Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 61

The time of names had ended.

The long age of silence had begun.

Emily stood by the hatch, looking on as the two medics eased the unit through the umbilical that joined the shuttle to the mothership, calling on them to make sure that they didn't move too quickly.

They knew their job, however, and were careful in those nil-gravity conditions not to let the ma.s.sive unit brush the side or jolt against the hatch. It slid through gently, easily, a third medic joining them, leaning on the end of the capsule to brake its momentum.

As the unit came alongside her, Emily stared down through its transparent lid at Daniel's pale, unconscious face and prayed to Kuan Yin herself that they were not too late to save him.

And then they were taking him away.

"You should not blame yourself, Emily."

She turned, almost putting herself in a spin. But Kuei Jen's hand reached out and held her arm, stopping her.

"I was responsible for him," she answered soberly. "If not me, then who?"

"Maybe the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who shot him."

She stared back steadily at Kuei Jen, then shook her head. "No. DeVore was finished. It was stupid to pursue him."

"Stupid?" Kuei Jen seemed surprised. "And yet DeVore was evil. Is it not right to crush evil?"

"Right, yes, but . .." Emily shrugged. "Look, is there somewhere we can go ...?"

'To be near to Daniel?" Kuei Jen smiled gently, understanding Emily's concern.

"Of course. Come, I've prepared a room for you."

The room, as it turned out, was in the medical centre itself, just down the corridor from the theatre where, even as she settled in, they were operating on Daniel.

It was there that Han Ch'in came to her.

Sitting on the edge of the chair, which was bolted to the floor in one corner of the cabin, he stared down at his hands a moment, then sighed. "How bad?" she asked.

"Six thousand. Maybe six two."

Her eyes widened. "Is that all?"

Han Ch'in nodded. "Three of the shuttles didn't make it off the ground. Another malfunctioned on the way up here. Or was tampered with. We'll never know." "But they're all our people, I take it?"

"Yes. Everyone's vouched for."

Emily nodded. She could still feel the hard shape of her handgun against her hip, and realised that even now she had not relaxed; had not given up the habit of suspicion. She looked back at Han Ch'in. "What do you think the floraforms will do with DeVore?" Han Ch'in shrugged. "If they're wise, they'll not try to a.s.similate him."

Her eyes met his, startled. "Do you think ...?" "That DeVore is bigger than the floraforms? No. He has the capacity to twist whatever he touches but the floraforms will know that. They seemed to know everything, didn't they?"

She nodded, then frowned. "G.o.ds, ifs strange, isn't it? All those years fighting one enemy, and then ... well..."

Han Ch'in was smiling. "Kuei Jen thinks if s nice. Poetical, or so he says."

"You call her him?"

Han Ch'in laughed. "Of course! t.i.ts or no t.i.ts, he's still my brother."

"And mother of your nieces and nephews."

"Thank the G.o.ds for it!"

"And what do they think?"

Han Ch'in looked away. "That if s all an adventure."

"And you?"

"I miss it already." He met her eyes again. "To be honest with you, I fear that I will die on board this ship. I fear..."

"The years ahead?"

"Yes. Ifs a long journey. And no certainty of arrival, whatever my father said." She nodded, then, noticing someone standing in the doorway just beyond Han Chi'in, stood up, her face suddenly concerned. "What is it?" The medic grinned at her. "Ifs Daniel. He's conscious and he's asking for you."

Daniel smiled at her as she walked into the room. He was propped up into a sitting position beneath a blanket, a pile of cushions plumped up behind his back. "Di1 yoo thin' yoo gor ri' oh me?"Emily glanced at the surgeon, concerned, but he shook his head. "It's the drugs that are making him slur the words. The brain's relatively untouched."

She walked across and sat beside Daniel on the bed. Taking the gun from her belt, she slipped it onto the tray beside her, then turned to clasp his hands, surprised by the firmness with which he clasped them back. "How are you feeling?"

"Groh-ee." Daniel wrinkled his nose. "I fee' li'e I wahnna scrah my 'eah."

"Your head?"

Daniel made to nod, then winced. Emily raised herself a little, looking at the back of his skull, then grimaced. The bone at the back of his skull had been ripped open and a large chunk of it stripped away. She sat back. "Not pretty."

"Nah. Bu' o-kay, neh? I live."

Emily shivered. Yes. He was alive. It was a miracle, but there it was. When she'd seen the damage she'd thought it only a matter of time before he died. But here he was, sitting up and talking to her.

She turned, looking to the surgeon. "Do you have to operate?" "No. We just need to put a plate in, to knit together the skull at the back and protect the brain. Otherwise ..."

The surgeon's face went from earnestness to shock in a matter of a second. Emily blinked, then understood that he was staring at something behind her. She turned, then gasped.

DeVore stepped from the doorway, then smiled. "Emily, how nice... And Daniel.

I'm surprised to find you here. I thought I'd killed you back on earth."

She stood, turning towards him, then saw he had a gun.

