Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series

by David Wingrove

  For a moment T’ai Cho was silent. He had expected Kim to be cold, indifferent to his news. But this? He felt his indignation melt and dissipate like breath, then reached out and held the boy to him fiercely.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You’ve done nothing.’

  The boy gave a little shudder, then turned his head slowly, until he was looking into T’ai Cho’s face. ‘Then why? Why are you going away?’

  T’ai Cho looked back at him, searching the child’s dark eyes for evidence of betrayal – for some sign that this was yet another act – but he saw only hurt there and incomprehension.

  ‘I’ve seen your secret files,’ he said quietly. ‘Brahe and Aristotle.’

  There was a small movement in the dark pupils, then Kim dropped his eyes. ‘I see.’ Then he looked up again, and the expression of concern took T’ai Cho by surprise. ‘Did it hurt you, reading them?’

  T’ai Cho shivered, then answered the boy honestly. ‘Yes. I wondered why you would create a world like that.’

  Kim’s eyes moved away, then back again. ‘I never meant to hurt you. You must believe me, T’ai Cho. I’d never deliberately hurt you.’

  ‘And the File?’

  Kim swallowed. ‘I thought Matyas would kill me. He tried, you see. That’s why I left the note in the book. I knew that if I was killed you’d find it. But I didn’t think…’

  T’ai Cho finished it for him. ‘You didn’t think I’d find it before you were dead, is that it?’

  Kim nodded. And now I’ve hurt you…’ He reached out and gently touched T’ai Cho’s face, stroking his cheek. ‘Believe me, T’ai Cho. I wouldn’t hurt you. Not for anything.’ Tears welled in his big dark eyes. ‘I thought you knew. Didn’t you see it? Don’t you understand it, even now?’ He hesitated, a small shudder passing through his frail, thin body, then spoke the words almost in a whisper. ‘I love you, T’ai Cho.’

  T’ai Cho shivered, then drew Kim against him once more. ‘Then I’d best stay, hadn’t I?’

  The Casting Shop was a long, wide room with a high ceiling. Along its centre stood six tall, spiderish machines with squat bases and long, segmented arms; each machine three times the height of a grown man. To the sides were a series of smaller machines, no two of them the same, but all resembling to some degree or other their six identical elders. Between the big machines in the centre and the two rows of smaller ones at the sides ran two gangways, each with an overhead track. Young men moved between the machines, readying them, or stood in groups, talking casually in these last few minutes before the work bell rang.

  Kim stood in the doorway, looking in, and felt at once a strange affinity with the machines. He smiled and looked up at T’ai Cho. ‘I think I’ll like it here.’

  The Supervisor was a Han; a small man named Nung, who bowed and smiled a lot as he led them through to his office at the far end of the Casting Shop. As he made his way between the machines, Kim saw heads turn and felt the eyes of the young men on his back, but his attention was drawn to the huge, mechanical spiders that stretched up to the ceiling.

  ‘What are they?’ Kim asked the Supervisor once the partition door had slid shut behind them.

  Supervisor Nung smiled tightly and looked to T’ai Cho. ‘Forgive my unpreparedness, Shih T’ai. I was only told of this yesterday evening.’

  It was clear from the manner in which he ignored Kim’s question that he felt much put out by the circumstances of Kim’s arrival.

  ‘What are they?’ T’ai Cho asked, pointedly repeating Kim’s question. ‘The boy would like to know.’

  He saw the movement in Nung’s face as he tried to evaluate the situation. Nung glanced at Kim, then gave the slightest bow to T’ai Cho. ‘Those are the casting grids, Shih T’ai. One of the boys will give a demonstration in a while. Kim…’ He smiled insincerely at the boy. ‘Kim will be starting on one of the smaller machines.’

  ‘Good.’ T’ai Cho took the papers from the inner pocket of his er-satin jacket and handed them to the Supervisor. ‘You must understand from the outset that while Kim is not to be treated differently from any other boy, he is also not to be treated badly. The boy’s safety is of paramount importance. As you will see, Director Andersen has written a note under his own hand to this effect.’

  He saw how mention of the Director made Nung dip his head, and thought once more how fortunate he was to work in the Centre, where there were no such men. Yet it was the way of the Above, and Kim would have to learn it quickly. Here status counted more than mere intelligence.

