Andersen laughed bitterly. "Six boys skylarking! What do you think? You know how they are—theyd sooner die than inform on each other! But Shang thinks it was serious. The boy Matyas was involved. It seems he was very'agitated when Shang burst in on them. He was standing at the poolside, breathing strangely, his face flushed. Kim was in the water nearby. Only the quick actions of one of the other boys got him out of the water before he went under again." Anger flared in the Director's eyes again. "Fuck it, T'ai Cho, Shang had to give him the kiss of life!"
"Where is he now?" T'ai Cho asked quietly, trying to keep his emotions in check, yet wondering how accurate Andersen's assessment of "not badly hurt" really was.
"In his room, I believe. But let me finish. We had Kim examined at once and there were marks on his throat and arms and on his right leg consistent with a fight. Matyas also had some minor bruises. But both boys claim they simply fell while playing in the pool. The other boys back them up, but all six stories differ widely. It's clear none of them is telling the truth."
"And you want me to try to find out what really happened?"
Andersen nodded. "If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, T'ai Cho. Kim trusts you. You're like a father to him."
T'ai Cho lowered his eyes, then shook his head. "Maybe so, but he'll tell me nothing. As you said, it's how they are."
Andersen was quiet a moment, then he leaned forward across his desk, his voice suddenly much harder, colder, than it had been. "Try anyway, T'ai Cho. Try hard. It's important. If Matyas was to blame I want to know. Because if he was I want him out. Kim's too important to us. WeVe got too much invested in him."
T'ai Cho rose from his seat and bowed, understanding perfectly. It wasn't Kim—the boy—Andersen was so concerned about, it was Kim-as-investment. Well, so be it. He would use that in Kim's favor.
KIM's ROOM was empty. T'ai Cho felt his stomach tighten, his pulse quicken. Then he remembered. Of course. The film. Kim would have gone to see the film. He glanced at his timer. It was just after ten. The film was almost finished. Kim would be back here in fifteen minutes. He would wait.
He looked about the room, noting as ever what was new, what old. The third-century portrait of the mathematician Liu Hui remained in its place of honor on the wall above Kim's terminal, and on the top, beside the keyboard, lay Hui's Chiu Chang Stum Shu, his Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. T'ai Cho smiled and opened its pages. Kim's notations filled the margins. Like the book itself, they were in Mandarin, the tiny, perfectly formed pictograms in red, black, and green inks.
T'ai Cho flicked through inattentively and was about to close the book when one of the notations caught his attention. It was right at the end of the book, among the notes to the ninth chapter. The notation itself was unremarkable—something to do with ellipses—but beside it, in green, Kim had printed a name and two dates. Tycho Brake. 154611-1601.
He frowned, wondering if the first name was a play on his own. But then, what did the other mean? Bra He. ... It made no sense. And the dates? Or were they dates? Perhaps they were a code.
For a moment he hesitated, loath to pry, then set the book down and switched on the terminal.
A search of the system's central encyclopedia confirmed what he had believed. There was no entry, either on Tycho or Brahe. Nothing. Not even on close variants of the two names.
T'ai Cho sat there a moment, his fingers resting lightly on the keys, a vague suspicion forming in his head. But what if . . . ?
He shook his head. It wasn't possible. Surely it wasn't? The terminal in T'ai Cho's room was secretly "twinned" with Kim's. Everything Kim did on his terminal was available to T'ai Cho. Everything. Work files, diary, jottings, even his messages to the other boys. It seemed sneaky, but it was necessary. There was no other way of keeping up with Kim. His interests were too wide ranging, too quicksilver, to keep track of any other way. It was their only means of controlling him—of anticipating his needs and planning ahead.
But what if?
T'ai Cho typed his query quickly, then sat back.
The answer appeared on the screen at once.
"SUBCODE?"
T'ai Cho leaned forward and typed in the dates, careful to include the spacing and the dash.
There was the briefest hesitation, then the file came up. "BRAHE, Tycho." T'ai Cho scanned it quickly. It was a summary of the man's life and achievements in the manner of a genuine encyclopedia entry.
T'ai Cho sat back again, astonished, then laughed, remembering the time long before when Kim had removed the lock from his cell without their knowing. And so again, he thought. But this was much subtler, much more clever, than the simple removal of a lock. This was on a whole different level of evasiveness.
He read the passage through, pausing thoughtfully at the final line, then cleared the file and switched the terminal off. For a moment he sat there, staring sightlessly at the screen, then he stood up and moved away from the terminal.
"T'ai Cho?"
He turned with a start. Kim was standing in the doorway, clearly surprised to see him. He seemed much quieter than normal, on his guard. There was an er-silk scarf around his neck and his wrist was bandaged. He made no move to come into the room.
T'ai Cho smiled and sat down on the bed. "How was the film?"
Kim smiled briefly, unenthusiastically. "No surprises," he said after a moment. "Pan Chao was triumphant. As usual."
T'ai Cho saw the boy look across at the terminal, then back at him, but there was no sign that Kim had seen what he had been doing.
"Come here," he said gently. "Come and sit with me, Kim. We need to talk."
Kim hesitated, understanding at once why T'ai Cho had come. Then he shook his head. "Nothing happened this morning."
"Nothing?" T'ai Cho looked deliberately at the scarf, the bandage.
Kim smiled but said nothing.
"Okay. But it doesn't matter, Kim. You see, we already know what happened. There's a hidden camera in the ceiling of the pool. One Matyas overlooked when he sabotaged the others. We saw him attack you. Saw him grab you by the throat, then try to drown you."
Still Kim said nothing, gave nothing away.
T'ai Cho shrugged, then looked down, wondering how closely the scenario fitted. Was Kim quiet because it was true? Or was he quiet because it had happened otherwise? Whichever, he was certain of one thing. Matyas had attacked Kim. He had seen for himself the jealous envy in the older boy's eyes. But he had never dreamed it would come to this.
He stood up, inwardly disturbed by this side of Kim. This primitive, savage side that all the Clayborn seemed to have. He had never understood this aspect of their behavior: this perverse tribal solidarity of theirs. Where they came from it was a strength, no doubt—a survival factor—but up here, in the Above, it was a failing, a fatal flaw.
"You're important, Kim. Very important. You know that, don't you? And Matyas should have known better. He's out for what he did."
Kim looked down. "Matyas did nothing. It was an accident."
T'ai Cho took a deep breath, then stood and went across to him. "As you say, Kim. But we know otherwise."
Kim looked up at him, meeting his eyes coldly. "Is that all?"
That, too, was unlike Kim. That hardness. Perhaps the experience had shaken him. Changed him in some small way. For a moment T'ai Cho studied him, wondering whether he should bring up the matter of the secret files, then decided not to. He would investigate them first. Find out what Kim was up to. Then, and only then, would he confront him.
He smiled and looked away. "That's all."
BACK IN His ROOM T'ai Cho locked his door, then began to summon up the files, beginning with the master file, referred to in the last line of the BRAHE.
The Aristotle file.
The name intrigued him, because, unlike Brahe, there had been an Aristotle: a minor Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C. He checked the entry briefly on the general encyclopedia. There were less than a hundred and fifty words on the man. Like T'ai Cho, he had been a tutor, in his case to the Greek king Alexander. As to the originality of his thinking, he appeared to be on a par with Hui Shih, a contemporary Han logician who had stressed the relativity of time and space and had sought to prove the existence of the "Great One of All Things" through rational knowledge. Now, however, both men existed only as tiny footnotes in the history of science. Greece had been conquered by Rome and Rome by the Han. And the Han had abandoned the path of pure logic with Hui Shih.