The Middle Kingdom

by David Wingrove

  Blake shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, Blake. Have you let one of our rivals buy the boy?’

  ‘No, sir. Director Andersen offered us an exclusive rights contract.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem? You offered him the sum I authorized? Five million yuan?’

  ‘I did…’ Blake swallowed. ‘In fact, I raised the offer to eight million.’

  Berdichev smiled coldly. ‘I see. And you want me to sanction the increase?’

  ‘No, sir. That’s it, you see. Andersen turned me down flat.’

  ‘What?!’ Berdichev sat forward, his eyes, behind the tiny pebble glasses, wide with anger. ‘Eight million and he turned us down?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He said he wanted twenty million minimum, or no contract.’

  Berdichev shook his head slowly, astonished. ‘And you walked away, I hope?’

  Blake lowered his head. There was a definite colour in his cheeks now. Berdichev leaned forward and yelled at him.

  ‘Come on, man! Out with it! What’s all this about?’

  Blake looked up again, his whole manner hesitant now. ‘I… I promised Andersen I’d come back to you, sir. I said I’d ask you to agree the deal’

  ‘You what?’ Berdichev laughed incredulously. ‘Twenty million yuan for a six-year-old boy? Are you mad, Blake?’

  Blake met his eyes determinedly. ‘I believe he’s worth it, sir. Every last jen of it. I would not have dared come back to you unless I believed that.’

  Berdichev shook his head. ‘No… Twenty million. It’s out of the question.’

  Blake came forward and leaned over the desk, pleading with his superior. ‘If only you saw him, sir – saw him for yourself – you’d understand. He’s like nothing I’ve ever come across before. Voracious, he is – just hungry to learn things. Really, sir, if you’d only see him!’

  Berdichev looked down at where Blake’s hands rested on the edge of the desk. Blake removed them at once and took a step back, straightening up.

  ‘Is that all, Blake?’

  ‘Please, sir. If you’d reconsider. If you’d take the time…’

  ‘You know that I haven’t the time,’ he snapped back, irritated now by Blake’s persistence. He picked up the brush angrily. ‘The murder of the T’ang’s son has thrown everything into flux. The market’s nervous and I have meetings all this week to calm things down. People need reassuring, and that takes time.’ He looked up at his Personnel Manager again, his face hard and angry. ‘No, Blake, I really haven’t the time.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, but I think you should make time in this instance.’

  Berdichev stared at Blake a moment, wondering whether he should dismiss him on the spot. But something cautioned him. Blake had never stepped out of line before – had never dared to contradict him in this manner. There must be good reason. He looked down at the pile of papers that awaited his signature, barely seeing them, calming himself, trying to see the thing clearly. Then he looked up again.

  ‘You think he’s worth it, then? Twenty million yuan? But what if he gets some childhood illness and dies? What if he has an accident? What if he proves to be one of these child prodigies who burns up before he’s out of his adolescence? Twenty million yuan. It’s a huge sum, even by our thinking.’

  Blake bowed his head, all humility now that he had got Berdichev to listen. ‘I agree, sir. But I’ve provisionally agreed a six-stage payment. Twenty per cent on signature, four two-yearly payments often per cent and forty per cent on delivery of the boy to us at sixteen. There would also be provisions for claw-back in the case of death or accident. Our risk would be reduced substantially.’

  Berdichev considered a moment. This was more like the Blake he knew and valued.

  ‘Would you take a gamble, Blake?’

  ‘How do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Would you back up your hunch? Would you stake your job on me being impressed by the boy?’

  Blake looked down, a smile slowly spreading across his face. ‘I think I already have.’

  ‘Kim! What in hell’s name are you doing?’

  Kim turned from the half-deconstructed trivee and smiled. T’ai Cho, horrified, rushed across the room and pulled him away from the machine.

  ‘Kuan Yin! Don’t you realize that that could kill you? There’s enough power in that thing to fry you to a cinder!’

  Kim shook his head. ‘Not now there isn’t.’ He took T’ai Cho’s hand, prised open the palm and dropped something into it. T’ai Cho stared at the small, matt black rectangular tube for a moment, then, realizing what it was, dropped it as if it were red hot. It was the power core.

