THE HOUSE IN THE HOLLOW The sequel to 'Truth Or Consequences' CHAPTER 2 By Touch the Light The door creaks open. My head snaps round, and I almost pass out at the sight of two living, breathing kuzkardesh gara.

I wake to find myself stretched out on a soft bed, completely naked. My arms are by my sides, and feel so heavy I can scarcely move them. When I try to lift my head from the pillow, the room spins so fast that the bile rises in my throat and I have to spit it onto my chest to prevent myself from throwing up.

Whatever Gillian Dixon put in that tea, it’s rendered me as feeble and defenceless as her daughter’s baby.

His grandmother doesn’t usually look like this, that’s the problem.

More brutal than the memory of some unspeakable act of violence, the picture of Gillian’s bald, jewel-crested head crashes into my mind, takes up residence there and refuses to leave.

When did she become a kuzkardesh gara? Who infected her, and where are they now? And what were the MoD doing while this was happening?

Pissing about forging wills and breaking into dead people’s houses to leave caskets behind, that’s what.

Fucking idiots.

But I can’t afford to let my temper get the better of me. Just as I did at Hayden Park, I force my mind to concentrate on making a thorough assessment of my immediate surroundings.

The room is smaller than the one I occupy at the Gladstone, roughly fifteen feet by ten. The door is in the left-hand corner as I look, and stands slightly ajar. Either I’m free to wander around as I please, or Gillian doesn’t expect me to be in any condition to make a run for it.

Trisha certainly isn’t, drugged or not.

Where is she? Christ, I hope she managed to get away.

Wait a minute, how did Gillian get me up here? I’m not the most sylphlike of girls; brawny as she is, it would have taken her five or ten minutes to drag me upstairs, and Trisha had only gone out to the car. Surely she’d have caught the bald-headed cow in the act…

Unless it was no coincidence that she left when the tea was about to be served.

Or that Gillian just happened to be wearing a wig when we arrived.

You’re being paranoid, babe. The very idea that Trisha lured you here under false pretences is too ludicrous for words.

Yet she’s got the same hairstyle as Gillian, brushed forward to hide her forehead…

Men have such a high opinion of themselves, don’t you think so?

And she wouldn’t tell me her boyfriend’s name…

They don’t realise that all they’ve ever been good for is to put food on the table and keep us warm at night.

Didn’t Susan Dwyer say something like that?

They are necessary to perpetuate our species, and to provide for us when we’re carrying and raising our children. In return we pleasure them, in ways most have never dreamed of.

The evidence is mounting up. It points towards only one conclusion: Trisha Hodgson, the girl I once loved more than life itself, is now a member of the same bizarre religious cult that Helen Sutton joined shortly before she died.

As nightmares go, that doesn’t so much as take the biscuit as run away with the whole barrel.

How could I have been so stupid? I knew there was something amiss as soon as she showed me Donna and Louise’s address. And yet I still barged headlong into what I ought to have realised was a set-up.

Not only that, but she managed to fool me into thinking there was nothing the matter with her.

No blame attached to you there, babe. It was one hell of an effective disguise.

Maybe, but that’s small comfort.

How many more of these women are walking unseen among us? How bad has the situation become?

If this menace gains control then that’s it. Full stop. Period. Punkt. Bye-bye progress, bye-bye creativity, bye-bye all the things that make us human. For ever.

After a few false starts I raise my hand far enough to check that I’ve still got my hair. The feel of it beneath my fingers — and what a blessed relief that is! — provides me with the impetus I need to drag myself to a kneeling position so I can look through the window to the right of the bed. The view is restricted by the sides of the hollow in which the house is set, but allows me a glimpse of the wooded hills on the south-western side of the valley. From the altitude of the sun I can tell that it’s quite late in the afternoon.

Trisha can’t have gone for help. It would have arrived long before now.

The woman in that room. She’s not my mother.

You stupid little tart! Why couldn’t you have left things alone?

I swing my legs round and instantly wish I hadn’t, for the nausea that sweeps through my system has me sitting with my head bent forward and dribbling like a senile old woman. It’s several minutes before I recover sufficiently to take note of the pinewood wardrobe and matching chest of drawers facing the window, or the dressing table to the right of the door whose surface is filled with bottles and jars disturbingly similar to those Kerrie Latimer and I came across in 6 Redheugh Close — as well as a stand holding a wig identical to the one Gillian Dixon wore.

The reason for my being here couldn’t be more plain.

If I didn’t feel so sick I’d laugh until I needed a hip replacing. Who do they think they’re dealing with? As soon as I can stand without the world turning somersaults around me I’m going to find that teapot and ram the snout so far up Gillian Dixon’s vagina I’ll be able to hang my coat on the back of her neck.

None of my clothes are anywhere to be seen, so I risk crawling across to the chest of drawers in the hope that it’ll contain something to cover my nakedness. A pair of black lace panties partly fulfils my requirements, but there isn’t a bra to be found — and the rest of the lingerie consists exclusively of suspender belts and pairs of seamed stockings.

Fine for the first time I sneak down to Simon’s room.

Not a great deal of use to me this afternoon.

When I open the wardrobe, it comes as no surprise to learn that the rails are hung with sleeveless black dresses. Yet when I pull one of them out I notice it lacks the diaphanous bodice that characterised the garments we found in the casket. Instead there’s a large heart-shaped hole cut into the material just below the collar, the edges machine-stitched and clearly not to factory standards.

Then I see the label attached to the inside.

“Marks and Spencer’s?” I gasp. “Marks and bloody Spencer’s?”

The others all carry the same tag. They’re common or garden retro ‘50s frocks that have been altered solely for the purpose of showing off the wearer’s breasts.

And this is a religious movement? What’s their holy book, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying?

I sit at the dressing table and go through the various compartments, bringing out an assortment of necklaces, rings and loose stones that appear to be made of nothing more precious than coloured glass. Thankfully I don’t see any spiked leather chokers, dog leads, whips or sets of handcuffs…though it’s early days, I suppose.

The door creaks open. My head snaps round, and I almost pass out at the sight of two living, breathing kuzkardesh gara.

They move into the sunlight, which glints off the black gemstones set in their shaven scalps and brows, as well as those dangling from their ears, strung along the chains hanging almost to their waists, and mounted upon the silver rings adorning their fingers and thumbs. It shines equally brightly upon the ebony paint covering their lips, their nails and even their nipples.

Gillian — I can only distinguish her from the other because she’s the stockier of the pair — reaches out to stroke her companion’s cheek. The gesture is reciprocated with what I have to admit is genuine tenderness.

But any chance that my hostility towards the pair might weaken is removed when two smaller, much younger converts appear behind them — one of whom is rocking a baby in her arms.

A teenage girl, for heaven’s sake.

A teenage mother!

Now I’m really angry. I want to know who’s responsible for this. I want them punished and I want them shamed.

And if the MoD try to keep it quiet I’ll blow the whistle on the whole fucking lot of them.

A figure has appeared on the landing.

Trisha! And she’s fully clothed!

I have the presence of mind to yank the counterpane from the bed and drape it around my shoulders before barging past the inhuman creatures blocking my path.

“Quick! We’ve got to get out of here!” I yell, grabbing her hand.

She doesn’t move.

“I can’t take you back with me,” she says quietly. “Not after everything you’ve done. They told me what happened on the night dad died. You were trying to blackmail Miss Sutton into changing the will. That’s why she ran down to the breakwater, to get away from you.”

I stagger away from her, unable to believe what I’m hearing.

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to,” I pant, “but they were lying.”

“Were they? I’ve seen one of the letters you wrote to her. And I know all about the casket, and the reason you sent it. Personally I think you’re getting off lightly. But at least this way the punishment fits the crime. Enjoy life as a kuzkardesh gara, Ruth.”

Her words slice my guts wide open. I slide to the floor and sit there with my head in my hands.

The reason I came to see you, Ruth, is to inform you that we’re taking you off this case with immediate effect.

You bastards.

I’ve outlived my usefulness, and now you’ve found the perfect means of erasing me from the picture.

I will never forgive you for this.

Never.

When I finally lower my arms, Trisha has gone. I look up to see four sets of ebony lips curl in identical malignant smiles.

“Welcome to your new home, Ruth Pattison,” the kuzkardesh gara chant in unison. “Welcome to the Sunny Hollow hive.”

The bathroom at Sunny Hollow is a modern extension, built into the back yard from the bottom of the staircase. The tub takes up the whole of the left-hand wall, and leaves only enough floor space for a lavatory and a washbasin. Above the latter is a cabinet fronted by an oval mirror; inside I discover a rack containing five toothbrushes, one of which is still in its packaging, and shelves filled with such commonplace items as antiseptic creams, headache tablets, vitamin pills, sanitary towels and mouthwash.

All of them will have cost money.

Village stores don’t give away bags of groceries and other provisions. Electricity accounts aren’t famous for settling themselves.

Someone is financing this enterprise.

And I have a good idea who.

The door opens — the bolt has been taken out of the lock — to admit Gillian.

“There is so much we have to tell you, Ruth Pattison,” she says mellifluously.

“Fate has brought you to us for a very special reason,” adds Louise, materialising at her side and touching a bejewelled, black-nailed finger to her mother’s upper arm.

I don’t reply straight away. Instead I battle back my rage so I can figure out what it is about their faces that strikes me as off beam.

That’s it!

They don’t have those intricate patterns of dots going back from the corners of their eyes I remember from the photgraph of Sarah-Jane Collingwood.

Why not? Is it possible that their commitment to the cause isn’t all it might be?

Hair grows back. Nail varnish, lip gloss and costume jewellery can be removed. Tattoos are a different kettle of fish entirely.

Are they merely trying this out, in the same way that impressionable youngsters sometimes become animal rights activists or join groups of squatters? I could believe that of Louise and Donna, but their mothers? How could two mature women allow themselves to be taken in by this rubbish?

The pair turn from me and begin communicating in a private language of clicks, whirrs and sibilant whispers. More unsettling than the sounds themselves is the sight of their eyes glazing over when they make them, as if they’re robots whose power packs have run out of juice. They remind me of how Susan Dwyer’s face changed when she told me humanity was doomed.

The genie is out of the bottle, and no one is going to put it back.

You don’t know us, you ugly half-human bitch.

Once again I make an effort to stop my temper from boiling over. I’ve got to play this very carefully indeed. Whatever I do, I mustn’t give them an excuse to drug me again. Gillian and Donna’s mother — did she say her name was Hilary? — both have an advantage over me as regards height and weight; I’m confident I can outwit them, but only if I stay fit and alert.

I’m more concerned about what might happen after I’ve escaped. Trisha’s bound to have concocted some cock and bull story she’ll use to explain my absence. I only hope in the light of what she said earlier it doesn’t prove too damaging.

“So what happens now?” I ask the insectile duo, as much to interrupt their hissing and chirruping as anything else.

“You should get dressed,” answers Gillian, gesturing upstairs with her fake oriental eyes.

“What, go around in that clobber you left in the wardrobe for me? I think I’ll have my own clothes back, if it’s all the same to you.”

“That is out of the question.”

I take a step towards her.

“You don’t fool me, darling. You’re playing at this, aren’t you? I’ve seen a photo of the real thing. You’re just an imitation, and not a particularly good one either.”

