The Middle Kingdom (67 page)

"Perhaps
you should meet him," Berdichev added hastily, glancing across
at Douglas as if for confirmation. "Then you might understand.
He's not. . . well, he's not perhaps what you'd expect."

"Yes. Of
course. When?"

"Would now
do?"

DeVore shrugged.
"Why not?" But his curiosity was intense now. Why should
the boy be not what he'd expect? "Is there something I should
know beforehand, Soren? Is there something strange about him?"

Berdichev gave a
brief laugh. "You'll understand. You more than anyone will
understand."

While Berdichev
went to get the boy he waited, conscious of Douglas's unease. It was
clear he had met the boy already. It was also clear that something
about the young man made him intensely uncomfortable. He glanced at
DeVore, then, making up his mind, gave a brief bow and went across to
the door.

"I must be
getting back, Howard. You'll forgive me, but my guests . . ."

"Of
course." DeVore returned the bow, then turned, intrigued,
wondering what it was about the boy that could so thoroughly spook
the seemingly imperturbable Douglas.

He did not have
long to wait for his answer.

"Howard,
meet Stefan Lehmann."

DeVore shivered.
Despite himself, "he felt an overwhelming sense of aversion
toward the young man who stood before him. It wasn't just the
shocking, skull-like pallor of his face and hair, nor the unhealthy
pinkness of his eyes, both signs of albinism, but something to do
with the unnatural coldness of the youth.

When he looked
at you it was as if an icy wind blew from the far north. DeVore met
those eyes and saw through them to the emptiness beyond. But he was
thinking, Who are you? Are you really Lehmanris son? Were you really
taken from your mother's womb and bred inside a nurture-unit until
the world was ready for you?

Red in white,
those eyes. Each eye a wild, dark emptiness amid the cold, clear
whiteness of the flesh.

He stepped
forward, offering his hand to the albino but looking at Berdichev as
he did so. "Our eighth man, I presume."

"I'm
sorry?" Then Berdichev understood. "Ah, yes, I said I'd
explain, didn't I? But you're right, of course. Stefan was the first
to be briefed. He insisted on it. After all, he's responsible for
sixty percent of the funding."

DeVore looked
down at the hand that held his own. The fingers were long,
unnaturally thin, the skin on them so clear, it seemed he could see
right through them to the bone itself. But the young man's grip was
firm, his skin surprisingly warm.

He looked up,
meeting those eyes again, suddenly curious; wanting to hear the boy
speak.

"So. You
want to stay with me a while?"

Stefan Lehmann
looked at him—looked through him—then turned and looked
across at Berdichev.'

"You were
right, Uncle Soren. He's like me, isn't he?"

DeVore laughed,
uncomfortable, then let go the hand, certain now. The boy's voice was
familiar—unnaturally familiar. It was Pietr Lehmann's voice.

THE ALBINO was
standing behind where he was sitting, studying the bank of screens,
when Peskova came into the room. DeVore saw how his lieutenant
hesitated--saw the flicker of pure aversion, quickly masked, that
crossed his face—before he came forward.

"What is
it, Peskova?"

DeVore sat back,
his eyes narrowed.

Peskova bowed,
then glanced again at the albino. "There's been unrest,
Shih
Bergson. Some trouble down on Camp Two."

DeVore looked
down at the desk. "So?"

Peskova cleared
his throat, self-conscious in the presence of the stranger. "It's
the Han woman, Overseer. Sung's wife. She's been talking."

DeVore met his
lieutenant's eyes, his expression totally unreadable. "Talking?"

Peskova
swallowed. "I had to act, Shih Bergson. I had to isolate her
from the rest."

DeVore smiled
tightly. "That's fine. But you'll let her go now, eh? You'll
explain that it was all a mistake."

Peskova's mouth
opened marginally, then closed without a sound. Bowing deeply, and
with one last, brief look at the albino, he turned and left, to do at
once what the Overseer had ordered.

"Why did
you tell him that?"

DeVore turned
and looked at Lehmann's son. He was eighteen, but he seemed ageless,
timeless. Like death itself.

"To make
him do as I say, not as he thinks he should do."

