The Middle Kingdom

by David Wingrove

  Tolonen started, then turned to face his Major. ‘Of course! Why didn’t I see it before?’ He laughed shortly, then shivered. ‘Don’t you see, Vittorio? Twelve of them. One of them the lynchpin, the strategist, holding it all in his head, the others with the bare outlines of what they have to do, but no sense of the larger strategy.’

  Nocenzi understood at once. ‘An elite attack squad. Like our own Security squads. Functioning in the same way.’

  ‘Yes!’ Tolonen said, elated. ‘That explains why they were so docile. They only needed a certain amount of programming. They were just following orders. But one of them – one of the “people” in that room – is the leader. The thinker.’

  DeVore. It all led back to DeVore. His hand behind all of this. His thinking. His elite training.

  ‘There’ll be three of them, I warrant you. Two soldiers and a strategist. It’s the last I want. The leader. The others will know nothing. But that one…’

  But even as he said the words he saw it. Saw the two of them meet in the centre of the room and touch and spark, blue veins of electric current forming in the air about them.

  ‘Down!’ he yelled, throwing himself to the floor as the room beyond the mirror filled with blinding light.

  And then the ceiling fell on them.

  Krenek knelt and bowed his head, his empty hands placed palms down on his thighs, fingers pointed inward, his whole stance mimicking the tens of thousands surrounding him. Then he straightened, studying the group of people gathered at the top of the steps directly in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Yin Tsu and his family were to the left, Li Shai Tung and his to the right. Beneath them, on the steps themselves, the seven New Confucian officials bowed and chanted the ancient, ceremonial words.

  He looked right, then left, then bowed his head again, as others did surrounding him. Guards were everywhere, armed and watchful. GenSyn many of them, no doubt. Unquestioning, obedient creatures. Reliable. Predictable.

  Krenek smiled. So different from me, he thought. They made me better than that. More devious. More human.

  But there was still a problem. He was too far back. Had even two of the others been here it might still have worked. But now?

  He looked about him, calculating distances, gauging where they were weak, where strong, running high-probability scenarios through his head until he saw it clearly. Then, and only then, did he establish his plan. I’ll have fifteen seconds. Eighteen at most. I can make it halfway there by then. They’ll protect the T’ang and the T’ang’s sons. Or try to. But they’ll also try to protect Yin Tsu and his daughter Fei Yen. That will split their attention.

  Yes, but they’d expect him to try to take the T’ang. That’s where they would concentrate their defences. Again he smiled, the DeVore part of him remembering his elite training. He could see how they’d do it, forming a screen of bodies in front of him, two guards dragging him back, making the smallest possible target of him. And if seriously threatened they’d open fire, killing anything that came at them, innocent or otherwise.

  But he would not attack the T’ang. Or Han Ch’in. He’d strike where they least expected. Li Yuan would be his target. As he’d always been.

  DeVore’s words rang clearly in his head. ‘Kill the brain and the beast will fall. Li Shai Tung is old, Han Ch’in incompetent. Only Li Yuan, the youngest, is a threat to us. Get Han Ch’in if you can. Kill the T’ang if you must. But make sure Li Yuan is dead. With him gone the House of Li will not last long.’

  He waited, knowing the time was fast approaching. Any moment now the saffron-robed officials would turn, facing them, and the vast crowd would rise as one to roar their approval of the marriage. It was then that he’d move forward, using their packed bodies as a screen. He would have five seconds, and then they would kneel again.

  Yes, he thought, visualizing it clearly now. He could see himself running, fire blazing from his ruined hands. Could smell the crowd’s blind panic, hear the ear-shattering stutter of the crossfire. And then, before his eyes closed finally, he would see the T’ang’s son sprawled out on the marble, face down, blood streaming from a dozen separate wounds.

  Yes. Seconds from now.

  There was a sudden lapse in the sing-song incantation. As one the officials turned and faced the crowd. As one the vast crowd rose to its feet.

  He made to move forward and felt himself jarred to a halt, then lifted from his feet. Two great hands tore at his chest, two hugely muscled arms pinned his own arms to his sides, slowly crushing him.

  ‘Going somewhere, Mister Krenek?’

