"That face . . . that fucking face!"
The man swung the lamp, smashing the screen, then stood back as it popped and sputtered into blackness.
Lehmann, standing in the corridor outside the room, nodded and walked on quickly. He understood. Everywhere he went people were destroying the screens. He had destroyed more than a hundred himself. Even so, DeVore's face still followed him wherever he went—awaiting him in silent rooms and at intersections, there on every new screen he encountered.
The purest form of solipsism, he thought, his gun searching the intersection before he hurried on. That need to fill the world with copies of himself. It was the ultimate in xenophobia: not just a hatred of other races but of otherness itself. Was that how God had started—filling the pristine world with copies of himself?
He stopped momentarily, listening. Most of these levels had been abandoned, but there were still some of Pasek's men about. He took three slow paces backward and peeked inside. Another screen— DeVore's face speaking to the empty room.
DeVore was jamming all visual communications channels and beaming down his own programs; replacing that great multiplicity of images that characterized the levels with the single image of his face.
Or so it had been this last hour. That face . . . murmuring that awful litany of Last Things, Pasek's "Book."
He hurried on. His ship had been brought down short of his destination—by one of his own gunners, no doubt—but that was the least of his problems right now. Sofia garrison lay up ahead. That, at least, should be safe. But he was growing anxious now, afraid in case he should get there and find it had all fallen apart while he'd been making his way across.
The last he'd heard, his men had been deserting by the thousand, abandoning their posts. Pasek's declaration for DeVore had been more damaging than he'd possibly imagined. For once Soucek had been right. He had underestimated the power of the religious impulse. He had thought it simply another addiction, like drugs and sex. But he'd been wrong.
And if Li Yuan says no?
Then it was over. Alone he could do nothing. Alone he could not stand against DeVore. Even so, he would fight him to the end. For there was no other choice. He knew DeVore. If he fled, DeVore would track him down. Only his death—the death of them all, perhaps; every last autonomous being on the planet—would satisfy that madman.
He slowed, the gate in sight now, the final intersection just ahead.
It did not matter that he'd been careful all these years. All of his patient work meant nothing now. In less than two days DeVore had destroyed it all. Yet strangely it wasn't bitterness he felt, or disappointment, but a curious excitement. The kind a gambler feels.
It was only now he realized how far he had strayed from his intended path. Only now—with DeVore's reminder—did he begin to understand. He had let himself become a king; acting as a king, thinking as a king. He had forgotten his original intention—had let that pure flame of hatred for the system gutter and die in him. But DeVore . . .
He stopped, looking across at an unbroken screen, seeing his old Mentor's face staring back at him, and smiled. DeVore, at least, was pure. DeVore had not forgotten.
There was no doubting it. He admired the man. Admired his style, his ability not merely to plan but to carry out such long-term, sweeping plans; his skill for the long game. But he could not let admiration cloud his judgment. He had no illusions. DeVore was no friend of his. It was either-or now—him or DeVore. For there was no room on this world for them both.
One more corridor, he thought, beginning to run, his spirits strangely lifted by the challenge that lay ahead. Whatever the odds against him, he would fight on, and not merely because there was no other choice, but because he would bow his head to no man.
No, nor to the copy of a man.
THE GUARD STOPPED at the bottom of the road, beside a low, white-walled cottage with shuttered windows, and pointed to the white-painted gate at the side.
Catherine stared at him, her eyes questions.
"Go on," he said, bowing politely but anxious to get back, then waved a hand at her, gesturing that she should go through. "The Mistress knows you're coming. Go around. There's a door at the side."
She made to say something more, but he had turned away and was making his way hurriedly up the curve of hill, disappearing after a moment between the whitewashed cottages. She sighed, then looked down at the sleeping child in her arms. Now that she was here she felt like turning back. It had been a mistake. She should never have come.
Turning, she looked at the gate. Like everything here it was strange, dreamlike. The smells, the sounds, the way the air moved on the skin. It was like being brushed by hungry ghosts.
She shivered, then reached out, trying to open the gate, feeling the wooden frame judder beneath her hand, resisting her attempts. She peered over it, then, finding the catch, lifted it.
There, she thought, surprised by how fast her heart was beating. As easy as that.
She looked up, smiling, pleased with herself, then saw her. Meg. It had to be Meg. Despite the years she recognized her.
"You came," Meg said. "I wondered if you would. He said you wouldn't. He said you'd stay inside."
Catherine swallowed, feeling awkward. "And you?"
"I thought you'd come. He usually gets what he wants. But come through. You look like you could do with a drink."
"Do I?"
Meg smiled, her eyes sympathetic. "Is it bad in there?"
She nodded. It was terrible. Worse than she could ever have imagined. If she hadn't had help. . . .
Meg came across and, unexpectedly, took her arm, looking down at the sleeping child. "Hey . . . it's all right now. You're safe here. Both of you. All that"—she looked up past her at the massive wall of whiteness that began beyond the hill's crest—"All that's inside."
Meg put her arm about her shoulder, then, turning, led her down the stone-paved path and up two steps, into a kitchen that was filled with sunlight and smelled of beeswax and flowers.
"This is all so ... strange," she said, letting Meg seat her on a wheel-backed wooden chair, then watched as the other woman filled a copper kettle from the tap at the sink. "I didn't know."
"No." The look of sympathy was back. "Your face . . . you want me to see to that?"
Catherine reached up and touched her cheek, then winced. It was very tender. She looked at Meg and nodded. Meg smiled, then went over to one of the cupboards and, reaching up, got down a wooden box marked with a red-painted cross. Setting it down on the table, she opened the lid and began to search through the jumble of things within.
"He didn't forget you, you know."
"Forget me?" Catherine stared at her, a clear memory of the first time she'd met Meg coming back to her. Then, she'd seen her with jealous eyes, thinking her Ben's lover; unaware she was his sister. She had been wrong, and at the same time right.
She looked down, wondering if Ben had mentioned what had happened between them. Whether now as then, he told his sister everything. But something stopped her asking.
Meg looked up, setting a tube of ointment and some gauze to one side, then smiled at her again. "The picture you painted . . . you know, the one of Ben. The one you left in his apartment. It's upstairs, on the wall."
Catherine stared at her, surprised. He'd kept that? She shivered, not from cold, but from a sense of displacement. Sitting there, it was like she couldn't wake. It was like . . . well, like the "shell" Ben had made her experience that time, so real and yet unreal. Totally unreal.