The Middle Kingdom (94 page)

For the mind
they devised a set of simple but subtle games to make it learn again.
At first it was resistant to these, and there were days when the team
were clearly in despair, thinking they had failed. But then, almost
abruptly, in midsession, this changed. The boy began to respond
again. That night the three men got drunk together in the observation
room. '

Progress was
swift once the breakthrough was made. In three months the boy had a
complete command of language again. He was numerate to a
sophisticated degree, coping with complex logic problems easily. His
spatial awareness was perfect: he had a strong sense of patterns and
connections. It seemed then, all tests done, that the treatment had
worked and the
mode
of his mind—that quick, intuitive
talent unique to the boy—had emerged unscathed from the process
of walling in his personality. With regard to his personality,
however, he demonstrated many of the classic symptoms of incurable
amnesia. In his new incarnation he was a rather colorless figure,
uncertain in his relationship with the Builder, colder, distanced
from things— somehow less human than he'd been. There was a
machinelike,

functional
aspect to his being. Yet even in this respect there were signs of
change—of a softening of the hard outlines of the personality
they had grafted onto him.

Nine months into
the program it seemed that the gamble had paid off handsomely. When
the team met that night in the observation room they agreed it was
time to report back on their progress. A message was sent uplevels.
Two days later they had their reply. Berdichev was coming. He wanted
to see the boy with his own eyes.

SOREN BERDICHEV
waited at the security checkpoint, straight backed and severe, his
bodyguards to either side of him, and thought of his wife. It was
more than a month now since her death, but he had still not recovered
from it. The doctors had found nothing wrong with her in their
autopsy report, but that meant little. They had killed her. The
Seven. He didn't know how, but there was no other explanation. A
healthy woman like Ylva didn't just die like that. Her heart had been
strong. She had been fit—in her middle-aged prime. There was no
reason for her heart to fail.

As they passed
him through he found himself going over the same ground again, no
nearer than before to finding a solution. Had it been someone near to
her—someone he trusted? And how had they managed it? A
fast-acting drug that left no trace? Some physical means? He was no
nearer now than he had been in that dreadful moment when he had
discovered her. And the pain of her absence gnawed at him. He hadn't
known how much he was going to miss her until she was gone. He had
thought he could live without her . . .

The corridor
ended at a second security door. It opened as he approached it and a
dark-haired man with a goatee beard stood there, his hand out in
welcome.

Berdichev
ignored the offered hand and waited while one of his guards went
through. A team of his men had checked the place out only hours
before, but he was taking no chances. Administrator Jouanne had been
killed only a week ago and things were heating up daily. The guard
returned a moment later and gave the all-clear signal. Only then did
he go inside.

The official
turned and followed Berdichev into the center of the room. "The
boy is upstairs, sir. The Builder is with him, to make introductions.
Otherwise—"

Berdichev turned
and cut the man off in midsentence. "Bring me the Architect. I
want to talk to him before I see the boy."

The official
bowed and turned away.

While he waited,
he looked about him, noting the spartan austerity of the place.
Employees were standing about awkwardly. He could sense the intensity
of their curiosity about him, though when he looked at them they
would hasten to avert their eyes. It was common knowledge that he was
one of the chief opponents of the Seven, that his wife had died, that
he himself was in constant danger. There was a dark glamour to all
this and he recognized it. But today his mood was sour. Perhaps
seeing the boy would shake him from its grip.

The official
returned with the Architect in tow. Berdichev waved the official
away, then took the Architect by the arm and led him across the room,
away from the others. For a moment he studied the man. Then, leaning
forward, he spoke, his voice low but clear.

"How stable
is the new mental configuration? How reliable?"

The Architect
looked down, considering. "We think it's firm. But it's hard to
tell as yet. There's the possibility that he'll revert. Only a
slender chance, but one that must be recognized."

Berdichev
nodded, at one and the same time satisfied with the man's honesty and
disappointed that there was yet this area of doubt.

