Authors: David Wingrove
How he hated them.
But they, it seemed, had won this time. Unless some small miracle occurred, they would find out everything. And then…?
Jiang Lei sighed heavily. It was no good fooling himself any longer. An hour he had at most, then it was over.
It was while he sat there at his desk, brooding, that Ma Feng came to him.
Ma Feng stopped, bowing low, not two metres from where Jiang Lei sat. Another of his men stood just behind him, out of Jiang’s line of sight.
Jiang looked up. ‘Yes, Ma Feng… what is it now?’
Ma Feng straightened. There was a half smile on his face. ‘Master… I thought, as things stood, you might wish to question our prisoner again.’
‘Our prisoner?’ Jiang frowned.
Ma Feng stepped back. There, in full guard’s uniform, stood the
Hung Mao
, Reed.
‘Ma Feng!’
‘Forgive me, Master, if I have done wrong, only I thought, as there was so little time, you might wish to finish questioning
Shih
Reed.’
He ought to have been angry. Ought to have raged at his man for doing this, but all he really felt was a faint amusement.
Reed waited, head bowed, like a good Han. Jiang Lei smiled at the sight.
Shih
Reed… you can discard the costume now.’
‘Thank you, Jiang Lei, I…’
He spoke over the man, not wanting Reed to get the wrong idea.
‘
Shih
Reed… You must understand clearly how things are. I cannot protect you any longer. The Thousand Eyes are in charge here now, and they will shortly know of your
existence, just as soon as they have debriefed Cadre Wang. And when they do they will come to me and I will have to hand you to them.’ He sighed. ‘It is not how I wished it, but there
we are. Your fate was cast long ago, it seems.’
Reed gave a little shrug, then began to discard the uniform.
Jiang Lei stood. ‘Ma Feng… you will stand guard outside. No one is to enter here without my express permission, neh?’
‘Master…’ Ma Feng bowed low, then went outside.
Jiang looked to Reed again and smiled. ‘Please… pull up a chair.’
Reed hesitated.
‘What is it?’
‘My family…’
‘You mean, my promise to you? Do not worry,
Shih
Reed. I will do everything in my power to protect them. Besides,
they
are not on the list. There is no reason why our friends
should be interested in them.’
‘But surely, my son…?’
‘Does not have to be
your
son. We will give him another name, neh? Something that will keep him safe.’
Reed met Jiang Lei’s eyes, his own filled with gratitude. ‘Thank you.’
The two men sat.
‘Well?’ Jiang Lei said after a moment. ‘Is there anything you wish to ask me?’
Reed hesitated, then. ‘My friends… the ones I told you about earlier… is there any record of what happened to them?’
Jiang considered it a moment, then laughed. ‘What the hell, eh? They will find out anyway…’
Reed sat forward. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, the moment we access your file, alarm bells will sound. The only reason they didn’t before now is because I kept my enquiries vague and general. But any
detailed
queries on your file are tagged to alert enquiring minds…’
‘Our friends, you mean?’
Jiang nodded. ‘Who else? But they will know about you anyway, just as soon as Cadre Wang has had his say, and then they’ll be marching into this tent, demanding to know where you are
and why I didn’t hand you over…’
‘And you will be in trouble…’
‘Again.’
The two men laughed.
‘Well?’ Jiang asked, his expression suddenly more serious. ‘You really want to know?’
Reed nodded. ‘Yes. If we have time.’
Jiang was penning the last line of the poem when the silk flap whooshed open and a stranger – a tall Han in a simple black silk one-piece – stepped into the
tent.
Jiang half rose, then sat again, knowing from the man’s self-satisfied look that they had got what they wanted.
‘So you know everything…’
‘No thanks to you, General Jiang.’
‘Does your Master wish to see me?’
‘My Master?’ The man almost smiled. ‘You mean Huang Tzu Kung, I take it…’
‘So the Seventh Dragon has a name.’
Only now that it came to it, Jiang did not feel like sparring verbally with this one.
‘And Reed?’
The man walked across, picked up the sheet of paper Jiang had been writing on and studied it a moment. He put it down, then turned, facing Jiang again.
‘You will forget the matter, Jiang Lei. He is ours now.’
Jiang sighed. So it had all been for nothing.
‘What will happen now? Shall I be replaced?’
‘It seems likely, neh?’
