The Middle Kingdom

There was a buzz of noise, then quiet. On the screen was a plain, red-carpeted room. In the middle of the room was a very solid-looking block; a big thing, an arm's length to a side. Its top was strangely smooth, as if melted or worn flat by the passage of feet or water over it, and cut into its dull gray side was the Ywe Lung, the wheel of dragons.

For a moment the screen was silent. Then came the voice.

It was the same voice he had heard numerous times before, making official announcements, but now it seemed more somber, more threatening, than he had ever heard it before. And the shadow voice, softer, more singsong, that spoke in native Mandarin, seemed to contain the same dark threat.

Chen put the bulb to his lips and emptied it. "Listen," said Lo Ying, reaching out to take his arm again. "There's been a trial."

The voice spoke slowly, carefully, outlining what had happened. There had been an assassination. The T'ang's minister, Lwo Kang. ...

Chen felt himself go cold. Lwo Kang. He looked down, shuddering.

A man named Edmund Wyatt had confessed to the killing. He had organized it. Had been the hand behind the knife.

Chen stiffened. Wyatt? Who in hell's name was Wyatt? Why not Berdichev? That was the name Kao Jyan had mentioned on his tape. Berdichev, not Wyatt. He shook his head, not understanding.

The image changed again, and there, before them, was Wyatt himself, speaking into camera, admitting his part in everything. A worn yet handsome man. An aristocrat. Every inch an aristocrat.

From the watching men came a sharp hissing. "Scum!" shouted someone. "Arrogant First Level bastards!" called another.

Chen looked down, then looked up again. So Kao Jyan had been wrong after all. He had guessed wrongly. A pity. But then, why had they killed him? Why kill him if he was wrong about Berdichev?

Or had he been wrong?

Wyatt's face faded, leaving the image of the empty room and the block. Again there was silence, both on the screen and below it in the bar. Then, suddenly, there was movement to the right of the screen. Two big, hugely muscled men brought a tall, very angular man into the center of the room and secured him over the block, his chest pressed against the upper surface, his bowed head jutting out toward the watching billions.

The man was naked. His hands had been secured tightly behind his back and his feet shackled with manacles. He looked very ill. Feebly he raised his head, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a rictus of fear, then let it fall again. His shaven head was like a skull, its paleness dotted with red blotches, while his bones seemed to poke through at shoulder and elbow.

"Gods . . ." whispered Lo Ying, "he looks half dead already, poor bastard!"

Chen nodded, fascinated, unable to look away. One of the guards had gone offscreen. The other leaned over the prisoner and brought his knee down firmly, brutally onto his back, pressing him down against the block. Then the first guard came back.

From the men in the bar came a single gasp. Of surprise. And fear.

In the guard's hands was a sword; a huge, long, two-edged weapon with an exaggeratedly broad, flat blade and a long iron-black handle. It was cruel and brutal, like something out of a museum, but it had been polished until it shone like new. The edges winked viciously in the brightness of the room as the guard turned it in his hands, accustoming himself to its weight and balance.

Lo Ying swallowed noisily, then made a small whimpering sound in his throat. "Gods. . . ." he said again, barely audibly. But Chen could not look away. It seemed alive. Hideously alive. As if some awful power animated the weapon. Its heaviness, its very awkwardness, spoke volumes. It was a brutal, pagan thing, and its ugly, unsophisticated strength struck dread into him.

Beside him Lo Ying groaned. Chen looked about him, his eyes searching from face to face, seeing his own horrified fascination mirrored everywhere.

"They're going to execute him!" Lo Ying's voice shook.

"Yes," said Chen softly, looking back at the screen, "they are."

The guard had raised the sword high. For a moment he held it there, his muscles quivering with the strain. Then, as if at some unspoken command, he brought it down onto the block.

The sword met little resistance. The head seemed to jump up on its own, a cometary trail of blood gouting behind it. It came down to the far left of the screen, rolled over once, and lay still, eerily upright, the eyes staring out sightlessly at the watching billions. The headless corpse spasmed and was still. Blood pumped from the severed neck, dribbling down the sides of the block to merge with the deep red of the carpet.

There was a fearful, awful silence. The guards had gone. Now there was only the block, the body, and the head. Those three and the blood.

Chen sat there, like the others, frozen into immobility, unable to believe it had been real. Despite himself he felt shocked. It couldn't be real, could it? He saw the surprise, the sudden pain, in the dead man's staring eyes and still could not believe it had been real. But all around him grown men were on their feet, shuddering, groaning, laughing with shock, or crying openly as they stood there, unable to look away from the screen and the severed head. Then Chen unfroze himself and stood up.

"Come on," he said, taking Lo Ying's arm firmly. "Let's get out of here."

Above them the screen went dark. Chen turned and pushed his way through the crowd, pulling Lo Ying along behind him, anxious to get outside. But out in the corridor he stopped, breathing deeply, feeling suddenly giddy. Why? he asked himself. IVe killed men before now. With these very hands I've taken their lives. Why, then, was that so awful?

But he knew why. Because it was different. Because it had been witnessed by them all.

It was a sign. A sign of things to come.

"Gods. . . . Gods. . . ." Lo Ying was shaking violently. He was barely in control of himself. "I didn't think . . ." he began. Then he turned away and was sick against the wall.

Yes, thought Chen. A sign. Times are changing. And this, the first public execution in more than a century, is the beginning of it.

He turned and looked at Lo Ying, suddenly pitying him. It had shocked him; what, then, had it done to such as Lo Ying? He took his arms and turned him around. "Listen," he said, "you'll come back with me. Stay with us tonight. We'll make space."

Lo Ying began to shake his head, then saw how Chen was looking at him and nodded.

"Good. Come on, then. We can send a message to your family. They'll understand."

Lo Ying let himself be led along, wiping distractedly at his mouth and beard and mumbling to himself. But at the junction of Chen's corridor he stiffened and pulled back.

Chen turned, looking at him. "What is it?"

"There"—Lo Ying bent his head slightly, indicating something off to Chen's right—"those men. I saw them earlier. Back at the bar."

Chen stared at him. "You're sure?"

Lo Ying hesitated, then nodded. "The big one ... he was sitting across from us. I noticed him. Before it happened. . . ." He shuddered and looked down.

Chen turned slowly and glanced at the men as casually as he could, then looked back at Lo Ying, speaking as softly as he could. "Lo Ying? Have you your knife on you?"

Lo Ying nodded. As pan chang he was permitted to carry a knife for his duties.

"Good. Pass it to me. Don't let them see."

Lo Ying did as he was told, then clutched at Chen's shirt. "Who are they, Chen?"

Chen took a deep breath. "I don't know. I don't think IVe seen them before. Perhaps it's just a coincidence."

But he knew it wasn't. He knew it was all tied in somehow. It was no coincidence that Wyatt had been executed tonight. And now they had come for him. Tidying up. He wondered vaguely how they'd traced him.

"Stay here. I'll go down toward home. If they follow me, whistle."

Lo Ying nodded once, then watched as Chen turned away from him and, seeming not to notice the two men waiting twenty paces off, made for his home corridor.

Chen had only gone three or four paces when the men pushed away from the wall and began to follow him. Lo Ying let them turn into the corridor, making sure they were following, then put his fingers to his lips and whistled.

Chen turned abruptly, facing the men.

"What do you want?"

They were both big men, but the younger of them was a real brute, a giant of a man, more than a head taller than Chen and much broader at the shoulders. Like a machine made of flesh and muscle. The other was much older, his close-cropped hair a silver-gray, but he still looked fit and dangerous. They were Hung Mao, both of them. But who were they working for? Berdichev? Or the T'ang?

"Kao Chen," said the older of them, taking two paces nearer. "So we meet at last. We thought you were dead."

Chen grunted. "Who are you?"

The old man smiled. "I should have realized at once. Karr here had to point it out to me. That stooge you used to play yourself. The man who died in Jyan's. You should have marked him." He pointed to the thick ridge of scar tissue beneath Chen's right ear. "Karr noticed it on the film."

Chen laughed. "So. But what can you prove?"

"We don't have to prove anything, Chen." The old man laughed and seemed to relax. "You know, you're a tricky bastard, aren't you? Your brother, Jyan, underestimated you. He thought you dull witted. But don't go making the same mistake with me. Don't underestimate me, Chen. I'm not some low-level punk. I am the T'ang's General, and I command more kwai than you'd ever dream existed. You can die now, if you want. Or you can live. The choice is yours."

A ripple of fear went through Chen. The T'ang's General! But he had made his choice already, moments before, and the old man was only two paces off now. If he could keep him talking a moment longer.

"You're mistaken, General," he said, raising a hand to keep the General off. "Jyan was not my brother. We only shared the same surname. Anyway, I—" He broke off, smiling, then let out a scream. "Lo Ying!"

The big man began to turn just as Lo Ying jumped up onto his back. At the same moment Chen lunged forward, the knife flashing out from his pocket. Grasping the old man's arm he turned him and brought the knife up to his throat;

Karr threw his attacker' off and feiied him with a single punch, then turned back, angry at being tricked. He came forward two paces then stopped abruptly, seeing how things were,

"You're a fool, Chen," the General hissed, feeling Chen's arm tighten about his chest, the knife's point prick the skin beneath his chin. "Harm me and you'll all be dead. Chen, Wang Ti, and baby Jyan. As if you'd never been."

Chen shuddered, but kept his grip on the old man. "Your life ... it must be worth something."

The General laughed coldly. "To my T'ang."

"Well, then?"

Tolonen swallowed painfully. "You know things. Know what Jyan knew. You—you can connect things for us. Incriminate others."

"Maybe."

"In return we'll give you an amnesty. Legitimize your citizenship. Make sure you can't be sent back to the Net."

"And that's all? A measly amnesty. For what I know?"

The General was silent a moment, breathing shallowly, conscious of the knife pressed harder against his throat. "And what do you know, Kao Chen?"

"I watched him. Both times. Saw him go in there that first time. He and the Han. Then watched him come out two hours later, alone, after he'd killed Kao Jyan. Then, later, I saw him go back in again. I stood at the junction and saw him, with my own eyes. You were there too. Both of you. I recognize you now. Yes. He was one of yours. One of you bastards."

The General shuddered. "Who, Chen? Who do you mean?"

Chen laughed coldly. "The Major. That's who. Major De-Vore."

CHAPTER SIX

The Light in the Darkness

THE FIRST THING to see was darkness. Darkness colored the Clay like a dye. It melted forms and recast them with a deadly animation. It lay within and I without; was both alive and yet the deadest thing of all. It breathed, and yet it stifled.

For many it was all they knew. All they would ever know.

The settlement was on the crest of a low hill, a sprawl of ugly, jagged shapes, littering the steep slope. Old, crumbling ruins squatted among the debris, black against black, their very shapes eroded by the darkness. The walls of houses stood no taller than a man's height, the brickwork soft, moist to the touch. There were no roofs, no ceilings, but none were needed here. No rain fell in the darkness of the Clay.

The darkness seemed intense and absolute. It was a cloth, smothering the vast, primeval landscape. Yet there was light of a kind.

Above the shadowed plain the ceiling ran to all horizons, perched on huge columns of silver that glowed softly, faintly, like something living. Dim studs of light crisscrossed the artificial sky; neutered, ordered stars, following the tracks of broad conduits and cables, for the ceiling was a floor, and overhead was the vastness of the City; another world, sealed off from the fetid darkness underneath.

The Clay. It was a place inimical to life. And yet life thrived there in the dark; hideous, malformed shapes spawning in obscene profusion. The dark plain crawled with vulgar life.

Kim woke from a bad dream, a tight band of fear about his chest. Instinct made him freeze, then turn slowly, stealthily, toward the sound, lifting the oilcloth he lay under. He had the scent at once—the thing that had warned him on waking. Strangers . . . strangers at the heart of the camp.

Something was wrong. Badly wrong.

He moved to the lip of the brickwork he had been lying behind and peered over the top. What he saw made him bristle with fear. Two of his tribe lay on the ground nearby, their skulls smashed open, the brains taken. Farther away three men— strangers, intruders—crouched over another body. They were carving flesh from arm and thigh and softly laughing as they ate. Kim's mouth watered, but the fear he felt was far stronger.

One of the strangers turned and looked directly at the place where Kim was hiding. He lidded his eyes and kept perfectly still, knowing that unless he moved the man would not see him. So it proved. The man made a cursory inspection of the settlement, then returned to his food, his face twitching furtively as he gnawed at the raw meat.

For a moment Kim was blank; a shell of unthinking bone. Then something woke in him, filling the emptiness. He turned away, moving with a painful slowness, his muscles aching with the strain of it as he climbed the rotten sill; each moment begging that it wouldn't crumble beneath his weight and betray him. But it held. Then, slowly, very slowly, he eased himself down the cold, broad steps. Down into the cellar of Baxi's house.

In the far corner of the cellar he stopped, lifting rocks, scrabbling silently with his fingers in the intense darkness, looking for something. There! His fingers found the edge of the cloth and gently pulled the package up out of the soft dust. Kim shivered, knowing already what was inside. These were Baxi's. His treasures. He was not meant to know of them. Baxi would have killed him had he known.

Kim tugged at the knot and freed it, then unwrapped the cloth, ignoring the fear he felt. Another Kim—another self-had taken over.

Straightening up, he knelt there, staring down sightlessly at the items hidden in the cloth, a feeling of strangeness rippling through him like a sickness. For a moment he closed his eyes against the sudden, unexpected giddiness, then felt it ebb from him and opened them again, feeling somehow different— somehow . . . changed.

Spreading the objects out with his fingers, he picked up each object in turn, feeling and smelling them, letting the newly woken part of him consider each thing before he set it down again.

A tarnished mirror, bigger than his hand, cracked from top to bottom. A narrow tube that contained a strange sweet-smelling liquid. Another tube, but this of wood, long as his lower arm, small holes punctuating its length. One end was open, hollow, the other tapered, split.

There was a small globe of glass, heavy and cold in his palm. Beside that was a glove, too large for his hand, its fingers heavily padded at the back, as if each joint had swollen up.

Two strings of polished beads lay tangled in a heap. Kim's clever fingers untangled them and laid them out flat on the threadbare cloth.

There were other things, but those he set aside. His other self already saw. Saw as if the thing had already happened and he had been outside himself, looking on. The thought made him feel strange again; made his head swim, his body feel light, almost feverish. Then, once more, it passed.

Quickly, as if he had done all this before, he laid the things out around him, then placed the cloth over his head. Unsighted, he worked as if he saw himself from above, letting some other part of him manipulate his hands, his body, moving quickly, surely, until the thing was done. Then, ready, he turned toward the doorway and, by touch and scent, made his way out into the open.

He heard a gasp and then a shout, high-pitched and nervous. Three voices babbled and then fell silent. That silence was his signal. Lifting the globe high, he squeezed the button on the side of the tube.

Some gift, unguessed until that moment, made him see~ himself as they saw him. He seemed split, one self standing there before them, the cloth shrouding his face and neck, the cracked mirror tied in a loop before his face; the other stood beyond the men, looking back past them at the awesome, hideous figure who had appeared so suddenly, flames leaping from one hand, fire glinting in the center of the other, giant fist, flickering in the hollow where his face should have been, while from the neck of the figure a long tongue of wood hung stiffly down.

The figure hopped and sang—a strange high-pitched wail that seemed to come in broken, anguished breaths. And all the while the fire flickered in the center of the empty face.

As one, the strangers screamed and ran.

Kim let the pipe fall from his lips. His finger released the button on the tube. It was done. He had sent them off. But from the darkness of the slopes came an intense apelike chattering. Others had seen the sudden, astonishing brightness.

He set down the glass sphere, unfastened the mirror, and laid it down, then sat there on the broken ground, wondering at himself. It had worked. He had seen it in his head, and then. . . He laughed softly, strangely. And then he'd done it. He'd actually done it.

And it had worked. ...

He tore the cloth from his head and bared his sharp teeth in a feral grin of triumph. Tilting his head back, he let out a howl; a double whoop of delight at his own cleverness. Then, so sudden that the sound still echoed from the ceiling high above, he shuddered, gripped by a paralyzing fear, a black, still coldness flooding his limbs.

It was not triumph, merely reprieve. He was still here, trapped, smothered by the darkness. He coughed, then felt the warm corruption of the darkness fill his lungs, like a liquid, choking him. He stood up, gulping at the fetid air as if for something sweeter, cleaner. But there was nothing—only this.

He whimpered, then, glancing furtively about him, began to wrap the treasures as he'd found them. Only when they were safely stored did he stop, his jaw aching from fear, his muscles trembling violently. Then, like some mad thing, he rushed about the settlement on all fours, growling furiously, partly to keep up his faded courage, partly to keep away the prowlers on the hillside below.

It was then that he found the knife. It had fallen on its edge,

the handle jutting up at an angle where one of the strangers had dropped it. The handle was cold and smooth and did not give to Kim's sharp teeth when he tested it. Not wood, nor flint, but something far better than those. Something made. He drew it slowly from the tiny crevice in which it had lodged and marveled at its length, its perfect shape. It was as long as his arm and its blade was so sharp, it made his testicles contract in fear. A wartha, it was. From Above.

When they came back he was squatting on the sill of Baxi's house, the long, two-edged blade laid carefully across his knees, the handle clenched firmly in his left hand.

Baxi looked about him, his body tensed, alarm twitching in his face. The stockade was down, the women gone. A few of the bodies lay where they had fallen. Some—those on the edges of the settlement—had been carried off. Behind Baxi his two lieutenants, Rotfoot and Ebor, made low, grunting noises of fear. He turned and silenced them, then faced Kim again.

"Pandra vyth gwres?" What is this?

Baxi glared at Kim, then saw the knife. His eyes widened, filled with fear and a greedy desire for the weapon. There was a fierce, almost sexual urgency in his broad, squat face as he hopped from foot to foot, making small noises, as if in pain.

Kim knew he would kill to have the knife.

"Lagasek!" Baxi barked angrily, edging closer. "Pandra vyth gwres?" His hands made small grasping movements.

Lagasek. It was the name they had given him. Starer.

Kim stood, then raised the knife high over his head. There was a gasp from the other members of the hunting party as they saw the weapon, then an excited chattering. Kim saw Baxi crouch, his muscles tensing, as if he suspected treachery.

Slowly, careful not to alarm Baxi, Kim lowered the blade and placed it on the ground between them. Then he crouched, making himself smaller than he was, and made a gesture with his hands, the palms open, denoting a gift.

Baxi stared at him a moment longer, the hairs bristling on his arms and at the back of his neck. Then he, too, crouched, a broad, toothless grin settling on his face. The chief was pleased. He reached out, taking Kim's gift gingerly by the handle, respecting the obvious sharpness of the blade.

Baxi lifted the weapon and held it high above his head. He glanced briefly at Kim, smiling broadly, generous now, then turned, looking back at his hunters, thrusting the knife time and again into the air, tilting his head back with each thrust and baying at the ceiling high above.

All about him in the almost-dark the hunters bayed and yelled. And from the hillsides and the valley below other groups took up the unearthly sound and echoed it back.

KIM SQUATTED at Ebor's side in the inner circle of the hunters, chewing a long, pale-fleshed lugworm and listening to the grunts, the moist, slopping sounds the men made as they ate, realizing he had never really noticed them before. He glanced about him, his eyes moving swiftly from face to face around the circle, looking for some outward sign of the change that had come to him, but there was nothing. Rotfoot had lost his woman in the raid, but now he sat there, on the low stone wall, contentedly chewing part of her thighbone, stripping it bare with his sharply pointed teeth. Others, too, were gnawing at the meat that Baxi had provided. A small heap of it lay there in the center of the circle, hacked into manageable pieces. Hands and feet were recognizable in the pile, but little else. The sharp knife had worked its magic of disguise. Besides, meat was meat, what-evet the source.

Kim finished the worm. He leaned forward, looking about him timidly. Then, seeing the smiles on the hunters' faces, he reached out and grasped a small hunk of the meat. A hand. He was tearing at the hard, tough flesh when Baxi settled by his side and placed an arm about his narrow shoulders. Reflex made him tense and look up into the chief's face, fear blazing in his eyes, but the warrior merely grunted and told him to come.

