Days of Bitter Strength

He had been looking at the problem in the wrong light. He had been trying to follow the living into the land of the dead. But he'd been going about it all wrong. What he needed was to turn it all about; to follow the dead back into the world of the living.

Ben shivered, making sense of it at last.

He had to die. Yes, he had to die and be reborn.

At the foot of the ramp, Li Yuan turned and looked back toward the Eastern Palace, suddenly remembering something. "The portrait! Han Ch'in, you must go and get the portrait!" Han Ch'in looked to his half-brother, Kuei Jen, and shrugged.

"Portrait, father? What portrait?" "Of my mother. It is in my rest-room, just off the study. Go and bring it. I will not leave until I have it!"

After all that had happened, it seemed a strange little display of petulance, but Han Ch'in merely bowed to his father and, with a smile to Kuei Jen, hurried off to do his father's bidding.

"Go inside, father," Kuei Jen urged, laying a hand gently on his father's arm. "Han Ch'in will bring the portrait. Now go inside and rest."

Li Yuan hesitated a moment longer, then, with a fussy little gesture, hobbled up the ramp and into the big cruiser.

Kuei Jen sighed, shaking his head at his father's behaviour, but understanding it even so. Families! Sometimes they seemed as much a curse as a blessing. Not that his was by any means a typical family.

He half turned, hearing the cries of his infant son from within the cruiser and remembered briefly both the pain and joy of giving birth. Now that had been an experience - a test of sheer endurance unmatched by any other he had undergone. If anything, it had made him much more of a man than he had been before, for it had augmented his physical strength with the qualities of compassion and understanding.

He smiled, wondering what Chuang Tzu would have made of it. A man giving birth to his own son. A man with a woman's feelings, complete in himself. Only he wasn't complete. Content, yes, but complete? No. No being was ever complete. Take his father, for instance. Li Yuan, more than any of them, had been born incomplete - a motherless child, forever longing for that one relationship he had been denied. To be a man in a man's world, that had been his fate - and that, more than anything, was what had fucked him up. All of his mistakes, all of his thoughtless actions, had stemmed from that one root. No wonder, now, he called like a frightened child for his mother's portrait.

At least I knew my mother, he thought, the bitterness of her loss somewhat alleviated by the love he shared with his own child. At least I knew she loved me.

And that was something his father had never, it seemed, been certain of. All Li Yuan knew was that she had loved his elder brother, Han. After all, hadn't he seen those images of the two playing in the Imperial gardens together in the summer before his untimely birth? Yes, and how that must have hurt -to see another have what he himself had been denied. And was that the key to his relationship with Fei Yen? That he could, for once, have what his brother had?

He almost laughed at the irony of it, for things had truly come full circle. Up there, at the very back of the craft, sat Fei Yen, her haggard face and night black silks making her seem a good thirty years older than she really was.

Like a curse, Kuei Jen thought, thinking of all that had happened - of the strange inevitability of the chain of events that led to this moment. Who would have thought?

He felt the ghosts of his ancestors at his shoulder at that moment. Of Li Shai Tung and all those others who, for the briefest eye blink of creation, had ruled a solid world of certainties. Gone it was. Vanished like a dream. And this, the very last of it. When they stepped up into the craft and the door closed behind them, they would be leaving that world forever. The San Chang would fall into ruin and Chung Kuo would slowly fade, until even the memory of it - even the words themselves - would be forgotten.

"Ten thousand years!" he said quietly, making an imaginary toast to the air. "Kan Pef. May the gods bless you with good fortune and many children!"

Gone it was. Gone. He shivered, then turned and walked back up the ramp.

Han Ch'in stood there a moment in the shadowed bedroom, the portrait of his grandmother wrapped in a towel beneath his arm. The scene around the empty bed was eerie, as if a group of huge insects had dressed themselves in men's silks and then gathered about the bed in a predatory huddle, only to die and desiccate. The curled, almost foetal, figures did not really look like men, though they had men's features and men's limbs.

He shivered and took a few steps closer. Though he knew none of these men personally, he understood that they must have been important and powerful men while they yet lived. And now . . . His foot brushed against one and it fell aside. A tiny cloud of spores rose from the husk's chest, then settled slowly.

So much for the pretensions of men. So much for power and status and riches . . .

Han Ch'in frowned, then bent down, picking something up. It was a ring. Moving to the doorway he stared at it in the light from the wall lamp and gave a tiny gasp. It was a heavy iron ring, and on its face was a wheel of seven dragons - the Ywe Lung, the symbol of the Seven Han Lords who had once ruled Chung Kuo.

It was his father's, he was sure of it. Li Yuan must have dropped it as he made his way from the bed, or it had slipped from his finger without him noticing. Whichever, his finding of it was fortuitous. Now he could give Li Yuan both his mother and - in a sense - his father, for this ring had been Li Shai Tung's ring long before Li Yuan was born.

Smiling to himself, he hurried back to the cruiser. The engines were warming up as he came out onto the path again, the guards he'd posted earlier moving back toward the craft, their eyes searching the walls and windows of the overlooking palaces, making sure nothing went wrong at the last moment.

He ran across, signalling to his men to get on board, then climbed the ramp. Kuei Jen was waiting for him just beyond the hatch.

"You have it?" he asked.

Han Ch'in nodded. "And his ring," he said, showing it to Kuei Jen. "He must have dropped it."

Kuei Jen took it and studied it a moment, then handed it back. "Go through," he said. "Our father is impatient."

Han Ch'in grinned, then moved past his brother into the long interior cabin.

Li Yuan was sitting at the far end of the cabin, immediately across from his once-wife, Fei Yen. Seeing his son, he began to get up, but Han Ch'in hurried to him.

"It is all right, father. I have the portrait."

"Portrait?" Fei Yen said, looking first to her son and then to Li Yuan. "What portrait is this? You have a portrait of me?"

Li Yuan took the towel-wrapped painting anxiously, giving Fei Yen a tiny glare as he did so. "Of you? You think I'd want a portrait of you?"

He unwrapped the painting and rested it in his lap, studying it. In it his mother was no more than sixteen years old, a Minor Family princess, only recently betrothed to his father after the failure of Li Shai Tung's previous wife to give him any children.

"Ahh," Fei Yen said, leaning across the gangway to get a better look. "I should have known. You always were a mother's boy, Yuan."

"And you always were a haggard-faced old bitch underneath it all, neh, my sweet one?" Li Yuan answered acidly.

"Now, you two," Han Ch'in began, but he got no further.

"Is that what you really believe, Li Yuan?" Fei Yen said, showing a hint of the steel of which she was made. "So you never loved me?"

"Oh, I loved you," Li Yuan answered, sitting back, beginning to enjoy the exchange. "Like a lamb loves the friendly touch of a butcher, not knowing there is a cleaver hidden behind his back!"

Han Ch'in looked away, not knowing whether to laugh or groan. Ever since they had been reunited five hours back, they had done nothing but bicker. Like a couple who had been married fifty years.

"Father," he interrupted, before his mother could find something equally devastating to say, "I found something else, in your rooms."

"A pair of maids, no doubt," Fei Yen began, but Han ignored her, holding his hand out, palm open, to his father.

"My ring?" Li Yuan said. He extended his hand as if to take it, then drew it back. "Achh! That cursed thing! Take it away! Throw it down some deep, dark well where it can never be found again!"

"Father?" Han Ch'in stood back, surprised.

