The Middle Kingdom

Ebert touched the last man's arm as he went through, then glanced back the way he'd come. For a moment he thought he saw movement and hesitated, but there was nothing in the infrared. He turned back quickly, then set off, running hard after his squad, hearing their boots echoing on the floor up ahead of him. But he had gone only ten or so strides when the floor seemed to .give in front of him and he was tumbling forward down a slope.

He spread his legs behind him to slow himself and tried to dig his gun into the glassy surface of the slope. He slowed marginally, slewing to the left, then, abruptly, thumped into the wall. For a moment he was disoriented, his body twisted about violently. He felt his gun clatter away from him, then he was sliding again, head first this time, the yells closer now, mixed with a harsh muttering. A moment later he thumped bruisingly into a pile of bodies.

Ebert groaned, then looked up and saw Auden above him, the heated recognition patch at his neck identifying him.

"Is anyone hurt?" Ebert said softly, almost breathlessly, letting Auden help him to his feet.

Auden leaned close and whispered in his ear. "I think Leiter's dead, sir. A broken neck. He was just behind me when it went. And there seem to be a few other minor injuries. But otherwise . . ."

"Gods . . ." Ebert looked about him. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, sir. This isn't on the plans."

To three sides of them the walls went up vertically for forty, maybe fifty ctii. It felt like they were at the bottom of a big, square-bottomed well. Ebert stepped back and stared up into the darkness overhead, trying to make something out. "There," he said, after a moment, pointing upward. "If we can fire a rope up there we can get out."

"If they don't pick us off first."

"Right." Ebert took a breath, then nodded. "You break up the surface about six or eight ch'i up the slope. Meanwhile, let's keep the bastards' heads down, eh?"

The sergeant gave a slight bow and turned to bark an order at one of his men. Meanwhile Ebert took two grenades from his belt. It was hard to make out just how far up the entrance to the corridor was. Thirty ch'i, perhaps. Maybe more. There was only the slightest change in the heat-emission pattern—the vaguest hint of an outline. He hefted one of the grenades, released the pin, then leaned back and hurled it up into the darkness. If he missed...

He heard it rattle on the surface overhead. Heard shouts of surprise and panic. Then the darkness was filled with sudden, brilliant light. As it faded he threw the second grenade, more confident this time, aiming it at the smoldering red mouth of the tunnel. Someone was screaming up there—an awful, unnatural, high-pitched scream that chilled his blood—-then the second explosion shuddered the air and the screaming stopped abruptly.

Ebert turned. Auden had chipped footholds into the slippery surface of the slope. Now he stood there, the big ascent gun at his hip, waiting for his captain's order.

"Okay," Ebert said. "Try and fix it into the roof of the tunnel.

As soon as it's there I'll start up. Once I'm at the top I want a man to follow me every ten seconds. Got that?"

"Sir!"

Auden looked up, judging the distance, then raised the heavy rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bolt flew up, trailing its thin, strong cord. They heard it thud into the ceiling of the tunnel, then two of the men were hauling on the slack of the cord, testing that the bolt was securely fixed overhead.

One of them turned, facing Ebert, his head bowed. "Rope secure, sir."

"Good." He stepped forward and took the gun from the soldier's shoulder. "Take Leiter's gun, Spitz. Or mine if you can find it."

"Sir!"

Ebert slipped the gun over his right shoulder, then took the rope firmly and began to climb, hauling himself up quickly, hands and feet working thoughtlessly. Three-quarters of the way up he slowed and shrugged the gun from his shoulder into his right hand, then began to climb again, pulling himself up one-handedly toward the lip.

They would be waiting. The grenades had done some damage, but they wouldn't have finished them off. There would be backups.

He stopped just beneath the lip and looked back down, signaling to Auden that he should begin. At once he felt the rope tighten beneath him as it took the weight of the first of the soldiers. Turning back, Ebert freed the safety with his thumb, then poked the barrel over the edge and squeezed the trigger. Almost at once the air was filled with the noise of return fire. Three, maybe four of them, he estimated.

Beneath him the rope swayed, then steadied again as the men below took the slack. Ebert took a long, shuddering breath, then heaved himself up, staring over the lip into the tunnel beyond.

He ducked down quickly, just as they opened up again. But he knew where they were now. Knew what cover he had up there. Quickly, his fingers fumbling at the catch, he freed the smoke bomb from his belt, twisted the neck of it sharply, then hurled it into the tunnel above him. He heard the shout of warning and knew they thought it was another grenade. Taking another long breath, he pulled the mask up over his mouth and nose, then heaved himself up over the lip and threw himself flat on the floor, covering his eyes.

There was a faint pop, then a brilliant glare of light. A moment later the tunnel was filled with billowing smoke.

Ebert crawled forward quickly, taking cover behind two badly mutilated bodies that lay one atop the other against the left-hand wall. It was not a moment too soon. Bullets raked the tunnel wall only a hand's width above his head. He waited a second, then, taking the first of his targets from memory, fired through the dense smoke.

There was a short scream, then the firing started up again. But only two of them this time.

He felt the bullets thump into the corpse he was leaning on and rolled aside quickly, moving to his right. There was a moment's silence. Or almost silence. Behind him he heard sounds—strangely familiar sounds. A soft rustling that seemed somehow out of context here. He lifted his gun, about to open fire again, when he heard a faint click and the clatter of something small but heavy rolling toward him.

A grenade.

He scrabbled with his left hand, trying to intercept it and throw it back, but it was past him, rolling toward the lip.

"Shit!"

There was nothing for it now. He threw himself forward, his gun held chest high, firing into the dense smoke up ahead. Then the explosion pushed him off his feet and he was lying among sandbags at the far end of the tunnel, stunned, his ears ringing.

"Light!" someone was saying. "Get a fucking light here!"

Auden. It was Auden's voice.

"Here!" he said weakly and tried to roll over, but there was something heavy across the back of his legs. Then, more strongly. "I'm here, Sergeant!"

Auden came across quickly and reached down, pulling the body from him. "Thank the gods, sir! I was worried we'd lost you." He leaned forward and hauled Ebert to his feet, supporting him.

Ebert laughed, then slowly sat back down, his legs suddenly weak. "Me too." He looked up again as one of the soldiers brought an arc lamp across to them.

"Shit!" he said, looking about him. "What happened?"

"You must have blacked out, sir. But not before you did some damage here."

Ebert shuddered, then half turned, putting his hand up to his neck. There were two bodies sprawled nearby, facedown beside the sandbags. He looked up at Auden again.

"What are our losses?"

"Six men, sir. Including Leiter. And Grant has a bad head wound. We may have to leave him here for now."

"Six men? Fuck it!" He swallowed, then sat forward. "Do we know how the other squads are doing?"

Auden looked down. "That's another problem, sir. WeVe lost contact. All the channels are full of static."

Ebert laughed sourly. "Static? What's going on? What the fuck's going on?"

Auden shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't know, sir. But it's odd. There's an intersection up ahead that isn't on the map. And when you went up ..." Auden hesitated, then went on. "Well, it seems they must have had a sluice or something at the bottom of the slope. One moment I was standing there, helping get the men on the rope, the next I was knee deep in icy water."

Ebert looked down. So that was the strange sound he had heard. He shivered, then looked back up at Auden. "I wondered. You know that? As I was climbing the rope I was asking myself why they hadn't finished us off at once. Just a couple of grenades. That's all it would have taken. But that explains it, doesn't it? They meant to drown us. But why? What difference would it make?"

Auden smiled grimly back at him. "I don't know_L sir, but if you're feeling all right we'd best press on. I don't like this quiet. I have the feeling they're watching us all the while, getting ready to hit us again."

Ebert smiled and reached out to touch his sergeant's shoulder briefly. "Okay. Then let's get moving, eh?"

Auden hesitated a moment longer. "One last thing, sir. Something you ought to know."

Ebert saw how Auden's eyes went to one of the corpses and felt himself go cold inside. "Don't tell me. They're like the copies at the wedding. Is that it?"

Auden shook his head, then went across and turned over one of the corpses, tugging off its helmet.

"Gods!" Ebert got up slowly and went across, then crouched above the body and, taking his knife from his belt, slit the jacket open, exposing the naked chest beneath.

He looked up at Auden and saw his own surprised bemuse-ment mirrored back at him. "The gods preserve us!" He looked back down at the soft curves of the corpse's breasts, the soft, brown, blinded eyes of the nipples, and shuddered. "Are they all like this?"

Auden nodded. "All the ones IVe looked at so far."

Ebert pulled the jacket back across the dead woman's breasts then stood up, his voice raised angrily. "What does it all mean? I mean, what in hell's name does it all mean?"

Auden shrugged. "I don't know, sir. But I know one thing. Someone told them we were coming. Someone set us up."

GENERAL TOLONEN dismissed the two guards, locked the door, then turned to face the young Prince, his head bowed.

"I am sorry I had to bring you here, young master, but I couldn't chance letting our enemies know of this, however small the risk."

Li Yuan stood there stiffly, his chin raised slightly, a bitter anger in his red-rimmed eyes. He was barely half the General's height and yet his air of command, even in grief, left no doubt as to who was master, who servant, there. The Prince was wearing the cheng fu, the rough, unhemmed sackcloth of traditional mourning clothes, his feet clad in simple, undecorated sandals, his hands and neck bare of all jewelry. It was all so brutally austere—so raw a display of grief—it made Tolonen's heart ache to see him so.

They were in a secure room at the heart of the Bremen fortress. A room no more than twenty ch'i square, cut off on all six sides from the surrounding structure, a series of supporting struts holding it in place. It was reached by way of a short corridor with two air locks, each emptied to total vacuum after use. Most found it an uncomfortable, uneasy place to be. Once inside, however, absolute secrecy could be guaranteed. No cameras looked into the room and no communications links went out from there. In view of recent developments, Tolonen welcomed its perfect isolation. Too much had happened for him to take unnecessary risks.

"Have you spoken to him yet?" Li Yuan asked, anger burning in his eyes. "Did the bastard lie through his teeth?"

The young boy's anger was quite something to be seen. Tolonen had never dreamed he had it in him. He had always seemed so cold and passionless. Moreover, there was an acid bitterness to the words that struck a chord in Tolonen. Li Yuan had taken his brother's death badly. Only vengeance would satisfy him. In that they were alike.

Tolonen removed his uniform cap and bowed to him. "You must be patient, young master. These things take time. I want solid evidence before I confront our friend Berdichev."

The eight-year-old turned away sharply, the abruptness of the gesture revealing his inner turmoil. Then he turned back, his eyes flaring. "I want them dead, General Tolonen. Every last one of them. And I want their families eradicated. To the third generation."

Tolonen bowed his head again. I would, he thought, were that my T'ang's command. But Li Shai Tung has said nothing yet. Nothing of what he feels, or wants, nor of what was said in Council yesterday. What have the Seven decided? How are they to answer this impertinence?

Yes, little master, I would gladly do as you say. But my hands are tied.

"We know much more now," he said, taking Li Yuan's shoulder and steering him across the room to where two chairs had been placed before a screen. He sat, -facing Li Yuan, conscious not only of the boy's grief and anger but also of his great dignity. "We know how it was done."

He saw how Li Yuan tensed.

"Yes," Tolonen said. "The key to it all was simulated vision."

He saw that it meant nothing to Li Yuan and pressed on. "We discovered it in our raid on the SimFic installation at Punto Natales. They had been conducting illegal experiments with it there for more than eight years, apparently. It seems that the soft-wire they found in Chao Yang's head was part of one of their systems."

Li Yuan shook his head. "I don't understand you, General. SimFic have been conducting illegal experiments? Is that it? TheyVe been willfully flouting the terms of the Edict?"

Tolonen nodded but raised a hand to fend off Li Yuan's query. This was complex ground, and he did not want to get into a discussion about how all companies conducted such experiments, then lobbied to get their supposedly "theoretical" products accepted by the ministry.

"Setting that aside a moment," he said, "what is of primary importance here is the fact that Pei Chao Yang was not to blame for your brother's murder. It seems he had brain surgery for a blood clot almost five years ago—an operation that his father, Pei Ro-hen, kept from the public record. Chao had a hunting accident, it seems. He fell badly from his horse. But the operation was a success and he had had no further trouble. That is, until the day of the wedding. Now we know why."

"You mean, they implanted something in his head? Something to control him?"

"Not to control him, exactly. But something that would make him see precisely what they wanted him to see. Something that superimposed a different set of images. Even a different set of smells, it seems. Something that made him see Han Ch'in differently. ..."

"And we know who carried out this . . . operation?"

Tolonen looked back at the boy. "Yes. But they're dead. TheyVe been dead for several years, in fact. Whoever arranged this was very thorough. Very thorough indeed."

"But SimFic are to blame? Berdichev's to blame?"

He saw the ferocity on Li Yuan's face and nodded. "I believe so. But maybe not enough to make a conclusive case in law. It all depends on what we find at Hammerfest."

SHE CAME AT HIM like a madwoman, screeching, a big sharp-edged hunting knife in her left hand, a notched bayonet in her right.

Ebert ducked under the vicious swinging blow and thrust his blade between her breasts, using both hands, the force of the thrust carrying her backward, almost lifting her off her feet.

"Gods. . . ." he said, looking down at the dying woman, shaken by the ferocity of her attack. "How many more of them?"

It was five minutes to six and he was lost. Eight of his squad were dead now, two left behind in the corridors, badly wounded. They had killed more than twenty of the defending force. All of them women. Madwomen, like the one he had just killed. And still they came at them.

Why women? he kept asking himself. But deeper down he knew why. It gave his enemy a psychological edge. He didn't feel good about killing women. Nor had his men felt good. He'd heard them muttering among themselves. And now they were dead. Or good as.

"Do we go on?" Auden, his sergeant, asked.

Ebert turned and looked back at the remnants of his squad. There were four of them left now, including himself. And not one of them had ever experienced anything like this before. He could see it in their eyes. They were tired and bewildered. The past hour had seemed an eternity, with no knowing where the next attack would come from.

The ground plans they had been working from had proved completely false. Whoever was in charge of this had secretly rebuilt the complex and turned it into a maze: a web of deadly cul-de-sacs and traps. Worse yet, they had flooded the corridors with ghost signals, making it impossible for them to keep in contact with the other attacking groups.

Ebert smiled grimly. "We go on. It can't be far now."

At the next junction they came under fire again and lost another man. But this time the expected counterattack did not materialize. Perhaps we're almost there, thought Ebert as he pressed against the wall, getting his breath. Maybe this is their last line of defense. He looked across the corridor and met Auden's eyes. Yes, he thought, if we get out of this I'll commend you. You've saved me more than once this last hour.

"Get ready," he mouthed. "I'll go first. You cover."

Auden nodded and lifted his gun to his chest, tensed, ready to go.

The crossway was just ahead of them. Beyond it, about ten paces down the corridor and to the right, was a doorway.

Ebert flung himself across the open space, firing to his left, his finger jammed down on the trigger of the automatic. Behind him Auden and Spitz opened up noisily. Landing awkwardly, he began to scrabble forward, making for the doorway.

He heard her before he saw her. Turning his head he caught a glimpse of her on the beam overhead, her body crouched, already falling. He brought his gun up sharply, but it was already too late. Even as he loosed off the first wild shot, her booted feet crashed into his back heavily, smashing him down into the concrete floor.

THE FILM had ended. Tolonen turned in his seat and looked at the boy.

"There are two more, then we are done here."

Li Yuan nodded but did not look back at him. He was sitting there rigidly, staring at the screen as if he would burn a hole in it. Tblonen studied him a moment longer, then looked away. This was hard for the boy, but it was what his father wanted. After all, Li Yuan would be T'ang one day and a T'ang needed to be hard.

Tolonen sat back in his chair again, then pressed the handset, activating the screen again.

On the evening of the wedding the walls of the Yu Hua Yuan had been lined with discreet security cameras. The logistics of tracking fifteen hundred individuals in such a small, dimly lit space had meant that they had had to use flat-image photography. Even so, because each individual had been in more than one camera's range at any given moment, a kind of three-dimensional effect had been achieved. A computer programed for full-head recognition of each of the individuals present had analyzed each of the one hundred and eighty separate films and produced fifteen hundred new, "rounded" films of seventeen minutes duration—timed to bracket the death of Han Ch'in by eight minutes either side. The new films eliminated all those moments when the heads of others intruded, enhancing the image whenever the mouth was seen to move, the lips to form words. What resulted was a series of individual "response portraits" so vivid, one would have thought the lens had been a mere arm's length in front of each face.

They had already watched five of the seventeen-minute films. Had seen the unfeigned surprise—the shock—on the faces of men whom they thought might have been involved.

"Does that mean they're innocent?" Li Yuan had asked.

"Not necessarily," Tolonen had answered. "The details might have been kept from them deliberately. But they're the money men. I'm sure of it."

This, the sixth of the films, showed one of Tolonen's own men, a captain in the elite force; the officer responsible for the shoo tin posted in the garden that evening.

Li Yuan turned and looked up at Tolonen, surprised. "But that's Captain Erikson."

The General nodded. "Watch. Tell me what you think."

Li Yuan turned back and for a time was silent, concentrating on the screen.

"Well?" prompted Tolonen.

"His reactions seem odd. His eyes . . . it's almost as if he's steeled himself not to react."

"Or as if he was drugged, perhaps? Don't you think his face shows symptoms similar to arfidis trance? He's not been known to indulge before now, but who knows? Maybe he's an addict, eh?"

Li Yuan turned and looked up at the General again. Between the words and the tone in which they had been said lay a question mark.

"You don't believe that, do you?" he said after a moment. "You don't think he would have risked public exposure of his habit."

Tolonen was silent, watching the boy closely. Li Yuan looked away again, then started, understanding suddenly what the General had really been saying.

"He knew! That's what you mean, isn't it? Erikson knew, but—but he didn't dare show it. Is that right? You think he risked taking arfidis in public?"

"I think so," said Tolonen quietly. He was pleased with Li Yuan. If one good thing had come out of this rotten business it was this: Li Yuan would be T'ang one day. A great T'ang. If he lived long enough.

"Then that explains why no shoo Un were close enough to act."

"Yes."

"And Erikson?"

"He's dead. He killed himself an hour after the assassination. At first I thought it was because he felt he had failed me. Now I know otherwise."

Tblonen stared up at Erikson's face, conscious of the misery behind the dull surface glaze of his eyes. He had suffered for his betrayal.

Li Yuan's voice was strangely gentle. "What made him do it?"

"We're not certain, but we think he might have been involved in the assassination of Lwo Kang. He was on DeVore's staff at the time, and is known to have been in contact with DeVore in a private capacity while the latter was in charge of Security on Mars."

"I see."

The film ended. The next began. Lehmann's face filled the screen.

Something was wrong. That much was clear at once. Leh-mann seemed nervous, strangely agitated. He talked fluently but seemed distanced from what he was saying. He held his head stiffly, awkwardly, and his eyes made small, erratic movements in their sockets.

"He knows!" whispered Li Yuan, horrified, unable to tear his eyes away from the image on the screen. "Kuan Yin, sweet Goddess of Mercy, he knows!"

There, framed between Lehmann's head and the screen's top edge, he could see his brother standing with his bride, laughing with her, talking, exchanging loving glances . . .

No, he thought. No-o-o! Sheer dread welled up in him, making his hands tremble, his stomach clench with anguish. Lehmann's face was huge, almost choking the screen. Vast it was, its surface a deathly white, like the springtime moon, bleak and pitted, filling the sky. And beyond it stood his brother, Han, sweet Han, breathing, talking, laughing—alive!—yes, for that frozen, timeless moment still alive—and yet so small, so frail, so hideously vulnerable.

Lehmann turned and looked across to where Han was talking to the generals. For a moment he simply stared, his hostility unmasked, then he half turned to his right, as if in response to something someone had said, and laughed. That laughter—so in contrast with the coldness in his eyes—was chilling to observe. Li Yuan shivered. There was no doubting it now. Lehmann had known what was about to happen.

