The White Mountain

And to push things one stage further.

BEYOND THE one-way GLASS the two youths sat, their backs to the wall, their hands bound. The preliminary interrogation was over, the accusations made and denied. Now it was time to take things further.

Chen followed the sergeant through, watching how the two boys glanced at him, seeing the uniform, then looked again, their eyes widening as they recognized who he was.

"Ai ya . . ." the younger of them murmured beneath his breath, but the tall, thin youth—the ringleader—was silent.

"Well, my friends," the sergeant said, a warm, ironic tone to his voice, "you've met your accuser before, but I don't think you knew his name. So let me present Captain Kao of the T'ang's special elite force."

The thin youth's eyes came up, meeting Chen's briefly.

Good, thought Chen. So now you understand.

"All right," he said brusquely. "You have had your chance to confess. Now you will be taken before a specially convened panel of judges who will decide the matter." He paused. "Your families will be present."

He saw the sudden bitterness in the thin youth's face. "You bastard," the boy said quietly. "You fucking bastard."

Again, he let it pass. He was the T'ang's man, after all. It was his duty to do things properly.

They took them down, under armed escort, to the meeting hall at the far end of the deck. There, in closed session, the three judges were waiting, sitting behind their high lecterns. To one side of the hall, on chairs set apart from the rest, sat the youths' four young accomplices. Behind them were the families—men, women, and children—numbering several hundred in all.

AH this, Chen thought, looking about him, surprised by the size of the gathering. AH this because I willed it. Because I wanted things to be done properly.

And yet it didn't feel right. He should have broken the little bastard's hand. Should have given him a simple lesson in power. Whereas this . . .

It began. Chen sat there, to the side, while the judges went through the evidence, questioning the boys and noting down their replies. It was a cold, almost clinical process. Yet when Chen stood to give his statement, he could feel the silent pressure of all those eyes, accusing him, angry at him for disturbing the balance of their lives. He felt his face grow numb, his heart begin to hammer, but he saw it through. He was kwai, after all. Besides, it was not he who had threatened another; who had extorted money and then lied about it.

He stared at the two youths, the desire to lash out—to smash their ugly little faces—almost too much for him. The darkness afterward came as a relief, and he sat there barely conscious of the film being shown on the screen behind the judges—the film he had taken only hours before. And when it was finished and the lights came up again, he found it hard to turn his head and face that wall of faces.

He listened carefully as the senior judge summed up the case; then, steeling himself, he stood for the verdict. There was a moment's silence, then an angry murmur of disapproval as the two ringleaders were sent down—demoted fifty levels—their families fined heavily, their accomplices fined and ordered to do one hundred days community service.

Chen looked across, conscious of the pointing fingers, the accusing eyes, and even when the senior judge admonished the families, increasing the fines and calling upon the Heads to bring their clans to order, he felt no better. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was too harsh. But that wasn't really the point. It was the kind of punishment, not the degree, that felt wrong.

As the families left, Chen stood there by the door, letting them jostle him as they filed past, staring back at his accusers, defying them to understand.

You saw what your sons did. You have seen what they've become. So why hate me? Why blame me for your children's failings?

And yet they did. Ts'ui Wei, the father of the ringleader, came across, leaning menacingly over Chen.

"Well, Captain Kao, are you happy now? Are you satisfied with what you have done here today?"

Chen stared back at him silently.

Ts'ui Wei's lips curled slightly, the expression the mirror image of his son's disdainful sneer. "I am sure you feel proud of yourself, Captain. You have upheld the law. But you have to live here, neh? You have children, neh?"

Chen felt himself go cold with anger. "Are you threatening me, Shih Ts'ui?"

Ts'ui Wei leaned back, smiling; a hideously cynical smile. "You misunderstand me, Captain. I am a law-abiding man. But one must live, neh?"

Chen turned away, biting back his anger, leaving before he did something he would regret. As Wang Ti said, he ought to be content that he had done his part; satisfied that he had helped cleanse his level. Yet as he made his way back it was anger not satisfaction that he felt. That and a profound sense of wrongness. And as he walked, his hand went to his queue, feeling the thick braid of hair then tugging at it, as if to pull it from his head.

IT WAS AFTER three when they called Karr from his bed. There had been a shoot-out at one of the stacks east-southeast of Augsburg Hsien. Five men were dead, all visitors to the stack. That alone would not have been significant enough to wake him, but some hours later, a sack had been found near one of the interdeck elevators: a sack containing items from the Dragonfly Club, plus a handwritten file ; giving full details of how the raid had been planned.

Now, less than thirty minutes later, he stood in the bedroom of the two-room apartment, trying to work out what had happened.

As he stood there the deck's duty officer knocked and entered. Coming to attention, he bowed his head and handed Karr two printouts.

"Ywe Hao . . ." Karr mouthed softly, studying the flat, black-and-white image of the apartment's occupant; noting at once how like the artist's impression of the girl—the Yu terrorist Chi Li—she was. This was her. There was no doubting it. But who were the others?

The security scans on the five victims had revealed little. They were from various parts of the City—though mostly from the north-central hsien. All were engineers or technicians in the maintenance industries: occupations that allowed them free access at this level. Apart from that their past conduct had been exemplary. According to the record, they were fine, upstanding citizens, but the record was clearly wrong.

So what was this? A rival faction, muscling in on the action? Or had there been a split in the ranks of the Yu—some internal struggle for power, culminating in this? After all he'd seen of such Ko Ming groups it would not have surprised him, but for once the explanation didn't seem to fit.

"What do the cameras show?"

"They're being processed and collated, sir. We should have them in the next ten to fifteen minutes."

"And the woman—this Ywe Hao—she's on them, neh?" The Captain nodded. "I sent a squad up to where she was last seen by the cameras, but there was no sign of her, sir. She vanished." "Vanished?" Karr shook his head. "How do you mean?"

The man glanced away uneasily. "Our cameras saw her enter the maintenance room at the top of the deck. After that there's no sign of her. Neither of the cameras on the main conduit picked her up." "So she must be there, neh?"

"No, sir. I had my men check that straight away. The room's empty and there's no sign of her in the conduit itself."

Karr sighed. It was clear he would have to look for himself. "You said earlier that she may have been warned, that there was a lookout of some kind. . . ." "Two young boys, sir." "I see. And you've traced them, neh?" "They're in custody, sir. Would you like to see them?"

Karr looked about him at the mess. "Your men have finished here, I take it?" The Captain nodded.

"Good. Then clear this up first. Remove the corpses and put some cloths down. I don't want our young friends upset, understand me?" "Sir!"

"Oh, and Captain . . . have one of your men run a file on the movements of our friend Ywe Hao over the last three months. With particular attention to those occasions when she doesn't show up on camera."

The Captain frowned but nodded. "As you wish, Major." "Good. And bring me some ch'a. A large chung if you have one. We may be here some while."

CHEN STOOD there in the doorway, looking about him at the carnage. "Kuan Yin! What happened here?"

Karr smiled tiredly. "It looks like some kind of interfactional rivalry. As to whether it's two separate groups or a struggle within the Yu, maybe that's something we'll discover if and when we find the woman. As for the woman herself, I'm certain she was involved in both the Hannover assassination and the attack on the Dragonfly Club. I've asked for files on her movements over the last three months. If I'm right about her, then there ought to be blanks on the tape corresponding with the white-outs surrounding the terrorist incidents. We've no next-of-kin details, which is unusual, but you can do a little digging on that, neh? Oh, yes, and the Duty Captain is going to bring two young boys here. They were the woman's lookouts, it seems. I want you to question them and find out what they know about her. But be easy on them. I don't think they understood for a moment what they were in on."

"And you, Gregor? What will you be doing?"

Karr straightened up, then laughed. "First I'm going to finish this excellent ch'a, then I'm going to find out how a full-grown woman can disappear into thin air."

"Cousins, we come to the question of the GenSyn inheritance."

Wang looked about him, his eyes resting briefly on Li Yuan and Tsu Ma before they settled on the aging T'ang of East Asia, Wei Feng. "As I see it, this matter has been allowed to drag on far too long. As a result the Company has been harmed, its share price reduced dramatically on the Index. Our immediate concern, therefore, must be to provide GenSyn with a stable administrative framework, thus removing the uncertainties that are presently plaguing the Company. After that—"

Li Yuan cleared his throat. "Forgive me for interrupting, Cousin, but before we debate this matter at any length, I would like to call for a further postponement."

Wang laughed, a small sound of disbelief. "Forgive me, Cousin, but did I hear you correctly? A further postponement?"

Li Yuan nodded. "If it would please my cousins. It is clear that we need more time to find a satisfactory solution. Another month or two."

Wang sat forward, his face suddenly hard. "Forgive me, Cousin, but I do not understand. Since Klaus Ebert's death, this matter has been brought before this Council twice. On both occasions there was a unanimous agreement to postpone. For good reason, for no solution to the problem was forthcoming. But now we have the answer. Hou Tung-po's proposal is the solution we were looking for."

Tsu Ma's laugh was heavily sardonic. "You call that a solution, Cousin? It sounds to me like a bureaucratic nightmare—a recipe not for stability but for certain financial disaster."

Hou Tung-po sat forward, his face red with anger, but Wang's raised hand silenced him.

"Had this matter not been raised before, Tsu Ma, and were there not already a satisfactory solution before us—one you will have a full opportunity to debate—I would understand your desire to look for other answers, but the time for delay is past. As I was saying, we must act now or see the Company damaged, perhaps irreparably."

Wang paused, looking to Wei Feng, appealing to the old man directly. As things stood, Hou Tung-po and Chi Ling would support Wang, while Tsu Ma and Wu Shih would line up behind Li Yuan. If it came to a fight, Wei Feng held the casting vote.

Wang smiled, softening his stance.

"Besides, what objections could my cousins possibly have to the idea of a ruling committee? Would that not give us each a fair say in the running of the Company? Would that not demonstrate—more clearly than anything—that the Seven have full confidence in the continuing prosperity of GenSyn?"

Li Yuan looked away. Although in terms of holdings it was second to the giant MedFac Company on the Hang Seng Index, GenSyn was, without doubt, the single most important commercial concern on Chung Kuo, and as Tsu Ma had rightly said, any weakening of the Company would affect him far more than it did Wang Sau'Ieyan.

But that could not be said. Not openly. For to say as much would give Wang the chance to get back at Li Yuan for his family's special relationship with GenSyn—a relationship that, though it had existed for a century or more, was, in truth, against the spirit of the Seven.

Li Yuan sat back, meeting Tsu Ma's eyes. They would have to give way. Minister Sheng had been their winning card, and Wang had already taken him from their hand.

"Cousin Wang," he said coldly. "I concede. Let us adopt Cousin Hou's proposal. As you say, what possible objection could we have to such a scheme?"

He drew a breath, finding comfort in the presence of the silk-bound folder in his lap—in the thought of the humiliation he would shortly inflict on Wang. Then— from nowhere, it seemed—a new thought came to him. He leaned forward again, the sheer outrageousness of the idea making him want to laugh aloud.

"Indeed," he said softly, "let me make my own proposal. If the Council permits, I would like to suggest that Marshal Tolonen be replaced in his high post and appointed as Head of the ruling committee of GenSyn." He looked at Wang directly. "As my cousin argued so eloquently, we need to boost the market's confidence, and what clearer sign could we give than to make a man of such experience and integrity the head of our committee?"

He saw the movement in Wang's face and knew he had him. Wang could object, of course, but on what grounds? On the unsuitability of the candidate? No. For to argue that would be to argue that their original ratification of Tolonen as Marshal had been wrong, and that he could not—would not—do.

Li Yuan looked about him, seeing the nods of agreement from all sides—even from Wang's own allies—and knew he had succeeded in limiting the damage. With Tolonen in charge there was a much greater chance of things getting done. It would mean a loss of influence in the Council of Generals, but that was as nothing beside the potential loss of GenSyn's revenues.

He met Wang's eyes, triumphant, but Wang had not finished.

"I am delighted that my cousin recognizes the urgency of this matter. However, I am concerned whether my cousin really means what he says. It would not, after all,

be the first time that he has promised this Council something, only to go back on his word."

Li Yuan started forward, outraged by Wang's words. All around him there was a buzz of astonishment and indignation. But it was Wei Feng who spoke first, his deeply lined face grown stern and rocklike as he sat stiffly upright in his chair. His gruff voice boomed, all sign of frailty gone from it.

"You had best explain yourself, Wang Sau-leyan, or withdraw your words."

"No ?" Wang stood in a flurry of silks, looking about him defiantly. "Nor would you have, Cousin, had there not been good reason. I am talking of Li Yuaris promise to this Council that he would release the young sons—a promise that my cousins Wu Shih and Tsu Ma were also party to." He shifted his bulk, looking about the circle of his fellow T'ang. "It is six months since they gave that promise and what has happened? Are the sons back with their fathers? Is the matter resolved, the grievance of those high citizens settled? No. The fathers remain unappeased, rightfully angry that after we gave our word their sons remain imprisoned."

Li Yuan stood, facing Wang. "There is good reason why the sons have not been released, and you know it."

"Know it?" Wang laughed contemptuously. "All I know is that you gave your word. Immediately, you said."

"And so it would have been had the paperwork gone smoothly."

"Paperwork . . . ?" Wang's mocking laughter goaded Wu Shih to rise and stand beside Li Yuan, his fists clenched, his face livid.

"You know as well as any of us why there have been delays, Wang Sau-leyan! Considering the gravity of the circumstances, the terms of release were laughable. All we asked of the fathers was that they should sign a bond of good behavior. It was > the very minimum we could have asked for, and yet they refused, quibbling over the i wording of the papers."

"With every right, if what I've heard is true . . ."

Wu Shih bristled, his words like acid now. "And what have you heard, Cousin?|

Wang Sau-leyan half turned away, then turned back, moving a step closer, face thrust almost into Wu Shih's. "That your officials have been obstructive, it has been your officials and not the fathers who have quibbled over the precise" wording of these . . . bonds. That they have dragged their heels and delayed until even the best man's patience would be frayed. That they have found every excuse— however absurd—not to come to terms. In short, that they have been ordered to delay matters."

"Ordered?" Wu Shih shuddered with rage, then lifted his hand as if to strike Wang, but Li Yuan put out his arm, coming between them.

"Cousins," he said urgently, "let us remember where we are." He turned his head, staring fiercely at Wang. "We will achieve nothing by hurling insults at each other."

"You gave your word," Wang said, defiantly, meeting his eyes coldly. "All three of you. Immediately, you said. Without conditions." He took a breath, then turned away, taking his seat.

Wu Shih glared at Wang a moment longer, then stepped back, his disgust at his cousin no longer concealed. Li Yuan stood there, looking about him, feeling the tensions that flowed like electric currents in the air about him and knew—for the first time knew beyond all doubt—that this was a breach that could never be healed. He took his seat again, leaning down to lift the folder from where it had fallen.

"Wang Sau-leyan," he began, looking across at his moon-faced cousin, calm now that he had taken the first step. "There is a small matter I would like to raise before we continue. A matter of... etiquette." Wang Sau-leyan smiled. "As you wish, Cousin."

Li Yuan opened the folder, looking down at the wafer-thin piece of black plastic. It was the template of a hologrammic image: the image of Wang Sau-leyan in the garden at Tao Yuan, meeting with Li Yuan's bondsman, Hsiang Shao-erh. There were other things in the folder—a taped copy of their conversation and the testimony of Wang's Master of the Royal Household, Sun Li Hua, but it was the holo that was the most damning piece of evidence.

He made to offer it to Wang, but Wang shook his head. "I know what it is, Li Yuan. You have no need to show me."

Li Yuan gave a small laugh of astonishment. What was this? Was Wang admitting his treachery?

With what seemed like resignation, Wang pulled himself up out of the chair and went to the double doors, unlocking them and throwing them open. At his summons a servant approached, head bowed, bearing a large white lacquered box. Wang took it and turned, facing his fellow T'ang.

"I wondered when you would come to this," he said, approaching to within an arm's length of where Li Yuan was sitting. "Here. I was saving this for you. As for the traitor Sun, he has found peace. After telling me everything, of course." Li Yuan took the box, his heart pounding.

He opened it and stared, horrified. From within the bright red wrappings of the box Hsiang Shao-erh stared back at him, his eyes like pale-gray bloated moons in an unnaturally white face, the lids peeled back. And then, slowly, very slowly, as in a dream, the lips began to move.

"Forgive ... me ... Chieh . . . Hsia. ... I ... confess ... my ... treachery . . . and . . . ask. . . you . . . not... to ... punish... my ... kin ... for... my . . . abject. . . unworthiness. . . ." There was a tiny shudder from the severed head, and then it went on, the flat, almost gravelly whisper like the voice of stone itself. "Forgive . . . them . . . Chieh . . . Hsia. ... I ... beg . . . you. . . . Forgive . . .them____"

Li Yuan looked up, seeing his horror reflected in every face but one. Then, with a shudder of revulsion he dropped the box, watching it fall, the frozen head roll unevenly across the thick pile of the carpet until it lay still, resting on its cheek beside Wang Sau-leyan's foot. Bending down, the T'ang of Africa lifted it and held it up, offering it to Li Yuan, the smile on his face like the rictus of a corpse.

"This is yours, I believe, Cousin." Then he began to laugh, his laughter rolling from him in great waves. "Yours . . ."

"What's your name?"

"Kung Lao."

"And yours?"

"Kung Yi-lung."

"You're brothers, then?"

The nine-year-old Yi-lung shook his head. "Cousins . . ." he said quietly, still not sure of this man who, despite his air of kindness, wore the T'ang's uniform.

Chen sat back slightly, smiling. "Okay. You were friends of Ywe Hao's, weren't you? Good friends. You helped her when those men came, didn't you? You let her know they were on their way."

He saw how the younger of the two, Lao, looked to his cousin before he nodded.

"Good. You probably saved her life."

He saw how they looked down at that; how, again, they glanced at each other, still not sure what this was all about.

"She must have been a very good friend for you to do that for her, Yi-lung. Why was that? How did you come to be friends?"

Yi-lung kept his head lowered, almost stubbornly. "She was kind to us," he mumbled, the words offered reluctantly.

"Kind?" Chen gave a soft laugh, recalling what Karr had said about the guard Leyden and how she had probably spared his life. "Yes, I can imagine that. But how did you meet her?"

No answer. He tried another tack.

"That's a nice machine she's got. A MedRes Network-6. I'd like one like that, wouldn't you? A top-of-the-range machine. It was strange, though. She was using it to record news items. Things about transportation systems."

"That was our project," the younger boy, Lao, said without thinking, then fell quiet again.

"Your project? For school, you mean?"

Both boys nodded. Yi-lung spoke for them. "She was helping us with it. She always did. She took the time. Not like the rest of them. Any time we had a problem we could go to her."

Chen took a deep breath. "And that's why you liked her?"

Both boys were looking at him now, a strange earnestness in their young faces.

"She was funny," Lao said reflectively. "It wasn't all work with her. She made it fun. Turned it all into a game. We learned a lot from her, but she wasn't like the teachers."

"That's right," Yi-lung offered, warming to things. "They made everything seem dull and gray, but she brought it all alive for us. She made it all make sense."

"Sense?" Chen felt a slight tightening in his stomach. "How do you mean, Yi-lung? What kind of things did she used to say to you?"

Yi-lung looked down, as if he sensed there were some deeper purpose behind Chen's question. "Nothing," he said evasively.

"Nothing?" Chen laughed, letting go, knowing he would get nothing if he pushed. "Look, I'm just interested, that's all. Ywe Hao's gone missing and we'd like to find her. To help her. If we can find out what kind of woman she was . . ."

"Are you tracking her down?"

