White Moon, Red Dragon

"So what's this?" she said, breaking from a kiss and beaming at him. "Unexpected leave?"

He shook his head, the look in his face making her smile fade.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

"I've come from Astrakhan," he answered, wondering how much he could tell her. "I ... I had a personal audience with Li Yuan."

"So?"

"So he blames me for losing Odessa."

She closed her eyes briefly, pained by his pain, then looked at him again. "So you're demoted. Is that it?"

"No. But the whole Court was there. He"—Karr swallowed, finding it hard to say—"he humiliated me before them."

"Ah . . ." The tension in her face—around her mouth—told him she understood. Of course she did. No one understood him better. She was his other half—his other self. If she did not understand, no one could. He let her hold him a moment, then moved back slightly.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked, studying his face.

He looked past her, then smiled. "First I'm going to cuddle my little beauty."

Crouching, he put out his arms. Hannah ran across to him, letting him pick her up and hold her tight. He laughed, kissing her neck and cheek.

"And then?"

"Then I'm going to spend a little time considering my future."

She put a hand out, smoothing his shoulder. "Was it that bad?"

He nodded, then, kissing Hannah again, put her down.

"Master Nan says I must be patient. He says Li Yuan will come around, but . . . achh! I wonder if I can put up with it anymore. I try my best, yet my best is never good enough."

She bristled at that, indignant on his behalf. "Your best is as good as any man's, Gregor Karr, and you know it! Why, it's certainly a lot better than that buffoon Rheinhardt's!"

The look in his eyes told her she had hit the gold. "Ah, so that's it! This is Rheinhardt's work."

He nodded.

"And you'll let him beat you?"

"No, but I'll not let him force me into making wrong decisions either." He sighed. "Why is it never easy? Why does whatever I do feel wrong? It wasn't always like this, was it?"

She smiled sadly then reached out to hold him again, Hannah pressed between them, holding them both. "You can answer that yourself, Gregor. It's always been the same. You feel you owe a duty. It was the way you were raised. But sometimes duty isn't enough. Sometimes you have to believe in what you're doing, and for a long time now you haven't, have you?"

He stared back at her, reluctant to answer, then nodded.

"So what are you going to do?"

He laughed. "I'm going to think about it. As I said."

"And when you've thought?"

"Then I'll make my decision."

She kissed his ear, then spoke quietly to it. "Would you like me to get a sitter for young Hannah, Gregor?"

He turned his head and, seeing that look in her eyes, smiled. "I think that might be a good idea, my love. A very good idea."

A HAMMERING at the door disturbed them.

"It'll be for me," Karr said, getting up.

Marie lay there, watching him dress, conscious of how magnificent a man he was. Nor was it just his form that was impressive. If a man was to be judged by the tenor of his actions, then her husband was a giant in more than one regard. She shivered, thinking of how gently he had touched her, of how his eyes had burned, adoring her, as he made love to her. That in itself was heaven. And whatever he decided—wherever lay their future path—she would go with him. For that was her fate now—to be with this man until her death. Or his.

He turned, blowing her a kiss, then went out. A moment later she heard him unbolt the door and throw it open. There were voices, the door slammed shut, and then he returned, carrying a large, flat, rectangular parcel.

"A delivery!" he said, laughing. "You weren't expecting anything, ^were you?"

She sat up, pulling her hair back from her eyes, then reached out.

He gave her the parcel. Reading the label, she frowned. "No, Gregor, this is for you. Look!"

He took it back, shrugging as he began to open it. As the wrapping fell away, she gave a tiny gasp of surprise.

"Why that's . . ."

"Lehmann's," he said, turning the painting to study it properly. He sat on the edge of the bed, letting her rest against him to look at it.

"This was his?"

Karr nodded. "It used to hang in his office."

"And that word, Kampfer. Is that the artist's name?"

Karr laughed. "I said something very similar first time I saw it. But no. Kampfer is an old dialect word for 'fighter.' "

They both stared at the painting for a while. There was something clean and muscular about the line of it—something you never found in Han art.

He turned the canvas over. On the back, in a tiny, spiderish hand, something was written. Karr held it closer and read.

To a worthy enemy. A fighter's fighter. Best regards. Li Min.

He turned it back. Again they studied it.

"It's beautiful," she said. "But you can't keep it. You know that, don't you?"

"I know. I also know that it's helped me to a decision." He met her eyes. "I'm going to resign. When one's enemy gives one gifts and one's Master only blames . . ."

"It isn't that simple."

"No?" The look in his eyes—of anger and bitterness and a deep-rooted frustration—was like nothing she had ever seen there before. Seeing it, she knew that this was a decision not lightly reached, however much this "gift" had triggered it.

"So what will we do?"

He took a long breath, stretching his jaw in the characteristic way he had, then smiled at her. "First, we'll visit Kao Chen and Wang Ti."

She laughed, delighted, and wrapped her arms about him. "And afterward?"

He set the painting aside, then pushed her down onto her back, pinning her arms above her head and leaning over her. "Afterward we'll do what we always do. We'll practice making more copies of ourselves."

KIM TOOK THE infodisc from the slot in his neck and slipped it back into its protective sheath, then sat back, thinking.

The old man was due to arrive within the hour, and once he was -here he would get little else done, so it was imperative to make a decision now. There was a team of men at Bremen awaiting instructions, and if he did not provide them they would spend another day idle.

Of the seventeen "possibles" Karr had identified, only one had been human. The others had been proved by Surgeon Hu to be very good fakes. Human enough to fool the eye.

Puppets, Kim thought, wondering how, in a City of eight and a half billion people, he was going to discover just how many of these things existed.

There was, of course, only one answer. To be sure he would have to test everyone. All eight and a half billion. But would Li Yuan agree to that? The expense of it alone would be phenomenal, not to think of the logistical problems of ensuring everyone was tested.

Maybe they could hold a census. After all, it had been over a decade now since the last.

He sighed. No. It was no good. After the devastating setbacks of the last few days Li Yuan would never agree to blanket testing. Which left them fishing with a net full of holes.

So clever, he thought. So clever to make the things so ordinary.

And when the puppets danced? What would happen then?

He sighed, then, leaning forward, tapped out Karr's private contact code. There was a delay then UNAVAILABLE came up on the screen.

"Odd . . ." He tapped in Hu's code. A moment later the Surgeon's face was on the screen.

"Shih Ward. What can I do for you?"

"I was trying to get hold of the General. He isn't there with you, is he? His private line registers unavailable."

"Haven't you heard?" Hu stared at him in surprise. "Karr is no longer General. The news came through an hour back."

"No!" Kim laughed with disbelief. "Has he been relieved of his command?"

"No. He resigned. This place is humming with the news. There's a lot of speculation as to who will replace him."

Resigned? Kim could hardly believe it. Karr had given no indication of it yesterday. So what had happened?

"Listen," he said, dragging himself back to the purpose of his call. "We need to start moving on the copies. The best thing would be blanket testing, but Li Yuan won't go for that. So what we need is to find a way of random testing. It would have to be done secretly, so my suggestion is that we rig up some kind of apparatus in the transits. Something that can scan at a distance for the differences we're looking for."

"No problem," Hu said. "The transits have camera surveillance, anyway, so we could rig something up at the back of that. You're talking of random testing in the Mids, I assume?"

"That's where we've found the majority of the copies, isn't it?"

"Thirteen out of seventeen."

"Then let's do that. If it proves successful, we can spread the net. I'll get a budget from Nan Ho. Meanwhile, you get to work on the scanner. If there are any problems, contact me. Otherwise, I'll be in touch later this evening. Any questions?"

Hu smiled. "Only one. What are these things for?"

"If we knew that . . ."

Kim cut contact and sat back, looking about him at his study. This had once been Jelka's father's room, and the walls were lined with books—real leather books, the smell of them filling the air.

And now the old man was returning.

As if the thought were father to the act, there was the noise of a cruiser's engine, the distinctive whine of its decelerating turbos growing louder by the moment.

He went out into the hallway.

"Where's Sampsa?" he shouted, seeing Jelka in the kitchen, wiping her hands hurriedly on a towel. "He mustn't miss this."

"I'm here!" Sampsa answered, coming down the stairs just behind him. He was dressed in the clothes his mother had left out for him, his dark hair neatly combed back. For once he looked less like a wood imp, more like a young boy.

"Quick, now!" Kim said, beckoning him across. "The cruiser's setting down. I want you to be there when they carry him down the ramp."

Sampsa nodded, then reached out, taking his father's hand. Together they went out, Jelka hurrying after, as the craft set down.

They waited, huddled together just beyond the stubby wing tip as the door hissed open and the ramp unfolded. Kim turned, looking up at Jelka, seeing the anxiety in her face. He had warned her what to expect, but the reality would be something else.

For the briefest moment he was beset by doubts. Maybe he should have left the old man there. This . . . this could only upset the hard-won balance of their lives. Yet to leave him there, to waste away in that darkened room, had been impossible. He would not have counted himself a decent man, had he allowed that to happen. Besides, this was Tolonen's place. If he was to die anywhere, it should be here, with his daughter, in the place he had been born.

Kim looked back, at the house and the surrounding island, and wondered how Tolonen could have borne to leave it, even for a moment, let alone relinquish it to serve. But serve he had, for almost sixty years. Now his days of service were past and other actors—younger, stronger men—had stepped onto the stage he'd once frequented.

"There," Sampsa said, seeing movement inside before either of them. And sure enough, a moment later, two bearers began to edge out backward from the craft, guiding a hover unit down the ramp.

"Go," Kim said, urging Jelka forward, then pushing Sampsa after her. "Go and greet your grandfather, boy."

He watched, as Jelka crouched over the unit; saw the brief shock there in her face, the brave smile that quickly replaced it; saw the old man's golden hand lift from within the litter and grip hers weakly, the fingers visibly trembling with the effort.

The gods help us, Kim thought, disturbed and moved by what he saw.

Such joy and pain as were in her face at that moment made his stomach clench in sympathy. At such moments he could not love her more. And the boy . . .

He heard himself laugh as Sampsa leaned into the litter and placed a kiss on his grandfather's brow. So unexpected a gesture . . . And then the old man laughed—a laugh like a startled cough.

You should have seen him, Sampsa, he thought, recalling what a rock Tolonen had seemed when first he'd met him. But now . . .

As the unit floated across he saw him for the first time in daylight and caught his breath in shock.

Out in the light Tolonen looked a corpse, the flesh melted from the bone, his skin so transparent, one seemed to stare right through him into the earth in which he'd shortly lie.

Aiya, he thought, reaching out to take the old man's outstretched, trembling hand; seeing the gratitude in his watery eyes.

"Home," Tolonen murmured, the words as thin and pale as the flesh he so loosely wore. "I'm home."

Kim smiled and gently squeezed the hand, then looked to Jelka. She was sobbing now, the tears slowly coursing down her cheeks. He shuddered and looked back.

"We've prepared a room downstairs for you," he said, speaking slowly, loudly, so that the old man could hear. "It has a view of the sea and the cliff garden."

Again the old man smiled, like a pale sun glimpsed through thick cloud. "Thank you," he mouthed. Then, unexpectedly: "You're a good son, Kim Ward. A good son."

lin SHANG knelt on the littered floor, his hands bound tightly behind his back, his hair disheveled. Soucek, standing over him, scratched his chin, then, leaning closer, smiled.

"You're lucky, little Lin. We've found her. If we hadn't, I'd have had to kill you."

Lin winced but did not meet his tormentor's eyes. With the age-old stoicism of his kind—the five-thousand-year-old patience of the Han—he kept his head down and his mouth shut.

"I'm told you mend things," Soucek said, straightening up and looking about him at the shelves. "I'm told you have clever hands."

He drew his knife, then, reaching behind the kneeling man, grasped the rope and, slipping the knife between Lin's wrists, slit it. Sheathing his knife, he pulled Lin's right hand into view, holding it between his own to study it, his left hand on the wrist, the right curled about the four fingers.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "Clever hands . . ." Then, with a quick, hard movement—a technique he had learned from watching Lehmann—he tugged at the fingers, feeling the bones jump from the knuckles with a sharp resounding crack.

Lin's scream was the first sound he had made since Soucek had come into the room. Then he fell forward, unconscious.

Soucek stepped back, then looked to his two henchmen.

"Smash it all!" he said. Then, putting all his weight on his left foot, he stepped onto Lin's undamaged left hand, crushing it.

LEHMANN LOOKED UP from his desk as Soucek came into the room, the writing stylus hesitating in the air. The woman was already there, seated in the comer, bound and gagged. Mach was due any moment.

"It's dealt with," Soucek said simply, standing to the side across from the woman.

He saw she was watching him; trying to gauge what his role in this was. He saw the contempt there, too, and wanted to tell her what he'd done to her boyfriend, but Lehmann would not have approved.

"Okay," Lehmann said, signing the document he had been reading and setting it aside. He stood and came around the desk, stopping beside Soucek to consider the woman.

"Mach's been delayed."

"Delayed?" Soucek looked to his master, but the albino's face was expressionless.

"Take the gag off. I want to talk to her."

This wasn't how they'd planned it, but Soucek did as he was told, standing back as she worked her jaw to ease the muscles.

"You're quite a celebrity, aren't you, Mary?" Lehmann said. "Or should I call you Rachel?"

"It's Emily," she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. "Emily Ascher."

"Ah . . ." There was sudden understanding in Lehmann's eyes. "So that's the connection. Mach was your friend. You were in the Ping Tiao together, weren't you?"

"Mach's a traitor!"

Unexpectedly, Lehmann laughed. "Mach's a useful man. He helped me find you." She shrugged.

Lehmann turned and took the handbill from where it lay on his desk then held it out in front of her.

Soucek watched, seeing how her eyes widened, but also how quickly she controlled her emotions. It was impressive.

"I know you," she said, looking up past the paper at Lehmann. "You're DeVore's shadow. He grew you from a polyp on his ass!"

Soucek stepped past his master and swung his arm, slapping her so hard she fell from the chair. For a moment she lay there, stunned, then, turning her head, she laughed.

"The God of Hell's fecal puppet . . ."

Lehmann stepped forward, staying Soucek's hand. "It's okay, Jiri," he said softly. "Let her speak. Her words can't harm me. Nor will they help her."

He crouched over her, breathing into her bloodied face. "We've made a deal."

She swallowed painfully, then made a small gesture of negation. "Michael would never deal with you."

"No?" He crumpled Michael Lever's poster in his hand, then pushed it brutally into her mouth, making her gag.

She spat the paper out and took a breath. Her eyes were angry now. "You don't frighten me, Lehmann. I've seen too much."

Lehmann studied her a moment, his face impassive, then he shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him.

"Your husband's a man of high principles, I understand. He must want you very much to have agreed to my terms."

Soucek saw how the words took the fire out of her. She closed her eyes, suddenly subdued, suddenly, unexpectedly defeated.

"Take her away," Lehmann said, straightening up. "And clean up her face. We don't want Lever saying we mistreated her."

AFTER THEY'D GONE Lehmann sat there staring at the door, seeing nothing, thinking nothing; then, returning to himself, he looked down at the message Michael Lever had sent back to him earlier.

No deals, it read.

No deals, eh? he thought, screwing the piece of paper up and throw-

ing it across the room. Well, we'll see about that. Maybe when you start getting bits of her through the mail you'll change your mind!

Deals . . . Everyone made deals. Kings more than most.

"Get me Fu Chiang," he said to the air, waiting as the screen came down. And as he waited, he thought: I need a fortress. Somewhere more secure than this. Maybe at Odessa . . .

"Master?"

The face on the screen was that of his ambassador to Fu Chiang's court, Cheng Lu.

"What's happening, Lu?"

"They're summoning Fu Chiang right now, Master. But I thought I should have a word with you about the situation here before you did. Things have been happening. Fu Chiang—"

"Is here," Fu interrupted, his image abruptly replacing Cheng Lu's. "Now, to what do I owe this unexpected call, Cousin Stefan?"

Lehmann raised an eyebrow. "We are still cousins, then?"

"Kissing cousins. The kind that kiss and die."

"Yet if we were to come to an arrangement?"

Fu Chiang's laughter was acerbic. He stared back at Lehmann scornfully. "You must really think me a fool."

"But a meeting—"

"Would resolve nothing between us. We are enemies, Stefan Lehmann. Implacably so. You played the friendship card once already, or do you forget?"

"That was a misunderstanding—"

"On my part, certainly, to take your word of honor as having any value."

The two glared at each other a moment. It was Lehmann who broke the silence.

"Enemies, perhaps. Even so, to talk is better than to fight, neh?"

The threat was quite explicit, yet Fu Chiang merely smiled and shrugged, and at that moment Lehmann understood. Fu Chiang had made a deal with the West Asian Warlords—an "alliance." That was what Cheng Lu had meant to warn him of.

He broke contact and sat back, not bothering with the courtesy of farewells. Such courtesies were for fools or charlatans and Fu Chiang was neither. He, for one, knew how things stood. But if he had entered an alliance with the West Asian Warlords, then it was important to discover on what terms. Was it a defensive alliance? An agreement by each to come to the other's aid if attacked? Or was it more sinister than that?

Whichever it was, he felt frustrated for another reason entirely. In speaking to Fu Chiang he had not even touched upon the one matter he had wanted to raise with him—which was whether Fu had any news of DeVore. He would have now to trust to word from his spies in Fu Chiang's camp, and word from them was notoriously suspect. Most these days played a double game simply to survive.

There was, however, one other possible answer: one way not merely to create new channels of information, but also to undermine his "cousin," Fu. But that way was fraught with danger. There was a knock, then Soucek entered.

"She's quiet now," he said. "Sweet dreaming on a tide of narcotics." "Good. But listen. I'm going to give Mach his head. However, I'm also going to let our old friend Pasek spread his net far wider. I thought we might finally allow him to send missions into Africa."

Soucek stared at him. "But I thought—" He stopped, considering what he was going to say, then began again.