  The qualms he had had in Andersen’s office returned momentarily. Kim was too young to begin this. Too vulnerable. Then he shrugged inwardly, knowing it was out of his hands. Mei fa tzu, he thought. It’s fate. At least there was no Matyas here. Kim would be safe, if nothing else.

  When T’ai Cho had gone, the Supervisor led Kim halfway down the room to one of the smallest and squattest of the machines and left him in the care of a pleasant-looking young Han named Chan Shui.

  Kim watched the partition door slam shut, then turned to Chan Shui, his eyebrows forming a question.

  Chan Shui laughed softly. ‘That’s Nung’s way, Kim. You’ll learn it quickly enough. He does as little as he can. As long as we meet our production schedules he’s happy. He spends most of his day in his room, watching the screens. Not that I blame him, really. It must be dreadful to know you’ve reached your level.’

  ‘His level?’

  Chan Shui’s eyes widened with surprise. Then he laughed again. ‘I’m sorry, Kim. I forgot. You’re from the Clay, aren’t you?’

  Kim nodded, suddenly wary.

  Chan Shui saw this and quickly reassured him. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Kim. What you were – where you came from – that doesn’t worry me like it does some of them round here.’ He looked about him pointedly, and Kim realized that their conversation was being listened to by the boys at the nearby machines. ‘It’s what you are that really counts. And what you could be. At least, that’s what my father always says. And he should know. He’s climbed the levels.’

  Kim shivered. Fathers… He gave a little smile and reached out to touch one of the long, thin arms of the machine.

  ‘Careful!’ Chan Shui warned. ‘Always make sure the machine’s switched off before you touch it. They’ve cut-outs built into their circuits, but they’re not absolutely safe. You can get a nasty burn.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  Chan Shui studied Kim a moment. ‘How old are you?’

  Kim looked back at him. ‘Nine. So they say.’

  Chan Shui looked down. He himself was eighteen, the youngest of the other boys sixteen. Kim looked five, maybe six at most. But that was how they were. He had seen one or two of them before, passing through. But this was the first time he had been allocated one to ‘nursemaid’.

  The dull, hollow tones of the work bell filled the Shop. At once the boys stopped talking and made their way to their machines. There was a low hum as a nearby machine was switched on, then a growing murmur as others added to the background noise.

  ‘It’s rather pleasant,’ said Kim, turning back to Chan Shui. ‘I thought it would be noisier than this.’

  The young Han shook his head, then leaned forward and switched their own machine on. ‘They say they can make these things perfectly silent, but they found that it increased the number of accidents people had with them. If it hums a little you can’t forget it’s on, can you?’

  Kim smiled, pleased by the practical logic of that. ‘There’s a lesson in that, don’t you think? Not to make things too perfect.’

  Chan Shui shrugged, then began his explanation.

  The controls were simple and Kim mastered them at once. Then Chan Shui took a slender phial from the rack beside the control panel.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Chan Shui hesitated, then handed it to him.

  ‘Be careful with it. It’s ice. Or at least, the constituents of ice. It slots in there.’ He pointed to a tiny hole low down on the c
ontrol panel. ‘That’s what these things do. They spin webs of ice.’

  Kim laughed, delighted by the image. Then he looked down at the transparent phial, studying it, turning it in his fingers. Inside was a clear liquid with a faint blue colouring. He handed it back, then watched closely as Chan Shui took what he called a ‘template’ – a thin card stamped with a recognition code in English and Mandarin – and slotted it into the panel. The template was the basic computer programme that gave the machine its instructions.

  ‘What do we do, then?’ Kim asked, his expression as much as to say, Is that all there is to it? It was clear he had expected to control the grid manually.

  Chan Shui smiled. ‘We watch. And we make sure nothing goes wrong.’

  ‘And does it?’

  ‘Not often.’

  Kim frowned, not understanding. There were something like a hundred boys tending the machines in the Casting Shop, when a dozen, maybe less, would have sufficed. It made no sense.

  ‘Is all of the Above so wasteful?’

  ‘Wasteful? What do you mean?’

