Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 40

And maybe that was necessary if they were to protect themselves psychologically from that void. For if that void reached them and touched their hearts, what then would transpire?

It was all uncharted territory.

Ebert stretched his neck and shoulders, feeling weary now. But his thoughts were restless. Since he'd had the dream -since he'd glanced behind the wall of sleep and seen his fate -he had thought of little else. At times like this he wished for his old unconscious self, wished that he did not feel so much for those who suffered. To be blind to all that and at peace again.

And that, perhaps, was why his own death did not trouble him, for at least with death would come rest and a cessation of this constant ache. The ache of responsibility.

In a fit of frustration he smashed his fist against the gla.s.s. "I am not my brother's keeper!"

But it was not so. Kick as he might against it, his fate was set He had to go back. Yes, and die, if what he'd seen was true. Because he was Tsou Tsai Hei, the Walker in the Darkness, and he had been granted a vision of the path's end. And as he thought that, so Tuan Ti Fo's words came to him, from that time on Mars when he had first met the old man: "Am I to tell you everything? No, Tsou Tsai Hei, that is for you to learn. Study them. Be as them. The truth witt follow. You are to stay here, to finish the work that time has begun in you. To wait here, among these hidden works of darkness. Until the call comes."

Karr slumped down into the chair, then sat back, stifling a yawn. This was the worst of it - the inactivity; the feeling that it didn't matter what one did or didn't do. It undermined him. Slowly, day by day, he felt himself eroded by it He stared at the screen. On it was a table of figures, showing their relative position to the nearest stars, their speed, the temperature of the engines, and other things. The figures had not changed for three hours now, or if they had, it had been so minor a change - a decimal point or two - that he hadn't noticed.

"AiyaT

The two young guards on the far side of the bridge turned, looking across at Karr, surprised.

"Marshal?" one of them asked, thinking that something must be wrong. But Karr simply shrugged. "If s okay, boy. If s just..."The screen changed suddenly. The tables vanished, replaced by a familiar face.

"Hans? ... What in the void's name do you want?" Ebert smiled. "I need to talk, Gregor. I've had another dream." Karr frowned. He didn't like these dreams. No more than Kao Chen did. "Was it like the first?"

"No, no it..." Ebert shook his head. "The thing is, I've seen into the future, Gregor. I've seen my own death."

"Impossible."

"I know. I realise how it sounds, but Fve seen it, as clearly as if I was there. And I've seen other things, too. I've seen you and Chen standing together in the courtyard of a strange building. A strange structure of jet-black stone that looked as if it had been built into the walls of a giant well." "I don't know any place like that you describe." "No, but you were there, as you look now. And Chen, too, with his fine white hair."

"And you? You say you saw your own death?" "Yes. I was with you, back on Chung Kuo. There were six of us, in two craft" "But Kim has ..." "... only made one, I know. And yet I saw it, as clearly as if I was remembering it"

Karr closed his eyes a moment, rubbing at his temples as if he was suffering from a migraine. Then he looked back at Ebert again. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I find all this hard to take in. If s... well, if s as if reality were coming to an end. These dreams ... they're like the fraying of an old doth." 'Tes," Ebert said. "So it is, old friend. And we shall be there for the weaving of the new."

Jelka stood at the window of the tower, her hand resting on the chair's back as she looked out over the stand of trees. From where she was she could see the clearing of the seven pines and, through the trees, the figures of Kim and Sampsa. She had been wondering what had been said between them earlier to make Kim so quiet, and had thought that perhaps they'd argued, but things seemed all right now between them. She saw them smile and laugh and felt herself relax. She was about to turn away, when the fit began. The sensation was familiar - it had happened many times since her illness - but she had not been troubled by it for some time. Now it swept her up, like a great wind rus.h.i.+ng through her head and overwhelming her senses.

She staggered, then held onto the chair back. Yet even as she did, she saw the vision, there above the clearing where Kim and Sampsa stood. They were still there, but now, in the sky directly over them, maybe half a kilometre up from the moon's dark surface, burned a ma.s.sive wheel of fire, its fierce light reflecting back off the curved surface of the dome and illuminating the whole of the plain surrounding Kalevala.

"Aiya!" she whispered, her golden eyes flaming fiercely in that unearthly light It was not, she knew, a dream - leastways not a waking dream - but a real and genuine stochastic vision. A glimpse of what would be. She wanted to cry out, to warn Kim and Sampsa, but they seemed to know. They pointed at it, laughing, then turned to look up at her. Jelka stared at them a moment, then looked back at the fiery circle, s.h.i.+elding her golden eyes against its glare. Through her fingers she could see that it was not a solid, sustained image. It seemed to flicker ... to somehow oscillate even as it turned, like a film that has had every second frame blanked. And then, as suddenly as it came, it was gone.

