Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (23 page)

Chen moved back,
glancing about him at the room. It was bare, undecorated. A bed, a
wardrobe, a single chair. A picture of a girl in a frame on the tiny
bedside table. Haavikko's uniform tunic hung loosely on the door of
the wardrobe where he had thrown it.

Haavikko looked
at the pass, turned it in his hand, then threw it back at Chen, a new
look—puzzlement, maybe curiosity—in his eyes.

Chen pocketed
the pass. "You're in trouble, aren't you, Haavikko? Out of your
depth."

"I don't
know what you mean." /

"Oh, I
think you do. Your friends have dumped you in it this time. Left you
to carry the dan." Haavikko
laughed scathingly. "Friends? I've no friends, Captain Kao. If
you've read my file, you'll know that much about me."

"Maybe. And
maybe that's just another pose—like the pretense of drunkenness
you put on for me earlier."

Haavikko
breathed deeply, unevenly. "I saw you earlier, when I went into
the Mess. When you were still there when I came out, I knew you were
following me."

"Who were
you meeting?"

"I wasn't
meeting anyone. I went in there to find something out."

Chen narrowed
his eyes. "You weren't meeting Fest, then? I noticed that he
entered the Mess just before you. You used to serve with him, didn't
you?"

Haavikko was
silent a moment, then he shook his head. "I wasn't meeting Fest.
But yes, I served with him. Under General Tolonen."

"And under
Major DeVore, too."

"I was
ensign to DeVore for a month, yes."

"At the
time of Minister Lwo's assassination."

"That's
so."

Chen shook his
head. "Am I to believe this crap?"

Haavikko's lips
formed a sneer. "Believe what you like, but I wasn't meeting
Few* If you must know I went in there to try to overhear what he was
saying." >

"Are you
blackmailing him?"

Haavikko
bristled. "Look, what
do
you want? Who are you working
for, Captain Kao?"

Chen met the
challenge in his eyes momentarily, then looked about the room again.
Something had been nagging at him. Something he didn't realize until
he noticed the lieutenant's patch on the tunic hanging from the
cupboard door. Of course! Haavikko had been the same rank these last
eight years. But why? After all, if he
was
working for Ebert.
. .

Chen looked back
at Haavikko, shaking his head, then laughed quietly.

Haavikko had
tensed, his eyes narrowed, suspicious. "What is it?"

But Chen was
laughing strongly now, his whole manner suddenly different. He sat
down on the bed, looking up at Haavikko. "It's just that I got
you wrong. Completely wrong." He shook his head. "I thought
you were working for Ebert."

"Ebert!
That bastard!" Then realization dawned on Haavikko. "Then .
. ." He gave a short laugh. "Gods! And I thought. . ."

The two men
stared at each other a moment, their relief—their sudden
understanding—clouded by the shadow of Ebert.

"What did
he do?" Chen asked, getting up, his face serious, his eyes
filled with sympathy. "What did he do to you, Axel Haavikko, to
make you destroy yourself so completely?"

Haavikko looked
down, shivering, then met Chen's eyes again. "It's not in the
file, then?"

Chen shook his
head.

"No. I
guess it wouldn't be. He'd see to that, wouldn't he?" He was
quiet a moment, staring at Chen sympathetically. "And you, Kao
Chen? What did he do to make you hate him so?"

Chen smiled
tightly. "Oh, it was a small thing. A matter of face." But
he was thinking of his friend Pavel and of his death in the attack on
the Overseer's House. That, too, he set down against Hans Ebert.

"Well. . .
What now, Kao Chen? Do we go our own ways, or is our hatred of him
strong enough to bind us?"

Chen hesitated,
then smiled and nodded. "Let it be so."

* *
*

THE REST of the
Ping Tiao
leaders had gone straight to the cruiser, clearly
unnerved at being out in the open; but the woman, Ascher, held back,
stopping at the rail to look out across the open mountainside. DeVore
studied her a moment, then joined her at the rail, for a time simply
doing as she did—drinking in the sheer grandeur of the view.

"The
mountains. They're so different..."

