Ice and Fire

Kim lay on his back in the water, staring up at the ceiling of the pool. Stars hung like strung beads of red and black against the dull gold background, the five sections framed by Han pictograms. It was a copy of part of the ancient Tun Huang star map of AD 940. According to the Han it was the earliest accurate representation of the heavens; a cylindrical projection that divided the sky into twenty-eight slices – like the segments of a giant orange.

There was a game he sometimes played, floating there alone. He would close his eyes and clear his mind of everything but darkness. Then, one by one, he would summon up the individual stars from within a single section of the Tun Huang map; would set each in its true place in the heavens of his mind, giving them a dimension in time and space that the inflexibility – the sheer flatness – of the map denied them. Slowly he would build his own small galaxy of stars. Then, when the last of them was set delicately in place, like a jewel in a sphere of black glass, he would try to give the whole thing motion.

In his earliest attempts this had been the moment when the fragile sphere had shattered, as if exploded from within; but experiment and practice had brought him beyond that point. Now he could make the sphere expand or contract along the dimension of time; could trace each separate star’s unique and unrepeated course through the nothingness he had created within his skull. It gave him a strong feel for space – for the relationships and perspectives of stars. Then, when he opened his eyes again, he would see – as if for real – the fine tracery of lines that linked the bead-like stars on the Tun Huang map, and could see, somewhere beyond the dull gold surface, where their real positions lay – out there in the cold, black eternity beyond the solar system.

Kim had cleared his mind, ready for the game, when he heard the doors at the far end of the pool swing open and the wet slap of bare feet on the tiles, followed moments later by a double splash. He knew without looking who it was, and when they surfaced, moments later, close to him, acknowledged them with a smile, his eyes still closed, his body stretched out in the water.

‘That’s right,’ he said, assuming a relaxed, almost lazy tone of voice. He had told no one of his game, knowing how the other boys responded to the least sign of eccentricity. Both Anton and Josef were some three years older than he and shared a tutorial class with him, so knew how brilliant he was; but brilliance inside the classroom was one thing, how one behaved outside it was another. Outside they took care to disguise all sign of what had brought them here.

At times Kim found this attitude perverse. They should be proud of what they were – proud of the gifts that had saved them from the Clay. But it was not so simple. At the back of it they were ashamed. Ashamed and guilty. They had survived, yes, but they knew that they were here on sufferance. At any moment they could be cast down again, into darkness. Or gassed, or simply put to sleep. That knowledge humbled them; bound them in psychological chains far stronger than any physical restraint. Outside the classroom they were rarely boastful.

Josef sculled backwards with his hands, his head tilted back, his knees bent, experimenting with his balance in the water. ‘Are you going to see the film tonight?’

Kim lifted his head and looked back at his friend, letting his feet drift slowly down. He was nine now but, like all of them, much smaller, lither than normal boys his age. He combed his hair back with his fingers, then gave his head a tiny shake. ‘What film is it?’

‘Ah…’ Kim understood at once. They had been joking about it only yesterday. ‘Pan Chao…’

Pan Chao! It sometimes seemed as if half the films ever made had been about Pan Chao! He was the great hero of Chung Kuo – the soldier turned diplomat turned conqueror. In AD 73 he had been sent, with thirty-six followers, as ambassador to the King of Shen Shen in Turkestan. Ruthlessly defeating his rival for influence, the ambassador from the Hsiung Nu, he had succeeded in bringing Shen Shen under Han control. But this, his first triumph, had been eclipsed by what had followed. Over the next twenty-four years, by bluff and cunning and sheer force of personality, Pan Chao had brought the whole of Asia under Han domination. In AD 97 he had stood on the shore of the Caspian Sea, an army of 70,000 vassals gathered behind him, facing the great Ta Ts’in, the Roman Empire. The rest was history, known to every schoolboy.

‘What do you mean?’ It was Anton who answered him, but he spoke for both the boys. How could Pan Chao not have existed? Would Chung Kuo be Chung Kuo were it not for Pan Chao? It would be Ta Ts’in instead. A world ruled by the Hung Mao. And such a world was an impossibility. The two boys laughed, taking Kim’s comment for dry humour.

Kim, watching them, saw at once how meaningless such questions were to them. None of them shared his scepticism. They had been bewitched by the sheer scale of the world into which they had entered; a world so big and broad and rich – a world so deeply and thoroughly embedded in time – that it could not, surely, have been invented? So grateful were they to have escaped the darkness of the Clay, they were loath to question the acts and statements of their benefactors.

‘Forget it,’ he said, and realized that even in that he differed from them. They could forget. In fact, they found it easy to forget. But he could not. Everything – even his mistakes – were engraved indelibly in his memory, almost as if his memory had greater substance – was more real – than their own.

‘Well?’ Anton persisted. ‘Are you going to come? It’s one we haven’t seen before. About the Fall of Rome and the death of Kan Ying.’

The doors at the far end had swung open. Momentarily they stayed open, held there by a tall, spindly youth with long arms, a mop of unruly yellow hair and bright blue, staring eyes. It was Matyas.

Matyas smiled maliciously then came through, followed by two other boys, smaller, much younger than himself. ‘Greaser’ and ‘Sucker’, Anton called them, though not in Matyas’s hearing: names that captured not only the subservient nature of their relationship to Matyas but also something of their physical appearance. Greaser – his real name was Tom – had a slick, rat-like look to him, especially in the water, while Sucker, a quiet boy named Carl, had a small, puckered face dominated by thick, fleshy lips.

It was whispered that the two of them ‘serviced’ Matyas in a most original manner; but how much of that was truth and how much it was influenced by Anton’s persuasively apt names was hard to gauge. All that was certain was that the two younger boys accompanied Matyas everywhere; were shadow and mirror to his twisted image.

Kim watched Matyas lope arrogantly along the edge of the pool, his head lowered, an unhealthy smile on his thin lips, until he stood across from him. There Matyas turned and, his smile broadening momentarily, threw himself forward into the water in an ungainly dive.

Kim glanced briefly at the two boys at his side. Like him, they had tensed in the water, expecting trouble. But it was always difficult to know with Matyas. He was no ordinary bully. Neither would he have got here and stayed here had he been. No, his deviousness was part of the fabric of his clever mind. He was a tormentor, a torturer, a master of the implicit threat. He used physical force only as a last resort, knowing he could generally accomplish more by subtler means.

However, Matyas had one weakness. He was vain. Not of his looks, which, even he would admit, tended towards ugliness, but about his intelligence. In that respect he had been cock of the roost until only a year ago, when Kim had first come to the Centre. But Kim’s arrival had eclipsed him. Not at once, for Kim had been careful to fit in, deferring to the older boy whenever they came into contact, but as the months passed and word spread that the new boy was something special, Kim saw how Matyas changed towards him.

Matyas surfaced directly in front of Kim, less than a forearm’s length away, and shook his head exaggeratedly, sending the spray into Kim’s face. Then he laughed and began to move around him in a leisurely but awkward breaststroke. Kim turned, keeping the older boy in front of him at all times.

‘And how’s golden boy, then?’ Matyas asked quietly, looking up and sideways, one intensely blue eye fixing the nine-year-old.

Matyas himself was fifteen, almost sixteen. On his birthday, in a month’s time, he would leave the Centre and begin his service in the Above, but until then he was in a kind of limbo. He had outgrown the Centre, yet the thought of losing his ‘position’ as senior boy both frightened and angered him. Ning wei chi k’ou mo wei niu hou, the Han said – ‘Rather be the mouth of a chicken than the hindquarters of a cow’ – and so it was with Matyas. He did not relish becoming a small fish once again – a ‘cow’s arse’. As a result, he had been restless these last few weeks – dangerous and unpredictable, his sarcasm tending towards open cruelty. Several times Kim had caught Matyas staring at him malevolently and knew the older boy would never forgive the newcomer for robbing him – unjustly, Matyas believed – of his intellectual crown.

