrey’s aim. It brushed his face and hair with tentative feelers. The man pushed them away—but he seemed accustomed to the Outer One’s uncanny presence. “Body sculpting, done right, leaves few traces. And I met Mr. Spector only in passing.”
I glanced at Charlie. Every line of his body was rigid with tension. His lips moved silently.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” I said to the man. “Where is he? What are they doing to him? Why do they have to hide his absence even from his colleagues? Aren’t they supposed to be working with you?” Barlow’s team didn’t know; I couldn’t imagine that they knew. I told him never to be alone with them. He promised he’d be careful. But if the Outer Ones had this double ready in advance, it would have taken only a second of distraction, a colleague’s back turned while swift dark wings dragged Spector away from the visible world. Leaving a cuckoo in his place.
Had he argued, where they’d been persuaded?
Dear gods, had the people I’d spoken to in Barlow’s hotel room been who I thought they were? Trumbull was alone with them now.
“You’re talking nonsense,” said the man who wasn’t Spector. His eyes focused on the gun, as anyone’s would. I didn’t know whether Audrey could shoot. I didn’t want to imagine what it would look like if she did. My traitor mind colored the sand with blood and bone.
“Were they all replaced?” I asked. “Was Neko?”
“No one’s been replaced,” he insisted. “I swear I’m myself—I can prove it. I don’t know why you’ve got this idea into your heads.”
Fury roiled in my throat. “Stop telling me you don’t know what we’re talking about. You’re not a good enough actor, and we know Mr. Spector better than you thought. You’ve failed—the best thing for you now is to cooperate, and hope your masters will take you back in exchange for our friend.”
“You may have suddenly decided not to trust me,” he said. “My own supervisors will know me when they see me—and they won’t be happy that you threatened me. They’ll be even less happy if you actually hurt me.”
He sounded even less like the man I knew—but he was right. If Audrey did shoot him, we’d have the corpse of an FBI agent on our hands, indistinguishable from the original. Even if we hid the body, everyone knew he was with us. The state would gladly mete out punishment to what remained of Innsmouth, and what remained below it.
Audrey’s aim wavered, and I knew her thoughts followed the same logic.
“Let me,” said Grandfather. He stalked toward the man, and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv backed away to make room out of Audrey’s line of fire. I expected him to put claws to the intruder’s throat, another visceral threat. Instead, he stopped an arm’s length away. “If you run, we will kill you and deal with the consequences. The stakes are too high for us to do otherwise. If you sit down, we’ll know you can’t do anything sudden or rash, and I’ll tell the girl to lower her gun.”
Deedee spoke up. “Check him for weapons first. Mr. Spector only carried a service pistol, but this fellow might have something extra from the Outer Ones.”
“Good thought. Do that, then—you know how, and your palms are more sensitive.”
Deedee patted him down efficiently and without any particular delicacy, then nodded. “He’s clean—though I assume they can track him.”
“Unlikely,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “For this kind of replacement that’s often considered too risky. Especially now, when they want to fool their own kin.”
The man looked at us all, and sat.
Frances tugged at my arm. She’d been smoking steadily since Audrey grabbed the gun, and my fear-shortened breath grew rougher as the smell rolled over me. “Are the elders going to … hurt him?” she whispered. “I know we have to—we have to do whatever’s necessary, to find out how to rescue him—them—everyone they’ve taken prisoner. I just need to know what they’re going to do, so I can brace myself.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. I’d seen Grandfather threaten people before. I knew he’d hurt people, killed when he thought it needful. I tried to tell myself that torture for a purpose wasn’t the same as what the state had done to my mother. But then, her captors had thought their study reason enough.
Grandfather heard us, of course. “Pain makes men talk. It doesn’t make them honest.” He looked the man over, searchingly. “Some men will confess as soon as I bare my teeth. They’ve never seen anything like me before, and they’re convinced I must command storms and spirits or hunger for human flesh. You can get almost anything out of someone who’s just learned their orderly cosmos is an illusion. But I don’t think that’s you. You’re not the sort to be shocked by men with scales—you’ve traveled the stars, met people who make me and Miss Winslow look like twins. You go everywhere, and you talk to everyone.”
