The Marriage of the Living Dark

CHAPTER-17

flowers

Daniel stepped up onto the ledge of rock, then gazed down the length of the valley, his eyes pausing at the stark, dividing line between the green and the black. That blackness was an ugly scar that stretched for two kilometres east, like a fighter’s belt about the waist of the world. The rich greenness of the valley tumbled down towards it with the full weight of Spring, only to falter. Devore had poisoned the land. Burned it, then sprayed it And now nothing grew. Plants stretched their roots out into that blackness, only to see them shrivel up and die, while pollen, drifting in the sunlit air, hissed as it touched that barren strip, flickering briefly, like leaves in a fire, transformed to smoke and air.

The strip had not existed when last they’d been out here. It was four, maybe five days old at most.

Daniel turned, looking back at the other members of the patrol. In their heavy suits they looked like they were on an alien planet. Not that that was so far from the truth these days.

The two boys were staring past him at the blackness, their eyes wide, their lips parted, while the girl was looking at him. Staring at him, as if to read his thoughts.

As always, he thought, looking away, disconcerted by her constant attention.

What did she want, always staring so?

It was awkward in the protective suits, and hot, but necessary. Despite Devore’s efforts, the floraforms were rife in this part of the mountains. It made no sense to take chances.”Okay,” he said, speaking for the first time in a long while. “Let1 s go down there. See whafs to be seen.” They followed without a word, keeping a tight formation as they made their way down through the trees, their eyes searching the nearby trees and rocks, lingering on the long beds of brightly-coloured flowers that lay between the tall young trunks.

It all looked so innocent, so paradisaical, yet one never knew. Things changed so fast out here. Even the insects were not always what they seemed. There was not a single thing the floraforms did not know how to mimic. They came to a stream. It ran swiftly between the rocks, a crystal clear torrent rushing down from the mountain slopes high above, its flow swollen by the spring melt Daniel stared at it a while, then jumped across. An easy leap, even for a child. Yet even as he landed, his instincts twitched. Something was wrong here. He turned full circle, looking, trying to place what it was. Nothing. Only the peacefulness of the morning, the cool, clean rush of the water down the gully. He watched the girl jump the stream, and then the first of the boys.

“What is it?”

The other boy, Anders, had held back. He had turned, looking back into the shadows between the trees.

“I don’t know,” he answered quietly, his attention focused on that patch of darkness just in front of him. “I thought something moved.” Was that if? Had he sensed that peripheral movement? “Wait there,” Daniel said, meaning to jump back and investigate, yet even as he took the first step, the whole of the far side seemed to shimmer and close up, as if a wall had formed, running tight against the edge of the gully - a great wall of leaf and flower that stretched up into the treetops. Daniel blinked and took a backward step.

There was a stifled cry and then a sudden thrashing sound. The wall of verdancy trembled then was still.

It was silent again. Peaceful. The sunlight beat down upon the rushing stream. Like a dream, the wall shimmered and was gone. Beyond where it had been was only tree and shadow. There was no sign of the boy.

Daniel shivered. He did not know which was worse, this living green or the annihilating blackness of DeVore. Both gave no quarter. What made it worse was that one could not fight these things - not in any meaningful way. They were not like DeVore’s mechanoids. One could not simply blast them into oblivion and move on. Blow a floraform apart and it would simply reconstitute itself in a different form. It was mutability gone mad. And even when one burned and poisoned them, still they thrived, as DeVore was finding out. One could cut great swathes through the Wilds and still it made no difference, for after a while they would ingest and change the poisons used against them. And then the black would blossom with new life. “Come on,” he said, his sudden decisiveness bringing them all out of the daze they had fallen into. “Lef s do what we have to do.” He knew they were scared now. They had not lost any of their fellows in quite that way before. It was as if the floraforms were learning day by day. Experimenting with their powers.

Them? Or If?

That was the trouble You never knew whether there were a whole number of different floraforms, or just one single creature. But one thing was no longer in doubt The floraforms were intelligent.

Coming out into the floor of the valley, Daniel paused a while, letting them rest in the shade. In an hour the sun would be directly above them and, unless they travelled beneath the tree cover, their suits would begin to feel like ovens.

“Daniel?”

He turned, looking towards where the girl sat on a small rock watching him. .

“Yes?”

“Is it always going to be like this?”

Daniel shrugged. The truth was, he could not answer her. If he had, it would have been to express his doubt, or rather, hisfirm conviction that their days were numbered. No matter what they did, the floraforms were spreading, day by day, week by week. Already the whole of the southlands were theirs. Nothing human remained down there. Africa, it was said, was one writhing mass of green.

Full cirde, he thought, remembering what he’d read and imagining a world before

humanity, before even the insects came. A green world. A world of silence and

sunlight and

growth.

And us? What happens to us? To humankind?

He wanted to ask the question, to have someone answer him and reassure him, but he was afraid they would merely mirror his darkest thoughts. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s take our samples and get back.” Yet even as he turned to make his way towards the edge, towards that place where the green tide broke upon the black, he saw, through the trees, the boy he’d lost Daniel stood, rooted to the spot, waiting as the boy turned and made his way back, the sample case held out before him.

“Here,” the boy’s voice said, a ghostly echo of itself, “is this what you wanted?”

The boy was green. Where his eyes had been were tiny buds. Where his tongue once was now flicked a tiny stamen. His hands, where they poked from the gloveless sleeves of the suit, were like rolled leaves.

Slowly Daniel shook his head. If it wanted to take him now it could do it Easily. In a moment Yet still it stood there, holding out the sample case, its bud-like eyes sensing him. “What do you see?” he asked. The boy smiled, the inside of its mouth like glistening sap.

“Only the green.”

Daniel nodded. “And us?”

For a moment longer it stood there. Then, as if a great sigh had shuddered through the valley, it shimmered, scattering like a pile of windblown leaves. Daniel stared at the case where it lay on the ground two paces from where he stood. Unlike the boy, the case was real. He stooped, examining it The sample tubes were full.He frowned, then, slipping the leather strap over his shoulder, turned to face the others. They were frightened. He could see at a glance just how frightened they were.

“Come,” he said, no longer masking the tiredness he felt from his voice. “Let’s get back.”

The cruiser came down slowly, blowing cut grass and petals across the well-kept lawn. The back door to the thatched cottage was open, yet the shutters were pulled across at every window, and as DeVore stepped down from the craft, the engines whining down into silence behind him, he had the feeling that the house was empty.

Where was he? Out fishing on the river? In the fields? DeVore walked through the house, going from room to room, his black leather boots creaking on the polished boards. The wardrobes were empty of clothes. Ben’s journals were missing from the workroom. He had gone. There was no doubting it He had gone.

“Damn him!”

DeVore stood in the ancient dining room, looking about him at the panelled oak walls, then nodded to himself. He would destroy this. He would destroy it all, in fact If Ben would not stand with him, then nothing was worth saving. He strode out onto the sunlit lawn and gestured to his pilot At once the engines came to life again.

For a moment DeVore stood there, watching the rose bushes dance violently in the wind from the engines’ exhaust, then, with a sneer, he made a dismissive gesture at it all Games, thaf s all it ever was. Just games.

As the cruiser lifted, he took over the controls. At five hundred metres, he steadied the craft and turned it to face the cottage. With a smile he released two rockets, watching them streak down into the hillside The craft rocked gently in the wind of the detonation. His smile broadened. There was gas on board, and a quantity of the special poisons. Turning to his pilot, he ordered him to mask up, then, donning his own mask, he began the sweep, thedeadly mist trailing the cruiser as it progressed up the western bank of the Dart, then back again. And where the mist fell, the green shrivelled up and died.

As he came out over the town, he banked the craft, firing off two more rockets into the old hotel, then flew through the plume of smoke, laughing now, beginning to enjoy himself.

Games. The kind of games that gods allow themselves. He sat back, letting his pilot take over, feeling the form within his form relax. Right now he only guessed at what that shape within him was. Sensed it as the pupa senses the unfolding form within. But soon he would know.

Soon he would wake and know.

Meanwhile he played these games with lesser forms. “Turn back,” he said, as the pilot began to climb. “I want to see it all. But take us up. High enough so I can see it at a glance.”

From two kilometres above, the Domain stretched out like a tiny map beneath him, dark plumes of smoke roiling across its surface. And beneath that misted darkness was the blackness of the now-poisoned land, the blue surface of the Dart dividing it. Two burned lips about that mirror smooth blueness. DeVore laughed. “Serves the fucker right!”

Then, wondering briefly where Shepherd could have gone, he gestured to his man to take them back. It was time to face things. Time to make big decisions.

Emily stood on the high balcony, looking out across the snow-covered slopes towards the south. Daniel was late. He should have been back two hours past, but still there was no sign of him.

Her gloved hands tapped the frosted metal rail absently, her breath pluming in the crisp air, then she turned and ducked back inside, impatient now. She would send a patrol out to search for him, for if darkness fell and he was still outside...

She stopped and leaned against the sloping wall of the narrow corridor, her heart beating rapidly, her chest rising and falling. Hell be okay. You know he will.

The trouble was, she didn’t know. Since Michael had died she had lost the confidence she’d once possessed. Besides, the world was changing hour by hour, becoming less human. That was, if it had ever truly been human. There had been a time - at the height of the great world-spanning empire of Chung Kuo - when it might have been possible to claim that mankind had triumphed over the elements. Back then, inside their mile-high cities, men had been the masters of their environment Not a breeze had entered their domain unless they willed it, not an animal or insect. They had lived in splendid isolation, independent from the world that had bred them - like laboratory specimens, cut off from any harmful influence. Yet harm there’d been - a purely human harm, a corruption - and, like an infection, that corruption had spread among the levels of their great global city. Year by year the great experiment had faltered, until it could be sustained no longer. In a frenzy of blood-letting Chung Kuo had ripped itself apart. There had been long years of death and destruction, of widows grieving and orphans weeping. It had been an awful, hideous time. What, then, if the flowers inherited the earth?

“If it were only so simple ...”

Emily walked on. The trouble was, these were no simple flowers. Indeed, if their latest tests were right, they weren’t even flowers at all. They were as human - and inhuman - as man himself.

Emily smiled, then stepped into her office. Seating herself behind the desk, she leaned forward and touched the communicator pad. “Gunnar? Are you there?”

There was a moment’s pause, then the young man’s voice filled the room. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Daniel’s late. I want a search party sent out Lin Pei knows the details.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The communicator clicked off. She sat back, taking a long breath, then reached out and took the map book from the side.It was an old thing, from before the time of cities, and had all of the old alpine villages marked on it. Opening it, she flicked through to the map of Luzern and its surrounds and spread it out on the desk, studying the marks she’d written on it.

There was little now that the floraforms did not control. In a year, maybe less, they would control it all. Unless ...

She raised her head. Unless what? Unless a mirade occurred? Publicly she did not allow herself to be despondent about the future, but privately, as now, she had to admit, struggle seemed futile. All her life she had fought Even when she had been with Mender Lin - even then she had countered the apparent futility of events and done something, taking those orphaned boys and giving them a life. But this time it seemed there was nothing she could do. The green tide swept all before it, transforming all it touched, feeding upon what opposed it “Mother?”

She started at the unexpected voice, then touched the comsef s pad again.

“Yes, Lin Pei?”

‘If s Daniel, mother. He’s back.”

“But...” Her relief was mixed with puzzlement He couldn’t have got back yet; she would have seen him, surely? Unless he came from the north. Emily frowned. “Where are you, Pei?”

“In the corridor outside Isolation.”

She nodded to herself. “Okay. I’ll come down.” A pause, then, “Is everything all right, Pei?”

Silence, then. “I’m not sure. Anders didn’t come back.”

“Wait there. I’m coming.”

Lin Pei greeted her outside Isolation, then stood back as she looked through the toughened glass window. Daniel was inside, along with young Jurgen and the girl, Siri. They were naked, their arms raised away from their sides. One of the morphs - Amenon, it looked like from the back - was spraying them. Not that it did a lot of good, but they felt they had to take some kind of precaution against the floraforms.

Ritual, she thought. It’s all mere ritual now. They could take us when they liked, if the truth be told.

At once the answering thought - the thought that always came to her mind when she got to this point - filled her head.

Then why don’t they? Why don’t they simply end it, quickly and painlessly? Why tease us and torment us in this fashion?

She didn’t know. Moreover, it worried her that she didn’t know.

Activating the microphone, she spoke.

“Daniel?”

“Yes, mother?”

Emily smiled. Mother. Yes, she was mother to them all. But for how much longer?

“What happened out there?”

Daniel gave a little shrug. His face seemed momentarily pained. “I spoke to It” “It?”

“The floraform. I’m fairly certain now. If s one being. It took Anders.

Transformed him.”

“Ahh...”

“And then it used him. To speak to me. And to give me the samples we wanted.”

“It what?”

Daniel nodded. “Thafs what I thought But I think I understand it now. It knows what we’re doing. It knows we’re analysing the poisons DeVore is using against it I think if s its way of letting us know that nothing we do will affect it Whatever we do, it will adapt itself and counter it” “And yet it let you go.”

“Yes.” Daniel’s eyes slid away, then met hers again. “That I don’t understand.

Not yet”

“No. Nor I.” She shook her head, then, “Amenon, forget that Daniel, get dried off and back in here. We need to talk.”

The scene on the screen was familiar to Daniel. It showed the great parade square in Heidelberg, the marching columns of uniformed boys swelling into the distance as the camera panned across, then focused on the three figures on the balcony.

Daniel gasped.

“Yes,” Emily said, from where she sat beside him in the darkness. She covered

his hand with her own. “It shocked me

when I first saw it”

For a moment he simply stared, taking in the sight of himself, standing there between DeVore and Horacek as, below, the young boys cheered and cried his name. Daniel... Daniel... Daniel...

A copy. DeVore had had him copied.

Daniel swallowed. “When did this come?”

“Two days back.”

His head turned. “Then why . ..?”

“I wanted to think about it I wanted to consider whether it would do more harm to show you this than to keep it from you.”

“But...” Daniel thought about that a moment then gave a tiny nod. ‘1 see. And you decided I ought to know. Why?”

She squeezed his hand. “Keep watching.”

There was a set of double doors behind the three men. As the camera moved past them, it closed in on the doors even as they opened.

“There,” Emily said, feeling the same frisson of surprise -and shock - she’d had

the first time she’d seen it Herself. But no longer young. Herself as she was

now. Grey-haired, her

flesh lined with age. Daniel was quiet a moment, then he nodded. “So he’s

finally

going to come for us.”

“Yes.”

She was glad. He understood. It made it that much simpler.

The film ran on.

“Ifs strange,” he said finally. “That creature on the balcony. I can’t help feeling that that” s the real me. At least, the person DeVore meant me to be. The one who ought to have emerged from the camps. But something went wrong. As with his morphs.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling now. “Ifs very strange, don’t you think? How good comes from such evil. And not once, and not always, but ... well, occasionally. Enough to make things unpredictable.”

“Like the floraforms, you think?”

It wasn’t what she had been thinking, but now that he’d mentioned it... “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe thaf s why they let you go. Because they sensed something in you. Maybe it means we can come to some kind of arrangement with them.”

Daniel turned, his face halved by the light from the screen, and stared at her.

“Do you think so?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more. Maybe DeVore’s right to try to poison them.”

“But you don’t think so.”

Emily nodded. “It makes no sense, when you think of it If the only way to fight the floraforms is to destroy the earth, then what1 s the point? If they can’t survive, then we sure as hell can’t.”

He smiled “So we go under. Become transformed.”

“Maybe.”

“Without a fight?”

“We’ve tried fighting. It didn’t work.”

“Then maybe you’re right Maybe we have to come to an arrangement Live alongside the floraforms.”

“You think they want that, Daniel?”

“Ifs possible.”

“And DeVore?”

Emily sat back slightly. “I don’t know what DeVore wants. I used to think I did, but I’m not so sure any more.”

She leaned forward, switching on the light Daniel was watching her closely now.

“He’ll fight,” he said. “You know he will. He doesn’t like competition.”

“No ...” Emily was thoughtful a while, then, “Do you like them?””Like them?” “The floraforms. The girl, Siri. .. She was speaking to me about how you look at them. She thought... well, that maybe you liked them.”

Daniel laughed. “She’s always watching me, that one. Like she’s spying on me.

Sometimes ...”

He stopped dead, then looked away.

Emily frowned. “Go on.”

“Well, sometimes I even think that maybe - just maybe -she’s working for DeVore.

If s silly, I know, seeing how she’s lived here all her life, but...” He stopped. Emily was shaking her head, a faint amusement in her eyes. “Don’t you see, Daniel?”

“See?”

“She’s in love with you.”

She saw the surprise in his face and smiled inwardly. “No,” he said, as if that simple denial could alter things. Yet his face was clouded now. He was so quick to understand things. Even this. “You want me to speak to her? To reassign her, maybe?”

“No. No ... I’ll speak to her. Tell her ...”

She saw how he came to the gap. What would he tell her? “Think it over,” she said gently. “If you need my help, just say.” He let out his breath, then shook his head. “I didn’t know.” No, she thought But now you do.

Beth was laughing; giggling uncontrollably, as if she would burst apart with happiness. With her half-toddling run, she tried in vain to get away from her father, but he was on her, swooping suddenly, lifting her up in his great big hands and holding her high, high above his head and whirling her about “Stop! Stoop!” she shrieked breathlessly, but he wasn’t going to stop, and besides, she didn’t really want him to stop. Around and around she went, her head spinning now, the ground turning and turning beneath her until, with a swoop that made her head feel funny, she plummeted down, landing soft as a pillow on the grass.

She lay there, eyes closed, feeling her head go round and round, still giggling, the sound of her father’s breathing mixed with the ebb and flow of the tide on the shingle beach below the garden.

“Beth! Beth! Do you want a drink?” Her eyes popped open. Her mother was standing at the half-door to the kitchen, looking out at her, a tumbler of juice held out in one hand. Closer, almost upon her, her father’s face, staring down at her, was smiling. “Go on,” he said. “We’ll play some more in a minute.” Beth rolled over, onto her back, staring up at the pure blue, cloudless sky, then pulled herself up. For a moment she felt as if she’d tumble back. Gravity tugged at her like a hand. The ground whirled. And then, slowly, very slowly, it grew still. She jumped up and ran, arms out, towards the house. The drink was fresh and sweet, the glass misted. Ice cubes chinked about its edge. She drank deeply, then wiped a hand across her mouth and looked up. Her mother was looking out, past her, toward the garden’s end. Beth turned, following her gaze. Her father stood there at the fence, his arms leaning loosely over the wooden bar as he watched the tide slowly turn. They had gone swimming earlier, when the tide had been coming in, her hand in his as they leapt high to greet each incoming wave, the cold water splintering about them, taking her breath, even as she squealed with excitement She shivered now at the thought, then looked down, poking her index finger into the cool, clear depth of the drink, twirling the ice cubes round and round and round. Tomorrow was her third birthday. And her father had promised her a special surprise.

She grinned at the thought, then looked up again. Her mother was looking down at her now; looking down with those deep brown eyes and smiling. “Tomorrow,” her mother said, as if she could see each thought in her head like one could see the crabs scuttling about at the bottom of a rock pool. “We’ll have a cake and \ everything.” Beth’s grin widened. Tomorrow ,..

The latest map confirmed it The stuff was spreading like a plague, despite the stepping up of his containment strategy.

“Fuck it!”

DeVore crumpled up the map and cast it aside, then stood, glowering at his advisors who waited like so many puppets -the strings that held their heads upright severed - about the half-lit War Room.

It was over. He knew it for a certainty. There was no way of destroying the floraforms, not without destroying it all. Lashing out, he caught the nearest of his men with the back of his hand, the square-cut ring on his second finger gouging a chunk of flesh from the man’s cheek.

The man went down, groaning, clutching his injured face. DeVore watched him a moment, his eyes dispassionate, then began to pace the room slowly, a sudden calmness overwhelming the anger, the frustration he’d been feeling. A dear, pure feeling.

He laughed. Heads lifted then quickly tucked back down.

‘Til kick the fucking legs away, one by one!”

Yes. But first he had to win the game, else it would seem like pique - like a novice who, seeing he had lost, threw board, pieces and all into the air. No. He would play out the endgame. He would destroy the woman. Would kill her. Or better yet, have her then kill her. He grinned, as a hyena grins, then looked about him. “Gentlemen, I need your help.”

Meg stood in the doorway, looking on as Ben knelt beside the bed, cooing a lullaby to their almost-sleeping daughter.

He had changed so much this last year. Changed beyond recognition. Gone was the coldness, the distance.

Yes, and the thoughtless cruelty, the madness, the darkness behind each day. She shivered, her love for him so full at that moment that she wanted to go across and kiss him. To hold him and show him what she was feeling. It was like the day outside.

Happy. For the first time in her life she was happy, without a cloud in the sky. And Ben ... Ben too was happy. Transformed. Now he spent his time worrying over simple things, like whether the roof leaked, or whether they’d enough to eat. He farmed and fished and made repairs to this old stone house. And sketched...

Yes, he still sketched. But that was all that remained of his old self. The rest had fallen away, or rotted, like the equipment in the bam. She watched him reach out and gently stroke his sleeping daughter’s brow, the look of love in his face so intense that she bit her lip. Where had that come from? With Tom ... well, Tom might as well have been another’s child for all the notice Ben had taken of him.

She turned away, going out into the kitchen, then stopped, facing the wall of sketches. Twenty, thirty sketches, and every one of Beth. Beth laughing. Beth thoughtful. Beth laying on the study floor, playing. Beth sleeping. Beth, always Beth. No other subject for him now.

Ironic...

Meg ran her fingers through her hair, then turned. Dinner. She ought to be making dinner. But suddenly, from nowhere, the darkness had descended. And there I was thinking it had gone away for good. She frowned, surprised by the suddenness of the change It was as if a cloud had drifted between her and the sun.

And yet nothing - nothing - had changed.

Except that she had reminded herself of what lay beyond them. Except that she’d forgotten for a moment to forget The world was ending. The world was fucking ending and here she was, playing Adam and Eve with her brother and their child, and ...”Meg?” He came across, his face concerned, his fingers gently wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“Hey ... what is it?”

But she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t spoil it all with her realisations. The nowness of this, that had to be enough, even if it ended tomorrow. The nowness. It was what she’d wanted, after all. What she’d always wanted. She huffed out a sigh, then smiled. “I’m okay. Really, I...” She shrugged. “Just seeing you with her. It broke me up.”

Ben smiled. “I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“And I’m happy. You know that? Really happy. I...” He paused, then shrugged. There was a look of wonder - of sheer astonishment on his face. “Yes,” she said softly, almost whispering the words, “Iknow.”

The room was silent A single lamp lit the board. In its pearled light DeVore’s face leaned towards the pattern of white and black stones, studying the play.

For a long time he was still, then, reaching across, he slapped a stone down in

ch’u, the West Only then did he turn, acknowledging the presence of the

messenger in the

room.

“What is it?”

“Forgive me, Master, but there’s a new prisoner in the cells.” DeVore raised an eyebrow. “There are always new prisoners. What makes this one so special?”

“It is Lin Lao.”

DeVore felt a surge of pure elation at the name. “Lin Lao?

Are you sure?”

“Yes, Master. His retinal patterns match the record.” DeVore turned back, looking at the board. The signs were clear. It was his moment The tide of fate flowed with him. He stood, then bowed to his opponent “Forgive me, Master Chung, but there is an urgent matter to attend to.” The old man bowed where he sat on the far side of the board.

“Please take your time,” DeVore said, knowing that an eternity would not help him win the game. “I shall return.” “Master.. .”

“Where is she?”

“In the cells ...”

“And where did you say you found her?”

“On the lower slopes. She seemed ... lost”

Emily pulled her cloak tighter about her. It was cold in the lower levels, especially at this hour of the night, and she had not had time to dress properly.

“Okay. Let me see her.”

Lin Pei shrugged. “She’s... sleeping. Besides, I thought you would want to see what she was carrying.”

“Carrying?”

Pei nodded. “On her back. The gods know how she managed to get this far with all that weighing her down.”

Emily stared at her son a moment, then. “You’d best show me.” Lin Pei led the way, down the narrow corridor past the cells and on, to where the guards slept “Here?” she asked, surprised. Two guards slept in their bunks. Another looked up at her from where he was cleaning his boots.

In answer, Pei pointed to a stack of books that were piled in one corner beside a heavy steel-frame-and-canvas backpack Emily went across, then bent down and picked up one of the heavy, leather-bound volumes, standing again as she opened it “But these ...”

“Are handwritten, yes. They’re a history. A history of our world.” Emily nodded vaguely, but her attention was on what she was reading. After a moment she turned, her eyes wide with surprise. “This is like the thing Ward wrote, but... bigger, fuller.”