Chapter 48
COMPULSIONS
That night he dreamed.
He was floating above a desert, high up, the jet-black, lavatic sands stretching off to the horizon on every side. Tall spirals of dust moved slowly across the giant plain, like fluted pillars linking Heaven and Earth. A cold wind blew. Over all, a black sun sat like a sunken eye in a sky of bloodied red.
He had come here from dead lands, deserted lands, where temples to forgotten gods lay in ruins, open to the sky; had drifted over vast mountain ranges, their peaks a uniform black, the purest black he’d ever seen, untouched by snow or ice; had glided over plains of dark, fused glass, where the image of his small, compacted self flew like a doppelganger under him, soaring to meet him when he fell, falling as he rose. And now he was here, in this empty land, where colour ended and silence was a wall within the skull.
Time passed. Then, with a huge, almost animal shudder that shook the air about him, the sands beneath him parted, the great dunes rolling back, revealing the perfect smoothness of a lake, its red-tinged waters like a mirror.
He fell. Turning in the air, he made an arrow of himself, splitting the dark, oily surface cleanly. Down he went, the coal black liquid smooth, unresistant, flowing about his body like cold fire.
Deep he went, so deep that his ears popped and bled. His lungs, like flowers, blossomed in the white cage of his chest, bursting, flooding his insides with a fiery hotness. For a moment the blackness was within, seeping into him through every pore; a barrier through which he must pass. Then he was through; freed from his normal, human self. And still he sank, like a spear of iron, down through the blackness, until there, ten miles beneath the surface, the depths were seared with brightness.
The lake’s bed was white, like bone; clean and polished and flat, like something made by men. It glowed softly from beneath, as if another land – miraculous and filled, as bright as this was dark – lay on the far side of its hard, unyielding barrier.
He turned his eyes, drawn to something to his left. He swam towards it.
It was a stone. A dark, perfect circle of stone, larger than his palm. It had a soft, almost dusted surface. He touched it, finding it cool and hard. Then, as he watched, it seemed to melt and flow, the upper surface flattening, the thin edge crinkling. Now it was a shell, an oyster, its circumference split by a thin, uneven line of darkness.
His hand went to his waist and took the scalpel from its tiny sheath, then slipped its edge between the plates. Slowly, reluctantly, they parted, like a moth’s wings opening to the sun.
Inside was a pearl of darkness – a tiny egg so dark, so intensely black, that it seemed to draw all light into itself. He reached out to take it, but even as he closed his left hand about the pearl, he felt its coldness burn into his flesh then fall, like a drop of Heaven’s fire, on to the bed below.
Astonished, he held the hand up before his face and saw the perfect hole the pearl had made. He turned the hand. Right through. The pearl had passed right through.
He shivered. And then the pain came back, like nothing he had ever experienced.
Ben woke and sat upright, beaded in sweat, his left hand held tightly in his right, the pain from it quite real. He stared at it, expecting to see a tiny hole burned through from front to back, but there was no outward sign of what was wrong. It spasmed again, making him cry out, the pain unbelievable – worse than the worst cramp he had ever had.
‘Shit!’ he said beneath his breath, annoyed at himself for his weakness. Control the pain, he thought. Learn from it. He gritted his teeth and looked at the timer on the wall beside his bed. It was just after five.
He must have damaged the hand, getting Meg out of the water.
When the pain subsided he got up, cradling the hand against his chest, and began to dress. It was more difficult than he had imagined, for the slightest awkward movement of the hand would put it into spasm again, taking his breath. But eventually it was done and, quietly, he made his way out and down the passageway.
The door to Meg’s room was open. Careful not to wake her, he looked inside. Her bed was to the left against the far wall, the window just above her head. She lay on her front, her hair covering her face, her shoulders naked in the shadow, her right arm bent above the covers. The curtains were drawn, the room in partial darkness, but a small gap high up let in a fragment of the early morning sun, a narrow bar of golden light. It traced a contoured line across the covers and up the wall, revealing part of her upper arm. He stared at it a moment, oblivious of the dull pain in his hand, seeing how soft her flesh seemed in this light.
For a moment he hesitated, wondering if he should wake her.
And if he did?
He shivered, remembering how she had come to him in the night, and felt that same strong stirring of desire. Though it disturbed him, he could not lie to himself. He wanted her. More now than before. Wanted to kiss the softness of her neck and see her turn, warm and smiling, and take him in her arms.
The shiver that ran up his spine was like the feeling he had when listening to an exquisite piece of music, or on first viewing a perfect work of art. But how so? he wondered. Or was all art grounded in desire?
The fingers of his damaged hand clenched again. He took a sharp intake of breath against the pain and leaned his shoulder against the doorpost. It was the worst yet and left him feeling cold and weak, his brow beaded with sweat. He would have to have it seen to today. This morning, if possible. But first there was something he must do.
He went down and unlatched the door that led into the garden. Outside the air was sharp, fresh, the sky clear after the rain. Long shadows lay across the glittering, dew-soaked grass, exaggerating every hump and hollow, making the ground seem rutted and uneven. The roses were beaded with dew, the trestle table dark and wet.
He was still a moment, listening to the call of birds in the eaves above him and in the trees down by the water. It was strange how that sound seemed always not to breach but to emphasize the underlying silence.
The pain came again, more bearable this time. He braced himself against it, then, when it was fading, lifted the injured hand to his face. There was the faintest scent of burning. A sweet, quite pleasant scent. He pressed it against his cheek. It was warm. Unnaturally warm.
Cradling the hand against his chest, he stared out across the lawn towards the shadowed bay. The tide was high. Sunlight lay in the trees on the far side of the water, creeping slowly towards the waterline.
He smiled. This much never changed: each day created anew; light flying out from everything, three hundred metres in a millionth of a second, off on its journey to infinity.
He went down, across the lawn and on to the narrow gravel path that led, by way of an old, rickety gate, into the meadows. The grass here was knee high, uncut since his father had left, three months past, the tall stems richly green and tufted. He waded out into that sea of grass, ignoring the path that cut down to the meandering creek, making for the Wall.
There, at the foot of the Wall, he stopped, balanced at the end of a long rib of rock that protruded above the surrounding marshland. The Wall was an overpowering presence here, the featureless whiteness of its two-li height making a perfect geometric turn of one hundred and twenty degrees towards the southeast. It was like being in the corner of a giant’s playbox, the shadow of the Wall so deep it seemed almost night. Even so, he could make out the great circle of the Seal quite clearly, there, at the bottom of the Wall, no more than thirty paces distant.
Ben squatted and looked about him. Here memory was dense. Images clustered about him like restless ghosts. He had only to close his eyes to summon them back. There, off to his left, he could see the dead rabbit from five years before, sunk into the grass. And there, just beyond it, his father, less than a year ago, looking back towards him but pointing at the Seal, explaining the new policy the Seven had drawn up for dealing with incursions from the Clay. He turned his head. To his right he could see Meg, a hundred, no, a thousand times, smiling or thoughtful, standing and sitting, facing towards him or away, running through the grass or simply standing by the creek, looking outward at the distant hills. Meg as a child, a girl, a woman. Countless images of her. All stored, hoarded in his mind. And for what? Why such endless duplication of events?
He shuddered, then turned, looking back at the cottage, thinking how ageless it seemed in this early morning light. He looked down, then rubbed the back of his left hand with his right, massaging it. It felt better now, more relaxed, which made him think it was some form of cramp. But did machines get cramp?
He breathed deeply, then laughed. And what if we’re all machines? What if we’re merely programmed to think otherwise?
Then the answer would be, yes, machines get cramp.
