But even though Tzu knew Chinese, he could hardly understand what was said by the passersby. They spoke so quickly and their voices rose and fell in pitch, so it was hard to hear, and they were talking about things he didn’t understand. There was a whole world he knew nothing about, and he never got to see it because he was always inside the garden playing with tutors.
“Let’s go outside the walls today,” he said to his Common tutor.
“But I’m here for us to read together,” she said.
“Let’s go outside the walls and read today,” said Tzu.
“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t have the key.”
“Mu-ren has a key,” said Tzu. He had seen the cook go out of the gate to shop for food in the market and come back with a cart. “Pei-tian has a key, too.” That was Father’s driver, who brought the car in and out through the gate.
“But I don’t have a key.”
Was she really this stupid? Tzu ran to Mu-ren and said, “Wei Dun-nuan needs a key to the gate.”
“She does?” said Mu-ren. “Whatever for.”
“So we can go outside and read.”
By then Mu-ren had caught up with him. She shook her head at Mu-ren. Mu-ren squatted in front of Tzu. “Little Master,” she said, “you don’t need to go outside. Your papa doesn’t want you out on the street.”
That was when Tzu realized he was a prisoner.
They come here and teach me what Father wants me to learn. I’m supposed to become the best child. Even the children that come here are the ones they pick for me. How do I know if I’m the best, when I never get to find children on my own? And what does it matter if I’m best at boring games? Why can’t I ever leave this house and garden?
“To keep you safe,” Father explained that evening. Mu-ren or the tutor must have told him about the key. “You’re a very important little boy. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I won’t be hurt.”
“That’s because you won’t go out there until you’re ready,” said Father. “Right now you have more important things to do. Our garden is very large. You can explore anywhere you want.”
“I’ve looked at all of it.”
“Look again,” said Father. “There’s always more to find.”
“I don’t want to be the best child,” said Tzu. “I want to see what’s outside the gate.”
“After you take the tests,” said Father, laughing. “Plenty of time. You’re still very, very young. Your life isn’t over yet.”
The tests. He had to take the tests first. He had to be best child before he could go out of the garden.
So he worked hard at his games with the tutors, trying to get better and better so he could win the tests and go outside. Meanwhile, he also studied all the walls of the garden to see if there was a way to get through or under or over them without waiting.
Once he thought he found a place where he could squeeze under a fence, but he no sooner had his arm through than one of the tutors found him and dragged him back in. The next time, that place had tight metal mesh between the bottom of the fence and the ground.
Another time he tried to climb a box set on top of a bin, and when he got to the top he could see the street, and it was glorious, hundreds of people moving in all directions but almost never bumping into each other, the bicycles zipping along and not falling over, and the silent cars crawling through as people moved out of the way for them. Everyone wore bright colors and looked happy or at least interested. Every single person had more freedom than Tzu did. What kind of emperor will I be if I let people keep me inside a cage like a pet bird?
So he tried to swing his leg up onto the top of the wall, but once again, before he could even get his body weight onto the top, along came a tutor, all in a dither, to drag him down and scold him. And when he came back to the place, the bin was no longer near the wall. Nothing was ever near the garden walls again.
Hurry up with the tests, then, thought Tzu. I want to be out there with all the people. There were children out there, some of them holding on to their mothers’ hands, but some of them not holding on to anybody. Just…loose. I want to be loose.
Then one day the newest tutor, Shen Guo-rong, the one with the logic games and lists, stood outside Tzu’s room and talked with his father in a low voice for a long time. He came in with a paper, which he looked at long and hard.
“What’s on that paper?”
“A note from your father.”
“Can I read it?” asked Tzu.
“It’s not a note to you, it’s a note to me,” said Guo-rong.
But when he set it down, it wasn’t a note at all. It was covered with diagrams and words. And that day, all their games were chosen by Guo-rong after consulting with the paper.
It went like that for days. Always the same answers, until Tzu knew them all in order and could start reciting them before the questions were asked.
“No,” said Guo-rong. “You must always wait for the question to be completely finished before you answer.”
“Why?”
“That’s the rule of the game,” he said. “If you answer any question too fast, then the whole game is over and you lose.”
That was a stupid rule, but Tzu obeyed it. “This is boring,” he said. “The test will be soon,” said Guo-rong. “And you’ll be completely ready for it. But don’t tell the testers about any of your practice with me.”
“Why not?”
“It will look better for you if they don’t know about me, that’s all.”
That was the first time that Tzu realized that there might be something wrong with the way he was being prepared for the tests. But he had little time to think about it, because the very next day, a strange woman and a strange man came to the house. They had no folds over their eyes and had strange ruddy skin, and they wore uniforms he recognized from the vids. They were with the IF, the International Fleet.
“He’s fluent in Common?” the man said.
