He got to his feet then shook his head to clear it, but still the constant roar of the wind sounded deep within.
"Come on," he said, going across and helping Catherine to her feet. "Let's go down into the cellars. This is one storm we'd better ride out below."
N WIB E L O O K E D to the sky and laughed.
"Hear how old Mother Thunder rebukes her son."
Along the line the others stopped fastening their harnesses and looked up at the thick layer of cloud overhead and smiled inside their helmets.
Dogo, the biggest of them, Ezeulu's son, answered Nwibe, his voice sounding in every earpiece. "When her son is angry, there is always trouble in the village, no?"
"There will be trouble enough without those two adding to it!" Aluko Echewa answered, clipping himself into the harness, then adjusting the straps about his shoulders.
On every side the floor of the great sea steamed, shrouding the strange, uneroded shapes of the freshly exposed rocks with swirls of mist. Perhaps Mars was like this once, Aluko thought, millions of years ago. He turned, looking to his left, then to the right, making sure everyone was ready. Then, pulling down the rigid armatures of the flying suit and slipping his hands into the gloves, he checked along the line.
"Ugoye?"
"Ready."
"Chike?"
"Done."
"Nwibe?"
"One moment, Elder. . . . Okay, I'm ready."
"Odile?"
"Ready."
"Elechi?"
"Done."
"Dogo?"
"Itching to go, Elder."
"Nza?"
"Ready."
He closed his eyes. At once an image filled his head; sent back from one of the remotes that were tracking their progress. It showed the eight of them spread out in a line along the dry bed of the ancient sea, the special harnesses they were wearing making them appear twice their normal size.
"Okay," he said, placing his fingers over the control pads. "Let's lift. Slowly now."
His thumb closed with a gentle pressure on the pad. At once he felt himself lifted; felt and saw ... for at the same time the eight figures in his head lifted and began to drift forward.
Even as they climbed, emerging from the deep rift in which they'd been hidden, the storm broke overhead.
"See how the young ram loses his temper!" Dogo said in his earpiece, laughing his rich, deep laugh, as a bolt of lightning struck the brittle rock less than a li to the left of them with a sharp crack of destructive power. And then the thunder spoke, exploding all about them, shaking the air with an unexpected violence.
"The night is our mother," Aluko began, speaking into the heads of his brothers, repeating the words of the litany for those who, unlike Dogo, had the sense to be afraid. "She comforts us. She tells us who we are. We live, we die, beneath her. She sees all. Even the darkness deep within us."
"How? How?"
DeVore glared at the man on the screen, his face hard, his anger kept tightly in check.
"We're not sure, Master," the Technician said warily, conscious that his very uncertainty was guaranteed to upset DeVore. "He's gone behind things. Tweaked them, somehow."
"Tweaked them?" DeVore let out a snort of disgust then shook his head. "How? Exactly how?"
"We—"
"Find out! Understand me? And when you know, tell me. Until then, your life is forfeit, man. You're dead."
He turned from the screen, his anger matched only by his curiosity. It was meant to be foolproof, tamperproof. But somehow Li Yuan had managed to get around the back of things and override his systems.
Ward.1 he thought with a sudden certainty. This is Ward's work!
Okay. But how did he use that knowledge? How could he regain the advantage he had temporarily lost?
I should have hit the island, he thought. Yes, and the Shepherd place, too, while 1 was at it. The only reason he hadn't was because he'd thought he could take them as prizes once the rest was his. To have them work for him.
You were too greedy, he told himself, calmer now, beginning to think again. But never mind, it's still all yours if you play this right. The advan' tage is still yours. After all, you still have all the stones.
"Master?"
There was a new face on the screen. His own face, but a copy. Overlaying it was the printed number 154. It was the Commander of that craft.
"Yes, one five four, what is it?"
"There's something coming at us from the north."
"Something? Be more specific."
"Eight men, Master. Eight men in rocket suits."
DeVore gave a laugh of disbelief. "Is this a joke, Commander?"
"I ... I thought you should see what our remotes are sending back."
"Okay. Patch it through."
He stood back, relaxed, chuckling to himself. Eight men in rocket suits! Whatever next?
His laughter died. The image on the screen was none too clear; even so, he recognized those suits and knew what color the faces were behind the dark reflecting surfaces of their visors.
"Osu . . . What in the gods' names . . ." And then he saw it. Then, with a strange little laugh, he understood.
"Eight stones," he said softly. "Is that all you can muster, Li Yuan? And what of your father's boast that time, that he would place the last stone on my grave? Vanity ... an old man's vanity, that's all that was. Vanity and boastfulness. And now you'll pay the price. Now I will clear the board."
He laughed, then spoke to his Commander.
"You will engage, one five four. You will attack those eight and destroy them, understand me?"
"Master!"
And then he would deal with Ward. Yes, and with Shepherd too.
He cleared the screen, then looked about him at the silent room, smiling. Yes, it was time to clear the board.
AT THE STILL and silent center of it all, Hans Ebert sat, facing Tuan Ti Fo across a rock, a wei chi board set up between them.
All about them the drained sea shimmered in the late afternoon heat, its sculpted surface like the vision of a demented child.
Ebert stared blindly at the board, the remote overhead sending him back an image of the game. Leaning in, he slapped a white stone down in shang, the south, then sat back, frowing.
"I feel uncomfortable, playing white. It seems wrong somehow."
Tuan Ti Fo chuckled. "It is several years since I played black, but there is a purpose to this, Hans."
"A purpose?" Ebert laughed. "Let's pray to Mother Sky there is a purpose behind your thinking, Master Tuan, for the King of Hell himself is on us."
"Relax," Tuan Ti Fo said, playing a black stone at the edge of the board, in ch'u, the west, safeguarding a line.
Ebert studied the board a moment, then looked across at the old man. "I still don't understand it. If the Machine can do this much, why doesn't it finish the job outright? Why all these half measures?"
"The Machine acts as it must," Tuan Ti Fo answered; pulling gently at his beard. "There must be a balance in all things. When that balance is lost . . . well, that is not healthy, neh? Our friend DeVore ... his thinking is the thinking of a child—an unhealthy child."
Tuan Ti Fo leaned forward, moving his hand over the board. At once all the stones became white. Tuan gestured at the board. "So our friend would have it. But where is the skill in such a game? Where the beauty?"
He swept his hand over the board once more, returning the stones to their original colors, then smiled at Ebert.
"You must understand. It is not our purpose to win the game for you, merely to allow it to be played. Our friend DeVore ... he plays the game well, but he does not understand its purpose. He thinks that winning is the all of it, but the game is not meant to teach Man ruthlessness. No ... its object is to teach us balance, to school us in the dance of opposing forces. As for the greater game—this game he chooses to play out with men's lives—well, we cannot possibly contest the matter. Forty million against eight." Tuan laughed. "Those are poor odds, neh?"