The Middle Kingdom

by David Wingrove

  ‘Where does that lead?’

  ‘There’s a long vertical shaft, about twenty ch’i back from that hatch. It comes out at Forty-One. There we lose them.’

  ‘Any reason why?’

  ‘Camera malfunction. Vandalism. It seems genuine. They’d been having trouble with that section for weeks.’

  ‘Okay. So let’s get back to Eleven. See what kind of men we’re dealing with.’

  For the next ten minutes they watched in silence as the situation unfolded. They saw the fight. Saw Jyan draw and use his knife, then drive the loader into the lift. Then, less than a minute later, the screen went blank.

  ‘That’s all that survived, sir. When the quarantine seals came down most of the cameras blew. We’ve pieced this together from Central Records’ copies.’

  Tolonen nodded, satisfied. ‘You’ve done a good job, Haavikko. It shouldn’t be difficult to trace these two. We have arrangements with certain of the Triad bosses beneath the Net. They’ll find them for us. It’s only a question of time.’

  ‘Then we do nothing, sir?’

  ‘Nothing until we hear from our contacts. But I want us to be ready, so I’ve arranged something. It’ll mean that we’ll have a squad down there, under the Net in Munich Canton, when news comes. It’ll allow us to get to them at once. I’ve put Fest in charge. He has strict orders to take the men alive if possible. You and Hans Ebert will make up the squad.’

  ‘What are we to do down there?’

  ‘Until you’re called on, nothing. You can treat it as a paid holiday. Ebert knows the place quite well, apparently. I’m sure he’ll find something for you to do. But when the call comes, be there, and fast. All right?’

  Haavikko bowed his head. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘Yes. One last thing.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I want you to compile a list of all those who might have planned this, anyone who might conceivably have been involved. Not just those with a clear motive but anyone who might have had the right contacts.’

  ‘Anyone?’

  The General nodded sternly. ‘Leave no one out, however absurd it might seem.’

  The cadet bowed deeply, then clicked his heels together. ‘Sir.’

  Alone again, Tolonen stood, then went to the window. Far below, the wide moat of the Security Fortress seemed filled with an inky blackness. In the early morning light the two watchtowers at the far end of the bridge threw long, thin shadows across the apron of the spaceport beyond.

  He would not act. Not yet. For a while he would trust to instinct and let Wyatt be. See if Wyatt’s name appeared on Haavikko’s list. Wait for DeVore to gather something more substantial than the tattle of Above. Because deep down he didn’t believe that Wyatt was involved.

  He turned back to his desk, putting his fingers lightly to the intercom pad.

  His secretary answered at once. ‘General?’

  ‘Play me that tape again. Major DeVore and Under Secretary Lehmann. The part where Lehmann talks about suffocating and bad blood. A few lines, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, General.’

  He turned back to the window, looking down. As he watched a tiny figure emerged from the shadow and marched quickly but unhurriedly across the bridge. It was DeVore.

  Major DeVore was a clever officer. A good man to have on your team. There was no fooling him; he saw things clearly. Saw through the appearance of things. And if he believed that Lehmann wasn’t involved…

  ‘The tape’s ready, General.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, not looking round; continuing to watch the figure far below. ‘Let me hear it.’

  At once Lehmann’s voice filled the room, urgent and passionate.

  ‘We’re suffocating, Howard! Can’t they see that? Biting at the leash! Even so, violence… Well, that’s a different matter. It hurts everyone and solves nothing. It only causes bad blood, and how can that help our cause? This… act. All it does is set us back a few more years. Makes things more difficult, more…’

  The voice cut out. After a moment the General sniffed, then nodded to himself. He had heard the words a dozen times now, and each time they had had the power to convince him of Lehmann’s innocence. Lehmann’s anger, his callousness, while they spoke against him as a man, were eloquent in his defence in this specific matter. It was not how a guilty man behaved. In any case, he was right. How would this serve him? Li Shai Tung would merely appoint another Minister. Another like Lwo Kang.