He followed Baxi through, aware that the circle of heads turned to follow him. Afraid, he clutched the severed hand to him, finding a strange comfort in its touch. His fingers sought its rough, bony knuckles, recognized the chipped, spoonlike nails. It was Rotfoot's woman's hand.

At the entrance to Baxi's house they stopped. The chief turned, facing the boy, and pointed down to a small parcel of cloth that lay on the ground beside the sill.

Kim froze in fear, thinking he'd been discovered. He closed his eyes, petrified, expecting the knife's sharp blow. Where would it strike? In his back? His side? Against his neck? He made a small sound of fear, then opened his eyes again and looked up at Baxi.

Baxi was looking strangely at him. Then he shrugged and pointed at the parcel again. Kim swallowed and set down the hand, then picked up the cloth bundle, and, at Baxi's encouragement, began to unwrap it.

He saw what it was at once and looked up, surprised, only to find Baxi smiling down at him. "Ro," said the chief. "Ro." A gift.

The tarnished mirror was just as he remembered it, the crack running down the silvered glass from top to bottom. There was no need to feign surprise or delight. He grinned up at Baxi, giving a silent whoop of joy, almost forgetting that they thought him dumb. Baxi, too, seemed pleased. He reached out to touch Kim, caressing his upper arms and nodding his head vigorously. "Ro," he said again, then laughed manically. And from the watching circle came an answering roar of savage laughter.

Kim stared down at the mirror in his hand and saw his face reflected in the darkness. How strange and alien, that face. Not like his hands. He knew his hands. But his face ... He shivered, then smiled, taken by the strangeness of his reflected features. Lagasek, he thought, seeing how the stranger smiled back at him. Such eyes you have. Such big, wide staring eyes.

KIM WAS SCAVENGING; looking for food in a place where nothing grew. The air all about him was rich with the stink of decay, the ground beneath him soft and damp and treacherous. Here, at the edge of the great dump, the dangers multiplied. There were many 'more like him, hidden shadows scattered across the vastness of the wasteland, wary of each other as they climbed the huge, rotting mounds, picking at the waste. All of them looking for something to eat or trade. Anything. Good or rotten.

The darkness was almost perfect, but the boy saw clearly. His wide, round eyes flicked from side to side, his small, ill-formed head moved quickly, furtively, like the head of some wild creature. When another came too close he would scuttle away on all fours, then rest there, at a distance, his teeth bared in challenge, growling at the back of his throat.

He moved deeper in, taking risks now, jumping between what looked like firm footholds. Some sank slowly beneath his weight, others held. He moved on quickly, not trusting anything too long, until he reached one certain resting place, the tower of an old church, jutting up above the vast mound of sewage from the City overhead.

Kim glanced up. The ceiling was far above him, its nearest supporting pillar only a stone's throw from where he squatted. From his vantage point he looked about him, noting where others were, checking which paths were clear for his escape. Then he settled, reaching deep inside his ragged, dirty shirt to take out the object he had found. He sniffed at it and licked it, then grimaced. It smelled like old skins and had a stale, unappetizing taste. He turned it in his hands, looking for a way inside the blackened casing, then picked at the metal clasp until it opened.

He looked up sharply, suddenly very still, watchful, the hairs rising on the back of his thin neck, his ropelike muscles stretched as if to spring. Seeing nothing, he relaxed and looked back down at the open wallet in his hand.

Deftly he probed into each slender compartment, removing the contents and studying them closely before replacing them. There was nothing he recognized. Nothing edible. There were several long, thin cards of a flexible, shiny material. From one of them a faded face stared up at him, coming to vivid life when he pressed his thumb against it. Startled, he dropped the card, then steeled himself and retrieved it from the moss-covered slate on which it had fallen, deciding he would keep it.

There was only one other thing worth keeping. In a zippered compartment of the wallet was a small circle of shining metal on a chain. A kind of pendant. He lifted it gently, fascinated by its delicate perfection, his breath catching in his throat. It was beautiful. He held it up and touched the dangling circle with one finger, making it spin. It slowed, then twisted back, spinning backward and forward. Kim sat back on his haunches and laughed softly, delighted with his find.

The laughter died in his throat. He turned, hearing how close the others had come while he had been preoccupied, smelling the tartness of their sweat as they jumped up onto the tower.

Kim yelped, closing his fist about the pendant, and edged back away from them. There were three of them, one no older than himself, the others taller, better muscled than he. Their round eyes gleamed with greed and they smiled at one another with their crooked, feral teeth. They thought they had him.

He snarled and the hair on his body rose, as if for fight, but all the while he was thinking, calculating, knowing he had to run. He looked from one to the other, discounting the smallest of them, concentrating on the two eldest, seeing who led, who followed. Then, so quick that they had no chance to stop him, he threw the wallet down, nearest the one who was quite clearly the follower. For a moment their attention went from him to the wallet. The leader snarled and made a lunge across the other, trying to get at the wallet.

Kim saw his opportunity and took it, flipping backward over the parapet, hoping that no one had disturbed the mound that lay below. His luck held and the soft ooze broke his fall wetly, stickily. Pulling himself up, he saw them leaning over the parapet, looking down. In a second or two they would be on him. He pulled his arm free and rolled, then scrambled onto all fours and began to run.

He heard their cries, the soft squelch of the sticky mound as they jumped down onto it. Then they were after him, through the nightmare landscape, hopping between dark, slimy pools. Desperation made him take chances, choose paths he would normally ignore. And slowly, very slowly, he drew away from them, until, when he looked back over his shoulder, he found they were no longer pursuing him.

He turned and stood up, looking back across the choked mouth of the river. He could not make out the tower against the background of the rising land. Nor were any of the other familiar landmarks evident.

For the second time that day he felt afraid. He had come a long way. This was a side of the dump he didn't know. Here he was doubly vulnerable.

He was breathing deeply, his narrow chest heaving with exertion. If they attacked him now he was done for. He crouched down, looking all about him, his face twitching with anxiety. This side seemed deserted, but he knew he couldn't trust his eyes. He glanced down at the pendant in his hand, wondering if it had been worth the finding, then dismissed the question. First he had to get home.

Slowly, painstakingly, he made his way about the edge of the waste, his eyes straining for the least sign of movement, his sharp ears registering the least sound. And again his luck held. There, far to his left, was the broad pillar that they called the Gate, and beyond it, in the midst of the waste itself, the church tower. Kim grinned, allowing himself to savor hope for the first time since they had surprised him on the tower. He went on, clambering over the uneven surface, making a beeline for the Gate.

He was only a few paces from it when the ground gave way beneath his feet and he fell.

For a time he lay there, on his back, winded. It had not been much of a fall and he seemed not to have broken anything, but he could see from the smooth sides of the pit that it would be difficult to climb out. The earth was soft but dry beneath him. Tiny insects scuttled away from his probing hands, and the air seemed warm and strangely close. He sat up, groaning, feeling a stiffness in his back. His neck ached and his arms were sore, but he could move.

He looked up. Above him the opening formed a circle against the greater darkness, like two shades of the same non-color. The circle had jagged edges, as if something had once lain across it. Kim's mind pieced things together nimbly. The pit had had some kind of lid on it. A wooden lid, maybe. And it had rotted over the years. It had taken only his own small weight to bring it down.

He felt about him in the darkness and found confirmation of his thoughts. There were splinters of soft, rotten wood everywhere about him. Then, with delight, he found the chain to the pendant with his fingers and drew it up to his face, pleased to find it unbroken. But then his pleasure died. He was still trapped. Unless he got out soon someone would come along and find him. And then he would be dead.

He looked about him, momentarily at a loss, then went to the side of the pit and began to poke and prise at it. The curved walls of the pit were made of a kind of brickwork. Kim worked at the joints, finding the joining material soft and crumbly to the touch. He dug away at it, loosening and then freeing one of the bricks. Throwing it down behind him, he reached up a bit higher and began to free another.

It took him a long time and at the end of it his fingertips were sore and bleeding, but he did it. Kneeling on the edge of the pit he looked back down and shivered, knowing that he could easily have died down there. He rested awhile, then staggered across to the Gate, close to exhaustion. There, almost beside the broad, hexagonally sided shaft, was a pool. He knelt beside it, bathing his fingers and splashing the tepid water in his face.

And then it happened.

The darkness of the pool was split. A shaft of intense brightness formed in the midst of its dark mirror. Slowly it widened, until the pool was filled with a light so intense that Kim sat back on his heels, shielding his eyes. A flight of broad stone steps, inverted by the lens of the water, led down into the dark heart of the earth.

Kim glanced up, his mouth wide open. The Gate was open. Light spilt like fire into the air.

Trembling, he looked down again. The surface of the pool shimmered, rippled. Then, suddenly, its brightness was split by bands of darkness. There were figures in the Gateway! Tall shapes of darkness, straight as spears!

He looked up, astonished, staring through his latticed hands. Jagged shadows traced a hard-edged shape upon the steps. Kim knelt there, transfixed, staring up into the portal.

He gasped. What were they? Light flashed from the darkness of their vast, domed heads—from the winking, glittering, brilliant darkness of their heads. Heads of glass. And, beneath those heads, bodies of silver. Flexing, unflexing silver.

Slowly his hands came down from his face. Light lay in the caves of his eyes, a bright wet point of brilliance at the center of each pupil. He knelt there, in the darkness at the edge of the pool, watching them come down. Three kings of glass and silver, passing so close to him he could hear the soft sigh and moan of their breathing.

He screamed, a raw, high-pitched sound, the noise dragged up from deep inside him, then huddled into himself, knowing that death was near. The pendant fell from his hand, unnoticed, flashing in the air before the water swallowed it.

One of the giant figures turned and looked down at the huddled boy, barely recognizing him as a creature of his own species, seeing only a tiny, malformed shape. A shuddering, thin-boned thing. Some kind of ill-groomed beast, long maned and filthy.

"Clay . . ." he said beneath his breath, the word heavy with nuances: contempt, disgust, the vaguest trace of guilt. Then he turned away, glad that his face mask filtered out the stench of the place. Through the infrared of his visor he could see other shapes in movement, some close, some far away. Splashes of warmth against the cold black backdrop.

He walked on, joining the other suited men. Behind him, cowering beside the man-sized pool of light, the boy turned and followed him with his eyes, watching him go down into the darkness.

Then they were gone.

Kim stretched, pushing his hands against the soft, wet earth, steadying himself. The trembling passed from him, but still his mouth lay open, his fear transformed to wonder.

He turned, looking up at the Gate, a shiver running down his spine.

A wartha! The Above! The words formed in his head, framed in awe, like an incantation. He cupped water in one hand and wet his lips, then said the words aloud, whispering them, in an accent as malformed as himself.

"A wartha____"

Again he shivered, awed by what he had seen. And in his head he pictured a whole world of such creatures; a world of liquid, brilliant light. A world above the darkness and the Clay.

His mouth formed a tiny O, round as his eyes.

Above him the Gate began to close, the pillar of brilliant silver fading into black, the broad steps swallowed slowly by the dark. And afterward the blackness seemed more intense, more horrible, than it had ever been. Like a giant hand it pressed down on him, crushing him, making him gasp for each breath. Again he screamed, a new, unbearable pain, born of that moment, gripping his insides, tugging at him.

The Light. . . .

His fingers groped wildly in the mud, then flailed at the water, looking for fragments of the pearled light. But he was blind. At first his fingers found nothing. Then, for the third time, his fingers closed upon a slender length of chain, sought out the tiny metal pendant, and drew it up from out the liquid, holding it to his face, pressing it hard against his lips, not understanding why, yet feeling its presence soothe him, calm him. Like a promise.

IT WAS A WEB. A giant web. Alive, quiveringly alive, expanding, filling the darkness with its pearls of light. Moist beads of brilliance strung on translucent fibers of light. It grew, at the same time frail and strong—incredibly strong. The light could not be broken. He stared up at it, open mouthed, and felt himself lifted, filled with joy. Incredible, brilliant joy, bom of die growing light.

Kim lifted his hands to the light, aching to join with it. If only he could reach it; only lift his head and break the surface membrane of the darkness in which he was embedded, breathing fresh air. He stretched toward it, and felt the joy tighten like a metal band about his chest, crushing him.

And woke, tears in his eyes, hunger in his belly.

He shuddered, horrified. It lay all about him like a glue. He rested on it and it pressed its vast weight down on top of him. Each pore of his was permeated by its sticky warmth. It was darkness. Darkness, the very stuff of the Clay.

The dream made him grit his teeth and sit there, rocking back and forth in pain, moaning softly to himself. For the last few days it had been as if he were awake while all about him slept. As if it was their nightmare he inhabited, not his own. Yet there was no waking from their dream of darkness. Their dream outweighed his hope.

He straightened up, shuddering, hearing the movement in the darkness all about him. It was time, then. The tribe was preparing to move.

He got up quickly and went to the comer of the square of brick and stone in which he slept and relieved himself. Then he came back and packed up his few possessions: a blanket, a flint shard, the small bundles containing his treasures, lastly a square of cloth—a scarf of sorts—that had been his mother's.

The one he had known as mother was long dead. He had been taken with her from the carriage and had watched while they held her down by the roadside, feeling a vague disquiet at their actions, not understanding the naked jutting of their buttocks, the squeals from the woman beneath them. But then they had begun to beat her and he had cried out and tried to get to her, desperate to save her from them. And that was all he knew, for one of them had turned and struck him hard with the back of his hand, sending him crashing into the stone of a low wall.

So he had joined the tribe.

Most days he did as they did, thoughtlessly. Yet sometimes a strange, dissociated pain would grip him—something not of the body, but like his glimpse of the light: something intangible yet teal. Disturbingly real. And he would know it had to do with her. With a vague sense of comfort and safety. The only comfort, the only safety, he had ever known. But mainly he shut it out. He needed his wits to survive, not to remember.

Kim stood at the edge of the group while Baxi spoke. They were going to raid a small settlement farther down the valley, counting upon surprise to win the encounter. They would kill all the men and boys. Women, girls, and babies they would capture and bring back alive.

Kim listened, then nodded with the rest. It would be his first raid. He clutched his flint anxiously, excitement and fear alternating in him; hot and cold currents in his blood. There would be killing. And afterward there would be meat, meat and women. The hunters laughed and grunted among themselves. Kim felt his mouth water, thinking of the meat.

They left eight men behind to guard the settlement. The rest followed Baxi down the stream in single file, keeping low and moving silently. Four bands of men, running swiftly, lithely, down the stream path, their bare feet washed by the greasy,

sluggish flow. Kim was last of them and smallest. He ran behind them like a monkey, hands touching the ground for balance as he crouched forward, the flint shard between his teeth.

There was a tumble of rocks, a small stretch of flat, exposed land, and then the other settlement. There was no chance of subtlety, only of surprise. Baxi sprang from the rocks and sprinted silently across the open space, the knife raised high. Rotfbot and Ebor were after him at once, running as fast as their legs could carry them, followed a moment later by others of the tribe.

It nearly worked. Baxi was almost on the guard when he turned and called out. His cry rose, then changed in tone. He went down, the knife buried to the hilt in his chest, its tip jutting from a point low in his back.

Kim squatted on the highest of the rocks, watching as the fight developed. He saw Baxi scream and curse as he tried to free the knife from the dead man's rib cage, then turn to fend off a defender's blow. Others of the tribe were struggling with the strangers, some of them rolling on the ground, some exchanging vicious swinging blows with flints and cudgels. The air was alive with grunts and screams. Kim could smell the stink of fear and excitement in the darkness.

He watched, afraid to go down, repulsion battling with the fascination he felt. His tribe was winning. Slowly the defenders left off trying to fight their attackers and, one by one, began to run away. Already his side were dragging away the unconscious women and girls and squabbling over the corpses. But still small pockets of the fight went on. Kim saw and realized where he was, what he had been doing. Quickly he scrambled across the rocks and dropped down onto the ground, fearing what Baxi would do if he saw.

He had held back. Shown fear. He had let down his tribe.

Kim hurried across the uneven ground, stumbling, then hurled himself onto the back of one of the escaping defenders. His weight brought the man down, but the stranger was twice Kim's size and in an instant Kim found himself on his back, pinned down, the scarred, one-eyed stranger staring down at him. That single eye held death. The stranger's right hand clutched a rock. He raised the rock. ...

Kim had only an instant in which to act. As if he saw someone beyond and above the stranger, he called out anxiously, looking past the stranger's face.

"Nyns!" he screamed. No! "Ny mynnes ef yn-few!" We want him olive!

It was enough to make the stranger hesitate and shift his weight, half turning to see who it was behind him. It was also enough to allow Kim to turn sideways and tip the stranger from him.

One-eye rolled and turned, facing Kim, angry at being tricked, but conscious that each moment's delay brought his own death closer. He swung wildly with the rock and misjudged. Kim lunged in with his sharply pointed flint, aiming for the softest, most vulnerable place, and felt his whole arm shudder as he connected. There was a moment of sickening contact, then Kim saw the man's face change into a mask of naked pain. One-eye had been castrated, his testicles crushed.

One-eye fell at Kim's side, vomiting, his hands clutching at his ruined manhood. Kim jerked his hand away, leaving the flint embedded where it was, then looked about anxiously.

Baxi was watching him, smiling ferociously.

Kim looked back, appalled, hearing the wretch heaving up each painful breath. Then, as he watched, Baxi came close, the knife in his hand, and pushed its point deep into the base of One-eye's neck.

One-eye spasmed and then lay still.

"Da," said the chief and turned away. Good. Kim watched him strut, triumphant, self-satisfied, then throw back his head and whoop into the air.

A web... a web of sticky darkness. Kim felt a warmth, a kind of numbness, spread outward from the core of him, a hand of eight fingers closing on him slowly like a cage, drawing him down beneath the surface of the dark. Darkness congealed above him like a lid, tar in his open mouth. And then he fainted.

THEY HAD NEVER heard him say a word. Baxi thought him dumb or just simple, and others took their lead from that.

They called him "Lagasek," or Starer, for his habit of looking so intently at an object. That, too, they saw as a sign of his simplicity.

For an age, it seemed, he had been as if asleep among them. Their hideous shapes and forms had become as familiar as the darkness. He had watched them without understanding, seeing their scars and deformities as natural things, not departures from some given norm. But now he was awake. He stared at them through newly opened eyes, a bright thread of thought connecting what he saw to the sharp-lit center of awareness at the. back of his skull.

He looked about the flickering fire at their missing hands and eyes, their weeping sores and infected scabs; saw them cough and wheeze for breath, aged well beyond their years, and wondered what he was doing there among them.

Sitting there in the dust, the thick and greasy soup warm in his belly, he felt like weeping. As he looked about the small circle of men and boys he saw, for the first time, their gauntness, their strange furtiveness. They twitched and scratched. They stretched and stood to urinate, their eyes never still, never settling for long, like the blind white flies that were everywhere in the Clay.

Yes, he understood it now. It had begun there with that glimpse of otherness—that vision of glass and silver, of kings and brightness. He felt like speaking out—telling them what he had seen at the Gate, what he had done to scare off the intruders—but habit stilled his tongue. He looked down at his tiny, narrow hands, his long thin arms. There were no scars but there were sores at the elbows and the bone could be seen clear beneath the flesh.

He looked away, shuddering, his face filled with pain and a strange, hitherto untasted shame, then looked back again. They were talking among themselves now, their crude, half-savage speech suddenly foreign to his ear. It made him feel uneasy, as if he had knowledge of something better, some long-buried memory of things before the tribe. Across from him Tek and Rotfoot exchanged halfhearted blows in savage-gentle play, their broken faces filled with light and shadows. He lifted his head, sniffing at them in instinct, then settled, realizing what he was doing, filled with a sudden, intense sense of self-disgust.

For a moment he closed his eyes, feeling the warmth on his face and arms and chest. That, too, was strange. It was rare to have a fire. Rare to sit as they sat now, the circle of the dark behind, the circle of the light in front. But this was a special time.

Baxi sat in his place, on a huge, rounded stone above the others. A stack of wood—itself a kind of treasure—lay at his side. From time to time he would reach down and throw a piece upon the blaze, growling with pleasure.

