Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 67

The voice that answered him was an echo that sounded from their empty mouths as if they spoke with a single voice.

"Master Tuan has given us this hour, to set things right and unify the universes."

Jelka took a step towards them, but Joseph reached out and held her arm.

"No," he said quietly.

And now she too saw the small red mark upon Kim's forehead, and groaned. And Joseph felt the sorrow that lay behind that noise, as much as if he himself had uttered it, and finally understood what she had lost "What has happened to it?" he asked, pointing to the frozen creature. Kim and K. turned as one, their eyes impa.s.sive, then looked back at Joseph. "I have placed it in a temporary s.p.a.ce."

"Will it be destroyed?"

But Kim, if he heard the question, did not answer it directly. "The snake," he said, even as his form s.h.i.+mmered and disappeared from sight, "the snake must swallow its tail."

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LIVING DARK.

"Li Yuan?"

Li Yuan stared back at Karr, fear in his eyes, and began to back away.

"No, wait! I won't harm you. I'm on your side!"

"You know me?"

"In another universe, yes."

Li Yuan turned, looking back over his shoulder at the building, as if expecting something horrible to emerge from it at any moment Noting that look, Karr frowned.

"What is it?"

Li Yuan looked back at him, then shook his head. "You wouldn't believe me."

"Did he change?"

"Change?"

The look of startlement told Karr that he was right DeVore must have changed into his original form.

"Were they both here?"

Li Yuan hesitated, then nodded.

"So where's the other one?"

"He left, to go and do something. Thaf s when I went inside, after his twin. But he must have come back. When I came out here again it was gone." "Your craft?"

"Yes." Li Yuan shook his head, distraught "He's got her."

"Her?"

"Fei Yen and her mother."

Karr looked to Chen, exchanging a look. "You're married to Fei Yen?"

Li Yuan shook his head. "No, no, I..."

"Look," Chen said, interrupting, "can we trace your craft somehow?"

"Yes. There's a trace-code. In case it gets stolen. I have it here." He searched a moment, then took a small card from his pocket and handed it to Karr. Karr studied it a moment, then asked. "How do we get this to work?" "If 11 work in the computer of any glide."

"Glide?""The hover cars. That's what they're called." "Ah ..." Karr looked about him, then, spotting one nearby, went over to it. He stared at it a moment, then took out his gun and shot the lock open. Turning back to Li Yuan, he grinned. "Okay. You come with me, Yuan. Chen, you and Hans follow on in the s.h.i.+p. We may need it if things get too hot." Li Yuan, however, still seemed reluctant to go with him.

Karr looked at him, concerned. "Are you afraid, Yuan?"

Yuan hesitated, then nodded.

"That's good," Karr said. "That's perfectly healthy. But now you must step beyond your fear, Li Yuan. If you want to save the girl." Yuan looked up sharply. "Okay," he said quietly. "But I warn you, I cannot use a gun."

Karr laughed. "Oh, do not worry, Master Li, if necessary I shall do the shooting for the both of us!"

Jelka was sitting at at the bottom of the great white stone ramp, staring straight ahead, tears in her golden eyes.

Kim, standing within the no-s.p.a.ce, watched her a moment, then turned, looking to Tuan Ti Fo, who sat cross-legged before the wet ctd board. "Why did we interfere, Master Tuan? I thought it was your purpose not to interfere. Not directly, anyway."

The ancient looked up slowly. "That is so. It feels like cheating, and I am loathe to cheat" "Then why now?"

"To bring it to a close. To end it" He gestured towards the board. "Look ... the board is almost filled."

Kim walked across, then made the calculation in his head. It was a draw. Or almost so. There was one single unresolved stone - one single "ko". If one could find a way to use it one would take the whole of the western group and win the game.

Or lose it

His hand went up to touch the hole in his forehead. It troubled him to have had to appear to Jelka in this condition, but as Master Tuan had explained, it could not be helped.

Much could be planned, but in the end it all came down to improvisation. Even the greatest Master of the game understood that much. If planning were all it was, then there would be no Master of Masters. All would, at a certain level, be equal. And that was not how this universe of theirs functioned. Not until it ended, anyway.

Kim looked past the old man at the frozen form of the creature he had known in life as DeVore.

"What do you feel, Master Tuan?"

Tuan followed his gaze. "About my twin? Mainly sadness. Sadness at the waste of such immense talents." He paused, then. "When he dies, I die. You understand that, Kim?"

Kim stared at him, surprised. "But I thought..." "That there could be good without evil? Darkness without light? Daylight without shadows? No, Kim. There will be no Edens. No Peng Lai. But maybe you can live in less hilly climes, neh? Without so many peaks, so many troughs." The old man smiled. "My twin was a great exaggerator of effects. He had the talent of making a weak man bad, a bad man terrible and a terrible man truly evil. When he is gone, there will still be weak men, yes, and bad men, and even terrible men. But without him, so I believe, there will be no true evil." "And if you're wrong?"

Tuan laughed at that "Ever the sceptic, eh, Kim? Even in death. Ever the scientist" Kim smiled faintly, then turned, looking back at the woman who, in life, had been his wife, his soul-mate. "I wish ..."

