Beneath the Tree of Heaven

Upon a Sea of Dust

DEVORE STOOD AT THE GARDEN’S EDGE, one hand resting against the reinforced glass of the dome, looking out into the darkness of the Martian night. Soldiers guarded the perimeter, their bulky suits gleaming frostily in the earthlight. It was just after two, local time, and the lights of the distant city were low. Beyond them was a wall of blackness. He turned, looking back across the garden at the Governors house. It was a large, two-level hacienda, built in the “Settler” style of a hundred and fifty years earlier, its terrace and upper windows lit by sturdy globular lamps, its back wall hugging the far side of the dome. Surrounding it on three sides, the garden was a dark, luxuriant green, its trees and vines and bushes lit here and there by glowing crimson globes that drifted slowly above the black tiles of the paths. Overhead the dark curve of the dome reflected back their images, like a dozen tiny copies of the planet. DeVore looked about him, experiencing a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction. It was a beautiful garden, full of rare treats and delights. But what was perhaps most pleasing about it was that it was so totally unlike the formal gardens one found on Chung Kuo. There were no walls here, for instance, no delicate, overarching bridges, no steep-roofed ting or ornamental teahouses. It was all so open, so ... unrefined. Yet it wasn’t merely the look of it that impressed him—it was the fact that all trace of Han thought, Han tradition, had been carefully dispensed with in its design. Where, in a Han garden, there was harmony and balance—a sense of li, of “propriety”—here there was a sense of outwardness, of openness to change. His smile widened. In essence, this was one huge, deliberate snub. A thumbing of the nose at the Han who ruled them from afar. He laughed softly at the thought. Yes, there was something just slightly outlandish about all this—something positively gross about its simple spaciousness and sense of sprawl, about the silken richness of its leaves, the lurid colors of its blossoms. This was something new. An expression of excess, of unchecked growth. He could imagine how offensive—how distasteful—this would seem to the Han mentality. How alien. He reached out, taking one of the broad, leathery leaves between his fingers, surprised by how glossy and silken it was. Beneath his booted feet the earth was rich and dark, a moist, heavy soil that clung like clay and stained the fingers brown. Close by were some of the big hybrids he had noticed earlier. He went across to them, lifting one of the dark-blue flowers gently from beneath. Seen close up, it seemed less a blossom than a kind of pad, a rudimentary face formed into the puffy surface of the flower, like a mask. This one was of lust, but others, nearby, seemed to reflect a range of other moods—of anger and love, cunning and desire, of hatred, benevolence, and despair. And many more. He lifted it to his nose, intrigued by its strange, exotic scent, and noted how it brushed against his cheek, like a pet, responding to his human warmth. “They’re edible too,” said Schenck, coming out onto the terrace. “You should try one.”

DeVore met the Governor’s eyes, smiling. “Later, perhaps. They’re new, aren’t they?”

Schenck nodded and came down the wide, slatted steps, tightening the sash about his formal robe. “The very latest designs. They’re what we call ‘interims.’ Part vegetable, part animal. The end result of thirty years’ research. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

DeVore studied them a moment. To be honest, part of him found them quite ugly—an offense to natural form. Even so, Schenck was right. If they weren’t beautiful in themselves, then the idea of them was beautiful. This, too, was something new. Something that had not existed before Man had made it exist. Thinking that, he felt a small thrill pass through him and looked back at Schenck, nodding.

“I’ll send you some,” Schenck said, coming across.

“Thanks. So how did it go?”

Schenck had just returned from the official reception held to celebrate his reelection for a third term as Governor of the Martian Colonies. The cream of Martian society had been there in Kang Kua City tonight, representatives of all nineteen “Colonies.” “Well enough,” Schenck answered, stopping a few ch’i from where DeVore stood. “You know how these things are, Howard. My face simply aches from smiling.”

“I suppose it was buzzing with the latest news, neh?” “What else? After all, it’s official now.” Schenck looked away, laughing to himself. “You can’t imagine how many times I was drawn aside tonight. If I’d said yes once to endorsing a candidate, I’d have had to say it fifty times, and as there’ll be only twenty-six representatives from Mars, that could have got me into serious trouble.”

DeVore studied him a moment, then lowered his eyes. “And the other

matter?”

Schenck glanced at him, then leaned across, plucking one of the masklike flowers from its stem. There was a faint puckering of the flower’s expression, a sudden release of fragrance. “Our friends the merchants, you mean?”

DeVore nodded.

Schenck lifted the flower to his face and nibbled at the edge, then turned, meeting DeVore’s eyes. “They’re pleased, Howard. Very pleased indeed.”

“So the prototypes were useful?”

Schenck felt in the pocket of his pau, then handed something across. It was a tiny box, like a pillbox. DeVore opened it. The insect—a termite, its segmented body the color of darkest night—stared up at him from beneath the translucent ice, its compound eyes inquisitive. “It’s semiautonomous,” Schenck explained, looking down into the box. “You can send it into the offices of your rivals and it will serve as your eyes and ears. It has augmented sensory apparatus and a memory capacity rivaling the field comsets Security use. Moreover, you can program it either to look for something specific, or—and this is the really clever part—you can simply trust it to look for the unusual. It seems that all you have to do is give it an idea of what it ought to find, and then let it get on with the job.”

DeVore smiled, remembering when his copy had sent the prototype for this from earth. This was Kim Ward’s work—he had designed this little beauty. “A bug,” he said. “An intelligent bug.”

“A semiautonomous robotic unit,” Schenck corrected him. “It merely looks like a bug.”

DeVore closed the lid and slipped it into his pocket. Schenck smiled, making no attempt to take it back.

