Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 49

"No?" The word registered a profound mistrust

"I know you don't believe that but if s true. Or was true. Now we can all go back" Banton laughed bleakly. "You think a lot of yourself, Kim Ward." "You used to think a lot of me."

"Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe we were all conned by you."

"Is that what you think?"

Banton looked away, his expression sour.

Kim shrugged, then sat beside him, offering him the comset "Do you want to see what I've been doing?"

Banton met his eyes, then looked down at the comset "What is it?"

"The thing I promised you. The door between the universes." Banton laughed. "How do I know if s real? For all I know if s some elaborate computer simulation."

"You don't But if you want, you can come with me and try it We're testing it a few days from now."

"Testing it? You mean, like stepping through it?" "Flying, more like. But yes. Into a different world. Like this world, but different" "With stars in it, you mean."

Kim nodded, then. 'Is that what bothers you most? The lack of stars?"

"Thaf s part of it. But if s in here ..." Banton touched his forehead. "Thaf s where it's darkest If s like ..."

"Like what?" Kim coaxed, his voice quiet now.

"Like I don't exist. Like none of us exist... or that we only think we exist This life ... it's like a dream. No motion, no stars, no sun or moon. Even the City was better than this."

Kim let out a long breath. "Yes. I can see that... But things will change now. I promise you."

"You promise?" Banton stared at him a moment, then shook his head, his former bitterness returning. "And you think this is the answer?"

Kim shrugged. "I don't know. But I plan to find out. Now will you come with me, or will you languish here in this cell?" Banton laughed. "If s not much of a choice, is it?" Kim stood, leaving the comset on the bed where Banton might look at it. "No. But it's better than the choice you'd have given us." He walked over to the door and rapped on it with his knuckles. "Think it over. I'll give you until tomorrow to decide."

"And if I say no?" "Then you stay here, Mr. Banton. Until the s.h.i.+p's ready."

"The s.h.i.+p?"

Kim nodded, even as the door hissed open once again. Kan-stood there, barring the way in case Banton tried to make his escape, but Banton did not even get up from his bunk.

"Thaf s right," Kim said, as he stepped outside then turned, looking back inside. "Either you're with us or you're not And if you're not, you can leave. We'll give you your own s.h.i.+p and supplies to last you a lifetime. And then if s up to you."

Kim saw the shock on Banton's face, but even as the man made to respond, the door slammed shut again. In the cruiser heading back to Fermi, Karr turned in his seat to speak to Kim.

"You're too soft," he said. "He'd have killed you in your bed. Cut your throats, you and Jelka both."

"Maybe," Kim said thoughtfully. "Yet he's still a man. Besides, the faulf s not his."

"Not his?" Karr snorted his disbelief.

"No," Kim said, insistent now. "This is an unnatural life. The G.o.ds know it is. So be soft, Gregor. We are not dealing with DeVore here, but with frightened people. Banton spoke of a darkness in his head. I know that darkness. I lived in it for many years."

Karr made to speak again, then stopped. "Okay," he said finally. "But we do not release them. Not yet And not without guarantees." "Guarantees?" Kim laughed, then, relenting, reached out to hold Karr's shoulder briefly, his small, childlike hand dwarfed by the gianfs heavily-muscled stature. "We are beyond guarantees, Gregor. It's a looking-gla.s.s world out there and we had best get used to it" "You think we can?"

It was Dcuro who had spoken. Kim turned, looking across at him. "You talk of Banton being frightened," Dcuro went on. "Well 7 am frightened by this. I am used to making holes and taking risks, but this scares me." "I agree," Chen said, from where he sat in the co-pilof s chair. "We are talking of something we know nothing about. You talk of knowing the equations, Kim, but do you also know the rules? Or is it all guesswork?" "We'll learn," Kim said.

"And if we don't?"

"We'll learn. I'll learn for you. Thafs my purpose."

That certainty - a certainty that had been absent this last year - calmed them.

Karr, in the pilof s seat, nodded, then smiled. Beside him, Chen grinned. "Okay, but Gregor's right Let us keep the ringleaders under lock and key until things are much clearer. Until we've some rules." "Absolutely," Dcuro said, with a nod of his head. "We need rules, Kim.