It was why Matyas was so dangerous just now. It was more than jealousy or uncertainty or restlessness. He had lost face to Kim, and that loss burned in him like a brand.

Kim looked past him, noting how his followers, Tom and Carl, had positioned themselves at the pool’s edge, crouched forward, watching things closely, ready to launch themselves into the water at any moment. Then he looked back at Matyas and smiled.

‘Ts’ai neng t’ung shen,’ he said provocatively and heard Anton, behind him, splutter with surprise.

Kim kept the smile on his face, trying to act as naturally as he could, but the hair on his neck had risen and he could feel a tension in his stomach that had not been there a moment earlier. A golden key opens every door, he had said playing on Matyas’ use of ‘golden’. It seemed simple enough, innocuous enough, but the jibe was clear to them all. It was Kim to whom doors would open, not Matyas.

It seemed a reckless thing to say – a deliberate rubbing of salt into the open wound of Matyas’ offended pride – but Kim hoped he knew what he was doing. There was no avoiding this confrontation. He had half expected it for days now. That admitted, it was still possible to turn things to his advantage. A calm Matyas was a dangerous Matyas. Infuriated, he might prove easier to beat. And beat him Kim must.

Matyas had turned in the water, facing him, the leering smile gone, his cheeks red, his eyes wide with anger. Kim had been right – the words acted on him like a goad. Without warning he lashed out viciously with one arm, but the weight and resistance of the water slowed his movement and made the blow fall short of Kim, who had pushed out backwards, anticipating it.

There was a loud splash as Tom and Carl hit the water behind Kim. Without a moment’s hesitation Anton and Josef launched themselves into Kim’s defence, striking out to intercept the two boys. As he backed away, Kim saw Anton plough into Carl and, even as the boy surfaced, thrust his head savagely down into the water again before he could take a proper breath. But that was all he saw, for suddenly Matyas was on him, struggling to push Kim down beneath the surface, his face blind with fury.

Kim kicked out sharply, catching Matyas painfully on the hip, then wriggled out under him, twisting away and down. He kicked hard, thrusting himself down through the water, then turned and pushed up from the floor of the pool, away from the figure high above him.

For the moment Kim had the advantage. He spent far more time in the pool than Matyas and was the better swimmer. But the pool was only so big, and he could not avoid Matyas indefinitely. Matyas had only to get a firm grip on him and he was done for.

He broke surface two body lengths from the older boy and kicked out for the steps. He had to get out of the water.

Kim grabbed the metal rungs and hauled himself up, but he had not been quick enough. Desperation and anger had made Matyas throw himself through the water, and as Kim’s back foot lifted up out of the water, Matyas lunged at it and caught the ankle. He was ill balanced in the water and could not hold it, but it was enough. Tripped, Kim sprawled forward, slamming his forearm painfully against the wet floor and skidding across to the wall.

Kim lay there, stunned, then rolled over and sat up. Matyas was standing over him, his teeth bared, eyes blazing, water running from him. In the water the others had stopped fighting and were watching.

‘You little cockroach,’ Matyas said, in a low, barely controlled voice. He jerked forward and pulled Kim to his feet, one hand gripping Kim’s neck tightly, as if to snap it. ‘I should kill you for what you’ve done. But I’ll not give you that satisfaction. You deserve less than that.’

A huge shudder passed through Matyas. He pushed Kim down, onto his knees. Then, his eyes never leaving Kim’s face, his other hand undid the cord to his trunks and drew out his penis. As they watched, it unfolded slowly, growing huge, engorged.

Kim winced. Matyas’ fingers bit into his neck, forcing Kim’s face down into his groin. For a brief moment he considered not resisting. Did it matter? Was it worth fighting over such a thing as face? Why not kiss Matyas’ prick and satisfy his sense of face? But the thought was fleeting. Face mattered here. He could not bow to such as Matyas and retain the respect of those he lived with. It would be the rod the other boys would use to beat him. And beat him they would – mercilessly – if he capitulated now. He had not made these callous, stupid rules of behaviour, but he must live by them or be cast out.

‘I’d as soon bite it,’ he said hoarsely, forcing the words out past Matyas’ fingers.

There was laughter from the water. Matyas glared round, furious, then turned back to Kim, yanking him up onto his feet. Anger made his hand shake as he lifted Kim off the floor and turned, holding him out over the water.

Kim saw in his eyes what Matyas intended. He would let him fall, then jump on him, forcing him down, keeping him down, until he drowned.

It would be an accident. Even Anton and Josef would swear to the fact. That too was how things were.

Kim tried to swallow, suddenly, unexpectedly afraid, but Matyas’ fingers pressed relentlessly against his windpipe, making him choke.

‘Don’t, Matyas. Please don’t…’ It was Josef’s voice. But none of the boys made to intercede. Things were out of their hands now.

Kim began to struggle, but Matyas tightened his grip, almost suffocating him. For a moment Kim thought he had died – a great tide of blackness swept through his head – then he was falling.

He hit the water gasping for breath and went under. His chest was suddenly on fire. His eyes seemed to pop. Pain lanced through his head like lightning. Then he surfaced, coughing, choking, flailing about in the water, and felt someone grab hold of him tightly. He began to struggle, then convulsed, spears of heated iron ripping his chest apart. For a moment the air seemed burnished a dull gold, flecked with tiny beads of red and black. Lights danced momentarily on the surface of his eyes, fizzling and popping like firecrackers, then the blackness surged back – a great sphere of blackness, closing in on him with the sound of great wings pulsing, beating in his head…

T’ai Cho looked up from his meal, then stood, giving the Director a small bow. ‘I’m sorry, Shih Andersen. The boy?’

Andersen huffed impatiently, then glared at the other tutors so that they looked back down at their meals. ‘The boy! Kim! Have you heard what happened to him?’

T’ai Cho felt himself go cold. He shook his head. He had been away all day on a training course and had only just arrived back. There had been no time for anyone to tell him anything.

Andersen hesitated, conscious of the other tutors listening. ‘In my office, T’ai Cho. Now!’

Andersen came to the point at once. ‘Kim was attacked. This morning, in the pool.’

Andersen shook his head. He was clearly angry. ‘No. But it might have been worse. He could have died. And where would we be then? It was only Shang Li-Yen’s prompt action that saved the boy.’

Shang Li-Yen was one of the tutors. Like all the tutors, part of his duties entailed a surveillance stint. Apparently he had noted a camera malfunction in the pool area and, rather than wait for the repair crew, had gone to investigate.

Andersen laughed bitterly. ‘Six boys sky-larking! What do you think? You know how they are – they’d sooner die than inform on each other! But Shang thinks it was serious. Matyas was involved. He was very agitated when Shang burst in on them; standing at the poolside, breathing strangely, his face flushed. Kim was in the water nearby. Only the quick actions of one of the other boys got him out of the water.’ Anger flared in the Director’s eyes. ‘Fuck it, T’ai Cho, Shang had to give him the kiss of life!’

‘In his room. But let me finish. We had Kim examined and there were marks on his throat and arms and on his right leg consistent with a fight. Matyas also had some minor bruises. But both boys claim they simply fell while playing in the pool. The other boys back them up, but all six stories differ widely. It’s clear none of them is telling the truth.’

Andersen nodded. ‘If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, T’ai Cho. Kim trusts you. You’re like a father to him.’

T’ai Cho lowered his eyes, then shook his head. ‘Maybe so, but he’ll tell me nothing. As you said, it’s how they are.’

