Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (56 page)

"No. Not at
all. You see, someone wants this project to fail. That's why Spatz
was made Administrator. Why Tolonen was appointed overall Head of the
Project."

"And you'll
allow that to happen?"

"It's not
up to me, T'ai Cho. I've no choice in the matter. I do as I'm told.
As I've always done. But that's all right. There are plenty of things
we can do. All that's asked of us is that we don't rock the boat."

T'ai Cho was
staring at him, his eyes narrowed. "That's not like you, Kim. To
lay down and do nothing."

Kim looked down.
"Maybe it wasn't, in the past. But where did it ever get me?"
He looked up again, his dark eyes searing T'ai Cho. "Five years
of Socialization. Of brutal reconditioning. That was my reward for
standing up for myself. But next time they won't bother. They'll just
write me off as an unfulfilled investment. A bad debt." He
laughed bitterly. "I'm not even a citizen. I exist only because
Li Yuan wills my existence. You heard him yourself, T'ai Cho. That's
the fact of the matter.

So don't lecture
me about doing something. Things are easy here. Why make trouble for
ourselves?"

T'ai Cho stared
back at him, openmouthed, hardly believing what he was hearing.
"Well, you'd better go," he said abruptly. "I've
things to do."

"I'm sorry,
T'ai Cho. I..."

But T'ai Cho was
busying himself, putting clothes into a drawer.

"I'll see
you later, then?" Kim asked, but T'ai Cho made no sign that he
had even heard.

Back in his room
Kim went to the desk and sat, the first of the poems Hammond had
written on the screen in front of him.

It had not been
easy, making T'ai Cho believe he had given up. It had hurt to
disillusion his old tutor, but it was necessary. If he was to
function at all in this setup, he had to allay Spatz's suspicions,
make Spatz believe he was behaving himself. And what better way of
convincing Spatz than by manipulating the reactions of the man
supposedly closest to him? T'ai Cho's indignation—his angry
disappointment in Kim—would throw Spatz off the scent. Would
give Kim that tiny bit of room he needed.

Even so, it
hurt. And that surprised Kim, because he had begun to question
whether he had any feelings left after what they had done to him in
Socialization. He recalled all the times he had met T'ai Cho since
then, knowing what the man had once been to him, yet feeling nothing.
Nothing at all. He had lain awake at nights, worried about that
absence in himself, fearing that the ability to love had been taken
from him, perhaps for good. So this—this hurt he felt at
hurting another—was a sign of hope. Of change in himself.

He looked down
at the poem on the desk, then sighed. What made it worse was that
there was an element of truth in what he had said to T'ai Cho. Remove
Spatz and another Spatz would be appointed in his place. So it was in
this life. Moreover, it was true what he had said about himself.
Truer, perhaps, than he had intended.

All his life he
had been owned. Possessed, not for himself but for the thing within
him—his "talent." They used him, as they would a
machine. And, like a machine, if he malfunctioned he was to be
repaired, or junked.

He laughed
softly, suddenly amused by this vision of himself. Yes, he asked,
but
what makes me different from the machines? What qualities distinguish
me from them? And are those qualities imperfections
—
weaknesses
—
or
are they strengths? Should I be more like them or less?

They had
conditioned him, walled off his past, taught him to mistrust his
darker self; yet it was the very part of him from which it all
emanated—the wellspring of his being.

The thinking
part—they overvalued it. It was only the processor. The
insights came from a deeper well than that. The upper mind merely
refined it.

He smiled,
knowing they were watching him, listening to his words. Well, let
them watch and listen. He was better at this game than they. Much
better.

He leaned
forward, studying the poem.

To the watching
eyes it would mean nothing. To them it seemed a meaningless string of
chemical formulae; the mathematical expression of a complex chain of
molecules. But Kim could see through the surface of the page and
glimpse the Mandarin characters each formula represented. He smiled
to himself, wondering what Spatz would make of it. Beyond the simple
one-for-one code Kim had devised to print out the information taken
from Hammond's personal files was a second code he had agreed upon
with Hammond. That, too, was quite simple—providing you had the
key to how it worked and a fluent understanding of Mandarin.

