Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (55 page)

An image began
to form on the screen. The frozen image of a naked girl, sprawled on
a bed, backing away, her face distorted with fear.

"There's
one thing I don't understand,
Shih
Herrick. My friend told me
that Haavikko took a drink of some kind. A drug. But how was the
implant put into his head? He's only a junior officer, so he isn't
wired. How, then, was it done?"

Herrick laughed.
"You think in such crude terms,
Shih
Tong. The implant
isn't a physical thing, not in the sense that you mean. It's not like
the card. That's only storage—a permanent record. No, the
implant
was
the drug. A highly complex drug made up of a whole
series of chemicals with different reaction times, designed to fire
particular synapses in the brain itself—to create, if you like,
a false landscape of experience. An animated landscape, complete with
a predetermined sequence of events."

Chen shook his
head. "I don't see how."

Herrick looked
away past him, his eyes staring off into some imaginary distance.
"That's because you don't understand the function of the brain.
It's all chemicals and electronics, in essence. The whole of
experience. It comes in at the nerve ends and is translated into
chemical and electrical reactions. I merely bypass those nerve ends.
What I create is a dream. But a dream more real, more vivid, than
reality!"

Chen stared at
him, momentarily frightened by the power of the man, then looked back
at the screen. He didn't want to see the girl get killed.
Instinctively, he reached across, ejecting the card, and slipped it
into his pocket.

Herrick started
forward. "What the fuck—?"

Chen grabbed
Herrick by the neck, then drew the knife from his boot and held it
against his throat.

"I've heard
enough,
Shih
Herrick. More than enough, if you must know. But
now I've got what I came for, so I'll be going."

Herrick
swallowed uncomfortably. "You won't get out of here. I've a
dozen guards—"

Chen pulled the
knife toward him sharply, scoring the flesh beneath Herrick's chin.
Herrick cried out and began to struggle, but Chen tightened his grip.

"You'd
better do as I say,
Shih
Herrick and get me out of here. Or
you're dead. And not pretend dead. Really dead. One more shit comment
from you and I'll implant this knife in the back of your throat."

Herrick's eyes
searched the room, then looked back at Chen. "All right. But
you'll have to let me give instructions to my men."

Chen laughed.
"Just tell them to open the doors and get out of the way."
He raised his voice, looking up at one of the security cameras. "You
hear me,
Shih
Ling? If you want to see your boss again, do as
I say. Any tricks and he's dead, and where will you be then? Runner
to some gang boss, dead in a year."

He waited a
moment, searching the walls for sign of some technological trickery.
Then there was a hiss and a door on the far side of the room slid
open.

He pressed
harder with the knife. "Tell them I want to go out the way I
came in,
Shih
Herrick. Tell them quickly, or you're dead."

Herrick
swallowed, then made a tiny movement of his head. "Do as he
says."

They moved out
slowly into the corridor, Chen looking about him, prepared at any
moment to thrust the knife deep into Herrick's throat.

"Who are
you working for?"

Chen laughed.
"Why should I be working for anyone?"

"Then I
don't understand . . ."

No, thought
Chen. You
wouldn't, would you?

They came to the
second door. It hissed open. Beyond it stood four guards, their
knives drawn.

"No
further," said Ling, coming from behind them.

Chen met Ling's
eyes, tightening his grip on Herrick's throat. "Didn't you hear
me, Ling? You want your master to die?"

Ling smiled.
"You won't kill him, Tong. You can't. Because you can't get out
without him."

Chen answered
Ling's smile with his own, then pulled Herrick closer to him, his
knife hand tensed.

"This is
for my friend, Axel. And for all those others whose lives you have
destroyed."

He heard the cry
and looked back, seeing how the blood had drained from Ling's face,
then let the body fall from him.

"Now,"
he said, crouching, holding the knife out before him. "Come,
Shih
Ling. Let's see what you can do against a
kwai."

