Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 42

"He wanted Kim to step through."

"Through?" Both Sampsa and Karr said it as one.

"Yes. Into the other universe."

"And Lagasek?"

"Lagasek's unwilling. I think he's frightened."

"Frightened?" Sampsa asked. "Frightened of what?"

"I don't know."

Again, a silence fell. Then Karr let out a sigh. "So what are we going to do?

Without Kim... well, the equations are just so much mumbo-jumbo to me." Ebert laughed. "For once I agree with you, Gregor. I thought my maths was good, but those calculations are quite beyond me."

"And me," Sampsa said.

"Well," Jelka said, looking about her. "It seems, then, that we have but one course, and thaf s to do as Surgeon Ji says, and wait" "And if he doesn't wake?" Kao Chen asked.

"He'll wake," Karr said, putting a hand on his old friend's shoulder rea.s.suringly. "Jelka's seen it, remember?"

The wind was up and waves were cras.h.i.+ng against the rocks below his bedroom window. Kim lay there, listening, the sound of the wind rus.h.i.+ng through the trees lulling him. In his mind's eye he could see the great branches stretching in the wind, their leaves streaming out like bright green banners in the sunlight He turned lazily and smiled, for a moment not remembering. Then, with a jolt, he woke.

Silence.

Nowhere. He was nowhere.

Kim opened his eyes. It was dark; a shadowed darkness that quickly resolved itself.

My room. I am in my room at Kalevala.

But how had he got here? He could not remember. The last thing he could remember was standing in the Circle at Fermi, waiting to speak. And after that?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He stretched, then sat, conscious for the first time how rested - how totally rested - he felt. As if he'd slept for days on end. He laughed at the thought, knowing that he was a creature who needed little sleep.

"Jelka?"

When there was no answer, he stood and walked over to the door, throwing it open.

"Jelka?"

Nothing. The house was silent

Throwing on a robe, he went down to the kitchen. It too was empty, no sign of Jelka anywhere.

Strange.

He went to the larder and opened the door, looking in to see what he could eat Starving. He was absolutely starving.

Taking a hunk of bread, he b.u.t.tered it and crammed it into his mouth, chewing it voraciously. Then, taking another bite, he went over to the window and looked out The lawn was empty, and the garden.

He turned, making his way back to the larder, taking down meat and apples and cheese. Then, sitting down at the great wooden table, he gorged himself, his mind empty of anything but the hunger he felt Finally he sat back, replete.

He reached across and picked up a cloth, wiping his mouth. It was strange how vivid his waking dream had been. So vivid that, for a moment, he had been back there on the island, the waves battering the sh.o.r.eline, the wind streaming through the trees.

Strange indeed.

Kim made to stand, then stopped, his mouth falling open.

"Old Tuan ..."

It flooded back.

He sat again, shaking his head. So that was what had happened. For a while he simply sat there, letting his breathing normalise, his mind grow accustomed to the strangeness of his new situation. They put us here, to keep DeVorefrom seeing us.

The thought of it awed him. To have such power. It was unthinkable.

Or almost so.

For a moment longer he sat there, his mind flicking over the possibilities, then he stood and hurried from the room.

It was time he did some work.

How large was nothingness? How wide? How deep?

Kim drew a circle on the screen, then drew a line through it, cutting it in half.

They were mttdn the line. Beyond that he knew nothing. Or almost nothing. He closed his eyes, concentrating. If this place existed, then it was governed by a set of physical laws. But how could such laws exist in a place that had no measurements?

Or was that so? Could it not be that their instruments were unreliable here? The trouble was, he imagined this place to be not infinite, but like a tiny bag of velvet cloth, tied with delicate draw-strings at its neck. A minutely-small universe, designed for the pocket of a giant Or a race of giants. The kings of infinite s.p.a.ce.

Kim swivelled on his chair, facing the blackboard again. Within the larger circle of the first equations - the six he had figured out - he had set a second circle, on which were written out the three equations Ebert had given him. They fitted perfectly, enhancing and enlarging the totality. He could see how - mathematically - it all connected up, but how did they work? How - physically - did the one relate to the other?

And, on a more practical level, how did one enact the equations? How use them and test them?

One could not accelerate them, as one could atoms, nor collect them in a tank, as one did photons.

Energy. That was the key. Any physical event required energy. And so here, surely?

Kim stood, looking about him at his laboratory, seeking some clue as to how to proceed, his eyes finally resting on the looking-gla.s.s at the far end of the room.

Doubleness. That was it Mirrors.

Tuan Ti Fo had said as much. Though they seemed not to be moving, they were. In reality they were still heading for Eridani, their speed and direction unchanged.

And if that were so, then whatever he did here in the lab, even if it seemed to have no effect here, would have a genuine effect - if hidden - in his own universe.

Kim looked at the equations once again, staring and staring at them until his eyes blurred and the things took on the look of a mantra.

Jelka was right It did look like the Ywe Lung.

A ring. A ring of power ...

He laughed. Of course. It was that simple.

He didn't need a lot of energy. No more, in fad, than he'd need to power a simple circuit, for once the thing got going it would feed upon itself - an energy spiral, switching between the two universes, feeding upon the transition between them to power itself.

Feeding, yes, and growing.

Growing uncontrollably, unless ...

Kim reached out to touch the three equations at the centre. The problem was not creating the doorway, but limiting its size, for this process, once begun, had no natural controls. And that was where the second set of equations came in. They were there to set the limits of the thing - to create a web of power in which to ensnare the doorway. A snare not to catch a rabbit but a rabbit-hole.

It was Alice all over again!

Grinning, Kim began to set up his equipment, seeing precisely what he needed for the task.

Two hours and it was done.