“The replication process is never absolutely faithful,” she smiles. “If it were, the meme would have no opportunity to evolve. However, your invective explains your initial response to our appearance, which was one of repugnance rather than surprise. Aware of what we are, you feign a sense of outrage in order to disguise your true intentions, which are to pretend to go along with us until you have succeeded in getting us to let down our guard enough for you to attempt to leave. That we cannot permit.”

“I’m a prisoner, then? Says a lot for your ‘hive’ and its beliefs if it can only make new converts by holding them captive. How many of you termites are there, by the way?”

“There are enough of us to serve the purposes of the universal female mind,” answers Louise.

“You mean it’s just the four of you? Really?”

“We set an example for others to follow,” declares Gillian. “They will come to us when they are ready. As will you.”

I push my bare breasts right into her chest. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch.

“I’m not sure what you think you hope to achieve, but you’ve picked the wrong babe to fuck about with.” I exert even more pressure. “Why are you so keen on keeping me here, anyway? What’s so special about me?”

“That will become clear to you soon enough,” Louise puts in.

“You have a destiny to fulfil, Ruth Pattison,” says her mother, her face so close I can feel her breath against my cheek. “The enemy have unwittingly presented us with what we are now certain will be our most powerful weapon.”

I narrow my eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

“You must dress,” insists Louise.

I open my mouth to protest, but realise there’s little to be gained by arguing with her. Besides, if I make a break for it I won’t get very far in just a pair of knickers.

Donna is standing outside the door to my room, like some hideous parody of a serving girl. She invites me to sit on the bed while she puts together my outfit.

“You’re wasting your time,” I tell her as she lifts my left foot and slides it inside the first of the stockings she’s selected for me. “I won’t weaken.”

“We do not anticipate that you will,” she says enigmatically.

I’m left to fasten the suspenders myself. It takes me a minute or two — there’s a knack to it, and my fingers don’t seem to ‘remember’ it all that well. Yet although I’d probably have changed from tights to stockings as soon as I started wearing ‘50s clothes on a regular basis, it still feels like putting on the opposition’s colours.

That impression is strengthened when I step into the dress Donna holds out for me. The one consolation comes when I gaze down at my naked breasts and realise I couldn’t have two more prominent reminders of the need to fight for my freedom.

“Satisfied?” I grumble as I bend down to slip on the black high-heeled shoes the kuzkardesh gara has picked from the dozen or so pairs I saw at the bottom of the wardrobe. “Tell me, where did you witches get the idea that you’ve got to go around with your tits hanging out? Did our Chrysanthemum moonlight as a stripper before she caught the anthropology bug?”

“Frau von Witzleben was a great admirer of Minoan culture,” answers Donna.

“Ancient Crete, eh? Good job she wasn’t interested in pre-colonial Africa, or you’d all have bones stuck through your noses.”

Not a flicker.

No sense of humour, then. That figures.

Bye-bye progress, bye-bye creativity, bye-bye all the things that make us human.

Donna adjusts my collar — as if anyone’s going to notice it with what I’m advertising on the shelf below. Her mouth shapes itself into a rictus of distaste when her hand comes into contact with my hair.

It serves no purpose other than to feed the chimera of selfhood.

My eyes are drawn to her scalp. There isn’t the slightest trace of stubble. It’s as shiny and smooth as I’d expect it to be if her head had been shaved only a few minutes ago.

That could be you, babe, if you allow this mental virus to worm its way inside your mind.

I’ll throw myself off Blackpool Tower first.

“We should join the others,” says Donna. “The evening meal is ready.”

I follow her downstairs, the sight of my breasts bouncing and swinging only adding to the sense of betrayal raging within me.

But they’ve forgotten one thing: I’ve put in too much hard work becoming Ruth to allow myself to be walled up in a place like this.

I’m getting out of here.

And when I do, Sunny Hollow is going to be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Hilary Parker inclines her head and hisses three guttural syllables into her daughter’s face. In reply she receives a single click of the tongue; the sound is clearly meant to indicate agreement, as both immediately rise from the table and begin piling together the plates, bowls and spoons they set out earlier for their so-called meal.

I watch the kuzkardesh gara carry them from the dining room, resolved not to let my gaze fall upon the sinister crests of black gemstones that seemed to pulse and vibrate in the artificial light as they fed.

If only it were as easy to ignore the fact that the MoD, in their infinite wisdom, have set up an experimental hive in the middle of North Yorkshire.

“They want to know how fast a collective mind grows, whether the expansion is regular or exponential, and what effect its presence has on the local community,” Louise told me before she left the table to see to her baby. “As long as we refrain from drawing too much attention to our activities they have promised to leave us alone.”

They’re lab rats.

And I’ve just been dropped into the cage.

“You have not eaten very much,” frowns Gillian, gesturing with beringed, black-nailed hands at the plate containing the flavourless lentil-based mush I toyed with for all of thirty seconds before I pushed it away in disgust.

“Arrange the following appetite suppressants in order of effectiveness: drugged; being held here against my will; having my clothes confiscated; listening to you lot jabber on like overgrown cockroaches…oh, and being served something that looks like it came out the backside of one of those cows down by the beck.”

“This is all for your own good, Ruth Pattison. You will thank us for it when you come to recognise the illusory nature of the individual self.”

“I’ll decide what’s good for me, thank you very much. Now I haven’t had a cigarette since a quarter to eleven, so unless you fancy me showing you just what a bad-tempered bitch I can be when I’m deprived of my nicotine fix I suggest you hurry along and fetch me my bag.”

“We do not smoke,” she says coldly.

“Well I do, and I’m gasping. Don’t worry, I’ll go outside. You won’t have to breathe any of it in.”

“The hive requires you to abstain from stimulants of any kind.”

“Then the hive can piss off.”

The kuzkardesh gara touches a finger to the black gemstone set in the centre of her forehead.

“Are you not curious as to how Gillian Dixon came to discard the illusion of selfhood?”

“What d’you mean? You’re Gillian, aren’t you?”

“The organism with whom you are conversing uses that name, yes. She is not an individual, however, but an avatar — a vehicle if you will for a single intelligence that simultaneously inhabits this body and those of the other members of our hive.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’ve fallen for some kind of pseudo-religious gobbledegook, that’s all.”

Her jewelled brows lift.

“In spite of her intrinsic human failings, Gillian Dixon was no fool. She knew at once that the phenomenon we refer to as the universal female mind is real, and so did you.”

A single appearance, a single set of opinions, a single purpose.

“Okay, let’s say I accept that there’s something in what you say. Now explain why you need all those silly noises to communicate.”

“You fail to understand, Ruth Pattison. We possess no telepathic abilities. An avatar has her own set of sensory inputs; everything she sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches is unique to her. How could she function otherwise?”

“So you need a way of giving each other factual information, like if the milk has gone sour or a light bulb needs changing. I get that. But what’s with all the clicks and whirrs?”

“They represent syllables culled from a language called Ugur.”

“Ugur? Let me guess, that’s what they speak in Bucovina, right?”

“It originated in Central Asia. Our version was devised by Chrysanthemum von Witzleben, who as you are aware was the founder of the very first hive. It permits us to form expressions that impart the maximum amount of data in the shortest possible time.”

“And you picked it up just like that?”

“Gillian Dixon became proficient in Ugur within three days of her arrival. That is how she knew the incubation process was complete.”

“Your arrival? Weren’t you infected by your daughter?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Louise saw Helen Sutton’s body on the beach. I assumed that’s how the meme got into her brain.”

Gillian shakes her head.

“Helen is the reason we’re here, that is true. But a corpse cannot make converts. Our assimilation into the universal female mind was facilitated by your species.”

I feel the blood drain from my face.

They’re lying about this.

They have to be.

“We were removed from our homes the following night,” Gillian goes on. “Our daughters had seen too much, and had talked to too many of their friends.”

“Where did they take you?” I ask in as steady a voice as I can manage.

“To another country, where we stayed at the home of a kuzkardesh gara named Sorina Dascalu and her three children. Sorina was of English birth, and could therefore–“

“What was she called before her conversion?”

“Sarah-Jane Collingwood.”

I close my eyes and swear under my breath.

They were taken to Bucovina and deliberately exposed to the meme. No wonder Yvette de Monnier struck out on her own. The MoD are doing the cult’s work for them.

Gillian leans closer.

“Choose the right side, Ruth Pattison,” she says softly. “Choose us. Because we are going to win.”

And they are.

For the simple reason that humanity is its own worst enemy.

Our race is doomed by its very nature.

But I won’t become one of these creatures. I’ll slice off my own tits before I let that happen.

“I’m going for some fresh air,” I tell Gillian. “There’s no rule against that, is there?”

Apparently not. She even points me toward the vestibule, where I find a row of pegs upon each of which are hung thin linen jackets — black, of course, to match the regulation dresses. To my relief they all have three hooks at the front, so I can enjoy the luxury of covering my nipples.

Outside, the temperature is rapidly falling. I keep to the paved area near the front door, fearful of twisting an ankle if I stray onto the grass in these heels. After a minute or so the sound of a motor engine drifts from the top of the valley. Someone is heading for an evening at one of the village pubs, or perhaps a chat and a few games of cards at a friend’s, heedless of the peril lurking in the house they’re shortly to pass.

Long may their happy ignorance continue.

Hilary’s voice brings this all too brief spell of solitude to an end.

“It is cold, Ruth Pattison. You should come inside.”

“I’ll be okay,” I assure her, though the jacket wasn’t designed to keep out the chill of a cloudless northern night.

“You need sleep.”

“Yeah, I expect I’ll nod off the second my head touches the pillow.”

I feel her take my arm. I make as if to shrug it away, but her touch is inexplicably comforting.

“We know you are anxious. That is only natural. But the transition is a gradual one. It is not a case of one minute you think you are an individual and the next you do not. The illusion of selfhood does not suddenly disappear. What cease to exist are the mental barriers that prevent you from seeing it for what it is.”

There was no ‘decision’, Ruth. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t go through an epiphany when you lose your individual awareness. It still feels like being you. What’s changed is that your emotional and psychological responses are now identical to those of every other kuzkardesh gara.

“They just pop out of existence, do they?”

“You ought not to make the mistake of thinking there is no scientific basis for any of this.” She reaches into her own jacket and presses a slim paperback into my hand. “Open your mind, Ruth Pattison. If not to us, then to the message in here.”

“I was wondering when we’d get to your sacred texts.”

“It is the truth. Of course it is sacred.”

She walks back to the house. I follow her as far as the door, where there’s enough light for me to peer at the book’s cover. Although the title and author are unfamiliar to me, the publishing company definitely isn’t.

The Oxford University Press? Why are they encouraging this? Come to think of it, why are they being allowed to?

I take the volume up to my room, guessing I won’t be disturbed until I’ve had time to discover this ‘message’ for myself. But before I begin reading, my thoughts return to the tale I was told earlier. The details are unimportant; what matters is that the MoD set up the Sunny Hollow hive with so few restraints on its members’ movement. If they don’t feel threatened by these women, nor should I.

Kicking off my shoes, I hitch up my hem so I can unclip the tops of my stockings, then reconsider. I need to become thoroughly accustomed to these clothes if I’m to feel comfortable in them when I eventually make my escape. I lie back on the bed, raise my knees and let the wide folds of my dress fall where they will.