He turned his
head, looking at her. She had such finely chiseled features, all
excess pared from them. He smiled, liking what he saw. There was
nothing gross, nothing soft about her: the austere, almost sculpted
beauty of her was accentuated by the neat cut of her fine jet-black
hair, the trimness of her small well-muscled body. Such a strong
lithe creature she was, and so sharp of mind. It was a pity. She was
wasted on Gesell.

"In what
way different?"

She continued
staring outward, as if unaware of his gaze. "I don't know.
Harder, I suppose. Cruder. Much more powerful and untamed than they
seem on the screen. They're like living things . . ."

"They're
real, that's why."

"Yes . . ."
She turned her head slightly, her breath curling up in the cold air.

He inclined his
head toward the cruiser. "And you . . . you're different, too.
You're real. Not like them. This, for instance. Something in you
responds to it. You're like me in that. It touches you."

Her eyes
hardened marginally, then she looked away again. "You're wrong.
We've nothing in common, Turner. Not even this. We see it through
different eyes. We want different things. Even/from this." She
shivered, then looked back at him. "You're a different kind of
creature from me. You served
them,
remember? I could never do
that. Could never compromise myself like that, whatever the end."

"You think
so?"

"I know."

He smiled. "Have
it your way. But remember this when you go away from here, Emily
Ascher. I know you. I can see through you, like ice."

She held his
gaze a moment longer, proudly, defiantly, then looked back at the
mountains, a faint smile on her lips. "You see only mirrors.
Reflections of yourself in everything. But that's how your kind
thinks. You can't help it. You think the world's shaped as you see
it. But there's a whole dimension you're blind to."

"Love, you
mean? Human understanding? Goodness?" He laughed shortly, then
shook his head. "Those things don't exist. Not really. They're
illusions. Masks over the reality. And the reality is like these
peaks—it's beautiful, but it's also hard, uncompromising, and
cold, like the airless spaces between the stars."

She was silent a
moment, as if thinking about what he had said. Then she turned back
to him. "I must go. But thank you for letting me see this."

DeVore smiled.
"Come again. Anytime you want. I'll send my cruiser for you."
She studied him a moment, then turned away, the smallest sign of
amusement in her face. He watched her climb the steps and go inside.
Moments later he heard the big engines of the cruiser start up.

He turned and
looked across toward the snow-buried blister of the dome. Lehmann was
standing by the entrance, bare-headed, a tall, gaunt figure even in
his bulky furs. DeVore made his way across, while behind him the big
craft lifted from the hangar and turned slowly, facing the north.
"What is it?" he asked.

"Success,"
Lehmann answered tonelessly. "We've found the combination."
He let his hand rest on Lehmann's arm momentarily, turning to watch
the cruiser rise slowly into the blue, then turned back, smiling,
nodding to himself. "Good. Then let's go and see what we've
got."

Minutes later he
stood before the open safe, staring down at the contents spread out
on the floor at his feet. There had been three compartments to the
safe. The top one had held more than two hundred bearer credits—small
"chips" of ice worth between fifty and two hundred thousand
yuan
apiece. A second, smaller compartment in the center had
contained several items of jewelry. The last, which made up the bulk
of the safe's volume, had held a small collection of art treasures—
scrolls and seals and ancient pottery.

DeVore bent down
and picked up one of the pieces, studying it a moment. Then he turned
and handed it to Lehmann. It was a tiny, exquisitely sculpted figure
of a horse. A white horse with a cobalt-blue saddle and trappings and
a light-brown mane and tail.

"Why this?"
Lehmann asked, looking back at him.

DeVore took the
piece back, examining it again, then looked up at Lehmann. "How
old would you say this is?"

Lehmann stared
back at him. "I know
what
it is. It's T'ang
dynasty—fifteen-hundred years old. But that isn't what I meant.
Why was it there, in the safe? What were they doing with it? I
thought only the Families had things like this these days."

DeVore smiled.
"Security has to deal with all sorts. What's currency in the
Above isn't always so below. Certain Triad bosses prefer something
more . . . substantial, shall we say, than money."

