Beyond the doorway were showers and disinfectant baths: primitive but effective solutions to the problem of decontaminating millions of workers every week. He shuffled along, ignoring his nakedness and the nakedness of those on every side, resisting the temptation to scratch at the skin patch beneath his left ear.
A Hung Mao guard pushed him through the doorway brutally and, like those in front of him, Chen bowed his head and walked on slowly through the stinging coldness of the showers, then down the steps into the bath, holding his breath as he ducked underwater.
Then he was outside, in daylight, goose-pimples on his flesh. A guard thrust clothes into his arms – a loincloth, a drab brown overall and a coolie hat – and then he was queueing again.
‘Tong Chou?’
He answered to his alias and pushed through to the front to collect his ID card and his pack, checking briefly to make sure they had not confiscated the viewing-tube. Then he found a space and, holding the card between his teeth, the pack between his feet, got quickly dressed.
He followed the flow of people through, one of thousands, identically dressed. At the end of a long walled roadway the crowd spilled out into a wide arena. This was the embarkation area. Once more the signs were all in Kuo-yu, or Mandarin. Chen turned and looked back, seeing, for the first time, the wall of the City towering over them, stretching away whitely into the distance to either side. Then he looked down, searching for the pictogram he had learned – Hsia, the crab. Seeing it, he made his way across and up the ramp, stopping at the barrier to show his ID.
The train was packed. He squeezed in, smiling apologetically as he made his way through, then turned, waiting.
He had not long to wait. The train was crowded and extremely stuffy, the smell of disinfected bodies overpowering, but it was fast. Within the hour he was at Hsia Plantation, stumbling from the carriage, part of the crowd that made its way slowly down the ramp and out into the open.
There was a faint, unpleasant scent to the air, like something stale or overcooked. Chen looked up, then looked down again quickly, his eyes unused to the brightness. The sun blazed down overhead; a huge, burning circle of light – bigger, much brighter than he remembered it. Ahead of him the land stretched away forever – flat and wide and green. Greener, much greener, than he’d ever imagined.
He smiled. Wang Ti would have liked to have seen this. She had always said she would love to live outside, beneath the sun and the stars, her feet planted firmly on the black earth. As their forefathers had once lived.
For a moment Chen’s smile broadened, thinking of her and Jyan and the child to come, then his face cleared as he put all thought of her behind. He was Tong Chou now and had no family. Tong Chou, demoted from the levels. Tong Chou. Until this was over.
The crowd slowed. Another queue formed. Chen waited, patient, knowing that patience alone would carry him through the coming days. When he came to the barrier a guard babbled at him in Kuo-yu. He shook his head. ‘I’m new,’ he said. ‘I only speak English. You know, Ying Kuo.’
The guard laughed and turned to say something to one of his fellows, again in Mandarin. The other guard laughed and looked Chen up and down, then said something that made the first guard laugh crudely. They were both Hung Mao.
He handed the guard his permit, then waited while the man scrutinized it thoroughly and, with a show of self-importance, used his comset to double-check. He seemed almost disappointed to find nothing wrong with it.
‘Take care, Han,’ the guard said, thrusting his card back at him.
He moved on, keeping his head down, following the flow.
‘Chiao shen me ming tsu?’
Chen looked up, expecting another guard, but the young man who had addressed him wore the drab brown of a field worker. Moreover, he was Hung Mao. The first Hung Mao he had seen here who was not a guard.
He looked the youth up and down, then answered him. ‘I’m sorry. My Mandarin is very poor.’
The young man had a long face and round, watery blue eyes. His hair was dark but wispy and his mouth was crooked, as if he had suffered a stroke. But he was far too young, too fit, to be suffering from heart troubles. The crooked mouth smiled and the eyes gave Chen the same scrutiny Chen had given him.
‘I’m Pavel,’ the youth said, inclining his head the slightest degree. ‘I was asking what they called you.’
‘Tong Chou,’ Chen answered, then realized how easily it had come to his lips.
