"Ah, but they did. Their very existence was a threat. This place ... it was but one of many thousand such monasteries throughout Chung Kuo. And a small one at that. Some monasteries had ten, twenty thousand monks, many of them living long into their eighties and nineties. Imagine all those men, disdainful of states and princes, taking from the land—eating, drinking, building their temples and their statues, making their books and their prayer flags—and giving nothing back. That was what was so threatening about them. It all seemed so harmless, so peaceful, but it was really quite insidious—a debilitating disease that crippled the social body, choking its life from it like a cancer."
Tsu Ma looked about him, suddenly angry, his eyes taking in the waste of it all. Long centuries of waste. "They could have done so much—for the sick, the poor, the homeless, but such things were beneath their notice. To purge themselves of earthly desires was all they were worried about. Pain and suffering—what did suffering mean to them except as a path to purity?"
"Then you think Tsao Ch'un was right to destroy them?"
"Right?" He came across to her. "Yes, I think he was right. Not in everything he did. But in this . . . yes. It's better to feed and clothe and house the masses than to let them rot. Better to give them a good life here than to let them suffer in the vague hope of some better afterlife."
He placed his right hand against the rounded stone of the upright, leaning over her, staring down fiercely at her as he spoke, more passionate than she had ever seen him. She looked down, her pulse quickening.
"And that's what you believe?" she asked softly. "That we've only this one life. And nothing after."
"Don't we all believe that? At core?"
She shivered, then looked up, meeting his eyes. "One life?"
He hesitated, his eyes narrowing, then reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek and neck.
"Tsu Ma . . ."
He drew his hand back sharply. "Forgive me, I..." He stared at her a moment, his eyes confused, pained. "I thought. . ." He looked down, shaking his head, then pushed past her.
Outside the sky was overcast. A wind had blown up, tearing at the grass, rippling the surface of the pool. Tsu Ma knelt at its edge, his chest heaving, his thoughts in turmoil. One life . . . What had she meant if not that? What did she want of him?
He turned, hearing her approach.
"I'm sorry . . ." she began, but he shook his head.
"It was a mistake, that's all. We are who we are, neh?"
She stared at him, pained by the sudden roughness of his words. She had not meant to hurt him.
"If I were free. . ."
He shook his head, his face suddenly ugly, his eyes bitter. "But you're not. And the Prince is my friend, neh?"
She turned her face from him, then moved away. The storm was almost upon them now. A dense, rolling mist lay upon the hills behind the ruins and the wind held the faintest suggestion of the downpour to come. The sky was darkening by the moment.
"We'd best get back," she said, turning to him. But he seemed unaware of the darkness at the back of everything. His eyes held nothing but herself. She shuddered. Was he in love with her? Was that it? And she had thought. . .
Slowly he stood, his strong, powerful body stretching, as if from sleep. Then, turning his head from her, he strode down the slope toward the horses.
ON THE FLIGHT down to Nanking, Tolonen played back the recording, the words sounding clearly in his head. Listening to his own voice again, he could hear the unease, the bitterness there and wondered what Li Yuan had made of it. Prince Yuan was a clever one, there was no doubting it; so perhaps he understood why the T'ang had appointed him to oversee the Project rather than someone more sympathetic. Maybe that was why he had left things unresolved, their talk at an impasse. But had he guessed the rest of it? Did he know just how deeply his father was opposed to things?
He sighed, then smiled, thinking of the reunion to come. He had not seen Karr in more than three years. Not since he'd seen him off from Nanking back in November '03. And now Karr was returning, triumphant, his success in tracking down and killing Berdichev a full vindication of their faith in him.
Tolonen leaned forward, looking down out of the porthole. The spaceport was off in the distance ahead of them, a giant depression in the midst of the great glacial plateau of ice—the City's edge forming a great wall about the outer perimeter. Even from this distance he could see the vast, pitted sprawl of landing pads, twenty li in diameter, its southernmost edge opening out onto Hsuan Wu Lake, the curve of the ancient Yangtze forming a natural barrier to the northeast, like a giant moat two li in width. At the very center of that great sunken circle, like a vast yet slender needle perched on its tip, was the control tower. Seeing it, Tolonen had mixed feelings. The last time he had come to greet someone from Mars it had been DeVore. Before he had known. Before the T'ang's son, Han Ch'in, had died and everything had changed.
But this time it was Karr. And Karr would be the hawk he'd fly against his prey. So maybe it was fitting that it should begin here, at Nanking, where DeVore had first slipped the net.
Ten minutes later he was down and seated across from a young duty captain as they traveled the fast-link that connected the City to the spaceport. Things were tight here, tighter than he remembered them. They had banned all transit flights across the port. Only incoming or outgoing spacecraft were allowed in its air space. Anything else was destroyed immediately, without warning. So this was the only way in—underneath the pott.
Karr's ship was docking even as Tolonen rode the sealed car out to the landing bay. The noise was deafening. He could feel the vibrations in his bones, juddering the cradle he was strapped into, making him think for a moment that the tiny vehicle was going to shake itself to pieces. Then it eased and the sound dropped down the register. With a hiss, a door irised open up ahead of him and the car slipped through, coming out into a great sunken pit, in the center of which stood the squatly rounded shape of the interplanetary craft.
He could see the Tientsin clearly through the transparent walls of the car, its underbelly glowing, great wreaths of mist swirling up into the cold air overhead. The track curved sharply, taking his car halfway around the ship before it slowed and stopped. Guards met him, helped him out, standing back, their heads bowed, as he stretched his legs and looked about him.
He smiled, looking back at the craft. It had come all the way from Mars. Like a great black stone slapped down upon the great wei chi board of Chung Kuo. Karr. He could see the big man in his mind's eye even now, lifting Berdichev and breaking him. Ending it quickly, cleanly. Tolonen sniffed. Yes, in that he and Kan-were alike. They understood how things worked at this level. It was no good dealing with one's enemies as one dealt with one's friends. Useless to play by rules that the other side constantly broke. In war one had to be utterly ruthless. To concede nothing—unless concession were a path to victory.
As he watched, an R-shaped gantry-elevator moved on its rails across to the craft and attached itself to a portal on its uppermost surface. He walked toward it, habit making him look about him, as if, even here, he could expect attack.
Karr was in the first elevator, packed in with twenty or thirty others. As the cage descended, Tolonen raised a hand in greeting, but stayed where he was, just back from the others waiting there—maintenance crew, customs men, and guards. Kan-was carrying a small briefcase, the handle chained to his arm. At the barrier he was first in the line, his Triple-A pass held out for inspection. Even so, it was some three or four minutes before he passed through.