  Karr threw down the lifeless carcass of the thing, then came to attention before Tolonen.

  ‘I don’t know what happened, sir. One moment it was fine. The next it was like this.’

  Tolonen got up unsteadily from his chair and came over to where the thing lay. His chest and arm had been strapped tightly and, despite the pain-killing drugs, he was finding it difficult to breathe easily. He had cracked two ribs and dislocated his shoulder. Otherwise he’d been very lucky. Luckier than Nocenzi. The Major was even now in intensive care, fighting for his life.

  Now, cleaned up and in new dress uniform, the empty left sleeve pinned loosely to the tunic, Tolonen was back in charge. Looking at the copy, he felt all his anger rise to the surface again.

  ‘Who let this through? Who authorized the closure of the gates?’

  Karr lowered his head slightly. ‘It was Marshal Kirov, sir. He assumed the explosion in the room killed the last of the copies. It was getting late, and there were still thousands of guests to be processed…’

  ‘Damn it!’ Tolonen’s chest rose and fell sharply and a flicker of pain crossed his face. How could Kirov be so foolish? How could he risk the T’ang’s life so idiotically? So a few thousand guests were inconvenienced – what was that beside the survival of a T’ang?

  Kirov was nominally his superior. He had been elected Marshal by the Council of Generals only six months back and in the emergency had been right to step in and take command, but what he had done was inexcusable.

  Tolonen shuddered. ‘Thank you, Karr. I’ll deal with things from here.’

  He watched the big man go, aware that, on his own initiative, Karr had probably saved the T’ang. He alone had thought to get the copy of the tape showing what had happened in the room. He alone had identified from the files the two who had ‘joined’ to such devastating effect. Then he alone had traced the brother, Josef Krenek, understanding what he was and what he planned.

  Thank the gods, Tolonen thought. This time we’ve beaten them.

  Tolonen lifted the dead thing’s face with the toe of his boot, then let it fall again. A perfect likeness, this one. The best of them all, perhaps. It was a pity. Now they would never know.

  He turned from the body and signalled to his adjutant. At once the young man came across and helped him back to his chair.

  ‘Tell Major Kroger to take over,’ he said, putting the chair into gear. ‘I must see Li Shai Tung at once.’

  It was evening. The sun’s last rays had climbed the eastern wall and left the Yu Hua Yuan, transforming the garden of the Imperial City into a huge, square dish of shadows. Brightly coloured paper lanterns lit the bamboo grove and hung from lines above the lotus-strewn pools and in the eaves of the tea houses. Caged birds sang their sweet, drug-induced songs in the gnarled and ancient branches of the junipers. Below, servants went amongst the guests with wine and cordials and trays of delicacies, while shao lin guards stood back against the walls and amongst the rocks like ghosts.

  Li Yuan, looking down on it all from the height of the marble terrace, smiled. All ceremony was done with now. Below him, to his right, the wedding party moved among the guests informally, Han Ch’in talking excitedly, Fei Yen silent, demurely bowing at his side.

  He saw his father laugh and reach out to pick a single white blossom from Han’s dark hair, then turn to whisper something to his uncle, Li Yun-Ti. There was a gay, almost light-hearted atmosphere to th
ings; a feeling of relief that things had turned out as they had. Yet only an hour earlier things had been very different. Li Yuan had been there at his father’s interview with the General.

  He had never seen the General so angry. It had taken all his father’s skill to calm Tolonen down and persuade him not to confront Kirov himself. But he had seen how shaken his father was to have been proved so conclusively right about the ‘copies’, how outraged at Kirov’s stupidity. His face had been rigidly controlled as he had faced his General.

  ‘I ask you to do nothing, Knut. Leave this to me. Kirov is Wei Feng’s man. I shall speak with Wei Feng at once.’

  He had been as good as his word. Yuan leaned out and looked down. Tolonen sat there now in his chair, directly below him, subdued, talking to his fellow Generals. Kirov was not amongst them.

  Wei Feng, T’ang of East Asia, had been distraught. The thought that his General had almost cost the lives of a fellow T’ang and his family was more than he could bear. He had turned angrily on Kirov and torn the chi ling patch, symbol of the Marshal’s status as a military officer of the first rank, from his chest, before taking the ceremonial dagger from Kirov’s belt and throwing it down.