"But taking
this possibility into consideration, is it possible to—"
He pursed his lips momentarily, then said it: "to
use
the
boy?"

"Use him?"
The Architect stared at him. "How do you mean?"

"Harness
his talents. Use his unique abilities. Use him." Berdichev
shrugged. He didn't want to be too specific.

The Architect
seemed to understand. He smiled bleakly and shook his head.
"Impossible. You'd destroy him if you
used
him now."
There was a deliberate, meaningful emphasis on the word.

"How soon,
then?"

"You don't
understand. With respect, STiih Berdichev, this is only the beginning
of the process. We reconstruct the house, but it has to be lived in
for some time before we can discover its faults and flaws. It'll be
years before we know that the treatment has worked properly."

"Then why
did you contact me?"

Berdichev
frowned. He felt suddenly that he had been brought here under false
pretenses. When he'd received the news he had seen at once how the
boy might be used. He had planned to take the boy with him, back into
the Clay. And there he would have honed him; made him the perfect
weapon against the Seven. The means of destroying them. The very
cutting edge of knowledge.

The Architect
was explaining things, but Berdichev was barely listening. He
interrupted. "Show me the boy. I want to see the boy."

The Architect
nodded and led him through, the bodyguards following some four paces
behind.

"WeVe moved
him in the last few days. His new quarters are more spacious, better
equipped. Once he's settled in we'll begin the next stage of the
treatment."

Berdichev
glanced at the psychiatrist. "The next stage?"

"Yes. He
needs to be resocialized. Taught basic social skills. At present he
has very few defenses. He's vulnerable. Highly sensitive. A kind of
hothouse plant. But he needs to be hardened up, desensitized, if he's
to survive up-levels."

Berdichev slowed
and then stopped. "You mean the whole socialization program has
to be gone through from scratch?"

The Architect
hesitated. "Not exactly. But . . . well, near enough. You see,
it's a different process here. A slow widening of his circle of
contacts. And no chance of him mixing outside this unit until we're
certain he can fit in. It'll take three years, maybe longer."

"Three
years?"

The Architect
looked down. "At least."

Berdichev stared
at the man, but he hardly saw him. He was thinking of how much things
would have changed in three years. On top of all else this was a real
disappointment.

"And
there's no way of hastening this process?"

"None we
can guarantee."

He stood there,
calculating. Was it worth risking the boy on a chance? He had gambled
once and—if these men were right— had won. But did he
want to risk what had been achieved?

For a moment
longer he hesitated, then he signaled to the Architect to move on
again. He would see for himself—see how the boy was—and
then decide.

BERDICHEV SAT on
a chair in the middle of the room; the boy stood in front of him, no
more than an arm's length away. The child seemed calm and answered
his questions without hesitating, without once glancing toward the
Builder, who sat away to the side of him. His eyes met Berdichev's
without fear. As though he had no real conception of fear.

He was not so
much like his father. Berdichev studied the boy a long time, looking
for that resemblance he had seen so clearly—so shockingly—that
first time. But there was little sign of Edmund Wyatt in him now—and
certainly no indication of the child he might have been. The diet of
the Clay had long ago distorted the potential of the genes,
refashioning his physical frame in a manner analogous to the way they
had shaped his mind, here in this place. He seemed subdued, quiet.
There was little movement of his head, his hands, no sign of
restlessness. Yet beyond what was seen—behind the surfaces
presented to the eye—was a sense of great intensity. The same
could be said of his eyes. They, too, were calm, reflective; yet at
the back of them was a darkness that was profound, impenetrable. It
was like staring into a mirror and finding the vast emptiness of
space there behind the familiar, reflected image.

Now that he
faced the boy he could see what the Architect had meant. The child
was totally vulnerable. He had been reconstructed without defenses.
Like Adam, innocent, he stood there, facing, if not his Creator,
then, in his new shape, his Instigator. The boy knew nothing of that,
of course. Nor did he understand the significance of this encounter.
But Berdichev, studying him, came to his decision. He would leave
well enough alone. Would let them shape the boy further. And then, in
three, maybe four years' time, would come back for him. That was, if
either he or the boy was still alive in four years' time.