“Yes,” said Father—Father was home! Tzu ran into the room and hugged his father. “This is a special day,” Father told him as he hugged him back. “These people are going to play some games with you. A kind of test.”
Tzu turned and looked at them. He didn’t know the test was from soldiers. But now it became clear to him. Father wanted him to become a great general like Yuan Shikai. The beginning of that would be to enter the military. Not the Chinese army, but the fleet of the whole world.
But he didn’t want to go into space. He just wanted to go out on the street.
He knew Father would not want him to ask about this, however. So he smiled at the man and the woman and bowed to each in turn. They bowed back, smiling also.
Soon Tzu was alone in his playroom with the two of them. No tutors, no servants, no Father.
The woman spread out some papers and brought out shapes, just like the ones he had practiced with.
“Have you seen these before?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Where?”
Then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk about Guo-rong, so he just shrugged.
“You don’t remember?”
He shrugged again.
She explained the game to him—it was just like the one Guo-rong had played. And when she held up a shape, it was the very one they had practiced with, and he instantly recognized it from the choices on the paper. He pointed.
“Good,” she said.
And so it went with the next two shapes. They were exactly the ones Guo-rong had shown him, and the answer was exactly the one that had been on the note from Father.
Suddenly Tzu understood it all. Father had cheated. Father had found out the answers to the test and had given them to Guo-rong so that Tzu would know all the answers to all the questions.
It took only a moment to make the next leap. In a way, it was a logic problem. The best child is the one who scores the best on this test. He wants me to be best child. So I must score the best on this test.
But if I score the best because I was given the answers in advance and trained to memorize them, then this test won’t prove I’m the best child, it will only prove that I can memorize answers.
If Father believed I was the best child, then he would not need to get these answers in advance. But he did get the answers. Therefore he must believe that I would not have won the test without having special help. Therefore Father does not believe I am best child, he just wants to fool other people into believing that I am.
It was all he could do to keep from crying. But even though his eyes burned and he felt a sob gathering behind his nose and in his throat, he kept his face calm. He would not let the people know that his father had given him the answers. But he would also not pretend to be best child when he really wasn’t.
So the next question he got wrong.
And the next.
And all the others.
Even though he knew the answer to every single one, before they even finished the question, he got every one of them wrong.
The woman and man from the International Fleet showed no sign of whether they liked his answers or not. They smiled cheerfully all the time, and when they were done, they thanked him and left.
Afterward, Father and Guo-rong came into the room where Tzu waited for them. “How did it go?” asked Father.
“Did you know the answers?” asked Guo-rong.
“Yes,” said Tzu.
“All of them?” asked Father.
“Yes,” said Tzu.
“Did you answer all the questions?” asked Guo-rong.
“Yes,” said Tzu.
“Then you did very well,” said Father. “I’m proud of you.”
You’re not proud of me, thought Tzu as his father hugged him. You didn’t believe I’d pass the test on my own. You didn’t think I was best child. Even now, you’re not proud of me, you’re proud of yourself for getting all the answers.
There was a special dinner that night. All the tutors ate with Father and Tzu at the main table. Father was laughing and happy. Tzu could not help but smile at all the smiling people. But he knew that he had answered all but the first three questions wrong, and Father would not be happy when he found that out.
When dinner was over, Tzu asked, “Can I go outside the gate now?”
“Tomorrow,” said Father. “In daylight.”
“The sun is still up,” said Tzu. “Take me now, Father.”
“Why not?” said Father. He rose to his feet and took Tzu by the hand and they walked, not to the gate where the car came in and out, but to the front door of the house. It let out onto another garden, and for a moment Tzu thought his father was going to try to fool him into thinking this was the outside when it was really more garden. But soon the path led to a metal gate which opened at Father’s touch, and beyond the gate was a wide road with many cars on it—more cars than people. It was a different world from what Tzu had seen over the back fence. It was so quiet. The cars glided silently by, their tires hissing on the pavement, though there were some that had no tires and merely hovered over the concrete of the road.
“Where are all the people and bicycles?” asked Tzu.
“Behind the house is a back road,” said Father. “Where poor people go about their business. This is the main road. It connects to the highway. These cars could be going anywhere. Xiangfan. Zhengzhou. Kaifeng. Even Wuhan or Beijing or Shanghai. Great cities, where powerful people live. Millions of them. In the richest and greatest of all nations.” Then Father picked Tzu up and held him on his hip so their faces were close. “But you are the best child in all those cities.”
“No I’m not,” said Tzu.
“Of course you are,” said Father.
“You know that I’m not,” said Tzu.
“What makes you say that?”
“If you thought I was best child, you wouldn’t have given Guo-rong all the answers.”
Father just looked at him for a moment. “I was just making sure. You didn’t need them.”
“Then why did you have him teach them to me?” said Tzu.
