The Middle Kingdom (55 page)

Shepherd shook
his head. "I never had a tenth his talent. Anyway, even the word
talent is unsatisfactory. What he has is genius. In that he's like
his great-grandfather."

The T'ang smiled
at that, remembering his father's tales of Augustus Shepherd's
eccentricity. "Perhaps. But let us hope that that is all he has
inherited."

He knew at once
that he had said the wrong thing. Or, if not the wrong thing, then
something which touched upon a sensitive area.

"The
resemblance is more than casual."

The T'ang
lowered his head slightly, willing to drop the matter at once, but
Shepherd seemed anxious to explain. "Ben's schizophrenic, too,
you see. Oh, nothing as bad as Augustus. But it creates certain
incongruities in his character."

Li Shai Tung
looked back at the pictures above the bed with new understanding.
"But from what you've said the boy is healthy enough."

"Even
happy, I'd say. Most of the time. He has bouts of it, you understand.
Then we either dose him up heavily or leave him alone."

Shepherd leaned
across and switched off the viewer, then lifted the thin black sheet
and slipped it back into the folder. "They used to think
schizophrenia was a simple malfunction of the brain; an imbalance in
certain chemicals—dopamine, glu-tamic acid, and gamma amino
butyric acid. Drugs like Largactil, Modecate, Disipal, Priadel, and
Haloperidol were used, mainly as tranquilizers. But they simply kept
the thing in check and had the side effect of enlarging the dopamine
system. Worst of all, at least as far as Ben is concerned, they damp
down the creative faculty."

The T'ang
frowned. Medicine, like all else, was based on traditional Han ways.
The development of Western drugs, like Western ideas of progress, had
been abandoned when Tsao Ch'un had built his City. Many such drugs
were, in fact, illicit now. One heard of them, normally, only in the
context of addiction—something that was rife in the lowest
levels of the City. Nowadays all serious conditions were diagnosed
before the child was born and steps taken either to correct them or
to abort the fetus. It thus surprised him, first to hear that Ben's
illness had not been diagnosed beforehand, second that he had even
considered taking drugs to keep the illness in check.

"He has not
taken these drugs, I hope."

Shepherd met his
eyes. "Not only has but still does. Except when he's working."

The T'ang signed
deeply. "You should have told me, Hal. I shall arrange for my
herbalist to call on Ben within the next few days."

Shepherd shook
his head. "I thank you, Shai Tung. Your kindness touches me. But
it would do no good."

"No good?"
The T'ang frowned, puzzled. "But there are numerous
sedatives—things to calm the spirit and restore the body's
yin'yang
balance. Good, healthy remedies, not these . . .
drugs!"

"I know,
Shai Tung, and again I thank you for your concern. But Ben would have
none of it. Oh, I can see him now—
Dragon bones and oyster
sheUs!
he'd say scornfully, What good
are they against this
affliction!"

The T'ang looked
down, disturbed. In this matter he could not insist. The birthright
of the Shepherds made them immune from the laws that governed others.
If Ben took drugs to maintain his mental stability there was little
he, Li Shai Tung, could do about it. Even so, he could not stop
himself from feeling it was wrong. He changed the subject.

"Is he a
good son, Hal?"

Shepherd
laughed. "He is the best of sons, Shai Tung. Like Li Yuan, his
respect is not a matter of rote, as it is with some of this new
generation, but a deep-rooted thing. And as you've seen, it stems
from a thorough knowledge of his father."

The T'ang
nodded, leaving his doubts unexpressed. "Good. But you are
right, Hal. These past few years have seen a sharp decline in
morality. The Ji—the rites—they mean little now. The
young mouth the old words but they mean nothing by them. Their
respect is an empty shell. We are fortunate, you and I, that we have
good sons."

"Indeed.
Though Ben can be a pompous, intolerant little sod at times. He has
no time for fools. And little enough for cleverness, if you see what
I mean. He loathes his machine-tutor, for instance."

Li Shai Tung
raised his eyebrows. "That surprises me, Hal. I would have
thought he cherished knowledge. All this"—he looked about
him at the books and paintings and machines—"it speaks of
a love of knowledge."

