Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (86 page)

Lehmann tucked
the bag away. "It'll be okay. Besides, I can't focus properly
with those false retinas in place."

Mach laughed.
"So Turner doesn't think of everything."

Lehmann shook
his head. "Not at all. He's very thorough. Whose man do you
think is manning the cameras?"

Mach slowed,
then nodded thoughtfully. "Uhuh? And how do you think he does
that? I mean, he's got a lot of friends, your man Turner. It seems
odd, don't you think? I mean, how long is it since he quit Security?
Eight years now? Ten?"

"It's
called loyalty," Lehmann said coldly. "I thought you
understood that. Besides, there are many who feel like you and I.
Many who'd like to see things change."

Mach shook his
head slowly, as if he still didn't understand, then got to work on
the second of the bolts.

"You think
that's strange, don't you?" Lehmann said after a moment. "You
think that only you lower-level types should want to change how
things are. But you're wrong. You don't have to be on the bottom of
this shit-heap to see how fuck-awful things are. Take me. From birth
I was set to inherit. Riches beyond your imagination. But it was
never enough. I never wanted to be rich. I wanted to be free. Free of
all the restraints this world sets upon us. Chains, they are. It's a
prison, this world of ours, boxing us in, and I hate that. I've
always hated it."

Mach stared up
at him, surprised and, to a small degree, amused. He had never
suspected that the albino had so much feeling in him. He had always
thought him cold, like a dead thing. This hatred was unexpected. It
hinted at a side to him that even Turner knew nothing of.

The second bolt
came free. He set to work on the third.

"I bet you
hated your parents, too, didn't you?"

Lehmann knelt,
watching Mach's hands as they turned the bolt. "I never knew
them. My father never came to see me. My mother . . . well, I killed
my mother."

"You—"
Mach looked back at him, roaring with laughter, then fell silent.
"You mean, you really did? You
killed
her?"

Lehmann nodded.
"She was a rich Han's concubine. An arfidis addict, too. She
disgusted me. She was like the rest of them, soft, corrupt. Like this
world. I set fire to her, in her rooms. I'd like to do the same to
all of them. To burn the whole thing to a shell and pull it down."

Mach took a deep
breath through his nose, then set to work again. "I see. And
Turner knows this, does he?"

"No. He
thinks I'm someone else, something else."

"I see. But
why tell me?"

"Because
you're not what he thinks you are either." Lehmann reached
across him, beginning to unscrew the final bolt. "Turner sees
only enemies or pale shadows of himself. That's how he thinks. Black
and white. As if this were all one great big game of
wei chi."

Mach laughed.
"You surprise me. I'd have thought—" Then he laughed
again. "I'm sorry. I'm doing what you said he does, aren't I?
Assuming you're something that you're not."

The last bolt
came loose. Between them they gently lifted the plate from the
connecting pins and set it to one side. Beneath the plate was a
panel, inset with tiny slip-in instruction cards. At the base of the
panel was a keyboard. Lehmann tapped in the cut-out code he'd
memorized, then leaned close, studying the panel. His pale, thin
fingers searched the board, then plucked five of the translucent
cards from different locations. He slipped them into the pouch at his
waist, then reached into his jacket and took out the first of the
eighteen tiny sealed packets. When a certain signal was routed
through this board, these five would be triggered, forming a circuit
that overrode the standard instruction codes. To the backup system it
would seem as if the panel were functioning normally, but to all
intents and purposes it would be dead. And with all eighteen boxes
triggered in this way, communications to the deck would be
effectively cut off.

He slotted the
five wafer-thin cards into place, reset the cut-out code, then, with
Mach's help, lowered the plate back onto the connecting pins.

"There,"
Mach said. "One down, seventeen to go. Pretty easy, huh?"

"Easy
enough," Lehmann said, taking one of the restraining bolts and
beginning to screw it down. "But only if you've the nerve, the
vision, and the intelligence to plan it properly."

Mach laughed.
"And a few old friends, turning a blind eye." Lehmann
turned his head slightly, meeting Mach's eyes. "Maybe. And a
reason for doing it, neh?"

* *
*

KIM HAD HEARD
the alarm from three decks down but made nothing of it, yet coming
out of the transit he remembered and, his pulse quickening, began to
run toward his room.

