The Marriage of the Living Dark

How large was nothingness? How wide? How deep?

Kim drew a circle on the screen, then drew a line through it, cutting it in half.

They were mttdn the line. Beyond that he knew nothing. Or almost nothing. He closed his eyes, concentrating. If this place existed, then it was governed by a set of physical laws. But how could such laws exist in a place that had no measurements?

Or was that so? Could it not be that their instruments were unreliable here? The trouble was, he imagined this place to be not infinite, but like a tiny bag of velvet cloth, tied with delicate draw-strings at its neck. A minutely-small universe, designed for the pocket of a giant Or a race of giants. The kings of infinite space.

Kim swivelled on his chair, facing the blackboard again. Within the larger circle of the first equations - the six he had figured out - he had set a second circle, on which were written out the three equations Ebert had given him. They fitted perfectly, enhancing and enlarging the totality. He could see how - mathematically - it all connected up, but how did they work? How - physically - did the one relate to the other?

And, on a more practical level, how did one enact the equations? How use them and test them?

One could not accelerate them, as one could atoms, nor collect them in a tank, as one did photons.

Energy. That was the key. Any physical event required energy. And so here, surely?

Kim stood, looking about him at his laboratory, seeking some clue as to how to proceed, his eyes finally resting on the looking-glass at the far end of the room.

Doubleness. That was it Mirrors.

Tuan Ti Fo had said as much. Though they seemed not to be moving, they were. In reality they were still heading for Eridani, their speed and direction unchanged.

And if that were so, then whatever he did here in the lab, even if it seemed to have no effect here, would have a genuine effect - if hidden - in his own universe.

Kim looked at the equations once again, staring and staring at them until his eyes blurred and the things took on the look of a mantra.

Jelka was right It did look like the Ywe Lung.

A ring. A ring of power ...

He laughed. Of course. It was that simple.

He didn’t need a lot of energy. No more, in fad, than he’d need to power a simple circuit, for once the thing got going it would feed upon itself - an energy spiral, switching between the two universes, feeding upon the transition between them to power itself.

Feeding, yes, and growing.

Growing uncontrollably, unless ...

Kim reached out to touch the three equations at the centre. The problem was not creating the doorway, but limiting its size, for this process, once begun, had no natural controls. And that was where the second set of equations came in. They were there to set the limits of the thing - to create a web of power in which to ensnare the doorway. A snare not to catch a rabbit but a rabbit-hole.

It was Alice all over again!

Grinning, Kim began to set up his equipment, seeing precisely what he needed for the task.

Two hours and it was done.

He watched it through special protective lenses, the arch of light - a half-circle like the hoop of a tiny rainbow -shimmering as it grew above the apparatus, getting bigger and bigger with each oscillation, tiny flames flickering within that glowing ring, until - snap! - nothing. Kim laughed. It worked! The snare worked!

He felt a shiver go right through him at the thought of what he’d done. What he’d seen was only half of what had been there. But the other half - half of that ever-growing spiral - had protruded elsewhere, in another universe entirely.

A hole. He’d made a hole. A gateway between universes. And if he made it large enough, he could step through, into another reality. “Did you see that, Master Tuan?” he asked, speaking to the air. “Did you see that?”

Ebert groaned and rolled over. Someone was shaking him awake.

“Hans! Hans! Wake up! Fve something to show you?” “Kim?” He put his hand to the tiny panel on his chest, activating his eyes. As they rose up into the air, to take up their positions above his head, so he saw Kim standing there, a broad smile splitting his face. “Are you all right?” he asked, sitting up.

‘^Never better,” Kim answered. “But come. I want to show you what Fve made.”

He stared at Kim. “Then it works.”

“Like a dream.”

Ebert was quiet a moment, then. “Have you thought about it, Kim ... I mean, about what this means? About how it will change things?”

Kim’s smile faded. “The truth is, since I knew it was possible, I’ve thought of little else. If I can do it, then everyone can do it And if everyone can do it...” “Do we all become gods?” Kim stared back at him. “What do you mean?” “Only that we’re men, not gods. And these powers ...” But Kim was adamant “We can’t back away from this, Hans. We can’t refuse this knowledge. Thaf s what the Seven did. They tried to put an end to change, and look what happened! We can’t go back. We have to go forward, whatever the consequences.” ‘Is that what you believe?”

“I do. Besides, I sense we’re not the first to pass along this road; to come to this gate and seek admittance. Old Tuan, for certain has travelled it before us.” “And DeVore?”

