The Middle Kingdom

by David Wingrove

  Krenek groaned. His brother, Henryk, and his wife had arrived three days ago from Mars and were due to leave tomorrow, after the Wedding. All four were guests of the T’ang, with seats at table before the great Arrow Pavilion. But if Henryk was ill…

  Krenek pushed past his wife irritably and strode purposefully down the corridor. Stopping before one of the doors, he hesitated, then knocked hard.

  ‘Henryk! Are you all right?’

  Almost at once the door slid open. His brother stood there, dressed, his midnight blue velvet ma k’ua, or ceremonial jacket, tightly buttoned, his dark hair combed back severely from his brow.

  ‘Josef… What do you want?’

  Krenek bowed slightly, acknowledging his elder brother’s status. He had returned from Mars only three weeks ago, newly promoted to Senior Representative of the Colony.

  ‘Maria was worried for you. She…’

  Henryk Krenek smiled, returning to a lesser degree his brother’s bow. His tall, regal-looking wife, Irina, had come across and now stood behind him. Henryk looked past his brother at his brother’s wife.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maria, but it was a secret. I have a gift for my young brother, you see. For being such a good host to us these last three days.’

  Josef beamed with delight. ‘A gift? It is you who honour me, brother.’

  Henryk half turned, glancing at his wife, then turned back again. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in, Josef? Maria, you’ll excuse us a moment?’

  Maria bowed low. ‘I’ve still much to do, Henryk. I’m sorry I disturbed you with my foolish fears.’ Her cheeks red, she backed away, then turned and fled down the corridor.

  Henryk watched her a moment, then turned and went inside, locking the door behind him.

  ‘Well, brother…’ he said, turning to face Josef. And even as he said the words he saw Irina come up behind the man and pull the cord tight about his neck, dragging him down with a strange, inhuman strength.

  Servants made their k’o t’ou as Han Ch’in entered the Chien Ching Kung, the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Rows of tables had been set up the length and breadth of the great hall. Thousands filled the space between the pillars. Cloths of imperial yellow covered every table and on each was piled a great heap of wedding gifts.

  Han Ch’in looked about him, then ventured into the dimness of the hall. At once two of the servants hastened to accompany the prince, one going before him, the other just behind, each carrying a simple oil lantern on a long pole. It was a tradition that these halls remained unlit by modern power sources: a tradition no one sought to change.

  Han Ch’in strode about, examining things, then turned, his face and shoulders lit from above, his dark eyes shining wetly. His shadows stretched away from him on either side, like ghostly dancers, dark and long and thin, flickering in the uneven light. ‘Yuan! Come! Look at this!’

  Li Yuan had paused in the tall doorway, staring up at the richly decorated ceiling. This was his first visit to the Imperial City and he was astonished by its sheer opulence. Their own palaces were so small by comparison, so mean, despite their luxury. This was grandeur on an unimaginable scale. Was beauty almost to excess. He sighed and shook his head. Beauty, yes, and yet this beauty had its darker side. He knew his history: had learned how the Ch’ing – the Manchus – who ruled from here for two centuries and more, had fallen, weighed down by their own venality, pride and ignorance. This palace – indeed, this city of palaces – had been built on suffering. On injustice and exploitation.

  The history of Chung Kuo – it was a succession of dreams and disappointments, vast cycles of grandeur followed by decadence. It was as if a great wheel turned through Time itself, ineluctable, raising men up, then hurling them down, to be crushed, together with their dreams of peace or further conquest. So it had been, for three thousand years and more. But it was to end such excess that the City had been built. To end the great wheel’s brutal turn and bring about the dream often thousand peaceful years.

  But was the great wheel turning once again, imperceptible beneath the ice? Or had it already come full circle? Were they the new Ch’ing, destined in their turn to fall?

  ‘Yuan!’ Han stood there beside one of the tables, looking back at him. ‘Stop daydreaming and come here! Look at this!’

  Li Yuan looked across, then, smiling, went over to him, a servant lighting his way.