Slowly, almost unobtrusively, Lehmann moved back into the circle of his acquaintances, until, as the newlyweds stopped before Pei Chao Yang, he was directly facing them. Now there was nothing but his face staring down from the massive screen; a face that had been reconstructed from a dozen separate angles. All that lay between the lens and his face had been erased, the intruding images of murder cleared from the computer's memory.

"No. . . ." Li Yuan moaned softly, the pressure in his chest almost suffocating him, the pain growing with every moment.

Slowly, so slowly, the seconds passed, and then Lehmann's whole face seemed to stiffen.

"His eyes," said Tolonen softly, his voice filled with pain. "Look at his eyes. . . ."

Li Yuan groaned. Lehmann's features were shaped superficially into a mask of concern, but his eyes were laughing, the pupils wide, aroused. And there, in the dark center of each eye, was the image of Pei Chao Yang, struggling with Han Ch'in. There—doubled, inverted in the swollen darkness.

"No-o-o!" Li Yuan was on his feet, his fists clenched tightly, his face a rictus of pain and longing. "Han! . . . Sweet Han!"

WHEN EBERT came to, the woman was lying beside him, dead, most of her head shot away. His sergeant, Auden, was kneeling over him, firing the big automatic into the rafters overhead.

He lifted his head, then let it fall again, a sharp pain accompanying the momentary wave-of blackness. There was a soft wetness at the back of his head where the pain was most intense.

He touched it gingerly, then closed his eyes again. It could be worse, he thought. I could be dead.

Auden let off another burst into the overhead, then looked down at him. "Are you all right, sir?"

Ebert coughed, then gave a forced smile. "I'm fine. What's happening?"

Auden motioned overhead with his gun, his eyes returning to the weblike structure of beams and rafters that reached up into the darkness.

"There was some movement up there, but there's nothing much going on now."

Ebert tried to focus but found he couldn't. Again he closed his eyes, his head pounding, the pain engulfing him. Auden was still talking.

"It's like a rat's nest up there. But it's odd, sir. If I was them I'd drop gas canisters or grenades. I'd have set up a network of automatic weapons."

"Perhaps they have," said Ebert weakly. "Perhaps there's no one left to operate them."

Auden looked down at him again, concerned. "Are you sure you're all right, sir?"

Ebert opened his eyes. "My head. IVe done something to my head."

Auden set his gun down and lifted Ebert's head carefully with one hand and probed gently with the other.

Ebert winced. "Gods. . . ."

Auden knelt back, shocked by the extent of the damage. He thought for a moment, then took a small aerosol from his tunic pocket and sprayed the back of Ebert's head. Ebert gritted his teeth against the cold, fierce, burning pain of the spray but made no sound. Auden let the spray fall and took an emergency bandage, a hand-sized padded square, from another pocket and applied it to the wound. Then he laid Ebert down again, turning him on his side and loosening the collar of his tunic. "It's not too bad, sir. The cut's not deep. She was dead before she could do any real damage."

Ebert looked up into Auden's face. "I suppose I should thank you."

Auden had picked up his gun and was staring up into the overhead again. He glanced down quickly and shook his head. "No need, sir. It was my duty. Anyway, we'd none of us survive long if we didn't help each other out."

Ebert smiled, strangely warmed by the simplicity of Auden's statement. The pain was subsiding now, the darkness in his head receding. Looking past Auden he found he could see much more clearly. "Where's Spitz?"

"Dead, sir. We were attacked from behind as we crossed the intersection."

"So there's only the two of us now."

"Yes, sir." Auden scanned the overhead one last time, looked back and front, then put his gun down. "I'll have to carry you, sir. There's a stairwell at the end of this corridor. If we're lucky we'll find some of our own up top. I've heard voices up above. Male voices. I think they're some of ours."

Putting his hands under Ebert's armpits he pulled the wounded man up into a sitting position, then knelt and, putting all his strength into it, heaved his captain up onto his shoulder. For a moment he crouched there, getting his balance, then reached out with his right hand and picked up his gun.

LI YUAN found her in the eastern palace at Sichuan, seated amid her maids. It was a big, spacious room, opening on one side to a balcony, from which steps led down to a wide, green pool. Outside the day was bright, but in the room it was shadowed. Light, reflected from the pool, washed the ornate ceiling with ever-changing patterns of silver and black, while beneath all lay in darkness.

Fei Yen wore the ts'td and the shang, the coarse hemp cloth unhemmed, as was demanded by the first mourning grade of chan ts'ut. Three years of mourning lay before her now—twenty-seven months in reality. AH about her, her maids wore simple white, and in a white, rounded bowl beside the high-backed chair in which she sat was a dying spray of flowers, their crimson and golden glory faded.

She looked up at him through eyes made dark from days of weeping, and summoned him closer. She seemed far older than he remembered her. Old and bone tired. Yet it was only four days since the death of Han Ch'in.

He bowed low, then straightened, waiting for her to speak.

Fei Yen turned slowly and whispered something. At once her maids got up and began to leave, bowing to Li Yuan as they passed. Then he was alone with her.

"Why have you come?"

He was silent a moment, daunted by her; by the unexpected hostility in her voice.

"I—I came to see how you were. To see if you were recovering."

Fei Yen snorted and looked away, her face bitter. Then, relenting, she looked back at him.

"Forgive me, Li Yuan. I'm mending. The doctors say I suffered no real physical harm. Nothing's broken. . . ."

She shuddered and looked down again, a fresh tear forming in the corner of her eye. Li Yuan, watching her, felt his heart go out to her. She had loved his brother deeply. Even as much as he had loved him. Perhaps that was why he had come: to share with her both his grief and the awful denial of that love. But now that he was here with her, he found it impossible to say what he felt— impossible even to begin to speak of it.

For a while she was perfectly still, then she wiped the tear away impatiently and stood up, coming down to him.

"Please forgive me, brother-in-law. I should greet you properly."

Fei Yen embraced him briefly, then moved away. At the opening to the balcony she stopped and leaned against one of the pillars, staring out across the pool toward the distant mountains.

Li Yuan followed her and stood there, next to her, not knowing what to say or how to act.

She turned and looked at him. Though eight years separated them he was not far from her height. Even so, she always made him feel a child beside her. Only a child. All that he knew—all that he was—seemed unimportant. Even he, the future Pang, was made to feel inferior in her presence. Yes, even now, when her beauty was clouded, her eyes filled with resentment and anger. He swallowed and looked away, but still he felt her eyes upon him.

"So now you will be T'ang."

He looked back at her, trying to gauge what she was thinking, for her words had been colorless, a statement. But what did she feel? Bitterness? Jealousy? Anger that no son of hers would one day be T'ang?

"Yes," he said simply. "One day."

Much earlier he had stood there in his father's study, staring up at the giant image of Europe that filled one wall—the same image that could be seen from the viewing circle in the floating palace, 160,000 li above Chung Kuo.

A swirl of cloud, like a figure 3, had obscured much of the ocean to the far left of the circle. Beneath the cloud the land was crudely shaped. To the east vast plains of green stretched outward toward Asia. All the rest was white; white with a central mass of gray-black and another, smaller mass slightly to the east, making the whole thing look like the skull of some fantastic giant beast with horns. The white was City Europe; glacial, in the grip of a second age of ice.

From up there the world seemed small; reduced to a diagram. All that he saw his father owned and ruled. All things, all people there were his. And yet his eldest son was dead, and he could do nothing. What sense did it make?

He moved past her, onto the balcony, then stood there at the stone balustrade, looking down into the pale green water, watching the fish move in the depths. But for once he felt no connection with them, no ease in contemplating them.

"You've taken it all very well," she said, coming up beside him. "YouVe been a brave boy."

He looked up at her sharply, bitterly; hurt by her- insensitivity; strangely stung by her use of the word bay.

"What do you know?" he snapped, pushing away from her. "How dare you presume that I feel less-than you? How dare you?"

He rounded on her, almost in tears now, his grief, his un-assuaged anger, making him want to break something; to snap and shatter something fragile. To hurt someone as badly as he'd been hurt.

"I . . ." She looked back at him, bewildered now, all bitter-

ness, all jealousy, drained from her by his outburst. "Oh, Yuan. Little Yuan. I didn't know. . . ." She came to him and held him tight against her, stroking his hair, ignoring the pain where he gripped her sides tightly, hurting the bruises there. "Oh, Yuan. My poor little Yuan. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. How was I to know, my little one? How was I to know?"

THE STAIRS led up to a wide landing cluttered with crates. Three corridors led off. Two were cul-de-sacs, the third led to another, much longer stairwell. Auden went up again, his gun poked out in front of him, the safety off, his trigger finger aching with the tension of preparedness. Ebert was a numbing weight on his left shoulder.

Near the top of the steps he slowed and looked about him, his eyes on the level of the floor, his gun searching for targets. It was a vast open space, like the floor of a warehouse, broken here and there by huge, rectangular blockhouses. The ceiling was high overhead and crisscrossed with tracks. Stacks of crates stood here and there and electric trolleys were parked nearby. Otherwise the place seemed empty.

"I don't like it," Auden said quietly for Ebert's benefit. "All that back there. And then nothing. We can't have got them all. And where are our men?"

"What is it?"

"Some kind of loading floor. A huge big place. And there are blockhouses of some kind. They look empty, but they might easily be defended."

Ebert swallowed painfully. His head ached from being carried upside down and he was beginning to feel sick. His voice was weak now. "Let's find somewhere we can shelter. Somewhere you can set me down."

Auden hesitated. "I'm not sure, sir. I think it's a trap."

Ebert's weariness was momentarily tinged with irritation. "Maybe. But weVe little choice, have we? We can't go back down. And we can't stay here much longer."

Auden ignored the sharpness in his captain's voice, scanning the apparent emptiness of the loading floor once again. Noth-

ing. He was almost certain there was nothing out there. And yet his instincts told him otherwise. It was what he himself would have done. Hit hard, then hit hard again and again and again. And then, when your enemy expected the very worst, withdraw. Make them think they had won through. Allow them to come at you without resistance. Draw them into the heart of your defenses. And then . . .

Ebert's voice rose, shattering the silence. "Gods, Sergeant, don't just stand there, do something! I'm dying!"

Auden shuddered. "All right," he said. "We'll find shelter. Somewhere to put you down."

He breathed deeply for a few seconds, then hauled himself up the last few steps, expecting at any moment to be raked with heavy automatic fire or cut in half by one of the big lasers, but there was nothing. He ran as fast as he could, crouching, wheezing now, the weight of Ebert almost too much for him.

He made the space between two stacks of unmarked boxes and turned, looking back at the stairwell. For a moment he could have sworn he saw a head, back there where he had just come from. He took two shuddering breaths, then put his gun down and gently eased Ebert from his shoulder, setting him down on his side.

"We need to get help for you, sir. You've lost a lot of blood."

Ebert had closed his eyes. "Yes," he said painfully, his voice a whisper now. "Go on. Be quick. I'll be all right."

Auden nodded and reached behind him for his gun. His hand searched a moment, then closed slowly, forming a fist. Instinct. He should have trusted to instinct. Raising his hands he stood up and turned slowly, facing the man with the gun who stood there only three paces away.

"That's right, Sergeant. Keep your hands raised and don't make any sudden movements. Now come out here, into the open."

The man backed away as Auden came forward, keeping his gun leveled. He was a tall, gaunt-looking Han with a long horselike face and a wide mouth. He wore a pale green uniform with the SimFic double-helix insignia on lapel and cap. His breast patch showed a bear snatching at a cloud of tiny silken butterflies, signifying that he was a fifth-rank officer—a captain. As Auden came out into the open other guards came from behind the stacks to encircle him.

"Good," said the Captain. Then he signaled to some of his men. "Quick, now! Get the other one to the infirmary. We don't want him to die, now, do we?"

Auden's eyes widened in surprise and he half turned, watching them go to Ebert and lift him gently onto a stretcher. "What's happening here?" he asked, looking back at the SimFic captain. "What are you playing at?"

The Captain watched his fellows carry Ebert away, then turned back to Auden and lowered his gun. "I'm sorry, Sergeant, but we couldn't take risks. I didn't want to lose any more men through a misunderstanding between us." Unexpectedly, he smiled. "You're safe now. The base has been liberated. The insurrection has been put down."

Auden laughed, not believing what he was hearing. "Insurrection? What do you mean?"

The Han's smile became fixed. "Yes. Unknown to the company, the installation was infiltrated and taken over by a terrorist organization. We only learned of it this morning. We came as soon as we could."

"Quite a coincidence," said Auden, sickened, realizing at once what had happened. It was like he'd said to Ebert. They had been set up. The whole thing had been a setup. A charade. And all to get SimFic off the hook.

"Yes. But fortunate, too, yes? If we had not come you would all be dead. As it is, more than a dozen of your men have got out alive."

Auden shivered, thinking of all the good men he'd fought beside. Dead now. Dead, and simply to save some bastard's butt higher up the levels. "And the terrorists?"

"All dead. They barricaded themselves into the laboratories. We had to gas them, I'm afraid."

"Convenient, eh?" He glared at the Han, bitter now.

The Captain frowned. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand you, Sergeant. This whole business ... it was unfortunate, but it could not be helped, eh? I lost more than thirty of my own men in the fighting."

Auden stared back at him. Yes, he thought, loathing the slick-tongued Han who stood before him; you lost thirty "men"—but not to terrorists, that's for certain!

THERE WAS the sound of raised voices in the corridor outside and the light on his desk intercom began to flash urgently. Soren Berdichev, head of SimFic, looked up past the five men who were seated around the desk with him and straightened his small, round-rimmed glasses, clearing the computer-generated figures that were displayed in duplicate on their inner surfaces.

"What in heaven's name . . . ?"

It was just after eight in the morning and they were two hours into their weekly strategy conference.

The man closest to him on his left stood, then turned and bowed to him. "Excuse me, sir. Shall I find out what the trouble is?"

Berdichev put his hand over the cancel on the intercom and looked up at his Senior Executive. He spoke coldly, sternly. "Thank you, Paul. Please do. If it's a member of staff you will dismiss them immediately. I'll not tolerate such behavior in these offices."

Moore bowed again and turned to do as he was bid. But he had got barely halfway across the room when the door crashed open.

Tolonen stood there in the doorway, tall and gray haired, his eyes burning with anger, his whole manner menacing. He was wearing full combat uniform, the helmet loose about his neck, a light automatic in the holster at his waist, as if he had come straight from action. Behind him several members of Berdichev's staff stood with their heads bowed, shamed that they had not been able to prevent the intrusion.

Berdichev got up slowly, his own outrage tightly, deliberately controlled. "General Tolonen . . . I. hope you have good reason for bursting in on me like this?"

Tolonen ignored the comment. He looked about the room, then came in, striding past Moore without a glance, making straight for Berdichev. Shoving between two of the seated men, he leaned across and brought his fist down hard on the table.

"You know perfectly well why I'm here, you wall lizard!"

Berdichev sat back composedly and put his hands together. "Your manners leave much to be desired, General. If you had had the common courtesy to talk to my secretary I would have seen you this afternoon. But now . . . well, you can be certain that I'll be reporting your behavior to the House committee on Security matters. These are private offices, General, and even you cannot enter without permission."

Angrily Tblonen straightened up and took the warrant from his tunic pocket, then flung it down on the desk in front of Berdichev. "Now explain yourself! Or I'll come around and choke the bloody truth from you!"

Berdichev picked up the small cardlike warrant and studied it a moment, then threw it back across the table at Tblonen. "So you have a right to be here. But legality doesn't excuse your poor manners, General. My complaint still stands. Your behavior has been atrocious. You have insulted me and openly threatened me before witnesses. I—"

Tblonen cut him short. He leaned across the table and roared at him. "Hsin fa ts'ai! What do you know of manners, you hsiao Jen'"

For the first time Berdichev bristled. The insults had stung him; but inwardly he felt a small satisfaction. His tactic had the General rattled. The fact that he had slipped into Mandarin revealed just how emotionally off balance Tolonen was.

He leaned forward, undaunted, and met the General's eyes. "Now that you're here, you'd best tell me what you want of me. I'm a busy man, social upstart or not, tittle man or not. I have an empire to run ... if you'll excuse the phrase."

Tolonen glared at him a moment longer, then straightened up again. "Dismiss these men. I need to talk to you alone."

Berdichev looked to the nearest of his men and gave a slight nod. Slowly, reluctantly, they began to leave. His Senior Executive, Moore, stood his ground, however, staring concernedly at his superior. Only as he was about to turn and leave, did Berdichev look back at him.

"Paul. . . please stay. I'd like a witness to what is said here."

"I said—" began Tolonen, but Berdichev interrupted him.

"I assure you, General, I will say nothing without a witness present. You see, there are no cameras in this room, no tapes. Much is said here that is of a secret nature. Things we would not like to get to the ears of our competitors. You understand me, General? Besides which, you have made threats to me. How can I feel safe unless one of my own is here to see that my rights are not violated?"

Tolonen snorted. "Rights! Fine words from you, who have so little respect for the rights of others!"

Berdichev tutted and looked down. "Again you insult me, General. Might I ask why? What have I done that should make you treat me thus?"

"You know damn well what youVe done! And all this acting won't save your ass this time! You're implicated to the hilt, S/uh Berdichev! I'm talking about the murder of Li Han Ch'in, not some petty matter of manners. Two of your installations are directly involved. And that means that you're involved. You personally!"

Berdichev took off his glasses and polished the lenses, then looked back at the General. "I assume you mean the business at Hammerfest."

Tolonen laughed, astonished by the sheer effrontery of the man. "The business at Hammerfest. . . . Yes. I mean the matter of your duplicity."

Berdichev frowned and turned to Moore. "My duplicity?" He looked back at the General, shaking his head sadly. "Again, I don't understand you, General. Have I not been totally open? Have I not given you copies of all the documents relating to both our Punto Natales installation and the base at Hammerfest? Indeed, were it not for my men, I understand that you would have lost all of your force to the terrorists, Klaus Ebert's son among them."

"Terrorists! That's just more of your nonsense! You know damned well there were no terrorists!"

"You can prove that, General?".

Tolonen lowered his voice. "I have no need to prove it. I know it. Here." He tapped his heart. "And here." He tapped his head.

"And what does that mean?" Berdichev leaned forward, his thin face hardening, his glasses glinting in the overhead light. "You are making serious accusations, General, and I hope you can substantiate them. I regret what happened at Hammerfest, but I am not responsible for it."

Tblonen shook his head. "That's where you're wrong, Ber-dichev. The research undertaken at both installations was illegal and has been directly linked to the assassination of Li Han Ch'in. Such work was undertaken in the name of SimFic, carried out on properties leased by SimFic, and even funded by SimFic. As Head of SimFic you are directly responsible."

"I disagree. Some projects, undertaken in our name, may well have been illegal, as you say. They may—though it remains to be proved conclusively—be linked to Li Han Ch'in's most unfortunate death. But just because something is done under our corporate name, it does not mean to say that we knew about it, or that we sanctioned it. As you know, General, as soon as I found out what was happening I ordered full cooperation with the Security forces and even ordered my own security squads to assist you."

Tolonen was silent a moment, his face coldly furious. "You want me to believe that you didn't know what was going on?"

"To be frank with you, General, I don't really care what you believe. I care only for the truth of the matter." He pointed past Tolonen at a huge chart on the right-hand wall. "See that there, General? That is a chart of my organization. Its structure, if you like. You'll see how it divides and then subdivides. How certain parts of the organization have a degree of autonomy. How others are buried deep in a long chain of substructures. A company like SimFic is a complex creation. A living, functional entity, changing and evolving all the time."

"So?"

Berdichev folded his arms and sat back again. "How many men do you command, General? Half a million? A million?"

Tolonen stood straighter. "I command four Banners. Two million men in all."

"I see." He turned to his Senior Executive. "Paul . . . how many men do we employ in our African operation?"

"Four hundred and eighty thousand."

"And in North America?"

"Seven hundred and forty thousand."

"And in the Asian operation?"

"One million two hundred thousand."

