The Middle Kingdom (6 page)

Pi Ch'ien
hesitated, not certain what to do. Yang Lai had not formally
dismissed him; but thert, he had fulfilled his duty—had
delivered the message. Surely, then, it was all right for him to go.
He went to the door and looked out again. The corridor was still
empty. Careful now, consciousjsf the watching cameras, he stepped
outside and pulled the door shut behind him. Then, composing himself,
trying to ignore the strong feeling of wrong-ness that was growing in
him by the moment, he began to walk toward the entrance hall.

THERE WAS
movement up ahead. Chen crouched in the narrow circle of the
horizontal shaft, perfectly still, listening. Beside him, tensed, his
breathing like the soft hiss of a machine, Jyan waited.

Chen turned,
smiling reassuringly. In the dim overhead light Jyan's face seemed
more gaunt than normal, his cheekbones more hollow. The roseate light
made him seem almost demonic, his cold black eyes reflecting back two
tiny points of redness. Chen wanted to laugh, looking at him. Such
delicate features he had; such neat, small ears. He could imagine how
Jyan's mother would have loved those ears—back when Jyan had
yet had a mother.

He looked away,
sobered by the thought. It's why we're here, he realized, waiting,
knowing the noise, the movement, would go away. If we had loved ones
we would never have got involved in this. We're here because we have
no one. Nothing to connect us to the world.

Chen kept his
thoughts to himself; like a good
kwai
he cultivated the
appearance of stupidity. Like all else it was a weapon. He had been
taught to let his enemies underestimate him; always to keep something
back—something in reserve. And lastly, to take no friends.

Ahead it went
silent again. He waited, making sure, then began to move up the
access tunnel once more, his right hand feeling the way along the
tunnel wall. And as he moved he could sense Jyan immediately behind
him; silent, trusting.

MINISTER LWO
pulled himself up out of his chair and stretched his legs. It was
almost time to call it an evening, but first he'd dip his body in the
pool and cool off. His junior ministers had risen to their feet when
he had stood. Now he signaled them to be seated again. "Please,
gentlemen, don't break your talk for me."

He moved between
them, acknowledging their bows, then down three steps and past a
lacquered screen, into the other half of the dome. Here
was
a
miniature pool, its chest-deep waters cool and refreshing after the
heat of the solarium. Small shrubs and potted trees surrounded it on
three sides, while from the ceiling above hung a long, elegant cage,
housing a dozen songbirds.

As he paused at
the pool's edge two attendants hurried across to help him undress,
then stood there, heads bowed respectfully, holding his clothes, as
he eased himself into the water.

He had been
there only moments when he heard the pad of feet behind him. It was
Lao Jen.

"May I join
you, Excellency?"

Lwo Kang smiled.
"Of course. Come in, Jen."

Lao Jen had been
with him longest and was his most trusted advisor. He was also a man
with connections, hearing much that would otherwise have passed the
Minister by. His sister had married into one of the more important of
the Minor Families and fed him juicy tidbits of Above gossip. These
he passed on to Lwo Kang privately.

Lao Jen threw
off his
pou
and came down the steps into the water. For a
moment the two of them floated there, facing each other. Then Lwo
Kang smiled.

"What news,
Jen? You surely have some."

"Well,"
he began, speaking softly so that only the Minister could hear. "It
seems that today's business with Lehmann is only a small part of
things. Our friends the Dispersionists are hatching bigger, broader
schemes. It seems they have formed a faction—a pressure
group—in the House. It's said they have more than two hundred
representatives in their pocket."

Lwo Kang nodded.
He had heard something similar. "Go on."

"More than
that, Excellency. It seems they're going to push to reopen the
starflight program."

Lwo Kang
laughed. Then he lowered his voice. "You're serious? The
starflight program?" He shook his head, surprised. "Why,
that's been dead a century and more! What's the thinking behind
that?"

Lao Jen ducked
his head, then surfaced again, drawing his hand back through his
hair. "It's the logical outcome of their policies. They are,
after all, Dispersionists. They want breathing space. Want to be free
of the City and its controls. Their policies make no sense unless
there is somewhere to disperse to."