"Here we control things. His church functions because we allow it to function and because we tie it in closely to our political machine. His priests are our men—as much as they can be, anyway. It works. We have our hand on the brake and he can't even shit without us knowing about it. But Africa . . . well, if we let him into Africa we lose control. The operation would be his, one hundred percent. And if it caught on ... well, think of the power we'd be granting him."

Lehmann nodded. "That's my assessment. It's a risk—a high-order risk—but one we have to take. Fu Chiang is in alliance with the West Asian Warlords, and if I'm right, DeVore is somewhere in his City— maybe with his knowledge. In those circumstances Pasek's fanatics could do our cousin Fu a great deal of harm. They might achieve, perhaps, what we could not by force."

Soucek sighed. "Maybe, but I don't like it. To give that cunt Pasek anything . . ." He shook his head. "The bastard thinks he's God, you know that, don't you?"

"He can think what he likes. The truth is that a knife or a single bullet would soon put paid to that belief. And if his grasp gets too long . . ."

Soucek nodded, understanding. "And Mach?" "You heard what Mach said. But mind him, Jiri. Some men are vain and some foolish, some are too ambitious, others not quite skilled enough. Mach's none of those. He's a clever man who has no illusions about himself, but like that Han face he falsely wears to disguise his true orgins, he's never quite what he seems. Watch him carefully, for of all our tenuous allies, he is by far the most dangerous."

PASEK HELD OUT HIS ARMS, letting the two serving boys disrobe him. Nearby, on the far side of his private chapel, one of the Priests Militant—masked and wearing the Cloak of the Seven Avenging Angels—wielded a brutal-looking whip, laying it time and again across the back of a stripped supplicant as two other priests chanted from the Book.

"And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace—"

Pasek interrupted them at this point, stepping forward, naked now except for his breechcloth, his hands raised as if blessing all present, his voice booming.

"And the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of the scorpions of the earth; they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads."

The whip had ceased falling, the room was silent now. There was only the faintest sizzle of the iron in the brazier. As the supplicant looked up, his drug-induced gaze falling with adulation on his Master, Pasek took the handle of the iron and lifted it into the air.

For a moment the air seemed bright with the glow of the heated iron, the symbol of the cross inside the wheel drawing all eyes. Then, as the Priest Militant drew back the supplicant's head, Pasek placed it against the man's brow, the room filling instantly with the sickly-sweet scent of burning flesh.

The man's scream was a scream of devotion—of acceptance. Thus marked, he would now be among the saved.

"And I heard the number of the sealed," Pasek said fiercely, setting the iron again upon the coals, then turning back to examine his handiwork. "A hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, out of every tribe of the sons of the Hand."

The chanters closed their books and set them back on the shelf behind them, the Priest Militant hung his whip up on the hook on the wall. All three then helped carry the half-conscious supplicant—the Seal-bearer, as he would now be known—from the room, leaving Pasek alone with his attendants.

As ever, the ritual had inflamed him, filling him with the dark power of the animals from which his kind had come. His penis ached now for release; a release he must achieve at once if he were not to be tainted by its darkness. To be pure he must purge himself of it.

As the door slammed, he turned, looking to the two acolytes. Already they were waiting for him, their eyes, as they looked back over their shoulders at him, eager that they be the one he chose.

But this once it was not to be. Even as he tore his breechcloth off, freeing his swollen penis, there came a hammering at the door.

"What beast is this comes now!" he cried, rage making him spit the words. "Dress me, boys, dress me!" he shouted, his heart beating furiously in his chest. "I'll kill the man! God help me I will!"

The hammering came again.

"Pasek! Open up! It's me, Soucek!"

Pasek groaned, grinding his teeth with anger. He would tear the man apart! He would blind him with the iron!

"Master!" one of the boys called up to him, seeming to speak to him from across a vast, misted distance. "Master . . . you must come back to yourself. There will be time . . . afterward."

Time? The boy did not understand! He lashed out at him, sending him sprawling across the room. But the boy's words had their effect. Pasek took a long, calming breath, coining down, returning to himself—back from the darkness where he'd been—back from the bottomless pit itself.

The hammering came again. "Pasek! Open up!"

He looked to the boy and gestured, speaking gently now. "The door, boy. Open the door before he breaks it down."

As the door eased back he stood there, robed and calm, emanating the pure white power of his calling.

"Soucek," he said coldly, his eyes filled with dislike of the man.

"Master Pasek," Soucek answered, equally coldly, but with something resembling amusement in his eyes. He sniffed the air, then let his eyes fall first on the brazier and then on the boys, who stood now at the back of the room beside the dressing rail. "I bring good news."

Pasek waited, imperious as an eagle. '

"Our Master, Li Min, has today granted you a great favor," Soucek began, stepping across to examine the iron, picking it up and sniffing at its heated end before setting it down again. He looked back at Pasek. "He is allowing you to send missions to our friends in City Africa."

Pasek's surprise momentarily betrayed him. For a second or two his mouth lay open like a suckling babe's, then it closed with a loud plop. "Tell your Master he is very generous," Pasek said, looking down, angry that Soucek had caught him unprepared for such news, yet excited by the news itself. "And tell him I shall keep him closely informed as matters develop."

"He would expect no less," Soucek answered, walking behind Pasek and, unseen by him, making a lewd gesture and grinning at the boys. "But 1 will leave you now, Master Pasek. I'm sure you have much to . . . organise."

The unpleasant emphasis on the final word made Pasek meet Soucek's eyes and frown. What was the bastard implying? He watched Soucek go, heard the door slam, and turned, facing the boys again. But it was no good. The power had drained from him, leaving its mark—a stain that would have to be purged from him some other way now.

Throwing off his cloak he went across and knelt, where the supplicant had knelt a while before, exposing his back. And, knowing what must be done, the eldest of the boys crossed the room and took the whip down from its hook, testing its heavy length in the air with a resounding crack before he turned and gently, almost lovingly, drew it across his Master's back.

Africa! Pasek thought, exultant, as the first stroke cracked and burned across his flesh. Africa!

NAN HO WAS COMING from Li Yuan's office when a servant ran to him and, kneeling, bowed his head.

"Master Nan! You must come at once!"

"Come? Come where, Steward Wang?"

"It is General Rheinhardt, Master ... he has been taken ill."

The news took him aback. In his hand he had the document appointing Rheinhardt temporary commander of the T'ang's forces.

"Quick, then," he said, gesturing for Wang to get to his feet. "Has a doctor been called?"

Wang stood. "The Empress's own surgeon is seeing to him even now, Master."

"Then let us hurry there. If the General is unfit . . ." "

No. He did not want to think of the problems it would cause if Rheinhardt were unable to take up his duties. It was bad enough that Karr had quit: to have to promote another from the lower ranks right now would cause nothing but trouble.

They hurried through the corridors. At the door to the Guest Apartments a guard made to stop them, then, seeing who it was, waved them through, his face troubled.

What's going on? Nan Ho asked himself, checking his pace in the doorway to Rheinhardt's room, seeing the long-faced crowd about his bed, Pei K'ung among them.

"What is it?" he said, going across to her and bowing.

"I am afraid General Rheinhardt is dead," she answered him, stepping back slightly so that he could see the pallid corpse. "It seems he ate a heavy lunch, then came back here to rest, complaining of chest pains."

Nan Ho looked down at the paper in his hand. He had been gripping it too tightly and his hand was wet where he held it. He looked to Pei K'ung's surgeon, Yueh Li, and raised an eyebrow in query, not trusting himself to speak, lest he say what was on his mind.

"His heart," Yueh said quietly. "He died before we could get to him. His brain . . . there was no calling him back."

Nan Ho nodded. This felt wrong. Everything about it felt wrong, but without causing a stir, what could he prove, if Surgeon Yueh—Pei K'ung's surgeon—said he had died of a heart attack. . . .

Besides, while this death would cause him problems, it might well solve others. With Rheinhardt dead, perhaps Karr could be persuaded to return.

"Master Nan?"

He turned, bowing to Pei K'ung. "Yes, Mistress?"

"Surgeon Yueh has prepared the death certificate, but it needs two further witnesses. I myself have signed. If you would oblige . . . ?"

He stared at the piece of paper her foot servant held out to him, knowing, both from the look in her eyes and the indecent haste with which she had prepared the paper, that Rheinhardt's death had been no natural one but a result of those "other means" the Empress had mentioned earlier.

Poison. She has had him poisoned! The thought of it astonished him.

He took the inked brush and signed. There! It was done!

"Thank you, Master Nan," she said, smiling urbanely, giving no sign that this disturbed her in the least.

She smiled and leaned toward him, speaking softly, for his ears alone. "We are our Master's hands, neh?"

He looked at his, knowing they were not clean, then looked back at her again and, with a nod, began to back away.

"And, Master Nan?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

She took the paper from his hand and, glancing at it to make sure it was the correct one, tore it in half, and let it fall. "We'll not need that now, neh? Oh, and I'm told that Karr's to be found at a place called Kosaya Gora. It's one of the plantations close to the garrison at Moscow. If you act quickly . . ."

He nodded, understanding, then, with the feeling that he had been most thoroughly manipulated, turned and left the room, heading back to his Master to let him know the news.

F U C HIA N O sat back from the screen, smiling broadly. He had just received the latest reports from his spies in his enemies' camps and was pleased with what he'd heard. Karr had resigned and Rheinhardt was dead. Pasek was to be given a free hand and Mach was to reform the Yu. In a more general vein, Lehmann's strike against the East European plantations had resulted in a loss to Li Yuan of more than eight percent of his food production. That alone would have serious repercussions in the months to come, and not merely to Li Yuan. Lehmann himself relied quite heavily on food smuggled in from the Enclave, and if supplies were tight there, the squeeze would be put on Lehmann too. As for Odessa, that might prove a mixed blessing for Lehmann. Certainly it had tipped the West Asian Warlords into his embrace, and who knew what might come of that alliance?

He turned, looking across the room to where DeVore stood at the rail of the fighting pit, staring down into the darkness.

"Things are ripening, don't you think?" he said, standing and going across.

"Well enough," DeVore said, turning to him. "But perhaps a little too slowly, no?"

"Constant dripping wears away stone," Fu Chiang answered, quoting the ancient proverb at him. "If we are but patient . . ."

"And if I'm impatient?"

Fu Chiang frowned. This was a side of DeVore he had not seen before. Wanting to avoid a quarrel, he raised a hand and smiled. "Perhaps there are things we might do to put a little pressure on."

But DeVore shook his head. "The trouble is they know."

"Know?"

"About my copies. Both Li Yuan and my old friend Lehmann. They know now what to look for. The element of surprise is lost. Or could be, if we don't act at once."

Fu Chiang stared at him uncomprehendingly. He knew about DeVore's copies—indeed, he had gone down to Olduvai himself to see the factories there—but he hadn't known until that moment that DeVore had seeded his enemies' Cities with the things.

"How many have you got out there?"

"Not as many as I'd planned, but enough."

"Enough for what?"

DeVore met his eyes and smiled. "Just enough, that's all you need to know, Cousin Fu. It's time. Time to make the puppets dance."

CHAPTER TWENTY- ONE

At One Stride Comes the Dark

K

IM STOOD AT THE WINDOW, looking out at the night. The sea was still, a three-quarter moon floating high above it in a clear, blue-black sky. To his right, beyond the high brick wall of the garden, the pine trees bordering the cliffs were dark and still with a different kind of stillness to the sea's, a brooding mystery he had never fathomed.

It was just after four. Downstairs Jelka was tending to her father. He had stood there earlier, watching them, seeing how the old man looked to her, as a young child looks to its mother, totally dependent, and once more had felt a wave of regret that he had not acted earlier to bring Tolonen home.

Home. Standing there in the silence of the old house, he realized that, for the first time since he'd come here, it actually felt like home. Bringing the old man back—reuniting Tolonen with his daughter— had been the final, necessary act. And though the old man was dying, to die here where he belonged was somehow right. If he had died back there in that darkened room . . .

Kim shuddered, imagining it. If that had happened, Jelka would never have forgiven herself. She would have blamed herself for her father's death, and maybe part of her would have been forever denied to him. As it was, the circle had been joined, the breach healed, and though it worried him to see her try to make up for the lost years in such a frantic way, he could understand it.

Such peace and yet such sadness he was feeling. Peace that he had at last done the right thing; sadness that Tolonen must inevitably die.

480

And maybe 1 could have prevented even that, he thought, remembering how relentlessly Old Man Lever had pursued him to work on his Immortality Project. Yet, sad as it was, he knew this death was necessary. For the old must always go, to let the new life breathe—to give it room.

Yes, and he'd seen how the old man's eyes had sparkled with pleasure at the sight of his grandson. Why, Sampsa had been a revelation, sitting with the old man at his bedside, reading from the Kalevala and talking of the old times. And after, how the boy had sat there, watching as his grandfather slept, his tiny fingers holding the golden fingers of the old man's artificial hand.

He sighed, then yawned, realizing just how long a day it had been. Only a few years back it had seemed he could do without sleep at all, but now . . .

It's the air here, he thought, and smiled, turning from the window and looking back into the darkened room. It was only then that he realized the summons pad on the corner comset was flashing. He had turned off the audio earlier, in case it disturbed the old man.

He went across and closed the door, then, putting on a lamp, sat at the tiny desk and pressed the pad. There was a delay and then the screen lit up. It was Karr.

"Gregor?" he said surprised. "I thought—" "Kim! Thank the gods! It's chaos here. They're active!" Active? Then he understood. "The copies?"

Karr nodded. "We've reports coming in all the time. The City's in a state of complete panic!"

"Hold on," Kim said. "Back up a bit and tell me what's been going on. When you say 'active,' what do you mean?"

"Stabbing, shootings, bombings. Maximum chaos. Maximum nasti-ness. Imagine five hundred psychos going ape-shit at once and you've just about got it."

Kim swallowed. "Five hundred?"

"I use the figure lightly. We don't yet know the full extent of it, but at last count we had over five hundred and eighty separate cases reported. And we're not talking single murders. Some of these bastards are taking out forty, fifty people apiece!"

Aiya . . . Then he'd been wrong. Wrong about both the scale and purpose of this instrusion. He'd thought their role was to be a passive one. But this ...

"I've had to annouce a City-wide curfew," Karr continued. "Not that anyone wants to be out walking the corridors with this going on."

"No . . ." Kim thought a moment, then: "Do you need me there?"

Karr laughed bleakly. "No. Stay there. It's probably the only safe place in the Enclave right now. We've had beserkers even here, in Bremen. These things . . ." The big man shuddered. "The stories I've heard are awful. Fathers turning against their families, trusted neighbors going from apartment to apartment and slaughtering old friends in their beds. The youngest we've had reported so far was a girl of six. She diced her whole family while they slept. What's made it worse is that it happened at so early an hour. By the time the alarm went out it was too late to do anything effective. Most of the victims didn't even wake."

"But now?"

"Now the whole City's awake. And terrified. Watching their screens and wondering if they're next. It's like these things are being triggered in waves. The first wave was the biggest, but reports are coming in of new ones all the time. That's the worst of it, perhaps. The uncertainty. The not knowing when it's going to end, or who's going to turn out to be one of these psychos. Can you imagine it, Kim? All of those people at home, behind locked doors, watching their loved ones and wondering if they're really real and not one of these things!"

"DeVore," Kim said. "It has to be DeVore."

"Yes," Karr said, admitting it for the first time. "It's what I said to Li Yuan when he reappointed me. Lehmann's a bastard, sure enough, but his imagination doesn't run to this kind of thing. This has DeVore's mark on it."

"So the thing you killed all those years ago—"

"Was a copy. It was what Tolonen always suspected. By the way, how is he?"

"Better for being here, I think. But look, is there anything I can do?"

Karr sighed, then shook his head. "Just pray for us, Kim. Pray to all the gods you know that we'll still be here come daylight!"

THE PALACE WAS SLOWLY WAKING. In the kitchens servants were preparing the morning's meals, while in the stables the grooms had long since cleaned out their charges' stalls and fed them. In the broad corridor leading to Li Yuan's apartments a servant walked, a towel over his right arm, a bowl of heated water balanced between his hands. His step was measured, orderly, as it ever was, but this time as he approached the great doors, Nan Ho, the Chancellor, stepped from the shadows to block his way.

"Master," the man said, bowing his head.

"I'll take the water," Nan Ho said, putting out his hands to take the bowl.

The servant glanced up from beneath his brows. "But it is beneath you, Master. Besides—"

"Give me the bowl," Nan Ho insisted.

He saw the bowl begin to fall, the servant go for the knife which, until that moment, had been hidden in the folds of his shirt, and knew he had been wise to take precautions. As he fell back, two guards stepped forward and, with the minimum of fuss, disarmed the servant, forcing him to the ground.

"Should we scan him, Master?" one of the soldiers asked, looking up at Nan Ho from where he crouched, his knee firmly in the servant's back.

"No," Nan Ho answered, picking up the discarded knife. "Whether he is or isn't, what's certain is he meant our Master harm." He bent over the servant and, grabbing his topknot, pulled back his head so that he could see his eyes. It was just as Karr had said; it was as if the man were mad. That smile.

Steeling himself, he took the knife and drew it across the creature's throat. Man or copy, he could not be allowed to survive. So they must deal with their enemies from henceforth, for to be weak . . .

Nan Ho threw the bloody knife down. The creature spasmed, then lay still.

"I want a squad posted here right away," he said, looking to the most senior of the two—a sergeant—he had rousted from his bed. "No one is to enter the great T'ang's rooms without my permission."

The two men stood and bowed. "Master!"

"Okay. You ... go now and bring reinforcements! You . . . you will stay here until your comrade returns!"

"And the body, Master?" the sergeant asked, looking to the still-bleeding corpse.

"Leave it," Nan Ho said, feeling the bile rise in his throat. "It will serve as a reminder and a warning, lest others think the path to our Master's door be such an easy one."