He watched it through special protective lenses, the arch of light - a half-circle like the hoop of a tiny rainbow -s.h.i.+mmering as it grew above the apparatus, getting bigger and bigger with each oscillation, tiny flames flickering within that glowing ring, until - snap! - nothing. Kim laughed. It worked! The snare worked!

He felt a s.h.i.+ver go right through him at the thought of what he'd done. What he'd seen was only half of what had been there. But the other half - half of that ever-growing spiral - had protruded elsewhere, in another universe entirely.

A hole. He'd made a hole. A gateway between universes. And if he made it large enough, he could step through, into another reality. "Did you see that, Master Tuan?" he asked, speaking to the air. "Did you see that?"

Ebert groaned and rolled over. Someone was shaking him awake.

"Hans! Hans! Wake up! Fve something to show you?" "Kim?" He put his hand to the tiny panel on his chest, activating his eyes. As they rose up into the air, to take up their positions above his head, so he saw Kim standing there, a broad smile splitting his face. "Are you all right?" he asked, sitting up.

'^Never better," Kim answered. "But come. I want to show you what Fve made."

He stared at Kim. "Then it works."

"Like a dream."

Ebert was quiet a moment, then. "Have you thought about it, Kim ... I mean, about what this means? About how it will change things?"

Kim's smile faded. "The truth is, since I knew it was possible, I've thought of little else. If I can do it, then everyone can do it And if everyone can do it..." "Do we all become G.o.ds?" Kim stared back at him. "What do you mean?" "Only that we're men, not G.o.ds. And these powers ..." But Kim was adamant "We can't back away from this, Hans. We can't refuse this knowledge. Thaf s what the Seven did. They tried to put an end to change, and look what happened! We can't go back. We have to go forward, whatever the consequences." 'Is that what you believe?"

"I do. Besides, I sense we're not the first to pa.s.s along this road; to come to this gate and seek admittance. Old Tuan, for certain has travelled it before us." "And DeVore?"

At that Kim shrugged. "What DeVore is is dark to me as yet but Master Tuan I trust as I trust Jelka and yourself. It was Tuan, remember, who found me when I was lost" "And I," Hans said, nodding his agreement 'Then let us go. My cruiser is waiting up above. We can be in Kalevala within the hour." "All right" Hans answered, smiling now, his blind eyes sparkling mischievously. "But first let me rinse the sleep from my eyes. If I'm to be a G.o.d, I'd like to see clearly where I'm headed."

In the hours between his first experiment and this, Kim had built a bigger, more permanent version of his apparatus.

Six powerful horseshoe-shaped electromagnets formed one half of it, arranged in a kind of ladder, in steadily decreasing size, like the levels of a loosely-linked Tower of Babel, or the spinal column of some strange metallic creature. Facing them, like a mirror image, were a second, identical set In the gap between, their faint traces reminding Ebert of sunlit water-drops on a thread, were six lines of laser light that zipped back and forth between two lines of silver studs on twin generators.

All in all, it had the look of a musical stave. Looking closer, Ebert saw that there were, in fart, twelve threads, for each thread was a double thread of light Ebert gestured towards them. "Why are they twinned?" "They oscillate," Kim said, waggling his ringer as if to demonstrate. "When if s functioning properly, each of the six pulses switches from one thread to the other two hundred times a second. In effect the whole thing resonates like a plucked harp."

"And the electromagnets?"

Kim smiled, then, donning his protective gla.s.ses, reached out to touch the switch. "Watch ..."

As the lights dimmed, the electromagnets began to hum. At first nothing, then, like a tiny whirlwind, a spiralling cone of light began to grow in the s.p.a.ce between and just above the tips of the two magnet-towers, burning with a searing brilliance, a fine needle of light vanis.h.i.+ng into the blackness above.

Then, with a suddenness that was shocking, the air above the needle split, a circle of crystal clear air opening in the darkness. And about that crystal circle was a tiny ring of fire.

Moment by moment that circle grew, its edge oscillating to the same fast flickering rhythm as all else.

For a moment Ebert stared through the gap, seeing, on the far side, another place, so like to the room in which they stood, that it could easily have been its mirror image.

And then - snap! - it ended.

Ebert shuddered. His nerve ends trembled. In that final moment before the light had died, he had seen himself there in the room, staring back at him, and beside him, Kim, or someone who looked a lot like Kim. "Mirrors ..."

Kim nodded, then pressed the pad to raise the lights again. "If s us, or as near to us as makes any difference. But that" s how it has to be, if you think of it, Hans. There must be endless universes, one next to another, pressed close like the flimsy skins of an onion. And the nearest will be very similar, while those further away will begin to differ." "Hold on," Ebert said, "you mean that was another reality?" "Yes," Kim said. "Or, to be accurate, another no-s.p.a.ce, but one so similar to ours that the me thaf s there is experimenting just as I'm experimenting - holding this self-same conversation with you even as I'm holding it" "Then what s the use of that? If if s the same ..." Kim laughed. "Don't you see? If we can cross through into that other universe, we can cross through into others. Indeed, we can't help but do so. The bigger the gate, the more layers of the skin peel back. We could set up a whole series of gates, like a tunnel, and travel into a universe where the difference is significant. Or ..."

But Ebert raised a hand, as if to calm a fretful horse. "Wo-ah. One thing at a time. You say we can travel through these holes? But they're tiny."

"Then we build a huge great big version of it and suspend it in the air - a ma.s.sive wheel of fire - and fly through it."

Ebert laughed. "Now I know you're mad. Fly through it? You mean, in the craft you've made?"

"Why not?"

"Because it has no hull, no engine. When you came out the other side, you'd emerge into a freezing vacuum."

Kim smiled. "You're thinking that the apparatus has to be outside of the field, framing it, but it doesn't It can generate a field about itself. Thaf s the beauty of it At the same time you can generate heat and oxygen inside the field."