Andersen was quiet a moment, then he leaned across his desk, his voice suddenly much harder, colder than it had been. ‘Try anyway, T’ai Cho. Try hard. It’s important. If Matyas was to blame I want to know. Because if he was I want him out. Kim’s too important to us. We’ve got too much invested in him.’

T’ai Cho rose from his seat and bowed, understanding perfectly. It wasn’t Kim – the boy – Andersen was so concerned about, it was Kim-as-investment. Well, so be it. He would use that in Kim’s favour.

Kim’s room was empty. T’ai Cho felt his stomach tighten, his pulse quicken. Then he remembered. Of course. The film. Kim would have gone to see the film. He glanced at his timer. It was just after ten. The film was almost finished. Kim would be back in fifteen minutes.

He looked about the room, noting as ever what was new, what old. The third-century portrait of the mathematician Liu Hui remained in its place of honour on the wall above Kim’s terminal, and on the top, beside the keyboard, lay Hui’s Chiu Chang Suan Shu, his ‘Nine Chapters On The Mathematical Art’. T’ai Cho smiled and opened its pages. Kim’s notations filled the margins. Like the book itself, they were in Mandarin, the tiny, perfectly formed pictograms in red, black and green inks.

T’ai Cho flicked through inattentively and was about to close the book when one of the notations caught his attention. It was right at the end of the book, amongst the notes to the ninth chapter. The notation itself was unremarkable – something to do with ellipses – but beside it, in green, Kim had printed a name and two dates. Tycho Brahe. 1546 – 1601.

He frowned, wondering if the first name was a play on his own. But then, what did the other mean? Bra He… It made no sense. And the dates? Or were they dates? Perhaps they were a code.

For a moment he hesitated, loath to pry, then set the book down and switched on the terminal.

A search of the system’s central encyclopedia confirmed what he had believed. There was no entry, either on Tycho or Brahe. Nothing. Not even on close variants of the two names.

T’ai Cho sat there a moment, his fingers resting lightly on the keys, a vague suspicion forming in his head.

He shook his head. No. It wasn’t possible, surely? The terminal in T’ai Cho’s room was secretly ‘twinned’ with Kim’s. Everything Kim did on his terminal was available to T’ai Cho. Everything. Work files, diary, jottings, even his messages to the other boys. It seemed sneaky, but it was necessary. There was no other way of keeping up with Kim. His interests were too wide ranging, too quicksilver to keep track of any other way. It was their only means of controlling him – of anticipating his needs and planning ahead.

T’ai Cho leaned forward and typed in the dates, careful to include the spacing and the dash.

There was the briefest hesitation, then the file came up. ‘BRAHE, Tycho.’ T’ai Cho scanned it quickly. It was a summary of the man’s life and achievements in the manner of a genuine encyclopedia entry.

T’ai Cho sat back again, astonished, then laughed, remembering the time long before when Kim had removed the lock from his cell without their knowing. And so again, he thought. But this was much subtler, much more clever than the simple removal of a lock. This was on a wholly different level of evasiveness.

He read the passage through, pausing thoughtfully at the final line, then cleared the file and switched the terminal off. For a moment he sat there, staring sightlessly at the screen, then he stood up and moved away from the terminal.

He turned with a start. Kim was standing in the doorway, clearly surprised to see him. He seemed much quieter than normal, on his guard. There was an eri-silk scarf around his neck and his wrist was bandaged. He made no move to come into the room.

Kim smiled briefly, unenthusiastically. ‘No surprises,’ he said after a moment. ‘Pan Chao was triumphant. As ever.’

T’ai Cho saw the boy look across at the terminal, then back at him, but there was no sign that Kim had seen what he’d been doing.

‘Come here,’ he said gently. ‘Come and sit with me, Kim. We need to talk.’

Kim hesitated, understanding at once why T’ai Cho had come. Then he shook his head. ‘Nothing happened this morning.’

‘Okay. But it doesn’t matter. We already know what happened. There’s a hidden camera in the ceiling of the pool. One Matyas overlooked when he sabotaged the others. We saw him attack you. Saw him grab you by the throat, then try to drown you.’

T’ai Cho shrugged then looked down, wondering how closely the scenario fitted. Was Kim quiet because it was true? Or was he quiet because it had happened otherwise? Whichever, he was certain of one thing. Matyas had attacked Kim. He had seen for himself the jealous envy in the older boy’s eyes. But he had never dreamed it would come to this.

He stood up, inwardly disturbed by this side of Kim. This primitive, savage side that all the Clayborn seemed to have. He had never understood this aspect of their behaviour: this perverse tribal solidarity of theirs. Where they came from it was a strength, no doubt – a survival factor – but up here, in the Above, it was a failing, a fatal flaw.

‘You’re important, Kim. Very important. You know that, don’t you? And Matyas should have known better. He’s out for what he did.’

T’ai Cho took a deep breath, then stood and went across to him. ‘As you say, Kim. But we know otherwise.’

That too was unlike Kim. That hardness. Perhaps the experience had shaken him. Changed him in some small way. For a moment T’ai Cho studied him, wondering whether he should bring up the matter of the secret files, then decided not to. He would investigate them first. Find out what Kim was up to. Then, and only then, would he confront him.

Back in his room T’ai Cho locked his door, then began to summon up the files, beginning with the master file, referred to in the last line of the BRAHE.

The name intrigued him, because, unlike Brahe, there had been an Aristotle: a minor Greek philosopher of the fourth century BC. He checked the entry briefly on the general encyclopedia. There was less than a hundred and fifty words on the man. Like T’ai Cho, he had been a tutor, in his case to the Greek King, Alexander. As to the originality of his thinking, he appeared to be on a par with Hui Shih, a contemporary Han logician who had stressed the relativity of time and space and had sought to prove the existence of the ‘Great One Of All Things’ through rational knowledge. Now, however, both men existed only as tiny footnotes in the history of science. Greece had been conquered by Rome and Rome by the Han. And the Han had abandoned the path of pure logic with Hui Shih.

T’ai Cho typed in the three words, then leaned back. The answer appeared on the screen at once.

He took a guess. ALEXANDER, he typed, then sat back with a laugh as the computer accepted the codeword.

THE ARISTOTLE FILE

Being The True History Of Western Science

T’ai Cho frowned. What was this? Then he understood. It was a game. An outlet for Kim’s inventiveness. Something Kim had made up. Yes, he understood at once. He had read somewhere how certain young geniuses invented worlds and peopled them, as an exercise for their intellects. And this was Kim’s. He smiled broadly and pressed to move the file on.

Four hours later, at three bells, he got up from his seat and went to relieve himself. He had set the machine to print and had sat there, reading the copy as it emerged from the machine. There were more than two hundred pages of copy in the tray by now and the file was not yet exhausted.

T’ai Cho went through to the kitchen, the faint buzz of the printer momentarily silenced, and put on a kettle of ch’a, then went back out and stood there by the terminal, watching the paper spill out slowly.

It was astonishing. Kim had invented a whole history; a fabulously rich, incredibly inventive history. So rich that at times it seemed almost real. All that about the Catholic Church suppressing knowledge and the great Renaissance – was that the word? – that split Europe into two camps. Oh, it was wild fantasy, of course, but there was a ring of truth – of universality – behind it that gave it great authority.

T’ai Cho laughed. ‘So that’s what you’ve been up to in your spare time,’ he said softly. Yes, it made sense now. Kim had been busy reshaping the world in his own image – had made the past the mirror of his own logical, intensely curious self.

