Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (26 page)

Tolonen shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. I think the T’ang hopes against hope. The
House is no friend to the Seven.’

Below them, in the pit, the two contestants came out and took their places. The fight
marshal read out the rules and then stepped back. The pit went deathly silent.

The fight was brief but brutal. In less than a minute one of the two men was dead.
The crowd went mad, roaring its approval. Karr watched the stewards carry the body
away, then shivered.

‘I’m glad I let you buy my contract out. That could have been me.’

‘No,’ Tolonen said. ‘You were the exception. No one would have carried you from the
circle. Not in a hundred fights. I knew that at once.’

‘The first time you saw me?’ Karr turned to face the older man.

‘Almost…’

Karr was smiling. ‘I remember even now how you looked at me that first time – so dismissive,
it was, that look – and then you turned your back on me.’

Tolonen laughed, remembering. ‘Well, sometimes it’s best not to let a man know all
you’re thinking. But it was true. It was why I welcomed your offer. I knew at once
I could
use you. The way you stood up to young Hans. I liked that. It put him on his mettle.’

Karr looked down. ‘Have you heard that I’ve traced DeVore?’

Tolonen’s eyes widened. ‘No! Where?’

‘I’m not certain, but I think he’s taken an overseer’s job on one of the big plantations.
My man, Chen, is investigating him right now. As soon as he has proof
we’re going in.’

Tolonen shook his head. ‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m sorry, General, but what do you mean?’

Tolonen leaned forward and held the top of one of Karr’s huge arms. ‘I need you at
once, that’s why. I want you training for this operation from this evening. So that
we can
put the scheme into operation at a moment’s notice.’

‘Is there no one else?’

‘No. There’s only one man in the whole of Chung Kuo who could carry out this scheme,
and that’s you, Gregor. Chen will be all right. I’ll see he has full back-up. But
I
can’t spare you. Not this time.’

Karr considered a moment, then looked up again, smiling. ‘Then I’d best get busy,
neh, General?’

Overseer Bergson looked up as Chen entered. The room was dark but for a tight circle
of light surrounding where he sat at a table in the centre. He was bare-headed, his
dark
hair slicked back wetly, and he was wearing a simple silk
pau
, but Chen thought he recognized him at once. It was DeVore. He was almost certain
of it. On the low table in front of him a
wei chi
board had been set up, seven rounded black stones placed on the handicap points,
forming the outline of a huge letter H in the centre of the grid. On either side of
the board was a
tray, one filled with white stones, the other with black.

‘Do you play, Tong Chou?’

Chen met DeVore’s eyes, wondering for a moment if it was possible he too would see
through the disguise, then dismissed the thought, remembering how DeVore had killed
the man he, Chen, had
hired to play himself that day five years ago when Kao Jyan had died.
No
, he thought,
to you I am
Tong Chou, the new worker. A bright man. Obedient. Quick to learn. But nothing
more.

‘My father played,
Shih
Bergson. I learned a little from him.’

DeVore looked past Chen at the two henchmen and made a small gesture of dismissal
with his chin. They went at once.

‘Sit down, Tong Chou. Facing me. We’ll talk as we play.’

Chen moved into the circle of light and sat. DeVore watched him a moment, relaxed,
his hands resting lightly on his knees, then smiled.

‘Those two who’ve just gone. They’re useful men, but when it comes to this game they’ve
shit in their heads instead of brains. Have you got shit in your head, Tong Chou?
Or are you a useful man?’

‘I’m useful,
Shih
Bergson.’

DeVore stared back at him a moment, then looked down.

‘We’ll see.’

He took a white stone from the tray and set it down, two lines in, six down at the
top left-hand corner of the board from where Chen sat – in
shang,
the South. Chen noticed how
firmly yet delicately DeVore had held the stone between thumb and forefinger; how
sharp the click of stone against wood had been as he placed it; how crisp and definite
that movement had seemed. He
studied the board a while, conscious of his seven black stones, like fortresses marking
out territory on the uncluttered battle-ground of the board. His seven and DeVore’s
one. That one so
white it seemed to eclipse the dull power of his own.