Lehmann shook
his head. "Again, that's not what I meant. The bearer credits
—they were payroll, right? Unofficial expenses for the eight
garrisons surrounding the Wilds."

DeVore's smile
slowly faded. Then he gave a short laugh. "How did you know?"

"It makes
sense. Security has to undertake any number of things that they'd
rather weren't public knowledge. Such things are costly precisely
because they're so secretive. What better way of financing them than
by allocating funds for nonexistent weaponry, then switching those
funds into bearer credits?" DeVore nodded. That was exactly how
it worked.

"The
jewelry likewise. It was probably taken during the Confiscations. I
should imagine it was set aside by the order of someone fairly high
up—Nocenzi, say—so it wouldn't appear on the official
listings. Officially it never existed; so no one has to account for
it. Even so, it's real and can be sold. Again, that would finance a
great deal of secret activity. But the horse ..."

DeVore smiled,
for once surprised by the young man's sharpness. The bearer credits
and jewelry—those were worth, at best, two billion yuan on the
black market. That was sufficient to keep things going for a year at
present levels. In the long term, however, it was woefully
inadequate. He needed four, maybe five times as much simply to
complete the network of fortresses. In this respect the horse and the
two other figures—the tiny moon-faced Buddha and the white-jade
carving of Kuan Yin—were like gifts from the gods. Each one was
worth as much— and potentially a great deal more—as the
rest of the contents of the safe combined.

But Lehmann was
right. What
were
they doing there? What had made Li Shai Tung
give up three such priceless treasures? What deals was he planning to
make that required so lavish a payment?

He met the
albino's eyes and smiled. "I don't know, Stefan. Not yet."

He set the horse
down and picked up the delicate jade-skinned goddess, turning it in
his hands. It was perfect. The gentle flow of her robes, the serene
expression of her face, the gentle way she held the child to her
breast—each tiny element was masterful in itself.

"What will
you do with them?"

"I'll sell
them. Two of them, anyway."

Yes, he thought,
Old Man Lever will find me a buyer. Someone who cares more for this
than for the wealth it represents.

"And the
other?"

DeVore looked
down at the tiny, sculpted goddess. "This one I’ll keep.
For now, anyway. Until I find a better use for her."

He set it down
again, beside the horse, then smiled. Both figures were so realistic,
so perfect in every detail, that it seemed momentarily as if it
needed only a word of his to bring them both to life. He breathed
deeply, then nodded to himself. It was no accident that he had come
upon these things; nor was it instinct alone that made him hold on to
the goddess now. No, there was a force behind it all, giving shape to
events, pushing like a dark wind at the back of everything. He looked
up at Lehmann and saw how he was watching him. And what would you
make of that, my ultra-rational friend? Or you, Emily Ascher, with
your one-dimensional view of me? Would you think I'd grown soft?
Would you think it a weakness in me? If so, you would be wrong. For
that's my strength: that sense of being driven by the darkness.

At its purest—in
those few, rare moments when the veil was lifted and he saw things
clearly—he felt all human things fall from him, all feeling,
all sense of self erased momentarily by that dark and silent pressure
at the back of him. At such moments he was like a stone—a pure
white stone—set down upon the board; a mere counter, played by
some being greater than himself in a game the scale of which his tiny
human mind could scarcely comprehend.

A game of dark
and light. Of suns and moons. Of space and time itself. A game so
vast, so complicated . . .

He looked down,
moved deeply by the thought, by the cold, crystalline-pure
abstraction of such a vast and universal game.

"Are you
all right?" Lehmann's voice lacked all sympathy; it was the
voice of mechanical response.

DeVore smiled,
conscious of how far his thoughts had drifted from this room, this
one specific place and time. "Forgive me, Stefan. I was thinking
. . ."

"Yes?"

He looked up. "I
want you to track the woman for me. To find out what you can about
her. Find out if it's true what they say about her and Gesell."

"And?"

He looked down
at the jade-skinned goddess once again. "And nothing. Just do it
for me."

* *
*

SHE KEPT HER
SILENCE until they were back in Gesell's apartment. There, alone with
him at last, she turned on him angrily, all of her pent-up
frustration spilling out.