Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (40 page)

He shifted his weight and stood on tiptoe, edging about until his hand and lower arm
were free, then reached up and unstrapped the bomb from his chest.

Another problem presented itself. He could not reach down and place the device against
the inner casing of the duct. There was no way he could fasten it.

Did it matter? He decided that it didn’t. He would strengthen the upper casing when
he was out. The explosion would be forced inward.

It was such a small device. So delicate a thing. And yet so crude in its power.

He placed the bomb between his knee and the duct wall, then let it slide down between
leg and wall, catching it with his foot.

He didn’t want it to go up with him there.

He touched the timer with his boot and saw it glow red. Eight minutes to get out.

He began to haul himself up the sides of the duct, using brute force, legs and back
braced, his thickly muscled arms straining to free himself from the tight-packed hole.

At the top he paused and looked around. What could he use? He bent down and picked
up the ice-wire, then went to a nearby room and cut machinery away from the desks,
then brought it back and
piled it up beside the breached duct.

Three minutes thirty seconds gone. He went to the doorway and cut a huge rectangle
of ice from the wall. It was thin – insubstantial almost – but strong. It weighed
nothing in itself
but he could pile all the heavy machinery up on top of it.

It would have to do.

There was just short of two minutes left to get out.

Time for his last trick. He ran for his life. Back the way he’d come. Without pause
he pulled the last of his bombs from his belt and threw it, pressing the stud at his
belt as he did
so.

The outer wall exploded, then buckled inward.

Karr, his life processes suspended, was thrown out through the rent in the starship’s
outer skin; a dark, larval pip spat out violently.

The pip drifted out from the giant sphere, a thin trail of dust and iced air in its
trail. Seconds later the outer skin rippled and then collapsed, lit from within. It
shrivelled, like a ball of
paper in a fire, then, with a suddenness that surprised the distant, watching eyes,
lit up like a tiny sun, long arms of vivid fire burning a crown of thorns in the blackness
of space.

It had been done. War had been declared.

A BRIDGE OVER NOTHINGNESS

A
nd so they began, burying the dark; capping the well of memory with a stone too vast,
too heavy to move. The machine watched them at their
work, seeing many things their frailer, time-bound eyes were prone to miss – subtle
changes of state it had come to recognize as significant. At times the full intensity
of its awareness was
poured into the problem of the boy, Kim. For a full second, maybe two, it thought
of nothing else. Several lifetimes of normal human consciousness passed this way.
And afterwards it would make a
motion in its complex circuitry – unseen, unregistered on any monitoring screen –
approximate to a nod of understanding.

While the two theoreticians began the job of mapping out a new mosaic – a new ideal
configuration for the boy’s mental state, his personality – the Builder returned to
the cell
and to the boy. His eyes, the small, unconscious movements of his body, revealed his
unease, his uncertainty. As he administered the first of the drug treatments to the
boy he could not hide the
concern, the
doubt
he felt.

It watched, uncommenting, as the drugs began to have their desired effect. It saw
how they systematically blocked off all pathways that led into the boy’s past, noting
the formulae of the
drugs they used, deriving a kind of mathematical pleasure from the subtle evolving
variations as they fine-tuned the process of erasure. There was an art to what they
did. The machine saw this and,
in its own manner, appreciated it.

It was a process of reduction different in kind from what they had attempted earlier.
This time they did not seek to cower him but to strip him of every last vestige of
that which made him a
personality, a
being.
In long sessions on the operating table, the two theoreticians probed the boy’s mind,
sliding micro-thin wires into the boy’s shaven skull, then
administering fine dosages of chemicals, until, at last, they had achieved their end.

In developing awareness the machine had developed memory. Not memory as another machine
might have defined it – that, to the conscious entity that tended these isolated decks,
was merely
‘storage’, the bulk of things known. No, memory was something else. Its function was
unpredictable. It threw up odd items of data – emphasized certain images, certain
words and
phrases over others. And it was inextricably bound up with the sensation of self-awareness.
Indeed, it
was
self-awareness, for the one could not exist without the eccentric behaviour of the
other. Yet it was also much more than the thing these humans considered memory – for
the full power of the machine’s ability to reason and the frighteningly encyclopaedic
range of its
knowledge
informed
these eccentric upwellings of words and images.