  ‘You are nothing,’ he had said to the now prostrate Marshal, tears of anger in his eyes. ‘And your family is nothing. You have shamed me, Kirov. Now go. Get out of my sight.’

  News had come only minutes later that Kirov had committed suicide; his son, a Major under his command, seconding him before he too had killed himself.

  Han Ch’in, meanwhile, knew nothing of these things. No shadows were to fall upon his nuptial bed.

  ‘Let them be innocent of this,’ his father had said, taking Li Yuan’s arm as they made their way back to the Yu Hua Yuan. ‘For if the seed is strong it will take root and grow a son.’

  A son… Yuan looked back at them. They were closer – almost below where he stood. He could see them clearly now. Fei Yen was breathtaking. Her dark hair had been plaited with golden threads and bows and tiny orchids, then curled into a tight bun on the top of her head, revealing a pale gold, swan-like neck. She was so delicate. Her ears, her nose, the lines of her cheekbones; all these were exquisite. And yet there was fire in her bright, hazel eyes, strength in her chin and mouth. She stood there at Han’s side in an attitude of obedience, yet she seemed to wear the cloth of crimson and gold as if born to it. Though her head was tilted forward in the ritual stance of passive acceptance, there was a power to her still form that contradicted it. This bird, this flying swallow, was a proud one. She would need her wings clipped before she settled.

  He looked from Fei Yen to his brother, seeing how flushed Han was. How his eyes would take small sips of her; each time surprised by her, each time astonished she was his. In this, as in so many things, Han was his junior. So much surprised him. So much evaded his grasp. ‘It’s easy for you, ti Yuan,’ he had once said. ‘You were born old. It all comes new to me.’

  It would be an interesting match, he thought. A love match. The strongest kind of power and the hardest to control. She would be Fire to his Earth, Earth to his Fire.

  Li Yuan laughed, then turned and went down quickly, his hard-soled ceremonial shoes clattering on the wooden slats, his long-sleeved silks billowing out behind him as he ran. Down, down, and straight into the arms of his cousin, Pei Chao Yang.

  Chao Yang, eldest son and heir to the Pei family, one of the Twenty-Nine, the Minor Families, was standing at the edge of the decorative rock pile, beside the pavilion. His father, Pei Ro-hen, who stood nearby, was a bondsman of Li Shai Tung and a childhood friend of the T’ang. Almost fifty years ago they had shared a tutor.

  ‘Here, Yuan! Slow down, boy!’

  Chao Yang held onto Li Yuan’s arm a moment, getting down onto his haunches and smiling good-naturedly at him, teasing him.

  ‘What is it, little Yuan? Is your bladder troubling you again? Or has one of the little maids made you a promise?’

  He winked and let Li Yuan go, watching him run off down the narrow, tree-lined path and through the small gate that led down to the Lodge of Nature-Nourishment. Then, realizing the newly-weds were almost on him, he straightened up, turning towards them.

  Chao Yang was a tall, handsome man in his mid-thirties, the product of his father’s first marriage. Easy-going, intelligent and with a reputation for knowing how to enliven a dull occasion, he was welcomed in all the palaces and had had Above tongues wagging many times with his reputed intrigues. His own wives, three in number, stood behind him now as he was introduced to the newly-weds. With smiles and bows he summoned each forward in turn, his senior wife, Ye Chun, first to be presented. That duty done, he was free to make less formal conversation.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Chao Yang,’ said Han Ch’in, shaking his hands vigorously. ‘You should come visit us once we’ve settled in. I hear you like to ride.’

  Chao Yang bowed deeply. ‘I am honoured, Li Han Ch’in. I’d like to ride with you.’ Then, leaning closer, he lowered his voice. ‘Tonight, however, you ride alone, neh?’

  Han Ch’in roared with laughter. ‘Trust you, Chao Yang! You would lower the tone at a funeral.’

  Chao Yang laughed. ‘That depends on what was being buried, neh, my young friend?’

