Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 41

"All of this. .. coming together like this. Dreams and clues and visions. It all seems ... well, like we're being given this. And if we're being given it, then someone is doing the giving. Someone higher than us, perhaps." "Higher?" Dcuro looked perplexed.

But Ebert seemed to understand what Kim was saying perfectly. "Yes. I felt that too. We're being directed. To go back and face DeVore. To determine our direction."

"You think so?" Kim asked.

Ebert smiled. "Oh, I'm certain of it, Kim. As certain as of anything in my whole life."

They decided to hold a meeting of all the colonists, to discuss the dreams and all that had arisen since. Kim scheduled it for that evening at eight, yet even as he prepared for it, events overtook him.

The first Kim knew of it was when Karr called him from the bridge of the New Hope.

"Kim? Where are you right now?"

"In my study, why?"

"Look out of the window."

Kim turned and looked. For a moment he saw nothing. Then he gasped. Nothing. He really did see nothing.

"G.o.ds ..."

The stars had gone. The sky was black, unblemished. His voice, when he spoke again, was a whisper. "What's happened?" "I don't know," Karr said. "One moment they were there, the next they weren't"

"But they must be there. They have to be." "Our sensors no longer register anything. The nearest star is an infinite distance away according to the figures on my screen. Which is another way of saying that there aren't any stars."

"Impossible."

The machine had to be wrong. And their eyes... their eyes obviously weren't seeing what was out there, because the alternative. ..

The alternative was mad. Madder than doors into other universes. Madder than shared dreams. Madder than people seeing things that hadn't happened. Madder than .. .

He stopped and closed his eyes. It was possible, just possible, that he was hallucinating - dreaming all this even while he thought he was awake. Like Chuang Tzu and the b.u.t.terfly. But if so, what did that mean? And besides, if this was a hallucination, it certainly didn't feel like one. Unless it was a sh.e.l.l.

For a moment that possibility - that Shepherd had somehow tricked them all-dominated his thoughts. Then he opened his eyes. "Kim? Are you all right?"

"Am I dreaming, Gregor?"

Karr laughed. "Maybe. But if so, then we're all dreaming the same dream. And that's as good a definition of reality as I can think of."

Kim nodded. So if it wasn't a dream ...

The screen began to buzz. Someone was trying to get in touch with him urgently. Kim lifted the flap of skin and looked at the timer inset into his wrist It was five fourteen, Ganymede time.

"Okay," he said. "Here's what we'll do. We'll bring the meeting forward two hours. Something's happening, and it won't do to wait and see what it is." "And the stars?"

Kim shrugged. "I don't know, Gregor, but do you recall what you said, about the old cloth fraying." "So?" "I'd say we'd just fallen through a tear in the cloth."

They met just after six, gathering together in the Circles, the great meeting places that had been built at the centre of each of the fifteen domes. The colonists were frightened and not a little confused by events, but as yet they were calm. So it was that they watched - some in person, most on the great screens that surrounded them - as Kim Ward climbed up onto the platform in Fermi Circle to address them.

"Friends, fellow citizens ... I have asked you to gather because something is happening. Something strange. Something that even I can find no explanation for."

He paused, letting the significance of that statement sink in. "The facts are simple. We are still travelling - or, at least, the engines are still firing as before, still pushing us on - but we are going nowhere. Eridani is no longer directly ahead of us. Indeed, from all we can make out, we are no longer within the relativistic universe."

There was a strange collective sigh. Kim raised his hands, as if to fend off objections, even though there were none "I can think of no theory which would explain these facts, only a metaphor. It is as if we have fallen down a well. Yet even this is unsatisfactory, for a well has a bottom, and from the bottom of a well one might glimpse the sky, but we can see nothing."

Ebert, standing just below the platform, now spoke up. "Is there anything we can do, Kim?"

Kim nodded. "There are several things we might do. For a start we might send out a probe. If we are still moving relativistically then the probe will quickly fall behind us at this speed. We might also consider closing down the engines." There was a worried murmur at this suggestion and Kim, looking about him, could see that this troubled them almost asmuch as the situation itself. To close down the engines was a major step. To many it would seem like an admission of defeat. He could see they wanted to go on, even if they were going nowhere.

A big, grey-bearded man named Baker now spoke. "I say we do nothing. I say we wait and see what happens."

