The Broken Wheel

"Not possible?" Li Yuan frowned, then gave a short laugh. "I don't understand you."

She lowered her head, making herself small, submissive. "I am afraid I had to dismiss Master Nan. He—"

"Dismiss him?" Li Yuan put the bowl aside and stood, looking down at her. "Do I hear you rightly, Fei Yen? You have dismissed my Master of the Inner Chamber?"

"I had to, my Lord."

He shook his head, then looked away, past her. "Tell me. Why did you dismiss him? What did he do?"

She glanced up at him, then bowed her head again. "My Lord will be angry with me."

He looked back at her. "Have I reason, then, to be angry with you?"

She looked up, meeting his eyes, her own dewed with tears. He hardened himself against the sight of her; even so, he felt himself moved. He had never seen her as beautiful as at that moment.

"I am your wife, my Prince. Did I not have good reason to be angry with the man?"

He laughed, utterly confused now. "Fei Yen . . . talk sense. I don't follow what you're saying."

She looked down, swallowing, a sudden bleakness in her face that tore at his heart. "The girls. . . Nan Ho had brought girls..." A shudder passed through her. "Girls for your bed . . ."

He took a long breath. So—she had misunderstood him. "Forgive me, my love, but you have no reason to be angry with Nan Ho. It was not his doing. I asked him to bring those girls here. That was the thing I had to do."

"And that makes it better?" Her voice was broken, anguished. "How could you, Yuan? Am I not a good wife to you? Do I deny you anything?" She looked up at him, the hurt in her eyes almost too much for him. When she spoke again, her voice was a mere whisper. "Or have you tired of me already?"

He was shaking his head. "No . . . never. But you mistake me—"

"Mistake you?" Sudden anger flared in her eyes. "You bring those girls here— girls who have shared your bed—and say I have mistaken you."

"Fei Yen—"

"Then deny it! Look me in the eyes, husband, and deny that you haven't had them?"

He shivered. "It wasn't like that. I ..."

But his hesitation was enough for her. She tucked her head down bitterly, her hands pulling anxiously at the lap of her dress, then stood angrily.

"Fei Yen! You must believe me . . ."

She glared at him. "Believe you?"

He bristled, suddenly angered that she could think this of him, after all he had done to purify himself for her. Hadn't he cast the maids off? Hadn't he denied himself the pleasures of their company this last year? He shuddered. "You had no business dismissing Master Nan! Who comes or goes in these rooms is my business, not yours!"

She turned away, suddenly very still. Her voice changed; became smaller and yet harder than before. "Then let a thousand singsong girls come. Let them be wives to you. But not Fei Yen . . ."

He went to her, taking her shoulders gently, wanting, despite his anger, to make things right between them; but she shrugged him off, turning violently to confront him, the fury in her eyes making him take a step back from her.

"What kind of a woman do you think I am, Li Yuan? Do you think me like them? Do you think I have no pride?" She drew herself up straighter. "Am I not the wife of a great Prince?"

"You know what you are, Fei Yen!"

"No. I only know what you would have me be."

He began to answer her, but she shook her head dismissively, her eyes boring into him. "I tried hard, Li Yuan. Tried to dispel my doubts and tell myself it was Nan Ho. I tried to be loving to you. To be a good wife in every way. And how did you repay me? By cheating on me. By bringing in those whores behind my back."

He felt something snap in him. This was too much. To call his girls whores. Even so, he answered her quietly.

"Be careful what you say, Fei Yen. Those girls were my maids. They took good care of me in my childhood. I have a great affection for them."

She laughed scornfully. "Whores—"

His bark of anger made her jump. "Hold your tongue, woman!"

He stood there commandingly, suddenly very different: all childishness, all concession gone from him. He was shouting now. "It is not your place to criticize me. I have done nothing wrong. Understand me? Nothing! But you . . ." He shivered with indignation. "To have the audacity to dismiss Master Nan . . . Who in hell's name do you think you are?"

She did not answer. But her eyes glared back at him, their look wild and dangerous.

"Nan Ho stays, understand me? And I shall see the girls, as that's my wish."

He saw a shudder of pure rage ripple through her and felt himself go cold inside. Her face seemed suddenly quite ugly—her lips too thin, her nose too brittle, her perfect brow furrowed with lines of anger. It was as if she were suddenly bewitched, her words spitting back at him through a mask of hatred.

"If that's your wish, so be it. But do not expect me in your bed, Prince Yuan. Not tonight. Nor any other night."

His laughter was harsh; a bitter, broken sound; the antithesis of laughter.

"So be it."

He turned and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him as he went, his departing footsteps echoing, unrelenting, on the marble tiles.

DEVORE WAS PRESSED up against the wall, Gesell's knife at his throat. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you."

DeVore stared back at Gesell, a vague, almost lazy sense of distaste in his eyes.

"Because I don't know what you're talking about."

"You lying bastard. You killed those two men. You must have. You were the only one outside the Central Committee who knew what they were doing. Only you knew how crucial they were to our plans."

There was a movement behind Gesell.

"Not the only one ..."

Gesell turned. Mach had come in silently. He stood there, watching them. Ascher crossed the room, confronting him, her anger, if anything, more pronounced than Gesell's.

"I say we kill him. He's betrayed us. Spat on us."

Mach shook his head. "He's done nothing. Let him go."

"No!" Gesell twisted DeVore's collar tighter. "Emilys right. We can't trust him after this."

Mach pushed past the woman. "For the gods' sakes, let him go, Bent. Don't you understand? I killed them."

Gesell laughed uncertainly. "You?"

Mach took the knife from Gesell's hand and sheathed it, then removed his hand from DeVore's collar. Only then did he turn and look at DeVore, inclining his head slightly.

"I apologize, Shift Turner. You must excuse my brother. He did not know."

"Of course." DeVore stretched his neck slightly, loosening the muscles there.

Gesell rounded on Mach. "Well? What the hell's been happening?"

"I'm sorry, Bent. I had no time to warn you. Besides, I wasn't sure. Not until I'd checked."

"Sure of what?"

"They were Security. Both of them. They must have been sleepers. Records show they left Security five years ago—a year before they joined us."

A slight tightening about DeVore's eyes was the only sign that he was interested, but none of the others in the room noticed it, nor the way he rubbed at his wrist, as if

relieving an itch there; they were watching Mach, horrified by this new development.

"Security . . ." Gesell hissed through his teeth. "Gods ..."

"There are others, too. Three more. In two separate cells." "You made checks?"

Mach nodded. "I'm keeping tabs on them. They'll hear what happened. I want to see what they'll do, whether they'll sit tight or run. If they run I want them. Alive, if possible. I want to find out what they're up to."

Ascher was shaking her head. "It doesn't make sense. If they had their men inside our organization, why didn't they act in response to Helmstadt?"

Mach glanced at DeVore, conscious of how much he was giving away simply by talking in front of him; but he'd had no choice. If Gesell had killed Turner, they'd have been back to square one. Or worse; they might have found themselves in a tit-for-tat war with Turner's lieutenants. It was almost certain that the man had given orders to that effect before he came here at Gesell's summons.

Mach turned, facing Ascher. "I thought of that. But that's how it works sometimes. They're ordered to sit tight until the thing's big enough and ripe enough to be taken. They obviously thought that Helmstadt was worth sacrificing."

"Or that you wouldn't succeed . . ." DeVore said.

Mach looked back at him again. "Maybe . . ."

The three men had been an advance squad; trained technicians. Their job had been to locate the communications nerve-centers surrounding Bremen. It was a delicate, sensitive job, one upon which the success or failure of the whole attack depended. The idea was for them to place special devices at these loci—devices that the regular maintenance crews would think were innocuous parts of the complex of delicate wiring. The devices would sit there, unused, for months, until the day when the Ping Tiao launched their attack. Then they would be triggered and Bremen would suffer a massive communications blackout.

That had been the plan. But now things were in chaos.

Gesell looked down. "Do you think they've passed on what they knew?"

Mach shrugged, his expression bitter. Even killing them had not appeased his anger. "I don't know. I hoped to keep one of them alive for questioning, but they fought hard. It was as if they'd been ordered not to be taken alive."

"That's so." Again DeVore entered the conversation. He moved closer. "You should take one of them now, before they hear of it."

Ascher nodded. "I think he's right. What if they take poison or something?"

Mach shivered, then bowed his head. "Okay. We'll take them now. But if it's like it was with the others, it won't be easy."

DeVore narrowed his eyes, studying Mach. His respect for the man had grown enormously. Matton and Tucker had been two of his best men, not merely good at their task of infiltrating the Ping Tiao, but good fighters, too. He was sorry to lose them. Sorry, too, to have had his network of spies uncovered, his eye among the Ping Tiao blinded. Now he would have to depend upon cruder means—on bribery and blackmail. Unsatisfactory means.

"Concentrate on just one of them," he said, meeting Mach's eyes. "Take him yourself. Then bind him tightly, so there's no chance of him harming himself. After that you should do things slowly. Time, that's all it needs. Time will break the spirit of any man. Then you'll find out what you want to know."

Mach stared back at him steadily. "You've done this?"

DeVore nodded. "Many times."

"Then I'll do as you say."

DeVore smiled. "Good." But it would be too late. As soon as Mach had revealed what he had done, DeVore had pressed the tiny panel at his wrist, opening the channel that switched everything he was saying direct into the heads of his three surviving agents. Already his men would have heard his words and taken the appropriate action.

"And if we discover nothing?" Gesell asked, looking directly at DeVore.

"Then we continue. We must assume now that they know about our plan to attack Bremen, but not when or where we will strike. Nor how precisely. Meanwhile it would profit us to seem to change our plans. To look for other targets. And let them know . . ."

Mach looked up again, smiling for the first time since he had entered the room. "I like that. A diversion . . ."

DeVore nodded and smiled back at him. "What does Sun Tzu say? 'The crux of military operations lies in the pretense of accommodating oneself to the designs of the enemy.' Well, we shall seem to back off, as if discovered; but in reality we shall continue with our scheme. If they know nothing of our plans, then no harm has been done today. And even if they do know, they'll not expect us to pursue it after this, neh?"

Mach studied him thoughtfully a moment, then nodded. "Yes. But I must go. Before they hear . . ."

HAAVIKKO CLOSED the door behind him then gave a small shudder, staring at the tiny slip of plastic in his hand. His senior officer had been only too glad to approve his new posting. From Major Erickson's viewpoint it must have seemed a blessing to be rid of him. He had been nothing but trouble for the Major. But now he was Karr's man, part of his special services unit. Still a lieutenant, but with a future now. And a friend.

He was meeting Kao Chen in two hours, but first there was one more thing to sort out. His sister, Vesa.

Vesa had been living in a small apartment in the Mids since their aunt had died a year earlier. Wrapped up in his own debauchery he had not known of her plight until recently. But now he could do something. The job with Karr brought with it a private living unit in Bremen: four rooms, including the luxury of his own private bathroom. "But you'll not be there that often," Karr had warned him, "Why not move your sister in?"

Vesa had jumped at the idea. She had held on to his neck and wept. Only then had he realized how lonely she had been, how great his neglect of her, and he had cried and held her tightly. "It's all right," he had whispered, kissing her neck. "Everything will be all right."

He tucked the transfer document into his tunic, then hurried along the corridors, taking a crowded elevator down to the living quarters in the heart of the great multistack fortress.

She was waiting for him in the apartment. As he came in, she got up from the couch, crossed the room, and embraced him, her eyes bright with excitement.

"This is wonderful, Axel! We'll be happy here. I know we will."

He smiled and held her to him, looking about the room. The apartment she had been in had been a single room—like his own, spartanly furnished and she had had to share washing and night-soil facilities. He gritted his teeth against the shame that welled up at the thought of what he'd let happen to her, then met her eyes again, smiling.

"We'll get a few bits and pieces, eh? Brighten things up a bit. Make it more personal. More us."

She smiled. "That would be nice."

He let her go, then stood there, watching her move about the room, disturbed by the thoughts, the memories that insisted on returning to him in her presence. He kept thinking of the girl in Mu Chua's House of the Ninth Ecstasy, the singsong girl, White Orchid, who had looked so much like Vesa. He looked down. But all that was behind him now.

"I thought I might cook you something . . ."

He went across to her. "Vesa, look. . . I'm sorry, but there's something I have to do tonight. Something urgent."

She turned and looked at him, her disappointment sharp. "But I thought. . ."

"I know. I'm sorry, I..."

"Is it your new job?"

He swallowed. "Yes . . ." He hated lying to her, even over something as innocent as this, but it was important that she didn't get involved. It would be dangerous pinning Ebert down and he didn't want to put her at risk. Not for a single moment.

She came across and held his arms. "Never mind. Tomorrow night, eh? We'll celebrate. I'll cook something special." She hesitated, watching his face a moment, then smiled, her voice softening. "You know, Axel. I'm proud of you, I always have been. You were always something more to me than just my big brother. You were like—"

"Don't..." he said softly, hurt by her words. Even so, he could not disillusion her, could not tell her the depths to which he had sunk. One day, perhaps, but not now. Maybe when he had nailed Ebert and the truth was out he would tell her everything. But not before.

Her eyes blazed with her fierce sisterly love of him. That look, like purity itself, seared him and he let his eyes fall before it.

"I must go." He kissed her brow, then turned away. He went to his room and picked up the bag he had packed earlier; then he went to the small desk in the comer and took a tiny notebook from the drawer.

"Your new job ... is it dangerous?" she asked, watching him from the doorway.

He looked back at her. "It might be."

"Then you'd best have this."

She placed something in his left hand. It was a pendant on a chain. A circle of black and white jade, the two areas meeting in a swirling S shape, a tai chi, the symbol of the Absolute—of yin and yang in balance. He stared at it a moment, then looked up at her.

"It was Father's," she said to his unspoken question. "He left it to me. But now it's yours. It will protect you."

He put his bag down and slipped the pendant over his neck, holding the jade circle a moment between his fingers, feeling the cool smoothness of its slightly convex surface; then he tucked it away beneath his tunic.

He leaned forward and kissed her. "Thank you . . . I'll treasure it."

"And Axel?"

He had bent down to lift his bag again. "Yes?"

"Thank you ... for all of this."

He smiled. Yes, he thought, but I should have done it years ago.

KLAUS EBERT poured two brandies from the big decanter, offering one to his son.

"Here . . ."

Hans raised his glass. "To you, Father."

Klaus smiled and lifted his glass in acknowledgment. He studied his son a moment, the smile never leaving his face; then he nodded.

"There's something I wanted to speak to you about, Hans. Something I didn't want to raise earlier, while Mother was here."

Hans raised his eyebrows, then took a deep swig of the brandy. "The Company's all right, isn't it?"

His father laughed. "Don't you read your reports, Hans? Things have never been healthier. We're twice the size we were five years ago. If this continues . . ."

Hans reached out and touched his father's arm. "I read the reports, Father. But that isn't what I meant. I've heard rumors about trouble in the mining colonies."

"Yes . . ." Klaus eyed his son with new respect. He had only had the reports himself last night. It was good to see that, with all his other duties, Hans kept himself astride such matters. He smiled. "That's all in hand. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. It's something more personal."

Hans laughed, showing his fine, strong teeth. "I thought we'd settled that. The Marshal's daughter seems a fine young woman. I'm proud of the way she handled those assassins. She'll make me a good wife, don't you think?"

Klaus nodded, suddenly awkward. "Yes . . . Which is why I felt I had to speak to you, Hans. You see, I've been approached by Minister Chuang."

Hans's look of puzzlement warmed him, reassured him. He had known at once that it was only vicious rumor. For his son to be involved in such an unsavory business was unthinkable.

"I saw the Minister this morning," he continued. "He insisted on coming to see me personally. He was . . . most distressed. His wife, you see . . ."

He hesitated, thinking that maybe he should drop the matter. It was clear from Hans's face that he knew nothing about the allegations.

Hans was shaking his head. "I don't follow you, Father. Is his wife ill?"

"Do you know the woman?"

"Of course. She's quite a popular figure in social circles. I've met her, what?, a dozen, maybe fifteen, times."

"And what do you make of her?"

Hans laughed. "Why?" Then he frowned, as if suddenly making the connection. He put his glass down, anger flaring in his eyes. "What is this? Is the Minister alleging something between me and his wife?"

Klaus gave the slightest nod, grateful to his son for articulating it, gratified by the anger he saw in his son's face.

"Well, damn the man!" Hans continued. "And damn his wife! Is this the way they repay my friendship—with slurs and allegations?"

Klaus reached out and held his son's shoulder. "I understand your anger, Hans. I, too, was angry. I told the Minister that I found his allegations incredible. I said that I would not believe a son of mine could behave as he was alleging you had behaved." He shuddered with indignation. "Furthermore, I told him to either provide substantive proof of his allegations or be prepared to be sued for defamation of character."

Hans was staring at his father wide-eyed. "And what did the Minister say to that?"

Klaus shivered again; then he gave a small laugh. "He was most put out. He said his wife had insisted it was true."

"Gods ... I wonder why? Do you think . . . ?"

"Think what?"

Hans let out a long breath. "Perhaps I spurned the woman somehow. I mean, without knowing it... She's always been one to surround herself with young bucks. Perhaps it was simply because I've never fawned over her or flattered her. Maybe her pride was hurt by that. Did the Minister say how or why she broke this incredible news to him? It seems most extraordinary."

Klaus shook his head. "I never thought to ask. I was so outraged . . ."

"Of course. Perhaps the Minister had a row with his wife and to wound him she used my name. After all, you'd not expect the woman to use the name of one of her real lovers, would you?"

Klaus shrugged, out of his depth. "I guess not."

"Still . . . the nerve of it! To drag me into her sordid affairs. I've a mind to confront her and her husband and have it out with them."

Klaus's fingers tightened on his son's shoulder. "No, Hans. I'd prefer it if you didn't. I think it best if we keep the Minister and his wife at a distance."

"But Father—"

"No. I felt I had to mention it to you, but let this be the end of it. All right?"

Hans bowed his head. "As my father wishes."

"Good. Then let us talk of more pleasant matters. I hear young Jelka is being sent home tomorrow. Perhaps you should visit her, Hans. You could take her a small gift."

Klaus nodded to himself, then drained his glass. Yes, it was probably as Hans said: there had been a row and Chuang's wife had used Hans's name to spite her husband. It was not Minister Chuang's fault. He had reacted as any man would. No, the woman was clearly to blame for everything. In the circumstances it would be inadvisable to allow bad feeling to develop from such shadows. Worse still to make an enemy of the Minister. Tomorrow he would send a gift—one of the new range of creatures, perhaps—to smooth things over.

He looked at his son again and smiled, pleased by what he saw. He could not have made a finer creature in his own vats. Though he said so himself, Hans was a masterpiece of genetics—the end product of two centuries of breeding. Like a god, he was. A king among men.

His smile softened. It was as the Seven said, there were levels among men; and Hans, his son, was at the pinnacle. He watched him drain his glass and smile back at him.

"I must get back. You know how it is. . ." Hans hesitated, then came forward and kissed his father's cheek. "But thank you."

Klaus grinned. "For what? I am your father, Hans. Who, if not I, should defend you against such slanders? Besides, who knows you better than I, neh?"

Hans stepped back, then gave a small bow. "Even so . . ."

Klaus lifted his chin, dismissing him. "Go on, boy. Duty calls."

Hans grinned, then turned away. When he was gone Klaus Ebert went across to the decanter and poured himself a second brandy. In times like these he was fortunate to have such a son. The kind of son a man could be proud of. A king. He smiled and raised the glass, silently toasting his absent son, then downed the drink in a single, savage gulp. Yes, a king among men.

HAAVIKKO WAS SITTING in Wang Ti's kitchen, Kao Chen's two-year-old daughter, Ch'iang Hsin, snuggled in his lap. Across from him Chen busied himself at his wife's side, preparing the meal. At his feet their five-year-old, Wu, was waging a ferocious battle between two armies of miniature dragons, their tiny power packs making them seem almost alive.

