Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 48

"What you said," she answered, a faint smile on her lips now. "What did you imagine, Kim? That we'd meet a giant spider and be whisked off into No-s.p.a.ce? Did you imagine that?"

"No, but..."

"Then hold fast, my love. The answer's close. Remember my vision. You'll get the answer. I promise you you will. And when you do ..."

Kim stared at her a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not sure I believe that any more. Remember what Master Tuan said. From this point on nothing is certain, not even the visions. I mean, if it was to have come true, it would have by now, surely?"

Jelka made to answer but he spoke on.

"And then there's these latest notations. Try as I might, I can't get them to work. Ifs as if there are still pieces missing. But that can't be so." "You're sure of that?"

"No. To be frank, I'm not sure of anything any longer. The more I stare at it, the vaguer it seems to get. Ifs like ..." He raised a hand then let it fall, unable to complete the image.

"You need a rest, Kim. You're tired. Mentally tired."

He laughed. "Nonsense. When was I ever tired, mentally." Jelka stared at him a while, then shook her head. "You know, I've watched you these past few months and kept from commenting, but I can't keep silent any longer. You're ageing, Kim. Growing old before my eyes. Ifs like if s eating away at you from the inside. Those lines at your brow and about your eyes - were they there before?"

Almost comically, Kim put his fingers to his forehead, his eyes, tracing the deep furrows there, then frowned deeply. But it wasn't comic. Not for Jelka. Kim was destroying himself, day by day grinding himself against the rock of this No-s.p.a.ce problem, and day by day she had to watch him. "Won't you take a break? Please, Kim?"

For a long long while he stared back at her, then with a shrug, he looked away.

"Okay," he said. "I will."

Kim sat there a long time after Jelka had gone, then stood and, going through to the bedroom, quickly changed out of his formal clothes into the wine red one-piece he more normally wore.

Old Tuan, he thought I have to speak to Old Tuan. He left the house by the back door and, crossing the lawn, stepped out under the thick branches of the surrounding wood. There was a silence here, a darkness that one found nowhere else, that was profoundly different from the absolute nullity beyond the dome. It was a deep, primeval darkness, like a rich loam, from which, he knew, his own kind had come, a billion years before. And to which he would eventually return. Unless s.p.a.ce took him first.

"Tuan? ... Tuan Ti Fo?"

He stepped out into the clearing, remembering as he did all those other times he had stood here beneath the windswept branches, the moon s.h.i.+ning down like a polished mirror, the stars like the dust from a cut diamond, the waves breaking on the rocks below the tower ...

Kim s.h.i.+vered, feeling a sudden homesickness. A longing, so pure, so overwhelming that it sent a tingle through every nerve end. "Was I wrong, Master Tuan? Was I wrong to come out here?"

Out into the pitiless dark.

He waited, calling now and then, but Old Tuan did not come. Sighing, Kim turned, meaning to leave the clearing and return to the house. Yet as he did, he saw, peripherally, a movement between the trees just to his right.

He whirled about "Who's there? Who's ...?"

Kim caught his breath, astonished.

Kim? his mirror-self mouthed from where he stood, a shadow among shadows, on the far side of the clearing.

He took a step toward the form, but even as he did the other raised a hand, as if to warn him to come no closer. The air about him seemed not so much clear as translucent. It s.h.i.+mmered, as if an unseen fire were burning under it, heating the air and making it waver.

He found his voice. "Kim?"

The other nodded, then made a gesture with his hand. Kim frowned and shrugged, and the other repeated the gesture, describing the shape he'd made with an exaggerated care.

This time Kim understood. It was one of the new notations he had come up with. Fascinated, he watched, as his other self described a dozen or more of the symbols in the air, writing each with a clarity that could not be mistaken. Kim laughed. "Of course," he breathed. "Of courser Seeing that he understood, the other raised a hand in a gesture of parting. The air about him s.h.i.+mmered and grew solid once again.

He was gone.

Kim walked across, looking about him at the place where his other self had appeared. There was no sign, no mark of any presence having been here, and yet he knew that what he'd seen was more than just a vision. Yes, but was it real?

In answer, he saw the symbols once again, then formed them with his own hands.

The other had been like him, very like him, but not exactly him. Which meant... Kim laughed. This was it. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Turning he ran towards the house, his bare feet making no sound, his eyes looking inward as his mind already began to fit the new pieces into the equation, seeing how the original equations were doubled - twinned with these new equations. Of course, he thought Of course!

"Kim? Kim, are you there?"

Jelka walked over to the bed and peered into the shadows. No. He wasn't there.

The bed was empty, the sheets untouched.

She turned, looking back at the doorway. He couldn't be... not after he'd promised her.

