The Middle Kingdom (43 page)

"Exactly.
And you might also consider that there are vast factories and
foundries and masses of other industrial machinery distributed among
its many levels. At least one level in twenty is used for
warehousing. And there are whole levels which are used to store water
or process waste matter."

Kim's face
creased into a frown of intense concentration. He seemed to stare at
something directly in front of him, his brow puckering, his eyes,
suddenly sharply focused.

"Well?"
T'ai Cho prompted when the silence had extended uncomfortably.

Kim laughed.
"You'll think I'm mad. ..."

"No. Try
me."

"Well ...
it must be something to do with its structure. But that can't be the
whole of it." Kim seemed almost in pain now. His hands were
clenched tightly and his eyes were wide and staring.

T'ai Cho held
his breath. One step further. One small but vital step.

"Then it
must be built of air. Or something as light as air but—but as
tough as steel."

As light as air
and as tough as steel. A substance as strong as the bonding between
the atoms and so light that three hundred levels of it weighed a
fraction of a single layer of clay bricks. A substance so essential
to the existence of City Earth that its chemical name was rarely
used. It was known simply as ice. Ice because, in its undecorated
state, it looked as cold and fragile as the thinnest layer of frozen
water. "Corrugated" layers of ice— only a few hundred
molecules thick—formed the levels and walls of City Earth.
Molded sheets of ice formed the basic materials of elevators and
bolts, furniture and pipework, clothing and conduits, toys and tools.
Its flexibility and versatility, its cheapness and durability, had
meant that it had replaced most traditional materials.

City Earth was a
vast palace of ice. A giant house of cards, each card so unbelievably
thin that if folded down the whole thing would be no thicker than a
single sheet of paper.

Slowly, piece by
piece, T'ai Cho told Kim all of this, watching as the boy's face lit
with an inner pleasure. Not air but ice! It made the boy laugh with
delight.

"Then the
pillars hold it down!" he said. "They keep it from flying
away!"

SOREN BERDICHEV
glanced up from the pile of papers he was signing.

"Well,
Blake? You've seen the boy?"

His Head of
Personnel hesitated long enough to make Ber-dichev look up again.
Blake was clearly unhappy about something.

"He's no
use to us, then?"

"Oh, quite
the contrary, sir. He's everything the report made him out to be.
Exceptional, sir. Quite exceptional."

Berdichev set
the brush down on the inkstone and sat back, dismissing the secretary
who had been hovering at his side.

"Then
you've done as we agreed and purchased the boys contract?"

Blake shook his
head. "I'm afraid not, sir."

"I don't
understand you, Blake. Have you let one of our rivals buy the boy?"

"No, sir.
Director Andersen offered us an exclusive rights contract."

"Then
what's the problem? You offered him the sum I authorized? Five
million
yuan?"

"I did. . .
." Blake swallowed. "In fact, I raised the offer to eight
million."

Berdichev smiled
coldly. "I see. And you want me to sanction the increase?"

"No, sir.
That's it, you see. Andersen turned me down flat."

"What?"
Berdichev sat forward, his eyes, behind the tiny pebble glasses, wide
with anger. "Eight million and he turned us down?"

"Yes, sir.
He said he wanted twenty million minimum, or no contract."

Berdichev shook
his head slowly, astonished. "And you walked away, I hope?"

Blake lowered
his head. There was a definite color in his cheeks now. Berdichev
leaned forward and yelled at him.

"Come on,
man! Out with it! What's all this about?"

Blake looked up
again, his whole manner hesitant now. "I—I promised
Andersen I'd come back to you, sir. I said I'd ask you to agree to
the deal."

"You what?"
Berdichev laughed incredulously. "Twenty million
yuan
for
a six-year-old boy? Are you mad, Blake?"

Blake met his
eyes determinedly. "I believe he's worth it, sir. Every last
jen
of it. I would not have dared come back to you unless I believed
that."

Berdichev shook
his head. "No . . . twenty million. It's out of the question."

