Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (37 page)

"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 toothlike 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 in
disbelief at where his hand ought to have been; then he 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 his
own, the dark green eyes filled with concern and fear.

"Ben? 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 now.

"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 in him—such an intellectual hunger as would power a
dozen others.

Ben put his
plate down, then sat, pulling 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 color 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 color and
luster—all discolored pearls being discarded. But in this
instance the pearl was so discolored that 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. "Fine. 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?"

He turned and
looked at her, a strange defiance in his eyes. "Yes."

She stood there
a moment longer, 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 forever."
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 Hal
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. Nothing but the darkness.

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 Meg 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?"