“But each of these moving crowds in each city behaves uniquely; the citizens react with culturally-predisposed differences to being packed like rice in a steamer every morning and evening.
“In our own Peking, for example, hands are folded or at the side, touching is unthinkable, and polite silence is the rule.
“In Tokyo each person is on his own, shoulders are lowered, heads are down, physical contact is unavoidable, and the game is to get from where one has been to where one is going in the straightest possible line.
“In London each person stands patiently in queue and follows the line patiently as it winds around toward train or bus. The patience exists until someone tries to break into or ahead of the queue. The offender is often torn apart by those in the queue, who will then reform and go on patiently waiting.
“New Yorkers consider each other moving obstacles, and weave around and through light crowds with amazing facility. When the crowd is dense enough to stop a New Yorker, he will assume an attitude of having paused for reasons of his own, and continue to completely ignore everyone and everything around. An unwary visitor could easily be trampled to death in a New York crowd without being noticed.
“Each of these behavior patterns should be practiced under control conditions, since departure from the norm, even when unnoticed by the natives, could well be fatal.”
Hing deftly stepped aside as a handtruck went hurtling by, through a lane that miraculously cleared in front of it; dodged a man handing out leaflets; circled a fire hydrant; and found himself standing in the gutter between two parked trucks. He regretfully put the paragraphs in a cubbyhole of his mind to be able better to follow their precepts, and continued cautiously toward his goal.
On a side street off Canal: a small shop with barred windows and an unobtrusive brass plate on the door:
sen & son
Oriental Curios
jade—ivory—ebony
seven-level chip watchtells, calcutells, computells
silk underwear hand-tailored suits
GENUINE PERSONALIZED ANTIQUE SCROLLS
import-export
wholesale-retail
also by appointment
Hing pushed his way through the door and closed it behind him, setting off a sedate but continuous dinging somewhere in the rear of the shop. The noise made him feel uncomfortably more like a thief than a customer. “Hello!” he called. “Hello! Is anyone here?” There was no response, but he felt better; he had announced his presence.
Despite the double row of old-fashioned tube fluorescents hanging from the high, tin ceiling, the shop retained an antique gloom. A wooden, glass-top counter stretched the length of the room, separating carpeted front from cluttered rear. At the far end of the counter, cased in glass, was a large, delicate model of a four-masted barque, full rigged from flying jib to spanker, with all thirty-three sails sagging with dust. Across from it, as some sort of cultural balance, was a second display case holding a pechili junk, even more intricately modeled and detailed, and equally grimy. Behind the counter the floor was stacked with packing cases, crates, and bales, some open and some still nailed and banded; most looking as though they had been sitting there since first unloaded from a four-masted barque. A fine layer of sawdust, wood shavings, excelsior, rice paper, wrapping paper, and newspaper coated the floor and piled up in the interstices between the crates.
A final ding died away as a man appeared from between two crates and approached the counter. He was dressed in a tailored version of the loose-fitting, somber colored, flappy pants and long, pocketless, side-buttoning jacket that was common garb in Hong Kong and the Haitung—the vast Disneyland on the coast of mainland China that had been established to cater to tourists from the rest of the world. Even tailored, the suit looked ill-fitting to Western eyes. It was also totally unlike the almost-standardized one-piece coverall of the rest of mainland China. Talk, Hing thought, about costumes.
“Welcome to my shop,” the man said, with a formal half-bow. “In what way may I be of service to you?” A thin stream of oil could have been wrung from his voice. “Is there anything you’d like to see? We have been recommended to you?” He bobbed his head slightly as he spoke.
“You have been spoken of,” Hing agreed. “You are Mr. Sen?”
“I am.” The man bowed again. “It is my privilege to serve you. Some artifact or antique, perhaps? A handcrafted reproduction from the Haitung? With the renewed interest in Classical Chinese culture, we have been doing our humble best to supply the need.”
