The Middle Kingdom (44 page)

"I suppose
he's going to do something with those two machines?"

Andersen's fan
stopped in midmotion. "I believe so."

"And how
long has he been in your charge?"

"Twenty-three
days."

Berdichev
laughed. "It isn't possible. It takes our best engineers months
to learn how to operate those things."

"Four
months intensive training," said Blake from the back of the
viewing room.

"And he's
taught himself?"

Andersen licked
his lips to wet them. "In two days."

Berdichev sat
back, laughing again. "I do believe you're making fun of me,
Director Andersen. Wasting my valuable time. If that's so . . ."

Andersen bowed
deeply. "Believe me, Shih Berdichev, I would never dream of such
a thing. Please, be patient. I'm certain the boy will not disappoint
you."

The door at the
far end of the lecture room opened and T'ai Cho entered with the boy.
Andersen, watching Berdichev, saw him frown, then a strange
expression cross his face.

"Where did
you find the boy?"

Blake answered
before Andersen could find his tongue. "In the Western Island,
sir. He comes from the Canton of Cornwall."

Berdichev
nodded. A strange sobriety seemed to have gripped him. "Ah, yes.
I know it well. I went there once. With friends."

T'ai Cho knelt
down, talking to the boy a moment, then he let him go. Kim ran across
the room, a naked eagerness in his face. Climbing up onto a stool, he
set to work at once, dismantling the insides of the trivee, then
dragging the heavy ArtMold machine closer to him.

Berdichev,
watching the boy, felt himself go cold inside. The resemblance was
uncanny; a grotesque distortion of the original, admittedly, yet in
some ways so like him that simply to look at the boy was to bring all
those feelings back. All the love and guilt and hurt.

Edmund, he
thought; you're Edmund Wyatt's son. I'd swear it.

He watched,
barely conscious of what the boy was doing; aware only of that
strange and unexpected likeness. He should have looked at the holo
Blake had given him. Should have found time to look at it. But he had
been too busy. Otherwise he would have come here before now, he was
certain of it.

Normally he
would have dismissed it at once as one of those strange tricks life
played on men, but in this case it all fitted. Fitted perfectly. The
boy was not only the right age but he came from the right location.

Edmund was with
me. Down there in the Clay. Seven years ago. Edmund, Pietr, and I.
Down there in the darkness below the City. Yes . . . he was there
when we went to see the King Under the City, the Myghtern, in his
castle in ancient Bodmin. Was there when we visited the Myghtern's
singsong house. And now his seed has returned. Back from the dark.

He shuddered and
stood up. "I've seen enough."

Andersen,
flustered, bowed deeply. The color had gone from his face and his
eyes were wide with sudden panic. "I beg you, Excellency, wait.
Please, wait just a little longer. He's only just begun."

Berdichev turned
to Blake, ignoring him. "Have you the contract?"

Blake pulled the
contract from his carry pouch and handed it across.

For a moment
Berdichev hesitated, looking down at the contract, wondering what was
best. His first instinct had been to tear it to shreds, but now he
didn't know. He looked back at the boy. If he
was
Edmund
Wyatt's son—and there was a quick way of proving that he was,
by genotyping—he was not worth a single
jen,
let alone
twenty million
yuan,
for his life was forfeit under the law
that said all the family of a traitor shared his fate, to three
generations ascending and descending.

He looked at
Andersen. The man was almost shitting himself. "Ten million,"
he said.

He would delay.
Perhaps he would even get the genotype done and make certain. But
then? He shivered. Then he would do nothing.

"Fifteen,"
Andersen answered, his voice betraying how intimidated he felt.

"Ten, or I
ask my friends in the House to close you down in two weeks, not
eight."

He saw Andersen
blink with surprise, then swallow. Seeing how things were, the
Director bowed his head.

"Good. Then
we'll finalize at once." But he was thinking, Who else would see
the resemblance? Who else would know about our visit to the Myghtern?
Who now but Lehmann and I?

Maybe it would
be all right, then. And perhaps, after all, he could help his dead
friend. Perhaps now he could ease the guilt he had suffered from
since Edmund's death.

