The courtyard had not actually changed much in fourteen years, Dian saw. At the far right end of the Approvals building was the same stretch of unmarked wall with its insignificant door, which according to her mother was one of less than a dozen points of access to the city. She pulled the waterproof neck pouch from under her shirt, took out the letter from Ling, and made for the doorway.
Before she had covered half the distance, a tall Chinese woman in the dark green uniform of the Meijing guard intercepted her. The woman was everything Meijing represented: sleek and strong, her belt strung with compact devices whose purposes Dian couldn’t even begin to guess, although all of them looked scary.
“That door is not open to visitors,” the guard said firmly but politely; out of the corner of her eye, Dian saw a figure atop the long building shift her attention as well.
Dian signaled the dogs to relax and, careful to make no rapid movements, held the letter out to the woman. The guard did not reach for it but instead, unfailingly polite, asked Dian to open it. Only when it was free of its envelope and the page unfolded did the woman take it, stepping away to read Ling’s delicate characters. When she had done so, she looked up thoughtfully at Dian, her dogs, and the baby who was beginning to stir against her chest.
“You will have to wait a short while out here. I am sure you understand, I must give this to my superior.”
“I understand, but if you will be very long, do you think someone could arrange some food for the baby? She will be hungry soon and I have no milk for her.”
The woman looked a bit nonplussed at this, but she merely nodded and tipped her head to speak a few words into the air. Dian started to look and see who the guard was talking to, then caught herself—she was speaking into a shoulder radio, although the device itself was hidden. After a moment, the invisible colleague must have responded, because the woman turned and disappeared through the door, which, oddly enough, did not seem to be locked. Dian left the dogs with Simon and, conspicuously leaving her weapons on the saddle, took the waking baby for a stroll. Whispering soothing nonsense in a singsong voice and jiggling her up and down, Dian stopped to peer in the windows of the Approvals building. In this lab she could see a white-coated woman, her glossy black hair bent over a microscope while a trader waited impatiently on the other side of the counter. In the next cubicle another technician was holding a long strip of paper up before a group of five people, two of them men with heavy beards and bright, elaborately wrapped turbans on their heads. Further down she could see what she took to be a Geiger counter, though it was much larger than any she had seen before. In that stall also there was a pair of women in travel-stained clothing, only these two were shouting at each other in silent pantomime behind the glass. The technician in this cubicle looked on apprehensively, a pile of heavy, gleaming, very old silverware on the counter in front of her. As Dian watched, one of the women threw up her hands, shoveled the forks and spoons roughly into a cloth bag, and slammed out the door.
By now Willa was beginning to tell the world of her hunger, to the curious looks of some of the women remaining in the courtyard. Dian was just starting to wonder if she might be able to find some goat’s milk outside the gates when the small door opened and the tall guard came out, followed by two others.
“Would you come with me, please?” she asked. Dian gathered up Simon’s dangling reins and glanced up at the rooftop figure, of whom she had been very aware for the last ten minutes. That woman held a wicked-looking black shape in her hands that looked like an old semiautomatic weapon. She nodded politely at Dian as she passed, following the guards through the door, which was just tall and wide enough for a laden horse. The dogs followed, alert but controlled, and Dian entered the forbidden city of Meijing.
Walking down the narrow labyrinth to the echoing clop of the horse’s hooves and Willa’s sporadic protests, one guard in front and two behind, Dian saw through two sets of eyes. One set was hers as she was now, a woman familiar with the strategies of defense, who knew herself to be the equal of most of the women guarding this city. The other eyes belonged to a gangly adolescent with a new name and a new body, brought from a remote village to this hidden city whose very name evoked its magnificence.
They were now passing doors, some of which had half-recognized characters painted onto them (one something to do with soldiers, another with food requests—Dian kicked herself for not going further with Ling’s Chinese lessons) and others which were unmarked. One entrance was obviously the hospital for the area’s ill and injured, the doors broad and ramped, the air outside it smelling of drugs and pain. Shortly after the hospital, the roof gave way to open air. An overhead row of electrical lights flickered on, showering a harsh blue illumination onto the passageway and causing Simon to snort and toss his head.
