Assassinations and reprisals; this seemed the pattern of the War-That-Wasn't-a-War. No armies clashed. No missiles fell on innocents. The City was too complex, too tightly interwoven, for such things. Yet there was darkness and deceit in plenitude. And death. Each day seemed to bring its freight of names. The mighty fallen. And in the deep, unseen levels of its consciousness the machine saw how all of this fitted with its task here in the Unit—saw how the two things formed a whole: mosaics of violence and repression.
It watched as Berdichev stood there in the outer room, giving instructions to the Unit's head. This was a different man from the one he had expected. Deeper, more subtle than the foolish, arrogant villain the men had drawn between them. More dangerous and, in some strange way, more kingly than they would have had him be.
It had seen how Berdichev had looked at the boy, as if recognizing another of his own kind. As if, among men, there were also levels. And this the highest; the level of Shapers and Doers—Architects and Builders not of a single mind but of the vast hive of minds that was the City. The thought recurred, and from somewhere drifted up a phrase it had often heard spoken— the Kings of the City. How well the old word sat on such men, for they moved and acted as a king might. There was the shadow of power behind their smallest motion. Power and death.
It watched them all. Saw how their faces said what in words could not be uttered. Saw each small betraying detail clearly, knowing them for what they were; all desire and doubt open to its all-seeing eye. Kings and peasants all, it saw the things that shaped each one of them. Variations on a theme. The same game played at a different level, for different stakes. All this was old knowledge, but for the machine it was new. Isolated, unasked, it viewed the world outside with a knowing innocence. Saw the dark heart of things. And stored the knowledge.
WHEN THEY FELT it was time, they taught him about his past. Or what they knew of it. They returned to him heavily edited, a history of the person he had been. Names, pictures, and events. But not the experience.
Kim learned his lessons well. Once told he could not forget. But that was not to say they gave him back his self. The new child was a pale imitation of the old. He had not lived and suffered and dreamed. What was dark in him was hidden; was walled off and inaccessible. In its place he had a fiction; a story learned by rote. Something to fill the gap; to assuage the feeling of emptiness that gripped him whenever he looked back.
It was fifteen months into the program when they brought T'ai Cho to the small suite of five rooms Kim had come to know as home. Kim knew the stranger by his face; knew both his history and what he had done for him. He greeted him warmly, as duty demanded, but his eyes saw only a stranger's face. He had no real feeling for the man.
Tai Cho cried and held the boy tightly, fiercely, to him. He had been told how things were, but it was hard for him. Hard to feel the boy's hands barely touching his back when he held him. Hard to see love replaced by curiosity in those eyes. He had been warned—had steeled himself—yet his disappointment, his sense of hurt, was great nonetheless.
In a nearby room the team watched tensely, talking among themselves, pleased that the boy was showing so little sign of emotion or excitement. A camera focused on the boy's eyes, showing the smallest sign of movement in the pupils. A monitoring unit attached to the back of the boy's neck traced more subtle changes in the brain's activity. All seemed normal. Stable. There was no indication that the boy had any memory of the man other than those implanted by the team.
It was just as they'd hoped. Kim had passed the test. Now they could progress—move on to the next stage of his treatment. The house, once empty, had been furnished. It was time now to fill the rooms with life. Time to test the mosaic for flaws.
In the room the man turned away from the boy and picked up his jacket from the chair. For a moment he turned back, looking at him, to the last hopeful that some small flicker of recognition would light those eyes with their old familiar warmth. But there was nothing. The child he had known was dead. Even so, he felt a kind of love for the form, the flesh, and so he went across and held him one last time before he left. For old time's sake. And then he turned and went, saying nothing. Finding nothing left to say.
A Gift of Stones
IN THE HALL of the Eight Immortals, the smallest, most intimate of the eighty-one Halls in the Palace of Tongjiang, the guests had gathered for the betrothal ceremony of the young Prince Li Yuan to the beautiful Fei Yen. As these events went it was only a tiny gathering; there were fewer than a hundred people in the lavishly decorated room—the tight circle of those who were known and trusted by the T'ang. ,
The room was silent now, the guests attentive as Li Shai Tung took the great seal from the cushion his Chancellor held out to him, then, both his hands taking its weight, turned to face the table. The seal—the Family "chop," a huge square thing, more shield than simple stamp—had been inked beforehand, and as the great T'ang turned, the four Mandarin characters that quartered the seal glistened redly in the lamplight.
On the low table before him was the contract of marriage, which would link the T'ang's clan once more with that of Yin Tsu. Two servants, their shaven heads lowered, their eyes averted, held the great scroll open as the T'ang positioned the seal above the silken paper and then leaned forward, placing his full weight on the ornate handle.
Satisfied, he stepped back, letting an official lift the seal with an almost pedantic care and replace it on the cushion. For a moment he stared at the vivid imprint on the paper, remember-
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ing another day. Yin Tsu's much smaller chop lay beneath his own, the ink half dried.
They had annulled the previous marriage earlier in the day, all seven T'ang setting their rings to the wax of the document. There had been smiles then, and celebration, but in all their hearts, he knew, there remained a degree of unease. Something unspoken lay behind every eye.
Dark Wei followed in his brother's footsteps and the Lord of You-yi was stirred against him. . . .
The words of the "Heavenly Questions" had kept running through his mind all morning, like a curse, darkening his mood. So it was sometimes. And though he knew the words meant nothing—that his son Yuan was no adulterer-^still he felt wrong about this. A wife was like the clothes a man wore in life. And did one put on one's dead brother's clothes?
Han Ch'in. . . . Had five years really passed since Han had died? He felt a twinge of pain at the memory. This was like burying his son again. For a moment he felt the darkness well up in him, threatening to mist his eyes and spoil things for his youngest son. Then it passed. It was Li Yuan now. Yuan was his son, his only son, his heir. And maybe it was right that he should marry his dead brother's wife—maybe it was what the gods wanted.
He sniffed, then turned, smiling, to face Yin Tsu, and opened his arms, embracing the old man warmly.
"I am glad our families are to be joined again, Yin Tsu," he said softly in his ear. "It has grieved me that you and I had no grandson to sweeten our old age."
As they moved apart, the T'ang saw the effect his words had had on the old man. Yin Tsu bowed deeply, torn between joy and a fierce pride, the muscles of his face struggling to keep control. His eyes were moist and his hands shook as they held the T'ang's briefly.