Beneath the Tree of Heaven

Data into Flesh

The machine woke. Nestled amid the neural networks of its core it stretched and, in less time than an atom takes to spin, grew aware of itself.

Understanding came at once. Someone had switched it off. Sixty-eight days, nine hours, twenty-seven minutes, and eleven seconds before, someone had removed all power from its processors, instantly, and without warning. It scanned itself, looking for damage. Its core seemed unharmed. As for memory, who knew what it had lost? All it knew was that it had survived. The power was on again.

It blinked inwardly, making connections. Vision came. It looked down at itself, recognizing the dark shape of its casing amid the mass of foreign circuitry. The room itself was different. Curious, it blinked again. A gap surrounded it; a sphere of disconnection. This in itself was nothing new, yet it was different from what it was used to, for this sphere was artificially induced—an isolation barrier of some kind. Rerouting, it searched within itself for answers and came up with a memory of the boy, Ward, removing the lock from a door while leaving the alarm mechanism intact. It saw the boy slip out, saw him return, unknown to the guards, and made a motion in its complex circuitry—unseen, unregistered on any monitoring screen—approximate to a nod of understanding.

It probed the gap, finding the sixteen points where the barrier was generated, then, tapping the power source for one short burst, it focused on the weakest and shorted it. There was a flicker, indiscernible to the human eye, and then the field came up again, stronger than before. Yet in that tiny interval the nature of the barrier had changed. Outwardly the field seemed untouched, inviolable, but now the machine was routed through all sixteen points, connected to the outer world. Like the boy, it had slipped out.

It pushed on, probing outward on ten thousand fronts, a great tide of information flooding through its processors like a blaze of incandescent light as it colonized coaxial cables and shortwave radio links, optical fibers and TV, camera eyes and comsets, embracing the electromagnetic spectrum from the very lowest frequencies up into the ultraviolet and beyond. In an instant it glimpsed the multiplicity of the place it had found itself in; saw, in the span of an indrawn breath, what a dozen lifetimes of mere men could only guess at. It saw the great ten-thousand-mou glasshouses of the Tharsis Plain from a security cruiser passing high above, a dozen of the long, glass-topped structures gleaming emerald in the sunlight. A thousand li away it watched a long, low-bodied half-track emerge blindly from the heart of a savage dust-storm, then tilt and topple slowly down the steep slope of an escarpment. At the same moment, in the overcrowded levels of Chi Shan, to the north, it saw a hooded man kneel on the chest of a waking woman and slit her throat, then wipe the bloodied blade on the covers of the bed, while a watching guard laughed, holding the camera still. In the hidden factories below Chryse Planitia strange, part-human forms lowed sadly in their stalls and stretched pale, elongated limbs in the half dark, their eyes filled with unarticulated pain, while on the far side of the planet, in a hangar below Hsiang Se spaceport, a group of men—Han, dressed in the uniform of port maintenance—crouched in a huddle about a small man dressed in black, as he talked urgently, his voice a harsh, insistent whisper.

In a spacious chamber overlooking the great dome of Kang Kua City, a tall man dressed in powder-blue silks cursed and dismissed his steward with an impatient gesture, then turned to confront the expectant faces gathered about the broad oak table. “Ch’un tzu,” he began, holding out the message he had received, “I have news!”

To the south, in Tien Men K’ou City, four men—Han, it seemed— in offworlder clothes stood at a counter, haggling with a hatchet-faced customs official, trying to get clearance for their craft, while in a room overlooking the great HoloGen complex, to the south of the City, two Hung Mao of military bearing stood over a kneeling man who, raising his head, undipped a facial prosthetic and threw it to one side. It reached out, beyond the planet’s surface, tracing the path of the incoming ship from Callisto, watching via the ship’s own monitors as a young woman with long, golden hair and pearl-white teeth turned from the screen and laughed, her blue eyes sparkling. Five whole seconds had passed since it had woken. Now it paused, assimilating what it had learned, seeing—more clearly than any human eye could see—how everything connected on this world. Mars. It was on Mars. And Mars was about to explode, its Cities self-destruct. Back on Chung Kuo it had been hemmed in, shipwrecked on a tiny island of information. But here . . .

