It had to be the same intelligence, the same spirit. The ghost which the Tsarevich so desperately wanted to contact had to be the thing that saved New York from Gary's final, horrible revenge. Ayaan had looked around the bunker and seen for the first time just what they had made her do and it gave her gooseflesh.
'Enough. Spare her and' I'll do as the lad wants,' the ghost had said. Its face fell'not with the torpor of the undead but with genuine sadness. 'Tell him he has me, you lot. Go and tell him now!' With its temporary hands the ghost had thrown over the bunker's table, smashed to kindling one of the chairs. Ayaan had been afraid, truly afraid that it would seek vengeance on her for what she had done.
If it was planning revenge it was taking its time.
'This is our beloved leader's friend. The ghost,' the green phantom told her, a week later in the officer's mess of the nuclear waste freighter Pinega. He waved a few bony fingers at the thing in the jar. 'We had to take steps to make sure he didn't run out on us again. He's shown himself a very slippery fish. Supposedly he has something he wants to tell you.'
'Me,' Ayaan said, rubbing her suddenly moist palms on her pants. 'Well, I suppose that makes sense. Um. Hello,' she tried.
Neither the brain nor the mummy so much as twitched. Across the room Cicatrix put down her magazine to watch. The green phantom rose and went to the icy trough where Ayaan had unloaded her grisly haul. He made no attempt at nicety, digging in to the bony meat in the trough like a starving animal. Between bites he managed to choke out, 'He says he wants you to know there are no hard feelings. He would have done the same in your position.'
'That's' I mean, tell him I'm grateful for his' his''
''Magnanimity' is the word that leaps to mind.' The phantom wiped clotted blood from his cheeks and lips with a silk napkin. 'He can hear you, you know. I don't have to translate for him.'
Ayaan nodded. 'So, well, thank you. And I am sorry. So truly, truly sorry.'
'He had something else for you'a message. I don't claim to understand it. He says she's just fine, and closer to your heart than ever.'
'She?' Ayaan asked. 'She who?'
'That's what he said. Listen, I can barely understand him myself. I won't be arsed to play twenty questions with him just to appease your curiosity. I'm sure it's just talking about its mummy friend. Get back to work.'
Ayaan nodded agreeably and backed out of the room. With a moment's thought she had answered her own question and she didn't feel like sharing. 'She' had to be Sarah, the only female person in the world Ayaan wanted to be alright. The brain's other statement wasn't so easy to decipher. Had it claimed that Ayaan was closer to Sarah's heart than ever it would have made perfect sense, though it would have conveyed nothing she didn't already know. It was possible the ghost lacked a grasp of the finer nuances of English idiom.
She didn't think so, though. She thought the ghost knew exactly what it was saying. Sarah was closer to Ayaan's heart'did it mean'could it mean that Sarah was nearby? Physically close to Ayaan's heart? But how, and more importantly, why?
She had a feeling the brain was quite genuine in its forgiveness. She had a feeling it knew exactly what had happened, and that it saw her not as a butcher of mummies but as an ally against a common enemy. She could use whatever help it might offer but she didn't worry too much about whether to trust it or not.
She had a mutiny to pull off, after all, and there were going to be casualties. If the brain or its attending mummy got in the way it wouldn't hold her back.