Flames flickered in the thick glass of the portal, like snakes, evanescent. . . .
She had been so close to doing something real. So close to changing
things.
Dreams, she thought. Nothing but dreams.
She turned, pressing Michael’s hand briefly, giving him an encouraging smile. Home—for her this was a return home, but for him . . . For Michael this was a nightmare, a journey into darkness and uncertainty. As the window shields came down, she ducked her head, catching her last sight of America.
Of America . . . and of the City, burning.
INTERLUDE I SUMMER 2213
True Virtue
The night is our mother. She comforts us. She tells, us who we are. Mother sky is all. We live, we die, beneath her. She sees all. Even the darkness deep within us.
OSU FOLK SAYING
You have heard of the knowledge that knows, but you have never heard of the knowledge that does not know. Look into that closed room, the empty chamber where brightness is born! Fortune and blessing gather where there is stillness.
chuang Tzu, “In the World of Men”
Hans ebert sat on the table rock, perfectly still, like a shape carved from the ancient stone, looking out into the star-filled blackness of the Martian night. Beyond him, squatting among the rocks near the entrance, the boy watched, mimicking the Walker’s stillness. The ndichie—the elders—had gathered. Tonight, here before the table rock, they would meet to discuss the way ahead. Right now, however, they slept after their long journeys across the desert. Only the Walker kept vigil, communing with Mother Sky, talking silently with her. The boy shivered, awed by that still and silent figure. Tsou Tsai Hei, they called him: “the Walker in the Darkness.” And so it was. When the accident had happened and his parents had died, who had come from the darkness to save him? Who had shimmered into being from the air and plucked him from the burning half-track? The Walker . . . And so he watched, molding himself, learning all he could, awaiting the time.
“Nza?”
The boy scuttled across, then settled beside the seated man. “Yes, Efulefu?”
“Tell me. What do you want?”
Nza hesitated. How many times had he greeted him this way? How many times had they had this single conversation? A hundred? More? He knew the correct answer. Nothing. I want nothing. But it wasn’t true.
And the Walker wanted the truth from him.
“I want to be like you, Efulefu. ...”
There was no movement, no sign that he had heard, only silence. Then, when he had begun to think he would not answer, his answer came. “You must want nothing. You must learn to row as if the boat were not there.”
He frowned. Boats ... He had never understood it, nor had the Walker chosen to explain. Eventually he had gone and asked Aluko, but Aluko had murmured something about earth, and about seas made of water, and he had laughed and told him he must be wrong, because a sea was made of sand. . .
.
“Nza?”
“Yes, Efulefu?”
“Are you happy, Nza?”
Happy? Was he happy?
“I am content, Efulefu.”
“Good. Be content with the moment.”
Again he did not fully understand. Sometimes, like now, he was content. But there were times when he would wake from dreams of the burning half-track and see the broken visor of his mother’s helmet clearly and he would cry out, the pain so deep, so rooted in him. . . . “Nza?”
“Yes, Efulefu?”
“Do you miss your mother?”
ebert took off his helmet and hung it on the rack beside his bunk, then turned, facing the tiny square of mirror. His room was tiny, like a cell, but it was enough. He had no need for more. “Well?” he asked himself.
Two years he’d lived among them now. At least, two years by the measure of his old life back on Chung Kuo. Here on Mars only a single year had passed—one long, cold circuit about the distant sun. He smiled, then spoke the words that had come to mind. “When the wheel turns, all things become their opposite.” A year back they had sent ships from Chung Kuo to assess the damage. Now more had come, this time with a complement of settlers. They were to rebuild Kang Kua City ... to start again. Which was why they met tonight. Why all the ndichie of the fifteen tribes had gathered, here at lapygia where the first settlement had been built. And what would they decide?
“Efulefu?”
He turned, facing the doorway. The boy stood there, his eyes like two tiny moons in the perfect blackness of his face. “Yes, Nza, what is it?”
“Chief Echewa wishes to speak with you. In his quarters. He asks . . .”
“Yes?”
He saw how the boy swallowed, his eyes taking a fearful little glance at the black case that lay on his bunk.
“He asks if you would bring it—you know, the Machine.”
“Ah . . .” He nodded. “Tell him I’ll come. And, Nza?”
“Yes, Efulefu?”
“You must not be afraid of it. It is but a way of seeing things. The world of men is full of such artificialities. However strange they seem, they are all part of the great Tao.”
The boy bobbed his head. “Yes, Efulefu.” But Ebert could see that he was far from convinced. For him, as for many among the Osu, the Machine seemed like some kind of powerful sorcery and he was certain that, were he not there, they would have destroyed it at the earliest opportunity. And yet without it...
He turned and picked it up. It was so light. At times it seemed almost weightless.
“Go on, Nza,” he said, knowing the boy was still waiting there. “Tell Aluko that I’m coming.”
“Yes, Efulefu . . .”
Ebert smiled. Nza—“tiny bird”—was a good boy. In time he might become a Chief, even perhaps ndichie. That was, if they had any time. If the new settlers didn’t seek—like those before them—to destroy the Osu. He went out, following the narrow passageway that had been cut from the solid rock, until he came to Echewa’s quarters. Aluko was sitting on his bunk, alone in the four-man cell.
“Where are the others?”
“They’ve gone to eat,” the big black man answered. “Besides, I thought it best that we spoke alone.”
“Ah . . .” He turned, closing the airtight door, then looked back at his friend. “There’s something you want to say that you don’t want them to hear, right?”
Echewa nodded. His eyes went to the case. “And then there’s that. . . .”
Ebert sat, facing him, the case in his lap. “They’ll ask you,” Echewa said. “They’ll want to use that. You know they will.”
“I know.”
“So what will you say?”
“That the greatest power—te—can only be grasped by those who do not seek it. That force cannot be used to attain it.” Echewa sighed. “That may be so, my brother. But for once wise words won’t do. There is a new threat. . . .”
“You’ve lived with such threats before.”
“That’s true. Yet things have changed. The tribes expected—“ “—that the Seven would leave them be? To live in peace forever? No, old friend. It is not in their nature to let things be. They must meddle all the while. And so now.”
“Then what will you do?”
“Me? I will do nothing. I am not ndichie. I cannot decide your fate, Aluko Echewa. You forget. I am Efulefu, the ‘Worthless One.’ “ “Acch ...” For a moment Echewa’s dark face creased with frustration, then, seeing how Ebert was watching him—calmly, a small ironical smile on his lips—he laughed. “Okay. What are you really going to say?” Ebert’s smile broadened. “You will have to wait and see, brother Aluko.”