It was strange, that feeling of compulsion he had had to come here. Overpowering, like his desire for Meg. It frightened him. And even when it was purged it left him feeling less in control of himself than he had ever been. Part of that, of course, was the drugs – or the absence of them. It was over a week now since he had last taken them. But it was more than that. He was changing. He could feel it in himself. But into what? And for what purpose?
He stared at the Seal a moment longer, then looked away, disturbed. It was like in his dream. The bottom of the lake: that had been the Wall. He had sunk through the darkness to confront the Wall.
And?
He shivered. No, he didn’t understand it yet. Perhaps, being what he was – schizophrenic – he couldn’t understand it. Not from where he was, anyway. Not from the inside. But if he passed through?
He stared at the Wall intently, then looked down. And if his father said no? If his father said he couldn’t go to college?
Ben got to his feet, turning his back upon the Wall. If Hal said no he would defy him. He would do it anyway.
‘Again, Meg. And this time try to relax a bit. Your fingers are too tense. Stretch them gently. Let them feel for the notes. Accuracy is less important than feeling at this stage. Accuracy will come, but the feeling has to be there from the start.’
Meg was sitting beside her mother at the piano. It was just after nine and they had been practising for more than an hour already, but she was determined to master the phrase – to have something to show Ben when he returned.
She began again. This time it seemed to flow better. She missed two notes and one of the chords was badly shaped, yet, for all its flaws, it sounded much more like the phrase her mother had played than before. She turned and saw Beth was smiling.
‘Good, Meg. Much better. Try it again. This time a little slower.’
She did as she was bid, leaning forward over the keys. This time it was note perfect and she sat back, pleased with herself, feeling a genuine sense of achievement. It was only a small thing, of course – nothing like Ben’s playing – yet it was a start: the first step in her attempt to keep up with him.
She looked round again. Her mother was watching her strangely.
‘What is it?’
Beth took her hand. ‘You’re a good child, Meg. You know that? Nothing comes easy to you. Not like Ben. But you work at it. You work hard. And you never get disheartened. I’ve watched you labour at something for weeks, then seen Ben come along and master it in a few moments. And always – without fail – you’ve been delighted for him. Not envious, as some might be. Or bitter. And that’s...’ She laughed. ‘Well, it’s remarkable. And I love you for it.’
Meg looked down. ‘He needs someone.’
‘He does, doesn’t he?’
‘I mean...’ Meg placed her free hand gently on the keys, making no sound. ‘It must be difficult being as he is. Being so alone.’
‘Alone? I don’t follow you, Meg.’
‘Like Zarathustra, up in his cave on the mountainside. Up where the air is rarefied, and few venture. Only with Ben the mountain, the cave are in his head.’
Beth nodded thoughtfully. ‘He’s certainly different.’
‘That’s what I mean. It’s his difference that makes him alone. Even if there were a hundred thousand people here, in the Domain, he would be separate from them all. Cut off by what he is. That’s why I have to make the effort. To try to reach him where he is. To try to understand what he is and what he needs.’
Beth looked at her daughter, surprised. ‘Why?’
‘Because he’s Ben. And because I love him.’
She reached out and gently brushed Meg’s cheek with her knuckles. ‘That’s nice. But you don’t have to worry. Give him time. He’ll find someone.’
Meg looked away. Her mother didn’t understand. There was no one else for Ben. No one who would ever understand him a tenth as well. Not one in the whole of Chung Kuo.
‘Do you want to play some more?’
Meg shook her head. ‘Not now. This afternoon, perhaps?’
‘All right. Some breakfast, then?’
Meg smiled. ‘Why not?’
They were in the kitchen, at the big, scrubbed pine table, their meal finished, when there were footsteps on the flagstones outside. The latch creaked, then the door swung outward. Ben stood in the doorway, looking in, his left arm held strangely at his side.
‘That smells good.’
His mother got up. ‘Sit down. I’ll cook you something.’
‘Thanks. But not now.’ He looked at Meg. ‘Are you free, Megs? I need to talk.’
Meg looked across at her mother. She had been about to help her with the washing. ‘Can I?’
Beth smiled and nodded. ‘Go on. I’ll be all right.’
Meg got up, taking her plate to the sink, then turned back, facing him. ‘Where have you been... ?’ She stopped, noticing how he was holding his left arm. ‘Ben? What have you done?’
He stared at her a moment, then looked towards his mother. ‘I’ve damaged the hand. I must have done it on the rocks.’ He held it out to her. ‘I can barely use it. If I try to it goes into spasm.’
Beth wiped her hands, then went to him. She took the hand carefully and studied it, Meg at her side, her face filled with concern.
‘Well, there’s no outward sign of damage. And it was working perfectly well yesterday.’
Ben nodded. ‘Yes. But that stint at the piano probably didn’t help it any.’
‘Does it hurt?’ Meg asked.
‘It did. When I woke up. But I’ve learned how not to set it off. I pretend the problem’s higher up. Here.’ He tapped his left shoulder with his right hand. ‘I pretend the whole arm’s dead. That way I’m not tempted to try to use the hand.’
Beth placed his arm back against his side, then turned away, looking for something in the cupboards. ‘Have you notified anyone?’
He nodded. ‘Two hours back. When I came in from the meadows. They’re sending a man this afternoon.’
She turned back, a triangle of white cloth between her hands. ‘Good. Well, for now I’ll make a sling for you. That’ll ease the strain of carrying it about.’
He sat, letting his mother attend to him. Meg, meanwhile, stood beside him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.
‘Why was the keyboard black? I mean, totally black?’
He looked up at her. ‘Why?’
Meg shrugged. ‘It’s been playing on my mind, that’s all. It just seemed... strange. Unnecessary.’
Beth, kneeling before him, fastening the sling at his shoulder, looked up, interested in what he would say.
‘It’s just that I find the old-style keyboard distracting. It preconditions thought; sets the mind into old patterns. But that all-black keyboard is only a transitional stage. A way of shaking free old associations. Ultimately I want to develop a brand-new keyboard – one better suited to what I’m doing.’
‘There!’ Beth tightened the knot then stood up. ‘And what are you doing?’
Ben met her eyes candidly. ‘I don’t know yet. Not the all of it, anyway.’ He stood, moving his shoulder slightly. ‘Thanks. That’s much easier.’ Then he looked across at Meg. ‘Are you ready?’
She hesitated, wondering for a moment if she might persuade him to listen to the piano phrase she had learned that morning, then smiled and answered him softly. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’
It was late morning, the sun high overhead, the air clear and fresh. They sat beneath the trees on the slope overlooking the bay, sunlight through the branches dappling the grass about them, sparkling on the water below. Above them, near the top of the hillside, obscured by a small copse of trees, was the ruined barn, preserved as it had been when their great-great-great-grandfather, Amos, had been a boy.
For two hours they had rehearsed the reasons why Ben should leave or stay. Until now it had been a reasonably amicable discussion, a clearing of the air, but things had changed. Now Meg sat there, her head turned away from her brother, angry with him.
‘You’re just pig stubborn! Did you know that, Ben? Stubborn as in stupid. It’s not the time. Not now.’
He answered her quietly, knowing he had hurt her. ‘Then when is the time? I have to do this. I feel I have to. And all the rest... that’s just me rationalizing that feeling. It’s the feeling – the instinct – that I trust.’
She turned on him, her eyes flashing. ‘Instinct! Wasn’t it you who said that instinct was just a straitjacket – the Great Creator’s way of showing us whose fingers are really on the control buttons?’
He laughed, but she turned away from him. For once this was about something other than what he wanted. This was to do with Meg, with her needs.
‘Don’t make it hard, Megs. Please don’t.’
She shivered and stared outward, across the water, her eyes burning, her chin jutting defiantly. ‘Why ask me? You’ll do what you want to anyway. Why torment me like this when you know you’ve decided already what you’re going to do?’
