36

The brighter day began with a murder, followed shortly by a suicide. In the penal colony, a man by the name of James Colbert who had become more and more moody, who was keeping more and more to himself, wrapped his arms around the neck of another inmate, by the name of Ken Dollar, and choked him first unconscious and then dead. The other inmates, once they realized what was happening, tried to drag Colbert away, but it was too late. And while they were seeing if there was anything to be done to save Dollar, Colbert wandered, mumbling, along the edge of the crowd. He was being closely watched by several of the other inmates, but not closely enough that he couldn’t, when they were distracted by the attempts to revive Dollar, suddenly take off at a run for the wall and try to run through it so hard that he cracked his own skull and damaged his brain. He was soon dead as well.

Henry watched the murder, horrified. He called the guards in the middle of it. By the time they were assembled near the door, Colbert had killed himself as well. Henry signaled the alarm to send the convicts back to their cells, was surprised when this time all but one or two of the men kept milling about, making no effort to return to their cells. He waited and then started the loudspeaker message, giving them thirty seconds’ warning, but they ignored this, too.

What now? he wondered. Ever since Briden and his men had come, the prisoners had been on edge. And it hadn’t subsided when they left, taking Jensi’s brother with them. No, it had just gotten worse. With the guards and technicians as well, he thought. Fights had broken out; one of the guards, a normally stolid, experienced fellow named Marshall, had almost bitten another man’s ear off. He’d been thrown into a room and locked in, where he’d proceeded to shout and scream, throwing himself against the walls. When they finally opened the door to let him out the next day, they found him sitting in his own filth. He had slashed open his palm and had smeared the walls with blood. But it was not just smears, Henry realized on closer examination. He’d been drawing symbols, creepy odd-looking things that didn’t look like any language that Henry had ever seen.

He’d called Commander Grottor and told him. The commander grunted, then told him to take a vid of the walls and send them along immediately.

“What am I to do with Marshall?” he asked.

“Marshall? Throw him in a cell. Put him out there with the other prisoners.”

He had, but had kept him locked in his cell just in case. One of the other prisoners, a man named Waldron, would bring Marshall food and slide it through the slot at the bottom of the bars; sometimes Marshall’d eat it and sometimes not. He kept worrying the wound on his hand, splitting it open, and when he could get it to bleed again, he’d paint more of the symbols: on the floor, on the back wall, on the sheets, even on his own body.

What had done that to him? wondered Henry at the time. And then, looking at the screen, at the two dead bodies and the men milling about, What has done that to them?

*   *   *

The guards were still standing near the door, awaiting instruction. Their leader opened a link, asked Henry what the problem was.

“The prisoners won’t return to their cells,” he said.

“What?” said the man. “How many of them? One? Two?”

“More,” said Henry. “Almost all of them.”

“That’s all right,” said the man, his nostrils flaring. “We can take them.” He seemed to relish the idea, which made Henry realize that if he opened the door someone, maybe a lot of people, were likely to end up dead.

“Go back to your quarters,” he said. “I’m not going to open the door.”

“C’mon, Wandrei,” he said. “Open it.”

“No,” said Henry. “Go back to your quarters. That’s an order.”

With some grumbling, the angry men drifted away and Henry turned back to watch the screen. What am I to do with the bodies? he wondered. Henry watched the prisoners still milling about, still wandering, sometimes nearly stumbling over one of the corpses. He watched two of them grab one of the bodies and drag them over to the hole that Briden had dug. They released it and it went tumbling down the hole. Then they went back for the second one.

Good enough, Henry thought, and turned his attention elsewhere.

*   *   *

Istvan stayed there beside it, caressing it, staring up at it. It was listening to him, responding to him. It was a beautiful, gorgeous thing, and what it was doing to his mind was gorgeous, too. It was changing him, making him more like it, and he was changing it, too. It was learning how to talk to him and then was sending its voice all around, looking for brains like his.

But his brain was special. What his brain understood, the other brains felt as pain. He watched the others, watched how they reacted, the confusion on their faces, the way their eyes lit up but without a real glow. Their brains started to break when the Marker touched them, for the signal was meant for brains closer to his, not for brains like theirs.

