It was an October night at the abandoned Duwolten Rail Station with the full moon shining far above, clouds obscuring its face and the wind blowing strongly. Yet the station was a mass of silent noises; leaves tumbling across its outside platforms, wooden shutters banging in the wind, and an occasional eerie whistling that filled the air from no visible source. Another sound entered the noisy silence; heavy footsteps and the creaking of an old door opening.

A middle aged man stepped out of the building and shivered, closing his big overcoat against the chill night air. He slipped a packet of matches out of his pocket and used one to light the oil lantern he was carrying. Tidily closing the door behind him, he crossed the platform and entered the building on the other side.

This was a small hotel that was part of the station. The man was George Tully. He had left all his equipment in the buffet of the hotel and now he set to work. He had more oil-lanterns, and out in the entry-hall he hung them up on opposite walls. He paused to survey his work; the trash he had swept to the walls, how his lanterns warmed the dead appearance of this area. Satisfied, he arranged the rest of his materials on a bench across from the staircase. He owned an old tape-recorder with a microphone he had made a stand for out of a coat-hanger. He tapped lightly on the mike, watching the gauges to see if they registered the sound. Satisfied they did, he sat down and clasped his hands together in his lap. Keeping his voice soft and low he began to speak.

"In the name of God, please tell me who you are. 'Cuz I know you're here!" He paused to peer hopefully around, then resumed. "I'm a friend, and I want to help you. So will you let me help you? Please? You can trust me...." Muffled by the dust and cobwebs there came a soft sound. Tully looked up quickly but it was just a white dove flapping its wings. He shifted the tape recorder then moved it to the bottom steps beside a lighted candle he had left there. Picking up the candle he stepped slowly up the stairs, carefully lifting his feet over the tiny trip-wires stretched from banister to wall. At the landing, he stopped nervously, looking up into pitch darkness and feeling an odd sense of... he didn't know what. "I... I want to help you," Tully told the air. Then he heard it, the sound of footsteps across the bridge coming his way. "Who--whoever you are." A moment later a figure appeared in the shadows atop the staircase. Tully could see light fall on one pale hand. "I want to help you, so in the name of God... who are you?"

For a moment the figure neither moved nor spoke, then inquired quietly, "Who are you?"

Tully almost backed up. This was the first time a ghost had ever spoken to him. "Who..?"

"I am from the other side."

"What?"

"The down platform." There was a sound of exhaled breath, and Tully's candle went out.

Still adjusting to the presence of another living person here, for Tully realized that was indeed what he was facing, it took him a second to react and then it was with indignation and some anger. "My candle! Do you know what you've done?!"

The quiet voice stated calmly, "Yes," and the stranger started down.

"You've blown it out during an important psychical investigation!"

"Have I?" A young man he was, with cropped blonde hair and stern grey eyes.

Tully bristled at the stranger's arrogant manner. "Yes! And that could be dangerous!" He turned automatically to follow as this annoying stranger went down the stairs. "Mind the thread that-" He heard it snap. The young man ignored it. "There's another one there!" The stranger glanced down briefly as his passage broke the other trip-wire. Tully glared down at him and followed, pausing to turn off his tape-recorder. "I'd appreciate an explanation!" he practically yelled.

"For what?"

"Breaking in here and interrupt-"

The blonde glanced back at him and asked coldly, "You OWN this place, do you?"

Flustered, Tully replied, "No. But I'm in the process of conducting an investigation-"

"So am I."

Tully absorbed that cool statement, startled. "What?"

"Conducting an investigation, a serious one." He glanced contemptuously back at Tully, "You'd better pack up your junk and leave."

Tully stared open-mouthed at the young man, shocked by his callous rudeness. Then he pulled himself together and said angrily, "When I was here first, oh no!"

He did not know the significance of how the young man suddenly turned his head slightly, did not hear the voice that reached the other. {Steel...}

"I've been here for nearly two months!"

Steel ignored Tully. [Yes?] he answered Sapphire.

{Anything new approaching?}

Putting his irritation with the man he had found into his response, Steel answered, [No. Where are you?]

{Platform, your side. I think you'd better come here, now.}

Steel turned abruptly and headed for the door, Tully called after him, "It's my ghost, you know! I located it first!"

"Have you seen it?"

"No, but I've heard it!" The blonde turned around just before the door, and Tully smugly picked up his candle. "I've been observing their presence for nearly two months and they-"

Steel interrupted angrily, "You have no right! Not in this." He shook his head and gave Tully a fiercely troubled look. "You see it happens to be more than just a ghost." He turned and went through the door quickly, slamming it behind him.

Tully stared at the door for a long, puzzled moment, finally he turned away and picked up his tape-recorder to carry it into the Waiting Room. He did not see a blackness appear in the air behind him and arrow through the closed door.

Sapphire stood on the platform, hands on her hips and head lifted, intently scanning. Steel asked impatiently, "Now what?"

"The time of year now?" she asked him.

He frowned. "Late October, why?"

She walked toward him. "Not here. Not on this platform."

He raised his head and scanned as she had been doing, but he sensed nothing. "What?"

"It's summer!" Sapphire drew a breath, savoring the air.

Bewildered, Steel asked, "Summer?"

"Yes, can you feel it? It's a summer night, can you feel the warmth?" She stretched contentedly.

He blinked and shifted, puzzled. "No."

"And the air! Filled with the smell of flowers!" She walked by him, intent on absorbing all the sensory data she was picking up. "And the trees! The movement of them! And the smell of newly-cut grass..!"

Steel turned his head, watching her. Firmly he asked, "What Time-period?"

She shrugged, "I don't know."

He moved after her, not liking how distracted she was. "The source?"

Sapphire stopped, listening again. "I can't tell, it's just that... it doesn't seem malevolent..! A sensation of--warmth and calmness." She breathed in the air, enjoying it.

Steel's stern voice cut through the feelings. "It IS malevolent. It has to be!" He bowed his head and said to her urgently, "Sapphire, there are no trees, there are no flowers." To the stubborn set of her lips he added, "There's only you and I, IT, and a man." Then he turned to go through the door behind them.

"It's not locked," Sapphire said thoughtfully. Steel decided not to respond to that and just went in. The room beyond was the Buffet. There were tables, and chairs stacked on top of each other and one of Tully's lanterns lighted and sitting on a table. Sapphire asked softly, "Who is the man?"

Grumpily putting his opinion of Tully into his tone Steel replied, "Some would-be ghost catcher. He's in the booking hall busy trying to make contact with what he thinks is a lost soul." Sapphire smiled, trying not to laugh aloud. "Does it feel like summer in here?"

"No. This man-"

"What's in there?" Steel demanded, standing at the next door. Sapphire considered answering that, then grinned and waited. Steel finally turned around and shot her an injured look then asked again, "What's in there?"

She walked over to him. "It's the reception area."

"Reception area?" He hated it when he did not understand. He also hated it when Sapphire laughed at him without laughing aloud.

"Yes, this wasn't just a station, there was once a small hotel attached to it. A railway hotel."

Steel said sarcastically, "How romantic." He ignored Sapphire's wide smile.

At the other end of the platform, the blackness gathered itself and released a figure.

Steel opened the doors and entered the reception area. It was a real mess; dirt, dust, papers and cobwebs everywhere. Sapphire walked past him and picked up a newspaper. Checking the date she said mildly, "Nineteen forty-seven."

Steel let slip some of his limited local knowledge. "They still had steam engines in those days."

"Why has it chosen this station?"

"I don't know." Disgruntled, Steel turned his back on Sapphire's curious gaze.

She cocked her head and said thoughtfully, "I mean, why choose this place? It's hardly what we expected."

Steel peered up the staircase. "Depends what it has in mind, what FORM it's taken."

Sapphire joined him. "Or whose form it's taken." She started up.

"Oh yes," he agreed, following her slowly. Yes, the man.

"Landing, hotel bedrooms," she told him as she got to the top stair, cataloguing the place for him. Dingy grey halls and shadowy closed doors greeted her eyes. Sapphire turned and waited for Steel to join her. They walked a pace down the hall, and glanced up the next staircase. "There are two more floors like this," Sapphire waved up.

They opened doors on opposite walls of the hall. Steel stared into the one he had opened. "How many rooms are there in all?"

"Twenty." Sapphire looked into Steel's room, then closed the door. They checked the next two rooms and she said calmly, "Only it doesn't seem to have taken up residence in any of them."

Steel grumbled, "You expect it to arrive with a suitcase, do you?"

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "No." They stepped into the two rooms. Sapphire took a few steps in and for one instant her clothing changed, becoming a bonnet and blouse, and a long brown skirt. It was just a moment, but while she didn't see the clothes, she felt it in a stirring of time, a whisper on intangible winds. She stopped, puzzled, then stepped forward and it happened again, for just a tiny bit longer. Alarmed, she called, "Steel." He appeared immediately at the doorway. "There's something happening here, something changing." Steel started toward her, but she held up a hand for him to stop. "Stay there. Watch me." Sapphire walked slowly across the room, then turned a puzzled look at her partner.

"What am I looking at?" he asked, confused.

She took a few nervous steps. "Well it happened just now, twice. My-my clothes, my hair--changed!"

"Into what?"

Sapphire stepped into that strange stirring of time and raised her hands to tentatively touch at the area around her head. As the feeling vanished she dropped her hands and looked at Steel. "It was a light cotton shirt, and a straw hat!"

He frowned. "Summer clothes?"

"Yes!"

He paced, fretting. "Summer clothes, I don't see them. You smell summer on the platform, I don't." He paused at the door and looked back at her. "From here?"

"Yes."

He walked slowly across the room toward her but felt nothing at all. To double-check he asked her, "No?"

She shook her head. "No."

Steel looked disgruntled. "Well it seems to be interested in YOU, whatever it is." They both jumped as from outside came an eerie whistling, two level tones then a high one and a lowering scale of tones following it. Both of them peered out the window quickly at the platform, then Steel dashed out of the room and downstairs across the reception area into the buffet. Pausing at the door he turned to find Sapphire had kept up with him. "What did it look like to you?"

"Human."

Impatiently he asked, "Male or female?"

"I couldn't tell." Steel glared for a moment, then opened the door and they stepped out onto the platform. Side-by-side they walked swiftly toward the other end. Sapphire suddenly slowed down and Steel stopped. They stood still for a moment, startled by the sweet scent of flowers suddenly filling the air. Sapphire turned quickly and froze. The filthy flower pots with their dead sticks and leaves were filthy no longer. They were full of blooming flowers. Softly Sapphire said, "Steel..." She knelt and tentatively touched the flowers. In surprise she exclaimed, "They're real! They exist!" Steel turned around, startled. "The soil's fresh, it's been newly dug. Chrysanthemum compositae, Geraniaceae, cariaphallaseae..." Sapphire catalogued the flowers.

"Summer flowers in full bloom." Steel gazed at them uneasily.

"In late October," an amazed Sapphire added.

"Yes..."

Sapphire looked up curiously. "The man in the booking room..."

"What about him?"

She looked up determinedly from where she knelt by the flower pot. "Does he exist?"

Defensively Steel grumbled, "He's in there."

"But is he real?" At his glare, Sapphire shrugged. "You said it could take any form, did you do a spot-analysis?"

Steel was silent for a moment, then shot her an injured look. "Now you know that's not my territory."

Sapphire stood up and met Steel's eyes with silent laughter. "'Tis mine, you know." She brushed her hands off and rested them on her hips, teasing Steel with an affectionate smile. * - -

Tully poured coffee from his thermos into its cup. He sighed, thinking wearily of that rude young man who so brusquely ordered Tully away as if he had a right to. The blonde seemed quite convinced of his own importance. *He's trying to steal my find,* thought Tully, watching shadows cast by his candle's light on the walls. *Thinks just because he's young he can force me to allow it.* Idly, Tully wondered what the stranger's name was. He started to take a drink when the door opened and the blonde stranger came in, stiff and tense.

"Are you playing tricks with me?" the young man asked.

Tully found the question confusing. "Tricks?"

"Yes. Tricks with flowers."

Ah, that explained the flashing eyes. Tully huffed, "I happen to be a psychical investigator, not a conjurer!" He calmed himself and asked thoughtfully, "So you've seen the flowers, have you?"

The blonde faced him directly over the table. "I've seen some flowers, yes." He was obviously looking for an explanation.

"On the platform?" To the young fellow's silence, Tully shook his head. "Well I shouldn't worry, they won't be there long, they never are!" Feeling uncomfortable under the younger man's steady, suspicious gaze, Tully continued, "Even if you took some home, they'd still disappear later! I've tried it!"

The other's voice was low and cool. "And what about you?"

Tully stopped in the middle of taking a drink. "Me?"

"Are you likely to disappear... later?"

Tully started to laugh. "I shouldn't think so, no." He sipped his drink, feeling this strange youngster's fierce gaze on him.

Steel went to the door and Sapphire stepped in. She met his eyes and then walked over to stand in front of Tully who had not noticed Steel move.

