White Moon, Red Dragon

Open wide the door of heaven! On a black cloud I ride in splendor, Bidding the whirlwind drive before me, Causing the rainstorm to lay the dust.

—Ta Ssu Ming, "The Greater Master of Fate," from the Chiu Ko, the "Nine Songs" by Ch'u Yuan, second century B.C.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,

Shade more than man, more image than a shade;

For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth

May unwind the winding path;

A mouth that has no moisture and no breath

Breathless mouths may summon;

I hail the superhuman;

I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

—William Butler Yeats, from Byzantium, A.D. 1930

PROLOGUE WINTER 2215

Forgotten Words

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

CHUANO tzu, Writings, xxvi, II, sixth century b.c.

EBERT STOOD on the lip of the crater, looking across the ruined city toward the distant sun. It was early morning and a rime of frost covered the iron-red rocks, making them glisten. Below him, in the deep shadow, he could discern the twisted shapes of the struts that had once curved half a li into the air, supporting the dome of the greatest of Mars' nineteen cities.

He crouched, placing a gloved hand on a nearby rock, conscious of the sound of his own breathing inside the helmet. Behind him, five paces back, the woman and the boy waited silently.

It was here that the dream had ended, gone in a single night, burned up in a violent conflagration that had taken the lives of more than twenty million people. Dust they were. Dead, like the planet that had never been their home, only a prison, a resting place between two darknesses.

He shivered, understanding. The chain had been broken here, the links scattered. That was the message the great Kan Jiang had offered in his poems. Mars was not the future, Mars was a dead end, a cosmic cul-de-sac. If they tried for a million years Man would never make a home of this place. No, they had to go back, back to Earth—to Chung Kuo. Only then could they move on. Only then might there be a future.

And the Osu? Did they have a future?

He turned, looking back. The woman was watching him, her face behind the thick glass of the helmet like carved ebony. Beside her, resting in the crook of her arm, the boy looked into the distance, dreaming as usual, his eyes far off.

Ebert smiled. It was a year ago that he had first met her, in one of the northern settlements. In his desire to become a sage he had renounced the flesh, holding that darker part of himself in abeyance, yet, when she had come to him that night, his body had remembered. She had been with him ever since.

It was as Tuan Ti Fo had said—desire took many forms, and sometimes renunciation itself could be a kind of desire. Best then to be at peace with oneself; to have and not to want. He stood, putting out a hand to her.

"Come."

Then, turning back toward the setting sun, he began to make his way down into the darkness.

HE WOKE IN DARKNESS, the nightmare still close—so close, it seemed he might reach out and touch it.

Yes, he could sense it, there behind the night's dark skin, the pulse of it still warm, still real. For a moment longer it was there, and then he felt it slip from him, leaving him gasping on the cold, bare floor of the tent, emptied by the vision.

The woman lay beside him sleeping, her breathing soft, almost inaudible. From outside the muffled sound of the air vent's hiss was like the noise the wind makes in the southern deserts during the season of storms. Here, at the bottom of the crater, one of the old air-generators was still partly operational, spewing pure oxygen from a single vent.

He went out, sealing the tent flap after him. It was an hour until dawn and the darkness was intense. From where he stood the sky was a ragged circle framed by the black of the crater walls, seven stars, shaped like a scythe, blazing in the center.

He climbed, following the path through the twisted ruins from memory. On the lip he paused, turning to look back across the crater's mouth. The blackness beneath him was perfect. To the east, on the horizon, was the tiny blue-white circle of Chung Kuo.

He shivered, remembering the nightmare. He had had it before, many times, but this time it had seemed real.

He looked down at his right hand, flexing the fingers in the glove, surprised to find it whole. Two of them—his father's men—had held him while another splayed his fingers on the slab. He had struggled, but it was no use. There'd been a flash of silver, then he felt the thick-edged blade slice through the sinewy joint of the knuckle—his nerves singing pain, his hot blood pumping into the air. He had heard his own high scream and scuttled like a ghost from out his flesh. There, usually, it ended—there, thankfully, he had always woken—but this time it went on. He had felt his spirit turn, away from the tormented shrieks, following a servant who, bloody bowl in hand, made his way through flickering corridors of stone toward a bright-lit chamber.

There, at the operating bench, stood his father, cold mouthed, dead these eight years, his work apron tied neatly about his massive chest. His dead eyes watched as the servant brought the bowl. He took it, spilling its bloodied contents onto the scrubbed white surface.

The old man's mouth had opened like a cave, words tumbling forth like windblown autumn leaves, dust-brown and crumbling.

"The design was wrong. I must begin again. I must make my son anew."

There had been laughter, a cold, ironic laughter. He had turned to see his mother looking on, her ice-blue eyes dismissive.

"Zombies," she said, reaching past her dead husband to lift the severed finger from the bowl. "That's all you've ever made. Dead flesh. It's all dead flesh."

She let the finger fall, a chilling indifference in her face, then turned and left the room.

No warmth in her, he thought. The woman had no warmth. . . .

Setting the bowl aside, his father had taken the finger, stretching and molding it until the figure of a man lay on the bench before him.

Hans had stepped forward, looking down into the unformed face, willing it not to happen, but the dream was ineluctable. Slowly the features formed, like mountain ranges rising from the primal earth, until the mirror image of his face stared back at him . . . and sneered.

He jerked his head back, gasping.

"Efulefu . . ."

He swallowed back his fear, then answered the voice that had come up from the darkness. "What is it, Hama?"

Her figure threaded its way up through the shadows just below. "Are you all right, husband? I thought I heard you groan."

"It is nothing, Hama, only tiredness."

She came to him, reaching out to take his hands. "The boy is sleeping still."

"Good." He smiled, enjoying the sight of her face in the starlight, the dream defeated by the reality of her. "I was thinking, Hama. We must call a gathering."

"A gathering? Of the ndichie?"

He shook his head. "No, Hama. Of everyone. Of Elders, Tribes, and Settlers." He gazed past her at the distant earth, noting how small, how fragile, it seemed in all that emptiness. "It is time we decided what to do. Time we chose a path for all to follow."

THE MACHINE BLINKED, then looked again. One moment there had been nothing, and the next . . .

"Tuan Ti Fo? Do you see what I see?"

The air before the Machine shimmered and took form. Tuan Ti Fo sat cross-legged before the open console, bowing his gray-haired head in greeting. "What is it that you see?"

"I see"—the Machine strained, staring into the intense darkness, using all its powers to try to penetrate that single spot where it was blind—"I see ... nothing."

Tuan Ti Fo chuckled softly. "You see nothing? Then, surely, there is nothing."

"No. Something landed on the surface of the planet north of Kang Kua. I can sense it. It is there. Its very absence reveals it, and yet it conceals itself."

The old man tugged at his beard thoughtfully. "And your camera probes?"

"Cannot penetrate it. It's as if there is a shell surrounding it. A shell of—it hesitated, a hesitation that in a man might seem normal, yet in the great Machine revealed the existence of billions of rapid calculations—"something unknown," it concluded, a strange hesitancy in its normally toneless voice.

Tuan Ti Fo stared at the console a moment, then nodded. His mood was suddenly more sober. "I see."

The Machine fell silent. It was thinking. For more than five million years Mankind had striven upward out of the primal dark toward the light, and from that quest had come Itself, the ultimate flowering of mind: one single, all-encompassing intelligence.

Intelligent, yet incomplete. Within its mind it pictured the great swirl of things known and unknown, like a vast t'ai chi of light and dark, perfectly balanced. Within that half which was light was a tiny circle of blackness—a pinpoint of occlusion, which it knew to be Tuan Ti Fo. And now, within the darkness of those things unknown, lay a single point of light.

"If it's a craft," Tuan Ti Fo said, "then it must have come from somewhere."

"But there's no trace," the Machine began, then checked itself, realizing that, like the absence that revealed something, there was a line of occlusion through its memory; an area of tampering—a no-trace that paradoxically revealed the passage of the craft.

"It came in from the System's edge. From the tenth planet."

Yet even as it spoke, it questioned that.

"Something alien?" Tuan Ti Fo asked.

It considered the notion, surprised that for once it was dealing in uncertainties.

"No . . ."

"But you have a hunch?"

"A calculated guess."

"Then you had best send someone."

"Send someone?"

Tuan Tl Fo laughed, then stood, brushing down his silks. "Why, to look, of course." He turned, his figure shimmering, slowly vanishing into the air, his words echoing after he had gone. "Send the boy. He'll see. Whatever it is."

"Nza?"

The voice came from the air. At its sound the boy turned sharply, his body crouched defensively, then he saw the tiny, glittering probe hovering like a silver insect in the air above his head.

"What is it?" he asked, keeping the fear from his voice.

"Where is Ebert?"

The ten-year-old turned, pointing back into the shadows. The probe moved past him, drifting into the darkness—a moment later it returned.

"Come," it said, hovering just above his head, no bigger than his fist, its surface smooth and rounded like a tiny shaven skull. Nza shivered and then obeyed.

THE machine W A T C H E D the boy approach the nullity; saw hkn Put out his hand, then withdraw it as if he'd been stung.

"Can you feel anything?" it asked, the sensation of curiosity almost overwhelming.

The boy nodded, then put out his hand, tracing what seemed like a smooth, curving slope in the air. But still it could see nothing, sense nothing.

It watched the boy move slowly around, testing the air with his hands, defining more accurately the area of nothingness the Machine's probes had sensed.

Nza turned, his eyes wide.

"What is it?" it asked. "Did you see anything?"

Nza shook his head. "Efulefu . . . Get Efulefu."

IT WAS LIGHT when Ebert got there. He crouched some fifty ch'i from the unseen presence, perfectly at rest, watching the shadows shorten as the sun climbed the sky. The wind blew fitfully, and when it did he noted the patterns the sand made around the nullity.

After two hours he stood and motioned to the boy. Nza went to him and stood there, looking up at him as he mouthed something through the glass of his helmet. It was cold, bitterly cold, and already two of the Machine's six probes had ceased functioning, but Ebert seemed unaware of it.

The cold. It would kill them all one day. Machine and men alike.

Nza stared a moment longer, then nodded and, with that curious loping run of his, scuttled across to the nearest of the probes.

"What is it?" the Machine asked, but the boy shook his head and pointed to his mouth. It watched, reading the boy's lips.

There's something there. He senses it. He thinks it watches us and listens. And something else.

It waited as the boy ordered his thoughts, recalling what Ebert had told him.

He says . . . when he closes his eyes ... he sees a face. An old, familiar face.

It knew, even before the boy's mouth stretched twice to form the word. So he was back. DeVore was back on Mars.

DEVORE STOOD AT the view window, looking out across the windblown surface toward the crouching figure, then turned to the monitor again. Ebert's face filled the screen, his eyes behind the helmet's glass a deep reposeful blue.

So you survived, old friend. And now you consort with those ugly sons of the night. Well, stranger things have been known.

He laughed softly, then clicked his fingers, summoning one of his guards.

"Find out how it's going. We've been here too long as it is. I want us gone by nightfall."

The soldier bowed low and backed away. DeVore turned back to the screen, pushing out his chin reflexively. Hans Ebert had been but a child when he'd first met him. A spoiled and willful child. But now, looking at him, studying him, he saw how much he had changed. It was there in his eyes, in the perfect stillness of the man.

Impressive, he thought. But also dangerous. Hans Ebert was no friend of his — he understood that now. At any other time he'd stop to kill this exiled prince, but right now it was more important to get back to Chung Kuo as quickly — and as discreetly — as possible.

He cursed silently, angry that they had had to set down and determined that, once repairs were effected, he'd kill that bastard Hooper himself. As an example to the others.

He crossed the room and tapped into the craft's log. Things were getting slack. Already they had lost two days. As it was, even a week's delay wouldn't affect their cargo, but any longer . . .

He cleared the screen. That would be one advantage of getting back to Chung Kuo. For too long now he'd had to rely on the services of second-raters. Once back he could dispense with them and hire some better men.

DeVore smiled. He would enjoy that day. It would be a day of rewards. A day when all these second-rate fellows would find themselves grinning.

Grinning bone-white before the wind.

There was a sound in the doorway. He turned, noting the guard there.

"Well?"

"Nine hours, Master Hooper says."

"Good." He waved the man away, then went to the window again. Ebert had not moved. He seemed rooted there, part of the dust of Mars.

"I shall come back for you, Hans Ebert," he said quietly. "Once other wars are fought and won. And then . . ." He laughed, then turned away, imagining the sight. And then I'll see you dance on a gibbet like the commonest lowlife there ever was.

LATE IN THE DAY he felt it go. There was a change in the air, a lessening of the pressure, and then . . . nothing.

"It's gone," Ebert said, getting up, his limbs stiff from inactivity and cold.

"1 know," Tuan Ti Fo said, appearing beside him. "I felt its passage in the air."

"Where has it gone?"

"Inward. Back to Chung Kuo."

Ebert nodded. "We must call a gathering. Tonight."

"It is done."

"Ah." Ebert smiled. "And my intentions? You know those too?" Tuan Ti Fo's laughter was light, infectious. "You mistake me, Tsou Tsai Hei. The woman, Hama, spoke to me."

He stared at the old sage, surprised. "You speak with her?"

"Sometimes."

"Is there anything you do not know, Master Tuan?"

Tuan's eyes, normally so calm, so clear, for once looked away, troubled. "Many things. But only one that bothers me. I do not know what that man wants."

"DeVore, you mean?"

Tuan Ti Fo nodded. "This world—this reality—it is like a game to him. He plays his stone and then awaits an answer. Why, the King of Hell is but an apprentice beside him. He has made malice into an art. Some days I think the man is old. Older than the frame of flesh he wears."

"Older than you, Master Tuan?"

Tuan laughed. "Don't mock my gray beard, Worthless One. Time will find you too."

"Of course. But tell me, Master Tuan, what do you mean?" "Only this. That I come to think the true nature of the man has been masked from us. DeVore . . . what is he? Is he a mortal man? An orphan, raised to high office in the T'ang's Security forces? Or was that, too, merely a guise? A mask of flesh put on to fool mere human eyes? Copies . . . Think of it, Hans. Why does the man love copies so? He duplicates himself and sends his copies out to do his bidding. Now, is that self-love or some far deeper game?" . ••., ..... -;.-.,-.•.-,..

Hans considered a moment, then shrugged. "Why did the Machine not destroy his craft while it was here?"

"Destroy it? How? How can one destroy what is not there?"

He laughed. "Something was there. I sensed it. With my eyes closed I could see it."

"Maybe. But what I said still goes. It was not there. It was . . . folded in somehow: a negative twist of nothingness. The Machine has a theory about it. It thinks the craft exists within a probability space quite near to our own, the atoms of which have been . . . vibrated, like a plucked string."

"There but not there."

"Like your dream."

Hans stared at the old man, startled. "I told Hama nothing of the dream."

"I was there but not there."

"And you?" Ebert asked, passing his hand slowly through the old man's chest as his silk-cloaked figure shimmered into nothingness again. "Are you here, or are you 'folded in'?"

THEY GATHERED AT the long day's end, as the last light of the sun bled from the horizon and the red became black. Hans Ebert, once heir to the great GenSyn Corporation of Chung Kuo, traitor to his T'ang and patricide, known also as Efulefu, "the Worthless One" and Tsou Tsai Hei, "The Walker in the Darkness," climbed up onto the table rock and turned to face the thousands who had come.

He looked about him, noting who was there. Just below him were the ndichie, the elders of the Osu, their white curls hidden within the tall domes of their helmets. Beyond them, standing in loose family groups, were members of all the northern tribes, sons and daughters of Mother Sky. To his right, forming a tight knot beside the escarpment, were two or three hundred of the new settlers. They looked on suspiciously, clearly ill at ease, disturbed to see so many of the tribes gathered there. Hans wondered what arguments Old Tuan had used to bring them out so late and so far from their settlement.

He raised a hand, then spoke, his voice carrying from his lip mike to the helmets of everyone there.

"Brothers, sisters, friends, respected elders, I thank you all for coming. You have been patient, very patient, with me. Twice Mars has circled the sun and still I brought no answer. But finally 1 see what must be done."

"Speak, Efulefu," one of the ndichie called, speaking for them all.

"Tell us what you see."

"I see a time when the supply ships no longer come. When Chung Kuo no longer looks to Mars with caring eyes." "What of it?" someone called.

"We do not need their food, their medicines," another, deeper voice shouted from farther back. "Let the ships stop. It makes no difference!" "That's right!" another yelled. "We want nothing from them!" "No?" Ebert shrugged. "When a father forgets his son . . . when he casts him off, is that nothing? When a mother casts her unwanted child into a stream, to sink or swim, is that nothing? When a great thread is cut, is that nothing?"

He moved forward until he stood on the very edge of the great rock, then leaned toward them. "The poet Kang Jiang was right. This planet isn't home, it's exile. There is no life for us here, only the certainty of eventual extinction. Not now, perhaps, not for a thousand years, but one day. One day no human eye will wake to see this world. One day only our dust will blow about the circle of this place." "It is fate."

Ebert looked down at the elder who had spoken. "Fate, Jaga?"

The old man lifted his hands in a gesture of emptiness. "What can we do, Efulefu? There is nowhere else for us. We were cast off two centuries ago. To be Osu . . . why, it is to live in exile."

"Maybe that was so," Ebert answered, more gently than before. "But now that must end. We must build a ship."

"A ship!" The surprised words echoed back from all sides. Ebert nodded. "That is so. Oh, not a huge thing. Nothing that is beyond our means."

There was a furious murmuring. Ebert waited, then raised his hand again. Slowly the noise subsided.

"We must go back ... a few of us . . . and claim a place."

"They would kill us!" someone yelled.

"They will kill you," the elder, Jaga, said, pointing a gloved hand at his chest.

"Maybe. Yet we must try. A ship. First off we need a ship. And then men. Eight volunteers. Eight men of honor . . . eight black-faced heroes to offer to Li Yuan."

He laughed, seeing it clearly now, recalling the day twelve years before when the two gifts of stones had been given to the young prince on his betrothal day.

"It has been foreseen. One has gone on before us. And we must follow. For if we fail, all fails."

He stepped back, hearing the great murmur of debate begin, his own part in it done.

Yes, and it was true what he had said: DeVore had gone on before them to place a great white stone upon the board. But he would follow hard upon his heels—he and his eight black stones.

The game . . . The game had begun again.

He looked down, flexing his ring finger within the glove, remembering the moment in the dream. It was time to be rejoined. Time to play his proper role in things. He knew it now. Knew it with a clarity that filled him. His exile was coming to an end. It was time to return. Time to emerge into the light again.

PART 1 SPRING 2216

Song of the Bronze Statue

Gone that emperor of Maoling,

Rider through the autumn wind,

Whose horse neighs at night

And has passed without trace by dawn.

The fragrance of autumn lingers still

On those cassia trees by painted galleries,

But on every palace hall the green moss grows.

As Wei's envoy sets out to drive a thousand li

The keen wind at the East Gate stings the statue's eyes. . . .

From the ruined palace he brings nothing forth

But the moonshaped disc of Han,

True to his lord, he sheds leaden tears,

And withered orchids by the Xianyang Road

See the traveler on his way.

Ah, if Heaven had a feeling heart, it, too, must grow old!

He bears the disc off alone

By the light of a desolate moon,

The town far behind him, muted its lapping waves.

—Li he, "Song of the Bronze Statue," ninth century A.D.

CHAPTER ONE

In Heaven's Sight

COLONEL KARR crouched in the tunnel behind his lieutenant, the light from the flatscreen on the man's back casting a pale glow over his face and chest. His helmet hung loosely about his neck, his gun—a heavy automatic with twin clips—rested against the wall. Beyond him, squatting to either side of the unlit tunnel, a thousand men waited.

It was the four hundred and nineteenth day of the siege, and still there was no sign that Tunis would fall. Not this •year, Karr thought, amazed by its resilience, by the sheer stubbornness of its defenders.