The poem itself
was clumsy, its images awkward, clichéd—but that was
understandable. Hammond was a scientist, not a poet. And although
the examination system insisted upon the study of ancient poetry, it
was something that most men of a scientific bias put behind them as
quickly as possible. What was important, however, was the information
contained within the central images. Three white swans represented
how Spatz had divided the research into three teams. Then, in each of
the next three lines, Hammond detailed—by use of other
images—the area of study each team was undertaking.

It was a crude
beginning, no more than a foundation, yet it showed it could be done.
As Hammond gained confidence he would develop subtlety: a necessity
in the days to come, for the information would be of a degree of
complexity that would tax their inventiveness to the limit.

That said, the
most difficult part was already resolved. Kim had devised a means by
which he could respond to Hammond. His co-conspirator had only to
touch a certain key on his computer keyboard and Kim's input would
automatically load into his personal files. That same instruction
would effectively shut down Hammond's keyboard, render it useless,
its individual keys unconnected to its regular program. Whichever key
Hammond subsequently pressed would bring up one character of Kim's
reply, until his message was complete.

It was a trick
he had learned in Socialization. A game he'd played, haunting the
files of others with his cryptic messages. And no one had dreamed it
was possible.

He typed his
queries out quickly, keeping this first response simple, modeling his
poem on one by the fourth-century poet T'ao Ch'ien. It printed up on
the screen as further chains of molecules. Then, happy with what he
had done, he punched the code to send it to Hammond's file.

He switched off
the set and sat back, stretching, suddenly tired. Then, unexpectedly,
the comset came alive again, the printer at the side of the desk
beginning to chatter. He caught his breath, watching the printout
slowly emerge. A moment later it fell silent. He leaned forward and
tore the printout off, then sat back, reading it through.

It was from
Spatz, informing him that he had been given permission to use the
recreational facilities of the local Security forces.

He studied it a
moment and then laughed. A pool! Spatz had given him a pool!

* *
*

her uncle JON
had set and lit a fire in the huge hearth. Its flickering light
filled the big tall-ceilinged room, making it seem mysterious and
half-formed, as if, at any moment, the walls would melt and run. Her
father was sitting in a big upright armchair by the window, staring
out at the sea. Standing in the doorway, she looked across at him,
then back at the fire, entranced. It was something she had never seen
before. Something she had never thought to see. Outside, beyond the
latticed windows, evening was falling, dark clouds gathering over the
sea; but here, inside, the firelight filled the room with warmth.

She knelt beside
the fire, putting her hands out to it, shivering suddenly, not from
the cold, but from a feeling of familiarity; from a strange sense of
having made the gesture before, in another life than this.

"Careful,"
her father said, almost lazily. "It's hot. Much hotter than
you'd think."

She knelt there
in the half-shadow, mesmerized by the flickering pattern of the
firelight, its fierce heat, its ever-changing dance of forms; then
she looked back at her father. His face was changed by the fire's
light, had become a mask of black and gold, his eyes living, liquid
jewels. For some reason it moved her deeply, sending a shiver down
her spine. At that moment her love for him was like something solid:
she could touch it and smell it, could feel its very texture.

She looked about
her. There were shelves on the walls, and books. Real books, leather
bound, like those she had seen in the museum once. She turned,
hearing the door creak open, and looked up, smiling, at her uncle.
Behind him came her aunt, carrying a tray of drinks.

"What are
all the books?"

She saw how her
uncle looked to her father before he answered her, as if seeking his
permission.

"They're
old things. History books and myth."

"Myth?"

Her aunt Helga
looked up, a strange expression in her eyes, then looked down again,
busying herself with the drinks.

Again her Uncle
Jon looked to his brother uncertainly. "They're stories, Jelka.
Old legends. Things from before the City."

