Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 37

"No."

Kim narrowed his eyes, then looked to Chuang. "Tell Jelka your dream, Chuang.

Just as you told me."

Chuang began to repeat her dream, then stopped, conscious that Jelka was staring at her open-mouthed, her eyes appalled.

"What is it?" Chuang asked."That dream," Jelka said. "That is the dream 7 had two nights ago. And in the dream ..." "You died?" Both Chuang and Jelka looked to Kim. He stood, then gestured to them. "Come," he said. "Lef s see who else has had this dream."

Deep in the rock, in the great engine room that serviced the six great shafts, Ikuro Is.h.i.+da turned to his brother Tomoka and smiled broadly. Behind him a row of screens showed images of the ma.s.sive engines that drove the moon through s.p.a.ce Just above them were a further row of screens, each giving a separate readout.

'It looks good, elder brother," Bcuro said, raising his voice above the constant pulse of the engine room. "At this rate we can begin slowing down long before the year's end."

Tomoka stared back at him, his demeanour serious. "You think the Council would agree to that, Ikuro?" he half-shouted back. "You know their feelings on the matter. They would rather we travelled faster and braked harder." "And tear this planet into rubble!" Dcuro huffed his impatience. "No, the new engines Kim designed for us have done their work. We've cut our journey time by more than sixty per cent Isn't that enough for them? We have to start decelerating soon or well overshoot! We've pa.s.sed the halfway mark as it is!" Maybe," Tomoka said, conceding the point "Even so, the matter must be debated formally. You cannot decide for everyone, Ikuro." "I know, I know ... but..."

"No buts. You put your case and the Council will vote on it It is our way now. No single man - not even Kim - can have it otherwise." Dcuro bowed his head. "As you say, elder brother." "Good, now let us ..."

Tomoka stopped mid-sentence. One of the screens was flas.h.i.+ng. Someone was trying to contact them. Tomoka reached across and touched the screen. It was Ward. 'Tomoka? Dcuro?"

"Yes, Kim?"

"Urgent meeting. Kalevala. One hour."

"Has something happened?"

"Something and nothing," Kim answered cryptically. Til tell you when I see you."

And then he was gone.

Dcuro looked to his brother. "What was that about?"

Tomoka shrugged. "Maybe he overheard you, little brother."

"And agreed, no doubt," Dcuro said. Then, more soberly, "He looked troubled."

"Yes."

"Do you think something's wrong?"

"Do I read minds, little brother?"

"No, but..."

"Then wait We will find out what it is soon enough."

Karr was was.h.i.+ng - sluicing water up into his face - when Marie called him from the next room.

"Gregor, if s Kim. He says it's urgent"

Karr reached out and took a towel, then wandered through, standing before the vid-screen.

"Kim ... what is it?"

"Gregor ... do you dream?"

"Dream?" Karr laughed. "Are you serious, Kim?"

"Never more so. Well... do you?"

"Sometimes. I..." Karr hesitated, then gave a little shrug. 'There was one ...

the other night It... disturbed me"

"Go on."

"I was back on Earth. On Chung Kuo. Only it was all changed. There was this awful stench, I recall, and when I looked..."

"There were flowers. Great white flowers everywhere you looked."

Karr stared.

Marie came over and took her husband's arm. Her face was white with shock. "You dreamed that too, Gregor?"

Karr nodded."If s like I thought," Kim said. "Marie, Gregor, get dressed. Then meet me at Kalevala within the hour."

A series of long transit tunnels linked the northern colony towns of Ganymede, like wormholes in the skin of a frozen apple. Athens, where Tom and Sampsa lived, was only half an hour from Kalevala, and as they sat there in the carriage of the fast-link, answering Kim's summons, they spoke to one another silently, each voice a low murmur in the other's head. Do you think it's about the dreams'? Sampsa shrugged. I guess so. What else could it be? A signal? From Eridaml No. We would have heard.

That much was true. Word travelled quickly through the towns.h.i.+ps. But the dream was something else; something that no one was too keen to talk about too much. Even so, they knew at least a dozen people who had had the dream. What do you think it means? Tom asked. I think something's wrong, Sampsa answered, his eyes staring straight into Tom's, seeing both himself and Tom at that moment Back home.

They still both called it home, even though they were many hundreds of millions of miles from it now.

But how will we know? We're much too far out to communicate with them. And even if we did, what could we do?

Nothing.

I thought it wouldn't matter, Tom said after a moment. I thought we'd severed our connections with all that. It seems not.

No...

The carriage began to slow, climbing as it did. Kalevala was just above them now.

What do you think your father will do? Tom asked. Brilliant lamplight spilled through the windows of the carriage suddenly. They were inside the dome.

Nothing, Sampsa answered. There's nothing he can do.

Kim gathered them all together in the Marshal's old study, Hans Ebert and Aluko Echewa the last to arrive. Sitting there on the edge of his desk, he looked about him at his seated guests while beyond him, through the window, could be seen the wooded slopes of Kalevala and, beyond them, the pure night sky of interstellar s.p.a.ce.

They numbered twelve in all, thirteen if you counted the Machine, where it rested in young Chuang's head, looking out through her eyes. Jelka had brought chairs in from nearby rooms to form a rough semi-circle about the big oak desk, but some, like Karr, preferred to stand.

"Okay," Kim said, smiling at Ebert as he took his seat, "lef s delay no further.

We all know why we're here."

