Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 28

But Ben sensed there was a reason. DeVore never did anything without a reason. But this intrigued him, more so perhaps than the new creatures. DeVore claimed he had a s.h.i.+p that travelled by folding s.p.a.ce - now that was something he would like to own.

DeVore turned the lock then pushed the door open, stepping aside to let Ben pa.s.s. "There!" he said.

The s.h.i.+p rested on the floor of the chamber. It was a beautiful thing of silver and pearl and polished wood. Ben turned, surprised, looking across to where DeVore stood in the doorway.

"But I thought you said ..."

"Go over to it," DeVore said, a teasing smile on his lips. "See if you can find out where it is."

Ben walked across, putting his hand out towards it. But even as he approached it, it seemed to go away from him, or disappear entirely, so that when he turned, it was behind him.

"I don't understand."

'If s a projection, direct into your retinas. The real s.h.i.+p is in a no-s.p.a.ce between universes. In a s.p.a.ce that isn't s.p.a.ce at all, if you follow." "And what powers it?"

"The differential between universes." DeVore smiled. "Put simply, it skips between the two, in the no-s.p.a.ce that exists between their surfaces." "A gap?"

DeVore shook his head. "No. There is no gap between realities. If one knew how, one could step through from one into another, as if one were stepping through an open door. But that secret has been forgotten, if ever it was known." "By you, perhaps."

"Oh, if others knew it, then we too would know about it"

"Maybe." Ben smiled, then shook his head. "My father would have liked this. He loved to debate theories."

"This is no theory, my friend. The s.h.i.+p works. One like it brought me from Charon many years ago."

"Forgive me," Ben said, "but if thaf s so, why don't you use this same technology to defeat your enemies? Or at least to confound them." DeVore looked away. "It is not that easy. The energy involved, if misdirected, could rip apart this tiny system."

But Ben was not happy with that explanation. If there was a way of harnessing this mysterious energy - and he had no real reason to doubt that this force, whatever it was, really existed - then it could be controlled. And if it could be controlled it could be fine-tuned. And used. For good or ill. So why was DeVore so vague about it? Had he, perhaps, not made but found the s.h.i.+p? And was he lying when he said he understood the principles behind its function? For if he could make a craft that skipped between the universes, why could he not harness this power to break Egan's blockade or track down and kill the woman?

And yet DeVore had made Hannem, and Hannem and his fellow creatures were a genuine marvel. It was not that DeVore lacked intellectual substance - he was a clever man, and nodoubting it - but one could never be sure just when he was lying and when he wasn't Standing outside the room again, Ben felt as if he had been given an insight into DeVore. He was powerful, certainly, but not quite powerful enough. Not enough to carry out his plans, anyway. And his need to wear a cloak of invisible power to protect himself spoke volumes.

DeVore was paranoid. And slowly, piece by piece, he was creating a world just as paranoid as he But his spell could be unwoven, by a single bullet or a knife. Yes, or a blow to the skull with the b.u.t.t-end of a gun.

And what then? How would the world be without DeVore to give it a cutting edge? Like a carp pond without a pike, he thought, recalling what Li Yuan had once said to him.

Back in his rooms, alone again, Ben sat, staring into s.p.a.ce, thinking about what he had seen. It did not worry him that DeVore might do away with humanity and place some greater, finer creature in its place. If so, then that was mankind's fate, and what could individual men do about it? One could not build a dam against such evolutionary pressures. Yet it did worry him that, despite the morphs' evident intellectual ability, they might not be the chosen race, the natural successors of mankind. For a start they were too docile - far too compliant to the Great Man's will As DeVore himself proudly boasted, there was no more obedient creature in the galaxy.

No. It seemed more likely that all this was but an act of extreme egoism - an attempt to people the galaxy with copies of himself With minors. And what had vanity to do with evolution?

So what was the answer? Side with DeVore? Or kill him?

And if the latter, could he, personally, do it?

He smiled, remembering what Meg had said before he'd come here to Mannheim.

If you get at all dose, Ben, slip a knife between his ribs and leave it there. He had not thought his sister capable of such hatred. But so it was. Meg loathed DeVore with a pa.s.sion he could not imagine.And maybe she was right He stood, then went to the window, looking out. DeVore's woman, Emtu, was down there, walking in the gardens. He watched her a while, wondering just why DeVore had created her. Then, a strange smile forming on his lips, he nodded to himself.