Chen studied the two a moment, then leaned forward, deciding to take them into his confidence. "Ywe Hao's in trouble. Those men who came tried to kill her, but she got away. So yes, Kung Lao, we have to find her. Have to track her down, if that's how you want to put it. But the more we know—the more good things we know about her—the better it will be for her. That's why you have to tell me all you can about her. To help her."

Lao looked at his cousin, then nodded. "Okay. We'll tell you. But you must promise, Captain Kao. Promise that once you find her you'll help her all you can."

He looked back at the two boys, momentarily seeing something of his own sons in them, then nodded. "I promise. All right? Now tell me. When did you first meet Ywe Hao, and how did you come to be friends?"

THE maintenance ROOM was empty, the hatch on the back wall locked, the warning light beside it glowing red in the half-light. Karr crouched down, squeezing through the low doorway, then stood there, perfectly still, listening, sniffing the air. There was the faintest scent of sweat. And something else . . . something he didn't recognize. He went across, putting his ear against the hatch. Nothing. Or almost nothing. There was a faint hum—a low, pulsing vibration— the same sound one heard throughout the City, wherever one went.

He paused a moment, studying the hatchway, realizing it would be a tight squeeze; that he would be vulnerable momentarily if she were waiting just the other side. But the odds were that she was far away by now.

He ducked into the opening backward, head first, forcing his shoulders through the narrow space diagonally, then grabbed the safety bar overhead and heaved himself up, twisting sideways. He dropped and spun around quickly, his weapon out, but even as he turned, he had to check himself, staggering, realizing suddenly that the platform was only five ch'i in width and that beyond . . .

Beyond was a drop of half a li.

He drew back, breathing slowly. The conduit was fifty ch'i across, a great diamond-shaped space, one of the six great hollowed columns that stood at the comers of the stack, holding it all up. Pipes went up into the darkness overhead, massive pipes twenty, thirty times the girth of a man, each pipe like a great tree, thick branches stretching off on every side, crisscrossing the open space. Service lights speckled the walls of the great conduit above and below, but their effect was not so much to illuminate the scene as to emphasize its essential darkness.

It was a cold, somber place, a place of shadows and silence. Or so it seemed in those first few moments. But then he heard it—the sound that underlay all others throughout the City, the sound of great engines pushing the water up the levels from the great reservoirs below and of other engines filtering what came down. There was a palpable hum, a vibration in the air itself. And a trace of that same indefinable scent he had caught a hint of in the room earlier, but stronger here. Much stronger.

Poking his head out over the edge he looked down, then moved back, craning his neck, trying to see up into the shadows.

Which way? Had she gone up or down?

He looked about him, locating the cameras, then frowned, puzzled. There was no way the cameras wouldn't have seen her come out of the room and onto the platform. No chance at all. Which meant that either she hadn't gone into the v maintenance room in the first place or those cameras had been tampered with. And she had gone into the room. :

For a moment Karr stared at the camera just across from him, then struck by the absurdity of it, he laughed. It was all too bloody easy. Since the City had first been 1 built Security had been dependent on their eyes—their cameras—to be theirji watchdogs and do most of their surveillance work for them, not questioning for a moment how satisfactory such a system was, merely using it, as they'd been taught. But others had. The Yu, for instance. They had seen at once how weak, how vulnerable such a network was—how easily manipulated. They had seen just how easy it was to blind an eye or feed it false information. All they needed was access. And who had access? Technicians. Maintenance technicians. Like the five dead men. And the girl. And others. Hundreds of others. Every last one of them tampering with the network, creating gaps in the vision of the world.

False eyes they'd made. False eyes. Like in wei chi, where a group of stones was only safe if it had two eyes, and where the object was to blind an eye and take a group, or to lull one's opponent into a false sense of security by letting them think they had an eye, whereas in fact. . .

Pulling his visor down, he leaned out, searching the walls for heat traces.

Nothing. As he'd expected, the trail was cold. He raised the visor, sighing heavily. What he really needed was sleep. Twelve hours if possible, four if he was lucky. The drugs he was taking to keep awake had a limited effect after a while. Thought processes deteriorated, reflexes slowed. If he didn't find her soon . . .

He leaned back, steadying himself with one hand, then stopped, looking down. His fingers were resting in something soft and sticky. He raised them to his mouth, tasting them. It was blood, recently congealed.

Hers? It had to be. No one else had come here in the last few hours. So maybe she'd been wounded in the firefight. He shook his head, puzzled. If that were so, why hadn't they found a trail of blood in the corridors outside? Unless they hadn't looked.

He went to the edge of the platform, feeling underneath, his fingers searching until, at the top of the service ladder, three rungs down, they met a second patch of stickiness.

Down. She had gone down.

Karr smiled; then, drawing his gun, he turned and clambered over the edge, swinging out, his booted feet reaching for the ladder.

toward THE bottom of the shaft it became more difficult. The smaller service pipes that branched from the huge arterials proliferated, making it necessary for Karr to clamber out, away from the wall, searching for a way down.

The trail of blood had ended higher up, on a platform thirty levels down from where he had first discovered it. He had spent twenty minutes searching for further traces, but there had been nothing. It was only when he had trusted to instinct and gone down that he had found something—the wrapping of a field-dressing pad, wedged tightly into a niche in the conduit wall.

It was possible that she had gone out through one of the maintenance hatches and into the deck beyond. Possible but unlikely. Not with all the nearby stacks on special security alert. Neither would she have doubled back. She had lost a lot of blood. In her weakened state the climb would have been too much. Besides which, his instinct told him where he would find her. Karr moved on, working his way down, alert for the smallest movement, the least deviation in the slow, rhythmic pulse that filled the air. That sound seemed to grow in intensity as he went down, a deep vibration that was as much within his bones as in the air. He paused, looking up through the tangled mesh of pipework, imagining the great two-Zi-high conduit as a giant flute—a huge k'un-ti—reverberating on the very edge of audibility: producing one single, unending note in a song written for titans.

He went down, taking greater care now, conscious that the bottom of the shaft could not be far away. Even so, he was surprised when, easing his way between a nest of overlapping pipes, his feet met nothing. For a moment he held himself there, muscles straining, as his feet searched blindly for purchase, then drew himself up again.

He crouched, staring down through the tangle of pipework. Below him there was nothing. Nothing but darkness.

In all probability she was down there, in the darkness, waiting for him. But how far down? Twenty ch'i? Thirty? He pulled his visor down and switched to ultraviolet. At once his vision was filled with a strong red glow. Of course ... he had felt it earlier—that warmth coming up from below. That was where the great pumps were—just beneath. Karr raised the visor and shook his head. It was no use. She could move about as much as she wanted against that bright backdrop of warmth, knowing that she could not be seen. Nor could he use a lamp. That would only give his own position away, long before he'd have the chance to find her. What then? A flash bomb? A disabling gas?

The last made sense, but still he hesitated. Then, making up his mind, he turned, making his way across to the wall.

There would be a way down. A ladder. He would find it and descend, into the darkness.

He went down, tensed, listening for the slightest movement from below, his booted feet finding the rungs with a delicacy surprising in so big a man. His body was half turned toward the central darkness, his weapon drawn, ready for use. Even so, it was a great risk he was taking and he knew it. She didn't have night-sight—he was fairly sure of that—but if she were down there, there was the distinct possibility that she would see him first, if only as a shadow against the shadows.

He stopped, crouching on the ladder, one hand going down. His foot had met something. Something hard but yielding.

It was a mesh. A strong security mesh, stretched across the shaft. He reached' out, searching the surface. Yes, there!—the raised edge of a gate, set into the mesh. He traced it around. There was a slight indentation on the edge farthest from the ladder, where a spanner-key would fit, but it was locked. Worse, it was bolted from beneath. If he were to go any further he would have to break it open.

He straightened up, gripping the rung tightly, preparing himself, then brought his foot down hard. With a sharp crack it gave, taking him with it, his hand torn from the rung, his body twisting about.

He fell. Instinctively, he curled into a ball, preparing for impact, but it came sooner than he'd expected, jarring him.

He rolled to one side, then sat up, sucking in a ragged breath, his left shoulder aching.

If she was there . . .

He closed his eyes, willing the pain to subside, then got up onto his knees. For the briefest moment he felt giddy, disoriented, then his head cleared. His gun . . . he had lost his gun.

In the silent darkness he waited, tensed, straining to hear the click of a safety or the rattle of a grenade, but there was nothing, only the deep, rhythmic pulse of the pumps, immediately beneath. And something else—something so faint he thought at first he was imagining it.

Karr got to his feet unsteadily, then, feeling his way blindly, he went toward the sound.

The wall was closer than he'd thought. For a moment his hands searched fruitlessly, then found what they'd been looking for. A passageway—a small, low-ceilinged tunnel barely broad enough for him to squeeze into. He stood there a moment, listening. Yes, it came from here. He could hear it clearly now.

Turning sideways, he ducked inside, moving slowly down the cramped passageway, his head scraping the ceiling. Halfway down he stopped, listening again. The sound was closer now, its regular pattern unmistakable. Reaching out, his fingers connected with a grille. He recognized it at once. It was a storage cupboard inset into the wall, like those they had in the dormitories.

Slipping his fingers through the grille, he lifted it, easing it slowly back and up into the slot at the top. He paused, listening again, his hand resting against the bottom edge of the niche, then began to move his fingers inward, searching. . .

Almost at once they met something warm. He drew them back a fraction, conscious of the slight change in the pattern of the woman's breathing. He waited for it to become regular, then reached out again, exploring the shape. It was a hand, the fingers pointing to the left. He reached beyond it, searching, then smiled, his fingers closing about a harder, colder object. Her gun.

For a moment he rested, his eyes closed, listening to the simple rhythm of the woman's breathing, the deep reverberation of the pumps. In the darkness they seemed to form a kind of counterpoint and for a moment he felt himself at ease, the two sounds connecting somewhere deep within him, yin and yang, balancing each other.

The moment passed. Karr opened his eyes into the darkness and shivered. It was a shame. He would have liked it to end otherwise, but it was not to be. He checked the gun, then pulled his visor down, clicking on the lamp. At once the cramped niche filled with light and shadow.

Karr caught his breath, studying the woman. She lay on her side, her face toward the entrance, one hand folded across her breasts. In the pearled glow of the lamp she was quite beautiful, her Asiatic features softened in sleep, her strength—the perfect bone structure of her face and shoulders—somehow emphasized. Like Marie, he thought, surprised by the notion. As he watched she stirred, moving her head slightly, her eyes flickering beneath the lids in dream.

Again he shivered, remembering all he had learned about her in the past few days—recalling what the guard Leyden had said about her, and what the two boys had told Chen. At the same time he could see the murdered youth at the Dragonfly Club and the soft, hideous excess of that place, and for a moment he was confused. Was she realty his enemy? Was this strong, beautiful creature really so different from himself?

He looked away, reminding himself of the oath of loyalty he had made to his T'ang. Then, steeling himself, he raised the gun, placing it a mere finger's length from her sleeping face and clicking off the safety.

The sound woke her. She smiled and stretched, turning toward him. For a moment her dark eyes stared out dreamily, then with a blink of realization, she grew still.

He hesitated, wanting to explain, wanting, just this once, for her to understand.

UT ')

"Don't. . ." she said quietly. "Please . . ."

The words did something to him. He drew the gun back, staring at her, then, changing its setting, he leaned forward again, placing it to her temple.

Afterward he stood there, out in the darkness of the main shaft, the mesh overhead glittering in the upturned light from his visor, and tried to come to terms with what he'd done. He had been resolved to kill her; to end it cleanly, honorably. But faced with her, hearing her voice, he had found himself unmanned— incapable of doing what he'd planned.

He turned, looking back at the shadowed entrance to the passageway. All this| while he had been out of contact—operating under a communications blackout— so in theory he might still kill her or let her go and no one would be the wiser. But he knew now that he would do what duty required of him—and deliver her, stunned, her wrists and ankles bound, into captivity.

Whether it felt right or not. Because that was his job—the thing Tolonen had chosen him to do all those years ago.

Karr sighed; then raising his right hand, he held down the two tiny blisters on the wrist, reactivating the built-in comset.

"Kao Chen," he said softly, "can you read me?"

There was a moment's silence, then the reply came, sounding directly in his head. "Gregor . . . thank the gods. Where are you?"

He smiled, comforted by the sound of Chen's voice. "Listen. I've got her. She's bound and unconscious, but I don't think I can get her out of here on my own. I'll need assistance."

"Okay. I'll get onto that straight away. But where are you? There's been no trace of you for almost two hours. We were worried."

Karr laughed quietly. "Wait. There's a plaque here somewhere." He lowered his visor, looking about, then went across. "All right. You'll need two men and some lifting equipment—pulleys and the like." "Yes," Chen said, growing impatient. "I'll do all that. But tell me where you are You must have some idea."

"It's Level Thirty-one,» Karr said, turning back, playing the beam onto the surface of the plaque, making sure. "Level Thirty-one, Dachau Hsien."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Dead Brother

LI YUAN STOOD on the high terrace at Hei Shui, looking out across the lake. He had come unannounced, directly from a meeting with his ministers. Behind him stood eight of his retainers, their black silks ______merging with the shadows.

A light breeze feathered the surface of the lake, making the tall reeds at the shoreline sway, the cormorants bob gently on the water. The sky was a perfect blue, the distant mountains hard, clear shapes of black. Sunlight rested like a honeyed gauze over everything, glinting off the long sweep of steps, the white stone arches of j the bridge. On the far bank, beyond the lush green of the water meadow, Fei Yens f maids moved among the trees of the orchard, preparing their mistress for the audience to come.

From where he stood he could see the child's cot—a large, sedanlike thing of ~4 pastel-colored cushions and veils. Seeing it had made his heart beat faster, the darkness at the pit of his stomach harden like a stone.

He turned, impatient. "Come," he said brusquely, then turned back, skipping down the broad steps, his men following like shadows on the white stone.

They met on the narrow bridge, a body's length separating them. Fei Yen stood there, her head lowered. Behind her came her maids, the cot balanced between four of them.

As Li Yuan took a step closer, Fei Yen knelt, touching her head to the stone. Behind her her maids did the same.

"ChiehHsia. . ."

She was dressed in a simple chi poo of pale lemon, embroidered with butterflies. Her head was bare, her fine, dark hair secured in a tightly braided bun at the crown. As she looked up again, he noticed a faint color at her neck.

"Your gift—" he began, then stopped, hearing a sound from within the cot.

She turned her head, following his gaze, then looked back at him. "He's waking." He looked at her without recognition, then looked back at the cot. Stepping past her, he moved between the kneeling maids and, crouching, drew back the veil at the side of the cot. Inside, amid a downy nest of cushions, young Han was waking.

He lay on his side, one tiny, delicate hand reaching out to grip the edge of the cot.

His eyes—two tiny, rounded centers of perfect liquid blackness—were open, staring up at him.

Li Yuan caught his breath, astonished by the likeness. "Han Ch'in . . ." he said softly.

Fei Yen came and knelt beside him, smiling down at the child, evoking a happy gurgle of recognition. "Do you wish to hold him, Chieh Hsial"

He hesitated, staring down at the child, engulfed by a pain of longing so strong it threatened to unhinge him, then nodded, unable to form the words.

She leaned past, brushing against him, the faint waft of her perfume, the warmth of the momentary contact, bringing him back to himself, making him realize that it was she there beside him. He shivered, appalled by the strength of what he was feeling, knowing suddenly that it had been wrong for him to come. A weakness. But now he had no choice. As she lifted the child and turned toward him, he felt the pain return, sharper than before.

"Your son," she said, so faintly that only he caught the words. The child nestled in his arms contentedly, so small and frail and vulnerable that his face creased with pain at the thought that anyone might ever harm him. Nine months old, he was—a mere thirty-nine weeks—yet already he was the image of Yuan's brother, Han Ch'in, dead these last ten years.

Li Yuan stood, then turned, cradling the child, cooing softly to him as he moved between the kneeling maids. Reaching the balustrade, he stood there, looking down at the bank, his eyes half-lidded, trying to see. But there was nothing. No younger self stood there, his heart in his throat, watching as a youthful Han Ch'in strode purposefully through the short grass, like a proud young animal, making toward the bridge and his betrothed.

Li Yuan frowned, then turned, staring across the water meadow, but again there was nothing. No tent, no tethered horse or archery target. It was gone, all of it, as if it had never been. And yet there was the child, so like his long-dead brother that it was as if he had not died but simply been away, on a long journey.

"Where have you been, Han Ch'in?" he asked softly, almost inaudibly, feeling the warm breeze on his cheek; watching it stir and lift the fine dark hair that covered the child's perfect, ivory brow. "Where have you been all these years?"

Yet even as he uttered the words he knew he was deluding himself. This was not Tongjiang, and his brother, Han Ch'in, was dead. He had helped bury him himself. And this was someone else. A stranger to the great world; a whole new cycle of creation. His son, fated to be a stranger.

He shivered again, pained by the necessity of what he must do, then turned, looking back at Fei Yen.

She was watching him, her hands at her neck, her eyes misted, moved by the sight of him holding the child, all calculation gone from her. That surprised him— that she was as unprepared for this as he. Whatever she had intended by her gift— whether to wound him or provoke a sense of guilt—she had never expected this.

Beyond her stood his men, like eight dark statues in the late morning sunlight, watching, waiting in silence for their Lord.

He went back to her, handing her the child. "He is a good child, neh?"

She met his eyes, suddenly curious, wondering what he meant by coming, then lowered her head. "Like his father," she said quietly.

He looked away, conscious for the first time of her beauty. "You will send me a tape each year, on the child's birthday. I wish. . ." He hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry. He looked back at her. "If he is ill, I want to know."

She gave a small bow. "As you wish, Chieh Hsia."

"And, Fei Yen . . ."

She looked up, her eyes momentarily unguarded. "Chieh Hsia?"

He hesitated, studying her face, the depth of what he had once felt for her there again, just below the surface, then shook his head. "Just that you must do nothing beyond that. What was between us is past. You must not try to rekindle it. Do you understand me clearly?"

For a moment she held his eyes, as if to deny him; then with a familiar little motion of her head, she looked away, her voice harder than before.

"As you wish, Chieh Hsia. As you wish."

A SCREEN had been set up between the pillars at the far end of the Hall, like a great white banner gripped between the teeth of the dragons. Wang Sau-leyan's Audience Chair had been set before the screen, some twenty ch'i back, the gold silk cushions plumped up ready for him. He went to it and climbed up, taking his place, then looked across at his Chancellor.

"Well?"

Hung Mien-lo shuddered, then turning toward the back of the Hall, lifted a trembling hand.

At once the lights in the Hall faded. A moment later the screen was lit with a pure white light. Only as the camera panned back slightly did Wang Sau-leyan realize that he was looking at something—at the pale stone face of something. Then as the border of green and gray and blue came into stronger focus, he realized what it was. A tomb. The door to a tomb.

And not just any tomb. It was his family's tomb at Tao Yuan, in the walled garden behind the Eastern Palace. He shivered, one hand clutching at his stomach, a tense feeling of dread growing in him by the moment. "What. . . ?"

The query was uncompleted. Even as he watched, the faintest web of cracks formed on the pure white surface of the stone. For the briefest moment these darkened, broadening, tiny chips of whiteness falling away as the stone began to , crumble. Then with a suddenness that made him jerk back, the door split asunder, ' revealing the inner darkness.

He stared at the screen, horrified, his throat constricted, his heart hammering in his chest. For a moment there was nothing—nothing but the darkness—and then the darkness moved, a shadow forming on the ragged edge of stone. It was a hand.

Wang Sau-leyan was shaking now, his whole body trembling, but he could not look away. Slowly, as in his worst nightmare, the figure pulled itself up out of the darkness of the tomb, like a drowned man dragging himself up from the depths of the ocean bed. For a moment it stood there, faintly outlined by the morning sunlight, a simple shape of darkness against the utter blackness beyond; then it staggered forward, into the full brightness of the sun.

