Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (15 page)

Wei Feng sat
forward in his chair, his face grim, his hands spread in a gesture
that suggested his despair at Wang's words. "That's foolish
talk, Wang Sau-leyan! Loyalty cannot be bought. It is like a tree.
Long years go into its making. Your scheme would have us
buy
our
friends." He laughed scornfully. "That would reduce our
friendships to mere transactions, our dealings to the level of the
marketplace."

Wang Sau-Leyan
stared back at Wei Feng, his eyes narrowed.

"And what
is wrong with the marketplace? Is it not that self-same market that
gives us our power? Be honest now—what's the truth of it? Does
the love of our subjects sustain us, or is it the power we wield? Is
there anyone here who does not fear the assassin's knife? Is there a
single one of us who would walk the lowest levels unprotected?"
Wang laughed scornfully and looked about him. "Well, then, I ask
again—what is so wrong with the marketplace? Wei Feng says I
speak foolishly. With respect, cousin Wei, my thoughts are not idle
ones. You are right when you talk of loyalty as a tree. So it was.
But the War has felled the forests. And are we to wait a dozen,
fifteen, years for the new seed to grow?" He shook his head. "We
here are realists. We know how things stand. There is no time to grow
such loyalty again. Times have changed. It is regrettable, but. . ."

He paused,
spreading his hands.

"So. Let me
ask again. What is wrong with rewarding our friends? If it achieves
our end—if it breeds a kind of loyalty—why question what
it is that keeps a man loyal? Love, fear, money—in the end it
is only by force that we rule."

There was a
moment's silence after he had finished. Li Shai Tung had been looking
down at his hands while Wang was speaking. Now he looked up and with
a glance at Tsu Ma and Wu
Shih
, addressed the Council.

"I hear
what my cousin Wang says. Nevertheless, we must decide on this
matter. We must formulate our policy here and now. I propose that
this matter is put to the vote."

Wang Sau-leyan
stared at him a moment, then looked down. There was to be no delay,
then? No further debate? They would have his vote now? Well, then, he
would give them his vote.

Tsu Ma was
leaning forward, taking a small cigar from the silver-and-ivory box
on the arm of his chair. He glanced up casually. "We are agreed,
then, cousins?"

Wang Sau-leyan
looked about him, watching his fellow T'ang raise their hands, then
let them fall again.

"Good,"
said Tsu Ma, "Then let us move on quickly . . ."

Wang Sau-leyan
spoke up, interrupting Tsu Ma. "Excuse me, cousin, but have you
not forgotten something?" ;

Tsu Ma met his
eyes, clearly puzzled. "I'm sorry?"

"The vote.
You did not ask who was against."

Tsu Ma laughed
awkwardly. "I beg your pardon . . . ?"

"Six hands
were raised. Yet there are seven here, are there not?"

Wang Sau-leyan
looked about him, seeing the effect his words were having on his
fellow T'ang. Like so much else, they had not expected this. In
Council all decisions were unanimous. Or had been. For one hundred
and twenty-six years it had been so. Until today.

It was Li Shai
Tung who broke the silence. "You mean you wish to vote against?

After all we've
said?"

Wei Feng, sat
beside him, shook his head. "It isn't done," he said
quietly. "It just isn't our way . . ."

"Why not?"
Wang asked, staring at him defiantly. "We are Seven, not one,
surely? Why must our voice be single?"

"You
misunderstand—" Tsu Ma began, but again Wang cut in.

"I
misunderstand nothing. It is my right to vote against, is it not? To
put on record my opposition to this item of policy?"

Tsu Ma
hesitated, then gave a small nod of assent.

"Good. Then
that is all I wish to do. To register my unease at our chosen
course."

At the desk
behind Tsu Ma the secretary Lung Mei Ho had been taking down
everything that was said for the official record, his ink brush
moving quickly down the page. Beside him his assistant had been doing
the same, the duplication ensuring that the report was accurate. Now
both had stopped and were looking up, astonished.

"But that
has been done already, cousin Wang. Every word spoken here is a
matter of record. Your unease . . ." Tsu Ma frowned, trying to
understand. "You mean you really do wish to vote against?"