Berdichev
shivered then looked back at the boy. Yes, and maybe I can do myself
a favor at the same time.

WHEN IT WAS all
over T'ai Cho came back into the lecture room. He was carrying a tray
and in his pocket was something the Director had given him to return
to Kim. He set the tray down on the desk beside the ArtMold, then sat
on the stool next to Kim.

"Things
went well this morning," he said, reaching out to ruffle Kim's
dark fine hair. "The Director was very pleased with you."

"Why should
he be pleased?"

T'ai Cho looked
down. "He was watching what you did. And with him was someone
very important. Someone who has de-. cided to ... adopt you."

"Adopt me?"

"Oh, don't
worry, Kim. You'll be here until you're sixteen. But then you'll join
one of the companies. The one that makes this, as a matter of fact."

He reached out
and touched the modified ArtMold, still surprised by what Kim had
done.

"Berdichev,"
said Kim.

T'ai Cho
laughed, surprised. "Yes. How did you know?"

"It was on
a newscast two days back. They said he owns SimFic."

"That's
right."
And now he owns you.
The thought disturbed T'ai
Cho, though why it should be different with Kim than with all the
others he didn't know. It was what happened to all his charges in
time. They were saved, but they were also owned. He shivered, then
reached out and took the cup from the tray and offered it to Kim,
then watched as he gulped the drink down savagely.

"I've
something for you too," he said, filling the cup once more from
the jug. "We don't usually let our boys keep anything from their
time in the Clay, but Director Andersen thought we should make an
exception in your case."

T'ai Cho took it
from his pocket and put it into Kim's hand, closing his fingers over
it.

Kim opened his
hand, then gave a small laugh. He held the pendant up and touched the
dangling circle with one finger, making it spin. It slowed, then
twisted back, spinning backward and forward. He seemed delighted with
the gift, yet when he looked up at T'ai Cho again his eyes were dark
with hurt. "What is it?" T'ai Cho asked. "Bodmin."

T'ai Cho shook
his head. "What? I don't follow you, Kim."

"The place
I came from. It was called Bodmin, wasn't it?" T'ai Cho laughed,
surprised. "Why, yes, now I come to think of it. But how did you
find out?"

Kim leaned
forward and dipped his finger in the mug, then drew on the worktop,
dipping his finger each time he formed a letter.

"An arrow.
A space. A woman's breasts. A ring. A drawn bow. Two steep hills. An
upright column. A gate. An eye with a curled eyebrow. It was a sign,
close by the Gate. Six ft."

"Miles,"
said T'ai Cho. "But it doesn't matter. I'm surprised."

"Why?"

T'ai Cho was
silent a moment. "Do you remember everything?"

Kim shook his
head, the hurt back in his eyes, stronger now than before. "No.
Not everything. I was asleep, you see. For a long time I was asleep.
And then I woke. The light woke me."

DARKNESS
LAY on the water like oil. It was almost dawn, but day would be a
month coming this far north. They lay there silently in the
flatboats, half a li from the shore of the island, waiting for the
signal in their heads. At ten minutes past five it came and they
began to move in, their faces and hands blacked up, their wet suits
blending with the darkness.

Hans Ebert,
commanding the raiding party, was first ashore. He crouched on the
slick stone steps, waiting, listening for sounds above the steady
slapping of the water on the rocks below.

Nothing. All was
well. A few seconds later the second signal sounded in his head and
he moved on quickly, his body acting almost without thought, doing
what it had rehearsed a hundred times in the last few days.

He could sense
his men moving in the darkness all about him; two hundred and
sixty-four of them, elite trained. The best in City Europe.

At the top of
the steps Ebert stopped. While his sergeant, Auden, set the charge on
the solid metal door, he looked back through the darkness at the
mainland. Hammerfest lay six
li
to the east, like a vast slab
of glacial ice, thrusting out into the cold northern sea. To north
and south of it the great wall of the City's edge ran into the
distance like a jagged ribbon, its pale whiteness lit from within,
tracing the shoreline of the ancient Finnmark of Norway. He shivered
and turned back, conscious of the unseen presence of the old fortress
walls towering above him in the moonless dark. It was a bugger of a
place. Just the kind of site one would expect SimFic to build a
special research unit in.

