‘And what is your answer?’
Li Shai Tung took a small, shuddering breath. ‘For too long we have been running hard to try to catch up with ourselves. The time has come when we can do that no longer. Our legs cannot hold us. We must have controls. Now, before it is too late.’
‘Controls?’ Wang Sau-leyan asked, a faint puzzlement in his face.
Li Shai Tung looked back at him, nodding. But even now it was hard to say the words themselves. Hard to throw off the shroud of silence that surrounded this matter and speak of it directly. He raised himself slightly in his chair, then forced himself to say it.
‘What I mean is this. We must limit the number of children a man might have.’
The silence that greeted his words was worse than anything Li Shai Tung had ever experienced in Council. He looked at Tsu Ma.
‘You see the need, don’t you, Tsu Ma?’
Tsu Ma met his eyes firmly, only the faintness of his smile suggesting his discomfort. ‘I understand your concern, dear friend. And what you said – there is undeniably a deal of truth in it. But is there no other way?’
Li Shai Tung shook his head. ‘Do you think I would even raise the matter if I thought there were another way? No. We must take this drastic action and take it soon. The only real question is how we go about it, how we can make this great change while maintaining the status quo.’
Wei Feng pulled at his beard, disturbed by this talk. ‘Forgive me, Shai Tung, but I do not agree. You talk of these things as if they must come about, but I cannot see that. The attack on the Plantations would, I agree, have had serious repercussions, yet now we are forewarned. Surely we can take measures to prevent further attacks? When you said to me earlier that you wished to take decisive action, I thought you meant something else.’
‘What else could I have meant?’
Wei Feng’s ancient features were suddenly unyielding. ‘It’s obvious, surely, cousin? We must take measures to crush these revolutionaries. Enforce a curfew in the lower levels. Undertake level-by-level searches. Offer rewards for information on these bastards.’
Li Shai Tung looked down. That was not what he meant. The solution was not so simple. The dragon of Change had many heads – cut off one and two more grew in its place. No, they had to be far more radical than that. They had to go to the source of the problem. Right down to the root.
‘Forgive me, cousin Feng, but I have already taken such measures as you suggest. I have already authorized young Ebert to strike back at the Ping Tiao. But that will do nothing to assuage the problem I was talking of earlier. We must act, before this trickle of revolutionary activity becomes a flood.’
Wu Shih was nodding. ‘I understand what you are saying, Shai Tung, but don’t you think that your cure might prove more drastic than the disease? After all, there is nothing more sacred than a man’s right to have children. Threaten that and you might alienate not just the revolutionary elements but the whole of Chung Kuo.’
‘And yet there are precedents.’
Wei Feng snorted. ‘You mean the Ko Ming emperors? And where did that end? What did that achieve?’
It was true. Under Mao Tse-tung the Ko Ming had tried to solve this problem more than two hundred years before, but their attempt to create the one-child family had only had limited success. It had worked in the towns, but in the countryside the peasants had continued having six, often a dozen children. And though the situations were far from parallel, the basic underlying attitude was unchanged. Chung Kuo was a society embedded in the concept of the Family, and in the right to have sons. Such a change would need to be enforced.
He looked back at Wu Shih. ‘There would be trouble, I agree. A great deal of trouble. But nothing like what must ultimately come about if we continue to ignore this problem.’ He looked about him, his voice raised momentarily, passionate in its belief. ‘Don’t you see it, any of you? We must do this! We have no choice!’
‘You wish to put this to a vote, Shai Tung?’ Wei Feng asked, watching him through narrowed eyes.
A vote? He had not expected that. All he had wanted was for them to carry the idea forward – to agree to bring the concept into the realm of their discussions. To take the first step. A vote at this stage could prevent all that – could remove the idea from the agenda for good.
He began to shake his head, but Wang Sau-leyan spoke up, taking up Wei Feng’s challenge.
‘I think a vote would be a good idea, cousins. It would clarify how we feel on this matter. As Shai Tung says, the facts are clear, the problem real. We cannot simply ignore it. I for one support Shai Tung’s proposal. Though we must think carefully how and when we introduce such measures, there is no denying the need for their introduction.’