They had found the sacks of firewood in a storeroom in the conquered settlement; three of them, hidden beneath a pile of other things scavenged from the dump. Baxi had brought them back and built the fire himself with a care that made Kim think he had seen it done before. Then he had gone down to his cellar, returning moments later with the fire-stick.

Kim had watched them all gasp and fall back as the flame leapt from his hand and spread among the gathered wood, muttering darkly between themselves, their eyes filled with fear and fascination. But Kim had known. He had crouched there, still and silent, watching as the fire kindled, like some strange living creature jumping from one dark surface to another, consuming all it touched. Like the unspoken thoughts in his head, he realized. Yet this had a voice, a crackling, popping, sputtering voice, its breath strangely thick and dark, curled like a beard, yet evanescent—vanishing into the dark above the blaze.

For a brief moment it seemed he understood; held in his head a key to the pattern of all things. Then it, too, was gone, drawn up into the darkness overhead.

He felt misplaced. Torn from the light and cast down into darkness. But if misplaced, what then? How could he change things?

Run away, a small voice inside him called out. Run far away. To a place where the darkness ends,

He looked out beyond the fire, blinded by its brilliance, seeing nothing but the afterimage of the flames. The darkness was unending and eternal. There was nothing but the darkness. . . .

No, he reminded himself. Not true. There is a place of brightness. Up there. A wartha.

Among the gods.

Not only that, but there was a way. A single door into the brightness. A one-way door that often led to death, or so the men said. A door that only the youngest and the bravest took.

Kim looked down at his hands again. He was young, but was he brave enough? Was he prepared to risk everything on a single gamble?

He thought of the escapade with the mirror and the fire-stick and his spirits rose. Then the image of himself, scared and cowering on the rocks, came back to him. His stomach knotted. He wanted it. Wanted the brightness like he wanted life itself. But he was afraid. Dreadfully, awfully, numbingly afraid. He felt he could not do it—would die before he took the first step.

Better to stay here a thousand years. . . .

A cold shiver passed through him, ice beneath the firelight on his face and chest and limbs. No, not that. Death was preferable to that.

He looked up. On the far side of the fire, beyond Rotfoot, stood Baxi, watching him. For a moment their eyes met and locked and some kind of raw understanding passed between them. And in the moment before he looked away, Kim saw a crude kind of affection there in the older man's eyes: a strange, almost wistful tenderness that he found unsettling.

Far away, said the voice inside. To a place where the darkness ends.

Kim rose and turned to face the darkness. The heat lay on his naked back, like the promise of comfort, but now his face was cold and the tension in him was worse than it had ever been. For a moment longer he hesitated, need and fear at war within him. Then, with a violent shudder, he nodded to himself and jerked away from the fire, his decision made.

He would go. Now. Before the darkness took him back.

THE sign was ancient. Time had turned the whiteness of its paint a mottled gray, had faded the dark, heavy lettering.

Where the bolts held it to the wall a red-gold rust had formed two weeping eyes.

Kim looked up at it, struggling to understand. Like so much else it was a mystery; a symbol of all the things denied him. He studied the strange yet familiar shapes of the letters, wondering what they meant, filling the gap, the darkness of incomprehension, with his own meanings. The first letter was easy. It was an arrow, facing to the left. There was a gap and then the second, its double curves facing away from the arrow like a straight-backed woman's breasts. The third was a ring. The fourth a drawn bow. The fifth? Two steep hills, perhaps, linked by a valley. The sixth again was easy. It was an upright column, like the column beyond the wall. The seventh? He felt the seventh was like the fifth, yet its difference—its lack of an upright strut—was significant. A gate, maybe. Or two interlocking flints—perhaps the sign for war. Then, after another gap, came the last of them; an eye with a dark, curled eyebrow overhead, linked at the eye's left corner.

But what did it mean in total? What message had it once conveyed?

He looked about him, then ducked beneath the rotten lintel, pushing through the gap in the wall. There, like some vast subterranean serpent breaching the far wall of the ruined building, stood the column, its silvered surface gleaming in the half-light.

Kim stumbled forward and stood before it, his eyes drawn upward to where it met the ceiling of the Clay far overhead. There were many such pillars spread regularly throughout the Clay, but this one, Kim knew, was slightly different from the others. It was a gate. An entrance into the Above.

Long ago they had chased a boy from another tribe across the nearby hills and trapped him here, between the walls of this old, ruined building. Faced with certain death, the boy had turned, gone to the pillar, and pressed his hands against it.

Miraculously the pillar had opened. A narrow aperture had formed in its perfect roundness, a dim, fierce light burning out from the space within. Fearfully, with a backward glance at them, the boy had gone inside. At once the opening had closed,

throwing the space between the walls into an intense and sudden darkness.

They had camped there some while, waiting for the boy to come out, but he never had. And when one of the older boys grew brave enough to approach the pillar and press against it, they could all see that the space inside was empty.

It had eaten the boy.

For a time he had believed this version of events, and in truth part of him still believed it, making him cower there, terrified to enter. But the newly woken part of him reasoned otherwise. What if the boy had not been killed? What if he had been taken up into the Above?

They were huge assumptions. Hunches, not certainty. And the boy had gone inside only because he had had no option. But what of himself? There were no knives awaiting him should he turn away. Only the darkness. Only the fetid Clay.

He grimaced and closed his eyes, tormented by indecision. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be wrong.

Is death any worse than this?

The thought came like a voice in his head, and with the voice came the realization that he was no longer a single creature. There were two of him, sharing a single skull, a single body. One dark, one light. One kept him here, the other craved escape. Here, at the gate to the Above, they would have to fight it out between them.

For a time the darkness had him and he stood there, thoughtless, his animal self shuddering uncontrollably, a gobbet of spittle dribbling down his chin. Then, with an abruptness that -caught the animal unaware, Kim threw himself at the column and scratched at its surface, trying to find an opening.

He could hear himself gibbering with fear, and in another moment he would have backed away, defeated, but suddenly the aperture slid open with an outbreath of air and he tumbled in, onto the smooth, uncluttered floor, his hands going up to cover his eyes against the brilliance.

The brightness hurt him. It cut into his head like a flint. Then the door hissed shut behind him, trapping him. He whim-

pered in fear then lay there, shivering, his legs drawn up beneath him, waiting to die.

Yet what happened next seemed worse than death. The light in the room pulsed gently and a deep voice boomed out, filling the narrow space.

"Kewsel agas hanow, map!" Speak your name, boy! "Agas hanow!"

Kim gagged, then shat himself. His muscles went into spasm. For a while he could do nothing to control them. Again he was an unthinking animal, there on the floor inside the alien column. A stinking piece of quivering meat and bone. Then the bright thing in him bobbed up again and floated on the surface of his awareness. His name? What was his name?

"Laga . . ." He could not say it. He'd had too little practice. In any case, it was wrong. Lagasek—Starer—was not his name; or, if his name, then his name only in the darkness. It was not the name his mother had given him. Not the name he wished to take with him into the light.

He tried again. "Kim," he said finally, the word strange, more awkward in his mouth than in his head. His voice barely sounded the K and the rest of it was inaudible.

"Kewsel arta," said the voice. Speak again. It seemed much warmer than before; more soothing.

"Kim," he said more clearly, then lay there, perfectly still, wondering what would happen.

"Da, Kim," said the voice. Good. "Praga bos why omma?" Why be you here? "Praga prak why entradhe hemma pylla?" Why did you enter this pillar? "Gul nebonen sewya why?" Does someone pursue you?

"Nyns," he answered. No.

"Nyns," the voice repeated, and then chuckled to itself. What it said next was difficult to follow. The words were alien to Kim, like the nonsense utterances of his nightmares. "We've a fluent one here." This last seemed not to be directed at Kim.

Kim sat up, looking around him. Then he stood and went to the curve of the wall across from where the opening had been. No, he hadn't been mistaken: there was a shape in the wall's otherwise unblemished face. A pattern of light, almost too faint to see. He stood beside it, trying to figure it out.

"Ah," said the voice. "My gweles why cafos an matrix." I see you've found the ... But the last word was new. It was like the other words—alien.

Kim twitched and turned about sharply. The creature with the voice was watching him, then. Was close by. He stared up into the dimly lit tunnel overhead and tried to make out something in the darkness, but it seemed empty.

"Matrix?" Kim asked, pronouncing the word carefully, as if feeling the shape of it in his mouth.

There was laughter—soft, warm laughter—then the voice came back. "My bos ken tyller," it said, as if that explained everything. I be somewhere else. "Ha an tra a-dherak why bos un matrix." And that thing before you be a matrix. "Ef gul pycturs ha patron." He make pictures and patterns.

Kim struggled to understand, but could grasp nothing of what the voice was saying. Pictures? Patterns? How did it make these things?

"Gasa-vy dysquehs why." Let me show you.

The faint area glowed, then seemed to explode with color.

Kim shrieked and leapt backward, scrambling away until his back was against the far curve of the wall.

"Ef ny a-wra pystyk why. Golyas. Kensa un fas." He won't harm you. Watch. First a face.

The screen formed a face. A typical face from the Clay, seen in partial darkness, its scars and deformities nothing unusual. Kim nodded, his eyes watching the matrix closely.

"Nessa, un patron. Un semple patron. Tyby kettep myn bos un men." Next, a pattern. A simple pattern. Imagine each point be a stone. "My muvya an meyn formya un form. Un patron." I move the stones to form a shape. A pattern.

When the image on the screen re-formed it showed three lines of three points. A square.

"Den lufyow, le un bys," said Kim. Two hands, less a finger. It was the most he had said until then.

"Ahah," said the voice, and this time Kim could hear a second voice speak softly in the background. "Numerate, this one. That's rare." The hair on his neck stood up, hearing that foreign tongue again, and his lips peeled back, his dark self hostile to it, knowing it for the language of the light.

Unknown to him, however, he had taken his first step into the Above. And when the voice sounded again its tone was slightly different: less cozy, much more businesslike.

"Dos ogas an matrix, Kim. Dos ogas ha my deryvas why fatel muvya an meyn a drodhe."

Come near the matrix., Kim. Come near and I'll tell you how to move the stones about.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Machines of Flesh

KLAUS EBERT, Head of GenSyn, Chung Kuo's second largest company, looked down at the corpse on the dissecting table and slowly shook his head. "No, Knut. I've never seen its like."

He pointed out its internal structure—the lack of a spleen; the simplification of the respiratory system; the artificial latticework of the rib cage; the replacement of the stomach and intestinal system by a single sac, sealed off and unconnected to the anus. Most obvious of all was the flat, compact battery, like a black lacquered hipflask, placed where the human liver should have been.

"I'll have my experts look at this, but it's not GenSyn, that's certain. It isn't even organic. It's just a machine; too simple to function longer than a few months. It can't digest. It can't even process blood. Whoever built it designed it for rapid redundancy."

Ebert turned, facing the General, his face ashen.

"Gods, Knut, but it's so like me, isn't it? Looking at it there, it feels like part of me has died."

The General studied his old friend a moment, then looked back at the part-dissected corpse. It was a perfect copy. Too good in some respects. He had seen the films of it before his men had neutralized it—saw how cleverly it had mimicked Ebert's voice and mannerisms. And if there had been something unnatural about it, something just a bit too animated about its speech, its gestures, that was only noticeable in retrospect. It had been good enough to fool Ebert's personal staff. But the eyes. . . When the thing had been cornered in Ebert's private suite, those eyes had burned, like the eyes of an addict.

"Who could have built this, Klaus? Who has the know-how?"

Ebert laughed uncomfortably. "GenSyn. MedFac, maybe. No one else. At least, no one on-planet."

The General looked up sharply, "You think it's from outside, then? From one of the colonies?"

Ebert dragged his eyes away from the dead thing on the table, then turned his back on it. "I don't know, Knut. Six months back I'd have said no, but I've seen a few strange things since then. Controls are less tight out there. The Edict has less force." He shook his head. "The Seven should do something, Knut. Now. Before it's too late."

"I know," the General said simply. But he was thinking of De Vore. If what the kwai Kao Chen had said were true it would explain much.

And Wyatt? He pushed the thought away. Wyatt was guilty. There was the evidence. Even so ...

Ebert was looking at him, fear in his eyes. "What does this mean, Knut? Why would they want to copy me? I don't understand."

The General shuddered. Nor I, he thought, not fully, anyway, but now I'm forearmed. We can rig up checkpoints. Scan for copies. Make sure nothing like this gets into the Forbidden City.

There would be more than a hundred thousand guests at the wedding. And not one of them could be allowed to pass through without being tested. For if just one of these . . . things got through, it might prove disastrous.

He reached out and took his old friend's arm. "I'm sorry, Klaus, but I think they meant to substitute this thing for you at the wedding. It was their way of getting at the T'ang."

"You mean they meant to kill me, Knut?"

Tblonen met his eyes. "I think so. They know how close you are to Li Shai Tung, and this. . ." He hesitated, then looked away, shaking his head. "Look, I don't know who's behind this, Klaus, but it couldn't have come at a worse time."

"Or more fortunate?"

Tolonen turned back. "What do you mean?"

Ebert was looking down at the replicant's left hand; at the ring on the second finger with its insignia of two separated strands of DNA—an exact co'py of his own. He looked back at Tolonen. "It just seems odd, Knut, that's all. Odd how easily we caught this one. And yet I can't believe they would want us to know about this. This"—he pointed at the corpselike thing on the table—"It must have cost . . . what? eighty, maybe a hundred million yuan to build. And that's without the initial R-and-D costs. Why, there's memory technology involved here that we haven't even begun to explore at GenSyn. That alone would have cost them two or three hundred million yuan minimum. And maybe three, four times that. They wouldn't throw that away casually, would they?"

"No. I suppose they wouldn't."

But Tolonen was already thinking things through—aware of the huge administrative nightmare this would create. They would have to set up a network of gates in front of the Forbidden City. Secure rooms. Thousands of them, specially equipped to check for fakes. And they would need to rehearse more than twenty thousand stewards in the subtle questions of etiquette and "face" involved.

The General sighed, then tugged his uniform gloves tighter, aware that his craft had been waiting twenty minutes now. He would have to leave soon if he was to meet DeVore off the Mars shuttle. "This will cause a great deal of bad feeling, Klaus. But you're right, it was fortunate. And now we know these things exist we can't afford to take chances. The lives of the Seven are at risk, and I'd offend every last man and woman in the Above to protect the Seven."

Ebert laughed. "I do believe you would, Knut Tolonen." Then he grew serious. "But why now, Knut? Things are good, aren't they? We've built a good world, haven't we? Why do they want to tear it down, eh? Why?"

Tolonen looked up and saw how Ebert was watching him. Saw how, in this, he was looking to him for answers.

"Because the cycle's ending, Klaus. I feel it in my bones. Change is coming."

Yes, he thought. And things we thought true are no longer so.

He looked at the dead thing on the table and thought of DeVore. At least this fake was honest to itself. Was buih a fake. But men? Who was to say what molded them for ill or good?

IT WAS JUST after four in the morning and Nanking Port lay in darkness, a loose-spaced ring of lights, five li from the central hub, tracing the periphery of the vast apron.

Tolonen stood in the topmost office of the towering Port Authority Building, the duty Captain at attention before him.

"Gone? What do you mean, he's gone?"

The young Captain bowed deeply to the visiting General, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

"He's not aboard the ship, sir. When our men went to arrest him, he simply wasn't there. And no one could say where he'd gone."

Tolonen shook his head in disbelief.

"That's impossible! How could he get off the ship? It's moored at the orbital station isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well? He was aboard only eight hours ago, wasn't he?"

"Yes, sir."

"So he's either still aboard or on that station, no?"

"No, sir. We've searched both ship and station thoroughly."

Tolonen's anger exploded. "Incompetents! How could you let him get away from you?" He snorted. "Where could he be, eh? Out there? In the vacuum? No! Think, boy! He must be here. On Chung Kuo. But how did he get here? Who brought him down?"

"Sir?" The Captain was totally flustered now.

"What service craft have visited the station in the past four hours? What ships, besides your own, have left the station since the colony ship docked?"

"None, sir."

"None? Surely—"

"We put a cordon sanitaire about the station as soon as you instructed us, General. No service craft has docked at or left the station in the past thirteen hours."

The General shivered. "Who was aboard your craft?" he asked softly.

"Sir?" The Captain stared.back at him blank faced, not understanding.

"I want them brought here. Now. Everyone who was aboard your patrol craft."

"Sir!" The Captain bowed, then turned away.

Tolonen went to the window and looked up into the circle of darkness overhead, his thoughts in turmoil.

Then it was true what the kwai Kao Chen had said. DeVore was the traitor. Tolonen shuddered. It was hard to believe. DeVore . . . the man had been such an excellent soldier. Such a fine, efficient officer. More than that, he had been a friend. A good friend. Had been a guest in the General's home many a time. Had held Tolonen's baby daughter, Jelka, in his arms.

Tolonen turned, facing the doorway. If DeVore were to come into the room right now and swear he'd had no part in things, would I believe him? Yes! Even now I find the whole idea of DeVore as a traitor unbelievable. I would have known. Surely I would have known?

And yet his absence . . .

The Captain returned, followed by a dozen others. They formed up, awaiting the General's pleasure.

"This is all?"

The Captain bowed his head deeply, then went down onto his knees. "Sir, I—I don't know how this happened." He kept his head bent low, his eyes averted. His shame seemed to radiate from him.

"They're gone, too, eh?"

The Captain continued to kneel. "Yes, sir."

"How many?"

"Two officers. Eight men."

Tolonen shook his head in disbelief. Ten men! Was DeVore's influence that strong, then? Or was it something else? He turned away, deeply agitated. Of course. Dispersionist money. Vast sums of it. Enough to buy out two Security officers and eight underlings.

"Gods!" he said softly. How much would it have cost them? A million yuan? Ten million? Fifty? He shivered, then turned and looked down again at the kneeling officer. "Get up, Captain."

The Captain remained as he was. "I have failed you, sir. I ask permission to seek an honorable death."

Angered now, Tolonen reached down and pulled the man to his feet.

"I'll not have good officers killing themselves for nothing. It is not your fault. Do you understand me, Captain? DeVore was too clever for you. Too clever for us all."

No, he thought, meeting the Captain's eyes. It's really not your fault at all. But now DeVore's at large. What mischief will he do?

The Captain backed away, white faced, bowing. Then, at Tolonen's curt, angry command, he turned and led his men away.

Alone again, Tolonen let his anger drain from him. He went to the window and stood there once more, looking out over the still, dark forms of a hundred different craft, grounded at his order.

The certainty of DeVore's treachery sickened him. More than that, it undermined him, because it ran contrary to all he thought he had known about men. His thoughts ran back over the last few years, trying to make sense of things. Could he have known? Was there any way he could have known?

No. DeVore had been the perfect officer. The perfect copy.

Tolonen tapped at the control blisters inset into his wrist and made connection with Major Nocenzi, half the globe away.

"General?" Nocenzi's voice came through clear in his head. His image appeared ghostly on the General's palm.

"Vittorio. I want you to do something for me."

He spoke quickly but clearly, itemizing the things he wanted done. Then, finished, he cut connection, knowing time was against him.

So it was here at last, the war Li Shai Tung had long ago said would come. A secretive, dirty war, fought in the darkness between levels. A guerrilla war, where friend and enemy had the same face. A war of money and technology and, at the last, sheer cunning. And who would win?

Tolonen smiled.

Karr, he thought. I'll use Karr. He found Chen. Maybe he can find DeVore.

WANG TI opened the door slowly, surprised to see the big man standing there, but even more surprised when her husband called out from behind her, telling her to let him in.

Karr bowed his head respectfully and drew off his boots. Barefooted, he followed Wang Ti through into the back of the apartment, ducking under partitioning curtains.

Chen was sitting on the floor by the back wall, his legs folded under him, the baby asleep in his lap. There was little furniture in the cramped room. A double bedroll was folded neatly against the wall to Chen's right and a low table had been set up next to the fcang. Wang Ti had been cooking, and the smell of it still hung in the room. From the far side of the long dividing curtain on Chen's left came the sound of their neighbors' two young sons playing boisterously.

Karr smiled and bowed again, then squatted across from Chen.

"How's the child?"