Looking about him, it was hard to imagine anything quite so different from the world he had inhabited these past ten years, a world as divorced from this simple domesticity as death is from life. He shuddered, thinking of it. A world of swirling smoke and smiling wraiths.

Wang Ti turned to him, wiping her hands on a cloth. "And your sister, Axel? How is she?"

He smiled. "She's fine, Wang Ti. Never happier, I'd say."

She looked at him a moment, as if to read him, then smiled. "That's good. But you need a woman, Axel Haavikko. A wife."

Chen laughed and glanced round. "Leave the poor boy alone, Wang Ti. If he wants a wife he'll find one soon enough. After all, he's a handsome young man. And if an ugly fellow like me can find a wife . . ."

Wang Ti shook her head. "Ugly is as ugly does. Never forget that, husband. Besides, if I close my eyes you are the handsomest of men!"

Husband and wife laughed, real warmth—a strong, self-deprecating humor—in their laughter.

"Anyway," Chen added after a moment, "marriage isn't always such a good thing. I hear, for instance, that our friend Ebert is to be married to the Marshal's daughter."

Haavikko looked down, his mood changed utterly by the mention of Ebert.

"Then 1 pity the girl. The man's a bastard. He cares for nothing except his own self-gratification. Ask anyone who's served with him. They'll all tell you the same."

Chen exchanged a brief look with Wang Ti as she set the bowls down on the table, then nodded. "Or would, if they weren't so afraid of crossing him."

Haavikko nodded. "That's the truth. I've been watching him these past few weeks—spying on him, you might say—and I've seen how he surrounds himself with cronies. A dozen or more of them at times. He settles all their Mess bills and buys them lavish presents. In return they suck up to him, hanging on to his every word, laughing on cue. You know the kind. It's sickening. They call him 'the Hero of Hammerfest,' but he's just a shit. A petty little shit."

Chen wiped his hands, then sat down across from Axel, his blunt face thoughtful. "I know. I've seen it myself. But I can understand it, can't you? After all, as the world sees it he's a powerful man—a very powerful man—and those sucking up to him are only little men—hsiao jen. Socially they're nothing without him. But they hope to grow bigger by associating with him. They hope to rise on his coattails."

Wang Ti had been watching them, surprised by their change of mood. Gently, careful not to wake the sleeping child, she took Ch'iang Hsin from Haavikko's lap, then turned, facing her husband, the child cradled against her. "Why so bitter, husband? What has the man ever done to you?"

"Nothing . . ." Chen said, meeting her eyes only briefly.

Haavikko looked between the two momentarily, noting the strange movement of avoidance in Chen's eyes, knowing it signified something; then he leaned toward him again.

"There's one particularly vile specimen who hangs about with him. A man by the name of Fest. He was a cadet with me, and afterward he served with Ebert and me under Tolonen. He's a Captain now, of course. But back then . . ." Axel shuddered, then continued. "Well, he was partly to blame for my downfall."

Chen looked past Axel momentarily, lifting his chin, indicating to Wang Ti that she should wait in the other room; then he looked back at Axel, his face creased with concern, his voice suddenly softer, more sympathetic.

"What happened?"

Haavikko hesitated, then gave a small, bitter laugh. "It was different then. I can see that now. The world, I mean. It was shaped differently. Not just in my head, but in its externals. You could trust the appearance of things much more. But even then there were some—Ebert among them—who were made . . . crooked, you might say. Twisted. And it's in their nature to shape others in their own distorted form."

He glanced up, giving a little shiver, the sheer rawness of the hurt in his eyes making Chen catch his breath.

"We'd gone down to the Net, the day it happened. Ebert, Fest and I. We were after the assassins of the T'ang's Minister, Lwo Kang, and had been told to wait for a contact from our Triad connections there. Well, I didn't know that Ebert had arranged for us to stay in a singsong house. It began there, I guess. He had me drugged and I... well, I woke up in bed with one of the girls. That was the start of it. It doesn't seem much, looking back, but it's . . . well, it's like I was clean before then; another person, unsullied, untouched by all those darker things that came to dominate me."

"And that's what happened?"

Haavikko gave a bitter laugh. "No. But that was where it began. I can see that now. The two things are inseparable. That and what followed. They were part of the same process. Part of the twistedness that emanates from that man."

"Ebert, you mean?"

Haavikko nodded. "Anyway ... It was later that day. After we'd found the corpses of the assassins. After we'd gone to the Pit and seen Karr defeat and kill the adept, Hwa. Ebert made us go to the dressing rooms after the fight. He wanted to take Karr out to supper and share in his victory. It was something he didn't own, you see, and he wanted to buy it. But Karr was having none of it. And then Tolonen arrived and accepted Karr's services as guide. Oh, it's all linked. I see that clearly now. But back then. . . well, I thought things just happened. You know the saying Mei fa tzu, 'Its fate.' But there was a design to it. A shape."

Haavikko paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath, then continued.

"It was when we were coming away from the assassin's apartment. We were in the sedan: Ebert, Fest, and I. Ebert was sounding off, first about Karr and then about the General. He said things that he would never have dared say to the General's face. When I called him out for it, Fest came between us. He told me to forget what was said. But I couldn't . . ."

Haavikko was silent a moment, looking down at his hands. When he looked up again there was a strange sadness in his eyes.

"I don't regret what I did. Even now I don't think I would have acted any other way. It was just. . . well, let me tell you. When I was alone with the General I asked to be transferred. I felt unclean, you see. Of course, the old man asked me for my reasons. But when I tried to avoid giving them he ordered me to tell him what was up. So I did. I told him what was said in the sedan."

Chen let out his breath. "I see . . ."

"Yes. You can imagine. Tolonen was livid. He called Ebert and Fest back at once. It wasn't what I wanted; even then I didn't feel it was right to get Ebert thrown out of the force for something he'd said in a heated moment. But it was out of my hands at that stage. And then . . ."

"Fest backed him up?"

Haavikko nodded. "I couldn't believe it. They were both so convincing. So much so that for months afterward I kept asking myself whether I'd been wrong. Whether I'd imagined it all. Whether their version of things was really the truth. It was as if I'd had a bad dream. But it was one I couldn't wake from. And it all began back then. On that day ten years ago."

A voice came from the shadows of the doorway behind them. "I remember that day well."

The two men looked around, surprised. There was a figure in the doorway, a giant of a man, his head stooped to clear the lintel, his broad shoulders filling the frame of the door. Karr.

Chen was up out of his chair at once. He went across and embraced the big man, smiling fiercely. "Gregor! You should have said you were coming!"

Karr held his friend's arms a moment, smiling down into his face; then he looked back at Axel.

"Yes. I remember you well, Axel Haavikko. I remember you coming to watch me fight that day. But I never understood until today why you disappeared from things so suddenly. You have good cause to hate Major Ebert."

Haavikko looked down, abashed. "If I spoke out of turn, Major Karr . . ."

Karr laughed. He had put his arm about Chen's shoulders familiarly, like a father about his son's. "Here, in Kao Chen's, we have an agreement, and you must be a party to it, Axel. In these rooms there is no rank, no formality, understand? Here we are merely friends. Kao Chen insists on it, and I ..." his smile broadened. "Well, as your senior officer, I insist upon it, too. Here Chen is Chen. And I am Gregor."

Karr put out a hand. Haavikko stood up slowly, looking at the offered hand, hesitant even now to commit himself so far. But then he looked at Chen and saw how his friend's eyes urged him to take Karr's hand.

He swallowed dryly. "I'm grateful. But there's one further thing you should know about me before you accept me here." He looked from one to the other. "You are good men, and I would have no secrets from you. You must know what I am. What I have done."

"Go on," Karr said, his hand still offered.

Haavikko stared back at Karr, meeting his gray eyes unflinchingly. "You heard me say how it felt as though I were in a bad dream, unable to wake. Well, for ten years I inhabited that nightmare, living it day and night. But then, a month or so ago, I woke from it. Again I found myself in bed in a singsong house, and once again a strange girl was lying there beside me. But this time the girl was dead, and I knew that I had killed her."

Karr's eyes narrowed. "You knew⁷."

Haavikko shuddered. "Yes. I remember it quite vividly."

Karr and Chen looked at each other, some sign of understanding passing between them; then Karr looked back at Haavikko. His hand had not wavered for a moment. It was still offered.

"We have all done things we are ashamed of, Axel Haavikko. Even this thing you say you did—even that does not make you a bad man. Chen here, for instance. Would you say he was a good man?"

Haavikko looked at Chen. "I would stake my life on it."

"Then it would surprise you, perhaps, to learn that Kao Chen was one of the two assassins you were after that day ten years ago."

Haavikko shook his head. "No. He can't be. They were dead, both of them. I saw the kwai's body for myself."

Karr smiled. "No. That was another man. A man Chen paid to play himself. It's something he's not proud of. Something he'd rather hadn't happened. Even so, it doesn't make him a bad man."

Haavikko was staring at Chen now with astonishment. "Of course ... the scar." He moved forward, tracing the scar beneath Chen's left ear with his forefinger. "I know you now. You were the one on film. With your friend, the small man. In the Main of Level Eleven."

Chen laughed, surprised. "You had that on film?"

"Yes. . ." Haavikko frowned. "But I still don't understand. If you were one of the killers . . ."

Karr answered for Chen. "Li Shai Tung pardoned Kao Chen. He saw what I saw at once. What you yourself also saw. That Chen is a good man. An honest man, when he's given the chance to be. So men are, unless necessity shapes them otherwise."

"Or birth . . ." Haavikko said, thinking again of Ebert.

"So?" Karr said, his hand still offered. "Will you join us, Axel? Or will you let what's past shape what you will be?"

Haavikko looked from one to the other; then, smiling fiercely at him, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes, he reached out and took Karr's hand.

"Good," said Wang Ti, appearing in the doorway. She moved past them, smiling at Axel, as if welcoming him for the first time. "And about time, too. Come, you three. Sit down and eat, before dinner spoils."

over the meal Karr outlined what had been happening since his return from Mars. Their one real clue from the Executive Killings had led them to a small Ping Tiao cell in the Mids fifty li south of Bremen. His men were keeping a watch on the comings and goings of the terrorists. They had strict orders not to let the Ping Tiao know they were being observed, but it was not something they could do indefinitely.

"I'm taking a squad in tonight," Karr said, sitting back from table and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. "In the small hours. I want to capture as many of the cell members as possible, so we'll need to be on our toes."

Chen nodded, his mouth full. He chewed for a moment, then swallowed. "That'll be difficult. They organize tightly and post guards at all hours. And then, when you do confront them, they melt away like shadows. You'll have to corner them somehow. But even if you do, I've heard they'd rather die than be captured."

"Yes. . . but then, so will most men if they're given no other option. Sun Tzu is right: leave but one avenue for a man to escape by and his determination to fight to the death will be totally undermined. He will recognize how sweet life is and cling to it. So it will be tonight. I'll offer them a pathway back to life. If I can capture just one of them, perhaps we'll get to the bottom of this."

Haavikko smiled. The man looked, even ate, like a barbarian, but he thought like a general. Tolonen had not been wrong all those years ago when he had recognized this in Karr. Haavikko put his chopsticks down and pushed his bowl away, then reached into his pocket and took the notebook from it.

"What's that?" Karr said, lifting his chin.

Haavikko handed it across the table. "See for yourself."

He watched as the big man thumbed through the notebook. At first Karr simply frowned, not understanding; then, slowly, he began to nod, a faint smile forming on his lips. Finally he looked up, meeting Axel's eyes.

"You did this all yourself?"

"Yes."

Chen pushed his bowl aside and leaned forward, interested. "What is it?"

Karr met his eyes thoughtfully. "It's an analysis of the official investigation into Minister Lwo Kang's murder. And if I'm not mistaken, there are a number of things here that were never included in the findings of the T'ang's committee."

Karr handed the book across to Chen, then looked back at Haavikko. "May I ask why you did this, Axel?"

"I was ordered to."

Karr laughed. "Ordered to?"

"Yes, by General Tolonen, shortly before I was dismissed from his service. He asked me to compile a list of suspects, however improbable. Men who might have been behind the assassins. It was a direct order, one he never rescinded."

Karr stared back at Haavikko, astonished. "I see. But then surely Marshal Tolonen ought to have it?"

Haavikko hesitated, then looked down, shaking his head.

"I understand," Karr said after a moment. "And maybe you're right. After what happened there's no reason why he should trust you, is there? The Marshal would see it only as an attempt to get back at Ebert. He'd think you had invented this to discredit your enemies."

Haavikko nodded, then looked up again, his eyes burning fiercely now. "But you two know Ebert. You know what he is. So maybe that,"—he indicated the notebook in Chen's hands—"incomplete as it is, will help us nail the bastard."

Chen looked up. "He's right, Oregon This makes interesting reading."

"Interesting, yes, but not conclusive."

Chen nodded thoughtfully, smiling back at Karr. "Exactly. Even so, it's a beginning."

"Something to work on."

"Yes . . ."

Haavikko saw how the two men smiled knowingly at each other and felt a sudden warmth—a sense of belonging—flood through him. He was alone no longer. Now there were three of them, and together they would break Ebert, expose him for the sham—the hollow shell—he was.

Karr looked back at him. "Is this the only copy?"

"No. There's a second copy, among some things I've willed to my sister, Vesa."

"Good," Karr turned to Chen. "In that case, you hang on to that copy, Chen. I'm giving you two-weeks paid leave. Starting tomorrow. I want you to follow up some of those leads. Especially those involving men known to be friends or business acquaintances of the Eberts."

"And if I find anything?"

There was a hammering at the outer door to the apartment. The three men turned, facing it, Kao Chen getting to his feet. There was an exchange of voices; then a moment later, Wang Ti appeared in the doorway.

"It's a messenger for you, Major Karr," she said, the use of Karr's rank indicating that the man was within hearing in the next room.

"I'll come," said Karr, but he was gone only a few moments. When he came back, his face was livid with anger.

"1 don't believe it. They're dead."

"Who?" said Chen, alarmed.

"The Ping Tiao cell. All eight of them." Karr's huge frame shuddered with indignation; then, his eyes looking inward, he nodded to himself. "Someone knew. Someone's beaten us to it."

ebert WAS standing with his Captain, Auden, laughing, his head thrown back, when Karr arrived. Signs of a heavy fire-fight were everywhere. Body bags lay to one side of the big intersection, while the corridors leading off were strewn with wreckage.

Karr looked about him at the carnage, then turned, facing Ebert. "Who was it?" he demanded.

"Who was what?" Ebert said tersely, almost belligerently.

"Was it DeVore?"

Ebert laughed coldly. "What are you talking about, Major Karr? They were Ping Tiao. But they're dead now. Eight less of the bastards to worry about."

Karr went still, suddenly realizing what had happened. "You killed them?"

Ebert looked at Auden again, a faint smile reappearing. "Every last one of them."

Karr clenched his fists, controlling himself. "Is there somewhere we can talk?" he said tightly. "Somewhere private?"

Auden indicated a room off to one side. "I'll post a guard."

"No need," said Karr. "We'll not be long."

When the door closed behind them, Karr rounded on Ebert.

"You stupid bastard! Why didn't you report what you were doing? Who gave you permission to go in without notifying me?"

Ebert's eyes flared. "I don't need your permission, Karr."

Karr leaned in on him angrily. "In this instance you did! Marshal Tolonen put me in charge of this investigation; and while it's still going on, you report to me, understand me, Major Ebert? Your precipitate action has well and truly fucked things up. I had this cell staked out."

Ebert looked up at the big man defiantly, spitting the words back at him. "Well, I've simply saved you the trouble, haven't I?"

Karr shook his head. "You arrogant bastard. Don't you understand? I didn't want them dead. We were going in tonight. I wanted at least one of them alive. Now the whole bloody lot of them will have gone to ground and the gods know when we'll get another chance like this."

Ebert was glaring back at him, his hands shaking with anger. "You're not pinning this on me, Karr. It's you who've fouled up, not me. I was just doing my job. Following up on evidence received. If you can't keep your fellow officers informed . . ."

Karr raised his hand, the fingers tensed, as if to strike Ebert in the face; then he slowly let the tension ease from him. Violence would achieve nothing.

"Did any of our men get hurt?"

There was an ugly movement in Ebert's face. He looked aside, his voice subdued. "A few ..."

"Meaning what?"

Ebert hesitated, then looked back at him again. "Four dead, six injured."

"Four dead! Ai ya! What the fuck were you up to?" Karr shook his head, then turned away, disgusted. "You're shit, Ebert, you know that? How could you possibly lose four men? You had only to wait. They'd have had to come at you."

Ebert glared pure hatred at the big man's back. "It wasn't as simple as that. . ."

Karr turned back. "You fucked up!"

Ebert looked away, then looked back, his whole manner suddenly more threatening. "I think you've said enough, Karr. Understand? I'm not a man to make an enemy of."

Karr laughed caustically. "You repeat yourself, Major Ebert. Or do you forget our first meeting." He leaned forward and spat between Ebert's feet. "There! That might jog your memory. You were a shit then and you're a shit now."

"I'm not afraid of you, Karr."

"No. . ." Karr nodded. "No, you're not a coward; I'll give you that. But you're still a disgrace to the T'ang's uniform, and if I can, I'll break you."

Ebert laughed scornfully. "You'll try."

"Yes, I'll try. Fucking hard, I'll try. But don't underestimate me, Hans Ebert. Just remember what I did to Master Hwa that time in the Pit. He underestimated me, and he's dead."

"Is that a threat?"

"Take it as you want. But between men, if you understand me. You go before the Marshal and I'll deny every last word. Like you yourself once did, ten years ago."

Ebert narrowed his eyes. "That officer with you—it's Haavikko, isn't it? I thought I recognized the little shit."

Karr studied Ebert a moment, knowing for certain now that Haavikko had told the truth about him; then he nodded. "Yes, Haavikko. But don't even think of trying anything against him. If he so much as bruises a finger without good reason, I'll come for you. And a thousand of your cronies won't stop me."

TSU MA STOOD in the courtyard of the stables at Tongjiang, waiting while the groom brought the Arab from its stall. He looked about him, for once strangely ill at ease, disconcerted to learn that she had ridden off ahead of him.

He had tried to cast her from his mind, to drive from his heart the spell she had cast over him; but it was no use. He was in love with her.

In love. He laughed, surprised at himself. It had never happened to him before. Never, in all his thirty-seven years.

He had only to close his eyes and the image of her would come to him, taking his breath. And then he would remember how it was, there on the island in the lantern light; how he had watched her lose herself in the tune she had been playing; how her voice had seemed the voice of his spirit singing, freed like a bird into the darkness of the night. And later, when he had been in the water, he had seen how she stood behind her husband, watching him, her eyes curious, lingering on his naked chest.

One life⁷, she had asked, standing in the doorway of the ruined temple. One life'! as if it meant something special. As if it invited him to touch her. But then, when he had leaned forward to brush her cheek, her neck, she had moved back as if he had transgressed; and all his knowledge of her had been shattered by her refusal.

Had he been wrong those times? Had he misjudged her? It seemed so. And yet she had sent word to him. Secretly. A tiny, handwritten note, asking him to forgive her moodiness, to come and ride with her again. Was it merely to be sociable—for her husband's sake—or should he read something more into it?

He could still hear her words. If I were free . . .

Even to contemplate such an affair was madness. It could only make for bad blood between the Li clan and himself and shatter the age-old ties between their families. He knew that. And yet the merest thought of her drove out all consideration of what he ought to do. She had bewitched him, robbed him of his senses.

That, too, he knew. And yet his knowledge was as nothing beside the compulsion that drove him to see her again. To risk everything simply to be with her.

He turned, hearing the groom return with the Arab.

"Chieh Hsia." The boy bowed, offering the reins.

Tsu Ma smiled and took the reins. Then, putting one foot firmly in the stirrup, he swung up onto the Arab's back. She moved skittishly but he steadied her, using his feet. It was Li Yuan's horse; the horse he had ridden the last time he had come. He turned her slowly, getting used to her again, then dug in his heels, spurring her out of the courtyard and north, heading out into the hills.