He watched her, admiring her, wanting to lean forward and kiss her neck, her shoulder. She was wearing a long, nut-brown cotton dress that was drawn in below the breasts and buttoned above. The hem of it was gathered about her knees, exposing the tanned flesh of her naked calves. He looked down, studying her feet, noting the delicacy of the toes, the finely rounded nails. She was beautiful. Even her feet were beautiful. But she could not keep him here. Nothing could keep him. He must find himself. Maybe then he could return.
‘Don’t chain me, Meg. Help me become myself. That’s all I’m asking.’
She turned angrily, as if to say something, then looked down sharply, her hurt confusion written starkly on her face.
‘I want to help you, Ben. I really do. It’s just...’
He hardened himself against her, against the pity he instinctively felt. She was his sister. His lover. There was no one in the world he was closer to and it was hard to hurt her like this, but hurt her he must, or lose sight of what he must become. In time she would understand this, but for now the ties of love blinded her to what was best. And not just for him, but for the two of them.
‘Keep me here, Meg and it’ll die in me. It’ll turn inward and fester. You know it will. And I’ll blame you for that. Deep down I’ll come to hate you for keeping me here. And I never want to hate you. Never.’
She met his eyes, her own moist with unshed tears. Then she turned and came to him, holding him, careful not to hurt his damaged arm, her head laid warmly, softly, on his right shoulder.
‘Well?’ he said after a while. ‘Will you support me against Father?’
He noticed the slight change in her breathing. Then she moved back away from him, looking at him intently, as if reading something in his face.
‘You think he’ll try to stop you?’
Ben nodded. ‘He’ll make excuses. The uncertainty of the times. My age.’
‘But what if he’s right, Ben? What if it is too dangerous? What if you are too young?’
‘Too young? I’m seventeen, Meg. Seventeen! And, apart from that one visit to Tongjiang, I’ve never seen anything other than this, never been anywhere but here.’
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Yes. Because there’s more to life than this. Much more. There’s a whole new world in there. One I’ve no real knowledge of. And I need to experience it. Not at second hand, through a screen, but close up.’
She looked down. ‘What you were saying, Ben, about me chaining you. I’d never do that. You know I wouldn’t. And I can free you. But not in there. Not in the City.’ She raised her eyes. ‘This is our place. Right here. It’s what we’ve been made for. Like the missing pieces of a puzzle.’ She paused, then, more earnestly, she went on, ‘We’re not like them, Ben. We’re different. Different in kind. Like aliens. You’ll find that out.’
‘All part of Amos’s great experiment, eh?’
‘Maybe...’ But it wasn’t what she had meant. She was thinking less of genetic charts than of something deeper in their natures – some sense of connection with the earth that they had, and that others – cut off by the walls and levels of the City – lacked. It was as if they were at the same time both more and less advanced as human beings, more primitive and yet more exalted spiritually. They were the bridge between Heaven and Earth – the link between the distant past and the far future. For them, therefore, the City was an irrelevancy – a wrong direction Man had taken – and for Ben to embrace it was simply foolish, a waste of his precious time and talents.
Besides which, she needed him. Needed him as much – though he did not see it yet – as he needed her. It would break her heart to see him go.
‘Is that all?’ he asked, sensing she had more to say.
She answered him quietly, looking away past him as she spoke. ‘No. It’s more than that. I worry about you. All this business with morphs and mimicry. I fear where it will take you.’
‘Ah...’ He smiled and looked down, plucking a tall stem of grass and putting it to his mouth. ‘You know, Meg, in the past there was a school of thought that associated the artist with Satan. They argued that all art was blasphemy – an abrogation of the role of the Creator. They claimed that all artists set themselves up in place of God, making their tiny satanic palaces – their pandemoniums – in mimicry of God’s eternal City. They were wrong, of course, but in a sense it’s true. All art is a kind of mimicry, an attempt to get closer to the meaning of things.
‘Some so-called artists are less interested in understanding why things are as they are than in providing a showcase for their own egotism, but in general true art – art of the kind that sears you – is created from a desire to understand, not to replace. Mimicry, at that level, is a form of worship.’
She laughed softly. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in God.’
‘I don’t. But I believe in the reality of all this that surrounds us. I believe in natural processes. In the death of stars and the cycle of the seasons. In the firing of the synapses and the inexorable decay of the flesh. In the dark and the light.’
‘And in the City, too?’
He smiled. ‘That too is a process, part of the natural flow of things, however “unnatural” it might seem. The City is an expression of human intelligence, which, after all, is a natural thing. It’s too easy to dismiss its artificiality as an antithesis to nature, when all it really is is an attempt to simplify and thus begin to understand the complexity of natural processes.’
‘And to control those processes.’
‘Yes, but there are levels of control. For instance, what controls us that makes us want to control other things? Is it all just genetics? And even if it is, what reason is there for that? We’ve been asking ourselves that question since DNA was first isolated, and we’re still no closer to an answer.’
She looked away sharply, as if suddenly tired of the conversation. ‘I don’t know, Ben. It all seems suddenly so bleak. So dark.’
Again he misread her comment, mistook its surface content for its deeper meaning. ‘Yes,’ he said, staring out across the water. ‘But what is darkness? Is it only a space waiting to be filled? Or has it a purpose? Something other than simple contrast?’
‘Ben...’
He looked back at her, surprised by the brittle tone she had used. She was looking at him strangely.
‘Yes?’
‘What about us? How do we fit in with all these processes?’
‘We’re a focus, a filter...’
But she was shaking her head. ‘No. I didn’t mean that. I meant us. You and me. Is that just process? Just a function of the universe? Is what I feel for you just another fact to be slotted into the great picture? Or is there more to it than that? Are there parts of it that just don’t fit?’
Again the bitterness in her voice surprised him. He had thought it resolved between them, but now he understood: it would never be finally resolved until he was gone from here.
‘Three years,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’ll need. You’ll be, what... seventeen – my age now – when I come back. It’s not long, Meg. Really it isn’t.’
She rose, moving away, then stood at the edge of the trees above him, her back turned.
‘You talk of dying if you stay. But I’ll die if you go. Don’t you understand that, Ben? Without you here it’ll be like I’m dead.’ She turned to him, her eyes wide with hurt and anger. ‘You’re my eyes, my ears, the animating force behind each moment of my day. Without you... I don’t exist!’
He gave a short laugh, surprised by her intensity. ‘But that’s silly, Meg. Of course you exist. Besides, there’s Mother...’
‘Gods! You really don’t understand, do you?’
There was that same, strange, unreadable movement in her face, then, abruptly, she turned away, beginning to climb the slope.
Ben got up awkwardly and made to follow her, making his way between the trees, careful not to knock his useless arm, but she had begun to run now, her whole body leaning into the slope as she struggled to get away from him.
At the edge of the trees he stopped, wincing from the sudden pain in his hand, then called out to her. ‘Meg! Stop! Please stop!’
She slowed then stood there, just below the barn, her back to him, her head lowered, waiting.
Coming to her, he moved round her, then lifted her face with his good hand. She was crying.
‘Meg...’ he said softly, torn by what he saw. ‘Please don’t cry. There’s no reason to cry. Really there isn’t.’
She swallowed, then looked aside, for a moment like a hurt four-year-old. Then, more defiantly, she met his eyes again, bringing up a hand to wipe the tears away.
‘I love you,’ he said gently. ‘You know that.’
‘Then make love to me again.’
He laughed, but his eyes were serious. ‘What, here?’
She stared back at him challengingly. ‘Why not?’
He turned her slightly. From where they stood they could see the cottage clearly down below.
She turned back, her eyes watching him closely, studying his face. ‘All right. Up there, then. In the barn.’
He turned and looked, then nodded, a shiver passing down his spine.
