Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 32

"Never mind, Kuei Jen. How is your husband?"

Her face told him the answer. "Not well," he said finally. "The tape is eating away at him like a disease. There's such a need in him. The G.o.ds know what was in it" "Can I see him?"

"He has changed, Li Yuan. He will not even recognise you."

"Maybe so, but can I see him?"

Kuei Jen shrugged, then, "Come, he's in the second cruiser."

Egan lay there on the narrow bed, sweat covering his face and neck and chest He was held down by four thick, broad leather straps, but he struggled constantly against them, while his eyes looked this way and that, as if searching for something that was not in the cabin.

Li Yuan studied him a while, then shook his head. Now that he had seen it, he understood. Someone had closed Egan's eyes.

No. Not someone. Shepherd. My old friend Shepherd. Li Yuan turned, looking at his son. Kuei Jen had changed his s.e.x to be with this man. He looked closer and saw the loving concern there in Kuei Jen's eyes and, for the first time, understood - and sympathised. And s.h.i.+vered, a feeling of pure indignation coursing through him.

What evil was it that cut a man from his senses and made him believe in ghosts? It was the evil of inwardness. Not the inwardness of self-knowledge but of illusion. Of displacement Shepherd was snipping the threads that held humanity together. He was isolating them. Giving each his own padded, silken cell, in which was kept the image of what that person wanted. A mate. Someone to lock oneself away with. Someone to kill for.

There were no flames, no devils with implements of torture, yet all the same it was h.e.l.l. Ti Yu, the earth prison. And Shepherd was casting them all, one by one, into the fire.

Li Yuan stepped forward, placing his palm on young Egan's forehead. It burned, as if some inner fever were raging. But the contact seemed to calm the younger man. His movements slowed, then stilled, and his eyes, which had been unfocused, now looked straight up at Li Yuan.

"It is not real, Mark. She does not exist She is but light and air. You know this. Deep down you know it" Egan groaned. "No ..."

"Open your eyes, Mark. Open your eyes and look. This is reality ... this out here."

"Go away ..."

Li Yuan turned, signalling to the guards. "Remove the restraints."

"But, father ..."

"Be quiet, please, Kuei Jen. I shall do only what is best for your husband."

Kuei Jen bowed his head, obeying his father.

Li Yuan turned back, watching as the guards removed the straps.

Egan lay there, still and silent "Can you hear me, Mark?"

"I hear you."

"Good. Then you know I am right You must give up these ghosts. You must find the strength in yourself to give them up."

"But I want..."

"Perfection? ... I understand. But perfection is a dream."

"She exists."

"No."

"She..."

"... is light and air. A signal on a tape A fantasy. But you, Mark Egan, are real."

Again Egan groaned, yet it was a groan of despair - of realisation - not of pain.

Li Yuan leaned forward, placing his hands either side of Egan's head, pus.h.i.+ng down forcefully. "Return to yourself now. Return, and be the man you were." Egan shuddered, a great spasm rippled through him like a shock through the earth. He grimaced, his eyes closing, his lips parting, and then... "What.. .?"

Egan looked about him, clearly surprised to find himself there in the cabin of the cruiser. "Where in the G.o.ds' names are we?" "Providence," Kuei Jen said, smiling now, looking to his father in grat.i.tude.

Then, knowing Mark knew nothing of the bomb, his face changed.

"I am afraid we are at war."

"War?" he sat up, instantly alert. "Has Coover attacked again?" "No," Kuei Jen said, taking both his hands. "We are at war with your grandfather."

"With Josiah? Then why in heaven's name aren't we in Boston?"

"Because Boston's gone, my love. The Old Man nuked it half an hour back."

CHAPTER-13.

A trail of smoke.

Hannem lay on the slab, barely conscious now. It was four days since he'd been "infected" and he had suffered a slow and painful deterioration. He had been blind these last two days and as his nervous system slowly rotted, so the natural functions of his body had switched down, one after another. Coming into the lab, Ben paused, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the sickly, stale stench that wafted across.

He walked over and stood beside the slab. Hannem was naked, and in the dim light from the wall lamps his flesh looked so pale it was almost grey. He no longer seemed real, more like a clay model, moulded to resemble a man. Yes, day we are, Ben thought, noting the sheen of sweat that covered the skin wherever he looked; flesh puppets, dancing on glistening strings of nudeopeptides.

And when the dance was done the spirit fled, leaving a rotting hulk, a wreck upon the ebbing tide of time.

