Daylight on Iron Mountain (12 page)

‘I don’t understand.’

Lahm met his eyes. ‘You thought you were going to be punished, right?’ He gave the tree a puff of the tiny water spray he was holding. There were tiny plants everywhere, in ceramic pots of exquisite oriental design. Lahm smiled. ‘It’s okay… you don’t have to answer that.’

Again it was unexpected. This friendly manner of his. It had to be a trick of some kind. A means of getting Jake to drop his guard.

Jake sat, then looked about him again. On the desk, to one side, was an old-fashioned filing tray crammed full of hard-copy paper files. Just beside it were a couple of old-style photographs in silver frames; pictures of a European woman and two young boys. His family? It seemed likely. There was also a screen on the wall, set in among the shelves and, inset into the edge of Lahm’s desk, a keyboard, next to which was a pile of books, Szu Ma Kuang’s twelfth-century text,
The Mirror Of Government
most prominent. And finally, there in the top right corner of the ceiling, angled to look down at the desk, was a camera.

‘Oh, that,’ his host said, following his gaze. ‘It isn’t connected up. But sometimes it helps if my interviewees think it is.’

Jake met his eyes. Lahm had warm, pleasant eyes, with just the suggestion of a smile. He was not at all what Jake had expected, and if anything, that made him even more suspicious.

‘I’m your
fan han
, by the way.’

Jake didn’t recognize the term. ‘
Fan han
?’

Lahm smiled. ‘The job title’s from the early T’ang… from the seventh century, to be precise. It means “officers protecting the frontiers”. Back then it would have entailed being stationed out at the very edge of the empire, on the Wall perhaps, facing the desert and the barbarians beyond. These days, however, the frontiers are internal. It is the
idea
of empire I protect.’

Lahm turned away again, attending to another of his plants. This one, Jake noted, was a miniature mulberry.

‘Lahm… that’s a German name, isn’t it?’

Lahm didn’t miss a beat. ‘That’s right. I haven’t travelled far. My family used to live in Bremen, before the City. And before you ask, my father was a mercenary. He fought in Tsao Ch’un’s Eleventh Banner Army as a major. I was given the chance to be educated in the Ministry’s academy in Shanghai.’

‘That’s a while ago now…’

‘Twenty years.’

‘So you’ve had a lot of time to assimilate all of this.’

‘I have, Jake. Which is why you are here seeing me, rather than some jumped-up little Han official.’

Those words almost shocked Jake. He was, after all, sitting in the Headquarters of the Ministry. The Thousand Eyes. To even suggest that some Han official might be ‘jumped up’ seemed well out of order. Unless this too was part of the game Lahm was playing. Part of the softening-up process.

‘You must be very important,’ Jake said, reassessing the man who stood before him, ‘to have the freedom to say such things.’

But Lahm said nothing in reply. Instead, he took another tack.

‘You’ve been having problems, I understand.’

‘Who said I have?’

Lahm gave a smile of wry amusement. ‘Do you often tell people to fuck off, then?’

‘Only shits like Boss Wu.’

Surprisingly, Lahm laughed. ‘He is a piece of work, that one, neh?’

Jake frowned. He still had no handle on this. Still didn’t know what was required of him, nor why he was there.

He knew, of course, what he had
done
. That much was blindingly obvious. He could picture it vividly. But what they’d do to him –
that
was what concerned him now.

‘Am I in trouble?’

Lahm sat back a little. ‘Some might think so. Me… I think you’ve got a lot going for you, Jake Reed. I think you might just ride this one out. And that’s why you’re here. We’d not have bothered otherwise.’

Jake took a long breath. He could believe that much. In fact, he had thought about that on the way here. Why they should have bothered. Why they hadn’t just taken him out and shot him, like the rest of the troublemakers. Because that was what they did.

Jake looked up. Lahm was watching him closely now, the smile gone from his face. Jake could see how intelligent the man was, how perceptive. He was certainly no ordinary inquisitor. But again that begged the question. Why should such a senior official like Lahm – and he clearly was – bother with someone as insignificant as himself ? Or was it once more to do with past history? The fact that he’d been on their list. If so, then why had they put him where they’d put him? Why had they wasted his talents, making him a common clerk?