She reached down, taking his good hand, then led him up the slope. At the barn door she turned, drawing him close, her arms about his neck. It was a long, passionate kiss, and when she pulled away from him her eyes were different. Older than he remembered them, more knowing.
She turned and led him through. Inside, the barn was filled with shadows. Bars of sunlight, some broad, some narrow, slanted down from gaps between the planks that formed the sides of the barn, creating broken veils of light from left to right.
‘Quick,’ she said, leading him further in. ‘Before Mother calls us in for lunch.’
He smiled and let himself be led, thrilled by the simple pressure of her hand against his own.
‘Here,’ she said, looking about her. A barrier of wooden slats formed a stall in the far left-hand corner; a space the size of a small box-room, filled waist-high with old hay. The warm, musty smell of the hay was strong but pleasant. Light, intruding from two knot-holes higher up, laced the shadows with twin threads of gold. Meg turned and smiled at him. ‘Lie down. I’ll lie on top of you.’
He sat, easing himself down on to the hay, feeling it yield beneath him, then let his head fall back, taking care not to jolt his hand. Lying there, looking up at her, his left arm still cradled in its sling, he felt like laughing.
‘Are you sure this is such a good idea?’
Her smile, strange, enigmatic at first, widened as she slowly undid the buttons at the front of her dress, then pulled it up over her shoulders. Beneath the dress she was naked.
Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. ‘Meg...’
She bent over him and eased the sling from his arm, then straddled him, the soft, warm weight of her pressed down against him, as she began to unbutton his shirt.
Meg’s face lay but a short space from his face, her lips slightly parted, the tip of her tongue peeping through, her eyes concentrating on her busy fingers. But Ben’s eyes were drawn to her breasts, to the hard, provocative shapes of her nipples.
He reached up and cupped her left breast in his hand, feeling its smooth warmness, then eased forward until his lips brushed against the budlike nipple.
Meg shuddered, her fingers faltering a moment. Ben drew back slightly, looking up into her face once more. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted more fully, reminding him fleetingly of one of those ancient paintings of religious ecstasy. He shivered then leaned forward again, drawing the breast back to his mouth, his tongue wetly tracing the stiff brown berry of the nipple, teasing it with his teeth and lips and tongue, conscious of Meg pressing herself down into him with each small motion.
He lay back again, ignoring the dull pain of the reawakened pulse in his hand, watching as her eyes slowly opened, smiling back at him.
For a while he lay there, letting her undress him. Then, his clothes set aside, she climbed above him again, the smooth warmth of her flesh against his own making him shiver with anticipation.
‘Close your eyes...’
He lay there, letting her make love to him, slowly at first, then, as the ancient rhythm took her, wildly, urgently, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly, her face changed, unrecognisable, her teeth clenched fiercely, her eyes staring wildly down at him. In it he saw a reflection of the agony he was suffering from his damaged hand. That lay beside him, quivering, the fingers clenched tight, trapped in a prolonged spasm that was as painful as her lovemaking was delightful. Faster and more furious she moved, until, with a shudder that brought on his own orgasm, she arched her back and cried out, forcing herself against him as if to breach him, as if to press through the flesh that separated them and become him.
Afterwards he lay still, the pain in his hand ebbing slowly. Meg lay across him, sleeping, her dark hair fanned across his chest. Two small bands of light lay across their shadowed bodies, like golden ribbons joining their flesh, striping them at chest and hip, tracing the contours of their expired lust.
Ben looked down the length of their bodies, studying the play of shadow within shadow, noting where flesh seemed to merge with flesh. The scent of their lovemaking filled the tiny space, mingling with the smell of old hay. It seemed part of the shadows, the dust-specked bands of light.
He closed his eyes, thinking. What had she meant by this? To show her love for him? Her need? Perhaps. But needs were of different kinds. She had been wrong earlier. Though she thought so now, she would not die for missing him. She would wait, as she always waited, knowing he would be back. But he – he had to go. He would go mad – literally, mad – if he did not leave this place. Each day now it grew worse. Each day the feeling grew in him, feeding his restlessness, stoking the fire of dissatisfaction that raged in his belly.
Out. He had to get out. Or ‘in’ as she preferred to call it. Whichever, he had to get away. Far away from here. Even from those he loved.
‘Ben...! Meg...!’
The calls were muted, distant, from the slope below the barn. Meg stirred and lifted her head slowly, turning to face him.
‘What’s that?’
He smiled and leaned forward, kissing her nose. ‘It’s all right. It’s only Mother calling us in. It must be lunchtime.’
‘Ah...’ She went to relax back, then pushed herself up abruptly, suddenly awake. ‘Only Mother!’
‘Mind...’ he said, wincing at the pain that shot up his arm where she had knocked his hand.
Her face was all concern. ‘Oh, Ben, I’m sorry...’
Then they were laughing, clutching each other, Ben’s hand held out to one side as he embraced her. And outside, more distantly, moving away from them now, the call came again.
‘Ben...! Meg...!’
Beth stood in the gateway at the bottom of the lower garden, relaxed, her apron tied loosely about her dress, waiting for them. She had let her hair down and she was smiling.
‘Where were you?’ she said as they came up to her. ‘I was looking everywhere. Didn’t you hear me calling?’
Meg looked away, but Ben went straight to his mother. ‘We were in the barn,’ he said casually. ‘It was warm in there and musty. We were talking, then we fell asleep. We must have missed you calling.’
‘I see,’ she said, smiling, ruffling his hair.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, falling in beside her while Meg walked on ahead. ‘Lunch isn’t spoiled, I hope.’
Beth smiled and shook her head. ‘I wasn’t calling you for lunch. It’s your father. He’s home.’
Meg turned. ‘Daddy...’ Then, without a further word, she raced up the slope and disappeared inside the house.
Ben walked beside his mother, taking her arm. ‘Is he okay?’
‘What do you mean?’
Ben stopped, looking at her. Her voice had seemed strange, her answer too defensive. His query had been politeness, but she had taken it for something more meaningful.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
Beth looked away. ‘I don’t know. He seems much older, somehow. Tired.’
‘Perhaps it’s overwork. Things have been bad in there.’
‘Yes... Maybe that’s it.’
They walked on. Up ahead, from inside the cottage, they could hear Meg’s squeals of delight. Then she appeared, cradling what looked like a tiny, animated fur hat. She thrust the bundle at Ben.
‘Isn’t he just adorable?’
Ben held the kitten up to his face, meeting its strange, alien eyes. ‘Hello, there, Mog. I’m Ben.’
Meg took the kitten back at once. ‘Don’t hurt him. And it’s not Mog. It’s Zarathustra.’
‘Of course.’ Ben reached out and rubbed the kitten between the ears, then moved past Meg into the doorway.
His father was sitting just inside, in the intense shadow of the hallway. Seeing Ben, his face creased into a smile.
‘Ben! How are you, lad?’
‘I’m fine,’ he answered, moving inside, feeling his mother’s hand on his shoulder. ‘And you, Father?’
‘I’ve been busy. Run ragged, you might say. I feel like I’ve put the whole world to rights these last few days.’
Hal Shepherd sat back in the tall-backed, armless chair, his arms stretched wide in a gesture of expansiveness. The old fire still burned in his eyes, but Ben could see at once that he was ill. He saw the lines of tiredness and strain, the redness at the corners of his eyes, the way his muscles stood out at his neck when he spoke, and knew it was more than simple fatigue.
‘The kitten’s beautiful. What is it? GenSyn?’
Hal shook his head. ‘No, Ben. It’s a real kitten. We confiscated its parents from Madam Moore the day the warrant was signed for her husband’s arrest. It seems there are a few cats left in the Wilds. Moore must have smuggled it in through quarantine for her.’