THE CAMERA
TURNED, following Berdichev's tall, aristocratic figure as it left
the room, looking for signs of the man it had heard about. For the
machine, Outside was a mosaic formed from the broken shards of rumor.
In its isolation it had no knowledge of the City and its ways other
than that which it overheard, fitting these imperfect glimpses into
an ever-widening picture. When the guards talked, it listened,
sifting and sorting what they said, formulating its own version of
events. And when something happened in that bigger world beyond
itself, it would watch the ripples spread, and form its own opinion.

Assassinations
and reprisals; this seemed the pattern of the War-That-Wasn't-a-War.
No armies clashed. No missiles fell on innocents. The City was too
complex, too tightly interwoven, for such things. Yet there was
darkness and deceit in plenitude. And death. Each day seemed to bring
its freight of names. The mighty fallen. And in the deep, unseen
levels of its consciousness the machine saw how all of this fitted
with its task here in the Unit—saw how the two things formed a
whole: mosaics of violence and repression.

It watched as
Berdichev stood there in the outer room, giving instructions to the
Unit's head. This was a different man from the one he had expected.
Deeper, more subtle than the foolish, arrogant villain the men had
drawn between them. More dangerous and, in some strange way, more
kingly
than they would have had him be.

It had seen how
Berdichev had looked at the boy, as if recognizing another of his own
kind. As if, among men, there were also levels. And this the highest;
the level of Shapers and
Doers
—Architects and Builders
not of a single mind but of the vast hive of minds that was the City.
The thought recurred, and from somewhere drifted up a phrase it had
often heard spoken—
the Kings of the City.
How well the
old word sat on such men, for they moved and acted as a king might.
There was the shadow of power behind their smallest motion. Power and
death.

It watched them
all. Saw how their faces said what in words could not be uttered. Saw
each small betraying detail clearly, knowing them for what they were;
all desire and doubt open to its all-seeing eye. Kings and peasants
all, it saw the things that shaped each one of them. Variations on a
theme. The same game played at a different level, for different
stakes. All this was old knowledge, but for the machine it was new.
Isolated, unasked, it viewed the world outside with a knowing
innocence. Saw the dark heart of things. And stored the knowledge.

WHEN THEY FELT
it was time, they taught him about his past. Or what they knew of it.
They returned to him heavily edited, a history of the person he had
been. Names, pictures, and events. But not the experience.

Kim learned his
lessons well. Once told he could not forget. But that was not to say
they gave him back his self. The new child was a pale imitation of
the old. He had not lived and suffered and dreamed. What was dark in
him was hidden; was walled off and inaccessible. In its place he had
a fiction; a story learned by rote. Something to fill the gap; to
assuage the feeling of emptiness that gripped him whenever he looked
back.

It was fifteen
months into the program when they brought T'ai Cho to the small suite
of five rooms Kim had come to know as home. Kim knew the stranger by
his face; knew both his history and what he had done for him. He
greeted him warmly, as duty demanded, but his eyes saw only a
stranger's face. He had no real feeling for the man.

Tai Cho cried
and held the boy tightly, fiercely, to him. He had been told how
things were, but it was hard for him. Hard to feel the boy's hands
barely touching his back when he held him. Hard to see love replaced
by curiosity in those eyes. He had been warned—had steeled
himself—yet his disappointment, his sense of hurt, was great
nonetheless.

In a nearby room
the team watched tensely, talking among themselves, pleased that the
boy was showing so little sign of emotion or excitement. A camera
focused on the boy's eyes, showing the smallest sign of movement in
the pupils. A monitoring unit attached to the back of the boy's neck
traced more subtle changes in the brain's activity. All seemed
normal. Stable. There was no indication that the boy had any memory
of the man other than those implanted by the team.