He didn’t understand. You used somebody’s talents, didn’t you? You didn’t just bury them in the levels.

‘Let me ask you something,’ Lahm said. ‘Have you been having
dreams
lately?’

Jake looked away.

Lahm was silent for a moment, then: ‘Let’s make it clear. The reason why you’re here is that you’re valued by those in authority. They’d like to keep you in the experiment. So this is your one chance, your one opportunity to speak off the record: to say what it is exactly you’re having problems with and why. So let’s cut to the chase, eh?’

Lahm paused a moment. ‘Look, I know how hard it is for you… for
all
our kind. Some days you feel it isn’t worth it, right? That you’ve been cut adrift. That everything you ever valued has been taken from you. Well, maybe there’s an element of truth in that. Maybe you
have
had a raw deal. Maybe it is hard, just getting through each day. Only the world is as it is. Or if you want to split hairs, as the Han have made it. It’s their world and you’ve got to live with that fact, Jake. There’s been a change of sky.’

‘A change of sky?’

‘Haven’t you heard the expression? It’s what you get when you change a system of government. China is China, unchanging, but those who rule it…’ Lahm smiled. ‘A change of sky means new thinking, new customs, a new way of behaving. You understand that, don’t you?’

Jake nodded.

‘Good. Because, you see, the problem’s this… I know for a fact that you find aspects of our world – this world of levels – less exciting and less culturally rich than the world you remember. You may have a point. Only you have to ask yourself, was that world really any better than the world we are creating?’

Jake made to answer, but Lahm wasn’t going to be interrupted.

‘As I recall, there was great evil in that world you remember so fondly. Starvation and war and debilitating disease, not to speak of religious intolerance, greed and injustice. Whereas in ours…’

Lahm smiled. ‘Don’t you see it, Jake? Ours is a world
without
want,
without
endless warfare, a world blessedly
free
of disease. Surely it was worth the sacrifice of some of those things you treasured to create such a world?’

Jake looked down. What Lahm had said sounded almost convincing. Only it wasn’t true. This world of theirs – this tame, safe world of half-men – how could it ever compare to the world they had lost, the world the Han had stolen from them? He missed that world. Ached to have it back, warts and all. Only…

Jake took a tiny, shuddering breath, then spoke up, his voice quiet. ‘It’s just that… some days I just can’t bear it. I wake up and I just… Never to hear those sounds again… Never to hear any of those wonderful, beautiful songs, it’s…’

He shook his head, in pain now. Even to say it was impossible. It broke him apart. It seemed such a small thing. Only it wasn’t small at all. It was life itself. Like the rain and the wind and the sunlight on one’s face. How could you live without those things? What kind of devil’s bargain was it, giving up all of that? And for what? To be
safe
? He looked up at Lahm.

‘You really
don’t
understand, do you? What they took from us. The land, the political power… none of that really matters. But our
culture
… our music, our art, our writing… that’s what we
are
. That’s what makes us us.’

Lahm was watching him closely now, studying him intently, as one might study some rare specimen.

‘You asked me earlier whether I’d been having dreams. Well, I have. I’ve dreamed of how it was before the crash.’

‘Ah…’ Lahm’s eyes widened. ‘Many of us do.’

‘No,’ Jake said, correcting him. ‘I don’t mean the Collapse… I mean the car crash. The one that killed my parents. Nothing prepared me for that. What happened afterwards… all of the things I subsequently lost… none of it was ever quite that bad. Not Kate’s death, nor any of what happened back in Corfe.
That
was when my world fell apart. Back then. Only now I feel it’s happening again… in slow motion.’

Jake looked down. He had never spoken of this. Not even to Mary. It had
simply been too painful. All these years he had built a wall around those memories, afraid lest the roof fall in and he go gibbering mad, just thinking about it. But the dreams had ended that. And what had caused the dreams?

He began again, forming the words now with difficulty. ‘You see, there are things I want back, and I can’t have them. Either they no longer exist, or I’m simply not
allowed
to have them. And that’s unbearable. A slow suffocation. The thing is, I’m an Englishman. My heart swells to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to the writing of Shakespeare and Dickens, to the sight of a Turner landscape. It took me more than twenty years to discover it, but that’s the truth. That was my real re-education. Not in your camps, but back there, in Purbeck. That’s where I learned to be me. All this… can’t you see it? It’s all a fake. A hideous massive lie. We’re supposed to sleep easy being part of it, happy to be safe and sound, but it’s at the cost of denying what we are.’