  He saw Fei Yen lower her eyes to hide her amusement and smiled inwardly as he bowed to her. But as he straightened he experienced a slight giddiness and had to take a step backward, steadying himself. He had been feeling strange all day. Earlier, dressing himself, he had reached out to take a hairbrush from the table next to him, but his hand had closed on nothing. He had frowned and turned his head away, surprised, but when he had looked again, he had seen that there really was nothing on the table. He had imagined the brush. At the time he had shaken his head and laughed, in self-mockery, but he had been disturbed as well as amused.

  Chao Yang bowed once more to the couple then watched them move away, conscious of Han Ch’in’s nervousness, of Fei Yen’s beauty. The latter stirred him greatly – he could taste her perfume on his tongue, imagine the olive pallor of her flesh beneath the gold and crimson cloth. Again he smiled. No. Best not even think what he was thinking, lest in wine such thoughts betrayed him.

  Han had stopped a few paces on. For a moment Chao Yang studied the side of his face in the lantern light, noticing how similar the shapes of Han’s ear, chin and neck were to those of his wife, Ye Chun. Then something peculiar began to happen. Slowly the flesh about the ear began to flow, the ear itself to melt and change, the skin shrivelling up like a heated film of plastic, curling back to reveal, beneath, a hard, silvered thing of wires and metal.

  Chao Yang staggered back, horrified.

  ‘Han Ch’in…’ he gasped, his voice a whisper. ‘Han Ch’in!’

  But it wasn’t Han Ch’in.

  Chao Yang cried out, his senses tormented by the smell of burning plastic, the odour of machine oils and heated wiring. For the briefest moment he hesitated, appalled by what he saw, then he lurched forward and threw himself at the thing, grasping it from behind, tugging hard at the place where the false flesh had peeled back. He faltered momentarily as Fei Yen leapt at him, clawing at his eyes, but he kicked out at her brutally, maintaining his grip on the machine, dragging it down, his knee in its back. Then something gave and he was rewarded with the sweet burning smell of mechanical malfunction.

  The thing gave a single, oddly human cry. Then nothing.

  Now, as it lay in his arms, it felt strangely soft, curiously warm. Such a perfect illusion. No wonder it had fooled everyone.

  He let the thing slide from him and looked about, seeing the expression of horror on the faces surrounding him. So they had seen it too. He smiled reassurance but the oddness, that strange feeling of forgetfulness, was returning to him. He tried to smile but a curious warmth budded, then blossomed in his skull.

  Pei Chao Yang knelt there a moment longer, his eyes glazed, then fell forward onto his face, dead.

  Tolonen had moved away, towa
rds the steps, when it began. The first scream made him turn the chair, his heart pounding, and look back to where the sound had come from, his view obscured by trees and bushes. Then he was up out of the chair and running, ignoring the pain in his side, the life-link stuttering, faltering in his head. The screams and shouting had risen to a crescendo now. Shao lin were running from every side, their swords drawn and raised, looking about them urgently. With one arm Tolonen pushed through the crowd, grimacing against the pain in his chest and shoulder each time someone banged against him.

  Abruptly, the life-link cut out. He tapped the connection in his head, appalled, then stumbled on, his mind in turmoil. What had happened? What in the gods’ names had happened? His heart raced painfully in his chest. Let it all be a mistake, he pleaded silently, pushing through the last few people at the front. Let it all be a malfunction in the relay. But he knew it wasn’t.

  He looked around him, wide-eyed, trying to take in what had happened. Fei Yen lay off to one side, clutching her side and gasping, in extreme pain, one of her maids tending to her. A few paces from her lay Han Ch’in.

  ‘Medics!’ Tolonen yelled, horrified by the sight of Han lying there so lifelessly. ‘In the gods’ names get some medics here! Now!’

  Almost at once, two uniformed men appeared and knelt either side of Han Ch’in. One ripped Han’s tunic open and began to press down urgently on his chest with both hands while the other felt for a pulse.

  Tolonen stood over them, his despair almost tearing him apart. He had seen enough dead men to know how hopeless things were. Han lay there in an unnatural pose, his spine snapped, his neck broken.

  After a moment one of them looked up, his face ashen.

  ‘The Lord Han is dead, General. There is nothing we can do for him.’

  Tolonen shuddered violently. ‘Get a life preservation unit here. Now! I want him taken to the special unit. The T’ang’s own surgeons will see to him at once!’