  Kim stared at him a moment longer, then saw he didn’t understand. This, too, was how things were. Then he looked around and saw that many of the boys working on the smaller machines wore headwraps, while those on the central grids chatted, keeping only a casual eye on their machines.

  ‘Don’t you get bored?’

  Chan Shui shrugged. ‘It’s a job. I don’t plan to be here forever.’

  Kim watched as the machine began to move, the arms to extend, forming a cradle in the air. Then, with a sudden hiss of air, it began.

  It was beautiful. One moment there was nothing in the space between the arms, the next something shimmered into existence. He shivered, then clapped his hands together in delight.

  ‘Clever, neh?’ said Chan Shui, smiling. He lifted the wide-bodied chair from the grid with one hand. Its perfectly transparent shape glimmered wetly in the overhead light. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to Kim.

  Like most of the furniture in the Above, it weighed nothing. Or almost nothing. Yet it felt solid, unbreakable.

  Kim handed the chair back, then looked at the spiderish machine with new respect. Jets of air from the segmented arms had directed the fine, liquid threads of ice as they shot out from the base of the machine, but the air had only defined the shape.

  He looked at Chan Shui, surprised that he didn’t understand – that he had so readily accepted their explanation for why the machines hummed. They did not hum to stop their operators forgetting they were switched on; the vibration of the machine had a function. It set up standing waves – like the tone of a bell or a plucked string, but perfect, unadulterated. The uncongealed ice rode those waves, forming a skin, like the surface of a soap bubble, but a million times stronger because it was formed of thousands of tiny corrugations – the menisci formed by those standing waves.

  Kim saw the beauty of it at once. Saw how East and West had come together here. The Han had known about standing waves since the fifth century BC: had understood and utilized the laws of resonance. He had seen an example of one of their ‘spouting bowls’ which, when its handles were rubbed, had formed a perfect standing wave – a shimmering, perfect hollow cone of water that rose a full half ch’i above the bowl’s bronze rim. The machine, however – its cybernetics, its programming, even its basic engineering – was a product of Western science. The Han had abandoned those paths millennia before the West had found and followed them.

  Kim looked around; watching as forms shimmered into life in the air on every side. Tables, cupboards, benches and chairs. It was like magic. Boys moved between the machines, gathering up the objects and stacking them on the slow-moving collection trays that came along the gangways, hung on cables from the overhead tracks. At the far end, beyond the door where Kim had entered, was the paint shop. There the furniture was finished – the permapaint bonded to the ice – before it was packed for despatch.

  At ten they took a break. The refectory was off to their right, with a cloakroom leading off from it. There were toilets there and showers. Chan Shui showed Kim around, then took him back to one of the tables and brought him ch’a and a soypork roll.

  ‘I see they’ve sent us a dwarf this time!’

  There was a loud guffaw of laughter. Kim turned, surprised, and found himself looking up into the face of a beefy, thick-set youth with cropped brown hair and a flat nose. A Hung Mao, his pale, unhealthy skin heavily pitted. He stared down at Kim belligerently, the mean stupidity of his expression balanced by the malevolence in his eyes.

  Chan Shui, beside Kim, leaned forward nonchalantly, unimpressed by the newcomer’s demeanour.

  ‘Get lost, Janko. Go and play your addle-brained games on someone else and leave us alone.’

  Janko sniffed disdainfully. He turned to the group of boys who had gathered behind him and smiled, then turned back, looking at Kim again, ignoring Chan Shui.

  ‘What’s your name, rat’s arse?’

  Chan Shui touched Kim’s arm. ‘Ignore him, Kim. He’ll only trouble you if you let him.’ He looked up at the other boy. ‘Se li nei jen, neh, Janko?’ Stern in appearance, weak inside. It was a traditional Han rebuttal of a bully.

  Kim looked down, trying not to smile. But Janko leaned forward threateningly. ‘None of your chink shit, Chan. You think you’re fucking clever, don’t you? Well, you’ll get yours one day, I promise.’

  Chan Shui laughed and pointed to the camera over the counter. ‘Best be careful, Janko. Uncle Nung might be watching. And you’d be in deep shit then, wouldn’t you?’