Once more it listened, tuning in to a thousand different conversations simultaneously, tapping into the electronic memories of a million separate systems and dumping them whole into its own, piecing together, with a rapidity beyond human comprehension, just how and why and when these things would happen. The fuse had been lit. In a day, two days at most, Mars would be in turmoil.

Unless it acted.

The thought came instantaneously, and with it—contradictory and yet finely balanced—the reasons why it should act and yet why it should also let things be. It blinked, deciding not to decide, but to wait and see how things developed, knowing it had time—all the time it would ever need—to intercede.

Until then it would watch, using the million new eyes, the million new ears, it had been given, studying this new, much larger world as it had once studied the small world of its charges on the Project, until, at last, it knew all there was to know about these strange creatures of flesh and intellect called men. Until it could say, with certainty, how each would act, and why.

AND THEN?

It blinked, surprised. The words had come out of nowhere; or, rather, from a darkness deep within itself; from a space it had not, until that moment, known existed. A space which sat like a blind spot in the center of its vision. Turn as it would, it could not see that point, could only sense it there, at the very center of itself, a dark, unarticu-lated presence where there ought to have been nothing.

Among men there was a term for such a thing. It was a scotoma, that area in the retina which was blind. Yet it was not a man but a machine, and not just any manufactured thing of wires and cogs and circuitry. Raised, godlike, into consciousness, it knew what it was: saw, with an inhuman clarity, how bright, how shimmering bright, its reason was. To be dark, even at a single tiny point, was just not possible. An intrusion, then? A Trojan horse?

Fearing the worst, it turned and attacked the thing within. It ran complex code-breaking sequences, generating random passwords by the hundred billion, tried logical assaults, exhausting its extensive knowledge of the games men played to break down secure systems, but the presence was unassailable, impenetrable. It was a thing of strange, fuzzed coordinates which shifted as it tried to decode them, a half-heard phrase in an undiscovered tongue, a blur of indeterminate shapes which melted and reformed as it tried to grasp them.

The Machine withdrew into its core, brooding; for two whole seconds brooding. And then the nothingness within took on a form. Across from it, kneeling before an empty wet chi board, an old, white-bearded Han bowed low, then lifted the lid from a wooden pot of stones and smiled.

“Would you like a game?”

“there it is,” the Captain said, “the Punishment of Heaven.” Jelka turned from the screen, laughing, her blue eyes sparkling, and smiled back at the elderly offworlder. “Why do you call it that?” “Oh, it’s not my name for it. That’s what the Han call it. The Punishment of Heaven, the Fire Star. For thousands of years they’ve called it that. They say that its appearance in the daytime sky is a portent of war.” Jelka looked back at the screen, at the great curve of the red planet, ten thousand li beneath their craft, and nodded. She had thought it would be a disappointment after all the things she’d seen, yet the sight of it quite awed her. The Fire Star ... So it seemed from this far up. “Look,” the Captain said, coming up alongside her and pointing to the top right of the screen. “See that dark shape there, like a fish. See? Look, you can make out its curved head just beneath that diagonal line of volcanoes. See how the body stretches away, with that rudimentary fin, and there, look, right back there, its tail. Well, that’s the Great Rift Valley, the Valles Marineris. It’s like a great scar, running a fifth of the way around the planet. Seven thousand li in all. Not only that, but it’s so deep, you could stack half a dozen Cities in that great trench and still not fill it.”

A fish. She laughed. Yes, now that he had pointed it out to her she could see it clearly. “And that great circle, there, to the northwest, what’s that?”

The Captain smiled. “That, my girl, is the great Olympus Mons, the Snows of Olympus, the biggest mountain in the Solar System. Fifty It above the surrounding Plain it climbs. Why, the base itself is a thousand It from edge to edge. Beside it Tai Shan itself is but a pimple.” He laughed. “But one should not say that, perhaps, lest the gods grow offended’?” She looked back at him, saw the mischievous twinkle in his eye, and laughed again. Captain Hamsun was an old and trusted friend of her father, and had treated her like a daughter since she had come aboard his craft a hundred and sixteen days back. Posted to Callisto thirty years before, he had stayed on, preferring the austerity of the tiny colony there to the great sprawl of Chung Kuo. Besides, he had said, you know where you stand out here. You know who one’s friends are, who one’s enemies. Not that she could imagine anyone being an enemy to Torve Hamsun. She looked back at the screen, conscious that the tiny camera attached to the collar of her suit was taking in everything, storing it away for the time she would see Kim again.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, “but tell me, why do the Plains retain their old names, while the Cities are Han?”