Berdichev looked back at the General. "Those three comprise a third of our total operations, the major part of which is based here, in City Europe. So you see, General, my own 'command' is three times the size of your own. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you know what all of your men are doing all of the time?"

Tolonen huffed. "Why, that's absurd! Of course I don't!"

Berdichev smiled coldly. "And yet you expect me to know what all of my managers are up to all of the time! You expect me to be responsible for their actions! Aren't you, by the same argument, responsible for DeVore's actions? For his betrayal?"

Tblonen did not answer, merely stared back at Berdichev, an undisguised hatred in his eyes.

"Well?" Berdichev asked after a moment. "Are you finished here?"

Tblonen shook his head; his whole manner had changed with the mention of DeVore. He was colder now, more distant. "I have only one more thing to say to you, Shih Berdichev. You claim you are not responsible. So you say. Nonetheless, you will find out who was responsible for this. And you will deliver their heads or your own, understand? I give you three days."

"Three days!" Berdichev sat forward. "By what authority—"

Tblonen went to the door, then turned and looked back at Berdichev. "Three days. And if you don't I shall come for you myself."

When he was gone, Berdichev leaned forward and placed his hand on the intercom. "Did you get all of that?"

A voice answered at once. "Everything. We're checking now, but it looks like all six angles were fine. We'll have the edited tape to you in an hour."

"Good!" He closed contact and looked up at Moore. "Well, Paul?"

Moore was still staring at the door. "You push him too far, Soren. He's a dangerous man. You should be cautious of him."

Berdichev laughed. "Tolonen? Why, he's an impotent old fool! He can't even wipe his own ass without his T'ang's permission, and Li Shai Tung won't give him authority to act against us in a thousand years—not unless he has proof positive. No, weVe done enough, Paul. That just now was all bullshit and bluster.

Don't fear. Tolonen will do nothing unless it's sanctioned by his T'ang!"

tolonen's audience with the T'ang was three hours later. Shepherd, the Tang's advisor, had got there some time before and had updated Li Shai Tung on all relevant matters. As soon as Tolonen arrived, therefore, they got down to more important business.

The T'ang sat there, in a seat placed at the foot of the dais, dressed in the rough, unhemmed hempcloth of mourning, subdued and solemn, a thousand cares on his shoulders. He had not left the Imperial Palace since the murder of his son, nor had he eaten. At his neck was stitched a broad square of white cloth and in his left hand he held a bamboo staff. Both symbolized his grief.

There were only the three of them in the vast, high-ceilinged Throne Room, and the T'ang's voice, when he spoke, echoed back to them.

"Well, Knut? What do you suggest?"

The General bowed, then outlined his plan, arguing in favor of a preemptive strike. War, but of a contained nature, attacking specific targets. A swift retribution, then peace with all other factions.

Li Shai Tung listened, then seemed to look deep inside himself. "I have lost the most precious thing a man has," he said at last, looking at each of them in turn. "I have lost my eldest son. To this I cannot be reconciled. Nor can I love my enemies. Indeed, when I look into my heart I find only hatred there for them. A bitter hatred." He let out a long breath, then stared fixedly at Tolonen. "I would kill them like animals if it would end there, Knut. But it would not. There would be war, as you say, but not of the kind you have envisaged. It would be a dirty, secretive, incestuous war, and we would come out poorly from it."

He smiled bleakly at his General, then looked away, the misery in his dark eyes so eloquent that Tolonen found his own eyes misting in response.

"For once, my good General, I think you are wrong. I do not believe we can fight a contained war. Indeed, the Seven have known that for a long time now. Such a contest would spread. Spread until the Families faced the full might of the Above, for they would see it as a challenge; an attack upon their rights— upon their very existence as a class."

Tolonen looked down, recalling the look in Lehmann's eyes, the foul effrontery of Berdichev, and shuddered. "What then, Ctneh Hsia?" he said bluntly, almost belligerently. "Shall we do nothing? Surely that's just as bad?"

Li Shai Tung lifted his hand abruptly, silencing him. It was the first time he had done so in the forty-odd years he had known the General and Tolonen looked back at him wide eyed a moment before he bowed his head.

The T'ang looked at the staff he held. It was the very symbol of dependency; of how grief was supposed to weaken man. Yet the truth was otherwise. Man was strengthened through suffering; hardened by it. He looked back at his General, understanding his anger; his desire to strike back at those who had wounded him. "Yes, Knut, to do nothing is bad. But not as bad as acting rashly. We must seem weak. We must bend with the wind; sway in the storm's mouth and bide our time. Wuwei must be our chosen course for now."

Wuwei. Nonaction. It was an old Taoist concept. Wuwei meant keeping harmony with the flow of things—doing nothing to break that flow.

There was a moment's tense silence, then Tolonen shook his head almost angrily. "Might I say what I feel, Chieh Hsia?" The formality of the General's tone spoke volumes. This was the closest the two men had ever come to arguing.

The T'ang stared at his General a moment, then looked away. "Say what you must."

Tblonen bowed deeply, then drew himself erect. "Just this. You are wrong, Li Shai Tung. Execute me for saying so, but hear me out. You are wrong. I know it. I feel it in my bones. This is no time for wuwei. No time to be coolheaded and dispassionate. We must be like the tiger now. We must bare our claws and teeth and strike. This or be eaten alive."

The T'ang considered for a moment, then leaned farther forward on his throne. "You sound like Han Ch'in," he said,

amusement and bitterness in even measure in his voice. "He, too, would have counseled war. They have killed me, Father, he would have said, so now you must kill them back." He shivered and looked away, his expression suddenly distraught. "Gods, Knut, I have considered this matter long and hard. But Han's advice was always brash, always hasty. He thought with his heart. But I must consider my other son now. I must give him life, stability, continuity. If we fight a war he will die. Of that I am absolutely certain. They will find a way—just as they found a way to get to Han Ch'in. And in the end they will destroy the Families."

Li Shai Tung turned to Shepherd, who had been silent throughout their exchange. "I do this for the sake of the living. You understand that, Hal, surely?"

Shepherd smiled sadly. "I understand, Shai Tung."

"And the Seven?" Tolonen stood there stiffly, at attention, his whole frame trembling from the frustration he was feeling. "Will you not say to them what you feel in your heart? Will you counsel them to wuweil The T'ang faced his General again. "The Seven will make its own decision. But yes, I shall counsel uiuwei. For the good of all."

"And what did Li Yuan say?"

Tolonen's question was unexpected; was close to impertinence, but Li Shai Tung let it pass. He looked down, remembering the audience with his son earlier that day. "For your sake I do this," he had said. "You see the sense in it, surely, Yuan?" But Li Yuan had hesitated and the T'ang had seen in his eyes the conflict between what he felt and his duty to his father.

"Li Yuan agreed with me. As I knew he would."

He saw the surprise in his General's eyes; then noted how Tolonen stood there, stiffly, waiting to be dismissed.

"I am sorry we are not of a mind in this matter, Knut. I would it were otherwise. Nonetheless, I thank you for speaking openly. If it eases your mind, I shall put your view to the Council."

Tolonen looked up, surprised, then bowed deeply. "For that I am deeply grateful, Chieh Hsia."

"Good. Then I need keep you no more."

After Tolonen had gone, Li Shai Tung sat there for a long while, deep in thought. For all he had said, Tolonen's conviction had shaken him. He had not expected it. When, finally, he turned to Shepherd, his dark eyes were pained, his expression troubled. "Well, Hal. What do you think?"

"Knut feels it personally. And, because he does, that clouds his judgment. You were not wrong. Though your heart bleeds, remember you are T'ang. And a T'ang must see all things clearly. While we owe the dead our deepest respect, we must devote our energies to the living. Your thinking is sound, Li Shai Tung. You must ensure Li Yuan's succession. That is, and must be, foremost in your thinking, whatever your heart cries out for."

Li Shai Tung, T'ang, senior member of the Council of Seven and ruler of City -Europe, stood up and turned away from his advisor, a tear forming in the corner of one bloodshot eye.

"Then it is wuwei."

THE SMALL GIRL turned sharply, her movements fluid as a dancer's. Her left arm came down in a curving movement, catching her attacker on the side. In the same instant her right leg kicked out, the foot pointing and flicking, disarming the assailant. It was a perfect movement and the man, almost twice her height, staggered backward. She was on him in an instant, a shrill cry of battle anger coming from her lips.

"Hold!"

She froze, breathing deeply, then turned her head to face the instructor. Slowly she relaxed her posture and backed away from her prone attacker.

"Excellent. You were into it that time, Jelka. No hesitations."

Her instructor, a middle-aged giant of a man she knew only as Siang, came up to her and patted her shoulder. On the floor nearby her attacker, a professional fighter brought in for this morning's training session only, got up slowly and dusted himself down, then bowed to her. He was clearly surprised to have been bested by such a slip of a girl, but Siang waved him away without looking at him.

Siang moved apart from the child, circling her. She turned,

wary of him, knowing how fond he was of tricks. But before she had time to raise her guard he had placed a red sticker over the place on her body shield where her heart would be. She caught his hand as it snaked back, but it was too late.

"Dead," he said.

She wanted to laugh but dared not. She knew just how serious this was. In any case, her father was watching and she did not want to disappoint him. "Dead," she responded earnestly.

There were games and there were games. This game was deadly. She knew she must leam it well. She had seen with her own eyes the price that could be paid. Poor Han Ch'in. She had wept for days at his death.

At the far end of the training hall the door opened and her father stepped through. He was wearing full dress uniform, but the uniform was a perfect, unblemished white, from boots to cap. White. The Han color of death.

The General came toward them. Siang bowed deeply and withdrew to a distance. Jelka, still breathing deeply from the exercise, smiled and went to her father, embracing him as he bent to kiss her.

"That was good," he said. "YouVe improved a great deal since I last saw you."

He had said the words with fierce pride, his hand holding and squeezing hers as he stood there looking down at her. At such moments he felt a curious mixture of emotions; love and apprehension, delight and a small, bitter twinge of memory. She was three months short of her seventh birthday, and each day she seemed to grow more like her dead mother.

"When will you be back?" she asked, looking up at him with eyes that were the same breathtaking ice-blue her mother's had been.

"A day or two. I've business to conclude after the funeral."

She nodded, used to his enigmatic references to business; then, more thoughtfully. "What will Li Shai Tung do, Daddy?"

He could not disguise the bitterness in his face when he answered. "Nothing," he said. "He will do nothing." And as he said it he imagined that it was Jelka's funeral he was about to go to; her death he had seen through others' eyes; her body lying there in the casket, young as spring yet cold as winter.

If it were you, my blossom, I would tear down Chung Kuo itself to get back at them.

But was that a deficiency in him? Were his feelings so unnatural? Or was the lack in Li Shai Tung, putting political necessity before what he felt? To want to destroy those that have hurt your loved ones—was that really so wrong? Was he any less of a man for wanting that?

Tolonen shuddered; the thought of his darling Jelka dead filled him with a strange sense of foreboding. Then, conscious of his daughter watching him, he placed his hands on her shoulders. His hands so large, her bones so small, so fragile, beneath his fingers.

"I must go," he said simply, kneeling to hug her.

"Keep safe," she answered, smiling at him.

He smiled back at her, but his stomach had tightened at her words. It was what her mother had always said.

A COLD WIND was blowing from the west, from the high plains of Tibet, singing in the crown of the tree of heaven and rippling the surface of the long pool. Li Shai Tung stood alone beneath the tree, staff in hand, his bared head bowed, his old but handsome face lined with grief. At his feet, set into the dark earth, was the Family tablet, a huge rectangle of pale cream stone, carved with the symbols of his ancestors. More than half the stone—a body's length from where he stood—was marble smooth, untouched by the mortician's chisel. So like the future, he thought, staring at Han Ch'in's name, fresh cut into the stone. The future . . . that whiteness upon which ail our deaths are written.

He looked up. It was a small and private place, enclosed by ancient walls. At the southern end a simple wooden gate led through into the northern palace. Soon they would come that way with the litter.

He spoke, his voice pained and awful; like the sound of the wind in the branches overhead. "Oh, Han . . . oh, my sweet little boy, my darling boy."

He staggered, then clenched his teeth against the sudden memory of Han's mother, his first wife, Lin Yua, sitting in the sunlight at the edge of the eastern orchard by the lake, her dresses spread about her, Han, only a baby then, crawling contentedly on the grass beside her.

Bring it back, he begged, closing his eyes against the pain; Kuan Yin, sweet Goddess of Mercy, bring it back! But there was no returning. They were dead. All dead. And that day no longer was. Except in his mind.

He shuddered. It was unbearable. Unbearable. . . .

Li Shai Tung drew his cloak about him and began to make his slow way back across the grass, leaning heavily on his staff, his heart a cold, dark stone in his breast.

They were waiting for him in the courtyard beyond the wall; all those he had asked to come. The Sons of Heaven and their sons, his trusted men, his son, his dead son's wife and her father, his brothers, his own third wife, and, finally, his daughters. All here, he thought. All but Han Ch'in, the one I loved the best.

They greeted him solemnly, their love, their shared grief unfeigned, then turned and waited for the litter.

The litter was borne by thirty men, their shaven heads bowed, their white, full-length silks fluttering in the wind. Behind them came four officials in orange robes and, beyond them, two young boys carrying a tiny litter on which rested an ancient bell and hammer.

Han lay there in the wide rosewood casket, dressed in the clothes he had worn on his wedding day. His fine, dark hair had been brushed and plaited, his face given the appearance of perfect health. Rich furs had been placed beneath him, strewn with white blossom, while about his neck were wedding gifts of jewels and gold and a piece of carmine cloth decorated with the marriage emblems of dragon and phoenix.

At the foot of the coffin lay a length of white cotton cloth, nine ch'i in length, Han Ch'in's own symbolic mourning for his father—for tradition said that the son must always mourn the father before he himself was mourned.

Li Yuan, standing at his father's side, caught his breath. It was the first time he had seen his brother since his death, and, for the briefest moment, he had thought him not dead but only sleeping. He watched the litter pass, his mouth open, his heart torn from him. Merciful gods, he thought; sweet Han,

how could they kill you? How could they place you in the earth?

Numbed, he fell into line behind the silent procession, aware only vaguely of his father beside him, of the great lords of Chung Kuo who walked behind him, their heads bared, their garments simple, unadorned. In his mind he reached out to pluck a sprig of blossom from his brother's hair, the petals a perfect white against the black.

At the far end of the long pool the procession halted. The tomb was open, the great stone door hauled back. Beyond it steps led down into the cold earth.

Most of the bearers now stood back, leaving only the six strongest to carry the litter down the steps. Slowly they descended, followed by the officials and the two boys.

His father turned to him. "Come, my son. We must lay your brother to rest."

Li Yuan held back, for one terrible moment overcome by his fear of the place below the earth. Then, looking up into his father's face, he saw his own fear mirrored and found the strength to bow and answer him. "I am ready, Father."

They went down, into candlelight and shadows. The bearers had moved away from the litter and now knelt to either side, their foreheads pressed to the earth. Han lay on a raised stone table in the center of the tomb, his head to the south, his feet to the north. The officials stood at the head of the casket, bowed, awaiting the T'ang, while the two boys knelt at the casket's foot, one holding the bell before him, the other the hammer.

Li Yuan stood there a moment at the foot of the steps, astonished by the size of the tomb. The ceiling was high overhead, supported by long, slender pillars that were embedded in the swept earth floor. Splendidly sculpted tomb figures, their san-t'soz glazes in yellow, brown, and green, stood in niches halfway up the walls, candles burning in their cupped hands. Below them were the tombs of his ancestors, huge pictograms cut deep into the stone, denoting the name and rank of each. On four of them was cut one further symbol—the Ywe Lung. These had been T'ang. His father was fifth of the Li family Tang. He, when his time came, would be the sixth.

A small table rested off to one side. On it were laid the burial objects. He looked up at his father again, then went over and stood beside the table, waiting for the ritual to begin.

The bell sounded in the silence, its pure, high tone like the sound of heaven itself. As it faded the officials began their chant.

He stood there, watching the flicker of shadows against stone, hearing the words intoned in the ancient tongue, and felt drawn up out of himself.

Man has two souls, the officials chanted. There is the animal soul, the p'o, which comes into being at the moment of conception, and there is the him, the spirit soul, which comes into being only at the moment of birth. In life the two are mixed, yet in death their destiny is different. The p'o remains below, inhabiting the tomb, while the hun, the higher soul, ascends to heaven.

The officials fell silent. The bell sounded, high and pure in the silence. Li Yuan took the first of the ritual objects from the table and carried it across to his father. It was the pi, symbol of Heaven, a large disc of green jade with a hole in its center. Yin, it was—positive and light and male. As the officials lifted the corpse, Li Shai Tung placed it beneath Han's back, then stood back, as they lowered him again.

The bell sounded again. Li Yuan returned to the table and brought back the second of the objects. This was the tsung, a hollow, square tube of jade symbolizing Earth. Yang, this was— negative and dark and female. He watched as his father placed it on his brother's abdomen.

Each time the bell rang he took an object from the table and carried it to his father. First the huang, symbol of winter and the north, a black jade half-pi which his father laid at Han's feet. Then the chang, symbol of summer and the south, a narrow tapered tablet of red jade placed above Han's head. The fcuei followed, symbol of the east and spring, a broad tapered tablet of green jade, twice the size of the chang, which was laid beside Han's left hand. Finally Li Yuan brought the hu, a white jade tiger, symbol of the west and autumn. He watched his father place this at his dead brother's right hand, then knelt beside him as the bell rang once, twice, and then a third time.

The chant began again. Surrounded by the sacred symbols the body was protected. Jade, incorruptible in itself, would prevent the body's own decay. The p'o, the animal soul, would thus be saved.

Kneeling there, Li Yuan felt awed by the power, the dignity, of the ritual. But did it mean anything? His beloved Han was dead and nothing in heaven or earth could bring him back. The body would decay, jade or no jade. And the souls . . . ? As the chant ended he sat back on his haunches and looked about him, at stone and earth and the candlelit figures of death. When nothing returned to speak of it, who knew if souls existed?

Outside again he stood there, dazed by it all, the chill wind tugging at his hair, the afternoon light hurting his eyes after the flickering shadows of the tomb. One by one the T'ang came forward to pay their respects to his father and once more offer their condolences, the least of them greater in power and wealth than the greatest of the Tang or Sung or Ch'ing dynasties. Wang Hsien, a big, moon-faced man, T'ang of Africa. Hou Ti, a slender man in his forties, T'ang of South America. Wei Feng, his father's closest friend among his peers, T'ang of East Asia, his seemingly ever-present smile absent for once. Chi Hu Wei, a. tall, awkward man, T'ang of the Australias. Wu Shih, T'ang of North America, a big man, built like a fighter, his broad shoulders bunching as he embraced Li Yuan's father. And last Tsu Tiao, T'ang of West Asia, the old man leaning on his son's arm.

"You should have stayed inside," Li Shai Tung said, embracing him and kissing his cheeks. "This wind can be no good for you, Tsu Tiao. I thought it would be sheltered here with these walls."

Tsu Tiao reached out and held his arm. He seemed frail, yet his grip, like his voice, was strong. "High walls cannot keep the cold wind from blowing, eh, old friend? I know what it is to lose a son. Nothing would have kept me from paying my respects to Li Han Ch'in."

Li Shai Tung bowed, his face grim. "That is true, Tsu Tiao." He turned to the son. "Tsu Ma. Thank you for coming. I wish we had met in happier circumstances."

Tsu Ma bowed. He was a strong, handsome man in his late twenties who had, until recently, led a headstrong, dissolute life. Now, with his father ill, he had been forced to change his ways. It was rumored Tsu Tiao was grooming him for regent, but this was the first time he had appeared publicly at his father's side.

"I, too, regret that we should meet like this, Chieh Hsio. Perhaps you would let me visit you when things are easier?"

Both Tsu Tiao and Li Shai Tung nodded, pleased by the initiative. "That would be good, Tsu Ma. I shall arrange things."