“I’m sure you have. What interests me is a water-color representation of the Pa Pao.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Pa Pao. The Eight Treasures. You understand Chinese?”
“Yes. Of course. But I’m afraid that I know of no such watercolor representation. We certainly have no such thing in stock. I am sorry. Is there anything else I can interest you in? We do have some exceptionally fine brushwork, if that is where your interests lie.”
“I particularly wanted the Pa Pao. And I was given to understand that you knew of it. You are Mr. Sen of Sen and Son?” Hing tapped impatiently on the counter.
Sen looked nervous. He could sense some deeper import here, but he wasn’t sure what it was. “Actually,” he confided, “my father is the original Mr. Sen. I am, you see, actually the Son. But I am sure that I would know of such a thing if it were here.”
“It is an object that dates back many years,” Hing told him. “If you would do me the favor of asking your father, perhaps he could trace the object for me. I would pay well.”
The younger Sen brushed aside all talk of payment, but not too firmly, and went off to fetch his father. Hing took a deep breath and relaxed. Signs, countersigns, and all the other paraphernalia of the world’s oldest profession weren’t much good when talking to the wrong man.
After a short wait the elder Mr. Sen glided into the room. Glaring suspiciously at Hing, he approached the counter with his son close behind. “I am the senior Sen,” he said, his white beard bobbling. “My son tells me you are interested in a watercolor depiction of the Eight Treasures.”
“That is so. My name is Hing, George Hing. Can you aid me in my search?”
“I seem to have some recollection of the thing you seek. Let me refresh my memory. Is it, perhaps, the Eight Ordinary Symbols to which you refer—the Pearl, Lozenge, Stone Chime, Rhinoceros’ Horn, Coin, Mirror, Book, and Leaf? I cannot recall positively whether it was that Pa Pao, or the Eight Precious Organs of Buddha’s Body: Heart, Gall-Bladder, Spleen, Lungs, Liver, Stomach, Kidney, and Intestines—if the memory of an old man serves him properly.”
The younger Sen stared at his father, a very strange expression on his face.
“The enumeration is exact,” Hing assured the old man. “Unfortunately it is neither of these manifestations of the Eight Treasures that was immortalized in the watercolor to which I refer. Neither was it the Eight Auspicious Signs. As far as I have been able to determine, it was an illustration of the Eight Immortals, enumerated, I believe, thus: Sword, Flowers, Lotus, Flute, Gourd, Castanets, and Tuba.”
“Oh,” Sen said, looking distinctly unhappy, “that Eight Treasures!”
Chapter Seven
Winston C. Leyata, a short, heavy black man with black hair and a graying mustache he was too proud to dye; citizen of Chad; career diplomat; amateur historian; winner of the Nobel peace prize; delegate from Chad to the United Nations General Assembly; now serving his second term as Secretary General of the United Nations; slid the plastic wrap off his cigar and waved it in the air until the tip was lit. “The trouble with these self-lighting cigars is that I can’t stand the taste of the first few puffs,” he said mildly. “Progress seems to be made up of an infinite series of doubtful exchanges. I end up waving it in the air like a New Yorker hailing a cab, or some other maniac, to keep it lit.”
Chin Tsu Chan, Chief of Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, bowed stiffly. “Mr. Secretary, I must prot
est . . .”
Leyata waved him to a seat and pointed the United States’ delegate toward another before settling himself behind his gigantic desk and taking the first deep puff of his cigar. “As I insisted when I called the two of you in here, this talk is private, off the record, and in good faith. My tape recorder isn’t even on.” Leyata chuckled. “I suppose I’ll have to ask one of you for a transcript.”
“We are on record,” Hiram C. Downs, the American Chief of Delegation said, sitting rigidly forward in the leather armchair, “as being willing to talk with anyone, anytime, any place, if it will help resolve our differences and further the cause of peace throughout the planet.”