I open A New Approach to Cultural Evolution with a sense of purpose I didn’t have a few minutes ago. ‘Know your enemy,’ said Sun Tzu in The Art of War. It’s a piece of advice I fully intend to follow.

I haven’t finished the first chapter before I understand why the kuzkardesh gara set such store by this work.

Memes, they’re called, self-replicating units of information that copy themselves and jump from person to person.

Egerton could have been reading directly from the page now in front of me.

Memes.

Viruses of the mind that spread from one brain to another, parasitising the host and turning it into an instrument for the meme’s propagation. Agents of cultural transmission, passed on because of the brain’s predilection for unconscious imitation — a survival mechanism as old as humanity.

If you see a group of people running in a certain direction, the instinct is to join them because they’re almost certain to be fleeing from danger. On the African savannah that probably meant a large predator; those who lacked that automatic response were more likely to be eaten, and consequently fewer of them lived long enough to mate and have children. Natural selection, in the form of fierce, hungry carnivores, has made us intensely susceptible to the replicators that today bombard us from magazines, newspapers, cinema screens, radios and television sets. We can’t stop humming that tune. We’ve simply got to tell that joke. We don’t mean to start talking like the guys on that American cop show, it just slips out.

But memes alone can’t explain why Donna Parker and Louise Dixon, let alone their mothers, chose to follow Sarah-Jane Collingwood’s example and become kuzkardesh gara. There has to be something more going on. Teenage girls tend to copy models, actresses and pop singers, not thirty-four year old mothers of three who go about bald and bare-breasted.

What advantages does the subconscious see in that look? Why is it willing to copy something so utterly abnormal?

I toss the paperback to the floor and swing my legs after it. I reckon it’s well after midnight, and if I don’t at least try to get some sleep I’ll be in no fit state to resist whatever it was that turned Gillian, Hilary and their daughters into the abominations they are today.

I’ve just finished unzipping my dress when I notice a scrap of paper that must have fallen out of the book after I threw it down. I lean forward to lift it from the carpet, frowning as I look at the phrase written on it in a hand eerily reminiscent of Helen Sutton’s.

Siz okde

Now where have I heard those words before?

Okde…

I know what it means. I’m convinced of it.

More unnerving than a déja vu that refuses to fade, more annoying than a fragment of a song whose title just won’t come to mind, those alien syllables resound through my consciousness as I slide into bed and turn off the light.

It means…

It means…

Christ, it’s on the tip of my tongue!

She says I’m gifted.

Gifted. That’s it!

As in talented.

And siz?

Fate has brought you to us for a very special reason.

‘You are gifted.’

That’s the message Hilary was referring to.

And my gift is so important to these women that they’ll do everything in their power to turn me into one of their kind.

I’m going to make sure they have a bloody long wait.

THE HOUSE IN THE HOLLOW The sequel to 'Truth Or Consequences' CHAPTER 3 By Touch the Light I stand up and sweep every item in front of me to the floor. This has gone on long enough. I have to leave now. Fooling these women into thinking I’m coming round to their point of view has become an indulgence I can’t afford. Not when I’ve started hearing voices.

The sound of someone moving around downstairs rouses me from a dreamless sleep. I sit up, yawn and push a hand back through my hair. It feels even more lank and lifeless than usual, prompting me to make a mental note to ask Janice if she can do something about it, preferably within the next few days.

For a moment I wonder why I’m not wearing pyjamas — then I see the scrap of paper poking from the book on the bedside table, and everything else is reduced to insignificance.

Siz okde.

You are gifted.

I’m in a house occupied by four kuzkardesh gara, and whatever abilities they’ve identified in me are valuable enough to justify keeping me here against my will.

They want me to join their hive.

To add my gift to their collective subconscious.

Imagine living in a street where everyone starts the day with a cup of tea except you, who always have coffee. One morning you walk into the kitchen and instead of coffee you make tea, because that’s what you prefer first thing. You don’t suddenly think of yourself as a tea drinker. You just like tea, the same as your neighbours.

And unless Susan Dwyer was making everything up as she went along, the conversion process is so insidious it could be well underway before I understand what’s happening to me.

Getting away from here would seem to figure reasonably highly on today’s list of things to do.

Emptying my bladder holds the number one spot. I pick up the dress Donna chose for me yesterday, holding it in front of my chest as I pad down to the bathroom. Once I’ve relieved myself I shower — but I don’t lather my hair before I’ve tested the soap on my pubes to make sure it won’t dissolve them like that stuff from Romania did when Kerrie Latimer used it on me. Better safe than sorry.

Better anything than being bald.

As I step from the tub it occurs to me that my clothes and other possessions may well be hidden either in the Dormobile or the barn it’s parked outside. Not that I feel particularly cheered by this sudden insight; without a crowbar to hand they might as well be buried in a strongbox on Pitcairn Island for all the chance I have of getting at them.

I wrap myself in towels, then open the cabinet above the washbasin to take a new toothbrush from the rack.

“Okde,” I mutter as I finish rinsing my mouth. “Siz okde.”

I’ve heard that phrase before. I know I have.

And I suspect it’ll be to my lasting benefit if I can only recall where.

Back in the bedroom, I scowl at the attire I have no choice but to wear until I can recover my own.

You just like tea, the same as your neighbours.

How long would I have to stay here before I came to regard this style of dress as normal? I suspect that’s one of the things I’ll need to watch out for.

I fasten my suspenders with surprising proficiency, but the zip at the back of my dress causes me no end of frustration before I eventually force it to the top. Nor do my shoes, which may be half a size too small — deliberately, no doubt — pinch any the less.

“Bir bolmak hemme.”

I jerk my head to the left at the sound of Gillian’s voice, but there’s no one else in the room. And it seemed much too clear to have come from the landing.

Bir bolmak hemme.

It’s the same language as before. Ugur, or whatever she called it.

As for what that phrase might mean, I don’t think I want to find out.

On the way to the door I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the dressing-table mirror. It’s not an uplifting sight: there are shadows under my eyes, and my hair is sticking up all over. If by some miracle Simon was to make an appearance now, I wouldn’t give much for the chances of him drawing me into his arms once we’d made our escape, let alone treating me to a long, delicious kiss. We might not even get that far — the shape I’m in he’d probably leave me behind for one of the kuzkardesh gara.

Would you believe it, I finally get asked out by a man I’m physically attracted to and something like this has to happen.

Just you wait, Alice Patricia Hodgson. I’ll still be reminding you about this when that kid in your belly is knitting booties for her first grandchild.

My self-esteem has risen slightly once I’ve added a couple of long necklaces to my outfit, so that when I glance down I can see more than just my naked breasts. It nosedives again after I notice how pallid my complexion appears without any foundation or rouge.

They’ve got my cigarettes too, damn them. It’s a good job they haven’t thought of trading fags for locks of hair or I’d be a skinhead by this time tomorrow.

“Bir bolmak hemme…”

There it is again!

Get out of my brain!

I stand up and sweep every item in front of me to the floor. This has gone on long enough.

I have to leave now. Fooling these women into thinking I’m coming round to their point of view has become an indulgence I can’t afford.

Not when I’ve started hearing voices.

I’m getting out of here, and no force on earth can stop me.

Except one.

When I reach the living room, Louise is leaning against the door to the vestibule as she rocks her little son in her arms, whilst Gillian is blocking the entrance to the kitchen. It’s as if they’ve divined my intentions and moved to counter them.

With a good deal of success. I’m no scrawny, underfed waif, but I simply don’t have the strength to push past someone of Gillian’s build. Even her daughter would present me with a problem unless I resorted to violence. And they know full well that as a woman I’d rather shoot myself in the vagina than risk harm coming to a three month old baby.

There’s got to be another way, one that involves tact and guile.

“Salam, Ruth,” smiles Louise, and all at once the solution is staring me in the face.

“Uh, salam,” I reply. “That’s the word they use for ‘hello’ in the Middle East, isn’t it?”

“Ugur is related to Turkish. It also contains elements of Arabic.”

“The meme programs our minds to think in Ugur,” explains Gillian. “We can still speak English, but it is no longer our native tongue.”

“It actually takes quite an effort,” admits Louise.

“The meme scrambles the patterns of neural signals that enable an avatar to use language as a means of communication. After they have been reconfigured she has become a Turcophone, and always will be. She has to rely on her episodic memory if she needs to revert, as we are doing now.”

“I see…” is the response I make — though I don’t, not really. “So what’s ‘baby’?”

“Babek,” answers Hilary, coming in from the dining room.

“That’s easy to remember! Would you mind if I, uh…?”

“Elbetde,” Louise hisses in reply to my unfinished question, her expression translating the term more effectively than any dictionary. She’s telling me of course I can hold him, she trusts me implicitly.

Can she really be that easy to hoodwink?

But as I take Philip from her, the love she feels for him engulfs me, transcending her outlandish appearance and making me viscerally aware of what it must be like to care for the living being I carried in my womb and gave birth to.

“Salam, babek,” I murmur to him, my eyes as adoring as his mother’s. Gillian and Hilary have arrived at my side, their hips pressing lightly against mine. We all start laughing when Philip’s tiny fingers try to shove my beads aside so he can get at my nipple. Donna is here too, her giggles adding to the merriment.

You struggle against us now, Ruth Hansford-Jones, but that which is within you may not be gainsaid.

Susan Dwyer’s warning thunders through my consciousness. This is how the meme operates, latching on to something that’s already inside the victim and changing it to suit its own purposes. It amplifies her desires, at the same time shaping them into the form best equipped to ensure their transmission.

And she hasn’t a clue what’s happening until it’s too late to do anything about it.

I’ve wrenched my mind free from the spell by the time I realise there’s no one between me and the door. I snuggle Philip against my right breast, freeing my left hand to turn the handle. To my immense relief, the jacket I wore yesterday evening is still on its peg.

“I’m going now,” I announce. “I’ll put the baby down when I’m certain I’m not being followed.”

None of the kuzkardesh gara move an inch. Unable to believe my good fortune, I lift the jacket by the collar and punch my arm into the sleeve. Unfastening the Yale lock proves to be a tricky business one-handed, but the taste of liberty is on my tongue and I’m not about to let it trickle from my mouth.

Once I’m outside, I slam the door shut. Depositing Philip on the dew-soaked grass — I don’t suppose he’ll be unattended for more than a moment or two so I have no concerns regarding the child’s safety — I head straight for the road. It’s a tough ascent in high heels; nor is my ability to concentrate on keeping my balance helped by the fact that I’ve eaten practically nothing during the last twenty-four hours.

Breathless and sweating profusely, I reach the top of the path. The Dormobile is still parked outside the barn. It’s locked, of course, and although I’m desperate enough to consider wrapping the sleeve of my jacket around my fist and smashing one of the side windows I’d have more chance of swallowing the engine whole than of starting it without the keys. I waste a few more precious seconds rattling the barn door, already beginning to feel as if I’m fighting for a lost cause.

Somehow I bully myself into thinking more positively. I’m more than twenty miles from home, I have no money and I fear that before long I’ll be ravenously hungry. On the other hand, conditions couldn’t be more favourable: the sunshine has that hazy quality that suggests the weather will soon be overcast and therefore reasonably cool, whilst the recent dry spell means that if I have to cut across country to avoid pursuit I’ll be in no danger of stumbling into a quagmire.

