As the craft's engines died and the hatch began to open, he took up a position behind the stone steps of the nearest house, covering the opening gap in the cruiser's flank with his rifle.
His men knew where to fire. He'd spent the last few evenings in his crowded kitchen drawing them diagrams of these things, showing them where the weak points were, until they could do it in their sleep. Now that theoretical knowledge had become a reality. If he couldn't persuade them to go on, then they'd have to fight. And their only chance was if they could disable the cruisers.
As a figure appeared in the opening he clicked off the safety. Then, with a tiny gasp of surprise, he lowered the gun.
Marie! It was Marie! And beside her . . .
He stepped out, laughing openly now, then began to run toward the craft.
"Gregor!" he yelled. "Gregor!"
Slipping his rifle over his shoulder, he turned and signalled to the others. "It's okay! They're friendly!"
Then, turning back, unable to keep the broad grin from his face, he hurried on toward the craft.
He was only a dozen or so paces from it when he remembered.
"Chen?" Karr said, a slight shadow falling over his face at the change in Kao Chen's expression. "What is it, Chen?"
Chen shook his head regretfully. "You can't come in, Gregor. The plague. You might have the plague."
"Ah . . ." Karr nodded, sobered by the reminder. He turned, signalling to his girls to step out onto the ramp with him, then looked back at Chen. "You have a place we can stay? Somewhere isolated?"
"Somewhere ..." And then Chen saw what his old friend was saying. "You've come to stay?"
Karr nodded and smiled again. "If you'll have us." Chen thought, then nodded. Turning, he yelled back at his son, Jyan, who was at the front of a crowd of curious villagers. "Jyan, get the hatchery ready for our guests. Clean it out and put some beds in there. And move one of the larder units in. Fully stocked." He beamed. "My dear friend Gregor Karr and his family have come to stay!"
Li Yuan sat there in the darkened room, the damp, sweat-sodden sheets draping his emaciated form. All around the Imperial bed his surgeons and ministers lay dead, taken by the sickness even as they offered up their prayers for their Lord and Master's earthly and heavenly souls. But their Master had lived. Wraith-like, almost skeletal, he lived.
Climbing weakly from the bed he pushed aside the weightless husks that bowed before him and made his way across the massive room until he stood before the mirror. There, his frail limbs trembling from the effort, he shrugged off the thin yellow gown that shrouded him and looked.
Aiya, he thought, barely recognising himself in the stick-like naked figure, wondering how such a form could still hold breath or maintain a decent pulse. And his eyes . . . His eyes were golden, like twin suns! He shivered, then realised he was hungry, ravenously hungry. The kitchens, he decided, making his slow way to the door. Standing there a moment, his bony hand clutching the great hexagonal knob, he turned, staring back at the grotesquely withered figures gathered about the bed.
Men of straw . . .
He almost laughed. Almost. But he was hungry. More hungry than he'd ever been. Why, he could feel a full week's hunger in his shrunken belly!
Servants lay where they had fallen in the littered corridors. Maids lay toppled over laundry baskets or against walls. Two guards, their heavy armour loose on them, squatted like dummies, their stiff boots keeping them half-erect where they had fallen against the doors.
Dead. Everywhere he looked he saw the dead. Mummified. Ossified. And he the only one alive.
Li Yuan frowned, one hand supporting him against the wall as he got his breath. So weak he was, so ... hungry.
He scuttled on, like an octogenarian, stooped and ague-ridden.
And this time he did laugh, for it reminded him of the tale of the woodcutter who had stopped to watch two immortals playing wei ch'i in the forest. While he'd stood there, watching them, a thousand years had passed and when the woodcutter returned to his village it was to find it totally changed, all those he'd known long dead and rotted in the ground.
He hauled himself over to the window and looked out over the gardens. No one. Absolutely no one. He shuddered, then ambled on.
Maybe he was the only one left. Maybe they had all died and this was his punishment - to be Lord of the City of the Dead, a living wraith.
And his hunger? Was that a sign?
A twinge of his guts told him otherwise. No. If anything convinced him he was alive, it was that twinge.
He hurried on, hunger driving him like a goad.
The kitchens were empty, deserted, the surfaces spotlessly clean, the floor neatly swept. After the desolation elsewhere, its tidiness surprised him. But maybe there was a reason. Maybe they'd tidied the kitchens and left before the sickness had taken them. Even so, he crossed the massive room uneasily, moving between the long tables slowly, glancing from side to side, as if it were a trap.
On a long table at the far side of the room, a fruit bowl was piled high with apples and mandarin oranges. He reached out, meaning to take one, then drew his fingers back. Rotten. They were all brown and rotten.
Li Yuan shuddered, then turned, looking about him. When had he last been in here? When had he last thought of how his food was prepared or where it was stored? No, he had been concerned only that it was laid before him on a silver dish. Apart from that, he hadn't really cared.
Shuffling across to one of the big freezer units, he pulled at the catch. Slowly the door swung open, cool, fresh air bathing his body and making him shiver involuntarily. But inside the dimly-lit recesses was food, lots of food.
He reached in, taking fruit and meat and drink, then, leaving the door open, too weak to push it shut, he staggered across to one of the central tables and sat, spreading his '"meal" out before him.
He was halfway through, his face smeared with fruit and fat, when a noise made him look up. A man was standing in the doorway, a soldier's stave in his hand. At least, he was either a man or a scarecrow come to life, for his uniform hung on him as on a child.
"What are you doing here?" the soldier demanded, taking two unsteady steps toward him. "And why are you stealing from the Imperial kitchens? Do you not know the penalty?"
Li Yuan, who had at first been shocked, now stood, recognising that face.
"Dawes? Captain Dawes? Is that you?"
The figure jerked, surprised. "How do you know my name, lao jen?"
Li Yuan laughed, the sound more like a short bark or cough than laughter. "Old man, eh? Why, don't you recognise me, Captain? I am your T'ang, Li Yuan!"
Dawes stared at the emaciated figure, his golden eyes uncertain, then, seeing something in that ravaged face, some spark of recognition motivating him, he fell to his knees, his hairless skull bowed low.
"Get up," Li Yuan muttered, going across to him and pulling him to his feet. "We have finished with all that nonsense. We are but men now. So come and sit with me and share my meal. We both look as if we could do with a good feed, neh, Captain?" Dawes hesitated, then accompanied Li Yuan across, the two men sitting side by side, sharing the provisions, looking up at each other from time to time as they ate, grinning.
Han Ch'in, who had gone into the darkened room, cried out, then came back to the doorway.
"He's gone! Someone's taken the body!"
"Aiyal" Kuei Jen said, rocking the baby in his arms. "Who would have done such a thing?"
"You know these ghouls," Han Ch'in answered, looking about him angrily. "They believe that you can adopt another's attributes by eating them. No doubt they've cut him up and cooked him already."