Chen looked down at his infant son and gently stroked his brow.

"He's well."

"Good."

Wang Ti stood at his side dutifully, head bowed, eyes averted.

"You'll share ch'a with us, Shih . . . ?"

"Karr." The big man turned slightly and bowed his head, acknowledging her, "I thank you for your kind offer, Wang Ti, but no. I have business to discuss with your husband."

She nodded, then took the baby from Chen's lap and backed away. Karr waited until she had ducked out under the curtaining before speaking again. She would hear all he said, but the illusion of privacy was necessary. It was all the face a man had at these levels.

"You were right, Chen. It was DeVore."

Chen grunted, his blunt peasant face inexpressive. "So what now?"

Kan: reached into the inner pocket of his overshirt and pulled out a thin tab of ice. "Here," he said, offering it.

Chen hesitated, remembering Jyan. He too had made deals with the Above. And where was he now? With his ancestors. Dead, his spirit untended, no sons to burn offerings for his soul.

"What is it?"

Karr laughed. "Still suspicious, eh? You've no need to be, Chen. You gave us more than we could have asked for. This"— he placed the tab between them on the floor—"this is in settlement. A blanket amnesty. Your citizenship papers. A ten deck security pass. And a bonus. A thousand yuan."

Chen started. Then he was not to follow Wyatt to the block? He stared at the big man openmouthed.

"You are kwai, Chen. A tool. And a good tool. The General was surprised how good." He laughed. "We Net types, we can teach them a thing or two, eh?"

Still Chen hesitated. Was this all some kind of elaborate ruse? Some awful taunting of him? But then why? Why should they bother?

"Then I'm free?"

Karr looked away, conscious of the woman listening beyond one curtain, the neighbors beyond another. "Not exactly. You'll have to leave this place. After what happened . . ."

"Isee."

Karr met his eyes. "We'll resettle you. Retrain you."

"Retrain me?"

"Yes. You've a new job, Chen. You've joined Security. As my adjutant."

Chen stared, then looked down. "And if I say no?"

Karr shrugged, watching the Han closely. "You are kwai, Chen, not a warehouseman. Leave such jobs to good men like LoYing."

Chen looked up, suddenly angry. "And how is Lo Ying?"

Karr laughed, remembering how Lo Ying had jumped him. "A brave man, but no fighter. Oh, he's happy now, Chen. He, too, has his bonus."

Chen looked down at the tab. "You plan to buy me, then?"

Karr hesitated, then shook his head. "I would not insult you so, Kao Chen. We both know that you cannot buy a man's loyalty. However, you can try to earn it." He sat back, then shrugged his great shoulders. "All right. I ask you openly, Kao Chen. Will you become the Tang's man? Or will you rot here at this level?"

Chen looked down. He had a life here. A good life. There was his wife, his son now to consider. But to be kwai again ... He felt himself torn in two by the offer.

There was a whisper of cloth. Chen looked up past Karr. Wang Ti had come out from behind the curtains and was standing there, staring imploringly at him. Then, abruptly, she came around and threw herself down in front of Karr in a full k'o t'ou.

"Wang Ti! What are you doing?"

She lifted her head and glanced at Chen anxiously, then returned her forehead to the floor before the big man.

"My husband accepts your kind offer, Shih Karr. He will be honored to work with you."

HAN C H ' IN stood there silently in the darkened room, his back to the doorway. Outside the two assassins waited. He breathed deeply, calming himself, remembering what he'd been taught. The still man has advantages. He hears better. He has choice of action. The moving man is committed. His strength, his very movement can be used against him.

Let them come to you, then. Feign unawareness. But let your body be as the dragon's, alive, alert to every movement of the air behind your back.

Outside they hesitated. Then the first of them came through.

Han turned when the man was only an arm's length away, ducking low, sweeping his leg out, his left arm straight-punching upward. As the man went down Han rolled backward and flipped up onto his feet, facing the second assassin.

The dark, masked figure feinted,-kicking to Han's left, making shapes with his hands in the air, each movement accompanied by a sharp hiss of expelled breath.

Han shadowed the assassin's movements, knowing he could not afford to do otherwise. He was alone now. Death awaited him if he made the smallest mistake. He had only winded the man on the floor, so time now was precious. He would have to dispense with the man before him, then deal finally with the other.

He saw his chance. The assassin had put his full weight on his right foot. It anchored him. Han feinted farther to the right, then leapt, turning in the air and kicking high, aiming for the man's chin.

His foot brushed air. Then he was falling.

The assassin was on him in an instant, his forearm locked about Han's neck.

Han cried out.

The lights flicked on at once. The two assassins backed away, bowing deeply, respectfully. Han turned over and sat up, gasping for breath. Shiao Shi-we was standing in the doorway, looking in at him, his expression hard to read.

"Again!" he barked finally. "How many times, Han? Have you learned nothing from me?"

Han knelt and bowed to his instructor. Shi-we was right. He had been impatient.

"I am sorry, Master Shiao. I was worried about the second man."

Shiao Shi-we made a small sound in his throat, then lifted his chin. Han Ch'in got to his feet at once.

"You are a good fighter, Han Ch'in. Your reflexes are as good as any man's. Your body knows how to move. How to kick and punch. How to block and fall and roll. You have real courage. A rare thing. Yet for all these qualities you lack one vital thing. You have not learned to think as your opponent thinks."

Han bowed again, chastened.

"What then should I have done, Master Shiao? Should I have waited for him to attack?"

Shiao Shi-we was a small man, almost a head shorter than his seventeen-year-old pupil. His head was shaved and oiled and he was naked but for a small dark-red loincloth. His chest and forearms and legs were heavily muscled, yet as he crossed the room he moved with the grace of a dancer. He was sixty-five years old but looked forty.

He stood in front of Han Ch'in, looking up at the T'ang's heir, but there was no deference in his posture. In this room Shiao Shi-we was as father to Han Ch'in. Once, ten years before, he had put the young boy across his knee and spanked him for his impertinence, and when Han Ch'in had gone before his father to complain, the T'ang had merely laughed, then, growing stern, had ordered the punishment repeated, so that the lesson should be learned. Since that time Han Ch'in had known better than to argue with his tutor.

"Three things," began Shi-we. "Discipline, patience, and control. Without them even a good fighter is certain to lose. With them"—the tutor lifted his head proudly, the muscles of his neck standing out like ridges of rock—"the good becomes the supreme."

There was a noise in the doorway. Without turning Shiao Shi-we lifted a hand. "Please wait there a moment, Yuan. I must finish talking to your brother."

Li Yuan made a tiny bow to the instructor's back, amazed, as ever, that the old man could tell, without looking, who it was behind him. Each man has his own sounds, he'd once said. How he moves, who he is—these things can be distinguished as distinctively as the grain of a man's skin, the identifying pigmentation of the retina. Still yourself, listen, learn to tell the sound of friend from that of your enemy, and such skills might one day save your life.

So it might be, but try as he had, Li Yuan had found he could not distinguish the sound of his brother from that of one of his servants. If it's a skill, he thought, it's one few men possess. Better then to have a good man at one's back.

Li Yuan looked past Shiao Shi-we at his brother. Han Ch'in had his head lowered and there was a slight color in his cheeks. What has Han done now? he wondered, knowing how impulsive he was. Has he "died" again?

Master Shiao sniffed loudly, then pointed to Han's left. "Position."

Han moved at once, standing where he had been only a minute or so before, facing the assassin. Shiao Shi-we gave a slight nod, then positioned himself in front of his pupil. "Discipline," he said, crouching down and rubbing at his thighs, warming himself up. "Patience." He straightened, then twisted at the waist to left and right, relaxing the muscles there. "And control."

Without warning Shiao Shi-we launched himself at Han Ch'in.

Li Yuan gasped, startled by the abruptness of Shiao Shi-we's attack. But Han had moved back and away, and Shi-we's fist merely glanced the side of his face. Had it connected it would have broken his nose.

Han Ch'in moved back quickly, breathing heavily, clearly shaken by the violence of the attack. Yet he made no complaint. Crouching, flexing his body, he prepared himself for the next attack, calming his breathing, repeating the triad in his mind. Discipline. Patience. Control.

The next assault was like nothing either boy had ever seen before. Shiao Shi-we ran at Han in a zigzag, almost lunatic manner, his movements like those of an automaton. And as he ran a strange, unsettling scream came from his widely opened mouth.

Through half-lidded eyes Han Ch'in watched him come and, at the last moment, ducked and came up under the older man, tossing him into the air, then turned to face him again.

"Excellent!" Shiao Shi-we was on his feet, unharmed. He smiled momentarily, then grimaced as he threw himself at Han again.

So it went on, Shiao Shi-we attacking wildly, Han Ch'in defending, until, with a suddenness that was as surprising as the first attack, the old man backed off, bowing deeply.

"Good!" he said, looking at his pupil with pride. "Now go and bathe. Young Yuan must have his hour."

Han bowed and did as he was bid. Li Yuan turned, watching him go, then turned back, facing Master Shiao.

"You could have killed him," he said softly, still shocked by what he had seen.

Shiao Shi-we looked away, more thoughtful than Li Yuan had ever seen him before. "Yes," he said finally. "I could have, had he not fought so well."

"Well, Chen, will you come to bed?"

Wang Ti pulled back the cover and patted the space beside her on the bed. Chen had been silent all day, angry with her for her intervention. She had understood and had gone about her business patiently, but now it was evening and Jyan was asleep. Now he would have to talk to her. She would not have him lie beside her still angry with her, his innermost thoughts un-purged.

"Well, husband?"

He turned, looking across at her in the faint light of the single lamp, then looked down, shaking his head.

So. She would have to be the one to talk.

"You're angry with me still?"

He did not look at her, merely nodded. His whole body was stiff and awkward, shaped by the words he was holding back. She sat up, unfastening her hair, letting the covers fall from her breasts.

"You would have said no."

He looked at her mutely, looked away, then looked back again, his eyes drawn to her breasts, her shoulders. Meeting her eyes, he sighed and shrugged.

"You would have said no. And then you would have felt trapped. Bitter. With me. With Jyan. I would have had to watch your joy in us turn to sourness."

He began to shake his head but she was insistent, her voice soft yet firm.

"It is so, Kao Chen. I know it is so. You think I could live with you this long and not know it?"

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"I knew. Understand? Knew you were kwai."

Chen's eyes were wide. "You knew? When? How?"

She patted the bed beside her. "When I first met you. I knew at once. Even before my father told me."

Chen crossed the room and sat beside her. "Your father? He knew as well?"

"Oh, Chen. You think we didn't know at once? One look at you was enough. You were like a bird let out of its cage. We knew from the first that you weren't born in these levels. And as for your papers..."

Chen looked down at her hand where it lay above the bedclothes and covered it with his own. "And yet you married me. Why, if you knew?"

She hesitated, then took his other hand. "You met Grandfather Ling?"

Chen nodded, remembering the wizened, gray-haired old man who had sat silently at the back of the room when he had negotiated for Wang Ti's hand. He recalled how the old man's eyes had followed his every movement.

"Yes. I remember Wang Ling. What of him?"

Wang Ti smiled. "He was kwai. Like you. And, like you, he came up from the Net."

Chen laughed, astonished. "And you say your father knew."

"He made . . . inquiries."

Chen shook his head, astonished. "Inquiries . . . and none of you minded? You, Wang Ti . . . you knew and yet you didn't mind what I was or where I'd come from?"

She drew him closer, her face only a hand's width from his own, her dark eyes looking deeply into his. "You are a good man, Kao Chen. I knew that from the first moment I set eyes on you. But this last year I've seen you suffer, seen you put bit and bridle on, and my heart has bled for you."

She shook her head, her teeth momentarily clenched between parted lips. "No, Chen, the big man was right. You are not a warehouseman."

He shivered, then, slowly, nodded to himself. "Then it is as you said, Wang Ti. I will be kwai again."

Wang Ti laughed softly, then drew Chen down beside her, drawing the sheet back to expose her nakedness. "Ah, you foolish man. Don't you understand me yet? To me you have always been kwai."

She reached down, freeing his penis from the folds of the cloth and taking it firmly in her hand. "Here, give me your knife, I'll sheathe it for you."

THE GENERAL leaned across the huge scale model of the Tzu Chin Ch'eng, the Purple Forbidden City, indicating the group of buildings gathered about the Yu Hua Yuan, the Imperial Gardens.

"We could close the Shen Wu Gate and the Shun Ch'en Gate and cut off the six eastern palaces and the six western palaces, here and here. That would make things easier."

Shepherd came around him and looked at the two huge gates at the rear of the Imperial City for a moment, then nodded.

"Yes. But why stop at that? Why not seal the whole of that area off? That way we could concentrate on a much smaller area. In fact, why not seal off everything we're not going to use? Close the Hung I Ko and the Tijen Ko too. Confine the lesser guests to the space between the Meridian Gate and the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Likewise, confine those special guests who will attend the second ceremony to the Inner City and the Imperial Gardens."

Tolonen shook his head. "Not possible, I'm afraid. Li Shai Tung has prepared a banquet for the lesser guests outside the Arrow Pavilion. He would lose face if he had to cancel that."

Shepherd put his hand to his neck, rubbing away the tiredness. He had barely slept these last three days. And now this. He looked at the model, realizing once again how difficult Tolonen's task was. The Ku Kung, the Imperial Palace, was composed of almost nine thousand buildings and measured more than two li in length, one and a half in width. It covered fifteen hundred mou—almost two hundred and fifty acres in the old measure. Even if they sealed off everything he had suggested, it still meant policing over five hundred mou.

He looked up from the glass-covered model to the original. They had set the table up in the center of the courtyard in front of the Ta'i Ho Tien, the Hall of Supreme Harmony. In less than twelve hours the whole of this huge open space would be packed with courtiers and guests, servants and Security. He turned, looking back toward the Gate of Supreme Harmony and, beyond it, the five white bridges crossing the Golden Water. Would something happen here today? Would their enemies succeed? Or could they stop them?

They had talked late into the .night, he, Li Shai Tung, and Tolonen, knowing that the thing they had found—the "copy" of Klaus Ebert—signified something hugely important. Copies of living individuals—it was something the Seven had long feared would happen, ban or no, and while the Edict carried the strictest penalties for straying from its guidelines in respect to human genetic technology, there had been numerous cases over the years where scientific curiosity had overcome the fear of punishment. Now those harsh measures were vindicated. With such copies in the world who could feel safe in their own body? Who could be trusted?

It was only two days since Wyatt's execution and the shock of that still reverberated around the world. It might be that the Dispersionists planned to answer that. But it was more likely that they had set things in motion long before, hoping to maximize the impact of their scheme by striking when the whole of Chung Kuo was watching.

"The gods be thanked we found the thing in time," Tblonen had said, showing the T'ang the holo of the copy Ebert. "At least we know what we're looking for now." But Shepherd had had his doubts. What if it'was a blind? What if all of this were some huge diversionary tactic, designed to make them look elsewhere while the real attack took place? "Would they waste two hundred million yuan on a decoy?" Tolonen had asked him, and he had answered yes. A thousand million. Two thousand. Whatever it took to make them look elsewhere. But the T'ang had agreed with his General. It was a fortunate accident, Ebert returning to his office when he did, and anyway, the thing was too good a likeness to throw away so casually. It was clear that they had meant to kill Ebert and then penetrate the inner sanctum of the Imperial City. There would be others; Li Shai Tung was certain of it. They would set up the gates and check each guest as he entered. And not only guests, but Family and Seven too. For the good of all.

"We'll see," Shepherd had said, bowing low, accepting his T'ang's final word. But he had been thinking, And what if there are no further copies? What if they plan to strike some other way?

Tolonen had been considering his suggestion about sealing off parts of the Imperial City; now he broke into his thoughts. "Maybe you're right, Hal. It would be no great task to seal off the whole of the western side of the City, likewise this part here in the northeast. There's enough room here by the southern kitchens to take the overspill and it won't interfere with the banquet."

Shepherd yawned, then laughed. "Best do it quick, Knut, before we all nod off."

The General stared at him a moment, then laughed. "Yes. Of course. I'm sorry, Hal. Would you like something to pep you up? My adjutant could fetch you something."

Shepherd shook his head. "Thank you, but no. I don't believe in tablets. They bugger my system. No, I'll sleep when it's all over."

"As you will." The General hesitated, then reached out and took Shepherd's arm. "Are you feeling real?"

Shepherd laughed. "Real enough. Whys that?"

"The gates are ready. I wanted to test one of them. Will you come through with me?"

"Of course. Lead on."

At the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Shepherd stopped and let his eyes stray upward. Only one li away the blank, pearled walls of City Asia began, climbing two U into the heavens like the sheer face of a huge glacier, surrounding the ancient capital on every side. This, he reminded himself, was the center of it all—the very heart of Chung Kuo. Where it had all begun one hundred and eighteen years ago. These had been the first stacks to be built, constructed to his great-great-grandfather's design. Three hundred levels high, they towered over the old Imperial City. Yet, turning, looking back, he could not decide which was the greater. The new City was a magnificent achievement, yet did it have even a fragment of the grandeur, the sheer, breathtaking splendor of the Forbidden City?

No. Not the least part.

The gates had been set up in the space between the two Cities. Six lines of them, linked by a mazelike series of corridors, open to the air. It was a hasty, crude-looking arrangement. At various intersections between corridors watchtowers had been set up on stilts overhead, from which both manual and computerized guns pointed downward.

"They'll not like that," Shepherd said, turning to Tolonen.

"No. I'm afraid they won't. But for once they'll have to put up with it."

Shepherd shook his head sadly. It was bad. Particularly after the execution. It would give the impression that they were entering a new, more brutal era. What ought to be a day of celebration would, for many, take on far more ominous overtones.

But whose fault was that? What other option had they?

"You really think you'll catch some of these copies?"

The General smiled bleakly. "I'm certain of it, Hal. You think I'm wrong, I know. Well, it's possible I am. Anything's possible. Which is why I've prepared for a hundred other unpleasant eventualities. An assault from the air. Bombs. Assassins among my own elite guards. Poison in the food. Snipers. Treachery in a hundred different guises. I've read my history. I know how many ways a king can be killed."

Tolonen's granite face showed a momentary tiredness. "I've done dreadful things to safeguard my T'ang, Hal. Awful, necessary things."

Yes, Tolonen thought. Like the killing of the fifteen men who designed these security gates. Fifteen more to add to the vast tally against my name. Good men, too. But their deaths were necessary. To safeguard the Seven. Because without the Seven...

He shuddered and pushed the thought away, then began to walk toward the gates. Shepherd fell in beside him, silent now, deep in thought. As they approached the nearest of the gates the elite guards came to attention, shouldering their arms.

"Where's the duty officer?"

"Here, General." The elite squad captain hurried up, then came to attention, bowing formally to both men. "We're almost done, sir. Only another twenty or so to test."

"Good. Then you'll show us to one of the secure rooms. I want to show the T'ang's chief advisor what we've prepared."

The captain hesitated, about to say something, then bowed again. "Of course, sir. Please, follow me."

They went to one of the larger gates. Steps led up inside. Behind a curtain was a richly upholstered chair. Surrounding the chair was a whole array of the most up-to-date medical equipment.

"I'm impressed," said Shepherd, looking about him and touching various instruments familiarly. "It all seems very thorough."

The General nodded to the medical technician who had hastily joined them and, without ceremony, began to strip off. "I'll go first. Then you."

Shepherd smiled. "Of course."

There was a slight hiss from behind the curtain, then the sound of a wheel being spun.

"Now we're sealed in. If I'm not who I claim to be—if I'm a fake—then this whole cabin will be filled with a highly toxic gas."

Shepherd laughed. "Then I'll pray you are who you say you are."

Tolonen nodded, then dropped his trousers and stepped out of his webbed pants.

"You've some interesting scars, Knut."

Tolonen looked down, then laughed. "Ah, yes. Believe it or not I got that from a woman. A she-cat she was." He smiled and met Shepherd's eyes. "Ah, but that was long ago. Forty years now."

He sat in the armchair and let himself be wired up. The technician busied himself about him, visibly nervous that he should be called upon to test the T'ang's General.

The first tests were simple body scans. Then he was fingerprinted, his retinal patterns checked and his genotype taken.

