The Marriage of the Living Dark

“Tuan Ti For

Old Tuan bowed low, then, smiling patiently, stepped up beside Kim and, raising his arms, spoke to them all.

“Forgive me, my friends, for coming among you unannounced, but you must know now how things are. Kim is right. You are no longer within the relativistic universe, but in a pocket, a no-space between the universes. Eridani is still before you, and you travel towards it hourly, yet there is no trace of you in your universe. This we have done.”

“We?’ Kim was staring at Old Tuan in disbelief. He had thought him dead, or back on Chung Kuo. He had certainly not been on Ganymede. Not until a moment or two ago.

“I can say little now,” Tuan answered. “Only that you are in no danger.” He paused, then, “You must be patient You must remain here in no-space for a while, for he must not see you. Not yet. Things are changing, and just as we have woken, so he in time will wake.”

“Can you not tell us more?” Karr asked, his own face filled with wonder at the sight of the old man.

“Only that you have work to do. You have come right to the edge. To the time of change. Beyond it everything will be different But you must first step over. Until then we can say nothing more.”

“The equations?” Kim asked. “Has it to do with the equations?”

But Old Tuan would not be drawn. “Do your work, Kim Ward. Go where you must go - where the visions show you witt go. Then, when things are clearer to you, we will talk.”

They had not seen him arrive, but all there saw him leave. For a moment he seemed both to be there and not be there, his form shimmering, as if every other frame of a film had been removed. Then he was gone. Again a sigh ran through them.

You have come right to the edge. To the time of change. Kim stared a moment, then turned back, looking out across the upturned, awe-struck faces of his fellow travellers.

“Well...” he said, finding no words to describe what he was feeling, “let us do as Master Tuan says. Return to your homes and wait. When something is known, I shall contact you again.”

He could see how they hung back, reluctant to go; how they looked to him for

some kind of explanation. But for once he had nothing to give them. Nothing but

his own bafflement

“So what exactly is happening?”

Ebert laughed at the bluntness of Karr’s question. “Do you think I’m holding out on you?” Ebert shook his head, as perplexed as they for once. He knew Tuan Ti Fo’s tricks of old, but this once Old Tuan’s appearance had shaken him; so much so that he could not think straight. “The gods know what happened back there. One moment we were in the normal universe, the next nowhere. And I’ve no how idea how they did it” “But where are we?”

“The place of inner dark ...”

Karr frowned. “Pardon?”

“That’s where we are. The place of inner dark.” His blind eyes looked about him at the others who were packed into the room with him. “Thaf s what the Osu call it It is a place outside of time and space.”

“A dream time,” his son, Pauli offered, but Ebert shook his head. “No. It is a real place, a physical place.” “And do the Osu go there?” Ebert smiled. “No. It is a place of the gods.” “Then ...” Karr hesitated, “what you’re suggesting is ...” “That Old Tuan is a god. Or an immortal. Like those in the old Han tales. Kim told us how he claimed to be as old as the rocks. What if that was true? It would explain a great deal. Like how he manages to walk through locked doors.”

“Yes,” Karr said, “and travel between Chung Kuo and deepest space in the blink of an eye.”

Ebert nodded. “And you, Kao Chen, what do you think?” Kao Chen made a face. “I feel as if I must have eaten something that disagreed with me. If this is not a dream, the gods know what it is!” Ebert nodded. “I understand. I’ve been questioning my sanity, too. But it looks like ifs real. Unless we’re all hallucinating.” “So what are they, then?” Pauli asked. “Gods? Immortals? Or are they aliens in human form?”

“Tuan said he was born,” Ebert answered. “He told Kim that DeVore was his twin - that they found him in the afterbirth, the cord wrapped about his throat.” “Pity they found him,” Karr said, making them all laugh. But they quickly grew serious again. “Maybe ifs true but not true,” Ebert said. “How do you mean?” “Just that he might be a twin, and he might have been born at the same time as DeVore - if DeVore’s another of these beings - only they might not have been born to a human mother, on Earth. That might have been the part of the tale he’d doctored, to make it acceptable to you.”

