Chapter 26
Flames danced in a glass. Beyond, in the glow of the naked fire, a man’s face smiled tightly.
‘Not long now,’ he said, coming closer to the fierce, wavering light. He had delicate, oriental features that were almost feminine; a small, well-shaped nose and wide, dark eyes that caught and held the fire’s light. His jet black hair was fastened in a pigtail then coiled in a tight bun at the back of his head. He wore white, the colour of mourning – a simple one-piece that fitted his small frame loosely.
A warm night wind blew across the mountainside, making the fire flare up. The coals at its centre glowed intensely. Ash and embers whirled off. Then the wind died and the shadows settled.
‘They’ve taken great pains, Kao Jyan.’
The second man walked back from the darkness where he’d been standing and faced the other across the flames, his hands open, empty. He was a much bigger man, round-shouldered and heavily muscled. His large, bony head was freshly shaven and his whites fitted him tightly. His name was Chen and he had the blunt, nondescript face of a thousand generations of Han peasants.
Jyan studied his partner momentarily. ‘They’re powerful men,’ he said. ‘They’ve invested much in us. They expect much in return.’
‘I understand,’ Chen answered, looking down the moonlit valley towards the City. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
Jyan narrowed his eyes. ‘What is it?’
‘See?’ Chen pointed off to his right. ‘There! Up there where the mountains almost touch the clouds.’
Jyan looked. Thin strands of wispy cloud lay across the moon’s full circle, silvered by its intense light. Beyond, the sky was a rich blue-black. ‘So?’
Chen turned back to him, his eyes shining in the firelight. ‘It’s beautiful, don’t you think? How the moonlight has painted the mountain tops white.’
Jyan shivered, then stared past the big man towards the distant peaks. ‘It’s ice.’
‘What? Plastic, you mean?’
Jyan shook his head. ‘No. Not the stuff the City’s made of. Real ice. Frozen water. Like the ch’un tzu put in their drinks.’
Chen turned and looked again, his broad face wrinkling. Then he looked away sharply, as if the very thought disturbed him.
As it should, thought Jyan, aware of his own discomfort. The drugs he’d been given made all of this seem familiar – gave him false memories of such things as cold and clouds and moonlight-yet, beneath the surface calm of his mind, his body was still afraid.
There was a faint movement against his cheek, a sudden ruffling of his hair. At his feet the fire flared up again, fanned by the sudden gust. Wind, thought Jyan, finding it strange even to think the word. He bent down and lifted a log from the pile, turning it in his hand and feeling its weight. Then he turned it on its end and stared at the curious whorl of its grain. Strange. Everything so strange out here, outside the City. So unpredictable. All of it so crudely thrown together. So unexpected, for all that it seemed familiar.
Chen came and stood by him. ‘How long now?’
Jyan glanced at the dragon timer inset into the back of his hand. ‘Four minutes.’
He watched Chen turn and – for what seemed like the hundredth time – look back at the City, his eyes widening, trying to take it in.
The City. It filled the great northern plain of Europe. From where they stood, on the foothills of the Alps, it stretched away northward a thousand five hundred li to meet the chill waters of the Baltic, while to the west the great wall of its outer edge towered over the Atlantic for the full three thousand li length of its coastline, from Cape St Vincent in the south to Kristiansund in the rugged north. To the south, beyond the huge mountain ranges of the Swiss Wilds, its march continued, ringing the Mediterranean like a giant bowl of porcelain. Only to the east had its growth been checked in a jagged line that ran from Danzig in the north to Odessa in the south. There the plantations began; a vast sea of greenness that swept into the heart of Asia.
‘It’s strange, isn’t it? Being outside. It doesn’t seem real.’
Chen did not answer. Looking past him, Jyan saw how the dark, steep slopes of the valley framed a giant, flat-topped arrowhead of whiteness. It was like a vast wall – a dam two li in height – plugging the end of the valley. Its surface was a faintly opalescent pearl, lit from within. Ch’eng, it was. City and wall. The same word in his mother tongue for both. Not that he knew more than a smattering of his mother tongue.
He turned his head and looked at Chen again. Brave Chen. Unimaginative Chen. His blunt face rounded like a plate, his bull neck solid as the rocks surrounding them. Looking at him, Jyan put aside his earlier misgivings. Chen was kwai, after all – a trained knife – and kwai were utterly reliable. Jyan smiled to himself. Yes, Chen was all right. A good man to have at your back.
‘You’re ready?’ he asked.
