Son of Heaven (39 page)

Peter sighed, then reached into his pocket and removed the ring. He had taken it out and looked at it a dozen times now, trying to imagine how Meg would react, rehearsing in his mind the words
he’d say in offering it to her; mouthing them silently, afraid in case someone was nearby, listening.

If this was the end, if change
was
coming, then he had best do this soon. Today, possibly. Only there was the small problem of Tom and his illness.

Maybe it wasn’t appropriate right now. Maybe…

Oh, he could maybe the day away. He would ask Aunt Mary. He would do it now and get it over with. And then…

Then he would go and clean out the cottage. Burn all the old sheets and blankets and get it all nice and cosy. Make it a little nest for the two of them.

Or was that moving much too fast?

The whole business troubled him. It should have been so easy, so natural, but now it felt a little like everything was having to be rushed.

He looked through the field glasses one last time.

Down below, Jake had reached the last house. As Peter watched, he unlatched the gate and walked up to the door, straightening up as he did. Peter watched him knock, then, a moment later, duck
inside into the darkness.

He turned away, setting down the glasses. He would go right away and speak to Mary.

And afterwards?

Afterwards he’d find Meg and give her the ring.

Boy barked. The wind had blown up and he was keen to get back.

‘Okay, Boy,’ Peter said, reaching down to ruffle his coat. ‘Let’s go find Aunt Mary. Let’s go right now and get things settled, eh?’

Boy barked again, then leapt up and bounded off across the grass towards the gate. Peter watched him a moment, smiling, then followed slowly on behind, the glasses about his neck, his hand
pushed deep into his coat pocket, cradling the ring.

Geoff came back through from the kitchen, carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee.

‘There you are… white with two sugars, just as you like it.’

‘Thanks…’ Jake took the cup and set it down.

The room they were sitting in was Geoff’s study. In one corner a huge desk was piled high with books, while the walls on every side were groaning, floor to ceiling, with shelf after shelf
of yet more books. Books on every subject you could imagine.

They were text books mainly. A historian he might have been, but at heart Geoff Horsfield was an old-fashioned polymath, interested in and knowledgeable on everything under the sun.

‘So…’ Geoff said, settling behind his desk. ‘You want to know why I was so quiet the other evening?’

‘Well, it’s not like you. You have an opinion on most things.’

‘And I have on this… Only I wasn’t sure people wanted to hear it.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘What you said… about the craft… about its markings…’

‘The dragons?’

‘Yes. I think you were right. I think… look, let me show you a couple of things. Articles… from old magazines, from before the Collapse. I think they clarify what’s
been going on.’

‘It’s been a long time…’

‘I know. Twenty-two years. But they’re still relevant. You want to look?’

‘I’ll take them away with me, if you want. But can’t you summarize?’

Geoff smiled. ‘All right. It’s like this. Remember you told me once about those three days when it all happened. I mean… from the inside. In the… what did you call
it?’

‘The datscape.’

‘Right. And do you remember what you said about how it seemed to you that it was the Chinese who kicked the props away, and not just from under us, but from under themselves,
too.’

‘How could I forget?’

‘Okay… the first article I found, you see, was about the man who I think did that… Tsao Ch’un.’

‘Tsao Ch’un?’

The name rang a bell, but after all these years Jake wasn’t sure why.

‘He was in charge, when it all happened. In charge of China, that is. And from what I can make out – the evidence is very sketchy – it was he who gave the order for it all to
be trashed.’

‘And destroy his own economy? Why would he do that? It’s insane!’

‘That’s precisely what I’ve been asking myself for close on twenty years. There had to be a reason. Only I didn’t understand it until very recently. Until I’d come
across a few other bits and pieces. Essays in small, dissenting magazines. Pieces I had reprinted from the internet long ago. Podcasts and odd bits from here and there… from all over,
actually. Jigsaw pieces, they were. Nothing startling on their own, but when you put them all together…’

Geoff was looking down broodingly.