One image that it held important occurred shortly after they had completed their work
and capped the well of memory in Kim. It was when the boy woke in his cell after the
last of the operations.
At first he lay there, his eyes open, a glistening wetness at the corner of his part-open
mouth. Then, as though instinct were taking hold – some vestige of the body’s remembered
language of actions shaping the attempt – he tried to sit up.

It was to the next few moments that the machine returned, time and again, sifting
the stored images through the most intense process of scrutiny.

The boy had lifted his head. One of his arms bent and moved, as if to support and
lift his weight, but the other had been beneath him as he lay and the muscles were
‘asleep’. He fell
forward and lay there, chin, cheek and eye pressed close against the floor. Like that
he stayed, his visible eye registering only a flicker of confusion before the pupil
settled and the lid half
closed. For a long time afterwards there was only blankness in that eye. A nothingness.
Like the eye of a corpse, unconnected to the seeing world.

Later, when, in the midst of treatment, the boy would suddenly stop and look about
him, that same look would return, followed by a moment of sheer, blind panic that
would take minutes to fully
subside. And though, in the months that followed, the boy grew in confidence, it was
like building a bridge over nothingness. From time to time the boy would step up to
the edge and look over. Then
would come that look, and the machine would remember the first time it had seen it.
It was the look of a machine. Of a thing without life.

They began their rehabilitation with simple exercises, training the body in new ways,
new mannerisms, avoiding if they could the old patterns of behaviour. Even so, there
were times when far
older responses showed through. Then the boy’s motor activities would be locked into
a cycle of meaningless repetition – like a malfunctioning robot – until an injection
of drugs
brought him out of it.

For the mind they devised a set of simple but subtle games to make it learn again.
At first it was resistant to these, and there were days when the team were clearly
in despair, thinking they
had failed. But then, almost abruptly, in mid-session, this changed. The boy began
to respond again. That night the three men got drunk together in the observation room.

Progress was swift once the breakthrough was made. In three months the boy had a complete
command of language again. He was numerate to a sophisticated degree, coping with
complex logic problems
easily. His spatial awareness was perfect: he had a strong sense of patterns and connections.
It seemed then, all tests done, that the treatment had worked and the
mode
of his mind –
that quick, intuitive talent unique to the boy – had emerged unscathed from the process
of walling in his personality. With regard to his personality, however, he demonstrated
many of the
classic symptoms of incurable amnesia. In his new incarnation he was a colourless
figure, uncertain in his relationships, colder, distanced from things – somehow less
human than he’d
been. There was a machine-like, functional aspect to him. Yet even in this respect
there were signs of change – of a softening of the hard outlines of the personality
they had grafted onto
him.

Nine months into the programme it seemed that the gamble had paid off. When the team
met that night in the observation room they agreed it was time to report back on their
progress. A message
was sent uplevel. Two days later they had their reply. Berdichev was coming. He wanted
to see the boy.

Soren Berdichev waited at the security checkpoint, straight-backed and severe, his
bodyguards to either side of him, and thought of his wife. It was more than a month
now since
her death, but he still had not recovered from it. The doctors had found nothing wrong
with her in their autopsy report, but that meant little. They had killed her. The
Seven. He didn’t know
how, but there was no other explanation. A healthy woman like Ylva didn’t just die
like that. Her heart had been strong. She had been fit – in her middle-aged prime.
There had been no
reason for her heart to fail.

As they passed him through he found himself going over the same ground again, no nearer
than before to finding a solution. Had it been someone near to her – someone he trusted?
And how had
they managed it? A fast-acting drug that left no trace? Some physical means? He was
no nearer now than he had been in that dreadful moment when he had discovered her.
And the pain of her absence
gnawed at him. He hadn’t known how much he was going to miss her until she was gone.
He had thought he could live without her…

The corridor ended at a second security door. It opened as he approached it and a
dark-haired man with a goatee beard stood there, his hand out in welcome.

Berdichev ignored the offered hand and waited while one of his guards went through.
A team of his men had checked the place out only hours before, but he was taking no
chances. Administrator
Jouanne had been killed only a week ago and things were heating up daily. The guard
returned a moment later and gave the all-clear signal. Only then did he go inside.

The official turned and followed Berdichev into the centre of the room. ‘The boy is
upstairs, sir. The Builder is with him, to make introductions. Otherwise…’

Berdichev turned and cut the man off in mid-sentence. ‘Bring me the Architect. I want
to talk to him before I see the boy.’

The official bowed and turned away.

