"And what is wrong with the marketplace? Is it not that self-same market that gives us our power? Be honest now—what's the truth of it? Does the love of our subjects sustain us, or is it the power we wield? Is there anyone here who does not fear the assassin's knife? Is there a single one of us who would walk the lowest levels unprotected?" Wang laughed scornfully and looked about him. "Well, then, I ask again—what is so wrong with the marketplace? Wei Feng says I speak foolishly. With respect, cousin Wei, my thoughts are not idle ones. You are right when you talk of loyalty as a tree. So it was. But the War has felled the forests. And are we to wait a dozen, fifteen, years for the new seed to grow?" He shook his head. "We here are realists. We know how things stand. There is no time to grow such loyalty again. Times have changed. It is regrettable, but. . ."
He paused, spreading his hands.
"So. Let me ask again. What is wrong with rewarding our friends? If it achieves our end—if it breeds a kind of loyalty—why question what it is that keeps a man loyal? Love, fear, money—in the end it is only by force that we rule."
There was a moment's silence after he had finished. Li Shai Tung had been looking down at his hands while Wang was speaking. Now he looked up and with a glance at Tsu Ma and Wu Shih, addressed the Council.
"I hear what my cousin Wang says. Nevertheless, we must decide on this matter. We must formulate our policy here and now. I propose that this matter is put to the vote."
Wang Sau-leyan stared at him a moment, then looked down. There was to be no delay, then? No further debate? They would have his vote now? Well, then, he would give them his vote.
Tsu Ma was leaning forward, taking a small cigar from the silver-and-ivory box on the arm of his chair. He glanced up casually. "We are agreed, then, cousins?"
Wang Sau-leyan looked about him, watching his fellow T'ang raise their hands, then let them fall again.
"Good," said Tsu Ma, "Then let us move on quickly . . ."
Wang Sau-leyan spoke up, interrupting Tsu Ma. "Excuse me, cousin, but have you not forgotten something?" ;
Tsu Ma met his eyes, clearly puzzled. "I'm sorry?"
"The vote. You did not ask who was against." —
Tsu Ma laughed awkwardly. "1 beg your pardon . . . ?"
"Six hands were raised. Yet there are seven here, are there not?"
Wang Sau-leyan looked about him, seeing the effect his words were having on his fellow T'ang. Like so much else, they had not expected this. In Council all decisions were unanimous. Or had been. For one hundred and twenty-six years it had been so. Until today.
It was Li Shai Tung who broke the silence. "You mean you wish to vote against?
After all we've said?"
Wei Feng, sat beside him, shook his head. "It isn't done," he said quietly. "It just isn't our way . . ."
"Why not?" Wang asked, staring at him defiantly. "We are Seven, not one, surely? Why must our voice be single?"
"You misunderstand—" Tsu Ma began, but again Wang cut in.
"I misunderstand nothing. It is my right to vote against, is it not? To put on record my opposition to this item of policy?"
Tsu Ma hesitated, then gave a small nod of assent.
"Good. Then that is all I wish to do. To register my unease at our chosen course."
At the desk behind Tsu Ma the secretary Lung Mei Ho had been taking down everything that was said for the official record, his ink brush moving quickly down the page. Beside him his assistant had been doing the same, the duplication ensuring that the report was accurate. Now both had stopped and were looking up, astonished.
"But that has been done already, cousin Wang. Every word spoken here is a matter of record. Your unease . . ." Tsu Ma frowned, trying to understand. "You mean you really do wish to vote against?"
"Is it so hard to understand, Tsu Ma?" Wang looked past the T'ang at the scribe, his voice suddenly hard. "Why aren't you writing, Shih Lung? Did anyone call these proceedings to a halt?"
Lung glanced at his master's back, then lowered his head, hurriedly setting down Wang's words. Beside him his assistant did the same.
Satisfied, Wang Sau-leyan sat back, noting how his fellow T'ang were glaring at him now or looking among themselves, uncertain how to act. His gesture, ineffective in itself, had nonetheless shocked them to the bone. As Wei Feng had said, it wasn't done. Not in the past. But the past was dead. This was a new world, with new rules. They had not learned that yet. Despite all, the War had taught them nothing. Well, he would change that. He would press their noses into the foul reality of it.
"One further thing," he said quietly.
Tsu Ma looked up, meeting his eyes. "What is it, cousin Wang?"
The sharpness in Tsu Ma's voice made him smile inside. He had rattled them, even the normally implacable Tsu Ma. Well, now he would shake them well and good.
"It's just a small thing. A point of procedure."
"Go on . . ."
"Just this. The Princes must leave. Now. Before we discuss any further business."
He saw the look of consternation on Tsu Ma's face, saw it mirrored on every face in that loose circle. Then the room exploded in a riot of angry, conflicting voices.
DEVORE BRACED HIMSELF as the elevator fell rapidly, one hand gripping the brass-and-leather handle overhead, the other cradling the severed head against his hip. They had quick-frozen the neck to stop blood from seeping against his uniform and peeled away the eyelids. In time the retinal pattern would decay, but for now it was good enough to fool the cameras.
As the elevator slowed he prepared himself, lifting the head up in front of his face. When it stopped, he put the right eye against the indentation in the wall before him, then moved it away, tapping in the code. Three seconds, then the door would hiss open. He tucked the head beneath his arm and drew his gun.
"What's happening up top?"
The guard at the desk was turning toward him, smiling, expecting Sanders; but he had barely uttered the words when DeVore opened fire, blowing him from his seat. The second guard was coming out of a side room, balancing a tray with three bowls of ch'a between his hands. He thrust the tray away and reached for his sidearm, but DeVore was too quick for him. He staggered back, then fell and lay still.
DeVore walked across to the desk and put the head down, then looked about him. Nothing had changed. It was all how he remembered it. In eleven years they had not even thought of changing their procedures. Creatures of habit, they were—men of tradition. DeVore laughed scornfully. It was their greatest weakness and the reason why he would win.
He went to the safe. It was a high-security design with a specially strengthened form of ice for its walls and a blank front that could be opened only by the correct sequence of light pulses on the appropriate light-sensitive panels. That too was unchanged. It won't help you—that's what Sanders had said. Well, Sanders and his like didn't think the way he thought. They approached things head on. But he ... DeVore laughed, then took the four tiny packets from the tunic and, removing their contents, attached them to the ice on each side of the safe's rectangular front. They looked like tiny hoops, like snakes eating their own tails. Four similar hoops—much larger, their destructive capacity a thousand times that of these tiny, ringlike versions—had begun it all, ten years earlier, when they had ripped the Imperial Solarium apart, killing the T'ang's Minister Lwo Kang and his advisors. Now their smaller brothers would provide him with the means to continue that War. He smiled, then went across to one of the side rooms and lay down on the floor. A moment later the explosion juddered the room about him. He waited a few seconds, then got up and went back inside. The guard room was a mess. Dust filled the air; machinery and bits of human flesh and bone littered the walls and floor. Where the safe had been the wall was ripped apart; the safe itself, unharmed by the explosion, had tumbled forward and now lay there in the center of the room,