The image on the screen was a familiar one. It showed Tunis from a distance, sitting like a giant mile-tall rock upon the plain, the sea beyond it: an imposing block of part-melted ice, its surface dark, like rough pitch. They had cleared the surrounding stacks long ago with ice-destroying chemicals, but the defenders had coated the rest with a special diamond-tough bonding: a bonding that seemed to resist all but their most destructive weapons. Close up it had a blistered, burned appearance, like the toughened hide of some deep-sea creature.

They had spent the best part of a year chipping away at it, to little real effect. And what inroads they made were generally short lived. Nor had their blockade—the keystone of Rheinhardt's plan—been totally effective. Ting Ju-ch'ang, the local Warlord, had the backing of the Mountain Lords, and despite Karr's best efforts, their ships had managed many times to slip through and supply the City-fortress.

Even so, things had to be bad inside. The defending force was more than three million strong. Add to that a further fifty million—all of them crammed into a space designed for a tenth their number—and it took no genius to imagine the problems they faced. If rumors were true, they were eating one another in there.

The thought made Karr shudder; made him question once again the sense of Rheinhardt's strategy. There had been a good reason for hitting Tunis. For a long time Ting Ju-ch'ang—as front man for the Mountain Lords—had used Tunis as a base from which to attack the southern coast of Li Yuan's City, and there was no question they had needed to do something about it. That said, there had been no need to capture it. As Karr had argued several times in Rheinhardt's presence, they had merely to contain Ting's activities. To capture a well-defended City was—as he knew from experience—almost an impossibility, especially when, as here, he found himself in hostile territory, outnumbered, his supply lines stretched, and harried at his back all the time.

The truth was Rheinhardt knew they couldn't win, yet he'd become obsessed with it. To withdraw would be a severe loss of face. After all, he had promised Li Yuan he would take it, and to go back on that promise was—for him—unthinkable.

And so here we are, Karr thought, crouched in a tunnel beneath the City, waiting for the signal to attack. While back in City Europe a far greater threat to our security grows and grows, like a fat white grub, feeding upon its fellow grubs.

Lehmann. Lehmann was the problem, not Ting Ju-ch'ang. Karr stretched his neck, then turned, smiling at the men closest to him reassuringly. He glanced down at the timer inset into his wrist, then raised his hand. It was almost time.

He heard the whisper go back into the darkness, then turned back, feeling the familiar tension in his guts. Up ahead his teams were in position. In less than a minute, as his cruisers mounted a diversionary missile attack on the western gate, they would begin.

He lifted his helmet and secured it, making sure the seal was airtight, the oxygen supply satisfactory, then reached for his gun. Behind him he could hear the scrape and click of hundreds of helmets being secured, the clatter as a gun fell, then was retrieved. Fourteen seconds . . .

He waited, counting in his head, seeing the first wave of cruisers flash across the screen, their missiles streaking toward the rocklike wall of the City-fortress. Even as they hit—even as he felt the judder from above—there was the whummpf'whumpff of mortars being fired farther down the tunnel, followed immediately by the piercing, banshee whirr of the shells as they spiraled toward their targets.

He turned, looking down the line, noting face after familiar face, underlit by their helmet lights. These were good men. His best. They'd been with him a long time now and knew exactly what to do.

Who this time? he wondered, seeing how each one met his eyes and smiled. Whose widow will I be speaking to tonight? Whose grieving mother?

But there was no more time for that. Scrambling up, Karr began to run, half crouching, following his lieutenant toward the gap, his men close behind.

In his head he had been counting. Now, at fifteen, he stopped and crouched again, as the blast came back down the tunnel at them. Behind him, he knew, his men would have done the same.

Instinct. It was all instinct now. They'd been fighting this war so long now that there was nothing he could tell them they didn't already know.

He stood, then ran on, making for the breach his guns had made in the City's underbelly.

Up ahead, preprogrammed remotes were picking off most of the defending mechanicals, their lasers raking the sides of the great shaft they were about to infiltrate, exploding any mines. They would clear a path. But it would take men—with their heightened instincts—to get any farther.

Karr passed the mortar positions. Some ten ch'i farther on, just above them and to the right, was the breach. He went through the jagged opening and stepped out into the base of a huge service shaft, looking up into a haze of mist and light. The mortar shells had contained a mixture of strong hallucinogenics and tiny pellets which, when they exploded, burned with a searing, blinding light. Right now Ting's forces were in temporary disarray—the watch guard blind and half out of its collective skulls—but that advantage wouldn't last long. They had two minutes, maybe four at the outside, before fresh forces were drafted in. And after that . . .

Karr stood beside the breach, waving his men through, urging them on, watching them fan out around the edge of the shaft, and begin to climb, proud—proud with a father's pride—of their professionalism.

Wasted, he thought, angry suddenly that all of their talent, all of their hard-won knowledge, should be squandered for so little reward. We should be dealing with Lehmann. Clearing the levels of the scum who thrive under his patronage.

Yes. But so long as Rheinhardt had Li Yuan's backing there would be no change. Tunis . . . Tunis would be the rock upon which a million mothers' hearts would be broken.

He swallowed, then, knowing there was a job to be done, turned, and, clipping his gun to his back, began to climb.

PEI k'ung, wife of Li Yuan and Empress of City Europe, snapped her fingers. At once the servant standing beside the great studded doors hurried across, his head bowed. Two paces from her desk he stopped, falling to his knees.

"Mistress!"

"Tsung Ye," she said, not looking up from the document she was reading, "tell Master Nan I'd like a word with him. Meanwhile, send in the maid. And have the doctor standing by. I want his full report on the new intake of girls."

Tsung Ye hesitated, in case there was anything else, then backed away, hurrying from the room.

Pei K'ung looked up, bracing herself for the interview ahead. Her husband had seemed particularly happy this morning. She had heard him whistling below her window, and when she had gone out onto her balcony to look, it was to find him walking among the flower beds, sniffing the dew-heavy roses, more like a lovesick boy than a great T'ang. Of course, it was possible that the beauty of the morning had made him so, but she suspected it was more to do with the company in his bed last night.

She sighed. Last night they had argued, for the first time since they had wed, two and a half years ago. He had turned on her and shouted her down, his face burning with anger, then stormed from the room. And later, when she had gone to him, he had refused point blank to see her.

She had slept little, going over every last event in her mind, trying to establish just what had sparked his anger, but still she was no wiser. He had simply snapped, as if something deep within him—something dark and hidden from her—had surfaced, like a carp going for a fly.

She shivered, then got up from her chair, making her way to the far side of the room. A massive silver mirror, its mahogany frame embellished with peacocks and dragons, stood there between two pillars.

She stood there awhile, studying herself, knowing there was no way to change the image that the glass returned to her. Plain she was, and old—eighteen years older than her husband, Yuan. It was little wonder that he chose to spend his nights with serving maids. Besides, it had been a condition of their marriage—that there were to be no heirs to the union, no physical side to their relationship. At the time it had seemed a small price to pay, but now . . .

There was a knock. She turned, setting her thoughts aside. Slowly, measuring her pace, she returned to her desk and sat. Then, after a calming breath, she turned to face the door.

"Enter."

The maid came in slowly, her eyes averted, her chin tucked in to her neck, her whole body hunched forward as she pigeon-stepped toward the huge desk. It was clear that she found the great study—and Pei K'ung at the center of it—immensely daunting. And so she should, thought Pei K'ung, for she had power of life or death over the girl: a power her husband had granted her on the day of their wedding.

"Stand before me, girl. I want to see you clearly when you answer me."

"Mistress!"

The girl shuffled forward, out of the shadows that obscured the far side of the room and into the sunlight that spilled in from the open garden windows. A pattern of cranes and lilies, white, yellow, and black, skirted the edge of the turquoise-blue carpet on which she stood.

Pei K'ung studied her, coldly, clinically almost, as a horse trader might study a horse, searching it carefully for flaws. She was pretty, of course—they were all pretty—but it was something else that marked her out. Not her age, for they were all much the same—fifteen, sixteen, never older—nor her figure, which was petite but well rounded, but something in the way she stood.

"My husband . . . was he pleased with you last night?"

"I ... I think so, Mistress."

"You think so?"

"He . . ." She hesitated, a faint color appearing at her neck. Pei K'ung noted it. A strong neck she had, and strong bones. Peasant bones. But pretty, nonetheless. Very pretty indeed.

"Well, girl?"

The maid swallowed. One hand smoothed the pale lemon silk of her chi poo. "He seemed . . . agitated at first. Angry about something. I had to soothe him. I ..."

Pei K'ung waited, sparing the girl nothing.

"I kissed him," she said finally.

Pe( K'ung's eyes were like an eagle's, piercing the girl. "Kissed him? Where? On the mouth?"

The girl's head dipped an inch or two lower. "No, Mistress. Lower than that. . . . You know."

She almost laughed. How in hell would she know? She had never even seen her husband naked, let alone . . .

"You kissed his penis, you mean?"

The girl nodded.

"And you liked that?"

"I ... I didn't mind. If it gave him pleasure."

"And did it?"

The girl's discomfort was quite evident now. "He seemed . . ."

"Did he reach his climax that way?"

The girl looked up, her eyes wide open. "Mistress?"

"The moment of clouds and rain. Did it happen while he was still in your mouth?"

The girl looked down, the color spreading to her cheeks. "Only the first time, Mistress."

"Ah . . . and the second?"

Her answer was almost a whisper. "That was much later."

"And between times, did you sleep?"

She shook her head.

"Not at all?"

"He . . . would not let me, Mistress. He was . . ."

Pei K'ung stiffened slightly, waiting to see how the girl would finish the sentence. Insatiable? Like a tiger? Tireless?

The girl looked up again, a surprising tenderness in her eyes. "Very gentle."

Pei K'ung felt something strange happen deep within her. It was almost physical, yet she knew it wasn't. It was to do with those last two words, with how the girl had looked back at her when she had said them, her dark eyes sparkling with an inner light. Gentle. She had heard Yuan called many things, but never gentle. Not even with his son.

She forced herself to speak, to keep on asking questions. "How do you mean, gentle?"

The girl's smile, like her words, made her feel something new— something she had never felt before. She did not recognize it at once, but then, with the suddenness of shock, she understood. Envy. For the first time since she'd married him, she felt envy.

The girl's eyes seemed to drift back to the night before; to widen with pleasure at the memory of it.

"I felt . . . well, I felt he only really got pleasure when he was giving pleasure to me. At first I was uncomfortable. I pleaded with him to relax and let me see to his needs, but he would not have it, Mistress. He"—again, there was that flush at neck and cheek, that same strange smile of inner satisfaction—"he said he wanted to make me happy, to make me cry out, to—"

She stopped, as if she sensed some change in the woman facing her. Her head went down, the chin tucked in tightly, the eyes averted.

"And did you cry out?"

The girl nodded.

"Ah . . ." Her mouth was dry, her heart beating strangely. Even so, she had to know. "What . . . what did he do?"

The maid glanced up, as if to gauge her Mistress's mood, then spoke again. "He kissed me, Mistress."

"Kissed you?"

Even as she said it, she heard the echo of her earlier words. How often had she sat here going through this obscene litany? Eight, nine hundred times? And never—never, until this moment, had it meant anything to her. She shivered, only half listening as the girl spelled out just how thoroughly Li Yuan had pleasured her. And as the words went on, she closed her eyes, imagining him doing that to her—for the first time allowing herself to surrender to the thought.

"Mistress?"

She opened her eyes. The girl was watching her, surprised, her mouth open like a fish.

"Forgive me," Pei K'ung said, angry with herself; conscious that she had let her guard slip. "I am tired. If you would go now."

"Mistress!"

The girl knelt, touching her head to the floor, then backed away.

Anger, she told herself. It was all connected with his anger. But how? And why had he not been cruel to the girl? Why had he not taken out his anger on her? Or was that the way of it? Was something always converted into its opposite? Was his strange tenderness a product of that anger?

She shuddered, then stood, going across to the window. He was out there, standing beside the carp pond, talking to two of his advisors. She could go to him right now if she wanted and ask him—ask him how it had felt and why last night, of all nights, he had been different. Yet she knew it was impossible. As impossible to ask as to put herself there in his bed beside him.

Beneath him, she thought, and was surprised by the silent words.

Do I want him? Is that it? For if it was, she had best banish the thought, for it was—it truly was—impossible. Had she not, after all, put her name to the contract they had made? Even so, the suddenness, the strength, of that new-discovered need surprised her.

She had thought herself safe: had thought her plainness, her age, precluded her from such feelings. But drip by drip these interviews had worn her down, until two words and a tender smile had breached her.

There was a knock. A heavy, purposeful knock that she recognized as Nan Ho's. She turned, calling on him to enter.

"Mistress," he said, coming two paces into the room and bowing to her. Behind him his two assistants did the same, like living shadows of the man.

"Master Nan. I wanted your advice on something. If we could speak alone?"

"Of course," he said, dismissing his assistants with a gesture. "How are you this morning, Mistress?"

"I am"—she almost lied, almost gave in to politeness, yet caught herself in time—"I am disturbed, Master Nan," she said, moving across the floor until she stood beside him. "Li Yuan was in a foul mood last night. He raged at me for no reason. And yet this morning he is like a child."

Nan Ho looked down, then cleared his throat. "These are difficult times for him, Pei K'ung. Much is happening. Sometimes—"

She interrupted him. "Straight answers, Master Nan."

He looked up, meeting her eyes, respect and amusement in them. He was a good twenty-five years older than her and a man; even so, they had established a relationship of equals right from the start.

"Straight answers?" He laughed softly. "All right. I'll tell you. We're planning a new campaign."

She frowned. "South America?"

He shook his head. "No, no ... Here, in Europe. In the Lowers. Your husband wants to take control again. He feels it's time. The African campaign has reached a stalemate and the feeling among the Three is that we should withdraw. The problem is what to do with our forces once we've withdrawn them. To have them sit idly at home is not an option any of us want to consider. Things are bad enough without that."

She nodded, understanding. "And the meeting this morning?"

"Is to sound out all parties."

"I see. And if they're in agreement?"

Nan Ho shrugged. "That is not my decision, Mistress."

She smiled. No, yet you will have the greatest influence over what he decides, neh?

He bowed. "If that is all, Mistress?"

"Of course." Yet as he turned to leave, she called him back.

"Nan Ho?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

"My husband . . . when he . . ." She took a breath, steeling herself to ask. "When he lost his virginity—how was that done?"

Nan Ho smiled, the smile strangely, disconcertingly like that the girl had offered earlier. "He was but a boy, and curious in the way boys are. He had begun . . . you know, night dreams. It worried him. So I sent one of the maids to his bed. Pearl Heart, if I remember correctly. She . . . taught him. She and her sister, Sweet Rose."

He nodded to himself, as if satisfied, then added, "It is the way. His father, Li Shai Tung, always said that—"

"Thank you," she said, interrupting him. "I ... I was interested, that's all."

"Of course." Nan Ho bowed again. "If that is all?"

She nodded, letting him go, then returned to the window, watching as her husband paced slowly in the sunlight by the pool.

"Pull back! Disengage and pull back!"

Karr's voice boomed momentarily in every helmet, then cut out as the defenders jammed the channel, but it was enough.

"Ai^a . . ."he whispered softly, watching from his place beside the breach as his men withdrew, clambering down the pipes and service ladders overhead, then dropping the last few ch'i and scrambling for the gap.

The floor of the shaft was littered with bodies, friend and foe indistinguishable in death.

The;y knew, he thought, touching each of his men briefly on the arm as they moved past him into the safety of the tunnel. The fuckers knew!

There was no doubt about it. The counterattack had been too quick, too well organized, for it to have been a matter of chance. Someone had leaked their plan. Someone in the inner circle of command.

Karr grimaced, pained by what had happened. They'd be lucky if a quarter of their number got out. It had been a massacre. Then, seeing how one of his men had fallen on the far side of the shaft, he hurried across, helping the wounded man, half carrying him back, oblivious to the laser fire from above.

As he handed the man down, a runner pushed through.

"Sir!"

Karr glanced at him, annoyed to be bothered at this crucial moment. "What is it, man?"

"New orders, sir. From the General himself. He says you are to withdraw."

"Withdraw?" Karr laughed bitterly and looked past the messenger at his men. Their eyes, like his, were dark with knowledge of the betrayal. His voice, when he spoke, was heavy with irony. "Tell General Rheinhardt that his forces have anticipated his request."

The runner, noting Karr's mood and perhaps intimidated by the giant, took a step backward. "Further, he says you are to leave here at once and report to Tongjiang."

Karr turned, staring at the man, surprised. "Tongjiang? To the Palace, you mean?"

The man nodded. "The General says you are to go direct. The T'ang himself wishes to see you. He says it is a matter of the most extreme urgency."

Karr nodded. Then, recollecting himself, he waved the man away. "Tell the General I will come. Tell him . . . tell him I will come once my men are safe from here."

"But, sir—"

Karr turned back, glaring at the man. "Just tell him!"

Then, turning away, he went back inside, to try to salvage what he could.

THE NEWS FROM TUNIS was good. The latest attack had been beaten off, the great T'ang's forces scattered. Fu Chiang, "the Priest," Big Boss of the Red Flower Triad of North Africa, folded the paper and smiled, then looked about him at the banquet chamber, his hazel eyes taking in the lavish silverware, the ornate red and gold decorations. Briefly he hesitated, as if about to criticize, then gave a terse nod. At the signal a dozen servants let out their breath and, bowing low to their Lord, backed hurriedly from the room.

Good, he thought, satisfied that all was finally ready, then turned away, drawing his dark red silks tighter about him. As little as a week ago he'd have considered such a meeting impossible, but curiosity was a powerful incentive—it had achieved what neither common sense nor coercion had previously managed.

His "cousins"—"Mountain Lords," Triad Bosses like himself—were waiting in the next room. He had known them in bad times, in those years when Wang Hsien had ruled City Africa with an iron glove, but now they were Great Men—men whose power had grown enormously this past decade, insectlike, feeding upon War and Change. Between them they controlled almost two thirds of City Africa's lowers.

He smiled, then went through.

They were standing before the dragon arch, the fight pit beyond them, its galleries climbing up out of sight. In an hour those balconies would be packed with his men, their bodies tense, their eyes wide with bloodlust. Right now, however, the pit was dark and empty like a hollowed skull, the galleries silent.

"Cousins," he said, greeting them. If one knew no better one might almost laugh at the sight of them. A giant and a dwarf, a fat man and a one-eyed hermaphrodite! Yet appearances were deceptive. Any one of them was as deadly as a hungry viper, and together . . .

"Are you sure he's coming?" the tiny, almost doll-like figure of Mo Nan-ling, "the Little Emperor," asked, his fingers toying with the thick gold chain about his neck.

Fu Chiang smiled benevolently. "He will be here anytime, Cousin Mo. I have tracked his craft over the mountains. He comes alone."

"Into the tiger's mouth," the big man at Mo Nan-ling's side said, cracking his knuckles. "The man must be a fool."

Fu Chiang stared at the giant, his face pensive. "So it seems, Yang Chih-wen. And yet that cannot be. Our cousins in City Europe underestimated him, and where are they now? Dead, their kingdoms smashed, the sacred brotherhoods destroyed."

Yang Chih-wen shrugged. He was almost three ch'i in height and heavily muscled. "The Bear" they called him and the likeness to that ancient, extinct animal was uncanny, from the long, thick nose to the dark hair that sprouted from every pore.

"They were weak and careless," he said gruffly, as if that were all there was to say, but Hsueh Chi, Boss of the southern Hsien and half-brother of the great Warlord Hsueh Nan stepped forward, scratching his ample stomach.

"Forgive me, but I knew Fat Wong and he was neither weak nor careless. Caution was his byword. And yet Li Min proved too cunning for him. He waited, building his strength, biding his time, then took Wong Yi-sun on when he least expected it—against the odds—and beat him. He and his fellow Bosses. So we might do well to listen to what our cousin Fu says. It seems to me that we must act together or not at all."

Yang Chih-wen laughed dismissively. "You talk as if he were a threat, Hsueh Chi, but what kind of danger does he really pose? Ambushing Fat Wong and his allies was one thing, but taking Africa . . ." He shook his great bearlike head. "Why, the full might of Li Yuan's armies cannot shake our grip. What then could this pai nan jen—this pale man—do?"