Then the walls turned a sudden corner and ceased altogether, and she was startled to find a view of inner Meijing rolled out before her—she’d only expected to be given access to the walls, not the inner city itself. But here it was, lit by the last rays of the sun that slid underneath the fog, turning the silver walls to a warm rose color and making the world stop to catch its breath at the serenity and perfection within.
All the bustle of the city’s business was conducted within the actual structure of the perimeter wall itself. From outside Meijing, the wall seemed only a monolithic barrier, but on the inside there were great variations in depth, with balconies and roof gardens and thousands of windows to overlook the great uneven parkland that was the city, the sweep of countryside meticulously natural and unplanned in its heights and hollows, grassland and lakes, forest groves and tidy orchards and flowering shrubs. When she’d been here with Mother fourteen years ago, it had still looked raw in places, the new hills formed of rubble recently planted and containing unfinished patches; now it seemed that the last of the tarmac and concrete had been hauled off to the walls and the Bay, and under the softening, roseate fog, it looked like a young Eden.
“You are seeing it at the proper time of day,” spoke a quiet, precisely accented voice from Dian’s elbow. “The other side of the city is best at dawn, but from this side, dusk is better.”
Dian turned to the tiny figure standing at her side. The face was tantalizingly familiar, but who . . . ? The woman smiled.
“You do not remember me?” she chided.
The smile brought back a flood of memories, among which was a face much younger and not so amazingly small.
“Jung Xiansheng! But you’re so—” She stopped, not wishing to cause offense.
“Old, I know. And you have grown half a foot I think since my student your mother brought you here. The news of her death saddened me, but your presence brings me happiness. Come, let us refresh you, and your child. Your milk has not come in, I was told?”
Dian’s laugh roused Willa. Raising her voice, Dian said, “She isn’t mine. I rescued her at a crossroads, a couple of days ago. A simple birth defect, nothing contagious.” The older woman raised one eyebrow and nodded, then turned to Dian’s three escorts with a stream of Chinese too fast for Dian to follow, though she caught a few words, such as horse and mother and tea. One of the women bowed and marched back into the wall passageway. Teacher Jung spoke to Dian, loudly enough to make herself heard over the vigorous little set of lungs, “You will I think want those two monsters with you?” and nodded with a twinkle at Culum and Tomas.
“If it would not trouble you, please. They have excellent manners. I need only my saddlebag, if you wish to take the horse,” she said to the tall guard. “And you would probably be more comfortable if you searched me here, would you not?” Dian transferred the squalling Willa to Teacher Jung’s arms, where the infant calmed somewhat. She took the hunting knife from her belt and the narrow throwing knife from the top of her boot and gave both to the guard, who put them into Dian’s saddle roll. Dian then held her arms out for a brisk pat search, waited while her bags were examined, and returned the guard’s bow. The woman bowed low to Teacher Jung, th
en nodded to one of the others to lead the horse away, and followed. Jung sighed.
“Mai is a little overzealous in her duties, but a good girl. She is my number-ten grandchild.” She took Dian’s arm and started off at an angle across the parkland, talking about her family. An onlooker would have thought that she walked in the park every evening on the arm of a towering, disheveled blond woman with stained clothing, a howling infant tucked into her other arm, and a pair of dogs, either of whom easily outweighed the old woman, sauntering along behind.
Their path soon reached a magnificent freestanding building in a grove of timber bamboo, which Dian took for a temple until excited children of various sizes began to spill from within, chattering wildly at Teacher Jung and only just controlling their obvious desire to gawk at these huge, light-haired creatures (both two- and four-legged). An adult followed, and Jung placed Willa in the woman’s arms with brief instructions. Cries of starvation trailed off through the house until they were abruptly cut short. Food had been provided.