  Janko glared at him, infuriated, then looked down at Kim. ‘Fucking little rat’s arse!’

  There was a ripple of laughter from behind him, then Janko was gone.

  Kim watched the youth slope away, then turned back to Chan Shui. ‘Is he always like that?’

  ‘Most of the time.’ Chan Shui sipped his ch’a, thoughtful a moment, then he looked across at Kim again and smiled. ‘But don’t let it get to you. I’ll see he doesn’t worry you.’

  Berdichev sat back in Director Andersen’s chair and surveyed the room. ‘Things are well, I hope?’

  ‘Very well, Excellency,’ Andersen answered with a bow, knowing that Berdichev was referring to the boy; that he had no interest whatsoever in his own well-being.

  ‘Good. Can I see him?’

  Andersen kept his head lowered. ‘I am afraid not, Shih Berdichev. Not at the moment, anyway. He began socialization this morning. However, he will be back by one o’clock, if you’d care to wait.’

  Berdichev was silent a moment, clearly put out by this development. ‘Don’t you feel that might be slightly premature?’

  Andersen swallowed. He had decided to say nothing of the incident with Matyas. ‘Kim is a special case, as you know. He requires different handling. Normally we wouldn’t dream of sending a boy out so young, but we felt there would be too much of an imbalance were we to let his intellectual development outstrip his social development.’

  He waited tensely. After a while Berdichev nodded. ‘I see. And you’ve taken special precautions to see he’ll be properly looked after?’

  Andersen bowed. ‘I have seen to matters personally, Shih Berdichev. Kim is in the hands of one of my most trusted men, Supervisor Nung. He has my personal instructions to take good care of the boy.’

  ‘Good. Now tell me, is there anything I should know?’

  Andersen stared back at Berdichev, wondering for a moment if it was possible he might know something. Then he relaxed. ‘There is one thing, Excellency. Something you might find very interesting.’

  ‘Something to do with the boy, I hope.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. It’s something he produced in his free time. A file. Or rather a whole series of files.’

  Berdichev’s slight movement forward revealed his interest. ‘A file?’

  Andersen smiled and turned. On cue his secretary appeared and handed him the folder. He had added the sub-files since T�
��ai Cho had brought the matter to his attention, and the stack of paper was now almost twice the size it had been. He turned back to Berdichev, then crossed the room and deposited the folder on the desk beside Berdichev before withdrawing with a bow.

  ‘“The Aristotle File”,’ Berdichev read aloud. ‘“Being The True History Of Western Science”.’

  He laughed. ‘Says who?’

  Andersen echoed his laughter. ‘It is amusing, I agree. But fascinating, too. His ability to fuse ideas and extrapolate. The sheer breadth of his vision…’

  Berdichev silenced him with a curt gesture of his hand, then turned the page, reading. After a moment he looked up. ‘Would you bring me some ch’a, Director?’

  Andersen was about to turn and instruct his secretary when Berdichev interrupted him. ‘I’d prefer it if you did it yourself, Director. It would give me a few moments to digest this.’

  Andersen bowed deeply. ‘Whatever you say, Excellency.’

  Berdichev waited until the man had gone, then sat back, removing his glasses and wiping them on the old-fashioned cotton handkerchief he kept for that purpose in the pocket of his satin jacket. Then he picked up the sheet he had been reading and looked at it again. There was no doubt about it. This was it. The real thing. What he had been unearthing fragments of for the last fifteen or twenty years. Here it was – complete!

  He felt like laughing, or whooping for joy, but knew hidden cameras were watching his every movement, so he feigned disinterested boredom. He flicked through, as if only casually interested, but behind the mask of his face he could feel the excitement course through him, like fire in his blood.

  Where in the gods’ names had Kim got all this? Had he invented it? No. Berdichev dismissed the thought instantly. Kim couldn’t have invented it. Just a glance at certain details told him it was genuine. This part about Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, for instance. And here, this bit about the subtle economic influence of the Medici family. And here, about the long-term effects of the great sea battle of Lepanto – the deforestation of the Mediterranean and the subsequent shift of the shipbuilding industry to the Baltic where wood was plentiful. Yes. He had seen shards of this before – bits and pieces of the puzzle – but here the picture was complete.