Chen looked back at him, his eyes firm, determined. ‘I know what I have to do.’
‘Good.’
Jyan looked down into his glass. Small tongues of flame curled like snakes in the darkness of the wine; cast evanescent traces on the solid curve of transparency. He threw the glass down into the fire, then stared into the flames themselves, aware for the first time how evasive they were; how, when you tried to hold their image clear in mind, it slipped away, leaving only the vaguest of impressions. Not real at all, for all its apparent clarity. Perhaps that’s how the gods see us, he thought; as mere traces, too brief for the eye to settle on.
There was a sharp crack as the glass split and shattered. Jyan shivered, then looked up, hearing the low drone of the approaching craft.
‘They’re here,’ said Chen, his face impassive.
Jyan looked across at the kwai and nodded. Then, buttoning their one-pieces at the neck, the two assassins made their way towards the ship.
‘Your pass, sir?’
Pi Ch’ien, Third Secretary to Junior Minister Yang, glanced up at the camera, noting as he did the slow, smooth movement of the overhead trackers, the squat, hollowed tongues of their barrels jutting from the mouths of stylized dragons. Bowing low, he took the card from his robe and inserted it into the security slot. Placing his face against the moulded pad in the wall, he held his left eye open against the camera lens, then stepped back, looking about him.
He had never been into one of the Imperial Solariums before. Even as District Magistrate, responsible for the lives of the twenty thousand people in his deck, he had lacked the status to enter such a place. Now, however, as Third Secretary to Yang Lai, he had been permitted to place his name on the list. But the list was a list, like all the others in this world – interminable. It would be many years and several more promotions before he would find himself inside for reasons of leisure.
The outer doors slid back.
An armed guard barred his way, indicating with his gun that Pi Ch’ien should go into the antechamber to his left. With a bow, Pi Ch’ien did as he was bid. Inside, in front of a vast, brightly coloured tapestry that filled the whole of the back wall, an official sat at a desk. The man scanned the screen in front of him, then looked up, smiling.
‘Good evening, Third Secretary Pi. I am First Steward Huong. Might I ask the purpose of your visit?’
Pi Ch’ien bent his head respectfully.
‘Greetings, First Steward Huong. I have but a trivial message to deliver. For his serene excellency, Junior Minister Yang Lai. Ten thousand pardons for imposing on you like this, for it is a matter of the least urgency.’
He looked up, holding out the almost translucent message card for the Steward’s inspection. Both men knew it was immensely important.
‘Forgive me, Third Secretary Pi, but might I have that?’
Again Pi Ch’ien lowered his head. ‘My deepest apologies, First Steward Huong. Nothing would please me more than to oblige you, but I am afraid that is not possible. I was instructed to place the message, unimportant as it is, only in the hands of the most illustrious Junior Minister himself.’
Steward Huong stood, then came round his desk to stand beside Pi Ch’ien. ‘I understand, Third Secretary Pi. We are but our masters’ hands, neh?’ He smiled again, all courtesy now. ‘If you would be so kind as to permit me, I shall inform the Junior Minister.’
Pi Ch’ien bowed, feeling a pang of disappointment. He was not to go inside, then?
‘Please, follow me, Third Secretary,’ the Steward said, making the slightest bow, his head barely lowered as befitted their relative positions. ‘Junior Minister Yang is with the Minister himself and may not be disturbed. However, I will have a maid come and serve tea for you while you wait.’
Pi Ch’ien bowed again, delighted by the courtesy he was being shown. He followed the official out and down a wide, high-ceilinged corridor on the walls of which hung a series of huge shanshui, landscape paintings, depicting rugged peaks and pleasantly wooded valleys.
Where the corridor turned he had a brief glimpse of another, more ornate passageway lined with bronze statues of gods and dragons, and at its end a huge, brightly lit chamber – the solarium itself. They walked on until they came to a small but plushly decorated room, hung with colourful tapestries.
First Steward Huong turned to him and smiled, indicating that he should enter and take a seat. ‘Please be assured, I will keep you no longer than I must, Third Secretary. The maid, meanwhile, will see to all your needs.’ Then, with a bow, he was gone.
Almost at once a maid entered from a door to one side. She was wearing powder blue er-silks with a pattern of tiny yellow sunflowers. Smiling, she set down the tray she was carrying on a low table at Pi Ch’ien’s side, then knelt and bowed low to him. Straightening up, she poured the ch’a and offered it to him, her eyes averted. He took the cup, studying her closely. She was a pretty little thing, her skin almost white, her dark, fine hair tied with silk ribbons of blue and yellow. He looked down at her feet and saw, with satisfaction, how petite she was.
