Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
He made a tiny sound, something between a chuckle and a sigh.
“We are all chasing ghosts, Kovacs-san. Living as long as we now do, how could we not be.”
Sarah.
I forced it down, wondering if he saw the wince at the edges of my eyes as I did it. Wondering with sudden paranoia if he already somehow knew.
My voice grated coming out.
“That isn’t what I asked you.”
He blinked and suddenly smiled again
“No, it isn’t. You asked me if I believed, and I evaded your question. Forgive me. On Vchira Beach, cheap metaphysics and cheap politics rub shoulders and both are in frequent demand. With a little effort, a passable living can be made from dispensing them, but then the habit becomes hard to break.” He sighed. “Do I believe we are dealing with the return of Quellcrist Falconer? With every fibre of my being I want to, but like any Quellist I am impelled to face the facts. And the facts do not support what I want to believe.”
“It’s not her.”
“It’s not likely. But in one of her less passionate moments, Quell herself once offered an escape clause for situations such as these. If the facts are against you, she said, but you cannot bear to cease believing—then at least suspend judgment. Wait and see.”
“I’d have thought that mitigates pretty effectively against action.”
He nodded. “Mostly it does. But in this case, the issue of what I want to be true has nothing to do with whether we act or not. Because this much I do believe: even if this ghost has no more than talismanic value, its time is here and its place is among us. One way or another, there is a change coming. The Harlanites recognise it as well as we do, and they have already made their move. It only remains for us to make ours. If in the end I have to fight and die for the ghost and memory of Quellcrist Falconer and not the woman herself, then that will be better than not fighting at all.”
That stayed in my head like an echo, long after we left Soseki Koi to his preparations and rode the bug back along the Strip. That, and his simple question. The simple conviction behind it.
Is not a woken and vengeful ghost enough?
But it wasn’t the same for me. Because this ghost I’d held, and I’d watched moonlight across the floor of a cabin in the mountains while she slipped away from me into sleep, not knowing if she’d be waking again.
If she could be woken again, I didn’t want to be the one to tell her what she was. I didn’t want to be there to watch her face when she found out.
TWENTY-SIX
After that, it went rapidly.