The Stone Within

Soucek turned, looking up the slope at Lehmann. The albino stood there, perfectly at ease, gazing about him, an expression of awe— something Soucek had never expected to see on that narrow, unsmiling face—transforming his features, making him almost handsome. And Soucek, seeing that, understood. Here was Lehmann's home. This his element. Yes, it was this, this fearful emptiness, that had formed him; that was reflected in the icy mirror of his being. It was from here that he drew his strength, and it was this—this place of stone and ice and sky—that made him singular; made him utterly different from the rest.

Soucek turned back, forcing himself to look around, fighting down the fear that threatened to engulf him, trying—wilting himself—to see it as Lehmann saw it. And for a moment, for a single, fleeting moment, he saw the beauty, the sheer inhuman beauty of it all.

"Look!" Lehmann said, his voice strangely excited. "There, Jiri! There, above that peak to the far left of us."

Soucek turned, looking, shielding his eyes against the brightness of the sky. For a moment he saw nothing, nothing but the empty peaks, the pale blue sky, and then he spotted it—saw the dark speck circling high above the point of rock.

"It's an eagle, Jiri. A T'ang among birds! Look how magnificent it is."

But Soucek had turned, and was watching Lehmann, seeing only him; seeing only how powerful the man seemed, here in his natural element.

"Yes," he answered. "Magnificent."

whiskers lu's "red pole," Po Lao, had left ten minutes back, having shouted at Lehmann for the best part of an hour. Now Lehmann sat there, at his desk, silent, staring at his hands. Soucek, standing in the doorway, could feel the tension in the room. They were all there—all of his lieutenants—and all had witnessed the dressing-down Po Lao had given him. He had expected Lehmann to act—to answer Po Lao with a knife or a gun, perhaps—but he had done nothing, merely stared incuriously at the man as he ranted, letting him spend his fury in words.

And there was no doubting that Po Lao had been furious.

He had been waiting for them on their return, sat in Lehmann's chair, his feet up on Lehmann's desk, his runners scattered about the corridors, making sure Lehmann's men made no move against him. And for once the legendary patience of Po Lao had given way to temper, and to an outburst of anger that was a clear sign that Whiskers Lu had been riding him hard.

Lehmann had opposed nothing Po Lao had said, yet there had been a stillness to him—a rocklike imperviousness—that had impressed even Po Lao in the end. Soucek had seen it with his own eyes. He noted how the Red Pole's eyes went time and again to Lehmann's face, conscious after a while that here was a man he could not intimidate. And with that realization he had lowered his voice and become more reasonable, more conciliatory, until, at the end, it had seemed almost as though he and Lehmann had come to some strange, unspoken agreement between them.

For a moment longer Lehmann sat there, deep in thought, then, with a strange, almost lazy motion, he drew a sheet of hardprint toward him and, taking the ink brush from the pot, drew the schematic outline of a running dog on the back of the paper, the figure starkly black against the white. He looked up, his eyes moving from face to face, as if measuring each of them, then, taking his knife from his belt, he nicked the top of his right index finger, so that a bead of blood appeared. Slowly, applying the gentlest pressure to the cut, he placed the tip of his finger against the paper, drawing a bright red circle about the figure of the dog.

Soucek, watching, looked about him, seeing the understanding, the sudden excitement in every face and felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest.

OLD MAN LEVER turned from the screen, speechless with fury, then hurled his goblet into the old stone fireplace.

As a servant scrambled to clear up the shattered glass, the old man paced the room like a wounded cat, cursing, his eyes blazing, oblivious, it seemed, of the men who stood in the shadows to either side, watching.

"How could he?" Lever said, stopping before the screen once more. "How dare he!" He clenched a fist and raised it, looking about him, as if searching for something to hit out at. "And Kennedy . . . what's Kennedy's involvement in this?"

There were blank expressions on all sides, shrugs and apologetic bows. But no one knew. This had come as a surprise to them all.

Lever raised his voice. "Does no one know anything?"

"There are rumors that Kennedy plans to move into politics," Curval answered, stepping out from beside one of the pillars.

Lever fixed him with one eye. "Politics?"

"They say he wants to form his own party. To challenge the old guard when the House reopens."

Lever studied the geneticist a moment, then began to laugh; a scornful, dismissive laughter that was like the braying of a wild beast. In an instant the big room was filled with laughter as Lever's men joined in, sharing his joke. But beneath the laughter was relief that the old man's rage had been defused, his anger deflected. For the time being.

"Politics!" the old man exclaimed, wheezing with amusement. "Who would have believed it? And my son?" He turned back, facing Curval again, his eyes suddenly much colder. "Is my son involved in this?"

Curval shrugged. "I wouldn't have said it was Michael's thing. But if Kennedy stood bail for Ward, maybe there's something in it. I mean, why else should he get involved?"

Lever stared at him a moment longer, then went across and sat down behind his desk. For a while he simply sat there, deep in thought, then, looking up, he set to work.

"Okay. Harrison... I want you to find out all you can about young Kennedy and his plans. James ... I want a team posted to cover my son's activities. I want to know where he is and what he's doing every hour of the day from now on, understand? Robins ... I want you to compile a list of all Kennedy's contacts—business and personal— along with their financial strengths and weaknesses. Spence ... I want you to take over the winding up of Ward's business affairs. I don't want any last-minute hitches, okay? Good. And you, Cook, I want you to find out a bit more about this trip to Europe our young friend is apparently making. I want to know if he has any plans to set up over there. If he has, 1 want to know who he meets and what's agreed."

Curval stepped forward, catching Lever's eye. "And my meeting with the boy? Is that still on?"

Lever shook his head. "Not now. Later perhaps. When things are better known. Right now it might prove . . . counterproductive, let's say. Ward has ridden this one. He's survived. Right now he has friends, supporting him, buoying him up. But that won't last. Besides, there's nowhere for him to go now. No one to turn to after this. We have only to isolate him once more. To harry him, like dogs at his heels, until he tires and falls. And then . . ." Lever smiled, broadly, savagely, like some wild thing scenting victory. "And then we'll have him." ,

SOUCEK STOOD THERE over the cot, rocking it gently, cooing to the now-sleeping child. Across from him, Lehmann was tidying the room. The woman lay face down on the bed, as if asleep, the single stiletto wound to the back of the neck hidden beneath her long black hair.

Lehmann had explained nothing, simply told him to come. As on the last occasion, when they had gone outside, Lehmann had taken him into the service shafts, this time climbing the pipes fifty, maybe a hundred levels, until Soucek had begun to wonder whether they were going up to the roof itself. But then Lehmann had turned off, following the map in his head, finding his footing easily, confidently. They had come out thirty ch'i from here, in a maintenance corridor. There Lehmann had handed him a uniform from his pack, then put one on himself. The orange of deck maintenance. ID in hand, he had come directly to this door, as if he'd done it several times before, and knocked. There had been the sound of a baby crying, a woman's spoken query, and then they were inside, Lehmann talking to the woman, reassuring her. A moment later she was dead.

Soucek had watched as Lehmann turned the woman over. He had taken a thin sheet of printout from his pocket—a sheet with her picture on it—and checked it against her. Then, satisfied, he had lifted her and placed her facedown on the bed. When the baby began to cry halfheartedly, Lehmann had turned, looking directly at Soucek, and made a rocking gesture.

What are we doing here? Soucek wondered, looking about him. It was a normal Mid-Level apartment, modestly furnished. And the woman. She was simply a wife, a mother. So what the fuck was Lehmann up to? What did he want here?

His answer came a moment later. There were footsteps outside in the corridor, then a brisk knocking and a cheerful call.

"Sweetheart! It's me! I'm home!"

Lehmann signaled for Soucek to go out into the kitchen, then went across. Moving to one side of the door, he pressed the lock. As it hissed back and the man came into the room, Lehmann moved between him and the door, his knife drawn.

He was a tall, almost cadaverously thin man, with dark, short-cut hair and of roughly the same height and build as Lehmann.

"Becky?" he asked, confused, seeing the woman on the bed, apparently asleep. Then, understanding that someone else must have operated the door lock, he jerked around.

Soucek, watching from the kitchen, saw, in the mirror on the far side of the room, the look of horror in the man's face; saw Lehmann glance at a second paper. Then, letting the paper fall from his hand,

he leaned in toward the man, as if embracing him. A moment later, the man fell back, the smallest sound of surprise escaping his lips.

As Lehmann knelt over the body, Soucek stepped out into the room again.

"Who is he?"

"There," Lehmann said, concentrating on what he was doing. "The paper on the floor."

Soucek went across and picked it up. It was a printout giving brief personal details of the man. Thomas Henty. Hung Moo. Married. One child. Age thirty. A technician. Soucek turned back, looking across, then grimaced. Lehmann was using a narrow scalpel now, and was carefully cutting the man's eyes from his head. As Soucek watched, he severed the optical nerve and gently dropped the eyeball into a special tubelike carrier he had taken from his pack. There was the faintest hiss as the soft eye slid into the cold compartment, then the lid clicked over. Moments later the other eye joined its companion in the narrow box.

Eyes. He was stealing the man's eyes.

"What about the child?"

Lehmann leaned back, looking across at Soucek. "Forget the child. He's dead. They're all dead now." And, as if in explanation, Lehmann took a small device from his pack—an incendiary—and, setting the timer for sixty seconds, placed it between the two corpses on the bed.

"Quick now," he said, going across to the door. "We've another call to make and only forty minutes to get there."

But Soucek paused at the door, looking back into the room. The sight of the dead couple on the bed and the soft snuffling of the sleeping child tore unexpectedly at his feelings. For the briefest moment, he stood there, as if paralyzed, wondering what special torments the demons of hell would have in store for him when his life above the Yellow Springs was done. Then, with a tiny shudder, he turned away, following Lehmann out into the corridor.

THAT NIGHT the dream came once again.

Again, as once before, she stood alone upon that tilted, shattered land, trapped beneath a low, impenetrable sky of steel. It was dark, an oppressive, elemental darkness lit now and then by sudden flashes of light. All about her the storm raged violently, growling and shrieking at her with a voice of primal evil. Before, she had felt only fear; a gut-wrenching fear that had rooted her to the spot. This time, however, it was not fear she felt but excitement.

Excitement, and a sense of expectation.

Beneath her the tower slowly climbed the slope, its wooden, spi-derish limbs folding and stretching inexorably, its dark mouth grunting and wheezing as it came on. With each searing flash of light she saw it gain on her, its shattered, glasslike eyes glittering malevolently, its jagged, toothless maw crammed with splintered bone.

Closer it came, and closer yet, and as its foul breath rolled up the hill toward her, she cried out, her voice high and clear above the noise of the storm. There was a moment's silence, a moment's utter stillness, and then, as once before, the earth between her and the tower cracked and split.

She shivered, watching, knowing what would come. Knowing and yet fearful in case, this time, it would be different.

Slowly, like a shadow forming from the dark mouth of the earth, he emerged: a stooped little creature with short, strong limbs and eyes that burned like coals. Turning, he looked at her, his wet, dark skin glowing with an inner light.

She smiled, greeting him, recognizing him for the first time. It was Kim.

For a moment he was still, watching her, his dark yet fiery eyes seeming to pierce her to the bone. And then, slowly, his lips parted in a smile, like a pocket opening in the blackness of his face, light—a brilliant, burning light—spilling out, falling like molten gold from the mouth of a furnace.

He smiled, and then, with an agility that surprised her, he spun about, facing the tower, his arms held up before him, as if to ward it off.

"Avodya!" he said clearly. "Avodya!"

Slowly the tower heaved itself up, creaking beneath its own bloated weight, a furious whispering and muttering coming from within its hideous maw. Then, with a rush, it came up the slope at him, its cracked eyes glinting, its thin legs straining, a low moan rising to a screech as it ran.

"Avodya!"

On it came and on, rushing at him through the half-dark. On, like some vast, unstoppable machine, until, with a fearsome cry, it threw itself at him.

And as it fell, the darkness seemed to explode. Where the small, dark creature stood was now a web of brilliant, coruscating light that pulsed between the fingers of his outstretched arms.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the tower fell, tumbling, shrieking, into the fierce, pure fire of the web. And where it touched it sparked and vanished, flickering into nothingness.

For a moment longer, its shrieks echoed across the shattered land, flapping like bats against the ceiling of the sky. Then, as they faded, a pure, high ringing tone grew, until it filled the sudden stillness.

She blinked and looked, but he was gone. Slowly, fearfully, she went across. The earth whence he'd come no longer gaped, but was smooth and seamless. And beyond it, there where he'd stood—there, where the tower had tumbled shrieking into the fiery web—was nothing. Nothing but a huge circle of ash.

Jelka shuddered and then woke, remembering. Kalevala and the storm. And the morning after—the circle of darkness in the woods and the seven charred tree stumps. And Kim. All of it linked somehow. All of it tied in to the future. But how or why she did not know. Not yet.

CHAPTER NINE

Plucked Eyes and Severed Heads

Tolonen was stripped to the waist, exercising, when Kim came into the room. He turned, nodding to Kim, then continued with his routine, bending to touch his toes, then throwing his arms up above his head, twisting his torso once, twice to either side, before ducking down again. It was a vigorous, impressive routine that even a much younger man would have found strenuous, but at seventy-five the old man made it look easy. He was in fine physical condition and, but for the bright, golden sheen of his artificial arm, he seemed in perfect health.

Kim waited, watching respectfully, in silence. Only when the old man had finished and was standing there, toweling himself down, did he cross the room and stand by the broad oak desk that dominated the study.

"Hello there," Tolonen said, coming across. "How are you, boy?"

He reached out with his good hand and held Kim's hand a moment, meeting his eyes squarely, challengingly, as he always did.

"I'm fine," Kim answered, taking the seat the Marshal offered him. "I wasn't sure you'd have time to see me."

Tolonen smiled, making his way around to the other side of the desk. "Nonsense. You're always welcome here."

Kim bowed. "Thank you. But I wouldn't dream of keeping you from your business."

The old man laughed. "There's no chance of that, my boy. I’ve got to be off in twenty minutes. Li Yuan himself has summoned me. I'll have to shower and change before then, but we've time for a chat, neh?"

Tolonen turned, taking a tunic from the back of the big, leather-backed chair, then pulled it on in one swift motion. To Kim, watching wide-eyed from his chair, he seemed like a god, there was so much power and authority in every movement.

He turned back, facing Kim again, and sat, leaning toward Kim across the broad expanse of the desk's surface. "So how's business? Did you finally get around to registering those patents?"

Kim hesitated, not wishing to burden the old man with his problems. "There were difficulties," he said, after a moment. "Complications with the patent. . ."

"Complications?" Tolonen sat back slightly. "You mean the thing didn't work, after all? But you were so confident."

"No . . ." Again Kim held back, loath to discuss the matter. But Tblonen was staring at him now, curious. "The device works. That's not the problem. The problem is that someone beat me to it. They registered a day before me."

"I didn't think anyone was working on the same lines. I thought you said. . ." Tolonen stopped, his face changing, suddenly realizing what Kim was actually saying. "But that's outrageous! Does Li Yuan know of this?"

"Not yet."

"Then maybe he ought. We should do something . . ."

Kim looked down, shaking his head. "Forgive me, Marshal, but I would rather the T'ang knew nothing of this. He has much on his mind as it is. Besides, the problem is mine, not his, and I shall find ways and means to solve it."

Tolonen stared back at the young man a moment, taking in his words, then gave an emphatic nod. "All right. But if this should happen again . . ."

"I'll let you know . . ." Kim smiled. "But enough of my troubles. How did your investigations go?"

Tolonen gave a small sigh and put his hands together, metal and flesh interlaced. "They say that those who look shall find, neh? I can say very little just now, I'm afraid. I..." He stopped, studying Kim's face a moment, then reached into the drawer to his left and took out a slender computer file, placing it on the desk between them.

"Can I trust you to be discreet, Kim?"

Kim narrowed his eyes. "This has to do with what you found?"

"It has. At present only three people know what is in that file. With yourself and the T'ang, it'll make five. And so it must remain, for the time being. You understand me?"

"I understand."

"Good. Then take the file and read it. And let me know what you think. In return I shall have a special team investigate this matter of the patent." He lifted a hand to still Kim's objections. "I heard what you said, my boy, and I respect you for it, but sometimes it does not hurt to have a little outside help, neh? All I ask is that you keep the information in that folder to yourself and return it once you have had time to consider its significance."

Kim leaned toward the old man, about to ask him about the file, when the door to his right swung open and Jelka came hurrying into the room. She was talking, already three or four steps into the room, when she stopped and fell silent, realizing that her father was not alone.

She bowed her head. "Forgive me, Father. I didn't realize you had company."

Jelka turned, looking across at Kim. He was sitting there, like a large-eyed child in the big, tall-backed chair, the very smallness of him making her frown involuntarily, then look back at her father.

Kim smiled, amused, not hurt by her reaction. Across from him, Tolonen stood, turning to his daughter with a kindly, indulgent smile.

"This is Kim," he said. "Kim Ward. A valued servant of Li Yuan. And this, Kim, is my daughter, Jelka."

Kim stood, offering his hand, seeing how she had to bend slightly to take it. Her hand was warm, its pressure firm against his own, enclosing his, her eyes friendly, welcoming.

"I know who Kim is, Daddy," she said, releasing Kim's hand. "He was on the Project."

Kim's eyes widened, surprised that she remembered. But Tolonen merely laughed.

"Of course! I'm forgetting, aren't I?" He came around, putting an arm about his daughter's shoulders. "Why, you might almost say that she found you, Kim, after the attack. We had given up any hope of finding survivors, but Jelka insisted that you'd escaped. She made us search the vent for signs that you'd got out that way. And you know what? She was right!"

Kim stared, his mouth open. He hadn't known.

He looked down, suddenly abashed. That first time he had seen her—when she had come with her father to visit the Wiring Project—he had stared at her in awe, thinking her some kind of goddess. Never, even in his wildest imaginings, had he thought she would remember him. But she had. More than that, she had made them look for him.

Kim looked down at his hand. He could still feel the gentle warmth, the firm but pleasant pressure of her hand enclosing his, and shivered, surprised once more by the strength of what he felt. And when he looked up, it was to find her watching him still, a strange intensity in her vividly blue eyes.

The file lay on the desk beside him. For a brief moment both men had forgotten it, but now Tolonen reminded Kim, pointing to it.

"Take it with you, Kim. And look at it closely. You don't have to answer at once. The end of the week will be soon enough."

Kim stared at the file a moment, then, impulsively, answered the old man. "I don't need that long. I'll give you my answer tomorrow." He smiled. "Whatever Li Yuan wants, I'll do. If lean. . ."

At that Tolonen laughed, and, as if letting his daughter in on a joke, began to explain. "Kim here is a physicist. Our experts say he's the best, despite his years. Maybe the best weVe ever had."

He could see how she glanced at him, then back at her father, as if she couldn't quite take it in. Indeed, to Kim, sitting there watching her, nothing seemed more implausible than the fact that men like Tolonen and Li Yuan should need him, seeing in him something that they could not match, and using words like "the best." To the part of him that was Claybom—that had come up from the darkness beneath the City—it seemed absurd. And when this girl, so tall and beautiful that she seemed somehow unreal, narrowed her eyes and asked him if it were true, if he was the best, he could only laugh at her and nod,

watching her face change slowly until it mirrored his own delight at the absurdity of things.

"If I can. . ." Tolonen murmured, echoing Kim's words, then laughed. But Kim didn't hear. He was still staring at the girl, seeing how she looked away from him, then back, something strange happening in her face even as he watched.

He looked down at the unopened file and nodded to himself. But the gesture had nothing to do with what was in the folder. Had nothing to do with physics, or projects, or Li Yuan's needs. It was the girl. In an instant he had decided something, irrevocably and without further doubt. He would not rest. Not until he had married her.