There was an air of challenge, of ridicule, in these final words that was aimed directly at Hsueh Chi. Noting it, Fu Chiang hurriedly spoke up, trying to calm things down.

"Maybe my cousin Yang is right. Maybe there is no threat. But it would be foolish to repeat past mistakes, surely? Besides, we need decide nothing here today. We are here only to listen to the man, to find out what he has to say. And to judge for ourselves what kind of man this 'White Tang' really is."

While the talk had gone on, Sheng Min-chung had gone out onto the balcony. For a while he had stood there, his hands on the rail, looking down into the dark, steep-sided pit. Now he came back into the room.

"We will do as Fu Chiang says."

Yang opened his mouth as if to debate the matter further, but at a glance from Sheng he closed it again and nodded. Though they were all "equals" here, Sheng Min-chung was more equal than the rest.

The Big Boss of East Africa was a strange one. As a child he had been raised by an uncle—touched, some said—who had dressed him as a girl. The experience had hardened Sheng. Then, at thirteen, he had lost his right eye in a knife fight. Later, when he'd become Red Pole of the Iron Fists, he had paid to have his remaining eye enhanced, leaving the other vacant. Ever since it was said that his single good eye saw far more clearly—and farther—than the two eyes of a dozen other men.

One-Eye Sheng moved between them, his long silks swishing across the marble floor, then turned, facing them.

"And ch'un tzu , . . let us show our friend Li Min the utmost courtesy. What a man was bom, that he cannot help, but what he becomes, through his own efforts"—his one eye glared at Yang Chi-wen—"that, I would say, demands our respect."

The bearlike Yang stared back at Sheng a moment, then nodded, and Fu Chiang, looking on, smiled broadly, moved by Sheng's words.

Respect. Yes, without respect a man was nothing. To gain and hold respect, that was worth more than gold. Whatever transpired today and in the days to come, much would depend on establishing a common trust—a solid bridge of mutual respect—between themselves and Li Min.

Fu Chiang smiled, pleased that he, of all of them, had been the one Li Min had chosen, for to him would be given the credit for this momentous event. He turned his head, looking about him, pride at his own achievements filling him. Ten years ago he had been nothing. Nothing. But now he was Head of the Red Flower, a Great Man with the power of life and death over others. Sheng Min-chung had spoken true. It was not what a man had been born, it was what he became.

Fu Chiang, "the Priest," Big Boss of the Red Flower Triad, puffed out his chest, then looked to his fellow Lords, gesturing for them to follow him through into the banquet hall.

"Ch'un tzu . . ."

ROCKET LAUNCHERS SWIVELED AUTOMATICALLY, tracking Lehmann's cruiser as it came in over the mountains, while from the cockpit's speakers came a constant drone of Mandarin.

"Impressive," Lehmann said tonelessly, looking past the pilot at Fu I's fortress. Beyond its sturdy walls and watchtowers the Atlas Mountains stretched into the misted distance, while beneath it a sheer cliff dropped four thousand ch'i into a wooded valley.

Visak, in the copilot's seat, took a brief peek at his Master's face, then turned back, swallowing nervously.

"You know what to do?" Lehmann asked.

Visak nodded. He was to do nothing, not even if they threatened Lehmann. He wanted to question that—to say, Are you sure?—but Lehmann had given his orders and they were not to be questioned or countermanded. Not for any reason.

The pilot leaned forward, flicked one of the switches on the panel in front of him, then nodded. "Hao pa . . ." Okay. He looked up at Lehmann. "We've got clearance to land. You want to go in?"

Lehmann nodded, watching as the massive stone walls of the fortress passed beneath them. And all the while the rocket launchers tracked them. At any moment they could be shot from the sky.

He gets off on this! Visak thought, stealing another glance. He actually likes risking his life!

Slowly, very slowly, they moved out over the drop.

Visak took a long breath. If they shoot us now we'll fall five li. That was, if there was anything to fall.

The pad came into sight, farther down the ragged crest of the peak. Five sleek black cruisers sat there already. Between the oval pad and the fortress a transparent lift-chute climbed the sheer rock face.

Impressive's an understatement, Visak thought, certain now that they'd made a mistake.

If he got out of this alive, he would quit at the earliest opportunity. Get his face changed and leave Europe on the first flight out. Away, far away from this madman and his insane, life-endangering risks.

He flexed his hands, realizing he had been clenching them, then looked up again. Lehmann was watching him.

"You okay?"

He nodded. Through the screen of the cockpit the rock face came closer and yet closer. For a moment the whine of the engines rose, drowning the chatter of the speakers, and then, with the faintest shudder, the craft set down.

The engines whined down through several octaves, then fell silent. A moment later there was a sharp click and the door hissed open.

"Okay," Lehmann said, patting his shoulder. "Let's do business."

IT WAS A SMALL COURTYARD, no more than five ch'i to a side, set off from the rest of the palace and reached through a moon door set into a plain white wall. Shadow halved the sunlit space, its edge serrated, following the form of the ancient, steep-tiled roof. In one corner, in a simple rounded pot with lion's feet, was a tiny tree, its branches twisted like limbs in agony, its tight leaf-clusters separate, distinct from one another so that each narrow, wormlike branch stood out, stretched and melted, black like iron against the background whiteness. In the center of the courtyard was a tiny fountain, a shui shih, its twin, lion-headed jets still—two tiny mouths of silence.

Gregor Karr stood there in full Colonel's uniform, waiting for Li Yuan, conscious of the peacefulness, the harmony, of this tiny place at the heart of the ancient palace of Tongjiang. A leaf floated in the dark water of the fountain's circular pool like a silver arrowhead. Karr looked at it and smiled, strangely pleased by its presence. Sunlight fell across his shoulders and warmed the right side of his face. It was an oddly pleasant sensation, and though he had been often outside the City, he had never felt so at ease with only the sky above him.

He was looking up when Li Yuan stepped through the great circular space of the moon door and came into the courtyard. The T'ang smiled, seeing the direction of his Colonel's gaze, then lifted his own face to the sky.

"It is a beautiful day, neh, Colonel Karr?" Li Yuan laughed, his face momentarily open, unguarded; a side of him Karr had never seen. Then, more soberly. "However, we are not here to discuss the weather."

Karr waited, silent, not presuming upon that moment's openness, knowing his place. For a time Li Yuan did nothing, merely looked at him, as if weighing something in his mind. Then, abruptly, he put out his hand.

"Give me your badge."

Without hesitation Karr unbuttoned his tunic and took the badge of office from where it rested against his left breast, handing it to his T'ang. Then he stood there, at attention, his head lowered respectfully, awaiting orders.

Li Yuan looked down at the badge in his hand. It was more than a symbol of rank, it was a means of identification, an instrument of legal power and a compact storehouse of information, all in one. Without it Karr lost all status as a soldier, all privilege. In taking it from him Li Yuan had done what even his General could not do, for it was like stripping such a man of his life. He looked back at Karr and smiled, satisfied. The man had not even paused to question—he had acted at once upon his Lord's command. That was good. That was what he wanted. He handed the badge back and watched as Karr buttoned up his tunic. Only then did he speak.

"Tomorrow I plan to appoint a new General. Tolonen would have had me have you, young as you are, inexperienced as you are. But that cannot be. However loyal, however right you might be for the task, I could not have you, for the post is as much a political appointment as a strategic one."

Karr kept his face expressionless and held his tongue, but between them, nonetheless, was the knowledge of Hans Ebert's betrayal, years before—of the political appointment that had gone badly wrong. Even so, Karr understood what his T'ang was saying. His Family was new to the Above and had no influence. And as General he would need much influence.

"I called you here today for two reasons. Firstly to let you know that, were it possible, I would have had you as my General. And one day, perhaps, I shall. But for now there are other things I wish you to do for me."

Li Yuan paused. "I took your badge from you. Did you think it some kind of test?"

Karr hesitated, then nodded. "Afterward, Chieh Hsia. I—"

Li Yuan raised a hand. "No need to explain. I understand. But listen, it was more than a test. From this moment you are no longer commander of my Security forces in Africa."

This time Karr did frown. But still he held his tongue and, after a moment, bowed his head in a gesture of obedience.

Li Yuan smiled, pleased once more by Karr's reaction, then stepped closer, standing almost at the tall Hung Moo's shoulder, looking up into Karr's face, his dark olive eyes fierce, his mouth set.

"This is a new age, Gregor Karr. New things are happening—new circumstances which create new demands on a ruler. Even among those close to me there is, it seems, a new relationship."

The young T'ang smiled sourly and turned away. When he turned back his features were harder. He stood beside the miniature tree, the fingers of his left hand brushing the crown absently.

"You are to be given a new role. I need a new Ssu-li Hsiao-wei. Do you think you can do the job, Colonel Karr?"

"Chieh Hsia ..." Karr smiled, astonished. After General the post of Ssu-li Hsiao-wei—Colonel of Internal Security—was the most prestigious in the whole Security service. It meant he would be in charge of security at all the imperial palaces, in command of the elite palace guard and responsible for the personal safety of Li Yuan and all his family wherever they went. It was a massive responsibility—but also a huge honor.

He considered a moment, then bowed his head. Beside him, in the dark circle of the fountain, the leaf turned slowly, like a needle on a compass. Inside he felt excitement at the challenge: more excitement than he'd felt for years. Looking across at Li Yuan he saw how carefully the T'ang watched him and realized, with a sudden, almost overwhelming sense of warmth, what trust his Lord was placing in him.

On impulse he knelt, bowing low, offering his neck ritually to his Master.

"I would be honored, Chieh Hsia."

Li Yuan stepped forward, then placed his booted foot gently but firmly on Karr's bared neck.

"Good. Then you will report to me tomorrow at twelve. We shall discuss your duties then."

"So tell us, Li Min. Just why are you here?"

Lehmann looked up, then pushed his plate aside, surprised by the suddenness of the query. For two hours they had played a cautious game with him, avoiding anything direct, but now, it seemed, one of them at least—the "Bear," Yang Chih-wen—had tired of such subtleties.

He glanced at Fu Chiang, then met Yang's eyes.

"The two Americas have fallen. Likewise Australasia. Asia—both west and east—is a snake pit overseen by jackals. And Europe"—he picked a miniature fruit from the nearby bowl, chewed at it, then swallowed—"Europe is but a shadow of its former self. Which leaves Africa. . . ." He smiled coldly. "I am told that Africa is the world's treasure chest."

"And is that why you are here—to plunder that treasure?"

Lehmann shifted his weight and turned so that he faced Yang Chih-wen full on. The man was big, it was true, but he had faced bigger men. Yes, and killed them too.

"Does that disturb you, Cousin Yang?"

Yang shrugged, as if unconcerned, but his eyes told a different story. "I'll lose no sleep over it."

"That's good. A man needs his sleep, neh? And what better tonic than to know that one's neighbor is also one's friend."

That brought a spate of glances—tiny, telling exchanges that confirmed what Lehmann had suspected. For all their swagger, these men were deeply insecure. The collapse of their City and the war that had followed had given them their opportunity, yet their rule was still tenuous. They would fight him only if they must.

He lifted his hands. "Besides, when you talk of plunder you mistake me, cousins. I am not here to talk of plunder, I am here to talk of trade. Trade between equals."

"Equals?" It was Mo Nan-ling, the Little Emperor, who spoke. He wiped at his mouth delicately, then leaned toward Lehmann, his fine gold necklace tinkling as he did. "You talk of trade, Li Min, but your words presuppose that there is something we should wish to trade with you."

Lehmann sat back a little, gesturing for him to expand on that.

"What I mean is this, cousin. Africa is indeed a treasure chest and we Mountain Lords have had rich pickings these past few years. Our coffers are full, our foot soldiers happy. What could we possibly need that you might offer?"

Lehmann nodded, as if acceding the point, then turned and signaled to Visak, who came across at once, placing a hard-shell case in front of his master.

"Has that—?" Mo Nan-ling began, but Fu Chiang raised a hand and nodded. It had been scanned—four times in all—but still he had no clue as to what it held. He watched now, his curiosity naked in his eyes, as Lehmann flipped the latches, then turned the case about, opening the lid.

There was a murmur of surprise.

"Drugs'! You want to trade in drugs?" Yang Chih-wen's voice was incredulous. He pushed away from the table, his face scornful. "Are you serious, Li Min?"

But Lehmann seemed not to hear the insult in the Bear's voice. He leaned forward and carefully picked the six tiny golden ingots from the depressions in the smooth black velvet, then looked across at Fu Chiang.

"Forgive me, Fu Chiang, but may I draw my knife?"

Fu Chiang hesitated, looking about him, then nodded.

"Thank you." Lehmann tipped all the ingot-shaped capsules into Visak's open palm, then stood, reaching down with his left hand to unsheath the pearl-handled knife from his boot.

Yang Chih-wen moved back a fraction, his hand resting on his own hidden blade.

"You talk of drugs, Cousin Yang," Lehmann said, facing him again. "Yet the term covers many different things, neh? Some cure diseases. Some enhance performance, others intelligence. Some keep the penis stiff when stiffness is a virtue, others liberate the mind or entertain. These . . ." He smiled a death's-head smile, then drew the razor-sharp blade across his right arm, just below the elbow.

A great gash opened up, blood pumping from a severed artery.

Lehmann threw the knife aside, then took one of the ingots from Visak's palm and squeezed its thick golden contents over the open wound. It hissed and steamed and then, astonishingly, began to move, as if a tiny golden creature burrowed in the gash.

"What in the gods' names . . ."

But Fu Chiang's words were barely out when he fell silent, staring open mouthed. Where the flesh had gaped, it was now drawn in, the wound raw and scabbed. Then, even as they watched, the scabbed flesh shimmered and—like a film run backward—disappeared, leaving the skin smooth, unblemished.

Lehmann held up his arm, showing them all.

The silence had the quality of shock. It was Sheng Min-chung who finally broke the silence.

"GenSyn," he said authoritatively. "There were rumors of regenerative drugs."

Lehmann gave a single nod.

"And this is what you're offering to trade?"

Lehmann shook his head, then took the five remaining ingots from Visak's open palm and began to hand them around. "No. This I'm giving you. What I'll trade is information."

WAVING THE GUARDS ASIDE, Li Yuan pushed through the doors and went inside. A dozen men stood at the balcony's edge, watching what was happening below. They had been training and wore only breechcloths or simple black one-pieces. The scent of sweat was strong.

Hearing the door close, two of them turned and, seeing their T'ang, bowed low and made to leave, but Li Yuan signaled them to stay and went across, joining them at the rail.

He looked down. Kuei Jen, his seven-year-old son, was standing in the middle of the floor, at the very center of the fight circle. About him, facing him east, north, west, and south—were four burly adolescents. Lo Wen, his shaven-headed, middle-aged instructor, stood to one side, his face inexpressive, his arms folded before his chest.

All five combatants were breathing heavily. Kuei Jen, at the center of it all, turned slowly, eyeing his opponents warily, his body tensed and slightly crouched, his weight balanced delicately on the balls of his feet. The boy was naked to the waist and wore only the flimsiest of breechcloths—more string than cloth. His hair was slicked back, his body sheathed in sweat, but his eyes .... • « ;,<

Li Yuan smiled. The boy had fighter's eyes, like his dead uncle, Han Ch'in. Eyes that watched, hawklike, missing nothing.

Two of them moved at once—from east and west. As quick as a fox, Kuei Jen ducked and turned, swinging his right leg low, then twisted on his hips and straight-punched—right, left, right, left—in quick succession.

Two of the youths were down, groaning. Between them stood Kuei Jen as if nothing had happened, his breath hissing through his teeth. Looking on, Lo Wen exhibited not even the slightest flicker of interest.

Li Yuan felt the hairs on his neck rise. There had been a low murmur of satisfaction from the men surrounding him, nods of respect.

The third boy backed off a pace, then, with a blood-curdling yell, he threw himself at the young prince. As he did, the last of them took two quick, quiet steps forward.

He wanted to cry out—to warn his son—but knew it would be wrong.

Kuei Jen's first punch connected cleanly, his fist striking his opponent squarely in the breastbone, knocking him back. But even as he drew his arm back from the second, decisive blow, the other was on his back, pulling him down, a wire cord looped about Kuei Jen's throat.

Li Yuan cried out, unable to help himself. Yet even as his cry echoed in the hall, Kuei Jen flipped backward, the unexpected movement tearing the cord from his assailant's hands. There was a blur of movement and the youth was down, winded. Kuei Jen turned from him, took a single step, and punched, finishing the third of them. He turned, looking calmly at the wheezing youth, and, moving closer, put out his foot and delicately, using only his toes, toppled him onto his back.

There was a great roar from the balcony; a storm of applause. Li Yuan, amazed, let his voice join with it. Then, as it faded, he called down to his son.

"Kuei Jen!"

The young prince spun around and looked up, astonished to find his father there, then bowed low, a color at his neck.

"Father . . ."

About him, the four youths scrambled to present themselves, tucking themselves into a kneeling position—two of them coughing—their shaven heads bowed toward their T'ang. Lo Wen, like a statue until that moment, stepped between them and, bowing to the waist, addressed his Master.

"Chieh Hsia. I did not know ..." - .-.-.•

Li Yuan waved it aside. "What he did just then . . . you taught him that, Master Lo?"

"I did, Chieh Hsia."

"I am much pleased, Master Lo. A student is but as good as his teacher, neh?"

Lo Wen bowed his head, pleased by his T'ang's praise.

"And you, young men . . . you played your part well. You will have a bonus for this morning's work. A hundred yuan apiece!"

"Chieh Hsia!" they cried, almost as one, the delight in their voices obvious.

Li Yuan stood back, gripping the rail tightly, his pride in his son immense. He was about to say something more—to praise the boy before them all—when the doors behind him opened.

"Chieh Hsia ..."

He turned. It was Hu Ch'ang, his Chancellor Nan Ho's Principal Secretary.

"What is it Secretary Hu?"

Hu came forward and, kneeling before his T'ang, placed his forehead to the floor. Rising slightly, he answered him.

"It is your cousin, Tsu Ma, Chieh Hsia. He is calling from his palace in Astrakhan. He says he needs to talk with you urgently."

"Then I shall come, Master Hu."

He turned back, looking to his son, who awaited his father's pleasure, head bowed and perfectly still, and gave the boy a small bow of respect.

"You did well, Kuei Jen. Very well. Come to my study later. After lunch."

Then, turning away, he swept past the kneeling Hu Ch'ang, heading for his study.

SHE HAD JUST COME from her bath and was sitting in the chair by the window, having her hair brushed by the maid, when Li Yuan rushed into the room unannounced.

"Pei K'ung . . . you will never guess what!"

She stared at him, surprised by his animation, by the great beam of a smile he was wearing. Pulling her silk robe tighter about her, she stood, dismissing the maid.

"What is it, husband? Have our armies won some great victory in Africa?"

"Victory?" He laughed, then came across to her. "No, no ... nothing like that. It is Tsu Ma. He has decided to marry!"

She stared at him, astonished.

"It is true," he went on, then laughed again. "It seems he has chosen the girl already. Her family has been approached and they are to be betrothed within the week."

"But the rituals—"

Li Yuan raised a hand. "They will be fully carried out. Ah, but it is an excellent idea, don't you think, Pei K'ung? An imperial wedding! Why, it could come at no better time."

She saw that at once. Even so, for Tsu Ma to marry so late in life might cause almost as many problems as it solved.

"Was this a ... sudden decision, husband?"

Li Yuan shrugged, becoming more serious. "It seems the matter has played upon his mind for some time. But what forced him to the issue, who knows?" He went to the window and stared out across the gardens as if looking for someone. "All I know is that the time must be ripe."

She went and stood by him, studying his face. "And is that how you chose me, Yuan? When the time was ripe?"

He turned his head and looked at her. "Five wives I've had, Pei K'ung, and still I do not understand why this should be or that. To be married ... for each man and woman it is a different thing, neh?"

She nodded, but still she held his eyes. "And for Tsu Ma? Does he marry simply to beget sons?"