Even before he
turned the corner into his corridor he saw signs of what had
happened. A long snake of hose ran from the corner hydrant, flaccid
now. On the far side of it, water had pooled. But that was not what
had alerted him. It was the scent of burning plastics.

He leapt the
hose, took three small, splashing steps, then stopped. The door to
his room was open, the fire-hose curving inside. Even from where he
stood he could see how charred the lintel was, could see the ashy
residue of sludge littering the floor outside.

"What in
the gods' names . . . ?"

T'ai Cho jerked
his head around the door. "Kim!" he cried, coming out into
the corridor, his face lit up. "Thank the gods you're safe. I
thought—"

He let himself
be embraced, then went inside, facing the worst. It was gone. All of
it. His comset was unrecognizable, fused into the worktop as if the
whole were some strange, smooth sculpture of twisted black marble.
The walls were black, as was the ceiling. The floor was awash with
the same dark sludge that had oozed out into the corridor.

"What
happened?" he asked, looking about him, the extent of his
loss—his books, his clothes, the tiny things he'd called his
own—slowly sinking in. "I thought this kind of thing
couldn't happen. There are sprinklers, aren't there? And air seals."

T'ai Cho glanced
at one of the maintenance men who were standing around, then looked
back at Kim. "They failed, it seems. Faulty wiring, it looks
like."

Kim laughed
sourly, the irony not lost on him. "Faulty wiring? But I thought
the boxes used instruction cards."

One of the men
spoke up. "That's right. But two of the cards were wrongly
encoded. It happens sometimes. It's something we can't check up on. A
mistake at the factory . . . You know how it is."

Only too
well,
Kim thought. But
who did this? Who ordered it done?
Spatz? Or someone higher than he? Not Prince Yuan, anyway, because he
wanted what was destroyed here today.

He sighed, then
shook his head. It would take weeks, months perhaps, to put it all
back together again. And if he did? Well, maybe it would be for
nothing after all. Maybe they would strike again, just as he came to
the end of his task, making sure nothing ever got to Li Yuan.

He turned,
looking at his old friend. "You shouldn't have worried, T'ai
Cho. But I'm glad you did. I was having my three-month medical. They
say I'm fine. A slight vitamin C deficiency, but otherwise . . ."
He laughed. "It was fortunate, neh? I could have been sleeping."

"Yes,"
T'ai Cho said, holding the boy to him again. "We should thank
the gods, neh?"

Yes, thought
Kim. Or
whoever decided I was not as disposable, as my work.

* *
*

NAN HO stood in
the cool of the passageway outside the room, mopping his brow, the
feeling of nausea passing slowly from him. Though ten minutes had
passed, his hands still trembled and his clothes were soaked with his
own sweat. In all his forty years he had seen nothing like it. The
man's screams had been bad enough, but the look in his eyes, that
expression of sheer terror and hopelessness, had been too much to
bear.

If he closed his
eyes he could still see it. Could see the echoing kitchen all about
him, the prisoner tied naked to the table, his hands and feet bound
tight with cords that bruised and cut the flesh. He bared his teeth,
remembering the way the masked man had turned, the oiled muscles of
his upper arms flexing effortlessly as he lifted the tongs from the
red-hot brazier and turned them in the half-light. He could see the
faint wisp of smoke that rose toward the ceiling, could hear the
faint crackle as the coal was lifted into cooler air, even before he
saw the glowing coal itself. But most of all he could see the panic
in the young man's eyes, and he recalled what he had thought.

Forgive me,
Fan Ming-yu, but I had to do this. For my master.
The man had
begun to babble, to refute all he had been saying only a moment
before, but the torturer's movements seemed inexorable. The coal came
down, slowly, ever so slowly it seemed, and the man's words melted
into shrieks of fearful protest. His body lifted, squirming,
desperate, but all of its attempts to escape only brought it closer
to the implement of its suffering.

The torturer
held back a moment. One leather-gloved hand pushed the man's hip
down, gently, almost tenderly, it seemed. Then, with the kind of care
one might see from a craftsman tracing fine patterns onto silver, he
brought the coal down delicately, pressing it tightly against the
man's left testicle.