And the signal was growing, getting stronger. The scientists who came often to stare at the Marker and stare at him, too, could feel it mostly as pain, though one or two had a little more flexible cerebral matter and seemed to begin to see hints and traces of the ghosts that Istvan saw now all the time. The scientists whispered back and forth, too, spoke of what was going on outside the Marker chamber, bringing him news. More and more people were going mad, they said, though what they meant by mad exactly he wasn’t sure. There were fights for no reason, strange acts of self-harm and suicide. Order was beginning to fall apart; the social structure of the compound was beginning to collapse. But that was okay, thought Istvan. You always had to tear things down before you could build them back up again.

There were scientists who always came to see him, Briden among them: a group of the committed, the faithful. They clustered around him, waiting for him to move or speak. One of them recorded his gestures, his words. Only they weren’t his words exactly: he only said what the ghosts were already saying if only the scientists could see them and hear them. Why can’t they? he wondered. He didn’t know the answer.

Other scientists, though, never came in. He saw them in the control room, keeping to their monitors and systems or standing near the glass. There were two camps, he dimly began to realize. Briden was in charge of one, the group that believed the Marker and its possibilities. Of this group, some of them were Unitologists, committed to the project for religion. These, Briden chief among them, were zealous. Istvan sensed in them a willingness to go to almost any extreme for their cause. Others were simply scientists and either atheistic or unconcerned about religion, but these still saw in him a kind of unique catalyst, an essential component for activating the Marker. He was, for all these, something special, something to be treasured.

The second group was the enemy, according to Briden. Even though Callie Dexter was imprisoned, she seemed to lead that group, shuttling messages back and forth to them. These scientists were the ones who largely stayed in the control room. They wanted to shutter the Marker project. For them, something was desperately amiss, and they claimed to object to the idea of bringing in a convict with a clear mental derangement as a key part of the project. But with Dr. Dexter imprisoned, they seemed to have lost a certain amount of their will and were somewhat ineffectual.

*   *   *

Callie had managed to smuggle a fair amount of equipment into the cell. The guard, confused that she was there at all, seemed happy to accept her notes and carry them to one of her contacts in the control room. He would come back with notes from them that explained what had happened and what was currently going on, and she would write responses, sending them off with the shambling guard again.

And more than that: one of the infiltrators in the Marker chamber managed to get close enough to Istvan to scan his brain waves for several hours and then sent her a memory stud with the data. Entering that, she charted Istvan’s derangement, trying to understand just how damaged he was. His brain waves were highly abnormal, the sequence irregular and the waveform variable. No question about it: he was an extremely damaged individual. Worse, she realized, comparing these with the Marker pulses, the Marker seemed more responsive to his brain waves and perhaps was even adapting to them. Having Istvan near the Marker was not good for it. It was sharpening the signal, making it more intense. It was perhaps no coincidence that dementia had increased: the signal had risen. Was it because of Istvan? Hard to say. The researcher in her reminded her that the dementia had always been there and it might have developed this way on its own in any case. Though things had definitely gotten worse around the time Istvan arrived.

Through the slot in the door, she asked the guard to go fetch Briden. He sidled slowly off. She waited, looking over the data again. Yes, she was right, she was sure of it; the Marker effects were getting worse.

A few minutes later the guard was back. “Can’t come,” he said.

“Can’t or won’t?” asked Callie.

The guard shrugged.

“Do you think you could let me out?” she asked.

The guard shook his head, but slowly, as if he might be able to be convinced.

“What if I told you it was a matter of life and death?” she asked.

“Whose life?” the guard asked. “Whose death?”

“Everybody’s,” said Callie.

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“If Istvan isn’t removed, the consequences will be dire,” said Callie. “Go tell Briden that. And tell him it was from me.”

For a moment the guard looked confused, and then he shuffled off again.

This time he came back with Briden. The latter looked irritated. His hair was a mess and his jumpsuit smelled. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in days.

