Chung Kuo - The Marriage Of The Living Dark Part 44

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

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

"What is it?"

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

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

There was a stifled cry and then a sudden thras.h.i.+ng sound. The wall of verdancy trembled then was still.

It was silent again. Peaceful. The sunlight beat down upon the rus.h.i.+ng stream. Like a dream, the wall s.h.i.+mmered and was gone. Beyond where it had been was only tree and shadow. There was no sign of the boy.

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

Them? Or If?

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

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

"Daniel?"

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

"Yes?"

"Is it always going to be like this?"

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

Full cirde, he thought, remembering what he'd read and imagining a world before humanity, before even the insects came. A green world. A world of silence and sunlight and growth.

And us? What happens to us? To humankind?

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

"Here," the boy's voice said, a ghostly echo of itself, "is this what you wanted?"

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

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

"Only the green."

Daniel nodded. "And us?"

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

"Come," he said, no longer masking the tiredness he felt from his voice. "Let's get back."

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

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

"d.a.m.n him!"

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

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

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

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

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

Soon he would wake and know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"If it were only so simple ..."

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

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

There was a moment's pause, then the young man's voice filled the room. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"Daniel's late. I want a search party sent out Lin Pei knows the details."

"Yes, Ma'am."

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

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

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

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

"Yes, Lin Pei?"

'If s Daniel, mother. He's back."

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

"In the corridor outside Isolation."

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

Silence, then. "I'm not sure. Anders didn't come back."

"Wait there. I'm coming."

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

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

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

Then why don't they? Why don't they simply end it, quickly and painlessly? Why tease us and torment us in this fas.h.i.+on?

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

Activating the microphone, she spoke.

"Daniel?"

"Yes, mother?"

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

"What happened out there?"

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

"The floraform. I'm fairly certain now. If s one being. It took Anders.

Transformed him."

"Ahh..."

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

"It what?"

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

"Yes." Daniel's eyes slid away, then met hers again. "That I don't understand.

Not yet"

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

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

Daniel gasped.

"Yes," Emily said, from where she sat beside him in the darkness. She covered his hand with her own. "It shocked me when I first saw it"

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

A copy. DeVore had had him copied.

Daniel swallowed. "When did this come?"

"Two days back."

His head turned. "Then why . ..?"

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

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

She squeezed his hand. "Keep watching."

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

"There," Emily said, feeling the same frisson of surprise -and shock - she'd had the first time she'd seen it Herself. But no longer young. Herself as she was now. Grey-haired, her flesh lined with age. Daniel was quiet a moment, then he nodded. "So he's finally going to come for us."

"Yes."

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

The film ran on.

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