The Middle Kingdom

by David Wingrove

  It was time to come to an agreement. To make concessions. But first they would have justice. For Lwo Kang’s death and the insult to the Seven.

  Tolonen breathed deeply, hearing Lehmann’s voice sound clearly in his head. In two hours the smile would be wiped off that bastard’s face.

  He had been listening to the conversation between Shepherd and the others, amused by the way Shepherd ran them, like fish upon a line, only to reel them slowly in. But Han Ch’in’s sudden interjection had snapped the fragile line. Tolonen looked across and saw the young prince leaning forward, one hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, and heard his voice clearly, transmitted to him by the waiter at Berdichev’s side.

  ‘It must be awful, Hal. Being born down there.’

  ‘Knut!’

  He turned at the T’ang’s summons and went across to him, the fingers of his right hand surreptitiously moving across the control panel beneath the cloth of his uniform trousers, shutting off the voices in his head.

  ‘Chieh Hsia?’

  The circle about the T’ang made room for the General.

  ‘Klaus was asking me about Major DeVore. He’s back tomorrow, isn’t he?’

  ‘He was due then, Chieh Hsia, but the flight from Mars was delayed. He docks the morning of the wedding.’

  ‘Good. Klaus was saying how much his son would like to serve the Major again. I hope he’ll be granted the opportunity.’

  Tolonen bowed his head. What the T’ang ‘hoped’ for was tantamount to a command. ‘I shall see to it personally, Chieh Hsia.’

  ‘He has done well out there, I understand.’

  Again the T’ang was being diplomatic. He knew perfectly well how DeVore had performed as Chief Security Officer to the Martian Colony. He had seen all the reports and discussed them at length with Tolonen.

  ‘Indeed he has, Chieh Hsia. And I have put his name before the Marshal to fill the next vacancy for General.’

  ‘Your own?’ Li Shai Tung smiled.

  ‘If the T’ang no longer feels he needs me.’

  ‘Oh, that will be some time yet, Knut. A good long time, I hope.’

  Tolonen bowed deeply, profoundly pleased.

  Just then Major Nocenzi appeared at the edge of the group, his head bowed, awaiting permission to speak.

  The T’ang looked at him. ‘What is it, Major?’

  Nocenzi kept his head lowered. ‘There is a message, Chieh Hsia. For the General.’

  Tolonen turned to the T’ang. ‘You’ll excuse me, Chieh Hsia?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He bowed and turned away, then followed Nocenzi across to an anteroom they were using as coordination centre for Security. When the door was closed behind them, Tolonen faced his Major.

  ‘What is it, Vittorio?’

  ‘Karr has been on, sir. He says he’s traced his man.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s waiting to talk to you, sir. On the switching channel.’

  At once Tolonen reached down and touched the relevant button on the panel inset into his thigh. ‘Well, Karr?’ he said, knowing Karr would hear him, wherever he was in the City. Karr’s voice came back to him at once, as clear in his head as if he stood in the same room.

  ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, General. But I’m certain I’ve found him. He fits the profile perfectly, right down to the scar. I’m following him right now.’

  Tolonen listened carefully, making Karr repeat the coordinates three times before he cut connection. Then he turned to Nocenzi.

  ‘I must go, Vittorio. Take charge here. Ensure by your life that nothing happens.’

  Nocenzi looked down. ‘Are you sure you should go personally, sir? It could be dangerous. The man’s a killer.’

  Tolonen smiled. ‘I’ll be all right, Vittorio. Anyway, Karr will be with me.’

  ‘Even so, sir…’

  Tolonen laughed. ‘If it makes you easier, Vittorio, I order you to take charge here. All right? In this instance I have to go. Personally. It’s too important to leave to anyone else. Too much has slipped through my hands as it is, and this man’s the key to it all. I know he is. I feel it in my bones.’

  Nocenzi smiled. ‘Then take care, Knut. I’ll make certain all’s well here.’

  Tolonen reached out and held Nocenzi’s shoulder briefly, returning his smile. ‘Good. Then I’ll report what’s happening to the T’ang.’

  ‘Well, Chen? Would you like a beer?’