‘China…’

‘Yes, China. It was they who initiated the great Collapse. And not only initiated it but, as you know, pushed and pushed until there was no way for the Market to go but down, on the
biggest helter-skelter ride in history.’

Geoff sipped at his coffee, then set the cup down again.

‘In fact, from what you said to me, and from what I’ve subsequently read, I can say with some confidence that it was no accident. I’ve looked at the state of the Market in the
weeks before it happened, carefully examined and analysed the economic trends of those last few days before it all went off, and I can state with absolute certainty that there was no economic
trigger, no failure of the system. It was deliberate – entirely deliberate. War. Not a shooting war, but war all the same. And now they’re back. Now they’ve turned up, after all
these years, to finish the job.’

Jake laughed. It seemed absurd. But at the same time he felt a deep foreboding. They
were
here. He had seen them with his own eyes.

‘I don’t want to sound like Ted Gifford, but why would they do that?’

‘You said it yourself, Jake. To build a world state.’

‘But…’

‘I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t they save themselves? Why did they subject themselves to all of that destruction, that chaos? And I can come up with only one answer.
That Tsao Ch’un saw it as the only way of destroying the West without a nuclear war. A war he would most certainly have lost. By destroying the world’s economic system, he destroyed the
US as effectively as if he’d dropped ten thousand nuclear warheads. Russia and Europe too. And because he’d prepared for it – because he had instigated it – he was also
prepared for the next stage of things.’

‘Which was?’

‘To prevent the West from rebuilding. To keep us down – broken, if you like – while they slowly took things over. That’s why it’s taken them so long. That’s
why it’s only now that they’ve turned up on our doorstep.’

‘That’s an astonishing theory.’

‘No, Jake. It’s not a theory. It’s what happened. That’s what I’m telling you. All of those little articles and essays. They all add up. The signs were there,
before it all happened. You only had to know where to look.’

Jake looked down. Since he’d first seen it, he had been wondering what on earth it had been, out there on the horizon. Now he knew.

‘There’s something out there, Geoff. On the edge of things…’

Geoff shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Are we talking metaphorically now, or for real?’

‘For real. It’s something Peter noticed. I went up on the King’s Tower with him earlier and he pointed it out to me. It’s out past Poole and Bourne -mouth way. Right out
on the very limits of what we could see with the glasses.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a great mass of whiteness, out there on the horizon.’

‘A block of whiteness?’ Geoff laughed.

‘Like a glacier. You want me to show you?’

Geoff seemed to blanch at that. He realized suddenly that Jake was serious.

‘You mean…?’

‘Like a huge glacier. Only you don’t get glaciers this far south. And it’s October. And I think I know now who’s behind it…’

‘China…’

‘Yeah…’

‘A glacier?’ Geoff said. ‘Or a wall, maybe?’

Jake nodded.

‘But why would they build a wall?’

‘Why do people ever build walls?’

‘To keep their enemies out…’

‘Or their people in.’

‘Yes, but why build it there?’

‘Unless it’s not a wall…’

He took Geoff up onto the tower. There, using Geoff’s glasses, which were considerably less powerful than his own, he had tried to point it out, only it was hard to get
a clear view.

‘I don’t know,’ Geoff said finally, lowering the glasses. ‘It looks like
something
there, but what it is…’

‘I’ll bring my glasses… tomorrow… we’ll look at it then… you’ll get a clearer view.’

Geoff turned to him. ‘It’s like you said the other evening, Jake… The big question is what do they want with us? Do they want to rule us or exclude us? Help us or kill
us?’

‘You think those are the only choices?’

‘Well… they sure as hell aren’t going to leave us be. That’s never the way of it. If history teaches anything, it’s that an invading force makes certain it’s
secure, and by whatever means it can.’

‘Then we’re to fight? Resist them?’

Geoff shrugged. ‘You saw their craft. Do you think we can?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then. Resistance isn’t an option.’

Walking home, Jake thought about that. Was that it, then? Had Fate decided? When China came, was that their role in this – to acquiesce?