  Down below, DeVore had reached the far end of the bridge. Two tiny figures broke from the shadow of the left-hand tower to challenge him, then fell back, seeing who it was. They melted back into the blackness and DeVore marched on alone, out onto the apron of the spaceport.

  The General turned away. Perhaps DeVore was right. Perhaps Wyatt was their man. Even so, a nagging sense of wrongness persisted, unfocused, unresolved.

  ‘I’m tired,’ he said softly to himself, sitting himself behind his desk again. ‘Yes, tiredness, that’s all it is.’

  ‘Wait outside, at the junction. You know what he looks like?’

  The Han nodded. ‘Like my brother.’

  ‘Good. Then get going.’

  The Han did as he was told, closing the door behind him, leaving DeVore alone in the room. DeVore looked around, for the first time allowing himself to relax. Not long now. Not long and it would all be done. This was the last of it. He looked at the sealed bag on the floor by the bed and smiled, then sat on the end of the bed next to the corpse’s feet.

  The kwai, Chen, had been hard to kill. Stubborn. He had fought so hard for life that they had had to club him to death, as if strangling the man hadn’t been enough. His head was a bloodied pulp, his features almost unrecognizable. The Han had enjoyed that. DeVore had had to drag him off.

  Like animals, he thought, disgusted, promising himself he’d make the Han’s death a particularly painful one.

  For a while he sat there, head down, hands on knees, thinking things through. Then he looked up, looked about himself again. It was such a mean, shabby little place, and like all of this beneath the Net, it bred a type that matched its circumstances. This Kao Jyan, for instance; he had big dreams, but he was a little man. He didn’t have the skill or imagination to carry off his scheme. All he had was a brash impudence; an inflated sense of self-importance. But, then, what else could be expected? Living here, a man had no perspective. No way of judging what the truth of things really was.

  He got up and crossed the room. Inset into the wall was an old-fashioned games machine. A ResTem Mark IV. He switched it on and set it up for Wei Chi; an eighth-level game, the machine to start with black.

  For a time he immersed himself in the game, enjoying the challenge. Then, when it was clear he had the advantage, he turned away.

  The General was sharper than he’d thought he’d be. Much sharper. That business with the dead maintenance engineer. His discovery of Kao Jyan and the other kwai. For a moment DeVore had thought their scheme undone. But the game was far from played out. He’d let the General find his missing pieces. One by one he’d give them to him. But not until he’d done with them.

  He glanced at the machine again. It was a complex game, and he prided himself on a certain mastery of it. Strange, though, how much it spoke of the difference between East and West. At least, of the old West, hidden beneath the levels of the Han City, the layers of Han culture and Han history. The games of the West had been played on similar boards to those of the East, but the West played between the lines, not on the intersecting points. And the games of the West had been flexible, each individual piece given breath, allowed to move, as though each had an independent life. That was not so in Wei Chi. In Wei Chi once a piece was placed it remained, unless it was surrounded and its ‘breath’ taken from it. It was a game of static patterns; patterns built patiently over hours or days – sometimes even months. A game where the point was not to eliminate but to enclose.

  East and West – they were the inverse of each other. Fo
rever alien. Yet one must ultimately triumph. For now it was the Han. But now was not forever.

  He turned from the screen, smiling. ‘White wins, as ever.’

  It had always interested him; ever since he had learned how much the Han had banned or hidden. A whole separate culture. A long and complex history. Buried, as if it had never been. The story of the old West. Dead. Shrouded in white, the Han colour of death.

  DeVore stretched and yawned. It was two days since he had last slept. He crossed the room and looked at his reflection in the mirror beside the shower unit. Not bad, he thought, but the drugs he had taken to keep himself alert had only a limited effect. Pure tiredness would catch up with him eventually. Still, they’d keep him on his feet long enough to see this through.

  He looked down. His wrist console was flashing.

  DeVore smiled at his reflection. ‘At last,’ he said. Then, straightening his tunic, he turned to face the door.

  Jyan came laughing into his room. ‘Chen…’ he began, then stopped, his eyes widening, the colour draining from his cheeks. ‘What the…?’

  He turned and made to run, but the second man, following him in, blocked the doorway, knife in hand.

