Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (67 page)

Ebert hesitated,
then gave a nod. DeVore seemed somehow too bright, too at ease, for
his liking.

The two men
stood and went to the table in the corner.

"Where
shall I sit? Here?"

Ebert smiled.
"If you like." It was exactly where he wanted DeVore. At
that point he was covered by all three of the marksmen concealed
overhead. If he tried
anything. . .

DeVore sat,
perfectly at ease, lifting the lid from the pot, then placed the
first of his stones in tsu, the north. Ebert sat, facing him,
studying him a moment, then lifted the lid from his pot and took one
of the black stones between his fingers. He had prepared his men
beforehand. If he played in one particular place—in the middle
of the board, on the edge of shang, the south, on the intersection
beside his own central stone—then they were to open fire,
killing DeVore. Otherwise they were to fire only if Ebert's life was
endangered.

Ebert reached
across, playing at the top of
shang
, two places out from his
own comer stone, two lines down from the edge.

"Well?"
he said, looking at DeVore across the board. "You're not here to
ask after my health. What do you want?"

DeVore was
studying the board as if he could see the game to come—the
patterns of black stones and white, their shape and interaction. "Me?
I don't want anything. At least, nothing from you, Hans. That's not
why I'm here." He set down a white stone, close by Ebert's last,
then looked up, smiling again. "I'm here because there's
something
you
might want."

Ebert stared at
him, astonished, then laughed. "What could I possibly want from
you?" He slapped a stone down almost carelessly, three spaces
out from the first.

DeVore studied
the move, then shook his head. He took a stone from his pot and set
it down midway between the comer and the center, as if to divide some
future formation of Ebert's stones.

"You have
everything you need, then, Hans?"

Ebert narrowed
his eyes and slapped down another stone irritably. It was two spaces
out from the center, between DeVore's and his own, so that the five
stones now formed a broken diagonal line from the comer to the
center—two black, one white, then two more black.
³

DeVore smiled
broadly. "That's an interesting shape, don't you think? But it's
weak, like the Seven. Black might outnumber white, but white isn't
surrounded." Ebert sat back. "Meaning what?"

DeVore set down
another stone, pushing out toward
ch'u
, the west. A triangle
of three white stones now sat to the right of a triangle of black
stones. Ebert stared at the position a moment, then looked up into
DeVore's face again.

DeVore was
watching him closely, his eyes suddenly sharp, alert, the smile gone
from his lips.

"Meaning
that you serve a master you despise. Accordingly, you play badly.
Winning or losing has no meaning for you. No interest."

Ebert touched
his upper teeth with his tongue, then took another stone and placed
it, eight down, six out in
shang
. It was a necessary move; a
strengthening move. It prevented DeVore from breaking his line while
expanding the territory he now surrounded. The game was going well
for him.

"You read
my mind then,
Shih
DeVore? You know how I think?"

"I know
that you're a man of considerable talent, Hans. And I know that
you're bored. I can see it in the things you do, the decisions you
make. I can see how you hold the greater part of yourself back
constantly. Am I wrong, then? Is what I see really the best you can
do?"

DeVore set down
another stone. Unexpectedly it cut across the shape Ebert had just
made, pushing into the territory he had mapped out. It seemed an
absurd move, a weak move, but Ebert knew that DeVore was a master at
this game. He would not make such a move without good reason.

"It seems
you want me to cut you. But if I do, it means you infiltrate this
area here." He sketched it out.

"And if you
don't?"

"Well, it's
obvious. You cut me. You separate my groups." DeVore smiled.
"So. A dilemma. What to choose?"

Ebert looked up
again, meeting his eyes. He knew that DeVore was saying something to
him through the game. But what? Was DeVore asking him to make a
choice? The Seven or himself? Was he asking him to come out in the
open and declare himself?

He put down his
stone, cutting DeVore, keeping his own lines open. "You say the
Seven are weak, but you—are you any stronger?"

"At
present, no. Look at me, I'm like these five white stones here on the
board. I'm cut and scattered and outnumbered. But I'm a good player
and the odds are better than when I started. Then they were seven to
one. Now"—he placed his sixth stone, six down, four out in
shang,
threatening the corner—"it's only two to
one. And every move improves my chances. I'll win. Eventually."

Ebert placed
another black stone in the diagonal line, preventing DeVore from
linking with his other stones, but again it allowed DeVore space
within his own territory and he sensed that DeVore would make a
living group there.

"You know,
I've always admired you, Howard. You would have been Marshal
eventually. You would have run things for the Seven."

"That's so
. . ." DeVore smiled openly, showing his small but perfect
teeth. "But it was never enough for me to serve another. Nor
you. We find it hard to bow to lesser men."

Ebert laughed,
then realized how far DeVore had brought him. But it was true.
Everything he said was true. He watched DeVore set another stone
down, shadowing his own line, sketching out territory inside his own,
robbing him of what he'd thought was safely his.

"I see."
he said, meaning two things. For a time, then, they simply played.
Forty moves later he could see that it was lost. DeVore had taken
five of his stones from the board and had formed a living group of
half of
shang.
Worse, he had pushed out toward
ch'u
and
down into
p'ing.
Now a small group of four of his stones was
threatened at the center and there was only one way to save it—to
play in the space in
shang
beside the central stone, the
signal for his men to open fire on DeVore. Ebert sat back, holding
the black stone between his fingers, then laughed.

"It seems
you've forced me to a decision."

DeVore smiled
back at him. "I was wondering what you would do."

Ebert eyed him
sharply. "Wondering?"

"Yes. I
wasn't sure at first. But now I know. You won't play that space.
You'll play here instead." He leaned across and touched the
intersection with his fingertip. It was the move that gave only
temporary respite. It did not save the group.