Tully muttered sullenly, "I didn't make these notes to enter-" he looked up at that point and broke off, staring at Sapphire. Standing in front of him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Tall with a slender build, hair like silken gold sunlight... an angel's face and sweet dark eyes. Entranced, Tully stood up because he felt that was the only appropriate way to greet a vision. He ignored the young man who stood a few feet away. "How do you do?" he managed.

Eyes twinkling with affectionate laughter, the young woman held out her hand and replied, "How do you do, my name is Sapphire."

Tully automatically took the offered hand, delighted. "Oh!"

"And your name is..?"

"Oh-eh, Tully! George Tully." Suddenly remembering he was holding one of his shoe pads in his free hand, he set it down and tentatively let it join his other hand. Her skin was soft and warm, Tully imagined she smelled as clean and fresh as she looked.

To his delight she took his hands in both of hers. "Well I'm so very pleased to meet you Mr. Tully."

With both hands closed over Tully's skin, Sapphire began her spot analysis, dividing her attention enough to talk to Tully and send the information to Steel. {Muscular power emission ergs per second, pulse times acceleration, times distance divided by time...}

Tully continued on joyfully, "Well I must say I'm very pleased to meet you!"

She smiled warmly. "I suppose my friend didn't bother to introduce himself."

He smiled back, "No!"

{... spinal contraction enables movement to be made voluntary, or involuntary.}

Sapphire spoke aloud to Tully, "He never does, I'm always having to apologize for him." Steel shot a glare her way.

"Are you? Oh," Tully sympathized.

{Voluntary muscle consisting mainly of fluid and skeleton is commanded at will....}

"You know at first he thought you might be a ghost!"

Tully laughed, "Well I thought he was one!"

Sapphire laughed too. {... carrying nutrients and oxygen to the tissues,}

"Well you certainly don't look like a ghost to me, Mr. Tully."

Tully shook his head shyly, "Oh I'm not! Flesh and blood like everyone else, I'm afraid!"

Steel broke into Sapphire's listing of Tully's composition with a flare of annoyance. [In other words it's human.]

{Yes. Life expectancy of present subject, fifty-seven point zero three years.} With that Sapphire released Tully's hands abruptly and left the room. The dazzled man followed after her but she closed the door behind her, and he was left with Steel.

"This ghost of yours..." began Steel immediately. Seeing that the other man didn't hear him, he called, "Tully?"

Tully masked his annoyance behind politeness. "Yes?"

"Describe it to me."

"What?"

"'It's my ghost, you know. I located it first!'" quoted the young man mockingly.

Embarrassed, Tully started, "Yes but when I said that I-"

"Describe it to me."

Tully glared angrily and thought how annoying this fellow must be to work with. This led his thoughts back to Sapphire. "That young woman, is she, um...."

The young man looked at Tully for a moment and asked, "Is she what?"

Tipping idly back on his heels, Tully tried to sound casual. "Is she a relative of yours, or just a friend?" After all, he thought, they do look quite a bit alike; same color hair and skin tone, even their eyes.

A long moment passed as the young man considered Tully's question. "A business associate."

Tully nodded, thinking that if this was true, the young man was either an idiot or queer. "Oh. Business, yes I understand." He sat back down at the table.

The blonde leaned over impatiently, "Mr. Tully-"

George Tully interrupted, his eyes sparkling. "Of course I always work alone, myself! Not that I prefer it that way, but it's... difficult to find someone compatible, someone..." he looked up and met the other man's eyes knowingly. "Business associate." You are a fool aren't you, boy? He nodded politely to the young man who glared down at him.

The blonde man sat beside him, gazing intently at him. "And that's all you've seen?"

Tully sniffed. "Well it's enough for the time being! I'm a patient observer!" He stood up with his bag and heavy coat on, and walked around the table.

The blonde smoothed his coat, and said coolly, "Two months!"

"What?"

"You say you've been observing this presence for two months."

Tully tapped the barometer on the wall. "Approximately, yes." He heard the young man sigh softly and his thoughts returned to Sapphire. "Been very long?"

"What?"

"Business associates?" he asked, taking the barometer down.

The blonde shifted uneasily, his gaze hawk-like. "Yeah, quite a long time, yes."

Tully raised his brow. "Good working relationship?"

"Perfect," and the young man was beginning to sound annoyed.

"Well that's a God-send, these days I-"

"How long has it been haunting this place?"

Amiably, Tully answered, "As far as I can make out, for just those two months. From the time *I* happened to find it!" he said pointedly. Moving away, he paused and added, "I regard that as an important private and personal discovery! So what's YOUR interest?"

The blonde was idly fiddling with Tully's tape recorder, but he responded firmly, "I'm here to get rid of it." Tully turned around and stared at the other man in shock.

"Not to me." The blonde had picked up Tully's tapes and was turning them over in his hands curiously.

"It's necessary! I--it's of supreme importance both to psychical and theological groups ALL over-" Tully broke off as the blonde abruptly stood up with one of Tully's tapes and made for the door. "You won't get rid of that ghost, you know, you can't!"

The other man stopped, and looked at him. "It is NOT just a ghost."

Taking his chance, Tully snatched the tape back. "Thank you." The blonde shrugged and started out the door again. "But what else can it be?"

For a hundredth time in this discussion Tully wished he knew this fellow's name. The young man stopped, eyed Tully's tape for a few seconds, then came back in and closed the door behind him. He turned to Tully and while he spoke softly, his gaze was fierce. "Whatever it is, it represents a kind of energy."

"What kind of energy?"

"Negative energy." At Tully's exasperated look the younger man said contemptuously, "Cranks like you could never understand it. You only increase the danger."

Offended, Tully flashed indignantly, "By trying to help?!"

For a moment the young man looked taken aback. Then he smiled an amused, sad kind of smile. "By interfering." He turned and sat down at the table, lifting Tully's microphone and gazing over at him. "You're still in the dark ages, Mr. Tully!"

"Am I!!" Tully pointed at the door, "Well at least in my ignorance I'm sympathetic! At least I know he's in trouble! That he's been hurt in some way!" Noticing the other man's eyes stray to his tape, he held it protectively and joined him at the table, putting the tape back in its case. To Steel's somewhat exasperated expression Tully added, "That he needs help!"

The blonde blinked. "He?"

"Why?"

With an embarrassed shrug Tully answered, "It's just that--well I sense it, I suppose. I accept that it's a man, I haven't seen him, but... I just know. And then there's the sound."

Steel had laid down lazily on the bench, purposely antagonizing Tully. Now he sat up quickly. "What sound?"

"Of the things he carries." He shrugged seriously as Steel looked confused. "Heavy sounds. Well not all that heavy, but it's just as if he were... as if he were carrying a lot of bulky objects--bags, luggage--things like that." Steel listened thoughtfully, standing up and removing his heavy black overcoat. Tully continued, "That's why I feel he was a traveller, or-or a member of the station's staff. I feel... I think he CARES about this place."

The blonde tossed his coat onto the bench and walked over to Tully. "He has a... weird kind of interest in the place, yes."

"No! He CARES. And someone who provides flowers, has the power to decorate that platform with beautiful flowers..." Tully chuckled softly, "how could he possibly represent danger?"

"Tomorrow."

"At what time?"

Sapphire's voice called urgently, {Steel!} Steel flashed to his feet, alarmed.

Tully answered with dignity, "To continue my investigations about eleven o'clo-"

"Yes. Be quiet."

The quiet urgency of the young man's tone startled Tully, who turned to see Steel standing stiffly, face pale. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said be quiet."

Steel cast his voice to Sapphire. [What is it?]

Her answer carried echoes of nervousness. {The platform again. Something... changing, something happening!} She stood very still and listened as a pipe joined the demanding drum, and the daylight bathing her brightened and dimmed.

[Tell me,] demanded Steel.

{The flowers have appeared again. And the smell of summer, but... there's something else, Steel. There's something else this time.}

She felt him instinctively shiver, then he asked, [Can you identify it?]

{Just... a very powerful feeling... of hatred and resentment, a strong feeling of resentment. The whole atmosphere around here is charged with it. And that sound, Steel, can you hear that?}

[No. What is it?] He closed his eyes and drifted on inner winds, trying to hear what Sapphire heard.

{It's the sound of a band. It's approaching. It's coming here... and I can hear THEM, marching.}

Tully had been watching Steel intently, trying to understand what was happening. Now he heard the sound of a marching band and startled, he rushed to the door calling back, "Do you hear that?"

Steel ignored Tully and sent frantically to his partner, [Be careful, Sapphire!]

Tully called again from the door, "You hear it?"

Sapphire had not answered him. Steel sent again desperately, [Sapphire be careful!]

She answered him this time, but her voice was tinged with spinning time. {I'm all right, Steel.} On the platform, her clothing changed again and stayed that way.

[Sapphire! Leave that platform now!]

A voice sang powerfully the song the whistler had been whistling, "What's the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile..!"

Sapphire was delighted and paced along the platform. Steel's voice batted at her all a-fire with protective fright. [We're in the waiting room; come here, now! Sapphire!]

She stopped for a moment. Time twisted and left her floating in a sort of calm. When she spoke her words curled softly in a different accent. "It's hot... it's a hot summer day."

From somewhere the voice was still singing, "... Smile boys that's the style! What's the use of worrying?"

The tall young woman with long golden hair smiled wistfully. "He likes the sun, he says it makes things grow, makes the cold warmer. I can hear wood pigeons, and bees. It's very hot..! And very, very still," she whispered, no longer hearing the marching band that still played in some other time. "He's with THEM, you see. It's their special send-off." She entered the booking hall, just a door away from Steel and Tully.

Tully stood at the door and tried again to catch Steel's attention. "Do you hear it? Do you hear that?"

[Who are you, Sapphire?]

The dim, dirty window of the waiting room suddenly was aglow with outside sunlight. Steel ignored it. [Who are you?] he called again.

Sapphire turned around in the booking hall, looking around curiously. She spoke aloud to Steel, to herself. "No passenger trains today. This station is closed to ordinary passengers. The waiting room doors are locked! There's just the girls. Just the girls who gave... who gave them...." She fell silent and dreamingly bowed her head.

Steel moved to the door, ignoring the sunlight streaming in. Tully ran to the window exclaiming, "Look! Look it's daylight out there!" He grabbed for the doorknob but could not open it. Stunned, he turned to Steel. "They're locked!"

Both men looked up as joining the cacophony outside came the hiss and shriek of a train braking. Steel pressed his palms and forehead against the door trying desperately to reach Sapphire.

She felt a melancholy grief, a loss to her heart and soul. The doors at the other end opened and a young man appeared in the entryway. She was proud of him and afraid for him as well. He stared at her across the room and she raised the spray of flowers to her lips. He marched stiffly forward and stopped just in front of her. His was a young farmer's face, hazel-blue-green eyes and fair skin, and he was tall. He said to her softly, "The girls who gave us flowers."

A cue of sorts for her to raise the flowers and pin them on his lapel. She looked up, met his eyes and began drowning in the memories he held out to share with her. The sound of a train pulling out and then... and then... crying in pain as his own life dripped into a growing puddle of blood; terrified as bombs fell all around and fires raged near him oh no, not burn to death! Better a quick death help me! And the terrible burning smell of nearby trees, fear that his flesh would be the next smell before he died HELP ME!!

A whimper escaped Sapphire's lips. Her eyes closed and tears spilled through the thick lashes as she felt his remembered pain. Then he stepped forward and through her, letting her feel the full intensity of his anger and pain. She gasped for breath, then she was released into her normal thoughts and called out, "Steel!"

Night came back abruptly and the waiting room door once again was unlocked. Steel burst through it and Sapphire joined him quickly, pointing at the stairs. The soldier was walking up them.

Steel hissed and ordered, "Wait!" The soldier stopped mid-step.

Tully dashed back into the waiting room, snatched up his cross and put it around his neck, grabbed up his candle and quickly came back out dodging around the two blondes and heading for the stairs. "It's amazing! Really amazing."

Steel aimed his voice at Sapphire. "Tell me."

"He... it is without life."

"An external projection?"

"No, an after-image." She was still trembling.

Steel was startled. "After-image?"

"Yes, it lived once."

Tully babbled in awe, "To think we're witnessing... it's amazing!"

Steel headed forward, sparing the older man a quick glance. "Would you please be quiet?" He ignored Tully's wounded look and moved to the foot of the stairs. To the soldier he asked slowly, "Who... were you?"

Tully whispered angrily, "Surely you can see he was a soldier!"

Sapphire moved to Tully's side, watching the soldier tense as Steel coldly repeated, "WHO... were you?"

The soldier turned around and glared angrily down at Steel. His voice was young and wounded. "Who AM I, more like!"

Steel shook his head and said firmly, "No. Sorry, but you're dead. Who were you?"

Tully read the quick pain on the soldier's face and tried to soothe with tone, speaking to Steel, "Please give the poor lad a chance."

A hand touched his arm, Sapphire said softly, "Please... let him do it his way."

Steel ignored all of that, his attention on the young soldier. "You might as well tell me."