Li Yuan hesitated, then shrugged. "It would seem the obvious answer."

"Then why not before? Why wait until now?"

He looked away.

She watched him, feeling—and not knowing why—that something strange was happening inside him.

"Husband, tell me this. Why did he not marry before now?"

He looked back at her, his eyes stern suddenly. "A T'ang does not need to answer such a question."

She held her ground. "I did not ask Tsu Ma. Nor would I be so impertinent. I asked you, husband. If you have no idea, merely say so and I shall be quiet. But I am curious. Tsu Ma is a handsome man. A man much enamored of women and—from what I've seen—a good

uncle to his nephews. Children ... I would have thought he'd have had many children by now."

Li Yuan huffed out a breath, clearly troubled by the direction of their conversation. He thought a moment, then waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the east—as if toward Tsu Ma himself.

"Something happened. Long ago. He ... he was betrothed once. In his teens. And the girl . . ."

"The girl died."

Li Yuan looked at her and nodded. But still it seemed he had not given up all he knew.

"Was there . . . something else?"

His answer was immediate, almost brutal. "No. Nothing else."

She shivered inwardly, surprised—no, shocked—by the anger he was containing. Anger? Anger at Tsu Ma? For what? Or had she read things wrongly? Was there still something she didn't understand?

"Did he love the girl?"

"I ... I am not sure. I guess he must have."

"And his father . . . did his father not insist that he be betrothed to another? If he was the eldest son—"

Li Yuan turned on her, his anger open now. "You do not understand, Pei K'ung! Tsu Ma was like me in that. He had an elder brother. His nephews . . . they are his elder brother's sons. Tsu Ma was not born to rule. And as to how he has chosen to live his life . . . well, enough talk of it, Pei K'ung! You understand?"

She bowed her head obediently. "I understand." But deep inside of her curiosity was burning like a coal. Something had happened. Something between Tsu Ma and her husband. What it was she couldn't guess, but she would find it out. Yes, she would seek it out and know it, were it the last thing she did.

TSU MA STOOD ON THE BALCONY of his summer palace at Astrakhan, looking out across the moonlit Caspian. It was a clear night and at this hour—just after two—it seemed like the whole world was sleeping. He alone could not sleep; he alone was plagued by the demons of restlessness.

His foot was sore tonight and troubling him. Tiredness had made his limp more exaggerated. He reached down and scratched at the joint, getting some relief.

No good, he thought, it'll only make it worse. But he couldn't help himself. He had always been the same. Impulsive. Give him an itch and he would scratch it. He laughed humorlessly.

Yes, and maybe that's the root of it.

Far out—two, maybe three li out from the shore—the lights of an imperial cruiser skimmed the water as it made its regular patrol.

Protecting me, he thought. Yes, but who would protect him from himself? Maybe that was why he was getting married finally, in the hope that he would change.

A young wife. Children. If anything could change a man, then surely these could do it. Why, he had seen how Li Yuan was with his son. . . .

Yes, but he was not Li Yuan.

So why was he doing it? Why now, when he was so settled in his ways? Or was that it at all? Was it not, perhaps, some kind of punishment?

He turned from the rail, angry with himself, looking back into the darkness of the room where, on a bed of silk, lay one of his maids.

To change himself. It was a forlorn hope. Yet try it he must, or die an old goat, his grave untended.

There had always been time. Tomorrow. Yes, there'd been an infinity of tomorrows. But slowly he had used them up. Days had passed like dying cells and he was slowly getting older.

Yes, there had always been time.

He sighed. Wasn't it strange how young men thought they were like the sea, ageless and eternal. So he had been. Tsu Ma. The horse. He had outrun, outdrunk, outfucked every last one of them. But now . . .

Now time weighed heavy on him and the seas in his veins ran slow and sluggish.

Time was he'd been a child, carefree, a full ch'i smaller than his eldest brother. That same beloved brother whom he had seen fall from his horse like a mannequin and who had bled to death in his arms, the assassin's crossbow bolt in his neck, the black iron shaft of it poking obscenely from the bloodied flesh. He had promised himself he would never love anyone that much again and had fled into debauchery, as if that might stop the hurt or end the dreams that came to him, night after night. But never is a long time, and then Fei Yen had come. Fei Yen, his cousin Li Yuan's wife.

He shuddered, then held on to the door, a sudden weakness taking him. For a moment he clung on, as the blackness swept over him, then he let out a breath. He was okay. It was nothing. He had had several of these spells of late and he put them down to overexertion. It was simply his body telling him to ease off. There was no point mentioning them to his Surgeon.

I should eat something, he thought, taking a long, calming breath. Or maybe sleep. After all, he was no longer as robust as he had once been.

He stepped inside, closing his eyes briefly to catch the young girl's scent. He moaned softly, his senses intoxicated by the sweet perfume of her, then, opening his eyes once more, put his hand out, feeling for the edge of the bed. He could hear her now. From the soft regularity of her breathing he could tell that she was sleeping.

His hand searched among the silken covers until it found something warm and smooth—her leg.

He sat, kicking off his slippers, his hand caressing the young girl's thigh, tracing the smooth contours of her. As he did she woke.

"Chieh Hsia?"

"Quiet, girl," he said, his hand finding her face in the dark. She nuzzled it, kissing it softly, wetly, making his sex stir.

Tomorrow, he thought, pushing her down then untying the sash of his sleeping robe. I shall reform myself tomorrow.

CHAPTER TWO

Breathless Mouths

KI M STIRRED, then turned abruptly on the bed, like a fish on a hook, mouth gasping, left hand reaching for the ceiling.

"A-dhywas-lur! A-dhywas-lur!"

He woke, his dark eyes blinking, staring up into the camera lens, the narrow band about his neck pulsing brightly in the darkened room. Silence, then: "What is she doing?"

It was the first question he asked, today and every day.

"She's awake," the Machine answered, the soft Han lilt of its voice filling the tiny room. "Right now she's eating breakfast. Would you like to see her?"

Each day the same struggle within him; each day the same answer.

"No."

Its circuits made a shrugging motion, unseen, unheard. Ward sat up, then twisted about, planting his feet firmly on the uncarpeted floor. One would have thought that today of all days something else would have been on his waking mind, but no, the young man was machinelike in his obsession. Not an hour went by without some reference to her.

Kim turned, looking up at the lens. "And her father? The Marshal? Will he be accompanying Li Yuan?"

"He is part of the T'ang's official party, so I assume ..."

Kim's raised hand silenced it. It watched him cross the bare, cell-like room and enter the bathroom, a second lens above the shower watching him step into the unit.

"Hot or cold?"

"Cold."

At once the water fell, bracingly cold, a touch of northern ice in its needle-sharp flow. It watched the young man grimace and then shudder in a kind of pained ecstasy.

Why did he continually punish himself? What inner need drove him to such extremes? Or was the young woman, Jelka, the answer to that also?

"Enough!"

It cut the flow. At once warm air-currents filled the cubicle, drying the young man's body. Again there was that movement in his face; again that faint, almost indiscernible shudder.

What was it like to be a thing of the flesh? What secret languages of blood and nerve, sinew and bone, was he granted and it denied? It had access— access to a billion camera eyes, both on Earth and distant Mars, and to all the vast storehouse of information Mankind had amassed—but to be a thing of flesh, that was a mystery.

Kim stepped from the shower and went to the sink, popping a calcium pill to clean his mouth and teeth. As it dissolved, he hummed a tune to himself—an air from the times before the City: a song of love and loss and constancy.

"Any messages?"

It would have been easier to have tapped them direct into the wire inside his head, but Kim had forbidden it. For some archaic reason he preferred this quasihuman form—this question-and-answer in the air.

"Only two. Reiss and Curval."

Kim slid the cupboard door open and took a pale red one-piece from inside. It was all he ever wore these days—a succession of crisp new lab suits, each one burned at the end of the day, as if in some constant ritual of self-purification.

"When does Reiss want to meet?"

Not "What does Reiss want?"—he knew what Reiss wanted: to settle the terms for the renewal of his contract—but When? As ever, Kim wasted no time with what was already known.

"Lunch if possible. This evening if not. He seemed quite concerned."

As he ought. In four weeks he could be losing the services of the greatest scientist on Chung Kuo. That was, unless he could come up with a deal enticing enough to make Kim Ward stay with SimFic.

Unconscious of the gesture, Kim touched the glowing band about his neck. "It'll have to be this evening. Book dinner, at eight. At the Hive. But Reiss only. None of the other monkeys."

"He thought you'd say that, but he wants to bring someone along with him—a young executive named Jack Neville. Says you'd understand."

Kim stepped into the one-piece, zipped it up, then turned, looking up at the camera.

"Okay. And Curval?"

"He called half an hour back. Wanted to know if you'll need him for the trial run. To be frank, I think he just wants to be there."

"Then tell him I'll expect him, ten o'clock in the main lab."

He sat on the edge of the bed, reached underneath, then pulled on a pair of worn slip-ons. "And our game?"

In answer it placed a hologram in the air beside him—a life-size image of a wei chi board, the black and white stones of a half-completed game covering two thirds of the nineteen by nineteen grid. As Kim looked, a new black stone appeared two down, six in from the top right-hand edge. It glowed for the briefest moment, then grew dull.

Kim smiled. "Interesting."

It said nothing, merely watched, knowing that for that single moment they were alike, he and it—simple mechanisms that thought and calculated. Then Kim looked up, the faintest glimmer in his eye, and it knew the moment had passed.

"What is she doing now? Is she walking in the garden?"

JELKA STOPPED ON the tiny bridge at the center of the Ebert Mansion gardens, looking toward where her father crouched playing with the boy. Laughter filled the morning air, the boy's high-pitched shrieks threading the old man's deep laughter like a young bird fluttering in a great oak.

She smiled. Who would have imagined, three years back, when he'd first taken on the role of protector to the boy, that it would have come to this? Back then he had positively loathed the child; had raged, calling him "that half-caste little bastard," but now . . .

She watched him scoop the boy up and hold him high, his craggy face filled with an unusual lightness, his eyes drinking in the young lad's laughter. So he'd been with her, father and mother to her, for more than twenty years. She shivered then went across to join them.

"Father?"

Tolonen set the boy down and turned, smiling, one arm out to her in welcome. Beside him, the boy waited, his arms at his sides, his head bowed politely, as he'd been taught: every bit the little soldier.

"How are you, Pauli?"

He looked up at her shyly, through the dark fall of his hair, and nodded. It was the most she ever got from him. Whether she frightened him or whether, as her father said, he was half in love with her, she didn't know, but when she was there he clamtned up totally.

She smiled inwardly, but outwardly she kept her face stern and serious, walking slowly around him as if inspecting a young officer. Satisfied, she nodded.

"You've done all your schoolwork?"

He nodded, his eyes careful not to meet hers.

"Good." She permitted herself a smile, then reached out and ruffled his hair. Han . . . there was no doubt that the boy was Han, yet something of his father's blood—of Hans Ebert's Saxon stock—had shaped that young face, giving it a curious strength. With or without the great trading empire he would one day inherit, Pauli Ebert would be a force to reckon with when he was older.

She turned, looking to her father. "Oughtn't you to be getting ready?"

He glanced at the timer set into his wrist, then made a face of surprise. "Gods! Is that the time?"

She nodded, amused by his pretense. These days he would even keep Li Yuan waiting if it meant an extra ten minutes playing with his ward.

"Still, there's not much to do," he said, making no move to leave, his eyes resting fondly on the boy. "Steward Lo has already laid out my uniform. I only need to shower, and that won't take a minute."

"Even so . . ."

She paused as Steward Lo himself appeared in the doorway leading to the West Wing. Her father, noting her attention, turned.

"What is it, Lo?" he asked, suddenly more formal.

Lo bowed. "You have visitors, Master."

"What, at this hour?" A flash of irritation crossed his face, then he nodded. "All right. Show them into the main Reception Hall. I'll see them there. Oh, and tell them they have fifteen minutes of my time, no more. The T'ang himself is expecting my company."

When Lo had gone, Jelka stepped closer. "Who is it?" she asked quietly.

His face was hard, his eyes troubled. "Oh, it's no one. . . ."

She laid her hand on his arm—his flesh-and-blood, human arm. "Father?"

He laughed gruffly at her admonishment, but still his eyes were troubled. "It's them again. Wanting, always wanting."

"Ah . . ." She understood at once. By "them" he meant the small group of powerful businessmen who—when Hans Ebert had ordered his bastard child terminated—had saved the boy and raised him secretly for his first four years. She shuddered. "What do they want now?"

A sourness filled the old Marshal's face. "Who knows? Favors. The usual thing . . ."

"And you give them what they want?"

His laughter was almost ugly. "No. Thus far I've delayed them, fobbed them off, but they're becoming more insistent, their claims more outrageous."

She squeezed his arm. "Tell them you owe them nothing."

He looked at her, then shook his head. "I wish I could, but it's not so simple. As the world perceives it, the boy owes them a great deal, maybe everything."

"But legally . . ."

He shook his head. "Leave it, please, my love."

She stepped back, bowing her head obediently, while beside her, his dark eyes taking in everything, the boy frowned.

"Well? What do you want?"

The two men got to their feet abruptly, surprised by the sudden presence of Tolonen in the room, shocked by the hostility in his voice.

"Forgive us for intruding at this hour," began the first of them, a rotund and balding man in pale lemon silks, "but this matter—"

Tolonen cut in. "You'll forgive me if I'm less than polite, Shih Berrenson, but I'm not accustomed to being dragged from my breakfast for ad hoc meetings. I am a busy man—a very busy man—and should you wish to make an appointment with me it can be done through my Private Secretary."

Berrenson looked to his partner, Fox, then ducked his head slightly, as if at the same time agreeing and disagreeing with Tolonen.

"Forgive me, Marshal, but that is exactly what we have been trying to do for the past six days. A dozen times we've approached him to arrange an audience with you and each time your man has put us off. In the end we were left with no option—"

"—but to come knocking on my door like tradesmen."

Berrenson's face stiffened. Beside him the thin-faced Fox looked indignant.

"Tradesmen?"

Tolonen stepped right up to him, then tapped his chest with the fingers of his golden, artificial arm. "Tradesmen. Wheeler-dealers. What do you want me to call you? Ch'un tzu?" He laughed coldly. "No, gentlemen, let's not hide the fact with pretty words. I know what you want."

Berrenson stared at the golden fingers pressed into his chest, then met Tolonen's eyes again. "Whatever your personal feelings are in this matter, I feel it would be best—"

"Best?" Tolonen shook his head. "What would be best would be for you to go away and stop pestering the child. He is grateful, certainly, but your attempts to turn such gratitude into financial advantage are— and let me make this absolutely clear—becoming tiresome."

Berrenson took a long breath, then looked to his colleague again. "I see we are wasting our time here. It seems the Marshal has no understanding of how things work in the realm of finance. Not that that's surprising. He is, after all, a mere soldier."

The insult was barely out before Berrenson found himself sprawling backward. He sat up, groaning, blood dripping from his nose and from the gash in his top lip. Fox looked on, astonished.

"Nothing," Tolonen said, standing over him threateningly. "You shall have nothing. You or any of your pack of jackals."

Berrenson dabbed at his broken nose with the collar of his silks, then glared up at the old man. "You'll regret this, Tolonen. Before I'm done GenSyn won't be worth a fucking five-^uan note."

Tolonen laughed. "Is that a threat, Shih Berrenson? Because if it is, you'd better be prepared to carry it out. But let me warn you, you loathsome little insect. If I find you've said one word that's detrimental to the Company or made one deal that could harm my ward's interests, then I'll come for you . . . personally, you understand me? And next time it won't be just your nose I'll break, it'll be every bone in that obese tradesman's body of yours." He leaned in close, pushing his face almost into Berrenson's. "Understand me?"

Berrenson nodded. - "Good. Now go. And don't bother me again." • ..

KIM WAITED AS THE DOOR hissed back, then stepped through, his breath warm in the protective suit. This was a secure area and as the door closed behind him, sealing itself airtight, a fine mist enveloped him, killing any bacteria he might have brought in from outside.

Inside, beyond the second airtight door, was the garden he had had built at the center of the labs. There, beneath a fake blue sky that was eternally summer, were the two dozen special rosebushes he had had planted in the rich, dark earth that covered the whole of the thirty-by-thirty area to a depth of three feet.

As the second door slid back, Kim stepped inside, the microfine filters in the helmet allowing him to smell the sweet scent of the roses. He stopped a moment, eyes closed, enjoying the early-morning warmth, the strange freshness of the place, then walked on, making his way down the lines of bushes.

SimFic had spent more than fifteen million yuan building this place, simply to humor him. The thought of that—of the waste—had worried him at first, but then he'd begun to see it from their viewpoint. Here he could think—here, undisturbed, he could put flesh to the bone of speculation. And thinking was what he was paid to do.

He smiled, seeing the first of the webs glimmering wetly in the fake sunlight. It was beautiful. Delicately, indescribably beautiful. It was as if it touched some blueprint deep inside him and struck a resonating chord. He crouched beside it, staring at its delicate symmetry. It was an orb web, spun by the simple European garden spider, Araneus diadematus.

Yesterday he had watched her spin this web, making first the spokes and then the central spiral. A broader "guide" spiral—a kind of scaffolding—had followed, and then the great spiral itself, the "bridge lines" as they were called. He had watched fascinated as she wove and gummed the threads, her tiny rounded body balanced on the scaffolding as she plucked the gummed line to spread the tiny droplets equidis-tantly along its length. When he had first seen it he had thrilled to the discovery, recognizing once more the importance of the laws of resonance and how they governed the natural world—from the largest things to the smallest—and it had brought back to him a moment when he had witnessed a great spiderlike machine hum and produce a chair from nothingness. So long ago that seemed, yet the moment was linked to this, resonating down the years. Memories . . . they, too, obeyed the laws of resonance.

He moved on. Beside the orb web spiders he had others—scaffold-web spiders like Nesticidae that had settled in a tiny rocky cave he had had built at the far end of the garden, and triangular-web spiders like Hyptiotes. But his favorite was the elegant Dinopis, a net-throwing spider with the face of a fairy-tale ogre. How often he had watched her construct her net between her back legs and then wait, with a patience that seemed limitless, to snare any insect foolish enough to pass below.

Insects had long been banned from City Earth. The great tyrant Tsao Ch'un had had them eradicated from the levels, building intricate systems of filters and barriers to keep them out. But here, in this single airtight room, he, Kim Ward, had brought them back. Using stored DNA, GenSyn had rebuilt these once-common species specially for him: these and their prey—ants and beetles, centipedes, ladybirds and flies, silk moths and aphids.

It had not been easy, however. He had first needed to get Li Yuan's permission. A special Edict had been passed, cosigned by all three T'ang, while SimFic, for their part, had guaranteed that there would be no breaches of the strict quarantine procedures.

He looked about him, feeling a brief contentment. Here he had mused on many things: on the physical nature of memory; on the aging of cells and the use of nanotechnology to induce the rapid healing of damaged tissue; on the duplication of neurons; and, most recently, on the creation of a safe and stable intelligence-enhancement drug. Each time he had come here knowing no answer, and each time the tranquillity of the garden had woven its magic spell, conjuring something from the depths of him.

But now it was almost done, his time in exile finished. In four weeks he could walk from here, a free man again, the pulsing band gone from around his neck. If he chose.

He reached out and brushed the delicate, dew-touched petals of a bloodred rose with his gloved fingers, watching the pearled drops fall. It was all one great ballet—a cosmic dance, governed by immutable laws, and he the key, the focus of it all. He saw how it all worked, how it could be shaped and used. And yet some part of him held back— some dark and quiet part of him refused to use that knowledge.

He expelled a long, slow breath, then looked about him, as if seeing it all for the first time. Thus far he had but scratched the surface of the real. SimFic had asked and he had answered. But their questions had been small and insignificant . . . unimaginative. It was as if they couldn't see the possibilities, whereas he ...

