The Middle Kingdom (51 page)

He almost
smiled. "It wasn't the bird, Meg. At least, not the outer thing,
the cage of bone and flesh, sinew and feather. It was what was within
the bird—the force that gave it such power, such vitality."
He looked down at his left hand, then turned it over, studying its
back. "That's where its beauty lies. Not in the outward show but
in the shaping force. That"—he seemed to shiver—"well,
it's mystery. Pure mystery. And that frightens me, Meg. The thought
of all that dark, unharnessed power simply existing in the world. I
look at it and I want to know where it comes from. I want to know why
it's there at all. Why it isn't mere mechanics and complexity of
detail. Why all that fiery excess?"

"The force
that through the green fuse drives the flower."

And now he did
smile, pleased by her recognition; by her quoting back at him the
poem he had read to her only two days past. How rare that was, him
smiling. And only for her. Never for mother or father. Nor for those
others who came so rarely to this place.

"I guess
there's that too," he said. "That same force brings us on,
from bud to flower to ... well, to something browned and withered.
And thus
to
clay." He shrugged. "It's all connected,
isn't it? It uses us and then discards us. As if we're here only to
flesh out its game—to give it form. Doesn't that frighten you,
Meg?"

She shook her
head. "Why should it? There's plenty of time, Ben. A whole world
of time before we have to think of that."

He studied her
intently for a moment, then bowed his head slightly. "Perhaps."

He began to
walk, treading a careful path through the marshy ground, following a
rising vein of rock that jutted from the sodden turf, until he came
beneath the shadow of the Wall.

There, facing
them not thirty paces away, was the Seal. Part of the Wall, it was
the same dull pearl in color, a great circle five times Ben's height,
its base less than an arm's length above the surface of the ground,
its outer edge a thick ridge of steel-tough plastic.

For a moment he
stood there, staring at it, oblivious of all else.

Meg, watching
him, understood. It was a gateway. A closed door. And beyond it was
the darkness of the Clay. Primal, unadulterated Clay. Beyond it the
contiguous earth was sun-deprived and ban-en. Here Heaven, there
Hell. And only a Wall, a Seal, between the two.

She climbed up
beside him on the ridge of rock. "What's that?" She pointed
outward to their left. There was something there. Something small and
pale and gray against the green. Something that hadn't been there
before.

He looked, then
shrugged. "I don't know. Let's see, eh?"

At once he
scrambled down. Meg hesitated, then followed. The ground was soft and
spongy and in only a few paces her canvas shoes were soaked. Ben had
gone ahead of her, his feet sinking, squelching as he ran. Then she
saw him crouch down and examine something.

She came up
behind him and looked over his shoulder. It was a rabbit. A dead
rabbit.

"What
killed it?" she asked.

He prized the
carcass up from out of the wet, clinging turf and turned it over,
examining it.

"I don't
know. There's no sign of external injury. But it's not been here
long." He looked up at her. "Here, Meg, give me your
pullover."

She slipped her
pullover off and handed it to him, then watched as he spread it out
and laid the dead animal on it.

"What are
you doing?"

Ben drew his
hunting knife from its sheath, then cut the rabbit from chin to rump.
For a moment he watched the blood well from the cut, staining the
mottled gray fur, then laid the knife down and eased the flesh apart.

Meg watched,
fascinated and horrified, as he probed inside the animal, the blood
dark on his fingers. Then he lifted something small and wet; a pale,
tiny sac attached by tubes and ten-

dons to the
rest. It glistened in his fingers as he bent to study it. Then he
looked up at her.

"It's as I
thought. Look. The liver's covered in dark blotches." She shook
her head, not understanding; watching him bundle the rabbit in her
pullover, then lift it and sling it over his shoulder.

"It was
diseased," he said, staring across at the Seal. Then he turned
to look at her again. "It's part of the change in things, Meg.
Don't you see that now? There's a sickness here in the Domain. A
killing thing."