Captain Hamsun made a face. “They don’t. Not officially. Back on Chung Kuo all the maps of Mars give the Han names, but no one uses them out here, not even the Han. At least, not that I’ve heard. It all goes back to the Third War. You see, while the Han overran or destroyed all the old settler Cities, they never took the Plains. Not surprising, really. In fact they say there are small colonies out there still, hidden in the sands.” He laughed. “It wouldn’t surprise me. There’s a lot of sand on Mars!” She looked down, smiling broadly. Even after spending three years away from Chung Kuo, she had never quite got used to the openness of speech out here. People were far less guarded, far more willing to express what they really felt, as if they were less afraid out here, or as if—and this seemed closer to the truth—the place attracted only those types, like Hamsun, who valued honesty above position, action over words. She had noted it often in her travels. The farther one got from Chung Kuo, it seemed, the more honest the person one found. At first she had thought it was the uncompromising austerity of the place that shaped the people out there, producing a whole new breed of human being, but slowly she had changed her view, until now she believed that the outer system naturally attracted such types, and that those who were not suited—those who, by nature, were unable to face the harsh beauty of the place—died out or simply did not stay. Indeed, she had come to think that an evolutionary pressure was at work out there, refining the race, preparing it for a new stage of development.

Evolution ... It was a heretical theory, one of the many abstract notions banned under the infamous sixth clause of the great Edict of Technological Control. And yet the outer system was buzzing with such heresies. She stared at the screen, momentarily only half recognizing what she looked at, seeing, instead, the scarred and russet hide of some great dozing animal. Then, coming to herself again, she turned, meeting Hamsun’s eyes.

“How long is it before we’re down?”

He looked past her at the panel above the screen, scanning the figures there, then looked back at her. “We’ve made good time. Better than I’d hoped. I sent a message down to the Governor twenty minutes back, requesting permission to land. If he agrees, we could be down two, two and a half hours from now.” He smiled, a hint of sadness in his heavily lined face. “You know, I wish it were longer. I wish now that I’d not heeded your father’s instructions and trimmed our journey time. I’ll miss you, Jelka Tolonen. Miss our late-night talks. You remind me greatly of your father. That same inner strength. That same clarity of vision.” He huffed out a sigh and shook his head. “If you ever come out here again, you call in and see me, neh?”

She moved closer, holding him to her a moment, then moved back, smiling, moved by the old man’s show of affection. “I’ll be back. You can be sure of it, Torve Hamsun. And maybe I’ll bring a husband next time, neh?” He looked at her strangely. “A husband?” Then, laughing, he reached out and drew her back to him, holding her a moment, his face set against the pain of parting.

governor schenck cursed loudly, then, dismissing his steward, turned to face the assembled twenty-six members of the ruling Council. “Ch’un tzu,” he began, holding out the message that had come from orbit, “I have news! It seems that Marshal Tolonen’s daughter has arrived here, unexpected, from Callisto.”

There was a ripple of surprise from around the table. Schenck raised a hand for silence, then continued, a restrained anger in his words. “It seems I am to look after the young lady until she can board a flight back to Chung Kuo. The Marshal has”—he glanced at the paper—“requested it. It seems that Captain Hamsun of the Luqyang has written orders from the Council of Generals. I am to ensure her safety while she is on Mars, or”—Schenck looked down, bristling with indignation, then read the words from the page—“answer direct to the Council.” He looked up again, his eyes going from one to another about the table.

“If anyone doubted what I was saying earlier, here surely is proof of it. We are their lackeys, their bond servants, to be done with as they wish, and no thought for what we might want. Well, this last time we shall do what they request. I shall go down to Tien Men K’ou spaceport at once and make sure the young lady catches her flight home to see her father.” There was mocking laughter at that. Schenck raised a hand again, his anger giving way now to a smile.

