The Middle Kingdom (31 page)

"Stay here.
I'll go down toward home. If they follow me, whistle."

Lo Ying nodded
once, then watched as Chen turned away from him and, seeming not to
notice the two men waiting twenty paces off, made for his home
corridor.

Chen had only
gone three or four paces when the men pushed away from the wall and
began to follow him. Lo Ying let them turn into the corridor, making
sure they were following, then put his fingers to his lips and
whistled.

Chen turned
abruptly, facing the men.

"What do
you want?"

They were both
big men, but the younger of them was a real brute, a giant of a man,
more than a head taller than Chen and much broader at the shoulders.
Like a machine made of flesh and muscle. The other was much older,
his close-cropped hair a silver-gray, but he still looked fit and
dangerous. They were Hung
Mao,
both of them. But who were they
working for? Berdichev? Or the T'ang?

"Kao Chen,"
said the older of them, taking two paces nearer. "So we meet at
last. We thought you were dead."

Chen grunted.
"Who are you?"

The old man
smiled. "I should have realized at once. Karr here had to point
it out to me. That stooge you used to play yourself. The man who died
in Jyan's. You should have marked him." He pointed to the thick
ridge of scar tissue beneath Chen's right ear. "Karr noticed it
on the film."

Chen laughed.
"So. But what can you prove?"

"We don't
have to prove anything, Chen." The old man laughed and seemed to
relax. "You know, you're a tricky bastard, aren't you? Your
brother, Jyan, underestimated you. He thought you dull witted. But
don't go making the same mistake with me. Don't underestimate me,
Chen. I'm not some low-level punk. I am the T'ang's General, and I
command more
kwai
than you'd ever dream existed. You can die
now, if you want. Or you can live. The choice is yours."

A ripple of fear
went through Chen. The T'ang's General! But he had made his choice
already, moments before, and the old man was only two paces off now.
If he could keep him talking a moment longer.

"You're
mistaken, General," he said, raising a hand to keep the General
off. "Jyan was not my brother. We only shared the same surname.
Anyway, I—" He broke off, smiling, then let out a scream.
"Lo Ying!"

The big man
began to turn just as Lo Ying jumped up onto his back. At the same
moment Chen lunged forward, the knife flashing out from his pocket.
Grasping the old man's arm he turned him and brought the knife up to
his throat;

Karr threw his
attacker
off
and feiied him with a single punch, then turned
back, angry at being tricked. He came forward two paces then stopped
abruptly, seeing how things were,

"You're a
fool, Chen," the General hissed, feeling Chen's arm tighten
about his chest, the knife's point prick the skin beneath his chin.
"Harm me and you'll all be dead. Chen, Wang Ti, and baby Jyan.
As if you'd never been."

Chen shuddered,
but kept his grip on the old man. "Your life ... it must be
worth something."

The General
laughed coldly. "To my T'ang."

"Well,
then?"

Tolonen
swallowed painfully. "You know things. Know what Jyan knew.
You—you can connect things for us. Incriminate others."

"Maybe."

"In return
we'll give you an amnesty. Legitimize your citizenship. Make sure you
can't be sent back to the Net."

"And that's
all? A measly amnesty. For what I know?"

The General was
silent a moment, breathing shallowly, conscious of the knife pressed
harder against his throat. "And what do you know, Kao Chen?"

"I watched
him. Both times. Saw him go in there that first time. He and the Han.
Then watched him come out two hours later, alone, after he'd killed
Kao Jyan. Then, later, I saw him go back in again. I stood at the
junction and saw him, with my own eyes. You were there too. Both of
you. I recognize you now. Yes. He was one of yours. One of you
bastards."

The General
shuddered. "Who, Chen? Who do you mean?"

Chen laughed
coldly. "The Major. That's who. Major
De-
Vore."

THE
FIRST THING to see was darkness. Darkness colored the Clay like a
dye. It melted forms and recast them with a deadly animation. It lay
within and I without; was both alive and yet the deadest thing of
all. It breathed, and yet it stifled.

For many it was
all they knew. All they would ever know.

