An Inch of Ashes (CHUNG KUO SERIES)

by David Wingrove

  ‘It’s too close there,’ he went on. ‘Too...’ he laughed; a short, almost painful laugh, ‘too intense. You’ll find that difficult to understand, I know. I don’t hate it, it’s just that I need distance from all that. Need something other than what I get there.’

  He had set down his glass and was pushing at the skin of his left hand with the fingers of his right; looking down at it as he smoothed and stroked the ridged flesh.

  ‘And where, then, do I fit in? Am I real to you, Ben, or am I just something to be got?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, meeting her eyes candidly. ‘Maybe that’s all there is. Different kinds of getting.’

  She was about to speak – about to say something she would have regretted later – when the laughter rang out again, louder this time. She felt herself go cold, realizing whose voice it was that led the cold, mocking laughter.

  Sergey...

  She turned, seeing him at once. He was no more than twenty ch’i away from where they were sitting.

  He turned in his chair, smiling at her. ‘Catherine! How lovely to see you!’

  She could see that he was drunk. He pushed himself up unsteadily from his chair then came across, pulling out the empty chair beside her. Ignoring Ben, he sat, leaning towards her unpleasantly, almost threateningly, as he spoke.

  ‘How are you, Catherine, my dear? It’s quite a while since we saw you here, isn’t it?’

  He belched, then turned, a sneering smile lighting his reddened face.

  ‘And who’s this?’ He feigned startled surprise. ‘My word, if it isn’t our friend, the genius!’ He made a mocking bow of politeness, but when he straightened up his face had hardened and his eyes were cold with malice. ‘I’ve been wanting to have a few words with you, friend.’

  There was an ugliness in the emphatic way he said the last word. A hint of violence.

  She watched, her irritation with Ben transformed into fear for him. She knew just how dangerous Sergey could be when he was in this kind of mood.

  Ben smiled and turned to call the waiter over. Yes, she thought, that’s best. End it now, before it gets out of hand. But instead of asking the waiter to remove Sergey, Ben ordered a fresh bottle of the house wine and an extra glass. He turned back, facing his antagonist.

  ‘You’ll have a drink with us, I hope?’

  Sergey gave a snort of surprise and annoyance. ‘I really can’t believe you, Shepherd. You’re such a smooth shit, aren’t you? You think you can buy the world.’

  ‘Sergey...’ she began, but he banged his fist down hard, glaring at her.

  ‘Shut up, Catherine! You might learn a few things about smiling boy here.’

  She turned away, shutting her eyes, wishing it would stop.

  Sergey leaned forward, his whole manner openly hostile now. ‘You’re not from here, are you, Shepherd?’

  Ben was silent, musing.

  ‘You’re not, are you?’

  Catherine opened her eyes and looked across. There was a faint smile on Ben’s lips: a wistful little smile.

  ‘I’ve been doing a little digging,’ Sergey said, leaning across the table towards Ben, his breath heavy with wine. ‘And guess what I found out?’ He laughed coldly. ‘Our friend here bought his way into Oxford. Just like he buys up everything. They waived the rules to let him in.’

  Catherine shook her head. ‘I don’t follow you...’

  Sergey huffed, disgust writ large on his face. ‘He’s a charlatan, that’s what he is. He shouldn’t be here. He’s like all the other parasites. The only difference is that he’s not a Han.’ He laughed brutally, then turned and looked at her again, angry now. ‘Unlike the rest of us, Shepherd here has no qualifications. He’s never passed an exam in his life. As for work...’ The laugh was broken, the sneer in the voice pointed. At nearby tables people had broken off their own conversations to see what was going on. ‘He’s never attended a single tutorial. Never handed in a single essay. And as for sitting the end of year exams, forget it. He goes home before all that. He’s above it, you see. Or at least, his money is.’

  There was a flutter of laughter at that. But Sergey was not to be distracted by it. He was in full flow now, one hand pointing at his target as he spoke.

  ‘Yes, he’s a strange one, this one. He’s rich and he’s obviously connected. Right up to the top, so they say. But he’s something of a mystery, too. He’s not from the City. And that’s why he despises us.’