Delegate Chin stared at the wall. “There is little point in talking,” he said, “unless both parties show a willingness to act constructively to remove obstructions. The people of the world are not to be put off with imperialist rhetoric.”
“A willingness to act constructively,” the American delegate said, “does not necessarily mean that both sides agree in front to do it your way.”
“We speak for the Workers of the World, the downtrodden masses toiling under the iron yoke of Capitalistic Imperialism. History is on our side!” Chin glared at Downs, who scowled back.
Leyata shook his head. “Bang!” he said softly.
“What?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Secretary?”
Leyata made a pistol out of his empty hand and pointed a cocked finger across two meters of polished desk top. “‘Bang!’ I said, ‘Bang!’ The opening shots in the third, and final, world war. Bang! And you two are starting it.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Delegate Downs said.
“I act on the instructions forwarded by my government,” Delegate Chin stated.
Leyata nodded. “It won’t do. I invoke the doctrine established almost a hundred years ago, at the end of the Hitler war, at a place called Nuremberg. Your country”—he stabbed a finger at the American—“held war crimes trials there.”
“I know some history,” Hiram Downs stated, tugging at his shirt sleeves. “I am familiar with the Nuremberg Trials.”
“Then you understand the doctrine I am invoking,” Leyata said. “I invoke this doctrine only unofficially, you understand. I invoke only the spirit of that doctrine. However. ‘I am only obeying orders’ will not serve as a reason or excuse for any deeds committed or words uttered in this office. A government cannot be held responsible for its acts. A government is only a legal fiction, an intangible. There are only people. Governments do not make decisions or take actions; people do.
“Now both of you relax and shut up! I called you in here to talk to you, and by Jesus I’m going to talk to you if I have to stand over you with a war axe.” He stabbed a finger at Chin. “You lodged an official protest over an alleged violation of your sovereign air space by an American satellite.”
“Not alleged.”
“And you,” the finger transferred to Downs, “once again refused to accept the protest.”
“That’s so.” Downs nodded, looking smug.
“This was the two-hundred and ninety-sixth such protest over the past five years—which works out to better than one a week.”
“I believe your figures are correct,” the People’s Delegate admitted cautiously. “Surely you do not expect us to accept such overflights without protesting?”
“The principle is well established,” the American said. “Satellites in orbit around the planet, manned or unmanned, higher than two hundred and fifty kilometers at perigee, are considered to be beyond the territorial and atmospheric boundaries of any nation, and are controlled by such space law as has been established by treaty or by revised Admiralty law. They are subject to periodic inspection by United Nations teams and are under the legal jurisdiction of the Deep Space Court in cases of international dispute. Therefore the United States of America cannot accept protests about its satellites lodged in the United Nations General Assembly or with the Security Council; to do so would violate the terms of the treaty we signed—along with the People’s Republic of China—establishing the Deep Space Court. If they feel they have a legitimate grievance, let them take it to court. The United Nations has no jurisdiction over this matter.”
“It is not the satellites at altitudes of over two hundred fifty kilometers that we protest,” Chin said. “It is those which descend from their lofty positions on command. Robots that swoop down from the sky, coming below twenty kilometers, photographing the agriculture and industry of the People’s Republic. Such craft are not under the jurisdiction of the treaty. Such craft are in direct violation of the provisions of the Deep Space Treaty of 2012, as you well know!” Chin pounded his fist sharply against the side of the desk several times before restraining himself with a visible effort.
Downs laced his fingers under his chin. “It is a shame,” he said. “A shame. The paranoia that has become endemic among the political elite of China. Sorry: the ‘People’s Republic.’ Every time they start to build an illegal missile base or a hidden reactor they see American spies under every bush and American satellites swooping down from the sky. Especially from the sky. Then they’re forced to abandon the base. What a pity.”
The Chinese delegate hopped up, his face red with suffused blood. “You!” he yelled. “How dare you—to speak of paranoia—to speak of hidden bases—you think we don’t know what goes on under the surface of the ocean? You think your hidden secrets are hidden, eh? You’ll pretty soon find out, I warn you!”