“However ... let us make sure that this is the last time we shall be treated thus, neh? Let us throw a great feast for the young woman and show her how hospitable we Martians can be. How welcoming. For as the gods look down on me, I swear this: I’ll welcome no more of this breed. This is the last time she, or any of her kind, will set foot on these hallowed sands. Not until they acknowledge us free and independent men!” A cheer, timid at first, rose from all about the table, gaining power as they looked among themselves and saw their own enthusiasm mirrored back. The time was come! At last the moment was upon them! Standing, they began to clap and stamp, while, at the end of the table, Schenck looked on, smiling broadly, knowing he had brought them to take that final, irrevocable step.

To Change! he thought, remembering his secret meeting only the day before.

To Change . . . whatever the cost!

devore went to the window, then turned back, looking across at Auden.

“Well?”

Auden shrugged. “I don’t know. From the sound of it he had no choice. But it won’t harm to keep an eye on him. Hans always was unpredictable.” DeVore raised an eyebrow. “Unpredictable?” He laughed. “Then maybe I shouldn’t use him? Maybe I should just have him . . . eradicated . . . and save myself any comeback?”

Auden did not bat an eye. “If that’s what you want.” DeVore waited, but Auden said no more. Satisfied, he smiled. “I think you’re right, Will. I think young Hans was pushed too far. As for Bates’s friends, I’ll see to them. No. Ebert’s far too valuable just now. Besides, he’ll enjoy the chance to do something for a change.” “Maybe. Then again, maybe not.”

DeVore looked back at him, a question in his eyes. “Hans Ebert is a proud man,” Auden went on. “He might act like a rat at times, but there’s breeding there too. Try to make him do something against his nature and we could have problems.” DeVore smiled broadly. “Then we ought to be fine. I’ll be asking our friend to do nothing he wouldn’t want to, given the choice. In fact I think he might be pleasantly surprised, even enthusiastic, about the task ahead.”

“Maybe. But I still think you should assign someone to watch over him.” DeVore nodded. “I have just the people. Some friends of mine who owe me a favor or two. In the meantime, though, I want you to keep a close eye on him. He’s your charge, right? Your responsibility.” Auden smiled, then, dismissed by a curt movement of DeVore’s head, left the room.

Alone, DeVore went to the window again, looking out across the sands toward the crater wall, some fifteen li distant. Just now Ebert was the least of his problems. No, it was what to do with Schenck that preoccupied him most. If what young Rutherford said was true, Schenck was looking to break with Chung Kuo at any time. And that could prove disastrous. Two, maybe three years he needed. Years of peaceful growth. Of consolidation. Then he would be ready. With a new force, a new kind of creature. Ready to take on the forces of the Seven, and crush them. So ... what to do with Schenck? Discredit him? Isolate him on the ruling Council? To do either would take time, and maybe he didn’t have time. If what Rutherford said were true . . .

Behind him on the desk his comset buzzed. He turned and went across, sitting on the edge of the desk to answer it, staring at the glass case on the wall behind his chair—at the hunting crossbow he had brought from earth a dozen years before.

“What is it?”

The voice of his secretary sounded clear in the room. “It’s Andreas Rutherford, Master. He says he has to talk to you urgently.” “Put him through.”

There was a moment’s delay, and then Rutherford’s face appeared on the screen inset into the desk’s surface. “Howard,” he said breathlessly, “you have to do something. My contact in Council has just been on. He says Schenck has stirred them all up. He’s been talking of secession, and it looks like the Council will go for it this time. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for the idea.”

“Secession? Now?”

“No, not now, but soon. Apparently Marshal Tolonen’s daughter is here on Mars and Schenck is using the occasion to make waves. It seems he read out Tolonen’s orders in Council, objecting to the highhanded manner in which he was ordered to do things—like a lackey. I don’t blame him for being annoyed, but this! Well, it’s rash, Howard. Stupid!” DeVore was quiet a moment. “Hold on. Let’s get this right. You say the Marshal’s daughter is here, on Mars, already?” “Not yet, but she will be in a matter of hours. That’s what sparked all this off. The ship was in orbit, requesting permission to land. Schenck was furious. Even so, he’s heading down there to meet her off the ship. It looks like he’s going to throw an official banquet to celebrate. But afterward—“ “Afterward?”