The boy lifted his head, challenging Steel. "Reckon you might as well find out for yourself!"

"All right. What do you want, here?"

The anger left the young soldier's face. He almost smiled and dared them coolly, "Reckon you might as well find that out more." Then he turned away from them and continued up the stairs, whistling his tune. He turned on the landing and vanished, Steel and Tully plowed to a stop on the stairs and stared up.

Tully turned furiously on Steel. "You see what you've done? You've driven it away!" Steel shrugged and started down to join Sapphire. "So that's your threat, is it?! That poor lad! I mean... I mean is that really your idea of evil?!!"

Steel said firmly, "Yes."

Tully blew up and shouted at the blonde, "Well 'tisn't mine!" Realizing the uselessness of shouting at Steel, Tully turned and went up the stairs pleading, "Please come back! In the name of God, please come back. I heard a voice from the heavens saying unto me... blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord from the henceforth... Yea, said the spirit, that they may rest from their labor...."

Her partner was instantly confused. "Great War?"

"Nineteen-fourteen to nineteen-eighteen."

Bewildered, Steel sat down in a chair. "Died here? You mean this was a battleground?" It didn't look like one.

"No, the sendoff was from here. His sendoff. Didn't you hear the train?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"And the women?"

Steel looked up from Tully's lantern. "Women?"

"Yes, the ones who once cheered them on their way, made them think that they were heroes."

A laugh broke from him. "No, I didn't hear them."

"I did. It was something he wanted me to experience, to participate in." Steel eyed her sharply, and she smiled. "Just momentary, I don't think he wanted to frighten me, he just wanted me to experience it."

He folded his arms and glared indignantly at the table. "Why?"

Sapphire considered the question carefully. "Because those women were part of this place for him, he resented what they stood for."

Now this was information he could use, but it still astonished him. "You sensed THAT!"

"Yes." She listened to the flow of his thoughts, his determination to work out this puzzle to his satisfaction.

"Was it the same feeling of resentment and hatred you felt earlier on on the platform?"

She thought about that, too. "SOME of it, yes. But not all of it."

Steel stood up, his thoughts a streak of hunger for data. "So THIS is where it all started for him! His death started HERE!" Sapphire bowed her head in agreement, feeling Steel's mind twist around furiously. He began to pace, grumbling, "Great wars! Civil wars! HOLY wars! You know sometimes I wonder why they bother to send us here!" He shook his fist angrily. "It's not enough. That amount of resentment, it's not enough!" He stalked back and forth, thinking aloud. "He was a soldier! He went to war, he must've allowed for the possibility of being killed prematurely!" Finally Steel sat down, fuming. "No it's not enough." When she was sure he wasn't going to get up again, Sapphire joined him. He looked up at her. "You're sure that was the war he was killed in?"

"Oh yes. I saw his death. It was something else he wanted me to experience."

Steel gave her a long, fretful look, resting his hands in his lap. Suddenly he frowned. "Where's Tully?"

"Waiting."

"Where?"

Silently laughing, she answered, "In the waiting room."

He looked at her indignantly for a moment then stood up abruptly suddenly very worried. "I'm going to send him home." He stalked out the door with Sapphire quick on his heels and they went into the other building. Steel paused and looked over at the staircase. Softly he said to Sapphire, "We have to find out who HE was. His name, where he lived, and exactly where and when he died. What his intentions are."

Tully sat on the bench, all puffed up and angry. When Steel walked in the older man looked up at him accusingly, "He didn't come back!"

"No?"

Tully shifted angrily. "Well I'm hoping, praying if you like, that he hasn't deserted us for good!"

Steel sat down beside Tully. "I doubt he has."

"That'd be a pity, a great pity. I feel the ghost of that poor lad has things to say."

To Tully's surprise, the blonde man shrugged agreeably. "I'm sure he has."

"Things to tell us!"

"Mr. Tully-"

"So I've decided to stay on tonight, not to go home."

Tully could almost feel the gray eyes blaze. "Have you."

Suddenly scared, the old man stood up and away from Steel's cold gaze. "A sort of emergency service, if you like. But no more jokes! I'd rather you didn't make fun of me." He had the satisfaction of Steel looking away rather sheepishly. "I'm not stupid, I happen to realize-" Tully cut himself off as the other man looked at him again.

"Realize WHAT?"

Having the strangest feeling of knowing a secret, Tully found himself able to smile. "That the pair of you seem to be working along similar lines to me." For just a moment the faintest flicker of amusement appeared in the blonde's eyes. Puffily, Tully said to it, "All right then, alternative lines."

"Yes I'd prefer that."

Tully glanced over at the door where Sapphire was standing, and flashed her a 'point made' look. She smiled warmly back at him. Emboldened, he continued, "I mean I'm aware of your... well I suppose your tour de force."

Sapphire cocked her head. "Our what?"

"The way you're able to communicate. Some method of thought-transference, is it?"

For a moment Sapphire seemed quite startled, then she almost grinned. "Something like that, yes."

Tully nodded. "Very clever. And you obviously have a leaning towards clairvoyance also, must've taken years of practice." While Tully was preoccupied with Sapphire, Steel had been rummaging through the tapes on the table. He looked up as Tully babbled on. "Now MY approach to the supernatural is much more-"

"Mr. Tully!" Steel interrupted sternly.

Tully glanced around. "Yes?"

"Do you have any more tapes for this machine?"

Wary of letting Steel into his stuff, Tully snatched his bag up. "I have some, yes."

"Recordings you've made here during the past two months?"

"Yes." Tully backed away as Steel came swiftly over, quite obviously after the bag. "Well I'm not giving them to YOU! You referred to my equipment as junk!" They glared at each other.

"It's still junk, give them to me."

"Oh, no no!" Tully shuffled the bag behind his back but he realized if the blonde wanted it enough, there would be no way of keeping it from him. An idea hit Tully and he said reasonably. "This happens to be part of a record of my research, now I've answered a great deal of questions from YOU, but you haven't answered one of mine." Steel shifted uneasily under Tully's steady gaze. "So as fellow investigators-" Tully hurried on as Steel opened his mouth to object being classed with him, "-a part of MY research information in exchange for a part of yours."

Steel considered that, then smiled and aimed his words at Sapphire. "Tell him." Tully allowed him to take the bag then, and on his way out of the room Steel stopped beside Sapphire and, giving Tully a look of pure malicious mischief, held up two fingers pinched together. "THIS much!" and left.

Sapphire watched him go, then smiled at the frustrated Tully.

"We don't know."

"And yet you say that it's dangerous, it's evil!"

"Yes," she said seriously.

He thought about the impression he had of the young ghost, and said determinedly, "Then it can hardly be the ghost of that poor soldier! The man who killed him, perhaps."

"No, this force is not human."

Her tone left no room for argument, and it startled Tully. "But you said-uh-"

"It simply draws its power from the emotional responses of the human kind."

Tully frowned. "You mean the human soul?"

She considered that, then smiled. "No I do not mean the human soul. I mean responses."

"Like what?"

"Like hatred, anger, resentment." Her attention was drawn away suddenly, time drew a breath outside. Alerted, she walked to the door and looked out.

Tully was shocked. "You're trying to tell me that this force thrives upon the feelings, upon some of the worst human feelings?"

She turned back to him, "Yes."

"Of living people?"

"No. Preferably the dead." The feeling of time moving outside was growing at an alarming rate. She left the room, closing its door behind her. Tully stared at the closed door in confusion then nervously picked up his cross and held it tightly.

"We don't know that either," she answered without looking at him.

"Well you seem to know enough!" he huffed.

"Yes."

Tully had a feeling Sapphire wasn't going to answer many more questions, so he chose his next one carefully. "Well how can this force use the persona of the dead?"

"Because the persona lives on."

"Where?" Tully asked quickly.

"In the atmosphere. It only has to be activated."

"All right, so where does the-"

"No more questions, please." She turned and stood sideways on the stair, her mind elsewhere.

"WHAT?"

"The exchange is over."

Tully blew up indignantly. "It is not! I let your friend have four tape recordings! All I've had so far in return is a few hints about how dead people..."

A door slamming outside startled Tully into silence. A moment later Steel's voice called, "Mr. Tully!" and the blonde came in.

Tully turned to him, relieved. "Ah, just the man I wanted to see-"

"The first tape on this machine." Steel was carrying it.

Startled, Tully asked, "Yes?"

"Had it ever been used before?"

"No." Steel headed for the waiting room, so Tully tried to talk to Sapphire. "It's a blank tape-" he broke off as the woman quickly followed her partner. "-A new one!" he called after her, hurrying to catch up with them.

Steel set the recorder down and asked Tully, "Did you check it before you used it?"

"Of course, I always do!"

"And?"

Thoroughly annoyed, Tully grumbled, "Well I just said it was blank!"

Steel turned to his curious partner. "The first and only recording with this tape was out there earlier this evening."

Tully snapped angrily, "Yes."

"Have you played it back since?"

"Well I haven't had much chance, have I?"

Sapphire interrupted softly, "What is it, Steel?"

Something had upset him, that was apparent. He fiddled with the tape player, rewinding the tape, and then turned it on. Tully's voice came clearly, with little distortion and Tully felt proud, even though the blonde man kept eyeing him suspiciously. "In the name of God, please tell me who you are. 'Cuz I know you're here! I'm a friend, and I want to help you."

Tully fidgeted under Steel's stern gaze. "Well there's nothing wrong with that!"

"Listen!" Steel ordered, sitting on the table-edge.

"So will you let me help you? Please? You can trust me...."

The flapping sound that suddenly came and went, Tully identified for them. "A pigeon." Sapphire smiled at him.

There was a thump, and a crackling sliding sound. Steel lifted his head. "That's you moving the machine?"

"Yes."

"You don't switch it off when you move it?" he asked accusingly.

Tully flushed. "No."

Then the sound changed. It was sudden and startling how the background noise suddenly became hollow, as if in a cave, and there was a humming sound like electrical equipment. Tully frowned, confused. Within the background noise was the sound of someone breathing in quick, shallow breaths. And then a voice spoke, a very young, frightened and helpless voice. "What're they doin'?"

The voice that answered was much deeper, and a bit older-sounding. Both voices kept catching, as if they couldn't breath well. "Radio... radio messages. Making... making distress call."

Steel shared a pained look with Sapphire as the younger voice spoke again. "Jamie's passed out. The air... not enough air..."

The other said sternly, "Then don't waste it talking."

Still the young one spoke dazedly between harsh breaths, "How... how deep are we? At the bottom? Aye? No pumps workin', an-and we're at the bottom, aye? Tanks are full... and we're at the bottom. Right at the bottom..!" The speaker was obviously suffering from oxygen starvation, his repeated comments a symptom.

"Don't... don't talk. Save... save the air...."

The hollow sound went away, they heard Tully's angry voice on the recorder. "You've blown it out during an important psychical investigation!" Steel had apparently been out of the microphone's range, as it hadn't recorded his response. "Yes! And that could be dangerous!"

Steel reached down and shut off the tape. They all stood for a moment, painfully effected by the sad, young voices they had heard.

Tully shifted and asked softly, "And that was picked up..?"

"On the footbridge stairs."

That the blonde didn't sneer or remind him he should know where the sound had been picked up, somehow made Tully feel less angry with him. "But I heard nothing at the time."

"No?" Tully shook his head. "Have you ever heard anything like it before?" Steel was rapidly recovering what seemed to be his usual temper and interrogated Tully mercilessly.

"No," Tully answered, still shocked.

"NOTHING like that," frowned Steel.

Tully shook his head gravely. "No. Only the sounds of the soldier."

Sapphire steepled her fingers and murmured, "Sounds like death again, someone's death."

Steel flinched. "Yes."

"Where were they?" Sapphire puzzled.

Tully glanced at her, "In a submarine." At another time he would have been gratified at how startled the two young people were, but now he was still grieving for the ghosts. "And yet..."

Steel came over to him, "What?"

"Well, our young soldier was obviously from the first world war, and that seems sort of... sort of later."

"Why later?" Steel had shifted to data-gathering mode, intently.

"Well I don't think they had electric pumps for ballast tanks in the first World War. But I couldn't swear to that but uh-" he broke off. Steel had held his hand out to Sapphire and the two left the room. Tully quickly followed after.

Steel stood near the bottom steps and pointed up. "I was at the top of the stairs on the foot bridge. Tully was at the foot here, he-"

"Working my way up."

They both looked at him, apparently they had forgotten he was there. "Working his way up!" Steel and Sapphire looked at each other in silent agreement, and then the woman started forward. "Try the stairs," suggested Steel.

Sapphire took a few steps, the two men watched her anxiously. She stopped and looked back at them. "Nothing."

"What about the top?"

She went up to the landing then paused and whispered softly, "Yes. There's something... somewhere." She could feel time twitch and stir nearby and looked back down at Steel. "It's not very strong. But somewhere here."

"What are you sensing, resentment?"

She shook her head. "No."

He frowned, this data didn't fit. "Hatred?"

