Dust motes floated slowly in the still warm air of the room as Ssu Lu Shan began, his voice deep, authoritative, and clear as polished jade, telling the history of Chung Kuo – the true history – beginning with Pao Chan’s arrival on the shores of the Caspian Sea in AD 97, and his subsequent withdrawal, leaving Europe to the Ta Ts’in, the Roman Empire.
Hours passed and still Ssu Lu Shan spoke on, telling of a Europe Li Yuan had never dreamed existed – a Europe racked by Dark Ages and damned by religious bigotry, enlightened by the Renaissance, then torn again by wars of theology, ideology and nationalism; a Europe swept up, finally, by the false ideal of technological progress, born of the Industrial Revolution; an ideal fuelled by the concept of evolution and fanned by population pressures into the fire of Change – Change at any price.
And what had Chung Kuo done meanwhile but enclose itself behind great walls? Like a bloated maggot it had fed upon itself until, when the West had come, it had found the Han Empire weak, corrupt, and ripe for conquest.
So they came to the Century of Change, to the Great Wars, to the long years of revolution in Chung Kuo, and finally to the Pacific Century and the decline and fall of the American Empire, ending in the chaos of the Years of Blood.
This, the closest to the present, was the worst of it for Li Yuan, and as if he sensed this, Ssu Lu Shan’s voice grew softer as he told of the tyrant, Tsao Ch’un and his ‘Crusade of Purity’; of the building of the City; of the Ministry and the burning of the books, the burial of the past.
‘As you know, Prince Yuan, Tsao Ch’un wished to create an utopia that would last ten thousand years – to bring into being the world beyond the peach-blossom river, as we Han have traditionally known it. But the price of its attainment was high.’
Ssu Lu Shan paused, his eyes momentarily dark with the pain of what he had witnessed on ancient newsreels. Then, slowly, he began again.
‘In 2062 Japan, Chung Kuo’s chief rival in the East, was the first victim of Tsao Ch’un’s barbaric methods when, without warning – after Japanese complaints about Han incursions in Korea – the Han leader bombed Honshu, concentrating his nuclear devices on the major population centres of Tokyo and Kyoto. Over the next eight years three great Han armies swept the smaller islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, destroying everything and killing every Japanese they found, while the rest of Japan was blockaded by sea and air. Over the following twelve years they did the same with the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, turning the “islands of the gods” into a wasteland.
‘While this was happening, the crumbling Western nation states were looking elsewhere, obsessed with their own seemingly insuperable problems. Chung Kuo alone of all the Earth’s nations remained stable, and, as the years passed, grew quickly at the expense of others.
‘The eradication of Japan taught Tsao Ch’un many lessons, yet only one other time was he to use similar methods. In future he sought, in his famous phrase, “not to destroy but to exclude” – though his definition of “exclusion” often made it a synonym for destruction. As he built his great City – the huge machines moving slowly outward from Pei Ching, building the living sections – so he peopled it, choosing carefully who was to live within its walls. His criteria, like his methods, were not merely crude but idiosyncratic, reflecting not merely his wish to make his great City free of all those human troubles that had plagued previous social experiments, but also his deeply held hatred of the black and aboriginal races.’
Noting Li Yuan’s surprise, Ssu Lu Shan nodded soberly. ‘Yes, Prince Yuan, there were once whole races of black men. Men no more different from ourselves than the Hung Mao. Billions of them.’
He lowered his eyes, then continued. ‘As the City grew so his men went out, questioning, searching among the Hung Mao for those who were free from physical disability, political dissidence, religious bigotry and intellectual pride. And where he encountered organized opposition he enlisted the aid of groups sympathetic to his aims. In Southern Africa and North America, in Europe and in the People’s Democracy Of Russia, huge popular movements grew up amongst the Hung Mao supporting Tsao Ch’un and welcoming his stability after decades of bitter suffering. Many of them were only too pleased to share in his crusade of intolerance – his “Policy of Purity”. In the so-called “civilized” West, particularly, Tsao Ch’un often found that his work had been done for him long before his officials arrived.