He knew where he would find Fei Yen; there at the edge of the temple pool where they had last spoken. She stood there, her face turned from him, her whole stance strangely disconsolate. Her face was pale, far paler than he remembered, as if she had been ill. He frowned, disconcerted by something; then with a shock, he recognized the clothes she was wearing. Her riding tunic was a pink that was almost white, edged with black; her trousers were azure blue; and her hair . . . her hair was beaded with rubies.

He laughed softly, astonished. They were the same colors—the same jewels—he had worn the first time they had met. But what did it mean?

She looked up as he approached, her eyes pained, her lips pressed together, her mouth strangely hard. She had been crying.

"I didn't know if you would come."

He hesitated, then went across to stand at her side.

"You shouldn't be riding out so far alone." '•>

"No?"

The anger in her voice took him aback. He reached into his tunic and took out a silk handkerchief. "Here . . . What's wrong?"

He watched her dab her cheeks, and wipe her eyes, his heart torn from him by the tiny shudder she gave. He wanted to reach out and wrap her in his arms, to hold her tight and comfort her; but he had been wrong before.

"I can't bear to see you crying."

She looked at him, anger flashing in her eyes again, then looked down, as if relenting. "No . . ." She sniffed, then crushed the silk between her hands. "No, it's not your fault, Tsu Ma."

He wet his lips, then spoke again. "Where is your husband?"

She laughed bitterly, staring down fixedly at her clenched hands. "Husbands! What is a husband but a tyrant!"

Once more the anger in her face surprised him.

She stared up at him, her eyes wide, her voice bitter. "He sleeps with his maids. I've seen him."

"Ah. . ." He looked down into the water, conscious of her image there in front of him, "Maybe it's because he's a man."

"A man!" She laughed caustically, her eyes meeting his in the mirror of the pool, challenging him. "And men are different, are they? Have they different appetites, different needs?" She looked back at the reality of him, forcing him to look at her and meet her eyes. "You sound like my brothers, Tsu Ma. They think the matter of their sex makes them my superior when any fool can see—"

She stopped, then laughed, glancing at him. "You see, even the language we use betrays me. I would have said, not half the man I am."

He nodded, for the first time understanding her. "Yet it is how things are ordered," he said gently. "Without it—"

"I know," she said impatiently, then repeated it more softly, smiling at him. "I know."

He studied her a moment, remembering what her cousin Yin Wu Tsai had said— that she had been born with a woman's body and a man's soul. It was true. She looked so fragile, so easily broken; yet there was something robust, something hard and uncompromising, at the core of her. Maybe it was that—the precarious balance in her nature—that he loved. That sense he had of fire beneath the ice. Of earthiness beneath the superficial glaze.

"You're not like other women."

He said it softly, admiringly, and saw how it brought a movement in her eyes, a softening of her features.

"And you? Are you like other men?"

Am I? he asked himself. Or am I simply what they expect me to be? As he stared back at her he found he had no answer. If to be T'ang meant he could never have his heart's desire, then what use was it being T'ang? Better never to have lived.

"I think I am," he answered after a moment. "I have the same feelings and desires and thoughts."

She was watching him intently, as if to solve some riddle she had set herself. Then she looked down, away from him, the faintest smile playing on her lips. "Yes, but it's the balance of those things that makes a man what he is, wouldn't you say, Tsu Ma?"

He laughed. "And you think my balance . . . different?"

She looked up at him challengingly. "Don't you?" She lifted her chin proudly, her dark eyes wide. "I don't really know you, Tsu Ma, but I know this much—you would defy the world to get what you wanted."

He felt himself go still. Then she understood him, too. But still he held back, remembering the mistake he had made before. To be rebuffed a second time would be unthinkable, unbearable. He swallowed and looked down.

"I don't know. I—"

She stood abruptly, making him look up at her, surprised.

"All this talking," she said, looking across to where their horses were grazing. "It's unhealthy. Unnatural." She looked back at him. "Don't you think so?"

He stood slowly, fascinated by the twist and turn of her, her ever-changing moods. "What do you suggest?"

She smiled, suddenly the woman he had met that first time, laughing and self-confident, all depths, all subtleties gone from her.

"I know what," she said. "Let's race. To the beacon. You know it?"

He narrowed his eyes. "We passed it ten li back, no?"

"That's it." Her smile broadened. "Well? Are you game?"

"Yes," he said, laughing. "Why not? And no quarter, eh? No holding back."

"Of course," she answered, her eyes meeting his knowingly. "No holding back."

FEI YEN reined in her horse and turned to look back down the steep slope beneath the beacon. Tsu Ma was some fifty ch'i back, his mount straining, its front legs fighting for each ch'i of ground.

Her eyes shone and her chest rose and fell quickly. She felt exhilarated. It had been a race to remember.

Tsu Ma reined in beside her. His mount pulled its head back, overexcited by the chase, and he leaned down to smooth it, stroking the broad length of its face. Then he looked up at Fei Yen, his strong features formed into a smile of pleasure.

"That was good. I haven't enjoyed myself so much in years!"

He laughed, a deep, rich laugh that sent a shiver down her spine. Then he reached out and drew the hair back from where it had fallen across her face. His hand rested against her cheek.

It was the first time he had touched her.

He withdrew his hand and turned from her, standing in his saddle and looking out across the valley. They were at the highest point for twenty li around. To their backs and distant were the foothills of the Ta Pa Shan, but before them was only the plain.

Or what had once been the plain. In his grandfather's time the City had stretched only as far as Ch'ung Ch'ing. Now it covered all the lowlands of Sichuan. From where he looked it glistened whitely in the afternoon sunlight, a crystalline growth come to within a dozen li of where they were. He could not see its full extent from where he stood, but he knew that it filled the Ch'ang Chiang Basin, eight hundred li south to the mountains, a thousand li east to west. A vast plateau of ice.

He lowered himself in the saddle, then turned, looking back at her. She was watching him, concerned. Such a look as a wife gives her man. Thinking this, he smiled and remembered why he'd come.

He climbed down from his mount and walked across to her.

"Come!" he said, offering her his hand to help her down. But this time he did not relinquish her. This time he turned her to face him, enveloping her in his arms.

She looked up at him expectantly, her mouth open, the bottom lip raised, almost brutal in what it implied. Her eyes seared him, so fierce was their demand. And her body, where he gripped it, seemed to force itself into him.

It was as he'd thought.

He kissed her, his mouth crushing hers, answering her need with his own. For a moment they struggled with each other's clothing, tearing at the lacing, freeing themselves; and then he had lifted her onto him and was thrusting deep into her, her legs wrapped about his back, her pelvis pushing down urgently to meet his movements.

"My love," she said, her dark eyes wide, aroused, her fine, small hands caressing his neck. "Oh my love, my Lord . . ."

CHAPTER NINE

The Veiled Light

LI YUAN STOOD with his father at the center of the viewing circle, looking down at the great globe of Chung Kuo, 160,000 li below. Down there it was night. Lit from within, the great, continent-spanning mass of City Europe glowed a soft, almost pearled white, bordered on all sides by an intensity of blackness. To the south—beyond the darkness of the Chung Hai, the ancient Mediterranean—glowed City Africa, its broad, elongated shape curving out of view; while to the east—separated from City Europe by the dark barrier of the East European Plantations—City Asia began, a vast glacier, stretching away into the cold heart of the immense land mass.

The room in which they stood was dimly lit; the double doors at the top of the steps leading to the T'ang's private rooms were closed. It was warm in the room, yet, as ever, the illusion of coldness prevailed.

"What have you decided, Father?"

The T'ang turned to his son, studying him thoughtfully, then smiled.

"To wait to hear what the Marshal says. He saw the boy this morning."

"Ah . . ." Li Yuan glanced at the slender folder he was carrying beneath his arm. In it were copies of the records Karr had brought back with him from Mars: Berdichev's personal files, taken from the corpse of his private secretary three days before Karr had caught up with Berdichev himself.

It had taken them two weeks to break the complex code, but it had been worth it. Besides giving them access to a number of secret SimFic files—files that gave them the location of several special projects Berdichev had instigated—they had also contained several items of particular interest.

The first was a detailed breakdown of the events leading up to the assassination of the Edict Minister, Lwo Kang, ten years earlier. It was similar in many respects to the document Tolonen had brought to Li Shai Tung shortly after the event—the papers drawn up by Major DeVore. That document, and the web of inference and connection it had drawn, had been enough to condemn the Dispersionist Edmund Wyatt to death for treason. But now they knew it for what it was. Though Wyatt had been against the Seven, he had played no part in the murder of Minister Lwo. No, he had been set up by his fellow conspirators. But Wyatt's death, almost as surely as the destruction of the starship The New Hope had brought about the War that followed.

Li Yuan looked back at his father, conscious of how much he had aged in the years between. The War had emptied him, stripped him of all illusions. Five years ago he would not have even contemplated the Wiring Project. But times had changed. New solutions were necessary. The second file was confirmation of that.

"About the Aristotle File, Father. Do we know yet if any copies were made?"

Li Shai Tung looked down past his feet at the blue-white circle of Chung Kuo.

"Nothing as yet, Yuan. So maybe we've been lucky. Maybe it wasn't disseminated."

"Perhaps. . ." But both knew that the Aristotle File was too important—too potentially damaging to the Seven—for Berdichev to have kept it to himself. For it was no less than the true history of Chung Kuo, the version of events the tyrant Tsao Ch'un had buried beneath his own.

Li Yuan shivered, remembering the day he had found out the truth about his world, recollecting suddenly the dream he had had, a vision of a vast mountain of bones filling the plain from horizon to horizon. The foundations of his world.

"You know, Yuan, I was standing here the night you were bom. It was late and I was looking down at Chung Kuo, wondering what lay ahead. I had been dreaming . . ."

He looked up, meeting his son's eyes.

"Dreaming, Father?"

The T'ang hesitated, then gave a small shake of his head. "No matter. Just that it struck me as strange. The boy and all. . ."

He knew what his father meant.

The third file concerned a boy Berdichev had taken a personal interest in, a Claybom child from the Recruitment Project for whom Berdichev had paid the extraordinary sum of ten million yuan.

Part of the file was a genotyping—a comparison of the child's genetic material to that of a man alleged to be his father. The result of the genotyping was conclusive. The man was the child's father. And the man's name? Edmund Wyatt—the person wrongly executed for orchestrating the assassination of the T'ang's minister, Lwo Kang.

That had been strange enough, but stranger yet was a footnote to the file; it revealed that instead of being the work of Soren Berdichev, as was claimed on the file itself, the Aristotle File had, in fact, been compiled and authored by the boy.

• The fact that had struck them both, however, was the date the genotyping had given for the conception of the boy, a date that coincided with a visit Wyatt, Berdichev, and Lehmann had made to a singsong house in the Clay.

It was the day Li Yuan had been bom. The day his mother, Lin Yua, had died giving birth to him, three months premature.

It was as if the gods were playing with them. Taking and giving, and never offering an explanation. But which was the Clayborn boy—gift or curse? On the evidence of the Aristotle File he seemed—potentially, at least—a curse; yet if the reports on him were to be believed, he might prove the greatest asset the Seven possessed. The question that confronted them—the question they had met today to answer—was simple: should they attempt to harness his talents or should they destroy him?

There was a banging on the great doors at the far end of the room.

"Come in!" the T'ang answered, turning to face the newcomer.

It was Tolonen. He strode in purposefully, then stopped three paces from the T'ang, clicking his heels together and bowing his head.

"Chieh Hsia."

"Well, Knut? You've seen the boy. What do you think?"

Tolonen lifted his head, surprised by the abruptness with which the T'ang had raised the matter. It was unlike him. He turned briefly to Li Yuan, giving a small bow, then turned back to Li Shai Tung, a smile forming.

"I liked him, Chieh Hsia. I liked him very much. But that's not what you asked me, is it? You asked me whether I thought we could trust the boy. Whether we could risk using him in such a delicate area of research."

"And?"

Tolonen shrugged. "I'm still not certain, Chieh Hsia. My instinct tends to confirm what was in the file. He's loyal. The bond he formed with his tutor, T'ai Cho, for instance, was a strong one. I think that's inbred in his nature. But then, there's the fight with the boy Janko to consider and the whole personality reconstruction business subsequent to that. He's not the same person he was before all that. We have to ask ourselves how that has affected him. Has it made him more docile and thus easier to control, or has it destabilized him? I can't answer that, I'm afraid. I really can't."

The T'ang considered a moment, then nodded, smiling at his Marshal. "Thank you, Knut. Your fears are the mirror of my own. I have already signed the death warrant. I was merely waiting to hear what you would say."

"But, Father. . ." Li Yuan started forward, then stepped back, lowering his head. "Forgive me, I..."

Li Shai Tung stared at his son a moment, surprised by his interruption, then frowned. "Well, Yuan?"

"A thousand apologies, Father. I was forgetting myself."

"You wished to say something?" •;••••• ^;

Li Yuan bowed. "I... I merely wished to caution against being too hasty in this matter."

"Too hasty?" The old T'ang laughed and looked across at Tolonen. "I've been told I was many things in my life, but too hasty . . . What do you mean, Li Yuan? Speak out."

"The boy . . ." Li Yuan looked up, meeting his father's eyes. "If what is written about the boy is true, if he is but a fraction as talented as is said . . . Well, it would be a great waste to kill him."

Li Shai Tung studied his son carefully. "You forget why we fought the War, Yuan. To contain change, not to sponsor it. This boy, Kim. Look at the mischief he has done already with his 'talent.' Look at the file he made. What is to prevent him making further trouble?"

Li Yuan swallowed, sensing that everything depended on what he said in the next few moments, that his father had not quite made up his mind, even now.

"With respect, Father, things have changed. We all know that. Our enemies are different now, subtler, more devious than ever before. And the means they use have changed, too. While we continue to ignore the possibilities of technology, they are busy harnessing it—against us." Li Yuan looked down. "It's as if the gods have given us a gift to use against our enemies. We have only to monitor him closely."

"It was tried before. You forget just how clever the boy is."

Li Yuan nodded. "I realize that, Father. Even so, I think it can be done."

The T'ang considered a moment, then turned back, facing Tolonen. "Well, Knut? What do you think?"

Tolonen bowed. "I think it could be done, Chieh Hsia. And would it harm to delay a little before a final decision is made?"

The T'ang laughed. "Then I am outnumbered."

Tolonen smiled back at him. "Your one is bigger than our two, Chieh Hsia."

"So it is. But I'm not a stupid man. Nor inflexible." He turned, facing his son again. "All right, Yuan. For now I'll leave this in your hands. You'll arrange the matter of security with Marshal Tolonen here. But the boy will be your direct responsibility, understand me? He lives because you wish him to. You will keep my warrant with you and use it if you must."

Li Yuan smiled and bowed his head low. "As my father wishes."

"Oh, and one more thing, Yuan. It would be best if you saw the boy yourself." He smiled. "You have two places left to fill on the Wiring Project, I understand."

"I was . . . keeping them in case."

"I thought as much. Then go. See the boy at once. And if your view of him confirms the Marshal's, we'll do as you say. But be careful, Yuan. Knowledge is a two-edged sword."

When his son was gone, the T'ang turned back, facing his Marshal.

"Keep me closely informed, Knut. Yuan is not to know, but I want us to know where Kim is at all times. Maybe he is what Yuan claims. But what can be used by us can just as easily be used by our enemies, and I'm loath to see this one fall back into their hands. You understand me clearly, Knut?"

"I understand, Chieh Hsia."

"Good. Then let us speak of other matters. Your daughter, Jelka. How is she?"

Tolonen's eyes brightened. "Much better, Chieh Hsia. She is back home now."

Li Shai Tung frowned. "Was that wise, Knut? I mean ... to be back where the attack happened."

"The doctors thought it best. And I ... well, for all that happened, I felt she would be safest there."

"I see. But she is still not quite as she was, I take it?"

Tolonen looked down, his eyes troubled. "Not quite, Chieh Hsia."

"I thought as much. Well, listen to me, Knut. Knowing how busy you'll be these next few weeks, I've come up with an idea that might put your mind at ease and allow Jelka to come to terms with her experience."

"Chieh Hsia?"

"You remember the island your family owned? Off the coast of Finland?"

"Near Jakobstad?" Tolonen laughed. "How could I forget? I spent a month there with Jenny, shortly after we were married."

"Yes ..." The two men were silent a moment, sharing the sweet sadness of the memory. "Well," said Li Shai Tung, brightening, "why not take Jelka there for a few weeks?"

Tolonen beamed. "Yes! Of course!" Then he grew quiet. "But as you say, I am far too busy, Chieh Hsia. Who would look after her? And then there's the question of passes..."

The T'ang reached out and touched his Marshal's arm. It was like Tolonen not to abuse the Pass Laws, not to grant permissions for his family or friends. In all the years he had known him he had not heard of one instance of Tolonen using his position for his own advantage.

"Don't worry, Knut. I've arranged everything already. Passes, supplies, even a special squad to guard her." He smiled broadly, enjoying the look of surprise on Tolonen's face. "Your brother, Jon, and his wife have agreed to stay with her while she's there."

Tolonen laughed, astonished. "Jon?" Then he shook his head, overcome with emotion. "I'm deeply grateful, Chieh Hsia. It will be perfect. Just the thing she needs. She'll love it, I know she will."

"Good. Then you'll take her yourself, tomorrow. After you've sorted out this business with the boy. And Knut?"

"Yes, Chieh Hsia."

"Don't hurry back. Stay with her a night. See her settled in, neh?"

"Is that an order, Chieh Hsia?"

The T'ang smiled and nodded. "Yes, dear friend. It is an order."

AFTER TOLONEN HAD gone, Li Shai Tung went to his private rooms. He bathed and dressed in his evening silks, then settled in the chair beside the carp pond, picking up the Hung Low Meng, the Dream of Red Mansions, which he had discarded earlier. For a while he tried to read, tried to sink back down into the fortunes of young Pao-yu and his beloved cousin, Tai-yu, but it was no good; his mind kept returning to the question of the Aristotle File and what it might mean for Chung Kuo.

His son Li Yuan had seen it all five years before, in those first few days after he had been told the secret of their world—the Great Lie upon which everything was built. He remembered how Yuan had come to him that night, pale and frightened, awakened by a terrible dream.

Why do we keep the truth from them? Yuan had demanded. What are we afraid of? That it might make them think other than we wish them to think? That they might make other choices than the ones we wish them to make?

Back then he had argued with his son, had denied Yuan's insistence that they were the jailers of Tsao Ch'un's City, the inheritors of a system that shaped them for ill. We are our own men, he had said. But was it so? Were they really in control? Or did unseen forces shape them?

He had always claimed to be acting for the best; not selfishly, but for all men, as the great sage Confucius had said a ruler should act. So he had always believed. But now, as he entered his final years, he had begun to question what had been done in his name.

Was there truly any real difference between concealing the truth from a man and the placing of a wire in his head?

Once he might have answered differently, might have said that the two things were different in kind; but now he was not so certain. Five years of war had changed him, soured him.

He sighed and looked back down at the page before closing the book.

"You were right, Pao-yu. All streams are sullied. Nothing is ch'ing . . . nothing pure."

He stood, then cast the book down onto the chair angrily. Where had his certainty gone? Where the clarity of his youth?

He had foreseen it all, sixteen years ago, on that dreadful evening when his darling wife, Lin Yua, had died giving birth to his second son, Li Yuan. That night he, too, had awoken from an awful dream—a dream of the City sliding down into the maw of chaos, of dear friends and their children dead, and of the darkness to come.

Such dreams had meaning. Were voices from the dark yet knowing part of oneself, voices you ignored only at your peril. And yet they had ignored them, had built a System and a City to deny the power of dreams, filling it with illusions and distractions, as if to kill the inner voices and silence the darkness deep within.