Pavel took one of his hands and turned it over, examining it. ‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You’re new to this.’
Chen smiled. There were things that could not be faked, like calluses on the palms. ‘I’m a refugee from the levels,’ he said. ‘When my father died I got into debt over his funeral. Then I got in with a shark. You know how it is.’
Pavel looked at him a moment, his watery blue eyes trying to figure him; then his crooked mouth smiled again. ‘Come on, Tong Chou. You’ll need someone to show you the ropes. There’s a spare bed in our hut. You can kip down there.’
Pavel set off at once, moving away from the slow moving column of new recruits. Only as he turned did Chen notice something else about him. His back was hunched, the spine bent unnaturally. What Chen had taken for a bow of politeness was the young man’s natural gait. Chen followed him quickly, catching up with him. As they walked along the dirt path Pavel began to talk, explaining how things worked on the plantation.
‘How did you know I was new?’
Pavel glanced sideways at him. ‘The way you walk. The way you’re wearing those clothes. The way you squint against the sun. Oh, a hundred little signs. What were you up above? You’ve strong hands. They’re not an office-worker’s hands.’
‘But not a peasant’s either?’
Pavel laughed, throwing his head back to do so. Chen, watching him, decided he liked the youth. He looked a dull-wit, but he was sharp. Very sharp.
‘And where are you from, Pavel?’
Pavel sniffed, then looked away across the vast plain. ‘Me? I was born here.’
‘Here?’
Pavel smiled crookedly and nodded. ‘Here. In these fields.’
Ahead of them was a break in the green. A long black line that cut right across their path. The dirt track led out onto a wooden bridge. Halfway across the bridge Chen stopped, looking down.
Pavel came back to him and looked where he was looking, as if expecting to see something unusual in the water. ‘What is it?’
Chen laughed. ‘It’s nothing.’ But he had realized that he had never seen water flow like this before. Taps and baths and pools, that was all he had ever seen. It had made him feel strange. Somehow incomplete.
Pavel looked at him, then laughed. ‘What did you say you were?’
They went on. The field they had crossed had been empty, but beyond the bridge it was different. Long lines of workers – five hundred, maybe a thousand to each line – were stretched out across the vast green, hunched forward, huge wicker baskets on their backs, their coolie hats making them seem a thousand copies of the same machine. Yet each was a man or woman – a person, like himself.
Where the path met another at a crossroads, a group of men were lounging by an electric cart. They were dressed differently, in smart black trousers and kingfisher blue jackets. They wore black, broad-rimmed hats with silk tassels hanging from the back and most of them had guns – Deng rifles, Chen noted – strapped to their shoulders. As Chen and Pavel approached, they seemed to stir expectantly.
Pavel touched Chen’s arm, his voice a whisper. ‘Keep your head down and keep walking. Don’t stop unless they specifically order you to.’
Chen did as Pavel said. Even so, two of the men detached themselves from the group and came across onto the path, blocking their way. They were big, brutal-looking. Han, both of them.
‘Who’s this, Pavel?’ one of them asked.
The youth kept his head lowered. ‘This is Tong Chou, Shih Teng. I am taking him to register.’
T
eng laughed caustically and looked at his fellow. ‘You’re quite a bit out of your way then, Pavel. Registration is back there, where you’ve just come from. Or have they moved it since I was last there?’
There was laughter from the men by the cart.
Chen glanced at the youth and saw how he swallowed nervously. But he wasn’t finished yet. ‘Forgive me, Shih Teng. That would be so normally. But Tong Chou is a replacement. He has been drafted to fill the place left by Field Supervisor Sung’s unfortunate death. I was told to take him direct to Acting Supervisor Ming. Ming is to fill out a special registration form.’
Teng was silent a moment, then he stepped aside. ‘Get moving, then. I want to see you both in the fields within the hour, understand me?’
Pavel dipped his head, then hurried on. Chen followed, keeping his eyes on the ground.
‘Who were they?’ Chen asked, when they were out of hearing.
