The Middle Kingdom (28 page)

At his side Han
nodded emphatically.

"Then it is
right, as Han Ch'in said, to kill this man?"

"Not right,
Father. It could never be right.
Necessary."
The boy's
face showed no emotion. His features were formed into a mask of
reason. "Moreover, it should be done in public, for it must be
seen to be done. And it must be done dispassionately; without malice
and with no thought of revenge—merely as evidence of our power.
As a lesson."

Li Shai Tung
nodded, profoundly satisfied with his youngest son, but it was his
first son he addressed. "Then it is as you said, Han Ch'in. We
must kill him. As he would have killed us."

He turned and
looked back at the man in the cage, something close to pity in his
eyes. "Yes. But not for revenge. Merely because we must."

HAN ch'in
laughed, then clapped his hands, delighted by the gift. "But
Father, they're marvelous! Just look at them! They're so strong, so
elegant!"

The four
creatures stood in a line before the royal party, their long heads
bowed, their broad oxlike bodies neatly clothed in rich silks of
carmine and gold. Nearby, their creator, Klaus Stefan Ebert, Head of
GenSyn—Genetic Synthetics— beamed, pleased beyond words
at the prince's reaction.

"They are
the first of their kind," Ebert said, giving a slight bow. "And,
if the T'ang wishes it, they shall be the last."

Li Shai Tung
looked at his old friend. Ebert had been one of his staunchest
supporters over the years and, if fate decided, his son would one day
be Han Ch'in's general. He smiled and looked at the ox-men again. "I
would not ask that of you, Klaus. This gift of yours pleases me
greatly. No, such marvels should be shared by others. You shall have
a patent for them."

Ebert bowed
deeply, conscious of his T'ang's generosity. His gift to Han Ch'in
was worth, perhaps, two hundred million
yuan,
but the T'ang's
kindness was inestimable. There was no one in the whole of City
Europe's elite who would not now want such a creature. To a more
mercenary man that would have been cause for great delight, but Klaus
Ebert counted such things of trivial worth. He had pleased his T'ang,
and no amount of money could buy the feeling of intense pride and
worthiness he felt at that moment.

"I am
deeply honored,
Chieh Hsia.
My great joy at your pleasure
reaches up into the heavens."

Han Ch'in had
gone closer to the beasts and now stood there, looking up into one of
their long bovine faces. He turned and looked back at Ebert. "They're
really beautiful,
Shih
Ebert. Strong, like horses, and
intelligent, like men. Do they talk?" Ebert bowed to the T'ang
once more, then went across and stood beside Han Ch'in. "They
have a form of language," he said, his head lowered in deference
to the Prince. "Enough to understand basic commands and to carry
trivial messages, but no more than a human three-year-old would
have."

Han Ch'in
laughed. "That depends on the three-year-old. My brother Yuan
could talk a counselor to a halt at three!" Ebert laughed. "So
it was! I remember it only too well!" Li Shai Tung joined their
laughter, then turned to General Tolonen, who was standing to his
left and slightly behind him. "Well, Knut, are things ready
within?"

The General, who
had been watching the exchange with real pleasure, turned to his
T'ang and was silent a moment, listening to a voice in his head. Then
he bowed. "Major Nocenzi advises me that all the guests are now
assembled and that full security measures are in operation. We can go
inside."

The ceiling of
the Great Hall was festooned with broad silk banners that hung in
elegant sweeps between the dragon-encircled pillars. Huge, man-sized
bronze urns were set at inter-

vals along the
walls, each filled to overflowing with giant blooms. Beneath the
banners and between the blooms the floor of the Great Hall was filled
with guests. Han Ch'in stood at the top of the steps beside his
father, looking down on everything. Two colors dominated, red and
gold; auspicious colors—red for good fortune, gold for a future
emperor.

At their
appearance the great buzz of conversation died, and at a signal from
the T'ang's Chamberlain all below the steps knelt to the T'ang and
his first son, their heads lowered.

Tolonen, behind
them, watched the huge crowd rise again, a low buzz of expectation
rising from their midst. Then Li Shai Tung began to descend, his son
three steps behind him.