But you could not destroy what was inside a man. So maybe Yuan was right. Maybe it was best to control it. Now, before it was too late to act. For wasn't it better to have peace—even at such a price—than chaos?

He turned, annoyed with himself, exasperated that no clear answer came.

He stared down into the depths of the carp pool, as if seeking the certainty of the past, then shook his head. "I don't know . . ." he sighed. "I just don't know any longer."

A single carp rose slowly, sluggishly to the surface, then sank down again. Li Shai Tung watched the ripples spread across the pool, then put his hand up to his plaited beard, stroking it thoughtfully.

And Yuan, his son? Was Yuan as certain as he seemed?

He had heard reports of trouble between Yuan and Fei Yen. Had been told that the Prince, his son, had not visited his new wife's bed for several days, and not through pressure of work. He had been there in the Palace at Tongjiang with her, and still he had not visited her bed. That was not right. For a couple to be arguing so early in their relationship did not bode well for the future. He had feared as much—had known the match was ill-conceived—but once more he had refused to listen to the voice within. He had let things take their course, like a rider letting go the reins. And if he fell—if his son's unhappiness resulted—who could he blame but himself?

Again the carp rose, swifter this time, as if to bite the air. There was a tiny splash as its mouth lifted above the surface, then it sank down again, merging with the darkness.

Li Shai Tung coiled his fingers through his beard, then nodded. He would let things be. Would watch closely and see how matters developed. But the cusp was fast approaching. He had told Tolonen otherwise, but the truth was that he was not so sure Li Yuan was wrong. Maybe it was time to put bit and bridle on the masses, to master events before the whole thing came crashing down on them.

It would not hurt, at least, to investigate the matter. And if the boy Kim could help them find a way . . .

The T'ang turned, then bent down and retrieved the book, finding himself strangely reassured by its familiarity. He brushed at the cover, sorry that he had treated it so roughly. It was a book he had read a dozen times in his life, each time with greater understanding and a growing satisfaction. Things changed, he knew that now, after a lifetime of denying it; but certain things—intrinsic things— remained constant, for all men at all times. And in the interplay of change and certainty each man lived out his life.

It was no different for those who ruled. Yet they had an added burden. To them was ordained the task of shaping the social matrix within which ordinary men had their being. To them was ordained the sacred task of finding balance. For without balance there was nothing.

Nothing but chaos.

IT WAS late afternoon when Li Yuan finally arrived at Bremen. General Nocenzi had offered his office for the young Prince's use, and it was there, at the very top of the vast, three-hundred-level fortress, that he planned to meet the boy.

Kim was waiting down below. He had been there since his early morning session with Tolonen, unaware of how his fate had hung in the balance in the interim; but Li Yuan did not summon him at once. Instead he took the opportunity to read the files again and look at extracts from the visual record—films taken throughout the eight years of Kim's stay within the Recruitment Project.

They had given the boy the surname Ward, not because it was his name—few of the boys emerging from the Clay possessed even the concept of a family name—but because all those who graduated from the Project bore that name. Moreover, it was used in the Hung Moo manner—in that curiously inverted way of theirs, where the family name was last and not first.

Li Yuan smiled. Even that minor detail spoke volumes about the differences in cultures. For the Han had always put the family first. Before the individual.

He froze the final image, then shut down the comset and leaned forward to touch the desk's intercom. At once Nocenzi's private secretary appeared at the door.

"Prince Yuan?"

"Have them bring the boy. I understand there's a Project official with him, too. A man by the name of T'ai Cho. Have him come too."

"Of course, Excellency."

He got up from the desk, then went to the window wall and stood there. He was still standing there, his back to them, when they entered.

T'ai Cho cleared his throat. "Your Excellency . . . ?"

Li Yuan turned and looked at them. They stood close to the door, the boy a pace behind the official. T'ai Cho was a tall man, more than five ch'i, his height emphasized by the diminutive size of the Claybom child. Li Yuan studied them a moment, trying to get the key to their relationship—something more than could be gained from the summaries in the file—then he returned to the desk and sat, leaving them standing.

There were no chairs on the other side of the desk. He saw how T'ai Cho looked about him, then stepped forward.

"Excellency . . ." he began, but Li Yuan raised a hand, silencing him. He had noticed how the boys eyes kept going to the broad window behind him.

"Tell me, Kim. What do you see?"

The boy was so small; more like a child of eight than a boy of fifteen.

Kim shook his head, but still he stared, his large eyes wide, as if afraid.

"Well?" Li Yuan insisted. "What do you see?"

"Outside," the boy answered softly. "I see outside. Those towers. The top of the City. And there," he pointed out past the Prince, "the sun."

He stopped, then shook his head, as if unable to explain. Li Yuan turned to look where he was pointing as if something wonderful were there. But there were only the familiar guard towers, the blunted edge of the City's walls, the setting sun. Then he understood. Not afraid . . . awed.

Li Yuan turned back, frowning; then, trusting to instinct, he came directly to the point.

"I've called you here because you're young, Kim, and flexible of mind. My people tell me you're a genius. That's good. I can use that. But I've chosen you partly because you're not a part of this infernal scientific setup. Which means that you're likely to have a much clearer view of things than most, unsullied by ambition and administrative politics, by a reluctance to deal with me and give me what I want."

He laced his fingers together and sat back.

"I want you to join a scientific team, a team whose aim is to develop and test out a new kind of entertainment system."

Kim narrowed his eyes, interested but also wary.

"However, that's not all I want from you. I want you to do something else for me—something that must be kept secret from the rest of the members of the team, even from Marshal Tolonen."

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

"Good." He studied the boy a moment, aware all the time of how closely the tutor was watching him. "Then let me outline what I want from you. I have a file here of R & D projects undertaken by the late Head of SimFic, the traitor Berdichev. Some are quite advanced, others are barely more than hypothesis. What I want you to do is look at them and assess—in your considered opinion— whether they can be made to work or not. More than that, I want you to find out what they could be used for."

He saw the boy frown and explained. "I don't trust the labels Berdichev put on these projects. What he says they were intended for and what their actual use was to be, were, I suspect, quite different."

Again the boy nodded. Then he spoke.

"But why me? And why keep these things secret from the Marshal?"

Li Yuan smiled. It was as they'd said; the boy had a nimble mind.

"As far as Marshal Tolonen is concerned, these things do not exist. If he knew of them he would have them destroyed at once, and I don't want that to happen."

"But surely your father would back you in this?"

He hesitated; then looking at the official sternly, he said, "My father knows nothing of this. He thinks these files have already been destroyed."

T'ai Cho swallowed and bowed his head. "Forgive me, Highness, but. . ."

"Yes?" Li Yuan kept his voice cold, commanding.

"As I say, forgive me, but. . ." The man swallowed again, knowing how much he risked even in speaking out. "Well, I am concerned for the safety of my charge."

"No more than I, Shih T'ai. But the job must be done. And to answer Kim's other question—he is, in my estimation, the only one who can do it for me."

Again T'ai Cho's head went down. "But, Highness. . ."

Li Yuan stood angrily. "You forget yourself, T'ai Cho!" He took a breath, calming himself, then spoke again, softer this time. "As I said, I, too, am concerned for Kim's safety. Which is why, this very day, I interceded on the boy's behalf."

He picked up the warrant and handed it to T'ai Cho, seeing his puzzlement change to a bewildered horror. The blood drained from the man's face. T'ai Cho bowed his head low, one trembling hand offering the warrant back. "And you had this rescinded, Highness?"

"Not rescinded, no. Postponed. Kim lives because I wish him to live. My father has made him my responsibility. But I am a fair man. If Kim does as I wish—if he comes up with the answers I want—then I will tear up this document. You understand, T'ai Cho?"

T'ai Cho kept his head lowered. "I understand, Highness."

fei YEN was sleeping when he came in. He stood above her, in partial darkness, studying her features, then turned away, noting her discarded riding clothes there on the floor beside the bed. He undressed and slipped into the bed beside her, her body warm and naked beneath the silken sheets; he pressed up close, his hand resting on the slope of her thigh.

In the darkness he smiled, content to lie there next to her. He was too awake, too full of things, to sleep; even so he lay there quietly, mulling things over, comforted by her warmth, her presence there beside him.

He understood now. It was only natural for her to be jealous. It was even possible that some strange, feminine instinct of hers had "known" about his earlier relationship with the girls.

He closed his eyes, listening to her gentle breathing, enjoying the sweet scent of her, the silkiness of her skin beneath his fingers.

After a while he rolled from her and lay there, staring up through layers of darkness at the dim, coiled shape of dragons in the ceiling mosaic, thinking of the boy. Kim was promising—very promising—and he would make sure he got whatever he needed to complete his work. And if, at the end of the year, his results were good, he would reward him handsomely.

That was a lesson he had learned from his father. Such talent as Kim had should be harnessed, such men rewarded well, or destroyed, lest they destroy you. Control was the key. Directed interest.

He stretched and yawned. He had not felt so good in a long time. It was as if everything had suddenly come clear. He laughed softly. It made him feel wonderful—hugely benevolent.

A smile came to his lips as he thought of the thing he had bought Fei Yen that very evening, after he had come from the boy. A thoroughbred, an Arab stallion bred from a line of champions. Its pure white flanks, its fine, strong legs, its proud, aristocratic face—all these combined to form an animal so beautiful that he had known at once she would want it.

He had had it shipped directly to his stables here at Tongjiang. He would take her first thing in the morning to see it.

He smiled, imagining the delight in her face. Beside him Fei Yen stirred and turned onto her back.

He sat up, then turned, looking down at her. Slowly, carefully, he drew back the sheet, letting it slip from her body, exposing her nakedness. For a while he simply looked, tracing the subtle curves of her body, his fingers not quite touching the surface of her flesh. So delicate she was. So beautiful. A perfect sculpture of the living flesh.

Wake up, he thought. Wake up, my love. But the wish was unrequited. Fei Yen slept on.

He lay there a while longer, unable to relax, then got up and put on his robe. His desire had passed the point where he could lie there and forget it. He went into the marbled bathroom and stood there in the shower, letting the cold, hard jets of water purge him.

He stood there a while longer, mindlessly enjoying the flow of water over his limbs. It was lukewarm now, but still refreshing, like a fall of rain, clearing his mind. He was standing there, his arms loose at his sides, when she appeared in the doorway.

"Yuan . . . ?"

He looked up slowly, half conscious of her, and smiled. "You're awake?"

She smiled, looking at him. "Of course. I was waiting for you."

She slipped off her robe and came to him, stepping into the shower beside him, then gave a small shriek.

"Why, Yuan! It's freezing!" She backed out, laughing.

He laughed, then reached up to cut the flow. Looking across he saw how her skin was beaded with tiny droplets.

"Like jewels," he said, stepping out.

She fetched a towel and knelt beside him, drying him, tending to him obe-

diently, as a wife ought. He looked down, feeling a vague desire for her, but he had doused his earlier fierceness.

She stood to dry his shoulders and his hair, her body brushing against his, her breasts and thighs touching him lightly as she moved about him. Turning from him she went to the cupboards, returning a moment later with powders and unguents.

"A treat," she said, standing before him, the fingers of one hand caressing his chest. "But come, let's go into the bedroom."

She laughed, then pushed him through the door before her. It was a raw, strangely sexual laugh, one he had not heard from her before. It made him turn and look at her, as if to find her transformed, but it was only Fei Yen.

"I've missed you," she said as she began to rub oils into his shoulders, his neck, the top of his back. "Missed you a lot." And as her fingers worked their way down his spine he shivered, the words echoing in his head. "Like breath itself, my husband. Like breath itself. . ."

six HOURS LATER and half a world away, in the Mids of Danzig Canton, Marshal Tolonen was standing in the main office of the newly formed Wiring Project. He had seen for himself the progress that had been made in the three days since he had last visited the laboratories. Then there had been nothing—nothing but bare rooms—now there was the semblance of a working facility, even though most of the equipment remained in cases, waiting to be unpacked.

Tolonen turned as Administrator Spatz came hurriedly into the room, bowing low, clearly flustered by the Marshal's unannounced arrival.

"Marshal Tolonen, please forgive me. I was not expecting you."

Tolonen smiled inwardly. No, he thought, you weren't. And I'll make it my practice in future to call here unannounced. He drew himself upright. "I've come to advise you on the last two appointments to your team."

He saw how Spatz hesitated before nodding and wondered why that was; then, pushing the thought from his mind, he turned and snapped his fingers. At once his equerry handed him two files.

"Here," Tolonen said, passing them across. "Please, be seated while you study them."

Spatz bowed, then sat at his desk, opening the first of the files, running his finger over the apparently blank page, the warmth of his touch bringing the characters alive briefly on the specially treated paper. After only a minute he looked up, frowning.

"Forgive me, Marshal, but I thought the last two places were to be filled by working scientists."

"That was the intention."

Spatz looked aside, then looked back up at the Marshal, choosing his words carefully. "And yet... well, this man T'ai Cho—he has no scientific background whatsoever. He is a tutor. His qualifications . . ."

Tolonen nodded. "I understand your concern, Shih Spatz, but if you would look at the other file."

Spatz nodded, still uncertain; then he set the first file aside, opening the second. Again he ran his finger over the page. This time, however, he took his time, working through the file steadily, giving small nods of his head and occasional grunts of surprise or satisfaction. Finished, he looked up, smiling broadly. "Why, the man's record is extraordinary. I'm surprised I've not heard of him before. Is he from one of the other Cities?"

Tolonen was staring past Spatz, studying the charts on the wall behind him. "You could say that." .*•';•• > :

Spatz nodded to himself. "And when will he be joining us?"

Tolonen looked back at him. "Right now, if you like."

Spatz looked up. "Really?" He hesitated, then nodded again. "Good. Then there's just one small thing. A mistake, here on the first page." He ran his finger over the top of the page again, then looked up, a bland smile on his lips. "The date of birth. . ."

Tolonen looked away, snapping his fingers. A moment later his equerry returned. This time he was accompanied. "There's no mistake," Tolonen said, turning back.

There was a look of astonishment on Spatz's face. "You mean, this is Ward?"

Tolonen looked across at the boy, trying to see him as Spatz saw him; as he himself had first seen him, before he had seen the films that demonstrated the boys abilities. Looking at him, it seemed almost impossible that this scrawny, dark-haired creature was the accomplished scientist described in the personnel file; yet it was so. Berdichev had not been alone in believing the boy was something special.

Spatz laughed. "Is this some kind of joke, Marshal?"

Tolonen felt himself go cold with anger. He glared back at Spatz and saw the man go white beneath the look.

Spatz stood quickly, bowing his head almost to the desktop. "Forgive me, Marshal, I did not mean . . ."

"Look after him, Spatz," Tolonen answered acidly. "Allocate a man to take care of him for the next few days until his tutor, T'ai Cho, joins him." He shivered, letting his anger drain from him. "And you'll ensure he comes to no harm."

He saw Spatz swallow dryly and nodded to himself, satisfied that he had cowed the man sufficiently. "Good. Then I'll leave him in your custody."

SPATZ WATCHED Tolonen go, then turned his attention to the boy. For a moment he was speechless, still too astonished to take in what it all meant; then he sat heavily and leaned forward, putting his hand down on the summons button. At once his assistant appeared in the doorway.

"Get Hammond in here," he said, noting the way his assistant's eyes went to the boy. "At once!"

He sat back, steepling his hands together, staring across at the boy. Then he laughed and shook his head. "No . . ."

Now that the first shock was wearing off, he was beginning to feel annoyed, angered by the position he had been put in. Now he would have to return the money he had been given to put names forward for the vacancies. Not only that, but in the place of real scientists he had been lumbered with a no-hoper and a child. What had he done to deserve such a thing? Who had he angered?

He looked down at his desk, sniffing deeply. "So you're a scientist are you, Ward?"

When the boy didn't answer, he looked up, anger blazing in his eyes. "I'll tell you now. I don't know what game people higher up are playing, but I don't believe a word of that file, understand me? And I've no intention of letting you get near anything important. I may have to nurse-maid you, but I'll be damned if I'll let you bugger things up for me."

He stopped. There was someone in the doorway behind the boy.

"You called for me, Shih Spatz?" • <. .-

"Come in, Hammond. I want you to meet our latest recruit, Kim Ward."

He saw how Hammond glanced at the boy, then looked about the room before finally coming back to him.

"You mean, you're Ward?" Hammond asked, unable to hide his surprise. "Well, the gods save us!" He laughed, then offered a hand. "I'm Joel Hammond, Senior Technician on the Project."

Seeing how the boy stared at Hammond's hand a moment before tentatively offering his own, how he studied the meeting of their hands, as if it were something wholly new to him, Spatz understood. The boy had never been out in society before. Had never learned such ways. It made Spatz think, made him reconsider what was in the file. Or, rather, what wasn't. But he still didn't believe it. Why, the boy looked nine at the very most. He could not have done so much in so brief a time, "I want you to look after the boy, Hammond. Until his ... guardian arrives."

"His guardian?" Hammond looked at Kim again, narrowing his eyes.

"T'ai Cho," Kim answered, before Spatz could explain. "He was my tutor at the Recruitment Project. He was like a father to me."

Gods, thought Spatz, more convinced than ever that someone up-level was fucking with him, willing him to fail in this. A boy and his "father," that was all they needed! He leaned forward again, his voice suddenly colder, more businesslike.

"Look, Hammond. Get him settled in. Show him where things are. Then get back here. Within the hour. I want to brief you more fully, right?"

Hammond glanced at the boy again, giving the briefest of smiles; then he looked back at Spatz, lowering his head. "Of course, Director. Whatever you say."

"Well, Yuan, can I take it off yet?"

He turned her to face him, then untied the silk from her eyes, letting it fall to the ground. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, uncertain, then gave a small, nervous laugh.

"There," he said, pointing beyond her, smiling broadly now.

She turned, looking about her at the stables. The grooms were standing about idly, their jobs momentarily forgotten, watching the young Prince and his bride, all of them grinning widely, knowing what Li Yuan had arranged.

She frowned, not knowing what she was looking for, then turned back, looking at him.

"Go on," he said, encouraging her. "Down there, in the end stall."

Still she hesitated, as if afraid, making him laugh.

"It's a gift, silly." He lowered his voice, slightly. "My way of saying that I'm sorry."

"Down there?"

"Yes. Come, I'll show you."

He took her arm, leading her to the stall.

"There!" he said softly, looking down at her.

She looked. There in the dimness of the stall, stood the horse he had bought her. As she took first one, then another, slow step toward it, the horse turned its long white head, looking back at her, its huge dark eyes assessing her. It made a small noise in its nostrils, then lowered its head slightly, as if bowing to her.

He saw the tiny shudder that went through her and felt himself go still as she went up to the horse and began to stroke its face, its flank. For a moment, that was all. Then she turned and looked back at him, her eyes wet with tears.

"He's beautiful, Yuan. Really beautiful." She shivered, looking back at the horse, her hand resting in its mane, then lowered her head slightly. "You shouldn't have, my love. I have a horse already."

Yuan swallowed, moved by her reaction. "I know, but I wanted to. As soon as I saw him I knew you'd love him." He moved closer, into the dimness of the stall itself, and stood there beside her, his hand resting gently on the horse's flank.

She looked up at him, her eyes smiling through the tears. "Has he a name?"

"He has. But if you want to you can rename him."

She looked back at the Arab. "No. Look at him, Yuan. He is himself, don't you think? A T'ang among horses."

He smiled. "That he is, my love. An Emperor. And his name is Tai Huo."

She studied the Arab a moment longer, then turned back, meeting Li Yuan's eyes again. "Great Fire . . . Yes, it suits him perfectly." Her eyes searched Yuan's face, awed, it seemed, by his gift. Then, unexpectedly, she knelt, bowing her head until it touched her knees. "My husband honors me beyond my worth . . ."

At once he pulled her up. "No, Fei Yen. Your husband loves you. I, Yuan, love you. The rest. . ." he shuddered, "well, I was mistaken. It was wrong of me."