“And the Machine?”

Schenck lifted the flower to his mouth, taking another tiny bite. “I’ve had it shipped. It’ll be there in two days. I saw to it myself.” “And they’re going to pay for that? As agreed?” Schenck nodded, then threw the flower down. It lay there, its smile fixed and eternal. “They’ve paid for everything. What’s more, the dome will be ready two weeks from now. To your specifications, naturally.” “Good.” But he was thinking that he would have to do something about that.

To stop word getting out.

“Oh, and one more thing before I go and change. An old friend of yours has turned up. I thought you might like to meet him.” “A friend?” He looked past Schenck, suddenly aware of the figure on the terrace. A big, broad-chested man in uniform. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out who it was, then gave a great roar of delight, making his way across.

“Will! When did you get here? Why didn’t you let me know?” Auden came down the steps and embraced DeVore, then stood back, coming to attention, his head lowered.

“I got in yesterday. From Callisto. I was going to contact you at once, but the Governor asked me not to. He wanted to surprise you.” DeVore let his hand rest on Auden’s shoulder a moment, then, still smiling broadly, he looked across at Schenck. “For once I’m glad you did, Hung-li. This is a marvelous surprise!”

Schenck came over to them. “You’ve things to talk about, I’m sure, so I’ll leave you. I’ve got a call to make, but I’ll join you in a while, neh?” DeVore watched Schenck go, then turned back, taking Auden’s arm. “Well, Captain William Auden, so where have you been? And what in the gods’ names have you been up to? I thought you were dead!” Auden laughed. “I’ve felt like it some days, to be honest. But no. I’ve been out to the edge of the system. Out there among the ice and rock.”

“And?” DeVore eyed his old lieutenant, curious to see what he’d made of

it.

“And I’m glad to be back. Even this far out. You know, they’ve an expression for us out there—warm-worlders, they call us. Well, I’d rather be a warm-worlder than a rock-breather any day.” He shuddered. “It was awful. Like death. We weren’t meant to live out there.” “But now you’re back. So what do you plan to do?”

Auden shrugged.

DeVore considered a moment, then smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll find something. You always were useful.”

“Talking of which . . .” Auden hesitated and glanced at the house, as if to check that Schenck were out of hearing. “I’ve news,” he said, his voice lowered. “Something I picked up on Callisto. It seems the Marshal’s daughter will be here within the week.”

DeVore’s smile faded. “Then you must have heard it wrong, Will. The Tientsin won’t be docking here for another two months.” “That’s true. But Jelka Tolonen isn’t on the Tientsin. The Marshal sent out new orders. She was to travel to Callisto on a special Security flight, then transfer to one of the direct Jupiter—Mars shuttles.” “And that’s why you came? To let me know?” Auden smiled. “I knew you’d be interested. Besides, Callisto’s a small place, and there was a good chance I’d bump into her if I stayed, and where would I have been then? Locked up and returned to Chung Kuo in the next ship out.”

“So when does she arrive?”

“Three days from now, at Tien Men K’ou in the south.” DeVore raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Tien Men K’ou? That’s rather unusual, neh?”

“Again, it’s the Marshal’s orders. He’s getting jumpy, it seems. He’s seen how things are shaping here and he’s worried in case something happens while she’s here. If he’d had his way he’d have had her flown straight back to Chung Kuo from the Saturn system, avoiding Mars altogether, but that simply wasn’t possible. However, the Shenyang leaves here in a week’s time and he wants her on it.”

DeVore considered that a moment, then gave a curt, decisive nod. “Okay. 1 take it that you alone know of this.”

“Schenck knows nothing.”

“Good. Nor should he. The Governor’s a reliable enough man when it comes to matters Martian, but he’s little time for the bigger picture. And as for taking on Tolonen . . .” He gave a strange, brief laugh. “Well, I’m glad you’re back, Will. You’ll stay with me, I hope?” “I’d be honored and delighted.”

“Good.” DeVore smiled, then turned, hearing movement on the terrace. It was Schenck, his formal robes replaced now by a loose-fitting velvet pau. The Governor smiled broadly and hailed them.

“Will you have a drink before you go, Howard? And you, Will?” They went across, joining Schenck in a toast, congratulating him once more, their laughter filling the air inside the dome. Outside, beyond the circle of light, soldiers patrolled the frosted perimeter, their pressure suits gleaming in the frigid darkness, the great, blue-white circle of Chung Kuo high above them in the Martian sky. The night was almost over. It would be dawn in three hours.

tien men k’ou city never slept. An hour before dawn its warrens and corridors buzzed with activity. In the south quadrant workers from the giant HoloGen complex, their pale ochre overalls distinctive, were coming off shift, their replacements shuffling past them, bleary eyed in the half dark. In the eastern levels prostitutes— common men hu in creased ersilks, stinking of cheap perfume—stood in doorways calling out to any drunken reveler who passed, while in cluttered dens close by small knots of gamblers, young Han, their dark hair cut stubble-short in traditional Martian style, crouched excitedly over the roll and tumble of dice. In the markets of west and central, traders busied themselves, buying fresh produce from the Tharsis farmlands or setting up their stalls, while at the spaceport, on the northeastern side of the City, one of the great interplanetary cruisers was being readied for flight, the maintenance crew like darkly carapaced insects scuttling across its giant fuselage. Stem-faced Colony guards, helmeted, black chevrons on their blood-red uniforms, paced the affluent upper levels beneath the crater’s lip, stopping to move on a drunk or check on the movements of one of the juvenile gangs that thrived in the teeming lower-east and rode the lifts from Deep to Lip. Last but not least were the outworld tourists, who could be found wandering in the upper levels near the spaceport, taking their fill of Mars before returning to the bleak, claustrophobic austerity of their homeworlds.