With any luck it won’t come to that.

Glancing behind me every few yards to check that the road is still clear — if one of the kuzkardesh gara comes after me she’ll need to put on her wig and change her make-up, which should give me a bit more time to play with — I walk down to the old railway crossing as fast as my shoes will let me.

The stone cottage beside it looks as devoid of life as the lightning tree in the corner of the field climbing to the wooded ridge on my right. Before I disturb the owner of the white Skoda taking up most of the forecourt I tug at the front of my jacket to test the strength of the hooks holding it closed. The last thing I need is for my tits to pop out while I’m begging to use the phone.

I knock loudly and repeatedly, but to no avail. I’m far from downhearted, however. I can see a farmhouse less than a quarter of a mile ahead, and the entrance to another the same distance along the lane leading from the junction to the beck.

The rumble of a vehicle approaching from the head of the valley has me rushing to open the crossing gate so I can hide round the back of the guards’ van. Although it turns out to be a grey Vauxhall Viva with an unaccompanied male driver, I’m reluctant to return to the road. In my black jacket and dress I’ll be all too easy to spot when my captors eventually start searching for me.

And they might not be the only ones.

I’ve got to disappear, and I’ve got to do it today. I won’t be safe in Northcroft; when the MoD learn that their ploy has failed, they may well opt for a more orthodox means of ensuring I don’t talk. As for where I should pick as a bolt-hole, the further away the better. A croft on a remote Scottish island seems a pretty desirable residence at present.

One thing I don’t have to worry about is supporting myself. Suki was telling the truth when she said I’d been paid handsomely for my work as a government agent. Thanks to the MoD’s munificence I now have nearly five thousand pounds to call on, which I’ve salted away in six separate bank and building society accounts. After a year or so it’s possible that I’d be forced to eke out a living serving pints of Tartan in some Hebridean drinking hovel; then again, I could end up marrying a laird and have servants attending to my every whim.

Will there be anything else, Lady McTavish?

A pot of tea would be nice, Morag. And if you wouldn’t mind asking Cruikshank to walk the collies down to the loch and back?

All that’s conditional on me getting back to the Gladstone by the middle of the afternoon at the very latest, so I can gather my things together and set about laying a false trail to fool people into thinking I’ve gone back down south to deal with a family emergency. I’ll stay in York tonight, then aim for somewhere on the other side of the Pennines to lie low until I’ve liquidated my assets and I’m ready to cross the border.

Fleetwood.

Why not? I’ve never been to Fleetwood. I bet it’s very nice there, on the coast and everything.

It’s not quite the last place anyone would think to look for me, but it’ll be in the top five.

First I need to phone for a cab, and to do that I’ll have to find a house where at least one of the occupants is awake.

I decide to take a chance and follow the trackbed, which is clearly distinguishable from the footpath rising at a gentle but constant gradient for the woods. The railway’s course appears to have run north, away from the foot of the escarpment; there’s every likelihood it’ll pass close to some of the farms and hamlets scattered across the countryside between here and Stokesley. Treading carefully in shoes that hurt more with each step I take, I start out on the next stage in my bid for freedom.

I haven’t walked more than three or four hundred yards before I recognise that I’m rapidly coming to the end of my tether. The mist has thickened, and every lungful of air I inhale seems laden with moisture. Despite the lack of sunshine, the temperature has continued to increase. I daren’t undo my jacket in case I meet someone out for an early morning stroll with his dog; just as annoying, when I push back my fringe, my hand comes away feeling like it’s been through a lump of straw coated in lard.

After about half a mile the trail enters a shallow cutting. This soon opens onto a wide bowl whose sheer, rocky slopes identify it as a disused quarry.

And there the track ends.

I’ve been going the wrong way. All I’ve done is walk down a very long cul-de-sac.

Shitbags!

I sit on one of the smoother boulders strewn around the depression, my fingers immune to the despair clouding my vision as they busy themselves arranging the folds of my dress. Not since I made the discovery that I’d be female for the rest of my life have I felt so low.

But I refuse to cry.

I didn’t then and I won’t now.

“Bir bolmak hemme…”

Not you again!

Can’t you leave me in peace?

I start back for the crossing, mainly because I don’t know what else to do. The footpath still runs parallel to the railway, but I’ll only be able to reach it by crawling up the side of the cutting. And if, as looks likely, it doesn’t skirt the woods but cuts through them to the moorland above, I’ll be faced with not just an exhausting scramble but also a hike of several miles across difficult terrain in poor visibility. With these shoes I’d be risking serious injury and worse.

At the gate I pause, checking to see that the road is clear. The track on the other side of the crossing disappears into a ploughed field. But the line of trees snaking along the valley floor gives me an idea. The dry weather means there won’t have been much run-off; I could follow the channel downstream, perhaps as far as the village. Marginally less irritated at the quirks and caprices of Mother Nature, I jog the short distance to the junction, then stride down the lane in the direction of the beck.

A narrow pathway diverges to the right, threading and dipping through riotous bushes to a precarious wooden footbridge. To my surprise the stream remains fairly vigorous, though the water is nowhere more than a few inches deep. I sit down, take off my shoes and gently lever my body off the slats until my feet are planted in the shallows on either side of the bed. Although my stockings insulate me from the worst of the sudden chill that shoots into my soles, I still let out a high-pitched squeal.

It turns out to be the first of many. With only one hand to fend off the overhanging branches I have to duck beneath in order to prevent their twigs snagging my hair, I find it almost impossible to maintain any sort of balance as I struggle along, one awkward step at a time. The stones and pebbles washed down by the current are jagged enough to tear the nylon protecting my feet to ribbons. Fearing that they’ll soon be lacerating my skin as well, I stoop to put my shoes back on — which only slows my progress more.

Fallen logs, clumps of reeds, banks cancerous with stinging nettles, and now clouds of midges so dense I can scarcely breathe without ingesting dozens of the little blighters…

But it’s the waterfall that defeats me. The drop is only about six feet, yet I can see no way to negotiate it that doesn’t involve jumping — and once I’m down there, I’ll have burned my boats. The sides of the gorge the stream has eroded are almost vertical. Were I to break an ankle I’d be trapped, yelling for help until my voice gave out and starvation or exposure finished me off.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it’s of little use to a carcass.

Half an hour or so later, weary, bedraggled, and smarting from a bruised thumb, I arrive back at the crossing. It’s as if I’m a character in one of those films set in a haunted house when no matter how hard the protagonists try to escape, they keep returning to it.

This time I come upon a thin, grey-haired man in a pair of dark blue overalls pulling weeds from the grass verge outside the cottage. He looks up as I draw nearer, then retreats two or three paces when he notices what I’m wearing. He couldn’t be more apprehensive if I’d just threatened to turn him into a toad.

“Excuse me,” I call out, doing my best to put on an approximation of a smile, “do you live here?”

“What if I do?”

“Listen, I really need to use your phone to ring for a taxi. I’d pay for the call, but the women in Sunny Hollow have hidden all my money. They took my clothes too, that’s why I’m dressed like this.”

He frowns, then carries on with his weeding.

“No business o’ mine, what goes on up there.”

“You’ve got to help me, please!” I cry, pulling at his elbow. “I’ve been kidnapped, for God’s sake!”

“Yer must think I were born yesterday,” he glowers. “Kidnapped, yer say? Funny sort o’ kidnappers, lettin’ yer wander round on yer tod.”

“I managed to give them the slip, you stupid…sorry, I’m at my wit’s end. If they find me now–“

“Aye, they said one o’ yer’d try an’ trick yer way in sooner or later.”

“Who did?”

“Men from council. Don’t ‘ave owt to do wi’ em, they told us. An’ whatever yer do, yer mustn’t let ‘em past front door. Not for any reason, they said. Any reason.”

“Fine. Then I’ll wait here while you make the call. I’ll go and stand fifty yards down the road if you don’t trust me.”

“Who yer rabbitin’ on wi’ out there?” cries a woman from the open passageway.

“It’s one o’ witches from up dale. Stop inside an’ keep thesel’ out o’ sight. Tell lasses an’ all.”

“I’m not with them!” I protest. “They abducted me!”

“Pull t’other one, love. Yer’ve got that look in yer eyes, same as rest of ‘em. Now clear off afore I set dogs on yer.”

He goes indoors, leaving me incandescent with fury. I stare at the two nearby farms, knowing the same short shrift awaits me in both of them. Nor is there any point in appealing to the folk who live in the line of houses further down the main road, for I’ll find no pity within any of those walls. The only welcome I’ll get is in Sunny Hollow.

Behind the front window of the cottage, the curtains are twitching. They fall closed when I turn towards them.

I march up to the glass, sorely tempted to put my foot through it.

“All I wanted was a fucking taxi!” I shout. “You’d think I was one of the moors murderers, the way you’re going on!”

I move to stand by the gate, my thoughts dissolving in their own wretchedness. People like him are the reason humanity will lose the war that’s coming.

Yer’ve got that look in yer eyes, same as rest of ‘em.

They see everything, and understand precisely nothing.

A middle-aged couple, both carrying rucksacks, appear at the top of the path. I watch them exchange glances as they approach me. He’s intrigued, if a little wary; to her I’m a black-garbed spook.

“We can show you how to evolve beyond their puny abilities, Ruth Pattison.”

Gillian has waited for the ramblers to reach the junction before stepping from the cover of the roadside hedge. She’s wearing a jacket and a wig, but hasn’t bothered to wipe the black gloss from her lips and nails.

“You really think you’re a different species,” I snort at her.

“We are the future, Ruth Pattison. We are the only hope this planet has.”

“You’re modest, I’ll say that for you.”

“Gillian Dixon is puzzled by that statement,” she frowns.

“Of course you are. I’m being sarcastic. It’s a technique we poor, inadequate individuals use to show our contempt for those who have too high an opinion of themselves. It works best when you demonstrate some creativity — but then you’ve lost the capacity for that, along with all the other qualities that make life worthwhile. You want to turn every woman in the world into a baby machine, and every man into a sex addict. Some future.”

The kuzkardesh gara grants me a charitable smile.

“It is a question of priorities. Ours are food, shelter and access to clean water. For everyone.”

“Oh yeah? How are you going to achieve that?”

“Population control. Resettlement programmes. A reliance on cheap, renewable energy. Sustainable development. Local economies tailored to suit the available resources.”

“Very laudable, I’m sure. But have you any idea what you’ll be up against?”

“Most revolutions fail because they try to change things from the top down. They begin by preaching equality, but quickly degenerate into power struggles. This one will be different. We transform the human race a few at a time, working at a grass-roots level. With each addition to a hive mind it grows in strength and influence. Eventually the largest of these minds will subsume the others, and then it can make the final preparations for Epiphany.”

That word again.

…an epiphany of some kind was coming...

It was in the letter Rachel Sawdon received from Sarah-Jane Collingwood. But as for what it means…

“Okay, I give in. What’s Epiphany?”

“It is the moment when the mind of every woman on Earth has been incorporated into the universal consciousness.”

“And what happens after that?”

“There is no ‘after’. The cycle of birth and death will continue, but Epiphany is eternal.”

Full stop. Period. Punkt.