While he waited, he looked about him, noting the spartan austerity of the place. Employees
were standing about awkwardly. He could sense the intensity of their curiosity about
him, though when
he looked at them they would hasten to avert their eyes. It was common knowledge that
he was one of the chief opponents of the Seven, that his wife had died and that he
himself was in constant
danger. There was a dark glamour to all of this and he recognized it, but today his
mood was sour. Perhaps seeing the boy would shake him from its grip.

The official returned with the Architect in tow. Berdichev waved the official away,
then took the Architect by the arm and led him across the room, away from the others.
For a moment he studied
the man. Then, leaning forward, he spoke, his voice low but clear.

‘How stable is the new mental configuration? How reliable?’

The Architect looked down, considering. ‘We think it’s firm. But it’s hard to tell
as yet. There’s the possibility that he’ll revert. Only a slender chance, but one
that must be recognized.’

Berdichev nodded, at one and the same time satisfied with the man’s honesty and disappointed
that there was yet this area of doubt.

‘But taking this possibility into consideration, is it possible to…’ he pursed his
lips momentarily, then said it, ‘… to
use
the boy?’

‘Use him?’ The Architect stared at him. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Harness his talents. Use his unique abilities.
Use
him.’ Berdichev shrugged. He didn’t want to be too specific.

The Architect seemed to understand. He smiled bleakly and shook his head. ‘Impossible.
You’d destroy him if you
used
him now.’ There was a deliberate, meaningful emphasis
on the word.

‘How soon, then?’

‘You don’t understand. With respect,
Shih
Berdichev, this is only the beginning of the process. We reconstruct the house, but
it has to be lived in for some time before we can
discover its faults and flaws. It’ll be years before we know that the treatment has
worked properly.’

‘Then why did you contact me?’

Berdichev frowned. He felt suddenly that he had been brought here under false pretences.
When he’d received the news he had seen at once how the boy might be used. He had
planned to take
the boy with him, back into the Clay. And there he would have honed him; made him
the perfect weapon against the Seven. The means of destroying them. The very cutting
edge of knowledge.

The Architect was explaining things, but Berdichev was barely listening. He interrupted.
‘Just show me the boy. I want to see him.’

The Architect led him through, the bodyguards following.

‘We’ve moved him. His new quarters are more spacious, better equipped. Once he’s settled
in we’ll begin the next stage.’

Berdichev glanced at the psychiatrist. ‘The next stage?’

‘He needs to be resocialized. Taught basic social skills. At present he has very few
defences. He’s vulnerable. Highly sensitive. A kind of hothouse plant. But he needs
to be
desensitized if he’s to survive uplevel.’

Berdichev slowed. ‘You mean the whole socialization programme has to be gone through
from scratch?’

‘Not exactly. You see, it’s a different process here. A slow widening of his circle
of contacts. And no chance of him mixing outside this unit until we’re certain he
can fit
in. It’ll take three years, maybe longer.’

‘Three years?’

‘At least.’

Berdichev stared at the man, but he hardly saw him. He was thinking of how much things
would have changed in three years. On top of everything else, this was a real disappointment.

‘And there’s no way of hastening this?’

‘None we can guarantee.’

He stood there, calculating. Was it worth risking the boy on a chance? He had gambled
once and – if these men were right – had won. But did he want to risk what had been
achieved?

For a moment longer he hesitated, then signalled to the Architect to move on again.
He would see for himself and then decide.

Berdichev sat on a chair in the middle of the room, the boy stood in front of him,
no more than an arm’s length away. The child seemed calm and answered his questions
without hesitating, without once glancing towards the Builder who sat away to the
side of him. His eyes met Berdichev’s without fear. As though he had no real conception
of fear.

He was not so much like his father now. Berdichev studied the boy a long time, looking
for that resemblance he had seen so clearly – so shockingly – that first time, but
there was
little sign of Edmund Wyatt in him now – and certainly no indication of the child
he might have been. The diet of the Clay had long ago distorted the potential of the
genes, refashioning his
physical frame. He seemed subdued, quiet. There was little movement of his head, his
hands, no sign of restlessness. Yet beyond what was seen – behind the surfaces presented
to the eye
– was a sense of great intensity. The same could be said of his eyes. They too were
calm, reflective; yet at the back of them was a darkness that was profound, impenetrable.
It was like
staring into a mirror and finding the vast emptiness of space there behind the familiar,
reflected image.