One such traveler, a small, neat-looking man with dark, fine hair and soft brown eyes, stopped amid the bustle of Chang An Avenue and looked up, studying the sign over the doorway to his right. Against a dark red background a black dragon coiled sinuously and exhaled a cloud of smoke from its sharply fanged jaws, its barbed tail lashing out. Fierce eyed, it stared down at him, as if daring him to enter. Beneath the moving image, flashed almost subliminally at him, were two pictograms, reinforcing the visual. Hei lung, they read. Black Dragon. Smiling, deciding he could take an hour out before he met up with his brothers again, he went across and placed his hand flat against the entry pad, looking up into the camera.

As the outer door hissed back, he caught the sharp, sweet scents of alcohol and tobacco. And other things. Things he could only guess at. Quickly, before the outer door closed and the inner lock sprang open, he took two twenty-^uan bills from his wallet and palmed them, then slipped the pouch into his right boot, patting it once to check it didn’t show. His uncle had been robbed once in such a place, up in Chi Shan City, in the north. The poor man had lost ten thousand yuan and had returned home empty handed, the ore extractor he had come to buy unpurchased, a year’s profit for the family lost in a moment’s recklessness. The traveler nodded to himself, remembering the shame his uncle had suffered, and how, for months afterward, a cloud had fallen over the whole family. He had only been eight, yet that time—with its communal feeling of shame and disappointment, and despair at effort unrewarded—was etched vividly in his memory. While he understood—and shared—his uncle’s curiosity, he was determined that no one would ever say that he, Ikuro Ishida, had been as careless.

The outer door hissed shut, the latches clicking into place. At once the inner doors irised open, the strange, intoxicating scent of the place—that same scent he had caught the faintest trace of a moment before—hitting him like the rush of a drug.

Inside was a big, sprawling bar with two, maybe three, dozen tables and, on the far side, a big half-moon-shaped counter. There was a faint murmur of conversation, the background chatter of a ViewScreen in the right-hand corner, but the bar was almost empty. There were a dozen people at most, scattered here and there among the tables. He made his way across and took one of the high stools beside the bar, placing one of the twenties on the counter in front of him, as he’d seen others do. At once the barman came across. “A maotai, please,” he said casually, as if it was what he ordered every day.

The barman nodded, went away, returned with a bowl of the rich, red sorghum-based liquor, and placed it before him, not touching the twenty. “Thank you,” he said, speaking to the barman’s back, but already the man had forgotten him.

Ikuro looked about him, noting the tiny dance floor, the half-empty

tables, the big MedFac screen in the far corner, murmuring away unwatched,

and nodded inwardly. Despite the hour and the mere handful of people

scattered about the bar, it was just how he had pictured it. He sniffed

deeply, taking in the smell of the place; then, gripping the bowl with

both hands, he raised it to his lips and sipped, timidly at first, then

with more gusto as the rich, sweet taste of the sorghum flooded his

senses.

He set the bowl down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked at the timer inset into his wrist. It was eight minutes past five. Good. He would stay until six. Would sit here and relax and drink a bowl or two of this splendid maotai. After all, he deserved it. His brothers didn’t know yet, but he had struck a good deal for them this night. Had saved them days of haggling and thousands of yuan. It was only right that he should take an hour off to celebrate.

He looked about him again, savoring the feeling of being in a bar, on Mars, alone. It was like being in a trivee serial, or at the start of some strange adventure. Except that this was real. He could feel the solid roundness of the seat beneath him, taste the sorghum liquor on his tongue and in his throat, smell the rich blend of intoxicants in the air. And if he turned his head . . .

Ikuro stopped, noticing for the first time what he had missed on his first look around the bar.

The man was sitting on the far side of the counter, half in shadow, his face turned away. At first Ikuro thought he might have been mistaken, but as the man turned back he could see that he had been right. The man was masked—a facial prosthetic with hardflesh clips, attached to the bone beneath the jaw. Even from where he sat Ikuro could see that it was one of the cheaper makes—the kind that only someone very poor would wear—and wondered what had happened to him. As the man lifted the bowl to the thin, flexible mouthpiece, Ikuro noticed that the hand, too, was damaged, the pale flesh sheathed in a light polymer exoskeleton. Ikuro looked down, staring into the blood-red liquid, conscious of his own face staring back up at him. He had seen many accidents, many awful things. He had even seen men die, his eldest brother, Kitano, among them. Yet he had never become hardened to such things. Had never been able to switch off and externalize the pain he felt at others’ suffering. It was even why he was here, in a sense, sitting in a lowlife bar when he should have been safe in his room at the port, his brothers snoring in their beds close by, for unlike his brothers he wanted to know what it was like to live like this. Wanted to know how it felt. He glanced at the man again, then looked down, feeling an instinctive pity for him. He, too, wore a mask, only his was skin deep. His pass read “Han,” but he was not Han. Not he nor his eleven brothers, fourteen uncles, and innumerable cousins. A hundred and fifty years ago, when Tsao Ch’un had destroyed the home islands of Japan, they had been out there already, in the circuit of Jupiter, mining the Trojan asteroids. The news, when it had finally reached them, had come as a body blow. Yet they had understood at once. They had become Han, reinventing themselves, taking on a protective coloration. But deep down, beneath the mask, they were still what they were—what they’d always been. Japanese. Ikuro picked up his bowl again, sipping from it, then, hearing the hiss of the outer lock, turned and looked across. A moment later the inner door dilated and four men—Hung Mao, dressed uniformly in pale ochre one-pieces—came through. They were halfway across the floor when one of them—a thickset man with short-cropped blond hair—noticed Ikuro and put an arm out, stopping his friends. There was a moment’s fierce whispering and then they came on again.

