"In one of the guest apartments, along with two of his brothers. Their ship's docked in orbit."
"I know," Wen Ch'ang said. "It's an impressive craft. I've not seen its like before."
"Separate evolution," Kim said. "Apparently those asteroid miners have been out there more than two hundred years now. They've had a long time to adapt to the conditions out here."
"The shape of things to come, eh?"
Kim smiled. "Who knows?"
Wen Ch'ang took the "rapid" down to Level 26, then, leaving the lift, hurried along the north corridor toward his apartment, holding out his ID card before him, the "seals" - the airtight doors that partitioned the corridors every fifty ch'i or so -hissing open at his approach.
Back in his rooms, he stripped off and then stood under the shower, the recycled water flowing hot over his body for a full thirty seconds before it cut off and the warm air jets cut in to dry him off.
Excellent, he thought, stepping out and grinning at his reflection in the steam-free mirror. Everything is falling into place just perfectly.
He went through into the tiny cabin bedroom and, reaching into the narrow built-in wardrobe, took out a simple light green one-piece, his blood coursing in his veins with anticipation.
The message had come that morning - a simple, folded note slipped under his door. After all these years DeVore had contacted him again . . . had activated him.
Wen Ch'ang stepped into the one-piece and pulled it up over his body, easing his arms into the sleeves and sealing it at the neck.
"Dead," he said quietly, then chuckled to himself. "The bastard's as good as dead."
Oh, he'd have to plan it carefully, of course. He'd have to make it seem as though it were an accident, but that was detail, and he was good at detail. Nobody better, as Ward so often told him.
The chuckle became a laugh, a full-bellied laugh that filled the silent rooms.
He was the dragon's tooth, a single stone placed long ago in a forgotten corner of the board. But now his time had come. The end game was upon them.
His laughter died. Stepping back into the shower-room he stared at himself again. He wasn't real. He knew that. He had been made, produced from a genetic template in DeVore's plant back on Mars; grown in a tank and given false memories. For a time he had lived as men lived, but he wasn't a man, he was a morph, a stone, a dragon's tooth.
He bared his teeth at his reflection. There! There was a side of him Ward didn't know. He smiled at the irony of it. For Ward was the most intelligent man he had ever known. More intelligent even than his Master. But unlike DeVore, Ward was naive. He trusted.
The test bore, he thought, the idea coming to him whole in that instant. Ill do it then, and blame Shen Li and his brothers.
He smiled, his mind already working on the problem, then, with a brief nod to his image in the mirror, he went out, heading for Kalevala.
Heng Yu stood a moment, calming himself, then, with a nod to the Captain of the Guard, stepped through the slowly-opening doors and into his Master's study, bowing low as he crossed the thickly-carpeted floor.
Stopping before the massive desk, a single glance told him that Dragon Heart was in a mood; an observation that was confirmed in an instant.
"You are late, Master Heng! We expected you an hour back!"
He dropped to his knees, conscious of how he must appear to those others present - a cringing, fawning fool.
"Forgive me, Mistress," he said, "but unexpected matters.. ."
"Don't lie to me, Master Heng," she interrupted, sitting forward, "I know what you've been up to!"
"Mistress?" He glanced at Li Yuan, trying to gauge whether this show of temper were orchestrated or merely the product of the woman's vacillating mood.
Li Yuan sat in a matching throne beside his wife, reading a report. He had put on weight this past year and at times Heng Yu suspected that he too had been wired secretly by his wife, he went along with her with such docile acquiescence. Yet there were moments when the old Li Yuan stared back at him; moments when all his certainties dissolved beneath his Tang's ironic stare.
" WelP' Dragon Heart shouted at him, banging the table with her fist. "Have you something to tell me, Master Heng?"
"Tell you, Mistress?" One thing the years had taught him was to admit to nothing until confronted with it absolutely.
She stood then came round the desk until she was standing over him. Her voice was cold, acidic. "You disobeyed me."
"Mistress?" He kept his eyes lowered, wondering just what she knew for a fact and what was guesswork.
"The woman. Ward's wife."
Heng Yu waited, tensing himself against the expected explosion, but it did not come.
He looked up at her, surprised to find her smiling. "Mistress?"
"You are a clever man, Master Heng."
"Clever, Mistress?"
"Yes. I was very angry with you at first. I wanted you . . . executed. But my husband," she looked round, gazing fondly at Li Yuan. "My dear, sweet husband persuaded me that I was wrong about you."
"Ah . .." Heng Yu looked to his Master for enlightenment, but Li Yuan was still reading, as if disinterested in events.
"He said you were the most loyal of his servants. He said. . ." Her laughter was soft, almost kind for once. "He said that you had to have a plan of some kind. To entrap the woman. To weave her into some kind of plot by our enemies, perhaps. To incriminate her."
"Mistress?" Heng Yu stared at her a moment, then understood. It had arrived. The moment he had been waiting for for years - first as Pei K'ung's willing "dog" and now as this child's. Now he must choose. To serve her or disobey. There was no third alternative.
He glanced at Li Yuan again. His Master was watching him now, intrigued to see what he would do.
Heng swallowed and looked down, bowing to his Mistress. "My Master, as ever, understands me perfectly."
Her smile was triumphant. "Good. Then all is well, neh? My husband and I can rest safe at nights, knowing that the Empire is in safe hands."
If there was any irony in her voice Heng could not detect it, but then, she was a sly one. Almost as sly as his Master, and certainly his match nine days out of ten. "Is there anything else, Mistress?" "No, Master Heng, I..."
She stopped, looking past him. Someone had entered the study and was crossing the huge expanse of carpet. From the waft of perfume that preceded the figure, Heng could tell without looking who it was. Cheng Nai shan. As the Empress's First Advisor swept past him, the swish of expensive silk as much a trademark of the man as his cologne, Heng noted that Ming Ai's old ally had three of Li Yuan's generals with him. Something was up.
Head still bowed, Heng Yu watched his rival go round the desk and unceremoniously lean in to Li Yuan and whisper in the Tang's ear, one hand cupped about it so no one else could overhear. After a moment Li Yuan nodded, then looked to the generals, nodding to each in turn.
What now? Heng wondered, staring suspiciously back at Cheng, who was smiling broadly now.
As the generals backed out of the room, Heng Yu looked to his master, then, steeling himself, took his opportunity to make his request.
"Master?"
Li Yuan looked back at him languidly. "Yes, Master Heng?"
"I wish to ask permission to attend the ceremony in two days time."
"Ceremony?"
"At Marshal Tolonen's grave-tablet in Bremen."
Li Yuan stared back at him. "Ceremony? There's to be a ceremony?"
"Yes, Master. I... I felt as a mark of my respect. . ."
"Permission is refused," Dragon Heart interrupted. "You will be in Mashhad that day."