"I've
always seen them otherwise, Jen. I've always thought their talk of
breathing space was a political mask. A bargaining counter. And all
this nonsense about opening up the colony planets too. No one in
their right mind would want to live out there. Why, it would take ten
thousand years to colonize the stars!" He grunted, then shook
his head. "No, Jen, it's all a blind. Something to distract us
from the real purpose of their movement."

"Which is
what, Excellency?"

Lwo Kang smiled
faintly, knowing Lao Jen was sounding him. "They are
Hung Mao
and they want to rule. They feel we Han have usurped their
natural right to control the destiny of Chung Kuo, and they want to
see us under. That's all there is to it. All this business of stars
and planetary conquest is pure nonsense—the sort of puerile
idiocy their minds ran to before we purged them of it."

Lao Jen laughed.
"Your Excellency sees it clearly. Nevertheless, I—"

He stopped. Both
men turned, standing up in the water. It came again. A loud hammering
at the inner door of the solarium. Then there were raised voices.

Lwo Kang climbed
up out of the water and without stopping to dry himself, took his
pau
from the attendant and pulled it on, tying the sash at the waist.
He had taken only two steps forward when a security guard came down
the steps toward him.

"Minister!"
he said breathlessly, bowing low. "The alarm has been sounded.
We must evacuate the dome!"

two Kang turned,
dumbstruck, and looked back at Lao Jen.

Lao Jen was
standing on the second step, the water up to his shins. He was
looking up. Above him the songbirds were screeching madly and
fluttering about their cage.

Lwo Kang took a
step back toward Lao Jen, then stopped. There was a small plop and a
fizzing sound. Then another. He frowned, then looked up past the
cageat the ceiling of the dome. There, directly above the pool, the
smooth white skin of the dome was impossibly charred. There, only an
arm's length from where the wire that held the cage was attached, was
a small, expanding halo of darkness. Even as he watched, small
gobbets of melted ice dropped from that dark circle and fell hissing
into the water.

"Gods!"
he said softly, astonished. "What in heaven's name...?"

Then he
understood. Understood, at the same moment, that it was already too
late. "Yang Lai," he said almost inaudibly, straightening
up, seeing in his mind the back of his junior minister as he hurried
from the dome. "Yes. It must have been Yang Lai!..."

But the words
were barely uttered when the air turned to flame.

THE PATROL CRAFT
was fifteen
li
out when its tail camera, set on automatic
search-and-scan, trained itself on the first brief flicker from the
dome. On a panel above the navigator's head a light began to flash.
At once the pilot banked the craft steeply, turning toward the trace.

They were almost
facing the dome when the whole of the horizon seemed to shimmer and
catch fire.

The pilot swore.
"What in Chang-e's name is that?"

"The
mountains. . . ." said the navigator softly, staring in
amazement at the overhead screen. "Something's come down in the
mountains!"

"No. . . ."
The pilot was staring forward through the windshield. "It was
much closer than that. Run the tape back."

He had barely
said it when the sound of the explosion hit them, rocking the tiny
craft.

"It's the
dome!" said the pilot in the stillness that followed. "It's
the fucking solarium!"

"It can't
be."

The pilot
laughed, shocked. "But it's not there! It's not fucking there!"

The navigator
stared at him a moment, then looked back up at the screen. The image
was frozen at the point where the camera had locked onto the
irregular heat pattern.

He leaned
forward and touched the display pad. Slowly, a frame at a time, the
image changed.

"Gods! Look
at that!"

Near the top of
the softly glowing whiteness of the dome two eyes burned redly.
Slowly they grew larger, darker, the crown of the dome softening,
collapsing, until the crumpled face of the solarium seemed to leer at
the camera, a vivid gash of redness linking two of the four holes
that were now visible. For a single frame it formed a death mask, the
translucent flesh of the dome brilliantly underlit. Then, in the
space of three frames, the whole thing blew apart.