Auden came back
to him. Together they crouched behind the blast shield, lowering
their infrared lenses over their eyes. The charges would be fired
automatically by the third signal. They waited. Without warning the
night was rent by a whole series of detonations, some near, some
farther off. They let the shield fall forward and, not waiting for
the smoke to clear, charged through the gaping doorway, followed by a
dozen other men. At fifteen other points about the island the same
thing was happening. Even as he entered the empty corridor he could
hear the first bursts of small-arms fire.

The first
intersection was exactly where it should have been. Ebert stood at
the corner, looking to his left, his gun held against his shoulder,
searching out targets in the darkness up ahead. He waited until his
squad was formed up behind him, then counted them through, his
sergeant Auden first. Up ahead was the first of the guard posts, if
the plans were accurate, and beyond that the first of the
laboratories.

Ebert touched
the last man's arm as he went through, then glanced back the way he'd
come. For a moment he thought he saw movement and hesitated, but
there was nothing in the infrared. He turned back quickly, then set
off, running hard after his squad, hearing their boots echoing on the
floor up ahead of him. But he had gone only ten or so strides when
the floor seemed to .give in front of him and he was tumbling forward
down a slope.

He spread his
legs behind him to slow himself and tried to dig his gun into the
glassy surface of the slope. He slowed marginally, slewing to the
left, then, abruptly, thumped into the wall. For a moment he was
disoriented, his body twisted about violently. He felt his gun
clatter away from him, then he was sliding again, head first this
time, the yells closer now, mixed with a harsh muttering. A moment
later he thumped bruisingly into a pile of bodies.

Ebert groaned,
then looked up and saw Auden above him, the heated recognition patch
at his neck identifying him.

"Is anyone
hurt?" Ebert said softly, almost breathlessly, letting Auden
help him to his feet.

Auden leaned
close and whispered in his ear. "I think Leiter's dead, sir. A
broken neck. He was just behind me when it went. And there seem to be
a few other minor injuries. But otherwise . . ."

"Gods . .
." Ebert looked about him. "Where are we?"

"I don't
know, sir. This isn't on the plans."

To three sides
of them the walls went up vertically for forty, maybe fifty
ctii.
It
felt like they were at the bottom of a big, square-bottomed
well. Ebert stepped back and stared up into the darkness overhead,
trying to make something out. "There," he said, after a
moment, pointing upward. "If we can fire a rope up there we can
get out."

"If they
don't pick us off first."

"Right."
Ebert took a breath, then nodded. "You break up the surface
about six or eight
ch'i
up the slope. Meanwhile, let's keep
the bastards' heads down, eh?"

The sergeant
gave a slight bow and turned to bark an order at one of his men.
Meanwhile Ebert took two grenades from his belt. It was hard to make
out just how far up the entrance to the corridor was. Thirty
ch'i,
perhaps. Maybe more. There was only the slightest change in the
heat-emission pattern—the vaguest hint of an outline. He hefted
one of the grenades, released the pin, then leaned back and hurled it
up into the darkness. If he missed...

He heard it
rattle on the surface overhead. Heard shouts of surprise and panic.
Then the darkness was filled with sudden, brilliant light. As it
faded he threw the second grenade, more confident this time, aiming
it at the smoldering red mouth of the tunnel. Someone was screaming
up there—an awful, unnatural, high-pitched scream that chilled
his blood—
-then
the second explosion shuddered the air
and the screaming stopped abruptly.

Ebert turned.
Auden had chipped footholds into the slippery surface of the slope.
Now he stood there, the big ascent gun at his hip, waiting for his
captain's order.

"Okay,"
Ebert said. "Try and fix it into the roof of the tunnel.

As soon as it's
there I'll start up. Once I'm at the top I want a man to follow me
every ten seconds. Got that?"