A Grey Moon Over China (29 page)

T
he new dream came that night for the first time. It began with Ramon Delgado and his family, in a scene from Teresa’s third birthday party on the island. It was a great feast with drinking and two piñatas, all under a burning artificial sun in the subterranean air. The piñata for the children was a smiling burro, but for the adults there was a demon, a grotesque underworld golem with blunt horns and fangs, and deep, sunken eyes.

The adults took their turns with the blindfold and the stick, swinging helplessly as the creature bobbed and swung out of range, turning on its rope and sweeping us with its gaze. Eventually only Pham and I were left, and the others stood in a circle and beckoned me in with the blindfold. But I held back, not being in the mood, and I told them no, go ahead, let Pham have her turn. But they beckoned anyway, and the demon watched and waited until finally I was angry and I said no, please, maybe it’s the drink but no, I’d rather not.

So Pham took her turn. She took a swing with the stick, then threw it aside and reached for the creature with her bare hands. She embraced it tighter and tighter, and moved her body against it as though making love to it while the others whistled and cheered. The demon finally cracked, then crumbled, then vanished into pieces, leaving only the candies and nuts spilling to the ground.

I remembered all of this in the dream, just as it really happened. But then, while the others cheered Pham and her conquest, I looked down at the ground, at a piece of the thing’s face, which was staring up at me with the eyes of Dieter Margyl.

That was when the bad part of the dream began, the part that was to come back again and again. In it, I was trapped in an underground cavern from which a single passage led to freedom. But it led downward first, into the mountain, and I knew that somewhere along it that same demon
waited, the one that Pham had embraced and dispelled, but from which I, to this day, held back.

C
han and I spent the next morning tracking the European ships. What they did was more disturbing than anything I could have imagined. My hopes of reaching Serenitas dimmed, and my fear of becoming trapped here in Holzstein’s System grew.

Chan, who didn’t mind the thought of staying in Holzstein’s at all, brooded about the drones instead. The scientists and priests had conferred through the night and none had been able to suggest how, or why, the drones had vanished. They were sure that Miller knew, until they met with her in the morning and saw the depth of her own concern.

“It scares me a little,” said Chan. “Anne thinks that they may have found something. Or seen something, and it made them leave. And now the Europeans with those weapons . . . I don’t know what’s happening anymore.” She put a hand on my arm. “I need you, Eddie. I need you to hold me like you used to.”

But I’d scarcely heard her. I was thinking about the Europeans, about the worrisome new positions they were taking up. And about warfare, and years of endurance, and life on the great, empty black planet.

Chan and I made love against the machines that afternoon, suddenly and urgently, with little concern for who might pass. She wrapped herself around me and pressed as hard as she could, making no sound as I gripped her tighter and tighter. I tried to touch every part of her at once and drive away the images of the dead, of Pham walking away from me, of the blood on the ground behind her. But I couldn’t.

A
n aide to Carolyn Dorczak called to say that their fleet had also been attacked and to ask for assistance in their future defense.

It was David Rosler who took the call. He then conferred with Polaski, and only afterwards was I informed. I left our ship to pay Rosler a visit.

I descended from the nose hatch of his ship and smelled stale air and rotting food. Lights filtered up from his MI deck, then an angry shout and a moment later a sight that held me motionless. I let the lift carry me on past without a word, not knowing what else to do.

Rosler had a sheaf of papers in one hand, while with the other he gripped Pham’s hair and pressed her down into the console with all his strength, grinding her face into the switches. His voice was contemptuous.

“You’d probably enjoy it, anyway, you little bitch . . .”

Hurt him
, I thought. The idea came from nowhere, unbidden.
You’re faster than he is.
For all I detested Pham, in that instant Rosler seemed insufferable by comparison, and I wanted to see him hurt.

“Hi,” came a small voice.

Glistening metalwork was arrayed in front of me—I’d gotten off on the lower industrial deck, with its manufacturing MI and metal-working machines. Work lamps glared from the ceiling, throwing deep shadows into the deck’s perimeter.

A boy’s face moved in and out of the shadows. He was running a cloth back and forth across the shaft of a turret lathe, watching me solemnly out of blue eyes in a freckled face.

“Hello,” I said.

He stopped. “You looking for the sick lady?”

“I don’t think so. Who’s the sick lady?”

“The one who’s always fighting with Captain Rosler.” He took up his polishing again. “She threw up on the grinder this afternoon. I had to clean it up.”

“I’m sorry. Are you the only one here?”

“Yes. Everyone else is out on the couplings.”

“But not you?”

“Nah.” He snapped the shaft cover into place and spun the lugs with a flick of his wrist. He was no more than eight years old, but worked with the skill of an experienced machinist. He avoided my gaze.

“I’m an LTT,” he said.

“What’s that?”

He cocked his head. “You making fun of me?”

“No.”

“I’m a Low Thrust Tolerant. At two-point-two I start to breathe funny.” He came out from behind the lathe and pointed to a bench strewn with tools and rags. “That’s her piece over there.”

“The sick lady’s?”

“Uh-huh.”

On the bench was a heavy gun, black and unfinished, unlike any I’d ever seen. The chamber had been taken from a light cannon, but a custom magazine, grip and barrel had been added to it. The barrel was ugly and heavy and a good ten inches long, with a bore nearly an inch in diameter.

“Pretty neat, huh?” said the boy, his blue eyes and delicate features brightening.

“I suppose. What’s she going to use with it?”