  He turned back, facing the stranger.

  ‘Close the door,’ DeVore said, looking past Jyan at the other. Then he turned to face Jyan again. ‘Come in, Kao Jyan. Make yourself at home.’

  Jyan swallowed and backed away to the left, his eyes going to the figure sprawled face down on the bed, the cover over its head. It was Chen. He could tell it from a dozen different signs – by the shape of the body, the clothes, by the black, studded straps about his wrists.

  For a moment he said nothing, mesmerized by the sight of those two strong hands resting there, lifeless and pale, palms upward on the dark red sheet. Then he looked up again. The stranger was watching him, that same cruel half-smile on his lips.

  ‘What do you want?’ Jyan asked, his voice barely audible.

  DeVore laughed, then turned to face the games machine, tapping in his next move. Jyan looked at the screen. The machine was set up for Wei Chi, the nineteen by nineteen grid densely cluttered with the small black and white stones. From the state of the game it looked as though the stranger had been waiting for some time.

  DeVore turned back, giving Jyan a strangely intense look. Then he dropped his eyes and moved closer. ‘It’s a fascinating game, don’t you think, Kao Jyan? Black starts, and so the odds are in his favour – seven out often, they say – yet I, like you, prefer to play against the odds.’

  He stepped closer. Jyan backed against the wall, looking away.

  ‘You have the envelope, Kao Jyan?’

  Jyan turned his head, meeting the other’s eyes. Only a hand’s width separated them now. He could feel the other’s breath upon his cheek. ‘The… envelope?’

  ‘The offer we made you.’

  ‘Ah…’ Jyan fumbled in the inside pocket of his one-piece, then drew out the crumpled envelope and handed it to him. The stranger didn’t look at it, merely pocketed it, then handed back another.

  ‘Go on. Open it. It’s our new offer.’

  Jyan could see the body on the bed, the man waiting at the door, knife in hand, and wondered what it meant. Was he dead? He looked down at the sealed letter in his hand. It was identical to the one Cho Hsiang had given him.

  His hands shaking, he opened the envelope and took out the folded sheet. This time there was nothing on it. The pure white sheet was empty.

  DeVore smiled. ‘You understand, Kao Jyan?’

  Jyan looked from one man to the other, trying to see a way out of this. ‘The tape…’ he began, his voice trembling now. ‘What about the tape?’

  The stranger turned away, ignoring his comment, as if it had no significance. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. It was unfortunate, but he was no part of this. The deal was with you, Kao Jyan.’

  Jyan found he was staring at the body again. The stranger saw where he was looking and smiled. ‘Go on. Look at him, if you want. He’ll not mind you looking now.’ He went across to the bed and pulled the cover back. ‘Here…’

  The stranger’s voice held a tone of command that made Jyan start forward, then hesitate, a wave of nausea passing through him.

  DeVore looked up from the body. ‘He was a hard man to kill, your friend. It took both of us to deal with him. Chu Heng here had to hold him down while I dressed him.’

  Jyan shuddered. A cord had been looped about Chen’s bull neck four or five times then tightened until it had bitten into the flesh, drawing blood. But it was hard to judge whether that had been the cause of death or the heavy blows he’d suffered to the back of the head; blows that had broken his skull like a fragile piece of porcelain.

  He swallowed drily then looked up, meeting the stranger’s eyes. ‘Am I dead?’

  DeVore laughed; not cruelly, but as if the naivety of the remark had genuinely amused him. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘The tape…’ he said again.

  ‘You don’t understand, do you, Kao Jyan?’

  The Han in the doorway laughed, but shut up abruptly when DeVore looked at him.

  Jyan’s voice was almost a breath now. ‘Understand what?’

  ‘The game. Its rules. Its different levels. You see, you were out of your depth. You had ambitions above your level. That’s a dangerous thing for a little man like you. You were greedy.’

  Jyan shivered. It was what Chen had said.

  ‘You’ve… how should I say it… inconvenienced us.’

  ‘Forget the whole thing. Please. I…’

  DeVore shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, looking at Jyan with what seemed almost regret. ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘I’ll say nothing. I swear I’ll say nothing.’