Wang groaned. "Kuan Yin ..."

It was his brother, Wang Ta-hung. His brother, laid in a bed of stone these last twenty months. But he had grown in the tomb, becoming the man he had never been in life. The figure stretched in the sunlight, earth falling from its shroud, then looked about it, blinking into the new day.

"It cannot be," Wang Sau-leyan said softly, breathlessly. "I had him killed, his copy destroyed."

"And yet his vault was empty, Chieh Hsia."

The corpse stood there, swaying slightly, its face up to the sun. Then, with what seemed like a drunken lurch, it started forward again, trailing earth.

"And the earth?"

"Is real earth, Chieh Hsia. I had it analyzed."

Wang stared at the screen, horrified, watching the slow, ungainly procession of his brother's corpse. There was no doubting it. It was his brother, but grown large and muscular, more like his elder brothers than the weakling he had been in life. As it staggered across the grass toward the locked gate and the watching camera, the sound of it—a hoarse, snuffling noise—grew louder step by step.

The gate fell away, the seasoned wood shattering as if rotten, torn brutally from its massive iron hinges. Immediately the image shifted to another camera, watching the figure come on, up the broad pathway beside the Eastern Palace and then down the steps, into the central gardens.

"Did no one try to stop it?" Wang asked, his mouth dry.

Hung's voice was small. "No one knew, Chieh Hsia. The first time an alarm sounded was when it broke through the main gate. The guards there were frightened out of their wits. They ran from it. And who can blame them?"

For once Wang Sau-leyan did not argue with his Chancellor. Watching the I figure stumble on he felt the urge to hide—somewhere deep and dark and safe—or j to run and keep running, even to the ends of the earth. The hair stood up on his neck, and his hands shook like those of an old man. He had never felt so afraid. Never, even as a child.

And yet it could not be his brother. Even as he feared it, a part of him rejected it.

He put his hands out, gripping the arms of the chair, willing himself to be calm, but it was hard. The image on the screen was powerful, more powerful than his reasoning mind could bear. His brother was dead—he had seen that with his eyes; J touched the cold and lifeless flesh—and yet here he was once more, reborn—a new man, his eyes agleam with life, his body glowing with a strange, unearthly power.

He shuddered, then tore his eyes from the screen, looking down into the pale, terrified face of his Chancellor.

"So where is it now, Hung? Where in the gods' names is it now?"

Hung Mien-lo looked up at him, wide-eyed, and gave the tiniest shrug. "In the hills, Chieh Hsia. Somewhere in the hills."

YWE HAO WAS STANDING with her back to Karr, naked, her hands secured behind her back, her ankles bound. To her right, against the bare wall, was an empty examination couch. Beyond the woman, at the far end of the cell, two members of the medical staff were preparing their instruments at a long table.

Karr cleared his throat, embarrassed, even a touch angry, at the way they were treating her. It had never worried him before—normally the creatures he had to deal with deserved such treatment—but this time it was different. He glanced at the woman uneasily, disturbed by her nakedness, and as he moved past her, met her eyes briefly, conscious once more of the strength there, the defiance—even, perhaps, a slight air of moral superiority.

He stood by the table, looking down at the instruments laid out on the white cloth. "What are these for, Surgeon Wu?"

He knew what they were for. He had seen them used a hundred, maybe a thousand, times. But that was not what he meant.

Wu looked up at him, surprised. "Forgive me, Major. I don't understand . . "

Karr turned, facing him. "Did anyone instruct you to bring these?"

The old man gave a short laugh. "No, Major Karr. No one instructed me. But it isp standard practice at an interrogation. I assumed—"

"You will assume nothing," Karr said, angry that his explicit instructions had not been acted on. "You'll pack them up and leave. But first you'll give the prisoner a full medical examination."

"It is most irregular, Major—" the old man began, affronted by the request, but Karr barked at him angrily.

"This is my investigation, Surgeon Wu, and you'll do as I say! Now get to it. I want a report ready for my signature in twenty minutes."

Karr stood by the door, his back turned on the girl, while the old man and his assistant did their work. Only when they'd finished did he turn back.

The girl lay on the couch, naked, the very straightness of her posture, like the look in her eyes, a gesture of defiance. Karr stared at her a moment, then looked away, a feeling of unease eating at him. If the truth were told, he admired her. Admired the way she had lain there, suffering all the indignities they had put her through, and yet had retained her sense of self-pride. In that she reminded him of Marie.

He looked away, disturbed at where his thoughts had led him. Marie was no terrorist, after all. Yet the thought was valid. He had only to glance at the girl—at the way she held herself—and he could see the similarities. It was not a physical resemblance—though both were fine, strong women—but some inward quality that showed itself in every movement, every gesture.

He went across and opened one of the cupboards on the far side of the room, then returned, laying a sheet over her, covering her nakedness. She stared up at him a moment, surprised, then looked away.

"You will be moved to another cell," he said, looking about him at the appalling bareness of the room. "Somewhere more comfortable than this." He looked back at her, seeing how her body was tensed beneath the sheet. She didn't trust him. But then, why should she? He was her enemy. He might be showing her some small degree of kindness now, but ultimately it was his role to destroy her, and she knew that. Maybe this was just as cruel. Maybe he should just have let this butcher Wu get on with things. But some instinct in him cried out against that. She was not like the others he had had to act against—nothing like DeVore or Berdichev. There he had known exactly where he stood, but here . . .

He turned away, angry with himself. Angry that he found himself so much in sympathy with her; that she reminded him so much of his Marie. Was it merely that—that deep resemblance? If so, it was reason enough to ask to be taken off the case. But he wasn't sure that it was. Rather, it was some likeness to himself; the same thing he had seen in Marie, perhaps, that had made him want her for his mate. Yet if that were so, what did it say about him? Had things changed so much—had he changed so much—that he could now see eye to eye with his Master's enemies?

He looked back at her—at the clear, female shape of her beneath the sheet— and felt a slight tremor pass through him. Was he deluding himself, making it harder for himself, by seeing in her some reflection of his own deep-rooted unease? Was it that? For if it were, if the problem lay with him ...

"Major Karr?"

He turned. Surgeon Wu stood beside the table, his assistant behind him, holding the instrument case. On the table beside the old man was the medical report.

Karr picked it up, studying it carefully, then took the pen from his pocket and signed at the bottom, giving the undercopy to the surgeon.

"Okay. You can go now, Wu. I'll finish off here."

Wu's lips and eyes formed a brief, knowing smile. "As you wish, Major Karr." Then, bowing his head, he departed, his assistant—silent, colorless, like a pale shadow of the old man—following two paces behind.

Karr turned back to the woman. "Is there anything you need?"

She looked at him a moment. "My freedom. A new identity, perhaps." She fell silent, a look of sour resignation on her face. "No, Major Karr. There's nothing I need."

He hesitated, then nodded. "You'll be moved in the next hour or so, as soon as another cell is prepared. Later on, I'll be back to question you. It has to be done, so it's best if you make it easy for yourself. We know a great deal anyway, but it would be best for you—"

"Best for me?" She stared back at him, a look of disbelief in her eyes. "Do what you must, Major Karr, but never tell me what's best for me. Because you just don't know. You haven't an idea."

He felt a shiver pass through him. She was right. This much was fated. Was like a script from which they both must read. But best. . . ? He turned away. This was their fate, but at least he could make it easy for her once they had finished—make it painless and clean. That much he could do, little as it was.

IN TAG YUAN, in the walled burial ground of the Wang clan, it was raining. Beneath a sky of dense gray-black cloud, Wang Sau-leyan stood before the open tomb, his cloak pulled tight about him, staring wide-eyed into the darkness below.

Hung Mien-lo, watching from nearby, felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. So it was true. The tomb had been breached from within, the stone casket that had held Wang Ta-hung shattered like a plaster god. And the contents?

He shuddered. There were footprints in the earth, traces of fiber, but nothing conclusive. Nothing to link the missing corpse with the damage to the tomb. Unless one believed the film.

On the flight over from Alexandria they had talked it through, the T'ang's insistence bordering on madness. The dead did not rise, he argued, so it was something else. Someone had set this up, to frighten him and try to undermine him. But how? And who?

Li Yuan was the obvious candidate—he had most to gain from such a move— but equally, he had the least opportunity. Hung's spies had kept a close watch on the young T'ang of Europe and no sign of anything relating to this matter had emerged—not even the smallest hint.

Tsu Ma, then? Again, he had motive enough, and it was true that Hung's spies in the Tsu household were less effective than in any other of the palaces, but somehow it seemed at odds with Tsu Ma's nature. This was not the kind of thing he would do. With Tsu Ma even his deviousness had a quality of directness to it.

So who did that leave? Mach? The thought was preposterous. As for the other T'ang, they had no real motive—even Wu Shih. Sun Li Hua had had motive enough, but he was dead, his family slaughtered to the third generation.

All of which made the reality of this—the shattered slabs, the empty casket— that much more disturbing. Besides which, the thing was out there somewhere, a strong, powerful creature, capable of splitting stone and lifting a slab four times the weight of a man.

Something inhuman.

He watched the T'ang go inside, and he turned away, looking about him at the layout of the rain-swept garden. Unless it was the real Wang Ta-hung, it would have had to get inside the tomb before it could break out so spectacularly; how would it have done that?

Hung Mien-lo paced to and fro slowly, trying to work things out. It was possible that the being had been there a long time—placed there at the time of Wang Ta-hung's burial ceremony, or before. But that was unlikely. Unless it was a machine it would have had to eat, and he had yet to see a machine as lifelike as the one that had burst from the tomb.

So how? How would something have got into the tomb without their seeing it?

The security cameras here worked on a simple principle. For most of the time the cameras were inactive, but at the least noise or sign of movement they would focus on the source of the disturbance, following it until it left their field of vision. In the dark it was programmed to respond to the heat traces of intruders.

The advantage of such a system was that it was easy to check each camera's output. There was no need to reel through hours of static film; one had only to look at what was there.

Hung could see how that made sense . . . normally. Yet what if, just this once, something cold and silent had crept in through the darkness?

He went across, looking down into the tomb. At the foot of the steps, in the candle-lit interior, Wang was standing beside the broken casket, staring down into its emptiness. Sensing Hung there, above him, Wang Sau-leyan turned, looking up.

"He's dead. I felt him. He was cold."

Hung Mien-lo nodded, but the T'ang's words had sent a shiver down his spine. Something cold... He backed away, bowing low, as Wang came up the steps, wiping the dust from his hands.

"You'll find out who did this, Master Hung. And you'll find that thing . . . whatever it is. But until you do, you can consider yourself demoted, without title. Understand me?"

Hung met the T'ang's eyes, then let his head drop, giving a silent nod of acquiescence.

"Good. Then set to it. This business makes my flesh creep."

And mine, thought Hung Mien-lo, concealing the bitter anger he was feeling. And mine.

Jk.

THE CELL WAS CLEAN, the sheets on the bed freshly laundered. In one comer stood a bowl and a water jar, in another a pot. On the narrow desk were paper, brushes, and an ink block. Those and the holo plinth from Ywe Hao's apartment.

Ywe Hao sat at the desk, brush in hand, her eyes closed, looking back, trying to remember how it was, but it was hard to do. Painful. Even so, the need was strong in her. To make sense of it all. To try and explain it to the big man.

She let the brush fall, then sat back, knuckling her eyes. It was more than three hours since the morning's interview with the Major, yet she had managed no more than three brief pages. She sighed and lifted the first sheet from the desk, reading it back, surprised by the starkness of her description, by the way the words bristled with pain, as if she'd changed them somehow.

She shivered, then put it down, wondering what real difference any of this made. At the end of it they would find her guilty and have her executed, whatever she said J or did. The evidence was too strong against her. And even if it wasn't. . .

Yes, but the big man—the Major—had been scrupulously fair so far. She looke away, disturbed by the direction of her thoughts. Even so, she could not deny it. There was something different about him. Something she had not expected to find in one of the T'ang's servants. It was as if he had understood—maybe even sympathized with—much of what she'd said. When she had spoken of the Dragonfly Club, particularly, she had noted how he had leaned toward her, nodding, as if he shared her contempt. And yet he was a Major in Security, a senior officer, loyal to his T'ang. So maybe it was just an act, a trick to catch her off her guard. Yet if it was, then why hadn't he used it? Or was his a longer game? Was he aiming to catch bigger fish through her?

If so, he would need the patience of the immortals, for she knew as little as Karr when it came to that. Mach alone knew who the cell leaders were, and Mach was much too clever to be taken by the likes of Karr.

Again the thought troubled her. Made her pause thoughtfully and look down at her hands.

Karr had given her clothes, ensured that her food was okay, that she was treated well by her guards. All of which had been unexpected. She had been schooled to expect only the worst. But this one puzzled her. He had the look of a brute—of some great, hulking automaton—yet when he talked his hands moved with a grace that was surprising. And his eyes . . .

She shook her head, confused. Whatever, she was dead. The moment he had taken her she had known that.

So why did she feel the need to justify herself so strongly? Why couldn't she let the acts speak for themselves?

She leaned across and pulled the plinth toward her. Maybe this was why. Because he had asked. Because of the look in those deep-blue eyes of his when she had told him about her brother. And because he had returned this to her. So maybe. . .

Maybe what? she asked, some coldly cynical part of her suddenly asserting itself. After all, what good was his understanding unless it changed him? What good would all her explanations be if all they did was make him better at what he did? And what he did was to track down people like herself. Track them down and kill them, preventing change.

What was the expression they had? Ah yes, 1 am my Master's hands. So it was among them. And so it would remain. And nothing she could say would ever change that.

She pushed the plinth and the papers aside and stood up, angry, annoyed with herself that she had not been quicker, stronger than she'd proved. She had had so much to offer the Yu, but now she had destroyed all that.

I should have known, she told herself. I should have anticipated Edel getting back at me. I should have moved from there. But there wasn't time. Mach didn't give me time. And I was so tired.

She threw herself down onto the bed, letting it all wash through her for the dozenth time. Nor was she any nearer to an answer. Not that answers would help her now. And yet the urge remained. The urge to explain herself. To justify herself to him.

But why? Why should that be?

There were footsteps outside and the sound of the electronic locks of the door sliding back. A moment later the door eased back and Karr came into the room, stooping to pass beneath the lintel.

"Ywe Hao," he said, in that faintly accented way he had of speaking. "Get up now. It's time for us to talk again."

She turned, looking at him, then nodded. "I've been thinking," she said. "Remembering the past. . ."

SINCE THE FIRE that had destroyed it, Deck Fourteen of Central Bremen stack had been rebuilt, though not to the old pattern. Out of respect for those who had died here, it had been converted into a memorial park, landscaped to resemble the ancient water gardens—the Chuo Cheng Yuan—at Siichow. Guards walked the narrow paths, accompanied by their wives and children, or alone, enjoying the peaceful harmony of the lake, the rocks, the delicate bridges and stilted pavilions. From time to time one or more would stop beside the great t'ing, named "Beautiful Snow, Beautiful Clouds" after its original, and stare up at the great stone—the Stone of Enduring Sorrow—that had been placed there by the young T'ang only months before, reading the red-painted names cut into its broad, pale gray flank. The names of all eleven thousand and eighteen men, women, and children who had been killed here by the Ping Tiao.

Farther down, on the far side of the lotus lake, a stone boat jutted from the bank. This was the teahouse "Traveling by Sea." At one of the stone benches near the prow Karr sat, alone, a chung of the house's finest ch'a before him. Nearby two of his guards made sure he was not disturbed.

From where Karr sat, he could see the Stone, its shape partially obscured by the willows on the far bank, its top edge blunted like a filed tooth. He stared at it awhile, trying to fit it into the context of recent events.

He sipped at his ch'a, his unease returning, stronger than ever. However he tried to argue it, it didn't feel right. Ywe Hao would never have done this. Would never, for a moment, have countenanced killing so many innocent people. No. He had read what she had written about her brother and been touched by it. Had heard what the guard Leyden had said about her. Had watched the tape of Chen's interview with the two boys—her young lookouts—and seen the fierce love for her in their eyes. Finally, he had seen with his own eyes what had happened at the Dragonfly Club, and in his heart of hearts he could find no wrong in what she had done.

She was a killer, yes, but then so was he, and who was to say what justified the act of killing, what made it right or wrong? He killed to order, she for consciences sake, and who could say which of those was right, which wrong?

And now this—this latest twist. He looked down at the scroll on the table beside the chung and shook his head. He should have killed her while he had still had the chance. No one would have known. No one but himself.

He set his bowl down angrily, splashing the ch'a. Where the hell was Chen? What in the gods' names was keeping him?

But when he turned, it was to find Chen there, moving past the guards to greet him.

"So what's been happening?"

"This . . ." Karr said, pushing the scroll across.

Chen unfurled it and began to read.

"They've taken it out of our hands," Karr said, his voice low and angry. "They've pushed us aside, and I want to know why."

Chen looked up, puzzled by his friend's reaction. "All it says here is that we are to hand her over to the T'ing Wei. That is strange, I agree, but not totally unheard of."

Karr shook his head. "No. Look farther down. The second to last paragraph. Read it. See what it says."

Chen looked back at the scroll, reading the relevant paragraph quickly, then looked up again, frowning. "That cannot be right, surely? SimFic? They are to hand her ovejr to SimFic? What is Tolonen thinking of?"

"It's not the Marshal. Look. There at the bottom of the scroll. That's the Chancellor's seal. Which means Li Yuan jnust have authorized this."

Chen sat back, astonished. "But why? It makes no sense."

Karr shook his head. "No. It makes sense all right's just that we don't know how it fits together yet."

"And you want to know?"

"Yes."

"But isn't that outside our jurisdiction? I mean ..."

Karr leaned toward him. "I've done a bit of digging and it seems that the T'ing Wei are to hand her over to SimFic's African operation."

Chen frowned. "Africa?"

"Yes. It's strange, neh? But listen to this. It seems she's destined for a special unit in East Africa. A place named Kibwezi. The gods alone know what they do there or why they want her, but it's certainly important—important enough to warrant the T'ang's direct intervention. And that's why I called for you, Chen. You see, I've got another job for you—another task for our friend Tong Chou."

Tong Chou was Chen's alias. The name he had used in the Plantations when he had gone in after DeVore.

Chen took a long breath. Wang Ti was close to term: the child was due sometime in the next few weeks and he had hoped to be there at the birth. But this was his duty. What he was paid to do. He met Karr's eyes, nodding. "All right. When do I start?"

"Tomorrow. The documentation is being prepared. You're to be transferred to Kibwezi from the European arm of SimFic. All the relevant background informa-tion will be with you by tonight."

"And the woman? Ywe Hao? Am I to accompany her?"

Karr shook his head. "No. That would seem too circumstantial, neh? Besides which, the transfer won't be made for another few days yet. It'll give you time to find out what's going on over there."

"And how will I report back?"

"You won't. Not until you have to come out."

Chen considered. It sounded dangerous, but no more dangerous than before. He nodded. "And when I have to come out—what do I do?"

"You'll send a message. A letter to Wang Ti. And then we'll come in and get you out."

"I see." Chen sat back, looking past the big man thoughtfully. "And the woman, Ywe Hao ... am I to intercede?"

Karr dropped his eyes. "No. Not in any circumstances. You are to observe, nothing more. Our involvement must not be suspected. If the T'ang were to hear. . ."

"I understand."

"Good. Then get on home, Kao Chen. You'll want to be with Wang Ti and the children, neh?" Karr smiled. "And don't go worrying. Wang Ti will be fine. I'll keep an eye on her while you're gone."

Chen stood, smiling. "I am grateful. That will ease my mind greatly."