"Neither of those. It's more like..." suddenly she stiffened, taking a deep breath as her feelings identified the contents of the nearby emotional field. "Fear, and hopelessness."

"What's the temperature?"

"Cold."

Tully leaned near Steel, whispering softly, "That's odd, I've never recorded a temperature drop there, always the opposite." Steel flashed him a startled look.

Sapphire's mind drifted in shifting time, "Yes it's quite cold."

Steel's voice anchored her from a distance, "Give me details."

She stepped up the stairs and it got colder, she shivered and hugged herself. "It's just cold. But it's a strange sort of cold, like..."

"Like at the bottom of the sea?"

When she hit the top stair, Sapphire stepped into a pocket of light. brilliant clear white light and blue sky surrounded her, high winds tossed her hair. "No, the other extreme!"

"What?!"

"It's like high in the air! The air is thin, it's a high altitude!"

"But it's still dark..?"

Her cheeks were cold, and she raised her hands to warm them. "No! The sun is shining! It's very bright, it's almost dazzling!" Time twitched again around her, then straightened out abruptly, and Sapphire found herself standing in the dark. "It's gone. Whatever it was, it's gone, Steel!"

"And the voices?"

Steel turned around, not liking the situation they were in. "It has to be the soldier. The main instrument is the soldier, only him."

A light wind ruffled their hair and tossed leaves along the platform. "Yes," Sapphire agreed.

Steel glanced at her, then began to pace. "We've seen him. We know this place is a goad to him, that his resentment started here."

"Is that what you're thinking, or what you're hoping?"

"Hoping. I'd rather not have to think the obvious." He stopped pacing and knelt beside Tully's tape recorder.

"That this could be a recruiting ground for the dead."

He picked up the tape recorder, "Yes. I'm gonna check the other three tapes." Steel entered the hotel and started upstairs, pausing on his way up because he heard the soldier whistle tauntingly. Steel got to the room he had appropriated as his and set the recorder on a table, rejecting bedsprings. The taunting whistling drew him to the window, but there was nothing to be seen. Shaking his head, he went back and put a tape in the recorder.

On the platform, the soldier appeared first and then the pilot, then three young men in coveralls. The soldier looked up toward the room Steel was at work in.

Steel dusted off a chair and carried it over to where he was going to sit. As he set it down, he felt a change. For an instant he was clad in a flight jacket, the pilot's uniform. Steel froze, then cautiously checked his head and arms, but he was still in his normal suit and tie. Calming himself, he sat down and reached for the recorder and the change manifested itself again, catching him off guard.

Sunlight streamed through his cockpit and warmed the control panel. He desperately moved to counter the malfunctions, but the plane began to shake around him and its nose suddenly dipped as the engine stumbled and roared, then exploded. He frantically held onto the wheel, sweat-soaked hands slipping in his leather gloves. Falling, falling! No way out! In despair he closed his eyes as the room (room?) spun around him.

Tully glanced up from his book and saw a look of quick horror cross Sapphire's face. "What's wrong?" She didn't look at him, just got to her feet and went quickly out to stand at the foot of the stairs. Tully followed her and spoke very softly, coaxingly. "Will you please tell me what's wrong?"

She turned around, still intent upon the upper level, then finally looked at him. "It's Steel." Without bothering to explain more, she headed out onto the platform. He followed quickly.

Tully stopped, "Look!" The flowerpots were once again alive.

Sapphire's voice was icy with anger. "Ignore them." As he bent to touch the flowers she spoke coldly, "I said ignore them, Mr. Tully. Stay with me." He stared in astonishment at her as she started purposefully across the platform.

"Yes but the flowers are-!" Tully broke off as he heard the soldier whistling loudly nearby.

Sapphire glanced around, her anger palpable. "We must ignore that too... for now." She led Tully into the reception area. "Steel?!" Aside from the whistling, there was silence.

"It seems to be everywhere!" Tully edged near to Sapphire.

"Yes, I know. Steel!?!" She started toward the stairs.

Tully rushed after her speaking frantically. "All I wanted was a chance to try and talk to him!" Sapphire stopped on the bottom step as Tully started again, "The soldier..." he trailed off as she turned.

She was angry, and it frightened him how sharp her look had become. "Mr. Tully, I'm sure you will get your chance but not just now."

He gazed helplessly after her as she started going up. She paused in mid-step. {Steel!} She felt him above her in beaten silence and gently called, {Tell me, Steel. Try to tell me what's happened.} Still he couldn't answer. She glanced down at Tully, her expression a summons to follow her.

"Where're you going?" Tully asked as they got to the top and Sapphire started up the next staircase. He stepped up with her, saying, "There's nothing there!" The words rang in a hollow, damp tunnel of sound. Sapphire stopped and came down a step. "Listen!"

"I heard that."

"Like being in a room under the ground," Tully whispered.

"Or under the sea..." Sapphire reminded him.

"Yes." They stepped down into the hall, and when he spoke again, "Under the sea... we're back to normal!" Tully exclaimed.

Sapphire turned and moved toward the third room down, suddenly sure where Steel was. Tully gallantly ducked in front of her. "I'll go in there first please! You just keep behind me, right?" He opened the door cautiously and they walked in. On the other side of the room, they could see Steel slumped in a chair, his back to them. Sapphire cut Tully off and moved anxiously to touch the chair. "Is he asleep? Or what, is he ill?" Tully asked nervously.

Sapphire looked at him. "Mr. Tully..."

"Yes, can I help?"

"Would you check the other rooms on this floor, please?"

He frowned, "Check them?"

"Make sure there's nothing strange in them."

Tully headed for the door, "Leave it to me." He paused in the doorway, staring worriedly at Sapphire who had turned and bent over her partner. "If you get worried-" he broke off as she looked at him, eyes ablaze with fury.

But she said softly, "I'll shout."

"Fine." He closed the door behind him, glad to be out.

Sapphire turned and ever so gently took hold of Steel's upper chest, ignoring the soft brown hair that capped his head. She pulled him back and as she did so, for a split instant his clothing changed into a flight jacket and the rest of a pilot's uniform. {Steel,} she whispered into the still mind. The body was not his, and fit his suit badly as it was taller. It was a tall young man with brown hair and nearly black eyes, and eyebrows that grew together in a rectangular face, faintly slanted eyes betraying a bit of Mongolian ancestry.

He stared blindly and then spoke, Steel's flatter tones through another man's vocal chords. "Take it back, Sapphire. Take time back. But hurry."

She whispered softly, "Yes, Steel."

The door swung open and a relieved Tully stepped in. "It's all all right out there-"

"Please stay there, he's unconscious," Sapphire said urgently.

"Unconscious! Well let me-"

One more time Tully saw Sapphire go dangerously cold. "Mr. Tully, I KNOW him, I KNOW what to do. Just stay there." The open threat in her eyes scared him to obedience.

"All right," he said quietly.

Steel reached through terrifying distance. [Quickly Sapphire, take time back.]

She knelt beside the chair, intent. {With Tully here?}

He turned slightly and looked desperately into her eyes. [You'll have to. You must get me back, quickly.]

{Take my hand then.} She grabbed his and they twined their fingers together. Tully watched in confusion. {Keep me here,} Sapphire told Steel. And then she began to turn time. Tully vanished from the room.

He appeared outside the door, a tape rewound just a little, "I'll go in there first please. You just keep behind me, right?" Again, the tape rewound to Tully coming around the landing heading up.

Steel held on tight to Sapphire's hand. "Quickly. Quickly!" he gasped.

Tully hurried by the flowerpots heading for the hotel. Time flipped.

Steel fell back against the chair he sat on, the body he had been forced into shaking violently. "Quickly... or I'm as dead as he is!"

Tully appeared at the bottom steps in the reception area.

Suddenly the room Sapphire and Steel were in filled with brilliant sunlight and high-atmosphere winds, Sapphire looked up.

Tully came through the doors onto the platform.

He sat reading his book, looked up alertly and then headed for the waiting room door.

The walls around faded into a brilliant blue sky. Sapphire stood up, her hands tight around Steel's and she hung on tightly as Steel, wearing the pilot's clothes, fell through the air. For a moment the room was back with a terrified Steel in the seat clinging to Sapphire's hands, then it was the pilot, clinging and falling with a roaring engine in his ears and then... then the wind died and the light faded. Sapphire looked down at Steel. He stared dazedly ahead, then pulled her hand down and kissed it thankfully.

Tully spoke outside the door. Steel glanced around, met Sapphire's eyes and released her hand. She disappeared, pulled back by time to where she had been. The door opened and Tully stepped in, followed by Sapphire. Steel turned around and asked politely, "Yes?"

A human was a tape that both played and recorded. Tully stuttered in confusion, "Oh, uh... we've been looking for you."

"Why?"

Tully's mouth opened and closed, his first impulse for some peculiar reason being to ask Sapphire if Steel was asleep. "Because uh-" He finally looked at Sapphire. "Yes why?" and then his subconscious memory jogged him. "Wasn't I supposed to be... checking out the other rooms on this floor, or something?"

"Yes," she answered him softly.

"Making sure there's nothing strange in them?"

"That's right."

"Ah, leave it to me." He left, closing the door behind him.

Sapphire sat beside Steel, noting that he was still very pale. "Remember?" she asked him.

He whispered hollowly, "I'm not sure," and held out a hand to her.

She took it gently, and let her power flicker. "Remember now?"

Steel gazed into the distance, "Yes...." With a gasping cry he leaped from the chair and spun to stare at it wildly. After a moment he pulled himself together and turned to Sapphire. "It was a death. Someone's death."

"Yes, it was your turn to experience it."

"Who was sitting in that chair, the soldier?"

She considered that, "No it was someone else. Another arrival. A new recruit."

"What did he look like?"

Sapphire looked at him. Despite iron control, his face was still white. She stood up and walked around behind him. "He was young, he was wearing flying clothes."

"What time period?"

"Their second World War. But there were no connections with this place."

Steel frowned, puzzled. "None at all?"

"Not during his life, none that I could sense."

If possible, he turned paler as he spoke. "And how close did I come to joining him... in his last flight?"

She touched his shoulder, gripped it tightly. "Almost as near as the real thing."

He turned his head, eyes touched with haunted fear, and then determined. "Yes? Yeah well I've had enough of GHOSTS waging war on us!" He snatched her hand from his shoulder and headed for the door. "It's time we fought back!"

He jerked the door open and almost plowed into a very startled Tully who started to speak, "It's all all right out there-"

"Lights!" Steel said harshly.

Tully stared at him blankly, his inner-mind floundering in brief confusion. "Hmmm?"

Steel pointed at the lamp on the wall. "Lights are for the living!"

"What?"

Slowing himself down, Steel said smoothly, "The darkness is for the dead, right?"

"Well, uh-"

"I think it's about time we got some of these working," he indicated the gas-lamps.

Tully looked doubtful. "You'll be lucky."

"I should think so, yes." Steel headed out the door.

"These lights have been out of action for donkey's years!" Tully hollered after him.

"So?"

"So how do you expect to get them to work?" Steel didn't answer, hurrying downstairs.

"Yes."

Sitting on the bench as he was, Tully grumped, "Well how on Earth do you expect me to light that?"

Steel cocked his head and shot Tully an innocently surprised look. "With a match! Come on, up you get." He picked up his coat and started putting it back on. When Tully didn't move, he said impatiently, "Will you get up and light it?"

Tully sighed and stood under the light grumbling, "But they're obsolete!"

Steel said mockingly, "Well you should know about obsolescence, Mr. Tully!"

"I beg your pardon?!"

Steel snatched up the matchbox and shoved it at him. "Just light it," he said, straightening his coat and doing up its buttons.

Tully stepped up onto the bench. "But what about all the other lamps?"

The other man's response was faintly teasing. "They're waiting to be lit."

"'They're waiting to be lit,'" mimicked Tully. He opened the light's cover, pulled a cord to release the gas, and lit a match. He held it under the light, but nothing happened. After a moment Tully shook out the match and closed the light, stepping down and giving Steel an "I told you so," look.

Steel walked over to stand beside Tully and gazed up at the light. There was a sudden soft whoosh and Tully gawked up at the now lighted lamp. He looked over at Steel, who was quite pleased with himself. "Beautiful," the blonde said. Then he turned and left the room.

"It's not happening now," she told him.

"When it was, did you sense anything?"

"Not really," she glanced around at his startled face.

"NO responses?"

She shook her head. "It didn't last for very long."

Steel paced. "Did you sense anything that was once human?"

Sapphire shrugged and watched him. "There wasn't enough time."

He stopped, then began pacing again. "One, two, three, four-" he stopped again. "So there was only... really a change in the quality of the sound."

"Yes."

"And you think it came from the submarine."

She turned and looked suspiciously upwards. "From a compartment in that submarine, yes."

Steel stalked into the room where he had left the tape-recorder and hit play. Tully's voice came out. "I... want to help you." Snatching up the machine, he joined Sapphire on a bench in the hall. They listened to the hollow sound, faint machinery humming.

