The Art of War (36 page)

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.’

The door was partly open, the room beyond in shadow. Through the window on the far side of the room the moon shone, cold and white and distant. Meg sat on her bed, her head and shoulder turned from him, the moonlight glistening in her long, dark hair.

He shivered, struck by the beauty of her, then stepped inside.

‘Meg...’ he whispered. ‘Meg, I’ve got to talk to you.’

She didn’t move; didn’t answer him. He moved past her, looking out across the bay, conscious of how the meadows, the water, the trees of the far bank – all were silvered by the clear, unnatural light. Barren, reflected light, no strength or life in it. Nothing grew in that light.

He looked down. There, on the bedside table, beside the dull silver of his hand, lay a book. He lifted it and looked. It was Nietzsche’s
Zarathustra
, the Hans Old etching on the cover. From the ancient paper cover Nietzsche stared out at the world, fierce-eyed and bushy-browed, uncompromising in the ferocity of his gaze. So he himself would be. So he would stare back at the world, with an honest contempt for the falseness of its values. He opened the book where the leather bookmark was and read the words she had underlined.
To be sure, I am a forest and a night of dark trees
... Beside it, in the margin, she had written ‘Ben’. He felt a small shiver pass down his spine, then set the book down, turning to look at her again.

‘Are you angry with me?’

She made a small noise of disgust. He hesitated, then reached out and lifted her chin gently with his good hand, turning her face into the light. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes liquid with tears, but her eyes were angry.

‘You want it all, don’t you?’

‘Why not? If it’s there to be had?’

‘And never mind who you hurt?’

‘You can’t breathe fresh air without hurting someone. People bind each other with obligation. Tie each other down. Make one another suffocate in old, used-up air. I thought you understood that, Meg. I thought we’d agreed?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘We agreed all right. You told me how it would be and what my choices were. Take it or leave it. I had no say.’

‘And you wanted a say?’

She hesitated, then drew her face back, looking down, away from him. ‘I don’t know... I just feel...
hurt
by it all. It feels like you’re rejecting me. Pushing me away.’

He reached out again, this time with his other hand, not thinking. She pushed it from her, shuddering. And when she looked up, he could see the aversion in her eyes.

‘There’s a part of you that’s like that, Ben. Cold. Brutal. Mechanical. It’s not all of you. Not yet. But what you’re doing – what you plan... I’ve said it before, but it’s true. I fear for you. Fear that,
that
...’ she pointed to the hand ‘...will take you over, cell by cell, like some awful, insidious disease, changing you to its own kind of thing. It won’t show on the surface, of course, but I’ll know. I’ll see it in your eyes, and know it from the coldness of your touch. That’s what I fear. That’s what hurts. Not you going, but your reasons for going.’

He was silent for a moment, then he sat down next to her. ‘I see.’

She was watching him, the bitterness purged from her eyes. She had said it now. Had brought to the surface what was eating at her. She reached out and took his hand – his human hand – and held it loosely.

‘What do you want, Ben? What, more than anything, do you want?’

He said it without hesitation, almost, it seemed, without thought.

‘Perfection. Some pure and perfect form.’

She shivered and looked away. Perfection. Like the hand. Or like the moonlight. Something dead.

‘Do you love me?’

She heard him sigh, sensed the impatience in him. ‘You know I do.’

She turned slightly, looking at him, her smile sad, resigned now. Letting his hand fall from hers, she stood and lifted her dress up over her head, then lay down on the bed beside him, naked, pulling him down towards her.

‘Then make love to me.’

As he slipped from his clothes she watched him, knowing that, for all his words, this much was genuine – this need of his for her.

You asked what’s real
, she thought.
This... this alone is real. This thing between us. This unworded darkness in which we meet and merge. This and this only. Until we die.

‘I love you,’ he said softly, looking down at her. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes,’ she said, closing her eyes, shuddering as he pressed down into her. ‘I know...’

And yet it wasn’t enough. For him it would never be enough.

IN TIMES TO COME…

C
hung Kuo: The Art of War
is the fifth volume of a vast dynastic saga that covers more than half a century of this vividly realized future world. In the fifteen volumes that follow, the Great Wheel of fate turns through a full historical cycle, transforming the social climate of Chung Kuo utterly.
Chung Kuo
is the portrait of these turbulent – and often apocalyptic – times and the people who lived through them.

In
Chung Kuo: An Inch of Ashes
, as the population continues to grow, the Seven find they must make further concessions. The great Edict of Technological Control – the means by which the Seven have kept Change at bay for more than a century – is to be relaxed, the House at Weimar re-opened, in return for guarantees of population controls. For the first time, the Seven are forced to tackle the problems of their world, facing up to the necessity for limited change. But is it too late? Are the great tides of unrest unleashed by earlier wars about to overwhelm them?

It certainly seems to, and when DeVore manages to persuade Li Yuan’s newly appointed general, Hans Ebert, to secretly ally with him, the writing seems to be on the wall. Handsome, strong and intelligent, Ebert is heir to genetics and pharmaceuticals company GenSyn, Chung Kuo’s largest manufacturing concern. He’s also a vain, amoral young man, a cold-blooded ‘hero’ with the secret ambition of deposing the Seven and becoming ‘King of the World’.

Having married his brother’s wife, the beautiful Fei Yen (‘Flying Swallow’), Prince Li Yuan has settled to his new role as his father’s helper. He loves the work, only the task requires long hours, and Fei Yen feels neglected by her husband. Consumed by passion, she has a brief, clandestine affair with his cousin, the handsome young T’ang of East Asia, Tsu Ma; one which, if disclosed, would destroy the Seven. Tsu Ma ends the affair, but has the damage been done?

Kim Ward, rescued as a child from the Clay – that dark and hostile land beneath the City’s foundations – has fulfilled his early promise and proved something of a scientific genius. Scouts from the great Companies look to buy his services. Even the great T’ang, Li Shai Tung, is interested in the boy’s talent. But there are others who seek to destroy him, so no one else can use him. As for Ben Shepherd, he has gone to college, in ‘Oxford’. Or at least the place that calls itself that these days. His failure to fit in drives him home again, but not before he falls in love for the first time, with his future wife, Christine, and gets his first glimpse – in the Oven Man’s ash-painted picture of the Feast of the Dead – of where his own art ought to be heading.