“We’ll never know till we try,” Dat said, and smiled in a lopsided way, and put out his bony-fingered hand. “Li, isn’t it? Do we have a deal?”
Kwan had kept his name; it was common enough to serve as its own alias. “Yes, it’s Li,” he agreed, and after a brief pause he took Dat’s hand. “And it’s a deal.”
The interior of the container was cold, and smelling faintly of old cardboard, and not entirely airtight or lightproof; grayish yellow lines of illumination defined the edges of the front-opening panel Kwan had used to climb inside. He had nothing with him in this box but a small duffel bag containing one change of clothes and his notebook and pencils; he sat on that and waited. He was alone, Dat having explained that the weight of both of them in one container would draw attention when the containers were winched ashore so he had gone off to hide in another one. But Kwan didn’t mind that; in fact, it was better. He had no interest in becoming Dat’s partner or friend, once they left the ship, and presuming they were successfully to get past whatever gates or guards or locks there might be between the dock and the free world.
The Free World.
Kwan had been in the container less than an hour, seated on the small duffel, back against the cold flimsy-seeming side of the aluminum container, becoming both bored and sleepy but nevertheless feeling a kind of slow deep contentment, when noises alerted him. The storage area door had been opened. Feet strode loudly on the metal floor. Then silence. Then a voice:
“Li Kwan!”
Kwan froze inside the box, silent, barely breathing. His heart was a fist in his chest, massively clenching.
“Li Kwan! We know you’re in there! Come on out! Goddamn it, don’t make us search every goddamn container!”
The voice was irritable, weary, but not actively hostile or angry. It was just a ship’s officer faced with an annoying duty. They know we’re here, Kwan though, not yet realizing the significance of the fact that his was the only name called. But there was no point trying to hide any longer. With a sigh, wondering how much trouble he’d made for himself, Kwan stood, picked up his duffel, and opened the front of the container, letting the panel swing out and down on its hinges. “Here I am,” he said, to the three aggravated uniformed Caucasians, who turned to him with identical frowns of exasperation.
Dat had betrayed him, turned him in, there was no question about that. Dat, more than that, had set him up in the first place, suggested the scheme, inveigled him into it, and then betrayed him. Kwan had plenty of time to think about that in the Star Voyager’s small cream-painted brig. What wasn’t clear was why Dat had done it.
Kwan had discussed that with Father Mackenzie, when the man had come in shortly after the arrest, introduced himself, and asked if there was anything he could do. “Talk to me,” Kwan had said, and Father Mackenzie had been happy to do so — he didn’t seem to have much to occupy himself on the ship, except to be on call for providing the last rites to Roman Catholic passengers who succumbed to strokes or heart attacks while at one or another of the nine meals offered every day — and when the conversation had turned to Dat’s betrayal Father Mackenzie had made one tentative suggestion that just might be the truth. “He could be an agent of the Chinese government,” the priest said. “I’m not saying he is, but he could be. Sent to make sure you never get into a position where you can publicly embarrass China.”
“But I still can, Father, if someone would call the New York Times as soon as we arrive. If you—”
But no. Father Mackenzie couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Bravery and action were impossible to him. He was just a small decent man, doing what he could.
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh, they’re all decent men.
Shortly after Father MacKenzie left, the vibration of the engines stopped. We’re here, Kwan thought bitterly. The free world.
But then nothing happened for another hour. Kwan paced the floor in the small room, increasingly nervous. Was this really going to be the end? The priest had said that Hong Kong was already seeking extradition. Hong Kong, not China. It would be harder for China to take him away from American jurisdiction, but Hong Kong could do it easily. Put together some trumped-up criminal charge — nothing political, not at all — and the Americans would see nothing wrong with sending a petty thief or arsonist or blackmailer home to a fellow democracy for a fair trial.
Sinking deeper into bitterness and gloom, Kwan paced the narrow floor, rubbing his hands together, pushing his fingers through his thick hair, biting his lower lip. Thoughts of his own death crowded in on him, the dog’s death he’d be given, death equally through humiliation and a bullet. After all this.
He stopped when he heard the grating noises of the door being unlocked. He was facing the door when it opened and three uniformed crewmen entered, these Caucasian faces impersonal, showing nothing at all. “Your escort’s here,” one of them said. “Time to go.”
Kwan’s duffel was on the bed. Picking it up, he said to them, “You know, for one moment, we touched the conscience of the world.”
“Is that right?” the man said, uncaring. Looking around the bare little room, he said, “Got all your stuff?”
“But the truth is,” Kwan said, “the world doesn’t have very much conscience.” And he went with them.
Ananayel
What is it about Susan Carrigan? I don’t need her any more, but here I am with her. I’ve studied my actions, my motivations, my reasons for continuing to see Susan after her task was finished, and I’ve come to a conclusion. It seems to me that the quality in her that attracts me is that she does no harm.
I’m mostly aware, of course, of the others, the ones who snarl and bite, the ones whose messy miserable struggles led finally to my present assignment. My awareness of them is so complete that Susan is becoming more and more of an amazement to me. I’ve been seeing for myself why He has grown weary of these creatures, but it wasn’t until I got closer to Susan over time that I began to sense why He had made them in the first place.
This means nothing, of course. His Will be done. It only seems to me that I ought to get a clearer picture of the humans while they still exist, that I should see them both at their worst and at their best. I knew them so little, understood so little, when I started. Susan shows me the parts I hadn’t suspected.
We see each other three or four times a week. We go to movies, or to stage plays, or to dinner. A few times, I have spent an evening in her apartment to watch some special program on television. She is easy enough in her mind about me by now that I could move the relationship onto a sexual plane, but I have not. (I don’t precisely read her mind, but I can make myself aware of levels of her emotions and the general flow of her thoughts, and I’m rather sure an overture from me would not be unacceptable.) My only personal sexual experience was with Pami: nasty and brutish, though not particularly short. With humans, sex is where reality and belief touch, where the physical and the emotional rationalize one another; it might be better for me not to know any more than I already do.
As for Susan, I do enjoy her company. Her reactions to the world she sees, her opinions, are so close to my own that there are moments when I find her uncannily angelic. She isn’t, of course. She is human, so my time with her will be extremely limited. (Even more than under normal circumstances.) I’m glad of the opportunity, though, no matter how brief it must be.
In the meantime, what’s this? Out in Illinois, what is Frank Hillfen up to?