HAL SHEPHERD
stood at the turn of the road, his hands resting lightly on the low
stone wall, looking down at the row of cottages and the bay beyond.
To his right the hill rose up above where he stood, then fell again
to meet the next turn of the river. It was dotted with old
stone-built houses and cottages. At its summit was a small church.

It was almost
three months since he had been home, but now, standing there, it
seemed that he had never been away. This
much at least remains
unchanged,
he thought. Each hill, each tree, each house was
familiar to him from youth. I
see it as my grandfather saw it, and
his grandfather before him.
In three hundred years only the trees
had changed, growing older, dying, replaced by others of their own
ancient seed.
Like us,
he thought.
We, too, are trees.

He walked on.
The road dipped steeply here, then curved back wickedly upon itself.
Where he had been standing had been a turning point for cars once
upon a time—when there were still cars in the world—but
this had never been a place for modern things. Even back then, when
the world was connected differently, it had been seven miles by road
to the nearest town of any size, and that easier to get to by the
river. Time had stood still here even then. During the Ma'dness, when
the old world had heaved itself apart, this place had been a point of
stillness at the center of things. Now it was timeless.

There were
walls, no more than a pace or two either side of him. Whitewashed
walls, in heavy shadow now, their low-silled windows dark; only one
cottage in the row lit up. He smiled, seeing it ahead of him;
imagining Beth there in the low-beamed living room, the fire lit and
the curtains drawn; seeing her, as he had so often seen her, go to
the back door and call the children in from the meadow.

Home. It meant
so many things, but only one to him. He would have withered inside
long ago had there not been this to return to.

He stood outside
the low, broad door, listening, then put his hand out flat against
the wood and gently pushed. There was no need for locks here. No need
for fear. The door swung back slowly, silently, and he went in.

Beth stood there
in the doorway, framed by the soft light of the living room behind
her and to her left. She smiled. "I knew you were coming. I
dreamed of you last night."

He laughed and
went to her, then held her tightly against-him, kissing her tenderly.
"Your dreams . . ." He gazed into her eyes, loving the
beauty, the measureless depth of them. "They never fail you do
they?"

She smiled and
kissed his nose. "No. Never."

He shivered and
reached up to stroke her cheek, then trace the contours of her lips
with a fingertip. His whole body was alive with desire for her.
"Where's Ben? And Meg?"

Her body was
pressed hard against his own, her hands at his neck. Her eyes now
were dark with longing, her voice softer, more alluring. "They're
outside. Down by the creek. But they'll not be back. Not just yet."
She kissed him again, a harder, longer kiss this time.

"Yes . . ."
He let his left hand rest gently on her waist a moment, then rucked
up her skirt. Beneath it she wore nothing. He shuddered and sought
her mouth again, the kiss more urgent now. His fingers traced the
warm smoothness of her thighs and belly, then found the hot wetness
at the core of her. She moaned softly and closed her eyes, her whole
body trembling at his touch, then she reached down and freed him,
holding his swollen penis momentarily, her fingers softly tracing its
length, once, then again, almost making him come, before drawing him
up into her.

He groaned, then
grasped her by the buttocks and lifted her,

backing her
against the wall, thrusting up into her once, twice, a third time,
before he came explosively, feeling her shudder violently against
him.

For a while,
then, they were silent, watching each other. Then Beth smiled again.
"Welcome home, my love."

THE PINE SURFACE
of the kitchen table was freshly scrubbed, the knives newly
sharpened. Ben looked about him, then left the bundled rabbit on the
wide stone step outside and busied himself. He spread an oilcloth on
the table, then laid the big cutting board on top of it. He laid the
knives out beside the board and then, because it was growing dark,
brought the lamp from beside the old ceramic butler sink, trimming
the wick before he lit it.

Meg stood in the
garden doorway, her small figure silhouetted against the twilight
redness of the bay. She watched him roll back his sleeves, then fill
a bowl with water and set it beside the knives.

"Why are
you doing that?" she asked. "You know it's diseased. Why
not burn it? Surely that's best?"