‘You think, in the bigger picture, what you
are
really matters?’

‘More than anything.’

‘Then I’m sorry for you, Jake. A change of sky is a change of sky. There
are
no Englishmen. They don’t exist. We can’t
allow
them to exist.’

Jake looked away.

‘Look… I don’t want to sneer at your dreams, Jake, but our primary concern is for what’s best for all. If it were only a question of indulging a few… well, what harm would that do? Only it’s not a few. There are many like you, Jake, and what all of you fail to understand is just how much you’re victims of the old, individualistic way of thinking. You think
me
when you should be thinking
us
, and we can’t permit that.’

Jake scowled. ‘You make being alive sound selfish.’

Only Lahm, it seemed, had stopped listening.

‘Well, it is. Each of us needs to consider what Tsao Ch’un seeks to achieve through us, and how we might help facilitate that process. His is the long vision, you see, not the short. If that takes a whole generation to achieve, then that’s as it must be. If you want to be a useful citizen, Jake, you must subject yourself to the greater historical forces. You must learn to swim
with
the tide, not against it.

‘It’s all a matter of numbers. As each older citizen dies, so the problem is reduced…
numerically
. Each day there are, quite literally, fewer people who remember how things were. Likewise, with each
new
citizen that’s born, so the number of those who accept things as they are will grow.’ He shrugged.
‘It’s merely a matter of time. The transformation
will
be made. Have no doubt about that, Jake. There
will
come a time when Tsao Ch’un’s version of the truth will be the only one that exists in people’s minds. Until that day, however… well… we must be vigilant, neh?’

Lahm was smiling at him now, encouragingly. ‘There’s a Jorge Luis Borges story. Do you remember Borges, Jake?’

Jake nodded, his mouth suddenly dry.

‘It’s only a brief thing… a page at most… but quite brilliant in its way. It speaks of memory and what, in our heads, will die with us. Of the death of the last person to have seen Christ crucified, and of a bar of scented soap in a drawer…’

‘The point being?’

Lahm shrugged. ‘Just that there’s a great deal that is good in the culture of the Han. Enough, I feel, to sustain us.’

‘
Us?
’

Lahm nodded. ‘You think I was always like this, Jake? Flushed with equanimity? Do you really think I didn’t have to struggle to become what I am? No. I was very much like you, once upon a time. Which was why I agreed to take your case… to sponsor you… to be
fan han
to you and protect you on the border.’

‘Is that it, then? Be a good boy
or else
?’

‘Do you really want
or else
?’ Lahm seemed, for that briefest moment, sympathetic. ‘Look, Jake… I make no promises, but… well, maybe there’s a chance of something new for you to do. A new job. Something that’s more in your line. Something that’ll challenge you. I can’t say until I’ve had a word here and there, but… well, it might make things easier, more tolerable.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. Oh, and Jake… try not to hum to yourself, okay?’

‘Ah… Captain Grant… I’d forgotten you were coming.’

Grant stepped inside, then sat, facing Lahm.

‘What exactly is it that you want? You said it was important.’

Grant took the stub from his pocket and handed it across.

‘What’s this?’

‘Load it,’ Grant said. ‘You’ll see.’

Lahm shrugged, slipped the stub into a slot on his workstation, then settled back, closing his eyes as the data flowed directly into his head.

For a moment Lahm didn’t react, and then he started forward, his eyes popping open. ‘Shit! Where in fuck’s name did you get this?’

‘Interesting, huh?’

Lahm stood, then came around the desk, standing over the other man. ‘You’d better start explaining, and fast.’

‘Its name was Anton Pierce. It lived with its brother – its clone brother, that is – in one of my decks. Two days ago it went into a store cupboard, pulled out a chair, put a rope about its neck and kicked the chair away.’

Lahm went back round his desk and sat again.

‘And?’

‘And I had my forensics guy do a full autopsy.’