‘Only the Middle East proved problematic. There a great Jihad was launched against the Han, Muslim and Jew casting off millennia of enmity to fight against a common threat. Tsao Ch’un answered them harshly, as he had answered Japan. The Middle East and large parts of the Indian subcontinent were swiftly reduced to the wilderness they remain to this day. But it was in Africa that Tsao Ch’un’s policies were most nakedly displayed. There the native peoples were moved on before the encroaching City, and, like cattle in a desert, they starved or died from exhaustion, driven on relentlessly by a brutal Han army.
‘Tsao Ch’un’s ideal was, he believed, a high one. He sought to eradicate the root causes of human dissidence and fulfil all material needs. Yet in terms of human suffering, his pacification of the Earth was unprecedented. It was a grotesquely flawed ideal, and more than four billion people died as a direct result of his policies.’
Ssu Lu Shan met the young Prince’s eyes again, a strange resignation in his own. ‘Tsao Ch’un killed the old world. He buried it deep beneath his glacial City. But eventually his brutality and tyranny proved too much even for those who had helped him carry out his scheme. In 2087 his Council of Seven Ministers rose up against him, using North European mercenaries, and overthrew him, setting up a new government. They divided the world – Chung Kuo – amongst themselves, each calling himself T’ang. The rest you know. The rest, since then, is true.’
In the silence that followed, Li Yuan sat there perfectly still, staring blankly at the air in front of him. He could see the stern faces of his father and his father’s Chancellor, and understood them now. They had known this moment lay before him. Had known how he would feel.
He shuddered and looked down at his hands where they clasped each other in his lap – so far away from him, they seemed. A million li from the dark, thinking centre of himself. Yes. But what did he feel?
A nothingness. A kind of numbness at the core of him. Almost an absence of feeling. He felt hollow, his limbs brittle like the finest porcelain. He turned his head, facing Ssu Lu Shan again, and even the simple movement of his neck muscles seemed suddenly false, unreal. He shivered and focused on the waiting man.
‘Did my brother know of this?’
Ssu Lu Shan shook his head. It was as if he had done with words.
‘I see.’ He looked down. ‘Then why has my father chosen to tell me now? Why should I, at my age, know what Han Ch’in at his did not?’
When Ssu Lu Shan did not answer him, Li Yuan looked up again. He frowned. It was as if the Han were in some kind of trance.
‘Ssu Lu Shan?’
The man’s eyes focused on him, but still he said nothing.
‘Have you done?’
Ssu Lu Shan’s sad smile was extraordinary: as if all he was, all he knew, were gathered up into that small, ironic smile. ‘Almost,’ he answered softly. ‘There’s one last thing.’
Li Yuan raised a hand, commanding him to be silent. ‘A question first. My father sent you, I know. But how do I know that what you’ve told me today is true? What proof have you?’
Ssu Lu Shan looked down a moment and Li Yuan’s eyes followed their movement, then widened as he saw the knife he had drawn from the secret fold in his scholar’s pau.
‘Ssu Lu Shan!’ he cried out, jumping up, suddenly alert to the danger he was in, alone in a locked room with an armed stranger.
But Ssu Lu Shan paid him no attention. He lowered himself onto his knees and laid the knife on the floor in front of him. While Li Yuan watched he untied the fastenings of his robe and pulled it up over his head, then bundled it together betwee
n his legs. Except for a loincloth he was naked now.
Li Yuan swallowed. ‘What is this?’ he asked softly.
Ssu Lu Shan looked up at him. ‘You ask what proof I have. This now is my proof.’ His eyes were smiling strangely, as if with relief at the shedding of a great and heavy burden carried too long. ‘This, today, was the purpose of my life. Now I have fulfilled my purpose, and the laws of Chung Kuo deem my life forfeit for the secrets I have uttered in this room. So it is. So it must be. For they are great, grave secrets.’
Li Yuan shivered. ‘I understand, Ssu Lu Shan. But surely there is another way?’