‘You would like something else, sir?’
He leaned forward and gently drew back the hair to reveal her neck. It was as he had thought. There was a small circular mark low down on the left hand side of the neck, close to the collar bone. A Capital G with a smaller S inside, the letters English, but the style – the brushwork of the design – pure Han. She was GenSyn. Artificial.
He hesitated, not knowing how long the Junior Minister would be, or what etiquette prevailed here. Then he remembered the First Steward Huong’s words. ‘The maid will see to all your needs.’ Screwing up his courage, he told the girl to close the door.
As she turned to face him again, he beckoned her back. Then, making her bow before him, he opened the front of his cloak and drew her head down into his naked lap.
‘Here, girl. See to me.’
The three men in the craft had been masked and silent; even so, Kao Jyan had recognized them as Hung Mao – whites – from the sour, milky scent of their sweat. It had surprised him. His own guesses had taken him in another direction. But even as the craft set down on the roof of the City he was adding this new fragment to what he already knew.
When the door hissed open he went through quickly, followed by Chen. The dome of the Imperial Solarium was directly ahead of them, no more than a li – five hundred metres – distant; a vast hemispherical blister, lit from within. Half a li further on was the maintenance shaft. The two assassins ran, side by side, in silence, knowing that if others hadn’t done their work properly they were already as good as dead.
But it would be okay. Jyan sensed it. Every step he took made him more certain of it. He was beginning to see how things connected, could even begin to make guesses as to names and motives.
There were those who would pay well to know such things. Who would grant amnesties, perhaps, to those who were merely the tools of other men.
Coming closer to the dome, Jyan slowed, looking about him. The moon was much lower now, over to the right of them. In its light it seemed as though they were running on the surface of a giant glacier.
‘Circle left,’ he said softly to Chen. But it was unnecessary. Chen was already moving out around the dome towards the shaft. It was his job to secure it while Jyan was at work.
Jyan stopped, looking down at the dragon on his wrist. Timing was crucial now. He had four minutes to climb the outer wall, then three minutes apiece after that to position and set each of the four charges. That left nine minutes to get into the shaft and away. If all went well it would be easy.
If all went well. Jyan took a deep breath, steeling himself.
He knelt, then reached behind him. Four catches fastened the lightweight parcel. Gently his fingers released the catches and eased the cloth-wrapped package from his back. Carefully he laid it in his lap and, with delicate, practised movements, drew back the thin folds of cloth.
The four plate-sized hoops had been bound together tightly with a hair-fine wire. They were a dull bronze in colour, unmarked except in one place, where it seemed the finger-thick cords joined upon themselves, like snakes swallowing their tails. Quickly, carefully, he untied the wire knots and separated the hoops into two piles on his upper thighs. They were warm to the touch, as if alive. With the slightest shudder he pulled two of them up over his left arm, looping them gently over his shoulder, then did the same with the others, securing them about his right shoulder.
Taking a deep breath, he stood again. Chen was out of sight, behind the dome. Quickly Jyan ran the final distance to the dome’s base and crouched there, breathing easily. From the pocket over his heart he took out the claws and clicked them open. Separating them, he eased them onto his hands, respecting the razor-sharpness of their tips. That done, he began to climb.
Lwo Kang, son of Lwo Chun-Yi and Minister of the Edict, sat back in his tall-backed chair and looked around the circle of men gathered about him. The folds of his salmon pink pau hung loosely about him and his olive flesh glistened damply in the dome’s intense light. He had a strong, but somehow ugly face; his eyes too big, his nose too broad, his ears too pendulous. Yet when he smiled the faces of the dozen men seated about him returned his smile like mirrors. Just now, however, those men were silent and watchful, conscious that their lord was angry.
‘You talk of accommodation, Shu San, but the Edict is quite clear on this. We are not here to interpret but to implement. We do as we are told, neh?’
To Lwo Kang’s left, Shu San bowed his head abjectly. For a moment all eyes were on him, sharing his moment of shame. Minister Lwo sniffed, then spoke again.
‘Only this afternoon two of these businessmen – Lehmann and Berdichev – came to me. We talked of many things in the course of our audience, but finally they presented me with what they termed an “ultimatum”.’ Lwo Kang looked sternly about the circle of his junior ministers. ‘They said that certain factions were growing impatient. Hsien Sheng Lehmann even had the impudence to claim that we have been subjecting them to unnecessary delays. He says that our officials have been overzealous in their application of the Edict’s terms.’