There was a sudden uneasiness in the room. Kao Chen - his right hand raking over the stubble of his iron-grey hair -looked particularly disturbed. "Is there any... precedent for this?" he asked, his blunt Han face wrinkled with concern.

"None that I know of," Kim answered. "Chuang Kuan Ts'ai?"

Chuang blinked, concentrating a moment, then shook her head.

"So there are two explanations," Kim went on.

"Two? You know what this is, then, Kim?" Karr asked, crossing his arms over his chest "No. But either if s a real phenomenon - one we've no precedent for - or we're being manipulated somehow."

"Manipulated?" Karr clearly did not like the sound of that

"Yes," Kim continued, "and the first thing I suggest we do is to check all transmissions for the past week" "You think there have been subliminals?" Sampsa asked, from where he sat on Kim's left "It could be one explanation. Certainly it couldn't have been a normal transmission, else someone would have remembered it and put two and two together. Besides," Kim said, "ifs the consistency of detail in the dream that I find strange. It isn't just that we've all dreamed the same thing, but that we've all dreamed about it in the same way.""And you, Kim?" Karr asked. "Did you have the dream?"

"No."

"That"s strange, don't you think?" Marie Karr asked, from where she sat at her husband's side. "Why should we all have it and not you?" "I don't know."

"You dream, don't you, Kim?" Aluko Echewa asked. "Of course." Kim met the old Osu's eyes. "In fact, I keep a very detailed dream diary."

'But you didn't dream this dream," Ebert said, sitting forward slightly. "That's very strange."

Kim laughed, then shook his head as if to clear it "No. Let's get this right What's strange isn't that I didn't share your dream, whaf s strange is that you all did. That"s not natural."

"No," Ebert said quietly. There was a murmur of agreement from all round.

"So what does it mean?" Sampsa asked. "Wait wait... hold on," Kim said. "Before we ask that lets check on the other matter first Let' s see if there is a rational explanation for it."

"You mean, sit through a week's transmissions?" Kan-asked. "No," Kim said. "It won't take that long. I've already asked the central computer to a.n.a.lyse the pattern of the past six days' internal transmissions - on all frequencies and all channels - to see if there are any unusual breaks in transmission that might suggest the use of inserts or subliminals." "So what has it come up with?"

Kim smiled. "We'll know any moment now. I've asked it to interrupt us with its findings."

'Then let1 s discuss non-rational explanations," Sampsa said, taking up the matter once again. "Why would dozens of us -hundreds, maybe even thousands of us - dream the same dream if it didn't mean something." "I'd like to know what triggered the dreams," Jelka said, and once more there was a murmur of agreement "They began three nights ago, right?" Kim asked. There were nods.

"And the last was last night? And that was you, young Chuang, correct?"

Chuang looked about her, then nodded.

"Hmmm ..." Kim considered a moment, then turned, looking at the chart on the wall behind the desk. "Three days ago we went past the halfway mark on our journey. Eridani is now closer to us than Earth." Ebert laughed. "And you think the two events are connected somehow?" Kim shrugged. "I don't know. But I'd say we ought to look at any possible connection, however odd it might seem, wouldn't you? That is, if this isn't someone having a prank."

"Who would do that?" Tomoka asked, his long face deadly serious.

"I don't know," Kim answered, "but maybe a little bit of boredom is creeping in?

Maybe someone has thought to fill the idle hours with a practical joke or two."

"A joke?" Tomaka looked horrified.

"In bad taste, admittedly," Kim said, "but it makes a lot more sense than the other explanation. If this is real..."

"Then what?" Jelka asked.

Kim looked to her, then shrugged. There was a tiny chime in the air and then the house computer spoke.

"Search completed. No trace of any interruptions in transmission." Kim looked about him at the thoughtful faces that surrounded him. "So ... not a joke."

"No," Aluko Echewa agreed, nodding his grizzled grey head, his dark face splitting in a smile. "Unless the G.o.ds are playing with us."

"So what are we to do?" Doiro asked after a further hour of talking.

"Turn back," said Sampsa, Tom's voice an echo in his head. Karr laughed. "Impossible!" He looked to Kim. "You said yourself, not a week back. It would take us several years toslow down to the point where we could even make a course adjustment. To turn completely about would be ..." "Impossible," Kim said thoughtfully.

"Then isn't there another way?" Chuang Kuan Ts'ai asked, speaking for the first time in a long while. "Some way we could get back there without turning Ganymede and the other s.h.i.+ps about?"

"Possibly."

All eyes were suddenly on Kim.

"What do you mean?" Ebert asked.

Kim smiled. "I've been working on something. Something .. . interesting, I guess you'd call it" He stood, looking about him, then gestured toward the door. "Come. I'll show you."

Kim's workshop was in a deep cellar beneath the house - a cavernous place he had had hollowed from the icy rock of Ganymede. The walls were sealed. Wall-mounted heaters kept the temperature at a comfortable sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Overhead strip lights revealed a clutter of standing shelves and benches.

"There," Kim said, ushering them into the central s.p.a.ce between the benches. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd like to know what the h.e.l.l it is," Kao Chen said bluntly, bringing laughter from all sides.

"If s a s.p.a.cecraft," Kim said, walking up to the strange-looking apparatus. 'It looks more like a dentist's chair," Karr said with a slight grimace. "Three dentist's chairs," Marie corrected him, indicating the basic trefoil pattern of the machine.