"Why were the tapes so short?"
"Again, that's due to the complexity of the medium. Think of it, Ben. It's not just a question of creating the visual backdrop—the environment—but of synchronizing muscular movement to fit into that backdrop."
"Nothing a good computer couldn't do, surely?"
"Maybe. But only if someone were skilled enough to program it to do the job in the first place."
Ben began to pull his shirt on, then paused, shaking his head. "There were other things wrong with it, too. The hood, for instance. That's wrong. I had a sense all the while of the world beyond the machine. Not only that, but there was a faint humming noise—a vibration—underlying everything. Both things served to dis-tance me from the illusion. They reminded me, if only at some deep, subconscious level, that I was inside a machine. That it was a fiction."
Hal went over to the desk and sat, the strain of standing for so long showing in his face. "Is that so bad, Ben? Surely you have the same in any art form? You know that the book in your hands is just paper and ink, the film you're watching an effect of light on celluloid, a painting the result of spreading oils on a two-dimensional canvas. The medium is always there, surely?"
"Yes. But it doesn't have to be. Not in this case. That's what's so exciting about it. For the first time ever you can dispense with the sense of 'medium' and have the experience direct, unfiltered."
"I don't follow you, Ben. Surely you'll always be aware that you're lying inside a machine, no matter how good the fiction?"
"Why?" Ben buttoned the shirt, pulled on his pants and trousers, and went over to his father, standing over him, his eyes burning. "What if you could get rid of all the distractions? Wouldn't that change the very nature of the fiction you were creating? Imagine it! It would seem as real as this now—as me talking to you here, now, you sitting there, me standing, the warm smell of oil and machinery surrounding us, the light just so, the temperature just so. Everything as it is. Real. As real as real, anyway."
"Impossible," Hal said softly, looking away. "You could never make something that good."
"Why not?" Ben turned away a moment, his whole body fired by a sudden enthusiasm. "What's preventing me from doing it? Nothing. Nothing but my own will."
Hal shrugged, then looked back at his son, a faint smile of admiration lighting his tired features momentarily. "Perhaps. But it's not as easy as that, Ben. That little clip you experienced. How long do you think it was?"
Ben considered. "Two minutes. Maybe slightly longer."
Hal laughed, then grew more serious. "It was two minutes and fourteen seconds, and yet it took a team of eight men more than three weeks to make. It's a complex form, Ben. I keep telling you that. To do what you're talking about, well, it would take a huge team of men years to achieve."
Ben turned, facing his father, his face suddenly very still. "Or a single man a lifetime?"
Hal narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I mean myself. My calling. For months now I've been experimenting with the morph. Trying to capture certain things. To mimic them, then reproduce them on a tape. But this ... these pai pi ... . . they're the same kind of thing. Stores of experience. Shells, filled with the very yolk- of being. Or at least they could be."
"Shells ... I like that. It's a good name for them."
Strangely, Ben smiled. "Yes. It is, isn't it. Shells."
Hal studied his son a moment longer then looked down. "I had another reason for showing these to you. Something more selfish."
"Selfish?"
"Yes. Something I want you to help me with."
"Ah . . ."
The hesitation in Ben's face surprised him. "There's something I have to ask you first," Ben said quickly. "Something I need from you."
Hal sat back slightly. So Beth was right. Ben was restless here. Yes, he could see it now. "You want to leave here. Is that it?"
Ben nodded.
"And so you can. But not now. Not just yet."
"Then when?"
Again, the hardness in Ben's voice was unexpected. He had changed a great deal in the last few months. Had grown, become his own man.
"Three months. Is that so long to wait?"
Ben was still a moment, considering, then shook his head. "No. I guess not. You'll get me into Oxford?"
"Wherever you want. I've already spoken to the T'ang."
Ben's eyes widened with surprise.
Hal leaned forward, concealing his amusement, and met his son's eyes defiantly. "You think I don't know how it feels?" He laughed. "You forget I was born here, too. And I, too, was seventeen once, believe it or not. I know what it's like, that feeling of missing out on life. I know it all too well. But I want something from you in return. I want you to help me."
Ben took a breath, then nodded. "All right. But how?"
Hal hesitated, then looked away. "I want to make a pai pi... a shell. For your mother. Something she can keep."
Ben frowned. "I don't understand. Why? And what kind of shell?"
Hal looked up slowly. He seemed suddenly embarrassed, awkward. "Of myself. But it's to be a surprise. A present. For her birthday."
Ben watched his father a moment, then turned and looked back at the ornate casing of the machine. "Then we should make a few changes to that, don't you think? It looks like a coffin."
Hal shuddered. "I know . . ."
"We should get workmen in . . ." Ben began, turning back, then stopped as he saw how his father was staring down at his hands. Hands that were trembling like the hands of a very old man.
Ben's voice was almost a whisper. "What's wrong?"
He saw how his father folded his hands together, then looked up, a forced smile shutting out the fear that had momentarily taken hold of his features. "It's nothing. I ..." He stopped and turned. Meg was standing just behind him. She had entered silently.
"The man's come," she said hesitantly.
"The man?"
Meg looked from one to the other, disturbed by the strange tension in the room; aware that she had interrupted something. "The man from ProsTek. He's come to see to Ben's hand."
"Ben's hand?" Hal turned, looking across at Ben, then he laughed. A brief, colorless laugh. "Of course. Your mother said."
Ben's eyes didn't leave his father for a moment. "Thanks. Tell Mother I'll be up."
She hesitated, wanting to ask him what was wrong, but she could see from the look of him that she was excluded from this.
"Ben?"
Still he didn't look at her. "Go on. I told you. I'll be up."
She stood there a moment longer, surprised and hurt by the sudden curtness in his voice. Then, angered, she turned and ran back down the space between the racks and up the steps.
At the top of the steps she stopped, calming herself. Hal had said no. That was it! And now Ben was angry with her, because she didn't want him to go either. Meg shivered, her anger suddenly washed from her; then, giving a soft laugh of delight, she pushed the door open and went through.
THE HAND LAY on the table, filaments trailing from the precisely severed wrist like fine strands of hair. It was not like the other hand. This one shone silver in the light, its surfaces soft and fluid like mercury. Yet its form suggested heaviness and strength. Meg, staring at it from across the room, could imagine the being from which it had been cut: a tall, faceless creature with limbs on which the sunlight danced like liquid fire. She could see him striding through the grass below the cottage. See the wood of the door splinter like matchwood before his fist.
She shuddered and turned, looking back at the man kneeling at Ben's side. As she looked he glanced up at her and smiled: a polite, pleasant smile. He was a Han. Lin Hou Ying, his name was. A tiny, delicate man in his sixties, with hands that were so small they seemed like a child's. Hands so doll-like and delicate, in fact, that she had asked him if they were real.