IN THE IMPERIAL SHOWER ROOM of Tongjiang, the maids of the inner household, Fragrant Lotus and Bright Moon, were preparing to wash the young T'ang's hair. Taking soft woolen towels from the big cupboards above the sinks, they laid them out beside the glazed bowls of unguents and shampoos, the silver combs and brushes, the trays of brightly colored beads and silken thread; then, returning to the sinks, they opened the great dragon mouths of the taps and sprinkled a fine, nut-brown, aromatic powder into the steaming crystal fall.

As they worked, Li Yuan watched them from his chair, at the center of the great tiled floor, enjoying the sight of the two young women, the sound of the ancient songs they hummed as they busied themselves about him, the sweet scent of their softly veiled bodies as they brushed past.

He sighed, for once not merely content but happy. For a long time he had denied himself such things as this, attempting to harden himself against the world, but now he understood. This too was part of it. Without these moments of soft luxury—of surrender to the senses—there was no balance to life, no joy. And without joy there could be no real understanding of the flow of things. No wisdom.

For a long time he had struggled to be what he was not. To be some purer, finer creature. But it was all in vain. From the day of his betrothal to Fei Yen, the balance of his life had been lost. Casting off his maids, he had cast off that part of him that needed warmth and comfort, a mother's touch. He had tried to shape himself, as a tailor cuts cloth to make a gown, but the gown he'd made had been too tight. It had stifled and disfigured him.

He looked down, remembering those times. To have one single, perfect love; that had been the dream. To have a woman who was all to him, just as he was all to her—like Yin and Yang, or night and day—that had been the dream. But the world was not a dream. The world was harsh and true to itself alone. In it there was falseness and betrayal, sickness and hatred, cruelty and loss. Loss beyond the strength of hearts to bear.

And yet there was this. This simple light of joy to set against the darkness of the times. The joy of a woman's touch, a child's embrace, the laughter of a loving friend. These simple things, weightless as they seemed in the great scale of things, were the equal of a hundred deaths, a thousand cruel blows. Feathers and iron. Joy and grief. Balanced.

Li Yuan laughed softly, then looked up, conscious suddenly that the maids had finished and were standing there before him, watching him.

"Chieh Hsia. . ." they said as one and bowed low, their smiles betraying how much they too enjoyed these moments alone with him.

"Here," he said, standing and putting out his arms to them. "Hsiang He. Ywe Hui. Come here, my little blossoms. Come here and tend to me."

TOLONEN WAS WAITING for him in his study, standing by the door to the eastern garden, his golden hand glinting in the sunlight as he turned to face his master.

"Chieh Hsia," the old man said, bowing low. "Forgive me if I came too early."

Li Yuan shook his head and laughed. "Not at all, old friend. The fault is mine. I spent too long in the shower this morning and now everything is running late."

"Then I will be brief, Chieh Hsia, and come directly to the point. You asked me to have my discovery checked out and analyzed. Well, I now have the preliminary findings and they are most disturbing. Most disturbing indeed."

Li Yuan looked across and saw the folder on the edge of his desk. "Is this it here, Knut?"

"That is it, Chieh Hsia.

Li Yuan stared at the Marshal a moment, then went around his desk and sat. Drawing the thickly padded folder toward him, he flipped it open. On top of the pile was a picture of the thing he had seen last time Tolonen had visited him. The thing he'd brought back with him from North America. In the picture it looked like a giant walnut, the size of a young child's hand. Just looking at it, Li Yuan could recall the scent of the original, the dry spicy mustiness of it.

A brain it was. An artificial brain. Smaller and less complex than a human brain, but a marvel all the same. In many ways it looked like the brains GenSyn produced for many of their top-range models, but this was different. GenSyn brains were limited things, grown from existent genetic material—painstakingly nurtured in baths of nutrients over a period of years. But this brain had been made. Designed and built, like a machine. A living machine.

When he had seen it first, a week ago, he had been unimpressed. The thing was long dead—the only one of five to have remained in its storage case. But the experimental notes—a small library of computer records—had been saved intact. Using them, Tolonen had spent the last week piecing together what had happened. Now, reading through his summary, Li Yuan felt himself go cold.

"Kuan Yin!" he said, looking up at Tolonen. "What put you onto this?"

The old man bowed stiffly. "Gaps in the record, Chieh Hsia. Things that didn't make sense. There was too much wastage of basic materials, for instance. The percentages were far higher than in previous years, so I did some digging, found out where the "waste" was being shipped, and followed the trail. As I suspected, it was being sold off cheaply, the funds being used to finance a small R and D establishment in the far south. That's where I found it all. Untouched. The room sealed up."

"A mistake, do you think?"

Tolonen shook his head. "I think we were just lucky. My guess is that whatever this was, it was almost ready to go. And the only reason it didn't is because we hit them first."

Li Yuan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Look at the dates on the final research entries. They're all late autumn 2007. That's significant. That means this thing was coming to fruition at the same time that we dealt with Hans Ebert and DeVore. If I'm right, we settled with them before they could get this under way. Before they could use one of these things."

"I see. So you think this was Hans Ebert's doing?"

Tolonen sniffed deeply. "I'm certain of it. Not only are his initials on a number of the documents, but the whole thing has the twisted feel of one of his schemes. That said, I think he was making these things up for DeVore. Maybe even to DeVore's specifications. From the shipping documents we've found, they were going to be shipped to Mars."

"Mars?" Li Yuan stood, then walked slowly across to the window. "Why Mars?"

Tolonen turned, watching the young T'ang. "I'm not sure, Chieh Hsia, but I feel sure it has something to do with those copies that came in from Mars that time."

"But my father's investigations drew a blank."

"Maybe so. But perhaps we should look again. More thoroughly this time. Send Karr perhaps."

Li Yuan glanced at him, then looked back out at the sunlit garden. "Perhaps."

Tolonen hesitated a moment, then spoke again. "There is one other thing, Chieh Hsia. Something which isn't in the summary. Something we're still working on."

"And what's that?"

"The brain. It wasn't like anything else GenSyn ever produced. For a start, it wasn't connected to any kind of spinal cord. Nor did it have to be sited in a skull. Moreover, it's a lot more compact than a normal human brain, as if it was designed for something else. It makes me think that this was only a single component and that the rest was being made up elsewhere, maybe at sites all over Chung Kuo."

"To be sent to Mars for assembly, you think?"

"Maybe." The old man frowned and shook his head. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid about this, Chieh Hsia. Maybe it's all dead and gone, like the brain itself. Maybe we killed it when we killed DeVore.

But I'm not so sure. The fact that this could be built in the first place worries me immensely. If you were to put a number of these inside Hei bodies, for instance, you could do a lot of damage. No one would be safe. Not if those performance statistics are correct."

"So what do you suggest?"

"That you meet with Wu Shih and Tsu Ma and let them know of this at once."

"And the rest of the Council?"

Tolonen shook his head. "For once I think you need to keep things tight. Master Nan will need to know about this, certainly. But if Wang Sau-leyan were to find out, who knows what he would do? If this thing was built once, it could be built again. And in our cousin's hands, who knows what evil might result?"

"That is so," Li Yuan said quietly. "Yet why not simply destroy all record of it? That would be simplest, surely?"

"Maybe it would, Chieh Hsia. But can we take the risk? Can we be certain that these are the only records of the experiments, or are there copies elsewhere? On Mars, perhaps? Or somewhere else, hidden away?"

Li Yuan looked down. "So we must live with this?"

"It seems so, Chieh Hsia. At least, until we can be sure."

"Sure?" Li Yuan laughed bleakly, recalling with surprise his earlier mood of joy. When could they ever be sure?

old MAN LEVER turned, the dark, curly-haired head held firmly between his broad, square-fingered hands, and smiled.

"Well, what do you think?"

Lever held out the severed head, as if offering it to the three men who stood before him, but they merely grimaced, their fans fluttering agitatedly before their faces.

"Really, Charles," one of them, a tall, morose-looking man named Marley, answered. "It's grotesque. What is it? GenSyn?"

Lever shook his head, but the smile remained in his eyes. He was enjoying their discomfort. "Not at all. It's real. Or was. As far as I know there are only three such heads in existence, but this is the best. Look at it. Look how well preserved it is."

As he thrust the head out toward them, there was a sharp movement back; a look of revulsion in their faces so profound it was almost comical.

Lever shrugged, then turned the head in his hands, staring down into the dark, broad features. Lifting it slightly, he sniffed the black, leathery skin.

"It's beautiful, neh? Slaves they were. Negroes, they called them. They were brought over to America from Africa four, five centuries ago. Our forefathers used them like machines, to toil in their fields and serve in their mansions. They say there were once thousands of them. Subhuman, of course. You can see that at a glance. But men, all the same. Bred, not made."

Marley shuddered and turned away, looking about him. The room was cluttered with packing cases from a dozen different auction rooms, most of them unopened. But those that were open displayed treasures beyond imagining. Clothing and furniture, machines and books, statues and paintings and silverware. Things from the old times none of them had dreamed still existed.

He turned back. Old Man Lever's eyes were on him again, as if studying him, gauging his reaction to all this.

"I thought we might have a special exhibition suite at the Institute, George. What do you think? Something to boost morale. To give us a renewed sense of our heritage. As Americans."

Marley shot worried glances at his fellows, then looked back at Lever, a faint quiver in his voice. "An exhibition? Of this?"

Lever nodded.

"But wouldn't that be ... dangerous? I mean. . ." Marleys fan fluttered nervously. "Word would get out. The Seven would hear of it. They would see it as a kind of challenge, surely?"

Lever laughed dismissively. "No more than the Waldeseemuller map that already hangs there. No, and certainly no more of a challenge than the Kitchen. Besides, what would our friend Wu Shih do if he knew? What could he do?"

Marley averted his eyes before the fierce, challenging gaze of the other, but his discomfort was evident. And maybe that was why Lever had invited them this morning—not to show off his most recent acquisitions but to sound out their reaction to his scheme. The ancient map of the world that hung in the great hall of the Institute, that was one thing, and Archimedes Kitchen and its anti-Han excesses, that was another. But this—this scheme for an exhibition, a museum of ancient Americana—was something else entirely. Was an act of defiance so gross that to ignore it would be tantamount to condoning it.

And Wu Shih could not afford to condone it.

So why? Why did Lever want to bring things to a head? Why did he want a confrontation with Wu Shih? Was he still burning at the humiliation he had suffered on the steps of the ancient Lincoln Memorial, or was this something else? In setting up this exhibition was he, perhaps, attempting to create some kind of bargaining counter? Something he might trade off for some other, more worthwhile concession?

Or was that too subtle a reading of this? Mightn't the old fool simply be ignorant of the likely result of his proposed action? Marley stared at the severed Negro head in Old Man Lever's hands and shuddered inwardly. It would not do to offend Lever, but the alternative for once seemed just as bad.

He met Lever's eyes firmly, steeling himself to ask the question. "What do you want, Charles? What do you really want?"

Lever looked down at the head, then back at Marley. "I want us to be proud again, that's all, George. Proud. We've bowed before these bastards all our lives. Been their creatures. Done what they said. But times are changing. We're entering a new phase of things. And afterward . . ." he lowered his voice, smiling now, "well, maybe they'll find occasion to bow their heads to us, neh?"

Yes, Marley thought, or have ours cut from our necks . . .

He was about to speak, about to ask something more of the Old Man, when there was a banging on the door at the far end of the room. Lever set the head down carefully, then, with a tight smile that revealed he was loath to be interrupted, moved past them.

While Lever stood there at the door speaking to his First Steward, Marley looked to his two companions—like himself, major contributors to the Institute's funds—and saw his own deep reluctance mirrored there. But how articulate that? How convey their feelings without alienating Lever?

He turned, looking back at Lever, and caught his breath, surprised by the look of unbridled anger in the old man's face.

"Send him up!" Lever barked, dismissing the servant with a curt gesture. Then, composing himself as well as he could, he turned back, facing them again.

"Forgive me, ch'un t^u, but my son is here, it seems. I forbade him to come without my express permission, but he is here nonetheless."

"Ah. . ." Marley looked down, understanding. The rift between Old Man Lever and his son was common knowledge, but until now he had not known the depth of their division. Things were bad indeed if Lever had barred his son from the family home.

"Should we leave, Charles? This matter of the exhibition ... we might speak of it another time. Over dinner, perhaps?"

He had hoped it would be enough to extricate them from a potentially embarrassing situation and buy some time to discuss the matter privately among themselves, but Lever was shaking his head.

"No, George. If the boy has the impertinence to disturb me while I am in conference with my friends, he is hardly to be rewarded for it with a private audience, neh?"

Marley bowed his head slightly, the bitterness and determination in Lever's voice warning him against pursuing the matter. A moment later the son himself was there in the doorway; a tall, athletic-looking young man so like his father that they might easily have been taken for brothers.

"Father," the young man said, bowing his head dutifully, waiting to be asked into the room. But Old Man Lever gave no word, made no gesture of admittance. He merely stood there, stone-faced and implacable.

"I asked you not to come. So why are you here, Michael? What do you want?"

Michael Lever looked to the three men, then back to his father, as if expecting something of him. Then, understanding how things were, he lowered his head again.

"I had to see you, Father. To speak to you. This thing between us . . ." He hesitated, finding it hard to say the words, then looked up, meeting his father's eyes. "I wish to be reconciled with you, Father."

Old Man Lever stood there a moment, unmoving, silent, as if carved in granite, then, turning away abruptly, he gave a tight little laugh. A derisory, dismissive laugh.

"Then you will marry Louisa Johnstone, after all?"

"Marry her. . . ?" The younger man faltered, at a loss. He glanced uncertainly at the others, then took a step toward his father. "But that's behind us, surely, Father? I'm talking of the future. Of being your son again, your hands . . ."

"My hands!" Old Man Lever whirled around, his face ugly now, one angry look from him enough to make his son step back beyond the room's threshold again. "And if my hands will not do as I ask them?" He shook his head contemptuously and waved the young man away. "Pah . . . Go and play with your dreamer friends, boy. Go sleep with your low-level whores. I'll have nothing to do with you, boy. Nothing at all!"

For a moment the young man said nothing. Then, with one final, precise bow—a bow that showed immense self-control—he withdrew. "So be it, then," he said softly, turning away. "So be it."

But Marley, standing there, had seen that initial look of angry bewilderment on the young man's face and knew he had been witness to a final breach. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this—and Lever was certainly right to insist that his son obey him—there was no doubting that the old man had set out to deliberately humiliate his son, speaking thus to him before those who were not of his kin. He turned, looking at Lever, expecting to see that stern and unrelenting expression maintained on his features, and found, to his surprise, not anger but regret and—underlying all—a hurt so profound, so all-embracing, that it threatened momentarily to engulf the old man.

For the briefest unguarded moment it was so, and then, as if a steel door had slammed down over it, it was gone.

"Well, ch'un tot," Lever said, clearing his throat, "as I was saying . ,."

WHILE MILNE STOOD at the counter, asking questions of the clerk, Ross looked about him at the walls and furnishings of the Records Office, as if they might give some kind of clue.

It was a dirty, shabby place, empty drink-bulbs and crumpled paper forms littering the spittle-stained floor, while on the walls of the public space were torn and faded posters, overpainted with slogans and graffiti, one symbol—a simple black palmprint—dominating all others.

"Who's this?" Ross asked, leaning over an old Han seated on the bench. "Are they popular here in Atlanta?" But the ancient stared straight through him, as if he weren't there.

"Terrorists, I guess," Ross murmured, straightening up and looking about him once more. Not that there was much to know about places like this. They were all much of a muchness these days.

He went back across, standing beside Milne at the counter. A young Han clerk was talking animatedly to Milne in Mandarin, running his finger along the open page of one of the big official Records books.

"So what have we got?" Ross whispered. "Anything good?"

The clerk glanced at Ross, then, removing his finger, slammed the book shut. "That's it," he said, in halting English. "That's all there is."

"Shit," said Milne quietly. "Just our luck."

"What's the problem?"

Milne looked away nervously. "There was a deck fire, three years back. All of the local records were destroyed. Backups, too, in a separate fire. The deck itself was cleared. Reseeded with new settlers. TheyVe been rebuilding the files ever since, but there's not much. Only what we've seen already."

Ross looked down. "Hmm. Bit of a coincidence, neh? I mean, when was the last time you heard of something like that? Two fires?"

"It's not impossible. Fires happen."

"Maybe. But it's all too neat, don't you think? I mean, if you wanted to put in a sleeper, what better way?"

"And you think that's what happened? You think Mary Jennings is a sleeper for one of Lever's enemies?"

"And you don't?"

Milne hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.

"Right. So what we do is this. We find out where the survivors of the fire were moved to, and then we go and speak to some of them. Find out what they remember about our friend Mary Jennings. That is,

if they remember anything." Ross turned back, facing the counter again, a fifty-yuan bill held out between his thumb and forefinger.

"And then?"

Ross looked back at his partner and smiled. "And then we do something we should have done right at the start. We make a facial check on our friend. Not just here in North America, but right across the seven Cities." He laughed. "It's time we found out just who Mary Jennings really is."

emily SAT before the mirror in her room, brushing out the long dark tresses of the wig. It was a tight fit, but that was good. Unlike the other she had bought, this one looked natural. As well it might, for it reminded her of how she had once looked, twelve years ago, when she was seventeen.

Seventeen. It was not long as the world measured things, and yet it seemed another lifetime. Back then things had seemed so simple. So black and white. She had known then where she stood in the world and what she wanted. Meeting Bent Gesell, she had become his woman, faithful to him alone, sharing his ideals; that vision of a better, purer world. A world without levels, free of hatred and corruption. For eight years that vision had sustained her. Had driven her on. But then Gesell had been seduced: won over by the dream of power DeVore had seeded in his head.

The vision had died. And yet DeVore had saved her. After the debacle at Bremen, it had been DeVore who had come to her, offering her a new identity and a passport to a new life—that same life she had led these past twenty-one months.

Yes, but what had she done in that time? What achieved?

Nothing, came the answer. For almost two years now she had sat on her hands, serving her natural enemies, doing nothing for the cause she'd once believed in.

So maybe it was time to begin anew. To go down the levels and organize again.

She stood, looking about her at the tiny room. Her bag was packed, her jacket laid neatly across it. Beside it on the bed rested the second of the two IDs DeVore had given her. Stooping, she picked it up and studied the tiny image within. Rachel DeValerian, it read. Maintenance Engineer.

She smiled. Even Mach knew nothing of this. Only DeVore. And he, if Mach could be believed, was dead now, his skull smashed into tiny pieces by the T'ang's man, Karr.

Only she didn't believe that. From what she knew of the man, she couldn't believe he would have let himself be caught so easily. No. He was out there somewhere. Waiting. Biding his time.

And Michael?

She sighed. The note had gone by messenger more than three hours back. He would surely have read it by now. In fact, she had been expecting him to call these last few hours. But nothing. It was as she'd thought—as she'd said in the letter—he was too preoccupied with other things to see what he had done to her. Too bound up in his father's business. For a while she had thought him cured of all that, changed, free to pursue his own straight path through life, but she had been mistaken. Kennedy's visit had opened her eyes to that.

Yes, and the news that he had gone to see his father—to beg forgiveness and become his "son" again—had hit her hard. Had woken her to the reality of her life.

She had delayed too long. Had let herself be blinded by her love for him. Well, now she knew. It was no good waiting for Michael Lever. No use relying on any man. Surely she had learned that lesson once already in her life, with Gesell?

Even so, some instinct kept her here, waiting for him to call, to knock on the door and tell her it was all a mistake. That what he'd said to her was true. That he had changed.

That he loved her.

"Ten minutes," she said softly to herself, glancing at the timer on her wrist. Ten more minutes, and then she would go.

She tucked the ID into the inner pocket of the jacket, then went across and stood before the mirror once again, carefully removing the wig and replacing it in the carrier.

She had booked her flight already, under the name of Mary Jennings, taking the rocket to the West Coast and then a fast-track south. There, in the teeming lowers of old Mexico, she would switch identities. To begin again. As Rachel De Valerian.

She looked about her nervously, going through all she had done these past few hours. All bills were paid three months ahead, all commitments met. Only Michael would miss her. And then maybe not.

