As he watched the last of his ships slip beneath the darkness he nodded to himself. The game was lost. It was time to cut and run, back to the no-space. Back to the cold dark space from which he'd come.
EPILOGUE SPRING 2222
Starlight and Nonbeing
Starlight asked Nonbeing: "Master, are you? Or are you not?"
Since he received no answer whatever, Starlight set himself to watch for Nonbeing. He waited to see if Nonbeing would put in an appearance.
He kept his gaze fixed on the deep Void, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nonbeing.
All day long he looked, and he saw nothing. He listened, but heard nothing. He reached out to grasp, and grasped nothing.
Then Starlight exclaimed at last: "This is IT!"
"This is the farthest yet! Who can reach it? I can comprehend the absence of Being But who can comprehend the absence of Nothing? If now, on top of all this, Nonbeing IS, Who can comprehend it?"
—chuang tzu, Writings, xxii, VIII, sixth century B.C.
EPILOGUE
Starlight and Nonbeing
SHE HAD WALKED for four days, through abandoned levels and empty rooms, past broken barricades and scenes of desolation, returning to him. Through the nightmare vistas of a ruined City, through scenes of misery and torment and the utmost degradation, she passed like a shadow, unseen, untroubled by the gangs of thugs and madmen who roamed like pack dogs in those half-lit regions.
Eventually she stood there in the room she had shared with him, looking about her at the wreckage, and felt the last faint glimmer of hope die in her. She had been so sure—so certain he'd be here.
She sat, weary now, letting her head fall. If she died it would not matter. Let the sky fall and the earth crack open, it would make no difference now.
For a long time she slept, beaten, finally defeated by the world. Then, pulling herself to her feet, she turned and went from the room, not knowing where she'd go.
Main seemed echoing and empty. Glass littered the floor from broken screens, but one still functioned at the far end by the clock tower. Beneath it a small crowd had gathered, standing idly or sitting on their bundles, as if waiting to see this last transmission before they, too, moved on.
She walked across and stood there at the back, looking up at the screen, her eyes registering nothing. Dead. This world was dead now, and she with it. She looked down, meaning to walk on, then saw him, there at the front, leaning against the barrier.
"Lin?" She went toward him, not sure at first that it was him. Then, as the certainty of it gripped her, she called to him, louder this time.
"Lin! Lin Shang!"
He turned sharply, fearful, his lopsided face grimacing fiercely, then saw her. The grimace became a smile. He took a step toward her, then stopped, looking down, the smile vanishing. Both his hands were bandaged. In one he loosely held a scrap of paper.
"Lin!" she said breathlessly, coming up to him and gripping his upper arms. "Lin! What happened to your hands?"
He shook his head, refusing to look at her.
"Lin! What is it?"
Slowly he held out the paper. She took it and unfolded it. On it was a picture of her face. She recognized it at once. It was one of the handbills Michael had been distributing throughout the levels before the War. She stared at it a moment, then, looking back at him, held it out.
"Lin Shang . . . look at me."
Slowly, fearfully, he raised his eyes.
She tore the paper, then tore it once again and let it fall. Then, reaching down, she picked up his pack and, placing her arm about his shoulders, began to lead him away.
"Come, Lin," she said gently. "There's mending to be done."
BENEATH THE camera's solemn gaze the funeral cortege crossed the bridge then climbed the great steps, pausing beneath the gate of Bremen fortress for those senior officers who had survived to remove their caps and bow respectfully before the Marshal's body.
Tolonen was dead. Now he lay in the great coffin, his face made up to. resemble life, his corpse padded out to fill his Marshal's uniform. Ten stout cadets carried the great casket, while behind it the Marshal's daughter, Jelka, walked slowly, dressed from head to toe in white, her son one side of her, her diminutive husband the other. Beyond her, bareheaded and dressed in sackcloth, honoring his father's General, walked Li Yuan, and behind him his court.
Karr was next, his old lieutenant Chen beside him.
Last came Ebert and the Osu, their eight black faces exposed to the watching eyes of those millions who had survived to witness this final act.
Li Yuan, looking up at the casket, sighed. Ice, flood, and fire, they had survived it all. And now, it seemed, they were to place the old world in the earth: for Tolonen had been the keystone of the arch, and, as his father had so often said, without the keystone, the arch must surely fall.
He had had a plot cleared at the center of the fortress, at ground level. There he would bury the old man, and around his grave he would begin the task of rebuilding his world, of fulfilling his promise to Ebert and the Osu. The promise he'd renewed to Karr.
They had been given a chance—a breathing space in which to bring about a change. Change such as his father would never have dreamed of.
You must not fail, he told himself, stepping beneath arch into the sepulchral darkness of the great atrium.
That morning, against habit, he had called his wife's Wu and had the old man cast the oracle.
Wei chi, it had been . . . Before completion.
He smiled, recalling the old man's words.
"Before completion. Success.
But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing,
Gets his tail in the water,
There is nothing that would further."
He understood. Ahead of him lay his greatest task, that of leading his world from disorder into order; of shaping it into a newer, healthier form; of giving the world he had inherited true balance. But in so doing he must be like an old fox walking over ice. He must be the unifying force behind it all, stopping often to listen for the cracking of the ice where it was thinnest.
Yes, and he must keep his tail out of the icy water!
AFTER THE CEREMONY, Li Yuan went across to Ebert, who was standing with the Osu between the huge pillars of the Hall.
As the Osu stepped back, Ebert turned his blind eyes on the young T'ang and bowed low. "Li Yuan."
"There is some final business between us," Yuan said, turning to take the two documents from Nan Ho. "Promises I made you."
Ebert smiled. "You gave your word. That is enough for me."
"Perhaps . . . but maybe I have less faith in myself than you, Hans Ebert. These"—he handed them across—"these are as a sign to all men. The one returns your name to you and absolves you of all blame for your father's death, the other is a statement of my government's policy from henceforth."
"Then you will tear it down?"
"I shall. Beginning here, at Bremen."
"And in its place?"
Li Yuan shrugged. "Who knows? The oracle bids me be like an old fox on the ice. It will doubtless be many years before the crossing's made."
"But beginning is something, neh?"
Li Yuan smiled and nodded. "And you, Hans Ebert? Will you stay and see those changes come about?"
Ebert bowed his head slightly. "Forgive me, Li Yuan, but I have other plans. I have a son I do not know, and a people who must find a proper home. Now that DeVore has gone, they have an itch to return from whence they came so long ago."
"I see."
"Make sure you do," Ebert said, laughing softly. Then, with a bow, he turned and went to join the Osu.
IT WAS SILENT where he sat between the worlds. Silent and dark. Outside the stars shimmered redly, elongated toward him as his craft sped out toward the System's edge.