The Middle Kingdom (54 page)

In that small
yet significant gesture, the T'ang had given his father and mother
the ultimate in compliments.

Ben studied the
man as he talked, aware of a strength in him that was somehow more
than physical. There was a certainty—a vitality—in his
every movement, such that even the slightest hesitancy was telling.
His whole body spoke a subtle language of command; something that had
developed quite naturally and unconsciously during the long years of
his rule. To watch him was to watch not a man but a directing force;
was to witness the channeling of aggression and determination into
its most elegant and expressive form. In some respects Li Shai Tung
was like an athlete, each nuance of voice or gesture the result of
long and patient practice. Practice that had made these things second
nature to the T'ang.

Ben watched,
fascinated, barely hearing their words, but aware of their
significance, and of the significance of the fact that he was there
to hear them.

Li Shai Tung
leaned forward slightly, his chin, with its pure white, neatly
braided beard, formulating a slight upward motion that signaled the
offering of a confidence.

"The House
was never meant to be so powerful. Our forefathers saw it only as a
gesture. To be candid, Hal, as a sop to their erstwhile allies and a
mask to their true intentions. But now, a hundred years on, certain
factions persist in taking it at face value. They maintain that the
power of the House is sanctioned by 'the People." And we know
why, don't we? Not for 'the People.' Such men don't spare a second's
thought for 'the People.' No, they think only of themselves. They
seek to climb at our expense. To raise themselves by pulling down the
Seven. They want control, Hal, and the House is the means through
which they seek to get it."

The Tang leaned
back again, his eyes half lidded now. He reached up with his right
hand and grasped the tightly furled queue at the back of his head,
his fingers closing about the coil of fine white hair. It was a
curious, almost absentminded gesture; yet it served to emphasize to
Ben how at ease the T'ang was in his father's company. He watched,
aware of a whole vocabulary of gesture there in the dialogue between
the two men; conscious not just of what they said but of how they
said it; how their eyes met or did not meet; how a shared smile would
suddenly reveal the depths of their mutual understanding. All served
to show him just how much the T'ang depended on his father to release
these words, these thoughts, these feelings. Perhaps because no other
could be trusted with them.

"I often
ask myself, is there any way we might remove the House and dismantle
the huge bureaucratic structure that has grown about it? But each
time I ask myself I know beforehand what the answer is. No. At least,
not now. Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago it might have been possible.
But even then it might simply have preempted things. Brought us
quicker to this point."

Hal Shepherd
nodded. "I agree. But perhaps we should have faced it back then.
We were stronger. Our grip on things was firmer. Now things have
changed. Each year's delay sees them grow at our expense."

"You'd
counsel war, then, Hal?"

"Of a
kind."

The T'ang
smiled, and Ben, watching, found himself comparing the man to his
tutor, Peng Yu-wei. That epicanthic fold over the eye, which seemed
so much a part of the android's "difference"—its
machine nature—was here, on the natural man, quite attractive.

"And what
kind is that?"

"The kind
we're best at. A war of levels. Of openness and deception. The kind
of war the Tyrant, Tsao Ch'un, taught us how to fight."

The T'ang looked
down at his hands, his smile fading. "I don't know. I really
don't, Hal. Sometimes I question what we've done."

"As any man
must surely do."

Li Shai Tung
looked up at him and shook his head. "No, Hal. For once I think
you're wrong. Few men actually question their actions. Most are blind
to their faults. Deaf to the criticisms of their fellow men." He
laughed sourly. "You might say that Chung Kuo is filled with
such men—blind, wicked, greedy creatures who see their
blindness as strength, their wickedness as necessity, their greed as
historical process."

"That's so.
..."

For a moment the
two men fell silent, their faces solemn in the flickering light from
the fire. Before either could speak again, the door at the far end of
the room opened and Ben's mother entered, carrying a tray. She set it
down on a footstool beside the open fire, then leaned across to take
something from a bowl on the mantelpiece and sprinkle it on the
burning logs.

At once the room
was filled with the sweet, fresh smell of mint.