Especially now. You can't make holes in things without also making rules."

Kim looked about him, then shrugged. "Okay ... okay, I hear what you're saying. But lef s not lose sight of what we're doing here. Remember what Tuan said. This is a war. A war to determine our ultimate direction. And we must take risks. It is not death we should fear but resignation. That has been our enemy. It is that which has undermined us this last year. But now we are free of it. Now we can move forward once again." "Maybe," Ikuro said, articulating the doubt they all still felt. "But I would still be happier if there were rules."

Later, back in his study, Kim found himself thinking about the uncertainties the others had expressed. If he was to be honest with himself, there was every reason to be frightened; after all, no one had ever punched holes in reality before, not unless one counted the folding-s.h.i.+p DeVore had brought from Charon, and he wasn't totally sure whether that had breached the barrier or, like them, had merely shunted itself into no-s.p.a.ce.

Even so, what he personally felt was not fear but genuine elation. They had kept the gateway open for almost twenty minutes before they'd killed the power. Stable as it seemed, however, they had not as yet sent anything through. They had not tested it And what good was a door unless one used it, unless one stepped beyond the threshold?

Karr had wanted to, of course, but Kim had not let him. If anyone was going to test the gateway, it would be himself. But first he needed to get the F-s.h.i.+p, as he now called it, right.

So that was his next task. To redesign the s.h.i.+p. Kim sat forward, stretching out his hand to take a sheet of paper. Yet even as he did a piece of hardened paper materialised on the desk before him. He blinked. The writing on it was in his own. "Kim," it read, "It seems I am ahead of you, but now we can work together."

A variant on the equation followed. Kim stared at it, then realised with a start that it was a s.p.a.ce-time coordinate.

He laughed. That was where he was! - where his other self was! He hesitated, then, taking a stylus, wrote, "Should I come to you?' Kim pushed the paper away slightly, repositioning it, then watched it vanish before his eyes. He waited, expecting it to reappear, then heard a noise behind him.

He turned, then caught his breath. The other was there, not shadowy this time, but real - as solid as himself.

"Come," the other said, holding out his hand. "You only have to take my hand."

CHAPTER-19.

DEAD GROUND.

The sunlight, slanting in over the flanks of the mountains, drew stark dividing lines between what could be seen and what was mere blackness. Crisp, curved lines delineated where the land seemed to fall into an abyss, a great pool of blackness that was like the liquid pupil of some giant eye. Looking out across it from where she stood, high on the mountain's upper slope, Emily felt a small thrill of recognition. Taking a deep breath of the cold, pure air, she pulled her furs close, then walked on, her booted feet trudging crisply through the virgin snow.

Just below her, the snow gave way to bare rock. Climbing down, she found herself thinking over what had happened in the night The business between Daniel and the girl was tricky. Siri would have to be watched. Nor would it make sense to keep her in Daniel's squad any longer, disruptive as that would be. But so it was.

And rightiy so, she thought, glad that her problems were human, emotional ones. Glad that, after all that had happened, something simple and basic, like a young girl falling in love, could yet be a problem, for in the world DeVore proposed there would be no such complications, no shadows on the spirit In his world there would be no shadows at all. Only darkness. The ground levelled out briefly, a long ledge cf rock curling about the elbow of the mountain. Emily rested a moment, getting her breath after the climb, then looked up suddenly, her eyes narrowed, listening. Voices!

Unclipping her gun, she quickly checked the charge, then edged along the rock face.

There were two voices. One was deep and male; the other higher - a child's voice possibly, or a woman's. As she rounded the elbow of rock, they seemed to drift up to her, much clearer suddenly, their varying tones distinct against the morning's silence.

Just ahead of her the ledge broadened. A rough wall of fallen rock lay along its edge, forming a kind of natural balcony. Beyond it was a drop of four, maybe five hundred metres. Going across, Emily crouched down, then peered between the rocks, looking through the sight of her rifle, trying to make out who was down there.

She saw them almost at once, two or three hundred metres down, on the far side of the valley. The sunlight picked out their figures against the bleached rock of the valley wall - two tiny human figures that seemed dwarfed not merely by the great ma.s.s of rock above them, but by the depthless pool of stygian darkness which began just below where they sat.