"No." She shook her head, then lifted her eyes to his. "I spoke out of turn. I realize that now. It was not my place to order your household. Not without your permission."

"Then you have my permission."

His words brought her up short. "Your permission? To run your household?"

He smiled. "Of course. Many wives do, don't they? And why not mine? After all, I have a clever wife."

Her smile slowly broadened; then, without warning, she launched herself at him, knocking him onto his back, her kisses overwhelming him.

"Fei Yen!"

There was laughter from the nearby stalls, then a rustling of straw as the watching grooms moved back.

He sat up, looking at her, astonished by her behavior; then he laughed and pulled her close again, kissing her. From the stalls nearby came applause and low whistles of appreciation. He leaned forward, whispering in her ear. "Shall we finish this indoors?"

In answer she pulled him down on top of her. "You are a Prince, my love," she said softly, her breath hot in his ear, "you may do as you wish."

JOEL hammond stood in the doorway, watching the boy unpack his things. They had barely spoken yet, but he was already conscious that the boy was different from anyone he had ever met. It was not just the quickness of the child, but something indefinable, something that fool Spatz hadn't even been aware of. It was as if the boy were charged with some powerful yet masked vitality. Hammond smiled and nodded to himself. Yes, it was as if the boy were a compact little battery, filled with the energy of knowing; a veiled light, awaiting its moment to shine out and illuminate the world.

Kim turned, looking back at him, as if conscious suddenly of his watching eyes.

"What did you do before you came here, Shih Hammond?"

"Me?" Hammond moved from the doorway, picking up the map Kim had set down on the table. "I worked on various things, but the reason I'm here is that I spent five years with SimFic working on artificial intelligence."

Kim's eyes widened slightly. "I thought that was illegal? Against the Edict?"

Hammond laughed. "I believe it was. But I was fortunate. The T'ang is a forgiving man. At least, in my case he was. I was pardoned. And here I am."

He looked back down at the map again. "This is the Tun Huang star chart, isn't it? I saw it once, years ago. Back in college. Are you interested in astronomy?"

The boy hesitated. "I was." Then he turned, facing Hammond, his dark eyes looking up at him challengingly. "Spatz says he's going to keep me off the Project. Can he do that?"

Hammond was taken aback. "1—"

The boy turned away, the fluidity of the sudden movement—so unlike anything he had ever seen before—surprising Hammond. A ripple of fear passed down his spine. It was as if the boy were somehow more and, at the same time, less human than anyone he had ever come across. For a moment he stood there, his mouth open, astonished; then, like a thunderbolt, it came to him. He shuddered, the words almost a whisper.

"You're Claybom, aren't you?"

Kim took a number of books from the bottom of his bag and added them to the pile on the desk, then looked up again. "Yes. I lived there until I was six."

Hammond shuddered, seeing the boy in a totally new light. "I'm sorry. It must have been awful."

Kim shrugged. "I don't know. I can't remember. But I'm here now. This is my home."

Hammond looked about him at the bare white walls, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I suppose it is." He put the chart down and picked up one of the books. It was Liu Hui's Chiu Chang Suan Shu, "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art," the famous third-century treatise from which all Han science began. He smiled and opened it, surprised to find it in the original Mandarin. Flicking through, he noticed the notations in the margin, the tiny, beautifully drawn pictograms in red and black and green.

"You speak Kuo-yu, Kim?"

Kim straightened the books, then turned, looking back at Hammond. He studied him a moment, intently, almost fiercely; then he pointed up at the overhead camera. "Does that thing work?"

Hammond looked up. "Not yet. It'll be two or three days before they've installed the system."

"And Spatz? Does he speak Kuo-yu—Mandarin?"

Hammond considered a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not sure. I don't think so, but I can check easily enough. Why?"

Kim was staring back at him, the openness of his face disarming Hammond. "I'm not naive, Shih Hammond. I understand your position here. You're here on sufferance. We're alike in that. We do what we're told or we're nothing. Nothing."

Hammond shivered. He had never thought of it in quite those terms, but it was true. He put the book down. "Yes. But I still don't follow you. What is all this leading to?"

Kim picked the book up and opened it at random, then handed it back to Hammond.

"Read the first paragraph."

Hammond read it, pronouncing the Mandarin with a slight southern accent, then looked back at Kim. "Well?"

"I thought so. I saw how you looked at it. I knew at once that you'd recognized the title."

Hammond smiled. "So?"

Kim took the book back and set it beside the others on the shelf. ,;

"How good is your memory?" i > . , :•

"Pretty good, I'd say."

"Good enough to hold a code?" , •

"A code?"

"When you go back, Spatz will order you not to speak to me about anything to do with the Project. He'll instruct you to keep me away from all but the most harmless piece of equipment."

"You know this?"

Kim looked round. "It's what he threatened shortly before you arrived. But I know his type. I've met them before. He'll do all he can to discredit me."

Hammond laughed and began to shake his head; then he stopped, seeing how Kim was looking at him. He looked down. "What if I don't play his game? What if I: refuse to shut you out?"

"Then he'll discredit you. You're vulnerable. He knows you'll have to do what he-says. Besides, he'll set a man to watch you. Someone you think of as a friend."

"Then what can I do?"

"You can keep a diary. On your personal comset. Something that will seem completely innocent when Spatz checks on it."

"I see. But how will you get access?"

"Leave that to me." Kim turned away, taking the last of the objects from the bag and putting it down on the bedside table.

"And the code?"

Kim laughed. "That's the part you'll enjoy. You're going to become a poet, Shih Hammond. A regular Wang Wei."

devore sat at his desk in the tiny room at the heart of the mountain. The door was locked, the room unlit but for the faint glow of a small screen on one side of the desk. It was late, almost two in the morning, yet he felt no trace of tiredness. He slept little—two or three hours a night at most—but just now there was too much to do to even think of sleep.

He had spent the afternoon teaching Sun Tzu to his senior officers: the final chapter on the employment of secret agents. It was the section of Sun Tzu's work that most soldiers found unpalatable. On the whole they were creatures of directness, like Tolonen. They viewed such methods as a necessary evil, unavoidable yet somehow beneath their dignity. But they were wrong. Sun Tzu had placed the subject at the end of his thirteen-chapter work with good reason. It was the key to all. As Sun Tzu himself had said, the reason an enlightened prince or a wise general triumphed over their enemies whenever they moved—the reason their achievements surpassed those of ordinary men—was foreknowledge. And as Chia Lin had commented many centuries later, "An army without secret agents is like a man without eyes or ears."

So it was. And the more one knew, the more control one could wield over circumstance.

He smiled. Today had been a good day. Months of hard work had paid off. Things had connected, falling into a new shape—a shape that bode well for the future.

The loss of his agents among the Ping Tiao had been a serious setback, and the men he had bought from among their ranks had proved unsatisfactory in almost every respect. He had had barely a glimpse of what the Ping Tiao hierarchy were up to for almost a week now. Until today, that was, when suddenly two very different pieces of information had come to hand.

The first was simply a code word one of his paid agents had stumbled upon: a single Mandarin character, the indentation of which had been left on a notepad Jan Mach had discarded. A character that looked like a house running on four legs. The character yu, the Han word for fish, the symbol of the Ping Tiao. It had meant nothing at first, but then he had thought to try it as an entry code to some of the secret Ping Tiao computer networks he had discovered weeks before but had failed to penetrate.

At the third attempt he found himself in. Yu was a new recruitment campaign; a rallying call; a word passed from lip to ear; a look, perhaps, between two sympathetic to the cause. DeVore had scrolled through quickly, astonished by what he read. If this were true . . .

But of course it was true. It made sense. Mach was unhappy with what was happening in the Ping Tiao. He felt unclean dealing with the likes of T'angs and renegade Majors. What better reason, then, to start up a new movement? A splinter movement that would, in time, prove greater and more effective than the Ping Tiao. A movement that made no deals, no compromises. That movement was Yu.

Yu. The very word was rich with ambivalence, for yu was phonetically identical with the Han word meaning "abundance." It was the very symbol of wealth, and yet tradition had it that when the fish swam up-river in great numbers it was a harbinger of social unrest. Yu was thus the symbol of civil disorder.

And if the file was to be trusted, Yu was already a force to be reckoned with. Not as powerful yet as the Ping Tiao, nor as rich in its resources, yet significant enough to make him change his plans. He would have to deal with Mach. And soon.

The second item had come from Fischer in Alexandria. The message had been brief—a mere minute and three-quarters of scrambled signal—yet it was potentially enough, in its decoded form, to shake the very foundations of the Seven. He leaned forward and ran the film again.

The first thirty seconds were fairly inconclusive. They showed Wang Sau-leyan with his Chancellor, Hung Mien-lo. As Fischer entered, the T'ang turned slightly, disappearing from camera view as the Captain bowed.

"Are they here?" Wang asked, his face returning to view as Fischer came out of his bow.

"Four of them, Chieh Hsia. They've been searched and scanned, together with their gift."

"Good," the T'ang said, turning away, looking excitedly at his Chancellor. "Then bring them in." "Chieh Hsia. . ."

DeVore touched the pad, pausing at that moment. Wang Sau-leyan was still in full view of Fischer's hidden camera, his well-fleshed face split by a grin that revealed unexpectedly fine teeth. He was a gross character, but interesting. For all his sybaritic tendencies, Wang Sau-leyan was sharp, sharper, perhaps, than any among the Seven, barring the young Prince, Li Shai Tung's son Yuan.

He sat back, studying the two men for a time, unhappy that he had not been privy to their conversations before and after this important meeting. It would have been invaluable to know what it was they really wanted from their association with the Ping Tiao. But Fischers quick thinking had at least given him an insight into their apparent reasons.

He let the film run again, watching as it cut to a later moment when Fischer had interrupted the meeting to tell the T'ang about the fire.

The camera caught the six men squarely in its lens—Wang Sau-leyan to the left; Hung Mien-lo just behind him; Gesell, Mach and their two companions to the right. It was an important moment to capture—one that, if need be, could be used against the T'ang of Africa. But equally important was the moment just before Fischer had knocked and thrown the doors open wide, a moment when Wang's voice had boomed out clearly.

"Then you understand, ch'un tzu, that I cannot provide such backing without some sign of your good intentions. The smell of burning wheat, perhaps, or news of a whole crop ruined through the accidental pollution of a water source. I'm sure I don't have to spell it out for you."

DeVore smiled. No, there was no need for Wang Sau-leyan to say anything more. It was clear what he intended. In exchange for funds he would get the Ping Tiao to do his dirty work—to bum the East European Plantations and create havoc with City Europe's food supplies, thus destabilizing Li Shai Tung's City. But would the Ping Tiao take such a radical action? After all, it was their people who would suffer most from the subsequent food shortages. Would they dare risk alienating public opinion so soon after they had regained it?

He knew the answer. They would. Because Mach was quite prepared to see the Ping Tiao discredited. He would be happy to see the Yu step into the gap left by the demise of the Ping Tiao. He was tired of deferring to Gesell. Tired of seeing his advice passed over.

Well, thought DeVore, pausing the film again, perhaps we can use all these tensions—redirect them and control them. But not yet. Not quite yet.

They had broken up their meeting temporarily while the fire was dealt with; but when Fischer returned, the Ping Tiao had already gone. Even so, the final forty seconds of the film provided a fascinating little coda on all that had happened.

Wang Sau-leyan was sitting in the far corner of the room, turning the gift the Ping Tiao had given him, in his hands, studying it. It was the tiny jade sculpture of Kuan Yin that DeVore had given Gesell only the week before.

"It's astonishing," Wang was saying. "Where do you think they stole it?"

Hung Mien-lo, standing several paces away, looked up. "I'm sorry, Chieh Hsia?"

"This." He held the tiny statue up so that it was in clear view of the camera. "It's genuine, I'd say. T'ang Dynasty. Where in hell's name do you think they got their hands on it?"

Hung Mien-lo shrugged, then moved closer to his T'ang, lowering his voice marginally. "More to the point, Chieh Hsia, how do you know that they'll do as you ask?"

Wang Sau-leyan studied the piece a moment longer, then looked back at his Chancellor, smiling. "Because I ask them to do only what is in their own interest." He nodded, then looked across, directly into camera. "Well, Captain Fischer, is it out?"

The film ended there, as Fischer bowed, but it was enough. It gave DeVore plenty to consider. Plenty to use.

And that was not all. The day had been rich with surprises. A sealed package had arrived from Mars: a copy of the files Karr had taken from Berdichev's private secretary.

DeVore smiled. He had been telling his senior officers the story only that afternoon—the tale of T'sao and the Tanguts. The Tanguts were northern enemies of the Han; and T'sao, the Han Chief of Staff, had pardoned a condemned man on the understanding that he would swallow a ball of wax, dress up as a monk, and enter the kingdom of the Tanguts. The man did so and was eventually captured and imprisoned by the Tanguts. Under interrogation he told them about the ball of wax, and when he finally shat it out, they cut it open and found a letter. The letter was from T'sao to their own Chief Strategist. The Tangut King was enraged and ordered the execution both of the false monk and his own Chief Strategist. Thus did T'sao rid himself of the most able man in his enemies' camp for no greater price than the life of a condemned man.

So it was with the boy. He would be the means through which the Seven would be destroyed; not from without, as Berdichev had imagined, but from within. The Seven would be the agents of their own destruction. For the boy carried within him not a ball of wax but an idea. One single, all-transforming idea.

DeVore sat back. Yes, and Li Yuan would fight to preserve the boy, for he honestly believed that he could control him. But Li Yuan had not the slightest conception of what the boy represented. No, not even the boy himself understood that yet. But DeVore had seen it at once, when Berdichev had first shown him the Aristotle File. The file was a remarkable achievement, yet it was as nothing beside what the boy was capable of. His potential was astonishing. Li Yuan might as well try to harness Change itself as try to force the boy's talents to conform to the needs of State.

Li Shai Tung had been right to sign the boys death warrant. The old man's gut instincts had always been good. It was fortunate that the War had undermined his certainty. The old Li Shai Tung would have acted without hesitation. But the old T'ang was effectively dead—murdered along with his son Han Ch'in, eight years earlier.

DeVore nodded to himself, then cleared his mind of it, coming to the final matter. The report was brief, no more than a single line of coded message; yet it was significant. It was what he had been waiting for.

He took the tiny piece of crumpled paper from his top pocket and unfolded it. It had been passed from hand to hand along a chain of trusted men until it came into his own, its message comprehensible only to his eyes. "The tiger is restless," it read. He smiled. The tiger was his code word for Hans Ebert, the handwriting on the paper that of his man Auden.

He had recruited Auden long ago—years before he had had the man appointed sergeant under Ebert—but Hammerfest had been a heaven-sent opportunity. Auden had saved Ebert's life that day, eight years ago, and Ebert had never forgotten it. Hans Ebert was a selfish young man but curiously loyal to those about him. At least, to those he felt deserved his loyalty, and Auden was one such. But it did not do to use all one's pieces at once. Life was like wei chi in that respect; the master chose to play a waiting game, to plan ahead. So he with Auden. But now he was capitalizing upon his long and patient preparation. It had been easy, for instance, for Auden to persuade Ebert to launch the premature attack on the Ping Tiao cell;

an attack that had prevented Karr from discovering the links between the terrorists and himself. But that had been only the start: a test of the young man's potential. Now he would take things much further and see whether he could translate Ebert's restlessness into something more useful. Something more constructive.

Yes, but not through Auden. He would keep Auden dark, his true nature masked from Ebert. There were other ways of getting to Ebert; other men he trusted, if not as much. His uncle Lutz, for instance.

DeVore folded the paper and tucked it back into the pocket. No, Auden was part of a much longer game; part of a shape that, as yet, existed in his head alone.

He smiled, then stood, stretching, his sense of well-being brimming over, making him laugh softly. Then he checked himself. Have a care, Howard DeVore, he thought. And don't relax. It's only a shape you've glimpsed. It isn't real. Not yet. Not until you make it real.

"But I will," he said softly, allowing himself the smallest of smiles. "Just see if I don't."

THE PIMP WAS SLEEPING, a girl on either side of him. The room was in semidarkness, a wall-mounted flat-lamp beside the door casting a faint green shadow across the sleeping forms. It was after fourth bell and the last of the evening's guests had left an hour before. Now only the snores of the sleepers broke the silence of the house.

Chen slid the door back quietly and slipped into the room. At once he seemed to merge with the green-black forms of the room. He hesitated a moment, his eyes growing accustomed to the subtle change in lighting, then crossed the room, quickly, silently, and stood beside the bed.

The pimp was lying on his back, his head tipped to one side, his mouth open. A strong scent of wine and onions wafted up from him; a tart, sickly smell that mixed with the heavy mustiness of the room.

Yes, thought Chen. It's him, all right. I'd know that ugly face anywhere.

He took the strip of plaster from the pouch at his belt and peeled off two short lengths, taping them loosely to his upper arm. He threw the strip down, then drew his gun. Leaning across one of the girls, he placed it firmly against the pimp's right temple.

"Liu Chang . . ." he said softly, as the pimp stirred. "Liu Chang, listen to me very carefully. Do exactly as I say or I'll cover the mattress with your brains, understand me?"

Liu Chang had gone very still. His eyes flicked open, straining to see the gun, then focusing on the masked figure above him. He swallowed, then gave a tiny, fearful nod.

"What do you want?" he began, his voice a whisper, then fell silent, as Chen increased the pressure of the gun against the side of his head.

Chen scowled at him. "Shut up, Liu Chang," he said, quietly but firmly. "I'll tell you when to speak."

The pimp nodded again, his eyes wide now, his whole body tensed, cowering before the gunman.

"Good. This is what you'll do. You'll sit up very slowly. Very slowly, understand? Make a sudden move and you're dead." Chen smiled cruelly. "I'm not playing games, Liu Chang. I'd as soon see you dead as let you go. But my people want answers. Understand?"

Liu Chang's mouth opened as if to form a question, then clicked shut. He swallowed deeply, sweat running down his neck, and nodded.

"Good. Now up."

The pimp raised himself slowly on his elbows, Chen's gun pressed all the while against his right temple.

Chen nodded, satisfied, then thrust his right arm closer to the pimp. "Take one of the strips of plaster from my arm and put it over this girl's mouth. Then do the same with the other. And get no ideas about wrestling with me, Liu Chang. Your only chance of living is if you do what I say."

Again there was that slight movement in the pimp's face—the sign of a question unasked—before he nodded.

As he leaned forward, Chen pushed slightly with the gun, reminding the pimp of its presence, but it was only a precaution. If the file was correct, he should have little bother with the man. Liu Chang had been an actor in the Han opera before he became a pimp, more noted for his prowess in bed than his ability with a knife. Even so, it was wise to take care.

Liu Chang moved back from Chen, then leaned forward again, placing the strip across the sleeping girl's mouth. It woke her and for a moment she struggled, her hands coming up as if to tear it away. Then she saw Chen and the gun and grew still, her eyes wide with fear.

"Now the other."

He noted the slight hesitation in Liu Chang and pressed harder with the gun.

"Do it!"

The pimp took the strip and placed it over the other girl's mouth. She, too, woke and, after a moment's struggle, lay still.

Good, Chen thought. Now to business.

"You're wondering what I want, aren't you, Liu Chang?"

Liu Chang nodded, twice.

"Yes, well it's simple. A girl of yours was killed here, a month or two ago. I'm sure you remember it. There was a young officer here when it happened. He thinks he did it. But you know better than that, don't you, Liu Chang? You know what really happened."

Liu Chang looked down, then away; anything but meet Chen's gaze. He began to shake his head in denial, but Chen jabbed the gun hard against his head, drawing blood.

"This is no fake I'm holding here, Liu Chang. You'll discover that if you try to lie to me. I know you set Lieutenant Haavikko up. I even know how. But I want to know the precise details. And I want to know who gave the orders."

Liu Chang looked down miserably. His heart was beating wildly now and the sweat was running from him. For a moment longer he hesitated, then he looked up again, meeting Chen's eyes.

