'You could say that. Like you could say that a book still goes on even after you're done reading it and you've put it on the shelf. All the words are still there.'
'That's' interesting,' she said.
'Fucking fascinating. Now shut up and listen to me. I don't want to have to stay in this body any longer than I have to.'
He looked out over the waves, drew a deep breath. 'The one consolation for being dead'the only possible consolation'is that you hear things. Dead people love to gossip, just like the living. If you're selective with who you listen to you can actually learn something useful, sometimes. I happen to have met somebody who works for our enemy. The Tsarevich, I'm told, is planning something big. He's been working on it for years'maybe since the beginning. It's going to be the culmination of his unlife. He's been busy at it, collecting things he needs.'
'Things?' Sarah asked.
'People, mostly. People like Ayaan or all those mummies. There's at least one more person he needs, somebody very special and he'll stop at nothing to find her, or at least a reasonable facsimile. He's been making liches at a furious rate, killing most of them because they didn't have powers or they didn't have the right powers. He's been collecting old bits of machinery, too, and documents the Soviets left behind. He took five tons of documents out of a cave near Magnitogorsk last year, research materials, parascience stuff left by Stalin-era scientists looking to find a way to bring dead soldiers back to life on the battlefield. Whatever he found in those papers made him think he needed to kidnap a bunch of mummies. Now he's moving. He's moving west. Toward the Source. Do you understand where this is going?'
'I think so,' she tried, though she really didn't.
'It means that once he has this last person that he needs, he'll be ready to act. It means we have very little time left for dilly-dallying. You want to save Ayaan, fine, and if Ptolemy wants revenge well so be it. But you need to know the Russian bastard has his own agenda, and I can guarantee you it isn't good. Ayaan plays into his hand somehow so he won't give her up easily. You're going to have to fight, Sarah. You can't just run along after him for the rest of time, you're going to have to fight. I know that isn't your strong suit. You're going to need help. Find yourself a couple of atom bombs, raise an army if you need to.'
'I don't know how''
'Then learn. I gave you your gift for a reason. Use it, now. You've got to find things out, you have to learn a lot between now and the end of this.'
'...Learn things?'
'Yeah. And some of them are going to make you cry. I'd go do it for you but, well. Since I'm just a disembodied consciousness cut loose in the void, I figure you're going to have to do the heavy lifting. Understand?'
'Yeah.' This time she thought she did understand. She'd just grabbed the shitty end of the stick. Sarah poured herself a glass of water. Her mouth had gone very dry.
'Okay. So I'll try to find out more, give you a better idea of what you're up against as we get closer. For now I'm going to let this body go. Once I'm out you know what to do.'
Jack rocked back and forth a few times and let his torso crash forward onto the deck. Sarah looked down at the knobby back of its neck, the places where the skin of its back had been nibbled away. It turned its ruined face up toward her and its jaws clacked shut, looking more like a horribly wounded tortoise than a human being. Clearly Jack was gone. She picked up the pistol Magna had left for her and thumbed the safety. The gunshot passed right through Jack's deliquescent flesh and pranged off the submarine's hull, making it ring like a bell. And then Sarah was alone, completely alone on the rolling water.
Monster Planet
Chapter Eighteen