The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels by Brian Stableford

language human tongues were never meant to speak. ‘The Elder Gods couldn’t save us, Jack,’ he said. ‘The Others were too powerful. But we don’t have to give ourselves up—not our souls, not our will. We have to do what we can. Tell Rockaby that, and tell him to throw the lot into the sea.’
“I tried to do what Dan asked me to, but when I went to Worth Matravers I found that Rockaby had never arrived home after I left him at Swanage station. I didn’t throw the stone off the cliff because I found out that the curse that killed Dan had already started in me, and I thought it best to show it to whomever might be able to help me. I knew Doctor Watson from before, as I said, and I knew he’d been in India. I wasn’t certain that he’d be able to help, but I was sure that there wasn’t a doctor in Dorset who could, and I knew that any man who’s been long in India has seen things just as queer and just as bad as whatever has its claws in me. So I found Doctor Watson through the Seamen’s Association in London, and he sent me to see Mr. Sherlock Holmes—who has promised to find Sam Rockaby for me. But he wanted to come here first, to ask your advice about the cursing-stone, because of what this chap Fotherington told him at the museum. And that’s the whole of it—apart from this.”
While he completed this last sentence John Chevaucheux had unbuttoned his coat and the shirt he wore beneath it. Now he drew back the shirt to display his breast and abdomen to Mycroft’s gaze.
The seaman’s eyes were full of horror as he beheld himself, and the spoliation that had claimed him.
The creeping malaise appeared to have commenced its spread from a point above Chevaucheux’s heart, but the disfiguration now extended as far as his navel and his collarbone, and sideways from one armpit to the other. The epidermal deformation was not like the scaly patina of icthyosis; it seemed more akin to the rubbery flesh of a cephalopod, and its shape was slightly reminiscent of an octopus with tentacles asprawl. It was discolored by a multiplicity of bruises and widening ulcers, although there seemed to be no sign yet of any quasi-gangrenous decay.
Mycroft had never seen anything like it before, although he had heard of similar deformations. He knew that he ought to make a closer investigation of the symptoms, but he felt a profound reluctance to touch the diseased flesh.
“Watson has no idea how to treat it,” Sherlock said, unnecessarily. “Is there any member of the Diogenes Club who can help?”
Mycroft pondered this question for some moments before shaking his head. “I doubt that anyone in England has a ready cure for this kind of disease,” he said. “But I will give you the address of one of our research laboratories in Sussex. They will certainly be interested to study the development of the disease, and may well be able to palliate the symptoms. If you are strong, Mr. Chevaucheux, you might survive this, but I can make no promises.” He turned to Sherlock. “Can you honor your promise to find this man Rockaby?”
“Of course,” Sherlock said, stiffly.
“Then you must do so, without delay—and you must persuade him to lead you to the store of artifacts from which he obtained this stone. I shall keep this one, if Mr. Chevaucheux will permit, but you must take the rest to the laboratory in Sussex. I will ask the Secretary to send two of the functionaries with you, because there might be hard labor involved and this is not the kind of case in which Watson ought to be allowed to interest himself. When the artifacts are safe—or as safe as they can be, in human hands—you must return here, to tell me exactly what happened in Dorset.”
Sherlock nodded his head. “Expect me within the week,” he said, with his customary self-confidence.
“I will,” Mycroft assured him, in spite of the fact that he could not echo that confidence.
    * * * *
Sherlock was as good as his word, at least in the matter of timing. He