He set the stone down smartly, taking his lead from DeVore, hearing once more that sharp, satisfying click of stone against wood. Then he sat back.
DeVore answered his move at once. Another white stone in the top left corner. An aggressive, attacking move. Unexpected. Pushing directly for the corner. Chen countered almost instinctively, his black stone placed between the two whites, cutting them. But at once DeVore clicked down another stone, forming a tiger’s mouth about Chen’s last black stone, surrounding it on three sides and threatening to take it unless…
Chen connected, forming an elbow of three black stones – a weak formation, though not disastrous, but already he was losing the initiative; letting DeVore’s aggressive play force him back on the defensive. Already he had lost the corner. Six plays in and he had lost the first corner.
‘Would you like ch’a, Tong Chou?’
He looked up from the board and met DeVore’s eyes. Nothing. No trace of what he was thinking. Chen bowed. ‘I would be honoured, Shih Bergson.’
DeVore clapped his hands and, when a face appeared around the door, simply raised his right hand, two fingers extended. At the same time his left hand placed another stone. Two down, two in, strengthening his line and securing the corner. Only a fool would lose it now, and DeVore was no fool.
DeVore leaned back, watching him again. ‘How often did you play your father, Tong Chou?’
‘Often enough when I was a child, Shih Bergson. But then he went away. When I was eight. I only saw him again last year. After his funeral.’
Chen placed another stone, then looked back at DeVore. Nothing. No response at all. And yet DeVore, like the fictional Tong Chou, had ‘lost’ his father as an eight-year-old.
‘Unfortunate. And you’ve not played since?’
Chen took a breath, then studied DeVore’s answer. He played so swiftly, almost as if he wasn’t thinking, just reacting. But Chen knew better than to believe that. Every move DeVore made was carefully considered; all the possibilities worked out in advance. To play him one had to be as well prepared as him. And to beat him… ?
Chen smiled and placed another stone. ‘Occasionally. But mainly with machines. It’s been some years since I’ve sat and played a game like this, Shih Bergson. I am honoured that you find me worthy.’
He studied the board again. The corner was lost, almost certainly now, but his own position was much stronger and there was a good possibility of making territory on the top edge, in shang and chu, the west. Not only that, but DeVore’s next move was forced. He had to play on the top edge, two in. To protect his line. He watched, then smiled inwardly as DeVore set down the next white stone exactly where he had known he would.
Behind him he heard the door open quietly. ‘There,’ said DeVore, indicating a space beside the play table. At once a second, smaller table was set down and covered with a thin cloth. A moment later a serving girl brought the kettle and two bowls, then knelt there, to Chen’s right, wiping out the bowls.
‘Wei chi is a fascinating game, don’t you think, Tong Chou? Its rules are simple – there are only seven things to know – and yet mastery of the game is the work of a lifetime.’ Unexpectedly he laughed. ‘Tell me, Tong Chou, do you know the history of the game?’
Chen shook his head. Someone had once told him it had been developed at the same time as the computers, five hundred years ago, but the man who had told him that had been a know-nothing; a shit-brains, as DeVore would have called him. He had a sense that the game was much younger. A recent thing.
DeVore smiled. ‘How old do you think the game is, Tong Chou? A hundred years? Five hundred?’
Again Chen shook his head. ‘A hundred, Shih Bergson? Two hundred, possibly?’
DeVore laughed and then watched as the girl poured the ch’a and offered him the first bowl. He lowered his head politely, refusing, and she turned, offering the bowl to Chen. Chen also lowered his head slightly, refusing, and the girl turned back to DeVore. This time DeVore took the bowl in two hands and held it to his mouth to sip, clearly pleased by Chen’s manners.
‘Would it surprise you, Tong Chou, if I told you that the game we’re playing is more than four and a half thousand years old? That it was invented by the Emperor Yao in approximately 2,350 BC?’