Karr shrugged. “I think I’d have believed it more if he’d said he and DeVore were aliens, not less. Aliens I can believe in, just about, but immortals ...” “Whatever Tuan is,” Ebert said, “he seems to have powers beyond our present understanding. Yet he talks of having woken slowly to those powers.” Karr nodded. “Yes, and this business of it being almost time. Of us being on the edge. What do you think he means by that?”

“He means the equations,” Ebert answered. “I’m sure of it As I said, we have the key now.”

“Then surely Kim is where he wants to be. In the doorway.”

Ebert looked to Chuang Kuan Ts’ai, who had spoken. “What do you mean?” Chuang smiled. “Kim said that he wasn’t sure in which direction he had to look, to seek the door between the worlds. Well, now we know. In fact, Old Tuan has brought us right to the spot All Kim has to do now is make it work.” Karr looked about him. “Where is Kim? He ought to have come back by now.”

Kim had gone away while they were talking, but he had not returned.

“Kao Chen,” Karr said, “did you see where he went?”

“Into the wash room, I thought I’ll check ...”

Kao Chen disappeared. A moment later he was back, his face ashen. “Quick! Kim’s collapsed! I found him slumped over one of the stalls. He looks in a bad way!”

Kim’s room was dark. As the doctor stepped outside into the corridor and closed the door behind him, five anxious faces stared back at him. “Well?” Jelka asked, her voice a whisper. “How is he now?” “No change,” the doctor - an elderly Han named Ji -answered quietly, his concern mirroring their own. “Physically he seems fine. His breathing’s normal and his heartbeat But these voices you say you’ve heard What kind of thing is that?” Jelka looked down. “It’s nothing... just murmuring, that’s all.” “Ah...” Surgeon Ji considered a moment, then shrugged “I can only suggest that you be patient and wait. It strikes me that this whole business has been quite a shock to his system. Kim is a very rational man. What we’ve experienced... well, it would shake the faith of any rationalist, neh?” “But surely, to sleep this long ...?”

“Is not unusual,” Ji quickly reassured her. “Sixty hours is not long, Mu Ch’in Ward. And we are not talking about a coma. All that s happened is that Kim’s conscious mind has switched itself off. If s having a rest. And long overdue, I’d say. No, let nature take its course.”

After Ji was gone, Jelka turned, looking to the others.

“What voices?” Sampsa asked.

Jelka shrugged. “It was nothing ...”

“No,” Sampsa said. “Whatever they were, it certainly wasn’t nothing. I can see they disturbed you.”

She hesitated, then. “It’s just that it hasn’t happened in a while.”

“What?” Karr asked impatiently, his voice raised momentarily. Ebert touched his arm.

“Gweder and Lagasek.”

“Gweder and ...?” Karr shook his head, looking to the others for an explanation. “It goes back to his days in Rehab,” Sampsa said. “When he first came out of the Clay. They are the two sides of his nature. His two selves, if you like. For a long time Lagasek - Starer -has been in control. But it seems that Gweder - Mirror - is back.”

Karr stared at Jelka open-mouthed. This was the first he’d heard of any of this.

“You mean Kim is schizophrenic?”

“Not technically,” Sampsa said, answering for her. “But Gweder - his darker self - has been walled off all these years. Inaccessible.” Jelka shook her head. “Thaf s not true.”

“Pardon?”

She looked to her son. “I said that s not true. After Mileja’s death, Gweder came back. Sometimes he was only a voice, in the night when Kim was fast asleep, but sometimes he would make Kim get up and go out, to walk beneath the trees. I’d see him out there, prowling, and I’d know it was Gweder.”

“You could tell?”

Jelka shivered, then nodded. “He would go on all fours.”