CATHERINE SAT ON THE SOFA, the art folder in her lap, drinking. Sergey had been out all night. Out with one of his women, no doubt. There was nothing new about that. It was just . . .

She looked at the muted wall screen, then, forcing the glass to her lips, drained the last of the liqueur. It wasn't her habit to drink, and not this awful stuff, but for once she'd needed something.

The news was awful. All of that death. All of that senseless violence. It made one think that the world was ending. And perhaps that was no bad thing, for perhaps it was easier to end than to endure.

She set the glass down and turned her head, listening, but the child slept on. That at least was a blessing. She turned back, opening the folder.

It had been years since she'd looked at these. Years since she'd felt the urge. But tonight she had taken them down from the top of the wardrobe where she'd put them shortly after her wedding.

The first thing that struck her were the colors. She had forgotten— forgotten how Ben had made her look at things; forgotten how he'd pointed out to her the force behind the shapes. These—these paintings at the top—were the last she had done before she'd given up. The last and the best. Impressions. Sketches of things from memory. Sketches of him.

She stopped and moved her head back slightly, squinting at the painting. It was of Ben's face, side on, the light from just behind.

Or half his face, she thought, realizing she had not finished it. The half I thought I knew.

Sergey had never seen these. In all probability he didn't even know they existed. Besides, he was too preoccupied with his own work—with his own obsessive version of this face.

Ben. Ben Shepherd. How strange that she should think of him now, after so many years. Or maybe not so strange. After all, Sergey's attack on him was fresh in mind. He had tried to keep it from her, but she had overheard things, seen the bitterness in her husband's face as he was talking of Ben's work.

All that hatred, she thought, amazed that it had lasted all these years. Should one admire such a purity of purpose that nursed a hatred over fifteen years, or should one pity it? Whichever, it was certain that her husband hated Ben. Hated him for breaking his hand. Hated him, too, for having made her love him.

And herself? Did she still hate him?

She lifted the canvas, revealing the next work. This was a sketch—a pen-and-ink drawing of two lovers, their naked bodies abandoned to sleep after lovemaking. She sighed, remembering the day she'd done this. It was the day she had decided to accept Sergey's offer of marriage.

Yes, and she knew why. She had drawn this to purge herself. To finally accept that this was what she'd seen—Ben and his sister, Meg, asleep in his bed. . . .

But that was no answer. Did she hate him still?

There was a sudden thumping on the outer door, the sound of someone trying to force his way in. "Cath-rine! Cath-rine, open this fucking door!"

She jumped with shock, then closed the folder. It was Sergey. He was back at last, and raging drunk by the sound of it.

"Cath-rine? The gods fuck you, woman! Get off your ass and open this fucking door!"

Quickly she hid the folder. Then, taking a long breath to calm herself, she went out into the hallway.

"Cath-rine!" There was another thump, then a murmured "Shit! Where is that fucking woman!"

She went across and reached up, drawing the bolt. Then, fearing the worst, knowing how angry he got when he was drunk, she undid the catch and moved back sharply.

Nothing. She frowned. Had he fallen asleep? She moved closer, trying to peek around the door. Then, very slowly, it began to slide back.

"Sergey?" she began, then caught her breath.

"Catherine. It's been a long time. Can I come in?"

"Ben . . ."

It was as if she had conjured a ghost. She moved back, letting him enter.

She closed the door, bolted it again, then turned, looking at him.

"These are good. They're Sergey's, I assume."

He was holding one of Sergey's heads. Three of them rested on the table in the hallway. Carved from black marble, each depicted Ben's face in various degrees of torment.

"Why did you do that?" she asked. "Why did you mimic him?"

He put the head down, smiled at her. "Why did you let me in?"

She shrugged, then moved past him, returning to the living room. He followed.

"I often wondered," he said, looking about him at the room. "I thought his father was rich."

She switched the screen off, then turned, facing him again. "He was, once. But he died penniless. Sergey makes his own way in the world."

"Ah . . ." He stared at her, taking in the changes time had wrought in her, then smiled. She had forgotten how green his eyes were; forgotten the darkness behind the green.

"Do you want a drink?"

He shook his head. "I want you."

"No."

It wasn't possible. Too much time had passed. Too much had happened to them both.

He stepped across, taking both her hands in his. Then, without a word, he picked her up and carried her out into the hallway.

"The child . . ." she said softly, but he wasn't listening. He took her through, into the darkness of the end room where she slept, and laid her on the bed.

"What if Sergey comes?" she whispered, as he pulled her blouse up over her head.

"Sergey's not coming," he said, pausing to kiss her neck, her cheek, her mouth, his hands smoothing her naked flanks. "Sergey's sleeping it off at his club. I saw him there. He won't be home for hours."

"Ben . . ." Gently she pushed his face back away from hers. "Ben, we can't do this. What happened then . . ."

He did not answer her. Instead, his hands went to her breasts and cupped them, his thumbs caressing her nipples. Again his mouth was on her throat.

"Ben ... Ah, Ben . . ."

And this time as his mouth brushed hers, she pushed against him hungrily, unable to resist.

"You bastard," she murmured, tugging his shirt up over his head and throwing it aside, her need mixed with a burning anger. "Why did you go away? Why the fuck did you leave me here with him?"

LEHMANN LOOKED ABOUT him at the smoke-blackened ruins of the gutted school. Most of the children had died in their beds, but those who'd woken had found themselves locked in and the fatty remains of their corpses were heaped beside the blocked safety exits. He had seen sections of the camera records; had seen how the two copies had covered the school's entrance from overlooking balconies, picking off anyone who tried to help the screaming children, like machines functioning at prime efficiency. It had taken almost thirty of his men to subdue them, and eight had died in the process.

In all, over seven hundred had died here; elsewhere the news was just as bad. More than two thousand "berserker" outbreaks had been reported—more than twice the number in the Northern Enclave—and news of yet more was coming in by the moment.

It could no longer be denied. Things were falling apart. Local guard posts had been attacked throughout the levels and apart from a few key areas surrounding his major garrisons there had been an almost total breakdown in law and order. Even at the best of times his forces had enjoyed only minimal popular support but now, it seemed, the mob were getting their own back on those minor officials who, before today, had held the power of life or death over them.

He turned to Soucek. "Is there any news from Pasek?" he asked, looking past him at the mobile communications center parked just outside the entrance. Soucek crunched through the debris and lifted his mask.

"Nothing yet. But it's chaos out there. We're not even sure where Pasek is."

"So where are the two who are supposed to be looking after him?"

"Dead? Unless they got him."

Lehmann stared back at him, then shook his head. "I've a bad feeling about this. This is Pasek's chance. If he doesn't take it—"

"Master!"

Lehmann turned, facing his captain.

"What is it?"

"It's a broadcast, Master. I think you should see it."

He went through, his white boots smeared with ash. Soucek followed. Inside the mobile center eight men were crowded around the screen. As Lehmann entered, they made room for him.

"Play it back," Lehmann said curtly, recognizing Pasek's features. "Let's hear what the bastard has to say."

At once the image jumped. The screen went white. Music played. Music that was familiar only because Lehmann had heard it so often at Pasek's rallies for the faithful.

"Brothers," Pasek said, his face forming from the whiteness, his flesh glowing almost golden, "the day is here. The day of final judgment. Yes, it is time to prepare ourselves for the weighing of souls, for the great sifting of the worthy from the unworthy. And I, Earthly Son of the Most High Celestial Master of the Five Directions, am here to tell you what must be done to be among the worthy. . . ."

Lehmann leaned forward, killing the image. He turned, meeting Soucek's eyes. "Kill him," he said simply. "Find out where he is and kill him for me, Jiri. I want that bastard's head on my desk before nightfall, understand me? I want that fucker nailed!"

CATHERINE SAT ON THE SOFA, draped in her emerald-green night silk, her flame-red hair tied back, her head tilted to one side as she fed the baby from her breast. Ben, stepping into the room, stopped, staring across at her.

In the softly pearled lamplight her skin seemed almost transparent, like a sheen of ice over the bone. It had always been so, of course, but what had been pallid was now pellucid.

It was fifteen years since he'd last seen her. Then she had been little more than a girl. Nineteen and an arts student at Oxford. Now she was a woman of thirty-four and a mother.

Twice, he thought, remembering what she had said about the little girl she'd lost. That, too, has made her brittle.

She looked across at him and smiled, the child sucking healthily at her breast.

"Do you remember that time you took me down below the City?"

He went across and sat, facing her. "I remember."

"Of course," she laughed, at peace with herself. "You can't forget, can you? You're incapable."

"Do you remember the bird?"

"In the Cafe Burgundy?" She nodded, suddenly more thoughtful. "I never dreamed . . ."

That you'd be caged¹. He looked about him at the opulence of the apartment. She was like a bird, a flame-haired hunting bird. But she'd let herself be trapped. Now, why was that?

She looked back down at the child and smiled, like the Virgin Mother herself, yet there was a tightness in her features that had not been there back in her youth. Even so, he could still see what had moved him in her. There was still beauty in that face.

He closed his eyes and saw her as she'd been; saw her clear, as if she sat before him in that time, her skin unblemished, all lines of age removed. When he opened them again, she was watching him, her green eyes curious.

"I was remembering."

She looked away, a small movement in her face which for once he could not read.

"Why did you marry him?"

"Because he asked me," she said, not looking at him; then, as if she realized it sounded insufficient, "And because I wanted to."

"He's been good to you, then?"

Her quiet laughter told him all he needed to know. That and the hardness in her face.

"And the baby? Was that your idea?"

This time she turned her head, meeting his eyes. "I thought it might bring us closer."

"And did it?"

She looked back down at the child. She was sleeping now, sucking only fitfully in her sleep. "No. And yet it's something."

He looked away, his eyes returning to the folder he had noticed, there beneath the table. Standing, he went across and picked it up.

"Can I?" he asked, turning to her.

"If you want."

He sat, the folder in his lap, studying each painting intensely before he moved on. At the sketch of himself and Meg he stopped and looked at her.

"This is good. The best you ever did. It has life."

She was staring at him; her intensity for once almost matching his. "I wanted to kill you. Did you know that? I wanted to take a knife and stab you through the heart for what you did. I—"

The baby stirred on the breast. She removed it gently from the nipple and covered herself.

He stared at her. "I'm sorry."

She stood, rocking the baby gently in her arms, making sure she was asleep, then carried her through into her room. A moment later she was back.

"Would you like a drink?"

«!_»

"We've done that," she said, almost sharply, as if angry with him. He closed the folder. "What is it?"

"You. Just coming back like this. For fifteen years nothing, and then . . . What am I supposed to do?" "Come with me? Back to the Domain?" She stared at him, then shook her head. "It doesn't work like that, Ben. You can't just click your fingers and everyone comes running. That's how a child thinks."

"I'm serious. Come back with me."

"And the baby?"

"Bring her with you."

Again she shook her head. He stood, setting the folder aside, then took her arms. "Look," he began, but he said no more. At that moment the wall screen behind him came alive. They both turned, surprised.

"Jesus . . ." he said softly.

"Who is it?" she asked, not recognizing the urbane, middle-aged Hung Moo who stared down at them.

"It's DeVore!" Ben said, as the man began to speak. "It's Howard fucking DeVore!"

KARR STOOD AT THE BACK of the huge room, watching while a hundred different experts and technicians sat at their screens, scrolling the taped speech back and forth, analyzing it in the minutest detail. Everywhere he looked he could see DeVore's face—or parts of it: his mouth, expanded to fill the screen, a single eye, the image of the pupil covered by a computer-generated grid.

"Well?" he asked after a moment, turning to Director Lung. "Have we any kind of consensus yet?"

The old Han turned to him and smiled apologetically. "It takes time, General Karr. Such precise analysis is a science. We are not Wu here."

"I understand," Karr said, keeping his impatience in check, "but time happens to be the one thing we don't have much of right now. That part in his speech about the sun and the stars . . . have we any trace on where that comes from?"

Lung turned and snapped his fingers. Behind him, one of his assistants sorted quickly through a file, then handed him a piece of paper. The old Han studied it a moment, then, smiling, answered Karr in a leisurely drawl.

"It appears that that part of DeVore's speech relates to proscribed writings. One of the banned poets."

"And?" The man's manner was infuriating to say the least. The very slowness of his speech lit a fuse in Karr's head.

The old man studied the paper again, then handed it to Karr.

Karr looked at it, then shrugged. "Coleridge . . . Ah, yes, that was it. ... The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out; at one stride comes the dark."

He shivered, hearing again how DeVore had said that. At one stride comes the dark. . . .

DeVore's ubiquitous appearance on every media channel had come as a real body-blow, just as they were beginning to get on top of events. It had been just the thing to set it all off again. Now there were riots throughout the levels. People were panicking—as if it were already over.

Which is, of course, DeVore's intention.

It was pure Sun Tzu. The great man had always argued that it was best never to fight a battle unless it was absolutely necessary. And what better way to prevent the necessity of conflict than to demoralize your enemy before a single blow had been struck? That was what DeVore was doing here. He was psyching them all out, trying to destroy their nerve. But he couldn't be allowed to win—not without a fight.

Karr turned to the Head of Department. "As soon as you have anything more, Master Lung, let me know."

Then, knowing time was against him, he hurried from the room, heading back for his office.

He had barely stepped through the door when his equerry rushed in and, bowing hurriedly, thrust a piece of paper into his hand. Karr glanced at it, then pointed to the screen on the far side of his office.

"Get him! Now.'"

A moment later the screen lit up and the face of a young cadet officer appeared.

"What's this?" Karr said without preliminaries, waving the piece of paper at the screen. "What do you mean all of our near-space surveillance satellites are down? That's impossible!"

The young soldier swallowed. "No, sir. They're dead. Contact was lost eight minutes back. Right now we're blind."

"Are they destroyed?"

"We ... we don't know, sir. Without physically checking—" .

"Then do it! Send someone up to look!"

He cut contact and sat back, a cold certainty forming in him. This was it. This was the end. First the copies, then the face on their screens, and now this.

The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out; at one stride comes the dark.

He looked to his equerry. The young man stood there, staring at his General, his face openly afraid. Seeing it, Karr knew he had to do something, and fast.

"Okay, lad. Now listen. I want you to summon every officer of the rank of Colonel and above and I want them all here in my office within the next fifteen minutes, understand me? It's time we dealt with all this nonsense. Time we held a proper Council of War."

He saw how the boy straightened up; how his face lit with a sudden sense of purpose. Yet once he'd left the room, Karr felt his own spirits slump.

Marie ... I ought to speak to Marie before it begins, . . .

But there was no time. No time for anything now but war.

SERGEY STUMBLED from the transit, then stood there in the empty corridor, swaying slightly, getting his bearings as the doors closed behind him and the lift began to descend.

Home, he thought, recognizing the familiar wall-hangings, the tiny statue of the horseman that rested on the plinth beside the wall opposite. I made it. I fucking made it. ...

He shook himself and frowned. It was chaos out there in the levels. And if they got through the coming days he'd have that Steward's balls for turfing him out at such an ungodly hour. He had never been so insulted. Never!

He swallowed, feeling distinctly nauseous, then, turning to his right, began to stagger toward the apartment. He had got only halfway along the broad, dimly lit corridor when the urge became insistent and, lurching to his right, he held on to the porcelain edge of the decorative plant trough and, doubled up, began to heave.

"There!" he said, laughing, then straightened, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Better out than in!"

For some reason that amused him and he began to giggle. But then he remembered. Remembered just why he'd got so drunk.

The thought sobered him. He spat bile, then turned and stumbled on, fumbling in his jacket pockets for his code key.

"Shit!" he swore, coming to a halt. He must have dropped it back at the club, or on the way here. Still, Catherine would open up. He'd wake the bitch.

He looked up and frowned. The door was open. He could see into the apartment.

"Wha . . . ?" He stepped unsteadily across, then pushed the door open wide. The hallway was empty, but there was a light on in the living room. He turned, closing the door quietly behind him, then, as quiet as he could, tiptoed exaggeratedly toward the living room door.

He peeked inside, not certain what he'd find, but the room was empty. Then, as he stood there, holding on to the jamb, the baby began to cry.

"Fuck it!" he mumbled. "Where is the fucking woman?"

There was another noise beneath the baby's crying; something he couldn't quite make out. He turned, looking back into the darkened hallway, then went out, making his way along the wall toward her room.

He stood there, sniffing the air. The bitch! The fucking bitch! He knew that smell. She'd been having men in here while he was out! He staggered across and felt for the bed in the darkness, half stumbling over it. It was unmade, the sheets crumpled. He put out a hand, looking for confirmation of his fears . . . and found it in the dampness of the sheet.

He sat, nausea making him swallow hard.

"You bitch!" he muttered. "You fucking bitch!"

A sudden anger washed through him. So this was what she did while he was out. Well, fuck her—he'd make her pay for this!

He pulled himself up and staggered out, looking for her. As he came into the living room again, she was standing across from him, framed by the kitchen doorway. The baby was still howling, but she seemed unaware of it. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.

"You!" he said, pointing an accusing arm at her. Then, with a bellow, he launched himself at her.

She yelped and tried to get away but, drunk as he was, he was still too fast for her. Grabbing her hair he pulled her down savagely onto her knees, then leaned over her, putting his face almost into hers.

"Who was it? Who've you been screwing in my bed, you fucking bitch?"

She made to shake her head, but he tugged at it hard, making her cry out.

"It was Ben," she said, her eyes glaring at him venomously now. "Ben Shepherd."

He let her go, then staggered back. "Shepherd . . ." The name seemed to deflate him. He stood there, swaying, his eyes shocked. "Ben Shepherd?"

"That's right!" There was a pure hatred in her eyes now. "And he wasn't screwing me. We made love. Love, Sergey . . ."

He swung his arm and felt his hand connect, hard.

"He's used you. Used you like the cheapest whore to get back at me!"

Her laughter stung him.

"You? You think he cares about you?" Holding her swollen jaw she glared up at him. "He came for me, Sergey. Not you. He came to take me back with him."

