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And shivered, a feeling of pure indignation coursing through him.
What evil was it that cut a man from his senses and made him believe in
ghosts?
It was the evil of inwardness. Not the inwardness of self-knowledge but
of
illusion. Of displacement
Shepherd was snipping the threads that held humanity together. He was
isolating
them. Giving each his own padded, silken cell, in which was kept the
image of
what that person wanted. A mate. Someone to lock oneself away with.
Someone to
kill for.
There were no flames, no devils with implements of torture, yet all the
same it
was hell. Ti Yu, the earth prison. And Shepherd was casting them all,
one by
one, into the fire.
Li Yuan stepped forward, placing his palm on young Egan's forehead. It
burned,
as if some inner fever were raging. But the contact seemed to calm the
younger
man. His movements slowed, then stilled, and his eyes, which had been
unfocused,
now looked straight up at Li Yuan.
"It is not real, Mark. She does not exist She is but light and air. You
know
this. Deep down you know it"
Egan groaned. "No ..."
"Open your eyes, Mark. Open your eyes and look. This is reality ...
this out
here."
"Go away ..."
Li Yuan turned, signalling to the guards. "Remove the restraints."
"But, father ..."
"Be quiet, please, Kuei Jen. I shall do only what is best for your
husband."
Kuei Jen bowed his head, obeying his father.
Li Yuan turned back, watching as the guards removed the straps.
Egan lay there, still and silent
"Can you hear me, Mark?"
"I hear you."
"Good. Then you know I am right You must give up these ghosts. You must
find the
strength in yourself to give them up."
"But I want..."
"Perfection? ... I understand. But perfection is a dream."
"She exists."
"No."
"She..."
"... is light and air. A signal on a tape A fantasy. But you, Mark
Egan, are
real."
Again Egan groaned, yet it was a groan of despair - of realisation -
not of
pain.
Li Yuan leaned forward, placing his hands either side of Egan's head,
pushing
down forcefully. "Return to yourself now. Return, and be the man you
were."
Egan shuddered, a great spasm rippled through him like a shock through
the
earth. He grimaced, his eyes closing, his lips parting, and then...
"What.. .?"
Egan looked about him, clearly surprised to find himself there in the
cabin of
the cruiser. "Where in the gods' names are we?"
"Providence," Kuei Jen said, smiling now, looking to his father in
gratitude.
Then, knowing Mark knew nothing of the bomb, his face changed.
"I am afraid we are at war."
"War?" he sat up, instantly alert. "Has Coover attacked again?"
"No," Kuei Jen said, taking both his hands. "We are at war with your
grandfather."
"With Josiah? Then why in heaven's name aren't we in Boston?"
"Because Boston's gone, my love. The Old Man nuked it half an hour
back."
CHAPTER-13
A trail of smoke
Hannem lay on the slab, barely conscious now. It was four days since
he'd been
"infected" and he had suffered a slow and painful deterioration. He had
been
blind these last two days and as his nervous system slowly rotted, so
the
natural functions of his body had switched down, one after another.
Coming into the lab, Ben paused, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the
sickly,
stale stench that wafted across.
He walked over and stood beside the slab. Hannem was naked, and in the
dim light
from the wall lamps his flesh looked so pale it was almost grey. He no
longer
seemed real, more like a clay model, moulded to resemble a man.
Yes, day we are, Ben thought, noting the sheen of sweat that covered
the skin
wherever he looked; flesh puppets, dancing on glistening strings of
nudeopeptides.
And when the dance was done the spirit fled, leaving a rotting hulk, a
wreck
upon the ebbing tide of time.
Ben stared at the creature's massive, bony skull, wondering what yet
remained of
that vast and powerful intellect he had witnessed; whether some tiny
flicker of
awareness yet remained. Or was this all? This putrid mimicry of life?
Machines. Machines of flesh and blood, of bone and nerve and sinew, the
whole
thing animated by a force that utterly defied analysis. A force that
came and
went and left no explanation for its existence, other than the fact
that it had
once been and was no more.
The fact of death.Ben smiled at the thought Death worried some people,
yet when
the force that animated him finally left his corporeal frame, then he
was happy
to know that he would be broken down and used again, his atoms
eternally
recycled, until the universe ran down.
And that was, in essence, why he could not understand his sister's
anger; why he
felt he had more in common with DeVore and his love of eternal process
- of the
long view - than in her petty vision of the individual.
For, after all, what did it matter if mankind did die out? Would the
universe be
diminished by man's passing? Not at all. For a finer, better creature
would
evolve in time. And that too would have its day before it died and was
replaced.
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