Blake came
forward and leaned over the desk, pleading with his superior. "If
only you saw him, sir—saw him for yourself— you'd
understand. He's like nothing I've ever come across before.
Voracious, he is—just hungry to learn things. Really, sir, if
you'd only see him!"

Berdichev looked
down at where Blake's hands rested on the edge of the desk. Blake
removed them at once and took a step back, straightening up.

"Is that
all, Blake?"

"Please,
sir. If you'd reconsider. If you'd take the time—"

"You know
that I haven't the time," he snapped back, irritated now by
Blake's persistence. He picked up the brush angrily. "The murder
of the T'ang's son has thrown everything into flux. The market's
nervous and I have meetings all this week to calm things down. People
need reassuring, and that takes time." He looked up at his
Personnel Manager again, his face hard and angry. "No, Blake, I
really haven't the time."

"Forgive
me, sir, but I think you should make time in this instance."

Berdichev stared
at Blake a moment, wondering whether he should dismiss him on the
spot. But something cautioned him. Blake had never stepped out of
line before—had never dared to contradict him in this manner.
There must be good reason. He looked down at the pile of papers that
awaited his signature, barely seeing them; calming himself, trying to
see the thing clearly. Then he looked up again.

"You think
he's worth it, then? Twenty million
yuan!
But what if he gets
some childhood illness and dies? What if he has an accident? What if
he proves to be one of these child prodigies who burns up before he's
out of his adolescence? Twenty million
yuan.
It's a huge sum,
even by our thinking."

Blake bowed his
head, all humility now that he had got Berdichev to listen. "I
agree, sir. But I've provisionally agreed to a six-stage payment.
Twenty percent on signature, four two-yearly payments of ten percent,
and forty percent on delivery of the boy to us at sixteen. There
would also be provisions for claw-back in the case of death or
accident. Our risk would be reduced substantially."

Berdichev
considered a moment. This'was more like the Blake he knew and valued.

"Would you
take a gamble, Blake?"

"How do you
mean, sir?"

"Would you
back up your hunch? Would you stake your job on me being impressed by
the boy?"

Blake looked
down, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "I think I
already have."

"Kim! What
in hell's name are you doing?"

Kim turned from
the half-deconstructed trivee and smiled. T'ai Cho, horrified, rushed
across the room and pulled him away from the machine.

"Kuan Yin!
Don't you realize that that could kill you? There's enough power in
that thing to fry you to a cinder!"

Kim shook his
head. "Not now there isn't." He took T'ai Cho's hand,
prized open the palm, and dropped something into it. T'ai Cho stared
at the small, matt black rectangular tube for a ,moment, then,
realizing what it was, dropped it as if it were red hot. It was the
power core.

He knelt down
and took Kim's upper arms in his hands, glaring at him, for the first
time genuinely angry at the boy. "I forbid you to tinker with
things this way! These machines can be lethal if mishandled. You're
lucky to be alive!"

Again Kim shook
his head. "No," he answered softly, clearly shaken by T'ai
Cho's anger. "Not if you know what you are doing."

"And you
know what you are doing, eh?"

"Yes. . .
." The small boy shivered and looked away.

T'ai Cho, whose
anger had been fueled by his fear for Kim, found himself relenting,
yet it was important to keep the boy from harming himself. He kept
his voice stern, unyielding. "How did you know?"

Kim looked back
at him, his wide, dark eyes piercing him with their strange
intensity. "I asked the man—the maintenance engineer. He
explained it all to me. He showed me how to take it all apart and put
it back together. How it all functioned. What the principles were
behind it."

T'ai Cho was
silent for a moment. "When was this?"

Kim looked down.
"This morning. Before the call."

T'ai Cho
laughed. "Before the call?" The call was at six bells.
Before then Kim's cell, like all the others, had been locked. "He
came and saw you, then, this man? And had a trivee with him,
conveniently?"

Kim shook his
head, but said nothing.

"Tell me
the truth, Kim. You were just tinkering, weren't you? Experimenting."

"Experimenting,
yes. But not tinkering. I knew what I was doing. And I was telling
you the truth, T'ai Cho. I'd never lie to you."

T'ai Cho sat
back on his heels. "Then I don't understand you, Kim."