But it had not been like that. Pan Chao had conquered Ta Ts’in. Rome had fallen. And not as Kim had portrayed it, to Alaric and the Goths in the fifth century, but to the Han in the first. There had been no break in order, no decline into darkness. No Dark Ages and no Christianity – Oh, and what a lovely idea that was: organized religion! The thought of it…

He bent down and took the last few sheets from the stack. Kim’s tale had reached the twentieth century now. A century of war and large-scale atrocity. A century in which scientific ‘progress’ had become a headlong flight. He glanced down the highlighted names on the page – Röntgen, Planck, Curie, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Baird, Schrödinger – recognizing none of them. Each had its own sub-file, like the BRAHE. And each, he knew, would prove consistent with the larger picture.

‘Remarkable!’ he said softly, reading a passage about the development of radio and television. In Kim’s version they had appeared only in the twentieth century – a good three centuries after the Han had really invented them. It was through such touches – by arresting some developments and accelerating others – that Kim made his story live. In his version of events, Han science had stagnated by the fourth century AD, and Chung Kuo had grown insular, until, in the nineteenth century, the Europeans – and what a strange, alien ring that phrase had; not Hung Mao, but ‘Europeans’ – had kicked the rotten door of China in.

Ah, and that too. Not Chung Kuo. Kim called it China. As if it had been named after the First Emperor’s people, the Ch’in. Ridiculous! And yet, somehow, strangely convincing, too.

T’ai Cho sat back, rubbing his eyes, the sweet scent of the brewing ch’a slowly filling the room. Yes, much of it was ridiculous. A total fantasy – like the strange idea of Latin, the language of the Ta Ts’in, persisting fifteen hundred years after the fall of their Empire. For a moment he thought of that old, dead language persisting through the centuries by means of that great paradox, the Church – at one and the same time the great defender and destroyer of knowledge – and knew such a world as the one Kim had dreamed up was a pure impossibility. A twisted dream of things.

While the printer hummed and buzzed, T’ai Cho examined his feelings. There was much to admire in Kim’s fable. It spoke of a strong, inventive mind, able to grasp and use broad concepts. But beyond that there was something problematic about what Kim had done – something that troubled T’ai Cho greatly.

What disturbed him most was Kim’s reinterpretation of the Ch’ing or, as Kim called it, the Manchu period. There, in his notion of a vigorous, progressive West and a decadent, static East was the seed of all else. That was his starting point: the focus from which all else radiated out, like some insidious disease, transforming whatever it touched. Kim had not simply changed history, he had inverted it. Turned black into white, white into black. It was clever, yes, but it was also somehow diabolical.

T’ai Cho shook his head and stood up, pained by his thoughts. On the surface the whole thing seemed the product of Kim’s brighter side; a great edifice of shining intellect; a work of considerable erudition and remarkable imaginative powers. Yet in truth it was the expression of Kim’s darker self; a curiously distorted image; envious, almost malicious.

Is this how he sees us? T’ai Cho wondered. Is this how the Han appear to him?

It pained him deeply, for he was Han; the product of the world Kim so obviously despised. The world he would replace with his own dark fantasy.

T’ai Cho shuddered and stood up, then went out and switched off the ch’a. No more, he thought, hearing the printer pause, then beep three times – signal that it had finished printing. No, he would show this to Director Andersen. See what the Hung Mao in charge made of it. And then what?

Then I’ll ask him, T’ai Cho thought, switching off the light. Yes. I’ll ask Kim why.

The next morning he stood before the Director in his office, the file in a folder under his arm.

T’ai Cho hesitated. He knew Andersen meant the matter of the fight between Kim and Matyas, yet for a moment he was tempted to ignore that and simply hand him the folder.

‘It was as I said. Kim denies there was a fight. He says Matyas was not to blame.’

Andersen made a noise of disbelief, then, placing both hands firmly on the desk, leaned forward, an unexpected smile lighting his features.

‘Never mind. I’ve solved the problem anyway. I’ve got RadTek to take Matyas a month early. We’ve had to provide insurance cover for the first month – while he’s under age – but it’s worth it if it keeps him from killing Kim, neh?’

T’ai Cho looked down. He should have guessed Andersen would be ahead of him. But for once he could take him by surprise.

Andersen took the folder and opened it. ‘Cumbersome,’ he said, his face crinkling with distaste. He was the kind of administrator who hated paperwork. Head-Slot spoken summaries were more his thing. But in this instance there was no alternative: a summary of the Aristotle File could not possibly have conveyed its richness, let alone its scope.

Andersen read the title page, then looked up at T’ai Cho. ‘What is this? Some kind of joke?’

Andersen looked back down at the document, leafing through a few pages, then stopped, his attention caught by something he had glimpsed. ‘You knew about this?’

Andersen looked up sharply. Then he gave a tiny little nod, seeing what it implied. ‘How did he keep the files hidden?’

T’ai Cho shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I thought it was something you might want to investigate.’

Andersen considered a moment. ‘Yes. It has wider implications. If Kim can keep files secret from a copycat system…’ He looked back down at the stack of paper. ‘What exactly is this, T’ai Cho? I assume you’ve read it?’

‘Yes. But as to what it is… I suppose you might call it an alternative history. Chung Kuo as it might have been had the Ta Ts’in legions won the Battle of Kazatin.’

Andersen laughed. ‘An interesting idea. Wasn’t that in the film they showed last night?’

T’ai Cho nodded, suddenly remembering Kim’s words. ‘Pan Chao was triumphant. As ever.’ In Kim’s version of things Pan Chao had never crossed the Caspian. There had been no Battle of Kazatin. Instead, Pan Chao had met the Ta Ts’in legate and signed a pact of friendship. An act which, eighteen centuries later, had led to the collapse of the Han Empire at the hands of a few ‘Europeans’ with superior technology.

‘There’s more, much more, but the drift of it is that the West – the Hung Mao – got to rule the world, not the Han.’

The Director turned a few more pages, then frowned. ‘Why should he want to invent such stuff? What’s the point of it?’

Andersen looked up at him again. ‘Hmm. I like that. It’s good to see him exercising his mind. But as to the idea itself…’ He closed the file and pushed it aside. ‘Let’s monitor it, neh, T’ai Cho? See it doesn’t get out of hand and take up too much time. I’d say it was harmless enough, wouldn’t you?’

T’ai Cho was about to disagree, but saw the look in Andersen’s eyes. He was not interested in pursuing the matter. Set against the business of safeguarding his investment it was of trivial importance. T’ai Cho nodded and made to retrieve the file.

‘No. Leave it with me, T’ai Cho. Shih Berdichev is calling on me tomorrow. The file might amuse him.’

‘I’ve decided to bring forward Kim’s socialization. He’s to start in the Casting Shop tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow? Don’t you think… ?’ He was about to say he thought Kim too young, but saw that Andersen was looking at him again, that same expression in his eyes. I have decided, it said. There is to be no argument. T’ai Cho swallowed, then bowed. ‘Very well, Shih Andersen. Should I make arrangements?’

Andersen smiled. ‘No. It’s all been taken care of. My secretary will give you the details before you leave.’

For a moment Kim studied the rust-coloured scholar’s garment T’ai Cho had given him, then he looked back at his tutor. ‘What’s this?’

Still T’ai Cho refused to look at him. ‘You begin this morning. In the Casting Shop.’

Kim was silent a moment, then, slowly, he nodded. ‘I see.’ He shrugged out of his one-piece and pulled the loose-fitting pau over his head. It was a simple, long-sleeved pau with a chest-patch giving the Project’s name in pale green pictograms and, beneath that, in smaller symbols, Kim’s ownership details – the contract number and the SimFic symbol.

T’ai Cho looked fleetingly across at him. ‘Good. You’ll be going there every day from now on. From eight until twelve. Your normal classes will be shifted to the afternoon.’

He had expected Kim to complain – the new arrangements would cost him two hours of his free time every day – but Kim gave no sign. He simply nodded.