"Is it so
hard to understand, Tsu Ma?" Wang looked past the T'ang at the
scribe, his voice suddenly hard. "Why aren't you writing,
Shih
Lung? Did anyone call these proceedings to a halt?"

Lung glanced at
his master's back, then lowered his head, hurriedly setting down
Wang's words. Beside him his assistant did the same.

Satisfied, Wang
Sau-leyan sat back, noting how his fellow T'ang were glaring at him
now or looking among themselves, uncertain how to act. His gesture,
ineffective in itself, had nonetheless shocked them to the bone. As
Wei Feng had said, it wasn't done. Not in the past. But the past was
dead. This was a new world, with new rules. They had not learned that
yet. Despite all, the War had taught them nothing. Well, he would
change that. He would press their noses into the foul reality of it.

"One
further thing," he said quietly.

Tsu Ma looked
up, meeting his eyes. "What is it, cousin Wang?"

The sharpness in
Tsu Ma's voice made him smile inside. He had rattled them, even the
normally implacable Tsu Ma. Well, now he would shake them well and
good.

"It's just
a small thing. A point of procedure."

"Go on . .
."

"Just this.
The Princes must leave. Now. Before we discuss any further business."

He saw the look
of consternation on Tsu Ma's face, saw it mirrored on every face in
that loose circle. Then the room exploded in a riot of angry,
conflicting voices.

* *
*

DEVORE BRACED
HIMSELF as the elevator fell rapidly, one hand gripping the
brass-and-leather handle overhead, the other cradling the severed
head against his hip. They had quick-frozen the neck to stop blood
from seeping against his uniform and peeled away the eyelids. In time
the retinal pattern would decay, but for now it was good enough to
fool the cameras.

As the elevator
slowed he prepared himself, lifting the head up in front of his face.
When it stopped, he put the right eye against the indentation in the
wall before him, then moved it away, tapping in the code. Three
seconds, then the door would hiss open. He tucked the head beneath
his arm and drew his gun.

"What's
happening up top?"

The guard at the
desk was turning toward him, smiling, expecting Sanders; but he had
barely uttered the words when DeVore opened fire, blowing him from
his seat. The second guard was coming out of a side room, balancing a
tray with three bowls of
ch'a
between his hands. He thrust the
tray away and reached for his sidearm, but DeVore was too quick for
him. He staggered back, then fell and lay still.

DeVore walked
across to the desk and put the head down, then looked about him.
Nothing had changed. It was all how he remembered it. In eleven years
they had not even thought of changing their procedures. Creatures of
habit, they were—men of tradition. DeVore laughed scornfully.
It was their greatest weakness and the reason why he would win.

He went to the
safe. It was a high-security design with a specially strengthened
form of ice for its walls and a blank front that could be opened only
by the correct sequence of light pulses on the appropriate
light-sensitive panels. That too was unchanged. It won't
help
you
—that's what Sanders had said. Well, Sanders and his
like didn't think the way he thought. They approached things head on.
But he ... DeVore laughed, then took the four tiny packets from the
tunic and, removing their contents, attached them to the ice on each
side of the safe's rectangular front. They looked like tiny hoops,
like snakes eating their own tails. Four similar hoops—much
larger, their destructive capacity a thousand times that of these
tiny, ringlike versions—had begun it all, ten years earlier,
when they had ripped the Imperial Solarium apart, killing the T'ang's
Minister Lwo Kang and his advisors. Now their smaller brothers would
provide him with the means to continue that War. He smiled, then went
across to one of the side rooms and lay down on the floor. A moment
later the explosion juddered the room about him. He waited a few
seconds, then got up and went back inside. The guard room was a mess.
Dust filled the air; machinery and bits of human flesh and bone
littered the walls and floor. Where the safe had been the wall was
ripped apart; the safe itself, unharmed by the explosion, had tumbled
forward and now lay there in the center of the room, covered by
debris.

He took off his
tunic and wrapped it around the safe, then slowly dragged it across
the floor and into the elevator. He looked back into the room, then
reached across and pushed the button. He had no need for the head
this time—there were no checks on who left the room, nor on who
used the elevator to ascend. Again that was a flaw in their thinking.
He would have designed it otherwise: would have made it easier to
break in, harder to get out. That way one trapped one's opponent,
surrounded him. As in
wei chi.