She closed her eyes, wishing, hoping against all reason, that he would call, at this late hour, and put things right between them. That he would simply walk through the door and take her in his arms and. . .

There was a banging on the outer door, so sudden that it made her jump.

Michael...

She went across and stood there, trying to calm herself, but her pulse was racing, her heart pounding in her chest. As the hammering came again, she called out, her voice tiny, barely in control.

"Who is it?"

"It's me! It's Bryn!"

Bryn.⁷ And then she understood. It was Bryn Kustow, Michael's partner.

Thumbing the lock, she stood back, letting him in.

"YouVe got to help me," he said breathlessly. "Michael's gone. He went to see his old man and they had a big bust up. I got a call. I don't know who it was. One of the old man's cronies, I suspect. Marley, maybe. But it seems that Michael was very upset. The Old Man really gave it to him. Making demands. Insisting that he marry the John-stone girl. Humiliating him in front of strangers. I tried Michael's apartment but he wasn't there. No one's seen him for hours!"

Taking his arm, she made him sit on the edge of the bed, then stood over him, her mind in a whirl, trying to take in what had happened. "Okay. Slow down. Let's think this through. You say you went to his apartment. Had he been there?"

"I think so. I mean yes. Yes, he had. The manservant said he'd called in. Very unlike himself. Very distressed."

"And did he take the note?"

"The note?"

"I sent him a note. It's important. It might explain things."

Kustow shrugged. "I don't know. I... Yes. Hang on. The man said something about. . . about a special messenger coming."

"Shit." She shuddered, knowing now that she had got it wrong. Whatever Michael had been doing, going back to see his father, it had had nothing to do with her. And that was Kennedys fault. Kennedy who had misled her.

"Look," she said, "he won't have gone far. I know what he's like. He won't want to face anyone he knows. Not now. I reckon he's gone down. Down to the lowers. If I were you, I'd check the bars in all the local stacks. Somewhere dark and anonymous, where he's not likely to be known. That's where you'll find him."

"Michael? Down there?" Kustow laughed, but then he saw how she was looking at him and his laughter died. "You think so?"

She nodded. "Yes. And when you find him, tell him this. That the note was a mistake. I didn't understand. I thought. . ." She shrugged. "Look, just tell him that I'll wait for him. If he wants me, he knows where I am. And Bryn . . ."

"Yes?"

"Tell him that I love him. And that I need him, even if his father doesn't. Tell him that, neh?"

kim was standing with his back to her when she came into the room, his dark head tilted forward as he looked down at something in his hands. She set the tray she was carrying down noiselessly, then, quietly, knowing he had not heard her, went across and stood there, behind and slightly to the side of him, looking down at the object he was holding.

It was a globe of yellowed ivory, carved with intricate towers and ornamental bridges, crowded with tiny figures, yet small enough for him to cup in one of his tiny, childlike hands. She watched him set it back carefully, then half turn, realizing suddenly that she was there.

"I'm sorry, I..."

She smiled and shook her head. "No, don't apologize. Handle them if you want."

He looked at her strangely, his lips parted, the pupils of his eyes forming large dark circles that surprised her with their intensity. There was a wild, untamed quality about him that both frightened and attracted her. His eyes seemed to fix and hold her with a power she didn't quite understand, yet when she found her voice again all that she said was, "YouVe nice eyes. They're so dark ..."

"They're green," he said, laughing, looking up at her.

"No . . . not their color. . ."

She hesitated. She had been about to say that they were like the surface of the northern sea; that their greenness seemed to mask an unfathomed depth of darkness. But he knew nothing of seas and so she kept silent, watching him, knowing only that she had met no one like him before. His dark hair was cut neat against his large but not unattractive head, and his skin had the pale smoothness of a child's. He was dressed simply, so simply that in that single respect alone he was distinct from anyone she knew. Even her father's young soldiers wore jewelery and made up their faces. Yes, even the austere and distant Axel Haavikko. But Kim wore nothing special, added nothing to his natural self.

He looked past her at the tray. "Is that ch'al"

"Yes." She laughed, feeling a sudden warmth come to her cheeks. She had forgotten. For that brief moment she had forgotten everything. "There are some sweetmeats too. But you'll stay for dinner, I hope. My father should be back . . ."

He nodded, then moved around her, bending down to take one of the sweetmeats from the tray.

She turned, watching him. In some indefinable way he was beautiful. Quite beautiful. Nor was it the kind of beauty she was accustomed to. He was not tall, nor broad, nor handsome in the classical Above sense of that word. Even so, something shone out from him. Some quality that was more sensed than seen. Some powerful, uncompromising thing that simply wasn't there in other people. She felt that he was somehow... in touch. Was that it? In touch. But in touch with what? She shook her head, watching him bend to take another of the sweetmeats, his smallest movement different, somehow connected. She watched, frowning with the intensity of her watchfulness, but she could say no more than that.

He turned, looking back at her, smiling. "Won't you join me?"

"I . . ." She laughed, embarrassed, realizing how awkward, how gawky she must have appeared at that moment, but he seemed not to notice. He merely stood there, smiling, one hand raised to her in invitation, waiting for her to come to him.

She crossed the room and took his hand, the movement so easy, so natural, that it seemed to her that she had somehow always done it. But the feel of his palm against her own stirred her so deeply that she shivered and glanced down to where their fingers met and interlaced. When she looked up again he was watching her.

She frowned, suddenly conscious of how frail, how small he was beside her, how her hand enveloped his, her strong, slender fingers thicker, longer than his. Like a mother with her child.

His face was serious, unsmiling now, his eyes still questioning her. Then, unexpectedly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, brushing it with his lips gently before releasing it. Again she shivered, then turned away quickly, a sweet but painful sensation filling her, physical in its intensity. And as she turned, the memory of her dream came back to her, so that she saw it vividly—saw again that small, dark creature, whose eyes burned like coals and whose wet, dark skin shone with an inner light. She saw it climb from the darkness of the cracked and scarred earth and lift the mirror at the tower. Saw it and gave a small cry, as if in pain. But it was recognition.

She turned back. He was watching her, concerned, not understanding why she had made the sound.

"Are you all right?"

She made to speak, but at that moment there were noises in the hallway outside. Kim was still watching her, confused, unable to comprehend the pain, the sudden intentness of her glances at him. "I . . ." she began, but it was all she could say. It was him. Now, the dream returned to her, she saw it. Saw how his eyes saw through her to the bone and the darkness underneath. Saw it and knew—even as her maid came into the room—that this was her fate. This childlike man. This fierce and gentle creature.

"Jelka?" He was looking at her strangely now. "Are you all right?"

She took a breath and nodded. "I... I'm fine." But she felt faint, felt both ice cold and fiery hot, as if a sudden fever had taken her.

Forcing herself to be calm, she looked across at her maid and smiled, as if to reassure the girl.

"You'll stay for dinner, Shih Ward?"

"If you want me to."

She nodded. "I... I must go now," she said, looking down. "But please, make yourself at home. My maid. . . my maid will see to you." Then, with one final glance at him, she turned and left the room.

And after, as she lay on her bed, thinking back on what had happened, she saw him differently: saw not the man nor the creature of her dreams, but the two transposed, inextricably mixed. And knew, with a sudden certainty that surprised her, that she wanted him.

THREE HOURS had passed and now Kim sat there in the Marshal's study, listening to her talk. Jelka was standing on the far side of the room, beside the huge window wall, staring out into the artificial depths of the past and re-created country of Kalevala, a wistfulness in her face that seemed to mirror the light in the other land. And as she talked, he leaned in toward her, entranced, hanging on her every word.

"You can't help yourself, that's the worst of it. It's like a constant betrayal of yourself. You feel nothing, and yet you go on smiling, talking, laughing, all to fill the vacuum, to mask the nothingness you're feeling all the time." She glanced at him. "At least, that's how it was." She laughed, showing her perfect teeth, her chin slightly raised.

Kim, watching her, caught his breath, pained by the beauty of that one small movement. She was like something from a dream; so tall and straight and lovely. Her hair was like a screen of golden silk, her eyes the blue of the sky in the land beyond her. And her mouth . . .

"As for the rest of them, they don't even seem to notice how things are. It's as if they're dead to it all. I mean, perhaps they really can't tell the difference between this and real life. I don't know . . ." She shrugged, her eyes suddenly pained, "But it seems to me that there's a falseness, an intrinsic flaw in them. It's as if the City's swallowed them. Eaten them up, souls and all. And yet they seem happy with that. It's as if they really don't need anything more."

She turned, facing him, a fierce determination in her eyes. "That's how it is here, Kim. Like a living death. Yet when I saw you I knew at once that you were different." She shivered, the intensity of her words forcing her face into a grimace of pain. "Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not your size. It's not even what you do—that talent that my father values so highly. It's you. You're different from the rest of them. And I want that. I want it so much that it hurts me to think that I might not have it. . ."

She looked away, her eyes releasing him. But her words had seared him. He looked down at his trembling hands, then answered her.

"You have it," he said, meeting her eyes. "All of it." He laughed strangely. "I think I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. Your eyes . . ."

She turned, surprised. "Then it wasn't just me? You felt that too?"

"Yes . . ." He was silent a moment, then, quietly, "I love you, Jelka Tolonen. I have done from the first."

"You love me?" She laughed, surprised. "You know, I thought all that was done with. That nothing would ever touch me again. I thought. . ."

Again she shivered, but this time she came across and knelt beside him, taking his hands.

"You see, I wasn't expecting anything. I didn't think that anything more could happen to me. There was the engagement to Hans Ebert, of course, but, well, it was as if I was living inside a kind of shell, in a magic theater where things only seemed to happen, and nothing real ever took place. I thought that that was all there was ever going to be. And then I saw you . . ."

He turned his face, meeting her eyes. It was like looking into the sky. He could sense the depths of blackness beyond the blue and remembered suddenly his vision—of that great web of brightness spinning out through the surface of her eyes into the darkness beyond.

"And your father?"

Her eyes moved away, then came back again. "Papa . . . ?" She shook her head, real anguish behind the tiny movement. "He's a darling really. I just can't tell you . . ."

He nodded. He had seen for himself how Tblonen doted on his daughter. "And yet?"

"Well, it's just that he can't see that there's a difference. To him it's all politics. Deals. Who's in and who's out. And death underpinning everything. I love him, but. . ."

He saw just how much that "but" had cost her and touched a finger to her lips to prevent her from saying more. She smiled, grateful to him, and gently, tenderly kissed his fingers. It was the prelude to a proper kiss. Their first. He broke from it, surprised, his eyes wide, seeing his own astonishment mirrored in the perfect blue-black of her pupils.

"You're beautiful," she said, her fingers touching his cheek. "So dark and perfect."

He laughed softly. "And you're mad. Utterly mad."

She nodded, but her eyes were filled with that same fierce determination he had witnessed earlier. "Maybe. But I'd fight the whole Above to have you."

THE TWO MEN stood before the unmarked door, waiting to be admitted. Soucek turned, reading the plaque on the wall nearby. LEVEL ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SIX it read; NORTH 2 STACK, CANTON OF DUSSELDORF. He looked about him, trying to get some clue as to what they were doing, why they were here, but there was nothing. This far up the levels the Seven were still firmly in control. Things were neat and tidy. As if the chaos of the lowers were a dream and nothing else but this existed.

For a moment Soucek stared past his feet, trying to picture the levels stacked up beneath him, layer above layer; to imagine all those people—young and old, Han and Hung Moo—eking out their lives in the packed and degenerating strata of the City. Narrow, blighted, desperate lives. He had not really thought of it before, not until he had begun to travel between the levels on Lehmann's business, but now he could not shake it from his mind. He had seen the City from outside; had gone up the levels and seen what existed up Above, and knew—with a certainty he had never had before—that it was wrong. There had to be a better way.

He looked back at Lehman, seeing how patiently he waited; how he held the flask loosely in one hand, as if it contained nothing of value.

And yet three men had died, not counting the woman and her child, to get what it held.

Soucek shuddered, remembering. But just then the door hissed back, and a tiny, boyish-looking Han in a black, er-silk pau stepped through. He smiled, offering both hands in greeting to Lehmann. Tiny golden hands that were like the hands of a mechanical toy. His head was shaven, a faint purselike scar just behind and beneath his right ear revealing that he had been wired. He wore a sweet, aromatic perfume, but beneath it one could discern the strong scent of chemicals.

"Feng Lu-ma," Lehmann said, acknowledging the man, but he ignored the offered hands.

The Han shrugged, then moved past them, looking up and down the corridor before he ushered them inside.

"You're early," Feng said, toying nervously with the tiny lenses that hung like a necklace of delicate glass pendants about his neck and shoulders. "I didn't expect you until four."

He led them down a narrow, unlit passageway and out into a bright, crowded workshop. The walls were covered with row upon row of tiny translucent box files, while the nearby work tops were cluttered with dissecting instruments and culture dishes, stacks of slender ice-covered folders, and strange, spiderish-looking machines. Four young Han—thin-faced, malnourished-looking youths—glanced up from behind their high desks on the far side of the room as they entered, then quickly returned to their work, delicate, silvered instruments flashing between their fingers. There was the sharp, almost tart odor of chemicals, the original of the scent that lay beneath Feng's perfume. Moreover, it was cold; surprisingly so after the warmth of the corridors outside, but that was to be expected. Soucek looked about him, taking it all in, surprised to find this here. Before now he had only been guessing, but now he knew. It was a lens shop.

He turned, looking at Lehmann, seeking something more—some final piece to the puzzle. On the surface of things it made no sense coming all the way up here to a lens shop. No, if Lehmann had wanted a lens shop there were plenty beneath the Net who would do as good a job and ask only a tenth of what they charged at this level, so why come here? But even as he asked himself he began to understand.

It was of a piece with the murders. Lehmann had gone to inordinate lengths in selecting his victims. He had read the files Lehmann had handed him. Besides the physical match, Lehmann had gone out of his way to ensure that all of them, even the married technician, had been without complicating family connections. That meant, of course, that there was no one to mourn their deaths. No one to ask awkward questions. After which, it had been simplicity itself to bribe an official and falsify the public record—to make it seem as though the men were still alive.

Which, of course, was necessary if Lehmann were to use their eyes. For no matter how good a copy might be made of their retinas, no one—no, not even a Plantation Guard—would pass a dead man through a checkpoint.

Anonymity, that was what Lehmann sought. That was why he had chosen his victims so carefully; why he had come here rather than trust to the dubious "confidence" of one of the Net shops. Yes, he had heard tales of how certain long bosses had bought information about their rivals, then had had them tracked and trapped.

But Lehmann was too clever to have that happen. That was why the official at the public record office had subsequently had his throat cut; why his colleagues had been pacified by an anonymous "sweetener."

He watched as Lehmann haggled with the man, then handed over four large denomination credit chips and the flask. The Han took the flask around to the other side of the nearest work top and sat, unscrewing the lid and tipping the frozen eyes out into a sterilized cold dish. He poked at them delicately with his tiny golden fingers, lifting each in turn and studying it beneath the light. Then, satisfied, he looked back at Lehmann.

"These are fine. There's two, three percent damage at most. Certainly nothing I can't repair. You haven't, by any chance, the original retinal mappings?"

Lehmann took the copy files from the inner pocket of his tunic and handed them across. All references to names and whereabouts had been removed. Again, Lehmann had taken great care not to let the lehsman know any more than he had to.

Soucek saw how the man's eyes narrowed, scanning the files, noting the erasures, then returned to Lehmann. "I should charge you more."

Lehmann stared at him impassively. "I can take them elsewhere if you wish, Feng Lu-ma. To Yellow Tan, perhaps. Or your friend, Mai Li-wen. Maybe I should . . ."

The Han studied Lehmann a moment longer, then looked down. "When do you need them by?"

"Tomorrow."

There was a moment's pause, then. "All right. You'll come yourself?"

"No. My man here will come."

"But you ought. . ."

Lehmann leaned across the work top threateningly. "I know what I ought to do, Shih Feng, but I'm a busy man. Besides, I've worn lenses before. I don't need your help to fit them. You just do your job and everything will be fine, neh?"

The Han stared at him thoughtfully, then nodded. "Tomorrow, then. After ten."

But Soucek, watching him, could feel the weight of curiosity at the back of the man's words and knew—without needing to be told—that he would have to kill the man.

bryn kustow stood there in the doorway of the crowded club, looking about him anxiously as customers elbowed past. It was dangerous this far down the levels and normally he wouldn't have come here alone, but just now things weren't normal. Michael was down here somewhere.

Kustow squinted, trying to make out faces in that long, ill-lit room, but it was hard. The Blinded Eye was packed tonight, the noise from the big speakers in the corners deafening. Ta, it was—"beat"; a stripped-down form of Han folk music, amplified heavily; the music of these parts. Kustow stood there, grimacing against the sound, searching the crowded tables for a face he knew, but they were mainly Han here. Ugly little bastards too. Tong runners and minor criminals, for sure. As he craned his neck, a big, pug-nosed Han planted himself directly in front of him.

"What you want, fuck face?"

"A friend," he shouted back, keeping his tone measured. "I'm looking for a friend. A big guy. Short blond hair."

The man glared at him a moment, then turned, pointing across the room. On the far side of the bar a light flickered fitfully. Beneath it, at a packed gaming table, a tall Hung Moo was slumped across the table, face down. To either side of him, eager Han faces watched the dice fall and tumble across the baize, ignoring him.

Kustow felt his stomach tighten. Was it Michael? And if it was, was he all right? He reached in his pocket and took out a ten-yuan chip, pressing it into the big man's hand, not certain it was the right thing to do down here. But it seemed it was. With a glance at the ten piece, the man stood back, letting him pass.

"Over there," he said again, as if Kustow hadn't taken it in first time. "Take the fucker home, neh? Before he gets his throat cut."

Kustow made a tiny bow, then, pushing through the crowd, made his way across. As he came out in front of the table, another Han, smaller yet more vicious-looking than the last, barred his way.

"What you want?" he shouted against the wall of sound.

Behind the thin-featured Han the gaming had stopped. A dozen Han faces were watching Kustow coldly.

"My friend," Kustow shouted back, indicating the slumped figure of Michael Lever. "IVe come to take him home."

The Han shook his head. "Your friend owe money. Five hundred yuan. You pay or he stay."

Kustow looked about him, trying to read the situation. Was it true? Had Michael lost that much to them? Or was the Han trying it on?

"You have his paper?" he yelled back, meeting the Han's eyes once again.

The Han sneered. "What fucking paper? He owe me money. You pay or you fuck off!"

Kustow took a long breath. Five hundred. He had it on him. Twice that, in fact. But it wouldn't do to let them know that. He felt in his pocket, separating out three of the big fifties and three tens.

"I can give you one-eighty. It's all I have. But I can give you my note for the rest, if that's okay?"

The Han hesitated, eyeing him suspiciously, then nodded. "Okay.

But get him out of here right now. And don't come back. Not if you know what good for you!"

FORTY MINUTES LATER and a hundred levels up, Kustow held Michael Lever steady as he leaned over the sink, heaving. Michael's hair was wet where Kustow had held his head beneath the flow, but the two tablets he'd forced down his throat were beginning to take effect.

Michael turned his head slightly, looking back at his friend. "I'm sorry, Bryn. I..."

Kustow shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Really it doesn't. But what the fuck were you doing down there? You could have been killed."

Michael turned back, staring down into the bowl again. "Maybe that would have been for the best."

"Don't say that. It's not true."

"No?" There was a strange movement in Michael's mouth and then his whole face creased in pain. "It's finished, Bryn! It's all gone fucking wrong!"

"No, Michael. No. There's the Movement, remember? And there's Mary. . ."

Michael shook his head. "She's gone. I got her note."

"No, Michael. You're wrong. She wants you. She told me so. The note... it was a mistake. She didn't understand what had happened."

Michael snorted. "She understands all right! I'm washed up! A failure! And my father hates me!" He shuddered violently. "There's nothing, Bryn! Nothing!"

Kustow gripped his shoulders firmly. "You're wrong, Michael. You don't know how wrong. She needs you, even if the old man doesn't. And I need you, too, you silly bastard. Don't you understand that?"