"And the
woman?"

DeVore smiled
into that empty, masklike face. He had no need to answer. The boy
knew already what would happen to the woman.

THE MOON was
huge and monstrous in the darkness: a full, bright circle, like a
blind eye staring down from nothingness. Si Wu Ya looked up at it and
shivered, anxious now. Then, as the rope tightened again, tugging at
her, she stumbled on, the tops of her arms chafing where the rope bit
into them.

Ahead of her
Sung was whimpering again. "Be quiet!" she yelled, angry
with him for his weakness, but was rewarded with the back of Teng's
hand. Then Teng was standing over her, his breathing heavy and
irregular, a strange excitement in his face. Groaning, the pain in
her lower body almost more than she could bear, she got to her feet,
then spat blood, unable to put her hand up to her mouth to feel the
damage he had done to her.

Ahead lay the
water-chestnut fields, glimmering in the reflected light from Chung
Kuo's barren sister.

We are cursed,
she thought, staggering on, each step sending a jolt of pain through
her frpm ass to abdomen. Even Teng and Chang. Even Peskova and that
bastard Bergson. All cursed. Every last one of us. All of us fated to
go this way; stumbling on in darkness, beneath the gaze of that cold,
blind eye.

She tried to
laugh but the sound died in her before it reached her lips. Then,
before she realized it, they had stopped and she was pushed down to
the ground next to Sung, her back to him.

She lay there,
looking about her, the hushed voices of the four men standing nearby
washing over her like the senseless murmur of the sea.

Smiling, she
whispered to her husband. "The sea, Sung. I've never seen the
sea. Never really seen it. Only on vidcasts. . . ."

She rolled over
and saw at once that he wasn't listening. His eyes were dark with
fear, his hands, bound at his sides like her own, twitched
convulsively, the fingers shaking uncontrollably.

"Sung. . .
." she said, moved by the sight of him. "My sweet little
Sung. . . ."

She wanted to
reach out and hold him to her, to draw him close and comfort him, but
it was too late now. All her love for him, all her anguish, welled up
suddenly, overwhelming her.

"Kuan Yin!"
she said softly, tearfully. "Oh, my poor Sung. I didn't mean to
be angry with you. Oh, my poor, poor darling. I didn't mean—"

Teng kicked her
hard in the ribs, silencing her.

"Which one
first?"

The voice was
that of the simpleton, Seidemann. Si Wu Ya breathed slowly, deeply,
trying not to cry out again, letting the pain wash past her, over
her; trying to keep her mind clear of it. In case. Just in case. . .
.

She almost shook
her head; almost laughed. In case of what? It was done with now.
There was only pain ahead of them now. Pain and the end of pain.

Peskova
answered. "The woman. We'll do the woman first."

She felt them
lift her and take her over to the low stone wall beside the
glimmering field of water chestnuts. The woman, she thought, vaguely
recognizing herself in the words. Not Si Wu Ya now, no longer Silk
Raven, simply "the woman."

She waited, the
cold stone of the wall pushed up hard against her breasts, her knees
pushing downward into the soft, moist loam, while they unfastened the
rope about her arms. There was a moment's relief, a second or two
free of pain, even of thought, then it began again.

Teng took one
arm, Chang the other, and pulled. Her head went down sharply,
cracking against the top of the wall, stunning her.

There was a cry
followed by an awful groan, but it was not her voice. Sung had
struggled to his feet and now stood there, only paces from where the
Overseer's man Peskova was standing, a big rock balanced in both
hands.

Sung made a
futile struggle to free his arms, then desisted. "Not her,"
he pleaded. "Please gods, not her. It's me you want. I'm the
thief, not her. She's done nothing. Nothing. Kill me, Peskova. Do
what you want to me, but leave her be. Please gods, leave her be. . .
." His voice ran on a moment longer, then fell silent.

Teng began to
laugh, but a look from Peskova silenced him. Then, with a final look
at Sung, Peskova turned and brought the rock down on the woman's
upper arm.

The cracking of
the bone sounded clearly in the silence. There was a moment's quiet
afterward, then Sung fell to his knees, vomiting.