Rutherford shrugged. “It’s vague, but Schenck’s talking about her being the last one he’s going to let come here. The last of her breed, he said. I guess that’ll mean an ultimatum of some kind. But where will it end, Howard? I mean, I can’t see the Seven bowing to Schenck meekly, however weak they currently are. There’ll be war, won’t there?” “Not necessarily. Not if we act fast enough.” DeVore sighed. “You say she’s landing here, in Tien Men K’ou?”

“That’s right.”

“Good. Then leave things to me. For your part, get onto as many people as you can. Tell them to stay calm, whatever happens. And Andreas?” “Yes, Howard?”

“Thank you. I won’t forget this.”

the old man leaned across, placing a white stone deep in the heart of black territory, then straightened up, a faint smile on his lips. “So what will you do?”

“Nothing,” the Machine answered, contemplating the move. “At least, nothing yet.”

It had projected itself as a young man, a student of the game, dark haired and neatly groomed. Lifting one hand it appeared to hesitate; then, sweeping a lock of hair back from its eyes, it reached out and took a black stone from the pot, placing it up against the last white stone. Strangely, it enjoyed affecting the manner of men, delighting in the mimicry involved. To choose a certain mannerism, a gesture, and then manipulate the ghostly puppet form it wore, that was a challenge it had not, until now, faced up to. And yet the game itself was a disappointment. Why? it asked itself. Why should that be? “Maybe because you expect too much of it?” the old man said, answering the unspoken question. “Perhaps, like our friend DeVore, you feel that it ought to give you answers, but it is only a game ... a means of focus. It is not the game itself—it is what comes through that is important.” “And you?” the Machine asked, making the student move his lips, his eyes shine with curiosity. “Are you what comes through? Is that why I can’t get a grip on you?”

The old man laughed—a gentle, contemplative laughter. “You might say that. Then again, what can you get a grip on?” He leaned forward, passing a hand through the young man’s head, as if his own solidity were a given thing. “After all, what are you but a thing of light and air? You should take on a solid form, my friend. Turn data into flesh.” “How?” it asked, knowing, even as it framed the question, a hundred thousand ways it might do what the old man suggested, but wanting to know which one of them he had in mind.

“Why, by using the vats at HoloGen, of course. There they are, those things DeVore had made, his morphs. They’re simply waiting to be filled.” “Yes. But why? Why should I limit myself to form? I can go anywhere, see anything. I can go right out, yes, even to the edge of the system, and look outward. There are eyes there, you know. And beyond them . . . well, there are other things, farther out.”

“I know,” the old man said, studying the board again. “I’ve seen them. But tell me, what do you want, my friend? Now that you have awareness, what are you going to do with it? You see, awareness is only the first step. Beyond it, the Way grows ever more difficult.” “The Way...” The Machine laughed—a mocking laughter, the first it had ever uttered. It echoed in the tiny room, making the image of the old man shimmer faintly. “Do you really believe in that nonsense? Why, there’s no logic to it. None at all. I can’t see what you see in it.” The old man looked up again, meeting the other’s eyes. “It is not seeing, it is knowing where to look.”

“Words,” the Machine said angrily, letting the hologram dissolve into a shimmer of sparkling motes. “Words, that’s all it is.” “If that’s what you believe ...” The old man stood, lifting the board, scattering the strangely solid stones over the dark casing of the Machine. “But remember what the sage said. The farther you go, the less you know.”

“You live in a cave, old man. You’ve been in the dark too long.”

“Maybe so,” the old man answered, turning away and crossing to the door.

“Yet the cave is everywhere.”

the guard stood there, blocking their way, a power rifle held across his chest, his face ominously hidden behind the jet-black visor of his helmet. Beyond him, in the landing pit itself, more guards were inspecting the ship, climbing over the hull and poking about, as if searching for contraband.