He frowned, not liking the shape of his thoughts. Yet it was necessary to face the truth. Intellectually he was their superior. That made him no better than they—not in simple human terms—but it did make him different, and he was convinced that that difference had been granted him for a reason. The twists and turns of his existence—his very survival—all of it meant something. He had been raised up from the darkness for a purpose, and now it was time, perhaps, to discover just what that purpose was—to ask himself the big questions, the questions that only he could frame.

He crossed the room and stood before the long metal cabinet that was attached to the wall. Taking a long-stemmed key from the belt of his suit he fitted it into the lock and turned it twice. There was a moment's delay and then a series of tiny metal doors in the side of the cabinet clicked open.

Kim stood back, watching the insects tumble out in a spill of darkness. They were freshly fashioned, their neutered forms made for a single purpose—to be eaten by his spiders. It was a disturbing thought. Like so much else he had created they were little more than toys— distractions from the real business of life.

He watched them flap and whirr and scuttle and felt his inner self curl up in aversion.

They moved, yet they were dead.

"Kim?"

He looked up at the camera lens overhead. "Yes?"

"Curval wants to speak with you about the new figures."

"Tell him I'll be with him in a while."

He looked down. The real reason he had come here this morning was to see if he could focus himself for long enough to make a decision about whether he should stay with SimFic in some capacity or go his own way. But, as ever, there were too many things to be attended to, to allow him time to think it through properly. The decision would be of the moment. They would ask, he would reach inside himself and . . . well, it would be there, on his tongue. Until then he didn't know.

He retraced his steps. As the door hissed closed behind him and a faint mist enveloped him, one final thought came to him.

Does she still think of me? Does she even remember me?

JELKA HAD HEARD her father shouting, had heard the commotion in the entrance hall as the two men left, but it was an hour before he emerged from his rooms, wearing his Marshal's uniform, his face composed as if nothing had happened.

She greeted him in the atrium at the front of the Mansion, walking around him to inspect him, just as she'd done to the boy. It was unnecessary, of course—Steward Lo would never have let him leave his rooms unless he were immaculate—but it had become almost a ritual between them.

"Welir-fee asked.

She touched his arm. "You look very smart, Father. It's not often you wear full dress uniform these days. What's the occasion?"

"I . . ." He looked down at his wrist timer, then shook his head. "Gods! Is that the time? Look, sweetheart, I have to go. I'm late already."

She kissed his cheek. "Go on. Hurry now. I'll see you when you get back."

He smiled. "Look after Pauli, neh?"

She nodded, then sighed, watching him disappear through the open doorway, but a moment later he was back, smiling apologetically.

"I almost forgot. The final guest list for the party . . . it's on my desk. If you'd check it to make sure we've not left anyone out."

"I'll make a start on it at once."

He returned her smile. "Good."

She watched him go, then turned, gazing down the hallway toward the big picture window at the end with its view of the gardens at the center of the Mansion, then shook her head. How she hated this place. Five years she had lived here now, and still she felt like an intruder. Not that she had ever liked this house, with its dark walls and its heavy furnishings, its monumental statuary and its thick, oppressive tapestries. No. The ghosts of the Ebert family still presided here and their fleshy imprint lay on everything. This was their place, like the lair of some strange, half-furred, feral creatures. And for her there was the further memory of her betrothal to the son of the house, Hans.

Jelka shuddered. It had been there, in the Great Hall, just to the right of where she stood. She walked across, then stopped in the doorway, looking in. Nothing had changed. The jet-black tiles gleamed with polish, while between squat red pillars, on lush green walls that reminded her of primal forests, hung the same huge canvases of ancient hunts that had hung there on the day she'd been betrothed to him.

She closed her eyes, remembering. In the half-dark, the machine had floated toward her like a giant bloated egg, silent, two brutish GenSyn giants guiding it. Its outer surface had been like smoked glass, but a tightly focused circle of light directly beneath it had glimmered like a living presence in the depths of the floor. She had stood there as in a dream, rooted with fear, watching it come, like Fate, implacable and unavoidable.

She made a small movement of her head, surprised by the vividness of the memory. So much had happened since that day—so many had died or been betrayed—and yet she, Jelka Tolonen, had survived. She had danced her way to life.

Turning, she noticed that the door to her father's study was open. Steward Lo was inside, tidying up after his master.

Looking up, Lo saw her. "Nu Shi . . ."

She went across, looking about her as Lo finished his chores. Even here there was little sign of her father. He had changed nothing. Bookshelves filled three walls, but those had been there before he'd come and the leather-bound books that lined them had been undisturbed for twenty, maybe thirty years, the Ebert crest stamped into the title page of every one. Only the personal items on the big oak desk that filled the far corner of the room were her father's.

She went across and began searching for the list. There were letters from old friends and bulky files with the S-within-G logo of GenSyn stamped into their bright blue covers, a note from General Rheinhardt about the next Security Council meeting, and her father's desk diary, open at today's page. She searched a moment longer, surprised to find nothing, then stopped, her eyes caught by the final entry in the diary.

She shook her head, then read it once again. No, she hadn't been mistaken: there it was, in his own handwriting: SimFic Labs with Li Yuan. 12 p.m. Kim Ward and Work-in-Progress.

He hadn't told her. He hadn't told her!

She eased back, an unfocused anger gripping her, then, clenching both her fists, she called for inner calm. Slowly, very slowly, it came to her.

So ... it was still going on. Seven years—seven long years he had kept this up. But now it had to stop.

She let out a long breath, then looked across the study. Steward Lo was watching her.

"Are you all right, Nu Shi?"

She let her voice project her inner calm. "I'm fine, Steward Lo. It's just that my father said he'd left a list ... a guest list for my Coming-of-Age party."

"Ah . . ." Lo came across and, with a bow to her, reached past her and took a slender file from among the GenSyn papers.

"Here," he said, dusting it off and handing it to her, bowing again. "It is not long now, neh, Nu Shi?"

"Not long," she answered, nodding her thanks. Then, moving past him, she hastened from the study.

Back-in her room, she sat on the edge of her bed, the file in her lap, letting her thoughts grow still. They would all be here, of course—all of those important names from Above society one might expect to turn up for the Coming-of-Age party of the Marshal's daughter, but there was only one name she was interested in. She counted ten then opened it, scanning the list quickly with her finger.

Most of the names were familiar—Security mostly—but some, she knew, were there because one could not hold such a party and not invite such people. She would have to go through it more carefully later on, but for now . . .

She came to the end. Nothing. There was no sign of his name.

So it was true. He really was keeping his word. Very well. She should not really have expected other of him. But this was her party, her Coming-of-Age, and there was one person, more than any other, she would have there on that day. Kim Ward.

She went through to her study and sat at her desk, leaning across to take the ink brush from its stand. Inking it, she tried to remember the last time she had seen him, after his Wiring Operation. Seven years had passed since that day, and never, in all that time, had she stopped thinking of him, wondering about him, {preparing herself for him.

She took the list and wrote in his name, there between Wang Ling, the Minister for Production, and her father's friend, Colonel Wareham.

There! she thought. Yet even as the ink dried, she knew it would not end with that. He would fight her over it, she knew, for it was the one thing they had always fought over.

Damn you, you old bugger! she thought, angry at him yet loving him all the same. Why can't you want what I want just this once?

But she knew it was no good wishing. Her father was like a rock, impervious to time and good opinion. She would have to face him out on this. Tonight, perhaps, or tomorrow.

She shivered, frustration and anger threatening to drive her to distraction. Then, controlling herself again, she switched on her desktop comset and turned to the front of the list, determined he would have no other reason to find fault with her.

TOLONEN GAZED OUT of the window of the cruiser, then looked back at his T'ang, answering him finally.

"I don't know, Chieh Hsia. I think you should try other means before taking such drastic action."

Li Yuan gestured wearily. "I wish I could, but time is against us. Each day sees the man grow stronger at my expense. The situation in Africa is worsening and my armies there are restless. If I do nothing, things will simply deteriorate until . . . well, until Li Min will merely have to raise his voice and the whole thing will come tumbling down."

Tolonen sighed, troubled by such talk. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but surely things are not so bad? We have had peace these past three years. The House has been docile, food rations have increased . . ."

Li Yuan huffed out a breath, exasperated. "Can't you see it, Knut? The peace you talk of, it's a fragile, brittle thing. No. Time is running out. Our options are dwindling. We must either fight the bastard now or hand the City over to him."

"Then send Karr to negotiate with him, as I suggested. Have him offer Li Min a temporary peace—something that'll give us time to draw up a proper plan of campaign. To fight him now, without preparation"—Tolonen made a bitter face—"it would be madness!"

Li Yuan sat back, smoothing his chin nervously. Tolonen, watching him, saw the gesture and looked down, reminded of the young man's father, Li Shai Tung. So the old man had looked in those months before his death—his eyes haunted, his face made gaunt with worry. And maybe Yuan was right—maybe things were worse than they seemed—but to hit out blindly, simply for something to do ... well, he had said it already: it was madness.

Tolonen sighed. "Besides, there's always Ward. If he delivers the goods . . ."

Li Yuan nodded distractedly, then met Tolonen's eyes again. "I understand you had some visitors this morning?"

"Ah, that."

"Is there a problem, Knut? Something I can help you with?"

Tolonen gave a short laugh. "Nothing I can't deal with, Chieh Hsia."

"No . . ." Li Yuan stared at him a moment, then laughed. "I doubt there's anything you couldn't deal with."

They were both silent awhile, then Tolonen spoke. ⁽ '

"Do you think Ward will sign up again?" ^;

"For SimFic?" Li Yuan considered a moment, then shrugged. "It's hard to say. One thing is for certain, he doesn't need the money. I am advised he's worth close on four hundred and fifty million, with the royalties on jSimFic products he's had a hand in, that's likely to treble within the next five years. If I were in Reiss's position I would be looking beyond financial incentives."

Tolonen stared at his hands, suddenly uncomfortable. "He's a strange one, neh?"

Li Yuan nodded. "It must be strange, being as he is."

Tolonen hesitated, then looked up. "What do you think of him as a person?"

Li Yuan frowned. The question was unexpected. "I ... respect him. His talent is formidable . . . frightening. I can't begin to imagine how he thinks. It's as if he's thinking in a different direction to the rest of us. Rather like Shepherd."

Tolonen was leaning forward now, his face set, waiting.

"But as a person?" Li Yuan shrugged, then pulled his silks about him, as if suddenly cold. "I don't know. I cannot make him out. There is something . . . dark in him. I have tried to like him, but . . ."

Tolonen nodded, understanding. It was how he himself felt—at one and the same time awed and repelled by the boy.

6031? He laughed inwardly at the slip. Why, Ward was a man now ... a young man of twenty-five years, but still he thought of him as a boy, perhaps because Ward still had the body of a child—an effete yet threatening child. He shivered. If the truth were known he thought Ward an ugly, stunted little creature and what his daughter had ever seen in him he couldn't imagine. Clayborn he was, and like all of the Clayborn there was something deeply, intrinsically repugnant about him.

He sat back, then locked his hands together in his lap, gold metallic fingers alternating with pink-white flesh. He had not seen Ward since he'd come back from America—in truth, he had hoped never to see him again. When America had fallen he'd believed the boy was dead—had thought it done with for good and all. But Ward had got out—SimFic had protected their investment and shipped him out on the last flight—and he, hearing the news, had felt a bitter disappointment.

A curse—Ward was a curse on him, an evil spell, always coming between him and his daughter.

He felt the cruiser begin to bank, the engine tone change, and knew they were approaching their destination. Below them lay the great three-hundred-level city, like a giant glacier filling the central European plain, its hivelike sections gleaming whitely in the late morning sunshine. Looking back at Li Yuan he saw he was staring out the window; but his hazel eyes were looking inward, his mind worrying over some problem of State. Tolonen, seeing him thus, felt his own worries dissipate. They were as nothing beside his Master's. To serve his T'ang, that was—had always been—his prime directive, and whatever he felt about Ward, he must let none of it come between him and his duty. To serve ... he nodded, then straightened in his seat, pushing out his chest and placing his hands firmly, decisively, on his knees ... it was the very reason for his existence.

KIM LEANED IN to the screen, tracing the slowly descending line of the graph with his index finger, his worst fears confirmed.

"There's no doubt, is there?"

Curval, beside him, stared a moment longer then shook his head. "No. These performance figures bear out what we've suspected for a while now. There's a definite memory drain."

"Any guesses as to why?"

Curval glanced at Kim, then shrugged. "No idea. But it's happening. At this rate the whole of the implanted memory core will be gone in . . . three months? Four at the outside."

"And the body's good for sixty, maybe eighty years."

"Bit of a problem, huh?"

The two men laughed.

"So what are we going to do?" Curval asked, smoothing the polished dome of his skull. "Start again? Redesign from scratch?"

"Li Yuan won't like it."

"But if there's no other option?"

Curval considered. "What if we were to create backups? Make more than a single implant? Maybe it's simply a question of reinforcement. After all, the human brain makes copies of all new memories and distributes them, so maybe that's what's lacking? Maybe we're oversimplifying?"

"Maybe. Then again, maybe we're not being simple enough. I've the feeling that the answer's there, staring us in the face, only it's so obvious—so glaring—that we just can't see it."

Curval laughed. "You think so? If you ask me there's a fault in the materials we've been using."

Kim shook his head.

"Then what? There's got to be an answer. This—" Curval tapped the screen—"this oughtn't to be happening."

"No, but it is. Which means something basic is going wrong—something so integral to the process that we're going to have to take the whole thing apart piece by piece before we can understand what it is."

"That'll take time."

"I know."

"And we haven't got time."

"I know."

"So what are we going to do?"

Kim smiled. "First we're going to see the T'ang and show him what we've got."

THE TESTS WERE OVER. Li Yuan watched them lead the manlike morph away then looked down at his hands.

In some ways it was impressive, much more impressive than anything GenSyn had thus far managed to produce. The creature's feats of memory and mathematics were breathtaking and there was no doubting its mental agility. Physically, however, it was disappointing. Oh, it was fit—super fit if the performance figures quoted could be trusted— and its coordination was excellent, moreover its vision and muscular strength had been enhanced; even so, it was not what he had envisaged.

He sighed and looked across at Tolonen. The old man smiled back at him, but he looked tired, as if the whole thing had been too much for him. Seeing that, Li Yuan relented a little. They had all worked hard—Tolonen included—to get this far. And maybe he was simply expecting too much. After all, three years ago there had been nothing—nothing but the rumor that DeVore and Hans Ebert had been working on something like this. That and the "manufactured" brains they had discovered in North America.

He was used to synthetic beings, he had grown up surrounded by them tank-grown creatures, products of GenSyn's bioengineering programs-but this was different. The skin, the eyes, they had been grown in GenSyn’s vats-special nutrient reservoirs, feeding the living, self-replacing parts; doing the jobs other cells would normally have carried out-but the rest ... the rest had been built. Beneath the human form that presented itself to the eye was a machine; a machine that however crudely-thought for itself.

He turned, looking to Kim. "There's one thing 1 don't understand, why does it make those lists?"

Kim hesitated glancing at Reiss, then answered him. "It makes lists because its autistic-"

"Autistic?"

"You saw how easily it remembered things. It's like a blotting paper, soaking things up. And once shown it never forgets. But what it lacks is the ability to ascribe a meaning or purpose to things-especially to people and places. It has no structure to its existence, you see. There's a gap there whre it ought to be. So, to plug that gap it fills its life with lists."

"Ahh . . "

"In humans the problem is rooted in the cerebellum-that's where our sense of 'self is to be found." Kim laughed. "I've heard that the Temple of the Oracle at ancient Delphi had an inscription carved into the stone over the entrance ‘Know Thyself,' it read. Unfortunately that isn’t even an option for our android friend. The brain structure we’ve developed for this model is simply too crude, too simple, to allow self-consciousness."

"And nothing can be done about that?"

Kim shrugged. "Possibly. But there are other problems we have to solve first. At present the brain in this model is quite small-like the one the Marshal brought back from America. The reason for that's quite simple. An ounce of nerve tissue uses up far more calories in the process of thinking than an ounce of muscle burns up in exercise. In fact the brain uses up a quarter of the body's energy. We've tried to accomodate this fact by providing extra power to our models. Hence storage packs in the small of its back. But we can only do so much. Being aware is actually very hard work. To make that model more aware we would have to increase its cranial capacity considerably, and-that would mean increasing its body size and weight proportionately. What you'd have, in effect, would be a giant."

Li Yuan leaned back, his disappointment deeper by the moment. "I had hoped we would be able to improve on things somehow."

Kim smiled apologetically. "Maybe we shall. Given time. At first I considered doing something new—of designing something that was completely different from the basic human blueprint—but ultimately I had to concede that there was nothing wrong with the old model. Tens of millions of years of evolution can't be bucked. The brain is as it is because that's how it has to be."

"I understand. But tell me . . . why did it take so long to recognize us? Even you. It seemed almost not to see you until you spoke to it. I thought its vision had been enhanced."

"It has, but the model is essentially prosopognosic. That is, it can't recognize faces. Not at once, anyway. Retinas, yes, voices too—from the inflections—but a whole face takes much longer. It has to check a number of different elements—shape of nose, color of eyes, distance between forehead and mouth—against a preprogrammed list of the same elements and tick off each item. It doesn't take long, but there's a definite delay. Like many of its behavioral traits, it's a crude analogy of how a human functions, not a perfect copy."

"I was surprised by how human it looks," Li Yuan confessed. "I was expecting something more . . ."

"Brutal?" Kim shrugged. "I toyed with the idea of making it look very different, of enhancing it even more and making it like some sleek custom-designed machine; but in the end I decided it would be best to work with something that looked as unthreatening—as normal—as possible. After all, if it's simple threat you want, you already have GenSyn's half-men, their Hei. My thinking was that if this project had any purpose, it was to produce something that would fool your enemies. Its very normality is, I feel, its greatest strength."

"Is it safe?"

Kim laughed. "Safe? It's positively docile. In fact, one of the problems we've been having with this model is its passivity. It'll make decisions, but only when it's asked to make decisions. Most of the time it'll just sit there."

"I see. And there's no way to alter that?"

Kim hesitated, then glanced at Reiss, who had remained by the door, looking on.

Li Yuan turned, a faint hope growing in him. "Is there something I should know, Director Reiss?"

Reiss bowed his head. "Chieh Hsia, I ..."

"Just tell me."

Reiss swallowed. "There's a—a second prototype."

Li Yuan raised an eyebrow. "A second prototype?"

"Yes, Chieh Hsia, except—"

"Except we've been having problems with it," Kim said, interrupting him.

Li Yuan turned. "What kind of problems?"

Kim smiled then put out an arm, inviting Li Yuan to accompany him. "I think you'd better see it for yourself."

LI YUAN STOOD BESIDE Kim in the tiny room, staring at the creature sprawled on the narrow bed. The first prototype had seemed little more than a complex marionette, like the golden bird in the poem Ben had sent him, but this . . . he felt a strange thrill—of fear? excitement?—run up his spine. This was something special. He could see that at a glance.

"So what is the problem?"

"Can't you see?"

Li Yuan made to step closer, but Kim touched his arm. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but no closer. It's . . . erratic."

"Dangerous?"

"It hasn't been, but . . . well, I'd hate to be proved wrong."

"Should we ... ?" Li Yuan gestured to the door.

"No. It'll ignore us if we keep our distance. Usually it . . ."

"Usually it what?" The creature turned its head and stared at them, its eyes dark with intelligence.

Yes, Li Yuan thought, his breath catching in his throat, this was more like what he'd expected!

It turned and slid its legs over the edge of the bed.

"How are you today?"

It ignored Kim's question, staring at Li Yuan as if to place him.

"What do the latest figures show?"

"The same trend."

The creature nodded, then, in a gesture that was peculiarly human, combed its dark hair back from its eyes. "So what will you do?"

"I can reimplant."

"No good. If you do that I lose what I am. All I've been. Already—" it grimaced painfully—"already things are slipping from me."

"Has it a name?" Li Yuan asked.

Kim turned, surprised, as if he'd forgotten the young T'ang was there. "Ravachol ... I called him Ravachol."

"A Slavic name. Interesting. He looks Slavic."

Kim nodded, but already his attention was back with the creature.