Michael turned, looking up at him uncertainly. "She needs me? Are you sure about that? What did she say?"

"She loves you, Michael. Don't you understand that? She loves you. So stop all this bellyaching and go to her. And for fuck's sake do it before you end up dead in some clapped-out, five-piece drinking den!"

Michael stared at him. "Do what?"

Kustow stared back at him a moment, then laughed, surprised at his naivete. "Why, marry her, of course. Marry her. Now, before it's too late."

"Marry her?" Michael laughed sourly and shook his head. He shivered, then, straightening up, pushed away from the sink. Kustow tried to stop him, but, breaking free of his friend's grip, Michael stumbled toward the door. For a moment he stood there, his forehead pressed against the door's surface, then he turned back, swaying unsteadily, meeting Kustow's eyes.

"Look, I know you mean well, but just leave me alone, Bryn, understand? Just fucking leave me alone!"

CHAPTER TEN

Monsters of the Deep

THE SWEEPER PAUSED, leaning on his broom, staring across at the scene outside Hsiang Tian's Golden Emporium. Black dog banners were everywhere one looked, the triangular silks fluttering gently in the false wind generated by the big fans sited above the storefront. There was a low buzz of expectation and then the crowd began to move back, Triad runners pushing them back from the front of the store. There was a moment's angry jostling and then the crowd settled again, watching as Whiskers Lu strode out, his stylishly cut black silks glistening in the bright overhead lights.

Lu Ming-shao was a big, exceedingly ugly man, with a melted, misshapen face and an air of uncouth brutality. He spat, then turned, summoning Hsiang Tian from within. Hsiang came, his head lowered, ingratiating himself, yet uncomfortable all the same.

"Bring them out," Lu Ming-shao ordered, his rough voice booming. "The four I liked best. I want to see them out here, in the light." Hsiang turned, snapping his fingers. At once there was hurried movement within. A moment later the first of the sedans emerged, a long, sleek model with delicate satin coverings, carved dragon-head lamps, and a high-backed "wooden" chair, designed to seat two; a tien feng, or "Heaven's Wind." It was carried by six of the Emporium's runners, their dark mauve one-pieces emblazoned front and back with the bright red pictogram, a box within a box, hsiang, and their status number. Setting the sedan down close to Whiskers Lu, they knelt, heads bowed, waiting patiently while he mounted the chair and settled his huge bulk across both seats. Then, at Hsiang's signal, they lifted slowly, taking the sedan in a slow, smooth circle.

Whipped up by the Triad runners, the crowd yelled and cheered, genuinely enjoying the sight, but when Whiskers Lu stepped down, it was with a curt shake of his head.

"Next!" he barked, turning his back on Hsiang. There was a further commotion inside, and then the second sedan appeared. This was a bigger, seemingly more substantial model, an eight-man yu Jco, or "Jade Barge." It was broader and squatter than the previous model, and Lu Ming-shao looked less out of place in its huge, thronelike chair. What's more, the extended canopy, with its bloodred er-silk covering, gave the whole thing a slightly regal appearance, reminiscent of the state carriages of the Minor Families. Even so, when Whiskers Lu stepped down again, it was with an expression of distaste.

Seeing that look, Hsiang turned quickly, summoning the next sedan. As it came out under the bright exterior lights, the sweeper made his way across and, pushing his way through the fringes of the crowd, stood near the front of the press, close to the line of runners, watching as Lu Ming-shao mounted the sedan.

He had heard many tales of Whiskers Lu, of his legendary fearlessness, of his heartlessness and casual brutality, but his eyes saw something else. Whatever Whiskers Lu might once have been, he was no longer the man of legend. Sharpness had given way to self-indulgence, brutishness to a kind of uncultured hedonism. Oh, there was no doubting that Lu Ming-shao was a big, fearsome-looking monster of a man, and not one to casually make an enemy of, yet those special qualities that had made him a 489—that had allowed him to wrest power from the hands of his deadliest rivals—were phantoms now. He saw how Whiskers Lu looked about him, aware not of the possible danger from the crowd—the ever-present danger of assassination— but of the impression he was making on them. He noted the big expensive rings the man wore, the elegant First Level fashions and understood. Three years of unopposed leadership had changed Lu Ming-shao. Had made him soft. Worse, they had made him vain.

As he watched, Whiskers Lu climbed up into the wide, deeply cushioned seat and settled back among the padded silk. Yes, only a fool paraded himself this way before the hsiao jen, the "little men." Only a fool closed his eyes, relaxing, when an assassin's bullet lay only a fraction of a second from his heart.

Lehmann turned, then made his way back through the throng, satisfied. He had seen enough. It would be easy to take Whiskers Lu. Easier than he'd anticipated. But it was best not to be too cocksure. Best to plan it properly and make sure the odds were wholly in his favor.

Returning to his cart, Lehmann folded down the handle of his broom and fixed it to the two clips on the side. Then, for all the world like a common sweeper going off shift, he swung his cart in a sharp half-circle and began to push slowly toward the side corridor, making for the down transit.

the nurse handed Jelka back her pass and came around the desk. Behind her, in the glass-fronted booth that overlooked the spacious reception area, the clinic's security guard relaxed, returning to his game of chess.

"Is he expecting you?"

Jelka smiled. "No. But I think he'll be pleased to see me."

"Well, follow me. He's awake, but he may be working."

"Working?"

The nurse laughed. "He never stops. The morning after the operation he was sitting up, looking at files. But we've kept him from using the input as yet. It takes a while for the implant to take, even with the latest drugs."

Jelka gave a vague nod, frowning. It sounded horrible. Behind her, her bodyguard, Zdenek, looked about him, ill at ease without his gun. Only Jelka's strongest pleas had made him agree to come in here.

"Were there any problems?"

"No. It's a standard enough operation, these days. More than three million last year, they reckon. But he has to rest. Otherwise he'll be back in here with an embolism. And that would be very serious."

"Ah . . ." But Jelka was far from reassured.

"He's a friend of yours?"

It was none of her business, but Jelka answered her anyway, aware that Zdenek was listening, and that whatever the bodyguard heard would be reported back to her father. "He works for my father. And for Li Yuan."

The nurse glanced at her, her eyes widening, then nodded. "Ah, so that's why he's here." She laughed. "I thought it was strange."

They came to the end of the corridor and turned left. At the second door the nurse stopped and tapped out a code on the panel beside the door. A screen lit up at once, showing an overhead image of a patient in a bed. It was Kim. Leaning forward slightly, the nurse spoke into the grill.

"Shih Ward, you have a visitor. Jelka Tolonen. Will you see her?"

Kim smiled broadly, looking up at the camera. "Of course. Please . . . show her in."

As the door slid back, the nurse stood aside, letting Jelka go inside. Zdenek made to follow, but Jelka turned, facing him. "Please, Zdenek, stay here. I'll be ten minutes, that's all."

He hesitated, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, Nu Shih Tolonen, but your father would have me court-martialed if I did. My orders are never to leave you alone." He paused, clearly embarrassed at having to be so heavy-handed. "You understand why ..."

She was quiet a moment, then turned to the nurse again. "Have you an audio unit? Just the earphones."

The nurse hesitated, then nodded. "You want me to get a pair?"

Jelka nodded, then turned back, smiling at Kim. "I'm sorry. This won't take a moment."

He smiled, drinking in the sight of her. "That's all right. It's really nice to see you. How did you know I was here?"

She glanced at Zdenek, then smiled broadly. "I'll tell you ... in a moment."

The nurse returned, handing Jelka the headphones and a small tape machine, an under-ear sling. Jelka handed it to Zdenek. "Will you wear this for me?"

The big man looked at the earphones and laughed, relenting. "Okay. But when your father asks me I want to be able to tell him something. All right?"

She smiled and leaned forward, pecking his cheek. "I'll make something up. Okay?"

Zdenek nodded, then went to sit in the far corner, the earphones balanced awkwardly on his large, close-shaven head. Satisfied, Jelka went across. She pulled out a chair, sitting beside the bed, her back to the guard.

Kim was sitting up in bed. The comset he'd been working on was pushed aside on top of the bedclothes. He leaned forward, intending to kiss her, but she made the smallest movement of her head.

"What's the matter?" he asked quietly, then looked past her at the guard. "Is this your father's idea?"

"He thinks it's necessary when I travel."

"And you?"

She nodded. "They've made three attempts on my life already. It's unlikely they'll stop now. They can get at him through me. That's why it's best to take no chances."

"I see." But it was clear that he hadn't realized before just how tightly circumscribed her life was.

She smiled, her mood brightening. "Anyway. How are you?"

He looked past her briefly, then met her eyes again, smiling. "I'm fine. It's still sore, and the headaches are bad, especially at night, but they say it's healing well."

She leaned closer, looking at the silvered stud that jutted from the flesh beneath his ear. The skin surrounding it was red and chafed, but the single, thread-thin scar above it looked good. Even so, the thought of the implant made her feel queasy. She had never been happy about her father's, and though he had had it long before she was bom, it still seemed unnatural. More so than his artificial arm.

"Well?" he asked softly.

She drew back her head and looked at him. The uncertainty in his voice was clear. He hadn't been sure how she would take it. After all, he hadn't even told her he was going to have it done.

"You need this?"

He looked at her intently a moment, then nodded. "It'll make my work much easier."

She looked at the silvered stud again. "It's a neat job."

"The best. Li Yuan's own surgeon."

"Then I'm glad. Really I am." She hesitated, then looked down. "Your work ... it means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

He was quiet, watching her.

"No ... I mean, I know it does. My father said. But more than that, I can see it in you. It's what you are. You can't separate yourself off from it."

He let out a long breath. "And you don't mind?"

She looked up, meeting his eyes. "No. Why should I mind? It's what you are. It's what makes you what you are. I can see that."

"Can you?" He watched her a moment, then nodded. "Yes. I can see that."

They were silent a moment, then she reached out and took his hand. "I understand. I..." She lifted her shoulders slightly, looking away from him, then met his eyes again. "It's like my father, I suppose. He loves me, fiercely, almost possessively, but there's more to him than that. He has to do what he does. When he was exiled—when he couldn't be General anymore—it was like he was dead. Or like a shell, paper-thin, the mere pretense of a man. Seeing him like that made me understand. Like you, he is what he does. The two things are inseparable. Without it ... well, maybe he would be less of a man than he is. And maybe I'd love him less than I do."

"Maybe," he answered, his eyes watching her carefully, a strange tenderness in their depths. "And you?"

She laughed and sat back, cradling his hand now in both of hers. "Me?"

"Yes, you. Isn't there something you want to do? Some part of you that needs something more?"

She shook her head slowly, squeezing his hand between her own, her face suddenly more serious. "No. There's nothing I want to do."

"Nothing?"

She smiled. "No. IVe already found what I want."

from his SEAT in the corner Zdenek watched everything. Jelka had her back to him so he could see nothing of what passed on her face, but he could see the Clayborn Ward clearly. He saw how the child-man smiled, and looked down, disturbed, knowing he would have to tell what he had seen.

And then?

He felt sorry for Jelka. This would hurt her. Badly, perhaps. But it was necessary. Her father would end this thing, for there was no way she could marry Ward, and a mistake here might spoil her chance of marrying well elsewhere. Besides, Ward was Clayborn, and Clay was Clay, it could not be raised.

And Jelka? He watched the back of her head, seeing how the overhead light caught in the golden strands of her hair. For a moment he was distracted by it, then, smiling, he looked down at his big, ugly hands. Jelka Tolonen was something special. Something high and fine and . . . well, above Ward, anyway. Far, far above him.

"Well? What should we do?"

Tsu Ma turned, facing his cousins, his broad, manly figure framed in the moon door. Beyond him, through the broad circle of the entrance, the sun lit up the western garden. "To be frank with you, Yuan, I think we should dig much deeper. Find out where the brain came from, and who designed it. What Tolonen says makes sense. We should send Karr out to Mars again. Have him turn the Colony inside out until he finds what's going on out there. This . . ." he shook his head, "this frightens me, Yuan. The fakes that came in to kill your brother, they were bad enough, but these!"

"I agree," said Wu Shih. "Toloneris findings are the most significant thing to have come to our notice these past twelve months. To think that they were so close to developing and using these things. It only goes to prove how right our forefathers were in clamping down on research into these areas. Indeed, it makes me have second thoughts about our plans. We must be careful how we change the Edict. Careful what we permit within our Cities."

Li Yuan looked from one to the other, then nodded. "Then we are agreed. We will keep this to ourselves. As for Karr, I will think the matter through. Just now he is doing important work for me, keeping an eye on what is happening down below. But that may have to wait.

As you say, cousin Ma, we must find out where these things came from, and it may well be that Karr alone can do that for us."

They walked on slowly, following the path toward the lake.

"And this evening?" Wu Shih asked quietly. "Shall we still go ahead, as planned?"

Tsu Ma looked up, meeting his eyes. "Our path is set. The announcement must be made. Even this cannot alter that."

"Maybe so," said Li Yuan somberly, "but I have slept badly since learning of these things. It is as if we are being warned." He sighed, then stopped, turning to face his fellow T'ang, the great expanse of the lake behind him. "Our ancestors argued that there can be no compromise with Change. So we were taught to believe, from the cradle on. Yet now we seek to make a deal with Change. To let it run, like a fish on a line. But what if the line breaks? What if we lose control?"

"There is no option," Tsu Ma answered bluntly. "You/know that, Yuan. If we falter now we are lost. A deal must be made. Something given, something taken back. No one has said it will be easy. But that is why we are T'ang. To make such decisions and carry them through. And to face the problems as they arise. It is our great task, and I, for one, will not shirk from it."

Wu Shih reached out, touching his arm. "We did not say you would, cousin. I am merely thinking that perhaps we ought to delay a while—to give us time to find out more about this other matter— before we announce the reopening of the House."

"And if we did?" Tsu Ma shook his head. "No, cousin. Too many people know of this already. Ministers and their assistants. Representatives and leading businessmen. To delay would have them question our determination. It would cause more problems than it would solve. No. Our path is set. We must grasp the reins and hold on for dear life!"

"So it is," Li Yuan said, acknowledging the truth of what Tsu Ma had said. Yet in the last day his reluctance had taken on a clear and solid form. It was as he'd said. Tolonen's discovery was like a warning. A sign of things to come. The step they were about to take—the changes to the Edict and the reopening of the House—were irrevocable. And while they might think they knew what would transpire, there was nothing in past experience to say for certain what would happen. From here on the future was unknowable, like a page from an unread book.

Once before the world had fallen into chaos. Once before . . .

He shuddered and turned away, staring out across the ancient lake toward the orchard. And as he looked, the image of a sprig of white blossom snagged in the darkness of his memory, then blew away, turning, turning in the wind.

"And that's all you heard?"

When Zdenek nodded, Tolonen sat back, his left hand placed flat against the desk, his right rubbing at his neck, metal against flesh. There was no doubt that Zdenek's report had disturbed him, but the old man's response was not quite what the bodyguard had anticipated. For a while he simply sat there, his granitelike face clouded, uncertain. Then, sniffing deeply, he shook his head.

"I don't know. I simply don't know."

There was a kind of precedent, of course. Once before Tolonen had interfered directly in his daughter's life. Then he had tried to marry her—against her will—to Klaus Ebert's son, the traitor, Hans. The old man had been wrong, and he knew it, but was that what was affecting him now? Or did he hesitate for another reason? After all, it seemed he rather liked the young man, Clayborn or no. Admired him—for as much as he could admire someone who wasn't a soldier. But was that important when the question was one of marriage to his daughter?

"You will keep this to yourself." .

It was command, not question. Zdenek bowed his head curtly, coming to attention again.

"Shall I continue to watch them, sir?"

Again Tolonen seemed in two minds. A bodyguard was necessary in these troubled times, but he had not foreseen the need for a chaperon. Zdenek had his own thoughts on the matter, but kept them to himself. It would have been impertinent of him to say more than he had already.

Tolonen was frowning, his top teeth pulling at his lower lip. Then, as if the indecision were too much for him, he stood and came around the desk, stopping an arm's length from where Zdenek stood, looking at him steadily.

"You will do as you have done in the past and no more. Understand?"

Zdenek parted his lips, as if to speak, then gave a curt nod. Tolonen was silent a moment, then spoke again, his voice softer than before.

"I'll admit that what you say makes me . . . uneasy. If her aunt were living still. . ."

Tolonen's voice trailed off. He turned away abruptly, going back around his desk. Seated again, he looked up at Zdenek.

"All right. That's all. And Zdenek . . . thank you."

ALONE AGAIN, Tolonen went and stood by the viewing wall, thinking things through. For a while he stared sightlessly away through the artificial landscape of trees and mountains, then turned and went back to his desk, his decision made. This time he would be subtler. Yes, he would let time be the cure of this.

Leaning forward, he spoke into the intercom, summoning his private secretary. The young equerry came into the room a moment later, coming to attention in the doorway, his head bowed.

"General?"

"Come in, lad. Close the door and come over. I want to ask you something."

The young soldier hesitated, then did as he was told, surprised by the unusually personal tone in the General's voice. "Sir?"

Tolonen smiled, indicating that he should take a chair. "At ease, lad. I need to pick your brains."

The equerry drew up a chair and sat. It was the first time in eight months' service with Tblonen that he had done so, and he sat up straight, as if at attention, his head held rigid.

"You come from a good family, Hauser," Tolonen began, smiling warmly at the young soldier. "Your uncle was a Major, was he not?"

The equerry nodded, then found his voice. "In the colonies, sir. And the mining satellites."

"And your eldest brother . . . he's there now, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir. On a five-year tour of duty."

"And does he like it out there?"

The young soldier smiled for the first time, relaxing. "He loves it, sir. Says it's beautiful out there."

Tolonen sat back, studying his equerry with some care. The young man sat up even stiffer than before, conscious of the Marshal's eyes on him.

"Have you ever thought of a colonies posting?"

The equerry looked down, his tongue touching his top teeth momentarily; a gesture Tolonen had noticed before.

"Well, lad?" he coaxed, more gently than before.

The young soldier met his eyes. "I do what is asked of me, sir. But. . . well, yes, I would welcome such a posting if the opportunity arose."

"And if it arose now?"

The young man allowed himself a smile. "Now, sir?"

Tolonen laughed. "Let me explain . . ."

IT WAS cold in the Dissecting Room, colder than Maryland in January, yet Old Man Lever stood there, bareheaded and without a jacket, staring down at the row of corpses laid out on the long slab. Nearby, Curval, the Chief Geneticist, stood watching him. The two men were alone in the room, the investigation team dismissed for the moment while the Old Man saw things for himself.

"What went wrong?" he asked, turning, meeting Curval's eyes.

"We're not sure," Curval answered, looking past Lever at the eleven shaven-headed bodies. "It seems like some kind of virus, but we're not certain."

Lever licked dryly at his lips. "Why not?"

Curval shifted awkwardly. "Because it might not be that. All of the corpses show traces of the thing, but the virus itself doesn't seem harmful. My personal belief is that it's a long-term side effect of the drug treatment. But we'll know that for sure as soon as weVe tested a few of the living immortals."

Immortafs . . . Old Man Lever shuddered and turned back, staring down into the blank face of one of the dead. There had been deaths before, of course, mainly from accidents, but nothing on the scale of this. No. Once this got out...

"Does anybody know? I mean, apart from the staff here?"

Curval nodded. "I'm afraid so. The clause in the original contracts allowed us to bring all the bodies back here—for tests—but there's been trouble with some of the relatives. I got a team onto it at once, but it looks like a group of them are going to go public, tonight at ten."

Curval waited, tensed inside, for the Old Man to explode with anger, but there was nothing. Lever simply stood there, as if in shock, staring down at the nearest corpse.

"There's no choice, then," he said, after a moment. "We have to go public before they do."

"Is that wise? I mean, what will we say?"

"That the treatment is a failure. And that we're working on something new. Something better. Something that weVe just invested a further ten billion yuan into."

Curval blinked. "WeVe got new sponsors?"