Shepherd smiled
strangely. "Perhaps you should talk to him yourself, Shai Tung."

The T'ang
smiled. "Perhaps I should."

Now, watching
the boy across the length of the dinner table, he understood.

"What do
you think, Ben? Do you think the time has come to fight our enemies?"

Unexpectedly,
the boy laughed. "That depends on whether you know who or what
your enemies are, Li Shai Tung."

The T'ang lifted
his chin slightly. "I think I have a fair idea of that."

Ben met his eyes
again, fixing that same penetrating stare on him. "Maybe. But
you must first ask yourself what exactly you are fighting against.
When you think of your enemies your first thought is of certain
identifiable men and groups of men, is that not so?"

The T'ang
nodded. "That is so, Ben. I know my enemies. I can put names to
them and faces."

"There, you
see. And you think that by waging war against them you will resolve
this present situation." Ben set his bowl down and sat back, his
every gesture momentarily—though none but Ben himself realized
it—the mirror image of the T'ang's. "With respect, Li Shai
Tung, you are wrong."

The T'ang
laughed fiercely, enjoying the exchange. "You think their
ideology will outlive them? Is that it, Ben? If it were not so false
in the first place, I would agree with you. But their sole motivation
is greed. They don't really want change. They want power."

Ben shook his
head. "Ah, but you're still thinking of specific men. Powerful
men, admittedly, even men of influence, but only men. Men won't bring
Chung Kuo down, only what's inside of Man. You should free yourself
from thinking of them. To you they seem the greatest threat, but
they're not. They're the scum on the surface of the well. And the
well is deep."

Li Shai Tung
took a deep breath. "With respect, Ben, in this
you
are
wrong. Your argument presupposes that it does not matter who
rules—that things will remain as they are whoever is in power.
But that's not so. Their ideology is false, but, forgive me, they are
Hung Moo."

Across from him
Hal Shepherd smiled, but he was clearly embarrassed. It was more than
two decades since he had taken offense at the term—a term used
all the while in court, where the Han were predominant and the few
Caucasians treated as honorary Han—yet here, in the Domain, he
felt the words incongruous, almost—surprisingly—insulting.

"They have
no sense of harmony," continued the T'ang, unaware. "No
sense of li. Any change they brought would not be for the good. They
are men of few principles. They would carve the world up into
principalities and then there would be war again. Endless war. As it
was before."

There was the
faintest of smiles on Ben's lips. "You forget your own history,
Li Shai Tung. No dynasty can last forever. The wheel turns. Change
comes, whether you will it or no. It is the way of mankind. All of
mankind, even the Han."

"So it may
have been, but things are different now. The wheel no longer turns.
We have done with history."

Ben laughed.
"But you cannot stop the world from turning!"

He was about to
say more but his mother touched his arm. She had sat there, perfectly
still and silent, watching the fire while they talked, her dark hair
hiding her face. Now she smiled and got up, excusing herself.

"Perhaps
you men would like to go through into the study. IVe lit the fire
there."

Shepherd looked
to the T'ang, who gave the slightest nod of agreement before standing
and bowing to his hostess. Again he thanked her warmly for the meal
and her hospitality and then, when she had gone, went before Shepherd
and his son into the other room.

"Brandy?"
Shepherd turned from the wall cabinet, holding the decanter up. The
T'ang was usually abstemious, but tonight his mood seemed different.
He seemed to want to talk—to encourage talk. As if there were
some real end to all this talking: some problem which, though he
hadn't come to it, he wished to address. Something he found
difficult; that worried him profoundly.

The T'ang
hesitated, then smiled. "Why not? After all, a man should
indulge himself now and then."

Shepherd poured
the T'ang a fingernail's measure of the dark liquid and handed him
the ancient bowled glass. Then he turned to his son. "Ben?"

Ben smiled
almost boyishly. "Are you sure Mother won't mind?"

Shepherd winked
at him. "Mother won't know."

He handed the
boy a glass, then poured one for himself and sat, facing the T'ang
across the fire. Maybe it was time to force the pace; time to draw
the T'ang out of himself.