"No."
Ben barely glanced at her. He turned and went down the four steps
that led into the long, dark, low-eeilinged dining room, returning a
moment later with a book from the shelves. An old thing, leather
bound and cumbersome. "I've a hunch," he said, putting the
heavy volume down on the other side of the board to the knives and
the water.

Meg went across
and stood beside him. It was a book of animal anatomy. One of their
great-great-great-grandfather Amos's books. Ben flicked through the
pages until he came to the diagram he was looking for. "There,"
he said, the heavy, glossy pages staying in place as he turned away
to bring the rabbit.

She looked. Saw
at once how like a machine it was. A thing of pumps and levers,
valves and switches, controlled by chemicals and electric pulses. It
was all there on the page, dissected for her. The whole of the
mystery—there at a glance.

Ben came back.
He placed the dead rabbit carefully on the block, then turned and
looked at her. "You needn't stay, Meg. Not if you don't want
to."

But she stayed,
fascinated by what he was doing, knowing that this had meaning for
him. Something had caught his attention. Something she had missed but
he had seen. Now she waited as he probed and cut and then compared
what had been exposed against the diagram spread across the double
page.

At last,
satisfied, he went to the sink and washed his hands, then came back
and threw a muslin cloth over the board and its bloodied contents.

"Well?"

He was about to
answer her when there was the sound of footsteps in the dining room.
Their mother's. Then a second set.

Meg pushed past
him and jumped down the four steps in her haste.

"Daddy!"

Hal Shepherd
gathered his daughter up, hugging her tight and kissing her,
delighted to see her. Then he ducked under the lintel and climbed the
steps up into the kitchen, Beth following.

"Gods, Ben,
what have you been up to?"

Ben turned to
face the table.

"It's a
dead rabbit. We found it down by the Seal. It's diseased. But that's
not all. It doesn't come from here. It was brought in."

Hal put Meg down
and went across. "Are you sure, Ben?" But he knew that Ben
was rarely if ever wrong.

Ben pulled back
the cloth. "Look. I made certain of it against Amos's book. This
one isn't real. It's a genetic redesign. Probably GenSyn. One of the
guards must have made a substitution."

Hal studied the
carcass a while, then nodded. "You're right. And it won't be the
only one, I'm sure. I wonder who brought it in?"

Ben saw the
anger mixed with sadness on his father's face. There were two gates
to the Domain, each manned by an elite squad of a dozen men, hand
picked by the T'ang himself. Over the years they had become friends
of the family and had been granted privileges—one of which was
limited entry to the Domain. Now that would have to stop. The culprit
would have to be caught and made to pay.

Meg came up to
him and tugged at his arm. "But why would they do it, Daddy?
There's no great difference, is there?"

Hal smiled
sadly. "It's a kind of foolishness, my love, that's all.

You see, there
are people in the City who would pay a vast sum of money to be able
to boast they had real rabbit at one of their dinners."

Ben stared at
the carcass fixedly. "How much is a vast sum?"

Hal looked down
at his son. "Fifty, maybe a hundred thousand
yuan
for
each live animal. They would breed them, you see, then sell the
doctored litters."

Ben considered.
Such a sum would be as nothing to his father, he knew, but to others
it was a fortune. He saw at once how such an opportunity might have
tempted one of the guards. "I see," he said. "But
there's another, more immediate worry. If they're all like this they
could infect everything in the Domain. We'll need to sweep the whole
area. Catch everything and test it. Quarantine whatever's sick."

Hal nodded,
realizing his son was right. "Damn it! Such stupidity! I'll have
the culprit's hide!" He laid a hand on his son's shoulder. "But
you're right, Ben, we'd best do something straightaway. This can't
wait for morning."

He turned to
Beth, anger turning to apology in his face. "This complicates
things, I'm afraid. I meant to tell you earlier, my love. We have a
guest coming, tomorrow evening. An important guest. He'll be with us
a few days. I can't say any more than that. I was hoping we could
hunt, but this business buggers things."

She frowned at
him and made a silent gesture toward Meg.