The Middle Kingdom (80 page)

There was
uproar. Infuriated
tai
threw bench pillows down at the
speaker, while some would have come down the aisles to lay hands on
him, had not other members blocked their way.

Then, at a
signal from the Secretary, House Security troops had come into the
chamber and had begun to round up the named
tai,
handcuffing
them like common criminals and removing their permit cards.

Berdichev
watched the end of this process—saw the last few
tai
being
led away, protesting violently, down into the cells below the House.

He shivered,
exulted. This was a day to remember. A day he had long dreamed of.
The New Hope
was saved and the House strengthened. And later
on, after the celebrations, he would begin the next phase of his
scheme.

He turned and
looked back at the men gathered in the viewing room, knowing
instinctively which he could trust and which not, then smiled to
himself. It began here, now. A force which all the power of the Seven
could not stop. And the Aristotle file would give it a focus, a sense
of purpose and direction. When they saw what had been kept from them,
there would be no turning back. The file would bring an end to the
rule of Seven.

Yes. He laughed
and raised his glass to Douglas once again. It had begun. And who
knew what kind of world it would be when they had done with it?"

IT
wAS two in the morning and outside the Berdichev mansion, in the
ornamental gardens, the guests were still celebrating noisily. A line
of sedans waited on the far side of the green, beneath the lanterns,
their pole-men and guards in attendance nearby, while closer to the
house a temporary kitchen had been set up. Servants moved busily
between the guests, serving hot bowls of soup or noodles, or offering
more wine.

Berdichev stood
on the balcony, looking down, studying it all a moment. Then he moved
back inside, smiling a greeting at the twelve men gathered there.

These were the
first of them. The ones he trusted most. He looked across at the
servant, waiting at his request in the doorway, and gave the signal.
The servant—a "European," like all his staff these
days—returned a moment later with a tray on which was a large
potbellied bottle and thirteen delicate porcelain bowls. The servant
placed the tray on the table, then, with a deep bow, backed away and
closed the door after him. They were alone.

Berdichev's
smile broadened. "You'll drink with me
chun t'tul"
He held up the bottle—a forty-year-old
Shou Hsing
peach brandy—and was greeted with a murmur of warm approval. He
poured, then handed out the tiny bowls, conscious that the eyes of
the "gentlemen" would from time to time move to the twelve
thick folders laid out on the table beside the tray.

He raised his
bowl. "Kan
pei!"

"Kan
pei!"
they echoed and downed their brandies in one gulp.

"Beautiful!"
said Moore with a small shudder. "Where did you get it, Soren? I
didn't think there was a bottle of
Shou Hsing
left in all
Chung Kuo that was over twenty years old."

Berdichev
smiled. "I have two cases of it,'John. Allow me to send you a
bottle." He looked about him, his smile for once unforced, quite
natural. "And all of you
chun t'zu,
of course."

Their delight
was unfeigned. Such a brandy must be fifty thousand
yuan
a
bottle at the least! And Berdichev had just given a case of it away!

"You
certainly know how to celebrate, Soren!" said Parr, coming
closer and holding his arm a moment. Parr was an old friend and
business associate, with dealings in North America.

Berdichev
nodded. "Maybe. But there's much to celebrate tonight. Much
more, in fact, than any of you realize. You see, my good friends,
tonight is the beginning of something. The start of a new age."

He saw how their
eyes went to the folders again.

"Yes."
He went to the table and picked up one of the folders. "It has
to do with these. You've noticed, I'm sure. Twelve of you and twelve
folders." He looked about the circle of them, studying their
faces one last time, making certain before he committed himself.

Yes, these were
the men. Important men. Men with important contacts. But friends
too—men he could trust. They would start it for him. A thing
which, once begun, would prove irresistible. And, he hoped,
irreversible.

"YouVe all
wondering why I brought you up here, away from the celebrations?
You're also wondering what it has to do with the folders. Well, I'll
keep you wondering no longer. Refill your glasses from the bottle,
then take a seat. What I'm about to tell you may call for a stiff
drink."

There was
laughter, but it was muted, tense. They knew Soren Berdichev well
enough to know that he never played jokes, or,made statements he
could not support.

When they were
settled around the table, Berdichev distributed the folders.

"Before you
open them, let me ask each of you something." He turned and
looked at Moore. "You first, John. Which is more important to
you: a little of your time and energy—valuable as that is—or
the future of our race, the Europeans?"

Moore laughed.
"You know how I feel about that, Soren."

Berdichev
nodded. "Okay. Then let me ask you something more specific. If I
were to tell you that in that folder in front of you was a document
of approximately two hundred thousand words, and that I wanted you to
hand-copy it for me, what would you say to that?"

"Unexplained,
I'd say you were mad, Soren. Why should I want to hand-copy a
document? Why not get some of my people to put it on computer for
me?"

"Of
course." Berdichev's smile was harder. He seemed suddenly more
his normal self. "But if I were to tell you that this is a
secret document. And not just any small corporate secret, but
the
secret, would that make it easier to understand?"

Moore sat back
slightly. "What do you mean,
the
secret? What's in the
file, Soren?"

"I'll come
to that. First, though, do you trust me? Is there anyone here who
doesn't trust me?"

There was a
murmuring and a shaking of heads. Parr spoke for them all. "You
know there's not one of us who wouldn't commit half of all they owned
on your word, Soren."

Berdichev smiled
tightly. "Yes. I know. But what about one hundred percent? Is
anyone here afraid to commit that much?"

Another of
them—a tall, thin-faced man named Ecker— answered this
time. A native of City Africa, he had strong trading links with
Berdichev's company, SimFic.

"Do you
mean a financial commitment, Soren, or are you talking of something
more personal?"