"Good. Oh, and before you go ... what did you find out down there? Who had Ywe Hao been meeting?"

Chen reached into his tunic pocket and took out the two framed pictures he had taken from the uncle's apartment; the portraits of Ywe Hao's mother with her husband and Ywe Hao with her brother. He looked at them a moment, then handed them across.

Karr stared at the pictures, surprised. "But they're dead. She told me they were dead."

Chen sighed. "The father's dead. The brother too. But the mother is alive, and an uncle. That's who she went to see. Her family."

Karr stared at them a moment longer, then nodded. "All right. Get going, then. I'll speak to you later."

When Chen had gone, Karr got up and went to the prow of the stone boat, staring out across the water at the Stone. He could not save her. No. That had been taken out of his hands. But there was something he could do for her: one small but significant gesture, not to set things right but to make things better—maybe to give her comfort at the last.

He looked down at the portraits one last time, then let them fall into the water, smiling, knowing what to do.

LI yuan looked about him at the empty stalls, sniffing the warm darkness. On whim, he had summoned the Steward of the Eastern Palace and had him bring the keys, then had gone inside, alone, conscious that he had not been here since the day he had killed the horses.

Though the stalls had been cleaned and disinfected and the tiled floors cleared of straw, the scent of horses was strong; was in each brick and tile and wooden strut of the ancient building. And if he closed his eyes. . .

If he closed his eyes . . .

\He shivered and looked about him again, seeing how the moonlight silvered the huge square of the entrance; how it lay like a glistening layer of dew on the end posts of the stalls.

"I must have horses. . . ." he said softly, speaking to himself. "I must ride again and go hawking. I have kept too much to my office. I had forgotten. . . ."

Forgotten what? he asked himself.

How to live, came the answer. You sent her away, yet still she holds you back. You must break the chain, Li Yuan. You must learn to forget her. You have wives, Li Yuan— good wives. And soon you will have children.

He nodded, then went across quickly, standing in the doorway, holding on to the great wooden upright, looking up at the moon.

The moon was high and almost full. As he watched, a ragged wisp of cloud drifted like a net across its surface. He laughed, surprised by the sudden joy he felt and looked to the northeast, toward Wang Sau-leyan's palace at Tao Yuan, fifteen hundred li in the distance.

"Who hates you more than I, Cousin Wang? Who hates you enough to send your brother's ghost to haunt you?"

And was it that that brought this sudden feeling of well-being? No, for the mood seemed unconnected to an event—was a sea change, like the sunlight on the waters after the violence of the storm.

He went out onto the graveled parade ground and turned full circle, his arms out, his eyes closed, remembering. It had been the morning of his twelfth birthday and his father had summoned all the servants. If he closed his eyes he could see it; could see his father standing there, tall and imperious, the grooms lined up before the doors, the Chief Groom, Hung Feng-chan, steadying the horse and offering him the halter.

He stopped, catching his breath. Had that happened? Had that been he, that morning, refusing to mount the horse his father had given him, claiming his brother's horse instead? He nodded slowly. Yes, that had been he.

He walked on, stopping where the path fell away beneath the high wall of the East Gardens, looking out toward the hills and the ruined temple, remembering.

For so long now he had held it all back, afraid of it. But there was nothing to be afraid of. Only ghosts. And he could live with those.

A figure appeared on the balcony of the East Gardens, above him and to his left. He turned, looking up. It was his First Wife, Mien Shan. He went across and climbed the steps, meeting her at the top.

"Forgive me, my Lord," she began, bowing her head low, the picture of obedience. "You were gone so long. I thought. . ."

He smiled and reached out, taking her hands. "I had not forgotten, Mien Shan. It was just that it was such a perfect night I thought I would walk beneath the moon. Come, join me."

For a time they walked in silence, following the fragrant pathways, holding hands beneath the moon. Then, suddenly, he turned, facing her, drawing her close. She was so small, so daintily made, the scent of her so sweet that it stirred his blood. He kissed her, crushing her body against his own, then lifted her, laughing at her tiny cry of surprise.

"Come, my wife," he said, smiling down into her face, seeing how two tiny moons floated in the darkness of her eyes. "I have been away from your bed too long. Tonight we will make up for that, neh? And tomorrow. . . Tomorrow we shall buy horses for the stables."

THE MORPH stood at the entrance to the cave, looking out across the moonlit plain below. The flicker of torches, scattered here and there across the darkened fields, betrayed the positions of the search parties. All day it had watched them as they crisscrossed the great plain, scouring every last copse and stream on the estate. They would be tired now and hungry. If it amplified its hearing it could make out their voices, small and distant on the wind—the throaty encouragement of a sergeant or the muttered complaints of a guard.

It turned, focusing on the foothills just below where it stood. Down there among the rocks, less than a li away, a six-man party was searching the lower slopes, scanning the network of caves with heat-tracing devices. But they would find* nothing. Nothing but the odd fox or rabbit, that was. For the morph was cold, almost as cold as the rocks surrounding it, its body heat shielded beneath thick • layers of insulating flesh.

In the center of the plain, some thirty li distant, was the palace of Tao Yuan. Extending its vision, it looked, searching, sharpening its focus until it found what it was looking for—the figure of the Chancellor, there in the south garden, crouched over a map table in the flickering half-light of a brazier, surrounded by his men.

"Keep looking, Hung Mien-lo," it said quietly, coldly amused by all this activity. "For your Master will not sleep until I'm found."

No, and that would suit its purpose well. For it was here not to hurt Wang Sau-leyan but to engage his imagination, like a seed planted in the soft earth of the young T'ang's mind. It nodded to itself, remembering DeVote's final words to it on Mars.

You are the first stone, Tuan Wen-ch'ang. The first in a whole new game. And while it may be months, years even, before I play again in that part of the board, you are nonetheless crucial to my scheme, for you are the stone within, placed deep inside my Quotient's territory—a singk white stone, embedded in the darkness of his skutt, shining like a tiny moon.

It was true. He was a stone, a dragon's tooth, a seed. And in time the seed would germinate and grow, sprouting dark tendrils in the young T'ang's head. And then, when it was time ...

The morph turned, its tautly muscled skin glistening in the silvered light, the smooth dome of its near-featureless head tilted back, its pale eyes searching for handholds, as it began to climb.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

White Mountain

The rocket came DOWN at Nairobi, on a strip dominated by the surrounding mountains. It was late afternoon, but the air was dry and unbearably hot after the coolness of the ship. Chen stood only a moment on the strip; then, his pack clasped under one arm, he made hurriedly for the shelter of the buildings a hundred ch'i off. He made it, gasping from the effort, his shirt soaked with sweat.

"Welcome to Africa!" one of the guards said, then laughed, taking Chen's ID. They took a skimmer southeast, over the old deserted town, heading for Kib-wezi. Chen stared out through one of the skimmer's side windows, drinking in the I strangeness of the view. Below him was a rugged wilderness of green and brown, stretching to the horizon in every direction. Huge bodies of rock thrust up from the plain, their sides creased and ancient looking, like the flanks of giant, slumbering beasts. He shivered and took a deep breath. It was all so raw. He had been expecting something like the Plantations. Something neat and ordered. Never for a moment had he imagined it would be so primitive.

Kibwezi Station was a collection of low buildings surrounded by a high wire fence, guard towers standing like machine-sentinels at each corner. The skimmer came in low over the central complex and dropped onto a small hexagonal landing pad. Beside the pad was an incongruous-looking building; a long, old-fashioned construction made of wood, with a high, steeply sloping roof. Two men stood on the verandah, watching the skimmer land. As it settled, one of them came down the open, slatted steps and out onto the pad; a slightly built Hung Moo in his late twenties. He was wearing a broad-rimmed hat and green fatigues on which were marked the double-helix logo of SimFic. As Chen stepped down, the man moved between the guards and took his pack, reaching out to shake his hand.

"Welcome to Kibwezi, Tong Chou. I'm Michael Drake. I'll be showing you the ropes. But come inside. This damned heat. . ."

Chen nodded, looking around him at the low, featureless buildings. Then he saw it. "Kuan Yin!" he said, moving out of the skimmer's shadow and into the heat. "What's that?"

Drake came and stood beside him. "Kilimanjaro, they call it. The White Mountain."

Chen stared out across the distance. Beyond the fence the land fell away. In the late afternoon it seemed filled with blue, like a sea. Thick mist obscured much of it, but from the mist rose up a giant shape of blue and white, flat-topped and massive. It rose up and up above that mist, higher than anything Chen had ever seen. Higher, it seemed, than the City itself. Chen wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and swore.

"It's strange, but you never quite get used to it."

Chen turned, surprised by the wistfulness in the man's voice. But before he could comment, Drake smiled and touched his arm familiarly. "Anyway, come. It's far too hot to be standing out here. Especially without something on your head."

Inside, Chen squinted into shadow, then made out the second man seated behind a desk at the far end of the room.

"Come in, Tong Chou. Your appointment came as something of a surprise— we're usually given much more notice—but you're welcome all the same. So ... take a seat. What's your poison?"

"My. . . ?" Then he understood. "Just a beer, if you have one. Thanks." He crossed the room and sat in the chair nearest the desk, feeling suddenly disoriented, adrift from normality.

There was a window behind the desk, but like all the windows in the room it had a blind, and the blind was pulled down. The room was cool, almost chilly after the outside, the low hum of the air-conditioning the only background noise. The man leaned forward, motioning to Drake to bring the drink, then switched on the old-fashioned desk lamp.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Laslo Debrenceni and I'm Acting Administrator of Kibwezi Station."

» The man half rose from his chair and extended his hand. Chen took it, bowing his head. ~~\^

Debrenceni was a tall, broad-shouldered Hung Mao in his late forties, a few strands of thin blond hair combed ineffectually across his sun-bronzed pate. He had a wide, pleasant mouth and soft green eyes above a straight nose.

Drake returned with the drinks, handing Chen a tall glass beaded with chilled drops of water. Chen raised his glass in a toast, then took a long sip, feeling refreshed.

"Good," said Debrenceni, as if he had said something. "The first thing to do is get you acclimatized. This place takes some getting used to. It's . . . different. Very different. You're used to the City. To corridors and levels and the regular patterning of each day. But here— Well, things are different here." He smiled enigmatically. "Very different."

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN filled the sky. As the skimmer came closer it seemed to rise from the very bowels of the earth and tower over them. Chen pressed forward, staring up through the cockpit's glass, looking for the summit, but the rock went up and up, climbing out of sight.

"How big is it?" he asked, whispering, awed by the great mass of rock.

Drake looked up from the controls and laughed. "About twelve It at the summit, but the plateau is less ... no more than ten. There are actually two craters—Kibo and Mawenzi. The whole thing is some five li across at the top, filled with glaciers and ice sheets."

"Glaciers?" Chen had never heard the term before.

"A river of ice—real ice, I mean, not plastic. It rests on top like the icing on some monstrous cake." He looked down at the controls again. "You can see it from up to four hundred li away. If you'd known it was here you could have seen it from Nairobi."

Chen looked out, watching the mountain grow. They were above its lower slopes now, the vast fists of rock below them like speckles on the flank of the sleeping mountain.

"How old is it?"

"Old," said Drake, softer than before, as if the sheer scale of the mountain was affecting him too. "It was formed long before mankind came along. Our distant ancestors probably looked at it from the plains and wondered what it was."

Chen narrowed his eyes.

"We'll need breathing apparatus when we're up there," Drake continued. "Thej air's thin and it's best to take no chances when you're used to air-conditioning and corridors."

Again there was that faint but good-natured mockery in Drakes voice that seemed to say, "You'll find out, boy, it's different out here."

MASKED, Chen stood in the crater of Kibo, looking across the dark throat of ti inner crater toward the crater wall, and beyond it, the high cliffs and terraces of tt northern glacier. No, he thought, looking out at it, not a river but a city. A vast, tiered city of ice, gleaming in the midday sun.

He had seen wonders enough already: perfect, delicate flowers of ice in the deeply shadowed caves beneath the shattered rocks at the crater's rim and the yellowed, steaming mouths of fumeroles, rank-smelling crystals of yellow sulphur clustered obscenely about each vent. In one place he had come upon fresh snow, formed by the action of wind and cold into strange fields of knee-high and razor-sharp fronds. Neige penitant, Drake had called it. Snow in prayer. He had stood on the inner crater's edge, staring down into its ashen mouth, four hundred ch'i deep, and tried to imagine the forces that had formed this vast, unnatural edifice. And failed. He had seen wonders, all right, but this, this overtowering wall of ice, impressed him most.

"Five more minutes and we'd best get back," Drake said, coming over and standing next to him. "There's more to show you, but it'll have to wait. There are some things back at Kibwezi you need to see first. This"—he raised an arm and turned full circle, indicating the vastness of the mountain—"it's an exercise in perspective, if you like. It makes the rest easier. Much easier."

Chen stared at him, not understanding. But there was a look in the other's masked face that suggested discomfort, maybe even pain.

"If you ever need to, come here. Sit a while and think. Then go back to things." Drake turned, staring off into the hazed distance. "It helps. I know. I've done it myself a few times now."

Chen was silent a while, watching him. Then, as if he had suddenly tired of the place, he reached out and touched Drake's arm. "Okay. Let's get back."

the GUARDS entered first. A moment later two servants entered the cell, carrying a tall-backed sedan chair and its occupant. Four others—young Han dressed in the blue of officialdom—followed, the strong, acridly sweet scent of their perfume filling the cell.

The sedan was set down on the far side of the room, a dozen paces from where Ywe Hao sat, her wrists and ankles bound.

She leaned forward slightly, tensed. From his dress—from the cut of his robes and the elaborate design on his chest patch—she could tell this was a high official. And from his manner—the brutal elegance of his deportment—she could guess which Ministry he represented. The T'ing Wei, the Superintendency of Trials.

"I am Yen T'ung," the official said, not looking-ather, "Third Secretary to the Minister, and I am here to give judgment on your case."

She caught her breath, surprised by the suddenness of his announcement, then gave the smallest nod, her head suddenly clear of all illusions. They had decided her fate already, in her absence. That was what Mach had warned her to expect. It was just that the business with Karr—his kindness and the show of respect he had made to her—had muddied the clear waters of her understanding. But now she knew. It was War. Them and us. And no possibility of compromise. She had known that since her brother's death. Since that day at the hearing when the overseer had been cleared of all blame, after all that had been said. After the sworn statements of six good men—eyewitnesses to the event.

She lifted her head, studying the official, noting how he held a silk before his nose, how his lips formed the faintest moue of distaste.

The Third Secretary snapped his fingers. At once one of the four young men produced a scroll. Yen T'ung took it and unfurled it with a flourish. Then, looking at her for the first time, he began to read.

"I, Ywe Hao, hereby confess that on the seventh day of June in the year two thousand two hundred and eight I did, with full knowledge of my actions, murder the honorable Shou Chen-hai, Hsien L'ing to his most high eminence, Li Yuan, Grand Counsellor and T'ang of City Europe. Further, I confess that on the ninth day of the same month I was responsible for the raid on the Dragonfly Club and the subsequent murder of the following innocent citizens. . . ."

She closed her eyes, listening to the list of names, seeing their faces vividly once more, the fear or resignation in their eyes as they stood before her, naked and trembling. And for the first time since that evening, she felt the smallest twinge of pity for them—of sympathy for their suffering in those final moments.

The list finished, Yen T'ung paused. She looked up and found his eyes were on her; eyes that were cruel and strangely hard in that soft face.

"Furthermore," he continued, speaking the words without looking at the scroll. "I, Ywe Hao, daughter of Ywe Kai-chang and Ywe Sha . . ."

She felt her stomach fall away. Her parents . . . Kuan Yin! How had they found that out?

". . . confess also to the charge of belonging to an illegal organization and to plotting the downfall of his most high eminence—"

She stood, shouting back at him. "This is a lie! I have confessed nothing!" The guards dragged her down onto the stool again. Across from her Yen 1

T'ung stared at her as one might stare at an insect, with an expression of profound 3

disgust.

"What you have to say has no significance here. You are here only to listen to your confession and to sign it when I have finished."

She laughed. "You are a liar, Yen T'ung, in the pay of liars, and nothing in Heaven or Earth could induce me to sign your piece of paper."

There was a flash of anger in his eyes. He raised a hand irritably. At the signal one of his young men crossed the room and slapped her across the face, once, then again, stinging blows that brought tears to her eyes. With a bow to his master, the man retreated behind the sedan.

Yen T'ung sat back slightly, taking a deep breath. "Good. Now you will be quiet, woman. If you utter another word I will have you gagged."

White Mountain 415

She glared back at him, forcing her anger to be pure, to be the perfect expression of her defiance. But he had yet to finish.

"Besides," he said softly, "there is no real need for you to sign."

He turned the document, letting her see. There at the foot of it was her signature—or, at least, a perfect copy of it.

"So now you understand. You must confess and we must read your confession back to you, and then you must sign it. That is the law. And now all that is done, and you, Ywe Hao, no longer exist. Likewise your family. All data has been erased from the official record."

She stared back at him, gripped by a sudden numbness. Her mother. . . they had killed her mother. She could see it in his face.

In a kind of daze she watched them lift the chair and carry the official from the room.

"You bastard!" she cried out, her voice filled with pain. "She knew nothing . . . nothing at all."

The door slammed. Nothing. . .

"Come," one of the guards said softly, almost gently. "It's time."

OUTSIDE WAS hea T—F iFTYCH'iOFHEAT. Through a gate in the wire fencing, a flight of a dozen shallow steps led down into the bunkers. There the icy coolness was a shock after the thirty-eight degrees outside. Stepping inside was like momentarily losing vision. Chen stopped there, just inside the doorway, his heart pounding from exertion, waiting for his vision to normalize, then moved on slowly, conscious of the echo of his footsteps on the hard concrete floor. He looked about him at the bareness of the walls, the plain unpainted-metal doors, and frowned. Bracket lights on the long, low-ceilinged walls gleamed dimly, barely illuminating the intense shadow. His first impression was that the place was empty, but that, like the loss of vision, was only momentary. A floor below—through a dark, circular hole cut into the floor—were the cells. Down there were kept a thousand prisoners, fifty to a cell, each shackled to the floor at wrist and ankle, the shortness of the chains making them crouch on all fours like animals.

It was Chen's first time below. Drake stood beside him, silent, letting him judge things for himself. The cells were simple divisions of the open-plan floor—no walls, only lines of bars, each partitioned space reached by a door of bars set into the line. All was visible at a glance, all the misery and degradation of these thin and naked people. And that, perhaps, was the worst of it—the openness, the appalling openness. Two lines of cells, one to the left and one to the right. And between, not recognized until he came to them, were the hydrants. To hose down the cells and swill the excrement and blood, the piss and vomit, down the huge, grated drains that were central to the floor of each cell.

Chen looked on, mute, appalled, then turned to face Drake. But Drake had changed. Or, rather, Drake's face had changed; had grown harder, more brutish, as if in coming here he had cast off the social mask he wore above, to reveal his true face; an older, darker, more barbaric face.

Chen moved on, willing himself to walk, not to stop or turn back. He turned his head, looking from side to side as he went down the line of cells, seeing how the prisoners backed away—as far as their chains allowed. Not knowing him, yet fearing him. Knowing him for a guard, not one of their own.

At the end he turned and went to the nearest cell, standing at the bars and staring into the gloom, grimacing with the pain and horror he was feeling. He had thought at first there were only men, but there were women too, their limbs painfully emaciated, their stomachs swollen, signs of torture and beatings marking every one of them. Most were shaven-headed. Some slouched or simply lay there, clearly hurt, but from none came even the slightest whimper of sound. It was as if the very power to complain, to cry out in anguish against what was being done to them, had been taken from them.

He had never seen . , . never imagined . . .

