Alas, alas for the human race. Alas for the kings of separation. How strangely resonant those words had been when he’d first read them. How bleak and yet how moving. As if they spoke to something buried deep within him. “Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Hold tight. We’re almost there.”
Daniel smiled and nodded to himself. Yes, he could hear the drone of their engines now. Yet even as he made to turn and look back down the length of the valley, he glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, the faintest movement in the darkness at the cave’s mouth.
There was a noise. A low whine, like the sound of an insect rushing through the air. Too late he saw it, not an arm’s length from his visor. Saw it and jerked back, trying to move his head aside.
And then the top of his helmet blew away, as if someone had just cleaved it with an axe.
“Daniel?... DameR”
Emily crouched, looking through the trees, trying to make out what exactly it was she was looking at. The craft was some twenty metres to her left, the cave some way beyond it Between the two was a tangle of greenery. Little else could be made out.
She turned slightly, signalling to the three men to her right to move up, then began to move forward herself, the big rocket-launcher clutched against her chest Where was he? Where in the gods’ names was he?
One moment he’d been transmitting perfectly, the next... nothing.
This once she should have trusted to her instinct and ordered him to pull back.
Or told him to seal the entrance to the cave and leave DeVore to the floraforms.
But she, like Daniel, had wanted to make sure.
I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance, att those years ago when we went to visit him in his mountain hideout. Back when I was in the Ping Tiao. I could have done it then, and saved the world an immensity of grief .
Yes, but back then she hadn’t known what he was. A voice sounded in her helmet; a sharp, sibilant whisper. “There’s something there. On the ground beside the craft.”
Emily stopped, then lifted her head slightly, moving it this way and that, looking through the tangle of leaf and branch. Yes, she could see it now. The humped shape of something. Could see the way the sunlight glinted off the angle of a protective flap.
Daniel, she thought, feeling her heart sink. She straightened up, then moved quickly between the trees, anger making her fearless. And then stopped abruptly, wincing at the sight Daniel lay on his side, where he’d fallen, bits of his shattered helmet littering the ground just beyond him.
She groaned. Yet even as she made the noise, Daniel’s right hand twitched within the protective glove.
“Here.1” she yelled, turning and beckoning urgently to her men. “Quick now! He’s still alive!”
There was a sudden rustling as men hastened to her. Emily stared a moment longer, pained deeply by the sight of Daniel’s injuries, then, turning back, she stepped over the fallen boy and raised the launcher to her shoulder, taking aim. Revenge It would have been nice to get revenge. But saving Daniel was more important Far, far more important She squeezed the trigger, bracing herself against the jolt as the rocket rushed away from her, baring into the dark mouth of the cave.
The hatch hissed shut, the bolts slid into place. Inside the shuttle, a siren was sounding urgently as the survivors strapped themselves into the restraint webs, special harnesses locking about them automatically to support their necks and backs against the massive g-forces they were about to face. Daniel too had been strapped in, his bandaged head encased in a specially-adapted restraint harness into which were fed the various tubes and electrodes that would keep him alive during the launch. Emily was the last to take her place, her concern for Daniel keeping her by his side until the very last The countdown began, the voice of Han Ch’in sounding throughout the craft Ten ... nine ... eight...
Outside, unseen by those within, a great tide of brightly-coloured flowers breached the outer walls of the spaceport and flowed in towards the ship, even as that voice boomed out across the concrete apron, a massive breaking wave of blooms that engulfed buildings and vehicles as it rushed towards the waiting shuttle.
The engines flared and then fired. Slowly the vehicle lifted from the pad, even as the flowers met and merged beneath it.
For a instant or two they roiled and flared, burning away in that intense fireball. Then, like a ripple, they withdrew to form a circle about the scorched and steaming earth. In a blink of an eye, they transformed into a crowd of people, green-faced yet strong of limb, who waved and yelled a silent farewell. As the shuttle climbed, the circle rippled and then closed upon itself, swallowing up that single patch of darkness, those mimic human forms becoming simple flowers once again; a great ocean of flowers that stretched from coast to coast; a thousand billion blooms that now turned as one, lifting their long, elegant throats towards the sun.
The time of names had ended.
The long age of silence had begun.
Emily stood by the hatch, looking on as the two medics eased the unit through the umbilical that joined the shuttle to the mothership, calling on them to make sure that they didn’t move too quickly.
They knew their job, however, and were careful in those nil-gravity conditions not to let the massive unit brush the side or jolt against the hatch. It slid through gently, easily, a third medic joining them, leaning on the end of the capsule to brake its momentum.
As the unit came alongside her, Emily stared down through its transparent lid at Daniel’s pale, unconscious face and prayed to Kuan Yin herself that they were not too late to save him.
And then they were taking him away.
“You should not blame yourself, Emily.”
She turned, almost putting herself in a spin. But Kuei Jen’s hand reached out and held her arm, stopping her.
“I was responsible for him,” she answered soberly. “If not me, then who?”
“Maybe the bastard who shot him.”
She stared back steadily at Kuei Jen, then shook her head. “No. DeVore was finished. It was stupid to pursue him.”
“Stupid?” Kuei Jen seemed surprised. “And yet DeVore was evil. Is it not right to crush evil?”
“Right, yes, but . ..” Emily shrugged. “Look, is there somewhere we can go ...?”
‘To be near to Daniel?” Kuei Jen smiled gently, understanding Emily’s concern.
“Of course. Come, I’ve prepared a
room for you.”
The room, as it turned out, was in the medical centre itself, just down the corridor from the theatre where, even as she settled in, they were operating on Daniel.
It was there that Han Ch’in came to her.
Sitting on the edge of the chair, which was bolted to the floor in one corner of the cabin, he stared down at his hands a moment, then sighed. “How bad?” she asked.
“Six thousand. Maybe six two.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that all?”
Han Ch’in nodded. “Three of the shuttles didn’t make it off the ground. Another malfunctioned on the way up here. Or was tampered with. We’ll never know.” “But they’re all our people, I take it?”
“Yes. Everyone’s vouched for.”
Emily nodded. She could still feel the hard shape of her handgun against her hip, and realised that even now she had not relaxed; had not given up the habit of suspicion. She looked back at Han Ch’in. “What do you think the floraforms will do with DeVore?” Han Ch’in shrugged. “If they’re wise, they’ll not try to assimilate him.”
Her eyes met his, startled. “Do you think ...?” “That DeVore is bigger than the floraforms? No. He has the capacity to twist whatever he touches but the floraforms will know that. They seemed to know everything, didn’t they?”