T’ai Cho paused. The anger he had felt on finishing the Aristotle File had diminished somewhat, but still he felt resentful towards the boy. He had thought he knew him. But he had been wrong. The File had proved him wrong. Kim had betrayed him. His friendliness was like the tampered lock, the hidden files – a deception. The boy was Clayborn and the Clayborn were cunning by nature. He should have known that. Even so, it hurt to be proved wrong. Hurt like nothing he had felt in years.

‘Does it matter?’ He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, yet when he turned and looked at Kim he was surprised to see how shocked, how hurt the boy was.

Kim’s voice was small, strangely vulnerable. ‘Is it because of the fight?’

T’ai Cho looked down, pursing his lips. ‘There was no fight, Kim. You told me that.’

T’ai Cho looked up. The boy was looking away from him now, his head slightly turned to the right. For a moment he was struck by how cruel he was being, not explaining why he was going. Surely the child deserved that much? Then, as he watched, a tear formed in Kim’s left eye and slowly trickled down his cheek.

He had never seen Kim cry. Neither, he realized, had he ever really thought of him as a child. Not as a true child, anyway. Now, as he stood there, T’ai Cho saw him properly for the first time. Saw how fragile Kim was. A nine-year-old boy, that was all he was. An orphan. And all the family Kim had in the world was himself.

He closed the desk, then went across and knelt at Kim’s side. ‘You want to know why?’

Kim could not look at him. He nodded. Another tear rolled slowly down his cheek. His voice was small and hurt. ‘I don’t understand, T’ai Cho. What have I done?’

For a moment T’ai Cho was silent. He had expected Kim to be cold, indifferent to his news. But this? He felt his indignation melt and dissipate like breath, then reached out and held the boy to him fiercely.

The boy gave a little shudder, then turned his head slowly, until he was looking into T’ai Cho’s face. ‘Then why? Why are you going away?’

T’ai Cho looked back at him, searching the child’s dark eyes for evidence of betrayal – for some sign that this was yet another act – but he saw only hurt there and incomprehension.

‘I’ve seen your secret files,’ he said quietly. ‘Brahe and Aristotle.’

There was a small movement in the dark pupils, then Kim dropped his eyes. ‘I see.’ Then he looked up again, and the expression of concern took T’ai Cho by surprise. ‘Did it hurt you, reading them?’

T’ai Cho shivered, then answered the boy honestly. ‘Yes. I wondered why you would create a world like that.’

Kim’s eyes moved away, then back again. ‘I never meant to hurt you. You must believe me, T’ai Cho. I’d never deliberately hurt you.’

Kim swallowed. ‘I thought Matyas would kill me. He tried, you see. That’s why I left the note in the book. I knew that if I was killed you’d find it. But I didn’t think…’

T’ai Cho finished it for him. ‘You didn’t think I’d find it before you were dead, is that it?’

Kim nodded. And now I’ve hurt you…’ He reached out and gently touched T’ai Cho’s face, stroking his cheek. ‘Believe me, T’ai Cho. I wouldn’t hurt you. Not for anything.’ Tears welled in his big dark eyes. ‘I thought you knew. Didn’t you see it? Don’t you understand it, even now?’ He hesitated, a small shudder passing through his frail, thin body, then spoke the words almost in a whisper. ‘I love you, T’ai Cho.’

T’ai Cho shivered, then drew Kim against him once more. ‘Then I’d best stay, hadn’t I?’

The Casting Shop was a long, wide room with a high ceiling. Along its centre stood six tall, spiderish machines with squat bases and long, segmented arms; each machine three times the height of a grown man. To the sides were a series of smaller machines, no two of them the same, but all resembling to some degree or other their six identical elders. Between the big machines in the centre and the two rows of smaller ones at the sides ran two gangways, each with an overhead track. Young men moved between the machines, readying them, or stood in groups, talking casually in these last few minutes before the work bell rang.

Kim stood in the doorway, looking in, and felt at once a strange affinity with the machines. He smiled and looked up at T’ai Cho. ‘I think I’ll like it here.’

The Supervisor was a Han; a small man named Nung, who bowed and smiled a lot as he led them through to his office at the far end of the Casting Shop. As he made his way between the machines, Kim saw heads turn and felt the eyes of the young men on his back, but his attention was drawn to the huge, mechanical spiders that stretched up to the ceiling.

‘What are they?’ Kim asked the Supervisor once the partition door had slid shut behind them.

Supervisor Nung smiled tightly and looked to T’ai Cho. ‘Forgive my unpreparedness, Shih T’ai. I was only told of this yesterday evening.’

It was clear from the manner in which he ignored Kim’s question that he felt much put out by the circumstances of Kim’s arrival.

‘What are they?’ T’ai Cho asked, pointedly repeating Kim’s question. ‘The boy would like to know.’

He saw the movement in Nung’s face as he tried to evaluate the situation. Nung glanced at Kim, then gave the slightest bow to T’ai Cho. ‘Those are the casting grids, Shih T’ai. One of the boys will give a demonstration in a while. Kim…’ He smiled insincerely at the boy. ‘Kim will be starting on one of the smaller machines.’

‘Good.’ T’ai Cho took the papers from the inner pocket of his er-satin jacket and handed them to the Supervisor. ‘You must understand from the outset that while Kim is not to be treated differently from any other boy, he is also not to be treated badly. The boy’s safety is of paramount importance. As you will see, Director Andersen has written a note under his own hand to this effect.’

He saw how mention of the Director made Nung dip his head, and thought once more how fortunate he was to work in the Centre, where there were no such men. Yet it was the way of the Above, and Kim would have to learn it quickly. Here status counted more than mere intelligence.

The qualms he had had in Andersen’s office returned momentarily. Kim was too young to begin this. Too vulnerable. Then he shrugged inwardly, knowing it was out of his hands. Mei fa tzu, he thought. It’s fate. At least there was no Matyas here. Kim would be safe, if nothing else.

When T’ai Cho had gone, the Supervisor led Kim halfway down the room to one of the smallest and squattest of the machines and left him in the care of a pleasant-looking young Han named Chan Shui.

Kim watched the partition door slam shut, then turned to Chan Shui, his eyebrows forming a question.

Chan Shui laughed softly. ‘That’s Nung’s way, Kim. You’ll learn it quickly enough. He does as little as he can. As long as we meet our production schedules he’s happy. He spends most of his day in his room, watching the screens. Not that I blame him, really. It must be dreadful to know you’ve reached your level.’

Chan Shui’s eyes widened with surprise. Then he laughed again. ‘I’m sorry, Kim. I forgot. You’re from the Clay, aren’t you?’

Chan Shui saw this and quickly reassured him. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Kim. What you were – where you came from – that doesn’t worry me like it does some of them round here.’ He looked about him pointedly, and Kim realized that their conversation was being listened to by the boys at the nearby machines. ‘It’s what you are that really counts. And what you could be. At least, that’s what my father always says. And he should know. He’s climbed the levels.’

Kim shivered. Fathers… He gave a little smile and reached out to touch one of the long, thin arms of the machine.

‘Careful!’ Chan Shui warned. ‘Always make sure the machine’s switched off before you touch it. They’ve cut-outs built into their circuits, but they’re not absolutely safe. You can get a nasty burn.’

Chan Shui looked down. He himself was eighteen, the youngest of the other boys sixteen. Kim looked five, maybe six at most. But that was how they were. He had seen one or two of them before, passing through. But this was the first time he had been allocated one to ‘nursemaid’.

The dull, hollow tones of the work bell filled the Shop. At once the boys stopped talking and made their way to their machines. There was a low hum as a nearby machine was switched on, then a growing murmur as others added to the background noise.