Lever shook his head. "No. The money will come direct from ImmVac. At the same time we'll be making substantial payments to all those on the present program to ensure that they receive the best medical treatment possible in the coming days."

Curval bowed his head. "I see."

So the rumor was true: some of the major sponsors had pulled out. If news of that broke at the same time as this, then the Project was as good as dead. And even if it survived, it would be the object of wide-scale public derision. Faced with that possibility, Old Man Lever was willing to double the stakes and risk all on a further throw of the dice. To make a brave face of it and ride out the present storm, hoping to limit the damage.

And who knew?—it might even work.

Curval looked up again, meeting the Old Man's eyes. "So what do you want me to do?"

"I want some kind of research outline. Something that'll sound impressive. And I want some visuals of our best men at work in the labs. You know the kind of thing."

Curval nodded. "And the boy? Ward?"

Lever stared back at him, eyes narrowed. "Offer him what he wants. Whatever he wants. But get him."

WHEN CURVAL HAD GONE, Lever walked slowly up the line, then back, stopping beside the last of the corpses, that of a fifty-seven-year-old woman.

For a long time he stared down at her, at the cold, pale shape of her, unable to take in what had happened. Her name was Leena Spence and she had been one of the first of his "immortals." He had slept with her once or twice, before she'd had the treatment, but lately, tied up in the business of the Institute, he had seen little of her.

And now it was too late.

He shivered, the cold beginning to get to him at last. So this was death. This. He swallowed, then leaned closer, studying the fine blue tracery of lines that covered the pale, smooth flesh of her skull like the hand-drawn pictograms in an old Han notebook.

He reached out, running his fingers over the faint blue lines, as if to gauge the mystery of it, but it was like a map he could not read of a country he did not know. Queequeg's back, Curval had called it once, for some reason, and that came back to Lever now, making him frown, then shake his head, as if to deny what had happened here. But they were dead. His immortals were dead. Eight yesterday, a further five today, like machines being switched off one by one.

A virus, Curval had said. But what kind of virus? Something harmless. Harmless and yet deadly. If that was what had done this.

Old Man Lever drew his hand back, shuddering, then turned and walked swiftly away, rehearsing words and phrases in his head, beginning at once upon the task that lay ahead.

ROSS LAY on the narrow bed, reading, files scattered all about him. Nearby, at the table, Milne was hunched over his comset, working through the transcripts of the interviews they had done that morning. The stay-over was a small, spartanly furnished room that had cost them ten yuan for the week. Not that they planned to stay a week.

No. For with what they'd got that morning, they could probably wrap things up that evening.

They had tracked down more than thirty of the former inhabitants of Mary Jennings's "birth-deck," including a midwife who had worked there more than forty years. Not one of them had any knowledge of the girl. That, in itself, might not have been conclusive. There were between five and ten thousand people in an average deck, and it was possible—just possible—that their sample was insufficient. But the results of the facial identification check had confirmed what they had suspected all along. Mary Jennings was a fake. In reality she was Emily Ascher. A European.

"Listen to this," Ross said, sitting up, then turning to face his partner. "It seems that her father was involved in some kind of scandal. He was an official in the Hu Pu, the Finance Ministry. It looks like he made some kind of mistake on the interest rates. There was a Hearing and he was kicked out. The family fell. One hundred and twenty levels. Six months on, the father was dead. The mother had to cope with the child on her own."

Milne looked down. "How old was she?"

"Nine, I think."

"Then maybe that's why."

Ross frowned. "Why what? I don't follow you."

"Why she became a terrorist."

Ross laughed. "Are you serious, Mike? I mean, what evidence have we got?"

"Instinct," Milne said, glancing at him nervously. "I've been thinking about it. She's not your usual kind of sleeper. I mean, she's a woman for a start. And most industrial espionage is short-term. The sleeper gets in, does his job, and gets out—as quick as possible. They're in a year at most. I've not known one to be in there as long as her. And then there's the background. Maintenance and economics. The combination fits the profile. Remember that report we read about the makeup of the Ping Tioo. I reckon that's what she was. Ping Tioo. The timing fits too. She vanished only weeks after Bremen. And then here she is, over here, in the Levers' employ. There has to be a reason for that."

"Coincidence," Ross said, putting his feet down onto the floor. "For a start the Ping Tioo had no foothold over here. Besides, it would take real clout to destroy a deck and all its records."

Milne shook his head. "1 think the fire was genuine. An accident. But someone took advantage of it. Someone with Security training, perhaps. And a lot of influence."

Ross's eyes slowly widened. "DeVore? You mean DeVore, don't you?"

Milne nodded. "They say he was working with them at the end. So why not this? It's the kind of thing he was good at."

"But why? What's his motive?"

"I don't know. Just that it all fits. Her background. The timing. The nature of the deception. And it makes sense, too, of the spare ID of Rachel De Valerian. I think she was put in as a terrorist sleeper. Biding her time. Waiting to set up over here, when the time was right."

Ross was quiet a moment, considering things, then he nodded. "It would certainly make sense of why she left Old Man Lever to join up with the son. That was bothering me. But if DeVore put her in over here . . ." He laughed. "Hey. Maybe you're onto something."

"Then maybe we should get it all written up and get back to Richmond straight away."

Ross looked down. "You think we should take this to Lever, then?"

"Why, who were you thinking of?"

"Wu Shih, perhaps?"

Milne laughed uneasily, but before he could answer there was a faint rapping at the door.

Ross looked at Milne tensely, then stood. Drawing his gun he crossed to the door.

"Who is it?"

"Room service!"

Ross glanced at his partner. Did you order room service⁷, he mouthed.

Milne shook his head, then stood, drawing his own gun.

Ready⁷. Ross mouthed. Milne nodded. Moving to the side, Ross reached out and thumbed the door lock. As the door irised back, a tall Han stepped into the room, carrying a fully laden tray, covered in a cloth.

"Compliments of the management," he said, setting the tray down on the bedside table, then turned, a look of surprise and shock coming into his eyes as he saw the drawn guns. "Ch'un tzu?"

Ross looked to Milne then back at the Han. Only then did he lower his gun and, with a faint, embarrassed laugh, went across and lifted the cloth from the tray. There were six bowls of steaming food.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning back and meeting the Han's eyes. "You can't be too careful. I thought. . ."

The movement of the Han's arm was deceptively fast. Ross felt himself being lifted and turned, something hard and acid-hot slicing deep into his back. There was the sound of a gun's detonation, followed instantly, it seemed, by the searing pain of a bullet smashing into his collarbone. Then he was falling toward Milne, the darkness enfolding him like a tide.

M ACH LOOKED about him at the room, then, setting the detonator on the incendiary, stepped back. He had what he'd come for. The rest could burn.

For a moment he paused, smiling, pleased with himself. His instinct was still good, despite what had happened in Europe. If he had not followed these two, the game would have been up for Emily. And for him too, perhaps. As it was, he knew now what had happened that time with DeVore.

Yes. Milne had been right. A clever man, Milne, but no good with a gun. As for Emily, what he'd found out today might one day prove invaluable.

"Rachel De Valerian," he said softly, noting how closely the surname mimicked the form of DeVore's own. He laughed and tapped the file against his side, then, turning away, he thumbed the door lock and stepped out into the corridor. Richmond was two hours away.

the place stank. But this was not the normal stink of the Lowers, this was a powerful, strongly animal stench that seemed to fill and thicken the close, warm air, pressing like a foul cloth against the mouth and nostrils. Soucek had gagged at first and turned to look questioningly at Lehmann, but the albino had showed no reaction.

"Gods, what is this place?"

Lehmann glanced at him. "It used to be a pen." He indicated cages, the silvered snouts of the feeding tubes, retracted now into the walls. "Some friends of mine have emptied it for a while."

Soucek nodded, understanding. He had never seen one of the great meat animals—the jou tung wu, as they were called—but he had seen pictures. He looked about him, imagining the huge, brainless creatures, one on each side of the central walkway, the vast pink bulk of each crammed tight into the rectangular mesh, the dozens of tiny, eyeless heads guzzling at the trough. He made a noise of disgust. No wonder the place stank.

He was about to say something more when he saw the figures at the far end of the pen; three of them, each of them holding a hand up to his mouth. He almost laughed, but checked himself, letting nothing show on the blank of his face. It was a sign of how much he had changed since knowing Lehmann. Show nothing, he thought, recalling what Lehmann had said. The man who shows what he's thinking is weak. He allows his opponent an advantage. And never more so than when the stakes were as high as they were today.

There was a moment's hesitation as the three men looked among themselves, then they came forward. They were big men, their bare arms heavily muscled. Together they seemed to form a type, but no one knew better than Soucek how different from each other these three were.

The three stopped a body's length from where Lehmann and he stood. Everything about them was wary. They had committed themselves heavily simply by coming. If Whiskers Lu found out, they were dead. But that didn't mean they were won over. Far from it.

"You've chosen a sweet place for our meeting, Shih Lehmann."

The speaker was Huang Jen. As lieutenant to Po Lao, Red Pole of the Kuei Chuan, he was the most senior of the three. It was not surprising that they had chosen him as their spokesman. But the bovine look of him was misleading, for he was a clever, subtle man— though not entirely. He had a reputation for sadism. To his left stood Meng Te, a big Han with a large, shaven head who had joined the Kuei Chuan from one of the northern long a year back. Making up the three was a sullen-faced Hung Moo named Visak.

"Sweet enough," Lehmann answered, stepping forward, taking each of them in turn by the hands. "Like what we do here, neh?"

Lehmann was holding the hands of Visak as he said this, and Soucek, watching, saw how the man's eyes widened marginally, trying to fathom the albino. Visak was the most interesting of the three. It was rare—almost unique—for a Hung Moo to rise in the ranks of the Triads and said much for his ruthlessness and ability. Though beneath Huang Jen and Meng Te in the Triad hierarchy, he was, without doubt, the most dangerous of the three. Before Lehmann had asked him to sound the man out, Soucek would have considered him the most loyal of Whiskers Lu's henchmen. Fiercely loyal. But here he was.

Security-trained, Visak's prowess in hand-to-hand fighting was legendary throughout the Lowers. In stature he was one of the few men Soucek had met who were as tall as Lehmann, and seeing the two of them together, he noted how big Visak really was, for the sheer breadth of his chest and shoulders made the albino seem frail. But Lehmann appeared undaunted. He met the other's gaze unflinchingly.

"You understand the need for secrecy?"

Huang Jen lifted his chin disdainfully. "Your man promises much, if I take his vague inferences to mean anything. Will you spell it out for us? Make it clear?"

Soucek glanced at Lehmann uneasily. What if this were a trap? What if Whiskers Lu knew about their meeting? It would mean war, surely, for all Lehmann said of Lu's softness, his lack of will. But Lehmann seemed contemptuous of such fears.

"I am the coming force," he said, looking from one to the other. "The very fact that you are here means that you understand this. That you know where the future lies."

He stood there imperiously, relaxed but commanding, as if every word he said were incontestable fact. And though Soucek had seen this side of him before, he felt his nerve ends tingle with a strange excitement as he listened. At these moments it was like hearing the voice of some dark, unnatural power. It both terrified and awed him.

"In time it will all be mine. From the north to the south. From west to east. Every last corridor. You know this. You hear what is whispered among your men. Even now they see it clearly. Lehmann, they say. Lehmann's the one. And they're right. You know they're right."

Visak glanced at the others, then laughed. But Soucek could see that even he was awed.

"I want proof," he said. "Something more than words."

The words seemed strange, rehearsed, and Soucek, watching, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Was Whiskers Lu behind this? Was he listening even now? But Lehmann was shaking his head slowly.

"No, Visak. No sideshows. No games. What we do we do in the utmost seriousness. You are here because you have already chosen. Children want proof. Children and old men. But men such as you and I... we work in certainties, neh?"

Visak raised his chin challengingly, then relented, giving a grudging nod. Huang Jen, who had been watching him, looked back at Lehmann.

"You are right, Shih Lehmann. There are whispers. But you have still not answered me. What do we get out of this? And what do you want from us?"

Lehmann was silent a moment, his pink eyes seeming to hold and judge each one of them in turn. Then, satisfied, he answered.

"I want you to swear loyalty to me. Here. Right now. I want each one of you to be my man. To serve me. And, in the time that is to come, to do what I ask of you."

"And in return?"

"You live. You rule with me."

Huang Jen smiled. "And that's all?" But the smile quickly faded.

"The choice is simple," Lehmann said coldly. "All or nothing. Which is it to be?"

For a moment there was silence, stillness. Then, hesitantly, Meng Te went down onto his knees and bowed his head. Slowly, and with one final questioning look at the albino, Huang Jen also knelt.

For a time it seemed that Visak would choose against, but then, with a suddenness that was strange, he too knelt and lowered his head. Only then did Lehmann go down the line, offering his foot for them to kiss, speaking the words he would have them offer him in token of their loyalty.

He moved back, calling on them to stand.

"I want you to prepare yourselves. To gather about you those loyal to you and put aside those who might waver. When things are ready, I'll send and tell you what to do."

Soucek shivered, understanding how they were feeling at that moment. He too had knelt and sworn his loyalty. Yes, he thought, watching them bow and turn away, I understand this better now.

It was not simple force or cunning they responded to, but something stronger, deeper than those; something so different from what they were used to that to encounter it was to be changed, as he, Jiri Soucek, had been changed. To be in Lehmann's presence was to cast off all masks, all illusions. It was to grasp the raw essence of things. It was like . . . like pressing through the flesh and touching bone!

All ... or nothing. It was so potent an offer that to refuse it was almost impossible for men such as they. Even so, he wondered whether it were enough. Whether they were bound to Lehmann as he himself was bound.

He turned, looking at Lehmann. The albino was staring at the tunnel's mouth, concentrating, his features fixed, like" a mask. Then he turned, looking at Soucek. "That will make Whiskers Lu think, neh? He'll try to kill me, I warrant."

It was so unexpected that Soucek laughed. "Then Visak was act-ing?"

Lehmann shook his head. "Not all the time." He sniffed loudly, then cleared his throat. "Still, times are sad when such hsiao jen are legend. You'll watch him, neh?"

Soucek nodded, but he was thinking through what had happened, trying to see it all anew.

Lehmann turned, starting toward the tunnel's mouth. "Come, Jiri. Let's go. It stinks here."

Soucek looked up, his eyes widening, surprised that Lehmann had even noticed.

TO the SOUND of martial music, the golden curtains swept back, revealing the dragon throne, mounted on a platform of seven broad steps. To each side, vast pillars rose up into depths of darkness, while in the great chair itself Wu Shih, T'ang of North America and spokesman for the Seven, sat cloaked in silks of imperial yellow. As the camera panned in, his face grew until it filled the screen, its stem authority staring out at the watching billions.

"People of Chung Kuo," he began, his dark eyes clear and certain. "Today I have great news to tell you. An announcement of the utmost importance to everyone in the seven Cities. For the first time since the dark cloud of war fell over our great civilization, there is peace in the levels. Both high and low can look forward to a future of safety and prosperity, of growth and stability. But to ensure that stability, certain measures must be taken."

Wu Shih paused, his lined and bearded face emanating a strength, a calm assurance that was impressive. Rocklike and yet fair he seemed at that moment. A father to his people.

"First of all, the State of Emergency which has been in place these past nine years is immediately revoked. From this day on, the law will be as it was before the troubles began. Furthermore, all political prisoners will have their cases reviewed by civil tribunals, these matters to be concluded, at the latest, six months from now."

There was a faint softening to the features, the merest hint of a smile. "Secondly, the House of Representatives at Weimar will be reopened one year from now, elections to be held in three stages in the six months prior to that. Further announcements regarding the dates of such elections and of franchise rights will be posted throughout the Cities in the days to come."

He paused once more, letting that sink in, then continued, his eyes staring out unblinking at the gathered masses, commanding their attention.

"Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, we have decided upon a package of revisions to the present Edict of Technological Control. In five important areas we shall be allowing new developments. Developments which, it is hoped, will be of benefit to everyone living within our great society. Changes."

Throughout Chung Kuo there was a murmur of surprise. Changes. Never had they thought to hear the word from the lips of a T'ang. But Wu Shih was not finished.

"Finally, there is one last great matter we must face as a people.

One challenge which we must let unite us in the years to come. For many years now we have chosen not to speak of it. To ignore it, as if by itself it would go away. But it will not go away. And so, finally, we must tackle the great question of our time. Are we to be a single people, free and safe and prosperous? Or are we to see ourselves riven by division, our great Cities destroyed, our institutions falling into anarchy and chaos?"

There was a slight upward movement of the great T'ang's head. His eyes burned now with a fierce challenge.

"We cannot let that be. We cannot let our children suffer. Therefore we must confront the fact that has stared us in the face too long. Our numbers are too great. Chung Kuo groans beneath the burden of that weight. That is why, in the years to come, we must work together, People and Seven, to find a solution to this last great problem that confronts us. This is a new beginning. A new chance for us to set things right. People and Seven. Our chance to be strong again. To ensure stability and a good life for all."

As the final words echoed out across the great world of levels, the camera panned back, revealing once more the dragon throne, the pillars, and the steps. Slowly the golden curtains closed.

Wu Shih rose from his seat and, coming slowly down the steps, made his way through the kneeling technicians and out into the hospitality suite at the back of the studio. Guards opened the doors before him, their heads bowed low. He went through. Inside, his fellow T'ang, Tsu Ma and Li Yuan, were sitting on the far side of the room, facing a giant screen. They turned as he entered, standing up to greet him.

"That was good," Tsu Ma said, coming across and holding Wu Shih's arm briefly.

"Yes," added Li Yuan, smiling. "The people will sleep soundly tonight, knowing what is to come."

"Maybe so," Wu Shih answered, taking a seat between them, "and yet for once the words felt hollow even as I uttered them. All that talk of a new age. Of peace and stability and of working together, People and Seven. I would that it were so, that we could call on them and they'd respond, yet I fear we must face dark days before things get any better."

Tsu Ma looked down thoughtfully. "Maybe. And yet to say as much would only bring it that much quicker. No, you spoke well tonight, cousin. For once we must pray that what we say will come about, even as we prepare ourselves for the worst."

"Prayers, cousin Ma?" Li Yuan laughed gently. "Has it come to that?"

Tsu Ma met his eyes somberly. "Maybe that's the answer, Yuan. Prayers and chanting, bells, icons and incense ... as in the old days."

Wu Shih, watching him, frowned. "Are you serious, Tsu Ma?"

Tsu Ma turned, smiling bleakly. "No, my dear friend. I would sooner allow our cousin Wang to cut my throat than have us return to those dreadful times. Yet from recent reports it seems that such thinking is rife, even as high up as the Mids. There is a need among them. Something that the City does not satisfy."

Li Yuan nodded. "I too have heard such things. Of new cults, new movements in the lowers. My forces try the best they can to uproot such growths, yet the garden is long untended, the weeds many. I fear the day will come when we must relinquish such regions to the darkness."

Wu Shih sighed. "I confess that is how I also feel. I tell myself that we must prevail, yet in my heart of hearts 1 am uncertain."

Tsu Ma nodded. "We must face the truth, cousins. It is as Wang said, that day at Astrakhan when we first saw how things were to be among us. We live in new times. There are new ways of thinking and behaving. It is said that in my great-grandfather's day everything under Heaven, yes, even the wan wu, the ten thousand things themselves, would bow before the sound of his voice, the solemn glare of his eye. But now?" He laughed sourly. "Well, our eyes have lost their fierce glow, our voices their terrifying power. Or so it would seem, neh? And our Cities . . . our Cities are filled with the shadows of fear and ignorance and hatred. And how can one fight such shadows?"

"And yet we must."

"Yes, cousin Yuan. And we must also guard against these other, inner shadows—the shades of fear and despair. For we who rule are not as other men. If we fall, who will stand in our place? If we fall, all is lost."

A heavy, brooding silence fell, and then, unexpectedly, the screen behind them lit up once more.

"Cousins..."

It was Wang Sau-leyan. His moon-shaped face filled the great screen, smiling, as if he saw them.