Chen hesitated, then laughed as if surprised, realizing that DeVore must be mocking him. Chung Kuo itself was not that old, surely? He took the bowl the girl was now offering him and, with a bow to DeVore, sipped noisily.
DeVore drained his bowl and set it down on the tray the girl was holding, waiting for the girl to fill it again before continuing.
‘The story is that the Emperor Yao invented wei chi to train the mind of his son, Tan-Chu, and teach him to think like an emperor. The board, you see, is a map of Chung Kuo itself, of the ancient Middle Kingdom of the Han, bounded to the east by the ocean, to the north and west by deserts and great mountain ranges, and to the south by jungles and the sea. The board, then, is the land. The pieces men, or groups of men. At first the board, like the land, is clear, unsettled, but then as the men arrive and begin to grow in numbers, the board fills. Slowly but inexorably these groups spread out across the land; occupying territory. But there is only so much territory – only so many points on the board to be filled. Conflict is inevitable. Where the groups meet there is war: a war which the strongest and cleverest must win. And so it goes on, until the board is filled and the last conflict resolved.’
‘And when the board is filled and the pieces still come?’
DeVore looked at him a moment, then looked away. ‘As I said, it’s an ancient game, Tong Chou. If the analogy no longer holds it is because we have changed the rules. It would be different if we were to limit the number of pieces allowed instead of piling them on until the board breaks from the weight of stones. Better yet if the board were bigger than it is, neh?’
Chen was silent, watching DeVore drain his bowl a second time. I’m certain now, he thought. It’s you. I know it’s you. But Karr wants to be sure. More than that, he wants you alive. So that he can bring you before the T’ang and watch you kneel and beg for mercy.
DeVore set his bowl down on the tray again, but this time he let his hand rest momentarily over the top of it, indicating he was finished. Then he looked at Chen.
‘You know, Tong Chou, sometimes I think these two – ch’a and wei chi – along with silk, are the high points of Han culture.’ Again he laughed, but this time it was a cold, mocking laughter. ‘Just think of it, Tong Chou! Ch’a and wei chi and silk! All three of them some four and a half thousand years old! And since then? Nothing! Nothing but walls!’
Nothing but walls. Chen finished his ch’a and set it down on the tray the girl held out for him. Then he placed his stone and, for the next half-hour, said nothing, concentrating on the game.
At first the game went well for him. He lost few captives and made few trivial errors. The honours seemed remarkably even and, filled with confidence in his own performance, he began to query what Karr had told him about DeVore being a master of wei chi. But then things changed. Four times he thought he’d had DeVore’s stones trapped. Trapped with no possibility of escape. Each time he seemed within two stones of capturing a group; first in ping, the east, at the bottom left-hand corner of the board, then in tsu, the north. But each time he was forced to watch, open-mouthed, as DeVore changed everything with a single unexpected move. And then he would find himself backtracking furiously; no longer surrounding but surrounded, struggling desperately to save the group which, only a few moves before, had seemed invincible – had seemed a mere two moves from conquest.
Slowly he watched his positions crumble on all sides of the board until, with a small shrug of resignation, he threw the black stone he was holding back into the tray.
‘There seems no point.’
DeVore looked up at him for the first time in a long while. ‘Really? You concede, Tong Chou?’
Chen bowed his head.
‘Then you’ll not mind
if I play black from this position?’
Chen laughed, surprised. The position was lost. By forty, maybe fifty pieces. Irredeemably lost. Again he shrugged. ‘If that’s your wish, Shih Bergson.’
‘And what’s your wish, Tong Chou? I understand you want to be field supervisor.’
‘That is so, Shih Bergson.’
‘The job pays well. Twice what you earn now, Tong Chou.’
Yes, thought Chen, so why does no one else apply? Because it is an unpopular job, being field supervisor under you, that’s why. And so you wonder why I want it.
‘That’s exactly why I want the job, Shih Bergson. I want to get on. To clear my debts in the Above and climb the levels once again.’
