"To make sure we came?" Hart said thoughtfully.
"Yes, but why?"
Underwood had barely uttered the words when the door swung open and a tall, extremely pallid-looking Hung Moo came into the room, followed closely by two soberly dressed assistants, both of whom wore the telltale flashing collars of commodity slaves.
"Gentlemen," the Hung Moo began, putting out his hands to beg them to remain seated. "Thank you for coming here. I am Li Min."
Underwood set the half-eaten lychee down. Across from him Hart and Munroe looked equally stunned.
Munroe sat forward. "You? Li Min?" He shook his head. "But we were expecting . . ."
"A Han? Yes, well, forgive my little subterfuge, gentlemen. It was. . . necessary, let's say." The man turned, giving a curt hand signal to one of his assistants who proceeded to close and lock the door.
Underwood was on his feet. "Is that really necessary, Shih Li?"
The man turned, facing him. "If you wish to leave, Representative Underwood, you may, of course. I have locked the doors not to keep you in, but to keep others out."
"Then what the hell is going on?" Munroe asked, on his feet beside Hart and Underwood. "I want to know who you really are and why we're here, and I want to know it right now or I'm walking."
"That's right," Hart said.
"Please, gentlemen. I shall do as you ask. But be seated. You are at Weimar. In the great House itself. No harm can come to you here."
Mollified, the three men sat again, the tall Hung Moo taking the vacant seat facing them.
"All right," he said, looking from one to the next, his frost-white face expressionless. "You wish to know who I am and why I have asked you here today. Well, the answer to the first is that I am Stefan Lehmann, only son of Under-Secretary Lehmann."
Hart laughed, astonished. Beside him Munroe shook his head slowly. Underwood just sat there, his mouth open.
At Lehmann's signal, one of his assistants brought & case and handed it to him. He opened it and took out three files, offering one to each of the men.
"Inside those files you will find genetic charts and other material that will verify my claim. But as to what I want from you, that depends very much on what you yourselves want."
Lehmann fell silent a moment, watching the three men study the material; then, when it seemed they were convinced, he began again.
"You wondered earlier how it was that the Steward knew what each of you drank. Well, he knew that because I have made it my business to find out about each of you. Oh, you were no strangers to me, or at least, your fathers weren't. But I wanted to know a great deal more about each of you before I came and sat here facing you. I wanted to be sure."
"Sure about what?" Hart said, his composure regained somewhat now that he had had a little time to digest what was happening.
"About whether I could trust you." Lehmann paused, then, lifting his left hand casually, pointed at Munroe. "You, Wendell. Your father was disbarred from the House eight years ago and your whole family sent down fifty levels. He never got over that, did he? He died eight months later, some say of shame, others of poison." Lehmann turned slightly, his hand swinging around until it pointed at Underwood. "And you, Harry. All of your family property was confiscated, neh? If it hadn't been for friends, you'd have ended up below the Net. As it was, your father took his own life."
Lehmann let his hand fall back into his lap, his eyes on Hart once more. "As for you, Alex, you had to suffer the humiliating indignity of a pardon. Or at least, your father did. But it rubs off, neh? In this world of ours, what happens to the father happens also to the son." He paused again, nodding slowly to himself, knowing he had their full attention now. "But when I look at the three of you, what I see is not the sons of traitors but good, strong, hardworking young men. Men who, through their own efforts, have regained the positions of preeminence taken from them by the Seven. There is no doubting it. You are Great Men once more. And yet the taint remains, neh?"
Munroe let out a long breath, then leaned toward Lehmann, his hands clasped together in front of him. "So what's your point, Shih Lehmann? What do you want from us?"
To either side of him, Hart and Underwood were staring openly at Lehmann now, an intense curiosity burning in their eyes.
"As I said. It's not so much what I want, as what you want." He sat back slightly, looking from one to the next. "You are Great Men, certainly. Representatives. It would seem, to the outward eye, that each of you has everything he needs. Status. Riches. Power. Together with the Seven, you plan to make this world of ours great again. Or so the media tells us. But knowing you—knowing each of you as well as 1 do—1 would not have thought that there was any great love in your hearts for the Seven."
Munroe stared back at him a moment longer, then looked down. "So?"
Lehmann paused. "So this. I wanted to let you know that it's not over. That the War didn't end. That it's still going on, DeVore or no, Berdichev or no. That I am my father's son and that the things he stood for live on in me."
"Dispersionism . . ." Hart said, in an awed whisper.
Lehmann nodded. "Yes, Dispersionism. And something else. Something wholly new."
IT WAS DONE secretly, quietly. In the media the news was that his wife and children had gone away on a brief vacation while Kennedy worked on campaign details. Then, for a week, there was nothing. When Kennedy saw them again it was on the afternoon of the elections, at Wu Shih's private clinic on the West Coast. They had been treated well—like royalty—and he found them in the solarium, beneath the tiny artificial sun, the two boys playing at the pool's edge.
He went across and knelt beside her chair. "How are you?" he asked, kissing her, then searching her eyes for some sign of difference.
"I'm fine, love. Really. IVe never felt better." She laughed, and for a moment there really did seem nothing wrong, nothing intrinsically different about her. Her skull was shaved, yes, but otherwise she seemed her normal self—perhaps even bubblier than usual. "They're going to give me some injections to speed up hair growth. In the meantime I've been given the most delightful selection of wigs. I've spent the whole morning just trying out different colors and styles."
He smiled bleakly. "You're sure you're okay?"
She nodded. "Really. And the boys too." But now, in her eyes, there was the faintest intimation that she understood what they had done. "Don't. . ." she said softly, seeing the pain in his eyes. "It's better than having you dead. Much better."
He nodded and smiled, as much to reassure himself as her. Then, after kissing her again, he went and sat with the boys at the poolside, not fussed by the fact that their small hands left dark, damp patches on his silks, delighted simply to see them again.
Robert, the eldest, was babbling happily to his father, showing him the new scar beneath his ear where the input socket sat, more proud than fearful of its meaning. "Just wait till the other boys see this," he said. "I betcha they'll all want one! And the doctor says I could have a special unit put in so's I can see all the vids direct." The youngster looked away, laughing, then launched himself into the pool, not seeing the strange look of unease that crossed his father's face.
"Maybe . . ." Kennedy said to himself, hugging his youngest boy's head against his leg. But his heart was strangely heavy and, for the first time in his life, he was uncertain.
OLD DARKNESS stretched sinuously at the bottom of his tank, his great eyes closed, his long, gray-green tentacles coiling lazily in sleep. About the tank, a scattering of rock and plant gave the huge, glass-walled enclosure a false air of normality, the look of some giant display case. But things were far from normal here. Within the tough, reinforced layers of ice, the water was kept at a pressure that would crush a frailer, human form like powdered clay.