"That?" Steel asked her.

"Not as much, not nearly as much."

Steel hit fast-forward and then play again. The hollow sound had a different pitch this time. "How 'bout that?"

"No I didn't hear that."

He sat restlessly beside her. "You didn't hear that and you didn't hear the sound of the electric generator."

She shook her head, "No."

He hit fast-forward twice and then play. The young, terrified voice spoke. "The air... no' enough air..."

"Don't waste it talking..."

Sapphire cocked her head, remembering. "There are three of them, and one's unconscious."

"H-how-how deep-" continued the younger voice.

Sapphire looked at Steel. "Young voices."

"-bottom?"

Nodding, Sapphire added, "The voices of young sailors."

"No pumps workin', and we're at the bottom..!" The voice sounded helpless and bewildered, and so young.

Sapphire drew a breath, reaching to shut off the recorder. "I think--I think that what Tully and I experienced was later than that, when the electrical supply to the submarine had failed."

Steel winced. "The men were already dead?"

"Well there was no air left for them to breathe."

He thought very hard, "And they were all young. The soldier, the pilot, the men from the submarine."

"Seems like it, yes."

Steel pursed his lip, intent. "Young men die in war, it's ACCEPTED, so they can't be using that."

"Maybe they were work-"

He did not hear her. "But they're still here!" Sapphire rolled her eyes and waited for him to come out of this intense focus. "It's supplying them with power..." he paced fretfully. "It's allowing them to use after-images of their own deaths to fight us. Therefore each one has his own death, his own individual resentment."

"Maybe they're working as a group."

He looked quite startled at her. "Collective grievances?"

She nodded. "The soldier acting as head-man."

"The spokesman."

"Yes," she agreed.

He started pacing again. "Yeah, maybe. The spokesman usually wants to negotiate, and he hasn't asked for anything from US."

Sapphire waited, and when he stayed silent said pointedly, "Not yet."

Steel went back into the room, to its window. He held his fingers bare inches away. "Just before I took that crash dive, he was keeping things cheerful by whistling that little tune of his..." He moved away to the chair. "And there was another thing, written on the window."

"Eleven."

Startled, Steel said, "Yes."

Sapphire raised her head, eyes distant as she tapped into a data-source in another time. "The Great War ended with the suspension of hostilities, the fighting stopped the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." Finished, she turned to him and waited.

"There were FOUR elevens." He began to pace again.

She nodded, "I know."

"So do ghosts make mistakes with their arithmetic?"

"What?"

Steel was on a roll, completely furious. "Well this particular ghost made another kind of mistake." He glanced briefly at her. "Wouldn't you say he feels a bit too sorry for himself?"

"Why?"

He sat down, his back to her and a stiffness to his shoulders that invariably boded ill for anyone who angered him. "Showing you the kind of women that sent him to war, haunting the place that gave him send-off."

She softly reminded him, "Writing out the date of a cease-fire he never lived to see."

The tense shoulders sagged somewhat. "Yeah, he's a ghost with FEELINGS. It's almost as -as if he's asking for sympathy..! *I* think whatever it is made a BAD choice in him."

Sapphire nibbled on a nail thoughtfully. "Don't be too sure," she cautioned, remembering the intensity of the soldier's feelings.

"A ghost with feelings.... I'm gonna bring those feelings OUT!" He stood up abruptly, eyes alight.

"WHAT?!" Sapphire turned around, appalled.

"You stay there, watch from the window, watch the platform." Sapphire looked extremely rebellious as Steel said, "I'm gonna bring him out!" He snatched up a board from the floor and turned to her, teeth bared dangerously. "I'm gonna make things REALLY irritating for him!" He tapped the wood against the wall and Sapphire stared at him. "After all HE'S been through he needs cheering up!" he said, raking the wood against the bedsprings. He turned cheerfully to his partner. "Right?"

Sapphire was gaping at him with shock. She shut her mouth and said sternly, "Wrong."

Steel disregarded her. "Just watch the platform, let me know when you see him." Giving Sapphire no chance to argue, he ran out.

She shook her head, thinking he must have been a devil to raise, and went to look out the window.

Steel lifted his head. "I want you to SING. We'll cheer this place up a bit!"

The gleam in his eyes betrayed him with its maliciousness, making Tully suspicious. "I wonder if you mind telling me why-"

He was cut off by Steel's making for the door, carrying a big silver bucket. The blonde grabbed Tully's arm and pulled him out with him. "The soldier."

"Yes?" urged Tully.

"We're going to bring HIM to us."

"How?" asked the suspicious man.

Steel's eyes sparkled with laughter. "By singing his song for him, that's how. But we're not going to do it the way HE does it." He dashed up a few steps on the stairs and looked down. "We're gonna liven things up a bit! Do you know the words?"

Tully found himself suspicious. "Words?"

"Yes, to the tune he's always whistling?"

"Yes."

Steel nodded. "Sing it." He went running up the stairs. Tully clamped his lips shut and glared after the young man, who came back down a few seconds later to give Tully an almost friendly innocent look. "Come on Mr. Tully, let's hear them!" He started whistling cheerily.

Against his will Tully was drawn to begin, "Pack up your t-" he stopped himself, thinking *Dear Lord he's got ME doing it now!*

"That's fine," cheered Steel. Tully threw his hands up and turned away, heading for the waiting room. Steel trotted after him and grabbed his arm. "Tully..."

"Yes?" asked Tully, shooting Steel an angry glare.

"I can't do it without you." He flashed an utterly charming smile and waved his hand hopefully. In spite of himself, Tully gave in. Steel grinned and urged, "Let's make them sound happy, come on!"

In spite of the effort to keep glaring at Steel, Tully began. "Pack up your troubles in your old-"

Steel cheered him on, "Great! Louder, louder!"

"-Kit bag and smile, smile, smile. While you've a Lucifer to light your fag, smile boys that's the style..!"

In the hotel room, Sapphire lifted her head and listened. Tully really had quite a good voice. She smiled to herself and glanced up at the lights to make sure they were on. Steel was asking for it, and he would very probably get it, and so might she and Tully.

"What's the use of worrying, it never was worthwhile, so pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile." As Tully sang, Steel came down the stairs with bucket and stick. Tully eyed him suspiciously and fell silent when he finished.

Steel looked at him. "Again." When Tully kept silent, "Come on, you wanna see your ghost again?"

"Yes."

"You wanna make contact with him?"

"Of course."

The now-familiar expression of cruel mischief lit Steel's eyes. "Well let's waken the dead, shall we?" He lifted the bucket and started beating on it, the tempo of the song and he started singing, his voice pushing Tully into it if for nothing else, to make up for Steel's off-key tones.

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. While you've a Lucifer to light your fag, smile boys that's the style! What's the use of worrying, it never was worthwhile, so pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!"

Sapphire above raised an eyebrow at Steel's deliberate bad singing.

Steel paced as they sang, picking up the tempo on the repeat verse, leading Tully out onto the platform. As they began to repeat it for the fourth time, the blackness solidified in the booking hall. It vanished again in a moment, leaving behind the furious soldier with his rifle cocked and ready. He turned and started up the stairs, then stopped. There was a more vulnerable target than this "Steel" fellow. The soldier turned around and vanished.

Sapphire was still watching the platform when the gas-lights went out in the room. She ran quickly to the hall to find those lights out too. Slightly alarmed, she turned around and jumped several inches back as she almost walked into the soldier. As Tully and Steel began their sixth repeat, the soldier left Sapphire in a hallway lit by blue electrical light. She slowly slid down the wall, clad now in coveralls and a woolen hat, gasping for breath.

As they began the eighth repeat, Tully decided that was enough. "No more!"

"Mr. Tully..!"

"No more!" the angry man stated sharply.

"Come on!"

"No, no." Tully ignored Steel. Looking up he whispered a plea to the ghost. "I'm sorry! I didn't want to do it, really I didn't." As Tully whispered, the soldier appeared in the buffet. "I'm sorry. Please bring back the flowers again, will you?" A self-satisfied smile spread across the soldier's face, and he vanished again. "Let's see the flowers again-" Tully's plea was cut off by the sound of rifles going off. He looked up, startled as the night air was lit with falling bombs, and one specially bright flash of light.

"A flare..!" Steel exclaimed.

"What?" Though startled by the turn of events, when a World War I hand grenade rolled to a stop in front of Tully he quickly grabbed it and threw it as far away from them as he could. It exploded in a fierce ball of fire, and gunfire erupted around them. Tully ducked low and ran into the hotel.

Steel stood in the midst of it all, clenching his fists. This was annoying but he knew better than to let it scare him. Then he realized that it was not him who was scared at all. "It's Tully!" he exclaimed. He went into the hotel calling, "Tully! Mr. Tully!

Tully was nearly all the way upstairs when he heard the guns and bombs outside stop. He almost went back down but then a noise from above caught his attention. It was a sort of clanging, hollow sound and it brought him into the upper hall. At the other end he could see Sapphire crumpled on the floor. Without thinking he started toward her and after a few steps he stepped into a pocket of darkness and electric light, of air laden with carbon dioxide. For a moment he remained himself, stopping in shock. Then his clothes changed to overalls and a shirt over them.

Jamie was slumped on the floor and the other boy was nowhere to be seen. But somehow he knew it wouldn't be long before the other one joined them. Coughing, he staggered over to Jamie and slid down beside the crumpled figure, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder and wishing there was a way to save them all.

[Sapphire?] he called. The lack of response alarmed him.

"Tully?" No response from either party. Though he did not care about Tully, Sapphire's continued silence upset him a great deal. He got up to the hall and stared at the two limp forms across from him. "Mr. Tully?" Cautiously he stepped forward, holding out his hand as far in front of him as he could. In a moment his fingers brushed into damp, cool air. He let his fingertips trace the change from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. There was no way past, he would have to go through. But no sense in not knowing what he was walking into. Steel snatched his hand back and took off his coat. He draped it over his arm and held it out into the cold dampness.

The change was sudden. His coat became a multi-colored hand-woven vest. Looking narrowly over the vest he could see the hall as it was for them. Faint electric lighting... his flesh crawled as something touched his back. Steel quickly pulled his arm out of that part of the hall and put his coat back on, looking around warily. He checked the stairs but nothing was there. He went back to the point in the hall where it changed, hesitated, then turned and kicked open the door beside him. The lights were out in there and he could see the soldier standing near the window.

"I'm the one that's responsible! I'm the one that wants to get rid of you, ME, not them!" he raged at the soldier. Calming himself, he stepped forward. "So why punish them?"

The soldier shrugged. "Everyone has to die."

Steel hesitated, his temper vanishing in the face of this lost young man. "When it's their time, yes. Not your time. 'Cuz you have no SAY, you DON'T belong with the living."

This put the soldier on shaky ground. He said defensively, "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Then prove it." Steel gestured towards a chair. "Shake my hand! Or come and sit down with me!" He moved and sat down. "Come on, talk with me. Tell me your name. Perhaps we can have a nice, warm human conversation." The soldier glared helplessly at Steel, who was rapidly recovering his usual mocking manner. "Ah, but you can't do that, can you? You don't belong here, you don't belong with us. You belong in the darkness! You and your friends!" He stood up and tried to sound casual as he pointed out, "You're dead! Every single one of you."

The soldier glared impotently at him, tears in his eyes. "Not for long we won't be."

Steel held out his hand, eyes blazing with challenge and stepped forward slowly. The moment his fingers brushed the soldier, the man vanished and all the lights came back on. Steel slumped heavily against the windowpane for just a moment, then he pulled himself together and went back into the hall. Tully and Sapphire still lay across from him. He drew two deep breaths, preparing to enter, when the soldier whispered in his ear, "Not for long... we won't be." Steel glanced warily around but there was nothing to be seen. Holding his breathe, he stepped into the pocket of change.

Another identity circled his, he tried to ignore it as his clothes changed into the woven sweater and coveralls. Tully turned his head and asked, "What're they doing? Jamie's passed out," he indicated Sapphire's limp form. Steel swayed, fighting the responses that were pushing out of him. He stepped shakily forward until he got to them and sank down beside Sapphire, gathering her up into his arms. Tully kept talking, stuck in the identity of one of sailors. "The air... not enough air...."

{Steel,} Sapphire called weakly. He pulled her up and they leaned heavily against the wall.

Tully continued, "H-how deep are we? At the bottom?" There was a scraping, sliding sound and the hall tilted sending the two young people stumbling solidly into the other wall. The impact forced Steel to take a breath of horribly thick air. "No pumps workin', and we're at the bottom?!" There was nothing he could do for Tully yet. He grabbed Sapphire's leg and tried to drag her down the hall but the deck lurched again and he fell beside her.

Sapphire managed to open her eyes and meet his. {Steel. Now.}

[I can't breath!] he replied desperately.

Tully's voice echoed behind them. "Tanks are full... and we're at the bottom, right at the bottom..."

Steel looked at Tully and saw no help coming from that quarter. He clambered up, pulling Sapphire with him, bracing them against the wall and staggering determinedly toward the other end of the hallway.