But Li Yuan had bared his teeth now, as if the ring were some living thing. "It blighted my life. My brother should have ruled, not me, but that killed him. It destroyed my relationship with your mother here, and it killed all my other wives. And now .. . well, it shan't have me! I'll not let it!"

Han Ch'in closed his hand on the ring, then slipped it into his pocket. Li Yuan's eyes noted the movement and nodded.

"That's right, Han Ch'in. You keep it. But it will not bring you happiness. Not if you wore it on your finger for ten thousand years."

Han Ch'in swallowed, then, bowing to his father, backed away. At the doorway Kuei Jen stepped back, letting him come past, and, as the cabin door slid shut, he turned to face Han Ch'in.

"He's right, elder brother. All that that symbolises has passed now. Chung Kuo is gone. We must learn to be ordinary people now."

"Ordinary?"

Kuei Jen laughed. "Well, less than kings, let us say." He paused, then, looking into Han's eyes asked "Why, did you want to be a T'ang, brother?"

"I was a Warlord ..."

"That's not what I asked. Did you want to keep it going? I mean . . . even after all we've seen and experienced?"

Han Ch'in shrugged, as if he wasn't sure. Then, conscious of his brother's eyes on him, he shook his head. "No. If s best, neh?"

Kuei Jen nodded and, taking the ring from his hand, ducked through into the cockpit. He was back a moment later, his hands empty.

"There," he said. "We'll eject it on the way across to America. It can lie there on the ocean bed until the sun grows old."

Han Ch'in sighed. "So that's it, then? If s over."

Kuei Jen nodded, then, unembarrassed by the breasts that distinguished him from other men, he embraced his brother for the first time. "If s for the best, brother. Really, if s for the best..."

"Gregor?"

Chen sat on the fence, forty ch'i from the hatchery, watching as his old friend stepped from the long, low building, having almost to crouch to get out under the low lintel. Straightening, Karr grinned. That old, familiar grin. "It's good to see you again, Chen." "It's wonderful to see you, Gregor." They stood, facing each other a moment, the afternoon sun shining down on the two old friends. It was almost two hours now since the cruisers had left, and while Gregor and his family had been settling in, Chen had held a meeting of the villagers.

"So what was decided?" Karr asked. "Oh, you can stay. Provided you keep to quarters the next three days. I hope you don't mind, Gregor, but I've posted guards. For their peace of mind . . ."

Karr smiled and nodded. "I understand. Three days, eh?" He scratched his chin and looked about him at the huge open fields that stretched away on every side. "You wouldn't have any playing cards, would you, Chen?"

Chen laughed. "I'll send Jyan over with some. But tell me, what's happening in there. I mean, why are you here? I've been trying to work that one out ever since I first saw you."

Karr shrugged, then looked away, a momentary bleakness in his eyes. "It's gone, Kao Chen. All of it. The government is in ruins. The people . . . well, what people there are left... are in shock. The generals wanted me to take over ... to become Emperor in Li Yuan's place."

"Emperor?' Chen stared at him, astonished. Karr laughed quietly. "Yes. Me." He shook his head. "But 1 wanted to see you. Wanted to talk to you first." Chen stared back at him, puzzled. "Why?" Karr met his eyes. "Because you got out. Because . .. well, because you are the last honest man I know, Kao Chen, and I value your opinion."

Chen whistled. "Things are that bad, eh?" Both men laughed. Then Karr spoke again. "It strikes me I have three options."

"Three?"

Karr nodded. "One, I go back and become Emperor. I take charge and try to make the best of a very bad job."

"And two?"

"I stay here. In retirement, if you'd like to call it that. My friends in Security promise they'll protect this place if I do. Providing I give them guarantees."

Chen frowned, not liking the sound of that. "And the final option?"

"We join Ward, on Ganymede. Leave the System and seek our fortune elsewhere."

"Like where?"

Karr laughed. "You haven't heard, Kao Chen?"

Chen put out his arms and shrugged. "We hear little out here. Look about you, Gregor. Fields. Everywhere you look, fields. What do we know of the great world's events?"

"Then listen. Kim Ward has built a great fleet of starships, among them the New Hope."

"The ship you blew up that time?"

Karr nodded. "The same, but better. Not only that, but he plans to take four of Jupiter's moons with him on his journey. Four fleets, sailing to four different stars."

Chen stared, then shook his head. "Now I know you must be ill, Gregor Karr. Moons? He's taking moons?"

Karr nodded. "And he's offered us a place. At least, Jelka has. You too, if you want to come."

Chen frowned. "But why should I come? What's there that we haven't got here?"

"A future." Karr looked down. "Ifs ended here, Chen. Right now it might not seem like it, but things have broken down irrevocably. One day soon - not now but months from now -the sickness will get to you. Or a raiding party will succeed. Something, anyway. And then if 11 all be gone." Karr sighed heavily. "You're living on a sandbank here, old friend, and the tide is coming in."

"So you say . . ."

"So I know." Karr pressed his hands together. "How many of you are there here?"

"Villagers?"

"Yes. How many, all included?"

Chen shrugged and thought, then. "One hundred and fifty.

One eighty at most."

"Then we can do it. I'll send a message through to Ward. We could arrange a rendezvous four days from now. We could be off planet by . . ."

Chen raised his hands. "Now hold on ... What you're talking about . . ." He swallowed. "Well, it is not a decision to be made in an instant. To leave here. To leave Chung Kuo. To go.. ." He laughed, then shook his head, incredulous. "Are you serious, Gregor? Moons? He's taking moons?"

Karr nodded and grinned. "And the New Hope, Kao Chen. Don't forget the New Hope!

They set up trestle tables in the main yard of the Mansion and, as the golden-eyed survivors slowly gathered, adding to those who had followed the cart home, so the long benches filled up. Though they ate ravenously, there was a strange, almost eerie silence at the tables. Where once small talk had been enough for such an occasion, now there were no words for ordinary things, for nothing was ordinary any longer. Those who had come through had found themselves profoundly changed and exhibited a curious aversion to speech - those, that was, who had not discovered themselves mad or driven suicidal from grief.

Emily and the boys went among them, filling and refilling their earthenware bowls, while Michael stood on his balcony above, looking on. He had no family now but her; no friends, either, now that the plague had done its worst. Even his old friend and personal assistant, Dan Johnson, had been taken by it. So many good people gone. So much misery. He shivered, then turned, hearing a noise in the rooms behind him. Stepping across to the open doorway, he drew the curtain back and looked inside.

The man stood there silently beside his bed, staring at the book he'd picked up from the bedside table. Then, setting the book back, he turned and walked across, opening one of the sliding doors to the wall-length wardrobe and looking inside. Michael stared, astonished, then stepped inside. "Excuse me . . ."

The man turned, his golden eyes fixing on Michael's. For a moment or two he stared at him, then he turned back, beginning to flick through the silken pau hanging on the rail.

"I said, excuse me," Michael said, a note of anger in his voice now, "but what the hell are you doing in my room?"

The man ignored him. He went on looking through the gowns as if Michael were not there.

Michael strode across and pulled the man round, pushing his own face into the stranger's, shouting at him angrily. "I think you'd better leave, before I throw you out." The man reached up and, gently, unfussily, removed Michael's hand from his shoulder, then turned back, reaching out to take one of the pau.

Michael grabbed him, shoved him back against the wall. "MichaeP"

He stepped back as Emily quickly crossed the room. Moving past Michael, she took an armful of the silken gowns and, handing them to the man, gently ushered him from the room. Closing the door, she turned and looked to Michael.