There was an exchange of glances between the seated men. None had missed that the Minister had used the term Hsien Sheng for Lehmann – plain Mister Lehmann, not even the commonplace Shih or Master – when proper etiquette demanded the use of his full title, Under Secretary. It was a deliberate slight.
Lwo Kang laughed sharply, sourly, then shook his head in an angry gesture. ‘The impertinence of these men! Because they have money they think themselves above the laws of other men!’ His face formed a sneer of disgust. ‘Hsin fa ts’ai!’
This time there was mild laughter from some quarters. Others, not understanding the term, looked about them for guidance, and formed their faces into smiles, as if half-committed to the joke.
Again Lwo Kang sniffed and sat back a little in his chair. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. We are not all ch’un tzu here, are we?’
Lwo Kang looked about him. Hsin fa ts’ai. Social upstarts. Ch’un tzu. Gentlemen. These were Kuan hua, or Mandarin terms. But not all were bred to the tongue who sat about him. More than half the men here had come up through the levels; had schooled themselves in the five Confucian classics and climbed the ladder of the examination system. He did not despise them for that; quite the contrary, he prided himself on promoting men not through connection but because of their natural ability. However, it sometimes made for awkwardnesses. He fixed his gaze on Shu San.
‘We will say no more of this, Shu San. You know now how I feel. We will have no further talk of accommodation. Neither will I see these men again.’
Shu San bowed his head, then met his lord’s eyes, grateful for this second chance. He had come expecting less.
Lwo Kang smiled and looked away, his whole manner changing, relaxing. He had the reputation of being a scrupulously fair man, honest beyond reproach and incorruptible. But that was not to say he was liked. His appointment, three years earlier, had surprised some who saw family connection as a more important quality in a man than honesty or competence. Nonetheless, Lwo Kang had proved a good choice as Minister responsible for the implementation of the Edict.
While his subordinates talked among themselves, Lwo Kang sat back, contemplating what had happened earlier that day. It did not surprise him that there were those who wanted to subvert the Edict’s guidelines. So it had ever been, for the full 120 years of the Edict’s existence. What disturbed him more was the growing arrogance of those who felt they knew best – that they had the right to challenge the present order of things. These Hung Mao had no sense of place. No sense of Li. Of propriety.
The problem was one of race. Of culture. Though more than a century had passed since the foundation of Chung Kuo and the triumph of Han culture, for those of European stock – the Hung Mao, or ‘redheads’ as they were commonly known – the ways of the Han were still unnatural; were at best surface refinements grafted on to a cruder and less stable temperament. Three thousand years of unbroken civilization – that was the heritage of the Han. Against that these large-nosed foreigners could claim what? Six centuries of chaos and ill-discipline. Wars and further wars and, ultimately, collapse. Collapse on a scale that made their previous wars seem like oases of calm. No, they might seem like Han – might dress and talk and act like Han – but beneath it all they remained barbarians. The New Confucianism was rooted only shallowly in the infertile soil of their natures. At core they were still the same selfish, materialistic, individualistic species they had ever been; motivated more by greed than duty.
Was it so surprising, then, that men like Lehmann and Berdichev failed to understand the necessity of the Edict?
Change, they wanted. Change, at any cost. And because the Edict of Technological Control was the Seven’s chief means of preventing the cancer of change, it was the Edict they tried to undermine at every turn.
Lwo Kang leaned back, staring up at the roof of the dome high overhead. The two great arches of the solarium met in a huge circular tablet, halved by a snake-like S into black and white. Yin and Yang, he thought. Balance. These Westerners have never understood it; not properly – not in their bones. It still seems some kind of esoteric game to them, not life itself, as it is to us. Change – the empty-headed pursuit of the new – that was the real enemy of civilization.
He sighed, then leaned to his right, listening, becoming at once the focus of their talk.
They are good men, he thought, looking along the line of faces. Han, every one of them. Men I could trust my life with.
Servants passed amongst them, dumb mutes who carried trays of ch’a and sweetmeats. GenSyn eunuchs, half-men in more senses than one. Yet even they were preferable to the likes of Lehmann and Berdichev.
Yang Lai was talking now, the tenor of his words strangely reflective of Lwo Kang’s thoughts.
‘It’s a disease that’s rife amongst the whole of this new generation. Things have changed, I tell you. They are not like their fathers, solid and dependable. No, they’re ill-mannered brutes, every last one of them. And they think they can buy change.’