‘It’s rather pleasant,’ said Kim, turning back to Chan Shui. ‘I thought it would be noisier than this.’

The young Han shook his head, then leaned forward and switched their own machine on. ‘They say they can make these things perfectly silent, but they found that it increased the number of accidents people had with them. If it hums a little you can’t forget it’s on, can you?’

Kim smiled, pleased by the practical logic of that. ‘There’s a lesson in that, don’t you think? Not to make things too perfect.’

The controls were simple and Kim mastered them at once. Then Chan Shui took a slender phial from the rack beside the control panel.

‘Be careful with it. It’s ice. Or at least, the constituents of ice. It slots in there.’ He pointed to a tiny hole low down on the control panel. ‘That’s what these things do. They spin webs of ice.’

Kim laughed, delighted by the image. Then he looked down at the transparent phial, studying it, turning it in his fingers. Inside was a clear liquid with a faint blue colouring. He handed it back, then watched closely as Chan Shui took what he called a ‘template’ – a thin card stamped with a recognition code in English and Mandarin – and slotted it into the panel. The template was the basic computer programme that gave the machine its instructions.

‘What do we do, then?’ Kim asked, his expression as much as to say, Is that all there is to it? It was clear he had expected to control the grid manually.

Kim frowned, not understanding. There were something like a hundred boys tending the machines in the Casting Shop, when a dozen, maybe less, would have sufficed. It made no sense.

Kim stared at him a moment longer, then saw he didn’t understand. This, too, was how things were. Then he looked around and saw that many of the boys working on the smaller machines wore headwraps, while those on the central grids chatted, keeping only a casual eye on their machines.

Kim watched as the machine began to move, the arms to extend, forming a cradle in the air. Then, with a sudden hiss of air, it began.

It was beautiful. One moment there was nothing in the space between the arms, the next something shimmered into existence. He shivered, then clapped his hands together in delight.

‘Clever, neh?’ said Chan Shui, smiling. He lifted the wide-bodied chair from the grid with one hand. Its perfectly transparent shape glimmered wetly in the overhead light. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to Kim.

Like most of the furniture in the Above, it weighed nothing. Or almost nothing. Yet it felt solid, unbreakable.

Kim handed the chair back, then looked at the spiderish machine with new respect. Jets of air from the segmented arms had directed the fine, liquid threads of ice as they shot out from the base of the machine, but the air had only defined the shape.

He looked at Chan Shui, surprised that he didn’t understand – that he had so readily accepted their explanation for why the machines hummed. They did not hum to stop their operators forgetting they were switched on; the vibration of the machine had a function. It set up standing waves – like the tone of a bell or a plucked string, but perfect, unadulterated. The uncongealed ice rode those waves, forming a skin, like the surface of a soap bubble, but a million times stronger because it was formed of thousands of tiny corrugations – the menisci formed by those standing waves.

Kim saw the beauty of it at once. Saw how East and West had come together here. The Han had known about standing waves since the fifth century BC: had understood and utilized the laws of resonance. He had seen an example of one of their ‘spouting bowls’ which, when its handles were rubbed, had formed a perfect standing wave – a shimmering, perfect hollow cone of water that rose a full half ch’i above the bowl’s bronze rim. The machine, however – its cybernetics, its programming, even its basic engineering – was a product of Western science. The Han had abandoned those paths millennia before the West had found and followed them.

Kim looked around; watching as forms shimmered into life in the air on every side. Tables, cupboards, benches and chairs. It was like magic. Boys moved between the machines, gathering up the objects and stacking them on the slow-moving collection trays that came along the gangways, hung on cables from the overhead tracks. At the far end, beyond the door where Kim had entered, was the paint shop. There the furniture was finished – the permapaint bonded to the ice – before it was packed for despatch.

At ten they took a break. The refectory was off to their right, with a cloakroom leading off from it. There were toilets there and showers. Chan Shui showed Kim around, then took him back to one of the tables and brought him ch’a and a soypork roll.

There was a loud guffaw of laughter. Kim turned, surprised, and found himself looking up into the face of a beefy, thick-set youth with cropped brown hair and a flat nose. A Hung Mao, his pale, unhealthy skin heavily pitted. He stared down at Kim belligerently, the mean stupidity of his expression balanced by the malevolence in his eyes.

Chan Shui, beside Kim, leaned forward nonchalantly, unimpressed by the newcomer’s demeanour.

‘Get lost, Janko. Go and play your addle-brained games on someone else and leave us alone.’

Janko sniffed disdainfully. He turned to the group of boys who had gathered behind him and smiled, then turned back, looking at Kim again, ignoring Chan Shui.

Chan Shui touched Kim’s arm. ‘Ignore him, Kim. He’ll only trouble you if you let him.’ He looked up at the other boy. ‘Se li nei jen, neh, Janko?’ Stern in appearance, weak inside. It was a traditional Han rebuttal of a bully.

Kim looked down, trying not to smile. But Janko leaned forward threateningly. ‘None of your chink shit, Chan. You think you’re fucking clever, don’t you? Well, you’ll get yours one day, I promise.’

Chan Shui laughed and pointed to the camera over the counter. ‘Best be careful, Janko. Uncle Nung might be watching. And you’d be in deep shit then, wouldn’t you?’

Janko glared at him, infuriated, then looked down at Kim. ‘Fucking little rat’s arse!’

Kim watched the youth slope away, then turned back to Chan Shui. ‘Is he always like that?’

‘Most of the time.’ Chan Shui sipped his ch’a, thoughtful a moment, then he looked across at Kim again and smiled. ‘But don’t let it get to you. I’ll see he doesn’t worry you.’

Berdichev sat back in Director Andersen’s chair and surveyed the room. ‘Things are well, I hope?’

‘Very well, Excellency,’ Andersen answered with a bow, knowing that Berdichev was referring to the boy; that he had no interest whatsoever in his own well-being.

Andersen kept his head lowered. ‘I am afraid not, Shih Berdichev. Not at the moment, anyway. He began socialization this morning. However, he will be back by one o’clock, if you’d care to wait.’

Berdichev was silent a moment, clearly put out by this development. ‘Don’t you feel that might be slightly premature?’

Andersen swallowed. He had decided to say nothing of the incident with Matyas. ‘Kim is a special case, as you know. He requires different handling. Normally we wouldn’t dream of sending a boy out so young, but we felt there would be too much of an imbalance were we to let his intellectual development outstrip his social development.’

He waited tensely. After a while Berdichev nodded. ‘I see. And you’ve taken special precautions to see he’ll be properly looked after?’

Andersen bowed. ‘I have seen to matters personally, Shih Berdichev. Kim is in the hands of one of my most trusted men, Supervisor Nung. He has my personal instructions to take good care of the boy.’

Andersen stared back at Berdichev, wondering for a moment if it was possible he might know something. Then he relaxed. ‘There is one thing, Excellency. Something you might find very interesting.’

‘Yes. Of course. It’s something he produced in his free time. A file. Or rather a whole series of files.’

Andersen smiled and turned. On cue his secretary appeared and handed him the folder. He had added the sub-files since T’ai Cho had brought the matter to his attention, and the stack of paper was now almost twice the size it had been. He turned back to Berdichev, then crossed the room and deposited the folder on the desk beside Berdichev before withdrawing with a bow.

‘“The Aristotle File”,’ Berdichev read aloud. ‘“Being The True History Of Western Science”.’

Andersen echoed his laughter. ‘It is amusing, I agree. But fascinating, too. His ability to fuse ideas and extrapolate. The sheer breadth of his vision…’

Berdichev silenced him with a curt gesture of his hand, then turned the page, reading. After a moment he looked up. ‘Would you bring me some ch’a, Director?’

