The Middle Kingdom (86 page)

Ssu Lu Shan met
the young Prince's eyes again, a strange resignation in his own.
"Tsao Ch'un killed the old world. He buried it deep beneath his
glacial City. But eventually his brutality and tyranny proved too
much even for those who had helped him carry out his scheme. In 2087
his Council of Seven Ministers rose up against him, using North
European mercenaries, and overthrew him, setting up a new government.
They divided the world—Chung Kuo—among themselves, each
calling himself T'ang. The rest you know. The rest, since then, is
true."

In the silence
that followed, Li Yuan sat there perfectly still, staring blankly at
the air in front of him. He could see the stern faces of his father
and his father's Chancellor, and understood them now. They had known
this moment lay before him. Had known how he would feel.

He shuddered and
looked down at his hands where they clasped each other in his lap—so
far away from him, they seemed. A million
li
from the dark,
thinking center of himself. Yes. But what did he feel?

A nothingness. A
kind of numbness at the core of him. Almost an absence of feeling. He
felt hollow, his limbs brittle like the finest porcelain. He turned
his head, facing Ssu Lu Shan again, and even the simple movement of
his neck muscles seemed suddenly false,
unreal.
He shivered
and focused on the waiting man.

"Did my
brother know of this?"

Ssu Lu Shan
shook his head. It was as if he had done with words.

"I see."
He looked down. "Then why has my father chosen to tell me now?
Why should I, at my age, know what Han Ch'in at his did not?"

When Ssu Lu Shan
did not answer him, Li Yuan looked up again. He frowned. It was as if
the Han were in some kind of trance.

"Ssu Lu
Shan?"

The man's eyes
focused on him, but still he said nothing.

"Have you
done?"

Ssu Lu Shan's
sad smile was extraordinary: as if all he was, all he knew, were
gathered up into that small, ironic smile. "Almost," he
answered softly. "There's one last thing."

Li Yuan raised a
hand, commanding him to be silent. "A question first. My father
sent you, I know. But how do I know that what you've told me today is
true? What proof have you?"

Ssu Lu Shan
looked down a moment and Li Yuan's eyes followed their movement, then
widened as he saw the knife he had drawn from the secret fold in his
scholar's
pau.

"Ssu Lu
Shan!" he cried out, jumping up, suddenly alert to the danger he
was in, alone in a locked room with an armed stranger.

But Ssu Lu Shan
paid him no attention. He lowered himself onto his knees and laid the
knife on the floor in front of him. While Li Yuan watched he untied
the fastenings of his robe and pulled it up over his head, then
bundled it together between his legs. Except for a loincloth he was
naked now.

Li Yuan
swallowed. "What is this?" he said softly, beginning to
understand.

Ssu Lu Shan
looked up at him. "You ask what proof I have. This now is my
proof." His eyes were smiling strangely, as if with relief at
the shedding of a great and heavy burden carried too long. "This,
today, was the purpose of my life. Well, now I have fulfilled my
purpose, and the laws of Chung Kuo deem my life forfeit for the
secrets I have uttered in this room. So it is. So it must be. For
they are great, grave secrets."

Li Yuan
shivered. "I understand, Ssu Lu Shan. But surely there is
another way than this?"

Ssu Lu Shan did
not answer him. Instead he looked down, taking a long breath that
seemed to restore his inner calm. Then, picking up the knife again,
he readied himself, breathing deeply, slowly, the whole of him
concentrated on the point of the knife where it rested, perfectly
still, only a hand's length from his stomach.

Li Yuan wanted
to cry out; to step forward and stop Ssu Lu Shan, but he knew this,
too, was part of it. Part of the lesson. To engrave it in his memory.
For
they are great, grave
secrets. He shivered violently. Yes,
he understood. Even this.

"May your
spirit soul rise up to Heaven," he said, blessing Ssu Lu Shan.
He knelt and bowed deeply to him, honoring him for what he was about
to do. "

"Thank you,
Prince Yuan," Ssu Lu Shan said softly, almost in a whisper,
pride at the honor the young Prince did him making his smile widen
momentarily. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, he thrust the knife
deep into his flesh.