That's it, he thought That's b.l.o.o.d.y well it.

Ma.s.so had been as good as his word. He'd given back the carts and freed Michael's men. And then, he'd brought them here to Saanenmoser. But that had been the end of things, for having come so far, his nerve gave and, fearing that Michael might, after all, have duped him, he decided to take what he could get 'Tour coats," he said, his gun levelled directly at Michael's head, while his other men covered the rest of Michael's party.

"We've still a good day's travel," Michael said, as calmly as he could. "We'll not survive a night without our coats."

"Find shelter," Ma.s.so said, a sneer on his face now. "Huddle together. If the G.o.ds will it, you'll survive."

"You gave your word," Michael said.

"And now I take it back." Ma.s.so shook his head. "I don't trust you, Trader.

Something about you rings false. So I'll take what I can and beg your pardon." Michael stared at the man a long time after that, remembering his face, then, with an angry shrug, he pulled off his coat and threw it down at Ma.s.so's feet, his eyes never leaving Ma.s.so's face.

He heard the sound of his men pulling off their thick winter pelts and throwing them down.

Dead men now. For the weather was against them this far up, and there was little shelter in the hills above Saanenmoser.

"If I live I'll come back for you, Ma.s.so."

"If you live."

And there was laughter suddenly. Cruel gallows laughter. And there he'd been thinking them different from the other cutthroats and vagabonds who roamed the lower slopes. Michael swallowed bitterly, wis.h.i.+ng he could have seen Emilyonce more before he died, then, with a bellow of rage, he ran at Ma.s.so, head down.

He heard the shot but didn't feel the bullet strike him. Then all h.e.l.l broke lose. There was automatic fire and the sound of small detonations. Grenades or ...

Gas ... Where the f.u.c.k had they got gas?

And then he was falling down a long deep hole, his head as weightless as a leaf blowing on the wind ...

Emily looked down at the corpses at the foot of the slope and shook her head, her voice trembling.

"The idiot The impatient b.l.o.o.d.y idiot"

The strangers were all dead. She had killed two of them herself, and Lin Chao had shot another, but Daniel had picked off four of them with successive shots. Even so, they'd come too late. Michael was dead. He lay face down in a pool of blood.

"Go help those two," she said, gesturing urgently towards the two wounded men who knelt beside the cart. Then, forcing herself, feeling like she was in a dark and awful dream, she began to walk towards her fallen husband. She'd heard his bellow even as they'd come out of the trees, had seen him throw himself at the stranger, arms out like a diver. Michael hadn't stood a chance. The gunshot had ripped into his chest from almost point blank range, and the way the body had jerked she knew it was bad. Emily slowed, the blood pounding in her temples. For a moment she almost stumbled.

"Mother?" Lin Chao's arm was under her arm, holding her up. "Are you all right?"

"No, no I..."

She had to sit Chao helped her down, then squatted, facing her, his face filled with concern. She looked back at him a moment, a look of pure desolation in her face, then let her head fall forward, beginning to sob. I came too late. The stupid, stupid man! Why couldn't he wait? For a moment nothing. Then she looked up. Daniel was crouching close by. He had been saying something to her.

"... bad," he said.

"What?" she said, slurred, like a drunk.

"He's hurt bad. We have to get him back at once. He's lost a lot of blood."

"Who?" she said, blinking. "Who's hurt?"

"If s Michael," Chao said, cutting in. "He's still alive, mother. He's still alive!"

The journey back across the mountains was the worst she'd known. She felt every b.u.mp, every painful little jolt From time to time she would have them slow, so that she could place her ear against his chest to check he was still breathing, then would make them hurry on, her haste to get back to camp balanced against a desire not to hurt him too much.

Michael's chest was a mess. It was a miracle really that he was alive. But then she reminded herself of what he'd been like last time - after the bomb that had killed his best friend. Thirty years ago, that had been, in America. Back then he had survived against the odds. And so now. If only they could get him back in time.

When darkness fell they were still an hour from the camp and Emily began to fear the worst To come this far and fail would be dreadful, and yet it seemed they must fail, for Michael's breathing grew laboured, and with each breath he groaned, as if he wanted to be gone from this world of pain and suffering. But she would not let him go.