JELKA
LEANED out over the side of the boat, straining against the safety
harness as she watched the rise and fall of the waves through which
they plowed, the old thirty-footer rolling and shuddering beneath
her, the wind tugging at her hair, taking her breath, the salt spray
bitingly cold against her face.

The water was a
turmoil of glassy green threaded with white strands of spume. She let
her hand trail in the chill water then put her fingers to her mouth,
the flesh strangely cold and hard, her lips almost numb. She sucked
at them, the salt taste strong in her mouth, invigorating. A savage,
ancient taste.

She turned,
looking back at the mainland. Tall fingers of ash-gray rock thrust up
from the water, like the sunken bones of giants. Beyond them lay the
City, its high, smooth, clifflike walls dazzling in the morning
light—a ribbon of whiteness stretching from north to south. She
turned back, conscious suddenly of the swaying of the boat, the creak
and groan of the wood, the high-pitched howl of the wind contesting
with the noise of the engine—a dull, repetitive churring that
sounded in her bones—and the constant slap and spray of water
against the boat's sides.

She looked up.
The open sky was vast. Great fists of cloud sailed overhead, their
whiteness laced with sunlight and shadow; while up ahead the sea
stretched away, endless it seemed, its rutted surface shimmering with
light.

Sea birds
followed in their wake, wheeling and calling, like souls in torment.
She laughed, the first laughter she had enjoyed in weeks, and
squinted forward, looking out across the sun-dazzled water, trying to
make out the island.

At first she
could see nothing. Ahead, the sea seemed relatively flat, unbroken.
And then she saw it, tiny at first, a vague shape of green and gray
melding and merging with the surrounding sea as if overrun. Then,
slowly, it grew, rising out of the sea to meet her, growing more
definite by the moment, its basalt cliffs looming up, waves swelling
and washing against their base.

Jelka looked
across at her father. He sat there stiffly, one hand clenched and
covered by the other, his neck muscles tensed; yet there was a vague,
almost dreamy expression in his eyes. He was facing the island, but
his eyes looked inward. Jelka watched him a moment, then looked away,
knowing he was thinking of her mother.

As the boat
slowed, drifting in toward the jetty, she looked past the harbor at
the land beyond. A scattering of old stone houses surrounded the
quayside, low, gray-green buildings with slate roofs of a dull
orange. To the far right of the jetty a white crescent of shingle
ended in rocks. But her eyes were drawn upward, beyond the beach and
the strange shapes of the houses, to the hillside beyond. Pines
crowded the steep slope, broken here and there by huge iron-gray
outcrops of rock. She shivered, looking up at it. It was all so raw,
so primitive. Like nothing she had ever imagined.

She felt
something wake deep within her and raised her head, sniffing the air.
The strong scent of pine merged with the smell of brine and leather
and engine oil, filling her senses, forming a single distinctive
odor. The smell of the island.

Her father
helped her up onto the stone jetty. She turned, looking back across
the water at the mainland. It was hazed in a light mist, its walls of
ice still visible yet somehow less impressive from this distance. It
was all another world from this.

Sea birds called
overhead, their cries an echoing, melancholy sound. She looked up,
her eyes following their wheeling forms, then looked down again as a
wave broke heavily against the beach, drawing the shingle with it as
it ebbed.

"Well,"
her father said softly, "here we are. What do you think of it?"

She shivered. It
was like coming home.

She looked
across at the houses, her eyes moving from one to another, searching
for signs of life.

"Which
one?" she asked, looking back at him.

Her father
laughed. "Oh, none of those." He turned, giving orders to
the men in the boat, then looked back at her. "Come on, I'll
show you."

Where the
cobbles of the jetty ended they turned left onto an old dirt track.
It led up through the trees, away from the houses and the waterfront.

The track led up
onto a broad ledge of smooth, gray rock. There was a gap in the
screen of trees and a view across the water.

"Careful,"
he said, his grip on her hand tightening as she moved closer to the
edge. "It can be slippery." Then she saw it.

