Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 6

Daniel bent down and picked up one of the tiny ants between his thumb and forefinger. Taking a tiny pick-lock from the neck of his suit - one he normally used to adjust the visor mechanism - he prised the minute sh.e.l.l of the creature apart and looked.

Incredible, he thought, spilling it out onto his open palm. Such workmanship.

Shepherd's, he knew instinctively. This has to be Shepherd's work. It was like the jewelled clock Dublanc had in his room - the one with the transparent back that let you see the workings. Only this was much smaller and more delicate and the workings were far more complex. The whole of Eden was a warped creation. A land of wonders turned into a horror show. And why?

He kept returning to the question.

Why did The Man force his boys through such a violent rite of pa.s.sage? Why, if he said he loved and cared for them, was he prepared to see them die in so cruel a manner?

Daniel turned. Aidan was on his feet now, dusting himself off. Ju Dun was off to the left, his gun at his shoulder, looking for anything coming in. Daniel studied the terrain, comparing it to the map he held in his head. The Exit Gate was not far now. Two-and-a-half kilometres at most If they headed directly north-east they could get there in two hours. The map. He stared at the map in his head, realising suddenly that there was only one remaining gap in it, there at the very centre of it all. A gap. Or was there something there. Something that Eden was designed to push them away from.

"Well?" Aidan said, gesturing towards the Gate. "Are we going or not?"

Daniel lifted a hand, signalling that he should be silent

It was true, now that he thought about it The nearer they got to that gap, the more intense the fighting became. Why, if the swarm hadn't attacked, they'd have walked straight through itYes, he thought. And that's why we've got to go back. But not with the bugs watching them and sending back details of their every moment Without warning, Daniel lifted his gun and began to blast the tiny midge-like probes out of the air. Eight shots later and it was done.

Aidan was staring at him as if he'd gone mad. "Daniel;"

"Come on," he said, gesturing for them both to follow him. "We're going back."

"Back?" Aidan asked. "Back where?"

"Back to the very centre of Eden."

"But we're almost out The Exif s within reach now, Daniel!" But Daniel shook his head. "Don't you see? Getting out alive isn't the point. If it was, then why send us back time and again? No ... that's where it is ... there, in the white s.p.a.ce at the heart of it all."

Things flew at them and scuttled into position, almost like someone was hurling everything they could at them to stop them.

They had come almost five kilometres now, following the course of the river, heading north. Now Daniel took them directly west again, climbing, skirting the Hinterwaldkopf , the river ahead of them. When they hit the river they would go directly south, then turn west again at Notschrei and, taking the old road, head north.

Into white s.p.a.ce.

They had no rockets and no flamers, and they were low on ammunition, but they were still fully-charged. K they had to, they would burn their way in. Aidan's voice whispered in his helmet "Daniel... remotes."

He made no sign that he'd heard. "Where?"

"Across the river. Two hundred, maybe two-fifty metres off. You can see them glinting in the sun."

"You sure they're remotes?"

"They're keeping parallel with us and making no attempt to come any closer. I'd say they were remotes, wouldn't you?"

"Then let's deal with them. We're going into the trees. If they want to see what we're doing, they'll have to follow us."

He scanned the hillside to his left. If there were any mechanoids in there, he couldn't see them, but they'd have to take that risk. The odds were much better if they weren't being watched.

"Ju Dun," he said. "We're going into the trees. Keep tight with us and watch yourself."

He glanced at Aidan. "Ready?"

Aidan grinned back at him. "Ready as I'll ever be!"

"Okay, then let's go."

As one they broke into a trot, coming off the river path and into the cover of the trees.

On the far side of the river the remotes slowed then, reacting to a distant command, came straight across, moving at speed, following the boys into the trees.

"f.u.c.k!"

Dublanc slammed his fist down onto the table.

They'd lost them againl The thought of it made him nervous - yes, and excited, too. This hadn't happened before "Send in everything we've got And position them where they can't be blasted from the sky. I want to see this."

And Daniel doesn't want me to ...

He knew why, of course. He knew that Daniel had finally put two and two together and come up with an answer. That was the only explanation for what he was doing. And though it was his role, as Core Leader, to stop Daniel, it was - paradoxically - also the raison d'etre for Eden, if such a thing existed. Daniel was supposed to get through. Or someone like Daniel The perfect killer. The machine to outgun the machines, as he liked to think of it Or so he guessed.

And the odds were that one or other of them would have worked it out sooner or later. The only trouble - as far as the boys were concerned - was living long enough to come to that realisation.

"Okay," he said, certain now that his earlier instinct had been the right one.

"Send a message to DeVore. I think he'll want to see this."

There were eyes everywhere Daniel looked. He could make them out by the way they glinted in the sunlight. Distant. Too distant to bring down with any certainty. And they needed every last bullet now.

They were facing north, the sun to their left, its slanting rays casting their shadows long across the slope.

The centre was directly ahead of them now, below where they stood, at the heart of a broad valley. Daniel squinted through his visor then enhanced the enlargement, trying to make out something - anything - that might be "it". Because he couldn't he wrong. It had to be there.

But there was nothing. Nothing but rock and tree and ...

