The Marriage of the Living Dark

A FRAYING CLOTH

Tomoka went on. “What Kim does not know about engineering is not worth knowing, and his grasp of physics is beyond the sages of old, but... when I hear him talk of snakes swallowing their tails, then I begin to doubt” Dcuro’s mouth had fallen open now. If Tomoka had claimed that their mother and father had never existed he could not have been more astonished. His belief in Kim was absolute. There was nothing Kim Ward could not do. “You cannot mean that, elder brother.” But Tomoka’s face was hard and unyielding. “Mysticism... thaf s all this is. Otherwhens, otherwheres. Jumping through folded space.” “But we know if s possible. DeVore’s ship ...” “May or may not have existed. And anyway, I for one did not see it” “No one saw it,” Dcuro said, “but it was there. They sensed it. And as Kim says, if it exists, then there is a way to make another such craft. Maybe even a better one.”

Tomoka grunted. Standing, he unbuckled his suit and stepped from it, then went across and hung it in the wall-space. Turning he looked directly at Dcuro, who stood now at the long, curved window, staring out across the great bowl of Sparta Town which was waking to the day.

“Besides,” Tomoka said, “there is another question to be answered. Do we need to go back? Do we really want to get embroiled in all that nonsense once again? Surely that is why we came - to get away from all that foolishness? To go back now...”

Dcuro stood where he was, his shoulders slightly hunched. Tomoka waited a moment, expecting him to answer, but Dcuro was silent “I am right, Dcuro. In your heart you know that I am right” “DoP” “Of course you do. And given time you will understand that Oh, I understand it well, Dcuro. Kim’s words have fired your imagination. That is good. But you must not let them rob you of your common sense. There is only this universe, this reality. And we must deal with that, not with some flight of fancy. Wecannot go back, and even if we could, we should not” He smiled. “There. I have said all I have to say on the matter.” “And yet all is not yet said.” Tomoka shrugged, then went across and put a hand gently on his brother’s shoulder. “You will see, Ikuro. Give it time. Then we shall talk again.”

Out here, between the stars, time seemed frozen. Though they moved now at a phenomenal speed - almost one fifth of the speed of light - still it seemed that they stood still. True, Ganymede still span upon its axis, displaying the surrounding stars, yet without the presence of sun and moon in that pitch-black sky, it seemed almost a painted thing, no more real than the computer-generated display on the inside of the dome of Kim’s pool. Out here, one could quickly lose one’s grasp of what was real.

Kim stood at the window of his study, thinking about the earlier meeting. He could hear himself now, sounding off confidently about the possibility of going back, yet for all his talk he had not mentioned the single greatest problem that he faced.

Energy.

Enough energy to make a dent in the space-time fabric.

To launch his tiny ship he would need an almost unthinkable amount of energy. And he would need to control that energy, for what he wanted was a fuel-source, not a bomb.

But how did he get that energy?

His first thought had been to make a black hole, but how would he get rid of it once the craft was launched? How control it? How prevent it from devouring all of surrounding space?

So black holes were out.

Resonance, folding, compression ... his mind trawled through a hundred possible solutions. But nothing. Nothing yet, anyway.

Given time, he knew, the answer would come to him, like a gift from the ether.

But this once he was impatient. This once -

A FRAYING CLOTH

and who knew why? - he felt that he could not simply stand back and let the answer come to him: he had to pursue it.

He had five equations now, and a diagram. And who knew if they were right or totally wrong? They were glimpses and no more than that Nothing definite yet Nothing ...

Kim shook his head. The trouble was that normal rules no longer applied in these circumstances, and all of that vast accumulated knowledge he possessed counted for nothing; not even the methods he had developed to solve problems. If there was an answer to this, then - or so he sensed - it was not to be had by normal deductive reasoning. A new kind of logic had to be developed - a logic that, to a human mind, didn’t seem logical at all: a logic that did not ‘link” but “jumped”, that did not build brick upon brick, but hung suspended, as if by pure magic.

But how did you get there? How did you step through the looking-glass?

Mirrors ...

The word filled his mind. Unattached. Nothing trailing from it Just itself. As if it were an answer of itself.

“Mirrors?”