  Chen looked up at the brightly pulsing sign over the door. Fu Yang’s Bar, it read. His mouth was dry and the thought of a beer was good. It was some while since he’d allowed himself the luxury. Even so he looked down and shook his head. ‘Thank you, Pan Chang Lo, but I should be getting back. It’s late and Wang Ti will have to cook.’

  Supervisor Lo took his arm. ‘All the better. You can get a meal at the bar. Call her. Tell her you’ll be a bit late, and that you’ve eaten. She’ll not mind. Not this once. Come on, I’ll treat you. You’ve helped me out and I appreciate that.’

  Chen hesitated, then nodded. Lo was right: it wasn’t as if he made a habit of this. No, Wang Ti could hardly complain if he had a few beers for once; not after he had worked a double shift. Anyway, he had bought her something. He traced the shape of the necklace in his overall pocket and smiled to himself, then followed Lo Ying into the crowded bar, squeezing in beside him at one of the tiny double booths.

  Lo Ying turned to him, his deeply lined, wispily bearded face only a hand’s breadth away. ‘What’ll you have? The soychicken with ginger and pineapple’s good. So’s the red-cooked soypork with chestnuts.’

  Chen laughed. ‘They both sound excellent. We’ll have a large dish of each, neh? And I’ll share the cost with you.’

  Lo Ying put his long, thin hand over Chen’s. ‘Not at all, my friend. As I said, you did me a good turn tonight. It was good of you to work the shift at short notice. I was in a hole and you helped me out of it. It’s the least I can do to buy you a meal and a few beers.’

  Chen smiled, then looked down, rubbing at the red marks at the back of his head and on his forehead where he had been wearing the wraparound. Lo Ying was a good man. A bit dull, maybe, but fair and reliable, unlike most of the pan chang he’d encountered up here. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But I was glad of the extra shift. We’ve not much, Wang Ti, baby Jyan and I, but I’ve ambitions. I want better for my son.’

  Lo Ying looked at him a moment, then nodded his head. ‘I’ve watched you often, Chen. Seen how hard you work. And I’ve wondered to myself. Why is Chen where he is? Why is he not higher up the levels? He is a good man; a good, strong worker; reliable, intelligent. Why is he here, working for me? Why am I not working for him?’

  Chen laughed shortly, then looked up, meeting Lo Ying’s eyes. ‘I was not always so, Lo Ying. I was a wild youth. A waster of my talents. And then… well, a wife, a son – they change a man.’

  ‘Ah yes. So it is.’

  A girl came and took their order, then returned a moment later with two bulbs of Yao Fan Te beer. Lo Ying handed one to Chen, then toasted him.

  ‘To your family!’

  ‘And yours, Lo Ying!’

  He had told no one of his past. No one. Not even Wang Ti. For in this, he knew, he was vulnerable. One careless word said to the wrong person and he would be back there, below the Net. Back in that nightmare place where every man was for himself and men like Lo Ying were as rare as phoenix eggs.

  Lo Ying put his beer down and wiped the froth from his wispy moustache. ‘Talking of work, I’ve been meaning to ask you…’ He looked sideways at Chen. ‘As you know, Feng Shi-lun is up for a pan chang’s job. I happen to know he’ll get it. Which means there’s a vacancy as my assistant.’

  Lo Ying fell silent, leaving unstated the meaning of his words. Chen took a deep draught of his beer, studying the old Han beggar on the label a moment. Then he wiped his mouth and looked up again. ‘You’re offering me the job?’

  Lo Ying shrugged. ‘It’s not up to me, Chen,
but… Well, I could put a word in higher up.’

  Chen considered a moment, then looked directly at him. ‘How much would it cost?’

  ‘Two hundred yuan.’

  Chen laughed. ‘I haven’t twenty! Where would I find such money?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand me, Chen. I’d lend you it. Interest free. I’d…’ He hesitated, then smiled. ‘I’d like to see you get on, Chen. You’re worth a dozen of those useless shits. And maybe someday…’

  Again, it was left unsaid. But Chen had grown used to the ways of these levels. Favours and bribes – they were the lubricants of this world. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. You pay squeeze, you move up. Refuse and you stay where you are. It was the way of the world. But Lo Ying was better than most. He offered his help interest free and with only the vaguest of strings. Chen looked at him and nodded. ‘Okay, but how would I repay you? My rent’s eight yuan. Food’s another six. That leaves eleven from my weekly pay to see to clothing, heating, light. I’m lucky if I save five yuan a month!’