"Wu Shih . . . you spoke well tonight. Indeed, you spoke for us all when you said that this was a new beginning, a new chance to make things right. So it is, cousin. So it is. But time alone will show just how important this moment is. It is a joyous moment, a truly great moment for the Seven and for the people of Chung Kuo. Let us go forward from this moment and build upon that vision of a new age. I, for one, will not hesitate to strive toward that goal. You can be assured of my continued support in Council for all measures designed to bring that aim about."

The smile broadened momentarily, like a fracture in that pallid expanse of flesh, and then, unexpectedly, Wang bowed his head.

"And so I bid you good night, cousin Wu. Likewise to my cousins, Tsu Ma and Li Yuan. May the gods protect you and your loved ones."

The screen blanked. Below it the three T'ang sat in stunned silence, staring at each other. At last Tsu Ma broke the spell.

"Now what in the gods' names was that about? What is that calculating bastard up to now?"

"Whatever it is," Wu Shih said irritably, "you can be certain of one thing—that our effusive cousin means not a single word of what he said."

"Maybe not," said Li Yuan thoughtfully, "but now, at least, we are forewarned."

"True," said Tsu Ma, leaning back in his chair, a sudden twinkle in his eye. "And there's one, at least, who casts a shadow large enough to fight."

THERE WAS A SUDDEN , violent banging at the door. Emily woke, groping for the gun she always kept at her bedside, her heart hammering. For a moment she thought herself back in her tiny apartment in Munich Hsien, then she realized where she was—America—and sat up, suddenly alert.

There was no gun, only the bedside timer. It was after four and the apartment was in total darkness. For a moment she sat there, breathing shallowly, listening, wondering if she had imagined it, and then it came again.

Mach. It had to be. Security wouldn't have bothered knocking.

She hissed out her anger, then got up quickly and threw on a robe. He had better have a good excuse for waking her at this hour. A fucking beauty of an excuse.

She stabbed the view button angrily, studying herself briefly in the wall-length mirror beside the door, then looked back at the screen.

"Michael..."

Michael was leaning against the wall beside the door, his closely cropped head lowered, his body slumped forward, as if he were ill. As she watched he swayed back slightly and looked up at the camera, bleary eyed.

No, not ill. Drunk.

She studied herself in the wall-length mirror, wondering what he wanted of her, then, with a tiny shudder, slammed her hand over the door-release pad.

He stood there unsteadily, simply looking at her. She made to chastise him, then stopped, catching her breath.

"Michael. . ." she said, pained by the sight of him. "What is it?"

He looked away, then looked back at her, tears welling in his eyes.

She had never seen him like this. Never seen him anything but strong, resourceful, positive, even when things had seemed hopeless. But that look in his eyes had been dreadful. She had never seen such misery, such a vast, despairing sense of loss.

"Come on," she said gently, putting her shoulder under his arm to support him. She drew him inside and closed the door behind them. "Let's have some ch'a. You can tell me all about it."

"It's finished," he said, shuddering, his face screwed up in sudden torment. "There's no going back. It's ended between us."

She stared at the side of his face, wondering what he meant.

"Who . . . ?" she began, then understood.

"He pissed on me, Em. The old fucker pissed on me."

The words were angry, accusing. But the anger of the woros was underlaid with a raw hurt that genuinely surprised her.

She sat him down in the kitchen in one of the big chairs, then began to prepare the ch'a, her mind racing.

"It was Kennedy," he said, telling her what she already knew. "It was his idea. He thought it would help things. Take the pressure off. Give us some breathing space in which to raise some funds and develop our campaign. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time. But I didn't. . ."

Again his voice broke, betraying him. He closed his eyes, squeezing the lids tightly shut, but still the tears came, defying his every effort to hold them back.

"I didn't know," she said softly, sympathetically. "I thought you hated him."

"Hated him?" He laughed and opened his eyes again, staring at her almost soberly. "I could never hate him, Em. Never. He's my father. He's. . ."

Again he could not go on.

"So what happened?" she asked, coaxing him gently. "What did he say?"

He took a deep, shuddering breath, then shook his head. "It wasn't what he said, it was how he did it. He had his cronies there. You know, that crowd he's roped in to fund his immortality project. I wanted to speak to him alone, but he wouldn't have it. He wouldn't even let me into the room. And then. . ." He licked his lips, then carried on. "Well, it was hopeless. He doesn't want to know." He looked up at her forlornly. "He wants me to be a slave to him—to do everything he says. And I can't do that, Em, I can't! He asks too much. He always has."

"I see . . ." But she didn't. Not yet. This was something specific. Something he was holding back from her.

She turned away, busying herself a moment, pouring the ch'a. When she turned back it was to find him leaning forward in the chair, watching her strangely.

"What is it?" she said, setting the bowl down on the table beside him. "What aren't you telling me?"

He laughed, but it was a strangely forlorn sound. "You're a good woman, Em. And not just good at your job. There's something about you. Some quality . . ." He shrugged and sat back slightly, his movements awkward, slightly exaggerated, as if he were trying hard to control himself. "I saw it from the first. Even before you started working for me. I noticed you. Did you know that? 1 used to look out for you in my father's offices. I..."

He looked down at his hands, as if it were suddenly hard to say what he was about to say, then looked back at her again, his whole manner suddenly changed.

"Gloria Chung . . . remember her, Em? The hostess at that party we went to. She told me something that night. Something I should have known for myself but hadn't really seen until then. Well, tonight, facing my father, what she said came back to me. You see, I had to make a choice. Oh, I don't think the Old Man was even aware of it. Anything else he'd have asked of me I would have done. Anything. But that..."

Emily shook her head, suddenly exasperated with him. "What, for the gods' sakes? What the hell are you talking about, Michael?"

"It was you," he said, his gaze suddenly piercing her. "That's what it was all about. He wanted me to marry the Johnstone girl and I refused. As before, only I didn't know it back then. But tonight I was certain of it. Anything else, and I'd have agreed. Anything. But to lose you, Em ... No. I couldn't do that. Not that."

He stood unsteadily, taking her hands. "Don't you understand it yet? I want to marry you, Em. To spend my life with you."

The words surprised her; caught her totally off guard. She was silent a moment, then recollecting herself, she shook her head. "But what about your father? You love him, Michael. You need him. If you marry me, he'll cut you off for good."

He shuddered, the full weight of his hurt there briefly in his eyes. "Maybe. But it's done already, Em. It's finished between us. Really. There's no going back. So now it's just you and I. That's if you'll have me. That's if you feel even the tiniest bit the way I feel toward you."

She laughed, but beneath her laughter was a kind of numbed surprise—almost awe—that he had done this for her; that he had cast it all off simply to have her.

"I'll have you, Michael Lever," she said quietly, surprised by the strength of what she felt for him at that moment. "Just you and I. For life. And no going back, neh? No going back."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lost

IT HAD BEEN a long time since they had entertained, and I Jelka felt awkward, unpracticed in her role as hostess. I Their guests, the Hausers, were friends of her father's from years back, the husband ex-Security and a onetime Colonial Governor, the wife a soldier's wife, silent and dutiful in all things. Their son, Gustav, had come to work for the Marshal as his equerry and was shortly to be reposted. Jelka often saw him about the house, though he kept much to himself. He seemed a pleasant enough young man, though, like all of them, bred with a certain stiffness to him.

At the table she busied herself, turning to have a word with the servants, making sure things went smoothly, then turning back to ensure that the conversation kept flowing. Not that there was any real problem with that, for the two men monopolized the talk. First it was pure reminiscence, then, after their wineglasses had been topped up and the dessert was out of the way, they moved on to that perennial topic among the old: How things had changed.

"It was far simpler back then," Hauser began, nodding and looking to his wife. "Values were stronger. Positions were much clearer cut than now." He sipped and leaned forward, giving Jelka the benefit of his gaze. "There was no question of divided loyalties. A man was what he said he was."

She wanted to question that. It struck her that men had always been as they were now—a mixed bunch, and some more mixed than others—but she kept her silence, smiling, as if she agreed.

Hauser smiled back at her, pleased by her acquiescence. "Our job was simple, back then. We rounded up a few malcontents. Made sure things ran smoothly in the levels. None of this 'Who's my friend? Who's my enemy?" business."

Tolonen sighed and wiped at his lips with his napkin. "That's true, Sven. Why, if I could but tell you . . ." He shook his head sadly and reached for his glass. "Honor is not a thing you can buy. It must be bred. Must be there from birth in the immediate environment of a man. And if it's not. . ." He drank deeply, then set his glass down again, pursing his lips.

Jelka, watching him, thought of Kim. Was it true, what her father said? Was honor simply a thing to be bred into a man? Couldn't a man be naturally honorable?

"Unfortunately," continued her father, "we live in an age where such standards are vanishing fast. Young men like your son are rare, Sven."

She looked down once more, keeping the smile from her face. The old Governor had pushed out his chin at her father's remark and nodded sternly, the gesture so like a character in a trivee historical that she had it on her lips to remark about it. But there were rules here, and she would obey them, dislike them as she might. She said nothing, merely looked past the governor's wife to the waiter, indicating that he should fill the woman's glass again.

"You must be excited."

Jelka looked back at the ex-Governor and realized he had been talking to her. "I beg your pardon, Major Hauser?"

"About the trip. It must be wonderful. Seeing all that so young. I was in my late forties before I first went out."

She still wasn't following him. Confused, she looked to her father for explanation, but the Marshal was staring fixedly down at the table, as if deep in thought.

"Yes," went on the Governor, "I can remember it clearly, even now. Seeing the moons of Jupiter for the first time."

She laughed. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid you must be mistaken."

It was the old man's turn to look confused and turn to her father. "What's this, Knut? I thought you'd settled things?"

There was a slight color to Tolonen's cheeks. He met his old friend's eyes firmly, but his voice was quieter than usual. "I haven't told her, Sven. Please..."

"Ah . . ." There was a moment's clear embarrassment, then the old man turned and looked back at Jelka. "Well, as it's out, I guess you might as well know. I suppose your father wanted to surprise you, neh?"

Jelka had gone cold. She was looking at her father steadily. What had he done now? "A trip?" she asked, ignoring their guests momentarily.

"I would have told you," Tolonen said, still not looking at her. "Tonight. When our friends here had gone."

There was a slight emphasis on the word friends that was meant to remind her of her duty as hostess, but she ignored it.

"You're doing it again, aren't you?"

She could sense how both their guests had stiffened in their seats. Her father, however, had turned to face her.

"Doing what?"

"Interfering. . ." She said it softly, but the impact of the word couldn't be softened. She was thinking of Hans Ebert and her father's pressure on her to marry him. He had been wrong then, and he was wrong now. She loved Kim. And she would not be separated from him. Not for some soldier!

She shivered, realizing the point to which her thoughts had brought her. Did she really hate all this talk of duty and breeding? Hate all this soldiering?

"Jelka. . ." her father said softly. "You must listen to me. In this I know best. Really . . ."

She folded up her napkin and threw it down on the table, then stood. Turning to the Governor and his wife, she gave a small bow and a faint smile of apology. "I'm sorry. I really don't feel well. If you'll excuse me . . ."

She made to turn away, but her father called her back.

"Where do you think you're going, girl?"

She took a deep breath, then turned to face him. He was angry with her. Furiously angry. She had never seen him quite like this. But the sight merely steeled her to what she was doing. She faced him out, for the first time in her life openly defying him.

"What is it?"

He waved a hand at her, indicating that she should sit. But she remained as she was, standing away from the table, the chair pushed out behind her. He saw this and narrowed his eyes.

"You'll sit down, and you'll apologize to our guests for your behavior."

She opened her mouth, astonished by him. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. I'll not go."

"Sit down!"

There was real menace in his voice this time. She sat, slightly away from the table, making no effort to draw her chair up. "I'll not go," she said again, as if he had not heard her the first time.

Hauser was silent, looking from her to her father. But his face was the mirror of her father's.

"You'll go because I tell you to. Understand?"

She went very still. Then, looking up at him again, she shook her head.

This time he stood and yelled at her. "You'll go, dammit! Even if my men have to bind you and carry you on board. Understand? You're still my daughter, and until you're of age, you do what I say!"

She shuddered, looking away from him. He was so ugly like this. So...

Not meaning to, she laughed.

It went very quiet. She could feel the chill of the atmosphere about her. She looked up at him again. He was looking at her strangely, almost as if he didn't recognize her.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked.

"What?" He didn't seem to understand. "Afraid?"

"Kim," she said. "Why are you so afraid of him? Why would it be so wrong if I married him?"

She had said nothing before now, but this was the nub of it. The reason for all this heavy-handedness.

Her father laughed oddly. "You'll not marry him. Not him."

She met his eyes and saw that he was determined in this. But he had reckoned without her opposition. Like before, he had thought she would bow meekly to his wishes.

"I have your blood," she said softly. "If needs be, I'll fight you on this."

"You'll go," he said, with an air of finality.

For a moment longer she hesitated, then nodded. "I'll go," she said, "because you make me go. But it will change nothing. I'll marry him, see if I don't."

His eyes widened and his mouth opened as if he were going to argue more with her, but then he nodded, and sat down. He had her agreement. That, for now, was enough for him. The rest would take its course. Why fight tomorrow's battles before they came?

"Now may I go?" she asked, still sitting there.

He looked back at her again, then across at his guests. The ex-Governor gave a tight little nod and a half-smile. Beside him, his wife sat stiffly, looking down at her hands, as if in shock.

"Go on, then," Tolonen said softly, and stood for her, as if nothing had happened. But, watching her go, he knew that something had broken between them. Some last link of childish trust. He shivered, then turned back to his guests.

"I'm sorry, Sven," he said. "I should have warned you . . ."

THE BOARD ROOM was tense, silent, as Old Man Lever, at the head of the table, read through the figures on the loan document. To his left along the great oak table sat the financiers, eight in all, to the right his team of advisors. All eyes were focused on the Old Man as he turned the page and, looking up, tapped the document in front of him.

"The top-up's too high. I thought we'd agreed on two point six."

"Two point eight, Mister Lever," Bonner, the Chief Negotiator, answered quietly. "I have it minuted."

Lever stared at him a moment, as if Bonner had taken leave of his senses, then, taking his ink brush from the stand beside him, he put a line through the figure and wrote the new figure beside it, initialing the change.

There was the briefest exchange of glances to his left, a small shrug of acceptance from Bonner. The matter was decided. As ever, Lever had gotten his way.

"And what about this matter of extended term insurance?" Lever added casually. "I think we should share the expense, fifty-fifty. What do you think?"

Bonner looked down. "It's unusual, Mister Lever. The borrower usually bears the cost of any loan insurances, but if that's what you want." He looked back up at Lever and smiled. "Besides, I'm sure the project will come in on time."

Lever smiled, then reached out to pat Bonner's arm. "Good. Then we'll get this signed and witnessed, neh?"

Bonner let out a breath, the tension draining from him. The two points on the top-up would cost them over fifty thousand, and the insurance might add up to one hundred and fifty thousand more, but in terms of the total deal that was nothing.

Eight billion yuanl Bonner's mind reeled at the thought of it. It was the biggest loan his Finance House had ever set up. And even at the fine rates Lever had insisted on, it would bring handsome profits. Personally, as Chief Negotiator, his own share was a quarter point, but a quarter point on eight billion was nothing to sneer at.

And every last fen secured by prime ImmVac stock, the best on the market. Bonner stood, bowing to the old man. Behind him, in a line, his team did the same, keeping their heads lowered as Bonner walked around the table to append his signature to the bottom of the agreement, then flicked back, initialing the two changes. A second copy of the document would be retinally imprinted and registered later in the day, but for now their business was concluded, the deal done.

Old Man Lever turned and, looking across at his Chief Steward, clicked his fingers. At once, the Steward turned and pulled open the doors. Waiting there in the corridor beyond were six servants, bearing trays of wine and delicacies. Quickly they went about the table.

"Come," said Old Man Lever, looking about him with a broad smile, "let's celebrate! For today the Cutler Institute for Genetic Research is mine. Lock, stock, and barrel, as my grandfather used to say."

He laughed, then nodded to himself. Standing, he took a wine cup from the nearest servant and raised-it. "This is a great moment, and nothing . . . nothing, can spoil it!"

AH about the table, Cups were lifted, voices raised in the traditional toast. "Kanpei!" >

"Mister Lever..."

The Steward stood at Lever's shoulder, leaning close, his voice a whisper, low but insistent.

Lever turned a fraction. "Yes?"

"News has come, Master. Moments back. It's Michael, Mister Lever. He's married. Married the Jennings woman."

MACH AND CURVAL were standing in the anteroom when Lever came storming out, his eyes bulging with anger. They had heard the tray go crashing down, and Lever's angry shout, but the sight of him, his face set into a fierce grimace, his fists bunched tight, surprised them both.

"What is it?" Mach said, catching up with the old man. "What in hell's name has happened?"

Lever stopped abruptly and turned, facing Mach. "It's Michael. He's betrayed me."

"Betrayed you?"

Lever shuddered. "He's married her. The bastard's gone and married her!"

Mach stared at him, shocked. Emily, he meant. Michael had married Emily Ascher.

"It's not possible," he said, after a moment. "She wouldn't. I mean. . ." He shook his head, unable to explain it. "Are you certain?"

"Not certain, no, but fairly sure. I'd put a trace on him, you see. I..." Again Lever shuddered. "He's betrayed me, Jan. Pissed on me! First with the Ward boy, and now this!"

"Maybe theyVe got it wrong. Maybe . . ."

"No. This time he's really done it. Done it to spite me. To piss on me. My son. . ."

"Charles. . ."

"No. This is my fault. I should have expected this. Should have known he'd do this." He shivered, lowering his voice. "I should have had her killed."

Mach glanced at Curval, then shook his head. "No, Charles. It would have solved nothing. You have to live with this. To show him it means nothing to you."

"Nothing?" Lever closed his eyes, the sudden pain in his face something awful to see. "That boy meant everything to me. Everything. And now..."

"You must show him he means nothing," Mach said, insistent now. "It's the only answer, Charles. The only answer."

whiskers Lu, Big Boss of the Kuei Chuan, stood, letting out a great roar. Fat Wong's handwritten note lay on the desk before him, its curt, six-word summons the reason for his anger.

"How dare that jumped-up little cocksucker tell me what to do! How dare he summon me like one of his runners!"

Lu's men kept their heads lowered, their eyes averted. They had been poring over a plan of the lowers, discussing the recent incursions by the i4K in the eastern stacks and the movements up-level of the Red Gang to their north, trying to work out countermoves, but this had pushed all that from Lu Ming-shao's mind. For ten minutes now he had raged, taxing the limits of his invention with the names he had called the United Bamboo's 489. And yet everyone there knew that Whiskers Lu would go. He had to. For Fat Wong was currently strong, his alliances in Council secure, whereas the last year had seen the decline of the Kuei Chuaris fortunes, the erosion of their once firm links with their neighboring Triads.

Yes, and that too had been Fat Wong's doing, no doubt. Lu Ming-shao had no proof of it, but how else could it have happened? Why else would the i4K have dared encroach on Kuei Chuan territory unless Fat Wong had given his tacit agreement? And now this.

"Why not kill him?" Visak said suddenly, speaking into the stillness between Lu's rages.

Whiskers Lu laughed humorlessly and fixed Visak with his one good eye. "Kill him? Kill Fat Wong?" He laughed again, this time in disbelief. "How?"

"An assassin," Visak said, meeting Lu's ferocious stare. "I know a man. He's special."

"Special?" Whiskers Lu leaned forward, holding the edge of the table, and laughed. "He'd have to be a ghost and walk through walls to get Fat Wong."

Visak lowered his head. "With great respect, Master Lu, this man is special. He could get Wong Yi-sun. Wong and all his top men."

Whiskers Lu was breathing shallowly now, his hands gripping the table's edge. His mottled, masklike face twitched violently. Then, relaxing, he pushed back again, composing himself, drawing his silks tightly about him. He turned, making a show of studying the glass cases on the wall behind his desk—the cases that contained the heads of his three great rivals—then nodded.

