Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (57 page)

Karr was sitting
across from him, scowling, his huge frame far too big for the
hospital chair. He leaned forward angrily, giving vent to what he had
had to hold in earlier while the nurse was in the room.

"You were
stupid, Chen. You should have waited for me."

Chen gritted his
teeth against a sudden wash of pain, then answered his friend.

"I'm sorry,
Gregor. There wasn't time."

"You could
have contacted me. From Liu Chang's. You could have let me know what
you planned. As it was I didn't even know you'd gone to see the pimp
until half an hour ago. I thought we were waiting for the Security
report on Liu Chang."

"I got it
back before I went in. It confirmed what we'd thought. He was an
actor, in opera, before he became a pimp. And there was one unproven
charge of murder against him. That was the reason he was demoted to
the Net."

Karr huffed
impatiently. "Even so, you should have waited. You could have
been killed."

It was true. And
he
should
have waited. But he hadn't. Why? Perhaps because he
had wanted to do it himself. It was mixed up somehow with Pavel, the
boy on the Plantation who had been killed by DeVore's henchman. He
still felt guilty about that. So perhaps he had put himself at risk
to punish himself. Or maybe it was more complex than that. Maybe it
had to do with the risks involved; he had enjoyed it, after all, had
liked the way the odds were stacked against him.

Five to one. And
he had come out of it alive. Had fought them hand to hand and beaten
them.
Kwai
he was. He knew it now, clearer than he had ever
known it before.
Kwai.

"I'm
sorry," he said again. "It was wrong of me."

"Yes."
Karr sat back a little, then laughed, meeting Chen's eyes, his anger
dissipating. "Still, you're alive."

There was a
knock, then a head poked round the door.
•

"Axel!"
Chen tried to sit up, then eased back, groaning softly.

Haavikko came
into the room. Giving a small nod of acknowledgment to Karr, he went
across and took Chen's hand, concerned.

"What
happened? Gregor told me you'd been hurt, but not how."

Chen took a
painful breath, then grinned up at Haavikko, squeezing his hand. "It
was only a scrape."

Karr laughed.
"Only a scrape! You know what our friend here has been doing,
Axel?" Haavikko looked,
shaking his head.

"Shall I
tell him, Chen, or do you want to?"

"Go ahead,"
said Chen, the pain from his ribs momentarily robbing him of breath.

Karr pointed
beyond Haavikko, indicating a chair in the corner. "Those are
Chen's clothes. Look in the top pocket of the tunic. You'll find
something there that will interest you."

Haavikko turned
and looked. The tunic was ripped and bloodstained, but the pocket was
intact. He reached inside and drew out a thin piece of transparent
card.

"This?"

Karr nodded and
watched as Haavikko studied it a moment, then looked back at him, his
expression blank. "So? What is it?"

Karr went
across, taking the card. "I'll show you exactly how it works
later on. For now take my word on it. This is what they call an
implant. Or, at least, the record of one. On this card is stored all
the information you'd need to make a special chemical. One that could
create a false memory in someone's head."

Haavikko looked
up, puzzled. "So?"

"So the
information on this particular card was designed for one specific
person. You."

"Me?"
Haavikko laughed. "What do you mean?"

"Just this.
Chen here did some digging into your friend Liu Chang's past. And
then he paid the man a visit. From that he got confirmation of
something he and I had suspected from the start. That, and an address
below the Net. At that address he found a man named Herrick who makes
these things. And from Herrick he got this card, which is a copy of a
false memory that was implanted in your head. The memory of killing a
young singsong girl."

Haavikko had
blanched. "No . . . It's not possible. I remember . . ."
His voice faltered and he looked down, wetting his lips with his
tongue. "It can't have been false. It was too real. Too . . ."

Karr reached
out, touching his shoulder. "And yet it's true, Axel Haavikko.
You didn't kill her. Someone else did. Probably Liu Chang. Your only
mistake was to take the drug that was mixed in with your wine. It was
that which made you think you'd killed her."