"Okay, Liu Chang. Speak. Tell me what happened."

The pimp swallowed, then found his voice. "And if I tell you?"

"Then you live. But only if you tell me everything."

Liu Chang shuddered. "All right." But from the way he glanced at the girls, Chen knew what he was thinking. If he lived, the girls would have to die. Because they had heard. And because Liu Chang could not risk them saying anything to anyone. In case it got back.

But it doesn't matter, Chen thought, listening as the pimp began his tale; because you're dead already, Liu Chang. For what you did. And for what you would do, if I let you live.

herrick's WAS forty It east of Liu Chang's, a tiny, crowded place at the very bottom of the City, below the Net.

It was less than an hour since Chen had come from the singsong house; not time enough for anyone to have discovered Liu Chang's body or for the girls to have undone their bonds. Nevertheless he moved quickly down the corridors—shabby, ill-lit alleyways that, even at this early hour, were busy—knowing that every minute brought closer the chance of Herrick being warned.

It was two years since he had last been below the Net, but his early discomfort quickly passed, older habits taking over, changing the way he moved, the way he held himself. Down here he was kwai again, trusting to his instincts as kwai, and, as if sensing this, men moved back from him as he passed.

It was a maze, the regular patterning of the levels above broken up long ago. Makeshift barriers closed off corridors, marking out the territory of rival gangs, while elsewhere emergency doors had been removed and new corridors created through what had once been living quarters. To another it might have seemed utter confusion, but Chen had been born here. He knew it was a question of keeping a direction in your head, like a compass needle.

Even so, he felt appalled. The very smell of the place—the same wherever one went below the Net—brought back the nightmare of living here. He looked about him as he made his way through, horrified by the squalor and ugliness of everything he saw, and wondered how he had stood it.

At the next intersection he drew in against the left-hand wall, peering around the corner into the corridor to his left. It was as Liu Chang had said. There, a little way along, a dragon had been painted on the wall in green. But it was not just any dragon. This dragon had a man's face; the thin, sallow face of a Hung Moo, the eyes intensely blue, the mouth thin-lipped and almost sneering.

If Liu Chang was right, Herrick would be there now, working. Like many below the Net, he was a night bird, keeping hours that the great City overhead thought unsociable. Here there were no curfews, no periods of darkness. Here it was always twilight, the corridors lit or unlit according to whether or not the local gang bosses had made deals with those Above who controlled the basic facilities such as lighting, sanitation, and water.

Now that he was working for the Seven, such thoughts made him feel uneasy, for it was they, his masters, who permitted the existence of this place. They who, through the accident of his birth here, had made him what he was—kwai, a hired knife, a killer. They had the wealth, the power, to change this place and make it habitable for those who wished it so, and yet they did nothing. Why? He took a deep breath, knowing the answer. Because without this at the bottom, nothing else worked. There had to be this place—this lawless pit—beneath it all to keep those Above in check. To curb their excesses. Or so they argued.

He set the thoughts aside. This now was not for the Seven. This was for Axel. And for himself. Karr's hunch had been right. If Ebert had been paying for Axel's debauchery, the chances were that he was behind the death of the girl. There were ways, Karr had said, of making a man think he'd done something he hadn't; ways of implanting false memories in the mind.

And there were places where one could buy such technology. Places like Herrick's.

Chen smiled. He was almost certain now that Karr was right. Liu Chang had said as much, but he had to be sure. Had to have evidence to convince Axel that he was innocent of the girl's murder.

Quickly, silently, he moved around the corner and down the corridor, stopping outside the door beside the dragon. At once a camera above the door turned, focusing on him.

There was a faint buzzing, then a voice—tinny and distorted—came from a speaker beside the camera.

"What do you want?"

Chen looked up at the camera and made the hand sign Liu Chang had taught him. This, he knew, was the crucial moment. If Liu Chang had lied to him, or had given him a signal that would tip Herrick off...

There was a pause. Then, "Who sent you?"

"The pimp," he said. "Liu Chang."

Most of Herrick's business was with the Above. Illicit stuff. There were a thousand uses for Herrick's implants, but most would be used as they had on Haavikko—to make a man vulnerable by making him believe he had done something that he hadn't. In these days of response-testing and truth drugs it was the perfect way of setting a man up. The perfect tool for blackmail. Chen looked down, masking his inner anger, wondering how many innocent men had died or lost all they had because of Herrick's wizardry.

"What's your name?"

"Tong Chou," he said, using the pseudonym he had used at one time in the Plantation, knowing that if they checked the records they would find an entry there under that name and a face to match his face. Apparently they did, for after a long pause, the door hissed open.

A small man, a Han, stood in the hallway beyond the door. "Come in, Shih Tong. I'm sorry, but we have to be very careful who we deal with here. I am Ling Hen, Shih Herrick's assistant." He smiled and gave a tiny bow. "Forgive me, but I must ask you to leave any weapons here, in the outer office."

"Of course," Chen said, taking the big handgun from inside his jacket and handing it across. "Do you want to search me?"

Ling Hen hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "That will not be necessary. However, there is one other thing."

Chen understood. Again, Karr had prepared him for this. He took out the three ten-thousand yuan "chips" and offered them to the man.

Ling smiled, but shook his head. "No, Shih Tong. You hold on to those for the moment. I just wanted to be sure you understood our house rules. Liu Chang's briefed you fully, I see. We don't deal in credit. Payment's up front, but then delivery's fast. We guarantee a tailored implant—to your specifications—within three days."

"Three days?" Chen said. "I'd hoped . . ."

Ling lowered his head slightly. "Well . . . Come. Let's talk of such matters within. I'm sure we can come to some kind of accommodation, neh, Shih Tong?"

Chen returned the man's bow, then followed him down the hallway to another door. A guard moved back, letting them pass, the door hissing open at their approach.

It was all very sophisticated. Herrick had taken great pains to make sure he was protected. But that was to be expected down here. It was a cutthroat world. He would have had to make deals with numerous petty bosses to get where he was today, and still there was no guarantee against the greed of the Triads. It paid to be paranoid below the Net.

They stepped through, into the cool semidarkness of the inner sanctum. Here the only sound was the faint hum of the air filters overhead. After the stench of the corridors, the clean, cool air was welcome. Chen took a deep breath, then looked about him at the banks of monitors that filled every wall of the huge, hexagonal room, impressed despite himself. The screens glowed with soft colors, displaying a thousand different images. He stared at those closest to him, trying to make some sense of the complex chains of symbols, then shrugged; it was an alien language, but he had a sense that these shapes—the spirals and branching trees, the clusters and irregular pyramids—had something to do with the complex chemistry of the human body.

He looked across at the central desk. A tall, angular-looking man was hunched over one of the control panels, perfectly still, attentive, a bulky wraparound making his head seem grotesquely huge.

Ling turned to him, his voice hushed. "Wait but a moment, Shih Tong. My master is just finishing something. Please, take a chair, he'll be with you in a while."

Chen smiled but made no move to sit, watching as Ling Hen went across to the figure at the control desk. If Karr was right, Herrick would have kept copies of all his jobs as a precaution. But where? And where was the guard room? Or had Herrick himself let them in?

He looked down momentarily, considering things. There were too many variables for his liking, but he had committed himself now. He would have to be audacious.

He looked up again and saw that Herrick had removed the wraparound and was staring across at him. In the light of the screens his face seemed gaunter, far more skeletal than in the dragon portrait on the wall outside.

"Shih long . . ." Herrick said, coming across, his voice strong and rich, surprising Chen. He had expected something thin and high and spiderish. Likewise his handshake. Chen looked down at the hand that had grasped his own so firmly. It was a long, clever hand, like a larger version of Jyan's, Chen's dead companion. He looked up and met Herrick's eyes, smiling at the recollection.

"What is it?" Herrick asked, his hawklike eyes amused.

"Your hand," Chen said. "It reminded me of a friend's hand."

Herrick gave the slightest shrug. "I see." He turned away, looking around him at the great nest of screens and machinery. "Well . . . you have a job for me, I understand. You know what I charge?"

"Yes. A friend of mine came to you a few months ago. It was a rather simple thing, I understand. I want something similar."

Herrick looked back at him, then looked down. "A simple thing?" He laughed. "Nothing I do is simple, Shih Tong. That's why I charge so much. What I do is an art form. Few others can do it, you see. They haven't the talent or the technical ability. That's why people come here. People like you, Shih Tong." He looked up again, meeting Chen's eyes, his own hard and cold. "So don't insult me, my friend."

"Forgive me," Chen said hastily, bowing his head. "I didn't mean to imply . . . Well, it's just that I'd heard . . ."

"Heard what?" Herrick was staring away again, as if bored.

"That you were capable of marvels."

Herrick smiled. "That's so, Shih Tong. But even your 'simple things' are beyond most men." He sniffed, then nodded. "All right, then, tell me what it was this friend of yours had me do for him, and I'll tell you whether I can do 'something similar.'"

Chen smiled inwardly. Yes, he had Herrick's measure now. Knew his weak spot. Herrick was vain, overproud of his abilities. He could use that. Could play on it and make him talk.

"As I understand it, my friend was having trouble with a soldier. A young lieutenant. He had been causing my friend a great deal of trouble; so to shut him up, he had you make an implant of the man committing a murder. A young Hung Moo girl."

Herrick was nodding. "Yes, of course. I remember it. In a brothel, wasn't it? Yes, now I see the connection. Liu Chang. He made the introduction, didn't he?"

Chen felt himself go very still. So it wasn't Liu Chang who had come here in that instance. He had merely made the introduction. Then why hadn't he said so?

"So Captain Auden is a good friend of yours, Shih Tong?" Herrick said, looking at him again.

Auden . . . 1 Chen hesitated, then nodded. "Ten years now."

Herrick's smile tightened into an expression of distaste. "How odd. I had the feeling he disliked Han. Still. . ."

"Do you think I could see the earlier implant? He told me about it, but. . . well, I wanted to see whether it really was the kind of thing I wanted."

Herrick screwed up his face. "It's very unusual, Shih Tong. I like to keep my customers' affairs discreet, you understand? It would be most upsetting if Captain Auden were to hear I had shown you the implant I designed for him."

"Of course." Chen saw at once what he wanted and took one of the chips from his pocket. "Would this be guarantee enough of my silence, Shih Herrick?"

Herrick took the chip and examined it beneath a nearby desk light, then turned back to Chen, smiling. "I think that should do, Shih Tong, I'll just find my copy of the implant."

Herrick returned to the central desk and was busy for a moment at the keyboard; he came back with a thin film of transparent card held delicately between the fingers of his left hand.

"Is that it?"

Herrick nodded. "This is just the analog copy. The visual element of it, anyway. The real thing is much more complex. An implant is far more than the simple visual component." He laughed coldly, then moved past Chen, slipping the card into a slot beneath one of the empty screens. "If it were simply that it would hardly be convincing, would it?"

Chen shrugged, then turned in time to see the screen light up.

"No," Herrick continued. "That's the art of it, you see. To create the whole experience. To give the victim the feeling of having committed the act, whatever it is. The smell and taste and touch of it—the fear and the hatred and the sheer delight of doing something illicit."

He laughed again, turning to glance at Chen, an unhealthy gleam in his eyes. "That's what fascinates me, really. What keeps me going. Not the money, but the challenge of tailoring the experience to the man. Take this Haavikko, for instance. From what I was given on him it was very easy to construct something from his guilt, his sense of self-degradation. It was easy to convince him of his worthlessness, to make him believe he was capable of such an act. That, too, is part of my art, you see—to make such abnormal behavior seem a coherent part of the victim's reality."

Chen shuddered. Herrick spoke as if he had no conception of what he was doing. To him it was merely a challenge, a focus for his twisted genius. He lacked all feeling for the men whose lives he destroyed. The misery and pain he caused were, for him, merely a measure of his success. It was evil. Truly evil. Chen wanted to reach out and take Herrick by the throat and choke him to death, but first he had to get hold of the copy and get out with it.

An image began to form on the screen. The frozen image of a naked girl, sprawled on a bed, backing away, her face distorted with fear.

"There's one thing I don't understand, Shih Herrick. My friend told me that Haavikko took a drink of some kind. A drug. But how was the implant put into his head? He's only a junior officer, so he isn't wired. How, then, was it done?"

Herrick laughed. "You think in such crude terms, Shih Tong. The implant isn't a physical thing, not in the sense that you mean. It's not like the card. That's only storage—a permanent record. No, the implant was the drug. A highly complex drug made up of a whole series of chemicals with different reaction times, designed to fire particular synapses in the brain itself—to create, if you like, a false landscape of experience. An animated landscape, complete with a predetermined sequence of events."

Chen shook his head. "I don't see how."

Herrick looked away past him, his eyes staring off into some imaginary distance. "That's because you don't understand the function of the brain. It's all chemicals and electronics, in essence. The whole of experience. It comes in at the nerve ends and is translated into chemical and electrical reactions. I merely bypass those nerve ends. What I create is a dream. But a dream more real, more vivid, than reality!"

Chen stared at him, momentarily frightened by the power of the man, then looked back at the screen. He didn't want to see the girl get killed. Instinctively, he reached across, ejecting the card, and slipped it into his pocket.

Herrick started forward. "What the fuck—?"

Chen grabbed Herrick by the neck, then drew the knife from his boot and held it against his throat.

"I've heard enough, Shih Herrick. More than enough, if you must know. But now I've got what I came for, so I'll be going."

Herrick swallowed uncomfortably. "You won't get out of here. I've a dozen guards—"

Chen pulled the knife toward him sharply, scoring the flesh beneath Herrick's chin. Herrick cried out and began to struggle, but Chen tightened his grip.

"You'd better do as I say, Shih Herrick and get me out of here. Or you're dead. And not pretend dead. Really dead. One more shit comment from you and I'll implant this knife in the back of your throat."

Herrick's eyes searched the room, then looked back at Chen. "All right. But you'll have to let me give instructions to my men."

Chen laughed. "Just tell them to open the doors and get out of the way." He raised his voice, looking up at one of the security cameras. "You hear me, Shih Ling? If you want to see your boss again, do as I say. Any tricks and he's dead, and where will you be then? Runner to some gang boss, dead in a year."

He waited a moment, searching the walls for sign of some technological trickery. Then there was a hiss and a door on the far side of the room slid open.

He pressed harder with the knife. "Tell them I want to go out the way I came in, Shih Herrick. Tell them quickly, or you're dead."

Herrick swallowed, then made a tiny movement of his head. "Do as he says."

They moved out slowly into the corridor, Chen looking about him, prepared at any moment to thrust the knife deep into Herrick's throat.

"Who are you working for?"

Chen laughed. "Why should I be working for anyone?"

"Then I don't understand . . ."

No, thought Chen. You wouldn't, would you?

They came to the second door. It hissed open. Beyond it stood four guards, their knives drawn.

"No further," said Ling, coming from behind them.

Chen met Ling's eyes, tightening his grip on Herrick's throat. "Didn't you hear me, Ling? You want your master to die?"

Ling smiled. "You won't kill him, Tong. You can't. Because you can't get out without him."

Chen answered Ling's smile with his own, then pulled Herrick closer to him, his knife hand tensed.

"This is for my friend, Axel. And for all those others whose lives you have destroyed."

He heard the cry and looked back, seeing how the blood had drained from Ling's face, then let the body fall from him.

"Now," he said, crouching, holding the knife out before him. "Come, Shih Ling. Let's see what you can do against a kwai."

CHAPTER TEN

Islands

JELKA LEANED out over the side of the boat, straining against the safety harness as she watched the rise and fall of the waves through which they plowed, the old thirty-footer rolling and shuddering beneath her, the wind tugging at her hair, taking her breath, the salt spray bitingly cold against her face.

The water was a turmoil of glassy green threaded with white strands of spume. She let her hand trail in the chill water then put her fingers to her mouth, the flesh strangely cold and hard, her lips almost numb. She sucked at them, the salt taste strong in her mouth, invigorating. A savage, ancient taste.

She turned, looking back at the mainland. Tall fingers of ash-gray rock thrust up from the water, like the sunken bones of giants. Beyond them lay the City, its high, smooth, clifflike walls dazzling in the morning light—a ribbon of whiteness stretching from north to south. She turned back, conscious suddenly of the swaying of the boat, the creak and groan of the wood, the high-pitched howl of the wind contesting with the noise of the engine—a dull, repetitive churring that sounded in her bones—and the constant slap and spray of water against the boat's sides.

She looked up. The open sky was vast. Great fists of cloud sailed overhead, their whiteness laced with sunlight and shadow; while up ahead the sea stretched away, endless it seemed, its rutted surface shimmering with light.

Sea birds followed in their wake, wheeling and calling, like souls in torment. She laughed, the first laughter she had enjoyed in weeks, and squinted forward, looking out across the sun-dazzled water, trying to make out the island.

At first she could see nothing. Ahead, the sea seemed relatively flat, unbroken. And then she saw it, tiny at first, a vague shape of green and gray melding and merging with the surrounding sea as if overrun. Then, slowly, it grew, rising out of the sea to meet her, growing more definite by the moment, its basalt cliffs looming up, waves swelling and washing against their base.

Jelka looked across at her father. He sat there stiffly, one hand clenched and covered by the other, his neck muscles tensed; yet there was a vague, almost dreamy expression in his eyes. He was facing the island, but his eyes looked inward. Jelka watched him a moment, then looked away, knowing he was thinking of her mother.

As the boat slowed, drifting in toward the jetty, she looked past the harbor at the land beyond. A scattering of old stone houses surrounded the quayside, low, gray-green buildings with slate roofs of a dull orange. To the far right of the jetty a white crescent of shingle ended in rocks. But her eyes were drawn upward, beyond the beach and the strange shapes of the houses, to the hillside beyond. Pines crowded the steep slope, broken here and there by huge iron-gray outcrops of rock. She shivered, looking up at it. It was all so raw, so primitive. Like nothing she had ever imagined.

She felt something wake deep within her and raised her head, sniffing the air. The strong scent of pine merged with the smell of brine and leather and engine oil, filling her senses, forming a single distinctive odor. The smell of the island.

Her father helped her up onto the stone jetty. She turned, looking back across the water at the mainland. It was hazed in a light mist, its walls of ice still visible yet somehow less impressive from this distance. It was all another world from this.

Sea birds called overhead, their cries an echoing, melancholy sound. She looked up, her eyes following their wheeling forms, then looked down again as a wave broke heavily against the beach, drawing the shingle with it as it ebbed.

"Well," her father said softly, "here we are. What do you think of it?"

She shivered. It was like coming home.

She looked across at the houses, her eyes moving from one to another, searching for signs of life.

"Which one?" she asked, looking back at him.

Her father laughed. "Oh, none of those." He turned, giving orders to the men in the boat, then looked back at her. "Come on, I'll show you."

Where the cobbles of the jetty ended they turned left onto an old dirt track. It led up through the trees, away from the houses and the waterfront.

The track led up onto a broad ledge of smooth, gray rock. There was a gap in the screen of trees and a view across the water.

"Careful," he said, his grip on her hand tightening as she moved closer to the edge. "It can be slippery." Then she saw it.

Below her was a tiny bay enclosed on three sides by the dense growth of pines. But at one point the tree cover was broken. Directly across from her a great spur of rock rose abruptly from the water, and on its summit—so like the rock in color and texture that at first she had not recognized it—was the house.

It was astonishing. Huge walls of solid stone rose sheer from the rock, ending in narrow turrets and castellated battlements. A steep roof, gray and lichen-stained, ran almost the length of the house. Only at its far end, where the sea surrounded it on three sides, was its steep pitch broken. There a tower rose, two stories higher than the rest of the house, capped with a spire that shone darkly in the sunlight.

She stared at it open-mouthed, then looked back at her father.

"I thought it was a house."

He laughed. "It is. It was my great-grandfather's house. And his grandfather's before that. It has been in our family for nine generations."

She narrowed her eyes, not understanding. "You mean, it's ours?"

"It was. I guess it still is. But it is for Li Shai Tung to say whether or not we might use it."