Li Yuan was
waiting at the bottom of the steps to greet his father formally with
a full
k'o t'ou.
Behind him stood his uncles—his
father's brothers and half-brothers—and with them a dark-haired
Hung Moo; a slender, handsome man, unfashion-ably bearded. An
"Englishman" as .he liked to term himself. These were the
T'ang's chief advisors. As Li Yuan rose, so the three brothers bowed,
bending fully to the waist before they straightened up. Only the Hung
Moo remained unbowed, a faint smile on his face. The T'ang smiled,
acknowledging all four, then turned to let Han Ch'in come up beside
him.

Tolonen,
following them, paused halfway down the steps and looked out across
the mass of heads. Everyone who was anyone in City Europe was here
today. Representatives and heads of corporations, chief magistrates
and administrators, ministers and executives, men of power and their
consorts. Li Yuan was the only child there.

Below the steps
all formalities were over for the moment.

"Have you
seen them, Yuan?" Han asked eagerly. "They're huge. Three
times your size!"

Li Yuan's eyes
lit up. "Is it true what Hsueh Chai said? Do they smell?"

In answer Han
Ch'in bent down and whispered something in his brother's ear. Yuan
laughed, then glanced guiltily at the Englishman, who was now deep in
conversation with the T'ang. "Like Hung Moo," Han had
whispered. And it was true of most. But some—like the General
and Hal Shepherd—refrained from eating milk-based products.
They smelled like Han, not beasts.

"What will
you do with them?" Yuan asked. "Will you give them to Fei
Yen?"

Han Ch'in looked
aghast. "Gods! I never thought! What will she say?"

"You could
always ask her. After all, she'll be here anytime now."

Han Ch'in made a
face, then laughed again. Both knew what ritual lay before him. All
that bowing and nodding. All that c/i'un
tzu
insincerity as he
and his future wife accepted the best wishes of almost three thousand
loyal subjects.

He was about to
make some comment on the matter when all about them the crowd grew
quiet again as Fei Yen appeared at the head of the stairs on her
father's arm. This time, as she descended, the guests remained
standing. Only the T'ang and his eldest son bowed to her, honoring
her.

Li Yuan gazed at
Fei Yen, stilled by the beauty of her. It was as though a craftsman—a
master artisan—had given her some final, subtle touch—one
single deft and delicate brushstroke— that made of her
perfection. Her hair had been put up, its fine coils of darkness
speared by slender combs of ivory shaped like dragonflies. Beneath
its silken splendor her face was like the radiant moon, shining cold
and white and brilliant, the fineness of her cheekbones balanced by
the soft roundness of her chin and the unmarked perfection of her
brow. She wore a simple
erh tang
of red jade and silver in
each lobe and a ;ying
lo
of tiny pearls about her neck, but in
truth her face needed no adornment.

He stared at her
as she came down the steps toward him, fascinated, drinking in the
sight of her.

Her ears were
tiny, delicate, her lips like folded petals, softly roseate, as if
awaiting the dawn's moist kiss, while her nose was so small, so fine,
the roundness of the tip so perfect, it seemed unreal, like
porcelain. All this he saw and noted, pierced by the beauty of it,
yet all the while his gaze was drawn to her eyes—to those dark,
sweet, almond eyes that were unearthly in their beauty. Eyes that
seemed to stare out at him from the other side of the heavens
themselves, fierce and strong and proud. Eyes that seemed to burn
within the cold and fragile mask of her face, making him catch his
breath.

He shivered,
then looked down, noting the pale lilac silks she wore, the fine
layers of material specked with tiny phoenixes in a delicate dark
blue lace. He studied her tiny, perfect hands and noticed how she
held the ceremonial fan, her fingers gently curled about the red jade
handle, each one so fine and white and delicate. Again he shivered,
overcome by her. She was magnificent. So small and fine and perfect.
So unutterably beautiful.

The crowd's dull
murmur rose again. Li Yuan felt a touch on his arm and turned to see
who it was.

"Hal.

Hal Shepherd
smiled and inclined his head slightly, as if amused by something.
"Come, Yuan," he said, taking the boys hand. "Let's
seek our entertainment over there."

Yuan looked,
then mouthed the word. "Berdichev?"

Shepherd nodded,
then leaned forward slightly, speaking in a whisper. "Your
father wants me to sound the man. I think it could be fun."

