Home. Standing there in the silence of the old house, he realized that, for the first time since he'd come here, it actually felt like home. Bringing the old man back—reuniting Tolonen with his daughter— had been the final, necessary act. And though the old man was dying, to die here where he belonged was somehow right. If he had died back there in that darkened room . . .
Kim shuddered, imagining it. If that had happened, Jelka would never have forgiven herself. She would have blamed herself for her father's death, and maybe part of her would have been forever denied to him. As it was, the circle had been joined, the breach healed, and though it worried him to see her try to make up for the lost years in such a frantic way, he could understand it.
Such peace and yet such sadness he was feeling. Peace that he had at last done the right thing; sadness that Tolonen must inevitably die.
480
And maybe 1 could have prevented even that, he thought, remembering how relentlessly Old Man Lever had pursued him to work on his Immortality Project. Yet, sad as it was, he knew this death was necessary. For the old must always go, to let the new life breathe—to give it room.
Yes, and he'd seen how the old man's eyes had sparkled with pleasure at the sight of his grandson. Why, Sampsa had been a revelation, sitting with the old man at his bedside, reading from the Kalevala and talking of the old times. And after, how the boy had sat there, watching as his grandfather slept, his tiny fingers holding the golden fingers of the old man's artificial hand.
He sighed, then yawned, realizing just how long a day it had been. Only a few years back it had seemed he could do without sleep at all, but now . . .
It's the air here, he thought, and smiled, turning from the window and looking back into the darkened room. It was only then that he realized the summons pad on the corner comset was flashing. He had turned off the audio earlier, in case it disturbed the old man.
He went across and closed the door, then, putting on a lamp, sat at the tiny desk and pressed the pad. There was a delay and then the screen lit up. It was Karr.
"Gregor?" he said surprised. "I thought—" "Kim! Thank the gods! It's chaos here. They're active!" Active? Then he understood. "The copies?"
Karr nodded. "We've reports coming in all the time. The City's in a state of complete panic!"
"Hold on," Kim said. "Back up a bit and tell me what's been going on. When you say 'active,' what do you mean?"
"Stabbing, shootings, bombings. Maximum chaos. Maximum nasti-ness. Imagine five hundred psychos going ape-shit at once and you've just about got it."
Kim swallowed. "Five hundred?"
"I use the figure lightly. We don't yet know the full extent of it, but at last count we had over five hundred and eighty separate cases reported. And we're not talking single murders. Some of these bastards are taking out forty, fifty people apiece!"
Aiya . . . Then he'd been wrong. Wrong about both the scale and purpose of this instrusion. He'd thought their role was to be a passive one. But this ...
"I've had to annouce a City-wide curfew," Karr continued. "Not that anyone wants to be out walking the corridors with this going on."
"No . . ." Kim thought a moment, then: "Do you need me there?"
Karr laughed bleakly. "No. Stay there. It's probably the only safe place in the Enclave right now. We've had beserkers even here, in Bremen. These things . . ." The big man shuddered. "The stories I've heard are awful. Fathers turning against their families, trusted neighbors going from apartment to apartment and slaughtering old friends in their beds. The youngest we've had reported so far was a girl of six. She diced her whole family while they slept. What's made it worse is that it happened at so early an hour. By the time the alarm went out it was too late to do anything effective. Most of the victims didn't even wake."
"But now?"
"Now the whole City's awake. And terrified. Watching their screens and wondering if they're next. It's like these things are being triggered in waves. The first wave was the biggest, but reports are coming in of new ones all the time. That's the worst of it, perhaps. The uncertainty. The not knowing when it's going to end, or who's going to turn out to be one of these psychos. Can you imagine it, Kim? All of those people at home, behind locked doors, watching their loved ones and wondering if they're really real and not one of these things!"
"DeVore," Kim said. "It has to be DeVore."
"Yes," Karr said, admitting it for the first time. "It's what I said to Li Yuan when he reappointed me. Lehmann's a bastard, sure enough, but his imagination doesn't run to this kind of thing. This has DeVore's mark on it."
"So the thing you killed all those years ago—"
"Was a copy. It was what Tolonen always suspected. By the way, how is he?"
"Better for being here, I think. But look, is there anything I can do?"
Karr sighed, then shook his head. "Just pray for us, Kim. Pray to all the gods you know that we'll still be here come daylight!"
THE PALACE WAS SLOWLY WAKING. In the kitchens servants were preparing the morning's meals, while in the stables the grooms had long since cleaned out their charges' stalls and fed them. In the broad corridor leading to Li Yuan's apartments a servant walked, a towel over his right arm, a bowl of heated water balanced between his hands. His step was measured, orderly, as it ever was, but this time as he approached the great doors, Nan Ho, the Chancellor, stepped from the shadows to block his way.
"Master," the man said, bowing his head.
"I'll take the water," Nan Ho said, putting out his hands to take the bowl.
The servant glanced up from beneath his brows. "But it is beneath you, Master. Besides—"
"Give me the bowl," Nan Ho insisted.
He saw the bowl begin to fall, the servant go for the knife which, until that moment, had been hidden in the folds of his shirt, and knew he had been wise to take precautions. As he fell back, two guards stepped forward and, with the minimum of fuss, disarmed the servant, forcing him to the ground.
"Should we scan him, Master?" one of the soldiers asked, looking up at Nan Ho from where he crouched, his knee firmly in the servant's back.
"No," Nan Ho answered, picking up the discarded knife. "Whether he is or isn't, what's certain is he meant our Master harm." He bent over the servant and, grabbing his topknot, pulled back his head so that he could see his eyes. It was just as Karr had said; it was as if the man were mad. That smile.
Steeling himself, he took the knife and drew it across the creature's throat. Man or copy, he could not be allowed to survive. So they must deal with their enemies from henceforth, for to be weak . . .
Nan Ho threw the bloody knife down. The creature spasmed, then lay still.
"I want a squad posted here right away," he said, looking to the most senior of the two—a sergeant—he had rousted from his bed. "No one is to enter the great T'ang's rooms without my permission."
The two men stood and bowed. "Master!"
"Okay. You ... go now and bring reinforcements! You . . . you will stay here until your comrade returns!"
"And the body, Master?" the sergeant asked, looking to the still-bleeding corpse.
"Leave it," Nan Ho said, feeling the bile rise in his throat. "It will serve as a reminder and a warning, lest others think the path to our Master's door be such an easy one."
CATHERINE SAT ON THE SOFA, the art folder in her lap, drinking. Sergey had been out all night. Out with one of his women, no doubt. There was nothing new about that. It was just . . .