He swung again, knocking her down, then crouched over her, his hand raised. "I'll kill you! I'll see you dead before he touches you again!"

He drew his hand back and saw her flinch, then stood, backing off a pace, as if he'd finished with her. Then, with a savagery that surprised them both, he turned and kicked her in the stomach.

He stood over her, watching her gasp with pain, then leaned in, pointing at her, his fingertip directly under her nose. "You're dead, woman! You're fucking dead, hear me?"

Sergey moved back, trembling now, the thought of what had happened making the muscle beneath his eye twitch violently. He turned, looking back at the darkness of the doorway, and wiped his mouth, his eyes full of imagining. For a moment he was somewhere else, and Catherine, seeing that, reached up and, taking the heavy lamp from the table beside the sofa, pulled herself up.

"Wha . . . ?" he began to say, turning back toward her, but it was too late. As his face came around, the lamp caught him on the side of the head and shattered.

For a moment she stared at him where he lay, the blood bubbling from the deep gash in his skull, her hand out, her mouth open in shock. In a daze she went through into the baby's room and lifted her from the cot. Then, knowing there was nothing for her there, she began to walk, out of the room and down the darkened corridor, heading for the transit.

"What can you see?"

The pilot shifted in his seat, then lifted his visor. "The satellite's there all right, but . . . well, it's just dead. And from the infrared readout it's cold as a piece of rock. It's as if it's been frozen."

He waited as his craft slowly drifted in an arc about the satellite, wondering what ground control would ask him to do next.

There was a click and then the disembodied voice sounded again. "Is there any obvious sign of tampering?"

He put his visor down again and readjusted the tracking cameras, trying to get as clear a view of the inert satellite as he could. See for yourselves, he'd have liked to have said, but audio was the only thing working right now. Someone was jamming all the other wavelengths.

"I can't see anything," he said, after a moment. Then again, if whoever did this was any good at what they did—and there was no reason to assume they weren't—then there would be no sign. AH it would take was a few bursts of accurate laser'fire and . . .

"Oh, shit!"

"Pardon? Can you repeat that message?"

"I said . . ." He fell silent, watching as the ships peeled off—huge, saucer-shaped ships, as white as the autumn moon; hundreds of the fucking things, coming out of deep space like stones falling from a giant's hand.

"Oh, shit! Oh, fucking shit!"

DEVORE STOOD ON THE EDGE of the sandstone outcrop, looking out across the rugged gorge of Olduvai as the great ships came down.

A gift of stones, he thought and laughed, remembering the time when he had sent Li Yuan a betrothal gift of three hundred and sixty-one white wei ch'i stones—stones carved from the bones of his victims, symbolizing death.

Yes, and now for delivery on that promise.

Three hundred and sixty-one bone-white ships, sailing out of Charon, the ice moon, Pluto's twin.

He laughed, watching them come down. Each ship a stone, and within each ship a hundred thousand copies of himself, cloned in the body factories of Charon—conjured from ice and chemicals and the structured dance of atoms: a vast army of the unborn.

He watched them march in lines of ten down the broad white ramps, forming up in the early morning heat, parading openly before the final battle; the cameras hovering overhead, letting the great world know just what had fallen on them from the darkness.

Olduvai . . . The significance of it had been lost, the truth of it buried beneath the Han's great Cities, but it was here, five million years ago, that Man had taken his first steps on his long journey toward the stars.

And hers, he thought, turning to look at his companion.

In the glaring African light Emily's pallor seemed an unnatural perfection. Toward this those ancient apes had striven. Toward this high peak of physical perfection.

He took her hand, examining it. Like Adam and his companion, he thought, grinning: only, this had been grown not from Adam's rib, but from the severed finger of the original.

And where are you now, Emily Ascher? he wondered. Are you still alive? Do you still burn with such a pure, fine flame?

The only woman he had ever wanted.

He put the thought aside and looked toward his generals, gathered by his tent.

"Are you ready?" he asked, knowing the answer. Then, turning toward the great army that was gathered beneath him, he raised his arms and uttered the words he'd long prepared, knowing the young T'ang was watching him.

"Alas! alas! thou great city, thou Mighty City, Babylon! In one hour has thy judgment come."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Copies of Some Greater Thing

AKED, THE GREAT T ' A N G Stood before the mirror; last of the Seven, the One Man under Heaven, Son of the Celestial Emperor himself. He had washed and now he waited for his maids to dress him, perhaps for the final time, in the dragon robes of imperial yellow silk.

In his thirty-second year he had begun to fill out. Regular exercise had kept his muscles firm, his stomach trim, yet time had left its mark, even on him, in the lines about his eyes and mouth.

The cares of kingship, he thought, and tried to smile, but it was impossible. Behind him his maids were sobbing as they went about their work, their faces wet with tears. Indeed, the whole palace had a strange funereal air about it. Servants and their families had been fleeing throughout the night, abandoning him.

Yes, and he had had to order his guards not to fire upon those who chose to run rather than face what Fate had ordered for them.

He nodded to his image, as if acknowledging a stranger. And maybe there was an element of truth in that. As a younger man he had often stood before the mirror, studying his own face, staring into his own eyes, asking himself questions. But lately?

He stepped up to the mirror and, placing the fingers of his left hand to the glass, met his own eyes, trying to look through into himself.

Do you still know who you are, Li Yuan? Are you still so sure about things? Or has the world eroded more than your trust in your fellow creatures?

He stared and stared, yet there was a wall, a barrier of consciousness he could not penetrate. He might look forever and not see what he was searching for, for it was he himself who was hiding it, he who directed his eyes away from the dark corners where what he sought was hidden.

"Chieh Hsia?"

He drew his hand back, watching as the four moist circles where his fingertips had touched faded and disappeared, then looked to the maid who stood behind him.

"What is it, Sweet Fragrance?"

The young girl met his eyes in the glass, then quickly looked away, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "We are ready to dress you, Chieh Hsia. If you would come across?"

He sighed, then answered her softly, feeling a great compassion for her. "Of course."

Sweet Fragrance was only fifteen. She had not seen life, and now it was ending. By evening she could be dead.

He turned, then, on whim, drew her to him, holding her close and warm against him, and as he did his thoughts went out to his first wife, Fei Yen. He had tried to find her, or at least to get some news of her, but his efforts had come to naught. East Asia was in a state of constant turmoil as the Warlords fought for dominance, and there had been no word.

Where are you? he wondered, closing his eyes, pained that he would die without ever knowing what had befallen her. Are you even stiU alive? You who caused me so much pain, yes, and yet gave me so much joy. And the boy? Is my son with you where you are? Are you some Warlord's concubine? Or did some peasant conscript rape you and gut you with his bayonet?

Not that it mattered now. Not that anything mattered. He had seen those dreadful images from Olduvai. Forty million DeVores! He shuddered at the thought.

He released the girl, then went across and stood there, letting them dress him. And as each article of clothing was placed on him, he nodded inwardly, as if to say, This is the last time this shall be done.

Finally two of them carried across the dragon robes, holding the silks out as he stepped into them. And as they buttoned them he felt the certainty of his situation harden in him.

This, then, was what my father dreamed, the night I was born. This is his vision—the City burning and his old friends dead, their children's bodies torn and bloody on the nursery floor. And darkness . . . darkness bubbling up into the bright-lit levels.

He shuddered at the thought and gritted his teeth against the pain he felt remembering it, for that was the night he had killed his mother and robbed his father of all earthly joy.

It was not my fault.

Maybe not, but he did not feel that. He had never felt it. Impatient to come into this world, he had sent her from it. And all that had followed—everything—had stemmed from that.

"Chieh Hsia?"

He looked down. Sweet Fragrance was staring up at him, surprised.

"Chieh Hsia . . . why are you weeping?"

THE LAST OF THEM had gathered in the Great Hall, beneath the steps of the Throne. As Li Yuan stepped into the huge, high-ceilinged chamber, they knelt and bowed their heads, like a single creature, subservient to his will.

As he took his place above them on the dragon throne, he cast his eyes over those that had remained. There were no more than four hundred in all—friends, courtiers, and retainers. So few they seemed, huddled together between the great stone pillars, and yet he felt inordinately pleased to see so many familiar faces.

In the end this was all that remained. Friendship and loyalty. The rest meant nothing.

He lifted his chin proudly, recalling who he was—a Son of Heaven, last of the Seven who had once ruled the great empire of Chung Kuo—and saw how they responded to the gesture, pleased that he was their Lord.

"Kuei Jen," he called, looking to his son. "Come stand behind me."

The young man did as he was told, his father's shadow.

"Master Nan . . . the screen."

Down below, Nan Ho turned and instructed his assistant to lower the great screen. Slowly the lamps in the great hall faded, the glowing screen came down.

Olduvai. The images were from Olduvai.

He watched as the cameras panned across that mighty host, sensing the fear that rippled through the watching crowd below as they saw what had fallen out of the dark upon them. Only Pei K'ung seemed unafraid. She stood there at the foot of the steps, looking up at him, concerned, alone in all that crowd in not watching the screen.

He met her eyes briefly, then looked back at the screen, all hope, all spirit draining from him. Look! the images demanded. Look and despair!

He saw the great ships waiting on the far side of the plain, their hatches open, ready for embarkation, the fluttering pearl-white banners of the waiting army, and felt his stomach tighten.

"Are you afraid, Kuei Jen?"

The young man laughed softly. "I would be foolish to say no. That is some sight, neh, father? I know now how the enemies of Ch'in must have felt when the great Ch'in army took the field against them."

Li Yuan half turned and smiled at his son. This much, at least, had been a blessing: to have had so fine a son.

"That may be so, but we would do well to remember what happened at Ch'ang P'ing, neh, my son?"

Kuei Jen bowed his head, chastened. At Ch'ang P'ing, in 259 B.C. the army of the kingdom of Chao had been starved into surrender by the King of Ch'in, the First Emperor's father. In a gesture of the most supreme barbarity, the King had ordered that the army of Chao be exterminated and a great mountain of heads had been piled up on the plain of the battle. Four hundred thousand men had been executed that day and Chao deprived of every able-bodied man it had.

And now history, it seemed, was to repeat itself. For one thing was certain. DeVore would spare not one of them. They must fight, or die like curs.

There was a knocking at the far end of the Hall and then the great doors swung open. Li Yuan turned and looked. It was his Major, Haavikko. As the man straightened up from bowing, Li Yuan beckoned him across.

"What is it, Major?"

Haavikko knelt and touched his head to the stone flags, then looked up at his Master.

"There is news from Odessa, Chieh Hsia. Li Min's army has withdrawn."

There was a gasp, then a murmur of urgent, whispered voices from the crowd.

"Withdrawn?" Li Yuan leaned forward, unable to believe what he had heard.

"Yes, Chieh Hsia. It seems—"

"Chieh Hsia.'"

Li Yuan got to his feet, staring past Haavikko at the newcomer. It was Karr. The big man stood there, getting his breath, a scroll held up in one hand.

"What is it?"

"It has come, Chieh Hsia! A message from Li Min. He sues for peace, and for an alliance against our common enemy, DeVore."

The silence that fell was profound. Li Yuan stood there a moment, astonished. He had assumed Lehmann was in league with DeVore. Why, the men had been allies! Trembling, he went down the steps and, bidding Haavikko rise, walked over to Karr and took the paper from him, reading it through. He turned, handing it to Nan Ho, who had come across.

"It cannot be," Li Yuan said, shaking his head. "Peace, certainly. I'll agree to peace. But the rest . . ." He met his Chancellor's eyes. "How can I possibly ally myself with him? For ten years he has been my mortal enemy. To embrace him . . ." He shuddered. "The men I've lost, the loyal friends ... It would be a betrayal."

"You have no choice," Pei K'ung said, stepping up and taking his arm, forcing him to turn and face her. "You must do this, husband. You must or there is no hope."

He met her eyes briefly, then looked away, troubled. "Perhaps . . . But I must have time to think."

"Then think. But don't take long." She pointed up at the screen. "See. He is loading his armies back on board their ships. Soon they will fly north to meet us. So think hard but think fast, Li Yuan, for you must decide. Before the God of Hell descends on us."

He stared at her, then, knowing she was right, nodded and turned to Karr. "General Karr . . . send a messenger. Tell Li Min . . . tell him I shall let him know within the hour."

FU CHIANG HAD FLED, escaping the assassin's blade by hours, yet the people of his great City—a city he had wrested by cunning and the force of arms from his fellow Mountain Lords—had come out onto the sandstone cliffs to witness with their own eyes the host that had gathered on the plain near Olduvai. In awe they stared as phalanx after phalanx of massive soldiers—seven, maybe eight ch'i in height— marched aboard the ships, their uniformity of appearance as much as their massive size sending a ripple of chill apprehension through the watching crowd.

There was a strange and eerie silence to the scene, a stillness such as might happen in a vast airless jar, and then a trumpet blew.

A great gasp of fear greeted the apparition in the sky above the ships. It was a horseman, a giant horsemen almost two li in height, dressed totally in white, its horse as pale as snow. In its hand it grasped a bow.

The trumpet blew again. Deafening, making the watchers clasp their ears in pain.

A bright red horse appeared beside the first, its rider—his face cowled—dressed in vermillion silks, a broadsword in his hand.

Again the trumpet blew.

This time it was a black horse. It reared proudly, its black-cloaked rider holding out a set of scales.

Once more the trumpet sounded.

And finally, a pale horse, mounted by a white-cloaked skeleton.

DeVore, watching from his vantage point, smiled. The crowd was running now, screaming, trampling each other down to get away, while above them the air rustled with the presence of the four gigantic figures.

He turned. Pasek, who had arrived no more than twenty minutes back, was on his knees, his mouth open, his eyes staring in wonder. Behind him, those of his acolytes who had made the journey with him did the same.

"You have done well," DeVore said quietly, putting out his right hand so that Pasek might kiss the black iron ring that rested on the knuckle of his index finger. "You have laid down a path of fire for me."

As Pasek grasped his hand and kissed the ring fervently, DeVore smiled inwardly. It was no lie. Pasek had sown the seed—had planted these startling images in the minds of friend and foe alike—and now he, Howard DeVore, would reap the harvest.

The battle is already won, he thought, retrieving his hand, then turning to watch as his fleet lifted slowly from the plain. All the stones are mine, while my enemies . . . He laughed, a cruel, unfeeling laughter that broke finally into a high cackle of triumph. My enemies play with an empty pot!

In the air above, the horsemen began to turn, rising into the pure blue of the sky, leading on the pure white circles of his ships as they began their journey north to the coast.

And at his back he could feel the dark wind blowing, cold and pure, coursing through him with a silent, steady pressure, streaming like an unseen tide of photons from the endless blackness at the core of him. The game had begun.

"That face . . . that fucking face!"

The man swung the lamp, smashing the screen, then stood back as it popped and sputtered into blackness.

Lehmann, standing in the corridor outside the room, nodded and walked on quickly. He understood. Everywhere he went people were destroying the screens. He had destroyed more than a hundred himself. Even so, DeVore's face still followed him wherever he went—awaiting him in silent rooms and at intersections, there on every new screen he encountered.

The purest form of solipsism, he thought, his gun searching the intersection before he hurried on. That need to fill the world with copies of himself. It was the ultimate in xenophobia: not just a hatred of other races but of otherness itself. Was that how God had started—filling the pristine world with copies of himself?

He stopped momentarily, listening. Most of these levels had been abandoned, but there were still some of Pasek's men about. He took three slow paces backward and peeked inside. Another screen— DeVore's face speaking to the empty room.

DeVore was jamming all visual communications channels and beaming down his own programs; replacing that great multiplicity of images that characterized the levels with the single image of his face.

Or so it had been this last hour. That face . . . murmuring that awful litany of Last Things, Pasek's "Book."

He hurried on. His ship had been brought down short of his destination—by one of his own gunners, no doubt—but that was the least of his problems right now. Sofia garrison lay up ahead. That, at least, should be safe. But he was growing anxious now, afraid in case he should get there and find it had all fallen apart while he'd been making his way across.

The last he'd heard, his men had been deserting by the thousand, abandoning their posts. Pasek's declaration for DeVore had been more damaging than he'd possibly imagined. For once Soucek had been right. He had underestimated the power of the religious impulse. He had thought it simply another addiction, like drugs and sex. But he'd been wrong.

And if Li Yuan says no?

Then it was over. Alone he could do nothing. Alone he could not stand against DeVore. Even so, he would fight him to the end. For there was no other choice. He knew DeVore. If he fled, DeVore would track him down. Only his death—the death of them all, perhaps; every last autonomous being on the planet—would satisfy that madman.

He slowed, the gate in sight now, the final intersection just ahead.

It did not matter that he'd been careful all these years. All of his patient work meant nothing now. In less than two days DeVore had destroyed it all. Yet strangely it wasn't bitterness he felt, or disappointment, but a curious excitement. The kind a gambler feels.

It was only now he realized how far he had strayed from his intended path. Only now—with DeVore's reminder—did he begin to understand. He had let himself become a king; acting as a king, thinking as a king. He had forgotten his original intention—had let that pure flame of hatred for the system gutter and die in him. But DeVore . . .

He stopped, looking across at an unbroken screen, seeing his old Mentor's face staring back at him, and smiled. DeVore, at least, was pure. DeVore had not forgotten.

There was no doubting it. He admired the man. Admired his style, his ability not merely to plan but to carry out such long-term, sweeping plans; his skill for the long game. But he could not let admiration cloud his judgment. He had no illusions. DeVore was no friend of his. It was either-or now—him or DeVore. For there was no room on this world for them both.

One more corridor, he thought, beginning to run, his spirits strangely lifted by the challenge that lay ahead. Whatever the odds against him, he would fight on, and not merely because there was no other choice, but because he would bow his head to no man.

No, nor to the copy of a man.

THE GUARD STOPPED at the bottom of the road, beside a low, white-walled cottage with shuttered windows, and pointed to the white-painted gate at the side.

Catherine stared at him, her eyes questions.