He was about to
say more, but her father interrupted him. "There are things that
belong here only. You must not take them back with you, understand
me, child? You must not even mention them. Not to anyone."

She looked down.
"Why?"

"Content
yourself that they are."

She looked
across at him again. His voice had been harsh, almost angry, but his
eyes seemed troubled. He looked away, then back at her, relenting.
"While you're here you may look at them, if that's what you
want. But remember, these things are forbidden back in the City. If
anyone knew . . ."

She frowned, not
understanding. Forbidden? Why forbidden? If they were only stories.

"Jelka?"

She looked up,
then quickly took the glass her Aunt Helga was holding out to her.
"Thanks."

She was silent a
moment, then looked across at her uncle. "Daddy said this place
had a name. Kalevala. Why is it called that?"

Jon laughed,
then took a glass from his wife and came across, sitting in the chair
nearest Jelka.

"You want
to know why this house is called Kalevala? Well," he looked
across at her father then back at Jelka, "it's like this . . ."

She listened,
entranced, as her uncle talked of a distant past and a land of
heroes, and of a people—her people—who had lived in that
land; of a time before the Han and their great City, when vast
forests filled the land and the people were few. Her mind opened up
to the freedom of such a past—to a world so much bigger than
the world she knew. A vast, limitless world, bounded by mist and
built upon nothingness. Kalevala, the land of heroes.

When he was
finished, she sat there, astonished, her drink untouched.

"Well?"
her father said over the crackle of the fire, his voice strangely
heavy. "Do you understand now why we are forbidden this? Can't
you see what restlessness there would be if this were known to all?"

She looked back
at him, not recognizing him for a moment, the vision still filling
her mind, consuming her. Then she lowered her eyes and nodded. "Yes.
I think so. And yet. . ."

He smiled back
sadly at her. "I know. I feel it too, my love. It calls us
strongly. But this is now, not then. We cannot go back. This is a new
age and the heroes are dead. The land of Kalevala is gone. We cannot
bring it back."

She shivered.
No, she wanted to say; it's still alive,
inside us
—in
that
part of us that dreams and seeks fulfillment.
And yet he
was right. There was only this left. This faint, sad echo of a
greater, more heroic age. This only. And when it, too, was gone ?

She closed her
eyes, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss. The loss of something
she had never known. And yet not so, for it was still a part of her.
She could feel it—there in the sinew and bone and blood of her.

"Jelka?"

She looked up.
Her uncle was standing by the shelves, watching her, concerned, the
pain in his eyes the reflection of her own.

"The
Kalevala . . . Would you like to read it?"

He stretched out
his hand, offering one of the thick, leather-bound volumes. Jelka
stared back at him a moment, then went across to him, taking the
book. For a moment she simply stared at it, astonished, tracing the
embossed lettering of the cover with her finger; then she turned,
looking at her father.

"Can I?"

"Of course.
But remember what I said. It belongs here. Nowhere else."

Jelka nodded,
then looked back at the book. She opened the cover and read the title
page.

"I didn't
think . . ." she began, then laughed.

"Didn't
think what?" said her uncle, standing beside her.

"This,"
she said, looking up into his face. "I never dreamed there would
be a book of it."

"It wasn't
a book. Not at first. It was all songs, thousands of songs, sung by
peasants in the homelands of Karelia. One man collected them and made
them into a single tale. But now there's only this. This last copy.
The rest of it has gone— singers and songs, the people and the
land—as if it had never been."

She looked back
at him, then stared at the book in her hands, awed. The last copy. It
frightened her somehow.

"Then I'll
take good care of it," she said. "As if it were a sister to
me."

* *
*

CHEN RAISED
HIMSELF uneasily in the bed, then pulled the cover up, getting
comfortable again. His chest was strapped, his arm in bandages, but
he had been lucky. The knife had glanced against a rib, missing
anything vital. He had lost a lot of blood, but he would heal. As for
the arm wound, that was superficial—the kind of thing one got
in a hard training session.