Meanwhile, Teacher Jung was making solemn introductions, and Dian bowed formally to each child and promptly forgot the names.
“Now,” said Teacher Jung, slowly and in English, “That is enough for tonight. Miss Dian will be here tomorrow. She will talk with you then. Did you understand, MeiLan?” The smallest tot looked puzzled until an older sister translated for her, and then she presented Dian with a smile of angelic sweetness, bowed with the others, and back they poured up the steps into the temple-house. Teacher Jung watched them go with a grandmother’s pride.
“I hope you will pardon their manners,” she said. “They are young and inexperienced.”
“Their manners are beautiful,” Dian said in an unnecessary protest. “I hope I will be allowed to talk with them.”
Teacher Jung nodded complacently.
“I very much hope you will stay some days with us. Ling said in her letter that you are on your way north to investigate a group of potential immigrants to your valley, but she thinks you may not be overly pressed for time.” It was a question.
“I’d love to stay for a day or two, but I’m afraid that you may not find us the easiest of guests.”
“Nonsense. But the baby—oh, goodness, here I criticize the children’s manners! You are weary from the road and I make you stand and chatter. Come, one of my granddaughters will show you to your rooms, and when you have refreshed yourself you will come and drink tea with me, and we will talk. First, however, I think Ling will have sent a small parcel for me?”
Dian pulled the thick envelope from her bag and with both hands gave it to the woman, to her evident satisfaction.
“Very good, thank you. Ah, here is CaThai, she will take you upstairs. When you are rested, come down, and someone will bring you to me. There is no hurry, we will not take our meal until eight-thirty.”
Dian bowed and followed the tiny trouser-clad woman upstairs, where she was shown a small room with three comfortable chairs around a burning fire, with an adjoining bedroom, complete with two large furry pads on the floor for the dogs and a spacious bathroom whose tiled tub stretched fully six feet long. She thanked CaThai, who giggled as she left. When Dian was alone, she introduced the dogs to their beds, dropped her grimy saddlebags onto the floor, and went to soak the smell of horse, dog, and dust from her skin.
The water was murky by the time she’d finished, so she fiddled with the control to the shower, a mad arrangement of five spray heads, and when she had finally found how to make it neither scald nor freeze her, nor puncture her more tender parts with streams like needles, she figured she was clean enough and shut it off.
The towels, all four of them, were warm from a loop in the hot-water supply. She wrapped one around her, began to walk out of the steamy bathroom toweling her hair with another one, then came to a dead halt at an absolutely horrifying thought.
“Oh, shit,” she said to Culum, lying in the bathroom doorway with his chin on his paws. “I forgot to buy myself a shirt.”
Here she was, about to go to dinner with her mother’s honored teacher, head of one of the most powerful families in Meijing, and the only clothing she owned was crumpled and permanently stained, thanks to Willa. And the shops around the gate would be shut by now. Perhaps she should plead exhaustion? Impossible to do so without causing offense. No way around it, she would be letting her family down badly this evening, confirming all Meijing’s worst thoughts about the peasants living in the country. Damnation.
She slowly rubbed the towel across her scalp, stepped over Culum, and her eye was caught by a flash of color from the bed. A shimmering blue-on-silver-shot silk tunic and trousers with a two-inch band of embroidery, also blues and silver, around the collar and down the front. She held the tunic to her chest with the sleeve stretching down to her wrist; the trousers, too, reached her feet. She shook her head in wonderment: With fifteen minutes’ warning, the family’s guest had been provided with a warm room, beds for two hulking dogs, and clothing suitable for a misshapen barbarian. They’d even managed to come in and out without alarming the dogs. No wonder these people controlled the world.