Ssu Lu Shan did not answer him. Instead he looked down, taking a long breath that seemed to restore his inner calm. Then, picking up the knife again, he readied himself, breathing deeply, slowly, the whole of him concentrated on the point of the knife where it rested, perfectly still, only a hand’s length from his stomach.
Li Yuan wanted to cry out; to step forward and stop Ssu Lu Shan, but he knew this too was part of it. Part of the lesson. To engrave it in his memory. For they are great, grave secrets. He shivered violently. Yes, he understood. Even this.
‘May your spirit soul rise up to Heaven,’ he said, blessing Ssu Lu Shan. He knelt and bowed deeply to him, honouring him for what he was about to do.
‘Thank you, Prince Yuan,’ Ssu Lu Shan said softly, almost in a whisper, pride at the honour the young prince did him making his smile widen momentarily. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, he thrust the knife deep into his flesh.
It was not until halfway through the fourth game that DeVore raised the matter.
‘Well, Tong Chou? Have you dealt with our thief?’
Chen met the Overseer’s eyes and gave the briefest nod. It had been a dreadful job and it was not pleasant to be reminded of it. He had been made to feel unclean; a brother to the Tengs of the world.
‘Good,’ DeVore said. He leaned forward and connected two of his groups, then turned the board about. ‘Play white from here, Tong Chou.’
It was the fourth time it had happened and DeVore had yet to lose a game, despite being each time in what seemed an impossible position as black.
Yes, Chen thought. Karr was right after all. But you’re not just a Master at this game – it is as if the game were invented for one like you. He smiled inwardly and placed the first of his stones as white.
There was the same ruthlessness in him. The same cold calculation. DeVore did not think in terms of love and hate and relationships but in terms of advantage and groups and sacrifice. He played life as if it was one big game of wei chi.
And perhaps that’s your weakness, Chen thought, studying him a moment. Perhaps that’s where you’re inflexible. For men are not stones, and life is not a game. You cannot order it thus and thus and thus, or connect it thus and thus and thus. Neither does your game take account of accident or chance.
Chen looked down again, studying the board, looking for the move or sequence of moves that would make his position safe. White had three corners and at least forty points advantage. It was his strongest position yet: how could he lose from this?
Even so, he knew that he would lose. He sighed and sat back. It was as if he were looking at a different board from the one DeVore was studying. It was as if the other man saw through to the far side of the board, on which were placed – suspended in the darkness – the stones yet to be played.
He shivered, feeling suddenly uneasy, and looked down at the tube he had brought with him.
‘By the way, Tong Chou, what is that thing?’
DeVore had been watching him; had seen where his eyes went.
Chen picked it up and hefted it, then handed it across. He had been surprised DeVore had not insisted on looking at the thing straight away. This was his first mention of it in almost two hours.
‘It’s something I thought might amuse you. I brought it with me from the Above. It’s a viewing tube. You manipulate the end of it and place your eye to the lens at this end.’
‘Like this?’
Chen held his breath. There! It was done! DeVore had placed his eye against the lens! The imprint would be perfect! Chen let his breath out slowly, afraid to give away his excitement.
‘Interesting,’ said DeVore and set it down again, this time on his side of the board. ‘I wonder who she was.’
The image was of a high-class Hung Mao lady, her dress drawn up about her waist, being ‘tupped’ from the rear by one of the GenSyn ox-men, its huge, fifteen inch member sliding in and out of her while she grimaced ecstatically.
Chen stared at the tube for a time, wondering whether to ask for it back, then decided not to. The imprint might be perfect, but it was better to lose the evidence than have DeVore suspicious.
For a while he concentrated on the game. Already it was beginning to slip from him, the tide to turn towards the black. He made a desperate play in the centre of the board, trying to link, and found himself cut not once but twice.
DeVore laughed. ‘I must make those structures stronger next time,’ he said. ‘It’s unfair of me to pass on such weaknesses to you.’
Chen swallowed, suddenly understanding. At some point in the last few games he had become, if not superfluous, then certainly secondary to the game DeVore was playing against himself.
Like a machine with a slight unpredictability factor built into its circuits.