The settlement
was on the crest of a low hill, a sprawl of ugly, jagged shapes,
littering the steep slope. Old, crumbling ruins squatted among the
debris, black against black, their very shapes eroded by the
darkness. The walls of houses stood no taller than a man's height,
the brickwork soft, moist to the touch. There were no roofs, no
ceilings, but none were needed here. No rain fell in the darkness of
the Clay.

The darkness
seemed intense and absolute. It was a cloth, smothering the vast,
primeval landscape. Yet there was light of a kind.

Above the
shadowed plain the ceiling ran to all horizons, perched on huge
columns of silver that glowed softly, faintly, like something living.
Dim studs of light crisscrossed the artificial sky; neutered, ordered
stars, following the tracks of broad conduits and cables, for the
ceiling was a floor, and overhead was the vastness of the City;
another world, sealed off from the fetid darkness underneath.

The Clay. It was
a place inimical to life. And yet life thrived there in the dark;
hideous, malformed shapes spawning in obscene profusion. The dark
plain crawled with vulgar life.

Kim woke from a
bad dream, a tight band of fear about his chest. Instinct made him
freeze, then turn slowly, stealthily, toward the sound, lifting the
oilcloth he lay under. He had the scent at once—the thing that
had warned him on waking. Strangers . . . strangers at the heart of
the camp.

Something was
wrong. Badly wrong.

He moved to the
lip of the brickwork he had been lying behind and peered over the
top. What he saw made him bristle with fear. Two of his tribe lay on
the ground nearby, their skulls smashed open, the brains taken.
Farther away three men— strangers, intruders—crouched
over another body. They were carving flesh from arm and thigh and
softly laughing as they ate. Kim's mouth watered, but the fear he
felt was far stronger.

One of the
strangers turned and looked directly at the place where Kim was
hiding. He lidded his eyes and kept perfectly still, knowing that
unless he moved the man would not see him. So it proved. The man made
a cursory inspection of the settlement, then returned to his food,
his face twitching furtively as he gnawed at the raw meat.

For a moment Kim
was blank; a shell of unthinking bone. Then something woke in him,
filling the emptiness. He turned away, moving with a painful
slowness, his muscles aching with the strain of it as he climbed the
rotten sill; each moment begging that it wouldn't crumble beneath his
weight and betray him. But it held. Then, slowly, very slowly, he
eased himself down the cold, broad steps. Down into the cellar of
Baxi's house.

In the far
corner of the cellar he stopped, lifting rocks, scrabbling silently
with his fingers in the intense darkness, looking for something.
There! His fingers found the edge of the cloth and gently pulled the
package up out of the soft dust. Kim shivered, knowing already what
was inside. These were Baxi's. His treasures. He was not meant to
know of them. Baxi would have killed him had he known.

Kim tugged at
the knot and freed it, then unwrapped the cloth, ignoring the fear he
felt. Another Kim—another self-had taken over.

Straightening
up, he knelt there, staring down sightlessly at the items hidden in
the cloth, a feeling of strangeness rippling through him like a
sickness. For a moment he closed his eyes against the sudden,
unexpected giddiness, then felt it ebb from him and opened them
again, feeling somehow different— somehow . . . changed.

Spreading the
objects out with his fingers, he picked up each object in turn,
feeling and smelling them, letting the newly woken part of him
consider each thing before he set it down again.

A tarnished
mirror, bigger than his hand, cracked from top to bottom. A narrow
tube that contained a strange sweet-smelling liquid. Another tube,
but this of wood, long as his lower arm, small holes punctuating its
length. One end was open, hollow, the other tapered, split.

There was a
small globe of glass, heavy and cold in his palm. Beside that was a
glove, too large for his hand, its fingers heavily padded at the
back, as if each joint had swollen up.

Two strings of
polished beads lay tangled in a heap. Kim's clever fingers untangled
them and laid them out flat on the threadbare cloth.

There were other
things, but those he set aside. His other self already saw. Saw as if
the thing had already happened and he had been outside himself,
looking on. The thought made him feel strange again; made his head
swim, his body feel light, almost feverish. Then, once more, it
passed.

