Fifty or more teats lined the side of that great monster, and even as they watched, egg after egg was squeezed from those puckered apertures and swiftly carried away.
The light faded and died.
Again Daniel hit the pad. Again the cavern lit up with a sudden, intense glare.
It was a factory, a living factory. The end walls were pocked with holes.
Tunnels, no doubt, that led to nurseries.
Daniel bent down and picked up one of the tiny spiders. It struggled between his fingers, a small, blind thing no more than three centimetres long, a tiny blue pupa clutched between its legs.
He made to put the thing down, then noticed the marking on the egg. Bringing up the magnification on his visor lenses, he studied it, then, with a tiny shudder, threw it from him.
A face. The marking was a tiny face.
He looked about him, noting how many different kinds of eggs the tiny creatures carried, then looked across once more at the bloated mother. Here it was, then. This ugliness. This meaninglessness at the centre of everything.
Daniel held his hand to his chest, maintaining the light, staring across at the corpse-pale monstrosity that filled the far side of the cavern. Was this the truth, then - this vision of blind process, this breeder of nullities? Or was it really the aberration he felt it was? The floor heaved with tiny dark shapes carrying off the eggs. And on each egg a face. The same face, endlessly duplicated. DeVore’s ... “What do you want to do?”
Daniel turned, surprised to find Ju Dun there. For a moment he had completely forgotten him.
“Do?”
Ju Dun smiled. “I’ve one grenade and a dozen rounds. It might not be enough, but...”
Daniel shook his head. He did not need to destroy it Seeing it was enough. And even if he died now, at least he understood.
This was how DeVore saw things. He had suspected as much, but now he knew. Knew beyond all doubt.
Something buzzed over his head. A probe. Daniel stared at it a moment, then nodded to himself.
Understanding was a seed. A seed to be carried from this place of nullity and nurtured. A seed. To be tended and watered.
He looked back at Ju Dun and smiled. “Okay. Lef s go.”
PART TWO - AUTUMN 2240
the Six secret teachings
“The eye values clarity, the ear values sharpness, the mind values wisdom. If you look with the eyes ofM Under Heaven, there is nothing you will not see. If you listen with the ears of M. Under Heaven, there is nothing you will not hear. If you think with the minds of All Under Heaven, there is nothing you will not know.”
· Tai Kung, The Six Secret Teachings [llth century bc]
“It is to be inferred that there exist countless dark bodies dose to the sun - such as we shall never see. This is, between ourselves, a parable; and a moral Psychologist reads the whole starry script only as a Parable and sign-language by means of which many things can be kept secret.”
· Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good And Evil 1886
CHAPTER-4
blood and iron
Egan sat far back in the great chair, his expression dour, the thumbnail of his right hand poked between his teeth as he thought back over what had happened. Below the broad steps of the dais on which he sat, the stone-flagged floor of the Great Hall of Victory was empty, the colourful banners that lined the massive walls - tokens of a dozen victorious campaigns - obscured by heavy shadow. Hours earlier he had ordered all his servants to leave, the lamps in the hall still unlit, the day’s business barely begun. Now the daylight slowly drained from the great window behind him with its panoramic view of the ocean. Five years. Was that all it was? A mere five years? Egan sighed heavily, then stood, looking about him at the growing shadows. Five years ago he had returned triumphant from the North-West, the tribes of Washington and Oregon subdued, his treasure chests filled with their tribute. To celebrate that triumph he had built this great castle, overlooking the modern high-rise city of Boston: a brutal place of ancient stone and metal, of twisting stairs and high battlements, but also of high-tech trickery and state of the art defences. Declaring himself “King of America”, he had set out to subdue those other parts of his great continent that yet stood out against him. A mistake. He knew that now. The old Han had been right, curse him. Yet, at the time ...
Egan took a long breath, then slowly descended the steps. This morning he had returned from the scene of his formertriumph, his tail between his legs, his armies thoroughly humiliated, the whole of the Western seaboard lost to him. Five years ...
“Master?”
He turned. A small wooden door had opened in the wall to his right. From its shadows now stepped a young man - a soldier; one of those who had made the long, tiring journey back with him from the battlefield in Spokane. Like Egan, he was still wearing the battle-soiled fatigues he had first put on four days ago. “What is it, Alan?”
“It is your Chancellor, Master. He has been waiting to see you this past hour.” “Ah ...” For a moment he thought of sending the man away; of making some excuse about tiredness, but he knew it would not do. The lesser men would do as they were told, but Harding was not to be put off. Besides, he had words for Mister Harding; things he wanted to get off his chest. “Give me a moment to compose myself, then send him in. And Alan ...”
“Yes, Master?”
“Get some sleep now, lad. You, at least, can hold your head high.” The young man bowed deeply. “Thank you, Master.” Then he was gone, the Great Hall empty again.
Egan sighed, then walked over to where the first of the great banners hung. The banners of his enemies. Well, now three of his own banners hung in enemy halls. And how many more before this year dragged to a close?
“How did it come to this?” he murmured. “How in God’s name...?”
“I beg pardon, Master?”
Egan turned. Harding was standing there, at the foot of the steps, his wine-red cloak of office trailing almost to the floor, his grey hair cropped close to his skull. He must have entered the moment the young man left, yet Egan had not heard him. I must watch that, he thought; for with such stealth and silence do assassins tread.
BLOOD AND IRON
He walked across and held out his right hand, letting Harding kneel and kiss the heavy iron ring on the second finger.
“And how are things, Mister Harding?”
Harding straightened up, his grey eyes meeting his Master’s. “Things here are well, Master. I came because I’ve heard disturbing rumours.” “Rumours?”
Harding hesitated, as if searching for the best way to couch what he was about to say, then came out with it direct “Word is, our armies have suffered a setback and that our grasp in the West has been weakened.” Egan smiled bleakly. He had never liked Harding; had never really trusted him. “The fact is, Mister Harding, our armies have been annihilated. The West is lost.”
Harding blinked, as if taking in what had been said, then laughed, as if Egan had made a joke. “Oh, very dry, Master. Very droll.” Egan stared at him. Didn’t he know? Hadn’t his spies told him yet? Or did he - as was far more likely - know precisely what had happened? If so, was he here to gloat? To indulge in a little schadenfreude at Egan’s expense? “There’s nothing droll about it, Mister Harding. I’m talking about a million men dead, four times that number taken prisoner. We have lost the West” Again Harding blinked; yet there was no real shock there, as one might have expected. “Then ...”
Egan looked past the man, focusing on the great gold and black banner that hung over the facing arch. “You are my chief advisor, Mister Harding, so advise me. Tell me what I should do.”