‘Or bribed his way.’
‘More likely...’ Hal took a deep breath – awkwardly, Ben thought – then smiled again. ‘I brought something back for you, too.’
‘A dog?’
Hal laughed, for a moment almost his old, vital self. ‘Now that would be something, wouldn’t it? But, no, I’m afraid not. Although I’ve a feeling that, as far as you’re concerned, you might find it a lot more interesting than a dog.’
‘What is it?’
Hal’s smile remained while he studied his son, as if this was a sight he had not expected to see again. Then, with a brief glance past him, at Beth, he said, ‘It’s downstairs. In the cellar workrooms. I’ve rigged one of them up ready for you to try.’
Ben frowned, trying to work out what his father meant, then he understood. ‘It’s a pai pi! You’ve brought back a pai pi!’
‘Not one, Ben. Eight of them.’
‘Eight!’ Ben laughed, astonished. ‘Christ! Where did you get them? I thought they’d all been destroyed years ago. They’ve been banned more than sixty years, haven’t they?’
‘That’s right. But there are collectors amongst the Above. Men who secretly hold on to banned technology. These were found in the collection of a First Level Executive.’
Ben understood at once. ‘The Confiscations...’
‘Exactly. The man was a Dispersionist. We were going to destroy them, but when I told Li Shai Tung of your interest, he signed a special order permitting me to take them out of the City. Here in the Domain, you see, the Edict has no power. We Shepherds can do as we wish.’
‘Can I try one now?’
Beth, her hand still on Ben’s shoulder, answered for her husband. ‘Of course. Meg and I will get dinner ready while you’re downstairs.’
Meg, coming in from outside, protested. ‘That’s unfair! Why can’t I join them?’
Hal laughed. ‘Well... Ben might be a bit embarrassed.’
‘What do you mean?’ Meg asked, cuddling the struggling kitten under her chin.
‘Just that it’s a full-body experience. Ben has to be naked in the harness.’
Meg laughed. ‘Is that all?’ She turned away slightly, a faint colour in her cheeks. ‘He was practically naked when he was working with the morph.’
Hal looked at his son, narrowing his eyes. ‘You’ve been using the morph, Ben? What for?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Ben said, watching Meg a moment, surprised by her sudden rebelliousness. ‘But later. After I’ve tried the pai pi.’
The cellars beneath the cottage had been added in his great-great-grandfather’s time, but it was only in the last decade that his father had set up a studio in one of the large, low-ceilinged rooms. Beneath stark, artificial lighting, electronic equipment filled two-thirds of the floor space, a narrow corridor between the free-standing racks leading to a cluttered desk by the far wall. To the left of the desk a curtain had been drawn across, concealing the open space beyond.
Ben went through. The eight pai pi lay on the desk, the small, dark, rectangular cases small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. He picked them up, one at a time, surprised by the weight of them. They looked like lozenges or like the ‘chops’ executives used to seal official documents, each one imprinted with the logo of the manufacturing company. Pai pi – the name meant, literally, ‘a hundred pens’ – provided full-body experiences, a medium that had blossomed briefly in the earliest days of the City as an entertainment for the very rich. The ‘cassettes’ themselves were only the software, the operational instructions; the hardware stood off to one side.
Hal pulled back a curtain. ‘There! What do you think?’
The couch was a work of art in itself, its curved, boat-like sides inlaid in pearl and ivory, the dark, see-through hood shaped like the lid of an ancient sarcophagus. At present the hood was pulled back, like a giant insect’s wing, exposing the padded interior. Dark blue silks – the colour that same blue-black the sky takes on before the dark – masked the internal workings of the machine, while depressed into the padded silk was a crude human shape. Like the instruments of some delicious mechanism of torture, fine filaments extended from all parts of the depression, the thread-like wires clustered particularly thickly about the head. These – the ‘hundred pens’ from which the art form derived its name, though only eighty-one in actuality – were the input points which, when the machine was operational, fed information to all the major loci of nerves in the recipient’s body.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Ben, going close and examining the couch with his fingers. He bent and sniffed at the slightly musty innards. ‘I wonder if he used it much?’
It was a deceptively simple device. A tiny, one-man dream palace. You lay down and were connected up; then, when the hood was lowered, you began to dream. Dreams that were supposed to be as real as waking.
‘Have you tried it out?’
‘One of the technicians did. With permission, of course.’
‘And?’
Hal smiled. ‘Why don’t you get in? Try it for yourself.’
He hesitated, then began to strip off, barely conscious of his father watching – the fascination of the machine casting a spell over him. Naked, he turned, facing his father. ‘What now?’
Hal came up beside him, his movements slower, heavier than Ben remembered, then bent down beside the machine and unfolded a set of steps.
‘Climb inside, Ben. I’ll wire you up.’
Fifteen minutes later he was ready, the filaments attached, the hood lowered. With an unexpected abruptness it began.
He was walking in a park, the solid shapes of trees and buildings surrounding him on every side. Overhead the sky seemed odd. Then he realized – he was inside the City and the sky was a ceiling fifty ch’i above him. He was aware of the ghostly sense of movement in his arms and legs, of the nebulous presence of other people about him, but nothing clear. Everything seemed schematic, imprecise. Even so, the overall illusion of walking in a park was very strong.
A figure approached him, growing clearer as it came closer, as if forming ghost-like from a mist of nothingness. A surly-looking youth, holding a knife.
The youth’s mouth moved. Words came to Ben, echoing across the space between them.
‘Hand over your money or I’ll cut you!’
He felt his body tense, his mouth move and form words. They drifted out from him, unconnected to anything he was thinking.
‘Try and get it, scumbag!’
Time seemed to slow. He felt himself move backward as the youth lunged with the knife. Turning, he grabbed the youth’s arm and twisted, making the knife fall from his hand. He felt a tingle of excitement pass through him. The moment had seemed so real, the arm so solid and actual. Then the youth was falling away from him, stumbling on the ground, and he was following up, his leg kicking out, straight and hard, catching the youth in the side.
He felt the two ribs break under the impact of his kick, the sound – exaggerated for effect – seeming to fill the park. He moved away – back to normal time now – hearing the youth moan, then hawk up blood – the gobbet richly, garishly red.
He felt the urge to kick again, but his body was moving back, turning away, a wash of artificial satisfaction passing through him.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it ended.
Through the darkened glass of the hood he saw the dark shape of his father lean across and take the cassette from the slot. A moment later the catches that held down the hood were released with a hiss of air and the canopy began to lift.
‘Well? What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben answered thoughtfully. ‘In some ways it’s quite powerful. For a moment or two the illusion really had me in its grasp. But it was only for a moment.’
‘What’s wrong with it, then?’
Ben tried to sit up but found himself restrained.
‘Here, let me do that.’
He lay back, relaxing as his father freed the tiny suction pads from the flesh at the back of his scalp and neck.
‘Well...’ Ben began, then laughed. ‘For a start it’s much too crude.’
Hal laughed with him. ‘What did you expect, Ben? Perfection? It was a complex medium. Think of the disciplines involved.’
‘I have been. And that’s what I mean. It lacks all subtlety. What’s more, it ends at the flesh.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘These...’ He pulled one of the tiny suckers from his arm. ‘They provide only the vaguest sensation of movement. Only the shadow of the actuality. If they were somehow connected directly to the nerves, the muscles, then the illusion would be more complete. Likewise the connections at the head. Why not input them direct into the brain?’
‘It was tried, Ben. They found that it caused all kind of problems.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘Muscular atrophy. Seizures. Catalepsy.’
Ben frowned. ‘I don’t see why. You’re hardly in there longer than three minutes.’
‘In that case, yes. But there were longer tapes. Some as long as half an hour. Continual use of them brought on the symptoms.’