"What do you want me to do?"

Ravachol looked away, pained, its every action revealing some deep inner torment. "I ... I don't know. Some new technique, perhaps? A drug?"

"There are no drugs."

It stared at Kim awhile, then shrugged. "So how long do I have?"

"Three, maybe four months."

It nodded. Then, smiling suddenly, it leaned toward Kim. "I had another dream."

"A dream? Tell me. Was it the same as before?"

Ravachol hesitated, concentrating, then shook its head. "No ... I don't think so."

Kim spoke to it softly, as if coaxing a child. "So?"

It frowned fiercely, as if struggling to recall the details, then began, its voice faltering. "It began in the light. A fierce, burning light. It seared me. I was consumed by it, caught up within a great wheel of incandescent light. And . . . and then it focused. I was ... I felt new-made. I stepped out from the center of the light and ... it was as if I was stepping into a airtight cube of glass—of ice—a place of stillness. Perfect, immaculate stillness." It sat back, its face beatific, and sighed. "I could hear nothing, feel nothing, smell and sense nothing. It was . . . strange. The silence was both within me and without. There was no pulse in me, no beating in my chest. It was like I was dead, and yet I was conscious. I could turn my head and see. But there was nothing to be seen. Even^he light . . . even that had gone. Not that it was dark. It was just . j ."

Ravachol stopped, its muscles locked, its eyes staring at Kim as if it had been switched off.

"And then?"

The way it came to again was eerie, frightening, like a timepiece clicking into motion on the hour. Li Yuan felt a small shiver of fear pass through him. Yes, he could see now what Kim meant. The thing was mad—totally, unequivocally mad.

"I can't remember. Something happened, but I can't remember. It's like a piece of cloth where the edge has frayed. I get so far and then there's nothing left."

It stared at Kim, mouth open in a perfect O of surprise.

"Okay, you'd better rest. If you dream the dream again, write it down. Or speak of it to the camera, before the edges fray."

It nodded, then, with a curious meekness, allowed itself to be tucked in beneath the thin white sheets. It lay there, passive, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Then, with a suddenness that was shocking, its eyelids clicked shut.

Outside again, Li Yuan stood at the view window looking in.

"What does it mean, all that?"

"The dream?" Kim scribbled something in a small notebook, then slipped it into the pocket of his one-piece. "It's the same every time, detail for detail. It's not really a dream—not as you and I have them— more a symbolic landscape of its self-consciousness ... a tacit recognition of its basic nonexistence. It knows, you see. Knows what it is and how it was made. It even knows what's wrong with it. The dreams . . . they're a kind of anxiety outlet. The only one it has. Without them it would cease to function."

"I see." Li Yuan shuddered, feeling a strange pity for the creature. He was silent for a time, then he sighed. "I hoped we'd be farther along."

"We've come a long way."

"I know, it's just . . ."

"Time?"

Li Yuan nodded, then turned to face Kim. "Time. It's the curse of kings and emperors." He laughed wistfully. "When I was a child, I thought there was all the time in the world—that things would be the same forever. Time was like an old friend, unalterable, unending. But it isn't so. My father knew it. The day I was born, they say, he had a dream. A dream of the darkness to come."

Kim traced a circle on the one-way mirror. "You think collapse is inevitable, then?"

"Inevitable? No. But likely. More and more likely every day. Unless we take preventive action."

"And this?" Kim tapped the glass, indicating the sleeping android. "Do you really think this is any kind of solution?"

"You don't, I take it?"

Kim laughed. "You are the Pang, Chieh Hsia."

Li Yuan smiled. "So when will it be ready?"

"A year. Six months if we're really lucky."

"Lucky?" Li Yuan raised an eyebrow. "I thought your science was a precise thing."

"Oh, no, Chieh Hsia. Far from it. Luck plays a huge part in things. But the problems we've been having with the prototypes have stemmed mainly from the pace of development. We've come from nothing to this in less than three years. That's fast. Too fast, perhaps. If we were dealing with a single homogenous biosystem, it would be relatively straightforward—we could locate any errors as and when they occurred—but we're not: we're dealing with a dozen, fifteen different biosystems at any one time, and those systems aren't discrete, they're dependent on each other. One goes wrong, the whole lot goes wrong. And the trouble is, the systems have had no time to evolve properly—to grow together. We've had to rely on guesswork most of the time, and our guesses have sometimes been wrong. But why something doesn't work—whether it's this system we've got wrong or that— well, it's difficult to say."

Li Yuan raised a hand. "I understand. But a year ... a year should do it, right?"

Kim nodded.

"Good. Then it's time, perhaps, to make the thing specific."

"Specific?"

"Facial details, build, height and weight. That kind of thing."

"Ah . . ." Kim digested that a moment, then looked back at his T'ang. "Who is it?"

"I think it's best you don't know."

"Who is it?" Kim insisted. "I have to know."

Li Yuan stared at him, surprised, reminded briefly of Ben, then took the envelope from within his silks and offered it to Kim.

"He's a killer. A man named Soucek. But that information is classified, all right? Four men died getting those details."

Kim studied the sheaf of paper a moment longer, then nodded. "I understand. But why him?"

"He works for Li Min. He is his right-hand man. He has access to him."

"Ah ..." A shadow passed over Kim's face.

"You want to pull out?"

Kim shook his head. "I didn't say that. But I needed to know."

"A year? At the very most?"

Kim nodded.

"Then let us pray we have a year, neh, my Clayborn friend? Let us pray to all the gods we know that time, this once, does not outrun us."

SOUCEK SAT IN a chair to one side of the Magistrate's desk, his legs crossed casually, his long, pockmarked face inexpressive. Two guards stood at his back—big, brutal-faced thugs, heavy automatics held across their chest. Behind the desk, Old Yang, the Magistrate, cleared his throat, then tugged nervously at his wispy beard.

The hall was packed. People stood at the back and along the side walls or crouched in the aisles, talking and fanning themselves indolently. There were over two dozen cases to be heard this session and this was only the third of them. Already they had seen two deaths and there was a mounting excitement now that this case, too, was coming to a head.

From where she stood against the back wall, Emily looked on apprehensively. How many times had she seen this in these last two years? How many times had she had to stand and watch this dumb show of justice? Far too often, she thought, her fingers tracing the shape of the gun beneath her jacket. But today . . . today would be different.

The accused—a young Han male of seventeen years—stood in the blood-spattered space in front of the dais, his hands bound behind his back, his head bowed. His scalp had been crudely shaved and was flecked with cuts. A leather thong had been tied around his head, over his mouth, holding down his tongue and keeping him from speaking. Two bare-chested tong members stood behind him, butchers' cleavers in their belts, ceremonial black sashes about their brows. The arresting tong officer's testimony had been read, the security camera evidence shown. All that remained was for the Magistrate to pronounce sentence.

The evidence seemed conclusive. They had a Security film of the boy—a non-tong member—purchasing a knife from an unidentified criminal, and the sworn statements of "friends" that he had been boasting about what he was going to do with it. The matter appeared clear cut. He had committed a crime for which the penalty was death. But the evidence was fake, the boy innocent.

She had seen the parents yesterday and listened to their story, then had checked out the details for herself. The father was a local market trader and the couple had three children: two boys and a girl. A week back he had had an argument with one of the local tong officials— what it was about she hadn't managed to get from him, but it had to do with their fourteen-year-old daughter. The two men had exchanged sharp words. The old man had thought that that was it, but the official had not let the matter rest. He had bought evidence—faked film, the "word" of several worthless youths—and had had his cousin, the officer responsible for Security in these stacks, arrest the boy.

The circumstances were not unusual. She had evidence now on more than eighty such cases and knew that these represented only a small part of what was going on throughout the Lowers. For two years now the White T'ang had run the tribunals down here, imposing his "Code of Iron" on these levels. But what had at first seemed like justice had quickly revealed itself as just another means for tong members to lord it over the common citizens. It was a stinking, corrupt system, administered by bullies, cheats, and murderers.

Like this case here. She sighed, her anger mixed with pain. This wasn't justice, this was arranged murder, with the victim denied even the right to speak for himself. And Soucek . . . Soucek was the architect of it all, the administrator and chief executioner. It was he who let the sewers run with filth.

But today . . . today she would strike a blow for all those who had suffered under him.

As the Magistrate began to pronounce sentence, those who were crouching stood, craning their necks to see, an electric current of anticipation running through the crowded hall. Emily stood on her toes, noting where the guards were standing, then began to move through the press of bodies, making her way toward the front.

Old Yang was shouting now, berating the youth in a shrill, ugly voice, calling him the vilest of names and insulting his family. Then it was done, the sentence pronounced. There was a murmur of anticipation.

Emily slowed, looking about her. She was still some way from the front. She would need to get nearer.

At a signal from Soucek one of the tong members behind the youth stepped up and kicked the youth hard just behind his left knee. With a groan the boy went down. As he got up onto his knees, the arresting officer came across and, drawing his gun, cocked it and placed it against his head.

The hall was silent now, a tension in the air like that before a thunderstorm. She edged forward.

The shot was like a release. Heads jerked, mouths opened. A great sigh ran round the hall. It was done. The White T'ang's word meant something. But for Emily there was only anger. Her hand covered her gun. She was only five orsix from the front now. She could see Soucek clearly; see how calm—how hideously calm-j-he was as he turned to speak to one of the guards.

There was a wailing to her right. His mother, she thought, slipping her hand inside her jacket pocket and cocking the gun. Then, shockingly, there was a gunshot.

She turned her head, anxious, trying to see where it had come from. A small cloud of smoke was rising from the crowd to her right. As she saw it, another shot rang out. There was screaming, the beginnings of panic. Tong guards were converging from all sides. For a moment she didn't understand, then, as the crowd parted, she saw. It was the youth's father. He was standing there, his face distraught, holding a gun out at arm's length. She saw his hand tremble as he tried to fire again, and then one of the big automatics opened up and he jerked back, bullets ripping into him, the gun falling from his hand.

As if at a signal everyone got down. She did the same. But as she did she saw, up on the dais, one of the guards crouched over Soucek.

He's hit! she thought, exultant. The old man got the bastard!

Yet even as half a dozen tong thugs scrambled up onto the dais to surround him, she saw Soucek get up and, shrugging off the guard's hand, push past the men and vanish through the door at the far end.

She looked down, disappointed. Soucek was bleeding. From the look of it one of the old man's shots had hit his right shoulder and broken the collarbone. But he had survived. She would have to wait for another opportunity to get to him.

Yes, but it wouldn't be so easy next time. After today they'd be sure to take greater precautions.

She got up, sighing heavily. Old Yang was slumped in his seat, dead. All about her people were moaning and whimpering. To her right it was a scene of utter chaos. Chairs were scattered everywhere. A dozen or more people were down, dead or wounded.

As the guards began to clear the hall, she let herself be herded with the rest, letting the gun slip down her leg onto the floor, then peeled the flesh-thin gloves from her hands and dropped them casually.

There'll be another time, she promised herself. The bastard can't always be so lucky. Yet she felt sick at heart and bitter . . . and angry. More angry than she'd ever felt before.

KIM STOOD BEFORE the mirror in his room, adjusting his silks. He was due at the Hive in an hour, but still he hadn't made up his mind whether to sign again or not.

"Well?" he asked, addressing the air. "What did you see?"

"He hates you."

Kim turned, startled by the words. "Hates me? Li Yuan?"

"No. Tolonen. He wishes you dead. There's such anger in him."

Kim let out a breath. "I hoped things might have changed. I hoped—"

"She's with the boy," it said, anticipating his next question.

"The boy?"

"Pauli. Her father's ward. He can't sleep and she's gone to his room to comfort him."

"Ah . . ." Kim grimaced at his reflection then turned away. "And Reiss?"

The machine was silent a moment, then, rather than answering his question, it did something it had never done before and offered him advice.

"You should go and see her."

"See her?" Kim laughed uncomfortably. "Why should I do that?"

"Because you ought."

Kim turned, looking up into the camera eye. "It's unlike you to be so vague."

It was silent.

"Okay," Kim said, faintly disturbed. "I'll think about it."

"And you should buy yourself a Mansion."

Kim looked up again. "A Mansion? Are you all right?"

The Machine's voice was hesitant. "You don't see things. The obvious things. Your vision . . . it's so narrow."

Kim laughed, astonished.

"Maybe you should talk to Reiss about it. Insist on it as a term in whatever deal you make with him. You need a home, Kim—somewhere to build from. This . . . this is no good for you."

Kim stood there a moment, staring into the camera, then, with an impatient, dismissive gesture, he left the room.

"It makes sense," the Machine said, its voice following Kim down the corridor. "If you were to have children—"

Kim stopped and turned, angry now. "Matters logical, they're your province. As for matters of the heart . . . well, what would you know of those?"

He waited, expecting an answer, but the Machine was silent. Kim 11 walked on, troubled, thinking about what it had said.

"Kim ... so there you are!"

Reiss got up and came out to greet Ward as he approached the table. The Hive was packed, as it always was this time of evening, but Reiss had paid to have the four tables surrounding his kept clear. He embraced Kim, then turned, introducing his companion.

"Kim, this is jack Neville. Jack . . . this is Kim Ward."

"Pleased to meet you," Neville said, stepping round Reiss to offer his hand. He was a slender, brown-haired man in his early thirties with a plump, almost boyish face.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Kim said, taking a seat across from them. "There was something I had to do."

Reiss smiled. "No matter. I understand things went well after I'd gone."

Kim smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry about that. I know what you said about the second prototype, but I was sure Li Yuan would see it our way once things were explained."

Reiss took the menu the Head Steward was offering, then smiled back at Kim. "And you were right. Nan Ho was on to me only an hour back. It seems Li Yuan has decided to extend the program for a further year."

"Excellent!" Then, understanding why Reiss was not quite so enthusiastic, Kim gave a soft laugh. "We'd best resolve this, neh? As it is . . . well, I'm finding it hard to work."

Neville, watching him, raised an eyebrow, then looked to Reiss, who nodded.

"You want to hear our offer before you eat, or after?"

Kim took a menu, scanned it, then set it aside. "Let's order, then you can tell me what you've got in mind."

"Okay." Reiss looked to the Head Steward. "My usual, Chang, medium rare, and a bottle of Golden Emperor. A magnum. The '98 if you have it."

"I'll have the same," Kim said, "but rare. And just water for me, thanks." He looked at Reiss. "No offense, but I'll get nothing done tomorrow if I drink tonight."

"I understand. But you don't mind ..."

"No." Kim smiled broadly. "Some people can take their drink. Me . . ." he laughed. "Anyway, Jack, what are you having?"

Neville looked up, surprised and flattered to be addressed by his first name. "I think I'll have the rainbow trout. I don't think I've ever tasted it." He laughed. "In fact, I didn't know it still existed."

"It doesn't," Kim said, as the Steward withdrew. "At least, not the real thing. That's been extinct some two centuries now. But it's as good as, so they say. GenSyn have been making great strides these past few years, bringing back a lot of the old species. You've seen the ads."

Neville nodded, again surprised that Kim kept up with such things. "Does anything escape your notice?"

Kim laughed. "Not much. I like to keep abreast of developments. It makes my task easier if I know I'm not duplicating things. And I like to keep up with the latest media trends. I'm told you're something of an innovator in that field."

Neville looked down, a faint blush at his neck. Reiss, beside him, beamed with an almost parental pride.

"He's a good man," Reiss answered. "We expect much of him. That's why I asked him to come up with a package we could offer you."

"I see." Kim sat back, surprised that the Machine hadn't told him. In fact, now that he came to think of it, the thing had been behaving very strangely these past few weeks. Almost as if it were conscious.

Kim looked down. No. That wasn't possible. He'd seen just how difficult it was to create even the most basic functioning intelligence in a machine. It simply wasn't possible that a machine—however large, however complex—could develop consciousness. Not on its own.

Neville was watching him, fascinated. "What is it?"

Kim laughed. "Sorry. I was doing it again, wasn't I?"

"Doing what?"

"Thinking."

"Ah . . ." Neville nodded, then, with a glance at Reiss, leaned toward Kim. "You want to hear our offer?"

Kim nodded, strangely relaxed now that the moment was here.

"The bad news—" Neville grinned—"the bad news is that you're no longer to be an employee of the Company."

Kim laughed. "And the good news?"

Neville reached beside him and took a slender folder from the empty chair, then handed it across.

Kim hesitated, then opened it up.

"You don't have to answer now," Reiss said, sitting back as the waiter placed the ice bucket on the table and lifted a magnificent-looking golden bottle from within. "You'll want to think things over, I'm sure."

Kim nodded. "I see." He scanned the two sheets quickly, then put the folder down, watching as the waiter uncapped the honey-gold bottle and poured an ice-chilled glass for Reiss. "And if I were to ask for a Mansion?" Reiss smiled and lifted his glass. "You have one in mind?" Kim shrugged, then looked back at the folder. His own Company, that was what they were offering. A subsidiary of SimFic, yet big enough to compete on its own terms in the market. He shivered inwardly. Once before he had been in such a position. Once before he had tried to make a go of it on his own—and failed. But this time it would be different. This time he would have the giant SimFic Company at his back, protecting him, keeping him from being swallowed up. Yes, and this time there would be no circle of Old Men trying to pull him down and destroy him. It was a tempting proposition.

He watched Reiss sip and then grunt his satisfaction. The waiter poured again, filling Neville's glass. Neville nodded his thanks, then lifted his glass, toasting Kim.

"To you, Kim. Whatever you decide."

CHAPTER THREE

Wives

pE I K ' u N G had opened only a dozen or so letters—placing each unread in the tray beside her—when the handwriting on one made her frown and pause. She turned the single sheet over, then, seeing the signature, the family seal at the foot of the page, caught her breath. She sat back, her face drained.

Tsung Ye stared at her, alarmed. "Mistress? Are you all right?"

She waved him away, then turned the page, reading it from the top right column, concentrating fiercely on the neat handwritten Mandarin.

"The nerve . . ." she said after a moment, giving the paper an impatient rustle. Why she had a mind to call the bitch right now! How dare she write to him!

Fei Yen . . . The letter was from Li Yuan's first wife, Yin Fei Yen.

She brought her fist down hard, making everything on the desk jump, then stood, her whole body trembling now with anger. Crossing to the window, she summoned her secretary to her. Tsung Ye hurried across, his face troubled by the sudden change in his mistress.

She rested her left hand against the cool, rain-beaded glass and took a calming breath, looking out across the Easter Gardens toward the stables. It would not do to act too hastily. No. She must act correctly or not at all.

She looked down at the paper in her other hand and shook it angrily. Why, the woman had even had the impudence to mention her bastard son! After all she'd done! Pei K'ung shuddered. She felt like burning the letter or ripping it into tiny shreds, but that was no solution. No. It had to be answered. There would be no peace for her until it was.

She stopped, staring at the letter, struck suddenly by the familiarity of its tone, the presumption of a friendship, and felt herself go cold. What if this wasn't the first letter Fei Yen had written him? What if the wording was a pretense—a kind of code between them? What if they met often?

Her throat was suddenly dry, her heart beating fast.

Nan Ho. Nan Ho would know. . . . Yes, but even if he did . . .

She crumpled the paper into a ball and let it fall.

Was he still seeing her? When he went away on business, did she go to him then? Did she still sleep with him?

Pei K'ung closed her eyes, tormented by the thought even as she told herself how unlikely all this was. Or was that true? Who would tell her, after all? Nan Ho? His secretary, Chang? The men who traveled with him? No, they would say nothing. Indeed, they would see it as their sacred duty to keep it from her.

Besides, did she really know her husband? Did she know his thoughts, his innermost desires? No. Not at all. Oh, she had tried to know him—she had tried to get close to him—but there was still a part of him he kept from her, an inner core she had never penetrated.

She bent down to retrieve the letter, uncrumpling it. As she did so she realized that Tsung Ye, her secretary was still there, his head bowed, awaiting her instructions.

"Tsung Ye, I'm sorry, I ..."