{Steel!} she called in warning.

The second voice, older deeper, spoke out of the air. "Don't talk... save... save the air."

Steel's mind clouded. For a moment he lost control and his identity was suppressed as he said, "Don't talk... save... save the air." He broke free and looked for the ghost whose words he knew he was speaking, but there was no one else there. They were at the interface so he set Sapphire down.

She whispered, "Steel..."

[It's all right.]

Sapphire shook her head feverishly. "It's not all right, I can't breathe!"

"Here!" He grabbed her shoulders in both hands and shoved her through the interface. For a moment he saw her stumble in the blackness beyond, her blue skirt flowing around her legs, then she was out of his sight. He fell exhausted against the wall, and then the deck lurched again, throwing him against the other wall. He was getting really tired of that. He gathered his strength and made a quick dash for Tully. Grabbing the older man's arm Steel hauled him down the hall and shoved him over the interface. Again he sagged against the wall.

"Help us...." Steel jerked around and stared in shock. There were three young men at the other end of the hall. "Please, help us!" They were so young and he knew, knew from what he had experienced just now, what they felt. Even the one... what was his name, Jamie? half sat up and looked hopefully at Steel. Right, get them out too. He closed the distance with a few steps, reaching out a hand to the one young man who held his hand out too. Just short of touching, Steel realized the futility of trying. They were dead and not even hauling them across the interface could change that. It wasn't in his power to help them. Mutely he lowered his hand and shook his head at them, pleading for understanding. He backed away, forcing himself not to look at them again, and stepped across the interface into dry oxygen-rich air.

He stood for a moment inhaling deeply, then looked down at Sapphire where she sat beside an unconscious Tully. Unable to keep the pain out of his voice, he asked her, "You saw them?"

"Yes."

"You heard them?"

She nodded, "Yes." Steel turned around to look back down the hall, but the interface was gone, having failed its purpose. Sapphire spoke again from behind him. "Let's get him off the platform, Steel."

"What?"

"He needs air."

Oh yes, Tully. Steel turned to her. "Fifty-seven point three, you said." Sapphire looked blankly at him. "His life expectancy."

"That's right, yes."

"How old is he now?"

Sapphire set a hand firmly on Tully's shoulder, scanning. "Fifty-two point nine."

The merry light came back into Steel's eyes. "Then he'll survive, won't he?" he said, nodding.

She glared at him with sudden understanding. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Steel nodded, his voice gruff. "Yes."

"Got more than you bargained for, though."

He refused to be shamed. "It worked, didn't it?"

Sapphire shook her head and turned back to Tully.

"They weren't dressed as sailors," he finally said.

"No," she agreed.

"So what were.. civilians doing on a submarine?" he turned hopefully to her.

"I couldn't tell."

Steel frowned and grumbled, "I thought you were always the expert on history."

She grinned at him, "When it makes sense, yes."

He frowned again and then turned and leaned toward her. "When they called out to me for help-"

"They were probably trying to trick you." Sapphire knew then what was bothering him; despite knowing they were beyond help, he felt he should have tried.

But he looked extremely doubtful. "Maybe, but when they did call out...." He hesitated.

"Yes?" she asked, reaching for the thermos cup.

"Was it as ghosts or as living people?"

Oh, this was worse than wanting to help. He really felt he might have been able to. Sapphire said reasonably, "Well it could hardly have been as living people, unless of course you were once a ghost in THEIR time."

"I wasn't."

"Well there you are, then," and she cheerfully poured coffee into the cup, feeling Tully would need some.

Steel straightened up, his brow furrowed. "Well anyway, I don't think they intend to be ghosts in this time-period for long."

Alert to his phrasing Sapphire asked, "What do you mean?"

"NOT according to that soldier." He avoided her eyes and folded his arms, pacing to the other side of the room. "Wake him up."

Sapphire set the cup in front of Tully, and sat close to him. "Mr. Tully. Wake up Mr. Tully."

He stirred, then blinked awake. He was surprised to find her there holding out a cup of coffee to him. "Oh, thank you!" He took a drink, then Sapphire put the top back on the thermos. Innocently Tully asked her, "It wasn't my asthma again, was it?"

The furious explosion came in a most startling volume. "NO IT WAS NOT YOUR ASTHMA!! When you first came here, what did you do?" Steel demanded, glaring at Tully.

Tully ignored him and turned to Sapphire in horror. "I remember now, they tried to kill us!"

Steel corrected him angrily. "Not quite, they encouraged us to die. When you-"

"But you antagonized-"

Steel overrode Tully's protest, "When you first came to this place-"

Tully refused for once to be overridden. "You antagonized the ghost of that young soldier!" he accused.

"I know, I meant to."

Astonished, Tully gaped at him. "Meant to?!"

"Yes! And given the opportunity I intend to antagonize him even FURTHER, if it helps me to find out WHO he is, who his friends are, and why they've decided to haunt this particular railway station!!"

"Well perhaps if you go-"

"Oh if I went out there and asked him NICELY what his name was? I TRIED that!"

Tully remembered very well how Steel had tried that. "Well knowing how you talk-"

Steel interrupted him impatiently. "Come on now, Mr. Tully, are they behaving the way your average ghost is supposed to behave?" He started to pace, then turned and asked mockingly, "Would all your pals at psychical HQ classify them as good ghosts or bad ghosts?"

"That depends!"

"And what about one of your priests?"

"What about him?"

Steel picked up Tully's cross. "Would he give them a favorable report?" he asked, dangling it.

Tully snatched it out of Steel's grasp and glared at him, but controlled himself. "Again that depends."

"They attack us with their own pasts," Steel began.

"I know!"

"With their own DEATHS, Mr. Tully! I saved you from one such experience, Sapphire saved me from another!" Tully gaped at Sapphire in surprise. She just looked back at him, not willing to clarify that. "So, when you first came here..." continued Steel.

Tully turned angrily away from both of them. "When I first came here there wasn't all this trouble!"

"There was no danger?"

"NO!"

"Just NICE peaceful ghosts!"

Tully clenched his fists, fighting tears. "Until you people arrived yes!" He jumped up and went out of the room, shooting back over his shoulders, "Everything was all right until you arrived!"

Steel looked after Tully for a moment, then sat on the table and looked almost apologetically at Sapphire. She shrugged back at him, then went out into the booking room and joined Tully on the bench. He sat with his arms tightly folded and a rather petulant expression on his face.

"Mr. Tully," she began softly.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I will NOT be placated!"

"He has a job to do," she replied, gazing steadily at him.

"And so have I! I seem to have no say in anything anymore, decisions are made FOR me, and look what's happened!" He looked at her finally. "I would never THINK of making a ghost angry! But then that's the way *I* do things, unfortunately nobody seems to be interested in the way that I do things."

Steel's voice boomed in his head. [So what is your way?]

"What?!" Tully looked around toward the waiting room, but with a soft whoosh of displaced air Steel appeared behind him.

"When you first came here two months ago, when everything was going right for you, what did you do?" he asked curiously.

Tully was not prepared for Steel to behave almost friendly. "Do?!" he snapped as the younger man sat down beside him.

"Yes. I mean, the ghosts weren't sitting around here waiting for you, were they?" Steel folded his arms and both young people looked at Tully.

"No. I prevailed upon them to make some form of contact." He glowered at his feet, refusing to look at them.

"Ah, and how did you um... prevail upon them?"

"Well if you must know, I had a sitting!"

Steel looked blank. "A what?"

"A sitting! A one-man sitting!"

Sapphire smiled slightly, "A seance?"

"Yes!"

Steel leaned forward curiously. "Where?"

"In the buffet."

The blonde man gave a perplexed shake of his head. "And the ghosts responded to that, did they?"

"Well they have to, it's a kind of summons!" Tully met Sapphire's eyes for a brief second and closed tighter into himself. "All right it wasn't very successful, but then, it confirmed my belief!"

Sapphire was amused. "Why do you say it wasn't successful?"

"Well I'm afraid I'm not very mediumistic."

Steel looked at Tully steadily, then said, "Sapphire would make a very good medium."

"So?" asked a confused Tully.

"So, why don't we try it YOUR way for once, Mr. Tully."

"My way?"

"Yes," Steel coaxed, "why don't we have a seance?" He leaned hopefully toward the startled man.

"When?"

"Right now."

Tully blinked in surprise, then jumped to his feet and backed away from them. "After what just happened?!"

"Happened?" as Steel asked, Sapphire slid quickly over into what had been Tully's place, and the two leaned against each other staring innocently up at Tully.

"All that business in the hotel!!" he waved in that direction.

Steel gave him a distressingly innocent look. "What about it?"

"Well when I had the seance I was friendly!"

"Well what's that got to do with it?"

Tully stormed in frustration. "Well you've upset them, haven't you? You've antagonized them!"

They continued to look blindly innocent of any danger. "Yes?"

"Well to have the seance now, to summon them now under these conditions would be... would be...." Steel raised his eyebrows, silently urging Tully to finish. "... Dangerous!"

"Music?"

"Yes, on the radio."

"In most cases they would have access to a radio, yes."

Steel looked back at her. "Submarines don't have wooden doors." He was not positive about that, but he was pretty certain.

"Hardly," she agreed.

They stood peering in the doorway. Steel was wary of entering because of the things that had happened upstairs. He frowned, "I heard somebody open an old, rickety wooden door in the middle of the room. Then the laughter and the talking stopped, all the fun stopped."

"Where was this?"

Abruptly Steel opened the door wide and walked on in. No sense in being afraid all the time. "I told you. Right in the middle of the room." He stalked impatiently to the other side.

Tully came up beside Sapphire. "Well, I'm ready." They entered the room, Sapphire closing the door behind them.

She picked up a chair to set by the table and asked Tully, "What about the lights?"

"Hmm?" He was busy pulling stuff out of his bag.

Steel gestured at the lights on the walls, "Mr. Tully?"

"Oh yes, that. Uh, you can leave those but, uh, put this one out, I think," he indicated the cheap chandelier over the table. Steel climbed atop a chair and pulled on the chain to turn the light off. Tully muttered seriously, "The moment's now. A little candlelight I think."

"And the cotton threads?"

"Not this time, no. Would you sit there please?" He smiled slightly as the young man obliged. "And you there," he told Sapphire, indicating the middle seat. "As long as you're sure-" he began to caution.

"Sure?" Steel interrupted.

"That this is what you want to do."

"Yes, I'm sure. Sapphire?" His tone asked, are you ready?

"Yes," she answered softly.

Tully set the candle in between them and lit it. Then he brought out his cross and hung it about his neck.

"What's that supposed to do?" Steel asked curiously.

Tully shot him a glare. "Make me feel better." Tully shifted his baggage, ignoring Sapphire's silent merry eyes. "Hands on the tabletop, please. Now we join hands."

Steel obeyed but asked as he did so, "Is this important?"

"Vital!" Tully said firmly.

Now Steel was even more curious. "Then how did you manage when you had a one-man sitting?"

Tully flushed slightly and replied, "Well I just held my own hand!"

Steel blinked, "Ah...."

"Now then..." Tully murmured, settling down.

Sapphire asked, "You'd like me in some sort of auto-hypnotical state, wouldn't you, Mr. Tully?"

"Yes, please."

Steel looked in confusion from one to the other. "What?" he asked Sapphire.

"It's a self-induced hypnotic state half-way between waking, and sleeping," she replied, smiling slightly.

Tully nodded, "Yes, that'll be fine."

"Right," she agreed and closed her eyes.

After a few moments of silence Steel leaned over to her and said urgently, "I want his name." Tully made soft shushing noises and Steel glared at him. "I want the soldier's NAME."

"Well give her a chance! Give IT a chance. I think perhaps we should close our eyes. Try to share the moment with her."

Steel stiffened perceptibly. "I prefer to stay awake, thank you."

"No one's suggesting that you should sleep..!" Tully chastised him.

Steel eyed him, then reluctantly closed his eyes. Tully followed suit and added quietly, "I've always believed on occasions like this that closing one's eyes is... well, courteous."

"Courteous?" asked a puzzled Steel.

Tully smiled sheepishly, "I've often felt in the past that, spirits are rather like strangers paying a visit." Steel's eyes snapped open and he watched Tully intently. "They're a bit shy, a little insecure. Why shouldn't they be after all-" Sapphire twisted suddenly in her chair, commanding their attention instantly. "Yes," said Tully with relief.

Sapphire struggled and clung to their hands. "Oh he doesn't like this, Steel. He doesn't like this, not from us."

"I want his name..."

"No! No!" she fought his voice now, with the soldier's feelings.

"His name," Steel demanded.

"No!"

"His name!"

"NO!!"

Tully spoke softly, "Please."

"No!" she responded to that gentle voice.

"Please!" he insisted ever so softly. His voice soothed her and she fell silent. Tully turned to Steel. "You cannot be coercive, it never works that way. Now you leave it to me."

Steel glared rebelliously at Tully, then said stiffly, "All right."