Lwo Kang stretched his bull neck and nodded. ‘They lack respect.’
There was a murmur of agreement. Yang Lai bowed, then answered him. ‘That’s true, my lord. But then, they are not Han. They could never be ch’un tzu. They have no values. And look at the way they dress!’
Lwo Kang smiled, sitting back again. Though only in his late thirties he was already slightly balding. He had inherited his father’s looks – a thick-set body already going to fat at waist and upper chest – and, like his father, he had never found the time for exercise. He smiled, knowing how he looked to them. I am not a vain man, he thought; and in truth I’d be a liar to myself if I were. Yet I have their respect.
No, it was not by outward show that a man was to be judged, but by his innermost qualities; qualities that lay behind his every action.
His father, Lwo Chun-Yi, had been born a commoner; even so, he had proved himself worthy and had been appointed Minister to Li Shai Tung in the first years of his reign. Because of that, Lwo Kang had been educated to the highest level and had learned the rudiments of service in his earliest years. Now he in his turn was the T’ang’s Minister. He looked about him again, satisfied. No, there was not one here who did not know him for their master.
‘What these Hung Mao need is a lesson,’ he said, leaning forward to take a shrimp and snow pickle sweetmeat from the tray on the footstool next to him. He gulped it down, savouring the sweet, spicy hoisin sauce on his tongue, and belched appreciatively. ‘A lesson in manners.’
Jyan clung to the outside of the dome like a small, dark insect. Three of the hoops were set. It remained only to place and arm the last charge.
Where he rested, one hand attaching him to the dome’s taut skin, the slope was relatively gentle. He could look out over the capped summit of the dome and see the distant, moon-washed peaks. It was a beautiful night. Clear, like glass. Above him the stars shone like polished jewels against the blackness. So many stars. So vast the blackness.
He looked down. Concentrate, he told himself. You’ve no time for stargazing. Even so, he took a final glimpse. Then, working quickly, he placed and fastened the hoop, taping it at four points. That done, he tugged gently but firmly at the joint.
Where he pulled at it, the hoop came apart, a thin thread joining tail to mouth. Like a snake’s wire-thin tongue. Fully extended, the thread was as long as his little finger. Already it was being coiled back into the body of the hoop. Eventually the ends would join up again and the hoop would send out a trigger signal. When all four were primed, they would form a single, destructive harmonic. And then…
Slowly, carefully, he backed away, edging back down the steepening wall of the dome. Like all else in the City its skin was made of the super-plastic, ice. Normal charges would scarcely have dented the steel-tough, fire-resistant skin, but these would eat right through it before they detonated.
He was balanced at the point where the dome wall fell sharply away when he stopped, hearing a noise beneath him. He turned his head slowly, scarcely daring to breath. Who in the gods’ names…?
The figure was directly underneath, staring up at him. As Jyan turned his face a brilliant beam of light shone directly into his eyes.
‘You! What are you doing up there?’
Jyan looked away, momentarily blinded, then looked back in time to see Chen coming up behind the man.
The man turned quickly, sensing something behind him. As Chen struck out with his knife, the man raised the big torch he was carrying and deflected the blow.
Chen’s knife went clattering across the roof.
For a moment the two faced each other warily, then Chen moved, circling the newcomer. He feinted, making the other back off, then dropped to his knees, searching for his knife in the shadows at the base of the dome.
The man looked at his torch, considering whether to use it as a weapon and go for Chen, then turned and ran off to the right, where a faint patch of light revealed a second maintenance hatch.
‘Pien hua!’ swore Jyan under his breath. Loosening the claws, he dropped the last five metres and rolled. Crouched there, he looked about him.
He saw Chen at once, to his right, running after the stranger. But the man was already at the hatch and climbing down.
‘Shit!’ he said desperately, trying to ease the claws from his hands as quickly as he could. If the bastard got to an alarm they would both be done for.
He looked up in time to see Chen disappear down the hatch.
‘Hurry, Chen!’ he murmured anxiously, folding the claws and tucking them away in his pocket. He turned, looking back up the dome’s steep slope, then glanced down at the dragon timer in his wrist. Six minutes. That was all that remained.
And if Chen failed?
He swallowed drily, then began to run towards the second shaft, his heart pounding in his chest. ‘Shit!’ he kept saying. ‘Shit!’
He was only twenty ch’i from it when a figure lifted from the hatch and turned to face him.