At that Kim shrugged. “What DeVore is is dark to me as yet but Master Tuan I trust as I trust Jelka and yourself. It was Tuan, remember, who found me when I was lost” “And I,” Hans said, nodding his agreement ‘Then let us go. My cruiser is waiting up above. We can be in Kalevala within the hour.” “All right” Hans answered, smiling now, his blind eyes sparkling mischievously. “But first let me rinse the sleep from my eyes. If I’m to be a god, I’d like to see clearly where I’m headed.”

In the hours between his first experiment and this, Kim had built a bigger, more permanent version of his apparatus.

Six powerful horseshoe-shaped electromagnets formed one half of it, arranged in a kind of ladder, in steadily decreasing size, like the levels of a loosely-linked Tower of Babel, or the spinal column of some strange metallic creature. Facing them, like a mirror image, were a second, identical set In the gap between, their faint traces reminding Ebert of sunlit water-drops on a thread, were six lines of laser light that zipped back and forth between two lines of silver studs on twin generators.

All in all, it had the look of a musical stave. Looking closer, Ebert saw that there were, in fart, twelve threads, for each thread was a double thread of light Ebert gestured towards them. “Why are they twinned?” “They oscillate,” Kim said, waggling his ringer as if to demonstrate. “When if s functioning properly, each of the six pulses switches from one thread to the other two hundred times a second. In effect the whole thing resonates like a plucked harp.”

“And the electromagnets?”

Kim smiled, then, donning his protective glasses, reached out to touch the switch. “Watch ...”

As the lights dimmed, the electromagnets began to hum. At first nothing, then, like a tiny whirlwind, a spiralling cone of light began to grow in the space between and just above the tips of the two magnet-towers, burning with a searing brilliance, a fine needle of light vanishing into the blackness above.

Then, with a suddenness that was shocking, the air above the needle split, a circle of crystal clear air opening in the darkness. And about that crystal circle was a tiny ring of fire.

Moment by moment that circle grew, its edge oscillating to the same fast flickering rhythm as all else.

For a moment Ebert stared through the gap, seeing, on the far side, another place, so like to the room in which they stood, that it could easily have been its mirror image.

And then - snap! - it ended.

Ebert shuddered. His nerve ends trembled. In that final moment before the light had died, he had seen himself there in the room, staring back at him, and beside him, Kim, or someone who looked a lot like Kim. “Mirrors ...”

Kim nodded, then pressed the pad to raise the lights again. “If s us, or as near to us as makes any difference. But that” s how it has to be, if you think of it, Hans. There must be endless universes, one next to another, pressed close like the flimsy skins of an onion. And the nearest will be very similar, while those further away will begin to differ.” “Hold on,” Ebert said, “you mean that was another reality?” “Yes,” Kim said. “Or, to be accurate, another no-space, but one so similar to ours that the me thaf s there is experimenting just as I’m experimenting - holding this self-same conversation with you even as I’m holding it” “Then what s the use of that? If if s the same ...” Kim laughed. “Don’t you see? If we can cross through into that other universe, we can cross through into others. Indeed, we can’t help but do so. The bigger the gate, the more layers of the skin peel back. We could set up a whole series of gates, like a tunnel, and travel into a universe where the difference is significant. Or ...”

But Ebert raised a hand, as if to calm a fretful horse. “Wo-ah. One thing at a time. You say we can travel through these holes? But they’re tiny.”

“Then we build a huge great big version of it and suspend it in the air - a massive wheel of fire - and fly through it.”

Ebert laughed. “Now I know you’re mad. Fly through it? You mean, in the craft you’ve made?”

“Why not?”

“Because it has no hull, no engine. When you came out the other side, you’d emerge into a freezing vacuum.”

Kim smiled. “You’re thinking that the apparatus has to be outside of the field, framing it, but it doesn’t It can generate a field about itself. Thaf s the beauty of it At the same time you can generate heat and oxygen inside the field.”

“Yes, but even if we can get through, how does that help us? We’ll still be out here, between the stars.”

“Yes, but in one of those universes, Fve solved the problem. I’ve mode a ship that can fold space. Or a machine that can do it, anyway. In one of those universes we can get back. Not a year from now, nor even in a month, but immediately.”

“Now?”

“Well, not right now. But soon. Just as soon as I’ve re-jigged the craft.”

“Re-jigged it?”