In the first it
was veined with tiny cracks—each fissure a searing,
eye-scorching filament of fire, etched vividly against the swollen,
golden flesh of the dome. As the tape moved on a frame, that golden
light intensified, filling the bloated hemisphere to its limit. Light
spilled like molten metal from the bloodied mouths that webbed the
dome, eating into the surrounding darkness like an incandescent acid.
Then, like a flowering wound, the whole thing opened up, the ragged
flaps of ice thrown outward violently, flaming like the petals of a
honey-gold and red chrysanthemum, its bright intensity flecked with
darkness.

He reached
forward and pressed to hold the image. The screen burned, almost
unbearably bright. He turned and stared at his colleague, seeing at
once how the other's mouth was open, the inner flesh glistening
brightly in the intense, reflected light, while in the polished
darkness of his eyes two gold-red flowers blossomed.

"Gods____That's
awful. . . terrible. . . ."

The flat Han
face of the navigator turned and looked up at the screen. Yes, he
thought. Awful. Terrible. And yet quite beautiful. Like a
chrysanthemum, quite beautiful.

AT
THE MOUTH of the narrow, low-ceilinged corridor they had been
following, Chen stopped and placed his hand against Jyaris chest,
looking out into the wide but crowded thoroughfare beyond. Pan Chao
Street teemed with life. Along both sides of the long, broad avenue
ran balconies, four of them, stacked like seed trays one atop
another, their low rails packed with people, the space between them
crisscrossed with a vast unruly web of lines from which enormous
quantities of washing hung, like giant, tattered veils, dripping
endlessly onto the crowds below.

A hundred
smaller corridors led into Pan Chao Street, the regular pattern of
their dark, square mouths peppering the walls behind the balconies,
like the openings to a giant hive.

Chen reached out
and touched the smooth surface of the hexagonal, graffiti-proof
plaque on the wall close by. LEVEL eleven, it read; south 3 stack,
canton of munich. Relieved, he looked back, ignoring the curious
stares of passersby. That much, at least, was right. But were they in
the right place? Had they come out at the right end?

He glanced at
Jyan, then nodded. "Come on. Let's find that elevator."

It was a noisy,
boisterous place. And it stank. The sharp, sour-sweet smell of spiced
soymeats and overcooked vegetables was mixed inextricably with the
sharper scent of human sweat and the damp, warm smell of the washing.
Jyan looked at Chen, grimacing.

"It's worse
than beneath the Net!"

Chen nodded. It
was true. The air was a rich, unwholesome soup. After the freshness
of the higher tunnels it made him feel like retching. Each breath
seemed to coat the lungs.

Chen pushed out
into the middle of the press, aware of Jyan at his back. Young
children, naked, many of them streaked with dirt, ran here and there
through the crowd, yelling. Some tugged at their clothes as they
passed.

"Ch'ian.'"
one tiny, shaven-headed boy yelled, pulling at Chen's tunic, then
putting his hand out aggressively.
Money!
He could have been
no more than three at most. Chen glared at him and raised his hand
threateningly, but the child only laughed and ran away, making a sign
with his hand that was unmistakable. And you, thought Chen. And you.

People jostled
this way and that, using their elbows and .shoulders to force a way
through the press. In the midst of it all a few of them simply stood
and talked, making deals or just passing the time, oblivious of the
noise, the crush, the rickshaws jostling to get by. Some turned and
eyed the two men as they made their way through, but most ignored
them, intent on their own business.

At the edge of
things, small groups of women stood in doorways watching them, their
arms folded over their breasts, their lips moving incessantly,
chattering away in the pidgin dialect of these levels. Nearby,
traders pushed their barrows through the crowd, crying out in dae
same strange singsong tongue as the watching women. Small MedFac
screens were everywhere, on brackets fixed to walls and in
shopfronts, on. the sides of rickshaws or pushed along in handcarts,
their constant murmur barely distinguishable above the general
hubbub, while from every side countless PopVoc Squawks blared out,
some large as suitcases, others worn as earrings or elaborate
bracelets. All added to the dull cacophony of sound.