"It seems so unfair."

He stared at her, surprised, then answered her. "No. It has to be like this. The peasants must work the land. They must be outside. And the Seven carry a heavy burden; they need their estates. But there is not land enough for all those who wish to live outside. There would be much resentment if we had this and others didn't, don't you see?"

"But, surely, if it's ours . . ."

He shook his head firmly. "No. The world has grown too small for such luxuries. It's a small price to pay for peace and stability."

They walked on, still climbing. Then he turned back, pointing downward. "We have to go down here. There are some steps, cut into the rock. They're tricky, so you'd better take my hand again."

She let him help her down. It was cooler, more shaded beneath the ridge, the ground rockier, the long, straight trunks of the pines more spaced.

"There," he said, pointing between the trees.

She looked. About fifty ch'i distant was a gray stone wall. It was hard to tell how high it was from where she stood, but it seemed massive—twice her father's height at least. To the left it turned back on itself, hugging the cliffs edge, to the right it vanished among the trees. Partway along was a huge gate, flanked by pillars, and beyond that—still, silent in the late morning sunlight—the tower.

She turned to find him looking past her at the house, a distant smile on his face. Then he looked down at her.

"Kalevala," he said softly. "We're home, Jelka. Home."

"Do you know the thing I miss most?"

T'ai Cho looked up at Kim and smiled. Kim stood in the doorway, looking past him. "What's that?"

"The pool. I used to do all my best thinking in the pool."

He laughed. "Well, can't we do something about that?"

Kim made a small movement of his head, indicating the overhead camera. "Only if Shih Spatz wills it."

T'ai Cho stared at Kim a moment longer, then returned to his unpacking.

"I'll put in a request," he said, taking the last few things from the bag, then stowed it beneath the pull-down bed. "He can only say no, after all." He looked up again, meeting Kim's eyes with a smile. "Anyway, how have things been? Is the work interesting?"

Kim looked away. "No," he answered quietly.

T'ai Cho straightened up, surprised. "Really? But I thought you said the research would be challenging?"

"It is. But Spatz is not letting me get anywhere near it."

T'ai Cho stiffened. "But he can't do that! I won't let him do that to you, Kim. I'll contact the Prince."

Kim shook his head. "No. I don't want to go running to Prince Yuan every time I've a problem."

T'ai Cho turned angrily. "But you must. The Prince will have Spatz removed. He'll—"

But Kim was still shaking his head. "You don't see it, do you, T'ai Cho? You think this is just a piece of pure science research, but it's not. I saw that at once. This is political. And very sensitive. Practically all of the men they've recruited for it are vulnerable. They were on the wrong side in the War and now they've no choice but to work on this. All except for Spatz, and he's no scientist. At least, not a good enough scientist to be on a project of this nature. No, he's here to keep a lid on things."

"But that's outrageous."

"No. Not at all. You see, someone wants this project to fail. That's why Spatz was made Administrator. Why Tolonen was appointed overall Head of the Project."

"And you'll allow that to happen?"

"It's not up to me, T'ai Cho. I've no choice in the matter. I do as I'm told. As I've always done. But that's all right. There are plenty of things we can do. All that's asked of us is that we don't rock the boat."

T'ai Cho was staring at him, his eyes narrowed. "That's not like you, Kim. To lay down and do nothing."

Kim looked down. "Maybe it wasn't, in the past. But where did it ever get me?" He looked up again, his dark eyes searing T'ai Cho. "Five years of Socialization. Of brutal reconditioning. That was my reward for standing up for myself. But next time they won't bother. They'll just write me off as an unfulfilled investment. A bad debt." He laughed bitterly. "I'm not even a citizen. I exist only because Li Yuan wills my existence. You heard him yourself, T'ai Cho. That's the fact of the matter.

So don't lecture me about doing something. Things are easy here. Why make trouble for ourselves?"

T'ai Cho stared back at him, open-mouthed, hardly believing what he was hearing. "Well, you'd better go," he said abruptly. "I've things to do."

"I'm sorry, T'ai Cho. I..."

But T'ai Cho was busying himself, putting clothes into a drawer.

"I'll see you later, then?" Kim asked, but T'ai Cho made no sign that he had even heard.

Back in his room Kim went to the desk and sat, the first of the poems Hammond had written on the screen in front of him.

It had not been easy, making T'ai Cho believe he had given up. It had hurt to disillusion his old tutor, but it was necessary. If he was to function at all in this setup, he had to allay Spatz's suspicions, make Spatz believe he was behaving himself. And what better way of convincing Spatz than by manipulating the reactions of the man supposedly closest to him? T'ai Cho's indignation—his angry disappointment in Kim—would throw Spatz off the scent. Would give Kim that tiny bit of room he needed.

Even so, it hurt. And that surprised Kim, because he had begun to question whether he had any feelings left after what they had done to him in Socialization. He recalled all the times he had met T'ai Cho since then, knowing what the man had once been to him, yet feeling nothing. Nothing at all. He had lain awake at nights, worried about that absence in himself, fearing that the ability to love had been taken from him, perhaps for good. So this—this hurt he felt at hurting another—was a sign of hope. Of change in himself.

He looked down at the poem on the desk, then sighed. What made it worse was that there was an element of truth in what he had said to T'ai Cho. Remove Spatz and another Spatz would be appointed in his place. So it was in this life. Moreover, it was true what he had said about himself. Truer, perhaps, than he had intended.

All his life he had been owned. Possessed, not for himself but for the thing within him—his "talent." They used him, as they would a machine. And, like a machine, if he malfunctioned he was to be repaired, or junked.

He laughed softly, suddenly amused by this vision of himself. Yes, he asked, but what makes me different from the machines? What qualities distinguish me from them? And are those qualities imperfections—weaknesses—or are they strengths? Should 1 be more like them or less?

They had conditioned him, walled off his past, taught him to mistrust his darker self; yet it was the very part of him from which it all emanated—the wellspring of his being.

The thinking part—they overvalued it. It was only the processor. The insights came from a deeper well than that. The upper mind merely refined it.

He smiled, knowing they were watching him, listening to his words. Well, let them watch and listen. He was better at this game than they. Much better.

He leaned forward, studying the poem.

To the watching eyes it would mean nothing. To them it seemed a meaningless string of chemical formulae; the mathematical expression of a complex chain of molecules. But Kim could see through the surface of the page and glimpse the Mandarin characters each formula represented. He smiled to himself, wondering what Spatz would make of it. Beyond the simple one-for-one code Kim had devised to print out the information taken from Hammond's personal files was a second code he had agreed upon with Hammond. That, too, was quite simple—providing you had the key to how it worked and a fluent understanding of Mandarin.

The poem itself was clumsy, its images awkward, clichéd—but that was under-standable. Hammond was a scientist, not a poet. And although the examination system insisted upon the study of ancient poetry, it was something that most men of a scientific bias put behind them as quickly as possible. What was important, however, was the information contained within the central images. Three white swans represented how Spatz had divided the research into three teams. Then, in each of the next three lines, Hammond detailed—by use of other images—the area of study each team was undertaking.

It was a crude beginning, no more than a foundation, yet it showed it could be done. As Hammond gained confidence he would develop subtlety: a necessity in the days to come, for the information would be of a degree of complexity that would tax their inventiveness to the limit.

That said, the most difficult part was already resolved. Kim had devised a means by which he could respond to Hammond. His co-conspirator had only to touch a certain key on his computer keyboard and Kim's input would automatically load into his personal files. That same instruction would effectively shut down Hammond's keyboard, render it useless, its individual keys unconnected to its regular program. Whichever key Hammond subsequently pressed would bring up one character of Kim's reply, until his message was complete.

It was a trick he had learned in Socialization. A game he'd played, haunting the files of others with his cryptic messages. And no one had dreamed it was possible.

He typed his queries out quickly, keeping this first response simple, modeling his poem on one by the fourth-century poet T'ao Ch'ien. It printed up on the screen as further chains of molecules. Then, happy with what he had done, he punched the code to send it to Hammond's file.

He switched off the set and sat back, stretching, suddenly tired. Then, unexpectedly, the comset came alive again, the printer at the side of the desk beginning to chatter. He caught his breath, watching the printout slowly emerge. A moment later it fell silent. He leaned forward and tore the printout off, then sat back, reading it through.

It was from Spatz, informing him that he had been given permission to use the recreational facilities of the local Security forces.

He studied it a moment and then laughed. A pool! Spatz had given him a pool!

her uncle JON had set and lit a fire in the huge hearth. Its flickering light filled the big tall-ceilinged room, making it seem mysterious and half-formed, as if, at any moment, the walls would melt and run. Her father was sitting in a big upright armchair by the window, staring out at the sea. Standing in the doorway, she looked across at him, then back at the fire, entranced. It was something she had never seen before. Something she had never thought to see. Outside, beyond the latticed windows, evening was falling, dark clouds gathering over the sea; but here, inside, the firelight filled the room with warmth.

She knelt beside the fire, putting her hands out to it, shivering suddenly, not from the cold, but from a feeling of familiarity; from a strange sense of having made the gesture before, in another life than this.

"Careful," her father said, almost lazily. "It's hot. Much hotter than you'd think."

She knelt there in the half-shadow, mesmerized by the flickering pattern of the firelight, its fierce heat, its ever-changing dance of forms; then she looked back at her father. His face was changed by the fire's light, had become a mask of black and gold, his eyes living, liquid jewels. For some reason it moved her deeply, sending a shiver down her spine. At that moment her love for him was like something solid: she could touch it and smell it, could feel its very texture.

She looked about her. There were shelves on the walls, and books. Real books, leather bound, like those she had seen in the museum once. She turned, hearing the door creak open, and looked up, smiling, at her uncle. Behind him came her aunt, carrying a tray of drinks.

"What are all the books?"

She saw how her uncle looked to her father before he answered her, as if seeking his permission.

"They're old things. History books and myth."

"Myth?"

Her aunt Helga looked up, a strange expression in her eyes, then looked down again, busying herself with the drinks.

Again her Uncle Jon looked to his brother uncertainly. "They're stories, Jelka. Old legends. Things from before the City."

He was about to say more, but her father interrupted him. "There are things that belong here only. You must not take them back with you, understand me, child? You must not even mention them. Not to anyone."

She looked down. "Why?"

"Content yourself that they are."

She looked across at him again. His voice had been harsh, almost angry, but his eyes seemed troubled. He looked away, then back at her, relenting. "While you're here you may look at them, if that's what you want. But remember, these things are forbidden back in the City. If anyone knew . . ."

She frowned, not understanding. Forbidden? Why forbidden? If they were only stories.

"Jelka?"

She looked up, then quickly took the glass her Aunt Helga was holding out to her. "Thanks."

She was silent a moment, then looked across at her uncle. "Daddy said this place had a name. Kalevala. Why is it called that?"

Jon laughed, then took a glass from his wife and came across, sitting in the chair nearest Jelka.

"You want to know why this house is called Kalevala? Well," he looked across at her father then back at Jelka, "it's like this . . ."

She listened, entranced, as her uncle talked of a distant past and a land of heroes, and of a people—her people—who had lived in that land; of a time before the Han and their great City, when vast forests filled the land and the people were few. Her mind opened up to the freedom of such a past—to a world so much bigger than the world she knew. A vast, limitless world, bounded by mist and built upon nothingness. Kalevala, the land of heroes.

When he was finished, she sat there, astonished, her drink untouched.

"Well?" her father said over the crackle of the fire, his voice strangely heavy. "Do you understand now why we are forbidden this? Can't you see what restlessness there would be if this were known to all?"

She looked back at him, not recognizing him for a moment, the vision still filling her mind, consuming her. Then she lowered her eyes and nodded. "Yes. I think so. And yet. . ."

He smiled back sadly at her. "I know. I feel it too, my love. It calls us strongly. But this is now, not then. We cannot go back. This is a new age and the heroes are dead. The land of Kalevala is gone. We cannot bring it back."

She shivered. No, she wanted to say; it's still alive, inside us—in that part of us that dreams and seeks fulfillment. And yet he was right. There was only this left. This faint, sad echo of a greater, more heroic age. This only. And when it, too, was gone ?

She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss. The loss of something she had never known. And yet not so, for it was still a part of her. She could feel it—there in the sinew and bone and blood of her.

"Jelka?"

She looked up. Her uncle was standing by the shelves, watching her, concerned, the pain in his eyes the reflection of her own.

"The Kalevala . . . Would you like to read it?"

He stretched out his hand, offering one of the thick, leather-bound volumes. Jelka stared back at him a moment, then went across to him, taking the book. For a moment she simply stared at it, astonished, tracing the embossed lettering of the cover with her finger; then she turned, looking at her father.

"Can I?"

"Of course. But remember what I said. It belongs here. Nowhere else."

Jelka nodded, then looked back at the book. She opened the cover and read the title page.

"I didn't think . . ." she began, then laughed.

"Didn't think what?" said her uncle, standing beside her.

"This," she said, looking up into his face. "I never dreamed there would be a book of it."

"It wasn't a book. Not at first. It was all songs, thousands of songs, sung by peasants in the homelands of Karelia. One man collected them and made them into a single tale. But now there's only this. This last copy. The rest of it has gone— singers and songs, the people and the land—as if it had never been."

She looked back at him, then stared at the book in her hands, awed. The last copy. It frightened her somehow.

"Then I'll take good care of it," she said. "As if it were a sister to me."

CHEN RAISED HIMSELF uneasily in the bed, then pulled the cover up, getting comfortable again. His chest was strapped, his arm in bandages, but he had been lucky. The knife had glanced against a rib, missing anything vital. He had lost a lot of blood, but he would heal. As for the arm wound, that was superficial—the kind of thing one got in a hard training session.

Karr was sitting across from him, scowling, his huge frame far too big for the hospital chair. He leaned forward angrily, giving vent to what he had had to hold in earlier while the nurse was in the room.

"You were stupid, Chen. You should have waited for me."

Chen gritted his teeth against a sudden wash of pain, then answered his friend.

"I'm sorry, Gregor. There wasn't time."

"You could have contacted me. From Liu Chang's. You could have let me know what you planned. As it was I didn't even know you'd gone to see the pimp until half an hour ago. I thought we were waiting for the Security report on Liu Chang."

"I got it back before I went in. It confirmed what we'd thought. He was an actor, in opera, before he became a pimp. And there was one unproven charge of murder against him. That was the reason he was demoted to the Net."

Karr huffed impatiently. "Even so, you should have waited. You could have been killed."

It was true. And he should have waited. But he hadn't. Why? Perhaps because he had wanted to do it himself. It was mixed up somehow with Pavel, the boy on the Plantation who had been killed by DeVore's henchman. He still felt guilty about that. So perhaps he had put himself at risk to punish himself. Or maybe it was more complex than that. Maybe it had to do with the risks involved; he had enjoyed it, after all, had liked the way the odds were stacked against him.

Five to one. And he had come out of it alive. Had fought them hand to hand and beaten them. Kwai he was. He knew it now, clearer than he had ever known it before. Kwai.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "It was wrong of me."

"Yes." Karr sat back a little, then laughed, meeting Chen's eyes, his anger dissipating. "Still, you're alive."

There was a knock, then a head poked round the door. •

"Axel!" Chen tried to sit up, then eased back, groaning softly.

Haavikko came into the room. Giving a small nod of acknowledgment to Karr, he went across and took Chen's hand, concerned.

"What happened? Gregor told me you'd been hurt, but not how."

Chen took a painful breath, then grinned up at Haavikko, squeezing his hand. "It was only a scrape."

Karr laughed. "Only a scrape! You know what our friend here has been doing, Axel?" Haavikko looked, shaking his head.

"Shall I tell him, Chen, or do you want to?"

"Go ahead," said Chen, the pain from his ribs momentarily robbing him of breath.

Karr pointed beyond Haavikko, indicating a chair in the corner. "Those are Chen's clothes. Look in the top pocket of the tunic. You'll find something there that will interest you."

Haavikko turned and looked. The tunic was ripped and bloodstained, but the pocket was intact. He reached inside and drew out a thin piece of transparent card.

"This?"

Karr nodded and watched as Haavikko studied it a moment, then looked back at him, his expression blank. "So? What is it?"

Karr went across, taking the card. "I'll show you exactly how it works later on. For now take my word on it. This is what they call an implant. Or, at least, the record of one. On this card is stored all the information you'd need to make a special chemical. One that could create a false memory in someone's head."

Haavikko looked up, puzzled. "So?"

"So the information on this particular card was designed for one specific person. You."

"Me?" Haavikko laughed. "What do you mean?"

"Just this. Chen here did some digging into your friend Liu Chang's past. And then he paid the man a visit. From that he got confirmation of something he and I had suspected from the start. That, and an address below the Net. At that address he found a man named Herrick who makes these things. And from Herrick he got this card, which is a copy of a false memory that was implanted in your head. The memory of killing a young singsong girl."

Haavikko had blanched. "No . . . It's not possible. I remember . . ." His voice faltered and he looked down, wetting his lips with his tongue. "It can't have been false. It was too real. Too . . ."

Karr reached out, touching his shoulder. "And yet it's true, Axel Haavikko. You didn't kill her. Someone else did. Probably Liu Chang. Your only mistake was to take the drug that was mixed in with your wine. It was that which made you think you'd killed her."

"No."

"It's true," said Chen. "Wait until you see the copy. You never touched her. You couldn't have done, don't you see? You're not that kind of man."

They watched him. Watched his chest rise and fall. Then saw how he looked at them again, disbelief warring with a new hope in him.

"Then I really didn't do it? I didn't kill that poor girl?"

"No," said Karr fiercely, taking his arm. "No, my friend. But we know who did. We can't prove it yet but we will. And when we do we'll nail the bastard. For all the lives he's ruined."

jelka CRIED OUT, then sat up in the darkness, the terror of the dream still gripping her. She could see the three men vividly—tall, thin men, standing at the lake's edge, staring across at her, their eyes like black stones in their unnaturally white faces, their long, almost skeletal hands dripping with blood. And herself, at the center of the lake, the great slab of stone sinking slowly beneath her feet, drawing her down into the icy depths.

She heard footsteps on the flags of the corridor outside, then the creaking of her door as it opened. Her heart leaped to her mouth, certain they had come for her again, but as the lamplight spilled into the room she saw it was only her father.

"What is it, my love?"

He came to her and, setting the lamp down on the bedside table, sat beside her on the bed, holding her to him. She closed her eyes a moment, shuddering, letting him comfort her; then she moved back slightly, looking up into his face.

"It was the dream again. But worse. This time I was in Kalevala, in the land of heroes. All about me was a wilderness of tree and rock and shallow pools. And still they came for me, following me through the trees. As if they had traveled back across the years to find me . . ."

His face creased in sympathetic pain. He drew her close again, pressing her head into his chest, comforting her. "There, my love. It's all right. I'm here now. No one will harm you. No one. I promise you."

His arms encircled her, strong, powerful arms that were like great walls of stone, protecting her; but still she could see the three assassins, see how they smiled, toothless, their mouths black like coals as she sank into the ice-cold water.

He moved back, looking down at her. "Shall I ask Helga to come?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

He went to the door, then turned, looking back at her. "And don't worry. No one will harm you here. No one."

she was UP early the next morning, watching her father pack. Later she sat there at the harbor's edge, watching the boat slowly disappear from sight. For a while she just stared at the nothingness, aching for him to return; then, with a start, she realized that the nothingness was filled with living things, was a universe of form and color.

She walked back slowly to the house, looking about her, while Erkki, the young guard her father had insisted on, trailed some twenty ch'i behind. There was a whole world here to explore, different in kind from the soft and sun-baked islands of Sumatra she had known during her father's exile. No, even the light was different here, was somehow familiar. Already the island seemed not strange but merely something she had forgotten, as if she knew it from another time.

In the days that followed she explored the island. Day by day she added to her knowledge of its places and its ways, its dark pools and tiny waterfalls, its narrow inlets and silent places, its caves and meadows. And slowly, very slowly, she fell in love with it.