The man was nodding along. I recalled my own relief when I’d heard my gods named in a strange place—I couldn’t fault him for that instinctive response to an adversary voicing his own truisms. But in a moment he jerked still.
“There, you see,” said Grandfather. “This will be much easier if you tell us your name. Something to call you, so we can talk like civilized people. I’m Obed Marsh.” His child-name would be more comfortable for most men of the air.
“How is he civilized?” demanded Caleb. His voice was stiff with anger. Grandfather gave him a quelling look.
The man looked at us, more nervous than when Audrey had threatened to shoot him. His shoulders slumped, then rose with reclaimed dignity. “I’m Nick Abrams. And this isn’t as nefarious as you’re making it out. When Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt presented his case, the agents agreed that Mr. Spector should travel to Yuggoth so he could report on the truth of their claims. Shaping someone as a ‘replacement’ is standard practice when a person can’t vanish even briefly without arousing suspicion. It isn’t meant to fool the government, only his acquaintances.”
Charlie gritted his teeth. I shook my head. “No. We aren’t just acquaintances—he would have told us. He wouldn’t try to fool us this way.”
“Not hurting him doesn’t seem to make him honest either,” said Caleb.
“Patience,” said Grandfather. He put his hand on Nick’s wrist. The edge of one talon lay a hairsbreadth from his skin. “Mr. Abrams, give some credit to our intelligence. You wanted us to negotiate with your—travel-mate, is it? We won’t do that without full understanding. We know Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt’s done things he doesn’t want us to know about. But you can’t expect us to sail in without a map. You have to give us something, to get what you want. Where is Ron Spector, really? And where are his irritating colleagues?”
The man didn’t answer right away. For once, no one jumped in with a sarcastic jab or impatient demand. There was silence save for the ocean’s endless whisper, ten people breathing, and the creak of shifting metal in the distance.
“No one else has been replaced,” he said finally. “That’s the truth—your friend Miss Koto has been in the mine for days with no need to hide her absence. The other agents were willing to listen to Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt, and it spoke honestly with them.” I breathed gratitude—Mary’s anger had rung true, but I’d been frightened still. Even if Abrams was lying, if Barlow or Peters had quailed at cooperating with the Outer Ones, Trumbull wasn’t alone with three doppelgangers. He went on. “Mr. Spector didn’t trust it, and argued both with Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt and his colleagues. But he’s vital—a voice for peace in a government of wolves. You know that yourself. He advocates for the worth of many kinds of people, just like we do. Once he sees how we live and travel together, he’ll understand that we’re alike. We can help him convince his colleagues to work with people—like you—who they’d otherwise treat as enemies. He’ll be back in a few days, no worse for wear.”
I imagined Spector stripped of all but his voice and vision. Spector’s contorted body lying on an altar to a god not his own. “But his colleagues don’t know,” I said. “They’d never have gone along with it.”
“You’ve hidden things from them before, to prevent them from starting wars. If you don’t want them picking fights with the Yith, you don’t want to turn them against the Outer Ones, who actually care enough about humans to notice if they’re attacked.”
“Credit Barlow with some intelligence as well,” said Grandfather. “He knows Spector at least as well as my granddaughter does.”
“Your granddaughter didn’t notice. She did.” He glared at Audrey, who smiled demurely back. He blinked rapidly and flushed.
“Be that as it may,” I said. “They know him very well.” I hoped it was true—in Barlow’s case, I was sure of it. Trumbull walked among her colleagues as an eternal stranger, so her replacement with an ancient and inhuman intelligence had drawn no comment. Spector made himself known. “You’re no better an actor than I am. But if we go to them now, you still might salvage your masters’ desired alliance.”
“And then what? If I confess to them, will you talk with Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt?”
“No!” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv.
“I know what you think of it,” said Grandfather. “Help Miss Winslow guard our prisoner while we confer.”
He beckoned me and Caleb, S’vlk and Chulzh’th, and, after a moment, Frances. Charlie levered himself up with his cane and followed, uninvited. Deedee stood as well.
“He’s my colleague,” she said.
Audrey smiled at me and patted the gun. I’m needed here. I trust you. But I could still feel her heartbeat, only a little slower than when she’d first pulled the gun.
We walked down the beach, where only the sea could hear us plan our assault on the mine.