While the blond one ordered, the other three looked across at Ikuro, staring at him brazenly, an undisguised malice in their pale, blunt faces. Ikuro drained his bowl, letting the strong red maotai burn his throat. It was time to go. Before any trouble started. My brothers, he thought, setting the bowl down quietly and pushing it away from him. I must get back to my brothers. But it was already too late. “A drink, friend?”

The offer was ominous. To accept would be to place himself in greater danger than he already was. He had heard the tales. They all had. Tales of men being drugged, then stripped and robbed of everything. Tales of men killed for their eyes and organs. And of others who had been lobotomized and sold into prostitution. He shuddered inwardly at the thought of it. Never would he submit to such humiliation. Yet to refuse the blond man’s offer would only cause offense. To be frank, what choice he had was poor. He could fight them now or later.

Ikuro stood, moving back away from his chair. He would lose. He knew that for a certainty. But he would not be humiliated. He would take at least one of them with him. Two, if it were possible. He looked at them, studying them carefully. They were big men, the muscles on their arms clearly visible beneath the thin cloth, but they would be slow. He could see that by the way they moved. Moreover, they were sure to underestimate him; to think him much weaker than he was. They were used to the low gravity of Mars, he to the artificial one-g spin of the asteroids. That was good. It would give him an advantage in the first few moments: an advantage that his natural agility would add to. And yet, in truth, it wasn’t much. They had only to grasp and hold him and it would be over. Brute force would do the rest.

He bowed, facing them squarely. “You are most kind, friend. Another time I would be most honored to join you for a drink, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised an old friend that I would meet him for breakfast, and I shall be late if I do not leave right now. So forgive me. Another time, perhaps, ch’un tzul” There was laughter at that. A nasty, brutish laughter. “Another time?” the blond one said, lifting his chin challengingly. “I don’t think there’ll be another time, friend.”

They stood, fanning out slowly, one of them moving to block his route to the door, the others forming a rough half-circle about him, two or three paces distant. Which one? he thought, looking from one to another and weighing them up. Should I take the weakest first, or the strongest? “Leave him, Bates,” someone said, close by. “Touch him and I’ll finger you to the guards.”

Ikuro stared. At the end of the bar the stranger was looking directly at him. In the overhead light his mask shone whitely, the cheeks like two smooth surfaces of stone.

The blond-haired one—Bates—had turned and was looking down at the man, leaning over him threateningly. “Mind your own fucking business, creep. Or you want some of the same?”

The man stood, pushing his empty bowl away. As he turned to face Bates, Ikuro could see that he was far from small himself. If anything he was bigger than the other man.

“Leave him,” he said, a hint of steel behind the softness of his voice. “I mean it.”

For a moment Bates stood his ground, all menace, his face pushed out at that awful, empty mask, glaring back at the man beyond it, and then he turned, his face dark with anger, his muscles bunched, tensed with resentment and frustration. Raising one hand he pointed savagely at Ikuro. “You’re safe now, Chink, but watch your back. Because I’ll have you, you little fucker. See if I don’t.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then he turned and headed for the exit, his friends peeling off to follow him, turning at the door to give Ikuro the finger.

Ikuro watched them go, feeling the adrenaline wash through him. Not relief, strangely, but disappointment. He turned, looking at the man, at that strangely elongated mask which, for that moment, stared away from him.

The man turned, looking back at him. Blue eyes, he had. So blue that they seemed to burn through the whiteness of the mask. “Come on,” he said quietly. “You’d best come with me. He meant what he said. You’ll not be safe in these levels. That one’s got many friends.” Ikuro bowed. “Thank you, but I must get back. My brothers will be expecting me. What you did—“ The man lifted a hand. “You don’t understand. Bates is a big man in the FFM. After this he’ll have them all out, combing the corridors for you. Your only chance is to come back with me. You can stay until things blow over.”

Ikuro stared back at him, suddenly uncomfortable. “I. . .” The eyes in the mask registered sudden understanding, their expression changing to something that resembled amusement. “Oh, don’t worry, friend, I’m no yellow eel. I’ve no designs on your ass, I promise you.” Ikuro looked down, embarrassed by the others bluntness. Yet it was exactly what he had been thinking. He lifted his head, meeting those startlingly blue eyes once again. “Thank you ... I mean, for helping me. My family is indebted to you, but I would be better off making my way back to my brothers.”

The man reached out, taking Ikuro’s upper arm. Ikuro looked down at the fingers where they gripped him, impressed by their strength, their unexpected perfection.

“Look, I understand,” the stranger said, the words drifting— disembodied, it seemed—from the mask, “but for once you have no choice. Either you come back with me, and come now, or you’ll find yourself out there, under the stars, a hole in the back of your skull and your body stiff as stone. Now, what’s it to be?”

Ikuro stared back at the man, trying to see him clearly through the mask.

To see exactly what and who he was. Then, making up his mind, he bowed.

“Okay. . . .”

“Good,” the man said curtly, releasing him and making for the door. “Now, keep close. And don’t stop running until I tell you it’s safe.”

outside, the martian night seemed vast, impenetrable. Two li up, the searchlights of the speeding cruiser appeared to punch holes in the blackness rather than illuminate it. Below, concealed from human sight, the land climbed slowly toward the Hesperian Plain—a bleak, uncompromising landscape pockmarked by craters formed more than three billion years before.