Jelka dropped onto her knees, a sudden cold throughout her body. The darkness of the sky outside now seemed a shock. She groaned, then put her hands up to her head, the pains in her head - yet another familiar symptom - beginning with a vengeance.

What was that? What in the G.o.ds' names was that? She had seen many small things in the past; little things that subsequently came to pa.s.s. But this time she would have to tell him.

T.

And risk Mm thinking you mad?

Yes, even that. For she had never had a fit so strong, so... vivid.

Even with her eyes closed she could still see it, as if the image had been burned onto her retinas.

Like a snake, she thought, remembering what Kim had said. A great snake of fire, swattounng its tad.

Dcuro sat alone in his room, staring at the diagram on the screen. He had spent the last two hours designing what he was looking at and still he was not happy with it It looked vaguely like what he had seen in Kim's workshop, but there was still something about it that was wrong. Something he'd overlooked. It was at times like this that he wished he had a memory like Kim's, that once he had seen a thing he could not forget it. Eidetic they called that. But it wasn't only that that made Kim a great man. He had watched him often these past six years and seen how - like a magician - he conjured answers from the air. Or from within himself, which was the same. Ikuro s.h.i.+vered. It was cold in the room. No doubt Tomoka had been turning down the heating once again. Getting up, he walked over to the cupboard and got down a sweater, pulling it on.

Better, he thought, sitting back in front of the screen, half frowning at it in his attempt to work out what he'd missed.

A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p with no engines and no hull. A craft that, in essence, was but an array of seats.

He laughed. Who else but a madman or a genius would think of such? There was a knock. Dcuro turned in the swivel chair, faring the door. "Who is it?" A head popped round the door. "Ikuro? Can I have a word with you?" It was Ebert Dcuro smiled and got up. "Of course. Come in."

Ebert stopped, looking blindly at the screen, then nodded. "There. Thafs how I saw it" Dcuro shrugged. "It's not quite right But I can't figure out..." "No," Ebert said, with a certainty Dcuro found strange. "Thafs it exactly. I saw it Like that, without the fans."

"The fans!" Dcuro slapped his forehead, then went to sit down and change the image, but Ebert stopped him.

"No. Save that, as it is. Or better still, print up a copy. We'll take it to show Kim."

"Kim?" Dcuro turned back, looking up at Ebert "I don't understand."

"No," Ebert said. "But you will. Just trust me, Dcuro. You will."

Back in his study, Kim set to work at once, gripped by a sudden and immense excitement.

Going over to the big touch-screen in the corner of the room, he took the stylus and began to write down the three equations he had jotted on the blackboard by the pool, only this time he did not write them one atop the other, but s.p.a.ced them out, so that they formed a triangle.

Three points on a circle. Or almost so, for he saw now that he had only half the picture. The rest...

Kim laughed aloud, surprised by the simplicity of it, amazed now that he had not seen it before. But that was always the way of things. What afterwards seemed obvious was - before that all-important moment of insight - as opaque as death itself: a barrier that no man's mind could cross. But cross it he had.

Taking the first of the equations, he reversed it, changing two of its elements and transforming it in the process. Satisfied, he wrote it down to the right of the original, just below it Now that he'd done so, he could see how it linked directly to the second of his equations that lay at the next point clockwise about the emerging circle.Again he reversed the equation, changing two of its elements. Once more the new equation fitted like a link in a chain. And then the last, again more or less a reversal of what he already had, yet at the same time a total transformation of the original.

He stepped back, staring at the great circle of equations in wonder, seeing suddenly the connection not merely between each point on the circle's edge, but between every single part It was not just a circle, it was a web. And each strand of that web contained a distorted mirror of each other strand, harmonics in a great chord.

Kim felt a s.h.i.+ver go through him. Whatever else he had done in his entire life, none of it matched what he had achieved here in this single diagram. "Save and store," he said quietly, almost afraid to speak "Kim?"

He turned. Jelka was standing there, just inside the doorway.

"This is it," he said. "What I've been looking for." "A wheel of fire," she said, looking at him, not the diagram. "I saw it, Kim. I saw it in the air above Kalevala. A great wheel of fire in the air, and you and Sampsa laughing and pointing up at it "You saw it?"

"Yes. And it vM happen. I know it will. I've seen things before Things that have subsequently come true."

"Ahh ..." He didn't know quite what to say.

"I know it seems like madness, Kim, but... it happens. It really does happen. If s to do with the sickness. At least, I think it is. I didn't have them before." "And the dream?"

Jelka shook her head. "No. The dream was something different" She walked across and stood before the screen.

"It's like the Ywe Lung," she said.

Kim nodded. He had not seen it before, but now that she had pointed it out to him, it was curiously like the great wheel of dragons of the Seven which had once been the symbol of their authority over Chung Kuo. "Maybe they knew," he said. "Knew but... didn't know."