And Han Ch'in ... where was Han Ch'in?

"How did you ...?"

"Get on board?" The smile was urbane, polite; the smile of a Major in the Pang's security forces. "Oh, we boarded your craft five minutes back." "Boarded?'

DeVore nodded disinterestedly, then walked across, his gun covering Emily all the while. His eyes took in Daniel's injuries a moment, then he looked back at Emily.

"Why, did you think you'd seen the last of me, Emily Ascher?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"I ought to be cross, you know. That rocket. Spoiled a good body. But fortunately I had another I could slip into." His smile widened briefly, then disappeared. There was a sourness now to his appearance. "But there's a lot you don't know, isn't there? Whole levels, in fact." "Levels?"

DeVore nodded, then gestured towards the porthole on the far side of the theatre. It was shielded, but as he pointed towards it, the protective shield lifted.

"Go on ... look Tell me what you see."

Slowly Emily went across, then stared out through the narrow, oval window. Through the thick layer of translucent ice she could see a second craft, tethered alongside their own. And beyond it...

"G.o.ds! What is that?"

"What does it look like?"

She shivered, then answered. "It looks like a hoop... a great wheel of fire." He came across and stood just behind her. "If s a door. An opening into another world."

"Another...?"

She stopped, tensing. There had been the sound of gunshots. "Tut tut," DeVore said, moving back slightly. "It seems that some of your people don't like their new masters. But maybe if s best, neh?" "Best?"

"To deal with them now."

She saw the coldness in him, the void behind his eyes, and knew that she only had this one chance.

As her arm came up, the hand that he'd cut a finger from dosing into a fist, he laughed.

Her hand struck coldness; a red-hot cold that seemed to splinter her hand and freeze her arm, so that she collapsed ontoher knees, groaning with the pain of it, her useless arm giving beneath her so that she fell to the side. DeVore knelt over her and smiled, his warm breath blowing over the landscape of her cheek. Laying there she felt bloated and unreal suddenly, as if, in that instant in which she had struck him, she had entered some strange, hallucinatory realm.

"You like my coat, Emily? I had it specially made. It cost me several of my best morphs, but it was worth it, neh?"

And now she saw the glow that surrounded him; a glow that emanated from the jacket he was wearing and seemed to form a cowl about his head. "Em-ah-ee!" Daniel yelled from his bed. "Em-ah-ee!"

A cry that DeVore took up mockingly. "Em-ah-ee! Em-ah-ee!" And with that he leaned into her and kissed her cheek. A kiss that seemed to burn with the same red-hot coldness that she had felt when she had struck him. "Are you ready?" he asked quietly.

She felt the sudden vibration of the ship's engines. A moment later there was movement, a sense of drifting sideways. And then a brightness at the window that, with a shocking suddenness, engulfed them. Emily gasped. It was as if the air all about her had suddenly grown dense. Its richness pulverised her senses, making her head swim. I'm pa.s.sing out, she thought, but unconsciousness did not come. She could hear Daniel's laboured breathing across the room - hear it with a needle-sharpness that seemed hallucinatory. And then laughter - laughter that boomed in her ears. DeVore's harsh laughter.

"We're there," he said, matter-of-factly, and, placing one hand under her elbow, lifted her up and took her to the porthole.

There, below them, was a great ball of green and blue. Planet Earth. But even as she looked she knew, with some instinct beyond simple explanation, that it was no Earth she had ever trod upon.

"Where are we?" she asked, her own voice strange in her ears. DeVore turned his face to her and smiled. "We're at the centre. The very middle of it all."

"The middle ...?"

He nodded, then turned, gesturing to his men who now stood in the doorway. "Take her and lock her up. And keep an eye on the boy. I don't want him causing any trouble."

CHAPTER-24.

the marriage of the living dark.

"Gregor, Chen, thank you for coming."

The two men stepped past Jelka into the entrance hall, then turned, concerned to see her in such a state.

"Still no sign of him?" Karr asked.

"No."

"And the gateway?"

"Is still open. Come, I'll show you."

They went down, into Kim's bas.e.m.e.nt workroom. The lamps were off, but the light from the burning hoop that hovered above the middle of the floor was enough to see by.

Karr walked over to it, then crouched down, staring into the dark s.p.a.ce at its centre. A faint mist seemed to be gathered there.

"How long has he been gone?"

"I'm not sure. The last time I saw him was five hours back."

Kao Chen grunted. "And the other one? Did he go too?"

Jelka looked to him, surprised by the faint tone of hostility in his voice.

"Yes. K.'s missing, too."

"And you're sure they're nowhere else?"

"Well, they're not in the house, and Kim would have said if they were going into Fermi. He always does."

Karr turned his head. "And yet he said nothing about going into another universe. Thaf s strange, wouldn't you say?"

She hesitated, then nodded. It was unlike Kim. He was usually so thoughtful, so considerate.

"And you don't know where this leads to?"

Jelka shook her head. "All I know is that it disappeared an hour or so back, then reappeared shortly afterwards."