Before he could stop himself he began to play the old, old game - his mind

pushing at the word, cracking it open like a nut to pick at it and analyse it,

turning the full glare of his intellect on it as if it were a specimen on a

slide

Kim stopped and squeezed his eyes tightly shut

“No,” he said, talking it through for himself. “If s as I said, normal means won’t do this once. I need a logic that isn’t logic at all” He paused, grimacing in his effort to get to what he wanted. “What I do know is that the reflection is ... not a true reflection. It can’t be, else we’d have the answer already. So ... if s not simple mimicry. In fact, if s not...” His eyes popped open, his mouth forming a small Oh of understanding.

Ifs not even a surface at att.

Mirrors. Mirrors had depth. Depth of field. Of course! And there he’d been thinking only of the face of the thing!

Ebert stood in the darkness at the centre of the bowl of rocks, the great dome of Fermi, greatest of Ganymede’s fifteen cities, a mile distant, the great curve of glass glowing softly like pearl.

All about him stood the Osu, more than a hundred in all, their suited forms mere shadows beneath the sky.

Stepping up onto the platform of the rock, Ebert raised his hands towards the darkness overhead, his voice filling the silence.

“The night is our mother. She comforts us. She tells us who we are. Mother sky is all. We live, we die beneath her. She sees all. Even the darkness deep within us.”

“So it is, Tsou Tsai Hei. She sees all.”

There was a murmur from all sides at Echewa’s words. Ebert spoke again. “We must decide, my people. The time approaches and we must make our choice.” A voice came up to him from close by. “Is it the dream, Walker?” “It is the dream,” he answered, “bat there is something else. There is a way to go back.”

“Back?”

He looked towards the hidden voice. “Yes, back. Back to Chung Kuo. But only for a few of us. The rest will go on, to find the new home promised us.” Again, a murmur ran through the gathered Osu, like a sigh. Then the same voice spoke again.

“Will you go back, Efulefu?”

Eftdefu, the Worthless One. So the Osu Elders had named him. Ebert smiled at the use of his pet name, then answered the query.

‘It is not chosen yet Yet we must decide. If I go back, I cannot go forward. I cannot be your Elder.”

“I do not understand,” another voice said, more distant than the first “Is that, too, to do with the dream?”

“Yes and no. As you know, I had the dream. The same dream we all had. Yet I also had another dream, this past night A dream that is clearly linked to the first A dream in which I saw myself, as if from above. And when I looked down I saw my still and silent figure shrouded in a mist of white.”

“Then you must not go back, Efulefu.”

“Oh, I must go back.”

“Then the decision is already made,” another said, and there was laughter; a gentle laughter which slowly spread to all those in the shadowed bowl. “Yes...” Ebert grinned, then bowed his head to all of them. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

A wood surrounded Kalevala. It was an ancient place, a place of earth and rock and pine bordering the great lawn, and Sampsa, stepping in among the trees, felt, as he always felt, how even this simple act had meaning - as if, in entering the wood, he shucked off his ordered, rational self. He moved quickly, silently, until he stood at the edge of the clearing. For a moment he stared up at the solitary tall pine that dominated that open space, recalling how, as a boy, he had once jumped the circle, leaping from stump to stump - a leap of six or eight feet onto a platform less than two across - before launching himself into the centre.

Now, looking up that long, smooth bole, into its branches, he felt an overwhelming sense of loss. The moon, that had once shone so brightly through the branches, was gone, and in its place was a darkness so intense - a gap so huge - that nothing, nothing could ever fill it. Unless his father found a way.

His eyes, one blue, one brown, flicked round, sensing another presence there.

“Father?”

Kim stepped out from between the trees and took a step into the circle. He was wearing a dark one-piece, as if he had been exercising, and his feet were bare. In the light from the house his hair shone silver.

“I thought you’d gone home.”

“I meant to,” Sampsa began. “But I’ve been thinking.” “Me too.”Sampsa smiled at that. “You never stop thinking.” Kim smiled, then came across to stand beside Sampsa, looking up at the pine. “You think I was wrong, bringing you all out here, don’t you? You think we should have stayed and seen it through.”

“Yes.”

“And maybe you’re right. But nature has its way ...” Sampsa frowned. “You think this is natural?” “Absolutely. Trees launch their seeds on the wind, insects deposit their eggs. And that’s no more than what we’re doing. Sending out seeds. In time those seeds will grow and send out their own seeds. And so the galaxy will be filled by humankind.”

Sampsa shook his head. “Bearing in mind our past record, I’m not so sure that thats such a good thing.”

“Good thing, bad thing, who are we to say?”

“But surely we must say?”