Angry now, she walked quickly through the ancient house until she came to the stair that led down into his workroom. The door was open, the light on the stairs was on.

She went down, slowing on the final few steps, realising that the big room beyond the doorway was in darkness. And in that darkness something shone with a ghostly presence.

Jelka stepped inside. Kim was standing with his back to her, operating the hologrammic viewer. Just in front of him and slightly to his left, was the source of the light, a large hovering sphere of silver light in which danced a whole series of golden symbols.

Even as she watched, Kim added element after element, each locking into its correct place, until the thing was finished, the structure of it a solid, complex shape of gold within the gleaming silver. Now that it was complete she could see the pattern of it. In its new twinned form it was aesthetically much more pleasing than before, but she knew it was more than that. In its new form, it had the sleek, functional look of a complex molecule. "Thaf s it," he said, sensing her there behind him. "That1 s itT "Yes, but how do you use it?"

Kim turned to face her, the moist surface of his eyes lit with the gold and silver light, his face more alive than she'd seen it in months.

"Call Sampsa," he said. "Tell him to come at once. Oh, and call Gregor, too.

Tell him to call off the dogs. And tell him I've something to show him.

Something to show everyone!"

Sampsa turned, then reached across in the darkness to cut the summons. Sitting up, he took a moment to come to, then, pulling up the sheet to cover Ai Lin, he spoke.

"Vision only."

The screen at the far end of the bedroom immediately lit, showing his mother's face.

Fearing that something bad had happened, Sampsa slipped from the bed and pulled on his robe, then went across and stood before the screen. "Full sound. Vision both ways."

At once his mother's eyes registered his presence. "Sampsa? I'm sorry to disturb you, especially right now, but..."

"Is father all right?"

Her laughter answered him. "Never better. In fact, he wants to show you something." His eyes widened. "He's done it?" 'It looks like it" He whooped, then, hearing Ai Lin stir behind him, said more quietly. 'Til be right over."

Sampsa cut contact, then went through to the bathroom to shower. As he dressed, he could not keep from smiling. So Kim had done it He'd finally done it One could not overestimate the importance of the moment. "Sampsa?" A sleepy-looking Ai Lin looked round the door at him. "Is something the matter?"

"Nothing. If s dad. He's finally cracked it!"

Her face lit "He's done it?"

Sampsa nodded, then. "You want to come along and see?"

"You just stop me." And, pus.h.i.+ng past him, she began to shower.

There was a tickle in his head. Tom was waking.

Tom? he said, feeling Tom's mind come into focus. He felt as much as heard Tom's laughter, as Tom read what was in his mind; experienced Tom's exultation. Ill be there, he said. Then, as an afterthought, Don't let him start without me.

I won't, Sampsa said, turning to look at Ai Lin, the image of her naked back superimposed upon a vision of Lu Yi asleep on her back beside Tom, her nakedness the very image of Ai Lin's. And bring Lu Yi. She won't want to miss this.

Kim was out there on the surface when they arrived, suited up, his equipment already in place. As Karr's cruiser set down, Kim waved up at it, before he turned and busied himself once more.

Karr cut the engines then turned to Kao Chen who sat beside him at the controls.

"Are you nervous, Chen?"

"I guess I am," Chen said, his smile uncertain. "But then it isn't every day that you quell a rebellion then get to see someone punch holes in the walls of reality."

Karr laughed. They had been up all night rounding up suspected members of the coup, and had barely finished when Jelka's call had come. Leaving the prisoners in Aluko Echewa's charge, they had hurried here. Chen sighed and looked down, drawing one hand over his smooth and mottled pate.

"What is it?" Karr asked.

Chen shrugged. "I don't know. I don't feel easy about this. Call me a simple peasant, Gregor, but I don't feel it is for the likes of us to be tinkering with reality. What if Kim succeeds?What if he does find a way to travel between realities? What then? Does it all unravel?"

"Unravel?"

He looked up and met Karr's eyes, his own deeply troubled. "If we can travel there, then they can travel here."

"So?"

"So if s like being suddenly in a room with no walls. Open to attack from any side. And how can one defend against that? How can one make sure one's children and grandchildren can ever be safe?" Karr nodded. He hadn't thought of that. "Yet we must do this. To defeat DeVore."

"So Master Tuan says. But even he admits that he cannot see what will transpire.

And if even Master Tuan is uncertain, then we should exercise great care."

"And what do you suggest, old friend?"

"That we use this knowledge sparingly, and then - once we have achieved what must be achieved - we lose it, for good."

"Lose it?"

Chen nodded. "Or hide it, where it can never be found. For someone like DeVore to have this knowledge ..." "Then we must make sure we kill DeVore." "In every world?"