The General looked up at Shepherd calmly. "If they're like the Ebert copy then these first few tests should catch them. But I'm taking no chances. Anyway, while we're testing for fakes, we can test for other things—psychological indoctrination and drugs."

"It must have been, hard for Klaus."

"He took it very badly."

Shepherd looked away momentarily. "It must be hard to see yourself like that. Dead. Opened up like a sack of meat. Your own face white and cold."

Tolonen said nothing for a moment, then nodded solemnly. "Yes. Anyway ..."

The technician had been waiting, listening to their talk. Now he pulled a large, dome-shaped machine down from above the General's head.

Tolonen explained. "It's basically a HeadStim. But it's been rewired to monitor bodily responses. It flashes images at me—

holograms of senior Family members—and monitors my pulse rate and heartbeat. Any abnormalities register on the telltale screen that side."

He reached round the machine as the technician fastened it about his head, and tapped the tiny black screen there.

"It also provides a full brain-scan."

Shepherd looked at it thoughtfully. "As I said. Very thorough. If any more of these things exist, you ought to get them."

The General made no answer. The test had begun. The technician glanced nervously at Shepherd, then busied himself again. Shepherd understood at once. If they found even one of these copies it would be neutralized immediately. That was good. But the unlucky technician who was in the secure room with it would be neutralized too.

"I shouldn't worry," Shepherd said reassuringly. "I doubt if any more of them exist."

Outside, beyond the great walls of the City, the sun was rising over Pei Ching. The new day—the day of Han Ch'in's wedding—had begun.

MARIA STOOD in the doorway, looking in at her husband. Josef Krenek was dressing, his back to her. She watched him pull the new silk pau about him and fasten it with the cord. Then, and only then, did he turn and answer her.

"What is it, Maria? Can't you see I'm getting ready?"

She had dressed an hour back and had been waiting ever since for him to wake and dress so that she might talk with him.

"It's your brother, Josef. I think he's ill. He hasn't eaten for days, and when I went to wake him there was no answer from his room. He's locked himself in and there's no reply, either from him or from Irina."

Krenek groaned. His brother Henryk and his wife had arrived three days ago from Mars and were due to leave tomorrow, after the wedding. All four were guests of the Tang, with seats at table before the great Arrow Pavilion. But if Henryk was ill...

Krenek pushed past his wife irritably and strode purposefully down the corridor. Stopping before one of the doors he hesitated, then knocked hard.

"Henryk! Are you all right?"

Almost at once the door slid open. His brother stood there, dressed, his midnight-blue velvet ma k'ua, or ceremonial jacket, tightly buttoned, his dark hair combed back severely from his brow.

"Josef. . . what do you want?"

Krenek bowed slightly, acknowledging his elder brother's status. He had returned from Mars only three days ago, newly promoted to Senior Representative of the colony.

"Maria was worried for you. She—"

Henryk Krenek smiled, returning to a lesser degree his brother's bow. His tall, regal-looking wife, Irina, had come across and now stood behind him. Henryk looked past his brother at his brother's wife.

"I'm sorry, Maria, but it was a secret. A gift for my young brother. For being such a good host to us these last three days."

Josef beamed with delight. "It is you who honor me, brother."

"Ah, maybe . . . Even so." Henryk half turned, looking at his wife, then turned back to face his brother. "Perhaps you'd like to come in, Josef? Maria, you'll excuse us a moment?"

Maria bowed low. "I've still much to do, Henryk. I'm sorry I disturbed you with my foolish fears." Her cheeks red, she backed away, then turned and fled down the corridor.

Henryk watched her a moment, then turned and went inside, locking the door behind him.

"Well, brother. . ." he said, turning to face Josef. And even as he said the words he saw Irina come up behind the man and pull the cord tight about his neck, dragging him down with a strange, inhuman strength.

SERVANTS MADE their k'o t'ou as Han Ch'in entered the Chien Cfung Kung, the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Rows of tables had been set up the length and breadth of the great hall. Thousands of tables, filling the space between the pillars. Cloths of imperial yellow covered every table and on each was piled a great heap of wedding gifts.

Han Ch'in looked about him, then ventured into the dimness of the hall. At once two of the servants hastened to accompany the Prince, one going before him, the other just behind, each carrying a simple oil lantern on a long pole. It was a tradition that these halls remained unlit by modern power sources: a tradition no one sought to change.

Han Ch'in strode about, examining things, then turned, his face and shoulders lit from above, his dark eyes shining wetly. His shadows stretched away from him on either side, like ghostly dancers, dark and long and thin, flickering in the uneven light. "Yuan! Come! Look at this!"

Li Yuan had paused in the tall doorway, staring up at the richly decorated ceiling. This was his first visit to the Imperial City and he was astonished by its sheer opulence. Their own palaces were so small by comparison, so mean, despite their luxury. This was grandeur on an unimaginable scale. Was beauty almost to excess. He sighed and shook his head. Beauty, yes, and yet this beauty had its darker side. He knew his history: had learned how the Ch'ing—the Manchus—who ruled from here for two centuries and more, had fallen, weighed down by their own venality and pride and ignorance. This palace—indeed, this city of palaces—had been built on suffering. On injustice and exploitation.

The history of Chung Kuo—it was a succession of dreams and disappointments; vast cycles of grandeur followed by decadence. It was as if a great wheel turned through time itself, ineluctable, raising men up, then hurling them down, to be crushed, together with their dreams of peace or further conquest. So it had been, for three thousand years and more, but it was to end such excess that the City had been built. To end the great wheel's brutal turn and bring about the dream of ten thousand peaceful years.

But was the great wheel turning once again, imperceptible beneath the ice? Or had it already come full circle? Were they the new Ch'ing, destined in their turn to fall?

"Yuan!" Han stood there beside one of the tables, looking back at him. "Stop daydreaming and come here! Look at this!"

Li Yuan looked across, then, smiling, went over to him, a servant lighting his way.

Han Ch'in handed him the model of the horse. "It's beautiful,

isn't it? All the gifts from the more important guests have been put on display at this end. The horse is from the Pei family."

Li Yuan turned it in his hands, then handed it back. It was solid gold. "It's very heavy, isn't it?"

Han laughed. "Not as heavy as the silver phoenix .the House of Representatives has sent as its gift. You should see it! It's enormous! It took eight men to carry it in here!"

Li Yuan looked around him, staring into the shadows on every side. The tables seemed to stretch away forever, each piled with a small fortune of wedding gifts. "There's no end to it, is there?"

Han shook his head, a strange expression in his eyes. "No." He laughed uneasily. "It's astonishing. There are more than eight million items. Did you know that, Yuan? They've been cataloguing them for weeks now. And still more are arriving all the time. The secretarial department are working all hours just sending out letters to thank people. In fact, it's got so bad they've had to take on an extra ten thousand men in the department!"

Han was silent a moment, looking out into the shadowed body of the hall, the torchlight flickering in his dark hair. Then he turned, looking directly at Yuan. "You know, I was thinking, tin..."

Li Yuan smiled at the familiar term. "Young brother," it meant. Yet between them it was like a special name. A term of love.

"You, thinking?"

Han Ch'in smiled, then looked away again, a more thoughtful expression on his face than usual. "Look at it all. It fills this hall and five others. Fills them to overflowing. And yet if I were to spend from now until the end of my days simply looking at these things, picking them up and touching them. . ." He shook his head, then looked down. "It seems such a waste, somehow. I'd never get to look at half of it, would I?"

He was silent a moment, then put the horse back. "There are so many things here."

Li Yuan studied his brother a moment. So it affects you, too, this place. You look about you and you think, how like the Ai Hsin Chiao Lo—the Manchu-—-we are, and yet how different. But then you ask, in what way different? And you worry, lest your excesses be like theirs. He smiled, a faint shiver running down his spine. Oh, Han Ch'in, how I love you for that part of you that worries. That part of you that would be a good T'ang— that feels its responsibilities so sharply. Don't change, dear elder brother. Don't ever forget the worries that plague you, for they are you—are all that's truly good in you.

Han Ch'in had moved on. Now he was studying one of the big tapestries that were hung against the side wall. Li Yuan came and stood beside him. For a moment they were both silent, looking up through the uneven, wavering lamplight at the brightly colored landscape, then Han knelt and put his arm about Yuan's shoulders.

"You know, Yuan, there are times when I wish I wasn't heir." His voice was a whisper now. "Sometimes all I want is to give it all away and be normal. Do you understand?"

Li Yuan nodded. "I understand well enough. You are like all men, Han. You want most that which you cannot have."

Han was quiet a moment, then he shook his head. "No. You don't understand. I want it because I want it. Not because I can't have it."

"And Fei Yen? What about Fei Yen? Would you give her up? Would you give up your horse? Your fine clothes? The palaces outside the City? You would really give up all of that?"

Han stared straight ahead, his face set. "Yes. Sometimes I think I would."

Li Yuan turned, looking into his brother's face. "And sometimes I think you're mad, elder brother. The world's too complex. It would not be so simple for you. Anyway, no man ever gets what he truly wants."

Han turned his head and looked at him closely. "And what do you want, ti ti?"

Li Yuan looked down, a slight color in his cheeks. "We ought to be going. Father will be looking for us."

Han Ch'in stood, then watched Li Yuan move back between the tables toward the great doorway, the servant following with his lantern. No, he thought, you don't understand me at all, little brother. For once you don't see the drift of my words.

The thought had grown in him this last year. At first it had been a fancy—something to amuse himself with. But now,

today, it seemed quite clear to him. He would refuse it. Would stand down. Would kneel before his younger brother.

Why not? he thought. Why does it have to be me?

Li Yuan, then. Han smiled and nodded to himself. Yes. So it would be. Li Yuan would be T'ang, not Li Han Ch'in. And he would be a great T'ang. Perhaps the greatest of all. And he, Li Han Ch'in, would be proud of him.

Yes. So it would be. So he would insist it was.

MARIA KRENEK bowed abjectly, conscious that her husband, Josef, had already moved on. "I am deeply sorry, Madam Yu. My husband is not himself today. I am certain he meant nothing by it."

Madam Yu raised her fan stiffly, her face dark with fury, dismissing the smaller woman. She turned to the two men at her side.

"How dare he stare through me like that, as if he didn't know me! I'll see that haughty bastard barred from decent company! That'll take him down a few levels! Now his brother is representative for Mars he thinks he can snub who he likes. Well! We'll see, eh?"

Maria backed away, appalled by what she had heard. Madam Yu was not a woman to make an enemy of. She had entry to the Minor Families. Her gatherings were an essential part of life in the Above—and she herself the means by which one man came to meet another to their mutual benefit. She had destroyed bigger men than Josef Krenek, and now she would destroy him.

"Josef!" she said, softly but urgently, catching up with her husband and taking his arm. "What were you thinking? Go back and kneel before her. For all our sakes, please, go and kneel to her. Say you're sorry. Please, Josef!"

He looked down at her hand on his arm, then across to his brother and his wife. Then, astonishingly, he threw her arm off.

"Go home, Maria. Now! This moment!"

Her mouth gaped. Then, blushing deeply, humiliated beyond anything she had ever known before, Maria turned and ran.

NOCENZi's VOICE sounded urgently in the General's head. "Knut! I've got something!"

The General was standing beside the back entrance to one of the secure rooms. They had just unsealed it and brought out the thing that had tried to get through their screen. Like the others it was disturbingly human—better than the Ebert copy. Different. Far more complex. As if the Ebert copy had been an attempt to throw them off the trail.

"What is it, Vittorio?"

"I've checked the incomings at Nanking against the guest list. And guess what?"

"They're coming in from Mars."

"That's right."

"All of them?"

They had caught eight of the copies so far. Eight! It frightened him to think what might have happened if they had not discovered the fake Ebert. But unlike the "Ebert" these were armed. They were walking arsenals, their weaponry concealed inside their flesh. Just two of them could have caused havoc if they had got through. But eight. . . .

Nocenzi hesitated, getting confirmation, then, "Every one of them so far."

Tolonen knelt over the dead thing, then drew his knife and cut the silks open, revealing its torso. This one was a young woman of seventeen, the daughter of a leading businessman from the Brache settlement. He was waiting inside the Forbidden City, unaware that his daughter had been murdered months ago and replaced by this thing. Tolonen shuddered, trying not to let his emotions cloud his thinking. This was a bad day. A very bad day. But it could have been far worse.

He hesitated, then cut into one of the breasts. Blood welled and ran down the smooth flank of the thing. Tolonen steeled himself and cut again, pulling the flesh apart to reveal the hard, protective case beneath. Yes, it was like the other ones. They all had this protective casing over their essential organs and beneath the facial flesh. As if whoever had made them had designed them to withstand heavy fire: to last long enough to do maximum damage.

"Listen, Vittorio. I want you to get files on all the Mars col-

onists we haven't checked yet and get an elite squad to pick them out before they get to the gates. I want one of them alive, understand?"

Alive. . . . His flesh crawled. Functional, I mean. These things were never alive. Not in any real way.

He got up, signaling to the technicians to take the thing away.

"And, Vittorio. Warn your men these things are dangerous. Perhaps the most dangerous thing they've ever had to face."

AS SOON AS he stepped out into the space between the Cities, Josef Krenek knew something was wrong. Guests were queuing to pass through what seemed like checkpoints. Checkpoints which shouldn't have been there. Beside him Henryk and Irina were unaware that anything was amiss. But then they wouldn't be: their programing was far simpler than his own.

He looked about him, trying to gauge the situation. Three-man elite squads were moving slowly down the lines of people, checking IDs. Farther off, above what seemed like some kind of rat run, they had set up guard towers.

They know we're here, he thought at once. Those gates are screens.

Casually he drew Henryk and Irina back, away from the queue, as if they had left something in the reception hall. Then, in an urgent whisper, he told them what he thought was happening.

"What shall we do?" Henryk's cold, clear eyes searched Josef's for an answer. "WeVe no instructions for this."

Josef answered him immediately. "I want you to go out there, Henryk. I want you to go up to one of those squads and ask them why you have to stand in line. I want you to find out what they're looking for. Okay?"

"What if they're looking for me? What if they try to arrest me?"

Josef smiled coldly. "Then you'll bring them over here."

He watched Henryk walk out and greet them and saw at once how the soldiers reacted. He heard their shouted questions, then saw Henryk turn and point back to where he stood beside Irina.

Ah, well, the part of him that was DeVore thought, it could have worked. Could have worked beautifully. Imagine it! The twelve of them climbing the marble steps, death at their fingertips, the Families falling like leaves before them!

He smiled and turned to Irina. "Do nothing until I say. I'm going to try to get through all of that." He indicated the rat run of screens and corridors and guard towers. "But not directly. With any luck they'll take me through. If not. . ."

Henryk came up and stood before them, one of the elite Security guards holding his arm loosely. Other squads were hurrying from elsewhere, heading toward them.

"What seems to be the problem, Captain?" Josef said, facing the officer calmly.

"For you, sir, nothing. But I'm afraid your brother and his wife must accompany me. I've orders to detain all Mars colonists."

Josef hid his surprise. Why not me? he wondered. Then he understood. They've seen the Mars connection. But I wasn't brought in that way. I was here already. The first to come. The linchpin of the scheme.

"Oh, dear," he said, looking at Henryk, concerned. "Still, I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding, eldest brother. We had best do as these men say, yes? Until we can sort things out."

The Captain shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but my orders are to take Mars colonists only."

"But surely, Captain"—for a moment he was Josef Krenek at his most unctuous; as if persuading a client to buy a new product range—"you must allow me to accompany my elder brother and his wife. There are laws about unjust detention and the right of representation. Or have they been repealed?"

The Captain hesitated, listening to orders in his head, then gave a curt nod. "I'm told you can come along, Shih Krenek. But please, don't interfere. This is an important matter. I'm certain we can settle it quite quickly."

Krenek smiled and followed them silently. Yes, I'm certain we can. But not here. Not yet.

THE GENERAL looked through the one-way glass at the men and women crowded into the small room.

"Well?" he asked. "Is that the last of the colonists?"

Nocenzi nodded. "Every last one. Sixty-two in all."

Tolonen stroked his chin thoughtfully, then turned and looked directly at his Major. "Can we set up a gate here? I want to trace any remaining copy-humans. But I don't want them terminated. Understand?"

Nocenzi nodded. "My .men are working on it already."

"Good." His first instinct had been to gas all the copies, but they needed one in functional order. To trace it back. To find out where these things came from and get to the men behind them.

"What percentage of the colonists have proved to be these things?"

Nocenzi looked to his lieutenant, who bowed and answered for him. "Nine from three hundred and eighteen. So just under three percent."

Tolonen looked back into the room. So if the percentage was constant that meant there was at least one, maybe two, of the things in there. But how did you tell? They were indistinguishable to the naked eye.

"At least they're not booby-trapped," Nocenzi said, coming closer and standing beside him at the glass. "Think of the damage they could have done if they had been. If I'd built them I'd have made them tamper proof. More than that, I'd have made them a bit less docile. Not one of them queried going into the secure rooms. It's as if they weren't programed for it. Yet they must have had pretty complex programing for them to keep up appearances, let alone come here. They must have had a plan of some kind."

Tblonen started, then turned to face his Major. "Of course! Why didn't I see it before?" He laughed shortly, then shivered. "Don't you see, Vittorio? Twelve of them. One of them the linchpin, the strategist, holding it all in his head, the others with the bare outlines of what they have to do, but no sense of the larger strategy."

Nocenzi understood at once. "An elite attack squad. Like our own Security squads. Functioning in the same way."

"Yes!" Tolonen said, elated. "That explains why they were so docile. They only needed a certain amount of programing. They were just following orders. But one of them—one of the 'people' in that room—is the linchpin. The strategist."

DeVore. It all led back to DeVore. His hand behind all of this. His thinking. His elite training.

"There'll be three of them, I warrant you. Two soldiers and a strategist. It's the last I want. The linchpin. The others will know nothing. But that one . . ."

But even as he said the words he saw it. Saw the two of them meet in the center of the room and touch and spark, blue veins of electric current forming in the air about them.

"Down!" he yelled, throwing himself to the floor as the room beyond the mirror filled with blinding light.

And then the ceiling fell on them.

KRENEK KNELT and bowed his head, his empty hands placed palm down on his thighs, fingers pointed inward, his whole stance mimicking the tens of thousands surrounding him. Then he straightened, studying the group of people gathered at the top of the steps directly in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Fei Yen's father, Yin Tsu, and his family were to the left, Li Shai Tung and his to the right. Beneath them, on the steps themselves, the seven New Confucian officials bowed and chanted the ancient ceremonial words.

He looked right, then left, then bowed his head again, as others did surrounding him. Guards were everywhere, armed and watchful. GenSyn, many of them, no doubt. Unquestioning, obedient creatures. Reliable. Predictable.

Krenek smiled. So different from me, he thought. They made me better than that. More devious. More human.

But there was still a problem. He was too far back. Had even two of the others been here it might still have worked. But now?

He looked about him, calculating distances, gauging where they were weak, where strong, running high-probability scenarios through his head until he saw it clear. Then, and only then, did he establish his plan. I'll have fifteen seconds. Eighteen at most. I can make it halfway there by then. They'll protect the T'ang and the T'ang's sons. Or try to. But they'll also try to protect Yin Tsu and Fei Yen. That will split their attention.

Yes, but they'd expect him to try to take the Pang. That's where they would concentrate their defenses. Again he smiled, the DeVore part of him remembering his elite training. He could see how they'd do it, forming a screen of bodies in front of him, two guards dragging him back, making the smallest possible target of him. And if seriously threatened they'd open fire, killing anything that came at them, innocent or otherwise.

But he would not attack the T'ang. Nor Han Ch'in. He'd strike where they least expected. Li Yuan would be his target. As he'd always been.

DeVore's words rang clear in his head. "Kill the brain and the beast will fall. Li Shai Tung is old, Han Ch'in incompetent. Only Li Yuan, the youngest, is a threat to us. Get Han Ch'in if you can. Kill the T'ang if you must. But make sure Li Yuan is dead. With him gone the House of Li will not last long."

