The Lot of a Lichnik/5
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One can only imagine what the staff of the Uzulsky Lichclinic in Novodolorsk thought when Julius Stretchin, an apprentice quantity surveyor with the Hall of Roots, staggered through their doors a little past midnight. According to witnesses he appeared to be suffering from an advanced loss of motor control. He had attempted to speak, but his words were so slurred as to be indiscernible. By the time he had been rushed into a consulting room and the senior Deathgiver on duty summoned to his aid, he was only capable of a pitiable twitching of limbs and head. To the alarm of the Deathgiver, Stretchin barely responded to the usual electrode stimulation - even though his undead body appeared quite intact and undamaged. The first jolt produced only a localised twitching of sinew and, as the night wore on, successive applications of conductive serum and electrodes produced less and less of a result. By the time dawn approached and the Deathgiver's shift ended, Stretchin's body registered no electrical activity at all, regardless of what was done to him. His phylacteric field had shrunk into the amulet around his neck and could not be re-amplified.
The Deathgiver of the next shift, seeking to brighten up a slow day, had ordered a series of necropsies on Stretchin's motionless form. The results were not only bizarre, they were unprecedented in the field of Lichmedicine; Stretchin's necrotic flesh had begun to be eaten by something - something with a particular appetite for his nerve fibres, which had been selectively eaten away at such a rate that almost none remained. No wonder the poor fellow had trouble moving. An examination of samples under a microscope revealed that the pitiable shreds of nerve fibre remaining were [i]crawling[/i] with bacteria. Here was a lich, a being so routinely infused with phenol supplements and formaldehyde lichgravies that nothing was thought able to live inside its body - yet this one was infected.
That's when we were called in.
The Living Matter Pathology Laboratory in the basement of the Novodolorsk Lichnik Kennel was, perhaps, the most anticlimactically named part of the building. In all reality, it was store room cleared out to make way for a single bench full of mismatched glassware with a few antiquated centrifuges and incubators. Our business concerned lichdom, after all, and it was not often that the services of this laboratory were required. I had only used it myself on two occasions, both times to confirm the cause of death of breathers who had expired in our long-term custody. Both times the results had come back as pulmonary consumption, inspiring a half-hearted initiative by the Chief Ragdoller to improve the cleanliness and ventilation of our detention cells. If you ask me, a half-hearted effort is pretty good from a lich - a creature with no heart at all.
The laboratory was staffed by a solitary Deep Singer known to everyone in the Kennel as Mr. Rabbitt; a rather tall creature whose work in this low-ceilinged basement must have been a source of daily discomfort for him. His only outwardly Singerish features were a third leg which was barely noticeable thanks to some well-tailored trousers, and a naturally yellow complexion which would suggest jaundice if it were encountered in a breather. He was, by all accounts, a good natured fellow who kept to himself but worked efficiently on the few occasions it was requested of him.
On the arrival of Stretchin's body from the Uzulsky Lichclinic, Mr. Rabbitt had taken such precautions as he was able. He strictly denied liches admittance to the lab regardless of their rank, and kept a noisy old air compressor running to constantly keep the room at negative air pressure to the corridor outside. He preferred to work alone and, as word of Micras' first known lichpathogen got around the Kennel, most were content to leave him alone as he subjected Stretchin's body to a full post mortem examination - or whatever one calls a post mortem examination when the body was dead to begin with.
The Houndmaster, ever the sadist, had assigned me the case. However sensitive I thought it was to begin with, the arrival of Mr. Rabbitt in my office was soon to put even more on my plate.
"I can say one thing conclusively, sir," he said as he sqeaked into the leather chair at my invitation. "It's engineered."
"I beg your pardon?" I said. "What's engineered?"
"The bacterium," said Mr.Rabbitt. "I ran it through the genesplicer. All those little dead ends you get in the code, from all those little evolutionary u-turns, all stripped out. Gone. The genome is as clean as a whistle. There's nothing there that doesn't need to be there. Reproduction, virility, resistance against specific medicines and disinfectants. All that, but nothing else. I've never seen anything like it. This didn't come from the wilderness, sir. It was made in a lab."