“And the purpose of all this is…?”

“The Epiphany is its own purpose — as you will come to learn, Ruth Pattison.” Her eyes lose their focus, and with it any pretence of humanity. “Bir bolmak hemme–“

I slap her right cheek with all the force I can summon up. She recoils from the blow, but as she slowly turns her face back towards me all I can detect there is pity.

“Bir bolmak hemme,” she repeats. “Bir bolmak hemme, song hemme bolmak agzybir.”

And suddenly the phrase loses its mystique.

One shall be all, then all shall be as one.

The mantra Susan Dwyer recited to me in Glastonbury.

The meme that will bring an end to the illusion of selfhood and facilitate the assimilation of every woman alive into the universal female mind.

The meme that has now infected me, and if left to its own devices will gradually alter my subconscious mind until I too am no longer human.

“Come back to us,” Gillian entreats me.

How can I refuse? I need food, rest and time to collect my thoughts if I’m to emerge from the coming struggle with my individuality intact.

The kuzkardesh gara offers me her arm. After a moment’s hesitation, I take it.

Fleetwood will just have to wait.

THE HOUSE IN THE HOLLOW The sequel to 'Truth Or Consequences' CHAPTER 4 By Touch the Light How long did Gillian hold out? Three days, did she say? And I’ve been here nearly forty-eight hours already. The clock is ticking down...

Painting and decorating are not activities at which any of the kuzkardesh gara excel. It took Gillian and Hilary most of Sunday afternoon to remove the last of the grimy rococo wallpaper left behind on the staircase by the house’s previous occupants; their daughters have made slightly more rapid headway this morning coating the living room’s skirting boards with emulsion, though if they get much more on their hands and forearms the tin will have run dry well before the task is complete.

Being taller and more robustly built than either of the teenagers, I was asked to paint the living-room ceiling. I have little time to waste; a blanket of low cloud is settling on the valley, and as the light deteriorates it’s becoming more and more difficult to see which areas still need doing. Dressed like the others in just a loincloth made from an old sheet and held together with a safety pin, I push the roller to and fro with all the vitality my right hand can muster while I use my left to keep the stepladder steady, my arms and breasts speckled with apple blossom white and my hair almost certainly in the same piebald condition.

It’s a small price to pay for staving off the boredom I’d be suffering otherwise, sitting on the bed with only A New Approach To Cultural Evolution for company. I’m also hoping that if I can convince the kuzkardesh gara I’ve decided to try and fit in, they might relent and allow me the occasional cigarette.

I wonder if Simon smokes? It might be awkward if he doesn’t…

That ferry has left the dock, babe. As far as he’s concerned, you stood him up. And if Trisha’s dragged my name through the dirt, which she’s perfectly capable of doing now that she believes I’m responsible for her father’s death, I might have more to worry about when I get back to the Gladstone than losing a potential boyfriend.

Then again, a police cell might be the safest place for me until this has all blown over.

Just be wary about what you’re getting yourself into. Remember what happened after you and Kerrie Latimer went sticking your noses in where you shouldn’t have.

Who’d have thought I’d ever be in a position where I’d regret not listening to Sylv’s advice?

Once I’m satisfied that every square inch of the ceiling has been covered, I climb down from the steps, fold them up and rest them against the wall.

“I could do with a long, cold drink,” I murmur to myself, raking back my fringe.

Gillian and Hilary, who have been putting up shelves in the corner of the room to the right of the window, lay down their tools. There follows a short exchange of clicks and hisses, during which I catch the Ugur words for ‘milk’, ‘container’ and ‘new’ — the last in the sense of ‘fresh’ or ‘unspoiled’. The kuzkardesh gara go into the kitchen together, and as I start rubbing turps across the backs of my hands I can hear through the door the sound of a bottle clinking. Nothing, it seems, is too much trouble for one who is ‘okde’.

Only her liberty.

I dissolve most of the splotches from my arms and chest, then use my oily hands to slick back my hair. I’m about to commandeer the bathroom when I notice Hilary standing in the doorway inspecting my handiwork.

“Ongat,” she remarks, her approval evident from her expression.

“Good?” I hazard.

“You learn quickly, Ruth Pattison.”

“It was just a wild guess.”

“There was nothing fortuitous about it. Your brain processed the information it received and came up with the most likely translation.”

“I don’t think so. Not when it only had two syllables to go on.”

“Ah, but did it? What about the visual signals Hilary Parker was transmitting?”

I have to admit she has a point. If a person looks pleased, the chances are they’ll say something positive.

“Anyway, I’m glad you think it’s okay,” I tell her. “Much more of this and I’ll have bigger muscles than Geoff Capes.”

Her ebony lips curl in a lukewarm smile. But only out of politeness; converts don’t have what any human would recognise as a sense of humour.

Gillian returns, carrying a glass of cold suyt. Although I’d have preferred lemonade or cola, the subtle spices she’s added to the milk imbue it with a zest I’m beginning to find quite palatable.

As I take my first sip, she trails a bejewelled, black-nailed finger the length of my upper right arm. I shudder, but resist the urge to jump away; if I want to persuade her I’m settling in, I must grin and bear this kind of contact.

Her breasts press weightily against mine as she leans closer.

“Siz yadaw,” she hisses into my ear. “Hazir oturmak.”

“That’s not fair,” I complain. “How do I know what might be going through your mind when I can’t see your face?”

“There are other ways,” she replies.

“Such as…?”

“You should regard each part of our conversation as an event. Think about the various contexts in which that event is embedded: our surroundings, our reasons for communicating, the non-verbal cues that accompany each phrase, the cadences, pauses and subtle shifts in volume. Clear your mind of all extraneous thoughts and let the totality reveal its meaning.”

I try my best to follow her guidance. I recall that ‘siz’ means ‘you’, so she’s either making an observation about me or suggesting something. And her smile wasn’t reflected in her eyes, which held a certain amount of concern for my well-being. That’s because I’ve been overdoing things, and now it’s time for me to rest.

“You want me to put my feet up for an hour or two,” I conclude. “Can’t argue with that.”

“Edil,” she chuckles softly. “You see how easy it is?”

I gulp down the rest of the suyt, then hand the glass back to her.

“Tell me what it was like. When you realised you actually wanted to become a kuzkardesh gara. What made you stop fighting it?”

She seems genuinely baffled by the question.

“The eradication of Gillian Dixon’s individuality is a fact. It makes no difference how or when it happened.”

“But there must have been a moment when you agreed to have all your hair shaved off, and your face painted and everything?”

“You believe that we were required to undergo some sort of initiation ceremony? What strange ideas you have about us.”

“So they did this to you bit by bit? And you just accepted it?”

Gillian tosses me a sympathetic grin.

“You want to know what to expect. That is understandable at such an early stage of your conversion. Be assured that the details will soon cease to matter.”

“Is that what you reckon?”

“This is not a contest, Ruth Pattison. It is not you against us. We have no influence whatsoever over your assimilation. Our part in that ended once you were exposed to the meme. The replacement program is now working independently to create within your subconscious mind an exact replica of the neural patterns we inherited from Sorina Dascalu. It needs no external stimulation; the process is as automatic as those taking place in your other physiological systems.”

“Bullshit. You’re telling me I’ve got no control over what I think?”

“There is no ‘you’ to exert that control,” says Hilary.

“Selfhood is an illusion,” adds Gillian. “It is nothing more than an accidental by-product of the interactions between the memes already present within your brain. It has persisted in the human species only because of its value as a survival mechanism.”

“Wait a minute, you said you were replicas,” I remind her. “If that’s true, you’re not really a collective intelligence at all. You’re just copies of a single consciousness.”

“The distinction has no practical significance.”

“How d’you make that out?”

“What makes human beings think and act as individuals? Why do some behave in ways that are completely unpredictable, often to the detriment of those around them? It is because the memetic programming many humans have been subjected to is both complex and contradictory. The memes are involved in a continual fight for ascendancy, producing feelings of inner conflict when co-operation between them proves impossible. But if the host minds were to be infected with the same meme, one so powerful it absorbed and neutralised all the others, from then on they would react identically to each situation they encountered. In effect there would exist only one way of thinking, that of the group.”

“Sounds worse than having the world taken over by the Moonies.”

“It means an end to war and hunger,” Hilary points out.

“And no one will ever write a decent tune again.” I frown at the greasy film covering my palms. “I’m tired of this. Time I got cleaned up.”

I run myself a bath, but don’t allow myself to surrender to the water’s seductive embrace for longer than it takes to scrub and scour my pores free of gunge. I have better things to do than lie here soaking; the kuzkardesh gara appear to have a much deeper understanding of memes and the technicalities involved in their transmission than I do, and I need to put that right. A New Approach To Cultural Evolution may not be the most riveting of reads, but if it helps me co-ordinate my resistance I’ll put up with the lacklustre, jargon-ridden prose.

During the hour before lunch — the word for ‘fruit’ was mentioned, so it might even be edible — I dress, then sit on the bed to take a fine toothcomb to the text. What I want to know is how can an idea, something with no physical presence, alter the ‘neural patterns’ Gillian was talking about?

One passage seems to strike at the heart of the matter. It argues that every experience we have changes, to a greater or lesser extent, the way our brains respond to the sensory information they receive. The more memorable the experience, or the more often that experience is repeated, the stronger the connection between the various clusters of neurons that process it. A meme is merely a set of signals that act as the neural network’s input, arranged in such a way as to provoke a given output in the form of a series of instructions sent to the body’s various physical systems. A powerful meme will establish strong, and therefore long-lasting links; these will determine how future inputs are processed, leading to permanent alterations in the long-term memory.

But what makes some memes more effective than others?

The author attempts to answer this question by rambling on for several pages about evolutionary psychology. I struggle to follow his thread, but the gist of it appears to be that memes reflecting our genetically driven needs have more chance of replicating than others.

Try as I might, I fail to see how this explains why anyone could harbour an inbuilt desire to become a kuzkardesh gara.

All most of us need is something to kick-start the relevant mental processes.

Which implies that for some people it takes more...

That might be what my gift is!

Maybe I can resist this meme, stop it from changing me! Why else would the hive be holding me here against my will?

Piece by piece, the rudiments of a plan begin to coalesce in my mind.

I’ll be running a huge risk. I’m a strong-minded young woman, but so was Helen Sutton.

We have no influence whatsoever over your assimilation. Our part in that ended once you were exposed to the meme.

It’s up to me, then.

I’m the one responsible for keeping this hound on a tight leash.

But if the changes are taking place in my subconscious, how can I keep track of them?

It needs no external stimulation; the process is as automatic as those taking place in your other physiological systems.

How long did Gillian hold out? Three days, did she say?

And I’ve been here nearly forty-eight hours already.

The clock is ticking down. If I don’t act soon, the meme will have spread too widely for me to control it.

I take a very deep breath, then stand and walk from the room. I notice that Louise’s door is open; when she sees me looking in, I incline my head in the direction of her dressing table. She immediately puts down the shoes she was lifting from the wardrobe.

“You are not yet ready to join us, Ruth Pattison,” she frowns.

“No, but it’ll be a relief to get the first step out of the way.”

She smiles, knowing I’m telling the truth.

“Very well. If you would care to sit…?”