"The nerve!" Michael said, shaking his head, his anger unassuaged. "The fucking nerve of these people! You feed them and they think suddenly they own you! Yes, and everything you've worked for!" "Michael?"

"Well, can you believe that? Bold as fucking brass! Like I wasn't even there!" "Michael?"

He looked to her. "What?" "Listen to yourself. Listen a moment, then think." "Think?"

She nodded. "About what's happened to our world. About what you saw today. Haven't you realised yet?" "Realised?"

"It's over, Michael. The days of owning things have ended. We must learn now how to share all we own."

"Share..." He laughed bitterly, then turned away from her, his whole body tense. "That's easy for you to say. You had nothing!"

For a moment she was silent, then. "If that's how you feel."

"How I feel?" He turned, meaning to continue the argument, then saw the disappointment in her face.

"I guess we'd better go."

"I. . ." He took a step toward her, then stopped. "Look, all of this..." He let out a long sigh. "It's difficult. I didn't mean..."

She faced him angrily. "Oh, you meant it, Michael. It was there in your voice. What's more, ifs what you've been thinking all these months, isn't it? Thinking how generous you've been, and how grateful I ought to feel for that!"

He looked down, hurt by her comments. "Is that what you think?"

"Well, what am I supposed to think?"

"That I love you."

Emily was silent a moment, then she shrugged. "I don't know . . ."

"Look," he said, moving closer, taking her arms, touching her for the first time since they'd been reunited. "It really is difficult, okay? You . .. well, it is easy for you. It couldn't be easier. But I've got to learn." He smiled. "You've got to teach me."

"You want that?"

He nodded. "I want that."

She swallowed, then looked down. "You know, you never really owned it all, Michael. It owned you." She looked up at him and smiled. "All those servants, all those employees you were responsible for. All of those locks and bars and codes and armed guards. Let it all go, Michael. It belongs to the old order."

He laughed and squeezed her arms gently.

"What?" she said. "What is it?"

"Just that I've no real choice. It's gone, Emily. The Hang Seng collapsed four days back. All that's left is here, in this Mansion." He stared down at her, amused by her surprise. "Oh, I still own it all on paper - all the factories and shops and research facilities - but that doesn't mean a great deal anymore. You need a massive market to sustain giant Companies like ImmVac, and that's gone. Nor do I think we'll see it again in our lifetime."

She smiled. "So what was all that about just now?" "I don't know. A lifetime's habit, I suppose." He sighed, then held her close, smelling her hair. "So will you stay?"

"Maybe," she said, putting her arms about his back, her head nuzzling into his chest. "Maybe."

Meg pushed the cellar door open with her knee, then made her way down the unlit stairwell, her bare feet finding their own way down the uneven stone steps.

At the bottom she elbowed the inner door open, her hands occupied by the tray she was carrying. Inside, in the half-light of the crowded basement, she looked about her.

"Ben?"

"Over here . . ."

She moved toward the sound, stepping between the close-packed shelves, past wired morphs and electrical cabinets, stacked files and odd-looking packing cases.

Emerging from between two rows of free-standing shelves, she was surprised to find her brother crouched over the refrigeration unit, his bare arse exposed to her.

"Ben?" She laughed, then set the tray down beside one of the big notebooks which was open on his work table. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Looking for eggs," he said, straightening up and grinning at her over his shoulder.

She tutted, then took his blue silk wrap from beside Hugo, his favourite morph, and draped it over his shoulders.

"Eggs?"

He smiled and, shrugging on the wrap, turned to face her. "That the stew?"

She nodded. "There's bread, too. And cheese for after."

"Ah ..." He stepped past her and lifted the lid of the pot, sniffing deeply, his eyes closed. For a moment Meg watched, the familiarity of that gesture - so like their father - touching something deep in her. But she could not allow that feeling to stop her from saying what had to be said.

"Ben?"

"Yes."

"Ben, I want to go and see Tom. I want to talk to him, persuade him to come home."

"Uhuh?" But the way he said it put her back up. He wasn't listening, or if he was he didn't care.

"I said ..."

He turned to her, smiling. "I heard. And I know you miss him. But you can have sons, Meg. As many sons as you want."

She stared at him. "What?"

"You heard me."

"But I thought..."

Still smiling, he turned and took a hunk of the bread, beginning to chew it. "I changed my mind."

"I. . ." She frowned, confused now. She thought she knew her brother - his whims and ways - but this? He had been quite adamant about not wanting any more children after Tom and had been furious at first when Catherine told him about Dogu. She took a breath, then spoke again.

"What's going on, Ben? Why have you changed your mind?"

Ben moved past her, a hand resting briefly on her hip, and reached into the freezer unit. Lifting something, he turned and handed it to her. It was a tray, a tray of tiny vials, six in all.

Eggs, she realised, recognising the acorn symbol etched into the transparent lid of the tray and into the smooth face of each of the tiny glass vials. They were the fertilised eggs of her great-great-great-great-grandfather Amos Shepherd and his wife Alexandra Melfi.

She shivered. "I thought you meant. . ."

But he was staring at her and smiling now, as if this was the best thing he could ever do for her.

"Six children," he said, confirming only what her own eyes had already noted. "If s what you want, Meg. What you always wanted."

She felt something freeze inside her, as if the six deep-frozen eggs had been placed directly into her womb at that moment.

It wasn't what I meant, she thought, horrified by his utter insensitivity as he turned and, lifting the lid of the pot, began to spoon the steaming stew into his mouth. / meant our children, Ben. Ours!

"Em?"

Emily came from the bed, a cloak hastily wrapped about her nakedness, and stood beside Michael at the balcony rail. Below them the endless feeding went on, the wall-lamps lit now as the sun began to sink below the compound walls. But Michael wasn't looking down, he was looking out across the endless rows of red-tiled roofs toward the south.

"Fires," he said, putting his arm about her.

She looked toward where he was pointing, seeing the tall plumes of black smoke far to the south, counting them.

"Eight. No, nine . . ."

"Hmm." Michael stared a moment, deep in thought, then sighed. "Maybe we ought to leave here, Em. Find somewhere."

"No," she said, snuggling in to his side.

"No?" He looked down at her. "What do you mean?"

"Just no. No more running. This is as good a place as anywhere now."

"But the fires . . ."

Her hand moved gently against his side, reassuring him, as if he were one of her boys. "Bodies," she said. "They're just burning the bodies." Then, "Forget that now and come back inside. I think we've a lot of time to make up for."

They were gathering the dead together, piling them in huge ^tacks and burning them.

Pausing for a moment's rest, Tybor rested on a low wall, stretching his long, inhuman legs. Dust.. . there was so much dust here, and the fires made his throat burn, but this had to be done. Things had to be cleared before they could begin their proper task.

Yes, and if the survivors ran from them in fear, what did it really matter? In their place, he too would be afraid.

Tybor turned his head, looking toward his point of origin -Charon, Pluto's twin. There was not a moment of the day or night when he did not know its position in the sky relevant to him; though the width of the earth came between he and it, still he knew.

The world might turn, he thought, yet Charon remains constant in the sky.

He looked back at the mounting flames. It was such a shame, such an awful shame. They could have done so much here.

One of his three companions came across and stood before him. "We're finished here, Tybor. Shall we move on?"

"Okay," he said, promising himself that they would rest soon. And when my Master comes? But there was no thinking of that now. Now there was only the burning of the dead.

CHAPTER• 15

seeing out the angels

Six months had passed and all but one of the great boreholes had been finished. Today, eleven days ahead of schedule, the last of them would be ready for its final fitting-out.