Yuan smiled.
Shepherd had been his father's chief advisor for almost twenty years,
and though he was some years the T'ang's junior, Li Shai Tung would
not act on any major issue without first consulting him. Shepherd's
great-great-grandfather had been architect of City Earth and had been
granted certain rights by the tyrant Tsao Ch'un, among them the
freedom from bowing to his lord. When the Seven had deposed the
tyrant they had honored those rights to the last generation of
Shepherds. They alone could not be ordered. They alone could talk
back to the T'ang as equal. "Only they, of all of them, are
free," Li Shai Tung had once said to his sons. "The rest do
not own the bones in their own skins."

Yuan glanced at
Fei Yen momentarily, then looked back at Shepherd. "What does my
father want?"

Shepherd smiled,
his dark eyes twinkling. "Just listen," he said softly.
"That's all. I'll say all that needs to be said."

Yuan nodded,
understanding without needing to be told that this was what his
father wanted. For the past four months he had worked hard, studying
thousands of personal files, learning their details by heart until,
now, he could put a name to every face in the Great Hall. A name and
a history.

Berdichev was
with his wife, Ylva, a tall, rather severe-looking woman some ten
years younger than he. Beside them was one of the Eastern sector
administrators, a covert Disper-sionist sympathizer named Duchek.
Making up the group was Under Secretary Lehmann.

"Shepherd,"
said Berdichev, on his guard at once. "Li Yuan," he added
quickly, noticing the Prince behind Shepherd and bowing deeply, a
gesture that was copied immediately by all in the immediate circle.

"We're not
interrupting anything, I hope?" said Shepherd lightly,
disingenuously.

"Nothing
but idle talk," Lehmann answered, smiling coldly, his manner
matching Shepherd's.

"Idle talk?
Oh, surely not, Under Secretary. I thought such important men as you
rarely wasted a word."

"It was
nothing," said Berdichev touchily. "But if it interests you
so much, why not ask us? We have nothing to hide."

Shepherd laughed
warmly. "Did I say you had? Why no, Soren, I meant nothing by my
words. Nothing at all. This is a social occasion, after all. I meant
merely to be sociable."

Yuan looked
down, keeping the smile from his face. He had seen how Berdichev had
bridled when Shepherd used his first name; how his eyes had lit with
anger behind those tiny rounded glasses he so affectedly wore.

"We were
talking of the world," said Lehmann, meeting Shepherd's eyes
challengingly. "Of how much smaller it seems these days."

Shepherd
hesitated as if considering the matter, then nodded. "I would
have
to
agree with you, Under Secretary. In fact, I'd go
further and argue that weVe actually lost touch with the world.
Consider. What is City Earth, after all, but a giant box on stilts? A
huge hive filled to the brim with humanity. Oh, it's comfortable
enough, we'd all agree, but it's also quite unreal—a place
where the vast majority of people have little or no contact with the
earth, the elements."

Shepherd looked
about the circle, half smiling, meeting each of their eyes in turn.
"Isn't that how it is? Well, then, it's understandable, don't
you think, that feeling of smallness? Of being contained? You see,
there's nothing real in their lives. No heaven above, no earth below,
just walls on every side. All they see—all they are—is an
illusion."

Lehmann blinked,
not certain he had heard Shepherd right. What had been said was
unorthodox, to say the least. It was not what one expected to hear
from someone who had the T'ang's ear. Lehmann looked across and saw
how Berdichev was looking down, as if insulted. His company,
SimFic—Simulation Fictions—provided many of the
"illusions" Shepherd was clearly denigrating.

"Men have
always had illusions," Berdichev said fiercely, looking up
again, his eyes cold behind their glasses. "They have always
made fictions. Always had a desire for stories. Illusion is necessary
for good health. Without it—"

"Yes, yes,
of course," Shepherd interrupted. "I'm sure I worry far too
much. However, it does seem to me that this world of ours is nothing
but
illusion. One giant complex hologram." He smiled and
looked away from Berdichev, focusing on Lehmann once again. "It's
all
yin
and no
yang.
All male and no female. WeVe lost
contact with the Mother, don't you agree, Under Secretary?"

It was Duchek
who answered him, his eyes flaring with passionate indignation. "It's
all right for you, Shi/i Shepherd. You have the Domain. You
have
your mother!"