‘And Wang Yu-Lai… I guess you’ll reward the little shit. Give him another promotion, yes?’
‘He has been a faithful servant…’
‘He’s been a…’
Jiang almost said it. That horrible c word. But why waste his breath on the man? His gamble had failed.
He was so distracted that at first he didn’t hear it, didn’t feel the faint vibration in the air that slowly grew and grew.
It was the stranger who noticed it first. ‘What
is
that?’ he asked, looking up through the thin blue silk of the tent’s walls.
As they stepped outside, the noise grew slowly louder.
Jiang knew at once, from the craft’s markings, who it was. His heart soared.
It was Tsao Ch’un’s own cruiser!
As it set down, men spilled out, securing the perimeter.
Jiang looked to the man standing beside him. ‘Just who
are
you, incidentally?’
The stranger sneered at him. ‘It is not your business who I am.’
‘But if I don’t know who you are…’
The man thrust an ID card at him. It was purest black. Jiang did not have to activate it. He knew at once what it was. It meant that the man was
shou
. Was, quite literally, a
‘hand’. One of the twelve personal aides to the Ministry’s First Dragon. They were his ‘hands’, whenever he had to get them dirty.
A powerful man indeed. But right now he was outranked and outgunned.
Only as the ramp came down, it was not Tsao Ch’un who stepped out into the daylight, but one of his servants, a small, dark-haired man in lavender silks whom Jiang recognized
immediately.
Wen P’ing… Tsao Ch’un has sent Wen P’ing.
Jiang groaned inwardly, then walked across to greet the newcomer, the
shou
beside him.
Ten metres from him they stopped, both of them bowing low. Wen P’ing looked from one to the other and smiled, making no attempt whatsoever to return their courtesy.
‘General Jiang… Master Teng… I understand there has been a slight mis -understanding.’
Master Teng, the
shou
, looked up at that, a flash of irritation in his eyes. But he knew better than to argue with Wen P’ing, for of all Tsao Ch’un’s men, Wen was the
most slippery. And the most dangerous.
Jiang Lei sighed. Either Tsao Ch’un had not received his note, or this was his answer.
‘No?’ Wen P’ing continued, his smile fixed now. ‘Or am I mistaken,
ch’un tzu
? Has everything been settled in my absence?’
Jiang Lei wet his lips, then spoke. ‘Forgive me, Lord Wen, but should we not wait for the Seventh Dragon?’
‘Oh, heavens no!’ Wen P’ing said, walking past them and looking about him as if admiring the view. ‘I’m sure we can come to an agreement here and now, among the
three of us, neh? After all… we are all our Masters’ hands…’ He looked to Teng. ‘Some quite literally so.’
Teng bowed lower. His eyes, however, had narrowed almost to a slit, trying to work out just what Wen was getting at.
‘You see,’ Wen continued, ‘my Master, the great lord of us all, Tsao Ch’un, gets most distressed when he hears of such rivalry between brothers. And surely we are all
brothers, for we work towards the same fine ends, neh?’
Teng and Jiang looked to each other at that.
Seeing it, Wen P’ing smiled. ‘Ah… I see you understand. Excellent… I feel we’re getting somewhere. But let’s make this absolutely clear, neh? Let’s
clarify
things. General Jiang…’
‘Yes, my lord…’
‘You must learn to share what you know. In future there must be no secrets. No holding back of information. You must learn to be transparent. Is that clear?’
Jiang bowed. ‘It is clear, my lord.’
‘Good… and as for you, Master Teng… as representative of our most valued brother, the First Dragon, you must encourage your agents to know their place and practise
restraint…’
‘Restraint, my lord?’
‘Yes,
restraint
.’ Wen glared at him a moment, then let his face soften.
The smile returned. They were all friends again, that smile seemed to say.
‘So,
ch’un tzu
… let us put this matter behind us. Let us agree to move on, in harmony. Hand in glove, so to speak.’
He paused, then looked to Jiang Lei.
‘General Jiang, I understand there are future citizens to be processed.’
‘There are, my lord.’
‘Then you will resume your normal duties immediately.’
Jiang bowed low, surprised and relieved by Wen P’ing’s words.
‘Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.’
‘As for you, Master Teng… your grievance has been noted. There will be no further obstruction of your agents. They do necessary work. Without them the empire would be endangered.
Our Master knows that and greatly values your work. But in the matter of the listed one, Reed, he asks that you review the matter with a more… let us say…
sympathetic
eye
.’
