Kim looked down, busying himself for a moment filling his plate. When he looked up again, Tolonen was still watching him.
"So what is it, lad? Are you afraid? Is that it?"
"I. . ." Kim hesitated, not wanting to say what it was. How often had he thought this one through. How often, sitting there in the Patents Office, had he yearned for a faster way of doing things, and come to the same conclusion. Yet against the logic of the thing was a deep ingrained fear of being wired—of somehow being controlled.
"The operation's simple," Tolonen said. "And I'm certain, if you wanted it done, Li Yuan's own surgeon would perform the task. Surgeon Hung is the best there is. And so he should be. He learned his skills from his father, who did this. Fifty years I've had this. Fifty years! And it's been a godsend, especially these past six months, what with all this GenSyn business."
"I don't know," Kim said, meeting his eyes again. "It would make things easier. There's no doubting that. I just wonder ..."
"What? That it might impair some other part of you?" Tolonen laughed, and reached across, holding Kim's shoulder briefly with his human hand. "I've never had your kind of talent, so maybe I'm not the one to comment on such things, but I've found my own wire nothing but a help all these years. All I know is that I couldn's have coped without it. Seriously."
Kim gave a tiny nod. "Maybe." But he still seemed unconvinced.
"Well," Tolonen said, leaning back again, the pearl-white chopsticks gleaming in his golden hand, "you think about it, boy. And if you want it done, I'll arrange everything for you. It's the least I can do."
later, alone in his office, Kim sat there at his desk, toying with the graphics display on his comset and thinking about what Tolonen had said. Maybe he should get wired. Maybe he was just being silly about the whole thing. After all, it wouldn't hurt to be able to process things a little faster. No, nor was there any evidence that the procedure impaired creative thought. Quite the opposite, if reports were true. In fact, there wasn't a single reason not to be wired, nothing but his own irrational fear. Even so, he held back, unable, finally, to commit himself.
So what was it? What was he really afraid of?
Control, he thought, unwilling even to utter the word, however softly. I'm afraid of losing control again.
And maybe that was paranoia, but he wasn't quite convinced. After all, hadn't he been the one called in by Li Yuan to look at the feasibility of wiring up the whole population? Hadn't he seen for himself how easy it would be to take that first simple step?
And if he took that first step by himself?
It isn't the same, he told himself for the hundredth time. The two things are completely different. And so they were. The kind of .wiring Tolonen had in mind was nothing like the process Li Yuan was looking into, yet his mind refused the distinction, preferring to connect them. Wires in the head. They were a means of control. And if he took the first step, who was to say that someone else might not take the next, making him their beast?
Nonsense, a part of him replied: you're talking fearful nonsense notv, Kim Ward.
But was he? Or was his instinct sound in this?
He huffed, exasperated with himself, then turned, startled, hearing the faintest rustle of silk behind him.
A young Han stood there, head bowed, a small tray held out before him. "Forgive me, Master. I have brought ch'a."
Kim relaxed. It was only his bookkeeper, Nong Yan.
"I'm sorry, Yan. I thought I was the only one here,"
Nong placed the tray down beside him, then turned, smiling. "And so you were, Master. I came in half an hour ago and saw that you were working, so I thought it best not to disturb you."
"Ah . . ." Kim nodded, yet he was surprised. Had he been that deep in his thoughts, then, that he hadn't heard the door? He set the comset down and reached across, lifting the chung and pouring two bowls of the steaming ch'a. Looking up, he offered one to the young bookkeeper.
"So how are our finances, Yan? Are we in desperate straits yet?"
Nong took the bowl with a terse nod, then squatted on the edge of the desk, beside the comset. "You know how things are, Master Kim. All bills are paid, all commitments met. Even so, the underlying problem remains as before. We are undercapitalized. If we are to expand. . ."
". . . we must get new funding," Kim finished for him, studying the details of the diagram he had sketched out on the comset's screen. "I hear what you say, Yan, but until I hear from young Shih Lever, we must struggle on as we are." He took a sip from his bowl, then looked up at the young man again. "You're happy, I take it, Yan?"
"Happy, Master?" Nong Yan laughed, his softly rounded face lighting up briefly. "I have a fine wife and a good Master. Why should I not be happy?"
Kim smiled. "Good. Then have patience with me, Yan, and we shall all be rich men." He tapped the surface of the comset's screen with a fingernail, indicating the faintly webbed smoke-ring shape there. "Once the patent has been registered things will begin in earnest. Until then, we hang fire. You know how it is in this business, Yan. The least said in public the better."
"So it is, Master."
"Good." Kim reached across, clearing the screen, then looked back at Nong Yan. In the few moments he had been distracted by the young bookkeeper, he had come to a decision. Taking Toloneji's card from his wallet, he studied it, memorizing the contact number, then tucked it back into the top pocket of his jacket.
Setting the ch'a bowl down, he leaned forward, tapping out the number on the comset's pad, then turned, looking up at Nong Yan. "Thank you, Yan. If you would leave me now . . ."
As the ensign's face appeared on the screen, Kim turned back, and, with a confidence he did not wholly feel, asked to be put through to the Marshal.
The doubts remained. Even so, he would have it done. Besides, it would be good to visit Tolonen; to sit and talk to him at length. Yes, and to see his daughter, Jelka, once again.
There was a moment's delay and then Tolonen's face appeared. "Kim! It was good to see you earlier! Very good indeed!'"
Kim gave the slightest bow. "I felt I ought to thank you for the meal, Marshal. It was quite excellent."
The old man laughed heartily. "It was, wasn't it!"
"As for the other matter ..."
"YouVe thought it through, I take it?"
Kim nodded.
"And?" Tolonen asked eagerly.
"And I'd like to accept your kind invitation, if I might."
Tolonen leaned back, delighted. "So you're going to have it done, eh? Good! Excellent! I'll arrange everything. Just let Hauser here know when you want to come over and we'll organize it all. You won't regret it, Kim, believe me, you really won't!"
"No," he said, smiling, reassured somewhat by the old man's genuine delight. Yet when the screen went dead once more, he felt the tightness return and wondered briefly if he had acted for the good.
Too late, he thought. And even if that wasn't entirely true, he knew that he had taken a vital step toward it.
Ten days. He would have it done ten days from now. And as he framed the thought, an image came to mind: the image of a young woman, tall and straight and elegant, with hair the color of the sun and eyes the deep blue of a summer's sky.
Kim frowned, wondering if she would remember him. Whether, in the long months that had passed since they'd met, she had ever once thought of him. He leaned forward, tapping out his personal code, summoning up the diagram again, but his mind was no longer on the patent.
Does she remember me1, he thought, a sudden longing to see her face overwhelming him. Does she7.