  Lo Ying nodded. ‘That’s why you must take this opportunity. Pan chang’s assistant pays thirty a week. You could pay me the difference until the debt is cleared. You say you’ve twenty?’

  Chen nodded.

  ‘Good. Then that’s one hundred and eighty you’ll need from me. Thirty six weeks and you’re free of obligation. Free… and five yuan better off a week.’

  Chen looked at him, knowing how great a favour Lo Ying was doing him. If he went to a shark for the money it would be two years, maybe four, before he’d be clear. But thirty-six weeks. Nine months, give or take. It was nothing. And he would be one step higher.

  He put out his hand. ‘Okay, Lo Ying. I’m grateful. If ever…’

  ‘Yes, yes…’ Lo Ying smiled, then turned. ‘Look, here’s our food.’

  They tucked in, looking at each other from time to time and smiling.

  ‘It’s good, neh?’ said Lo Ying, turning to order two more beers. Then he frowned. ‘Hey, Chen, look…’

  Chen turned, his mouth full of chicken, and looked. On the big screen over the serving counter the Ywe Lung had appeared. All over the bar people were turning to look and falling silent.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Chen said. ‘Just another announcement about the wedding.’

  ‘No… Look. The background’s white. Someone’s dead. One of the Seven.’ A low murmur went around the packed bar. A few got up from their seats and went to stand at the bar, looking up at the screen.

  Chen looked at Lo Ying’s face and saw the concern there. There was still a strong feeling for the Seven at this level, whatever was happening Above or far below. Here they identified with the Seven and were fiercely loyal. ‘Trouble for the Seven is trouble for us all’ – how often he’d heard that said in the last year and a half. And something of that had rubbed off on him, he realized as he sat there, his pulse raised by the ominous white background to the imperial symbol.

  Martial music played. Then, abruptly, the image changed.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Lo Ying softly.

  There was a buzz of noise, then quiet. On the screen was a plain, red-carpeted room. In the middle of the room was a very solid-looking block; a big thing, an arm’s length to a side. Its top was strangely smooth, as if melted or worn flat by the passage of feet or water over it, and cut into its dull grey side was the Ywe Lung, the wheel of dragons.

  For a moment the screen was silent. Then came the voice.

  It was the same voice he had heard numerous times before, making official announcements, but now it seemed more sombre, more threatening than he had ever heard it. And the shadow voice, softer, more sing-song, that spoke in native Mandarin, seemed to contain the same dark threat.

  Chen put the bulb to his lips and emptied it. ‘Listen,’ said Lo Ying, reaching out to take his arm again. ‘There’s been a trial.’

  The voice spoke slowly, carefully, outlining what had happened. There had been an assassination. The T’ang’s Minister, Lwo Kang…

  Chen felt himself go cold. Lwo Kang. He looked down.

  A man named Edmund Wyatt had confessed to the killing. He had organized it. Had been the hand behind the knife.

  Chen stiffened. Wyatt? Who in hell’s name was Wyatt? Why not Berdichev? That was the name Kao Jyan had mentioned on his tape. Berdichev, not Wyatt. He shook his head, not understanding.

  The image changed again, and there, before them, was Wyatt himself, speaking into camera, admitting his part in everything. A worn yet handsome man. An aristocrat. Every inch an aristocrat.

  From the watching men came a sharp hissing. ‘Scum!’ shouted someone. ‘Arrogant First Level bastards!’

  Chen looked down, then looked up again. So Kao Jyan had been wrong. A pity. But then, why had they killed him? Why kill him if he was wrong about Berdichev?

  Or had he been wrong?

  Wyatt’s face faded, leaving the image of the empty room and the block. Again there was silence, both on the screen and below it in the bar. Then, suddenly, there was movement to the right of the screen. Two big, hugely muscled men brought a tall, very angular man into the centre of the room and secured him over the block, his chest pressed against the upper surface, his bowed head jutting out towards the watching billions.