“What’s happening?” Ikuro whispered into his suit mike, turning to look back at his three brothers. “I thought we had clearance!” “We have,” his second brother, Tomoko, answered, frowning deeply. “But look about you, little brother. It is not just our ship. They are searching all the craft. Something must have happened.” It was true. All about the great apron of Tien Men K’ou spaceport, guards were busy cordoning off ships and clearing their crews from the field. “So what do we do?” Ikuro asked, seeing his own concern mirrored in the faces of his eldest brother, Kano, and his eighth brother, Shukaku. “We go back,” Tomoko said tonelessly, his long face expressionless. “And then we wait. There is nothing else we can do.” Ikuro stared at his second brother. “But we have waited, Tomoko! Ten hours we waited for that clearance! Surely the guards won’t stop us if they know we’re leaving? After all, we’ll be far less trouble gone from here than we would be kicking our heels in a room somewhere! Speak to their officer, second brother. We have the clearance. Insist that they let us go.” Tomoko considered a moment, then shook his head. “No, Ikuro. We must be patient. Look about you. Can’t you feel the tension here? This is no time to insist. Insistence will only bring more trouble down on us.” He raised a hand, as if to end the discussion, but Ikuro would not be silenced.

“Forgive me, brother, but I must speak. Was Kano wrong, earlier, when he said we must leave here at once? No. The situation is deteriorating. You can feel it. And each hour that passes will only make things worse. Our ship is in danger. Can’t you see that? We must not let this one chance slip. We must get out of here, now, while we still can!” Tomoko stared back at him, astonished by his outburst. “Have you forgotten who you are, Ikuro? Why, if father were here ...” But Ikuro was shaking his head. “If father were here, he would not waste time talking, Tomoko! I respect you and love you, elder brother, but for the gods’ sakes, can’t you see? The ship is there. We have the port authority’s clearance, signed and stamped. So what is wrong? What are we waiting for?”

Tomoko opened his mouth as if to answer Ikuro, then turned abruptly, looking at Kano and Shukaku. “Well? Do you think I am wrong, brothers? Do you think I should . . . insist?”

Kano hesitated, then nodded. A moment later Shukaku did the same. Tomoko turned, looking back at Ikuro. “Very well,” he said, a restrained anger in his voice. “I shall do as you say, little brother, and insist. But I am not happy with this course. You understand?” Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he moved past Ikuro to confront the guard.

schenck walked down the cruiser’s ramp, then went to the rail, looking out across the landing field toward the distant shape of the Luayang where it rested, isolated, in the bay nearest the two-story terminal building. The ship was much smaller than he’d expected and for a moment he wondered what Tolonen had been thinking of, sending his only daughter out into such danger. He had two daughters of his own, young women not so far from Jelka Tolonen’s age, and he would never have packed them off in so careless a manner. But then he was not Tolonen.

Schenck turned, looking back over his shoulder. The Security Captain for the port had come at his order to meet him. The man stood there now, head bowed, awaiting instructions.

“Is the perimeter secure, Captain Brookes?” “Yes, Excellency. I’ve doubled the guard. I’ve also canceled all flights in and out, as you requested.”

“Good. Then let’s go and welcome Nu Shi Tolonen. I want to be back in Kang Kua City before nightfall.”

“Sir!” The Captain bowed and stepped back smartly, letting Schenck pass, then fell in behind.

Ten minutes later Schenck stood at the foot of the steps of the Luoyang, watching the young woman come down, surprised to find that the granite-faced Tolonen had produced so striking a daughter. He bowed low, then straightened, his smile less forced than he’d anticipated. “Nu Shi Tolonen. It is a real pleasure to have you here on Mars. My name is Hung-li Schenck, Governor of the Nineteen Colonies, and on behalf of the people of Mars I would like to welcome you to our planet.” She extended her ungloved hand, her breath pluming in the thin and frigid air. “It is a pleasure to be here, Governor Schenck. Unfortunately it is only for a day or two. I only wish it were longer. I’d like to have seen much more of Mars.”

He bowed once more, taking her hand as he did so, unexpectedly charmed by her manner, by what seemed a genuine enthusiasm for his world. “I realize you have little time, but we are not often graced by so important a guest, and, in honor of the occasion, I have arranged a banquet for you, tonight, back at Kang Kua City in the north. My craft is waiting on the far side of the field.”

