The Middle Kingdom (39 page)

Nocenzi nodded.
"My .men are working on it already."

"Good."
His first instinct had been to gas all the copies, but they needed
one in functional order. To trace it back. To find out where these
things came from and get to the men behind them.

"What
percentage of the colonists have proved to be these things?"

Nocenzi looked
to his lieutenant, who bowed and answered for him. "Nine from
three hundred and eighteen. So just under three percent."

Tolonen looked
back into the room. So if the percentage was constant that meant
there was at least one, maybe two, of the things in there. But how
did you tell? They were indistinguishable to the naked eye.

"At least
they're not booby-trapped," Nocenzi said, coming closer and
standing beside him at the glass. "Think of the damage they
could have done if they had been. If I'd built them I'd have made
them tamper proof. More than that, I'd have made them a bit less
docile. Not one of them queried going into the secure rooms. It's as
if they weren't programed for it. Yet they must have had pretty
complex programing for them to keep up appearances, let alone come
here. They must have had a plan of some kind."

Tblonen started,
then turned to face his Major. "Of course! Why didn't I see it
before?" He laughed shortly, then shivered. "Don't you see,
Vittorio? Twelve of them. One of them the linchpin, the strategist,
holding it all in his head, the others with the bare outlines of what
they have to do, but no sense of the larger strategy."

Nocenzi
understood at once. "An elite attack squad. Like our own
Security squads. Functioning in the same way."

"Yes!"
Tolonen said, elated. "That explains why they were so docile.
They only needed a certain amount of programing. They were just
following orders. But one of them—one of the 'people' in that
room—is the linchpin. The strategist."

DeVore. It all
led back to DeVore. His hand behind all of this. His thinking. His
elite training.

"There'll
be three of them, I warrant you. Two soldiers and a strategist. It's
the last I want. The linchpin. The others will know nothing. But that
one . . ."

But even as he
said the words he saw it. Saw the two of them meet in the center of
the room and touch and spark, blue veins of electric current forming
in the air about them.

"Down!"
he yelled, throwing himself to the floor as the room beyond the
mirror filled with blinding light.

And then the
ceiling fell on them.

KRENEK KNELT and
bowed his head, his empty hands placed palm down on his thighs,
fingers pointed inward, his whole stance mimicking the tens of
thousands surrounding him. Then he straightened, studying the group
of people gathered at the top of the steps directly in front of the
Hall of Supreme Harmony. Fei Yen's father, Yin Tsu, and his family
were to the left, Li Shai Tung and his to the right. Beneath them, on
the steps themselves, the seven New Confucian officials bowed and
chanted the ancient ceremonial words.

He looked right,
then left, then bowed his head again, as others did surrounding him.
Guards were everywhere, armed and watchful. GenSyn, many of them, no
doubt. Unquestioning, obedient creatures. Reliable. Predictable.

Krenek smiled.
So different from me, he thought. They made me better than that. More
devious. More human.

But there was
still a problem. He was too far back. Had even two of the others been
here it might still have worked. But now?

He looked about
him, calculating distances, gauging where they were weak, where
strong, running high-probability scenarios through his head until he
saw it clear. Then, and only then, did he establish his plan. I'll
have fifteen seconds. Eighteen at most. I can make it halfway there
by then. They'll protect the T'ang and the T'ang's sons. Or try to.
But they'll also try to protect Yin Tsu and Fei Yen. That will split
their attention.

Yes, but they'd
expect him to try to take the Pang. That's where they would
concentrate their defenses. Again he smiled, the DeVore part of him
remembering his elite training. He could see how they'd do it,
forming a screen of bodies in front of him, two guards dragging him
back, making the smallest possible target of him. And if seriously
threatened they'd open fire, killing anything that came at them,
innocent or otherwise.

But he would not
attack the T'ang. Nor Han Ch'in. He'd strike where they least
expected. Li Yuan would be his target. As he'd always been.

DeVore's words
rang clear in his head. "Kill the brain and the beast will fall.
Li Shai Tung is old, Han Ch'in incompetent. Only Li Yuan, the
youngest, is a threat to us. Get Han Ch'in if you can. Kill the T'ang
if you must. But make sure Li Yuan is dead. With him gone the House
of Li will not last long."

