The Middle Kingdom (76 page)

"Is this
really necessary?" he huffed irritably, turning to DeVore as the
soldier continued his body search.

"It's
necessary, I assure you, Shih Weis. One small device could tear this
place apart. And then your backers would be very angry that we had
not taken such precautions." He laughed. "Isn't that how
you bankers think? Don't you always assume the worst possible case
and then act accordingly?"

Weis bowed his
head, ceding the point, but DeVore could see he was still far from
happy.

A door from the
secure area led out into the dome itself. Mobile factories had been
set up all over the dome floor and men were hard at work on every
side—manufacturing the basic equipment for the base. But the
real work was being done beneath their feet—in the heart of the
mountain. Down there they were hewing out the tunnels and chambers of
Landeck Base from the solid rock. When it was finished there would be
no sign from the air.

They crossed the
dome floor. On the far side was an area screened off from the rest of
the dome. Here the first of DeVore's recruits were temporarily
housed. Here they slept and ate and trained, until better quarters
were hewn from the rock for them.

DeVore turned to
Weis and Lehmann, and indicated that they should go through. "We'll
be eating with the men," he said, and saw—as he had
expected—how discomfited Weis was by the news. He had thought
that other arrangements—special arrangements—had been
made.

DeVore studied
him, thinking, Yes, you like your comforts, don't you, Weis? And all
this—the mountains, the cold, the busy preparations—mean
very little by comparison. Your heart's in Han opera and little boys,
not revolution. I'll watch you, Weis. Watch you like a hawk. Because
youre the weakest link. If things go wrong, you'll be the first to
break.

He went inside
after them and was greeted by the duty officer. Normally the man
would have addressed him as Major, but, seeing Weis, he merely bowed
deeply, then turned and led them across to the eating area.

Good, thought
DeVore. Though it matters little now, I like a man who knows when to
hold his tongue.

They sat on
benches at one of the scrubbed wooden tables.

"Well,
Shih
Weis? What would you like to eat?"

The cook bowed
and handed Weis the single sheet menu. DeVore kept his amusement
hidden, knowing what was on the paper. It was all very basic
fare—soldier's food—and he saw Weis's face crinkle with
momentary disgust. He handed the sheet back and turned to DeVore.

"If you
don't mind, I'd rather not. But you two go ahead. I'll tell you
what's been happening."

DeVore ordered,
then turned and looked at Lehmann.

"I'll have
the same."

"Good."
He looked back at Weis. "So. Tell me,
Shih
Weis, what has
been happening?"

Weis leaned
forward, lowering his voice. "There's been a problem."

"A
problem?"

"Duchek.
He's refused to pass the funds through the plantation accounts."

"I see. So
what have you done?"

Weis smiled
broadly, clearly pleased by his own ingenuity. "I’ve
rerouted them—through various Security ordnance accounts."

DeVore
considered it a moment, -then smiled. "That's good. Much better,
in fact. They'd never dream we'd use their own accounts."

Weis leaned
back, nodding. "That's what I thought."

Because of the
vast sums involved they had had to take great care in setting up the
routes by which the money got to DeVore.

The finances of
Chung Kuo were closely knit and any large movement was certain to be
noted by the T'ang's ministry, the Hu Pu, responsible for monitoring
all capital transfers and ensuring the T'ang received the fifty
percent due him on the profit of each and every transaction.

It had been
decided from the outset that it would be safest to be open about the
movements. Any attempt to siphon away sums of this size would be
noticed and investigated, but normal movements—if the T'ang
received his cut from them—would not be commented upon. It had
meant that the T'ang would actually receive almost seventy-five
percent of everything they allocated, but this had been budgeted for.

Weis and his
small team had worked directly with the sponsors to set things up.
First they had had to break the transfers down into smaller, less
noticeable sums, then disguise these as payments to smaller companies
for work done. From there they were rerouted and broken down into yet
smaller payments—this process being repeated anywhere between
ten and fifteen times before they finally got to DeVore. Again, it
was an expensive process, but necessary to protect the seven major
sponsors from being traced. Palms had had to be greased all the way
down the line, "squeeze" to be paid to greedy officials.