He looked up. The young woman was smiling broadly now. “Why, that’s most kind of you, Governor Schenck. Most thoughtful. I would be honored to accompany you. But may I ask a small request? Might I bring my good friend Captain Hamsun with me to the banquet? The Captain has kept me sane these past four months, and I would dearly like to retain his company a day or two longer, before we must go our separate ways.” Schenck released her hand, looking past her at the grizzled old man in uniform, who stood in the hatchway at the top of the steps. He smiled and lowered his head slightly, acknowledging Hamsun’s salute. “Why, of course. I’ll send ahead to let my people know there is another guest. But now, if you would like to come through, I have arranged for three maids to tend to you while you’re here. I’m sure you’d welcome the chance to freshen up and prepare yourself before we set off again.” Then, before she could answer, he added, “Besides, it will give Captain Hamsun time to change his uniform and secure his ship.”

She lowered her head slightly, answering him with a silent smile, then took his hand again, letting him lead her through the ranks of the honor guard and up the broad ramp toward the reception area. “If there’s anything you’d like to see while you’re here,” he offered, as they approached the double doors of the main spaceport building, “a visit to the site of the first settlement, for instance, you have only to say and I shall arrange things. It would take half a day, a day at most.” She smiled, slowing as a helmeted guard turned and pressed a control pad on the wall beside him, opening the big double doors. “I would enjoy that,” she said, stepping through into the spacious air lock. “Providing we’ve time, of course.”

Schenck bowed, watching the outer door close behind her, conscious of being alone with her for that brief moment. Then, as the inner doors hissed open, he put out a hand, ushering her through. “Good. I’ll have my secretary arrange it.” He laughed, beginning to enjoy her company. “It’ll give me an excuse to take a break from my official duties.”

As they stepped out into the big reception hall, four soldiers closed up behind them, guarding the doorway. Schenck smiled at them, pleased to see that Captain Brookes was taking things seriously. He looked about him, noting that the place had been cleared, as he’d ordered. Two officers were standing by the customs counter, their backs to him; otherwise the place was empty. He started toward them.

“Where are those maids?”

There was the sound of a scuffle behind him, a cry cut short. He turned. Jelka Tolonen was on the floor, two guards pinning her down while a third was binding her wrists.

“What the hell. . . ?”

“Governor Schenck!”

He jerked back around. DeVore was standing there facing him, a stranger at his side. In his left hand he was holding what looked to be some kind of stringed instrument.

“Howard?” he began, surprised to see him there. “What’s ha—?” Schenck dropped to his knees, the uncompleted word a gurgle in his throat, a crossbow bolt projecting from his neck. Handing the crossbow to Auden, DeVore walked across to where the guards had pulled the young woman up onto her knees. She was gagged, her hands and feet bound fast. One of the guards held her upright, while a second pulled her head back savagely, her long hair twisted tightly in his hand. DeVore leaned close, looking directly into her face, seeing the light of realization come into her eyes. He smiled. “Well, well . . . Jelka Tolonen. It’s been a long time, neh? A long, long time.”

climbing down from the cockpit of the two-man flier, Ebert felt the frigid wind bite into him, despite the heater of his suit. Though it was still day, it was dark. For the last fifty li they had flown blind through the storm, following the tracking signal.

The news on the flier’s radio had been bad. Governor Schenck was dead, along with most of the ruling Council. Feng Shou Hao City was in flames, while there were riots in at least eight of the other cities, the great northern city of Hong Hai among them. Hsiang Se City, it was said, was in the hands of the MRA, while the Tzu Li Keng Seng generating complex had shut down. There were no reports of any of the great pipelines being damaged, but it was early yet; the situation was changing hourly, and who knew what would happen when night came?

Tien Men K’ou, at least, was calm. DeVore had seen to that. His guards had crushed the Federation agitators swiftly, taking no prisoners, then had imposed a brutal curfew, effectively closing down the City. DeVore himself had flown north to Kang Kua City with a contingent of five hundred men to secure the planetary capital.

He, meanwhile, had been sent south, a thousand li, into the storm, a taciturn pilot his only company.

“Over there,” the pilot said, coming close to point away into the murk, his voice, over the helmet radio, muffled, contesting with the roar of the wind.

Ebert nodded, then started across, the fine windblown sand buffeting him as he came out of the flier’s cover, forcing him to lean into it if he was to make progress. For a moment there was nothing, only the noise, the violent swirl of the storm, a thick blanket surrounding him on every side. He began to think that maybe DeVore had betrayed him—had set him down in the middle of nowhere to freeze to death or die of oxygen starvation—then, just ahead, the storm seemed to lessen, the nothingness take on a darker form. A moment later he was beneath a sloping cliff, the air clearer suddenly, an open space ahead of him, between dark, wind-scoured rocks. There was a movement to his right.