He waited,
knowing the time was fast approaching. Any moment now the
saffron-robed officials would turn, facing them, and the vast crowd
would rise as one to roar their approval of the marriage. It was then
that he'd move forward, using their packed bodies as a screen. He
would have five seconds, and then they would kneel again.

Yes, he thought,
visualizing it clearly now. He could see himself running, fire
blazing from his ruined hands. Could smell the crowd's blind panic,
hear the ear-shattering stutter of the crossfire. And then, before
his eyes closed finally, he would see the T'ang's son sprawled out on
the marble, facedown, blood streaming from a dozen separate wounds.

Yes, he thought.
Yes. Seconds from now.

There was a
sudden lapse in the singsong incantation. As one the officials turned
and faced the crowd. As one the vast crowd rose to its feet.

He made to move
forward and felt himself jarred to a halt, then lifted from his feet.
Two great hands tore at his chest, two hugely muscled arms pinned his
own arms to his sides, slowly crushing him.

"Going
somewhere, Mister Krenek?"

KARR THREW down
the lifeless carcass of the thing, then came to attention before
Tolonen.

"I don't
know what happened, sir. One moment it was fine. The next it was like
this."

Tblonen got up
unsteadily from his chair and came over to where the thing lay. His
chest and arm had been strapped tightly and, despite the painkilling
drugs, he was finding it difficult to breathe easily. He had cracked
two ribs and dislocated his shoulder. Otherwise he'd been very lucky.
Luckier than Nocenzi. The Major was even now in intensive care,
fighting for his life.

Now, cleaned up
and in new dress uniform, the empty left sleeve pinned loosely to the
tunic, Tolonen was back in charge. Looking at the copy he felt all
his anger rise to the surface again.

"Who let
this through? Who authorized the closure of the gates?"

Karr lowered his
head slightly. "It was Marshal Kirov, sir. He assumed the
explosion in the room killed the last of the copies. It was getting
late, and there were still thousands of guests to be processed—"

"Damn it!"
Tolonen's chest rose and fell sharply and a flicker of pain crossed
his face. How could Kirov be so foolish? How could he risk the
T'ang's life so idiotically? So a few thousand guests were
inconvenienced—what was that beside the survival of a T'ang?

Kirov was
nominally his superior. He had been elected Marshal by the Council of
Generals only six months back and in the emergency had been right to
step in and take command, but what he had done was inexcusable.

Tolonen
shuddered. "Thank you, Karr. I'll deal with things from here."

He watched the
big man go, aware that, on his own initiative, Karr had probably
saved the T'ang. He alone had thought to get the copy of the tape
showing what had happened in the room. He alone had identified from
the files the two who had "joined" to such devastating
effect. Then he alone had traced the brother, Josef Krenek,
understanding what he was and what he planned.

Thank the gods,
Tolonen thought. This time we've beaten them.

Tolonen lifted
the dead thing's face with the toe of his boot,

then let it fall
again. A perfect likeness, this one. The best of them all, perhaps.
It was a pity. Now they would never know.

He turned from
the body and signaled to his adjutant. At once the young man came
across and helped him back to his chair.

"Tell Major
Kroger to take over." he said, putting the chair into gear. "I
must see Li Shai Tung at once."

IT WAS EVENING.
The sun’s last rays had climbed the eastern wall and left the
Yu Hua Yuan
, transforming the garden of the Imperial City into
a huge square dish of shadows. Brightly colored paper lanterns lit
the bamboo grove and hung from lines above the lotus-strewn pools and
in the eaves of the teahouses. Caged birds sang their sweet,
drug-induced songs in the gnarled and ancient branches of the
junipers. Below, servants went among the guests with wine and
cordials and trays of delicacies, while
shoo lin
guards stood
back against the walls and among the rocks like ghosts.

Li Yuan, looking
down on it all from the height of the marble terrace, smiled. All
ceremony was done with now. Below him, to his right, the wedding
party moved among the guests informally, Han Ch'in talking excitedly,
Fei Yen silent, demurely bowing at his side.

