Karr sniffed deeply. "It's difficult. The T'ang wants him alive, you see. He wants DeVore to stand trial. If possible to provide us with conclusive evidence against the other Dispersionists."
"I see. Even so, what stops you from taking him?"
"The House. The stink they would make if we went in and took the wrong man."
Chen shook his head. Still he didn't understand.
"The man we believe to be DeVore is an overseer. Understand me, Chen? On one of the big East European plantations. And that's a House appointment. If we go barging in there mistakenly, the Dispersionists would have a field day attacking us for our heavy-handedness. And things are critical at the moment. The House is finely balanced and the Seven daren't risk that balance, even for DeVore. So we must be certain this Overseer Bergson is our man."
"How certain?"
"As certain as a retinal print could make us."
Chen looked down into his ch'a and laughed. "And how do we do that?" He looked back up at Karr. "Do you think DeVore will sit there calmly while we check him out?"
Karr hesitated, then he gave a tiny laugh and nodded, meet-
ing his friend's eyes again. "Maybe. Maybe that's just what he'll do. You see, Chen, that's where I thought you might come in."
T O L O N E N watched his nine-year-old daughter run from the sea, her head thrown back, exhilarated. Behind her the waves broke white on the dark sand. Beyond, the distant islands were dim shapes of green and brown in the haze. Jelka stood there at the water's edge, smoothing her small, delicate hands through her hair. Long, straight hair like her mother's, darkened by the water. Her pure white costume showed off her winter tan, her body sleek, childlike.
She saw him there and smiled as she came up the beach toward him. He was sitting on the wide, shaded patio, the breakfast things still on the table before him. The Han servant had yet to come and clear it all away. He set down his book, returning her smile.
"What's it like?" he called to her as she came near.
"Wonderful!" Her laughter rippled in the air. "You should join me. It would do you good."
"Well. . ." He shrugged. Maybe he would.
She sprawled in the lounger opposite him. A young animal, comfortable in her body. Unselfconscious. He looked at her, conscious more than ever that she was the image of her mother. Especially now, like this.
He had met her mother on an island much like this. On the far side of the world from where he now sat. One summer almost thirty years before.
He had been a general even then. The youngest in the service of the Seven and the ablest. He had gone to Goteborg to see his father's sister, Hanna. In those days he made the trip twice a year, mindful of the fact that Hanna had looked after him those times his mother had been ill.
For once he had had time to stay more than a day, and when Hanna had suggested they fly up to Fredrikstad and visit the family's summer home, he had agreed at once. From Fredrikstad they had taken a motor cruiser to the islands south of the City.
He had thought they would be alone on the island; he, Hanna, and her two sons. But when the cruiser pulled up at the jetty, he saw that there were others there already. He had gone inside, apprehensive because he had not been warned there would be other guests, and was delighted to find not strangers, but his oldest friend, Pietr Endfors, there in the low-ceilinged front cabin, waiting to greet him.
Endfors had married a girl from the far north. A cold, elegant beauty with almost-white hair and eyes like the arctic sea. They had an eight-year-old daughter, Jenny.
It had not happened at once. At first she was merely the daughter of an old friend; a beautiful little girl with an engaging smile and a warmth her mother seemed to lack. From the start, however, she had taken to him and by that evening was perched immovably in his lap. He liked her from that first moment, but even he could not tell how attached he would become.
When Pietr and his wife had died eight years later, he had become Jenny's guardian. Four years later he had married her. He had been thirty years her senior.
He returned from the bitter-sweet reverie and focused on his daughter.
"You've not been listening to a word, have you, Father?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Just reminiscing." He sat up in his chair and reached across to feel the ch'a kettle. It was lukewarm. He grunted and then shouted for the servant.
"I was just saying, we ought to go home. It seems time. Don't you think?"
He looked sharply at her, then, confused by what she had said, shook his head. It was not so much a negative as an acknowledgment that he had not considered the matter. Go home? Why? Why was it time?
"Are you tired of all this?" he asked, almost incredulous. She seemed so happy here. So carefree.
She seemed reluctant to admit what she felt, but finally she answered him. "I'm happy enough. But it's not me I'm thinking of, it's you. This place is no good for you. You're going soft here. Wasting away before your time." She looked up at him, real love, real concern, in her young eyes. "I want you to be as you were. I don't want you to be like this. That's all. . . ."
He couldn't argue with that. He felt it in himself. Each day it seemed to get worse. Sitting here with nothing to do. Ordered to do nothing. He felt more and more restless as the months passed; more and more impotent. That was the worst of exile.
"What can I do? I have to be here."
She could feel the bitterness in his voice, see the resignation in his hunched shoulders. It hurt her to be witness to such things. But for once she could help him. For once she had balm for his wounds.
"Where is that bloody servant!" he cried out, anger and frustration boiling over into his words, his actions. He turned in his chair and yelled for service. She waited for him to finish, then told him that she had sent the servant away earlier.
"I want to talk to you."
He looked at her, surprised and amused by her actions, by the grown-up tone of her voice. "Talk, eh? What about?"
She looked away, stared out at the sea, the distant islands of the Kepulauan Barat Daya. "This is beautiful, isn't it? The colors of the sky and sea. But it's the wrong kind of beauty. It doesn't. . ." She struggled for some way of expressing what she was feeling, then shook her head.
He knew what she meant, though. It was beautiful. But it was a soft, pearled beauty. It didn't touch his soul the way the fjords, the mountains, touched him. The unvarying warmth, the mists, the absence of seasonal change—these things irked him.
"I wish . . ." he began, then shook his head firmly. There was no use wishing. Li Shai Tung had exiled him here. He would live out his days on this island. It was his payment for disobedience. Exile.
"What do you wish?" she asked. She had stood and was waiting at his side, looking at him, her head on the level of his own.
He reached out a hand and caressed her cheek, then let his hand rest on her bare shoulder. The skin was cool and dry.
"Why should I wish for anything more than what I have?" He frowned as he looked at her, thinking that he might have been killed for what he had done; and then she would have been alone, an orphan. Or worse. He had acted without understanding that. In his anger he had gambled that the T'ang would act as he had. Yet it pained him greatly now to think what might have been: the hurt he could have caused her—maybe even her death.
She seemed to sense this. Leaning forward she kissed his brow, his cheek. "You did what you had to. Li Shai Tung understood that."
He laughed at that. "Understood? He was furious!"
"Only because he had to be."
He removed his hand, leaned back in his chair. "What is this, Jelka? What have you heard?"
It was her turn to laugh. "You were sleeping when he came. I didn't want to disturb you. I know how bad the nights are for you." She was looking at him in a strangely mature way; more mother than daughter for that moment.
He reached out and held her firmly. "Who, Jelka? Who has come?"