‘Teng Fu and Chang Yan. They’re the Overseer’s men. Chang’s fairly docile. Teng’s the one you need to watch. He’s a vicious piece of work. Thinks he’s something special. Fortunately he knows very little about how this place works. But that’s true of most of them. There’s not one of those guards has any brains. Providing you keep your nerve you can convince them of anything.’
Chen nodded. ‘You were frightened, though. You took a risk for me. I’m grateful for that, Pavel.’
Pavel breathed deeply. ‘Not for you, so much, Tong Chou, but for all of us. They say the spirits of the dead have no shadows, but the death of Field Supervisor Sung and his wife have left a darkness here that no man can dispel.’
Chen looked thoughtfully at him. ‘I see.’
‘I’ll tell you some time,’ the youth said, glancing at him.
They walked on. Up ahead of them, maybe ten li or so in the distance, the straight line of the horizon was broken by a building; a huge, three-tiered pagoda.
‘What’s that?’ Chen asked.
Pavel didn’t even bother to look up. ‘That? That’s the Overseer’s House.’
As he watched a faint speck lifted from the fields close by the building and came towards them. A Security cruiser. The sound of its engines followed seconds later; muted at first, but growing louder by the moment. Minutes later it passed overhead, the shadow of the big craft sweeping across the fields.
Chen looked back at the Overseer’s House and nodded to himself. So that was where he was. Well, Shih Bergson, he thought, I’ll find out all I can about this place. Then I’ll pay you a visit. And find out if you are who we think you are.
DeVore looked down from the window of the craft as it swept south over the fields, the fingers of one hand absently tracing the surface of the object in the other.
‘What is that?’
The voice was cold, chillingly free of intonation, but DeVore was used to it by now. It was the voice of his dead friend. He turned and looked at Lehmann’s albino son, then handed him the tiny rose quartz snuff bottle.
‘It was a first meeting gift from Douglas. He saw me admiring it.’
Lehmann examined it, then handed it back. ‘What did you give him?’
‘I sent him a copy of Pecorini and Shu’s The Game Of Wei Chi. The Longman edition of 1929.’
Lehmann was silent a moment, considering. ‘It seems an odd gift. Douglas doesn’t play.’
‘No, but he should. All men – men of any ability – should play.’ DeVore tucked the bottle away in the pocket of his jacket. ‘Do you play, Stefan?’
Lehmann turned his head slowly, until he was facing DeVore. The albino’s dead eyes seemed to stare straight through him. ‘What do you think?’
DeVore smiled coldly. ‘I think you do. I’d say you were a good player. Unorthodox, but good.’
Lehmann made no reaction. He turned his head back, facing the front of the craft.
Like a machine, DeVore thought, chilled and yet strangely delighted by the boy. I could make something of you, given time.
They were flying down to the Swiss Wilds, to meet Weis and see how work was going on the first of the fortresses.
DeVore looked back out the window. Two figures trudged along one of the paths far below. Field workers, their coolie hats making them seem like two tiny, black wei chi stones against the criss-cross pattern of the fields. Then they were gone and the craft was rising, banking to the right.
He had been busy since the meeting at Douglas’s. The business with Lehmann’s son had taken him totally by surprise, but he had recovered quickly. Using his contacts in Security he had had the mother traced; had investigated her past and discovered things about her that no one in her immediate circle knew. His man had gone to her and confronted her with what they knew.
And now she was his. A handle. A way, perhaps, of controlling Stefan Lehmann should he prove troublesome.
DeVore smiled and turned back to the youth. ‘Perhaps we should play a game some time?’
Lehmann did not even look at him. ‘No.’
DeVore studied the youth a moment, then looked away. So he understands, he thought. He knows how much of a man’s character is reflected in the mirror of the board, the stones. Yet his refusal says a lot about him. He’s more cautious than his father. Colder. More calculating. Yes, I bet he’s very good at the game. It’s a shame he won’t play. It would have been a challenge.