  She stared at Sergey, not understanding. What did he mean? Everyone came from the City. There was nowhere else to come from. Unless... She thought of the handwritten letters – of the strangeness of so many things connected with Ben – and for a moment felt uncertainty wash over her. Then she remembered what he was doing: recollected what she herself had experienced in the frame.

  ‘You’re wrong, Sergey. You don’t understand...’

  Sergey pulled himself up and went round the table, then stood there, leaning over Shepherd. ‘No. I understand only too well. He’s a fucking toad, that’s what he is. A piece of slime.’

  She watched the two of them anxiously, terrified of what was going to happen. ‘He’s drunk,’ she said pleadingly. ‘He doesn’t mean it, Ben. It’s the drink talking.’ But she was afraid for him. He didn’t know Sergey; didn’t know how vicious his temper was.

  Ben was looking at her, ignoring the other man. He seemed calm, unaffected by the words, by the physical presence of the other man above him.

  ‘Let him have his say, my love. It’s only words.’

  It was the first time he had called her love, but she scarcely noticed it. All she could see was that the very mildness of Ben’s words acted to inflame Sergey’s anger.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said icily. ‘It’s more than words.’

  Ben turned and looked up at him, undaunted. ‘When a fool tells you you’re wrong, you rejoice.’

  It was too much. Sergey lunged at him with both hands, trying to get a grip on his neck, but Ben pushed him away and stood, facing him. Sergey was breathing heavily, furious now. He made a second grab at Ben and got hold of his right arm, trying to twist it round behind his back and force him down on to his knees.

  Catherine was on her feet, screaming. ‘No! Please, Sergey! Don’t hurt him! Please don’t hurt him!’

  Waiters were running towards them, trying to force a way through the crowd and break it up, but the press about the table was too great.

  Using brute strength Sergey forced Ben down, grunting with the effort. Then, suddenly, Ben seemed to yield and roll forward, throwing his opponent off balance. Sergey stumbled and fell against a chair. When he got up there was blood running from beneath his eye.

  ‘You bastard...’

  With a bellow of rage he threw himself at Ben again, but Ben’s reflexes were much quicker. As Sergey lunged past him, he moved aside and caught hold of Sergey’s right hand, turning the wrist.

  The snap of breaking bones was audible. Sergey shrieked and went down on to his knees, cradling the useless hand.

  For a moment Ben stood over him, his legs planted firmly apart, his chest rising and falling erratically, then he shuddered.

  ‘I didn’t mean...’

  But it was done. The sculptor’s hand was crushed and broken. Useless, it began to swell. Sergey pushed at it tenderly with one finger of the other hand, then moaned and slumped forward, unconscious.

  Ben stepped back, away, his eyes taking in everything. Then he turned and looked back at Catherine. She was standing there, her hands up to her mouth, staring down at the injured man.

  ‘Ben...’ she said softly, her voice barely in control. ‘Oh, Ben. What have you done?’

  Meg looked about her as they walked down Main towards the transit. The air was still, like the air inside a sealed box. It was the first thing she had noticed. There was no movement in the air, no rustling of leaves, none of the small, soft sounds that moving water makes, no hum of insects. Instead, small boys went between the flower boxes with spray cans, poll
inating the flowers, or watered the huge oaks which rested in deep troughs set into the floor. From their branches hung cages: huge, ornately gilded cages filled with bright-coloured birds. But nothing flew here. Nothing bent and danced in the open wind.

  ‘They like it like this,’ Ben said, as if that explained it all. Then he frowned and turned to look at her. ‘But it doesn’t satisfy. Nothing here satisfies. It’s all surfaces. There’s nothing deep here. Nothing rooted.’

  It was Meg’s first full morning in the City, though morning here meant little more than a change in the intensity of the overhead lighting. Outside, beyond the City’s walls, it was still dark. But here that fact of nature did not matter. Throughout City Europe, time was uniform, governed not by local variation but in accordance with the rising and setting of the sun over the City’s eastern edge.