The kuzkardesh gara pulls the stopper from one of the phials on the table. She wipes the brush on the rim, then proceeds to spread black lacquer across my left thumbnail. Working with the dexterity of a seasoned professional, she requires only a few minutes to finish both hands. While I’m holding them out to dry, she paints my nipples — apparently it’s normal for them to spring erect like that — and finally my lips. It only remains for her to fit silver rings adorned with heavy black gemstones onto each of my fingers and thumbs, and the first stage of my transformation is complete.

It has two unanticipated results.

The first is how wickedly sexy I feel.

The second comes when I go downstairs, and no one raises so much as an eyebrow.

Yekshenbe, the meal traditionally eaten at sunset by the Ugurs of Xinjiang, begins with an appetising minted salad, which is followed by the piquant vegetable stew known as chorba. For dessert there’s alma sheker, a dish that can best be described as a candied baked Alaska. The fragrant, slightly smoky chay we drink from decorated china bowls complements the food beautifully — yet the rich variety of flavours and aromas only makes me wish all the more fervently for a cigarette to round off the experience.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me have just one?” I ask Gillian after the others have left the table.

“Siz okde,” she replies, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “Taslamak angsat.”

For the third or fourth time since she taught me how to interpret unfamiliar phrases, I empty my thoughts of everything except the information that’s being conveyed to me. Her tone was steady, her eyes kindly but her body language stern and inflexible. She also reminded me of the gift I possess, which suggests it may be of some help if I can work out how to apply it to the situation in question.

“It should be possible to give them up?” is the best I can manage.

“Angsat,” she repeats.

The movement of her jewelled brow makes the meaning clearer.

“Not just possible, but straightforward? Easy?”

She smiles and pats my wrist.

“The drug they contain works on the brain’s system of reward circuits. All you need to do is let the meme break it down by fooling the receptors into thinking that they are receiving the chemicals nicotine would normally give them.”

“So I just say ‘go ahead, meme, do your stuff’?”

“First you have to want your addiction to be cured. If you are sincere about that, the rest will follow automatically.”

I lay my hands flat on the table, recalling how quickly I became accustomed to seeing my nails painted black. It was as if the mental compartment which contained the antipathy I ought to have felt towards their altered appearance had been closed off. Could I not do the same with my dependence on tobacco? After all, the previous occupants of this body were both non-smokers...

Suddenly the idea of lighting a cigarette, then inhaling the fumes into my lungs seems not only pointless but downright stupid.

“You were right,” I laugh. “I just thought about it and the craving’s gone.”

Gillian rises from her chair and walks over to the sink. She crouches to open the cupboard beneath it, reaching behind the pipe for the pack of Marlboros taped there. I leave her to dispose of it while I make a start on the dishes.

But the scouring, scraping, rinsing, stacking and drying can only act as a temporary diversion from the widening vista of opportunity opening out in front of me.

I’m okde.

I’m gifted.

And I’m only just starting to appreciate what that could imply.

In the kitchen window I watch my black lips curl mischievously. The MoD have already put it about that I’m a menace to society. Who am I to prove them wrong?

They’re a totalitarian regime, a religious cult and a zombie plague all rolled into one.

Yet this isn’t the Bucovina hive. It’s an imperfect copy, lacking most of the sinister attributes of the original.

It is a question of priorities. Ours are food, shelter and access to clean water. For everyone.

We can be a force for good…

No!

I draw back from the brink to which my own feet led me.

But when I walk into the living room, and Gillian turns from the fireplace to touch a beringed, black-nailed finger to my cheek, it takes all my resolve not to respond in kind.

And I suspect it won’t be very long before I’m teetering on the edge of that abyss again.

I sit up in bed with a start. The room is still dark, which at this time of year means it can’t be much later than about four. In any case I don’t need a clock to tell me I’ve had only a few hours sleep.

Pulling the covers closer against the draught coming from the window, I listen for the sound that must have woken me.

There’s nothing.

But I don’t sink back into slumber. I need to stay alert, for who knows what tales the local people have spread concerning the women of Sunny Hollow?

It’s one o’ witches from up dale.

And if that’s everyone’s attitude…

Then I hear a voice cry out.

Donna?

I yank at the light cord and spring to my feet, stopping only to pull on a clean pair of panties as I hurry to open the door. The kuzkardesh gara is on the landing, leaning against the banister and clearly in pain. The tears welling from her eyes — now bereft of their characteristic oriental slant — make her appear refreshingly human, despite the row of gemstones set in her scalp.

“Babek,” she splutters. “Howp olum.”

Gillian and Hilary emerge from their room carrying the gravest of expressions. They begin weeping too.

I realise at once not only that Donna is pregnant, but that she feels she’s in danger of losing her baby. The fear that she may miscarry washes through my consciousness like a wave, denuding it of all other emotions.

The tide withdraws, depositing layer upon layer of understanding.

Fate has brought you to us for a very special reason.

The others are waiting for me to do something. In this time of crisis they are looking to me - or rather my gift — as their principal source of strength.

“Okay, let’s all try and stay calm,” I say quietly. “Louise, take Donna back to her room and sit with her. If the worst happens, or looks as if it’s going to, just yell. Hilary, get into some proper clothes and have the Dormobile ready in case you have to drive her to South Tees. Gillian, you fetch hot water, towels and whatever first-aid equipment you can lay your hands on.”

I don’t wait for a reply. Kicking from my mind the images of sheets and blankets covered in blood and goodness knows what else, I follow the girls into Donna’s room.

They’re both still sobbing, and I’m a little tearful myself, but when I ask Donna to part her thighs there seem to be none of the discharges I’d expect to be leaking from her vagina if her body were about to reject the child.

“How far along are you?” I enquire, putting my palm to her forehead.

“Two weeks,” she mumbles.

“Two weeks? You’re joking! You can’t possibly…”

“We are certain,” says Louise.

“I mean, who the hell’s the father?” Then I remember what Susan Dwyer told me about the role of men in a kuzkardesh gara-dominated society and decide I’d rather not know. “Sorry, that can wait. Just tell me how much it hurts, Donna, and where.”

When she describes her symptoms, I relax a little. I’ve come across this kind of thing before, albeit in a work of fiction, and there’s every chance it’s nothing more serious than an upset tummy.

I look up at Louise.

“The chorba Hilary made last night…what spices did she put in it?”

“Ginger, cumin, coriander and star anise.”

“Well, you should think about leaving out those sorts of ingredients while one of you is pregnant. Not long ago I read a novel called The L-Shaped Room. It’s about a girl called Jane Graham, who’s expecting a baby and living alone in a dump of a bedsit somewhere in London. One night she treats herself to an Indian meal. She’s hardly left the restaurant when she doubles up in agony, convinced she’s going to have a miscarriage.”

“Hemme ongat?” sniffs Donna, gripping my wrist.

“They were both fine.”

Louise goes downstairs with orders to find something that will settle Donna’s stomach. I hurry to pick Philip from his cot — the fuss has woken the poor mite — and rock him against my breast until his mother comes back. The medicine administered and five sets of cheeks dabbed dry, I gesture for Gillian to join me in my room.

“I think she should have a check-up, just to make sure everything’s all right,” I say to her. “I don’t suppose you were given the number of a doctor when they moved you here?”

She shakes her head.

“Not even somebody you could ring in an emergency? What if one of you fell seriously ill? I despair of those idiots, I really do.” I let out a long sigh. “Look, you’re going to have to address this sooner or later. It’s not just Donna I’m thinking about, there’s Philip too. I haven’t had children myself, but–“

“Of course you have.”

“That’s lamentable, Gillian, even by your standards.”

“They said you would deny it.”

“Who did?”

“The humans who followed you here. They left before you recovered consciousness. One of them provided us with proof that you have indeed given birth to a child.”

“What proof? Show me it!”

She leads me down to the living room, where she opens one of the sideboard drawers. The document she hands me has the codename BELLADONNA stamped across it.

SURNAME: Hansford-Jones (née Pattison)
CHRISTIAN NAME(S): Ruth Maria
SEX: F
DATE OF BIRTH: 2/9/55
PLACE OF BIRTH: Northcroft-on-Heugh, County Durham, UK
NATIONALITY: British
MARITAL STATUS: Separated from 2nd husband
CHILDREN: Charlotte Annabel, D.O.B. 28/7/74, Bromley, Kent, UK

“This is forged!” I laugh. “I’ve seen it before. The last entry said ‘none’.”

Gillian gives me a sad smile.

“It is futile to continue in this vein, Ruth Pattison. As aspects of the universal female mind, we instinctively know when a woman has produced offspring.”

“Looks like your instincts have let you down this time.”

“That is not the case. We–“

“You think I’d lie about something like that?”

“Yes, we believe you would.”

My pent-up frustration explodes. I launch myself at her, going straight for the throat. Then the room does a backward flip and I land on the sofa, my wrists pinned behind my head and a pair of large, heavy breasts pressed into my face.

“Get off me, you fat, bald-headed cow!” I try to scream, but the words are muffled by the fleshy globes covering my mouth.

Gillian slowly eases her body from mine. I take several deep breaths, my anger subsiding as I begin to understand just how counter-productive my reckless assault has been.

“All right,” I gasp when my chest has stopped heaving. “You believe what you like, see if it makes any difference to me.”

I get to my feet, shrugging off the helping hand she offers, then move to the window and pull open the curtains. The valley and the wooded hillside beyond are just beginning to be visible in the greyness of pre-dawn.

The humans who followed you here…

They’re probably still watching.

The MoD won’t let anything stand in the way of their experiment. They’ll use every means at their disposal to hasten my conversion.

But they’ve fucked it up this time. Someone forgot to tell the author of that revised document where I spent Christmas. If I had a four year old daughter, why didn’t her grandparents ask me about her?

Unless they were told not to.

Maybe in a P.S. attached to the letter I sent them the week before my visit, saying that as soon as the subject was raised I’d be on the first train back to Portsmouth.

Suki had every reason to keep the child’s existence from me. Learning that I was a parent at such a crucial stage in my adjustment could easily have caused me untold psychological damage. Later, it’s possible that she came to the conclusion that I’d adapted too well, and thought she might face a battle for the girl’s affections. And Charlotte had already lost one mother…

Gillian is standing behind me. Her hands begin massaging my shoulders. I don’t have to turn and face her to know that the expression she’s carrying is one of genuine sympathy.

“It’s not true…” I mutter. “It’s not.”

“That is not what your heart is telling you, Ruth Pattison.”

I dash upstairs, heading for the one place in the world I want to be: sitting on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands. Of all the shocks to the system I’ve suffered over the last six months, this is the most upsetting.

I have a daughter.

I’m a parent.

I’m a mother.

And I have no idea how I’m going to cope with that knowledge.

Time passes. Whether it’s a few minutes or several hours I can’t say. Then the door creaks open.

Gillian.

“It probably isn’t worth going back to sleep,” I sigh. “Not with all the extra jobs that’ll need to be done now Donna’s incapacitated. Shall I use the bathroom first?”

The kuzkardesh gara clicks her agreement.

“Gillian demlemek hokmunde siz yuwmak.”

She might have said she was going to build a heated swimming pool in the front garden solely for my entertainment, but I think it’s more likely she’ll make us chay while I relieve myself and shower.

Charlotte Annabel…

I wonder where she is, and what she’s been told about me?

