Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 23

Doors led off to right and left Most were closed. Through gla.s.s panels he could see his people at work, collating information, organising the vast and complex business of rebellion, or simply debating new "targets" among themselves. All would finally find its way to the room at the far end of the corridor where his mother had her office. He went there now, throwing the door open, expecting to find a dozen people seated about her desk, but the room was almost empty. Almost At the far end of the conference table sat his mother, her gaunt, grey-haired head bent over a file. She looked up at him from the doc.u.ment, surprised to find him there. "Chao?"

"I thought..."

"I cancelled it," she said, antic.i.p.ating him. Then, closing the folder, she stood and came round the table until she stood by him. "There's a problem." "A problem?"

"If s Michael. There's no word from him yet"

He reached out and held both her arms, the same way she had always held his own when he'd been a child and full of fears.

"He'll be okay. He's being careful, that's all."

"But he said ..."

A look from him silenced her. "Okay," she said finally, the moment's weakness pa.s.sed. "But I've sent Han Ye and Sung out to look for him. If they were ambushed ..."

"He'll be okay," Chao said, insistently this time, but there was a small knot in his stomach at the thought of his stepfather being in DeVore's far-from-tender hands. Death was preferable. "How's Pei?" he asked. "He's fine. The wound's clean. He had a lucky escape."

"Too lucky, perhaps?"

Emily had been about to turn away, but at his words she looked back at him. "You think the boy's a plant?"

"If s possible. I mean, it was rather a coincidence that he should be there at that precise moment" "Maybe. But Lin Pei would have been a big prize for DeVore. He could have taken him back, copied him. Got to me that way. Besides, he lost two morphs. He can ill afford such losses, especially now."

"I'm sorry?"

She smiled at him. "You haven't heard, then?"

"Heard?"

In answer she went across and picked up the folder she'd been reading, then came back, handing it to him. Chao opened it, took out the slender doc.u.ment, then looked up at her, surprised. "Is this true?"

She nodded. "We've had it confirmed from eight different sources. This morning at eleven DeVore attempted to break the blockade. Missile attacks on five of the stationary satellites were followed by an attempt to slip a number of ships through the High Barrier. Both the missile strike and the attempt to outrun the American blockade failed. All of his ships were blown out of the skies. Word is that they carried a total of more than sixty of DeVore's creatures. That1 s almost a fifth of his remaining strength."

"But what was he trying to do?"

Emily shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Then things really are desperate ... for him, I mean."

"Maybe."

The way she said it made him look at her anew. "What are you thinking?"

"If s nothing."

"No. Tell me. I want to know."

"I don't know," she began. "If s just... well, with DeVore you can never take anything at face value. He's a master of feints and illusions. Such a direct action ... if s unlike him, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "Go on."

"It made me think of the game ... of wet da. Of how a Master of the game might sometimes play a stone in a part of the board he isn't really interested in, as a decoy, to mask his true intentions."

"But we know DeVore's true intentions. He wants to break the blockade so that he can bring in reinforcements. Without them he's too weak to win this conflict" "Or so he'd have us think" Chao stared at his mother a moment, then shook his head. "No. His weakness is no bluff. If he were strong enough he'd destroy us all without a momenf s thought He'd not waste his time sending patrols out into the mountain pa.s.ses, he'd destroy the Wilds themselves!"

"Maybe."

He huffed, exasperated with her. "And what does Tybor say?"

She smiled. "Why don't you ask him. He'll be here any moment now." Chao nodded. If anyone could fathom DeVore's twisted mind, then maybe Tybor could, for Tybor had been made from DeVore's own genetic material, flesh of his flesh.

"You've spoken to the boy, I a.s.sume."

"Huh?" For a moment he was at a loss, then, "the boy."

"Yes." She laughed. "You've questioned him, I take it"

He nodded. "He seems ... well, quite ordinary really. But who can tell? DeVore's so devious, I sometimes wake up wondering if I'm really me." "I know. I dream of mirrors."

"Mirrors?"

"You know. What they used to call ching."

"Ah ..." The thought of it chilled him. When the seven T'ang had ruled Chung Kuo, they had kept copies - ching, or "mirrors" - of each T'ang, ready for the day they died, so that their successors could symbolically kill their predecessors before becoming the new T'ang. These dung, made in the nutrient vats of the great genetics company, GenSyn, had been perfect copies of their originals but for one important aspect -their minds. For the dung were blank, unthinking creatures, born and maintained only to be ceremonially slaughtered. The thought that such creatures existed was bad enough, but one further element gave the matter a much too personal twist When his mother had fled Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Ping Tiao, it had been DeVore who had aided -some might say permitted - her escape. In return she had given him a single finger from her right hand. From that he had made himself a mate, a perfect copy of Emily Ascher. A ching, alike in all but her mental processes. A thing, not a proper human.

Like Tybor.

"Emily ... Chao ..."

Tybor ducked beneath the sill and came inside. Even crouched he was a good three feet bigger than Lin Chao, his smooth, hairless arms and head giving him the look of something moulded not grown.

Which was near enough the truth.

"Tybor," Emily said, embracing the creature. "Is there any news?" "I'm afraid not," Tybor answered, pulling out a chair and sitting, so as to be on their level. "But ifs early yet. They may have been caught in a storm. The weather's unseasonably bad."

"We were talking," Chao said, changing the subject "About the attempt to break the blockade."