"Why should
I do that?"

"Because
you don't want to kill me. And because you're seriously interested in
my proposition."

Ebert laughed,
astonished. "You
knew!"

"Oh, I know
you've three of your best stormtroopers here, Hans. I've been
conscious of the risks
I've
been taking. But how about you?"

"I think I
know," Ebert said, even more cautiously. Then, with a small
laugh of admiration he set the stone down where DeVore had indicated.

"Good."
DeVore leaned across and set a white stone in the special space, on
the edge of
shang,
beside Ebert's central stone, then leaned
back again. "I'm certain you'll have assessed the potential
rewards, too." He smiled, looking down at his hands. "King
of the world, Hans. That's what you could be. T'ang of all Chung
Kuo."

Ebert stared
back at him, his mouth open but set.

"But not
without me." DeVore looked up at him, his eyes piercing him
through. "Not without me. You understand that?"

"I could
have you killed. Right now. And be hailed as a hero."

DeVore nodded.
"Of course. I knew what I was doing. But I assumed you knew why
you were here. That you knew how much you had to gain."

It was Ebert's
turn to laugh. "This is insane."

DeVore was
watching him calmly, as if he knew now how things would turn out
between them. "Insane? No. It's no more insane than the rule of
the Seven. And how long can that last? In ten years, maybe less, the
whole pack of cards is going to come tumbling down, whatever happens.
The more astute of the Above realize that and want to do something
about it. They want to control the process. But they need a
figurehead. Someone they admire. Someone from among their number.
Someone capable and in a position of power."

"I don't
fit your description."

DeVore laughed.
"Not now, perhaps. But you will. In a year from now you will."

Ebert looked
down. He knew it was a moment for decisiveness, not prevarication.
"And when I'm T'ang?"

DeVore smiled
and looked down at the board. "Then the stars will be ours. A
world for each of us."

A
world for
each of us.
Ebert thought about it a moment. This then was what
it was really all about. Expansion. Taking the lid off City Earth and
getting away. But what would that leave him?

"However,"
DeVore went on, "you didn't mean that, did you?" He stood
and went across to the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a second glass
of brandy. Turning, he looked directly at the younger man. "What
you meant was, what's in it for me?"

Ebert met his
look unflinchingly. "Of course. What other motive could there
be?"

DeVore smiled
blandly. Ebert was a shallow, selfish young man, but he was useful.
He would never be T'ang, of course—it would be a mistake to
give such a man
reed
power—but it served for now to let
him think he would.

"Your
brandy is excellent, Hans." DeVore walked to the window and
looked out. The mountains looked beautiful. He could see the
Matterhorn from where he stood, its peak like a broken blade. Winter
was coming.

Ebert was
silent, waiting for him.

"What's in
it for you, you ask? This world. To do with as you wish. What more
could you want?" He turned to face the younger man, noting at
once the calculation in his face.

"You
failed," Ebert said after a moment. "There were many of
you. Now there's just you. Why should you succeed this time?"

DeVore tilted
his head, then laughed. "Ah yes. . ."

Ebert frowned
and set his glass down. "And they're strong."

DeVore
interrupted him. "No. You're wrong, Hans. They're weak. Weaker
than they've been since they began.
We almost won.
"

Ebert hesitated,
then nodded. It was so. He recognized how thinly the Families were
spread now, how much they depended on the good will of those in the
Above who had remained faithful. Men like his father.

And when his
father was dead?

He looked up
sharply, his decision made.

"Well?"
DeVore prompted. "Will you be T'ang?"

Ebert stood,
offering his hand.

DeVore smiled
and put his drink down. Then he stepped forward and, ignoring the
hand, embraced the young man.

Artifice
and Innocence

The
more abstract the truth you want to teach the more you must seduce
the senses to it.

—friedrich
nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil

Reach me a
gentian, give me a torch

let me guide
myself with the blue, forked touch of this flower

down the dark
and darker steps, where blue is darkened on blueness

even where
Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September

to the sightless
realm where darkness is awake upon the dark

and Persephone
herself is but a voice

of a darkness
invisible enfolded in the deeper dark

of the arms
Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,

among the
splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the lost

bride and her
groom.

—D.
H. lawrence,
Bavarian Gentians

A
BANK OF EIGHT screens, four long, two deep, glowed
dimly on the far side of the darkened room. In each lay the outline
image of a hollowed skull. There were other shapes in the room, vague
forms only partly lit by the glow. A squat and bulky mechanism
studded with controls was wedged beneath the screens. Beside it was a
metallic frame, like a tiny fourposter stretched with wires. In the
left-hand corner rested a narrow trolley containing racks of tapes,
their wafer-thin top edges glistening in the half light. Next to that
was a vaguely human form slumped against a bed, its facial features
missing. Finally, in the very center of the room was a graphics art
board, the thin screen blank and dull, the light from the eight
monitors focused in its concave surface.

It was
late—after three in the morning—and Ben Shepherd was
tired, but there was this last thing to be done before he slept. He
squatted by the trolley and flicked through the tapes until he found
what he wanted, then went to the art board and fed in the tape. The
image of a bird formed instantly. He froze it, using the controls to
turn it, studying it from every angle as if searching for some flaw
in its conception; then, satisfied, he let it run, watching as the
bird stretched its wings and launched into the air. Again he froze
the image. The bird's wings were stretched back now, thrusting it
forward powerfully.

It was a simple
image in many ways. An idealized image of a bird, formed in a vacuum.

He sorted
through the tapes again and pulled out three, then returned to the
art board and rewound the first tape. That done he fed the new tapes
into the slot and synchronized all four to a preset signal. Then he
pressed PLAY.