IT WAS NOT until
halfway through the fourth game that DeVore raised the matter.

"Well, Tong
Chou? Have you dealt with our thief?"

Chen met the
Overseer's eyes and gave the briefest nod. It had been a dreadful job
and it was not pleasant to be reminded of it. He had been made to
feel unclean; a brother to the Tengs of the world.

"Good,"
DeVore said. He leaned forward and connected two of his groups, .then
turned the board about. "Play white from here, Tong Chou."

It was the
fourth time it had happened and DeVore had yet to lose a game,
despite being each time in what seemed an impossible position as
black.

Yes, Chen
thought. Karr was right after all. But you're not just a master at
this game—it is as if the game were invented for one like you.
He smiled inwardly and placed the first of his stones as white.

There was the
same ruthlessness in him. The same cold calculation. DeVore did not
think in terms of love and hate and relationships but in terms of
advantage and groups and sacrifice. He played life as if it were one
big game of
wei chi.

And perhaps
that's your weakness, Chen thought, studying him a moment. Perhaps
that's where you're inflexible. For men are not stones, and life is
not a game. You cannot order it thus and thus and thus, or connect it
thus and thus and thus. Nor does your game take account of accident
or chance.

Chen looked down
again, studying the board, looking for the move or sequence of moves
that would make his position safe. White had three corners and at
least forty points advantage. It was his strongest position yet: how
could he lose from this?

Even so, he knew
that he would lose. He sighed and sat back. It was as if he were
looking at a different board from the one DeVore was studying. It was
as if the other man saw through to the far side of the board, on
which were placed—suspended in the darkness—the stones
yet to be played.

He shivered,
feeling suddenly uneasy, and looked down at the tube he had brought
with him.

"By the
way, Tong Chou, what is that thing?"

DeVore had been
watching him; had seen where his eyes went.

Chen picked it
up and hefted it, then handed it across. He had been surprised DeVore
had not insisted on looking at the thing straightaway. This was his
first mention of it in almost two hours.

"It's
something I thought might amuse you. I brought it with me from the
Above. It!s a viewing tube. You manipulate the end of it and place
your eye to the lens at this end."

"Like
this?"

Chen held his
breath. There! It was done! DeVore had placed his eye against the
lens! The imprint would be perfect! Chen let his breath out slowly,
afraid to give away his excitement.

"Interesting,"
said DeVore and set it down again, this time on his side of the
board. "I wonder who she was."

The image was of
a high-class Hung
Mao
lady, her dress drawn up about her
waist, being "tupped" from the rear by one of the GenSyn
ox-men, its huge, fifteen-inch member sliding in and out of her while
she grimaced ecstatically.

Chen stared at
the tube for a time, wondering whether to ask for it back, then
decided not to. The imprint might be perfect, but it was better to
lose the evidence than have DeVore suspicious.

For a while he
concentrated on the game. Already it was beginning to slip from him,
the tide to turn toward the black. He made a desperate play in the
center of the board, trying to link, and found himself cut not once
but twice.

DeVore laughed.
"I must make those structures stronger next time," he said.
"It's unfair of me to pass on such weaknesses to you."

Chen swallowed,
suddenly understanding. At some point in the last few games he had
become, if not superfluous, then certainly secondary to the game
DeVore was playing against himself. Like a machine with a slight
unpredictability factor built into its circuits.

He let his eyes
rest on the tube a moment, then looked up at DeVore. "Does my
play bore you, Shih Bergson?"

DeVore sniffed.
"What do you think, long Chou?"

Chen met his
eyes, letting a degree of genuine admiration color his expression. "I
think my play much too limited for you, Overseer Bergson. I am but a
humble player, but you, Shift Bergson, are a master. It would not
surprise me to find you were the First Hand Supreme in all Chung
Kuo."

DeVore laughed.
"In this, as in all things, there are levels, long Chou. It is
true, I find your game limited, predictable, and perhaps I have tired
of it already. But I am not quite what you make me out to be. There
are others—a dozen, maybe more— who can better me at this
game, and of them there is one, a man named Tuan Ti Fo, who was once
to me as I am to you. He alone deserves the title you conferred on me
just now."