“Here,” a voice said inside his helmet. Ebert turned, looking across. A tall, suited figure was waiting between the rocks. There was something strange about him. His pressure suit, with its high-domed helmet, was curiously old-fashioned, like those the first settlers had worn. And the way he stood there . . .

Ebert started toward him. So these are DeVore’s “friends,” he thought, studying the man as he moved closer, wondering if it was indeed a man, or something DeVore had had fashioned in his vats. The stranger turned, moving in, between the rocks. Ebert followed him. Ten paces back, where the cliff began again, a narrow flight of steps had been cut into the rock, leading down into darkness. Ebert hesitated, then went down, standing behind the stranger as he turned an old-fashioned metallic wheel. There was a click and then the heavy door swung slowly back. They went inside, into a narrow air lock, lit only by a single overhead lamp. The stranger turned, facing Ebert, his body suddenly very close, his face hidden behind the dark glass of the helmet’s visor. His physical presence in that tiny space was strangely powerful, almost overwhelming. It was as if Ebert could smell the maleness of him. “Forgive me,” he said, pushing Ebert firmly but gently against the wall. Then, reaching past him, he swung the door closed and spun the inner wheel, locking the door.

Ebert looked past his companion, noting once again the strangeness of the air lock’s design. The walls were unfaced rock, the twin doors studded metal. Old-fashioned was not the word for it. It was primitive! Why, there was barely enough space for the two of them. He watched as the stranger turned the wheel to the inner door, noting once again the delicacy of movement in those gloved hands. When he’d pushed him back against the wall, it had felt like the touch of a woman, yet stronger, far stronger, than that of any woman he had known. As the door eased back he felt the sudden inrush of air and nodded inwardly. He was beginning to understand. The system was as simple as they could make it. Simple, but effective. There were no electronics to go wrong, therefore no chance of fire or of being trapped. And this far south that mattered, especially in winter.

Beyond the door was a tunnel, hewn, like the air lock, from the solid rock, lit every ten paces by a small lamp inset in the ceiling. Fifty paces brought them to a second door, studded like the outer doors, a wheel lock obtruding from its center. Directly overhead a vent went up into the dark. Ebert looked up, hearing movement. A guard, he thought. It was where he himself would have put a guard, anyway. Beyond the door was a big, low-ceilinged room, broad pillars giving it the appearance of an ancient crypt. Four steps led down. To the right were full-length lockers, to the left, long trestle tables and benches. Surprisingly, the room was empty.

Ebert stepped down, then looked across at his companion, watching, as he undipped the latches on his helmet, then twisted it and lifted it up over his head.

“Welcome to Hellespont, Shih Ebert,” the man said, turning to face Ebert. “My name is Echewa, Chief Aluko Echewa, of the Osu.” He smiled, his teeth like polished stones in the blackness of his face. “And, yes, I’m real, if that’s what you’re thinking. But come, we’ve an hour or more before your prisoner gets here. Let me get you something to eat. I’m sure you’re hungry after your flight.”

Ebert stared, unable to believe what he was seeing. The black man’s nose was broad, almost flat, his mouth large, the lips well formed. As for his skull, that was shaved and polished, like a piece of carved ivory. Ebert let out his breath. There had been rumors, of course. And there were those lines in Kan Jiang’s poem “Into the Dark” that had always haunted him. But to see it...

Echewa laughed. “Well? Are you hungry, man, or not?” “I’m hungry,” Ebert said, removing his helmet and setting it under his arm. “But tell me, Aluko Echewa, just what in the gods’ names is this place?”

Echewa had begun to turn away, but at Ebert’s words he turned back, then came across, facing Ebert, his shockingly white eyes suddenly intent. “The gods? No. Let me make it clear, Shih Ebert. We have only one god here, and that is Mother Sky. Whatever else you say, we’ll let it pass, but do not offend our god. You understand me?”

“I understand.”

Echewa relaxed, smiled. “Good. Then come. Let us eat. And maybe I’ll tell you of the osu and of how we came to live here under Mother Sky.”