  He knelt down and took Kim’s upper arms in his hands, glaring at him, for the first time genuinely angry at the boy. ‘I forbid you to tinker with things this way! These machines can be lethal if mishandled. You’re lucky to be alive!’

  Again Kim shook his head. ‘No,’ he answered softly, clearly shaken by T’ai Cho’s anger. ‘Not if you know what you are doing.’

  ‘And you know what you are doing, eh?’

  ‘Yes…’ The small boy shivered and looked away.

  T’ai Cho, whose anger had been fuelled by his fear for Kim, found himself relenting, yet it was important to keep the boy from harming himself. He kept his voice stern, unyielding. ‘How did you know?’

  Kim looked back at him, his wide, dark eyes piercing him with their strange intensity. ‘I asked the man – the maintenance engineer. He explained it all to me. He showed me how to take it all apart and put it back together. How it all functioned. What the principles were behind it.’

  T’ai Cho was silent for a moment. ‘When was this?’

  Kim looked down. ‘This morning. Before the call.’

  T’ai Cho laughed. ‘Before the call?’ The call was at six bells. Before then Kim’s cell, like all the others, had been locked. ‘He came and saw you, then, this man? And had a trivee with him, conveniently?’

  Kim shook his head but said nothing.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Kim. You were just tinkering, weren’t you? Experimenting.’

  ‘Experimenting, yes. But not tinkering. I knew what I was doing. And I was telling you the truth, T’ai Cho. I’d never lie to you.’

  T’ai Cho sat back on his heels. ‘Then I don’t understand you, Kim.’

  ‘I…’ Kim looked up. The snow-pale flesh of his neck was strangely flushed. ‘I let myself out of the cell and came down here. The man was working here – servicing the machine.’

  T’ai Cho was quiet. He stared at Kim for a long while, then stood up. ‘You know that isn’t possible, Kim. The locks are all electronically coded.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kim simply. ‘And a random factor generator changes the combination every day.’

  ‘Then you realize why I can’t believe you.’

  ‘Yes. But I took the lock out.’

  T’ai Cho shook his head, exasperated now. ‘But you can’t have, Kim! It would have registered as a malfunction. The alarm would have gone off over the door.’

  Kim was shaking his head. ‘No. That’s not what I mean. I took the lock out. The electronics are still there. I rigged them so that it would still register as locked when the door was pulled closed.’

  Still T’ai Cho was not convinced. ‘And what did you do all this with? The locking mechanism is delicate. Anyway, there’s a maintenance plate covering the whole thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kim, the colour gone now from his neck. ‘That was the hardest part. Getting hold of these.’ He took a slender packet from his tunic pocket and handed it to T’ai Cho. It was a set of scalpel-fine tools.

  ‘They’re duplicates,’ said Kim. ‘The service engineer probably hasn’t even missed them yet.’

  T’ai Cho stared at the tools a moment longer then looked back at Kim. ‘Heavens…’ he said softly. ‘So it’s true?’

  Kim nodded, the smile returned to his face. ‘It’s as I said, T’ai Cho. I’d never lie to you.’
/>
  Director Andersen bowed deeply as Berdichev came into his office. He had spent the morning reading the file on SimFic’s owner and had been impressed by what he’d read. Here was a man who had taken his Company from nowhere to the number eighteen slot on the Hang Seng Index in the short space often years. Now he was worth a reputed eighteen billion yuan. It was not a T’ang’s ransom by any means, but it was enough to have satisfied any Emperor of old.

  ‘Your presence here honours us,’ he said, offering his chair.

  Berdichev ignored his offer. ‘Where’s the boy?’ he said impatiently. ‘I’d like to see him. At once.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Andersen, looking to T’ai Cho, who was standing just outside the doorway next to Blake. T’ai Cho bowed, then turned away to prepare things.

  Berdichev stared coldly at the Director. ‘You’ll ensure he doesn’t know he’s being watched?’

  ‘Of course. It’s how we always work here. There’s a viewing room. My assistants will bring you refreshments…’

  Berdichev cut him off sharply, the light glinting on his spectacles. ‘We’ll not be taking refreshments. Just show me the boy, Director Andersen. I want to see why you feel you can insult me.’