"No."

"It's
true," said Chen. "Wait until you see the copy. You never
touched her. You couldn't have done, don't you see? You're not that
kind of man."

They watched
him. Watched his chest rise and fall. Then saw how he looked at them
again, disbelief warring with a new hope in him.

"Then I
really
didn't do it? I didn't kill that poor girl?"

"No,"
said Karr fiercely, taking his arm. "No, my friend. But we know
who did. We can't prove it yet but we will. And when we do we'll nail
the bastard. For all the lives he's ruined."

* *
*

jelka CRIED OUT,
then sat up in the darkness, the terror of the dream still gripping
her. She could see the three men vividly—tall, thin men,
standing at the lake's edge, staring across at her, their eyes like
black stones in their unnaturally white faces, their long, almost
skeletal hands dripping with blood. And herself, at the center of the
lake, the great slab of stone sinking slowly beneath her feet,
drawing her down into the icy depths.

She heard
footsteps on the flags of the corridor outside, then the creaking of
her door as it opened. Her heart leaped to her mouth, certain they
had come for her again, but as the lamplight spilled into the room
she saw it was only her father.

"What is
it, my love?"

He came to her
and, setting the lamp down on the bedside table, sat beside her on
the bed, holding her to him. She closed her eyes a moment,
shuddering, letting him comfort her; then she moved back slightly,
looking up into his face.

"It was the
dream again. But worse. This time I was in Kalevala, in the land of
heroes. All about me was a wilderness of tree and rock and shallow
pools. And still they came for me, following me through the trees. As
if they had traveled back across the years to find me . . ."

His face creased
in sympathetic pain. He drew her close again, pressing her head into
his chest, comforting her. "There, my love. It's all right. I'm
here now. No one will harm you. No one. I promise you."

His arms
encircled her, strong, powerful arms that were like great walls of
stone, protecting her; but still she could see the three assassins,
see how they smiled, toothless, their mouths black like coals as she
sank into the ice-cold water.

He moved back,
looking down at her. "Shall I ask Helga to come?"

She hesitated,
then nodded.

He went to the
door, then turned, looking back at her. "And don't worry. No one
will harm you here. No one."

* *
*

she was UP early
the next morning, watching her father pack. Later she sat there at
the harbor's edge, watching the boat slowly disappear from sight. For
a while she just stared at the nothingness, aching for him to return;
then, with a start, she realized that the nothingness was filled with
living things, was a universe of form and color.

She walked back
slowly to the house, looking about her, while Erkki, the young guard
her father had insisted on, trailed some twenty
ch'i
behind.
There was a whole world here to explore, different in kind from the
soft and sun-baked islands of Sumatra she had known during her
father's exile. No, even the light was different here, was somehow
familiar. Already the island seemed not strange but merely something
she had forgotten, as if she knew it from another time.

In the days that
followed she explored the island. Day by day she added to her
knowledge of its places and its ways, its dark pools and tiny
waterfalls, its narrow inlets and silent places, its caves and
meadows. And slowly, very slowly, she fell in love with it.

Above all there
was one special place . . .

It was the
afternoon of her fourth day and she was making her way down from the
island's summit, Erkki following. Usually he stayed close, calling
her back when he felt she was taking too great a risk; but the path
down from the crest was familiar now, and he relaxed, letting her go
ahead.

She made her way
across the grassy hilltop to a place where the land fell away. There,
at the cliff's edge, stood a ruined chapel, its roof open to the sky,
the doorway empty, gaping. It was a tiny building, the floor inside
cracked and overgrown with weeds, one of the side walls collapsed,
the heavy stones spilled out across the grass. Yet you could still
read the lettering carved into the stone lintel and see the symbols
of fish, lamb, and cross cut into the stone within.

She had asked
her uncle about the words, words that seemed familiar despite their
strangeness, that shared the same letters as her own tongue, yet were
alien in their form. But he had not known their meaning, only that
they were Latin, the ancient language of the Ta Ts'in. As for the
symbols, he knew but he would not say.