Li Yuan's uncles were next to pay their respects; Li Yun-Ti, Li Feng Chiang, and Li Ch'i Chun. Advisors to Li Shai Tung, they stood in the same relationship to his father as he once had to his brother. Their lives were as his own might once have been. But it was different now. For Han Ch'in was dead and now he, Li Yuan, was destined to be "Fang.

He had seen the sudden change in them. Eyes which had once passed through him now checked their course and noted him; as if his brother's death had brought him substance. Now strangers bowed and fawned before him. Men like his uncles. He saw how obsequious they had become; how their distant politeness had changed to fear.

Yes, he saw it even now; the fear behind the smiles.

It amused him in a bitter way. Old men afraid of a boy not yet nine. Would I, he asked hfmself, have grown like them, twisted from my true shape by fear and envy? Perhaps. But now I'll never know.

Others came and stood before them. Fei Yen and her father, the old man almost as devastated as his daughter, his earnest, kindly eyes ringed with darkness. Then his father's second wife and her three daughters, all four of them strangers to Li Yuan.

Last were his father's men; Hal Shepherd and the General.

"This is an ill day, old friend," said Shepherd. He embraced the T'ang, then stood back, looking around him. "I hoped not to see this place in my lifetime."

"Nor I," said Tolonen. For a moment he stared outward at the distant mountains of the Ta Pa Shan. And when his eyes fell upon the tomb, it was almost as if his son lay there beneath the earth, such broken love lay in his gaze.

Tolonen stared at the tomb a moment longer, then looked back at his T'ang. "We must act, Chieh Hsia. Such bitterness cannot be borne."

"No, Knut. You're wrong. It must and can be borne. We must find the strength to bear it."

"The Council has made its decision?"

"Yes. An hour back."

The General bowed his head, his disappointment clear. "Then it is wuwei?"

"Yes," the T'ang answered softly. "Wuwei. For all our sakes."

THE HOUSE was in session and Speaker Zakhar was at the lectern, delivering a speech on expansion funding, when the big double doors at the far end of the chamber burst open. Zakhar turned, astonished.

"General Tolonen! What do you mean by this?"

Then Zakhar saw the armed guards pouring in after the General and fell silent. House security was breached. These were the General's own men—his elite guards. They formed up around the upper level of the chamber, their long snub-nosed rifles pointed down into the heart of the assembly.

The General ignored the storm of protests. He moved swiftly, purposefully, toward the bench where the senior representatives were seated, and went straight for Under Secretary Lehmann.

Lehmann was shouting, as vehement as any other in his protest. Tolonen stood there a moment, facing him, as if making certain this was the man he wanted, then reached across the desk and grabbed Lehmann by the upper arms, pulling him toward himself.

There was a moment's shocked silence, then the outroar grew fierce. Tolonen had dragged Lehmann over the desk and was jerking him along by his hair, as if dealing with the lowest cur from the Clay. Lehmann's face was contorted with pain and anger as he struggled to get free, but the General had a firm grip on him. He tugged him out into the space between the benches of the Upper Council and the seats of the General Assembly, then stopped abruptly and pulled Lehmann upright. Lehmann gasped, but before he had time to act, Tolonen turned him and pulled his arm up sharply behind his back. The General had drawn his ceremonial dagger and now held it at Lehmann's throat.

He stood there, waiting for them to be silent, scowling at any who dared come too close. Above him, encircling the chamber, his men stood patiently, their laser rifles raised to their shoulders.

He had only a second or two to wait. The House grew deathly still, the tension in the chamber almost tangible. Tolonen tugged gently at Lehmann's arm to keep him still, the point of his dagger pricking the Under Secretary's skin and drawing a tiny speck of blood.

"I've come for justice," Tolonen said, staring about him defiantly, looking for those faces he knew would be most interested, most fearful, at this moment. They never imagined I would come here for them. The thought almost made him smile; but this was not a moment for smiling. His face remained grim, determined. Nothing would stop him now.

A low murmur had greeted his words and a few shouts from nearer the back of the hall. He had stirred up a hornet's nest here and Li Shai Tung would be furious. But that did not matter now. Nothing mattered but one thing. He had come to kill Leh-mann.

As he stood there, three of his men brought a portable trivee projector down into the space beside him and set it up. The image of Lehmann's face, ten times its normal size, took form in the air beside the frightened reality.

"I want to show you all something," Tolonen said, raising his voice. He seemed calm, deceptively benign. "It is a film we took of our friend here at Li Han Ch'in's wedding. At the private ceremony afterward, in the Imperial Gardens. I should explain, perhaps. The Under Secretary is looking toward where the T'ang's son was standing with his bride. The rest, I think, you'll understand."

Tblonen scanned the crowded benches again, noting how tense and expectant they had become, then turned and nodded to his ensign. At once the great face came to life, but Tolonen did not look at it. He had seen it too many times already; had seen for himself the effect it had had on Li Yuan.

3»7

For the next few minutes there was silence. Only during the final moments of the film was there a growing murmur of unease. They did not have to be told what was happening. The image in the blown-up eye told the story as clearly as any words.

The image faded from the air. Lehmann, who had turned his head to watch, began to struggle again, but the General held him tightly, drawing his arm as far up his back as it would go without breaking, making Lehmann whimper with pain.

"Now youVe seen," said Tblonen simply. "But understand. I do this not for Li Shai Tung but for myself. Because this man has shamed me. And because such vileness must be answered." He raised his chin defiantly. "This act is mine. Do you understand me, ch'un tzu? Mine."

The words were barely uttered when Tblonen drew his knife slowly across Lehmann's throat, the ice-edged blade tearing through the exposed flesh as if through rice paper.

For what seemed an eternity the General held the body forward as it gouted blood, staring about him at the shocked faces in the chamber. Then he let the body fall, blood splashing as it hit the floor, and stepped back, the trousers of his white ceremonial uniform spattered with blood.

He made no move to wipe it away, but stood there, defiant, his dagger raised, as if to strike again.

PART 3 I SPRING 220I

The Domain

With all its eyes the creature-world beholds

the open. But our eyes, as though reversed,

encircle it on every side, like traps

set round its unobstructed path to freedom.

What is outside, we know from the brute's face

alone; for while a child's quite small we take it

and turn it round and force it to look backwards

at conformation, not that openness

so deep within the brute's face. Free from death.

We alone see that; the free animal

has its decease perpetually behind it

and God in front, and when it moves, it moves

within eternity, like running springs.

WeVe never, no, not for a single day,

pure space before us, such as that which flowers

endlessly open into: always world,

and never nowhere without no: that pure,

unsuperintended element one breathes,

endlessly knows, and never craves. A child

sometimes gets quietly lost there, to be always

jogged back again. Or someone dies and is it.

—rainer maria RILKE, Duino Elegies: Eighth Elegy.

CHAPTER TEN

The Dead Rabbit

MEG SHEPHERD, Hal Shepherd's daughter, was standing in the tall grass of the Domain, watching her brother. It was early evening and, on the far side of the water, dense shadow lay beneath the thick cluster of trees. At this end the creek narrowed to a shallow, densely weeded spike of water. To her left, in the triangle of wild, uncultivated land between the meadow and the vast, overtower-ing whiteness of the Wall, the ground grew soft and marshy, veined with streams and pocked with tiny pools.

Ben was crouched at the water's edge, intensely still, staring at something in the tall, thick rushes to his right. For a moment there was only the stillness and the boy watching, the soft soughing of the wind in the trees across the water, and the faint, lulling call of pigeons in the wood. Then, with an abrupt crash and spray and a strong beating of wings, the bird broke from cover. Ben's head went up, following the bird's steep ascent, his twelve-year-old eyes wide with watching. "Look at it, Meg! Isn't it a beauty?"

"Yes," she answered softly, but all the while she was watching him, seeing how his eyes cast a line to the climbing bird. Saw how he grasped every last detail of it and held that knowledge tight in his memory. His body was tensed, following the bird's flight, and his eyes burned. She shivered. It was astonishing to watch, that intensity of his. The world seemed to take form in his eyes: to grow bright and rich and real. As if, before he saw it,

it was but a pale shadow of itself; a mere blueprint, uncreated until he saw and reimagined it. So it was for her. She could see nothing unless he had seen it first.

The bird was gone. He turned and looked at her.

"Did you see it?"

"Yes," she said, meaning something else. "It was beautiful."

He turned his head, looking away from her, toward the village. When he looked back his green eyes were dark, thoughtful.

"Things are different this year, Meg. Don't you feel it? Small things. Like the bird."

She shrugged, then pushed her way through the grass, out into the open. Standing there beside him at the water's edge, she looked down at his reflection, next to her own in the still, clear water.

"Why do you think that is? Why should it change?" He looked around him, his brow furrowing. "I mean, this place has always been the same. Always. Unchanged. Unchanging but for the seasons. But now . . ." He looked at her. "What is it, Meg? What's happening?"

She looked up from his reflection and met his eyes.

"Does it worry you?"

He thought for a moment. "Yes," he said finally. "And I don't know why. And I want to know why."

She smiled at him and reached out to touch his arm. It was so typical of him, wanting to understand what he thought and why he thought it. Never happy unless he was worrying at the problem of himself.

"It's nothing," she said reassuringly. "They're only small things, Ben. They don't mean anything. Really they don't."

But she saw he wasn't convinced. "No," he said. "Everything has meaning. It's all signs, don't you see? It all signifies. And the small things . . . that's where it's to be seen first. Like the bird. It was beautiful, yes, but it was also . . ." He looked away and she said the word for him, anticipating him without quite knowing how, as she so often did.

"Frightening."

"Yes."

She followed his gaze a moment, seeing how his eyes climbed the Wall to its summit far overhead, then looked back at him again. He was more than a head taller than she, dark haired and straight boned. She felt a small warmth of pride kindle in her. So elegant he was. So handsome. Did he know how much she loved him? He knew so much, but did he know that? Maybe. But if he did he gave no sign.

"It was only a bird, Ben. Why should it frighten you?"

He almost smiled. "It wasn't the bird, Meg. At least, not the outer thing, the cage of bone and flesh, sinew and feather. It was what was within the bird—the force that gave it such power, such vitality." He looked down at his left hand, then turned it over, studying its back. "That's where its beauty lies. Not in the outward show but in the shaping force. That"—he seemed to shiver—"well, it's mystery. Pure mystery. And that frightens me, Meg. The thought of all that dark, unharnessed power simply existing in the world. I look at it and I want to know where it comes from. I want to know why it's there at all. Why it isn't mere mechanics and complexity of detail. Why all that fiery excess?"

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower."

And now he did smile, pleased by her recognition; by her quoting back at him the poem he had read to her only two days past. How rare that was, him smiling. And only for her. Never for mother or father. Nor for those others who came so rarely to this place.

"I guess there's that too," he said. "That same force brings us on, from bud to flower to ... well, to something browned and withered. And thus to clay." He shrugged. "It's all connected, isn't it? It uses us and then discards us. As if we're here only to flesh out its game—to give it form. Doesn't that frighten you, Meg?"

She shook her head. "Why should it? There's plenty of time, Ben. A whole world of time before we have to think of that."

He studied her intently for a moment, then bowed his head slightly. "Perhaps."

He began to walk, treading a careful path through the marshy ground, following a rising vein of rock that jutted from the sodden turf, until he came beneath the shadow of the Wall.

There, facing them not thirty paces away, was the Seal. Part of the Wall, it was the same dull pearl in color, a great circle five times Ben's height, its base less than an arm's length above the surface of the ground, its outer edge a thick ridge of steel-tough plastic.

For a moment he stood there, staring at it, oblivious of all else.

Meg, watching him, understood. It was a gateway. A closed door. And beyond it was the darkness of the Clay. Primal, unadulterated Clay. Beyond it the contiguous earth was sun-deprived and ban-en. Here Heaven, there Hell. And only a Wall, a Seal, between the two.

She climbed up beside him on the ridge of rock. "What's that?" She pointed outward to their left. There was something there. Something small and pale and gray against the green. Something that hadn't been there before.

He looked, then shrugged. "I don't know. Let's see, eh?"

At once he scrambled down. Meg hesitated, then followed. The ground was soft and spongy and in only a few paces her canvas shoes were soaked. Ben had gone ahead of her, his feet sinking, squelching as he ran. Then she saw him crouch down and examine something.

She came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. It was a rabbit. A dead rabbit.

"What killed it?" she asked.

He prized the carcass up from out of the wet, clinging turf and turned it over, examining it.

"I don't know. There's no sign of external injury. But it's not been here long." He looked up at her. "Here, Meg, give me your pullover."

She slipped her pullover off and handed it to him, then watched as he spread it out and laid the dead animal on it.

"What are you doing?"

Ben drew his hunting knife from its sheath, then cut the rabbit from chin to rump. For a moment he watched the blood well from the cut, staining the mottled gray fur, then laid the knife down and eased the flesh apart.

Meg watched, fascinated and horrified, as he probed inside the animal, the blood dark on his fingers. Then he lifted something small and wet; a pale, tiny sac attached by tubes and ten-

dons to the rest. It glistened in his fingers as he bent to study it. Then he looked up at her.

"It's as I thought. Look. The liver's covered in dark blotches." She shook her head, not understanding; watching him bundle the rabbit in her pullover, then lift it and sling it over his shoulder.

"It was diseased," he said, staring across at the Seal. Then he turned to look at her again. "It's part of the change in things, Meg. Don't you see that now? There's a sickness here in the Domain. A killing thing."

HAL SHEPHERD stood at the turn of the road, his hands resting lightly on the low stone wall, looking down at the row of cottages and the bay beyond. To his right the hill rose up above where he stood, then fell again to meet the next turn of the river. It was dotted with old stone-built houses and cottages. At its summit was a small church.

It was almost three months since he had been home, but now, standing there, it seemed that he had never been away. This much at least remains unchanged, he thought. Each hill, each tree, each house was familiar to him from youth. I see it as my grandfather saw it, and his grandfather before him. In three hundred years only the trees had changed, growing older, dying, replaced by others of their own ancient seed. Like us, he thought. We, too, are trees.

He walked on. The road dipped steeply here, then curved back wickedly upon itself. Where he had been standing had been a turning point for cars once upon a time—when there were still cars in the world—but this had never been a place for modern things. Even back then, when the world was connected differently, it had been seven miles by road to the nearest town of any size, and that easier to get to by the river. Time had stood still here even then. During the Ma'dness, when the old world had heaved itself apart, this place had been a point of stillness at the center of things. Now it was timeless.

There were walls, no more than a pace or two either side of him. Whitewashed walls, in heavy shadow now, their low-silled windows dark; only one cottage in the row lit up. He smiled, seeing it ahead of him; imagining Beth there in the low-beamed living room, the fire lit and the curtains drawn; seeing her, as he had so often seen her, go to the back door and call the children in from the meadow.

Home. It meant so many things, but only one to him. He would have withered inside long ago had there not been this to return to.

He stood outside the low, broad door, listening, then put his hand out flat against the wood and gently pushed. There was no need for locks here. No need for fear. The door swung back slowly, silently, and he went in.

Beth stood there in the doorway, framed by the soft light of the living room behind her and to her left. She smiled. "I knew you were coming. I dreamed of you last night."

He laughed and went to her, then held her tightly against-him, kissing her tenderly. "Your dreams . . ." He gazed into her eyes, loving the beauty, the measureless depth of them. "They never fail you do they?"

She smiled and kissed his nose. "No. Never."

He shivered and reached up to stroke her cheek, then trace the contours of her lips with a fingertip. His whole body was alive with desire for her. "Where's Ben? And Meg?"

Her body was pressed hard against his own, her hands at his neck. Her eyes now were dark with longing, her voice softer, more alluring. "They're outside. Down by the creek. But they'll not be back. Not just yet." She kissed him again, a harder, longer kiss this time.

"Yes . . ." He let his left hand rest gently on her waist a moment, then rucked up her skirt. Beneath it she wore nothing. He shuddered and sought her mouth again, the kiss more urgent now. His fingers traced the warm smoothness of her thighs and belly, then found the hot wetness at the core of her. She moaned softly and closed her eyes, her whole body trembling at his touch, then she reached down and freed him, holding his swollen penis momentarily, her fingers softly tracing its length, once, then again, almost making him come, before drawing him up into her.

He groaned, then grasped her by the buttocks and lifted her,

backing her against the wall, thrusting up into her once, twice, a third time, before he came explosively, feeling her shudder violently against him.

For a while, then, they were silent, watching each other. Then Beth smiled again. "Welcome home, my love."

THE PINE SURFACE of the kitchen table was freshly scrubbed, the knives newly sharpened. Ben looked about him, then left the bundled rabbit on the wide stone step outside and busied himself. He spread an oilcloth on the table, then laid the big cutting board on top of it. He laid the knives out beside the board and then, because it was growing dark, brought the lamp from beside the old ceramic butler sink, trimming the wick before he lit it.

Meg stood in the garden doorway, her small figure silhouetted against the twilight redness of the bay. She watched him roll back his sleeves, then fill a bowl with water and set it beside the knives.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked. "You know it's diseased. Why not burn it? Surely that's best?"

"No." Ben barely glanced at her. He turned and went down the four steps that led into the long, dark, low-eeilinged dining room, returning a moment later with a book from the shelves. An old thing, leather bound and cumbersome. "I've a hunch," he said, putting the heavy volume down on the other side of the board to the knives and the water.

Meg went across and stood beside him. It was a book of animal anatomy. One of their great-great-great-grandfather Amos's books. Ben flicked through the pages until he came to the diagram he was looking for. "There," he said, the heavy, glossy pages staying in place as he turned away to bring the rabbit.

She looked. Saw at once how like a machine it was. A thing of pumps and levers, valves and switches, controlled by chemicals and electric pulses. It was all there on the page, dissected for her. The whole of the mystery—there at a glance.

Ben came back. He placed the dead rabbit carefully on the block, then turned and looked at her. "You needn't stay, Meg. Not if you don't want to."

But she stayed, fascinated by what he was doing, knowing that this had meaning for him. Something had caught his attention. Something she had missed but he had seen. Now she waited as he probed and cut and then compared what had been exposed against the diagram spread across the double page.

At last, satisfied, he went to the sink and washed his hands, then came back and threw a muslin cloth over the board and its bloodied contents.

"Well?"

He was about to answer her when there was the sound of footsteps in the dining room. Their mother's. Then a second set.

Meg pushed past him and jumped down the four steps in her haste.

"Daddy!"

Hal Shepherd gathered his daughter up, hugging her tight and kissing her, delighted to see her. Then he ducked under the lintel and climbed the steps up into the kitchen, Beth following.

"Gods, Ben, what have you been up to?"

Ben turned to face the table.

"It's a dead rabbit. We found it down by the Seal. It's diseased. But that's not all. It doesn't come from here. It was brought in."

Hal put Meg down and went across. "Are you sure, Ben?" But he knew that Ben was rarely if ever wrong.

Ben pulled back the cloth. "Look. I made certain of it against Amos's book. This one isn't real. It's a genetic redesign. Probably GenSyn. One of the guards must have made a substitution."

Hal studied the carcass a while, then nodded. "You're right. And it won't be the only one, I'm sure. I wonder who brought it in?"

Ben saw the anger mixed with sadness on his father's face. There were two gates to the Domain, each manned by an elite squad of a dozen men, hand picked by the T'ang himself. Over the years they had become friends of the family and had been granted privileges—one of which was limited entry to the Domain. Now that would have to stop. The culprit would have to be caught and made to pay.

Meg came up to him and tugged at his arm. "But why would they do it, Daddy? There's no great difference, is there?"

Hal smiled sadly. "It's a kind of foolishness, my love, that's all.

You see, there are people in the City who would pay a vast sum of money to be able to boast they had real rabbit at one of their dinners."

Ben stared at the carcass fixedly. "How much is a vast sum?"

Hal looked down at his son. "Fifty, maybe a hundred thousand yuan for each live animal. They would breed them, you see, then sell the doctored litters."

Ben considered. Such a sum would be as nothing to his father, he knew, but to others it was a fortune. He saw at once how such an opportunity might have tempted one of the guards. "I see," he said. "But there's another, more immediate worry. If they're all like this they could infect everything in the Domain. We'll need to sweep the whole area. Catch everything and test it. Quarantine whatever's sick."

