He took the cassette across and locked it in the safe, then went to the door and, throwing back the bolts, summoned his Captain.
"Sir!" the man said, coming to attention in the doorway, his eyes going briefly to the corpse before he lowered them.
"Get rid of it!" I Ye said brusquely, moving past him. "Then come to my office. I've a job for you, Captain Dawes. Something to keep you out of trouble."
The image on the screen intensified - each individual colour glowing vividly - then faded slowly to black.
"I'm guessing," Ben said, turning to Li Yuan.
"Guessing?"
"About how it is, at the end. There has to be a moment, just before the heart stops pumping and the brain stops sending messages, when the senses fire one last time. A dying flare of consciousness. And then?"
Li Yuan waited, expecting Ben to say more, then shrugged.
"Exactly!" Ben said, beginning to dismantle the equipment. "All the great prophets and philosophers . . . they were just guessing, like me. But if one knew."
"If one knew, one would be dead."
"Or someone would. There has to be a way."
"A way?"
"To record it. To follow the path past that final moment of intensity and into the black."
"The black?"
"Death. That's my next project. To try to track down death."
Li Yuan stared at Ben. Was he serious, or was this another of his jokes? After all... death.
"I brought you something," he said, offering Ben the slender book-sized case.
"A gift?" Ben took the case and flipped it open, then looked up, his eyes wide with surprise. "But these . . ."
"Are the vials from the Melfi Clinic, the last remnants of Amos Shepherd's experiment." Li Yuan smiled. "I've sent the files on to the Domain already."
Ben set die case down on top of the control desk, then prised one of the tiny glass tubes from its velvet niche. On the frosted glass was etched a tiny acorn, symbol of the experiment his great-great-great-grandfather had carried out across six generations. Inside the tube, locked in suspended animation, was a fertilised egg from Alexandra Melfi, his great-great-great-grandmother.
"Why?" Ben said, setting the vial back carefully.
"Because," Li Yuan answered, having no better answer. It had been no more than a whim, after all.
"I'm grateful," Ben said. "It was kind of you, Yuan. But there's something else I want."
"Name it."
"I want access to one of your prisons. I want to work with the condemned prisoners. To tape their memories."
"You mean their deaths."
Ben nodded.
It wasn't what he'd expected, but he had promised. "Okay, I'll arrange something. But Ben?"
"Yes?"
"Be discreet. If Pei K'ung finds out what you're up to she'll use it against you. She doesn't like you. You know that, don't you?"
Ben smiled. "I know. The feeling's mutual. But fine, I'll invent some reason for what I'm doing. Pretend I'm after something else."
"It'll be a waste of time."
"You think so?"
"Death's death."
"So you say. But I'd like to be sure. I'd like to know"
The air in the garden seemed fresh and wholesome after the stuffiness of Ben's workroom. It had recently rained and the leaves shone wetly in the morning sunlight. Standing there beneath the open sky Li Yuan realised just how little time he spent outside, how much a hermit he had become these past ten years. It was almost three years since he had last left the palace grounds, ten since he'd been outside his own City. In that time he had shed his youth. Now, at the start of middle age, he felt compelled to make changes - to shake things up and see what would transpire.
Recklessness, his father would have called it. A sign of immaturity. After all, what sane ruler would consciously seek change? Yet, undeniably, he felt compelled. He had let things run unchecked too long. Now it was time to take back the reins. Time to take risks.
He looked up. His feet had brought him to the boundary of the Northern Palace. Before him stood a gate. And inside . . .
He pushed it open, wondering as he did how much he was in control of his actions and how much compulsion drove him.
Like Ben with death, he thought, though he himself had had enough of death. Life was what drove him; life and the instinct towards . . .
He stopped dead. Towards what? Towards what lay between a young girl's legs? Was that it? Was that all this was - lust, pure and simple? If so, he might as well turn straight about, for lust was a destructive urge, as he knew well enough from his past. It had destroyed many a good man, the great Ming Huang among them.
The thought made him shiver. Was that what he'd become? An old goat, dribbling helplessly before a young girl's open legs, doomed endlessly to let his baser instincts foul his higher aspirations?
Or did he fool himself to think he could be other than he was?
He walked on, slowly now, pensively, as if he walked within one of Ben Shepherd's shells, following the guide-track, his path predestined, his sense of free will merely an illusion preprogrammed by the appropriate chemicals.
/ have to see her again. I have to.
Because if he didn't, if he left this, then he would never know if what he'd felt last night, facing her, listening to her talk, had been real or simply another damned illusion.
Because . . . well, because he hadn't felt this way in years.
He stopped again, looking up at the latticed windows just above him. She was inside, within her rooms, perhaps, or in the guest suite with her family. He hoped it was the former. He hoped she was alone, because what he wanted to say to her was not something he could utter in the presence of her father. What he wanted . . .
He began to pace, back and forth, trying to comprehend just what was going on inside him.
You are being ridiculous, he told himself. It's bad enough you take young maids into your bed each night. But to contemplate this. To upset all your carefully laid plans merely to follow a whim . . .
But this was no whim. It was not like giving the vials back to Shepherd. This was important.
Important? He could hear Pei K'ung's voice query that, the mocking laughter that would follow, as night followed day. No. He could not let his wife know how he felt, for if she did . . .
He said the words aloud, softly, so he could hear them in the air. "If she found out she would use it, just as she uses everything."
"Chieh Hsia?"
He turned, surprised to find her standing there, not ten paces from where he stood, watching him.
"Dragon Heart?"
She bowed her head. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, I did not mean to startle you."
"But. . ." He stared at her, then beckoned her to him. "You should not be out here. Her spies . . ."
She frowned. "Chieh Hsia?"
"My wife, the Empress ... If she were to discover you were here . . ."
"But I thought. . ."
He went to her and took her arm, leading her inside. Closing the door he turned on her. "Did no one tell you?"
She shook her head.
"Aiya . . ." He let out a great huff of exasperation. Then, seeing how she stared at him, amazed, as if he'd lost his mind, he laughed. "Do I seem like a madman, Dragon Heart?"
She looked down, flustered. "Why, no, Chieh Hsia. I..."
He reached out, taking her hands, then drew her close. She did not resist, yet when he made to kiss her, she drew her face back.
"Chieh Hsia, forgive me . . ."
"Forgive you?" He stared at her, not understanding.
"Forgive me, Great Lord, but I am betrothed."
Betrothed. The word sunk like a stone into his consciousness. But of course. She was a Minor Family Princess, and Minor Family princesses were always betrothed, just as her sister had been secretly betrothed to his son these past ten years. What had he thought? Even so, the urge to kiss her was overwhelming. Placing his hand gently against her neck, he drew her face to his.