Nothing good, I bet.

The countryside brightens, welcoming the imminent sunrise.

But I don’t see the first golden rays touch the tops of the trees.

Before me shimmers a red-brick building, four storeys high, separated from the road by a forecourt marked out with parking spaces.

The Gladstone Hotel.

From where the meme has the potential to be dispersed far and wide.

Planted in the mind of every woman who stays there, if I make full use of the gift I’ve been blessed with.

And should that come to pass, not one of the self-appointed guardians purporting to fight for humanity’s survival can say they didn’t ask for it.

http://youtu.be/6L39I_NgP6g

THE HOUSE IN THE HOLLOW The sequel to 'Truth Or Consequences' CHAPTER 5 By Touch the Light What happens when the cure is more harmful than the disease?

Louise touches my shoulder.

“Upjun,” she says, indicating that she’s finished.

I open my eyes, and my hand goes straight to my mouth. The young woman in the dressing-table mirror could walk down Shanghai’s busiest street and not attract a second glance.

But what’s really surprising is how gorgeous I feel.

“That’s…I mean there are no words…”

I study the fine pencil lines and delicate gradations of shadow that have given my eyes such a convincing oriental slant, not at all certain that I’ll be able to replicate that level of skill and dexterity.

“Dal oytmek, Ruth Pattison,” smiles Louise, reading my expression. “Gochurmek.”

“Let it come naturally? Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

That’s why she stepped back after each stage to let me see what she’d done. Those snapshots will remain in my short-term memory, acting as a series of targets until the procedure is stamped onto my subconscious and they’re no longer needed.

I rise from the chair, smoothing the front of my dress with hands still moist from the soaking I treated them to after helping hang the final roll of flowery wallpaper now brightening the staircase.

“Kop rahmat,” I say to thank Louise for her trouble.

“Tuzut,” she replies, gesturing me to follow her downstairs.

We walk through the kitchen and out into the sunlit garden to the right of the door. Gillian and Hilary are sitting together on the bench at the foot of the overhang. Donna is in a deckchair, rocking Philip in her arms. I can’t say they all look happy because a kuzkardesh gara doesn’t understand the concept, yet their faces exhibit a tranquillity I envy.

Hilary and Louise offer to prepare chay. Donna invites me to take her place while she uses the bathroom.

“Salam, babek,” I murmur to Philip as he wriggles about after his mouth has settled on my nipple and he’s decided it isn’t going to feed him. “Hungry, aren’t you darling?”

“Ol ach baky,” smiles his grandmother. “Ajayyp hem.”

“Mmm, he is…” I agree.

“Siz tayyar bolmak yene gowreli, Ruth Pattison.”

That makes me think. Although I have no conscious memory of carrying or giving birth to Charlotte, if I concentrate I can understand what it felt like to be pregnant with her. I’d be deceiving myself if I claimed I had no wish to experience motherhood for real.

But if I’m to bear another child, someone will have to be its father.

“We’ll need to…well, you know what I mean…”

“Elbetde.”

Her tone is flavoured with a mild rebuke, one I probably earned. A simple movement of my brow would have been sufficient to remind her that there are no men here, without implying that she’d forgotten how babies are conceived.

Louise arrives to tell us that the chay is about to be poured, removing the necessity for a mumbled apology. When she’s taken Philip from my care, Gillian motions me to join her; I do so, only partly conscious of mimicking the way she moves her beads so the sun can get at her breasts.

“Bayrak,” she says, producing from beneath the wide folds of her dress a new shiny black leather handbag. “Siz ish yowuz.”

“Oh yes, the reward I was promised.”

It contains a vanity case, a purse — empty, of course — and a document resembling a passport, except that it’s pale blue.

“What’s this?” I ask her.

“In order to explain our presence here to the local human population, we were provided with new identities. For the purposes of officialdom we are refugees from Xinjiang province in China, members of a religious sect that was persecuted and then outlawed. The organisation that arranged for you to be introduced to us have afforded you similar status.”

“Have they now?”

I open the document at the page listing the personal details of a Deng Liu-xiang, born on September 2nd 1955, daughter of Deng Fei-rong and Deng Sheng-huan. Her own child is named as Deng Shen-tiao.

“They can’t do this,” I complain. “What about my family? What are they going to think when–“

When they find out that I’ve been accused of blackmail?

Ruth’s disappearance presents us with a serious problem.

Looks like they’ve come up with the ideal solution.

“Our neighbours are not ready to accept that we were once their compatriots,” Gillian continues. “It is important that we maintain this cover, and thereby limit the antagonism we encounter to that arising from prejudices of a racial or xenophobic nature.”

“Razy,” I agree. “Better they call us names than march up the valley carrying torches and pitchforks.”

As we walk back to the house, the kuzkardesh gara’s arm through mine, I come to a decision.

Deng Liu-xiang…

I’ve taken on a new name before. I can do it again.

And at least I won’t have to change sex this time.

On the coffee table in front of the hearth, bathed in weakening evening sunshine, stands a heap of papers.

“Chrysanthemum von Witzleben,” says Hilary, pointing to them from the chair where she’s busy knitting, the needles clicking so fast she might be expecting her first grandchild in a few days rather than next February.

I pick a sheet from the top. The script upon it is poised and refined.

“These are the notes you were talking about?”

The kuzkardesh gara clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She doesn’t elaborate, so I settle on the sofa to familiarise myself with Frau von Witzleben’s life story as related by Sorina Dalascu, the former Sarah-Jane Collingwood.

“I take it the military will have kept copies?” I enquire, thinking back to the tale I was told three nights ago.

“Elbetde. Emma olar owrenmek hich.”

Although I don’t yet know enough Ugur to translate her words directly, the melange of amusement and antipathy evident from the subtle movements of her brows and lips, added to the unmistakeable derision percolating each syllable, confirms that the people who spirited Hilary, Gillian and their daughters away to Bucovina with the express purpose of having them converted will have learned nothing from these documents they didn’t already know.

Fools, all of them.

And their stupidity is compounded by a callous disregard for anyone who becomes embroiled in their intrigues.

I suppose they tell themselves they’re acting in humanity’s best interests, the greater good and all that. But what kind of future can the world look forward to when its guardians are systematically demolishing the moral framework holding society together?

What happens when the cure is more harmful than the disease?

Before I begin reading I reach for my handbag and take out my vanity case so I can adjust the patterned linen scarf covering my hair and look once again at the rows of tiny black gemstones Gillian set in my brows before we ate. They form a much more pronounced arch than I’d expected, endowing my previously undistinguished features with a mature, almost regal hauteur.

Ought I to be concerned that my transformation is progressing more quickly than I’d planned? That might have been the case yesterday; now I’m starting to see that by allowing my outward appearance to be changed, I can direct my efforts towards preserving some of the less superficial aspects of my current persona.

Is that what Chrysanthemum von Witzleben thought all those years ago in Turkestan when she found herself looking more and more like the nuns she was studying?

I’d better get on with these notes or I’ll never find out.

I scan the first two sheets, which deal with the former Miss Whitmore’s family and upbringing but shed little light on her personality. The third, which is concerned with her education and introduces Miss Price, the governess who nurtured her growing interest in ancient civilisations, demands rather more attention than my mind is ready to give. I’m coming to the end of the page when I find I’ve read the same paragraph half a dozen times and haven’t understood any of it. Skipping to the next section, the same thing happens.

“This is…oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?” I mumble to myself.

Donna comes into the room. She indicates with her brow that she’d like to sit beside me while I read. I smile my consent.

“Are you all right, love?” I ask as she slides her arm through mine.

“Donna Parker duymak agirt ongat. Babek ongat hem.”

“Ajayyp. I’m glad you’re feeling better. But I’d still rest a lot easier if you saw a doctor.”

I look to Hilary for support, and discover from her expression that although she approves of my concern for her daughter, she doesn’t share it.

Donna isn’t worried either. I only have to meet her eyes for a second to bask in the girl’s firm belief that her pregnancy will proceed normally and end with the delivery of a healthy baby.

But that faith is not blind. It’s based on the assumption that the hive will have assimilated the skills of an experienced nurse before she goes into labour.

Yvette managed to exchange bodies with Carol before the wave hit. They would both have drowned if she hadn’t. Later, in hospital, she swapped with one of the nursing staff. That’s the body she currently inhabits.

Carol Vasey.

She’s perfect for them.

And it would teach her not to be so eager to step into a dead woman’s shoes.

That may be so, but how can I condone robbing another human being of her individuality, no matter how much she deserves it, when I’m clinging so stubbornly to my own?

I make one more attempt to unravel Sorina Dalascu’s consistently long-winded prose. It lasts less than a minute. Deciding that a dose of fresh air will be just the thing to clear my head, I ease Donna’s fingers from my forearm and walk over to the vestibule.

“Basym garanky,” she calls after me as I take one of the jackets from its peg.

“Razy. I won’t be long.”

I open the front door and step onto the terrace. The air is warm and still. A bee hovers among the weeds flowering at the edge of the lawn; I feel my awareness recede as I contemplate its movements, my thought processes analogous to the instincts that govern the creature’s behaviour.

After it’s flown away I glance across the fields to the sylvan slopes on the western side of the valley, now deep in shadow.

This is a lovely place. My daughter would be happy here…

The scene in front of me fades. It’s replaced by a landscape of barbed wire and checkpoints, floodlights and machine-gun posts. A jeep pulls up outside a large tent, disgorging two soldiers wearing uniforms I don’t recognise. They point their rifles at the cloaked, hooded figure who climbs from the vehicle. The breeze lifts and blows back the heavy cowl, revealing her to be a kuzkardesh gara. She is not a particularly young woman, yet her complexion is fresh and unlined.

A man comes out of the tent, an officer by his bearing. He interrogates the kuzkardesh gara in French, though his accent suggests it’s not his first language. She answers calmly and with great dignity.

She is Yvette de Monnier, and she is okde…

She is the source of my gift.

It went with her when she took Ruth’s body, but not when she exchanged with Richard.

And the crux of their conversation?

Cet avatar est doué. Mais elle n’est pas encore l’élu.

Chaque ruche doit avoir une dame.

Every hive must have a queen.

That’s why I’m so important to these women. Inheriting de Monnier’s gift has qualified me to become their leader.

And that doesn’t just mean taking charge when one of them has an upset stomach.

The enemy have unwittingly presented us with what we are now certain will be our most powerful weapon.

The enemy.

How well they merit that epithet.

I need time to think. I have to weigh up my options.

If there are any.

Gingerly, I climb the path to the road. Gillian’s Dormobile is still parked where I found it at the start of my abortive escape attempt on Sunday. I feel my mouth curl in a languid smile as I recall the idiotic scheme I concocted aimed at evading the clutches of the MoD.

Fleetwood, for heaven’s sake! Who in their right mind would choose that as a bolt-hole?

When the sun disappears behind the bank of cloud slowly drifting in from the west I think about going back inside, but my feet have already taken me fifty yards down the slope, as if they’re trying to prove to their owner that she retains enough freedom to enjoy a quiet stroll on a balmy May evening if that’s what she really wants to do. Before long I’m in sight of the crossing, and the gate where to my surprise are perched two young women, one in jeans and one wearing a vivacious, wide-hemmed summer dress. When the former takes a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lights one of them, I resist the urge to snatch it from her lips and crush it beneath my heel.