Li Shai Tung looked up, astonished. Wang Sau-leyan… supporting him! He looked across at Tsu Ma, then at Wu Shih. Then perhaps…
Wei Feng turned in his chair, facing him. ‘I take it you support your own proposal, Shai Tung?’
‘I do.’
‘Then that is two for the proposal.’
He looked at Wu Shih. The T’ang of North America looked across at Li Shai Tung, then slowly shook his head.
‘And one against.’
Tsu Ma was next. He hesitated, then nodded his agreement.
‘Three for, one against.’
Next was Chi Hsing, T’ang of the Australias. ‘No,’ he said, looking at Li Shai Tung apologetically. ‘Forgive me, Shai Tung, but I think Wu Shih is right.’
Three for, two against.
On the other side of Wang Sau-leyan sat Hou Tung-po, T’ang of South America, his smooth, unbearded cheeks making him seem even younger than his friend, Wang. Li Shai Tung studied him, wondering if, in this as in most things, he would follow Wang’s line.
‘Well, Tung-po?’ Wei Feng asked. ‘You have two children now. Two sons. Would you have one of them not exist?’
Li Shai Tung sat forward angrily. ‘That is unfair, Wei Feng!’
Wei Feng lifted his chin. ‘Is it? You mean that the Seven would be exceptions to the general rule?’
Li Shai Tung hesitated. He had not considered that. He had thought of it only in general terms.
‘Don’t you see where all this leads us, Shai Tung?’ Wei Feng asked, his voice suddenly much softer, his whole manner conciliatory. ‘Can’t you see the great depth of bitterness such a policy would bring in its wake? You talk of the end of Chung Kuo, of having no alternative, yet in this we truly have no alternative. The freedom to have children – that must be sacrosanct. And we must find other solutions, Shai Tung. As we always have. Isn’t that the very reason for our existence? Isn’t that the purpose of the Seven – to keep the balance?’
‘And if the balance is already lost?’
Wei Feng looked back at him, deep sadness in his eyes, then turned, looking back at Hou Tung-po. ‘Well, Tung-po?’
The young T’ang glanced at Li Shai Tung, then shook his head.
Three for. Three against. And there was no doubt which way Wei Feng would vote. Li Shai Tung shivered. Then the nightmare must come. As sure as he saw it in his dreams, the City falling beneath a great tidal wave of blood. And afterwards?
He thought of the dream his son, Li Yuan, had had, so long ago. The dream of a great white mountain of bones, filling the plain where the City had once stood. He thought of it and shuddered.
‘And you, Wei Feng?’ he asked, meeting his old friend’s eyes, his own lacking all hope.
‘I say no, Li Shai Tung. I say no.’
Outside, in the great entrance hall, Tsu Ma drew Li Shai Tung aside, leaning close to whisper to him.
‘I wish a word with you, Shai Tung. In private, where no one can overhear us.’
Li Shai Tung frowned. This was unlike Tsu Ma. ‘What is it?’
‘In private, please, cousin.’
They went into one of the small adjoining rooms and closed the door behind them.
‘Well, Tsu Ma? What is it?’
Tsu Ma came and stood very clo
se, keeping his voice low, the movements of his lips hidden from the view of any overseeing cameras.
‘I must warn you, Shai Tung. There is a spy in your household. Someone very close to you.’
‘A spy?’ He shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean just that. A spy. How else do you think Wang Sau-leyan has been able to anticipate you? He knew what you were going to say to the Council. Why else do you think he supported you? Because he knew he could afford to. Because he had briefed those two puppets of his to vote with Wei Feng.’
Li Shai Tung stared back at Tsu Ma, astonished not merely at this revelation but by the clear disrespect he was showing to his fellow T’ang, Hou Tung-po and Chi Hsing.
‘How do you know?’ he asked, his own voice a hoarse whisper now. It was unheard of. Unthinkable.
Tsu Ma laughed softly, and leaned even closer. ‘I have my own spies, Shai Tung. That’s how I know.’
Li Shai Tung nodded vaguely, but inside he felt numbness, real shock, at the implications of what Tsu Ma was saying. For it meant that the Seven could no longer trust each other. Were no longer, in effect, Seven, but merely seven men, pretending to act as one. This was an ill day. He shook his head. ‘And what… ?’
