Director Tchan knew all these dangers and difficulties, and more, so when the technicians came and announced that they’d placed five bugs and two independent mini-mikes in the anoraks of the relevant suspects, he rubbed his hands with glee.
“But don’t forget,’ he reminded his men, “that you’ve only done half the job so far. The other half may well be much harder!”
5
Despite strict and repeated exhortations to secrecy, a rumour grew up, vague and fearful at first, and then increasingly distinct, though still concealed: they were installing bugging devices, people said, in the town of N—.
Director Tchan tried in vain to trace the leak. His aides were equally unsuccessful though they resorted to threat and even actual arrests. What worried Tchan most was that the representatives of the Zhongnanhat were still in town. If the rumour came to their ears there’d be the devil to pay. He cherished a faint hope that they might leave before they suspected anything: after all, who were they going to End out from except him} But one day the sourer of the two ettvoys said curtly: “There’s a lot of talk in the town about microphones. How do you explain it?” Tchan quaked and tried to babble something. He couldn’t believe his eyes when the envoy smiled.
“Quite natural,’ he said. “It usually happens,’
Tchan still didn’t see what he meant.
“Isn’t it disastrous? Won’t it sabotage …?” he began.
Now I’ve put my foot in it, he thought. Why did I have to go and meet trouble halfway? But to his amazement:
“Oh no!” said the man from the Zhongnanhat. “It has advantages as well as disadvantages. The best thing is that it makes everything into a kind of myth. People invent so many fantastic stories about the microphones that in the end the rumour, which makes everyone vigilant to begin with, gradually lulls them into a kind of lethargy. And that’s when the hour of the qietingqis has come!”
Tchan was so relieved he lit a cigarette. He couldn’t wait to get the first results of this new intelligence technique. Meanwhile he went on receiving information through the earlier network — that is, via the human ear. His own spies, probably the first people to learn of the advent of the microphones, were sure to be annoyed, and afraid these newfangled devices would put them out of a job. Director Tchan had been told of murmurs to this effect, and eventually their resentment reached such a pitch he decided to summon his crack spies to a meeting. They were the fine flower of their profession, and their deeds would go down to posterity, Hun Hu had spent three days and three nights lying like a corpse in the morgue: he suspected his victim wasn’t quite dead, and hoped to extract one last word from him before he finally gave up the ghost. Xin Fung had been decorated by Chairman Mao himself for keeping a factory under surveillance for a hundred hours, while standing near a giant cutting machine. He was completely deaf ever after. Others had made other sacrifices in the service of their profession: some had deserted wives and children, others had renounced marriage altogether. Chan vung was perhaps the star of N—’s spying fraternity: he had’gouged his owe eyes out in order to Improve his hearing.
le view of all this, Tchan spoke to them with special warmth and consideration, invoking the glorious, three-thousand-year-old tradition of surveillance which in China had been put at the service of the people, No technique^ however advanced, could take the place of the ear, for the human factor was always the most important — only a technocrat or a revisionist could think otherwise. Then Tchan turned to the possibility of using listening devices. These were special appliances designed for special cases, above all those involving foreigners: they had nothing to do with their own great domestic surveillance. Just as agriculture used modern technology as well as beasts of burden; just as medicine relied both on highly trained specialists and on barefoot doctors; so intelligence too would employ not only microphones but also the human ear, which would still play the most important part in surveillance. Carried away by his own eloquence, Tchan embroidered on this theme, maintaining that a microphone was only a pale imitation of the human ear. This ear, reared on the quotations of Mao Zedong, was irreplaceable. And, he implied in conclusion, so were they, his audience.
The spieSj reassured, dispersed, and m the next few days sent in a mass of information unprecedented in both quantity and quality. As he looked through the weighty file oe the desk in front of hifn, Tchan meditated oe two possible reasons for this iniux. Either the spies themselves were working with extra zeal to show they were far from being mere has-beens. Or the ordinary people, confronted with a future in which rumour would be superseded because of the microphones, were taking advantage of what time remained to have a good gossip.
Tchan rubbed his tired eyes. Either of those two reasons would account for that fat file. Probably both.
The spies seemed to have taken particular care to report popular resentment against the qietingqis Tchan noticed, smiling sardonically. Perhaps they cherished a lingering hope that this might help get rid of the horrible things.
Tchan studied the various comments that had been made about the new device: it was an invention of the white foreign devil, and would bring nothing but trouble; it was a new dimension, but a bad one, and what use was that to humanity? it was the gateway to hell…Aeroplanes were prefigured by the flying carpets of legend, television by magic mirrors. But where were the precursors of the micro-spies? They were to be found in the voices of ghosts and vampires, in occultism, black magic, spiritualist séances and all kinds of other vestiges of the old world…
Yeah, said Tchan to himself, looking up from the file.
6
As he came out of the factory he heard someone calling him from the pavement
“Van Meyl”
He turned round, and was glad to see his two friends. They hadn’t met again since the famous night.
“How are you, Van? If s been a long time,’
“And you two — how are things?”
“Fine, fine. We were thinking of dropping in on you to say hallo …
“Good, good! I’ve been very busy in the evening lately…”
Why, after that evening, had they all avoided one another, rather than meeting the very next day to exchange their impressions? What had come between them because of the spirit they’d raised?
“I see you’ve bought yourself a new anorak!”
“Yes,’ said van Mey, “The old one was falling to pieces. So I counted up all the money Và saved last summer…’’
“Quite right. Winter’s early this year.”
They walked along for a while without speaking, but they all knew they were thinking about the same thing.
“I can’t get that eight out of my mind,” one of them admitted at last.
“Neither can I,” said Van Mey, quite relieved now the subject had been broached at last.
“What do you think — should we have another meeting?”
Van Mey looked at the other two.
“What do you think? And what about the medium…?”
“The medium said the spirit might stay longer next time.”
“I didn’t mean that — I meant can you get hold of the medium again?”
“Of course!” they said. “We wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.”
“I’m willing,” said Van Mey, with a shudder.
“What do they say about the micro-spies?” said one of the others, to change the subject.
“What don’t they say!” exclaimed Van Mey.
They told one another all they’d heard.
“I don’t mind betting things are going to get difficult/” said one. “Those qietingqis bode no good.”