She saw him blush and cursed herself, knowing what her husband had said about never saying sorry to a servant. But it was hard sometimes. Empress she might be, but she was only human after all. Gathering together the shreds of her dignity, she returned to her desk and sat, spreading the letter out and smoothing it several times. For a moment she sat there, staring at the carved jade ink block and at the copy of Nan Ho's seal which lay beside it, then nodded to herself, her decision made.

"Tsung Ye. I have a letter I want delivered in the utmost confidence. It must be delivered by hand directly to the recipient. No one else must know of it nor learn of its contents, you understand me?"

Tsung Ye bowed low. "I shall do as my Mistress asks."

"Good." She reached out and took a clean sheet of her husband's paper, lifted a fine-pointed brush from the stand, and began to write.

THE WOMAN'S ScREAMS filled the tiny cell and echoed down the corridor outside, carrying into the nearby living quarters where two guards, playing cards at a table that doubled as a security barrier, paused, looking up uneasily, then carried on with their game.

Back in the cell, Lehmann turned from the naked body on the bench and placed the fine-tipped iron back onto the white-hot grid. The smell of burned flesh and feces was strong in the room, mixed like an obscene cocktail of pain. Overhead a camera captured it all. The film would sell for over five hundred yuan on the black market.

As Lehmann turned back to her, her eyes followed his every move— wide, terrified eyes, the pupils contracted to a tiny point by the drugs she'd been given to enhance the pain. She was bound to the four spikes at the corners of the bench by crude metal bands which, as she'd struggled, had cut into the flesh. The metal glinted in the spotlight, slick with blood.

She was young—early twenties, twenty-five at most—and unlike most of the women one found down here in the Lowers, she was well fleshed, no signs of malnourishment about her. It was that which had tipped his man off. That and the sidearm they'd found in her rooms when they'd searched them.

It was clever. He'd known for some while that Li Yuan was infiltrating his organization, but this female angle was a new one. She had been hired as a whore at one of his establishments and had proved very popular with many of his Above contacts. But whatever she'd found out would die with her now.

Whores . . . he'd have them all checked out now that they'd discovered this one.

He moved closer, lowering his face until it was only a hand's width from hers, then blew his breath across her face.

"Are you ready to talk?"

She swallowed, then shook her head.

"Brave girl. I'll make sure your Master gets a copy of the tape. Maybe he'll give you a promotion . . . posthumously, of course."

Her eyes glared at him defiantly. She gritted her teeth against the pain, then spoke, her voice a whisper.

"Go to Hell."

He turned away, then took the iron from the grid and studied the tip. There, delicately carved into the white-hot iron, was the tiny Mandarin character Si. Death.

He looked at her and laughed—the coldest, emptiest sound she'd ever heard—then positioned the iron carefully. Cupping her right breast almost lovingly, he leaned in to her, pressing the white-hot tip to the nipple.

"There . . ." he said when she was silent again. "A matching pair. Now . . . you want me to start lower?"

Her skin was beaded with sweat, her eyes delirious. He could see that she was close now. One more tiny push.

"Okay," he said softly, placing the iron back upon the grid. "Let's start again. Who sent you?"

There was a knock. Lehmann turned, a flash of anger—pure, like lightning—passing through him. He had told them not to disturb him. If this was something trivial, he would have them on the bench in her place. Controlling his anger, he went to the peephole and peered out.

Hart! What the fuck did Hart want? And who was the fat man with him?

He slid the bolt back, then pulled the door open.

"Forgive me, Stefan," Hart said, beginning to come in, "I . . ." He stopped, taking in what was going on. "Kuan Yin ... I ... Look, 1 didn't know. If you want me to come back?"

"No. Come in. I'll be done in a while. But be quiet. I'm taping this."

Hart glanced at the camera uneasily, then went to the far side of the room, out of the camera's line of sight.

"This is Berrenson," he said, waving his companion across. "He's a businessman."

Berrenson went across, staring all the while at the naked woman, a lewd smile playing on his lips. "Hey, what's going on here?" he began, almost cheerfully, but Hart put a hand over his mouth then drew him closer, whispering into his ear. Slowly Berrenson's face clouded over. He nodded, then swallowed deeply.

Lehmann locked the door, took the iron from the grid, then returned to the bench, as if the two men weren't there.

"Okay. Who sent you?"

She was trembling, her eyes fixated on the iron's glowing tip. Unable to prevent it, she began to piss herself again.

"I'll ask you one last time. Who sent you? Rheinhardt? Tolonen? Nan Ho?"

Her mouth moved, her tongue licked dryly at her lips, then she shook her head. "

"Who, then?"

"The . . . the Hand."

He had moved his face closer, now he drew it back, but still the iron hovered above her, at a point just below her navel.

"The Black Hand?"

She nodded.

He was silent a moment, thinking, then he turned and set the iron back on the grid. Seeing it, she closed her eyes, relief flooding through her.

Lehmann stood over her again, then leant close, his face almost touching hers, his eyes directly above her eyes.

Her eyes were wide open again—afraid to blink; petrified in case she missed what he was doing.

"You did well," he said gently, caressing her face with his long, pale fingers. "You did very well. But I need one more thing. I want the name—the real name—of your cell leader."

There was a strange movement in her eyes—a sudden realization that, whatever she did, whatever she said, there would be no end to this. Not until she was dead.

She shook her head, her whole face creased now with pain, knowing the torment to come. Vainly she began to call out and struggle.

Looking on, Hart felt himself go cold. He had never seen anything like it. Never . . . He shuddered, then closed his eyes as the woman's screams began again, while beside him, Berrenson looked on with a sickly fascination.

LATER, in Lehmann's offices, Berrenson sat there silently, sipping ice water and chewing at a knuckle, while Hart spelled out what they wanted.

Lehmann sat casually in his chair, listening patiently, turning the tiny cassette between his fingers, time and again, staring at it thoughtfully all the while. As Hart finished he looked up at him and nodded.

"I'm glad you came to me, Alex. You did the right thing. But I think you're going about this the wrong way. Killing Tolonen . . . well, it would give a lot of people—myself included—a great deal of pleasure, but it would solve nothing. To begin with, it would make Li Yuan angry, and I don't want that. Not yet. Moreover, he would only appoint an even more intractable protector for the boy. Rheinhardt, perhaps. And where would you be then? No. We need to be more direct."

"More direct? But killing Tolonen—" Hart laughed—"what could be more direct than that? Besides, it would avenge your father."

The look Lehmann gave him made him fall silent and lower his eyes.

"Listen," Lehmann said coldly, looking to Hart and then to Berren-son. "I'll say this only once. I don't want Tolonen killed. It doesn't fit my plans. There is, however, another way. Berrenson, your people took the boy from the Ebert Mansion once, right?"

"That's so, but—"

"But nothing. If it was done once it can be done again. We'll take the boy and hold him. And if Tolonen still refuses to come to terms, we'll kill him."

"But the Marshal . . ."

Lehmann glared at Berrenson. "You will leave it to me. And you will tell no one about this meeting—not your wives, not your friends, and certainly not your business associates."

He leaned toward them threateningly, the tape held up between his fingers. "Remember what you saw this morning. Remember it well. Because if there's one thing I won't tolerate, it's indiscipline."

Swallowing nervously, the two men bowed their heads. Then, the interview over, they hurried away, the screams of the dying woman echoing ghostlike in their ears.

LI YUAN dismissed his three advisors, then turned to the twin screens facing him.

Once there had been seven of them, meeting in Council twice a year to discuss matters of State and formulate policy, but the years had slowly pared the Seven down. Now there were just the three of them.

"Tsu Ma . . . Wei Tseng-li . . ." he said, greeting his fellow T'ang. "You have heard what Marshal Tolonen and General Rheinhardt had to say, and I am sure you have taken your own specialist advice on the matter. Now, however, we must decide on a course of action. Something all three of us are happy with."

Tsu Ma was first to speak. "Tolonen talks sense. Africa has become a luxury we can ill afford. The cost of policing it, both in manpower and in funding, exceeds any benefit we derive from keeping it. Moreover, we all have more pressing problems at home, neh? While there was a shooting war in Africa our presence there at least distracted men's minds from domestic worries, but these last twelve months things have been quiet and the people have grown weary of the struggle. What's in their bellies worries them more than whether Africa is won or lost. And rightly so, perhaps. My vote is to get out."

"And you, Cousin Wei?"

Wei Tseng-li was his father's third son and had inherited only after the murder of his elder brothers. For a time he had been Li Yuan's personal secretary and, when stationed on Li Yuan's floating palace, Yang/ing, had saved Yuan's son, Kuei Jen, from certain death. As such there was a strong bond between the two young men. In many respects they were more like brothers than cousins. Just now, however, Tseng-li was deep in thought, his smooth, beardless face pale. The problems of State sat heavier on him than on the other two, and he had been ill these past months, though his surgeons could not trace the cause.

"I hear what my cousin Ma says," he began, speaking slowly, every word, it seemed, considered. "And while what he says makes sense, I am still loath to throw away what we have fought so hard to keep. History teaches that, once lost, territory can never be regained so easily. So with Africa. Withdraw and we withdraw for good. Chung Kuo will be diminished. Not only that, but it will be seen by all to be a sign of weakness; a sign so large that even the most myopic of our enemies might read it. Therefore my counsel is against withdrawal. I say we should persevere. Until times turn to our favor once again."

Li Yuan sat back. "I hear you, cousin, and, were it merely a matter of withdrawal, would agree with you entirely. It would not do to display any sign of weakness. And that is why I am suggesting that we make of this necessity a virtue."

"How so?" Tsu Ma asked.

Li Yuan smiled. "Can we meet?"

"In person?"

"It would be best."

Tsu Ma frowned. "Forgive me, Yuan, but is that wise, given the climate of the times?"

"It must be so. For what I have to say is for the ears of us three alone. The days were when we could trust such distant communications as this to be discreet are past. We must assume that every call is monitored, every communication suspect."

Wei Tseng-li nodded. "I, for one, agree."

"Then so be it," Tsu Ma said with a sigh. "We shall arrange a time and place to settle this for good and all. Until then, may the gods preserve you, cousins."

"And you," Li Yuan said, breaking contact.

Tsu Ma was right, of course. It was dangerous for all three of them to meet in person. Extremely dangerous, given the circumstances. But there was no option. He could not go ahead without their consent, and for his scheme to work absolute confidentiality was needed. So ... they would have to meet. But where? And when?

Li Yuan smiled. The answer was staring him in the face. Tsu Ma's betrothal ceremony! What better opportunity for an informal meeting? Why, they could have it here, at Tongjiang, and then Karr could look after the security.

Yes, and maybe it would prove a turning point—the first step on the long road to recovery.

Li Yuan nodded to himself, then, taking a brush from the inkstand, began to pen a memorandum for his Chancellor.

KARR SLIPPED the coded key into the lock, let the scanner register his retinal imprint, then slid the door back quietly, listening for sounds from within.

It was silent. He set down his pack and turned, looking about him. Nothing had changed. Even the smell was how he remembered it. For a moment he closed his eyes. Six months it had been since he'd last stood here. Six months.

He slid the door closed, then went through. The door to May's room was open. He stood there, looking in, bewitched by the sight that met his eyes. The three-year-old lay on her back, her mouth open, her legs splayed carelessly in sleep. Beside her lay his wife, his darling Marie, her back to him, her long dark hair spread out upon the pillow.

He felt his heart go out to them both, felt all the longing, the heartache he'd suffered being away from them, well up in him again.

Home. He was home.

He made to step back, when she turned, drowsy eyed, and looked at him.

"Gregor?" Then, suddenly more awake. "Gregor?"

She sat up, rubbing her eyes, then, with a brief glance at her sleeping child, came across to him.

They embraced, long months of denial shaping the passion of their kisses. It was eight weeks since she'd last visited him in Africa.

She drew back, breathless. "Gods, I've missed you!"

He stared back at her, her beautiful face only inches from his, as it was every night in his dreams. "And I've missed you."

"How much?" She reached down, then giggled. "Oh, that much, huh?"

He grinned. "Here?"

She shook her head, then pulled May's door across. "No. In the shower. I've dreamed of it. Dreamed of you and me in there together."

He laughed. "You think I smell?"

"Like a pig, but I don't care. Come on, I need you right now."

He followed her into the shower unit, his hand never leaving hers. Then they were undressing frantically, his hands caressing her, his eyes drinking in her lovely nakedness.

"Marie ... oh, Marie."

As the water fell, shockingly cold at first and then hot, he entered her, her gasp, the look of pained delight in her eyes making him shudder and come instantly.

"Aiya!" he said, grimacing, pinning her against the wall as he thrust into her again and again and again. And then she was crying out, unable to help herself, pressing against him so tight, it seemed she wanted to breach him. He shuddered, then let his face fall against her shoulder. And still the water fell.

They were still for a moment, silent, and then she reached up and turned his face, making him look at her.

"What's happened?"

He laughed, almost making some wisecrack, then grew serious. "I've a new appointment. A promotion."

Her eyes widened. "A promotion? But I thought—"

"No." He laughed "Not Rheinhardt's job. Not yet, anyway. I'm to be Ssu'li HsiaO'ivei."

She frowned. "Colonel of Security? But . . ." Then she understood. "Li Yuan! You're to be Li Yuan's own Colonel!"

He nodded, his smile mirroring that on her face now. "I've to report to him tomorrow. We're moving, my love. Moving to Tongjiang!"

Tsu MA reined in his horse and leaned forward in the saddle, looking out over the edge of the cliff. Far below him the sea boiled about the dark and jagged rocks as the water sucked back. A moment later the next huge wave crashed against the granite, throwing a fine spray high up the cliff face. The grass beneath his horse's hooves was slick with salt, the air misted, sharply cold.

He turned and watched as his young nephews caught up with him. Breathless, they drew alongside, their horses' heads pulling against the bit, afraid of the drop only a pace or two away. Their finely braided coats steamed in the cold air, their hooves dragging impatiently at the hard earth after their headlong gallop.

Tsu Ma laughed, seeing how his heirs were watching him uncertainly, their eyes going briefly to the steep drop, then returning to his face. They said nothing, yet their expressions were eloquent.

His brother's sons. Resting one arm on the pommel, he leaned forward, studying them. The eldest, Tsu Kung-chih, was like his father, taller than Tsu Ma and—though only nineteen—broader at the shoulders. His physical presence was misleading, however, for in his features he had inherited all the weaknesses of his maternal grandfather—a certain limpness in the mouth, an absence of muscle in the jaw, a softness to his nose and narrow brow. His eyes—which seldom met those of his uncle—were the eyes of a salesman; calculating, yet somehow unambitious. Small, petty eyes. All in all it was a face that few would trust—the face of a vassal, not a T'ang. Seeing that face steeled Tsu Ma in his purpose and made him put all feeling from his heart.

Beside Kung-chih sat a smaller, lither boy, Tao Chu. Tsu Ma smiled as he looked at him and saw how the fifteen-year-old smiled back, all the while smoothing his horse's neck to calm it. Tao Chu was very much his mother's son, half-brother to Kung-chih, yet Tsu Ma saw something of himself in the boy. Tao Chu had nothing of his half-brother's awkwardness but was direct and open—was in every way a natural ruler, a T'ang, with a T'ang's generosity of spirit. There was strength in his laughter and power in his smallest, subtlest action—a restrained power that only Tsu Ma seemed to recognize in him. Wind gusted through his fine hair, spilling its neat-cut strands across his brow. The boy shook his head and looked away a moment. For him this would be far easier. He, after all, had never thought to rule. Even so, Tao Chu was fiercely loyal to his undeserving half-brother and would feel this disappointment keenly on his behalf.

Tsu Ma straightened and, raising his voice against the sound of wind and wave, spoke.

"I am going to be married."

He saw how Kung-chih's face struggled with the words, how he

turned to look at Tao Chu, as if the younger boy might explain it to him; but Tao Chu was watching his uncle carefully.

"When?" he asked, and Tsu Ma could see that he had weighed it all at once—as if he had prepared himself for this moment.

Tsu Ma smiled sadly. "The betrothal ceremony is to take place this very week."

Kung-chih was still watching his half-brother, his face stiff with shock. Then, slowly, he turned to face Tsu Ma, the severity of his disappointment there, open, in his face. For a moment he stared back at his uncle, his mouth half open, then, abruptly, he turned his horse and galloped away. Tao Chu stayed a moment longer, then, with a bow to his uncle, he turned his horse and raced after his brother.

Tsu Ma watched until they were tiny figures in the distance, then turned his horse and followed the cliffs edge, staring down at the raging sea. It was done. Tsu Kung-chih's dream of inheritance was shattered. Tsu Ma lifted his face and stopped his mount, looking out across the sea's gray, uneven surface. He had left this too long and now it seemed a kind of cruelty. This marriage would win him few friends in his immediate family.

"Well ... so be it," he said softly, the words torn from his lips by the wind. So be it. But he was determined now. He would do what he had refused to do before this day and settle down; have sons and watch them grow. Sons like Tao Chu or like his friend, Li Yuan. And in his old age they would rule in his place; strong, wise, decisive—sons he could be proud of.

Unbidden, a tear came to his eye. Turning away, he forced the horse into a gallop, heading back across the open fields toward the estate, thinking of the one woman he had loved.

Of Fei Yen . . . and of the boy, Han.

F EI yen stood at the window of her room, watching the imperial cruiser land behind the hangar on the far side of the lake, nervous anticipation making her stomach cramp.

She had sent the letter two days back when she had been at a low ebb. There had been arguments with her eldest brother over her son, Han Ch'in, and then, out of the blue, her latest lover had packed his bags. She had written it only an hour after he'd gone, filled with remorse and self-loathing, and had had a messenger deliver it at once. But in the clear light of morning she had panicked, bitterly regretting her action and praying to the ten thousand gods that he would never see it, never even—perhaps—get to hear of it. But now it was clearly too late. The presence of his cruiser said as much. Now she would know what he thought of her.

She went to her wardrobe and searched for something to wear to greet his messenger. Something simple and yet sophisticated. Something that might suggest she was a woman in control of her life, contented with her lot. She took down a simple red chi pao, then put it back. No, red was the wedding color—the color of happiness and celebration. Black, then? She hesitated a moment, then, realizing she hadn't any time, took it down and, peeling off what she was wearing, hurriedly pulled it on.

There was no time for maids and lengthy preparations. Besides, it was only a messenger. If he was anything like most men, he would scarcely notice what she was wearing. Even so ...

She stood before the mirror, combing her hair quickly, then putting it up in a bun. Yes, that was it. That was the look she was trying for. She smiled, practicing courteous phrases to greet him, then, satisfied, she turned and hurried from the room.

She met him at the front door, standing dutifully behind her brother as he went through the rituals of greeting.

As he introduced her, she bowed low, making herself the very picture of demureness.

"Well, Tsung Ye," her brother said, inviting the man inside, "how can I be of assistance?"

Tsung Ye, however, stood his ground, a polite smile on his face. "Forgive me, Prince Yin, if 1 decline your most generous offer, but my instructions are clear. 1 am to escort your sister, the Princess Yin Fei Yen, back to Tongjiang without delay."

Hearing the words, Fei Yen felt faint. Tongjiang! She had never meant this to happen! He had sent for her. Li Yuan had sent for her!

"You have instructions?" Yin Sung asked, puzzled.

"Here, Prince Yin," Tsung said, taking a sealed letter from his pouch and handing it to him.

Sung studied it a moment, noting the Chancellor's wax seal, then broke it open. He read it quickly, then, frowning, handed it to his sister.

"Do you know what this is about?"

Fei Yen shook her head, conscious that she was blushing. "I have no idea, brother. Why I—"

"Forgive me," Tsung Ye interrupted, "but my instructions . . ."

"Of course." Yin Sung gave a bow, acknowledging Tsung Ye's status as his Master's messenger, then turned and summoned one of the house servants. "Bring Lady Fei's cloak. She must leave at once."

Then, looking to his sister, he took her arm, speaking more gently than before. "You will tell me if you need me, neh?"

"Yes, eldest brother."

"Good. In the meantime I shall make sure Han Ch'in is well looked after."

She bowed, keeping all the worries she was feeling at that moment—for her son and for herself—from her face.

