"It's all right," she said softly, kissing his naked shoulder. "It's all going to be all right. I promise you it will. It's Meg, Ben. I'm here. I won't leave you. I promise I won't."
But when she turned him to face her, his eyes seemed sightless and his cheeks were wet with tears.
"She's gone," he said brokenly. "Don't you see, Meg? I loved her. I didn't realize it until now, but I loved her. And now she's gone."
IT WAS MUCH LATER when Meg found the package. She took it through to the living room; then, laying it on the floor, she unwrapped it and knelt there looking down at it. It was beautiful. There was no doubt about it. Meg had thought no one else capable of seeing it, but it was there, in the girl's painting—all of Ben's power, his harsh, uncompromising beauty. She too had seen how mixed, how gentle-fierce he was.
She was about to wrap it again, to hide it away somewhere until they were gone from here, when Ben came out of the bedroom.
"What's that?" he asked, looking across at her, the faintest light of curiosity in his eyes.
She hesitated, then picked it up and turned it toward him.
"The girl must have left it," she said, watching him, seeing how his eyes widened with surprise, how the painting seemed to bring him back to life.
"Catherine," he corrected her, his eyes never leaving the surface of the painting. "She had a name, Meg, like you and I. She was real. As real as this."
He came closer, then bent down on his haunches, studying the canvas carefully, reaching out with his fingertips to trace the line and texture of the painting. And all the while she watched him, seeing how his face changed, how pain and wonder and regret flickered one after another across the screen of his features, revealing everything.
She looked down, a tiny shudder rippling through her. Their lives had been so innocent, so free of all these complications. But now. . . She shook her head, then looked at him again. He was watching her.
"What is it?" he asked.
She shook her head, not wanting to say. They had both been hurt enough by this. Her words could only make things worse. Yet she had seen the change in him. Had seen that transient, flickering moment in his face when pain had been transmuted into something else—into the seed of some great artifice.
She shuddered, suddenly appalled. Was this all there was for him? This constant trading in of innocence for artifice? This devil's bargain? Could he not just be? Did everything he experienced, every living breath he took, have to be sacrificed on the bleak, unrelenting altar of his art?
She wished there were another answer—another path—-for him, but knew it was not so. He could not be without first recording his being. Could not be free without first capturing himself. Nor did he have any choice in the matter. He was like Icarus, driven, god-defiant, obsessed by his desire to break free of the element which bound him.
She looked back at him, meeting his eyes. "I must go after her, Meg. I must."
"You can't. Don't you understand? She saw us. She'll not forgive you that." "But this . . ." He looked down at the painting again, the pain returned to his face. "She saw me, Meg. Saw me clear. As I really am."
She shivered. "I know. But you can't. It's too late, Ben. Don't you see that?" "No," he said, standing. "Not if I go now and beg her to forgive me." She let her head fall, suddenly very tired. "No, Ben. You can't. Not now." "Why?" his voice was angry now, defiant. "Give me one good reason why I can't." She sighed. It was what she had been unable to say to him earlier—the reason why she had come here a week early—but now it had to be said. She looked up at him again, her eyes moist now. "It's Father. He's ill." "I know—" he began, but she cut him off.
"No, Ben. You don't know. The doctors came three days ago. The day I wrote to you." There was a faint quaver in her voice now. She had let the painting fall. Now she stood there, facing him, the first tears spilling down her cheeks.
"He's dying." She raised her voice suddenly, anger spilling over into her words. "Goddamnit, Ben, they've given him a month! Six weeks at most!" She swallowed, then shook her head, her eyes pleading with him now. "Don't you see? That's why you can't go after her. You've got to come home. You must! Mother needs you. She needs you badly. And me. I need you too, Ben. Me more than anyone."
MEMORANDUM: 4th day of May, A.D. 2207
To His Most Serene Excellency, Li Shai Tung, Grand Counsellor and T'ang of C/i'eng Ou Chou (City Europe)
Chieh Hsia, Your humble servant begs to inform you that the matter of which we spoke has now resolved itself satisfactorily. The girl involved, Catherine Tissan (see attached report, MinDis PSec 435/55712), has apparently returned to her former lover, Sergey Novacek (see attached report, MinDis PSec 435/55711), who, after pressure from friends loyal to Your Most Serene Excellency, has dropped his civil action against the Shepherd boy (see copies of documents attached).
Ben Shepherd himself has, as you are doubtlessly aware, returned home to tend his ailing father, abandoning his studies at Oxford, thus removing himself from the threat of possible attack or abduction.
This acknowledged, in view of the continuing importance of the Shepherd family to State matters, your humble servant has felt it his duty to continue in his efforts to ascertain whether this was, as appears on the surface of events, a simple matter of rivalry in love, or whether it was part of some deeper, premeditated scheme to undermine the State. Such investigations have revealed some interesting if as yet inconclusive results regarding the nature of the business dealings of the father, Lubos Novacek. Results which, once clarified, will, if of substance to this matter, be notified to Your Most Serene Excellency.
Your humble servant,
Heng Yu,
Minister of Distribution, Ch'eng Ou Chou (City Europe)
Heng Yu read the top copy through; then, satisfied, he reached out and took his brush from the inkblock, signing his name with a flourish on each of the three copies. One would go to Li Shai Tung. The second he would keep for his own records. The third—well, the third would go to Prince Yuan, via Nan Ho, his contact in the palace at Tongjiang.
Heng Yu smiled. Things could not have gone better. The boy was safe, the T'ang pleased, and he was much closer to his ambition. What more could a man ask for? Of course, not everything had been mentioned in the documents. The matter of the bronze statue, for instance, had been left out of the report on Sergey Novacek.
It had been an interesting little tale. One that, in spite of all, reflected well on young Novacek. Investigations into the past history of the bronze had shown that it had once belonged to his father, Lubos, who, to bail out an old friend, had had to sell it. Sergey Novacek had known of this, and hearing Heng Chian-ye talking of it, had set things up so that he might win it back. The matter of Shepherd, it seemed, had been a secondary matter, spawned of jealousy and tagged on as an afterthought. The statue had been the prime mover of the boy's actions. From accounts he had returned it to his father on his sixtieth birthday.
And the father? Heng Yu sat back, stroking his beard. Lubos Novacek was, like many of the City's leading tradesmen, a respectable man. His trade, however, was anything but respectable, for Lubos Novacek acted as a middleman between certain First Level concerns and the Net. Put crudely, he was the pimp of certain Triad bosses, acting on their behalf in the Above, buying and selling at their behest and taking his cut.
A useful man to know. And know him he would.
As for the Great Man—that pompous halfwit, Fan Liang-wei—Heng had enjoyed summoning him to his Ministry and ordering him to desist from his efforts to get Ben thrown out of the College. He had shown Fan the instrument signed by the T'ang himself and threatened him with instant demotion—even to the Net itself—should any word come back to him that Fan was pursuing the matter in any shape or form.