It was bitterly cold outside: minus one hundred and ten degrees and still falling. Inside it was different. There, in the warm, insulating silence of the craft, DeVore pushed aside his work and sat back, considering that evenings events.

Preeminent in his thoughts was the news Auden had brought back from Callisto: the news of Jelka Tolonen’s arrival, three days hence. He had played down its importance at the time, yet he had understood its significance at once. This far out from Chung Kuo he had had few opportunities to hit back at his enemies these past few years, but this was perfect.

DeVore smiled, looking out at the darkness beyond the toughened glass. The thought of her here made his pulse quicken, not with love or desire, but with the sharp exhilaration of hatred. Hatred for Tolonen and all that he stood for.

How he loathed the old bastard. Loathed the pomposity, the bumbling, blustering certainty of the man. A liar and a hypocrite, that’s what Tolonen was. He portrayed himself as a solid pillar of society, a paragon of New Confucian virtue, yet behind the twin masks of “Benevolence” and “Propriety” he held up to the world was a seething, dribbling old man, twisted by envy and wracked by disappointment. As Major in the old T’ang’s service DeVore had been a regular guest at the Tolonen apartment; a close confidant and trusted “friend” of the old man. Why, he had even held Tolonen’s baby daughter in his arms. But that had been long ago, before he had broken with his T’ang. Now he was an outcast, an enemy of the Seven, and the child was a young woman of nineteen. A real beauty she was, tall and strong and elegant, the very image of her dead mother. Yet dangerous, too, if what he’d heard was true. Tolonen had tried to hush it up, but word had got out anyway: of how she had almost killed a young cadet officer in a fight at a graduation ball, and of her open defiance of her father when he had refused to contemplate a relationship between her and the young scientist, Ward. Which was why she was out there now. Why he, DeVore, would have his chance at her.

Tolonen was a fool. Yet he was right about one thing. Things were unstable on Mars at present. Much more than Schenck or his cronies knew. Things were happening, deep down, and the time was fast approaching when something would have to be done about that. But first this. DeVore closed his eyes, focusing on the problem. He could use this. There was no doubt of that. But how? How could he maximize this advantage fate had granted him?

“Master?”

He turned his head slightly, opening his eyes. His steward was standing in the aisle next to him, his head bowed, a folded message on the silver tray he held. Beyond him, on the couch opposite, Auden was sleeping, a light blanket pulled up over his chest.

“What is it?”

“It is from Tien Men K’ou, Master. It was marked urgent.” DeVore hesitated, then took the note. Unfolding it he read it quickly, then nodded to the steward. “Bring me a drink, will you? . . . Oh, and the Program. I think I’ll play for a while.”

The steward bowed and turned away.

DeVore pondered a moment, then looked across at Auden once more, studying his sleeping face. William Auden was a good man to have at one’s shoulder: strong, determined, and—thus far—loyal. Many times before tonight he had come through for DeVore, often, as this evening, unexpectedly. But in the days to come his loyalty would be tested—maybe to the limit. For a moment DeVore considered waking Auden and putting to him what he had decided, but the thought was fleeting. Let the man sleep. Either he would do as he was told or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t? Well, at least he, DeVore, would know for sure where Auden stood on the question of his friend, Hans Ebert.

Before Ebert had been found out—before his tiny world had collapsed in upon itself—Auden had been his right-hand man, arranging things and clearing up after the young “Prince.” On more than one occasion Auden had got Ebert out of dreadful scrapes, the firefight at Hammerfest perhaps chief among them. Then, Auden had carried the badly wounded Ebert to safety on his back, not only saving his life but making his young “Master” a hero into the bargain. It was an act which had won him Ebert’s undying friendship, but DeVore had never been clear whether it had been done out of genuine friendship or—as Auden later claimed—from pure self-interest. All he could say was that when he had “triggered” Auden, Auden had responded immediately, without—it seemed—a thought for his old friend. Even so, the question remained, could he trust Auden—could he really trust him—when it came to Hans Ebert?

DeVore sat back, studying the note again. Before it had been handed to him, he had been of two minds. Should he have Jelka Tolonen assassinated or should he have her kidnapped? Kidnapping had seemed preferable, if only for the protracted suffering it would have caused the Marshal, yet such a course was fraught with dangers, chief among them the possibility that she might be recovered and reunited with her father. Better, perhaps, to be more direct—to have her killed, quickly and nastily, there in the public eye where all could see.

So he had thought, wavering between one course and the other. But the note had clarified things in an instant.

Until tonight Hans Ebert had kept his nose clean and his head down, accepting his diminished role in things with a humility and docility that had surprised DeVore. But this evening, less than an hour ago, in fact, all that had changed. Parry, DeVore’s man in Tien Men K’ou, had reported back that Ebert had got himself involved in an incident in a bar on the south side.

Odd, DeVore thought; very odd indeed, yet timely. For Ebert would be the key to all of this. Once they had taken her, he would have Ebert look after her. More than that, he would have him marry her. It was what the old man had wanted, after all.

DeVore laughed, delighted by the irony of it. Yes, he could see it now. He would tape the ceremony and send it to the old man. And the nuptials, too, perhaps . . .

“Master?”

He turned, realizing that the steward had been standing there for several moments.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the chilled glass. He took a mouthful of the juice—crushed oranges, grown in his own greenhouses— then sat back, letting the steward clear the table and attach the flat black square of the Program board.