If so, it seemed ignoble. Not only that, but the dark historical parallels of it disturbed him. When the world changed, people died. That was the rule of it.

Yes, but maybe they could
choose
how they died… He was walking along the final stretch of the lane coming up to the church when he heard a noise, a strange animal whining, coming
from just ahead of him, over to his left.

That’s Boy, he thought. That has to be Boy!

Jake broke into a run. As he came out onto the main stretch of road, he paused, trying to get a fix on the noise.

There, he thought. The Hubbards’ house…

His heart was pounding now. What if it was bandits… part of that huge army that Branagh’s men had driven off? Jake hauled his gun from his shoulder and ran with it out before him,
the safety off. Anxiety burned in him now.

Where’s the whistle? Why haven’t you blown the fucking whistle?

As he came to the gate, he leapt the low wall and ran on, down the passage -way between the house and the garage and out into the garden space beyond.

There, crouched low, like he’d been told to sit, Boy was howling now, his head tilted skyward.

Jake turned, trying to make out what was happening.

Peter was standing in the doorway, looking in.

Thank god…

Only he didn’t look right.

‘Peter…?’

Peter turned his head, looking towards him. ‘Dad…?’

He looked back inside, then quickly came across. ‘Thank god you’ve come. I was going to come and get you…’

‘Hey, hold on…’

He lifted Peter’s face, saw it was wet with tears.

‘He’s dead, Dad. Tom’s dead…’

‘
Dead
…?’

The shock of it ran through him like a jolt of electricity.

He could hear it now, from upstairs. The sound of sobbing.

‘Christ… when?’

Peter’s face convulsed. ‘He was sitting up talking to us. He…’

He shook his head, unable to continue. Jake gripped his shoulder briefly, then pushed past, hurrying across.

The sound was louder inside. For a moment he paused, looking about him at the kitchen. So many happy moments he’d shared with them, here about their table. So much joy. But now the room
seemed desolate, untenanted.

He climbed the stairs, fighting gravity it seemed, his reluctance like some foul force draining his strength.

Dead. He couldn’t be dead.

At the doorway he stopped, looking in, seeing how the four of them crowded the bed. Clinging to him, like they’d become one in their grief. Tom’s girls.

The thought of it unmanned him. Tears rolled down his face.

Tom’s girls…

Sensing him there, Mary turned and, on seeing him, wiped her eyes on her apron and came across.

‘What happened?’ he asked, looking past her at Tom’s face, where it lay, pale against the pure white pillow.

Tom looked like he was sleeping.

‘I don’t know,’ Mary said quietly. ‘His ’eart…’

She stopped, her face creased with pain.

Jake stepped close, holding her to him, letting her sob against his shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry, Mary… So sorry…’

Her hands gripped his shoulders briefly. She took a long, shuddering breath, then moved back slightly. She was trying to smile, to reassure him somehow, only it came out like a grimace.

‘It’s good in a way, Jake. At least he won’t suffer…’

But he could see she didn’t believe that. She looked distraught. Besides, he knew how it had been between them. There was no faking that. Every second she had had with Tom had been
precious. But now he was gone, and that vast gulf between the living and the dead had opened up between them; a vastness that made nothing of the distance between stars.

He had been dying, sure, but that was weeks off, months they’d hoped. To lose him now seemed cruel.

‘I’ll go back down,’ he said. ‘Make us all some tea…’

Mary was staring at him now. ‘Thanks…’ But as he made to turn away, she reached out, taking his arm.

‘Jake… don’t go home tonight. Stay here… please… Just tonight…’

‘Sure…’

He went down, busying himself, trying not to think.

As if he had a choice…

It was the end of familiar life, he realized. Of normalcy. It was not just Tom’s death. Not just the whiteness at the edge of things. Everything had changed.

And so it comes again…

Once before he had faced this. Once before it had all dissolved about him. Only this time he was scared, truly scared. This time it was sink or swim. This time it was for real.