"Great," I said with a roll of the eyes. "That's all we need. Can you tell us whose lab, exactly?"
"No disrespect to the Lichniks, sir," said Mr. Rabbitt, "but if I had that kind of expertise I wouldn't be stuck working in a place like this." He attempted to soften his remark with a weak smile. "It was made by someone who knows what they're doing, though. It's a work of art."
"And do you know anybody who knows this stuff better than you?" I said. "Genesplicers aren't exactly under-represented among your kind."
"The Corps may be able to help you."
"The Biological Containment Corps? In Whisperwood?"
"The best minds in my field tend to end up there, sir. And believe me, if this thing spreads... you're going to need their services."
The Biological Containment Corps - Minarboria's go-to service for the identification, eradication and/or creation of microbial curiosities. A secretive organisation whose public appearance was generally accepted as an indication that the crap had officially struck the fan. They were as ruthless in formulating and guarding Minarboria's strategic biodeterrent as they were in eradicating unwanted biologics from the hallowed boundaries of Minarbor's Garden. Jugding by the comments Mr. Rabbitt appeared to be getting as I watched him through the window of the lab's sealed door, our visitors from said Corps were less than impressed with his methods. A whiskered Deep Singer known as Dr. Tsal, the leader of the visiting party, was in fact yelling at our hapless pathologist without even the pretence of Shrubly decorum.
"Dear Shrub, man, are you insane!?" he roared. "Receiving a reservoir of an entirely unknown and unprecedented pathogen into a critical infrastructural node of a major population centre, with this sorry excuse of a laboratory!? Where's your pressure suit? Or your airlock? Why hasn't this building been evacuated? Why hasn't this block been sealed off, even!?"
"With all due respect Doctor," Mr. Rabbitt offered, "my latest tests on a disembodied zombot finger reveal that the pathogen doesn't transmit well in aerosol. One must either inject it or infuse it through the subcutaneous membrane in large amounts for it to..."
"And you trust those results!?" snapped Dr. Tsal. "With this thrift shop you're running here? I've seen better rigs at a yard sale! And now you tell me you're making cultures of this stuff and playing around with it like a breather on borrowed time? No wonder you ended up in this backwater... you wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the Corps with this kind of setup! Shrub almighty, now I really have seen everything... gah, I need to step outside."
Dr. Tsal liberally covered his snug-fitting biohazard suit with a gaseous plume from a device resembling a CO2 fire extinguisher, then quickly leapt through the laboratory door and slammed it shut behind him. He ripped off his headpiece, twitched his thick black whiskers into shape and turned to me with a shake of the head.
"You're damned lucky you haven't all gone down with this, Inquisitor," he growled. "This building needs to be quarantined immediately. We're taking the body to a safe facility in Whisperwood."
"On whose authority?" I said. "Mister Stretchin and his body are the subject of a Lichnik investigation. If you think you're taking him outside the Lichnina you're sorely mistaken."
"The biosecurity of the Garden is an Imperial matter, Inquisitor. You're in over your head. If you know what's good for you, you'll stand aside and let us work."
At this point, my Shrubly cool was fast deserting me. "Are you threatening me, you jumped-up little freak?" I snapped. "This is my investigation!"
Dr. Tsal laughed at me with a theatrical toss of the head. "We'll see what your Houndmaster has to say on that one," he said, shouldering his way past me.
With difficulty I restrained myself from from ripping the Singer's fancy whiskers clean off his face, silently blessing the absence of my fellow Inquisitor Shepilov; for that kind of attitude, he would have put our visitor in the Woundmender's infirmary for a week.
In the end, the metaphorical and quite possibly literal acid tongue of Dr. Tsal impressed the Houndmaster enough that he agreed to surrender Mr. Stretchin's body to the Biological Containment Corps, although the quarantine didn't materialise; instead, the Novodolorsk Kennel was evacuated one floor at a time and fumigated by a specialised unit of the Corps known as the Neutrophils. They, at least, were Shrubbily apologetic as they went about their business in our midst. One got the sense that they'd been on the receiving end of Dr. Tsal's 'assertiveness' too.