He stopped, turning, as the knocking on the door came again.
‘Come in!’ said Tsu Ma, stepping back from him.
It was Wei Feng’s Chancellor, Ch’in Tao Fan. He bowed low.
‘Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but my master asks if you would kindly return. Urgent news has come in. Something he feels you both should see.’
They followed Ch’in through, finding the other five T’ang gathered in Wei Feng’s study before a huge wallscreen. The picture was frozen. It showed a shaven-headed Han, kneeling, a knife held before him.
‘What is this?’ Li Shai Tung asked, looking at Wei Feng.
‘Watch,’ Wei Feng answered. ‘All of you, watch.’
As the camera backed away, a large ‘big-character’ poster was revealed behind the kneeling man, its crude message painted in bright red ink on the white in Mandarin, an English translation underneath in black.
PING TIAO INNOCENT
OF BREMEN TRAGEDY
WE OFFER OUR BODIES
IN SYMPATHY WITH
THOSE WHO DIED
The camera focused on the man once more. He was breathing slowly now, gathering himself about the point of his knife. Then, with a great contortion of his features, he cut deep into his belly, drawing the knife slowly, agonizingly across, disembowelling himself.
Li Shai Tung shuddered. Our bodies… did that mean? He turned to Wei Feng. ‘How many of them were there?’
‘Two, maybe three hundred, scattered throughout the City. But the poster was the same everywhere. It was all very tightly coordinated. Their deaths were all within a minute of each other, timed to coincide with the very hour of the original attack.’
‘And were they all Han?’ Tsu Ma asked, his features registering the shock they all felt.
Wei Feng shook his head. ‘No. They were evenly distributed, Han and Hung Mao. Whoever arranged this knew what he was doing. It was quite masterful.’
‘And a lie,’ said Wu Shih angrily.
‘Of course. But the masses will see it otherwise. If I had known I would have stopped the pictures going out.’
‘And the rumours?’ Tsu Ma shook his head. ‘No, you could not have hushed this up, Wei Feng. It would have spread like wildfire. But you are right. Whoever organized this understood the power of the gesture. It has changed things totally. Before it we had a mandate to act as we wished against them. But now…’
Li Shai Tung laughed bitterly. ‘It changes nothing, cousin. I will crush them anyway.’
‘Is that wise?’ Wei Feng asked, looking about him to gauge what the others felt.
‘Wise or not, it is how I will act. Unless my cousins wish it otherwise?’
Li Shai Tung looked about him, challenging them, a strange defiance in his eyes, then turned and hurried from the room, his every movement expressive of barely controlled anger.
‘Follow him, Tsu Ma,’ Wei Feng said, reaching out to touch his arm. ‘Catch up with him and try to make him see sense. I understand his anger, but you are right – this changes things. You must make him see that.’
Tsu Ma smiled, then looked away, as if following Li Shai Tung’s progress through the walls. ‘I will try, Wei Feng. But I promise nothing. Bremen has woken something in our cousin. Something hard and fierce. I fear it will not sleep until he has assuaged it.’
‘Maybe so. But we must try. For all our sakes.’
Chapter 58
GODS OF THE FLESH
‘Kuan Yin preserve us! What is that?’
DeVore turned, looking at his new lieutenant. ‘Haven’t you ever seen one of these, Schwarz?’ He stroked the blind snout of the nearest head, the primitive nervous system of the beast responding to the gentleness of his touch. ‘It’s a jou tung wu, my friend, a meat-animal.’
The jou tung wu filled the whole of the left-hand side of the factory floor, its vast pink bulk contained within a rectangular mesh of ice. It was a huge mountain of flesh, a hundred ch’i to a side and almost twenty ch’i in height. Along one side of it, like the teats of a giant pig, three dozen heads jutted from the flesh: long, eyeless snouts with shovel jaws that snuffled and gobbled in the conveyor-belt trough that moved constantly before them.
The stench of it was overpowering. It had been present even in the lift coming up, permeating the whole of the stack, marking the men who tended it with its rich, indelible scent.