Daniel. She recognised at once that it was Daniel. But who was with him? It was not Siri, as she'd briefly thought, but it was a woman. For a moment she was perplexed. Then, with a tiny "oh" of understanding, she recognised her. It was the newcomer, Hannah.

Strange. She had finished reading the file only an hour back. Hannah's real name was Shang Han A, and she was daughter of Minister Shang Mu, devoted servant of the shadow Ministry, the "Thousand Eyes" and of its Head, the notorious I Lung, or "First Dragon". She had persuaded her father to go to the then Tang, Li Yuan, with word of the traitorous activities of the "Thousand Eyes." But Shang Mu was a.s.sa.s.sinated - before her eyes - and Han A herself had only just survived. That had been thirty-one years ago. Since then she had dedicated her life to the task of writing Chung Kuo's true history, even as the great Empire of the Han disintegrated about her.

And now here she was, among them.Emily frowned. Daniel was talking again, his voice a low, confessional murmur, and though she could not make out what he was saying, she could see that the woman was making notes; stopping now and then to nod, or ask a question.

For a moment she wondered if she should let them know she was there. Being there so secretively she felt something of a spy, a sneak. It seemed only fair somehow that she should hail them. But she was intrigued. She wanted to know what they were saying. There was something about them - something about the sheer intensity of the way they sat there facing each other - that puzzled her. Emily turned. Just behind her and to the right, the ledge narrowed, then tilted into the rock face, a narrow pa.s.sage cutting down through the mountainside into a network of caverns. The mouth of one of those caves could be seen some fifty metres or so above where the two of them sat talking.

She hesitated a moment longer, then went across, ducking inside, into the darkness, making her way down, blindly following a path she'd taken hundreds of times before.

And then out, into a cave, the mouth of which was a wall of brilliant, blinding light She tiptoed across, then stood, one hand pressed against the damp surface of the wall, keeping her balance as she listened. "... not at all," Daniel was saying. "To be honest, we never even thought about it The camp was all we knew. Few of the boys remembered any kind of life before the camp, so we accepted everything they told us. I mean, we had no reason to think they were lying. In our experience liars got found out, and who would dream of lying on such a phenomenal scale?"

"So when did you suspect that something was wrong?" There was a long pause, then. "I guess it was that first time in Eden. You know, the experimental place. We were halfway across and resting and I suddenly looked about me. I mean, really looked. It was as if I had my eyes open for the very first time. I guess thaf s when I saw it. Saw that it wasn't only Eden that was an experiment. It got me thinking - wondering if it had always been so, or whether the lie was something new."

Hannah laughed. A pleasant, sympathetic laugh. "You know, I've tried all my adult life to distinguish between what"s true and whafs a lie, and I'm still not sure whether I've got it right True history .. . some days that term seems the biggest lie of all. Not that it really matters any more." "So it really is all over for us?"

A pause, then: "Yes. I think it is."

"You don't think we can coexist?"

"That's not how it works. Not in my experience, anyway. It only remains to be seen whether DeVore will triumph - and by that I mean whether he destroys this world - or whether these plant things, these floraforms as you call them, will a.s.similate it all. Either way, things look pretty bleak." "So why did you come here? I mean, if everything is going to end, then one place is as good as another, surely?"

"Maybe. And then maybe not. Maybe I was tired of being alone. Maybe I wanted to end my days among good people."

Emily, who had been listening, felt a s.h.i.+ver run through her at the words. Among good people. The phrase resounded in her. Yet she herself was not resigned. Within the greater context, her little act of defiance might well seem meaningless, and yet she would fight on, for it was all she knew. She had tried to be a good Taoist and follow the path of wuwei, but at the last that path had failed her. Faced with annihilation she had chosen to fight back. And even now, when things were at their bleakest, she did not flinch from that fight It was in her nature to oppose fate - to defy it; perhaps even to seek to change it The talk went on, yet she had heard enough. Turning, she stole away silently, the voices fading to a murmur behind her, retracing her steps until she came to the turn in the pa.s.sageway that led down to the west door. Lin Lao should be back by now, and he'd have news. She'd sit in on his debriefing, then see to whatever needed to be seen to. And then, if there was time, maybe she'd pay Hannah another visit; borrow a few more of her books.Emily smiled. Hannah was far too modest If anyone saw things clearly, then Hannah did. And if Hannah thought it was over, then, in all probability it was.