  Han Ch’in handed him the model of the horse. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? All the gifts from the more important guests have been put on display at this end. The horse is from the Pei family.’

  Li Yuan turned it in his hands then handed it back. It was solid gold. ‘It’s very heavy, isn’t it?’

  Han laughed. ‘Not as heavy as the silver phoenix the House of Representatives has sent as its gift. You should see it! It’s enormous! It took eight men to carry it in here!’

  Li Yuan looked around him, staring into the shadows on every side. The tables seemed to stretch away forever, each piled with a small fortune of wedding gifts. ‘There’s no end to it, is there?’

  Han shook his head, a strange expression in his eyes. ‘No.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘It’s astonishing. There are more than eight million items. Did you know that, Yuan? They’ve been cataloguing them for weeks now. And still more are arriving all the time. The secretarial department are working all hours just sending out letters to thank people. In fact, it’s got so bad they’ve had to take on an extra ten thousand men in the department!’

  Han was silent a moment, looking out into the shadowed body of the hall, the torchlight flickering in his dark hair. Then he turned, looking directly at Yuan. ‘You know, I was thinking, ti ti…’

  Li Yuan smiled at the familiar term. ‘Young brother’, it meant. Yet between them it was like a special name. A term of love.

  ‘You, thinking?’

  Han Ch’in smiled, then looked away again, a more thoughtful expression on his face than usual. ‘Look at it all. It fills this hall and five others. Fills them to overflowing. And yet if I were to spend from now until the end of my days simply looking at these things, picking them up and touching them…’ He shook his head, then looked down. ‘It seems such a waste, somehow. I’d never get to look at half of it, would I?’

  He was silent a moment, then put the horse back. ‘There are so many things here.’

  Li Yuan studied his brother a moment. So it affects you too, this place. You look about you and you think, how like the Ai Hsin Chiao Lo – the Manchu – we are, and yet how different. But then you ask, in what way different? And you worry, lest your excesses be like theirs. He smiled, a faint shiver running down his spine. Oh, Han Ch’in, how I love you for that part of you that worries. That part of you that would be a good T’ang – that feels its responsibilities so sharply. Don’t change, dear elder brother. Don’t ever forget the worries that plague you, for they are you – are all that’s truly good in you.

  Han Ch’in had moved on. Now he was studying one of the big tapestries that were hung against the side wall. Li Yuan came and stood beside him. For a moment they were both silent, looking up through the uneven, wavering lamplight at the brightly coloured landscape, then Han knelt and put his arm about Yuan’s shoulders.

  ‘You know, Yuan, there are times when I wish I wasn’t heir.’ His voice was a whisper now. ‘Sometimes all I want is to give it all away and be normal. Do you understand?’

  Li Yuan nodded. ‘I understand well enough. You are like all men, Han. You want most that which you cannot have.’

  Han was quiet a moment, then he shook his head. ‘No. You don’t understand. I want it because I want it. Not because I can’t have it.’

  ‘And Fei Yen? What about Fei Yen? Would you give her up? Would you give up your horse? Your fine clothes? The palaces outside the City? You would really give up all of that?’

  Han stared straight ahead, his face set. ‘Yes. Sometimes I think I would.’

  Li Yuan turned, looking into his brother’s face. ‘And sometimes I think you�
�re mad, elder brother. The world’s too complex. It would not be so simple for you. Anyway, no man ever gets what he truly wants.’

  Han turned his head and looked at him closely. ‘And what do you want, ti ti?’

  Li Yuan looked down, a slight colour in his cheeks. ‘We ought to be going. Father will be looking for us.’

  Han Ch’in stood, then watched Li Yuan move back between the tables towards the great doorway, the servant following with his lantern. No, he thought, you don’t understand me at all, little brother. For once you don’t see the drift of my words.

  The thought had grown in him this last year. At first it had been a fancy – something to amuse himself with. But now, today, it seemed quite clear to him. He would refuse it. Would stand down. Would kneel before his younger brother.

  Why not? he thought. Why does it have to be me?