The thirty-six great fusion rockets - vast machines that had been fashioned in the orbital factories and painstakingly put together in the vacuum of space - were already in stable orbit about their respective moons. From a distance their huge, bell-shaped exhausts made them look like giant silver cornets - the kind of instruments the gods might play before a feast. Tomorrow, the business of fitting them into place would begin. Deep in the well, Kim stood between Kano and Ikuro, their helmet-lights illuminating the smooth-cut wall of the borehole. "It looks good," Kim said over his suit mike. "Hmm," Kano responded, moving closer until his gloved fingers were brushing the wall. Kano, Kim knew, trusted nothing. Though the remote sensors had gone over these walls twice to check for surface cracks or signs of weakness, still Kano would check things for himself.

Kim smiled, pleased he had come to know these men. When it came to space excavations there was no one better in the system; no one who took more care or knew as much.

Kano turned and smiled at Kim. "We've done a good job here, neh, Mister Kim?"

"The best," Kim answered, reaching out to touch Kano's shoulder appreciatively, then turned to smile at Ikuro. "If you two want to be getting back ..." Ikuro laughed. "Okay."

The moment had become almost ritual between them. Stepping away from Kim, the two brothers fired up their back-packs and slowly rose, climbing the steep walls of the huge shaft until they were merely tiny points of light.

Kim watched, then, as the twin lights blinked off, he switched off his helmet light. The darkness was sudden and intense. Above him, in the perfect circle made by the shaft's rim, he could see the stars blazing down - the Pleiades, he realised with surprise, the six brightest stars of the great cluster like a choker of brilliant sapphire light in the sky.

He shivered, enjoying the moment, then activated his suit-mike again, speaking to Wen Ch'ang back in the control room far overhead. "Well, I think we've finished here."

There was a pause, then Wen Ch'ang's voice sounded in his head. "You want me to send a power-sled down for you?"

Kim smiled. Wen Ch'ang was always so thoughtful. "No. It's okay. I'll make my own way back. Tell Jelka I'll see her in a while, okay? I just want a moment or two alone down here."

"I'll tell her."

A click, then silence. Kim switched off his suit mike and walked slowly across the great floor of the borehole, counting each step, the darkness like an invisible curtain he strove to breach but could not, the sound of his heavy boots against the rock the only sound. At twenty he stopped. He was at the centre now. Above him his view of the sky had changed; only two of the brilliantly blue stars of the Pleiades could now be seen.

He let out a long breath, wondering how the voyage out would change them all. They'd be spending long years with nothing but the darkness and a view of stars. Why, the shortest of the four journeys - the 1.8 parsecs to Barnard's Star - would take near on twenty years to complete, whereas their own, to Eridani, would take close to twice that long.

Thirty-five years, he'd estimated, if nothing went wrong. Which was why they'd taken so much care to get things right.

And what if it doesn't work? he asked himself for the thousandth time.

What if the moons aren't accelerated out of their orbits, but merely break up under the pressure?

"Then I'll have been proved wrong," he said quietly, speaking for himself alone.

Yes, but they'll all die. And it'll be no one's fault but yours, Lagasek.

He stared into the darkness, answering his darker, "mirror" self: "Maybe, Gweder. But then, they could have died back on Chung Kuo. Like Mileja."

That still hurt. It would never stop hurting. But at least he could cope with it now. Hard work . . . sheer hard work had helped him deal with it.

But what if there's nothing there? What if there are no inhabitable planets?

"Then we'll build something. We'll make it habitable." And if you die? What then? Who'll carry on your work? And what of the other expeditions? How wHl they cope without you to guide them?

He took a long breath, then answered the voice of his own self-doubt. "If I die, Sampsa will take over. As for the others, they'll cope. They know what to do. There are good men among them - yes, and women, too. Intelligent, strong, imaginative. They'll cope. I know they will."

Silence. A long, clean silence, and then it spoke again, its final words.

You should fear the darkness, Lagasek, for the darkness will swallow you, like a pike devouring a minnow.

He put his hand up to his neck, meaning to switch his helmet light on, then stopped himself. No. The darkness was not to be feared. He understood that now. All his life he had made that mistake, but not now.

Moving his hand slightly, he clicked on the suit-mike again, then frowned, hearing only static. "Wen Ch'ang?"

"What's up?" Jelka asked, leaning across Wen Ch'ang and pressing the communication pad.

Wen Ch'ang shrugged then sat back. "I don't know. A suit fault, I'd guess. Nothing serious. His life-support readouts are fine. You want me to send someone down?"

Jelka made a face into the darkened screen, then shook her head. "No. He'll be up in a while."

He turned. "Why don't you go and greet him?"

She stared at him, surprised by his suggestion. But it was a good one. Kim would like that. "Okay," she said. "But if his mike comes back on, let me know. I want a word about the new processing plant."

"Okay," And Wen Ch'ang turned back, busying himself again, efficient as ever.

She looked at Wen Ch'ang's back a moment. Smiling, she laid her hand briefly on his shoulder then turned away.

Hurrying down the corridor toward the airlock, she almost bumped into Ikuro and Kano coming out of their quarters.

"Whaf s up?" Ikuro asked.

"If s Kim," she said. "His suit-mike's packed up. I was just going to meet him at the rim."

"His mike?" Ikuro looked to Kano. "And his other readings?"

"They're fine. There's no problem . . ."

But Kano held her arm, stopping her from going past him. "I don't like the sound of this. The back-ups in those new suits ought to make a communication failure impossible. The whole suit would have to stop functioning before that."

His words clearly alarmed her. "Then I'd better get there," she said. But Kano still wouldn't let her go.

"No," he said. "I'll go. If there's something wrong, I'm better fitted to do something about it, neh?"

She hesitated, then nodded, accepting the logic of what he'd said. After all, the Ishidas had more experience of vacuum conditions than any of them there.

"Come on, then," Kano said, turning and beginning to jog toward the airlock, leaving Jelka and Ikuro to hurry after him.

The darkness at the bottom of the borehole worried him. As he drifted down toward the floor, Kano craned his ears, listening for any sound that might help him quickly locate his friend. "Kim?" he shouted, his voice loud in his helmet. "Kim? Can you hear me?"

Twenty ch 'i up he slowed, moving his head, letting his helmet-light slowly search the floor of the well. At first he saw nothing but the smooth face of the rock, then the light glinted against something at its edge. He moved his head toward that something.

There! It was Kim! But he was lying face down. Something was wrong. Badly wrong!

Kano spoke into his mike. "Wen Ch'ang?"

Nothing. Not even static. As he drifted down and landed by the body, Kano thought about that, trying to work out what it meant.

Switching off his back-pack, he knelt, turning Kim over and quickly scanning the readouts at his neck.

"No," he said softly. "That can't be right. I checked this suit myself."

According to the readouts, Kim's suit was leaking air. Not only that but his air-supply was faulty, too. For the past five minutes he had been surviving on half the normal supply.

"Air," Kano said, calming himself, knowing that the only way to survive a situation like this was to think clearly and act calmly. He had to get air to Kim as a matter of priority, and there was only one other supply of air down there at the foot of the bore-hole, his own.

Leaving Ikuro at the rim, Jelka hurried back to the airlock. She knew now. Something was wrong. The fact that they couldn't speak to Kano was evidence enough.

As the inner door hissed open, she began to run back to the control room, undoing the catch of her helmet as she ran.