Nan Ho had
shuddered and stepped back, swallowing bile. He had glanced,
horrified, at Tolonen, seeing how the old man looked on impassively,
then had looked back at the man, unable to believe what he had seen,
appalled and yet fascinated by the damage the coal had done. Then,
turning away, he had staggered out, his legs almost giving out under
him, the screams of the man filling his head, the smell of charred
flesh making him want to retch.

He stood there a
moment longer, calming himself, trying to fit what he had just seen
into the tightly ordered pattern of the world he knew, then shook his
head. It was not his fault. He had had no choice in the matter. If
his master had been any other man, or if the Lady Fei had chosen any
other man but Tsu Ma to be her lover, but . . . well, as it was, this
had to be. To let the truth be known, that was unthinkable.

Tolonen came
outside. He stood there, staring at Nan Ho, then reached out and held
his shoulder. "I am sorry, Master Nan. I didn't mean it to upset
you. It's just that I felt you ought to be there, to hear the man's
confession for yourself." He let his hand fall, then shrugged.
"There are more efficient ways of inflicting pain, of course,
but none as effective in loosening a tongue. The more barbaric the
means of torture, we find, the quicker the man will talk."

Nan Ho
swallowed, then found his voice again. "And what did you
discover?"

"I have a
list of all those he spoke to. Few, fortunately. And his source."

"His
source?"

"It seems
you acted not a moment too soon, Master Nan. Fan Ming-yu had just
come from his lover. A young man named Yen
Shih
-fa."

Nan Ho's eyes
widened. "I know the man. He is a groom at the stables."

"Yes."
Tolonen smiled grimly. "I have contacted Tongjiang already and
had the man arrested. With the very minimum of fuss, you understand.
They are bringing him here even now."

Nan Ho nodded
abstractedly. "And what will you do?"

The Marshal
swallowed, a momentary bitterness clouding his features. "What
can
I do? It is as you said, Master Nan. This rumor cannot be
allowed to spread. But how prevent that? Normally I would trust to
the word of such
ch'un tzu,
but in a matter of this
seriousness it would not be enough to trust to their silence. A man's
word is one thing, but the security of the State is another. No; nor
would it serve to demote them below the Net. These four are men of
influence. Small influence, admittedly, but their absence would be
noticed and commented upon. No, in the circumstances we must act
boldly, I'm afraid."

Nan Ho
shuddered. "You mean they must die."

Tolonen smiled.
"Nothing quite so drastic, Master Nan. It is a matter of a small
operation." He traced a tiny line across the side of his skull.
"An incision here, another there ..."

"And their
families?"

"Their
families will be told that they took an overdose of something. Pei
Ro-hen's surgeons had to operate to save them, but unfortunately
there was damage— serious damage—to those parts of the
brain that control speech and memory. Most unfortunate, neh? But the
T'ang, in his generosity, will offer compensation."

Nan Ho stared at
the Marshal, surprised. "You know this?"

"I have
already written the memorandum. It will be on Li Shai Tung's desk
this evening."

"Ah, then
the matter is concluded?"

"Yes. I
think we can safely say that."

"And the
groom? Yen
Shih
-fa?"

Tolonen looked
down, clearly angry. "Yen
Shih
-fa will die. After we have
made sure he has done no further mischief."

Nan Ho bowed his
head. "I understand . . ." Yet he felt no satisfaction,
only a sense of dread necessity; that and a slowly mounting anger at
his young master's wife. This was her fault, the worthless bitch.
This was the price of her selfishness, her wantonness.

Tolonen was
watching him sympathetically. "You have served your master well,
Nan Ho. You were right. If this rumor
had
taken root. . ."

Nan Ho gave the
slightest nod. He had hoped to keep the details from Tolonen, but it
had not proved possible. Even so, no harm had been done. Fan
Ming-yu's insistence on the truth of what he had said—that Tsu
Ma
had
slept with the Lady Fei—had shocked and outraged
the old man. Nan Ho had seen for himself the fury in Tolonen's face
as he leaned over the man, spittle flecking his lips as he called him
a liar and a filthy scandal monger. And thank the gods for that. No.
Not for one moment had the Marshal believed it could be true. Tsu Ma
and the Lady Fei. No. It was unthinkable!