I’m resolved to walk straight past them until I remember what happened on Sunday morning outside the stone cottage a short distance along the lane.

Stop inside an’ keep thesel’ out o’ sight. Tell lasses an’ all.

Could they be the owner’s daughters? From here they appear similar enough to be related. Both have the same shade of dark brown hair, which they wear in the short, layered style fashionable before the ‘50s revival gathered momentum — though as I draw nearer I can see that the girl in the summer dress has had hers taken right off the ears and combed into a neat side parting.

Now clear off afore I set dogs on yer.

I should go back. The Skoda is nowhere to be seen, but that’s of little comfort. If these two share their father’s attitude to the occupants of Sunny Hollow, the best I can expect from them are unfriendly stares and insulting comments.

But the girl with the really short hair has already fixed me with a look that has me wanting to yank out those cropped locks by the roots.

“Hey up!” she cries, nudging her companion in the ribs. “Fetch crucifix an’ bring out garlic!”

“All right, Ellie, no need to be rude. You were a Jesus freak yourself once.”

“Mebbe, but I never went round garden wi’ me jugs ‘angin’ out.”

“No, you just turned overnight from a hippy into a schoolma’am.”

“Better than bein’ a drop-out.”

“Oh yeah? Least I got to university. Not my fault if–“

“Shut up, Tina! She’ll ‘ear yer!”

“What if she does? She seems pretty harmless to me.”

Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to using a holistic approach during my time with the kuzkardesh gara, but I find myself not so much listening to the content of this exchange as making a thorough assessment of the character and intentions of both participants. Ellie’s brashness, together with her strong local accent, suggests that she identifies with this area to a much greater extent than Tina; it also masks a fear, born no doubt out of rumour and supposition, that the newcomers pose a threat to the future her engagement ring tells me she has great hopes for.

Tina pushes away the hand Ellie lays on her thigh, then jumps from the gate.

“Hello there!” she says brightly.

I judge that she’s in her middle, maybe even her late twenties. Of medium height and build, she’s attractive enough not to lack admirers, though I’d hesitate to describe her as pretty. Her jeans, in conjunction with her lack of make-up, imply that she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend. And there are a number of reasons to suspect that she may not enjoy the best of relationships with her parents.

“Hello,” I reply, waving away the smoke drifting from her cigarette.

“Sorry about that. Filthy habit, I know.”

“Yes, if you could…”

I force the disgust from my face. I didn’t think I was the kind of person who’d immediately turn into a committed anti-smoking fanatic once she’d given up the noxious weed, but by using the meme to cure my addiction I’ve surrendered any control I might have had over that aspect of my personality. I have a kuzkardesh gara’s attitude towards tobacco, and that’s all there is to it.

“I bet you don’t drink either,” she says.

I smile and shake my head.

“No, uh…no stimulants.”

“Pity that, I was going to ask if you’d like a coffee.”

“Tina!” shouts Ellie. “Yer know what they said!”

“Put a sock in it. Honest, you’re worse than dad.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m Christina Kyte. Faceache there’s my sister Eleanor.”

I can sense that Tina wants to be seen as more tolerant and open-minded than she actually is. She’s the person who goes out of her way to talk to the black guy in the room, and makes sure everyone notices what she’s doing.

But that doesn’t influence my decision to introduce myself as Deng Liu-xiang. Admitting I’m English would not only have invited a series of awkward questions, but create a real danger of word getting round that the hive are starting to make converts.

Tina drops her cigarette and stubs it out with her heel.

“Welcome to Salem, Deng Liu-xiang. Oops, you might not get that being from China.” She fakes a self-deprecating grin. “So what are you exactly, Buddhists or something?”

I hesitate before replying. Until now I’ve been able to disguise my southern accent; if I’m drawn into a discussion there’s a risk I might slip back into it.

How do the others cope? I can’t believe they put on squeaky Chinese voices every time they talk to an outsider.

The meme programs our minds to think in Ugur. We can still speak English, but it is no longer our native tongue.

It begins as a memory, but quickly evolves into a solution. I know it’s one I’ve accepted because every click, whirr and hissed syllable I’ve heard since I arrived at Sunny Hollow has suddenly come to the forefront of my consciousness. What I need to do now is tag each word or phrase that forms in my mind with an equivalent so I can translate it automatically into Tina’s language.

“We are not Buddhists,” I say carefully, the words lacking any intrinsic meaning even though I’m confident they’re the right ones to use. “It is hard to explain…”

“Try me. Comparative Religion was one of the ancillary subjects I studied when I was at Warwick.”

“This is not a religion. It is more a way of thinking.”

“Like a philosophy?”

“No, it is about developing a new level of consciousness.”

“You mean you’re into meditation, that kind of thing?”

“There is no training programme. We do not have to be taught how to experience it. The changes just happen.”

Her gaze moves to the black paint covering my lips and nails. Any pretence of sympathy is stripped from her face.

“The other morning there was a girl here asking for help. An English girl. She told dad you’d kidnapped her.”

For a moment I’m at a loss as to how I should answer this charge. Then the words pour from me.

“Ruth Pattison tried to deceive us. She did not know that our policy has always been to make enquiries into the background of any woman who professes a desire to join our community. When we discovered that she was facing quite a serious criminal charge, we told her that as guests of this country we felt obliged to contact the authorities. We also confiscated her belongings.”

“Funny, I don’t remember seeing a police car…”

“Broomstick alert!” cries Ellie, jumping to the ground.

I turn to see a cloaked, hooded kuzkardesh gara walking along the lane. Gillian or Hilary, it’s impossible to say which.

“Probably wants yer to clean out cauldron,” I hear Ellie laugh.

“She’s more likely concerned for your safety,” says Tina. “Seriously, don’t go anywhere near the village on your own. That girl hasn’t done you lot any favours by saying those things to dad. People round here don’t take kindly to foreigners, especially when they bring their own culture with them.”

That girl…

How quickly I’ve begun to think of her as another person. How unreal my memories of being her have already become.

But this isn’t about Ruth Pattison. It never was.

Dig beneath the illusion of selfhood and all will be made clear to you.

Susan Dwyer was right about something else as well. It still feels like being me.

Tina and Ellie are indoors by the time Hilary reaches my side. Only the waxing moon sees our ebony lips curl in identical smiles and then meet in a tender kiss.

“Biz barmak oy,” she says softly.

I click my agreement.

“Kop etmek mundan org yatmak,” I add.

A twitch of her brow sends my right hand to my forehead, where a wisp of hair has escaped my scarf. I tuck it back in, embarrassed by my slovenliness.

It won’t happen again.

The kuzkardesh gara formerly known as Gillian Dixon plugs the electric razor into the socket on the kitchen wall and turns it to its highest setting.

Tai Kim-lin is not aware of her previous name. That information is now redundant. It remains in her long-term memory, but the neural pathways to it have been redirected. They will be established again only if the hive needs to retrieve it.

Kim-lin is also unaware that the young woman sitting on a chair facing away from her was ever called anything but Deng Liu-xiang.

Strictly speaking, Kim-lin has no awareness at all.

She unzips Liu-xiang’s dress, easing the garment from her rounded shoulders. She is able to perform such acts because the replicators that have transmuted her subconscious into a more or less faithful replica of the template bequeathed to the hive by Sorina Dalascu in Bucovina are constantly using her episodic memory to construct a false persona with a sufficiently durable sense of continuity for her to function as a sentient being, allowing her to give the erroneous impression that she retains the capacity for independent thought.

Yet as Kim-lin knows — or to be more accurate, as she would explain if asked — the illusion of individuality is not the same as the real thing. Essentially a kuzkardesh gara is an organic machine, a living automaton operating to pre-set instructions designed in conjunction with the memetic impulse to reproduce and infect other brains, itself a blind imperative caused by nothing more mysterious or metaphysical than the natural laws governing chemical reactions.

The universal female mind is an emergent property of that impulse. Like life, it came into existence purely by chance.

Kim-lin switches the razor on. She tilts Liu-xiang’s head forward and feels her large, heavy breasts pressing against the girl’s broad back. Working swiftly and methodically from the nape upwards, she begins shearing Liu-xiang’s tangled tresses to stubble.

It would be a mistake to think that Kim-lin attaches any significance to the task she is performing. That Liu-xiang has agreed to undergo the final part of her transformation into a kuzkardesh gara is no cause for celebration. After all, her conversion was never in any doubt.

For the next fifteen minutes Kim-lin sticks at her chore, pausing once to sip from the bowl of chay Tai Ling-shuang hands her before going upstairs to check that her baby is sleeping soundly. The only assistance she receives is from Pan Su-ning, who supplies a goatskin sack containing the gemstones that will form Liu-xiang’s crest, and Su-ning’s mother Pan Hui-liu, who coats the felted surface of each with the insoluble resin the hive brought back from Bucovina. Both have left before the transformation is complete.

Liu-xiang herself displays as little interest in the proceedings as anyone. If there was indeed a point at which her subconscious fell fully into line with that of the hive, she neither remembers it nor does she feel the need to. Her awareness consists solely of the sensual pleasure she experiences during the removal of her pelt; the bejewelled, black-nailed finger she touches to the silken skin above her right ear after Kim-lin has used a cut-throat to shave her bald, and the muted gasp of delight she emits as the first stone of her crest is held against the centre of her forehead are mere reflex actions, as automatic to her as breathing.

Yet as her scalp is being buffed and scented, Liu-xiang is granted enough false individuality to realise that the radical modifications the meme has made to her mind are permanent, that the neural connections inside her brain have been rewritten as effectively and irreversibly as if they were audio tapes passing between the spools of a cassette player with the button pressed down.

She will never have a change of heart.

She can never be browbeaten, conditioned, drugged or surgically altered into the person she used to be.

Quite the reverse: as this hive’s saylanan — its queen — she will soon learn to transmit the meme in concentrated bursts so potent they’ll demolish the defences of any human female the hive chooses to assimilate.

As I stand from the chair and wait for Kim-lin to fasten my zip, I feel a malicious grin creep across my face. Humanity doesn’t stand a chance against that kind of power.

Without meaning to, I run my hand back from my forehead along my freshly shaved scalp.

“Duymak sowuk,” I hiss.

“Siz dal bolmak sakar kelle,” points out Kim-lin.

“Elbetde,” I smile. “Deng Liu-xiang yatdan chykarmak.”

It’s not surprising that I had to be told the reason my head feels cold is that I’ve never been bald before. I am and always will be incapable of imagining any other reflection than the one I now see in the kitchen window.

I turn to the older kuzkardesh gara. My eyes meet and hold hers. I have no idea why. How could I?

“Bir bolmak hemme,” we chant in perfect synchronicity, “song hemme bolmak agzybir.”

I watch my bejewelled, black-nailed fingers reach to caress Kim-lin’s cheek even as she extends hers towards mine. We both whirr our pleasure at the softness of the touch.

Liu-xiang’s false awareness fades. Until the group mind decides that it can return she will resemble an animated doll, reacting in accordance with her mental programming to the sensory data she receives from her surroundings. Even then, all that will concern her is the role she is to play in the coming struggle.

The struggle to subjugate and then transform the primitive species called the human race.

The struggle to make it ready for Epiphany.