In the meantime, my attentions turned to the circumstances of the unfortunate Mr. Stretchin; where he may have been and what he may have done to contract this artificial plague. My enquiries revealed that he was, by all accounts, a decent lich who had only recently passed into undeath in order to further his career at the Hall of Roots. He had never been abroad, and while he still kept in touch with his breather friends he did not keep the company of foreigners or criminals. He had no known grievances with anybody and, although he lived alone in an isolated cottage just outside Novodolorsk, there were no hazardous biomes nearby for him to accidentally wander into.
I had sent Shepilov and Mr. Rabbitt to turn over the cottage; it was, they reported, an entirely ordinary abode for a lich of Stretchin's position. The only suspicious find was an invisible one - Mr. Rabbitt had reported that the place was not only free of pathogens, it was free of any kind of microorganism. The place had been sterilised meticulously; every surface, every crease and corner. There were traces of Trieschatol, a ridiculously strong chemical cleaning agent which was generally only used in restricted quantities by Deep Singer Woundmenders. It was one of the few agents in Mr. Rabbitt's lab which had been able to kill Mr. Stretchin's bacterial samples - at the poor lich's cottage, several litres of it had apparently been used to cover someone's tracks. But beyond that, there were no clues at all.
It was the day after the search that the telephone on my desk rang; never a common occurrence, as I preferred to communicate in person. The only one who regularly rang my office was the Houndmaster, summoning me for meetings. Bracing myself for another dose of his humourless wibble, I lifted the receiver. Instead I was met with a male voice I didn't recognise at all.
"Harkavin!?" came the laboured wheeze at the other end. "Am I... am I through to Inquisitor Harkavin?"
I waited for him to finish a fit of coughing before I answered. "Yes, this is Harkavin," I said. "Who is this?"
The caller took a gasp of breath before he spoke. "Do you know... know where Slakinovsky Moor is?"
"Yes," I said. "But who is this? Identify yourself."
"No time...!" came the insistent reply through what sounded like a deluge of phlegm. "Meet me there... there's... there's an oak tree... on it's own. With a fallen branch. You'll see... see from the road. Bring no Singers or... or breathers. Just liches."
At the caller's oddly distressed urgency, I began to sit up and take notice. "What time?" I said.
"Now," said the caller. "Hurry... please hurry."
I was about to question his choice of venue but was halted by the sharp click of him hanging up. I looked up at Slakinovsky Moor on the wall map - it was a desolate wasteland about ten minutes' drive out of town - then I dialled another number.
"Shepilov."
"Shep," I said, "something's up on Slakinovsky. Are you ready to move?"
"What, now?" said Shepilov. "This is one of your crappy pranks again, isn't it."
"Someone's crappy prank, maybe," I said. "Meet me at the motor pool."
The oak tree with the fallen branch could indeed be seen from the road - it was accompanied by a figure leaning on its trunk with his arms extended; the tree was evidently the only thing keeping him on his feet. His head was bowed and he appeared to be vomiting as we drove by.
"Shrub almighty, you weren't lying," said Shepilov. "He'll be as dead as us in a minute."
I looked at the distance we had to cover on foot from the roadside, then at the zombot driver. "Do you think this thing can drive off-road?" I said to Shepilov.
"Haven't you written off enough cars already?" said Shepilov.
"No," I said.
"Alright," said Shepilov. "Driver! Take us to that tree!"
The zombot driver looked where Shepilov's finger was pointing. "Road. Unavailable," it said.
"Alright, take us to that tree off-road," said Shepilov.
"I. Have. Received. Off. Road. Driving. Order." said the zombot. "Is. This. Correct?"