“Twenty millimeter fléchette rounds. Wait, I’ll show you.” He raced up the steps to the upper deck, then came down holding a brass-clad canister. “It holds four of ’em—more’n a thousand needles each.”

It was a particularly nasty type of antipersonnel round, which at close quarters would take off a person’s entire torso. It was also heavy—at a full G her gun would weigh a good eight pounds, loaded.

But now the boy had lost interest, and was pecking at a keyboard.

“Where’d this shell come from?” I said, hefting the fléchette round.

“Upper indy deck. There’s all kinds of stuff up there.”

I started up the ladder to look. I didn’t remember that we’d put an armory on Rosler’s upper industrial deck.

“Want to see something?” said the boy.

“What’s that?”

“I wrote a program for the machines. They don’t make anything, but they all go at once like they’re dancing. I did the order just right so it kind of makes music—you want to see?”

“Later, okay? I’m pretty busy.”

“Más tarde, Eduardo.”
My father’s voice.
“Estoy ocupado.”

Side arms and rifles lined the upper deck, including a gutted 20mm cannon and a shoulder-portable laser. I walked over to an ammunition case standing open on the floor.

“Hoping to find something you like?”

Rosler stood on the top step behind me, wearing his black waiter’s pants and a soiled white shirt. Limp, black hair hung over his glasses, which were smeared with fingerprints. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glint of the lights on his glasses.

“Tell me what the Americans said, Rosler.”

“NA/C? They lost a ship. Got a warning from the Europeans to stay away from the new torus. Which is where the Europeans are heading, of course. So now NA/C’s all bent out of shape because they’re civvies and don’t have any weapons. They’re belly-aching for help.” He began looking through the racks of side arms.

“How did you know the Europeans are heading for the torus, Rosler?”

“Birds, Torres, birds.”

“I see. So maybe your birds have told you why the Europeans attacked us?”

“Because the Chinese set us up—isn’t that what your prisoner said? Chih-Hsien told the Europeans we were going to cut them out of the action, right?” He selected an aging Mauser P38 and hefted it in his hand.

“You’re sure the Chinese were lying?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then why did they set us up?”

He shrugged. “ ‘Your enemy’s enemy isn’t your friend, he’s your easiest prey . . .’ You know the Chinese.” He sighted along the Mauser.

“The prisoner didn’t say anything about NA/C being set up, too. So why’d
they
get attacked?”

“Don’t be a dip, Torres.” He tossed me the Mauser. “If you’ve got the advantage in firepower, pretty soon you use it.”

I looked down at the little Mauser, and thought about the cannon Pham was making down below.

“So what did you tell the Americans?” I said.

He tossed me a shoulder holster and shells to go with the Mauser.

“What do you think? I said we’d be happy to handle their defense, as long as they pay.”

H
ey, Charlie.”

Charlie Peters and Chan were dancing to an old song about horses and rain in Harlem. It was the next morning, and we were waiting for a meeting I’d asked Polaski to hold.

“Aye, lad.”

“As quartermaster, do you remember putting assault weapons on One-Zero?”

“Ah, well now. We haven’t
got
such things in the fleet, you know. ‘Personal defense and law enforcement armament,’ aye, that we have. Then again, one simple quartermaster can’t open every box, now, can he? But, yes, Eddie, there’s an armory on One-Zero, and I shouldn’t be surprised if our young Mr. Rosler slipped in a little something extra to help him sleep at night.”

A phone blinked and I answered it, then held it out.

“Charlie.”

“Voice from the heavens,” he said, “voice from the heavens.” He went on dancing, so finally I switched the phone to the ceiling speakers.

“Charlie,” said the speakers, “it’s Patty Kelly.”

“Good morning, Patty Kelly.”

“Listen,” she said. “You know how there’s a meeting being broadcast this morning? Well, some of us were thinking, you know how there haven’t been any services yet? For all the people on the ships, you know, yesterday? So we were thinking, maybe we could do a little something for them during the meeting.”

“Aye, lass. That would be a fine idea.”

“And we thought maybe you could say a few words . . .”

Peters stopped dancing.

“Charlie? Are you there?”

“I am.” He looked around and frowned, as though trying to remember something.

“Patty,” he said finally, “why have you asked me to do this, and not one of the captains?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have? You just seemed like . . . I’m sorry, Charlie, we can get someone else—”

“No, child, it’s all right. I’ll say a few words. I only wondered, is all. Thank you for asking.”

I cut off the phone and Peters looked at me for a while, though not for any reason I could think of.

“ ‘Mysterious ways,’ indeed,” he said at last, and stooped down to one of his packing cases.

“What is it, Charlie?”

“Excuse me,” he said. He took out some clothes and disappeared into his little spray-shower.

“What’s with him?” I said to Chan.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s been funny since the tunnel.”

“Do you know what an LTT is?” I said.

“Oh, yes. The way things are going, it’s someone who won’t ever be allowed to have children.”

I thought about the boy and the look in his blue eyes. I wished I’d stayed to watch his Dance of the Machines.

Peters returned a few minutes later, scrubbed and clean-shaven, buttoning the cuffs of a clean white shirt.

“You look very nice, Charlie.”

“Aye.” With the palms of his hands he brushed back the tufts of hair on the sides of his head. His face had changed in the eight years, I noticed—the fleshy cheeks were tighter, and his eyes looked out from deeper sockets under greying eyebrows. He looked older and sterner.

He reached into his case, then turned to the mirror and snapped a white clerical collar into place, followed by his familiar black vest.

“Why, Charlie, you never told us.”

He snapped up the vest’s collar around the white.