Andersen was about to turn and instruct his secretary when Berdichev interrupted him. ‘I’d prefer it if you did it yourself, Director. It would give me a few moments to digest this.’

Berdichev waited until the man had gone, then sat back, removing his glasses and wiping them on the old-fashioned cotton handkerchief he kept for that purpose in the pocket of his satin jacket. Then he picked up the sheet he had been reading and looked at it again. There was no doubt about it. This was it. The real thing. What he had been unearthing fragments of for the last fifteen or twenty years. Here it was – complete!

He felt like laughing, or whooping for joy, but knew hidden cameras were watching his every movement, so he feigned disinterested boredom. He flicked through, as if only casually interested, but behind the mask of his face he could feel the excitement course through him, like fire in his blood.

Where in the gods’ names had Kim got all this? Had he invented it? No. Berdichev dismissed the thought instantly. Kim couldn’t have invented it. Just a glance at certain details told him it was genuine. This part about Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, for instance. And here, this bit about the subtle economic influence of the Medici family. And here, about the long-term effects of the great sea battle of Lepanto – the deforestation of the Mediterranean and the subsequent shift of the shipbuilding industry to the Baltic where wood was plentiful. Yes. He had seen shards of this before – bits and pieces of the puzzle – but here the picture was complete.

He shuddered. Andersen was a fool. And thank the gods for it. If he had known what he had in his possession. If he’d had but the slightest inkling…

Berdichev looked down, stifling the laugh that came unbidden to his lips. Gods, he felt elated! He flicked back to the title page again. The Aristotle File. Yes! That was where it all started. Back there in the Yes/No logic of the Greek.

He tapped the stack of papers square, then slid them back into the folder. What to do? What to do? The simple possession of such information was treasonous. Was punishable by death.

Andersen bowed, then brought the tray over to the desk and set it down on one side, well away from the folder. Then he poured the ch’a into a bowl and held it out, his head slightly lowered.

‘That’s correct, Excellency. But I’ve already instructed him to mention it to no one else.’

‘Good. Very good. Because I want you to destroy the files at once. Understand?’

Andersen’s smile drained away, replaced by a look of utter astonishment. He had thought Berdichev would be pleased. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I want all evidence of this foolishness destroyed at once, understand me, Director? I want the files closed and I want you to warn Kim not to indulge in such idle fancies any longer.’ He banged the file violently with the flat of his hand, making Andersen jump. ‘You don’t realize how much this worries me. I already have several quite serious misgivings about the whole venture, particularly regarding the matter of the boy’s safety. I understand, for instance, that there was a fight, and that you’ve had to send one of the older boys away. Is that right?’

Andersen blanched, wondering who Berdichev’s spy was. ‘That is so, Excellency.’

‘And now this.’ Berdichev was silent a moment, the threat implicit in his silence. The purpose of his visit today had been to make the latest stage payment on Kim’s contract. There had been no mention of the matter so far, but now he came to it. ‘My feeling is that the terms of our contract have not been fully met. You are in default, Director Andersen. You have failed to adequately protect my investment. In the circumstances, I feel I must insist on some… compensation. A reduction of the stage payment, perhaps?’

Andersen lowered his head even further. His voice was apologetic. ‘I am afraid I have no discretion, Shih Berdichev. All contractual matters have to be referred to the board.’

He glanced at Berdichev, expecting anger, but the Head of SimFic was smiling. ‘I know. I spoke to them before I came here. They have agreed to a reduction of one hundred thousand yuan.’ He held out the document for Andersen to take. ‘I understand it requires only your signature to make it valid.’

Andersen shivered, suppressing the anger he felt, then bowed and, taking the brush from the stand, signed the paper.

‘We’ll verify this later,’ Berdichev said, his smile fading. ‘But with regard to the files, you’ll do as I say. Yes?’

He reached for the folder, but Berdichev held on to it. ‘I’ll keep this copy. I’d like my company psychiatrists to evaluate it. They’ll destroy it once they’ve done with it.’

Andersen looked at him, open-mouthed, then hastily backed off a pace, bowing his head.

‘Good,’ said Berdichev, reaching across for the ch’a kettle. ‘Then bring another bowl, Director. I believe you have some money to collect from me.’

Kim kept his eyes on his plate, ignoring the figure of Janko, who stood beside him. Chan Shui had gone off to the toilets, saying he would only be a moment, but Janko must have seen him go and had decided this was his chance.

He felt Janko’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing, not hard as yet but enough to make him feel uncomfortable. He shrugged it off, then reached out to take the biscuit. But Janko beat him to it. Laughing, he crammed it in his mouth, then picked up Kim’s bowl to wash it down.

Kim went very still. He heard Janko’s cronies laugh, then heard the unmistakable sound of the boy hawking into his bowl.

Janko set it down in front of him with a bang, then poked him hard. ‘Drink up, rat’s arse! Got to keep our strength up, haven’t we?’

The inane laughter rang out once again from beyond Janko. Kim looked at the bowl. A nasty greenish gob of spit floated on the surface of the ch’a.

Kim stared at it a moment, then half turned in his seat and looked up at Janko. The youth was more than half as big as him again. He would have made Matyas look a weakling by comparison. But unlike Matyas, he wasn’t dangerous. He was merely flabby and stupid and a touch ridiculous.

Janko grabbed at Kim, half lifting him from his seat, then thrust the bowl at his face. ‘Drink, you little piece of shit! Drink, if you know what’s good for you!’

Janko turned. Chan Shui had come back and was standing there on the far side of the room. Several of the boys glanced up at the cameras nervously, as if expecting Nung to come in and break things up. But most of them knew Nung well enough to guess he’d be jerking off to some PornoStim, not checking up on what was happening in the refectory.

Janko released Kim, then, with an exaggerated delicacy, let the bowl fall from his fingers. It shattered on the hard tile floor.

Kim looked across at Chan Shui, a faint smile on his lips, then turned and went to the counter to get a brush and pan.

Chan Shui was standing there when he came back. ‘You don’t have to do that, Kim.’

Kim nodded, but got down anyway and started collecting the shattered pieces. He looked up at Chan Shui. ‘Why don’t they make these out of ice?’

Chan Shui laughed, then knelt down and began to help him. ‘Have you ever tasted ch’a from an ice bowl?’

‘It’s revolting. Worse than Janko’s phlegm!’ Chan Shui leaned closer, whispering. ‘What did you say to him, Kim? I’ve never seen Janko so mad.’

Chan Shui roared with laughter, then grew quiet. ‘That’s good. But you’d better watch yourself from now on. He’s a fool and a windbag, yes, but he doesn’t want to lose face. When I go for a pee, you come too. And fuck what these bastards think about that.’

T’ai Cho smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s okay, Kim. Just a measure the Director is insisting on from now on. He’s concerned for your safety outside the Centre, that’s all.’

T’ai Cho shook his head. ‘No. It’s not necessary for the Casting Shop, but we’re going somewhere special this afternoon, Kim. There’s something I want to show you. To set the record straight, if you like.’

They went up another twelve decks – a full one hundred and twenty levels – until they were in the heart of the Mids, at Level 181. Stepping out of the lift, Kim noticed at once how different things were from the level where the Casting Shop was. It was cleaner here, tidier, less crowded; even the pace at which people moved seemed more sedate, more orderly.

They waited at a Security barrier while a guard checked their permits, then went inside. An official greeted them and took them along a corridor, then up a narrow flight of stairs into a viewing gallery, its front sealed off from the hall below by a pane of transparent ice.

In the hall below five desks were set out in a loose semi-circle. In front of them were a number of chairs, grouped in a seemingly random fashion. Five grey-haired Han sat behind the desks, a small comset – or portable computer – in front of each.