Kim smiled. "I'd say that was a good suggestion, Jed. But how long do we wait? And what if this situation is permanent? What if we have fallen down a well in s.p.a.ce?"

"Not a well. A pocket."

Kim turned, surprised to find the old man behind him. Then, with a gasp of astonishment, he realised who it was.

"Tuan Ti For

Old Tuan bowed low, then, smiling patiently, stepped up beside Kim and, raising his arms, spoke to them all.

"Forgive me, my friends, for coming among you unannounced, but you must know now how things are. Kim is right. You are no longer within the relativistic universe, but in a pocket, a no-s.p.a.ce between the universes. Eridani is still before you, and you travel towards it hourly, yet there is no trace of you in your universe. This we have done."

"We?' Kim was staring at Old Tuan in disbelief. He had thought him dead, or back on Chung Kuo. He had certainly not been on Ganymede. Not until a moment or two ago.

"I can say little now," Tuan answered. "Only that you are in no danger." He paused, then, "You must be patient You must remain here in no-s.p.a.ce for a while, for he must not see you. Not yet. Things are changing, and just as we have woken, so he in time will wake."

"Can you not tell us more?" Karr asked, his own face filled with wonder at the sight of the old man.

"Only that you have work to do. You have come right to the edge. To the time of change. Beyond it everything will be different But you must first step over. Until then we can say nothing more."

"The equations?" Kim asked. "Has it to do with the equations?"

But Old Tuan would not be drawn. "Do your work, Kim Ward. Go where you must go - where the visions show you witt go. Then, when things are clearer to you, we will talk."

They had not seen him arrive, but all there saw him leave. For a moment he seemed both to be there and not be there, his form shimmering, as if every other frame of a film had been removed. Then he was gone. Again a sigh ran through them.

You have come right to the edge. To the time of change. Kim stared a moment, then turned back, looking out across the upturned, awe-struck faces of his fellow travellers.

"Well..." he said, finding no words to describe what he was feeling, "let us do as Master Tuan says. Return to your homes and wait. When something is known, I shall contact you again."

He could see how they hung back, reluctant to go; how they looked to him for some kind of explanation. But for once he had nothing to give them. Nothing but his own bafflement

"So what exactly is happening?"

Ebert laughed at the bluntness of Karr's question. "Do you think I'm holding out on you?" Ebert shook his head, as perplexed as they for once. He knew Tuan Ti Fo's tricks of old, but this once Old Tuan's appearance had shaken him; so much so that he could not think straight. "The G.o.ds know what happened back there. One moment we were in the normal universe, the next nowhere. And I've no how idea how they did it" "But where are we?"

"The place of inner dark ..."

Karr frowned. "Pardon?"

"That's where we are. The place of inner dark." His blind eyes looked about him at the others who were packed into the room with him. "Thaf s what the Osu call it It is a place outside of time and s.p.a.ce."

"A dream time," his son, Pauli offered, but Ebert shook his head. "No. It is a real place, a physical place." "And do the Osu go there?" Ebert smiled. "No. It is a place of the G.o.ds." "Then ..." Karr hesitated, "what you're suggesting is ..." "That Old Tuan is a G.o.d. Or an immortal. Like those in the old Han tales. Kim told us how he claimed to be as old as the rocks. What if that was true? It would explain a great deal. Like how he manages to walk through locked doors."

"Yes," Karr said, "and travel between Chung Kuo and deepest s.p.a.ce in the blink of an eye."

Ebert nodded. "And you, Kao Chen, what do you think?" Kao Chen made a face. "I feel as if I must have eaten something that disagreed with me. If this is not a dream, the G.o.ds know what it is!" Ebert nodded. "I understand. I've been questioning my sanity, too. But it looks like ifs real. Unless we're all hallucinating." "So what are they, then?" Pauli asked. "G.o.ds? Immortals? Or are they aliens in human form?"

"Tuan said he was born," Ebert answered. "He told Kim that DeVore was his twin - that they found him in the afterbirth, the cord wrapped about his throat." "Pity they found him," Karr said, making them all laugh. But they quickly grew serious again. "Maybe ifs true but not true," Ebert said. "How do you mean?" "Just that he might be a twin, and he might have been born at the same time as DeVore - if DeVore's another of these beings - only they might not have been born to a human mother, on Earth. That might have been the part of the tale he'd doctored, to make it acceptable to you."