"I . . ."
Kim looked up. The snow-pale flesh of his neck was strangely flushed.
"I let myself out of the cell and came down here. The man was
working here—servicing the machine."

T'ai Cho was
quiet. He stared at Kim for a long while, then stood up. "You
know that isn't possible, Kim. The locks are all electronically
coded."

"I know,"
said Kim simply. "And a random factor generator changes the
combination every day."

"Then you
realize why I can't believe you."

"Yes. But I
took the lock out."

T'ai Cho shook
his head, exasperated now. "But you can't have, Kim! It would
have registered as a malfunction. The alarm would have gone off over
the door."

Kim was shaking
his head. "No. That's not what I mean. I took the Jock out. The
electronics are still there. I rigged them so that it would still
register as locked when the door was pulled closed."

Still T'ai Cho
was not convinced. "And what did you do all this with? The
locking mechanism is delicate. Anyway, there's a maintenance plate
covering the whole thing."

"Yes,"
said Kim, the color gone now from his neck. "That was the
hardest part. Getting hold of these." He took a slender packet
from his tunic pocket and handed it to T'ai Cho. It was a set of
scalpel-fine tools.

"They're
duplicates," said Kim. "The service engineer probably
hasn't even missed them yet."

T'ai Cho stared
at the tools a moment longer then looked back at Kim. "Heavens.
. . ." he said softly. "So it's true?"

Kim nodded, the
smile returned to his face. "It's as I said, T'ai Cho. I'd never
lie to you."

DIRECTOR
ANDERSEN bowed deeply as Berdichev came into his office. He had spent
the morning reading the file on SimFic's owner and had been impressed
by what he'd read. Here was a man who had taken his company from
nowhere to the number eighteen slot on the Hang Seng Index in the
short space of ten years. Now he was worth a reputed eighteen billion
yuan.
It was not a T'ang's ransom by any means, but it was
enough to have satisfied any emperor of old.

"Your
presence here honors us," he said, offering his chair.

Berdichev
ignored his offer. "Where's the boy?" he said impatiently.
"I'd like to see him. At once."

"Of
course," said Andersen, looking to T'ai Cho, who was stan'ding
just outside the doorway next to Blake. T'ai Cho bowed then turned
away to prepare things.

Berdichev stared
coldly at the director. "You'll ensure he doesn't know he's
being watched?"

"Of course.
It's how we always work here. There's a viewing room. My assistants
will bring you refreshments—"

Berdichev cut
him off sharply, the light glinting on his spectacles. "We'll
not be taking refreshments. Just show me the boy, Director Andersen.
I want to see why you feel you can insult me."

Andersen
blanched. "I"—he bowed again, fear making his mouth
dry—"I'll—I'll take you there at once."

THE TWO MACHINES
had been left on the worktop, as the boy had asked. One was the
MedFac trivee he had been working on earlier, the other a standard
SimFic ArtMold IV. Between them lay a full technician's kit.

"What's
this?" Berdichev asked, taking his seat at the observation
window only an arm's length from the worktop's edge.

"They're
what the boy asked for."

Andersen
swallowed, praying that T'ai Cho was right about this. He alone knew
just how much depended on it. "I—I understand he wants to
try something out."

Berdichev half
turned in his seat and looked coldly up at Andersen. "I don't
understand you, Director. Try what out?"

Andersen began
to shake his head, then stopped and smiled, knowing he had to make
the best of things. "That's just it. We're never quite certain
what Kim's about to do. That's why he's so valuable. He's so
unpredictable. So inventive."

Berdichev stared
through Andersen a moment, then turned back. He seemed totally
unconvinced. It seemed as if the only reason he was there at all was
the ridiculously high sum he had been asked to pay for the boy's
contract. Andersen leaned against the back of the empty chair next to
Berdichev's, feeling weak. The boy was going to ruin it all. He just
knew he was. Things would go wrong and he would be humiliated, in
front of Ber-

dichev. Worse
than that, it would be the end of things: the closure of the Project
and early retirement for himself. He shuddered, then took the fan
from his belt and flicked it open, fanning himself.