"Yes, damn it!" yelled Shepilov, punching the back of the zombot's head from his perch on the rear seat. At this the zombot crunched the gears, spun the steering wheel to full lock and accelerated the car across a minefield of scattered rocks and grass tussocks. Within two seconds I had given up trying to hold on and allowed myself to freely bounce off the roof, and off Shepilov, as the car raced across the uneven ground. Another ten seconds of clattering suspension later, we were there. I stretched my compressed spine back into shape with a loud crunch and jumped out of the vehicle.
The man - or rather, a Deep Singer with forearms covered in armoured scales - let go of the tree and turned to look at us, swaying on his feet. His clothes were stained by a steady stream of froth that oozed from his mouth and nostrils, and he was twitching uncontrollably. He lost his balance and fell, landing in Shepilov's arms.
"Never mind a meeting," I said. "We need to get you some medical attention. Come on Shep, let's..."
"Nooo no no," wheezed the Singer, spitting out another mouthful of froth and giving us a delirious smile. "For what I have, sir... there is... no antidote."
Shepilov and I looked at each other.
"But I must... tell you something," said the Singer. "I must tell...before..."
Shepilov sat him up against a tree and I stooped to his level, keeping a safe distance from the flecks of saliva that were popping from his foaming mouth. "Alright," I said, "speak."
"I work for the Biological... Containment Corps," said the Singer. "This... lich infection..."
"It was made in a lab, wasn't it?" I said.
"Oh yes, it was... certainly..."
"By who?"
The Singer cackled with laughter, precipitating a short but violent coughing fit. "By us, you silly goose..." he said.
"By the Corps, you mean?"
"Yes... yes... all very... hush hush." The Singer paused to take a few deep gasps and wipe a torrent of sweat from his eyes, then continued. "We were working... on an antitode... to possible lich pathogens. But... there were no such pathogens... they didn't exist... so... so we had to create one."
"Dear sweet Minarbor... why haven't your people told us this?"
"Pride, dear man..." smiled the Singer. "What a scandal it would be... no... best to keep the work secret... we call it... Preparation Seventy Two..."
"So why tell us now?"
"What... have I, to lose now? I am sick because of it..."
"So the pathogen can infect Singers too?"
"Oh no... mine is a different infection... very fast acting... also weaponised. Your discovery caused... huge fuss in the Corps. Massive... internal investigation ordered. There were only supposed to be... four vials of Preparation Seventy Two. But somebody... somebody made sixteen extra vials. We don't know who... but... but... all the vials are... missing...!" The Singer shook his head ashamedly, sending yet more froth flying.
"So who's running your internal investigation?" I said. "We'll need to speak to them. Urgently."
The Singer grinned again. "You... already are, dear fellow," he gurgled. "The investigation... it was mine. And whoever... whoever has been messing with Preparation Seventy Two... it would appear... he wants me out of the way. So..." he threw up his scaly hands and looked down his spittle-soaked undershirt. Even to my dulled lich nose, he stunk to high heaven of rotting meat.
"So he infected you with a Singer pathogen?" said Shepilov. "How did he get it into you?"
"I think it's... Preparation Twelve..." wheezed the Singer, "or a variation... enters by ingestion. He put it... perhaps in my lunch? I don't know, dear man... could have been anyone... anyone at all..."
"And you say it has no antidote?" I said. "No appropriate treatment?"
"Inquisitor... why would it?" said the Singer. "Preparation Twelve... it doesn't even... doesn't even... officially exist... heh... heheh...!"
At this, the Singer erupted into another bout of laboured, frothy laughter; but this time it turned into a violent convulsion and his oozing eyes rolled back into his head. Shepilov and I grabbed his flailing limbs to prevent him doing any harm, but within ten seconds he had ceased all movement and slumped from his sitting position onto the ground. Shepilov checked his pulse, looked at me and shook his head.
Our man in the Biological Containment Corps, so brief in his service, was no more.