"Something's
troubling you, Shai Tung."

The T'ang looked
up from his glass almost distractedly and gave a soft laugh.
"Everything troubles me, Hal. But that's not what you mean, is
it?"

"No. No
visit of yours is casual, Shai Tung. You had a specific reason for
coming to see me, didn't you?"

The T'ang's
smile was filled with gratitude. "As ever, Hal, you're right.
But I'll need no excuse to come next time. I’ve found this very
pleasant."

"Well?"

The T'ang took a
long inward breath, steeling himself, then spoke. "It's
Tolonen."

For some time
now the T'ang had been under intense pressure from the House to bring
the General to trial for the murder of Under Secretary Lehmann. They
wanted Tolonen's head for what he'd done. But the T'ang had kept his
thoughts to himself about the killing. No one—not the Seven nor
Hal Shepherd—• knew how he really felt about the matter,
only that he had refused to see Tolonen since that day; that he had
exiled him immediately and appointed a new general, Vittorio Nocenzi,
in his place. .

Shepherd waited,
conscious of how tense Li Shai Tung had suddenly become. Tolonen had
been of the same generation as the T'ang and they shared the same
unspoken values. In their personal lives there had been parallels
that had drawn them close and formed a bond between them; not least
the loss of both their wives some ten years back. In temperament,
however, they were ice and fire.

"I miss
him. Do you understand that, Hal? I really miss the old devil. First
and foremost for himself. For all that he was.

Loyal. Honest.
Brave." He looked up briefly, then looked down again, his eyes
misting. "I felt he was my champion, Hal. Always there at my
side. From my eighteenth year. My General. My most trusted man."

He shuddered and
was silent for a while. Then he began again, his voice softer, yet
somehow stronger, more definite than before.

"Strangely
I miss his rashness most of all. He was like Han Ch'in in that. What
he said was always what part of me felt. Now I feel almost that that
part of me is missing—is unexpressed, festering in the
darkness."

"You want
him back?"

Li Shai Tung
laughed bitterly. "As if I could. No, Hal, but I want to see
him. I need to speak to him."

Shepherd was
silent for a time, considering, then he leaned forward and set his
glass down on the table at his side. "You should call him back,
Shai Tung. For once damn the House and its demands. Defy them. You
are Tang, and thus above their laws."

Li Shai Tung
looked up and met Shepherd's eyes. "I am T'ang, yes, but I am
also Seven. I could not act so selfishly."

"Why not?"

The T'ang
laughed, surprised. "This is unlike you, Hal. For more than
twenty years you have advised me to be cautious, to consider the full
implications of my actions, but now, suddenly, you counsel me to
rashness."

Shepherd smiled.
"Not rashness, Shai Tung. Far from it. In fact, I've thought of
little else this past year." He got up and went across to a
bureau in the corner farthest from the fire, returning a moment later
with a folder which he handed to the T'ang.

"What is
this, Hal?"

Shepherd smiled,
then sat again. "My thoughts on things."

Li Shai Tung
stared thoughtfully at.Shepherd a moment, then set his glass down and
opened the folder.

"But this
is handwritten."

Shepherd nodded.
"It's the only copy. I've said things in there that I'd rather
not have fall into the hands of our enemies."

He looked
briefly at his son as he said the last few words, conscious that the
boy was watching everything.

Li Shai Tung
looked up at him, his face suddenly hawklike, his eyes fiercer than
before. "Why did you not mention this before?"

"It was not
my place. In any case, it was not ready before now."

The T'ang looked
back down at the folder and at the summary Shepherd had appended to
the front of his report. This was more than a simple distillation of
the man's thoughts on the current political situation. Here, in its
every detail, was the plan for that "War of Levels"
Shepherd had mentioned earlier. A scheme which would, if implemented,
bring the Seven into direct confrontation with the House.

Li Shai Tung
flicked through the pages of the report quickly, skimming, picking
out phrases which Shepherd had highlighted or underlined, his pulse
quickening as he read. Shepherd's tiny, neat handwriting filled
almost forty pages, but the meat of it was there, in that opening
summary. He read once more what Shepherd had written.