T’ai Cho smiled and indicated two seats at the front of the gallery. When they were sitting, he turned to Kim and explained. ‘This is a deck tribunal, Kim. They have them once a week throughout the levels. It is the Han way ofjustice.’

‘Ah…’ Kim knew the theory that lay behind Han justice, but he had never seen it in action.

They watched the hall fill up, until not a chair was free and latecomers had to squat or sit on the floor. Then, without anyone calling anything to order, it began. One of the elders leaned forward across his desk and began to speak, his voice rising above the background murmur. The other voices dropped away until the elder’s voice sounded alone.

He was reading out the circumstances of the first case. Two cousins had been fighting. The noise had woken neighbours who had complained to Deck Security. The elder looked up, his eyes seeking out the two Han youths. They stood at once.

Beside them an old man, grey-haired like the elders, his long beard plaited, stood and addressed the elder.

‘Forgive me, Hsien Judge Hong, but might I speak? I am Yung Pi-Chu, Head of the Yung family.’

The old man bowed his thanks, then brought his two great-nephews out into the space in front of the desks and had them strip off their tops. Their backs were striped from recent punishment. He made the two youths turn, showing the elders first and then the gathered audience. Then, bidding them return to their seats, he faced the elders.

‘As you see, respected elders, my great-nephews have been punished for their thoughtlessness. But the matter of my neighbours’ inconvenience remains. In that regard I propose to offer compensation of six hundred yuan, to be shared equally amongst the complainants.’

Hsien Judge Hong bowed, pleased, then looked out past the old man. ‘Would the complainants stand.’

Without preamble, and before the old man had returned to his seat, another of the elders began reading out the circumstances of the second case. Again it involved two young men, but this time they had been charged with unsocial behaviour. They had vandalized a row of magnolia trees while drunk.

At the elder’s request the two men stood. They were Hung Mao, their dress neat, respectable, their hair cut in the Han style.

The two men hung their heads. One looked momentarily at the other, who swallowed, then looked up, acting as spokesman for the two.

‘Respected elders, we make no excuses for our behaviour and are deeply ashamed of what we did. We accept full responsibility for our actions and would fully understand if the respected elders should punish us to the full severity for what we did. However, we ask you to consider our past exemplary record and would humbly submit the testimony of our employers as to our conduct. We propose to pay for the damage in full and, in respect of the damage to the harmony of the community we ask that we should be given a month’s community service.’

The elder looked briefly at his fellows, who all nodded, then faced the two youths again.

‘We have read the submissions of your employers and take into account your past exemplary conduct. Your shame is clear and your repentance obvious. In the circumstances, therefore, we accept your proposals, your term of public service to commence in two weeks’ time. However, should you come before this tribunal a second time on a similar charge it will result in immediate demotion. You understand?’

Two more cases followed. The first was an accusation of theft. Two men claimed that another had robbed them, but a Security film showed they had falsely accused the man. The two men, protesting violently, found themselves held by Security guards and sentenced. They were to be demoted five decks. Amidst wailing from the two men and their families and rejoicing from the falsely accused man and his, the permits of the two were taken from them and they were led away.

The fourth case involved a charge of violent assault by a middle-aged man on his wife’s father. Both families were in court, and for the first time there was real tension in the air. The matter was in dispute and it seemed there was no way to resolve it. Both men were deeply respected members of the community. Both swore their version of events was the truth. There was no Security film to solve the matter this time and no impartial witnesses.

The elders conferred a moment, then Hsien Judge Hong called the two men forward. He addressed the older of them first.

The old man bristled and pointed contemptuously at the younger. ‘He insulted my family.’

Judge Hong was patient. It was, after all, a matter of face. For the next half hour he slowly, cleverly, drew the threads of circumstance out into the daylight. At the core of it all lay a trivial remark – an off-hand comment that the younger man’s wife was like her mother, idle. It had been said heatedly, carelessly, in the course of a disagreement about something entirely different, but the old woman had taken great offence and had called upon her husband to defend her honour.

‘Do you not both think that things have got out of hand? You, Shih T’eng,’ he looked at the younger man, ‘Do you really believe your mother-in-law an idler? Do you really have so little respect for your wife’s mother?’

Shih T’eng lowered his head, then shook it. ‘No, Elder Hong. She is a good, virtuous woman. What I said, I said heatedly. It was not meant. I…’ He hesitated, then looked at his father-in-law. ‘I unreservedly apologize for the hurt I caused his family. I assure him, it was not intended.’

Judge Hong looked at the old man and saw at once, from his bearing, that he was satisfied. Their dispute was at a close. But the Elder had not finished with the two men. He leaned forward angrily.

‘I am appalled that two such good, upright men should have come before me with such a… a petty squabble. Both of you should feel deeply shamed that you let things come to this.’

Both men lowered their heads, chastened. The hall was deathly silent as Judge Hong continued.

‘Good. In the circumstances I fine you each five hundred yuan for wasting the time of this tribunal’ He looked at the two men sternly. ‘If I hear any more of this matter I shall have you up before us again. And that, I guarantee you, chun tzu, will be to neither of your likings.’

The two ‘gentlemen’ bowed deeply and thanked the court, then went meekly to the clerk to pay their fines.

T’ai Cho turned to his pupil. ‘Well, Kim? Do you still think the Han way so bad?’

Kim looked down, embarrassed. T’ai Cho’s discovery had made things difficult between them. It would have been easier had he been able to say, No. I did not invent the world you read about, but sometimes the truth was stranger than a lie and far harder to accept.

‘I have never thought the Han way a bad way, T’ai Cho. Whatever you believe, I find you a highly civilized people.’

T’ai Cho stared at him a moment, then shrugged and looked back down into the body of the hall. The crowd had dispersed now and only the five elders remained, talking amongst themselves and tying up any remaining items of business. T’ai Cho considered a moment, then smiled and looked back at Kim.

‘There are no prisons in Chung Kuo. Did you realize that, Kim? If a man wishes to behave badly he may do so, but not among those who wish to behave well. Such a man must find his own level. He is demoted.’

He paused, then nodded to himself. ‘It is a humane system, Kim. The most severe penalties are reserved for crimes against the person. We might be traders, but our values are not wholly venal.’

Kim sighed. It was a direct reference to something in the File – to the greedy and corrupt Hoi Po, or Hoppos, as the Europeans knew them, who had run the Canton trade in the nineteenth century. He had not meant his comment to stand for all the Han, but saw how T’ai Cho could easily have mistaken it for such.

Damn Matyas! he thought. And damn the man who left the files for me to find and piece together!

T’ai Cho continued. ‘There are exceptions, naturally. Treason against the T’ang, for instance, is punishable by death. The traitor and all his family, to the third generation. But ours is a fair system, Kim. It works for those who wish it to work. For others there are other levels of existence. In Chung Kuo a man must find his own level. Is that not fair?’

Kim was tempted to argue, to ask whether it was fair for those born into the Net, or into the Clay like himself, but after all the damage he had done with the File he felt it would be churlish to disagree. He looked past T’ai Cho at the elders.

T’ai Cho looked at Kim and smiled. It was not a full capitulation but, still, there was good in the boy. A great deal of good. When he smiled, for instance, it was such a fierce, sincere smile – a smile from the very depths of him. T’ai Cho sniffed and nodded to himself. He realized now he had taken it too personally. Yes, he understood it now. Kim had been talking of systems. Of philosophies. He had let the abstract notion carry him away. Even so, he had been wrong.

T’ai Cho lowered his head. ‘And he has ordered their destruction, I’m afraid. We must forget they ever were. Understand?’

T’ai Cho looked up at him, sudden understanding in his eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘Why, yes. I never thought…’

Forget, Kim thought, then laughed again, a deep, hearty laughter. As if I could forget.