"Hold on," she murmured, walking beside the makes.h.i.+ft stretcher, her hand resting on his arm. "We'll get there soon, my love, I promise you." Ahead of them now was a small ravine, crossed by a narrow rope bridge. Beyond it the path sloped down again. Yet, as they climbed the steep path something rattled down the slope to meet them.

The explosion knocked the two stretcher bearers off their feet Emily too went down. The stretcher fell, tilting to the sideDaniel and Lin Chao had opened fire. As the things came down the slope at them, they picked them off. Emily rolled over, bringing her gun up to her shoulder, even as another of the spider-like things scuttled over the rocks towards her. She blew a hole in its pot-like belly.

For a moment there was nothing in the world but gunfire. Then stillness. A sudden, awful stillness. And then a groan.

Emily turned her head. The groan had come from one of the stretcher bearers who lay there, his body hunched into itself, like a caterpillar arching its back, his hands holding his ruined stomach. He had taken the worst of the blast By the look of it, shrapnel had embedded itself in his stomach. Emily took this in at a glance, then clambered up, looking for Michael. "Michael...?"

She saw him almost at once, lying face down on the ledge nearby. He was still. Ominously still. Even as she made to go to him, Lin Chao crouched down beside him, placing his hand to his stepfather's neck to check for a pulse. Emily s.h.i.+vered. She knew, even before Chao turned and looked at her. Knew because, even before that moment, they had been using up their luck. But knowing was not knowing. She went across and knelt beside the body, her hands gently cradling his head, caressing the soft mantle of his hair. "You should have waited," she said, whispering the words into the unhearing sh.e.l.l of his ear. "You should have known I'd come."

The broken packet lay upon the floor of the hut where Ma.s.so had thrown it only the day before, a vivid orange glow thrown up into the shadowed room. Close by, stretched out upon his back, one hand frozen into a bloated claw, lay the guard, his bright yet sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. He too glowed, his flesh, where it jutted from the ragged cloth pulsing with a faint blood-pink light Pollen danced in the darkness of the cabin, glowing gently, each spore diseasedly alive.

Brownian motion.

The randomness of particles.

The clawed hand trembled then burst like a pod, spewing a cloud of glowing pollen into the shadows.

Sudden agitation, and then stability. The eternal pattern of nature.

And then silence. A long, inhuman silence.

DeVore threw the door open and stormed from the room. Behind him, his personal staff looked on, white-faced with fear.

He half-ran down the corridor, past the open lift and down the concrete steps that led to the morgue There, on a slab in the centre of the main dissecting room, lay one of his morphs - one of the new generation Neumann - dead. White-coated technicians, their faces masked, cowered against the far wall, their eyes frightened. DeVore looked to them then gestured for one of them to come to him. The man came, his legs almost failing him, until he stood before DeVore, his body half-bowed.

"What happened!" DeVore said, a strange twisted tone in the second word.

"W-we d-don't know ..." the technician began.

DeVore reached out and lifted the man from his feet with one hand, then sank a knife deep into his heart "Wrong answer."

He let the body fall, then looked to the others, showing them the knife.

"What... went... wrong!"

"If s diseased," one of them offered; a young technician at the very end of the line. "The nervous system ..."

DeVore stared at him hawkishly. "What about the nervous system?"

His Chief Technician answered him. "If s rotted away." Devore shook his head. "Impossible. It was fine this afternoon." Then, more quietly. "So what caused it?"

The Chief Technician answered quietly. "Thaf s what we don't yet know. We need to do a proper autopsy ..."

"Twenty-four hours."

"Tin sorry, Master?"DeVore's eyes were like steel. "That"s how long you've got to find out Twenty-four hours. And then I start dissecting you"

Ben found DeVore in his rooms, seated in a chair beside the open window, staring out into the moonless dark, his right hand restlessly stroking his chin. "Howard?"

DeVore looked round distractedly. "Oh, if s you ..."

"Whaf s the matter?"

DeVore gestured towards the chair beside his own, then shook his head. "They're diseased."

"Your creatures?"

DeVore nodded. "I've put the others in isolation, but two others have already gone down with it It's their nervous systems. It seems they're simply rotting away."

"Impossible."

"Yes."

"But there must be some explanation for it"

"You think so?"