The factory was dimly lit, the ceiling somewhere in the darkness high overhead. A group of technicians stood off to one side, talking softly, nervously amongst themselves.
Schwarz shuddered. ‘Why does it have to be so dark in here?’
DeVore glanced at him. ‘It’s light-sensitive, that’s why,’ he said, as if that were all there was to it, but he didn’t like it either. Why had Gesell wanted to meet them here? Was the lighting a factor? Was the bastard planning something?
DeVore looked past Schwarz at Lehmann. ‘Stefan. Here.’
Lehmann came across and stood there silently, like a machine waiting to be instructed.
‘I want no trouble here,’ DeVore said, his voice loud enough to carry to the technicians. ‘Even if Gesell threatens me, I want you to hold off. Understand me? He’ll be angry. Justifiably so. But I don’t want to make things any more difficult than they are.’
Lehmann nodded and moved back.
There was the sound of a door sliding back at the far end of the factory. A moment later five figures emerged from the shadows. Gesell, the woman, Ascher, and three others – big men they hadn’t seen before. Looking at them, DeVore realized they were bodyguards and wondered why Gesell had suddenly found the need to have them.
The Ping Tiao leader wasted no time. He strode across and planted himself before DeVore, his legs set apart, his eyes blazing, the three men formed menacingly into a crescent at his back.
‘You’ve got some talking to do this time, Shih Turner. And you’d better make it good!’
It was the second time Gesell had threatened DeVore. Schwarz made to take a step forward, but found Lehmann’s hand on his arm, restraining him.
‘You’re upset,’ DeVore said calmly. ‘I understand that. It was a fuck-up and it cost us dearly. Both of us.’
Gesell gave a small laugh of astonishment. ‘You? What did it cost you? Nothing! You made sure you kept your hands clean, didn’t you?’
‘Are you suggesting that what happened was my fault? As I understand it, one of your squads moved into place too early. That tipped off a Security captain. He reported in to his senior commander. At that point the plug had to be pulled. The thing wouldn’t have worked. If you calmed down a while and thought it through, you’d see that. My man on staff had to do what he did. If he hadn’t, they’d have been in place, waiting for your assault squads. They’d have taken some of them al
ive. And then where would you be? They may have been brave men, Shih Gesell, but the T’ang’s servants have ways of getting information from even the most stubborn of men.
‘As for what I lost, I lost a great deal. My fortunes are bound up with yours. Your failure hurt me badly. My backers are very angry.’
DeVore fell silent, letting the truth of what he’d said sink in.
Gesell was very agitated, on the verge of striking DeVore, but he had been listening – thinking through what DeVore had been saying – and some part of him knew that it was true. Even so, his anger remained, unassuaged.
He drew his knife. ‘You unctuous bastard –’
DeVore pushed the blade aside. ‘That’ll solve nothing.’
Gesell turned away, leaning against the edge of the trough, the jou tung wu in front of him. For a moment he stood there, his whole body tensed. Then, in a frenzy of rage, he stabbed at the nearest head, sticking it again and again with his knife, the blood spurting with each angry thrust, the eyeless face lifting in torment, the long mouth shrieking with pain, a shriek that was taken up all along the line of heads, a great ripple running through the vast slab of red-pink flesh.
Gesell shuddered and stepped back, looking about him, his eyes blinking, then threw the knife down. He looked at DeVore blankly, then turned away, while, behind him, the blind snouts shrieked and shrieked, filling the foetid darkness with their distress.
The technicians had held back. Now one of them, appalled by what the Ping Tiao leader had done, hurried across, skirting Gesell. He jabbed a needle-gun against the wounded head, then began rubbing salve into the cuts, murmuring to the beast all the while as if it were a child. After a moment the head slumped.
Slowly the noise subsided, the heads grew calm again, those nearest falling into a matching stupor.
‘Still,’ DeVore said after a moment, ‘you’ve contained the damage rather well. I couldn’t have done better myself.’
He saw how Gesell glanced uncertainly at Ascher and knew at once that he’d had nothing to do with the ritual suicides. He was about to make comment when a voice came from the darkness to his left.
The Broken Wheel Page 8