He pulled up sharply, gasping with fear, but it was Chen. The kwai looked up, the broad shape of his face and chest lit from beneath, his breath pluming up into the chill air.
‘Where is he?’ hissed Jyan anxiously, hurrying forward again. ‘Oh, gods! You didn’t let him get away, did you?’
Chen reached down and pulled the man up by the hair. ‘He’s dead,’ he said tonelessly, letting the corpse fall back. ‘There was no other way. He was trying to open a Security panel when I came on him. Now we’ll have to find somewhere to hide him.’
Jyan shuddered, filled with relief. ‘Thank the gods.’ He turned and glanced back at the dome. ‘Let’s go, then. Before it blows.’
‘Yes,’ said Chen, a faintly ironic smile lighting his big, blunt face. ‘The rest should be easy. Like the bamboo before the blade.’
The maid had gone. Pi Ch’ien sat alone in the room, his ch’a long finished, contemplating the fifteen-hundred-year-old painting of Wen Ti that hung on the wall above the door. It was Yen Li-pen’s famous painting from the Portraits of the Emperors, with the Han Emperor attended by his Ministers.
Every schoolboy knew the story of Wen Ti, first of the great Emperors. It was he who, more than twenty-three centuries before, had created the concept of Chung Kuo; who, through his thorough adoption of the Confucian virtues, had made of his vast but ragtag land of warring nations a single State, governed by stern but just principles. Wen Ti it was who had first brought commoners into his government. He who had changed the harsh laws and customs of his predecessors so that no one in the Middle Kingdom would starve or suffer cruel injustice. Famine relief, pensions and the abolition of punishment by mutilation – all these were Wen Ti’s doing. He had lowered taxes and done away with the vast expense of Imperial display. He had sought the just criticism of his Ministers and acted to better the lot of the Han. Under his rule Chung Kuo had thrived and its population grown.
Eighteen hundred years later, the Manchu Emperor, K’ang Hsi, had established his great empire on Wen Ti’s principles. Later still, when the Seven had thrown off the yoke of the tyrant, Tsao Ch’un, they too had adopted the principles of Wen Ti’s reign, making him the First Ancestor of Chung Kuo. Now Wen Ti’s painting hung everywhere in the City, in a thousand shapes and forms. This, however, was a particularly fine painting – a perfect reproduction of Yen Li-pen’s original.
Pi Ch’ien got up and went over to the painting, remembering the time when his father had stood there with him beneath another copy of the portrait and told him the story of the finding of the handscroll.
For centuries the Portraits of the Emperors roll had been housed in a museum in the ancient town of Boston, along with much more that had rightly belonged to the Han. When the American Empire had finally collapsed much had been lost. Most of the old Han treasures had been destroyed out of spite, but some had been hidden away. Years had passed. Then, in the years when the Han were building their City over the old land of America, skilled teams had been sent across that continent to search for any remaining artifacts. Little was found of real value until, in an old, crumbling building on the shoreline of what had once been called California, they had found a simple cardboard box containing the scroll. The handscroll was remarkably preserved considering its ill-use, but even so, four of the original thirteen portraits had been lost. Fortunately, the painting of Wen Ti was one of those that had emerged unscathed.
He turned away and went back to his seat. For a second or two longer he contemplated the painting, delighted by the profound simplicity of its brushwork, then leaned across and picked up the handbell. He was about to lift the tiny wooden hammer to ring for more ch’a when the door swung open and Yang Lai came hurriedly into the room.
Pi Ch’ien scrambled to his feet and bowed low.
‘Well, Pi Ch’ien?’ Yang Lai barked impatiently. ‘What is it?’
His expression showed he was far from pleased by his Third Secretary’s intrusion.
Pi Ch’ien remained bowed, the card held out before him.
‘I have an urgent message for you, Excellency. I was told to bring it here at once.’
‘Give it here!’ Yang Lai said irritably.
Pi Ch’ien handed the card across. Yang Lai stared at it a moment, then turned away. With upturned eyes Pi Ch’ien watched him tap his personal code into the Instruct box and place his thumb against the Release.
There was a moment’s silence from Yang Lai, then he gasped. When he turned to face Pi Ch’ien again, his face was ashen. For a moment his mouth worked silently, then, without another word, he turned and left the room, his silk cloak flapping as he ran.
Pi Ch’ien lifted his head, astonished. For a moment he stood there, rooted to the spot. Then he rushed across the room and poked his head out into the corridor.
The corridor was empty. There was no sign of Yang Lai.