Kim beamed. “You saw Dcuro’s sketch. Thaf s it. I realise it now. That’s the little beauty thaf 11 take us back to Chung Kuo!”

Kim was standing at the pool’s edge, looking out across the shimmering surface of the water, thinking about what he’d said to Ebert and the sheer difficulty of doing what he’d claimed he could do, when he became aware that there was someone else in the dome with him.

He looked across, then smiled. “I wondered how long it would be before you came.”

Tuan Ti Fo stepped over and stood beside him, looking out across the pool. “We have lived this moment before, Kim. This and many other moments. But the time is coming when all things change, when nothing will be predictable.” “How do you mean?”

Old Tuan’s smile was filled with a thousand years of patience. “You, and many of your other selves, are about to change the rules by which man lives. All creatures, if they are intelligent enough, come to this point Beyond it they must make new rules for themselves, or abandon their quest for knowledge.” “You heard, then, what I said to Hans.”

“I heard and understand. You must go on. It is in your nature, Kim. But not all of your species are like you.”

“My species?” Kim laughed. “You talk as if you yourself were not a man, Master Tuan.”

Tuan turned his head, looking steadily at Kim. “You wish to see my real form, Kim?”

“I...” Kim shivered. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, it would not shock you, Kim.” He laughed gently. “Indeed, it was more of a shock to me, remembering what I was. I have been a man so long, you see. Much longer than I ever expected.””Then that tale of your birth ...” “Was a metaphor. A way of making you understand. DeVore is my twin, but not as you humans conceive the word.” “A doppleganger, then?”

“My dark self? Yes, but more than that Much much more. He was not merely my twin but my mate, the kindred of my soul. So it was, long ago. There was a time when whatever pained him would pain me and vice versa. But we have been apart so long now that I but feel only the faintest echo of what he feels. And he ... well, I think he has come to feel nothing. Nothing but the dark wind blowing at his back.” “What do you mean?”

“We are not creatures like you, Kim. We were not born and bred in the sunlight, but in the vast spaces between the stars. Such powers as we have were forged there - coded into us, if you like. You do not sense it, for you have not developed the means of sensing it, but there is a dark wind blowing behind reality, behind it and underneath it. Oh, and within it and around it, too. A nothingness. DeVore - forgive me if I call him that and not his true name - senses that. He feels it still, at times. But he has forgotten what it is.” “And what is it, this dark wind?”

“It is the nullity that destroys all. The eroding force.”

“Entropy, you mean?”

“No. It is a force that, if allowed into this universe of yours, would destroy it in an instant, just as, in those first nanoseconds of your universe, all was created.”

Like a tight switch in a vast room, Kim thought Switch it on and you have Creation and all its vast complexities. Switch it off and Nothing. Not even darkness. For how can the dark exist without the tight! “A dreadful pun, Kim, but true.”

Kim laughed. “You see all and hear all ... even my thoughts. Why, then, do you need me?”

“Because it was decided thus, long ago.”

“Decided? By whom?”

“By ourselves. We met and ... debated it”

“There are more like you?”

“Oh, many more.” “And DeVore?”

“You think he is unique? You think this is the only universe this is happening in?”

“If s ... difficult Getting one’s mind around the concept of endless realities, endless struggles.”

“It is a great war. And the outcome will determine the very shape of existence.”

“A war?”

“Yes. A war of directions, not unlike the war you yourselves have been fighting these many years. But our war has been going on for long millennia. When you were yet apes, we had long pursued this struggle.” “But now the time has come, eh? The time to decide it all?”

Old Tuan nodded.

Kim hesitated a long while, then. “I find that strange My mind ... well, rebels against it Why now? And why me? I’m too small, too ... insignificant” “You remember the vision you were given, Kim, down in the Clay? The web of light?”

Kim nodded.

“Do you think just anyone is given that?”

Kim stared at him, astonished. “You gave that to me?”

“Not 1.1, remember, was asleep. Yet it was given. And, when I woke, I saw the

reason for it Yes, and I saw clearly what you would do with that vision. Up to a

point”

“When the rules change.”

Tuan Ti Fo smiled, then gave a single nod.

“So?” he asked, after a moment. “Would you like to meet the real me, or are you still not sure?”

Kim grinned. “You know the answer, Master Tuan.”

“Of course. Yet politeness is its own virtue, neh?” “Then show me, please, Master Tuan,” Kim said, and bowed, his hands pressed together, palm to palm, in the ancient gesture of respect. “Then get suited up, Kim Ward. I cannot show you here.”