‘I still don’t see why. It’s only the sensation of movement, after all.’
‘One of the reasons they were banned was because they were so addictive. Especially the more garish productions – the sex and violence stims, for instance. After a while, you see, the body begins to respond to the illusion: the lips to form the words; the muscles to make the movements. It’s that unconscious mimicry that did the damage. It led to loss of control over motor activity and, in a few cases, to death.’
Ben peeled the remaining filaments from his body and climbed out.
‘Why were the tapes so short?’
‘Again, that’s due to the complexity of the medium. Think of it, Ben. It’s not just a question of creating the visual backdrop – the environment – but of synchronizing muscular movement to fit into that backdrop.’
‘Nothing a good computer couldn’t do, surely?’
‘Maybe. But only if someone were skilled enough to programme it to do the job in the first place.’
Ben began to pull his shirt on, then paused, shaking his head. ‘There were other things wrong with it, too. The hood, for instance. That’s wrong. I had a sense all the while of the world beyond the machine. Not only that, but there was a faint humming noise – a vibration – underlying everything. Both things served to distance me from the illusion. They reminded me – if only at some deep, subconscious level – that I was inside a machine. That it was a fiction.’
Hal went over to the desk and sat, the strain of standing for so long showing in his face. ‘Is that so bad, Ben? Surely you have the same in any art form? You know that the book in your hands is just paper and ink, the film you’re watching an effect of light on celluloid, a painting the result of spreading oils on a two-dimensional canvas. The medium is always there, surely?’
‘Yes. But it doesn’t have to be. Not in this case. That’s what’s so exciting about it. For the first time ever you can dispense with the sense of “medium” and have the experience direct, unfiltered.’
‘I don’t follow you, Ben. Surely you’ll always be aware that you’re lying inside a machine, no matter how good the fiction?’
‘Why?’ Ben buttoned the shirt, pulled on his pants and trousers, and went over to his father, standing over him, his eyes burning. ‘What if you could get rid of all the distractions? Wouldn’t that change the very nature of the fiction you were creating? Imagine it! It would seem as real as this now – as me talking to you here, now, you sitting there, me standing, the warm smell of oil and machinery surrounding us, the light just so, the temperature just so. Everything as it is. Real. As real as real, anyway.’
‘Impossible,’ Hal said softly, looking away. ‘You could never make something that good.’
‘Why not?’ Ben turned away a moment, his whole body fired by a sudden enthusiasm. ‘What’s preventing me from doing it? Nothing. Nothing but my own will.’
Hal shrugged, then looked back at his son, a faint smile of admiration lighting his tired features momentarily. ‘Perhaps. But it’s not as easy as that, Ben. That little clip you experienced. How long do you think it was?’
Ben considered. ‘Two minutes. Maybe slightly longer.’
Hal laughed, then grew more serious. ‘It was two minutes fourteen seconds, and yet it took a team of eight men more than three weeks to make. It’s a complex form, Ben. I keep telling you that. To do what you’re talking about, well, it would take a huge team of men years to achieve.’
Ben turned, facing his father, his face suddenly very still. ‘Or a single man a lifetime?’
Hal narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean myself. My calling. For months now I’ve been experimenting with the morph. Trying to capture certain things. To mimic them, then reproduce them on a tape. But this... these pai pi... they’re the same kind of thing. Stores of experience. Shells, filled with the very yoke of being. Or, at least, they could be.’
‘Shells... I like that. It’s a good name for them.’
Strangely, Ben smiled. ‘It is, isn’t it? Shells.’
Hal studied his son a moment then looked down. ‘I had another reason for showing these to you. Something more selfish.’
‘Selfish?’
‘Yes. Something I want you to help me with.’
‘Ah...’
The hesitation in Ben’s face surprised him.
‘There’s something I have to ask you first,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Something I need from you.’
Hal sat back slightly. So Beth was right. Ben was restless here. Yes, he could see it now. ‘You want to leave here. Right?’
Ben nodded.
‘And so you can. But not now. Not just yet.’
‘Then when?’
Again, the hardness in Ben’s voice was unexpected. He had changed a great deal in the last few months. Had grown, become his own man.
‘Three months. Is that so long to wait?’
Ben was still a moment, considering, then shook his head. ‘No. I guess not. You’ll get me into Oxford?’
‘Wherever you want. I’ve already spoken to the T’ang.’
Ben’s eyes widened with surprise.
Hal leaned forward, concealing his amusement, and met his son’s eyes defiantly. ‘You think I don’t know how it feels?’ He laughed. ‘You forget. I was born here, too. And I too was seventeen once, believe it or not. I know what it’s like, that feeling of missing out on life. I know it all too well. But I want something from you in return. I want you to help me.’
Ben took a breath, then nodded. ‘All right. But how?’
Hal hesitated, then looked away. ‘I want to make a pai pi... a Shell. For your mother. Something she can keep.’
Ben frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Why? And what kind of Shell?’
Hal looked up slowly. He seemed suddenly embarrassed. ‘Of myself. But it’s to be a surprise. A present. For her birthday.’
Ben watched his father a moment, then turned and looked back at the ornate casing of the machine. ‘Then we should make a few changes to that, don’t you think? It looks like a coffin.’
Hal shuddered. ‘I know...’
‘We should get workmen in...’ Ben began, turning back, then stopped as he saw how his father was staring down at his hands. Hands that were trembling like the hands of a very old man.
Ben’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘What’s wrong?’
He saw how his father folded his hands together, then looked up, a forced smile shutting out the fear that had momentarily taken hold of his features.
‘It’s nothing. I...’
He stopped and turned. Meg was standing just behind him. She had entered silently.
‘The man’s come,’ she said hesitantly.
‘The man?’
Meg looked from one to the other, disturbed by the strange tension in the room; aware that she had interrupted something. ‘The man from ProsTek. He’s come to see to Ben’s hand.’
‘Ben’s hand?’ Hal turned, looking across at Ben, then he laughed. A brief, colourless laugh. ‘Of course. Your mother said.’
Ben’s eyes didn’t leave his father for a moment. ‘Thanks. Tell Mother I’ll be up.’
She hesitated, wanting to ask him what was wrong, but she could see from the look of him that she was excluded from this.
‘Ben?’
Still he didn’t look at her. ‘Go on. I told you. I’ll be up.’
She stood there a moment longer, surprised and hurt by the sudden curtness in his voice. Then, angered, she turned and ran back down the space between the racks and up the steps.
At the top of the steps she stopped, calming herself. Hal had said no. That was it! And now Ben was angry with her, because she didn’t want him to go either. Meg shivered, her anger suddenly washed from her; then, giving a soft laugh, she pushed the door open and went through.
The hand lay on the table, filaments trailing from the precisely severed wrist like fine strands of hair. It was not like the other hand. This one shone silver in the light, its surfaces soft and fluid like mercury. Yet its form suggested heaviness and strength. Meg, staring at it from across the room, could imagine the being from which it had been cut: a tall, faceless creature with limbs on which the sunlight danced like liquid fire. She could see him striding through the grass below the cottage. See the wood of the door splinter like matchwood before his fist.
She shuddered and turned, looking back at the man kneeling at Ben’s side. As she looked he glanced up at her and smiled, a polite, pleasant smile. He was a Han. Lin Hou Ying, his name was. A tiny, delicate man in his sixties, with hands that were so small they seemed like a child’s. Hands so doll-like and delicate, in fact, that she had asked him if they were real.
‘These?’ He held them up to her, as if for her appraisal. Then he had laughed. ‘These hands are mine. I was born with them. But as to what is real...’