DeVore sat back, watching him closely a moment, then he leaned forward, took a black stone from the tray and set it down with a sharp click.
‘All right. I’ll consider the matter. But first there’s something you can do for me, Tong Chou. Two nights back the storehouse in the western meadows was broken into and three cases of strawberries, packed ready for delivery to one of my clients in First Level, were taken. You’ll understand how inconvenienced I was.’ He sniffed and looked at Chen directly. ‘There’s a thief on the plantation, Tong Chou. I want you to find out who it is and deal with him. Do you understand me?’
Chen hesitated a moment, taken by surprise by this unexpected demand. Then, realizing he had no choice if he was to get close enough to DeVore to get Karr his proof, he dropped his head.
‘As you say, Shih Bergson. And when I’ve dealt with him?’
DeVore laughed. ‘Then we’ll play again, Tong Chou, and talk about your future.’
When the peasant had gone, DeVore went across to the screens and pulled the curtain back, then switched on the screen that connected him with Berdichev in the House.
‘How are things?’ he asked as Berdichev’s face appeared.
Berdichev laughed excitedly. ‘It’s early yet, but I think we’ve done it. Farr’s people have come over and the New Legist faction are swaying a little. Barrow calculates that we need only twenty more votes and we’ve thrown the Seven’s veto out.’
‘That’s good. And afterwards?’
Berdichev smiled. ‘You’ve heard something, then? Well, that’s my surprise. Wait and see. That’s all I’ll say.’
DeVore broke contact. He pulled the curtain to and walked over to the board. The peasant hadn’t been a bad player, considering. Not really all that stimulating, yet amusing enough, particularly in the second phase of the game. He would have to give him nine stones next time. He studied the situation a moment. Black had won, by a single stone.
As for Berdichev and his ‘surprise’…
DeVore laughed and began to clear the board. As if you could keep such a thing hidden. The albino was the last surprise Soren Berdichev would spring on him. Even so, he admired Soren for having the insight – and the guts – to do what he had done. When the Seven learned of the investigations. And when they saw the end results…
He looked across at the curtained bank of screens. Yes, all hell would break loose when the Seven found out what Soren Berdichev had been up to. And what was so delightful was that it was all legal. All perfectly constitutional. There was nothing they could do about it.
But they would do something. He was certain of that. So it was up to him to anticipate it. To find out what they planned and get in first.
And there was no one better at that game than he. No one in the whole of Chung Kuo.
‘Why, look, Soren! Look at Lo Yu-Hsiang!’ Clarac laughed and spilled wine down his sleeve, but he was oblivious of it, watching the scenes on the big screens overhead.
Berdichev looked where Clarac was pointing and gave a laugh of delight. The camera was in close-up on the Senior Representative’s face.
‘Gods! He looks as if he’s about to have a coronary!’
As the camera panned slowly round the tiers, it could be seen that the look of sheer outrage on Lo Yu-Hsiang’s face was mirrored throughout that section of the House. Normally calm patricians bellowed and raged, their eyes bulging with anger.
Douglas came up behind Berdichev and slapped him on the back. ‘And there’s nothing they can do about it! Well done, Soren! Marvellous! I thought I’d never see the day…’
There was more jubilant laughter from the men gathered in the gallery room, then Douglas called for order and had the servants bring more glasses so they could drink a toast.
‘To Soren Berdichev! And The New Hope!’
Two dozen voices echoed the toast, then drank, their eyes filled with admiration for the man at the centre of their circle.
Soren Berdichev inclined his head, then, with a smile, turned back to the viewing window and gazed down on the scene below.
The scenes in the House had been unprecedented. In all the years of its existence nothing like this had happened. Not even the murder of Pietr Lehmann had rocked the House so violently. The defeat of the Seven’s veto motion – a motion designed to confine The New Hope to the Solar System – had been unusual enough, but what had followed had been quite astonishing.