Hal nodded, realizing his son was right. "Damn it! Such stupidity! I'll have the culprit's hide!" He laid a hand on his son's shoulder. "But you're right, Ben, we'd best do something straightaway. This can't wait for morning."

He turned to Beth, anger turning to apology in his face. "This complicates things, I'm afraid. I meant to tell you earlier, my love. We have a guest coming, tomorrow evening. An important guest. He'll be with us a few days. I can't say any more than that. I was hoping we could hunt, but this business buggers things."

She frowned at him and made a silent gesture toward Meg.

Shepherd glanced at his daughter, then looked back at his wife and gave a slight bow. "I'm sorry. Yes ... my language. I forget when IVe been away. But this . . ." He huffed angrily, exasperated, then turned to his son again. "Come, Ben. There's much to be done."

IT WAS CALM on the river. Ben pulled easily at the oars, the boat moving swiftly through the water. Meg sat facing him, looking across at the eastern shore. "Behind her, in the stem, sat Peng Yu-wei, tall, elderly, and very upright, his staff held in front of him like an unflagged mast. It was ebb tide and the current was in their favor. Ben kept the boat midstream, enjoying the warmth of the midday sun on his bare shoulders, the feel of the mild sea breeze in his hair. He felt drowsy, for one rare moment almost lapsed out of consciousness; then Meg's cry brought him back to himself.

"Look, Ben!"

Meg was pointing out toward the far shore. Ben shipped oars and turned to look. There, stretching from the foreshore to the Wall, was a solid line of soldiers. Slowly, methodically, they moved between the trees and over the rough-grassed, uneven ground, making sure nothing slipped between them. It was their third sweep of the Domain and their last. What was not caught this time would be gassed.

Peng Yu-wei cleared his throat, his head held slightly forward in a gesture of respect to his two charges.

"What is it, Teacher Peng?" Ben asked coldly, turning to face him. Lessons had ended an hour back. This now was their time and Peng, though chaperone for this excursion, had no authority over the master and mistress outside his classroom.

"Forgive me, young master, I wish only to make an observation."

Meg turned, careful not to make the boat tilt and sway, and looked up at Peng Yu-wei, then back at Ben. She knew how much Ben resented the imposition of a teacher. He liked to make his own discoveries and follow his own direction, but their father had insisted upon a more rigorous approach. What Ben did in his own time was up to him, but in the morning classes he was to do as Peng Yu-wei instructed; learn what Peng Yu-wei asked him to learn. With some reluctance Ben had agreed, but only on the understanding that outside the classroom the teacher was not to speak without his express permission.

"You understand what Teacher Peng really is?" he had said to Meg when they were alone one time. "He is their means of keeping tabs on me. Of controlling what I know and what I leam. He's bit and bridle, ball and chain, a rope to tether me like any other animal."

His bitterness had surprised her. "Surely not," she had answered. "Father wouldn't want that, would he?"

But he had not answered, only looked away, the bitterness in his face unchanged.

Now some of that bitterness was back as he looked at Teacher Peng. "Make your observation, then. But be brief."

Peng Yu-wei bowed, then turned his head, looking across at the soldiers who were now level with them. One frail, thin hand went up to pull at his wispy gray goatee; the other moved slightly on the staff, inclining it toward the distant line of men. "This whole business seems most cumbersome, would you not agree, Master Ben?"

Ben's eyes never left the teacher's face. "No. Not cumbersome. Inemcient's a better word."

Teacher Peng looked back at him and bowed slightly, corrected. "Which is why I felt it could be made much easier."

Meg saw the irritation and impatience on Ben's face and looked down. She knew no good would come of this.

"You had best tell me how, Teacher Peng." The note of sarcasm in Ben's voice was bordering on outright rudeness now. Even so, Peng Yu-wei seemed not to notice. He merely bowed and continued.

"It occurs to me that, before returning the animals to the land again, a trace could be put inside each animal. Then, if this happened again, it would be a simple thing to account for each animal. Theft and disease would both be far easier to control."

Peng Yu-wei looked up at his twelve-year-old charge expectantly, but Ben was silent.

"Well, master?" he asked after a moment. "What do you think of my idea?"

Ben looked away. He lifted the oars and began to pull at them again, digging heavily into the water to his right, bringing the boat back onto a straight course. Then he looked back at the teacher.

"It's a hideous idea, Peng Yu-wei. An unimaginative, small-minded idea. Just another way of keeping tabs on things. I can see it now. You would make a great electronic wall chart of the Domain, eh? And have each animal as a blip on it."

The stretched olive skin of Peng Yu-wei's face was relaxed, his dark eyes, with their marked epicarithic fold, impassive. "That would be a refinement, I agree, but ..."

Ben let the oars fall and leaned forward in the boat. Peng Yu-wei reflexively moved back. Meg watched, horrified, as Ben scrabbled past her, the boat swaying violently, and tore at the teacher's pau, exposing his chest.

"Please, young master. You know that is not allowed."

Peng Yu-wei still held his staff, but with his other hand he now sought to draw the two ends of the torn silk together. For a moment, however, the white circle of the control panel set into his upper chest was clearly visible.

For a second or two Ben knelt there in front of him threateningly, his whole body tensed as if to act. Then he moved back.

"You'll be quiet, understand? And you'll say nothing of this. Nothing! Or I'll switch you off and drop you over the side. Understand me, Teacher Peng?"

For a moment the android was perfectly still, then it gave the slightest nod.

"Good," said Ben, moving back and taking up the oars again. "Then we'll proceed."

AS BEN TURNED the boat into the tiny, boxlike harbor the two sailors looked up from where they sat on the steps mending their nets and smiled. They were both old men, in their late sixties, with broad, healthy, salt-tanned faces. Ben hailed them, then concentrated on maneuvering between the moored fishing boats. There was a strong breeze now from the mouth of the river and the metallic sound of the lines flapping against the masts filled the air, contesting with the cry of gulls overhead. Ben turned the boat's prow with practiced ease and let the craft glide between a big, high-sided fishing boat and the harbor wall, using one of the oars to push away, first one side, then the other. Meg, at the stern, held the rope in her hand, ready to jump ashore and tie up.

Secured, Ben jumped ashore, then looked back into the boat. Pen Yu-wei had stood up, ready to disembark.

"You'll stay," Ben said commandingly.

For a moment Peng Yu-wei hesitated, his duty to chaperone the children conflicting with the explicit command of the young master. Water slopped noisily between the side of the boat and the steps. Only paces away the two old sailors had stopped their mending, watching.

Slowly, with great dignity, the teacher sat, planting his staff before him. "I'll do as you say, young master," he said, looking up at the young boy on the quayside, "but I must tell your father about this."

Ben turned away, taking Meg's hand. "Do what you must, tin man," he muttered under his breath.

The quayside was cluttered with coils of rope, lobster pots, netting, and piles of empty wooden crates—old, frail-looking things that awaited loads of fish that never came. The harbor was filled with fishing boats, but no one ever fished. The town beyond was full of busy-seeming people, but no one lived there. It was all false: all part of the great illusion Ben's great-great-great-grandfather had created here.

Once this had been a thriving town, prospering on fishing and tourism and the naval college. Now it was dead. A shell of its former self, peopled by replicants.

Meg looked about her, delighted, as she always was by this. Couples strolled in the afternoon sunshine, the ladies in crinolines, the men in stiff three-piece suits. Pretty little girls with curled blond hair tied with pink ribbons ran here and there, while boys in sailor suits crouched, playing five-stones.

"It's so real here!" Meg said enthusiastically. "So alive!"

Ben looked down at her and smiled. "Yes," he said. "It is, isn't it?" He had seen pictures of the City. It seemed such an ugly, hideous place by comparison. A place of walls and cells and corridors—a vast, unending prison of a place. He turned his face to the breeze and drew in great lungfuls of the fresh salt air, then looked back at Meg. "What shall we do?"

She looked past the strolling holidaymakers at the gaily painted shops along the front, then looked up at the hillside and, beyond it, the Wall, towering over all.

"I don't know. . . ." She squeezed his hand. "Let's just go where we want, Ben. Look wherever we fancy looking, eh?"

"Okay. Then we'll start over there, at the Chandler's."

For the next few hours they went among the high-street shops, first searching through the shelves of Joseph Toms, Toys and Fancy Goods, for novelties, then looking among the tiny cupboards of Charles Weaver, Apothecary, sampling the sweet-tasting, harmless powders on their fingers and mixing the brightly colored liquids in beakers. But Ben soon tired of such .games and merely watched as Meg went from shop to shop,

unchallenged by the android shopkeepers. In Nash's Coffee House they had their lunch, the food real but somehow unsatisfying, as if reconstituted.

"There's a whole world here, Meg. Preserved. Frozen in time. Sometimes I look at it and think it's such a waste. It should be used somehow."

Meg sipped at her iced drink, then looked up at him. "You think we should let others come here into the Domain?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "No. Not that. But. . ."

Meg watched him curiously. It was unusual to see Ben so indecisive.

"You've an idea," she said.

"No. Not an idea. Not as such."

Again that uncertainty, that same slight shrugging of his shoulders. She watched him look away, his eyes tracing the row of signs above the shopfronts: David Wishart, Tobacconist; Arthur Redmayne, Couturier; Thomas Lipton, Vintner; Jack Del-croix, Dentist & Bleeder, Stagg & Mantle, Ironmongers; Verry's Restaurant; Jackson & Graham, Cabinet Makers; The Lambe Brothers, Linen-Drapers; and there, on the corner, facing Goode's Hostelry, Pugh's Mourning House.

Seeing Pugh's brought back a past visit. It was months ago and Ben had insisted on going into Pugh's, though they had always avoided the shop before. She had watched him go among the caskets, then lift one of the lids, peering inside. The corpse looked realistic enough, but Ben had turned to her and laughed. "Dead long before it was dead." Somehow that had made him talk about things here. Why they were as they were, and what kind of man her great-great-great-grandfather had been to create a place like this. He had not skimped on anything. One looked in drawers or behind doors and there, as in real life, one found small, inconsequential things. Buttons and pins and photographs. A hatstand with an old, well-worn top hat on one peg, a scarf on another, as if left there only an hour past. Since then she had searched and searched, her curiosity unflagging, trying to catch him out—to find some small part of this world he had made that wasn't finished. To find some blank, uncreated part behind the superficial details.

Would she have thought to do this without Ben? Would she have searched so ardently to find that patch of dull revealing blankness? No. In truth she would never have known. But he had shown her how this, the most real place she knew, was in other ways quite hollow. Was all a marvelous sham. A gaudy, imaginative fake.

"If this is fake, why is it so marvelous, Ben?" she had asked, and he had shaken his head in wonder at her question.

"Why? Because it's godlike! Look at it, Meg! It's so presumptuous! Such consummate mimicry! Such shameless artifice!"

Now, watching him, she knew he had a scheme. Some way of using this.

"Never mind," she said. "Let's move on. I'd like to try on some of Lloyd's hats."

Ben smiled at her. "Okay. And then we'll start back."

THEY WERE UPSTAIRS in Edgar Lloyd, Hatters, when Ben heard voices down below. Meg was busy trying on hats at the far side of the room, the android assistant standing beside her at the mirror, a stack of round, candy-striped boxes in her arms.

Ben went to the window and looked down. There were soldiers in the passageway below. Real soldiers. And not just any soldiers. He knew the men at once.

Meg turned to him, a wide-brimmed creation of pale cream lace balanced precariously on top of her dark curls. "What do you think, Ben? Do you—"

He hushed her urgently.

"What is it?" she mouthed.

"Soldiers," he mouthed back.

She set the hat down and came across to him.

"Keep down out of sight," he whispered. "They're our guards, and they shouldn't be here. They're supposed to be confined to barracks."

She looked up at him, wide eyed, then knelt down, so that her head was below the sill. "Tell me what's happening," she said quietly.

He watched. There were ten of them down there, their voices urgent, excited. For a moment Ben couldn't understand what was going on, then one of them turned and he saw it was the captain, a man called Rosten. Rosten pointed down the passageway toward the open ground in front of the old inn and muttered something Ben couldn't quite make out.

"What are they doing?"

He looked down at Meg and saw the fear in her eyes. "Nothing. Hush now, Megs. It'll be all right."

He put his hand on her shoulder and looked out again. What he saw this time surprised him. Two of the men were being held and bound; their wrists and ankles taped together. One of the men started to struggle, then began to cry out. Meg tried to get up to see, but with a gentle pressure he pushed her back down.

There was the sound of a slap, then silence from below. A moment later Rosten's voice barked out. "Out there! Quick now!"

Ben moved across to the other side of the window, trying to keep them in sight, but he lost them in a moment.

"Stay here, Meg. I'm going downstairs."

"But, Ben—"

He shook his head. "Do what I say. I'll be all right. I'll not let them see me."

He had to move slowly, carefully, on the stairs because, for a brief moment, he was in full sight of the soldiers through the big plate glass window that looked out onto the narrow quay. At the bottom he moved quickly between the racks and tables until he was crouched between two mannequins, looking out through their skirts at the scene in front of the inn.

Two men held each of the prisoners. The other three stood to one side, in a line, at attention. Rosten had his back to Ben and stood there between the window and the prisoners. With an abrupt gesture that seemed to jerk his body forward violently, he gave an order. At once both prisoners were made forcibly to kneel and lower their heads.

Only then, as Rosten turned slightly, did Ben see the long, thin blade he held.

For a moment the sight of the blade held Ben; the way the sunlight seemed to flow like a liquid along the gently curved length of it, flickering brilliantly on the razor-sharp edge and at the tip. He had read how swords could seem alive—could have a personality, even a name—but he had never thought to see it. He looked past the blade. Though their heads were held down forcibly, the two men looked up at Rosten, anxious to know what he intended for them. Ben knew them well. Gosse, to the left, was part Han, his broad, rough-hewn Slavic features made almost Mongolian by his part-Han ancestry. Wolfe, to the right, was a southerner, his dark, handsome features almost refined; almost, but not quite, classical. Almost. For when he smiled or laughed, his eyes and mouth were somehow ugly. Somehow brutish and unhealthy.

Rosten now stood between the two, his feet spread, his right arm outstretched, the sword in his right hand, its tip almost touching the cobbled ground a body's length away.

"You! You understand why you're here? YouVe heard the accusations?"

"They're lies—" began Wolfe, but he was cuffed into silence by the man behind him.

Rosten shook his head. The long sword quivered in his hand. "Not lies, Wolfe. You have been tried by a panel of your fellow officers and found guilty. You and Gosse here. You stole and cheated. You have betrayed our master's trust and dishonored the Banner."

Wolfe's eyes widened. The blood drained from his face. Beside him Gosse looked down, as if he had already seen where this led.

"There is no excusing what you did. And no solution but to excise the shame."

Wolfe's head came up sharply and was pushed down brutally. "No!" he shouted, beginning to struggle again. "You can't do this! You—"

A blow from one of the men holding him knocked him down onto the cobbles.

"Bring him here!"

The two guards grabbed Wolfe again and dragged him, on his knees, until he was at Rosten's feet.

Rosten's voice was almost hysterical now. He half shouted, half screamed, his sword arm punctuating the words. "You are scum, Wolfe! Faceless! Because of you, your fellow officers have fallen under suspicion! Because of you, all here have been dishonored!" Rosten shuddered violently and spat on the kneeling man's head. "You have shamed your Banner! You have shamed, your family name! And you have disgraced your ancestors!"

Rosten stepped back and raised the sword. "Hold the prisoner down!"

Ben caught his breath. He saw how Wolfe's leg muscles flexed impotently as he tried to scrabble to his feet; how he squirmed in the two men's grip, trying to get away. A third soldier joined the other two, forcing Wolfe down with blows and curses. Then one of them grabbed Wolfe's topknot and, with a savage yank that almost pulled the man up off his knees, stretched his neck out, ready for the sword.

Wolfe was screaming now, his voice hoarse, breathless. "No! No! Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, help me! I did nothing! Nothing!" His face was torn with terror, his mouth twisted, his eyes moving frantically in their sockets, pleading for mercy.

Ben saw Rosten's body tauten like a compressed coil. Then, with a sharp hiss of breath, he brought the sword down sharply.

Wolfe's screams stopped instantly. Ben saw the head drop and roll, the body tumble forward like a sack of grain, the arms fall limp.

Ben looked across at Gosse.

Gosse had been watching all in silence, his jaw clenched, his neck muscles taut. Now, with a visible shudder, he looked down again, staring at the cobbles.

Rosten bent down and wiped the sword on the back of Wolfe's tunic, then straightened, facing Gosse.

"You have something to say, Gosse?"

Gosse was silent a moment, then he looked up at Rosten. His eyes, which, moments earlier, had been filled with fear and horror, were now clear, almost calm. His hands shook, but he clenched them to control their trembling. He took a deep breath, then another, like a diver about to plunge into the depths, and nodded.

"Speak then. YouVe little time."

Gosse hunched his shoulders and lowered his head slightly, in deference to Rosten, but kept his eyes on him. "Only this. It is true what you say. I am guilty. Wolfe planned it all, but I acted with him, and there is no excusing my actions. I accept the judgment of my fellow officers and, before I die, beg their forgiveness for having shamed them before the T'ang."

Rosten stood there, expecting more, but Gosse had lowered his head. After a moment's reflection Rosten gave a small nod, then spoke.

"I cannot speak for all here, but for myself I say this. You were a good soldier, Gosse. And you face death bravely, honestly, as a soldier ought. I cannot prevent your death now, you understand, but I can, at least, change the manner of it."

There was a low gasp from the men on either side as Rosten took a pace forward and drew the short sword from his belt and handed it to Gosse.

Gosse understood at once. His eyes met Rosten's, bright with gratitude, then looked down at the short sword. With his left hand he tore open the tunic of his uniform and drew up the undershirt, baring the flesh. Then he gripped the handle of the short sword with both hands and turned it, so that the tip was facing his stomach. The two guards who had been holding him released him and stood back. Rosten watched him a moment, then took up his place, just behind Gosse and to one side, the long sword half raised.

Ben eased forward until his face was pressed against the glass, watching Gosse slow his breathing and focus his whole being upon the blade resting only a hand's length from his stomach. Gosse's hands were steady now, his eyes glazed. Time slowed. Then, quite abruptly, it changed. There was a sudden, violent movement in Gosse's face—a movement somewhere between ecstasy and extreme agony—and then his hands were thrusting the blade deep into his belly. With what seemed superhuman strength and control he drew the short sword to the left, then back to the right, his intestines spilling out onto the cobbles. For a moment his face held its expression of ecstatic agony, then it crumpled and his eyes looked down, widening, horrified by what he had done.

Rosten brought the sword down sharply.

Gosse knelt a moment longer. Then his headless body fell and lay there, motionless, next to Wolfe's.

Ben heard a moan behind him and turned. Meg was squatting at the top of the stairs, her hands clutching the third and fourth struts tightly, her eyes wide, filled with fright.

"Go up!" he hissed anxiously, hoping he'd not be heard; horrified that she had been witness to Gosse's death. He saw her turn and look at him, for a moment barely recognizing him or understanding what he had said to her. Dear god, he thought; how much did she see?

"Go up!" he hissed again. "For heaven's sake, go up!"

IT WAS DARK on the river, the moon obscured behind the Wall's northwestern edge. Ben jumped ashore and tied the row-boat up to the small, wooden jetty, then turned to give a hand to Peng Yu'Wei, who stood there, cradling a sleeping Meg in one arm.

He let the teacher go ahead, reluctant to go in, wanting to keep the blanket of darkness and silence about him a moment longer.

There was a small rectangle of land beside the jetty, surrounded on three sides by steep clay walls. A set of old wooden steps had been cut into one side. Ben climbed them slowly, tired from the long row back. Then he was in the garden, the broad swath of neat-trimmed grass climbing steadily to the thatched cottage a hundred yards distant.

"Ben!"