But not yet And not without a struggle.

"Which way now?"

Lin Lao paused, then felt his head jerk about The question had come from just behind him. It was the boy, Da-neel, who had spoken.

Lao's gaze was fixed on the mountains directly ahead of him now. He could not speak nor move a single muscle unless they willed it. He had been dead and now he was alive. He did not understand it, but so it was. And now they used him. His mouth opened, compelled to answer, the words coming slowly from his mouth, slurred yet comprehensible. "Wee go riih . .. Heah for gaah 'twee two tawh pea. Vah-lee is bee-yawn."

"And the door?"

It was the woman this time. Lao felt his nerve ends bristle. The tone of her voice was so familiar, yet beneath it was something utterly alien. Alien and cold.

"Door is there," he answered, hating himself for the betrayal, but unable to prevent it "At fahr enn."

"Good," the boy said, his tone warm, like a master to his dog. "Then lead on.

You know the way."

He felt the restraint signal ease and began to walk again, a ghost in his own body, only tenuously in touch with his physical self. It was chill, but he felt the cold only in a distant, abstract way, for his mind kept returning to what had happened to him on the slab - to the way he had betrayed them all.

And the worst of it was that Emily would forgive him. That was, if she ever got to know what he had done. If she wasn't dead first - killed by the two fakes who walked along behind him.

The thought of it tormented him. It was unendurable. He wanted to cry out, to scream a warning to the surrounding hills, but it was impossible. He was wired like a puppet A b.u.t.terfly settled briefly on his chest He was conscious of it at the edge of his vision; a beautiful bright gold b.u.t.terfly with vivid red markings. And then it was gone.

Behind him Da-neel cleared his throat, then laughed. "Did you see his face when he found me f.u.c.king you? He pretended it didn't matter, but it did."

Her voice was cold. "You want to be careful, Da-neel. He doesn't like being crossed. You cease being useful to him and ..." Lao did not see the gesture, but he could imagine it A knife being drawn across a throat, perhaps, or something like.

The image of DeVore's face looming over him came to mind. At the time he had wondered why the man had spared his face, for he'd heard tales of men's eyes being burned out, hot wires poked through the soft pupils, or of their tongues being sliced like liver while still in their mouths. But DeVore had taken great care not to touch his face. Not that he'd lacked inventiveness elsewhere on his anatomy.

That pain was still in his body; anaesthetised but there beneath the gla.s.s-like numbness that he felt.

And when they've finished using me, do I die again? Do they switch me off, like a machine that's been discarded?

Of course they would, for thaf s how they thought They were not human in any proper way, for what made one human was compa.s.sion. He felt a sudden sadness that it should have to end this way.

You taught me well, mother. But now they're going to kSlyou. There was a tiny tremor in his body, the last faint remnants of what he'd been, and then it was gone. Like a machine he walked on, climbing the slope toward the gap, the door ahead of him.

The b.u.t.terfly fluttered across the rock face, then settled. It stretched its wings, as if basking in the sun, and then it trembled. Slowly it changed, the surface of its wings contracting to become a perfect cirde which lifted, tilting towards the south.

It had noticed immediately how strangely the boy was moving, more like an automaton than a normal human being. It was that which had attracted it. And staring up into the boy's face it had seen how fixed the stare was, how pale the skin.

Dead he was. A corpse. And yet he walked.

It was a mystery worth mentioning to the main ma.s.s. At once it began sending, the circular membrane vibrating delicately as the high frequency signal went out. Something was happening. Something the main ma.s.s ought to know about at once.

It sent again, duplicating the message, making sure; then, with a tiny shudder, it transformed itself again, a fleck of gold and red, fluttering off across the mountainside.

"Impressive," Hannah said, handing Daniel back the paper target, "but not unexpected."

"No?"

She smiled. "Your fame precedes you, Daniel. I was told you could pick the eyes out of an insect at a hundred paces. It was no exaggeration, was it?" "No." Daniel grinned. He clicked on the safety, then set the gun aside. "It used to be a useful skill."