Being passed through three seperate teams of Neutrophils in a row of decontamination tents, it appeared Shepilov and I were the lucky ones. The body of our scaly-armed Singer was incinerated where he fell by a flamethrower team, and the old oak tree with him. Our car was destroyed with an unnecessarily large amount of plastic explosive. Dr. Tsal, the first to respond to our call for assistance and evidently enjoying another oppurtunity to throw the Biological Containment Corps' weight around, was taking no chances. His Singers had set up a wide cordon, closed the road and were subjecting the surrounding scrubland to a controlled wildfire. We had completed decontamination within two hours, but Dr. Tsal refused to let us off the site until nightfall. Worse, we were under orders from the Houndmaster to do as he said. While we waited, we took the oppurtunity to subject Dr. Tsal to some pressing questions.
"Would you care to explain," I said as we sat in the Corps command tent, "what your lot are doing making a pathogen that exclusively targets liches? Or why there's a rogue running around your organisation using it on the undead public? It's not what you'd call Shrubly, is it?"
Dr. Tsal chuckled. "Don't tell me you've never dabbled in dark corners, Inquisitor," he said. "The unauthorised testing I can't answer for, but if it's within our gift to make an anti-lich agent then why not do so? It gives us a head start against those who might make one later. By the time they do, we've got the antidote."
"With regard to this rogue, Doctor," said Shepilov, "we didn't say anything about 'testing'. Care to tell us how you came to that conclusion?"
"What other motive could there be?" said Dr. Tsal. "Your Houndmaster kindly lent me a copy of Mister Stretchin's file. Nobody wanted him in particular dead. But he did live alone in a secluded cottage. An ideal venue if you want to observe the effects of Preparation Seventy Two without it spreading. But the perpetrator obviously didn't anticipate Mister Stretchin making a desperate drive into Novodolorsk to get medical attention. I won't be surprised if he picks on another lonely lich somewhere out here. To repeat the experiment, if you will. If he's within our organisation he's probably of a scientific mind. Come on, do I really have to do your work for you?"
"How can we work properly if you keep secrets from us?" I said. "Added to that, the investigator your people assigned is now a patch of smouldering charcoal. So maybe the Corps should open up and let us do our work, for a change."
"In the Lichnina we will," said Dr. Tsal. "But our operations in Whisperwood? They're no business of yours."
As we drove back in the dusk toward the piercing lights of Novodolorsk, we had a lot to think about.
"So what do you make of the lonely lich idea?" said Shepilov.
"I think Tsal knows more than he's letting on," I said. "His theory was little... too detailed. Too rehearsed. I only wonder who he's protecting."
"I don't buy the repeat attack idea," said Shepilov. "The perpetrator's struck again already, against the Corps investigator. Covering his own hide. What's to say he won't try covering it a little more?"
"That would make us the next targets."
"Right."
A moment of silence passed as the implications of the idea sank in.
"But how would he infect us?" I said. "The whole Kennel knows what we're doing. He'd need to eliminate them all at once. Spike the lich gravy or somethi..."
I couldn't see Shepilov's eyes widen in the back seat, but I could hear him seize into a rigid posture.
"Driver," I said. "New route. Direct to Kennel. Ignore the speed limit."
"Affirmative," said the obliging zombot behind the wheel, drowned out by the roar of the engine.
Already the first Lichniks of the impending night shift were milling around the Novodolorsk Kennel cafeteria, waiting for the serving hatch to open. We arrived a little under ten minutes before it was due to do so. To the loud objections of those present, Shepilov jumped the queue and pounded the shutter with his fist.
"Next. Lich. Gravy. Will. Be. Served. At. Twenty. Thirty. Hours," said the unseen zombot behind the shutter. "Thank. You. For. Your. Patience."
"It's a Shrubly virtue, Shepilov!" jeered one of the Inquisitors in the line. "You should try it out some time."
"Oh he's patient," said someone else. "He breaks people's limbs one at a time. I've seen it with my own..."
The comments were interrupted by a loud bang and the splintering of wood as the kitchen door gave way to Shepilov's boot. To a raspy lich cheer from the amused onlookers, we hoofed through it. Inside, peering nervously around a rack of lich cookies, was a breather in a stained white chef's tunic.