  Andersen blanched. ‘I…’ He bowed again, fear making his mouth dry. ‘I’ll take you there at once.’

  The two machines had been left on the worktop, as the boy had asked. One was the MedFac trivee he had been working on earlier, the other a standard SimFic ArtMould IV. Between them lay a full technician’s kit.

  ‘What’s this?’ Berdichev asked, taking his seat at the observation window only an arm’s length from the worktop’s edge.

  ‘They’re what the boy asked for.’

  Andersen swallowed, praying that T’ai Cho was right about this. He alone knew just how much depended on it. ‘I understand he wants to try something out.’

  Berdichev half turned in his seat and looked coldly up at Andersen. ‘I don’t understand you, Director. Try what out?’

  Andersen began to shake his head, then stopped and smiled, knowing he had to make the best of things. ‘That’s just it. We’re never quite certain what Kim’s about to do. That’s why he’s so valuable. He’s so unpredictable. So inventive.’

  Berdichev stared through Andersen a moment, then turned back. He seemed totally unconvinced. It seemed as if the only reason he was there at all was the ridiculously high sum he had been asked to pay for the boy’s contract. Andersen leaned against the back of the empty chair next to Berdichev’s, feeling weak. The boy was going to ruin it all. He just knew he was. Things would go wrong and he would be humiliated, in front of Berdichev. Worse than that, it would be the end of things: the closure of the Project and early retirement for himself. He shuddered, then took the fan from his belt and flicked it open, fanning himself.

  ‘I suppose he’s going to do something with those two machines?’

  Andersen’s fan stopped in mid-motion. ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And how long has he been in your charge?’

  ‘Twenty-three days.’

  Berdichev laughed. ‘It isn’t possible. It takes our best engineers months to learn how to operate those things.’

  ‘Four months’ intensive training,’ said Blake from the back of the viewing room.

  ‘And he’s taught himself?’

  Andersen licked his lips to wet them. ‘In two days.’

  Berdichev sat back, laughing again. ‘I do believe you’re making fun of me, Director Andersen. Wasting my valuable time. If that’s so…’

  Andersen bowed deeply. ‘Believe me, Shih Berdichev, I would never dream of such a thing. Please, be patient. I’m certain the boy will not disappoint you.’

  The door at the far end of the lecture room opened and T’ai Cho entered with the boy. Andersen, watching Berdichev, saw him frown, then a strange expression cross his face.

  ‘Where did you find the boy?’

  Blake answered before Andersen could find his tongue. ‘In the Western Island, sir. He comes from the Canton of Cornwall.’

  Berdichev nodded. A strange sobriety seemed to have gripped him. Ah, yes. I know it well. I went there once. With friends.’

  T’ai Cho knelt down, talking to the boy a moment, then he let him go. Kim ran across the room, a naked eagerness in his face. Climbing up onto a stool, he set to work at once, dismantling the insides of the trivee, then dragging the heavy ArtMould machine closer to him.

  Berdichev, watching the boy, felt himself go cold inside. The resemblance was uncanny; a grotesque distortion of the original, admittedly, yet in some ways so like him that simply to look at the boy was to bring all those feelings back. All the love and guilt and hurt.

  Edmund, he thought; you’re Edmund Wyatt’s son. I’d swear it

  He watched, barely conscious of what the boy was doing; aware only of that strange and unexpected likeness. He should have looked at the holo Blake had given him. Should have found time to look at it. But he had been too busy. Otherwise he would have come here before now, he was certain of it.

  Normally he would have dismissed it at once as one of those strange tricks life played on men, but in this case it all fitted. Fitted perfectly. The boy was not only the right age but he came from the right location.

  Edmund was with me. Down there in the Clay. Eight years ago. Edmund, Pietr and I. Down there in the darkness below the City. Yes… he was there that first time, when we went to see the King Under the City, the Myghtern, in his castle in ancient Bodmin. Was there when we visited the Myghtern’s sing-song house. And now his seed has returned.

  Back from the dark.

  Berdichev shivered then stood up. ‘I’ve seen enough.’

