“What is it?” he asked. “What are you afraid of?” “That you’ll lose your soul.” “Faust and Mephistopheles, eh?” His laughter was reassuring; the warm, self-mocking laughter she remembered of old, but still the situation troubled her. “What does he want you to do?” “If s as I said. He wants me to make a shell.” She shook her head. “No. That doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t come here just for that He’d summon Jack Neville to him, or something like that. He wanted something special, didn’t he? Something that only you could do.” He looked away, past her, his silence answering her. “Ben,” she insisted. “You have to tell me.” “Okay. I’ll tell you precisely what he wants. He wants me to make something so good, so distractingly attractive, that it’s instantly addictive.”
“And he’ll use that, right?”
“Yes.”
“As a weapon?”
“I guess ...”
“No, Ben. You don’t guess. You know.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Then if s as I said. You can’t”
“Why not?”
“Because thaf s not arf s purpose.”
“Says who?”
“Oh, let’s not play childish games, Ben. You know as well asL”
“Do I?” He wrinkled up his nose. “That’s it, you see. Maybe I don’t know, after all. Maybe he’s right and art always has been a kind of weapon - one which has never quite achieved its true potential. And maybe I find that a challenge.” She huffed, exasperated with him now. “But you can’t Not for him. You don’t know how he’ll use it” “What does it matter how he uses it? You’ve seen the world, Meg. You’ve seen what they’ve done to each other these last fifty years. So maybe if s DeVore’s time. Maybe he’ll finally put an end to all this chaos.”
“I don’t believe that”
“But you don’t know ...”
She edged back, away from him, then stood, her naked figure silhouetted against the moonlit window.
“You mustn’t do this, Ben.”
“Oh, but I will.”
“Then you’ll do it without me.”
“Meg. ..”
“No, Ben. I tried to persuade you. Now I’m telling you. You have to make a choice - working with DeVore, or living with me. Which is it to be?” He watched her silently; a silence she took to be dissent. “Okay,” she said, her voice tiny, almost inaudible. “Okay...” And, without another word, she turned and left the room.
PART ONE - SUMMER 2240
inside the gates of eden
“Charon, his eyes red Kke a burning brand, Thumps with his oar the lingerers that delay, And rounds them up, and beckons with his hand. And as, by one and one, leaves drift away In autumn, til the bough from which they fall Sees the earth strewn with att its brave array, So, from the bank there, one by one, drop all Adam’s til seed, when signalled off the mark, As drops the falcon to the falconer’s call. Away they’re borne across the waters dark, And ere they land that side the stream, anon, Fresh troops this side come flocking to embark.”
· Dante, The Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto m
CHAPTER-1
the pattern of the day
The day was hot. On the mountain road, dust rose from the metal tracks of the troop carrier, smudging the perfect blue of the sky. The growl and trundle of the half-track filled the valley as it came down from the heights to the north. In the back of the carrier, beneath a thin cloth awning, sat eight shaven-headed boys and two men - the boys in pale red fatigues, the men in full uniform, their automatic rifles resting lazily between their knees. Eight backpacks rested in the space between the boys. All but one of them were looking down, lost in their thoughts. As the half-track rocked and lurched, their heads moved loosely with the motion. All but one.
A boy of fourteen sat beside the tailgate, his expressive blue eyes taking in every detail of the landscape through which they travelled. The valley was filled with scrub and pine and a host of small, dark purple flowers. Lifting his head slightly, the boy sniffed the air. Through the stink of hot diesel and dust he could smell the rich scent of the blooms, mixed with the all-pervading pine. It was not far now.
Daniel turned, looking back into the shadows of the carrier. Aidan was sitting down the far end, on the left, behind the driver who was just visible through the dusty glass thatsectioned off the cab. At fifteen Aidan was the oldest and most experienced of them, the natural leader of their team. While the rest were physically still boys, Aidan was already a man, broad at the shoulder, his muscular chest showing through the tight cloth of his fatigues. Daniel smiled fondly, then looked down. This would be Aidan’s sixth time in Eden, his own fifth.
Daniel pushed the thought aside, concentrating on the moment. Each day had its own texture, its own feel. No two days were ever the same. You had to try to identify the difference; to isolate those moments that gave the day its own distinctive shape and pattern.
He did not know where he had learned this, yet he knew it to be the truth. It was like ladybirds. They all seemed identical, yet if you looked carefully you might see how the pattern of six black dots on the red casing differed in each and every case, giving each tiny insect its own distinguishing touch of individuality.
So it was in this world. Even ants, he was sure, possessed such tiny differences.
The guard beside Daniel stirred and made a small, murmuring sound in his sleep. Like his colleague at the front, he had been dozing the last hour or so. If they had wanted to, they could have killed the guards, the driver and his mate, and fled.
It would have been easy. It was what, after all, they had been trained to do.
But they did not want to escape.
Strange, Daniel thought, looking down the line of boys until his eyes rested on the youngest, Ju Dun. Only nine years old, Ju Dun was a small but stocky boy, self-contained and quiet, with deep brown eyes that seemed much older than his years. But so it was with all of them. There were no real children here, only soldiers.
Even so, Ju Dun was young to be on a team; much younger than Daniel himself had been when he’d first come to Eden.
Eden...
Geographically, Eden was a twenty-five kilometre square piece of land in the Black Forest, south-east of Munich, but in truth Eden was not in the normal world, or, at least, not in the day-to-day world that ordinary men would recognise.
“Daniel?”
Daniel looked across to Aidan. The guards slept on, but the others were alert suddenly, watching their exchange.
“Yes?”
“Nervous?”
Daniel shook his head. When it ended, it ended. Until then the newness of things was enough for him. “You?”
Aidan smiled. That smile said everything. Seeing it, the boys also smiled. This was a good team, and they all knew it. They had been together three months now and were as prepared as they could possibly be. That was, if one could prepare for Eden.
“We’re almost there,” Daniel said, as the carrier eased its way between two great shoulders of rock, the gradient levelling out as they came out onto the floor of the valley.
“Home sweet home,” Aidan said, winking at Ju Dun. “I wonder what new surprises the Man has prepared for us.”
Mention of DeVore sobered the younger boys. Benoit and Leon both looked down. Only the eleven-year-old, Christian laughed. “Something for the specimen jar, no doubt” Aidan grinned and nodded. “Oh, no doubt of that at all.” Slowing down, the carrier rattled through a pair of gates and into a high-walled compound. It slewed around, then stopped.
The guards jerked awake.
“Okay...” the driver said, coming round and beginning to take the pins from the tailgate. “You know what to do.”