"Sir," he whimpered, "you only had to wait ten minutes... oh dear, what a mess you've made of my door. Uhm, tell you what, how about I give you some nice calming lichcookies while you..."
"Do forgive us," I interrupted. "If we'd known there was a non-zombot on duty, we'd have knocked."
Shepilov glanced at me with mild disgust. He would not have knocked.
"We need to inspect your stock of lich gravy," I said.
"Really, sir," said the chef, "I've lost count of how many times I've heard that old line."
By the time the chef had finished his sentence, half the boxes of the kitchen storage racks were strewn all over the floor and Shepilov was violently shaking the other half. Eventually the clinking of lich gravy vials could be heard.
"Found it," said Shepilov, thumbing open the cardboard lid and peering inside.
"We have reason to believe the lich gravy in your kitchen may have been adulterated," I said to the chef. "Has anyone besides you had access to this stock recently?"
"No, sir," said the chef, who had now backed himself against the wall furthest from Shepilov. "Well, apart from the Biocontainment Corps Singers."
I whipped out a notepad. "When, and how many?" I snapped.
The chef looked at me as if he were incriminating himself, which perhaps he was. "There were... three... three of them, sir. Like the ones who did the fumigation the other day."
"Description?"
"I don't know, sir. They all had respirators on. I could only see their eyes."
"What did they do with your stock?"
"They took it away, sir. All of it. Said it had to be analysed. I got it back within the hour, though. They said it was safe."
"I'll be the judge of that," I said. "I'm imposing a Section One Eight Five Consumables Preparation Facility Closure Order, effective immediately. This kitchen will be out of commission until further notice. And we'll have to confiscate your stock."
"But sir, there are three dozen Lichniks out there who want their lich gravy!" wailed the chef, his breather face ruddy with embarassment. "What am I to say to them?"
"Not our problem," said Shepilov, who had finished rifling around and was tearing off two tickets from his little book of obscure enforcement notices. "You'll keep that shutter closed and stick one ticket on the front. The other is for you to keep."
"Does this mean I can take the rest of the day off?" said the chef.
Shepilov replied with a cackle of genuine amusement and we walked out of the door, carrying cardboard crates of lich gravy under our arms. We were halfway to Mr. Rabbitt's laboratory when a chorus of angry raspings and hissings echoed down the corridor; the chef's news to the cafeteria patrons had evidently not gone down well. Nor was luck entirely with us; we found the laboratory locked, and there was no sign of its resident Mr. Rabbitt. It transpired that he had gone home an hour previously, and taken the key with him.
It was with some difficulty that I convinced Shepilov to leave the laboratory door intact.
On hearing of the situation, the Houndmaster had telephoned Mr. Rabbitt and persuaded him to come in an hour early the following morning, to settle the matter of the lich gravy before the closed cafeteria sparked a full-scale Lichnik mutiny. Shepilov and I returned to the Kennel's damp basement at the appropriate hour to find the laboratory still empty. The key was in the lock and a dim electric light was on inside, indicating Mr. Rabbitt had arrived on the premises - he just wasn't here.
"Hadn't we better wait for him?" I said as Shepilov studied an incubator on the bench. "We're not really trained to use these contraptions."
"You heard the Houndmaster," grunted Shepilov. "We need to get it done and get the cafeteria open. All I have to do is incubate a sample for a few minutes on one of those petri dishes, then run it through that analyser over there... or was it that one...?"
"Oh, you can skip the formalities," said a voice behind us.
We looked around to see the bristling whiskers of Dr. Tsal filling the doorway. They were puffed out like an angry cat, and the Singer himself bore a rather intense expression I hadn't seen before.
"Ah, Doctor Tsal," I said, not entirely pleased to be seeing him. "Got another theory for us, have you?"
"I can do better than theory, Inquisitor," said Dr. Tsal, cracking a disturbing grin. "By all means go ahead and run the test, but I can tell you the result right now. Those lich gravy vials are crawling with Preparation Seventy Two. And so is this..."
