Watson, Ian - Novel 10 (27 page)

 
          
“For
God’s sake, what’s
that
?” Marta
pointed.

 
          
A
red blur flickered up by the ceiling, high above the air-cushion bed where
Todhunter lay entranced.

 
          
“What?
There isn’t anything . . . Oh my God,” Resnick retreated.

 
          
Weinberger
jumped aside as something almost-red and barely visible dived towards the body
sprawled upon the floor. At the last moment it veered away, as though it had
arrived too late.

 
          
There
came a rush of footsteps and a bounce of rubber wheels in the corridor. As the
two orderlies rushed in, propelling the resuscitation cart before them, the
almost-red something fled out over their heads.
Into the
corridor, into the House, into Montegro and the world.
The orderlies
were too urgently occupied with hurrying the electric pads to Norman Harper’s
body to notice the creature — if indeed any outsider would have noticed it.
They would have needed to know what to see.

 
          
While
the orderlies were shocking Harper repeatedly to try to jolt his heart back to
life, those who
had
seen Death stared
at each other.

 
          
“It’s
got loose,” said
Resnick
quietly, succumbing with a
sinking feeling to the logic of Todhunter’s world. “It has nowhere else to go
in this dimension, does it,
Alice
? We’ll have to build a cage to catch it.”

 
          
“A cage for Death?
But where do we get the pheromone?
There’s no such thing!”

 
          
“Maybe
there is, if we look for it. Maybe there is now.”

 
          
“I’m
sorry, Mr Resnick,” said one of the orderlies, standing up. “He’s dead.”

 
          
“Welcome
to Egremont,” said Marta raggedly.
“Quite . . . quite an auspicious
moment.”

 
          
The
orderly, Sorensen, stared at her as though she was mad.

 
          
In
the holos, tiny marionette figures scrambled and panicked in the aftermath of
the poet’s murder.