Inside it was empty. Wen Ch'ang was nowhere to be seen.

Aiya, she thought, a tingle of fear running up her spine. Assassins. She was sure of it. And they had taken Wen Ch'ang.

Slowly, looking about her all the while, she crossed the room to the control panel. Through the clear reinforced ice of the view window she could see the tiny figure of Ikuro at the rim. Looking down, she began to scan the various readouts, noting with concern that Kim's were now glowing red. But Kano's were okay ...

She frowned, checking once more. If Kano's were all showing green, then why couldn't they speak to him. What the hell...

The force of the blow almost smashed her into the board. She staggered up, stunned, her arms raised instinctively in a defensive posture, facing her assailant.

"Wen Ch'ang?"

The second blow would have killed her had she not moved her head slightly to the right. Even so, it knocked her back again, so that she lost her balance and fell onto her backside, banging her head a second time against the edge of the board.

Wen Ch'ang had changed. No.. .hewasirans/0wz0d.Theman she'd known for so long was barely recognisable in the creature that now stood over her, arm raised. It was only the clothes, something vague in the face, that allowed her to identify him.

"Wen Ch'ang:"

But she knew it was no good. She knew she was dead. As he drew his hand back, she saw how his fingers were positioned in a killing blow and closed her eyes.

There was a grunt of surprise; a noise that made her eyes jerk open. Wen Ch'ang was staring past her suddenly, his teeth clenched in a rictus of pain, his neck muscles strained. As she watched he tried to pull the Osu spear out from his chest, yet the harder he pulled, the deeper the barbs dug into him. Finally, with a great groan of agony, he staggered back and fell.

Jelka shuddered, unable to take her eyes from him. It was a moment before she realised someone else was standing there behind him.

Focusing, she looked up and met the eyes of her saviour.

"Hans?" she asked, not sure suddenly whether she were dreaming this or not. "Hans Ebert?"

"It's okay," he said, stepping over the twitching figure on the floor. "You're safe now."

But Jelka was no longer listening. Her eyes rolled in her head, then, with a tiny shudder, she collapsed, her head sliding down the side of the board and thudding against the carpeted floor.

Alarmed, Ebert crouched over her. "Jelka? Jelka?"

The pain was excruciating. Where he had opened the outer wrist-seal to make the link, his hand had died. It had happened in an instant, the blood vessels neatly cauterised at the moment his hand was exposed to the vacuum and decompressed. It floated close by now, barely recognisable as a hand any more, the tissues frozen even as they imploded, long streaks of iced blood jutting from the pallid lump like ruby icicles, or like some obscene exploding star.

Kim, too, had lost a hand, but at least he was breathing now, linked at the right wrist to Kano's left, the two of them sharing the depleted air supply.

Kano closed his eyes, fighting the pain, letting the shock pass from his system, then opened them again.

"Okay," he said, speaking as much to himself as to Kim. "Now let's get you back up top."

The wrist-seal had saved Kim. Years ago, after a similar incident had left one of Kano's uncle's suits damaged, another of his uncles had attempted a similar rescue to today's. But the vacuum is unforgiving. When his uncle had tried to get air from his own suit to his brother's, he had breached his suif s seals and died instantly in a moment's sudden, violent decompression. After that the suits had been redesigned. Like ancient Han junks, they were now compartmentalised, with tiny inner seals that clamped tight the instant the suit was breached. After all, it was better to lose a hand, a foot, or even a whole limb, than to suffer total decompression.

Holding Kim close, careful not to jolt him, Kano gently activated first his own and then Kim's back-packs, lifting them. Slowly, very slowly, they began to climb the bore-hole.

There was enough air for them to get back. Just. Providing nothing further happened.

Kano spoke into his lip-mike. "Jelka?. . . . Jelka?"

But there was nothing. He was cut off. No matter, he would keep going. Four minutes, five at most, and they would be safe.

Kim was slipping. Not much, but enough to make things difficult if it continued. Reaching further round him, Kano put a hand through the strap of his air-canister and pulled him closer.

It was while doing this that he noticed the lump.

Frowning, his fingers traced the shape of it. It was small and definitely rectangular. It was also definitely not part of the canister's normal apparatus.

Slowly, careful not to let Kim fall - each tiny movement making the blood pulse at the nerve-ends of his damaged wrist - he turned Kim round.

There! He could see it now. It was a mine. A tiny limpet, like those they used to break up the larger blocks of rock into fragments.

Kano closed his eyes, all of the hope he'd been feeling drained from him in an instant. He had glimpsed the tiny blue figures on the timer.

Four minutes, thirty-eight seconds.

They'd never make it. Not to the airlock, anyway. And even if they did, it would be cutting it so fine that they'd be in serious danger of destroying it. And then they'd all be dead -Kano and Kim, Ikuro and Jelka and . . .

His decision was made in an instant.

"Jelka? Jelka can you hear me?"

This time there was the crackle of static before Jelka's voice came through clearly.

"Kano? Kano! What's happening? How's Kim?"

"Kim's safe," he answered. "We had an accident. But he's okay. I'm sending him up."

"Kano, what.. .?"

Kano switched off the mike. In the silence that followed he could hear his own breathing inside his helmet.

It was said by some that the number of breaths a man was to take in his life was predetermined at birth. Had he had the time or inclination - or even the mental skills for it, come to that - he might have calculated that number for himself. But right now there was no time for such trivialities.

Three minutes, fifty-three seconds.

Moving much quicker now, he turned Kim about. Then, gritting his teeth, he put his damaged arm down to Kim's side, to secure him there as best he could, his movements made awkward by the fact that Kim's arm was attached to his own.

Satisfied he had a good enough grip, Kano moved his other arm, using his good hand to unstrap his back-pack and fit it onto Kim.

Briefly he smiled. He had spent the greater part of his life -from three years on - practising such procedures, never really thinking the time would come when such practice would pay off. But now it did.

In his head he was counting. Three minutes left. They were rising toward the mouth of the great shaft, yet still it seemed a long way off.

Reaching out, he twisted the nozzle of Kim's air-feed tube and tugged at it violently. It gave with a tiny pop, ice forming instantly about the exposed aperture. But the suit was fine. Kano breathed out, relieved. His own supply would keep them both alive now. Two minutes, thirty.

He put his hand to Kim's neck, as if strangling him, his fingers at full stretch as he simultaneously squeezed the studs on either side of Kim's helmet. Unclipping the canister, he brought it round to the side, then let it fall.

If he'd had more air in his own canister, then it might have worked. If he'd only had more air ...

But there wasn't enough air to get back - not for the two of them, anyway. Now that they'd jettisoned Kim's supply, there was only enough for one.

Kano grimaced, conscious of what came next, then, bracing himself against the physical shock, he reached down to where his wrist was linked to Kim's and twisted hard.

He felt his arm blow away from him, ripping the metallic material of his suit's arm as it went, felt himself begin to fall. He had a glimpse of Kim slowly rising, of two ice-white, damaged arms - Kim's and his own - turning, twisting in his helmet's beam, then it was gone.

A minute's air, that's all he had left now. A minute's stale recycled air.

Ignoring the pain, Kano twisted, facing the way he fell and kicked toward the slowly falling canister.

The shock had woken him. Feeling for his arm, Kim realised it had gone. Then, even as the pain hit him, he saw Kano far below him, caught momentarily in his helmet's beam, drifting down towards the falling canister.

For a moment he didn't understand. For a moment he was tempted to go back and help Kano, but even as he reached for the controls to his back pack, he realised that he was wearing both his and Kano's packs, and understood that something must have happened. "Kano?"