Karr shrugged. "I think I'd have believed it more if he'd said he and DeVore were aliens, not less. Aliens I can believe in, just about, but immortals ..." "Whatever Tuan is," Ebert said, "he seems to have powers beyond our present understanding. Yet he talks of having woken slowly to those powers." Karr nodded. "Yes, and this business of it being almost time. Of us being on the edge. What do you think he means by that?"

"He means the equations," Ebert answered. "I'm sure of it As I said, we have the key now."

"Then surely Kim is where he wants to be. In the doorway."

Ebert looked to Chuang Kuan Ts'ai, who had spoken. "What do you mean?" Chuang smiled. "Kim said that he wasn't sure in which direction he had to look, to seek the door between the worlds. Well, now we know. In fact, Old Tuan has brought us right to the spot All Kim has to do now is make it work." Karr looked about him. "Where is Kim? He ought to have come back by now."

Kim had gone away while they were talking, but he had not returned.

"Kao Chen," Karr said, "did you see where he went?"

"Into the wash room, I thought I'll check ..."

Kao Chen disappeared. A moment later he was back, his face ashen. "Quick! Kim's collapsed! I found him slumped over one of the stalls. He looks in a bad way!"

Kim's room was dark. As the doctor stepped outside into the corridor and closed the door behind him, five anxious faces stared back at him. "Well?" Jelka asked, her voice a whisper. "How is he now?" "No change," the doctor - an elderly Han named Ji -answered quietly, his concern mirroring their own. "Physically he seems fine. His breathing's normal and his heartbeat But these voices you say you've heard What kind of thing is that?" Jelka looked down. "It's nothing... just murmuring, that's all." "Ah..." Surgeon Ji considered a moment, then shrugged "I can only suggest that you be patient and wait. It strikes me that this whole business has been quite a shock to his system. Kim is a very rational man. What we've experienced... well, it would shake the faith of any rationalist, neh?" "But surely, to sleep this long ...?"

"Is not unusual," Ji quickly rea.s.sured her. "Sixty hours is not long, Mu Ch'in Ward. And we are not talking about a coma. All that s happened is that Kim's conscious mind has switched itself off. If s having a rest. And long overdue, I'd say. No, let nature take its course."

After Ji was gone, Jelka turned, looking to the others.

"What voices?" Sampsa asked.

Jelka shrugged. "It was nothing ..."

"No," Sampsa said. "Whatever they were, it certainly wasn't nothing. I can see they disturbed you."

She hesitated, then. "It's just that it hasn't happened in a while."

"What?" Karr asked impatiently, his voice raised momentarily. Ebert touched his arm.

"Gweder and Lagasek."

"Gweder and ...?" Karr shook his head, looking to the others for an explanation. "It goes back to his days in Rehab," Sampsa said. "When he first came out of the Clay. They are the two sides of his nature. His two selves, if you like. For a long time Lagasek - Starer -has been in control. But it seems that Gweder - Mirror - is back."

Karr stared at Jelka open-mouthed. This was the first he'd heard of any of this.

"You mean Kim is schizophrenic?"

"Not technically," Sampsa said, answering for her. "But Gweder - his darker self - has been walled off all these years. Inaccessible." Jelka shook her head. "Thaf s not true."

"Pardon?"

She looked to her son. "I said that s not true. After Mileja's death, Gweder came back. Sometimes he was only a voice, in the night when Kim was fast asleep, but sometimes he would make Kim get up and go out, to walk beneath the trees. I'd see him out there, prowling, and I'd know it was Gweder."

"You could tell?"

Jelka shivered, then nodded. "He would go on all fours."

"Ah ..." Karr looked aside

There was a moment's silence, then Sampsa spoke again. "And the voices?"

Jelka met her son's eyes. "He was arguing with himself."

"Arguing?"

She nodded. "His face would change. It was quite striking. And frightening, too. Gweder. .. well, Gweder's how I imagine Kim would have turned out, had he remained in the Clay."

"If he'd survived."

"Yes ..." Jelka looked thoughtful a moment, then. "If s strange. Kim - the waking Kim, that is - is so determined, yet Lagasek, supposedly his rational self, is so pa.s.sive. Whereas Gweder. Well, Gweder's a bully. He pushes." "And what did Gweder push for?" Ebert asked, staring at her blindly.