Tybor glanced at Emily, then turned his inhumanly large eyes on Chao once again.

"Your mother thinks it may have been a bluff of some kind. A diversionary play."

"And you?"

Tybor smiled; a smile that could have swallowed up a small cartwheel. "I think she may be right" "But what could he be up to? He can't do anything until he breaks the blockade." "Or so we've been conditioned to think," Emily said, moving round the back of Tybor and laying her hands on the creature's shoulders. '1 learned an interesting thing the other day. It seems our friend DeVore paid a visit to Ben Shepherd back in the spring."

Chao frowned. "So?"

"So this. What does Shepherd have that DeVore might want?"

"You think DeVore wants something from Shepherd?"

"Of course. Why else would he pay a visit?"

"To be friendly?"

At that Tybor laughed. "Why, of course! I forgot. The man's a regular socialite!"

Chao looked down, trying hard not to smile. "So you think he's using Shepherd somehow?"

"Or trying to," Emily answered, coming round Tybor to face him. "I can't see anyone actually telling Shepherd what to do, even DeVore. But I can see the two of them coming to some kind of arrangement" "But about what? Shepherd's an artist. DeVore ... well, DeVore's just a homicidal maniac!"

"Yes, but a clever one. And a master of illusions to boot. I'd have let the observation pa.s.s but for one thing. Two days ago Ben Shepherd flew in to Bremen. It seems he's rented a studio apartment there, not five minutes away from DeVore's headquarters."

"Convenient, neh?" Tybor said, his huge eyes half-lidded

"But I don't see..." Chao began, then stopped. "Sh.e.l.ls? You think Shepherd is going to make special sh.e.l.ls for DeVore?"

Emily half-turned, looking to Tybor. "I don't think anything ... yet But it might be useful if we could find out, don't you think?" Chao nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good," Emily said, touching his arm lightly. "Now lef s go down to the control room. I want to be there when the news conies in."

Daniel woke, his eyes staring, unable for the moment to remember where he was. All he knew was that he was sitting up, his back against a cold, hard rock, and someone was shaking him.

"Soup?" a voice asked gently. "You want some soup?" He focused on the face in front of him - a plump Han face with disconcertingly dark eyes - then looked past it at the vast and open sky, finally making sense of the huge shapes that surrounded him. Mountains. Of course! He was in the Wilds. "Well?" the crouching man asked. "Are you hungry or not?" Daniel nodded, then took the bowl from the man, grateful for its warmth. He had never been so cold, not even in the dormitories. He looked about him at the camp. In truth, it was little more than a few crude shelters set up among the rocks. The sight of it, and of the roughly-dressed men who sat around, talking quietly among themselves, depressed his spirits. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this. As he spooned the soup into his mouth he began to wonder whether he hadn't made a mistake coming here.

Too late, he thought, concentrating his attention briefly on the soup. They'd kill me if I went back.

Or worse.

No. It was no use contemplating going back. He had burned his bridges now. He had seen with his own eyes what they did to those boys who'd tried to run away. Those who'd been caught, anyway.

Even so, he had hoped for... well, for something more than tins, anyway! "More?" the Han asked, coming over to him again and setting the soup pot down beside him.

"Thanks."

The Han took the bowl, then smiled. "You know, you're either very very stupid, or very brave, coming out here."

"What do you mean?"

Daniel watched the ladle dip into the dark broth and lift, tipping more of the tasty soup into his bowl. The Han handed it to him, then answered. "Just that if s a dangerous place."

"The patrols, you mean?"

He shook his head. "The patrols are the least of it Or were. No, I mean all of the other things. The rogue machines, the creatures." "Creatures?"

"GenSyn stuff. Things that escaped from their factories after the war. This is where they came. To the Wilds. They made their lairs here." "And the Machines?"

"Search-and-destroy machines. They date back to the conflict between Li Yuan and the White Tang, Lehmann. Both sides used them to try to make this place a kind of no-man's-land. Most of them have rusted now, either that or their energy packs have run down, but there are a few that are active. Things that look like stones or rocks, that rest where they were dropped, their systems nine-tenths inactive, waiting for someone to come along and trigger them." Daniel stared back at the young Han. "And then?" In answer the Han rolled up his sleeve to show the burned tissue of his upper arm. "It took out four of our squad before we even got a trace on it Lin Pei stopped it, but I was in the blast zone. So was my brother, Chan. He took most of the blast's force."

Daniel set the soup down. "I'm sorry." The Han's smile was gentle, wistful. "So am I." Daniel looked down a moment, embarra.s.sed, then raised his head again, meeting the man's eyes. "What"s your name?" "Ho. Yueh Ho." "I'm pleased to meet you, Ho. I hope we can be friends." Yueh Ho nodded, then picked up the soup pot by its string and turned away. "I hope so, young Daniel Mussida," he said, over his shoulder. "I sincerely hope so."

DeVore looked up as his adjutant came into the room.

"Well?" he asked. "Is it true?"

The adjutant bowed his head. 'Tes, sir."

"And when precisely did he disappear?"

"Two days ago, sir."

"And I wasn't informed."

"No, sir, they thought..."

DeVore leaned forward. "Who's this they1 who've been doing so much thinking on my behalf?"

"The Camp Commandant, sir. He ... he thought he could recapture the boy before the matter became serious."

"But now if s serious, eh?"

The adjutant hesitated, then nodded.

"And they've lost the trace, is that right?"