This was not lightly done. He had talked it over many times with Sampsa, knowing that this parting would be irreversible. Yet even now - even after he had made that final decision, he was still uncertain. Even now he wanted to turn about and go home, back to the Domain where he'd been born and raised. As it was, long years of travel lay ahead. He would be a much older man when they arrived. If they arrived.
Tom?
Sampsa's voice in his head reminded him of where he should have been right then.
I'm coming, he answered, standing wearily. / ought to fed more than this, he thought, conscious of Sampsa listening in, but for once not caring. / ought to feel excited.
As it was he felt only emptiness. Only loss.
Youll be okay, Sampsa reassured him. Now come. It's about to begin.
The bridge was crowded, more than a hundred people packed into that narrow, curving space, the giant, Karr and his family standing out in the midst of a host of familiar faces who were to make the journey along with them - Hans Ebert and the Osu, Ikuro Ishida and his clan, the ex-Major, Kao Chen, Jelka and young Chuang Kuan Ts'ai, and others. Many others.
"Ah, Tom!" Kim called from his seat at the control board, making a welcoming gesture with his stubby little new arm as he saw Tom enter. "Now we can begin!"
Tom went across and stood beside Sampsa, staring out through the great viewing window at the sight of Ganymede, placed like a beauty spot against the rouged face of Jupiter.
"It's a beautiful sight, neh?" Sampsa said quietly, the words both inside and outside of Tom's head.
There was no contesting it. It was beautiful. Breathtaking. But right then he had a hankering for simpler sights; for a view of rolling hills and meandering rivers. This. . . this was for the gods, not for humans like themselves.
Nonsense, Sampsa answered him. If we don't find them, then we'll make ourselves hills and pleasant valleys. We can be as gods. But not back there. We have to go out to do it.
But Tom still wasn't convinced. But what if we're wrong? What if this is all a big mistake?
"Too late," Sampsa said quietly, pointing to the dark flank of Ganymede where a circle of tiny flickering lights indicated the first of the sequenced explosions that would - so all there hoped - tear the Jovian moon out of its aeons long orbit.
They watched, silent now, as that tiny circle flickered a second time and then again - the explosions timed carefully so as not to exert too much accelerative pressure on the moon. And slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it began to move.
There was uncertainty at first. A reluctance to admit that they'd succeeded, then Kim's voice broke the silence. "It's moving. If s moving out of orbit!" The cheer that went up was deafening. It works, Tom said, surprised. The damned thing worksl "Of course," Sampsa said, hugging him. "You're not the only one with a genius for a father!"
Then, as the cheering began to die, another sound greeted their ears. It was the sound of the New Hope's engines warming up. A sound that was also a vibration in the deck and walls and in every cell of everyone there. They were leaving. They were finally on their way.
It was raining heavily as the great ship landed in the stadium at Bremen. Morphs lined the upper levels of the marble terraces, thirty thousand of the giant creatures. DeVore's new race. His Inheritors.
Great clouds of steam swirled about the base of the huge, spider-like craft as its eight legs touched the surface, bracing to take the weight of the unmarked jet black hemisphere.
Rain. It had been raining now for four whole days. Raining as if it would never stop.
There were no banners, no cheering, only the patient, silent horde, watching as their Master stepped down from the unfolded ramp.
DeVore. After more than a decade, DeVore was back on Chung Kuo.
He combed his fingers back through his neat-cut hair and smiled. The rain didn't bother him. In fact, it suited his mood. Gotterddmmerung, this was. The Twilight of the Gods.
He had returned to destroy it all. To finish what had been so rudely interrupted.
The headstone faced him, less than fifty ch'i from where he stood. He walked across to it then turned, signalling to one of his personal servants, who stood now at the foot of the ramp. At once the creature loped across to him.
"Fetch the woman," he said. "I want her to see this. Oh, and bring my stave, too."
"Master!" It bowed low, as ungainly and yet as elegant as a mythical giraffe, its hairless skull glistening in the downpour.
DeVore turned back, studying the figure cut into the stone.
"Well, Marshal," he said, as if speaking to the man he'd known in life. "Your efforts came to nothing, neh? But so it is. We immortals can afford to lose a battle or two. We can afford to wait our time. But you . . ."
He laughed coldly. "Dust you are, Knut Tolonen. Dust..."
"You wanted me?"
He turned. The woman was standing just behind him, staring past him at the granite carving. He had made her. Formed her in his vats from the index finger of Emily Ascher's right hand - a clone, perfect to the last tiny detail.
"Who was he?" she asked, when he didn't answer her. "Knut Tolonen," he said, turning back. "He was Li Shai Tung's General. A brave soldier but a fool. Honest, but stupid." "You sound almost as if you liked him, Howard." "Do I?" He laughed, surprised. "Well, maybe I did. Even so . . ."
He turned as his servant hurried up, carrying his stave. DeVore took it, weighing it in both hands then turning it in the air as if it were wood, but this was steel. No mere mortal would have been able to do what he did with it. No one who wasn't augmented in the ways he was.
He faced the headstone once more and, lifting the stave high above his head, brought it down with a resounding crack that echoed all round the stadium.
The granite splintered on the top. Fine lines appeared like spider's webs across its surface. DeVore swung the stave again and brought it down.
This time a huge chunk of the upper stone broke off and fell away, leaving the Marshal headless.
He swung a third time, the stave passing clear through the centre of the splintered stone until it was lodged deep in the Marshal's chest.
DeVore stepped forward, then, putting one booted foot against the face of the stone, he pulled. The stave came free. As it did, half of the headstone fell away.
Again and again he struck, stopping only when the thing was smashed totally. Only then did he step back, grinning now and breathing heavily, admiring his work.
The rain still fell, settling the grey dust, smearing it across the pure white of the marble.
DeVore glanced down, noting the words beneath his feet, then, taking one step back, brought the stave down hard against the tablet, cracking it.
"You tried to bury the past," DeVore said, his eyes narrowed. "Now it's my turn to bury you. To erase you from history."
He turned his head, looking to his companion, then casually threw the stave to her. She caught it effortlessly.
"Well?" he said.
She smiled, the perfect companion, reading him perfectly. "Okay," she answered, lifting the stave and twirling it in one hand, "let's take this world."
Li Yuan sat on the low stool, facing Old Man Egan, his once-wife, Fei Yen beside him in the big chair.
He had seen many wonders in the past few months, this half-life creature not the least of them. They had flown over the great glasshouses of the central plain and seen the slaves, chained naked in their thousands, working the dark earth, a tiny control box at each sun-burned neck. He had visited the great metallic citadels of the south - the New Enclaves as they called them, with the dead lands that surrounded them, those killing fields salted with the bones of the millions that had fought there. Enhanced and adapted Hei - GenSyn meat-men barely above the level of apes - manned those high walls: machines of flesh "manned" by virtual operators in the depths of the earth five ti below those towering ramparts.