The Program was something he had had done more than a year before: an interactive wei chi “player” based upon the Suchow Championships of 2170. That had been a great tournament, momentous for the fact that it had been the last appearance of the famous Master, Tuan Ti Fo, who, having won the competition eight years running, had retired that year, undefeated. There were some who argued that Old Tuan had been the last of the truly great players and that with his departure something grand— something quintessential—had passed from the game. Personally he would not have gone quite so far, yet there was no denying the beauty, the elegance, and beneath both and in perfect balance with them, the strange, naked brutality of the old Master’s play. To pit oneself against him, even in this strange, illusory manner, was to face not so much a man as a force of nature.

As DeVore sat back, the figure formed across from him, the image strong and clear, the inner light-core of the hologram making it seem solid, almost real. Between them the board was now half filled by the patterns of black and white stones.

The old Han bowed deeply, greeting DeVore. “Good evening, Major. How are you?”

DeVorfe returned the bow, enjoying the illusion. “I am well, Master Tuan.

And you?”

The hologram shifted slightly in its seat, a small, plain white fan moving slowly in its left hand as it leaned forward to study the board. “I have been dreaming,” Old Tuan answered, not looking up. “Dreaming of childhood and better days.”

DeVore smiled. In life Tuan Ti Fo had been a man of few words, but as he welcomed intelligent conversation while he was playing, he had made this version somewhat more talkative than the original. Moreover, he had ensured that the interactive element was based on a heuristic core. As it played and talked, so it learned . . . and grew. As a man grew. And sometimes—as now—it seemed almost alive, as if the real Tuan Ti Fo were speaking to him. Yet he knew that could not be. The real Tuan Ti Fo had been an old man when he had last won the title, and that had been over forty years ago. No. The real Tuan Ti Fo was long dead. Only this—this breathless illusion of being— remained.

DeVore leaned closer, studying the shapes on the board. This was the eleventh game between them. Thus far the score was even—five games apiece—yet this had been the hardest and, indeed, the longest of their contests. At present things seemed well balanced. He was dominant in the south and west, Old Tuan in the north and east. Yet much was still to be decided. There was a large space in the very center of the board where things might easily go either way.

Tuan Ti Fo took a white stone from the pot to his left and placed it with a solid-sounding click onto the board—in Chu, the west, strengthening a line he had “ghosted” some twenty moves before. DeVore stared at the stone a moment, assimilating it into the pattern of shapes on the board, trying to see what the old man meant by it, then nodded to himself, pleased by its cleverness. He would have to respond. Have to concede ground and postpone his plans to infiltrate Tuan’s territory in the north.

He looked up at the hologram and saw that the old man was watching him, his hazel eyes clear, expressionless. Once again the illusion of presence was strong.

“And just what were you as a child? Where did you live, for instance? 1 don’t think you’ve ever said.”

It hadn’t. Nor was it programmed with such information. But DeVore was intrigued to learn how it would respond: how it would face that blank internal space, and whether it would attempt to fill the nothingness. “There was no City, back then,” Old Tuan replied. “Just the earth and the heavens, and Man between them.”

Evasions, DeVore thought, disappointed; evasions and cod philosophy. He leaned forward and played the forced defense, two back, one in, from Tuan’s last stone.

Tuan Ti Fo sat back, fanning himself slowly, considering the move, his deeply lined face concentrating fiercely. He seemed so real, so there, at that moment, but in reality a complex program was now running, responding to the light thumb-tip touch DeVore had made against the board’s surface: a program modeled upon a detailed analysis of the Master’s play in that final championship.

DeVore looked away. Outside, far below and some way to the right of their flight path, he could see the softly rounded glow of a pumping station and, arrowing away from it to north and south, the great eastern pipeline, tracker lights revealing its course at half-H intervals. It was almost dawn. Already the darkness seemed less intense. He turned, hearing the click of glass against wood. Tuan Ti Fo had played his stone to the left of his own, the circles of black and white touching at the edge. He stared at it, astonished. It was the kind of move only an absolute novice would make. A novice, or someone wise beyond all years. He looked up, meeting Old Tuan’s eyes.

“Tranquillity is the lord of agitation,” the old man said, his hands tucked deep into his sleeves, his whole form emanating a calm and certainty that seemed unearthly.

DeVore laughed uncomfortably. “You believe all that bullshit?” The hologram’s smile seemed to focus all of the light from within. “It is the Way, Major DeVore. As the great sage says, the Way is like water. It dwells in places that the masses detest.” DeVore snorted, a sudden tiredness and irritability making him take a black stone from the pot and slap it down, shutting the door on Tuan’s last play.

Tuan nodded, then, almost without thought, it seemed, leaned forward, playing a second stone, extending the line. DeVore stared at the board again, disbelievingly. The old man had played inside his territory, like a child wandering in a tiger’s cave. He frowned, looking to see that he had not missed something. But no. It was a poor move. So what was wrong? Was the program acting up? Or was this part of some deeper strategy? Something new and unexpected? He sat back, meeting Tuan’s eyes again.

“The submissive and weak conquer the strong,” Tuan said, passing a hand across the board, as if somehow to illustrate what he had said. “Not in this world,” DeVore answered, slapping another stone down beside Tuan’s last play, shadowing the line. There was no way the Master could make the group live now. He had only to be patient and the stones would be his. He looked up again, smiling now. “The weak and submissive might conquer in your world, but here”—DeVore laughed and pushed his hand deep into the hologram’s chest—“here we do things differently.” The old man looked down, as if he could see where DeVore’s hand had passed through him, then gave the tiniest of shrugs, a fleeting disappointment in his face.

“A game is not won in two moves, Major. Nor are things always what they seem. You might argue that yours is a world of substance, and mine merely a world of Wu—of ‘nonbeing.’ Yet who is to say whether such differences are significant? Are you greater than me for having substance? Are you more real?”