White s.p.a.ce, he thought Nothing but white s.p.a.ce. "Come on," Aidan said, a strange gentleness in his voice, as if he sensed Daniel's disappointment "Let's go and poke about" No blame. No recriminations. Daniel looked to his friend, loving him at that moment. In all of this, he could have had no one better at his side. And if this - this foolish errand of theirs -was it, then at least they had made the gesture.

They began to walk down, Daniel to the left, Aidan level with him to his right, Ju Dun walking slowly backwards, forming the apex of the triangle, some twenty metres behind.

Gunfire. A flash of laser. These were constants. It was almost over, yet still the artificial life of Eden sought to destroy them. They fought it off, slowly expending the last of their munitions, while, floating above everything, the probes looked down, sending back their signals to the watching Core, ten kilometres distant "Underground," Daniel said. "It has to be underground." "Yes, but what?"

A gate, Daniel answered in his head, but he didn't want to say it aloud, justjnjjjgg he was wrong.

Yes, and not just a gate. There had to be something else. Something besides a gate.

Two hoverflies, their wingspan a metre across, swooped down out of the sun.

And were gone in a flickering flash.

Aidan lowered his laser and looked about him. It was a fine afternoon. In the late sunlight Eden was beautiful. The gra.s.s had never seemed greener, nor the trees so lovely. The sky was clear and blue. Down below, a stream gurgled its way through the valley.

They walked towards it, the peacefulness of it sinking deep into them like a balm.

And then the stillness. .h.i.t them.

It was as if they had stepped through an invisible gla.s.s wall and were now inside.

The cool breeze that had been blowing dropped abruptly, as if it had been switched off. The air felt suddenly heavier, more oppressive. And the sounds were suddenly muted, as if heard from the bottom of great depths of water. The light here was different, too, as if it fell on them through thick gla.s.s, or from some distant past Daniel stopped, pointing down at the floor.

Aidan looked, then frowned. "What is it? What am I looking at?" "No shadows," Daniel answered, turning a full circle to look about him, his every gesture wary now.

Aidan swallowed, the faintest hint of fear now in his eyes. "Where are we, Daniel?"

"In the centre," he answered, his own voice suddenly sounding strange to him, muted. "In the white s.p.a.ce."

And then a voice sounded, seeming to come from all sides of them at once: "Well done, Daniel. But there's one more hurdle to leap. One final test. Turn around. Turn around and look."

Daniel turned. There, not twenty metres from where he stood, the earth had opened up. A tunnel led straight down into the earth. A bare, inhuman-looking tunnel, the walls smooth and black like the inside of a beetle's wing-case.Staring at it, he recognised what it was and felt a cold fear grip him. A nest. He was looking at the entrance to a nest.

"What is it?" Ju Dun asked, coming alongside "If s a nest"

He had a glimpse of himself, strung up and still alive, as the h.e.l.lish little things crawled over his face while others fed from his guts. No, he thought, taking a step backwards. No.

"Daniel?" Aidan was looking at him strangely.

"I'm ..." Okay, he thought, the fit pa.s.sing.

He shivered, lien looked about him. They were under some kind of dome. He could see its shape in the air all about them. But what kind of dome was it that one could simply walk through?

A force-field, perhaps. One that had been triggered by their entry. As he looked, the surface of the dome flickered and sparked as a bug tried to fly through it at them. The thing vanished as if it had never been. No tiny part of it had penetrated the dome's surface.

Daniel met Aidan's eyes. "I was right"

Aidan nodded.

"So shall we go in?"

Aidan's smile was as of old. "It doesn't look like we're going to get out any other way."

It was true. The only way out was in.

Daniel stared at the darkness of the tunnel's mouth, forcing himself to face his worst imaginings. For a moment or two he hung on a thread, as the wings of the mechanoids brushed against his face and the nano-grubs nibbled at his guts, then, with a determined little nod of his head, he gestured towards the tunnel. "Okay. Lefs see whafs down there."

DeVore stood facing the bank of screens, his hands loosely on his hips, while all about him the staff of the control room stood, their attention divided between him and what was happening on the screens.

WHITE s.p.a.cE.

Four probes had gone in with the boys, two ahead, two behind, and the bank of screens was divided into four, so that each image lay across a section of four by four screens. At the top left, Daniel, crouched in the narrow tunnel, his visor lit, so that one could see his face in the darkness, moving slowly forward. To the right of that, the screens showed Aidan, also crouching, but seen from behind as he followed his friend in; and beneath that image, that of Ju Dun, standing upright, his much smaller figure fitted neatly into the circle of the tunnel.

Only one of the quadrants was dark. In that left-hand section of the screens - directly beneath the figure of Daniel -something moved, a shadow among the shadows.

"Do you think he knows?" DeVore asked. "Do you think he understands it yet?" Dublanc, standing just behind him, answered hesitantly, his own misunderstanding clear. "No. I ... I think he's still guessing." "He's afraid now."

"Yes."

It was true. You could see it in his eyes. So this was true bravery.

Yes, or foolhardiness.

"Are you a gambling man, Dublanc?"

"Master?"

DeVore turned and looked at him. "What would you say his chances were of getting out?"

"Not good."

Again, true. But Daniel was an expert at beating the odds. A genuine survivor.

And he had Aidan at his back, so ...

"You want to wager with me?"

The thought of it shocked Dublanc. Wager with DeVore?

"Don't you think ...?"