Ben stared at the creature's ma.s.sive, bony skull, wondering what yet remained of that vast and powerful intellect he had witnessed; whether some tiny flicker of awareness yet remained. Or was this all? This putrid mimicry of life? Machines. Machines of flesh and blood, of bone and nerve and sinew, the whole thing animated by a force that utterly defied a.n.a.lysis. A force that came and went and left no explanation for its existence, other than the fact that it had once been and was no more.

The fact of death.Ben smiled at the thought Death worried some people, yet when the force that animated him finally left his corporeal frame, then he was happy to know that he would be broken down and used again, his atoms eternally recycled, until the universe ran down.

And that was, in essence, why he could not understand his sister's anger; why he felt he had more in common with DeVore and his love of eternal process - of the long view - than in her petty vision of the individual. For, after all, what did it matter if mankind did die out? Would the universe be diminished by man's pa.s.sing? Not at all. For a finer, better creature would evolve in time. And that too would have its day before it died and was replaced. For that was how things worked, ad infinitum, until the great game ended.

Death. That was all there was when it came down to it Death. Death before and death after. And in between, the bright, flickering illusion of life.

He stared at the body a moment longer then turned away. There were no answers here, only patterns of force, holding out briefly against dissolution. Or until Newton's second law prevailed.

Ben smiled. Yes, in the end, entropy was all.

"Howard?"

DeVore looked up from the wet M board, his eyes distant.

"Howard, you've a visitor."

As Emtu moved aside, Ben stepped forward, but seeing the abstracted look on DeVore's face, he hesitated. "Look, if you're busy, I'll come back" "No," DeVore said, dismissing the woman with a nod, then looking back at Ben. "In fact, sit down. You play, don't you?"

"Chess is my game, but yes ... I can play if I'm pushed."

"Then take black. We're into the endgame."

Ben nodded, as if he understood, then sat, taking in the pattern of the board at a glance. "Whose turn is it?"

A TRAIL OF SMOKE.

DeVore put out a hand, indicating that he should take a stone. Ben did so, placing it seemingly without thought in the top left of the board, by DeVore's right hand. DeVore studied the move a moment, then gave a grudging nod. "So you do play."

"H pushed."

DeVore ran his right forefinger along the length of his bottom lip, then looked up at Ben once more. "So what do you want, my friend?" "Hannem."

DeVore raised an eyebrow, surprised. "I thought you wanted one of the living morphs."

"You'd have given me one?"

"No."

"Then I'll take the next best thing."

"He stinks."

"I know. But I can cure that."

DeVore took a white stone from his pot and placed it, extending his line in the north of the board and threatening one of Ben's stones. "Out of interest, what will you do with him?"

"Make him live again. Like Lazarus."

"Lazarus?"

'If s a tale from one of the old religions. From before the City." "Ah ..." But DeVore showed no signs of recognising the name. Then, "You think you can?"

Ben slapped down another stone, defending the stone DeVore had just threatened.

It was a necessary sente move. "Oh, I'm sure of it I'm good at repairs."

"Is there anything you aren't good at?"

"Relations.h.i.+ps."

DeVore laughed at that. "You should build yourself a mate."

"Like you did?"

DeVore nodded. "You and I... we need compliance, neh? That sister of yours, I bet she's a handful."

"She hates you, you know."

DeVore grinned, showing his teeth. "Oh, I know. I could fed it What"s that saying you English have? A look like daggers'?" He laughed. "I was well and truly stabbed that night""Thafs why she left me." "So I understand." DeVore met his eyes, no sign of any remorse or contrition in his own. "Your move."

Ben looked. DeVore had placed another stone in the same group, pus.h.i.+ng him into yet another defensive move. That was, unless he decided to relinquish that small group and go for something bigger.

"By the way," DeVore said, "I've heard your tapes were a great success. You're the toast of America. Or would be, if anyone bothered to climb out of their sh.e.l.ls."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. If s worked like a dream. My agents tell me that Boston was a ghost town."

"Was?"

DeVore looked up, surprised. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Old Man Egan nuked the place. Yesterday at sunset Took out the whole d.a.m.n government at a stroke."

Ben sat back, astonished. And here was DeVore, playing wei chi as if nothing had happened!

"So why haven't you made a move?"

"Because I'm waiting... for the dust to settle, if you like. I want to see if anyone makes a move to fill the void."

"Coover, for instance?"

"Or Old Man Egan himself."

"And if they do?"

"I make a deal with them."