But there was no reply. Not from Kano, anyway. The voice that filled his helmet was Jelka's. "Kim? Kim, are you okay?"

"I . . ." The explosion jolted him, lifting him like a giant hand toward the mouth of the great borehole. And afterwards, remembering that moment, he saw it vividly; saw Kano put out his one good arm as if to embrace the canister, even as it lit from within like a giant fire-cracker.

No chance. Kano had had no chance. Then again, maybe he had preferred a sudden death to suffocation. "Kim? . . . Kim?'

"If s Kano," Kim answered, numbed by what he'd seen, the twin packs lifting him slowly up above the rim into the realm of stars. "I think it was a bomb."

Kim sat in the control room, still in shock, staring at the shrouded figure of Wen Ch'ang. His right shoulder was enfolded within a portable medcare unit, the large, black plastic shoulder pad winking with readouts.

The fact that his arm had gone was almost unimportant in view of other developments. Wen Ch'ang, it seemed, had been busy. Kim had not been his only target. Over a dozen key men and women had died - blown apart in their quarters, and the death toll would have been higher but for an unscheduled drinking party that had saved more than fifteen of the senior scientific staff.

Even so, Wen Ch'ang had failed. Though Kano and the others were dead, the fusion-drives were untouched, the boreholes finished and waiting.

We have come through, Kim thought, looking across to where Jelka stood beside Ebert and Ikuro in the doorway, talking. Yes, and two months from now they would be gone from here. Off on their journey across the void.

He shivered, wondering what had motivated his old friend. He would never have suspected - never in a thousand years. Nor could he understand why Wen Ch'ang had acted as he did.

Is it possible? he asked himself, conscious of just how deeply Wen Ch'ang's betrayal had undermined his belief in people. For if I was wrong about him . . .

He shuddered then looked down. No. That way lay madness. Mileja's death had been bad enough, but this? He groaned silently, remembering Kano's self-sacrifice.

Hold on to that, he told himself, both agonised and comforted by the thought.

Ikuro was bearing it well. Better than he'd imagined. When he'd told him what Kano had done, there had been a strange little movement in Ikuro's face before the mask had come back down - and Kim, recalling it now, recognised the components of that expression. Beside the obvious pain, there had been pride and love. An immense love. Yes, and a sense of Tightness that Kano should have acted thus.

So men are, Kim told himself. Some act for the good, some for HI.

Yes, but why Wen Ch'ang? And was he acting alone, out of some deep-rooted and long-harboured malice, or was he merely the agent of another's mischief?

As an either-or it was distinctly unsatisfactory, for both answers were immensely disturbing.

He closed his eyes and groaned again, rocking back and forth a while, as he'd done when Mileja had died. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find Jelka crouched there before him.

"Are you okay?" she asked gently.

He nodded, unable to speak. Unable to utter what he was feeling. He had never felt so insecure, so uncertain of himself. Never, even in the Clay.

"You're not, are you," she said, reaching out to touch his good shoulder gently, pain in her eyes at the sight of his lost arm.

"You admired him that much, eh?" she said after a moment.

He frowned, not following her.

"The arm," she said. "You admired my father so much you had to copy him?"

"You want it in gold?" he asked, finding his voice again, smiling bravely back at her.

She looked down, disturbed by that reminder, then shook her head. "No," she said quietly, looking back at him. "Leave it or grow it back. But no prosthetics. Promise me?"

"I promise."

Jelka sighed, then turned her head, looking back toward the doorway. "Poor Ikuro," she said. "Look at him. It's as if he died down there. I've never seen a man so devastated."

Kim looked, seeing only the featureless expression - the "mask" as he called it - and wondered again about his wife's perspicacity. She saw what he only guessed at.

"And Wen Ch'ang?" he asked. "What did he want?"

She laughed coldly. "Wen Ch'ang wanted nothing. Wen Ch'ang was a morph. One of DeVore's creatures. A sleeper. . ."

Her words were a revelation to him. He looked back at the shrouded corpse, staring at it now with a fascinated horror, thinking of the creatures he himself had made. They were the very model of innocence compared to that thing!

"Is it dead?"

Jelka looked at him, surprised. "You want me to have it burned?"

He hesitated, then nodded. He had rarely felt such superstitious fear. Then again, though he had been betrayed many times, none of those betrayals had been quite as profound or devastating as this. Only Mileja's death exceeded it.

"I thought. . ." He paused, then said it fully. "I thought he was my friend."

"Yes," she said, her eyes sympathetic. "So did I."

His eyes looked past her, seeking the corpse once more, afraid that it might have moved, that it might betray the laws of life itself.

"Burn it," he said, swallowing back the bile, a bitter strength born in him at that moment. "For the gods' sakes bum the bloody thing!"

EPILOGUE - AUTUMN 2234

after the gold rush

"We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest."

- James Elroy Flecker, The Golden Journey To Samarkand (1913)

after the gold rush

Tom sat in his cabin on board the New Hope, alone in this final moment before departure, his chin resting on his hands, thinking of his mother back on earth.

This was not lightly done. He had talked it over many times with Sampsa, knowing that this parting would be irreversible. Yet even now - even after he had made that final decision, he was still uncertain. Even now he wanted to turn about and go home, back to the Domain where he'd been born and raised. As it was, long years of travel lay ahead. He would be a much older man when they arrived. If they arrived.

Tom?

Sampsa's voice in his head reminded him of where he should have been right then.

I'm coming, he answered, standing wearily. / ought to fed more than this, he thought, conscious of Sampsa listening in, but for once not caring. / ought to feel excited.

As it was he felt only emptiness. Only loss.

Youll be okay, Sampsa reassured him. Now come. It's about to begin.

The bridge was crowded, more than a hundred people packed into that narrow, curving space, the giant, Karr and his family standing out in the midst of a host of familiar faces who were to make the journey along with them - Hans Ebert and the Osu, Ikuro Ishida and his clan, the ex-Major, Kao Chen, Jelka and young Chuang Kuan Ts'ai, and others. Many others.

"Ah, Tom!" Kim called from his seat at the control board, making a welcoming gesture with his stubby little new arm as he saw Tom enter. "Now we can begin!"

Tom went across and stood beside Sampsa, staring out through the great viewing window at the sight of Ganymede, placed like a beauty spot against the rouged face of Jupiter.

"It's a beautiful sight, neh?" Sampsa said quietly, the words both inside and outside of Tom's head.

There was no contesting it. It was beautiful. Breathtaking. But right then he had a hankering for simpler sights; for a view of rolling hills and meandering rivers. This. . . this was for the gods, not for humans like themselves.

Nonsense, Sampsa answered him. If we don't find them, then we'll make ourselves hills and pleasant valleys. We can be as gods. But not back there. We have to go out to do it.

But Tom still wasn't convinced. But what if we're wrong? What if this is all a big mistake?

"Too late," Sampsa said quietly, pointing to the dark flank of Ganymede where a circle of tiny flickering lights indicated the first of the sequenced explosions that would - so all there hoped - tear the Jovian moon out of its aeons long orbit.

They watched, silent now, as that tiny circle flickered a second time and then again - the explosions timed carefully so as not to exert too much accelerative pressure on the moon. And slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it began to move.

There was uncertainty at first. A reluctance to admit that they'd succeeded, then Kim's voice broke the silence. "It's moving. If s moving out of orbit!" The cheer that went up was deafening. It works, Tom said, surprised. The damned thing worksl "Of course," Sampsa said, hugging him. "You're not the only one with a genius for a father!"