Shuddering, he turned away, but they were everywhere he looked, their pale, uncomplaining eyes watching him. His eyes looked for Drake and found him there, at the far end.

"Is . . . ?" he began, then laughed strangely and grew quiet. But the question remained close to his tongue and he found he had to ask it, whether these thousand witnesses heard him or not. "Is this what we do?"

Drake came closer. "Yes," he said softly. "This is what we do. What we're contracted to do."

Chen shivered violently, looking about him, freshly appalled by the passive suffering of the prisoners; by the incomprehensible acceptance in every wasted face. "I don't understand," he said, after a moment. "Why? What are we trying to do here?"

His voice betrayed the true depth of his bewilderment. He was suddenly a child again, innocent, stripped bare before the sheer horror of it.

"I'm sorry," Drake said, coming closer. His face was less brutish now, almost,! compassionate; but his compassion did not extend beyond Chen; he spared noth-1 ing for the others. "There's no other way. You have to see it. Have to come down| here and see it for yourself, unprepared." He raised his shoulders. "This—what you're feeling now. We've all felt that. Deep down we still do. But you have to have that first shock. It's . . . necessary."

"Necessary?" Chen laughed, but the sound seemed inappropriate. It died in his throat. He felt sick, unclean.

"Yes. Necessary. And afterward—once it's sunk in—we can begin to explain it all to you. And then you'll see. You'll begin to understand."

But Chen didn't see. In fact, he couldn't see how he would ever understand. He looked at Drake afresh, as if he had never seen him before that moment, and began to edge around him, toward the steps and the clean, abrasive heat outside, and when Drake reached out to touch his arm, he backed away, as if the hand that reached for him were something alien and unclean.

"This is vile. It's ..."

But there wasn't a word for it. He turned and ran, back up the steps and out—out through icy coolness to the blistering heat.

it was late NIGHT. A single lamp burned in the long, wood-walled room. Chen sat in a low chair across from Debrenceni, silent, brooding, the drink in his hand untouched. He seemed not to be listening to the older man, but every word had his complete attention.

"They're dead. Officially, that is. In the records they've already been executed. But here we find a use for them. Test out a few theories. That sort of thing. We've been doing it for years, actually. At first it was all quite unofficial. Back in the days when Berdichev ran things there was a much greater need to be discreet about these things. But now . . ."

Debrenceni shrugged, then reached out to take the wine jug and refill his cup. There was a dreadful irony in his voice—a sense of profound mistrust in the words even as he offered them. He sipped at his cup, then sat back, his pale-green eyes resting on Chen's face.

"We could say no, of course. Break contract and find ourselves dumped one morning in the Net, brain-wiped and helpless. That's one option. The moral option, you might call it. But it's not much of a choice, wouldn't you say?" He laughed; a sharp, humorless laugh.

"Anyway... we do it because we must. Because our 'side' demands that someone do it, and we've been given the short straw. Those we deal with here are murderers, of course—though I've found that helps little when you're thinking about it. After all, what are we? I guess the point is that they started it. They began the killing. As for us, well, I guess we're merely finishing what they began."

He sighed. "Look, you'll find a dozen rationalizations while you're here. A hundred different ways of evading things and lying to yourself. But trust to your first instinct, your first response. Never—whatever you do—question that. Your first response was the correct one. The natural one. It's what we've grown used to here that's unnatural. It may seem natural after a while, but it isn't. Remember that in the weeks to come. Hold on to it."

"I see."

"Some forget," Debrenceni said, leaning forward, his voice lowered. "Some even en/cry it."

Chen breathed in deeply. "Like Drake, you mean?"

"No. There you're wrong. Michael feels it greatly, more than any of us, perhaps. I've often wondered how he's managed to stand it. The mountain helps, of course. It helps us all. Somewhere to go. Somewhere to sit and think things through, above the world and all its pettiness."

Chen gave the barest nod. "Who are they? The prisoners, I mean. Where do they come from?"

Debrenceni smiled. "I thought you understood. They're terrorists. Hotheads and troublemakers. This is where they send them now. All of the State's enemies."

KIBWEZI STATION was larger than Chen had first imagined. It stretched back beneath the surface boundary of the perimeter fence and deep into the earth, layer beneath layer. Dark cells lay next to stark-lit, cluttered rooms, while bare, low-ceilinged spaces led through to crowded guardrooms, banked high with monitor screens and the red and green flicker of trace lights. All was linked somehow, interlaced by a labyrinth of narrow corridors and winding stairwells. At first it had seemed very different from the City, a place that made that greater world of levels seem spacious—open-ended—by comparison, and yet, in its condensation and contrasts, it was very much a distillation of the City. At the lowest level were the laboratories and operating theaters—the "dark heart of things," as Drake called it, with that sharp, abrasive laugh that was already grating on Chen's nerves. The sound of a dark, uneasy humor.

It was Chen's first shift in the theaters. Gowned and masked he stood beneath the glare of the operating lights and waited, not quite knowing what to expect, watching the tall figure of Debrenceni washing his hands at the sink. After a while two others came in and nodded to him, crossing the room to wash up before they began. Then, when all were masked and ready, Debrenceni turned and nodded to the ceiling camera. A moment later two of the guards wheeled in a trolley.

The prisoner was strapped tightly to the trolley, his body covered with a simple green cloth, only his shaved head showing. From where Chen stood he could see nothing of the man's features, only the transparency of the flesh, the tight knit of the skull's plates in the harsh overhead light. Then, with a small jerk of realization that transcended the horrifying unreality he had been experiencing since coming into the room, he saw that the man was still conscious. The head turned slightly, as if to try to see what was behind it. There was a momentary glint of brightness, of a moist, penetratingly blue eye, straining to see, then the neck muscles relaxed and the head lay still, kept in place by the bands that formed a kind of brace about it.

Chen watched as one of the others leaned across and tightened the bands, bringing one loose-hanging strap across the mouth and tying it, then fastening a second across the brow, so that the head was held rigidly. Satisfied, the man worked his way around the body, tightening each of the bonds, making sure there would be no movement once things began.

Dry-mouthed, Chen looked to Debrenceni and saw that he, too, was busy, methodically laying out his scalpels on a white cloth. Finished, the Administrator looked up and, smiling with his eyes, indicated that he was ready.

For a moment the sheer unreality of what was happening threatened to overwhelm Chen. His whole body felt cold and his blood seemed to pulse strongly in his head and hands. Then, with a small, embarrassed laugh, he saw what he had not noticed before. It was not a man. The prisoner on the trolley was a woman. Debrenceni worked swiftly, confidently, inserting the needle at four different points in the skull and pushing in a small amount of local anesthetic. Then, with a deftness Chen had not imagined him capable of, Debrenceni began to cut into the skull, using a hot-wire drill to sink down through the bone. The pale, long hands moved delicately, almost tenderly over the woman's naked skull, seeking and finding the exact points where he would open the flesh and drill down toward the softer brain beneath. Chen stood at the head of the trolley, watching everything, -< seeing how one of the assistants mopped and stanched the bleeding while the other passed the instruments. It was all so skillful and so gentle. And then it was done, the twelve slender filaments in place, ready for attachment.

Debrenceni studied the skull a moment, his fingers checking his own work. Then he nodded and, taking a spray from the cloth, coated the skull with a thin, almost plastic layer that glistened wetly under the harsh light. It had the sweet, unexpected scent of some exotic fruit.

Chen came around and looked into the woman's face. She had been quiet throughout and had made little movement, even when the tiny, hand-held drill let out its high, nerve-tormenting whine. He had expected screams, the outward signs of struggle, but there had been nothing; only her stillness, and that unnerving silence.

Her eyes were open. As he leaned over her, her eyes met his and the pupils dilated, focusing on him. He jerked his head back, shocked after all to find her conscious and undrugged, and looked across at Debrenceni, not understanding. They had drilled into her skull . . .

He watched, suddenly frightened. None of this added up. Her reactions were wrong. As they fitted the spiderish helmet, connecting its filaments to those now sprouting from the pale, scarred field of her skull, his mind feverishly sought its own connections. He glanced down at her hands and saw, for the first time, how they were twitching, as if in response to some internal stimulus. For a moment it seemed to mean something—to suggest something—but then it slipped away, leaving only a sense of wrongness, of things not connecting properly.

When the helmet was in place, Debrenceni had them lower the height of the trolley and sit the woman up, adjusting the frame and cushions to accommodate her new position. In doing this the green cover slipped down, exposing the paleness of her shoulders and arms, her small, firm breasts, the smoothness of her stomach. She had a young body. Her face, in contrast, seemed old and abstract, the legs of the metal spider forming a cage about it.

Chen stared at her, as if seeing her anew. Before he had been viewing her only in the abstract. Now he saw how frail and vulnerable she was; how individual and particular her flesh. But there was something more—something that made him turn from the sight of her, embarrassed. He had been aroused. Just looking at her he had felt a strong, immediate response. He felt ashamed, but the fact was there and turned from her, he faced it. Her helpless exposure had made him want her. Not casually or coldly, but with a sudden fierceness that had caught him off guard.

Beneath his pity for her was desire. Even now it made him want to turn and look at her—to feast his eyes on her helpless nakedness. He shuddered, loathing himself. It was hideous; more so for being so unexpected, so incontestable.

When he turned back his eyes avoided the woman. But Debrenceni had seen. He was watching Chen pensively, the mask pulled down from his face. His eyes met Chen's squarely, unflinchingly.

"They say a job like this dehumanizes the people who do it, Tong Chou. But you'll leam otherwise here. I can see it in you now, as I've seen it in others who've come here. Piece by piece it comes back to us. What we realty are. Not the ideal but the reality. The full, human reality of what we are. Animals that think, that's all. Animals that think."

Chen looked away, hurt—inexplicably hurt. As if even Debrenceni's understanding were suddenly too much to bear. And, for the second time since his arrival, he found himself stumbling out into the corridor, away from something that, even as he fled it, he knew he could not escape.

up ABOVE, the day had turned to night. It was warm and damp and a full moon bathed the open space between the complex and the huts with a rich, silvery light. In the distance the dark shadow of Kilimanjaro dominated the skyline, an intense black against the velvet blue.

Debrenceni stood there, taking deep breaths of the warm, invigorating air. The moonlight seemed to shroud him in silver and for the briefest moment he seemed insubstantial, like a projection cast against a pure black backdrop. Chen started to put out his hand, then drew it back, feeling foolish.

Debrenceni's voice floated across to him. "You should have stayed. You would have found it interesting. It's not an operation I've done that often and this one went very well. You see, I was wiring her."

Chen frowned. Many of the senior officers in Security were wired—adapted for linking up to a comset—or, like Tolonen, had special slots surgically implanted behind their ears so that tapes could be direct'inputted. But this had been different.

Debrenceni saw the doubt in Chen's face and laughed. "Oh, it's nothing so crude as the usual stuff. No, this is the next evolutionary step. A pretty obvious one, but one that—for equally obvious reasons—we've not taken before now. This kind of wiring needs no input connections. It uses a pulsed signal. That means the connection can be made at a distance. All you need is the correct access code."

"But that sounds . . ." Chen stopped. He had been about to say that it sounded like an excellent idea, but some of its ramifications had struck him. The existence of a direct-input connection gave the subject a choice. They could plug in or not. Without that there was no choice. He—or she—became merely another machine, the control of which was effectively placed in the hands of someone else.

He shivered. So that was what they were doing here. That was why they were working on sentenced prisoners and not on volunteers. He looked back at Debrenceni, aghast.

"Good," Debrenceni said, yet he seemed genuinely pained by Chen's realization.

Chen looked down, suddenly tired of the charade, wishing he could tell Debrenceni who he really was and why he was there; angry that he should be made a party to this vileness. For a moment his anger extended even to Karr for sending him in here, knowing nothing; for making him have to feel his way out of this labyrinth of half-guessed truths. Then, with a tiny shudder, he shut it out.

Debrenceni turned, facing Chen fully. Moonlight silvered his skull, reduced his face to a mask of dark and light. "An idea has two faces. One acceptable, the other not. Here we experiment not only on perfecting the wiring technique but on making the idea of it acceptable."

"And once you've perfected things?" Chen asked, a tightness forming at the pit of his stomach.

Debrenceni stared back at him a moment, then turned away, his moonlit outline stark against the distant mountain's shape. But he was silent. And Chen, watching him, felt suddenly alone and fearful and very, very small.

CHEN WATCHED them being led in between the guards; three men and two women, loosely shackled to each other with lengths of fine chain, their clothes unwashed, their heads unshaven.

She was there, of course, hanging back between the first two males, her head turned from him, her eyes downcast.

Drake took the clipboard from the guard and flicked through the flimsy sheets, barely glancing at them. Then with a satisfied nod, he came across, handing the board to Chen.

"The names are false. As for the rest, there's probably nothing we can use.

Security still thinks it's possible to extract factual material from situations of duress, but we know better. Hurt a man and he'll confess to anything. Why, he'd perjure his mother if it would take away the pain. But it doesn't really matter. We're not really interested in who they were or what they did. That's all in the past."

Chen grunted, then looked up from the clipboard, seeing how the prisoners were watching him, as if by handing him the board, Drake had established him as the man in charge. He handed the clipboard back and took a step closer to the prisoners. At once the guards moved forward, raising their guns, as if to intercede, but their presence did little to reassure him. It wasn't that he was afraid—he had been in far more dangerous situations, many a time—yet he had never had to face such violent hatred, such open hostility. He could feel it emanating from the five. Could see it burning in their eyes. And yet they had never met him before this moment.

"Which one first?" Drake asked, coming alongside.

Chen hesitated. "The girl," he said finally, "the one who calls herself Chi Li."

His voice was strong, resonant. The very sound of it gave him a sudden confidence. He saw at once how his outward calm, the very tone of his voice, impressed them. There was fear and respect behind their hatred now. He turned away, as if he had finished with them.

He heard the guards unshackle the girl and pull her away. There were murmurs of protest and the sounds of a brief struggle, but when Chen turned back she was standing away from the others, at the far end of the cell.

"Good," he said. "I'll see the others later."

The others were led out, a single guard remaining inside the cell, his back to the door.

He studied the girl. Without her chains she seemed less defiant. More vulnerable. As if sensing his thoughts she straightened up, facing him squarely.

"Try anything and I'll break both your legs," he said, seeing how her eyes moved to assess how things stood. "No one can help you now but yourself. Cooperate and things will be fine. Fight us and we'll destroy you."

The words were glib—the words Drake had taught him to say in this situation— but they sounded strangely sinister now that things were real. Rehearsing them, he had thought them stagey, melodramatic, like something out of an old Han opera; but now, alone with the prisoner, they had a potency that chilled him as he said them. He saw the effect they had on her. Saw the hesitation as she tensed, then relaxed. He wanted to smile, but didn't. Karr was right. She was an attractive woman, even with that damage to her face. Her very toughness had a beauty to it.

"What do you want to do?" Drake asked.

Chen took a step closer. "We'll just talk for now."

The girl was watching him uncertainly. She had been beaten badly. There were bruises on her arms and face, unhealed cuts on the left side of her neck. Chen felt a sudden anger. All of this had been done since she'd been released to SimFic. Moreover, there was a tightness about her mouth that suggested she had been raped. He shivered, then spoke the words that had come into his head. "Have they told you that you're dead?"

Behind him Drake drew in a breath. The line was impromptu. Was not scripted for this first interview.

The girl looked down, smiling, but when she looked up again Chen was still watching her, his face unchanged.

"Did you think this was just another Security cell?" he asked, harsher now, angry, his anger directed suddenly at her—at the childlike vulnerability beneath her outward strength; at the simple fact that she was there, forcing him to do this to her.

The girl shrugged, saying nothing, but Chen could see the sweat beading her brow. He took a step closer; close enough for her to hit out at him, if she dared.

"We do things here. Strange things. We take you apart and put you back together again. But different."

She was staring at him now, curiosity getting the better of her. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, as if what he was saying to her was quite ordinary; but the words were horrible in their implication and the very normality of his voice seemed cruel.

"Stop it," she said softly. "Just do what you're going to do."

Her eyes pleaded with him, like the hurt eyes of a child; the same expression Ch'iang Hsin sometimes had when he teased her. That similarity—between this stranger and his youngest child—made him pull back; made him realize that his honesty was hurting her. Yet he was here to hurt. That was his job here. Whether he played the role or not, the hurt itself was real.

He turned from her, a small shiver passing down his spine.

Drake was watching him strangely, his eyes half-lidded. What are you up to? he seemed to be saying.

Chen met his eyes. "She'll do."

Drake frowned. "But you've not seen the others..."

Chen smiled. "She'tt do." He was still smiling when she kicked him in the kidneys.

she WAS beaten and stripped and thrown into a cell. For five days she languished there, in total darkness. Morning and night a guard would come and check on her, passing her meal through the hatch and taking the old tray away. Otherwise she was left alone. There was no bed, no sink, no pot to crap into, only a metal grille set into one corner of the floor. She used it, reluctantly at first, then with a growing indifference. What did it matter, after all? There were worse things in life than having to crap into a hole.

For the first few days she didn't mind. After a lifetime spent in close proximity to people it was something of a relief to be left alone, almost a luxury. But from the third day on it was hard.

On the sixth day they took her from the cell, out into a brightness that made her screw her eyes tight, tiny spears of pain lancing her head. Outside, they hosed her down and disinfected her, then threw her into another cell, shackling her to the floor at wrist and ankle.

She lay there for a time, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the light. After the fetid darkness of the tiny cell she had the sense of space about her, yet when finally she looked up, it was to find herself eye to eye with a naked man. He was crouched on all fours before her, his eyes lit with a feral glint, his penis jutting stiffly from between his legs. She drew back sharply, the sudden movement checked by her chains. And then she saw them.

She looked about her, appalled. There were forty, maybe fifty naked people in the cell with her, men and women both. All were shackled to the floor at wrist and ankle. Some met her eyes, but it was without curiosity, almost without recognition. Others simply lay there, listless. As she watched, one of them raised herself on her haunches and let loose a bright stream of urine, then lay still again, like an animal at rest.

She shuddered. So this was it. This was her fate, her final humiliation, to become like these poor souls. She turned back, looking at her neighbor. He was leaning toward her, grunting, his face brutal with need, straining against his chains, trying to get at her. One hand was clutched about his penis, jerking it back and forth urgently.

"Stop it," she said softly. "Please . . ." But it was as if he was beyond the reach of words. She watched him, horrified; watched his face grow pained, his movements growing more frantic, and then with a great moan of pain, he came, his semen spurting across the space between them.

She dropped her eyes, her face burning, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment—for the briefest moment—she had felt herself respond; had felt something in her begin to surface, as if to answer that fierce, animal need in his face.

She lay there, letting her pulse slow, her thoughts grow still, then lifted her head, almost afraid to look at him again. He lay quietly now, no more than two ch'i from her, his shoulders rising and falling gently with each breath. She watched him, feeling an immense pity, wondering who he was and what crime he had been sent here for.

For a time he lay still, soft snores revealing he was sleeping, then with a tiny whimper, he turned slightly, moving onto his side. As he did she saw the brand on his upper arm; saw it and caught her breath, her soul shriveling up inside her. It was a fish. A stylized fish.

chen STOOD in the doorway to the Mess, looking into the deeply shadowed room. There was the low buzz of conversation, the smell of mild euphorics. Sitting at the bar, alone, a tall glass at his elbow, was Debrenceni. Seeing Chen, he lifted his hand and waved him across.

"How are the kidneys?"

Chen laughed. "Sore, but no serious damage. She connected badly."

"I know. I saw it." Debrenceni was serious a moment longer, then he smiled. "You did well, despite that. It looked as if you'd been doing the job for years."

Chen dropped his head. He had been in the sick bay for the last six days, the first two in acute pain.