For a moment she
stood there, staring out at the sea beyond the ruin, then went on,
finding the path down.

It was an old
path, worn by many feet, and near the bottom, where the way grew
steep, steps had been cut into the rock. She picked her way nimbly
between the rocks and out beneath the overhang. There, on the far
side of the broad shelf of rock, was the cave.

This was her
special place, the place of voices. Here the island spoke to her in a
thousand ancient tongues.

She went halfway
across the ledge then stopped, crouching, looking down through the
crack in the great gray slab. There, below her, the incoming tide was
channeled into a fissure in the rock. For a moment she watched the
rush and foam of the water through the narrow channel, then looked
across at the young guard, noting how he was watching her, smiling,
amused by what she was doing.

"Can't you
hear it, Erkki? It's talking to me."

He laughed.
"It's just a noise."

She looked down
at it again, then lifted her head, listening for the other voices—for
the sound of the wind, the branches singing overhead, the cry of
seabirds calling out to sea. "No," she said finally.
"They're voices. But you have to listen carefully."

Again he
laughed. "If you say so,
Nu shi
Tolonen. But it's just
noise to me. I haven't the ear for it, I guess."

She looked at
him a moment, then smiled and turned away. No, he hadn't the ear for
it; but, then, few had these days. A constant diet of trivee shows
and holodramas had immunized them against it, had dulled their senses
and filled their heads with illusions. But she could hear it—the
inner voice of things. She could feel it in her blood, the pulse of
the great world—more real, more alive, than anything within the
levels.

She stood,
wiping her hands against her thighs, then went across and stood at
the edge of the rock, looking out across the rutted surface of the
sea. She could feel the wind like a hand against her face, roughly
caressing her, could taste the salt tang on her lips. For a moment
she stood there, her eyes closed, imagining herself at the helm of a
great ship, crossing the vast ocean, on her way to discover new
lands. Then, smiling, she turned and went across to the cave, ducking
beneath the low shelf of rock into the darkness beyond.

For a moment she
paused, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, sniffing at
the air. Then she frowned. Maybe it was only her imagination, but
today it seemed different, less dank and musty than usual. Maybe that
had to do with the weather. Her uncle had said a storm was on its
way. Had warned her to be indoors when it came.

She smiled and
turned, looking about her. On the wall behind her were the ancient
letters, a hand's length in height, scored into the rock and dyed a
burned ochre against the pale cream of the rock. Their sticklike
angular shapes brought to mind a game she had played as a child with
her amah's yarrow stalks. Further in, where the ceiling sloped down
to meet the floor of the cave, she had found a pile of tiny bones and
the charred remains of an ancient fire. She bent down, squinting into
the deep shadows, then frowned. They had been disturbed.

A tiny ripple of
fear went up her back. And then she heard it. A strange, rustling
noise at the back of the cave.

"Erkki!"
she called, in a low, urgent whisper.

He was there in
a moment, crouched in the cave's entrance, his gun searching the dark
interior.

"What is
it?" he said quietly.

She held her
breath. Maybe she had imagined it. But then it came again, closer
now. She shivered, then caught her breath as a pair of eyes looked
back at her from the darkness. Dark, feral eyes that held her own,
unblinking.

"It's an
animal," she said softly, fear giving way to astonishment in
her. "A wild animal."

She heard the
click as Erkki took the safety off his gun and put her hand out,
signaling him to hold still.

She took a slow
step backward, then another, until she was beside him. "It won't
harm us. It's more afraid of us than we are of it. It must have been
sleeping at the back of the cave and I disturbed it."

Beside her Erkki
shivered. "I thought all the animals were dead."

Yes, she
thought. So did I. But there's one—probably more than one—here
on the island. She could make out more of it now, could see how dark
its fur was, how small, yet powerful its limbs. She had seen its like
in her school textbooks. It was a fox. A real live fox.