Wild celebrations had greeted the result of the vote. The anti-veto faction had won by a majority of one hundred and eighteen. In the calm that had followed, Under Secretary Barrow had gone quietly to the rostrum and begun speaking.
At first most of the members heard very little of Barrow’s speech. They were still busy discussing the implications of the vote. But one by one they fell silent as the full importance of what Barrow was saying began to sweep around the tiers.
Barrow was proposing a special motion, to be passed by a two-thirds majority of the House. A motion for the indictment of certain members of the House. He was outlining the details of investigations that had been made by a secretly convened sub-committee of the House – investigations into corruption, unauthorized practices and the payment of illegal fees.
By the time he paused and looked up from the paper he was reading from, there was complete silence in the House.
Barrow turned, facing a certain section of the tiers, then began to read out a list of names. He was only part way into that long list when the noise from the Han benches drowned his voice.
Every name on his list was a tai – a ‘pocket’ Representative, their positions, their ‘loyalty’, bought and paid for by the Seven. This, even more than the House’s rejection of the starship veto, was a direct challenge upon the authority of the Seven. It was tantamount to a declaration of the House’s independence from their T’ang.
Barrow waited while the Secretary of the House called the tiers to order, then, ignoring the list for a moment, began an impassioned speech about the purity of the House and how it had been compromised by the Seven.
The outcry from the tai benches was swamped by enthusiastic cheers from all sides of the House. The growing power of the tai had been a longstanding bone of contention, even amongst the Han Representatives, and Barrow’s indignation reflected their own feelings. It had been different in the old days: then a tai had been a man to be respected, but these brash young men were no more than empty mouthpieces for the Seven.
When it came to the vote the margin was as narrow as it could possibly be. Three votes settled it. The eighty-six tai named on Barrow’s list were to be indicted.
There was uproar. Infuriated tai threw bench pillows down at the speaker, while some would have come down the aisles to lay hands on him had not other members blocked their way.
Then, at a signal from the Secretary, House security troops had come into the chamber and had begun to round up the named tai, handcuffing them like common criminals and removing their permit cards.
Berdichev watched the end of this process – saw the last few tai being led away, protesting violently, down into the cells below the House.
He shivered, exulted. This was a day to remember. A day he had long dreamed of. The New Hope was saved and the House strengthened. And later on, after the celebrations, he would be
gin the next phase of his scheme.
He turned and looked back at the men gathered in the viewing room, knowing instinctively which he could trust and which not, then smiled to himself. It began here, now. A force that all the power of the Seven could not stop. And the Aristotle File would give it a focus, a sense of purpose and direction. When they saw what had been kept from them there would be no turning back. The File would bring an end to the rule of Seven.
Yes. He laughed and raised his glass to Douglas once again. It had begun. And who knew what kind of world it would be when they had done with it?
Chapter 41
THE DARKENING OF THE LIGHT
It was two in the morning and outside the Berdichev mansion, in the ornamental gardens, the guests were still celebrating noisily. A line of sedans waited on the far side of the green, beneath the lanterns, their pole-men and guards in attendance nearby, while closer to the house a temporary kitchen had been set up. Servants moved busily between the guests, serving hot bowls of soup or noodles, or offering more wine.
Berdichev stood on the balcony, looking down, studying it all a moment. Then he moved back inside, smiling a greeting at the twelve men gathered there.
These were the first of them. The ones he trusted most.
He looked across at the servant, waiting at his request in the doorway, and gave the signal. The servant – a ‘European’, like all his staff these days – returned a moment later with a tray on which was a large, pot-bellied bottle and thirteen delicate porcelain bowls. The servant placed the tray on the table, then, with a deep bow, backed away and closed the door after him.
They were alone.
Berdichev’s smile broadened. ‘You’ll drink with me, Chun t’zu?’ He held up the bottle – a forty-year-old Shou Hsing peach brandy – and was greeted with a murmur of warm approval.
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 22