  The man was naked. His hands had been secured tightly behind his back and his feet shackled with manacles. He looked very ill. Feebly he raised his head, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a rictus of fear, then let it fall again. His shaven head was like a skull, its paleness dotted with red blotches, while his bones seemed to poke through at shoulder and elbow.

  ‘Gods…’ whispered Lo Ying. ‘He looks half-dead already, poor bastard!’

  Chen nodded, unable to look away. One of the guards had gone off screen. The other leaned over the prisoner and brought his knee down firmly, brutally onto his back, pressing him down against the block. Then the first guard came back.

  From the men in the bar came a single gasp. Of surprise. And fear.

  In the guard’s hands was a sword, a huge, long, two-edged weapon with an exaggeratedly broad, flat blade and a long, iron-black handle. It was cruel and brutal, like something out of a museum, but it had been polished until it shone like new. The edges winked viciously in the brightness of the room as the guard turned it in his hands, accustoming himself to its weight and balance.

  Lo Ying swallowed noisily, then made a small whimpering sound in his throat. ‘Gods…’ he said again, barely audibly. But Chen could not look away. It seemed alive. Hideously alive. As if some awful power animated the weapon. Its heaviness, its very awkwardness, spoke volumes. It was a brutal, pagan thing, and its ugly, unsophisticated strength struck dread into him.

  Beside him Lo Ying groaned. Chen looked about him, his eyes searching from face to face, seeing his own horrified fascination mirrored everywhere.

  Lo Ying’s voice shook. ‘They’re going to execute him!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chen softly, looking back at the screen. ‘They are.’

  The guard had raised the sword high. For a moment he held it there, his muscles quivering with the strain. Then, as if at some unspoken command, he brought it down onto the block.

  The sword met little resistance. The head seemed to jump up on its own, a comet’s trail of blood gouting behind it. It came down to the far left of the screen, rolled over once and lay still, eerily upright, the eyes staring out sightlessly at the watching billions. The headless corpse spasmed and was still. Blood pumped from the severed neck, dribbling down the sides of the block to merge with the deep red of the carpet.

  There was a fearful, awful silence. The guards had gone. Now there was only the block, the body and the head. Those and the blood.

  Chen sat there, like the rest, frozen into immobility, unable to believe it had been real. Despite himself, he felt shocked. It couldn’t have happened, could it? He saw the surprise, the sudden pain in the dead man’s staring eyes and still could not believe it had been real. But all r
ound him grown men were on their feet, shuddering, groaning, laughing with shock or crying openly as they stood there, unable to look away from the screen and the severed head. Then Chen unfroze himself and stood up.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking Lo Ying’s arm firmly. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Above them the screen went dark. Chen turned and pushed his way through the crowd, pulling Lo Ying along behind him, anxious to get outside. But out in the corridor he stopped, breathing deeply, feeling giddy suddenly. Why? he asked himself. I’ve killed men before now. With these very hands I’ve taken their lives. Why, then, was that so awful?

  But he knew why. Because it was different. Because it had been witnessed by them all.

  It was a sign. A sign of things to come.

  ‘Gods… Gods…’ Lo Ying was shaking violently. He was barely in control of himself. ‘I didn’t think…’

  He turned away, was sick against the wall.

  Yes, thought Chen. A sign. Times are changing. And this, the first public execution in more than a century, is the beginning of it.

  He turned and looked at Lo Ying, suddenly pitying him. It had shocked him; what then had it done to such as Lo Ying? He took his arms and turned him around. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’ll come back with me. Stay with us tonight. We’ll make space.’

  Lo Ying went to shake his head, then saw how Chen was looking at him and nodded.

  ‘Good. Come on, then. We can send a message to your family. They’ll understand.’

  Lo Ying let himself be led along, wiping distractedly at his mouth and beard and mumbling to himself. But at the junction of Chen’s corridor he stiffened and pulled back.

  Chen turned, looking at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There…’ Lo Ying bent his head slightly, indicating something off to Chen’s right. ‘Those men. I saw them earlier. Back at the bar.’

  Chen stared at him. ‘You’re sure?’