She laughed at that "How can you know but not know?" "If s easy," he said. "I knew. But I didn't know I knew until just now. Even so, it was there inside me. And you - if your vision was real - knew that it was." "That's too deep for me, Kim. But this... if this is true... if this works ... well, what does it mean?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "But if I'm even vaguely close with my guesses, then life is going to get a whole lot more complicated round here." "Yes, but how?"

He hesitated, not wanting to tell her what had been going through his mind, then shrugged. "Lef s wait and see, huh? Lef s just wait and see."

That night, as Jelka lay beside him, sleeping, Kim found himself returning to the thought he'd had while talking to her earlier. All the while he had thought only of the practical use of the equations - of how to find a power source for his craft Energy. It had all come down to energy. But now that he had the answer, all manner of other things - peripheral things - had popped into his mind.

He had thought only of using that surface between realities to launch his little s.h.i.+p. But if one could unlock the door to another universe, then what stopped one from stepping through and entering that other s.p.a.ce? And what exactly would one find there?

MUeja, perhaps ... And my mother, Anna, too. Only a different Anna, an altogether different MUeja ...

The thought disturbed him.

Just how different would it be? Or would it be different at all? The truth was, he didn't know. And he couldn't begin to guess. Only by going there would he know.

The equations aside, he wasn't even certain that he could just step through. Maybe something in the composition of himself - something beyond simple cell structure, something implicit in the reality in which he existed and of which he was a part - prevented him from slipping across that great dividing line. He did not know. Nor would he know, until he tried. But did he dare?

That was the big question. Did he dare? Was he confident enough to risk taking that single step that changed the rules of everything? I'll sleep on it, he thought, conscious of Jelka's soft breathing, of her warmth pressed against his side.

And as he slipped down into the dark well of sleep, he had a momentary vision of himself, elsewhere - in that other place, perhaps - tucked in beside another Jelka, the same and yet entirely different. Mirrors, he thought once more, and, yawning, turned onto his side. It's all done with mirrors ...

It was night on Ganymede. Beyond the dome of Kalevala the stars burned down, peppering the interstellar blackness.

In the shadows of Kim's study, the silence was profound. One moment the room was empty, the next two figures stood before the corner screen. The screen, which had been dark, now glowed with a low, dull light, in the midst of which Kim's diagram burned with a strange dark brilliance. "Finally," one of them said, speaking in a tongue that was unlike any that had been heard by human ears.

"Yes," the other agreed, studying the elegant equations. The two figures seemed to flicker, like a film in which every second frame has been removed. They were unearthly tall - tall beyond human measure - and vague in the sense that a human eye would have found it hard to discern exactly where their outlines lay. Moreover, they seemed not merely colourless but without colour, though not transparent If colour there was, it was of a hue outside the normal spectrum. A colour out of s.p.a.ce. The two looked to each other. "It's almost time."

"Almost."

The screen glow died. The room was empty. Outside, beyond the silent dome, the eternal stars burned down as they had since time began - like a thousand million tiny windows breaching the living dark.

The darkness s.h.i.+mmered.

It was almost time.

CHAPTER-16.

THE PLACE OF INNER DARK.

"Friends! What an unexpected pleasure."

Kim stood back, smiling broadly as the three men came into the room, Dcuro and Aluko Echewa first, Ebert the last to enter, the two tiny camera probes slowly circling his head.

"You've timed it well," Kim went on, going over to the screen and switching it on. "I've something to show you."

"We know," Ebert said. "The equations."

Kim turned, astonished. "You know?"

"I saw it In my dream."

Kim blinked. "I don't understand. First Jelka, then ..." "Here," Ebert said, handing Kim a folded slip of paper. "This will explain."

Kim unfolded the paper and looked. Slowly his eyes widened. He turned, looking to the circle of equations, then shook his head. "And there I was thinking it was complete."

"No," Ebert said. "There's more. Much more. But that1 s the key. The key that unlocks the door."

Kim's mouth was open. He blinked, once, twice, then began to smile. "Yes ... I see it now."

"Ifs breaking down," Dcuro said. 'The cloth is fraying. Hans thinks that we're coming to a cusp."

"A cusp?"

"A point where it all changes."

"Ah ..." Kim looked at the screen again, then nodded. "Then this ..." He stopped and looked to Ebert. "I was going to make another craft," he said. "Did you see that, too?"

Ebert nodded. "Doiro ... give Kim the printout."

Dcuro handed Kim the diagram of the craft he'd drawn. Kim looked at it, then laughed. "That there - where you've removed the fans - that's exactly the amendment I thought of this morning. But this and this ... these are new. That looks like some kind of generator, and that... well, it could be a heater of some kind. And these, underneath it..." He looked up at them. "But how ...?" Kim stopped, staring fiercely into the air a moment, then he laughed. "Do you think ...?"

"What?" Dcuro asked, glancing at Echewa who stood beside him, concerned by Kim's sudden strangeness.