He saw his
father laugh and reach out to pick a single white blossom from Han's
dark hair, then turn to whisper something to his uncle, Li Yun-Ti.
There was a gay, almost lighthearted atmosphere to things; a feeling
of relief that things had turned out as they had. Yet only an hour
earlier things had been very different. Li Yuan had been there at his
father's interview with the General.

He had never
seen the General so angry. It had taken all his father's skill to
calm Tolonen down and persuade him not to confront Kirov himself. But
he had seen how shaken his father was to have been proved so
conclusively right about the "copies"; how outraged at
Kirov's stupidity. His face had been rigidly controlled as he faced
his General.

"I ask you
to do nothing, Knut. Leave this to me. Kirov is Wei Feng's man. I
shall speak with Wei Feng at once."

He had been as
good as his word. Yuan leaned out and looked down. Tolonen sat there
now in his chair, directly below him, subdued, talking to his fellow
generals. Kirov was not among them.

Wei Feng, T'ang
of East Asia, had been distraught. The thought that his General had
almost cost the lives of a fellow T'ang and his family was more than
he could bear. He had turned angrily on Kirov and torn the chi (ing
patch, symbol of the Marshal's status as a military officer of the
first rank, from his chest, before taking the ceremonial dagger from
Kirov's belt and throwing it down.

"You are
nothing," he had said to the now prostrate Marshal, tears of
anger in his eyes. "And your family is nothing. You have shamed
me, Kirov. Now go. Get out of my sight."

News had come
only minutes later that Kirov had committed suicide; his son, a major
under his command, seconding him before he, too, had killed himself.

Han Ch'in,
meanwhile, knew nothing of these things. No shadows were to fall upon
his nuptial bed.

"Let them
be innocent of this," his father had said, taking Li Yuan's arm
as they made their way back to the
Yu Hua Yuan.
"For if
the seed is strong it will take root and grow a son."

A son. . . .
Yuan looked back at them. They were closer now—almost below
where he stood. He could see them clearly now. Fei Yen was
breathtaking. Her dark hair had been plaited with golden threads and
bows and tiny orchids, then curled into a tight bun on the top of her
head, revealing a pale gold, swanlike neck. She was so delicate. Her
ears, her nose, the lines of her cheekbones; all these were
exquisite. And yet there was fire in her bright, hazel eyes; strength
in her chin and mouth. She stood there at Han's side in an attitude
of obedience, yet she seemed to wear the cloth of crimson and gold as
if born to it. Though her head was tilted forward in the ritual
stance of passive acceptance, there was a power to her still form
that contradicted it. This bird, this flying swallow, was a proud
one. She would need her wings clipped before she settled.

He looked from
Fei Yen to his brother, seeing how flushed Han was. How his eyes
would take small sips of her; each time surprised by her, each time
astonished she was his. In this, as in so many things, Han was his
junior. So much surprised him. So much evaded his grasp. "It's
easy for you,
ti
Yuan," he had once said. "You were
born old. It all comes new to me."

It would be an
interesting match, he thought. A love match. The strongest kind of
power and the hardest to control. She would be Fire to his Earth,
Earth to his Fire.

Li Yuan laughed,
then turned and went down quickly, his hard-soled ceremonial shoes
clattering on the wooden slats, his long-sleeved silks billowing out
behind him as he ran. Down, down, and straight into the arms of his
brother-in-law, Pei Chao Yang.

Chao Yang,
eldest son and heir to the Pei family, one of the Twenty Nine, the
Minor Families, was standing at the edge of the decorative rockpile,
beside the pavilion. His father, Pei Ro-hen, who stood nearby, was a
bondsman of Li Shai Tung and a childhood friend of the T'ang. Almost
fifty years ago they had shared a tutor. Then, eight years back, they
had brought their families much closer, when Chao Yang had married
the Tang's second daughter.

"Here,
Yuan! . . . Slow down, boy!"

Chao Yang held
on to Li Yuan's arm a moment, getting down onto his haunches and
smiling good-naturedly at him, teasing him.

"What is
it, little Yuan? Is your bladder troubling you again? Or has one of
the little maids made you a promise, eh?"