Karr looked away, his gaze resting on the dome of Kalevala and the eastern airlock, from which two suited figures were emerging. "You think he's everywhere, then?" "I think if s likely."

"Then there will be other Chens and other Karrs, willing to do battle with him. In every place he exists, we shall be there, too." Chen frowned. "I wish I could believe that But I feel... exposed." "Yes," Karr saw that. He nodded slowly. "Yet we must do our best, neh?"

The two suited figures had made their way across and now stood beside Kim, who was leaning forward over a temporary control board, making last minute adjustments.

Karr looked to his friend. "Shall we suit up and join them, Chen? Or do you want to watch from here?""We'll go down," Chen answered, suddenly more like the old Kao Chen - the one who got on with things and did not question why. "If it's our fate, so be it. We cannot change it now."

They stood in a little group beside the airlock, a dozen or more in all, as Kim began the experiment. Jelka had stayed in the house, explaining to everyone that as she had seen the vision from the window so she had to be there, to help it to come true.

Sampsa stood beside his father at the board, helping as he'd helped these past twenty years, acting as his father's hands as the apparatus began to glow. The apparatus was like a great hoop, long gleaming twists of silvered metal reaching up almost twenty metres, like ma.s.sive coils of DNA, one final spiral twist growing thinner and thinner until it seemed to vanish like a wisp of smoke. So it had been all along, but Kim understood the structure now -knew why he'd had the instinct to make it so. It had needed only the finest of fine adjustments to incorporate the new equations.

The glow intensified. Initially, they were tapping power from the line that ran from Kalevala to the grid in Fermi, yet once the thing was working it would generate its own power.

If the theory was correct.

"Slowly," Kim said, noting the strange ripples of light that were beginning to form about the arms of the hoop. "We want to push the door open, not blast a hole in it" Sampsa laughed. "If I went any more carefully we'd be here until Doomsday!" "We cannot be too careful," Kim answered him, remembering the worst of his failures. There was still a great crater on the far side of Kalevala from that one.

The ripples intensified. The metal arms were glowing bright red now, a mist of atoms forming about them where they were reacting against the vacuum that surrounded them.

"Look," Kim said quietly. "Look at that! A double pulse."It was true. The apparatus was taking the single pulse that Sampsa was feeding it and doubling it, pus.h.i.+ng it out again like a heartbeat, the first pulse more intense than the second. With infinitesimal care, Sampsa increased the feed. For a moment nothing, and then there was a great whoosh, as if a match had caught a stack of bone-dry kindling. A ma.s.sive flare of light rushed up each arm of the hoop and met with a great crackle.

The air overhead seemed to darken and then explode with light - a great circle of light that, in a blink, became a hoop, five hundred metres above where they stood - a great wheel of fire that roiled and boiled as it circled. For a moment or two pure shock paralysed Kim. He stared up at the fiery hoop, one hand s.h.i.+elding his eyes against the glare, his mouth open, eyes wide. And then he laughed, his laughter joined after a moment by Sampsa's. "If s stable!" he shouted, a feeling of intense excitement was.h.i.+ng through him.

"Look at it, Sampsa! Look at how it balances the energy within itself!" He turned, looking back at the house, knowing that Jelka was watching him, then pointed at the wheel, feeling almost drunk with the power of what he'd done. "There!" Sampsa shouted back at him, his voice ringing in Kim's helmet "What mother saw was true!"

"Yes," Kim said, turning once more to stare, awed by the reality of it Banton sat at the back of the cell, on the unmade bunk, his head down, his hands resting on his knees. Kim, looking at the shadowy image on the screen above the door, wondered what had brought the man to contemplate such a desperate measure. Banton had been a fine man once, a responsible citizen and a good father to his three sons, but the past two years had clearly worked a change in him. "Open up," Kim said. 'Td like to speak to him alone." "Do you think thaf s wise?" Kao Chen asked from where he stood between Dcuro Is.h.i.+da and Karr. "We must begin somewhere," Kim said. "And where better than with the ringleaders? We must build bridges now. Yes, and give these men hope, if that is still possible."

"Do you want this?" Dcuro asked, offering Kim the comset he'd recorded the experiment on.

Kim hesitated, then took it A moment later the locks clunked open and the cell door hissed back.

Kim stepped inside.

Banton looked up wearily, then made a face of disgust "Have you come to gloat?"

"You don't deny it, then?"

"What's the point? Even if I did, you'd not believe me." "So you're innocent, eh?" Kim shook his head. "I think Karr's right I think you meant to kill us all. It would have been pointless, you know. You couldn't have gone back, not without me."