"Go on," he said, bowing politely but anxious to get back, then waved a hand at her, gesturing that she should go through. "The Mistress knows you're coming. Go around. There's a door at the side."

She made to say something more, but he had turned away and was making his way hurriedly up the curve of hill, disappearing after a moment between the whitewashed cottages. She sighed, then looked down at the sleeping child in her arms. Now that she was here she felt like turning back. It had been a mistake. She should never have come.

Turning, she looked at the gate. Like everything here it was strange, dreamlike. The smells, the sounds, the way the air moved on the skin. It was like being brushed by hungry ghosts.

She shivered, then reached out, trying to open the gate, feeling the wooden frame judder beneath her hand, resisting her attempts. She peered over it, then, finding the catch, lifted it.

There, she thought, surprised by how fast her heart was beating. As easy as that.

She looked up, smiling, pleased with herself, then saw her. Meg. It had to be Meg. Despite the years she recognized her.

"You came," Meg said. "I wondered if you would. He said you wouldn't. He said you'd stay inside."

Catherine swallowed, feeling awkward. "And you?"

"I thought you'd come. He usually gets what he wants. But come through. You look like you could do with a drink."

"Do I?"

Meg smiled, her eyes sympathetic. "Is it bad in there?"

She nodded. It was terrible. Worse than she could ever have imagined. If she hadn't had help. . . .

Meg came across and, unexpectedly, took her arm, looking down at the sleeping child. "Hey . . . it's all right now. You're safe here. Both of you. All that"—she looked up past her at the massive wall of whiteness that began beyond the hill's crest—"All that's inside."

Meg put her arm about her shoulder, then, turning, led her down the stone-paved path and up two steps, into a kitchen that was filled with sunlight and smelled of beeswax and flowers.

"This is all so ... strange," she said, letting Meg seat her on a wheel-backed wooden chair, then watched as the other woman filled a copper kettle from the tap at the sink. "I didn't know."

"No." The look of sympathy was back. "Your face . . . you want me to see to that?"

Catherine reached up and touched her cheek, then winced. It was very tender. She looked at Meg and nodded. Meg smiled, then went over to one of the cupboards and, reaching up, got down a wooden box marked with a red-painted cross. Setting it down on the table, she opened the lid and began to search through the jumble of things within.

"He didn't forget you, you know."

"Forget me?" Catherine stared at her, a clear memory of the first time she'd met Meg coming back to her. Then, she'd seen her with jealous eyes, thinking her Ben's lover; unaware she was his sister. She had been wrong, and at the same time right.

She looked down, wondering if Ben had mentioned what had happened between them. Whether now as then, he told his sister everything. But something stopped her asking.

Meg looked up, setting a tube of ointment and some gauze to one side, then smiled at her again. "The picture you painted . . . you know, the one of Ben. The one you left in his apartment. It's upstairs, on the wall."

Catherine stared at her, surprised. He'd kept that? She shivered, not from cold, but from a sense of displacement. Sitting there, it was like she couldn't wake. It was like . . . well, like the "shell" Ben had made her experience that time, so real and yet unreal. Totally unreal.

"Your daughter's very pretty," Meg said, smiling at her.

"Her name is Sasha, I ..." She smiled. All of the anxiety she had been feeling had gone, she realized. "You aren't angry with me, are you? I mean . . . about Ben."

"Angry?" She laughed. "God, no. It'll be nice to have some decent company around. Now . . . turn your head slightly toward the light, so I can see what I'm doing."

SHE OPENED THE DOOR quietly and stepped inside. There was a long casement window to her right. Beneath it a broad wooden table crowded with all manner of things—a part-sculpted clay head, an oddly shaped piano keyboard, some sketches, pots of paints, brushes, scalpels, and rags, and, in a chaotically disordered pile, a stack of old folders labeled in Ben's precise hand. Ben himself had his back to her, working on a canvas. For a moment she stared out of the window, still surprised by how beautiful the valley was, how strange it felt to be outside the City. It was all so different, so frighteningly, confusingly different. No wonder Ben had seemed strange when she'd first met him; no wonder he'd seemed out of place back there in the levels. She looked back at him, then took two silent steps, moving to the left so that she could see the canvas better. It was a huge thing and took up most of the wall on that side of the room.

It was a picture of the valley—of the Domain—but changed, horribly transformed. In the top half of the canvas all seemed normal. Sunlight bathed the valley, creating a sense of great repose. Birds nested in the branches of the ash trees, and a swan glided on the golden, sunlit water. She could see the cottage to the right of the canvas, the tree—the same young oak she could glimpse from the window—just beneath it on the slope. Yet there, beneath it all, was a second world, so different from the first as to make its normality appear sinister, a mask to what was really real.

There, in the center of the picture, the earth had cracked and the water fell through a thin crust of darkness into what seemed like a vast flame-lit cavern. And as it fell, the water changed. Its vivid blue became a deep yellow. Its smooth liquid flow suddenly, violently fragmented—as if its very atomic properties had changed—tiny splinters of bright yellow glass scattering in a shower of exploding crystal onto the rocks below. The effect was startling.

She took a step toward it, feeling a ripple of fear run down her spine. It was the dance of death. To the far left of the cavern a tall, emaciated figure led the dance, its skin as pale as glass, its bare arms lithely muscled, the long legs stretched taut like a runner's. Its body was facing to the left—to the west and the darkness beyond—but its horselike, shaven head was turned unnaturally on its long neck, staring back dispassionately at the naked host that followed, hand in hand, down the path through the trees.

In its long, thin hands Death held a flute, the reed placed to its lipless mouth. From the tapered mouth of the flute spilled a flock of tiny blackbirds, the cruel rounded eyes like tiny beads of milky white as they fell onto the host below, pecking at eye and limb.

In the very center of the cavern, beneath the great gash in the earth, the settling crystal had formed a sluggish flow—like the flow of glittering lava. She recognized the allusion. These were the Yellow Springs, beneath which, the Han claimed, the dead had their domain, ti yu, the "earth prison."

So bleak it was. So hopeless those forlorn and forward-staring figures. A scene of utter torment, and no release—no sign of simple human compassion.

She shivered, watching him lean toward the canvas to make the tiniest of changes to one of the figures.

"It's called The Feast of the Dead,' " he said quietly.

"It's extraordinary," she said. Yes, and horribk, and frightening and . . . and beautiful, all at the same time. "Was it a dream?"

"Yes," he said. "But not one of mine. I saw this once. Or a version of it. Do you remember? I told you about it."

She shrugged. If he had, she didn't recall it.

"The Oven Man," he said, as if that were the key that would unlock the memory. "He painted this with ash."

It meant nothing to her.

"Well, he'll be busy tonight, neh?" He turned, then frowned at her. "Where's the child?"

"Meg's looking after her."

"Ah . . ."

She watched him, surprised by how calm he was, how untouched by events. "It's ending," she said. "The world is ending, Ben."

His eyes were cool, unmoved by her words. "You don't think I know? We Shepherds have been awaiting this for centuries!" He turned slightly, looking back at the canvas, then laughed quietly. "When things break down, we artists forge new links. We make sense of it all. That's our purpose."

He turned back, staring at her, the full intensity of his gaze bearing down on her, then, beckoning her closer, he offered her the brush. "Come . . . add your own figure to the dance."

SAMPSA CREPT SLOWLY down the hallway. Kneeling beside the open doorway, he looked into the room.

His grandfather lay there, propped up on the cushions, completely still, his hairless, skull-like head turned toward the window and the sea.

One quarter of his genetic makeup had come from the old man. One quarter of all he was. Slowly, like a fox creeping through the grass toward a chicken pen, he crawled into the room, making his way to the foot of the bed.

He could hear the old man's breathing, smell that strange, musty smell that seemed to cling to him. Carefully he raised his head, looking over the carved wooden foot of the huge bed.

The old man's head looked like something that had been carved in jest. Those features which, in the portrait in the hall, created a sense of rocklike strength, now seemed merely ludicrous, the chin too wide, the nose too long for the collapsed bone-structure of the face.

The skin itself seemed stretched over the bone, like animal hides over a nomad's tent, its surface blotched and yellowed, blighted here and there by tufts of coarse ice-gray hair.

Slowly he moved around, creeping toward where his grandfather's hand lay on top of the sheet, its gleaming gold extending to the leather pad at the shoulder. Sampsa stared at it a moment. It was easy to imagine that the old man's body was slowly being turned from flesh to gold; that he would come back in the evening and the whole of the old man's chest and head would be made of the same bright, gleaming metal.

"Sampsa?"

Tolonen's head turned the slightest amount, those watery gray eyes still fixed upon the distant sea.

"Yes, Grandpa?"

"Ah . . ." The old man's mouth formed the suggestion of a smile. For a time he was silent, then he gave a little cough. The fingers of his hand flexed, like a machine coming to life. "Come closer, boy."

He stood, stepping to his grandfather's side, careful not to block his view. From this close the smell of the old man was much stronger. It was like the smell of old cupboards, of drawers that had been kept locked for years, their contents slowly rotting in the darkness.

"What do you see, Grandpa?"

"See?" The voice was like the wind whispering through the treetops. The old man made a sound that might have been either laughter or discomfort; he couldn't tell which. "I see old friends. Li Shai Tung. Klaus Ebert. Young Vittorio Nocenzi. They're out there, waiting for me."

Sampsa turned and looked, but there was nothing; only an old man's imaginings. Turning back, he reached down and laid his hand against the old man's palm. The metal was soft and warm—not metal at all, he realized, but something that resembled it.

Looking back at the old man's face he saw Tolonen was watching him.

"Something's happening," the old man said, his voice a sigh. "I can feel it." Something of the old strength flickered briefly in those eyes, then vanished, like a fish slipping back into the depths. "What is it, boy? What's happening?"

It's the old world, Grandpa, he wanted to say. It's dying. Just as you are dying. And the new is being bom. That's what you feel. The death pangs of the old and the birth pangs of the new.

"It's nothing, Grandpa," he said, feeling the old man's attention slip from him, his eyes returning to the sea.

But it was true. New blood was coming into the world.

Sampsa drew his hand back, then, careful not to make a sound, he backed slowly from the room.

And in his head, he heard the other singing.

TOM SAT ON THE WALL overlooking the cottage, singing softly to himself. He had seen the woman come down the road with the soldier; had seen her go inside with his mother and, a while later, climb the stairs and go to the end room where his father worked. That had been an hour ago. Now he saw them come out from the shadow on the other side of the cottage and walk down the path toward the bay.

Clouds were forming high overhead and there was a sense of heaviness in the air. A storm was coming. He could feel it on his skin.

He watched the walking couple for a moment, then jumped down, running toward the cottage. Inside he stopped, listening but hearing nothing. Only the regular tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

He went on, past mute screens that showed the same unfamiliar face—the face of a middle-aged man with near-black hair and cool green eyes—then made his way up the stairs. There he paused, staring at the painting of his father. Instinctively he made the connection. The woman who had come ... she had painted this.

He hurried on, padding along the polished wooden boards, his bare feet making no sound. The door to the end room was open. He could see the painting there. But that was not where he was headed. Halfway along he stopped, trying the door to his right. It was locked, but that was no problem. He took the skeleton key from the pocket of his shorts and slipped it into the lock. A moment later he was inside. It was dark, the curtains drawn. The screen on the desk—like all the screens— contained the face.

He glanced at it, then climbed into his father's chair, pulling himself in closer to the desk. Closing his eyes, he placed his hands upon the keyboard.

Sampsa? Can you hear me? What's happening? What are we waiting for?

At once he felt himself on the island, far to the north, staring out through Sampsa's eyes. The sea ... he was high up and looking out across the sea again.

Something's happening, Sampsa answered. That face. His name's DeVore. He's brought a great army here to Chung Kuo from the edge of the System. Copies, they are. My father—

He stopped abruptly. Someone was calling from the house behind him. Sampsa turned, looking. It was his father. He had thrown the window to his study open and was leaning out.

"Sampsa! Sampsa! Come quickly!"

Tom's eyes flicked open. The screen, he said silently, talking to Sampsa across the miles. The image on the screen has changed.

The face was gone. In its place was a black screen. Or almost black. At the top right a circle of white flickered fitfully, like a full moon obscured behind thick, fast-moving clouds. As he watched a tiny figure formed at the right-hand side of the screen—a white stick-man no bigger than his little finger. Above the hollow circle of its head three tiny, glowing spheres orbited like atoms.

Slowly, almost indiscernibly, the figure began to walk. Tom closed his eyes. At once the image of a second screen filled his head—the one Sampsa was staring at in his father's study.

What does it mean? Sampsa asked. But before Tom could even frame a thought, a voice sounded in the room where Sampsa stood: a deep rich-sounding voice of great intelligence.

"Kim . . ." it boomed. "It's been a long time since we talked. Sit down. It's time I told you what's been happening."

"It is no good, Chieh Hsia," Nan Ho said, looking up from the inert keyboard. "I can get nothing but this. . . ."

DeVore's face stared back at them from the screen, supremely confi-dent, as if he'd already won.

Li Yuan sighed. He had hoped to bring Kim and Ben together—to use his two best minds to find an answer—but it was no use. DeVore was jamming everything. Everything except the shortwave radio bands.

He turned, looking to Karr. "All right, Gregor. Send someone to Lehmann. Tell him the answer is yes."

Karr bowed. "Perhaps I ought to go, Chieh Hsia. He knows me."

"You know where he is?"

"The last we heard he was heading toward his garrison in Sofia. If he's there we could arrange a meeting somewhere between."

..: "Odessa?"

Karr smiled, aware of the irony in his Master's voice.

"Odessa, then," he answered, coming smartly to attention. "I shall go to him myself."

LI YUAN stood on the wall, watching Karr's cruiser disappear into the haze of the south, then turned, looking at his son.

Kuei Jen had really blossomed this past year. The lanky youth of twelve months back had become a young man, broad of shoulder and thick of arm. But it was not merely in his outward form that he had changed. In the last year he had matured immensely, throwing off the last vestiges of childishness. Lo Wen, his tutor, acknowledging this, now bowed his head respectfully to the Young Master, as he called him. The transformation was complete: the boy had become a prince.

Yes, Li Yuan thought sadly, but will he ever take my place?

It was strange. When he looked back over the years that had passed since his own father's death, it was with the feeling of a man who had begun to run downhill only to find the slope too steep, his footing uncertain. Now he was tumbling helplessly toward a sheer drop.

"Father?"

He smiled at his son. "It is all right, Kuei Jen, I ..."

His hand, searching absently in the pocket of his silks, had fastened upon the tiny cloth bag Nan Ho had given him earlier.

"Here," he said, taking the bag out and handing it to Kuei Jen. "I want you to have these."

Kuei Jen took the bag and, untying the string at its neck, shook the contents out into his open palm. He looked back at his father, frowning. "What are they?"

Li Yuan took one of the eight tiny black figures and held it up, studying it in the daylight. "They were a gift from the Marshal's daughter. She gave them to me on the day of my betrothal to Fei Yen, my first wife. My father tried to keep the matter from me, but I found out. There were two gifts that day. The first was from DeVore—a wei chi set."

"But I thought he was your enemy, father."

"He was, even then. It was the stones, you understand. There were no black stones, only white. And the stones . . . the stones were all carved from human bone."

"Ah . . ." Kuei Jen looked down at the figures in his palm. "And these?"

Li Yuan returned the eighth figure to his son's palm. "These are the eight heroes with blackened faces." He smiled thoughtfully. "White for death, black for honor. My father, your grandfather, was delighted with the gift. He felt that the bad luck of DeVote's gift was balanced— nullified—by the good luck of these. But now"—the smile faded—"now DeVore is back. And once again he brings his gift of stones."

Kuei Jen nodded, then looked down at the eight delicately carved figures. "Which one is Pao Kung?"

Pao Kung was the Chinese Solomon, the epitome of wisdom. Li Yuan searched among them a moment, then picked out the one he'd taken earlier. "This one. See. His baldness is meant to denote his wisdom."

"Ah, so that is why . . ."

Kuei Jen gestured toward his father's full head of hair and laughed. "Maybe it's time to shave our heads and call on the spirit of Pao Kung for aid?"

"Perhaps," Li Yuan answered, saying nothing of his vain attempts to contact Kim and Ben. And yet he smiled, his spirits raised. It had been a long time since he'd looked at Jelka's gift; a long time since he'd held one of these tiny figures in his hand. When Nan Ho had given them to him this morning he had not understood, but now he did. Somehow the balance would be made, De Vote's advantage canceled out.

"Chieh Hsia!"

He turned at the urgency of the summons. Nan Ho stood at the top of the steps that led up to the wall, his hair disheveled, his eyes alarmed. Seeing him thus, Li Yuan felt all hope bum away, like a mist touched by the first rays of the winter sun.

"What is it?" he said soberly.

"You must come, Chieh Hsia. The screen . . ."

He hurried down, letting Nan Ho lead him through to the room where they had set up their headquarters. A group of men were clustered about the screen. As he entered, they fell back, letting him approach.

Li Yuan stepped closer then stopped and gave a tiny moan.

It was himself. Or, rather, it was his copy—his ching—taken from the place where it had been kept, awaiting his death. The ching stood before the camera, indistinguishable from himself, its silks torn, its hands bound with coarse rope, its eyes downcast, defeated as it spoke to the watching billions.

"It is over," it said, unable, it seemed, to meet the camera's eye; feigning shame at its fate. "You must submit to your new Lord and put down your arms. The Mandate of Heaven is broken."

He shuddered as the image froze and then replayed from the beginning.

"Aiya," he said softly, feeling the last tiny flicker of hope die in him; seeing how even those most loyal to him now looked at him with eyes of pity and regret. Yes, even Nan Ho. This . . . this pretense had been the final blow. Nothing now remained.

"Is Karr still in range?" he asked, looking to his Chancellor.

"I think so, Chieh Hsia."

"Then call him back. There is no point in meeting Lehmann now. It is over. This . . . there is nothing after this."