The T'ang gave a
gentle laugh, delighted, and took a long, deep breath.

Ben watched his
mother turn from the fire, drawing her long dark hair back from her
face, smiling. "I've brought fresh
ch'a,
" she said
simply, then lifted the tray and brought it across to them.

As she set it
down the T'ang stood and, reaching across, put his hand over hers,
preventing her from lifting the kettle.

"Please. I
would be honored if jou sat a while with us and shared the
ch'a.
"

She hesitated
then, smiling, did as he bid her; watching the strange sight of a
T'ang pouring
ch'a
for a commoner.

"Here,"
he said, offering her the first bowl. "Ch'a from the dragon's
well."

The T'ang's
words were a harmless play on the name of the Long] ing
ch'a,
but
for Ben they seemed to hold a special meaning. He looked at his
mother, seeing how she smiled selfconsciously and lowered her head,
for a moment the youthful look of her reminding him very much of
Meg—of how Meg would be a year or two from now. Then he looked
back at the Tang, standing there, pouring a second bowl for his
father.

Ben frowned. The
very presence of the T'ang in the room seemed suddenly quite strange.
His silks, his plaited hair, his very foreignness, seemed out of
place among the low oak beams and sturdy yeoman furniture. That
contrast, that curious juxtaposition of man and room, brought home to
Ben how strange this world of theirs truly was. A world tipped wildly
from its natural balance.

The dragon's
well. It made him think of fire and darkness, of untapped potency. Is
that what's missing from our world? he asked himself. Have we done
with fire and darkness?

"And you,
Ben? Will you drink of the dragon's well?"

Li Shai Tung
looked across at him, smiling; but behind the smile—beyond it,
in some darker, less accessible place—lay a deep disquiet.

Flames danced in
the glass of each eye, flickered wet and evanescent on the dark
surface of his vision. But where was the fire on the far side of the
glass? Where the depths that made of man
a
man? In word and
gesture the T'ang was a great and powerful man—a T'ang,
unmistakably a king among men—but he had lost contact with the
very thing that had made—had
shaped
—his outer
form. He had denied his inner self once too often and now the well
was capped, the fire doused.

He stared at the
T'ang, wondering if he knew what he had become; if the doubt that he
professed was as thorough, as all inclusive, as it ought to be.
Whether, when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw
beyond the glass into that other place behind the eyes. Ben shivered.
No. It could not be so. For if it were, the man himself would
crumble. Words would fail, gestures grow hesitant. No. This T'ang
might doubt what they had done, but not what he was. That was
innate—was bred into his bones. He would die before he doubted
himself.

The smile
remained, unchallenged, genuine; the offered bowl awaited him.

"Well,
Ben?" his father asked, turning to him. "Will you take a
bowl with us?"

LI SHAI TUNG
leaned forward, offering the boy the cup, conscious that he had
become the focus of the child's strange intensity; of the
intimidating ferocity of his stare.

Hal was right.
Ben was not like other children. There was something wild in his
nature; some part of him that remained untamed, unsocialized. When he
sat there at table it was as if he held himself in check. There was
such stillness in him that when he moved it was as if something dead
had come alive again. Yet he was more alive—more vividly
alive—than anyone the T'ang had ever met.

As he handed Ben
the bowl he almost expected to receive some kind of shock—a
violent discharge of the child's unnatural energy—through the
medium of the bowl. But there was nothing. Only his wild imagining.

The T'ang looked
down, thoughtful. Ben Shepherd was a breed of one. He had none of
those small refinements that fitted a man for the company of his
fellows. He had no sense of give and take; no idea of the concessions
one made for the sake of social comfort. His stare was
uncompromising, almost proprietorial. As if all he saw was his.

Yes, Li Shai
Tung thought, smiling inwardly. You should be a T'ang, Ben Shepherd,
for you'll find it hard to pass muster as a simple man.

He lifted his
bowl and sipped, thinking back to earlier that afternoon. They had
been out walking in the garden when Hal had suggested he go with him
and see Ben's room.