Below her was a
tiny bay enclosed on three sides by the dense growth of pines. But at
one point the tree cover was broken. Directly across from her a great
spur of rock rose abruptly from the water, and on its summit—so
like the rock in color and texture that at first she had not
recognized it—was the house.

It was
astonishing. Huge walls of solid stone rose sheer from the rock,
ending in narrow turrets and castellated battlements. A steep roof,
gray and lichen-stained, ran almost the length of the house. Only at
its far end, where the sea surrounded it on three sides, was its
steep pitch broken. There a tower rose, two stories higher than the
rest of the house, capped with a spire that shone darkly in the
sunlight.

She stared at it
openmouthed, then looked back at her father.

"I thought
it was a house."

He laughed. "It
is. It was my greatgrandfather's house. And his grandfather's before
that. It has been in our family for nine generations."

She narrowed her
eyes, not understanding. "You mean, it's ours?"

"It was. I
guess it still is. But it is for Li Shai Tung to say whether or not
we might use it."

"It seems
so unfair."

He stared at
her, surprised, then answered her. "No. It has to be like this.
The peasants must work the land. They
must
be outside. And the
Seven carry a heavy burden; they need their estates. But there is not
land enough for all those who wish to live outside. There would be
much resentment if we had this and others didn't, don't you see?"

"But,
surely, if it's ours . . ."

He shook his
head firmly. "No. The world has grown too small for such
luxuries. It's a small price to pay for peace and stability."

They walked on,
still climbing. Then he turned back, pointing downward. "We have
to go down here. There are some steps, cut into the rock. They're
tricky, so you'd better take my hand again."

She let him help
her down. It was cooler, more shaded beneath the ridge, the ground
rockier, the long, straight trunks of the pines more spaced.

"There,"
he said, pointing between the trees.

She looked.
About fifty
ch'i
distant was a gray stone wall. It was hard to
tell how high it was from where she stood, but it seemed
massive—twice her father's height at least. To the left it
turned back on itself, hugging the cliffs edge, to the right it
vanished among the trees. Partway along was a huge gate, flanked by
pillars, and beyond that—still, silent in the late morning
sunlight—the tower.

She turned to
find him looking past her at the house, a distant smile on his face.
Then he looked down at her.

"Kalevala,"
he said softly. "We're home, Jelka. Home."

* *
*

"Do you
know the thing I miss most?"

T'ai Cho looked
up at Kim and smiled. Kim stood in the doorway, looking past him.
"What's that?"

"The pool.
I used to do all my best thinking in the pool."

He laughed.
"Well, can't we do something about that?"

Kim made a small
movement of his head, indicating the overhead camera. "Only if
Shih
Spatz wills it."

T'ai Cho stared
at Kim
a
moment longer, then returned to his unpacking.

"I'll put
in a request," he said, taking the last few things from the bag,
then stowed it beneath the pulldown bed. "He can only say no,
after all." He looked up again, meeting Kim's eyes with a smile.
"Anyway, how have things been? Is the work interesting?"

Kim looked away.
"No," he answered quietly.

T'ai Cho
straightened up, surprised. "Really? But I thought you said the
research would be challenging?"

"It is. But
Spatz is not letting me get anywhere near it."

T'ai Cho
stiffened. "But he can't do that! I won't
let
him do that
to you, Kim. I'll contact the Prince."

Kim shook his
head. "No. I don't want to go running to Prince Yuan every time
I've a problem."

T'ai Cho turned
angrily. "But you must. The Prince will have Spatz removed.
He'll—"

But Kim was
still shaking his head. "You don't see it, do you, T'ai Cho? You
think this is just a piece of pure science research, but it's not. I
saw that at once. This is political. And very sensitive. Practically
all of the men they've recruited for it are vulnerable. They were on
the wrong side in the War and now they've no choice but to work on
this. All except for Spatz, and he's no scientist. At least, not a
good enough scientist to be on a project of this nature. No, he's
here to keep a lid on things."

"But that's
outrageous."