He waited, knowing the time was fast approaching. Any moment now the saffron-robed officials would turn, facing them, and the vast crowd would rise as one to roar their approval of the marriage. It was then that he'd move forward, using their packed bodies as a screen. He would have five seconds, and then they would kneel again.

Yes, he thought, visualizing it clearly now. He could see himself running, fire blazing from his ruined hands. Could smell the crowd's blind panic, hear the ear-shattering stutter of the crossfire. And then, before his eyes closed finally, he would see the T'ang's son sprawled out on the marble, facedown, blood streaming from a dozen separate wounds.

Yes, he thought. Yes. Seconds from now.

There was a sudden lapse in the singsong incantation. As one the officials turned and faced the crowd. As one the vast crowd rose to its feet.

He made to move forward and felt himself jarred to a halt, then lifted from his feet. Two great hands tore at his chest, two hugely muscled arms pinned his own arms to his sides, slowly crushing him.

"Going somewhere, Mister Krenek?"

KARR THREW down the lifeless carcass of the thing, then came to attention before Tolonen.

"I don't know what happened, sir. One moment it was fine. The next it was like this."

Tblonen got up unsteadily from his chair and came over to where the thing lay. His chest and arm had been strapped tightly and, despite the painkilling drugs, he was finding it difficult to breathe easily. He had cracked two ribs and dislocated his shoulder. Otherwise he'd been very lucky. Luckier than Nocenzi. The Major was even now in intensive care, fighting for his life.

Now, cleaned up and in new dress uniform, the empty left sleeve pinned loosely to the tunic, Tolonen was back in charge. Looking at the copy he felt all his anger rise to the surface again.

"Who let this through? Who authorized the closure of the gates?"

Karr lowered his head slightly. "It was Marshal Kirov, sir. He assumed the explosion in the room killed the last of the copies. It was getting late, and there were still thousands of guests to be processed—"

"Damn it!" Tolonen's chest rose and fell sharply and a flicker of pain crossed his face. How could Kirov be so foolish? How could he risk the T'ang's life so idiotically? So a few thousand guests were inconvenienced—what was that beside the survival of a T'ang?

Kirov was nominally his superior. He had been elected Marshal by the Council of Generals only six months back and in the emergency had been right to step in and take command, but what he had done was inexcusable.

Tolonen shuddered. "Thank you, Karr. I'll deal with things from here."

He watched the big man go, aware that, on his own initiative, Karr had probably saved the T'ang. He alone had thought to get the copy of the tape showing what had happened in the room. He alone had identified from the files the two who had "joined" to such devastating effect. Then he alone had traced the brother, Josef Krenek, understanding what he was and what he planned.

Thank the gods, Tolonen thought. This time we've beaten them.

Tolonen lifted the dead thing's face with the toe of his boot,

then let it fall again. A perfect likeness, this one. The best of them all, perhaps. It was a pity. Now they would never know.

He turned from the body and signaled to his adjutant. At once the young man came across and helped him back to his chair.

"Tell Major Kroger to take over." he said, putting the chair into gear. "I must see Li Shai Tung at once."

IT WAS EVENING. The sunfc last rays had climbed the eastern wall and left the Yu Hua Yuan, transforming the garden of the Imperial City into a huge square dish of shadows. Brightly colored paper lanterns lit the bamboo grove and hung from lines above the lotus-strewn pools and in the eaves of the teahouses. Caged birds sang their sweet, drug-induced songs in the gnarled and ancient branches of the junipers. Below, servants went among the guests with wine and cordials and trays of delicacies, while shoo lin guards stood back against the walls and among the rocks like ghosts.

Li Yuan, looking down on it all from the height of the marble terrace, smiled. All ceremony was done with now. Below him, to his right, the wedding party moved among the guests informally, Han Ch'in talking excitedly, Fei Yen silent, demurely bowing at his side.

He saw his father laugh and reach out to pick a single white blossom from Han's dark hair, then turn to whisper something to his uncle, Li Yun-Ti. There was a gay, almost lighthearted atmosphere to things; a feeling of relief that things had turned out as they had. Yet only an hour earlier things had been very different. Li Yuan had been there at his father's interview with the General.

He had never seen the General so angry. It had taken all his father's skill to calm Tolonen down and persuade him not to confront Kirov himself. But he had seen how shaken his father was to have been proved so conclusively right about the "copies"; how outraged at Kirov's stupidity. His face had been rigidly controlled as he faced his General.

"I ask you to do nothing, Knut. Leave this to me. Kirov is Wei Feng's man. I shall speak with Wei Feng at once."

He had been as good as his word. Yuan leaned out and looked down. Tolonen sat there now in his chair, directly below him, subdued, talking to his fellow generals. Kirov was not among them.

Wei Feng, T'ang of East Asia, had been distraught. The thought that his General had almost cost the lives of a fellow T'ang and his family was more than he could bear. He had turned angrily on Kirov and torn the chi (ing patch, symbol of the Marshal's status as a military officer of the first rank, from his chest, before taking the ceremonial dagger from Kirov's belt and throwing it down.

"You are nothing," he had said to the now prostrate Marshal, tears of anger in his eyes. "And your family is nothing. You have shamed me, Kirov. Now go. Get out of my sight."

News had come only minutes later that Kirov had committed suicide; his son, a major under his command, seconding him before he, too, had killed himself.

Han Ch'in, meanwhile, knew nothing of these things. No shadows were to fall upon his nuptial bed.

"Let them be innocent of this," his father had said, taking Li Yuan's arm as they made their way back to the Yu Hua 'Yuan. "For if the seed is strong it will take root and grow a son."

A son. . . . Yuan looked back at them. They were closer now—almost below where he stood. He could see them clearly now. Fei Yen was breathtaking. Her dark hair had been plaited with golden threads and bows and tiny orchids, then curled into a tight bun on the top of her head, revealing a pale gold, swanlike neck. She was so delicate. Her ears, her nose, the lines of her cheekbones; all these were exquisite. And yet there was fire in her bright, hazel eyes; strength in her chin and mouth. She stood there at Han's side in an attitude of obedience, yet she seemed to wear the cloth of crimson and gold as if born to it. Though her head was tilted forward in the ritual stance of passive acceptance, there was a power to her still form that contradicted it. This bird, this flying swallow, was a proud one. She would need her wings clipped before she settled.

He looked from Fei Yen to his brother, seeing how flushed Han was. How his eyes would take small sips of her; each time surprised by her, each time astonished she was his. In this, as in so many things, Han was his junior. So much surprised him. So much evaded his grasp. "It's easy for you, ti Yuan," he had once said. "You were born old. It all comes new to me."

It would be an interesting match, he thought. A love match. The strongest kind of power and the hardest to control. She would be Fire to his Earth, Earth to his Fire.

Li Yuan laughed, then turned and went down quickly, his hard-soled ceremonial shoes clattering on the wooden slats, his long-sleeved silks billowing out behind him as he ran. Down, down, and straight into the arms of his brother-in-law, Pei Chao Yang.

Chao Yang, eldest son and heir to the Pei family, one of the Twenty Nine, the Minor Families, was standing at the edge of the decorative rockpile, beside the pavilion. His father, Pei Ro-hen, who stood nearby, was a bondsman of Li Shai Tung and a childhood friend of the T'ang. Almost fifty years ago they had shared a tutor. Then, eight years back, they had brought their families much closer, when Chao Yang had married the Tang's second daughter.

"Here, Yuan! . . . Slow down, boy!"

Chao Yang held on to Li Yuan's arm a moment, getting down onto his haunches and smiling good-naturedly at him, teasing him.

"What is it, little Yuan? Is your bladder troubling you again? Or has one of the little maids made you a promise, eh?"

He winked and let Li Yuan go, watching him run off down the narrow, tree-lined path and through the small gate that led down to the Lodge of Nature-Nourishment. Then, realizing the newlyweds were almost on him, he straightened up, turning toward them.

Chao Yang was a tall, handsome man in his mid-thirties; the product of his father's first marriage. Easygoing, intelligent, and with a reputation for knowing how to enliven a dull occasion, he was welcomed in all the palaces and had had Above tongues wagging many times with his reputed intrigues. His own wives, three in number, stood behind him now as he was introduced to the newlyweds. With smiles and bows he summoned each for-

ward in turn, his senior wife, Ye Chun, Han's natural sister, first to be presented. That duty done, he was free to make less formal conversation.

"It's good to see you again, Chao Yang," said Han Ch'in, shaking his hands vigorously. "You should come visit us once we've settled in. I hear you like to ride."

Chao Yang bowed deeply. "I am honored, Li Han Ch'in. I'd like to ride with you." Then, leaning closer, he lowered his voice. "Tonight, however, you ride alone, eh?"

Han Ch'in roared with laughter. "Trust you, Chao Yang! You would lower the tone at a funeral."

Chao Yang laughed. "That depends on what was being buried, eh, my young friend?"

He saw Fei Yen lower her eyes to hide her amusement and smiled inwardly as he bowed to her. But as he straightened he experienced a slight giddiness and had to take a step backward, steadying himself. He had been feeling strange all day. Earlier, dressing himself, he had reached out to take a hairbrush from the table next to him. But his hand had closed on nothing. He had frowned and turned his head away, surprised. But when he had looked again, he had seen that there really was nothing on the table. He had imagined the brush. At the time he had shaken his head and laughed, in self-mockery, but he had been disturbed as well as amused.

Chao Yang bowed once more to the couple, then watched them move away, conscious of Han Ch'in's nervousness, of Fei Yen's beauty. The latter stirred him greatly—he could taste her perfume on his tongue, imagine the olive pallor of her flesh beneath the gold and crimson cloth. Again he smiled. No. Best not even think what he was thinking, lest in wine such thoughts slipped out, betraying him.

Han had stopped a few paces on. For a moment Chao Yang studied the side of his face in the lantern light, noticing how the shape of Han's ear and chin and neck were like those of his wife, Ye Chun. Then something peculiar began to happen. Slowly the flesh about the ear began to flow, the ear itself to melt and change, the skin shriveling up like a heated film of plastic, curling back to reveal, beneath, a hard, silvered thing of wires and metal.

Chao Yang staggered back, horrified, gagging.

"Han Ch'in ..." he gasped, his voice a whisper. "Han Ch'in!"

But it wasn't Han Ch'in.

Chao Yang cried out, his senses tormented by the smell of burning plastic, the odor of machine oils and heated wiring. For the briefest moment he hesitated, appalled by what he saw, then he lurched forward and threw himself at the thing, grasping it from behind, tugging hard at the place where the false flesh had peeled back. He faltered momentarily as Fei Yen leapt at him, clawing at his eyes, but he kicked out at her brutally, maintaining his grip on the machine, dragging it down, his knee in its back. Then something gave and he was rewarded with the sweet burning smell of mechanical malfunction.

The thing gave a single, oddly human cry. Then nothing.

Now, as it lay in his arms, it felt strangely soft, curiously warm. Such a perfect illusion. No wonder it had fooled everyone.

He let the thing slide from him and looked about, seeing the expression of horror on the faces surrounding him. So they had seen it too. He smiled reassurance but the oddness, that strange feeling of forgetfulness, was returning to him. He tried to smile but a curious warmth budded, then blossomed in his skull.

Pei Chao Yang knelt there a moment longer, his eyes glazed, then fell forward onto his face, dead.

T O L O N E N had moved away, toward the steps, when it be-gan. The first scream made him turn the chair, his heart pounding, and look back to where the sound had come from, his view obscured by trees and bushes. Then he was up out of the chair and running, ignoring the pain in his side, the life-link stuttering, faltering in his head. The screams and shouting had risen to a crescendo now. Shoo lin were running from every side, their swords drawn and raised, looking about them urgently. With one arm Tolonen pushed through the crowd, grimacing against the pain in his chest and shoulder each time someone banged against him.

Abruptly the life-link cut out. He tapped the connection in his head, appalled, then stumbled on, his mind in turmoil.

What had happened? What in the gods' names had happened? His heart raced painfully in his chest. Let it all be a mistake, he pleaded silently, pushing through the last few people at the front. Let it all be a malfunction in the relay. But he knew it wasn't.

He looked around him, wide eyed, trying to take in what had happened. Fei Yen lay off to one side, clutching her side and gasping, in extreme pain, one of her maids tending to her. A few paces from her lay Han Ch'in.

"Medics!" Tblonen yelled, horrified by the sight of Han lying there so lifelessly. "In the gods' names get some medics here! Now!"

Almost at once two uniformed men appeared and knelt either side of Han Ch'in. One ripped Han's tunic open and began to press down urgently on his chest with both hands while the other felt for a pulse.

Tolonen stood over them, his despair almost tearing him apart. He had seen enough dead men to know how hopeless things were. Han lay there in an unnatural pose, his spine snapped, his neck broken.

After a moment one of them looked up, his face ashen. "The Lord Han is dead, General. There is nothing we can do for him."

Tolonen shuddered violently. "Get a life-preservation unit here. Now! I want him taken to the special unit. The T'ang's own surgeons will see to him at once!"

He turned and looked down at the other body, knowing at once who it was. Gods! he thought, pained by the sight of his godson, Pei Chao Yang. Is there no end to this? He looked about him anxiously, searching the faces of the onlookers.

"Who did this? Who saw what happened?"

There was a babble of contesting voices. Then one came clear to him. Fei Yen's. "It was Chao Yang," she said, struggling to get the words out. "Chao Yang was—was the killer."

Tolonen whirled about, confused. Pei Chao Yang! No! It couldn't be! It was impossible!

Or was it?

Quickly he summoned two of the shoo tin and had them turn Chao Yang over. Then he took a knife from one of them and knelt over the body, slitting open Chao Yang's tunic. For a second or two he hesitated, then he plunged the knife into the chest and drew it to left and right.

His knife met only flesh and bone. Blood welled out over his hands. He dropped the knife, horrified, then looked across at Fei Yen.

"You're certain?"

She lowered her head. "I am."

There was a commotion just behind her as the crowd parted. Li Shai Tung stood there, his horror-filled eyes taking in the scene. Those near to him fell back slowly, their heads bowed.

"Chieh Hsia," Tolonen began, getting up. "I beg you to return to your place of safety. We don't know—"

The Tang raised a hand to silence him.

"He's dead?"

Li Shai Tung's face was awful to see. He had lifted his chin in that familiar way he had when giving orders, but now he was barely in command, even of himself. A faint tremor in the muscles at his neck betrayed the inner struggle. His lips were pinched with pain, and his eyes . . .

Tolonen shuddered and looked down. "I am afraid so, Chieh Hsia."

"And the killer?"

The General swallowed. "I don't know, Chieh Hsia. It seems—"

Fei Yen interrupted him. "It was ... Pei Chao Yang."

The T'ang's mouth opened slightly and he nodded. "Ah ... I see." He made to say something more, then seemed to forget.

Tolonen looked up again. He could hardly bear to meet the T'ang's eyes. For the first time in his life he knew he had let his master down. He knelt, his head bowed low, and drew his ceremonial dagger, offering its handle to the T'ang in a gesture that said quite clearly, My life is yours.

There was silence for a moment, then the T'ang came forward and put his hand on Tolonen's-shoulder. "Stand up, Knut. Please, stand up."

There was anguish in Li Shai Tung's voice, a deep pain that cut right through Tolonen and made him tremble. He had caused this pain. His failure had caused it. He stood slowly, feeling his years, his head still bowed, the dagger still offered.

"Put it away, old friend. Put it away."

He met the T'ang's eyes again. Yes, there was grief there—an awful, heavy grief. But behind it was something else. An acceptance of events. As if Li Shai Tung had expected this. As if he had gambled and lost, knowing all the while that he might lose.

"The fault is mine," Li Shai Tung said, anticipating the General. "I knew the risks." He shivered, then looked down. "There has been death enough today. And I need you, Knut. I need your knowledge, your ability, your fierce loyalty to me."

He was silent a moment, struggling to keep control, then he looked up again, meeting Tolonen's eyes. "After all, Knut, I have another son. He'll need you too."

More rrtedics came, wheeling a trolley. The General and T'ang stood there a moment in silence, watching as they placed Han Ch'in in the unit and sealed the lid. Both knew the futility of the gesture. Nothing would bring Han back now. When Li Shai Tung turned to face Tblonen again, his fists were clenched at his sides. His face was a mask of pain and patience.

"Find out who did this. Find out how they did it. Then come to me. Do not act without my order, Knut. Do not take it on yourself to avenge me." He shivered, watching the medics wheel the trolley past. "Han must not die in vain. His death must mean something."

Tolonen saw that the T'ang could say no more. He was at his limit now. His face showed signs of crumpling and there was a fierce movement about the eyes and beneath the mouth that revealed the true depths of what he was feeling. He made a brief, dismissive gesture of his hand, then turned away.

The General sheathed his dagger and turned to face the guests. Already the news of Han Ch'in's death would be spreading through the levels of Chung Kuo. And somewhere, he was certain, a group of men would be celebrating: smiling cruelly and raising their glasses to each other.

Somewhere. . . . Tblonen shuddered, grief giving way to anger in him. He would find the bastards. Find them and kill them. Every last one of them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kim's Game

THEY HAD sedated the boy and moved him to the observation center on the island of Corsica, three thousand Ji distant. There they cleaned and inoculated him, and put him in a cell.

It was a bare, unfurnished cell, a cube fifteen ch'i to a side. The ceiling was lost in the darkness overhead and there was no door, though a small window high up in one of the smooth, dark walls suggested that there was at least a way outside. From ceiling and window came a faint glow, barely enough to warrant the name of light, while from the center of the ceiling hung a six-eyed camera on a long, flexible neck.

The boy huddled against the wall beneath the window, staring up at the camera, his face both curious and hostile. He did not move, for when he did the camera would turn to follow him, like something living, two of its eyes focused constantly on him. He knew this because he had experimented with it; just as he had tried to climb the wall beneath the window.

In an adjacent room a man sat at a control desk, watching the boy on a screen. Behind him stood another. Both men were dressed in identical, tight-fitting suits of black. A fine gauze mesh of white was stretched across each of their faces like masks, showing only the eyes with their ebony lenses.

For a time there was nothing. Then the boy spoke.

"Bos agas pen gweder? Bos eno enawy py plas why dos mes?"

The seated man translated for the benefit of the other. "Is your head made of glass? Is there light where you come from?"

T'ai Cho laughed. He was growing to like the boy. He was so quick, so bright. It was almost a pleasure to be his partner in these sessions. He half turned, looking up at the standing man, who grunted noncommittally.

"I need to see more, T'ai Cho. Some clear sign of what he's capable of."

T'ai Cho nodded, then turned back to the screen. "Ef bos enawy," he answered pleasantly. He be light, it meant, translated literally, though its sense was It is fight. "Pur enawy," he went on. Very light. "Re rak why gordhaf whath, edrek." Too much for you to endure, I'm sorry. "Mes bos hebask. A-brys why mynnes gweles py plas my dos mes." But be patient. In good time you witt see where I come from.

The boy considered, then nodded, as if satisfied. "Da," he said. Good.

"What is that language?" asked the standing man. His name was Andersen and he was Director of the Project. It was T'ai Cho's job to convince him that his candidate was worth spending time and money on, for this was a department of the T'ang's government, and even government departments had to show a profit.

"Old Cornish," said T'ai Cho, half turning in his seat, but still watching the screen. "It's a bastardized, pidgin version, almost devoid of tenses. Its grammatical structure is copycat English."

He knew much more but held his tongue, knowing his superior's habitual impatience. They had been brave men, those few thousand who had formed the kingdom of Kernow back in the first years of the City. Brave, intelligent men. But they had not known how awful life would be in the Clay. They had not conceived what vast transforming pressures would be brought to bear on them. Intelligence had knelt before necessity and the weight of all that life stacked up above them, out of reach. They had reverted. Regressed ten thousand years in as many days. Back to the days of flint and bone. Back to the age of stone. Now only the ragged tatters of their chosen language remained, its sounds as twisted as the bodies of their children's children's children.

Andersen leaned forward and tapped the screen with his long fingernails. "I want something conclusive. Something I can show to our sponsors. Something we can sell."

T'ai Cho's eyes left the screen a moment, meeting Andersen's eyes. He had a gut instinct about this one. Something told him that this one was different from the rest: was, perhaps, what the Project had been set up to find. But "something conclusive"— could he get that? The Director's eyes were inexpressive.