“Must we?” Kim looked down, meeting his son’s eyes again. “Are we really that big then, Sampsa, to so buck destiny and the urgings of our own DNA?” “I didn’t mean that I meant...”

Sampsa huffed from pure exasperation. This was the trouble with arguing with his father. Kim didn’t think on the same plane as ordinary people. His parameters were just so much bigger.

“Would you rather humankind died out, then, Sampsa? Is that your argument? Would you rather DeVore got his way and wiped out the lot of us and put his morphs - his Inheritors, as I’m told he calls them - in our place? Would you rather they got the prize?”

“But it doesn’t have to be like that”

“Doesn’t it?”

And now there was a hardness in his father’s voice he had never heard before.

Sampsa looked at him, surprised.

‘Tather?”

“Let me tell you something, Sampsa. For a long time I tried hard not to get involved. I tried to argue that it had nothing to do with me - that I ought just to get on and live my own life and look after those in my narrow little circle. But after a while I realised that I couldn’t fool myself any longer. There really was a war going on. And not just any war. This was a war that could decide whether mankind would survive or go under. Once I saw that, the rest was easy. It was a question of taking sides, of choosing which direction I would ultimately follow: for life, or against it You see, I did care what happened to other people. Just as I care now - despite what you think - about what’s happening back on Earth. Thaf s why I brought us out here. And thaf s also why I’ve decided to try to go back. Why I’m willing to risk my life trying out a machine that could, for all I know, blast me into a thousand million tiny little pieces!”

Sampsa smiled. “And what will you do when you get back? Have you decided that yet?”

“No. But I will.”

“And DeVore?”

Kim looked away thoughtfully. “I’ll let our friend Karr deal with DeVore. If and when the time comes.”

Ebert unscrewed the helmet of his suit and, lifting it off, set it down on the table and turned, looking about him at his tiny apartment. Once, back on Chung Kuo, he had had everything a man could wish for - a great mansion, a massive company, and command of a great army of three million men. He had been betrothed to a beautiful woman and had had the trust of emperors. Now he had only this.

To some that might have seemed a great descent His old self, certainly, would have felt it so. That self would have equated such a loss of material power with a loss of vitality and strength. Yet in the years since, Ebert had discovered where true strength lay in a man. Yes, and had been richer for it. He had embraced wuwei, the path of inaction. He had become as the stream that flows. But now he had to turn his back on things and become once more a man of action.

One last time.Ebert smiled. It was strange the peace he’d felt in the dream, seeing himself dead. Such peace as he had only previously imagined.

Unclipping the fastenings at his wrists, he pulled off his gloves and went over to the window, looking out through the toughened ice at the ancient surface of the moon.

It was a magnificent view, and his apartment was only one of many that overlooked the surface, but few were occupied these days. His last near neighbour had moved out almost five months ago now, and no one new had moved in. I should say something, he thought, wondering if Kim and the others had noticed this, or whether only he was sensitive to it Anxiety, that was what it was. His fellow travellers were anxious. And as each month passed, that anxiety grew. At first it had manifested itself in small ways - a reluctance to venture outside the domes or look up at the open sky - yet as the journey lengthened it had taken on more definite forms. They had begun to dig, deeper and yet deeper into Ganymede’s surface, as if to hide away from the void that surrounded them. Two years back they had begun to build long tunnels between the cities, and the old ways - the surface routes -had fallen into disuse. He had listened without comment to the arguments they gave, and no doubt some of them were true. It was safer to build below ground, for there was less chance of decompression. Yet that was not why they did it There were exceptions, of course. Kim, for instance, and Karr. But the rest were slowly turning inward. Burrowing into themselves just as they burrowed into Ganymede.

And maybe that was necessary if they were to protect themselves psychologically

from that void. For if that void reached them and touched their hearts, what

then would

transpire?

It was all uncharted territory.

Ebert stretched his neck and shoulders, feeling weary now. But his thoughts were restless. Since he’d had the dream -since he’d glanced behind the wall of sleep and seen his fate -he had thought of little else. At times like this he wished for his old unconscious self, wished that he did not feel so much for those who suffered. To be blind to all that and at peace again.

And that, perhaps, was why his own death did not trouble him, for at least with death would come rest and a cessation of this constant ache. The ache of responsibility.

In a fit of frustration he smashed his fist against the glass. “I am not my brother’s keeper!”

