The Marriage of the Living Dark

BLOOD AND IRON

Li Yuan looked back. The fortress had grown considerably in the past two minutes and he could now discern its details. It had to be five K wide at least and three, maybe four, li high. Twice as high as his own City had once been. But compact And surrounding it was desert. Mile after mile of empty desert Self-contained indeed. But he still could not see how it could possibly sustain a population of close-on half a million. The other cities he had seen had had vast growing areas surrounding them, tended by robot farming machinery, but this had nothing.

He frowned, then smoothed his beard thoughtfully. “How goes the war, Captain Zelic? Are you still winning?”

Zelic smiled. It had been a standing joke between them these last six weeks, ever since Zelic had joined their party at Wichita. Every evening there was news of some great victory or other on the media, and yet the war never ended, the enemy was never finally defeated.

“You know how it is, Chay Sha,” Zelic answered, conscious that his every word was monitored. “We are one against three. Our enemies seek to grind us down.” “But you are resilient,” Li Yuan finished for him. “My cousin Wu Shih often remarked upon it when he was still alive.”

Zelic bowed his head, embarrassed by that explicit reference to the past, when the Han were Masters and the Americans their humble subjects. It was not often their conversation touched upon such matters, but when it did, as now, an area of awkwardness opened up between them.

Li Yuan turned back. The fortress-city was now directly ahead of them, dominating the landscape, the dark rail running directly into it. To their left the chain of guard towers was now less than a It away, a line of massive concrete toadstools, their heavy armaments visible even from this distance.

And beyond them a thousand li of desert

“Are there many encroachments?”

“Encroachments?” Zelic stepped across, then, seeing where Li Yuan was pointing, said, “Ah, raids, you mean?” He shrugged. “To be honest with you, Chay Sha, I don’t know. But I shall ask, if you wish.”’It would be interesting to know.” “Then I shall find out for you. Incidentally, the Governor’s name is ...”

“Rogers. Cal Rogers, neh?”

Zelic smiled again. Fine teeth he had. Regular and white, like a well-bred horse. “You are well-briefed, Chay Sha.”

“There is little else to do, Captain. Unless one actually likes the sight of sand and sky.”

“You are bored, Chay Sha?” Zelic asked, suddenly concerned. Caged, perhaps. Frustrated. Impotent, even, but bored? He laughed good-humouredly. “No, Captain Zelic. I am not bored. As I say, I keep myself busy, reading reports, watching your media channels, writing ...” Zelic, who had been looking down, now glanced up, a spark of genuine interest in his eyes. “Writing, Chay Sha?”

Li Yuan nodded. “I have begun a journal. A kind of... oh, what is the word for it?”

“A history?”

“Yes. But a history of myself. An autobiography. I find it soothes me.”

“I see.”

“I don’t think you do, Captain. But never mind. I suppose you barely remember the world as it was.”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember it at all, Chay Sha. I am only twenty-six, you understand.”

“Ah ...”

Then Zelic had been bom two years after City America had fallen. Two years after the death of his cousin Wu Shih. Li Yuan sighed heavily. How could it all have gone so quickly? How could such power, such strength, dissolve so rapidly and fade to nothingness?

It was a mystery. A mystery he strove to answer in his writing.

Ahead of them the great fortress had grown to fill the sky. As they passed into

its shadow the monorail began to brake, the slightest judder in the viewing

carriage reminding Li Yuan of where he was physically. For a moment he had been

back

BLOOD AND IRON

there, standing beside Wu Shih and Tsu Ma in Rio more than thirty years before, when he’d been Regent, talking and laughing; he and Tsu Ma standing there studying a delicate lavender bowl and talking of ancient craftsmanship. “Ingenious,” he said softly as he took in the details of the approaching city, noting how the great glass exoskeleton curved outward from its foot for the first half li or so, until it stabilised and then curved inward. The tiny blisters of robot gun-emplacements studded that great upward sweep at regular intervals.

There were nine such fortresses, stretching from Laredo in the south, through San Antonio, San Angelo, Lubbock, Amar-illo, Las Vegas, Trinidad and Pueblo, up to Denver. Beyond those, to the south and west, was the unclaimed wilderness. It was his son-in-law Egan’s ambition to reclaim that territory and reunify the great North American continent, but things had not gone well for him these past few years. The strain of isolating DeVore was telling. Like most aspiring Emperors, young Egan had been forced to face the fact that the more land one conquered, the more difficult it was to keep. Now he faced enemies not merely in Europe and the North-West, but from the South and West also. Indeed, the emergent power of New California was only one of several potential challenges to Egan’s reign, and considering the strain on Egan’s forces, one might have thought it politic to come to some agreement - even, perhaps, a treaty - with the Calif ornians, but Egan’s response had been to escalate the conflict But so it was. So it had always beea War, endless war. As if mankind could not exist without it I am well out of it, he thought, watching as a great circle began to form in the solid glass wall directly ahead of them, dagger-like shards slowly folding inward, like the petals of some strange Antarctic plant. They swept in, following a steep curve around the inside of the city, great metallic stanchions flashing past them as they slowed to a halt “We are here, Chay Sha,” Zelic announced, somewhat superfluously.”Yes. And there’s our welcoming party.”

A small group of high-ranking soldiers and officials had gathered at the edge of an immense empty space that was more like a great hall than a platform. They waited uncomfortably, talking among themselves. Seeing them, Li Yuan knew without being told that his visit here was no occasion for popular celebration.

But then, who could really blame them? For more than two centuries his kind - the Han - had kept them down. Now that they ran things, why should they treat their once-oppressors any better than they themselves had once been treated? No. They would be polite because Egan had ordered them to be polite. Beyond that they would offer nothing.

“Well, Captain Zelic,” he said, steeling himself, reminding himself that, despite all, he was still a Son of Heaven, “let us go and meet our hosts. I would not wish to keep them waiting.”

“So what do you want?”

Harding sat forward, smiling. “I want to make a deal.”

Horton laughed. “You know I’m taping this?”

“It doesn’t matter. A time comes when a man has to take sides. That moment arrived this afternoon.”

“I don’t understand ...”