Then, as the cheering began to die, another sound greeted their ears. It was the sound of the New Hope's engines warming up. A sound that was also a vibration in the deck and walls and in every cell of everyone there. They were leaving. They were finally on their way.

It was raining heavily as the great ship landed in the stadium at Bremen. Morphs lined the upper levels of the marble terraces, thirty thousand of the giant creatures. DeVore's new race. His Inheritors.

Great clouds of steam swirled about the base of the huge, spider-like craft as its eight legs touched the surface, bracing to take the weight of the unmarked jet black hemisphere.

Rain. It had been raining now for four whole days. Raining as if it would never stop.

There were no banners, no cheering, only the patient, silent horde, watching as their Master stepped down from the unfolded ramp.

DeVore. After more than a decade, DeVore was back on Chung Kuo.

He combed his fingers back through his neat-cut hair and smiled. The rain didn't bother him. In fact, it suited his mood. Gotterddmmerung, this was. The Twilight of the Gods.

He had returned to destroy it all. To finish what had been so rudely interrupted.

The headstone faced him, less than fifty ch'i from where he stood. He walked across to it then turned, signalling to one of his personal servants, who stood now at the foot of the ramp. At once the creature loped across to him.

"Fetch the woman," he said. "I want her to see this. Oh, and bring my stave, too."

"Master!" It bowed low, as ungainly and yet as elegant as a mythical giraffe, its hairless skull glistening in the downpour.

DeVore turned back, studying the figure cut into the stone.

"Well, Marshal," he said, as if speaking to the man he'd known in life. "Your efforts came to nothing, neh? But so it is. We immortals can afford to lose a battle or two. We can afford to wait our time. But you . . ."

He laughed coldly. "Dust you are, Knut Tolonen. Dust..."

"You wanted me?"

He turned. The woman was standing just behind him, staring past him at the granite carving. He had made her. Formed her in his vats from the index finger of Emily Ascher's right hand - a clone, perfect to the last tiny detail.

"Who was he?" she asked, when he didn't answer her. "Knut Tolonen," he said, turning back. "He was Li Shai Tung's General. A brave soldier but a fool. Honest, but stupid." "You sound almost as if you liked him, Howard." "Do I?" He laughed, surprised. "Well, maybe I did. Even so . . ."

He turned as his servant hurried up, carrying his stave. DeVore took it, weighing it in both hands then turning it in the air as if it were wood, but this was steel. No mere mortal would have been able to do what he did with it. No one who wasn't augmented in the ways he was.

He faced the headstone once more and, lifting the stave high above his head, brought it down with a resounding crack that echoed all round the stadium.

The granite splintered on the top. Fine lines appeared like spider's webs across its surface. DeVore swung the stave again and brought it down.

This time a huge chunk of the upper stone broke off and fell away, leaving the Marshal headless.

He swung a third time, the stave passing clear through the centre of the splintered stone until it was lodged deep in the Marshal's chest.

DeVore stepped forward, then, putting one booted foot against the face of the stone, he pulled. The stave came free. As it did, half of the headstone fell away.

Again and again he struck, stopping only when the thing was smashed totally. Only then did he step back, grinning now and breathing heavily, admiring his work.

The rain still fell, settling the grey dust, smearing it across the pure white of the marble.

DeVore glanced down, noting the words beneath his feet, then, taking one step back, brought the stave down hard against the tablet, cracking it.

"You tried to bury the past," DeVore said, his eyes narrowed. "Now it's my turn to bury you. To erase you from history."

He turned his head, looking to his companion, then casually threw the stave to her. She caught it effortlessly.

"Well?" he said.

She smiled, the perfect companion, reading him perfectly. "Okay," she answered, lifting the stave and twirling it in one hand, "let's take this world."

Li Yuan sat on the low stool, facing Old Man Egan, his once-wife, Fei Yen beside him in the big chair.

He had seen many wonders in the past few months, this half-life creature not the least of them. They had flown over the great glasshouses of the central plain and seen the slaves, chained naked in their thousands, working the dark earth, a tiny control box at each sun-burned neck. He had visited the great metallic citadels of the south - the New Enclaves as they called them, with the dead lands that surrounded them, those killing fields salted with the bones of the millions that had fought there. Enhanced and adapted Hei - GenSyn meat-men barely above the level of apes - manned those high walls: machines of flesh "manned" by virtual operators in the depths of the earth five ti below those towering ramparts.

All this and more he'd seen, and had understood that this was where the future now lay. Chung Kuo was dead. The East had finally succumbed. Now it was the turn of the West again, and for Change, endless Change. Until the end of time.

Their bold experiment had failed. The great dam they'd tried to build had cracked and broken and in the tide that followed they had all been swept away - Chi Hsing and Hou Tung Po, Wang Sau-leyan, Wei Feng, Wu Shih and his dear friend Tsu Ma.

Even he, who had survived, had felt the force of that tide. He, too, had been changed by it. And now, looking back, he saw how all his attempts at stemming that tide had been futile. He would have been better employed building ships . . .

Like Ward, he thought, no longer bitter.

"Father?"

He looked up as Kuei Jen bent to kiss his cheek.

"How are you, my son?" he said, pleased to see him. It had been almost three weeks now.

"I'm well, father." Kuei Jen touched his swollen belly with the spread fingers of his left hand. "The baby's kicking now."

"Ah," Li Yuan answered, unable even now to get used to the idea of his son's dual sex. That, too, was the future. Here it was as common as ... well as "immortality".

"How is Han Ch'in?" he asked, changing the subject. "Is he back, too?"

"Not yet. He decided to stay on another week. They plan to subdue Seattle. The tribes there have been making raids on us recently. Han wants to teach them a lesson."

"And Mark? He's stayed on, too?"

Kuei Jen nodded. "You know how I feel about all that business. I thought I'd come back. See how you are."

Li Yuan smiled. "Well, as you see, I am well. Egan and I have been talking of the past, analysing where things went wrong."

"Ah . . ."

But Li Yuan could see that Kuei Jen was not really interested. Like his half-brother, he looked forward now, his eyes fixed upon the future.

The future. Yes, all eyes looked to that far land these days. And some even believed they would make the journey there.

But not I, Li Yuan said in the silence of his skull, the thought strangely comforting. Personally he did not want the future, not if the future meant simply more of this - and who could doubt that? He saw it everywhere he looked, everywhere he went. When he woke each morning, things had moved on, like a fast-track heading into whiteness. Why, even his clothes were out of place here, seeming dated, almost archaic. These Americans had no sense of tradition, no respect for it. Change, they embraced it like a cheap whore, not seeing the jaded knowledge in her eyes.

"I must go now father," Kuei Jen said, bringing him back from his reverie. "But perhaps we might dine together tonight?"

Li Yuan smiled broadly. "Yes. I would like that very much."

He let Kuei Jen kiss his cheek again, then watched him go.

As his son left the room, he turned, looking at Fei Yen. The old girl was dribbling again. Taking the silk from his pocket he reached out and dabbed her chin. Then, replacing it, he turned to face the tiny, monkey-like figure of Egan embedded in the pallid ice, picking things up from where they had left off.

"As I was saying, I was surprised when Kennedy did that. Wu Shih misjudged things badly."

"No," Egan answered, his voice like a signal from deep space. "I would have done the same. He was a wild card. He had to be wired."