Lu Ming-shao took one of the heads down, studying it a moment, a brief smile flitting across his glasslike features as he recalled the moment he had killed this one—that look of dumb incomprehension in the man's eyes as he had choked the breath out of him, and the great surge of satisfaction he had felt afterward. Unconsciously he smoothed the tip of his thumb across the surface of the blinded eye, then reached up again, setting the head back in its place.

"All right. But it has to be tonight. Understand? I'll be fucked if I'll let that bastard live to see another day. Not after the way he's insulted me. Contact your man at once. Offer him whatever he needs. Then bring him here, understand? I want to see this ghost. An hour from now if possible, but tonight, at any rate. Before the meeting."

He turned, meeting his lieutenant's eyes. "Oh, and Visak. You will make sure of your friend, won't you? Very sure."

Visak nodded, then, bowing low, turned away. Whiskers Lu watched him go, then sat, thoughtful now, his rage spent. For a moment he was silent, staring at the handwritten note, then, reaching out, he crumpled the note into a tiny ball, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed.

For a moment there was nothing. Then, as if all the tension in the room had been suddenly dispelled, Whiskers Lu began to laugh, his laughter echoed back at him.

LU MING-SHAO pushed the young girl aside unceremoniously, then eased his huge bulk up off the bed. He pulled on the robe his man was holding and tied the sash tightly about his waist, eyeing his lieutenant.

"So he's here, then?"

Visak lowered his head. "In the audience room, Master."

"Unarmed, I hope."

"Yes, Master. And under guard."

"And the task I want of him. He Understands what it entails?"

"He does, Master."

"Good. How did he react?"

Visak hesitated, his eyes straying briefly to the young Han girl on the bed, who lay there, naked, watching the exchange, her eyes, curious. He looked back at Lu Ming-shao, meeting his one good eye.

"Our friend is rather a cold fish. He is not one to ... react."

Whiskers Lu stared at him a moment, then laughed delightedly. "Good! I warm to him already."

They went through, Visak leading the way, Whiskers Lu's runners kneeling, bowing low before him as he approached. The door to the audience room was barred by two of his best men, Meng Te and Huang Jen.

"Okay," Lu said, looking about him and smiling. "Let's meet our special friend."

Inside, the unexpected. A tall man dressed totally in white, his back to them, his head tilted slightly, looking down, as if he was cradling something. As he turned, they saw what it was. A baby.

Whiskers Lu glared at Visak, angry that he'd not been prepared. "What is this?"

The tall man looked down at the baby, then, looking back at Whiskers Lu, threw it at him.

Lu Ming-shao, taken totally by surprise, raised his arms in reflex, catching the child. As he did, the man drew his gun and fired twice. Whiskers Lu heard the choked cries and felt the floor shake as the bodies fell either side of him, but he himself still stood there, untouched.

The stranger put the gun away. "The unexpected is a powerful tool, don't you think, Lu Ming-shao?"

Lu Ming-shao swallowed, his anger something cold and hard. "What the fuck do you think youVe doing, friend?"

"Those two were traitors," the tall man answered calmly. "They made deals behind your back. They sold you to another."

Lu Ming-shao turned, looking down at the fallen bodies of Meng Te and Huang Jen. Was it possible? Yet even as he asked the question he knew that it was perfectly possible. After all, he was the outsider here. There were no blood ties as existed between the other 4893 and their men. They were his men through force alone, not loyalty.

He looked down at the child that rested, strangely silent in his arms. A Hung Moo, it was. An ugly little brat, weeks old at most. He lifted it slightly, as if to test its weight, then threw it back at the stranger.

The tall man stepped back, letting the child fall, screeching, to the floor. He had a knife in his hand now. A huge, wicked-looking thing with a white pearl handle.

Whiskers Lu drew his own knife and, bellowing loudly, lunged at the other man, knowing now that he had been set up. But he had taken only two steps before he sank down onto his knees, his breath hissing painfully from him, Visak's knife buried to the hilt in his upper back, Visak's weight bearing him down.

The baby was silent now. It lay beneath Lu Ming-shao, crushed by the weight of the two men.

Visak got up and moved away, leaving the knife embedded in his former Master's back, his eyes going to the tall man.

The stranger moved closer, standing above Whiskers Lu, listening to the pained wheezing of his final breaths, the soft gurgle of the blood in his pierced and damaged lung. Then, with the sole of his left boot, he forced Lu's head down brutally into the floor, turning his foot, the heel gouging into the melted, masklike face of the dying man, cracking open the brittle mottled plastic of his flesh, as if he were crushing an insect.

Lehmann looked up past the dying man, meeting Visak's eyes. "Summon the Red Pole, Po Lao. Bring him here at once. And if he asks, tell him only that things have changed. That he has a new Master."

MAIN HAD BEEN EMPTIED. Beneath the clock tower, the decapitated bodies of those who had opposed Lehmann were laid in rows,

more than three hundred in all, their severed heads stacked in a huge pile close by.

Lehmann stood there, gaunt yet imperious, looking about him at the heartland of his new territory, his face betraying nothing at that moment of triumph. Twenty ch'i away, in the shadow of the tower, stood Soucek, Visak at his side. The two men had fought hard these last few hours, quelling the last pockets of resistance; making sure no news of this got out before its time. Now it was done, Lehmann's rule made certain. At a signal from the albino, Visak bowed and went across, calling the men in from the main corridor.

The runners crossed the great floor slowly in a great tide, approaching the tower timidly, their eyes wide, staring at the rows of headless corpses, the gruesome stack of bloodied skulls nearby. Then, at Visak's shouted command, they went down onto their knees, lowering their foreheads to the floor. More than four thousand men in all. Kuei Chuan, every one.

Lehmann stood there a moment, looking out across their lowered backs, then went among them, lifting this man's chin and staring into his face, and then another's, moving between them'all the while, fearless and magisterial, like a T'ang, his every movement emphasizing his command.

For long minutes there was silence; a silence in which, it seemed, they dare not even breathe, then, coming out from their midst, Lehmann went over to the stack of heads and, taking one in each hand, turned to face the watching mass.

"These were my enemies," he said, his voice calm and cold and measured. "And this will be the fate of all my enemies, from this day on. But you . . . you have the chance to be my friends. My men."

He set the heads down and took a step toward them.

"There is a price for disloyalty. So it is. So it has always been among our kind. But loyalty . . . how do you earn that? What is its price?" Lehmann turned his head slowly, his pale pink eyes encompassing them all. "I understand your shock, your confusion over what has happened. But I know that many among you were unhappy with how things were under Lu Ming-shao. That many of you welcome change. As for me ... well, you do not know me yet. Only, perhaps, by reputation. That, too, I understand. You might fear me right now, but there is no reason for you—any of you—to owe me any loyalty. Not yet. But in the months to come I shall ask much of you. Things Whiskers Lu never dreamed to ask. And in return?"

Lehmann paused and nodded slowly, thoughtfully, as if in reverie; yet when he spoke again, his voice was suddenly powerful, echoing across the great open space. "In return I will give you everything. Everything you ever dreamed of."

kim removed the jack from the face of the terminal, letting the wire coil back into the stud beneath his ear, then sat back, breathing shallowly. "It's good. Very good. And easy to use. I thought it would take a while to get used to."

The surgeon smiled. "Everyone thinks that. And there's a degree of truth to it. What you've just experienced—that's just the beginning. You see, while it uses the same skills you've always had—you can't, after all, slow down the speed that messages travel at in the nervous system—you're used to limiting your thought processes to the speed at which you can read or speak language. Once those limitations are removed, the brain can process raw data at phenomenal speeds. Anything up to a thousand times as fast as it could unaided. But it takes a while to adapt."

Kim nodded, his eyes looking inward. He was remembering how it had felt: the power of that feeling. Information had flashed into his head at an almost frightening speed. He had had a feeling of exultation, of tightness—of utter clarity. He had felt himself grow by the moment, achieving a degree of sharpness he had never experienced before. Sparks of pure insight had flickered between points in his head, like electrical discharges, and he had struggled to hold on to them as others filled his head.

He looked at the surgeon again. "You should do this yourself. It would help you, surely?"

The surgeon laughed. "They all say that. We call it conversion syndrome. Those who haven't got it, fear it; those who have, have a proselytizing urge to make others have the operation. But I don't have it because I can't."

"Why?" Kim's fingers traced the shape of the stud unconsciously. It was a gesture that betrayed the newness of the implant. The surgeon saw it and smiled.

"For you there are no drawbacks. You're a theoretician, not a practitioner. But experiment has found that there's a slight decay of motor control. A loss of sharpness in that area. As if the increased use of the memory draws upon other sections of the brain and weakens their functions. A sort of compensatory effect, if you like. As a surgeon I can't risk that. My work is with my hands as much as with my knowledge of the mind's workings. I can't afford to impair my motor responses. Besides, they'd not allow me to."

Kim nodded, considering. "There would be other difficulties, too, wouldn't there?"

The surgeon smiled. "Interfacing," he explained quickly. "That's the term we have for it. From old computer jargon. Interfacing is the difficulty you experienced moving from one state to another. Why you couldn't say anything for the first few seconds. The mind has grown accustomed to responding at what is, for it, a more natural speed. Dropping down from that it stumbles and finds great difficulty in adjusting. The effect lasts only five to ten seconds, but it would be utterly debilitating for a surgeon.

"You only get that effect when you cut out, and there seems no way of preventing it. When you plug in, the mind speeds up gradually. It's almost two seconds before it reaches its full operating speed. Cutting out, there's no gradual assimilation. The change of state is immediate and, to an extent, shocking."

"Harmful?"

The surgeon shook his head. "The mind's a resilient machine. It defends itself against damage. That's what the interfacing effect is—a defense mechanism. Without it there would be damage."

There was a knock on the door. A moment later an orderly entered and, after bowing to the surgeon, handed Kim a "sealed" notecard, the tiny slip of plastic winking blankly in the overhead light.

"Excuse me a moment," Kim said, getting up from the chair and moving away from the terminal.

"Of course," the surgeon answered. "I'll make my other calls, then come back later, if you like."

Alone again, Kim placed his thumb to the seal and activated the release. At once a message appeared on the blank plastic card. He read it slowly, moving his lips to form each word, realizing, even as the message sank in, how painfully slow this normal way of doing things was. Then that was forgotten. He read it through again, astonished, his mind struggling to understand what had happened.

"He can't. . ." he said, turning sharply to face the door, his whole stance suddenly changed; his body tensed now, crouched like a fighter's. "No . . ."

The message was brief and to the point, signed with Tolonen's personal code.

SWiWard,

You are not to see my daughter, nor should you try to see her. There is no future for the two of you, and certainly no possibility of a match. You will keep away from my living quarters and deal with me only through my office in future. Finally, let me warn you. If you persist in this matter, I shall do all in my power to break you.

—Knut Tolonen.

The hairs on his neck bristled as he read the note again. He threw it down and went to the terminal. Sitting there, he tapped in the "Reach" code she had given him. Her private code, known only to her and him. He waited, anger and fear and something else—something he knew but could not put a name to—churning in his stomach. For a long time there was nothing. The screen remained blank, the delay pulse the only sign that the machine was attempting to connect them. Then, almost imperceptibly, the screen changed, showing not her face, as he'd hoped, but a message. Briefer than Tolonen's and less personal, but something: a sign for him that she had no part in this.

Nanking. South Port 3. Meridian.

Nanking was the great spaceport that served the colonies. South Port 3 must be the departure point, the Meridian the ship. But why had she given him these details? Unless . . .

He went cold. Quickly he signed off, then summoned up details of departures from Nanking, South Port 3, and found the Meridian listed on the second page. He shivered. Seven hours. Less than seven hours, in fact. That was all the time he had to get to her and . . .

And what? He sat back, his heart hammering in his chest, his hands trembling. He could do nothing. Tolonen would make certain of that. Even now, perhaps, he was being watched. But he would have to try. He would never forgive himself unless he tried.

He stood up slowly, feeling weak. Turning, looking down at the tiny slip of card where it lay on the floor across the room from him, he recognized at last what the feeling was he had failed to put a name to. It was dark and vast and empty like a pit; a feeling so dreadful and debilitating that it seemed to drain him even as he stood there; making him feel hollow and close to death. It was loss. He had lost her.

But even as it swept over him, another feeling grew—of anger, and determination. No. He would try. He would go after her, Tolonen's threats notwithstanding. He would try. Because nothing else mattered to him as much as Jelka. Nothing in the whole vast universe.

SOUCEK WAS WALKING beside the sedan, Po Lao and Visak several paces in front of him at the front of the procession as they approached the end of the corridor and the rendezvous point beyond. Lehmann had handpicked the tiny force that marched along beneath the black dog banners, yet there were only two dozen of them, including the pole men, and Soucek felt uneasy, hideously exposed, here in Red Gang territory.

The meeting had been rearranged at short notice. The note sent to Fat Wong had stated bluntly that the Big Boss of the Kuei Ckuon would meet him on Red Gang territory or not at all. It had specified a time and a place, and had informed Wong Yi-sun that copies of the note were being delivered simultaneously to each of the other four Bosses. That last was an elementary precaution, yet if Fat Wong was contemplating a move against the Kuei Chuan, this seemed as good a place as any to make it. If what Visak had said were true, the last six months had seen Fat Wong's United Bamboo Triad grow very close to Dead Man Yun's Red Gang. Why, they had even gone so far as to support Red Gang encroachments on Kuei Chuan territory. To Soucek, then, this seemed a strange thing to do—tantamount to putting one's head in the tiger's mouth. But Lehmann had ordered it.

They slowed, Soucek not alone in counting the guards on the barrier up ahead and noting the great array of banners beyond. They were all here—i4K and Yellow Banners, United Bamboo, Red Gang, and Wo Shih Wo—and here in some force too. The Kuei Chuan, a meager two dozen fighting men, were clearly the last to arrive.

He felt his pulse quicken, his chest tighten at the thought of the encounter ahead. For once he felt a slight uncertainty about what Lehmann was doing. This was a different league. A different league entirely. It was one thing to kill a Big Boss, another to establish oneself in his place. And yet Po Lao, like Visak, had bowed to Lehmann, accepting the inevitable. So maybe . . .

A figure appeared at the barrier. A smalt, dapper-looking Han in cream-and-lilac silks. Behind him four other middle-aged Han waited, watching the sedan come on.

"That's Fat Wong at the front," Visak said quietly, talking from the comer of his mouth. "The bald one to his left is Dead Man Yun, our host. The pop-eyed one next to him is Li Chin, Boss of the Wo Shih Wo—Li the Lidless as he's known. The starchy old man is General Feng, Boss of the i4K. Beside him—the tall one with the crippled hand—is Three-Finger Ho, Boss of the Yellow Banners."

Soucek narrowed his eyes, taking it all in. He had never thought to see these men, not separately, let alone together like this, but here they were, gathered at his Master's summons. His fear now was a solid thing at the pit of his stomach and part of him wondered if he would ever see another morning, but the thought of letting Lehmann down made him keep his fear in check; made him look about him with cold, clear eyes.

They were powerful men, there was no doubting it. He could see it in their stance, in the calm aura of superiority that hung about them as they waited, and in the cold, passionless depths of their eyes. Men died at their slightest whim, at their smallest gesture. And yet they were men, for all that. They could be killed. As Whiskers Lu had been killed. And Lehmann? He too could be killed, for he was simply a man when it came down to it. And yet the thought of someone bettering Lehmann seemed wrong somehow—almost an impossibility—and that sense of wrongness gave Soucek new confidence, for at bottom he believed in Lehmann.

They stopped ten paces from the waiting group. Slowly the sedan set down. Soucek tensed, seeing how Fat Wong's hands were clenched, how his eyes were hard and cold. Lehmann's counter-summons—that terse, unsigned message—must have angered Wong Yi-sun greatly. Coming here was, in itself, a kind of loss of face. And yet he had come.

There was the rustle of heavy silks as the plain black curtain was lifted by the two attending pole men, and then Lehmann stepped out from the darkness within, straightening up slowly, his tall, emaciated figure ghostlike in the glare of the overhead lights. As ever he was dressed from head to toe in white.

White, the color of death.

A great gasp went up from the men manning the barriers. A gasp of fear as much as surprise. In front of them Fat Wong, his mouth fallen open, shook his head slowly in disbelief. For a moment he was at a loss, then he turned, looking to the Red Pole of the Kuei Chuan for an explanation.

"What in the gods' names is going on, Po Lao? Where is your Master? And who the fuck is this?"

But Po Lao held his tongue. He merely turned, his head bowed low, facing his new Master, his whole manner subservient.

"Our good friend, Whiskers Lu, is dead," Lehmann said, stepping forward, Wong's slur seemingly ignored. "So let me introduce myself. My name is Stefan Lehmann and, as of two hours ago, I became the new Big Boss of the Kuei Chuan brotherhood." He turned slightly, meeting Fat Wong's eyes from no more than an arm's length away, his voice soft, his face unsmiling. "Fat Wong . . . it's good to meet you at last." His eyes held Wong's a moment longer, then he looked past him at the others gathered there. "And you, ch'un t%u. It's good to meet you all. IVe heard so much abo^it you . . ."

Moving past Wong Yi-suh, Lehmann joined the circle of the 4895, looking about him coldly, imperiously, defying them to contradict his claim to power. And Soucek, looking on, saw how they stared back at him, impressed despite themselves, maybe even awed—even the great Wong Yi-sun. In a few moments he had won through sheer audacity what no force of arms could ever have achieved: their respect.

Soucek shivered. It was done. Lehmann, the Hung Moo—the usurper—was one of the Six now. A Boss. A 489. One of the great lords of the underworld.

And in time he would be more. Yes, Soucek burned now with the certainty of it. In time he would be more.

THE BARRIERS were down, the ship sealed. Kim stood there, staring up at the departures board, the figures on the clock, his stomach falling away as he realized that he was too late. Then, forcing himself to go on, to carry things through to the very end, he crossed the big lounge quickly, making for the Security desk in the corner.

The young guard looked up at him as he approached and frowned. "What do you want?"

Kim held out his all-levels pass. "IVe got to get a message through!" he said breathlessly. "It's vitally important."

"What ship is it?" the guard asked, studying the pass a moment, then looking back at Kim, eyeing him curiously; clearly recognizing him for a Clayborn.

"The Meridian. South Port 3."

The guard smiled and sadly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Shih Ward, but it's too late. The Meridian is already sealed."

"I know," Kim said, impatient now. "But I have to get a message through. It's terribly important."

"I'm sorry," the guard began again, all politeness, "but that's simply not possible. Not until the ship is in orbit."

Kim looked away, wondering what he could do, what say, to persuade the guard to help him, then turned back, leaning across the barrier, deciding to confide in the young officer.

"The truth is that the girl I love is on board the Meridian. Her father wants to prevent us from getting married, so he's sending her off to the Colonies. I only heard about it a few hours back, so I must speak to her before she goes. I simply muct-"

The young guard sat back slightly. His chest patch showed that he was a lieutenant, but from his manner Kim could tell he was not long out of cadet school.

"I'd like to help you, Shih Ward, really I would, but I can't. The communications of the Meridian are locked into the launch sequence now. Even the great T'ang himself couldn't communicate with the Meridian right now—not unless he wished the countdown canceled."

"I see." Kim turned away, a sense of futility sweeping over him.

It was loss. He had lost her.

"Shih Ward. . ."

Kim turned back, staring at the guard, hardly recognizing him. "Yes?"

The young man came from behind the barrier, his eyes sorter than before, strangely sympathetic. "I'm off duty here in five minutes. If you want, I can take you up into the viewing tower. You can watch the ship go up from there. As for your message, well, maybe I can pass something on for you. Among the technical stuff. Fifty words maximum, mind you, and I can't guarantee it'll get through, but it's the best I can do."

Kim shivered, then bowed his head, a feeling of immense gratitude flooding through him. "Thank you . . ."