DeVore stared at the hologram, no less surprised by its words than by the moves it had made only moments before. “Shit,” he said softly. “So that’s it. The damn thing’s malfunctioning.”

And yet the image had never been clearer or the illusion of presence stronger.

Old Tuan held his eyes steadily a moment, then leaned across and took a white stone from the pot. Smiling, he clicked it down, switching the play to the far comer of the board—to Ping, the east. DeVore sat there for a long time, studying the board, seeing with a new-formed clarity the inevitability of the plays to come: how stone would follow stone, until. . .

It was a brilliant move. Almost as good as the play which had won Master Tuan the championship that final year. Moreover, Old Tuan had set it up more than twenty moves before. Had set it up and waited, steering the play away from that part of the board, biding his time, containing his opponent’s stones. But why? Why not this, at once? Or was that the point? Was that the reason for those final, stuttering plays? Had the Program finally outgrown him?

He let out a long breath, then looked up, meeting the hologram’s eyes. “Do you wish me to play on, Master Tuan?”

“I. . .” Old Tuan paused, then turned, looking away from the board. “It seems your man is waking, Major. Perhaps we should finish our game another day?”

“My man . . . ?” DeVore turned, following the line of Tuan Ti Fo’s sight, then laughed. Gods, Auden was waking. But how had it known? Had it sensed some change in his breathing? Was its hearing that acute, its interpretation of sound patterns that sophisticated? He leaned across and switched the Program off. At once the facing seat was empty, the board transformed to a single, unbroken square of darkness. Odd, he thought, sitting back, listening to Auden yawn and stretch. Very odd indeed. Yet not impossible. After all, it had been programmed to leam new things. All the same, he’d have someone look at it, just in case someone had been tampering.

He turned, looking across at Auden. The big man yawned and stretched again, then, noticing that DeVore was watching him, drew himself up straight in his seat, smiling.

“Gods. I must have dropped off.”

DeVore smiled. “It’s okay. We’re almost there. Look.” Auden turned and looked. Outside the dawn was coming up, revealing, below them, the vast lowland depression of Hellas and, in the distance, the lights of Tien Men K’ou City, nestled into its own small crater. “There,” DeVore said softly, staring at the tiny circle of lights to the northeast of the dome that marked out the perimeter of the spaceport, imagining the Callisto flight with Jelka Tolonen on board setting down there in three days’ time. “Yes,” he murmured, his eyes widening. “Right there.”

the room was small and simply furnished. To the left of the rush-matted floor were a chair, a small table, and, above them, a single shelf. To the right was nothing, only the blank partition wall. The bare rock of the end wall seemed to gleam mistily in the light of the wall-mounted lamp. Ikuro went across and placed his fingers against the smooth, unyielding surface, understanding at once. The mist was real. The wall had been sealed with a tough, clear polymer coating. They did the same where he came from. It prevented oxygen leakage and helped insulate the room against the fiercely cold temperatures of the surrounding rock. Even so, the room was chill. He could see his breath in the air.

He turried, looking back into the room. It was like a cell. There was no ViewScreen, he noted, surprised. Instead, a scattering of papers lay on the desktop, an inkpad and brush nearby. On the shelf above were a dozen plastic-covered books and what looked like two file boxes. The door to the entrance lock was facing him, a tiny washroom to the left. From the galley-kitchen to the right came the sounds of the stranger preparing the ch’a; otherwise the silence was profound: the kind of silence one found only in such places, where one lived with the constant threat of decompression.

Ikuro nodded inwardly, impressed by the Spartan austerity of the place. Somehow it seemed to suit the man, though why he should think that he could not explain, only that he sensed an air of mystery about him, something that the strangeness of the mask only half explained. He had met all kinds of men in the past two days, big and small, rich and poor, and there seemed to be a definite correlation between their status and their behavior: a correlation one did not find in his own close-knit community. Yet this one was different. He might dress like a workingman, and the facial prosthetic he wore might be the cheapest one could buy, yet he had the air of a prince—of a leader of men. Why, even his smallest movement—

Ikuro stilled his thoughts. The stranger was standing in the doorway to the galley, a small plastic tray held out before him, two plain white ch’a bowls resting in its center. Pausing a moment he looked about the room, then indicated with his head. Ikuro understood at once and nodded, squatting on the floor as the other set down the tray and knelt, facing Ikuro.

The ch’a smelled good. Ikuro could feel the warmth of it even before he had tasted it.

“Are you cold?” the stranger asked, the blue eyes in the mask showing concern.

Ikuro smiled. “No. I am fine, thank you. This is like home.” “Ah ...” The stranger lifted the nearest of the bowls in one hand and offered it to him. Ikuro took it, inclining his head in thanks, enjoying the simple heat of the bowl and relishing the thought of drinking so fine smelling a ch’a. Even so, he waited, watching until the other raised his bowl. Only then, with a second bow of thanks, did he place the bowl to his lips and sip.

“Ahh . . .” he said, genuinely delighted. “Wonderful. You make excellent ch’a, Shih ...”

He laughed, embarrassed suddenly, realizing that he had been with the man almost an hour now and still did not know his name. “Latimer,” the stranger said. “I am known here as John Latimer.” Ikuro, he almost said, then checked himself. “My name is Shen,” he answered, inclining his head. “Shen Li, son of Shen Yeh.” Latimer returned the bow. “I am pleased to meet you, Shen Li. But tell me, what in the gods’ names were you doing in the Black Dragon? Did no one warn you?”

Ikuro hesitated, then shook his head.

“You’re from off-planet, I take it.”

“From Diomedes, in the Trojans.”