  ‘You give your word, eh?’ DeVore turned and picked up the bag on the floor by the bed. ‘Here. This is what your word means.’

  DeVore threw the bag at him. Jyan caught it and looked inside, then threw the bag down, horrified. It was Cho Hsiang’s head.

  ‘You understand, then? It’s necessity. We have to sacrifice some pieces. For the sake of the game.’

  ‘The game…?’

  But there were no more explanations. The Han’s knife flashed and dug deep into his back. Kao Jyan was dead before he hit the floor.

  In Mu Chua’s House of the Ninth Ecstasy it was the hour of leisure and the girls were sprawled out on the couches in the Room of the Green Lamps, talking and laughing amongst themselves. Mu Chua’s House was a good house, a clean house, even though it was below the Net, and catered only for those who came here from Above on business. Feng Chung, biggest of the local Triad bosses and Mu Chua’s one-time lover, gave them his protection. His men guarded Mu Chua’s doors and gave assistance when a customer grew troublesome. It was a good arrangement and Mu Chua had grown fat on it.

  Mu – it meant mother in the old tongue, though she was no one’s mother and had been sterilized at twelve – was in her fifties now; a strong, small woman with a fiery temper who had a genuine love for her trade and for the girls in her charge. ‘Here men forget their cares,’ was her motto and she had it written over the door in English and Mandarin, the pictograms sewn into every cushion, every curtain, every bedspread in the place. Even so, there were strict rules in her House. None of her girls could be hurt in anyway. ‘If they want that,’ she had said to Feng Chung once, her eyes blazing with anger, ‘they can go down to the Clay. This is a good house. A loving house. How can my girls be loving if they are scared? How can they take the cares of men away unless they have no cares themselves?’

  Mu Chua was still a most attractive woman and many who had come to sample younger flesh had found themselves ending the night in mother’s arms. Thereafter there would be no other for them. They would return to her alone, remembering not only the warmth and enthusiasm of her embraces, but also those little tricks – special things she kept a secret, even from her girls – that only she could do.

&n
bsp; Just now she stood in the arched doorway, looking in at her girls, pleased by what she saw. She had chosen well. There were real beauties here – like Crimson Lotus and Jade Melody – and girls of character, like Spring Willow and the tiny, delicate-looking Sweet Honey, known to all as ‘little Mimi’, after the Mandarin for her adopted name. But there was more than that to her girls; she had trained them to be artisans, skilled at their craft of lovemaking. If such a thing were possible here in the Net, they had breeding. They were not common men hu – ‘the one standing in the door’ but shen nu – ‘god girls’. To Mu Chua it was an important distinction. Her girls might well be prostitutes, but they were not mere smoke-flowers. Her House was a land of warmth and softness, a model for all other Houses, and she felt a great pride in having made it so.

  Crimson Lotus and Sweet Honey had settled themselves at the far end of the room and were talking with another of the girls, Golden Heart. Mu Chua went across to them and settled herself on the floor between them, listening to their talk.

  ‘I had a dream, Mother Chua,’ said Golden Heart, turning to her. She was Mu Chua’s youngest girl, a sweet-faced thing of thirteen. ‘I was telling Crimson and little Mimi. In my dream it was New Year and I was eating cakes. Nian-kao – year cakes. Above me the clouds formed huge mountains in the sky, lit with the most extraordinary colours. I looked up, expecting something, and then, suddenly, a tiger appeared from out of the West and came and mated with me.’

  The other girls giggled, but Golden Heart carried on, her face earnest. ‘Afterwards I woke, but I was still in the dream, and beside me on the bed lay a pale grey snake, its skin almost white in places. At first it moved, yet when I reached out and touched it it was cold.’

  Mu Chua licked at her lips, disturbed. ‘That is a powerful dream, child. But what it means…’ She shrugged and fell quiet, then changed the subject. It would not do to worry Golden Heart. ‘Listen. I have a special favour to ask of you girls. We are to have visitors. Three important men from the Above. Soldiers.’