  Li Yuan, then. Han smiled and nodded to himself. Yes. So it would be. Li Yuan would be T’ang, not Li Han Ch’in. And he would be a great T’ang. Perhaps the greatest of all. And he, Li Han Ch’in, would be proud of him. Yes. So it would be. So he would insist it was.

  Maria Krenek bowed abjectly, conscious that her husband, Josef, had already moved on. ‘I am deeply sorry, Madam Yu. My husband is not himself today. I am certain he meant nothing by it.’

  Madam Yu raised her fan stiffly, her face dark with fury, dismissing the smaller woman. She turned to the two men at her side.

  ‘How dare he stare through me like that, as if he didn’t know me! I’ll see that haughty bastard barred from decent company! That’ll take him down a few levels! Now his brother is Representative for Mars he thinks he can snub who he likes. Well! We’ll see, eh?’

  Maria backed away, appalled by what she had heard. Madam Yu was not a woman to make an enemy of. She had entry to the Minor Families. Her gatherings were an essential part of life in the Above – and she herself the means by which one man came to meet another to their mutual benefit. She had destroyed bigger men than Josef Krenek, and now she would destroy him.

  ‘Josef!’ she said, softly but urgently, catching up with her husband and taking his arm. ‘What were you thinking? Go back and kneel before her. For all our sakes, please, go and kneel to her. Say you’re sorry. Please, Josef!’

  He looked down at her hand on his arm, then across to his brother and his wife. Then, astonishingly, he threw her arm off.

  ‘Go home, Maria. Now! This moment!’

  Her mouth gaped. Then, blushing deeply, humiliated beyond anything she had ever known before, Maria turned and ran.

  Nocenzi’s voice sounded urgently in the General’s head. ‘Knut! I’ve got something!’

  The General was standing beside the back entrance to one of the Secure Rooms. They had just unsealed it and brought out the thing that had tried to get through their screen. Like the others it was disturbingly human – better than the Ebert copy. Different. Far more complex. As if the Ebert copy had been an attempt to throw them off the trail.

  ‘What is it, Vittorio?’

  ‘I’ve checked the incomings at Nanking against the guest list. And guess what?’

  ‘They’re coming in from Mars.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘All of them?’

  They had caught eight of the copies so far. Eight! It frightened him to think what might have happened if they had not discovered the fake Ebert. But unlike the ‘Ebert’ these were armed. They were walking arsenals, their weaponry concealed inside their flesh. Just two of them could have caused havoc if they had got through. But eight…

  Nocenzi hesitated, getting confirmation, then, ‘Every one of them so far.’

  Tolonen knelt over the dead thing, then drew his knife and cut the silks open, revealing its torso. This one was a young woman of seventeen, the daughter of a leading businessman from the Brache settlement. He was waiting inside the Forbidden City, unaware that his daughter had been murdered months ago and replaced by this thing. Tolonen shuddered, trying not to let his emotions cloud his thinking. This was a bad day. A very bad day. But it could have been far worse.

  He hesitated, then cut into one of the breasts. Blood welled and ran down the smooth flank of the thing. Tolonen steeled himself and cut again, pulling the flesh apart to reveal the hard, protective case beneath. Yes, it was like the other ones. They all had this protective casing over their essential organs and beneath the facial flesh. As if whoever had made them had designed them to withstand heavy fire: to last long enough to do maximum damage.

  ‘Listen, Vittorio. I want you to get files on all the Mars Colonists we haven’t checked yet and get an elite squad to pick them out before they get to the gates. I want one of them alive, understand?’

  Alive… His flesh crawled. Functional, I mean. These things were never alive. Not in any real way.

  He got up, signalling to the technicians to take the thing away.

  ‘And, Vittorio. Warn your men these things are dangerous. Perhaps the most dangerous thing they’ve ever had to face.’

  As soon as he stepped out into the space between the Cities, Josef Krenek knew something was wrong. Guests were queuing to pass through what seemed like checkpoints. Checkpoints which shouldn’t have been there. Beside him Henryk and Irina were unaware that anything was amiss. But then they wouldn’t be: their programming was far simpler than his own.