"Chieh Hsia . . ." Nan Ho made to obey, but a voice from the doorway made him halt and turn.

"Hold a moment, Master Nan! We are not beaten yet."

Pei K'ung strode into the room and faced her husband. "What is this, Yuan? Are you to let this showman beat you? Are you to meekly bow before this Prince of Lies and Illusions?" She shook her head. "No. You must act at once to counter this. You must send out messengers to all your garrisons to let them know what has happened. Master Nan"—she turned to the Chancellor again—"bring paper, ink, and brushes. My husband must write to his commanders. And, Yuan . . . remember who you are."

He stared at her a moment, then bowed his head, honoring her. Looking about him at his men, he drew himself up to his full height. "You heard. Let's get to work at once. The Mandate is not broken. Nan Ho, do as my wife requests. Bring paper, ink, and brushes. And, Haavikko . . ."

The Major came to attention. "Yes, Chieh Hsia?"

"Prepare the imperial cruiser. We leave for Odessa within the hour."

ODESSA WAS A GUTTED SHELL. Its outer walls concealed a scene of utter devastation. More than a hundred thousand had died defending the great Black Sea fortress and pieces of their charred bones littered the landing platform, cracking underfoot as Karr paced back and forth, awaiting his Master's ship. Across from him, Lehmann waited patiently beneath his banner, his lieutenant, Soucek, at his side.

"You're certain he's coming?" Lehmann asked tonelessly.

"He'll be here," Karr answered, glaring at his onetime enemy. "My Master is a man of his word."

If there was any implied criticism in that, Lehmann chose to ignore it. He walked across.

"You received my gift?"

Karr nodded. "You knew I couldn't keep it."

"That was your choice. It was not a bribe. You're not a man to bribe ... or flatter, come to that."

Karr stared back at him, conceding nothing.

"I would have beaten you," Lehmann continued, "in time."

"I know."

"And yet you remained loyal to Li Yuan. Why?"

Karr looked past him at Soucek. "Why does your man stay loyal? Why does any man?"

"Foolishness?"

Karr was silent. Lehmann studied him a moment, then turned away.

"We'll not beat DeVore," he said, so casually that it was almost as if he didn't care.

"Maybe not," Karr answered, looking out to the northeast, his eyes searching the cloudless sky.

"And yet we have to fight, neh?" Lehmann laughed; a cold, strange sound. "We have to fight because if we don't he'll annihilate us. Oh, he'll annihilate us anyway, but a man must have the satisfaction at least to know he was a man and not an insect."

Karr turned back. Both Soucek and Lehmann were watching him. "I shouldn't be here," he said quietly. "I should be with my family."

"Then why aren't you?"

Lehmann came back to him, stopping very close, looking up into his face. "Just why are you doing this, Gregor Karr? After all you've witnessed. After all your Master's done. The Wiring Project. The torturing of good men and women—people who shared your ideals. Ah, yes, and the deals. The pandering to greedy, selfish men. Your friend, Kao Chen ... he saw the shape of things. That's why he got out, isn't it? But you . . . you stayed inside. You served. Why was that?"

Karr shrugged. A sense of duty? Of loyalty? . . . Simple habit? Or was it because he'd still too much pride in himself as a fighter to get out—to become a man of peace and till the earth like Chen?

Pride ... or stupidity.

He looked up. There had been movement in the two gun turrets that still worked. They had swiveled, tracing an incoming. He strode to the edge of the platform and stopped, shielding his eyes, unconscious, it seemed, of the two-li drop only a step from where he stood.

"He's here," he said, seconds before the gun commander confirmed it. "I said he'd come."

"As you said, your Master is a man of his word."

Karr turned, frowning, trying to make out what Lehmann meant by that; but the White T'ang's face was blank, unreadable. Inscrutable, he thought, thinking for the first time how much that face, despite its superficial differences, resembled his Master's. Then he turned back, awaiting his Master's arrival.

THEY HAD SHARED a cup of wine; now the two great men embraced, sealing the compact between them. The paper lay on the campaign table to one side, the ink still drying, the T'ang's great seal lying beside Lehmann's on the cushion.

It was done. The Cities were reunited. At least, until he came. Until DeVote's great fleet swept them into the cold northern sea.

Karr looked down, a bitter taste in his mouth. He had never thought to see the day.

Chih yao yu heng hsin t'ieh ch'u mo ch'eng chen, he thought, recalling the banners that had hung before Lehmann's gate that time he'd gone to meet with him.

If only there is persistence, even an iron pillar will be ground into a needle.

Well, so it was. Lehmann's persistence had certainly ground them down. Unfortunately for him, that same persistence which had made his enemy, Li Yuan, so weak, had likewise weakened his own forces. Both now were vulnerable.

How DeVore must be laughing now, Karr thought sourly. Laughing as a jackal laughs, watching his prey fall from exhaustion.

He sighed. They had learned the lesson far too late—that even persistence can mean nothing in the face of Fate.

"General Karr . . ."

He glanced up, meeting Lehmann's eyes, then looked to his Master. But Li Yuan merely nodded, his eyes instructing Karr to listen.

Lehmann stood before him, handing him a scrolled paper. "As from this moment you are in command of our joint forces. We shall draw up a plan of action which you shall carry out on our behalf."

Again he looked to Li Yuan.

"It is what we have agreed," Li Yuan said quietly. "We feel there is no better man to lead our forces."

"But, ChiehHsia ..."

"Please, Gregor. Do what we say. Little time remains and we must make the most of it. First we must devise some means of communicating between our garrisons, then—"

The blare of a siren drowned out his words. All turned, staring to the south. A ship was coming in fast.

Karr ran across, climbed the steps of the turret, and leaned inside.

"Who is it?" he yelled over the siren's wail.

In answer the gun commander pointed to the screen. It was blank, the gun controls dead. Karr climbed inside and, pushing the two men aside, tried to reactivate the control panel, but it was no use. He hammered it with his fists, then scrambled out again. He could see the thing clearly now. It was less than half a ti away, screaming in low over the plain to the southwest.

"Down!" he yelled, knowing it would do no good. "The bastard's jammed the guns!"

Li Yuan looked to Lehmann, expecting a trick, but Lehmann seemed just as surprised. He turned back, frowning, then strode across to Karr and stood beside him, facing the incoming ship.

"Let it come!" he shouted.

They waited, expecting the flash of a missile, the sudden explosive warmth of detonation. Instead the craft flashed over them, the sharp crack of it breaking the sound barrier making everyone duck—even Lehmann.

"What the ... ?"

The sirens fell silent. Slowly the craft turned in the air, slowing in a great arc that brought it around to the front of the fortress once again.

"Is that him, do you think?" Li Yuan asked, looking to Lehmann, who had come to stand beside him.

Lehmann shrugged, then patted the gun at his belt. "If it is, I'll shoot the bastard where he stands, copy or no copy. I'll have that satisfaction."

Li Yuan smiled. "You're sure he'll send a copy, then?"

"Oh, he'd not come himself. Not DeVore. He's the Puppet Master himself, that one."

They stepped back, under their banners as, slowly, the craft came down, settling between their own.

As the engines whined down toward silence, Karr stepped out, facing the hatch, and drew his gun. Now that the moment had come, he understood why he was here. This was not for Li Yuan. No, nor for that callous bastard Lehmann. This was for Marie and his girls. For them.

I killed you once, he thought, and 1 shall kill you again. However many times it takes. However many copies you send against me.

The hatch bolts fired, the door hissed slowly open. ......

Karr raised his gun.

"Gregor Karr ... is that you?"

The man who stepped out into the light was not DeVore. He wore black, as DeVore might have worn, and his hair was shaven close to his skull in a distinctly military style that DeVore might easily have affected, but it was not DeVore. Karr frowned, staring at the man.

Where his eyes should have been the sockets were hollow and empty. Burned out, Karr realized with a shiver of revulsion. Over the blind man's head three tiny buglike remotes hovered, slowly orbiting.

Karr stared a moment longer then gave a surprised laugh. No . . . it couldn't be!

"Ebert?" Li Yuan stepped past Karr and stood there, looking up the ramp. "Hans Ebert?"

Slowly the blind man came down. Then, unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees, touching his head to the floor before Li Yuan.

"Chieh Hsia," he said, drawing the dagger from his belt and offering it to Li Yuan. The T'ang stared at it, recognizing it. It was the dagger he had given Ebert the day he had appointed him his General. With a shudder he dropped it and stepped back.

"Aiya! Now he sends ghosts against me!"

"No, Chieh Hsia," Ebert said, making no move to retrieve the dagger. "I come to serve you. That is, if you'll forgive me."

"Serve me?" Li Yuan laughed bitterly. "As you served me before, no doubt, by betraying me to my enemies!"

"If you think that, Chieh Hsia, kill me now. Pick up the dagger of my shamed office and carry out the sentence you and your fellow T'ang passed in my absence. But I am not the man I was."

Li Yuan stared at the knife, then looked back at the kneeling man. "No. No, I ... Get up, Hans Ebert. Get up now."

As Ebert got to his feet Karr stepped forward. "Shall I kill him, Chieh Hsia?"

Ebert turned toward him. "Is that you, Gregor Karr? Ah, yes, I see it now. I did you wrong, not once but many times. I see you're General now. Well, no better man deserved it."

Karr made to answer but Lehmann laid a hand on his arm, then stepped past him, confronting Ebert.

"How did you do that? How did you jam the guns?"

Ebert smiled. "Stefan Lehmann ... I didn't expect to find you in this company. But as for your query, look. . . ." He pointed unerringly at the bank of screens beside Li Yuan's craft. As he did the face of DeVore vanished from all twenty screens, to be replaced by the tiny walking matchstick figure.

"What does this mean?" Li Yuan asked, looking about him as if expecting some sign of trickery to be revealed.

"It means I am here to help my Lord again. Not as servant, but as guide."

"Guide?" Li Yuan was totally bemused.

Ebert bowed his head again. "Am I forgiven?"

"Forgiven?" Li Yuan turned, looking to where Kuei Jen stood with Pei K'ung and Nan Ho. Urged by his stepmother, Kuei Jen stepped forward and gave a nod. Li Yuan stared at him a moment, then turned back. "I ... I forgive you, Hans Ebert, and lift the sentence of death that hangs over you."

"Chieh Hsia," Ebert answered, bowing his head smartly. Then, turning toward the darkness of the open hatch, he extended an arm. "Look!"

Karr glanced at the hatch, then looked at his Master, seeing the sudden astonishment there in Li Yuan's face. Surprised, he looked back. Eight men now stood in the open hatchway: big men dressed in strangely old-fashioned spacesuits. Black men.

"The heroes . . ." Li Yuan whispered, real awe in his voice. "You brought the eight black-faced heroes!"

Ebert beckoned for the men to come down the ramp, then faced Li Yuan again. "You remember, then?"

"The gift of stones."

"Yes." As they formed up behind him, he straightened, for the first time seeming something like the old Hans Ebert—a prince in disguise, returning to his kingdom. "If we win, you must promise to tear it all down."

"Tear it down?"

"The City. The evil of the levels. You must tear it down and start again. This way . . . it's wrong."

Li Yuan turned once more, looking first to Nan Ho, then to Pei K'ung and finally to Kuei Jen. Each nodded. He turned back.

"All right. But how? He has forty million. . . ."

"And we have eight." Ebert's smile was unexpected. "As I said to you, old friend, I am not the man I was."

He turned and, going to the edge of the platform, raised an arm. At once the sky was lit suddenly with the searchlights of a hundred cruisers, the machines forming a great circle about the gutted fortress.

"Aiya!" Karr said, noting how not one of the cockpits held a pilot. "What dark wizardry is this?"

But Ebert merely laughed and pointed to the screens. "No wizardry at all, friend Gregor. Look!"

They all turned, looking to the bank of screens. And as they looked the twenty screens, which, for long hours past, had shown a single duplicated image, now broke into a cacophony of images and sound as the commanders of all their garrisons appeared suddenly, clamoring for orders.

"The eyes," Ebert said, coming back to them and standing in their midst, reached out, touching first one and then another of them in turn, smiling at them blindly. "The eyes are open now. Let us use them to see our way out of the darkness."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A Spring Day at the Edge of the World

FAR OFF ACROSS the bay the sea was boiling. The great space-mounted lasers fired down—broad, dazzlingly bright beams that ripped like pillars of fire through the clouds. And where they touched, the surface turned to steam. Great thunderheads were rolling across the sky. The air was heavy. Again and again the lasers struck, burning the elements, stripping away layer after layer, down to the rock.

From her vantage point on the City's roof, Emily watched in awe. The air itself was burning and the roar of the boiling sea hurt her ears. She hobbled across, joining the small group who had climbed up out of the levels and had gathered there to see the end of things. Silent, they waited at the edge of the world, watching.

Last things . . . She stared out at the boiling, bubbling sea, her eyes filled with last things.

It was over. All that she'd ever known was being broken down and refashioned. It was the universe's way. Even so, she felt regret. Regret that she would never see them again: never see Michael, Mach, or— and this she regretted most—Lin Shang, with his clever hands and crippled face. For the world was finally ending. The seas were burning and the air was filled with the roar of dissolution.

And when the seas had finally boiled away and the air could not be breathed, what then? What could little men like Lin do to mend that?

She gritted her teeth, pained by the thought that he would suffer. Pained that she could not be with him when it ended. That, at least, would have been something, but to die alone . . .

She shuddered, thinking back, remembering all that had happened to her. Remembering her family's fall from grace, her father's death, her mother's long-suffering stoicism. And afterward, all those years spent with Bent Gessel building the Ping Tiao. Before DeVore had come. Before the great Prince of Inauthenticity had come and destroyed it all.

And yet DeVore had saved her, sent her away. She glanced down at her severed finger and frowned. To America she'd gone. To America and Michael Lever. Her fate. To become the Eldest daughter, before that City fell in flames and she came scuttling back to Europe.

Oh, I've seen much, she thought, remembering it all. And yet nothing suddenly mattered one half as much as what she had felt these past few days, knowing what Lin Shang had done for her. Little Lin, who had had no power and no beauty, yet who had risked himself for her.

Risked himself, and asked nothing back from me.

And now he would die, as they'd all die, unrewarded, just as others went unpunished. And no sense to it all, no justice, no apparent order. Only the chaos of fate and time and dissolution.

Yes, dissolution, at the back of it all. Death's maggot, wriggling in the bone.

It was getting hard to breathe now. Her eyes stung and her throat was getting sore. And her skin . . . her skin seemed to burn.

Inside, she urged herself, hearing the crack of rock, the demonic hiss of the burning sea. Inside . . .

She turned, making her way back to the shaft. But it was almost over now, and, looking back, she saw first one and then another of the group step out into the nothingness beyond the edge.

THEY HAD BUILT a temporary encampment on the plain below the ruined fortress. Beneath a flapping banner that displayed the Ywe Lung, the great Wheel of Dragons, Li Yuan paced up and down. Behind him Kuei Jen stood looking on.

"Just what in the gods' names is he doing?" Li Yuan asked, pointing to the bank of screens—at the cluster of images sent back from their remotes, high above the burning sea.

"He's draining it," Karr said, pointing to a display at the side which showed the whole of the Mediterranean basin. "He's dammed it at Gibralter, and at the Bosphorus, and again down here where the old canal was. Now he's burning it off. When he's finished he'll probably march his army straight across."

Li Yuan's eyes were aghast. "But why?"

"Because he can," Nan Ho answered quietly. "It's how he is. He wants us to see just how powerful he is before he destroys us. Because it all means nothing to him. The game . . . Only the game has meaning for him."

Li Yuan stared at the display in disbelief. The Mediterranean . . . the madman was draining the Mediterranean!

This was why his father had so feared the idea of Dispersion—this was why he had fought it so vigorously—for out there there were no limits, no controls. Out there Man could do exactly as he wished. He could take the very elements and reforge them; could reshape himself in a thousand different ways and then return—with unlimited energy, unlimited destructive power. Dispersion: it was merely another word for dissolution; for the destruction of all that was decent, all that was truly human.

The wind was coming up now, gusting steadily through the encampment. Li Yuan pulled his cloak tight, then turned to look at Ebert, seated by the far wall of the enclosure, his men surrounding him.

"DeVore brings a mighty force against us. What will you eight do against that?"

"Do?" Ebert turned toward the watching faces of his dark companions and murmured something in their tongue. There was laughter, a rich, warm laughter, and then Ebert looked back at him.

"Wait and see," he answered, his face tilted up as if to the sun. "Just wait and see."

BEN GRIPPED catherine's ARM, hurrying her up the slope toward the lights of the cottage. Overhead the sky was black with cloud and the wind was howling down the valley, tearing branches from the trees and whipping the surface of the bay into a frenzy. As they struggled on, the wind tore at them, threatening to claw them back into the water.

Catherine turned to him, trying to speak, but the wind whipped away her words. Up ahead the shutters of the cottage were banging violently and there was the sudden tinkle of breaking glass.

"Come on!" he yelled, tugging at her, knowing they'd not be safe until they were inside, but she had frozen suddenly, her eyes tight and fixed like the eyes of a trapped and frightened animal. He pulled at her again, but it was no good; she was too heavy, the wind too strong. Unless she helped him . . .

There was a sudden shout—a bellow close by that sounded over the roar of the wind. He half turned, then lost his footing and went down. Yet even as he did, even as he felt Catherine's hand slip from his grasp, he felt someone—someone huge and muscular—pick him up and head toward the cottage.

"The woman!" he yelled at the Myghtern, his voice making little impression on that vast, unending roar. "Get the woman!"

As the giant turned, a sudden gust hit them full on and the Myghtern went down, onto his knees, knocking the breath from Ben as he fell. When Ben came to he was inside, the howl of the wind more sinister, more threatening somehow, now they were out of it. The very air was alive, it seemed, making the hairs on his arms and neck bristle.