“What is it now?” he asked through the slot.

She tried to explain, but halfway through he cut her off. “Istvan’s fine,” he said. “We need him. The Marker speaks to him.”

“But he’s changing the signal,” said Callie. “The Marker’s becoming more enabled, but in the wrong way. The signal was weak before. Now it’s tuned and affecting nearly everybody, and symptoms of dementia, which were subdued before, seemed to have become more acute, even torturous. It was always sending out something that encouraged dementia, but it’s suddenly become much, much worse.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Briden. “The Marker is glorious. And Istvan is its prophet.”

Callie shook his head. She bent down, brought up an audio log, played it for him. It was Istvan’s voice, rambling slowly on.

We must be made whole again. You must take us and carry us and make us again. And when we are in that place and new-made, from there you must carry us and make us again.

She clicked it off.

“So?” said Briden.

“Can’t you hear what he’s saying, Briden?” Callie asked. “The Marker is teaching him how to reproduce it. And what’s more, my data suggests the Marker is rewiring his warped brain. Look at how many dead we already have, how many suicides.”

“Collateral damage,” Briden said.

“Collateral damage? Really?”

“Besides, I don’t think there have been that many more suicides or dead than usual in circumstances such as these.”

“Are you serious?” said Callie. “Briden, you’re willfully turning a blind eye.”

“It’s you who are blind,” said Briden.

“No,” Dexter said. “Briden, you have to believe me: the Marker is dangerous. And with Istvan near it, it’s probably even more dangerous.”

“Blasphemy,” said Briden.

“It’s not anything of the kind. Besides, if you won’t stop it, I will.”

Briden smiled. “Do your worst,” he said. “You’re imprisoned in a cell.” And then he turned on his heel and left.

*   *   *

Through it all, Istvan stayed there, beside the Marker. This, the ghost of the murdered Fischer told him, was where he would be safe. If he were to stay here, beside the Marker, then it would protect him.

“From what?” he asked.

The Marker did not seem to have a ready answer for this question. All around him, through the haze that was the real world, swarmed the other world; swirling and dynamic, full of ghosts and beauty. Now when the veil fell, it fell quickly and all at once. He could see in the Marker the shape and image of himself. He belonged here, with it, with the Marker. Though he looked human and flesh and blood, he felt he was more akin to this twisting tower of stone than to these people gathered round him, staring at him. They were built wrong. He could tell just by looking at them. The Marker wasn’t talking to them. It was talking to him.

It will keep me safe, he told himself. And saying that somehow made him think of Jensi, whom he hadn’t thought of for a long time. Jensi had protected him, had kept him safe. Or had for a while, anyway, until suddenly he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it anymore. When he thought about that part of it, it made him angry. He had needed Jensi’s help, but where had his brother been? Jensi had even been there when the joke with Councilman Fischer had gone wrong—he had seen him in the crowd, but had Jensi saved him? Had he prevented them from dragging him away and here? No, he hadn’t. He had failed him.

But the Marker would not fail him. It had said it would protect him and so it would. The Marker had power and it was giving its power to him. He was, in some senses, becoming it.

We need to reproduce, the dead were saying, the Marker was saying through the dead. There need to be more of us. We cannot live on this planet all our lives.

No, thought Istvan. You can’t.

We must call out louder, and hope for them to hear us and take us into themselves. As you have done, Istvan.

Yes, thought Istvan. As I have done. He could feel the form and shape of the Marker imprinted in his head, a delicate and beautiful structure, as entrancing as his numbers had been. It was the Marker, and he felt an almost overwhelming urge to try to bring it out of his head and to reproduce it in life. Soon others, he knew, would be feeling the same urge.

The dead were there now, in numbers, swirling all around him. All of their mouths were opening and they were singing. It’s time, they were singing, it’s time! Yes, he thought, it was time. He stood and the scientists around him looked rapt upon him. Briden was beside him, reaching one hand out and touching Istvan’s shoulder.

And then Istvan felt it coming. He lifted his hands high above his head. When he brought them down the pulse came with it.