He had almost finished removing the damaged hand by now. As she watched he leaned close, easing the pressure on the vice that held the hand, then bent down and selected one of the tiny instruments from the case on the floor beside his knee. For a moment longer he was busy, leaning over the hand, making the final few adjustments that would disconnect it.
‘There,’ he said, finally, leaning back and looking up into Ben’s face. ‘How does that feel?’
Ben lifted his left arm up towards his face, then turned it, studying the clean line of the stump. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, after a moment. ‘The pain’s gone. And yet it feels as if the hand’s still there. I can flex my fingers now and they don’t hurt.’
Lin Hou Ying smiled. ‘Good. That’s a sure sign it was only the unit that was damaged. If you had twisted it badly or damaged the nerve connections it might have been more difficult. As it is, I can fit you with a temporary unit until the old one is repaired.’
‘That thing there?’
Lin glanced across. ‘Yes. I’m sorry it’s so ugly.’
‘No. Not at all. I think it’s quite beautiful.’
Meg laughed uncomfortably. ‘No. Shih Lin’s right. It’s ugly. Brutal.’
‘It’s only a machine,’ Ben answered, surprised by the vehemence, the bitterness in her voice. ‘It has no life other than that which we give it.’
‘It’s horrible,’ she insisted. ‘Like the morph.’
Ben shrugged and looked back at Lin Hou Ying. ‘Does it function like the other one?’
The small man had been studying the hand in the vice, probing it with one of the tiny scalpels. He looked up, smiling.
‘In certain ways, yes, but in others it’s a vast improvement on this model here. Things have changed greatly in the last five years. Prosthetics among them. The response time’s much enhanced. It’s stronger, too. And in that particular model...’ he indicated the hand on the table with a delicate motion of his head ‘...there’s a remote override.’
Ben stared at it a moment, then looked back at Lin Hou Ying. ‘Why’s that?’
Lin stood and went across to the carrying case that stood on the floor beside the table. Earlier he had taken the hand from it. ‘Look,’ he said, taking something from inside. ‘Here’s the rest of the unit.’
It was an arm. A silver arm. Ben laughed. ‘How much more of him have you?’
Lin laughed, then brought the arm across. In his other hand he held a control box. ‘Some of our customers have lost far more than you, Shih Shepherd. The arm is a simple mechanism. It is easy to construct one. But a hand. Well, a hand is a complex thing. Think of the diversity of movements it’s possible to make with a hand. Rather than waste our efforts making a single unit of hand and arm together, we decided long ago to specialize – to concentrate on the hands. And this...’ he handed Ben the control box ‘...controls the hand.’
‘Can I?’
Lin lowered his head slightly. ‘As you wish, Shih Shepherd.’
For a while Ben experimented, making the fingers bend and stretch, the hand flex and clench. Then he turned it and made it scuttle, slowly, awkwardly, like a damaged crab, on the table’s surface.
Ben set the box down. ‘Can I keep this?’
Lin bowed his head. ‘Of course. And the arm?’
Ben laughed, then looked across at Meg and saw how she was watching him. He looked down. ‘No. Take the arm.’
Just then the door at the far end of the room opened and his mother came in, carrying a small tray. Behind her came the kitten, Zarathustra.
‘Refreshments, Shih Lin?’
The small man bowed low. ‘You honour me, nu shi.’
Beth made to set the tray down on the table beside the silver hand, but as she did so, the kitten jumped up on the chair beside her and climbed up on to the table.
‘Hey...’
Meg made to move forward, but Ben reached out, holding her arm with his right hand. ‘No. Leave him. He’s only playing.’
His mother turned, looking at him.
‘There,’ he said, indicating a small table to one side of the room.
He watched her go across and set the tray down, then looked back at the kitten. It was sniffing at the fingers of the hand then lifting its head inquisitively.
‘Don’t...’ Meg said quietly.
He half turned, looking at her. ‘I won’t hurt it.’
‘No,’ she said, brushing his hand aside and moving across to lift the kitten and cradle it. ‘He’s real. Understand? Don’t toy with him.’
He watched her a moment, then looked down at the control box in his lap. Real, he thought. But how real is real? For if all I am is a machine of blood and bone, of nerve and flesh, then to what end do I function? How real am I?
Machines of flesh. The phrase echoed in his head. And then he laughed. A cold, distant laughter.
‘What is it, Ben?’
He looked up, meeting his mother’s eyes. ‘Nothing.’
He was quiet a moment, then he turned, looking across at the Han. ‘Relax a while, Shih Lin. I must find my father. There’s something I need to ask him.’
He found Hal in the dining room, the curtains drawn, the door to the kitchen pulled to. In the left-hand corner of the room there was a low table on which was set the miniature apple trees the T’ang had given the Shepherds five years before. The joined trees were a symbol of conjugal happiness, the apple an omen of peace, but also of illness.
His father was kneeling there in the darkened room, his back to Ben, his forearms stretched out across the low table’s surface, resting either side of the tree, his head bent forward. He was very still, as if asleep, or meditating, but Ben, who had come silently to the doorway, knew at once that his father had been crying.
‘What is it?’ he said softly.
Hal’s shoulders tensed; slowly his head came up. He stood and turned, facing his son, wiping the tears away brusquely, his eyes fierce, proud.
‘Shut the door. I don’t want your mother to hear. Or Meg.’
Ben closed the door behind him, then turned back, noting how intently his father was watching him, as if to preserve it all. He smiled faintly. Yes, he thought, there’s far more of me in you than I ever realized. Brothers, we are. I know it now for certain.
‘Well?’ he asked again, his voice strangely gentle. He had often questioned his own capacity for love, wondering whether what he felt was merely some further form of self-delusion, yet now, seeing his father there, his head bowed, defeated, beside the tiny tree, he knew beyond all doubt that he loved him.
Hal’s chest rose and fell in a heavy, shuddering movement. ‘I’m dying, Ben. I’ve got cancer.’
‘Cancer?’ Ben laughed in disbelief. ‘But that’s impossible. They can cure cancers, can’t they?’
Hal smiled grimly. ‘Usually, yes. But this is a new kind, an artificial carcinoma, tailored specifically for me, it seems. Designed to take my immune system apart piece by piece. It was Shih Berdichev’s parting gift.’
Ben swallowed. Dying. No. It wasn’t possible. Slowly he shook his head.
‘I’m sorry, Ben, but it’s true. I’ve known it these last two months. They can delay its effects, but not for long. The T’ang’s doctors give me two years. Maybe less. So, you see, I’ve not much time to set things right. To do all the things I should have done before.’
‘What things?’
‘Things like the Shell.’
For a moment Ben’s mind missed its footing. Shells... He thought of Meg and the beach and saw the huge wave splinter along the tooth-like rocks until it crashed against her, dragging her back, away beneath the foaming surface, then heard himself screaming – Meg!!! – while he stood there on the higher rocks, impotent to help.
He shivered and looked away, suddenly, violently displaced. Shells... Like the stone in the dream – the dark pearl that passed like a tiny, burning star of nothingness through his palm. For a moment he stared at where his hand ought to have been in disbelief, then understood.
‘What is it, Ben?’
He looked up. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never...’
He stopped. It was like a wave of pure darkness hitting him. A sheer black cliff of nothingness erasing all thought, all being from him. He staggered and almost fell, then he was himself again, his father’s hands holding his upper arms tightly, his heavily lined face thrust close to Ben’s own, the dark green eyes filled with concern and fear.
‘Ben? What is it?’
‘Darkness,’ he whispered. ‘It was like...’
Like what? He shuddered violently. And then the earlier thing came back to him. Shells... Pai pi. That was what his father meant. And that was why they had to make one. Because he was dying. Yes. It all made sense.
‘Like what?’ his father asked, fleshing the thought.
‘Nothing,’ he answered, calmer now. ‘The Shell. I understand it now.’