DeVore sat back,
relaxed. "But you are right, long Chou. You lost the game two
moves back. It would not do to labor the point, eh?" He half
turned in his chair and leaned back into the darkness. "Well,
Stefan? What do you think?"

The albino
stepped out from the shadows at the far end of the room and came
toward the table.

Chen's heart
missed a beat. Gods! How long had
he
been there?

He edged back,
instinctively afraid of the youth, and when the albino picked up the
viewing tube and studied it, Chen tensed, believing himself
discovered—certain, for that brief moment, that DeVore had
merely been toying with him; that he had known him from the first.

"These
GenSyn ox-men are ugly beasts, aren't they? Yet there's something
human about them, even so."

The pale youth
set the tube down then stared at Chen a moment: his pink eyes so
cruel, so utterly inhuman in their appraisal, Chen felt the hairs on
his neck stand on end.

"Well?"
DeVore had sat back, watching the young man.

The albino
turned to DeVore and gave the slightest shrug. "What do I know,
Overseer Bergson? Make him field supervisor if it suits you. Someone
must do the job."

His voice, like
his flesh, was colorless. Even so, there was something strangely,
disturbingly familiar about it. Something Chen could not, for the
life of him, put his finger on just then.

DeVore watched
the youth a moment longer, then turned, facing Chen again. "Well,
Tong Chou. It seems the job is yours. You understand the duties?"

Chen nodded,
forcing his face into a mask of gratitude; but the presence of the
young albino had thrown him badly. He stood up awkwardly, almost
upsetting the board, then backed off, bowing deeply.

"Should I
leave, Overseer?"

DeVore was
watching him almost absently. "Yes. Go now, Tong Chou. I think
we're done."

Chen turned and
took a step toward the door.

"Oh, and
Tong Chou?"

He turned back
slowly, facing DeVore again, fear tightening his chest and making his
heart pound violently. Was this it? Was this the moment when he
turned the board about?

But no. The
Overseer was holding out the viewing tube, offering it to him across
the board.

"Take this
and bum it. Understand me? I'll have no filth on this plantation!"

WHEN THE PEASANT
had gone, Lehmann came across and sat in the vacant seat, facing
DeVore.

DeVore looked up
at him. "Will you play, Stefan?" Lehmann shook his head
curtly. "What was all that for?" DeVore smiled and
continued transferring the stones into the bowls. "I had a
hunch, that's all. I thought he might be something more, but it seems
I'm wrong. He's just a stupid peasant."

"How do you
know?"

DeVore gave a
short laugh. "The way he plays this game, for an opener. He's
not pretending to be awkward, he is! YouVe seen his face when he
concentrates on the board!"

DeVore pulled
down his eyes at the corners and stretched his mouth exaggeratedly.

"So? He
can't play
wei chi.
What does that mean?" DeVore had
finished clearing the board. Taking a cloth from the pocket of his
pau,
he wiped the wood. "It means he's not Security. Even
the basest recruit would play better than Tong Chou." He yawned
and sat back, stretching out his arms behind him, his fingers
interlaced. "I was just being a little paranoid, that's all."

"Again, I
thought it was your policy to trust no one?"

DeVore smiled,
his eyes half lidded now. "Yes. That's why I'm having his
background checked out."

"Ah. . . ."
Lehmann sat back, still watching him, his eyes never blinking, his
stare quite unrelenting. "And the tube?"

DeVore shook his
head. "That was nothing. He was just trying to impress me. These
Han are strange, Stefan. They think all Hung
Mao
are beasts,
with the appetites of beasts. Maybe it's true of some."

Yes, but he had
wondered for a moment: had waited to see if Tong Chou would clamor
for it back.

"You're
certain of him, then?"

DeVore looked
sharply at the youth. "And you're not?"

Lehmann shook
his head. "You said you had a hunch. Why not trust to it? Have
you ever been wrong?"

DeVore
hesitated, reluctant to say, then nodded. "Once or twice. But
never about something so important."