Chen took a black stone from the tray and held it in his hand a moment, turning it
between his fingers, experiencing the smooth coolness of it, the perfect roundness
of its edges, the
satisfyingly oblate feel of it. He shivered. He had never felt anything like it before;
had never played with stones and board. It had always been machines. Machines, like
the one in Kao
Jyan’s room.

He set the stone down smartly, taking his lead from DeVore, hearing once more that
sharp, satisfying click of stone against wood. Then he sat back.

DeVore answered his move at once. Another white stone in the top left corner. An aggressive,
attacking move. Unexpected. Pushing directly for the corner. Chen countered almost
instinctively, his
black stone placed between the two whites, cutting them. But at once DeVore clicked
down another stone, forming a tiger’s mouth about Chen’s last black stone, surrounding
it on three
sides and threatening to take it unless…

Chen connected, forming an elbow of three black stones – a weak formation, though
not disastrous, but already he was losing the initiative; letting DeVore’s aggressive
play force him
back on the defensive. Already he had lost the corner. Six plays in and he had lost
the first corner.

‘Would you like
ch’a
, Tong Chou?’

He looked up from the board and met DeVore’s eyes. Nothing. No trace of what he was
thinking. Chen bowed. ‘I would be honoured,
Shih
Bergson.’

DeVore clapped his hands and, when a face appeared around the door, simply raised
his right hand, two fingers extended. At the same time his left hand placed another
stone. Two down, two in,
strengthening his line and securing the corner. Only a fool would lose it now, and
DeVore was no fool.

DeVore leaned back, watching him again. ‘How often did you play your father, Tong
Chou?’

‘Often enough when I was a child,
Shih
Bergson. But then he went away. When I was eight. I only saw him again last year.
After his funeral.’

Chen placed another stone, then looked back at DeVore. Nothing. No response at all.
And yet DeVore, like the fictional Tong Chou, had ‘lost’ his father as an eight-year-old.

‘Unfortunate. And you’ve not played since?’

Chen took a breath, then studied DeVore’s answer. He played so swiftly, almost as
if he wasn’t thinking, just reacting. But Chen knew better than to believe that. Every
move DeVore
made was carefully considered; all the possibilities worked out in advance. To play
him one had to be as well prepared as him. And to beat him… ?

Chen smiled and placed another stone. ‘Occasionally. But mainly with machines. It’s
been some years since I’ve sat and played a game like this,
Shih
Bergson. I am
honoured that you find me worthy.’

He studied the board again. The corner was lost, almost certainly now, but his own
position was much stronger and there was a good possibility of making territory on
the top edge, in
shang
and chu, the west. Not only that, but DeVore’s next move was forced. He had to play
on the top edge, two in. To protect his line. He watched, then smiled inwardly as
DeVore set
down the next white stone exactly where he had known he would.

Behind him he heard the door open quietly. ‘There,’ said DeVore, indicating a space
beside the play table. At once a second, smaller table was set down and covered with
a thin cloth.
A moment later a serving girl brought the kettle and two bowls, then knelt there,
to Chen’s right, wiping out the bowls.

‘Wei chi
is a fascinating game, don’t you think, Tong Chou? Its rules are simple – there are
only seven things to know – and yet mastery of the game is the work of
a lifetime.’ Unexpectedly he laughed. ‘Tell me, Tong Chou, do you know the history
of the game?’

Chen shook his head. Someone had once told him it had been developed at the same time
as the computers, five hundred years ago, but the man who had told him that had been
a know-nothing; a
shit-brains, as DeVore would have called him. He had a sense that the game was much
younger. A recent thing.

DeVore smiled. ‘How old do you think the game is, Tong Chou? A hundred years? Five
hundred?’

Again Chen shook his head. ‘A hundred,
Shih
Bergson? Two hundred, possibly?’

DeVore laughed and then watched as the girl poured the
ch’a
and offered him the first bowl. He lowered his head politely, refusing, and she turned,
offering the bowl to Chen. Chen
also lowered his head slightly, refusing, and the girl turned back to DeVore. This
time DeVore took the bowl in two hands and held it to his mouth to sip, clearly pleased
by Chen’s
manners.