His mother stood in the low back doorway, framed by the light, an apron over her long dress. He waved, acknowledging her. Ahead of him Peng Yu-wei strode purposefully up the path, his long legs showing no sign of human frailty.

He felt strangely separate from things. As if he had let go of oars and rudder and now drifted on the dark current of events. On the long row back he had traced the logic of the thing time and again. He knew he had caused their deaths. From his discovery things had followed an inexorable path, like the water's tight spiral down into the whirlpool's mouth. They had died because of him.

No. Not because of him. Because of his discovery. He was not to blame for their deaths. They had killed themselves. Their greed had killed them. That and their stupidity.

He was not to blame; yet he felt their deaths quite heavily. If he had said nothing. If he had simply burned the rabbit as Meg had suggested. . . .

It would have solved nothing. The sickness would have spread; the discovery would have been made. Eventually. And then the two soldiers would have died.

It was not his fault. Not his fault.

His mother met him at the back door. She knelt down and took his hands. "Are you okay, Ben? You look troubled. Has something happened?"

He shook his head. "No. I—"

The door to the right of the broad, low-ceilinged passageway opened and his father came out, closing the door behind him. He smiled at Ben, then came across.

"Our guest is here, Ben. He's been here all afternoon, in fact." He hesitated and glanced at his wife. "I know I said earlier that you would be eating alone tonight, Ben, but. . . well, he says he would like to meet you. So I thought that maybe you could eat with us after all."

Ben was used to his father's guests and had never minded taking his evening meal in his room, but this was unusual. He had never been asked to sit at table with a guest before.

"Who is it?" he asked.

His father smiled enigmatically. "Wash your hands, then come through. I'll introduce you. But, Ben ... be on your best behavior, please."

Ben gave a slight bow, then went straight to the small washroom. He washed his face and hands, then scrubbed his nails and tidied his hair in the mirror. When he came out his mother was waiting for him. She took his hands, inspecting them, then straightened his tunic and bent to kiss his cheek.

"You look fine, Ben. Now go in."

"Who is it?" he asked again. "Tell me who it is."

But she only smiled and turned him toward the door. "Go on in. I'll be there in a moment."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Conversation in the Firelight

IN THE LIGHT from the open fire the T'ang's strong, Oriental features seemed carved in ancient yellowed ivory. He sat back in his chair, smiling, his eyes brightly dark.

"And you think they'll be happy with that, Hal?"

Li Shai Tung's hands rested lightly on the table's edge, the now-empty bowl he had been eating from placed to one side, out of his way. Ben, watching him, saw once again how the light seemed trapped by the matt black surface of the heavy iron ring he wore on the index finger of his right hand. The Ywe Lung. The seal of power.

Hal Shepherd laughed, then shook his head. "No. Not for a moment. They all think themselves emperors in that place."

They were talking about the House of Representatives at Weimar—"that troublesome place," as the T'ang continually called it—and about ways of shoring up the tenuous peace that now existed between it and the Seven.

The T'ang and his father sat at one end of the k>ng, darkwood table, facing each other, while Ben sat alone at the other end. His mother had not joined them for the meal, bowing in this regard to the T'ang's wishes. But in other respects she had had her own way. The T'ang's own cooks sat idle in her kitchen, watching with suspicion and a degree of amazement as she single-handedly prepared and served the meal. This departure from the T'ang's normal practices was remarkable enough in itself, but what had happened at the beginning of the meal had surprised even his father.

When the food taster had stepped up to the table to perform his normal duties, the T'ang had waved him away and, picking up his chopsticks, had taken the first mouthful himself. Then,, after chewing and swallowing the fragrant morsel, and after a sip of the strong green Longjing ch'a—itself "untasted"—he had looked up at Beth Shepherd and smiled broadly, complimenting her on the dish. It was, as Ben understood at once, seeing the surprised delight on his father's face and the astonished horror on the face of the official taster, quite unprecedented, and made him realize how circumscribed the T'ang's life had been. Not free at all, as others may have thought, but difficult; a life lived in the shadow of death. For Li Shai Tung, trust was the rarest and most precious thing he had to offer; for in trusting he placed his life—quite literally his life—in the hands of others.

In that small yet significant gesture, the T'ang had given his father and mother the ultimate in compliments.

Ben studied the man as he talked, aware of a strength in him that was somehow more than physical. There was a certainty—a vitality—in his every movement, such that even the slightest hesitancy was telling. His whole body spoke a subtle language of command; something that had developed quite naturally and unconsciously during the long years of his rule. To watch him was to watch not a man but a directing force; was to witness the channeling of aggression and determination into its most elegant and expressive form. In some respects Li Shai Tung was like an athlete, each nuance of voice or gesture the result of long and patient practice. Practice that had made these things second nature to the T'ang.

Ben watched, fascinated, barely hearing their words, but aware of their significance, and of the significance of the fact that he was there to hear them.

Li Shai Tung leaned forward slightly, his chin, with its pure white, neatly braided beard, formulating a slight upward motion that signaled the offering of a confidence.

"The House was never meant to be so powerful. Our forefathers saw it only as a gesture. To be candid, Hal, as a sop to their erstwhile allies and a mask to their true intentions. But now, a hundred years on, certain factions persist in taking it at face value. They maintain that the power of the House is sanctioned by 'the People." And we know why, don't we? Not for 'the People.' Such men don't spare a second's thought for 'the People.' No, they think only of themselves. They seek to climb at our expense. To raise themselves by pulling down the Seven. They want control, Hal, and the House is the means through which they seek to get it."

The Tang leaned back again, his eyes half lidded now. He reached up with his right hand and grasped the tightly furled queue at the back of his head, his fingers closing about the coil of fine white hair. It was a curious, almost absentminded gesture; yet it served to emphasize to Ben how at ease the T'ang was in his father's company. He watched, aware of a whole vocabulary of gesture there in the dialogue between the two men; conscious not just of what they said but of how they said it; how their eyes met or did not meet; how a shared smile would suddenly reveal the depths of their mutual understanding. All served to show him just how much the T'ang depended on his father to release these words, these thoughts, these feelings. Perhaps because no other could be trusted with them.

"I often ask myself, is there any way we might remove the House and dismantle the huge bureaucratic structure that has grown about it? But each time I ask myself I know beforehand what the answer is. No. At least, not now. Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago it might have been possible. But even then it might simply have preempted things. Brought us quicker to this point."

Hal Shepherd nodded. "I agree. But perhaps we should have faced it back then. We were stronger. Our grip on things was firmer. Now things have changed. Each year's delay sees them grow at our expense."

"You'd counsel war, then, Hal?"

"Of a kind."

The T'ang smiled, and Ben, watching, found himself comparing the man to his tutor, Peng Yu-wei. That epicanthic fold over the eye, which seemed so much a part of the android's "difference"—its machine nature—was here, on the natural man, quite attractive.

"And what kind is that?"

"The kind we're best at. A war of levels. Of openness and deception. The kind of war the Tyrant, Tsao Ch'un, taught us how to fight."

The T'ang looked down at his hands, his smile fading. "I don't know. I really don't, Hal. Sometimes I question what we've done."

"As any man must surely do."

Li Shai Tung looked up at him and shook his head. "No, Hal. For once I think you're wrong. Few men actually question their actions. Most are blind to their faults. Deaf to the criticisms of their fellow men." He laughed sourly. "You might say that Chung Kuo is filled with such men—blind, wicked, greedy creatures who see their blindness as strength, their wickedness as necessity, their greed as historical process."

"That's so. ..."

For a moment the two men fell silent, their faces solemn in the flickering light from the fire. Before either could speak again, the door at the far end of the room opened and Ben's mother entered, carrying a tray. She set it down on a footstool beside the open fire, then leaned across to take something from a bowl on the mantelpiece and sprinkle it on the burning logs.

At once the room was filled with the sweet, fresh smell of mint.

The T'ang gave a gentle laugh, delighted, and took a long, deep breath.

Ben watched his mother turn from the fire, drawing her long dark hair back from her face, smiling. "I've brought fresh ch'a," she said simply, then lifted the tray and brought it across to them.

As she set it down the T'ang stood and, reaching across, put his hand over hers, preventing her from lifting the kettle.

"Please. I would be honored if jou sat a while with us and shared the ch'a."

She hesitated then, smiling, did as he bid her; watching the strange sight of a T'ang pouring ch'a for a commoner.

"Here," he said, offering her the first bowl. "Ch'a from the dragon's well."

The T'ang's words were a harmless play on the name of the Long] ing ch'a, but for Ben they seemed to hold a special meaning. He looked at his mother, seeing how she smiled selfconsciously and lowered her head, for a moment the youthful look of her reminding him very much of Meg—of how Meg would be a year or two from now. Then he looked back at the Tang, standing there, pouring a second bowl for his father.

Ben frowned. The very presence of the T'ang in the room seemed suddenly quite strange. His silks, his plaited hair, his very foreignness, seemed out of place among the low oak beams and sturdy yeoman furniture. That contrast, that curious juxtaposition of man and room, brought home to Ben how strange this world of theirs truly was. A world tipped wildly from its natural balance.

The dragon's well. It made him think of fire and darkness, of untapped potency. Is that what's missing from our world? he asked himself. Have we done with fire and darkness?

"And you, Ben? Will you drink of the dragon's well?"

Li Shai Tung looked across at him, smiling; but behind the smile—beyond it, in some darker, less accessible place—lay a deep disquiet.

Flames danced in the glass of each eye, flickered wet and evanescent on the dark surface of his vision. But where was the fire on the far side of the glass? Where the depths that made of man a man? In word and gesture the T'ang was a great and powerful man—a T'ang, unmistakably a king among men—but he had lost contact with the very thing that had made—had shaped—his outer form. He had denied his inner self once too often and now the well was capped, the fire doused.

He stared at the T'ang, wondering if he knew what he had become; if the doubt that he professed was as thorough, as all inclusive, as it ought to be. Whether, when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw beyond the glass into that other place behind the eyes. Ben shivered. No. It could not be so. For if it were, the man himself would crumble. Words would fail, gestures grow hesitant. No. This T'ang might doubt what they had done, but not what he was. That was innate—was bred into his bones. He would die before he doubted himself.

The smile remained, unchallenged, genuine; the offered bowl awaited him.

"Well, Ben?" his father asked, turning to him. "Will you take a bowl with us?"

LI SHAI TUNG leaned forward, offering the boy the cup, conscious that he had become the focus of the child's strange intensity; of the intimidating ferocity of his stare.

Hal was right. Ben was not like other children. There was something wild in his nature; some part of him that remained untamed, unsocialized. When he sat there at table it was as if he held himself in check. There was such stillness in him that when he moved it was as if something dead had come alive again. Yet he was more alive—more vividly alive—than anyone the T'ang had ever met.

As he handed Ben the bowl he almost expected to receive some kind of shock—a violent discharge of the child's unnatural energy—through the medium of the bowl. But there was nothing. Only his wild imagining.

The T'ang looked down, thoughtful. Ben Shepherd was a breed of one. He had none of those small refinements that fitted a man for the company of his fellows. He had no sense of give and take; no idea of the concessions one made for the sake of social comfort. His stare was uncompromising, almost proprietorial. As if all he saw was his.

Yes, Li Shai Tung thought, smiling inwardly. You should be a T'ang, Ben Shepherd, for you'll find it hard to pass muster as a simple man.

He lifted his bowl and sipped, thinking back to earlier that afternoon. They had been out walking in the garden when Hal had suggested he go with him and see Ben's room.

He had stood in the center of the tiny, cluttered upstairs room, looking at the paintings that covered the wall above the bed.

Some were lifelike studies of the Domain. Lifelike, at least, but for the dark, unfocused figures who stood in the shadows beneath the trees on the far side of the water. Others were more abstract, depicting strange distortions of the real. Twins figured largely in these latter compositions; one twin quite normal— strong and healthy—the other twisted out of shape, the eyes white and blank, the mouth open as if in pain. They were disturbing, unusually disturbing, yet their technical accomplishment could not be questioned.

"These are good, Hal. Very good indeed. The boy has talent."

Hal Shepherd gave a small smile, then came alongside him. "He'd be pleased to hear you say that. But if you think those are good, look at this."

The T'ang took the folder from him and opened it. Inside was a single ultra-thin sheet of what seemed like pure black plastic. He turned it in his hands and then laughed. "What is it?"

"Here." Shepherd indicated a viewer on the table by the window, then drew the blind down. "Lay it in the tray there, then flick that switch."

Li Shai Tung placed the sheet down in the viewer. "Does it matter which way up?"

"Yes and no. You'll see."

The T'ang flicked the switch. At once the tanklike cage of the viewer was filled with color. It was a hologram. A portrait of Hal Shepherd's wife, Beth.

"He did this?"

Shepherd nodded. "There are one hundred and eighty cross-sectional layers of information. Ninety horizontal, ninety vertical. He handdrew each sheet and then compressed them. It's his own technique. He invented it."

"Hand-drew . . . ?"

"And from memory. Beth wouldn't sit for him, you see. She said she was too busy. But he did it anyway."

Li Shai Tung shook his head slowly. "It's astonishing, Hal. It's like a camera image of her."

"You haven't seen the half of it. Wait. . . ." Shepherd switched the hologram off, then reached in and lifted the flexible plate up. He turned it and set it down again. "Please. . . ."

The Tang reached out and pressed the switch. Again the viewing cage was filled with color. But this time the image was different.

The hologram of Hal Shepherd was far from flattering. The flesh was far cruder, much rougher, than the reality, the cheeks ruddier. The hair was thicker, curlier, the eyebrows heavier and darker. The nose was thick and fleshy, the ears pointed, the eyes larger, darker. The lips were more sensuous than the original, almost licentious. They seemed to sneer.

Shepherd moved closer and looked down into the viewer. "There's something of the satyr about it. Something elemental."

The T'ang turned his head and looked at him, not understanding the allusion.

Shepherd laughed. "It was a Greek thing, Shai Tung. In their mythology satyrs were elementary spirits of the mountains and the forests. Part goat, part man. Cloven hooved, thickly haired, sensual, and lascivious."

Li Shai Tung stared at the urbane, highly sophisticated man standing at his side and laughed briefly, bemused that Shepherd could see himself in that brutal portrait. "I can see a slight likeness. Something in the eyes, the shape of the head, but. . ."

Shepherd shook his head slowly. He was staring at the hologram intently. "No. Look at it, Shai Tung. Look hard at it. He sees me clearly. My inner self."

Li Shai Tung shivered. "The gods help us that our sons should see us thus!"

Shepherd turned and looked at him. "Why? Why should we fear that, old friend? We know what we are. Men. Part mind, part animal. Why should we be afraid of that?"

The T'ang pointed to the -image. "Men, yes. But men like that? You really see yourself in such an image, Hal?"

Shepherd smiled. "It's not the all of me, I know, but it's a part. An important part."

Li Shai Tung shrugged—the slightest movement of his shoulders—then looked back at the image. "But why is the other as it is? Why aren't both alike?"

"Ben has a wicked sense of humor."

Again the T'ang did not understand, but this time Shepherd made no attempt to enlighten him.

Li Shai Tung studied the hologram a moment longer, then turned from it, looking all about him. "He gets such talent from you, Hal."

Shepherd shook his head. "I never had a tenth his talent. Anyway, even the word talent is unsatisfactory. What he has is genius. In that he's like his great-grandfather."

The T'ang smiled at that, remembering his father's tales of Augustus Shepherd's eccentricity. "Perhaps. But let us hope that that is all he has inherited."

He knew at once that he had said the wrong thing. Or, if not the wrong thing, then something which touched upon a sensitive area.

"The resemblance is more than casual."

The T'ang lowered his head slightly, willing to drop the matter at once, but Shepherd seemed anxious to explain. "Ben's schizophrenic, too, you see. Oh, nothing as bad as Augustus. But it creates certain incongruities in his character."

Li Shai Tung looked back at the pictures above the bed with new understanding. "But from what you've said the boy is healthy enough."

"Even happy, I'd say. Most of the time. He has bouts of it, you understand. Then we either dose him up heavily or leave him alone."

Shepherd leaned across and switched off the viewer, then lifted the thin black sheet and slipped it back into the folder. "They used to think schizophrenia was a simple malfunction of the brain; an imbalance in certain chemicals—dopamine, glu-tamic acid, and gamma amino butyric acid. Drugs like Largactil, Modecate, Disipal, Priadel, and Haloperidol were used, mainly as tranquilizers. But they simply kept the thing in check and had the side effect of enlarging the dopamine system. Worst of all, at least as far as Ben is concerned, they damp down the creative faculty."

The T'ang frowned. Medicine, like all else, was based on traditional Han ways. The development of Western drugs, like Western ideas of progress, had been abandoned when Tsao Ch'un had built his City. Many such drugs were, in fact, illicit now. One heard of them, normally, only in the context of addiction—something that was rife in the lowest levels of the City. Nowadays all serious conditions were diagnosed before the child was born and steps taken either to correct them or to abort the fetus. It thus surprised him, first to hear that Ben's illness had not been diagnosed beforehand, second that he had even considered taking drugs to keep the illness in check.

"He has not taken these drugs, I hope."

Shepherd met his eyes. "Not only has but still does. Except when he's working."

The T'ang signed deeply. "You should have told me, Hal. I shall arrange for my herbalist to call on Ben within the next few days."

Shepherd shook his head. "I thank you, Shai Tung. Your kindness touches me. But it would do no good."

"No good?" The T'ang frowned, puzzled. "But there are numerous sedatives—things to calm the spirit and restore the body's yin'yang balance. Good, healthy remedies, not these . . . drugs!"

"I know, Shai Tung, and again I thank you for your concern. But Ben would have none of it. Oh, I can see him now— Dragon bones and oyster sheUs! he'd say scornfully, What good are they against this affliction!"

The T'ang looked down, disturbed. In this matter he could not insist. The birthright of the Shepherds made them immune from the laws that governed others. If Ben took drugs to maintain his mental stability there was little he, Li Shai Tung, could do about it. Even so, he could not stop himself from feeling it was wrong. He changed the subject.

"Is he a good son, Hal?"

Shepherd laughed. "He is the best of sons, Shai Tung. Like Li Yuan, his respect is not a matter of rote, as it is with some of this new generation, but a deep-rooted thing. And as you've seen, it stems from a thorough knowledge of his father."

The T'ang nodded, leaving his doubts unexpressed. "Good. But you are right, Hal. These past few years have seen a sharp decline in morality. The Ji—the rites—they mean little now. The young mouth the old words but they mean nothing by them. Their respect is an empty shell. We are fortunate, you and I, that we have good sons."

"Indeed. Though Ben can be a pompous, intolerant little sod at times. He has no time for fools. And little enough for cleverness, if you see what I mean. He loathes his machine-tutor, for instance."

Li Shai Tung raised his eyebrows. "That surprises me, Hal. I would have thought he cherished knowledge. All this"—he looked about him at the books and paintings and machines—"it speaks of a love of knowledge."

Shepherd smiled strangely. "Perhaps you should talk to him yourself, Shai Tung."

The T'ang smiled. "Perhaps I should."

Now, watching the boy across the length of the dinner table, he understood.

"What do you think, Ben? Do you think the time has come to fight our enemies?"

Unexpectedly, the boy laughed. "That depends on whether you know who or what your enemies are, Li Shai Tung."

The T'ang lifted his chin slightly. "I think I have a fair idea of that."

Ben met his eyes again, fixing that same penetrating stare on him. "Maybe. But you must first ask yourself what exactly you are fighting against. When you think of your enemies your first thought is of certain identifiable men and groups of men, is that not so?"

The T'ang nodded. "That is so, Ben. I know my enemies. I can put names to them and faces."

"There, you see. And you think that by waging war against them you will resolve this present situation." Ben set his bowl down and sat back, his every gesture momentarily—though none but Ben himself realized it—the mirror image of the T'ang's. "With respect, Li Shai Tung, you are wrong."

The T'ang laughed fiercely, enjoying the exchange. "You think their ideology will outlive them? Is that it, Ben? If it were not so false in the first place, I would agree with you. But their sole motivation is greed. They don't really want change. They want power."