"What do you want to drink?"

Chen looked up. "I'd best not."

"No. Maybe not." Debrenceni raised his glass, saluting Chen. "You were right about the girl, though."

"I know." He hesitated, then. "Have you wired her yet?"

"No. Not yet." Debrenceni sat back a little on his stool, studying him. "You know, you were lucky she didn't kill you. If the Security forces hadn't worked her over before we'd got her, she probably would have."

Chen nodded, conscious of the irony. "What happened to her?"

"Nothing. I thought we'd wait until you got back on duty."

It was not what Chen had expected. "You want me to carry on? Even after what happened?"

"No. Because of what happened." Debrenceni laid his hand lightly on Chen's shoulder. "We see things through here, Tong Chou. To the bitter, ineluctable end." "Ineluctable?"

"Ineluctable," repeated Debrenceni solemnly. "That from which one cannot escape by struggling."

"Ah . . ." In his mind Chen could see the girl and picture the slow working out of her fate. Ineluctable. Like the gravity of a black hole, or the long, slow process of entropy. Things his son, Jyan, had told him of. He gave a tiny, bitter laugh.

Debrenceni smiled tightly, removing his hand from Chen's shoulder. "You understand, then?"

Chen looked back at him. "Do I have a choice?"

"No. No one here has a choice."

"Then I understand."

"Good. Then we'll start in the morning. At six sharp. I want you to bring her from the cells. I'll be in the theater. Understand?"

IT WAS LATE when Chen returned to his room. He felt frayed and irritable. More than that, he felt ashamed and—for the first time since he'd come to Kibwezi—guilty of some awfulness that would outweigh a lifetime's atonement. He sat heavily on his bed and let his head fall into his hands. Today had been the day. Before now he had been able to distance himself from what had been happening. Even that last time, facing her in the cell, it had not really touched him. It had been something abstract; something happening to someone else—Tong Chou, perhaps—who inhabited his skin. But now he knew. It was himself. No one else had led her there and strapped her down, awaiting surgery. It was no stranger who had looked down at her while they cut her open and put things in her head.

"That was me," he said, shuddering. "That was me in there."

He sat up, drawing his feet under him, then shook his head in disbelief. And yet he had to believe. It had been too real—too personal—for disbelief.

He swallowed deeply. Drake had warned him. Drake had said it would be like this. One day fine, the next the whole world totally different; like some dark, evil trick played on your eyesight, making you see nothing but death. Well, Drake was right. Now he, too, could see it. Death. Everywhere death. And he a servant of it.

There was a knocking at the door.

"Go away!"

The knocking came again. Then a voice. "Tong Chou? Are you all right?"

He turned and lay down, facing the wall. "Go away ..."

Y w E H A o had never run so far, or been so afraid. As she ran she seemed to balance two fears in the pit of her stomach: her fear of what lay behind outweighing her fear of the dark into which she ran. Instinct took her toward the City. Even in the dark she could see its massive shape against the skyline, blotting out the light-scattered velvet backdrop.

It was colder than she had ever thought it could be. And darker. As she ran she whimpered, not daring to look back. When the first light of morning colored the sky at her back she found herself climbing a gradual slope. Her pace had slowed, but still she feared to stop and rest. At any moment they would discover her absence. Then they'd be out, after her.

As the light intensified, she slowed, then stopped and turned, looking back. For a while she stood there, her mouth open. Then, as the coldness, the stark openness of the place struck her, she shuddered violently. It was so open. So appallingly open. Another kind of fear, far greater than anything she had known before, made her take a backward step.

The whole of the distant horizon was on fire. Even as she watched, the sun's edge pushed up into the sky; so vast, so threatening, it took her breath away. She turned, away from it, horrified, then saw, in the first light, what lay ahead.

At first the ground rose slowly, scattered with rock. Then it seemed to climb more steeply until, with a suddenness that was every bit as frightening as anything she had so far seen, it ended in a thick, choking veil of whiteness. Her eyes went upward . . . No, not a veil, a wall. A solid wall of white that seemed soft, almost insubstantial. Again she shuddered, not understanding, a deep-rooted, primitive fear of such things making her crouch into herself. And still her eyes went up until, beyond the wall's upper lip, she saw the massive summit of the shape she had run toward throughout the night. The City . . .

Again she sensed a wrongness to what she saw. The shape of it seemed. . . seemed what? Her arms were making strange little jerking movements and her legs felt weak. Gritting her teeth, she tried to get her mind to work, to triumph over the dark, mindless fear that was washing over her, wave after wave. For a moment she seemed to come to herself again.

What was wrong? What in the gods' names was it?

And then she understood. The shape of it was wrong. The rough, tapered, irregular look of it. Whereas . . . Again her mouth fell open. But if it wasn't the City . . . then what in hell's name was it?

For a moment longer she stood there, swaying slightly, caught between two impulses, then, hesitant, glancing back at the growing circle of fire, she began to run again. And as she ran—the dark image of the sun's half circle stamped across her vision—the wall of mist came down to meet her.

IT was just after DAWN when the two cruisers lifted from the pad and banked away over the compound, heading northwest, toward the mountain. Chen was in the second of them, Drake at the controls beside him. On Chen's wrist, scarcely bigger than a standard Security field comset, was the tracer unit. He glanced at it, then stared steadily out through the windscreen, watching the grassy plain flicker by fifty ch'i below.

"We're going to kill her, aren't we?"

Drake glanced at him. "She was dead before she came here. Remember that."

Chen shook his head. "That's just words. No, what I mean is that we are going to kill her. Us. Personally."

"In a manner of speaking."

Chen looked down at his hands. "No. Not in a manner of speaking. This is real. We're going out to kill her. I've been trying not to think about it, but I can't help it.

It seems . . ." He shook his head. "It's just that some days I can't believe it's me, doing this. I'm a good man. At least, I thought I was."

Drake was silent, hunched over the controls as if concentrating, but Chen could see he was thinking; chewing over what he'd said.

"So?" Chen prompted.

"So we set down, do our job, get back. That's it."

Again Chen stared at Drake for a long time, not sure even what he was looking for. Whatever it was, it wasn't there. He looked down at the tiny screen. Below the central glass were two buttons. They looked innocuous enough, but he wasn't sure. Only Drake knew what they were for.

He looked away, holding his tongue. Maybe it was best to see it as Drake saw it. I As just another job to be done. But his disquiet remained, and as the mountain grew larger through the front screen, his sense of unreality grew with it.

It was all so impersonal. As if what they were tracking was a thing, another kind of machine—one that ran. But Chen had seen her close; had looked into her eyes and stared down into her face while Debrenceni had been operating. He had seen just how vulnerable she was.

How human...

HE HAD put ON the suit's heater and pulled the helmet visor down—even so, his feet felt like ice and his cheeks were frozen. A cold breeze blew across the mountain now, shredding the mist in places, but generally it was thick, like a flaw in seeing itself.

There was a faint buzz on his headset, then a voice came through. "It's clearing up here. We can see right up the mountain now, to the summit."

Chen stared up the slope, as if to penetrate the dense mist, then glanced back at Drake. "What now?"

Drake nodded distractedly, then spoke into his lip-mike, "Move to within a hundred ch'i. It looks like she's stopped. Gustaffson, you go to the north of where she is. Palmer, come around to the east. Tong Chou and I will take the other points. That way we've got a perfect grid."

Drake turned, looking up the mountain. "Okay. Let's give this thing a proper test."

Chen spoke to Drake's back. "The trace ought to be built into a visor display. This thing's vulnerable when you're climbing. Clumsy too."

"You're right," Drake answered, beginning to climb. "It's a bloody nuisance. It should be made part of the standard Security headgear, with direct computer input from a distance."

"You mean wire the guards too?"

Drake paused, mist wreathing his figure. "Why not? That way you could have the coordinator at a distance, out of danger. It would make the team less vulnerable. The runner couldn't get at the head—the brains behind it. It makes sense, don't you think?"

Halfway up, Drake turned, pointing across. "Over there. Keep going until you're due south of her. Then wait. I'll tell you what to do."

Chen went across, moving slowly over the difficult terrain, then stopped, his screen indicating that he was directly south of the trace, approximately a hundred ch'i down. He signaled back, then waited, listening as the others confirmed they were in place. The mist had cleared up where he was and he had eye contact with both Gustaffson and Palmer. There was no sign of the runner.

Drake's voice sounded in his headset. "You should be clear any minute. We'll start when you are."

Chen waited, while the mist slowly thinned out around him. Then, quite suddenly, he could see the mountain above him, the twin peaks of Kibo and Mawenzi white against the vivid blue of the sky. He shivered, looking across, picking out the others against the slope.

"I see you," Drake said, before Chen could say anything. "Good. Now come up the slope a little way. We'll close to fifty now. Palmer, Gustaffson, you do the same."

Chen walked forward slowly, conscious of the others as they closed on him.

Above him was a steep shelf of bare earth. As he came closer he lost sight, first of Drake, then of the other two.

"I'll have to come up," he said into his lip-mike. "I can't see a thing from down here."

He scrambled up and stood there, on the level ground above the shelf, where the thick grass began. He was only twenty ch'i from the trace signal now. The others stood back at fifty, watching him.

"Where is she?" he said, softer than before.

"Exactly where the trace shows she is," said Drake into his head. "In that depression just ahead of you."

He had seen it already, but it looked too shallow to hide a woman.

"Palmer?" It was Drake again. "I want you to test the left-hand signal on your handset. Turn it slowly to the left."

Chen waited, watching the shallow pit in front of him. It seemed as if nothing had happened.

"Good," said Drake. "Now you, Gustaffson. I want you to press both your controls at the same time. Hold them down firmly for about twenty seconds. Okay?"

This time there was a noise from the depression. A low moaning that increased as the seconds passed. Then it cut off abruptly. Chen shuddered. "What was that?"

"Just testing," Drake answered. "Each of our signals is two-way. They transmit, but they also have a second function. Palmer's cuts off all motor activity in the cortex. Gustaffson's works on what we call the pain gate, stimulating nerves at the stem of the brain."

"And yours?" asked Chen. He could hear the breathing of the others on the line as they listened in.

"Mine's the subtlest. I can talk to our runner. Directly. Into her head."

The line went silent. From the depression in front of Chen came a sudden whimper of pure fear. Then Drake was speaking again. "Okay. You can move the signal back to its starting position. Our runner is ready to come out."

There was a tense moment of waiting; then from the front of the shallow pit a head bobbed up. Wearily, in obvious pain, the woman pulled herself up out of the deep hole at the front lip of the shallow depression. As her head came up and around she looked directly at Chen. For a moment she stood there, swaying, then she collapsed and sat back, pain and tiredness etched in her ravaged face. She looked ragged and exhausted. Her legs and arms were covered in contusions and weeping cuts.

Drake must have spoken to her again, for she jerked visibly and looked around, finding him. Then she looked about her, seeing the others. Her head dropped and for a moment she just sat there, breathing heavily, her arms loose at her sides.

"Okay," Drake said. "Let's wrap things up."

Chen turned and looked across at Drake. In the now brilliant sunlight, he seemed a cold and alien figure. His suit, like all of them, was nonreflective. Only the visor sparkled menacingly. Just now he was moving closer in. Twenty ctii from the woman he stopped. Chen watched as Drake made Palmer test his signal again. As it switched off, the woman fell awkwardly to one side. Then, moments later, she pushed herself up again, looking around, wondering what had happened to her. Then it was Gustaffson's turn. He saw how the woman's face changed, her teeth clamped together, her whole body arching as she kicked out in dreadful pain.

When she sat up again, her face twitched visibly. Something had broken in her. Her eyes, when they looked at him now, seemed lost.

He looked across at Drake, appalled, but Drake was talking to her again. Chen could see his lips moving, then looked back and saw the woman try to cover her ears, a look of pure terror on her face.

Slowly, painfully, she got up and, looking straight at Chen, clambered over the lip and began to make her way toward him, almost hopping now, each touch of her • damaged leg against the ground causing her face to buckle in pain. But still she came.

He made to step back, but Drake's voice was suddenly in his headset, on the discreet channel. "Your turn," it said. "Just hold down the left-hand button and touch the right."

She was less than two body-lengths from him now, reaching out.

Chen looked down at the tiny screen, then held and touched. The air was filled with a soft, wet sound of exploding matter, as if someone had fired a gun off in the middle of a giant fruit. And there, where the signal had been, was suddenly nothing. He looked up. The body was already falling, the shoulders and upper chest ruined by the explosion that had taken off the head. He turned away, sickened, but the stench of burned flesh was in his nostrils and gobbets of her ruptured, bloodied flesh were spattered all over his suit and visor. He stumbled and almost went down the steep, bare bank, but stopped there on the edge, swaying, keeping his balance, telling himself quietly that he would not be sick, over and over again.

After a while he turned, and looking past the body, met Drake's eyes. "You bastard . . . why did she come at me? What did you say to her?"

Drake pulled off his helmet and threw it down. "I told her you'd help her," he said, then laughed strangely. "And you did. You bloody well did."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Flames in a Glass

wANG TI ? ' '

Chen stood just inside the door, surprised to find the apartment in darkness. He put his hand out, searching the wall, then slowly brought up the lights. Things looked normal, everything in its place. He let out a breath. For the briefest moment. . .

He went out into the kitchen and filled the kettle, then plugged it in. As he turned, reaching up to get the ch'a pot, he heard a noise. A cough.

He went out, into the brightness of the living room. "Wang Ti?" he called softly, looking across at the darkened doorway of their bedroom. "Is that you?"

The cough came again, a strong, racking cough that ended with a tiny moan.

He went across and looked into the room. It was Wang Ti beneath the covers, he could see that at once, but Wang Ti as he had never seen her before; her hair unkempt, her brow beaded with sweat. Wang Ti, who had never suffered a day's illness in her life.

"WangTi?"

She moaned, turning her head slightly on the pillow. "Nmmm . . ."

He looked about him, conscious that something was missing, but not knowing what. "Wang Ti?"

Her eyes opened slowly. Seeing him, she moaned and turned away, pulling the sheet up over her head.

"Wang Ti?" he said gently, moving closer. "Where are the children?"

Her voice was small, muffled by the sheets. "I sent them below. To Uncle Mai."

"Ahh . . ." He crouched down. "And you, my love?"

She hesitated, then answered in that same small, frightened voice. "I am fine, husband."

Something in the way she said it—in the way her determination to be a dutiful^

•i uncomplaining wife faltered before the immensity of her suffering—made him go ••; cold inside. Something awful had happened.

; He pulled back the sheet, studying her face in the half-light. It was almost unrecognizable. Her mouth—a strong mouth, made for laughter—was twisted into a thin-lipped grimace of pain. Her eyes—normally so warm and reassuring— were screwed tightly shut as if to wall in all the misery she felt, the lids heavy and discolored. Pained by the sight, he put his fingers to her cheek, wanting to comfort her, then drew them back, surprised. She had been crying.

There was a moment's blankness, then he felt his stomach fall away. "The child. . ."

Wang Ti nodded, then buried her face in the pillow, beginning to sob, her body convulsing under the sheets.

He sat on the bed beside her, holding her to him, trying to comfort her, but his mind was in shock. "No . . ." he said, after a while. "You have always been so strong. And the child was well. Surgeon Fan said so."

She lay there quietly—so quiet that it frightened him. Then it was true. She had lost the child.

"When was this?" he asked, horrified. "A week ago."

"A week! Ai yal" He sat back, staring sightlessly into the shadows, thinking of her anguish, her suffering, and him not there. "But why wasn't I told? Why didn't Karr send word? I should have been here."

She put out a hand, touching his chest. "He wanted to. He begged me to, but I would not let him. Your job . . ."

He looked back at her. She was watching him now, her puffed and blood-red eyes filled with pity. The sight of her—of her concern for him—made his chest tighten with love. "Oh, Wang Ti, my little pigeon. . . what in the gods' names happened?"

She shuddered and looked away again. "No one came," she said quietly. "I waited, but no one came . . ."

He shook his head. "But the Surgeon ... we paid him specially to come." "There were complications," she said, afraid to meet his eyes. "I waited. Three hours I waited, but he never came. Jyan tried—"

"Never came?" Chen said, outraged. "He was notified and never came?" She gave a tight little nod. "I got Jyan to run up to the Medical Center, but no one was free." She met his eyes briefly, then looked away again, forcing the words out in a tiny frightened voice. "Or so they said. But Jyan says they were sitting there, in a room beyond the reception area, laughing—drinking ch'a and laughing—while my baby was dying."

Chen felt himself go cold again; but this time it was the coldness of anger. Of an intense, almost blinding anger. "And no one came?"

She shook her head, her face cracking again. He held her tightly, letting her cry in his arms, his own face wet with tears. "My poor love," he said. "My poor, poor love." But deep inside his anger had hardened into something else—into a cold, clear rage. He could picture them, sitting there, laughing and drinking ch'a while his baby daughter was dying. Could see their well-fed, laughing faces and wanted to smash them, to feel their cheekbones shatter beneath his fist.

And young Jyan . . . How had it been for him, knowing that his mother was in trouble, his baby sister dying, and he impotent to act? How had that felt? Chen groaned. They had had such hopes. Such plans. How could it all have gone so wrong?

He looked about him at the familiar room, the thought of the dead child an agony, burning in his chest. "No . . ." he said softly, shaking his head. "Nooooo!"

He stood, his fists bunched at his sides. "I will see Surgeon Fan."

Wang Ti looked up frightened. "No, Chen. Please. You will solve nothing that way."

He shook his head. "The bastard should have come. It is only two decks down. Three hours . . . Where could he have been for three hours?"

"Chen . . ." She put out a hand, trying to restrain him, but he moved back, away from her.

"No, Wang Ti. Not this time. This time I do it my way."

"You don't understand . . ." she began. "Karr knows everything. He has all the evidence. He was going to meet you . . ."

She fell silent, seeing that he was no longer listening. His face was set, like the face of a statue.

"He killed my daughter," he said softly. "He let her die. And you, Wang Ti. . . you might have died too."

She trembled. It was true. She had almost died, forcing the baby from her—no, would have died, had Jyan not thought to contact Karr and bring the big man to her aid.

She let her head fall back. So maybe Chen was right. Maybe, this once, it was right to act—to hit back at those who had harmed them, and damn the consequences. Better that, perhaps, than let it fester deep inside. Better that than have him shamed a second time before his son.

She closed her eyes, pained by the memory of all that had happened to her. It had been awful here without him. Awful beyond belief.

She felt his breath on her cheek, his lips pressed gently to her brow, and shivered.

"I must go," he said quietly, letting his hand rest softly on her flank. "You understand?"

She nodded, holding back the tears, wanting to be brave for him this once. But it was hard, and when he was gone she broke down again, sobbing loudly, uncontrollably, the memory of his touch glowing warmly in the darkness.

THE ROOM WAS COLD and brightly lit, white tiles on the walls and floor emphasizing the starkness of the place. In the center of the room was a dissecting table. Beside the table stood the three surgeons who had carried out the postmortem, their heads bowed, waiting.

The corpse on the table was badly burned, the limbs disfigured, the head and upper torso crushed; even so, the body could still be identified as GenSyn. In three separate places the flesh had been peeled back to the bone, revealing the distinctive GenSyn marking—the bright red G forming a not-quite-closed circle with a tiny blue S within.

They had cornered it finally in the caves to the north of the estate. There, Hung Mien-lo and a small group of elite guards had fought it for an hour before a well-aimed grenade had done the trick, silencing the creature's answering fire and bringing the roof of the cave down on top of it. Or so Hung's story went.

Wang Sau-leyan stood there, looking down at the corpse, his eyes taking in everything. Hope warred with cynicism in his face, but when he looked back at his Chancellor, it was with an expression of deep suspicion. "Are you sure this is it, Hung? The face . . ."