"Thank you." Bringing his attention to Sapphire, he began. "Now, I am not interested in knowing your name. Or the names of ANY of you! Only if you wish to tell me." Sapphire relaxed by degrees as Tully spoke. "I want... we want to help you."

Drawn by the sweet siren voice of a powerful receptive mind, three young men sat on the stairs to the upper hotel-rooms, trying to decide what to say to someone like this. Finally, one young curly-headed black-eyed boy called down, "Help us... please! Help us!"

Steel looked about for the voice's source but saw nothing. He recognized the voice of the young sailor, high-pitched and terrified. Then Sapphire leaned back in her chair and squared her shoulders, and began speaking in tones deeper than her usual. "Trials. They said there'd be trials. It was a last minute decision."

Tully prodded her gently with questions. "What kind of trials? A court martial, something like that?" Sapphire said nothing, did not react to his voice. Tully urged, "Was it a court martial, or the sizes maybe?"

Sapphire suddenly turned her head sideways. "What?"

"The trials."

She was not listening to him. "Oh, they were told," she answered somebody else's question.

Steel stared at Tully, who was frowning. Suddenly Sapphire cried out and jerked in her chair, gagging.

After a moment she relaxed again, only when she spoke it was with slightly different body language and tone. Another ghost was speaking through her. "The sea..!" she whispered in awe. "Well it's the channel, really. But, I suppose you could call it the sea. Back by five, they were told. You'll be back by five, be like any other working day."

Tully asked softly, "Who said this?"

"They were TOLD!!" she snapped at him.

He soothed her quickly. "Yes, s-s-sorry now. Tell us about the trials."

Sapphire seemed confused. "We're talking about the trials, aren't we? Back at five... out at dawn, and back by five. Just like any other working day." She fell silent.

Tully suddenly understood. "SEA trials! A-are you... talking about SEA trials?"

Angry again, Sapphire snapped, "Of course they are!"

"Sea trials for a submarine?"

"Yes!" She suddenly struggled in her chair, and as herself said urgently, "Steel! There's... resentment here, there's... so much resentment-"

Tully felt Steel start to move and he said quickly, "Please..! Tell us about the submarine, a-about the trial." He was oblivious to Steel's angry glare.

"No! There's no point now, there's no point in talking about it."

"But if you want he-"

She cut him off stiffly, "There's no point!"

Tully changed his tactics. "You're sailors, are you?"

Sapphire threw her shoulders back in offended dignity. "Of course we're not!! They're not sailors, that's obvious, isn't it?" she added as an aside. "Sailors get PAID to take chances, they get PAID to DIE!!" Suddenly she was crying. "We don't, we get paid to work. A day's work! Back by five, they said. We never came back d'we?!"

"What year was this?" Tully asked.

"Oh, nineteen thirty-eight."

Tully considered. "What are your jobs?"

"Jobs?" she--they were puzzled.

"You say you're not sailors..?"

She was offended again. "Of course we're not SAILORS, if we were-"

He cut her off gently. "Then what're you--what are you doing on the submarine?"

"We're civilian workers, aren't we?! We're civilian-attached WORKERS. Bright futures! Home by five, hah!" She shook her head, contempt in her tone. "That wreck should NEVER have gone to sea!! Home by five, they said."

Tully opened his eyes and sighed, suddenly understanding with no doubts why these three ghosts were angry. "Yes. What're your names?"

Sapphire turned her head stubbornly away. "Can't tell you that."

"Surely you can," he said sweetly.

She wasn't tempted, however. "Anyway, there's no point."

"But if we can help you?"

Sapphire smiled smugly. "Don't need it. We've already got help, thanks."

"What kind of help have you got?"

Sapphire stiffened and pulled on their hands. On the stairs the three young men stood up one by one, and taking a few steps up they vanished, except the last, the youngest who lingered and called desperately, "I want..." he was cut off by a quick demanding summons from the soldier. He clenched his fist and refused the order. "... Help me..! Please..!" The soldier ordered him away furiously, and he finally obeyed, vanishing.

Steel held his breath, fighting sympathy, knowing he had to do what was necessary. But how he wanted to be able to help, oh he wanted to. His voice was thick, "I think they've said their piece."

Tully opened his eyes again and tried to reassure the blonde man. "At least we know something about those three."

"Yes." Steel shook his head, trying to shake off his sympathy, too.

"But isn't that-"

As usual Steel cut Tully off. "It's not enough," he said softly.

"But they volunteered that infor-"

"Oh they like to give us BITS of information! But I want the name of the soldier."

"But I've already said it-" Tully broke off as Steel clenched his fist, sending pain shooting up the older man's arm. "It's dangerous..!" Tully finished anyway.

Steel ignored him. "Sapphire. Sapphire!"

She straightened up. "Yes?"

"The name of the soldier. We still need the name of the soldier."

Sapphire concentrated, reaching out. She shook her head. "They won't communicate."

"Then find someone else, someone... who once knew him."

Sapphire reached out again, throwing an image of the soldier to the faint presences that shrugged it back. "There's no one who knew him," she shook her head.

Steel frowned. "Then go further back. Into the past. Find someone he knew, find someone who was close to him! Try Sapphire. Into the past, into HIS past."

Sapphire spread her mind out like wings across time. "It's a long way back, Steel."

"Try," he demanded grimly.

"It's a LONG way back," she murmured.

"TRY, Sapphire, try!"

"Oh it's such a long way...." her mind skimmed the mental signature of the soldier and then traced backwards to find his lifetime.

Tully whispered, "She mustn't go back-"

"Sh!" Steel watched as Sapphire suddenly raised her head as if she was looking around. "Sapphire?" he asked gently.

She smiled. "It's a warm day! Oh it's a beautiful hot summer's day!" The soldier heard her where he stood upon the stairway and he gripped his rifle, frightened now. "Mmm! There are flowers in full bloom, Ohhhh, there're such a lot of flowers!" Suddenly she frowned and looked very sad and lonely. "But there's no one here anymore.... They've all had to go."

Steel said sweetly, mimicking a tone Tully had used, "There MUST be someone... someone who was CLOSE to him."

Sapphire drifted in that other shadow of time, summoning softly with the image of the soldier, a summons designed to attract someone who was interested in him. And finally, "Just a minute... yes there is someone... yes there is." Someone who had been asleep a long time and was reluctantly waking up to reach for the soldier's image. "Come on, come on...." Sapphire caught the reaching thoughts and pulled the sleepy after image into her mind, crying out as she had to scatter herself to do it. "THERE!"

"NO!!!" screamed the soldier in protest. The pilot heard him scream, and hugged his good-luck teddy to him, scared. "NO!!!" The soldier turned, slamming his strong young mind out to the presence that had woken him up with promises of living. "They're lookin' for me, so you'd better help! You brought us here! You promised!! So you'd better help!!" A whispered answer came.

Sapphire slumped into the chair. Steel's alarm was almost palpable but Tully ignored it and asked Sapphire, "Who are you? Will you tell us?"

The lovely woman suddenly stood up, humming a tune she swayed to, and then sang, "Here we are on Tum-Tiddily's ground, picking up gold and silver!" She set their hands down firmly on the table, looking down but not seeing them, seeing instead a bunch of young faces peering up at her. "Now children, back to your desks, please. All of you!" She waved at them, then walked away from the table. "That's better. Where is Sam Pierce?"

Sam Pierce. The soldier turned white when he heard the name and the way it was said. Oh, oh no.

Sapphire continued, "Late again is he? Always late, that one, always will be." She walked over to the window and stared pensively out.

Steel's shoulders sagged. "It's gone wrong."

Tully gaped at him. "What?!"

"We want the name of a SOLDIER, not a child!"

Sapphire spoke again fondly. "Sam Pierce, I reckon you'll be late for your own funeral." She turned around sadly. Sam Pierce, the soldier, listened to her voice and groaned.

Steel said grimly, "Get her back."

"Now?"

The blonde man freed his hand, glaring. "YES, it's gone wrong, get her back."

Tully drew a breath, exasperated. He turned to Sapphire and spoke very gently. "Will you come back to the table, please? The circle has been broken, will you return to the table?" She did nothing, not seeming to hear him. "Will you come back to us, please?" Steel suddenly stood and started toward her. Tully blocked him with a hand, hissing, "No! No, no! She--she must come to us, come back to us, we sent her."

Steel shot Tully a rebellious glare, but obeyed him and stood still. He tried speaking to her. "Sapphire... Sapphire!"

[Please answer me, Sapphire. Come back to us. Come back to the table.] The lack of response even to his mind scared him and he started forward again.

Tully was on his feet quickly, shoving an arm in front of Steel. "No, you can't!" Tully could swear he felt the younger man tremble, so badly did he want his partner back. But Steel backed away and sat down, leaving Tully to wonder what that obedience might have cost the younger man.

The ghost suddenly woke all the way up and noticed her surroundings. She turned and said timidly, "I don't want to be here. I don't know why anyone should want me here." Steel stared at her, startled. Sudden curiosity at the sight of him and Tully replaced the ghost's fear, she stepped away from the window, hugging herself nervously, but still she asked them accusingly, "What are YOU people doing, sitting in judgement or something?"

Tully made a quick recovery. "No."

The ghost sniffed, "Sitting there like that?" She looked around then and dropped her hands in surprise. "The state of this place!"

"You know this place?" Tully asked quickly.

She shrugged, "Well I don't know it like this! I did know it once, mind."

"It's a railway station."

She raised her head, startled. "Oh!"

"Duwolten Station," Tully supplied, hoping to jog her memory.

"Oh, yes!"

"Do you recognize it?"

With the quiet dignity of a woman who knew herself, she replied, "Well not in this state!"

"You've been here before!"

She clasped her hands in front of her. "Off and on, yes. When it was tidy, mind."

"Of course," Tully said agreeably. The ghost turned away.

Steel leaned forward and whispered, "Tully! The name of the soldier!"

Tully shot him an exasperated look and asked the ghost, "Can you tell us about yourself?"

She shrugged shyly. "Oh, there's nothing much to tell."

He flattered her, "Oh there must be."

The ghost recognized flattery and laughed softly, but she was still frightened. "Look, I-I don't want to BE here, there're things here." She looked around, shivering.

"Things? What kind of things?" Tully asked. Behind him, Steel stiffened uneasily.

The ghost looked at Steel for a long moment. "It's... like a power! It's... using other things. I just don't want to BE here," she pleaded with Tully, backing away slightly from Steel.

Steel asked curiously, "It's using you?"

She forgot her fear for a moment in indignation. "Of course it's not USING me, I don't have a grievance!"

"What do you mean by that?"

The ghost glared at him, then suddenly blinked in surprise. "I don't know what I mean. It's what I feel, all around me!" She looked nervously about.

"Can you--can you describe this power?"

She looked at him, then away as if what she saw made her uneasy. "Not really. It's like... dark. Darkness." Suddenly she came close to Tully, seeking out a familiar feeling of normality. She kept shooting quick nervous glances at Steel. "It's just... it's very dark. It's darker than anything!" Gathering her courage, she glared at Steel. "Anyway, I don't want to talk to YOU, not you."

He was startled. "Why?"

The ghost's answer startled Tully, too. "Because you're different, that's why."

Steel shot her his hawk-like stare. "Why different?"

She was not one to be intimidated by a mere glare, though. "You don't seem like one of us, so I don't want to talk to you."

"I'm only asking you why-"

For a change it was Steel who was cut off. "And I'm only telling you that I don't want to talk to you! Not you." She turned away and walked to the window.

Tully asked her, "Will you tell us your name?"

"Why?" she asked, suspicious.

"'Cuz we'd like to know."

She eyed Tully, then risked a quick glance at Steel. "I'm not telling him."

"But you can tell me, can't you?"

The ghost thought about it. "Yes," she finally said.

"So what is your name?" The ghost stepped close to Tully, keeping a watchful eye on Steel, and bent down to whisper her name in his ear. She gave Steel a 'so there,' look and stepped away. Steel slid a piece of paper across the table while the ghost's back was turned and Tully wrote the name on it. Then Tully asked the ghost, "And were you at your school?"

She was humming and broke off to ask, "School?"

"Just now, teaching at your school?"

"I'm not--anywhere. I'm here an' I don't want to be here."

Tully soothed the upset ghost. "Tell us something about your school."

"It's just a school. Please, I don't want to be here. I'm frightened." And she was trembling. On the stairs Sam Pierce wanted terribly to reassure her, but that would bring him too close to Steel for his comfort.

"Just tell me SOMEthing about your school."

The ghost shrugged. "It's just a village school, that's all. It's just a village school. Please-"

"Who is Sam Pierce?"

She froze. For a long moment she stood staring at the two men. "Sam Pierce...." She turned and looked wistfully out the window. "Always late for school, Sam Pierce. Always late for everything."

"What happened to him?"

The ghost was not listening anymore. "'Specially in the summer. Couldn't keep him indoors for long in the summer." She rested her chin on clasped hands.

"I said what happened to him?" Tully tried again.