Twenty minutes later, watching the tiny point of flame disappear into the upper atmosphere, Kim shivered and looked away, touching his top teeth with his tongue thoughtfully. Seven years. Seven years he'd have to wait until she could be his. Yet even as he thought it, he knew what he would do. Knew just how he would fill those seven long years of waiting. They would be hard, but he would get through them. And then she would be his, meddling old men or no. His.

PART 2 SUMMER 2209

The Interpreted World

Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic

orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the

strength of his

stronger existence. For Beauty's nothing but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible. And so I repress myself, and swallow the call-note of depth-dark sobbing. Alas, who is there we can make use of? Not angels, not men; and even the noticing beasts are aware that we don't feel very securely at home in this interpreted world.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Dw.no Elegies; First Elegy

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Beginning of Terror

0N THE QUAY SIDE of the old town two knots of men stand before the Blind Dragon Inn, drinking and laughing, a space of twenty ch'i separating them, their voices carrying in the still early evening air. Out in the center of the broad estuary three large junks are moored, their quilted sails furled, their familiarly rounded shapes bobbing gently in the strong tidal current. Downriver, two hundred ch'i out from the enclosed square of the fishing harbor, a large three-masted Hung Mao merchantman rests, heavily laden, its long hull low in the water.

For a moment the sea breeze drops. There is an instant's perfect stillness; a stillness filled with the sun's late warmth. Then, as the wind picks up again, the high, tormented calls of seabirds rend the air, echoing across the old stone houses of the town.

At the edge of the farther group, a young Han turns, shielding his eyes, looking out past the party of Hung Moo sailors crowding the nearby quayside, his gaze traveling across the cobbled square toward the streets that climb the hillside, searching out the pale-cream facade of one particular house: a small, terraced cottage with a tiny, enclosed garden in which the moonlight dances in his memory and the smell of jasmine is strong.

"What're you staring at, chink?"

The Hung Moo is a big, barrel-chested man, the muscles of his arms like the thickly corded ropes that secure a ship at anchor. He stands over Tong Ye menacingly, his bearded face dark with mockery and loathing.

Behind Tong Ye there is a low murmur. Wine cups are set down hastily. There is the rustle of cloth and cheap silk as weapons are drawn from hidden places. All other talk is forgotten. There is a tension in the air now, like the moment before a storm finally breaks, and at the eye of that storm is Tong Ye, his eyes staring back uncom-prehendingly at the big man, his mind still half in reverie.

"Beg pardon?"

The tar, gap-toothed and pugilistically ugly, his red hair tied in a pigtail at his unwashed neck, leans forward, placing a calloused hand firmly on the young Han's shoulder.

"You know fucking well what I mean, you slanty-eyed little scumbag. WeVe seen you, sneaking about after dark. And we know who you've been calling on. But you're going to stop that, understand me, boy? You're going to keep to your fucking ship from now on, or you'll be missing the means to piss on your boots."

The young Han swallows, then moves back a pace, shrugging off the hand. He is frightened—shaken by the revelation that his visits to his lover have been observed. Even so, he brazens it out, facing the big man unflinchingly.

"Forgive me, ch'un tzu, but there is no law against it, surely? And the young lady ... if she does not object to my calling on her . . . ?"

The tar turns his head and hawks a fat gobbet of phlegm onto the cobbles. His head comes round, his eyes half-lidded now, his body tensed. One fist is already clenched, the other feels among the padded cloth of his jacket for the spike concealed there.

"Maybe not, but I do. The very thought of one of our own being touched by one of you . . . a/i-ni-mak."

The word is barely out, its rounded, nasal tones, heavy with a lifetime's stored resentment, still lingering in the air, as the first Han sailor throws himself at the big man, a thick stem of bamboo making an arc in the air toward the big man's head. A moment later, all hell has broken out.

On the cobbles before the inn, a single group of men are locked in struggle, their angry voices carrying in the still evening air. Out in the estuary the lookouts on the junks have paused in their task of lighting the mooring lamps and stare out across the water anxiously. On the merchantman there is frantic activity as a boat is prepared for lowering. A tall, dark figure sporting a tricorn hat stands briefly at the prow of the merchantman, a telescope raised to his eye, then he turns, making hurriedly for the boat.

On shore, the young Han is down, a steel spike embedded deeply in his guts. Beside him lies the red-haired tar, his skull split like an eggshell. Others lie on the cobbles as the fight continues, its viciousness unabated, long centuries of hatred fueling every blow. With a piercing shriek one of the Han falls backward from the quay and tumbles, slowly it seems, into the glassy water.

There is the blur of arms, fingers clenching and unclenching, the steady grunt and moan of blows given and received. And then there is a moment's stillness as the Han break off and, one after another, launch themselves from the high stone wall of the quay and into the water. And as they clamber aboard the shoreboats, they stare back at their adversaries, wide-eyed with shock and excitement, their hatred mixed with a strange, inexplicable longing.

There is a moment's silence, a moment's utter stillness as the android mannequins go limp, their programs ended, and then, from behind the barrier, applause.

From where he stood, half hidden behind the bank of monitors on the roof of the Inn, Ben Shepherd turned in the bulky VR harness, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips, and gave a small bow of acknowledgment to the four soldiers seated just beyond. It was the best take yet. Those last few adjustments—that tiny change of emphasis and the decision to focus on the single red-haired sailor—had made all the difference.

Beside him, his sister, Meg, looked up from the replay monitors.

"Well?" he asked, "did we get it all?"

She nodded, but he could see that she was still unhappy. She wanted Tong Ye to live. Wanted a happy ending, the lovers reunited. Whereas he...

"Maybe she can nurse him," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "No. We have to experience all that built-up anger and resentment. To feel it in our blood and understand exactly what it means—what all of this results in. If Tong Ye lived it would take the edge off things. We would have no sense of tragedy. As it is..."

"As it is, I feel angry. Denied something."

He stared at her a moment, then gave a single nod. "Good. We'll build on that. Feed that tiny spark until it's a roaring flame. We'll start tonight, after dark, while we're in the mood."

She watched him as he struggled out of the silvered harness. Ben had filled out this last year; had gained weight to match his height, shrugging off the last vestiges of childhood. Now he was a man, sun-bronzed and tall, his movements easy, confident. Even so, he still lacked something. Was still somehow less than his dead father. But what was it? In what did that crucial difference lie?

Ben hung the exoskeleton on the rack, then turned back. There, stacked on their sides in a long, reinforced metal frame, were his notebooks—thirty huge, square-shaped, leather-bound volumes that he called his "roughs." Embossed into the spines, as in the center of each cover, was a single word in an ancient gothic script, Heimlich, followed by a number. Unerringly, he reached out for the volume numbered fourteen and lifted it from the rack, his artificial hand coping effortlessly with the book's weight.

They had worked hard these past six weeks, taking advantage of the long days, the perfect light. Most of the "internals"—the sensory matrices that constituted the major part of Ben's Shell experience— had been completed long before. These "externals"—brief, carefully choreographed scenes which owed much to the ancient cinematic art—were the final stage, providing a backdrop to the rich, sensory data flow. When the two were paired the work would be complete. That was, if Ben was satisfied.

It was a big if.

"Here," he said, setting the book down beside the storyboard he had been working from and opening it up. "I reckon we can simplify things."

Meg moved closer, leaning over him to see.

The open pages of the rough were covered in a jumble of brilliantly colored lines and symbols, Ben's neat, tiny handwriting boxed-in in places where he had made subtle changes to his scheme.

She smiled, realizing how familiar all of this had become. Until a year back he had not let her share this, but now she was his constant helper, there at his elbow at every stage of the work. She studied the rough. Eighty-one lines crossed the page, each representing one of the eighty-one input nodes in the brain and body of the ultimate recipient of this artificial reality "experience."

"The experiencing viewpoint is predetermined," he said, tapping the page. "We can't change that without restructuring the whole of the internal for this section. But we can cut things to the nub when it comes to the external. Have one man set the fires, not three. Likewise, we can cut the number of guards. It'll save time setting up. We'll only have the seven morphs to program, not twelve."

She nodded. "I agree. It'll make things tighter, more direct. And why not make Tong Ye's friend our focus—the fire-setter?"

Ben looked up. "Yes. I like that. Maybe we can add something earlier. A small moment between the two just to emphasize things."

"And the girl?"

Ben shook his head. "I know what you think, Meg, but what happens to her has to happen. Without that. . ." He shrugged, staring away across the twilit estuary, touching the black pearl that hung on a golden chain about his neck, then looked back at her, his green eyes dark, thoughtful. "Just wait, my love. You'll understand. I promise you. You'll see why I did it like this. Why it had to be like this."

STILLNESS. Silence. Moonlight on velvet blackness. And then the surface breached. A head, its fine dark hair slicked back. The inverted image of flame in a bright, black-centered eye. And gone. The surface dark, still. Footsteps on stone cobbles. Booted feet in movement, patterns of light and shadow on the folds of leather, gold and midnight black. The flutter of naked flame in a metal brazier. Shadows dance, revealing the whorled grain of ancient oak. Silence, then the creak and slow groan of a heavy door opening. A sudden spill of light, golden and warm. Laughter. A chapped and pudgy hand, the flesh pale, blotchy, plain silver ring on the index finger, wiped against a beer-stained apron. The scent of jasmine. Darkness. A head surfacing, fish-mouth gasping for air. And gone. The slosh of water against the stone steps of the quay. Booted feet turning. The brief flash of lamplight on a musket stock. And laughter. Uneasy, guilty laughter.

The camera eye draws back.

The landlord stands there a moment, hands on his ample hips, half in shadow, watching the woman leave, her long skirts rustling, whispering in the early morning silence. He turns, looking out across the water toward the distant hills. Out in the center of the estuary the junks rest silently, their mooring lamps reflected in the darkness of the water. Downriver, the merchantman is quiet, the shape of a guard silhouetted against a bulkhead lantern.

He yawns, stretches his arms. Behind him the brightness of the doorway darkens with a second presence. The constable leans languidly against the solid oak beam of the doorpost and points out toward the junks, his words a low, indistinguishable murmur, heavy with insinuation. The landlord laughs quietly and nods, then turns away, returning inside, pulling the heavy door closed behind him. There is darkness, the click of a latch being lowered, then silence. A moment later footsteps sound on the cobbles. The moon is high. It is an hour before the guard will be relieved.

The camera angle changes, giving a view of darkness. Slowly the dark resolves itself. A young Han crouches on the smooth, worn stone of the Pilgrims' Steps, his slender form concealed from the guard by the stone lip of the quay. Behind him lies the still, black surface of the water. For a moment he seems frozen, carved from the darkness, then, as the footsteps recede, he draws the oilskin bag from about his neck and unseals the pouch. Something small and bright gleams briefly in the moonlight, then is gone inside the sodden cloth of his shirt.

The camera draws slowly back, revealing the steps, the nearby inn, the pacing guard. A patch of quartered light reveals an unshuttered window in the narrow alleyway beside the inn. All is stillness, then, to the left of the picture, a shadow slips over the stone lip of the quay wall and melts into the darkness beyond. Farther along, the guard has stopped and stands at the edge of the quay, staring out across the water at the junks.

The remote tide drifts slowly in. There is the flicker of light on a musket stock, a glimpse of wide, curious eyes, a smoothly shaven cheek, and then it is past, skirting the wood-and-plaster frontage of the inn.

The alleyway seems empty: a narrow length of blackness framing a rectangle of yellow light. But then the darkness grows, sheds a form. A head bobs into the light beneath the sill. There is the glimpse of dark, sodden cloth, of slightly built shoulders and the sleek curve of a back.

The camera eye moves inward, taking a line into the darkness, then turns, looking past the crouching figure into the lamplit room.

Six pale, naked bodies lie on a trestle table. The constable, his back to the window, quaffs deeply from an ale pot. Beyond him sits the landlord, talking, one plump, pasty hand resting on the thigh of the dead Tong Ye.

It is time.

There is a click, the brief flare of a tinder. Inside, the constable half turns, disturbed by the noise. Then, from the quayside, comes a shout.

The landlord starts up, spilling his beer. "What in the gods' names is that?"

"Fuck knows! We'd best go see, neh?" And, setting down his mug, the constable follows the landlord through the open door.

The room is empty now. From beneath the sill comes a gentle, crackling hiss as the oil-soaked cloth ignites. And then the crash and tinkle of breaking glass, the sudden flare of oil as the bottle shatters on the stone flags inside the room. At once the legs of the trestle table catch. Flames lick the frayed edge of grease-spattered curtains, gnaw hungrily at the dry timber of the door frame. In a moment the room is ablaze, the pale skin of the corpses gleaming brightly in the garish, unnatural light. As the camera closes in, the flesh of the nearest begins to sweat and bubble.

The camera moves back, clearing the blackening sill, then climbs the outer wall, up into darkness. Here, in the upper rooms, more than forty men are sleeping; half the crew of the merchantman, spending their last night ashore.

The camera moves out, over the smoldering inn. Farther along the quay the guard has turned, facing the innkeeper and the constable.

"The junks!" he cries. "The junks are leaving!"

Out in the center of the estuary the three Han vessels have doused their mooring lights and are moving slowly toward the mouth of the river. There is the noise of oars being pulled through the water, the sound of singsong Han voices calling encouragement to the rowers.

For a moment the three stand there, staring outward, then, as one, they rum, conscious of the growing light at their backs, the sharp hiss and pop and crackle of burning. The heat. The sudden stench . . .

The landlord, his mouth agape, takes a step toward the burgeoning light. As he does, a figure dashes past him, black cloak flapping, a spill of golden hair gleaming, flashing in the infernal light.

"No!" he cries. "For the gods' sakes, woman, don't! The bugger's dead. . ."

He takes two faltering steps toward the heat, then stops. It is too late. For an instant the black of her cloak is framed against the brightness of the opening, then she is gone.

Thick smoke drifts across the water. The whole of the inn is on fire now, flames leaping from the timbers of the roof, piercing the restful dark above the town. There are screams—high-pitched, agonized cries—and then nothing. Nothing but the furnace-roar of air and flame, of cracking beams and the splintering of glass.

In the alleyway, a tall, silvered figure moves slowly through the haze, like something glimpsed in dream, its smooth, high-domed head gleaming like a mottled egg, its torso smooth, sexless, veined like polished marble. And its face... its face is featureless save for two tiny button eyes that gleam amid the swirl of smoke and light.

At the charred window it stops, leaning across the sill to stare through layers of thick, choking smoke into the fire-blackened room, then climbs inside, bare feet sizzling on the red-hot flags. A moment later it returns, a limp, dark figure in its arms.

At the front of the inn a crowd has gathered. As the figure emerges from the alley a great gasp goes up. Of surprise, and disbelief, and awe. It is the crippled man. John Newcott's boy. The loner. They watch him come on, stumbling now, close to collapse, his clothes smoldering, the limp form of the woman cradled in his arms.

As he reaches the edge of the crowd, two men come forward, taking his burden from him.

The camera eye moves closer. A man's lined and bearded face winces, pained by what he sees. He looks up, tears in his eyes, meeting his fellow's gaze, then shakes his head. The camera turns,

looks down into the ruined face of the woman. Slowly it moves inward, until the charred and blistered surface of her flesh fills the screen.

And then darkness.

ON THE FAR SIDE of the estuary a lone figure crouched in the deep shadow beneath the trees, staring across at the happenings on the waterfront. For a moment he was still, concealed amid leaf and long grass, then, with a strangely decisive movement, he started down the steep slope, making his way between the trees to the water's edge.

There he paused, staring out again, his large, dark eyes filled with the light of the distant fire. Then, with the faintest shudder, he reached down, untying the rope that secured his boat, and stepped into the hollowed trunk, pushing out from the bank with a quick, practiced motion.

For a moment he did nothing, letting the boat glide out into the current, his head turned, his eyes drawn to the distant blaze, a mixture of fear and fascination making him crouch there like a frightened animal, the short wooden paddle clutched defensively against his chest; then, stirring himself, he dug the paddle into the flow and turned the boat, steering a course parallel to the bank.

This changed things. Up ahead of him, out in the central darkness of the river, the junks were leaving. What's more, the merchantman was making no attempt to pursue them. It was still there, at anchor in the offing, its load untouched.

The man grinned crookedly. His scarred fingers scratched at his neck, then combed long, lank hair back from his face. Satisfied, hedug the paddle deep into the flow, once and then again, switching from side to side, hastening his strokes, knowing that it was urgent now.

IT was LATE. Ben stood there at the water's edge, looking out across the bay, the satisfaction of a solid day's work like a physical presence in his blood. He closed his eyes, relaxing. For a moment it was perfect. For one brief yet timeless moment he lapsed out of himself, melting into the eternal blackness of the night. Then, with a tiny shudder, he returned to himself, conscious of something lost. Of something denied him.

He turned, looking back at the low, familiar outline of the cottage, embedded in the hillside. A light was on upstairs, in Meg's room. From where he stood he could see her, moving about inside, brushing out her dark long hair, then turning to study herself in the mirror. He smiled, then let his gaze move upward, over the thatched roof of the cottage, following the narrow road that climbed the hillside. Beyond the line of cottages—dark now; sensed more than properly seen—the land climbed steeply. At its summit, silhouetted against the paleness beyond, was the old church of St. George's. Beyond that, less than half a Zi distant, the City began again, a huge wall of whiteness, vast and monumental. Ben shivered, then turned full circle, aware suddenly of its presence, there on every side of him, encircling and containing the valley—containing him—like the walls of a giant box.

Reducing cottage, town and trees, roads, walls and human figures. Reducing all to toys. Toys in a giant playbox.

The moon had sunk beneath the edge of the wall. For a moment his eyes traced the silvered line where the whiteness of the wall met the black of the sky, then he turned back, facing the bay.

Out on the river it was dark, the surface smooth, like a mirror; a huge lens, reflecting the vastness of the star-filled night.

What was it like, that immensity? What did it feel like? Was it just a simple nothingness, a lapsing out? Or was there something beyond that brief moment he had experienced just now? Something more to be had?

He turned from the water, climbing the hill, making his way across the lower meadow, away from the cottage, toward the sapling oak that marked his father's grave.

Today he had felt close to it. Had felt at moments almost as if he could reach out and touch it. Standing there among the figures on the waterfront, he had caught the briefest, most transient glimpse of it, there in the raging fire's heart. And for a moment the unnameable thing had been there, on his lips, almost articulate, like a scent. But when he had opened his mouth to utter it, it had flown, ineffable as ever, evading all attempts of his to bring it back.

Ben sat, the young tree at his back, looking out across the bay to the river beyond. It had gone well today. For the first time in weeks his inner doubts had been silenced, his imagination caught up in the play of images. This was his tenth month working on the Shell, his two hundred and ninety-seventh day spent struggling with the material, and finally he felt close to capturing what he had first envisaged, all those months back.

He smiled, remembering where this had begun, back there in those few months before his father, Hal, had died. Hal had wanted to create something for his wife—something she could remember him by. Ben had proposed a "sense-diary"—a "within the skin" kind of thing— but Hal had wanted more.

"No. She has to see me too. From the outside. She'll need that, Ben. It'll comfort her."

And so he had broken with habit, switching from intense sensory fugues—moments which captured the experience of what it felt like to be Hal Shepherd—to colder, sense-distanced extemals, using older, more conventional techniques.

He had expected to be bored by it, at most disappointed, yet from the first it had been different, unexpectedly challenging. Exciting.

In the three months he had worked with his father on the Shell— months in which he had seen Hal transformed, hollowed out by the cancer that had been planted in him by Berdichev's assassin—he had learned more about his craft than in the previous three years.

He had had to make compromises, of course. Had had to let go of his vision of making it all realer-than-real. The cuts, for instance, between the internals and the externals—those mind-jolting leaps of perception he had termed the "discontinuity effect"—had, until then, always been a stumbling block. Before then, he had always argued that by drawing the viewer's attention to the artificiality of the medium, one destroyed the power of the illusion. Forced by his father to confront the problem, he had discovered otherwise; had evolved all manner of ingenious and subtle ways of using that moment to make the illusion stronger, more powerful than before.