Peskova stepped
over the woman and brought the heavy stone down on the other arm. She
was unconscious now. It was a pity, that; he would have liked to have
heard her groan again, perhaps even to cry out as she had that night
when The Man had played his games with her.

He smiled. Oh,
yes, they'd all heard that. Had heard and found the echo in
themselves. He looked across at Sung. Poor little Sung. Weak little
Sung. All his talk meant nothing now. He was powerless to change
things. Powerless to save his wife. Powerless even to save himself.
It would be no fun killing him. No more fun than crushing a bug.

He brought the
stone down once again; heard the brittle sound of bone as it snapped
beneath the rock. So easy it was. So very, very easy.

Teng and Chang
had stepped back now. They were no longer necessary. The woman would
be going nowhere now. They watched silently as he stepped over her
body and brought the stone down once again, breaking her other leg.

"That's
her, then." Peskova turned and glanced at Sung, then looked past
him at Seidemann. "Bring him here. Let's get it over with."

Afterward he
stood there beside the wall, staring at Sung's body where it lay,
facedown on the edge of the field of water chestnuts. Strange, he
thought. It was just like a machine. Like switching off a machine.

For a moment he
looked out across the water meadow, enjoying the night's stillness,
the beauty of the full moon overhead. Then he heaved the stone out
into the water and turned away, hearing the dull splash sound behind
him.

KIM
LAY on his back in the water, staring up at the ceiling of the pool.
Stars hung like strung beads of red and black against the dull gold
background, the five sections framed by Han pictograms. It was a copy
of part of the ancient Tun Huang star map of A. D. 940. According to
the Han it was the earliest accurate representation of the heavens; a
cylindrical projection which divided the sky into twenty-eight
slices—like the segments of a giant orange.

There was a game
he sometimes played, floating there alone. He would close his eyes
and clear his mind of everything but darkness. Then, one by one, he
would summon up the individual stars from within a single section of
the Tun Huang map; would set each in its true place in the heavens of
his mind, giving them a dimension in time and space that the
inflexibility—the sheer flatness—of the map denied them.
Slowly he would build his own small galaxy of stars. Then, when the
last of them was set delicately in place, like a jewel in a sphere of
black glass, he would try to give the whole thing motion.

In his earliest
attempts this had been the moment when the fragile sphere had
shattered, as if exploded from within; but experiment and practice
had brought him beyond that point. Now he could make the sphere
expand or contract along the dimension of time; could trace each
separate star's unique and unrepeated course through the nothingness
he had created within his skull. It gave him a strong feel for
space—for the relationships and perspectives of stars. Then,
when he opened his eyes again, he would see—as if for real—the
fine tracery of lines that linked the beadlike stars on the Tun Huang
map, and could see, somewhere beyond the dull gold surface, where
their real positions lay—out there in the cold, black eternity
beyond the solar system.

Kim had cleared
his mind, ready for the game, when he heard the doors at the far end
of the pool swing open and the wet slap of bare feet on the tiles,
followed moments later by a double splash. He knew without looking
who it was, and when they surfaced, moments later, close to him,
acknowledged them with a smile, his eyes still closed, his body
stretched out in the water.

"Daydreaming?"
It was Anton's voice.

"That's
right," he said, assuming a relaxed, almost lazy tone of voice.
He had told no one of his game, knowing how the other boys responded
to the least sign of eccentricity. Both Anton and Josef were some
three years older than he and shared a tutorial class with him, so
they knew how brilliant he was; but brilliance inside the classroom
was one thing, how one behaved outside it was another. Outside they
took care to disguise all sign of what had brought them here.

At times Kim
found this attitude perverse. They should be proud of what they
were—proud of the gifts that had saved them from the Clay. But
it was not so simple. At the back of it they were ashamed of what
they were. Ashamed and guilty. They had survived, yes, but they knew
that they were here on sufferance. At any moment they could be cast
down again, into darkness. Or gassed, or simply put to sleep. That
knowledge humbled them; bound them in psychological chains far
stronger than any physical restraint. Outside the classroom they were
rarely boastful.