But it was not so. Kick as he might against it, his fate was set He had to go back. Yes, and die, if what he’d seen was true. Because he was Tsou Tsai Hei, the Walker in the Darkness, and he had been granted a vision of the path’s end. And as he thought that, so Tuan Ti Fo’s words came to him, from that time on Mars when he had first met the old man:

“Am I to tell you everything? No, Tsou Tsai Hei, that is for you to learn. Study them. Be as them. The truth witt follow. You are to stay here, to finish the work that time has begun in you. To wait here, among these hidden works of darkness. Until the call comes.”

Karr slumped down into the chair, then sat back, stifling a yawn. This was the worst of it - the inactivity; the feeling that it didn’t matter what one did or didn’t do. It undermined him. Slowly, day by day, he felt himself eroded by it He stared at the screen. On it was a table of figures, showing their relative position to the nearest stars, their speed, the temperature of the engines, and other things. The figures had not changed for three hours now, or if they had, it had been so minor a change - a decimal point or two - that he hadn’t noticed.

“AiyaT

The two young guards on the far side of the bridge turned, looking across at Karr, surprised.

“Marshal?” one of them asked, thinking that something must be wrong. But Karr simply shrugged. “If s okay, boy. If s just...”The screen changed suddenly. The tables vanished, replaced by a familiar face.

“Hans? ... What in the void’s name do you want?” Ebert smiled. “I need to talk, Gregor. I’ve had another dream.” Karr frowned. He didn’t like these dreams. No more than Kao Chen did. “Was it like the first?”

“No, no it...” Ebert shook his head. “The thing is, I’ve seen into the future, Gregor. I’ve seen my own death.”

“Impossible.”

“I know. I realise how it sounds, but Fve seen it, as clearly as if I was there. And I’ve seen other things, too. I’ve seen you and Chen standing together in the courtyard of a strange building. A strange structure of jet-black stone that looked as if it had been built into the walls of a giant well.” “I don’t know any place like that you describe.” “No, but you were there, as you look now. And Chen, too, with his fine white hair.”

“And you? You say you saw your own death?” “Yes. I was with you, back on Chung

Kuo. There were six of us, in two craft” “But Kim has ...” “... only made one, I

know. And yet I saw it, as clearly as if I

was remembering it”

Karr closed his eyes a moment, rubbing at his temples as if he was suffering from a migraine. Then he looked back at Ebert again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I find all this hard to take in. If s... well, if s as if reality were coming to an end. These dreams ... they’re like the fraying of an old doth.” ‘Tes,” Ebert said. “So it is, old friend. And we shall be there for the weaving of the new.”

Jelka stood at the window of the tower, her hand resting on the chair’s back as she looked out over the stand of trees. From where she was she could see the clearing of the seven pines and, through the trees, the figures of Kim and Sampsa. She had been wondering what had been said between them earlier to make Kim so quiet, and had thought that perhaps they’d argued, but things seemed all right now between them. She saw them smile and laugh and felt herself relax. She was about to turn away, when the fit began. The sensation was familiar - it had happened many times since her illness - but she had not been troubled by it for some time. Now it swept her up, like a great wind rushing through her head and overwhelming her senses.

She staggered, then held onto the chair back. Yet even as she did, she saw the vision, there above the clearing where Kim and Sampsa stood. They were still there, but now, in the sky directly over them, maybe half a kilometre up from the moon’s dark surface, burned a massive wheel of fire, its fierce light reflecting back off the curved surface of the dome and illuminating the whole of the plain surrounding Kalevala.

“Aiya!” she whispered, her golden eyes flaming fiercely in that unearthly light It was not, she knew, a dream - leastways not a waking dream - but a real and genuine stochastic vision. A glimpse of what would be. She wanted to cry out, to warn Kim and Sampsa, but they seemed to know. They pointed at it, laughing, then turned to look up at her. Jelka stared at them a moment, then looked back at the fiery circle, shielding her golden eyes against its glare. Through her fingers she could see that it was not a solid, sustained image. It seemed to flicker ... to somehow oscillate even as it turned, like a film that has had every second frame blanked. And then, as suddenly as it came, it was gone.

Jelka dropped onto her knees, a sudden cold throughout her body. The darkness of the sky outside now seemed a shock. She groaned, then put her hands up to her head, the pains in her head - yet another familiar symptom - beginning with a vengeance.

What was that? What in the gods’ names was that? She had seen many small things in the past; little things that subsequently came to pass. But this time she would have to tell him.