The silk was cool and heavy, disturbingly sensual against her skin, but the clothes might have been tailored for her, and there was even a pair of soft cloth shoes, snug but not impossibly so. She went into the bathroom to see if her hair was anywhere near presentable, decided it was hopeless but at least clean, and spent ten minutes trying to decipher the labels on a collection of cosmetics, gadgets, and bottles she found behind the mirrored cabinet. In the end she settled for some nice-smelling face crème, rather than risk the spectacle of childishly applied makeup.
She was prepared to ask at the base of the stairs for directions, but just outside her door stood a casual cluster of children, laying in wait for the privilege of escort duty. As the procession went down the stairs, one of the bravest girls reached forward and gently squeezed Culum’s tail. This reduced half the crew to shrieks of laughter, and they remained behind, huddled together on the carpeted staircase and exclaiming wildly, but Dian managed to gain Teacher Jung’s office with her remaining three bodyguards.
Jung called for her to enter, but she barely looked up from the papers on the desk in front of her.
“I do not like to be discourteous,” she said, “but I think it best that I finish reading this before we talk. Please take some tea, and feel free to browse through the books.”
Dian took her cup to the shelves, where a gold-lettered spine caught her eye, and she sat down with the book of photographs of San Francisco—all from Before, of course—and drank her flower-scented tea. Ten or fifteen minutes passed before Teacher Jung stirred, tapped her papers together into a neat pile, and came to take the chair across from Dian. She was wearing gold-rimmed glasses.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said. “Ling’s words had some bearing on our conversation. But first, tell me more about finding the child.”
Dian explained; to her surprise Jung pressed her, most knowledgeably, for further details: Where precisely had Dian found her? Was that the second or the third crossroads along that length of roadway? Had she kept the scrap of blanket? No? Pity, it might have helped to identify the group. Abandonment is a serious crime. And the names of the women who nursed the child? Yes, she knew of Jamilla, and Deirdre, although she had not had the pleasure of meeting either. The woman at the cantina was not identified? It should not prove difficult.
“But, surely,” she said finally, “you do not intend to take the child with you on your northern journey?”
“It would be a bit difficult,” Dian agreed. “I thought I might ask you for advice on arranging a dependable wet nurse and have her care for Willa while I’m gone. I can pay, that’s no problem. I also wanted to ask you about her toes.”
“Certainly the toes can be dealt with, and at the price of some physical discomfort now we can save her a lifetime of mental agony as a pariah. There will be no trace by the time she begins to walk. As to the other, do no
t be ridiculous. You are Ling’s family, therefore you are ours, and we take responsibility for one of our own. She will be cared for by us until you return.”
“Thank you, Jung Xiansheng. That’s a burden off my mind.”
“Good. Would you care for another cup of tea? No? Very well.” She peeled her glasses from her ears and fixed Dian with a speculative gaze, then seemed to come to a decision. “My dear,” she said, “I would appreciate it if you would consider spending four or five nights with us and allowing me to perform some tests upon you. I do not mean physical tests,” she said quickly, seeing Dian’s reaction. “Ling says in her letter that you may wish a detailed examination, and I would be happy to arrange for that if you so choose. Perhaps on your way back down. I mean psychological ones, or perhaps parapsychological is the word I want. Let me explain.” She poured herself another cup of the pale tea and took several sips as if to strengthen herself, then placed the cup decisively on the enameled tray and began.
“To much of the outside world, we in Meijing are a cross between traders and sorcerers—highly successful, disgustingly wealthy traders with a mania for privacy, sorcerers holding an uncomfortable familiarity with technology. Those who know us better are aware of the responsibilities we take on. The military police are the most visible, and therefore most controversial, but even our critics give us credit for schools and health care. We are a small population within the city, and yet we try to keep the population under our influence not only safe and free from disease but also mentally healthy. All of the children in the Bay Area are educated to the age of twelve, and nearly all citizens can read and write, at least in English. Citizens who are talented, whether they are Chinese or not, we nurture and educate further. We train and encourage not only scientists but musicians and artists, we establish libraries, even run film and video centers for entertainment.
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