Jelka met Kim in the corridor outside the airlock.

“Kim? What’s going on?”

Kim hesitated, then. “Get suited up. We have an appointment with an old friend.” Recognising the teasing tone, she laughed. “Friend? What friend?” “He calls himself Old Tuan, but he has other names, I’m sure.”

“You’re meeting Master Tuan again?”

“I’ve met him, and talked. And now I am to meet him again. As he truly is.”

Slowly Jelka’s eyes widened. “You mean ...?”

Kim nodded. “Get ready, my love. Old Tuan is waiting to reveal himself.”

There was a disturbance in the air above the dome. It was as if the darkness blew a kiss. And then Old Tuan appeared. Or rather, something strange and yet familiar.

Kim stared at it a while, then gave a single laugh. “You sensed it,” Tuan’s voice boomed down at them. “Part of you always knew.”

Jelka took Kim’s arm. He could feel a faint trembling in her. “You must not be afraid,” Kim said, staring up at the giant figure in the sky above them. “It is only Tuan Ti Fo.”

She was silent a moment, then. “I see why you had to mask your true form, Master Tuan. It is ... fearsome.”

The giant spider, its lower abdomen larger than Kalevala itself, its metallic-looking, jointed legs like massive cranes, quivered.

“It is very strange,” Tuan said, “You humans consider your form - bipedal, humanoid - the norm, yet this shape I now wear existed long before your own, and when all other forms die out, ours will remain. It is the most common in all the universes.”

Kim smiled. “I have no doubt, Master Tuan. Indeed, I’m sure you find us ugly.”

Tuan Ti Fo laughed at that, a booming, rasping laughter. “I’ve grown accustomed to it, let us say. But you, Kim, you’ve always had an affinity for us. That too, it seems, was coded. Perhaps if s even why you were chosen.”

“You see that far, Master Tuan?”

“I see so far ...”

“... and no further.” Kim laughed. “So what now, old friend?”

“Ahead lies a time of waiting, and frustration and failure.”

‘Tailure, Master Tuan?”

“Oh, yes. Did you really think you were there yet, Kim?” The great spider’s voice boomed in Kim’s helmet “You have but begun to toy with the potential of what you have uncovered. The real task - the using of what you have found - will not be so easy.”

“But the equations .. .”

“Are but a beginning. A framework for what follows. But do not give up, Kim. Though I cannot see that far ahead, I sense you will triumph in the end. If anyone can succeed, it will be you.”

Kim frowned. “You say you cannot see, Master Tuan. I don’t understand. I thought you could see everything up to the change.”

“So I can. But ahead of us things grow unclear. The single path of vision splits and splits again, until it is like staring down a hall of distorting mirrors. In some one thing happens, in another something different.” “So it is not written then that this will come about?” “Not at all. Only that you would come to the gate. And knock. But whether you will enter ...”

Old Tuan shrugged. At least, it seemed a shrug.

“And now?”

“Now I must go. Kim ... Jelka ...”

“Master Tuan ...?”

But he was gone. The darkness above Kalevala was empty.

Kim turned, looking to Jelka, then drew her close, holding her tightly to him. Only minutes ago he had been elated - full of an optimism that seemed unbounded - but now ...

Now he was afraid. Failure. Old Tuan had seen him fail. But I made a gateway.A small one. Easily controlled. A tiny hole that was gone within seconds. A toy.

Making the real thing would be much harder.

“You say you saw it, my love,” he said, moving his face back and staring up at Jelka.

“I saw a wheel of fire burning in the sky above Kalevala, and you and Sampsa laughing.”

“Then why did Master Tuan not see it?”

“Maybe he did.”

“Yes. And maybe he saw other things. Things too horrible to mention. What if your dream is not the only dream?”

Jelka smiled, then placed her palm softly against his cheek. “Then we shall find that out, neh, my love? But I shall be here with you, whichever way chance falls.”

PART FOUR - SPRING 2243

and three dark flames

“ ‘We see,’ said he, like men who are dim of sight, Things that are distant from us; just so far, We still have gleams of the Att-Guider’s light. But when these things draw near, or when they are, Our intellect is void, and your world’s state Unknown, save some one bring us news from there. Hence thou wilt see that al, we can await Is the stark death of knowledge in us, then When time’s last hour shall shut the future’s gate.”

· Dante, The Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto X