The Marriage of the Living Dark

CHAPTER-23

time’s last hour

The storm had passed. Ragged clouds drifted about the edge of the great depression in the earth. Only an hour back the dark earth had steamed; now a great carpet of white flowers covered it; lilies, their tall, elegant white throats turned to the sky, spilling oxygen into the air. Fifty kilometres away, to the south of the ruined generator, the sun shone on a different scene. On the gentle slope of a wooded hill, a cruiser lay on its side, its port wing crumpled, smoke wisping up from its damaged engine. The hatch was open, the inside of the craft in darkness. Nearby, hidden beneath the trees, the entrance of a cave gaped black. Silence. Not even the call of birds or insects. And then, far off, a muted drone, growing louder by the moment.

A second cruiser, smaller than the first, flew over the valley, its shadow flitting over the canopy of the trees. It banked then circled back, slowing until it hovered over the fallen craft Then, edging back and across, it descended, settling in a patch of meadow by the stream at the foot of the valley.

The engines died. There was a hiss as the hatch opened; the dank of booted feet upon the ramp.

Daniel stood there a moment, squinting out at the wooded hillside through the visor of his helmet, his senses twitching, then he jumped down and began to make his way up the slope towards DeVore’s cruiser.

They had beaten him. They had destroyed his army and broken his power. Now only DeVore himself was left Coming closer to the cruiser, Daniel stopped and crouched, looking between the narrow boles of the trees at the craft It seemed abandoned. There was the fizz and pop of electrics shorting, then, incongruously, a snatch of music.

Daniel blinked, then understood. Music. DeVore had been playing music even as he fled from them.

He moved forward, slowly, cautiously, his gun raised, the barrel covering the hatch.

The music flared up momentarily, the great sweeping sound of strings briefly filling the valley, then cut out.

The smell of burning circuitry was stronger now. To his left the tree cover was broken, the hillside gouged up where the craft had landed. Daniel stopped, his eyes narrowed, taking that in. DeVore was some pilot to have landed his damaged craft without destroying it But why here? Why go down here?

A voice started in his head. Emily’s voice. “Daniel? What’s happening there?

Daniel? Do you read me, Daniel?”

Daniel switched it off. The cruiser was less than ten paces from him. He raised his visor, listening intently. Nothing. Nothing but the faint crackle of burning circuits.

Silently he crossed the narrow space, keeping to the left of the open hatch. Now that he was closer, he could see that the hatchway had been forced. The ramp, which ought to have emerged automatically when the hatch was opened, had jammed. The whole side of the craft had buckled when it came down.

Daniel turned, looking at the ground beneath the hatch, and saw them at once.

Footprints, leading away up the slope.

His eyes followed their line.

Daniel hesitated, then tongued the switch. “Listen,” he said, speaking into the open channel. “I’m at the craft. There’s a cave nearby. I think that’s where he went. I’m going to investigate.”

Emily’s voice came back at him at once. “Daniel? I know you can hear me, so listen. Stay where you are. Don’t do anything until I get there.” Daniel’s tongue brushed the switch but did not turn it off. He itched to go inside and get the bastard, to put a bullet through his head and end it all, but Emily was right; it made no sense to take risks. Not now that they’d come this far.

“Okay,” he said. ‘Til wait.”

“Good,” came the reply. “And Daniel... you’ve done well.” Daniel smiled, relaxing momentarily. None of them had slept these past twenty-four hours. A combination of drugs and adrenaline had kept them going. And now they were close. Close to a victory that had seemed impossible only a few days back. Even so, they would be leaving soon. Leaving and never coming back.

The simple thought of it surprised him, making the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, because until that moment it had all seemed academic - something that might happen if they beat DeVore. But now it was close. Why, if he closed his eyes he could see it Could picture the earth, swathed in flowers, white beneath the sun, white beneath the moon. And silent. A silence broken only by the sound of the wind, the inward rush of waves breaking on an empty shore. Daniel shivered, then spoke: “And when the lamb opened the seventh seal, silence covered the sky.”

“Daniel?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Those words ... where did you hear them?’

“I don’t know. I...” And then he remembered. Remembered sitting there at his desk in the library, back in the training camp. “It was in a book I read. It was written by a man named Pasek...”

He felt as much as heard the sigh that echoed in his helmet “I knew him,” Emily said. “He was in the Black Hand with me. Back before he created The Sealed.” And now Pasek was dead. Yet the world he had foreseen had come to pass. A world without men.

Alas, alas for the human race. Alas for the kings of separation. How strangely resonant those words had been when he’d first read them. How bleak and yet how moving. As if they spoke to something buried deep within him. “Daniel?”

“Yes?”

“Hold tight. We’re almost there.”

Daniel smiled and nodded to himself. Yes, he could hear the drone of their engines now. Yet even as he made to turn and look back down the length of the valley, he glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, the faintest movement in the darkness at the cave’s mouth.

There was a noise. A low whine, like the sound of an insect rushing through the air. Too late he saw it, not an arm’s length from his visor. Saw it and jerked back, trying to move his head aside.

And then the top of his helmet blew away, as if someone had just cleaved it with an axe.

“Daniel?... DameR”

Emily crouched, looking through the trees, trying to make out what exactly it was she was looking at. The craft was some twenty metres to her left, the cave some way beyond it Between the two was a tangle of greenery. Little else could be made out.

She turned slightly, signalling to the three men to her right to move up, then began to move forward herself, the big rocket-launcher clutched against her chest Where was he? Where in the gods’ names was he?

One moment he’d been transmitting perfectly, the next... nothing.

This once she should have trusted to her instinct and ordered him to pull back.

Or told him to seal the entrance to the cave and leave DeVore to the floraforms.

But she, like Daniel, had wanted to make sure.

I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance, att those years ago when we went to visit him in his mountain hideout. Back when I was in the Ping Tiao. I could have done it then, and saved the world an immensity of grief .

Yes, but back then she hadn’t known what he was. A voice sounded in her helmet; a sharp, sibilant whisper. “There’s something there. On the ground beside the craft.”

Emily stopped, then lifted her head slightly, moving it this way and that, looking through the tangle of leaf and branch. Yes, she could see it now. The humped shape of something. Could see the way the sunlight glinted off the angle of a protective flap.

Daniel, she thought, feeling her heart sink. She straightened up, then moved quickly between the trees, anger making her fearless. And then stopped abruptly, wincing at the sight Daniel lay on his side, where he’d fallen, bits of his shattered helmet littering the ground just beyond him.

She groaned. Yet even as she made the noise, Daniel’s right hand twitched within the protective glove.

“Here.1” she yelled, turning and beckoning urgently to her men. “Quick now! He’s still alive!”

There was a sudden rustling as men hastened to her. Emily stared a moment longer, pained deeply by the sight of Daniel’s injuries, then, turning back, she stepped over the fallen boy and raised the launcher to her shoulder, taking aim. Revenge It would have been nice to get revenge. But saving Daniel was more important Far, far more important She squeezed the trigger, bracing herself against the jolt as the rocket rushed away from her, baring into the dark mouth of the cave.

The hatch hissed shut, the bolts slid into place. Inside the shuttle, a siren was sounding urgently as the survivors strapped themselves into the restraint webs, special harnesses locking about them automatically to support their necks and backs against the massive g-forces they were about to face. Daniel too had been strapped in, his bandaged head encased in a specially-adapted restraint harness into which were fed the various tubes and electrodes that would keep him alive during the launch. Emily was the last to take her place, her concern for Daniel keeping her by his side until the very last The countdown began, the voice of Han Ch’in sounding throughout the craft Ten ... nine ... eight...

Outside, unseen by those within, a great tide of brightly-coloured flowers breached the outer walls of the spaceport and flowed in towards the ship, even as that voice boomed out across the concrete apron, a massive breaking wave of blooms that engulfed buildings and vehicles as it rushed towards the waiting shuttle.

The engines flared and then fired. Slowly the vehicle lifted from the pad, even as the flowers met and merged beneath it.

For a instant or two they roiled and flared, burning away in that intense fireball. Then, like a ripple, they withdrew to form a circle about the scorched and steaming earth. In a blink of an eye, they transformed into a crowd of people, green-faced yet strong of limb, who waved and yelled a silent farewell. As the shuttle climbed, the circle rippled and then closed upon itself, swallowing up that single patch of darkness, those mimic human forms becoming simple flowers once again; a great ocean of flowers that stretched from coast to coast; a thousand billion blooms that now turned as one, lifting their long, elegant throats towards the sun.

The time of names had ended.

The long age of silence had begun.

Emily stood by the hatch, looking on as the two medics eased the unit through the umbilical that joined the shuttle to the mothership, calling on them to make sure that they didn’t move too quickly.

They knew their job, however, and were careful in those nil-gravity conditions not to let the massive unit brush the side or jolt against the hatch. It slid through gently, easily, a third medic joining them, leaning on the end of the capsule to brake its momentum.

As the unit came alongside her, Emily stared down through its transparent lid at Daniel’s pale, unconscious face and prayed to Kuan Yin herself that they were not too late to save him.

And then they were taking him away.

“You should not blame yourself, Emily.”

She turned, almost putting herself in a spin. But Kuei Jen’s hand reached out and held her arm, stopping her.

“I was responsible for him,” she answered soberly. “If not me, then who?”

“Maybe the bastard who shot him.”

She stared back steadily at Kuei Jen, then shook her head. “No. DeVore was finished. It was stupid to pursue him.”

“Stupid?” Kuei Jen seemed surprised. “And yet DeVore was evil. Is it not right to crush evil?”

“Right, yes, but . ..” Emily shrugged. “Look, is there somewhere we can go ...?”

‘To be near to Daniel?” Kuei Jen smiled gently, understanding Emily’s concern.

“Of course. Come, I’ve prepared a

room for you.”

The room, as it turned out, was in the medical centre itself, just down the corridor from the theatre where, even as she settled in, they were operating on Daniel.

It was there that Han Ch’in came to her.

Sitting on the edge of the chair, which was bolted to the floor in one corner of the cabin, he stared down at his hands a moment, then sighed. “How bad?” she asked.

“Six thousand. Maybe six two.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that all?”

Han Ch’in nodded. “Three of the shuttles didn’t make it off the ground. Another malfunctioned on the way up here. Or was tampered with. We’ll never know.” “But they’re all our people, I take it?”

“Yes. Everyone’s vouched for.”

Emily nodded. She could still feel the hard shape of her handgun against her hip, and realised that even now she had not relaxed; had not given up the habit of suspicion. She looked back at Han Ch’in. “What do you think the floraforms will do with DeVore?” Han Ch’in shrugged. “If they’re wise, they’ll not try to assimilate him.”

Her eyes met his, startled. “Do you think ...?” “That DeVore is bigger than the floraforms? No. He has the capacity to twist whatever he touches but the floraforms will know that. They seemed to know everything, didn’t they?”

She nodded, then frowned. “Gods, ifs strange, isn’t it? All those years fighting one enemy, and then ... well...”

Han Ch’in was smiling. “Kuei Jen thinks if s nice. Poetical, or so he says.”

“You call her him?”

Han Ch’in laughed. “Of course! Tits or no tits, he’s still my brother.”

“And mother of your nieces and nephews.”

“Thank the gods for it!”

“And what do they think?”

Han Ch’in looked away. “That if s all an adventure.”

“And you?”

“I miss it already.” He met her eyes again. “To be honest with you, I fear that I will die on board this ship. I fear...”

“The years ahead?”

“Yes. Ifs a long journey. And no certainty of arrival, whatever my father said.” She nodded, then, noticing someone standing in the doorway just beyond Han Chi’in, stood up, her face suddenly concerned. “What is it?” The medic grinned at her. “Ifs Daniel. He’s conscious and he’s asking for you.”

Daniel smiled at her as she walked into the room. He was propped up into a sitting position beneath a blanket, a pile of cushions plumped up behind his back. “Di1 yoo thin’ yoo gor ri’ oh me?”Emily glanced at the surgeon, concerned, but he shook his head. “It’s the drugs that are making him slur the words. The brain’s relatively untouched.”

She walked across and sat beside Daniel on the bed. Taking the gun from her belt, she slipped it onto the tray beside her, then turned to clasp his hands, surprised by the firmness with which he clasped them back. “How are you feeling?”

“Groh-ee.” Daniel wrinkled his nose. “I fee’ li’e I wahnna scrah my ‘eah.”

“Your head?”

Daniel made to nod, then winced. Emily raised herself a little, looking at the back of his skull, then grimaced. The bone at the back of his skull had been ripped open and a large chunk of it stripped away. She sat back. “Not pretty.”

“Nah. Bu’ o-kay, neh? I live.”

Emily shivered. Yes. He was alive. It was a miracle, but there it was. When she’d seen the damage she’d thought it only a matter of time before he died. But here he was, sitting up and talking to her.

She turned, looking to the surgeon. “Do you have to operate?” “No. We just need to put a plate in, to knit together the skull at the back and protect the brain. Otherwise ...”

The surgeon’s face went from earnestness to shock in a matter of a second. Emily blinked, then understood that he was staring at something behind her. She turned, then gasped.

DeVore stepped from the doorway, then smiled. “Emily, how nice... And Daniel.

I’m surprised to find you here. I thought I’d killed you back on earth.”

She stood, turning towards him, then saw he had a gun.

And Han Ch’in ... where was Han Ch’in?

“How did you ...?”

“Get on board?” The smile was urbane, polite; the smile of a Major in the Pang’s security forces. “Oh, we boarded your craft five minutes back.” “Boarded?’

DeVore nodded disinterestedly, then walked across, his gun covering Emily all the while. His eyes took in Daniel’s injuries a moment, then he looked back at Emily.

“Why, did you think you’d seen the last of me, Emily Ascher?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“I ought to be cross, you know. That rocket. Spoiled a good body. But fortunately I had another I could slip into.” His smile widened briefly, then disappeared. There was a sourness now to his appearance. “But there’s a lot you don’t know, isn’t there? Whole levels, in fact.” “Levels?”

DeVore nodded, then gestured towards the porthole on the far side of the theatre. It was shielded, but as he pointed towards it, the protective shield lifted.

“Go on ... look Tell me what you see.”

Slowly Emily went across, then stared out through the narrow, oval window. Through the thick layer of translucent ice she could see a second craft, tethered alongside their own. And beyond it...

“Gods! What is that?”

“What does it look like?”

She shivered, then answered. “It looks like a hoop... a great wheel of fire.” He came across and stood just behind her. “If s a door. An opening into another world.”

“Another...?”

She stopped, tensing. There had been the sound of gunshots. “Tut tut,” DeVore said, moving back slightly. “It seems that some of your people don’t like their new masters. But maybe if s best, neh?” “Best?”

“To deal with them now.”

She saw the coldness in him, the void behind his eyes, and knew that she only had this one chance.

As her arm came up, the hand that he’d cut a finger from dosing into a fist, he laughed.

Her hand struck coldness; a red-hot cold that seemed to splinter her hand and freeze her arm, so that she collapsed ontoher knees, groaning with the pain of it, her useless arm giving beneath her so that she fell to the side. DeVore knelt over her and smiled, his warm breath blowing over the landscape of her cheek. Laying there she felt bloated and unreal suddenly, as if, in that instant in which she had struck him, she had entered some strange, hallucinatory realm.

“You like my coat, Emily? I had it specially made. It cost me several of my best morphs, but it was worth it, neh?”

And now she saw the glow that surrounded him; a glow that emanated from the jacket he was wearing and seemed to form a cowl about his head. “Em-ah-ee!” Daniel yelled from his bed. “Em-ah-ee!”

A cry that DeVore took up mockingly. “Em-ah-ee! Em-ah-ee!” And with that he leaned into her and kissed her cheek. A kiss that seemed to burn with the same red-hot coldness that she had felt when she had struck him. “Are you ready?” he asked quietly.

She felt the sudden vibration of the ship’s engines. A moment later there was movement, a sense of drifting sideways. And then a brightness at the window that, with a shocking suddenness, engulfed them. Emily gasped. It was as if the air all about her had suddenly grown dense. Its richness pulverised her senses, making her head swim. I’m passing out, she thought, but unconsciousness did not come. She could hear Daniel’s laboured breathing across the room - hear it with a needle-sharpness that seemed hallucinatory. And then laughter - laughter that boomed in her ears. DeVore’s harsh laughter.

“We’re there,” he said, matter-of-factly, and, placing one hand under her elbow, lifted her up and took her to the porthole.

There, below them, was a great ball of green and blue. Planet Earth. But even as she looked she knew, with some instinct beyond simple explanation, that it was no Earth she had ever trod upon.

“Where are we?” she asked, her own voice strange in her ears. DeVore turned his face to her and smiled. “We’re at the centre. The very middle of it all.”

“The middle ...?”

He nodded, then turned, gesturing to his men who now stood in the doorway. “Take her and lock her up. And keep an eye on the boy. I don’t want him causing any trouble.”