He let his eyes rest on the tube a moment, then looked up at DeVore. ‘Does my play bore you, Shih Bergson?’
DeVore sniffed. ‘What do you think, Tong Chou?’
Chen met his eyes, letting a degree of genuine admiration colour his expression. ‘I think my play much too limited for you, Overseer Bergson. I am but a humble player, but you, Shih Bergson, are a Master. It would not surprise me to find you were the First Hand Supreme in all Chung Kuo.’
DeVore laughed. ‘In this, as in all things, there are levels, Tong Chou. It is true, I find your game limited, predictable, and perhaps I have tired of it already. But I am not quite what you make me out to be. There are others – a dozen, maybe more – who can better me at this game, and of them there is one, a man named Tuan Ti Fo, who was once to me as I am to you. He alone deserves the title you conferred on me just now.’
DeVore sat back, relaxed. ‘But you are right, Tong Chou. You lost the game two moves back. It would not do to labour the point, neh?’ He half turned in his chair and leaned back into the darkness. ‘Well, Stefan? What do you think?’
The albino stepped out from the shadows at the far end of the room and came towards the table.
Chen’s heart missed a beat. Gods! How long had he been there?
He edged back, instinctively afraid of the youth, and when the albino picked up the viewing tube and studied it, Chen tensed, believing himself discovered – certain, for that brief moment, that DeVore had merely been toying with him; that he had known him from the first.
‘These GenSyn ox-men are ugly beasts, aren’t they? Yet there’s something human about them, even so.’
The pale youth set the tube down then stared at Chen a moment: his pink eyes so cruel, so utterly inhuman in their appraisal, Chen felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.
‘Well?’ DeVore had sat back, watching the young man.
The albino turned to DeVore and gave the slightest shrug. ‘What do I know, Overseer Bergson? Make him Field Supervisor if it suits you. Someone must do the job.’
His voice, like his flesh, was colourless. Even so, there was something strangely, disturbingly familiar about it. Something Chen could not, for the life of him, put his finger on just then.
DeVore watched the youth a moment longer, then turned, facing Chen again. ‘Well, Tong Chou. It seems the job is yours. You understand the duties?’
Chen nodded, forcing his face into a mask of gratitude; but the presence of the young albino had thrown him badly. He stood up awkwardly, almost upsetting the board, then backed off, bowing deeply.
‘Should I leave, Overseer?’
Chen turned and took a step towards the door.
‘Oh, and, Tong Chou?’
He turned back slowly, facing DeVore again, fear tightening his chest and making his heart pound violently. Was this it? Was this the moment when he turned the board about?
But no. The Overseer was holding out the viewing tube, offering it to him across the board.
‘Take this and burn it. Understand me? I’ll have no filth on this plantation!’
When the peasant had gone, Lehmann came across and sat in the vacant seat, facing DeVore.
DeVore looked up at him. ‘Will you play, Stefan?’
Lehmann shook his head curtly. ‘What was all that for?’
DeVore smiled and continued transferring the stones into the bowls. ‘I had a hunch, that’s all. I thought he might be something more, but it seems I’m wrong. He’s just a stupid peasant.’
‘How do you know?’
DeVore gave a short laugh. ‘The way he plays this game, for an opener. He’s not pretending to be awkward, he is! You’ve seen his face when he concentrates on the board!’
DeVore pulled down his eyes at the corners and stretched his mouth exaggeratedly.
‘So? He can’t play wei chi. What does that mean?’
DeVore had finished clearing the board. Taking a cloth from the pocket of his pau , he wiped the wood. ‘It means he’s not Security. Even the basest recruit would play better than Tong Chou.’ He yawned and sat back, stretching out his arms behind him, his fingers interlaced. ‘I was just being a little paranoid, that’s all.’
‘Again, I thought it was your policy to trust no one?’
DeVore smiled, his eyes half-lidded now. ‘Yes. That’s why I’m having his background checked out.’
‘Ah…’ Lehmann sat back, still watching him, his eyes never blinking, his stare quite unrelenting. ‘And the tube?’
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 27