Authors: David Wingrove
Haavikko was facing him, crouched, his eyes wide, watching Chen’s every movement, all pretence at drunkenness peeled from him. He swayed gently, as if about to attack, but it was clear to Chen that that was not Haavikko’s intention. He was waiting for Chen to go for his knife, which lay just behind him by the door. It was what he himself would have done. Chen gave the slightest nod, suddenly respectful of the man’s abilities. No one, not even Karr, had ever been fast enough to knock his knife from his hand.
‘Well?’ Haavikko said, clearly this time, the word formed like a drop of acid. ‘What do you want?’
Chen lifted his chin in challenge. ‘I’ll tell you what I want. I want answers.’
Haavikko laughed bitterly. ‘Answers? What do you mean?’ But there was a slight hesitation in his eyes, the slightest trace of fear.
‘I think you know more than you’re letting on. I think you’ve done one or two things you’re ashamed of. Things that aren’t even on your file.’
Chen saw how he blanched at that, how the skin about his eyes tightened.
‘Who sent you? Was it Liu Chang?’
‘Liu Chang? Who’s that?’
Haavikko snorted in disgust. ‘You know damned well who I mean. Liu Chang, the brothel keeper. From the Western Isle. Did he send you? Or was it someone else?’
Chen shook his head. ‘You’ve got me wrong, Lieutenant. I’m a soldier, not a pimp’s runner. You forget where we are. This is Bremen. How would a pimp’s runner get in here?’
Haavikko shook his head. ‘I’d credit him with anything. He’s devious enough, don’t you think?’
Who?
he wondered, but said, ‘It’s Chen... Captain Kao Chen.’
Haavikko laughed sourly, then shook his head. ‘Since when did they make a Han captain?’
Slowly Chen’s hand went to his jacket.
‘Try anything and I’ll break your neck.’
Chen looked back at him, meeting his eyes coldly, his fingers continuing to search his pocket, emerging a moment later with his pass. He threw it across to Haavikko, who caught it deftly, his eyes never leaving Chen’s face.
‘Back off... Two paces.’
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 can.’
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 pretence 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 note 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 Fest. 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 realisation 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 thoroughly?’
Haavikko looked down, 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.
‘The mountains. They’re so different...’
He turned his head, looking at her. She had such finely chiselled 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 towards 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,
Shih
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 think. 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, 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. Any time 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 towards 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?’
‘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 centre had contained several items of jewellery. The last – making 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 which 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 non-existent weaponry, then switching those funds into bearer credits?’
DeVore nodded. That was exactly how it worked.
‘The jewellery 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 jewellery: 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 as – and potentially a great deal more than – 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; neither 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.
As in his dreams...
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.