Ben shook his head. "Ah, but you're still thinking of specific men. Powerful men, admittedly, even men of influence, but only men. Men won't bring Chung Kuo down, only what's inside of Man. You should free yourself from thinking of them. To you they seem the greatest threat, but they're not. They're the scum on the surface of the well. And the well is deep."

Li Shai Tung took a deep breath. "With respect, Ben, in this you are wrong. Your argument presupposes that it does not matter who rules—that things will remain as they are whoever is in power. But that's not so. Their ideology is false, but, forgive me, they are Hung Moo."

Across from him Hal Shepherd smiled, but he was clearly embarrassed. It was more than two decades since he had taken offense at the term—a term used all the while in court, where the Han were predominant and the few Caucasians treated as honorary Han—yet here, in the Domain, he felt the words incongruous, almost—surprisingly—insulting.

"They have no sense of harmony," continued the T'ang, unaware. "No sense of li. Any change they brought would not be for the good. They are men of few principles. They would carve the world up into principalities and then there would be war again. Endless war. As it was before."

There was the faintest of smiles on Ben's lips. "You forget your own history, Li Shai Tung. No dynasty can last forever. The wheel turns. Change comes, whether you will it or no. It is the way of mankind. All of mankind, even the Han."

"So it may have been, but things are different now. The wheel no longer turns. We have done with history."

Ben laughed. "But you cannot stop the world from turning!"

He was about to say more but his mother touched his arm. She had sat there, perfectly still and silent, watching the fire while they talked, her dark hair hiding her face. Now she smiled and got up, excusing herself.

"Perhaps you men would like to go through into the study. IVe lit the fire there."

Shepherd looked to the T'ang, who gave the slightest nod of agreement before standing and bowing to his hostess. Again he thanked her warmly for the meal and her hospitality and then, when she had gone, went before Shepherd and his son into the other room.

"Brandy?" Shepherd turned from the wall cabinet, holding the decanter up. The T'ang was usually abstemious, but tonight his mood seemed different. He seemed to want to talk—to encourage talk. As if there were some real end to all this talking: some problem which, though he hadn't come to it, he wished to address. Something he found difficult; that worried him profoundly.

The T'ang hesitated, then smiled. "Why not? After all, a man should indulge himself now and then."

Shepherd poured the T'ang a fingernail's measure of the dark liquid and handed him the ancient bowled glass. Then he turned to his son. "Ben?"

Ben smiled almost boyishly. "Are you sure Mother won't mind?"

Shepherd winked at him. "Mother won't know."

He handed the boy a glass, then poured one for himself and sat, facing the T'ang across the fire. Maybe it was time to force the pace; time to draw the T'ang out of himself.

"Something's troubling you, Shai Tung."

The T'ang looked up from his glass almost distractedly and gave a soft laugh. "Everything troubles me, Hal. But that's not what you mean, is it?"

"No. No visit of yours is casual, Shai Tung. You had a specific reason for coming to see me, didn't you?"

The T'ang's smile was filled with gratitude. "As ever, Hal, you're right. But I'll need no excuse to come next time. I’ve found this very pleasant."

"Well?"

The T'ang took a long inward breath, steeling himself, then spoke. "It's Tolonen."

For some time now the T'ang had been under intense pressure from the House to bring the General to trial for the murder of Under Secretary Lehmann. They wanted Tolonen's head for what he'd done. But the T'ang had kept his thoughts to himself about the killing. No one—not the Seven nor Hal Shepherd—• knew how he really felt about the matter, only that he had refused to see Tolonen since that day; that he had exiled him immediately and appointed a new general, Vittorio Nocenzi, in his place. .

Shepherd waited, conscious of how tense Li Shai Tung had suddenly become. Tolonen had been of the same generation as the T'ang and they shared the same unspoken values. In their personal lives there had been parallels that had drawn them close and formed a bond between them; not least the loss of both their wives some ten years back. In temperament, however, they were ice and fire.

"I miss him. Do you understand that, Hal? I really miss the old devil. First and foremost for himself. For all that he was.

Loyal. Honest. Brave." He looked up briefly, then looked down again, his eyes misting. "I felt he was my champion, Hal. Always there at my side. From my eighteenth year. My General. My most trusted man."

He shuddered and was silent for a while. Then he began again, his voice softer, yet somehow stronger, more definite than before.

"Strangely I miss his rashness most of all. He was like Han Ch'in in that. What he said was always what part of me felt. Now I feel almost that that part of me is missing—is unexpressed, festering in the darkness."

"You want him back?"

Li Shai Tung laughed bitterly. "As if 1 could. No, Hal, but I want to see him. I need to speak to him."

Shepherd was silent for a time, considering, then he leaned forward and set his glass down on the table at his side. "You should call him back, Shai Tung. For once damn the House and its demands. Defy them. You are Tang, and thus above their laws."

Li Shai Tung looked up and met Shepherd's eyes. "I am T'ang, yes, but I am also Seven. I could not act so selfishly."

"Why not?"

The T'ang laughed, surprised. "This is unlike you, Hal. For more than twenty years you have advised me to be cautious, to consider the full implications of my actions, but now, suddenly, you counsel me to rashness."

Shepherd smiled. "Not rashness, Shai Tung. Far from it. In fact, I've thought of little else this past year." He got up and went across to a bureau in the corner farthest from the fire, returning a moment later with a folder which he handed to the T'ang.

"What is this, Hal?"

Shepherd smiled, then sat again. "My thoughts on things."

Li Shai Tung stared thoughtfully at.Shepherd a moment, then set his glass down and opened the folder.

"But this is handwritten."

Shepherd nodded. "It's the only copy. I've said things in there that I'd rather not have fall into the hands of our enemies."

He looked briefly at his son as he said the last few words, conscious that the boy was watching everything.

Li Shai Tung looked up at him, his face suddenly hawklike, his eyes fiercer than before. "Why did you not mention this before?"

"It was not my place. In any case, it was not ready before now."

The T'ang looked back down at the folder and at the summary Shepherd had appended to the front of his report. This was more than a simple distillation of the man's thoughts on the current political situation. Here, in its every detail, was the plan for that "War of Levels" Shepherd had mentioned earlier. A scheme which would, if implemented, bring the Seven into direct confrontation with the House.

Li Shai Tung flicked through the pages of the report quickly, skimming, picking out phrases which Shepherd had highlighted or underlined, his pulse quickening as he read. Shepherd's tiny, neat handwriting filled almost forty pages, but the meat of it was there, in that opening summary. He read once more what Shepherd had written.

Power is defined only through the exercise of power. For too long now we have refrained from openly exercising our power and that restraint has been taken for weakness by our enemies. In view of developments it might be argued that they have been justified in this view. However, our real weakness is not that we lack the potential, but that we lack the will to act.

We have lost the initiative and allowed our opponents to dictate the subject—even the rules—of the debate. This has resulted in the perpetuation of the belief that change is not merely desirable but inevitabk. Moreover, they believe that the natural instrument of that change is the House, therefore they seek to increase the power of the House.

The logic of this process is inexorable. There is nothing but House and Seven, hence the House can grow only at the expense of the Seven.

War is inevitable. It can be delayed but not avoided. And every delay is henceforth to our opponents' advantage. They grow while we dimmish. It follows that we must preempt their play for power.

We must destroy them now, while we yet have the upper hand.

Li Shai Tung closed the file with a sigh. Shepherd was right. He knew, with a gut certainty, that this was what they should do. But he had said it already. He was not simply T'ang, he was Seven, and the Seven would never act on this. They saw it differently.

"Well?"

"I can keep this?"

"Of course. It was meant for you."

The T'ang smiled sadly, then looked across at the boy. He spoke to him as he would to his own son, undeferentially, as one adult to another. "Have you seen this, Ben?"

Shepherd answered for his son. "You've heard him already. He thinks it nonsense."

Ben corrected his father. "Not nonsense. I never said that. I merely said it avoided the real issue."

"Which is?" Li Shai Tung asked, reaching for his glass.

"Why men are never satisfied."

The T'ang considered a moment, then laughed softly. "That has always been so, Ben. How can I change what men are?"

"You could make it better for them. They feel boxed in. Not just physically, but mentally too. They've no dreams. Not one of them feels real anymore."

There was a moment's silence, then Hal Shepherd spoke again. "You know this, Ben? You've talked to people?"

Ben stared at his father momentarily, then turned his attention back to the T'ang. "You can't miss it. It's there in all their eyes. There's an emptiness there. An unfilled, unfulfilled space deep inside them. I don't have to talk to them to see that. I have only to watch the media. It's like they're all dead but they can't see it. They're looking for some purpose for it all and they can't find it."

Li Shai Tung stared back at the boy for a moment, then looked down, chilled by what Ben had said. Was it so? Was it really so? He looked about the room, conscious suddenly of the lowness of the ceiling, of the dark oak beams that divided up the whitewashed walls, the fresh cut roses in a silver bowl on the table in the corner. He could feel the old wood beneath his fingers, smell the strong pine scent of the fire. All this was real. And he, too, was real, surely? But sometimes, just sometimes . . .

"And you think we could give them a purpose?"

Strangely, Ben smiled. "No. But you might give them the space to find one for themselves."

The T'ang nodded. "Ah. Space. Well, Ben, there are more than thirty-nine billion people in Chung Kuo. What practical measures could we possibly take to give space to so many?"

But Ben was shaking his head. "You mistake me, Li Shai Tung. You take my image too literally." He put a finger to his brow. "I meant space up here. That's where they're trapped. The City's only the outward, concrete form of it. But the blueprint— the paradigm—is inside their heads. That's where youVe got to give them room. And you can only do that by giving them a sense of direction."

"Change. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"No. You need change nothing."

Li Shai Tung laughed. "Then I don't understand you, Ben. Have you some magic trick in mind?"

"Not at all. I mean only that if the problem is in their heads, then the solution can be found in the same place, They want outwardness. They want space, excitement, novelty. Well, why not give it to them? But not out there, in the real world. Give it to them up here, in their heads."

The T'ang was frowning. "But don't they get that, Ben? Doesn't the media give them that now?"

Ben shook his head. "No. I'm talking of something entirely different. Something that will make the walls dissolve. That will make it real to them." Again he tapped his brow. "Up here, where it counts."

The T'ang was about to answer him when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!" said Shepherd, half turning in his seat.

It was the T'ang's steward. He bowed low to Shepherd and his son, then turned, his head still lowered, to his master. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but you asked me to remind you of your audience with Minister Chao." Then, with a bow, the steward backed away, closing the door behind him.

Li Shai Tung looked back at Shepherd. "I'm sorry, Hal, but I must leave soon."

"Of course—" Shepherd began, but his son interrupted him.

"One last thing, Li Shai Tung."

The T'ang turned, patient, smiling. "What is it, Ben?"

"I saw something. This afternoon, in the town."

Li Shai Tung frowned. "You saw something?"

"An execution. And a suicide. Two of the elite guards."

"Gods!" The T'ang sat forward. "You saw that?"

"We were upstairs in one of the shops."

Shepherd broke in. "We. You mean Meg was with you?"

Ben nodded, then told what he had seen. At the end Li Shai Tung, his face stricken, turned to Shepherd. "Forgive me, Hal. This is all my fault. Captain Rosten was acting on my direct orders. However, had I known Ben and Meg would be there . . ." He shuddered, then turned back to the boy. "Ben, please forgive me. And ask Meg to forgive me too. Would that I could undo what has been done."

For a moment Ben seemed about to say something, then he dropped his eyes and made a small movement of his head. A negation. But what it signified neither man knew.

There was another knock on the door; a signal that the T'ang acknowledged with a few words of Mandarin. Then the two men stood, facing each other, smiling, for a brief moment in perfect accord.

"It has been an honor to have you here, Li Shai Tung. An honor and a pleasure."

The T'ang's smile broadened. "The pleasure has been mine, Hal. It is not often I can be myself."

"Then come again. Whenever you need to be yourself."

Li Shai Tung let his left hand rest on Shepherd's upper arm a moment, then nodded. "I shall. I promise you. But come, Hal, I've a gift for you."

The door opened and two of the T'ang's personal servants came in, carrying the gift. They set it down on the floor in the middle of the room, as the T'ang had instructed them earlier, then backed away, heads lowered. It was a tree. A tiny, miniature apple tree.

Shepherd went across and knelt beside it, then turned and looked back at Li Shai Tung, clearly moved by the T'ang's gesture.

"It's beautiful. It really is, Shai Tung. How did you know I wanted one?"

The Pang laughed softly. "I cheated, Hal. I asked Beth. But the gift is for you both. Look carefully. The tree is a twin. It has two intertwined trunks."

Shepherd looked. "Ah, yes." He laughed, aware of the significance. Joined trees were objects of good omen; symbols of conjugal happiness and marital fidelity. More than that, an apple—p'ing, in Mandarin—was a symbol of peace. "It's perfect, Li Shai Tung. It really is." He shook his head, overwhelmed, tears forming in his eyes. "We shall treasure it."

"And I this." Li Shai Tung held up Shepherd's file. He smiled, then turned to the boy. "It was good to talk with you, Ben. I hope we might talk again sometime."

Ben stood and, unexpectedly, gave a small bow to the T'ang.

"My father's right, of course. You should destroy them. Now, while you still can."

"Ah ..." Li Shai Tung hesitated, then nodded. Maybe so, he thought, surprised yet again by the child's unpredictability. But he said nothing. Time alone would prove them right or wrong on that.

He looked back at Shepherd, who was standing now. "I must go, Hal. It would not do to keep Minister Chao waiting." He laughed. "You know, Chao has been in my service longer than anyone but Tblonen."

It was said before he realized it.

"I forget. . . ." he said with a small, sad laugh.

Shepherd, watching him, shook his head. "Bring him back, Shai Tung." he said softly. "This once, do as your heart bids you."

The T'ang smiled tightly and held the file more firmly. "Maybe," he said. But he knew he would not. It was as he had said. He was T'ang, yes, but he was also Seven.

WHEN THE T'ANG had gone they stood at the river's edge. The moon was high overhead—a bright, full moon that seemed to float in the dark mirror of the water. The night was warm and still, its silence broken only by the sound—a distant, almost disembodied sound—of the soldiers working on the cottage. Shepherd squatted down, looking out across the water into the darkness on the other side.

"What did you mean, Ben, earlier? All that business about dissolving walls and making it real. Was that just talk or did you have something real in mind?"

Ben was standing several paces from his father, looking back up the grassy slope to where they had set up arc lamps all around the cottage. The dark figures of the suited men seemed to flit through the glare like objects seen peripherally, in a dream.

"It's an idea I have. Something IVe been working on."

Shepherd turned his head slightly and studied his son a moment. "You seemed quite confident. Almost as if the thing existed."

Ben smiled and met his father's eyes briefly. "It does. Up here."

Shepherd laughed and looked down, tugging at the long grass. "So what is it? I'm interested. And I think the T'ang was interested too."

"What did he want?"

A faint breeze ruffled the water, making the moon dance exaggeratedly on the darkness. "What do you mean?"

"Why was I there?"

Shepherd smiled to himself. He should have known better than to think Ben would not ask that question.

"Because he wanted to see you, Ben. Because he thinks that one day you might help his son."

"I see. And he was assessing me?"

"You might put it that way."

Ben laughed. "I thought as much. Do you think he found me strange?"

"Why should you think that?"

Ben looked directly at his father. "I know what I am. I've seen enough of the world to know how different I am."

"On a screen, yes. But not everything's up there on the screen, Ben."

"No?" Ben looked back up the slope toward the cottage. They were hauling the first of the thin encasing layers over the top of the frame, the heavily suited men pulling on the guide ropes. "What don't they show?"

Shepherd laughed, but let the query pass. Ben was right. He did know what he was, and he was different. There was no point in denying that.

"You've no need to follow in my footsteps, Ben."

Ben smiled but didn't look at him. "You think I'd want that?"

Shepherd felt a twinge of bitterness, then shook his head. "No. No, I guess not. In any case, I'd never force that on you. You know that, don't you?"

Ben turned and stared out across the water fixedly. "Those things don't interest me. The political specifics. The who-runs-what and who-did-what. I would be bored by it all. And what good is a bored advisor? I'd need to care about those things, and I don't."

"You seemed to care. Earlier, when we were talking about them."

"No. That was something different. That was the deeper thing."

Shepherd laughed. "Of course. The deeper thing."

Ben looked back at him. "You deal in surfaces, Father, both of you. But the problem's deeper than that. It's inside. Beneath the surface of the skin. It's bred in the blood and bone of men, in the complex web of nerve and muscle and organic tissue. But you . . . well, you persist in dealing with only what you see. You treat the blemished skin and let the inner man corrupt."

Shepherd was watching his son thoughtfully, aware of the gulf that had grown between them these last few years. It was as if Ben had outgrown them all. Had done with childish things. He shrugged. "Maybe. But that doesn't solve the immediate problem. Those surfaces you dismiss so readily have hard edges. Collide with them and you'll realize that at once. People get hurt, lives get blighted, and those aren't superficial things."

"It wasn't what I meant."

Shepherd laughed. "No. Maybe not.' And maybe you're right. You'd make a lousy advisor, Ben. YouVe been made for other things than politics and intrigue." He stood up, wiping his hands against his trousers. "You know, there were many things I wanted to do, but I never had the time for them. Pictures I wanted to paint, books I wanted to write, music I wanted to compose. But in serving the T'ang IVe had to sacrifice all those and much else besides. I've seen much less of you and Meg than I ought—and far, far too little of your mother. So . . ." He shrugged. "Well, if you don't want that kind of life, I understand. I understand only too well. More than that, Ben, I think the world would lose something were you to neglect the gifts you have."

Ben smiled. "We'll see." Then he pointed up the slope. "I think they've almost finished. That's the third of the isolation skins."

Shepherd turned and looked back up the slope. The cottage was fully encased now, its cozy shape disguised by the huge white insulating layers. Only at the front, where the door to the garden was, was its smooth, perfectly geometric shape broken. There they had put the seal-unit; a big cylinder containing the air pump and the emergency generator.

A dozen suited men were fastening the edges of the insulator to the brace of the frame. The brace was permanently embedded in the earth surrounding the cottage; a crude, heavy piece of metal a foot wide and three inches thick with a second, smaller "collar" fixed by old-fashioned wing-screws to the base.

The whole strange apparatus had been devised by Shepherd's great-great-great-grandfather, Amos—the first of the Shepherds to live here—as a precaution against nuclear fallout. But when the Great Third War—"The War to End It All" as the old man had written in his journal—had failed to materialize, the whole cumbersome isolation-unit had been folded up and stored away, only the metal brace remaining, for the amusement of each new generation of Shepherd children.

"Gift wrapped!" Shepherd joked, beginning to climb the slope.

Ben, following a few paces behind, gave a small laugh, but it was unrelated to his father's comment. He had had an insight. It had been Amos's son, Robert, who had designed City Earth. His preliminary architectural sketches hung in a long glass frame on the passage wall inside the cottage.- But the idea had not originated with him. The seed of City Earth lay here, now, before them—physically before them—as they climbed the grassy slope. Here, in this outward symbol of his great-great-greatgrandfather's paranoia was the genesis of all that had followed.

Robert had merely enlarged and refined his father's scheme until it embraced a world.

He laughed softly to himself, then looked across at his father, wondering if he saw it, too, or whether the connection existed in his mind alone.

Nearer the cottage the soldiers had set up an infestation grid, the dull mauve light attracting anything small and winged from the surrounding meadows. Ben stood and watched as a moth, its wings like the dull gauze of an old and faded dress, its body thick and stubby like a miniature cigar, fluttered toward the grid. For a moment it danced in the blue-pink light, mesmerized by the brightness, its translucent wings suffused with purple. Then its wingtip brushed against the tilted surface. With a spark and a hiss the moth fell, senseless, into the grid, where it flamed momentarily, its wings curling, vanishing in an instant, its body cooking to a dark cinder.