Downs looked puzzled.
It is an interesting psychological fact that the apparent height of a man varies directly with his influence, importance, or charisma. Leyata stood, slowly, pushing his chair back from the desk. He seemed to tower over the two men before him. “Feel free,” he said, “to carry on this discussion at a time and place suitable to you both. But not in my office. And, more to the point, not in the General Assembly!”
The two delegates stared at him.
“For the past five years,” Leyata continued, “on the average of once a week, the People’s Republic of China has made an official protest over an alleged United States incursion into the air space over its territory. The matter has been before both the Security Council and the General Assembly. The United States has neither admitted nor denied these two hundred and ninety-six allegations, but has instead denied the jurisdiction of either body over the complaint. And there it lays. A few delegations with debts to pay or favors to request from one party or the other make short or long speeches on one side or the other and there is no result. Is that the way you see it—a stalemate?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Downs said.
“It is of some importance,” Chin declared.
“Let me tell you what you have accomplished—what you are accomplishing,” Leyata said, growing even taller. “You are destroying the General Assembly! Drop by drop you are wearing away the rock upon which the future of mankind is dependent. A big problem, a serious threat; these serve to unite us, to draw all people together. These piddling, repetitive, incessant idiocies waste our time and weaken the Assembly. Eighty-five percent of the working time of the General Assembly is now taken up with these circular problems which the delegates have an unspoken agreement not to resolve. These things that serve only as back-scratching for the people back home.
“Do you gentlemen think that the work of the General Assembly is unimportant? Do you think that this world government is unnecessary? Do you, perhaps, believe that because we haven’t had a global war in a hundred years we have somehow been cured of the disease? Do you think that because there are stiff penalties for any nation found to have atomic weapons, that the only such weapons left are the ones in the eighteen U.N. satellites?”
“I don’t understand,” Downs said. “I mean, I understand your concern, but I don’t see what you want us to do about it.”
“Your Excellency, I trust, is not requesting the delegation of the People’s Republic to stop making formal c
omplaints at the instructions of my government?” Chin asked.
“Not at all,” the Secretary General assured him dryly. “I understand that the fate of such a small, insignificant planet as this, circling such an unimportant star, is of no concern to you. You might tell me how you plan to leave and just where you’re planning to go.” He studied their faces carefully for a minute. “Gentlemen, I did not become Secretary General of the United Nations in order to preside over its atrophying and fading away. The United Nations cannot stagnate; it must either grow toward becoming a true world government or dissolve. And if it dissolves, life on this planet will follow shortly after.”
“What do you propose to do?” the American asked.
“The next incident that is reported,” Leyata said. “I am going to assume jurisdiction. I can pull enough votes to get an investigating committee appointed, and I can assure you that it will investigate. Your two countries are the biggest threats to world peace: the People’s Republic, with a four-million man standing army, and the United States, with the sky full of military satellites.”
“They’re unarmed,” Downs insisted.
“So? An artillery spotter is also unarmed, he merely tells others where to shoot. I make no accusations, but state facts. It’s not that either of your governments are more culpable than any others, it’s rather that they’re bigger, more powerful, and more capable of doing harm.”
“There are other powerful nations in the world,” Chin said.
“I intend to speak with them,” Leyata assured him.
Chapter Eight
Addison Friendly was tall and broad. His long, red-brown hair was combed and tied behind, and his short, wide beard was cut straight across. His eyes were gray and vital, and he moved his bulk with the deceptive grace of a dancing bear. Cloaked in gold-trimmed red brocade, over a green, Edwardian shirt and striped breeches and vest, he projected an aura of flamboyant power and assurance. Sprawled across a heavy chair, with his feet crossed and resting on a stack of papers on his desk, he dominated the office.
Psi Hunt Page 3