Chung Kuo. The words mean "Middle Kingdom, "and since 221 B.C., when the first emperor, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, unifieH the seven Warring States, it is what the "black-haired people," the Han, or Chinese, have called their great country. The Middle Kingdom—for them it was the whole world; a world bounded by great mountain chains to the north and west, by the sea to east and south. Beyond was only desert and barbarism. So it was for two thousand years and through sixteen great dynasties. Chung Kuo was the Middle Kingdom, the very center of the human world, and its emperor the "Son of Heaven," the "One Man." But in the eighteenth century that world was invaded by the young and aggressive Western powers with their superior weaponry and their unshakable belief in progress. It was, to the surprise of the Han, an unequal contest, and China's myth of supreme strength and self-sufficiency was shattered. By the early twentieth century China—Chung Kuo—was the sick old man of the East: "a carefully preserved mummy in a hermetically sealed coffin," as Karl Marx called it. But from the disastrous ravages of that century grew a giant of a nation, capable of competing with the West and with its own Eastern rivals, Japan and Korea, from a position of incomparable strength. The twenty-first century, "the Pacific Century," as it was known even before it began, saw China become once more a world unto itself, but this time its only boundary was space.
"For every one of us it is the same. Worlds end or open as we go."
Wasps and ants have a mean fate: how could their power be enduring?
—Turn Wen ("Heavenly Questions") by Ch'u Yuan, from the Ch'u Tz'u ("Songs of the South"), second century B.C.
Can't teach a true peach being a prisoner Skin all round and stone within
—Jukka Tolonen, Last Quarters, 1972
PROLOGUE SPRING 2209
In the Space Between Heaven and Earth
Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad
creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and
treats the people as straw dogs.
Is not the space between heaven and earth like a
bellows?
It is empty without being exhausted:
The more it works the more comes out.
Much speech leads inevitably to silence.
Better to hold fast to the void.
—LAD TZU, Too Te Ching, sixth century b.c.
WU SHIH , T'ang of North America, stood at the top of the ruined, pitted steps, looking down at the men. Behind him, headless, the huge statue sat, embedded in its chair of granite. Overhead, spotlights set into the floor of the Above picked out the figures at the foot of the broad white stairway. Five men. Five old, gray-bearded men, well-dressed and senatorial. Company Heads. Americans. Wu Shih studied them, his contempt barely concealed. His left foot rested on the statue's fallen head, his right hand on his hip.
One of the men, taller than the rest, stepped out in front of the others and called up to him.
"Where are they? You said you'd bring them, Wu Shih. So where are they?"
Dead, he would have liked to have said. Your sons are dead, old men. But it wasn't so. Wang Sau-leyan had saved their lives. There had been an agreement in Council and the traitors were to go free, unpunished, the price of their treachery unexacted. It was foolishness, but it had been decided.
"They are here, Shih Lever. Close by. Unharmed."
Wu Shih paused and looked about the ruins of the old city. From where he stood, high above it all, the floor of the Above was less than fifty ch'i overhead, a dark and solid presence, stretching away to every horizon. Facing him, beyond the darkly shadowed outline of a toppled obelisk, could be glimpsed the wreckage of the Capitol building, a huge, silvered pillar thrusting up through its ruined dome—one of many that rose to meet the smooth, featureless darkness of the City's underbelly.
He had brought them here deliberately, knowing the effect it would have on the old men. Overhead, its presence vast and crushing, lay the City that he ruled—a City that rose two Ii—almost a mile by their ancient measure—into the air, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the coast of Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. While here below . . .
Wu Shih smiled. Here, in the darkness beneath the City's piles, lay the ruins of old America—of Washington, once capital of the sixty-nine States of the American Empire. And these men—these foolish, greedy old men—would have the Empire back; would break a century of peace to have it back. Wu Shih snorted and looked down at the massive granite head beneathrthe foot.
"You have signed the documents?"
A moment's silence greeted his words, then Lever answered him, the irritation in his voice barely restrained. "It's done."
Wu Shih felt a ripple of anger pass through him. It was the second time Old Man Lever had refused to address him properly.
"All of you?" he demanded. "All those on my list?"
He looked up from Lincoln's head and sought Lever's eyes. Lever was staring at the fallen stone, his face suffused with anger, his expression so eloquent that Wu Shih laughed and pressed down on the heavy stone, forcing the nose firmly into the dust that lay everywhere here.
"You haven't answered me."
Wu Shih's voice had changed, grown harder, its flattened tones filled with threat. Lever looked at at him, surprised by the command in his voice—unaccustomed, clearly, to another's rule. Again this spoke volumes. These men were far gone in their dissent—had grown fat and arrogant in the illusion of their power. Li Yuan had been right to see them as a threat—right to act against them as he had. There was no respect in them, no understanding of their true relationship to things. The old man thought himself the equal of the Seven— perhaps, even, their superior. It was a dangerous, insolent delusion.
Lever turned his head away sharply, spitting the words out angrily.
"WeVe signed. Everyone on your list." He beckoned to another of his party, who came forward and handed him the document.
Wu Shih watched, his eyes half-lidded, seeing how Lever turned back to face him, hesitating, as if he expected Wu Shih to come down the steps and take the paper from him.
"Bring it," he said, and put out his left hand casually, almost languidly. Wang Sau-leyan may have forced the Council -to make this deal with their enemies—this "concession," as he called it—but he, Wu Shih, would show these men exactly where they stood. He saw how Lever turned, uncertainty in his face, looking toward the others as if for guidance, then turned back and began to climb. Each step was a small humiliation. Each a belittling of the man. Then, when he was only three steps from the top, Wu Shih raised his hand, commanding him, by that gesture, to stay where he was.
Lever frowned, but did as he was bid.
"Kneel," Wu Shih said, his voice soft, almost gentle now.
Lever turned his head slightly, as if he had not heard properly. "What?"
"Kneel"
Wu Shih's voice had been no louder, no harder, but this time it was command not reminder.
Again Lever hesitated, half turning, the muscles in his face twitching, conscious of his fellows down below, watching him. Slowly, huffing as he did, the old man knelt, his face raised, eyes glaring at Wu Shih. This was a protocol he had clearly thought he could avoid. " But Wu Shih was unrelenting. He was determined to have the form of Lever's respect if not the actuality, knowing that in such forms lay power. Real power. The bowing of one man before another: it was a gesture as old as it was profound. And even if true respect were not forthcoming here, he could still insist on one of its components— obedience. Simple obedience.