  Morning. It was one more imperfect mimicry. Like the trees, the flowers, the birds, the word lost its sharp precision here without a sun to make it real.

  They went up fifty levels to the college grounds. This was what they termed an ‘open deck’ and there was a sense of space and openness. Here there were no tight warrens of corridors, no ceiling almost within touch wherever one went; even so, Meg felt stifled. It was not like being in a house, where the door opened out on to the freshness of a garden. Here the eyes met walls with every movement. She had forgotten how awful it was. Like being in a cage.

  ‘How can you stand it here?’

  He looked about him, then reached out, taking her hand. ‘I’ve missed you, you know. It’s been... difficult.’

  ‘Difficult?’

  They had stopped in the central hexagonal space. On every side great tiers of balconies sloped back gently towards the ceiling, their surfaces transparent, reflecting and refracting light.

  ‘You should come home, Ben. All this...’ She looked about her, shaking her head. ‘It’s no good for you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, looking away from her. ‘And yet I’ve got to try to understand it. It may be awful, but this is what is, Meg. This is all that remains of the world we made.’

  She went to shake her head, to remind him of home, but checked herself. It was not the time to tell him why she’d come. Besides, talking of home would only infuriate him. And perhaps he was right. Perhaps he did have to try to understand it. So that he could return, satisfied, knowing there was nothing else – nothing missing from his world.

  ‘You seem depressed, Ben. Is it just the place? Or is it something else?’

  He turned, half-smiling. ‘No. You’re right. It’s not just the place.’ He made a small despairing gesture, then looked up at one of the great tiers of balconies. Through the glass-like walls one could see people – dozens, hundreds, thousands of people. People, everywhere you looked. One was never alone here. Even in his rooms he felt the press of them against the walls.

  He looked back at her, his face suddenly naked, open to her. ‘I get lonely here, Meg. More lonely than I thought it possible to feel.’

  She stared at him, then lowered her eyes, disturbed by the sudden insight into what he had been feeling. She would never have guessed.

  As they walked on he began to tell her about the fight. When he had finished she turned to face him, horrified.

  ‘But they can’t blame you for that, Ben. He provoked you. You were only defending yourself, surely?’

  He smiled tightly. ‘Yes. And the authorities have accepted that. Several witnesses came forward to defend me against his accusation. But that only makes it worse, somehow.’

  ‘But why? If it happened as you say it did?’

  He looked away, staring across the open space. ‘I offered to pay full costs. For a new synthetic, if necessary. But he refused. It seems he plans to wear his broken hand like a badge.’

  He looked back at her, his eyes filled with pain and hurt and anger. And something else.

  ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself, Ben. It was his fault, not yours.’

  He hesitated, then shook his head. ‘So it seems. So I made it seem. But the truth is, I enjoyed it, Meg. I enjoyed pushing him. To the limit and then...’ He made a small pushing movement with one hand. ‘I enjoyed it. Do you understand that, Meg?’

  She watched her brother, not understanding. It was a side of him she had never seen, and for all his words she couldn’t quite believe it.

  ‘It’s guilt, Ben. You’re feeling guilty for something that wasn’t your fault.’

  He laughed and looked away. ‘Guilt? No, it wasn’t guilt. I snapped his hand like a rotten twig. Knowing I could do it. Don’t you understand? I could see how drunk he was, how easily he could be handled.’

  He turned his head, bringing it closer to hers, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  ‘I could have winded him. Could have held him off until the waiters came to break things up. But I didn’t. I wanted to hurt him. Wanted to see what it was like. I engineered it, Meg. Do you understand? I set it up.’

  She shuddered, then shook her head, staring at him intently now. ‘No.’ But his eyes were fierce, assertive. What if he had?

  ‘So what did you learn? What was it like?’

  He looked down at her hand where his own enclosed it.

  ‘If I close my eyes I can see it all. Can feel what it was like. How easily I led him. His weight and speed. How much pressure it took, bone against bone, to break it. And that knowledge is...’ He shrugged, then looked up at her again, his hand exerting the gentlest of pressure on hers. ‘I don’t know. It’s power, I guess.’