"I'll try," T'ai Cho said after a moment. "Tomorrow, first thing."

Andersen nodded curtly and turned away. "Tomorrow, then."

TOMORROW BEGAN early. T'ai Cho was up at fifth bell and at his post, watching the sleeping boy. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he increased the lighting in the cell. It was the boys fourth day here, but, like all those brought up from the Clay, he had no real conception of time. Day and night were as one down there, equally dark.

Slowly he would be taught otherwise. Would learn the patterns of the world above.

When he had first arrived they had placed food and drink in his cell. On waking he had seen it at once, but had merely sniffed then left the two bowls untouched. On the second day, however, hunger and thirst had overcome his fear and he had eaten wolfishly.

T'ai Cho had seen this many times before. He had logged eight years in Recruitment and seen more than a dozen of his candidates through Assessment into Socialization. But never, until now, had he felt such conviction about a candidate. There was something about this one. A charisma, if that were possible in such a scraggy, scrawny creature. A powerful, almost tangible sense of potentiality.

They were pitiful to watch in the first few days. Most were like trapped animals gnawing at their bonds. Some went mad and tried to kill themselves. Some went into coma. In either case there was a simple procedure to be followed. A matter of policy. At the touch of a button on the control desk the cell would be filled with a deadly, fast-acting gas. It would be over in seconds.

Kim, however, had quickly overcome his initial fear. When nothing had happened to him, he had begun to explore his cell methodically, growing in confidence as each hour passed and he remained unharmed. Curiosity had begun to have the upper hand in his nature. The material of the walls, the watching camera, the waste vent, the manufacture of the bowls—each had been subjected to an intense scrutiny; to an investigation that was, T'ai Cho thought, almost scientific in its thorough' ness. Yet when T'ai Cho spoke to the boy he saw at once just how fragile that confidence was. The boy froze in midaction, the hair rising from his flesh, then scurried back to his comer and crouched there, shaking, his big, round eyes wide with terror.

T'ai Cho had seen cleverness before, and cunning was second nature to these children from the Clay, but there was something more than cleverness or cunning here. It was not simply that the boy was bright, numerate, and curious—there were clear signs of something more.

Many factors seemed to militate against the development of real intelligence in the Clay, malnutrition chief among them. When existence was stripped down to its bare bones, the first thing lost was the civilizing aspect of abstract thought. And yet in some it surfaced even so.

In the last year, however, the Project had been under scrutiny from factions in the House who wanted to close it down. Their arguments were familiar ones. The Project was expensive. Twice in the last five years it had failed to show a profit. Nor did the fact that they had extended their network beneath the whole of City Europe mollify their critics. Why did they need the Project in the first place? At most it had produced five thousand useful men in twenty years, and what was that in the context of the greater scientific community? Nothing. Or as good as nothing.

In his darker moments T'ai Cho had to agree with them. After a day in which he had had to flood the cell with gas, he would return uplevel to his apartment and wonder why they bothered. There was so much inbreeding, so much physical suffering, such a vast break in the chain of knowledge down there. At times these seemed insurmountable barriers to the development of intelligence. The Clay was a nightmare made real. Was ti yu, the "earth-prison"—the world beneath the earth; the place of demons. Down there intelligence had devolved into a killer's cunning, blunted by a barbarous language that had no room for broader concepts. If he thought of it in those terms, what he did seemed little more than a game. A salving of conscience, maybe, but no more than that.

So they all felt, at times. But that feeling didn't last. T'ai Cho had killed maybe a hundred boys like Kim, knowing it was best—pitying them for the poor trapped creatures they were; knowing they had no future, above or below. And yet he had seen the light of intelligence flash in their eyes: eyes that, by rights, should have been simply dull or feral. And each time it had seemed a miracle of sorts, beyond simple understanding. Each time it gave lie to those who said the Clay bred true: that environment and genetics were olf there was. No, there was more than that.

It was a thing none of them mentioned; almost a kind of heresy. Yet there was not one of them who didn't feel it. Not one who didn't know exactly what it was that informed and inspired their work here.

Man was more than the plastic of his flesh and the keyboard of his senses. More than a carrier of genetic codes. To mankind alone was the diffuse and evasive spark of individuality given. It seemed a paradox, yet it was so. Each time they "saved" one from the Clay it reaffirmed their faith in this. Man was more thanpo; more than the animal soul, the flesh that rotted in the ground at death. There was a spirit soul, a /urn.

There, that was it. The unuttered thought they shared. A him.

And so they did their work, trawling the dark depths for those special souls whose eyes flashed with the spark of life itself. Each one miraculous. Each one an-affirmation. "We make a profit; provide a service for the companies," they would argue, when put to it. But the real reason they hid from others. It was their dark vocational secret.

He began. At his order a uniformed mech entered the room and set a tray down on the floor beside the sleeping boy. On the tray were a number of different objects, covered by a thin black cloth.

The room was sealed again. T'ai Cho waited. An hour passed.

When Kim woke he saw the tray at once. He paused, abruptly alert, fully awake, the hairs on his neck bristling. He lifted his head, sniffing the air, then circled the tray slowly. With his back against the wall he stopped and looked up at the camera, a definite question in his dark eyes.

"Pyn an jawl us wharfedhys?" What now?

T'ai Cho, watching, smiled, then leaned forward and tapped out a code on the intercom in front of him.

There was a pause, then Andersen's voice came back to him. "What is it, T'ai Cho?"

"I think this will interest you, sir. I'm with the boy. I think you should see this for yourself."

Andersen hesitated, then agreed. He cut the connection.

T'ai Cho sat back in his chair, watching.

The boy's gaze went between the camera and the tray, then settled on the tray. Slowly, almost timidly, he moved closer. He looked up, his brow deeply furrowed, his big round eyes filled with suspicion. Then, with a quick, sudden movement, he flicked the cloth aside.

It was a standard test a'nd T'ai Cho had witnessed this moment fifty, maybe a hundred times. He had seen boys sniff and paw and try to taste the objects, then ignore them or play with them in a totally uncomprehending manner, but this time it was different. Yes, totally different from anything he had seen before. He watched in silence, aware all the while of the Director watching at his side.

"This is wrong, surely? This is supposed to be a memory game, isn't it?"

The Director reached out to switch on the intercom, but T'ai Cho put his hand in the way, turning to look up at him,

"Please. Not yet. Watch what he does."

The Director hesitated, then nodded. "But what exactly is he doing?"

T'ai Cho turned back to the screen and smiled to himself. "He's doing what he does all the time. He's changing the rules."

At first the boy did not lift any of the objects but moved them about on the tray as if to get a better idea of what they were. Then, working with what seemed like purpose, he began to combine several of the objects. A small hand mirror, a length of plastic tubing, and a twine of string. His hands moved quickly, cleverly, and in a moment he had what looked like a child's toy. He took it to the wall beneath the window and raised it to his eye, trying to see outward. Failing, he sat down with the thing he had made and patiently took it apart.

The two men watched the screen, fascinated, seeing how the boy positioned his hand before the mirror and tilted it slowly, studying what effect it had on the image. Then, as if satisfied, he returned to the tray and took a heavier object in one hand. He hefted it a moment, thoughtfully, then reached for a second object and placed them at his side.

Scurrying across the floor, he retrieved the discarded cloth and laid it out on the floor of the cell. Then he placed the mirror facedown on top of it. He laid the carved block halfway across the mirror, taking care with its positioning, then struck the back of the block firmly with the torch.

He picked the two halves of the hand mirror up carefully, checking the sharpness of their edges with his thumb. T'ai Cho, watching, moved his hand instinctively toward the touchpad, ready to fill the cell with gas should the boy do anything rash. But Kim was not out to harm himself. Using the edge of the mirror he cut the twine into four pieces, then began to reconstruct his toy, placing a piece of glass at each end of the tube. He tested the angles of the glass five times before he was satisfied, then tightened the twine and went to the window again. This time he should be able to see out.

Andersen leaned forward. "Do you think he's seen this done before?"

"Where? In the Clay?" T'ai Cho laughed, then turned to look up at Andersen. "No. This is all first time for him. An experiment. Just think of how we learn things. How, as children, we watch others and copy them. How we have to be taught even the most basic of skills. But Kim's not like that. He has no one to copy. He's never had anyone to copy. It's all had to come from within his own mind. That's why it's so astonishing, what he does. Can't you see it? He treats the world like something new. Something yet to be put together."

The boy took the makeshift periscope from his eyes and sat down slowly, clearly disappointed by what he had seen. Then he tilted back his head and spoke into the darkness overhead.

"Pandra vyth gwres?" Where am I?

He waited, but when no answer came he threw the viewing tube away from him and let his head fall onto his chest, as if exhausted.

T'ai Cho turned and looked up at the Director. "Well?"

Andersen stood there a moment longer, staring down into the screen, then looked back at T'ai Cho. "All right. I'll get a six-month contract drawn up this afternoon."

Beneath his white gauze mask T'ai Cho smiled. "Then I'll start at once?"

The Director hesitated, then nodded curtly. His eyes, usually so lifeless, seemed thoughtful, even, perhaps, surprised.

"Yes," he said finally. "Begin at once. But let me know immediately if anything of interest happens."

AN HOUR LATER Andersen was at his desk. The directive he had been warned was on its way had now arrived. It lay there on the desk before him. Two months he had. Two months to turn things around. And the new financial targets they had given him were four times the size of the old ones.

He laughed bitterly. It would need a miracle. He hadn't a chance of meeting the old targets, let alone these new figures. No—someone higher up had decided to pull the plug on the Project, he was certain of it. This was political.

Andersen leaned forward and spoke into his intercom. "Send through a standard contract. Six-month term. For the new boy, Kim."

He sat back again. A miracle. . . . Well, maybe T'ai Cho was right. Maybe the boy was special. But would his specialty translate into cash? Anyway, he didn't pin his hopes too greatly on it. Six months? If the Project folded Kim would be dead in two. He and a hundred others like him.

"Politics!" he muttered, wondering who was behind this latest directive and what he could do to get the deadline extended— who he could contact to get things changed. Then, as the contract slid from the desktop printer he leaned forward and took his brush from the ink block, signing the Mandarin form of his name with a flourish at the bottom of the page.

THE VIEWING TUBE lay where Kim had thrown it, the lower mirror dislodged from the shaft, the twine hanging loose. Kim sat there, perfectly still, his arms wrapped about his knees, his head tucked down between his legs, waiting.

He heard it first. Sensed a vague movement in the air. He scuttled back, then crouched beneath the wall, wide eyed, the hair rising on the back of his neck. Then, as the facing wall began to peel back from the center, he cried out.

What had been the wall was now an open space. Beyond the opening was a room the same as the one in which he sat. Inside, behind a narrow barrier of wood, sat a giant. A giant with a face of bone-white glass.

The giant stood, then began to come around the wall. Kim cried out again and tried to back away, but there was nowhere to run. He looked about him desperately, yelping, urine streaming down his legs.

And then the giant spoke.

"Ow hanow bos T'ai Cho. My bos an den kewsel yn why." My name be T'ai Cho. I be the man talk to you.

The giant fell silent, then came into the room and stood there, his hands out at his sides, empty. It was a gesture designed to say, Look, 1 am no threat to you, but the man was almost twice as tall as the tallest man Kim had ever seen. He was like the gods Kim had seen in the Clay that time, yet his limbs and body were as black as the earth, his eyes like dark jewels in the pure, glassy whiteness of his face.

It was a cruel face. A face that seemed curiously at odds with the soft reassurance of the voice.

Kim drew back his teeth and snarled.

And then the giant did something unexpected. It knelt down. It was still taller than Kim, but it was less threatening now. Keeping its arms out at its sides, it spoke again.

"My golyas why, Kim." I watch you, Kim. "My gweles pandra why canna obery." I see what you can do. "Why a-vyn bewa a-ughof?" Do you want to live up above?

Slowly the darkness deep within him ebbed away. He took a breath, then answered. "My a-vyn." I want to.

The giant nodded. "Da. Ena why gweres-vy." Good. Then you help me. "Bysy yu dheugh obery pandra my kewsel." You must do what I say.

The giant reached up and removed the flesh from his face. Beneath it he wore a second face, the mouth of which smiled redly, showing perfect teeth. His inner mouth. So he was not made of glass at all.

Kim thought about what the giant had said. It seemed too all inclusive. He shook his head. "Ny puptra." Not everything.

The giant nodded. This time the words came from his inner mouth. The other flesh hung loose about his chin. "Ny puptra. Mes moyha taclow." Not everything. But most things. "May ef gul styr." When it makes meaning.

He considered that. It did not commit him to much. "Da," he said softly.

"Flowr," said the giant, smiling again. Perfect. "Ena bysy yu dheugh gortheby onen tra a-dherak pup ken." Then you must answer me one thing before all else. "Pyu dysky why fatel nyvera?" Who teach you how to count?

ANDERSEN SAT behind his desk, studying T'ai Cho's report. It was the end of the first week of Assessment. Normally there would have been a further seventeen weeks of patient observation, but T'ai Cho had asked for matters to be expedited. Andersen had agreed readily. Only that morning he had spoken to the first secretary of one of the junior ministers and been told that his request for a referral hearing had been turned down. Which meant that the directive was final. Yet things were not all bad. He had been busy this last week.

He looked up and grunted. "Good," he said simply, then pushed the file aside. "I'll countersign my recommendation. The board sits tomorrow. I'll put it before them then."

T'ai Cho smiled and nodded his gratitude.

"Off the record," Andersen continued, leaning forward over the desktop, "how high do you rate his potential? You say here that you think he's a genius. That can mean many things. I want something I can sell. Something that will impress a top executive."

"It's all in there," said T'ai Cho, indicating the file. "He has an eidetic memory. Neat perfect recall. And the ability to comprehend and use complex concepts within moments of first encountering them. Add to that a profound, almost frightening grasp of mathematics and linguistics."

The Director nodded. "All excellent, T'ai Cho, but that's not quite what I mean. They can build machines that can do all that. What can he do that a machine can't?"

It was an odd thing to ask. The question had never arisen before. Hut then there had never been a candidate quite like Kim. He was already fluent in basic English and had assimilated the basics of algebra and logic as if they were chunks of meat to be swallowed down and digested.

The Director sat back and turned slightly in his chair, looking away from T'ai Cho. "Let me explain the situation. Then you might understand why I'm asking."

He glanced at the operative and smiled. "You're good at your job, T'ai Cho, and I respect your evaluation. But my viewpoint is different from yours. It has to be. I have to justify the continuation of this whole operation. I have to report to a board that reports back to the House itself. And the House is concerned with two things only. One—does the Recruitment Project make a profit? Two—is it recruiting the right material for the marketplace?"

He held up a hand, as if to counter some argument T'ai Cho was about to put forward. "Now I know that might sound harsh and unidealistic, but it's how things are."

T'ai Cho nodded but said nothing.

"Anyway, things are like this. At present I have firm approaches from five major companies. Three have signed contracts for auction options when the time comes. I expect the other two to sign shortly."

T'ai Cho's eyes widened with surprise. "An auction?"

Andersen raised one hand. "However. . . if he is what you say he is, then we could fund the whole of this program for a year, maybe more. That's if we can get the right deal. If we can get one of the big companies to sign an exclusive rights contract."

T'ai Cho shook his head, astonished now. An exclusive rights contract! Then the director wasn't talking of a normal sponsorship but about something huge. Something between two and five million yuan! No wonder he wanted something more than was in the report. But what could he, T'ai Cho, offer in that vein?

"I don't know—" he began, then stopped. There was something Kim could do that a machine couldn't. He could invent. He could take two things and make a third of them.

"Well?" said Andersen. "Say I'm head of SimFic. How would you convince me to hand over twenty million yuan in exchange for a small boy, genius or not?"

T'ai Cho swallowed. Twenty million yuan! He frowned, concentrating on the problem he had been set, "Well, he connects things . . . things we'd normally consider unconnected." He looked down, trying to capture in words just what it was that made Kim so special. "But it's more than that. Much more. He doesn't just learn and remember and calculate, he creates. New ideas. Wholly new ideas. He looks at things in ways we've never thought of looking at them before."

"Such as?"

T'ai Cho shrugged. It was so hard to define, to pinpoint, but he knew this was what made Kim so different. It wasn't just his ability to memorize or his quickness, it was something beyond those. And because it was happening all the time it was hard to extract and say "he does this." It was his very mode of thought. He was constantly inventive.

T'ai Cho laughed. "Do you know anything about astronomy?"

"A little." Andersen stared at him strangely. "Is this relevant, T'ai Cho?"

T'ai Cho nodded. "You know what a nova is?"

Andersen shrugged. "Refresh my memory."

"A nova is an old star that collapses into itself and in doing so explodes and throws out vast quantities of energy and light. Well, Kim's a kind of nova. I'm tempted to say a supernova. It's like there's some dense darkness at the very center of him,

sucking all knowledge down into itself then throwing it all back out as light. Brilliant, blinding light."

Andersen shook his head. "Old stars. ... Is there nothing more practical?"

T'ai Cho leaned forward, earnest now. "Why don't you bring him here, your head of SimFic? Show him the boy. Let him bring his own experts, make his own assessments—set his own tests. He'll be astonished, I guarantee you."

"Maybe," Andersen muttered, putting his hand up to his mouth. Then he repeated the word more strongly. "Maybe. You know, that's not so bad an idea after all."

T'AI CHO put his request in the next day, expecting it to be turned down out of hand. Within the hour, however, he had received notification, under the Director's hand, with full board approval. He was to be transferred from Assessment to S and I— Socialization and Indoctrination—for an eighteen-month tour of duty. And he was to be directly responsible for the new candidate, Kim Ward.

Normally personal involvement was frowned upon. It was seen as necessary to make a clean break between each section, but the Director had convinced the board that this was a special case. And they had agreed, recognizing the importance of nurturing the boy's abilities, though perhaps the thought of twenty million yuan—a figure mentioned unofficially and wholly off the record—had proved an additional incentive to break with tradition just this once. Thus it was that T'ai Cho took Kim up the five levels to Socialization and helped him settle into his new rooms.

AWEEK LATER T'ai Cho found himself at the lectern in a small hexagonal lecture room. The room was lit only at its center, and then by the dimmest of lamps. Three boys sat at a distance from each other, forming a triangle at the heart of which was the spiderish shape of a trivee. T'ai Cho stood in the shadows behind the smallest of the boys, operating the image control.

It was a lecture about Chung Kuo and City Earth. Images of the vast hivelike structure appeared and then vanished. Exteriors, cutaways, sections. The first glimpse these children had ever had of the environment built above the Clay.

As T'ai Cho talked his way through the sequence of images he wondered whether they ever dreamed themselves back there, beneath the vast, overtowering pile of the City. How strange that would be. How would they feel? Like bugs beneath a house, perhaps. Yes, looking at these images even he felt awed; How, then, did it strike them? For this was their first sight of it—their first glimpse of how insignificant they were: how small the individual, how vast the species, Man. A City covering the Earth like a glacier, broken only by ocean and mountain and plantations. A species almost forty billion strong.

Yes, he could see the awe in the faces of the two boys seated across from him. Their mouths were open wide in wonder and their eyes were screwed up, trying to take it all in. Then he glanced down at the small, dark-haired head just below his lectern and wondered what Kim was thinking.

"It's too big," Kim said suddenly.

T'ai Cho laughed. "It's exactly as big as it is. How can that be too big?"

"No." Kim turned and looked up at him, his dark eyes burning with intensity. The other boys were watching him carefully. "I didn't mean that. Just that it's too vast, too heavy a thing to stand on its pillars without either collapsing or sinking into the earth."

"Go on," said T'ai Cho, aware that something important was happening. It was like the construction of the viewing tube, but this time Kim was using concepts as his building blocks.

"Well, there are three hundred levels in most places, right?"

T'ai Cho nodded, careful not to interrupt.

"Well, on each of those levels there must be thousands, perhaps millions, of people. With all their necessities. Food, clothing, transportation, water, machines. Lots of machines." Kim laughed softly. "It's ridiculous. It just can't be. It's too heavy. Too big. IVe seen for myself how small the pillars are on which it all rests."