He lifted his right hand, which was clasping a rather large hand grenade from which the pin had already been pulled. Only his grip on the spring lever kept it from detonating. Shepilov squared up and reached for his pistol, but I motioned for him to stop. By the mercy of the Shrub, he obeyed me.
"You always did seem the lesser idiot," laughed Dr. Tsal, his maniacal grin now fixed on me. "The moment I let go of this, whatever shredded remnants are left of you will be eaten away by my little microscopic darlings."
"You won't exactly be in prime form yourself, Doctor," growled Shepilov, his hand hovering over his pistol holster. "Looks like we have three idiots in this room."
Dr. Tsal shook his head. "You're assuming I value my life, Lichnik... but my work is done. I've just returned from a visit to your Houndmaster, in which I declared the samples you took to be safe. Your cafeteria opens for the morning shift in..." he glanced at the clock on the wall. "...thirteen minutes. In hindsight I should have dealt with you at the decontamination tent on Slakinovsky Moor. I know of a little... additive... that would do the trick. But it seems I can't wait for you to enjoy your special lich gravy with the rest, so it'll have to be done the old fashioned way."
He lifted the grenade in the air, and without any conscious thought my lich vocal chords spontaneously uttered a last-second attempt to stall him - "I suppose now you can tell us why you're doing this."
Dr. Tsal hesitated, then smiled again. "It's simple, Inquisitor," he giggled. "I asked the Corps to let me test some of its preparations in carefully selected parts of the public environment. All procedures adhered to. No risk of wider contagion. Top secret, obviously. Mister Stretchin was a mediocre sort of fellow. Not one the Garden would miss. What Minarbor doesn't know can't hurt him... but sometimes it can help him."
"And the Corps denied your... reasonable request?" I said.
"I didn't know sarcasm was a Lichnik fashion, Inquisitor," said Dr. Tsal. "But yes, the Corps Command were quite opposed to the idea. Stupidly so. They couldn't see the value of sacrificing one lich for the greater good of lichkind... for the good of the whole Garden... so, I pressed on regardless."
"You've sacrified more than one lich," I said. "What about your friend on Slakinovsky Moor? What about us?"
"You're the author of your own misfortune," said Dr. Tsal. "I tried to take the matter out of your hands, save you all the trouble... but you stubborn little Lichniks had to keep on sniffling, and now it's come to this."
"We trust the Church and Shrubbery to determine what's good for the Garden," I said. "But you ignore their word in favour of your own... you set yourself up as Minarbor's equal... and you think you're in the Garden's grace?"
"When I set forth what's in my hand, the Garden will determine who is most graceful among us!" snapped Dr. Tsal, bringing his trembling, grenade-filled hand in front of his glowing eyes. "And I'm in no doubt whose soul will be chosen and kept dear to Minarbor's bosom. The time for chatter is ended, Lichniks! It's time for... f..."
Instead of letting the grenade free, Dr. Tsal's hand suddenly gripped it more tightly. His trembling increased and his eyes glazed over. The trembling spread from his torso and arms to his neck and legs, every muscle locked hard with uncontrollable tension. Then he bent double and slumped to the floor, his quivering quickly subsiding in favour of an apparently instant rigor mortis. The grenade remained clutched tightly in his now-dead hand.
From behind his curled corpse rose the three legs of Mr. Rabbitt, syringe in hand.
But for the enterprising spirit of our resident pathologist - whom, it transpired, had nursed his own suspicions about Dr. Tsal from the beginning and prepared some quiet contingencies accordingly - Shepilov and I would have been reduced to helpless phylacteries bathed in a pool of ravenous bacterial goo. All the more painful, then, that he would soon leave the employ of the Novodolor Lichniks - a chance job opening had come up in Whisperwood, for the Biological Containment Corps. A prestigious gig for a Deep Singer of science. Although hard to write, I did manage to finish my reference letter for him in a single draft. Shepilov, the Houndmaster and a few others wrote similar recommendations.
We threw a leaving party for him in the cafeteria; and I'm damned if the lich gravy didn't taste better than usual.