Quickly, as if
he had done all this before, he laid the things out around him, then
placed the cloth over his head. Unsighted, he worked as if he saw
himself from above, letting some other part of him manipulate his
hands, his body, moving quickly, surely, until the thing was done.
Then, ready, he turned toward the doorway and, by touch and scent,
made his way out into the open.

He heard a gasp
and then a shout, high-pitched and nervous. Three voices babbled and
then fell silent. That silence was his signal. Lifting the globe
high, he squeezed the button on the side of the tube.

Some gift,
unguessed until that moment, made him see~ himself as they saw him.
He seemed split, one self standing there before them, the cloth
shrouding his face and neck, the cracked mirror tied in a loop before
his face; the other stood beyond the men, looking back past them at
the awesome, hideous figure who had appeared so suddenly, flames
leaping from one hand, fire glinting in the center of the other,
giant fist, flickering in the hollow where his face should have been,
while from the neck of the figure a long tongue of wood hung stiffly
down.

The figure
hopped and sang—a strange high-pitched wail that seemed to come
in broken, anguished breaths. And all the while the fire flickered in
the center of the empty face.

As one, the
strangers screamed and ran.

Kim let the pipe
fall from his lips. His finger released the button on the tube. It
was done. He had sent them off. But from the darkness of the slopes
came an intense apelike chattering. Others had seen the sudden,
astonishing brightness.

He set down the
glass sphere, unfastened the mirror, and laid it down, then sat there
on the broken ground, wondering at himself. It had worked. He had
seen it in his head, and then. . . He laughed softly, strangely. And
then he'd done it. He'd actually done it.

And it had
worked. ...

He tore the
cloth from his head and bared his sharp teeth in a feral grin of
triumph. Tilting his head back, he let out a howl; a double whoop of
delight at his own cleverness. Then, so sudden that the sound still
echoed from the ceiling high above, he shuddered, gripped by a
paralyzing fear, a black, still coldness flooding his limbs.

It was not
triumph, merely reprieve. He was still here, trapped, smothered by
the darkness. He coughed, then felt the warm corruption of the
darkness fill his lungs, like a liquid, choking him. He stood up,
gulping at the fetid air as if for something sweeter, cleaner. But
there was nothing—only this.

He whimpered,
then, glancing furtively about him, began to wrap the treasures as
he'd found them. Only when they were safely stored did he stop, his
jaw aching from fear, his muscles trembling violently. Then, like
some mad thing, he rushed about the settlement on all fours, growling
furiously, partly to keep up his faded courage, partly to keep away
the prowlers on the hillside below.

It was then that
he found the knife. It had fallen on its edge,

the handle
jutting up at an angle where one of the strangers had dropped it. The
handle was cold and smooth and did not give to Kim's sharp teeth when
he tested it. Not wood, nor flint, but something far better than
those. Something
made.
He drew it slowly from the tiny crevice
in which it had lodged and marveled at its length, its perfect shape.
It was as long as his arm and its blade was so sharp, it made his
testicles contract in fear. A
wartha,
it was. From
Above.

When they came
back he was squatting on the sill of Baxi's house, the long,
two-edged blade laid carefully across his knees, the handle clenched
firmly in his left hand.

Baxi looked
about him, his body tensed, alarm twitching in his face. The stockade
was down, the women gone. A few of the bodies lay where they had
fallen. Some—those on the edges of the settlement—had
been carried off. Behind Baxi his two lieutenants, Rotfoot and Ebor,
made low, grunting noises of fear. He turned and silenced them, then
faced Kim again.

"Pandra
vyth gwres?"
What is this?

Baxi glared at
Kim, then saw the knife. His eyes widened, filled with fear and a
greedy desire for the weapon. There was a fierce, almost sexual
urgency in his broad, squat face as he hopped from foot to foot,
making small noises, as if in pain.

Kim knew he
would kill to have the knife.

"Lagasek!"
Baxi barked angrily, edging closer. "Pandra vyth gwres?"
His hands made small grasping movements.