Berdichev bowed
slightly. "You are all practical men. That's good. I'd not have
any other kind of men for friends. But to answer you, in one sense
you're correct, Michael. I do mean something far more personal. That
said, which of us here can so easily disentangle their personal from
their financial selves?"

There was the
laughter of agreement at that. It was true. They were moneyed
creatures. The market was in their blood.

"Let me say
simply that if any of you choose to open the folder you will be
committing yourselves one hundred percent. Personally and, by
inference, financially." He put out a hand quickly. "Oh, I
don't mean that I'll be coming to you for loans or anything like
that. This won't affect your trading positions."

Parr laughed.
"I've known you more than twenty years now, Soren, and I realize
that—like all of us here—you have secrets you would share
with few others. But this kind of public indirectness is most unlike
you. Why can't you just tell us what's in the folder?"

Berdichev nodded
tersely. "All right. I'll come to it, I promise you, Charles.
But this is necessary." He looked slowly about the table, then
bowed his head slightly. "I want to be fair to you all. To make
certain you understand the risks you would be taking simply in
opening the folder. Because I want none of you to feel you were
pushed into this. That would serve no one here. In fact, I would much
rather that anyone who feels uncomfortable with this leave now before
he commits himself that far. And no blame attached. Because once you
take the first step—once you find out what's inside the
folder—your lives will be forfeit."

Parr leaned
forward and tapped the folder. "I still don't understand, Soren.
What's in here? A scheme to assassinate the Seven? What could be so
dangerous that simply to know of it could make a man's life forfeit?"

"The
secret. As I said before. The thing the Han have kept from us all
these years. As for why it's dangerous simply to know, let me tell
you about a little-known statute that's rarely used these days—and
a ministry whose sole purpose is to create an illusion which even
they have come to believe is how things really are."

Parr laughed and
spread his hands. "Now you are being enigmatic, Soren. What
statute? What ministry? What illusion?"

"It is
called simply The Ministry, it is situated in Pei Ching, and its only
purpose is to guard the secret. Further, it is empowered to arrest
and execute anypne knowing of or disseminating information about the
secret. As for the illusion . . ." He laughed sourly. "Well,
you'll understand if you choose to open the folder."

One of the men
who hadn't spoken before now sat forward. He was a big,
powerful-looking man with a long, unfashionable beard. His name was
Ross and he was die owner of a large satellite communications company
in East Asia.

"This is
treason, then, Soren?"

Berdichev
nodded.

Ross stroked his
beard thoughtfully and looked about him. Then, almost casually, he
opened his folder, took out the stack of papers, and began to examine
the first page.

A moment later
others followed.

Berdichev looked
about the table. Twelve folders lay empty, the files removed. He
shivered, then looked down, a feint smile on his lips.

There was a low
whistle from Moore. He looked up at Berdichev, his eyes wide. "Is
this true, Soren? Is this really true?"

Berdichev
nodded.

"But this
is just so—so fantastic. Like a dream someone's had. It's..."
he shrugged.

"It's
true," Berdichev said firmly. They were all watching him now.
"Which of us here has not been down into the Clay and seen the
ruins? When the tyrant Tsao Ch'un built his City, he buried more than
the architecture of the past, he buried its history too."

"And built
another?" The voice was Parr's.

"Yes.
Carefully, painstakingly, over the years. You see, his intention
wasn't simply to eradicate all opposition to his rule, he wanted to
destroy all knowledge of what had gone before him. As the City grew,
so his officials collected all books, all tapes, all recordings,
allowing nothing that was not Han to enter their great City. Most of
what they collected was simply burned. But not all of it. Much was
adapted. You see, Tsao Ch'un's advisors were too clever to simply
create a gap. That, they knew, would have attracted curiosity. What
they did was far more subtle and, in the long run, far more
persuasive to the great mass of people. They set about reconstructing
the history of the world—placing Chung Kuo at the center of
everything; back in its rightful place, as they saw it."

He drew a
breath, then continued, conscious momentarily of noises from the
party in the gardens outside. "It was a lie, but a lie to which
everyone subscribed, for in the first decades of the City simply to
question their version of the past—even to suggest it might
have happened otherwise—was punishable by death. But the lie
was complex and powerful, and people soon forgot. New generations
arose who knew little of the real past. To them the whispers and
rumors seemed mere fantasy in the face of the reality they had been
taught and could see about them. The media fed them the illusion
daily until the illusion became, even for those responsible for its
creation, quite
real.
"

"And
this—this Aristotle file ... is this the truth Tsao Ch'un
suppressed?"

Berdichev looked
back at Ross. "Yes."

"How did
you come upon it?"

Berdichev
smiled. "Slowly. Piece by piece. For the last fifteen years I’ve
been searching—making my own discreet investigations. Following
up clues. And this—this file—is the end result of all
that searching."

Ross sat back.
"I'm impressed. More than that, Soren, I'm astonished! Truly,
for the first time in my life I'm astonished. This is"—he
laughed strangely—"well, it's hard to take it in. Perhaps
it's the brandy but—"

There was
laughter at that, but all eyes were on Ross as he tried to articulate
their feelings.

"Well ... I
know what my friend John Moore means. It is fantastic. Perhaps too
much so to swallow at a single go like this." He reached forward
and lifted the first few pages, then looked at Berdichev again. "It's
just that I find it all rather hard to believe."

Berdichev leaned
forward, light glinting from the lenses of his glasses. "That's
just what they intended, Alexander. And it's one of the reasons why I
want you all to hand write a copy. That way it will get rooted in you
all. You will have done more than simply read it. You will have
transcribed it. And in doing so the reality of it will strike you
forcibly. You will see how it all connects. Its plausibility—no,
its truth!—will be written in the blood of every one of you."

Ross smiled. "I
see that the original of this was written in your own hand, Soren.
You ask us to commit ourselves equally?"