The face was almost formless. Was the merest suggestion of a face.

"1 am told this is how they make some models, Chieh Hsia. A certain number are kept for urgent orders, the facial features added at the last moment. I have checked with GenSyn records and discovered that this particular model was made eight years back. It was stolen from their West Asian organization—from their plant at Karaganda—nearly five years ago."

Wang looked back at it, then shook his head. "Even so . . ."

"Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but we found some other things in the cave." Hung Mien-lo turned and took a small case from his secretary, then turned back, handing it, opened, to the T'ang. "This was among them."

Wang Sau-leyan stared down at the face and nodded. It was torn and dirtied and pitted with tiny holes, but it was recognizable all the same. It was his brother's face. Or at least, a perfect likeness. He set it down on the chest of the corpse.

"So this is how it did it, eh? With a false face and a cold body."

"Not cold, Chieh Hsia. Or not entirely. You see, this model was designed for work in subzero temperatures or in the heat of the mines. It has a particularly hard and durable skin that insulates the inner workings of the creature from extremes of heat and cold. That was why it did not register on our cameras. At night they are programmed to respond only to heat patterns, and as this thing did not give off any trace, the cameras were never activated."

Wang nodded, his mouth gone dry. Even so, he wasn't quite convinced. "And the traces of skin and blood that it left on the stone?"

Hung lowered his head slightly. "It is our belief, Chieh Hsia, that they were put there by the creature. Deliberately, to make us think it really was your brother."

Wang looked down, then gave a small, sour laugh. "I would dearly like to think so, Chancellor Hung, but that simply isn't possible. I have checked with GenSyn. They tell me it is impossible to duplicate individual DNA from scratch."

"From scratch, yes, Chieh Hsia. But why should that be the case? All that is needed to duplicate DNA is a single strand of the original. This can even, I am assured, be done from a corpse."

"And that is what you are suggesting? That someone broke into the tomb before this creature broke out from it again? That they took a piece of my brother's body and used it to duplicate his DNA?"

"That is one possibility, Chieh Hsia, but there is another. What if someone close to your brother took a sample of his skin or blood before his death? Took it and kept it?"

Wang shook his head. "That's absurd. I know my brother was a weakling and a fool, but even he would not sit still and let a servant take a sample of his blood."

"Again, that is not what I meant, Chieh Hsia. What if your brother had a small accident and one of his servants tended to him? And what if that servant kept the materials they used to tend your brother's wound—a piece of bloodied gauze, perhaps, or a bowl with bloodied water?"

Wang narrowed his eyes. "And you think that's what happened?"

Hung nodded. "That is exactly what happened, Chieh Hsia. We have a signed confession."

"A confession? And how was this confession obtained? By your usual means?"

Hung turned, taking the scroll from his secretary, then handed it across.

"Wu Ming!" Wang laughed with disbelief. "And is that all the proof you have— Wu Ming's confession?"

Hung Mien-lo shook his head. "I am afraid not, Chieh Hsia. I went back through the household records for details of any small accident to your brother. It seems there were several such incidents over the past five years, but in all but one instance the materials used to tend his wounds were properly incinerated."

"And that single instance where it was not—that involved Wu Ming, I take it?"

"Yes, Chieh Hsia. Wu Ming and one other. The traitor Sun Li Hua."

Wang made a noise of surprise. "This is certain?"

"Absolutely, Chieh Hsia. We have a tape of the incident, showing Wu and Sun tending to your brother, but no subsequent record of the dressings being destroyed."

"Ah . . ." Wang turned, looking down at the corpse again, his fingers reaching out to touch and trace the contours of his brother's face. "Then it was my cousin's hand behind all this," he said softly. "This was Li Yuan's doing."

"So it seems, Chieh Hsia."

"So it seems . . ." Yet something still nagged at him. He turned back, facing his Chancellor. "How long ago did this happen?"

"Two years ago, Chieh Hsia."

"Two years, or almost two years? Be precise, Hung Mien-lo."

"Twenty-two months, to be exact, Chieh Hsia."

"A month before his death?"

"That is so, Chieh Hsia."

Wang took a deep breath, satisfied. Any earlier and it would have made no sense, for his father would still have been alive and Li Yuan would have had no motive for his actions. As it was . . .

He smiled. "You have done well, Chancellor Hung. You have more than repaid my trust in you. But there are still two things that remain to be answered. First, how did the creature get into the tomb without the cameras seeing it? Second, where is the body of my dead brother?"

Hung Mien-lo bowed low. "Both questions have troubled me greatly, Chieh Hsia, but I think I have the answer."

Straightening up, he drew something from his pocket and held it out, offering it to his T'ang. It was a small, glassy circle, like the lens cap to a camera.

Wang turned it in his hand, then looked back at his Chancellor. "What is this?"

"It is an imager, Chieh Hsia. Placed over a camera lens, it fixes the image in the camera's eye and maintains it for a predetermined period. After that time, the imager self-destructs—at a molecular level—dispersing in the form of a gas. While it is there, over the lens, you can walk about quite freely before the camera without fear of it registering your presence, and afterward it leaves no trace."

"I see. And you think a similar kind of thing—or several of them—was used to mask the cameras about the tomb?"

Hung smiled. "It would explain how the tomb door was opened without the cameras seeing anything."

"And my brother's body?"

"Of that there is no sign, Chieh Hsia. However, we did find a trace of ashes in a hollow near a stream to the north of the palace. Halfway between here and the foothills."

"So the creature burned the body?"

Hung gave a slight shrug. "I am not so sure. If he did, then why did we see no sign of it? It takes a great deal of heat to consume a human body and from the moment the alarms were sounded, every guard in the palace was on alert for anything suspicious. If the creature had burned the body, we would have seen it. So no, Chieh Hsia. I would guess that the ashes were from something else—some small religious ceremony, perhaps. As for the body, I think it is still out there, hidden somewhere."

Wang considered a moment, then laughed. "Which is where we shall let it rest, neh? Amongst the rocks and streams, like an exiled minister." Again he laughed, a fuller, richer laughter now, fed by relief and an ancient, unforgiving malice. He turned, looking down at the corpse and the box holding his brother's face. "As for these things, have them burned, Chancellor Hung. Outside, before the palace gates, where all can see."

IT WAS quiet in the lobby of the Medical Center. As Chen entered, the nurse behind the desk looked up, smiling, but Chen walked straight by, pushing through the gate in the low barrier, heading for where he knew they kept their records.

Someone called out to him as he passed, but Chen ignored it. There was no time for formalities. He wanted to know right now who had killed his child, and why.

Two men looked up from behind their screens as he entered the records room, surprised to see him there. One began to object, then fell silent as he saw the gun.

"I want details of a child mortality," Chen said, without preamble. "The name is Kao. K-A-O. A week ago it was. A female child. Newborn. I want the registered time of death, the precise time the call-out inquiry was made at this office, and a duty roster for that evening, complete with duty records for all on the roster."

The clerks glanced at each other, not sure what to do, but Chen's fierce bark made them jump. He pointed his gun at the most senior of the two. "Do it. Now! Hard print. And don't even think of fucking me around. If I don't get what I want, I'll put a bullet through your chest."

Swallowing nervously, the man bowed his head and began to tap details into his comset.

As the printout began to chatter from the machine, there was a noise outside. Chen turned. Three of the orderlies—big, heavily built men—had come to see what was happening. From the way they stood there, blocking the way, it was clear they had no intention of letting him leave.

"Get back to work," he said quietly. "This is none of your business."

He looked back. The younger of the clerks had his fingers on the keys of his machine. Chen shook his head. "I wouldn't, if I were you . . ."

The man desisted. A moment later the other machine fell silent.

Chen reached out, taking the printout from the tray. A glance at it confirmed what he had suspected. Jyan had been right. At the time of his daughter's death, no less than four of the medical staff had been free. So why hadn't they answered the emergency call? Or rather, who had instructed them to ignore it?

He would visit Surgeon Fan, the senior consultant of the Center—the man who should have come at Wang Ti's summons. He would find him and wring a name from him. Then he would find out who it was and kill them. Whoever they were.

Chen turned, facing the orderlies again. "Did you not hear me, ch'un tju? Go back to work. This does not concern you."

He could see how edgy they were at the sight of his gun. Edgy but determined. They thought they could jump him. Well, they could try. But they were mistaken if they thought sheer determination would triumph over him.

He tucked the gun into its holster, then reached down, taking the long, sharp-edged knife from his boot.

"You want to stop me, is that it? Well, let's see you try, eh? Let's see you try."

MINUTES LATER he was hammering at the door of Fan Tseng-li's apartment, conscious that a Security alert would have been put out already. He could hear movement inside and the babble of voices. Fearful, panicky voices. He called to them, letting his voice fill out with reassurance.

"Security! Open up! I am Lieutenant Tong and I have been assigned to protect you!"

He saw the door camera swivel around and held his pass card up, his thumb obscuring the name. A moment later the door hissed open and he was ushered inside, the three servants smiling at him gratefully.

The smiles froze as he drew his gun.

"Where is he? Where is the weasel-faced little shit?"

"I don't know who you mean," the oldest of them, an ancient with the number two on his chest began, but Chen cuffed him into silence.

"You know very well who I mean. Fan. I want to know where he is, and I want to know now, not in two minutes' time. I'll shoot you first, loo tzu, then you, you little fucker."

The elder—Number Two—looked down, holding his tongue, but beside him the youngest of the three began to babble, fear freeing his tongue wonderfully. Chen listened carefully, noting what he said.

"And he's there now?"

The young man nodded.

"Right." He looked past them at the house comset; a large, ornate machine embellished with dragons. "Has anyone spoken to him yet?"

The young man shook his head, ignoring the ancient's glare.

"Good." Chen stepped past them and fired two shots into the machine. "That's to stop you being tempted. But let me warn you. If I find that he has been tipped off, I will come back for you. So be good, neh? Be extra-specially good."

the HOUSE STEWARD smiled, lowering his head. "If you would wait here, Captain Kao, I shall tell my master . . ."

A straight-arm to the stomach made the man double up, gasping. Chen stepped over him, heading toward the sound of voices, the clink of tumblers.

A servant came toward him, trying to prevent him from entering the dining room. Chen stiff-fingered him in the throat.

He threw the doors open, looking about him, ignoring the startled faces, then he roared ferociously as he spotted Surgeon Fan, there on the far side of the food-heaped table.

Fan Tseng-li stood, staggering back from his chair, his face white, his eyes wide with fear. Others were shouting now, outraged, looking from Chen to Fan, trying to make sense of things. For a moment there was hubbub, then a cold, fearful silence fell.

Chen had drawn his knife.

"Ai ya\" Fan cried hoarsely, looking about him anxiously. "Who is this madman?"

"You know fucking well who I am," Chen snarled, coming around the table. "And I know who you are, Fan Tseng-li. You are the evil bastard who let my unborn daughter die."

Fan's face froze in a rictus of fear, then he began to babble. "You have it wrong. I was detained. A client of mine was ill."

Fan fell silent. Chen was standing only an arm's length from him now, glaring at him, the look of hatred, of sheer disgust, enough to wither the man.

"I know what kind of insect you are, Fan. What I need to know is who paid you to let my daughter die, my wife suffer." He reached out savagely, gripping Fan's hair, then pulled him down onto his knees, the big knife held to his throat. "Who was it, Fan Tseng-li? Tell me."

There was a murmur of protest from around the table, but Chen ignored them. He was looking down into Fan's face, a murderous hatred shaping his lips into a snarl.

"You had better tell me," he said quietly, tightening his grip on Fan's hair, "and you had best do it now, Fan Tseng-li. Unless you want a second mouth below your chin."

Fan grimaced, then met Chen's eyes. "It was Ts'ui Wei. Ts'ui Wei made me do it."

"Ts'ui Wei?" Chen frowned, trying to place the name. "Did he—?"

He stopped, making the connection. Ts'ui Wei. Of course! That was the name of the youth's father. The tall, thin man who had threatened him that time, after he'd had the youth demoted. Chen shuddered. So that was it. That was why his child had died.

He sheathed the knife, then turned, looking about him at the faces gathered around the table. "You heard," he said defiantly. "And now you know what kind of creature your friend Fan Tseng-li is."

Chen looked back down at Fan, then with a savage grunt, brought his face down onto his knee.

He let Fan roll to the side, then walked back around the table, seeing how they cowered from him. At the doorway the servants parted before him, making no attempt to hinder him. They had seen what had happened and understood. Some even bowed their heads as Chen passed, showing him respect. Back in the dining room, however, voices were being raised; angry, indignant voices, calling for something to be done.

HE STOOD there, in the darkness on the far side of the restaurant, looking across. There were seven of them in all, five of them seated at one of the tables near the pay desk, their figures back-lit, their faces dark. The other two sat at nearby tables; big men, their watchfulness as much as their size telling Chen what they were. The five were huddled close, talking.

"You should go," one of them was saying. "There must be relatives you could stay with for a time, Ts'ui Wei. Until this blows over."

Ts'ui Wei leaned toward him aggressively. "I'm not running from that bastard. He had my son sent down. I'll be fucked if he'll threaten me."

"You do as you feel, Ts'ui Wei, but I've heard that Security has been digging through deck records, putting together a file."

Ts'ui leaned back arrogantly. "So? He can't prove anything. All Surgeon Fan has to do is keep his mouth shut."

The fat man bristled. "Fan Tseng-li is the model of discretion. He, at least, is taking my advice and going away until this is all sorted out."

Ts'ui Wei snorted. "That's typical of that self-serving shit! I should never have listened to your sniveling nonsense. We could have hit him. Hit him hard. And not just a fucking unborn child. We could have hurt him bad. The little girl. . ."

Chen looked down, his anger refined to a burning point. They were not expecting him. That gave him the element of surprise. But there were still the bodyguards. He would have to deal with them first.

Standing there, listening to them scheme and plot, he had felt his anger turn to a deep revulsion. For them, but also for himself—for what had he been doing while all this was happening.⁷

He let out a long, slow breath. No. It could never be the same. For wherever he looked he could see the woman stumbling toward him like a broken doll, could hear the sound of the detonation . . .

And the child? He closed his eyes, the pain returning, like an iron band tightening about his chest. It was as if he had killed the child. As if he had pressed a tiny button and . . .

Chen stepped from the darkness. One of the hired men looked up at him as he came closer, then looked away, taking him for what he seemed—a night worker stopped for a bowl of ch'a before retiring. It was what Chen had hoped for.

Three paces from the man, he acted, swinging his fist around in a broad arc that brought it crashing into the man's face, breaking his nose. As he fell back, Chen turned and spun, high-kicking, catching the second man in the chest, even as he was getting up from his chair. At once he followed through, two quick punches felling the man.

Chen turned, facing the men at the table. They had moved back, scattering their chairs. Now they stared at him, wide-eyed with fear.

"Tell me," Chen said quietly, taking a step closer. "My little girl. . . What would you have done, Ts'ui Wei? Tell me what you had planned."

Ashen-faced, Ts'ui Wei tried to back away, but the end wall was directly behind him. He turned his head anxiously, looking for somewhere to run, but his way was blocked on both sides.

Chen lifted the weighted table and threw it aside, then reached down, taking the big hunting knife from his boot. "I have no stomach for a fight, eh, Ts'ui Wei?" Chen laughed coldly, all of the hatred and self-disgust he had been feeling suddenly focused in his forearm, making the big knife quiver in the light.

Ts'ui Wei stared at him a moment longer, his mouth working soundlessly, then he fell to his knees, pressing his head to the floor in front of Chen, his body shaking with fear. "Have mercy," he pleaded. "For the gods' sakes, have mercy!"

Chen took a shuddering breath, remembering how Wang Ti had looked, remembering how it had felt, knowing he had not been there for her—and Jyan, poor Jyan . . . how had it felt for him, knowing he could do nothing? And this . . . this piece of shit. . . wanted mercy?

He raised the knife, his whole body tensed, prepared to strike . . .

"Father! No! Pkase . . ."

He turned, letting the knife fall from his hand. It was Jyan. It was his son, Jyan The boy ran across and threw his arms about him, embracing him, holding hit so tightly that Chen felt something break in him. He began to sob, the wore spilling from him. "Oh, Jyan . . . Jyan . . . I'm so sorry ... I didn't know . didn't know. Was it awful, boy? Was it really awful?"

Jyan clutched his father fiercely, looking up at him, his face wet with tears. "It's all right, Father . . . It's all right now. You're back. You're here now."

He kissed his son's brow, then lifted him up, hugging him tightly. Yes. But it would never be the same.

He turned, looking back into the shadows. Karr was standing there, a troop of his guards behind him. "Are you all right, Kao Chen?"

Chen nodded. "I . . ." He laughed strangely. "I would have killed him."

"Yes," Karr said quietly. "And I would have let you. But Jyan . . . Well, Jyan knew best, neh? After all, you have a life ahead of you, Kao Chen. A good life."

Chen shivered, tightening his grip on his son, then nodded. Karr let his hand rest on Chen's shoulder briefly, then moved past him, taking command of the situation. "All right!" he barked, towering over the frightened men. "Let's get this sorted out, right now! You!—all of you!—against the back wall, hands on your heads! You're under arrest, as principles and accessories to the murder of a child, and for conspiring to pervert the course of justice."

karr sat on the ledge of the stone boat, staring across at the floodlit shape of the Memorial Stone. It was after nine and the lotus lake was dark. Elsewhere, beneath the lamps that lined the narrow pathways, lovers walked, talking softly, keeping a proper distance between them. Behind Karr, seated among the shadows of the teahouse, Chen sat, his head fallen forward, his story told.

For a moment longer Karr sat there, motionless, and then he sighed and shook his head, as if waking from a dark and threatening dream.

"And that is the truth?"

Chen was silent.

Karr closed his eyes, deeply pained. Of course it was the truth. A tale like that— it was not something one made up about oneself. No. But it was not only Chen he felt sorry for. He had liked the woman greatly. Had respected her. If he had known for one moment. . .

He turned and stood, looking back at his friend. "This is wrong, Kao Chen. Very wrong."

Chen looked up and nodded.

"Then what are we to do?"

"Do?" Chen laughed coldly. "What can we do?"

Karr was quiet a moment, fingering the dragon pendant about his neck, then he drew it out, staring at it. He was Chia ch'eng, Honorary Assistant to the Royal Household. By right he could claim audience with his T'ang.

He sat, facing Chen across the table. "I will see Li Yuan. I will tell him everything you told me just now."

"You think he does not know?"

Karr nodded. "I am convinced of it. He is a good man. Someone is keeping these things from him. Well, then, we must be his eyes and ears, neh? We must let him know what is being done in his name."

Chen turned his head. "And Tolonen? He will have the report of my debriefing by the morning. What if he says you are to do nothing?"

Karr looked down. That was true. He was Tolonen's man, and by rights he should talk to the old man first. But some things were greater than such loyalties.

"Then I must do it now."

THE wall had changed. Had become a view of Tai Shan, the sacred mountain misted in the early morning light, the great temple at the summit a tiny patch of red against the blue of the sky, perched atop that mass of gray and green. Within the room a faint breeze blew, spreading the scent of pine and acacia.

Fat Wong turned from the wall, looking back at his guests, then raised his cup. "Brothers. . ."

There were five men seated around the low table, each the equal of Wong Yi-sun, each the Big Boss of one of the great Triads that ran the lowest levels of City Europe. It had cost him much to get them here tonight, but here they were. All of them. Or, at least, all that mattered.

They stared back at him, cold-eyed, returning his smile with their mouths alone, like alligators.

"I am glad you could all come. I realize what sacrifices you have made to come here at such short notice, but when you have heard what I have to say, I know you will agree that I was right to convene this meeting of the Council."

"Where is Iron Mu?"