"And yet it is," said T'ai Cho, surprised by that single word small and what it implied. Kim had grasped at once what the others had failed even to see: the true perspectives of the City. His imagination had embraced the scale of things at once. As if he'd always known. But this next was the crucial stage. Would Kim make the next leap of understanding?

T'ai Cho glanced across at the other boys. They were lost already. They hadn't even seen there was a problem.

"It exists?" Kim asked, puzzled. "Just as you've shown us?"

"Exactly. And you might also consider that there are vast factories and foundries and masses of other industrial machinery distributed among its many levels. At least one level in twenty is used for warehousing. And there are whole levels which are used to store water or process waste matter."

Kim's face creased into a frown of intense concentration. He seemed to stare at something directly in front of him, his brow puckering, his eyes, suddenly sharply focused.

"Well?" T'ai Cho prompted when the silence had extended uncomfortably.

Kim laughed. "You'll think I'm mad. ..."

"No. Try me."

"Well ... it must be something to do with its structure. But that can't be the whole of it." Kim seemed almost in pain now. His hands were clenched tightly and his eyes were wide and staring.

T'ai Cho held his breath. One step further. One small but vital step.

"Then it must be built of air. Or something as light as air but—but as tough as steel."

As light as air and as tough as steel. A substance as strong as the bonding between the atoms and so light that three hundred levels of it weighed a fraction of a single layer of clay bricks. A substance so essential to the existence of City Earth that its chemical name was rarely used. It was known simply as ice. Ice because, in its undecorated state, it looked as cold and fragile as the thinnest layer of frozen water. "Corrugated" layers of ice— only a few hundred molecules thick—formed the levels and walls of City Earth. Molded sheets of ice formed the basic materials of elevators and bolts, furniture and pipework, clothing and conduits, toys and tools. Its flexibility and versatility, its cheapness and durability, had meant that it had replaced most traditional materials.

City Earth was a vast palace of ice. A giant house of cards, each card so unbelievably thin that if folded down the whole thing would be no thicker than a single sheet of paper.

Slowly, piece by piece, T'ai Cho told Kim all of this, watching as the boy's face lit with an inner pleasure. Not air but ice! It made the boy laugh with delight.

"Then the pillars hold it down!" he said. "They keep it from flying away!"

SOREN BERDICHEV glanced up from the pile of papers he was signing.

"Well, Blake? You've seen the boy?"

His Head of Personnel hesitated long enough to make Ber-dichev look up again. Blake was clearly unhappy about something.

"He's no use to us, then?"

"Oh, quite the contrary, sir. He's everything the report made him out to be. Exceptional, sir. Quite exceptional."

Berdichev set the brush down on the inkstone and sat back, dismissing the secretary who had been hovering at his side.

"Then you've done as we agreed and purchased the boys contract?"

Blake shook his head. "I'm afraid not, sir."

"I don't understand you, Blake. Have you let one of our rivals buy the boy?"

"No, sir. Director Andersen offered us an exclusive rights contract."

"Then what's the problem? You offered him the sum I authorized? Five million yuan?"

"I did. . . ." Blake swallowed. "In fact, I raised the offer to eight million."

Berdichev smiled coldly. "I see. And you want me to sanction the increase?"

"No, sir. That's it, you see. Andersen turned me down flat."

"What?" Berdichev sat forward, his eyes, behind the tiny pebble glasses, wide with anger. "Eight million and he turned us down?"

"Yes, sir. He said he wanted twenty million minimum, or no contract."

Berdichev shook his head slowly, astonished. "And you walked away, I hope?"

Blake lowered his head. There was a definite color in his cheeks now. Berdichev leaned forward and yelled at him.

"Come on, man! Out with it! What's all this about?"

Blake looked up again, his whole manner hesitant now. "I—I promised Andersen I'd come back to you, sir. I said I'd ask you to agree to the deal."

"You what?" Berdichev laughed incredulously. "Twenty million yuan for a six-year-old boy? Are you mad, Blake?"

Blake met his eyes determinedly. "I believe he's worth it, sir. Every last jen of it. I would not have dared come back to you unless I believed that."

Berdichev shook his head. "No . . . twenty million. It's out of the question."

Blake came forward and leaned over the desk, pleading with his superior. "If only you saw him, sir—saw him for yourself— you'd understand. He's like nothing I've ever come across before. Voracious, he is—just hungry to learn things. Really, sir, if you'd only see him!"

Berdichev looked down at where Blake's hands rested on the edge of the desk. Blake removed them at once and took a step back, straightening up.

"Is that all, Blake?"

"Please, sir. If you'd reconsider. If you'd take the time—"

"You know that I haven't the time," he snapped back, irritated now by Blake's persistence. He picked up the brush angrily. "The murder of the T'ang's son has thrown everything into flux. The market's nervous and I have meetings all this week to calm things down. People need reassuring, and that takes time." He looked up at his Personnel Manager again, his face hard and angry. "No, Blake, I really haven't the time."

"Forgive me, sir, but I think you should make time in this instance."

Berdichev stared at Blake a moment, wondering whether he should dismiss him on the spot. But something cautioned him. Blake had never stepped out of line before—had never dared to contradict him in this manner. There must be good reason. He looked down at the pile of papers that awaited his signature, barely seeing them; calming himself, trying to see the thing clearly. Then he looked up again.

"You think he's worth it, then? Twenty million yuan! But what if he gets some childhood illness and dies? What if he has an accident? What if he proves to be one of these child prodigies who burns up before he's out of his adolescence? Twenty million yuan. It's a huge sum, even by our thinking."

Blake bowed his head, all humility now that he had got Berdichev to listen. "I agree, sir. But I've provisionally agreed to a six-stage payment. Twenty percent on signature, four two-yearly payments of ten percent, and forty percent on delivery of the boy to us at sixteen. There would also be provisions for claw-back in the case of death or accident. Our risk would be reduced substantially."

Berdichev considered a moment. This'was more like the Blake he knew and valued.

"Would you take a gamble, Blake?"

"How do you mean, sir?"

"Would you back up your hunch? Would you stake your job on me being impressed by the boy?"

Blake looked down, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "I think I already have."

"Kim! What in hell's name are you doing?"

Kim turned from the half-deconstructed trivee and smiled. T'ai Cho, horrified, rushed across the room and pulled him away from the machine.

"Kuan Yin! Don't you realize that that could kill you? There's enough power in that thing to fry you to a cinder!"

Kim shook his head. "Not now there isn't." He took T'ai Cho's hand, prized open the palm, and dropped something into it. T'ai Cho stared at the small, matt black rectangular tube for a ,moment, then, realizing what it was, dropped it as if it were red hot. It was the power core.

He knelt down and took Kim's upper arms in his hands, glaring at him, for the first time genuinely angry at the boy. "I forbid you to tinker with things this way! These machines can be lethal if mishandled. You're lucky to be alive!"

Again Kim shook his head. "No," he answered softly, clearly shaken by T'ai Cho's anger. "Not if you know what you are doing."

"And you know what you are doing, eh?"

"Yes. . . ." The small boy shivered and looked away.

T'ai Cho, whose anger had been fueled by his fear for Kim, found himself relenting, yet it was important to keep the boy from harming himself. He kept his voice stern, unyielding. "How did you know?"

Kim looked back at him, his wide, dark eyes piercing him with their strange intensity. "I asked the man—the maintenance engineer. He explained it all to me. He showed me how to take it all apart and put it back together. How it all functioned. What the principles were behind it."

T'ai Cho was silent for a moment. "When was this?"

Kim looked down. "This morning. Before the call."

T'ai Cho laughed. "Before the call?" The call was at six bells. Before then Kim's cell, like all the others, had been locked. "He came and saw you, then, this man? And had a trivee with him, conveniently?"

Kim shook his head, but said nothing.

"Tell me the truth, Kim. You were just tinkering, weren't you? Experimenting."

"Experimenting, yes. But not tinkering. I knew what I was doing. And I was telling you the truth, T'ai Cho. I'd never lie to you."

T'ai Cho sat back on his heels. "Then I don't understand you, Kim."

"I . . ." Kim looked up. The snow-pale flesh of his neck was strangely flushed. "I let myself out of the cell and came down here. The man was working here—servicing the machine."

T'ai Cho was quiet. He stared at Kim for a long while, then stood up. "You know that isn't possible, Kim. The locks are all electronically coded."

"I know," said Kim simply. "And a random factor generator changes the combination every day."

"Then you realize why I can't believe you."

"Yes. But I took the lock out."

T'ai Cho shook his head, exasperated now. "But you can't have, Kim! It would have registered as a malfunction. The alarm would have gone off over the door."

Kim was shaking his head. "No. That's not what I mean. I took the Jock out. The electronics are still there. I rigged them so that it would still register as locked when the door was pulled closed."

Still T'ai Cho was not convinced. "And what did you do all this with? The locking mechanism is delicate. Anyway, there's a maintenance plate covering the whole thing."

"Yes," said Kim, the color gone now from his neck. "That was the hardest part. Getting hold of these." He took a slender packet from his tunic pocket and handed it to T'ai Cho. It was a set of scalpel-fine tools.

"They're duplicates," said Kim. "The service engineer probably hasn't even missed them yet."

T'ai Cho stared at the tools a moment longer then looked back at Kim. "Heavens. . . ." he said softly. "So it's true?"

Kim nodded, the smile returned to his face. "It's as I said, T'ai Cho. I'd never lie to you."

DIRECTOR ANDERSEN bowed deeply as Berdichev came into his office. He had spent the morning reading the file on SimFic's owner and had been impressed by what he'd read. Here was a man who had taken his company from nowhere to the number eighteen slot on the Hang Seng Index in the short space of ten years. Now he was worth a reputed eighteen billion yuan. It was not a T'ang's ransom by any means, but it was enough to have satisfied any emperor of old.

"Your presence here honors us," he said, offering his chair.

Berdichev ignored his offer. "Where's the boy?" he said impatiently. "I'd like to see him. At once."

"Of course," said Andersen, looking to T'ai Cho, who was stan'ding just outside the doorway next to Blake. T'ai Cho bowed then turned away to prepare things.

Berdichev stared coldly at the director. "You'll ensure he doesn't know he's being watched?"

"Of course. It's how we always work here. There's a viewing room. My assistants will bring you refreshments—"

Berdichev cut him off sharply, the light glinting on his spectacles. "We'll not be taking refreshments. Just show me the boy, Director Andersen. I want to see why you feel you can insult me."

Andersen blanched. "I"—he bowed again, fear making his mouth dry—"I'll—I'll take you there at once."

THE TWO MACHINES had been left on the worktop, as the boy had asked. One was the MedFac trivee he had been working on earlier, the other a standard SimFic ArtMold IV. Between them lay a full technician's kit.

"What's this?" Berdichev asked, taking his seat at the observation window only an arm's length from the worktop's edge.

"They're what the boy asked for."

Andersen swallowed, praying that T'ai Cho was right about this. He alone knew just how much depended on it. "I—I understand he wants to try something out."

Berdichev half turned in his seat and looked coldly up at Andersen. "I don't understand you, Director. Try what out?"

Andersen began to shake his head, then stopped and smiled, knowing he had to make the best of things. "That's just it. We're never quite certain what Kim's about to do. That's why he's so valuable. He's so unpredictable. So inventive."

Berdichev stared through Andersen a moment, then turned back. He seemed totally unconvinced. It seemed as if the only reason he was there at all was the ridiculously high sum he had been asked to pay for the boy's contract. Andersen leaned against the back of the empty chair next to Berdichev's, feeling weak. The boy was going to ruin it all. He just knew he was. Things would go wrong and he would be humiliated, in front of Ber-

dichev. Worse than that, it would be the end of things: the closure of the Project and early retirement for himself. He shuddered, then took the fan from his belt and flicked it open, fanning himself.

"I suppose he's going to do something with those two machines?"

Andersen's fan stopped in midmotion. "I believe so."

"And how long has he been in your charge?"

"Twenty-three days."

Berdichev laughed. "It isn't possible. It takes our best engineers months to learn how to operate those things."

"Four months intensive training," said Blake from the back of the viewing room.

"And he's taught himself?"

Andersen licked his lips to wet them. "In two days."

Berdichev sat back, laughing again. "I do believe you're making fun of me, Director Andersen. Wasting my valuable time. If that's so . . ."

Andersen bowed deeply. "Believe me, Shih Berdichev, I would never dream of such a thing. Please, be patient. I'm certain the boy will not disappoint you."

The door at the far end of the lecture room opened and T'ai Cho entered with the boy. Andersen, watching Berdichev, saw him frown, then a strange expression cross his face.

"Where did you find the boy?"

Blake answered before Andersen could find his tongue. "In the Western Island, sir. He comes from the Canton of Cornwall."

Berdichev nodded. A strange sobriety seemed to have gripped him. "Ah, yes. I know it well. I went there once. With friends."

T'ai Cho knelt down, talking to the boy a moment, then he let him go. Kim ran across the room, a naked eagerness in his face. Climbing up onto a stool, he set to work at once, dismantling the insides of the trivee, then dragging the heavy ArtMold machine closer to him.

Berdichev, watching the boy, felt himself go cold inside. The resemblance was uncanny; a grotesque distortion of the original, admittedly, yet in some ways so like him that simply to look at the boy was to bring all those feelings back. All the love and guilt and hurt.

Edmund, he thought; you're Edmund Wyatt's son. I'd swear it.

He watched, barely conscious of what the boy was doing; aware only of that strange and unexpected likeness. He should have looked at the holo Blake had given him. Should have found time to look at it. But he had been too busy. Otherwise he would have come here before now, he was certain of it.

Normally he would have dismissed it at once as one of those strange tricks life played on men, but in this case it all fitted. Fitted perfectly. The boy was not only the right age but he came from the right location.

Edmund was with me. Down there in the Clay. Seven years ago. Edmund, Pietr, and I. Down there in the darkness below the City. Yes . . . he was there when we went to see the King Under the City, the Myghtern, in his castle in ancient Bodmin. Was there when we visited the Myghtern's singsong house. And now his seed has returned. Back from the dark.

He shuddered and stood up. "I've seen enough."

Andersen, flustered, bowed deeply. The color had gone from his face and his eyes were wide with sudden panic. "I beg you, Excellency, wait. Please, wait just a little longer. He's only just begun."

Berdichev turned to Blake, ignoring him. "Have you the contract?"

Blake pulled the contract from his carry pouch and handed it across.

For a moment Berdichev hesitated, looking down at the contract, wondering what was best. His first instinct had been to tear it to shreds, but now he didn't know. He looked back at the boy. If he was Edmund Wyatt's son—and there was a quick way of proving that he was, by genotyping—he was not worth a single jen, let alone twenty million yuan, for his life was forfeit under the law that said all the family of a traitor shared his fate, to three generations ascending and descending.

He looked at Andersen. The man was almost shitting himself. "Ten million," he said.

He would delay. Perhaps he would even get the genotype done and make certain. But then? He shivered. Then he would do nothing.

"Fifteen," Andersen answered, his voice betraying how intimidated he felt.

"Ten, or I ask my friends in the House to close you down in two weeks, not eight."

He saw Andersen blink with surprise, then swallow. Seeing how things were, the Director bowed his head.

"Good. Then we'll finalize at once." But he was thinking, Who else would see the resemblance? Who else would know about our visit to the Myghtern? Who now but Lehmann and I?

Maybe it would be all right, then. And perhaps, after all, he could help his dead friend. Perhaps now he could ease the guilt he had suffered from since Edmund's death.

Berdichev shivered then looked back at the boy. Yes, and maybe I can do myself a favor at the same time.

WHEN IT WAS all over T'ai Cho came back into the lecture room. He was carrying a tray and in his pocket was something the Director had given him to return to Kim. He set the tray down on the desk beside the ArtMold, then sat on the stool next to Kim.

"Things went well this morning," he said, reaching out to ruffle Kim's dark fine hair. "The Director was very pleased with you."

"Why should he be pleased?"

T'ai Cho looked down. "He was watching what you did. And with him was someone very important. Someone who has de-. cided to ... adopt you."

"Adopt me?"

"Oh, don't worry, Kim. You'll be here until you're sixteen. But then you'll join one of the companies. The one that makes this, as a matter of fact."

He reached out and touched the modified ArtMold, still surprised by what Kim had done.

"Berdichev," said Kim.

T'ai Cho laughed, surprised. "Yes. How did you know?"

"It was on a newscast two days back. They said he owns SimFic."

"That's right." And now he owns you. The thought disturbed T'ai Cho, though why it should be different with Kim than with all the others he didn't know. It was what happened to all his charges in time. They were saved, but they were also owned. He shivered, then reached out and took the cup from the tray and offered it to Kim, then watched as he gulped the drink down savagely.

"I've something for you too," he said, filling the cup once more from the jug. "We don't usually let our boys keep anything from their time in the Clay, but Director Andersen thought we should make an exception in your case."

T'ai Cho took it from his pocket and put it into Kim's hand, closing his fingers over it.

Kim opened his hand, then gave a small laugh. He held the pendant up and touched the dangling circle with one finger, making it spin. It slowed, then twisted back, spinning backward and forward. He seemed delighted with the gift, yet when he looked up at T'ai Cho again his eyes were dark with hurt. "What is it?" T'ai Cho asked. "Bodmin."

T'ai Cho shook his head. "What? I don't follow you, Kim." "The place I came from. It was called Bodmin, wasn't it?" T'ai Cho laughed, surprised. "Why, yes, now I come to think of it. But how did you find out?"

Kim leaned forward and dipped his finger in the mug, then drew on the worktop, dipping his finger each time he formed a letter.

"An arrow. A space. A woman's breasts. A ring. A drawn bow. Two steep hills. An upright column. A gate. An eye with a curled eyebrow. It was a sign, close by the Gate. Six ft." "Miles," said T'ai Cho. "But it doesn't matter. I'm surprised." "Why?"

T'ai Cho was silent a moment. "Do you remember everything?"

Kim shook his head, the hurt back in his eyes, stronger now than before. "No. Not everything. I was asleep, you see. For a long time I was asleep. And then I woke. The light woke me."

CHAPTER NINE

Wuwei

DARKNESS LAY on the water like oil. It was almost dawn, but day would be a month coming this far north. They lay there silently in the flatboats, half a li •____ from the shore of the island, waiting for the signal in their heads. At ten minutes past five it came and they began to move in, their faces and hands blacked up, their wet suits blending with the darkness.

Hans Ebert, commanding the raiding party, was first ashore. He crouched on the slick stone steps, waiting, listening for sounds above the steady slapping of the water on the rocks below.

Nothing. All was well. A few seconds later the second signal sounded in his head and he moved on quickly, his body acting almost without thought, doing what it had rehearsed a hundred times in the last few days.

He could sense his men moving in the darkness all about him; two hundred and sixty-four of them, elite trained. The best in City Europe.

At the top of the steps Ebert stopped. While his sergeant, Auden, set the charge on the solid metal door, he looked back through the darkness at the mainland. Hammerfest lay six li to the east, like a vast slab of glacial ice, thrusting out into the cold northern sea. To north and south of it the great wall of the City's edge ran into the distance like a jagged ribbon, its pale whiteness lit from within, tracing the shoreline of the ancient Finn-

mark of Norway. He shivered and turned back, conscious of the unseen presence of the old fortress walls towering above him in the moonless dark. It was a bugger of a place. Just the kind of site one would expect SimFic to build a special research unit in.

Auden came back to him. Together they crouched behind the blast shield, lowering their infrared lenses over their eyes. The charges would be fired automatically by the third signal. They waited. Without warning the night was rent by a whole series of detonations, some near, some farther off. They let the shield fall forward and, not waiting for the smoke to clear, charged through the gaping doorway, followed by a dozen other men. At fifteen other points about the island the same thing was happening. Even as he entered the empty corridor he could hear the first bursts of small-arms fire.

The first intersection was exactly where it should have been. Ebert stood at the corner, looking to his left, his gun held against his shoulder, searching out targets in the darkness up ahead. He waited until his squad was formed up behind him, then counted them through, his sergeant Auden first. Up ahead was the first of the guard posts, if the plans were accurate, and beyond that the first of the laboratories.