Ben watched a moment longer, conscious of his own fascination; his ears filled with the brutal music of the grid—the crack and pop and sizzle of the dying creatures; his eyes drawn to each brief, sudden incandescence. And in his mind he formed a pattern of their vivid afterimages against the dull mauve light.

"Come, Ben. Come on in."

He turned. His mother was standing in the doorway, beckoning to him. He smiled, then sniffed the air. It was filled with the tart, sweet scent of ozone and burnt insects.

"I was watching," he said, as if it explained everything.

"I know." She came across to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "It's horrible, isn't it? But necessary, I suppose."

"Yes."

But he meant something other by the word: something more than simple agreement. It was both horrible and necessary, if only to prevent the spread of the disease throughout the Domain; but it was just that—the horrible necessity of death—that gave it its fascination. Is all of life just that? he asked himself, looking away from the grid, out across the dark, moonlit water of the bay. Is it all merely one brief, erratic flight into the burning light? And then nothing?

Ben shivered, not from fear or cold, but from some deeper,

more complex response, then turned and looked up at his mother, smiling. "Okay. Let's go inside."

THE CAPTAIN of the work party watched the woman and her son go in, then signaled to his men to complete the sealing off of the cottage. It was nothing to him, of course—orders were orders—yet it had occurred to him several times that it would have been far simpler to evacuate the Shepherds than go through with all this nonsense. He could not for the life of him understand why they should wish to remain inside the cottage while the Domain was dusted with poisons. Still, he had to admit, it was a neat job. Old man Amos had known what he was up to.

He walked across and inspected the work thoroughly. Then, satisfied that the seal was airtight, he pulled the lip mike up from under his chin. "Okay. We're finished here. You can start the sweep."

Six miles away, at the mouth of the estuary, the four big transporters, converted specially for the task, lifted one by one from the pad and began to form up in a line across the river. Then, at a signal, they began, moving slowly down the estuary, a thin cloud—colorless, like fine powdered snow—drifting down behind them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Augustus

IT WAS JUST after ten in the morning, yet the sun already blazed down from a vast, deep blue sky that seemed washed clean of all impurities. Sunlight burnished the surface of the gray-green water, making it seem dense and yet clear, like melted glass. The tide was high but on the turn, lapping sluggishly against the rocks at the river's edge.

In midstream Meg let Ben take the oars from her, changing seats with him nimbly as the boat drifted slowly about. Then she sat back, watching him as he strove to right their course, his face a mask of patient determination, the muscles of his bare, tanned arms tensing and untensing. Ben clenched his teeth, then pulled hard on the right-hand oar, turning the prow slowly toward the distant house, the dark, slick-edged blade biting deep into the glaucous, muscular flow as he hauled the boat about in a tight arc.

"Are you sure it's all right?"

Ben grimaced, concentrating, inwardly weighing the feel of the boat against the strong pull of the current. "She'll never know," he answered. "Who'll tell her?"

It wasn't a threat. He knew he could trust her to say nothing to their mother. Meg looked down briefly, smiling, pleased that he trusted her. Then she sat there, quiet, content to watch him, to see the broad river stretching away beyond him, the white-painted cottages of the village dotted against the broad green flank of the hill, while at her back the house grew slowly nearer.

Solitary, long abandoned, it awaited them.

The foreshore was overgrown. Weeds grew waist high in the spaces between the rocks. Beyond, the land was level for thirty yards or so, then climbed, slowly at first, then steeply. The house wasn't visible from where they stood, in the cool beneath the branches, and even farther along, where the path turned, following the contours of the shoreline, they could see only a small part of it, jutting up, white between the intense green of the surrounding trees.

The land was strangely, unnaturally silent. Meg looked down through the trees. Below them, to their right, was the cove, the dark mouth of the cave almost totally submerged, the branches of the overhanging trees only inches above the surface of the water. It made her feel odd. Not quite herself.

"Come on," said Ben, looking back at her. "We've not long. Mother will be back by two."

They went up. A path had been cut from the rock. Rough-hewn steps led up steeply, hugging an almost sheer cliff face. They had to force their way through a tangle of bushes and branches. At the top they came out into a kind of clearing. There was concrete underfoot, cracked but reasonably clear of vegetation. It was a road. To their left it led up into the trees. To their right it ended abruptly, only yards from where they stood, at an ornate cast-iron gate set into a wall.

They went across and stood there, before the gate, looking in.

The house lay beyond the gate; a big, square, three-story building of white stone, with a steeply pitched roof of gray slate. They could see patches of it through the overrun front garden. Here, more noticeably than elsewhere, nature had run amok. A stone fountain lay in two huge gray pieces, split asunder by an ash that had taken seed long ago in the disused fissure at its center. Elsewhere the regular pattern of a once elaborate garden could be vaguely sensed, underlying the chaotic sprawl of new growth.

"Well?" she said, looking up at him. "What now?"

The wall was too high to climb. The gate seemed strong and solid, with four big hinges set into the stone. A big thick-linked steel chain was wrapped tightly about the lock, secured by a fist-sized padlock.

Ben smiled. "Watch."

Taking a firm hold of two of the upright bars, he shook the gate vigorously, then gave it one last sharp forward thrust. With a crash it fell inward, then swung sideways, twisting against the restraining chain.

Ben stepped over it, then reached back for her. "The iron was rotten," he said, pointing to the four places in the stone where the hinges had snapped sheer off.

She nodded, understanding at once what he was really saying to her. Be careful here. Judge nothing by its appearance. He turned from her.

She followed, more cautious now, making her way through the thick sprawl of greenery toward the house.

A verandah ran the length of the front of the house. At one end it had collapsed. One of the four mock-Doric pillars had fallen and now lay, like the broken leg of a stone giant, half buried in the window frame behind where it had previously stood. The glass-framed roof of the verandah was broken in several places where branches of nearby trees had pushed against it, and the whole of the wooden frame—the elaborately carved side pieces, the stanchions, rails, and planking—was visibly rotten. Ben stood before the shallow flight of steps that led up to the main entrance, his head tilted back as he studied the frontage.

"It's not what I expected," he said as she came alongside him. "It seems a lot grander from the river. And bigger. A real fortress of a place."

She took his arm. "I don't know, Ben. I think it is rather grand. Or was, anyway."

He turned his head and looked at her. "Did you bring the lamp?"

She nodded and patted her pocket.

"Good. Though I doubt there'll be much to see. The house has been boarded up more than eighty years now."

She was silent a moment, thoughtful, and knew he was thinking the same thing. Augustus. The mystery of this house had something to do with their great-grandfather, Augustus.

"Well?" she prompted after a moment. "Shall we go inside?"

"Yes. But not this way. There's another door around the side. We'll get in there, through the kitchens."

She stared at him a moment, then understood. He had already studied plans of the old house. Which meant he had planned this visit for some while. But why this morning? Was it something to do with the soldiers' deaths? Or was it something else? She knew they had had a visitor last night, but no one had told her who it was or why they'd come. Whatever, Ben had seemed disturbed first thing when she had gone to wake him. He had been up already. She had found him sitting there, hunched up on his bed, his arms wrapped about his knees, staring out through the open window at the bay. That same mood was on him even now as he stood there looking up at the house.

"What exactly are we looking for?"

"Clues____"

She studied his face a moment longer, but it gave nothing away. His answer was unlike him. He was always so specific, so certain. But today he was different. It was as if he was looking for something so ill defined, so vaguely comprehended, that even he could not say what it was.

"Come on, then," he said suddenly. "Let's see what ghosts we'll find."

She laughed quietly, that same feeling she had had staring down at the cove through the trees—that sense of being not quite herself—returning to her. It was not fear, for she was never afraid when she was with Ben, but something else. Something to do with this side of the water. With the wildness here. As if it reflected something in herself. Some deeper, hidden thing.

"What do you think we'll find?" she called out to him as she followed him, pushing through the dense tangle of bushes and branches. "Have you any idea at all?"

"None," he yelled back. "Maybe there's nothing at all. Maybe it's an empty shell. But then why would they board it up? Why bother if it's empty? Why not just leave it to rot?"

She caught up with him. "From the look of it, it's rotted anyway."

Ben glanced at her. "It'll be different inside."

A BROAD SHAFT of daylight breached the darkness. She watched Ben fold the shutter into its recess, then move along to release and fold back another, then another, until all four were open. Now the room was filled with light. A big room. Much bigger than she'd imagined it in the dark. A long wooden work-surface filled most of the left-hand wall, its broad top cleared. Above it, on the wall itself, were great tea-chest-sized oak cupboards. At the far end four big ovens occupied the space, huge pipes leading up from them into the ceiling overhead. Against the right-hand wall, beneath the windows, was a row of old machines and, beside the door, a big enamel sink.

She watched Ben bend down and examine the pipes beneath the sink. They were green with moss, red with rust. He nibbed his finger against the surface of one of them, then put the finger gingerly to his lips. She saw him frown, then sniff the finger, his eyes intense, taking it all in.

He turned. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. "Look."

There, in the middle of the white-tiled floor, was a beetle. A rounded, black-shelled thing the size of a brooch.

"Is it alive?" she asked, expecting it to move at any moment.

He shrugged, then went across and picked it up. But it was only a husk, the shell of a beetle. "It's been dead for years," he said.

Yes, she thought; maybe since the house was sealed.

There was another door behind them, next to an old, faded print that was rotten with damp beneath its mold-spattered glass. Beyond the door was a narrow corridor that led off to the right. They went through, moving slowly, cautiously, side by side, using their lamps to light the way ahead of them.

They explored, throwing open the shutters in each of the big rooms, but there was nothing. The rooms were empty, their dusty floorboards bare, only the dark outlines of long-absent pictures interrupting the blankness of the walls.

No sign of life. Only the husk, the empty shell, of what they'd come for.

Augustus. No one talked of Augustus. Yet it was that very absence which made him so large in their imaginations. Ever since Ben had first found that single mention of him in the journals. But what had he been? What had he done that he could not be talked of?

She shivered and looked at Ben. He was watching her, as if he knew what she was thinking.

"Shall we go up?"

She nodded.

Upstairs it was different. There the rooms were filled with ancient furniture, preserved under white sheets, as if the house had been closed up for the summer only, while its occupant was absent.

In one of the big rooms at the front of the house, Meg stood beside one of the huge, open shutters, staring out through the trees at the river. Light glimmered on the water through gaps in the heavy foliage. Behind her she could hear Ben, pulling covers off chairs and tables, searching, restlessly searching for something.

"What happened here?"

Ben stopped and looked up from what he was doing. "I'm not sure. But it's the key to things. I know it is."

She turned and met his eyes. "How? How do you know?"

He smiled. "Because it's the one thing they won't talk about. Gaps. Look for the gaps, Meg. That's where the truth is. That's where they hide all the important stuff."

"Like what?"

His face hardened momentarily, then he looked away.

She looked down, realizing just how keyed up he was; how close" he had come to snapping at her.

"There's nothing here," he said, after a moment. "Let's go up again."

She nodded, then followed him up, knowing there would be nothing: The house was empty. Or as good as. But she was wrong.

Ben laughed, delighted, then stepped inside the room, shining his lamp about the walls. It was a library. Or a study maybe. Whichever, the walls were filled with shelves, and the shelves with books. Old books, of paper and card and leather. Ben hurried to the shutters and threw them open, then turned and stared back into the room. There was a door, two windows, and a full-length mirror on the wall to his left. Apart from that there were only shelves. Books and more books, filling every inch of the wallspace.

"Whose were they?" she asked, coming alongside him; sharing his delight at their find.

He pulled a book down at random, then another and another. The bookplates were all the same. He showed her one.

She read the words aloud. "This book is the property of Amos William Shepherd." She laughed, then looked up into Ben's face. "Then he lived here. But I thought. . ."

Ben shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he used this house to work in."

She turned, looking about her. There were books scattered all about their cottage, but not a tenth as many as were here. There must have been five, maybe ten thousand of them here. She laughed, astonished by their find. There were probably more books here—reed books—than there were in the rest of Chung Kuo.

Ben was walking slowly up and down the room, looking about him curiously. "It's close," he said softly. "It's very close now. I know it is."

What's close? she wanted to ask him. What? What? What? But the question would only anger him. He knew no better than she. He only sensed there was something.

Then, suddenly, he stopped and turned and almost ran outside into the corridor again. "There!" he said, exultant, and she watched him pace out the distance from the end of the corridor to the doorway. Fifteen paces. He went inside and did the same. Twelve. Only twelve!

She saw at once. The mirror. The mirror was a door. A way through.

He went to it at once, looking for a catch, a way of releasing it, but there was nothing. Frustrated, he pulled books down from the shelf and knocked at the wall behind them. It was brick, solid brick.

For a moment he stood before the mirror, staring into it. Then he laughed. "Of course!"

He turned and pointed it out to her. "Level with the top of the mirror. That row of books opposite. Look, Meg. Tell me what you see."

She went across and looked. They were novels. Famous novels. Ulysses, Nostromo, Tess of the D'LJrbervilks, Vanity Fair, Howard's End, Bleak House, Daniel Martin, Orlando, and several others. She turned back to him and frowned. "I don't understand, Ben. What am I looking for?"

"It's a cryptogram. Look at the order. The first letter of the titles."

She looked, doing as he said. D.A.E.H.R.E.V.O.N.O.T. T.U.B. Then she understood. It was mirrored. You had to reverse the letters.

He laughed, ahead of her, and reached up to find the button.

With a faint hiss of escaping air the mirror sprang free. Beyond it was a room. Ben shone his lamp inside. It seemed like a smaller version of "the library, the walls covered with books. But in its center, taking up most of the available floor space, was a desk.

He shone his lamp over the desk's surface, picking out four objects. A letter knife, an ink block, a framed photograph, and a large folio-sized journal. The light rested on the last of these for some while, then moved upward, searching the end wall.

Meg came alongside him. "What are you looking for?"

"A window. There must have been a window."

"Why? If he really wanted to keep this room a secret, having no window onto the outside would be the best way, surely?"

He looked at her, then nodded. But she, watching him, was surprised that he hadn't seen it for himself. It was as if, now that he'd found it, he was transfixed by his discovery. She shone her lamp into his face.

"Meg. . . ." He pushed her hand away.

She moved past him, into the room, then turned back, facing him.

"Here." She handed him the journal, knowing, even before he confirmed it, who it belonged to. Augustus. There was a space for it on the shelf on her father's study, among the others there. She recognized the tooled black leather of its cover.

Ben opened it. He turned a page, then smiled and looked up at her.

"Am I right?" she asked.

In answer he turned the book and showed her the page. She laughed uneasily, shocked, then looked back up at him. It was a picture of Ben. An almost perfect portrait of him. And underneath, in Ben's own handwriting, were a name and a date.

Augustus Shepherd. Anno Domini 2120.

"But that's you. Your handwriting."

He shook his head. "No. But it's a clue. We're getting close, Meg. Very close now."

BETH SHEPHERD set the two bags down on the kitchen table, then went to the garden door and undid the top catch. Pushing the top half back, she leaned out and called to the children.

"Ben! Meg! I'm back!"

She went inside again and busied herself, filling the cupboards from the bags. Only when she had finished did she go to the door again and, releasing the bottom catch, go out into the rose garden.

There was no sign of them. Perhaps they're indoors, she thought. But then they would have heard her, surely? She called again, moving out through the gate until she stood at the top of the lower garden that sloped down to the bay. She put her hand up to her eyes, searching the sunlit meadows for a sign of them.

"Strange. . . ." she muttered, then turned and went back inside. She knew she was back quite early, but they usually came when she called, knowing she would have brought something special for each of them.

She took the two gifts from her handbag and set them on the table. An old-fashioned paper book for Ben—one he had specifically asked for—on sensory deprivation. And for Meg a tiny Han ivory. A delicately carved globe.

Beth smiled to herself, then went down the steps and into the relative darkness of the dining room.

"Ben? Meg? Are you there?"

She stopped at the bottom of the steps and listened. Strange. Very strange. Where could they be? Ben had said nothing about going into town. In any case, it was only a little after twelve. They weren't due to finish their lessons for another twenty minutes.

Curious, she went upstairs and searched the rooms. Nothing. Not even a note on Ben's computer.

She went out and put her hand up to her brow a second time, searching the meadows more thoroughly this time. Then she remembered Peng Yu-wei. The android tutor had a special location unit. She could trace where they were by pinpointing him on Hal's map.

Relieved, she went back upstairs, into Hal's study, and called the map up onto the screen. She waited a moment for the signal to appear somewhere on the grid, then leaned forward to key the search sequence again, thinking she must have made a mistake. But no. There was no trace.

Beth felt her stomach flip over. "Gods. . ."

She ran down the stairs and out again.

"Ben! Meg! Where are you?"

The meadows were silent, empty. A light breeze stirred the waters of the bay. She looked. Of course, the bay. She set off down the slope, forcing herself not to run, telling herself again and again that it was all right; that her fears were unfounded. They were sensible children. And anyway, Peng Yu-wei was with them.

Where the lawn ended she stopped and looked out across the bay, scanning the water for any sign of life. Then she turned and eased herself over the lip, clambered down the old wooden steps set into the clay wall, and ran across toward the jetty.

It was gone. The rowboat was gone.

Where? She couldn't understand it. Where? Then, almost peripherally, she noticed something. Off to the far left of her, jutting from the water, revealed by' the ebb of the tide.

She climbed up again, then ran along the shoreline until she was standing at the nearest point to it. It lay there, fifteen, maybe twenty ch'i from the shore, part embedded in the mud-bank, part covered .by the receding water. She knew what it was at once. And knew, for a certainty, that Ben had done this to it.

The android lay unnaturally in the water, almost sitting up, one shoulder, part of its upper arm, and the side of its head projecting above the surface. It did not float, as a corpse would float, but rested there, solid and heavy, its torn clothing flapping about it like weeds.

Poor thing, she might have said another time, but now any sympathy she had for the machine was swamped by her fears for her children.

She looked up sharply, her eyes going immediately to the far shore and to the house on the crest above the cove. They had been forbidden. But that would not stop Ben. No. The sight of Peng Yu-wei in the water told her that.

She turned, her throat constricted now, her heart pounding in her breast, and began to run back up the slope toward the cottage. And as she ran her voice hissed from her, heavy with anxiety and pain.

"Gods, let them be safe! Please gods let them be safe!"

BEN SAT at the desk, reading from the journal. Meg stood behind him, at his shoulder, holding the lamp steady above the page, following Ben's finger as it moved from right to left, up and down the columns of ciphers.

Ben had explained it to her. He had shown her how the frontispiece illustration was the key to it. In the illustration a man sat by a fireplace, reading a newspaper, his face obscured, the scene reflected at an angle in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Using the magnifying glass he had found in the left-hand drawer, Ben had shown her how the print of the reflected newspaper was subtly different from the one the man held. Those differences formed the basis of the cipher. She understood that—even the parts about the governing rules that made the cipher change—but her mind was too slow, too inflexible, to hold and use what she had been shown.

It was as if all this was a special key—a coded lexicon— designed for one mind only. Ben's. It was as if Augustus knew that Ben would come. As if he had seen it clearly, as in a glass. It reminded her of the feeling she had had in the room below this one, as she stood there among the shrouded furniture; that the house was not abandoned, merely boarded up temporarily, awaiting its occupant's return.

And now he was back.

She shuddered, and the light danced momentarily across the page, making Ben look up.

He smiled and closed the journal, then stood and moved past her, leaving the big leather-bound book on the desk.

Meg stood there a moment, staring at the journal, wondering what it said, knowing Ben would tell her when he wanted to. Then she picked it up and turned, following Ben out.

Always following, she realized. But the thought pleased her. She knew he needed her to be there—a mirror for his words, his thoughts, his dark, unworded ambitions. She, with her mere nine years of experience, knew him better than anyone. Understood him as no one else could understand him. No one living, anyway.

He was standing there, at the window, looking down thoughtfully through the broad crowns of the trees.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I'm trying to work out where the garden is."

She understood at once. There had been a picture toward the back of the journal—a portrait of a walled garden. She had thought it fanciful, maybe allegorical, but Ben seemed to think it was an actuality—somewhere here, near the house.