She was alternately amused and grieving as she spoke. "He loved the sun, and the soil. He liked seeing things grow. Didn't make a lot of difference really, twelve years. But it did when he was at school! But not after. Not when he was grown up. Twelve years... didn't mean a lot then."

Sam stood several steps closer to the reception floor. He was caught by her presence, by a poignant memory of real love and warmth. He rubbed tears from his eyes and spoke to her from the memory he recalled best. "Oh it's turning hot now. Usually does after a pattern for a winter. Or when there's a frost in March, 'course! Thought you'd known that! You know Hap Goodman's field, I laid out straw there last March, dragged it up there, spread it out. Took hours!" He smiled, remembering the question she'd asked. "For the lapwings! They start nestin' in March! And they nest on the ground, see? So if there's a frost...." He came down the last steps, his uniform gone, replaced by clothes he only remembered wearing. Unconsciously he manipulated the area around him, and the birds he remembered sang, the air scented with flowers, his favorite time of year. "That one there... look!" He pointed toward the floor. "No, by there! Well turn your head then. That's a Pasque Flower." He leaned back, pleased. "Well, when it was in bloom. They're rare! Must be chalk here somewhere. Chalk pasture! Know what? That would've been in flower at Eastertide! And we missed it," he finished sadly.

The ghost stared out the window, remembering as the soldier was.

"So, what happened to him when he grew up?" Tully asked her.

She looked around at him, her eyes filled with tears. "He went away, to France."

"To the war?"

"Yes..."

Sam listened to the children laughing and playing. He turned to his lover, smiling. "I made a highland wreathe, didn't I? Out in Colt Marsh!" Suddenly full of mischief he said, "Take you there one day." She had asked him a question about birds. "Oh, all kinds. Warblers, wee buntins, yellow wagtails..! Y'have to be patient, mind! All right, you bring the bread and cheese, I'll fetch the ale! Oh no! It'll stay hot! You know what? Come next Eastertide I'll pick that Pasque Flower." He answered her, "Oh they're rare! There may not be another in a season or two! Next year... I'll pick that next year!"

Footsteps on the stairs woke him up. The other four were there, wondering what was going on. Broken out of his memories, Sam was clad in his uniform again and he heard above them the dry hissing of the darkness as it brought him back to the present.

Tully turned to Steel. "I think we've found out who your soldier was."

"Yes," the young man answered, brow furrowed.

As he said nothing else, Tully began to feel sharply uneasy. "Then let's get Sapphire back, shall we?"

"Not yet." Tully started to protest and Steel said firmly, "NO."

"But you've got the soldier's name, that what you wanted, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then that's enough!"

Steel's temper flared. "No it's NOT enough!" He stood and moved closer to the ghost. "Eleanor...."

She spun around and glared at him, then shot Tully a reproachful look and turned her back on Steel. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Tell me some more about Sam Pierce," and there was a faint threatening note in Steel's voice.

"There's nothing more to tell."

"He died, didn't he?" Steel asked accusingly.

She glared over her shoulder at him. "Of course he died!"

"In that war."

Eleanor bared her teeth slightly. "Not quite."

Tully was trying to get between them and stop what he felt was a real row in the making. Steel ignored him and demanded of the ghost, "What do you mean by that?"

"Look I said I wouldn't talk to you," she turned away.

"Eleanor..." Steel started forward but Tully shoved his way in front.

"Please..! Don't go near her, please. Any change, any sudden shock could... could KILL your friend Sapphire!" Brought up short, Steel frowned. Tully continued, "Do you want that to happen?! Are you prepared to risk that for information about someone who's already dead?!!"

Steel backed off sullenly. "All right, then YOU find out what she meant by that!"

Tully sighed. "Right. Eleanor... when did Sam Pierce die? Tell me please, when did he die."

On the stairs, Sam stiffened.

Eleanor looked at Tully, tears in her eyes. "It was a shame, really. He should've come home. It was summer again. Twelve years age difference, it didn't mean a lot, really." She turned inward again.

"So when did he die?" Tully asked softly.

"Well they said in the village it was exactly eleven minutes afterwards. Someone out there had made a mistake, you see."

Tully frowned. "Eleven minutes after what?"

She was surprised at his ignorance. "Well after the Armistice, of course, after the cease-fire. Someone out there had made a mistake, that's all." She turned away again to keep her grief private.

Steel shook his head, appalled. "Eleven minutes after eleven on the eleventh day of the eleventh month..!"

"Yes," whispered Eleanor.

"Four elevens." Steel sighed, then he sat at the table. "All right, let's get her back."

Sam was horrified. He turned for reassurance to the others and the youngest, who on occasion challenged his authority, asked him worriedly, "What's wrong?"

"They've found me."

There was immediate panic. "So what do we do? Do we go? Go back?!"

"No. It's all right. It's coming to help. It's coming NOW!" From above them came the dry whispering dead-leaf voice of their help. They turned to look as blackness filled the staircase.

"Well let's close our eyes, please," Tully said.

"Why?" the puzzled ghost asked.

"Because we have to."

She hesitated, then turned a soul-deep look on Steel. "Can I go back, now?"

"Yes," he replied firmly.

Tully looked up. "Just close your eyes."

"Like this?" she asked, obeying.

"Yes. Think about your classes, the students."

She smiled, "Yes."

Blackness crept into the room through the reception area door, inching its way across the ceiling towards where the three sat.

Tully guided Eleanor. "You just think of your village, the village where you live."

"Yes."

"On a hot summer day a long time ago. Do you remember it?"

She nodded, beginning to smile. "I do, yes."

"Can you see it?"

"Almost, yes."

"And the school, the school where you teach?"

"Yes, I can almost see it."

Tully nodded. "Good. Keep thinking about it. Think about your classroom. The children."

"Oh yes I can--almost see them. The sun's shining, it's a hot day." She turned her head. "Open the windows, somebody! That's better." She started to hum the song.

Steel immediately pounced, "Sapphire?"

"Who's Sapphire?" she asked, and continued to hum.

"Shhh..!" Tully hissed at Steel. "Just think of your classroom..."

"Yes!" the delighted ghost agreed.

"Think of the children in the classroom."

The blackness blanketed the chairs behind them, closing in.

"They're all there, all of them. All except Sam Pierce. Always late, Sam Pierce." The blackness swallowed up the immediate area around them. Eleanor stiffened and warned frantically, "Oh the sun's gone! It's dark! Darkness! Careful at the back there! Careful!"

Steel stirred, then opened his eyes to see blackness everywhere. "Tully!" he hissed.

Eleanor was panicking even as she slipped back into her own sleep. "Please be careful!" she warned the children.

An alarmed Steel whispered to Tully, "Have you seen darkness like that before?"

"No, what is it?" Tully gaped, horrified, around him.

Steel started to his feet, his eyes wild. "Whatever it is it's capable of bringing back the dead!"

"No you can't break the circle now, she isn't back yet!"

"Why isn't she back?!"

"I don't know!"

"Sapphire!" Steel called into her ear.

Tully tried to stop him. "You can't wake her that way!"

Steel shook Sapphire, calling urgently, "Sapphire!"

Tully suddenly realized what Steel was going to do. "No you can't!"

But he did. He dragged Sapphire's unresisting body out of the chair and made for the door. "Come on, Tully!" Tully looked around at the whispering darkness. "TULLY!" he heard Steel shout. The blackness got to their table and blacked out the candle.

Tully reached toward Steel trying to tell him, "No you can't... leave...." He shouted urgently, "You broke the circle!" Steel left Sapphire leaning against the door and grabbed Tully's hand to drag him out of the buffet. He slammed the doors behind them and headed for the other side. Tully shouted, "You broke the circle! She could have been left out! Left outside!! Between journeys, between journeys from one life to the next!" He raced after Steel and the woman who was only moving because she was being practically dragged.

The darkness surrounded Sapphire's chair, which remained in a pool of light.

Sam stood in the reception area, tears streaming down his face. His lover's presence was gone, but he tried to speak to her. "Eleanor? Elen? No chalk pasture there, Elen, no chalk pastures..! No birds, no trees." Stuck in his memory was the sound of rifles firing. "There was no one!"

Tully was yelling at Steel still. "We were at a point the sub-conscious had arrived, between journeys!" he bellowed as they entered the booking room. "I mean can't you--can't you SEE that!?" Steel stopped his headlong rush and faced Tully. "Between the school teacher's life and her own, you must NEVER break the circle, never!" Tully was very nearly in hysterics. "Do you know what you could've done?!"

Steel turned away and brought Sapphire to the bench and sat her down.

From the chair in the buffet came Sapphire's voice. {Steel....}

It was lost in Tully's ranting. "You could have lost her forever out there, OUT THERE!!"

Sapphire stood suddenly, she called her partner from the depths of exhaustion. {Steel....}

"Sapphire!"

Tully was frantic, "You could have lost here!"

"Be quiet!"

"You could have lost her!" repeated the older man.

Steel snarled, "I SAID BE *QUIET*!!!"

Tully snapped his mouth shut, frightened again. Steel turned and called anxiously, [Sapphire?]

This time he heard her voice clearly. {Help me Steel.}

[I heard you, Sapphire, I heard you didn't I?] he sent, gripping her arms tightly. There was only silence. [Answer me!] he pleaded. No response. Slowly he released the still body.

Tully stared horrified at Sapphire, then as Steel made for the door he started yelling again. "I was right, look at her! You--you broke the circle and you lost her out there! Out THERE!" he shook his fist.

Steel slammed the door and came back to Tully, seething. "What do you know about out there, Mr. Tully?!"

"Well not a great deal, b-"

"Exactly!!!" Steel drew Sapphire into the waiting room.

Again her voice came calling him, {Steel... HELP me....}

He stood staring at her for several seconds, then sat her down and continued to stare at her.

Tully followed them in. "It's something we've come to believe in-"

"Who is 'we'?" Steel growled.

"People like me, MY kind!"

"Then I shouldn't worry too much about Sapphire, if I were you."

"WHAT?!"

"She knows more about 'out there' than you and your kind will ever know." Steel was smug about that, even now.

Tully shrugged that off and waved at Sapphire's still body. "But she's not with us, is she?! I mean IS SHE!" he shouted.

Steel turned a haunted look on him then bent over Sapphire and gently cupped her chin in his hand. He said softly, "Look after her for a moment, will you?"

The older man gaped at him. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see where that darkness has got to!" Steel replied, making for the door.

"Oh. Uh, I'll come with you."

Steel grabbed Tully's arm. "No!" He cast a worn look at Sapphire. "No I--I need you to look after Sapphire. Please?" he pleaded.

The please did it if nothing else. Tully sympathized with the young man. "Very well." He sat beside Sapphire, gazing at the door.

All five of the ghosts were on the platform. They vanished as Steel stepped warily out the door. He looked around cautiously and then headed across to the buffet. Pulling back the shutters, he glanced inside. The room was empty so he went inside to the table. He was just reaching to touch the chair Sapphire had been sitting in when the whistling started outside. He went out onto the platform.

The soldier was marching slowly towards the other end. Steel called after him challengingly, "Pierce? Sam Pierce?" The soldier vanished. There was a noise from the buffet. Steel entered the room again and spoke with deliberate cruelty. "Sam... is that what they call you? Sorry, USED to call you. Or is it Sammy?" He paused and pushed a chair neatly in. "Well it wouldn't have been Samuel, would it? Not a Private soldier." Sam listened to Steel from a hiding place he'd chosen, lying down against the wall near the footbridge. Steel picked up a candle, then started to get really nasty. "I wonder what they called you when they marked your gravestone? I wonder what's written there.... Or maybe they didn't give you a stone. Maybe there wasn't enough left of you to fill a grave..! Not enough of Private Pierce, left to bury." He set the candle down again and walked nonchalantly into the reception area. "Have you been back, Sam? Been back to take a look? What about Eleanor? Do you think SHE ever went to take a look at your gravestone? To see what's engraved on it?" He bared his teeth in a feral grin. "No, doubt it. I doubt she'd bother. She was too old for you." He looked in the hall then took a few steps upstairs and shouted , "And probably too good!" Sam winced at that. "What chance would you have stood once that summer was over? Eh?"

Sam sat up. Oh, you're going too far, mister!

Steel spun at the sound of a door slamming. "Help us!" The three young men from the submarine appeared on the ground floor and reached through the banister for him. He backed away and they vanished. Steel jumped down the stairs and stopped, hearing music from the buffet, merry voices and an opened door. He looked in. The pilot walked across the room towards him

The dark-haired young man stopped and politely took off his flight-cap. He spoke to the air, "Excuse me, sir!" The merry voices fell silent. The boy stepped nervously forward. "Group sent me here, sir. I've got one more op to complete and then I go home, and he did say sir, Group said, that... as your flight is one man short, and all my team aborted, that you'd-" The boy flinched as if he'd been cut off. He gripped his hat tightly. "All right, sir. Sorry, sir." He turned and walked away. The merry sounds resumed. Steel followed the ghost until it vanished at the door. The whistling began again on the footbridge this time. Steel followed it.