‘Would it surprise you, Tong Chou, if I told you that the game we’re playing is more
than four and a half thousand years old? That it was invented by the Emperor Yao in
approximately
2,350
BC
?’

Chen hesitated, then laughed as if surprised, realizing that DeVore must be mocking
him. Chung Kuo itself was not that old, surely? He took the bowl the girl was now
offering him and, with a bow
to DeVore, sipped noisily.

DeVore drained his bowl and set it down on the tray the girl was holding, waiting
for the girl to fill it again before continuing.

‘The story is that the Emperor Yao invented
wei chi
to train the mind of his son, Tan-Chu, and teach him to think like an emperor. The
board, you see, is a map of Chung Kuo itself,
of the ancient Middle Kingdom of the Han, bounded to the east by the ocean, to the
north and west by deserts and great mountain ranges, and to the south by jungles and
the sea. The board, then, is
the land. The pieces men, or groups of men. At first the board, like the land, is
clear, unsettled, but then as the men arrive and begin to grow in numbers, the board
fills. Slowly but inexorably
these groups spread out across the land; occupying territory. But there is only so
much territory – only so many points on the board to be filled. Conflict is inevitable.
Where the groups
meet there is war: a war which the strongest and cleverest must win. And so it goes
on, until the board is filled and the last conflict resolved.’

‘And when the board is filled and the pieces still come?’

DeVore looked at him a moment, then looked away. ‘As I said, it’s an ancient game,
Tong Chou. If the analogy no longer holds it is because we have changed the rules.
It would be different
if we were to limit the number of pieces allowed instead of piling them on until the
board breaks from the weight of stones. Better yet if the board were bigger than it
is, neh?’

Chen was silent, watching DeVore drain his bowl a second time.
I’m
certain now,
he thought.
It’s you. I know it’s you. But Karr wants to be sure. More than
that, he wants you alive. So that he can bring you before the T’ang and watch you
kneel and beg for mercy.

DeVore set his bowl down on the tray again, but this time he let his hand rest momentarily
over the top of it, indicating he was finished. Then he looked at Chen.

‘You know, Tong Chou, sometimes I think these two –
ch’a
and
wei chi
– along with silk, are the high points of Han culture.’ Again he laughed, but
this time it was a cold, mocking laughter. ‘Just think of it, Tong Chou!
Ch’a
and
wei chi
and silk! All three of them some four and a half thousand years old! And since
then? Nothing! Nothing but walls!’

Nothing but walls. Chen finished his
ch’a
and set it down on the tray the girl held out for him. Then he placed his stone and,
for the next half-hour, said nothing, concentrating on
the game.

At first the game went well for him. He lost few captives and made few trivial errors.
The honours seemed remarkably even and, filled with confidence in his own performance,
he began to query
what Karr had told him about DeVore being a master of
wei chi
. But then things changed. Four times he thought he’d had DeVore’s stones trapped.
Trapped with no possibility of
escape. Each time he seemed within two stones of capturing a group; first in
ping,
the east, at the bottom left-hand corner of the board, then in
tsu
, the north. But each time he was
forced to watch, open-mouthed, as DeVore changed everything with a single unexpected
move. And then he would find himself backtracking furiously; no longer surrounding
but surrounded, struggling
desperately to save the group which, only a few moves before, had seemed invincible
– had seemed a mere two moves from conquest.

Slowly he watched his positions crumble on all sides of the board until, with a small
shrug of resignation, he threw the black stone he was holding back into the tray.

‘There seems no point.’

DeVore looked up at him for the first time in a long while. ‘Really? You concede,
Tong Chou?’

Chen bowed his head.

‘Then you’ll not mind if I play black from this position?’

Chen laughed, surprised. The position was lost. By forty, maybe fifty pieces. Irredeemably
lost. Again he shrugged. ‘If that’s your wish,
Shih
Bergson.’

‘And what’s your wish, Tong Chou? I understand you want to be field supervisor.’