He looked back into the room. There, on the floor, was the message card. He went across and picked it up, then turned it in his hand, studying it. Without Yang Lai’s thumb on the Release pad the surface of the card was blank; even so, it might prove interesting to keep.
Pi Ch’ien hesitated, not certain what to do. Yang Lai had not formally dismissed him; but then, he had fulfilled his duty – had delivered the message. Surely, then, it was all right for him to go. He went to the door and looked out again. The corridor was still empty. Careful now, conscious of the watching cameras, he stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him. Then, composing himself, trying to ignore the strong feeling of wrongness that was growing in him by the moment, he began to walk towards the entrance hall.
There was movement up ahead. Chen crouched in the narrow circle of the horizontal shaft, perfectly still, listening. Beside him, tensed, his breathing like the soft hiss of a machine, Jyan waited.
Chen turned, smiling reassuringly. In the dim overhead light Jyan’s face seemed more gaunt than normal, his cheekbones more hollow. The roseate light made him seem almost demonic, his cold, black eyes reflecting back two tiny points of redness. Chen wanted to laugh, looking at him. Such delicate features he had; such neat, small ears. He could imagine how Jyan’s mother would have loved those ears – back when Jyan had yet had a mother.
He looked away, sobered by the thought. It’s why we’re here, he realized, waiting, knowing the noise, the movement would go away. If we had loved ones we would never have got involved in this. We’re here because we have no one. Nothing to connect us to the world.
Chen kept his thoughts to himself; like a good kwai he cultivated the appearance of stupidity. Like all else, it was a weapon. He had been taught to let his enemies underestimate him; to always keep something back – something in reserve. And lastly, to make no friends.
Ahead it went silent again. He waited, making sure, then began to move up the access tunnel once more, his right hand feeling his way along the tunnel wall. And as he moved he could sense Jyan immediately behind him; silent, trusting.
Minister Lwo pulled himself up out of his chair and stretched his legs. It was almost time to call it an evening, but first he’d dip his body in the pool and cool off. His Junior Ministers had risen to their feet when he had stood. Now he signalled them to be seated again. ‘Please, gentlemen, don’t break your talk for me.’
He moved between them, acknowledging their bows, then down three steps and past a lacquered screen, into the other half of the dome. Here was a miniature pool, its chest-deep waters cool and refreshing after the heat of the solarium. Small shrubs and potted trees surrounded it on three sides, while from the ceiling above hung a long, elegant cage, housing a dozen songbirds.
As he stood there at the pool’s edge two attendants hurried across to help him undress, then stood there, heads bowed respectfully, holding his clothes, as he eased himself into the water.
He had been there only moments when he heard the pad of feet behind him. It was Lao Jen.
‘May I join you, Excellency?’
Lwo Kang smiled. ‘Of course. Come in, Jen.’
Lao Jen had been with him longest and was his most trusted advisor. He was also a man with connections, hearing much that would otherwise have passed the Minister by. His sister had married into one of the more important of the Minor Families and fed him juicy titbits of Above gossip. These he passed on to Lwo Kang privately.
Lao Jen threw off his pau and came down the steps into the water. For a moment the two of them floated there, facing each other. Then Lwo Kang smiled.
‘What news, Jen? You surely have some.’
‘Well,’ he began, speaking softly so that only the Minister could hear. ‘It seems that today’s business with Lehmann is only a small part of things. Our friends the Dispersionists are hatching bigger, broader schemes. It seems they have formed a faction – a pressure group – in the House. It’s said they have more than two hundred Representatives in their pocket.’
Lwo Kang nodded. He had heard something similar. ‘Go on.’
‘More than that, Excellency. It seems they’re going to push to reopen the starflight programme.’
Lwo Kang laughed. Then he lowered his voice. ‘You’re serious? The starflight programme?’ He shook his head, surprised. ‘Why, that’s been dead a century and more! What’s the thinking behind that?’
Lao Jen ducked his head, then surfaced again, drawing his hand back through his hair. ‘It’s the logical outcome of their policies. They are, after all, Dispersionists. They want breathing space. Want to be free of the City and its controls. Their policies make no sense unless there is somewhere to disperse to.’
‘I’ve always seen them otherwise, Jen. I’ve always thought their talk of breathing space was a political mask. A bargaining counter. And all this nonsense about opening up the colony planets, too. No one in their right mind would want to live out there. Why, it would take ten thousand years to colonize the stars!’ He grunted, then shook his head. ‘No, Jen, it’s all a blind. Something to distract us from the real purpose of their movement.’
