Eph said, “It changed. Jumped bodies.”
“It must have,” said Fet, bursting pride evident in his voice. “The professor did hurt it after all. He had to have. I knew it. Wounded it so that it
Gus watched Goodweather concentrating hard on the muddy, trembling image of the new Master moving. “It’s Bolivar,” said Goodweather.
“What’s that?” asked Gus.
“Not what. Who. Gabriel Bolivar.”
“Bolivar?” said Gus, searching his memory. “The singer?”
“That’s him,” said Goodweather.
“Are you sure?” said Fet, knowing exactly who Goodweather was referring to. “It’s so dark, how can you tell?”
“The way he moves. Something about him. I’m telling you—he is the Master.”
Fet looked closely. “You’re right. Why him? Maybe the Master had no time to choose. Maybe the old man hit it so hard, it had to change immediately.”
As Goodweather stared at the image, another vague form joined the Master out on the high parapet. Goodweather seemed to freeze, then tremble as though suffering a chill.
“It’s Kelly,” he said.
Goodweather said this with authority, without any trace of doubt.
Fet pulled back a bit, having more trouble with the image than Goodweather. But Gus could tell that he too was convinced. “Jesus.”
Goodweather steadied himself with a hand on the table. His vampire wife was serving at the side of the Master.
And then a third figure emerged. Smaller, skinnier than the other two. Reading darker on the night-vision scale.
“See that there?” said Gus. “We got a human being living among the vampires. Not just the vampires—the Master. Want to guess?”
Fet stiffened. That was Gus’s first sign that something was wrong. Then Fet turned to look at Goodweather.
Goodweather let go of the table. His legs gave out and he slumped back into a sitting position on the floor. His eyes were still locked on the soupy image, his stomach burning, suddenly flushed with acid. His lower lip trembled, and tears welled up in his eyes.
“That’s my son.”
Astronaut Thalia Charles didn’t even turn her head anymore. When the voice came now, she just accepted it. She almost—yes, she could admit this—welcomed it. As alone as she was—indeed, she was one of the most alone human beings in the history of human beings—she was not alone with her thoughts.
She was isolated aboard the International Space Station, the massive research facility disabled and tumbling through Earth’s orbit. Its solar-powered thrusters firing sporadically, the man-made satellite continued to drift in an elliptical trajectory some two hundred miles above its home planet, passing from day into night roughly every three hours.
For nearly two calendar years now—racking up eight orbital days for every one calendar day—she had existed in this state of quarantined suspension. Zero gravity and zero exercise had taken a great toll on her wasting body. Most of her muscle was gone, her tendons atrophied. Her spine, arms, and legs had bent in odd, disturbing angles and most of her fingers were useless hooks, curled upon themselves. Her food rations—mainly freeze-dried borscht brought up on the last Russian transport before the cataclysm—had dwindled to almost nothing, but on the other hand her body required little nutrition. Her skin was brittle, and flakes of it floated about the cabin like dandelion snow. Much of her hair was gone, which was also for the best, as it only got in the way in zero gravity.
She had all but disintegrated, both in body and in mind.
The Russian commander had died just three weeks after the ISS began to malfunction. Massive nuclear explosions on Earth excited the atmosphere, leading to multiple impacts with orbiting space junk. They had taken shelter inside their emergency escape capsule, the
But the result had been as much a curse as a blessing.