“Ah . . .” The thin artificial lips formed the shape of a smile. “Then you wouldn’t know, would you?”

“Know what?”

Latimer set his bowl down, then sat back on his haunches. “Things are happening here on Mars, Shen Li. Things that even our masters don’t know about. New currents. New movements. Like our friend Bates.” “The FFM, you mean?”

Again, the semblance of a smile lit the mask. “You remember, then?”

“I remember. But what does it mean?”

“The FFM? That’s the Federation of Free Men. They’re so-called patriots.

They want to reclaim Mars for the Martians.”

“The Martians?”

“The original settlers. By which they mainly mean Americans, though they’ll sign up anyone who’s not a Han. They see the Han as usurpers, you see, and they blame all of Mars’s ills on them. Their policy’s fairly simple. They aim to kill all the Han and make Mars independent of Chung Kuo.”

Ikuro set his bowl down, astonished. “And there are many who believe

this?”

“Quite a few, especially in Tien Men K’ou, but they’re not the only group—merely the most extreme. The two biggest are the Martian Radicalist Alliance and the PLF, the People’s Liberation Force. They want independence, too, but both draw their following from Han and Hung Mao alike. What they want is to get rid of the masters—a bit like the Ping Tiao back on Chung Kuo.”

Ikuro stared back at him blankly.

“The Ping Tiao . . . You mean you’ve never heard of the Ping Tiao!” Latimer laughed strangely. “The gods help us, you are cut off out there, aren’t you?”

For a moment Latimer was silent, thoughtful. Then, leaning closer, he spoke again. “Have you noticed anything about this place, Shen Li? I mean . . . anything unusual?”

Ikuro considered a moment. “It’s all wrong,” he said finally. “Everything is much bigger than it ought to be.”

He did not know how far they had descended, coming from the Black Dragon to Latimer’s apartment—forty, maybe fifty levels—but it had felt as if they had burrowed deep into the crust of Mars. Not that that had worried him particularly, for he was used to being deep within the rock, yet it had surprised him, for he had read in the official records that the Martian cities were domed cities—were surface structures. But now he knew. Mars was much bigger than the official records made out. Why, if Tien Men K’ou were typical of the rest, then the population here was—what?—ten, maybe twenty times the official estimate. And how could that be? How could they have made such a gross mistake? Unless it wasn’t a mistake. Unless someone was deliberately concealing the fact. Latimer was nodding. “I didn’t understand it either. Not at first. I didn’t see how it could be done, nor why. But I think I know now. I think it’s been going on for a long time, probably since the Han first came here. That’s when it began, a hundred and sixty years ago, after the Second War of Colonization.”

“When what began?” Ikuro asked, blinking, mesmerized by the intensity, the force of concentration, focused in the figure opposite him. “The revolution,” Latimer answered, his startlingly blue eyes staring back at Ikuro through the pale, moonlike mask. “They’ve been preparing for it all these years. Waiting, with unending patience. But now it’s about to end. It’s about to be taken out of their hands.” “Who? Who do you mean by ‘they’?”

Latimer lifted his head, staring away past Ikuro, almost as if he could see through the solid rock. “I don’t know. Not for certain. But it’s not the Seven back on Chung Kuo, nor is it Governor Schenck and his little crowd. They only think they run things. No. There’s something else at work here on Mars. Some other power, older and more deeply rooted than they.” Ikuro looked down, disturbed by this sudden turn in their talk, frightened—suddenly, inexplicably frightened—by the presence of the masked man across from him. For a while he stared at the steaming ch’a bowl, trying to still his thoughts, to reassure himself that all would be well, then, with an agitated little movement, he lifted the bowl to his lips and drained it at a go.

“My brothers . . .” he said, meeting the stranger’s eyes again. “You said you would get a message to my brothers.”

“Ah . . . Forgive me. Here.”

Ikuro took the paper Latimer held out to him and unfolded it. It was a copy of a transmission, addressed to his brothers at the spaceport. Ikuro read it through, then looked back at Latimer, astonished. But how? He had not left him for a second, except to make the ch’a! “Who are you, Shih Latimer? You seem to know so much. And yet. . .” Ikuro turned, looking about him at the simplicity of the room. “Well, it makes no sense.”

The blue eyes in the mask were watching him, serious now, conscious, it seemed, of his inner turmoil.

“You’ve heard of the GenSyn Corporation?”

Ikuro nodded. “Who has not?”

“And Klaus Ebert, its owner?”

Again, Ikuro nodded. “I have. Why, he is famous throughout the system. My grandfather says he was a genius in his day. They say he once designed a creature that could eat rock!”

“And if I was to tell you that he’s dead?” Ikuro frowned. “Then my grandfather would light a taper for his soul. He was a great man.”

“Then you hadn’t heard?”

Ikuro shook his head.

The man took a long breath—a breath that seemed almost a sigh. “Earlier on you asked me my name, Shen Li, and I told you what I am known as in these parts. But before I came here I was known by another name. It might seem a thing of little moment what a man is called, yet for me it is a matter of great importance. Before I tell you I must ask you one thing.” Ikuro lowered his head. “Anything, my friend.”

“Then let me ask you this. Can I trust you? Can I really trust you?” Ikuro looked up, astonished. In any other circumstances he would have been offended—deeply offended—by the question, yet there was such an earnestness in the man’s voice, such a sense of urgency in his eyes, that he could only nod. “With your life, ch’un tzu.” “Then I will tell you who I am.”

There was a moment’s stillness, a moment’s perfect silence, then, releasing the hardflesh clips beneath his chin, Hans Ebert removed the prosthetic mask from his face and placed it on the floor beside him.

CHAPTER TWO