‘Which is what, Excellency?’
Lwo Kang smiled faintly, knowing Lao Jen was sounding him. ‘They are Hung Mao and they want to rule. They feel we Han have usurped their natural right to control the destiny of Chung Kuo, and they want to see us under. That’s all there is to it. All this business of stars and planetary conquest is pure nonsense – the sort of puerile idiocy their minds ran to before we purged them of it.’
Lao Jen laughed. ‘Your Excellency sees it clearly. Nevertheless, I…’
He stopped. Both men turned, standing up in the water. It came again. A loud hammering at the inner door of the solarium. Then there were raised voices.
Lwo Kang climbed up out of the water and without stopping to dry himself, took his pau from the attendant and pulled it on, tying the sash at the waist. He had taken only two steps forward when a security guard came down the steps towards him.
‘Minister!’ he said breathlessly, bowing low. ‘The alarm has been sounded. We must evacuate the dome!’
Lwo Kang turned, dumbstruck, and looked back at Lao Jen.
Lao Jen was standing on the second step, the water up to his shins. He was looking up. Above him the songbirds were screeching madly and fluttering about their cage.
Lwo Kang took a step back towards Lao Jen, then stopped. There was a small plop and a fizzing sound. Then another. He frowned, then looked up past the cage at the ceiling of the dome. There, directly above the pool, the smooth white skin of the dome was impossibly charred. There, only an arm’s length from where the wire that held the cage was attached, was a small, expanding halo of darkness. Even as he watched, small gobbets of melted ice dropped from that dark circle and fell hissing into the water.
‘Gods!’ he said softly, astonished. ‘What in heaven’s name… ?’
Then he understood. Understood, at the same moment, that it was already too late. ‘Yang Lai,’ he said almost inaudibly, straightening up, seeing in his mind the back of his Junior Minister as he hurried from the dome. ‘Yes. It must have been Yang Lai…’
But the words were barely uttered when the air turned to flame.
The patrol craft was fifteen li out when its tail camera, set on automatic search-and-scan, trained itself on the first brief flicker from the dome. On a panel above the navigator’s head a light began to flash. At once the pilot banked the craft steeply, turning towards the trace.
They were almost facing the dome when the whole of the horizon seemed to shimmer and catch fire.
The pilot swore. ‘What in Chang-e’s name is that?!’
‘The mountains…’ said the navigator softly, staring in amazement at the overhead screen. ‘Something’s come down in the mountains!’
‘No…’ The pilot was staring forward through the windscreen. ‘It was much closer than that. Run the tape back.’
He had barely said it when the sound of the explosion hit them, rocking the tiny craft.
‘It’s the dome!’ said the pilot in the stillness that followed. ‘It’s the fucking solarium!’
‘It can’t be.’
The pilot laughed, shocked. ‘But it’s not there! It’s not fucking there!’
The navigator stared at him a moment, then looked back up at the screen. The image was frozen at the point where the camera had locked onto the irregular heat pattern.
He leaned forward and touched the display pad. Slowly, a frame at a time, the image changed.
‘Gods! Look at that!’
Near the top of the softly glowing whiteness of the dome two eyes burned redly. Slowly they grew larger, darker, the crown of the dome softening, collapsing until the crumpled face of the solarium seemed to leer at the camera, a vivid gash of redness linking two of the four holes that were now visible. For a single frame it formed a death mask, the translucent flesh of the dome brilliantly underlit. Then, in the space of three frames, the whole thing blew apart.
In the first it was veined with tiny cracks – each fissure a searing, eye-scorching filament of fire, etched vividly against the swollen, golden flesh of the dome. As the tape moved on a frame, that golden light intensified, filling the bloated hemisphere to its limit. Light spilled like molten metal from the bloodied mouths that webbed the dome, eating into the surrounding darkness like an incandescent acid. Then, like a flowering wound, the whole thing opened up, the ragged flaps of ice thrown outward violently, flaming like the petals of a honey gold and red chrysanthemum, its bright intensity flecked with darkness.
He reached forward and pressed to hold the image. The screen burned, almost unbearably bright. He turned and stared at his colleague, seeing at once how the other’s mouth was open, the inner flesh glistening brightly in the intense, reflected light, while in the polished darkness of his eyes two gold-red flowers blossomed.
‘Gods… That’s awful… Terrible…’
The flat, Han face of the navigator turned and looked up at the screen. Yes, he thought. Awful. Terrible. And yet quite beautiful. Like a chrysanthemum, quite beautiful.