The journey took them less than an hour. Weis met them in the landing dome, furred and gloved, anxious to complete his business and get away. DeVore saw this and decided to keep him – to play upon his fears, his insecurity.
‘You’ll eat with us, I hope, Shih Weis?’
He saw Weis’s inner hesitation; saw how he assessed the possible damage of a refusal and weighed it against his own discomfort. A banker. Always, first and foremost, a banker.
‘Well?’ DeVore insisted, loading the scales against refusal.
‘I have a meeting at six.’
It was just after one. DeVore took his elbow lightly and turned him towards the exit. ‘Then we have plenty of time, neh? Come. I don’t know about you, Shih Weis, but I’m famished.’
They were high up, almost thirteen thousand feet, and it was cold outside the dome of the landing platform, the sun lost behind thick cloud cover. Landeck Base was some way above them on the mountainside, a vast, flattened hemisphere, its brilliant whiteness blending with the snow and ice surrounding it. Beneath its cover, work had begun already on the fortress.
‘It’s a beautiful sight, don’t you think, Major?’ Weis said as he stepped out onto the snow, his breath pluming in the chill air.
DeVore smiled, then looked about him. ‘You’re right, Weis,’ he said, noting how Weis had used his real identity yet again. ‘It is beautiful.’ But he knew Weis was talking about the base up ahead of them, not the natural beauty of their surroundings.
They were on the eastern slope of a great glacial valley – a huge trench more than two li deep and one across. It ran north-west, ringed on all sides by the brutal shapes of mountains. Cloud obscured the distance, but it could not diminish the purity of the place. This land was untouched, elemental. He felt at home here.
He stopped in the snow field just beneath the Base and studied the great, shield-like dome, thinking of the seven great Security garrisons ringing the Swiss Wilds, like seven black stones placed on a giant board. The T’ang’s handicap. He laughed softly. Well, now he had placed the first white stone. The great game had begun.
Guards wearing full snow camouflage let them inside, then searched them. DeVore submitted patiently, smiling at the guard when he handed back the tiny snuff bottle. Only Weis seemed upset by the routine.
‘Is this really necessary?’ he huffed irritably, turning to DeVore as the soldier continued his body search.
‘It’s necessary, I assure you, Shih Weis. One small device could tear this place apart. And then your backers would be very angry that we had not taken such precautions.’ He laughed. ‘Isn’t that how you bankers think? Don’t you always assume the worst
possible case and then act accordingly?’
Weis bowed his head, ceding the point, but DeVore could see he was still far from happy.
A door from the Secure Area led out into the dome itself. Mobile factories had been set up all over the dome floor and men were hard at work on every side – manufacturing the basic equipment for the Base. But the real work was being done beneath their feet – in the heart of the mountain. Down there they were hewing out the tunnels and chambers of Landeck Base from the solid rock. When it was finished there would be no sign from the air.
They crossed the dome floor. On the far side was an area screened off from the rest of the dome. Here the first of DeVore’s recruits were temporarily housed. Here they slept and ate and trained, until better quarters were hewn from the rock for them.
DeVore turned to Weis and Lehmann, and indicated that they should go through. ‘We’ll be eating with the men,’ he said, and saw – as he had expected – how discomfited Weis was by the news. He had thought that other arrangements – special arrangements – had been made.
DeVore studied him, thinking, Yes, you like your comforts, don’t you, Weis? And all this – the mountains, the cold, the busy preparations – mean very little by comparison. Your heart’s in Han opera and little boys, not revolution. I’ll watch you, Weis. Watch you like a hawk. Because you’re the weakest link. If things go wrong, you’ll be the first to break.
He went inside after them and was greeted by the duty officer. Normally the man would have addressed him as Major, but, seeing Weis, he merely bowed deeply, then turned and led them across to the eating area.
Good, thought DeVore. Though it matters little now, I like a man who knows when to hold his tongue.
They sat on benches at one of the scrubbed wooden tables.
‘Well, Shih Weis? What would you like to eat?’
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 19