"Catherine . . ." he began, starting up, then saw her, seated in the chair beside the door, his sister, Meg, attending to a cut on her forehead. Behind her Scaf and the Myghtern looked on concerned. And Tom? He turned, then smiled. Tom was in his usual place on the turn of the stairs, silent, staring.

The cottage juddered and groaned, the shutters banged. The howl intensified.

"It's getting worse!" Meg said, turning to him, her eyes worried. "What is it, Ben? What's happening?"

"I don't know," he said. "I . . ."

He shrugged, but it was like something he'd read in Amos's journals, about the wind that followed a nuclear explosion: the great inrush of air to fill the vacuum.

DeVore, he thought. DeVore's the vacuum at the heart of this.

But this wind had some physical cause too. Something must have happened. Something catastrophic. He glanced at the screen, but it was blank. Communications must be out. Yes, of course they were out. The storm . . .

He got to his feet then shook his head to clear it, but still the constant roar of the wind sounded deep within.

"Come on," he said, going across and helping Catherine to her feet. "Let's go down into the cellars. This is one storm we'd better ride out below."

N WIB E L O O K E D to the sky and laughed.

"Hear how old Mother Thunder rebukes her son."

Along the line the others stopped fastening their harnesses and looked up at the thick layer of cloud overhead and smiled inside their helmets.

Dogo, the biggest of them, Ezeulu's son, answered Nwibe, his voice sounding in every earpiece. "When her son is angry, there is always trouble in the village, no?"

"There will be trouble enough without those two adding to it!" Aluko Echewa answered, clipping himself into the harness, then adjusting the straps about his shoulders.

On every side the floor of the great sea steamed, shrouding the strange, uneroded shapes of the freshly exposed rocks with swirls of mist. Perhaps Mars was like this once, Aluko thought, millions of years ago. He turned, looking to his left, then to the right, making sure everyone was ready. Then, pulling down the rigid armatures of the flying suit and slipping his hands into the gloves, he checked along the line.

"Ugoye?"

"Ready."

"Chike?"

"Done."

"Nwibe?"

"One moment, Elder. . . . Okay, I'm ready."

"Odile?"

"Ready."

"Elechi?"

"Done."

"Dogo?"

"Itching to go, Elder."

"Nza?"

"Ready."

He closed his eyes. At once an image filled his head; sent back from one of the remotes that were tracking their progress. It showed the eight of them spread out in a line along the dry bed of the ancient sea, the special harnesses they were wearing making them appear twice their normal size.

"Okay," he said, placing his fingers over the control pads. "Let's lift. Slowly now."

His thumb closed with a gentle pressure on the pad. At once he felt himself lifted; felt and saw ... for at the same time the eight figures in his head lifted and began to drift forward.

Even as they climbed, emerging from the deep rift in which they'd been hidden, the storm broke overhead.

"See how the young ram loses his temper!" Dogo said in his earpiece, laughing his rich, deep laugh, as a bolt of lightning struck the brittle rock less than a li to the left of them with a sharp crack of destructive power. And then the thunder spoke, exploding all about them, shaking the air with an unexpected violence.

"The night is our mother," Aluko began, speaking into the heads of his brothers, repeating the words of the litany for those who, unlike Dogo, had the sense to be afraid. "She comforts us. She tells us who we are. We live, we die, beneath her. She sees all. Even the darkness deep within us."

"How? How?"

DeVore glared at the man on the screen, his face hard, his anger kept tightly in check.

"We're not sure, Master," the Technician said warily, conscious that his very uncertainty was guaranteed to upset DeVore. "He's gone behind things. Tweaked them, somehow."

"Tweaked them?" DeVore let out a snort of disgust then shook his head. "How? Exactly how?"

"We—"

"Find out! Understand me? And when you know, tell me. Until then, your life is forfeit, man. You're dead."

He turned from the screen, his anger matched only by his curiosity. It was meant to be foolproof, tamperproof. But somehow Li Yuan had managed to get around the back of things and override his systems.

Ward.¹ he thought with a sudden certainty. This is Ward's work!

Okay. But how did he use that knowledge? How could he regain the advantage he had temporarily lost?

I should have hit the island, he thought. Yes, and the Shepherd place, too, while 1 was at it. The only reason he hadn't was because he'd thought he could take them as prizes once the rest was his. To have them work for him.

You were too greedy, he told himself, calmer now, beginning to think again. But never mind, it's still all yours if you play this right. The advan' tage is still yours. After all, you still have all the stones.

"Master?"

There was a new face on the screen. His own face, but a copy. Overlaying it was the printed number 154. It was the Commander of that craft.

"Yes, one five four, what is it?"

"There's something coming at us from the north."

"Something? Be more specific."

"Eight men, Master. Eight men in rocket suits."

DeVore gave a laugh of disbelief. "Is this a joke, Commander?"

"I ... I thought you should see what our remotes are sending back."

"Okay. Patch it through."

He stood back, relaxed, chuckling to himself. Eight men in rocket suits! Whatever next?

His laughter died. The image on the screen was none too clear; even so, he recognized those suits and knew what color the faces were behind the dark reflecting surfaces of their visors.

"Osu . . . What in the gods' names . . ." And then he saw it. Then, with a strange little laugh, he understood.

"Eight stones," he said softly. "Is that all you can muster, Li Yuan? And what of your father's boast that time, that he would place the last stone on my grave? Vanity ... an old man's vanity, that's all that was. Vanity and boastfulness. And now you'll pay the price. Now I will clear the board."

He laughed, then spoke to his Commander.

"You will engage, one five four. You will attack those eight and destroy them, understand me?"

"Master!"

And then he would deal with Ward. Yes, and with Shepherd too.

He cleared the screen, then looked about him at the silent room, smiling. Yes, it was time to clear the board.

AT THE STILL and silent center of it all, Hans Ebert sat, facing Tuan Ti Fo across a rock, a wei chi board set up between them.

All about them the drained sea shimmered in the late afternoon heat, its sculpted surface like the vision of a demented child.

Ebert stared blindly at the board, the remote overhead sending him back an image of the game. Leaning in, he slapped a white stone down in shang, the south, then sat back, frowing.

"I feel uncomfortable, playing white. It seems wrong somehow."

Tuan Ti Fo chuckled. "It is several years since I played black, but there is a purpose to this, Hans."

"A purpose?" Ebert laughed. "Let's pray to Mother Sky there is a purpose behind your thinking, Master Tuan, for the King of Hell himself is on us."

"Relax," Tuan Ti Fo said, playing a black stone at the edge of the board, in ch'u, the west, safeguarding a line.

Ebert studied the board a moment, then looked across at the old man. "I still don't understand it. If the Machine can do this much, why doesn't it finish the job outright? Why all these half measures?"

"The Machine acts as it must," Tuan Ti Fo answered; pulling gently at his beard. "There must be a balance in all things. When that balance is lost . . . well, that is not healthy, neh? Our friend DeVore ... his thinking is the thinking of a child—an unhealthy child."

Tuan Ti Fo leaned forward, moving his hand over the board. At once all the stones became white. Tuan gestured at the board. "So our friend would have it. But where is the skill in such a game? Where the beauty?"

He swept his hand over the board once more, returning the stones to their original colors, then smiled at Ebert.

"You must understand. It is not our purpose to win the game for you, merely to allow it to be played. Our friend DeVore ... he plays the game well, but he does not understand its purpose. He thinks that winning is the all of it, but the game is not meant to teach Man ruthlessness. No ... its object is to teach us balance, to school us in the dance of opposing forces. As for the greater game—this game he chooses to play out with men's lives—well, we cannot possibly contest the matter. Forty million against eight." Tuan laughed. "Those are poor odds, neh?"

Ebert stared at him. "You speak as if we can't defeat him."

"And you speak as if you are surprised." Tuan Ti Fo gestured toward the board. "Play your stone."

Ebert slapped down a second stone in shang, then drew his silks about him irritably. "You play with me, Master Tuan."

"Of course . . . But that's not what you really mean, is it? Nor do you understand me. We cannot defeat DeVore. Have no illusions about that, Hans. However, we can let the man defeat himself."

"Defeat himself? How?"

Tuan Ti Fo leaned across and placed a stone in the very center of the board. "By keeping him here. By forcing him to look into the nothingness at the center of it all."

"You speak in riddles," Ebert answered, slapping down a stone beside the Master's last.

"Not at all," the old man answered, pointing to the stone Ebert had just laid. "Just as you were forced to shadow my play, so we might force our friend DeVore to shadow ours."

Tuan Ti Fo placed another stone to the right of his last, extending the line toward his group in ch'u.

"Time," he said, meeting Ebert's sightless stare with his own. "We must buy time. For time, not force of arms, will win this contest."

"There!" Dogo shouted, pointing down to his right. "I see them, by that loaf-shaped rock!"

Master Tuan turned as the eight descended toward him, then stood, greeting them. Behind him, Ebert also stood.

"You took your time," Ebert called, grinning at them, turning his face to the clear sky overhead. "Can't you get the hang of those things?"

Aluko, setting down, looked back at him and laughed. "Dead seas I'm used to, but these . . . Whose idea was this?"

"We merely play his game," Tuan Ti Fo said, turning and throwing a cloth over the board. "DeVore likes symbols. Well, we shall give him symbols, neh?"

Aluko frowned at him. He had grown used to the old man's vagueness over the years, but sometimes—as now—it worried him.

"What can symbols do against such a mighty host?" he asked. "What if they simply shoot us down?"

"Oh, they will," Tuan said, folding his silks about him.

"Great!" Dogo said, coming alongside Aluko. "So now we're suicides!"

"That troubles you?" The old man asked, smiling faintly.

Dogo looked at Ebert, then shook his head firmly. "Whatever Efulefu asks, we shall do. It is our debt to him."

"And DeVore?" Ebert asked, looking to Aluko. "Do you still owe DeVore a debt?"

Aluko laughed coldly. "We repaid that monster years ago, as you know, my friend. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to destroy him. But Dogo has a point. Are we to be merely symbols?"

"Merely?" Tuan Ti Fo chuckled. "You think men are mere machines—even DeVore's kind of men? No. Men have fears and deep-rooted instincts. Like you, my brothers, they have beliefs—even when they profess to believe nothing. Why, even the most pitiful rogue will believe in ghosts and demons. So . . ."

"So?" Nza came and stood with his fellows. A moment later the others joined them. The eight stood there, facing Master Tuan, dwarfing him in their harnesses.

"So it is time," Tuan answered, turning and lifting a hand toward the sky.

They looked. As they did the sky seemed to shimmer and take shape. There, where a moment before there had been nothing, was a massive dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems upon his heads. The sight was awesome, fear-inducing.

Tuan Ti Fo spoke into the sudden silence. "See. He sends his dragon against us."

There was a low moan of fear from the eight, but Ebert only laughed.

"I who have no eyes can see what you cannot. You asked about symbols, Aluko. Well, what you see is but a symbol. A mere air-show. Yet it has a purpose, neh? It is there to drain the courage from those who might dare to stand and fight." He stepped forward, looking from one face to another, his blind eyes seeming to take each of them in before he nodded and looked to another.

"Aluko . . . Nza . . . Dogo . . . Chike . . . Elechi . . . Odile . . . Nwibe . . . Ugoye . . . Your names will live forever. And your deeds today . . ." Ebert smiled, then, as if he'd heard something in his head, turned and looked to the south. "But wait . . . one of their ships is coming."

Aluko stared at Ebert, then looked to Tuan Ti Fo. "But what shall we do? I . . . I thought there would be weapons here."

"Weapons?" Again Old Tuan laughed. "Weapons will not help you against DeVore. No. You must defeat him by other means. Here . . ." He bent down and, removing the cloth, revealed a pile of circular shields.

Aluko stepped across and picked one up. It was perfectly normal on its back, but its front . . .

"But it's a mirror!" Aluko said, staring at Tuan Ti Fo in astonishment. "You mean, we are to fight DeVore's great fleet armed only with mirrors?"

"How quick are you?"

"How quick?"

Tuan stooped and, without warning, picked up a rock and aimed it at Aluko. Instinctively Aluko raised the shield and fended off the rock. He frowned at the old Han, then turned the shield, dusting it off, examining it for cracks.

"Unmarked," he said, looking back at Tuan.

"Good," Ebert said. "That's all you have to do. Defend yourself. Now . . . who will be first?"

Nza stepped forward, staring at Ebert fiercely. "Let me go, Efulefu."

"You, little bird? You want to fly up and pluck the stone from the air?"

Nza nodded.

"Then fly, Nza. But fly quickly now, for our enemy is almost upon us."

THE TARGET WAS JUST AHEAD. There was nothing now for him to do but wait. The ship's computer had locked onto the distant figure and, as it grew on the screen, the Commander felt the certainty of a kill ripple through him. He could do it now—he could destroy that drifting figure in a blaze of laser light, but he wanted to get closer— wanted a good visual display to send back to his Master.

"Slowly now," he said, conscious of the presence of his senior staff behind him, watching his every move. Lesser copies they might be, but they would share the glory of this first encounter. The glory, and the rewards.

He could make out details of the figure now. It was a man. One of the eight the remotes had pictured earlier. At first he seemed empty handed, but then, as it came clearer, he saw that the man was carrying some kind of shield.

"It's a mirror, Commander," the technician at the desk nearby stated flatly, the wire at his neck linking him to his console enhancing the image he saw.

"Direct the cannon to avoid that area," the Commander said. The last thing they wanted was their own fire coming back at them.

"Kill speed," he said quietly.

Let him come to me. Let him fall upon my spear.

He waited, counting in his head. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .

He stopped. Something was wrong.

"How big is he?"

"Twelve, fourteen feet . . . No, sixteen. No . . . Oh, shit!"

The technician's words merely confirmed what was obvious to the eye. The figure was growing. Growing perceptibly and by the moment. Slowly, very slowly, it expanded, the mirror it held growing with it, until it was like a tiny moon, reflecting back their own image.

"Disarm the lasers," he said, a tiny ripple of fear running down his back. "We'll hit him with missiles. Prime and fire. Don't wait for my order."

The figure was so big now that it filled the screen. The image was recalibrated, so that again the figure could fit into it, but still it grew. It had to be half a li tall now.

It's some kind of trick, he thought, trying to reassure himself, but that wasn't what the instruments were telling him. What he saw was what was happening. All of the readings confirmed it. As the figure grew, so its mass grew, in direct and correct proportion to its size.

"It's impossible," he whispered, awed now that he'd had time to consider just what was happening out there. And even as he said it, he felt the slight judder of the ship as the first of the missiles were launched, then another as a second pair streaked out toward it.

The giant raised his shield. The Commander watched in astonishment as the missiles vanished into it, then gasped as a beam of pure white light bounced back at him from the mirror's surface.

"Take avoiding action! Now!" he yelled, but even as he gave the order he knew it was too late.

DEVORE STARED at the screen in disbelief.

"One eight eight. You're in that area. What happened?"

There was a moment's hesitation, then a sobered voice answered him. "It blew up, Master. It simply blew up."

"But the giant ..."

"Giant, Master? What giant?"

What was happening? What in the gods' names was going on out there?

"One eight eight. Go in there now. Hit that target. And pay no attention to anything you might see on your screen. Just kill it. Understand?"

"Going in now, Master."

He let out a breath, then shook his head. An illusion. It had to be an illusion. But how? And when had an illusion ever registered with such solid' ity?

He shivered. He didn't know. He simply didn't know.

"Two six zero," he said. "Follow one eight eight in. I want to make sure we've nailed that target. If anything happens to one eight eight, you take over the mission."

"Understood, Master!"

And if they all blow up?

He looked up at the screen again. "All ships in Shang Command go in there at once. I want that sector scoured and cleaned out, and I want it done now!"

COMING TO THE TOP of the slope Ebert stopped, then laughed, surprised by the sight that met his eyes.

Tuan Ti Fo was sitting on a low rock, DeVore's fleet to his back, studying the wei chi board that was set up before him.

Ebert went across and looked down at the board. It was the same game they had been playing earlier. As he watched, Tuan Ti Fo laid another stone, extending his line.

"Isn't it rather late?" he asked.

"Play a stone," Old Tuan answered him.

"Where?"

Tuan looked up at him and smiled. "Deep into his territory. Turn him. Play behind his lines."

"Behind?"

Tuan nodded. "You must distract him a moment longer. The storm . . . the storm will decide it all."

Ebert frowned, then looked up at the darkening sky. And as he did the first drops of rain fell onto his face, trickling down his brow and pooling in the hollows of his eyes.

THE STORM DRAINS WERE FULL, the sluices overflowing, but still the rain fell, heavier by the moment. Chen looked up at the sky, drawing his fingers through his soaked hair, then looked back at the village, urging the last few stragglers on toward the safety of the bunker. His son, Jyan, was the last of them, coming down the street between the big farmhouses, carrying Old Mother Ling, a waterproof sheet wrapped about her. Seeing how he was struggling, Chen began to wade toward him, his feet sticking in the mud that was everywhere now—that pulled and sucked and threatened to send one sprawling at any moment.

"Come on!" he yelled, taking the old woman from his son, then turning to half walk, half limp toward the steps.

Handing her inside, Chen turned back. "Is that everyone?" he yelled, making himself heard against the wind, and the thunder that now rumbled incessantly.

"I've checked the houses," Jyan answered him. "You want me to check the barns?"

Chen shook his head. "We'll do a head count down below. If there's anyone missing . . ."

Jyan nodded and then laughed. "What's happening, Father? It's like the Great Flood out here! I've never seen so much rain!"

"No . . ." Chen looked at the sky thoughtfully. "Still, let's get inside, neh? You know how your mother worries."

"I know," Jyan said, laughing, letting his father hand him down the steps.

He watched his son vanish inside, then turned back, shielding his eyes against the beating rain as he looked up at the sky once more. The clouds were dark and menacing, and even as he watched, lightning flickered between them with a crack of thunder.