At the top
Lehmann was waiting for him, a fresh one-piece over his arm. "How
are things?" DeVore asked, stripping off quickly and slipping
into the dark-green maintenance overalls.

Lehmann stared
at the safe. "The
Ping Tiao
have held their end. We've
begun shipping the armaments out through the top east gate. Wiegand
reports that the Security channels are buzzing with news of the
attack. We should expect a counterattack any time now."

DeVore looked up
sharply. "Then we'd best get this out quick, eh?"

"I've four
men waiting outside, and another two holding the west transit
elevator. I've told the
Ping Tiao
it's out of order."

"Excellent.
Anything else?"

"Good news.
The rioting in Braunschweig has spilled over into neighboring
hsien.
It seems our friends were right. It's a powder keg down there."

"Maybe . .
." DeVore looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. "Right.
Get those men in here. I want this out of here before the
Ping
Tiao
find out what we've done. Then we'll blow the bridges."

* *
*

li YUAN LEFT at
once, not waiting for the T'ang to resolve their dispute. He went out
onto the broad balcony and stood there at the balustrade, looking out
across the blue expanse of the Caspian toward the distant shoreline.
Wei Feng's son Wei Chan Yin joined him there a moment later, tense
with anger.

For a time
neither of them spoke, then Wei Chan Yin lifted his chin. His voice
was cold and clear—the voice of reason itself.

"The
trouble is, Wang Sau-leyan is right. We have not adapted to the
times."

Li Yuan turned
his head, looking at the older man's profile. "Maybe so. But
there are ways of saying such things."

Wei Chan Yin
relaxed slightly, then gave a small laugh. "His manners
are
appalling, aren't they? Perhaps it has something to do with his
exile as a child."

Their eyes met
and they laughed.

Li Yuan turned,
facing Wei Chan Yin. Wei Feng's eldest son was thirty-six, a tall,
well-built man with a high forehead and handsome features. His eyes
were smiling, yet at times they could be penetrating, almost
frightening in their intensity. Li Yuan had known him since birth and
had always looked up to him, but now they were equals in power.
Differences in age meant nothing beside their roles as future T'ang.

"What does
he want, do you think?"

Wei Chan Yin
shrugged. He stared out past Li Yuan a moment, considering things,
then looked back at him.

"My father
thinks he's a troublemaker."

"But you
think otherwise."

"I think
he's a clever young man. Colder, far more controlled than he appears.
That display back there—I think he was playacting."

Li Yuan smiled.
It was what he himself had been thinking. Yet it was a superb act. He
had seen the outrage on the faces of his father and the older T'ang.
If Wang Sau-leyan's purpose had been merely to upset them, he had
succeeded marvelously. But why? What could he gain by such tactics?

"I agree.
But my question remains. What does he want?"

"Change."

Li Yuan
hesitated, waiting for Wei Chan Yin to say more. But Chan Yin had
finished.

"Change?"
Li Yuan's laughter was an expression of disbelief. Then, with a tiny
shudder of revulsion, he saw what his cousin's words implied. "You
mean . . ."

It was left
unstated, yet Wei Chan Yin nodded. They were talking of the murder of
Wang Hsien. Chan Yin's voice sank to a whisper. "It is common
knowledge that he hated his father. It would make a kind of sense if
his hatred extended to all that his father held dear."

"The
Seven?"

"And Chung
Kuo itself."

Li Yuan shook
his head slowly. Was it possible? If so ... He swallowed, then looked
away, appalled. "Then he must never become a T'ang."

Wei Chan Yin
laughed sourly. "Would that it were so easy, cousin. But be
careful what you say. The young Wang has ears in unexpected places.
Between ourselves there are no secrets; but there are some, even
among our own, who do not understand when to speak and when to remain
silent."

Again there was
no need to say more. Li Yuan understood at once who Wei Chan Yin was
talking of. Hou Tung-po, the young T'ang of South America, had spent
much time recently with Wang Sau-leyan on his estates.