Chapter 15

The grey man sweated with fear and desperation. Training from book and tape had not prepared him for dealing with a real ghost. That pulse to the fusion generator had almost removed half the Alps. If the automatics had not engaged in time.....

"27557, this is Ghost control. Stay calm and orient yourself please." His voice was low, almost a prayer as it whispered through the mic.

Static. No response.

"27557, come in please. You are in a new body. Please stay calm." 30 minutes until his relief arrives. This is one job he'll be happy to hand over. Forget being owed by a councilman. Set transmission to repeat.

Fusion generator building to another pulse - a big one. The grey man's eyes firmed as he touched the memory purge switch. The automatics can handle one more pulse, barely, according to the datastreams. After that 27557 will have to be purged. It looks like 27557 is having a very bad day.

The pulse subsides. Datastreams writhe as the ghost re-orients it's inputs. Pale channels in the datastream disappear. The grey man wonders briefly what they are - subconcious thoughts? Dreams? The reciever crackles. A laugh - from the very bowels of hell.

The grey man's relief found him curled up as far from the reciever as possible. Catatonic.

On the comms screen was the line "27557. Awaiting orientation and instructions."

He always wondered what happened. The grey man never told. He never recovered conciousness.