Funded directly
it would have cost a quarter of the sum DeVore had asked for. But the
risk of discovery would have been a hundred times greater.

"You've
done an excellent job,
Shih
Weis," DeVore said, leaning
back to let the cook set his plate down in front of him. "I have
asked Shih Douglas if he could not show our appreciation in some
small way."

He saw how much
that pleased Weis, then looked down and picked up his chopsticks,
digging into the heaped plate of braised bean-curd and vegetables.

DEVORE WATCHED
Weis's craft lift and accelerate away, heading north, back to the
safety of the City. The man's impatience both irritated and amused
him. He was so typical of his kind. So unimaginative. All his talk
about
The New Hope
, for instance—it was all so much bad
air. But that was fortunate, perhaps. For if they'd guessed—if
any of them had had the foresight to see where all this really led
...

He laughed, then
turned to the youth. "Do you fancy a walk, Stefan? The cold is
rather exhilarating, I find."

"I'd like
that."

The answer
surprised him. He had begun to believe there was nothing the young
man liked.

They went down
past the landing dome and out onto a broad lip of ice-covered rock
which once, long ago, had been a road. From that vantage point they
could see how the valley began to curve away to the west. Far below
them the mountainside was forested, but up here there was only snow
and ice. They were above the world.

Standing there
in the crisp air, surrounded by the bare splendor of the mountains,
he saw it clearly.
The New Hope
was much more than a new
start. For the Seven it would be the beginning of the end. His
colleagues—Weis, Moore, Duchek, even Berdichev—saw it
mainly as a symbol, a flagship for their cause, but it was more than
that. It was a practical thing. If it succeeded—if new worlds
could be colonized by its means— then control would slip from
the hands of the Seven.

They knew that.
Li Shai Tung had known it three years ago when he had summoned the
leaders of the House to him and, unexpectedly, granted the
concession. But the old man had had no choice. Lehmann's murder had
stirred the hornet's nest. It was the only thing the T'ang could have
done to prevent war.

Even so, none of
his fellow conspirators had grasped what it
really
meant. They
had not fully envisaged the changes that would come about—the
vast, rapid metamorphosis that would sweep through their tight-knit
community of thirty-nine billion souls. Science, kept in check by the
Edict for so long, would not so much blossom as explode. When mankind
went out into the stars it would not be a scattering, as so many had
called it, but a shattering. All real cohesion would be lost. The
Seven knew this. But few others had understood as yet. They thought
the future would be an extension of the past. It would not. It would
be something new. Something utterly, disturbingly new.

The new age, if
it came, would be an age of grotesque and gothic wonders. Of magical
transformations. Mutation would be the norm.

If it came.

"What were
you up to with Weis back there?"

DeVore turned
and looked at the young man. He seemed perfectly suited to this
environment. His eyes, the pallor of his flesh; neither seemed out of
place here. He was like some creature of the wild—a pine marten
or a snow fox. A predator.

DeVore smiled.
"I've been told Weis is a weak man. A soft man. I wanted
confirmation of that for myself."

"What had
you heard?"

DeVore told him
about the tape he had acquired. It showed Weis in bed with two young
boys—well-known Han opera stars. That was his weakness; a
weakness he indulged in quite often, if the reports were accurate.

"Can he be
trusted, then?"

"We have no
option. Weis is the only one with both the know-how and the
contacts."

"I see."

DeVore turned
and looked back at the view. He remembered standing here with
Berdichev, almost a year before, when they had first drawn up their
scheme; recalled how they had stood and watched the sunset together;
how frightened Soren had been; how the sudden fall of dark had
changed his mood entirely. But he had expected as much. After all,
Berdichev was typical of the old Man.