Wong turned, facing the old man seated at the table's end. "Forgive me, General Feng, but I will come to that."

The Big Boss of the i4K stared back at him humorlessly. "The Council has seven members, Wong Yi-sun, but I see only six about this table. I thought it was agreed. . ."

"Hear Wong out, Feng Shang-pao," the short, shaven-headed man seated two down from Feng said, leaning forward to take a cashew from a bowl. "I am sure all your questions will be answered."

Feng sat back, glaring at his interrupter. "We must have laws among us, Li Chin. Ways of conducting ourselves."

Li Chin—Li the Lidless as he was known, for obvious reasons—turned his bony head and looked at Feng, his overlarge eyes fixing the older man. "I do not dispute it, Feng Shang-pao. But the Wo Shih Wo would like to know what Fat Wong has to say, and unless you let him say it. . ."

Feng looked down, his huge chest rising and falling, then he nodded.

"Good," Wong said. "Then let me explain. This afternoon, I received a letter."

Whiskers Lu, Boss of the Kuei Chuan, leaned forward, the melted mask of his face turned toward Wong, his one good eye glittering. "A letter, Wong Yi-sun?"

"Yes." Wong took the letter from within his silks and threw it down in front of Lu. "But before you open it, let me say a few words."

Wong drew himself up, his eyes moving from face to face. "We of the Hung Mun are proud of our heritage. Rightly so. Since the time of our founding by the five monks of the Fu Chou monastery, we have always settled our disputes amicably. And that is good, neh? After all, it is better to make money than make war." He smiled, then let the smile fade. "This once, however, the threat was too great. Iron Mu sought more than simple profit. He sought to build a power base—a base from which to overthrow this Council. To replace it." He nodded, his face stern. "Let us not hide behind words any longer. Iron Mu sought to destroy us."

Dead Man Yun of the Red Gang cleared his throat. "I hear your words, Wong Yi-sun, but I find them strange. You speak of things we all know, yet you speak of them in the past. Why is this?"

Wong smiled, then turned, going across to the tiny pool. For a moment he stood there, watching the seven golden fish swim lazily in the crystal waters; then with a quicksilver motion, he scooped one up and turned, holding it up for the others to see. For a moment it flapped in the air, then Wong threw it down onto the dry flagstones.

There was a murmur of understanding around the table.

"So Iron Mu is dead. But how?" Three-Finger Ho asked, eyeing Wong warily.

Wong came closer, a trace of self-satisfaction at the corners of his mouth. "I will tell you how. All thirty-seven decks of the Big Circle heartland were hit simultaneously, thirty minutes ago. A force of one hundred and twenty thousand Hei went in, with a backup of fifteen hundred regular guards."

Hei. . . That single word sent a ripple of fear through the seated men. They had seen the Hei in action on their screens, the big GenSyn half-men clearing decks of rioters with a ruthlessness even their most fanatical runners could not match. For a moment they were silent, looking among themselves, wondering what this meant, then Li the Lidless leaned across Whiskers Lu and took the letter. He unfolded it, studying it a moment, then looked up at Wong.

"But what does this mean . . . ?"

Yet even as he said it, he understood. This letter from Li Yuan—this brief note of agreement—changed everything. Never before had one of their number received such a favor from Above. Never before had the Hung Mun worked hand-in-glove with the Seven. He shivered, seeing it clearly now. Today Fat Wong had gained great face. Had reestablished his position as Great Father of the brotherhoods. Li turned his head, looking about him, seeing the look of understanding in every face, then turned back, facing Wong again, lowering his head in a gesture of respect.

THE tapestries were burning. Flames licked the ancient thread, consuming mountain and forest, turning the huntsmen to ashes in the flicker of an eye. The air was dark with smoke, rent with the cries of dying men. Hei ran through the choking darkness, their long swords flashing, their deep-set eyes searching out anything that ran or walked or crawled.

The door to Iron Mu's mansion had been breached ten minutes ago, but still a small group of Mu's elite held out. Hei swarmed at the final barricade, throwing themselves at the barrier without thought of self-preservation. Facing them, Yao Tzu, Red Pole to the Big Circle, urged his men to one last effort. He was bleeding from wounds to the head and chest, but still he fought on, slashing at whatever appeared above the barricade. For a moment longer the great pile held, then with a shudder, it began to slide. There was a bellowing, and then the Hei broke through. Yao Tzu backed away, his knife gone, three of his men falling in the first charge. As the first of the Hei came at him, he leaped forward, screeching shrilly, meeting the brute with a flying kick that shattered the great chest bone of the half-man. Encouraged, his men attacked in a blur of flying feet and fists, but it was not enough. The first wave of Hei went down, but then there was the deafening roar of gunfire as the Hei commander opened up with a big automatic from the top of the collapsed barricade.

There was a moment's silence, smoke swirled, and then they moved on, into the inner sanctum.

His WIVES were dead, his three sons missing. From outside he could hear the screams of his men as they died. It would be only moments before they broke into his rooms. Even so, he could not rush this thing.

Iron Mu had washed and prepared himself. Now he sat, his legs folded under him, his robe open, the ritual knife before him on the mat. Behind him his servant waited, the specially sharpened sword raised, ready for the final stroke.

He leaned forward, taking the knife, then turned it, holding the needle-sharp point toward his naked stomach. His head was strangely clear, his thoughts lucid. It was the merchant Novacek who had done this. It had to be. No one else had known enough. Even so, it did not matter. He would die well. That was all that was important now.

As he tensed, the door shuddered, then fell open, the great locks smashed. Two Hei stood there, panting, looking in at him. They started to enter, but a voice called them back. A moment later a man stepped through, a small, neat-looking Han wearing the powder-blue uniform and chest patch of a Colonel. A filter-mask covered his lower face.

Iron Mu met the Colonel's eyes, holding them defiantly. In this, his last moment, he felt no fear, no regret, only a clarity of purpose that was close to the sublime.

Nothing, not even the watching Hei, could distract him now.

A breath, a second, longer breath, and then . . .

The Colonel's eyes dilated, his jaw tensed, and then he turned away, letting his Hei finish in the room. He shivered, impressed despite himself, feeling a new respect for the man. Iron Mu had died well. Very well. Even so, it could not be known how Iron Mu had died. No. The story would be put out that he had cried and begged for mercy, hiding behind his wives. Because that was what the T'ing Wei wanted. And what the T'ing Wei wanted, they got.

Yes, but while he lived, Iron Mu's death would live in his memory. And one day, when the T'ing Wei were no more, perhaps he would tell his story. Of how one of the great lords of the underworld had died, with dignity, meeting the darkness without fear.

FAT WONG STOOD by the door, bringing things to a close, thanking his fellow Bosses for coming. And as they left, he made each stoop and kiss the ancient banner, reaffirming the ancient tradition that bound them, and acknowledging that he, Wong Yi-sun, 489 of the United Bamboo, was still the biggest, fattest worm of all.

It should have been enough. Yet when they were gone it was not elation he felt but a sudden sense of hollowness. This victory was not his. Not really his. It was like something bought.

He went across and stood there over the tiny pool, staring down into the water, trying to see things clearly. For a moment he was still, as if meditating, then, taking the letter from his pocket, he tore it slowly in half and then in half again, letting it fall. No. He would be beholden to no man, not even a Son of Heaven. He saw it now. Saw it with opened eyes. Why had Li Yuan agreed to act, if not out of fear? And if that were so ...

He took a long, deep breath; then drawing back his sleeve reached in, plucking the fish from the water until five of the bloated golden creatures lay there on the ledge, flapping helplessly in the hostile air.

His way was clear. He must unite the underworld. Must destroy his brothers one by one, until only he remained. And then, when that was done, he would lift his head again and stare into the light.

He looked down, watching the dying gasps of the fish, then turned away, smiling. No. His way was clear. He would not rest now until it was his. Until he had it all.

LI YUAN STOOD on the terrace, beneath the bright full circle of the moon, looking out across the palace grounds, conscious of how quiet, how empty the palace seemed at this late hour. No gardeners knelt in the dark, earth beneath the trellises of the lower garden, no maids walked the dark and narrow path that led to the palace laundry. He turned, looking toward the stable. There a single lamp threw its pale amber light across the empty exercise circle.

He shivered and looked up at the moon, staring at that great white stone a while, thinking of what Karr had said.

Standing there in the wavering lamplight, listening to the big man's account, he had been deeply moved. He had not known—had genuinely not known—what was being done at Kibwezi and, touched by the rawness of the man's appeal, he had given his promise to close Kibwezi and review the treatment of convicted terrorists.

He had returned to the reception, distracted by Karr's words, disturbed by the questions they raised. And as he went among his cousins, smiling, offering bland politeness, it had seemed, suddenly, a great pretense, a nothingness, like walking in a hall of holograms. The more he smiled and talked, the more he felt the weight of Karr's words bearing down on him.

But now, at last, he could face the matter squarely, beneath the unseeing eye of the moon.

Until this moment he had denied that there was a moral problem with the Wiring Project. Had argued that it was merely a question of attitude. But there was a problem, for—as Tolonen had argued from the first—freedom was no illusion, and even the freedom to rebel ought—no needed—to be preserved somehow, if only for the sake of balance.

Were it simply a matter of philosophy—of words—it might have been all right. But it was not. The population problem was real. It could not be simply wished away.

He looked down, staring at his hands—at the great iron ring on the first finger of his right hand. For men such as Kao Chen, a common phrase like "We are our masters' hands" had a far greater literal truth than he had ever imagined. And a far greater significance. For what was a man? Was he a choosing being, forging his own destiny, or was he simply a piece on the board, there to be played by another, greater than himself?

And maybe that was what had troubled him, more than the fate of the woman. That deeper question of choice.

He turned, looking back into his room, seeing Minister Heng's report there on the desk where he had left it.

It was a full report on the "police action" against the Big Circle Triad; a report that differed quite radically from the Ting Wei's official account. He sighed, the deep unease he had felt at reading the report returning. The Het riot squads had gone mad down there. More than two hundred thousand had been killed, includ-ing many women and children.

Yes, and that was another argument in favor of wiring. If only to prevent such massacres, "necessary" as this one might have been.

He turned back, standing there a moment, his eyes closed, feeling the cool night breeze on his face. Then, stirring himself, he went out onto the terrace once more.

The moon was high. He looked up at it, surprised, his perception of it suddenly reversed, such that it seemed to bum like a vast shining hole in the blackness of the sky. A big circle of death. He shivered violently and looked down, noting how its light silvered the gardens like a fall of dust.

Before today he had striven always to do the right thing, to be a good man—the benevolent ruler that Confucius bade him be—but now he saw it clearly. In this there was no right course of action, no pure solution, only degrees of wrongness.

And so he would make the hard choice. He would keep his word to Karr, of course. Kibwezi Station would be closed. As for the other thing, he had no choice. No real choice, anyway. The Wiring Project had to continue, and so it would, elsewhere, hidden from prying eyes. Until the job was done, the system perfected.

He sighed, turning his back on the darkness, returning inside. Yes. Because the time was fast coming when it would be needed.

broken glass littered the terrace outside the guardhouse, glistening like frosted leaves in the moonlight. Nearby, the first of the bodies lay like a discarded doll, its face a pulp, the ragged tunic of its uniform soaked with blood. Through the empty window a second body could be seen, slumped forward in a chair, its head twisted at an unusual angle, the unblemished face staring vacantly at a broken screen.

Behind it, on the far side of the room, a door led through. There, on a bed in the rest room, the last of the bodies lay, naked and broken, its eyes bulging from its face, its tongue poking obscenely from between its teeth.

At the end of the unlit corridor, in the still silence of the signal room, the morph stood at the transmitter, its neutered body naked in the half-light. To one side, a hand lay on the desk like a stranded crab, the fingers upturned.

The morph tensed, the severed wrist of its left hand pressed against the input socket, the delicate wires seeking their counterparts, making their connections to the board, then it relaxed, a soft amber light glowing on the eye-level panel in front of it. There was a moment's stillness and then a faint tremor ran through the creature. At the count of twelve it stopped, as abruptly as it had begun. The message had been sent.

It waited, the minutes passing slowly, its stillness unnatural, like the stillness of a machine, and then the answer came.

It shuddered, then broke connection, drawing its wrist back sharply from the panel, a strange sigh, like the soughing of the wind through trees, escaping its narrow lips.

Reaching across, it took the hand from where it lay and lined it up carefully against the wrist, letting the twelve strong plastic latches—six in the hand, six in the wrist—click into place. The hand twitched, the fingers trembling, then was still again.

It turned, looking out through the dark square of the window. Fifty ch'i away, at the edge of the concrete apron, was a wire fence. Beyond the fence was the forest. For a time it stood there, staring out into the darkness, then it turned, making its way through.

For the past few nights it had dreamed. Dreams of a black wind blowing from beyond; of a dark and silent pressure at the back of it. A dream that was like the rush of knowledge down its spine; that set its nerve ends tingling in a sudden ecstasy. And with the dream had come a vision—a bright, hard vision of a world beneath the surface of this world. Of a world ruled by the game. A game of dark and light. Of suns and moons. Of space and time itself. A game that tore the dark veil from reality, revealing the whiteness of the bone.

On the terrace it stopped again, considering. From Tao Yuan to Tashkent was six thousand li. If it traveled in the dark it could make eighty, maybe a hundred li a night for the first ten days or so. Later on, crossing the great desert, it could increase that, traveling in the heat of the day, when no patrols flew. With any luck it would be there in fifty days.

It smiled, recalling DeVore's instructions. In Tashkent it would be met and given new papers. From there it would fly west, first to Odessa, then on to Nantes. From Nantes it would take a ship—one of the big ships that serviced the great floating cities of the Midatlantic. There it would stay a while, biding its time, working for the big ImmVac company of North America, putting down roots inside that organization, until the call came.

For a moment longer it stood there, like a silvered god, tall, powerful, elegant in the moonlight, then it jumped down, crossing the circle of light quickly, making for the fence and the darkness beyond.

DEVORE LOOKED UP from the communications panel and stared out into the darkness of the Martian night. It was just after two, local time, and the lights of the distant city were low. Beyond them was a wall of darkness.

He stood, yawning, ready for sleep now that the message had come, then turned, looking across at the sleeping man.

Hans Ebert lay on the camp bed, fully clothed, his kit bag on the floor beside him. He had turned up four days earlier, scared, desperate for help, and had ended here, "rescued" by DeVore from the Governor's cells.

DeVore went across and stood there over the sleeping man, looking down at him. Ebert looked ill, haggard from exhaustion. He had lost a lot of weight and— from the smell of him—had had to rough it in ways he had never experienced before. His body had suffered, but his face was still familiar enough to be recognized anywhere in the system.

Well, maybe that was a problem, and maybe it wasn't. A familiar face might prove advantageous in the days to come. Especially when behind that face was a young prince, burning with ambition and eager for revenge. And that was why— despite the obvious dangers—he had taken Ebert in. Knowing that what was discarded now might prove extremely useful later on.

He bent down, drawing the blanket up over Ebert's chest, then turned away, looking outward, conscious once more of the guards patrolling the frosted perimeter, the great, blue-white circle of Chung Kuo high above them in the Martian sky.

CHEN crouched there on the mountainside, looking down the valley to where the dark, steep slopes ended in a flat-topped arrowhead of whiteness. It was like a vast wall, a dam two li in height, plugging the end of the valley, its surface a faintly opalescent pearl, lit from within. Ch'eng it was. City and wall.

The moon was high. Was a perfect circle of whiteness in the velvet dark. Chen stared at it a moment, mesmerized, held by its brilliant, unseeing eye, then looked down, his fingers searching amongst the ashes.

He turned, looking across at Karr, then lifted the shard of broken glass, turning it in his hand, remembering.

"What is this place?" Karr asked, coming closer, his face cloaked in shadow.

Chen stared at him a while, then looked away.

"This is where it began. Here on the mountainside with Kao Jyan. We lit a fire, just there, where you're standing now. And Jyan . . . Jyan brought a bottle and two glasses. I remember watching him."

A faint breeze stirred dust and ash about his feet, carrying the scent of the Wilds.

He stood, then turned, looking north. There, not far from where they stood, the City began, filling the great northern plain of Europe. Earlier, flying over it, they had seen the rebuilt Imperial Solarium, which he had helped bomb a dozen years before. Chen took a long breath, then turned back, looking at the big man.

"Did you bring the razor, as I asked?"

Karr stared at him fixedly a moment, then took the fine blade from his tunic. "What did you want it for?"

Chen met his eyes. "Nothing stupid, I promise you."

Karr hesitated a moment longer, then handed him the razor. Chen stared at it a moment, turning it in the moonlight, then tested it with the edge of his thumb. Satisfied, he crouched again, and, taking his queue in the other hand, cut the strong dark hair close to the roots.

"Kao Chen He looked up at the big man, then, saying nothing, continued with the task. Finished, he stood again, offering Karr the blade, his free hand tracing the shape of his skull, feeling the fine stubble there. Karr took the razor, studying his friend. In the moonlight, Chen's face had the blunt, anonymous look of a thousand generations of Han peasants. The kind of face one saw everywhere below. A simple, nondescript face. Until one met the eyes . . .

"Why are we here, my friend? What are we looking for?"

Chen turned, looking about him, taking in everything: the mountains, the sky, the great City, stretched out like a vast glacier under the brilliant moon. It was the same. Twelve years had done little to change this scene. And yet it was quite different. Was, in the way he saw it, utterly transformed. Back then he had known nothing but the Net. Had looked at this scene with eyes that saw only the surfaces of things. But now he could see right through. Through to the bone itself.

He nodded slowly, understanding now why he had had to come here. Why he had asked Karr to divert the craft south and fly into the foothills of the Alps. Sometimes one had to go back—right back—to understand.

He shivered, surprised by the strength of the returning memory. It was strange how clearly he could see it, even now, after almost thirty years. Yes, he could picture quite vividly the old Master who had trained him to be kwai; a tall, willowy old Han with a long, expressionless face and a wispy beard and who always wore red. Old Shang, they had called him. Five of them, there had been, from Chi Su, the eldest, a broad-shouldered sixteen-year-old, down to himself, a thin-limbed, ugly little boy of six. An orphan, taken in by Shang.

For the next twelve years Old Shang's apartment had been his home. He had shared the kang with two others, his sleeping roll put away at sixth bell and taken out again at midnight. And in between, a long day of work; harder work than he had ever known, before or since. He sighed. It was strange how he had hidden it from himself all these years, as if it had never been. And yet it had formed him, as surely as the tree is formed from the seed. Shang's words, Shang's gestures had become his own. So it was in this world. So it had to be. For without that a man was shapeless, formless, fit only to wallow in the fetid darkness of the Clay.

He turned, meeting Karr's eyes. "He had clever hands. I watched him from where you're standing now. Saw how he looked into his glass, like this, watching the flames flicker and curl like tiny snakes in the darkness of his wine. At the time I didn't understand what it was he saw there. But now I do."

Karr looked down. It was Kao Jyan he was talking about. Kao Jyan, his fellow assassin that night twelve years ago.

"A message came," he offered. "From Tolonen."

Chen was still looking back at him, but it was as' if he were suddenly somewhere else, as if, for that brief moment, his eyes saw things that Karr was blind to.

"He confirms that Li Yuan has ordered the closure of Kibwezi."

"Ah . . ." Chen lowered his eyes.

Karr was silent a moment, watching his friend, trying to understand, to empathize with what he was feeling, but for once it was hard. He crouched, one hand sifting the dust distractedly. "Your friend, Kao Jyan . . . what did he see?"

Chen gave a small laugh, as if surprised that the big man didn't know, then looked away again, smoothing his hand over the naked shape of his skull.

"Change," he said softly, a tiny tremor passing through him. "And flames. Flames dancing in a glass."