"What is it, Ben?"
He looked up. "I don't know. I've never . . ."
He stopped. It was like a wave of pure darkness hitting him. A sheer black cliff of nothingness erasing all thought, all being from him. He staggered and almost fell; then he was himself again, his father's hands holding his upper arms tightly, his heavily lined face thrust close to his own, the dark green eyes filled with concern and fear.
"Ben? Ben? What is it?"
"Darkness," he whispered. "It was like . . ."
Like what? He shuddered violently. And then the earlier thing came back to him. Shells . . . Pai pi. That was what his father meant. And that was why they had to make one. Because he was dying. Yes. It all made sense now.
"Like what?" his father asked, fleshing the thought.
"Nothing," he answered, calmer now. "The shell. I understand it now."
"Good. Then you'll help me sketch things out for the team?"
Ben frowned. "Team? What team?"
The pressure of Hal's hands on Ben's arms had eased, but he made no move to take them away. "I've arranged for a team of technicians to come here and work with us on the shell. I thought we could originate material for them."
Ben looked down. For a long time he was silent, thoughtful. Then he looked up again. "But why do that? Why can't we do the whole thing?"
Hal laughed. "Don't be daft, Ben."
"No. I'm serious. Why can't we do the whole thing?"
"Didn't you hear me earlier? It would take ages. And I haven't got ages. Besides, I thought you wanted to get away from here. To Oxford."
"I do. But this . . ." He breathed deeply, then smiled and reached up to touch his father's face with his one good hand. "I love you. So trust me. Three months. It's long enough, I promise you."
He saw the movement in his father's face; the movements of control, of pride and love and a fierce anger that it should need such a thing to bring them to this point of openness. Then he nodded, tears in his eyes. "You're mad, Ben, but yes. Why not? The T'ang can spare me."
"Mad . . ." Ben was still a moment, then he laughed and held his father to him tightly. "Yes. But where would I be without my madness?"
BEN turned from the open kitchen window. Behind him the moon blazed down from a clear black sky, speckled with stars. His eyes were dark and wide, like pools, reflecting the immensity he had turned from.
"What makes it all real?"
His mother paused, the ladle held above the casserole, the smell of the steaming rabbit stew filling the kitchen. She looked across at her son, then moved ladle to plate, spilling its contents beside the potatoes and string beans. She laughed and handed it to him. "Here."
She was a clever woman. Clever enough to recognize that she had given birth to something quite other than she had expected. A strange, almost alien creature. She studied her son as he took the plate from her, seeing how his eyes took in everything, as if to store it all away. His eyes devoured the world. She smiled and looked down. There was a real intensity in him—such an intellectual hunger as would power a dozen others.
Ben put his plate down, then sat, pulling his chair in closer to the table. "I'm not being rhetorical. It's a question. An honest-to-goodness question."
She laughed. "I don't know. It seems almost impertinent to ask."
"Why?"
She shrugged. It was scarcely the easiest of questions to raise at the dinner table. Who made the Universe? he might as well have asked. Or Why is Life? Who knew what the answer was?
Rabbit stew, maybe. She laughed.
Ben had gone very quiet, very watchful. A living microscope, quivering with expectancy.
"Two things come to mind," she said, letting the ladle rest in the pot. "And they seem to conflict with each other. The first is the sense that it'll all turn out exactly as we expect it. What would you call that?—a sense of continuity, perhaps. But not just that. There's also a sense we have that it will all continue, just as it ever did, and not just stop dead suddenly."
"And the second?" It was Meg. She was standing in the doorway, watching them.
Beth smiled and began ladling stew into a plate for her.
"The second's the complete opposite of the first. It's our ability to be shocked, surprised, or horrified by things we ought to have seen coming. Like death. . ." Her voice tailed off.
"A paradox," said Ben, looking down. He took a spoon from the table and began to ladle up the stock from his plate, as if it were a soup. Then he paused and nodded. "Yes. But how can I use that knowledge?"
There he had her. She in a lifetime had never fathomed that.
She turned to Meg, offering her the plate. "Where's Father?"
"He'll be down. He said there was something he had to do."
She watched Meg take her place, then began to pour stew into another plate. It was unlike Hal to be late to table. But Hal had changed. Something had happened. Something he couldn't bring himself to tell her just yet.
"I'm sorry to keep you, Beth." Hal was standing in the doorway, something small hidden behind his back. He smiled, then came forward, offering something to her.
"What is it?" She wiped her hands on her apron, then took the tiny present from him.
He sat, then leaned back, his arms stretched wide in a gesture of expansiveness. The old fire still burned in his eyes, but she could see that he was unwell.
She shivered and looked down at the tiny parcel, then, with a brief smile at him, began unwrapping it.
It was a case. A tiny jewel case. She opened it, then looked up, surprised.
"Hal. . . It's beautiful!"
She held it up. It was a silver ring. And set into the ring was a tiny drop-shaped pearl. A pearl the color of the night.
Meg leaned forward excitedly. "It is beautiful! But I thought all pearls were white ..."
"Most are. Normally they're selected for the purity of their color and luster—all discolored pearls being discarded. But in this instance the pearl was so discolored that it attained a kind of purity of its own."
Beth studied the pearl a moment, delighted, then looked up again. Only then did she notice Ben, sitting there, his spoon set down, his mouth fallen open.
"Ben?"
She saw him shiver, then reach out to cover the cold, silvered form of his left hand with the fleshed warmth of his right. It was a strangely disturbing gesture. "I had a dream," he said, his eyes never leaving the ring. "The pearl was in it." Meg laughed. "Don't listen to him. He's teasing you."
"No." He had turned the silvered hand and was rubbing at its palm, as if at some irritation there. "It was in the dream. A pearl as dark as nothingness itself. I picked it up and it burned its way through my palm. That's when I woke. That's when I knew I'd damaged the hand."
Hal was looking at his son, concerned. "How odd. I mean, it wasn't until this morning, just as I was leaving, that Tolonen brought it to me. He knew I was looking for something special. Something unusual. So your dream preceded it." He laughed strangely. "Perhaps you willed it here."
Ben hesitated, then shook his head. "No. It's serendipity, that's all. Coincidence. The odds are high, but. . ."
"But real," Meg said. "Coincidence. It's how things are, isn't it? Part of the real."
Beth saw how Ben's eyes lit at that. He had been trying to fit it into things. But now Meg had placed it for him. Had allowed it. But it was strange. Very strange. A hint that there was more to life than what they experienced through their senses.
Another level, hidden from them, revealed only in dreams.
She slipped the ring on, then went across to Hal and knelt beside him to kiss him. "Thank you, my love. It's beautiful."
"Like you," he said, his eyes lighting momentarily.
She laughed and stood. "Well. Let's have some supper, eh? Before it all goes cold."
Hal nodded and drew his chair in to the table. "Fine. Oh, by the way, Ben, I've some news."