  Andersen, flustered, bowed deeply. The colour had gone from his face and his eyes were wide with sudden panic. ‘I beg you, Excellency, wait. Please, wait just a little longer. He’s only just begun.’

  Berdichev turned to Blake, ignoring him. ‘Have you the contract?’

  Blake pulled the contract from his carry-pouch and handed it across.

  For a moment Berdichev hesitated, looking down at the contract, wondering what was best. His first instinct had been to tear it to shreds, but now he didn’t know. He looked back at the boy. If he was Edmund Wyatt’s son – and there was a quick way of proving that he was, by genotyping – he was not worth a single jen, let alone twenty million yuan, for his life was forfeit under the law that said all the family of a traitor shared his fate, to three generations ascending and descending.

  He looked at Andersen. The man was almost shitting himself. ‘Ten million,’ he said.

  He would delay. Perhaps he would even get the genotype done and make certain. But then? He shivered. Then he would do nothing.

  ‘Fifteen,’ Andersen answered, his voice betraying how intimidated he felt.

  ‘Ten, or I ask my friends in the House to close you down in two weeks, not eight.’

  He saw Andersen blink with surprise, then swallow. Seeing how things were, the Director bowed his head.

  ‘Good. Then we’ll finalize at once.’ But he was thinking, Who else would see the resemblance? Who else would know about our visit to the Myghtern? Who now but Lehmann and I?

  Maybe it would be all right, then. And perhaps, after all, he could help his dead friend. Perhaps now he could ease the guilt he had suffered from since Edmund’s death.

  Berdichev shivered then looked back at the boy. Yes, and maybe I can do myself a favour at the same time.

  When it was all over T’ai Cho came back into the lecture room. He was carrying a tray and in his pocket was something the Director had given him to return to Kim. He set the tray down on the desk, beside the ArtMould, then sat on the stool next to Kim.

  ‘Things went well this morning,’ he said, reaching out to ruffle Kim’s dark, fine hair. ‘The Director was very pleased with you.’

  ‘Why should he be pleased?’

  T’ai Cho looked down. ‘He was watching what you did. And with him was someone v
ery important. Someone who has decided to… adopt you.’

  ‘Adopt me?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Kim. You’ll be here until you’re sixteen. But then you’ll join one of the Companies. The one that makes this, as a matter of fact.’

  He reached out and touched the modified ArtMould, still surprised by what Kim had done.

  ‘Berdichev,’ said Kim.

  T’ai Cho laughed, surprised. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘It was on a newscast two days back. They said he owns SimFic.’

  ‘That’s right.’ And now he owns you. The thought disturbed T’ai Cho, though why it should be different with Kim than with all the others he didn’t know. It was what happened to all his charges in time. They were saved, but they were also owned. He shivered, then reached out and took the cup from the tray and offered it to Kim, then watched as he gulped the drink down savagely.

  ‘I’ve something for you, too,’ he said, filling the cup once more from the jug. ‘We don’t usually let our boys keep anything from their time in the Clay, but Director Andersen thought we should make an exception in your case.’

  T’ai Cho took it from his pocket and put it into Kim’s hand, closing his fingers over it.

  Kim opened his hand, then gave a small laugh. He held the pendant up and touched the dangling circle with one finger, making it spin. It slowed, then twisted back, spinning backward and forward. He seemed delighted with the gift, yet when he looked up at T’ai Cho again his eyes were dark with hurt.

  ‘What is it?’ T’ai Cho asked.

  ‘Bodmin.’

  T’ai Cho shook his head. ‘What? I don’t follow you, Kim.’

  ‘The place I came from. It was called Bodmin, wasn’t it?’

  T’ai Cho laughed, surprised. ‘Why, yes, now I come to think of it. But how did you find out?’

  Kim leaned forward and dipped his finger in the mug, then drew on the worktop, dipping his finger each time he formed a letter.

  ‘An arrow. A space. A woman’s breasts. A ring. A drawn bow. Two steep hills. An upright column. A gate. An eye with a curled eyebrow. It was a sign, close by the Gate. Six li.’

  ‘Miles,’ said T’ai Cho. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’m surprised.’