  He looked about him, trying to gauge the situation. Three-man elite squads were moving slowly down the lines of people, checking IDs. Further off, above what seemed like some kind of rat run, they had set up guard towers.

  They know we’re here, he thought at once. Those gates are screens.

  Casually he drew Henryk and Irina back, away from the queue, as if they had left something in the reception hall. Then, in an urgent whisper, he told them what he thought was happening.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Henryk’s cold, clear eyes searched Josef’s for an answer. ‘We’ve no instructions for this.’

  Josef answered him immediately. ‘I want you to go out there, Henryk. I want you to go up to one of those squads and ask them why you have to queue. I want you to find out what they’re looking for. Okay?’

  ‘What if they’re looking for me? What if they try to arrest me?’

  Josef smiled coldly. ‘Then you’ll bring them over here.’

  He watched Henryk walk out and greet them and saw at once how the soldiers reacted. He heard their shouted questions, then saw Henryk turn and point back to where he stood beside Irina.

  Ah, well, the part of him that was DeVore thought, it could have worked. Could have worked beautifully. Imagine it! The twelve of them climbing the marble steps, death at their fingertips, the Families falling like leaves before them!

  He smiled and turned to Irina. ‘Do nothing until I say. I’m going to try to get through that lot.’ He indicated the rat run of screens and corridors and guard-towers. ‘But not directly. With any luck they’ll take me through. If not…’

  Henryk came up and stood before them, one of the elite Security guards holding his arm loosely. Other squads were hurrying from elsewhere, heading towards them.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, Captain?’ Josef said, facing the officer calmly.

  ‘For you, sir, nothing. But I’m afraid your brother and his wife must accompany me. I’ve orders to detain all Mars Colonists.’

  Josef hid his surprise. Why not me? he wondered. Then he understood. They’ve seen the Mars connection. But I wasn’t brought in that way. I was here already. The first to come. The lynchpin of the scheme.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ he said, looking at Henryk, concerned. ‘Still, I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, elder brother. We had best do as these men say, yes? Until we can sort things out.’

  The captain shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but my orders are to take Mars Colonists only.’

  ‘But surely, Captain.’ For a moment he was Josef Krenek at his most unctuous, as if persuading a client to buy a new product range. ‘You must allow me to accompany my e
lder brother and his wife. There are laws about unjust detention and the right of representation. Or have they been repealed?’

  The captain hesitated, listening to orders in his head, then gave a curt nod. ‘I’m told you can come along, Shih Krenek. But, please, don’t interfere. This is an important matter. I’m certain we can settle it quite quickly.’

  Krenek smiled and followed them silently. Yes, I’m certain we can. But not here. Not yet.

  The General looked through the one-way glass at the men and women crowded into the small room.

  Well?’ he asked. ‘Is that all of the Colonists?’

  Nocenzi nodded. ‘Every last one. Sixty-two in all.’

  Tolonen stroked his chin thoughtfully, then turned and looked directly at his Major. ‘Can we set up a gate here? I want to trace any remaining copy-humans. But I don’t want them terminated. Understand?’

  Nocenzi nodded. ‘My men are working on it already.’

  ‘Good.’ His first instinct had been to gas all the copies, but they needed one in functional order. To trace it back. To find out where these things came from and get to the men behind them.

  ‘What percentage of the Colonists have proved to be these things?’

  Nocenzi looked at his lieutenant, who bowed and answered for him. ‘Nine from three hundred and eighteen. So just under three per cent.’

  Tolonen looked back into the room. So if the percentage was constant that meant there was at least one, maybe two of the things in there. But how did you tell? They were indistinguishable to the naked eye.

  ‘At least they’re not booby-trapped,’ Nocenzi said, coming closer and standing beside him at the glass. ‘Think of the damage they could have done if they had been. If I’d built them I’d have made them tamper-proof. More than that, I’d have made them a bit less docile. Not one of them queried going into the secure rooms. It’s as if they weren’t programmed for it. Yet they must have had pretty complex programming for them to keep up appearances, let alone come here. They must have had a plan of some kind.’