Beneath it all
they were still the same primitive creatures. Still forest dwellers,
crouched on the tree line, watching the daylight bleed away on the
plain below, fearful of the dark. Their moods, their very beings,
were shaped by patterns older than the race. By the Earth's slow
revolution about the sun. By the unglimpsed diurnal round—cycles
of dark and light, heat and cold. They could not control how they
were, how they felt.

In the new age
it would be different. There would be a creature free of this.
Unshackled. A creature of volition, un-shaped by its environment. A
creature fit for space.

Let them have
their romantic image of dispersion; of new, unblemished worlds. Of
Edens. His dreams were different and rode upon their backs. His dream
was of new men. Of better, finer creatures.
Cleaner
creatures.

He thought back
to the tape of Weis; to the image of the financier standing there,
naked, straddling the young boy, his movements urgent, his face tight
with need. Such weakness, he thought. So pitiful to be a slave to
need.

In his dream of
the new age he saw all such weaknesses eradicated. His new Man would
be purged of need. His blood would flow clean and pure like the icy
streams of the far north.

"It's
magnificent. So pure. So perfect."

He looked across
at the youth, surprised, then laughed. Yes, they were all much the
same—all the same, primitive Man, unchanged by long millennia
of so-called civilization. AH, perhaps, but this one. "Yes,"
he said, after a moment, feeling himself drawn to the boy. "It
is magnificent, isn't it?"

Tolonen stopped
on the edge of the inner arch, squinting into the darkness at the
center, trying to make out the shape of his master.

"Heavy-handed
monsters, weren't they?"

Li Shai Tung
stepped out from the next archway. At a signal from him the lights
were raised and the central amphitheater was suddenly revealed. It
was huge, monstrous, barbaric. It spoke of a crude brutality.

Tolonen was
silent, waiting. And while he waited, he thought about the pain and
death this place had been built to hold. So much raw aggression had
been molded into darkness here. So much warm blood spilled for
entertainment.

"You
understand, then?" said the T'ang, turning to face him for the
first time. There were tears in his eyes.

He found he
could barely answer him. "What is it,
Chieh Hsia
? What do
you want from me?"

Li Shai Tung
drew a deep breath, then raised a hand, indicating the building all
about them. "They would have me believe you are like this place.
As unthinkingly callous. As brutal. Did you know that?"

He wanted to
ask, Who?
Who would have you believe this?
but he merely
nodded, listening.

"However
... I know you too well, Knut. You're a caring man. A loving man."

Tolonen
shivered, moved by his T'ang's words.

The T'ang moved
closer; stood face to face with his ex-general, their breaths
mingling. "What you did was wrong. Very wrong." Then,
surprisingly, he leaned forward and kissed Tolonen's cheek, holding
him a moment. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "But thank you,
Knut. Thank you, dearest friend. You acted like a brother to my
grief."

Tolonen stood
there, surprised, looking into his master's face, then bowed his
head, all the old warmth welling up inside him. It had been so long;
so hard being exiled.

He went down
onto his knees at Li Shai Tung's feet, his head bowed in submission.
"Tell me what you want,
Chieh Hsia.
Let me serve you
again."

"Get up,
old friend. Get up."

"Not until
you say I am forgiven."

There was a
moment's silence, then Li Shai Tung placed his hands on Tolonen's
shoulders. "I cannot reinstate you. You must realize that. As
for forgiveness, there is nothing to forgive. You acted as I felt. I
would need to forgive myself first." He smiled sadly. "Your
exile is at an end, Knut. You can come home. Now get up."

Tolonen stayed
on his knees.

"Get up,
you foolish man. Get up. You think I'd let my ablest friend rot in
inactivity?" He was laughing now; a soft, almost childlike
laughter. "Yes, you foolish old man. I have a job for you."

IT WAS a hot
night. Nan Ho had left the door to the garden open. A gentle breeze
stirred the curtains, bringing the scents of night flowers and the
sound of an owl in the orchard. Li Yuan woke and stretched, then grew
very still.

"Who is
it?" he said, his voice very small.