‘Good. Then you’ll help me sketch things out for the team?’
Ben frowned. ‘Team? What team?’
The pressure of Hal’s hands on Ben’s arms had eased, but he made no move to take them away. ‘I’ve arranged for a team of technicians to come here and work with us on the Shell. I thought we could originate material for them.’
Ben looked down. For a long time he was silent, thoughtful. Then he looked up again. ‘But why do that? Why can’t we do the whole thing?’
Hal laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, Ben.’
‘No. I’m serious. Why can’t we do the whole thing?’
‘Didn’t you hear me, earlier? It would take ages. And I haven’t got ages. Besides, I thought you wanted to get away from here. To Oxford.’
‘I do. But this...’ He breathed deeply, then smiled and reached up to touch his father’s face with his one good hand. ‘I love you. So trust me. Three months. It’s long enough, I promise you.’
He saw the movement in his father’s face; the movements of control; of pride and love and a fierce anger that it should need such a thing to bring them to this point of openness. Then he nodded, tears in his eyes. ‘You’re mad, Ben, but yes. Why not? The T’ang can spare me.’
‘Mad...’ Ben was still a moment, then he laughed and held his father to him tightly. ‘Yes. But where would I be without my madness?’
Ben turned from the open kitchen window. Behind him the moon blazed down from a clear black sky, speckled with stars. His eyes were dark and wide, like pools, reflecting the immensity he had turned from.
‘What makes it all real?’
His mother paused, the ladle held above the casserole, the smell of the steaming rabbit stew filling the kitchen. She looked across at her son, then moved ladle to plate, spilling its contents beside the potatoes and string beans. She laughed and handed it to him. ‘Here.’
She was a clever woman. Clever enough to recognize that she had given birth to something quite other than she had expected. A strange, almost alien creature. She studied her son as he took the plate from her, seeing how his eyes took in everything, as if to store it all away. His eyes devoured the world. She smiled and looked down. There was a real intensity to him – such an intellectual hunger as would power a dozen others.
Ben put his plate down, then sat, bringing his chair in closer to the table. ‘I’m not being rhetorical. It’s a question. An honest-to-goodness question.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t know. It seems almost impertinent to ask.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged. It was scarcely the easiest of questions to raise at the dinner table. Who made the universe? he might as well have asked. Or Why is life? Who knew what the answer was?
Rabbit stew, maybe. She laughed.
Ben had gone very quiet, very watchful. A living microscope, quivering with expectancy.
‘Two things come to mind,’ she said, letting the ladle rest in the pot. ‘And they seem to conflict with each other. The first is the sense that it’ll all turn out exactly as we expect it. What would you call that? – a sense of continuity, perhaps. But not just that. There’s also a sense we have that it will all continue, just as it ever did, and not just stop dead suddenly.’
‘And the second?’ It was Meg. She was standing in the doorway, watching them.
Beth smiled and began ladling stew into a plate for her.
‘The second’s the complete opposite of the first. It’s our ability to be shocked, surprised, or horrified by things we ought to have seen coming. Like death...’ Her voice tailed off.
‘A paradox,’ said Ben, looking down. He took a spoon from the table and began to ladle up the stock from his plate, as if it were a soup. Then he paused and nodded. ‘Yes. But how can I use that knowledge?’
There he had her. She in a lifetime had never fathomed that.
She turned to Meg, offering her the plate. ‘Where’s Father?’
‘He’ll be down. He said there was something he had to do.’
She watched Meg take her place, then began to pour stew into another plate. It was unlike Hal to be late to table. But Hal had changed. Something had happened. Something he couldn’t bring himself to tell her just yet.
‘I’m sorry to keep you, Beth.’ Hal was standing in the doorway, something small hidden behind his back. He smiled, then came forward, offering something to her.
‘What is it?’ She wiped her hands on her apron, then took the tiny present from him.
He sat, then leaned back, his arms stretched wide in a gesture of expansiveness. The old fire still burned in his eyes, but she could see that he was unwell.
She shivered and looked down at the tiny parcel, then, with a brief smile at him, began unwrapping it.
It was a case. A tiny jewel case. She opened it, then looked up, surprised.
‘Hal... It’s beautiful!’
She held it up. It was a silver ring. And set into the ring was a tiny drop-shaped pearl. A pearl the colour of the night.
Meg leaned forward excitedly. ‘It is beautiful! But I thought all pearls were white...’
‘Most are. Normally they’re selected for the purity of their colour and lustre – all discoloured pearls being discarded. But in this instance the pearl was so discoloured it attained a kind of purity of its own.’
Beth studied the pearl a moment, delighted, then looked up again. Only then did she notice Ben, sitting there, his spoon set down, his mouth fallen open.
‘Ben?’
She saw him shiver, then reach out to cover the cold, silvered form of his left hand with the fleshed warmth of his right. It was a strangely disturbing gesture.
‘I had a dream,’ he said, his eyes never leaving the ring. ‘The pearl was in it.’
Meg laughed. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s teasing you.’
‘No.’ He had turned the silvered hand and was rubbing at its palm, as if at some irritation there. ‘It was in the dream. A pearl as dark as nothingness itself. I picked it up and it burned its way through my palm. That’s when I woke. That’s when I knew I’d damaged the hand.’
Hal was looking at his son, concerned. ‘How odd. I mean, it wasn’t until this morning, just as I was leaving, that Tolonen brought it to me. He knew I was looking for something special. Something unusual. So your dream preceded it.’ He laughed strangely. ‘Perhaps you willed it here.’
Ben hesitated, then shook his head. ‘No. It’s serendipity, that’s all. Coincidence. The odds are high, but...’
‘But real,’ Meg said. ‘Coincidence. It’s how things are, isn’t it? Part of the real.’
Beth saw how Ben’s eyes lit at that. He had been trying to fit it into things. But now Meg had placed it for him. Had allowed it. But it was strange. Very strange. A hint that there was more to life than what they experienced through their senses. Another level, hidden from them, revealed only in dreams.
She slipped the ring on, then went across to Hal and knelt beside him to kiss him. ‘Thank you, my love. It’s beautiful.’
‘Like you,’ he said, his eyes lighting momentarily.
She laughed and stood. ‘Well. Let’s have some supper, eh? Before it all goes cold.’
Hal nodded and drew his chair in to the table. ‘Oh, by the way, Ben, I’ve some news.’
Ben looked across and picked up his spoon again. ‘About the team?’
‘No. About the other thing. I’ve arranged it.’
‘Ah...’ Ben glanced at Meg, then bent his head slightly, spooning stew into his mouth.
‘What other thing?’ Meg asked, looking at Ben, a sudden hardness in her face.
Ben stared down at his plate. ‘You know. Oxford. Father’s said I can go.’
There was a moment’s silence, then, abruptly, Meg pushed her plate away and stood. ‘Then you are going?’
‘Yes.’
She stood there a moment, then turned away, storming out down the steps. They could hear her feet pounding on the stairs. A moment later a door slammed. Then there was silence.
Ben looked across and met his mother’s eyes. ‘She’s bound to take it hard.’
Beth looked at her son, then away to the open window. ‘Well...’ She sighed. ‘I suppose you can’t stay here for ever.’ She looked down, beginning to fill her own plate. ‘When do you plan to go?’
‘Three months,’ Hal answered for him. ‘Ben’s going to work on something with me before then. Something new.’
She turned, looking at Hal, surprised. ‘So you’ll be here?’
But before he could answer, Ben pushed back his chair and stood. ‘I’d best go to her. See she’s all right.’
‘There’s no need...’ she began. But Ben had already gone. Down the steps and away through the dining room, leaving her alone with Hal.
‘You’re ill,’ she said, letting her concern for him show at last.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m ill.’