“To be sure.”
“So you weren’t sure.”
“Of course I was,” said Father.
But Tzu had been studying logic. “If you were sure I would know the answers on my own, then you wouldn’t have to make it sure by getting the answers. But you got the answers. So you weren’t sure.”
Father looked a little bit upset.
“I’m sorry, Father, but it’s how we play the logic game. Maybe you need to play it more.”
“I am sure that you’re the best child,” said Father. “Don’t you ever doubt it.” He set Tzu down and took his hand again. They went through the gate and walked up the street.
Tzu wasn’t interested in this road. There were no people here, except in cars, and they went by too fast for Tzu to hear them. There were no children. So when they came to a side street, Tzu began to pull his father that direction. “This way,” he said. “Here’s all the people!”
“That’s why it isn’t safe,” said Father. But then he laughed and let Tzu lead him on into the crowds. After a while it was so jammed with people and bicycles that Father picked him up. That was much better. Tzu could see the people’s faces. He could hear their conversations. Some of them looked at Tzu, being held up by his father, and smiled at them both. Tzu smiled and waved back.
Father walked slowly alongside a high fence, which Tzu realized was the back fence around their garden. Eventually they came to a gate, which Tzu knew was the gate to their garden. “Don’t go in yet,” said Tzu.
“What?”
“This is our gate, but don’t go in.”
“How did you know it was our gate? You’ve never been on this side of it before.”
“Father,” said Tzu impatiently, “I’m very smart. I know this is our gate. What else could it be? We’ve just made a circle. Let me see more before we go in.”
So they walked past the gate, and on into one of the streets that seemed to go on forever, more and more people, flowing into and out of the buildings. Starting and stopping, buying and selling, calling out and keeping still, laughing and serious-faced, talking on phones and gesturing, or listening to music and dancing as they walked.
“Is this China, Father?” asked Tzu.
“A very small part of it. There are hundreds of cities, and lots of open country, too. Farmland and mountains, forest and beaches. Seaports and manufacturing centers and highways and deserts and rice paddies and wheatfields and millions and millions and millions of people.”
“Thank you,” said Tzu.
“For what?”
“For letting me see China before I go off into space.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The man and woman with the test, they were from the International Fleet.”
“Who told you that?”
“They wore the uniforms,” said Tzu impatiently. But then he realized: He hadn’t passed the test. He answered the questions wrong. He wouldn’t be going to space after all. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m staying.”
Father laughed and held him close. “Sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about, Little Master.”
Tzu wondered if he should tell him that he answered the questions wrong, but he decided against it. Father was so happy. Tzu didn’t want to make him angry tonight.
The next morning, Tzu was eating breakfast in the kitchen with Mu-ren when someone came to the door. The visitor did not wait for old Iron-head, as Mu-ren and Tzu secretly called the houseman, to fetch Father. Instead, many feet began walking briskly through the house.
The kitchen door was flung open. A soldier with a weapon in his hand stepped in and looked around. “Is Han Pei-mu here?” he asked sternly. Mu-ren shook her head.
“What about Shen Guo-rong?”
Again, the head shake.
“Guo-rong doesn’t come till later,” said Tzu.
“You two stay right here in the kitchen, please,” s
aid the soldier. He continued to stand in the doorway. “Keep eating, please.”
Tzu continued eating, trying to think what the soldiers were there for. Mu-ren’s hands were shaking. “Are you cold?” asked Tzu. “Or are you scared?”
Mu-ren only shook her head and kept eating.
After a while he could hear his father shouting. “Let me at least explain to the boy!” he was saying. “Let me see my son!”
Tzu got up from his mat on the floor and jogged toward the kitchen door. The soldier put his hand on his shoulder to stop him.
Tzu slapped his hand and said to him fiercely, “Don’t touch me!” Then he jogged on down the hallway to Father’s room, the soldier right behind him.
The door opened just before Tzu got to it, and there was the man from the test yesterday. “Apparently someone already decided,” said the man. He ushered Tzu into the room.
Father’s hands were bound together behind his back, but now one of the soldiers loosed them and he reached out to Tzu. Tzu ran to him and hugged him. “Are you under arrest?” asked Tzu. He had seen arrests on the vids.
“Yes,” said Father.
“Is it because of the answers?” asked Tzu. It was the only thing he could think of that his father had ever done wrong.
“Yes,” said Father.
Tzu pulled away from him and faced the man from the tests. “But it was all right,” said Tzu. “I didn’t use those answers.”
“I know you didn’t,” said the man.
“What?” said Father.
Tzu turned around to face him. “I didn’t like it that you were only going to pretend I was best child. So I didn’t use any of the answers. I didn’t want to be called best child if I wasn’t really.” He turned back to the man from the fleet. “Why are you arresting him when I didn’t use the answers?”
Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show Page 14