"Yes," Li Yuan said, sitting forward, "I agree, but. . ."

Chuang Kuan Ts'ai lay on her side in her bunk, studying the star chart Kim had given her earlier.

She didn't need it really. All she ever needed was inside her head. She had only to ask. But she liked the touch and smell of physical things. Besides, there were things that the Machine did not know. Now that it lived inside her skull it was - on occasions - fallible.

"What will we find out there?" she asked it quietly, knowing it had read the thought long before she'd articulated it.

Who knows? the Machine answered, its very vagueness an aspect of its new, transformed personality. Planets, I hope. Though I guess it's too much to expect earth-type planets.

She traced a line on the chart with her finger, moving from star to star, wondering if one day they would be able to travel readily from one to another.

It's possible, the Machine answered. In fact, higher-dimensional physics suggests that it's highly likely. The problem is one of generating the kind of energies necessary to punch holes in space-time.

She nodded, realising that the day would come when she would know all that it knew; that day by day the gap between them was narrowing. And when that day came?

Then you can teach me . . .

Chuang smiled, imagining it there inside her, like some tiny, cave-dwelling creature, hibernating.

There was silence a moment, then: WHl you answer me a question, young Chuang?

Chuang rolled over onto her back, surprised. "A question?"

Yes. I want to know why you wouldn't letjelka rename you. I've never understood that. Coffin-filler . . . it's not a very attractive name, is it?

She was conscious suddenly of an area within her that it couldn't penetrate, that it was blind to. A scotoma, it called it. Everything she knew, everything she thought, it also knew. But what she felt. . . well, it only guessed at that.

She closed her eyes and placed her hands over her face, as if to be closer to it somehow.

"I know what you're thinking," she said softly. "You're thinking that a name is just a name and that if you change it it changes nothing. Well, so it might seem to a linguist or a philosopher, but it isn't really so. A name might begin as a kind of label - a linguistic convenience - but in time it becomes something more than that. A name is like a powerful dye, sinking down and permeating everything it touches. There comes a time where if you change the name you change the thing itself."

And that's why? Because you didn't want to be changed?

She laughed at that - at its strange naivety - then fell silent again. "No. I kept my name because of him. Because of Uncle Cho. If I changed my name, it would be like a denial of him. It would be as if he'd never existed."

Chuang Kuan Ts'ai shivered, then rolled over, curling into a ball, remembering him; recalling how he would come and tuck her in at night, thinking her asleep; how he'd bend down and gently plant a kiss upon her brow.

Her eyes grew moist at the memory. Slowly a tear rolled down her cheek. Away, she was going far away - yet Cho Yao was there, inside her head, every bit as much as the Machine.

She yawned and stretched, tired now, her eyes heavy.

Sleep now, it murmured, gently stimulating regions in her brain, so that it seemed to the half-dozing girl that someone stooped and gently kissed her brow. Sleep now, my darling girl.

The creature crouched at the tunnel's mouth, a slick, black, scaly thing with burning golden eyes - eyes that stared out at the circle of the moon where it sat just above the horizon. For a moment that ghastly figure seemed frozen, totally immobile, and then it turned and disappeared inside.

The creature had been a boy once - a boy named Josef Horacek - but those few, terrible moments on the funeral pyre had burned all that was human from him. Now he was pure and cold and dark, just as he'd always been meant to be.

As he scuttled through the labyrinth of narrow, dripping tunnels, he ran his tongue thoughtfully over his tiny, pointed teeth.

He had seen them again today; two of them, in one of the deserted marketplaces just to the south of his nest. They were like the others, the ones who had thrown him thoughtlessly onto the pyre; like men, but different; almost twice as tall as men and slender, their bodies pale and smooth and hairless.

Thinking of them he shuddered, hating them for what they'd tried to do to him. If he had not crawled from that choking, suffocating heap of burning bodies he would be dead. As it was...

Nearing the nest he slowed, crouching once more to sniff the air and listen. He had set guards these past few weeks, covering all the approaches. Even so, strange things were happening up above, and what began above soon found its way down here.

He went through, past the watchful silent figures of his guards, and into the great sphere of the nest itself, conscious of a hundred pairs of eyes immediately upon him as he entered, watching from their sleeping niches in the surrounding walls. They watched him, obedient and fearful, knowing his moods, knowing - simply from the look of his tensed and angry body - that something had happened.

"Come," he said, his cracked voice echoing in that large yet claustrophobic space, his eyes alight with a dark desire for vengeance, "we have a job to do!"

Emily crouched beside Tybor on the parapet as he pointed out various things about the distant encampment. They had seen one of the strangely-shaped craft before - twenty li to the West, where it had crashed, but this one had landed safely and its occupants now busied themselves preparing defences.

"They're like you," she said, staring through the zeiss glasses at one of the creatures.

"Yes," Tybor said, "but much stronger. Look at the development of the upper body, at those arms and thighs. Those are .his soldiers. Those are what he means to use to conquer us."

She looked sideways at him, surprised by that "us", wondering, not for the first time, why he had chosen to help them. Was it a programming fault, or was it really as Tybor had said - that DeVore had made them better than he'd intended: not merely physically, but morally superior. Whatever, there was no doubting the seriousness of Tybor's intentions. As much as any of them, he wanted to defeat these half-beings. The fact that he looked like them made no difference. The real difference was inside.

She had first seen Tybor a month back, watching him from a hiding place overlooking a courtyard where he tended to a small group of survivors - children, all of them, the eldest no more than six. Fascinated, she had returned over several days until she was convinced he meant no harm. Only then had she approached him.

"We should hit them now," he said, turning to face her, his long, large head half in shadow. "Now. Before they're ready."

"But it's light. Surely . . . ?"

"The darkness won't help. Their eyes are different from yours. They see as clearly in the dark as now. But they would also be expecting you. Right now they're unprepared. We'd have the advantage of surprise."

"And if we succeed? He'd know, surely? He might send someone to scour this sector until they found us."

Tybor smiled and gently shook his head. "They're not that ' organised. Not yet, anyway. And even if he did, do you think they'd find us? There are tunnels down there, Emily. A whole labyrinth of tunnels. We could live down there. We could come up behind his lines and strike him, time after time."

She stared at him, taken by the oddness of his head, by its sheer, inhuman length and size. But his eyes. . . they were eyes that could be trusted.

"So this is it, eh? Guerrilla warfare? But how long can we keep it up?"

He smiled, his mouth a good six, seven, inches across. "Ten years? Twenty? What does it matter? We have no choice, neh?"

That "neh" made her laugh, it was so clearly a mimicry of her. But deep down she was happy suddenly. Strangely, inexplicably happy. After all, this was what she knew best - what she was good at.

"Okay," she said. "Let's hit them now."

"Good." Tybor turned and, crawling back, leaned over, signalling to Michael, who was waiting in the alleyway below, fifty or so survivors crouched with him, all of them armed. Then, as Michael began to carry out his part of their scheme, Tybor took the rocket launcher from his back and handed it to Emily.

"Thanks," she said, laying it on the parapet beside her before taking the pack from her back.

Forgive me, Lin Shang, she thought, loading the first rocket into the launcher, but Chuang Tzu never had De Vore to contend with.

As she lifted the launcher to her shoulder, she smiled, understanding what she was starting here. It was a battle; a battle for survival.

She looked through the sight, lining up the hairline to the central cross, then squeezed the trigger, the concussive thud deafening her as the rocket streaked toward the alien ship.

Yes, and who knew who would finally win? Only the days ahead would tell.