Existence

It took real effort just to haul himself out of the water, Bin’s body felt limp with fatigue. He was past hunger and exhaustion, making his way from the atrium dock to the stairs, then across the roof, and finally to the entrance of the tent-shelter. It flapped with a welcoming rhythm, emitting puffs of homecoming aromas that made his head swim.

Ducking to step inside, Bin blinked in the dimmer light. “You won’t believe what a day I have had! Is that sauteed prawn? The ones I caught this morning? I’m glad you chose-”

Mei Ling had been stirring the wok. At first, as she turned around, he thought she smiled. Then Bin realized… it was a grimace. She did not speak, but fear glistened in her eyes, which darted to her left-alerting him to swivel-

A creature stood on their small table. A large bird of some kind, with a long, straight beak. It gazed at Xiang Bin, regarding him with a head tilt, one way then the other. It spread stubby wings, stretching them, and Bin numbly observed.

No flight feathers. A penguin? What would a penguin be doing here in sweltering Shanghai?

Then he noticed its talons. Penguins don’t have-

The claws gripped something that still writhed on the tabletop, gashed and torn. It looked like a snake… Only, instead of oozing blood or guts, there were bright flashes and electric sizzles.

A machine. They are both machines.

Without moving its beak, the bird spoke.

“You must not fear. There is no time for fear.”

Bin swallowed. His lips felt chapped and dry.

“What… who are you?”

“I am an instrumentality, sent by those who might save your life.” The bird-thing abruptly bent and pecked hard at the snake. Sparks flew. It went dark and limp. An effective demonstration, if Bin needed one.

“Please go to the window,” the winged mechanism resumed, gesturing with its beak. “And bring the stone here.”

Well, at least it spoke courteously. He turned and saw that the white, egg-shaped relic lay on the ledge, soaking in the fading sunlight-instead of wrapped in a dark cloth, as they had agreed. He glanced back sharply at his wife, but Mei Ling was now holding little Xiao-En. She merely shrugged as the baby squirmed and whimpered, trying to nurse.

With a low sigh, Bin approached the stone, whose opalescent surface seemed to glow with more than mere reflections. He could sense the bird leaning forward, eagerly.

As if sensing Bin’s hands, the whitish surface turned milky and began to swirl. Now it was plain to the eye, how this thing differed from the Havana Artifact that he had seen briefly through an ailectronics store window. It seemed a bit smaller, rounder, and considerably less smooth. One end was marred by pits, gouges, and blisters that tapered into thin streaks across the elongated center. Yet similarities were plain. A spinning sense of depth grew more intense near his hands. And, swiftly, a faint shape began to form, at first indistinct, coalescing as if from a fog.

Demons, Xiang Bin thought. Or rather, a demon. A single figure approached, bipedal, shaped vaguely like a man.

With reluctance-wishing he had never laid eyes on it-Bin made himself plant hands on both tapered ends, gritting his teeth as a brief, faint tremor ran up the inner surface of his arms. He hefted the heavy stone, turned and carried it away from the sunlight. At which point, the glow seemed only to intensify, filling and chasing the dim shadows of the tent-shelter.

“Put it down here, on the table, but please do not release it from your grasp,” the bird-thing commanded, still polite, but insistent. Bin obeyed, though he wanted to let go. The shape that gathered form, within the stone, was not one that he had seen before. More humanlike than the demons he had glimpsed on TV, shown peering outward from the stone in Washington-but still a demon. Like the frightening penguin-creature, whose wing now brushed his arm as it bent next to him, eager for a closer look.

“The legends are true!” it murmured. Bin felt the bird’s voice resonate, emitting from an area on its chest. “Worldstones are said to be picky. They may choose one human to work with, or sometimes none at all. Or so go the stories.” The robot regarded Xiang Bin with a glassy eye. “You are fortunate in more ways than you might realize.”

Nodding without much joy, Xiang Bin knew at least one way.

I am needed, then. It will work only for me.

That means they won’t just take the thing and leave us be.

But it also means they must keep me alive. For now.

The demon within the stone-it had finished clarifying, though the image remained rippled and flawed. Approaching on two oddly jointed legs, it reached forward with powerfully muscular arms, as if to touch or seize Bin’s enclosing hands. The mouth-appearing to have four lips arranged like a flattened diamond-moved underneath a slitlike nose and a single, ribbonlike organ where eyes would have been. With each opening and closing of the mouth, a faint buzzing quivered the surface under Bin’s right palm.

“The stone is damaged,” the penguinlike automaton observed. “It must have once possessed sound transducers. Perhaps, in a well-equipped laboratory-”

“Legends?” Bin suddenly asked, knowing he should not interrupt. But he couldn’t help it. Fear and exhaustion and contact with demons-it all had him on the verge of hysteria. Anyway, the situation had changed. If he was special, even needed, then the least that he could demand was an answer or two!

“What legends? You mean these stones have appeared before?”

The bird-thing tore its gaze away from the image of a humanoid creature, portrayed opening and closing its mouth in a pantomime of speech that timed roughly, but not perfectly, with the vibrations under Bin’s right hand.

“You might as well know, Peng Xiang Bin, since yours is now a burden and a task assigned by Heaven.” The penguinlike machine gathered itself to full height and then gave him a small bow of the head. “A truth that goes back farther than any other that is known.”

Bin’s mouth felt dry. “What truth?”

“That stones have fallen since time began. And men are said to have spoken to them for at least nine thousand years.

“And in all that long epoch, they have referred to a day of culmination. And that day, long prophesied, may finally be at hand.”

Bin felt warm contact at his back, as Mei Ling pressed close-as near as she could, while nursing their child. He did not remove his hands from the object on the table. But he was glad that one of hers slid around his waist, clutching him tight and driving out some of the chill he felt, inside.

“Then…,” Bin swallowed. “Then you are not an alien?”

“Me?” The penguin stared at Bin for a moment, then emitted a chirp-the mechanical equivalent of laughter. “I see how you could leap to that mistaken conclusion. But no, Peng Xiang Bin. I am man-built. So was this snake,” its talons squeezed the artificial serpent harder, “sent here by a different-and more ruthless-band of humans. Our competitors also seek to learn more about the interstellar emissary probes.”

Meanwhile, the entity within the stone appeared frustrated, perhaps realizing that no one heard its words. The buzzing intensified, then stopped. Then, instead, the demon reached forward, as if toward Bin, and started to draw a figure in space, close to the boundary between them. Wherever it moved its scaly hand, a trail of inky darkness remained, until Bin realized.

Calligraphy. The creature was brushing a figure-an ideogram-in a flowing, archaic-looking style. It was a complicated symbol, containing at least twenty strokes. I wish I had more education, Bin thought, gazing in awe at the final shape, when it stood finished, throbbing across the face of the glowing worldstone. Both symmetrically beautiful and yet jagged, threatening, it somehow transfixed the eye and made his heart pound.

Xiang Bin did not know the character. But anyone with the slightest knowledge of Chinese would recognize the radical-the core symbol-that it was built from.

Danger.