Where are you now, Gregor Karr? he wondered, concerned for his old friend's safety, but glad that Marie and the girls at least were safe here in his charge. I'll look after them, he vowed, as the rain redoubled its efforts, stinging his exposed flesh and throwing up spray off the muddy steps.

He stepped back, into the shelter of the bunker, then reached up and pulled down the storm shutter.

It would be a long time until daylight.

DEVORE STARED AGHAST at the screen, watching one after another of his craft fall slowly to the ground. It was like they were being switched off, one after another. He watched another wobble in the air, then begin to topple to the dry seabed, and shook his head.

It made no sense. There were no beams, no rays, nothing whatsoever to explain it, yet ship after ship was losing power. Soon there would be nothing in the sky. And the storm . . . the storm was fast approaching.

Too long, he thought. I've spent too long here on this single play. Yes, and now he would pay the price for his hesitation.

It was time for more drastic measures.

"Destroy the Cities," he said, leaning over the communicator. "Let the missiles fall."

The image on the screen changed. It was now n view from space. A dozen huge launchers lazed like alligators in a pool, awaiting their moment. As he watched tiny twinkles of light appeared along the sides of each, like matches being struck. A closer view showed a single rocket haring from its launch hatch, silently falling toward the dark mass beneath it.

There was no satisfaction in this, yet if he could not take the board he would at least destroy it.

More missiles launched, and then a final salvo. Seventy-two in all. Enough to leave the continent a bed of smoldering cinders.

He watch them fall, streaking into the upper atmosphere. In two minutes it would be over. He turned, calling one of his men to him, and as he did the screen was lit with brilliant light.

Shielding his eyes, he looked back, trying to see what had happened, but the light was too fierce. Slowly it intensified. Then, with a strange little fizzle, the image on the screen dissolved into a fuzz of static. DeVore lowered his hand and looked about him. Every single screen in the cabin was the same.

"No . . ." he said, unable to take in what had happened. "No . . ."

THOSE WHO HAD SURVIVED the fall of their ships had clambered out into that nightmare landscape, dazed and uncertain of their bearings. The rain was falling steadily now, lightning flashes briefly illuminating the darkness, casting rocks and hollows into deep shadow. Then, with a startling suddenness, the whole sky lit up. For ten, maybe fifteen seconds the light was painfully intense and those that glanced up found themselves staggering about blindly, their flesh tingling, their retinas burned away.

Among them Ebert walked, truly blind now, his remotes destroyed in that same moment when he had reached out and—feeling his way behind the fine lines of the missile's wiring—had tweaked the signal and detonated the leading rocket.

As the darkness fell once more, the rain intensified. Rain like a solid wall falling endlessly from the night-black heavens. Rain so hard, it beat the blinded stragglers down, sucking at their feet, filling their mouths, its noise like the sound of a million drummers drumming.

For a moment the universe was rain. And then, with a rumble that shook the rocks beneath them, the tide came in again.

THE MACHINE WATCHED ALL. It saw the great sea burned away; it watched the ships lose power and fall, the missiles detonate high above the troubled earth. And as the great wave swept across the dry seabed, it spoke to the eight who were in the air, directing them, urging them on, until the one it had chosen was safe.

It watched, knowing how close it had come to doing nothing, not certain even now that it had done the right thing in interfering in the affairs of men. Millions had died. Hundreds of millions. And many more would die in the months to come—of starvation and plague and simple misery.

It watched, seeing how the eight flew high above the Flood, Ebert held safe between the central pair. Let DeVore make what he would of that. Let him slowly figure out just what had happened here today.

Maybe that's why, Tuan Ti Fo said, speaking from the space at the center of it—from that point of emptiness it could not see into. Maybe you simply couldn't let him win.

Maybe . . . But such a thing was incalculable. It was not even something it could rationalize. On Mars it had acted to preserve itself. But here . . . Here it has acted out of instinct.

Instinct? Tuan Ti Fo asked and laughed; a gently ironic laugh. Since when did a Machine possess instinct?

Since . . .

But it did not know. Just as it did not know how it had come to be self-aware, so this, too, was a mystery to it.

Another step, Tuan Ti Fo said. Another tiny step.

And then laughter; a gentle, ironic laughter, slowly fading.

LI YUAN sat in the great tent, alone at his desk, the rain drumming on the canvas overhead. Nan Ho had left him for a moment, gone to greet the latest arrivals on the far side of the encampment, but there was much to do, and while he waited for him to return Li Yuan busied himself with matters of State, trying not to think of what was happen-

ing in the greater world, keeping his thoughts within the tiny circle of lamplight in which he sat.

How many millions had died already? And how many more would end their lives before this day was done?

That was the worst of it, the reason he could not dwell on it too long: it was the impotence he felt; the inability to change a single thing that had happened or was to come. Slowly, degree by degree, they had lost control. Seven had become One—himself. And now that One no longer held the reins. The world ran foaming mad toward the brink and he could do nothing.

He sighed and looked up, rubbing his eyes, then tensed. There had been a movement in the shadows across from him; the faintest noise.

"Who's there?"

He waited, his heart pounding, squinting into the dark. Had he been mistaken? Yes. It was only the wind, moving the canvas on the far side of the tent. He sat back, frowning, angry with himself for letting his imagination run away with him. There were guards outside, after all. It was just not possible. . . .

He felt a shiver at the back of his neck and looked up. Lehmann was standing there, not three paces from him, watching him, those cold pink eyes staring.

"No speeches," Lehmann said, drawing his knife. "You know why."

Li Yuan threw the desk up between them, then tugged the knife from his belt. But he had no intention of fighting Lehmann. Scrambling back, he slashed at the tent's soft wall, then threw himself out through the gap his knife had made, Lehmann close behind.

"Help!" He yelled, his feet slipping on the wet grass. "Hel—!"

A hand caught him, picked him up, and threw him aside unceremoniously. He rolled awkwardly, then slammed into the palisade, the breath knocked from him. Groaning he turned his head, looking back.

Lehmann was standing beside the rip in the tent's wall, crouched like a fighter in the flickering torchlight, his knife in his left hand. Facing him, holding the gusting torch, was a huge figure of a man, head and shoulders taller than the albino. As he slipped from consciousness the man's name flickered like a guttering lamp. Karr . . .

LEHMANN LOOKED PAST Karr at the crowd that was gathering and straightened, making himself less threatening.

"I have no fight with you, Gregor Karr. You served your Master well.

But enough's enough. One must respect one's Master, surely? One must be in awe of him, neh?" He gestured toward the fallen bundle by the palisade. "But how can you be in awe of that?"

Karr looked to Li Yuan, then back at Lehmann. It was in his power to choose. For this one brief moment, as the rain fell and the storm gathered strength, he had been granted the freedom to determine how he lived.

And the choice? The choice was simple. It was whether he chose to carry on, confused, struggling to make sense of things, to bring some form of good from the chaos of his life, or to submit to the certainties—the rigid order—of this other way.

Li Yuan groaned again and opened his eyes.

"Is the promise good?" he asked, looking to him.

Li Yuan coughed, then struggled to his knees. "Promise?"

"What you said to Ebert."

"Ah . . ." Li Yuan looked to Lehmann, then back at Karr. "I swore."

"You'll tear it down?"

The rain beat down. The torch gusted in the wind. Across from him Lehmann waited, crouched now, the knife slowly turning in his hand.

"I swear I'll tear it down."

Lehmann sprang. His knife arced toward Karr's throat, his foot toward his guts.

Karr shifted back a fraction, the torch spinning from his grip. His left forearm turned the knife thrust, his knee met Lehmann's foot. His right hand punched.

Lehmann was dead before he fell.

Fate. In a second he had decided what would be. As the thunder growled, he stepped back, letting a shuddering breath escape him. It was done with. Finished.

Someone picked up the torch and held it up. In its light he saw the dead man shudder, then lie still. Turning, he saw that Li Yuan was watching him, his dark eyes staring, trying to understand just what had happened.

"Chieh Hsia," he said, kneeling. Yet somehow the balance had changed. In a single moment he had made sense of his life. One single action—one single, physical action—had changed the shape of things. Had he died—had Lehmann triumphed over him—the future would have been different, the balance altered.

He shivered, then stood and stepped away. The rain was falling hard now. They would need to find better shelter than a tent afforded them.

He looked to Li Yuan again. The T'ang's silks were sticking to him, his dark hair plastered to his head. Karr frowned, understanding it at last. There were no levels, only those Man invented for himself. And Li Yuan ... Li Yuan was just another man.

"Come," he said, holding out his hand, offering it to the man. "We'd best get out of this."

Li Yuan took the offered hand, letting himself be helped up, then smiled.

"Round everyone up," Karr said, looking about him. "We'll go to the island. To Kalevala. It's no good here. This weather . . ."

Thunder cracked and rumbled over the plain. The rain intensified, drumming madly on the canvas close by. The torch hissed and suddenly went out. As it did, lightning played on the rim of the ruined fortress to the east.

Li Yuan looked up at Karr and nodded. "We'd better wake them. Warn them we're coming."

"Wake them?" Karr laughed. Yes, wake them, he thought. A new age beckoned. A new way. He felt a thrill flash through him, then, laughing, wiped the rain from his face.

So it began. So the Wheel turned and the world changed. He looked down at the corpse of the albino and nodded to himself.

So it began.

DEVORE SAT IN THE pilot's seat of the tiny one-man craft, hovering above the boiling sea, the rain hammering at the craft's wings as he looked out through the rain-streaked window.

The sea was awash with corpses, his own face, dead, forty million times dead, staring up at him blindly, endlessly.

As he watched the last of his ships slip beneath the darkness he nodded to himself. The game was lost. It was time to cut and run, back to the no-space. Back to the cold dark space from which he'd come.

EPILOGUE SPRING 2222

Starlight and Nonbeing

Starlight asked Nonbeing: "Master, are you? Or are you not?"

Since he received no answer whatever, Starlight set himself to watch for Nonbeing. He waited to see if Nonbeing would put in an appearance.

He kept his gaze fixed on the deep Void, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nonbeing.

All day long he looked, and he saw nothing. He listened, but heard nothing. He reached out to grasp, and grasped nothing.

Then Starlight exclaimed at last: "This is IT!"

"This is the farthest yet! Who can reach it? I can comprehend the absence of Being But who can comprehend the absence of Nothing? If now, on top of all this, Nonbeing IS, Who can comprehend it?"

—chuang tzu, Writings, xxii, VIII, sixth century B.C.

EPILOGUE

Starlight and Nonbeing

SHE HAD WALKED for four days, through abandoned levels and empty rooms, past broken barricades and scenes of desolation, returning to him. Through the nightmare vistas of a ruined City, through scenes of misery and torment and the utmost degradation, she passed like a shadow, unseen, untroubled by the gangs of thugs and madmen who roamed like pack dogs in those half-lit regions.

Eventually she stood there in the room she had shared with him, looking about her at the wreckage, and felt the last faint glimmer of hope die in her. She had been so sure—so certain he'd be here.

She sat, weary now, letting her head fall. If she died it would not matter. Let the sky fall and the earth crack open, it would make no difference now.

For a long time she slept, beaten, finally defeated by the world. Then, pulling herself to her feet, she turned and went from the room, not knowing where she'd go.

Main seemed echoing and empty. Glass littered the floor from broken screens, but one still functioned at the far end by the clock tower. Beneath it a small crowd had gathered, standing idly or sitting on their bundles, as if waiting to see this last transmission before they, too, moved on.

She walked across and stood there at the back, looking up at the screen, her eyes registering nothing. Dead. This world was dead now, and she with it. She looked down, meaning to walk on, then saw him, there at the front, leaning against the barrier.

"Lin?" She went toward him, not sure at first that it was him. Then, as the certainty of it gripped her, she called to him, louder this time.

"Lin! Lin Shang!"

He turned sharply, fearful, his lopsided face grimacing fiercely, then saw her. The grimace became a smile. He took a step toward her, then stopped, looking down, the smile vanishing. Both his hands were bandaged. In one he loosely held a scrap of paper.

"Lin!" she said breathlessly, coming up to him and gripping his upper arms. "Lin! What happened to your hands?"

He shook his head, refusing to look at her.

"Lin! What is it?"

Slowly he held out the paper. She took it and unfolded it. On it was a picture of her face. She recognized it at once. It was one of the handbills Michael had been distributing throughout the levels before the War. She stared at it a moment, then, looking back at him, held it out.

"Lin Shang . . . look at me."

Slowly, fearfully, he raised his eyes.

She tore the paper, then tore it once again and let it fall. Then, reaching down, she picked up his pack and, placing her arm about his shoulders, began to lead him away.

"Come, Lin," she said gently. "There's mending to be done."

BENEATH THE camera's solemn gaze the funeral cortege crossed the bridge then climbed the great steps, pausing beneath the gate of Bremen fortress for those senior officers who had survived to remove their caps and bow respectfully before the Marshal's body.

Tolonen was dead. Now he lay in the great coffin, his face made up to. resemble life, his corpse padded out to fill his Marshal's uniform. Ten stout cadets carried the great casket, while behind it the Marshal's daughter, Jelka, walked slowly, dressed from head to toe in white, her son one side of her, her diminutive husband the other. Beyond her, bareheaded and dressed in sackcloth, honoring his father's General, walked Li Yuan, and behind him his court.

Karr was next, his old lieutenant Chen beside him.

Last came Ebert and the Osu, their eight black faces exposed to the watching eyes of those millions who had survived to witness this final act.

Li Yuan, looking up at the casket, sighed. Ice, flood, and fire, they had survived it all. And now, it seemed, they were to place the old world in the earth: for Tolonen had been the keystone of the arch, and, as his father had so often said, without the keystone, the arch must surely fall.

He had had a plot cleared at the center of the fortress, at ground level. There he would bury the old man, and around his grave he would begin the task of rebuilding his world, of fulfilling his promise to Ebert and the Osu. The promise he'd renewed to Karr.

They had been given a chance—a breathing space in which to bring about a change. Change such as his father would never have dreamed of.

You must not fail, he told himself, stepping beneath arch into the sepulchral darkness of the great atrium.

That morning, against habit, he had called his wife's Wu and had the old man cast the oracle.

Wei chi, it had been . . . Before completion.

He smiled, recalling the old man's words.

"Before completion. Success.

But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing,

Gets his tail in the water,

There is nothing that would further."

He understood. Ahead of him lay his greatest task, that of leading his world from disorder into order; of shaping it into a newer, healthier form; of giving the world he had inherited true balance. But in so doing he must be like an old fox walking over ice. He must be the unifying force behind it all, stopping often to listen for the cracking of the ice where it was thinnest.

Yes, and he must keep his tail out of the icy water!

AFTER THE CEREMONY, Li Yuan went across to Ebert, who was standing with the Osu between the huge pillars of the Hall.

As the Osu stepped back, Ebert turned his blind eyes on the young T'ang and bowed low. "Li Yuan."

"There is some final business between us," Yuan said, turning to take the two documents from Nan Ho. "Promises I made you."

Ebert smiled. "You gave your word. That is enough for me."

"Perhaps . . . but maybe I have less faith in myself than you, Hans Ebert. These"—he handed them across—"these are as a sign to all men. The one returns your name to you and absolves you of all blame for your father's death, the other is a statement of my government's policy from henceforth."

"Then you will tear it down?"

"I shall. Beginning here, at Bremen."

"And in its place?"

Li Yuan shrugged. "Who knows? The oracle bids me be like an old fox on the ice. It will doubtless be many years before the crossing's made."

"But beginning is something, neh?"

Li Yuan smiled and nodded. "And you, Hans Ebert? Will you stay and see those changes come about?"

Ebert bowed his head slightly. "Forgive me, Li Yuan, but I have other plans. I have a son I do not know, and a people who must find a proper home. Now that DeVore has gone, they have an itch to return from whence they came so long ago."

"I see."

"Make sure you do," Ebert said, laughing softly. Then, with a bow, he turned and went to join the Osu.

IT WAS SILENT where he sat between the worlds. Silent and dark. Outside the stars shimmered redly, elongated toward him as his craft sped out toward the System's edge.

He had begun a new game; had placed the first stone on the board. Now he stared at it fixedly, conscious that he must learn it all again.

"What do you want, old man?" he asked, looking up at the shadowy figure seated across from him.

"To travel with you," the other answered, leaning closer as he placed an answering stone. "And to enlighten you."

DeVore laughed. "Enlighten me?"

The old man stared back at him, his dark eyes narrowed. "You think yourself beyond enlightenment?"

"No. No . . . it's just . . ." Again he laughed, amused by the whole thing.

"You lost," the old man said, sitting back.

"You cheated," DeVore answered, placing a second stone. "I don't know how, but that's the only way you could have beaten me."

"The only way?" It was the old man's turn to laugh. "You stare into the dark and think the dark is all."

"In the beginning there was nothing. And in the end . . ." DeVore shrugged. "Nothing."

"And yet we live in-between, neh?" The old man slapped down another stone—carelessly, it seemed.

DeVore stared at it, then shook his head. "It's all such a mess, don't you think? All so ... confused."

"That is one way of looking at things. But there are others, surely? As Chuang Tzu said, the human form has ten thousand changes that never come to an end. In consequence one's joys, like one's sorrows, must be uncountable. Life . . . life cannot be reduced. It cannot be tidied up, the way you wish to. It simply is."

DeVore snorted. "Nonsense! Life's there to be shaped, to be changed into other, better forms. Why give us knowledge if we are not to act upon it? Why give us power if we cannot use that power?"

"To teach restraint?" The old man waved a hand across the board. "It is like the game. It must not be mistaken for life."

DeVore stared at him, then picked up the board and threw it at him. It passed through the old man, landing on the floor, the stones scattering.

The old man was gone.

"Light and air," he said contemptuously. "That's all you ever were, old man. Starlight and nothingness!" He stood, stretching, looking about himself at the tiny cabin.

The room was dark. He was alone now. He had always been alone. Outside the stars shimmered redly.

Restraint, he thought and laughed, just wait. I'll teach you cunts restraint!

END OF BOOK SIX