Teng’s head came up at that, saw the hardness in Wen’s face and quickly lowered his eyes again.
‘It shall be so, my lord.’
‘Good. Then we are almost finished here. There is but one final thing needs to be settled. General Jiang…’
‘Yes, my lord…’
‘Your comments on Cadre Wang are noted. That said, we cannot allow personal feelings to dictate our actions. Wang Yu-Lai will be reinstated, and all complaints against him erased, you
understand? Like it or not, you will work with him. And he with you. That is how it will be. You understand me, General?’
‘I understand.’
Wen P’ing smiled. ‘Good. I am glad we have settled this. There is nothing my Master hates more than such… disagreements. And what my Master hates…’
Both Jiang and Teng bowed their heads again at the threat implicit in those words.
Jiang Lei could see that Wen was about to turn away; to return to his ship without another word, but he could not let him go. Not without asking.
‘Lord Wen…’
‘Yes, General Jiang?’
‘Forgive me, but… have you seen Chun Hua recently? I just wondered…’
Wen’s eyes narrowed. He knew
something
. Jiang could see that. Only he shook his head.
‘I am afraid I have no news for you, Jiang Lei.’
Jiang bowed one final time, as if in gratitude for Wen’s words, but inside he felt an anguish that only long separation could bring about.
We are our Masters’ hands.
Jiang stood there, when Wen P’ing had gone, watching as representatives of The Thousand Eyes packed up and made ready to depart.
So Tsao Ch’un
had
received his note. Or so it seemed, even if Wen P’ing had not referred to it explicitly, for the matter of Reed had been dealt with, and to some
satisfaction. Only…
Jiang closed his eyes. Could he bear to pay the price? Could he stand working with that odious little shit after all that had happened?
He didn’t know. Only what choice did he have?
‘Ma Feng!’ he called, turning towards his newly promoted captain of the guard.
‘Yes, General?’
‘Bring the cruiser. There’s work to be done.’
Old Sarum was a place, like Corfe, from another age. And like many of these last remaining sites, it would soon be lost to sight, buried beneath the footings of the great city
which, even as Jiang Lei looked east, grew slowly before his eyes.
From high up on that great mound, he could see the machines – thousands of the things, some of them huge, some tiny – busy at their work, while small teams of armed guards looked on,
there to make sure that, if one of the ‘bots’ malfunctioned, they’d deal with it before it ran amok.
The big machines, of course, never went wrong. They were simple mechanisms, brutal in their design, like massive spiders, six of their eight legs steadying them while the other two gripped the
anchor pillars and hammered them deep into the earth. And while it did, another gargantuan mechanism rested nearby, ready to feed the big
chih chu
, as it was called, with whatever was
required, the struts and spars that gave the city its strength, stacked on its back. Everything on a giant scale, not a single piece less than half a
li
in length, building the shell of the
city, on which all else was hung.
Jiang knew very little about the engineering involved, but he did know that the great anchor pillars were earthquake proof – that they’d been designed to take shocks up to 8.8 on the
old Richter scale, with little more than a severe buffeting.
What fascinated him, however, were the smaller mechanisms – the survey or bots and the smaller
chih chu
– most of them less than a few
ch’i
in diameter. They
scuttled about like living things, measuring, marking, then spinning out floors and walls from the big tanks of liquid ice they carried on their backs.
These, it had to be said, were both more complex and less reliable machines. From time to time they
would
go wrong, and then you’d see one of the teams of guards ‘go
hunting’. He’d seen one himself, two months back. The machine had suffered a knock when it fell from one of the struts, and had begun to act erratically. Before one of the supervisors
could deal with it and shut it down, it had slipped away, firing off short bursts of ice into the air, the long gobbets of super-plastic hardening almost instantly, making strange, translucent
shapes that sparkled in the sunlight.
At once the guards were off, chasing it. But it wasn’t a simple matter of blasting the bot into pieces. Liquid ice was a dangerous substance, and if a tank of it went up, they were as like
as not to get cut to pieces or covered in the stuff. The only proper way to deal with a malfunctioning
chih chu
was to shoot its legs away, then laser-roast its artificial cortex, and the
men enjoyed showing off their skill at doing this. Only this once the damn thing tumbled over, just as one of the guards was roasting it, and the beam caught the tank.