Above all there was one special place . . .

It was the afternoon of her fourth day and she was making her way down from the island's summit, Erkki following. Usually he stayed close, calling her back when he felt she was taking too great a risk; but the path down from the crest was familiar now, and he relaxed, letting her go ahead.

She made her way across the grassy hilltop to a place where the land fell away. There, at the cliff's edge, stood a ruined chapel, its roof open to the sky, the doorway empty, gaping. It was a tiny building, the floor inside cracked and overgrown with weeds, one of the side walls collapsed, the heavy stones spilled out across the grass. Yet you could still read the lettering carved into the stone lintel and see the symbols of fish, lamb, and cross cut into the stone within.

She had asked her uncle about the words, words that seemed familiar despite their strangeness, that shared the same letters as her own tongue, yet were alien in their form. But he had not known their meaning, only that they were Latin, the ancient language of the Ta Ts'in. As for the symbols, he knew but he would not say.

For a moment she stood there, staring out at the sea beyond the ruin, then went on, finding the path down.

It was an old path, worn by many feet, and near the bottom, where the way grew steep, steps had been cut into the rock. She picked her way nimbly between the rocks and out beneath the overhang. There, on the far side of the broad shelf of rock, was the cave.

This was her special place, the place of voices. Here the island spoke to her in a thousand ancient tongues.

She went halfway across the ledge then stopped, crouching, looking down through the crack in the great gray slab. There, below her, the incoming tide was channeled into a fissure in the rock. For a moment she watched the rush and foam of the water through the narrow channel, then looked across at the young guard, noting how he was watching her, smiling, amused by what she was doing.

"Can't you hear it, Erkki? It's talking to me."

He laughed. "It's just a noise."

She looked down at it again, then lifted her head, listening for the other voices—for the sound of the wind, the branches singing overhead, the cry of seabirds calling out to sea. "No," she said finally. "They're voices. But you have to listen carefully."

Again he laughed. "If you say so, Nu shi Tolonen. But it's just noise to me. I haven't the ear for it, I guess."

She looked at him a moment, then smiled and turned away. No, he hadn't the ear for it; but, then, few had these days. A constant diet of trivee shows and holodramas had immunized them against it, had dulled their senses and filled their heads with illusions. But she could hear it—the inner voice of things. She could feel it in her blood, the pulse of the great world—more real, more alive, than anything within the levels.

She stood, wiping her hands against her thighs, then went across and stood at the edge of the rock, looking out across the rutted surface of the sea. She could feel the wind like a hand against her face, roughly caressing her, could taste the salt tang on her lips. For a moment she stood there, her eyes closed, imagining herself at the helm of a great ship, crossing the vast ocean, on her way to discover new lands. Then, smiling, she turned and went across to the cave, ducking beneath the low shelf of rock into the darkness beyond.

For a moment she paused, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, sniffing at the air. Then she frowned. Maybe it was only her imagination, but today it seemed different, less dank and musty than usual. Maybe that had to do with the weather. Her uncle had said a storm was on its way. Had warned her to be indoors when it came.

She smiled and turned, looking about her. On the wall behind her were the ancient letters, a hand's length in height, scored into the rock and dyed a burned ochre against the pale cream of the rock. Their sticklike angular shapes brought to mind a game she had played as a child with her amah's yarrow stalks. Further in, where the ceiling sloped down to meet the floor of the cave, she had found a pile of tiny bones and the charred remains of an ancient fire. She bent down, squinting into the deep shadows, then frowned. They had been disturbed.

A tiny ripple of fear went up her back. And then she heard it. A strange, rustling noise at the back of the cave.

"Erkki!" she called, in a low, urgent whisper.

He was there in a moment, crouched in the cave's entrance, his gun searching the dark interior.

"What is it?" he said quietly.

She held her breath. Maybe she had imagined it. But then it came again, closer now. She shivered, then caught her breath as a pair of eyes looked back at her from the darkness. Dark, feral eyes that held her own, unblinking.

"It's an animal," she said softly, fear giving way to astonishment in her. "A wild animal."

She heard the click as Erkki took the safety off his gun and put her hand out, signaling him to hold still.

She took a slow step backward, then another, until she was beside him. "It won't harm us. It's more afraid of us than we are of it. It must have been sleeping at the back of the cave and I disturbed it."

Beside her Erkki shivered. "I thought all the animals were dead."

Yes, she thought. So did I. But there's one—probably more than one—here on the island. She could make out more of it now, could see how dark its fur was, how small, yet powerful its limbs. She had seen its like in her school textbooks. It was a fox. A real live fox.

Erkki touched her arm gently, making her look at him. "Shall I bring a cage? There's one in the house. We could catch it and take it back with us."

She shook her head then looked back at it. "No. Let it go free. It belongs here, not there. Look at it—it wasn't meant to be caged."

Nor are we, she thought, wondering how long ago the trap had been set on her own kind, the bars secured on every side. But she could do this much: could leave this tiny fragment of wildness here where it belonged. To make a pet of it. . . She shuddered. It would die if they put it in a cage.

"Come," she said, "let's get back. The storm is coming."

At the summit she stopped again, looking about her. Gulls circled overhead, their cries shrill, bad-tempered. She pulled her jacket close about her. The wind was growing stronger, more blustery. To the northeast storm clouds were gathering, dark and threatening, massing above the City. A storm was coming, just as her uncle had said. She laughed. Let it come! Let the heavens open! She would greet it here, if need be. Then she turned and saw Erkki watching her.

"Okay. I'm coming. Just a little longer . . ."

He nodded and started down. For a moment longer she stood there, looking about her, imagining herself mistress of all she saw. Then, with a sigh, she followed Erkki down toward the lights of the house.

DIRECTOR SPATZ sat back in his chair, pointing directly at the screen.

"Well, Ellis? What in the gods' names is that?"

The man standing just behind him shrugged. "We're not sure as yet, Director, but we're working on it. At first we thought it might be some kind of star chart, considering the boy's interest in astronomy. But we've run it through the computer for a possible match and there's nothing."

For a moment both men were silent, staring at the screen. There were forty-six points in all, most of them linked by straight lines to three or four other lines. They formed a tight cat's cradle on the screen, elliptical in structure, like the upper half of a skull.

Spatz huffed loudly. "You're absolutely certain it has nothing to do with what we're working on?"

"Absolutely. Apart from the fact that we've barely begun work on the actual positioning of the wires, those points simply don't correspond to the areas of the brain we'd be looking to use. In my opinion it's only coincidence that it has that shape."

"Hmm." Spatz leaned forward and blanked the screen, then turned, looking up at his assistant. "I know what you think, Ellis, but you're wrong. He's up to something. I'm sure of it. So keep looking. I don't want your team to relax until you've found out what he's doing."

Ellis bowed. Once outside the room, he drew a long breath, then shook his head. The Director's obsession with the boy was bordering upon the insane. He was convinced that the boy had been introduced for one of two reasons—to spy upon him or to ensure that the Project failed. Either way he felt threatened. But the truth was far simpler.

He had been studying the boy for ten days now and was convinced that he was genuine. He had watched Kim working on several of his own projects and had seen how he applied himself to problems. There was no faking that, no way of counter-

feiting that quickness of mind. But Spatz would not hear of it. Second-rate himself, he would not have it that a mere boy—and a Claybom boy at that—could be his intellectual superior.

But Spatz wasn't to have it all his own way. Ellis had seen the directive that had come down only moments before he had gone in to see the Director. And there was nothing Spatz could do about it.

He laughed, then walked on. No, not even Project Director Spatz would have the nerve to countermand Prince Yuan's direct command.

kim WAS lying on his back in the pool, his eyes closed. It was late and the pool was empty, but from the gym nearby came the harsh hiss and grunt of the men working out on the exercise machines.

For a time he simply floated, relaxing for the first time that day; then, rolling over, he kicked out for the side, glancing up at the cameras overhead.

Did they watch him even here? He smiled and ducked his face under, then lifted it, throwing the water out from him in a spray. Almost certainly. Even when he was pissing they'd have a camera on him. Spatz was like that. But he wasn't atypical. There were many like Spatz. The City bred them in the hundred thousands.

He pulled himself up and sat on the side, moving his legs lazily in the water. He had always been watched—it was almost the condition of his existence—but he had never come to like it. At best he used it, as he did now, as a goad, challenging himself to defeat its constrictions.

In that the reports on him were accurate. In this one respect the Clay had shaped him, for he was cunning. And not just cunning, but inventive in his cunning, as if the very directness of his mind—that aspect of him that could grasp the essence of a thing at once and use it—needed this other "twisted" part to permit its function. He smiled and looked down, wondering, as ever, what they made of his smiles, what they thought when they saw him smile so, or so.

He looked up, looked directly into the camera. What do you see, Shih Spatz? Does the image you have of me bear any relationship to the being that I truly am?

No, he answered, looking away. No relationship at all. But then Spatz had no idea what Chung Kuo would be like if the Project succeeded. All that concerned him was his own position on the great social ladder, and whether he rose or fell. All else was irrelevant.

Kim stretched his neck, then yawned. He had slept little these past few nights, trying to see through the mesh of details to the heart of the problem.

What would Chung' Kuo be like if everyone were wired?

He had run various scenarios through his head. For instance, the Seven might limit the use of wiring to known criminals and political dissidents. Or, at the other extreme, they might wire everyone, even their wives and cousins. Not only that, but there was the nature of the wiring to consider. Was it to be a simple tracing mechanism, or would it be more complex? Would they be content to use it as a method of policing Chung Kuo's vast population, or would they seek to change behavior by its use?

This last caused him much concern, for the wire held a far greater potential for manipulation than Li Yuan probably envisaged. When one began to tinker with the human mind there was no limit to the subtle changes one might make. It was possible—even quite simple—to create attractions and aversions, to mold a thousand million personalities to a single mental template and make the species docile, timid, uncreative. But was that worse than what was happening anyway? It could be argued that Chung Kuo, the great Utopian City of Tsao Ch'un, had been created for that very purpose, to geld Mankind and to keep the curious beast within his bars. In such a light this latest step—this plan to wire each individual—was merely a perfection of that scheme. Restraint alone had failed. The bars were not enough. Now they must put the bars—the walls—within, or see the whole vast edifice come crashing down. It was an unsettling thought.

Against this he set three things: his 'duty* to Li Yuan; his certainty that with him or without, this thing would be; and, last, the simple challenge of the thing.

He had tried to convince himself that he owed nothing to any man, but the truth was otherwise. His fate had always been in the hands of others. And wasn't that so for all men? Wasn't even the most basic thing—a man's existence—dependent upon a consensus among those he lived with, an agreement to let him be? Hadn't he learned that much in the Clay? No man was truly free. No man had any rights but those granted him by his fellows. In Li Yuan's favor, the Prince at least had recognized his worth and given him this chance. Surely that deserved repayment of some kind?

As to the second matter, he was certain now that only total catastrophe could prevent Li Yuan's scheme from becoming a reality. Indeed, catastrophe now seemed the sole alternative to the Wiring Project. The fuse had been lit long ago, in the Seven's refusal to confront the problem of massive population increases. Their reluctance to tackle that fundamental, a decision shaped by their veneration of the family and of the right of every man to have sons, had hampered any attempt to balance the slow increase in resources against the overwhelming increase in demand and make of Chung Kuo the Utopia it was meant to be. But that was nothing new; it was an age-old problem, a problem that the emperors of Chung Kuo had been forced to face for more than two thousand years. Famine and plague and revolution were the price of such imbalance, and they would come again— unless the tide were turned, the great generative force harnessed. But that would not happen without an evolutionary change in the species. In the meantime, this—this artificial means—would have to do. The Seven had no option. They would have to wire or go under.

And the challenge? That, too, he saw in moral terms. As he conceived it now, the scheme presented mainly technical problems that required not the kind of inventiveness he was good at but the perfecting of existing systems. In many ways it was a matter of pure organizational complexity, of breaking down the Wiring Project into its constituent parts and then rebuilding it. The end, however, was not unachievable. Far from it. Most of the technology required already existed. He could have said as much to Prince Yuan at their first meeting, but the challenge— the real challenge—lay in directing the research, in determining not the quality of the eventual wire, but its kind.

And there, perhaps, he overstepped the brief Li Yuan had given him, for he had not been asked to consider what the wire should be capable of; he had been asked only to determine whether the scheme would work. Again he was to be simply the tool—the vehicle—for another's needs, the instrument by which their dreams might become realities. As ever, he was supposed to have no say in the matter. Yet he would have his say.

Kim stilled the movement of his legs in the water and looked up.

"Joel!"

Hammond stood there on the far side of the pool. "Kim. I thought I'd find you here."

Kim clambered up and went around the pool to greet him.

"How long have you been there?"

"I've just got here. You looked deep in thought. Troubles?"

They were both conscious of the watching cameras. Kim shrugged and smiled, moving past the older man, taking his towel from the rail; then he turned, looking back at him. "What brings you here?"

Hammond held out a wafer-thin piece of printout paper. "This came."

Kim took it. A moment later he looked up, his dark eyes wide with surprise. "This is for real?"

"Absolutely. Director Spatz confirmed it with Prince Yuan's secretary. I'm to accompany you. To keep you out of trouble."

Kim laughed, then handed the paper back, pulling the towel up about his shoulders. "But that's amazing. An observatory. Does that mean we'll be going into space?"

Hammond shook his head. "No. Quite the opposite, in fact. The observatory at Heilbronn is situated at the bottom of a mineshaft, more than three li underground."

Kim looked away, then laughed. "Of course. It makes sense." He looked back. "When do we go?"'

"Tomorrow. First thing."

Kim smiled, then drew closer, whispering. "Was Spatz angry?"

Hammond bent down, giving his answer to Kim's ear. "Angry? He was furious!"

JELKA WOKE. Outside the storm was raging, hurling gusts of rain against the windowpane. Throwing on her nightgown she went out into the passageway. The night growled and roared beyond the thick stone walls of the house. She stood there a moment, listening, then started as the window at the far end of the passage lit up brilliantly. Seconds later a huge thunderclap shook the house.

She shivered, then laughed, her fear replaced by a surge of excitement. The storm! The storm was upon them!

She hurried down the great stairway, then stood there in the darkness of the hallway, the tiles cold beneath her naked feet. Again there was a flash, filling the huge, stained-glass window at the far end of the hallway with brilliant color. And then darkness, intense and menacing, filled by the tremendous power of the thunderclap that followed.

She went on, finding her way blindly to the door at the far end of the passageway. Usually it was locked, but for once she found it open. She stood there a moment, trembling. Here behind the thick stone of the outer wall, it was still, almost silent, only the muted rumble of distant thunder disturbing the darkness. When the next flash came, she pulled the door open and went up into the tower.

At once the sound of the storm grew louder. She went up the narrow, twisting steps in darkness, her left arm extended, steadying herself against the wall, coming out into a room she had not seen before. Blindly, she began to edge toward the center of the room, away from the hole in the floor, then froze as a blaze of light filled the room from the narrow window to her left. The accompanying thunderclap exploded in the tiny space and, in the momentary brilliance, she glimpsed the sparse contents of the room.

She saw herself briefly in the mirror opposite—a tiny figure in an almost empty room, her body framed in searing light, her face in intense shadow, one arm raised as if to fend off the thunder, the dark square of the stair hole just behind her.

She found the steps in the darkness, then went up, as a sudden flash filled the stairwell with light.

She went to the window. The glass was cold against her face, beaded with brilliant drops. The wooden boards were smooth and cool beneath her feet. Wind and rain rattled the glass. And then a vast hand seemed to shake the building. The tower seemed alive. As alive as she. She pressed her hands against the wood of the window's frame and stared out, waiting for each vivid stroke, each growl of elemental anger.

As the window lit up again she turned, looking behind her. On the far side of the room a metal ladder had been set into the wall. Above it, set square and solid in the ceiling, was a hatch. For a moment she stared at it, then pushed away from the window.

In the sudden dark she stumbled and fell, then clambered up again, her hands held out before her until they met the cold stone surface. For a moment she searched the wall blindly, cursing softly to herself, then found the metal rung and pulling herself across, began to climb.

She was pushing upward when the next flash filled the room. Above her the great hatch shuddered against her hands as the thunderclap shook the tower. She shivered, momentarily frightened by the power of the storm, then pushed her head and shoulder up against the hatch until it gave.

Suddenly she was outside, the rain pouring down onto her, the wind whipping cruelly at her hair, soaking the thin nightgown she was wearing.

She pulled herself up and, in the half-light, went to the parapet, steeling herself against the sudden cold, the insane fury of the wind, her hands gripping the metal rail tightly. As the sky lit up she looked down. Below her the sea seemed to writhe and boil, then throw a huge, clear fist of water against the rocks at the base of the tower. Spray splintered all about her and, as if on cue, the air about her filled with a ferocious, elemental roar that juddered the tower and shook her to the bone. And then darkness. An intense, brooding darkness, filled with the fury of the storm.

She was breathing deeply now, erratically. It felt as though the storm were part of her. Each time the lightning flashed and forked in the sky she felt a tremor go through her from head to toe, as sharp as splintered ice. And when the thunder growled it sounded in her bones, exploding with a suddenness that made her shudder with a fierce delight.

She shivered, her teeth clenched tight, her eyes wide, her limbs trembling with a strange, unexpected joy. Water ran freely down her face and neck, cleansing her, while below her the sea raged and churned, boiling against the rocks, its voice a scream of unarticulated pain, indistinguishable from the wind.

"Jelka!"

She heard the call from far below, the cry almost lost in the roar of the storm, and turned, looking across at the open hatch. For one brief moment she failed to recognize what it was, then she came to herself. Her uncle Jon . . .

The call came again, closer this time, as if just below.

"Jelka? Are you up there?"

She turned, yelling back at him, her voice barely audible over the grumble of the storm. "It's all right! I'm here!"

She looked out across the sea again, trembling, her whole body quivering, awaiting the next flash, the next sudden, thrilling detonation. And as it came she turned and saw him, his head poking up from the hatch, his eyes wide with fear.

"What in heaven's name are you doing, Jelka? Come down! It isn't safe!"

She laughed, exhilarated by the storm. "But it's wonderful!"

She saw how he shuddered, his eyes pleading with her. "Come down! Please, Jelka! It's dangerous!"

The wind howled, tearing at her breath, hurling great sheets of rain against the tower. And then with a mighty crash of thunder—louder than anything that had preceded it—the hillside to her right exploded in flame.

For a moment the after-image of the lightning bolt lingered before her eyes; then she shuddered, awed by the sight that met her eyes.

Seven pines were on fire, great wings of flame gusting up into the darkness, hissing, steaming where they met and fought the downpour. She gritted her teeth, chilled by what she saw. And still the fire raged, as if the rain had no power to control it.

She turned, staring at her uncle; then, staggering, she ran across to him and let him help her down. For a moment he held her to him, trembling against her, his arms gripping her tightly. Then, bending down, he picked up the gown he'd brought and wrapped it about her shoulders.

"You're soaked," he said, his voice pained. "Gods, Jelka, what do you think you were doing? Didn't you know how dangerous it was?"

The sight of the burning trees had sobered her. "No," she said quietly, shivering now, realizing just how cold she was. "It was so . . ."

She fell quiet, letting him lead her down, his pained remonstrances washing over her.

He helped her down the last few steps then let her move past him out into the passageway. The passage light was on. At the far end, at the bottom of the great staircase, stood her aunt, her look of concern mirroring her husband's.

"It's all right," Jelka said. "I couldn't sleep. The storm. I wanted to see."

Jon nodded, a look passing between him and his wife. Then he placed his arm about Jelka's shoulders.

"I can see that, my love, but it really wasn't safe. What if you'd fallen?"

But Jelka could think only of the power of the storm, of the way it had seemed a part of her; each sudden, brilliant flash, each brutal detonation bringing her alive, vividly alive. She could see it yet, the sea foaming wildly below, the huge sky spread out like a bruise above, the air alive with voices.