"That you had not died? All men die, Kim. Yes, and you were right there, too, not to seek to make immortals of your fellow men. You could have done it Kim. You had the talent But you were also given something else. The ability to chose between good and evil courses. And that - and that alone - has brought us to this final point" "So what now, Master Tuan?"

Tuan Ti Fo smiled, then pointed to the "ko". "It is time to play the final stone."

They had tracked the craft to an isolated tower on the east side of the financial district. A storage warehouse by the look of it. Setting down beside the craft, the four men climbed down. As Chen gathered their weapons from the racks beneath the chairs, Karr turned to Li Yuan and handed him his handgun. "Stay here, Yuan. And if he comes, blast him. Don't think, just point at him, as if you're picking him out to identify him, and pull the trigger." Li Yuan nodded. "I'll try."

"Good. Hopefully you won't have to."

"You're going in after him, then?"

Karr nodded, then turned to take the big JPK4 from Chen. "This time I mean to get him. Not some tank-bred copy, but him. Or one of him, anyway." Seeing that Li Yuan didn't understand a word, Karr smiled, then laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You'll be okay. Just stay under cover and watch that doorway. Leave the rest to us."

"But what if he changes? You know ... into one of those things?"

Chen answered him. "Then we'll let him have it anyway. Both barrels!" Li Yuan looked from one to another, thinking what an odd trio they were. Two sixty-year-old soldiers and a blind man! Then, understanding that they were serious, he straightened up and gave each of them a bow of respect "Good luck, ch'un few!"

Karr smiled, then turned to the others. "Come on. Let's finish it."

They went down, level after level, checking each out in turn. At first they found nothing. The upper floors had been deserted. Then, six levels down, they heard something. An exchange of voices. An argument, and then a single shot They went down another flight and out, into a corridor. Nothing. It had to be down one more floor.

Quick, Karr mouthed, looking to Chen and Ebert Yet even as he started forward, he felt his gun tumble out of his hand, almost as if it had been knocked from his grasp.

Chen turned to stare at him.

"Go on!" he whispered. "Go on! I'll catch up with you!"

Chen nodded and turned back, beginning to run, Ebert in dose pursuit. Karr picked up the gun and made to follow, then saw that the tiny red panel beside the cartridge was flas.h.i.+ng.

Malfunction.

"Staff'

He shook the thing, as if that would rectify the fault, but all that happened was that a second line started flas.h.i.+ng under the first. Loading Jam.

He stared at it, unable to believe what he was looking at. Only once - once in all his time as a soldier! - had he had a gun jam on him. And never a JPK-4. Karr looked up. Their footsteps were getting distant If he didn't go now ... He began to run. As he entered the stairwell, there was a gust of warm air and then a brilliant searing light He turned instinctively, closing his eyes, yet he knew even as he did what it was. A light grenade. And Chen and Ebert had run straight into it They would be crawling about down there, blind and defenceless. There was no time to worry about a broken gun.

Karr leapt the flight of stairs and hauled himself about the turn, seeing, even as he did, the small, neat figure that stepped out from the pa.s.sage to the side and raised his gun.

DeVore ...

He saw Ebert turn, blind as he was, and face their mortal enemy, almost as if he saw him. "You shall not prevail..."

There was no time to call a warning. Throwing himself forward, Karr leapt, even as the gun went off.

Half a second too late, he cannoned into DeVore's back, slamming him down onto the floor.

For a moment he lay there, groaning, hurt himself, his leg twisted in the fall. Then, forcing himself up, he reached out and closed his fingers about the barrel of the JPK-4.

He had done this once before. In another world. In another life. Now he must do it again.

DeVore lay just beneath Karr, his head turned to the side, a small trail of blood trickling from beneath the chin.

Karr closed both hands about the barrel and raised the gun. The malfunction message was still flas.h.i.+ng, but it did not matter now. He swung it back, then brought it sharply down, the heavy wooden b.u.t.t striking DeVore's skull with a wet yet solid crack.

For a moment Karr stared at the shattered mess that had been DeVore's head, then, with a shudder, he let the gun fall from his hands. Was that it? Was it over now?

He looked across. Chen was sitting up, knuckling his eyes and groaning. Just across from him Ebert lay still, blood pooling dark beneath him. "Aiya ..."

He tried to get up, and almost fell back, the pain from his leg was so intense.

"Chen ..." he groaned. "Kao Chen ..."

Chen turned his head blindly. "Gregor? Is that you?"

"Yes ... he's dead, Chen. I got him."

Chen laughed, such relief in his voice that Karr thought for a moment he was going to cry. "You're sure?" he said. "I mean ... if s really him?" "Yes ... but ..." He swallowed, then went on, steeling himself to voice his fears. "I think Hans is dead."

Chen's groan, the grimace of pain on his face, mirrored how Karr himself felt inside.

For a moment silence. Then, quietly. "But we got him, Chen. We finally got him."

Master Tuan had felt the disturbance in the air as the first of them had died.