"Good," he said again. "Then go. Chancellor Nan expects you."

Yes, she thought, letting the servant put her cloak about her shoulders, then hurried down the path after the T'ang's messenger.

THE GREAT HALL at Tongjiang was cold and dimly lit, the huge space between the pillars empty, the flagstones black with age. Torches flickered in iron baskets hung about the wall, the shadows of the pillars wavering like the dancing limbs of giants, but in the center it was almost dark. There, at that center point, on a ceremonial chair that had been set down by the honor guard, sat Fei Yen. She had sat there for an hour now, alone in the silence, waiting.

On a narrow balcony overlooking the Hall, Pei K'ung looked on from behind a lattice screen, studying the figure in the chair. Her husband had once loved the woman—loved her to the point of distraction . . . and beyond. If rumor were correct he had once in anger killed all her horses while she, in answer, had told him that the child in her belly was not his.

Pei K'ung gave a small shuddering sigh. Maybe it was just the time of the month, but the last few days her emotions had been in turmoil. She had thought herself beyond such juvenile feelings, but it seemed it wasn't so. That feeling she had experienced reading Fei Yen's note to her husband—she recognized it now. It was jealousy. She was jealous of what this woman had once had with her husband, and afraid—no, terrified—that that feeling still existed between them.

Agitated, she fanned herself, then turned away, slipping quietly from the balcony, her servants following after. She was tempted to send the bitch straight home again—to snub her regally—but that would solve nothing. She had to speak to her.

And if it was as she feared?

She pictured herself confronting her husband; saw him laugh and turn from her, dismissing her without a word, returning to his men as if she were not there. She shivered, forcing herself to walk on, to show nothing of her inner turmoil. Could she face that? Could she live with that rejection?

Of course she would. After all, that was the deal, was it not? To be a wife in name alone, while he ...

She stopped dead, her servants almost stumbling over her.

Maybe that was what she should do. Maybe she should put the woman in his bed, to show him that she knew. To prove she was no fool.

Yes, but what if she were wrong? What if her husband hadn't been meeting Fei Yen secretly? And what if her action proved the beginning of a reconciliation between Fei Yen and him?

She whirled about, heading for her rooms.

No. Li Yuan must not even know she had been here. She must meet the woman and dispense with her. Threaten her, if necessary. After all, it was she who had the power now. She who was Empress.

Yes, but if Li Yuan loves her still . . .

She stopped, groaning softly, reaching out to steady herself against the wall. At once her servants rushed to her and held her up, as if she were ill, but she brushed them off angrily.

"Leave me be!"

"But, Mistress . . ."

She turned on Tsung Ye, who had spoken, and glared at him. At once he bowed his head.

"Tsung Ye. Let her sit there another hour, then bring her to my study. And let no one go to her or speak with her. Understand?"

Tsung Ye nodded, then backed away.

She took a long breath, calming herself, then walked on. An hour. She nodded savagely. Yes, let her wait—it would do the bitch good to stew for another hour. In the meantime she would bathe and change her clothes. Then she would deal with this matter. Deal with it once and for all.

FEI YEN waited outside the door as Tsung Ye went inside, her mouth dry, her heart racing. It was more than five years since she had last seen Li Yuan, that day in the Great Room at the estate in Hei Shui—the day after his wives had been killed. Then, astonishingly, he had asked her to come back to him, had begged her to try again, but she had sent him away, pride and anger, and the fear perhaps of him discarding her again, keeping her from saying yes.

The years had passed and no further word had come. Li Yuan had married again, immersing himself in his work. And the Great Wheel had turned, and slowly, very slowly, she had grown older. Older, yes, and ever less content.

Aiya! she thought, looking down at her hands. What am I doing? What madness brought me here?

Was it love that had brought her here? Or was it simple bitterness? Bitterness that her dreams had not come true?

"Princess Yin . . ."

Tsung Ye stood with his hand on the open door, his head bowed, waiting for her. Swallowing, she brushed her palms against her sides, then stepped past him into the room.

"Yin Fei Yen . . ."

She heard the door click shut behind her, and squinted into the sunlight on the far side of the room where, behind a huge desk by the window, someone sat.

For a moment she did not recognize the voice. She hesitated, confused that it was not Li Yuan, not understanding what was happening.

"Please, Lady Fei, come closer to the desk."

This time she understood. Pei K'ung! It was his wife, Pei K'ung. She bowed her head and slowly crossed the room, a small knot of fear at the pit of her stomach. Was this his doing? Was this his way of humiliating her?

That thought dispelled the fear, replacing it with anger.

She stopped, two paces from the desk, her head held defiantly aloft, her eyes boring into those of the Empress.

"Am I not to see Li Yuan?"

Pei K'ung stared back at her uncompromisingly, her eyes hard, her whole manner stern, like a mother-in-law. "Li Yuan is not here. He is away on business."

Fei Yen took that in, trying to assess the significance of it. Was that deliberate on his part? Was this all—the summons, the two hours wait, and now this—simply an elaborate snub; his way of getting back at her for her rejection of him? She bristled with anger at the thought, and held herself straighter. She was worth ten of this aged fishwife. Why, if rumor were to be believed, Li Yuan did not even sleep with her. And who could blame him? Ugly was perhaps too strong a word for it, but for certain the woman was plain.

"I am sorry to hear that," she answered, as if it were of no importance. "I had hoped to give him my regards."

Pei K'ung stared at her a moment longer, then looked away, a short, sardonic laugh her only comment.

Fei Yen waited, wondering what this woman wanted—what she had been instructed to do. Whatever it was, she was determined not to be belittled by her. Whatever the woman said, she would give as good as she got. Besides, who knew whether what she had said were true? For all she knew Li Yuan was in the next room, watching all.

She studied Pei K'ung a moment, noting the elegant cut of her silks, the sophisticated way she had put up her hair, and wondered if that had been done specially for this meeting. Whatever, they did little to allay the severity of her features. To be frank, there was something almost masculine about the Empress. Her nose was too long, her hands too big, her ears . . . She almost laughed. Why, without the expensive silks the woman would have looked little better than the coarsest peasant's wife. The thought of it gave her confidence. "Am I to be granted an audience?"

Pei K'ung looked back at her. "An audience?" Her voice was scathingly dismissive. "No, Lady Fei. This is the closest you will ever get to seeing my husband. I will not permit him to be distracted over such a . . . trivial matter."

The words made Fei Yen reassess the situation. Li Yuan didn't know! Why, he wasn't even aware that she was there at Tongjiang! Yet if that was the case, then why had Nan Ho summoned her?

Her eyes quickly searched the desk and found what she was looking for. There it was, beside the elaborate jade inkstand. Nan Ho's spare seal. She recognized it from former days.

Fei Yen felt herself go still. She had got it wrong. She had thought Li Yuan himself had summoned her, using his Chancellor as a go-between, but it had been Pei K'ung. For some reason the Empress had wanted to see her face to face. But why? Was it, as she said, to keep her husband from so-called "trivial" distractions? Or was there another, deeper reason?

She met Pei K'ung's eyes again and laughed. Saw how her laughter lit some inner fuse of anger. Anger, yes, and something else. "What are you afraid of, Pei K'ung?" "Afraid?" Pei K'ung's laughter was humorless. "I am not afraid, Yin Fei Yen. Certainly not of you. You forget who you speak to. I am the Empress and my powers—"

"Are your husband's powers. No more, no less. You forget who you speak to. You forget that I once sat where you now sit. Yes, and shared my husband's bed."

She regretted it as soon as it was uttered; yet she had not been wrong. Pei K'ung had started at the words. Now, her manner much stiffer, she leaned toward Fei Yen.

"Yes, and he divorced you. Do you forget that, Lady Fei?"

"He was but a boy—"

"And wayward, as boys are. He should never have married you. You were his brother's wife."

No more than you are Yuan's, she thought to say, but this time something held her back. It was true. If Han Ch'in had not been killed, she would be Empress now. If he had not been killed, then none of this would have happened. She shivered and looked down.

"What did you want?" Pei K'ung asked after a moment, her voice more neutral than before. "What did you think you would achieve after all this time?"

Fei Yen looked up and shrugged, feeling suddenly less hostile toward the woman. Was it her fault Li Yuan had married her? And was it her fault he preferred to have much younger women in his bed?

"To be honest, I was hoping for some form of advancement for my son. Han Ch'in is eight now . . . nine this September. I thought—"

Pei K'ung's answer was blunt. "Is the estate at Hei Shui not enough for you? Nor the pension you and your son receive? Why, considering the circumstances—"

Furious, Fei Yen grasped the edge of the desk and leaned toward the other woman, shouting at her now. "He owed me that! That and much more! It was his neglect, his indifference toward me—"

"And your betrayal!"

She moved back slightly, shaking her head. "No. He betrayed me long before I ever thought to stray. It was he who cheated me. Cheated me first of my rightful place in his bed, and then of my son's rightful birthright!"

"His rightful birthright!" Pei K'ung sat back, laughing scornfully. "Why, your son's a bastard, Yin Fei Yen . . . yes, and no better than any gardener's son, I bet!"

Fei Yen stood up straight, her anger cold now and unforgiving. "If you but knew the truth of it, Pei K'ung." She turned and walked slowly, with great dignity, to the door, then looked back at Pei K'ung. "If you but knew . . ."

PEI K ' U N G sat there after she'd gone, staring at the open door.

Now what in the gods' names had Fei Yen meant by that? Cheated? How cheated? No. There had been tests to ascertain the boy's father. Why, if there had been any doubt, Li Yuan would never have divorced her. . . .

Her mouth fell open. No. It wasn't possible. Fei Yen would have contested it.

But what if she hadn't known? What if Li Yuan had kept the knowledge secret?

It made no sense. If Han Ch'in were Li Yuan's son and Fei Yen had known that—known it for certain—then she would have moved heaven and earth to have him made heir. No mother would have done less. But she had done nothing.

So what did Fei Yen mean? Why had she been so angry at the suggestion of her son's low origins?

Mystery. It was all shrouded in mystery. But the truth was in there somewhere and she would find it out.

And Fei Yen?

Fei Yen was beautiful. There was no denying that. Still beautiful enough to turn a prince's head ... or a T'ang's.

Pei K'ung shivered, knowing that for all she had said, the matter was far from settled; that, far from scaring the Lady Fei away, she had merely made her more determined.

Yes, she thought, but 1 shall win in the end, for though you are beautiful, time is on my side. The days, which rob you of your beauty, shall slowly make me indispensable to my husband.

Beauty. Pah! She would show them how little beauty meant! Why, she could fill her husband's bed with a thousand dumb beauties, and still he would depend on her!

She laughed, determined on it, knowing now what had to be done, then rang the bell to summon Tsung Ye, keen to begin the task.

CHAPTER FOUR

Secret Languages

KI M ? . . . Kim! Wake up!"

The young man turned, gasping, his left hand reaching for the ceiling, then woke, his dark eyes blinking. "Pandra vyth gwres?"

The Machine's voice answered him, soft, reassuring, in the dimly lit room. "It's Curval. There's an emergency."

Kim sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "What time is it?"

"Four-seventeen. Now get dressed. You're needed."

Kim didn't argue. He pulled on his one-piece and went out into the corridor. Alarms were sounding distantly and he could hear shouts and running feet.

Kim began to run, heading toward the source of the sound. At the first turn he almost cannoned into Curval, coming to get him.

"What's happening?"

Curval was breathless. He raked his fingers across his bald pate, getting his breath, then answered. "It's Ravachol. He escaped from his cell. He took one of the guards by surprise. Stole his knife."

"Shit!" Kim thought quickly. "Where is it now?"

"The guards have got it hemmed in on the far side of the labs. It's been breaking everything it can get its hands on!"

Kim nodded, pained by what he was hearing, then touched Curval's arm. "Okay. Let's get over there."

They could hear the smashing of glass long before they turned the corner and came out into the main laboratory area. Ravachol was on the far side of the benches, going from one store-cupboard to the next, pulling whatever he could from within and hurling it onto the floor. A dozen guards crouched behind the nearest benches, stun guns leveled at the android. As Kim came into the room, their Captain came across.

"I've done what I can, Shih Ward, but it's in danger of damaging itself. Some of the chemicals it's throwing down—"

"I know," Kim said, anxious now that he'd seen how agitated the creature was. Something had pushed it over the edge. Something or someone . . .

"Ravachol!" he called, walking toward it. "Come, now, you've got to stop that!"

The android stopped and turned, staring at him, the knife held out threateningly. Kim made to take a further step, but the Captain grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"No, sir. I can't let you. Director Reiss—"

Kim shrugged himself free, but the Captain took his arm again, more firmly this time. "I've orders, Shih Ward. It's too dangerous. If you should be hurt—"

"He's right," Curval said, coming up beside him. "Look at it. It's gone. Look at its eyes. It doesn't even recognize you. It's what we feared. Its neural matrix has destabilized completely."

Kim stared at it. It had been stable this past week, but Curval was right; it had degenerated badly. Even so, he wanted to go to it—to try and reason with it.

"It's dangerous," the Captain said. "I've already got two men in the hospital. If it comes at us my men have orders to stun it, but that may not be enough. It's very strong and its nervous system may not respond the same way as a human's."

Kim nodded, understanding what the Captain was really saying. He didn't want to take any risks. He wanted to kill it, before it did any further damage.

"What else did the Director say?"

"Reiss will be here within the hour," Curval answered. "Let him sort this one out."

Kim shook his head. "No. I can't do that." He sighed, then turned to the duty officer. "Give me your gun, Captain. I made it, I'll destroy it."

The Captain stared at Curval a moment, then, shrugging, unhol-stered his pistol and handed it to him. Kim weighed it in his hand a moment, then, looking directly at the creature, began to walk toward it.

"Ravachol? Do you know who I am?"

It stood there, perfectly still, watching him approach. When Kim was only ten ch'i or so from it, it raised a hand, shielding its eyes, as if it were staring into brilliant sunlight.

"Kim? Is that you?"

"It's me."

It opened its mouth, hesitated, then shook its head. Looking down, it frowned, as if it didn't understand what had caused the mess that surrounded it. Its feet were leaking blood and there was a faint sparking down one side, the slightest hint of burning.

"It's . . . growing dark," it said, looking back at Kim, bewildered. "I can't . . ."

It seemed to freeze, then, with a tiny jerk, began to move again. Its eyes blinked violently, its left hand juddered, dropping the knife.

"You're not well," Kim said quietly. "You keep forgetting."

It nodded, but it was as if it only half understood. Curval was right. It had gone. There was nothing they could do for it now. Nothing but end its misery. He raised the gun.

"What are you doing?" it asked. "What is that?"

Release, Kim thought, and pulled the trigger.

The detonation shocked him. It was much louder than he'd imagined. He stared at his hand, then traced a line to where Ravachol had been standing. He was gone . . . no, he was down, there, beside the bench. Kim stepped closer, then stood over the creature, setting the gun down beside it.

Where the bullet had hit its chest was a jagged hole through which a strange amalgam of wiring and organic matter could be glimpsed, silver and red. Locked into some obsolete program, its left leg made climbing movements in the air, while its eyes stared straight ahead. The smell was stronger now—the scent of burnt plastic mixed with burning flesh.

Kim crouched over it, pained by the sight, wanting to hold the thing and comfort it in its final moments, but something stopped him. It wasn't dying. You couldn't say that it was dying, for it had never really been alive. It had only seemed alive. But for once that distinction seemed meaningless. Ravachol had been more than a machine—more than a simple thing of wires and flesh. Kim hesitated, then, conscious that others were watching him, put his hand out and brushed the hair back from the android's forehead.

It was warm, just as a dying man was warm. And all its memories . . .

Even as the thought formed, Ravachol's eyes blinked and snapped shut. There was a tiny tremor through the body, then it was still.

Gone, he thought. It's gone. . . .

But where? Where did the soul of a machine depart to?

The thought disturbed him, darkening his thoughts, for just as he was conscious of having made Ravachol, he was conscious also that something—some force or creature greater than himself—had fashioned him. For the first time he had a strong, clear sense of it.

Copies, he thought, nodding to himself. We are all copies of some greater thing.

He stood, then walked back to where Curval was waiting.

"Are you all right?"

Kim shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not even sure I want to think about it."

Curval smiled sadly at him. "Maybe you should take the day off.

Have a break from it."

"No. We have to begin again. This morning. I want the body in the autopsy room by seven. We can take scans, slices . . . find out what went wrong. And next time"—Kim took a long, shivering breath— "next time we get it right."

Curval nodded, then touched his arm. "Okay. I'll get things moving straight away."

AT FIRST LIGHT Emily went down to the market on Fifty-one, walking through the echoing openness of Main as stallholders set up their barrows and old men sat on benches listening to the caged birds sing.

It was the time of day she liked best; the time when anything seemed possible. Each day was new, filled with possibility, and no matter how many times she had been disappointed, she had always welcomed the dawn.

At the Blue Pagoda tea house she took a seat at an empty table. Within an hour the place would be packed, but just now there were scarcely more than a dozen people there. Yu I, the proprietor, saw her and came across, smiling his gap-toothed smile and bowing to her, as if she were a princess, his hands tucked into his voluminous sleeves.

"Ra-chel," he said, his old eyes twinkling playfully. "Is a long time since you come."

"I've been busy, Lao Jen. I came back only last night. But I've missed this place. Your ch'a is renowned for fifty stacks."

He bowed again, delighted by her compliment. "And what will you have, Nu Shih? A Sparrow Tongue, perhaps? Or a Water Fairy?"

She smiled broadly. "A T'ieh Lo'han would be nice, Yu I. A large chung. And some chiao tzu if you have any."

"Nu Shih . . ." He nodded, then backed away, hurrying off to fill her order.

From rails overhead more cages hung—elaborate things of painted wire. She looked up at them, listening to the birds, watching a tiny chaffinch puff out his chest. How he sang! So full of joy ... or was it avian pride? She smiled, then looked about her. At a nearby table a young, shaven-headed boy sat beside his grandfather. He was staring at her in that pure, unembarrassed way children have, his dark eyes big and round. Emily smiled at him then looked away.

Pockets of normality . . . that was what it was all reduced to these days. Brief moments—like this—of sanity before the mayhem began again.

A young waiter came across, setting a pale lavender chung beside her. He produced a rounded bowl and polished it on his sleeve before setting it before her.

"Thanks. . . ."

The young man nodded and turned away. Apart from Yu I few talked to her here. They were mainly Han, she Hung Mao, a big-nose barbarian. So it was these days. Tolerance was the most she might expect.

She poured, then lifted the mock-porcelain bowl, cupping it in both hands, enjoying its warmth, the strong scent of the "Iron Goddess of Mercy" reminding her of her youth—of times she had sat beside her father in places like this while he talked with his friends.

Was that why she came here? To renew that simple memory? To keep in touch with that earlier self? Or was it for the peace she found here and nowhere else?

She sighed, then took a long sip of her ch'a, swilling it about her mouth as the Han did, enjoying the simplicity of it.

The great world changed, yet these smaller, simpler things persisted. Small things. She nodded to herself, thinking of the horrors she had seen, the deaths she had been witness to. Yes, though empires fell, small things—those intensely human things—remained unchanged. A thousand years might pass and great emperors turn to dust in their tombs, but still in some small tea house in some corner of the world the old men would meet beneath the caged songbirds and sip ch'a and talk away the day.

The thought brought her comfort. Yesterday she had gone to see the gutted deck; had seen with her own eyes how cruel and indiscriminate the White T'ang's justice was.

The bastard, she thought, remembering the stink of the place, the pictures she had seen from the leaked security video. It had been awful, unbearable to watch. But necessary. For now she knew there was no option. She had to kill him. Had to, for the sake of them all. The only question now was how.

She sipped again, then set the bowl down. Yu I was coming across again, a large plate of the delicious dumplings in one hand, a small bowl of spicy sauce in the other.

"Chiao tzu," he said, grinning at her again. "If there is anything else, Nu Shih?"

"No, Lao jen, that's fine." She handed him a ten-yuan chip and closed his hand about it. "Buy your grandson something."

He grinned and nodded his thanks.