He had stood in
the center of the tiny, cluttered upstairs room, looking at the
paintings that covered the wall above the bed.

Some were
lifelike studies of the Domain. Lifelike, at least, but for the dark,
unfocused figures who stood in the shadows beneath the trees on the
far side of the water. Others were more abstract, depicting strange
distortions of the real. Twins figured largely in these latter
compositions; one twin quite normal— strong and healthy—the
other twisted out of shape, the eyes white and blank, the mouth open
as if in pain. They were disturbing, unusually disturbing, yet their
technical accomplishment could not be questioned.

"These are
good, Hal. Very good indeed. The boy has talent."

Hal Shepherd
gave a small smile, then came alongside him. "He'd be pleased to
hear you say that. But if you think those are good, look at this."

The T'ang took
the folder from him and opened it. Inside was a single ultra-thin
sheet of what seemed like pure black plastic. He turned it in his
hands and then laughed. "What is it?"

"Here."
Shepherd indicated a viewer on the table by the window, then drew the
blind down. "Lay it in the tray there, then flick that switch."

Li Shai Tung
placed the sheet down in the viewer. "Does it matter which way
up?"

"Yes and
no. You'll see."

The T'ang
flicked the switch. At once the tanklike cage of the viewer was
filled with color. It was a hologram. A portrait of Hal Shepherd's
wife, Beth.

"He did
this?"

Shepherd nodded.
"There are one hundred and eighty cross-sectional layers of
information. Ninety horizontal, ninety vertical. He handdrew each
sheet and then compressed them. It's his own technique. He invented
it."

"Hand-drew
. . . ?"

"And from
memory. Beth wouldn't sit for him, you see. She said she was too
busy. But he did it anyway."

Li Shai Tung
shook his head slowly. "It's astonishing, Hal. It's like a
camera image of her."

"You
haven't seen the half of it. Wait. . . ." Shepherd switched the
hologram off, then reached in and lifted the flexible plate up. He
turned it and set it down again. "Please. . . ."

The Tang reached
out and pressed the switch. Again the viewing cage was filled with
color. But this time the image was different.

The hologram of
Hal Shepherd was far from flattering. The flesh was far cruder, much
rougher, than the reality, the cheeks ruddier. The hair was thicker,
curlier, the eyebrows heavier and darker. The nose was thick and
fleshy, the ears pointed, the eyes larger, darker. The lips were more
sensuous than the original, almost licentious. They seemed to sneer.

Shepherd moved
closer and looked down into the viewer. "There's something of
the satyr about it. Something elemental."

The T'ang turned
his head and looked at him, not understanding the allusion.

Shepherd
laughed. "It was a Greek thing, Shai Tung. In their mythology
satyrs were elementary spirits of the mountains and the forests. Part
goat, part man. Cloven hooved, thickly haired, sensual, and
lascivious."

Li Shai Tung
stared at the urbane, highly sophisticated man standing at his side
and laughed briefly, bemused that Shepherd could see himself in that
brutal portrait. "I can see a slight likeness. Something in the
eyes, the shape of the head, but. . ."

Shepherd shook
his head slowly. He was staring at the hologram intently. "No.
Look at it, Shai Tung. Look hard at it. He sees me clearly. My inner
self."

Li Shai Tung
shivered. "The gods help us that our sons should see us thus!"

Shepherd turned
and looked at him. "Why? Why should we fear that, old friend? We
know what we are. Men. Part mind, part animal. Why should we be
afraid of that?"

The T'ang
pointed to the -image. "Men, yes. But men like that? You really
see yourself in such an image, Hal?"

Shepherd smiled.
"It's not the all of me, I know, but it's a part. An important
part."

Li Shai Tung
shrugged—the slightest movement of his shoulders—then
looked back at the image. "But why is the other as it is? Why
aren't both alike?"

"Ben has a
wicked sense of humor."

Again the T'ang
did not understand, but this time Shepherd made no attempt to
enlighten him.

Li Shai Tung
studied the hologram a moment longer, then turned from it, looking
all about him. "He gets such talent from you, Hal."