  ‘And you enjoyed that?’

  She was watching him closely now, forcing her revulsion down, trying to help him, to understand him.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘Perhaps I ought to go home.’

  ‘And yet something keeps you...’

  He nodded, his eyes still focused on her hand. ‘That’s right. I’m missing something. I know it. Something I can’t see.’

  ‘But there’s nothing here, Ben. Just look about you. Nothing.’

  He looked away, shrugging, seeming to agree with her, but he was thinking of the Lu Nan Jen, the oven man, and about Catherine. He had been wrong about those things – surprised by them. So maybe there was more.

  He turned, looking back at her. ‘Anyway, you’d better go. Your appointment’s in an hour.’

  She looked back at him, her disappointment clear. ‘I thought you were coming with me.’

  He had told Catherine he would meet her at eleven – had promised he would show her more of the old paintings – but seeing the look on Meg’s face, he knew he could not let her go alone.

  ‘All right,’ he said, smiling, ‘I’ll come to the clinic with you. But then I’ve things to do. Important things.’

  Ben looked about him at the rich decor of the anteroom and frowned. Such luxury was unexpected at this low level. Added to the tightness of the security screening it made him think that there must be some darker reason than financial consideration for establishing the Melfi Clinic in such an unusual setting.

  The walls and ceiling were an intense blue, while underfoot a matching carpet was decorated with a simple yellow border. To one side stood a plinth, on which rested a bronze of a pregnant woman – Hung Mao, not Han – her naked form the very archetype of fecundity. Across from it hung the only painting in the room – a huge canvas, its lightness standing out against the blue-black of the walls. It was an oak, a giant oak, standing in the plush green of an ancient English field.

  In itself, the painting was unsurprising, yet in context it was, again, unexpected. Why this? he asked himself. Why here? He moved closer, then narrowed his eyes, looking at the tiny acorn that lay there in the left foreground of the composition, trying to make out the two tiny initials that were carved into it.

  AS. As what? he thought, smiling, thinking of all those comparatives he had learned as a very young child. As strong as an ox. As wily as a fox. As proud as a peacock. As sturdy as an oak.

  And a
s long-lived. He stared at it, trying to make out its significance in the scheme of things, then turned, looking back at Meg. ‘You’ve come here before?’

  She nodded. ‘Every six months.’

  ‘And Mother? Does she come here, too?’

  Meg laughed. ‘Of course. The first time I came, I came with her.’

  He looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Don’t worry yourself, Ben. It’s women’s business, that’s all. It’s just easier for them to do it all here than for them to come into the Domain. Easier and less disruptive.’

  He nodded, looking away, but he wasn’t satisfied. There was something wrong with all this.

  He turned as the panel slid back and a man came through: a tall, rather heavily built Han, his broad face strangely nondescript, his neat black hair swept back from a polished brow. His full-length russet gown was trimmed with a dark green band of silk. As he came into the room he smiled and rubbed his hands together nervously, giving a small bow of his head to Meg before turning towards Ben.

  ‘Forgive me, Shih Shepherd, but we were not expecting you. I am the Senior Consultant here, Tung T’an. If I had known that you planned to accompany your sister, I would have suggested...’ He hesitated, then, not sure he should continue, smiled and bowed his head. ‘Anyway, now that you are here, you had better come through, neh?’

  Ben stared back at the Consultant, making him avert his eyes. The man was clearly put out that he was there. But why should that be if this were a routine matter? Why should his presence disturb things, even if this were ‘women’s business’?

  ‘Meg,’ the Consultant said, turning to her, ‘it’s good to see you again. We expected you next week, of course, but no matter. It will take us but a moment to prepare everything.’

  Ben frowned. But she had said... He looked at her, his eyes demanding to know why she hadn’t told him that her appointment was not for another week, but her look told him to be patient.

  They followed Tung T’an into a suite of rooms every bit as luxurious as the first. Big, spacious rooms, decorated as if this were First Level, not the Mids. Tung T’an tapped out a combination on a doorlock, then turned, facing Ben again, more composed now.